Contagion (2011)

Contagion takes off as soon as it begins.  The beginning is relatively standard, we’re introduced to four characters; they catch a cough, think it’s nothing and begin to pass it from person to person until the worst happens.  The first half of the movie flies by as the virus spreads and the various government agencies attempt to learn its origin, contain the spread, and cure it.

The premise is excellent.  A virus is an enemy that resonates with each of us.  It’s a silent and deadly killer and who doesn’t remember SARS, H1N1, or any other animal flu that has threatened our health in the past ten years.  Contagion is the acknowledgement of the very real and very terrifying what-if.

The first two-thirds of the movie are excellent, the government fights to keep the the virus in check and find an cure, a freelance blogger hopes to reveal the corruption in the government and families are torn apart by the virus.  There are so many things that could have made Contagion a great movie; good stars, a ferocious and identifiable villain, and breakneck pacing throughout.  Yet something ends up missing.

Nearly two-thirds of the way through the movie, the tank runs dry and all you’re left with is a bunch of dead, famous stars.  Those that survive are flat and uninteresting.  The story stalls.  I spent the remainder of the movie expecting something to happen, waiting for something to go wrong, because I was being lulled to sleep by how slow the movie had become.  And then it was over.  No more fear, no suspense, no reason to care.

I expect that Contagion will be much like SARS and H1N1, once it’s all over most people will barely be able to remember what it was about or what started it.

I recommend letting this one slip by.

-Josh

Contagion (2011) IMDB
Directed by: Steve Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, and Gwyneth Paltrow

Alice in Acidland

Alice in Acidland, a lurid twisted tale taking only the name from the beloved Lewis Carroll story Alice In Wonderland and bastardizing it and morphing it into a classic Propaganda film designed to keep kids, and according to this film, young girls away from the dangers of LSD.

LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) was created in 1938 and was originally used for psychiatric uses around 1947. As its popularity and success grew as a therapeutic agent, the CIA began trials to apply the chemical to mind control and chemical warfare designs. Through their testing on both young servicemen and students the drug took off as a recreational drug to youth culture during the 60s culminating in its eventual prohibition.

Alice in Acidland was made at the height of the fight against LSD in 1969 by John Donne and written by Gertrude Steen. This is one of those Propaganda films that you can watch and tell that the director doesn’t really have any issues with the drug scene while the writer sits on their throne having never dropped acid, never shot up and most importantly never inhaled.

The film is, thankfully, a few minutes shy of being an hour long. Forty-three of the fifty-three minute duration of the film is in shocking Black and White as we learn of Alice’s first invite to a party house. Alice is an honor roll student who has never done a bad thing in her life. Well, while at her first party she is introduced to alcohol, tobacco, pot and lesbian sex. The next time round she gets a ride from her father and then goes and changes into more alluring clothing, a wardrobe fit for the hippie free love generation, a long flowing dress and moccasins. Upon arriving at her second party she throws herself at one of the males in attendance, as if she were magnetically attracted to him.

On Alice’s third go around she starts inviting friends along to the parties she is attending only this time something goes horribly wrong. When Alice arrives this time, everyone takes a blotter tab of LSD. Alice can now feel everything around her, her extremities become amazingly sensitive, her fingertips can feel the air, etc. It’s at this point the film turns on the color. If you’ve ever seen an acid trip in a movie, like Tenacious D’s Pick of Destiny, you’ll be sorely disappointed by this one. It consists of a black room with two naked women who are either dancing around or standing still with no amazing swirls of color or trippy funky music. Alice is starting to have the time of her life as she runs her fingers over the smooth marble of the fireplace mantle. Only trouble is that one of the men has taken her friend into one of the bedrooms and Alice is powerless to protect her and as Alice falls deeper and deeper into her trip into Acidland she realizes her friend has just gotten raped and murdered by the man she introduced her friend to.

It’s at this point the trip, and the movie, ends. We pull out of the darkness and get our final view of Alice as she is in a padded room wearing a straitjacket while the voice over informs us that had she never met those so-called friends who led her down the path to destruction, her friend would still be alive and she would have graduated high school.

That’s the biggest disappointment and also the biggest appeal of Propaganda films for me. They are so blind to any scientific research done towards any drug and automatically preach on how bad they are regardless of the evidence behind them. They are so quick to say that if you have one sip of alcohol when you’re underage you will then smoke cigarettes and then try LSD and end up in a mental ward.

Propaganda films were made to scare the uneducated youth (and their uneducated parents) about any form of immoral action, be it sex, violence, drugs, alcohol or even cheating on a test in school.

Propaganda isn’t about truth; it’s about fear and its fear that built America from the 30s to the 70s. The Public Service Announcements that I grew up watching were finally becoming more truthful in what they preached (minus all of the DARE films we ever had to watch) and that means America is fed up with being lied to. Regardless, Propaganda films are fun to watch! Just because of how ridiculous they were and once you’ve watched a few you can tell which of the actors and directors are actually a lot more open minded than what they portray in these films as they play their characters tongue in cheek as compared to a straight actor really living in their character. (Heath Ledger’s Joker or Jack Nicholson’s Jake from Chinatown best represents an example of the previous statement of straight acting, really getting into the character. Tongue in cheek- Any role from Nicholas Cage.)

Don’t be afraid, watch a couple, they’re normally less than an hour long and who knows, you may learn something.

Super 8

Summer blockbusters are not my thing.  Traditionally they’re over-produced, rehashed sequels, or movies featuring racist robots that transform into cars whilst thing explode.  Super 8 caught my attention because it is not a reboot, a superhero movie or a sequel, instead, it is an “original” film.  (I feel like it requires air-quotes because it draws heavily from films you’ve probably already seen.)

When I told people that I saw Super 8 the most common comment I got was, “Oh, I saw the commercial for that.  Have no idea what it’s about.”  Abrams likes to keep an air of mystery about all his projects; what was Lost about again? So I’m not surprised that no one really knows what it’s about before seeing it.  I’m not sure why it’s a secret, but apparently it is.  Well I’m going to let you in on it.

The movie opens at a funeral and we learn that 12 year old,  Joe (Joel Courtney) has just lost his mother.  He is left in the care of his distant father and spends his time with his friends, filming a zombie horror movie on their super 8 camera.  While filming late one night they are witness to a train crash that unleashes an unseen monster into the night.  The kids don’t see the monster and are more concerned with what would happen if thier parents found out that they were there.  As with most stories where a monster escapes: it doesn’t stay hidden or secret for very long.

While the trailers tend to make it seem like the film was a scary movie it really isn’t, it’s intense - with action and explosions aplenty.  The train crash was intense and really well done, but despite being a monster movie it failed to provide any real scares or surprises.

One thing that did surprise was the comedy.  I found myself laughing much more than I expected to.  The young actors delivered their lines with good comic wit and timing.  I can’t say if this is a compliment to the actors or Abrams for being able to drag that kind of acting out of children, but the films comedy helps it remain lite.

It’s easy to see that Super 8 was heavily influenced by producer Steven Spielberg, but what’s hard to say is if this happened during the filming, or if it is a result of J.J. Abrams watching Spielberg’s films as a kid.  Abrams grew up during Spielberg’s sci-fi stage, when he released Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.  The movie draws quite a bit from those films, with a dash of Jurassic Park.  I also couldn’t help but feel like the movie also resembled The Goonies and Sandlot, but that may just be a result of the young ensemble cast.  While it takes from all these movies it didn’t feel like a rehash but instead like an evolution of movies that I’ve enjoyed in the past.  While those were the start of something, this feels like the close of that chapter.  To those of us that are the target audience of twenty-five to thirty this is a remembrance of adolescence and childhood wonder.

I don’t know if Super 8 will be as long lasting as those other films, if I had to guess I’d say it won’t.  It’s probably missing whatever that magic piece is that makes something like E.T. a staple for 30 years.  That still doesn’t mean that this is a movie to miss, with the summer blockbuster list consisting of transformers and superheros that couldn’t be any more uninteresting, Super 8 might be one of the few good films that come out this summer, at least until award season rolls back around.  

-JP

Viral Video

Trailer
Super 8
Written & Directed by: J.J. Abrams
Staring: Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, and Elle Fanning

The Mighty Ducks

I decided today was a feel good movie type of day, and to fill that bill, I went with the 1992 classic, The Mighty Ducks starring the great Emilio Estevez and a veritable who’s who of child actors, many of whom have gone on to lead great acting careers.

The film starts off introducing us to a young Gordon Bombay getting a ‘pep’ talk, “If you miss you aren’t just letting me down, you’re letting your whole team down,” from his coach before heading out to make a penalty shot that would make or break the team’s goal of district champs in 1972. Bombay misses the shot and his hockey career is over before it even begins. Fast-forward 20 years and we see Bombay, lawyer at large 30-1 (he’ll claim 0 since he scored with one of the court officials) thinking his life is pretty sweet. After yet another win in the courtroom he decides to have a little fun with drinking and driving (the first of many lessons in the film) when he is pulled over and sentenced to 500 hours of community service coaching the District 5 youth hockey team.

The team is a ragtag bunch of kids who barely know which end of the stick is used to hit the puck, let alone where they should go once they have that figured out. Bombay takes what he learned from his coach when he played and begins yelling at his team to listen, and when that fails, he resorts to teaching his team to take dives and fake injury in order to raise their chances of winning. It doesn’t work out so well and Gordon is eventually confronted by one of his team members, Charlie Conway, played by an extremely young Joshua Jackson who convinces Gordon, along with some help from Gordon’s old friend Hans, who also owns the local hockey supply store, to develop his own form of coaching which leads to playing hockey with eggs, tying the goalie to the goal and having the team hit pucks at him, and playing catch with a football when warming up for a game.

Once Gordon decides he has to coach his own way and not the way his coach taught him, the team begins to pull together and grow, picking up a couple of figure skaters and a hard hitting giant of a kid who breaks a lot of windows and can hit the goal one out of every five shots.

The team grows because of a rise in self-respect, respect for each other, and respect for Gordon. They aren’t just kids from a poor neighborhood any more. They’re better than they were, they aren’t District 5, they are the Ducks. The Mighty Ducks and they’re here to play hockey and have fun!

Once the ducks begin playing as a team, they start winning, thus begins the great montage of game clips leading up to the culmination of the film, the district finals against Gordon’s childhood team, and coach, the Hawks. The Ducks already lost to the Hawks early in the season when they were still lowly District 5, but they are more than ready for this final grudge match to claim the title. Throughout the final match we are kept in suspense, as the Hawks are stronger and faster and better players leaving the Ducks behind 2-0 in the first period. The Ducks manage to get their score back up and in the third period we are shown our first glimpse of the now legendary Flying V maneuver. The Flying V is exactly what it sounds like, when viewed from above it looks like the migratory flight pattern that ducks take when heading south. The puck is passed within the V as they fly down the ice and scoring a goal leaving us with a nail biting 4-4 score. Then the penalty kicks in and the Ducks have one final chance to beat the Hawks. Gordon asks his team who should get to take the final shot and it is decided that Charlie should finish what the team began at the beginning of the season.

This is the time for Bombay to really shine and show his team, Charlie, and the audience watching, what he’s learned through his ordeals from dealing with work, his old coach, and becoming the coach he is now. He pulls Charlie aside and tells him “You may make it, you may not. But that doesn’t matter Charlie, what matters is that we’re here! Look around, who would have even thought we’d make it this far? One, two, three, triple deke. Take your best shot, I believe in you Charlie, win or lose.”

This may seem a little cheesy, but watch it and I dare you not to get a big goofy grin on your face. Yes, it may still be cheesy as heck but it’s a good message and you’ve got to love Disney and their not so subliminal messages to youth and adults alike.

The Mighty Ducks is a timeless story of the underdogs coming up to be heroes. It shows what sportsmanship should be. It shows what hockey used to be. Maybe it’s time for Vancouver to re-watch this classic and learn a thing or ten about what being a sports fan really means.

The Nuns' Day Off

In 1986 Paramount put out one of the greatest movies of all time. A small film directed by John Hughes, starring Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, and Alan Ruck, and supported by Jeffery Jones and Baby, sorry, Jennifer Grey. When I first saw this film in its entirety I was probably in 6th or 7th grade watching it on TV. It came out the year I was born but still carried such an impact that when I saw it, I wanted to become Ferris Bueller. I wanted my day off. Only problem? I lived by a small farming town; note that I said ‘by’ as in ‘out in the country’. Roughly 8 miles away from any of me friends, so the point in taking a day off was kind of moot as I wouldn’t have been able to do anything except watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off anyways and become more morose that I lived out in the country and not in the beautiful city of Chicago. But I digress; we’re here to talk about movies.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and that’s a reason to celebrate. John Hughes is the epitome of teen movie directors with a gamut of films under his belt including the pivotal three; Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club. Hughes had a certain type of humor about high school movies and embraced it completely leaving a set guideline for what qualified as a high school movie ever since. You needed the geek, you needed the shy girl, you needed the jock, you needed the character that could float between all the social circles uninhibited. Get your hands on the film spoof Not Another Teen Movie and 83% of the film is a homage to John Hughes’ films.
Hughes wasn’t only a great director as he only directed 8 films, but an incredible writer with an impressive 41 films under his belt by the time he died in 2009. His last completed screenplay was for the Judd Apatow project Drillbit Taylor.
Ferris stood out as an icon for all high school students who saw just how childish and stupid high school was in the 80s and still is today. “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris is all about celebrating life to the fullest and the film conveys that really well in its celebration of the random that made films in the 80s as exciting as they were. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a chase film between Ferris and Rooney, a hero film by means of Cameron’s eventual uprising against his father, a happy family film in the way Ferris and Jeanie make their peace by the end of the film, and an adventure film just in regards to the entire day culminating in the Star Wars Ferrari flight scene.
I think it’s the randomness of the film that drew me to it. The awkward mix of soundtrack choices accentuated by the sudden changes in location make the film seem like the greatest day and longest 8 hours ever to be compressed into an hour and 42 minutes. An official soundtrack for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was never released but all the songs can be found on-line in various places. If you can find them, get them. My favorite song in the entire film is from the Museum scene. The song is a remake of the Smith’s hit ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’ done by The Dream Academy. I liked this one the most because it's the scene where Ferris and Sloan kiss. I always wanted to kiss Sloan.
One of the most ridiculous scenes in the film is definitely the parade scene in which Ferris ‘sings’ Danke Schoen by Wayne Newton and Twist and Shout by the Beatles. For missing school as many days as Ferris has, this seems a little at risk even for our hero. The parade route goes right by his father’s work; this is after they almost got caught by eating at the same restaurant as his father! But this suspense is what makes the film work. There’s always a chance of getting caught but Ferris is so sure of himself that everything always works out.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has influenced countless millions of youth through it’s duration and will continue to do so well into the future as more and more reissues of the film are released. One big sign of respect to the king of skipping is the band Save Ferris named after the multimedia phenomenon that occurs throughout the film as the community of Shermer rallies around raising money to save the life of the horribly sick Ferris.
Living your life like Ferris Bueller is a great way to live.

Nuns on the Stepford Wives

Something strange is happening in Stepford.

This week, after a LONG, unnecessary hiatus, I am returning with my own take on a horror/sci-fi film. The Stepford Wives (The 1975 version) starring Katherine Ross and Paula Prentiss each known for their work in The Graduate and Catch-22 respectively.

I’d heard the tagline before, and was always interested in what it meant exactly, now I know. I should state early on, that I have not watched the 2004 version with Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick, this is a view of the original. Someday there will be a response to the remake as well.

Stepford is the stereotypical suburban town that everyone dreamed of living in during the times of Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy. It’s a sheltered town that people either really enjoy, or would hate living in or around. The film even makes fun of itself with the lines;

“Have you heard? A negro family is moving into town! It’s a good thing right? Oh, of course it’s a good thing! Stepford is one of the most liberal towns around!”

“Liberal? Stepford?!”

“Well of course! We were the first community to get a Chinese Restaurant in the county!”

This film IS a horror/sci-fi, no doubts about it. It starts off good and fun, but once the movie gets rolling and the family moves from New York to Stepford, the soundtrack takes on a new vibe and gives off the typical synth driven horror sounds that became popular in the 70s.

There is something strange happening in Stepford as once the family gets to Stepford, Joanna’s (Ross) husband gets invited to join the Men’s Association of Stepford and begins spending more and more nights away from home. Then the other members of the Men’s Association begin paying more and more attention to Joanna. First one of the members, a renowned artist, draws a perfect portrait of Joanna, next she is introduced to a member called Dis as he used to work for Disney Theme Parks who studies her every move and nuance as she moves around the house and town. Finally she is asked by one of the members to read a long list of words under the pretences that he is an accent enthusiast who likes to have recordings of all of his friends so he can get to know their accents as well as his own.

Not much more can be said without giving away the mystery of Stepford. Suffice it to say, the movie is incredibly well shot, as well as having a great cast and script to go along with it.

Once the creep factor sets in, we’re shown a lot of the typical Dutch angles used in horror films to show more dramatic views of the protagonists. As well as putting the main character of a scene in the ‘power position’ on the right side of the screen while having them look off to the right of the screen leaving an open doorway, or ominous shadows occupying a majority of the leftover screen. This happened time and time again, and when coupled with the synth music makes the viewer a lot more nervous for what could happen next.

This film is not just a film for film junkies like myself, it is well written, well shot, well directed, well produced, etc. It was a blockbuster in its day and continues to have a large cult following even today. It should be stated that ‘cult’ film does not mean the movie didn’t do well in the box office and was subsequently discovered by film nerds who found something to relate to as is the case with Rocky Horror Picture Show. This is really a great movie that stretches the imagination to the sci-fi realm of men wanting to have the perfect wives. Ira Levin who is an amazing screenwriter and has written hundreds of plays that have been made into films wrote the Stepford Wives. If you do watch this, and enjoy it, you need to check out Deathtrap starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeves (A review of which will be coming up soon) and the film the Boys from Brazil in which a group of escaped Nazis try to rekindle the Third Reich by cloning Hitler.

In a final statement, watch this film. You won’t regret it. It’s an amazingly well done movie, another in a LONG list that had no reason to be remade. But it was, and as I said before, it will be reviewed, we’ll see the contrast and comparison soon.

The Crazies (2010)

I love horror films, but recently it seems like I can’t find one that doesn’t feature vampires.  I’m actually putting a review for The King’s Speech on the back burner to write this review.  While I love stuttering royalty as much as the next guy, the Academy Award winning film failed to scare me or make me jump once.  There’s a gleeful simplicity in horror films.  They’re movies about evolution; survival of the fittest and the smartest, even against overwhelming odds.  That’s what I was look for and what I found.

The Crazies stars Timothy Olyphant as the sheriff of a small Iowa town.  The citizens have little to worry about, maybe a mohawked poacher every now and then, but life is pretty simple. Then the townsfolk slowly start acting a little bizarre, repeating phrases and staring aimlessly at the stretching landscape.  Then the crazy starts to creep through in murderous ways - the afflicted kill without remorse or discretion.  Suddenly, the carefree sheriff is dealing with rising violence, sleepless nights, and mysterious black SUVs.  It doesn’t take long for the situation to spin out of control and he’s left to defend his family against the hoards of psychotic denizens who had voted him into office.

One thing I’ve learned for horror movies: Don’t be stupid.  The movie starts out so good.  The sheriff doesn’t ever go anywhere without his gun drawn, he doesn’t wander blindly through the town, in fact, he seems to figure out what happening long before anyone else.  Then he starts to get dumb.  Now maybe it’s the pressure or the tiredness, but halfway through he movie he starts leaving his wife unattended while he goes and explores darkened buildings by himself.  Sure he makes the usual mistakes, but if you can forgive the hero from falling prey to these standard horror film pitfalls you’ll still enjoy this movie.

A good horror movie can take some of the most pedestrian things and make them frightening.  Like how Jaws made you afraid of the water, or Nightmare on Elm Street made you afraid to sleep, or I Know What You Did Last Summer made you afraid of running over hobos and dumping their bodies in the ocean.  The Crazies takes car washes and makes them scary in the best way.  I’ll never go to Jet Splash without thinking about this movie.  I also have developed a fear of farming equipment.  It seems that every farming tool is designed for the dismemberment and disemboweling of unsuspecting bystanders.

I started watching this movie because I wanted something light and fun.  I was a little surprised to find I loved it; a horror gem.  It’s not The Exorcist or 28 Days Later, but it’s good.  If you’re a horror fan, you don’t want to miss this one.  It can get a little graphic at times, but in the age of torture porn it’s pretty tame - there aren’t any drawn out, painful-to-watch kills; just a lot of tension and a lot of fun. The acting is solid, the directing is good and the story is engrossing.  It makes me want to check out the original which is directed by George Romero (he produced the 2010 version.)  Best part: it’s on Instant Netflix, so you can watch it this weekend.  The only thing that The Crazies was missing.  Vampires.  Here’s hoping there’s a sequel.

The Crazies (2010)

Directed by: Breck Eisner

Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, and Joe Anderson

The Nuns "In Bruges"

In Bruges

That's one thing I like about Europe, though. You don't have to learn any of their languages.  - Ray

In Bruges is a British comedy/action film about two hitmen waiting in the last medieval city in the world.  They aren’t sure what they’re waiting for, either their next job or punishment for sins.  The two men handle the waiting differently.  Ken(Brendan Gleeson) relaxes; enjoying the tourist sights and marveling at the city and what’s included within.  Ray(Colin Farrell), the younger of the men, can’t stand Bruges, he spends his days getting pissed, waving at midgets on horse tranquilizers, and hitting on or offending the locals, Americans, Canadians and anyone he comes in contact with.

The movie itself is brash, unapologetically offensive, and graphic.  If you’re easily offended, hate swearing and don’t want to see Americans depicted as fat, Yankees-cap-wearing assholes, then skip this film.  However, if you have thick skin, a good sense of humor, a love for dark comedy then pick this film up and enjoy the witty banter.  It’s terribly hilarious and grotesquely saddening.  Be warned: for all its humor the movie’s far from feel good.

The movie is an absurd satire of a million things I couldn’t even begin to address and I’d hate to spoil for you.  It is heavy on themes, which you’ll see me talk about often.  I blame it on the over-thinking, lit major inside me.  The movie deals primarily with nobility and honor.  While these men murder for a living those two ideals are paramount to their understanding of the world.  Each man is torment by the innocent men that they’ve killed while on the job. The biggest question posed during the movie: Is redemption possible?

I watch In Bruges at least once a year, it’s on a select list of films with Brick and Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and Mallrats.  The reason it made this list is because of how engaging the characters are.  

Characters seem easy to create.  Until you try to write one.  As a failing writer, I’ve tried to write compelling and different characters that draw the reader, or viewer, in -  I can’t.  They’re always the same person, just with a different hat.  Not the case with In Bruges, every single person who steps into frame is given a personality and traits that belong to them alone.  Even throwaway characters, like the guy who sells them guns, is developed and fleshed out in the two minutes he’s on the screen.  Every character is lovable in their own right and each one unique, it is easy to see their motivations and drivers in a natural way that I can only hope to someday imitate.

In Bruges has everything I like in a movie.  It’s ideal for people who love witty dialogue, action, and racist dwarfs.  It’s a fun film, with a depth that most don’t have and it’s one of my all time favorites.

After you get done watching it you might find yourself wanting to be in Bruges.  If only you knew where it was.

-Josh

In Bruges (IMDB)

Directed by:Martin McDonagh

Starring:Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes

The Social Network - Opinion

This isn't a review of The Social Network.  I just want to explain how it changed my opinion on biopics.

I remember very distinctly what I thought when I first saw the commercial for The Social Network. It was ridiculous that they were already making a movie about it.  The ink had barely dried on the checks Zuckerberg wrote to settle and they had already made a movie about it.  We were going to relive in two hours what had just been chronicled in a year of news print.

I believed that you can’t make a “historical” film when the people are alive. They shouldn’t make movies about people until we’ve had time to collect all the facts and to sift through the bullshit. They shouldn’t make a movie about the youngest billionaire until he’s been dethroned, or at least until he’s grown up.

But that’s not the world that we live in.  This is the Facebook era and we don’t wait until someone dies to do a retrospective on their life.  We report congruently with the events, at the click of a button. You can watch parties in real-time as people check in, post pictures and update statuses, a whole night uploaded and digested even before everyone goes home or passes out.  

I have no idea if that was the intent of the filmmakers, but they pointed out that I was guilty of the old way of thinking, that you have to wait until tomorrow to get today’s news. It wouldn’t have made sense for them to make this movie in ten years, by then it would be old news and we would have already moved on.

-Josh

Nuns on a Bus Vs Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

When I'm around you, I kind of feel like I'm on drugs. Not that I do drugs. Unless you do drugs, in which case I do them all the time. All of them. – Scott Pilgrim

Love is a many splendored thing. Sometimes love comes easy, sometimes you have to fight the memories of your current love’s exes. Even though you’ve never met them, you still feel like you’re being compared to them, for a little while at the very least. Sometimes you have to fight off these memories in your mind, sometimes it becomes painfully obvious that you’ll have to fight them in real life and fight them hard. Thus it is when Scott Pilgrim meets the love of his life, Ramona Flowers. Little do we know when Ramona first rollerblades through our protagonist’s dreams that Scott’s life will be completely flipped around.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World written and directed by Edgar Wright based on the comic by Bryan Lee O’Malley and starring; Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Jason Schwartzman, Anna Kendrick, and Aubrey Plaza. This movie is to young actors what the Ocean's movies are to the generation before them - a superb ensemble film that highlights the best parts about each of the actors.

I know a few people that can not stand Michael Cera. I can understand this, he doesn’t have a whole lot of depth as an actor. If you’ve seen Arrested Development or Super Bad you’ve seen the range in his acting. But the great thing about SPVTW is it works, and it works well. The written character of Scott Pilgrim isn’t the coolest kid, he’s actually quite slow (seeming) but when the going gets tough, this bad ass bass player pumps up the jam and takes aim at the goal! Although he will probably forget what the goal is about fifteen seconds later.

Scott lives with his gay friend Wallace Wells played by Kieran Culkin. Wallace is a gossipy little bitch who is always quick to spread any rumor he hears about Scott off to Scott’s sister Stacey, who is played by the lovely Anna Kendrick, who is always quick to give Scott a good earful. Scott is also in the band, Sex Bob-omb, as previously mentioned, he plays bass. His ex-girlfriend Kim plays drums while his other friend Steven Stills, the talent, plays guitar. They aren’t really good, and the cool thing about the comics is the fact that most of their songs are written out so you can play along!

Through friends of his band-mates Scott’s motley crew end up at a party held by Julie Powers, Aubrey Plaza of Parks and Rec fame, where he sees the girl who roller bladed through his dreams twice, Ramona Flowers. After a couple of horribly awkward conversations with Ramona, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, she finally agrees to go on a date with him.

Fast forward a few minutes in the film and we get our first encounter with one of Ramona’s evil exes. Apparently her seven evil exes have combined forces under the leadership of Gideon, Jason Schwartzman, to get rid of Scott and have Ramona go back to Gideon.

This is where the movie becomes EPIC, early reviews of Scott Pilgrim bashed it for being another video game movie. They were right, it is a video game movie! But it doesn’t try to hide the fact that it is campy as hell but it’s based on a comic, not a game. It’s not Laura Croft, it’s not Super Mario Bros (awesome movie btw), it’s not Resident Evil. It’s a comic movie that follows more faithfully than almost any movie I’ve ever seen. (Personally I see it as a close second to 300 when it comes to movies based on comics in terms of faithfulness.)

SPVTW is a video game movie because they exploit all the things that make games great and shove them in the audiences face. From baddies turning into piles of coins, to 1-ups popping up, to crazy animatics enhancing every sound effect, to the main character getting +10 Charisma and +10 Self Esteem when he finds the power of love.

You couldn’t ask for a better director/writer for this film. Edgar Wright has proved his ability to do amazing work with genre movies with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and his TV show Spaced. He understood the necessity of being faithful to the comics much in the way that Zack Snyder was with Watchmen and 300. But he was also smart enough to cut out the parts that bogged down the story at the rare times that occurred. Much unlike Zack Snyder with Watchmen.

We haven’t seen the last of Edgar Wright, and hopefully he is able to find another comic or video game to convert to film.

Out of a ten point rating scale, I would give Scott Pilgrim Vs The World a strong 7. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a good laugh, who isn’t afraid to cry, and take the tongue in cheek comedy that a Canadian comic turned film can offer.

-Karl

Quick Hits! 2/4/11

Looking for something to watch this weekend?

In no particular order I suggest:
1. Moon (Sam Rockwell)
2. Brick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
3. The Trotsky (Jay Baruchel)
4. Castle [TV] - (Nathan Fillion)
5. Firefly [TV] - (Nathan Fillion)

The Trotsky is up on Instant Netflix and is worth checking out.

Have a good weekend!

-Josh

Flipped

“It’s really dark and brooding.  You’ll love it,” Erik, when suggesting a movie to me.

He was right, I love movies with sad endings and the depressing guy-loses-girl tales.  I’ve always found happy,cheery movies to be naive and unrealistic.  That’s why I want my first review to be about Flipped, it isn't anything like my usual films.

At it’s heart Flipped is a simple love story.  At a very young age Bryce and his family move across the street from Juli.  It’s love at first sight for Juli, but for Bryce, not so much.  He does everything he can to not have to talk to her.

And then in 8th grade that all starts to change.  Feelings begin to, wait for it...flip.  Yeah, that’s right.  Bryce starts to find he has feelings for Juli and Juli begins to think Bryce lacks real character.

That’s what happens, what drives the story, but that’s really just the surface of things.  There’s so much more below that.  The themes and characters in this film are deep.  The most prominent theme in the film is a question, “What makes someone a good person?”  Everyone in this film asks and answers this question.  It’s behind what makes Juli cool toward Bryce and Bryce flip. The film questions how much would some one give up for family, examines the beauty of art and in one scene we see a heartless father question his choice of giving up the music he loved for something he doesn’t really seem to enjoy.

Children actors frighten me.  Macaulay Culkin, Haley Joel Osment, that kid from the Omen - you know the kids I’m talking about.  They’ve all got that plaster look on their faces and feel like little people pretending to be adults, pretending to be kids.  It’s weird.  I was blown away by the kids who have the two leading roles in this film (Not sure if they are they as good as the girl from True Grit, but they didn’t get the opportunity to steal a scene from Jeff Bridges.)  I found myself captivated by the story.  Every step along the way it felt real, because of these two.  Bryce played by Callan McAuliffe sometimes falters but Julie, Madeline Carroll, carries him through each scene.  From what I’ve seen it’s pretty hard to find good child actors and this movie showcases some of the best I’ve seen in a while.

So who’s this for?  I recommend this to everyone.  It’s one of the few PG movies we’ll probably review so there’s very little offensive material here.  It’s the kind of film you could recommend to your parents, or watch with your kids depending on where you’re at in the whole life cycle thing.  It’s a film with humor, serious subject matter, believable characters, a good story and actual heart.  It’s occasionally preachy and sometimes overly sentimental. I didn’t think it detracts from the value of the film as It’s set in a very sentimental and overly optimistic time: the 1950’s . It’s worth checking out, no matter what kind of movies you like.  Sometimes it’s OK to be happy.  Just don’t get carried away.

Enjoy

-Josh

“Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss; but every once in a while, you find someone who's iridescent, and once you do, nothing will ever compare.”  Chet Duncan (John Mahoney), Flipped (2010)

Flipped (2010)
Directed by Rob Reiner
Staring: Madeline Carroll and Callan McAuliffe
Trailer: Flipped

I like the poster for this movie.  It’s one you should look at after the film is done to get how good it is.