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Warrior (2011)
Nick Nolte Deserves an Oscar Nom
On the surface, Warrior is about MMA and UFC fighting, but this takes a back seat to the gritty emotion of the relationship between father-son and brother-brother (Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton).
As back story, we have a family that has crumbled at the hands of an alcoholic father (Nick Nolte), who nowadays is mature and sober (and listens to Moby Dick on audio book).
Joel Edgerton may have a more enticing story playing the older brother who gets suspended from his normal science teacher job for fighting MMA, but the hardcore way Tom Hardy portrays an ex-Marine beast is undeniable. You will most definitely root against him, but the stronger your hatred towards Hardy, the more you have to applaud his amazing performance.
Of course, Nick Nolte takes the cake. In a scene that reads "Oscar Nom" all over it, the type of scene that Oscar people salivate over, we find the mature, 1,000 days sober father in a hotel room drowning his sorrows. With empty bottles strewn across the floor, Moby Dick piping through the headphones, Nolte is drunk as a sailor shouting, "Ahab! You stop the ship! Ahab! Stop the Ship!"
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
You put beef in the stew!? You know I'm vegetarian!
Roughly translated, Inglourious Basterds means an old, shameful unpleasantry, like a vegetarian who is tricked into once again swallowing a piece of beef. Tarantino plays devil's advocate, the person playing the practical joke, who puts the beef in the stew, thinking that if we are conscious of what we intake we will be aware of the tomfoolery. If not then our blindness will lead us to the immorality we strive against, in this case, that meat is murder.
He is telling the audience to not be a pushover, to stand up for what you believe in, and to not be scorned by ignorance. The last line, "This just might be my masterpiece," is a mathematically crafted answer, his "Therefore, QED" statement that tries to answer sets of matrices. It takes a well trained eye to calculate the numbers as they grow exponentially throughout. This is no test problem, more so a bonus question. It reads, "Solve the differential equation," and the answer demystifies a single stereotype that math teachers can only hope to demolish in students brains, "That math has no application in the real world."
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011)
A Profane Portrait That Is "Post-Conan"
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop falls short of calling itself a movie. The man is brilliantly hilarious, but as a documentary film it fails miserably to deliver the intended message that he so eloquently stated to the camera: that no one has any idea what the true side of him is like, and that this documentary aims to develop the true Conan.
We follow a moody man who can best be described as "post-Conan." His crazy sense of humor still remains, but a dark sided, profanity wielding, beard wearing man now inhabits the body of a once innocent, clean shaved, late night talk show host. He takes us behind the stage of his tour across the country, invites us to listen to his music, and shows us the deep connection he has with his fans. This can all be understood in the first few minutes of the movie, and what follows is a wash, rinse, and repeat cycle.
This excuse for a documentary is made for die hard fans who are willing to put up with a cynical man in the midst of his catharsis in order to get laughs from his degrading wise cracks. I cannot help but empathize with the idea of the comedian who night in and night out purges himself with a smile plastered on his face that no one can see through. It is clear that what we know of Conan is just the tip of the iceberg, and underneath the surface lurks a wounded monster.
Wrecked (2010)
Wrecked Explores Where 127 Hours Cannot
127 Hours [2010] and Wrecked [2011] contain similar plots and big name actors (James Franco and Adrien Brody). They are set in a minimal location with a suffocating feel. One is based on a true story; the other is fiction. During the long middle stretch of movie, 127 Hours substitutes emotional highs and lows in the score instead of conflict/action, which Wrecked does a much better job at. A raw comparison of the plots gives 127 Hours a harsh reality, while Wrecked puts us inside Brody's mind of amnesia and hallucination. They end the same, but with a little help from Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Ros, 127 Hours manages to finish on a higher note. One was nominated for best picture, and one gets a shoddy rating on IMDb.
I do not believe the term, "Based on a true story," can cover up moments of less perfection. True stories are not commercial box office hits. That's how "based on a true story" came to be, to fantasize and fictionalize the true story into film mythology. The writer's job is to make a story's conflict much like a concert. If a story contains all truth and is boring, there should be rewrites until we are moved, with bits of conflict that can sensationalize the boring truth.
For this reason, where 127 Hours lags, Wrecked excels, and where 127 Hours must stick to a certain blue print, Wrecked can explore the mind of the protagonist in great depth. Plan on seeing an underrated, captivating, Adrien Brody indie in 2011.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Bone, Hal, and The Monster From Frankenstein as Multiple Allusions
The beginning of the movie starts out as a brief history of man, beginning with total chaos and charting mankind's evolution from apes. As the ape evolves, he invents a weapon out of bone to kill his prey, and the movie suddenly makes perfect sense: man as creator.
The weapon's first use is food, but soon becomes a way to wage war against the opposing tribe of apes. With the weapon, the ape kills the leader of the opposing tribe, creating the multiple allusion to the invention as killer: the monster in Frankenstein or Hal9000 later in the movie. To rejoice in the kill, he tosses the weapon into the air, and the cut jumps directly into the future: the world of 2001 in outer space.
Amidst the vastness, we quickly learn the future world. There are harmless creations, like video conferencing, where a man communicates with his family back home. Then we have a computer that talks called Hal9000. Going off the theme of man as creator, we can assume that in the world of 2001 that invention is the future.
Mankind as creator makes Hal9000, a super computer with the ability to read lips. To make the invention more personable, we call the supercomputer Hal for short. He even has a personality. He is our friend that we can talk to.
I can just imagine the thrill one would get viewing this on its release date in theaters. Kubrick creates the world, throws (literally) us into the future, surrounds us with technology we can marvel at. We delight in the fresh aesthetics, and soon grow comfortable with them. We are encapsulated in the world created by the film, and therefore give it our absolute trust. In return, we receive comfort and can take a deep breath.
When the Frankenstein-like twist is fully realized paranoia sets in-as if Kubrick knew that his entire audience in the 60s would be high on drugs. He starts at our most animal being, shapes the world, makes us comfortable, and in enters the invention (the bone, the monster, or Hal) to wreak havoc. Hal is not our friend. He betrays us, and it is normal to feel anger, even hate, towards Hal.
As the credits roll, I think of the genius of Kubrick, to know exactly what the audience wants, even if they do not know what they want themselves, where he can take them on the trip they have been unconsciously craving. Imagining back again, I envision the smokers in the audience leaving the theater with paranoid thinking, questioning technology, while the heavier street drug users would be getting excited over scenes that make them geek out. It does not take a hippie to know that trips are not always daisies. Only Kubrick can create such an engrossing direction for this masterpiece, in such a way that the themes in the world of 2001 are universal: invention is the future (or shapes the future), and from the start of the movie, we know that mankind is continually evolving. The multiple allusion of the bone weapon, the monster from Frankenstein, and Hal, teaches a valuable lesson in that one must be careful that what one creates will not destroy.
Zelig (1983)
The Personality of an Era
Zelig [1983] is undoubtedly one of Woody Allen's finest works. Coming shortly after and maintaining the brilliance that Manhattan [1979] and Annie Hall [1977] shared with us, Woody's writing and directing in Zelig makes it perhaps his best work. Taking on documentary fashion, this mockumentary seeks to comment on a man with a dissociative identity disorder, or as the movie calls him, a chameleon. The mental illness or perhaps genius of the man is his ability to take on characteristics of those around him. Woody presses this to the extreme as we see Zelig transformed from a baseball player to a mobster to a black musician even to a Native American. Leave it up to his comedic routine to establish a connection with satire and cultural stereotypes.
Nominated for cinematography and costume design, one can see and breathe the Jazz Age. We hear the chameleon song and see a movie made after him. The social commentary sets in as he is treated by a doctor played by Mia Farrow. She can't seem to break him as he soon assimilates the role of doctor. After much turmoil, she assumes the role of patient, which sends Zelig into his own role as patient. Of course, there is nothing there, as his world crashes down on him. He then starts on about some Freudian childhood memories, and she can begin to treat him.
Dare I say that this is Woody's greatest commentary on the social condition? He seeks to describe not just the whirlwind that is mental illness, but carries it all the way to the personality that is an era, and the effect it has on man. I have to be honest here and say that I too fell victim to being a chameleon. Growing up in a military family and moving around a lot, I became well versed in the ways of getting new friends to like me and assuming my role in the new culture. The next question takes us back to the patient-doctor situation, where Zelig assumes the role of doctor, and the doctor the role of patient. If being a chameleon is bad, then how does one not fall entrapped when one seeks to remedy the cause at its root, by becoming the identity of another, for surely all are somewhat something that they are not, and one cannot cure everyone? Woody drives home his doctrine that bending to the opinions of others makes one a fascist, as we see Zelig become a fascist Nazi, literally lost in the masses. Escaping death, Zelig uses his disability as genius to become a pilot, and flies a plane across the Atlantic upside down. We may not always know everything, but if we use our talents and creativity to inspire us, there is little we cannot do. At the end of the movie, Zelig is seemingly cured and lives happily ever after, married to his doctor. The ending goes on to talk of love, and how it can shine a light in our own lives to help us find our own identity.
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Woody's Wild Strawberries
Woody Allen can utilize his satire to be original, his romantic comedy to stimulate, and his drama to make a point. Midnight in Paris is shaped by his vision of a Bergman style drama. His obsession with Bergman extends to his movies where he cracks jokes about his love for the Swedes. In Bananas (1971), Woody Allen becomes President of San Marcos and declares that the official language be Swedish. This is no doubt an homage to Ingmar Bergman, a writer/director who has more influence on Woody Allen's film career than anyone. This style is formed around tortured characters who live out their internal struggle by reliving past and fictional memories. When I saw that Rachel McAdams hair is blonde in Midnight in Paris, I thought, with a smirk on my face, "Ingrid Thulin."
Woody Allen's 41st movie is Midnight in Paris (2011). It's aroma is of The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) mixed with hints of Deconstructing Harry (1997). The Purple Rose of Cairo comparison comes from the want of a character to be in another time. This template usually starts by defining two realities, which we will separate into the crushing reality of existence and the illusions.
The crushing reality comes in contact with the illusions, be it the allure of stars of film characters in classic cinema (The Purple Rose of Cairo) or the nostalgia of 1920's Paris in the rain and the artists and writers of the Jazz Age (Midnight in Paris). The characters are faced with a decision to reject or accept the illusions, the driving catalyst which propels the story forward.
The illusions are fantasy, this fiction life where wish fulfillment is the norm. The main characters struggle with illusions of romance, no doubt delusions. With these delusions, Woody Allen gives a nod to such Bergman films as Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Cries and Whispers (1972).
The Deconstructing Harry comparison is the storyline of the writer who has fictional characters to haunt him. Harry Block remembers scenes from his book as well as his past. In Midnight in Paris, it is a fantasy for a different life which draws Gil to the streets of Paris. In Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957), Dr. Isak Borg is visited by a flood of illusions on his way to receive an honorary degree. Bergman beautifully displays the hidden places in Borg's mind. Woody Allen shows us his own version of Wild Strawberries, as the visit to Paris takes us into the fantasies of Gil's mind.