The Film Thugs Movie Show

The Onion recently ran a feature entitled "Inception’s inception? 38 stories that take place largely within dreams"

http://www.avclub.com/articles/inceptions-inception-38-stories-that-take-place-la,42967/

Partly out of my love of Nolan's most recent film, and partly out of my total fascination with dreams I decided to check some of these out. When I say "fascination" with dreams, I don't mean that in the way most people do. I have fairly severe sleep apnea. For those who don't know that means that I stop breathing when I fall asleep. Mine is fairly severe and, if untreated, I have what is called an "episode" every 15-30 seconds. That means that I fall asleep, in less than half a minute I stop breathing and wake up. Now, I don't fully wake up, but I am pulled back from the deeper, important levels of sleep. Because of that I never entered REM or delta sleep, so dreams seem like some type of urban myth to me.

Last October I got a CPAP machine so that I can keep breathing while asleep and get the important, restful, dream filled sleep all you bastards take for granted. So I am just now becoming exposed to the phenomena. Don't get me wrong, I don't have really vivid dreams with all that Freudian imagery people talk about, I still think that is bullshit. But, because I have never really experienced them, I find the very idea of dreaming to be an odd concept.

With this in mind, I decided to check out some of the movies from this list just for the hell of it. There were several of these that I was very familiar with. I know "The Prisoner" episode, "A,B,&C," "The Cell (wow, a serial killers mind looks like a mix between a Tool video and the video to "Losing My Religion," by REM!!)", "Dreamscape," "Nightmare on Elm Street," but there were some of the less mainstream ones that I was interested in.

I started with Jake Paltrow's, "The Good Night," and am a little pissed that I did. What you have here is a movie, presented as a comedy, that has no likeable or sympathetic characters, no real motivation for any of the action, no catharsis, no interesting action, no character development, and almost no funny moments. It's the story of Gary, (played by Martin Freeman, an actor I discovered on the original Office and have liked over the years) a musician from a one hit wonder 80's band who is reduced to writing jingles for the company run by former band mate Paul(Simon Pegg, you know how I feel about his past work). He is in a dying relationship with Dora (Gwyneth Paltrow, doing her brother a favor I believe) who has apparently had it with him. Not only does she not appear to love him, but she doesn't even seem to be able to stand him. There is no part of this man's life that does not suck.

Then he starts having repeating dreams about a beautiful woman, Penelope Cruz, and starts studying lucid dreaming in an attempt to be able to live fully in this dream world. He later discovers that Cruz is actually a model he has seen in countless advertisements. Paul, as a favor to Gary, hires he for a campaign. This, I believe, was meant to lead to some climactic moment where Gary realizes something about his love for Dora and his need to create his own music again and learns to really live life. I don't know what the intention was, all I can say is that if the intent of this film was to do anything other than run for 93 minutes and make you laugh about 4 times, it was a total failure.

This is a mess of a movie. The performances are fine, the cinematography is nice (it has a very gritty feel to it), but it felt empty. I think I was supposed to see a person trapped in an unhappy life who finds a wonderful escape in his dreams, but I didn't really see this. What I did see was a kind of unlikable guy who has given up on himself, accepted a loveless relationship, sold out his music while bemoaning being unable to create the music he wants, who makes a dream world made up of leftover pop culture images and attempts to use lucid dreaming to have sex with an idealized woman. He doesn't try to better either his real or his dream world, he just wants to cheat on his girlfriend without any physical evidence.

Almost everyone goes through "rebuilding years," where their life comes off the tracks, everything sucks, and to quote Kipling, you,"watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools." Most people have these periods which are punctuated by the desperation to start again and the actions towards starting again. That passion was absent from this film. Paltrow simply asks too much of the audience by presenting a character like this and then expecting us to care about the quality of his sex dreams.

Biopics are a tricky species because a person with an interesting background or story doesn't necessarily have a cinematically interesting one. Life doesn't exactly play out like a movie and interesting events rarely have a three act structure. That isn't to say that they are all bad or lacking, just difficult. What normally happens is either compositing of characters, combining different events into one more dramatic event, or creating scenes that never happened in order to make that story to work better as a screen story.

Like all other types of movies some of these work beautifully, others don't work at all, and the vast majority fall somewhere in the middle. That middle ground is where you find "The Runaways," Floria Sigismund's feature debut film about the 1970's all girl punk/rock band of the same name. What you have here is a fantastic looking, well acted film that ultimately feels hollow and somewhat superficial.

This film presents a particularly difficult challenge as The Runaways were only a band for four years and when they disbanded the oldest member was 21. But the possibilities are equal to that challenge. The music business is brutal even for the most seasoned professionals, but for a group of children with essentially no parental guidance that brutality is amplified to disastrous levels.

At the end of this film I found myself not knowing much more about these people than I did beforehand, and I didn't know much. Basically, this movie is as much about The Runaways as Oliver Stone's film "The Doors," was about The Doors. Yeah, the other members are there, but that was The Jim Morrison story.

This film, in reality, about the relationship between Cherie Currie (the vocalist and front woman), and Joan Jett (guitarist and singer). Drummer Sandy West, played by Stella Maeve in a strong performance, initially looks like she will be a major part of the show ends up sidelined quickly. Bassist "Robin," played by Alia Shawkat (who played Maeby on "Arrested Development") not only doesn't exist (she is somewhat based on Jackie Fox), but doesn't speak, but her performance isn't bad, as she does appear to know how to play bass. Even Lita Ford, who went on to a major recording career (I mean, she recorded a song with Ozzy and got equal billing for God's sake!) is relegated to the "member of the band most pissed at the lead singer for all the attention she's getting" role, which is unfortunate, not only because of how important Lita would be as a female figure in rock for years to come, but because Scout Taylor-Compton is pretty good at what she does get to do and it would have been nice to see her do more.

Basically, this is the Joan and Cherie show, which causes a lot of the weakness. By focusing on these two instead of the band as a unit you never really get a sense of closeness, of how the music brought these lost young women together and made a family out of them. Because of this most of the interactions felt very hollow and lacking.

There was no punch to the goings on because I didn't feel any real connection between the characters. Joan and Cherie come together both emotionally and physically, but their relationship doesn't have any weight or gravity. You know their families are screwed up, but you don't get the feeling that they are using each other to replace that family. I wanted more depth.

The family dynamics, such as they are, are portrayed through Cherie and her sister Marie, but even that has some confusion. The two are twin sisters in real life, but are played by actresses who are 5 years apart in age, and that makes the beginning scenes between them feel strange and out of place.

There are some real strengths here. There was a flow, and it looked fantastic. I didn't have as much of a problem with what was on the screen as I did with what was left off. The development of the characters and their relationships was almost non existent and played more like watching caricatures than real characters.

Sigismondi is a highly accomplished music video director and it shows. The aesthetics of this film are amazing. Her camera work is incredible and her choice of soundtrack are brilliant. She is also able to get outstanding performances from her actors.

Dakota Fanning's turn as lead singer Cherie Carrie is, as we have come to expect from Fanning, exceptional. She does an outstanding job of capturing a young woman lost in transition with no mooring. Kristen Stewart gives one of the best performances in the film. She is kind of like a guitarist who only knows two chords, not great unless the song you're playing only requires those two chords. Not that Joan Jett is a two dimensional character, but Stewart's presence is perfect for the young punk rock icon who doesn't just love the music, she NEEDS the music and nothing else.

Michael Shannon steals the show as Kim Fowley. I haven't seen him in much else that I am aware of, but now I want to. The creepy sexuality, while not really being sexual being that he creates is fully realized and completely natural and believable. He somehow is able to pull off very graphic sexual talk with a group of 15 year old girls without coming off as a deviant. He realizes that the business of rock and roll is the business of sexuality and even though it is a group of 15 year old girls, he never really comes off as a pedophile because to him sex is business. He isn't a mentor in the classic sense. His concern is purely selfish, he wants money. He isn't there to help the girls find themselves so they can live better lives, he sees them as a paycheck and is up front about it.

In the end, what you have here is a movie that could and should have been a lot better. It's a little girl lost tale that could have been more. I guess I wanted to see the girls find each other, only to be pulled apart by the gravity of their own lives, and how difficult it is to control that when you have no foundation to build on.

Westerns have become an interesting breed of film lately. There seems to be this desire to reinvent them by going back to what they once were. The few attempts to do "commercially cool" takes on the genre have met with critical as well as commercial failure (Wild Wild West, Jonah Hex, Posse, that one with Madelyn Stowe about the women, I am not even going to bother looking up the name). The Western is a simple genre to do well, but a difficult genre to do great because of that.

Now, there are two different types of people. Those who like Westerns, and those who don't. The former being known, colloquially, as "men." Am I saying that only men like Westerns? No, there are some bad ass women out there who are fans as well. I am saying that if you don't like Westerns you are not a man. It's not a nice thing to say, but sometimes the truth hurts.

You don't have to love them, and you don't have to like all of them. But if there isn't one Western out there that gets your attention.... Well, you get what I'm saying.

The Western is the foundation of American film. As soon as someone figured out that moving pictures could be used to convey a narrative Edwin S. Porter gave us, "The Great Train Robbery." If you look at it, America's first great contribution to the arts is the Western. We created it, and the rest of the world went nuts for it. Yes it is uniquely American, but it is also completely universal. Every country that is worth a shit has taken a shot at this genre. In some instances they showed us what could be done with it, I'm looking at you Italy. But with that exception no matter how international they became, the Western has always been an American story.

What is fascinating about this type of film is how no matter where they are made, no matter the slant taken on the genre, they are always rooted firmly in one theme, "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." Think about it. The ideas of honor, having a code, right and wrong as absolute black and white concepts permeate every one of them. Even when the good guy is a bad guy he will always be the most morally centered character with the clearest code of what makes right and what makes wrong.

Basically, the simpler the story, the better the Western. It usually goes something like this, a guy comes to an area that needs help with x, he takes care of x, he rides off.

With that in mind, I watched "Appaloosa," co-written, directed by, and starring Ed Harris as a hired gun who, along with his partner Viggo Mortensen comes to the small town of Appaloosa to help with a problem. The problem is that Jeremy Irons' character is a bit of a prick who has a bit of power and a group of men who think they can do as they please, when they please and suffer no consequences. When Irons shoots down a Marshall, things turn desperate.

This is, in many ways a very typical Western. It is slow, that is to say measured. The difference here is that "slow" means the director has no idea how to pace the thing and it feels like it takes forever, and "measured" means the director knows exactly what they're doing and want to draw the tension and mood out. This film builds and takes its time doing so. That is what makes it, and the other films of this genre work.

The landscape of the west is always a bit part of these films and Harris uses the natural background beautifully, especially the wind. For anyone who has ever been to a flat area without much in the way of buildings to slow it down, you know how the wind kind of wreaks havoc on everything, and Harris allows that to happen to amazing visual affect.

Ultimately, all I can say about "Appaloosa," is that if you like Westerns you will like this film. If you don't you probably won't. It is a classically styled, classically paced, and classically crafted movie that plays on the classic themes of justice, loyalty, and a man doing what he has to do in order to do what is right.

On May 15th, 1941 Joe DiMaggio hit a single off pitcher Eddie Smith. Nothing spectacular about it, just a single in a game where "Joltin' Joe" went 1 for 4. What is spectacular is that he got a hit in the next 55 games. That's right he recorded a hit in every game until July 16th.

How big a deal is this? Well, in the 69 years that have followed nobody has even come close. In fact, the only person to even break the 40 game mark was in 1978, and that person was Pete Rose (who technically cannot hold any records at all, what with the lifetime ban and all). There have been a handful who hit into the 30's, but nobody has come within spitting distance of it.

What does this have to do with "Toy Story 3?" Think about it. Pixar has made 11 movies, none of which could honestly be considered bad. Look at the list.

Toy Story

A Bus's Life

Toy Story 2

Monsters, Inc.

Finding Nemo

The Incredibles

Cars

Ratatouille

WALL-E

Up

Toy Story 3

Now, not every one of these has been a home run, but they definitely reached base with all of them. And I am just listing the features here. This says nothing of the litany of brilliant short films they have produced. John Lassiter has put together a company that seems incapable of making a bad movie.

I am curious if anyone can name one other director, producer, actor, or studio that has ever put together a streak like this. This is an honest request. I have been trying to think of one, but have drawn a blank. The closest I can come up with is Nolan, who is at 6, just past the halfway point. Even Hitchcock had occasional misses with movies like "Under Capricorn," "Marnie," and "Family Plot."

Getting 11 films in a row, let alone the first 11 films your company made, right is almost a statistical anomaly. There is only one explanation for it. Unflinching belief in the story you are telling, unwavering support and a single minded dedication to excellence from all levels of the company. That dedication to the quality of the story is what makes John Lasseter the most best thing to happen to animated film since Walt Disney.

When I heard about "Toy Story 3," let alone "Toy Story 3-D," I cringed a little. Going back to the well a third time has been disastrous of late. Seeing "Spider Man," "The X-Men," "The Matrix," "Alien," "Terminator," "Pirates of the Caribbean," even "The Godfather," all fell apart with ill advised third chapters. Why should "Toy Story 3," be any different?

John Fucking Lasseter, that's why.

All of the above failed because they were unnecessary. Not that there are some movies that are needed, but there was nothing in their stories that really wanted to be told. Some were bullshit third chapters following up pointless cliffhangers, but the information in them had no real weight or baring.

I imagine Lasseter staring into the face of such weak and cliché story telling and growling, "Not on my watch!"

"Toy Story 3" answers the inevitable question that faces every person growing up. You all know The Bible verse, "When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." How does one do that? Everyone has one childhood toy that meant every bit of the world to them. You had one, don't try and say you didn't. You slept with it, you talked to it, you anthropomorphized it, and then one day, you had to put it away. But how does one do that? This was a story that, at least in the world of the films NEEDED to be told. That necessity is what makes it such an outstanding work.

The toys in the "Toy Story" movies have become like that one cherished item from our childhood. They aren't just plastic or cloth, they are friends with personalities who love us.

For 11 straight films Pixar has been able to combine comedy for kids, comedy for adults, and amazing emotional depth into films that don't just manipulate your emotions for 100 minutes, but stay with you long after. In that sense, this movie is squarely in their wheelhouse.

We begin with a montage of the toys growing up with Andy and fade to the now grown up boy preparing to go to college. There are only three real possibilities. Attic storage, donation to a day care, or being thrown out.

When they end up in the day care center by mistake Woody is determined to get back to Andy. His only aim, as it was for the other two was to get back to their owner, because his job is to be there for him. Now, I won't spoil anything more, but this movie has some incredible depth to it. The theme of abandonment and staying true to your friends runs to the bone in this film and it is handled with more depth and emotion than I have ever seen in a film.

This might just be the freshness of it, but this stands out as, if not the best thing Pixar has done, than at the very least the best of the "Toy Story" movies.

There are times when it is difficult to watch, but in the end it does what all good movies of this sort do. It awakens that part of you that wishes it never had to put those childish things away.

Ok, I watched two movies tonight starring actors I have a troubled history with. I really, really want to like John Travolta, and I really do like Jodie Foster and am tired of seeing terrible things happen to her for my entertainment. Neither of those issues were resolved tonight.

For starters I saw "From Paris With Love," which features not only a baffling title and a strangely unnecessary "Pulp Fiction," Royale with Cheese reference (by the by in Paris it is called a Royal Cheese, not a Royale with Cheese, come on DAMN IT!), but John Rhys Meyers doing the impossible by sporting worse facial hair than me.

I kind of pull for Travolta because he kind of reminds me of Burt Reynolds, only less creepy and unlikeable. You see Travolta remains famous despite the fact that (to paraphrase Robert Wuhl, God help me) that he has appeared in so many bad movies that if someone else makes a bad movie they have to pay him a royalty. He seems like a good guy who can't say no to his agent, and his agent is a very dumb child.

This movie wasn't terrible, it just wasn't very good. Travolta plays a bad ass special forces type agent who has a short amount of time to... Well, he shoots some Chinese people, and some guys who have cocaine, and somehow stumbles on a plot to bomb a... it really doesn't matter, does it?

The problem I had was that I just didn't really buy Travolta in the role. It was interesting and all that, put together well, and there was a lot of stuff going on, but it really felt like John saw a big paycheck and that was it. It's not bad if you're looking for something to have on while you drink yourself stupid, like I did tonight.

Oh, and on the subject of Rhys Meyers, whenever I see him all I can think of is the time my friend Ken tried to describe a movie he was in where, "Clive Owen plays this guy, and someone boofs his brother and he comes to town and kills them. I think it was called, 'Don't Boof My Brother Or I'll Kill you.'" The movie was actually, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," but Rhys Meyers does get Boofed, and that is all I see him as.

(Apologies to anyone who has been Boofed and doesn't appreciate that comment.)

The second was "The Brave One." As I've said, I like Jodie Foster quite a bit, and somewhere between "Taxi Driver," and "The Accused," I kind of had my fill of bad things happening to her. I was told that in this movie she does all the killing, and it's awesome and all that.

Something bad does happen to her in this though, she appeared in it. This is a very typical Hollywood revenge film. Someone has something bad happen to them and they decide to arm themselves for defense. From that point on everywhere that person goes a terrible crime occurs that leaves them no choice but to start throwing lead and dropping fools.

This felt like "Death Wish," but more PC. I really wanted to like it, I just didn't.

I would have though that all the beer I had tonight would have made these films more bearable. It did not.