Midnight in Paris (2011)

directed by Woody Allen
starring Owen Wilson, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams

I went into this film knowing two things: Owen Wilson and Woody Allen. I was expecting a cute film involving romance and romanticizing Paris. I got a cute film about writer's block, time travel, and why our fascination with the past is really just a cover for the universal fear of death.

Here we go!

This film leaves you with a lot to talk about. I'd say that's it's second-strongest suit. Owen Wilson's character begins the film as a frustrated writer balancing between the success of Hollywood and the allure of "struggle," as his fiancee puts it, walking the streets of Paris and fantasizing about moving into a rooftop attic. "How very bohemian," his would-be father-in-law comments. "All that's missing is the tuberculosis."

Wilson is a perfect fit for Woody Allen's bumbling romantic Gil - and the character is quite obviously Woody's, through and through. He's very likeable, in fact. However, I can't help but agree with the otherwise unpleasant father's assessment: Gil's obsession with 1920's-era Paris revolves around a fantasized reality. Every time period had its beauty and genius; every time period has also had its ugliness and vulgarity. Each generation thinks that it is truly the Last Great one. And many a Gil has looked into the past thinking: if only.

Woody Allen, never lacking in subtlety (more on that later), turns Gil's fantasy into a fever dream of the fame and excitement of the Roaring Twenties. Via magical midnight vehicle, Gil is transported to the world of Ernest Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Pablo Picasso, and several others - among them a woman played by the always "alluring" Marion Cotillard. Here is the movie's first-strongest suit. It brings in an avalanche of actors to appear as these legends, dressing them in impeccable costumes and placing them in fantastic sets. I had to try very hard not to use the word 'charming' there, as it's the single word that sums up the film for me. They all appear to be having a lovely time, and it's quite fun to watch, say, Adrian Brody try on Salvador Dali for a fit.

Now for the downside: remember the subtlety I mentioned before? Its lack is felt in the entire film, but it is particularly clear in the fly-by characters of the past. Hemingway's delivery is almost laughable; he speaks in the same tone as his prose, proclaiming eloquent platitudes about bravery, death and love. It's  fun to watch, but it also makes suspension of disbelief practically impossible. Cotillard brings some nuance to her role as the fashion student and resident lover Adriana, but she remains the heavily-romanticized, sexually-liberated, quick, pleasant female companion so often prized in nostalgic fiction. Things aren't much better in 2010; Gil's fiancee (Rachel McAdams) is entirely shrill and shallow, while her wealthy Republican parents' favorite mantras "cheap is cheap" and "you get what you pay for" must be repeated about five times each. Everyone says precisely what they mean, succinctly and effectively: their dialogue reflects their one-note characterization.

But while it isn't high art, I left the theatre with a smile. Allen explored fascinating themes here: the longing of the past versus the boredom with the present, the magic of Place versus Time, love's power to suggest immortality - sure, they're all discussed bluntly, but they're discussed all the same, and we leave the theater eager for discussion and digestion just as Gil leaves the screen (and the 1920's) somewhat more enlightened for his journey.

TRON: Legacy (2010)

1 Academy Award Nomination

directed by Joseph Kosinski

starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde

It was during the first lightcycle sequence that I looked over to my father, who shared my expression of excitement, and stated: "I need this video game." TRON: Legacy had done its job well.

The film does play like an overlong video game ad at times. It's a wonder, then, how little I minded.

While the main character was forgettable, Olivia Wilde brought liveliness and likeability to the film's designated female. TRON follows a lot of action movie mishaps, not the least of which is the lack of women with lines. There are the bleach-white programs that outfit Sam for battle, with slick appearances and freakishly perfect features, as if they had walked out of a heavily photoshopped perfume advertisement. I wonder why Michael Sheen's eccentric entertainer Zuse couldn't have been female. The traitorous navigator would have been equally entertaining in either gender.

It's quibbles like these that make me wonder why I can enjoy TRON and despise other action movies that offer CGI with little substance. Perhaps it's because, unlike a certain popular franchise raking in millions as we speak, TRON manages to do its job without being offensive. Qorra is not Megan Fox's Mikaela, after all, and Olivia Wilde is an actress, not a model. While TRON's filler may be dull, at least it isn't sexist or racist. Additionally, TRON broke no records and was widely acknowledged for what it is: shiny, simple, 80's nostalgia meets the technology of the twenty-first century. Plus, Jeff Bridges.

6 Week (sort of) Review

It's a few days behind schedule, but here we are: 30 Movies in!


Movies that have Made Me Cry: Never Let Me Go, Saving Private Ryan, Agora
Movies that Made Me Yell at the Screen: Agora
Favorite Movie so far: Saving Private Ryan (still)
Worst Movie so far: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (also as-yet-undefeated)

Movies I Can't Wait to See Again: Pulp Fiction, X-Men: First Class, Saving Private Ryan, Agora
Movies that took Two Nights: Giant, Camelot, The Godfather Part II
20th Century : 21st Century: 14 : 16


Movies I have Seen... 
In Theaters: 6 (Bridesmaids, Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides, Jane Eyre, Tree of Life, X-Men: First Class, Super 8 ) (First 2-week period with no new movies in theaters; guess I was a bit busy with the re-release of  The Lord of the Rings...)
Other Screening: 1
Owned/Borrowed DVDs: 10
Netflix DVDs: 8
Netflix Instant: 3
Other Computer Format (YouTube, iTunes, etc.): 2

Gladiator (2000)

Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Visual Effects, Best Costume Design and Best Sound Mixing. Nominated for 7 others.

directed by Ridley Scott

starring Russel Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen

I've heard people rave over Gladiator's soundtrack for years. Being a soundtrack nut, this was one of the main reasons I was so excited to finally see the film. And then...for the life of me, I could not focus during any of the intense action sequences because I was too busy furtively searching for Captain Jack Sparrow. Thank you, Hans Zimmer. This score wasn't even quite as good as the one he later produced for Pirates of the Caribbean, in my opinion. But they're practically identical anyway.

Just...here:

So there's that.

And that's just one example, the similarities go on and on. I mean...it's good music, but it was a weird sort of letdown. And any suspension of disbelief or immersion in the story instantly vanished with the familiar themes.

But there were some characters and plots involved in this thing, too, so I guess we'll just have to move on.

Gladiator is, simply put, a good film. It is striking and memorable in many ways. It creates characters that you are interested in and want to root for. Does it do this through groundbreaking methods? No. Sure, it revived the Epic genre, but the redemptive story of Russell Crowe's simple-farmer-turned-general on a quest for vengeance is fairly textbook.

That isn't strictly a bad thing. The dialogue has a tell-not-show problem at times, but it's not bad writing. Maximus is a humble everyman chiefly defined by things done to him, but Crowe brings the correct skill to pull off lines that could have stumbled. The cast is a great asset to this film - Joaquin Phoenix also brings a mixture of brilliance and ham to the evil Commodus, and Oliver Reed's death during production only made his final, excellent performance as the once-honored slave trader Proximus even more stirring. Connie Nielsen's character was also a pleasant surprise - her scheming princess seemed a likely candidate for Evil Temptress, but instead, we got a female who is both ambitious and just, despite the early trepidations of her father and her corrupt foil of a brother.

The cinematography provides the best argument in the film's favor. Commodus' entry into Rome is stark and decolorized as bright red petals rain from the sky: a beautiful image, eerily similar to the bright chunks of blood that fly with near-artistic abandon in the fight scenes. Scott does not hesitate to rest the camera on the scenery and revel for a moment, whether it be the geographical beauty of the Roman Empire or the fantastic reconstruction of its cities and armies.

The film's structure allows for a splendid show of the hallmarks of a Rome remembered by Hollywood: a great battle to open the movie, idyllic Spain, a crime-infested and slave-filled Tatooine Africa on the outskirts of the Empire, and of course, the opulence and the chaos of the Roman mob and politics, the spectacle and the shock of the bloody sport of the Colosseum. We admire Rome and we fear it in our modern culture. Watching gladiators fight to the death makes professional wrestling look like the Enlightenment. But how far removed are we, really, from a people entertained by bread and circuses? Commodus may seem dim-witted, but he was truly ahead of his time; he invested in reality programming and received the compliance of the public. For a while, anyway. In a system that rewards conflict, he also made room for a rival.

In closing, a few other notable distractions throughout the film...

1. Okay, Rory's got to be here somewhere.
2. Flashbacks to Latin class. Yay, cognomens.
3. Wait, the prince who slays the ruler is also incestuous towards his sister? I KNEW IT.

Local Hero (1983)

directed by Bill Forsyth

starring Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Fulton Mackay

This British gem reminded me of a Coen Brothers film in many ways. It has the flat humor and quirky characters, a focus on a specific setting and no conventional character arc or plot line. The title of Local Hero seems to suggest the American protagonist would join with the residents of the film's small Scottish town to fight the impending construction of a refinery - but the actual story could hardly be more different.

Many things become clear throughout the course of this film. Peter Riegert's MacIntyre is dissatisfied with his lonely, successful American life and he admires and envies what the Scottish have. The Scottish, meanwhile, are much more concerned about getting the best deal for their land than any sentimental attachment to it. The one man who does seem to mind is a hobo who lives on - and, coincidentally, owns - the beach, and he doesn't seem to be quite in step with everyone else's ideas of reality. MacIntyre's boss apparently has enough issues to employ a psychologist and inspire him to comedic acts of madness. And MacIntyre's gangly, awkward partner clearly lusts after a local marine biologist...and they meet up a few times on the beach, hardly crescendoing into anything like a romantic subplot. It's refreshing, in an anticlimactic sort of way.

Local Hero has many funny moments, but it finds them in absurdity, and leaves both conventional storytelling and comedy by the wayside. It leaves you with much to think about without directly addressing these questions. Actually, it mirrors the way I often feel after a Coen Brothers film: huh. I look forward to thinking about it and watching it again, but in the meantime, I can't admit much in the realm of emotion.

The Crucible (1996)

2 Academy Award Nominations

directed by Nicholas Hynter

starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Paul Scofield, Joan Allen

You can usually tell a movie is a play adaptation based on the quality and the focus on the characters. The actors are at the heart of The Crucible, driving the compelling nature of the film. Daniel Day-Lewis makes one of his rare appearances as the central John Proctor, while Winona Ryder is brilliantly deranged as accuser Abigail Williams. Even more than the commentary on groupthink, their performances demand attention.

Said commentary does prove fascinating, however. One of the more painful scenes was Marry Warren's (Karren Graves) attempts to explain the absurd actions of her fellow accusers. She has broken free from the pressure and the drama, and realizes the fabricated nature of their strange experiences...yet without an understanding of social psychology, she is unable to answer for behavior such as group-wide cold spells and fainting. I yearned to yell at the screen and wave my entry-level psychology textbooks in their faces, but there is no persuasion for such madness. I only found myself heartbroken for the generations who succumbed to such superstition without the comprehension that we take for granted today, just as Mary did in her ultimate surrender to societal pressure and psychological warfare.

And, thankfully, this historical interpretation does not fall on the superstitious side. It offers naturalistic and psychological explanations for the insanity that befell the devout town; explanations that certainly do not contradict historical fact and, for the most part, seem to offer an extremely probable explanation. They do take liberty with the characters, however, aging up the antagonistic Abigail to make her affair with Proctor believable. (In reality, she was 12; here she is 17.) Here, I think, is the story's greatest blow at credibility. It would have been fascinating to explore the damaging effects of the society and the vulnerable nature of a child's mind; instead, Abigail is our designated villain, an angry ex-lover motivated by revenge and power. The power part is interesting - it's no coincidence that the first accusers were young girls, otherwise disenfranchised in their Puritanical society. Neither is it a coincidence that their victims were also female, and outcasts at that. But rather than explore this thread, the movie chalks up the worst of the accusations to mere romantic jealousy. In a story about the Salem Witch Trials, I expected the story to focus more on the women involved, and perhaps present us with a three-dimensional female figure or two. But I guess we just have to have our white male protagonist.

The story's ties to McCarthyism are also worth exploring. Arthur Miller wrote the play in 1953 as a direct response to Communist "witch hunts" by going back to the source - America's own literal witch hunts, a black mark on the conscience of the country's history. "Witchcraft is an invisible crime," notes Judge Danforth, but this correct assessment only encourges the unfounded villainizations. This took place in a small town before the Union of the States under the Constitution; here, theocracy ruled. This was not the case in the 1950s. In a nation protected by a Bill of Rights, such accusations of thoughtcrime are unthinkable. When Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly are protected rights, how can the government profess to restrict freedom of thought? Such a thing cannot even be traced - and yet the U.S. government tried their hardest, eventually convicting Arthur Miller himself on suspicions of communism. (He was spared from prison by an appeal.) How can one be innocent until proven guilty when accused of an unprovable crime? How can an old decrepid man defend himself against claims that he sent his soul out to do his wicked deeds for him, as one of the Salem girls attests? Such practices make a mockery of justice.

John Proctor stands as a model of this at the film's end. No matter the insanity of their accusation, no one can take away your ability to acknowledge the truth - even if only internally. But he refuses to keep his conviction quiet. His actions seem to paint him as a marytr, but yet...his acceptance of his execution seemed less about the defense of sanity that brought him to the scaffold, and more about his resiliently guilty conscience. Despite the overtones of sacrifice, I just can't condone his final decision. His wife had forgiven him his adultery, his Protestant God certainly would not be loath to forgive either, and by that point, the whole town was beginning to recognize the proceedings as the farce that they were. I'm more inclined to agree with Reverend Hale, who reverses his former suspicions of witchraft and urges the condemned to confess and be freed, proclaiming the sanctity of human life above all. Elizabeth Proctor calls his argument against hypocrisy the "devil's argument"; for myself, I find little value in John's adherence to honor. (Eddard Stark, take notice.) But, of course, the story must end this way: doomed heroes, reciting the Lord's Prayer, winning the tearful and regretful hearts of Salem with their final words.

But what if it didn't? What if they valued their lives over this unjust sacrifice to madness?

It's a difficult moral quandrary, as Elizabeth points out, and it strikes at our deepest notions of selfishness and meaning, justice and duty. I can only hope that in our psychology-literate society, such decisions will never have to be made for the sake of such inanity.

The African Queen (1951)

Academy Award for Best Actor. Nominated for 3 others.

directed by John Huston

starring Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley

Fun fact: despite winning the Academy Award for his role, Humphrey Bogart was actually unable to perform the Cockney accent designated for his character in the original script. I suppose Michael Caine wasn't available.

In all seriousness, though, the script changes leave plenty of room for an entertaining story, and Bogart's presence allows for fun chemistry between his (now Canadian) boat captain and Katharine Hepburn's leading lady. It's a romantic comedy with a twist, a collision of personalities that occurs just as a collision of nations begins in the lead-up to World War I.

Our heroes' unconventional journey begins when Germany invades the African town that missionary Rose Sayer lives in, killing her brother and leaving her defenseless. She and supplier/mailman Charlie Allnut decide to flee in his small boat, the titular African Queen, employing a far-fecthed plan to torpedo the German ship that guards downriver. Hijinks ensue.

Their banter is entertaining, but nothing groundbreaking; the moment that caught my interest was Rose's reaction after the first set of rapids. Charlie was hoping that this run-in with danger would encourage her to abandon the hazardous scheme, but the experience leaves her face aglow with excitement. She demands that he prepare her to steer through the next one, overcome with a mixture of adventurous ambition and sheer adrenaline.

Despite the very real danger of their situation - Germans are the least of their worries when confronted with leeches, mosquitoes, sickness and entrapment - the film segues into romance rather light-heartedly, complete with last-minute marriage and a happy resolution courtesy of a Deus Ex Machina. (Did the Germans not manage to swim to safety as well, or did they all just have rapid, explosion-induced changes of heart?)

But Bogart and Hepburn seem to be having fun, so we do, too. At least, on camera - as most of the film was actually shot on location in Uganda and the Congo, I can only imagine that the production felt a bit like the African Queen's rickety journey itself.