Monthly Archives: June 2010

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On The Couch #24: Blood Diamond

It’s movies like Blood Diamond that remind me how grateful I am that I live in America. My neighborhood isn’t a war zone. There are no armed rebels driving down my street. The closest thing I saw to a conflict this weekend was this note taped to someone’s car as I was walking to brunch:

While Blood Diamond makes me glad to live in America, it really drives home the point that America and other western countries are a major driving force in the bloodshed that stems from the mining and exporting of diamonds with our obsession for big shiny rocks to put on little dainty fingers. The filmmakers never get too heavy handed about it, which I think helps get the message across. Watching the movie, I was too caught up in it as a thriller to feel I was being preached to.

After watching this movies, I’m surprised that there isn’t a backlash against diamonds like there is with fur. No one is dipping women’s hands in red paint and yelling “Diamonds are murder!”

When I told my cousin that The Departed was the movie that made me like Leonardo DiCaprio, he said that Blood Diamond was the movie that did that for him. When I said I never saw Blood Diamond, he insisted that I see it. Since his last pick was the great The Lives of Others, I quickly added Blood Diamond to my queue.

I’m glad I did. It really is a great thriller. The movie is 2 ½ hours long, but it’s a fast 2 ½ hours. And DiCaprio is awesome. I’m really excited for Inception to open up in a couple of weeks.

I wonder how many people after seeing this movie go out of their way to buy a certified diamond. I’d like to think it made that kind of impact on me, but I haven’t purchased any diamond since seeing it, so I make for a lousy case study. I would think Blood Diamond makes an impact on everyone who sees it. But I’m interested in knowing how long that impact lasts. After some time has passed, does the conflict seem much further removed than the immediacy of the dollar sign in front of your face? I’m not judging; I’m just curious. As always, feel free to leave comments below.

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At The Movies #22: Letters to Juliet

Pop quiz, hotshot. You plan to see Get Him to the Greek with your girlfriend and a friend and get to the theater to discover not only is that movie sold out, but every other movie playing near that same time is sold out too, even movies you have no interest in seeing (like say The Karate Kid). So what do you? What do you do?

Shoot the hostage? No!

You head 10 blocks south and watch Letters to Juliet at Quad Cinemas!

I’m still not sure how we arrived at that decision.

Letters to Juliet isn’t that bad. If I caught this randomly on TBS, I’d probably remark to a friend, “Hey you know that movie Letters to Juliet? Yeah, it was on TBS and wasn’t that bad. What? No? I didn’t want to watch it; it was just on. Yes, I could have changed the channel, but what else are you going to watch on a Saturday afternoon? Yes, I could have gone outside; it is a beautiful summer day. You know what, I’m sorry I even brought it up.”

Letters to Juliet suffers from two problems. First, if you’ve seen the preview, you’ve seen the movie. How much input does a filmmaker have in what goes into the trailer for a Hollywood picture? Does the blame fall on director Gary Winick or a random guy in marketing? If it’s a random guy in marketing, it must be frustrating as a director to see the studio release a trailer that walks the audience through every beat of your movie.

The second problem is that there is no chemistry between the protagonist Sophie and her rival-turned-love-interest Charlie. I think they did such a good job at making Charlie smug and arrogant to establish him as an obstacle in Sophie’s path that when it came time for them to fall in love it just fell flat. They basically fall in love over the course of an extended montage scene. At the start of the montage, Sophie and Charlie can barely stand each other and by the end of it, they’re stealing glances at each other in the rearview mirror of Charlie’s car as he drives Sophie and his grandmother around Italy.

Charlie’s grandmother is a piece of work. She tries hard to make Sophie and Charlie get into each other, but still Grandma that’s no reason to watch from your bedroom window when your grandson finally hooks up with the girl.

“Don’t mind me. Grandma likes to watch.”

In order to make Charlie seem like somewhat of a catch, Letters to Juliet starts out with Sophie engaged to the second coming of Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers. I kept expecting him to namedrop Cousin Larry in a sentence or show up with a goat under his arm. Guys, if your girlfriend has seen this movie, you can never use the term “win-win” again. Balki uses it every time he makes a jerk move in the movie. You don’t want to associate with that.

During the whole every guy in Italy tells Vanessa Redgrave that he’s Lorenzo Bartolini bit, I was really hoping for an Italian plumber to pop up and say…

“It’sa me! Lorenzo Bartolini!”

I should apologize to the other patrons of the Quad Cinema on W. 13 St. because Julie, Bryan and I may have been a little rude with our MST3K imitation while watching this movie. Actually, maybe Bryan and I should apologize to Julie as she had to sit between us as we were both lobbing jokes about the movie.

“I’m sorry.”

The popcorn at Quad tasted stale and overly salted. It didn’t have that crunch that fresh popcorn has and there were way too many popcorn bits in my bag for this to be fresh stuff. The staff was friendly though, and even hooked us up with a free refill on a soda, which they don’t normally do.

I thought the Quad only showed indie films or small studio releases likely to win a lot of awards. Maybe Letters to Juliet fooled them because it takes place mostly in Italy?

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At The Theater #21: Toy Story 3

Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are my favorite Pixar movies, so it shouldn’t be hard to believe that Toy Story 3 was the movie I was looking forward to the most this summer. With that anticipation comes a bit a fear. Is this the one where they jump the shark? A lot of franchises’ third movies have been lackluster. I’m looking at you Godfather 3, Superman III and Batman Forever.

I shouldn’t have worried though, Toy Story 3 is great. Pixar really can do no wrong.

What other studio has their kind of track record? My least favorite Pixar movie, Cars, is still a good movie. Cars just doesn’t hold up to the incredibly high bar set by every other Pixar release. But Toy Story 3 definitely does.

This is my favorite of the Toy Story 3 character posters. He’s got a 3 for a nose!

Toy Story 3 packs more guilt than a Jewish mother (I can make that joke because I started the hora at an Episcopalian wedding this past weekend). The movie really hammers home how lonely your toys get when you grow too old to play with them. They ride this point for the whole movie. It’s enough to make me want to drive straight to my parents’ house, run up to the attic, rip open the Hefty bag full of He-Man figures and reenact the battle for Eternia.

Toy Story 3 is very funny. If you enjoyed the first two, you’ll love this one. And if you didn’t enjoy the first two, try to get that stone in your chest replaced with a heart.

This poster looks like Woody farted and everyone behind him is shocked by it. Maybe they’re trying to figure out the least awkward way to tell him he accidentally pooped himself.

Like every other Pixar release, there is a short before the main feature. This time it’s Day and Night, which has to be the coolest blending of CGI and traditional cell shaded animation ever. It also looks much better than Tom Cruise’s upcoming Knight and Day.

While watching Toy Story 3, I couldn’t help but think about Cars and why it doesn’t work as well as Pixar’s other movies. I think I figured it out. It’s because there are no people in it. The other Pixar movies that involve anthropomorphizing the world around us show what’s going on in the lives of toys, fish and bugs when people aren’t paying attention to them. But in Cars, there are no people. The cars in Cars are entirely self-sufficient and self-motivated. There’s no interaction between the cars and people, which is the dynamic that anchors Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo to the real world. Without this anchor, Cars seems a bit faker than the others. That being said, I’d still take Cars over most CGI animated movies produced by other studios.

Pixar is still batting 1.000. Go see Toy Story 3 and see it in 3D. It’s definitely worth it, and it’s a safe bet it will be better than Jonah Hex (also opening this weekend).
SPOILER: One of the characters in this poster isn’t in Toy Story 3.
Woe for Stinky Pete the Prospector
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On The Couch #23: Brothers

WARNING: This post not only spoils plot points in Brothers, it also exposes both your eyes to a little explicit language and your ears to a little explicit language combined with some very off-key singing.

I recently got into Joss Whedon’s short-lived but excellent TV show Firefly. I know, I’m late to the party on this one. My favorite part of the show has to be the theme song. Anytime I watch an episode, I end up with the theme song stuck in my head for days.

It was stuck in my head while watching Brothers and I found myself singing about the movie to the tune of the Firefly theme. I realized the best way to express my thoughts on Brothers here on the blog would be through song and got to work on some more Brothers by way of Firefly song parody lyrics.

Please enjoy.

“I know you fucked her” is my new favorite line to whisper to people.
For those of you who don’t want to keep exposing your ears to my at home karaoke, or really want to sing along with me, here are the song lyrics:
“Brothers by way of Firefly”

Words by Tuesday Night Movies
Music by Joss Whedon

Take my fam, take my life
My brother Tom fucked my wife
That’s what Bella told me
Gyllenhall is too sexy

Take my love, Take my fam
I’m stuck in Afghanistan
It’s okay, thought I was dead
So you fucked her in my bed

Trashed the kitchen ‘n TV
Better call the cops on me
‘Cause Tobey’s gone a bit crazy

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At The Movies #20 Exit Through The Gift Shop

After weeks of Brooklyn Heights Cinema having movies that I either saw already or weren’t that interested in seeing, it has filled its two theaters with two movies I have been looking forward to catching, Exit Through the Gift Shop and Holy Rollers. The movie poster above and the title of this post may have given away which I went to see first.

For those who don’t know, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary about Thierry, a novice filmmaker, and his immersion into the world of street art.

Or is it? There seems to be some debate whether this is a documentary or a mockumentary in the vein of This is Spinal Tap. The director of Exit Through the Gift Shop is not Thierry, but is the mysterious street artist Banksy, one of the subjects of the movie, who is from the onset the most enigmatic. He is cloaked in shadow and his voice is digitized, which immediately makes him seem like he’s the only one who knows what’s really going on.

No one knows Banky’s true identity.
I suspect he’s Chancellor Palpatine.

Another reason why this all might be fake: Thierry’s facial hair makes him kind of look like Harry Shearer in This is Spinal Tap.

Zey call me zee French Derek Smalls.

If it is fake, that makes the art show for Mr. Brain Wash towards the end of the movie all the more awesome, since it was covered by LA Weekly, attended by big stars and fetched high prices for a potentially non-existent artist.

Or was it?

Whether it’s a real documentary or not, I enjoyed Exit Through the Gift Shop tremendously. It’s highly educational for anyone with even a passing interest in graffiti, or the Obama campaign for that matter. Shepard Fairey is one of the artists featured in the film. From watching his segments, I’m surprised that the vandalism squad of the police force doesn’t have every Kinko’s on lock down.

This might be my inner geek talking, but this is my favorite kind of graffiti.

You should go see Exit Through the Gift Shop, and when you do, catch it at Brooklyn Heights Cinemas. It’s a great place to see a movie.

If we had seen it a day earlier, we might have run into Michael Showalter, according to Twitter. He only tweeted that he saw the movie and liked it; he didn’t indicate where he saw it. But he lives in Brooklyn Heights, so there’s a decent chance he saw it at Brooklyn Heights Cinemas. Hmmm, maybe I’ll carry around my State DVD boxed set and a sharpie with me next time I head there for a movie.

What do you mean stalker-like tendencies? 

I liked Exit Through the Gift Shop so much that I plan on Netflixing the DVD as soon as it’s released, to see the movie again and to check out the bonus features to get insight into the film. Finally! A movie where I’m actually excited for the bonus features section of the DVD. When was the last time you said that?

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On The Couch #22: An American Crime

Wow, I really wish I looked up the info on this movie before starting it. I went into it blind. I was up late and it was on TV. I missed the title, so I had no idea what I was watching, but it took place in the 60s and Bradley Whitford played a lawyer, which is enough for me to not reach for the remote.

Bradley Whitford is a JK Simmons level actor.

Then Ellen Page came on the screen. I thought I was in for a teenage coming of age story. Juno in the 60s! Yay!

I was so wrong.

I realized this as soon as Catherine Keener burned her first cigarette out on Page’s arm. Keener plays a woman so effed in the head crazy that Annie Wilkes from Misery has been quoted as saying “That lady’s nutty.” Keener’s kids are just as whacked as their mom. If you ever wondered where the children of the corn came from, it was this house.

This is not a date night movie. It’s also not a movie to watch while eating food. This movie is very raw and holds few punches in showing how Indiana mom Gertrude Baniszewski (Keener) and her kids physically and mentally tortured their neighbor Sylvia Wilkes (Page) without mercy. The only person scarier than Gertrude is her pint-sized son Johnny, who burns and beats Sylvia with a very creepy smile on his face. That kid still gives me nightmares.

It’s also a very good movie. Keener, Page and Whitford are all excellent. If this is the role that got Ellen Page noticed by Hollywood, I can understand.

The saddest thing about this movie is that it’s based on a true story. It scares me that people in real life can do to each other what the Baniszewski family did to Sylvia and Jenny Wilkes.

I recommend seeing this movie, just don’t expect me to watch it again in the near future.

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On The Couch #21: Planet Hulk

Don’t worry, I’m not turning this blog into a comic book movie blog.

I was just on a bit of a Hulk kick after watching The Incredible Hulk and decided to follow it up with Planet Hulk, an animated movie from Marvel. Like DC, Marvel is making animated features out of its popular comic book storylines. In this one, the Hulk crash lands on an planet full of aliens as big as he is, and becomes a gladiator.

– Hey, you spilled Gladiator in my Hulk!
– Hey, you spilled Hulk in my Gladiator!

If you’re hard up for a Hulk movie (hey, whatever floats your boat, who am I to judge?) and are stuck deciding between Planet Hulk and The Incredible Hulk, The Incredible Hulk wins. It’s better all around. I guess that’s not really a fair comparison as The Incredible Hulk was a big budget Hollywood blockbuster with cool special effects and top grade talent, while Planet Hulk has the animation style of your typical Saturday morning cartoon.

“Hulk, do you like movies about gladiators? Has Hulk ever been to a Turkish prison?”

Story-wise, it’s a very faithful retelling of the Planet Hulk story from the comic book. If you’re one to judge a comic-based movie on well it keeps to the original, you’d probably give this movie an A.

It’s the meh-quality animation that really hurts Planet Hulk. The animation doesn’t hold up to the art from the comic. In the comic, the Hulk seemed like he was in much more danger than he is here. That’s mainly because the big bad guys in the movie as drawn pretty yawntastically. In the comic, the aliens were huge and menacing, here Hulk is still the biggest kid on the block.

“No, Hulk am Spartacus.”

As I was thinking about the premise, basically Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and some other heroes ship Hulk off-planet because he’s too dangerous for Earth, I started thinking why did they waste this on just the Hulk? Why not throw Dr. Doom, Magneto, Venom and every other psycho with powers on there and say sayonara? Is it only okay to do that to someone who is your friend half the time instead of a villain all the time? Wow, Iron Man is a jerk. Mr. Fantastic too.

If you’re a comic fan, you’ll love the many cameos by Marvel’s cosmic characters in this movie. If you’re not a comic book fan, congratulations on making it this far into this post.

The bonus features on the Blu-ray include the first chapter of motion comics for Spider-Woman and Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men. What’s a motion comic, you ask? It’s about halfway between being a comic book and a cartoon. Remember Sam Keith’s The Maxx cartoon on MTV in the mid-90s? It’s like that. Why are some people excited about motion comics right now as being some great, new innovation? After watching these two, I’m not sure either, because like I said, they looked very similar to The Maxx animation-wise, which looked kind of cool…in 1995.