The ole leather pumpkin.

This post is almost completely unrelated to movies, so in order to make it feel like this belongs here, I will throw in a Space Jam reference or two. Can we get them out of the way early you say? Yes, let's.

"I had no idea Dan Aykroyd was in this blog post!"

Well, that's because he isn't. This post isn't about dynamite sketch comedians, it's about basketball, something that I watch often and play occasionally. More specifically, it's about the Toronto Raptors (although if I’m feeling nostalgic it may also feature some post-game analysis of the epic Toon Squad/Monstars match up from November 1996). I love the Raptors so much that it's pathetic: whenever I see a video of a crazy sports fan going nuts on YouTube, I think "Wow, this makes me feel a lot better about myself," before I ultimately rethink it and wonder, "Holy shit, is this how I get?"

I often wonder how I am still friends with some people that have seen first hand just how emotionally invested I can be in a game. I think the peak of my absurd Raptors fandom came in my first year of university, which was unfortunately also one of the worst years in franchise history. The Raps had a record of 27 wins and 55 losses, allowed multiple teams to come back and win when they had been up by 20 points or more*, and players earning big minutes included Mike James, Loren Woods and Rafael Araujo. But, the games were normally close, so I kept watching. I remember seeing a stat at one point in the season saying that over 20 of their games were won or lost in the final minute (normally the latter because of Mike James, but occasionally the former because of Mike James). I also recall literally falling off the couch of my residence living room once when MoPete missed a potential game-tying three pointer, and my roommate who I didn't know well at the time was in the room with me… how she remains friends with me is baffling.

The lowest moment of my career as a Raps fan came during another season on a night when a girl I was seeing broke up with me, and then I waited up to catch the 3 a.m. replay of the game I missed because of going to see her earlier in the evening. Of course, all that waiting was for a game where I would eventually get to see the Raps blown out by 30 points. Sadly, the event that hurt me more that night was watching the Raptors get outplayed, and when I think back to that night, I remember far more about the game than I remember about my conversation with this girl. That was my worst moment of being a Raptors fan, but all is instantly forgiven when they give me the feeling of pure joy that comes from a satisfying win. Like yesterday.

My uncle does pretty well for himself, and he scored me one of his company's corporate tickets for the Raptors' home game against the Houston Rockets. I knew these would be better seats than the yellow and green seats of the Sprite Zone that I was accustomed to, but I had no idea just how good they were going to be. When I was going into the Air Canada Centre, the ticket ushers kept telling me that my seat was further down… code for "closer to the court." I wish I could have seen my own face, because I know my smile was getting progressively wider as my altitude decreased.

I got to my seat. I was three rows up from the court. You know where the announcers sit? I was mere feet behind them. I could have thrown my Coke at Matt Devlin, but I didn't want to get kicked out. The point is this: I was no further than ten feet from the court, and I can't remember the last time I was that happy. To be honest, I didn't know that it was possible to be this happy past the age of 10... It was like when I got a Super Nintendo as a kid. Nothing else around me mattered. Had Zooey Deschanel been sitting next to me naked, I may not have noticed**.

Given that I probably won’t ever have the opportunity to be this close to the NBA again, I decided early on in the game that I was going to focus on watching a couple of players I love: the Raptors' Chris Bosh and Jarrett Jack, as well as the Rockets' Shane Battier. I figured my proximity to the court would allow me to see and hear plenty of things that you can’t pick up on TV, and I was correct.

I love good defensive basketball (which makes my Raptors fandom even more odd, for they are perennially awful on D), and Shane Battier is one of the best defenders in the league. If you need any proof of this, just check out some highlights of his defense on Kobe Bryant in last year's Western Conference semifinals. The Lakers won the series, but Battier helped to make it much more difficult than anybody expected. Watching him defend the Raptors' Hedo Turkgolu yesterday was impressive. While Turk did have a good game, most of his points came when Battier was either on the bench or defending another player. Battier’s intensity was impressive, and his footwork was crazy… I wish he were a Raptor.

Chris Bosh is hands-down my favourite player in the NBA, as well as the best power forward in the NBA. I don’t consider the latter to be a debatable statement: it’s a truth. This season he has been playing with more passion and intensity than in years previous, and he is also averaging a pretty impressive 24 points and 12 rebounds. He is a really fun player to watch too, something I don’t normally say about a big (I prefer guards, as anybody who grew up in the Jordan era does). Anybody that says tall people are only good because of their size is an idiot, and these idiots have clearly never seen Bosh play. Hearing him call out plays and anchor the defense (he is an oddity on the Raps as he can actually play some pretty decent D) was fascinating, as was watching him play dominant basketball on the offensive end. He is a free agent at the end of the year, and he won’t be coming back to the Raptors due to their lack of being good at basketball, so if you live in Toronto and haven’t seen him play live yet, you had best get on it.

My favourite position to watch (and play) is point guard. Watching a great point guard see the floor and carve through the defense is something to see, and Jarrett Jack put on a great show yesterday. He is far from a premier point guard, but he plays like I wish every Raptor would. He plays hard, he doesn’t make bad decisions often, he plays good defense, and he isn’t a whiny punk bitch (I’m looking at you, Bellinelli). When the Rockets’ Trevor Ariza threw an elbow at the Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan in the third quarter, Jack was the only Raptor to step to Ariza. I want all of the Raptors to consistently play hard and with intensity, but sadly only Jack and Bosh do.

I got to experience my favourite sport in a new way yesterday. I could hear everything coach Jay Triano was calling out to his players, I could hear players arguing with the ref, and I could see Antione Wright chirping Patrick O’Bryant for watching the cheerleaders during a timeout. And to top it all off, the Raptors played near-perfect ball and got the win.

I’m not a crier, and I never really have been. I used to joke that I would cry if the Raptors ever won a championship, but now I don’t know if I’ll be joking next time I say it. Professional sports are kind of a weird thing to be really into, but I guess movies are too. For all of the stress I have experienced being a Raptors fan, the good moments make it all worthwhile. I guess professional sports are more like movies than I thought when I started writing this… some games are suspenseful and gut wrenching in a way that few action movies ever are, and others are far more depressing than any movie I’ve seen. And some movies, like yesterday’s game, aren’t filled with tension but are just completely satisfying from beginning to end. I watch movies because they engage me emotionally more than most of what happens in my own life, and I guess you can apply that same thinking to the Raptors too.

I concede that liking a sports team as much as I do is bizarre, but then again, I’m a weird guy. But if being as happy as I was yesterday makes me weird, then so be it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to put on my Bosh jersey and yell at my TV for a couple of hours.

*including Kobe Bryant's 81 point game and a Sunday afternoon matchup against the Dallas Mavericks where I left for work at 3pm with the Raps up 25 or so points in the third. By the time I got to work at 4pm, I had a text message from my roommate saying that the Mavericks had won the game. Fucking Nowitzki.

**I would have noticed.

It's beginning to look a lot like... an opportunity to make up for neglecting your kid.

It's almost Christmas, and I just both started and finished my shopping. I don't dilly dally when I'm in a mall: it's a calculated attack. I know exactly what I need, I know exactly where to get it, I walk quickly while dodging all bad walkers and I was out of the mall less than an hour after I entered it. I imagine this is what Christmas shopping is like for Jack Bauer. It's possible to shop like this because there is nobody on my list asking for whatever unattainable Furby/Cabbage Patch Kid/ Tickle Me Elmo type thing is huge this year. However, I still got to go through the experience of trying to find that unattainable gift with a dear friend of mine named Howard, and we go through this experience annually when I watch my favourite Christmas movie.

Jingle All the Way is about Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is some sort of carpet king in Minneapolis. But being the king of carpets comes at a price. Howard often ignores his family in favour of business, and they seem to be getting fed up with it. His son Jamie, played by the always loveable and talented method actor Jake Lloyd, has a karate class the night of December 23rd, and Howard has promised he will make it. But, as anybody who has ever seen a movie before can predict, Howard doesn't make it, sending the Langston family into a fit of Christmas disappointment.

Howard comes home to find his son sitting in front of the television watching a show about Turboman, Jamie's favourite superhero. Howard is getting worried about how he is going to mend this situation, and after going through a number of embarrassing attempts to win Jamie over, he comes up with the foolproof American solution. Howard asks Jamie what he wants for Christmas, which gets Jamie out of his chair and performing a live dramatic interpretation of a commercial for the Turboman action figure. When Howard essentially promises Jamie that he will get this toy for Christmas, everything is suddenly okay and the father and son share a heartwarming hug. And then I weep.

Jingle All the Way is a Christmas movie, yes, but it is about the worst aspects of Christmas and in a way that I don't think is meant to be ironic. Everybody knows that Christmas hasn't been about Jesus in a long time, but this movie flat out says that Christmas is exclusively about getting whatever material product you want. Everybody needs to buy a Turboman doll, because if they don't, their kid will hate them.

The rest of the movie takes place on Christmas Eve, and documents Howard's day trying to track down a Turboman doll. At the first toy store he goes to, he meets Myron (Sinbad, who is somehow really funny in this), a postal worker who is stuck in the same predicament as Howard. They end up battling as a sort of Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner duo who are in competition all day, and this is the other interesting/upsetting element of the movie. Howard represents the upper class, while Myron is the lower class. We know that Howard has an incredible house in the suburbs, and that money is not a big problem for his family. Myron, however, is a working class mailman who likely does not live as comfortably as Howard, but is in just the same holiday predicament.

Myron mentions how he has to carry around letters to Santa (while the movie never comes out and says it, it does kind of acknowledge that Santa doesn't exist), even those from poor children who will not be able to get what they want because of financial issues. Myron knows that Christmas is about the "rich and powerful toy cartels," and that North America has come to accept this about Christmas. I am in no way calling for a return to Christian values here, I'm just trying to point out that this is possibly the most accurate Christmas movie there is. Obviously, much of it is absurd, but this movie is great for capturing what the modern Christmas is like.

Howard's quest for the Turboman doll is something he undertakes solely because it's the only thing that will get Jamie to forgive him, and that alone says more about North American culture than most "serious" pieces of media can. Jamie is a spoiled rat who gets what he wants, and Howard knows he can't just stop spoiling him now. When Myron says he never got the toy he wanted for Christmas, but his neighbour got it and went on to become a billionaire, Howard is even more convinced that Jamie needs a Turboman. Howard had better get his kid that toy, for otherwise Jamie will be condemned to a lifetime stuck in the middle class.

Towards the end of the movie, Howard ends up at the Christmas Eve parade downtown in an attempt to meet up with his family. He accidentally stumbles into a building that is apparently used for parade float preparation, and due to his muscular physique, Howard is mistaken for the actor meant to be Turboman in the parade. Howard is then put in costume, complete with a functioning jet pack, and goes up to the float where he has the opportunity to give Jamie a special edition Turboman doll. Finally, Howard has provided for his child (unless you count keeping him warm and fed in a gorgeous house, in which case he was providing all along).

BUT WAIT! Myron caught up, and is now in the costume of Turboman's arch-nemesis, Dementor! This leads to an incredible, over-the-top action sequence that features flying fists, flying discs, and flying people. After it's all over, Howard/Turboman has defeated Myron/Dementor, and Jamie has his Turboman doll. But, as Myron is being lead away by the police, Jamie realizes that this movie features no holiday spirit and makes a last ditch attempt to inject some by giving the action figure to Myron for his kid. Aw, how sweet. Myron says that it will make his son very happy, but I don't know how he'll give it to his son: by my count, Myron is going to be charged with attempted kidnapping, multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and theft. His son might get his Turboman doll this year, but he certainly won't have his dad home for the next few Christmases, and his family will have to learn to adjust to life without a father figure and his paycheque.

There is one quick shot during Howard's Turboman jet pack scene that sums up this movie and the modern Christmas frenzy perfectly. Howard loses control of his jet pack and flies through the window of an apartment building before flying out through another window on the other side. While passing through the building, however, he flies right through a family's dining room as they pray over their Christmas Eve turkey dinner, destroying everything. Turboman, and consumerism in general, has lead to the destruction of the religious and familial elements of Christmas, and he doesn't even care enough to look back once.

The title for this post is courtesy of my good friend Emma... thanks pal!

A NOTE ABOUT YEAR/DECADE END STUFF: You are probably currently being bombarded by top 10 lists from every critic, blogger, and nerdy friend for both 2009 and the 2000s as a whole. People like reading quick hit lists, but the real reason so many people write them is because they're fun as shit! I probably won't post a top 10 movies of the decade, but I will post something both movie and music related sometime in January. I will also eventually make some sort of list about my favourite movies of 2009, but not for another couple of months (I don't live in a massive city, so often I have to wait a while for a lot of good stuff to make it to town). I do already know what my absolute favourite movie of 2009 will be when all is said and done though, and you can expect a post about that in the near future too. If Santa's pending visit wasn't already enough to keep you from sleeping, this news must be!

A few little things

UNO!
I saw Brothers last week, which was pretty good. It was mostly well acted, NatPo was real cute, and there were some fun parallels between some characters... I'll warn you though: if you are like me, Tobey Maguire will always make you think of Spider-Man. If you're like me even more, any time you see him angry, you will want to make a dark symbiote joke. But I digress.

I like Jake Gyllenhall. I think he is a good actor (although I wish he would do a comedy every so often - the man is obviously funny), but Brothers features a couple of scenes that together form what I like to call "How to NOT Eat Food like a Regular Person.*" At the beginning of Brothers, Jake's character has just gotten out of jail, and we see him eat his mashed potatoes of freedom with a vigor matched only by... I can't even think of anything. He tears those potatoes up! I forgive this one... I mean, he did just get out of jail. I haven't been to jail, but I imagine that if I had, I would demolish my first post-jail meal too.

Later in the movie though, he eats again, and it is ridiculous: Jake's character apparently loves his pizza so much that he has to eat it UPSIDE DOWN. I'm serious. Over the course of this meal of upside down pizza, he smacks his lips, licks his fingers, and plays with his napkin constantly. Was he in jail for overacting? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that at one point in this scene, Jamie Foxx (dressed in a tailored suit, of course) pops up over Jake's shoulder and winks at the camera before disappearing. Maybe Foxx was his lawyer and knows he will soon be getting more business? Who knows.

*now with an introduction by Jamie Foxx!

DOS!
The poster for Christopher Nolan's next movie Inception exists now, and it gets me really excited. Yeah, the poster looks like that Dark Knight teaser poster with the Joker, but that one made me lose my shit, too. After the Dark Knight's success, I bet that Nolan can do pretty much whatever he wants with Inception, and I'm willing to bet it's going to be incredible. Nolan is probably the best working filmmaker today, so I'm really excited to see what he'll do with the creative freedom.



I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPELL THREE IN SPANISH!
I had another point, but in all the excitement about upside down pizza, I seem to have forgotten it. I saw the Blind Side last week too, which I would give a rating of "good, but exactly what you would expect." Sandra Bullock's physique, however, gets a rating of "DAMN!" Maybe even the coveted rating of a damn featuring both a Y and a U. If you don't know what I mean, just watch half an episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air... Will is sure to say it at least once.

Anyway, a real post will be forthcoming in the next couple of days, I just couldn't wait any longer to continue my crusade against poor eating in films. Shame on you, Jacob.

My thoughts on Avatar (before I see it)

MILD SPOILER ALERT: This post (obviously) won't spoil Avatar, but if you haven't seen the first two Terminator movies, this may hurt them for you. Also, I realize that my examination of the time travel in the Terminator is crude, but few discussions about time travel end up making sense anyway, so I just kept it brief.

I don’t hate James Cameron, although with the way I talk about him you might soon think that I do. However, I do hate how he seems to be perceived by the media, film critics, and most regular folk. For some reason, people just absolutely love this guy’s work. I have trouble seeing why he gets the love he does though, and it's not just because I constantly try to think the opposite of what mass society deems I should think (I suspect this explains why I often loudly claim my love for Steven Seagal movies, that the Lord of the Rings sucks, and that Annie is hotter than Britta), but because I actually don’t think his movies are much better than well-made action movies.

Anybody who says that the Terminator movies are expertly written is at least half-crazy. The plot of the first movie goes something like this: Kyle Reese is sent from the post-apocalypse 2029 to pre-apocalypse 1984 in order to stop a Terminator from killing Sarah Connor, a woman who will eventually give birth to a sort of Che Guevara who hates machines instead of America. Obviously good triumphs, with Sarah and Kyle defeating the Terminator and leaving it a scrap heap.

The second movie, however, takes place in 1995, as we are inching closer and closer to the apocalypse. Cyberdyne Systems found the remains of the Terminator from the first film, and was able to create a powerful microprocessor for weapons systems from it, which is eventually what leads to the development of Skynet, and then, you know, the apocalypse and stuff. A young John Connor with his mom and a modified, wisecracking T-1000 are trying to stop this, but the whole plot of the movie and the eventual apocalypse requires the existence of the remains of the first Terminator.

Kyle Reese is sent back to 1984 by John Connor himself in order to stop the Terminator, thusly allowing its remains to be found and for Cyberdyne to develop Skynet. Given that the means for time travel exist in 2029, Connor must know that by altering the past even in the slightest, you will change your present. Connor should have realized the risks of having a destroyed version of some pretty advanced technology being found by a tech company in 1984. He should have let the Terminator kill his mother and by extension himself, because then there wouldn’t have been any giant police station shootouts and the Terminator could leave 1984 without his remnants being found. Knowing what was at risk, Connor's death and his mother’s death would likely be seen as necessary for the greater good, the Terminator would be a 20-minute movie that did not spawn a franchise, and Edward Furlong never would have become a pop music sensation in Japan*.

The Terminator is an interesting movie, mostly because it’s so dated now that I don’t think I could qualify it as “good” anymore. It was made on a very low budget, and the special effects make that obvious to the casual modern viewer. While it was definitely very well-liked at the time, judging by the lengths of their respective Wikipedia pages, the sequel is far more beloved. James Cameron gets endless amounts of love from critics and film nerds just like me for writing and directing a cool action movie around a plot hole… and like John Connor, T2 unnecessarily ushered in a negative change in its respective environment.

James Cameron is often noted as starting the advent of computer generated imagery in film, and he has received plenty of praise for it. CGI has allowed for a number of great films to exist, but I think that its use is more often than not a detriment to an action movie. Now it seems that whenever the choices are between CGI and trying a little harder and doing it for real, 90% of the time CGI will be used for a variety of reasons. Any big action scene generally requires a suspension of belief and an unbroken sense of tension in order for a viewer to be completely engrossed in it, but the second I see a computer generated image that is noticeably bad, I think about it instead of the scene, and that tension is lost. I think the best action movies of this past decade are the Bourne series, Collateral, Casino Royale, The Lookout, Public Enemies and others that are slipping my mind currently. What these movies all have in common is a decided focus on avoiding CGI whenever possible: while Public Enemies has one bad CGI shot towards the end, I can't think of any other notable uses of CGI in these movies. While there are some movies that use CGI flawlessly in their action scenes (the Transformers movies come to mind), you are still taking the viewer out of the action as they marvel at the technology.

Through the success of the first Terminator, Cameron was in a position to be hired to make Aliens. I would imagine that after Aliens’ box office success, Cameron could pretty much do what he wanted, which meant the Abyss, T2, True Lies and then Titanic, all featuring his baby CGI. When Cameron (kind of embarrassingly) claimed he was the king of the world at the Oscars, he was probably right if that world was confined to “Hollywood in the 1990s.” And then, he disappeared to his castle until 2005, when he announced Avatar, the film whose commercial is currently bombarding you whenever you watch professional football.

I am curious to see how Avatar does financially, just as I am curious to see whether or not the movie is actually good. I bet it will be a colossal hit, and I will probably classify it as “pretty badass.” But I want it to fail… horribly. I want it to be the new Cutthroat Island. I want it to be the new Waterworld. I want Avatar to "Ishtar," and then I want Avatar's name to be used as a verb for the poor performance of a future blockbuster. And it’s all because of one thing James Cameron said.

Cameron has mentioned multiple times that he cut back on the story element of Avatar in order to focus on the new stereoscopic 3D technology. While I concur that few blockbusters put the story over the action, most of these movies aren’t directed by people who are hailed as the saviour of the modern blockbuster. It seems like critics and movie nerds alike are expecting to see the world changed by Avatar, but it will probably only be a mediocre-to-good movie that has elements taken from it and put into countless other shitty blockbusters. It isn’t going to reinvigorate the modern blockbuster, it’s going to hurt it.

When Avatar inevitably does huge numbers, its success will likely be attributed to Cameron’s innovative use of technology, and probably deservedly so. By almost all accounts the effects are insanely cool: while one Guardian reviewer said the 3D effects made him nauseous, it seems that everybody else says "WHOOOOAAAA." The problem is that by sacrificing story, and also by making that sacrifice known, Cameron has given viewers few other reasons to cite for the movie’s success. This then leads future blockbuster filmmakers to (rightly) assume that the technology was the reason for the success, and then these filmmakers also ignore story in favour of messing with the new technology.

From what I can gather without having seen the movie, Avatar is about humanity's encroachment on a world that is living in harmony, populated by the Na'vi. Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully, a paralyzed U.S. Marine who is able to walk again through the development of the new Avatar technology, and he starts to explore the Na'vi world of Pandora. Through technology, Jake is able to do what he wants in this world that existed before him, but he quickly realizes that what the humans are doing is destroying a world that was more or less a utopia before they arrived. Cameron has mentioned that he sees the movie as a sort of warning, and that he wants viewers to think about how they interact with nature, and yet he doesn't seem to realize how big of a metaphor he is creating for himself. While Hollywood is far from a utopia, James Cameron was able to do what he wanted with the blockbuster due to the advent of filmmaking technology, and in doing so he forever altered the landscape of the world of filmmaking.

All of this makes me sound like a luddite who hates any sort of technological growth, but I think I have a point here. While James Cameron often uses his technological advancements well, many others that borrow them in the future just aren't using them as well. Despite the fact that it exists because of what I deem to be a plot hole, T2 has held up over time and is still a good action movie. Aliens is still good as well, and every time I see True Lies on television, I always find myself watching it until at least the next commercial break. The problem is that they are just that: good. They aren't great like many people claim, and Cameron is above all else trying to make some money. He is barely different from Michael Bay, the most reviled modern filmmaker of the past decade: the only real difference is that Bay is more honest about his ambitions. He wants to make money and knows he is making popcorn movies, whereas James Cameron seems to feel he is advancing the state of filmmaking, while most critics and movie fans seem to feel the same way. While Cameron has said that Avatar is for 14 year old boys, he knows nerds like me will think about it far more than we should, and he expects us to marvel at the technology and praise him for it. While I will likely marvel at the technology, I don't think it will add much to the future of filmmaking, and it will detract more from future action movies than it will help them. CGI is consistently used well by Cameron and Bay, but not many others. I worry that the same thing will happen with 3D in action movies.

Maybe Cameron wrote the character of Jake intentionally as a metaphor for himself, and that Jake will use technology to achieve his goals without care for what is going on around him… or maybe it's just a coincidence. It appears from the trailer that Jake has a crisis about how humans are treating Pandora at some point, and the ending of the movie will likely feature a "we need to treat nature and our fellow man better" type of message. However, I think it would be far more appropriate if Jake and the rest of the humans used their technology to do whatever they desired within Pandora, because that's what James Cameron is doing in Hollywood. And like John Connor's decision to send Kyle Reese to 1984, Cameron's work is going to affect the future of his environment in a negative way, not a positive one.


*according to Furlong's IMDB trivia page, this happened. I would have looked into it more, but honestly I just didn't want to find out that it wasn't true.

I apparently might also love Ben Affleck...

I'm changing some stuff around here. I will no longer be posting every Monday, instead I will be posting whenever something is finished. I've rushed a couple of my last posts, and I don't like that. This isn't a job, I have no real deadline to make, so I'm going to take some extra time and do a better job.

I originally put that "posting every Monday" thing into play because I was worried I would just stop writing, but that has not been a problem. Finding a satisfactory conclusion has been, and hopefully more time and thought will fix that. So, I will (hopefully) post at least four things a month, but there won't necessarily be a post every Monday.

Since I am desperate to keep the few readers I have, if you don't have Google reader and want me to notify you when I post something new, I will gladly do so. I'm not going to post my e-mail here, but comment if you want notifications and we'll figure something out.

And now onto the real reason you should be here:

"Stop giving Ben Affleck such a hard time. He occasionally shows that he's really talented, he just makes poor choices with the movies he chooses to be in."
-my oft-repeated argument/apology for Ben Affleck

"It's really cool, I liked it a lot... But I don't think it will age well."
-my description of Gone Baby Gone, November 2007

"I don't know what the fuck I was thinking in November 2007... this is a great, great movie that will absolutely hold up over time. And I was right about Ben Affleck! SUCK IT!"
-my thoughts about my description of Gone Baby Gone from November 2007, November 2009

I won't lie, I'm a big fan of the brothers Affleck. I've been an apologist for Ben for longer than I can remember, and if you read my post about the Assassination of Jesse James, you know how I feel about Casey. It seems that every review of this movie (like, ever) has to mention that they are brothers, and just how bad of an actor Ben Affleck is, and how surprised people are that he made a good movie. This is me fulfilling that obligation.

I also feel that I should explain why I have defended Ben Affleck for so long. I think that reason is a combination of Chasing Amy, and a couple of scenes in Good Will Hunting. He is really good in Chasing Amy in general (I haven't watched the movie since high school and realize it is probably the most dated movie ever by now, but I'm sure he's still good), and there are those two scenes towards the end of Good Will Hunting.

SPOILER ALERT: This next paragraph will potentially ruin Good Will Hunting if you haven't seen it. Skip ahead if you want, but the movie as a whole isn't very good so you won't be missing out on much if I spoil it. Plus, I'm saving you from having to watch Minnie Driver act.

I don't like Good Will Hunting very much: I think it's far too Hollywoodized, Minnie Driver's head is fucking HUGE, and when you think about it, very little of the movie actually makes sense. What does make sense, and what are clearly the best scenes in the movie, are the ones between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Their last scene together at the construction yard is one of my favourite scenes ever, and that it sums up everything that's good about a friend you are really close with. There is one line especially where Affleck's voice wavers just the tiniest bit, and it's absolutely perfect. Later, in Affleck's final scene, the expression he makes when walking back to the car is just as perfect. I don't like the movie, but I've watched it about 5 times just to see those scenes in context… Even if every other scene he was ever in was absolute trash, I would defend Affleck to the death for these moments alone.

SPOILERS OVER

Was I surprised that Ben Affleck directed a good movie? No, not at all… especially since he has never really come across as an idiot to me. Maybe dating J-Lo was a poor idea, but don't act like you wouldn't have if given the chance.

FINE, alright, he shouldn't have been in so many shitty, shitty action movies. Yes, Paycheck and Pearl Harbor are two of the worst movies I've ever seen. But, check out these movies:

• Mallrats (I'm not a big fan from what I recall, but people love this movie)
• Chasing Amy (assuming his performance has aged well)
• Dogma (again, not a fan of the movie, but him and Matt Damon were great)
• Reindeer Games (honestly, all I remember about this one are Charlize Theron's boobs, but isn't that enough to make it a great, timeless film?)
• Boiler Room (a very cool movie)
• Changing Lanes (this is a really good movie)
• Dazed and Confused (IT'S DAZED AND CONFUSED!)

Boom. Chances are you like John Cusack, and he's been in a much smaller number of good movies, ergo your Affleck hate is completely unjustified. Now that my Affleck discussion obligation has been excessively fulfilled, I can move on to the actual movie.

Like I mentioned in the post about the Savages, 2007 was a great year, and Gone Baby Gone is one of the reasons. It is a neo-noir about a child kidnapping, yes, but that doesn't even begin to do justice to the number of good questions posed by this movie.

The movie starts off with a voiceover monologue about what home is, and the effect it has on a person, setting the theme for the movie. We quickly get some criticism of the mass media, and then we're onto the plot which opens up a whole slew of ethical questions:

• Who has the right to be a parent? Who doesn't? Who gets to decide what a good parent is?
• What is a home? How does your own home affect your growth as a person?
• Do child molesters have the right to a fair trial? Should they just be killed?
• What constitutes proof? Can we trust the people we're told are to be trusted?
• Does the media do more bad than good?
• Why are some people posing for the camera when their goddamn kid got kidnapped?!!?

And all of this is done without ever getting too heavy-handed, and without any actor slipping for even a second. Casey Affleck is (obviously) perfect, Amy Ryan is perfect, Ed Harris is Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman, and Michelle Monaghan is really good too. The cinematography is gorgeous as well for a movie that is almost exclusively shot handheld, and the movie moves along quickly without rushing anything.

I could get more in-depth about why this movie is so good, but I think this post has turned out to be more about Ben Affleck than anything, so I'm going to continue with that. As a study of celebrity, the star as director is fascinating to me: in Gone Baby Gone, we get to see that Affleck has some issues with the media, which is no surprise given that he was a favourite target of theirs during his J-Lo phase. It also might even be a bit of self-criticism: Bennifer never really ran from the media, and in the movie neither does Helene.

Knowing that Affleck is from Boston is also key, because it might appear to be kind of an anti-Boston movie without having known that. I would imagine that all of the questions about raising kids, and who deserves to be able to raise kids, likely come out of the fact that Affleck himself has become a father since fading a bit from the spotlight. Watching Gone Baby Gone, I see the way Helene treats her kid Amanda and think of the Chris Rock joke "that kid is going to rob me in ten years." We see many grown up versions of Amanda in Gone Baby Gone, and it's not pretty.

Then what is it about Gone Baby Gone that I like so much? Is it that it is the first movie I've seen directed by a celebrity I like that backs up my own thoughts about said celebrity? Partially. But apart from Ben Affleck's attachment, this movie is just really, really good. As a thriller, it works. As a series of ethical questions, it works. And yes, as a vague examination of a celebrity, it works. But there is nothing about the movie that isn't intriguing, and I think it definitely belongs in that illustrious "Top 5 of 07." Step aside, Michael Clayton, I'm rejigging this list.

I think I'm in love with Laura Linney

I’m taking the easy way out this week and just writing a pretty basic (and spoiler-free) movie review, but it’s for good reason. 2007 in my mind was a very good year for movies, with No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, the Assassination of Jesse James, I’m Not There, Gone Baby Gone, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Bourne Ultimatum… do you see where I’m going with this? It was a good year.

I am also taking the easy way out this week in another way, too: after I wrote this I realized I did not articulate at all just how good the movie I’m discussing is, and instead of re-writing, I’m just going to occasionally interject… now carry on.

The problem is that with so many great, deservedly recognized movies, there were bound to be a couple that don’t get the full credit they should. The Savages isn’t the best movie of that year (it might not even be in the top 5 of that list I just rattled off), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t absolutely great.

As I have mentioned before in my post about Sugar, I find it rare that a movie focuses more on character than plot or theme. This is one of those rare films. Siblings Wendy and Jon Savage (Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman respectively) have to find a nursing home for their father (Philip Bosco) as he struggles with dementia. This all sounds like something overly dramatic, but I assure you it isn’t. It’s actually remarkably funny, and I would probably consider it a comedy more than I would a drama.

Here is my problem with this movie: it IS great, but it is difficult to fully explain why. I love this movie so much that it is legitimately difficult for me to explain why, and that’s really frustrating.

Wendy and Jon’s relationship with their father has never been a particularly good one, and at the beginning of the movie they haven’t seen each other for years. Wendy and Jon are not particularly close with each other either, and the movie follows them as they get to know each other again. The acting is flawless on each of their parts, but let’s be serious, if you get Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney in the same scene, acting will not be your problem. And with the Savages, the writing certainly isn’t a problem either.

The movie begins with a surreal musical sequence that is hilarious before it moves onto some fairly dramatic plot exposition. The first 45 minutes aren’t particularly funny, for that time is spent setting up the main characters’ relationships. This set-up is absolutely essential to the second half of the movie, however, for once the audience knows the characters, the film gets the opportunity to focus on the laughs. And that is the strength of this movie, in my opinion: the writing. I really enjoy movies that set up their world and then just sort of live in it for a while, and in the Savages you get about an hour of that. Wendy and Jon’s relationship is enjoyable to just watch, and I wish more movies would give you something like that.

Because of the setup in the first half of the movie, we know these characters and have an idea as to how they will react. We know that when Jon hurts himself, Wendy will tap into her maternal urges to take care of him while Jon will downplay everything about the injury. Their scene in Jon’s hallway is absolutely hilarious, and it can only be that funny because of the large amount of setup we’re given before we get there.

This movie, as a whole, is hilarious. It’s not just this scene, but also the scene where Jon gets hurt, the cookies scene, the pillow scene, etc.

I think the Savages is very close in tone to Six Feet Under, but without the occasional feeling of self-importance and pretension (that being said, I love Six Feet Under). It is a mixture of comedy and drama, and the comedy is made much funnier because the drama is so effective. Not only do you laugh at the joke, but you also laugh as a release from the fairly heavy subject matter you’ve been paying attention to.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are two of my favourite actors, and they are both perfect in this movie. Yes, they are playing variations of the same character they normally play, but dammit they do it really well. And how many actors out there consistently play drastically different characters anyway? I know Philip Seymour Hoffman does it more often than most, but he still plays the intelligent middle-aged writer type in about half of his movies… he just so happens to excel at it. You could change a few words in those last couple of sentences and it would apply to Linney as well.

This is also Laura Linney’s best performance by a mile. She does almost always play the 40ish upper-middle class woman, but she is unbelievably good at it, and this might be the only movie where we see her character having no real idea about what to do with herself.

I saw this movie once when it first came out, and I absolutely loved it to the point that I was kind of afraid to watch it again in case it wasn’t as good as I remembered it. Well, it’s two years later and it hasn’t gotten any worse. The way the movie builds on its characters is still beautiful, and the jokes haven’t gotten any less funny as time has passed. And while the last scene does sort of bow to a bit of a Hollywood cliché, it works well enough for me.

All things considered, there are few really significant events that happen over the course of our lives, and what the Savage family is dealing with is something that can conceivably happen to most of us. What the movie the Savages tells us, however, is that you don’t need a high-concept movie to be thoroughly entertained. If you start with something that is well written, you’ve got a good chance to make a great, entertaining movie… the problem is that nobody will promote it other than bloggers who beg their friends to watch it.

WATCH THE SAVAGES! Seriously, it’s just so damn good. But maybe I should change a word in that last sentence from “beg” to “yell at.”

I'm a Celebrity Dog: Get Me Out Arf Here!

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Andrew Dominik's Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford... but the title of the movie itself features the biggest spoiler anyway.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is absolutely one of my favourite movies in years, if not period. I love a good western, as well as a movie that doesn’t rush to get to its conclusion… this movie has both of those elements, as well as some stellar acting (Casey Affleck and Sam Rockwell especially), a gorgeous score, and it is far and away the most beautifully photographed movie I have ever seen. But, enough of that normal movie review shit; let’s get down to brass tacks.

The movie is about the infamous bank robber, Jesse James, and his last days before two other members of his gang, Robert Ford and his brother Charley, murder him. Throughout the first two hours of the movie, we are told that Jesse is the most famous man in America through the distribution of nickel books that tell stories of his crusades. When we meet Bob Ford, he is 19 to Jesse’s 34 and Bob has grown up idolizing Jesse.

The thing about Jesse, however, is that while he has committed many crimes, the idea of Jesse James as Bob knows it is more of a concept than a person. Jesse and others throughout the movie mention how the books Bob grew up reading are often fabrications, and that Jesse is not the person described in those books. However, Jesse still makes mention that there is some truth to them: he doesn’t care who rides with him, and “that’s why they call [him] gregarious.” The celebrity begins as truth, but quickly becomes an embellishment of it, although the celebrity often enjoys that embellishment.

Jesse is just that, a celebrity, and between him and Bob, I think this movie is about the concept of celebrity, and those who idolize celebrities. The release of this movie was delayed for over a year due to poor test screenings, and I think the delay only helped to make the film more prescient, as our society’s love of celebrity only seems to grow stronger as each year passes. As a culture, we are often more like Bob than we care to admit. I am far from blameless in this as well, for when I come across a link about a celebrity I admire, I will almost always click on it out of curiousity.

As the movie progresses, we witness Bob forming his own public persona, albeit almost exclusively by copying Jesse. We may not all do this the same way, but we do certainly do it now more than ever. With the advent in popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, MyFace, etc., we all get a chance to create our own public persona by customizing our pictures and information about ourselves by listing our political views and favourite movies. Again, I am guilty of this myself, and I am probably even more guilty than you because I have a blog. By reading this, you are reading a heavily edited version of my thoughts, and I am only posting what I want you to read. I am helping to construct your opinions of me as a ‘writer.’ The only difference is that people in general care about me far less than they do Brad Pitt… but I concede that he is way hotter than me, so I understand.

The Assassination of Jesse James is a decidedly anti-fame movie: it doesn’t seem to think fame is healthy, and it will eventually destroy those who have it. Jesse is murdered because of his fame: his pride in his exploits in part leads to his murder. Even when he is dead, he is still a concept that people clamor to be a part of. A picture of his corpse becomes extremely popular, and Jesse’s body goes on a road show exhibition as well. Jesse may be dead, but that only seems to make people want a piece of him more, which is akin to many posthumous pieces of media.

We have seen this most recently in the death of Michael Jackson: once he died, the mass media blew up with speculation about his death, and people tried to get one last piece of his life. Like Jesse James, Michael Jackson’s fame probably drove him at least partially insane, and could have possibly caused his death at a fairly young age. And, of course, in death we saw Jackson’s albums back at the top of the charts again (I think I remember seeing his albums were the majority of the Billboard Top 10 for a week or two), and a documentary about his proposed concert tour was rushed into theatres. Just like people once fought to pay $2 for a picture of Jesse’s corpse, people are now rushing to movie theatres to watch an unfinished version of Jackson’s last artistic contribution to the world.

The Assassination of Jesse James also shows us the effect that fame can have on people as they achieve it. After Bob and Charley murder Jesse, they attain their own type of fame. In order to capitalize on this, they begin performing a theatrical reenactment of Jesse’s last days, with Bob as himself and Charley as Jesse. Over time, we see Charley descend into depression from the guilt he feels, and his performance begins to get more accurate before he eventually kills himself. Charley couldn’t handle the guilt he felt from killing a man, much like he couldn’t handle the fame he got from partaking in the act.

Bob, however, initially relishes it. He loves being known as “the man who killed Jesse James,” and shows little remorse over the death of Jesse. He considers himself to be courageous for killing the bank robber, but he eventually starts to feel guilty and descends into alcoholism. Much like his brother, Bob eventually realized how immoral it was to use a man’s murder to increase your financial and social status. The final scene of the movie shows us Bob being killed by Edward O’Kelley, but by that point Bob has resigned himself to his fate. Bob eventually realized that fame is not a positive thing, and that it adds far more pressures than one could foresee prior to attaining it for themselves.

While the way I’m writing about this movie may make it seem like an after school special about the trappings of fame, it is much more subtle than it sounds here. Even if you aren’t as interested with the idea behind the movie as I am, you should still see it because it is a great movie. And once you do see it, be sure to post about it on your Facebook page to let everybody know just how much you love it!