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On The Couch #8: The Hurt Locker

Anyone thinking about enlisting in the military should be forced to watch The Hurt Locker. Chances are after seeing this movie, they’ll think twice about signing up. Unless they’re like SSG William James, an adrenaline junkie who consistently manages to get his team in as much trouble as he gets them out of. But unlike most action-war movies, Sergeant James’s actions aren’t glorified in any way. He’s technically proficient at what he does, but he, and those around him, pay the consequences for his decisions.

Those things will kill you.

The Hurt Locker is unapologetic look at life in the war in Iraq. Focusing on men in the army’s bomb squad, possibly the most dangerous assignment in Iraq, the film does an excellent job at getting the viewer into the heads of the soldiers serving in the unit. When the enemy looks and dresses the same as the friendly, the US soldiers are forced to be on constant, nerve-fraying high alert, knowing that anyone along the street, or watching from a rooftop, could be specifically there to kill them…or not. It’s that constant not knowing of who the enemy is that heightens the suspense in the film to so much.

After watching The Hurt Locker, I have a new appreciation for the men and women who serve in our armed forces fighting overseas. And I’m glad it’s not me. I also hope that any friends and family over there come home as soon as possible, and decide not to go back.

The only big stars in The Hurt Locker are Ralph Fiennes and Evangeline Lilly, both who make only cameos. I listened to an interview with Kathryn Bigelow where she said that it was a conscious decision not to cast big stars in the main roles, because she didn’t want the audience to think at any point that any of these characters could not die. She exceeded at that. The characters in the film are constantly put in harm’s way and not all of them live to see the end credits.

Ralph Fiennes in The Hurt Locker

The Oscars are only hours away and while the field for Best Picture has been opened up to 10 films this year, the popular opinion is that there are really only two contenders: The Hurt Locker and Avatar. Now that I have seen both, I think Avatar will win. I thought The Hurt Locker was a great movie, and I think that Kathryn Bigelow should win Best Director, but I liked Avatar more. In a truly just world though, The Hangover would take home Best Picture.

Movie of the Year
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At The Theater #8: A Single Man

A Single Man is a film about a man in mourning. It stars Colin Firth as George, a recently widowed gay college professor living in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. With the sudden death of his lover Jim, all the life seems to be taken out of George, both internally through his grief, and externally in that out of the two of them, Jim seems to have been the one with more fire in his soul. He ignited George, and now that he’s gone, George has gone cold.

A Single Man is a beautifully shot movie. Tom Ford utilizes color throughout the film to a very good effect. It’s easy to tell George’s emotional state regarding the world around him depending on how bright or muted the colors are in the scene. This really pops when George is in a good mood, providing some of the prettiest visuals in the film.

The problem with following a depressed man around for the course of a day is that it makes for at times a verrrrry slowwwwww moving movie. I didn’t fall asleep at any part during the movie, but if we had picked a later showtime, I might have been danger of fighting off some serious drowsiness.

I was a fan of the TV show Pushing Daisies, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a cameo from Lee Pace, who played Ned on the show. Here he is stodgy colleague of George who is obsessed with the cold war and impending nuclear holocaust. His scene is one of the two funniest scenes in the movie, when he explains to George why everyone needs a fallout shelter.

Ned!

The other big surprise about A Single Man was seeing Nicholas Hoult, the awkward kid from About a Boy, play Kenny in this movie. The surprise came from that he’s no longer awkward, has lost a lot of baby fat, and is, according to a couple of girls who also saw the movie, “very hot.” My date pointed out that this movie would be a lot more awkward if they cast the other guy from The Bridget Jones Diaries, Hugh Grant to play George. Because Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult starred together in About a Boy when Hoult was much younger, the two of them going skinny dipping here would have seemed especially weird.

For my female readership…enjoy.

The clothes in A Single Man are another big highlight of the movie. Everyone is dressed to the nines, even if they’re just in everyday clothes. But I guess if you have Tom Ford directing, that’s to be expected. I wish Tom Ford provided my clothes.

The main reason I went to see A Single Man is that it was nominated for Best Picture as this year’s Oscars, or so I thought. When I saw it, I thought “I don’t know if I would have nominated A Single Man for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards.” It looks like the Academy agreed with me, because it wasn’t A Single Man that was nominated for Best Picture, it was A Serious Man. Whoops.

Speaking of the Oscars, it doesn’t look like I’m going to see all the Best Picture contenders before tonight’s show. With only hours left until the broadcast, and The Hurt Locker, Blind Side, Precious and A Serious Man still to go, I think I may only have time for one. Since the battle for Best Picture seems to be between Avatar and The Hurt Locker, I think I’m going to go with that.

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On The Couch #7: Food Inc.

Food Inc. should be on everyone’s must see list. This documentary about how our food is produced in America is as startling as it is enlightening. This is a movie that will scare you more than a Friday the 13th marathon or the prospect of sitting through a Celine Dion concert.

The hypocrisy of our food producers are laid bare; they advertise “farm fresh,” but what we’re really consuming is generated at a place more akin to a factory assembly line. And the factory isn’t pretty. Cows, pigs and chickens are bred in such close quarters that they’re walking around in their own excrement. They’re cleaned at the slaughterhouse, but living a life of spending your days in their own feces seems to reveal why cases of e. coli and salmonella have risen so much over the years. If an infected cow is taking a dump at the feet of non-infected cows, it’s no surprise that infection spreads.

It will also make you look at hamburgers in a while new light. According to the movie, a single hamburger patty can have the meat of 1,000 cows in it, any of which might be infected with something. 1,000 cows! This didn’t scare me into becoming a vegetarian, but I might look a little more leery at my hamburger next time I’m at 5 Guys.

10,000 cows?

Another startling piece of information learned from watching Food Inc. is just how big a part corn plays in our food consumption. Corn, or a derivative of it, is used someway in about 90% of what you’ll find on your supermarket shelves. The main reason for this is that corn is subsidized to the point that it’s cheaper to buy it than it is to produce it. Corn is the main ingredient used in the feed of not only our livestock, but now also in farmed fish. When you get down to it, we’re becoming corn.

Like the previous night’s movie District 9, Food Inc. shows that when left unregulated by the government, big corporations show little care for human safety or livelihood when dollars are to be made.

Guess which one you had for dinner last night?

But Food Inc. exists not to scare us, but to educate us. The producers do a good job of showing alternatives to the food-factory system. Organic yogurt giant Stonyfield and small scale more naturally oriented livestock farmers are given a chance to show their alternatives to the big, corporate system…even though Stonyfield is now part of the big, corporate system.

Natual chicken farmer Joel Salatin

A final reason to see Food Inc.: Bruce Springsteen’s cover of This Land is Your Land plays during the closing credits. Alright, maybe that’s not a reason to see it, but it’s a nice bonus at the end.
Food Inc. continues Oscar week here at Tuesday Night Movies. It’s nominated for Best Documentary this year. I haven’t seen the other movies in that category, but this one is great, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it wins on Sunday.

Go out and rent Food Inc. If you have Netflix, it’s available for instant streaming. Just eat before you watch Food Inc., because you might not want to afterwards.

Okay, this is just scary.
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On The Couch #6: District 9

In the battle between District 9 and Avatar on which would make for a better date movie, Avatar wins hands down. Not because of the 3D, or the more attractive aliens, but because of Avatar’s lack of vomit. If I were to summarize District 9 in three words, it would be “too much vomit.” Someone seems to be upchucking every few minutes in the movie. It doesn’t matter if you’re human or alien; if you’re a character in the movie, there’s a good chance you’ll heave at some point. Even a robotic exoskeleton battle-suit throws up a couple of times. I didn’t know robots could barf!

If District 9 had a smaller special effects budget.

Once you get past all the ralphing, District 9 is a pretty cool movie. I like science fiction films that use aliens to highlight how shitty we can treat our fellow man. The aliens in District 9 are freaky looking, with a mother ship right out of Independence Day, but unlike the aliens on V, they’re not bent on world domination. They’re also not cute and cuddly like ET. They’re just trying to get by, living in their shantytown, dealing with prejudice from the local populace, getting screwed by the government and big corporations, selling outer space tech to the local Nigerian gang, and eating as much delicious cat food they can get their appendages on.

To be honest, I’m surprised there’s such a backlash against Avatar, but such a love for District 9. Both are about humans gaining an appreciation for the other side by becoming one of them. Both show that corporations care more about making money than doing the right thing. Both feature villains that are pulled from the action villain cliché book. So what is it? Does having Peter Jackson as a producer give it a certain amount of cache that James Cameron doesn’t carry any more? Did Titanic ruin Cameron for the sci-fi set?

By seeing District 9, I’m one step closer to seeing all 10 Best Picture nominations for this year’s Oscars. I’m a bit behind on that, having only seen 6 of 10. I’m behind on other things as well: behind at the theater and behind on the couch. I’m hoping to catch up on all three this week. Hurt Locker should be arriving in the mail from Netflix on Saturday, which leaves The Blind Side, Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, and A Single Man to see in the theater by Sunday evening. Can I do it?

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At The Theater #7: The Last Station

Walking into the theater at The Angelika, I didn’t know anything about The Last Station other than James McAvoy stars in it. When I sat down, and was told it was about Tolstoy, I reaction was “Really?” Inside I was thinking “How did I let this happen? Great, time to prep for something boring and pretentious.” But as it turns out I need not have worried. The Last Station is a surprisingly humorous movie, especially considering that it’s a movie about Tolstoy. The movie features what will probably be the funniest sex scene of James McAvoy’s career. I did think it was weird that my companions and I were the only ones laughing during some scenes. Maybe the other theatergoers were also prepped for something boring and pretentious, and no amount of humor was going to rob them of that.

The scene right before this picture is worth the price of admission.

Christopher Plummer plays Tolstoy. This is the second movie this year that I thought Christopher Plummer was Ian McKellen. This is also the second movie where upon finding out he wasn’t Ian McKellen, I thought he was Christopher Lee. For some reason, I forgot Chrisopher Lee’s last name and thought Christopher Lee and Christopher Plummer were the same person. “He looks so different than when he played Saruman,” I’d think. “It must be because his beard is so much scragglier here than when it was so nicely combed in Lord of The Rings.” Because I thought Christopher Lee and Christopher Plummer were the same person, I found it very funny when one of the characters with a General Zod-like beard was on screen at the same time as Tolstoy. Luckily someone that looks like General Zod is funny no matter who is starring alongside him. It turns out not only is Christopher Plummer not Ian McKellen or Christopher Lee, he hasn’t played a wizard in any of the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings movies. How is this possible?

Not Gandalf.

Helen Mirren plays Tolstoy’s wife Sofya. Helen Mirren is turning 65 this year. Is there any actress who is sexier at 65 than this woman? Good looking for her age seems like an insult. The woman is good looking.
♫Sexy and 65/My little Tolstoy queen♫

Beards play a very big role in The Last Station. If you’re wondering how important a male character is in the movie, just check the size of his beard. Tolstoy sports something that is Santa Claus meets ZZ Top, so it’s no wonder that everyone hangs on his every word. Paul Giamatti plays Vladamir Chertkov, Tolstoy’s Head Sycophant in Charge (HSIC). It’s only natural that he has the next most complicated beard, even having a line “There was a problem with the wax,” when questioned about the state of his moustache. James McAvoy’s Valentin Bulgakov is the new guy at the compound, so it makes sense that his beard is understated, about the same size as the General Zod clone who is of a similar rank as him in the Tolstoy compound.

“Son of Jor-El. Kneel before Tolstoy.”
This is not Christopher Plummer, but this beard does make an appearance in The Last Station.
I saw The Last Station at The Angelika Film Center. Like The Brooklyn Heights Cinema, The Angelika gets an A for their popcorn. Movies are $12.50 there, the same price as the Regal in Union Square. Is $12.50 the current standard price of movies in Manhattan? Have I been spoiled by Brooklyn, where $10 seemed steep just a couple of weeks ago?

The Last Station is at the bottom of my list of movies I’ve seen at the theater so far in 2010. But it’s a good movie and I recommend seeing it. I’ve just been lucky to see plenty of good movies so far this year. Hopefully this keeps up.

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On The Couch #5: Julie & Julia

I need to apologize to anyone who ever watches a movie with me that has location shoots in any places that mean anything to me. There we’ll be, quietly watching a movie together, like say Julie & Julia, and a character gets off the subway at 45 Road/Courthouse Square in Queens and I yell out “Hey! That’s Long Island City!” This is followed by confused silence from my movie-watching companions. “That’s grandma’s old building in the background; the red brick one! And there’s the diner!” Which is usually given the sarcastic response of “Great…” or the non-sarcastic response of “Uh huh, so?” Amy Adams’ Julie Powell gets on and off that subway stop a few times in Julie & Julia, so…sorry.

-“Look! It’s Long Island City!”
-“Um, great.”

I thought Julie & Julia was quite good. Amy Adams plays Julie Powell, who starts a blog about going through every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. There are 524 recipes in the book and she gives herself a deadline of 1 year, so she has her work cut out for her. She’s motivated by her dissatisfaction with her job and and of her apartment in Queens. I get the job bit; that job looked torturous. But Queens? Come on. She acts like it’s Staten Island.

Meryl Streep was excellent as Julia Child. This performance has me circling her name in any Oscar pool I’m in this year. The two storylines dovetail well together, often playing off the same themes, and, as this is a movie about one person writing the same cookbook the other is reading, the same recipes.

The book that started it all.
But even more so than Streep, how awesome in Stanley Tucci? In this movie, he plays Julia Child’s husband Paul. He’s great here, but what I really mean is how awesome is her in every movie? He wins the Tuesday Night Movies J.K. Simmons Award for Making Whatever Movie He’s in Better. So congratulations, Stanley. You deserve it.

A toast…to Tucci.

Worst part of the movie? Amy Adams’s haircut. I get it. The filmmakers don’t want her to be glamorous Amy Adams, they want her to be everyday woman Julie Powell. But man, that was one unflattering haircut. Then I think about it some more and remember how bad my hair looked in 2002 and 2003 and I really get it. They weren’t trying to make Amy Adams look dumpy. They were commenting on how ugly hairstyles were in the early part of the last decade. Well played Nora Ephron.

The blu-ray for Julie & Julia is packed with content, maybe too much content. The cooking videos with Julia Child were very cool, spotlighting Julia’s take on recipes that were used in the movie, but the behind-the-scenes featurette on the movie was way too long. I say this mainly because I couldn’t sit through the whole thing. I don’t know how much more I had left to go with it, but I think I was about 20 minutes in and the end looked far off.

Someone once asked if this blog was inspired by watching Julie & Julia and my answer was “Huh?” At the time, the only things I knew about the movie was that Meryl Streep was receiving rave reviews for her portrayal of Julia Child, and that Amy Adams played a woman who was going through all the recipes in Julia Childs’ cookbook. “And she blogs about it,” I was told. Oh. Right. No, this blog wasn’t inspired by Julie & Julia. But it did inspire an idea I had for a continuation of this blog in 2011. It would be much more challenging than my 52 movies in the theater and 52 movies at home challenge, but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a good idea. Before I reveal on how I want to make this harder for myself, maybe I get through this current challenge first. So, more to come on that on a later date…maybe.

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At The Movies #6: An Education

My main reason for wanting to see An Education was that the screenplay was written by Nick Hornby, author of two of my favorite books: High Fidelity and About a Boy. I read all of his novels, so the completist in me felt the need to see this movie. I didn’t know it was based on a memoir by Lynn Barber until the movie started. This let me down a little because going into it I was excited to see Nick Hornby’s first original screenplay, one that wasn’t a movie based on one of his books. But it looks like I’ll still have to wait for that because while this wasn’t based on one of his books, it was based on someone else’s.

An Education was playing at my local movie theater, The Brooklyn Heights Cinema, for a while at the end of last year, but I didn’t manage to catch it. Thankfully, the Oscar nomination for best picture brought it back there. A word to the wise about The Brooklyn Heights Cinema: the two theaters aren’t labeled, but one is the left of the ticket window and one is to the right. You can tell which theater to walk into by looking at the arrows next to the movie’s name on the ticket window. If more people noticed that, half the people in our theater wouldn’t have missed the first 7 minutes of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus when they realized they were in the wrong theater.

The premise of An Education is very straightforward. An honors student, bored with here life of studying is swept off her feet by Peter, a sharply dressed, smooth talking playboy. The initial problem is that he’s nearly twice her age. But Jenny is mature and Peter is very sweet, so sweet that not only does their romance flourish, but Jenny finds herself having to choose between her new love or the track she’s been on her whole life, being accepted to Oxford.

‘Cause every girl’s crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man.

Peter is your classic silver tongued devil. He’s able to convince Jenny’s parents not only that they should let him date her, but words it in such a way that they end up thinking it’s their idea. The problem is that Jenny doesn’t realize until she’s gone too far down Peter’s road that if he’s so good at lying to her parents that it’s indiscernible to tell truth from fiction when he’s talking to them, that maybe he’s not being completely honest with her as well.

My favorite parts of An Education were any scene where Jenny was having a conversation with Peter’s friend Helen. Helen is very pretty, but not exactly what anyone would call smart, and anytime Jenny would innocently say something intelligent, Helen would say something dumb and I would laugh.
 
Every conversation between these two is good for a laugh. 
I liked An Education. I’m happy that six movies into this project, I haven’t seen a bad one yet at the theater. Do I think An Education should win the Oscar this year? No. It’s good, but it’s not movie of the year good. While I was watching it, I felt like I was watching Mona Lisa Smile, but told from the point of view of Julia Stiles’s character. I haven’t seen all of the Oscar nominees for best picture yet, but out of the ones I have seen: Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, Up and Up in the Air, I would put An Education at the bottom of that list.

What An Education might want you to do is book a trip to Paris. The city of lights is painted so beautifully in it that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Parisian Tourism Bureau was a sponsor of the film. While Peter and Jenny were watching the sunset on the Seine, my date turned to me and said “When are you taking me to Paris?”
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On The Couch #4: Funny People

Wow, I had Funny People sitting next to my DVD player for a long time. I received it from Netflix in late November and finally watched it on Friday. The weird thing is I really wanted to see this movie. I pushed it to the top of queue is late November, knowing that I would watch it the day it came; I was that excited about this movie.

But the disc went neglected in the lead-up to Christmas and New Year’s, always sitting atop an empty spot on the television stand, never completely out of sight, never completely out of mind. Even having off from work the week between Christmas and New Year’s didn’t help. There was always some reason not to watch it.

One night around New Year’s we invited over Andrew and Jen, two good friends who were visiting from California. They were just sitting down to watch a DVD though, and would be over after that. I said “Think they’ll want to watch Funny People after that?” They did not. Because the DVD they were watching was Funny People. Son of a – !

When they came over to hang out, Andrew warned that the movie was really long. They turned it off with a half hour left in order to come to our place. “Eric Bana doesn’t show up until about two hours in, and he’s in the commercials,” Andrew warned, “It’s like two movies in one.” Sure enough, I checked the DVD sleeve. 2 hours and 38 minutes! Damn!

Andrew’s warning and seeing the length of time on the DVD sleeve aided in my delay. Once I returned to work, it was hard to work in a 2 hour and 38 minute movie. If we started it at 8 PM, then it wouldn’t finish until around 10:40 PM. Finally Julie gave me an ultimatum: “You have to watch this before you watch disc 2 of Weeds.” That worked, because I really wanted to see how season 5 of Weeds ended. “Okay,” I said, “we’re going to watch this Friday night.” And we did, followed by a couple of episodes of Weeds.

I’m sorry I waited so long to watch Funny People. I think it’s a great movie. It excels both as a drama and a comedy, showing the inner turmoil of people who get paid (or try to get paid) to make others laugh. Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler are both great in it. Rogen takes a major turn from his usually overly sarcastic characters and comes across as very real. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been a fan of Seth Rogen since the first time I saw him in Freaks and Geeks. But it was refreshing to see him play someone who is 180 degree turn from his usual characters. I thought both he and Sandler were overlooked not getting an Academy Award nomination for their roles in Funny People.
Freaks.                            Geeks.
Aubrey Plaza and Aziz Ansari from Parks and Rec both play aspiring comedians in the movie. I like both of them and it’s always cool to see them in different things, this movie being no exception. Aubrey plays Seth Rogen’s love interest and Aziz plays basically a much more annoying version of himself. I thought Human Giant, Aziz’s sketch comedy show with Rob Huebel and Paul Scherer, was MTV’s best program in years. Hopefully they come back with a second season of that. And I have thought Aubrey was funny ever since I saw her Kaplowee! video a couple of years ago.

Funny People also has plenty of guest stars, both major and minor, making cameos. I don’t want to spoil the “Oh, cool” surprise factor for anyone though (Ha-ha! Look at me act like my readership is more than a few friends who I know already saw this movie). But there is a very funny argument between a rapper and a former CBS sitcom star that stood out as one of the best parts of the movie.
This is another disc that utilizes the Pocket BLU iPhone app. I have to say, I really like using my iPhone as my Blu-ray player’s remote, even if the actual remote is sitting right by me. I haven’t gotten over the novelty of this just yet.

What I also liked about the disc is that the theatrical version is included with the unrated version. When it comes to comedies, I’ve found that most of the time the theatrical version wins. Unrated versions of most comedies seem to just include jokes that weren’t that great to begin with. I came to this understanding when I saw Wedding Crashers. I first saw it on DVD and thought it was 20 minutes too long and had stretches that were a bit boring. Then I saw it again and cable and loved it. And realized it was a bit shorter. I don’t think with the unrated version of the majority of movies that you’re getting more for your money. Sometimes more is less.

Longer? Yes. Funnier? Eh…

It’s been pointed out to me that I am not living up to my post-within-24-hours-viewing promise. I think I overreached with that one. Revised promise: the post will be up the same week that I see the movie, though I’ll always try to get these up as quickly as I can.

Up next from Netflix: Julie and Juila and District 9. I’m excited to see both. Hopefully that doesn’t mean they sit on my shelf for two months.

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At The Theater #5: Youth in Revolt

I have a new favorite movie of the year, and it is Youth in Revolt. I’m really surprised that Youth in Revolt didn’t do better both financially and with critics. I thought this movie was hilarious and would label it a must-see. It is the story of Nick Twisp, a nice guy who can’t get the girl. Nick, played by Michael Cera, invents a new personality for himself named Francois Dillinger. Francois is everything that Nick isn’t, namely cool and more aggressive. He’s like a teenage Tyler Durden, compsenating for Nick’s shortcomings, sometimes to extremes.
Francois makes me almost want to reverse my stance on moustaches.
Francois does such a good job of transforming Nick that I wouldn’t be surprised if skinny white pants and pencil thin moustaches become the standard look for nerds trying to make a stand. At least it’s a better look than modeling yourself after Napoleon Dynamite. If you’ve got $800 to spare and a yearning to really wear Michael Cera’s clothes, you can buy the whole Francois outfit package here. But you could probably also by the same outfit for 1/10 that price at H&M too.
The new look for bad boy nerds?

I think that Youth in Revolt will be remembered as the movie where Michael Cera stopped being so Michael Cera-like. There’s plenty of Michael Cera being Michael Cera for anyone who can’t enough of Michael Cera’s trademark awkwardness. Nick Twisp is basically George Michael Bluth or Paulie Bleeker. But Francois Dillinger definitely isn’t. He’s something new, and if you’ve grown a little tired of Michael Cera being Michael Cera, this is definitely worth seeing.
I was really happy to see Adhir Kalyan show up, playing Nick’s school friend Vijay Joshi. I was fan of his short lived TV series Aliens in America, so it was cool to see him here. In their first scene together, Nick and Vijay don’t look too dissimilar from Justin and Raj from Aliens in America, except Justin never had a Francois Dillinger and Vijay isn’t quite as pure as Raj.
I miss this show.
Jean Smart is really carving a place for herself as the go to actress for white trash moms. Her role as Nick’s mother Michelle is almost identical to her role as Mark’s mom in Garden State. I half expected Jim Parsons to show up in a full suit of armor because her two roles were so similar.
The worst part of Youth in Revolt was the previews beforehand. Wow, there are some seriously bad looking movies making their way to a theater near you in the near future. The previews were so bad that I started being worried about the movie I was about to see. Most of them were unmemorable, with the exception of Repo, whose preview was too bad to forget. I seriously doubt I’ll be writing about that movie this year.
I saw Youth in Revolt at the Regal Cinemas Union Square 14.  A note to the frugal, on Mondays all candy is only $1 and if you buy a large soda anytime, you can get free refills. Another note to the frugal, movies here are $12.50, which might kill your candy and soda budget.

Have you seen a good movie lately? Hit me up with the title, because the pickings look pretty slim right now. My plan is to see the An Education this coming week and maybe The Hurt Locker the following week. But after that? Hopefully not Repo.

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At the Theater #4: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

I have to hand it to Terry Gilliam. Having one of your main actors die in the middle of filming is a big hurdle to overcome. But Gilliam came up with a very creative way to deal with it. Since half of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus takes place in an fantasy world of the mind’s imagination, Gilliam cast the trio of Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to play the part of the late Heath Ledger’s character Tony, who Ledger plays in the real world scenes. I wasn’t aware of this heading into the movie. I thought Ledger’s death would have been handled the same way as Brandon Lee’s for The Crow: a body double and plenty of shadows. When Tony steps into the Imaginarium, I thought to myself “Wow, Heath Ledger really looks like Johnny Depp here.” And then said, “Wait, is that Johnny Depp?” Watching Depp, Law and Farrell play Tony in the imaginarium was very cool, but finding out afterwards that the three of them gave their paychecks from this movie to Heath Ledger’s young daughter Mathilda was every cooler. Each of them showed some real class with that.

Not Heath Ledger.       Also not Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger’s final film shows off his charm. The amnesiac Tony quickly takes up with Dr. Parnassus and his roving sideshow and goes to work as their caller, bringing in new customers to help win Doctor Parnassus’s bet with the devil. Ledger’s physical and verbal deftness during his first scene as a member of Dr. Parnassus’s crew reminded me of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which I think helped confuse me when Johnny Depp appeared as Tony in the next scene. I’ve been a fan Ledger’s work for some time. He was a great actor who will definitely be missed. His portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight helped me name that my top movie of 2008.

“I wish I could quit you.”

My problems with The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus are what Terry Gilliam leaves out. A big deal is made about the arcane symbols on Tony’s forehead, with multiple characters (and the audience) wondering their meaning. But the audience is left wondering, as this is never explained.

“By the way, it says “balls” on your face.”

Also never explained is why the devil wants Tony dead, a problematic Deus Ex Machina at the end of the movie. Dr. Parnassus has lost his bet with the devil and forfeited his daughter’s soul, but the devil tells him that if he kills Tony, he can have his daughter back. The devil says he always wanted Tony dead, but Tony kept escaping him. Before this, the devil showed no animosity towards Tony and seemed initially to even be the reason that Tony appeared in front of Dr. Parnassus’s crew. So why does the devil suddenly want him dead? This made the ending seem a little weak for what was otherwise a very cool movie. I give The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus three stars out of five, meaning I liked it.

I caught The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema, at the corner of Henry St and Orange St in Brooklyn Heights. I definitely recommend seeing movies here. It’s a very old school two screen theater, but it’s kept in impeccable shape. It is a shrine to movie-going. The lobby has reading copies of Zoetrope and other film magazines, as well as comfortable couches to read them on if you arrive a little early for your movie. The seats in the theater are nicely cushioned and in good shape. The staff is friendly. The concession stand has more than your usual popcorn, candy boxes and soda options. There are some high-end chocolate bars for sale, a wide choice of tea, and Italian sodas. It’s usually a staff of two on any given night, with the projectionist or ticket seller also doing double-duty at the concession stand.

Most importantly about the concession stand, the popcorn tastes fresh. After working in a now-defunct movie theater in high school, I learned something that I never suspected. When there is popcorn leftover at the end of the night, we were instructed to bag it up in long plastic bags. Those bags would be emptied in the glass bins in front of the concession stand the next night and sold to unsuspecting customers, unless those customers specifically asked for fresh popcorn. The process would continue night after night, with popcorn of varying degrees of staleness being passed off as just made. Since then, I’ve been leery of movie theater popcorn. There are plenty of theaters in the city that definitely serve stale popcorn and I’ll be calling them out as this blog continues week to week, but the popcorn at Brooklyn Heights Cinema is good. Do yourself a favor and catch a movie there followed by dinner at one of the nearby Henry St. restaurants.