Thoughts: Stop Dr. Uwe Boll Petition

I really had to laugh when I heard about this petition. It's popped up on several film sites now including Total Film and FilmSchoolRejects. I know I've mentioned previously how much crap I think his movies are. And I'll stand by that. However, I feel like this petition is mostly just silly. I don't really believe that he'll stop making movies and honestly I'm not sure I believe he should stop anyway. I think it's completely lame that he's able to make films when other people, who probably deserve it more, can't but still. Freedom of expression, being able to do what you love, all that. If making crap makes him happy, then more power to him. I'm just not going to watch it.

However, if you're so inclined, feel free to sign yourself. Or at least join me with a good giggle:
Stop Dr. Uwe Boll Petition

Thoughts: Punch-Drunk Love

I love Paul Thomas Anderson. To the point being a little fangirl-ish. Normally I reserve my fangirl excitement for the cute faces of actors like Josh Hartnett or Johnny Depp. However, I occassionally get just as excited over someone working behind the scenes. The combination of Wong Kar Wei and Chris Doyle, for example.



PTA is by far my favorite of the moment. I loved There Will Be Blood with a fangirl's blindness. (What do you mean you liked No Country For Old Men Better????) I think Boogie Nights is utterly brilliant. And Magnolia? I may not ever completely understand the frogs but I still think it's genius.

With all of that, I've just now gotten around to seeing Punch-Drunk Love. Why the long wait? I have no idea. There are just so many movies out there that occasionally, or frequently, I don't come even close to seeing all of the ones I want to. Netflix helps but what I really need is more than 24 hours in a day.

Punch-Drunk Love is not my favorite PTA film. I think it's good, there are elements I think are great, but overall I found myself unable to fully connect with the story. The first half is incredibly slow and while Adam Sandler's performance is actually very good, I found the film lacking in humaness. I felt like I was being kept at a distance when I desperately wanted to be engaged.

As the story develops and more characters are introduced things improve. By the second half I was completely involved and very happily so. I think what really helped to crack the ice more than anything was Emily Watson. I think she's a great actress and she is beyond adorable in this movie. And while her wide eyes frequently convey a sense of childish wonder and innocence, she is capable of expressing an impressive range of emotion. I really feel like her performance in this film is spot on.

While this film is filled with the bits that I've come to look for in PTA's work, it's not his strongest film. Which I'm sure he all ready knows. However, with strong performances and visual style that grew on me as the film progressed, it's worth seeing. I don't think other fans of PTA will be disappointed.

Thoughts: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Dude. I have Nick Cave in my head so bad. I'm obsessed with Dig, Lazarus, Dig! I've always liked Nick Cave. I guess with his new Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds coming out in like a week I might be a little excited. Go figure.

I think the video is kind of rad too.





Also, you other X-Files fans, you remember this one?





I love you Nick Cave. You make me happy.

New Album available in the states April 8th. Rock out to that mustache. You know you want to.

Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

There is something seductive about the idea of two of cinema’s most striking leading ladies being featured in a sensuous, lush historical drama. The idea becomes even more enticing when you place a gentleman with dark, searching eyes between them. And just as different opinions on religion flow in out of fashion in the Tudor court, the historical drama itself has thrust itself into the forefront of our movie going conscience; the season is ripe for films like Focus Features’ The Other Boleyn Girl.

In this adaptation of Phillipa Gregory’s excellent novel, the forces of Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman are combined. They are cast as the Boleyn sisters, Johansson as the innocent, light Mary and Portman as the dark, dangerous Anne. Gregory’s story is one filled with seduction, greed, lust, betrayal, obedience, and, most significantly, ambition. She weaves together fact and fiction to tell a famous story from the outsider’s eyes. The eyes of the other Boleyn girl, the eyes of Mary.

While it’s true that Gregory does use a bit of literary license in her novel, she stays to true the overarching facts of history. She creates a story that is both entertaining and intriguing. A story that challenges the reader to take sides, to dare to judge the people involved, and then shows in the end how we are all merely, simply human.

Where the novel succeeds in it’s richness of detail, bringing to life the court of King Henry VIII, the film unfortunately fails. I mention the novel’s strengths to offer a counterpoint to the film’s weaknesses. Where Gregory plays with facts to enhance the story, the filmmakers change facts completely for a purpose that I could not fathom. Where Gregory gives us rich details that add depths and bring the reader’s imagination to life, the film is overblown, silly, and pretentious. Where Anne, Mary, and George Boleyn of Gregory’s imagination are siblings whose complicated relationships are at once believable and sympathetic, the film’s Boleyn’s are dense and unremarkable.

The film’s director Justin Chadwick and cinematographer Kieran McGuigan are able to paint a pretty picture but there is nothing of substance beyond it. Which in itself seems to miss the point of the story they are attempting to tell. I found the stylistic decisions to often be distracting. When your production design is as gorgeous as this film’s, I want to see it, I don’t want half of my frame obscured by some random foreground object, the other half out of focus.

However, I think the biggest fault is in the writing. I don’t understand the choice to open the film as they did, with King Henry visiting the Boleyn estate and having Anne thrown at him. It is one of many departures from both the novel and history and serves only to offer us a drawn out and completely unengaging representation of events. The entire first act is slow moving, fails to develop any of the characters, and left me not caring one bit about anyone.

The development of Anne and Mary gradually improves as the plot unfolds but this has more to do with the strength of the performances than anything else. At least by the end of the film I had a sense of who these two women were supposed to be, if nothing else.

What I really do fail to understand though is the reasoning behind all of the changes that are made. Having read Gregory’s novel I know that while long it is certainly an adaptable story. The film’s greatest flaw is its failure as this adaptation. Rather than focusing on one element, one protagonist (which sensibly should have been Mary since that’s whose story the novel tells) the film cannot make up its mind and as a result it is no one’s story. It becomes a string of plot points. A boring history lesson in which the history you’re learning is not even a history you can trust.

Which I suppose brings up questions such as what is a version of history that can be trusted? Since the storyteller easily manipulates truths, events come to mean whatever those relating them want them to mean, etc. And if I thought something like was what the filmmakers were trying to give us then, well, that could have been thought provoking at least. But I don’t think that is what they were trying to do and their point had about as much presence as Eric Bana’s King Henry (that is to say, not a lot).

The Other Boleyn Girl is another pretty face with absolutely nothing behind it. It loses its charms after first glance and never gives the viewer anything worthy of a second look. If historical drama is the fashion you crave, the novel is available in any major bookstore.

Trailers: Medicine for Melancholy @ SXSW

I've talked in this blog a little about indie film and DIY film making. Mostly in regards to the small film several of my friends were making in San Francisco last fall. Well, now they have a trailer and their film will be premiering at the South By Southwest Film Festival this spring. I'm excited for them and proud and I just wanted to share the news here.



Check out the trailer. And if you want to know more about SXSW, check out their website here: SXSW

Review: The Messengers

It looked promising: A creepy old house, an unsuspecting family, something disturbing in the walls. There were whispers of real life phenomena, there was speculation about what a small child is able to perceive.

And then… there was mediocrity.

The marketing campaign for The Messengers had me. I have to admit it. I love ghost stories, I love being creeped out, and when I heard that the Pang brother’s were directing a new film set in a dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of America’s heartland, I was a little excited. I loved, still love, their enormously effective The Eye (the unfortunate remake starring Jessica Alba is currently in theaters). The Eye is great; it’s well directed, well acted, and genuinely scary. Beyond all that though, it has a good story. A good story in a ghost flick? Go figure.

The website and trailer for The Messengers had me going and when it was released, I saw it in the theater, by myself. I was completely prepared to be freaked out. Was I? Well, I guess a little bit at moments but for the most part, not really.

The Messengers is about Roy and Denise and their two children Jess and Ben. After an act of rebellion has nearly fatal consequences for Jess and her little brother, Roy decides to move the family away from urban life. The idea is to take Jess away from the bad influences and to give their family a fresh start. This fresh start is to happen on a run down farm in the middle of South Dakota.

Bright yellow sunflowers clash with dark rotting wood. Peace is interrupted by mayhem. There is something not right in the old house. Jess is the first to suspect but it’s the story of the boy who cried wolf. After everything that’s happened, Jess has no credibility and her parent’s think she is merely seeking attention.

Take a dysfunctional family and throw a couple of mysterious strangers, a few ghosts, and some pissed off crows into the mix… and you get a bit of a mess.

The characters aren’t bad, the acting is okay, the movie looks good, there are a few suspenseful moments, but things just never come together. The cast is not bad with Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, and John Corbett all featured. William B. Davis (The Cigarette Smoking Man in The X-Files) even has a cameo.

I do wonder what it is about Asian horror that just does not work in American films. I hate the idea of remakes but after watching so many of them I’ve come to the conclusion that the remake part is not what makes them bad. I think it’s possibly cultural but I certainly don’t know enough to draw any more conclusions than that.

Whatever the reason is, aesthetics that work so well in The Eye fail to enthrall in The Messengers. What we get in the end is a mediocre ghost story with a couple of scares, mildly likeable characters, and an overly complex ending that really does not work. It’s disappointing but hey, at least it wasn’t another remake. At least the Pang brothers attempted to do something original. They should get credit for trying.

Thoughts: Is the end in sight?

At this point we're all just watching and waiting. Some people are optimistic. I think for most of us, we'll believe it when we see it. I'm not going to hold my breath but it would be nice if the rumors were true.

Indicative of the general mood I think:

Portrait From The Strike

PORTRAIT FROM THE STRIKE
Devastating trickle-down effect to the writers strike
Stagehands decry the disregard studio and union leaders have for those further down the entertainment food chain.
By Paul Brownfield, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 1, 2008
"Peace at Last?" said the headline in Variety.

Michael O'Donnell, a leadman and set dresser, had brought a copy of the Hollywood trade paper for his friend, Joe Sabella, a foley artist. On this day in mid-January, the news was that the Directors Guild of America had reached a new contract agreement with the Assn. of Motion Picture and Television Producers -- a deal, it was now hoped, that augured movement toward a settlement between striking writers and the AMPTP.

But for O'Donnell and Sabella -- who are part of that vast and largely forgotten below-the-line class of skilled entertainment industry labor -- the "peace at last?" question was not greeted just by hope but also a fair measure of cynicism and disillusionment. FOR THE RECORD:
Writers strike: An article in Friday's Calendar section about how the Writers Guild of America strike is affecting two members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees identified Charlie O'Donnell as the longtime announcer on "Jeopardy." He is the announcer on "Wheel of Fortune." —


"Both of them are failing their membership horribly," was O'Donnell's assessment of the WGA and AMPTP leaders.

There are signs that the strike might be approaching settlement, now that negotiators for both sides have resumed talks. But over lunch at an un-crowded Twain's coffee shop not far from the CBS-Radford lot, O'Donnell and Sabella conveyed mostly frustration.

From their vantage point, this three-month-old writers strike amounts to an esoteric dispute between fat cats, less a face-off based in principle than in ego and grandstanding. Put another way, O'Donnell and Sabella don't see a Democrat debating a Republican onstage; they just see two guys in suits, and out of touch with the people hit the hardest.

"This is a factory town," O'Donnell said, later adding, "If we were in Detroit we'd be making Thunderbirds."

Given their union affiliation -- Sabella and O'Donnell belong to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE -- you'd think they'd naturally ally themselves with the WGA picketers.

But in fact, over a 90-minute discussion, their ire was directed more at their union brethren, particularly the political leadership at the top: WGA President Patric Verrone and chief negotiator David Young.

"Non-concern" was the term Sabella would later use, struggling to find a word that captured the disregard from above for people like him, put out of work.

Joining them for lunch were Sabella's wife, Alexandra, and O'Donnell's ex-wife, Gail. Gail O'Donnell has phoned everyone from NBC-Universal chief Jeff Zucker to President Bush, alarmed that higher political powers have remained silent as the local economy suffers.

If the men conveyed resignation, the women wore their fear more readily. Alexandra Sabella brought out a copy of a letter written in November by IATSE International President Thomas C. Short to Verrone, criticizing WGA chief negotiator David Young for public comments in which Young seems to revel in "the havoc I've wreaked." (Young subsequently has claimed that he was misquoted.)

A comment like that trickled down to the table at Twain's as indicative of the "non-concern."

Sabella, 54, has a daughter in school in Thousand Oaks and a monthly nut of around $8,000, he said. To fill up his time and bring in some cash, he's been waxing motorcycles and cars, a longtime vocation.

As a foley artist, it is Sabella's job to provide much of the ambient, naturalistic sound audiences take for granted. When the strike hit, Sabella was working on all the "CSI" procedurals on CBS.

For instance, if characters are doing an autopsy, "we do the cutting into the flesh, the opening of the flesh," he said.

O'Donnell, 52, the leadman/set dresser, says he normally has to "hump a 90-hour week to take on two grand." He knows the business all too well; his father, Charlie O'Donnell, is the longtime announcer on "Jeopardy."

As a leadman on movies, he works closely with the set decorator, building up worlds and breaking them down; on "Terminator 3," for instance, that involved turning a vacant lot into a veterinary clinic and back again into a vacant lot.

With a mortgage to pay on his Toluca Lake condo, he's been working on an idea for a children's TV show and is playing more guitar, jamming with other set dressers.

On the one hand, O'Donnell and Sabella understand the principle behind the WGA strike, the need to fight for a fair share of whatever revenue streams emerge from new media.

"The sons and daughters of the idle rich," was what O'Donnell called the people who run the studios.

Mostly, though, they just want to get back to work -- even if these past three months have been a painful reminder that, to the creative community and the studio executives, guys like them are pretty much just needed when they're needed.

Sabella would later compare himself to a tool in a drawer. "If we get tarnished and worn, they'll just throw us away and get new ones," he said. "We're a tool, and we'll be there when they open the drawer. Ready to work again."

Thoughts: Heath Ledger

I was talking to a friend of mine a few weeks ago about The Dark Knight. It was just after I had finally seen the trailer on the big screen and I had to share my excitement with someone. The Dark Knight looks fantastic but there was one thing in the trailer that had really gotten us both going. Or rather, one person. I don't think I need to tell you who that was.

Last week I was sitting at my desk, muddling through my To Do List. Our Assistant Location Manager came in and made an announcement. "Did you guys here about Heath Ledger? They just found him dead in his apartment."

Wait. What?

I've been wanting to write something about Heath Ledger. Something about how saddened I am by his death. Something about how he was one of the few young actors that I was truly excited about. Maybe even something about how, purely selfishly, I'm incredibly disappointed that I will never have the opportunity to work with him.

However, what do I really have to say that no one else can say? When it comes down to it, I didn't know the guy. I've never even seen him in real life. I just know and respect his work. I appreciate his talent. But I have nothing really beyond that to say.

So rather than just being another fan lamenting his death, I'll say simply that I'm sorry he's gone. I feel for his family and friends. And I'm sorry that we won't have any more of his work to look forward to after this summer's Dark Knight.

Now while I can't really say much more than that, someone who knew him most certainly can. I'll leave you here with this then. A very nice piece by The Dark Knight's director, the wonderful Christopher Nolan.

Heath Ledger: dedication and passion of a star

Review: The Mist

Originally posted at Epinions

There's this thing that happens when a Stephen King story is adapted into a film. It doesn't always, always happen. But it usually does. What is it? It's that Stephen King's stories, tales of horror, terror, survival, and human nature, stories that read so well on the page, become, well, bad. Almost every single story to be adapted into a film fails to translate onto the screen. Most Stephen King films look like cheap made for TV crap (which, granted, many of them are).

There are of course the notable exceptions. Among them are Brian De Palma's Carrie, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Rob Reiner's Stand By Me and Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption. Not only is Shawshank Redemption a great adaptation, it is a great film frequently listed at the top of Best Of... lists. In addition to Shawshank, Darabont has also given us The Green Mile. While not topping Shawshank it to is a great adaptation. So when Darabont decided to give us yet another Stephen King story, The Mist, I'll admit it. I was a little excited.

The Mist is an adaptation of the novella by the same name that appeared first in Dark Forces and then again in the short story collection Skeleton Crew. It's the story of David Drayton and what happens when a mysterious mist envelops his hometown in Main. A violent storm rips through Main, wreaking havoc and destroying property. The following day, as the people take stock of the damage, a strange mist descends upon them from the hills to north. Hills that are home to a military base and the mysterious Arrowhead Project.

David, his young son Billy, and their neighbor Brent Norton make a trip to the supermarket where many others have come to stock up on supplies. While in the market, the mist rolls in. As the outside world disappears from view, the earth shakes and everything seems to stop. In the silence a single man runs through the white. "There's something in the mist!" he screams. Blood pours from his nose. Frightened, the people in the market shut the glass doors against the acrid smelling mist, against whatever else is lurking in it.

What follows is a survival story that has Stephen King's fingerprints all over it. We are introduced to a cast of characters including David, an artist known for his movie posters, Norton, a slick talking lawyer from New York, Ollie Weeks, an unassuming employee of the market, Amanda Dunfrey, the new teacher in town, Irene, Dan Miller, Bud Brown, and finally, Mrs. Carmody.

Played by Thomas Jane (The Punisher), David is the classic King hero. A regular guy, a family guy, a strong guy with a head on his shoulders who manages to stay cool in an extreme circumstance. Amanda (Laurie Holden) is the classic King heroine. She's hot, she's sexual, she doesn't need a man and therefore she's a woman who every man wants. While The Mist is definitely Thomas Jane's movie, Marcia Gay Harden comes within a hair's distance of stealing it from him. As the doom saying, sacrifice preaching Mrs. Carmody, Harden is as frightening as she is passionate. While, again, this is Jane's movie, Harden's performance is close to being the best part of it.

The Mist is different kind of King story than Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. While Stephen King is known for his horror, his supernatural stories, there are variations. Some stories are more tails of humanity that happen to contain a couple of elements of horror. Some stories however are meant to scare. They are stories of monsters, death, of things that go bump in the night, they are tails about things that would make most of us lose our sanity before we could even fully comprehend what we are facing. Shawshank Redemption is story of human nature; The Mist is a story of survival, a story of terror. The thing I was most interested to see was how Darabont would handle this different kind of Stephen King story.

For the most part, he handles it very, very well. The actors, the characters they play, how Darabont goes about shooting a film that spends most of its time in one interior location. All of these things work. What also works are the small details. A character decides to leave the store, to make a run for his truck. David asks him to tie a clothesline around his waist, so they can see how far he gets. At first the rope plays out as it should. Then, it stops. The people in the store wait tensely, their breaths held. Finally, the rope moves again. There is a sigh of relief followed quickly by a cry of terror. The rope flies through David's hands, burning his palms. And then, it not only pulls out faster than any human could pull it, it starts to slide upward. Up and up until it hits the top of the door. It pulls taught and finally, it stops again, falling harmlessly to floor. What that bit shows is not only that something has gotten the man outside, it shows quietly, visually, exactly how unimaginably large whatever the thing hiding in the mist actually is.

Little bits like this work very well. Unfortunately there are other bits that don't reach the same successful level. I think the biggest problem Darabont has in his adaptation is, well, his adaptation. While he has made changes, he has his additions, there is so much that he has taken almost word for word from the story. What works so well on the page does not always work on the screen. There are scenes that seem written by a fan boy, scenes almost comical in how literally they take King's story. I'm all about fidelity in an adaptation but there is a line before it becomes too much. Darabont regrettably crosses that line several times.

In spite of this one fallback, for the most part Darabont succeeds in giving us a gripping story of horror and humanity. And, as in the story, the key to survival becomes a question of where the greatest danger exists. Is it outside with the monsters in the mist? Or is it inside with monsters in our hearts? What I find most interesting about Darabont's adaptation is that where it stays so close to the story for so much of it, in the end it moves so far away. One thing that King is best at is giving us the ambiguous ending. He takes the story so far and then he leaves us. And while in some ways we may want to know if our heroes live or die, in another his endings are very satisfying because they always leave us at just the right moment. They give us enough and what we are left with are ambiguities in our characters' fates that compliment whatever story King is trying to tell.

Darabont takes The Mist one step farther than King does. We see our characters' fates. As a result, I feel like the ambiguity still exists but it serves a different purpose. Where in King's story Mrs. Carmody and her fanaticism are an absolute evil, in Darabont's film I'm not as sure as to what it is the message is supposed to be. The ending Darabont gives us at first was a complete shock and I kind of liked it. Rather than hold back, he punches his audience in the gut, hard. However, after more thought I'm not sure how I feel about it because it colors the rest of the movie. What is Darabont trying to say about David and the others? I know how I want to feel, how I want to interpret things, but the ending of the film doesn't let me go completely the direction I want to go. So in this moment I think I have to say that I prefer King's ending. It's not that it's uncomplicated or easy, it's just that I think it's more successful in having a stance and getting a point across. I don't feel like Darabont ever gets there. I don't feel like he has a clear stance, I don't feel like his message is decided.

Really though, just taking The Mist for what it is, a horror story set in a supermarket with various people fighting for survival, it's a really good time. It kept me entertained, I liked the people I was watching, and overall I really enjoyed it. And there it is. Not the best Stephen King adaptation ever made but still. The Mist is a competent, well done film with a good story. It's a Stephen King movie actually worth your time.

Review: Into The Wild

Originally posted at Epinions

Every once in a long while I see a film that really touches a nerve. A film that tells a story I can relate to, a story that is in some way my own. Into The Wild tells a story that is not only mine, it is a story that a million others share with me. There are films that dive into our psyche, explore themes, feelings, and ideas that we all, at one time or another, have experienced. Into The Wild is one of those films.

For me, I think it’s the fact that the story is about 23-year-old Chris McCandless, a college graduate disillusioned with the life set before him. He takes off across country, leaves everything behind, cuts off all ties. He experiences a freedom most of us can only dream of.

In terms of my life, where I’m at: I’m a 24-year-old college graduate who only recently decided to stop driving around the country, pick a place to live, and attempt to settle into a somewhat normal (and I mean that in the loosest sense) lifestyle. It’s a change that is hard at the best of times and watching Into The Wild I longed to be back behind the wheel of my car, driving to some new place I’ve yet to see.

Of course, in all of my travels I never cut up my credit cards, burned my money, and my parents always knew where I was. So watching Chris I was even a bit envious. Because I always saw those turn-offs on the highway, I always wondered where they would leave me, but I only ever made the turn once or twice. And I always ended up at my planned destination.

That’s where Into The Wild hits for me. It also hits through the people that Chris meets. In a sense, the film romanticizes Chris’s journey but in another way it shows so completely how his foolish decisions affected those he touched. The story expresses change in people so very, very well. Whether it’s Chris’s family (Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone), the hippies Rainy and Jan (Brian Dierker and Catherine Keener), the farmer who’s business practices aren’t completely straight (Vince Vaughn), a lonely old man (Hal Holbrook), an innocent young girl (Kristen Stewart), or Chris himself (Emile Hirsch), the film shows subtly who they are and who they become. In each case, it’s about love. Love is the idea at the heart of Into The Wild. What it takes to find it, what we need to feel it, that we all deserve it.

Into The Wild is by far one of the best films of 2007. Sean Penn does a remarkable job in bringing Jon Krakauer’s book about Chris to life. Every actor becomes the person they are portraying. Penn tells the story with sensitivity while at the same time showing us Chris’s flaws. It’s not about Chris’s fate; it’s about the journey he takes. So yes, there is a bit of romanticizing going on, but the film isn’t telling us to necessarily follow in Chris’s footsteps. Because ultimately his path is as foolish as it is hurtful to those in his life. It’s a tragedy that it took so much for Chris to find what he was searching for.

The film shows how lonely and lost we can all be. It understands that we are all searching for something. What are we searching for? I have no idea. I guess it’s something different for everyone, I certainly haven’t found my something yet. And maybe that’s why I can relate to Chris’s story so well.
Not only is the story well told, the film is just very well done. As much of the story is told visually as it is told through dialogue, narration, and music. Oh yes, I can’t forget to mention the music. It seems so appropriate that Eddie Vedder has put together this soundtrack. The soundtrack compliments the film so perfectly that I’m not really sure what more I can say about it. Beyond that it’s perfect.

Into The Wild is one of those rare films where I actually agree with all the hype, where I think the attention is actually deserved. It’s a film that I just can’t recommend enough.