Oscar Night!

So it's Oscar Night again, and as a big movie fan I am moderately excited.  Only moderately excited b/c I've only seen a few of the nominated films.  I do like this new system of 10 nominated pictures since you get a broader range of movies/a better favoring of the critically acclaimed movies of the year.

I refuse to see The Social Network, on principle, since come on, it's a movie about freaking Facebook.  I do want to check out some of the others like The King's Speech and True Grit (definitely going to check them out on Netflicks when they come out)- I have a weakness for period pieces. I have however, seen Inception (AWESOME), The Kids are All Right, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, and How to Train Your Dragon.  Even though Toy Story 3 is a great movie and probably will win, I actually am rooting for How to Train Your Dragon, mainly because it holds up better over multiple viewings and has one of my favorite movie scores in a long while.  Do sample Forbidden Friendship, New Tail, and Where's Hiccup?  The Inception soundtrack is equally fantastic.  Sample Time and Dream Within a Dream - initially when I first previewed the soundtrack before the movie (I'm a big Hans Zimmer fan and was excited to hear his latest score) I found the music a bit jarring but after watching the movie, I found it to be one of the best soundtracks I've heard in long time since it just goes *so well* with the movie especially with matching the main theme to a distorted version of "La Vie en Rose".  See Inception Music Comparison

Batman!

I just had the pleasure of watching Batman: Under the Red Hood.  It's been a while since I've watched an animated version of Batman and it made me remember my old high school days when we'd get an excellent block of superhero cartoons on Saturday nights.  As a quick disclaimer, I don't claim to be an expert on comics at all- I just watched the cartoons and learned about the comics through wikipedia.

I was a fan of Justice League (Season 1 and 2), more so the original rather than Unlimited (Season 3 and later).  Justice League featured all your favorite superheroes, Superman, Batman, and Wonderwoman, as well as Hawkgirl, Green Lantern (Jon Stewart- no not the one from Comedy Central), the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter.  I didn't watch Unlimited as much mainly b/c there were too many characters to keep track of and many episodes only featured a few of the main league members I was familiar with.  The show was fantastic- really good storylines, animation, and a kick ass theme song- all in all, they really did a good job with making things feel epic and crafting very mature stories.  Two episodes that I remember liking a lot:

• Hereafter- where there's a big battle and everyone thinks that Superman has died except he's really been transported to the distant future where a super-villain, who's immortal, has destroyed the world and now regrets it.  I remember one of my high school teachers gushing on about this one.      
• Wildcards- Pure entertainment.  The Joker has placed bombs in various casinos and is doing a reality show of sorts as the Justice League goes around to disarm the bombs.      

And then, of course, there were the Teen Titans, my favorite at the time and a show I still have a soft spot for.  Teen Titans featured Robin (yes, Batman's Robin) leading a team of teenage superheroes, Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, and Beast Boy.   Animation-wise, it was done in an anime-ish style, but what really stood out was that it was a firmly character-centered superhero cartoon and that each character was well developed and likable.  Season 1 was probably the best overall since it had the most coherent arc, but seasons 2-3 were pretty great too.  Season 4, I watched less of, since again, they introduced many new characters and I think I'd gone off to college then so there was less time for TV.  
A few favorite episodes:

• Masks/Apprentice: Season 1 developed an arc in which Robin was slowly becoming obsessed with the Titan's mysterious arch-enemy Slade.  Essentially a 3-part episode that everything in season 1 was leading up to.  Masks was the very first episode I watched and I remember getting hooked right then and there.  Robin, in an attempt to get closer to Slade, tricks his team, and in the end, it's his effervescent, light-hearted best friend Starfire who's firm words bring him back to reality.      
• How Long is Forever?: During a fight, a time-traveling villain causes Starfire to go into the future, and it's a dark, dark future w/o Starfire around.   
• Nevermore: The first episode that really focuses on Raven and fleshes her out, who's quiet and sarcastic, but generally mysterious.    
• Haunted: One of the darkest episodes of the Teen Titans.  Robin starts seeing Slade everywhere, but no one else can.    

Which is a long winded explanation for, how I've heard a little about the various Robins.  Batman: Under the Red Hood is dark and has a lot of Nolan-esque elements.  It pushes the envelope- implied and explicit violence, and a few elements are slightly reminiscent of Dark Knight- especially this exploration of Batman's moral code and what it really means, which is always fascinating.  The Joker, while still humorous, is less the Joker from the Batman Animated Series, crazy, funny, and over-the-top, and a little more serious like Heath Ledger's Joker.  The voice-acting is generally fantastic and I actually thought that Kevin Conroy (the voice actor who usually does Batman in the cartoons) was voicing Batman in this one as well, but it was actually someone else (Bruce Greenwood).  I would have been happier if they hadn't featured the Black Mask as much, who wasn't all that interesting and just chewed up screen time.  (One question though- maybe it's b/c I'm so used to the Nolan voices but isn't it pronounced R-ah-s instead of Raz?)  Generally a good movie, although the ending left me a bit unsatisfied.

Black Swan and Moon

Black Swan 

Thomas Leroy: That was me seducing you. It needs to be the other way around. 

Black Swan, as everyone probably knows, is about Nina (Natalie Portman), a ballet dancer who is cast as the swan princess in Swan Lake and subsequently loses it as she has a hard time mastering the role of the black swan, the evil twin of the swan princess.  I finally saw Black Swan in theaters last Sunday night and it was a treat, even despite how it's been massively parodied by SNL and others.  Black Swan is creepy and disturbing- not a good idea to see it at night if you get scared easily like I do.  I can think of a few scenes, in particular the second hospital scene and this other scene when Nina, post freaking out, buckles at the knees- her legs at odd, distorted angles that just haunt you for a long while afterwards.  


That being said though, the performances really make the movie.  I'm not a big Natalie Portman fan at all.  I've never been terribly impressed by her performances in any of her movies, not even in Closer, which she was nominated for an Oscar, but I absolutely loved her in "Black Swan."  I remember reading a review somewhere about how you really end up rooting for Nina, wanting her to succeed so badly throughout the movie, and I think that's absolutely true.  Nina is shy and dedicated and within the first few minutes of the movie- you're hooked, you want her to succeed b/c she works so hard and she deserves it.  It is an insanely charismatic performance.  Mila Kunis, Lily as Nina's main rival, is also fantastic- Lilly is laid back and sexually unrestrained and completely comfortable with who she is.  Also, despite how sleezy Thomas (Vincent Cassel), the ballet company's creative director, is (I mean come on, "To prepare for the role you should go touch yourself etc etc"), somehow, probably b/c he provides some humorous lines to the otherwise very claustrophobic movie, is still entertaining and moderately likable.  Overall, great movie but I actually would say that you don't really need to see this movie in theaters (gritty resolution)- hold off and wait for it to come in netflix form.  


Moon

I finally got around to seeing this movie, which I kept hearing lots of good things about.  Moon is about Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a very lonely worker on the moon base who is going to go home soon from his three year contract.  Moon is a very neatly constructed film and Sam Rockwell is really captivating, carrying the movie mostly on his own with some help from the moon base robot GERTY.  Moon is a pretty clever movie- I like how they nonchalantly they introduced the main conflict in the movie and that the main conflict as well as the way they deal with it isn't what you were expecting at all- and that's all I feel like I can say without spoiling it for anyone.  One of the plot threads, I have to say- it was pretty obvious where they were going with it, but I did enjoy the questions of identity that Moon raises.  It's definitely worth a watch and pretty impressive given it's very low budget.  For scenes outside of the moon base, the graphics seem a little unreal and skimmed, but everything else inside the base looks great.   

The Kids are All Right

The Kids Are All Right


I really was looking forward to this movie b/c I kept hearing great things about it, especially the performances.  While I thought the performances were really good, Annette Bening was really fabulous in this- I've really not seen any of her other movies besides American Beauty but I didn't like her much in that, while I absolutely loved her in this.  Julianne Moore was also great- Bening and Moore play a lesbian couple, Nic (rule and order oriented) and Jules (flightier), respectively, parents to two teenagers.  When their children, Joni and Laser, contact their sperm donor Paul, everyone becomes a bit enchanted with him (Nic less so than everyone else though).

I was disappointed that in the first half of the movie, Paul is really put front and center, perhaps b/c most of the characters are enamored with him.  It reminded me of why Knocked Up didn't really sit well with me b/c somehow the women can't ever "win;" sure they have a right to be mad at their significant others for being irresponsible, but don't the guys just seem funnier and don't they seem to have more fun?  It reminds me of how with TAs, for example, if you're a male TA and you're not a very strict grader, then you're considered "laid back" and that is totally cool, whereas if you're a female TA, it's hard to be anything but nit picky or a pushover (when you're less strict.)  And I seriously am not much of a feminist by any means.


The Kids Are All Right didn't quite go as far as that but it made me really uneasy when Jules, thankful for just being around someone who really appreciates her, starts an affair with Paul.  Later scenes in the movie made me feel for Jules's situation a bit more (For example a scene at the restaurant bar when she asks Nic if she sees her, if she's still attracted to her is heart breaking.  And I do understand where Jules is coming from- her spouse, Nic, is a successful doctor, while she's mostly been at home raising the kids or doing odd jobs), but still, it doesn't really make sense to have a LESBIAN character suddenly go straight for a guy.  And in that sense, the movie disappoints me b/c I was expecting a movie about lesbian parents to be more progressive.  The movie becomes much stronger when it brings the focus back on the family.  

Scrooge-like

When some people get frustrated, they bake/cook.  Those people are, consequently, really awesome to have as house-mates or roommates.  When I get frustrated, I write and after a while of scribbling or furiously typing, I start feeling better.  (even though it is xmas).  I don't currently have a terrible amount of backlog since I got back into reading books (sort of) so if anyone has any book recommendations, especially something dark and Gothic, I would really appreciate hearing them.  I'll start off with the most recent and work backwards.       


Blood Diamond 

Danny Archer: T.I.A. This is Africa. 

Notables: About blood diamonds and child soldiers in war-torn Sierra Leone.  Features Leonardo Di Caprio with a Rhodesian accent (interesting huh?).  

Blood Diamond is a solid movie.  I like that it was about issues we don't usually see movies about: child soldiers and blood diamonds.  I like that it doesn't ever really get too preachy and that Danny Archer, our anti-hero remains an anti-hero, the devious smuggler that he is throughout it.  The skinned baboon, just when we thought that Danny was an okay guy who will eventually *do the right thing*, was a chilling reminder of what type of person he really was.  The cinematography, the relatively frequent shots of the African backdrop was also stunningly beautiful.  Dijmon Hounsou was fantastic as distressed father Solomon Vandy and really, the moral center and heart of the movie.  While I generally liked Jennifer Connelly's character journalist Maddy Brown, I'm still not sure if I see the character as anything more than a very cool and very kick ass Robin Scherbatsky had Robin decided to become a journalist, instead of a news anchor.  Ultimately, though, I don't think Blood Diamond will come off as being too memorable b/c while it is a good movie, I think it could have really benefited by having a less polished, big-budget- movie feel.  It doesn't spare us details in the violence but had it been gritter, in this case, it really could have made the movie more resonant and memorable.                    

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

And then too there was the matter of the blog.  Old Sam could write whatever he wanted because no one was ever going to read it.  But I had an audience, disembodied and tiny though it might be.  I wasn't much afraid of writing something that would make me look pathetic or incompetent, nor of getting myself sued.  But I didn't want to look, you know conceited.  Because under the sheer terror, I was pretty damned proud of myself.   - Julia Powell

Julia Powell's memoir is entertaining and chronicles when Powell pursued the Julie/Julia project: to make all 586 dishes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol 1 and keep a blog about it.  Powell has a really great writing voice that's entertaining, sometimes profane ("Bitch rice" in reference to this very particular way Julia Child makes rice has got to be one of my favorite terms ever), funny, self-deprecating, and very relatable.  Even towards the end when she's getting all these interviews about her project and she's finally become satisfied and happy, more or less, with her life, it really comes as a natural progression- she addresses her successes in a very approachable way and you think, that yes, if you were in her situation you'd feel and act similarly.  You actually feel happy for her and I think that's a very hard feat to accomplish b/c usually when I read books where the protagonist somehow pulls their lives together over the course of the book, it feels sudden and like "okay, perhaps for this particular protagonist, it works out well that way, but there's no way it'll work like that in real/my life."             


My Cousin Rachel

He swing between earth and sky upon his gibbet, or, as my cousin Ambrose told me, betwixt heaven and hell.  Heaven, he would never achieve, and the hell that he had known was lost to him.  Ambrose prodded at the body with his stick.  I can see it now, moving with the wind like a weather-vane on a rusty pivot, a poor scarecrow of what had been a man. - Daphne du Marier

Damn.  What a beginning.  What a fabulous, moody, dark tone My Cousin Rachel had and maintained for at least the first 10 chapters or so.  I ordered this book off amazon.com since it got 4.5 stars and I'd read Daphne du Marier's other novel, Rebecca, a long time ago and remembered really liking it-especially how gorgeous the writing was and also just how tautly constructed the story was.  The first 10 chapters of My Cousin Rachel are fantastic.  Philip Ashley narrates the past, when he was more innocent and naive, and It's a dark world the characters inhabit.  Ambrose Ashley never really comes across as harsh a character as he does in the first chapter and proves himself to be a likable, quirky sort of uncle.  The book really is at its best when Ambrose first leaves for his yearly vacation and he, a sworn bachelor, suddenly gets married to his cousin Rachel.  There's something that never seems quite right although it's hard to put in words.  It's unfortunate that the novel loses its momentum, the eeriness when  Rachel arrives and Philip starts getting charmed by her.  I spent a good amount of time being utterly frustrated by how idiotic Philip's decisions and reasoning became as time progressed and while the novel does pick up again towards the last few chapters (post birthday), I remain frustrated by all the ambiguity.  


Speaking of ambiguity...
Eyes Wide Shut is extremely ambiguous, and I'm still not quite sure what to think of it.  It has some incredibly sexy scenes- the opening- wow! (and I'm a straight girl lol) and the infamous orgy scene just drips with sensuality but is disturbing- really worth seeing though.  The pacing feels off sometimes, the long conversation near the end really kills the mood of the movie.  Eyes Wide Shut is at its very best near the beginning of the middle, when Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise), haunted by his wife Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman)'s declaration that she would have cheated on him, risked and given up their whole marriage and family just to be with this sailor they saw once at a hotel on vacation, starts on his infamous trek across town.  On the trek, he encounters various women who all show an interest in him until finally, culminating in a visit to the infamous mansion.  Regardless of the ambiguity though, I applaud this movie for having a Xmasy backdrop.

And with that, Merry Christmas to all and to all-            

Tangled

Tangled *Some Spoilers* 

Flynn Rider: Alright blondie.  

Rapunzel: Rapunzel. 

Flynn Rider: Gesundheit

 On paper, Tangled sounds ridiculous.  It's the retelling of the Rapunzel story except that this time around Rapunzel's hair glows and  has magical healing powers.  But somehow, despite all the odds, Disney makes it work.  Really well.  It's a pity that Disney wants to back away from its princess and fantastical image b/c Disney does epic, ideal fairy tales so remarkably well.  Tangled is funny, has likable characters, and a smart, complex villain, Mother Gothel.  (When Gothel finally says, "Fine, I'll be the villain", I'm almost reluctant to see it end that way.)  

I know that a lot of reviews have said that Tangled reminded them of Beauty and the Beast, but Tangled reminded me most of A Hunchback of Notre Dame, a happy fairy tale version of it.  One of the most fascinating parts of the movie is Rapunzel's relationship with her mother.  Gothel is in many ways like Frollo, except she's seemingly much kinder to Rapunzel, showers her with love and teaches her that the outside world is a wicked place and won't tolerate, in Rapunzel's case, how special she is.  Rapunzel's relationship with Gothel almost up to the end, is complicated and I'm glad that they depicted it as such.  Rapunzel herself is beautiful, naive, and at her very core, a dreamer as all Disney princesses should be.  I do really appreciate the fact that they played up her naiveness since she really hasn't seen the world at all.  Mandy Moore and Zachery Levi both do a fabulous job voicing Rapunzel and Flynn.  My main qualms with the movie were the music.  Moore, while she's a fine singer, somehow lacked that signature Disney singing voice.  I may be biased though b/c I've heard quite a lot of her other music (when she was a pop singer).  Donna Murphy (Gothel) and Levi both have it though.  It's also such a pity they didn't have Levi sing more b/c he's really got a fabulous singing voice.  Rapunzel is magical, delightful and goes to show that Disney hasn't lost it at all.    

October and November Movies

Shutter Island *Spoilers* 

Shutter island is about US marshal Teddy Daniels who is sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient who's gone missing on Shutter Island, the location of an asylum for the criminally insane but he finds more than he bargained for.  

Teddy Daniels: Which would be worse, to live as a monster, or to die as a good man? 

The central question at the heart of Shutter Island although it's not quite apparent until the very end is the quote from Teddy Daniels above.  It's a very sympathetic look at why people choose to indulge in their delusions and fantasies.  It's also certainly a fascinating question, and to an extent, I wish Shutter Island somehow focused on this question, this conflict rather than the mystery of what was going on in the asylum.  It's a bit sudden really when everything is revealed- we get hints certainly that something is really off w/ the whole situation but not really enough information so that we could have conceivably realized that Teddy was really just deluding himself about everything.  I could see how he could have deluded himself into thinking conjuring up an escaped patient who killed her children (as his wife did in his real life), but it's a stretch to add Andrew (his real self) as the arsonist who killed his wife (when it was his wife who set the apartment on fire).  Memento utilized a similar technique but somehow, the pieces fit together better in the end.

  Shutter Island is a fine, solid movie, although it doesn't quite have any distinguishing features that make it memorable like other movies in its genre: Memento had its reverse chronological story telling, Inception draws you into a new world and makes its ambiguity work wonders, and Fight Club has that whole other theme of rebellion.  Perhaps if Scorsese had employed more of his trademark touch to the film...it would have been more memorable.  Shutter Island has some eerie scenes like Daniels's flashbacks to his war days, his nightmares, and his visit to Ward C and some really truly beautiful scenes like his dream of his wife evaporating into ash.  I'm not sure what to make of the music.  While I loved "On the Nature of Daylight," I disliked the main theme and how it blared through the beginning- the introduction to the island wasn't too creepy and the obviously menacing music didn't really help it.

Where the Wild Things Are 

Based on the beloved children's book, Max, an angry, rebellious boy, travels to an island with monsters- the wild things, where he's made their king.  

Max: There were some buildings... There were these really tall buildings, and they could walk. Then there were some vampires. And one of the vampires bit the tallest building, and his fangs broke off. Then all his other teeth fell out. Then he started crying. And then, all the other vampires said, "Why are you crying? Weren't those just your baby teeth?" And he said, "No. Those were my grown-up teeth." And the vampires knew he couldn't be a vampire anymore, so they left him. The end. 

Where the Wild Things Are has a very unique feel to it.  Its trailer really depicts the feel of the movie well-not super plot driven but a series of scenes paired with music; I personally really liked the trailer, one of the best ones I've seen in a while.

As for the movie, I like how from the beginning we see just how *wild* Max truly is.  He wears his wolf costume at the beginning and engages in a savage biting fight with his dog.  I was really surprised by how emo everyone was in this movie.  Each of the Wild Things has a personality and they fall just short of being likable or sympathetic because each of them are just too down on themselves and life; they're like stuffed animals that have been neglected and beaten up too many times.  Carol, KW, and Judith, in particular stand out.  Carol for his temper and his special friendship with Max, KW for her gentleness, hopelessness, and resignation, and Judith for her direct bitterness.  I did like how the wild things on the island talk about issues that people avoid  like favoritism.  Overall, Where the Wild Things Are is fascinating visually but character-wise and mood-wise feels very constrained because everyone is so damn emo.  

Chungking Express

He Zhiwu, Cop 223: We split up on April Fool's Day. So I decided to let the joke run for a month. Every day I buy a can of pineapple with a sell-by date of May 1. May loves pineapple, and May 1 is my birthday. If May hasn't changed her mind by the time I've bought thirty cans, then our love will also expire. 

I really liked this movie, especially it's light hearted tone and how in spite of its somewhat dark themes of two policemen getting over breakups and officer two being especially sad about his breakup to the point that he hilariously goes around his apartment comforting his objects, the movie maintains a humorous tone.  It's not for everyone, it's a bit on the quirky side, but it has memorable, likable characters, that you end up really caring and rooting for.

Date Night

Phil Foster: He turned the gun sideways! That's a kill shot! 

When I was taking a short story writing class in undergrad, I remember my professor told me that the narrator of one of my stories was the most reasonable, level headed character he'd read in a while.  I wasn't quite sure what he meant at the time because aren't there a lot of reasonable narrators out there?  But after watching Date Night, I think I know what he meant.

On the surface, Date Night isn't really that unique of a movie.  A couple, the Fosters (Claire and Phil), masterfully played by Tina Fey and Steve Carell, go out on a date night in the city, take another couple's restaurant reservation when they can't get one, and then are chased by the mafia or some crime organization who think they're the other couple.  What makes this movie special are Fey and Carell's performances because they do such a good job of making the Fosters seem really reasonable- the most reasonable, down to earth characters I've seen in a movie in a long while, and it's refreshing.  When they're out eating, they make up conversations for other couples and they get star struck like we would if we saw a celebrity dining in the same restaurant.  I especially like Fey in the movie.  There's one scene when the Fosters are talking in the car and she says what she fantasizes about is sometimes drive somewhere to be alone and quiet and Fey injects a sort of shyness into Claire that makes that believable for her character.  Go watch Date Night for the performances- it's funny and down to earth.