Ruby Sparks* (2012) 9.5, 10, 9, 28.5

          Often since beginning this blog, I have found myself writing out of a sense of obligation. This isn't awful, because I know that without obligation, I would only take in and never produce. But, I'm on a plane from Paris to Chicago, so I figured I'd write my review for Ruby Sparks now. I watched this film under the worst possible circumstances. The screen can't be more than 5"x4" and the whole time I was could hear, slightly louder than the film I was watching, Finding Nemo in German. But despite these inhibiting factors, I really loved this movie.
          I normally insist on having my list of movies open so I can compare with previous films I've seen. But I can't do that now. Because I'm on a plane. So here are the reasons I liked this movie.
          First, Paul Dano. I wanted to give Zoe Kazan first pick, because she wrote it and knocked it out of the park as the co-star as well, but Paul Dano is a revelation. I think that word normally works when you didn't already know that something was good, but every time I see him in a movie, he truly opens my eyes. I gushed on him after Looper too. He was in that for ten minutes. He executed perfectly. He lived on that edge where you, or I anyway, get so nervous for that character who is deliriously happy but you know he's going to chuck it away. He managed to sell abject misery and delirious happiness with the same clarity and truth. He truly wiped the floor with me emotionally. And all I can do is thank him.
          Let's not forget Zoe though. The movie is fantastically written to the romantic comedy genre specifications, but it goes way darker and plumbs the absolute depths, before bringing you back. In this way, I would compare it to (500) Days of Summer. There were so many points in which I forgot that Paul's character was not Paul writing, but also those moments that worked so brilliantly, as one-liners or whatever, that you want to kiss the writer...I literally cannot stop myself as I write, "yes, she's also quite pretty too."
          Beyond her writing, she played a silly part without being campy. She makes the fantasy/sci-fi concept believable. Steve Coogan and Chris Messina are quite good too. They play their little parts quite well without being too much.
          As far as wisdom goes, I think the film doesn't make a particularly new point. It's really easy to take for granted those we love. It's really easy to be selfish, even when we are in love, which ought to be the least selfish time of our lives. This message is simply given new life in this odd story. I think this is the best mode of science-fiction or fantasy. It uses a fantastical concept to show us the same truths that we ought to know by now.
          For wonder, the film is so straightforward that I gave it a 9. I am starting tot think that something may be wrong with my rating system that a simple film can't go above a 9. I'm not sure. One caveat. I could barely hear, so music appreciation was out of the question. A better viewing could easily elicit a 9.5. I would guess it would as the directors we the same ones from Little Miss Sunshine. And the music in that, oy veh. For those who don't know me, that sound has become so integral to my language that I say it completely without thinking.
          I hope anyone who sees this film after reading this loves it. I did. I was so happily surprised, and I was super-psyched for this one. When I watch a trailer that gets me really excited, I put it on my list with a plus sign or a cross next to it(+). I often refer to this, in the lengthy conversations that I have with myself, as crossing a movie. I crossed this and I was still pleasantly surprised. I don't know how many times that's happened. Maybe never. I'm usually just affirmed. I expected good things and I was right. In this case, I expected good things and I was given a great film.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey* (2012) 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 25.5

          I come to this review with a heavy heart. I know many of my dear friends in the U. S. will still be impatiently awaiting the first of a trilogy of movies based upon The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. The first thing I can say is that I was extremely disappointed. I don't want to get too into generalities, so I'll get specific from the start.
          I gave this film a 7.5 for wit. It fell so under films like JFK and The Kite Runner that I could not conscionably give it an 8. I compared it to The Ides of March, which was also a huge disappointment. The writing was the biggest flaw. Incident suffered most. Dialogue actually worked almost all the time. Moments that are extremely flawed. The opening gets really technical and tells a lot more back story than necessary about the dwarves and the circumstances they come from. It explains the loss of the Lonely Mountain in excruciating detail. All before the introduction to Bilbo and the main heft and weight of his story. Then we go to the world immediately previous to LOTR. We get cameos from Elijah Wood and Ian Holm, as if to say "Remember how much you all liked our last movie?" This again takes too much time. I continually wished we would just arrive at Martin Freeman and the story that we really want to hear.
          To be fair, the scene with the entrance of the dwarves to Bag End was hilarious and they genuinely made me feel at home. I was totally satisfied until they really got going on their journey. They encounter a number of very general threats and the beauty of Bilbo's intelligence getting them out of scraps is missed. For those who know the story, I thought the troll sequence was mishandled, which is unfortunate, as that is my favorite sequence in the early part of the book.
          The relationship between Bilbo and Thorin Oakenshield has an all too neat and tidy conflict-escalation-resolution structure that seems forced. The decision to show the Lonely  Mountain at the end also seems overly convenient, as they haven't even entered Mirkwood yet. In many ways it seemed like they were trying to fill space since they decided to do a trilogy. I really hoped that maybe Peter Jackson had found enough genuine material to make three films and now I'm nearly sure he hasn't.
          A lot is lost, but some highlights in terms of acting deserve praise. Martin Freeman gets the beauty of Bilbo's reluctance, that it is simply the modern man's reaction to adventure. He has pleasure and security. Why should he risk his own life for this adventure? He doesn't see the emptiness of his life in the same way that so many materialists now do not see how much more meaning life ought to have. But he has compassion for the dwarves.
          Besides this, all the old cast slip back into familiar and comforting roles. Sir Ian brings Gandalf the Grey back to life in a way I thought would be hard after seeing Gandalf the White. Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, and Cate Blanchett bring back Saruman, Elrond, and Galadriel with ease and never betray any sign of weariness in playing these characters, which is inspiring. Andy Serkis again inhabited Gollum so convincingly that I forgot there was an actor again. I also thought most of the dwarves played their parts to perfection, but I did feel as if Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield felt weird, even awkward.
          A special note should be given to Sylvester McCoy's shining performance as Radagast the Brown. This was truly inspired and made the middle of the movie more bearable for me.
          For wisdom, I gave the film an 8.5. Many parts of it did well in this category, better certainly than in wit, but the aforementioned loss of some of the spectacular nature of Bilbo's wit bothered me in the construction of the themes. Beyond this, I can only think to complain about the loss of the joy and lightheartedness of the book. The Hobbit won so much acclaim as itself, a children's book. It wasn't about all the dark pieces of the mythology like LOTR. It uses the depth of that world, but doesn't feel the need to constantly invoke it. It leaves it as background so it can tell an adventure story. This gives too much focus to the background and we lose the childish sense of adventure that is the lesson that Bilbo's story has to teach us.
          I have very little to complain about in terms of wonder. The film is beautiful from beginning to end. WETA blows me away with how intelligently and painstakingly they conceive and bring forth a world of such depth visually. There are a couple complaints, without which I would probably have given this a 10. First, the dwarves are rarely given in a context that reminds you they are short and stocky. When Thorin fights the great goblin, he looks like a full-grown man. Enforcing the size of the dwarves does not seem to have been done as painstakingly here as it was with Gimli in LOTR. Second, I think again the darkness comes across visually and they don't contrast it with LOTR, as I think they should have.
          I can't say to anyone that they shouldn't go see it immediately, because I know that no human being on earth could have told me that before I saw it that I would have listened to. I only forewarn that some might not get their hopes up. Good luck.

Looper* (2012) 9.5, 10, 9.5, 29

So I went last night on a whim and finally saw Looper. I was absolutely not disappointed. This film is this year’s Inception. I do not say this lightly. Not every year has an Inception. Only occasionally do we see a science-fiction film of this depth, both in terms of its understanding of its own fictional science and in its moral delving. I would compare it also to Primer. I love this kind of film.
        I could simply gush for another paragraph, but I'll get down to brass tacks. Wit is a 9.5, but a low 9.5. Malcolm X is a 9.5 and this is not Malcolm X, but that's really more like 9.72. Looper is closer to 9.26, but both even out. I feel better comparing it with Last King of Scotland or Lat den Ratte Komma In. It is better written than the former and better acted than the latter.
        As far as the writing goes, I really appreciate the way that it deconstructs the idea of scientific progress making us better. It takes apart the main premise of the X-Men comics, that evolution and mutation will give us discernible and exciting new powers in large numbers. Its moral delving intelligently analyzes the morality of fixing things through violence. If you can fix your life simply by killing the bad guy, should you? I don't want to give anything away, but the questions this film asks and the potential answers it gives are mind-blowing and new-world-opening.
        Now to the acting. Joseph Gordon-Levitt really doesn't grab you, but he eeks into you and makes you really care. His character is perhaps most interesting because both he and Bruce Willis play him. They both give you a strong sense of his emotional dependence and his repeated failed attempts at independence. This may be one of the most impressive aspects of it. These two actors seemed so in sync in terms of their choices about the character, but you can see them diverge and Joseph become something different. These two performances can hardly be separated, but I do feel like Joseph does a better job. Bruce fails to draw you in in quite the same way. He fails to make it seem real in the same way that Joseph does.
         Paul Dano, despite only being in the movie in the very beginning, really made me scared and grabbed me in a way no one else did. It makes me want to watch There Will Be Blood again. He genuinely reaches moments of emotion equal to the end of that film in fifteen minutes of Looper. He really makes you afraid of the life that he has gotten into, which helps when Joseph's character gets into it later.
        I take back what I said. If Paul Dano excites me and pulls me in, Pierce Gagnon absolutely tore my mind open. I will not ruin this, as the fact that this part of the story is not in the trailer made it all the more impressive and wonderful and fun. Just watch out for the young boy in this film. It is genuinely the most impressive child performance that I have ever seen.
        For wisdom, I gave this a 10. I really believe that he gets to the heart of the obsession with violence that I know I have. He really opens up the question of whether violence solves things, anything. He doesn't however answer it simply. He shows us a method of solving problems that involves self-sacrifice instead of the sacrifice of others. This seemed a very Christian idea to me. That is, I guess, the best compliment I can give.
        Wonder is also a 9.5. I placed it along with Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Primer. I think it failed to make it to a 10 because its music didn't stand out, but the action and the setting are flawless, especially in the parts that are more sci-fi oriented. They do them with ease. I really appreciate the simplicity of the way that they represent the most complicated concepts.
        If you haven't seen this, I would definitely suggest it to anyone interested in the sci-fi aspects and also to anyone interested in the moral questions involved. Also, if you just like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, or Bruce Willis, this film will not disappoint.

Last Night** (2010) 8.5, 7.5, 9, 25

So I had high hopes for this movie and most of them were dashed. I'm going to deal with wit ad wisdom together on this one, as they are so deeply entwined. At the start of the movie, I saw some beautiful little bits of dialogue. Keira Knightley really knocked this one out of the park. From beginning to end, I found her performance compelling. I wish I could say the same for old Sam Worthington. He convinced me, in part, at the very beginning. Frustration and sweet sincerity flow from him naturally, but the more complicated parts seemed to baffle him. This may be due to the poor writing of his character. But he is struck nearly dumb and his dialogues with Eva Mendes feel stilted and painful. Eva, of course, is splendid. She clearly envelops her time onscreen.
I will admit that all of my comments, positive and negative, could be chalked up the writing. The writer makes Sam stilted and awkward. Nearly no attempt is made to justify, even psychologically, how his character moves from the moral high-ground, allowing me to believe that he is innocent, even occasionally showing himself so as he speaks to Eva, to the senseless betrayal that he enacts in the second half of the movie. I can hear various critics, good friends of mine, calling me naïve. Why can't he be good and then break? He talks a good talk with his wife and then cheats. It's believable. It happens. But he convinces me of where he stands before he cheats and then is unconvincing afterward. He obviously believed he loved his wife when he was talking to her, but he turns so quickly and crosses the line with such ease. He confesses prior mental infidelity that seems out of league with his earlier moment.
Keira's part seems less stilted. She goes through an emotional turmoil and still doesn't move ahead without thought or sense. She betrays him, but she persists in loving him. The whole half of the movie with Keira is more believable.
But the ending is all. I believe that we genuinely have come to accept to lightly what once worked because it was avant-garde. A Serious Man chooses to have no ending because we know the ending and it doesn't need one. A large number of modern films simply cut the ending off in an attempt to be “edgy.” I believe that Last Night is a victim of this. If this film needed one thing to become a great film, it is an ending. The movie ends mid-sentence. No attempt is made to explore the aftermath of their infidelities. It simply stops before they can get going. At the last second, Keira gives a shrug as if to indicate, “Who really cares what happens next?” I am not satisfied, on artistic as well as moral grounds.
  The moral grounds are based upon the fact that it reads like a dismissal of the importance of infidelity and, as To Rome with Love also insinuates, it imagines that infidelity can come into a relationship with no discernible side-effects. I've never seen it happen. I do not believe it is possible. The truth always seems to out. Furthermore, the film appears to make a moral judgment that the infidelity and the consequences and unimportant. This could hardly be more false.
  As noted above of course, I gave the film a 8.5 for wit and a 7.5 for wisdom. This is a low 8.5 for wit, closer to King of California than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  I don't give a lot of 7.5's for wisdom, but for perspective, I gave Match Point, which depicts a man murdering over infidelity being let off the hook and living happily-ever-after, a 7. So this is only slightly above that.
For wonder, I gave the film a 9. It should not be understated how well the beginning and middle of the film feel. Little mini-cuts within scenes of dialogue emphasize the sense that what we see, we've seen before. That there is nothing to linger on about with infidelity. I really love those bits when Keira is discussing her plans with her ex-lover and you can see that a short cut was made and you see that not everything is being shown. It creates a nice little effect that keys you in and keeps your mind in the right place, but the ending makes me wonder if the director had any better sense than that it looked nice. It's unfortunate.
Overall, it is a low five star film. I generally consider all five stars worth a re-watch, which was required just to write this review, but I wouldn't encourage you to go out and get this now.

Skyfall* (2012) 9.5, 9.5, 9, 28

      So I saw Skyfall the day after it came out here in France, that is, Saturday. For my American audience, it is as if I got a special reviewer's preview. That is, as Riley Griffith's character in Super 8 said, "production value." So I have to take advantage.

      This film follows the trend in the last two Bond films, those starring Daniel Craig, of upping the ante as far as intelligence and substance goes in Bond. My mother loves Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan and I cannot deny their skill. It is not because Daniel Craig is a better actor, though he definitely is better than Pierce and maybe better than Sean, but it is based on someone who is obviously hiding. The two writers that all three share in common also wrote Die Another Day and that is, in my humble and, in this case, extremely accurate opinion, the lowest Bond has ever gone. Who is behind this? I cannot put my finger on it, but someone is keeping these men honest. 

      All this said about this Daniel Craig era of Bond, this movie really does do something more. Casino Royale blew my mind as it created a version of Bond that was two things I wanted. One is accurately violent, which in my mind is a great relief after decades of clean kills, polluting the essence of violence; the blood and guts hidden, violence became stylized, even pretty. (I should credit my brother, Steve, with that idea. I believe he said something similar to me when we went to see Die Another Day in theaters many moons ago.) The second was that it made Bond openly broken. If he was a sexual deviant, it was because he trusted no one and was a bit of a misogynist. This blew open Bond for me, intellectually.

      Quantum of Solace did what I didn't believe possible. It allowed a Bond girl to escape Bond's dirty clutches and go unsexed. Think about it. James Bond didn't have sex with a Bond girl. It also cleared the way with the Vesper story, which need resolving.

      Skyfall's brilliance is that it asks extremely large questions about Bond and the nature of action films. I attribute this, in part, to the direction of Sam Mendes. Sam and I have been at odds since his first film, American Beauty. To this day it is the only film that I have heard good things about, set down determined to watch, and simply pulled it out before it was finished and never came back. We've grown closer in mind, but it wasn't until Away We Go, still number 3 all time, that I began to like him, even trust him.

      All of that may be interesting, but now I'd like to get down to it. For wit, I went with a 9.5. This is up .5 from Quantum of Solace, though I should guess that was on the low end of 9, while Skyfall is definitely on the high end of 9.5. I cannot give it a 10 as it doesn't feel unquestionable. Occasionally the jokes go a bit low, reminding one that these writers wrote Die Another Day, but overall it is written beautifully. As before, it does things that are shocking, unheard of in the old Bond, or most other movies that aim for this Hollywood action film crowd. People die when you don't expect it, almost as it might happen if one were a real spy. 

     An absolutely brilliant performance by Javier Bardem. He again steps outside himself and finds another type of character. One might be tempted to compare this with his other famous psychopath from No Country for Old Men, but though he is clearly criminally insane, this character has more in common with Javier's character from Vicky Cristina Barcelona than with the silent, cold-blooded type in the aforementioned Cohen Brothers film. Daniel Craig keeps up the same level from the other two, with the intensity and the emotional intelligence intact. Dame Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, and Albert Finney are quite good as well.

      If I could return to what this film does in particular, it asks the question about why we still need spies like Bond and therein confronts its own raison d'être. Why do we need stories about men who chase down bad guys? Aren't we beyond good and evil? Aren't we beyond such apparent categorization of good guys and bad guys? M confronts this question during an inquest into her work as head of her department. She answers that things are not simpler, but more complicated. We don't live in a world without shadows or secrets. Everything is now done in the shadows and secrets are everywhere. I like her answer to that question, but I think I like the film's answer to the questions about itself even more. The film argues that though many people who would once have been seen simply as "baddies" might be something more substantial, there are still very clear, very real and dangerous threats in the world today. These unquestionable evils are not less dangerous than the giant Soviet Union. They may be much more dangerous. I'm not sure that is very well said, but the movie, I think, says it better.

      I think that covers why it gets a 9.5 for wisdom. I gave it a 9 for wonder. I thought about a 9.5, but found that I gave Snatch a 9 for wonder. That makes me think that I have been over-estimating wonder for a while. Who knows? Overall, this movie does a great job with car chases, explosions, helicopters, etc., but it doesn't rely throughout on fancy, newfangled equipment, but allows itself to give two sides, high technology and low. Even the low technology half of the film has a good deal of shooting and a helicopter fight scene. (I don't think I'm ruining anything to mention that James Bond beats the helicopter.) The music adds little but a sense of nostalgia.

This film, in my mind, is a definite step up from Quantum of Solace and progress in a series is the highest compliment I can give. If you haven't, as I'm sure you poor, backward Americans haven't, see Skyfall.

The Escapist** (2008) 9, 9.5, 9.5, 28

       I took my time with this film, coming up with a rating and re-watching it with a bigger time lag between watches, not least because I've been busy. I do believe this movie is a bit of a "diamond in the rough." It really has a lot to say about the world and what's important in it.
       For wit I came down on a 9. My first indicator was comparison with The English Patient, which I watched for the first time last year. That movie had a certain perfection to its scenes and events that made them simultaneously fantastic and believable. I never thought, "That's a bit far-fetched " but I was often surprised by the turn of the action. These things earned it a 9.5 for wit and for this reason, The Escapist did not earn a 9.5. As I went further, I came upon Get Low. In terms of wit this one has a lot of positives and negatives. Its plot doesn't always do much for me, but it has some fantastic bits of dialogue and action. The Escapist earns its 9, by not dipping as low, maintaining a constancy, without managing the better moments of Get Low.
       Beyond this, I'd like to highlight the phenomenal central performance by Brian Cox. I absolutely think he's one of the finer actors produced by Ireland, which is saying something from my perspective. Joseph Fiennes is wonderful as always. It makes me rue even more the cancellation of FlashForward. Seu Jorge, who I haven't seen in a movie since The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou repeats his performance as the quiet type, but stuns you with the way he can keep you engaged just watching his movement. Dominic Cooper is as good here as he's ever been, even if he's not doing anything new.
       The two best performances are not really where they ought to be, but I appreciate them anyway. Damian Lewis and Steven Mackintosh play brothers in the prison and they both absolutely frightened me. Damian Lewis switches between the coldness of some of the better scenes I've seen on Homeland and the blank sincerity that made me love the show Life. Steven Mackintosh plays a level of slimy I would not have thought him capable of, except that he does the same thing later in Luther, though I saw that before I saw this. They both make your skin crawl, one for shriveling weakness and the other for terrifyingly quiet confidence.
       My biggest complaint is something like the one I have about Ocean's 12, which I'm sure I've shared around. The ending, in some ways, negates so much of the prior action that you wonder what good the action did in the first place. This film doesn't exactly go as far as that, but it is a little anti-climactic.
       Now when thinking about wisdom in films, I often like to establish a baseline and add and subtract for various moral points of the film. To begin with, this is a prison escape movie. No one here claims to be innocent; there are no extenuating circumstances. Everyone here is trying to get out, despite having committed a crime. This easily puts us in the 8-8.5 range. Not a positive place to start, but it gets better. I believe that this is not really about criminals, in a sense, but about freedom vs. slavery. No mention is made of crimes or justice. It is all about escaping captivity. This settles it more on the 8.5 side. A key point that Brian Cox's character makes is that the king among slaves is still less than the lowest among free men. He says it better, but he makes the point about imagination being all that keeps people alive in captivity. This further plays into the ending. This makes it on the high side of 9.
       The priority of intelligence over strength is one of my pet issues. Brian Cox's character really helps it by making some tough positive decisions in the end. All this says 9.5 to me. And that's where it lands, but there is an annoying bit that reminded me of Sucker Punch, a movie I did not really like at all. It's all about justifying who gets away, as if it were right, despite not having any reason to justify it. Only a minor detail.
       Wonder is an easy 9.5. The atmosphere of the prison and the whole escape sequence is perfect. The choice of music is brilliant, not least "The Partisan" by Leonard Cohen, which is used a couple times. It really sets the mood along with the composed score.
       Overall, this film is definitely worth a watch and for me was worth at least two. I'm sure I will need at least one more if I'm to totally understand it.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon** (1949) 9, 8.5, 9, 26.5

      Though it took me a long time and two watches to get this review started, I am happy with the time I put in. I think that this film is yet another example of the quality of John Ford and John Wayne's collaborations. The film making here strikes me as intelligent and well thought out. I'll begin with wit.
      For wit, I gave this film a 9. There are some ways in which this seems low to me. John Wayne clearly and expressively creates the character of Captain Nathan Brittles, a man's man who may only be able to live within the strictly regimented life of a member of the US Cavalry during this period. He is facing forced retirement, despite being apparently capable and without a home or family to go to, as his wife and two daughters were killed some time before. He is retiring in the wake of Custer's defeat at Little Bighorn and he mentions knowing Custer and various other officers killed with him. He is to go on one last patrol before retiring and is required by his commanding officer to take two woman to catch the last stage back East at the same time. Wayne does not play him as over hard or as sentimental and silly, though I'm sure the writing aided him, as it deftly measures out jokes and a real sense of the hardness and strictures of army life. His slight embarrassed expression as he pulls out his reading glasses to read the "sentiment" on the back of the watch he receives from his troop when he retires is marvelous as are the sniffles that accompany his return of the glasses into his uniform. His rapport with Victor McLaglen, his rival in The Quiet Man, one of my favorites, is especially pleasing to hear.
      Beyond this, Joanne Dru's coquettishness bordering on stamping her a floozy coalesces cleanly and pleasingly with her deeper moments and allows a fuller character to develop that can both mock and argue with the best of the men, while keeping the deeper coherence of her more admirable character well intact. Mildred Natwick plays a part that she is beyond good at, even if I can't remember her playing anything else, that hardened older woman who has wisdom and charm too spare.
      Ben Johnson as Sgt. Tyree, John Agar as Lt. Cohill, and Harry Carey Jr. as Lt. Pennell distinguish themselves as well. My favorite part of the movie may be the scene between Wayne and Chief John Big Tree as Chief Pony That Walks. Pony That Walks identifies himself as a Christian and repeatedly cries, "Hallelujah, Hallelujah!" They briefly discuss the possibility of preempting the coming war and they come to the conclusion that it is unavoidable and the Duke turns down his companion's offer to "go, hunt buffalo, get drunk together."
      The reason this rather remarkable film doesn't deserve a 9.5 is down to the voice-over intro and conclusion that wrap the movie up just a little too neatly. "Wherever they (the US Cavalry) rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States." This line is a perfect example. Though some ambiguity is left in the "whatever they fought for" there is no sense, except in that scene that I already mentioned that there is anything wrong with what happened in that time and that place. If it hadn't been for this frame of the story in patriotic glory, I might have been able to get behind the beauty of these selfless cavalry officers seeking to spread American ideals and ways of life, but putting it in context, it forgets the broken promises and the dishonesty of the American government in this period.
      This leads well into the question of wisdom. I cannot ignore these issues, but the presentation being one that avoids easy stereotyping of the Indian as violent and treacherous, I felt that I only needed to bring it down to a 8.5. I was just about to mention that I took an extra .5 off for the repeated phrase "Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness." But I have come to the conclusion that the ironic use of this truism, its constant breaking, and a different interpretation lend it a moral weight that I find convincing. One might interpret it, in the context of men at war, as the injunction not to lose sight of the worthiness of the goal nor to try to confess to appease one's conscience in the moment. Instead of simple apology, in this modern sense, we need taking responsibility and a changed course of action. It might be paraphrased, "Don't apologize. Admit the mistake and then work to fix it." This is, I think, a useful idea for the modern man.
      As far as wonder goes, I felt that comparison with Saving Private Ryan and Romulus, My Father bore out, in terms of the use of what was available. It is a spot on costume drama with able horse-work and play at the implements of war in the times.
      Overall, this impressed me as a great western and one of my favorite that Wayne and Ford made together. For those who can bear it and are interested, both in the genre and the ideological holes, I definitely suggest it. I expect to return next week with my review of Last Night, which plan to rewatch as I did this and prepare a decent and recent watch sense of its quality, or lack thereof.

Interlude IV: Paris Is a Great Place to Live for a Movie Lover if You Feel Completely at Ease Reading French Subtitles Throughout an Entire Movie

      Love and Other Drugs is an amazingly shallow catalogue of people with low self-esteem and the inability to see beyond their own pain. I watched it for Anne Hathaway, because of The Dark Knight Rises. This was a mistake. I like movies that have really unlikable characters to begin with, but they have to come around. And they do not. Do not watch this movie out of curiosity. My humble opinion.
      Beyond this, I'd like to plug Awake, which did get canceled, but its ending is fantastic. If Lost had ended that well, I would not have been disappointed. Actually, I wish Lost had ended nearly exactly like that.
      If you have never seen Regular Show, I would start with 4.1. It is really interesting and manages to insert a new character into a comedy type show without making him uninteresting.
      Comedy Bang! Bang! is totally worth watching, but the comedy is the strangest thing I've ever seen. I just finished the season finale, where they play with the idea that the whole show is done on green screen. They show that they have Jon Heder playing Weird Al Yankovic, who comments that he may actually be a bigger celebrity, but is convinced to put a green mask so that he will be back to being Weird Al on the green screen. I really regret trying to explain this show, but I will leave it. If it sounds silly, then you get it.
      I already watched She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne. I will try to get a review on soon and I'm watching more.

Clue* (1985) 9.5, 8, 9, 26.5

      So, I didn't know what to watch one evening and someone said to me, "Watch Clue." I said to myself, "A movie based on a board game? I can't watch this. It's no better than watching Battleship." I even mentioned this to the person who suggested it, but she assured me that this was nothing like that. My first hint that this movie might contain more than meets the eye is when, on the DVD menu I was asked, "Would you like an ending to be chosen for you at random, or would you like all three endings?" Say what you will about the choose-your-own-adventure format, but at least the random option makes it interesting. I chose to watch all three, which might seem a cop-out, but I wanted to see all of it. If only for my admiring public...in Russia.
      So I gave this movie a 9.5 for wit, which a judgmental type like myself will automatically seem too high. I can assure, for a comedy with absolutely nothing of substance to say, except perhaps a brow-beating of the 50's, it is well-conceived and masterfully acted. Tim Curry leads the cast as Wadsworth the butler. He is as physical and crazy eyed as he is in his best work and spares no physical expense to be funny. Eileen Brennan as Mrs. Peacock, the senator's wife; Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White, the high society black widow; Christopher Lloyd as the loose-moralled former psychiatrist; Michael McKean as Mr. Green, the gay G-Man; Martin Mull as Colonel Mustard, the unscrupulous army research commander; and Lesley Ann Warren as Miss Scarlet, the madame of a D.C. brothel. In case the names sound silly, they're intended to be aliases for a group of people being blackmailed by Mr. Body. The board game is followed to the letter and a game is played out before your eyes, but with brilliant actors and exceedingly interesting characters. And then the three endings. Three very plausible and simple endings with different culprits and different twists, but some of the same well-crafted jokes. In a very real way, I cannot recommend this movie more highly, but that is just wit.
      The reason this movie is not breaking into my top 25 any time soon is that a) it has nothing to say so much. I took it only down to 8 because of the nice portrayal of the 50's from a typical 80's perspective. Interesting if nothing else. The wonder is the straight 9. Nothing to add or detract, but a solidly made movie overall. I appreciate that it

Robin Hood** (2010) 8.5, 8.5, 8.5, 25.5

      Along with King Arthur (2004) and Troy (2004), this film represents a tendency to try to rehistoricize legends. In general, I strongly dislike the trend. It's not totally unlike the way that Snow White and the Hunstman (2012) adultified the Snow White legend. In the case of each of these films, I thought that the actual product outdid the idea. The same goes for Robin Hood. I generally hate the rehistoricizing of Robin Hood especially, because I have so much love for the Robin Hood legend, but a very new and very original story is told here and believably connected to the actual story of the Magna Carta, etc. This does remind me of the obvious historical inaccuracies of Robin Hood (1973), such as King Richard's return from the Crusades.
      I will keep this brief as this is a rewatch and my opinion is not super high. Wit is 8.5. I like the line, "Rise and rise again until lambs become lions." This poetic way of advocating persistent revolution is truly beautiful to me. Beyond this, there are some ugly scenes of insistence about Marion riding in battle. That to me is silly beyond silly. It definitely has no historical basis and moreover, why does she need to fight in a battle. Can't she just do other things. She completely fails in battle and if anything proves that she ought not to have been there to begin with. Silly, silly overzealous feminism.
      Wisdom leans heavily on its revolutionary aspect for the 8.5. Beyond that, there is some fun anti-corruption messages for the Church that I enjoy. The down-sides are the aforementioned silly feminism, the silly nationalism, and the silly socialism that the movie ends with.
      For wonder, 8.5 is an alright. It is determined by being less than Robin Hood (1973), Red Dawn, and Saving Private Ryan. There isn't that much for me to say. Overall, don't rush out and see it, but if you're bored and its there, you might.

The African Queen* (1951) 9, 9.5, 9, 27.5

      The African Queen is a rather sappy story of a Canadian ship captain and a female English missionary who find themselves in German East Africa in 1914 at the opening of the First World War. She is living with her brother another Methodist missionary in the village and they are attempting to convert the native people. He has worked for many years at a Belgian mine in the region and has regularly been their mailman. After the Germans move in, they end up escaping together on his ship and try to find a plan to get out of the area dominated by German occupation.
      The film has its ups and downs as far as wit goes, but it gets a 9 due to some stellar acting and some powerful scenes. First, I'll give the truest praise where it is due for Humphrey Bogart. Maybe my sampling of his films has hitherto been selective, but he seems to play her very much against type. Bogart in Casablanca, one of my personal favorites, and The Maltese Falcon plays a cool-headed and extremely likable and interesting hero. This could hardly be less what we get here. Here, Bogart plays an uncouth and even silly or simple blackguard named Charlie Allnut. There is really very little in his character to admire. In one of the first scenes, he is at tea with the missionaries, which they got him to with the question, which misled him I fear, of "Would you like something to drink?" After taking tea and some bread and butter, his stomach begins to make noises. He spends the rest of the scene laughing at the noises his stomach makes and being told to take more bread by Katharine Hepburn's character, Rose Sayer. She too plays against type here, as far as I can see. In most of her films, specifically I think of Adam's Rib and the like, she plays the Kate à la Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. She is in this movie a very traditional, even Puritan woman who acts in many ways very conventionally. They both do it very well, but Bogart's portrayal of the slack-jawed mechanic is nearly perfect.
      A great scene also comes when the brother missionary is having a fever dream and confesses to his sister that he imagined when taking his final exams in Greek, etc. for hopes of placement in some domestic position in England, he simply gave up and decided that if God wanted him to pass he would. He also confesses a great deal of jealousy and that he wouldn't have taken his sister except that she was so plain that she probably wouldn't get married anyway.
      There are also some lesser aspects and scenes that play corny and forced as they go down the river. For this reason, I couldn't raise it above a 9. It placed squarely with films like 12 Angry Men, 28 Days Later, or  Arn: The Knight Templar.
      That all considered, it's wisdom was above average. First, it is the love story between inequals and near-opposites that attracts me to it. These people who didn't really like each other too much, find themselves lovers after a grueling trek down a supposedly unnavigable river. That love-at-first-true-knowledge that defies both love-at-first-sight theorists and skeptics of true love is something I believe wholeheartedly in. That said, the overtones of British imperial nationalism in this WWI world did knock it down a bit. I am not a fan of nationalism and even less a fan of an idealized WWI.
      Finally, the wonder here is a hard one. In 1951, the fact that this was shot largely on location in Africa was huge. That should not be forgotten and I am less interested in special effects with wisdom than pageantry. But I could not get past the scenes on the river. Also, the musical score left something to be desired. Thus the 9.
      I would recommend this movie for the aforementioned reasons: beautiful love story, great acting, etc., but there may be better films to pass the day with.

Boy** (2012) 9.25, 9.5, 9.5, 28.25

      This film is a new favorite of sorts. It is from the same writer/director as Eagle vs. Shark, Taika Waititi. It is very much in the same comedic vein, which I admit may not be to everyone's taste, though possibly to every cool body's taste. That said, it digs deeper than that film into personal trauma and failure or success in parenting. Eagle vs. Shark is quite deep, in its own way, but there is a greater balance between comedy and tragedy in Boy.
      Boy is the story of two young brothers who live with their grandmother and cousins near a small town in New Zealand. The older, Alamein, is called Boy by many of his fellows and begins the film by relating a little bit of his story, mostly comprising the obviously ridiculous, supposed exploits of his father, the elder Alamein. While Boy's grandmother is gone to a funeral for a week, this elder Alamein returns, after being gone many years, with his gang, the Crazy Horses, which consists of two other guys.
      As for wit, I gave it a 9. This is -.25 from Eagle vs. Shark, because the dialogue lacks a slight crisp nature and the hole left by Jemaine Clement is not filled properly. There are still some great lines. A teacher near the beginning asking him about a fight at school says, " People call me a dumb honky all the time. I don't go round punching them." When Boy asks, "Why not?" he replies, "Because they're usually children." This one in particular I can't stop laughing at. When he tells Boy that he and his father both had potential, Boy asks what potential means. The teacher answers, "It's 3:30. I'm off the clock," and walks out. Boy's interpretation of potential is a key point throughout the movie and this joke plays into much more serious moments without diminishing the brilliance of the joke. That is just a taste.
      Waititi himself plays the father and really does a good job of being easily angry, often oppressively selfish, and still maintain your interest and not become irredeemable. James Rolleston, who plays Boy and Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu, who plays Rocky, his little brother, both manage pathos and depth in their acting that is very impressive for kids their ages. Boy has a hopeful, joyful self-enforced ignorance of his dad's acts and their motives. This builds a dramatic irony that is often funny, but is in its place, heart-breaking. Rocky is stand-offish and beautifully opens up as his dad is around more. He shows himself a gentle soul amidst the chaos of his situation. A couple other performances are particularly good, but it feels as if the whole thing has a director-led coherence of tone and aspect that I appreciate.
      For wisdom, I cannot but give it a 9.5. This is, I think because of its honesty and its willingness to show this dad who self-aggrandizes and often forgets his kids and is deeply haunted by his wife's death from the perspective of his child. It shows a child grow up and willingly take up making his dad this grand figure for his younger brother, even when he is disillusioned. It shows people wronging and being wronged and a sense of peace coming from everybody getting out their grievances and fears and insecurities. These are not moral people, but their portrayal is beautiful and wise because their faults are shown and then covered over by love.
      This film continues the variety and multi-leveled representation of Eagle vs. Shark, including the post-credit sequence which remake the Thriller video in what I assume is traditional Maori style and language (Yes, I put the title of a music video in italics instead of quotes out of respect). The use of Rocky's drawing has a similar effect to Eagle vs. Shark's apple claymation sequence. Music, effects, and the aforementioned credit given to directing earn this one a solid 9.5.
      Overall, I definitely suggest this film to anyone, though subtitles may be needed as the New Zealand accent can get thick (I even peaked at the French subtitles the first time when I missed something). It also helps to know the comedic style, reminiscent of Flight of the Conchords, etc.
Enjoyez, mes bons amis!

Moonrise Kingdom* (2012) 9.5, 9.5, 10, 29

(Disclaimer: I believed that I had published this at least a week ago.)
      Though I know most people who would love this movie have already seen it, making my review non-pertinent for previewing this film for potential moviegoers, I am glad that I waited until I moved to France to watch this film. This film is a beautiful ode to young love, such as gives me hope and a measure of excitement in the loneliness that comes from being across the ocean from almost all the people that I've known for more than two weeks. The beauty of this film is hard to overstate, so I'd like to go backwards through my criteria.
       For wonder, I have given this film a 10. Here I may refer to what I often call wonder as style, because the word seems more appropriate for Anderson, who has only the rare moment of spectacle in his films. For him, set dressing to the point of obsession with minutiae and an air of pomp are far preferable to the "explosions and gunfights" moments that often give a movie wonder. Wes Anderson has, I think, perfected his sort of style in this film. I compare his overall work in this film to the difference between narrative poetry and a novella. One is not by nature better than the other, but the novella rarely gets the same kind of style points as the narrative poem, excepting the poetic prose of Fahrenheit 451. That said, the key focus of most novellas is building a story that one follows, even if the style is less than exciting. The narrative poem often has no qualms with revealing its story beforehand and "ruining" the end, as its focus is often telling an archetypal story in a new way à la Ovid's Metamorphoses. Here Anderson tells a story that is simple to follow and at times easy to predict. If you've seen Angels in the Outfield, you will see the ending coming in some respects, but you don't care. The use of music is, as always, exquisite but even more so. Set dressing in the Bishop house reminds me of the Belafonte introduction from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. There is a genuine and overwhelming beauty to the whole work. But on to wisdom.
      I compared the wisdom to The Life Aquatic and The Royal Tenenbaums and placed it above both. The 9.5 that I gave it is based upon some simple factors. One, the elegy to young love à la Romeo and Juliet. This is a topic I feel strongly about. The film deals heavily with the pursuit of love in a situation where the conditions and the prevailing temperament are less than ideal. They involve the implementation of idealistic solutions to non-ideal problems. Many who know me will know that I have mixed feelings about young lovers running away to be together and ignoring their families and friends in the process. I mean, when I say that I have mixed feelings that I appreciate the idea and cringe at the consequences and the motives, from personal experience. That is the source of the -.5, but this is somewhat mitigated by the confusing and frustrating nature of the clans from which these young lovers come. I do not want to condone this kind of action by young people, but in some circumstances I think a little radical action is justified. Two, the portrayal of numerous individuals who, though flawed, do admirable things that signal change and a new assumption of responsibility for their actions as well as a new sense of purpose. When Scout Master Ward makes a hero of himself in the end, it is hard not to see his coming into himself and achieving something very real and new, for himself and of course, those he saves. Captain Sharp really fills out. There is some worry that some characters will remain too peripheral to be worthwhile, but no one does. Sharp is also given a huge moral boost. These moral rectifications remind me of the end of The Royal Tenebaums, when various characters recognize a wrong they've committed and vow to fix it. A lot of that is fixed in epilogue, which works there, but in this film there is an expedited sense of positive change that precedes the climax.
      The wit is another 9.5. This is equal to The Life Aquatic and just short of The Royal Tenenbaums. This -.5 is again due to the slight predictability of plot. But that should not be seen as any great detraction. Otherwise this might have been a 10 as well. Line after line comes out to me. When Suzy tells Sam that she wishes she had never had a family and Sam leans in, thinks a bit, and says, " I love you, but you have no idea what you're talking about." The simple unambiguous way in which he says he loves her is the province of a heart never broken and never breaking. Her response is even better, nothing more than, "I love you, too."
When Suzy asks about the recently killed with an arrow camp-dog, Snoopy, "Was he a good dog?" Sam answers, "Who's to say?" Larger issues of plot are dealt with equally well, though often with some non-realist methods.The emotional turn of the khaki scouts near the middle of the film is a brilliant turn and completely unexpected. I don't think I ruined that. The writing is probably the best since The Royal Tenenbaums, which I think was the pinnacle of Anderson's writing. This is more flowery, even in the turn of scene and spectacle. That was meant to be an unambiguously positive compliment. Beyond this, what is there to say except, thank you Wes Anderson for another one.

To Rome with Love* (2012) 8.5, 7, 8.5, 24

       I am returned. I am skipping at least two very good movies that I have seen since the last one I reviewed, because I have been moving intercontinentally. This has been very traumatic and stressful and I have not written. The first is Melancholia (2011), which I cannot recommend highly enough to anyone that watches heady, cerebral films. I'm sorry that I stole those terms from Netflix, but I miss her. My time with Netflix has long past outlasted any romantic relationship I've ever had and to leave her when I came to France is hard, though not as hard as my family. I do not want to be too autobiographical; I only wanted to explain my long departure and mention these two things.
      Melancholia is long and slow and it really uses an absolute non-economy of time to give us a sense of what depression is like and I for one feel a better understanding of it, even when the sense of depression that von Trier, our writer/director by the way, is trying to give us. I would definitely suggest it.
      I also watched The Five-Year Engagement (2012) multiple times on my 9 hour plane flight from Houston to Paris. I would definitely rate it with best Judd Apatow-like comedies that have been coming out for a while. Jason Segel co-writes with Nicholas Stoller, the director, who also co-wrote The Muppets with him and co wrote with him and directed Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It does what I remember Judd Apatow talking about with The 40-Year-Old Virgin, whether Apatow succeeded or not with that film. Apatow said that he wanted this unusual story to not be heaping mockery on a strange, awkward character who is just socially awkward, but to show someone who is relatively normal who just happened to be in this situation, through bad luck, etc. In The Five-Year Engagement, one never looks at these people and expects that they will have this awkwardly long engagement, but normal situations, if ones involving some pretty bad luck and behavior, continue to drive back that date at which the wedding will take place. It also manages to encompass five years in one film without skipping about. But this is not a review of The Five-Year Engagement.
      I would like to relate my impressions of To Rome with Love, Woody Allen's latest film. First, I should briefly explain my story. I went to a local cinema in Paris called Cinema Lincoln, after the street name, which shows French films and English films with French subtitles. It did not occur to me until I had bought the ticket and the movie had started that this film that is about one third in Italian would have for the Italian parts not English subtitles, but French ones. For me, the situation was exhausting, reading the French subtitles and trying to keep track of the movie as it sped by in Italian. I think I did mildly well, but just so you know what I went through to bring this to you.
      To Rome with Love is a lot like many of Allen's recent comedies, like Midnight in Paris, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, or Melinda and Melinda, but with a dash of Paris, Je T'Aime in there. That is, there were various mostly unconnected stories in it, connected only by being in Rome. This is forgivable if done well, but I find it can be annoying. I prefer films about characters and stories to those about ideas or feelings. Meanwhile, I love Intermission, which brings these seemingly unconnected stories together, much like Tolstoy does in Anna Karenina or Hugo in Les Miserables.
      As far as wit, I've gone with an 8.5 because I began comparing it to Annie Hall, a 10, which will annoy people, but it is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen still. TRwL obviously failed that test and I passed it by Another Earth, a 9.5, then by Arn: The Knight Templar, a 9, and landed it by Branagh's 2006 As You Like It. This seemed right. They are both truly lesser works by great authors and thus still distinguished. It is funny. Allen, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page, Roberto Benigni, Alison Pill, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, and Penelope Cruz are all predictably good, but the stand-outs are the Italians I don't know: Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi as the young Italian couple almost don't require translation, Fabio Armiliato plays the shy Italian undertaker who only sings opera well in the shower with a beautiful sense of comedy, and Sergio Stoli stands out as a wise chauffeur for Benigni. I was pleasantly surprised at the way that Allen dove into a surrealist approach without explanation. It's not uncommon for him, but he truly dove, much to my delight.
      In terms of wisdom, unfortunately, it does compare well with Annie Hall. The understanding that two people can have meaningless, adulterous sex each without the other's knowledge and not be negatively affected by it is a farce. One perpetrated multiple times. Alec Baldwin's character did spout some interesting wisdom, so I gave it overall a 7.
       The music and other wonder might save it if Allen ever did anything else. The style is not bad, but it is too well known to have the same effect it did before. I gave it overall an 8.5 again.
      Realistically, this film barely makes over the lip of the reviewable, but I needed to do it. I bet the next film I do will be Moonrise Kingdom, which I plan to watch tomorrow afternoon and I expect much better things. This seems like a return to The Royal Tenenbaums without the loss of depth of cast developed further by The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, a title I insist using the whole of, much like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Au revoir.

Interlude III: Trilogy, Bam!

         I'm sorry these keep coming so often. My movie watching has been sparse, disappointing and perplexing. Also, my above title is partially in reference to the absurdity of the Hobbit trilogy. I have read Jackson's explanation and hope that I'm wrong, but they are devoting three movies to a book shorter than any of the portions of The Lord of the Rings.
         I watched Snow White and the Huntsman and was marginally happy with it. I may even have given it five stars, but I am loathe to review it and thus I shall not. It's not bad fare if one has a thing, as I do, for items derivative in nature.
         I have been working slowly through The Wizard of Oz and I find it vastly inferior in scope, scale, and interest to the book. That I would suggest to any fan of classical fantasy. In that version, the Tin Woodsman (more aptly named, I know) beheads an army of 40 wolves that the Wicked Witch of the West sends at him. That is one of the many public domain books for which I'd like to write an extremely faithful screenplay.
         A very disturbing, if morbidly enjoyable film that I also watched is entitled God Bless America or maybe god bless america. The latter was in the credits. It begins by using a middle-aged everyman (Fred Rumsen from Mad Men) to indict us as a cynical and both morally and creatively devoid culture. He proceeds to brutally murder the icons of that culture: reality TV stars, belligerent, rude political talk show hosts, and angry, mean-spirited competition show judges. This would be enough to fill a movie, but he includes a very interesting dynamic with a young, female accomplice who goes on the road with him and does her fair share of killing. This movie's problem is in the over-the-top style that makes us used to the idea that way more people deserve to die than do and that murderous vigilantism is cool. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for vigilantism, but my too favorites, Batman and Spider-Man, follow the same obvious rule: thou shalt not kill.
         I also watched The Debt. This film was alright, but it left me feeling something was missing. I cannot describe it well, but the script lacked things to make me care about the characters or maybe the only character I cared about died too soon and I spent the rest of the film waiting for Helen Mirren to murder an old Nazi.
         The last film I finished was entitled Take Shelter. I am endlessly perplexed by this film and I definitely need to see it again before reviewing it. Also, I know I need to see The Dark Knight Rises again and rerate it. It may not be possible that it could stand up to further scrutiny. I don't know.
         I watched Magnolia while on vacation and I feel it was too long ago to review now. I will try to review the next good film I see. Until then, au revoir.

The Other Guys** (2010) 10, 10, 9.5

         Finally, I watched The Other Guys and I was reminded. I know some people probably thought that my rating of The Dark Knight Rises was over the top. I was myself blown away by that rating when it came out. I'm amazed how movies bully me. Some movies simply demand ratings. I know one friend, an old teacher of mine, that simply doesn't find Will Ferrell funny, by his word. He will not understand probably why this movie makes me ashamed of other 10's I gave for wit. Like one of my favorite shows that's still on, Community, this show is so packed with jokes that if you watch it multiple times, you will undoubtedly find that you laughed through jokes that you only hear the second time. Let me break some stuff down.
         Wit is a 10, as I said. I cannot stress how witty this film is. Nearly every line is another joke. Nothing goes to waste. This is unrealistic. If you require realism of comedy for it to be worth it, then this is not for you. I lived with a guy who preferred a miserable little Matthew Perry sitcom, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, to its near contemporary, 30 Rock, because it had a more believable story. I prefer outlandish comedy. Whether it's Wes Anderson with beautiful, yet rationally unbelievable stories or Human Giant with none or Arrested Development somewhere in the middle, I want it to be funny because it's true in an over the top sort of way. I still need some truth to be revealed, as it is in The Other Guys.
         Before I move on to wisdom, some highlights are in order: Eva Mended singing "Pimps Don't Cry" softly to Will Ferrell. Mark Wahlberg admitting that he learned ballet to make fun of the 'fairies' in his neighborhood growing up. Rob Riggle and Damon Wayans Jr. at a grade school career day, giving the advice on staying out of prison, "try your hardest not to be black or hispanic." Will Ferrell turning on Mark Wahlberg who's just explained that he would go out of his food chain to eat him if they were animals. Will Ferrell busts out facts and info on lions and tuna and finishes with the line, "Did that go the way you thought it was going to go? Nope." I really could go on.
         As far as wisdom goes, it is a biting satire of the financial industry and our country in general. We idolize idiots who don't change anything and we continue to find loopholes for the devil to get out through. It begins by questioning our super action heroes who get in car chases and shoot guns about nothing while ignoring "boring" crime. It continues by mocking the group among us that idolize excess. This is different than admiring success. This faux capitalism is not about freeing people to better their lives, but seeking to open the way toward hedonist excess through fake money-making. Dante suggested in the Inferno that homosexuals and usurers belonged together in hello because while the former sought to turn things meant for creation to dead ends, usurers sought to turn dead means to creative ends, thus subverting the natural order. There is an ugly truth about how we have created whole classes full of people based on insane and immoral systems. I feel very strongly about "financial products," the judicial and tax systems, and any form of government oversight. They are all sources of great corruption, though I believe that they need to be reformed and not abolished
         The 9.5 that I gave for wonder is a little hard to explain. The car chases are fun and lots of great explosions happen throughout the movie. Music is chosen well and the director seems to have put together an extraordinary film. That is all I have. I need to get this review up as I have seen many other movies since this one and need to move on. I cannot recommend it more. I expect to review Magnolia next, which I watched while in Chicago on school business. I hope you all enjoy this.
         I am also excited to mention that I just went over 500 pageviews this last week sometime. Thank you to all who read this and come back.

Interlude II: Back for More

         I said I'd come back to Tiny Furniture when I'd seen more bad movies and I have and I am. Besides Tiny Furniture, I saw Rocket Science and Mission to Mars. I'll give the run-down and then talk a little bit about TV.
         Tiny Furniture was a pretty big bust for me. I gave it a cross, that is, movies that, based on the trailer and various other items, I am excited to see. Watching the trailer, my cross was premature. As is all too often the case, every funny joke in the whole film is in the trailer. Our protagonist is the most wretched of women and she has almost nothing to teach us. One moment of clarity, very near the climax, maybe the climax itself, is when her college friend finally arrives and tries to talk to her and is unable to get through. This actress, Merritt Wever, is the only bright spot in the movie in fact. This is also the only member of the cast that I recognized from anything else. She had small parts in Signs, Michael Clayton, and Greenberg. This movie, in fact, reminds me of why I didn't like Greenberg. The filmmaker doesn't seem to want us to like our protagonist, but doesn't feel its his/her place to actually say it. This is, to me, a huge mistake. The point of all media is to be just what the name means, a way, a means of communication. If you don't want to say anything, don't make art.
         The second film, Rocket Science, was hilarious and really worth watching, but I didn't like its conclusion. Anna Kendrick, who made me a fan with Up in the Air and kept me hooked after 50/50 and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, was in this in 2007, only her third career item as an actress on IMDb. She, Reece Thompson, and Vincent Piazza do great work here, especially these two guys as brothers. Throw in Denis O'Hare and Aaron Yoo, the latter of which reminds me very much of a great Chinese kid I grew up with, and you have a pretty great movie, minus a good message. This movie is only here instead of in its own review because the conclusion is totally outside my group of acceptable messages.
         I also watched Mission to Mars, a love-letter to extraterrestrial intelligent design theory and I can assure you there is little here. The characters are just well enough fleshed out that you feel for them, but the music is overpowering and the ending is corny, even silly. I wouldn't suggest it, but you might try to find the scene where the alien explains how they created humanity on YouTube. It is a simple and clear explanation of that hypothesis, even believable for someone without better history.
         I often fail to write here because I am watching TV instead of movies and I think I'll briefly go over what I am watching from time to time, just so I'm saying something when I get stuck.
         I have been watching The Mentalist quite a bit recently. There has been a series of marathons that I expect span the first three seasons in a row. I have watched a lot and would suggest it to anyone who watches or reads detective stories. It is at least near that perfect balance that I have hypothesized is the key for a good detective story.
         First focus is always the case. Within this is a modicum of personal stuff. Importantly, the majority of character development focuses on our eponymous mentalist. There are peaks at other characters and how that personal stuff affects their work, but most of it is left out altogether. This balance is best achieved in greats like Monk or Psych or even Burn Notice. Law and Order: Criminal Intent does a passable job as well. Other acceptable alternatives are Law and Order's entire focus on solving the case. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit fails at this totally. It spends too much time working through its twenty principals' personal junk.
         I should also mention that Simon Baker is fantastic, spellbinding even. He makes me believe that he might be that smart and talented at reading people, even if he isn't.
         I have also been watching a BBC program on Netflix called Being Human. I was skeptical when I was told that this show about a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost living together was good, but I watched it eventually as the suggestion came from a trusted source and I was not disappointed. This show is really quite good and deserves a watch. It's on Netflix Instant now and its really pretty funny and the characters are more interesting than simple stereotypes. They are just people under extreme circumstances and their reactions are really interesting stuff.
         Well, that's me. I do expect to watch The Other Guys and get something up on it soon. Thanks to all who read this.
         I almost forgot, but I would like to thank who or whatever made me such a hit in Russia. 40 hits from Russia, 5 in Germany, 2 each in the UK and South Korea and 1 each in Ireland and Malaysia. I don't think I've never seen a Russia movie, but I will try to find one.

The Dark Knight Rises* (2012) 10, 10, 10, 30

         I know I said I would be doing The Other Guys next, but with my niece and nephews here yesterday, I had no time. That said, I did go to The Dark Knight Rises midnight showing last night and have been dreaming of it since I got home.
         I will again be doing this out of order. I have been struggling about wit for a half hour and cannot decide yet, so I'll tell you first about what I am more confident about.
         If it gives you any sense how carefully I thought about this rating, I began by comparing it with The Dark Knight, which was all 9.5's. I then compared it to (500) Days of Summer, another one that received all 9.5's. I then compared it individually with every film that has ever received a 10 on anything. It is as wise as Robin Hood (1973) and Battle: Los Angeles. It was as wonderful as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Sin City, and it was as witty as Annie Hall and The Royal Tenenbaums.
         I gave it a 10 for wisdom. There is a single insinuated sex scene and it is fornication. This is my only fault for the film in its wisdom, but extenuating circumstances made it less than a .2 knock-off. I rounded up. This act is, in the end, a pretty strangely huge mistake for one party, which you might as well know is Batman/Bruce Wayne. Beyond this, sexual mores are straight-laced and the overall message is perfect. Examples:
         1. It is suggested, by my interpretation, that both money greedy faux capitalism and power grubbing faux populism are untenable. As someone somewhere said, "The truth will out."
         2. That same statement, as applied to the Batman's solution at the end of The Dark Knight, is played for great force, not least in Joseph Gordon Levitt's character's response. 
         3. Bruce's response to being broken by Bane is uber-hero, Jesus level self-sacrifice with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control thrown in. Some will object to my comparison between Jesus and Batman. This will not stop me. Also, I insert Perelandra by C. S. Lewis and its violent conclusion as my collateral. Sometimes, violence is the answer.
          4. Alfred's attempts to save Bruce from slipping into a miserable, self-depressive coma coupled with Nolan's immensely brave ending are simply the most life-affirming message ever written.
         There's probably more, but who could say it all "if all the forests' trees were pens and all the oceans ink." Excuse me if I wax poetic, but this film brought it out.
         As for wonder, I gave another 10. Here's why: the Bat, Hans Zimmer, plane ripped from the sky, scale. I'll explain each of these.
         The Bat is the name for the Batplane in this film and it is awesome. I use that word too often, but I mean that it inspires awe. It truly is a thing of beauty. This is also short-hand for every cool gadget made for this series, including but not limited to the Tumbler, the escape pod/motorcycle, the cape/glider, etc.
         Hans Zimmer is possibly the greatest composer in the history of film, if not, he is second only to John Williams. It really is a foot race with no clear winner. His music may well be the reason I think this film is so darn good in the first place.
         The opening scene is breath taking in its devastating, how-did-they-do-that manner.
         Scale may also be the key to the film. Before the film, I watched one of those preview shows at home from Reelz Channel. Chris Nolan mentioned that he tried to take from old silent films that epic feel. They used thousands of extras in some scenes. They staged a full scale battle. They also travelled around the world for great locations and built Gotham in a building.
         I could go on about the subtleties of makeup on characters that need to be 8 years older suddenly and costume design, but I will cut that short.
         Wit was for me the hardest to decide. I compared and compared. It lacks something that is often essential to me granting a 10. It is not particularly funny. I have never given a 10 for wit to a true drama before, but this film truly earned it.
         I think, even as a purist fanboy of the highest degree, that Christopher and Jonathan Nolan did nothing wrong. They kept me in suspense from beginning to end, even though I knew certain things beforehand, they made me doubt. Every line is crafted to perfection. No one says anything out of character or corny or over-simplified. There are no gaps and no filler. Every scene is on cue.
         There is little to complain about in terms of acting. Again with Batman's voice, there is a tension, in which it sounds silly. This is again a <.2 offense and I rounded up. Beyond that, Bale does not disappoint. His discipline and strength of will show through, his virtues make the screen virtues more real.
         Tom Hardy deserves an Oscar nod at least, but unless he dies I have no expectations. He embodies a character of consummate evil without being a madman a la Heath Ledger's Joker. He moves with consistent and uncharacteristic mannerisms that show he has prepared himself adequately for the role and he play the populist terrorist with conviction without making it seem false when his true motives are revealed.
         I'll lump Joseph Gordon Levitt and Gary Oldman in with Matthew Modine and all the cop extras. Joseph and Gary are stellar performances that never stray too far from simple normal men, but play with power and ferocity when need be. There performance doesn't sound strange or do anything fancy, but when Joseph's character is threatened and he steps forward anyway, the tension in his eyes makes it believable. When Gary lies in a hospital bed delivering lines or throws himself into a sewer pipe, we believe in his character and who he claims to be, even if it's mundane next to psychopaths and vigilantes. Matthew Modine is alternately despicable and inspiring depending on the scene, but he does it all with that air of confidence that suspends disbelief.
         Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Liam Neeson do much the same as we expect of them, which it's easy to forget almost no one else can do.
         I cannot forget Marion Cotillard, who shocked and enthralled me every minute she was onscreen, which was far too little, though again perfect for the story.
         I am loath to leave anyone out and there are so many, though it never seems crowded, which speaks to scale done right. I can only speak to the attention to detail on the part of every extra and crew member.
         It was worth it. This is my first perfect 30 ever and when I inevitably watch it again...and again, I may not leave all 3 10's intact, but I cannot recommend this movie enough. I can only hope you get as much out as I did.

The Gold Rush* (1925) 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 28.5

For anyone wondering, Tiny Furniture was a bit of a bust. I'll explain more in a forthcoming interlude, but it wasn't that funny and overall disappointed. This review is however for the next film I said I'd do, The Gold Rush, written, directed, and starring Charlie Chaplin.
         This is, by far, the oldest film I've done and it is a silent film. It follows a lone prospector with no name that is essentially the same tramp character that Charlie spent most of his silent years as. His hijinks lead him to a cabin inhabited by a wanted outlaw, through a life-or-death struggle against hunger, heartbreak at the hands of a beautiful and sometimes cruel woman, and an adventure with a fellow prospector that ends in him finding his fortune. I hope no one finds any of this description to be distasteful spoiling, but this film is not the most original plot. Its strength is in the particulars.
         I gave a 9.5 for wit based upon both acting and writing. This is based heavily on comparison with other  Chaplin films, like City Lights, which also got a 9.5. They are of very similar quality, though lacking that which might give it a 10. Great dialogue, witty lines, etc. are not to be found in this film, but the acting is superb. The chief worker in all this is Chaplin. His physical comedy is rivaled only by his fellow silent film star, Buster Keaton. Charlie plays every comedy spectacle, from being blown through a house by high winds to doing a little dance routine with brown bread on forks, with ease and simplicity, the prime qualities of his ever smiling and ever heroic Tramp. When he dresses up like a chicken and is chased around a room by a miner driven mad by starvation, his willingness to take a dive and do the ridiculous for the sake of comedy is admirable. He also plays falling in love and having his heart broken. He could bring you to tears of joy and heartsickness in less than a minute, even at the same time. For a hopeful of a professional intellectual obsessed with language I find the silent medium hard. Letting go of the desire for that one-liner or involved pun is hard for me and letting myself laugh as Charlie shovels the snow in front of one business in front of another and succeeds in getting paid by three people to do so or when he and Big Jim McKay wake up in a house on the edge of a cliff and walk around trying to figure out what the problem is as the house tips back and forth doesn't come automatically, but if you allow yourself, Charlie will reward your patience.
          For wisdom I gave another 9.5. This is because, though I love nearly everything this film says, including true love winning out, evil getting its due, good men standing up for women and bad men treating them badly, but the scene when the villain falls to his death off an iceberg and it is suggested in an interstitial that Nature has its own justice. I find it frustrating that they had to lay it on so thick. This feels like the Motion Picture Production Code's forced ending to The Bad Seed in which the guilty party is punished by Nature. It is simply too convenient, though not totally unlike theories that I harbor myself. It is simply too heavy-handed.
         Wonder is a 9.5 as well. The house falling off a cliff, the snowstorm, and the bear are impressive spectacles for the period. I'll admit that the black-and-white and silent nature preclude many of the things I normally give wonder for. That said, I think that the film does great things, even amazing things for the period and is simply directed well.
         I will not suggest that this be anyone's first Chaplin film. Ease into him with The Great Dictator, a brillliant, non-silent satire, made all the more impressive if you consider he was mocking Hitler while Time was still calling him Man of the Year. My personal favorite is City Lights, if you're willing to dive into silent films. It and Modern Times really showcase the depth of his humor. I hope that this catches some of you guys' attention. Tiny Furniture mini-review is forthcoming and my next film will be nearly the opposite of The Gold Rush. I got The Other Guys from the Bookmobile. I want to write this review as I recommend this movie to everyone I meet. I hope you guys are all doing well.

Sin City** (2005) 9.5, 7.5, 10, 27

         This film was one of the first I did in the old rewatching project and I still remember the first time I saw it, in Topeka, at the old Westridge 8. I think I was just barely 17 and I went to this one only mildly aware of what it would hold. I was mesmerized. I went to the last showing and when I got out the city was dead and my imagination wild. I almost couldn't go home because my nerves were aflame. I'll explain my rating in a different order, according to what I noticed first and what the films strengths are. I watched this film for the millionth time on 11 July, 2012, recorded from IFC, which left nothing out.
         The story of this film is really three stories. We begin with the retiring cop, Hartigan. On his last day, he is hunting down a serial child rapist/murderer who happens to be the son of a Senator. He's betrayed by his partner as he manages to save 11-year-old Nancy Callahan. We switch over to the story of Marv, an ex-con thug that is approached by a beautiful young woman who "gives him the night of his life." She is then murdered and he "kills his way to the truth." It is genuinely hard to paraphrase Sin City without quoting it. We then make our way to Dwight, who encounters a rough-neck and his posse of thugs on a drunken tear through the town and attempts to help avoid bloodshed, to no avail. We then end with Hartigan's further story of being framed for the child rapes/murders that he had been investigating and we see his attempt to finish the job he started.
         The most important part of this movie is the beauty of the images. Every frame is meticulously put together. This is due in part to the fact that it is one of the only films ever made entirely in front of a green screen. Many of the actors were heavily made-up, not least Mickey Rourke, who is unrecognizable as Marv. The use of black-and-white with the insertion of color from time to time for emphasis is eye-catching and really helps to sell the noir feel of a movie made in the 21st century. Everything from CGI to props to costume and make-up to set design is picture perfect. That is why it is one of very few films to receive a 10 for wonder. And on further inspection of current 10's given out, I am skeptical that they all deserved it in comparison with Sin City.
         I gave it a 9.5 for wit, which is up from 9 before this viewing. One might be confused by the noir atmosphere, obviously not the most original idea, but every word and every performance is new. Cliches are kept to a minimum and when they are used, they are given new life, often ironically. In fact, the lines that give me the most problem morally are often the most heart-wrenchingly perfect. I could quote the whole movie, maybe not as usefully as I could The Godfather, but I've lived a life far from violence.
         Some performances deserve special praise. Mickey Rourke was absolutely perfect from beginning to end. His acting is so physical and vocal, in part because his face is so obscured with the make-up job. He is forced to rely on his voice and his hands and legs to get his point across, but never looks dead in the face, which must have been hard.
         Bruce Willis restarted his career here as well. He proves as able to be the conflicted hero as ever. He delivers lines that would sound stale coming from nearly anyone's mouth with wit and something bordering on charm. He plays the kind-hearted and the brutally vicious with equal ease and they never seem like separate characters but all play as a cohesive whole.
         The late Brittany Murphy is witty and charming as well as seductive and frightening. She also surprised me with how well she makes a line like, "You're a fool, Dwight. You're a damn fool," sound. This is not cliche in her mouth and it is when I type it.
         Elijah Wood never says a word and steals scenes from Mickey Rourke. Also, I just noticed Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation plays Shlubb, the companion of Klump, played by Rick Gomez, who together provide one of my favorite parts of the film, the low-life thugs who speak Shakespearean English. Rosario Dawson and Benicio del Toro also light up the screen as the prostitute queen and aforementioned rough-neck.
         Here we come to the crux of the matter, wisdom. This film has some wonderful things to say and some seriously un-Christian ideas of revenge. I'll begin with its high points, which too many people will fail to notice. Hartigan is a cop who employs tactics both before and after losing his badge that are questionable, but his conviction to sacrifice his own life that a young girl might live is beautiful. Both he and Marv resist giving false confessions despite brutal beatings, a thing in my mind akin to a martyr refusing to slander Christ. The Torah holds as extremely sacred all judicial process and especially witness testimony. Hartigan shows a great deal of compassion to his wife who remarries while he is inside, wishing her well. Marv is rough and tumble, violent to the point of routinely torturing people, but he has a passion for the truth and justice for the one who showed him kindness. We might bristle when he retorts that a women "Worth killing for and worth going to Hell for," but the sentiment that the truth is worth dying for cannot be lauded enough. Dwight's desire to avoid bloodshed is admirable and his sense of Old Testament justice may be out of place in a post-Christ world, but it is biblical. In fact, killing someone who murdered your family was seen as a right in the Torah. I don't know if that justifies its inclusion here, but it's a start. If this were all, I'd have a hard time denying it a 9.5, but there is more.
         Sex is portrayed too vividly for my taste, as a thing best hinted at. The attitude that prostitution would be better if it could get rid of the violence of pimps and organized crime is nearly disgusting. There is a great deal of unholy joy in killing, to the point that one prostitute is described as "The Valkyrie at my side...shouting and laughing with the pure, hateful, bloodthirsty joy of the slaughter." There is quite a bit to find ugly and violent and crude. My dad would suggest I "not go searching for gold in the trash dump," but I think there is something nearly essential or at least unique in this portrayal of men standing out against oppression and violence against the innocent, or comparatively so, against corrupt power in all its forms. One of the villains, if you will, of the piece says, "Power don't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big, and gettin' the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you've got 'em by the balls." Compare that with this life-affirming scene:

Lucille: Prison was hell for you Marv, it's gonna be life this time. Marv: Hell's waking up every goddamn day and not even knowing why you're here. But I'm out now. It took someone who was kind to me getting killed to do it. But I'm out. And I know exactly what I'm gonna do. 

I think these solidify for me a moral sense in this piece that is lacking entirely in more "family friendly" films. I would rather see a more compass a few degrees off than no moral compass at all.
         Well that is my review. I intend my next watch to be an indie comedy from 2010 called Tiny Furniture. If that doesn't inspire another review from me I'll probably proceed to the 1925 Charlie Chaplin film Gold Rush, but I'll try to keep you posted.

Interlude

         As a short interlude, in case anyone wondered, I have been watching films since my last review, but have not found any others worth 5 stars since.
         G. I. Joe: Rise of Cobra was too cornily written. I could get behind some of the ideas and the cast was all-star, but there was nearly nothing for them to act.
         The Iron Lady was headed by Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent, who both perform hard parts with perfect ease and simplicity, but the film has no direction or message. It meanders heavily out of sequence through her life and never goes anywhere.
         Glorious 39 is the biggest disappointment for me, as I really had high hopes. It succeeds on being my least favorite type of film, the great film with a disappointing ending. It really reels you in with a great setup, but it never manages to land on its feet as it simply grows weirder, until it falls apart. It really is too bad.

         The last film I saw, before the one I'm reviewing now, was Die Hard 2. If you've been following here, I rated Live Free or Die Hard with a 28 and I mentioned liking Die Hard quite a lot, but the sequel lacked the brilliant supporting cast and the message the others had. Another shame in terms of a series not being consistent.
         I am working on a review of an old favorite, Sin City, that should be up tonight. I hope you enjoy it.

The Amazing Spider-Man* (2012) 9, 9.5, 9, 27.5

         This is the first film I've been able to review within a week of its coming out. I actually watched it late on the 3rd, but with the 4th I was unable to get a review up. I imagine I will not need to explain the gist of the story here, so I will be brief. Peter Parker is bitten by a spider and turned into Spider-Man.
         I'm going to be honest and admit that I read comic books. I'll admit that I have read more than 100 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man comic book and I have always been something of a purist about these sort of things so my rating here may not reflect how you'll feel.
        I gave it a 9 for wit. It was really pretty well written and acted. I compared this movie mainly with (500) Days of Summer and Another Earth, which are both 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 28.5. I felt this movie fell short in a small way of these other films. Acting was very good in nearly every way. Rhys Ifans was outstanding as Curtis Connors and played the transformation in mind and body well. Andrew Garfield really played the part well also. Tobey Maguire's interpretation was too somber, too geeky. Andrew plays Peter less reserved, more of a smart mouth. He is brave in defense of the weak before his powers and is truly hilarious under the mask. The scene where he mocks the carjacker who draws a knife on him is priceless, classic Parker. Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy very well and plays her as the beautiful arch-geek that fits with Peter. This part really is perfect for her. Denis Leary, Embeth Davidtz, and Campbell Scott do well, if not magically. Two people I'm normally less than thrilled with that surprised me were Martin Sheen and Sally Fields. They played Ben and May really well. Martin made Ben the earthy, kindly, and morally genius adoptive parent for Peter with depth as well as breadth. Sally was perfectly gentle and stern. No big mistakes came out for me from a faithfulness-to-story standpoint. Overall, I was quite happy if not thrilled with its wit.
         Wisdom came to 9.5. I think "With great power comes great responsibility," which is paraphrased by Uncle Ben(Marty), is still one of the best messages that I can think of. There was one message near the end that I wasn't sure about, but I'll keep from ruining that point, though I think it will be obvious what it is. The whisper shared between Peter and Gwen at the end. I was a little off-put by that moment as it seemed unnecessary. It could have been avoided. That said, it is the only blemish and I think that the film has a great sense of its message and its says it with clarity. The scene of the New Yorker, played by C. Thomas Howell, backing up Spidey in his attempt to make it to Oscorp tower was a great opportunity to highlight a great theme of Spider-Man comics, Spidey's relationship with New York.
         Wonder is a 9 as well and this should go without explanation. Casting is an absolute A+. I have no issues with a single decision here. The film is beautiful from beginning to end. The 9 is because that extra thing is missing, that thing that separates it from others. That and the lizard looked kind of silly. Why can't he just have the face of a lizard, with the snout? Just a silly difference. That is the only complaint I have from a fanboy standpoint.
         This is the best film of Spider-Man by far and it really brings out a great deal of what I loved about Spidey in the first place. Go and see this movie if you haven't already.