Category: screen

After this movie, I left the theatre and went to a bar a block away and sat down just as Louisville and Kentucky tipped off in game 1 of the Final Four. It was as if the movie never stopped.

If you’ve been living in a cave without electricity, you may not know the plot of The Hunger Games. Here it is: To atone for their rebellion, each year twelve downtrodden districts send two kids (boy and girl) to play a death game in a stadium-like setting until only one kid survives. The state rigs it for maximum entertainment value, the elite watch and cheer because they think it’s glorious sport, and the kids do it for free because they have no choice or because they fantasize about the fame and fortune that only one kid can achieve.

If you’re still in that cave without electricity, you may not know the plot of the NCAA Tournament either. Here it is: To make money for big corporations and keep college costs low (jk), each year hundreds of educational institutions vie for the chance to send their basketball team to a huge tournament played in stadiums across the country until only one team is left. The not-for-profit NCAA and the TV networks commercialize it to maximize profits, people who can afford cable and have lots of leisure time watch and cheer because they think it’s glorious sport, and the kids do it for free because they have no choice or because they fantasize about fame and fortune attained only by a few.

So I rebelled. I watched the NCAA Tournament at PJ Clarkes, drinking Guinness and shoveling mini-cheeseburgers, chicken quesadillas, and warm cinnamon cookies with caramel sauce and ice cream down my throat. What I’m saying, silly, is that I rebelled against the depressing feelings brought on by The Hunger Games, not against the injustices done to college athletes.

After I got past the self-loathing, I had a constructive discussion about the movie with my wife. The conversation ranged from comparing it to Star Wars, to asking “What is happening to this world?,” to “hey man, The Road Runner had plenty of gratuitous violence.”

The movie prompts some good discussion.

It was enjoyable and it made me think, but I thought it was just an okay movie. It felt a little slow at times and the characters didn’t engage me for some reason. I didn’t read the books and I went in with very high expectations, the death knell for any movie for me. I did think the ending was cool and I liked the political undertones a lot.

I don’t know why Gail and I decided to see this. It’s basically the same genre as Harry Potter and the Twilight stuff, isn’t it? We had no compunction to see those whatsoever, yet The Hunger Games was on our screen from the get-go. Is it just a little more adult than those mentioned? Were we affected by the overt and subtle media push? Or is it just a better story? I’m going with the better story route.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to discussing it with my nieces.

Further reading:

• ‘The Hunger Games’ mirrors our ever-increasing appetite for sports violence
• Ebert’s Review
• What ‘The Hunger Games’ really means

Okay, we got us a live one here folks. I harken back to my first foray into this particularly British examination of society and it’s multi-faceted skewering of inequity: Sense and Sensibility. My wife dragged me to that movie and I had very low expectations, but I enjoyed it. Now, I go into any Brit period-piece with raised expectations, expecting to be surprised and moved, even if only the spirit of Jane Austen is at the helm.

And deliverith did season 1 of Downton Abbey. In fact, it exceeded expectations.

The normal cast of aristocrats are there; the eldest sister destined for spinsterhood, the benevolent father, the mean sister, the hot sister, the snobby grandmother, the ugly suitor, the handsome suitor, etc… But they freshen up the whole thing with a deep dive into the underclass. In other words, you get a lot more than just the loyal butler.

Screen time is probably split 50/50 between the wealthy family lucky enough to inherit the beautiful country estate and the pack of maids, footmen, servants, and butlers who keep the place running relatively smoothly. It has a soapy feel, but it’s more like a soap opera on steroids. There is such fertile ground for intrigue and tension when social mobility is impossible, even within subclasses of subclasses.

It’s set just before WW1, so the Brits were beset with internal and external struggles; European powers were settling in for war and the political fervor to grant more rights to women and undo the British aristocracy was high. Women’s rights were the same as in Jane Austen’s time, despite that fact that there was electricity, the telephone, and the machine gun. This issue of women’s rights is especially important because the featured aristocratic family has no male heirs.

Yep, that’s some serious drama.

My wife and I watched this together on Netflix streaming over a period of about four weeks (it’s about 7 hours total). It helped us break in our Apple TV and eased us into our first month without extended cable. That’s quite a transition and I’m not sure it will last. But we are doing up Bleak House next, so we’ll see.

We have us a situation here where a champion athlete is making the transition to the big screen, which is not uncommon. Many famous athletes have debuted in some respectable mainstream roles.

Jim Brown began his acting career with a supporting role in a western called Rio Conchos. Chuck Norris’ first credited role was supporting Bruce Lee in The Way of the Dragon. Arnold Schwarzeneger burst upon the scene with a staring role in Hercules in New York, a 75 minute romantic comedy.

Gina Carano had a bit part in some low budget action movie called Blood and Bone, which went straight to DVD. So by comparison, it would appear that she started at the bottom, in an even humbler role than these male stars. But, she’s making up for it quickly.

Very quickly.

She has officially arrived with Haywire, her sophomore effort. And I do mean arrived. Director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s Eleven) built this movie around Carano. Here’s the full story of how it came about from the NYT. It’s an interesting twist of fate involving Moneyball and a woman named Cyborg, of all things.

It’s a big-budget action flick with supporting roles by Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton, Ewan Macgregor, and Michael Fassbender. That’s a serious all-star cast, all devoted to supporting or thwarting the heroine, Carano, in her quest for revenge against a shady group of US government contractors and international bad guys.

I liked this flick. It was kind of muted and understated compared to, say, the Bourne franchise, often regarded as the most artful of the spy/thriller/action movie genre. Carano doesn’t talk much, runs around a lot, and gives a fair amount of steely glares. The fight scenes are short and not particularly vicious, although people do die. I’m not a fight scene aficionado (in fact, I’m a man of peace), but they didn’t seem as violent, loud, and over the top as Bourne or Kill Bill.

Her physicality is certainly evident. Early on there’s a long chase scene through the streets of Barcelona where she’s running down a bad guy. Just running. There are overhead shots, close-ups, and wide angle views. It seems to go on a long time. When she finally catches the bad guy, the fight scene is only seconds. So it’s physical but not gratuitous, the opposite of a fight-fueled, Tarantino-ish frenzy.

I think Carano can do some damage in Hollywood (no pun intended). Unfortunately, she didn’t hold up that well against a bevy of female action characters with movies (Rooney Mara, Kate Beckinsale) in her first week. Oh well. This movie may get some positive word-of-mouth effect as the weeks progress.

I’m trucking along with the same set of Baltimore cops and politicians and a few new characters. All told, I finished three seasons of The Wire in the last twelve months. That’s about 36 hours of video all consumed on my iPhone, mostly on airplanes. This show does not need a big screen.

Who needs a big screen and sound system for a thoughtful, detailed police drama like this? I save a lot of energy by just lighting the pixels on a 3.5 inch display. And it’s unrivaled in it’s convenience. I have a bottom-of-the-line Kindle, and the iPhone is even more convenient than pulling that thing out. In fact, the movie viewing experience on the iPhone is better than the book reading experience on the iPhone.

I like this show a lot because it’s packed with great stories. Jam-packed. On top of that, as it bounces between all of these stories, you get treated with bouts of wry humor, political commentary, and moving moments in such volume that you can’t turn it off. Well I can, because it’s so convenient to fire it up again.

** INSIDE BASEBALL **

As I watched this season, I jotted down great moments. Here are my top moments from season three. If you don’t watch the show, this post and these moments are meaningless or contain PLOT KILLERS, so you may want to leave. Sorry.

Episode three:

Well, McNulty’s here in spirit anyway.

Pryzbylewski, referencing Kima and some surly comments she made about shifting the focus from Barksdale drugs to homicide. It was just a simple comment, similar to what the funny person said at your staff meeting this morning, but it came from a virtual recluse with some personality problems.

Episode four:

You put fire to everything you touch McNulty then you walk away while it burns.

Lester. It needs no explanation.

Episode five:

Is you takin’ notes?

On a criminal $*&#ing conspiracy.

Stringer, who’s putting his MBA to work. He’s running a strategy session with local drug lords in a hotel conference room. He has coffee in the back and is using Robert’s Rules of Order, so one of his henchman figured he should take the minutes. Stringer reacted appropriately.

Episode six:

The Bunk speech to Omar. Blew me away.

Episode eight:

The talk between Rhianna and McNulty with 22 minutes left about D’Angelo’s suicide. Intense.

Then there’s Stringer’s death. I’m not sure what to make of it. McNulty’s reaction and the path it sets him on seem to bode a distinctly different type of show for season four. Is the Marlow/Barksdale story line dead? Are we going to have more political intrigue versus gritty street crime?

We’ll see.

I’m getting concerned that I may have a full-on movie addiction. For the second night in a row I’ve spent ninety minutes (that I’ll never get back) watching a flick on the free hotel HBO. Oh I had grand plans; in order, I was going to get back to the room, get a workout in, grab a light snack from the Courtyard by Marriott lobby bar, and catch up on emails.

Well, at least I made it through the workout.

We’ll get to the movie in a little bit, but I first I need to talk about old age. Remember that article a few weeks ago about cognitive loss starting at 45? So do I (even though I’m surprised I didn’t forget about it already). Well, I think a bigger concern for us in that 45+ age bracket is loss of the ability to focus.

At least for me it is, I can’t focus for extended periods of time like I used to. I don’t feel like my ability to reason or analyze is any worse off, but my brain fries much quicker. Once I hit about ten hours of work, I have a precipitous drop-off in my ability to stay engaged in anything. During the last two days, I’ve worked consecutive twelve-plus hour days. Coming home and working out and eating healthy and checking emails was a pipe dream.

Enter Black Swan.

So yes, I’m watching movies at a much faster clip than in the past, but this consecutive night movie-watching thing isn’t an addiction as much as it is a tired brain looking for some relief.

That’s what I’m going with, for now.

Black Swan suffered from some very high expectations on my part. I wanted to see it when it came out a year or so ago, but nobody wanted to go with me, so I was fired up when I noticed it on the little HBO guide sitting next to the TV.

It was decent. I was engrossed and held in rapt attention, but I struggled with some things.

I didn’t like Portman’s character Nina. She was always crying and mumbling and never seemed to shake out of her reverie. I expected her to be insecure and meek I guess, as the white swan, but I figured she’d be a little stronger character. And when she did rise up and stand up for herself, it wasn’t in a manner fitting for such an accomplished artist. It just didn’t sit right.

Maybe that’s the point, that she was insane and that’s how insane people act. That she didn’t know which swan was real. Okay, I’ll accept that. Her insane delusions made for a horror movie dynamic without it actually being a horror movie, which was cool. I couldn’t turn it off, but not necessarily because I was enjoying myself, more so because I was anxious. It did a great job as a thriller, for sure.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

The ending didn’t blow me away really. I wasn’t surprised when she died, but maybe nobody was. Was the surprise supposed to be how she died, after dancing the perfect white swan/black swan combination? Not sure I bought off on that completely, by killing herself before the actual fall (jump into the lake, whatever), it really wasn’t perfect was it? The fall should have killed her.

Ah, I’m sorry to nitpick. Alas, this was probably the wrong movie to watch with a fried brain because it makes you think.

I’m not proud of this. I’m not sure Gary Oldman should be proud of this either. On this very night that my wife went to see Gary Oldman in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I sat in a sorry old Courtyard by Marriott about 600 miles away and watched Red Riding Hood on the free hotel HBO.

It actually didn’t end up being that bad. I couldn’t really stop watching it once it got going. It was kind of suspenseful. It actually reminded me of that M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village. It had the same sort of suspense with a twist.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

Let’s face it, Red Riding Hood probably targets mostly teenage girls. I’m betting the nice tidy ending satisfied that group, even though grandma dies.

Certain feelings of self-loathing have entered the picture at this point; I watched this movie while my wife and a friend saw an intelligent British spy thriller with academy award aspirations. No good can come of me continuing to write any more, but I’m committed to documenting even gratuitous, non-sports TV watching.

I’m out.

My holiday movie marathon continues. I’ve had some varied experiences: a remake of a foreign thriller, a British period-piece/crime fighting buddy movie, and now, an Oscar front-running drama with a famous American actor. I won’t rank them or compare them, that wouldn’t be right.

Okay, maybe I will. Suffice it to say, I’ve really enjoyed all of them. From an emotional standpoint, this one, The Descendants, prompted the widest range of emotions. I was happy and sad. I was excited and bored. I laughed and scowled. In the end, it was a rewarding experience and I’m on board with any Oscar accolades this thing gets. Additionally, as you know, I’m a fan of family carnage, which it had going for it.

Clooney plays Matt King, a Hawaiian guy who’s family secrets get bared when his wife is severely injured in a boating accident. He, along with his two tempestuous daughters and his daughter’s friend Sid, sort through the aftermath of his wife’s accident. At the same time, Matt has to deal with the disposition of 150 acres of prime Hawaiian real estate that his family has owned forever, and for which he’s the trustee.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

Art should illuminate.

At some point in your life you’re probably going to have to sift through the wreckage of some tragedy. It could be something related to your family, your job, your friends, whatever. It could be partly your fault, all your fault, or none of your fault at all. Who knows. You won’t have any control over the details anyhow. But you can control how you react (you’ve probably heard this advice before, I just saw it the other day in some quote).

We follow Matt, his family, and his friends around for a few days and see how they react to his wife’s imminent death (she’s coming off life support soon). Actually, we follow mostly Matt. Through the course of the movie he runs through a bunch of emotions and sometimes reacts without thinking or by thinking of himself first. But in the end, he handles himself with grace and puts his feelings aside to help everyone else deal with this tragedy.

He’s a flawed person. He works long hours, is out of touch with his kids, and can’t express himself very well. But you’re pulling for him. Near the end there’s a moment where his father-in-law accuses him of being at fault for his wife’s death, which you know isn’t true. Your initial inclination is to want Matt to stand up for himself and shout back. He doesn’t. He shows restraint. He reacts the right way.

And it’s a good kind of restraint. It’s not the, “I’m keeping this bottled up inside until I blow my stack” type of restraint. He just knows the right thing to do and he does it, that’s it. And in the end, he gets rewarded with a modicum of closure.

Heavy stuff, I know, but it didn’t feel that heavy. I never really got choked up because there are so many humorous and lighter moments sprinkled in. It’s really a great movie. Just a darn good flick.

There are some great crime fighting duos in the annals of screened entertainment. Holmes and Watson can hold their own against the best of them, at least Guy Ritchie’s version can. I didn’t think this a few years ago when I left the first Sherlock Holmes so my expectations were low.

Well, as it inevitably happens when I have low expectations, I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be an exciting and humorous trip to the theatre on New Year’s Eve to see A Game of Shadows.

By the way, did I tell you that referencing the director when discussing movies increases your pop culture street cred considerably? Often, if you play it right, it could elevate the conversation to high culture.

You want to talk crime fighting duos? I’ll tell you about crime-fighting duos. My generation had:

• Riggs and Murtaugh
• Burnett and Lowrey
• Tango and Cash
• Lee and Carter

They were often characterized by one crazy guy and another guy who’s like, “Hey dude, you’re crazy, nooo way, I got a family at home and I gotta feed my fish and what you’re suggesting could be illegal …so you go ahead, and I’ll follow a few steps behind and probably get embroiled in the brouhaha anyhow, but I’m on record as saying ‘this is crazy, this is crazy’.”

Oops, that last part was from Vacation I think. That’s genre-mixing, another surefire way to jack up your pop culture street cred.

Holmes (Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Law) carry on this tradition of crime fighting duos, Holmes being the crazy guy and Watson playing the family man. They team up with Noomi Rapace, of TGWTDT fame. It looks like the original Salander is getting the best of the new Salander for now, based on the Christmas week box office. I don’t think this will last. I think the book fans will keep TGWTDT alive much longer.

A Game of Shadows had some great slow-motion action scenes, a lot of quirky humor from Downey, Jr. and Law, a very villainous villain, and a pretty exciting and inventive ending.

I give it a thumb’s up.

There are certain things I glom on to. Fixate may be a better term than glom. All kinds of different things really, and The Millennium Trilogy is one of them.

Other recent fixations:

• The Wire
• Three Floyds beer
• British spy stories
• Sue Grafton’s alphabet series
• NBA

This fixation bias could be a character flaw of some sort. I don’t really understand why I do it and it throws me a curveball every so often. The other night, a dear friend asked me, “Why are you such a big fan of Three Floyd’s?”

I didn’t have an answer. I stumbled around a little and eventually just told her something like, “I don’t know really, I just fixate on things…Squirrel!!”

I ask for Three Floyds wherever I go, I fantasize about a brewery tour, and I constantly try to push it on others. All this, and I bet I couldn’t pick it out in a blind taste test with Budweiser.

Along these same lines, I can’t really explain my fixation with The Millennium Trilogy either. Why did I decide to fixate on it instead of, say, the Mission Impossible franchise? You have every right to doubt the genuineness of my devotion to these things. Heck, part of why I write this stuff down is to make sense of these fixations. I went back and checked out my take right after I read the first book and it was somewhat enlightening.

I’m sure of this though, these things provide me with awesome sensory experiences. Excitement, anticipation, flavor, introspection …that’s all that matters isn’t it? And the sensory experience is heightened a little bit when you have some stake in it, when you take it a little more seriously, when you care. I could have gone to see the Mission Impossible flick with my wife, but I didn’t, and won’t. I went to see TGWTDT, alone, because, for whatever reason, I’m into it. I care. I’ve read the books and seen the foreign films and read all the reviews. I take my Blomkvist and Salander seriously.

It started out cool. The cover of Immigrant Song during the opening credits was awesome. I just stared in wonder as the music boomed and the black oil stuff oozed across the screen. I bought the song (oh, I already owned the Led Zeppelin version).

It stayed on pace after that. Great movie. Well done by Fincher. Relatively true to the book, at least to my satisfaction. Mara and Craig put forth solid performances as Salander and Blomkvist. I would see it again. I started re-watching the Swedish version (instantly on Netflix) to clarify some things and maybe I’ll re-read the book.

I wonder what it would have been like to see this thing for the first time. I didn’t get to feel much of the excitement and anticipation because I knew the story. There were audible gasps from theatre-goers throughout (it was jam-packed the day after Christmas). It was evident that many were familiar with the story because a lot of the gasps would occur before the shocking moments.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

Fincher made some changes, most notably the ending. It threw me a curveball because I was waiting for the trip to Australia, but it never occurred, so I blanked on the key scene. Oh well.

There are other subtleties that fans are talking about and one of them relates to the Mara/Fincher take on Salander relative to the Swedish take (played perfectly by Noomi Rapace). I thought Mara nailed Salander, don’t get me wrong, but Rapace’s version was what I envision Salander looking like. Monika Bartyzel, from movies.com seems to agree, but for reasons much more subtler than I could discern on my own. She says this:

Fincher’s Lisbeth is not Larsson’s. She is sexualized, softened, romanticized, and less empowered. Whether he intended this or not, it’s what countless critics see in the film; they don’t mind it – in fact most like it – but they’ve recognized it and have written about it.

So there’s that. See what you think. Here’s the Charlie Rose interview where Rapace makes specific reference to “inhabiting Salander” (early on, starting at 1:45). Contrast this with the Charlie Rose group discussion with everyone from the American version (Rooney Mara discusses her take on Salander at about the 19:45 mark).

Hmmm, I don’t know what to make of this issue. I’m not in touch with my subconscious enough to be able to assess if Fincher and Mara ruined Salander.

I hope they make the whole trilogy and I hope they keep the team intact. It didn’t fare well in the first weekend, but there were some big films out, so hopefully it has some staying power. Go see it.

[UPDATE]: John Kass has a take, and a familiar fixation.

This feels like the future to me. Let me start from the beginning. I saw Louis C.K. for the first time back in April on the Talking Funny special on HBO. He was kind of funny so I started following him on Twitter. I didn’t really pay much attention until I started seeing internet chatter about his self-distributed comedy special.

That stuff gets me interested. I love the idea of indie artists making a go of it on their own just using consumer level technology and marketing things via the web. That’s cool. So I followed the link to his download site from a tweet or something and paid the $5 via Paypal. What the heck? Sure, I was almost completely unfamiliar with his comedy, but I figured it was worth a shot. Heck, this stuff usually retails for $14.99 to $29.99 so it felt like a good deal.

He’s actually not very indie. He’s a well-established comedian with HBO specials and his own TV show and probably a millionaire. He anted up $250,000 and paid some professionals to record his show at the historic Beacon Theatre in New York and a web firm to build a real simple website.

It’s very well done. It’s an hour long HD movie that measures about 1.2GB (it took about 30 minutes to download). I watched it on my computer while eating breakfast and reading the paper the morning after I bought it. It has no DRM so I can do whatever I want with it. In fact, I can download it two more times and stream it twice before they lock me out. The purchase transaction was a piece of cake. I clicked buy, entered my Paypal info, then hit download.

He gave a detailed accounting of all the money he made on this thing plus gave a ton of it to charity. It’s a great read and will give you a sample of his humor, but I’ll give you a synopsis. He’s already sold over 200,000 downloads. That’s over $1 million. So far, he’s paid for the production costs ($250,000), gave big bonuses to his crew ($250,000), donated a bunch to charities ($280,000), and pocketed the rest. And that’s only been in the first few weeks.

Pretty amazing, when you consider that big companies like Apple, Amazon, Best Buy, and Sony didn’t get a cent from this. Even if you don’t like the guy’s comedy, you have to commend his efforts. He’s on the front lines, trying to make digital world work for him rather than fighting like the music industry did for so long. Here’s his plea to not torrent the darn thing:

To those who might wish to “torrent” this video: look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions.

Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I’m just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can’t stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.

Sincerely,
Louis C.K.

About his comedy – it’s for mature audiences only. Here’s a take on his comedy from a blogger named Frank Chimero. I found it through Daring Fireball. I thought the special was pretty darn funny. But the humor kind of got lost in my infatuation with the distribution methodology. I’ll move it over to my iPhone and watch it again.

This little experiment has inspired me to look for other ways to get great entertainment, at a reasonable price, that I can consume anywhere, gift easily, and support the artist directly without paying big dollars to big companies. Here are some other ideas:

• Edward Burns just made a movie for $9,000
• There are a bunch of people self-publishing ebooks
• My wife brought this online-distributed movie called For Lovers Only to my attention, but it’s direct-to-iTunes, so it’s a little different
• Leo LaPorte started his own TV station and is throwing up tons of indie content

So there are ways to go it alone, but it’s still difficult to do it without any help from a publisher, label, or distributor. Louis C.K. came darn close, but he was only able to get famous by first getting distribution with big TV. He showed some real leadership on this though so maybe other artists will be inspired.

In my other examples above everyone has plans to have a “theatrical run” or “get a publisher” or “broaden distribution with iTunes/YouTube,” which are contrary to what Louis C.K. is doing. I don’t think he’s selling this video to a label and I don’t think he’s going to put it on iTunes or Amazon. His distribution method is simple, go here. That’s all, for the rest of eternity. If you want to re-download or refer a friend to the video, you’ll just have to remember these 15 characters – buy.louisck.net.

Have we had a true indie star who stayed indie but still became a gazillionaire? I’d like to find one. Let me know if you know of any.