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Movie Review: Mildred Pierce 1945

Mildred Pierce

1945

Starring: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Anny Blyth, Bruce Bennett, George Tobias, Lee Patrick, Moroni Olsen, Jo Ann Marlow and Barbara Brown 

Written by: Ranald MacDougall. Based on the novel by James M. Cain

Directed by: Michael Curtiz

The first thing I noticed about one of the great film-noirs in American Cinema is that it's kind of light on the film noir part.  The film-noir in the film seems to be only part of the framing device.  I've never read the novel so I don't know if that same device was used there.  

I've been wanting to see Mildred Pierce for years and like many aspiring cinefiles there are holes in your viewing because, let's face it, it's hard to see all the great films.  Especially since the advent of Skinamax.  It's kind of hard to believe that I've never actually seen The Deer Hunter, but I have seen The Dean Humper somewhat by accident, I swear.  Because TCM runs this film all the time I would put it off because it's sure to appear again in another month or so.  When I heard that HBO was going to to a mini-series based on the book I decided that I really needed to sit down and watch this film.  

Mildred Pierce is about a hardworking woman whose husband is having an affair.  She's had enough and decides that she wants a divorce.  He leaves and she's forced to raise her two daughters, Vida and Kay, by herself. Vida, the eldest, is spoiled and embarrassed by her place in the world, and her mother tries to give her only the best. The youngest, Kay, is a tomboy who Mildred is trying to reform of her tomboy ways with ballet lessons and such.  Mildred bakes pies and cakes to sell to the neighbors to make extra money to afford the piano lessons and ballet classes. Like many parents, Mildred wants to give her children everything she never had.  

After struggling to find a job she finally gets one waitressing and being smart and resourceful, works hard until she's the best waitress and knows the restaurant business inside and out. Soon she takes whatever savings she has, and along with the help of a lazy millionaire, opens her own restaurant.  It is a wild success and within a few years she has franchised Mildred's around the Los Angeles area and now has four locations.  She is a huge success but she still cannot get the respect of her daughter.  Throughout the film that is the only thing she really wants.  

The film opens with the murder of a dapper man at a Malibu beach house and then is told in flashback as Mildred recounts the story to the police.  The film almost feels like it comes from two different genres.  film-noir in the framing and a Douglas Sirk melodrama in the flashbacks.  This is not a dig because I think the film does a great job of balancing both.  

The film is directed by Michael Curtiz. He does a fine job going between the two genres and the film-noir section of the film looks fantastic.  Curtiz is one of those directors who made a number of great films that include The Adventures of Robin Hood, Yankee Doodle Dandy and Casablanca among others.  Curtiz directed his fair share of classics but he isn't the legend of a Billy Wilder, Frank Capra or William Wyler.  It seems to me that he's the victim of the Auteur Theory, as defined by François Truffaut.  His direction is functional and competent but you can never see his fingerprint like you can Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford. 

The performances are solid as reflected in the number of Acadamy Award nominations.  Both Eve Arden and Ann Blyth were nominated for Best Supporting Actress with Joan Collins taking home the Best Actress statue.  

Another thing I noticed about Mildred Pierce that we don't see enough of today: strong female characters.  Sure, there are exceptions to the rule (most recent Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine) but for every Blue Valentine or The Kids Are All Right we get a dozen daffy Katherine Heigel movies about career women who usually work at fashion magazines and can't find the validation of a hot man.  In Mildred Pierce and many film from the era, women were either on level playing fields with men or were far superior to them.  It's the latter in this film.  The men in Mildred Pierce are either conniving, lazy or buffoonish horn-dogs.  I wonder if this has to do with women's place in the world of the 40s was mostly subservient to men.  Now that things are leveling out, and based on the numbers of women in college versus men, women are sure to pass men in the future workforce, I wonder if the movies of the future will reflect this.  In fifty years is some daring filmmaker going to show us his holographic take on Cain's novel in Melvin Pierce?

There's a reason Mildred Pierce is considered a classic, because it's an A. 

Les

Here's the trailer:

Movie Review: Let Me In

Let Me In

2010

Starring - Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins and Cara Buono

Written by - Matt Reeves, Based on Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Directed by - Matt Reeves

After I watched Let the Right One In, the Swedish film and novel Let Me In is based on, I told everyone who would listen to check it out.  I thought it was one of the best horror films I had seen in a long, long time and while I'm not exactly a fan of the genre, I thought the Swedish film was brilliant.  I'm happy to say that Matt Reeves, the director of Let Me In, faithfully stuck to the original film.  

Let Me In is about a young man named Owen whose parents are divorcing and is also the target of the bullies of the school.  Set in Los Alomas, New Mexico in the winter, Owen spends his nights sitting in the middle of the courtyard of the low-income housing his mother now lives in, post break-up.  Owen gets a new neighbor, an older man of about sixty played by Richard Jenkins and what appears to be his 12 year old daughter Abby, played by Chloe Moretz.  Abby comes and hangs out in the courtyard with Owen.  They bond over the Rubik's cube and soon are friends.  She gives him advice about the bullies and he writes down Morse Code so they can communicate by tapping on the wall their bedrooms share.  Her "dad" spends his nights trying to get nourishment for Abby.  He does this by killing people and then draining their blood into a bottle for her to drink. It's been decided long ago that this is the easier than having Abby go out and kill and then they still have to get rid of the body, it's a simple solution.  After the dad flubs a murder and is caught, Abby finds herself alone and her relationship with Owen starts to flower.  

The great thing about the story is that while it is a vampire story with horror overtones, at it's core it's more about the struggles of adolescence and a metaphor for the struggles of love.  It really is a story about the love between a immortal 12 year old vampire and Owen and that's where its beauty lies.  

In watching the special features on the DVD I am kind of taken aback by the focus of the people behind the film and how they discuss the book being the inspiration for doing the movie.  That may be so but the film was very similar, even to the shot, of the Swedish version.  As much as I liked the American version, I basically had the feeling that they were just redoing the Swedish version because Americans don't like subtitles.  Either the source material of the novel was so well drawn that two different directors in two different parts of the globe where inspired to pick the same shots.  Sure, there are differences, but not that many.  

The pacing and the atmosphere are exactly the same as the Swedish version and I probably shouldn't have watched the special features and their discussion about how this is their adaptation of the book.  Like they never saw the film.  I would have been nicer to Mr. Reeves in this review if I hadn't seen the special features and the original film.  If I was going in cold this film might have made my top ten for 2010.  I enjoyed Cloverfield, so Mr. Reeves has got that going for him, and it's nice.  

The performances are strong.  Kodi Smit-McPhee does a great job as Owen and Chloe Moretz does another great job.  I first saw her in The 500 Days of Summer and then Kick-Ass and she's always been the strongest in each of those films.  

I thought Let Me In was solid and I was going to give it a stronger grade until I saw the special features on the DVD.  I think it is a B.  Let the Right One In, on the other hand, is a solid A.  If you have the choice and can read, I would watch the Swedish version first.  I think you can still stream it on Netflix. 

Les 

Here is the trailer: 

Candy Hearts - Music

Here's a band that is new to me.  Catchy and fun.

Their Myspace: Candy Hearts. And apparently you can get a free copy of their album.

Enjoy,
Les

Movie Review: The Battleship Potemkin Re-Release

The Battleship Potemkin 

1925

Starring: Grigori Aleksandrov, Aleksandr Pavlovich Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Ivan Bobrov, Mikhail Gomorov and Beatrice Vitoldi

Written by:  Nina Agadzhanova, Nikolai Aseyev, Sergei Eisenstein and Sergei Tretyakov

Directed by: Sergei Eisenstein

I hadn't seen this since college and back then, with my limited exposure to silent films, I liked it but wasn't blown away. Silent films take a bit of work at first. I have watched many more at this point and there are ones out there that I think are great.  I loved Modern Times, Metropolis, The Strong Man, Shoulder Arms and after seeing it again, The Battleship Potemkin. Of course there are many great silent films that I haven't seen.  If I didn't have Skinimax maybe my world would be very different and that would change.  

The film tells the story about the 1905 showdown between the Potemkin and the Tsarist regime, a moment that sets the stage for the revolution of 1917.  It is also a landmark film in the use of montage or the Kuleshov Effect, the most famous being the Odessa Steps sequence.  The film is told in five parts and we start on a ship where the sailors are forced by the officers to eat rotten, maggot infested meat.  It's quite gleefully disgusting and Eisenstein really captures the divide between the soldiers and the officers, who represent Tsarist Russia.  The next sequence is the mutiny, which features the fantastic sequence where the officers order that some of the men have a tarp put over them before they are shot. During this part of the film one of the sailor's leader Vakulinchuk is killed.  This leads to the final parts of the film and so as not to ruin this for you, I will stop right here.  

The film is very powerful and since there's no dialogue the images carry more weight than and deserve more attention than what we're used to providing.  And after you get in the rhythm of the editing the images become more and more powerful as the film unfolds.  The famous Odessa Steps sequence is intense and Eisenstein doesn't shy away from graphic violence, especially the woman whose son is shot and then trampled by the crowd as he tries to get to safety.  Then there is the mom who is shot and the famous baby carriage as it travels wildly down the steps.  Even if it wasn't used in The Untouchables the image of the carriage is burned into the brain of any self-respecting cinefile.  I'd seen it a million times and watching it again on the big screen I was still moved.  

The film looks great on its 35mm transfer.  The marks and scratches were few and the tinting of the red flag towards the end was nice. If you get a chance, you should see this on the big screen.  Every movie should be seen, if possible, in the format for which it was originally intended; and that means the big screen.  Granted my 46" flatscreen is better than any old tube tv and it's good in a bind, but seeing The Battleship Potemkin on a thirty foot screen is an experience everyone should have.  

I give The Battleship Potempkin a solid A+.  Rush out and see if it comes to your city. 

Here is the trailer:

Movie Review: Limitless

Limitless

2011

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish and Robert DeNiro

Screenplay by: Leslie Dixon Based on the Novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn

Directed by: Neil Burger

A couple of years back I read an article on HuffPo about Provigil.  Provigil is a drug for narcoleptic people to keep them from passing out at random moments.  Supposedly, it also cranks up the focus of the non-narcoleptics in the world and, according to this article, was used by pilots in the U.S. Air Force.  I became interested, because much like the Bradley Cooper writer character, I have been occasionally blocked and I thought that if I could get my hands on some of this Provigil I would solve my problems.  The writer of the HuffPo article had the same problem and did notice an improved ability to focus.  He could read for longer stretches as well as being less distracted while writing.  

I thought about asking one of my doctor friends to hook me up but in the end I decided that I needed to figure out a way to outwit my writer's block instead of drugging it.  Hence, the reason I write this blog.  

Limitless takes the real Provigil and turns it to eleven ... thousand.  Bradley Cooper plays Eddie Mora, a struggling writer who, after a chance encounter with his ex-brother in-law, gets access to a drug called NZT.  NZT is supposed to unlock the remaining 80% of your brain three minutes after you take it.  At first Eddie just uses it for writing.  He finishes his novel in four days.  He's also able to recall anything he's ever seen, read or heard.  Half-read articles, the spine of a book he'd seen in college brings back everything he's forgotten about each subject.  He learns how to play the piano in three days and after listening to a language for a little bit he is suddenly fluent.  The biggest part of his new-found powers relates to the stock market.  In a short period of time he is able to take a small amount of money and turn it into two million dollars.  After he does this it attracts the attention of Robert DeNiro's character, a Wall Street big shot, and Eddie becomes the whiz-kid who can see every angle of a deal.  

A lot more happens but I hate reviews that give you too much of the plot so I'm going to stop there.  

The movie is slickly directed by Neil Berger.  It cleverly follows Eddie's rise from the dump of his apartment to the big time and has enough visual panache to make even writing look interesting, always a challenge in movies.  The script is strong and I didn't notice any major plot holes, which is shocking because it gets a little crazy.  

I'm a fan of Bradley Cooper from his days playing Will Tippon on Alias, a show that was for a time, brilliant.  He does a good job as Eddie Mora and he is on his way to being a action movie leading man, along with the female heartthrob.  I think Abbie Cornish is Australian.  I could be wrong but it seems that American Cinema is being taken over by the Aussies.  Before Limitless I saw a trailer for Hanna and I think everyone in that fucking movie was Australian.  And it's not like they're in there as shrimp-on-the-barbie caricatures, which I whole-heartedly endorse, but they're using their "learned" American accents to steal jobs from America.  By the way, I love Australia and have been there a number of times.  Robert DeNiro was fine.  He's one of our greatest actors but I usually take a breath before seeing one of his films.  Can anyone say Analyze That or Meet the Fockers? Here he is good in a part that, while important, is a bit one-dimensional, but that says more about the story than Mr. DeNiro.  He actually takes it up a notch.   

On the whole I was entertained by the film.  While not blown away, I found it to be an entertaining night at the movies.  

I give Limitless a solid B.

Les

Here is the trailer: 

AMC Killed the Moviewatcher Program

I loved the Moviewatcher Program at AMC.  And this is why I was really kind of pissed last night when I went to see Limitless and my Moviewatcher card didn't work and they were instead asking for something called the Movie Stub card.  I went up to customer service and the nice girl told me that for a dollar a month Movie Stub was actually a better deal.  I was too pissed to process this.  I told her that the main reason I came to AMC was the Moviewatcher Program, like my protests would suddenly bring it back to life.  Like some pre-programed corporate automaton she just kept repeating that Movie Stub was replacing Moviewatcher and it was better because at some point I got 10 bucks.  I can't remember when that would have been and I didn't care.

As you can see from the above picture, I've had my card since the beginning of time.  Actually, it was more like 2001.  The Moviewatcher Program was great because for every movie you went to you received 2 points. Then for every ten points you would receive a small popcorn or a soda or a movie and then at 100 points you would get a free night at the movies with a popcorn, soda and free movie ticket.

If you were a Moviewatcher member you got a free small popcorn on Wednesdays, which you could then upgrade to a medium or large.  And if you couldn't make it on Wednesday, they would send out emails where you could print up a coupon for a free small, upgradeable popcorn.  I loved it.  It was even better when I donated blood because I would get two free AMC Movie Passes that I would use on Wednesday and get my free popcorn and buy a soda and spend like 4.25 for the whole night out.

I know.  You think I'm cheaper than those bastard Republicans.

Over the course of the almost ten years I was a member I received 442 points, or 221 movies.  I go to a lot of movies and not all of them at AMC but I still was seeing at least 20 movies a year at AMC, mostly because of the Moviewatcher Program.  The first Moviewatcher Movie I saw was Bandits with Billy Bob Thorton and Bruce Willis.  I saw it on October 14th, 2001 and can only remember a joke about juice boxes.  I don't remember the joke, but I remember there was a joke and because I remember it the joke must have been funny.  The rest of the film, not so much.

It turns out the last Moviewatcher film I saw was Battle: Los Angeles, which I reviewed here.

I was going to add more movies from my Moviewatcher history but as I type this the site suddenly went down.  I am sad.  Fuck you AMC.

Les

P.S. I've been outlining a novel so I haven't been keeping up with my posts.  I will have a review of Limitless either today or tomorrow.  Thanks for your patients, all 3 of you. ;)

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

I would love to go out and drink a few with the amateurs tonight but I think I'm going to grab a bottle of Jameson and sip on a couple of pours while I outline one of my numerous writing projects. I was married to an Irish woman once, more Chicago-Irish than Irish-Irish -- although, her parents hailed from County Mayo. The best thing I got from her was a love of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Enjoy.

Les

Christ I HATE This F*cker Known as Rush Limbaugh!

If you've seen any of the devastation from Japan, and you'd have to be living under a tree stump not to, it's hard not to feel bad for all those people and what they've lost.  It's absolutely horrific.  A sane person can't imagine that there could be someone so heartless that they would make fun of the tragedy.  Please welcome the fat cunt Rush Limbaugh:



When I was working my way through college in a warehouse outside of Chicago, my coworker was the old guy who really loved the fuck out of Jesus and Rush Limbaugh.  I was in hell.  We had one radio and everyday he wanted to listen to (fake Dr.) James Dobson and Rush Limbaugh.  The only saving grace was that (fake Dr.) Dobson's Focus on the Family, which I would snarkily refer to as Focus on Fornication, didn't seem to last that long.  It was more of a Paul Harvey type monologue, but I could be wrong and have just blocked it from my atheist mind.  The other saving grace (no pun intended) was that because I agreed to this I would be able to listen to Howard Stern in the morning.  I give him credit, the old Jesus lover gave Howard a good listen and thought that he was smart and thoughtful. I'm sure he was annoyed by the lesbians but what are you going to do.  He used to tell me he was praying for me at his bible group and I would try not to be too rude to him as he was deep down a kind man.  We would debate and the thing I remember most is when we were discussing gay marriage he admitted that he was unhappily married but that God was helping him though that.  I asked him that if gay marriage was legal would he then become gay?  He thought about it and said that he didn't know and that it might happen.

That is neither here nor there.

Anyway, I'd listen to Limbaugh and it seemed, then as it is now, that he couldn't exhale without telling a lie.  A lie or a lie of omission is his forte and I used to get so pissed, not just because of the lies but that so many people fell for them.

Aside from being a lying asshole.  I think Limbaugh is a racist.  And anyone who can't see that must themselves be a racist.  So I'm not surprised by the above clip.

I love Hawaii but I'm still kind of mad at the state for bringing that evil pig back to life.

Les

Rebecca Black - Friday

I can't get enough of this. :)

Les

Book Report: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

The Lost Symbol
by Dan Brown

I read The Da Vinci Code and another book by Dan Brown about a meteor that crashes at one of the poles, I think the North.  I really didn't want to read the book about the meteor but I mentioned to an older woman at work that I had read The Da Vinci Code and when I said it wasn't my cup of tea, the next day she brought me the meteor book for me to read.  I usually have a pile of books I'm working through, and thanks to the iPad I have even more that I've been downloading for cheap or free or at $9.99 from Amazon.  I probably have a hundred books on my iPad that I have to get to, not to mention the 300 or so books on my shelves that say 100 - 150 need to be cracked open.  I both love and hate going to bookstores.  This is why I hate when people force books upon me.  It's not just "you should check that out when you get a chance;" but, "here you go.  I'm sure you'll enjoy it."  It's kind of rude if you ask me.  Anyway, it was work so I read the meteor fucker in like a week and I remember it being a pretty thick book but more enjoyable than Da Vinci. This was due to the fact that at this point in his career, Dan Brown was trying to be a poor man's Michael Crichton.  This was not an easy task since at this point in his career, Michael Crichton had turned himself into the poor man's Michael Crichton.  This is coming from someone who loved Sphere, The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man and even Jurassic Park.  I had read everything by Crichton and somewhere around Timeline I thought he was just churning out the same old formula.  I didn't even finish it.  Same was true with Airframe.  But that's neither here nor there.  

A couple of months ago Amazon had Kindle version of The Lost Symbol for $3.99 and I impulse-bought.  And since I have about 20 pages to go I figured I could write the book report.  The reason for this is that the main story ended with about 70 pages to go and right now Robert Langdon is just experiencing some crazy Mason shit with his friend who had his right hand cut off.  I'm an atheist so I have to admit that sometimes it's a challenge to suspend disbelief when it comes to the supernatural.  And I've had my work cut out for me throughout The Lost Symbol.

Like Mr. Crichton, Dan Brown is sticking to the formula that made him a success:  Crazy fucking stories that star the symbologist Robert Langdon.  I'm not against the ideas of series.  I love the Fletch books and am a fan of Michael Connelly.  So I don't really care that it's another story about Robert Langdon.  Good for you, Mr. Brown.  Good for you.

The story starts with Robert Langdon being contacted by a friend and told to come to Washington DC to attend a party but when he gets there he finds a severed hand in the center of the Capitol Rotunda.  Much like the beginnings of his other books, where we had I believe a naked old dead guy in the middle of some crazy shit.  This starts a series of events that takes him through all the Masonic landmarks in Washington DC.  Mostly with a pyramid and a capstone that is there because some crazy fuck thinks that if he unlocks the secret of the pyramid he will gain ultimate knowledge or something like that.  Kind of like the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture where Viger transmits all its knowledge to Will Deker and that hot bald woman (who I think died a few years back).  But I digress.

Like his other books there is a sexy and brainy woman there to offer assistance.  She is the sister of the guy who owns the severed hand and is doing this top-secret science project into Noetics.  Noetics is the study of the soul and prayers so right away I thought that to be nonsense.  And Brown notes at the beginning of the book that there is currently people studying Noetics, like because someone is studying something that makes it real.

The book sails along at a fierce pace.  I'll give it to Brown, once you're hooked you just have to keep on  reading and even if I didn't believe what was going on I was entertained.  Like Crichton's books, it reads like a movie and compared to The Da Vinci Code, there seemed to be less chunks of exposition.  Of course the book was much bigger. On the whole I guess that if you're into this kind of a book you'll like it.  For myself I was entertained enough to give it a B-.  I wasn't blown away.

Les

Update:  Okay, I read the ending and I am not wrong for saying that the main story ended and the last 40 or so pages were made up of crazy Masonic/Religious ideas.  I have a friend who I used to drink beer with. He is a great guy and loved doing Yoga.  Cool.  Then he quit drinking beer and started telling me about how there were yogis that could make themselves levitate through meditation.  He said that they would go up to these sacred caves and they would meditate straight through for days and suddenly they would start floating.  My friend said he read it in a book so that must mean it was true.  haha.  I asked him about the yogis not eating and maybe they thought they were floating because they hadn't eaten for days.  He told me that I can't understand what's going on because I won't open my mind to the possibilities.  The end of The Lost Symbol felt like I was talking to my friend and I couldn't wait until it was over so I could get myself a beer.  

Rachel Maddow on Japan

What I love about Rachel Maddow is that she is great at explaining pretty much anything, from science to politics.  She is able to break it down and as she explains it seems like we get a window into how Rachel herself learns.  Tell me that you still don't understand how nuclear plants work after this:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Kucinich for President

I watched this and it's amazing.  I need to get my Kucinich for President buttons.  

Les

Movie Review: Battle: Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles

2011

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Will Rothhaar, Bridget Moinahan, Ne-Yo and Jim Parrack

Written by: Christopher Bertolini

Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman

Although I'm a bigger fan of the Halo video game series, I've played Call of Duty and enjoy it. When you're in a firefight while traversing the roofs of a shanty town in Rio de Janeiro the game shines. You can't go in guns blazing. Instead, you need to crouch behind walls and systematically take out your enemy before you can move forward. It's urban combat at its finest and the first thing I thought of while watching Battle: Los Angeles.

The film opens at Camp Pendleton, just North of San Diego. It also opens with a checklist of clichés. We have the guy who is about to get married, the virgin who can't handle his liquor, the staff sergeant whose last battalion was lost in battle, which leaves a cloud over his head. There is the new lieutenant, fresh out of officer's school, who has been placed in charge of the marines. And since the staff sergeant is the lead character, he also needs to be retiring. In fact, his retirement papers are signed right as the supposed meteors are hitting the Earth. We soon see that the staff sergeant was forced to join a group of marines who supposedly are going to Santa Monica to help with the evacuation. It's then that they find out that these aren't meteors but actual ships crashing into the oceans and it seems that the Earth is being colonized. When this happens, the professor CNN brings in tells us that they are probably there for the resources and will kill the indigenous species, which would be humans.

The plot of the film is a lot like the missions in Call of Duty. You get a location and an objective, like getting to a police station in Santa Monica to evacuate the civilians hiding there. They have a ticking clock: 3 hours before the Air Force starts bombing the shit out of all of Santa Monica. The first half of the movie is about getting the civilians out of harms way and learning what they're up against, alien-wise. The action is frantic and the editing even more so. I don't know what happened that we need to cut so much? During the action I know it's supposed to build the urgency of the scenes, but it feels too fast. I think you could have accomplished the same thing without so many edits. Also, there are times when I want to get a good look at the surroundings, especially on the bombed out streets of Santa Monica, but we cut away and I can barely take it in. That's one of the great things about bombing the shit out of someplace you know. Don't take away my enjoyment.

The performances are what you'd expect from an action movie like this. There isn't a lot for the actors to work with but they handle it fine and Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez do their best to inject quality. But it's not that kind of a movie. Actors are basically robots to the set pieces and they functioned like a well serviced Roomba 572. Liebesman's directing owes a great deal to Saving Private Ryan, Blackhawk Down and District 9, as well as the Call of Duty games. Some of the battle scenes look like they're directly from Saving Private Ryan and while I was never bored I never had a “wow, that's cool” moment from seeing something original.

One of the film's saving graces is that it's not in Real 3D, or what I refer to as the Sarah Palin of cinema. 3D is obnoxious and it seemed like this film was suited perfectly for it, so I thank the producers for not taking us down that road.

On the whole, Battle: Los Angeles is not original. It's an onion of clichés that feels like every other film I've seen in this genre. And while I sometimes wished I had a game controller in my hand while viewing it, I was never really bored.  That said, I can't fully recommend the film. 

I give Battle: Los Angeles a C+

Les

Here is the trailer: 

Movie Review: Electra Luxx

Electra Luxx
2011
Starring: Carla Gugino, Marley Shelton, Adrianne Palicki, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Malin Akerman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Justin Kirk, Timothy Olyphant and Julianne Moore as Mary, mother of the alleged Jesus Christ
Written, Produced and Directed (in 15 days) by: Sebastien Gutierrez

Sebastian Gutierrez must be a really nice guy.

Or Sebastian Gutierrez is the curator of the secret sex tapes for some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood.  "If you don't do my movie I will send this to TMZ.  Your career will be ruined.  Muh-hahahahaha."

"But if I'm in your film the same might be true."

"That's it, bitch.  I'm calling that guy from Vivid right now."

"Okay, okay, Sebastian.  I will be in your silly trilogy."

I don't know if that's how it really played out but would I be surprised?

Electra Luxx is the story about recently pregnant and retired porn star Electra Luxx.  She teaches a class that instructs women how to have sex like a porn star.  Electra basically tells women that men need them to be vocal and that they have to talk a lot and make sure it's dirty.  After class Electra gets a visitor, a young woman who wants to turns out to have the last batch of songs by her former lover, some rock star who died, who I assume is also the father of her unborn fetus.  These songs are all about Electra's breasts, her legs and her lovemaking skills and the woman thinks that she should have them.  There is one catch, of course. This woman has cheated on her fiance with the aforementioned rock star (actually killing the rock star during oral, but that's neither here nor there), and feels so guilty that she wants Electra to seduce her fiance so that they'll be even.  Electra originally says no but the woman gets drunk just so Electra can drive her home and then change her mind when she runs into the apparent fiance.   It actually isn't the fiance but a detective who was hired by the former rock star's band to find the lyrics. She gives over the lyrics right away and this leads us to the next thing in the disjointed plot, which includes a naked guy in an elevator, a Rupert Pupkin-esc porn blogger, an over-sharing detective and the mother of the alleged Jesus, Mary Christ.

And that's the main problem with Electra Luxx.  Gutierrez is trying to be Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson, whose own Boogie Nights is minor classic, but he doesn't have the chops to pull off the cinematic murals that Altman was a master at.  It is hard to point at what part is the weakest but I will pick the script.  In moments the story can pass as entertainment and there is occasionally an interesting idea.  Like when the porn blogger, Bert Rodriguez, approaches Electra at a book signing and asks her how big her breasts are now that they're filled with milk.  Gugino, who throughout is great, sums up the pain of her past as she is trying to move forward with just a look.  And there's a moments with Bert's sister Cora where she wants to be naked on his porn blog and he has to confront his feelings of women as objects versus his views of his own sister.  This is handled ham-handedly but it passes for an interesting idea.  In the end there are too few of these.  Or if they're there we miss them as a result of the ineptness of the script's confusing plotting.  The dialogue is over-written and sometimes feels like Gutierrez was watching His Girl Friday while typing, trying to capture the amazing banter of that classic.  Sadly for the viewer, he doesn't come close.

Ironically, for as bad as the material is the performances at times are pretty decent.  Carla Gugino deserves some sort of an award for being able to raise the film to something that is at times passible.  I've been a fan of her work for a while.  There's some moderately entertaining scenes with Emmanuelle Chriqui and Adrianne Palicki, and Timothy Olyphant made me smirk.  I guess I can't fault the actors because in most situations, they seemed to salvage something.

Electra Luxx is the sequel to Gutierrez's earlier film Women in Trouble.  It is also the second film in a proposed trilogy about Electra Lux.  You don't need to see the previous film to dislike this one.  It actually wasn't too hard.  It was shot in fifteen days and I'm not holding that against it -- some of the great Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott westerns from the 50's were shot in twelve.  Since Sebastian Gutierrez must be the nicest guy in the world, I'm hoping he can pull it out for the third installment, but I don't have high hopes.

Electra Luxx is a solid F.  It's so bad it made me really appreciate a film I was on the fence about.  See my review for Tamara Drewe.


Here is the trailer:

Movie Review: Tamara Drewe

Tamara Drewe

2010

Starring: Gemma Arterton, Dominic Cooper, Bill Camp, Roger Allam and Tamsin Greig

Screenplay by: Moira Buffini based on the Graphic Novel by Posy Simmonds

Directed by Stephen Frears

Growing up I was a lot like Tamara Drewe.  I lived in a small town, had a big nose and moved to the big city as soon as I could.  That's where the similarities end.  Tamara moved to London, became a successful columnist and had her nose fixed.  I, on the other hand, became a wildly unsuccessful blogger and let my face grow into my nose.  

Tamara Drewe is a slice of life comedy that is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Posy Simmonds.  Set in the English countryside, the film opens at a writers retreat at the farmhouse of the famed thriller writer Nicholas Hardiment.  Nick spends his days writing while his wife Beth runs the farm, cooks biscuits for the guest authors and types up his manuscripts.  Nick, on the other hand, when he's not writing heads down to London for "research" which is banging sexy young girls.  They have a few guests working on their manuscripts at the farmhouse, most notably an American named Glenn who is writing a book about Thomas Hardy.  There is also a laborer named Andy.  He's a local boy who had some run-ins with the police but is now on the straight and narrow. Two young girls named Jody and Casey, both fifteen and obsessed with gossip mags, who dream about getting out of their boring village.  

Their life changes when Tamara Drewe comes to town to fix up and then sell the house she grew up in after her mom died.  She's sexy and flirtatious and lacking the big honker she had when they last saw her.  The men take notice and the women take notice of the men taking notice.  Tamara hires an old boyfriend, Andy, to fix up the house.  They dated when they were kids but he broke up with her because of the big nose.  They are clearly attracted to each other but don't act on it.  Tamara starts off an affair with a boy-band drummer and after that she hops into bed with Nick, only to be discovered and start us towards the conclusion of the film.  

Tamara Drewe is entertaining, witty and well written.  For the first two thirds of the film we episodically meander along with the characters until Jody, one of the young girls, takes over and starts to drive the story along.  It almost becomes her film at that moment and while I liked what came before, Jody's adventures start to give us focus and also raises the stakes for everyone involved.  This change also leads to some of the biggest laughs.  

The character from America talks about how Thomas Hardy left each wife when he could find a younger one, and even fell madly in love with a woman 40 years his junior when he hit his sixties.  And we can see Nick mirroring this in his infidelities.  First, with a woman from London at the beginning of the film and later with Tamara.  It would seem that given a few more years he would be making a play for young Jody.   It is no wonder there is all this talk of Hardy as Posy Simmonds' graphic novel is a reworking of Hardy's Far from the Maddening Crowd.

I'm on the fence about this movie.  There is a lot to like.  The performances are, on the whole, excellent, and I did laugh on a number of occasions.  There was nothing offensive with the direction and cinematography.  But I just wasn't drawn into it and it was like I wanted to like it more than I did.  I don't know if that even makes sense.  I don't think it ever got a U.S. release and I think that's probably why.  So I guess if you like whimsical comedies then you might want to Redbox it or check it out at Netflix or at your dying video store

I give Tamara Drewe a B-.

Update: I just viewed Electra Luxx and that made me like Tamara Drewe more.  I now give Tamara Drewe a B+. 

Here is the trailer: 

Rachel Was On Fire Tonight

I'm going to be posting a review for a film I watched today, but I wanted to share some great journalism from the undervalued Rachel Maddow.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Photo Finish

How to Cure Obesity

I was thinking the other day, and this might make me seem like a dick, but most of the people who are into Glenn Beck and the tea baggers, seem to be on the heavy side.  Bill Maher and Jon Stewart have made the same jokes.  I think I might have a way to get America thinner.  All we have to do is convince Glenn Beck having a fat ass is a socialist plot.

President Obama should get out there and say, "Social Security isn't in trouble.  All the people who are big fat pigs are going to die young and when that happens we won't have to pay out their benefits."

Think about it.  If just half of the obese people die prior to turning 65, based on the fact that 60 percent of Americans are fat, that's a shit load of people not collecting benefits.  Social Security currently has a 2.5 trillion dollar surplus and with all the fatties dropping dead there is no chance we'll ever come close to going bankrupt.  I think that makes a lot of sense.

Now we just need to convince Glenn Beck of this.  He would suddenly turn into the Richard Simmons of the nut jobs.  The pallets of food he sells to the crazies for the coming Armageddon would come from Jenny Craig.  He'd put out "Sweatin' to the Batshit" workout videos and sell gold plated dumbbells where you can store your cash and tone your arms.

Problem solved ...

Les

Movie Review: Unknown - 2011

Unknown
Starring: Liam Neeson, January Jones, Diane Kruger, Aidan Quinn, Frank Langella, Bruno Ganz and Sebastian Koch.
Written by: Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell, Based on the novel Out of My Head by Didier Van Cauwalaert
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
113 Minutes
Warner Bros.

February usually sucks for new releases but movies released in February that feature Liam Neeson kicking people's asses in Europe don't suck.  Back in February of 2008 Taken hit American screens and because of its release date I walked in the theatre with a generous dose of skepticism.  With that film I was pleasantly surprised and found it to be a solid thriller.  When I saw that Liam Neeson was once again coming out with a European action thriller, in February, I was actually excited.

Unknown is a story about Dr. Martin Harris, who, after arriving in Berlin, is in a car accident and develops amnesia.  After four days in hospital he wakes and understandably wants to rush back to his beautiful wife, January Jones.  Only when he gets there she says she not only doesn't know who he is, she's there with Aidan Quinn who says that he too is Dr. Martin Harris.  Then for the rest of the 113 minutes Neeson prove to everyone, including his wife, that he is the real Dr. Martin Harris.

Unknown is a solid thriller, almost better than Taken.  On the surface the film seems like it would be riddled with plot-holes but once the big twist is revealed towards the end of the film and you look back at what you just saw, it all makes sense.  I actually got to see the film twice and it was no-less entertaining with knowing the twist in advance.  I did think that there were some cheats at the beginning relating to the Neeson and Jones' relationship, but those were small when you think about how well the film plays.

Liam Neeson has a wonderful stoicism and along with his everyman quality really drives the film.  This is his story and throughout Neeson sells each seemingly crazy plot twist and makes them seem less crazy.  He is earnest, almost to a fault, and comes off like a rich man's Jack Bauer.  It's what these movies need to make them work.  Whether it's Robert Cummings in Saboteur or Cary Grant in North by Northwest the success of the film lies with how well the star can sell the situation and almost distract us, through the urgency of the storytelling, of the potential "why didn't he/they do this moments."  One of my favorites in North by Northwest is when Cary Grant is coming downstairs from George Kaplan's room with his mother, he sees the heavies and then quickly takes off.  The heavies take off after him but wouldn't it have been smarter for the heavies to just kidnap the mother until Cary traded his life for his mother's?  That would have made it a different movie.

The other performances are fine and Bruno Ganz and Frank Langella are fantastic in their seemingly small roles.  Also, Diane Kruger was great as the Serbian illegal who picks up Dr. Martin Harris in her cab at the beginning of the film, and then teams up with him later.  January Jones was a good choice for the wife.  She has the icy blond look that Hitchcock loved and at an earlier time she would have been heir apparent to Grace Kelly.

The direction is solid and although Collet-Serra doesn't get in the way of the story, there was nothing that jumped out at me which made it special or raised it above the material.  But the source material seemed strong making it hard for Collet-Serra to screw it up.

Unknown is a solid thriller that was almost as good on the second viewing as it was on the first.

It is a solid B+.

Check out the trailer:

Les

Ancient Aliens and the guy in the Douglas MacArthur Hat

Why is this on the History Channel? I really like the History Channel when they're doing shows called The Universe or How the Earth Was Created, not in seven days. I liked the one they did about Ben Franklin and they had an interesting one about the plague. And of course I am a sucker for Pawn Stars and American Pickers. My friends say I'm weird. I don't care.

The History Channel also has on its schedule the show Ancient Aliens. Basically, the show's premise is that all throughout history aliens from other planets have been visiting us on a regular basis. Their experts are mostly guys in Members Only jackets. They are usually retired military or wish they were, as indicated by the fact that they're wearing some kind of military baseball hat, mostly for a naval vessel or for the Air Force.  One guy looked like he had a "Douglas MacArthur" hat on.

Really?

You're that much of a war nerd you go out and get yourself a "Douglas MacArthur" hat?  I just googled "Douglass MacArthur Hat" and couldn't find one site, other than Cafe Press, that sold a "Douglas MacArthur" hat.  They were not the hat the man on the Ancient Aliens show had.  Bingo.  I think the guy got it at the MacArthur Memorial Museum in Norfolk, Virginia.  Someone just added another item to their bucket list.

It seems that a lot of the Ancient Alien experts are people who are doctors of the Ph.D variety but never list what their Ph.D is for.  They most likely are pulling a Dr. Laura on the world.  These Ph.Ds that have "theories" that aliens have been part of nearly every catastrophe in human history.  And the Aliens are using war to stop the growth of the human population.  Apparently, may skeptics don't buy into this "theory" but they do agree that during war time, the number of UFO sightings increase.  In Vietnam, American soldiers were plagued by all these UFO sightings.  Weren't they doing a lot of drugs?  Not hatin' on them, just asking the question.

One UFO investigators on this show talks about Hitler and the Nazis were hugely influenced by UFOs.

Nonsense on top of nonsense.

I've recently discovered Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. I have only listened to a couple of his episodes.  They are quite brilliant and over my head.  I have to really pay attention to make sure I catch everything.  I'm a bigger fan of his Common Sense podcasts, where he puts the same level of thought into a discussion of current events.  I would really love to have him look into these crazy pseudo-science/history shows and give his perspective of it.  As I already wrote, I think it's nonsense.  But it would be a lot of fun to hear him tear Ancient Aliens apart.

What I'm getting at is that I really would like my History Channel to give me History.  I don't want Alien shows.  I don't want to learn about Nostradamus.  I don't want that Brad Metzger, the poor man's Dan Brown, trying to find out where John Wilkes Booth lived out his life when real historians tell us he died soon after he shot Lincoln. I want real history.

I want real history because I have retired parents who, when they are not watching Glenn Beck on FOX, are watching shows about Nostradamus and the Ancient Aliens shows.  And they believe what they're hearing because these shows are on the History Channel.  I've almost given up trying to straighten them out, or at least get them to be skeptical.  It doesn't always work and that's why I beg of you:  

History Channel give me back my history!

Cactus League

Taking a break from my insane blogging schedule (haha) to take in some spring training. Weather in AZ is beautiful as you can see by this picture of Prince Fielder waiting for Ryan Braun to get on so he can hit one out. Which he did.

Les

Naomi Klein on MSNBC

Today I'm posting some videos I thought were great. I will write a longer post soon but I wanted to get this up because I thought it ruled.

I saw this a week or so ago and Naomi talks about how Wisconsin is her Shock Doctrine in action. I've read part of that book, The Shock Doctrine. It's fantastic but it would make me so angry I had to put it down and read something nonsensical to clear my head. I usually pick the bible for that.

Tangent: Okay, I was actually reading the bible because I could download it for free from the ibooks store. I started off in the beginning (hahaha) and the shit makes no sense. So Adam and Eve have a couple of kids, one kid kills the other kid and then goes wandering around until he finds a wife. I thought there were only three people on the planet at this point. Where the fuck did he find the wife? Is it his sister? Did he have sex with a sheep that god turned into a woman? If so, religious people are gross perverts who should be kept away from children.

Here's Naomi.

More later...

Les

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This About Sums it Up

Jon Stewart had a great segment last night that shows exactly where our values in America are.

More later...
Les

The Daily Show - Crisis in the Dairyland - For Richer and Poorer - Teachers and Wall Street
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Commerce Clause is Making America Its Bitch

While listening to some pundits talk about how most of the southern states are Right to Work (i.e. fuck the unions) I thought about how a lot of these states also offer big tax breaks to poach companies from other states. Because of this the northern states have to offer even bigger tax breaks to keep the companies from going south. Wisconsin just went through something like this with Harley Davidson.

When a company wants to cut workers pay and benefits, they just threaten to leave the state, taking thousands of jobs to Alabama or Mississippi. It's an outrage and adds to our race to the bottom.

We need to amend the Commerce Clause so that states can't undercut other states and poach corporations. The argument on the other side is that it's good old-fashioned competition and if a state has a better offer than companies should go for it. I agree with that premise, but in a different way.

If it was against the law to poach companies with lower taxes and the promise of lower wages then states would have to encourage companies to come to their states for other reasons, like a highly skilled labor force and a sweet infrastructure. States would have to invest in education and roads and rail to make companies want to come to their states.

And what's interesting is in Vermont they are looking into a single payer healthcare plan for every one of its citizens. Wouldn't a corporation want to come to a state where they are assured a quality workforce where they don't have to pay the healthcare costs of their workers? It would be like nirvana.

Of course we don't do this. We try to undercut each other. And while we do this we're undercutting ourselves out of our future.

Les

P.S. I'll get to the Nick Cage article soon. Not that anyone is really reading this. hahaha

Republicans are Petty Assholes

I was going to write my thoughts about the latest Nick Cage movie, Drive Angry 3D, but I've been working on other things and haven't had time to write it up. But because I promised myself I would post something everyday, I am giving you this:

Click if you think Republicans are Assholes!

It's an article from the Wisconsin State Journal about how the Republicans are putting pressure on the 14 heroic Democratic Senators by cutting off their pay, fining them and firing their staff.

Are they gathering signatures to recall some of these Republican bastards?

They better be.

More tomorrow...

Les

This Is Why I Can Never Be A Republican - They're Assholes

Look at how they're ripping on teachers.  Sure, there are problems in the unions with public school teachers getting tenure.  It's not perfect.  But on the whole, teachers in Wisconsin are underpaid in comparison to people in the private sector with the same level of education. 

I think part of this has to do with Republicans' long standing hatred of learning.  They are against education because if people are too smart they will never fall for their bullshit memes like "Death Panels" and "Obama is a Muslim" or "Supply Side Economics."  

Keep them dumb and they'll keep voting Republican.

Les

The Daily Show - Crisis in Dairyland - Angry Curds
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook