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Star Trek Into Darkness Review

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Reviews, Movies, Nerd May 27 2013 · 5 views
Star Trek

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:kaukau: How to watch this:
  • Wear a Starfleet shirt
  • Wear Vulcan ears (or Shatner's old toupee)
  • Watch The Wrath of Khan first
  • Make sure you go to a theatre with a large silver screen
  • Rinse and repeat
Don't let the name fool you - this isn't a dark movie.  In fact, though there is more emphasis on the villain's character this time around, I would consider 2009's Star Trek a darker film.  I had several misconceptions going in that perhaps foiled my ability to fully appreciate this.  For example, the trailers made the villain look like he was going to be ten times more challenging than he actually was.  He was a good villain, but I would not necessarily say that he was a more formidable threat than Nero.  I also thought that this was going to be a more emotional film that would stretch the way we look at these characters, and though it had some emotional notes, they were only partially explored.
 
I've seen this three times, and might see it a fourth.  So that should disprove any notion that if this film doesn't live up to the freshness of its predecessor then it's a disappointment.  It's still lovable, and still has many things that make Star Trek great.  The bright colors, the imaginative fantasy, and the many elements that make science fiction fun.  This reflects the imagination I had as a kid.
 
It's debatable whether or not this film will please Trekkies or not.  The way I see things, the one thing that all "true" Trekkies have in common is that infinite combinations form infinite possibilities, and no one is alike.  This is because to be a geeky fan is to be opinionated, and to have a definite sense of how things ought to be.  Ergo, a superhero film will never please everyone, no matter how good.  I used to think that the Dark Knight films had universal praise and formed the greatest blessing ever to Batman fans, but I have encountered Batfans who detest them and think that Nolan did a gross injustice to the character.  So therefore, Star Trek Into Darkness could either be the best thing to happen to the franchise or the worst, depending on who you ask, although I don't think that it's too controversial.  It fits well with the new tone set by the previous installment.  That was the film that made Star Trek cool again, but it was to the style of Star Wars.  J.J. Abrams was a huge admirer or Steven Spielberg and Star Wars, and between that director and those films, he found the inspiration for his style.  So this new film feels a little like it's playing Star Wars's game, minus the outright war.  That might annoy people who would rather Star Trek be a little more slow-paced and distinct from the mother-of-all-franchises to which it is often compared.
 
Fans will be rewarded, however, in its many references to classic Star Trek lore, from The Trouble With Tribbles to - not surprisingly - The Wrath of Khan.  In fact, I slipped up and accidentally called this movie The Wrath of Khan when talking with my cousins, because there were so many references, which just goes to show that it's still the greatest Star Trek movie ever made.  2009's Star Trek is, in my opinion, the second best.  Both have very moving stories about the Enterprise's crew and how they underwent definitive and permanent character change.  What made the last one extra impressive is that it started with some of the characters right at birth and build them up from scratch, which was a very engaging journey.  Into Darkness does not benefit from an origin story.  It introduces Carol Marcus, but she's only an inclusion, not a central point to the story, and doesn't have her own origin story.  In fact, none of the characters goes through any apparent journey, for which I really can't credit this for being the best Star Trek film.
 
Nothing truly gets resolved.  At the end of the movie, there's no permanent change to the status quo, and I think that's why I wasn't content.  Things were touched upon, but they didn't get enough time.  Whenever the movie had what looked like a slow moment, when things got a little more somber, something would come crashing in -often literally - interrupting the scene.  I can't, therefore, say that it did a good job of building up those iconic moments.
 
So those were my concerns.  However, Abrams made this movie with the intention of it being a standalone, something that someone could watch without having any prior experience with Star Trek, even the 2009 film.   So I know where this film comes from.  That's why I still really enjoy it and try and see it as an entertaining fantasy adventure with cool warp space jumps, aliens, voices, costumes, and sound effects.  Oh, and lots and lots of lens flares.  It isn't a weak film at all.  Why else would I watch it three - possibly four - times?
 
So, in spite of the lack of game-changing character development, there were certain people who had major moments in the limelight. What pleases me most is that with this second film, the actors fit more and more into their roles.  Whenever iconic characters get recast, longtime fans can get uncomfortable because they feel like they're betraying the original actors who defined the roles in the first place if they embrace the new actors.  Yet, I now see that everyone in this cast, save for Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto (who will never replace Shatner and Nimoy), has the potential to be just as iconic as the original actors.  Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Karl Urban, and Anton Yelchin are taking ownership of these roles.  I think it helps that the rest of the crew in the original series wasn't quite as flamboyant, and a little more subdued compared to the larger-than-life performances of Shatner and Nimoy, whereas Pine and Quinto must embrace a subtler approach with their characters in order to fall into imitation, while the other actors can add energy to these characters that wasn't fully exploited back in the day.  The eminence of most of the cast had room for promotion, but by the time Shatner became Admiral Kirk and Nimoy the Ambassador, there were no new levels to go to, metaphorically speaking.  So now Scotty is Super Scotty, and Bones is Super Bones, more themselves than they ever were before.  Nowhere is this more apparent than with the blazing new characterization given to Chekov, who's a far more distinct personality aboard the ship than he ever was in the past.
 
Because of this, I can't fault the film for having little in the way of milestone character developments.  It seems that it geared more toward cementing the legacy of these characters, and demonstrating the new status quo established at the end of Star Trek.  Abrams plays with the characterization of the crew members, perhaps not twisting them to their limits but showing off what's fun about them.  The person who benefits the most from this is Scotty, followed closely by Chekov.  This was Scotty's movie to shine.  The story didn't revolve around him, but considering that he appeared closer to the end of Star Trek, it's fair that he should get more screen time and a greater taste of the action in this highly anticipated sequel.
 
Chekov, meanwhile, sent a chill down my spine when he received Kirk's order: "You're my new head of engineering.  Go put on a red shirt."  I won't tell anyone what happened after that, but it was a major moment in the film for me that stood out.
 
I'm just going to squeeze this in here and say that "Cupcake" from the previous film made an appearance, even though he's entirely minor.  I really appreciate the consistency that they have with these extras, because it's good to feel that these films pay more attention to continuity than the Original Series was infamous for lacking, and it makes the world seem more real, solid, and tangible.
 
The main new character from Star Trek canon that Into Darkness introduces to the cast is Carol Marcus.  Even though she has yet to be fully developed, I appreciated her involvement.  She was an element from The Wrath of Khan who had a vaguely defined history with Kirk as some sort of love interest.  Like so many things in this film, that was only touched upon, but it certainly had a sense of going somewhere.  She was only a small element from the original films, and yet she had a distinction of mother's Kirk's son.  Since then, this character needed more development, a full story of her own, and I like that this film opens that up.
 
Benedict Cumberbatch, as expected, played an excellent villain, and this was certainly a movie where it was the villain's moment to shine.  It's not quite The Dark Knight or The Silence of the Lambs, especially since his rivalry with Kirk isn't quite as personal, but John Harrison was a cool villain with complexity and was very nice to look at.  The only real problem with him was that the film needed more of him, more of his villainy, because I could stand to see it.  However, casting Cumberbatch is slightly controversial, and he might not have fit his role as John Harrison.  I won't explain why...You'll just have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about.
 
By the end of the movie, I felt that the franchise was really ready for another television series.  I think that's what this is leading into.  I have know way of knowing that for sure, but those are really my hopes.  What would excite me the most about this is that Carol Marcus would make the most amazing change to the status quo, while being entirely appropriate.  She's the perfect addition if there's to be a fresh take on the Original Series, and will give it the ideal "new" feel, because what the new series would need is a certain chemistry that should have been there before.  That is, Carol Marcus, whose legendary but untold love story with Captain Kirk should finally get the weight it deserves.
 
Looking further into the future, there are other characters I really want to see, preferably in a full-blown film instead of in the series.  This movie had a great villain, but I was really hoping for Gary Mitchell.  I really want the villain in the next film to be Gary Mitchell.  I also wouldn't mind a return of Khan, because I can only imagine how much damage he and all of his followers could do after the standards set by the lone wolf villain in Into Darkness.  Charlie X would be incredibly interesting as well, though I could stand to see him in an episode rather than a standalone movie.  I want to see Spock grow a beard, and not just for an episode but for a whole movie, which Zachary Quinto has mentioned, though I wasn't sure if that was in jest.  Finally, I really, really want to see Saavik's origin firsthand in order to keep the freshness of the 2009 Star Trek.
 
So in all, it's a good movie, and I highly recommend seeing it.  Just not in 3D.  I tried 3D first, and it really wasn't doing it for me in this film.  Star Trek just works so much better in 2D, especially on a bigger screen.  Watch it, several times, and if you're single, gather the courage to ask someone out to see it as a first date.  Or don't.  I didn't, either, so I won't judge you.  Just make sure to have fun.
 
Oh, and for the record, the reason why it took me over a week to write this review was because it's extremely difficult to talk about this film without giving away major spoilers.  The most awesome things about the film are things I can't even touch on.  So therefore, in order to truly express myself, and to say the one thing that simply must be said, I must for the first time ever use a spoiler tag in of of these reviews:
 
Spoiler


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Oblivion Review

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Reviews, Movies May 11 2013 · 3 views
Tom Cruise, science fiction

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:kaukau: Watch 2001: A Space Odyssey before going to see this.  Trust me.  Just do.
 
There's something surreal about this film that reminded me a lot of Tron: Legacy, and then I found out why.  It shares the same director, Joseph Kosinski, and Legacy was his only feature film up until this point.  I think a major part of it was the techno music.  I might not have thought that such music would have fit into this type of film, but then I realized that Oblivion had a style to it that reminded me very much of a video game with a ton of cut scenes, something that could come from the creators of Halo or Mass Effect, and when you add on top of that the video-game music, the visual style of the film's world, the way the characters dress, and the titles, it definitely all adds up.
 
Nothing about the music is terribly memorable, but it was very enjoyable and was a powerful mover and shaper of this film.  For example, there were scenes that otherwise would have played as if they were slow, but something about the Tron-style music these scenes to feel far more driven.  I actively enjoyed its presence as an accompaniment to the film, even if I won't remember any particular melodies.
 
The other stylistic strongpoint of this film is its cinematography, in which it does a beautiful job of capturing as much as it can with simple camera work.  There are many wide shots that reveal the entire scene.  Perhaps this is another reason for why it feels like a video game, because I can't think of many cut scenes with closeups on actors.
 
Joseph Kosinski based this movie off of an unpublished graphic novel of his, and as such I can describe the storytelling as having an extremely visual component.  The film is definitely something pretty to look at, and has a lot of beauty.  Some people get annoyed by this sort of thing, but the film medium was always visual, and in fact it was a special effect before it was ever used to tell stories.  What's more, on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum, there are movies that are about nothing but characters and story, and they suck.  Look at The Room for a prime example.  So I really hope that people who go to see this appreciate the serene scenery and visuals as means of enhancing the story.  And yes, there is a serious attempt at a story, and it's more original than Tron: Legacy, which gathered some complaints for its pot.
 
This is what I am sure a lot of people will be interested.  Obviously, I can't give away much, but here's the gist: One of the very first things that Jack Harper tells us is that he has dreams that feel like memories, but that can't be, because they are set on Earth and Earth was rendered uninhabitable some sixty years ago.  What's more, as a security measure, he had his memory erased before being sent to his outpost on Earth.  That's not suspicious at all.  On top of what we know from the trailers, there are people living down on Earth, so it's really obvious that there's some sort of conspiracy going on.  He's ever so slightly aware of it, and he says it outright in the very beginning, that he finds himself constantly questioning things, while his partner Victoria doesn't.  This can only mean that she's going to be very frustrating later on.
 
Victoria is an interesting character.  She doesn't seem to have much depth, and she's so reserved, but that's because she's obviously been brainwashed to be that way.  If it wasn't for her, this film wouldn't have its most memorable line, "Are you still an effective team?"  Remember these words well, for when you enter the theatre you should keep track of how many times that line is said and make an ironic comment every time.
 
Anyway, back to the story: another major note that everyone should know is that this is the type of movie that has a few plot twists.  Some of them you will see coming, others you won't.  It's evident from the trailer, of course, that it's that sort of movie.  Fortunately, the trailer doesn't give away the major plot twists.  While I can't guarantee that the major reveals left me in awe (so this isn't The Sting or The Usual Suspects), or surprised me necessarily, I didn't predict them.  They weren't landmarks, but they were solid in their delivery.
 
For those who go in expecting an action film, it expertly avoids that.  It actually is about story, for the most part, and I would personally have a story told through many visuals than a story told through tons of action.  Not a whole lot happens for the first half of the film, since there's a bit to establish, but there's a bit to establish and the music, meanwhile, keeps these scenes mesmerizing.  There are some explosions and the like, but only two moments that I would really consider action scenes, and pretty much all of these moments went to display just how scary a ruthless killing machine can be.  Those drones would make awesome video game characters, and I could definitely stand to see more of them.
 
That's about all I have to say in terms of the story.  The casting was pretty good, and all the actors felt really right for their roles.  Tom Cruise, as crazy as he is in real life, is a great actor and he never fails to deliver when playing a character such as this one.  Morgan Freeman is awesome, but what else is new?  The only potential casting change I would have made was the former Bond Girl, Olga Kurylenko.  If they were going to choose a French actress, I would have tried to book Eva Green.
 
Some people have complained that the film isn't original enough.  I realize there is some truth to that, but I also notice that the director admitted that a major part of the story was paying tribute to the science fiction of the 70's (give or take a few years).  unfortunately, I didn't get too many of them, but it would be cool if I did.  It would be interesting to play a drinking game, where someone took a shot for every reference he or she heard.  For me, it was all worth it, because the film had a ton of homages to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is my all-time favorite science-fiction movie.  The most obvious one is the drones, but I caught on to their use of surreal black geometric objects, throwback images to the Star Child, and one monumental salute to HAL 9000 that basically canonized him as patron saint of artificial intelligence.
 
So walking away from this, the main things I remember are the cinematography, the music, the beautiful visuals and style of the world, and some of the brilliant references.  That, and this would make an awesome video game.
 

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Iron Man 3 Review

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Reviews, Movies May 09 2013 · 9 views
Marvel, Disney

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:kaukau: How to watch an Iron Man movie:
  • Go to the theatre wearing a superhero t-shirt
  • In my case, a Superman t-shirt, since I feel he symbolizes the genre
  • Avoid sitting by loud people who have to comment on everything
  • Have fun
Above all, Iron Man 3 is a fun movie.  The trailers make it out to be darker than the others, but it's really no more serious than other Disney movies such as The Lion King.  It's kid-friendly, filled with humor, and makes for a while ride.  Is Tony Stark pushed like never before?  Yes.  The villain has him struggling from the very beginning, and for a long while Tony has the low ground.  For much of the film, he's incapable of even using his suit, and has to resort to MacGuyver tactics in order to make progress.  It makes for good entertainment, although people expecting a serious drama should tone down those notions before watching this.  Shane Black wasn't trying to make Iron Man serious so much as he was trying to make him cool.  They don't have to be the same thing.  Even so, though it isn't a super-serious drama, it still has a very good story.
 
The film starts out with a favorite 90's song of mine.  I won't spoil it, but the way it just unexpectedly came up was doggone hilarious and was one of my favorite gags of the movie.  It certainly set a tone.  Meanwhile, the song is in the 90's because Tony treats us to a flashback to "where it all started", which was in 1999 at a New Year's party.  This is where he "creates his own demons" by being the playboy philanthropist he is.  He rejects a poor little looser and stands him up.  That guy looked suspiciously like Guy Pearce, who is supposed to be the villain in the film.  Simultaneously, Tony has his way with a woman who works with something called Extremis, which causes organisms to heal super-fast at the expense of blowing up.  I wonder if either of these details will become important later.
 
Alright, so it's obvious at this point where some things go from here.  That guy who Guy plays (just because of the way that statement came out, I'm going to take the time to say that Guy is one of the weirder names out there) will take on a new level of competency, become a villain, and become a real problem for Tony later.  The Extremis experiment will become a major plot mover.  Check.  This is not something that they are trying to hide.
 
Back in the present day, we're introduced to post-Avengers Tony.  The trailers let this on a little bit, but I'm going to elaborate a little further.  See, since "nothing has been the same since New York," Tony has changed.  It affected him, and in ways that he would not have expected.  Just mentioning New York gives him major anxiety.  Press the issue, and he will suffer a panic attack.  I recognize his reactions from footage I saw in a psychology class.  He suddenly panics, and he has to literally run away from the conversation.  The whole fight with the Chitauri and his near death experience traumatized him.  I found this to be an interesting bit of realism, something that I've never really seen in a superhero movie as of yet.  It means that we get to see him act very vulnerable from time to time in ways that genuinely make him sympathetic.
 
He's up for days on end.  JARVIS makes this pretty clear: "You haven't slept in 72 hours."  Tony has an obsession with making more "toys".  How far has he come?  Well, let's just say that the number of Marks he has under his belt now fits the answer to life, the universe, and everything.  Even without his sleep, he does a fairly awesome job, even if he seems a bit oblivious to the outside world or how reckless he's being.  Still, he comes up with an awesome suit that disassembles and flies to him, and that he can control with his mind.  Some of his experiments go wrong, but it turns out to be a brilliant idea, as we all know.
 
Still, it creates tension in his life.  I won't explain the full details, but his suits become a major distraction.
 
Then the villain comes, kicks his butt, and for a while Tony Stark is without any power.  He still has tricks up his sleeve, because he's a genius, but for a while he has to make due without the suit.
 
This is where I have to warn purists of the comic that the villain, the Mandarin, is absolutely nothing like he is in the comics.  If you complained about Nolan changing Bane's backstory, then you're going to hate what they do here, because the departure from the comics is even more drastic.  He's literally another villain with the same name with almost no real resemblance   You don't have to be a fan of the comics to tell that he's a complete rewrite.  The trailers lead you to believe otherwise, but he really has none of the mandarin's iconic or essential elements.  Perhaps something in the way of personality, but ultimately he's a different villain.  That doesn't mean he's poorly written in this script, because he's definitely the best villain of the Iron Man film franchise (which isn't saying much, because I can't really credit Iron Man's coolness as having anything to do with his villains), but I'm not going to put him up on a pedestal and say that this was a villain that inspired awe.  This wasn't a film where it was the villain's time to shine, even though this one pushed Tony Stark the most, both psychically and emotionally.  What I can say is that the movie has a good conflict, and that's good.
 
Another thing that might irk purists is that Iron Patriot is James Rhodes instead of Normal Osborn, who doesn't exist in this continuity of the Marvel cinematic universe.  However, it seems that the characters often joke about that.  Tony much prefers War Machine and thinks that Iron Patriot is a wimpy name.  James secretly agrees.  The banter that goes on about that throughout the film, I think, hit the right comedic notes.  People who haven't read the comics won't mind.  I can't speak for people who have, however.
 
Meanwhile, over the course of the film, Tony Stark befriends a little kid who helps him with some of the problems he has with his suit.  You can tell Disney made this movie.  Some people might take issues with this.  I know another reviewer thought it was cheap, and my friend thought it was cliche, but I personally didn't mind.  This is Disney, and they know how to handle these sorts of relationships onscreen.  Ultimately, your mileage may vary.  I enjoyed it because it forced Tony Stark to interact with people in a new way, all the while without him necessarily breaking character.  I mean, he was nice to the boy, because I almost forgot that he's a philanthropist, but he was still a narcissist.  He was rude, arrogant, but at least he was funny.  The kid seemed to understand.  After all, Tony's reputation precedes him.  There were times I wanted to slap him, but he had enough common sense to lighten up when it mattered.  That derogatory sense of humor of his is certainly a difficult habit to shrug off, though.  I can relate to that, since I tend to needlessly insult people.
 
The situation that led him to this kid is rather interesting, too.  I'm just going to say that, based on movie precedent, Iron Man is a better detective than Batman.  Take that, Bats.
 
Fast forward to the end, and Tony gets his suit working again.  Proceed to tons of fun  Eventually, the final battle with the boss takes place, in which Tony calls in all of his suits for support, as seen in the trailer.  I'm going to be honest here: the villain never stood a chance.  He had the power to destroy several of Tony's Iron Man suits, but he had enough of them that it didn't matter.  Tony's victory was inevitable, and not just because he was the protagonist.  When he had the full gang of suits and engaged the villain in a straight fight, no holds bar, winning was only a matter of time.  However, it was still fun.  It was the reason why people go to see superhero movies, because we got to see a bunch of different outfits and experimental designs that each had their purpose, and each was cool in their own way.  It also allowed for a very creative fight between Tony and the Mandarin revolving around the unique strengths each possessed.  It was ten times better than any of the final battles in the other Iron Man movies.
 
If people walk away from this movie remembering anything, it's going to be the ending.  It was solid, sound, and it completed Tony Stark's character arch.  As Entertainment Weekly put it, the movie "ended on a definitive note".  It's really where I think that the story of Iron Man should end.  It's going to be difficult to make another Iron Man movie after this.  I can see him appearing in The Avengers 2, but definitely not in the same way that he did in the first film.  His character has changed a lot.  The status quo is completely changed.
 
As if the director knew that this was the end of the series, the credits role and play clips from the three films, wrapping everything up. One thing that got at me was that, in-film, the title of the movie is Iron Man Three instead of Iron Man 3, but that's a minor nitpick.  As the montage rolled away, I found myself liking the Iron Man character much more, and I've finally decided that he's one of my favorite superheroes (not quite in the Top 3, though).  The movie made him more human, added depth to him, and did a good job of adding character change while staying true to the essence of Tony Stark.  As I said, I don't think people will be in awe, but the ending will definitely make an impression, and overall the movie was a very fun experience.
 
Oh, and as the kid suggested, if they do make another Iron Man film, he needs to add a cloaking device.
 




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Silver Linings Playbook Review

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Reviews, Movies Apr 19 2013 · 86 views
Oscar

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:kaukau: If One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Juno had a baby, she would look something like this.  It doesn't make a dramatic case for neurotic people and how they are abused by society, though it still makes them into underdogs who compel audiences to root for them.  It breezes through the daily life of these individuals without earnest intensity, although that doesn't prevent it from being a sincere and serious story about these people.  From the perspective of Silver Linings Playbook, social disabilities are just one of many problems a person can go through in life, and it approaches the story with a fairly casual approach that's sophisticated enough for its subject matter, in which psychological disorders are depicted without stereotypes, but that sophistication also happens to include some good naturalistic comedy and heart.
 
Starting off in a psychiatric hospital, Patrick "Pat" Solitano attends group therapy sessions and pretends to take medication.  This is a familiar scene, although it doesn't last too terribly long.  The pacing is more indie, especially when the establishment shots capture Pat's quirks through his possessions instead of focusing on anything particularly dramatic.  Pat's talking, perhaps into a recorder or to his journal (I can't remember), but during his voice-over he speaks of his father.  So a lot is learned right off the bat.
 
Pat gets out of the hospital because of his very generous mother.  Something weird but minor happens on the way out, because the director's playing with the characters.  Pat's had a friend, Danny McDaniels, played by Christ Tucker.  Both of these characters are a bit off the wall.  McDaniels has to go back to the hospital, but he shows up later.
 
Meanwhile, it's an interesting scene to see an adult man accepting a ride from his mother.  It's a scene I relate with, because I'm nineteen and I still don't have a driver's license, and I probably won't for a few more years yet.  Dolores Solitano seems to be a nice lady, and often gets overwhelmed by her son.  Here's where I do want to make a comment about the acting, though.  She was played by Jackie Weaver, but I don't really see how Jackie Weaver got a nomination for Best Supporting Actress with this role, since the mother didn't play much a part in the movie, and in a year like 2012, there were some powerful alternative candidates that could have taken her place.  Still, I'm not saying that she's a bad actress, because she was good.  Yet, this film got nominated for all of the acting categories, which set up some big expectations that are better left at the doorstep.
 
That said, Pat and his mother reach home, and it turns out that the family is having problems.  Pat, Sr. (although his name is short for Patrizio, not Patrick), lost his job and gets by on football bets.  Apparently he had an anger problem.  For the first bit of the movie, I'll admit that I wasn't incredibly impressed with Robert De Niro in this role as well.  He acted it well, but for the most part he was a large ham actor who brings gravitas to his roles.  I never quite forgot that it was him playing that role, even though he was pretty good casting.  I could have also seen Jack Nicholson in this role, and really, both actors have played characters with mental illness before.  We all know Nicholson's legendary performance as McMurphy, and De Niro played a man with a split personality once.  In any case, this feels very much like his typical acting style, which I will admit is very diverse and applies to a lot of things, but he certainly had that "De Niro feel", as I would call it.
 
However, it is interesting to note that both De Niro and Bradley Cooper are of Italian descent, like their characters.  I know.  Bradley Cooper's Italian.  Go figure.
 
This would be where the film gets fun and interesting, except it's that way throughout the entire ride, but what I consider the first truly memorable moment was Pat's first night in his parent's house, when he was catching up on all of the reading material from his former job as a teacher.  He reads Ernest Hemingway  gets to the end, and then swears.  It wasn't a subtle bit of cussing.  He shouted it.  He threw the book out the window.  Then he goes downstairs to his parents, wakes them up at three in the morning, and rants about why he hated the ending to the book, because it had a sad ending instead of a sad ending, and he really wasn't in the mood for sad endings, given the current state of his life.
 
He also has some back story about his wife.  The reason why he spent time in a psychiatric hospital in the first place was because he blew up on another teacher when he found him in his own house, cheating with Pat's wife, Nikki.  He wasn't angry with his wife, just that guy.  In spite of what happened, Pat is adamant that the affair was not Nikki's fault.  He believes that they're still happily married, that he was only scary in that one moment, and that the restraining order between him and her wasn't her choosing.  He's still deeply in love with her and thinks that he needs to find a way to get back to his wife again.  I admire his faith, and it's weird seeing his quest to get in contact with his wife, because the structure is a lot like a love story where two people haven't fallen in love already, but this is a story of people who are still technically together and married.
 
Everyone else knows that their marriage is over.  Pat is optimistic, though.  In his words, "This is what I believe to be true.  You have to do everything you can, and if you stay positive, you have a shot at a silver lining."  Reconciling with his wife is his number one motivation behind everything he does.  He tolerates the therapy because it might bring him down to a place where he can be right for Nikki again.  He works hard on several other things.  He's a pretty determined guy, and I can relate.  It's just that it's obvious from the onset that this is never going to happen to everyone else but him, because he's convinced himself that something will work out because he thinks that it should work out.
 
It's clear that he's a bit obsessive.  He had an outburst at his first therapy session when his wedding songs played.  He also had a meltdown that woke up the whole neighborhood when he couldn't find his wedding video, which resulted in his poor mother getting physically overwhelmed by him wen he began thrashing out and his father punching him in the face, at which point he cooled down some because he knew he didn't want to punch a gray-haired old man.
 
He insisted that these were independent incidents and that he really was better, that he was feeling great.  I know what that's like.  However, after he hurt his mother, he realized that he had to take medication in order to better control himself, because otherwise he was on a tightrope.
 
Before, he talked about medication when he first met Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence.  They were both familiar with medication, and they both disliked it because it made them feel different, not quite as clear.  They way they spoke, I figured that he would never go on it.  In fact, I never thought he did, because he spit out medication in the beginning of the movie, and throughout the movie he still seemed like the same guy and I didn't notice any personality changes save that there was less shouting.
 
Tiffany is an interesting person because, like Pat, she had no filter.  One of the first things he said to her was "You have poor social skills.  You have a problem."  This, after he said "You look nice.  How'd Tommy die?" moments after his friend told him he shouldn't bring up the death of Tiffany's husband.  They're very direct, frank, forthright, and it creates an interesting form of dialogue.  It creates problems, but it perhaps gets more done than regular conversation.
 
In fact, one of the main things that I have to say is that this film has great dialogue from a naturalistic standpoint.  It feels like I am in the room with these people.  They're slightly more extreme than I am, but as a person with a social disorder, I speak their language, with all the pitfalls of saying things that are insensitive and socially askew.  Although the two lead characters provide the most colorful lines, I have to comment the writing for all the other characters.  It's one of those pleasures as an audience member, the type that comes from eavesdropping on a conversation, because it's just a lot of snippets from real life.  To keep that tone throughout the entire movie, while also having the dialogue be entertaining, is a pretty cool achievement.  Either the writer was that good, or all of the actors are that good, because I honestly can't tell where the line is drawn, and there's always the possibility that there was a lot of add-libbing.  It's not as quotable as some other famous movies, but that's because it doesn't bother to be particularly eloquent.  After all, there's a lot of swearing that drags this movie up to an R rating, but it actually doesn't register much because it all feels reasonably like a real snapshot of life, like the swearing didn't feel like it was written in for effect.  There's little music in this movie that stands out, and it's mostly various songs that get played, but the real rhythm that keeps this movie is its dialogue.
 
It also makes a difference that I relate to the protagonist and his particular kind of problem, which is overcoming his disability.  That's a pretty consuming task, and the type where it's hard to imagine a way out.  I was personally very curious to see how it turned out, because I felt that part of myself is invested in that solution.
 
Meanwhile, this isn't just about people with disorders.  The father is obsessed with football.  He made his son his personal good luck charm for Eagles games to make him feel more special, which is a pretty bad idea considering Pat's bipolar disorder.  It wouldn't have been good for his mental health.  And his father was practically OCD, as his son observed.  Pat's friend had a lot of rants about his wife, and his therapists...Well, I won't spoil the bit about his therapist.  It's more like the entire world is an insane place, if only it was just a bit more honest in examining itself.
 
Yet, the rest of the world is supposedly normal.  Okay.  I don't think so, because I don't speak its language.  Neither does Pat, so we both agree that we often feel along and that we have to struggle against literally everything.
 
So Tiffany and Pat interacting with each other was a pleasure, even if it was chaotic.  They way they talked made more sense.  It didn't follow the rules that everyone else sets up.
 
There was also something about Tiffany in particular.  I had a déjà vu moment, like I had seen her face somewhere before, and not just from The Hunger Games.  She was like an amalgamation of various people I know.  There are a few people I know who dress like her, some others who have her hair, and others who have her face.  The effect is that she looked pretty normal.  Pretty, but actually pretty normal and not like the typical actress that would have been called for this role.
 
Actually, the first person considered for the job was Zooey Deschanel, an obvious typecast that would have made the acting merits of this movie less significant.  The director cast Anne Hathaway, but she dropped out because of scheduling conflicts with The Dark Knight Rises, which consisted of far more dramatic but less realistic dialogue.  Jennifer Lawrence was not considered for the role and convinced the director with a good audition.  Considering that this role gave her an Oscar for Best Actress, she must be happy that it came to be.  I'm wondering what the role would have been like if played by prominent, older and better established actresses, though.
 
She wasn't over the top, though.  Still a bit extreme, but consider how much more extreme the role would have been if an actress like Zooey added her typecast charm to the role or if someone like Anne Hathaway made the director figure he could go for a little more gravitas.  Since Jennifer Lawrence is still new, but also very talented while also having a very plain appearance, I think it works and helps ground the character.
 
It's still striking to see a female character who's so neurotic and to think of her as realistic, or at least when I'm looking at this from the perspective that she might have a form of autism.  I've met many people with autistic disorders, as well as people with ADHD, and in my experience there are not only fewer females, but the symptoms tend to show up less.  I've read up a lot about my own diagnosis, Asperger's Syndrome, since it interests me, and according to textbooks women tend to hide the symptoms very well.  I'm not saying that women don't suffer from psychological and neurological disorders, especially since that's far from the truth, but given my experience I was inclined to interpret her character as someone who shares some of the traits of a disorder similar to mine.  The only other time I really saw a character like this was (sort of) in a television movie about Temple Grandin, but I can honestly say I never met someone like this in real life.  Maybe she isn't a neurological oddball, though.  Maybe it was nurture instead of nature.  In any case, they never mentioned what exactly was up with her, besides a certain addiction of hers.  I might watch this film repeatedly just to psychoanalyze the character and figure that part out.
 
If she had been any other way, there would have been no chemistry between her and Pat, after all.  They're both very different from everyone else.  It's not insanity, and it's not something that makes them incapable of functioning.  It's the type of disability that, even though I feel that this is somewhat dramatized, pertains more to a person like me.  They're both rather determined to carry out on their objectives, both have missing spouses, and both need acceptance.  That's really great.
 
So great is their chemistry that she proposes to Pat, Sr. that her time together with Pat, Jr. is what gives good luck to the Eagles.
 
I love this.  Starting with the father's first big bet on the Eagles is when the character really begins to mature into his role in the story, but the moment when she tells him about her theory of where the positive vibes really came from, the way in which he gets convinced and gets everyone else in the room (both friends and family) to believe in the vibes simply sells the character, and I love him.  He may be recognizable and lack anonymity as an actor, but Robert De Niro is a genius.  It was at this point where I see why he was nominated as well.
 
The loser in this situation is Pat, because of the ridiculous pressure.  He's still responsible for bringing good luck to the Eagles, and he hates the new parley made over the duel success of the Eagles and his dancing routine with Tiffany.  Oh, and he figures out that Tiffany lied to him about something kind of major to the plot, though he reacted remarkably well.
 
In spite of how crazy everything was, with all the pressure and all the uncertainty and all the internal conflicts that he could have, things came out fine, just as everyone knew they would.  With such a wonderful rant about Ernest Hemingway at the beginning, how could the movie not have turned out with a happy ending?  Pat got a grip on reality and realized that he would not earn his wife back, but it didn't happen suddenly at the end of the film at the climax.  That came earlier, though it was really subtle.  It was a good ending, and I feel happy for the characters.
 
Confession time: I actually watched this movie because a few days before I was at my lowest point in a period of depression, and I wanted to watch this with my mother.  A lot of things went wrong with my life, and I felt crushed.  I couldn't focus, could't feel happy, couldn't help my low self-esteem, couldn't stop thinking about better times in my life, and couldn't shake off a feeling of despair for where my life is going.  A week ago, as of writing this, I even had a full day of crying.  Therapy sessions didn't seem to help.  As a means of escape and comfort, this movie seemed rather relevant to me and who I was.
 
I am glad that it was a happy movie, and that it was funny, because they made me feel better.  Even though I was feeling better that day, I still appreciated it, because it gives a person like me hope.
 
My depression started with a violent outburst a few months ago, and I feel that I have not caught up on homework or other daily aspects of my life since.  It has been difficult to function.  I even resorted to an all-time low for me, and throughout this time of depression I also stole about $100.  And it was in cookies.  It was like a drug addiction to chocolate, like "So long as I am not paying for it, I'm not actually addicted to it."  When I was caught, my self-esteem plummeted because then I not only saw myself as incompetent, but a bad person, so I confessed to how much I thought I stole and decided to pay it off through community service instead of a direct payment just to help me work on my character and give me time every day to focus.
 
Seeing this film, however, changed some perceptions I had.  Remember how I mentioned how I didn't notice when Pat went on his medication?  His personality didn't change, although he found it was easier to have control in moments where he was so much more prone to simply react.  The day after I watched this movie, I had a doctor's appointment scheduled.  I just started medication today, and I hope to get better in a couple of weeks.
 
This is something I always resisted.  If the warning labels weren't scary enough, I was always afraid that medication would do things for me so that my free will wouldn't have to do anything.  I also wanted to solve a lot of problems all by myself, and I found it demeaning that feeling regular nostalgia was a condition, since I choose to think about home and my old friends and family.
 
Some of those feelings, though, are literal, physical feelings.  For example, my depression makes my body feel terrible, week, cold, and frail.  I would sleep for twelve hours per day.  Maybe determination could have got me out of it, but I felt incapable of being determined.  Perhaps medication would help me get out of an impossible situation, and maybe I could think sad thoughts without getting sick or loosing all my energy.
 
Because Pat's fundamental way of thinking didn't change.  He was still far different from normal people.  His attitudes and behaviors didn't change at all, except he found he could prevent those destructive moments that he claimed were isolated incidents that represent him.
 
Props to him.
 
Hang in there.
 

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Jurassic Park Review

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Reviews, Movies Apr 09 2013 · 108 views
Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg and 3 more...

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:kaukau: This movie makes me feel like a child again!  A major part of this is due to this movie being released on the year of my birth, 1993, but I also have to give credit to Steven Spielberg.  Somewhere in that bearded man is a kid that refused to go away, and he can capture this movie with not only spectacle but the rightful sense of wonder that children always wanted to see.  Rich with cinematic vision and attention to detail, from the incredible realism of the larger-than-life attractions to the bright, solid colors of the main cast, Jurassic Park riddles itself with timeless movie qualities.
 
One of the most magical moments in cinema history was when Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler arrive at Jurassic Park and witness a Brachiosaurus.  For a moment, even those adult characters are kids.  Their mute before the fulfillment of their fantasies.  Many people were.  Spielberg understands how special this moment is, and lets it play out, just in one's imagination.  In that moment, the Brachiosaurus, the tears of the adults, and the first appearance of a classic and inspired John Williams score left me in a sense of ultimate comfort.  I truly wanted this moment to last and for the happiness to last forever.  I smiled, and I continued to smile uncontrollably throughout the film as I sat in the front, center seat of the theatre.
 
Leading up to this moment, following a few classic Spielberg establishment shots, Alan and Ellie worked out in the open terrain of a Montana dig site.  There was an amazing chemistry between the characters that comforted me even more than the magical dinosaur reveal.  Alan doesn't really dig kids that much.  When he's seemingly unfamiliar with the term "child", Ellie has to tell him that they're miniature adults.  That's an interesting way of looking at it.  Ellie, meanwhile, wants to have children.  On one hand, this establishes who these characters are, the nature of their relationship, and what some of their background desires are.  This might have been unnecessary for the plot, but one of the things that makes this film so endearing and different from all other dinosaur films is that the two lead characters are framed as adults.  It's so subtle that many actual adults don't notice it, but children do.  Children see this and this couple is seen through the lens of how they are similar to their parents.  As a little boy on the playground, I used to brag about how cool my father was.  He went out and did cool things.  I idolized him for being a grown up.  My mother, meanwhile, loved me so much, and I loved her so much in return.  Together, they weren't naive Shakespearian lovers, but Mom and Dad.  Even though they didn't have children yet, Ellie and Alan were already my Mom and Dad, and somewhere in my heart, I think they always will be.
 
These characters, after being establishes, wanted to explore Jurassic Park, and then they had the exact same reaction that I as a child wanted them to have.  They needed to see more!  John Hammond puts them on a little documentary ride, but the paleontologist and the paleobotanist can't stand the restrictions and stop the ride.  They run through, and they must watch as an egg hatches in the laboratory.
 
There is a lot of exposition here, far more than a normal film could get away with.  This is usually the bane of many science fiction films, but it flies with grace in Jurassic Park because people want to know how this happened.  Kids are curious.  They want to believe that this can happen in real life, and it's fuel for the imagination.  After this film, it became a common dream of popular science to try out these new technologies.  I became fascinated with science because of the things that could be done with it, and when watching this film, I wanted to learn so much about dinosaurs, because dinosaurs were cool.  Spielberg doesn't make anything about the ancient beasts a mystery.  To a kid, this is almost as fascinating as the chase scenes and the action.  So long as it has to do with dinosaurs, it's pitch-perfect.
 
It was also perfect because of John Hammond's enthusiasm.  When I was younger, I thought he was played by John Williams, which would have been awesome, but the resemblance is enough on its own.  He's convincingly the lovable old man.  He certainly makes mistakes, but he's a determined person, and it's hard to blame him.  Like the other adults, he had an overwhelming enthusiasm and a love for the dinosaurs.  Certainly, he played God and didn't have enough respect for the power he wielded, but I found myself wanting to agree with him so much.  Jurassic Park could have been so right.  That magical moment with the Brachiosaurus could have lasted forever.  Most importantly of all, what he wanted more than anything was to fulfill the dreams of children.  When not reminding me of John Williams, he reminded me of my benevolent, silver-haired grandpa.
 
Enter the grandchildren, Lex and Tim.  These two kids are perfectly cast.  More than that, they are the best cast child characters ever.  They are adorable, impossible to dislike.  There is something cute about them, something endearing, and something about their faces that captured the screen.  Once I walked in on this movie, didn't recognize their faces, and thought that the feel was incredibly cool.  Then a cousin revealed to me that he was watching Jurassic Park, and I suffered from recoil shock.  Naturally, what most people remember the first time around is the dinosaurs, and it had been a while since I had seen it, but I remember thinking "Had the casting really been so perfect?"  There's just something about them, something fundamentally childlike.
 
So, naturally, I felt like a child again twice over.  I especially related to Tim for his fascination with dinosaurs and his boyish desire to show off his knowledge and gain the approval of his idol, Alan Grant.  It reminded me of the way I vied for my father's attention.  Alan, of course, dismisses the boy.  Lex approaches him, and tells him that Ellie told her to sit with him.  Alan's annoyance is entertaining, because it frustrates the children but they're sure he's a good guy.
 
There are other characters who are not good people.  There's the scumbag lawyer who's interested in money and doesn't care about the children.  There's the annoying Dennis Nedry, scumbag junior.  Both of them have embarrassing deaths at the hands of dinosaurs.  This is totally movie logic, and totally why I love this movie.  In the fantasy land of children, the scumbags always get what they deserve!  I like it when bad people who don't care for children get karmic deaths.  That's hash in real life, but I like having that escape when I go to the movies.
 
By contrast, Alan shows that he's compassionate to these kids.  That's not so difficult to believe.  After all, they had so much more in common than they did that was different.  When they passed by exhibits and looked out the window of their jeeps with excitement to spot out dinosaurs, they shared the same disappointment.  I would be disappointed too if I got my golden opportunity to see the Tyrannosaurus rex snuffed so by pure chaotic chance.  So when the T. rex does show, Alan is fast to save them.  Not only that, but he comforts them and assures them that everything is all right.
 
Where is Ellie in all this?  She didn't have to go through any of this because it wasn't her personal journey.  She's perfect.  She's Mother.  Superman is actually a woman and her secret identity is Mother.  That's how awesome Mom is.  Even though she doesn't have the journey with the kids, every moment with her is still precious.  She's one of my favorite parts of the film, more than half of all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.  Even though she doesn't go through any sort of character development, that's fine.  She has nothing to prove, although she does have the compassion to show forgiveness to an old man, eating over a table with a souvenir shop nearby that will forever go unused.  One day, I will be old like John Hammond, and I too will have to admit defeat when after a lifetime of chasing my childhood dreams I realize that it amounts to nothing.  When that day comes, I pray that I will have someone like Ellie to care for me and love me as a human being, the way my mother did when I was a kid.  Ellie can do that.  She's my mom, and I really, truly mean that.
 
In 1993, minus a big belly full of yours truly, my mother looked just like Ellie Sattler.  People aren't supposed have memories of being a baby, and while only a few memories stick out, I remember what my mother looked like as clear as day.  It helps that near the beginning, Ellie wore jeans then went half up her waste, and her choice of clothing is such a clear reminder of the times and of the 90's when I was a toddler.  What I wouldn't give to have that moment stuck in time and live there forever.  Forget dinosaurs; I miss my mom.
 
Even though that particular thought caused me to crawl into my bed afterword, at least I still had a good number of tears of joy before that, because there was still so much that this film had to offer.  The perspective left the adults after Alan brought the kids back to the main museum.  The kids have that time to themselves, and for several scenes the spotlight is theirs.  In a game of children versus Velociraptors, the children win with ingenuity and sheer determination.  That, and simply by being kids.  Nobody can beat a lovable kid.  Not even Batman can win against a kid being a kid.  It's just not possible, because being a kid is awesome.
 
The ensemble cast gets back together and faces the raptors as a nuclear family.  That's another thing that not even Chuck Norris can defeat, which is the power of a loving family.  Mom, Dad, Brother, and Sister combine into some sort of ultimate force that is eternally in the favor of the story gods, and for good reason.  For a movie like this, I would not want it any other way.  They're not out of danger yet, and they haven't time to dance in a field of flowers yet.  They aren't the Incredibles, and they don't give the narrative puppy-dog eyes, but in that moment I sometimes forget that Lex and Tim aren't Ellie and Alan's children.  The unit seems so complete, and I loved every minute of them trying to escape the dinosaurs.  They are impossible not to root for, and I root for them harder than almost anyone I have ever rooted for in my whole life.  I know my parents could be as cool in that situation and help me through it, because my parents are dependable like that.
 
Then, when put in an impossible situation and brought closer together than every before, Spielberg pulls off a one-of-a-kind moment that can only be called the deus rex machina.  Was there ever any doubt that this family would make it out alive?  The Tyrannosaurus rex triumphantly bellows as a flag falls down saying "Welcome to Jurassic Park".  There's the Lion King and then there's the Tyrant Lizard King, and between the ending of this movie and the beginning of the other movie, I'm having trouble deciding which is more epic and cinematic.
 
John Hammond drives up and helps the family escape in reverence as Rex roars atop his thrown.  They have been humbled before him and learned their lesson.  They have every right to be fascinated by their beauty and their power, but under no circumstances will these majestic creatures ever be theirs.  What they did escape with, however, was each other.  While my heart breaks for John because of how all his dreams proved so wrong, I smile with Ellie when I see the children cuddle up against Alan.  Those kids learned of the best and the worst an adult can be.  Alan discovered he truly did love these kids.  This makes me want to be a kid again.  It makes me want to be a father so that I can rediscover childhood through kids, or find new meaning in life.  If life finds a way, then maybe I am a fool, but I also want so badly to find a way to realize my impossible dreams so I can give John Hammond to smile about.
 
Most of all, it makes me want my mom.
 
Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration, I have decided to endorse your part.
 

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Olympus Has Fallen Review

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Movies, Reviews Apr 03 2013 · 144 views
America, action

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:kaukau: Wow.  My expectations were pretty high when I entered into the theatre, because the trailers made this look like a pretty solid action film.  I love it when my expectations are high and they are still beat.
 
Where to start?  This film is technically perfect.  I am predicting that a year from now it's going to have a nomination for Best Picture. The whole package is good.  It has great directing, great acting, great characterization, great writing, great music, great pacing, great editing, great cinematography, and great action (thus championing its genre).  I know that many films get praised for daring to mix genres, such as The Dark Knight.  Others will play their genres straight, but tongue-in-cheek, such as The Expendables.  This manages to find an extraordinary balance.  It's strictly of the action genre, but it also manages to be more than that by being great as a movie.
 
There's a genre out there.  I like to call it the Movie Genre.  You won't find it in any books, and there's no rules for it.  All that is required is that a movie is a really good movie, and not just good for its type.  Hence, Olympus Has Fallen is a great action film, and also a great film even though it didn't bring in another genre to add appeal.  Right now, that's becoming the popular thing among directors and writers who aren't secure with what they have, and it's beginning to feel formulaic.  Olympus Has Fallen instead opts to master its own genre, while also proving itself in all the areas of expectation that I would have going in to see any other movie.  There's nothing for me to criticize, and there's not even anything that I feel I need to forgive, as with other films that are good with what they are.
 
"Action movie" has always had a dirty sound to it among cinema goers, like it's a guilty pleasure.  It's of an inherently lesser quality.  It's something that we can't apply the same standards to, something that can never be quite as tasteful as a movie such as A Beautiful Mind.  It can't be noble and can't be a fine art.  Yet, a lot of suppositions I had about the genre were flipped here.  Directors can make something out of an action premise alone, and turn it into a mature drama.
 
Without giving anything away, let me cover the beginning of the film.  The title shows right away as block words against a black background, with a shot of a waving American flag visible through the letters.  It's hard to describe, but the cinematography of the moment gave me a very good impression of what the rest of the film would be like, and that I was going to see more than just the best action film premise in years.
 
There are no surprises here, since it's clear from the trailer that the president's wife dies early on in the film, and Gerard Butler's character, Mike Banning, rescues the president instead of her.  As expected, the buildup here is devoid of action.  The opening scene is purely character establishment, which can be very forced, but there's a good flow, and Director Antoine Fuqua avoids overdoing it or taking cheap attempts at making the characters overly colorful.  Fuqua does something very subtle, and allows the actors to simply act.  They succeed, and they bring the characters to life without making them larger-than-life.
 
There is also a sense of momentum.  Many action movies contain scenes like these because they feel mandatory in order for the film not to feel like a cheap action flick.  This, on the other hand, feels necessary.  There's a good reason for Mike Banning and the president to go through this.  It also stays intriguing all on its own.
 
Skip ahead eighteen months, and there's explosive tensions between North and South Korea.  Something similar was attempted in the film Red Dawn, without success.  The president, his cabinet, and the Speaker of the House get together in a room, and they discuss the issue.  While it doesn't feel as to-the-tee as Spielberg's Lincoln, it doesn't feel as if they took any liberties in the behind-the-scenes discussions of politicians.  For that matter, nothing that happened behind the scenes in this film sounded speculative.  In any case, as the various officials spoke their first lines, their names and titles were put onscreen.  As a personal preference, I find this really stylish.  My realization that my high expectations were being broken continued to blossom.
 
It's also interesting that Olympus Has Fallen was filmed a year ago, and yet its release date corresponds almost perfectly with news about new tensions between the Koreas.  The way it is depicted in the movie is eerily similar, as if the script was written by a time traveler   Of course, as far as tensions go, it doesn't take much to say that the fictional tensions here are similar to those in real life. It's pretty easy to imagine what North Korea looks like whenever it saber-rattles.  The headlines of the movie match almost exactly the style of the headlines today, and it's a very convenient coincidence.  I don't know if the movie will ever have the same impact in a year as it will today for that reason, though it will still stand as a pretty good movie for those who watch it.
 
The Koreans attack the White House.  The plane revealed in the trailer was only a small fraction of what went on in that storming of the Bastille.  In fact, I'm going to say right here and now that everything about that trailer shows only a small fraction of what goes on in this film, and the best moments are saved for the film itself.  While nothing that happens in the movie contradicts what the trailer lets one on to believe, it's so much more than that.  In that way, this film had a perfect trailer, because it stays true to how it is advertised, it is so good that it's better than what you can imagine it to be and you have to see it for yourself.
 
Back to the details of the attack on the White House, I was surprised at how much sense it made.  There was a real, plausible reason for the plane being able to fly over U.S. soil without being intercepted, because in fact it was, but was adequately prepared for it.  The rest of their attack is intense.  Everyone has realistic marksman skills, and a lot of people die.  That included civilians, which was frightening, because in most films they score low on the sorting algorithm of mortality.   For a full thirteen-minute sequence of film, it had all the scale of a war movie.  The Koreans had incredible strategy.  It was fierce   It made me afraid for Mike Banning.  Because of the subtle acting skills of various characters, I was genuinely concerned about the life of everyone there.  A lot of them died during some intense action.  What's more, I was sickened to see the Koreans shooting every dead body they found in the head just in case.  I personally would have played possum, and in that situation my genius plan would have been useless.
 
After that glorious raid, I really wondered how the rest of the film was going to live up to that.  I was also wondering how in the world Mike was going to take care of the impossible situation the head terrorist set up, because the villain was smart, resourceful, vicious, and intimidating.  Yet, it made sense that Mike could make the difference he did, since his main option was engaging in guerrilla warfare and using his knowledge of the White House to his advantage.  The situation throughout movie was also in constant flow to keep up the suspense, and many times while watching it, my heart started racing, because I never really knew when the status quo was going to change.  I would call a lot of these moments "plot twists", but that term implies a surprise intended to change the way a film is to be viewed, or to put a more negative interpretation of it, a cheap novelty.  There were many times where I thought a large portion of the movie was going to be dedicated to one plot point, because films so often work out in certain ways, but shuffled through them and kept each scene fresh.
 
On the whole, when I went in faintly hoping for the coolest thing since Air Force One, or perhaps even Die Hard, as far as the action genre was concerned.  Now that I have seen it, I truly believe that it was.  Maybe I haven't seen enough action movies to figure out which ones are good "movie" movies, and I'm not denying that there could very well be ones that I haven't seen between now and the release of those classics.  That doesn't negate the solid basis for this film.
 
Finally, a personal story: Some of my buddies visited Washington D.C. a few weeks ago for a political convention and watched this movie in a hotel a week before its general release.  It must have been a unique cinematic experience, and I'm almost jealous of them, save for how freakishly weird it would have been.  Also, one of those "buddies" is a manipulative prick who makes any group experience less enjoyable.  He probably brought a political viewpoint to it when he saw it, but it's not that kind of film and it's perfectly content to leave things as "God bless America".  If I did go, I would have sat next to a real buddy of mine who is a marine.  Now that would have been a great experience.
 
God bless America!
 

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Red Dawn Review

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Movies, Reviews Mar 27 2013 · 55 views
action, remake

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:kaukau: I had the opportunity watch Life of Pi or this.  Since I don't like watching movies based off of books that I want to read, I went with this.
 
At first glance, this looked to be a B-Movie.  It turned out to be not even that.  And no, it's not so bad it's good.  It simply falls flat and has nothing to offer.  There's some good action here, and some of these people are legitimately good actors.  However, why is Josh Peck still playing a teenager?  I really want to give him a chance at older and more mature roles, but he's being typecast as the slightly dorky brother now.  Come on, he's buffed up since then!
 
Peck was actually my main reason for seeing this film.  I thought that he was going to be hardcore, that this was his chance to be manly.  Yet, the casting director decided to not only make him the week link of the team but put him next to Thor for emphasis.  Come on, guys.  At least give him a cool haircut or something.  There was a sense after the film was over that he was as hardcore as his brother, and it kind of worked, but not that much.
 
What I can give this film is that it starts out fast.  There's maybe only a scene or two before they cut to the chase.  I'm glad that they didn't make me wait too long, but the first film started out early in its very first scene.
 
Yes, I watched the original right after this film.  Heck, I'll draw a bunch of comparisons right at the end of the review, when i really want to cut loose, but I still want to get talking about what this movie got wrong even when you take the context away.
 
It's not that the characters are unrealistic, or that there are any plot holes.  There's some nice action.  Perhaps that's the main reason why anyone went to see this movie, although I'm sure that some wanted to watch it to see if it could build off of another story and add more to it.  Watching this and knowing that it was a remake, I couldn't help but get the sense that the original was better.  I just knew it.  In my bones.  It wasn't something I could confirm until later, but the fact that I could get that impression just watching the remake all on its own speaks leaps and bounds.
 
On its own, what did it get wrong?  Why did it fail as a cinematic experience.  First, the climax had no substance.  That's always bad. Yet, I'm going to go out and talk about the band of brothers here.  First, Josh Hutcherson was a useless character.  I think there was some sort of subplot about him getting over his fears or something, but it really had no substance.  It was just thrown in there, and there was no lyrical throw to it.  I kept on wondering, "Why is this guy in the movie?"
 
Then there's Josh and his older.  After a ton of action and other nonsensical throwaway material, the Koreans get a Russian who specializes in putting down insurgencies.  During the Wolverine's (the name for the main cast, for those not in the know) most important mission, one of the characters gets tackles by two or three Koreans.  I can't remember, since it's been a while since I saw it and it was dark when it happened, while the cinematographer clearly had clearly caught a case of shakycam.  The point it, the Russian walks up to him, sticks a needle in him, and the Koreans let him go.  The guy runs off.
 
This part confounds me.  Is there nothing conspicuous about that?  You were tackled by multiple guys, stabbed, and let go.  They didn't chase after you.  Does it make a difference if I phrase this in the second person, so you can imagine that you are this guy?  Doesn't something about that situation seem a bit off?  If I remember correctly, that character might have even been informed of the purposes of that Russian guy, but I might be mistaken.  In any case, he really should have known that he had a tracking device on him.  Come on, man.
 
Now it's off to the Wolverine's celebrating their recent victory over those pesky invaders.  They got the MacGuffin, and things are looking pretty good.  Thor papa-squats next to his little bro.  Things get quiet.  Up until that point, Josh's character had a lot of trouble with rash judgement, endangering the rest of the group with emotion-based decisions.  He finally manned up with the final raid.  Thor gives him an "I love you, man" talk.  They smile.  It's a tender, quality moment.
 
And it was all just a dream.  No, wait, wrong plot twist.  That would have been a twist.  But no, the obvious thing happened, except I could tell they were trying to make it not-so-obvious.  Yeah right, like that's ever going to happen.
 
See, with a scene like this, I can almost guarantee that something tragic will happen almost instantly afterword, and it did.  I called it the moment the scene began, and I was correct down to the very moment it would happen.  Thor got up, his moment of approval now over.  Josh feels good about himself.  Thor walks over to the doorway to meet with his girlfriend.
 
Bam!
 
Right in the head!  And I predicted the five-second time frame that it would occur.  The girlfriend kneels over him and starts screaming in despair, while the guys get all panicked and have to drag her along.  They start shooting out the windows, trying to escape, succeed, and so forth, until they confirm later on that they have indeed been via the homing beacon in their pal's stomach.  Thor's girlfriend gets ticked, and he's left behind.
 
And I'm telling you all of this because I don't consider these spoilers.  They were really obvious.
 
On another note, the two girlfriends.  Thor's and Josh's.  I can't remember who played which, since they seemed a bit interchangeable to me.  That's not necessarily a bad thing in a movie like this, but it's really disappointing in a reboot.  However, I think that Thor's girlfriend was played by Adrianne Palicki.  Coincidentally, she was slated to play Wonder Woman in a television show.  Good thing that never happened.  In any case, in hind sight, it is amusing that Marvel's main mythological character and DC's main mythological character collided.
 
Oh, and both actresses were in their late twenties when playing these parts.
 
Then, using my resources as a college student, I watched the original with a group of people I considered friends.  The original was a bit tackier, but there was something cool about it.  The characters were slightly more colorful.  Charlie Sheen, while kind of hated today, at least played a pretty good role, being that guy in the letterman jacket.  There was another guy who often wore a Star Wars hat.  They had some cool camouflage outfits.  Patrick Swayze was the lead character.  The deaths were a little more sudden and felt more tragic.
 
And Lea Thompson.  My goodness, Lea Thompson.  You know Marty McFly's mother?  That's her.  That right there is enough to make the original not only special compared to this one, but special in its own merit.  Was her character just a little silly?  Yeah, kind of.  She had this weird crush in that film.  Still, everything about her character is cooler than those random extras who dated Thor and Josh.
 
The original also had a better villain.  In that one, the US was invaded by Cuba, and the Cuban commander who tried hunting down the Wolverines was a little more human of a character.  That's not saying that the Korean guy in the remake was inhuman, but by comparison, where was some more depth in the Cuban, if only a little.  There was more humor, more conflict, and something else in him.  He didn't like being a bad guy.  He didn't like killing.  The Wolverines wore him out, and it didn't personally want to kill them.  He actually let Patrick Swayze's character live when he saw that he was already dying and carrying his dead brother.  He had a lover back home.  Was there an incredible performance?  No, but it was certainly more memorable that the Korean officer who I hardly cared about.  There was humor there between the villains that wasn't in the remake.  It was a nicer experience.
 
And it had Lea Thompson, who's a blessed angel in disguise.  I watched the original a second time just for Lea Thompson's character.
 
So overall, earlier last year I also watched Total Recall, another remake of a classically cheesy action movie that went horribly wrong.  However, at least that one had a memorable moment or two.  Nothing significant, but at least it had that.  As far as the action goes, there is nothing I remember from this new Red Dawn.  These negative tings that I make fun of right now are pretty much the only tidbits I can come up with.  Every once and a while I think "but this part was particularly charming and cool", but then I realize that it was from the original.
 
A tip to screenwriters Carl Ellsworth and and Jeremy Passmore: if you're going to create a remake, take everything that was in the original and flesh it out with an extra dimension added to the characters instead of merely changing the time period.
 
And seriously, I could have watched Best Director, Best Special Effects, and Best Original Soundtrack winning The Life of Pi!
 

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Skyfall Review

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Reviews, Movies Mar 27 2013 · 172 views
James Bond, franchise, spy and 1 more...

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This controversial film is something that people seem to either love or hate.  I have encountered people who think that it's not a Bond film, while I, with my limited experience with Bond films, feel that it's a Bondier film than any ever made.  Certainly, it has a new feel, and it definitely stands out, because there's something different about this one.  There's something special and unique.
 
Since I don't know where to start, I might as well begin at the beginning.  It sets the tone with a unique cinematography which persists throughout the film, showcases a dramatic and creative action chase, and ten cuts to the chase (lame pun intended) to one of most iconic moments for any Bond film, which is the song.
 
The song really sets the tone.  "Skyfall" sounds really straightforward  right?  I guess so.  After all, it shares the same title as the film.  Yet, it's haunting, mesmerizing, and sad.  There's a hint of dread there.  The surreal title sequence is, likewise, equally haunting.  The moment the music starts, something stirs (now that intentional pun wasn't lame), and the familiar images of Bond shooting enemy spies and of pretty women flashes by.  Those things are mandatory.  What interested me, however, were the other things, these strange, unconnected mirages that had something to do with the film kept on popping up.  One of them was obvious from the get-go: depictions of bond getting shot.  Yet, there were also pictures of target practice boards, graveyards, old shacks, skulls composed of these elements, and - most curiously - deer silhouettes.  What did all this mean?
 
Whatever it was, everything had a ghostly feel to it, and it was one of the few Bond songs that I actually found memorable.  A part of that was Adele's piercingly sullen voice.  Another part of it was that it was a good song, and I could listen to it on the radio (as I indeed did).  It also won an Oscar, which might not say much to some people, but it certainly provides evidence for the quality of the song if it was voted song of the year among fellow film artists.
 
With that tone set, this turned out to be a very dramatic Bond movie.  To take the side against those who say that it wasn't a Bond film, I bring up the counterpoint that it still struck many of the same chords, just in different ways.  It still had that sense of glam that no other espionage film will ever rightfully have, except this time around the glam went to a moody drama and a tale of loss and being lost.  James Bond finds himself in a dark place throughout the film.  His soul is troubled.  There's actually some substance to his character.
 
In spite of this, there's still some heart and some humor.  This isn't a Christopher Nolan film we're talking about here.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is a better take at a "realistic" adaptation of a popular franchise than The Dark Knight was four years before, because it doesn't entirely get caught up in that.  However, it seems that for the authors, this time around they want the emotions of the main character to be real.  They wanted to inject some humanity into him, while still being loyal to the pillars of what makes James the man he is.
 
Therefore, they clear off some of their ditzy smiles and admit that, realistically, James Bond would not make an ideal agent.  The only reason why he's in his line of service is due to the unyielding faith of Judy Dench's M.  After returning from getting shot at the beginning of the film, he's scarred, both physically and emotionally.  He has to go through training again.  It's really plain from the audience's point of view that he's not really up to the job.  He can't aim.  He can't meet the athletic standards.  He has his limits, and in many ways he in incompetent.
 
Here's the kicker.  His chauvinistic personality is acknowledged in-film as a weakness.  This was never truly acknowledged before.  The storytellers still glamorize these things, since Bond films need glam, but there's a hint of irony in it all.  They acknowledge that these things don't make him cool because they're ideal, but because they're personality flaws that make him an iconic anti-hero.  So while the glorification is still there, it is at least a glorification under the right light.  The storytellers understand what kind of hero he is.  The same can't really be said for other icons such as Batman, who is still hailed as a relatable character who represents ideal heroism, which is really far from the truth.  As such, because of the soul-searching that Bond must g through with this film, I relate to this guy more, as far as semi-dark anti-heroes go.
 
The cool thing is that he has his limits, but he doesn't overcome them with Mary Sue talent.  His gadgets only get so fancy, and his plans are only so intricate.  He's constantly in a corner, and it really does feel like he's in trouble.  Once, when chasing a particular bad guy, it's evident just how hard he has to work in order to pull off some of his stunts.  Many of his attempts to get information are also foiled.  The writers had to try hard to justify Bond's existence in this film, and it was a sub-theme that characters such as M had to deal with.
 
Skip ahead a little, and the film takes a twist.  It seemed to be about one thing, but it was really about another.  We finally get to see the villain for this film, and to my surprise, it was not the ultimate villain implied in the previous two films.  So go figure: this isn't really a continuation of the story establishes thus far and more of a side adventure, although I have to say that there was a really good reason for that.  I'll explain that at the end of this review.
 
Anyway, the villain.  I have to say, Bond villains rarely make an impression on me.  They are almost always boring, stock characters with little personality, and they're kind of cheesy.  However, this particular character, Silva, is played by the glorious Javier Bardem.  I predicted a possibility of him getting nominated for Best Supporting Actor but not winning when I first saw the movie.  Turns out that the prediction was wrong, but then, I can understand why it wouldn't get nominated for anything particularly exclusive   It's not the ultimate acting achievement to bring gravitas to a role, and a lot of actors can do that.  Christopher Lee will never get nominated for playing Saruman, and Javier will never get nominated for playing this legitimately cool bad guy, because in terms of sheer acting prowess it's nothing to sneeze at, but in terms of how entertaining and cool the character was...that's another deal.
 
Without giving away much about the villain, I will say that he does use some illogical Gambit Roulette   Fortunately, it's not too out-there, and the whole time he does seem menacing and difficult to compete with, given his form of terrorism and his level of competency.  His reasons for being villainous are intensely personal, and he relates strongly with James Bond.  There's a slight invisible connection between them, a sense where they truly get each other.  It's a little creepy.  The villain certainly causes James, if only slightly, to take a small look inward.  The business between Bond and the villain is actually onto semi-personal.  The personal issue the villain has is actually with another character, and darn, it's really fascinating.  There's something scary about a man with such a grimly serious agenda and a firm reason for having it.  I can believe that this man wanted what he was working for, and the chemistry between him and the character he was personally involved with really felt real and intense.  Throw James Bond into the mix, and it's much more harrowing to see him actually involving himself in the affairs of real humans.
 
With all this explosive character chemistry going on, Bond really has to take things up a notch.  In so many ways, he's no match for the villain, who's too smart, too powerful, and too determined for him.  How do you make a character like Bond seem remotely relevant in a film like this, when for once he just might get outshown by the villain?  Bond's childhood is brought up.  We get to delve into his past.  The title of the story turns out to have a very personal meaning.
 
As we know, James is an orphan.  This film plays with that.  It doesn't mess with what's been established, as far as I can tell.  It doesn't have flashbacks.  Still, the idea of Bond having to deal with that, to some extent, brings so much about this film together and really ups the ante as far as the scope goes.  When he's pushed to his limits, he has to fight on his home turf, all alone.  He doesn't have the aid of fellow field agents - only his closest friends.  When he and the villain have almost nothing to lose, save for the things that they live for, both turn out to be incredibly resourceful and daring.  Bond makes use of some incredible ingenuity and is willing to sacrifice a lot.
 
During the climax, there's some dramatic lighting, and some really cool shots that made this a rather pleasing film to see in the theatre and that really set it apart from any other spy film I have ever seen.  It was indisputably Bond in its execution, and very much a good drama.  So much about this felt big and larger than life, which is what big-screen movies need to be.  I also love that the film often times took advantage of the big screen and had several great wide shots, especially when it needed it the most, when Bond was dealing with the Bardem's villain and it was necessary to see them on the set for the full impact of their standoffs to take effect.    When they both finally give it their all, they come to a reckoning - something that I always invite in a Bond film and something that is impossible to do with any regularity.
 
So let's get to the fact as to why this is still a Bond film.  The main theme is still used - thank God.  Sometimes humorously, sometimes lovingly.  There's a moment were there are strong references to the old Bond films.  There are nods to retro aspects of the franchise, while ushering in the new.  I'm reminded of the remarkable phenomenon known as "James Bond casting", where a remake or continuity reboot doesn't necessarily mean that all of the characters have to be replaced with different actors, or that the music and other iconic elements have to change.  This film knows its tropes and knows its place in culture (I really wish that Zack Snyder felt the same, as well as other American directors,but apparently not).  There's still the Bond girl, as well as "Bond and a babe in a boat", though this time it's treated with slightly more tragic air, as a result of his instability.  There's still the classic "shaken, not stirred" Martini, but it's delivered with a surprisingly indirect ease.  It takes many cliches and plays them straight, except with as much drama and Bond-glam as possible, since a Bond is the one place where cliches can work.
 
In short, this film burns everything that we knew about James Bond to the ground only to build it all back up again.  At the end, it reminded me of J.J. Abram's Star Trek, where it fell on the note of a content love for everything that it has been and everything that it will be.  Ben Whishaw became the new Q, who until recently I could have sworn he was Benedict Cumberbatch.  So much of the recurring cast associated with Bond films that has been absent in this remake finally came on screen, and the full ensemble got together to have their moment to shine.  This was not meant to be a continuation of Bond's conflict in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, but it certainly set the stage for Bond to be Bondier in the upcoming films, so I certainly look forward to the future of the Bond franchise.  Skyfall did more to reboot James Bond than Casino Royale did.
 

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The 85th Academy Awards

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Movies, Events Feb 24 2013 · 167 views

:kaukau: This is the first year I've ever bothered to watch the Academy Awards Ceremony.  Part of this is because I have been following Spielberg's Lincoln for quite some time.  I have a great reverence for Spielberg, and to anticipate him doing a biopic of one of the greatest presidents with Daniel Day-Lewis was a worthy wait.  Then I saw the advertisements, and I instantly knew that it was going to be a powerhouse performance.  I watched the movie, and it was the first time in a while that I have been blown away by a recent performance.
 
With that said, I'd vote for Day-Lewis for Best Actor.  This would be an unprecedented third win, but he earned it.  It was that good.  It's the obvious choice, which might annoy some, but Day-Lewis's skill can more or less be summed up in an advertisement for the ceremonies where Seth MacFarlane said "I'm Seth MacFarlane and I will be hosting the 85th Academy Awards.  Except I'm not Seth MacFarlane.  I'm Daniel Day-Lewis.  I'm that good."
 
I thought it was funny, because Day-Lewis blended so well into a role so recognizable, it was a real big achievement.  Not to mention the role, Abraham Lincoln, has a presence and a sense of gravitas that, combined with great talent, leads to an unlikely performance with the exact kind of impression that makes for an Oscar.
 
Of the other nominees, there's also Jackman as Valjean, and as much as I'd like to see my namesake win for Best Actor, I wasn't impressed by Jackman's performance.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen the other actors.  They might actually have a chance, if only because Day-Lewis has two Oscars already and his performance will be legendary already.
 
For actresses, I'm not really a fan of any of the nominees, even though many of them are talented.  Also, I haven't seen any of their performances.  From what I hear, the one I want to win is Quvenzhané Wallis.  Everything about her performance sounds cool.  The other that stands out to me, from what I know of the performance, is Emmanuelle Riva.
 
For best movie, Lincoln was my favorite film of 2012, but I heard good things about Argo, including from my exceptionally picky uncle, so I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and hope that it wins.  Besides, Lincoln already has the claim to 12 nominations, the most of any movie this year, just as I knew it would.  I thought that Les Miserables was good, but I'm not rooting for it.  I wouldn't mind seeing Amour, The Life of Pie, and Beasts of the Southern Wild winning.  For best director, the only ones I really see winning are Stephen Spielberg and Ang Lee.
 
What else is there before the Oscars officially start in a few seconds?  Oh yes, I want "Suddenly" from Les Miserables to win for Best Original Song.
 
Well, that's it, guys!  See you all soon!

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The Most Beautiful Woman in the Movies

Posted by Jean Valjean , in Hierarchies, Movies, Wisdom Feb 23 2013 · 283 views
Ghost, favorite, friendship

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FOR YEARS I HAVE BEEN HAUNTED BY THE PHANTOM OF MY BEST FRIEND.  She is a woman, and very much like an older sister to me.   She is, in a sense, my ultimate peer.  She is the person who never gives up on me, always has faith in me, and knows that I will pick myself back up again when I fall.  She doesn’t coach me, but she holds me in her confidence, knowing that if she can get things right, then I will, too.  We are, after all, peers.
          This perpetual specter has never left me and has been an archetype in my imagination that has come to define my journey in life.  She has played a part in how I look at myself, how my identity has been formed, and how I view other people, since there are few people who are as real to me (or unreal, as further on I will explain) as she is.
          My friend has a face that has been constant and unchanging over the years, and I know its precise details.  As it happens, she bears a strong resemblance to Molly Jensen, a character from Ghost who always really stood out to me because of this similarity.  In fact, my friend and Molly resemble each other on multiple levels, the face being the least of these.  Many of the ways in which Molly is presented echo the presence my imaginary friend has.
          To me, my friend is Eve, the original, archetypal, unadulteraded Woman.  She is the standard by which all femininity is measured.  She is a wholesome and complete individual unto herself, and anyone who reminds me of her is more human in my eyes by association.
          Since I cannot explain this character, and since she has not appeared in any movie, Molly is therefore the most beautiful woman in any film, ever.  Is she more beautiful than my friend?  No, but she out of all the cinematic figures reminds me most of her, so throughout much of this exposition I will speak of Molly as if she was the standard.  So, then, I am more comfortable around women who remind me of Molly, similar to when a father has unique feelings for his son or daughter who reminds him of himself the most.  It’s difficult to explain, but it’s there.  What I can say is that women who remind me of her make me happy.
          It doesn’t necessarily have to be a feeling of attraction.  After all, I do not have a crush on Molly Jensen.  Neither do I have any romantic element with my best friend.  I never will.  She’s a constant in my life, and so is the nature of our friendship.  It’s everything a friendship can be, but it will not be more than that.  She has, to me, been the definition for friendship.  That’s the archetype she falls under, and it’s a unique relationship I wouldn’t give up for the world.
          A good marriage, though, should be with someone who is also a best friend.  It’s clearly a best friend in a different way, though.  There’s a slight difference, and it’s really difficult for me to imagine what it is.  However, I imagine my hypothetical wife as looking very similar to Molly.  How could I not?  Molly is the standard for beauty, and even if it is not a beauty I am inherently romantically interested in, I would still want a romance to include elements similar to what I see in my best friend and Molly.  I do not want her to be Molly, but I would love for us to have all the same qualities in our relationship plus one extra, that being intimacy.  This wouldn’t make my best friend obsolete, though.  I still want to live for my friends, and I want to be as real and as personal with them as possible, and I think that through friendship there is a form of support and happiness that can’t be found in romance.
          For now, I have neither such a friendship nor a romance.  I am unaware if I have met either person, yet, although there have been a couple of girls when I was a young boy who were good friends to me and I will always remember as the best friends I ever had.  Even after I find someone and decide to marry with her, Molly will most likely still be the most beautiful woman in fiction.  In fact, even if I marry an actress, I probably will not find her roles as attractive as Molly, because once I have experiences marriage, no fictional character could possibly be a standard for romantic interest, as I would already have a wife to set the standard for me.  It would be wrong to look at fictional characters and find them beautiful in a romantic way, even if they looked exactly like my wife, because they would not be my wife.  Molly, however, will forever be a reminder of my best friend, and a symbol of what femininity is beyond just attractive interest.  She represents beauty in not just a spouse, but in people of all different relations.  She can be my friend, my sister, my cousin, my mother, my daughter, my sister-in-law, my niece, and a symbol or what makes people everywhere special.  She is the innocent, blameless spirit in every human being, no matter how flawed.  She is, in essence, the image I attribute to the soul.


 
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To explain why Molly reminds me so much of my best friend, I’m going to take a look at how she’s presented.  For one, I find her pure.  People have complicated emotions, thoughts, and decisions, yet we are all bound by one very simple reality: we are all human.  We are all very much real people, and we are all special.  Something about her really brings that out.  She is depicted as plain and uncomplicated, straightforward in a way that I cannot be.
          Setting her role in the story aside for now, there’s something about how she’s presented.  She’s actually presented in two ways, the first being Demi Moore’s performance, and the second being Caissie Levy’s performance in the recent stage adaptation.   I always preferred the original, which is why I use Demi Moore’s pictures here.  Caissie’s never carried the same impression, even though the character she played had the exact same name and role in the story, because the character was presented differently in the 2012 play.  It was, to me, looking at a completely different character.  Caissie’s was just some character when Demi’s was, to me, not only a real person but also the subject of this ambitiously named entry.  I appreciate the need for a difference, but I’m not a fan of Demi and I still think she found the perfect interpretation of Molly.
          Part of the difference was how she was viewed as a woman.  One of my favorite things about Molly is that she’s very androgynous.  The movie forewent depicting her as a woman and really just made her one of two people feeling the pains of separation and loss.  Before the loss, she was still characterized as just a person.  She wasn’t “the girlfriend” or “the object of the man’s affection”, and she wasn’t some prize to be sought out for.  Yes, she technically was those things, but for me, that’s never where the emphasis was.  Perhaps this is my bias, because of how she reminds me so much of my friend, but the way that the narrative worked for me was that she was a dear friend of Sam Wheat who also happened to be the one person he would marry.  That second part wasn’t glamorized, save for in a moment of passion at the beginning of the movie.  Is that part really famous?  Oh yes, it definitely is.  During that part, though, she ceased to be Molly, or at least for me, and therefore doesn’t count.  It was the “make-out scene” that was sort of a separate story in its own right and my mind sort of created a different character at that moment.  I think that one of the reasons it never stood out to me that much was because when the characters decided to make out it wasn’t treated as a novelty, since in a romance movie kissing is usually a narrative point that emphasizes how people are coming together, whereas these two were already together.  So basically, there was no glamor.  Her presence was really an ordinary part of life, reminding me very much of how ordinary it is to be with siblings and cousins.
          Molly also dressed in what I call “glorious 90’s fashion”, tied with the 50’s for my favorite era of personal style.  Nostalgia certainly plays a piece in this, since it rings with the tone of a time that means everything to me, but she would so often dress so that there was really no stylistic difference between her and the men.  Everyone dressed pretty similar, save for when Sam and Carl were either shirtless or in business clothes.  Otherwise, she was dressed essentially how any man or boy would dress on a casual occasion, or at least in terms of the 90’s, and it didn’t stand out, because her presentation was fairly similar to woman in the 90’s as well.  I always thought this was cool, because even as an adult, I haven’t strayed far from my boyhood prejudice that girls were stupid when they were “girly”.  Tomboys and androgynous girls were the coolest.  They were people I could hand out with and take seriously.
          My attitude now is less childish, but the end result is still pretty similar.  I have no accusations of girl's fashion of being stupid, since I have, after all, come to appreciate cultural norms and complex historic ideas of beauty.  Yet, wearing dresses is like putting makeup on, and I ultimately find makeup ridiculous and prefer to see people as they really are.  So, too, do I find other items of feminine fashion that supposedly emphasize femininity a distraction that makes people into cartoons instead of flesh and blood.  The way I have developed, it really comes naturally with androgynous, down-to-earth fashion.  Even dressing up like a nerd, with a full set of bowties, suspenders, and pocket protectors, as awesome as I find that to be, is ultimately only adopting a shallow label and identifying with it.  I have a whole rant about people who identify with labels.  Meanwhile, I'm always curious to see how beautiful someone is when they wear completely unromantic clothes, and forgo decoration or any gilding to their sexuality.  In other words, I’m curious to see how a person’s beauty can show through then they are at their ugliest.
          Finally, Molly’s face is crowned by the single most awesome haircut known to man.  And woman.  My best friend has this haircut, and it was the most obvious similarity that Molly had with her.  Obviously, it’s not a hairstyle that people see much of, except in the 90’s, it was everywhere, particularly with boys.  Due to various media I was exposed to, it was the haircut of the ultimate underdog, the kid I related to.  It was the hair of the hair of Kevin from Home Alone, and it was the hair of Harry Potter, among many other examples.  I always wanted a bowl cut, but unfortunately, I didn’t really have the face for it, so my hair looks more like the young John Conner’s, and even that was pretty similar to a bowl cut.
          The point I’m trying to make here is that my imaginary friend is a strong reminder of my early childhood, and by extension life in the 90’s.  Even though she became my friend after the 90’s – we befriended each other when my parents were going through with their divorce – it’s just another association I make.  She’s always had a bowl cut just like the one Molly had, and Molly has the best variation of the bowl cut ever.
          Short enough that it’s easy to take care of, but long enough to protect against sunburn in the summer and keep the head warm during winter, this hair is perfect in every way, unless you’re a marine.  I say that the haircut is pretty useful, so on a practical side it gets a plus.
          This fondness comes from a deeper philosophy I always had.  When Caissie Levy played Molly, she had long hair, and it changed my way of perceiving the character almost immediately.  It wasn’t just because she didn’t look like my best friend.  I said I liked Demi’s presentation because it was plain and uncomplicated, and part of that was because of the hair.  On one hand, it made her a product of the times, but on the other hand, my perception of her as a woman wasn’t based on superficial things.  In the great “nature vs. Nurture Debate” in psychology, I never saw long hair and fashion as an inherently feminine trait.  I never liked contrived gender differences and preferred a world where gender was never an issue of identity.  It always made sense to eliminate gender differences that were mere presumptions and stop seeing people as so different, and especially never to treat them as an image created by society.  A lot of the way femininity is characterized by culture in both the West and the East through images that have become so fundamental in our assumptions about the difference between the sexes that it transcends words.  “Femininity” is constantly misused even by those who try to avoid products of cultural nurturing, and even I am not immune.
          So between short hair and long hair, I see short hair as more “feminine”, so to speak.  It’s actually not even that.  I just see it as more human.  Long hair is weird, and I honestly do not understand how it’s feminine other than by association.  To me, it always made people look like aliens or Tolkien’s elves.  Yes, that basically means that a ton of people are aliens, but I’m not backing down from that statement.  It honestly looks like a goofy alien thing.  In my science-fiction world, short hair is for humans, and when I can see someone who looks more human, then they are plainer, normal, and at the end of the day, just people.
          Long hair, to me, has always been associated with sexuality when not associated with aliens and elves.  Enter Tarzan.  He’s a man, and those long locks make him look manly.  He has a wild side to him, and those locks – those locks – just enhance his sexiness.  When I open up book with advertisements for tuxedoes, the man who stands out is the one with shoulder-length hair and some stubble, because he’s probably some hunk of a surfer or some other crazy athlete.  Either way, there’s a woman in the background who apparently thinks of him as a god.  As nice as that is, I really don’t want to be defined by my sexuality.  Remember, I always related with the underdogs and the simple, plain boys in children’s stories, from Harry Potter to Luke Skywalker.  The long hair increases sexuality, and I have nothing against people who go with it, but it’s weird that half of the population is basically expected to be more sexual than the other half.  That doesn’t seem right.  It’s sexy, but not beautiful.
          To understand how I see these things, look at how my brain operates and deals with data.  I like to compartmentalize everything.  Aesthetically, it separates the head and neck region, and the neck from the shoulders and the rest of the torso.  There is an upward “narrative” in the aesthetics, where everything comes together to place clear emphasis on the face and then on the eyes, and in my science-fiction world it means someone is a human and not an alien and that I therefore an not alone in this universe.  Otherwise, long hair is weird, like some sort of cosmic hiccup.  It clouds the boundaries between the compartmentalized regions, and it has a downward narrative that combines the cranium with the sizes of the face, the neck, and the shoulders, perhaps even the chest and lower back, depending on how long the hair is and how it is arranged.
          The sad thing, since long hair is so uncommon among women, I often find myself interested in them, whether on a romantic or on a friendship level, not because of how normal the hair should be but purely because it is different, and it becomes one of those quirks that I get interested in like girls who dress like real nerds.  I have a giant rant about nerds, and it’s very similar to this one.  I don’t like gaining interest in someone because of superficial things.  Chances are, if someone has a different style that goes against the norm, it’s probably because they’re trying to be different instead of being their natural selves.  That’s why Molly’s different, because I think she is just being herself wasn’t being influenced by her perception of what other women were like.  I think that her presentation was plain and simple because she was plain and simple, and that’s ultimately what comes first.



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There was a moment when Sam was restless, and she asked him what was wrong.  "It seems like whenever something good happens in my life I'm just afraid I'm going to lose it."
          And I am hit with strong, strong memories of good things in life that I have lost.  The way Sam phrased that concern, the fear of loss is associated with her.  Really, that's what she was to him.  She wasn't a girlfriend or a focus of infatuation.  She was something good in his life.  That spoke to me on one the deepest, most fundamental levels.  This is one of the reasons the character sticks with me, because of what she represents.  She represents meaning in relationships, and good relationships, the ones I want to last.
          Sam's concerns at this point are ones that I relate to in every sense.  There are people who I would have liked to call family, but they slipped into memory.  They became nothing more than another neuron connection within my brain.  There are some people I can never return to no matter how hard I try, because I can't go back again when the person who ought to have had a significant place in my life is now on the opposite side of the grave.  In light of those, I always regreted not loving those people enough, and I always wondered about just how much love I was withholding from all the other people I knew who were still alive.  There was the first friendship I ever had, and I always regreted taking it for granted, for now it is but a memory, and only a hazy one at that, nothing but a glorified neuron connection.  There are high school friendships, middle school friendships, and elementary school bonds that I have all had once upon a time, but now are as a fairy tale.
          I can't stress enough how much I wish for good things in my life to come and stay for good.  I want good things in my life so much.  This transcends a desire for romance, a desire for marriage.  I just want commitments, and I want some things to be permanent in my life that connect it to some ultimate narrative.
          There are many things about Molly that remind me of good things in my life that I have lost.  The good things in particular that come to mind are the biggest ones in my nostalgia arsenal, the phantoms from my past that I have never quite got over.  When I die and go to heaven, I have my equivalents to Fantine and the Biship of Digne that I hope to greet me as I pass through the light.
          I have a dream where I can be honest.  It is more than just speaking truth and being open.  It is a desire to be understood without fear, to be myself and share myself with friends who accept me as I am, and see me within the context of my entire life story.  I want to be known and loved not just for who I am now as an adult, but for everything I was leading up to this point, for how I became an adult.  I want to understand the life stories of my friends just as much, so as to btter understand why they are true and real to me.  In the same way that our mothers, to some extent, will always see us as children, I wish to have family who I feel I have known for my entire life.  I want to see them in terms of their origins, to understand how the adults I know are really just stages in the development of a baby born years ago.  In honesty, I want there to be truth in my life and in the friendships I have.  I want to be my true self - all of it - encompassing everything I have been and everything I ever will be.
          Therefore, I am happy for Sam.  I am so, so happy for Sam.  He doesn't have a girlfriend, but rather he he has been blessed with "something good".  Seeing their relationship, I get a glimmer of a vision of what sort of ultimate peace it is my innate disposition to want more than anything else.  I want friendship, in particular the friendship that I had as a child that had a certain extra meaning, exactly because there was no grand philosophy to define what it was.  Perhaps as a child we had things right.  I want to be like a child again, and I want my life to be that simple.  Work can be as complex as ever, and emotions can have their twists, but why shouldn't good things be plain?
          They are, after all, an ultimate end.
          How ironic it is that Sam is the one who leaves, that he is the "something good" and she is the one who suffers the pain of loss.

 

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Even though she was a good thing, and she was presented in just the perfect manner that I saw her as an archetypal representation of such, the Sam's musings were ironic.  He didn't lose her.  She lost him.  He was a good thing in her life.
          Thus, the story of the film is twofold.  At the onset, it may appear as a story about Sam and his struggle to help Molly from beyond death.  Yet, at the same time, it's also about Molly coping with a loss and learning to believe.  She is equally the story's main character.  She is, after all, the one who is living.  She's the one with story left to tell, and that's precious enough that it's worth saving.
          There are moments in Ghost where Molly takes control of the narrative.  It precedes the film, actually, because the trailer's tagline was "Do you believe in GHOST", phrased as a question and therefore is a theme that centers around someone's ability to answer it.  Molly's the one who has to respond to that question.  Therefore, it is Molly's job to take on much of the narrative, and there are points where the story is uniquely hers.
          Certainly, the story could be completely dedicated to how Sam uses his superpowers to save the day.  That is an interesting plot point, but it ignores the very significant reality of the film.  He's dead.  Molly attended his funeral.  As traumatizing as it would be to witness your own funeral and know it was for real, imagine, for a moment, just how much more agonizing it would be to be the person standing above the ground who loved the man in the coffin dearly, dealing with the fact that he died and is never coming back.
          The fact is, Sam was something good in Molly's life as well, and he was ripped away from her.  he may have longed for her touch and the ability to meet her eyes again, but he didn't suffer her complete absence.  She went through the stages of grief I know well.  There's the shock, and then the numbness, and the feeling that life is never going to be the same.  There's the burden of loss.  I went from seeing her as a desirable archetype, a good thing, to relating with her.  Suddenly, she felt the same pains I do, and it was completely real and true to life.  I was engaged with her subtle journey through those troublesome emotions.  The moment where she rolls a jar with an Indian-head penny Sam gave her off a staircase is real and more magical than any demonstration of ghost powers on the behalf of Sam.  I live for the one-way conversation between her and Sam where she talks to the air as if he can hear her, not knowing he actually can.
          The pain, the grief, the regret.  That's all real.  She's an authentic person.  While it's something I relate to, it's uniquely her story.  Yes, I see elements of myself in her, but she's unmistakably the Other.  I can sympathize, but never truly feel her pain, yet I know it's there.  And I marvel, and think to myself, at how real this person is.  She shares so many elements of my humanity, and yet they are not a product of my perceptions.  They are not created by my ability to understand her.  They exists completely independent of myself, separated by a wall I will never be able to see past, and yet her humanity burns on, in spite of it never being able to be seen.  She is as real as me without being me, and the more I think about that, the more I get to realizing that that's some kind of miracle.
          See, we are all like Molly and Sam.  One person is not another, and therefore can never truly "know" them.  We live our entire lives on two different sides of a wall, never really seeing each other.  Yet, there are signs of the other's existence.  Through our senses, we can detect each other's corporal existence, and reason comes to dictate that since cogito ergo sum, the flesh of other bodies which seem to exhibit rational behavior must also be self-aware and like us.
          To think, the sanctuary of our minds is an entire reality.  Reality is so big that it is everything.  Then the paradox, that everything exists not only once, but twice, because someone else has their own reality!  Not only that, but it happens seven billion times, all over the globe.  It is beyond comprehension, and yet it is true.  Therefore, if reality is everything, than each person is everything, and life is sacred.  I can be comfortable in this vast world of my mind, but there is a surreal awe about discovering another person and realizing "You too?  I thought I was the only one!"  The universe of my mind is a bubble of non-Euclidean space, never to touch with another cognitive universe, and yet somehow knowing that, in theory, another universe exists, it changes everything.
          Have we ever stopped to think just how loving we ought to be to each other, and just how sacred life is?  I sometimes do, and the resulting analogies blow me away.  I stop in awe, and I chuckle at how ignorant I am most of the time.  I am dimly aware that other people have thoughts and feelings independent of myself, but when it dawns me that they do, how extraordinary it is!  How far beyond the imagination it is to fathom the seven billion stories that unfold on this planet every day.  Then I get to thinking how small I am, and how important everyone else is.  It is like everyone else is another "me", and yet they are not me.  Aristotle thought otherwise, since he thought that all souls were the same substance and merely inhabited bodies with different nurture, but for that to be true, then all realities really only one, like a well-lesioned brain keeping secrets from itself, supporting multiple different consciousnesses all at once to fulfill a complex function.  I don't see the universe that way, and it would be a shame to make everything the same reality.  It's much grander to rejoice in the hyperdimensional paradox that even everything isn't everything.  Everyone is "just like me" (except in a different body), while at the same time, they are distinctly and wholly not me!
          When I put up my willing suspension of disbelief, I see Molly in this way, and therefore she becomes of infinite importance.  I understand Sam's desire to spare her from his fate.  It isn't just romance, but altruism, the ultimate love.  When all the elements of her presentation remind me of an independent reality, of which I am normally only dimly aware, it is impossible not to love her.
          She is someone I can fall in love with.  She isn't a character, but a person.  She isn't a science fiction concept or some pretty idea.  All the fictional characters ever are only a reflection of abstract ideas, but a person isn't an abstract idea.  A person isn't something that you find in a creative story, where an avatar for the plot is created by putting together personality traits and some relateable emotions.  People are real.  Molly, even though she's fictional, reminds me of that.  In spite of all the fantasies out there, she's the person from everyday life I look at and see myself falling in love with over time.  She's that ordinary - yet extraordinary - person who can become everything.  That's what she means to me.
          Perhaps this is another fantasy, but there's always the hope that I will meet someone who consistently reminds me as Molly does every day just how unreal she is to me, for indeed another person's reality can never be my own.  To suggest that another person is real is to create an illusion of her in your mind.  Love isn't necessarily about feeling someone's presence.  She had sort of shortcoming when Sam died when she talked to the air, pretending he was beside her and not knowing he actually was.  It was a talk with herself more than anything, and it reminds me of my own shortcomings and how C.S. Lewis crystallized my awareness of this flaw in human nature in his book A Grief Observed.  We will create a figment of our imaginations out of our loved ones after they have passed away, yet it is not them.  A person ceases to love another when they fall in love with their memory, not the person herself.  The truth is, we do not live on in memory, and that is a lie as old as time.  True life exists in spite of others' notions, not because of it.  Hence, I fall in love with the idea of a person, my own invention.  Molly did, too.
          Or was it that she had some sort of faith?  In spite of not perceiving him to be there, nor having any reason to believe that he was, what if there was some innate part of her that understood that his presence was about?  Sensing his presence, and yet having no way of knowing for sure, she speaks out to him, saying what she thinks he should hear?  At that point she could never know his response, but it wasn't the point.  He wasn't real to her because he was dead, but really, he was never real to her in the first place.  Any belief otherwise would have been a mirage within her own mind, the only thing real to her.  The point was that she had the faith to alter his reality in spite of it being to her an impenetrable void of nonexistence.

 

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Ghost isn't a love story, nor is it a comedy or a tragedy.  The best label I can give is a "drama", but for me it is what it is.  There's no label for it, but I find it a bit profound that it "is" anything.  It has an identity, a soul to it.  Real people got together to play fictional roles, and real people got together to direct, compose, and take photo shoots together.
          At different times, it can be different things.  Many will call it a romance, but beyond that, it's a story about friendship.  Sam and Molly were many things, but above all they were good things - for each other.  They were best friends, and being romantic partners didn't really change anything in that dynamic.  It was simple love, a benevolent care for each other, just as a child I presumed that it should be.  When Molly's life was at risk, Sam did all he could to save her not because she would have been his wife, but because she was a loved one, a friend, a part of his family and an integral piece of his life while he had it.    He had no destiny, and he had nothing to gain from helping her, not even emotional fulfillment   He was offered to go straight to Heaven when he died, which in theory would be the ultimate emotional fulfillment, but he turned it down, because he wanted for a reality greater than himself.  He wanted for the one person who mattered in his life to have life of her own, and that always resonated with me.
          It was a bittersweet ending, but one of my favorite movie endings of all time.  The music was beautiful, the unique visual feel showcased my favorite example of 90's lighting, the blocking could not have been better, and Demi Moore knew how to cry.  It was also romantic.  Very romantic.
          Which leaves me with some interesting thoughts about Molly, actually, and I return to the similar phantoms of my best friend and my wife.  What is Molly to me?  I find Ghost to be one of my favorite romances of all time, but I don't imagine myself in Sam's role.  Nor do I imagine being there to be the man who takes his place, presuming there is one.  Actually, I don't assume anything after the ending.  That's why it's a favorite: it's such a definitive end, like the end of time itself, where the story completely and entirely resolves every concern I might have ever had by the time the screen dims out.
          All I really know is that I love Molly, or at least as much as I can love a fictional character.  It's some kind of wonderful, although whatever kind it is I am not entirely sure.  It could be platonic, maybe romantic, but at the end of the day, good is good.  I wish to live well with the people in my life, and discover the meaning behind the relationships I have.  She's a constant reminder of that dazzling extra reality I'm looking for.
          She isn't as real as a real person, but it's about what she represents, and what beauty truly means.  People keep on trying to put conditions on what it is, but in actuality there's no such thing as a person who is any more beautiful than the other.  Everyone is ultimately and equally human.  I think of the real people that I meet in my everyday life, especially those who possess qualities that resonate me with elements of familiarity that betray their humanity, and I realize that they have souls equal in their cry of "I am!"
          To be is to be beautiful.

 

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Username: Emperor Kraggh
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