Les Amours Imaginaires

I know the French know how to make movies. Amelie is a classic. A Very Long Engagement was another dope one. And just last year, Le Dîner de Cons was remade and repackaged by Hollywood starring Steve Carel and Zach Galifianakis (I liked the French version better.)

I had high hopes for Heartbeats, originally titled Les Amours Imaginaires. I was disappointed. The movie is stylish, but shallow.

This is the story of three teenagers. The setting is Montreal, Canada. Marie (Monia Chokri) and Francis (Xavier Dolan) are hip outcasts and best friends. Marie’s style icon is Audrey Hepburn while Francis wants to be James Dean. They smoke non-stop, scowl at parties, and engage in meaningless sex. They are both listless.

That changes when they notice Nicolas (Niels Schneider.) He is handsome, confident, charming, and more alive than either of them. Marie and Francis become fixated. The more they want Nicolas, the closer they get to destroying each other.

Saturday Night Live produced a similar story a couple of weeks ago with the recurring skit, “Les Jeunes de Paris.” The satire characterizes French kids by placing them in fashionable clothes, having them make out with each other, slap each other, and dance around. This mirrors the basic premise of Heartbeats.

A better coming-of-age love triangle movie would be Y Tu Mama Tambien, the 2001 Mexican film starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna.

The Dreamers, produced in 2003, is another example of a movie exploring similar themes, but doing it a lot better.

Half of Heartbeats is made up of slow motion sequences. Slow motion walking, slow motion smoking, slow motion lovemaking. Enough with the slow motion. The music playing over the scenes sounds Euro and retro and cool. But enough is enough.

I give the movie a D-. Please don’t think that this is representative of French films or foreign films in general.

The last scene in Heartbeats is interesting because it shows the characters one year after the major events in the story. They have changed, but only superficially, trading their retro clothes for 1980’s disco outfits. This hints at the disposable nature of their style, their relationships, and their lives.

Who Wants To Join My Hood To Coast Team?

Hood to Coast is the feature-length documentary story of the largest relay race in the world, held annually near Portland, Oregon. The race features 1,000 teams following a 197-mile course, starting at Mount Hood and finishing at the Pacific Ocean.

The 197-mile race is divided into 36 stages and takes place over 36 grueling hours. A hand-off is required after each stage and every runner on each twelve-person team is responsible for three stages. Over the course of the race the teams descend 6,000 feet from mountain to coast.

The film follows four teams, from the veteran racers to the tubby rookies.

The team aspect of the race makes it very unique, transforming the usually solitary sport of running into an extreme bonding experience.

I want to start a team right now. I could run three stages next week no problem. I don’t think I could do much better than a 9 minute mile pace, though. My team would be called Team Thug Life. You already know, man, my van would be the smoked out one with all the ballers inside, haha.

The film also explores the world of the aging runner, exemplified by Heart n Sole’s Kathy. A veteran of 75 marathons, Kathy is competing a year after a serious collapse mid-course. She was revived by fast responders, and after triple bypass surgery, she is back to take on the race that almost took her life.

How do you tell an old runner to stop? Kathy’s determination is almost scary. Her doctor explains it best, suggesting that Kathy refuses to listen to her body when it is in pain.

The film’s aerial shots are beautiful, following the road’s evolution through mountain forests, to the countryside, to city intersections and finally ending at the beach. There are also night sequences featuring dusty gravel roads and runners wearing forehead lights.

The cameras also provide a very close, intimate view of each team. Team R. Bowe’s motivation for running is the most heartbreaking. The group is made up of friends and family honoring the memory of deceased runner, Ryan Bowe, who died tragically at the age of 30.

I thought the camera was too close during the scene when Ryan’s brother finishes his last stage in the race and is overcome by emotion. You can hear a field director ask him to describe his feelings. His face is full of tears. I would have respected the man’s privacy, having already taken so much from his story. This was an awkward moment in an otherwise compelling section.

Hood to Coast is a great theater experience. I give it an A-. For a kid raised and stuck in Florida, it provides an amazing view of the Pacific Northwest. Each runner represents a different set of motivations and experiences that makes for a very diverse and complete story. The cinematography and editing is also excellent.

Hood to Coast 2012. I’m down. Who else wants to step up?

It's the Pain and the Sex Disguised as Innocence

People are freaks man, getting all kinds of gully in the bedroom. Thankfully, most like to get freaky in private. Other people like to put on shows.

Monogamy explores those hidden desires. It follows a professional photographer named Theo (Chris Messina,) as he embarks on a strange new assignment.

See, he makes his living mostly from weddings. The movie is pretty realistic in depicting it as the soul-sucking job that it must be. I couldn’t do it, arranging demanding brides and drunk family members into generic poses, the same scenario week after week.

So Theo has a side hustle. People pay him to shoot candid photographs from a distance, without being spotted. They give him a time and place, and he sets up like a sniper, stalks them, shoots them and sends them the prints. This makes for more challenging, more honest photography.

The shots get even more interesting when he is contracted by a mysterious blonde with a penchant for exhibitionism. On his first shoot he documents her 9 am park bench climax. Eventually, Theo follows her down dark alleys where she meets strange men for sex. He obsesses over her pictures, cropping them close so that he can make out her jewelry and tattoos.

Soon Theo begins noticing the sharp contrast between the blonde and his own fiancé, played by Parks and Recreation’s Rashida Jones. Jones is sweet and understanding as Nat, but she lacks the uncontrollable passion that drives the mysterious blonde. Now Theo must confront his own desires, and decide on what it means to be a man in a relationship.

The premise of the movie is interesting and the writing very solid. I particularly liked how the story uses a small cut to Nat and her subsequent staph infection as a plot device in order to put distance between her and Theo. It reminds me of a similar plot turn that occurs in an excellent Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story, "The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow". The break-up scene towards the end of the movie is also rendered very realistic.

The film does have a number of glaring weaknesses, including Messina’s portrayal of Theo. The story relies heavily on Messina to demonstrate his character’s internal conflict. I found him less than convincing. I also would have liked more insight into Jones’ character. Instead she is depicted mostly as the suffering girlfriend.

The weakest aspect to the film is definitely the plot twist surrounding the blonde’s true circumstances. I know I saw it coming long before it was confirmed. It was also strangely ineffective as the motivation behind Theo’s final act epiphany. I would have left the whole idea on the cutting room floor.

I give Monogamy a C-. The premise is original and the themes explored are interesting. The acting is solid, if slightly off. There are moments where the writing is very clever, but unfortunately those moments are balanced out by a few subtle weaknesses in the story and characterization.

I would recommend the film mostly to young men and women in relationships. Sex dominates the minds of men. Some can control their desires, and some succumb to them, letting those desires warp them and leave them with nothing. Don’t let that be you.

Sunlight Shining Through My Window Lets Me Know That I'm Still Alive

My little sister works at a nursing home for the old and sick. She is the one that stays after a person’s loved ones go home. Most of us try not to think about those kinds of places. Most of us would rather not end up in those kinds of places at all.

We don’t want to smell death or handle the guilt thinking we’ve abandoned our grandparents to face it alone. We visit them out of obligation and wait anxiously to leave. Another Harvest Moon doesn’t allow for that separation. It deals exclusively with the life inside the facilities.

The story follows four old-timers, Frank (Ernest Borgnine,) June (Piper Laurie,) Ella (Anne Meara,) and Alice (Doris Roberts,) each with their own fears and ways of coping. Between shattered hips, dementia, cancer, and strokes, they have a lot to cope with.

Borgnine is brilliant as Frank, the former marine. You can see the restlessness and regret on his face, even as he delivers a monologue on the beauty of the sun shining through his window. He keeps his deceased wife’s nail clippers by his bed at all times to keep her on his mind. He also keeps a loaded gun from his youth for similar reasons, to keep the memory of his fellow soldiers alive.

War is just one recurring theme in the movie. Other themes include the importance of routine, the effects of memories, and the grown relationships between fathers and sons. I thought the lotto ticket scenes with Alice were especially well integrated into the film. I was really moved watching her sit in front of the television, full of faith and dreams for the prize money.

I have never wanted a fictional character to win so badly before. The writing is really tight and full of these little moments.

Alice also plays an important role in the film, as Frank’s ideological opposite. Where he struggles to deal with the pain he feels waking up each day, she faces everything with unflinching optimism. Each one of us will have to make the same choice one day, to either give up or keep fighting.

It is easy to say that I’ll keep fighting forever, my body hasn’t yet betrayed me, and I still have control over my memories. How much fight will I have in me immobilized in a bed, or lost in a fog forced to live in my past? I don’t know.

The film is bookended by effective and evocative opening and closing sequences featuring soft fade scene transitions and a pretty musical score.

Another Harvest Moon gets a strong B+. It is a sad movie, but it is honest and well done. Borgnine and Roberts especially stand out among the stellar ensemble cast.

I’m sorry for anyone currently suffering in a nursing home, either physically or emotionally. I wish we took better care of our grandparents as a society and I hope our children don’t forsake us.

Bread From the Holy Land

I would like to spend time in Israel someday out of respect to the holiness of the land and what it has represented to man throughout history, and also out of a sense of adventure. I admire people that live in the Middle East, Jew, Christian, and Muslim. That land requires a lot of faith and courage.

The Human Resources Manager tells the story of one man, living and working at the largest bakery in Jerusalem. He is unnamed, and known only by the roles that he plays, HR boss, father, and estranged husband. A suicide bombing takes place and one of his employees is killed. She is a foreigner, and her body had been lying in the morgue unclaimed for days.

When a journalist reports on the situation as a human rights abuse, it falls on the human resource manager to make good on the bakery’s behalf. This means tracking down the dead woman’s family, transporting the body, and realizing their wishes for it.

Most of the scenes in the film have very interesting backgrounds. The night drive around Jerusalem was cool, from the twinkling lights in the hills, to the random a-- police checkpoint along the way. The police men pull people over just to look inside their cars over there. Something to think about.

The second half of the movie has an army bunker and a loaned six-wheeled armored vehicle and the Romanian countryside as the background. That was pretty cool.

Something happened that was very unfortunate at my Monday screening of the film at the Living Room Theaters. In a scene where the protagonist is receiving instructions from his boss concerning burial arrangements, the subtitles go away. For about three minutes, I witnessed a conversation in Hebrew without translation. It wasn’t fun and I lost crucial information from the movie. It took me almost to the end to realize the setting had changed to Romania.

While I'm on the subject of subtitles, I have a problem with featuring three or more languages in one film without distinguishing which language was spoken in the subtitles. I would have liked brackets enclosing the language being spoken under the translations. It was hard to distinguish when the characters (most of whom spoke two or more languages in the film) understood each other without guidance. Sadly, I can’t tell the difference between Romanian and Hebrew.

I guess I have to blame the distributor, but I realize the limitations in distributing a film to a worldwide audience from outside of the Hollywood system (According to the end credits, this film was at least partially funded by the Israel Film Fund.)

The Human Resources Manager was Israel’s bid for best foreign film in this year’s Academy Awards. I give the film a B-. The locations are outstanding. The story is simple but full of quirky twists and the level of production was very high. I enjoyed it.

The Teenagers Explode

Kaboom is a weird movie. It is unconcerned with traditional cinematic storytelling. With a punk rock/post-modern energy, it deconstructs the average teenager film into some crazy, hypersexual, apocalyptic hallucination. The results are a lot less cool than they sound, and for all of the effort my mind was not blown.

Smith (Thomas Dekker) is a broody 18 year old college student experiencing a sexual awakening. Not burdened by shyness, Smith does it with both boys and girls. He has a lippy best friend named Stella (Haley Bennett) and a bimbo roommate named Thor (Chris Zylka.) They talk in pop-culture references, go to parties, and obsess about blowjobs and clit stimulation. Nothing too strange about that.

The weirdness begins in Smith’s dreams, but soon his dreams start bleeding into his real life. One night he thinks he witnesses a murder, only the perpetrators are men in black suits and animal masks. Smith follows the trail, doubting his own sanity, and encounters mysterious characters connected to a dangerous cult. The crazy doesn’t stop there. Oh no.

See Stella is dating a witch with supernatural powers, which would be a good thing if the girl wasn’t so clingy. Breaking up means piercing voodoo doll headaches and demonic possession. The psycho lesbian isn’t the only one with supernatural powers, and Smith must race to uncover the truth about the strangeness around him before the conspiracy threatens to destroy everyone he cares about.

I don’t think the connection has been made yet, but I noticed a lot of similarities between the cult depicted in the film and the infamous Family International cult founded in the 1960’s by sick f--- David Berg. Secrecy, extreme sexual freedom, the supernatural, prophecy, child abuse/abduction, end time theories and incest were all institutionalized by Berg and The Family.

Ricky Rodriguez was born into the cult, raised as the heir to Berg and idolized by all other members. Grown, he helped bring to light all of The Family’s abuses, and sadly, took his own life. His story was depicted in an MSNBC special and it really affected me.

If writer/director Gregg Araki purposefully wove a fictionalized version of The Family cult into Kaboom, he failed in providing the average viewer with a significant tell. Either way, I believe the real-life story is too important not to mention in this review.

Aside from the possibility of a meaningful analogy, the film offers little in the way of a cohesive, relatable story. Instead, it places all its bets on a distinct visual style and quirky teenage dialogue, my favorite line being, “Dude, it’s a vagina, not a bowl of spaghetti.”

The characters are always dressed in Skittle rainbow colors and washed by golden light in daytime and blue tones at night. There are also lots of hazy dream sequences and pointless transition effects between scenes. Visual effects are used liberally depicting supernatural powers, and are pretty cheesy in my opinion.

Donnie Darko pulled off a similar aesthetic and story back in 2001, but this film is no Donnie Darko.

I do think Kaboom was a worthwhile movie to make. It pushes the boundaries of traditional film making with distinctive writing and visuals. Unfortunately, it is mostly a case of style over substance. There were a few interesting moments, but I doubt most viewers will leave the theater happy. The term, “noble failure” comes to mind. I give Kaboom a D+.

Revolting. Ugly. Nauseating. Shameless.

I know about South Korea because I studied Tae Kwan Do back in the day when I was a little guy. I think I could still break brittle little pieces of wood using only the power of the entire weight of my body. The BBC knows more about South Korea than I do. It is currently the 13th largest economy in the world and growing.

The level of swag displayed in The Housemaid was on a level I have not seen in a long time. I was blown away with the lives of the rich South Koreans depicted in this film.

The protagonist is a working class girl (Jeon Do-yeon,) who is hired to work for a wealthy family. They live in a palace. The servants, wife and child, line up every morning to see the man of the house (Lee Jung-jae) off to work. He plays classical piano and drinks fine wine. The elegance of this man’s hair is surpassed only by his wardrobe. Swag.

The guy has everything anyone could ever want. His family is gorgeous, his wife is hot and puts out, and he is crazy rich. Why would he want to risk it all to play doctor with the nanny? Why not? This man was born getting everything he wants.

The sex scenes in this film are really stylish and intense. There is a really funny sequence that reminds me of a scene in American Psycho, where the rich dude drops a classic sex move. While receiving oral pleasure, he puts his hands up and starts flexing his biceps in front of a window. Hilarious.

Men are pathetic in that they can’t help but work out power issues in bed. I’m sorry that women have to be on the other side of that.

The plot in The Housemaid is very simple, as the working-class girl gets in way over her head. Park Ji-young provides a memorable performance as the evil mother-in-law. “With a rich husband, cheating is part of the package,” she says to her daughter. Soon after, she is plotting murder.

The climax takes the crazy to full Ron Artest Malice at the Palace levels. The final act of revenge is shocking, but definitely set up well by the story.

This movie works not because it has a complex plot, but because writer/director Im Sang-soo has great attention to detail. There is also worthwhile social commentary in the film, covering class divisions, sex and the modern family. I give The Housemaid an A-.

Cold as a Whore's Heart

I have to give props right now to the peoples behind the Living Room Theaters for their schedule of movies. They have been nothing but consistent with selecting interesting, off-the-radar films for screening. Looking for Palladin is a rare slip for them.

The premise of the movie is straightforward. Hollywood agent Joshua Ross (David Moscow) is sent on a mission to Antigua, Guatemala in order to coax legendary actor, Jack Palladin (Ben Gazzara,) back to work. Ross finds himself broke, and at the mercy of the town’s inhabitants who distrust him as the phony with the blue-tooth ear piece and fake Gucci loafers.

The film looks low-budget, but that may have to do with the challenges involved in shooting on location in Central America. The setting is actually the movie’s most endearing quality. The town of Antigua is representative of a lot of small Latin communities with its pretty cobble-stone streets and color-washed historical buildings organized around a main square. Filmmaker Andrej Krakowski made a very cool decision in shooting his movie there.

Location aside, the story is messy with loose and dead ends. Gazzara’s Palladin is surrounded by a glut of side characters that are hastily introduced and awkwardly utilized. They do little to move the plot forward or provide background information. A few of those characters, like the pasty American writer, are especially painful to watch.

Worse is the lead character, Hollywood agent Joshua Ross. Ross personifies every ugly “gringo” stereotype imaginable and looks especially ridiculous acting out high-stakes industry phone conversations while sitting next to a local holding a live chicken. I understand the need to demonstrate the character’s growth as the film progresses, but I thought the early scenes were rendered too over-the-top.

White people are a--holes, there is no doubt about that, and I appreciate Krakowski’s enthusiasm for the idea. Still, I can’t front. No white person is that obnoxious.

At 115 minutes, the movie is mad slow in its buildup and lacking in a payoff. By the time Ross found Palladin in order to offer him the Hollywood role, I was no longer interested in his answer. In the end, it didn’t make much difference. I give Looking for Palladin a D+.

I appreciate what this film was trying to do. I hope this is among the first of many movies shot in Guatemala. I know there are better stories to be told there.

Coming of Age in Connecticut

I’ll never be able to stand death or cope with it. I could watch a thousand movies where characters learn and grow to accept it and never be satisfied. Harvest is among the stronger attempts I’ve seen to reconcile the two difficult subjects of family and loss.

The film follows three generations of a family in shoreline Connecticut, spending their last summer together before the death of the patriarch, Grandpa Siv (Robert Loggia.) There is Feng Shui and Yoga mother (Victoria Clark,) joined by her pot-belly-garbage-golfer-never-been-married brother (Arye Gross,) and her college student son (Jack Carpenter,) taking care of grandpa and grandma. Grandma is a movie all by herself, suffering from dementia, she sweeps the grass and likes to throw cookies in the air.

The writing and acting around the characters are both outstanding. The movie is seen largely through the perspective of the youngest, and Carpenter is steady throughout as Josh. He is realistic in scenes where he acts his age (wanting to escape yelling “It’s too f---ing boring!,”) as well as scenes where he acts wise beyond his years.

I loved the scene where young Josh became angry at his mother, talking “I’m destined to be alone. It’s like it’s in our genes or something.” I can definitely relate to that fear. Most relationships end before the people in them do.

I also loved Robert Loggia in his portrayal of Siv, a man succumbing to pancreatic cancer. His big scene involved a beautiful bike ride around his coastline small town, where people play Bocce ball on their lawns and line Main Street for the annual parade. At 80 plus and dying of cancer, he rides across the entire town to speak with his sister for five minutes. Peaceful moment aside, the film also addresses Siv’s failures and regrets. All of the characters have complicated pasts.

The final deathbed scene is extremely powerful and I couldn’t help but think of my own grandparents while watching it. I think most people that have gone through similar experiences can recognize the realism in the dialogue and acting here. Writer/Director Marc Meyers is truly gifted.

I give Harvest an A-. It had memorable lines, scenes and characters. There are no weak links in the ensemble cast. Maybe there were a few familiar aspects to the story, the undocumented saucy Latina housekeeper perhaps, that veered a little close to cliché but the story overall was very sweet and thoughtful.

The Hairdresser Rock Star

Can a hairdresser change the world? It sounds like a stretch to suggest it, but the idea is the central premise in Vidal Sassoon: The Movie. I watched the documentary and can almost co-sign on Sassoon’s behalf. He was the Kobe Bryant of his profession, the greatest, most determined of his time.

I didn’t know who the man was before this movie and I think that is why the opening sequence was such a turn off for me. There he is, legendary Vidal Sassoon, looking like a baller at 80 years old, strutting across a bridge fashionable with his skinny trousers, leather jacket and scarf. He is shot in slow motion and in black and white while anonymous voices make hyperbolic statements about his career and legacy.

I wanted to hate on him right there, but I never got a chance. It turns out that Vidal Sassoon is the truth, a self-made man who worked hard to develop his own style and revolutionize his profession in the process. Basically, he changed the hairdressing game. He created new styles and methods, then he created the modern salon, then he created a salon school, then he created a visionary product line, and he hasn’t stopped since.

Along the way, he was also a brilliant spokesperson for his salons, products and industry. Vidal Sassoon: The Movie was actually produced by the head of a hair products company and former hair dresser, Michael Gordon. Gordon also produced a book about his hero to go with the movie. This might explain the obvious effort by the film to push Sassoon’s legend.

Still, the documentary has a lot of evidence to back up their boy, utilizing archival footage, period magazine spreads and newspaper articles, and present-day interviews. I especially liked watching footage from when Sassoon was at his creative peak in the 1960’s. Before him, women’s hair was always big and stiff from heavy product use. After him, it was short, free from product and shaped and angled asymmetrically to fit the face.

It was impressive to see Sassoon in action, selling his revolutionary ideas to the girls in his chair and chopping their long hair off. I am trying to sell my girlfriend on getting one of his creations right now, the five point cut, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. The short hair styles look retro cool and European, and were featured in cool movies and magazines. I can understand the film’s assertion that his ideas influenced the culture of the day.

It was also nice that Sassoon himself took the time to share his story. Unlike greats in other professions, he is generous with the credit and secrets to his success. His voice sounds especially rich through the Living Room Theaters speakers. Sassoon has lived an epic life, from poor boy living in an orphanage, to serving as a messenger during World War II and as an enlisted soldier during the foundation of the state of Israel, to hairdresser rock star and business mogul.

Vidal Sassoon: The Movie is a great story and I give it a B+. It is a little biased, but produced very seriously and professionally.

The filmmakers were able to craft a complex story of Vidal Sassoon the man, provide historical context, and finally convince the viewer of his far-reaching impact. The photographs and footage were very strong. You can’t argue with the evidence in a closing segment, as the filmmakers provide photographs of models from Paris fashion week 2010 walking down a runway. They are rocking Sassoon’s five point cut, fresh and exciting as ever.

Everyday People

I have a great admiration for family men. I’m talking about daddies that handle their business, the ones that deserve the big piece of chicken. I don’t have a wife and children of my own, yet, but I imagine it is hard. In Every Day, a father struggles to maintain his family as he is tested by hardship after hardship.

Ned (Wolverine’s Liev Schreiber,) is a writer for a TV show that requires him to write incest and drug-fueled accidents into his plots. He is frustrated as his boss and co-workers push him toward deeper and deeper lows. There is no relief at home when Ned’s wife (Helen Hunt) agrees to take care of her dying father. Also, his eldest son is gay and wants to go to gay prom. Life is hectic to say the least.

It gets crazier when you add smoking hot actress Carla Gugino to the mix, as Ned’s new writing partner. You’ve seen her in shows like Entourage and you already know how sexy she is. Here, she is soaking wet in her black thong bikini, brainstorming scandalous turns of plot with Ned, as they float in her private pool. I’m not sure how many of us men would say no to those lips, Gugino is perfect as the sophisticated temptress.

The interaction between Ned and his teenage son is another highlight in the film. Schreiber is realistic in his uneasiness over his son’s sexuality. In one scene, he is worried about the message his son is sending older boys with his sleeveless shirt and tight jeans, and in the other he is consoling him after a bad night with a reassurance that he will find the boy of his dreams. I think these are very progressive scenes. They are also very sweet.

The father-in-law (played by Brian Dennehy) is one of the weaker characters in the film. I understand that his arrival drives the plot, but there is something about his deathbed alcoholic story that is very stale to me. Writer/Director Richard Levine could have been more subtle here, giving Dennehy’s character an original wrinkle or two.

I give Every Day a C+. It was well-written and acted, if not entirely fresh and original. It was also a little bit disconcerting. Life is hard and it makes me wonder if I will be able to man up and be deserving of the big piece of chicken someday.

Old School Cool in North by Northwest

The Living Room theaters show throwback films from time to time. A couple of weeks ago they had Casablanca, and right now they have North by Northwest. Premiering in 1959, North by Northwest is considered a classic. I saw the old-timey movie and liked it.

The film was directed by legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, using a script by Ernest Lehmen. Spies selling American secrets have picked up carefree ad executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) who they have mistaken for a government agent on their tail. They try to murder him, then they frame him for murder, then they try to murder him again. If you’ve seen a thriller in the last 60 years, the plot is going to sound familiar to you. Along the way Thornhill meets a dangerous blonde (Eva Marie Saint) and uncovers the global conspiracy.

Some of the big scenes hold up well today. About halfway into the movie, an assassin tries to kill Thornhill, only he does it in the most ridiculous way possible, by stalking him in an open field with a biplane. The premise is completely stupid, but the shots are composed really well by Hitchcock. The director sells you on the fear coursing through Thornhill as he runs for his life and a plane gets larger and larger over his shoulder.

The special effects may have been cutting edge in those days, but are silly now. For car chases, the film uses stationary cars in front of projection screens, and when the chases end the collisions are low-speed and cause wimpy explosions. My favorite scene has nothing to do with special effects. Here, Hitchcock creates a sense of terror by utilizing a well tossed book of matches.

I’m taking a minute to acknowledge the coolness of Cary Grant. By today’s standards he is too old and too lean, but I don’t think people got big in those days. Grant is just a little bit taller, tanner and smoother than the other guys in the film. Dude wears one suit the entire movie, rocking the grey on grey. He makes it work and I want me one of those.

When he is seducing his blonde, Grant delivers all kinds of sexual innuendo that must have pushed the boundaries of decency back then. This is hot stuff, and set before free love and the 1960’s. The girl is saying all the right things and I’m thinking they are about to do nasty things in their train cabin, until, the dialogue suddenly whips around to marriage and the man sleeping on the floor. Ridiculous. I would have thrown that lady off the train right there for playing around too much.

“How does a girl like you grow up to be a girl like you?” Thornhill asks his blonde. Too funny, man. I’m going to try to drop that one next time I’m trying to seduce my blonde.

I have to give props to Hitchcock and his team for coming hard with something so polished and influential. I can see why it is considered a classic, mostly because the filmmaking is so bold for its time. Everything is big here, the musical score, the twists in the plot, the dialogue, the love scenes and the special effect scenes. Unfortunately, movies have evolved substantially since 1959. North by Northwest holds up, but isn’t very jaw-dropping by today’s standards. I give it a B-.

Sexytime in the Irish Hills?

I can identify with the characters in the film Nothing Personal. They are self-sufficient and solitary. One lives on a lonely island in Ireland, the other wanders around Europe like Forrest Gump. I can see pulling stunts like that. Personally, I plan on going Kerouac on everyone’s a-- for a couple of years someday.

Anne (Lotte Verbeek) is the wandering vagabond, scaring families by eating from garbage cans and truck drivers by faking insanity. She is almost feral. The film doesn’t fully explain her background, but she has abandoned her previous life. Anne finds Martin’s (Stephen Rea) house and begins to study him while camping out on his land.

At one point she breaks into his house and starts doing odd, child-like things to leave her scent on his possessions. When he shows interest in knowing her, she acts like a brat and wants to leave. Something tells her to stay. They make a food-for-work deal with a strict no intimacy clause.

The two eventually break through each other’s defenses. They spend days working side by side tending to the garden and moving dirt around, and arranging cute little fruit, bread and milk meals for each other. Maybe the film is trying to tell me something about the human experience?

I like how the film was shot, romanticizing the Irish hills and country, and the beautiful features and skin of Verbeek. The scenes are arranged into artsy close-ups, hands massaging sea weed into dirt or creeping closer and closer to each other, medium shots where both actors shine with nuanced expressions and body language, and overall shots of cold and lonely landscapes.

The story is character-based and not plot-based. There is a beginning, middle, and end, but I think writer/director Urszula Antoniak is encouraging viewers not to think too linearly, as flashes of text separate the film into chapters, but don’t exactly appear in familiar order.

The oddness of the characters and the small twists in the story make it a mostly enjoyable film. I don’t see mass market appeal for the story, though. It is too subtle and moves too slow. The central idea is that people need people, even though they may try to deny it by running or hiding themselves away.

I give Nothing Personal a C+. For me, the moral comes through a little too easy and clean in the story. I can appreciate the beautiful cinematography in the composition of shots, and the artful performances by the actors, but there seemed to be a spark missing from the film. I am going to be a harsh critic and blame it on tiny imperfections in the script.

Beast Mode

My dome just about exploded from watching Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance. I thought I was immune to the anime bug from my experience last week watching the first film in the four film series. That film was less bold. I think this film is a more accurate representation of what anime fans love about the genre.

Like the first movie, this one revolves around the young pilots of massive government built super-robots, and their defense of the planet from supernatural beings called angels.

The animation is very slick here. The opening sequence establishes what is to come with the brilliant rendering of a new pilot and a new machine, or Eva. The technology that is imagined in the cockpit is similar to that imagined in movies like Avatar where pilots are hooked up to move naturally and feel the pain in the bodies they drive. It is rendered colorful, mystical, and very cool.

The skyline in the cities of the future is not static, but moving as whole buildings rise up and down from underground depending on the threat level. The ocean is not blue and full of life, but red and dead. There is a funny scene when the young Eva pilots visit an Aquarium that houses a tiny fraction of what used to be earth’s marine life. The gag involves the brutal decontamination procedure for all the attraction’s visitors.

The battle sequences are strong again in this film. I complained about the first film’s vision of angels as abstract geometric patterns, and here again, a big bad villain angel is revealed to take the form of a rainbow flower with petals that unfold and leave paths of destruction. Somehow, I am starting to understand the weirdness and prefer it. Who am I to question what planet devouring super-beings are supposed to look like?

After the flower angel is defeated, and after some decent attempts at crafting rounded characters with realistic flaws and desires, comes the big draw of the movie, the climactic final battle. I would describe it as a colorful videogame battle acid trip.

If you have ever gone berserk in competition or from passion, you know about beast mode. In the movie, there is a girl who pilots her robot into crazy town for the sake of a fight, and the government handlers called it transcending the limits of humanity. I call it going into beast mode. Come see me on the basketball court man, I’ll show you beast mode, haha.

Anyway, once beast mode doesn’t work for the girl and people start getting eaten up by monster angels, the hero of the film, ten year old Shinji, transforms into God Mode, or for NBA fans, Kobe vs Toronto 2006.

In God Mode, Shinji and his true love are the center of an apocalyptic tornado of pink and purple energy. Goofy Japanese pop music plays in the background (which I started to appreciate after a while.) Shinji is transcending the limits of physics with stuff floating around all menacingly, and everybody thinks the world is about to end.

At the center of the tornado are two little kids in love. This is how the film ends. The world is about to end and little Shinji is defiant and happy for it as long as he has his girl. I give Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance an A-. I was geeked out over it, but I have to leave some room for the next movie to improve.

After leaving the theater with my jaw all wide, I found out that there is a secret scene after the credits roll. I suggest staying for it if you can. It sounds pretty awesome.

Every Day I'm Hustling

Everyone has their hustle, man. Some people pick trash. Some people make jeans. I think I’m the best writer alive (or at least at my school.) The thing that unites us in our respective hustles, is the fact that all of us will get old. One day we’ll all have to give up our game.

The protagonist in The Illusionist is an aging French magician. He literally pulls rabbits out of hats traveling and performing around Europe. It is 1959 and people are starting to scream for rock stars and watch TV. As tired as he looks with deep bags under his eyes, the magician’s act is in worse shape. He gets booed off stage.

In Scotland he gets a warm reception in a crowded bar and meets a peasant girl who believes he can do real magic. His confidence is high so he fuels her belief by finding a coin behind her ear. Later, he finds new shoes for her in a store with the money he earns from his performances, but he delivers them to her through a magic trick.

Obviously, the girl jumps aboard the train he leaves in and expects him to pull tickets and a new life for her out of his sleeve.

The ending is brilliant. Words are used effectively here to make a very important statement. Whether you believe the words or not is up to you. I would question the credibility of the writer. Wink. Wink.

The film is a parable about fatherhood and is very reminiscent of the opening scene in Pixar’s Up in that it depicts life without much dialogue and features old people and animation. When the images are this rich and the scenes put together this good, dialogue is not missed at all. Anyways the characters aren’t able to speak to each other because one speaks French and one speaks English.

Shout out to FAU’s French Language Department, specifically, Professor Joseph, Professor Jurawan and Professor Reese. I didn’t become fluent last year but at least I have a decent foundation. Elles sont les meilleures.

The animation is pretty throughout the film and has a very soft and unique feel to it. The landscape shots are rendered especially well, with the results looking more like moving impressionist paintings than cartoons. I love the dreary London changing of the guard scene. It was in the background of the movie, but added mood to the story. For some reason it was really beautiful to watch.

There are a lot of memorable scenes. The magician's rabbit appears in every act and steals the show.

Growing old is something I am very scared of facing. One day my act will get old, and my tricks will become transparent to the snot noses coming up. This film is a reminder of that cold, lonely fact. The other thing I took from The Illusionist is that magic exists and mostly it exists when human beings are kind to each other.

I give this film an A+. The musical score is charming and the story is simple and sweet. I didn’t see Toy Story 3 so I am pulling for this to win best animated feature at the 83rd Academy Awards.

Children With Destinies Built Into Them

I am not a fan of anime. I’m not going to hate on anyone who is, I’m just saying. Honestly though, I can’t even tell you what makes anime different from other styles of animation. They make it in Japan I know that. I also know my girlfriend Elissa hates everything having to do with Japan. Yup, my girl is a racist.

Nah, she isn’t a racist, but she wouldn’t go with me to watch Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone either. Sadly, I don’t think this is the first time a girl has turned down an invitation to watch anime. So I’m not going to front, this movie is dorky. It’s ultra-mega-super dorky.

On the other hand, though, it isn’t terribly boring either.

The plot follows ten year old Shinji, who is picked up by a government agency and told he is humanity’s last hope, the pilot of a massive robot, called an Eva. He must defend earth from equally massive and powerful beings called Angels. This is trippy sh-- for real. I had just finished toking on some nice Blue Dream though, so maybe that explains why I was keeping up with all that angel apocalypse talk.

The highlights are definitely the battle sequences. The robots resemble aliens more than machines, and brutally pound on each other as well as the cities that act as their backdrops. Explosions get larger and more epic as the film progresses (something I suspect will continue as the sequels are produced.) Blood/oil rains down on the remnants of cities in ridiculous quantities.

The animation was interesting for the most part, until an angel terrorizing a city was revealed to take the form of a large blue diamond. Did the producers run out of animation money here? I am not kidding a big bad monster in this movie takes the form of a large blue diamond. Weird.

Other weird moments include a penguin named Pen Pen who reads the newspaper and smokes cigars, and a female sex-kitten character showing off her goods in a bath tub scene. The anime tradition of heavily sexualized female characters is definitely weird. I can’t remember when the last time I saw a cartoon breast was before this.

The movie is based on the classic Japanese TV series of the same name, and is the first of four feature-lengths. It is basically a shot-for-shot remake of the original six episodes of the series, according to my anime expert (and brother-in-law,) John.

This is something I had a hard time with. If you are going to remake a movie or TV series, why make a shot-for-shot remake? Wouldn’t it be better to go all Christopher Nolan over everyone’s faces and re-imagine the series into darker, heavier territory?

I’m not even going to comment on how much of a baby Shinji is as a character, worrying about bullies and his father not loving him, meanwhile half the earth’s population was killed by angels. Here is where they should have cast a baller little kid like Will Smith's son to get in the robot. Remember Independance Day?

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone was a decent dip in the anime pond for me. I can appreciate the distinctive style of the animation, and the epic imagery and mythology in the storytelling. The characters are drawn too one-dimensional for me, and this throws the balance of the movie off. I give it a C+.

All I Want for Christmas is for Santa Not to Eat Me

South Florida has a decent population of Finnish people. Those kids are always good for a laugh. Finland just sounds like a fun country to me with its arctic winters when the sun doesn’t rise and hot summers when the sun doesn’t set. Finland also tops Newsweek’s list of the best countries on earth.

I used to have a Finnish boss named Seppo. He was jittery and he talked funny but he always seemed to put a smile on my face. I had co-workers who had amazing Seppo impersonations. He was a weird dude but he also held several college degrees and spoke several languages. I’m telling you man don’t sleep on them Finns.

Apparently them kids are even capable of producing Hollywood-quality movies. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is the story of a little Finnish boy named Pietari and his encounter with Santa Claus. The Finnish version of Santa, however, is more monster than saint (huge devil horns give it away.) This is definitely not a movie for kids.

The story is completely ridiculous, involving things like slimy English-speaking businessmen with shady drilling operations and zombie-like old men armed with pick axes, but delivered serious in the style of magical realism (there are scenes that remind me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s brilliant short story “An Old Man with Very Enormous Wings.”) But really, I wouldn’t put it past Finland to have a supernatural Santa Claus buried under an ancient mountain. The Finnish language sounds like friggin Lord of the Rings elf-language, so you know those guys have some magic in them.

A creative writing teacher once explained to me that readers will accept the most ridiculous plot elements as long as the main character in the story is realistic and he/she experiences change throughout the course of the narrative. Good thing writer/director Jalmari Helander understands this foundation of character development so well. Little Pietari is hilarious running around scared in his brief underwear and with a rifle strapped to his back.

Pietari transforms from a timid weakling seeking his father’s approval to a daring warrior riding the outside of a helicopter as if it were a bucking bronco. The computer-generated special effects are a bit cheesy in that scene, but this almost adds to the charm of the movie. You have to appreciate a little cheese to appreciate this dark comedy.

Bottom-line, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is funny, suspenseful and original. Actor Onni Tommila shines as little gangsta Pietari. My Finnish brothers know what they are doing. I give this movie an A-.

There is one thing that bothers me. Out of the dozen or so Finnish kids I’ve met in my life, they have all been dudes. I have never ever seen a Finnish woman. There was not a single woman in the whole movie either. Where the ladies at Finland? Is it a shortage of females that makes you guys so quirky?

The Banality of Evil

There are serious ghosts in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge regime killed an estimated 1.7 million people there from 1975 to 1979, according to Yale University. This was 21 percent of the country’s population. The leader of the communist regime was a clown named Pol Pot aka “Brother Number 1.” He died in 1998 without standing trial for his crimes against humanity.

In Enemies of the People, investigative journalist Thet Sambath tracks down and befriends “Brother Number 2,” Nuon Chea. Sambeth compiled the footage for this documentary over three years, at his own expense and on weekends away from his wife and children. His own parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge.

Sambeth journeys from city to countryside, squatting by the side of the road with former Khmer Rouge killers. They are wild-eyed old men now, but in the Khmer Rouge they were soldiers. They are shot decapitating chickens in one scene and in the next they explain how they performed similar acts on humans.

They explain how they drank wine to prepare before executions and how they drank from harvested human gall bladders.

The orders for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Cambodia originated from the central leadership. If he didn’t contribute to Pol Pot’s madness, Nuon Chea was at least close enough to witness it. It is hard to believe that the frail grandfather on screen has been touched by that evil.

The little that Nuon Chea reveals is thrilling to watch. He seems to be aware of his shameful place in history, yet in several scenes he betrays his defiance. He quotes Buddha at one point, arguing that where there is no intention there is no sin.

This is obviously an important film. It represents a primary source to the Khmer Rouge regime’s crime of genocide. Nuon Chea is caught on film admitting to the execution of innocent people in the killing fields of Cambodia.

I do think the documentary could have been cut considerably. There are about 20 minutes of compelling interviews in the whole film. The rest includes a brief history of Cambodia, Thambet explaining his motivation and difficulties in the project, and before the credits roll, chilling archival footage of mass graves, work camps and ovens.

As a journalism student, it was interesting to watch Thambet work through an ethical dilemma brought up by his relationship with Nuon Chea. His diligence in working his source for three years only partially paid off. While Nuon Chea’s testimony was the big draw, I would have liked Thambet to interview more than the two or three former killers documented in the film. I left the movie feeling like I had more questions than I did when I walked in.

I give Enemies of the People a B+, mostly for its importance to history as a primary source. The tragedy in Cambodia should be remembered as a cautionary tale.

Vik Muniz is a dope artist

Art is hard. It can be pretty and sometimes it can be important. Vik Muniz is an artist, and according to television shows in his native Brazil, one of the greatest alive. Constantly exploring different mediums, Muniz makes art out of everyday objects. He is appreciated in the art world and famous enough to take on whatever project he wants.

What he wanted to do in the documentary Waste Land, was hang out and make art at the world’s largest landfill in Rio de Janeiro, Jardim Gramacho. Muniz would make portraits of the pickers who live and work in the garbage. He would give all the proceeds from the sale of the work back to them. Genius.

Director Lucy Walker allows Muniz to explain his story and motivation for the landfill project through talking head interviews and discussions. Muniz seems honest and eager in his intention to combine art with social projects. His eye for composition and beauty is evident in his choice of subjects.

The pickers that Muniz hires as models and assistants become the heart of the film. Tiao is the young president and founder of the pickers association in Jardim Gramacho. He has been picking since he was eleven. He is eloquent and proud because he understands his vital role in the health of the city. He is quick to explain the difference between garbage and recyclable materials. A small army of his fellow pickers is responsible for extending the life of the landfill and for powering the recyclables economy. They work day and night.

Tiao is posed in the style of The Death of Marat, and shot in a bathtub with the landfill in the background. Muniz takes aerial photographs and becomes convinced that the art in the landfill is to be found in the human element.

He interviews and shoots other pickers and visits them at their homes. Suelem is 18 and lives in a disgusting $8 a week wood panel hut. She complains that rats bother her sleep as they scurry across her tin roof. She is shot in the style of a Madonna with her two young children at her side.

From the landfill to a rented studio the pickers collaborate with Muniz by strategically placing garbage around a projection of each portrait on the floor. Dirt becomes ink and found objects become paint. Bottle caps become freckles. Garbage becomes art.

There is a brilliant sequence where Muniz, his wife and his partner Fabio Ghivelder discuss the art project’s effects on the lives of the pickers. The pickers are happy as artists and don’t want to return to the landfill. Muniz handles the responsibility and the discussion beautifully.

My favorite scene was in London after Tiao’s portrait sells for $50,000 at auction. Muniz asks Tiao to explain how he became a work of art. Crying, Tiao says, “It was because years ago me and my partner started a pickers organization. Nobody believed in me. Nobody believed in me.”

That was the best. I love watching real people on their hustle doing real good honest things. Tiao is a guy who picks garbage but he does it with pride and he does it with heart. The garbage pickers in Waste Land are beautiful works of art. Vik Muniz is a dope artist for recognizing and immortalizing that beauty. I give this film an A+.

All (Mediocre) Things

I’m going to come clean with my bias towards Ryan Gosling. I’ve been down with this kid since he was Young Hercules back in the day. I saw The Notebook twice in theaters and cried both times. Gosling put both Half Nelson and Lars and the Real Girl on his back. He is definitely a franchise player. His choices in roles are always interesting.

Anyway what I’m trying to say is I love me some Ryan Gosling. I took my girlfriend to see All Good Things last Thursday and we were both excited.

Too bad the movie was garbage. It really seemed unnecessary. I’ll give you the synopsis.

This is based on true events.

Gosling is Robert Durst, a rich prince in a New York City real estate empire. He meets and falls for Kathie, played by Kirsten Dunst. Behind the veil of luxury in their marriage, there are drugs and violent episodes. Kathie goes missing in the 1980’s and is never found.

See, this is a Dateline episode. You already know the husband killed his wife. Why did the producer feel the need to dramatize this into a full 90 minute feature? It certainly wasn’t for the sake of thought-provoking character development.

One minute Robert is charming in a dripping wet tuxedo or at his health foods store in Vermont, the next he is killing dogs and dressing in drag. The jumps seemed too far-fetched to me. Anyway why should we care? Dunst is effective enough as Kathie, but the script doesn’t give her much to do but look anxious. Gosling is wasted on this story.

He is also made to look ridiculous in horrible make-up in order for him to play Robert in old age. This is a lame technique Hollywood uses that always fails. I say cast older actors to play older characters. I really didn’t need to see Gosling in a whack wig piece and dress ensemble either.

In the end, All Good Things gets a D+. The story was really weak and would have worked better as a documentary with real people commentating, experts on the case, documents, photography and audio. Gosling was conned into doing this. Check him out in Blue Valentine he was better there.

Ryan get back in the lab and show these people what’s up.

I Love You Phillip Morris

Jim Carrey is still a star after all these years. His facial expressions and physical comedy are on point in every frame of I Love You Phillip Morris, the life story of Steven Russell, the spectacularly gay conman that according to the film is currently serving a life sentence in a Texas prison.

Steven’s back story takes up about the first thirty minutes of the film. First we find out that he was a hospital parking lot and paper bag full of cash adoption baby. From there, we see him as the perfect husband and police officer in the 1970’s (he takes shots of milk with cookie chasers.) There is a hilarious quick jump from him sticking his tongue down his wife’s throat at a house party to him having dirty gay sex with a Christian Bale doppelganger.

A car accident makes him reevaluate the course of his life as he tells the paramedics loading him into the ambulance, “I’m going to be a fag!” Steven’s next move is Miami, twin Chihuahuas and a Latino boyfriend named Jimmy. In order to live “high on the gay hog,” Steven has to commit scams and frauds. He is sent to prison after a series of comical escape attempts.

This is the end of the back story and the beginning of the love story at the center of the film. In prison Steven meets the love of his life, Phillip Morris, played by a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Ewan McGregor. Watching Jim Carrey smoothly spit game at coy and bashful Ewan McGregor is hilarious (I keep using that word.)

The Steven character is epic. There is a sequence in the film where he is in his yellow prison outfit giving a tour of the prison to his new cell-mate. He explains how prison runs on a d--- sucking economy. Not surprisingly, Steven thrives in this economy. He arranges intricate note-passing networks, gourmet meals, and hits on other prisoners at whim.

He thrives in everything he does, as he scams his way into the Chief Financial Officer position at a company and institutes a massive HMO scam.

The filmmaker is in on every one of Steven’s scams and surprises the viewer at every turn. I know I got fooled by the story several times. This is definitely a good thing.

Again, Jim Carrey did his thing. His sex scenes are gross in a slapstick/funny/sweet way. His body language in his dim-lit cell tenderly kissing Phillip is very indicative of someone in love. Ewan McGregor is also convincing as the femme housewife. You can feel the giddiness in both characters in the scene where Phillip is released from prison.

The film tries to convince the viewer that it is based on a true story. I don’t really want to look it up because I don’t want to be fooled again. True or not, it is thoughtful and funny. I give it an A-.