"Winter's Bone": feel good movie of the year!

Working in the newborn suite and neonatal intensive care unit in a downtown Fresno hospital, I often encounter mothers on methamphetamines. They're easy to identify; the drug causes rotten teeth and premature aging. These moms usually had little to no prenatal care, and when the babies are born, they can be very agitated from the drug exposure. I get social work and child protective services involved, if they aren't already, because the mothers' lives are often such train wrecks that they can't care for their children. It's easy to feel saddened, even disgusted, by the whole situation.

Winter's Bone is a film set in the Missouri Ozarks, where meth has ravaged the hillbilly community, and it too is sad and disgusting. Here's the plot: 17 year old Rhee must track down her father (or what's left of him) in order to keep her family from being evicted from their cabin, which was used to post her dad's bail. The man cooked meth in makeshift labs, was arrested, made bail and then vanished, leaving his family to survive on their own.

The movie pretty much follows Rhee on her quest to find her dad, pestering meth heads who do not want to be bothered, but also happen to be Rhee's own relatives. There's suspense that builds as she attempts to uncover the truth behind her dad's disappearance, and it ultimately leads to a pretty gruesome finale.

But what's scariest about this movie is the grim reality the characters occupy, and unfortunately the movie doesn't really address how this all came to pass. I mean, what the hell happened here? How is it that the Ozarks became a drug wasteland that left its children scrounging for squirrels? My guess is through a combination of poverty/lack of resources, isolation and an interest in chemistry. These details were probably better explained in the book (the movie is based on a novel by the same name, written by Daniel Woodrell.) As usual, a movie adaptation fails to tell the whole story, so to speak.

I don't mean to discount the film entirely, as there are several strong points. The performances are pretty impressive, especially considering the only recognizable star is John Hawkes (from the show Eastbound and Down and the indie hit Me and You and Everyone We Know), who plays Rhee's uncle Teardrop and looks like a mangy chihuahua on blow. The cinematography is very very bleak, and leaves you feeling quite unsettled. And then there is Rhee herself, who is just an awesome young hero. She takes on the role of guardian to her younger sibs, and has the bravery to stand up to gun-totting, drug addled rednecks who would've chased me off their property in a heartbeat. The movie reassures us that even after adults have laid waste to society, children have the power to survive and make things right. Now doesn't that make you feel good?

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" will beat the living crap out of you.

After being held in abeyance for a few months, my movie blog is back with a review of this exciting new movie! Man som hatar kvinnor (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is a Swedish film released last year that is based on the best-selling novel of the same name; it is now in limited release in the U.S. and worth seeing if playing in your neighborhood.

A good rule of thumb about foreign films: they generally have to be pretty good in order to be playing in theaters here in the U.S. As for the Swedes, they first caught my attention with the slick teenage vampire film Lat den ratte komma in (Let The Right One In) which made the Twilight movies look like Care Bears: Naptime. Note that I never actually saw the Twilight movies, but I bet they never featured severed limbs in a swimming pool or a lady getting mauled by housecats!

And so it seems the Swedes have a penchant for the dark and ultraviolent. In this film, we follow the journalist Mikael Blomkvist, as he investigates the unsolved disappearance of a young girl 40 years ago. Enter Lisbeth Salander, the world's only Swedish skinny goth bisexual psychopath computer genius, who in turn is investigating Blomkvist, and becomes intertwined in the mystery. The closer they come to solving the puzzle, the more dangerous the search becomes, with the "why don't you let sleeping dogs lie?" and the "better turn back now before it's too late..."

Overall the movie is pretty thrilling and Salander is totally captivating, with her tattoos, piercings, spikes and briefly bare breasts :) Seriously though, her character is interesting in that she is both fierce and vulnerable, corrupted and innocent, clever and foolish, never one-dimensional. So be sure to check it out before Hollywood does a shitty remake of it and erases it from memory, just like The Departed did to Infernal Affairs or the new Death at a Funeral is doing to the original Death at a Funeral grumble grumble grumble....

DVD shoutout: If you're looking for a good laugh, I highly recommend In the Loop, a British political comedy in they style of Doctor Strangelove.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/intheloop/

Best 5/Worst 5 movies of 2009.

Ok, 2010 is here and I've finally recovered from New Year's Eve. So let's recap on the best and worst movies of 2009. Keep in mind it's not like I saw every single movie, so there may be others that should be on the list. And just one quick question: where were all the documentaries?

1) The Hurt Locker: Hands down the best. Deserves to win best picture, best director and maybe best actor. See my previous review for details.

2) Sin Nombre: An intense movie about a dirt poor family of Honduran immigrants riding the roofs of trains to reach the U.S. As if that weren't dangerous enough, they're being pursued by the Mala Salvatrucha, the most vicious and feared gang in Latin America. Beautiful, frightening, and tragic.

3) (500) Days of Summer: A movie that captures the beauty of downtown LA, and fairly accurately shows what it feels like to go after a girl that just isn't that into you. Good laughs and good tunes.

4 & 5 (tie). Star Trek and The Hangover: Great popcorn flicks. Turn off your brain and have a good time. Star Trek had awesome visual effects and sound without being excessive, and did justice to the original series. The Hangover was just plain hilarious and kept you guessing just what would happen next. Interestingly, this movie shows Las Vegas almost entirely during the daytime, with all the city's gaudiness in plain sight.

And now the worst 5. These movies were not just bad, but disappointing, as they had potential.

1) Terminator Salvation: Stupid. A series that started strong has fallen apart.

2) 9: Nice animation but a story that goes nowhere.

3) Avatar: By the end of this movie I was ready to stop watching movies altogether. Like the newest King Kong, it was way too much. Holly had to go to the restroom halfway through and almost fainted from overstimulation. Glad we didn't see it in IMAX, might have went into status epilepticus.

4) Away We Go: Hipster couple travels around looking for a place to settle down. Not funny. Not romantic. Not interesting.

5) Watchmen: Again, too much. Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach were cool characters but overall this movie was just another noisy turd.

"A Serious Man" begs the question "why?"

Joel and Ethan Coen, "the Coen brothers", are probably my favorite filmmakers. Raising Arizona, Fargo, Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski, No Country For Old Men. These movies are masterpieces in my mind. Sure, the brothers have made some stinkers here and there (most of them starring George Clooney, whom I have long loathed for reasons I won't get into at this moment). But for the most part, these guys are immensely talented, succeeding tremendously in virtually every arena, from comedy to drama to suspense. Though what exactly are the elements that bind their films? That is, what are the trademarks of the Coen brothers? Hard to pinpoint, not only because of their variety, but the originality of the movies themselves transcend categories. Overall, they are unconventional, and indeed often ridiculous. The dialogue is sharp, witty and grandiose (The Big Lebowski is probably the most quotable movie ever, way more than Casablanca). Finally there is an insidious sense of irreverence and nihilism that may manifest as abrupt, grotesque violence (e.g. the woodchipper scene in Fargo, virtually every scene with Javier Bardiem in No Country for Old Men), or sudden, seemingly anticlimactic endings (Barton Fink) or animalistic howling in despair (Rasing Arizona, Fargo, Miller's Crossing) or, as their latest film, A Serious Man, demonstrates, continuous onslaught of punishment upon the innocent.

A Serious Man essentially is the story of Job set in a Midwestern Jewish community during the late 1960s. Larry Gopnik, played by Michael Stuhlbarg (yeah the entire cast is pretty much unrecognizable) is Job in this case. He is a happy physics professor with a wife, kids, house, the whole bit, and then suddenly for no apparent reason his life falls apart. Gopnik, the scientist in search for answers, tries to understand why he is suffering such misfortunes despite leading a virtuous life. Finally after much persuasion and desperation, he turns to the temple, where the rabbis are as useless as tits on a bull.

Gopnik's pitfalls and search for meaning are more comedic than tragic when presented through the eyes of the Coen brothers. His suffering reminded me of the hilarious lemonade vendor's "slow burn" from Marx Brothers' Duck Soup [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZOlrZNIod0 ] only about 90 minutes longer and in color. The laughs aren't big or even all that frequent though, and overall I'd say there's nothing supremely impressive about this movie as compared to their previous work. Perhaps the one striking thing about this movie is that it seems to paradoxically put forth the message that there is no message... shit happens and then you die. So let's all get drunk and play ping-pong!

P.S. I tried on three separate occasions to see this movie but was denied, once because it was sold out, and twice because the internet said it was playing at the theatre when it actually was not! When I went to buy tickets the first time and the vendor told me it was sold out, I was like "Are you serious....man?"

"Wild Thing" you make my heart bleed

I was really looking forward to seeing Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jone's adaptation of the children's book. And while the movie was good in a lot of ways, I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

Spike Jones also directed the mind-bending Being John Malkovich and Adaptation and the kick-ass "Sabatoge" music video by the Beastie Boys. For this movie, he joined forces with writer Dave Eggers, who wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and What is the What?, two books with bounding pulses of vitality. Eggers also created the ridiculous/inspiring Pirate shop/writing center at 826 Valencia in San Francisco. Just how intensely emotional can Eggers get? Here's the last line from AHWOSG:

What the fuck does it take to show you motherfuckers, what does it fucking take what do you want how much do you want because I am willing and I'll stand before you and I'll raise my arms and give you my chest and throat and wait, and I've been so old for so long, for you, I want it fast and right through me-Oh do it, you motherfuckers, do it do it you fuckers finally, finally, finally.

What is the What? is a postmodern biography of a Sudanese "Lost Boy" refugee, accounting atrocities beyond your imagination. And so, with these two minds collaborating on a children's book about a boy, Max, and his monsters, the possibilities were endless.

I think visually the film is a success. The wild things themselves look so wonderful, so lifelike, any kid would love to party with 'em. It's really cool to watch them jump around and smash into things. Also the location of the film, a remote area outside Melbourne Australia, is breathtaking. Even the handheld camerawork is good, tumbling down stairs and through forests and tunnels.

The story is pretty straightforward. Max throws a temper tantrum and drifts off into this imaginary world to escape the tribulations of reality, where he becomes king of the wild things. They engage in typical childhood rough-housing, dirt clod wars and the like.

But the monsters threw me for a loop. I couldn't get a handle on what age they were supposed to be. They're nieve and playful like young children, but also combative and overly sensitive like adolescents. They fight and whine A LOT. Max just wants them to get along, but it's draining for him and the audience, and there's a sense of relief when he finally comes back to the real world. Seriously the drama was overwhelming, and for no real clear reason.

One of the joys of working with children is regularly experiencing their effortless imagination and wild freedom, which this film exudes. If only Max could conjure a remedy for Eggers' bleeding heart...

"The Informant!" He's wearing a wire, but that ain't half of it.

The Informant is Steven Soderbergh's newest film starring Matt Damon, and is based on the true story of Mark Whitacre, a man who sought to expose a global conspiracy of price fixing by multinational corporations...but for all the wrong reasons. Indeed it's one of those stranger-than-fiction stories that leaves you shaking your head in disbelief and muttering ai yai yai (sic?)

So here's the setup: Mark Whitacre is an upper management biochemist at the ADM corporation, which makes additives in various food products. When the factory he oversees has trouble meeting demand, he fabricates to his superiors an insidious plot to subvert ADM by its Japanese competitor, involving extortion, viruses etc. This lie prompts an investigation by the FBI, which threatens to uncover an even greater plot: ADM in cahoots with its competitors to fix prices of their additives worldwide and rip off a planet of consumers! Rather than be caught on the wrong side of this potential disaster, Whitacre turns FBI informant and snitches the entire scheme, with the delusion that he will ascend to ADM CEO once the Fed cleans house.

Got all that? Maybe not. Suffice it to say that Whitacre, through the course of the film, weaves such a tangled web of bullshit that he finds himself in deeper and deeper trouble, with everyone else simply pleading for the truth. As his lying becomes seemingly pathologic, the film evolves from comedy to tragedy.

Now Soderbergh's most known for his Ocean's Eleven movies, Sex, Lies and Videotape and Oscar-nominated Traffic and Erin Brockavich. He certainly has made some great movies; I think Traffic was just awesome, and his lesser known film The Limey, was also very cool. He recently made Che: Part I and II, which didn't get a lot of attention but were, from my understanding, quite historically accurate, if a bit overly deferential. In The Informant!, though, Soderbergh doesn't score a lot of style points. The strength of the movie is the story itself, and doesn't need a lot of flair, and in fact the Muzak soundtrack and cheeky opening disclaimer were a bit annoying.

There's one particular editing technique Soderbergh used in The Limey, Out of Sight and Erin Brockavich that I thought was really neat, transcendent even. He films two people conversing, then cuts to a scene with the two people together, silent, with the sound from the previous conversation still playing. It allows us to see two people together both silent and conversing simultaneously, which in reality, is impossible if you think about it. Here's a youtube link that shows what I'm talking about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uxY8Wsygpw

If this movie doesn't sound like your bit of whimsy, you might at least listen to the This American Life podcast "The Fix is In", which basically tells the entire story (but without Matt Damon in a god-awful tie and mustache).

Coming up next time: Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. Can't wait!!

"The Hurt Locker" is the bomb.

Last week I saw The Hurt Locker, and, to begin with, it is an excellent movie that deserves to be seen on the big screen. I had noticed it playing in a few select theaters in Los Angeles last month, as well as its incredible 98% rating on the aggregate site rottentomatoes.com. So when it finally came to Fresno I rushed to see it, knowing full well that movie gems don't stay long in this city. In fact, all that is wrong with Fresno can be summarized by the simple fact that this great movie is playing on a single screen in one theatre, while the retarded new GI:Joe movie and G-Force, a movie about GUINEA PIG soldiers, are literally playing in every single movie theatre across town on multiple screens! Cabron.

Anyway, the film takes place in Iraq in 2004, roughly one year after the invasion. It tells the story of three soldiers of Bravo company who belong to a U.S. Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) unit, whose job it is to dismantle improvised explosive devices (IEDs). As we have all come to learn from reports on the warfront, IEDs are a major cause of death among soldiers and civilians, so the team has a very dangerous assignment, which makes for an extremely suspenseful movie.

To be clear, The Hurt Locker is not a true "war film." Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Paths of Glory, Patton, For Whom The Bell Tolls are classics of this genre, offering bold statements on the act of war by emphasizing its atrocities and bravery. The Hurt Locker really does not render an opinion on the war in Iraq itself, but rather explores the mindset of the soldiers who have enlisted to fight it.

In the movie, Bravo Company is headed by Staff Sgt. Will James, a cocky yet understated team leader who gets a rush from donning a bomb suit and walking out to diffuse an IED, much to the chagrin of his fellow sergeant and specialist. His character reminded me of some of the surgeons, ER and critical care doctors I've worked with. Faced with life-or-death situations on a regular basis, these types acquire callous and irreverent attitudes from the knowledge that life is short and fleeting, and in scenarios where most people panic and cannot think straight, their minds are sharp and actions deliberate. Subtlety and restraint are all but lost on them, yet to call them reckless thrill-seekers is to overlook their remarkable talents. But I digress...

There was so much that I liked about this movie. The story was very well-paced, with moments of great suspense. Seriously there were scenes in this movie where James approaches a suspicious something, an illegally parked car, a pile of debris, and the tension was so high my palms were sweaty (another aside, walking out alone in the bomb suit, he totally reminded me of the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Dave, in his space suit, goes to turn of HAL.) The performances were also top notch. While the cast is made up of relatively unknown actors, save for cameos by Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes, the characters are well developed and complex, and their relationship is a battle unto itself. The action in the movie was pretty exciting too.

The Hurt Locker is directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who also directed Point Break, a kick-ass movie about surfing/sky-diving bank robbers chased by FBI agents played by Keanu Reeves and Garey Busey. It's probably surprising to many that a woman could direct such high quality action films, which I guess just goes to show that gender norms are for the birds. My favorite scene in Point Break was when Reeves takes aim at Patrick Swayze but can't bring himself to shoot him, and instead lies on the ground screaming in frustration and shooting his gun high in the air. The scene was lampooned to great effect in Hot Fuzz.

In conclusion, this movie does not begin to address the tragic folly that is the war in Iraq. And I think that there are some people who would even argue that this movie is a form of military propaganda, because it does not explicitly state that war is hell, as so many other films have already clearly demonstrated. But that would be an unfair critique. The message of this movie is that war offers a strange attraction to those who enjoy to live life on the edge. And if you enjoy films that keep you on the edge of your seat, definitely go check this one out. BOOM!!