Midnight Cowboy

Coming soon!

Crazy Stupid Love

  Crazy Stupid Love has an impressive ensemble cast anchored by Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore and Steve Carell.  Cal, played wonderfully by Carell, is being divorced by his wife Emily (Moore), who admits she has been cheating on him with her coworker David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon).  The divorce is completely her idea and it sends Cal into an alcoholic tailspin, where he is approached by debauchee Jacob (Ryan Gosling) at a stylish bar.  Jacob offers, more like force-feeds, Cal advice on how to pick up women.  It is ridiculously uninteresting.
  Enter Hannah, played by Emma Stone, a twenty-something who just passed the bar exam and is ready to get out of a dead-end relationship with a nerdy loser played by Josh Groban (big shocker: Groban plays a nerdy loser).  Hannah is approached by Jacob one evening and he smoothly shoots her a line out of his bag of insanely stupid, yet effective, pick-up lines.  She wants nothing to do with him at first, but soon comes running back, begging for him to take her home.
   I loved Stone in previous films, especially Easy-A and Zombieland, and she is loveable here too.  This movie would certainly benefit if she were featured in it a bit more.  I didn't really buy into her relationship with Gosling - I felt that it was way underdeveloped.  The reason that it was not explored enough is because this movie is jam-packed with plot.  There was just too much going on for me to really grab onto even one of its hyper-layered story lines.  Marisa Tomei has a silly ten-minute performance as a dim-witted teacher.  That is two movies in a row for Tomei that I felt she was miscast (The terrible Lincoln Lawyer being the other one).  Bacon has a great face-to-face scene with Carell's son, but other than that he is underused. 
   After all of that, I will say that I liked this movie.  Carell is one of the best comedy actors alive.  In Crazy Stupid Love, he combines the silliness, sincerity, vulnerability and charm that we see in his characters in The Office, Dan in Real Life, and The 40-Year Old Virgin.  He is a very good actor with impressive range.  Gosling has showed us signs of excellence as well (Lars and the Real Girl, Blue Valentine), but plays to the stereotype here so much that I couldn't buy into it.  He reminded me of Will Smith in Hitch (which I disliked very much).  Another reason that I liked this movie is because of a magnificent twist, which I did not see coming at all.  Twists are great; we all love them, and this movie has a really good one.
  There is a meta aspect to this film.  At times, it seems to acknowledge that it is being mundanely stereotypical.  For example, when Gosling's character is asked to explain why he feels the way he does about Hannah, he says something along the lines of "are you really going to make me do this?"  I appreciate this and give the director points for realizing the campiness.

Horrible Bosses

  Horrible Bosses is a film with a vacuous, yet relatable plot about hating your boss and wanting he/she to die.  I found myself not caring that the story lacked depth because the performances were so funny.  Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis star in this new comedy from director Seth Gordon, who directed Four Christmases and the very interesting documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (a must-see doc about real-life competitions between the world's best players of the classic arcade game Donkey Kong). 
  Charlie Day, who we all love from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, plays Dale, a dental hygienist who is being sexually harassed by his boss, played by Jennifer Aniston.  Day takes over this movie from his opening scene - he is a truly funny actor with tons of charisma and screen-presence.  His character in this movie is almost exactly the same as the guy he plays in Sunny and I do wonder if he can pull off a different trick.  Bateman is really good as well, but he continues to be cast as the quasi-straight-man in these types of movies.  Sudeikis, who you know from SNL, is also quite funny here.  He is the one actor who I was not a huge fan of going in to this movie, but I was pleasantly surprised.
  So the three guys hate their bosses (Aniston, Colin Farrell and Kevin Spacey) and want to kill them.  Simple enough story.  Don't go to this movie with the expectations of being swallowed up by riveting storytelling, clever twists and meaningful character evolution - go to this movie to see three funny guys have a boatload of fun together on-screen.  This movie is probably 15 or 20 minutes too long, but the film-makers threw enough celebrity cameos our way to keep it interesting.  (Ron 'Tater Salad' White, Detective Bunk from The Wire, The Old Spice Guy, Donald Sutherland, Jamie Foxx, Bob Newhart, the mother from Modern Family, just to name a few) 
  Aniston is shockingly filthy dirty in her role as a sexually inappropriate dentist.  Foxx, who I pretty much loathe, did make me laugh a bit in his five-minute role as murder consultant Dean 'Motherfucker' Jones.  Farrell does his best 'Big Ern' McCracken impersonation (see below).  Spacey is so-so in his role as Bateman's unbearable boss.    
  Horrible Bosses is essentially The Hangover, only with funnier actors.  It is pretty obvious to compare Bateman to Bradley Cooper (Bateman is funnier, and it's not close); Day to Zach Galifianakis (Day is funnier, and it's not close); Sudeikis to Ed Helms (Helms, admittedly, wins by a landslide).  This film uses the same formula as The Hangover, but uses it more creatively and with much more gusto.  

Farrell in Horrible Bosses

Murray in Kingpin

My 5 Favorite Films Since 2000

Sorry for the 11 days between posts.  I've been busy: I spent four days backpacking the Appalachian Trail, celebrated my grandmother's 80th birthday and my niece's 4th birthday on consecutive days, and was at the beach for the last three days.  Having said that, while hiking over 42 miles on the AT, my two buddies and I passed the time with silly lists and games.  During one stretch, each of us listed our five favorite films since the year 2000.  Here is my list, in no particular order:

1. Winter's Bone
2. No Country For Old Men
3. There Will Be Blood
4. Anchorman
5. Inglorious Basterds

I am sure I am forgetting about a few movies that I really enjoyed over the last 11 years, but I am satisfied with this list at the moment.  Others that come to mind: Mystic River, The Departed, Midnight in Paris (if you haven't seen this movie yet, sprint to a movie theater right now), The Social Network (for the score more than anything), The King's Speech, The Pianist, House of Sand And Fog, Million Dollar Baby, Good Night and Good Luck, Match Point, Up in the Air and Doubt.

I am going to pick up my blog game once again.  Expect at least one movie review every day.

Taxi To The Dark Side

  Winner of the 2008 Oscar for Best Documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side tells the disturbing story of the torture policy under the Bush administration during the Second Gulf War.  This film features riveting interviews with former military "interrogators" who have since been found guilty in criminal court for the tactics they implemented in order to acquire information from POWs at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram and Abu Ghraib Prisons.  First-hand experience of the use of torturous detention strategies is provided by Moazzam Begg, a former prisoner at Gitmo and Bagram, in painful detail.
  The name of the movie centers around the story of a 22-year old Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar who was taken prisoner by American soldiers when he was escorting three passengers in Khost Province, Afghanistan.  The car was stopped at a checkpoint and the four men were taken to Bagram Prison, where they were brutally tortured.  Dilawar, who the U.S. military suspected had a hand in an attack at an Army base earlier that morning, was dead five days after arriving at Bagram.  He and the other men were victims of deplorable interrogation techniques, which included:

• sleep deprivation
• prisoners were handcuffed to the ceiling, so every time they nodded off, the pain of the handcuffs would wake them back up
• prisoners were forced to stand on a very small platform while soldiers would attach electrical wires to their fingertips and told if they stepped or fell off the platform, they would be electrocuted
• sexual abuse
• forced nudity
• forced masturbation
• blindfolds, earplugs, hoods and large mittens were used on prisoners for sensory deprivation (A Montreal psychologist said in the film that this strategy can drive a person insane in less than two days)
• blasting loud music in prisoners' holding cells for hours on end
• fear targeting
• vicious dogs were brought in and chained just inches from prisoners' faces
• snakes were used
• female interrogators were used to infuriate prisoners whose culture prevented them from respecting women who were in positions of power
• waterboarding (pouring water down a prisoner's throat to simulate a drowning sensation)
• right after 9/11, the CIA got approval to waterboard detainees
• stress positions
• prisoners were forced to stand for several days
• prisoners were hung upside down from the ceiling for many hours
• prisoners were forced to hold their arms out to their sides for long periods of time

   Led by the authority of Vice-President Dick Cheney, American troops were ordered to ignore the protocols laid out in the Geneva Conventions.  When the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Bush's bill that would allow American soldiers to hold detainees in prisons without a hearing, the administration simply helped the military establish its own "combatant status review tribunals," which essentially found a way to imprison suspects without giving them their right to an attorney, a fair trial or due process.  Congress then reiterated to the administration that soldiers must follow the Geneva treaties, which Bush agreed to as long as he could be the one who defined the phrase "outrageous acts against humans."
   When photos from Abu Ghraib Prison were released to the American public in 2004, 35 percent of U.S. citizens still approved of the use of torture, which this film attributes to the popularity of shows like 24.  Citing a specific example from this documentary, torture proponents would argue that it is acceptable to use whatever means necessary to get information from someone who knows the location of a ticking time bomb.  Opponents would argue that if authorities were actually able to catch a person who is crazy enough to plant a bomb while the bomb is still ticking (which is an incredibly unlikely scenario, outside of movies or television), he/she would probably be willing to die before giving up information on how to dismantle the explosive. 
  Taxi to the Dark Side is a sad and eye-opening documentary that sheds a lot of light on what interrogation methods Rumsfeld, Cheney and company considered invaluable in extracting information from the enemy.  Towards the end of the film, we are told that Bush signed a bill that pardoned him and his administration from any crimes surrounding war-time torture - these pardons did not extend to the soldiers in charge of executing the actual interrogations.  No officers were ever convicted in the Dilawar case, but all of the lower-ranking interrogators interviewed for this film have been relieved of their duties in the U.S. military and have been convicted for crimes committed while following orders from the men and women in charge.  

Larry Crowne

   Larry Crowne is a fun movie that is worth seeing, especially on a date.   Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts are amazing together.  I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that they have only appeared in the same movie once before (Charlie Wilson's War), so this is a special event.  Roberts plays a community-college professor who teaches a Speech class that changes the life of Larry Crowne (played by Hanks).  Crowne is a likeable, recently-divorced goofball who has just been fired from his long-time job at a store closely resembling Target, so he decides to go to college in order to start a new career. 
   Hanks is hilarious in this movie.  Roberts is loveable as usual. I won't spoil it, but the final scene is really, really clever.  Hanks co-wrote this movie, and his charm and wit are evident throughout the script. There are two enjoyable cameos by Pam Grier and George Takei that are worth noting.
   Yes, I have some issues with some of the plot points, but who cares, it is a really fun movie.  Go see it! 


(notes: The MLB All-Star game Tuesday and a vicious Soundgarden show last night have prevented me from posting as often as I would like this week.  I figured I would post about Larry Crowne before the big U2 show tonight!)

The Tree of Life

  I've put it off long enough.  Here are my comments about Terrence Malick's new movie The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn.  This film focuses on a man's difficulty in dealing with the pain of being raised by a dictatorial father in 1950s Texas.  Sean Penn plays (adult) Jack, the eldest of three boys in the O'Brien family.  Penn devotees should not get too excited about his role in this movie - he is only on screen for a total of about 15 minutes or so.  This film belongs to child actor Hunter McCracken, who plays young Jack with tones of anger, frustration and vulnerability.  Jack's younger brother dies early in the film's sequencing, but I'll get back to that in a bit.
   If you read my post about Malick's first film Badlands, you'll recall that I mentioned he has a deep adoration for nature.  During the first 45 minutes of The Tree of Life, he takes us on a visual adventure of epic magnitude.  The movie opens with a slow-moving digital image of what looks to me like a mix between a far-away galaxy and a 3-D ultrasound.  It is beautiful and mysterious.  As I've mentioned before, Malick uses close-up shots to put us right down inside what is occurring at that very instant.  During the first part of this movie, he shows us visuals of the cosmos one minute and microscopic life forms the next; dinosaurs then jellyfish; volcanoes then waves; trees then desert.  It reminded me of the Planet Earth series.  The narrative doesn't begin until 45 minutes in and I would venture to say that many film-goers will become very impatient with the visual barrage.  At one point, I was shaking my head in disbelief, waiting for something to happen - waiting for the story to actually get going.  Get on with it! 
   During these sequences, Malick peppers in his famous soft-spoken (more like whispered) voice-overs.  Much of the dialogue questions God's reasons for doing what he does.  Upon being told that her son is in God's hands now, the mother questions, "He was in God's hands the whole time, wasn't he?"  Malick raises the age-old question here about why God allows bad things happen to good people.  Jack witnessed a good friend drown in a pool at a young age and asks his father whether this boy died because he was "bad."  Although Mr. O'Brien (played by Pitt) demands that every family meal begin with a prayer, he contradicts himself by telling his boys that they have control over their own destiny and they "must not be too good" if they want to succeed in this cutthroat world.  This dichotomy is confusing to the three boys, and is one of the causes of Jack developing a large amount of hostility and resentment toward his father.
   Jack's journey throughout the film is in his attempt to find his way back to just being a kid, without all of the anger towards his difficult father.  His ire brews and develops as he finds himself desperate to figure out how to "get back to where they were" before he saw that life is painful and unfair.  Jack's father, a former military man turned engineer/inventor who currently holds over 25 patents for his creations, is very hard on the boys, demanding that they refer to him as father rather than dad.  There is verbal and physical abuse, especially when the kids interrupt or question him.  Although Malick is careful to show Mr. O'Brien being loving at times, the vast majority of the interactions between father and sons is hurtful and punitive.  The mother, on the other hand, is loved by the boys.  She is a fun-loving, warm woman who spends a lot of time playing and running around with the children, especially when "father" is away on business.  Jack wants his father dead and in one scene even asks God to kill him.  "Father, mother, always you wrestle inside me. Always you will."  Jack finds it impossible to talk to his father openly about any subject, so he often speaks to him as if he were praying to him. 
   Malick captures brotherhood very well.  The fun times that the three boys spend playing outside remind me of my childhood growing up with four brothers and a sister.  Adult Jack says that his younger brother died when he was 19.  A letter that his mother received from a courier would certainly lead one to believe that he was killed in active duty overseas.   It seems to me that rather than looking to God for spiritual guidance through this tough time of loss, the family begins to speak directly to the dead son.  Malick is telling us that the family is losing faith in God, but more importantly he is raising some thought-provoking questions about what causes people to lose their faith.  Whatever it is that you believe, most people would hopefully agree that these questions are worth exploring.  Before the young man's death, God seemed to be the answer to everything, but now nature and reason seem to explain the world. Jack struggles in adulthood with his unanswered questions about why his innocent brother had to die.  He seems to continue to reach out to his parents for support.  He fails to truly believe in any higher power, but rather does his soul-searching while speaking to his brother.
  We feel sorry for Jack as an adult because he was raised to believe that it was virtuous to be good, but he wonders why he should be good when God isn't even good.  Jack's stormy relationship with his father only caused him to become closer to his brothers, and when his younger brother died, it left Jack more lost than ever before.  As an adult, Jack pleads to the sky, "Brother, keep us. Guide us to the end of time." There are several iconic shots of Jack wandering through an open landscape, crossing through open doors, searching for himself in a confusing world. 
   The final shot, which appeared three or four times throughout the film, is of the galaxy/ultrasound image slowly changing and evolving against a black background that I mentioned at the start of this post.
   This is a difficult film to digest and I am fairly certain that I did not do a very good job at explaining it.  I desperately want to see this movie again, probably more so than I've ever wanted to see a movie a second time before in my life (even though it was well over two hours long).  As with the other Malick films I have seen, this one explores very deep existential and spiritual themes, but he seems to be digging down into these depths further and further each time he makes a film.  I enjoyed it immensely.

Top Ten of 2010

This year, for me, there was a clear #1 and then everyone else:

1. Winter's Bone
• one of my favorite films of all time
2. The Social Network
3. Restrepo
4. Animal Kingdom
5. The King's Speech
6. Rabbit Hole
7. Black Swan
8. True Grit
9. Monsters
10. Catfish

Close Calls:

• Shutter Island
• Let Me In
• The Fighter
• Joan Rivers documentary
• The Town
• 127 Hours
• The Kids are All Right
• Inception
• Ghost Writer
• Never Let Me Go

Critically Acclaimed But I Just Didn't Get:

• Somewhere

2010 Films That I Haven't Seen Yet (as of late May, 2013):

• The American
• I Am Love
• Another Year
• Secretariat

Bullitt

   Steve McQueen truly was the "King of Cool."  I mean, just look at him.  The best part about the 1968 movie Bullitt is the 10 minute car chase that features two American classic muscle cars, the '68 Ford Mustang and the '68 Dodge Charger, battling one another through the streets and freeways of San Francisco.  What strikes me as a very unique part about this chase is that once the bad guy stomps on the accelerator to begin the high-speed pursuit, the music stops completely and the sound of the enormous engines is the only thing you can hear for about nine minutes.  The cars sound awesome.  This chase is about the most muscular thing I've seen on screen since Stallone went over the top.  In fact, I even like the Bullitt chase better than the one in The French Connection where Popeye Doyle barrels through New York city streets under elevated tracks, chasing a man on the el train above.  These are commonly considered the two best car chases in cinema history (see the note below). 
  There isn't much else to say about this movie above and beyond the car chase.  The DVD special features include a fantastic mini-documentary about how McQueen insisted on striving for realism in his acting, which had him doing a lot of the actual driving in the famous chase.  Cool stuff.  Plot-wise, the movie is very average, but who cares when the leading man is as cool as Lieutenant Frank Bullitt.


question for my loyal fans: what are some other good car chases?

Badlands

   If you plan on seeing Terrence Malick's new film The Tree of Life (Brad Pitt, Sean Penn), you may want to watch this one first.  Malick only makes about one movie a decade and Badlands was his '70s debut feature length film.  Since 1973, he has only directed five films.  Perhaps the most recognizable picture in his catalog is The Thin Red Line, his war epic starring Jim Caviezel and Sean Penn from 1998.  Needless to say, when Malick makes a film, people get excited.  
  Badlands stars Martin Sheen and an almost unrecognizable Sissy Spacek as two young lovers who leave a trail of dead in the Dakotas.  It is loosely based on the true story of the 1958 killing spree that Charles Starkweather and his much younger girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate embarked on throughout the badlands of the upper mid-west.  Kit, Sheen's character in the film, is employed as a garbage collector at the onset of the story and soon meets Holly when she is innocently twirling a baton in her front yard.  One of the first questions that Kit asks Holly is "You wanna go for a ride?" to which she responds, "No, I got homework."  She should have ran inside, picked up her pencil and school binder and never looked back.  To describe the next few months of their lives together as a ride is a vast understatement. 
  "I'll try anything once," Kit tells Holly as their romance blossoms, against the wishes of her loving father.  Spacek provides the Malick-trademark voice-over in this film with heart-breaking innocence and uncertainty.  In a scene that seems to come out of nowhere, Kit murders Holly's dad after he threatens to call the police if Kit doesn't stay away from his daughter.  Perhaps because she is so enamored by Kit, this doesn't seem to affect Holly all that much.  She loves how much he resembles James Dean.  As they flee Holly's home town and make a run for Montana, their relationship is reminiscent of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.  Kit kills just about every person that they come in contact with as they travel north.  Holly's innocence triggers an internal struggle inside her - she doesn't agree with what Kit is doing, but seems to enjoy the excitement enough to not try and stop him. 
   Malick shows off his love for nature and landscape in this film, as he does in his subsequent projects.  He incorporates close-up shots of people, animals and plants as he tries to capture the characteristics of the setting.  No one films landscape quite like Malick.  His movies are visually stunning.
   Eventually, Kit and Holly get caught by authorities somewhere in North Dakota.  Kit loves the national attention this brings him.  He seems thrilled when the sheriff's deputy says he is a dead ringer for James Dean.  Kit is a talker, and Martin Sheen brings a tremendous amount of likeability to the role - the way he speaks to people is quite charming.  Kit tells the police that "he always wanted to be a criminal, just not this big of one."   Upon being arrested, he didn't seem to comprehend the gravity of what he had done.  He jokes and laughs with the police and national guardsmen, like a celebrity would do on the red carpet while soaking up flash bulbs.  He thrived in the publicity and attention he was receiving from everyone.
   I've now seen 60% of Malick's films and I find it interesting to see what he was doing at the beginning of his career and how his style has pretty much remained constant throughout the years.  He excels at identifying the pulse of the landscape purely through his visuals.

(note: My next post will be a discussion on Malick's new film The Tree of Life, out in theaters now.)

Short Rounds #1

Here are a few quick notes on movies I've watched recently, books I've read recently, music I'm listening to and other random notes. I think I will write one of these every few weeks, just because.

Movies I've watched recently:

1. The Money Pit - Dear god, this movie is funny. When Tom Hanks starts cracking up when the tub falls through the floor, it slays me.  Laugh out loud funny.
2. Funny Farm - Seems like a knock-off of "The Money Pit" - I do love Chevy Chase's slapstick though
3. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story - Good documentary that features interviews with Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg, Al Rosen, Kevin Youkilis, etc. (other notables: Ian Kinsler, Ryan Braun, Sean Green, Adam Greenberg (check his story out))
4. Get Low -  Robert Duvall plays an old hermit who wants to be present for his own funeral party.  He invites everyone from town who has a story about him. Bill Murray is awesome here.
5. Dial M For Murder - Hitchcock classic. An unbelievably good story. Very suspenseful and well written. Easily the best movie on this list.
6. To Sir With Love - Sidney Poitier stars as a first year teacher in England, who turns a group of rough high-schoolers into respectful, appreciative young men and women. Better than "Lean On Me"
7. Before The Devil Knows You're Dead - Sidney Lumet is about as good as it gets (Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, Network, Serpico, 12 Angry Men).  This movie stars Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as brothers who are both in need of money so badly that they decide to rob a jewelry store that is owned by their parents.  Their mom is murdered in the hold-up. 
8. Religulous - I've seen this Bill Maher movie about 10 times. That should tell you what I think of it (I also saw him perform at the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville a few years ago - amazing).
9. Gasland - Documentary about natural gas 'fracking' that is sweeping the northeast part of the nation. Landowners have a tough decision to make: do I allow drilling companies to lease my land and risk contaminating my water? or do I say no thank you to that huge paycheck that they are offering in order to stay healthy? This is, however, a biased documentary.
10. Super 8 - J.J. Abrams directed this throwback adventure movie that follows a group of pre-teens who are directing a movie when they encounter something out of this world. Spielberg produced this film, which reminded me of E.T., Close Encounters, Cloverfield, The Goonies, you get the point. A lot of fun.
11. Cars 2 - very fun, even though I absolutely hate animation.  It still bothers me that Larry the Cable Guy has made so much money off of a fake character (I mean his Larry character, not Tomater - watch this)
12. True Grit - Loved it.  This is what going to the movies is all about.  I need to see the original though.
13. Winter's Bone - Without a doubt, the best movie I saw in 2010.  A teenage girl goes on a mission to find her father in order to save the house that she and her two younger siblings are living in. Has a finale reminiscent of Fargo. A must see film.

These books are really good. Read them:

1. Under the Banner of Heaven - John Krakauer book about Mormonism, specifically the horrors of Fundamentalist Mormonism. This is my friend Craig's favorite Krakauer. I can't disagree.
2. Not Dead and Not For Sale - Scott Weiland's memoir. Wow, what a ride. This book literally takes about 2 hours to read (and I read pretty slowly).  The coolest parts are about how Core and Purple were recorded. Check it out. STP's new record is very good by the way. I just saw them play the Tower Theater recently and was blown away. The DeLeo brothers shred.
3. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin - I have to admit, I listened to this instead of reading it. It is predictably boring, but I liked it. 
4. Beatrice And Virgil - Yann Martel's much-anticipated follow up to Life of Pi.  Not quite as good, but worth checking out if you loved Pi as much as I did.
5. The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First - Book by Jonah Keri that documents the ascension of the Tampa Bay Rays in recent years.  Better than Michael Lewis' Moneyball.  I really enjoyed this book.  A must read for all baseball fans.
6. Where Men Win Glory - I am only about halfway through this Krakauer book about former NFL player Pat Tillman, who quit pro football to join the Army only to be killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Awesome so far; can't wait to finish it.

 Movies I'm excited about:

1. The Descendents - George Clooney plays a father who attempts to re-enter the lives of his two daughters. Seems like Oscar bait.
2. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop -  I love Conan and can't wait to see this documentary that followed him on his tour last year before his TBS show began.
3. Another Earth - What if there was another you out there in the universe? This movie seems to explore that question.
4. Buck - Documentary about the real-life Horse Whisperer that Robert Redford's character was based on. Looks good.
5. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times - Documentary about the Times
6. Harry Potter  - no, not really
7. Cowboys and Aliens - yes! This combo can't be bad. Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, sign me up. Directed by John Favreau (Iron Man; Iron Man 2; I Love You, Man; Swingers; Couples Retreat; The Break-Up)

New music I'm listening to:

1. Foo Fighters: Wasting Light - this album wails, plain and simple. Buy it.
2. Death Cab For Cutie: Codes and Keys - pretty good album. Although not as good as their previous stuff, it's damn close.  The Song Monday Morning is particularly good; I am certain it will be a radio hit soon.
3. The Social Network Soundtrack: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Reznor is Nine Inch Nails, Ross is his musical partner. Together, they are in the zone.  Geniuses, literally.
4. Failure: Fantastic Planet - ok, so this one is from the mid-90s, but it is one of my favorite complete rock records ever and I recently dove back into it. Thanks to my old pal Buzz for introducing me to Failure.

Final note: The HBO original series Game of Thrones rules.

American: The Bill Hicks Story

  I first heard the name Bill Hicks back in 1996 when I bought Tool's third album, Aenima.  He is immortalized in the liner notes and is featured on the final track Third Eye, which happens to be my favorite song by them.  In that particular bit, Hicks complains that the only time you ever hear stories about drugs on the news, they are told in a negative light.  He wondered what it would be like if an anchorman said something about the positive side of drug use instead.  He quipped, "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness and there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are an imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather." While I don't agree with his opinions on drugs, Hicks was a trailblazing comedian who, when he finally found his voice, spoke about topics that many people would consider slightly strange, if not insane.  I'm not one of those people.  His amazing career ended far too early in 1994, when he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 32.  American is a documentary that chronicles his life and incredible career.
  This film, which is endorsed by all of his friends and family members, is informative and hilarious.  The music featured in the movie is by Hicks' own band, Marble Head Johnson, which was his other passion aside from comedy.  Hicks was born in the early '60s in Georgia into a strict southern Baptist household.  He had two older siblings, Steve and Lynn.  His mother, Mary, immediately found young Bill to be "interesting."  Much of this documentary, especially the first half, focuses on Hicks' relationships with his friends, his closest being his lifelong friend Dwight Slade.  He and Dwight formed a comedy duo as teenagers and first appeared together at an open-mic night in a Houston comedy club called The Comedy Workshop, where Hicks would define and fine-tune his craft for the next decade.  Hicks worshiped Woody Allen and possessed many of Allen's same mannerisms early in his career, although this would only be temporary until he found his true style and voice as a comedian. 
   As a high-schooler, Hicks was tremendously successful in the Houston comedy scene, selling out comedy clubs all around the city.  At this point in his career, he was a very clean comic, using no profanity and basing much of his material on his relationship with his parents.  After he graduated high school, he decided to forgo college and move to Los Angeles to embed himself in the larger comedy scene.  At this point, he began to keep a diary, where he expressed deep concerns about not being funny and admitted to not writing any material for months on end.  He soon picked up and returned to Houston, deciding to make people come to see him in his home town. It was at this time that his friends in the comedy clubs introduced him to hallucinogens, alcohol and other drugs.  This certainly was an inflection point in Hicks' career, as it was the catalyst to changing his style of comedy.  When he was under the influence on stage, he started using profanity and incorporating a lot of anger and bitterness into his act - which got very positive reactions from audiences.  The "one consciousness" material that would later become his trademark was developed during this period of his life. Alcohol allowed him to say the things on stage that he had always wanted to say, but it also started to get out of control and caused his career to be affected negatively.   Hicks started losing bookings at clubs and was no longer being asked to appear on television shows. Hicks was abusing alcohol and other drugs to the point of self-destruction.
  After hitting bottom, Hicks remembered that success in comedy was what he had been working his whole life for and committed to getting sober.  In order to stay off drugs and alcohol, he thought it would be best to move to New York by himself to flee from his toxic network of friends. "That's when he went from being an above average comedian to being something spectacular," remarked a friend.  He began to truly command an audience - his act became a juggernaut of social commentary and critique of government injustices.  Hicks had to work to get to this point and he now realized how much the audience could take and how far he could push them.  As a comic, he was finally matching his inner voice with his outer voice.
  Hicks was somewhat frustrated by the American public because he was evolving much more quickly than his audiences were.  After he played a comedy festival in Montreal, his career really took off internationally.  The U.K. worshiped him.  Overseas, Hicks sold out arenas, yet back in the U.S. he failed to take off to the point of being a household name.  He felt that audiences here in our country simply didn't allow him to gain the momentum necessary to become truly successful in the business.

(Check out what I think is absolutely his funniest bit. It is a rant on marketing and advertising that he performed around this time - I believe it was from a special he taped in England.)

   Bill Hicks had a knack for evolving from night to night: if a simple throw-away line got a good laugh one night, he would turn it into a five minute bit the next night.  He was a comedian's comedian.  Around 1992, Hicks was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and immediately began receiving chemotherapy treatments, even before informing his family and friends of the illness.  He remained a mainstay in comedy clubs and on television up until three months prior to his death.  The illness changed him profoundly.  It triggered him to solidify his relationship with his parents and mend old friendships. It also caused him to work even harder with his childhood friend and comedic partner Dwight, recording comedy albums as he realized that he needed to get as many of his comedic ideas recorded before his time on this "roller coaster" was up.  In October of 1993, after he taped what would have been his final television appearance on the Late Show, David Letterman made the decision to cut his performance from the late night broadcast, claiming that it was far too offensive for audiences.  This devastated Hicks and his family.  In a move that I would categorize as incredibly classy, Letterman (whose comedy I idolize, along with Jerry Seinfeld, Woody Allen and Larry David, among others) invited Bill's mother Mary on the show in 2009 to apologize to her and her family for such an egregious lapse in judgment.  At the end of the interview, he showed the original set that was cut from the show 15 years prior.  This can be found online as well and is definitely worth watching (be sure to watch all three parts).  The final bit about Jesus is particularly awesome.
   To me, Bill Hicks is a comic that made you think about life, about injustices, about right and wrong.  You should see American: The Bill Hicks Story.  (It's on Netflix instant)

Let Me In

   This is a vampire movie that isn't quite like anything I've seen before, and it is worth seeing for its originality alone.  "Let Me In," written for the screen and directed by Matt Reeves, is a remake of a 2008 Swedish movie called "Let the Right One In."  From what I understand, this one lives up to the quality of the original in every way.  The writer of the original, John Ajvide Lindqvist, gets a writing credit on this version too - which is usually a good sign that a remake is going to stay true.
   It is the story of 12 year old Owen who befriends a girl who just moved in next door with her father.  When asked how old she is, she mysteriously answers "12, more or less."  Her name is Abby and she soon becomes the object of Owen's curiosity and affection, even though she smells kind of funny and rarely wears shoes (even though it is winter).   She admits to Owen that she is not even a girl (she says that she is "nothing"), but he doesn't seem to mind, probably due in part because he is the target of serious bullying at school and spends much of the evening hours alone and will take any attention he can get.  In this sense, both Abby and Owen are loners who are looking for companionship.
  This movie takes itself very seriously, which is the only way I would be able to stay interested in a storyline like this.  The tone of the film never strays from deep, dark and brooding.  There is a lot of suspenseful sequences, graphic violence and quality acting (Kody Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz play the kids) that kept me on board for the whole film.  You may recognize Smit-McPhee from the 2009 post-apocalyptic film "The Road," where he more than held his own next to Viggo Mortenson.  I look forward to seeing where his young career goes in the next few years.
  Throughout the movie, we are never allowed into the world of the adults.  Reeves doesn't really let us in on the police investigations as the bodies pile up.  It seems as if the filmmakers do not want us to think that the adults are in charge at all - this is very much a child's world.  Similarly, we never see the full face of Owen's mom and only hear his father over the phone.   
  I kept hearing about this movie last year but never got a chance to check it out until I recently found it on Netflix instant.  If I am not mistaken, it made a lot of critics' top-ten lists last year.  While I am not that high on it, I will say that it is very well made.  It has the obligatory vampire stuff (hate sunlight, love blood, don't age, super fast, super strong, silver eyes) but one new one was that Abby needs to be specifically invited into a room before she can enter, or else she will start gushing blood from her head.  Interesting enough.
  I could never make it through the first "Twilight" movie because it is so stupid - sorry, I guess I should say that I am just not the target audience. "Let Me In" has such stark tonal and stylistic differences; it is certainly intended for an older, more mature viewer than Pattinson and Stewart's nightmare.  The end scene in the pool is about the gnarliest thing I've seen on screen in a while.

(Additional note:  There's a scene where Owen spins The Breakup Song by The Greg Kihn Band on the record player while Abby is rinsing off her blood-soaked face.  YouTube that one when you get a chance)

Midnight In Paris

  In “Midnight in Paris,” Owen Wilson is sporting one of his shortest haircuts since “Bottle Rocket,” more than likely to mimic Woody Allen’s blonde locks circa 1977.  I imagine Allen wishes he were young enough to star in this film, his best since “Match Point,” but instead he hired Wilson to act, look and sound exactly like him.  The thick black frames are all that is missing. While I enjoyed the tandem of Larry David and Allen in “Whatever Works,” their chemistry pales in comparison to how perfectly Wilson channels Allen’s charisma, quirkiness and idiosyncratic behavior.  It seems Allen had Wilson in mind the whole time he wrote this script.
    Allen, 75, is famous for being a tireless worker, writing and directing movie after movie without taking a break.  He has completed at least one film every year since “Annie Hall” in 1977.  I have seen about 13 Woody Allen movies and can’t say that I’ve enjoyed one quite as much as I did this one.  It is not his best film, but it is probably his most fun.  When the screen faded to black, I didn’t want the ride to end.  
    I am very happy that I did not research or seek out what this movie was about before going to see it.  In fact, after seeing the trailer, my initial reaction was not a favorable one - I did not want to see a movie where an engaged man goes out every night and has multiple affairs with strange women in Paris; it did not interest me.  Also, I am glad that I did not look up the cast of the movie, more specifically, the names of the characters that the actors play.  It would have given too much of the plot away - I recommend you avoid such information as well.  So, without spoiling anything about the plot of this movie, I was quite pleased when I first discovered what it was that Wilson’s character Gil Pender was doing every night he would walk the streets of Paris. Gil is a very successful Hollywood screen writer who is trying to legitimize his career by writing a novel, one that he is very insecure about.  He later gets some sage advice from someone whose opinion he respects a great deal.
    His fiancee Inez is played by Rachel McAdams, without any of her trademark lovableness.  The charming chemistry that we saw between Wilson and her in “Wedding Crashers” does not exist in this film - the two are in the midst of planning their wedding and seem to be on two completely different pages when it comes to all matters, big or small, about the impending nuptials. Inez wants Gil to continue bringing home the fat paychecks by writing mindless movie scripts and forget about taking a financial risk by turning into a struggling novelist. Her high-class parents are visiting Paris on business and she and Gil are there on a free vacation.  At dinner one evening, Paul (played by Michael Sheen), a former college professor of Inez’s arrives randomly with his wife, much to the distress of Gil.  Paul, ‘a pseudo-intellectual’ as Gil puts it, is in Paris giving a guest lecture and seems to know everything about art, wine, architecture, culture, etc.  Gil constantly looks for any excuse to get out of spending time with Inez, the laughable Paul, and his wife, instead opting to stay behind to edit and re-edit his novel, which is evolving after each night he goes out on the town.
    Woody Allen opens his latest movie with a breathtaking sequence of shots that capture the beauty of Paris.  He rarely sets his films stateside anymore and his adoration for the European lifestyle is evident here.  He loves the idea of outdoor cafes, strolling down romantically lit streets with a baguette under one’s arm and getting caught in the rain.  Allen is truly an international filmmaker.
    One drunken night when Gil, whose awkward clothes even resemble those Allen wore in films of previous decades (drab long sleeve polos, baggy flannel shirts, khakis that are three inches too wide and two inches too short, belts that choke his waistline and cause much fabric bunching), tells the group that rather than go dancing with them, he is going to walk back to the hotel instead.  What happens next reminded me of my favorite movie of all time, Field of Dreams, and is irresistibly fun and entertaining.  It also made me think back to the fun I had with Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo” when Jeff Daniels literally walked off the screen and into Mia Farrow’s life.  Each night for Gil is filled with spectacular adventures that I found myself yearning for more of as the movie ended.  Adrien Brody and Corey Stoll are particularly good, but I shouldn't tell you what characters they play or why they are so memorable.  Marion Cotillard brings another beautiful performance as Adriana, a woman who Gil befriends during his nightly exploits. Cotillard’s classic look makes me think that she truly belongs in the early 20th century rather than the early 21st.
    At exactly the halfway point of 2011, I can not think of a movie this year that I enjoyed more than this film. Allen makes the audience smile with his witty dialogue and fantastic storytelling.  This is a very funny movie. Even though I was only privy to about every four out of five references (I need to do some research and watch the film again), I enjoyed every minute of this movie.  In recent years, Woody Allen has given us such films as “Vicky Christina Barcelona” and “Cassandra’s Dream,” both of which I liked very much but he very obviously is working on a different level with “Midnight in Paris.”  Allen hasn’t won an Oscar in nearly 25 years, but I think that streak may be coming to an end very soon.
    With the gigantic commercial success of J.J. Abrams’ ode “Super 8” and the Foo Fighters’ latest record “Wasting Light” (which they recorded without the help of computers), audiences seem to be responding very positively to the idea of throwback entertainment.  Allen strikes this nostalgic note here, and he strikes it well.  In the end, he wants us to stop romanticizing about eras that have come before us and start appreciating the time that we live in now.  After all, we do currently exist in a world with antibiotics.