Re-evaluating my Summer of 2009 list 10 years later

This is my reaction to a Summer preview I wrote 10 years ago for Examiner.com. I will comment on italics on whether I actually saw the film and how they compared to my expectations

In the first month of Summer alone, most of the heavy hitters have already I arrived. I recommend seeing The Soloist, Star Trek, Angels and Demons, Night at the Museum 2 (it is better than you might expect), and Up before moving onto the newer films:

The Taking of Pelham 123 (June 12th)

The thriller centered on a hostage situation in a New York subway car is a remake of a 1974 film starring Walter Matthau. The vast majority of Denzel Washington roles the past few years involve him as a law official of some sort in some tense situation (see: Déjà vu, Inside Man, Out of Time, Training Day). Pelham 123 takes Denzel Washington, action hero, and places him in a Hithckock-like situation of the ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

Did I see this? Yep, on Netflix during its mailing delivery days.

Reactions: More or less what I was expected. Travolta channels a lot of his a—hole character from “Swordfish” and Washington is practically begging Saturday Night Live to hire someone whose main specialty is Denzel Washington impressions because his acting in this particular era was extremely predictable in a series of rote action thrillers (SNL hired Jay Pharoah the following year). The characters are familiar, in other words, and the (recycled) plot doesn’t aim high but is sufficient entertainment.

Bruno (July 10th)

Sacha Baron Cohen brought something truly original when he took to the screen with Borat in 2006. Although a little crude, the cultural collision between the primitive Kazak Borat with the Western world produced results that were sharply satirical, shocking, and flat-out hilarious. The initial problem I had with Bruno is that it’s 2009 and the silliness of homophobia is old news by now. Or is it? Sacha Baron Cohen dresses up as a flamboyantly gay Austrian reporter and, much like Borat, will seek to expose the underbelly of American prejudice. He might be successful or he might spark considerable controversy along the way but for the laughs alone, it will be worth it to find out.

Did I see this? In the theater.

Reactions: I was viscerably disturbed and needed to clench my palate so bad that I walked into the theater next door and watched The Hangover afterwards. I don’t know where the line is between watching people have uncomfortable sex and flat-out porn but this was just all too much for me. Whether it was worth some over-arching point, I admit I was nauseating through some of the film, but it’s hard to make the case that America is too homophobic when you’re sexually assaulting them and/or violating their personal space. Sacha Baron Cohen’s humor was still present but pretty far removed.

Moon (June 12th)

I don’t know if I have ever been so intrigued by the movie critic blurbs that are intercut with action scenes during the trailer as I was with this movie. Among the blurbs for “Moon”, “Fantastic! Superb! Do Not Hesitate To Line Up For This One,” “One of those Rare Sci-Fi Gems,” and “Brainy and Thoughtful.” Let’s start with the third one. Summer movies have historically relied on high amounts of escapism and low amounts of thoughtfulness. In the case that a summer film is thought-provoking, it certainly wouldn’t be advertised. Some ambitious science-fiction films like Minority Report, I Robot and The Island have made their way onto the summer slate in previous years with mixed success but they mostly have been marketed as action films. Moon seeks to be more “A.I.” than “Minority Report” and seems to be shooting as high as “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Did I see this? No but in my defense, I don’t know if it was ever playing. It enjoys a status as a cult film and certainly has grown in stature as lead actor Sam Rockwell won an Oscar and this is one of his best performances. 

Away We Go (June 5th)

The film stars John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph as a couple looking to find the perfect home to raise their child. It has a definite indie feel. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gilberman describes as, ‘the comedy of quirkiness, in which ''eccentric'' characters are placed on screen to inspire an amused whatever! shrug.” The film intrigues me mostly because of director Sam Mendes. Away We Go is just Mendes’ fifth film (and first film to be made at such a low scale) but he has had many accolades including a best director Oscar for American Beauty. Mendes has an uncanny ability to capture mood and atmosphere whether it’s the underworld of Depression-era Chicago in Road to Peridition, married life in 1950’s New England or the angst of modern-day Suburbia in American Beauty. Away We Go stars two characters straight out of the popular blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, but I have a feeling he can transcend them.

Did I see this? I tried once on TV and might have even tried renting it. I like Sam Mendes’s style and how he commits well to world-building. However, John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph overthinking the fact that they’re about to have kids in a way that isn’t particularly comedic or dramatic didn’t feel particularly interesting and after the first couple scenes I gave up.

Land of the Lost (June 5th)

Will Ferrell stars in this big-screen adaptation of the notoriously low-budget television show. A good rule of thumb with remakes is that remaking a film or TV series that was originally good invites comparisons to the original while remaking something that had failed potential to be good is ideal. With one of the best comedic actors of filmdom in Will Ferrell and a most interesting supporting cast of fresh faces including Tropic Thunder’s Danny McBride  (good article on McBride found here) and Lonely Planet’s Jorma Taccone), there’s plenty to be excited about here.

Did I see this? In the theater 

Reactions: Second worst film of the year behind “Bruno.” The film’s jokes per minute ratio is really low unless you count people wandering around in poop or an unruly monkey (voiced by Jorma Taccone) being annoying. At the same time, I hardly know how I could have seen this coming because the trailer was actually quite appealing.

Food Inc (June 19th)

Michael Moore seems to be the only successful muckraker in the world of film in terms of garnering large audiences and critical acclaim (although I have to give Morgan Spurlock some credit for Supersize Me). Hopefully, there's room for one more in this expose about the evils of the food industry. It's been a popular topic since Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" became a best seller and there was even a fictionalized version of Eric's film. In documentary form, however, Food Inc. could have even greater entertainment value and be far more educational. For further reading, see the official site.

Did I see this? By mail order Netflix 

Reactions: I’m not a humongous documentary person (If it’s simply an educational expose about a topic, I prefer reading or watching videos shorter than 90 to 120 minutes), nor am I an expert at dissecting the documentary as an art form. As far as a good example of an art form I’m not generally crazy about, this is quite good. It should be noted that in this year, Michael Moore followed up some of his game-changing world with “Capitalism: A Love Story” which is a mess of a film with no thesis.

I Love You, Beth Cooper (July 10th)

Imagine if the high school valedictorian declares his love for the high school cheerleader in the 8graduation speech? A fairly simple concept for a teen angst film but one with plenty of potential. That's at the heart of this film. The lead Paul Rust has made a name for himself in the world of internet sketch comedy and the female lead, Hayden Panettiere, has a chance to earn her movie star cred with this role.

Did I see this? I listened to the audio book two or three years later on a road trip. Then I saw the movie in parts on YouTube when you couldn’t upload more than 10 minutes at a time.  

Reactions: First things first, the book’s prose is a little on the weak sauce side and the dialogue is a little stilted. The film sticks pretty closely to the book so that doesn’t help. However, this is a really fetching premise and I like Andrea Savage in it (she plays a fairly minor role in it, though).

My Top Ten (Plus Five HM) for 2009

      In an effort to stretch my critical muscles, I thought I'd pick a random year and write up my top ten. Check here for my top 25 performances of 2009

       Film of the Year: Up in the Air-The opening montage of borrowed aerial shots lets us know that this is going to be an apologetically modern story for our modern times. Jason Reitman’s third film is a spiritual successor of sorts to his debut, “Thank You For Smoking”, in looking at grandiose themes with cutting satire. This time Reitman looks at the glitzy but ultimately unfulfilling life of corporate travel as well as the soullessness of human resources. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) travels around the country firing people with dignity. His social needs are taken care of by the occasional rendezvous and the familiar faces of gate attendants and airport lounges are the closest thing he has to a home. Through Bingham, Reitman looks at modern detachment from the inherent contradictions of the firing of employees with dignity, and a telescope view of at the loneliness such a job would entail. Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick both compliment in roles that deservedly won accolades.

2. Inglourious Basterds-Quentin Tarantino’s gleeful take on the World War II film is less beholden to history than having a good time. The film is marked by Mexican shoot-outs, explosions, and memorable characters of both the good and evil variety. From the polyglot colonel played with theatricality by Christophe Waltz to the egotistical sniper with a voyeuristic streak played by Daniel Bruehl to the larger-than-life German actress played by Dianne Kruger, this is a movie where the action isn’t second to performances.

3. The Soloist-This film, about the relationship between a human interest reporter and a homeless cellist with Julliard training, came and went without making much of a dent but there’s a lot to recommend about this film. Being a human interest reporter for seven years and having a fascination with what makes classical musicians tick certainly helps enjoy this film, yes, but it’s also a more universal story of two people symbiotically rediscovering themselves with Robert Downey Jr’s stoical performance keeping the film from dripping out any excess sap. Lisa Gay Hamilton, Catherine Keener and Tom Hollander all provide great supporting roles.

4. Star Trek-My cynical attitude towards franchise reboots quickly dissipated from “why?” to “why not” within a few scenes. J.J. Abrams’s sleek visuals and fully-realized action scenes are complimented by one of the most perfectly selected casts I’ve ever seen. Sure they all look unrealistically pretty compared to their predecessors but I’m willing to let that slide.

5. In the Loop-Armando Iannucci’s political satire is populated with fast-talking characters straining to be taken seriously who ultimately have little clue what they’re talking about. If you’ve seen “Veep”, the pace of dialogue and humor won’t surprise you (and I can’t say I’m qualified in any comparative analysis having only seen a couple episodes of "Veep") but it’s a joy to see this type of energy in cinematic terms. It might even be said that the one-off nature of the plot makes a sharper point about the directionless bureaucracy that guides politics considering that serialized television has to take a direction sooner or later.

6. Up-While not Pixar’s most ambitious movie concept, there’s a lot to be said for the execution. Ed Asner gives, for my money, the best voice over performance in history, the film rightfully gains recognition for its emotional punch of an opening montage, and a balloon trip to South America lends itself to visuals that dazzle in a whole new light. More than that, it’s a story with a sense of non-stop adventure backed by a pair of characters one gets easily invested in.

7. Sin Nombre-Cary Fukunaga explores the bleak life choices of people in the middle triangle of Central America whether they decide to risk their lives emigrating northward or live under a lawless void that’s pervaded by the lure of gang life. The story finds its heart in a gang member who makes a decision to do something decent (stop a brutal rape) and follows his impending doom.

8. 500 Days of Summer-Tonally, this love story is wispy fairy tale but it’s also an unflinching look at unhealthy romantic expectations. Wide-eyed Joseph Gordon-Levitt (matched in charm and cuddliness by a flighty Zooey Deschanel) is a man with a wide-open heart but is doomed by his unwillingness to face the reality of what his partner wants.

9. The Blind Side-The true story about a homeless teenager who gets adopted by an affluent white family in Tennessee is a classic sports film with unusually quiet and somber notes and a focus that takes place mostly off the field. It’s not the post-racial declaration of coexistence people might be looking for but it’s told with nuance and anchored by strong performances.

10. District 9-Neil Blomkamp’s regionally specific version of dystopia is so gritty and visceral, one can feel its otherworldly landscape. The film plays with P.O.V. and format to maximum effect. Set in a future version  of South Africa, the film parallels the struggles of apartheid without hitting the allegory angle too hard.

Runners-up:

Stephen Soderbergh’s  The Informant isn’t particularly coherent on a first viewing but it’s a very clever playing out of the “unreliable narrator” trope and has some curious casting.

The Invention of Lying is a classic man-environment mismatch comedy: In this case it’s lying man vs. honest society, an inversion of 1997’s Liar Liar. It doesn’t deliver on Ricky Gervais’s trademark cringe humor but it gets maximum comic mileage out of its premise and has a surprising amount of heart.

Extract is an underappreciated Mike Judge film that once again takes on his familiar themes of working class frustration but delivers its “the right workplace for you is waiting out there somewhere” parable with a bit more conviction and heart than his previous films. The film deftly juggles a pair of intersecting hair-brained schemes while leaving room to fill out the quirks of its auxiliary characters with a strong sense of place.

Funny People is the only Judd Apatow (or Judd-Apatow-by-association) film I’ve seen that seems like a genuine attempt to move people with humor than a quest to inject moviedom with as many dick jokes as possible.

The Hangover created a sizeable dent in the pop culture sphere due to its lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry between and the gut punch value of its reveals as three friends try to piece together what happened the night before. With a naked Ken Joeng popping out of a car and Mike Tyson’s (with pet tiger in tow) extremely random cameo, the film kept audiences in an anything-can-happen trance that still holds up today.

Top 25 Acting Performances of 2009

I'm sure most readers can't distinguish between a 2009 and a 2010 film, but when you write about movies as often as I do you become kind of geeky about those things. Here's a random list of my 25 favorite performances of 2009 I wrote up in order to fill a slow day.

To review:
Oscar Best Picture nominees I saw: Avatar, Up in the Air, Inglourious Basterds, District 9, Blind Side, Up

Other award-worthy films I saw: Invcitus, Julie and Julia, Star Trek, In the Loop, 500 Days of Summer, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, Public Enemies, Hangover, Informant!, Me and Orson Welles

Award-worthy films I didn't see:
BP Nominees: Precious, Hurt Locker, An Education, Single Man
Also: Single Man, It's Complicated, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Messenger, Brothers, Young Victoria, Bright Star, Taking Woodstock, Nine, Last Station, Lovely Bones, Princess and the Frog, Moon
And the list:


1. Robert Downey Jr, Sherlock Holmes-There's certainly some genre bias in why he didn't go further in the Oscar race but if you take Downey's performance on its own terms, it's an incomparable performance of an iconic character. And, yes, there is a lot of comparison. Along with the Sherlock-influenced characters on TV (House and Monk) to come before, there have been at least three great performances (Benedict Cumberbatch, Jonny Lee Miller, and recently Ian McKellen) since, yet this is the performance I remember. Robert Downey Jr. won a Golden Globe for his performance in the comedy category which is pretty fraudulent but it highlights the fact that performances in action features don't really fit into any box when evaluating a performance.

2. Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air-What I imagine when I think of a supporting role: Someone
interesting enough that you could imagine a whole movie being made about them. To the frequent-flyer protagonist, Farmiga's character is alluring. She speaks his language and could even be considered a perfect match. Underneath the veneer, however, her life is fraught with complications.

3. Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds-In this film, he has an obvious presence and this was just as a universally great performance for good reason. I like that he's not just pure evil but [SPOILER ALERT] takes a deal at the end. His mastery of all the different languages as a weapon obviously helps his cause to be shot towards the top of this list. Since this performance, he has been pigeonholed as a villain of uncharacteristic eloquence but he's a strong enough actor to deliver it with so many variations.

4. Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds-Although Inglourious Basterds claims to be an ensemble

film, it could easily be read as Shoshanna's journey. Laurent has a very quiet presence but a strong survival instinct and so many shades of her presence are visible in her journey: In particular, the fear of concealment is prevalent in her every moment on screen.

5. Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom-Trying my best to distinguish between a bad movie and a good performance, I have to vault Weisz towards the top for a standout role in a film that failed to be memorable. Aside from learning all those skills for the purpose of that montage (ping pong, unicycling, rapping, what more could you want?), her character is so interesting in that she's socially stunted but so capable of socialization if given the right push. In this case, the reclusive character is given an introduction point to society that couldn't be worse (a trio of con artists) which makes her even more interesting.

6. Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia-Not a particularly eventful movie (Plot summary: If I remember correctly, the film's two plots are: a) one girl learns to blog and b) Meryl Streep imitates a historical figure for an easy Oscar nod), but it's Meryl Streep and she rarely does anything less than amazing.

7. Edgar Flores, Sin Nombre-I'm not one to spout on foreign films others haven't heard of as I average less than one foreign film a year, but I did happen to see this one and I can't deny the powerful performances here. Flores takes you on a journey of guilt, pragmatic redemption, and a hesitant survival instinct. He's a man born in Hell who sees the light late in life.



8. Sandra Bullock, Blind Side-I didn't mind the Oscar win here over Streep because this is a transformative role for Bullock that makes or breaks the movie. Bullock is a Southern belle of sorts but never dumbs herself down for the role. Bullock was always a popular box office draw but 2009 marked a year in which she suddenly began to be taken seriously as an actress. The Proposal was another film that showed her maturity in comedic roles this year.

9. Quinton Aaron, Blind Side-Bullock doesn't deserve sole credit. It's a two-part movie. Aaron's Michael Oher possesses a quiet gentleness that gets you on his side fast. There was a challenge here to portray the character as uneducated but not necessarily devoid of intellectual potential and Oher resistd temptation to simplify that dichotomy.

10. Robert Downey Jr., Soloist-Whereas some saw this is a standard feel-good filler on the movie calendar of 2009, this was my third favorite movie of the year so I thought pretty highly of the film already. While it seems logical that Foxx (who played a mentally ill artist) should be rated higher for the more flamboyant part, Downey Jr.'s typical persona- gruff exterior, good with words, internal demons hidden deep down- is used perfectly here and his arc was no less cathartic even if it was quieter than his counterpart. You also got the sense that he did his research into the life of a beat reporter.

11. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 500 Days of Summer-This was Gordon-Levitt's breakout role as a star

and shows off his grandiose theatricality even in its quieter moments. Gordon-Levitt is so infectious here with his youthful optimism that you forget that his views on love (at least with regard to Summer) are misguided and self-destructive (by JGL's own admission).

12. Zoe Saldana, Star Trek-The entire ensemble of Star Trek deserves a lot of credit for creating wholly original dramatic struggles while retaining the essence of the characters they're modeled after. I could pick any one of the seven leads from the film and put them in my top 25 but I'll limit myself to one and just go with Saldana who took what was originally thankless part (saved from being forgettable solely by the performance of Nichelle Nicholls) and made it a star attraction. Shipping her in a relationship with an emotionless half-alien didn't hurt in raising the degree of difficulty either.

13. Jamie Foxx, Soloist-Foxx is one of the most consistently on actors in my opinion and he always seems to make my Oscar wishlists for even minor performances (Dream Girls and Jarhead). His performance is Oscar-baity here but I give it points for being very close to his real-life counterpart (I've seen documentary footage on Nathaniel Ayres).

14. Ed Asner, Up-I generally don't believe that a voice-over performance is comparable to a live action role and should not be considered for awards buzz. Scarlett Johansson was someone who made me consider that rule of mine with Her. However, I realized when making this list that Johansson isn't my favorite voice performance of all-time but this is. Asner's role in this film was make-or-break and the emotional ride you felt from this movie can only be attributed to him.

15. Daniel Bruhl, Inglourious Basterds-Creepy is generally an overused word, but it's definitely apt for this character here who's underhanded bragging and dogged pursuit of Shoshanna makes him

someone you're hoping will be shot down (in the literal sense) sooner or later.

16. Tom Hollander, In the Loop-Peter Capaldi was the man who generated the most Oscar-buzz from this awesome film but I prefer Hollander because he's the straight man in the middle of this circus of snide insults and brown-nosing. His look of defeat at the end of the film says so much.

17. George Clooney, Up in the Air-I've had a long-standing belief that George Clooney is not only overrated but over-celebrated to the point where I want to pull my hair out whenever I see a softball interview with the man. However, of his four Oscar nominations, I'll maintain that he most definitely deserves two of them. Although he repeats a lot of the same beats (world-weariness, graying charm), he really sold the hell out of them on an emotional level and bought something new here. Jason Reitman did more with Clooney than Alexander Payne did in my opinion.

18. Matt Damon, Informant-For a long time, I adored Matt Damon in this film until I realized it's the genius of the character and not the actor that makes the film great. The film stands out because of its unreliable narrator at the center. His speech inside his head and the world outside his head do not align and that's something. However, I don't know if that takes a great performance of a schizophrenic to pull this off. I'd imagine it's substantially easier to just voice a character of different temperament in the recording booth after acting out your scenes as a different character.

19. Paulina Gaitan, Sin Nombre-Another wonderful performance from a film whose director, Cary Fukunaga, might soon become a bigger name with the buzz for Beasts of No Nation. Gaitan plays a teenager being smuggled across the US/Mexico border who makes a seemingly fatal mistake by drifting away from her family and following an ex-gangster. It's a massive twist in the story and Gaitan pulls it off with a lot of consistency.

20. Tilda Swinton, Julia-I would not call this a watchable film by any means. It's a dreary trip about a troubled woman. But how can you (reluctantly) deny that playing a troubled woman like Julia takes a lot of work.

21. Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air-I love Anna Kendrick and the best I can say about this part is that this film made me a fan of her. However, I don't think her arc was particularly complex.

22. Amy Adams, Night at the Museum 2-Great performances can be found in popcorn films. If Cate Blanchett can win for an imitation of Katherine Hepburn, why can't Amy Adams at least receive a little bit of recognition in channeling her so perfectly for this fun romp?

23. Sharlto Copley, District 9-I might be grading on the curve here but this guy deserves a lot of praise for what is essentially a debut performance with minimal acting background. In this movie, he spends most of his screentime opposite a crudely-costumed giant squid-mouthed insect, and plays those moments with complete seriousness and even leaves an emotional residue. That's not easy to pull off.

24. Melanie Lynskey, Up in the Air-I've always admired Melanie Lynskey in a number of her roles.

As Ryan Bingham's sister, she possesses that kind of quiet reserve that she does best. 

25. Saul Rubineck, Julia-Again, this is not a very entertaining film and I don't recommend people see it, but if you DO see it, you will notice that Rubineck (the guy who played Daphne's boyfriend on Frasier) plays well of Tilda Swinton with a lot off tension and spark.

Film #28: Blind Side: A Post-Racial Movie?

Again, to give me revenue, pleeease click here: www.examiner.com/x-3877-dc-film-industry-examiner.

Still have watched zero films in 2010 in hopes of keeping up my films in 2009:

The Blind Side:
The Blind Side is one of the beneficiaries of the expanded field having rode sedimental appeal, a star performance, and a respectable box office draw to an Oscar nomination for best picture.
The film tells the true story of Michael Oher, a homeless teenager who became an NFL player and college graduate with the help of a loving family (played by Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw).

The story runs into the same problem as Invictus in the sense that by being true to the events as they happened, there is a lack of conflict. In Invictus, Morgan Freeman says, "hey everyone, I want to cheer for the rugby team" and Matt Damon says "sure" and everyone else says "ok, let's all cheer for the rugby team." That's what actually happened in history and there's no shortage of heartwarming moments but there's definitely a lack of dramatic tension.

Similarly, in the Blind Side, I might have expected, due to the fact that the story takes place in Central Tennessee and a white family is taking in a black teenager that it would be story largely about racism. In real life, however, Leigh Ann Tuohy was remarkably colorblind and so was her husband and the movie doesn't dare contradict that. A couple confused relatives and a suspicious NCAA infractions investigator is about all we get for a reminder of racial tension in the deep south, but hey, it's the post-racial era, what can we expect?

Unlike Invictus, however, this is a picture that works. The drama is authentic but it also engages because it's centered around a struggle that takes many forms and stages: the central figure has to learn to open himself up, to trust, to succeed on the field and in the classroom, etc.

As for the acting:
Sandra Bullock has a strong consistency to the way she approaches the character. The real-life woman is somewhat of an enigma in her motivations and Bullock makes it believable. Bullock won an Oscar for this role but I would have just given her a nom. Streep gave a better performance in my opinion.

Quinton Aaron is amazing and had as much of a role in carrying the movie as Bullock. He has such presence (partially because of his size) but appears so uncomfortable with that presence at first and gradually transform into it.

And wow, Tim McGraw. I once dated a girl who had a humongous crush on Tim McGraw and I was not only jealous of him because of the way she'd talk about him, but I also didn't think much of him: it seemed like he was trying too hard to create this cowboy image. I now see he has the ability to shed that and reinvent himself.

Kathy Bates shouldn't be so heavily advertised because her role basically amounts to a cameo.

Film 27: Food Inc.

Food Inc.:
I think I still struggle with the nonfiction genre. Whether I'm qualified to judge anything is variable, because I'm just blogging, but if I were to draw the line somewhere as what I know and don't know, it would be documentaries. By and large, I'm not even a fan of the documentary as the ideal medium.

Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock make great documentaries because Spurlock makes it into a story arc and Moore is just plain entertaining and inflammatory.

I think this particular film is educational and it's interesting, but there's no reason that it wouldn't make an equally great coffee table book or museum exhibit.

So on the whole, the film educated me and by the end of the film I was passionate about something that was wrong in society and needed fixing. The film accomplished it's goal by that end. As for whether the film was entertaining, to some degree yes, but I might have gotten more entertainment in a different format.

The film even comes across like reading a book as it is divided up into different chapters: one on corn, one on costs, one on the cover-ups of government. There's even the filmic equivalent of an introductory blurb in the form of an introductory segment before the title credits that anyone can download or stream for free.

The film makes a few sharp points filmically. The juxtaposition of the wholesome rural image on food products in supermarkets against the very unpleasant image of real life farm life is poignant. There's also one scene in which the top of the roof is shown with text that tells us the animals never receive sunlight.

It's a difficult call to make as to whether this is suited to film but it did empassion me to the issue. Far more than Supersize Me, in fact.

Film 26: The Informant!

The Informant! and Food Inc.

"The Informant!" is an adaptation of Kurt Eichenwald's expose on a most curious price-fixing scandal on account of the fact that the whistle blower was an unideal candidate for the FBI to work with because he was pretty much nuts.

Everything is pretty much up in the air here. Mark Whitacre (played by Matt Damon), a top executive at a food enrichment products company, might be tipping off the CIA to an enormous price-fixing scandal to cover up for a smaller lie he made up, because his wife is nagging him to, because amid all the racing thoughts in his head (this is one of the main motifs of the film as that internal monologue is done by Matt Damon in voice over) he just hasn't thought it through, or because he sees it as some convoluted master plan to get a big raise and take over management. Stephen Soderbergh, one of the premiere directors of the decade, is a master of experimentation and here he is experimenting with story to a great degree: The story is constantly in flux because the plot is driven by what's going on in the protagonist's head, and the the viewer is never entirely sure what is going on there.

That being said, sometimes the movie comes off as cleverer than it thinks it is, expecting the viewer to jump on board every twist that comes aboard every 3 minutes. The score comes off as a little desperate. It reminds me of how hard the film is trying to market itself as a comedy when it's really nothing of the sort.

The cast is also the most curious thing I've ever seen in my life. I would imagine that the kind of supporting roles needed for this movie would have gone to character actors like Alec Baldwin, Tom Wilkinson, Brian Cox, and Chris Cooper.

Never in a million years if I were to make a movie about a price fixing scandal at an industrial company would I have thought: Joel McHale from the Soup (he hadn't yet done Community) or Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap/Star Trek with more minor roles going to Arrested Development's Tony Hale, 30 Rock's Scott Adsit, Best Week Ever's Paul Thompkins, and Back to the Future's Thomas Wilson.

I don't think I mind because these guys are all just as serviceable as the serious choices. I mean, it makes sense, Scott Bakula is a trained actor and probably needs a job, I'm just surprised.

More power to Stephen Soderbergh, I guess, he probably saved a lot of money.

District 9 Review: What's worthy of a best picture?

This is my 24h film I've seen of 2009. Suggestions for my 25th?
I'm thinking Informant, Capitalism a Love Story, Bad Luietentant, Blind Side, A Serious Man, Avatar, Adventureland, Taking of Pelham 123. Year One is readily available on itunes but I think I will avoid it.

Also, click this link for articles that I write

Nonetheless, here's District 9:

The film is a science fiction movie and one of only about five that have ever been nominated for an academy award, which says a lot about the film already (even if it was clearly in the 6-10 category). So right away, I expected before watching the coming in that this film is either very well-made, managed to crossover to mainstream elements, or just hit a chord with the academy. I’d probably place it in the third category.

I don’t think this is a film that it stands out to everyone who watches it. Some problems were that it lost some of my attention once the exposition into this neat little world was out of the way. The problem was that the theme of aliens as a parallel for human oppression became obvious in a way reminiscent of the 1960’s version of Star Trek so sloppily used aliens of the week as a way to discuss current issues (I still like to watch Star Trek for nostalgia). One other problem is that the film hinges on the chemistry between a human and an alien and it’s hard for the alien to have a lot of character because there’s no modulation in his alien voice: it’s a series of clicky throaty noises he speaks in.

On second viewing, I came to like it a lot more and see the film’s value. Its theme is kind of obvious but the film approaches that theme with a lot of realism and fleshes out this fictional society with a lot more detail than an episode of Star Trek. In this sense, it’s a mood piece: You’re admiring the details of the camerawork and visuals as much as you’re paying attention to the story. At the same time, while there isn’t a lot of chemistry between the two main characters, the one main character with a speaking voice, bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe, is a magnetic enough character to follow the story along with and a very unique point of view.

Julie and Julia Review

By the way, Oscar review is up here

I was worried that Julie and Julia, written and directed by Nora Ephron, would have nothing in it that appealed to me as a male. In other words, I thought it would be a “chickflick” and watching it was an experience in determining specifically what it was that made this film a chick flick. I’ve actually seen three of Nora Ephron’s previous films- Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and Bewitched- and liked them all and I enjoy Ephron’s style. If contemporary storytellers are supposed to make sure their stories reflect the times they’re in, Ephron does it very literally: she’s set romantic story around radio call-in shows, and later the cybertexting revolution of AOL and her Hollywood-comeback story about the remaking of Bewitched was a commentary on nostalgia as a driving force in Hollywood (that summer, alone three of the biggest films in the theater were remakes).

This film here is one of the only movies I know to center around the art of blogging and just as film professors have told me that Shakespeare in Love is a supposedly important film about how and where art exists, the same must be true here. The story takes these themes about art and imbues them into a story that’s about the struggle to find your calling. These were elements I could get behind.

At the same time, it’s a chick flick. It’s not a love story: the two protagonists are already married and one marital spat doesn’t make this a film about finding Mr. Right. Nevertheless, the struggle to find your calling in life is told from a feminine perspective. It’s about the struggle for finding your calling in life but it’s from a very feminine perspective. These characters’ motivations are based on biological clocks and reactions to what their friends are doing at baby showers’t'heal the mend caused by this problem. mathat are things productive is a long road. You need to continue to get psychological and the resistance to being a “domesticated housewife” and it becomes obvious to the male viewer that these aren’t our struggles (of course, they are struggles we empathize with).

So overall, a good movie, one that caters less to the male viewer than Nora Ephron’s previous films. Oh, and also, Meryl Streep is once again phenomenal (as if that needs to be said). Watching Meryl Streep is like watching Kobe Bryant or the world champion at anything manhandle his competition.

Supporting Actress '09 thoughts

,The main suspense with the Oscars was the supporting actress category in my opinion: Anna Kendrick, Vera Farminga, and Monique were locks but there were a lot of great and bad possibilities which could have taken the fifth slot.

Under great, Samantha Morton, Diane Kruger and Melanie Laurent
Under bad Marion Cortillard and Judi Dench
Under not good timing Julianne Moore and Penelope Cruz:
Julianne Moore would just get and lose her fifth nomination making it so that every year afterwards, every Moore film would call for Oscar voters and buzzers to desperately want to give her an Oscar as soon as possible because it's a crime against humanity otherwise. Better save the fifth nomination for something remotely winnable.

Cruz is an actress I've always felt would be great for a supporting actress Oscar so I was somewhat glad to see her nominated in 2006 but thrilled to see her nomianted in 08 and even more thrilled to see her win it. Now she's won 2 and 3 in 4 years is a little unnecessary. I still think she might deserve it, but it's not something I'm rejoicing for.

I wanted to see Morton or an Inglorious Basterd girl get one, but I'm glad it's not Julianne Moore or Marion Cortillard (who I don't like at all for some reason).

As for the nominees:
Penelope Cruz is someone I'm happy to see nominated except that it's three noms in 4 years is more then she'll need over a lifetime. Oscars are based on performances and not bodies of work and I respect when Oscar makes decisions based on the present. Under that philosophy, I don't have a problem with the nomination but I'm also not particularly happy about it except for the fact that it could have been someone worse.

Maggie Gyllenhall has always been on my list of people I'd like to see get a nom some day, but it's the exact same role Marissa Thomei had last year in Wrestler so it feels rediculously cliched. Also, how the heck did she pull that off? What's up with Monique? If Eddie Murphy lost the Oscar because he reminded Oscar voters of his unrefined tastes by releasing the movie Norbit during awards seasons, is anyone going to bother checking out the Parkers or watch Soul Plane? Also, who does she think she is not having a last name?

2012: At least Emmerich is an autuer

I saw 2012 last night at $1 Mondays at the Cinema and Drafthouse (but have no fear that i'm ripping off the movie industry because I paid a $20 bill), marking my 22nd film I've seen this year. Here are my thoughts:

2012 was such a predictable disaster film that the audience is almost cued to watch it with a wink and a smile. Lines like "We're gonna need a bigger plane" are references to earlier films (Jaws in this case). The film shouldn't be applauded for being a parody because it clearly wasn't intended that way and it comes off more as a film that doesn't care much at all about characterization or being original. John Cusack's character I've seen before in Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds (older child despises him, younger child is too innocent to know the difference).

It didn't matter so much once the action hit because the special effects are the real treat of the movie and they certainly didn't dissapoint. Major points off for waiting 40 minutes to get to the special effects. Plot build-up and anticipation do work well in films like Jaws where the characters are interesting. The shots of a tiny single engine plane curving around crumbling towers and building is pretty cool and 40 minutes in, the picture gets interesting. The action also redeems the lack of characterization. It's the way that people react to an enormous disaster of global scale (in this case, the apocolypse) that defines them and starts to make us care about them to the point where we're in suspense over what happens to them in the finale.

I would say it's a fun but not-so-memorable film except that it was made by Roland Emmerich who's basically made this same exact film twice before: Day After Tomorrow, and Independence Day. They all take on the fairly impossible task of trying to portray the entire planet as one large ensemble and squeezing the face of humanity in a single 2-hour scenario. The scenario involves large scale apocolyptic disaster. The running theme (along with save the Earth, it's fragile) is that people are defined and ultimately united by how they react to disaster. 10,000 BC is sort of a reverse apocolypse with a beginning of the world scenario (as I understand it, I haven't seen the movie.

With these films, he's practically written his own genre and people can compare how he handles the exact same plot three and a half times. The question is whether it's unoriginal. My argument there is that some directors make a lot of sequels and Emmerich has never done that.

Coming face-to-face with a Tarantino film for the first time

I wasn't sure what to expect from Inglorious Basterds. It was the first film by Tarantino that appealed to me because while I like film noir: a Japanese-inspired urban crime drama has been his last 4 or 5 films' themes if i'm not mistaken and none of them appealed to me. We had to watch Pulp Fiction for class but we watched it out of order and skipped major parts so it didn't resonate with me.

Anyways, I wanted to see this film because it is shot in the outdoors and i wanted to see how the cinematography would go. I also thought the idea of Tarantino tackling a period piece and putting his stamp on one of the most established genres he'd otherwise have no business belonging in was too irresistible to miss.

My impressions on Tarantino:
1. One of Tarantino's trademarks as I gather it is finding creative ways to kill people. That's never appealed to me, personally. I don't like blood and gore that much. If that's Tarantino's creative capital, what separates him from the pack, that's not something I'd be on board entirely. I think anything other than a rapid death is unneccessary cruel and inhumane and I don't see the point in celebrating it. I'm not so much disgusted by it, but I feel like it's equivalent to a director showing off how graphically he might be able to convincingly portray a dog-fighting ring.


2. He also likes to remain steadfast to his cultural cues even when not entirely organic to the film and that creates a personal stamp. I was thinking that the score seemed most out of place, along with some other things.

3. Another thing is really good dialogue. Who wouldn't appreciate that? The best dialogue writers tend to gravitate towards dramedies and melodramas: Jim Sheridan, Cameron Crowe, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Kenneth Longorean, Sophia Coppolla and Diablo Cody. How many of these scribes would take on an action film. Tarantino is the only one and that increases his value in Hollywood exponentially because action sells the best.

4. Suspense: because violence is really heavy
Suspense: because violence is really heavy and could be gruesome and we don't want characters to die too gruesome a death, the film's can be more suspenseful than they otherwise would have been.

Review of Extract

Extract is Mike Judge’s follow-up to the massively successful cult hit Office Space which came out 10 years ago. It’s told much in the same style so high praise should go to this guy for being able to establish himself as an auteur (in my book at least) within just two films. This is someone who has so many interesting connections between his two films that I’m happy to sit here exploring them and eagerly await his next project. The Office and Extract are sharp satires that holds no punches at the banality of working-class life even if it means painting the world as a pretty bleak place. Some really effective film comedies take you to places you’d love to live in: the free-wheeling madness of an academic’s life gone awry in Wonderboys, the small-town warm of Junebug, the music-filled self-discovery joyfests of Cameron Crowe’s films are good examples. Others like the TV show Weeds, Amrican Beauty, Good Girl, Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State, or Office Space (and this film) shine a light on the emptiness of suburban, corporate, or small-town life. The latter approach can be far more depressing than a comedy should be and can end up more like a Douglas Sirk melodrama than a comedy sometimes.

Office Space and Extract, however, avoids falling off the deep end, by making them stories of redemption for their main characters. In fact, Extract is a story that’s not necessarily notable for being funny. It has a little bit of humor and a few gags, but what drew me in was just that it had interesting characters. I’d be concerned that people would judge the film where it falls short. As a film, however, it’s terrific.

What I've seen so far and what I'm expecting to see...

The Brothers Bloom, dir. Rian Johnson-The film had some very good elements:
It's hard to cover this film without spoiling much of it
-The visual look was terrific. I wasn't sure if it was a period piece or it was set in the late 2000's, because there was a definite lack of cell phones and other modern day apparatuses in the frame. It was very retro, yet very much in the present
-Rachel Weicz was such a fascinating character. How could a woman that beautiful and rich be so lonely? Weicz manages to pull it off. An absolutely amazing performance and kudos to her for learning all those talents (apparently she had to learn all those talents)
-Some of the dialogue was exceptional. Penelope's speech about reinventing her life and refusing to see her loneliness as a weakness was definitely thought-provoking.

At the same time, the film on the whole didn't make any sense. It was too many twists to the point where you just didn't care what was going on screen because none of it was real and there wasn't much suspense to convince you that the film might have been heading in any other direction.


Wolverine, dir. Gavin Hood
Simply put, I've never seen such a promising franchise be squandered so poorly. The story, before being put to screen, had a lot of potential. Here's what I grasped from what the film was really about: Wolverine had some sort of internal ying and yang battle between his animalistic urges and his sense of humanity. Whenever something happened, his immediate reaction was to go berserk (full disclaimer: Wolverine goes berserk a lot) because that was his animistic nature. When he was able to control himself more, Wolverine showed empathy towards others and did the right thing. Sabretooth, on the other hand, was just purely irrational. Wolverine's journey is partially what's in the plot but it's also from differentiating himself with Sabretooth.

Anyway, because I'm an X-Men fan that I would have seen the film anyway, but it was a massive disappointment. It was overly Ramboish and the special effects were distractingly excessive. I wrote more here


Angels and Demons, directed by Ron Howard:
I know that the original had a hard time pleasing people, so if I liked the original a lot and I also liked A&D, I know that's not going to count as a highly-touted recommendation. What I can say is that A&D is similar in tone to the first film but with quicker pacing. It's much more of a thriller although it doesn't have as much of the buzz and controversy that the first one carried with it. That takes away some of the gravity. As someone who has read the book, I think the adaptation made some very smart decisions as to where the film should depart from the book and there is enough to be surprised in that department. You also have to hand it to the film for really showing Rome in all its glory and there's a lot of great scenery to like in the film as well.

Land of the Lost, directed by Brad Silberling:
It wasn't the absolute worst film I have ever seen but it was close to it. I am someone who tend to think anything starring Will Ferrell, including Step Brothers and Blades of Glory, were good films. This, however, was a major misstep on Ferrell's part that will definitely make me second-guess going to a film just because Ferrell is on the marquis. The film just wandered without much of a plot and didn't have enough laughs to keep us invested along the way. I know it was a homage to a TV show with notoriously low production values, but that was a kid's film.

Star Trek, directed by J.J. Abrahams:
Most of what's already been said about Star Trek are my sentiments. It's a truly exciting film that does a flawless job of walking the fine line between reinventing characters and altering them to fit a new generation or storyline. The actors and forces behind them did a great job of interpreting these iconic roles and that's what made the film tick so well. The special effects and visuals were amazing as well. It's hard to truly awe in audience when one out of every films released in the summer boasts a $100 million budget for special effects, but Star Trek was out there. One little complaint: The plot was somewhat confusing and ultimately, meaningless. It wouldn't have hurt to give us a plot worth caring about.