Filed under: Movie Reviews, Uncategorized | Tags: Curt Cobain, filmmakers, institutionalization, medications, mental illness, The Butthole Surfers, The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Genre: Documentary
Venue: Netflix
Actors of Note: n/a
Rating: A very interesting, multi-faceted film
Viewing Date: December 28, 2007
Personal Notes: The Devil and Daniel Johnston chronicles the life and musical career of Daniel Johnson, an artistic young man with a history of mental illness and institutionalization. The story focuses mostly on the his life leading up to his musical career and then branches out into the tenuous balance between art and madness that he continually attempted to negotiate. In and out of the hospital, barraged with prescribed drugs, Johnston presents a fluency in music that few can appreciate. As a musical layperson, I was only able to glimpse some of the genius in his work after being told what to look for. Many of the interviews with famous musicians and bands—including Curt Cobain and the Butthole Surfers—illustrate just how profound Johnston’s music was and is.
Thankfully, as the film traces the chilling path of mental illness through Johnston’s life, it also comes out of the shadows to realize the aging artist’s potential to continue creating works of art. Even in his darkest hours Johnston is able to invoke pity for the illness that has taken hold of him, and ultimately it is that pity and appreciation of talent that reconnects him with the filmmakers at the conclusion.
Filed under: Movie Reviews, Uncategorized | Tags: Elijah Wood, England, Football, Green Street Hooligans, Journalism, UK
Genre: Drama
Venue: Netflix
Actors of Note: Elijah Wood
Rating: Amazing.
Viewing Date: 28 December 2007
Personal Notes: Just a really great movie about a an expelled college student (Elijah Wood) finding himself mixed up in a football gang of sorts in the UK. Even though the subplots are somewhat clichéd, the performances offered are genuine, interesting, and at times moving. The story covers a great range of human emotion from rage and triumph as the gang surprise ambushes its arch rivals at an important game, to horror and sadness as members we have come to appreciate betray their own or worse. It’s a great movie. Highly recommend.
Filed under: Movie Reviews, Uncategorized | Tags: Borat, cultural bigotry, Kazahkistan, Pam Anderson, Sasha Cohen, uncomfortable
Genre: Mockumentary/Comedy
Venue: Netflix
Actors of Note: Sasha Cohen, Pam Anderson
Rating: See it once to see what everyone’s talking about. Even that’s a little much.
Viewing Date: 27 December 2007
Personal Notes: Haven’t seen Borat yet? Good for you. Innately vulgar and uncomfortable, this movie works against itself in that much of the clever satirical situations are lost in the flood of obscenity and vulgarities. The story centers on Sahsha van Cohen’s Borat, a Kazahkistani journalist coming to America to learn American culture. The clever commentary on the base and horrifying nature of so many Americans is overshadowed by the potty humor and stomach-turning antics of Cohen and his “producer” as the pair traverse America juxtaposing their absurd interpretation of eastern bloc “culture” with the supposedly superior culture of the richest country in the world. It’s upsetting.
Combining the uncomfortable feeling of “The Office” with the sickening feeling of watching Two girls and a Cup (so I’m told), this film offers little more than quoteables for high school and college students. Even those watching for the mockery of the horrifying attitudes and prejudices abundant in this country must do their best to ignore a majority of the film.
Don’t get me wrong; there are many funny situations in the movie, but the line between humor and sickening disturbance is crossed one too many times. For anyone who watches South Park for the potty humor, this is the movie to watch. If you watch for wit and satire, you’ll have a lot to sift through to get down to the core of this movie.
Filed under: Movie Reviews, Uncategorized | Tags: Adam Sandler, Anger Management, Jack Nicholson, Sandler clan, therapy
Genre: Comedy
Venue: Netflix
Actors of Note: Adam Sandler, Jack Nicholson,
Rating: Not hilarious, but it picks up at the end.
Viewing Date: 27 December 2007
Personal Notes: One of Adam Sandler’s not-so-funny ventures, this movie is like a joke without a punchline—it builds and builds for a joke that never really comes. There are a few silly situations and even a few wordplays that cause chuckles, but aside from that it’s largely frustrating and annoying. Nicholson plays a doctor (who is either “genius or insane”) assigned with the task of helping Sandler’s David overcome his anger problem. The usual cast of characters and Sandler voices are present (and even a few cameos by New York politicians), but largely absent is the building/climax/resolution form of storytelling that we moviegoers so appreciate. It meanders and bumps into humorous situations, but doesn’t nail them. Slighly redeeming at the end either for it’s cuteness, predictability, or simply the fact that it’s over, this film lasts a wandering hundred+ minutes.
Filed under: Movie Reviews, Uncategorized | Tags: Balls of Fury, Christopher Walken, not even fucking close, not funny, oh my god it's not funny, terrible movies
Genre: “Comedy”
Venue: Blockbuster
Actors of Note: Christopher Walken
Rating: I want my 98 minutes back.
Viewing Date: 26 December 2007
Personal Notes: I didn’t go into this looking for cinematic excellence. I was expecting bawdy jokes and some stupid humor. While the entire movie was in no short supply of stupid, the only thing that slightly resembled humor was the fact that I had paid $5 to watch a movie that had to have been written by someone who kills ants by head butting them. Even Walken couldn’t save this one. The trailer looked funny for good reason—it contained all the parts that were bordering on close to funny. The problems with the film are countless, but the most noticeable is the fact that while not being funny when it should have been, the expanded scenes from the trailers only prolong already humorless jokes and situations and make the viewer feel that much dumber for wasting his or her time. It isn’t even funny in the “this-is-so-bad-it’s-funny” way, nor is it even slightly amusing in the “we-can-quote-stupid-lines-from-this-later” way. The following are possible movies I would watch before sitting through this again:
–Robert’s Rules Explained!
–Rose’s Bed: An Elderly Woman’s Hilarious Quest to Regain the ‘Best Garden’ Title
–Fido Joined the Circus: A Parent’s guide to Explaining Death
–So, How Are Things in Darfur: George Bush’s Quest to Stop a Genocide
–Behind the Scenes: The Pediatric Oncology Ward,
–Happy Feet
Filed under: Movie Reviews, Uncategorized | Tags: a history of violence, maria bella, viggo mortenson, vigilante
Genre: Action/Drama
Venue: Sundance Channel
Actors of Note: Viggo Mortenson, Maria Bella
Rating: Pretty good, but not in a feel-good way. I’d recommend it.
Viewing Date: 23 December 2007
Personal Notes: What starts as a simple story about small town life explodes into an uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability and terror as a diner owner defends his patrons from a pair of murderers and lands himself on the local news. Soon afterwards, members of organized crime show up in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity. Following his family and calling him “Joey”, the men survail the town in their black Cadillac, issuing an unspoken threat against the family. The heroism that was initially welcomed as a good thing—even giving Tom’s son the courage to stand up to his own homosexual-harassing bully—turns out to be a nightmare that terrorizes a happy family. An interesting and satisfying story that makes the viewer feel sweet relief at its conclusion.
Filed under: Movie Reviews, Uncategorized | Tags: Deja Vu, Denzel Washington, John-Wu-type bullshit, Sci-Fi, unexplained technology
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Venue: Netflix
Actors of Note: Denzel Washington
Rating: Meh. A little too “lots of crazy technology with no explanation going on”. Don’t even think about the time travel stuff.
Viewing Date: 21 December 2007
Personal Notes: Denzel must be getting desperate. The movie didn’t look that great to begin with, and it certainly didn’t pull out of that nosedive; it simply leveled out (at best). The premise was that Denzel’s character was brought into a secret government project that allowed scientists to see exactly 4 days into the past from any angle. The technology was discovered a few years ago and a group of scientists were able to create a slew of observational equipment including a goggle helmet that allowed the wearer to see what was happening in his/her local 4 days before. Basically it was that preposterous John Wu top-secret-newly-discovered technology that was completely developed, even to the point of absurd one-in-a-million chance of necessity inventions that were apparently created “just in case”. If you can convince yourself that government and scientific secrets can be kept for the sake of keeping them, then this is the movie for you. If you get a headache attempting to think about the cyclical aspects of time travel, or if you get pissed off thinking about the probability of a super-secret time-monitoring program from a government that can’t fund its public schools, you might consider a different flick.
Also boring and clichéd is the “I’m going to save my future love interest but I don’t know that’s what she is yet” plot twist, which is only a twist to the main characters. If you need something to do while balancing your checkbook, have I got a film for you!
Filed under: Movie Reviews, Religion, Uncategorized | Tags: child warriors, creationism, evolution, fanaticism, global warming, indoctrination of children, intelligent design, Jesuscamp, Religion, science
Genre: Documentary
Venue: Netflix
Actors of Note: n/a
Rating: Horrifying, but not as bad as it could have been.
Viewing Date: 18 December 2007
Personal Notes: Terror, thy name is JesusCamp. While not as intense as I thought it would be, Jesuscamp does a good job of showing the thought process and brainwashing techniques of the lunatic fringe of Christianity. Most of the film is interviews with members of the ‘youth ministry”, but eventually devolves into a child advertising documentary in which catalogues the step by step process used by the religious right to brainwash children into becoming “warriors for the lord”. It’s a horrifying example of child abuse that mirrors McDonalds’ and Big tobacco’s attempts to influence and harness a child’s thinking from a young age. There’s a reason schooling is done when humans are young—not only are they the most susceptible, but they are less likely to change their beliefs as they get older, which is why religious fanatics devote the time that they do to children.
Among my favorite bits of tragic humor in this piece—forgoing the imagined “talents” of “prophecy”, “speaking in tongues”, and the like—are the quotes. At one point the leader of the camp and self-proclaimed youth minister lectures the children of her congregation that Harry Potter was evil for his use of magic and “if he’d been around in the old testament, he would have be put to death!” She thrusts her fist up as she says this. Another moment of shining brilliance comes when a mother explains her reasons for home schooling her children (evolution) and proceeds to cover a science lesson with her son. “Well some people say that global warming is happening, but the earth has only gotten warmer by one degree,” she leads him. “Yeah,” responds her son. “That’s not very much, is it?” “I guess not,” he responds again, which is enraging for 1) anyone with basic math skills, 2) anyone with scientific training above the fifth grade, 3) anyone with a brain in his or her head, or 4) anyone who expects more than “because Jesus says so” for a scientific argument. Basically the movie is great if you’re looking to get really mad, or really scared—it depends on your level of motivation.
Filed under: Movie Reviews, Uncategorized | Tags: angler fish, Bait Balls, black smoker, documentary, extremophiles, methane pools, Open oceans, planktonic influence, The Blue Planet, The Deep
Genre: Documentary
Venue: Netflix
Actors of Note: None.
Rating: Very Interesting and a little more intense that a run-of-the-mill sea documentary
Viewing Date: 18 December 2007
Personal Notes: For those of us who are ocean nerds, this is a really great documentary. While this wouldn’t have the flash of something that would run in a mainstream theater, the filmmakers accomplish their collective goal of seeking out and telling the stories that haven’t yet been captured in the current nature documentary genre. Some events are standard—but some are extraordinary. In the Open Ocean part of the documentary, we are introduced to enormous bait balls that swirl and threaten to engulf divers, enormous predators, and the chains of life that progress in the ocean—from plankton up to whales. The feeling of the open ocean as a big bingo game (with larger fish searching for smaller fish and so on) is constantly reinforced. One of the most interesting facts is one denoting the use of structures by fish. One piece of flotsum can be responsible for hundreds of tons of fish in the open ocean (an example would be a severed kelp forest). Given structure, small fish take refuge, which attract larger fish, and larger fish, and so on. Therefore, in the nutrient vacuum that can exist in the ocean, a floating piece of debris can offer a place of safety and sustenance.
Similarly, a black smoker or even methane seepage can bring life to the barren deep. This film offered the best footage I have ever seen on deep water animals. The angler fish and other light-using predators of the deep that I’ve come to know through still shots are brought to life in thorough camera shots that shoe exactly how and why each animal has evolved a given survival technique. Even more interesting that some of the animals is the environment of the deep. Being so deep and so isolated, much of the deep is dependent on marine snow, or debris that falls from the sunlit areas above; dead fish, scraps of food, and even dead whales offer months and months of food for this low-nutrient, an thus slow-moving-environment. When indirect nutrition from the sun isn’t available, the documentary does an excellent job of introducing organisms that gain nutrition from alternative means; black smokers’ heat, or from methane seeps. It’s a great change from entry-level documentaries and can even show biologically-trained people new and exciting discoveries.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I originally caught news of this on CBS’ Sunday Morning (probably the best show ever). A group of conservationists were granted permission to go deep into an area of the jungle that had not yet been penetrated by humans or trails. As the lead biologist in the story stated, it had probably remained unchanged for 10,000 years due to its seclusion. Highlights mentioned are a human-hardy rat 5 times the size of any known rat, and a tiny new opossum, which is really cute. In a manly way. Read the Washington post story here.
