The Film Thugs Movie Show

For starters:

1) Yes that is a tattoo of Alfred Hitchcock on my arm.

2) It is real.

3) I got it free because I got another tattoo on Hitchcock's birthday, and I mentioned wanting this. When we looked it up online we discovered it was his birthday and the artist threw it in for free.

After placing the movie "Disturbia" on my worst remakes list I began to feel a bit hypocritical because I hadn't actually seen it. I know that my reason was valid and I stand by it. You simply cannot place Hitchcock in a flashy packaged throwaway popcorn film. Many of the stories he told could be remade today and fare quite well depending entirely on who wrote and directed them, who starred in them, and how they were handled.

The problem is matching all the components together and making a film that is intended to reframe a story in a similar modern world. Sadly, there are very few directors I could think of being able to pull this off. Actually, I could only think of one. I know I've been harping on this film a bit lately, but after watching "Inception," the idea of Nolan directing DiCaprio in a reworking of North By Northwest doesn't sound terrible. If not Leo then someone like Clooney, maybe Clive Owen. The important question is director.

In this particular instance, where the themes of deception, shifting reality, distrust, a hero choosing to become a hero, mistaken identities, and moral relativism I can think of no director better suited to handle it.

As he made a billion dollars on one film, he is one of three who could pull it off. The other two being Sam Rami (Sony owes him some creative license for what he made them off Spiderman), and Spielberg (because he could tell a studio he wanted to release his home movies and they would let him). These men not only have the talent, because there are many other equally talented filmmakers out there, but they have the license to make something that is risky and have a studio back them. Sadly, there are not many directors who have this clout. And that is what it takes, clout.

Now, let us talk "Disturbia."

D.J. Caruso is a talented director. His work on "The Salton Sea," and "The Shield," show that he has the ability to handle intense subject matter and suspenseful scenes. The writers were fairly untested, having done mostly TV and some small features before. These were men that were lucky to have this opportunity and could be pushed around by the studio a bit. This isn't about their talent, but rather what games they had to play to get the film released.

Before I get into plot and mechanics let's talk cast. I hate to say it, but I like Shia LaBeouf more than I want to admit. He seems like a cool kid who got lucky with his career. Watch season two of "Project Greenlight," and you will see that he is a funny and enthusiastic young actor who really enjoys what he's doing and does what he can to make the movie the best it can be. This is a guy who skipped meals on an overnight shoot to work on his scene and had to be forced to take a break by the director, so I have no problem with him. Nor do I have a problem with Sarah Roemer. She is attractive and does a good job. So does the rest of the cast, even Aron Yoo gave a decent performance as the annoying as hell Asian sidekick.

The problem with the main cast is that they are stepping into huge, iconic shoes. Shia, no matter how likeable, fades into nothing in the shadow of Jimmy Stewart, at least not at this point in his career. And Sarah, though talented and hot, cannot compare to Grace Kelly. It's too much to ask for someone like me to not draw unfavorable comparisons here. I know that I often stress that films have to be viewed on their own, but we're talking Stewart and Kelly! I just can't do it.

Now, the basic story is the same. A guy is stuck at home for a long period and goes a bit stir crazy. One night he thinks he hears something and begins to suspect a strange, solitary neighbor of being a murderer (in this case a serial killer who fled Texas years earlier).

In one movie we have Jimmy Stewart as L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies, a globe trekking photographer who badly broke his leg while photographing an accident at a car race, and is stuck in his apartment while it heals.

In the other we have Kale, a troubled young man who recently lost his father and is under house arrest after striking a teacher and can't go more than 100 feet from his monitoring station without the police coming.

This fundamental difference changes a lot of things between the two. In "Rear Window," Jeff cannot get away, at all. He can't even get up the three steps to his apartment door to lock it if the need arises and he has to sleep in the living room because he can't get through to his bedroom for the same reason. Imagine what that would do to you. Months of three walls and a row of windows. No television, just the world inside his apartment building set to whatever soundtrack he has on hand, or is played by one of his neighbors.

In "Disturbia," Kale is restricted to a rather large house and into his yard. He can move about freely and if there is any trouble, all he has to do is set foot into the street and the police will come in a matter of minutes. I know that being stuck at home sucks, but this is a guy who has cable television, an X-Box, friends who can come over. There isn't a complete obstruction of movement, just the inconvenience of living his normal life in a rather nice house and a beautiful front patio.

This leads to problem number two. Jefferies was suffering from insane cabin fever. He is a man accustomed to living out of a suitcase and going to wildly exotic locations as part of his daily life. We meet him at the end of his cast wearing time, so we know that he has been stuck in that room for a long time and all he can do is look out of the rear window into the courtyard. All of this is set up in less than one minute and about four lines of dialogue. Everything is communicated. His adventurist life is shown through photographs, the people he watches are shown in a quick panning shot, and we know about the cast when a friend congratulates him on getting it removed and he comments that he still has one week before he can, "emerge from his plaster cocoon."

On the other hand, it takes "Disturbia' over half an hour before we get to Kale's house arrest, and only a few minutes past that before he is spying on his neighbors and going nuts. The set up is very long and completely unnecessary. We get his close relationship with his father, and his fathers death in a car accident Kale blames himself for. The odd thing about this is that as important as his father is made out to be in the opening, he is not mentioned at all after about the one hour point. He is just dropped like a convenient plot device that lost his usefulness. Oh, and as for cabin fever, we don't really get much of this and it could have been done so easily.

How? Well, all mom does is cancel his X-Box live and his iTunes account, leaving him with just his computer and the big TV downstairs, and just playing X-Box with friends or by himself. His behavior doesn't change. This could be fixed by one simple move. It is set up that he is a bit of a messy kid whose room is always a mess. If they had implied some time passage and shown his room, and the entire house, to be spotlessly, obsessive compulsively organized this would show a change. It's out of character, yes, but it show just how bored he is and the obsessive nature of it would communicate how it's impacting his emotional state. All he wants is something, anything to keep him busy.

Oh, and the camera leaving the house kills the claustrophobic feel the film needs to work right. That's the beauty of "Rear Window." Not only does Jeff feel isolated and twitchy, we start to feel that and suddenly his insanity seems reasonable because we know how he feels so much that we become just like him, sitting there, watching everything, and hoping that a man murdered his wife just for the change of pace that would bring.

That is the essence of how this film doesn't work. The most brilliant idea "Rear Window" puts forward is that we, the viewers, are the biggest voyeurs in the relationship. We are no better than Jeff. We sit there peering into his world of peering into the worlds of others and find ourselves wanting more of them for our own entertainment. He, like us, doesn't even know the names of his neighbors. They are simply a collection of characteristics that he can observe.

We are never invited into that position in "Disturbia." Kale knows his neighbors by name, and instead of the curious involvement of Jeff he is completely detached from these actual people he knows. It lowers an already questionable act to the level of Peeping Tomery.

The biggest flaw with "Disturbia" is the lack of mystery about the suspected killer. In "Rear Window," we become part of Jeff's world for the simple fact that we have no idea if a crime actually took place. We are spying into a world that we don't really know anything about, and because of that we are seeing actions from his somewhat skewed point of view. We interpret what is happening in the most exciting way possible because that is what Jeff does, and we don't know any better. "Disturbia," however, takes that away from us. We know without question that the neighbor is a killer. Us knowing more than Kale, in this instance, is a hindrance. There is no building of suspense or tension, we know that he has to be proven right. In "Rear Window" it was completely possible that Thorwald, the neighbor, did nothing wrong and Jeff was just reading into things out of boredom. The simple possibility of that made the film a thousand times more intense.

In the end, "Disturbia" becomes a victim of the studio system that made it happen. What could have been a very fresh and intense retelling of a classic became a watered down, flashy, and predictably disappointing fast food product. It's like the new Burger King ribs. Yeah, they're technically the same "meat" you would get at The County Line, but really, all you're eating is processed crap pressed into a shape that reminds you of something much, much better.

Jim here,

I am challenged right now. How do I write a spoiler free movie that is almost impossible to spoil? By that I mean a film whose outcome is less important than how that outcome is reached.

For years I have bemoaned the lack of challenging films that are entertaining. Most films are either entertaining and require no mental effort aside from our automatic breathing function and consciousness, or require a tremendous amount of thought and concentration while lacking much in the way of entertainment or spectacle.

Orson Welles use to say that if he were given total artistic freedom he could make a better movie than "Citizen Kane." Think about that. A movie that is considered. by many, the finest film ever made wasn't enough. He knew he could grow. So, what happens when a director makes enough money for a studio that the studio gives them an almost unlimited budget to do with as he pleases. Well, you get James Cameron and "Avatar." That was all we had.... until now.

Thank God for Chris Nolan. His career has been spent fusing these two things. From his early work in "Following ,"and "Memento," through some transitional things like "Insomnia" and "The Prestige," and into his blockbuster defining turns with "Batman Begins," and "The Dark Knight," Nolan has been a man on a mission. That mission simply being to entertain people who are smart. Don't get me wrong, he isn't a "think piece" director, his films hold almost as much enjoyment for the passive viewer as the active, but you really have to be on your game to "get it."

This is a script 10 years in the writing, and it shows. The story is a complex maze where even the concept of time is subjective, but at no point does he go for a cheap fix. There is no Shamalaning (replacing genuine intrigue with twists for the sake of twists), Smithing (long expository dialogue scenes), or Baying (slick, over the top action scenes that provide little risk and less reward as they have no real baring on the story). What you do have is a lot of Hitchcockesque use of visuals to aid in the story and a plot that you have to pay attention to.

Since his debut film "Following" he has continued to evolve as a filmmaker and "Inception" is possibly the biggest jump forward I could imagine. That's right, this thing is not only the best think Nolan has made, it is one of the best films I have ever seen. The story and direction are superb, the performances are outstanding, and the music is perfect. Every aspect of this film is dead on and I couldn't be happier with the results. My expectations could not have been higher nor could they have been better met by this film.

I use the word film consciously. When I say "film" I mean a work of art that is also entertaining and thought provoking that uses film as a means to convey an amazing story that is as emotionally involving as it is intellectually stimulating. This isn't a movie, a way to pass two hours in the air conditioning while being distracted. It could be viewed that way if you want to, but you would be missing out.

This film is a labyrinth, not just a maze. Yeah, there are twists and turns, but there are also layers, many layers. Something this ambitious and complex could have been a disappointing mess in the hands of a lesser storyteller, but Nolan has the ability to lead you through it with ease, leaving you almost breathless at the end, but wanting to take the ride again.

I am hard pressed to write much more. If you've seen trailers then you know the basics, it involves dreams. That's all I want you to know going in. That's all I knew, and I am happy for that. Before seeing it I read no reviews, I saw no interviews, and I avoided all trailers after the first one.

Do yourself a favor. Go see this movie. Go now. Don't read any reviews that tell you anything about it, don't watch previews that show you cool stuff. Just go and be surprised. Pay attention and see how entertaining it can be to have a film challenge you intellectually. You will not be disappointed.

More on this on the podcast tomorrow.

Jim

So, I am a bit behind on my reviewing. Actually, quite behind. I told myself I was going to post at least every other day and.... Well, you see how that's going. Right now there are about 8 movies I've seen in the past few days but have decided review wise to start with one I finished a few minutes ago, and that lucky film is....

That's right (500) Days of Summer. I know. I am as surprised as you are by this one, in many ways. For starters I decided I wasn't going to see or enjoy this film a long time ago. There are a few things about it that hit the "NO" switch for me. Something about the parentheses in the title, the clever double entendre of the name, the genre, and the inclusion of Zooey Deschanel put this on my no fly. Oh, and it was billed as a romantic comedy, so that kind of put two in the back of its head.

Granted, I have many friends, many of whom I trust implicitly (that would be you Nancy) who told me how good it was. I just couldn't give in. At a point I started wanting to but had made such a massive prick out of myself screaming, "No, NO, NOOOO!!" that I couldn't really backtrack and save face. Then the fine folk at Sony Pictures gave me an out.

I had to see the only feature directed by the man Sony thought was the right choice to replace Sam Raimi to direct the next Spider Man. It was perfect. Here we are talking about one of the biggest film franchises EVER, directed by a man who has been a cult sensation from his first film. I was clean off the hook.

Don't get me wrong. I realize how empty this excuse is. The director of the next Spider Man is about as important as who'll be catering it. Not that the director isn't important, but come on! This is Spider Man and Sony just cut loose the guy who built the franchise out of a giant pile of money. They need a guy who has a taste of success and some amount of skill who will do what he is told.

So, that aside I watched (500) Days of Summer and was completely blown away. Now, this isn't a piece of genre defining, paradigm shifting filmmaking. What it is, is a very impressive piece of filmmaking that is both visually impressive, but also stylistically and narratively inventive, engaging, and ballsy. That's right, ballsy. They tell you up front that you are not watching a love story. They invite you along and tell you that what you are seeing is doomed and you stay right there with them.

On it's most basic level this is the story of Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a greeting card writer who enters into a relationship with Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel). We see them come together and fall apart. Now, were this a standard narrative it wouldn't have much impact. However it shifts back and forth throughout the 500 days of the relationship, many times not giving you the context for what you are seeing until much later, thrusting you back and forth through the upheaval of a relationship with someone who isn't really as into it as you are. So the whole "romantic comedy" thing was basically just bullshit.

This film takes HUGE chances and they pay off. It plays not only with non linear, but shifting perspective on scenes, and very inventive split screen. While it is all told from Tom's point of view the use of non linear allows his perspective to change and gives us a new way of seeing something we thought we understood.

There are some parts of this movie that are painful, especially if you've ever been in a relationship with someone who has checked out while you were still fully invested. But that makes it all the more powerful.

I can see how this appears to be one of those "free spirited woman shows the up tight guy how to really live" type movies like "Garden State." That is something else I held against it. It isn't that kind of movie.

One of the reasons I thought this is the presence of the female lead. Zooey Deschanel is not one of my favorite actresses. I don't know if it's her style or just the parts but she always seems disconnected, ambivalent, and almost apathetic. For some reason that puts her in the "free spirit" role. She's always seemed kind of blank to me. Strange thing, that works perfectly in this part. There is a distance she communicates that is integral to the film as a hole.

The real stand out performance to me was Chloe Moretz (Hit Girl from Kick Ass, and star of the upcoming remake of "Let the Right One In.") as Tom's little sister who is not only his advisor and confidant, but the crisis intervention specialist his friends call in. She was 12 at the time this came out, but I honestly think she is just a short 30 year old. There is a maturity to the way she talks and carries herself that really makes it hard to believe she is that young. This isn't some kid saying grown up lines getting an "awww! Ain't that cute?" from the audience. It feels more like you're watching one of those parent/kid switch bodies movies from a different point of view. She is remarkable and I look forward to seeing more from her.

The other performances are fantastic. Gordon-Levitt is great, as usual. Geoffrey Arned of Super Troopers and being married to Christine Hendricks fame stands out particularly well as Tom's best friend. There are others, but that shit would get repetitive fast. Let me just throw out a blanket the supporting cast was superb line and be done with it.

In short, I really liked this movie. I liked it more than I though I would and I wish I had seen it sooner. I think you will like it if you let yourself. There are some cutesy things but they work with the style and aren't annoyingly so. More than anything, I think this is a movie most people can relate to on a very real level and that is a very hard thing to achieve.

Double Downer Documentary Review

School is out and I am living the film lovers dream. I stay up late, sleep as much as I want and watch whatever movies I feel like watching whenever I feel like watching them. So I thought, what better way to kick this season off than two thoroughly depressing documentaries? In less than 24 hours I watched "The Cove," and "The Bridge," and I figured that instead of throwing two different piles of depression at your feet I might as well rip off the band aid and get it all out of the way in one painful shot.

"The Cove"

Two things. First this is a very, VERY one sided movie that borders on propaganda. Second, it is a very good movie that is very one sided and borders on propaganda. For those unaware, this is a movie about the city of Taiji, Japan where every year dolphins are driven from their natural migratory route into a cove where they are made available for purchase to different water parks around the world. This part is public knowledge and people from all over the world got o see the adorable bottle nosed dolphins go through the selection process. What is less than public is how the remaining dolphins are then moved to a hidden cove to the side and slaughtered, and I do mean slaughtered.

This is a fascinating documentary in many ways, mostly because of how most of the footage is obtained. We are not talking Michael Moore ambush tactics, we are talking James Bond style shit. They work with free divers, military grade night vision and thermal cameras, custom designed fake rock camera enclosures and get some of the most striking and disturbing footage I have ever seen.

"The Cove" is also very unique in how it is structured. This is more of a thriller than a conventional documentary. The level of clandestine operating that goes into it is outright stunning. There are moments of absolute dread in it as people are sneaking into highly restricted areas to plant cameras so that they might expose this horror to the world. It is very powerful and affecting. By and large this cloak and dagger angle is played up considerably and kind of leaves the other aspects of their message behind.

I did like this movie but I do have some problems with it. My problems are summed up this way. Imagine a group of foreigners, lets go with Italians, snuck into the US, broke US laws, and made a move about the cattle industry for release outside of the US saying "look at how horrible you are! YOU NEED TO STOP!" Would that bother you? The reaction here would be similar to how the Japanese react to it. First, it's not in my language and therefore not made for me. Second, that is kind of a rude thing to do. Third, the Japanese don't really care about what the world thinks when it comes to whaling and killing dolphins. If this were made to really get the attention of the Japanese it would probably be in Japanese and try to get the people to change how they approach these things. Approach them gently and respectfully and appeal to their decency. This was made to get people outside of Japan upset and try to force change from the outside. I am not trying to start any shit here, I am just throwing this out there for though.

There is an agenda here but it kind of gets lost in the flash of the production. They shift from how wrong it is to kill dolphins this way to how wrong it is to kill whales to the danger of mercury in dolphins that is somehow not present in whales to the corruption of Japan in getting countries to side with them on the international whaling commission. Were this a movie solely about "The Cove," as the title might lead one to believe, then it should focus entirely on what happens there.

That is the problem I have with this film. I liked it and was incredibly moved by it, but the impact it had was purely visceral. Even now it is difficult to focus on what the message was other than "Japan is bad for doing this." It is pretty scattershot and very one sided.

In the end what you have is a movie that will evoke strong emotions and reinforce opinions you already had. I think a more focused approach might give the film's impact more staying power.

This is very much the way of modern documentary. The filmmakers become the subject, you are fed their opinions, and the audience gets taken in by a slickly packaged piece of propaganda (I am not using this term in a derogatory way, it is a simple statement of fact).

But I did find it very entertaining and affecting.

"The Bridge"

My mother is from the Bay Area and as a result I have grown up with a very romanticized and poetic view of San Francisco and areas outlying. My grandfather actually owned a construction company there and was responsible for much of the beautiful skyline. That beauty is a big part of what makes this movie so powerful.

Put simply, this is a movie about the people who choose The Golden Gate Bridge to commit suicide. The question that permeates the film is why is such a beautiful, idyllic location the most popular suicide spot in the world. There is an average of one suicide there every two weeks, and over 1200 have been recorded.

The filmmakers set up cameras in areas around the bridge and using telephoto lenses watched people on the bridge for a year. In the end they recorded 23 of the 24 known suicides committed that year. I know this might seem ghoulish, I know you are thinking why didn't they do something to stop them. Well, yes it is a bit ghoulish, but these are people who are choosing a very public, very tourist and family popular spot to do this. In many ways they are consenting to be filmed when they decide to jump. The reason they don't do anything to stop them is that until they jump, all they are doing is walking across the bridge by themselves.

Somehow this film pulls off the amazing feat of dancing the fine line between being tactlessly morbid and remarkably sensitive, between being deeply disturbing and viscerally fascinating.

There are interviews with the friends and family members of the jumpers caught on film. There are interviews with people who witnessed the jumpers and one man who pulled someone back from the edge. This movie quietly stays with you. This might seem an odd statement, but it is fitting. This won't cause a breakdown or shatter your view of the world, but the awareness of how present the darkness felt by some people is cannot be denied. You are forced to reconcile the image of this stunningly gorgeous monument to human endeavor sitting above one of the most strikingly beautiful areas on the planet with the sadness of people choosing to end their lives.

I did speak with my mother about this film and she told me that she knew someone who had a parent end their life there when she was younger. Her history, however, did not shut her off to the film, rather it made her more interested in seeing it.

Before this movie The Golden Gate Bridge always brought images of family and cold breezes in the middle of summer and cable car rides and Ghirardelli chocolate. I guess what this movie does is make you realize that there is more than one way to look at anything, and that sometimes we are blind to the pain felt by those walking right beside us.

Judd Apatow is getting serious in the oddest way. Last year around this time he released "Funny People," a movie I wish that I would have written. Not because of the money or anything, but because it hit a chord with me that I would love to hit with others. It was this blending of comedy, drama, and tragedy that I found fascinating. The balance he struck between the performance world of comedians and the struggles that occur offstage was extremely moving. There was a humanity he revealed behind that curtain that has not really been captured before. This isn't the world of the "sad clown," this is the world of the fucked up, self loathing man who gets just about anything he wants when he wants it and how empty that leaves him.

Almost a year later he delivers, "Get Him To The Greek." Now, this is an Apatow production, but he didn't direct it, and that might be to its detriment. Instead we get Nick Stoller of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" fame in a spin off of that film that shares many similarities with Apatow's "Funny People.

How? Well, it is the story of a young man in a certain industry who is struggling to get a foothold who stumbles on a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend time with a seasoned vet and ends up getting closer to that person while learning about life and how to really succeed.

In "Greek," we get Jonah Hill playing Aaron Green, a young record exec who is struggling to get ahead while maintaining his relationship with his doctor girlfriend. He stumbles onto an opportunity to escort his musical idol from London to New York and on to Los Angeles for a much hyped concert. That's the basic outline. Throw in the hard partying, drug using, manipulative nature of Aldus Snow, the rock star in question, and things quickly go to hell from there.

But there is a bit more going on here than that. This movie, in a word, is schizophrenic. It starts out as a straight comedy and takes a hard turn into serious, then back to comedy, then back to serious. From an emotional standpoint, this is a tough movie to follow. The drama and comedy are so different from each other and switch back and forth so quickly that it is a bit jarring.

Don't get me wrong. I like this movie, not as much as I liked "Funny People," but I did like it. Apatow has a much subtler touch and might have guided things a little more smoothly. Stoller is a much more frenetic style and things just slam into each other instead of flowing. Don't get me wrong, it is a difficult thing to accomplish, but in a movie like this that balance is necessary.

Now, the performances are outstanding. Russell Brand as rock star Aldus Snow is dead on. He embodies the old school rock and roll lifestyle to absolute perfection. The absolute seriousness with which he takes himself, the cluelessness about the real world, the inability to relate to anyone who is anything but a sycophant is brilliantly played. He is rock and roll. Jonah Hill plays the same part he always plays and plays it well.

The real problem is that it seemed like this film was stuck between two possible scenarios. Most of what happens in the trailer is not in the film which leads me to the conclusion that, like Anchorman, there were a few different story ideas played with during the filming and what we got was put together after the fact. There is a balancing act between a "stuffy guy meets free spirit who teaches him how to live," and a "successful man with demons is missing the woman who could make him happy," line. The jumping back and forth shows some weakness.

Again, the parts that work, work really well. The parts that don't feel slightly unnecassary but don't ruin the film, the just kind of weigh it down. It just feels like there is too much going on. Had they not done as much with the wife and kid angle they could have focused more on the relationship between Aldus and Aaron there could have been a much tighter and altogether stronger film.

Basically I liked it, but I felt as though there was a movie in there somewhere I would have liked more.