ArchivesMarch2008

Monday, 31 March 2008 

Movie Review: Gone Baby Gone

(1:30am) - I really need to be asleep right now, but this movie grabbed me so intensely that I had to put down some thoughts before I hit the sack.  I loved it.  I just finished the movie and all the bonus features on the DVD - I always watch "Deleted Scenes" on a DVD, if they're there, and this film had the best of them: fully completed, scored, and sounded with and without director commentary.  When a DVD has 'em like that I always watch them through once as-is, then go back with the commentary turned on - reason being I want to know *why* the director took 'em out in the first place!  See, I have yet to watch a movie where the deleted scenes would not have made the film better ... so why were they *deleted*?  Always due to pacing reasons, it appears. Do they add story information, or do they just drag it out without going anywhere?  That's what directors seem mostly concerned about.  It's frustrating - makes me wish they would add the deleted scenes *back into* the final DVD version, but I haven't seen a film yet that actually does.  Gone Baby Gone is no exception. 

But all that aside, this movie was *fantastic*.  Ben Affleck directs his brother Casey in their hometown of Boston, to the extent that Boston itself becomes a character, especially in the extended (deleted!) version of the movie opening.  Lots of long, languid shots, and a little pre-story that fully establishes Casey and his co-star Michelle Monaghan as a loving couple in business together as private detectives.  Sort of a takeoff on Hart to Hart, the old TV show (which evidently according to some bonus material is actually based on a true situation (?) ... I'll have to verify that).

The plot of the movie gets going when the two (Casey/Monaghan) are hired to find a missing four year-old, the "Baby" in the title.  If you know anything about Dennis Lehane (author of the original novel - "Mystic River" was his, too), you know there's twists in the story and you have to pay close attention all the way through to the end.  This story is highly philosophical and asks a lot from viewers - the ride is intense (very little violence - most is implied), deeply thoughtful, and disturbing.  But all the way through it's very, very entertaining.

I can't really rave enough about this movie - everyone should see it.  The film asks real-world questions about motherhood, childhood, and the true nature of both.  Who is a good mother?  A bad mother?  Is a child cursed or blessed by their environment?  Which finally has the upper hand: Nature or nurture?

Perhaps the very best aspect of the movie lies somewhere in the way it ends.  Not just the climax, but all the way through the final scene to the very end when the credits start rolling.  The movie doesn't provide all the answers; instead, we as viewers are asked to think for ourselves.  That's my definition of the best of movies.

If it isn't taking place in a galaxy far, far away ... but that's a topic for another day :)

Wish I could say more, faithful reader, but already I've said too much!  No spoilers from this reviewer - my intent is to get *you* to watch it and judge for yourself.  Enjoy :)

My rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Saturday, 29 March 2008 

Movie Review: The Insider

(1:30pm) - Intensely absorbing and interesting.  I liked it, but not as much as The Pianist (I watched both movies back-to-back via Netflix DVDs).

Al Pacino plays a "60 Minutes" producer, Lowell Bergman; Christopher Plummer plays the legendary newsman Mike Wallace; and Russell Crowe plays the tobacco industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand.

Quite a triumvirate for any movie, when you look back on it.  In 1999, though, when the movie was released, Mr. Crowe was relatively unknown, having only had major roles in LA Confidential and the low-budget Mystery, Alaska in wide release to that point.

Mr. Wigand is not a likable character - he's unreliable as a witness, but has (as we now know!) volatile information that the public needs to have.  Thus the film's major premise: how to publicize the fact that thetobacco industry is willingly addicting consumers and consciously killing them off?

I won't spoil the movie any more than that ... I'll just say that the movie was more about "60 Minutes," Lowell Bergman, Mike Wallace, and CBS scandal than about the tobacco industry!

Yes it's true: the tobacco story serves only as a backdrop to the major plot line of what's going on behind the scenes at CBS.  I felt a little bit betrayed: I wanted to hate the tobacco industry more than I did.

All in all, though, it was a great movie, and shed some light on a troublesome topic in recent history.  In my family, as well: I have a cousin who worked as a lawyer for a firm in defense of the tobacco industry during the landslide of lawsuits that followed.  There was a lot of typical bureaucratic intrigue, both at CBS and at Brown & Williamson ... along with areal death-threat Mr. Wigand received, the source of which ... well, you'll have to watch it yourself to find out.

So the episode touches me personally in a distant, abstract way.  There were parts rich with "spy vs. spy" moves and counter-moves.  It kept me interested, and I liked the movie as a whole.  I just wish I'd known, going in, that it was more about CBS than big tobacco.

My rating: 7.5 of 10 stars.

Movie Review: The Pianist

(1:00pm) - In a word: fantastic.  I've had a lot of experience with World War II movies, history, and both fiction and non-fiction accounts of life in that era.  Some of it from my family.

This movie was as gritty and well-made as Saving Private Ryan, with much less of Ryan's blood and gore.  It was as thoughtful and realistic as Schindler's List, with all the meaning of the value of human life Spielberg gave Schindler.

This one was directed by Roman Polanski, and the "Making of..." on the DVD points out that some of the abuse in the movie was actually experienced by Roman's own family during the German occupation of Poland.

Wladyslaw Szpilman was a renowned pianist already famous during the 1930's.  While giving a radio performance live, bombs tear apart the studio and everybody runs.  Vladyslaw makes it back home where his family is discussing the merits of evacuating versus staying.  They end up staying - and thus the story is born.

It was fascinating to see the realism of that very conversation.  Looking back, it's unbelievable that even one Pole could conceive of the Nazi regime as beneficial, but without knowing what was to come, it seemed realistic ... at the time.

Mr. Szpilman becomes a witness to Nazi atrocities, as he attempts to make his way through life without succumbing to the horrors he witnesses.  For us, his eyes are our eyes: we cannot do anything to prevent what happened, and it seems neither could he - the only time he actually gets personally involved, trying to rescue a child escaping from a tunnel after raiding the "free world" outside the Warsaw Ghetto, the child dies in his arms.

Distraught but unable to process this horror, he simply drops the child and stumbles on his way ... looking back only once.

His own rescue at the hands of a fellow Jew turned Nazi-sponsored policeman occurs much the same way: it seems to just  happen.  It happens to him (and through him, to us) with no effort on his part.

Throughout the movie, the careless cruelty of the Nazi occupiers (well known by now) is accurate yet still horrific.  I was tied down by battleship chains through the entire movie ... I couldn't tear myself away.

My rating: 9.5 of 10 stars.
-- A perfect "10" if I were also a pianist.  But I'm just a .... (never mind.)

Friday, 28 March 2008 

More coming tomorrow ...

(1:30am) - Man, I'm beat.  If I hadn't felt the soul-searing need to describe the travesty that is the film version of Aeon Flux (below), I would have told you about watching The Pianist and The Insider a few days ago, and about my big job at work today: laminating 350 separate sheets of paper.  

The movies will come tomorrow....  The laminating?  Yes it's boring, but I'm proud of it.  It took over four hours - but I did it with enthusiasm and a dedication to quality work that fried my brain ;)

My brain, my eyes, my arms, and my legs were numb afterward - even though I did take a good 20-minute break.  So I went to "The Junction" and played trivia for four more hours, had some wine, and recovered my wits.  

(Only to waste said wits on Aeon Flux ... but I digress.)

Peace!

Aeon Flux: *Almost* the worst movie ever made

(1:00am) - Just saw this movie via Netflix ... I'm watching some bonus material now.  Trust me when I tell you that if you see this movie, you'll likely need to watch the extras, too, in order to understand what you just watched.  

The movie is  based on one of MTV's original non-music-video shows from the mid-80's.  I remember watching it - animated, dystopian, extremely violent and sexual, only 2 to 3 minutes long each, and believe it or not: the main character, Aeon Flux, *died* at the end of every episode. 

Seriously!  She was shot, mulched, sliced, diced, bloodied, broken, and very, very dead ... differently in every episode, of course, only to be reborn for the next episode.  The creators of South Park ("Oh my God!  They killed Kenny!") took their cue from Peter Chung, who created Ms. Flux, I'm sure.

For that reason alone, I never really got it ... Aeon Flux was cool to look at on MTV, but since she died every time, I didn't really care about her.  Peter Chung was involved in making the movie, and he's shown in the extra material.  He says that back in the 80's, he was just trying to push the boundaries ... just trying to see what he could do.  I read between the lines and I'm left with, "I just wanted to find out what sex and violence they'd let me put on cable TV!!!"

OK - so back to the movie ... 

It never should have been made.  The only redeeming features are Charlize Theron in tight leather (yowza!) and a plot that was actually somewhat worth following.  I wish I could say the movie was good - but it just isn't.  First of all, I felt that the animation style was not conducive to live-action.  I can't describe it - you'd have to see it to believe it, which you can, if you like.  It's on YouTube - click here for an episode, with links to more.  Second, they gave a plot to a movie based on a concept that never had a plot.  Finally, the surreal and other-worldly atmosphere of the animated world can't be reproduced using live action.

In short ... a very cool concept back in the day.  Sickening, revolting, and absolutely new-agey.  But resurrecting it for the big screen was a bad idea.

My rating: 2 out of 10 stars.
-- One star for Charlize Theron (rrrrowr!), and one star because the plot is somewhat interesting.

Friday, 21 March 2008 

Eckhart Tolle's book: A New Earth

(10:30pm) - Fantasmagorical ;) !!!

Gotta share with you the goodness that is this book.  Ever since 1945, when earthly science achieved technology sufficient to wipe out the entire human race, we've been at a crisis point.

My visualization of that crisis point is an enormous see-saw.  Glorious goodness is on the high side (too feeble), and all of humanity in its insanity and warlike antagonisms on the low side (stronger and mightier).  The current state of affairs has always been that way: if you believe the Bible, it goes back to Adam and Eve getting kicked out of Eden.  Original Sin and all that.  Taoist and Buddhist monks trying to shed the trappings of the material world and achieve enlightenment.  The see-saw must either balance or tip towards the good - or life as we know it will end.  Not with a bang, but a whimper.  Say goodbye to everything important ... if we as a species don't end war and personal resentment as acted out on a global scale.

I'm reading this book, and watching the world-wide webcast that every week discusses a new chapter, along with a million other people via Oprah.com.

I would like to issue a friendly challenge to all my readers.  Read the first chapter of the book (even if you just go to a bookstore and sit down without buying it) and then email me with a list of all the ways Chapter One violates the basic codes of your religious beliefs.  I am guessing that list will be rather short!

Seriously.  Read it ;) !!

Movie Review: Seraphim Falls

(4:30pm) - This movie is a western, set in 1868.  It is a very powerful statement regarding revenge.  It's very biblically allegorical, I think, because there's a lot of scenes with a Bible and/or a preacher.  "Gideon," named after the archangel and well played by Pierce Brosnan, is the target - obviously a biblical reference there, but I don't understand the significance myself.  Liam Neeson is "Carver," the man seeking revenge upon Gideon with feverish and obviously maniacal ferocity. 

The movie is just under two hours in length.  It very, very slowly builds to the climax, with a satisfying payoff at the end.  Satisfying in my opinion, anyway.  Once the reasons why Carver is so hot to kill Gideon are revealed, everything becomes clear and the rest of the movie clicks.  It just takes a little too long to get there.

I believe most movie watchers would think this one too slow-moving.  But I love a good western and feel this is a good example.  A good western, to me, feels very atmospheric.  The best examples of this are, in my opinion, Once Upon a Time in the West and Unforgiven.  An example of a non-atmospheric western would be Silverado - its focus is on comedy and action, not with building a feeling of suspense or realism.  Grittiness ... dirt ... and violence ... they're necessary pieces of a good, atmospheric western.  Seraphim Falls is all of this.

Back to the satisfying payoff: without spoiling anything, I can't say much, except to say how it made me feel.  A good barometer for me is how often I check the time remaining in the movie.  If I'm often hitting 'display' to check the elapsed time, I'm bored.  I did at first, but as the movie progressed, I stopped.  The final 45 minutes were engrossing enough (though still slow and atmospheric, which is GOOOOOOD) to keep me from checking the time.

I'm starting to ramble, so I'll just sum up by saying I really enjoyed it.  Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan are great, the pacing was langorous but to good effect, and the ending was worth every minute.  I think the reveal of Carver's motivation could've come earlier; the full story doesn't come quickly enough for me.  There are a few clues to give a general idea, but I think the chase would've been more enjoyable to watch if Gideon's actions in earning Carver's hatred were more clear.  All in all, I get the message: Revenge is never a good thing - "a dish best served cold." 

My Rating:  8.5 out of a possible 10 stars.

A BEE-YOO-TEE-FULL Day!

(2:00pm) - There's bright sunshine outside, it's 62°, and Lake Wylie is full up to the level it was before the drought struck in earnest last summer.  Maybe even a little higher :)

I'm feeling good; I'm back living at the lake house after wintering with my sister and her family 20 miles away in York, SC.  There's still a box of important paperwork, including condo-related material necessary for listing my Atlanta home, still at 'Becca's house.  But that'll give me something to occupy my time when I'm there and nothing important is happening.  (Though that sort of time is rare because the energy at their house is always running at a break-neck pace.)

It's quieter and more conducive to quiet and meditation here at the lake house in Belmont, NC.  I need it right now.  I may have a job, now, but my mind still races and I haven't quite come to grips with having a psychotherapist (and monthly appointments with him), but I feel a strong connection to God, Tao, the Great Spirit, or whatever the forces that control us may be ...

Some quiet time is a good thing right now.

Let me be clear, please ....:  I'm not complaining about my sister, nor am I at all unhappy when I spend time with her, James, or their children.  As a matter of fact, I'm immensely happier and more together when I'm there.  More *myself*.  I am healthier spiritually, physically, mentally, and socially.

Which means I'm not feeling anti-social, I'm not being depressive (or manic, for that matter) ... I'm just trying *to come to grips* with whatever that overall Great Spirit is, and my place in His/Her grand creation that is the universe in all it's Grand Immensity.

It's a very, very good day to be me.  Right now I'm going to get on Netflix to watch Seraphim Falls, a western I've wanted to see for a long time.  I'll post a short response to it here after I'm done.

Ciao for now....

Peace!

Wednesday, 19 March 2008

Playin' catch up....

(7:30pm) - You may wonder why I did not post a single entry between Jan 30 and today.

I claim "computer fatigue" and overall busy-ness.  I guess, though, I should fill in the gap.

I came back to Charlotte from San Diego on Thursday, Feb 14th.  Sometimes it's convenient not having a girlfriend.  Anyway, I never posted before 2/14 because I was having too much fun off-line out there, and had spent too much money already just checking email.  So between 1/30 and 2/14 I let AAALLLLLL my email pile up.

Between Friday, 2/15 and Monday, 2/18, I house-sat for my sister, who took the long President's Day weekend camping in Ocala National Forest (Florida) with her family.  I got reacquainted with the dogs after my long absence: Goldie and Rocky.  Over that weekend, I started to get caught up on my email backlog, bill payment backlog, and various other things online.

I spent a number of days the week of Monday 2/18 at the lake house unpacking, lounging around, doing some chores, and finishing the email.

The rest of February was mostly concerned with bills: tallying up the cost of the San Diego trip, and getting my March budget in order.  All of that required more computer time.  Additionally, I got back into the swing of working around the office with 'Becca (my original part-time job).  Most of that was computer time as well.

I did some more house-sitting for my sister 3/8 and 3/9.  Finally, I spent all of this past week on the road: March 11 to 14 in Atlanta (checking in on the condo), and Saturday, March 16th in High Point, NC (Stellar-Con).

All of this and the rest I haven't reported here was done against the bleak backdrop of unemployment.  The vague stress of that, coupled with computer fatigue, equals no blog posts from Scotty.

If you haven't read about my new job yet ... keep reading below :)

Peace...

Employed again!

(6:30pm) - Congratulate me: I have a 2nd part-time job now.

It's working for one of those strip-mall mail centers, like "Mailboxes, etc."  This one is called "AIM Mail Center" and includes retail office supplies, greeting cards, and copy services, as well as shipping via FedEx, UPS, and the US Postal Service.  This is the corporation website; our location is a franchise.

Phew ... today I began training, working four hours, 10am to 2pm.  Man, I had no idea there were so many options to mail a single package.  It's going to be about "10-30 hours a week" according to the owner, so I'm going to guess an average of between 10 and 15.  Not much work, but it will definitely help with my bills.  

Borrowing less from family ... always a good thing!