The Next Three Days and The Shawshank Redemption are two dark films that deal with prison and prison escape. They follow men and women in and out of prison and tread the lines between innocence and guilt. John Brennan in The Next Three Days is desperately trying to free his wife from prison. Andrew "Andy" Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption is desperately trying not to lose his mind and spirit in prison. The wife in The Next Three Days goes thorough a similar ordeal in prison as Andy and his prison friend Red, although her movie doesn’t go anywhere near as in-depth in prison and her sentence ends up being much shorter. Both films deal with normal people in deeply rough times as they go through spirit-crushing experiences.
Isolation is a large theme in the films. The characters don’t have that many people who they can depend on. The movies’ heroes are ones who we root for because they are sympathetic and have to survive the worst of this world’s challenges by themselves. The Shawshank Redemption is longer so there is more time for dense character development. It also delves farther into what prison-life is like. I believe that is something that The Next Three Days could’ve benefited from. We would’ve rooted more for Lara, John’s wife, if we had known more about what she went through exactly. Both Andy and John endure intense bodily harm, but ironically Andy is the one who doesn’t respond with much violence even though he is inside prison walls and John isn’t. Andy uses his wit to find ways to solve his problems all by himself. John, without using anyone to consult solves his own problem. He gets money by killing instead of being overly creative. You’d think he would figure another way because he is a college professor, but desperate people can do desperate things.
Both movies are compelling at times, but I constantly found myself more compelled with The Shawshank Redemption because of the clever storytelling and unusual characters. Both are definitely comparable because of the settings and the desperate situations. There are also prison escapes in both. Hope, victimization and time running out are the three most memorable themes I believe that the films have in common. The prison system and its faults, just like many things, are rough facts of life that art will continue to imitate. It’s a good thing it will because it always keeps films grounded in the tough truths of humanity.
12.11.2010
12.10.2010
The Next Three Days
Review Contains Spoilers!
The final new film we saw in the Film Criticism and Review class was “The Next Three Days.” Russell Crowe plays John Brennan, a man who becomes desperate to break his wife Lara out of prison. Lara, played by Elizabeth Banks, stresses to John that she is innocent of murdering her boss after a fight with him at work. He believes her all the way and takes on a hefty plan of action to break her out. He evens consults a man, played by Liam Neeson, who successfully broke out of prison more than once and wrote a book about it. The film takes place in present-day Pittsburgh. It’s directed by acclaimed director and screenwriter Paul Haggis, who was the director of 2005’s Best Picture winner Crash. The Next Three days is a tense drama that is based on 2007 French film Pour Elle by Fred Cavayé.
John goes through some hard, life-changing situations on his quest to set his wife free. He tries to get passports and ends up getting beat down for it. Lucky enough, a man who was in a bar earlier, when he was just beginning to track down some people who could help him, later finds him and gets him what he needs. I thought this was a little convenient. I mean, who knows, but a solution came to his doorstep only a little ways into his endeavor and it just seemed a little too fast for me. He also finds solutions to his other problems fairly quickly, including his money problem. The man that had broken out of prison before had told John that he would need a truckload of money in order to build a new life somewhere far away. He steals a ton of money after a shootout with a gang in a methamphetamine lab that he barely keeps from blowing up, even though the place erupts in flames. John falsifies medical evidence with medical info that he gets from a truck he breaks into by using a hot tennis ball trick, which has actually been disproven by the television show Mythbusters. His wife is transferred to a hospital because of this. He then amazingly subdues a guard outside where his wife is and escapes with her. The suspense throughout the film is good, but I just think that more time should’ve been spent on him trying to figure his plan out. I would’ve loved for details to have been perfected for believability’s sake and for John to have been more of a nervous wreck so that Russell Crowe’s acting could’ve shined.
The acting in the film is good, but I feel that several phenomenal actors were wasted in large part due to the script. Things move too quickly and the characters don’t feel too well developed. The wife has a fit near the beginning, but other than that she doesn’t get to express herself very much. Russell Crowe does a fitting job, but like I mentioned earlier, he doesn’t come off as anyone that really pulls you into the story the way he could’ve. Another actor with an extremely small part is James Ransone who plays Harv, one of the thugs that beats up John early on. Mr. Ransone has been handed amazing roles in Ken Park, The Wire and Generation Kill, but he is totally wasted as a dirtbag who has just about one line.
All in all I wasn’t terribly impressed. Paul Haggis should know better too, being the skilled filmmaker that he is. I haven’t seen the original French movie, but I bet you anything it’s better. That tends to be the case and I’m not sure why. I suppose most remakes are just made out of laziness instead of real intent to make a film better. My final ruling is a 1.5 out of 5.
The final new film we saw in the Film Criticism and Review class was “The Next Three Days.” Russell Crowe plays John Brennan, a man who becomes desperate to break his wife Lara out of prison. Lara, played by Elizabeth Banks, stresses to John that she is innocent of murdering her boss after a fight with him at work. He believes her all the way and takes on a hefty plan of action to break her out. He evens consults a man, played by Liam Neeson, who successfully broke out of prison more than once and wrote a book about it. The film takes place in present-day Pittsburgh. It’s directed by acclaimed director and screenwriter Paul Haggis, who was the director of 2005’s Best Picture winner Crash. The Next Three days is a tense drama that is based on 2007 French film Pour Elle by Fred Cavayé.
John goes through some hard, life-changing situations on his quest to set his wife free. He tries to get passports and ends up getting beat down for it. Lucky enough, a man who was in a bar earlier, when he was just beginning to track down some people who could help him, later finds him and gets him what he needs. I thought this was a little convenient. I mean, who knows, but a solution came to his doorstep only a little ways into his endeavor and it just seemed a little too fast for me. He also finds solutions to his other problems fairly quickly, including his money problem. The man that had broken out of prison before had told John that he would need a truckload of money in order to build a new life somewhere far away. He steals a ton of money after a shootout with a gang in a methamphetamine lab that he barely keeps from blowing up, even though the place erupts in flames. John falsifies medical evidence with medical info that he gets from a truck he breaks into by using a hot tennis ball trick, which has actually been disproven by the television show Mythbusters. His wife is transferred to a hospital because of this. He then amazingly subdues a guard outside where his wife is and escapes with her. The suspense throughout the film is good, but I just think that more time should’ve been spent on him trying to figure his plan out. I would’ve loved for details to have been perfected for believability’s sake and for John to have been more of a nervous wreck so that Russell Crowe’s acting could’ve shined.
The acting in the film is good, but I feel that several phenomenal actors were wasted in large part due to the script. Things move too quickly and the characters don’t feel too well developed. The wife has a fit near the beginning, but other than that she doesn’t get to express herself very much. Russell Crowe does a fitting job, but like I mentioned earlier, he doesn’t come off as anyone that really pulls you into the story the way he could’ve. Another actor with an extremely small part is James Ransone who plays Harv, one of the thugs that beats up John early on. Mr. Ransone has been handed amazing roles in Ken Park, The Wire and Generation Kill, but he is totally wasted as a dirtbag who has just about one line.
All in all I wasn’t terribly impressed. Paul Haggis should know better too, being the skilled filmmaker that he is. I haven’t seen the original French movie, but I bet you anything it’s better. That tends to be the case and I’m not sure why. I suppose most remakes are just made out of laziness instead of real intent to make a film better. My final ruling is a 1.5 out of 5.
12.09.2010
Due Date & Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Due Date and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are two on-road-comedies about two different sets of men who are strangers traveling across country together in order to get to different places. They follow the two sets of men over several days while they find their way to where they’re going, with lots of mishaps along the way. Both Ethan Tremblay and Del Griffith are the wild, joyful counter-parts to the main straight-men they are traveling with. Both of them are also the instigators in their long cross-country trips with strangers. They are also the reasons, in large part, that Peter Highman and Neal Page are forced to end up traveling with them. Due Date and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are two very similar cross-country trip comedies with a funny man and a straight man that fit the times in which they were made.
The first similarities you’ll notice when comparing the two films are the settings. Del and Ethan both accidently help screw up their future traveling partners’ day outside an airport. Hilarity then ensues on the actual plane with the unlikely pairs being seated together. Both sets of guys also end up off the flight before reaching their destinations. Peter and Ethan get kicked off their flight, but Neal and Del’s plane is forced to land early. The cities that these scenes happen in are different too, but you wouldn’t exactly know it if you didn’t pay close attention. They end up sharing a motel room, which doesn’t go as planned of course. There are also many similar diners that the characters stop to eat at along their treks.
Situations is something I addressed a little bit in the previous paragraph, but not every in-depth. Peter and Neal both get robbed of their money, however in PTaA, Del gets robbed too and in Due Date, Ethan is the one that actually robs Peter. The characters also end up relating in very different ways. The characters relate at times in obvious, sentimental ways in Due Date and it is more subtle in Planes & Trains. Neal takes longer to warm up to Del also, even though he is less hard-edged than Peter from Due Date. One other difference in the situations of the films is that in Due Date, the men intentionally stay together after they begin traveling together while in Planes & Trains, the men keep running into one another. The protagonists in the films have car trouble caused the buffoonery of their films’ wild men as well.
Due Date and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are amazingly similar comedies from different decades. Because Due Date was made so long after PTaA, some might consider it a rip-off. However there is enough different for it to be considered a good travel comedy in its own right. Both films have a strong layer of depth under their comedy exteriors, making them fun and relatable at the same time.
The first similarities you’ll notice when comparing the two films are the settings. Del and Ethan both accidently help screw up their future traveling partners’ day outside an airport. Hilarity then ensues on the actual plane with the unlikely pairs being seated together. Both sets of guys also end up off the flight before reaching their destinations. Peter and Ethan get kicked off their flight, but Neal and Del’s plane is forced to land early. The cities that these scenes happen in are different too, but you wouldn’t exactly know it if you didn’t pay close attention. They end up sharing a motel room, which doesn’t go as planned of course. There are also many similar diners that the characters stop to eat at along their treks.
Situations is something I addressed a little bit in the previous paragraph, but not every in-depth. Peter and Neal both get robbed of their money, however in PTaA, Del gets robbed too and in Due Date, Ethan is the one that actually robs Peter. The characters also end up relating in very different ways. The characters relate at times in obvious, sentimental ways in Due Date and it is more subtle in Planes & Trains. Neal takes longer to warm up to Del also, even though he is less hard-edged than Peter from Due Date. One other difference in the situations of the films is that in Due Date, the men intentionally stay together after they begin traveling together while in Planes & Trains, the men keep running into one another. The protagonists in the films have car trouble caused the buffoonery of their films’ wild men as well.
Due Date and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are amazingly similar comedies from different decades. Because Due Date was made so long after PTaA, some might consider it a rip-off. However there is enough different for it to be considered a good travel comedy in its own right. Both films have a strong layer of depth under their comedy exteriors, making them fun and relatable at the same time.
12.07.2010
Due Date
Due Date Review
The film we saw in the most recent Film Criticism and Review class was “Due Date.” Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis lead this on-the-road comedy from the director of The Hangover. The film takes place all over, starting in Atlanta and going to Los Angeles. The main character Peter wants to witness the birth of his child but he is kicked off a plane and put on their no fly list thanks to a nitwit stranger. He ends up taking a ride with that stranger all the way home because he loses his wallet he is desperate. Due Date is a severely bi-polar crude comedy that often drifts into drama because of the heartfelt characters.
The movie begins with the two characters not getting along so well, but making the best of their situation. Peter and his traveling buddy Ethan come to know each other along the way. Peter belittles Ethan when Ethan tells him that he wants to be an actor. He sympathizes with Ethan however when he sees that Ethan is broken-hearted over his father’s recent death. Ethan carries around his father’s ashes which later factors into the film’s hijinks. The film is all over the map in its brands of comedy. Things go from mildly realistic, to sappy, to extremely crude, to highly violent, to absurd and then finally to ‘laughing at the barn door’ at the end. They eventually become true friends in the film, even though the relationship is still highly strained. Peter gets saved by Ethan, then betrayed by him and then the relationship bonds one last time when Ethan gets a wounded Peter to the hospital to see his child being born.
Like I mentioned above, the direction in which the film takes its comedy makes strange turns. The best example of this is when Peter gets detained for drug-possession at the Mexican border and Ethan manages to hijack the trailer that Peter is being held in. He fights off the Mexican police in his car and they end up on the run in a Border Police truck. This takes the film in direction that makes the whole thing far less believable and it didn’t even warrant one laugh as I recall in the theater. This might very well be the part where the film ‘jumped the shark’. I found the drug trip that the two protagonists when through in the previous scene to be a lot funnier and more appropriate to the story. Peter imagining Ethan as a bear driving their vehicle was probably the funniest point in Due Date for me. I feel like that is where it reached its peak and it sort of drifted downwards from there.
The acting is quite good on the parts of both Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. Downey Jr. has established himself as a serious actor over the past two decades with impressive performances in films such as Good Night, and Good Luck; Iron Man; Zodiac; and Tropic Thunder. Galifianakis, however, is known for just being a comedian who doesn’t take himself too seriously so we just expect laughs from him. He does deliver, however the script isn’t exactly up to par. Aside from comedic skills, his actual acting is surprisingly good. He is a very competent actor and this helps him be the perfect foil for Robert Downey Jr. Jamie Foxx has a cameo as well and does a competent job. Foxx doesn’t really add anything however.
All in all I moderately enjoyed this film. The actors carry the film, so thank heavens we have two wonderful actors whom are very versatile. I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars. I laughed at several points and it had truly awesome cinematography.
The film we saw in the most recent Film Criticism and Review class was “Due Date.” Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis lead this on-the-road comedy from the director of The Hangover. The film takes place all over, starting in Atlanta and going to Los Angeles. The main character Peter wants to witness the birth of his child but he is kicked off a plane and put on their no fly list thanks to a nitwit stranger. He ends up taking a ride with that stranger all the way home because he loses his wallet he is desperate. Due Date is a severely bi-polar crude comedy that often drifts into drama because of the heartfelt characters.
The movie begins with the two characters not getting along so well, but making the best of their situation. Peter and his traveling buddy Ethan come to know each other along the way. Peter belittles Ethan when Ethan tells him that he wants to be an actor. He sympathizes with Ethan however when he sees that Ethan is broken-hearted over his father’s recent death. Ethan carries around his father’s ashes which later factors into the film’s hijinks. The film is all over the map in its brands of comedy. Things go from mildly realistic, to sappy, to extremely crude, to highly violent, to absurd and then finally to ‘laughing at the barn door’ at the end. They eventually become true friends in the film, even though the relationship is still highly strained. Peter gets saved by Ethan, then betrayed by him and then the relationship bonds one last time when Ethan gets a wounded Peter to the hospital to see his child being born.
Like I mentioned above, the direction in which the film takes its comedy makes strange turns. The best example of this is when Peter gets detained for drug-possession at the Mexican border and Ethan manages to hijack the trailer that Peter is being held in. He fights off the Mexican police in his car and they end up on the run in a Border Police truck. This takes the film in direction that makes the whole thing far less believable and it didn’t even warrant one laugh as I recall in the theater. This might very well be the part where the film ‘jumped the shark’. I found the drug trip that the two protagonists when through in the previous scene to be a lot funnier and more appropriate to the story. Peter imagining Ethan as a bear driving their vehicle was probably the funniest point in Due Date for me. I feel like that is where it reached its peak and it sort of drifted downwards from there.
The acting is quite good on the parts of both Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. Downey Jr. has established himself as a serious actor over the past two decades with impressive performances in films such as Good Night, and Good Luck; Iron Man; Zodiac; and Tropic Thunder. Galifianakis, however, is known for just being a comedian who doesn’t take himself too seriously so we just expect laughs from him. He does deliver, however the script isn’t exactly up to par. Aside from comedic skills, his actual acting is surprisingly good. He is a very competent actor and this helps him be the perfect foil for Robert Downey Jr. Jamie Foxx has a cameo as well and does a competent job. Foxx doesn’t really add anything however.
All in all I moderately enjoyed this film. The actors carry the film, so thank heavens we have two wonderful actors whom are very versatile. I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars. I laughed at several points and it had truly awesome cinematography.
11.18.2010
Megamind and Young Frankenstein Compare/Contrast
Megamind and Young Frankenstein are two monster-lead comedies with big budgets and, at times, morally ambiguous characters. Megamind is animated, while Young Frankenstein isn't, but they both have heroes whose motivations are hard to pinpoint. The characters themselves don't even understand why they due what they do most of the times. Their driving forces are their emotions which cause them to not always be likeable. Of course the films are comedies so everything has a light touch and in the end you can't help but like the title characters, Megamind and the Frankenstein monster.
Megamind is about an evil monster that is a genius, but the Monster is dim-witted at birth because of the abnormal brain he is given. Megamind's genius allows him to accomplish quite a bit including destroying his enemies (well one of them). The Monster in Young Frankenstein doensn't really have an enemy and he causes trouble without meaning to. Megamind does find himself in situations that he doesn't know how to get of though, like when he accidentally forms a relationship with Roxanne. This is similar to sympathetic situations that the Monster gets himself into such as the ones with the young girl and the hermit.
This section features spoilers. The two creatures also face rejection because they are monsters and they screw things up. Although the rejection that Megamind faces is more because he is evil, while the Monster isn't really. The Frankenstein Moster does find some encouragement though, he just usually ends up scared or confused. Megamind is actually rejected by his only real friend when he does the right thing. Despite all of this they do end up getting the girl in the end. They get them for very different reasons. Young Frankenstein takes a crude approach to the monster getting the girl, while Megamind does it in a more endearing way.
Both movies can be compared even though one is intended for younger audiences than the other. They both can be appreciated at any age however, given the right tastes. Comedies with unusual protagonists have proved themselves to me as a legit type of entertaining and relatable film. Bring more on!
Megamind is about an evil monster that is a genius, but the Monster is dim-witted at birth because of the abnormal brain he is given. Megamind's genius allows him to accomplish quite a bit including destroying his enemies (well one of them). The Monster in Young Frankenstein doensn't really have an enemy and he causes trouble without meaning to. Megamind does find himself in situations that he doesn't know how to get of though, like when he accidentally forms a relationship with Roxanne. This is similar to sympathetic situations that the Monster gets himself into such as the ones with the young girl and the hermit.
This section features spoilers. The two creatures also face rejection because they are monsters and they screw things up. Although the rejection that Megamind faces is more because he is evil, while the Monster isn't really. The Frankenstein Moster does find some encouragement though, he just usually ends up scared or confused. Megamind is actually rejected by his only real friend when he does the right thing. Despite all of this they do end up getting the girl in the end. They get them for very different reasons. Young Frankenstein takes a crude approach to the monster getting the girl, while Megamind does it in a more endearing way.
Both movies can be compared even though one is intended for younger audiences than the other. They both can be appreciated at any age however, given the right tastes. Comedies with unusual protagonists have proved themselves to me as a legit type of entertaining and relatable film. Bring more on!
11.16.2010
Megamind Review
This past Thursday we viewed the animated “Megamind” at a theater for Film Criticism and Review. Will Ferrell voices Megamind, the villain to Brad Pitt’s hero Metro Man. Tina Fey voices Roxanne Ritchi, Metro Man’s love interest who later becomes Megamind’s love interest. Jonah Hill voices Hal Stewart, Roxanne’s cameraman who later becomes the film’s antagonist Tighten who Megamind creates to replace Metro Man whom he believes is dead. Finally David Cross voices Megamind’s sidekick Minion. The comedy film takes place in the fictional Metro City where the superheroes battle it out. The evil Megamind battles the good Metro Man until Metro Man fakes his death, which leads to a series of events where Megamind ends up being the hero and getting the girl.
Megamind is an interesting story that would be great animated or not animated, but since it is animated it is allowed to be extremely wild and visually pleasing. The animation is truly awesome to look at and everything is so colorful and stylized. The city has an epic scale that I haven’t seen matched by any animated movie ever too. The heroes walk, fly, fight, and zip across it numerous times and I have to admit that a certain part on top of an Empire State Building-type place made me queasy. I can’t imagine having seen it in 3D!
The characters themselves also came off as likable, hilarious and their motivations were all understandable. No character was fully good or bad. They were all surprisingly layered. The voice-acting certainly helped along the way. Will Ferrell definitely didn’t phone-it-in like he could have and that goes for every other major player too. It helps that their voices are all pretty distinct but never distracting. I was half expecting David Cross to make a reference to how he "Blue himself" in Arrested Development because that show is what I think of when I hear his voice. The notice of the characters being voiced by celebrities went away after a while and thankfully the movie didn't have any self-conscious pop culture references. Many animated films seem to fall back on doing that nowadays so that's just another plus for this particular film in my book.
As far as criticisms go, I don’t really have many. It wasn’t as deep as say Toy Story 3, but it definitely had me caring about its characters anyway. Animated movies usually aren’t for me but this one was good as just a regular old comedy. I also haven’t seen an animated film ever treat heroes and villains so interestingly ambiguously. My final ruling is a 4 out of 5.
Megamind is an interesting story that would be great animated or not animated, but since it is animated it is allowed to be extremely wild and visually pleasing. The animation is truly awesome to look at and everything is so colorful and stylized. The city has an epic scale that I haven’t seen matched by any animated movie ever too. The heroes walk, fly, fight, and zip across it numerous times and I have to admit that a certain part on top of an Empire State Building-type place made me queasy. I can’t imagine having seen it in 3D!
The characters themselves also came off as likable, hilarious and their motivations were all understandable. No character was fully good or bad. They were all surprisingly layered. The voice-acting certainly helped along the way. Will Ferrell definitely didn’t phone-it-in like he could have and that goes for every other major player too. It helps that their voices are all pretty distinct but never distracting. I was half expecting David Cross to make a reference to how he "Blue himself" in Arrested Development because that show is what I think of when I hear his voice. The notice of the characters being voiced by celebrities went away after a while and thankfully the movie didn't have any self-conscious pop culture references. Many animated films seem to fall back on doing that nowadays so that's just another plus for this particular film in my book.
As far as criticisms go, I don’t really have many. It wasn’t as deep as say Toy Story 3, but it definitely had me caring about its characters anyway. Animated movies usually aren’t for me but this one was good as just a regular old comedy. I also haven’t seen an animated film ever treat heroes and villains so interestingly ambiguously. My final ruling is a 4 out of 5.
11.13.2010
Catfish Review
A young man, who is a photographer, named Nev Schulman lives with his brother Ariel and friend Henry Joost in New York. An an eight-year-old child prodigy artist named Abby, living in a rural part of Michigan, sends Nev a painting of one of his photos. Abby and Nev become Facebook friends in a network that is connected to lots of Abby's family members, including her mother Angela and her father as well as Abby's attractive older half-sister Megan. Megan claims to be a songwriter that takes a liking to Nev over the internet leading to a mysterious relationship.
The movie is shot as a documentary and is seriously supposed to be one, although I’m not sure if I believe it was. I didn’t know what the movie was, going into it, but I could still tell at a certain point that things weren’t as they seemed in the plot. Very early on I started to become suspicious that Megan wasn’t who she seemed. A very sexual relationship comes to Nev out of nowhere and I also felt like “Why am I watching this slightly boring story if it’s not deeper than it seems? There must be a point to this!” Eventually when she turns out to be a middle-aged woman who is married with disabled children, I was at first shocked but then another suspicion began to come over me. “Wait a minute,” I thought, “this isn’t a real documentary.” To this day I’m still not if I believed it was real or not. The first thing that I wasn’t convinced by was the family. They just seemed a bit too odd to me. It wasn’t just the way they appeared; it was also the way some of them acted, like the husband. He didn’t seem to be involved in the family at all and he was completely indifferent to the friendship that the young filmmakers began to have with the real Megan, who is really named Angela. Also, why would these people have begun chronicling this relationship so intimately in the first place? If it wasn’t real then the actors were all very good and everything done by the filmmakers was pretty convincing.
Having said that, I did enjoy the film more than I thought I would. It’s impossible to tell where it’s going when things start to unravel. It could easily have turned into a horror film where Megan is a schizophrenic serial killer. It could have also continued to be a romance. Keeping events the way they were, it could have also taken a bit of a mean-spirited comic approach. Part of me wishes it had been a horror film because I love disturbing works of art. What it did turn out to be though was a deeply humanizing and frightening tale of what people will and can do when they are miserable, lonely and a part of the internet age.
My final ruling is a 3.5 out of 5. Probably my favorite film we have seen behind The Social Network. This film actually could have also been called The Social Network. Both films do the topic justice.
The movie is shot as a documentary and is seriously supposed to be one, although I’m not sure if I believe it was. I didn’t know what the movie was, going into it, but I could still tell at a certain point that things weren’t as they seemed in the plot. Very early on I started to become suspicious that Megan wasn’t who she seemed. A very sexual relationship comes to Nev out of nowhere and I also felt like “Why am I watching this slightly boring story if it’s not deeper than it seems? There must be a point to this!” Eventually when she turns out to be a middle-aged woman who is married with disabled children, I was at first shocked but then another suspicion began to come over me. “Wait a minute,” I thought, “this isn’t a real documentary.” To this day I’m still not if I believed it was real or not. The first thing that I wasn’t convinced by was the family. They just seemed a bit too odd to me. It wasn’t just the way they appeared; it was also the way some of them acted, like the husband. He didn’t seem to be involved in the family at all and he was completely indifferent to the friendship that the young filmmakers began to have with the real Megan, who is really named Angela. Also, why would these people have begun chronicling this relationship so intimately in the first place? If it wasn’t real then the actors were all very good and everything done by the filmmakers was pretty convincing.
Having said that, I did enjoy the film more than I thought I would. It’s impossible to tell where it’s going when things start to unravel. It could easily have turned into a horror film where Megan is a schizophrenic serial killer. It could have also continued to be a romance. Keeping events the way they were, it could have also taken a bit of a mean-spirited comic approach. Part of me wishes it had been a horror film because I love disturbing works of art. What it did turn out to be though was a deeply humanizing and frightening tale of what people will and can do when they are miserable, lonely and a part of the internet age.
My final ruling is a 3.5 out of 5. Probably my favorite film we have seen behind The Social Network. This film actually could have also been called The Social Network. Both films do the topic justice.
11.04.2010
Red and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Red and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World are two on-the-road comedies with large ensemble casts made of some very famous actors. They follow huge groups of people on a mission to do or discover something. Red centers on a violent plot where Frank Moses is targeted by the CIA, which forces him to enlist some old black-ops pals of his to help him stay alive and uncover the plot against him. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, however, is a much lighter and family-friendly comedy with lots of slapstick. In the movie several across-country travelers come upon a man who has just been in an accident and is dying, and he informs them with his last words that there is a large stash of loot buried somewhere nearby. They all end up racing to get to it first. The man was a bank robber that a police chief has been trying to track down for years and he catches on to his tip to the passersby.
The two movies both end loudly and not exactly as you might suspect. In Red the main baddie turns into a good guy at the end and in Mad World the main good guy takes a criminal turn at its ending. The last couple of minutes of Mad World go to the extremes of slapstick and silliness. While Red also goes to an extreme, it goes to a different extreme. Things get overly violent and less goofy in its closing confrontation between good and evil.
That is also one way that Mad World is different, it doesn’t really have a line between good and evil. Everyone is motivated by greed. The money is stolen too! The police chief seems good until he makes a run for the money himself.
One can definitely draw comparisons between the two. They are more different from each other than other films we have compared before however. The main difference was the tone. Review-wise, one was also far superior to the other, but this isn’t my review. Now on to the next duo of movies.
The two movies both end loudly and not exactly as you might suspect. In Red the main baddie turns into a good guy at the end and in Mad World the main good guy takes a criminal turn at its ending. The last couple of minutes of Mad World go to the extremes of slapstick and silliness. While Red also goes to an extreme, it goes to a different extreme. Things get overly violent and less goofy in its closing confrontation between good and evil.
That is also one way that Mad World is different, it doesn’t really have a line between good and evil. Everyone is motivated by greed. The money is stolen too! The police chief seems good until he makes a run for the money himself.
One can definitely draw comparisons between the two. They are more different from each other than other films we have compared before however. The main difference was the tone. Review-wise, one was also far superior to the other, but this isn’t my review. Now on to the next duo of movies.
Red Review
We just saw Red in the theatre for the Film Criticism and Review class. Bruce Willis leads the star-powered ensemble cast as former black-ops CIA agent Frank Moses. John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker and Karl Urban play the other various people involved in the deadly plot. The film takes place in many, many different places because Frank is on the run from agents trying to kill him, with the help of his old black ops team. We are introduced to him as a retired agent who chats with Sarah, a woman who is a customer service agent working for Frank's pension office, over the phone. Assassins shoot the heck out of Frank’s house, which causes him to run for his life. He tracks down Sarah, who he might have put in harm’s way, and makes her his not-so-willing companion as he tries to figure out what’s going on.
Honestly, after seeing Red, I think I’ve lost a little bit more faith in what sells. I’m speaking in terms of movies of course and what people consider a good time at the movies. I heard quite a bit of laughing at this one and pretty sure people weren’t laughing at how bad it was. I admit that I began falling asleep at one point so I might not have caught every little nuance, but who am I kidding, there was no nuance or subtlety to this one. I imagine that whoever wrote this movie might be very connected to someone important in the biz or was forced to squeeze out something loud and violent in a short amount of time because Bruce Willis will do anything and people will go and see anything with his name on it. I thought Malkovich, Freeman and Helen Mirren had a little more discretion though. Oh well, at a certain point in an actor’s career the parts available become pretty slim, I guess. Oh screw that, this was a piece of s@#$ and there’s no excuse for taking part in it. When you are as famous as Malkovich, can’t you just do plays or god forbid write your own material? It seems like you could even collaborate with any number of talented, famous and open people. That’s one other thing, is anyone open-minded anymore? Where is the originality in modern day Hollywood? The element of passion seems to glide right over most big-budget stuff too. Red is definitely a prime example of this. It should’ve been called ‘Every Multi-Billionaire Geezer in Hollywood That Can Act Phoning It In and Blowing S@#% Up’.
On a lighter note, the directing seemed pretty competent. The action, fast-pacing, and postcards telling us what setting we were in now kept things a little more interesting. Again, not anything I haven’t really seen before, but still lively. The fight sequences provided good tension and kept my eyes from closing momentarily.
However, the big thing that helped keep me awake had nothing to do with the movie. There was an autistic guy sitting behind me that wouldn’t be quiet. He kept mumbling gibberish in intervals of about five seconds throughout the entire goddamn movie. The douche-face sitting next to him, whom I assume was there with him, kept telling him to shut up. Wonderful, right? No because the autistic guy didn’t shut up and his companion just came off as abusive after the first hour. I couldn’t switch seats either because the only seats available were right behind an elderly couple that gave me several dirty looks when I did sit near them.
Anyway, I give this ‘movie’ a 1 out of 5. I really have nothing else to add. I hope the next one isn’t as boring and I pray to God that the theatre has plenty of empty seats.
Honestly, after seeing Red, I think I’ve lost a little bit more faith in what sells. I’m speaking in terms of movies of course and what people consider a good time at the movies. I heard quite a bit of laughing at this one and pretty sure people weren’t laughing at how bad it was. I admit that I began falling asleep at one point so I might not have caught every little nuance, but who am I kidding, there was no nuance or subtlety to this one. I imagine that whoever wrote this movie might be very connected to someone important in the biz or was forced to squeeze out something loud and violent in a short amount of time because Bruce Willis will do anything and people will go and see anything with his name on it. I thought Malkovich, Freeman and Helen Mirren had a little more discretion though. Oh well, at a certain point in an actor’s career the parts available become pretty slim, I guess. Oh screw that, this was a piece of s@#$ and there’s no excuse for taking part in it. When you are as famous as Malkovich, can’t you just do plays or god forbid write your own material? It seems like you could even collaborate with any number of talented, famous and open people. That’s one other thing, is anyone open-minded anymore? Where is the originality in modern day Hollywood? The element of passion seems to glide right over most big-budget stuff too. Red is definitely a prime example of this. It should’ve been called ‘Every Multi-Billionaire Geezer in Hollywood That Can Act Phoning It In and Blowing S@#% Up’.
On a lighter note, the directing seemed pretty competent. The action, fast-pacing, and postcards telling us what setting we were in now kept things a little more interesting. Again, not anything I haven’t really seen before, but still lively. The fight sequences provided good tension and kept my eyes from closing momentarily.
However, the big thing that helped keep me awake had nothing to do with the movie. There was an autistic guy sitting behind me that wouldn’t be quiet. He kept mumbling gibberish in intervals of about five seconds throughout the entire goddamn movie. The douche-face sitting next to him, whom I assume was there with him, kept telling him to shut up. Wonderful, right? No because the autistic guy didn’t shut up and his companion just came off as abusive after the first hour. I couldn’t switch seats either because the only seats available were right behind an elderly couple that gave me several dirty looks when I did sit near them.
Anyway, I give this ‘movie’ a 1 out of 5. I really have nothing else to add. I hope the next one isn’t as boring and I pray to God that the theatre has plenty of empty seats.
10.28.2010
The Town & The Public Enemy Compare/Contrast
The Town and The Public Enemy deal with anti-hero criminals who grow up in tough places. They follow the lives of two men who make careers out of being increasingly strategic and big-time outlaws. One tries to have a message and the other doesn’t.
Tom Powers from The Public Enemy is bred to be violent and is a man who loves crime, as is Doug MacRay. However, we are given a more comprehensive view of Tom’s life. In The Public Enemy we see him grow from a boy with his partner-in-crime Matt Doyle. It is only inferred that Doug and “Jem” from The Town grow up being criminals in broken and toxic home environments. Both sets of best friends are also Irish-American guys with so-called hot tempers.
The Public Enemy ends with Tom getting his comeuppance, but Doug from The Town doesn’t. I have some personal feelings about the ending of The Town, which I covered in my review. I personally think The Public Enemy does it much better. Back to the topic though, The Public Enemy even has an onscreen message about how we need to everything we can to stop this type of crime trend. The criminal figures in general are treated very differently in the two different movies. Affleck is shown as being somewhat compassionate and loving to his girlfriend, but in Tom assaults his lady more than once and generally treats her badly. They are both violent, murderous men though and neither is shown as totally evil.
The two films cover similar themes and have characters with the same lifestyles, but they are differently purposed. The Town seems to be more an entertainment and The Public Enemy has more of a point. I can see why these two would be compared.
Tom Powers from The Public Enemy is bred to be violent and is a man who loves crime, as is Doug MacRay. However, we are given a more comprehensive view of Tom’s life. In The Public Enemy we see him grow from a boy with his partner-in-crime Matt Doyle. It is only inferred that Doug and “Jem” from The Town grow up being criminals in broken and toxic home environments. Both sets of best friends are also Irish-American guys with so-called hot tempers.
The Public Enemy ends with Tom getting his comeuppance, but Doug from The Town doesn’t. I have some personal feelings about the ending of The Town, which I covered in my review. I personally think The Public Enemy does it much better. Back to the topic though, The Public Enemy even has an onscreen message about how we need to everything we can to stop this type of crime trend. The criminal figures in general are treated very differently in the two different movies. Affleck is shown as being somewhat compassionate and loving to his girlfriend, but in Tom assaults his lady more than once and generally treats her badly. They are both violent, murderous men though and neither is shown as totally evil.
The two films cover similar themes and have characters with the same lifestyles, but they are differently purposed. The Town seems to be more an entertainment and The Public Enemy has more of a point. I can see why these two would be compared.
The Town Review
The second film we saw was “The Town.” It is Ben Affleck’s second work as a director and he also stars in it. Affleck plays Doug MacRay, a criminal who has recently begun robbing banks with several friends. The supporting cast includes Jeremy Renner as Doug’s best friend James "Jem" Coughlin, Jon Hamm as FBI agent Adam Frawley, Blake Lively as Doug’s ex and Jem’s sister Krista Coughlin, and Rebecca Hall as Claire who is a victim of one of Doug’s bank robberies. The film takes place in Boston, Massachusetts where the criminals are being pursued by Special Agent Frawley.
At the beginning of the film Doug, Jem, and two other guys rob a bank where they take one of the bank-employees hostage for a short time. They then get away and later Doug sees the woman they kidnapped on the street and follows her. They become romantically involved without her knowing who he really is. At first I found this to be interesting, but I was buying it less and less as the movie went on. She eventually finds out who he is and is horrified. The second bank robbery in the movie goes wrong and Doug finds himself on the run, alone, and in a police uniform. He doesn’t really run though, he stays right around the scene of the incident to see if Jem survives, and to taunt the FBI agent. You’d think someone would catch him in plain sight walking around since at this point he is an incredibly wanted man and most everyone would have seen a release of what he looks like. After Jem dies he leaves a note on the Special Agent’s car that says “Go fuck yourself” or something like that. First off, how did he know which car was the right one and secondly I found this a bit goofy. Jon Hamm’s reaction is basically one of “Gosh darn, that crazy kid got me again.” Then in another unbelievable move, he heads right across the street from the girlfriend’s house and talks to her on the phone. He watches as the law listens in on the call. Then, having a sudden and complete change of heart, the girlfriend gives him a code telling him that she isn’t alone. He also kills two men, when he is on the run, that he forcibly worked for whom tortured and ruined his parents, leading to his mother’s suicide. He kills them in grisly ways, which left a bad taste in my mouth and completely destroys any chance for this character’s redemption. He secretly gives some stolen/blood money to his girlfriend when the film finally comes to an end. The ending shot shows him on a porch looking over an estuary of a wooden house with the wind blowing in his hair as if he is either a changed man now, which again is hardly earned as being believable, or auditioning for the male sex object in a Gloria Estefan music video. I can picture it now; he is swinging his flabby body around a porch pillar longing for a has-been singer known by her birthname as Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan.
Getting back to the point, one of the largest problems I had trying to like the movie was the total unlikeability of Ben Affleck’s Doug. Pretty much everything the character does is for selfish purposes or at least motivated by selfishness and he has a nasty killing streak too. He is also very stone-faced and without the slightest bit of charm. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but all I know is that Affleck’s vanity project came off lazy to me. Blake Lively’s character Krista is poorly drawn out too with a little bit of phony depth here and there. At the beginning when Doug and Krista have sex she seems extremely disinterested, but later on he tells her that he’s moving way with his girlfriend and she acts really heartbroken. As far as performances go I was impressed with Jeremy Renner as the loose-cannon friend of Doug’s. He seemed naturalistic and like he was having fun with his part, unlike Affleck.
Having said all that, I did enjoy the action sequences. They were well done and kept me feeling on the edge of my seat. In the end I just felt like I’d seen a poorly-scripted version of so many other crime dramas. My final ruling is a 2 out of 5.
At the beginning of the film Doug, Jem, and two other guys rob a bank where they take one of the bank-employees hostage for a short time. They then get away and later Doug sees the woman they kidnapped on the street and follows her. They become romantically involved without her knowing who he really is. At first I found this to be interesting, but I was buying it less and less as the movie went on. She eventually finds out who he is and is horrified. The second bank robbery in the movie goes wrong and Doug finds himself on the run, alone, and in a police uniform. He doesn’t really run though, he stays right around the scene of the incident to see if Jem survives, and to taunt the FBI agent. You’d think someone would catch him in plain sight walking around since at this point he is an incredibly wanted man and most everyone would have seen a release of what he looks like. After Jem dies he leaves a note on the Special Agent’s car that says “Go fuck yourself” or something like that. First off, how did he know which car was the right one and secondly I found this a bit goofy. Jon Hamm’s reaction is basically one of “Gosh darn, that crazy kid got me again.” Then in another unbelievable move, he heads right across the street from the girlfriend’s house and talks to her on the phone. He watches as the law listens in on the call. Then, having a sudden and complete change of heart, the girlfriend gives him a code telling him that she isn’t alone. He also kills two men, when he is on the run, that he forcibly worked for whom tortured and ruined his parents, leading to his mother’s suicide. He kills them in grisly ways, which left a bad taste in my mouth and completely destroys any chance for this character’s redemption. He secretly gives some stolen/blood money to his girlfriend when the film finally comes to an end. The ending shot shows him on a porch looking over an estuary of a wooden house with the wind blowing in his hair as if he is either a changed man now, which again is hardly earned as being believable, or auditioning for the male sex object in a Gloria Estefan music video. I can picture it now; he is swinging his flabby body around a porch pillar longing for a has-been singer known by her birthname as Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan.
Getting back to the point, one of the largest problems I had trying to like the movie was the total unlikeability of Ben Affleck’s Doug. Pretty much everything the character does is for selfish purposes or at least motivated by selfishness and he has a nasty killing streak too. He is also very stone-faced and without the slightest bit of charm. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but all I know is that Affleck’s vanity project came off lazy to me. Blake Lively’s character Krista is poorly drawn out too with a little bit of phony depth here and there. At the beginning when Doug and Krista have sex she seems extremely disinterested, but later on he tells her that he’s moving way with his girlfriend and she acts really heartbroken. As far as performances go I was impressed with Jeremy Renner as the loose-cannon friend of Doug’s. He seemed naturalistic and like he was having fun with his part, unlike Affleck.
Having said all that, I did enjoy the action sequences. They were well done and kept me feeling on the edge of my seat. In the end I just felt like I’d seen a poorly-scripted version of so many other crime dramas. My final ruling is a 2 out of 5.
10.26.2010
The Social Network Review
The film we saw in the first Film Criticism and Review class was “The Social Network.” Jesse Eisenberg leads the ensemble cast as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer and Rooney Mara make up the supporting cast. The film starts out on the college campus of Harvard where Mark Zuckerberg lived and created Facebook in the fall of 2003 and follows him in the areas in which he made his business. It’s a drama that has hints of comedy too here and there, often uncomfortably treading the line between the two.
The movie starts out with Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend breaking up with him which takes him by surprise. It causes him to drunkenly blog about her and hurtfully insult her in all kinds of shallow ways. In this state he also creates a website that compares the attractiveness of girls at Harvard with each other. It proves to be the precursor to Facebook which he later creates with his best friend Eduardo Saverin. He steals the idea for the creation of Facebook, which is called The Facebook in its early stages, from two twin brothers that approach him about creating a Harvard social-networking site together. The rest of the film is about the creation of the site and Mark’s falling-outs and friendship betrayals that benefit his own self-gain.
Mark is cold and calculating throughout as evidenced by how he secretly schemes behind people’s backs and belittles them. You have to pay close attention to the film or you won’t catch everything that’s happening and you might miss details that become more important later on. For instance, Mark is quietly angry that Eduardo has better luck being accepted socially, specifically into a clique in college, so Mark passively belittles what Eduardo is doing. He also intentionally leaves him in the dark about important happens on the Facebook front. It’s primary this relationship that gives the movie a real rational, human grounding. Sean Parker, whom is introduced to the viewer as an internet piracy maverick, is also extremely important. He is the devil on Mark’s shoulder when Eduardo is basically the angel. He is ruthless, rich, powerful and extremely influential to Mark because Mark knows that he could be Sean. Sean is a scary character because he is out to prove himself to the world, just like Mark, and he doesn’t care who gets in his way and he truly is unstoppable. The real Sean Parker in a way really did take down the music industry. His slogan that he gives to Mark in the film captures him perfectly, “I’m CEO, bitch.”
Jesse Eisenberg’s acting style here is great because he is angry, nerdy and always to the point. He really makes Mark sadly believable. Justin Timberlake is also impressive as Sean Parker in a similar way, except his character has a smarmy charm that Mark purposely lacks. That right there makes Mark harder to hate than Sean. Although out of the whole cast I think Andrew Garfield gives the standout performance as Eduardo. He genuinely likes Mark and is impressed by his computer-savvy skills, but he gets more and more troubled as Mark becomes distant and deeper involved with Sean as a partner. At a certain point it’s almost as if he can see the writing on the wall and gives Mark a bit of a scare in order to fight back a little. Eventually Eduardo is betrayed. When this happens Mark finally shows a little emotion which is appropriate and painful at the same time. Eduardo was his last connection to humanity and that’s where the movie leaves us. It’s fitting that Mark is alone at his computer on Facebook at the end. It brings everything full circle and shows just how ironic the concept of social-networking really is.
My only real problem with The Social Network was that it wasn’t longer. I guess wanting more isn’t so much a complaint as a backwards compliment really. I give it 5 out of 5. Well, maybe more like a 4.5 out of 5. What can I say; even more character development could’ve worked for me.
The Social Network & Citizen Kane Compare/Contrast
The Social Network and Citizen Kane are two biopics about powerful men who build an empire. They follow the life and times of two men who are out to prove something to the world. Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network is a young billionaire who got rich on his own terms. Charles Foster Kane is a similar kind of person but he has many different qualities as well. In the end Mark Zuckerberg and Charles Foster Kane are fierce, alienating giants with big egos that deep down just want to be accepted.
Zukerberg and Kane, respectively, have only one or two people that they ever feel close to in The Social Network and Citizen Kane. Zuckerberg is portrayed as having a supportive best friend who comes along with him on his Facebook endeavor. He begins to trade him for Sean Parker as his main partner and friend as a business and moral decision when he comes closer to being a rich man. Kane fires his good friend Jedediah Leland when he writes a bad review of Kane’s wife operatic debut. Kane becomes drunker with power and he is mainly obsessed with having a wife that makes him look good. Both of characters in both movies betray their best friends for means of self-gain, but unlike Zuckerberg, Kane is also motivated by his love for his wife. Kane wants her to be his trophy but he also has much genuine affection for her.
Our main movie heroes in this case want to be accepted by the public. Zuckerberg feels unwanted by one of the school’s Final clubs and every other organization that he would want to be a part of. He is also angry and miserable when his girlfriend brakes up with him after he explains to her the benefits of being with a guy like him and how she will go places as his girlfriend. He doesn’t realize she is insulted his megalomaniacal offer and extension of his prestigious Harvard hand out to her. Kane also uses his ego and gossipy paper to get him attention and honor. He makes a run for president too and is confused when he doesn’t win because he felt he was more loved by the people. His friend observes that he talks about the people as if he owns them rather than representing them. He also tries to buy his wife’s love at times and she pulls away. In The Social Network, however, Mark is portrayed as lonelier than Kane because he can’t seem to really accept and cherish love when it’s in his grasp. He ends up lashing out and betraying people, it’s the way his rage manifests itself. Kane at least finds some love in women and doesn’t lash out quite as drastically as Mark.
Both of these topics are very interconnected and the fact that they don’t have many friends to lose makes it all the more heartbreaking when the relationships go down in flames. Zuckerberg and Kane are geniuses in their own way that will be remembered as hugely important men, but the way that they rise to the occasion is ironic, human and extremely telling. Just how they alienate people should serve as cautionary tales. They are fascinating and potently tragic.
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