I'm proud to say I took mostly full advantage of my 3-day weekend... although I never got to tackling my list of WIFF 2009 selections (tricky since the WIFF 2010 is coming right up!).
As an aside I started the weekend off my rewatching No Country For Old Men (2007). Upon second viewing, it's MUCH better, and by that I mean it's definitely more coherent, and incredibly more depressing and disturbing.
Then we hit all new movies through Netflix Instant
DOUBT (2008)
Oscar season is around, and all the neat actors nominated for this movie convinced me to see it. Powerful performances, morally ambiguous story, but it very much felt like a filmed play. Nothing wrong with that, of course, just feels different.
PURPLE RAIN (1984)
I knew I'd be pretty tired but I started this movie at 11pm at night anyway... thought it wouldn't require much thought. I did have kind of high hopes for this, since I heard rumblings over the years that this was one of the less atrocious 'music' movies. I think it reached the low bar I set for it, but it didn't go too far beyond it. I thought Prince had some more fantastical elements to his persona that would have required some more out-there visuals to match the astounding music, but it wasn't incredibly coherent. Hardly picky though, when the music and performances were awesome, I guess it was too much to ask for a plot behind it all that didn't seem tacked on... Computer Blue was dancing through my head at work today though.
SYNECHDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008)
HERE'S a movie you have to pay attention to. This takes the whimsy with mental memory moving the narrative of movie that worked so perfectly in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and takes it completely to a more dark, and so much more confusing place. But I don't think it's just confusing for confusion's sake. It is just layered so much, that it's not a film to be simply enjoyed, it has to be understood, even if comprehending the backstory of Philip Seymour Hoffman's character is a futile task.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
ENTRY SEVEN (Yes, it's been a while)
See here for context.
TOPSY TURVY (1999)
LA BELLE NOISEUSE (1991)
As much as I like to pretend on this site that I’m a very devoted movie buff, I admit that I am not adopting the viewing habits of a true cinephile. Much to my chagrin, I am barely chipping away at my Netflix Queue, and there are other tastes and hobbies that I am trying to nurture (such as film criticism!) that make the prospect of watching a movie not always the most attractive use of my free time. When I do decide to commit to watching a 2-3 hour film, I inevitably open myself to millions of potential distractions.
Some of these distractions are based on life problems, lingering work issues, and conflicts I’m avoiding by giving in to my couch potato leanings. A very healthy portion of these thoughts go towards the stacks of creative works that I need to digest very soon if I want to feel like a current, cultured person. Overall, though, all of these distractions can be summed up by the nagging reality that, as I am watching something on a screen, I could be doing something else. Perhaps that’s why going to a theater will always be attractive to me. In addition to the comfortable seating, superior soundsystems, and the satisfaction of seeing something new or obscure before it's available to everyone for home purchase, the theater setting is the ideal way to remove the outside world from my consciousness and to prepare myself for the singular experience of movie-watching, with no discernable escape route to books, music, TV, or other mediums.
When I leave that singular theater world, I find it constantly overwhelming about how much simple access to everything the average person with an Internet connection has. You no longer have to live in a ritzy big city to see an obscure art movie-- just dial it up on Netflix and watch it online. If I refuse to cater to a prime-time TV schedule and miss a show that I want to follow, I can watch it, at my convenience, from a high quality streaming site on the Internet such as Hulu, or watch it on the DVR built into my cable box. My high school years featuring the regular sessions of obsessing over music purchase decisions are over. Time I would spend perusing through music store shelves figuring out which CD is both reasonably priced and worth buying is now spent deciding which of the dozens albums, both old and new, I should listen to at the click of a mouse through online streaming services. For the price of one physical CD, my monthly subscription rate to Rhapsody.com gives me access to tens of thousands of records. Of course, I could just ingest vast quantities of new music, through dozens of music review websites and mp3 blogs offering content for free that goes straight into my iTunes playlist, 5500+ songs strong. I remember when I was eager to pick up the faint signal of the college radio station from Oklahoma State University 90 miles away from my house, with its mix of cutting edge indie rock and some familiar alternative favorites. With my own personal playlist, I can pretty much create a parallel listening experience, with new noncommercial songs mixed in with classics that have stood the test of time. This access has been refreshing, but it is also clearly a double-edged sword. The possibility of appreciating all of these creative works at your typing fingertips is nearly impossible with this newly universal access, even given a whole lifetime at your disposal. Free time, of course is limited. TV shows, movies, books, music, arts, crafts, recreation, contemplation, charity work… if you can figure out how to do even 2 of these leisure activities simultaneously without one or the other drifting to the background, more power to you. However, there are so many waking hours in a day, a maximum of five senses, and only so many limbs to spare for multitasking.
Compellingly, there’s an emerging artistic sensitivity developing in response to a world that now seems so accessible yet so distant because everything is made available without any struggle. The Radiohead album OK Computer comes to mind, as well as the movie Lost in Translation, where modernity is embraced and creatively portrayed, yet timeless alienation and loneliness abound despite all the new-fangled bells and whistles. Humanity perseveres despite this coldness, but as a consequence of sensory overload, everything needs to make more of a splash to command the consumer’s attention over the din of everything else.
Despite all of the distractions around us, art is not supposed to be digested in fragments or as an afterthought, and the creators of art, in all likelihood, want your full attention despite other available stimuli. Once they manage to grab your attention with something provocative, what if they take a bolder step, to not only demand your attention but indulge in whatever length of time is necessary to share their vision? While a visually arresting or sensational series of images, words, or sounds in film can shock the senses, another more meditative kind of jolt occurs when a filmmaker decides that patience is a paramount virtue, and that it might be more arresting to portray the process of something being created than the creation itself. Sure, that flower you just walked past is pretty, but wouldn’t it be pleasing, or at least compellingly different, if you sat for a while and watched it bloom?
Sometimes I actually do find myself in situations when I must cede control of some of my life to another force that is not primarily motivated to give me immediate satisfaction. Whether at a religious service, at a symphony concert, or even stuck on a commuter train with no high tech gadgetry to pass the time, with the right mindset you can reach a relaxed yet focused state somewhere in between the feelings of utter boredom and intense, immediate gratification. That happy medium can be conjured up by creative artists willing to take the time to create a world, and focus on the process of this world being created, rather than unveil a product nearly finished right from the beginning.
These two films (the only film pairing in this series) serve as a jumping off point for my appreciation of those long movies which you might call indulgent if you’re in the mood for something direct. But unlike some earlier entries that are indirect in other ways, these films have the potential to be attractive to more audiences, despite their lengths, because the lack of narrative urgency serves a obvious purpose, which is to establish a portrayal of the artistic process as important to the evocative nature of the final works. Sure there are some avant-garde, experimental elements in these movies, but the direction of those elements isn’t entirely to serve the discerning appreciators of stylistic cinema, but in order to reveal the process of an artistic expression being constructed before one’s very eyes. Think of these movies as the far more expressive version of the “making of” specials on any DVD bonus feature, integrated as the central premise of a feature in the most compelling way possible.
The newer of the two films, Topsy Turvy (1999), is actually the one I saw first at the single-screen independent theater across the street from Drake University. It is directed by Mike Leigh, who has a distinct film style and film making technique that makes anticipation of his works at almost as high a level as Quentin Tarantino, although for completely different reasons. As Quentin is a complete master of slick cinematic dialogue (how many times I mutter his lines to myself while walking around is something I don’t want to reveal), Mike Leigh is known for having no scripted dialogue whatsoever. Leigh, in interviews, isn’t very forthcoming about how he goes about making full vital films with very little script or plot direction, but I can imagine he works very intensely with his actors to create a whole life for his characters before a camera first begins to roll. The freedom inherent is having a character be so fully embodied beforehand that the touching, human moments improvised by his films occur naturally and without reading prewritten lines is quite exciting to behold, and makes you incredibly respectful of the professionalism the men and women bring to his movies. With that in mind, the accomplishment of Topsy Turvy is amazing. It’s a behind the scenes glimpse, and so much more, of the creative process leading up to the original premiere, in London, of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Mikado in the late nineteenth century. But while it would be amusing to watch the actors and actresses rehearse their lines and songs (and there are extensive, entertaining scenes of that), Topsy Turvy first and foremost recognizes the vital and complex human beings that through creative frustrations, collaboration and conflict, and some random inspiration, create a nearly perfect work of art. The actors playing both Gilbert and Sullivan are incredible. You cannot have a film so powerful without making the main characters so troubled, complex, and well-defined in their ambitions and hang-ups that the timelessness of the final work they produce seems almost like a beautiful fluke.
At the time, I was totally unfamiliar with the music. I think I just wanted to go to the cute little theater on campus for the first time. For someone who loves the Mikado and other Gilbert and Sullivan music, however, this film in incredibly engaging. In fact, I have become a huge fan of those dainty and witty operettas since I saw this thanks to my Mom’s surprising confession that this music was something her family obsessed over when she was growing up. In watching this with her and my extended family for the second time at my grandparent’s house, now being familiar with the Mikado, the film is exponentially better. The moments of inspiration, at the first fiery spark of understanding by the creators of this music that they are on to something special, is all the more stronger when you independently adore the art they are making. This movie would not be the same however, if it is was a biopic about the “Making of the Mikado”. Most of the other Mike Leigh films I’m aware of are set in the present, and while the improvisational style is still incredibly engaging, there is a certain perfect balance of refinement and loose structure with Topsy Turvy, all the more respectable knowing that the actors and actresses had to not only build a unique character, but make these people historically accurate.
What I’m trying to centralize about this particular film essay can be summed up by a critic’s praise for Topsy Turvy being that it was a perfect depiction of the “artistic process”. What is so counterintuitive about “process” being an engaging subject of cinema? The answer could be in the second installment of this film pairing, La Belle Noiseuse. Made in 1991, and directed by Jacques Rivette, who is known for making very long movies that are never rushed. You might as well confirm my film snob status right now if I mention that La Belle’s running time is 237 minutes, except that his movie from the early 70s called Out 1, lasted 750 minutes long and wasn’t properly released in the U.S. until a few years ago. Nonetheless, La Belle was spread out over two DVDs, and in line with my short attention span (and just bad scheduling) I ashamedly did watch this movie in installments over two days. Hopefully that doesn’t put me in a second-tier league of film snobbery to break up the experience of this movie, because I truly think the power of the movie wasn’t diminished with my viewing habits. Quite simply, La Belle Noiseuse is about an old artist who has long retired from painting. He’s quietly living with his family in a rural chateau until a dealer (or someone in a business relationship with the artist) visits his home and brings his girlfriend along. It’s revealed (relatively quickly compared to the slow tide of the rest of the movie) that this girlfriend was brought here as a subtle way to inspire the artist to come out of retirement and restart a painting project that he abandoned decades ago. It’s initially successful, since he does start painting again, with the beautiful young French lady as the subject model. However, the film then moves into a narrative territory that is abstract, inconclusive, and very oriented towards the process of creating, regardless of whether that process leads to anything tangible.
The most bold move of the film, that rewards incredible amounts of patience, are the extended scenes where the artist, in real time (no montages here) poses and draws sketches of his subject. Every second imaginable is used to capture the art of creation but also the even more invigorating mix of emotions that might come with being the subject of creation. There are no shortcuts in this movie that make the characters feelings evolve in abrupt ways. Rather it’s a very meditative movie, featuring a small handful of characters with the artist and its subject taking up most of the screen time. The shots are often static, but the variations of angles towards the portrayal of these two people in the process of creating comes close to capturing that invisible electricity that people feel when they create art for its own sake. Only unlike The Mikado, which is very well known work on its own, this whole painting project is completely personal. We didn’t know this artist, and we don’t know what he’s painting, and without spoiling everything, we never really know what he paints. The focus is on the creator and the creative process, and putting that in the context of the painting of a personal masterpiece isn’t as abstract as it seems.
That's what is particularly exciting about these two movies... the subtle but approachable ways that both films emphasize how important the journey of creation is compared to the destination. The Mikado is a prim and proper (and witty) operetta created by troubled, flawed creators. You'll never hear the music of the Mikado the same way again, but you can appreciate it more fully after seeing Topsy Turvy. While we don't know what La Belle's final creation will be, we do know that it is so moving, powerful, and troubling a piece to the artist and the model that we don't need to see what the physical finished work looks like.... our imaginations do more work than any film image could. Only by painstakingly taking us on the artistic path very patiently and deliberately do these filmmakers earn the right to reveal that the process of something beautiful being formed... the unstructured and slow scenes that made us occasionally restless, distracted, and anxious... were the main point of the movie all along.
TOPSY TURVY (1999)
LA BELLE NOISEUSE (1991)
As much as I like to pretend on this site that I’m a very devoted movie buff, I admit that I am not adopting the viewing habits of a true cinephile. Much to my chagrin, I am barely chipping away at my Netflix Queue, and there are other tastes and hobbies that I am trying to nurture (such as film criticism!) that make the prospect of watching a movie not always the most attractive use of my free time. When I do decide to commit to watching a 2-3 hour film, I inevitably open myself to millions of potential distractions.Some of these distractions are based on life problems, lingering work issues, and conflicts I’m avoiding by giving in to my couch potato leanings. A very healthy portion of these thoughts go towards the stacks of creative works that I need to digest very soon if I want to feel like a current, cultured person. Overall, though, all of these distractions can be summed up by the nagging reality that, as I am watching something on a screen, I could be doing something else. Perhaps that’s why going to a theater will always be attractive to me. In addition to the comfortable seating, superior soundsystems, and the satisfaction of seeing something new or obscure before it's available to everyone for home purchase, the theater setting is the ideal way to remove the outside world from my consciousness and to prepare myself for the singular experience of movie-watching, with no discernable escape route to books, music, TV, or other mediums.
When I leave that singular theater world, I find it constantly overwhelming about how much simple access to everything the average person with an Internet connection has. You no longer have to live in a ritzy big city to see an obscure art movie-- just dial it up on Netflix and watch it online. If I refuse to cater to a prime-time TV schedule and miss a show that I want to follow, I can watch it, at my convenience, from a high quality streaming site on the Internet such as Hulu, or watch it on the DVR built into my cable box. My high school years featuring the regular sessions of obsessing over music purchase decisions are over. Time I would spend perusing through music store shelves figuring out which CD is both reasonably priced and worth buying is now spent deciding which of the dozens albums, both old and new, I should listen to at the click of a mouse through online streaming services. For the price of one physical CD, my monthly subscription rate to Rhapsody.com gives me access to tens of thousands of records. Of course, I could just ingest vast quantities of new music, through dozens of music review websites and mp3 blogs offering content for free that goes straight into my iTunes playlist, 5500+ songs strong. I remember when I was eager to pick up the faint signal of the college radio station from Oklahoma State University 90 miles away from my house, with its mix of cutting edge indie rock and some familiar alternative favorites. With my own personal playlist, I can pretty much create a parallel listening experience, with new noncommercial songs mixed in with classics that have stood the test of time. This access has been refreshing, but it is also clearly a double-edged sword. The possibility of appreciating all of these creative works at your typing fingertips is nearly impossible with this newly universal access, even given a whole lifetime at your disposal. Free time, of course is limited. TV shows, movies, books, music, arts, crafts, recreation, contemplation, charity work… if you can figure out how to do even 2 of these leisure activities simultaneously without one or the other drifting to the background, more power to you. However, there are so many waking hours in a day, a maximum of five senses, and only so many limbs to spare for multitasking.
Compellingly, there’s an emerging artistic sensitivity developing in response to a world that now seems so accessible yet so distant because everything is made available without any struggle. The Radiohead album OK Computer comes to mind, as well as the movie Lost in Translation, where modernity is embraced and creatively portrayed, yet timeless alienation and loneliness abound despite all the new-fangled bells and whistles. Humanity perseveres despite this coldness, but as a consequence of sensory overload, everything needs to make more of a splash to command the consumer’s attention over the din of everything else.
Despite all of the distractions around us, art is not supposed to be digested in fragments or as an afterthought, and the creators of art, in all likelihood, want your full attention despite other available stimuli. Once they manage to grab your attention with something provocative, what if they take a bolder step, to not only demand your attention but indulge in whatever length of time is necessary to share their vision? While a visually arresting or sensational series of images, words, or sounds in film can shock the senses, another more meditative kind of jolt occurs when a filmmaker decides that patience is a paramount virtue, and that it might be more arresting to portray the process of something being created than the creation itself. Sure, that flower you just walked past is pretty, but wouldn’t it be pleasing, or at least compellingly different, if you sat for a while and watched it bloom?
Sometimes I actually do find myself in situations when I must cede control of some of my life to another force that is not primarily motivated to give me immediate satisfaction. Whether at a religious service, at a symphony concert, or even stuck on a commuter train with no high tech gadgetry to pass the time, with the right mindset you can reach a relaxed yet focused state somewhere in between the feelings of utter boredom and intense, immediate gratification. That happy medium can be conjured up by creative artists willing to take the time to create a world, and focus on the process of this world being created, rather than unveil a product nearly finished right from the beginning.
These two films (the only film pairing in this series) serve as a jumping off point for my appreciation of those long movies which you might call indulgent if you’re in the mood for something direct. But unlike some earlier entries that are indirect in other ways, these films have the potential to be attractive to more audiences, despite their lengths, because the lack of narrative urgency serves a obvious purpose, which is to establish a portrayal of the artistic process as important to the evocative nature of the final works. Sure there are some avant-garde, experimental elements in these movies, but the direction of those elements isn’t entirely to serve the discerning appreciators of stylistic cinema, but in order to reveal the process of an artistic expression being constructed before one’s very eyes. Think of these movies as the far more expressive version of the “making of” specials on any DVD bonus feature, integrated as the central premise of a feature in the most compelling way possible.
The newer of the two films, Topsy Turvy (1999), is actually the one I saw first at the single-screen independent theater across the street from Drake University. It is directed by Mike Leigh, who has a distinct film style and film making technique that makes anticipation of his works at almost as high a level as Quentin Tarantino, although for completely different reasons. As Quentin is a complete master of slick cinematic dialogue (how many times I mutter his lines to myself while walking around is something I don’t want to reveal), Mike Leigh is known for having no scripted dialogue whatsoever. Leigh, in interviews, isn’t very forthcoming about how he goes about making full vital films with very little script or plot direction, but I can imagine he works very intensely with his actors to create a whole life for his characters before a camera first begins to roll. The freedom inherent is having a character be so fully embodied beforehand that the touching, human moments improvised by his films occur naturally and without reading prewritten lines is quite exciting to behold, and makes you incredibly respectful of the professionalism the men and women bring to his movies. With that in mind, the accomplishment of Topsy Turvy is amazing. It’s a behind the scenes glimpse, and so much more, of the creative process leading up to the original premiere, in London, of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Mikado in the late nineteenth century. But while it would be amusing to watch the actors and actresses rehearse their lines and songs (and there are extensive, entertaining scenes of that), Topsy Turvy first and foremost recognizes the vital and complex human beings that through creative frustrations, collaboration and conflict, and some random inspiration, create a nearly perfect work of art. The actors playing both Gilbert and Sullivan are incredible. You cannot have a film so powerful without making the main characters so troubled, complex, and well-defined in their ambitions and hang-ups that the timelessness of the final work they produce seems almost like a beautiful fluke.
At the time, I was totally unfamiliar with the music. I think I just wanted to go to the cute little theater on campus for the first time. For someone who loves the Mikado and other Gilbert and Sullivan music, however, this film in incredibly engaging. In fact, I have become a huge fan of those dainty and witty operettas since I saw this thanks to my Mom’s surprising confession that this music was something her family obsessed over when she was growing up. In watching this with her and my extended family for the second time at my grandparent’s house, now being familiar with the Mikado, the film is exponentially better. The moments of inspiration, at the first fiery spark of understanding by the creators of this music that they are on to something special, is all the more stronger when you independently adore the art they are making. This movie would not be the same however, if it is was a biopic about the “Making of the Mikado”. Most of the other Mike Leigh films I’m aware of are set in the present, and while the improvisational style is still incredibly engaging, there is a certain perfect balance of refinement and loose structure with Topsy Turvy, all the more respectable knowing that the actors and actresses had to not only build a unique character, but make these people historically accurate.
What I’m trying to centralize about this particular film essay can be summed up by a critic’s praise for Topsy Turvy being that it was a perfect depiction of the “artistic process”. What is so counterintuitive about “process” being an engaging subject of cinema? The answer could be in the second installment of this film pairing, La Belle Noiseuse. Made in 1991, and directed by Jacques Rivette, who is known for making very long movies that are never rushed. You might as well confirm my film snob status right now if I mention that La Belle’s running time is 237 minutes, except that his movie from the early 70s called Out 1, lasted 750 minutes long and wasn’t properly released in the U.S. until a few years ago. Nonetheless, La Belle was spread out over two DVDs, and in line with my short attention span (and just bad scheduling) I ashamedly did watch this movie in installments over two days. Hopefully that doesn’t put me in a second-tier league of film snobbery to break up the experience of this movie, because I truly think the power of the movie wasn’t diminished with my viewing habits. Quite simply, La Belle Noiseuse is about an old artist who has long retired from painting. He’s quietly living with his family in a rural chateau until a dealer (or someone in a business relationship with the artist) visits his home and brings his girlfriend along. It’s revealed (relatively quickly compared to the slow tide of the rest of the movie) that this girlfriend was brought here as a subtle way to inspire the artist to come out of retirement and restart a painting project that he abandoned decades ago. It’s initially successful, since he does start painting again, with the beautiful young French lady as the subject model. However, the film then moves into a narrative territory that is abstract, inconclusive, and very oriented towards the process of creating, regardless of whether that process leads to anything tangible.
The most bold move of the film, that rewards incredible amounts of patience, are the extended scenes where the artist, in real time (no montages here) poses and draws sketches of his subject. Every second imaginable is used to capture the art of creation but also the even more invigorating mix of emotions that might come with being the subject of creation. There are no shortcuts in this movie that make the characters feelings evolve in abrupt ways. Rather it’s a very meditative movie, featuring a small handful of characters with the artist and its subject taking up most of the screen time. The shots are often static, but the variations of angles towards the portrayal of these two people in the process of creating comes close to capturing that invisible electricity that people feel when they create art for its own sake. Only unlike The Mikado, which is very well known work on its own, this whole painting project is completely personal. We didn’t know this artist, and we don’t know what he’s painting, and without spoiling everything, we never really know what he paints. The focus is on the creator and the creative process, and putting that in the context of the painting of a personal masterpiece isn’t as abstract as it seems.
That's what is particularly exciting about these two movies... the subtle but approachable ways that both films emphasize how important the journey of creation is compared to the destination. The Mikado is a prim and proper (and witty) operetta created by troubled, flawed creators. You'll never hear the music of the Mikado the same way again, but you can appreciate it more fully after seeing Topsy Turvy. While we don't know what La Belle's final creation will be, we do know that it is so moving, powerful, and troubling a piece to the artist and the model that we don't need to see what the physical finished work looks like.... our imaginations do more work than any film image could. Only by painstakingly taking us on the artistic path very patiently and deliberately do these filmmakers earn the right to reveal that the process of something beautiful being formed... the unstructured and slow scenes that made us occasionally restless, distracted, and anxious... were the main point of the movie all along.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Regularly Scheduled Tuesday Report
TROPIC THUNDER
[format: Blu-Ray Netflix]
There's a type of elevated joy the comes from comedy which I would like to call "comedy zen". This is when something on the screen is so great to watch because both the comedy being acted out, and the cleverness of the concept of the comedy, are so pitch perfect that I really overwhelmed about what aspect of this amazing moment I can focus on. Tropic Thunder has many of those comedy zen moments, with most of them being whenever Robert Downer Jr. is on the screen. When those comedy zen moments subside, you are still left with incredibly hilarity every step of the way. Non-conventional concept humor and physical comedy all coming together. Loved it.
AVATAR
[format: my FIRST feature length 3-d Imax experience]
OK, time for everyone to hate me for being a glass half empty guy.
THREE VERY MINOR DETAILS THAT MAKE AVATAR LESS THAN COMPLETELY AMAZING
1) Narration - I know mainstream movies can't be subtle and let us think for ourselves how the main character feels, but the sensory overload with this film doesn't require an awkward voiceover every now and then. Not necessary.
2) Ferngully - There's nothing close to a Robin Williams voiced bat in Avatar, but I couldn't help but thinking this was a little too formulaic regarding a big bad enemy in the form of a corporation coming in to destroy nature and the people in it that are more spiritual than we'll ever be. I may not have seen anything like this before, but the story was a little familiar.
3) The minor character with nothing but cliche dialogue that slips under the radar of a giant security apparatus to save the day after the real characters are at a seemingly dead end - there almost has to be someone with a change of heart in an action movie that's goes from bad to good (or at least neutral to good) to reach any kind of conclusions, so I'll give them that, but I didn't like that they just took a random person I didn't care about and made her the catalyst.
OK, am I done? YES. This was an incredible movie, totally lived up to its hype, borrowed from some headier versions of science fiction that I've read, and is on the far, FAR, positive side of movies that I would wish to be the biggest motion pictures of all time.
[format: Blu-Ray Netflix]
There's a type of elevated joy the comes from comedy which I would like to call "comedy zen". This is when something on the screen is so great to watch because both the comedy being acted out, and the cleverness of the concept of the comedy, are so pitch perfect that I really overwhelmed about what aspect of this amazing moment I can focus on. Tropic Thunder has many of those comedy zen moments, with most of them being whenever Robert Downer Jr. is on the screen. When those comedy zen moments subside, you are still left with incredibly hilarity every step of the way. Non-conventional concept humor and physical comedy all coming together. Loved it.
AVATAR
[format: my FIRST feature length 3-d Imax experience]
OK, time for everyone to hate me for being a glass half empty guy.
THREE VERY MINOR DETAILS THAT MAKE AVATAR LESS THAN COMPLETELY AMAZING
1) Narration - I know mainstream movies can't be subtle and let us think for ourselves how the main character feels, but the sensory overload with this film doesn't require an awkward voiceover every now and then. Not necessary.
2) Ferngully - There's nothing close to a Robin Williams voiced bat in Avatar, but I couldn't help but thinking this was a little too formulaic regarding a big bad enemy in the form of a corporation coming in to destroy nature and the people in it that are more spiritual than we'll ever be. I may not have seen anything like this before, but the story was a little familiar.
3) The minor character with nothing but cliche dialogue that slips under the radar of a giant security apparatus to save the day after the real characters are at a seemingly dead end - there almost has to be someone with a change of heart in an action movie that's goes from bad to good (or at least neutral to good) to reach any kind of conclusions, so I'll give them that, but I didn't like that they just took a random person I didn't care about and made her the catalyst.
OK, am I done? YES. This was an incredible movie, totally lived up to its hype, borrowed from some headier versions of science fiction that I've read, and is on the far, FAR, positive side of movies that I would wish to be the biggest motion pictures of all time.
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