There Will Be Movies...

I finally saw There will be Blood, (B-) and I can say this movie is a bit overrated. It's not bad, just disappointing. I should preface this review by pointing out I'm not a big fan of Paul Thomas Anderson as a filmmaker. He's been compared to Stanley Kubrick, and I'd agree. Not that that's a good thing, mind you. Like Kubrick in his later films, Anderson tends to set up his scenes in very formal, very static images. His films aren't bad, just really stiff.

It's about a turn-of-the-century oilman named Daniel Plainview, and how his drive for wealth and power in California drives him insane. In that regard, it's been compared with Citizen Kane. Though I'd say it's got more in common with Raging Bull. Both movies are essentially character studies of men who's reach exceed their grasp. In 'Blood's case, Plainview's character has Anderson's view-and I suspect,- actor Daniel Day-Lewis's view stacked against him. For instance, when Plainview engages in spiteful and selfish behavior-like when he snubs the young minister Eli Sunday- we have no reason to understand where this streak comes from. I also don't quite buy the common view that Plainview adopts a dead co-workers boy as his own simply so he can pass himself off as a family man to the rubes he's buying the land out from under. (We can clearly see he harbours some genuine affection for the boy.)

I understand it's a rough adaptation of the first part of an Upton Sinclair novel, "Oil". So I'm assuming it's view of Plainview's capitalistic behavior is condemning. Problem being, given how labour was usually treated in the early 1900's, Plainview seems more like Major Barbara's Andrew Undershaft then one of Sinclair's plutocrats. (Compare and contrast, folks, this movie with John Sayles' Matewan...) There's no real connective tissue between scenes through the whole movie. So for instance, when Eli Sunday is pleading with an enraged Daniel in the movie's last scene how "We're old friends, Daniel!", you think to yourself, "Since when?" The main drive in the movie is the petty rivalry between Eli and Daniel, and I'm to assume it's because both men have figured each other out as a phony and a liar.

The main reason I took so long to see this movie is because I'm also not a big fan of Daniel Day-Lewis as an actor. However, I'd say that this is the best role he's taken on in a long time. Definitely better than his showy 'Bill the Butcher' in Gangs of New York. It's because the character is so repressed through the whole film, than when he lashes out at his deaf grown son and Eli towards the end, it's like watching a pipe burst. Here's the problem I have with Day-Lewis, the actor, though. In his recent roles, I'm reminded of Pauline Kael's comments on Dustin Hoffman in 'Rainman'. That is, he's an actor watching his character from an audience's point of view in order to modulate his performance, rather than just act. (I admire the role, but in a way I'd admire a clever piece of engineering...) Put it this way: If Day-Lewis has to spend two years researching a character who is all a front, to even his adopted son, the character has no ground. (I'm to assume the accident at the film's beginning that gave him his limp twisted him inside, but that's all I have to go on.)



American Gangster (C+) Standard slovenly-cop-vs.-dapper-gangster movie glossed up as only director Ridley Scott can. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe play off each other okay, but the movie's problem is that there's no theme here, really. Well, there's several themes, but it's all so hazy, and I suspect, the racial implication is so timidly hinted at, that the movie loses a lot of its power. Is the movie saying that a black man can only succeed by co-opting Whitey's methods? Haven't we seen Russell Crowe's Ritchie Roberts-angel-with-a-dirty-face in far too many movies before this? (There's a sub-plot involving a custody battle with his ex-wife which adds nothing to the movie.) Is Washington's character Frank Lucas really supporting the community of Harlem by selling them heroin? (top-grade junk at lower prices, but still..) When the writing's on the wall, why doesn't the usually clever Lucas quit while he's ahead? He's too smart to let his pride override his common sense. I'm being a little harsh on the movie, I know. But given the talent at work here, I'm a little disappointed... Still, worth a look at least once.

Beautiful Shiloh Doesn't Care

Anton Chigurh: What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: Sir?
Anton Chigurh: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: I don't know. I couldn't say.
[Chigurh flips a quarter from the change on the counter and covers it with his hand]
Anton Chigurh: Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Call it?
Anton Chigurh: Yes.
Gas Station Proprietor: For what?
Anton Chigurh: Just call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Well, we need to know what we're calling it for here.
Anton Chigurh: You need to call it. I can't call it for you. It wouldn't be fair.
Gas Station Proprietor: I didn't put nothin' up.
Anton Chigurh: Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life you just didn't know it. You know what date is on this coin?
Gas Station Proprietor: No.
Anton Chigurh: 1958. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Anton Chigurh: Everything.
Gas Station Proprietor: How's that?
Anton Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Alright. Heads then.
[Chigurh removes his hand, revealing the coin is indeed heads]
Anton Chigurh: Well done.
[the gas station proprietor nervously takes the quarter with the small pile of change he's apparently won while Chigurh starts out]
Anton Chigurh: Don't put it in your pocket, sir. Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter.
Gas Station Proprietor: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.
[Chigurh leaves and the gas station proprietor stares at him as he walks out]


What's going on in the Coen Brother's "No Country for Old Men" (A) is an exploration of moral codes. Well, firstly, it's a Western in the classical sense, because it's set in a time and place (Texas in 1980) where the landscape was starting to change, both physically and morally. Secondly, it's a Horror film in the sense that Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is as unstoppable as Jason from Friday the 13th-he even looks like him. And it's a Horror film in that the new world that Chigurh inhabits and thrives in is not a world that Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (played by no one other than Tommy Lee Jones.) wants to maintain order in.

The story, in brief: Llewelyn Moss,(Josh Brolin) a man less polite company than I would be tempted to call, "Tornado Bait", stumbles upon the aftermath of a drug exchange gone bad near the Texas-Mexico border in 1980. (Trust me, the date is important.) He tracks down the last man standing and recovers two million dollars from this fellow's dead body. That night, worried about leaving any loose ends, he heads back to the badness to make sure no one else saw him. (And in an act of -guilt, perhaps? He brings a jug of water with him to quench the thirst of a Mexican man dying in one of the trucks.) Sure as shit, Moss' conscious trumps his common sense, and a 4x4 with a couple of gunmen show up right when he does. This sets a chain of events in motion which brings up Chigurh in search of the money that Moss has taken.

Where it differs from your standard "Where's the money?" type thriller is in the way the characters interact, and behave according to their values. Moss' values not only destroy him, they destroy his wife. Sheriff Bell comes to realize that a world with people like Chigurh in it has no place for him. Or, to be more precise, given that his values dictate that he place his life in defense of others, death at the hands of someone like Chigurh would make his sacrifice worthless. Then there's Chigurh...

Chigurh is not evil: he's a person who knows that eventually the choices he makes will kill him, and until then, he will continue to live and to take risks until such a time as his choices lead to death. That he is a killer is secondary to the fact that he allows chance to bring him to his destinations, and allows the universe to guide him. He is the ultimate bad ass in that he is incapable of stopping because that would limit his choices. He is a killer because no one can stop him until they stop him forever (illustrated by the random car crash at the end of the movie), and at that point it hardly matters.

He is a human being without fear, who makes choices without fear and lives through their consequences. He is alive because it is not his time to die. Moss doesn't understand this, and pays the price: his initial survival should have been enough to prove to him that the gift Chigurh offered wasn't idle: he respected Moss' ability to choose enough to allow him to save his wife's life, and rejecting that was essentially making the wrong call on the coin. When Chigurh came for the wife, she died most likely because of her refusal to choose. "I got here just like the coin," he says when she tells him that he doesn't have to do a thing he'll do - he lets chance guide him, and his actions are the call of the toss. He may never lose, but he always chooses.



Stardust (B+) It's a fantasy adventure for people (and by people) who hate fantasy adventures. Which puts it closer into 'The Princess Bride' territory than 'Harry Potter' territory. There's a Terry Gilliamesque 'Time Bandits' feel to it as well. On paper, it's got the all the standard fantasy tropes; schlub (Charlie Cox) wanders into magical world, finds Pixie Dream Girl (Claire Danes, sportin' a pretty good British accent), goes on trip through magical world with her back to England. Meanwhile, both an evil witch, sorry, I mean, Evil Witch played by Michelle Pfeffer, and three Evil Princes are on the warpath for the Dream Girl.

Pretty good, especially since director Matthew Vaughn keeps original writer Neil Gaiman's Very British Whimsy in check with the asides and throwaway gags. ( Transformed girl looking in awe at her new cleavage, dead princes popping up to groan in disbelief, etc.) Robert DeNiro has a cameo as an effete flying ship captain which is okay, but I can't help thinking someone like Stephen Fry would've been a better casting choice.



Hot Rod (C+) Affable dumb comedy by the 'Lazy Sunday' guys. It works only because of the random bits of business they throw into the film. (Deliberately cheesy 80's soundtrack, random Asian guy-named Anderson?- throwing flyers around, then dancing for the camera.) Mindless and fun.

Sadness pile in a Failure Bowl...

Patton Oswalt -Feelin' Kinda Patton/Werewolves and Lollipops -(B) Geez, is it weird hearing the voice of Remy, the cute little rat from that Pixar movie utter the phrase, "Chapped, Battered Pussy"...or is that just me? He's in the class of stand-up comedians that perform in music clubs, like David Cross and Zack Galifianakis. Y'know, "Edgy" comedians. (On a tangent here, why is it all those guys wind up at some point in their set, have to deal with a drunk, giggling female audience member? Why is that, ladies? Why do you feel the need to throw back a couple o' cosmopolitans and start screeching at the comedian? We came to see them, not you.)

Anyway, this review is gonna be kind of useless if you're not familiar with David Cross' standup act. (He's that bald dude in Arrested Development and that chipmunk movie, about which horrible things are about to be said, but enough digressing...) Him and Oswalt (and Galifianakis, and Chris Rock, and-oh, shit. Did I say enough with the digressing? Oh, well.) are influenced by Bill Hicks, the current saint of stand-up. That is, they put some genuine social commentary in their act. This is opposed to dimwits like Larry the Cable Guy ('Ah hates them sand niggers!') and Dane Cook ('I fucked me a drunk sorority girl!'), who just aren't funny.

Oswalt's pretty close to Cross in terms of his standup, except Oswalt doesn't come across as snide as Cross does. This is kinda important, as one of the rules of standup, even if you're Andy Kaufman, is that in order for the audience to like you, you've got to let them know that you like them. Cross tends to come across as sneering as a defense mechanism, which tends to alienate him from an audience. Case in point, on his website with Bob Odenkirk from Mr. Show, he wrote a defensive screed about his recent appearance in 'Alvin and the Chipmunks'. (Here you go.)

Cross' tirade is annoying, simply because he's responding to a concern that only affects him. Does he hate himself this much? Does Cross think we care about where his next job is coming from? We might, if he was crass enough to use his white-trash 'Ronnie Dobbs' character to pimp out Popeye's Fried Chicken. But that's not gonna happen. Actually, the original impetus for that blog was an offhand comment by Patton Oswalt about turning down the role on 'Alvin', and having Cross 'intercept' it. It's more a case of a social faux-pax of airing your private business in public by both Oswalt and Cross than a test of one's artistic integrity.

But back to Oswalt. His main strength is in surfing along the tide of the entertainment machine, and pointing out the absurdities in being part of the system. He manages to do this without descending to Cross' level of bitterness, and actually finding some good cheer in the most bizarre of circumstances. ('As I stared mournfully at the meal table at the Batman Begins premier, not eating because I wanted to be trim and thin like the stars are, Brian Dennehy, like an avenging angel, appeared at my side. 'Character actors, huh?', he exclaimed, tucking into the tasty fare. 'No one gives a fuck if we're fat!')

Bonus feature: America has spoken!

On 'Werewolves and Lollipops', Oswalt has a bit on KFC's 'Famous Bowls', where he points out how degrading it is that a major fast food chain's most popular feature is their 'Famous Bowl'. That is, a bowl with chicken bits, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cheese...all piled into a single bowl. He even went so far as to review it for The Onion's A.V. Club, here. Intrigued by his scathing review, I proceeded to try one of these things for myself. At first, no luck. We don't seem to have 'em here in Canada- most KFC's are paired up with Taco Bell, and the menu seems to be limited. Finally, on a trip to Edmonton, I lucked out. Sunday, I had me one of those things, chuckling to myself as I ordered, in Patton Oswalt's words, "The failure pile in a Sadness bowl". What, you may ask, is my take on it? Was Oswalt spoiled by all those years of fine dining? Would it beat out Curry Chicken with rice as my new favorite hot meal in a hurry?

People, it was so bad, I couldn't finish it. It is the literal definition of the word, "Glop".

This easily ties the Swanson's Hungry Man Breakfast as the worst thing I have ever eaten. For starters, the food in the bowl was grey. Grey potatoes, grey gravy, grey chicken, grey corn, grey cheese. Grey! It was hot, salty, and greasy. Like Oswalt, my cheese all melted together in a great, greasy, grey lump. I took one bite and put it aside. I got about a third of the way in and had to throw it away. Even the smell started to gross me out. If I had eaten it at home, that smell would've lingered around my place for about a week like a messy suicide. It was the type of meal that if you had fed it to a child molester/murderer in prison, he would've sued for 'cruel and unusual punishment'. And won. I guess my earlier prediction about 'fifty-nine cent Crudburgers' isn't too far off, then.

Guns 'n Drugs...

The Brave One (C-) It stars Jodie Foster, and it's directed by Neil Jordan-the 'Crying Game' and 'Michael Collins' guy, so you'd think you're getting an adult look at Foster's character dealing with the overwhelming emotions that come with being a victim of a brutal random assault. What you're actually getting is "Death Wish" for the NPR crowd. There's the shred of a good movie buried in here, esp. with Terence Howard's portrayal of a detective with a strong moral core, but in the end, it just pusses out. I realize that's an odd statement regarding a movie which shows a tiny, middle-aged woman coldly shooting young men, but there you go.



Breaking Bad (A) I didn't want to write about this series on AMC until I'd seen enough of it to figure out whether it was going to stay on the tightrope or fall off. I've maintained earlier that black comedy is the hardest genre to work in, as if you go far enough in one direction, and you're too distanced from the story to invest any further interest - like the movie, 'Wag The Dog', for instance. Head too far in the other direction, and you fall into the same pit the final third of 'Fight Club', did. (In that case, by the time the Narrator had come to his senses, so to speak, his attempt to redeem the actions of Tyler came across as fake as a death-row inmate's twelfth-hour confession...)

Breaking Bad (the not-great title refers to the American Southwest phrase of going off your rocker.) is the story of Walt White, (Bryan Cranston, the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) meek New Mexico high-school chemistry teacher who has what could be called the worst. mid-life. crisis. ever. See, not only is Walt having to work at a car-wash to make ends meet, and having his former triumph as part of a Nobel Prize-winning research team mock him, and factor in the fact that his much-younger pregnant wife and cerebral-palsy stricken son regard him as kind of like a bigger version of the family cat, but as the series starts, Walt, a life-long non-smoker, has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Well. Where your average show would handle this plot point with tearful speeches from friends and family members, poignant piano solos on the soundtrack whilst Walt gazes meaningfully into the distance, and warm-hearted reassurances from the screenwriters, Breaking Bad is not that show. Our boy Walt proceeds to 'Break Bad', and quit his job at the car wash, meet up with an old student whom he failed, and begin a partnership with the young lad that involves cooking and selling meth. And who better, you may well ask,to turn this stuff out than a Nobel Prize winning chemist. As the series progresses, schlubby Walt goes from repressed nerd to bald-headed bad ass who uses mercury fulminate to gain the upper hand in negotiating with a local big-time drug dealer. (I especially love how the show treats Walt's understanding of chemistry like a comic book hero's super power.)

Where it works the best in maintaining that balance I mentioned earlier, is in it's even-handed treatment of Walt, especially the restrained performance that Bryan Cranston gives. He goes from awkwardly begging the cashier at the oncology clinic he's being treated to not cash his check until Monday, to gleefully pounding his fists on his steering wheel over intimidating the above drug dealer to his fifty-thousand dollar payout. Actually, the series is full of awesome moments of dark comedy:

-Walt's new 'business partner' Jesse attempting to reconcile with his estranged parents, only to get kicked out again after his mom's maid discovers a joint in his room. (The joint actually belongs to Jesse's over-achieving younger brother, who thanks the outed Jesse for taking the rap.)

-Walt's hyper-macho brother-in-law Hank, a DEA agent, taking Walt's son, Walt Jr. to a hotel parking lot to show off the low-lifes and give Jr. the old nostrum about how 'Dope is for dopes'. Walt Jr. is truly bewildered at Hank, as neither one knows it was a joint from Walt which prompted this intervention.

-The White family meeting where Walt's family confront him about his reticence regarding his dealing with his cancer. It devolves into Walt's wife taking over the meeting and nagging him to get chemo. (I should point out that Anna Gunn, who plays Walt's wife Skylar, pulls off her role without becoming bitchy or shrewish.)

-Walt's giddy fantasies about seducing a college student with his masterful lecture on bonding molecules. He even imagines himself with the flowing locks of a paperback romance hero. (We later see this dream student is in fact, his former partner's wife, and the series hints at a previous affair between the two. She'll be back...)

-Walt's family car, a Pontiac Aztek, the setup and punchline when it makes an appearance.

On whether the series can maintain a consistent tone, my prognosis is good. My only worry is that with Hank sniffing around closer and closer to Walt, what'll happen if Walt's cancer goes into remission?

More Short Ones...

Shoot 'em up - (D) It's like the execrable 'Crank', in that the story is just a pretext for all the shooting and mayhem. What makes it less wretched is the charisma of the three leads, Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, and Monica Bellucci. However, since director/writer guy whatsisname decided to make the story as over-the-top as the action, the two elements are fighting against one another. As a result, the story doesn't engage the viewer, and the action, presumably why one goes to see movies like this, doesn't stimulate the viewer in even the most primal way.

3:10 to Yuma - (B) Solid remake of an old 50's western. The only trouble is that leads Russell Crowe and Christian Bale don't seem to be too engaged in their respective roles. For instance, here's Russell Crowe's character: "Ho hum, I'm the leader of a band of criminals who rob and pillage indiscriminately. There's no reason for me to hang out with these guys, since my skills are so ahead of theirs, their only practical use for me is cannon-fodder. If I don't come to respect Christian Bale's struggling farmer, there's really no point for me to be in this movie." And Christian Bale: "Yawn. I'm a struggling farmer who's volunteered to escort Crowe to a train station to take him to jail because I need the money. Also, I would like to earn the respect of my son, who seems to be idolizing Crowe." If they aren't involved, why should we be?

West Side Story - (C) Pauline Kael said it best: It's a musical for people who don't like musicals. The dancing is energetic, the sets are beautifully done, the songs are catchy, (And clever! Stephen Sondheim must've studied under the Dick DeBartolo school of songwriting.) So why does the movie leave me underwhelmed? Well, musicals are at their best when they're in the moment, that is, when everyone's singing and dancing about. So the best ones tend to have rather shallow themes. (Boy meets/loses/regains girl...) West Side Story's problem is when it tries to shoehorn social commentary into the Romeo and Juliet story. You're made to feel that you're paying for all the energetic singing and dancing with a bitter shot of righteous finger-wagging.

Much better is Singin' in the Rain (A) Damned enjoyable. It succeeds where West Side Story fails, merely by aiming a hell of a lot lower in the story department. It's an inside joke to the movie industries' transition from silent film to 'talkies'. It's slight, ephemeral, and a lot of fun.

War -(D-) When you put Jet Li in a movie with Jason Statham, you kinda expect a pretty banal story that's an excuse to give us tightly choreographed fight sequences. In fact, that's why we watch these type of movies- see 'Shoot 'em up', above. What I didn't expect was to see a fifth-rate Michael Mann style cop drama where Jet Li's talents (and Statham's) aren't put to any use whatsoever. Hokey and forgettable. (And does Devon Aoki have a terminal disease or something? Is her acting career a present from the 'Make A Wish' foundation? Feh.)

Aw, Hell, Naw!

I Am Legend (D+) Disappointing remake of the Richard Matheson story. It gets good for about 60% of the movie, then takes a short, sharp turn into the lame. The good: You get a compelling character story of how one man deals with enforced solitude for an extended period of time with no-one but a dog to keep him company, whilst being surrounded by feral mutants, no less. There's a genuinely tense moment when Robert Neville (Will 'ah, hell, naw' Smith) is caught by a trap and mutant dogs are closing. Then a Latino woman and a mute kid show up... and the movie goes to shit. I suspect it's a case of gutless focus group marketing, and the addition of one of Satan's Imps in the film industry, Akiva Goldsman, being brought on board to make the story more 'audience friendly'. Avoid.

"Time...to die..."

Blade Runner: The Ultimate Collector's Edition. (A) Movie: (B+)

Yep, it's the biggest, bestest version of Ridley Scott's flawed masterpiece available to the home viewer. The only improvement I can get now is if I get the Blu-Ray version. Firstly, it comes in a faux-steel case resembling the Voight-Kamphf carrying case. Next, you've got the five DVD discs, containing not just the Final Cut, but the previous three versions released on video. And! the rare workprint version seen only by preview audiences in Denver in 1981. Cool beans, if you're a 'Blade Runner' nerd, like me. You've also got some tchokes, like a plastic unicorn, a toy spinner, some postcards of designer Syd Mead's work, and an 'animated' film cel. The transfers are the clearest and crispest I've ever seen. Case in point, up until now, I had no idea Decker recognized Zhora by a snake tattoo on her neck during his time with the Esper. (I had assummed it was a shadow...) And an embarrassment of supplements and commentaries on the various discs. In fact, I'm kinda surprised they didn't interview the catering staff.

As for the Final Cut, while I'm not a big fan of 'Director's Cuts' on the whole, I find Ridley Scott's versions tend to err on the side of the angels. (Like his 'director's cut' of "Kingdom of Heaven", for instance.) They've cleaned up a couple of scenes, where they digitally replace Joanna Cassidy's head and upper torso during her character's death, and use Harrison Ford's son's lower head to sync up dialogue when Decker is questioning the snake merchant. My feelings on that is that it's Scott's movie, not mine, and if he wants to fix stuff that I didn't see a real problem with in the beginning, such is his right.

Now, the movie itself. Well, I recall being fourteen when I got to see it on pay-tv and being blown away. The visuals are so rich and detailed, the whole world so thought out and precise, that it understandably became the basis for an entire sub-genre of sci-fi, the 'Cyberpunk' look. The scene with Deckard and Rachel where he forces himself on her is one of the sexiest scenes in film history. The characters are so unique, and the setting so original, that when you stop to consider the story itself, its 'film noir' roots actually take away from the movie a bit. (It's a detective story where there isn't a hell of a lot of detecting...) I'd put myself on the side of the people who don't like Ford's voice-overs.

Still in all, it's a essential addition to anygeek's library.

(Bonus Feature! In 1998, Paul M. Sammon interviewed Terri Schaub, a caterer for Lights-Coffee-Action!, a craft services company operating out of Los Angeles at the time! Here's a brief excerpt...

Sammon: So what's your most common recollection of the 'Blade Runner' set?

Schaub: Well, it was a night shoot, those are always rough on everyone. You have to totally rearrange your schedule.

Sammon: Mm. What were the principal cast members like?

Schaub: Well, I recall Sean Young was a big fan of our cherry blintzs. Harrison Ford, everyone called him 'Harry', had the tuna salad sandwiches, mostly.

Sammon: Any odd requests from the cast or crew?

Schaub: Ah. Well, Rutger Hauer, being Dutch, was a quite a fan of those salted licorice treats they have. It was a bit of a struggle tracking those down at that time, I can tell you...

...and so on...)