united 93

one of the first things i noticed during united 93 was that there were no recognizable stars. there were no established heroes, characters whose fates would be more important than those in the background. everyone here was a real person, someone that we, like the passengers on the plane, would get to know only for the space of just over an hour.  the movie could have made several wrong turns, weakening it, softening it into a drama that would be entertaining and forgotten. thankfully, there wasn't one false step.

united 93 does not establish heroes or sentiment. perhaps a second or third viewing would reveal the names of some characters, but i don't know anyone's names, and i like that. that could have easily led to melodrama on a story that has just begun to fade from the "too soon" area. the day starts with different groups of people: pilots, stewardesses, and passengers getting ready for their flight, airport and national flight controls at another day at work. no one looked like actors, and several of them, including the chief of the faa, were the actual people, playing themselves.  the jobs weren't populated with young and attractive employees like an agency in 24. these were real people. and slowly, odd things began to happen. american airlines flight 11 stopped responding to the traffic controllers, which, as time went on, got more people involved. then, suddenly, it blinked from the screen, leaving the traffic monitors perplexed, but momentarily unaware of what that disappearing blink meant.
the events of 9/11 hold an innate interest for me; seeing the images of the exploded world trade centers inevitably causes something inside of me to turn liquid, no matter how many times i've seen it. it happened again, and i felt as speechless as the air traffic controllers seeing the unbelievable with their own eyes. for moments, reality stopped.

i had no idea that the air traffic over the united states was monitored and controlled in so many different ways, probably because i'd never thought about it. like most things, it's a giant, complicated web, and it can be difficult to see the big picture immediately. one group saw a radar blip. another heard on cnn that a small plane had hit the world trace tower. a third group was had only enough information to speculate if those two events were related.
soon, united flight 93 was taken over. while the movie does not give any sympathy for the terrorists, it does remind us that hijacking a plane was a pretty stressful move on their part, too. as the passengers realize that this is not a standard "land the plane and ask for ransom" situation, their only option becomes to fight back. as this is happening, the movie spends more time on the plane and less elsewhere. the purpose is not to provide coverage of everyone's point of view, nor is there closure on what happened at with the air traffic control or the military; this is about united 93. the passengers fight back only on the last 10 minutes. it is not long and drawn out, not adding any unnecessary tension, knowing that the story inherently holds plenty, and is most potent when kept raw. when their story ends, the story ends.

it's great movie. the action isn't cool, it's harrowing. the film is shot handheld, not in an indulgent borne supremacy way (though same director), but so that we forget we're watching at home and feel we're there, watching. outwardly, united 93 was the least dramatic of the attacks on september 11; the plane didn't hit an iconic building, but crashed in a pennsylvanian field. the crash killed everyone. but hearing their story, told as honestly and sincerely as possible, is sobering.

the departed

every so often, i like to stop by dean duncan's office to get his thoughts on the movies and directors i've been watching.  when i brought up scorsese, dean commented, "he's a tribalist.  that's how he sees the world."  i thought that was interesting.

martin scorsese is one of the most acclaimed directors of modern cinema, creating masterworks that inspire the id.  i've seen most of his major works (and a few lesser-known as well), and, critically speaking, the departed is his best since goodfellas, although i still cast my best picture vote that year for babel.

the story is adapted from a hong kong movie, infernal affairs, which the international cinema showed last year.  scorsese is a technical master of the medium, and the departed was certainly better shot; but i've found myself preferring several elements of infernal affairs's story.

the premise is that a police force has an undercover agent (leonardo dicaprio) in the local organized crime syndicate, and that syndicate has a mole (matt damon) in the police force.  it's a setup rich with story and theme options, more than can be reasonably explored in two and a half hours.  the hong kong movie focuses more on the mentality of the criminal mole in the police force, watching the anguished torment of a man whose soul has been left in the fire.  scorsese shows us more of the undercover cop, examining the conflict of a man who is having to follow criminals in horrible acts, immersing himself into the lifestyle all in the name of justice.  like the prestige, it questions how can one play a role for every minute of their life without letting it consume you; further, in such situations, the line of law becomes nigh-impossible to discern.  personally, i find the hong kong's theme more interesting, but, in a movie like scorsese's, making that sort of villain the main focus could very well be too much.  still, his movie is a very intriguing character study, and played out with trust that the actors can allude to their thoughts, and trusting that the audience will follow.

at it's core, though, it is tribalistic.  this movie is primitive masculinity, evoking every connotation of the boston irish mentality.  the men on both sides of the law operate in largely the same way: gruff, vulgar, and aggressive.  there are constant struggles for power, authority, and dominion, and equal rebellions against it.  violence is almost always the first resort.  references to the iron-willed stubbornness of the irish are throughout the film, as are scoffs at variety of softer emotions.  the men are obviously deeply troubled, and it's no coincidence that the films only female role of any substance is a psychiatrist (the few other women even seen in the movie are referred to only in catcalls or similar).  she is caught between the two leading men, each of whom are leading extreme double lives yet never reveal any of this to her, leaving her isolated in confused.  in a world where men are this way, is it any wonder than a woman would have to devote her whole life to psychology to have even a chance at understanding them?  is it any wonder that the director has been married five times?

like most martin scorsese movies, there are numerous moments of cinematic lyricism, sequences where the camera and characters together move in choreographic ballet beauty; sublime examples of composition, lighting, and editing.  but woven continually throughout is primitive man, expressing only base emotion.  the film's characters could learn from the tagline of the year's leading contender for best picture, the humane babel: listen.

mystic river

one look over my dvd collection will evidence that i don't have to have a happy ending: the rules of the game, ace in the hole, bicycle thieves, just to name a few (and it's late at night; that's all i could think of at the moment.) while i do relish delightfully in the fairy tale endings of amelie, slumdog millionaire, or my perennial favorite, sleepless in seattle, i think i do subscribe, in part, to reiner warner fassbinder's philosophy that, if the problem is solved by the end of the movie, then we will walk away unchanged. but if a story leaves us thinking, then we have a chance to learn from that and make ourselves into a better person.
i just finished mystic river. i didn't like it.

my main interest in seeing it was knowing what performance beat bill murray for lost in translation in 2003. bill deserved to win, and now i know. but that's beside the point.
mystic river is an expertly told story of tragedy and human suffering; people learning to cope with an deal with sorrows of mortal life. however, the events that most people struggle with are too banal, and so the tension must be heightened. in most movies, this involves murder; it does in mystic river. as a craft, the film is excellent. the choice of constant blue colors throughout the movie was great, the cast was superb all around (and there are half a dozen a-list actors in the cast), the story kept me interested to the end and knew how to take its time without being boring. but, in the end, what was it? another story about the drama of tragedy. one of the best, but still that. i would list it alongside movies such as there will be blood and american beauty; stories that, in terms of technique, are nigh-impeccible, but that leave me feeling empty; no desire to say "wow" and think about what i saw. all three of the movies i just listed could be (and have been) taken apart and examined for their themes, morals, and messages, and there are good lessons you can take from all of them. but none leave me with an eagerness to learn from them. if you want to teach me, you have to give me a reason to want to learn from you.

there is suffering in life. people struggle to deal with the trials and hardships and confusion that we have experienced, that we have caused, or that we see around us. i don't think we should ignore it and paint over it with an expectation our prince who will one day come. we can look around and declare that life is rotten and hate it. or we can say that life is rotten but we wish it was better, although sometimes people throw up their hands in the tragedy that, while they wish it was different, it's not. that seemed to be what mystic river said.
of all the movies that i have seen and loved, the movie i want to have made myself is amelie. to say, yes, life is hard and hurts at times, but it's so good. that happiness and goodness come and spread by working toward them. not by closing our eyes and wishing all the bad and hurt would go away, but by looking at the good even when there's bad all around.
eastwood's movie the following year, million dollar baby, did much better. instead of showing horrible events and saying "look at this! what do you think?", it simply and quietly told a story and let us watch and think. it's subtle, but the result is huge. are they really that different in their presentation? perhaps not, but i think so. and that's part of what makes art an art.

monsters vs. aliens vs. me

mars attacks and shaun of the dead: in mars attacks, tim burton wanted to make an homage to the bad sci-fi movies of the fifties and ended up with a bad sci-fi movie. shaun of the dead wanted to pay parodic homage to the zombie genre and succeeded not only in that, but made a legitimately good zombie movie in the process. monsters vs. aliens falls hard and flat into the first category, and does so under the assumption that, if they knowingly do it, it's not actually a bad choice.
sorry, dreamworks.

the credits list a promising line-up of talent: reese witherspoon, keifer sutherland, hugh laurie, will arnet, rainn wilson, seth rogan, and stephen colbert at the president.  some very good talent there, comedic and dramatic.  animation has begun to draw larger and larger pools of talent, amassing numbers of a-list actors rivaling the casts of a robert altman or p.t. anderson film.  however, studios seem to think that the actors' casting alone will turn their straw into gold.  pixar, on the other hand, uses tim allen and creates an iconic character for generations (i told myself i wasn't going to bring up pixar, and i will do my best to hold to that.)  seth rogan as b.o.b. the blog was the sole stand-out with nearly all the best lines.  i once heard a suggestion that, when you're auditioning for voice work, use your own voice; there are plenty of people who can do silly voices, yours is unique.  i love the jack bauer voice as much as anyone, yet keifer sutherland played the generic army general in a way that sounded very similar to jim varney (ernest goes to camp, etc...).  by the way, the general's name is w.r. monger.  get it?

an enormous alien pod lands on earth and, before long, the army has surrounded it and the president himself has arrived.  he marches up a very tall wooden staircase to a musical keyboard at the very top and proceeds to plunk out the five-note harmony from close encounters of the third kind.  the only people who have not seen/heard a "close encounters" parody countless times already are those who are too young to have seen the movie and thus will not get the joke.  when that sequence of notes yields no response from the extraterrestrial, the president then try's "axel's theme" from beverly hills cop, and plays it with unreserved flair.  why? i'm really not sure, and i don't think the movie knows, either.

perhaps i should recap the plot and introduce the characters, but the movie is called "monsters vs. aliens", and that really does sum up the plot.  so much of it made no sense to the point that i got the feeling the writers excused themselves by saying "it's a monster movie- who cares why?" if i'm in the back row watching a double-feature starring ann francis, i don't care.  but when i'm paying the same amount that i'll pay to see up in two months, then you'd best put some effort into why things happen in the script.  why did susan wander in dejected aimlessness down a dirt road to a gas station and, suddenly, all of her monster friends were there?  i'm ok with the government having a top secret futuristic base, but everything was seemed custom-made for the 49-and-a-half-foot tall susan, even though she was accidentally mutated just yesterday.  why did the war room look just like the war room from dr. strangelove?  because taking an obvious idea is easier than coming up with your own.
one of the five credited writers is wally wolodarsky, a name i know from simpsons commentaries.   mr. wolodarsky was a creative force at the simpsons during their golden age, when their wit, humor, and insight established themselves as a clear candidate as the best tv show ever.   i can't help but remember that, during this time, the simpsons parodied both close encounters and dr. strangelove successfully.  here, wolodarsky hopes that we'll love the same concepts a second time and 15 years later.  (meanwhile, jim reardon, a similar simpsons alum, was up for a screenwriting oscar at another animation company for a movie whose bed sheets i own).

i did laugh throughout the movie.  from the start to the end, there were some laughs.   chuckles, really.   as i mentioned earlier, b.o.b. the indestructible blob has most of the best lines.   totally clueless characters are funny, it's a as simple as that.  i liked gentle giant that was insectasaurus, and i liked the two big red buttons gag for a moment.  but the rest of the movie felt like a "tiny toons" episode, full of jokes that are predictable but get a laugh from fifth graders (and in fifth grade, i laughed a lot at "tiny toons").
good idea: clone guard mistaking b.o.b. to be another guard and mindlessly handing him a gun. after a beat, b.o.b. realizes he has the gun and shoots the clone guard. -->funny.
bad idea: dr. cockroach then takes the gun from b.o.b., declaring that he needs to be careful with such things and the gun goes off again. -->not funny.
and this is how the movie goes.  while shrek (from the same studio) was amazing at taking all the conventions of genres playing with them, monsters v. aliens follows them like a toy race track.  i would see a joke being set and would await the same sort of genre-convention-breaking, post-modern gag.  sorry, the humor is as pre-modern as the style.

while moments of the plot were inexplicable, most of it was predictable.  the other side of the writing coin toss was "it's a sci-fi monster movie- that's what happens in those movies."  nothing surprised me; there were no twists or surprises.  i've heard that watching a bad movie can be educational, as you can learn what not to do, although i usually find myself thinking, "i don't know what they should have done differently." this time, however, i actually did have several ideas: spend more time here, cut that, etc.  i also began composing this review, deciding to take joel's suggestion and start a movie review blog, and thought of several non-disney/pixar animated movies i would rather be watching (bolt and shrek 2, to start.) the dialogue was as generic as the monster designs, so that, like the jokes, i would see where it was going and anticipate the twist. this was only a reassurance at the end, when everything seemed to be wrapping up.  another movie may have brought on a "you only thought it was over" moment. thankfully, when the movie seemed to be over, it actually was.

give yourself $11 and watch the incredibles again. (there, i said it.)