Airport '75

AIRPORT got my hopes up.  The film was technically accurate (within reason), well plotted, and an all-around good time at the movies.  AIRPORT ‘75, unfortunately, does not live up to the standards of its predecessor.

Yes, the film has its share of big stars, including Myrna Loy, Gloria Swanson, and Larry Storch.  Yes, George Kennedy is back to play The George Kennedy Role.  And, yes, there’s another plane in peril.  But AIRPORT ’75 isn’t technically accurate, tightly plotted, or even all that much fun.

Let’s start with the technical inaccuracies.  Where AIRPORT’s Air Traffic Control calls sounded realistic to my professional ear, AIRPORT ‘75’s sounded like they were written by a guy whose only exposure to them came from watching AIRPORT.  The airplane itself did not respond in a manner consistent with the damage it was supposed to have taken at the end of the first act.  And the relationships between the corporate, governmental, and military stakeholders in the aviation system had no relation to reality whatsoever.  Part of the fun of AIRPORT was the sense it gave us that, in the event of a situation such as the one depicted in the film, this was how events could generally be expected to play out.  AIRPORT ’75 can’t provide that because it doesn’t even try to stay grounded in reality.

As I wrote, ’75 isn’t tightly plotted.  There are entire subplots about faulty engines and fuel leaks that go precisely nowhere.  There’s a long bit about sick girl that’s resolved so sloppily that it’s clear the screenwriters forgot all about her until the last minute.  And the film makes it difficult to invest in the plucky flight attendant who saves the day by painting her as mouth-breathing moron.

But at least AIRPORT ’75 can offer tedium.  It gives us pointless celebrity cameos, characters that do nothing, and a secondary female lead whose only function is to stand around and appeal to the subsection of the male demographic that isn’t attracted to the first female lead.  This is a bad movie and an unworthy successor to AIRPORT.  How I dread AIRPORT ’77.

Sudden Fear

The creepiest moment in SUDDEN FEAR occurs in the first five minutes. An actor onstage recites the lines, “You are all the women in my life. You are the sister I never had, the mother I’ve almost forgotten, the wife I have always dreamed of. There isn’t a relationship you can name which exists between a man and a woman in which I wouldn’t say, ’Let it be you.’” Jack Palance plays the actor. Joan Crawford plays the writer of those cringe-inducing words.

Ms. Crawford goes on to fire Mr. Palance in short order, and it’s in the first act of SUDDEN FEAR that she shines. She plays a driven, hard-bitten woman who knows what she wants and knows how to get it, and I bought her in the role. When she and Palance meet again, I settled in for a battle of titans. Alas, I didn’t get one, for Palance blows Crawford off the screen for the rest of the picture. Palance charms Crawford, you see, and Joan Crawford simply does not do “charmed.” While I believed in Palance’s actions and motives, the only thing I believed about Crawford was that she spent too much time at the makeup counter.

Fortunately, there’s more to SUDDEN FEAR than Joan Crawford. The story is first-class noir; Elmer Bernstein’s score is first rate; and the photography, well, the photography shows us yet again that black and white can suggest silky depths of which color can only dream.

So perhaps the female lead will put you off. But pay no mind, for Jack Palance makes up for it. SUDDEN FEAR may not hold a spot among the elite of the noirs, but it remains a solid entry all the same. It’s just the thing for a long trip.

Airport

Sooner or later, I had to get around to watching AIRPORT. Technically accurate (w/in the limits of the dramatic imperative), well cast, and remarkably engaging, this turned out to be a pretty doggone good movie.

Burt Lancaster plays an airport manager having the worst day of his life. A blizzard is making conditions at his airport the worst they’ve been in ten years. Some bonehead pilot has taxied off the primary runway and into a snowdrift. His wife’s mad at him. His boss is on his butt. And now his jerkwad brother in law, a no-good airline pilot (and really, is there any other kind?) just declared an emergency because some moron blew a hole in the side of his plane. Someone picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.

This is a well-made picture. The folks behind it did their research, because they nailed many of the technical details. Air Traffic Control calls sound like Air Traffic Control calls. Cockpit banter sounds like cockpit banter. Things function and people work together in a manner that generally mirrors my experience in the airline industry. That surprised me, and it helped me stay in the moment for the duration of the film.

Further, AIRPORT is exceptionally well cast. I don’t know whether this was the first all-star disaster movie, but you certainly can’t go wrong with performers like the aforementioned Mr. Lancaster, Dean Martin as the no-good pilot, George Kennedy in what would come to be known as “The George Kennedy Role,” and even Helen Hayes as the little old felonious lady.

Finally, the film moves right along, making two hours and sixteen minutes fly right by. Knowing that we know it’s going to be a disaster movie, AIRPORT takes its time setting up the crisis. We get to know the featured players. We come to care about them. When the hits start coming, we’ve locked in. I bit my nails nearly to the end credits.

While I never watch films I don’t think I’ll enjoy, I fired up AIRPORT half-expecting a campy, ridiculous pantomime of a film. I’m pleasantly surprised, and I look forward to AIRPORT 75.

Paris 36

PARIS 36 is a wonderful film, which I think rare among pictures whose charm rests upon major assumptions about their audiences. PARIS 36, you see, assumes that you love Paris. I can’t think of a safer bet. If you’re alive, you love Paris. Even if you’ve never been to Paris, you love Paris - you just don’t know it yet.

So, what happens in PARIS 36? Well, young gamins sing and play the accordion along the banks of the Seine, the cathedral of Notre Dame in the background. Lovers meet on rooftops, where the city glitters below them and the Eiffel Tower shines in the distance. Evildoers skulk in alleyways, true friends stand together, and love conquers all. Oh, and there’s a show. Of course, it must go on.

For PARIS 36 is a show picture, a movie about theater people and the romances and dangers of their lives. Its production numbers, even its disastrous production numbers, burst with a love for performance and an exuberance that lifts the heart. It’s exciting, and fun, and everything a night out at the show can promise.

I loved it. I loved its vistas even as I saw them for the scenery they were. I loved its people and its songs and its enthusiastic embrace of all things Life. I particularly loved how it made me fall in love with Paris all over again.

See this movie.

Extract

For a comedy, EXTRACT isn’t very funny. It’s kinda sad, and it kinda rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half on Jason Bateman’s likeability, but I only laughed twice (and that was in the first fifteen minutes).

Bateman plays the owner of a flavoring company. A chemist, he created a better vanilla extract. He rolled that creation into a modest operation that employs about fifty people and pays the mortgage on one of those ghastly mcmansions out in the exurbs. So he’s doing ok. But he’s tired of the business. He thinks his wife has lost interest in sex. He’s ready for a change.

Change comes in the form of Mila Kunis, a small-time grifter looking for a big-time score. There’s your movie.

EXTRACT has some solid things going for it. Bateman has perfect comic timing, and a supporting cast that includes Ben Affleck, J.K. Simmons, and Kristen Wiig hits all the right notes. But it felt more bittersweet than funny, and I came to it looking for funny.

So there you have it. Extract’s fine. I actually feel a little bad about not flat-out recommending it. If you like bittersweet, however, this one might be for you.

What I Thought About What I Saw: 2009

“Best Of” lists give me heartburn. I rarely see films in the theater, so I never see the year-end prestige releases in time for year-end wrap up articles. That said, here are the top and bottom ten films of 2009. Or at least, here are the top and bottom ten of the 2009 releases I’ve seen so far.

First, the best:

10. THIRST

A Catholic priest contracts vampirism through a tainted blood transfusion. Everything’s under control, right up to the moment he falls in love. Unexpected, innovative, and scary, THIRST continues director Chan Wook-park’s streak of outstanding films.

9. THE HANGOVER

I don’t particularly like THE HANGOVER. It’s crass. It’s rude. It’s like a friend from you distance yourself once you figure out what he’s all about. But doggone is it funny. It’s funny during its introduction, it’s funny for all three acts, and it’s even funny during the closing credits. I just don’t think I’d have it over for dinner.

8. CORALINE

Coming from an original story by the great Neil Gaiman, CORALINE creates a complex, layered girl in its lead role and plunges her into worlds both delightful and terrifying. Remarkably, this film hit just the right note of scariness for my fourth-grader. It spoke to the existential fear of the child in ways the child can understand, but not in ways that’ll make him wake up screaming. Quite an achievement. Quite a film.

7. DUPLICITY

Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson walk away with this adult thriller about a couple of corporate spies and their lives, loves, plots, and counterplots. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play the spies, and they handle their repartee with excellent timing and great wit. But Giamatti and Wilkinson as the competing corporate titans who employ them – wow!

6. PARIS 36

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love Paris, and those who don’t know that they love Paris. If you love Paris, you’ll love this tribute to the City between the wars, when romance was in the air and anything was possible. Yeah, the heroes are Reds. But let’s face it: industrialists are boring. And the song and dance numbers? Fantastic!

5. CHOCOLATE

The tagline reads, “She’s a special needs girl with a need to kick some ass.” Laying down pretty much every brand of fu imaginable, dancer JeeJa Yanin makes for a convincing martial artist in this creative, well choreographed, and altogether entertaining Thai martial arts picture from director Prachya Pinkaew, the man behind TOM YUM GOONG and ONG-BAK.

4. STAR TREK

Having grown up on the original “Star Trek” TV series, I was all set to hate this reboot. But then I sat in a theater in Fort Lauderdale and got caught up in this big, goofy, ridiculous confection. STAR TREK, far from the train wreck I expected, is big, good-natured, rewatchable fun. It’s also my biggest surprise of the year.

3. DRAG ME TO HELL

Oh, Sylvia Ganush, you had me at “I don’t want your cat, you dirty pork queen!” As I wrote in my original review, DRAG ME TO HELL is everything you could want in a movie entitled “Drag Me to Hell.” It’s gory, it’s scary, it’s funny, and it’s so far over the top that it goes down the other side, turns around, and comes back over the top again. If a Sam Raimi horror movie with mystic séances, possessed goats, and gypsy curses doesn’t do it for you, you must not like horror movies.

2. GOODBYE SOLO

Here’s a small film about regular people that avoids all the bromides about life, death, and family; all while being one of the most powerful movies about life, death, and family released this year. Red West is weariness, and Souleyman Sy Savane is the immigrant experience. It has been months since I’ve seen this picture, and I still can’t get it out of my mind.

1. UP

Not only is up the best picture of 2009, I’m seriously considering calling it the best film of the decade. Not only is it the wisest film of the year, but it’s also the most beautiful, the most touching, and the most likely to challenge and entertain viewers aged five to one hundred five. I saw it in 3-D during its theatrical run and I’ve seen it on blu-ray at home. In either presentation, it’s magnificent. This is a towering achievement from a studio that practically has “towering achievement factory” on its letterhead.

Now, the worst:

10. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS’ fantasy depiction of the United States Army adopting the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq to win WWII was obscene. Yes, Tarantino knows how to manage all the technical aspect of filmmaking. Yes, the projection onto smoke was brilliant. But I can’t help but think that this film was an experiment in getting Western audiences to cheer for the tactics of the enemies of our civilization.

9. BIG MAN JAPAN

I don’t ask for much from my movies, but I do like to know what the heck is going on. BIG MAN JAPAN is an hour and twenty minutes of “WTH was that” topped with ten minutes of “WTF was that.” Neither funny nor comprehensible, BIG MAN JAPAN asks us to laugh at its characters. I don’t laugh at people.

8. CRANK 2

Look, this is a bad movie. Never mind that it’s compulsively watchable – Cheetos are compulsively edible, but they’re still bad food. Sexist, racist, ageist, and just about every –ist you can imagine, this film has no redeeming qualities. I can’t wait for the next one.

7. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE

THE FIRST DATE EXPERIENCE would serve as a more accurate title. More specifically, the part of the first date when you sit across the table from your companion and realize that she is a wholly uninteresting human being. The part of the first date when you realize there isn’t going to be a second date.

6. TULPAN

I wanted to like TULPAN. I really did. But the film gave me no reason to care about any of the people onscreen. Where do you when apathy is the best you can muster?

5. UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS

I don’t care about vampires who aren’t Korean Catholic priests and I don’t care about werewolves who aren’t attacking platoons of British soldiers and I don’t care about women dressed up in fetish gear unless they’re wearing leprechaun costumes. UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS adds nothing of interest to the vampire, werewolf, or fetishwear genres. Pass.

4. ADVENTURELAND

I fail to perceive how the events of ADVENTURELAND could intrigue anyone who isn’t directly involved in the events of ADVENTURELAND. This is a movie about people who need to get over themselves, featuring a protagonist who needs to get over himself. I got over it pretty quickly.

3. HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU

HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU made no attempt to engage me, the straight male viewer. I felt like the fifth wheel at a girls’ night out.

2. WOLVERINE

I like Hugh Jackman. I like Liev Schreiber. Heck, I even Will i Am. This overwrought film wastes the talents of all involved and, in the process, wastes our time. WOLVERINE tells us nothing we didn’t already know about the character, and it takes an hour and a half to do it.

1. THE MUTANT CHRONICLES

From writing to direction to editing to music to acting to, well, everything, THE MUTANT CHRONICLES earns its position as the biggest train wreck of 2009. This film fails on every level and has nothing to recommend it. In fact, it’s so bad that I feel bad about grouping it in with the rest of the movies on this list, since they at least were legitimate movies. I’ve seen better student films from my buddies in film school.

Thirst

I love how fiction can surprise me.

I thought the vampire genre had been pretty well played out. We’ve had vampire superheroes, vampire messiahs, even vampire glitter queens. Where else could the genre go?

Then 2009 came along, and two films from two continents reinvigorated the genre. First, there was Sweden’s LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, a staggering work of beauty and empathy about Eli, the 400 year old vampire and Oskar, the boy who’s either her latest victim or her greatest love. Now, there’s THIRST, from Korean master director Chan-Wook Park (JSA, The Vengeance Trilogy). It’s about a Catholic priest who unwittingly becomes a vampire.

Wait – a priest who becomes a vampire? I know: what a hook! THIRST has more going for it than its hook, however. As played by Kang-ho Song (THE HOST, JSA, MEMORIES OF MURDER, SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE), this priest becomes a tangle of conflicting duties and desires, his face evoking a man who is emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually out of his league. He’d only wanted to do some (self abnegating) good, volunteering for a risky vaccine trial with a high probability of death. But when he survives, finding himself with new abilities and, oh yes, hungers, he doesn’t know what to do. Imagine Thomas à Kempis with a sudden, insatiable desire for, well, everything.

Song’s Father Sang-heon navigates these waters as best he can, and director Park keeps us in his shoes every step of the way. No matter where the story goes, we never disengage; we never stop believing. By the time the other shoe drops and Park has revealed his last horror (for oh yes, this is a horror movie), he’s wrung us out.

This movie works on every level. Along with its Swedish counterpart, it gives me new hope for the future of the genre.

Star Trek: Generations

History will treat STAR TREK; GENERATIONS unkindly.

I’ve long considered it a mildly successful entry in the Star Trek canon, weaving serious themes of addiction and mortality into a decent space adventure. Upon seeing it with my 9-year-old, however, I realize that it presumes too much. It presumes familiarity with and affection for characters from two long-cancelled television series. It presumes empathy for an android who, for newcomers to Trek, is just another machine. Most damning, its most important moments represent a passing of the torch from one Captain Kirk to a Captain Picard – moments with zero meaning for the viewer who grew up on neither one nor the other.

The story is standard Star Trek. It uses pseudoscience to maneuver Kirk and Picard together, puts a populated world at stake, and ends with world-saving fisticuffs with a madman. It takes character detours from time to time, concerning itself with the emotional development of a robot whom it assumes we care about from one of the television series. It even ends on a hopeful note, with the promise of new adventures to come.

Though I didn’t care about any of the new generation characters, never having watched their series, I cared enough about Kirk and Chekhov and Sulu and Scotty to carry me through. My son, however, didn’t know any of these people and, since the film never took the time to involve him, didn’t particularly care what happened to them.

I can understand that. It’s why future generations won’t go for this one.

The Sound of Music

This spring, I’ll celebrate my 18th anniversary. Next fall, I’ll have known my beautiful bride for fully half my life.

I just found out that she loves THE SOUND OF MUSIC as much as I do.

Turns out we share the same childhood experience of gathering for the annual broadcast of this venerable musical. Turns out we smiled at the same moments, knew the lyrics to the same songs.

I don’t think she has a crush on Julie Andrews. But hey, if she does, I’m down with that.

For this is a great, great film. From the beautiful aerial photography at the beginning to the introduction of the problematic Maria to her integration into the Von Trapp family and on through the resolution, this film carries us along on the beauty of the Alps, the magnetism of Andrews and costar Christopher Plummer, and as fine a songbook as one is likely to find in the American Musical.

Sure, some elements thud. I never have cared about the romantic prospects of the eldest Von Trapp girl. Not every number reaches great heights. But on the whole, this picture just sings. It’s beautiful to look at, beautiful to listen to, just plain beautiful.

Who’d have guessed that a woman who would marry me would have such great taste.

The Phantom Menace

I see no point in writing about all the ways THE PHANTOM MENACE goes wrong. I could make jokes at its expense, but funnier people have done so. I could enumerate its flaws, but more perceptive people have done so. I could ignore it, but I have young boys – so that’s out.

Instead, I’ll focus on the one thing THE PHANTOM MENACE gets right: its depiction of the adventures of jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I could have gone for a whole film of Liam Neeson’s sage master and Ewan MacGregor’s enthusiastic apprentice swashbuckling their way through the galaxy. The actors share a chemistry that makes us believe they’re friends and comrades, they have the athletic ability to make us believe they’re capable of the fights and stunts we see in the film, and they possess the charisma to make us want to believe in them.

I’ll see this movie again - as I said, I have young boys – and I’ll see it again after that. When I do, I won’t focus on the film in front me. Rather, I’ll imagine the film that could have been. That oughtta get me through.

Holiday

HOLIDAY is a perfect movie.

It comes from great source material, a play by Philip Barry (who also wrote THE PHILADELPHIA STORY). Donald Ogden Steward who adapted THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, wrote the screenplay. The great George Cukor, the man behind ADAM’S RIB, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, and A STAR IS BORN, directed. It starred Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, and Edward Everett Horton led the supporting cast. Folks, you can’t screw this up.

And the people behind this one didn’t. The story, about a self-made man who falls in love with a young woman of privilege, provides a wonderful platform for Golden Age Hollywood banter and set pieces that radiate goodwill. Everything and everyone looks fabulous, Grant and Hepburn make their lines pop, and Horton assays yet another performance that backs his claim to the title of Best Supporting Actor Ever.

A digression on Horton: this guy really is the Best Supporting Actor Ever. He had perfect comic timing, a marvelous ability to move from stuffed shirt to Bohemian to calculator to hapless goofball without a hitch, and a gut-level likeability that has few parallels. I first noticed Horton in LOST HORIZON, which I saw nearly twenty years ago. Ever since, his appearance on the screen has upped the amperage of every picture in which I’ve seen him. The guy is just plain tops, and his picture should be on the poster of all the films in his body of work.

Back to HOLIDAY. My only question is why it took so long for this film to appear on my radar. It’s as funny, beautiful, and engaging as BRINGING UP BABY and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. Why doesn’t it have the same pull on the popular imagination? Never mind. It only matters whether this film works for you. Give it a chance: I guarantee that it will.

College

Buster Keaton’s COLLEGE begins well enough, with a nicely paced comic bit involving a high school commencement speech, a rainstorm, and a wool suit. Unfortunately, it slows down as soon as its protagonist (Keaton) gets to college.

The character, you see, was a high school bookworm. Once in college, he decides to go out for sports. We’re expected to believe that the lithe Keaton is so incapable of athletic endeavor that he must have some kind of neuromuscular disorder, and we’re supposed to laugh at his hapless attempts at sport.

Problem is, I’m not a fan of laughing at people, and I didn’t laugh at Keaton. And since I didn’t laugh at him and never really believed in him, I didn’t care by the time he had to use his hard-won skills to rescue his ladylove. But even if I did care, the film’s epilogue would spoil it for me. I hate to get into spoiler territory (even if the film in question is 81 years old), but this film’s penultimate shot conveys such cynicism and bitterness that it sucked whatever goodwill the film had built right out of it.

Over the course of his career, Buster Keaton made some the greatest films ever. Sadly, COLLEGE is not among them.

Gates of Heaven

Errol Morris’s GATES OF HEAVEN improves with time. The more I think about it, the more I like and respect it.

It’s a documentary about the pet cemetery business, focusing on two ventures: one failed and one successful. A man who thought his dream was greater than mere business reality led the failed venture. A man who put business first led the successful one. As a study in contrasting business styles, it makes sense. But I think it’s going for something more.

I think that GATES OF HEAVEN tries to get at the nature of dreams, be they dreams of eternal union with one’s beloved pets, dreams of pursuing noble ventures, or dreams of financial, artistic, or even emotional success. While the whole pet cemetery (I keep wanting to type “Pet Sematary.” Thanks a lot, Mr. King.) thing mystifies me (bury it in the back yard, have a good cry, and move on, already), the need to dream sits right in my wheelhouse.

For isn’t that the uniquely human thing, the trait that sets us apart from everything else? Every animal eats, sleeps, procreates, and even reasons to the extent that it can. Only humans dream of a better day. Only humans fear failure or build philosophies of success or need to reconcile the hard, cold truth of death with the intuitive sense that there’s got to be more to life than, well, living.

GATES OF HEAVEN, doesn’t tell us, “This is the nature of dreams.” Rather, it works like a zen koan. It invites to observe it, consider it, meditate upon it. Like a koan, it opens itself to us as we open ourselves to it. GATES OF HEAVEN is worth the effort.

The Girlfriend Experience

So the closing credits scroll on THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE and I turn to my wife and say, “I don’t know anything about these characters that I didn’t know in the first fifteen minutes.”

Sasha Grey plays a middle – high class hooker. She appears to be primarily concerned with running her business and cultivating her clients, and making as much money as she can as fast as she can. Chris Santos plays her boyfriend, a personal trainer who appears to be primarily concerned with running his business, cultivating his clients, and making as much money as he can as fast as he can. Hovering over them and their clients is the financial meltdown of ’08.

And that’s it, really. As the film goes on and its characters’ fortunes change, they appear to remain essentially the same people they were going in. One could argue that Grey’s character learns a life lesson along the way, but I submit that anyone in her line of work would have learned that particular lesson long before the opening credits hit the screen.

Perhaps the film works less as a drama and more as a (if you’ll forgive the overused phrase) tone poem. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE evokes a sense of uncertainty and longing, one that permeates not only the lives of its characters but American society in the dark year of 2008. That’s fine, but hey, I was in America in 2008. Take me somewhere new.

Sherlock Holmes

I never believed that Robert Downey, Jr. was Sherlock Holmes. I never believed that Jude Law was Dr. Watson. I never believed that Rachel McAdams was anyone other than Rachel McAdams. I never believed. I never believed. I never believed.

Perhaps the movie was spoiled by the previews that came before it. Seeing Robert Downey, Jr. doing his shtick as Iron Man made me realize that the guy’s been playing the same character since the superlative KISS KISS BANG BANG. By the time he came onscreen in the feature, I was already done with him.

Perhaps it was spoiled by its seeming love for Victorian London, surely one of the most depressing combinations of city and era in history. As the film went from one CGI vista to the next, I sensed that it was trying to wow me, or at least draw me in. Instead, I merely thought, “The English exploited the world merely to fund that $#!^hole?”

Perhaps its casting choices killed it. McAdams is roughly ten years too young to be her character. Mark Strong, as the villain, is so much better than everyone else that he made me wonder why he isn’t starring in major motion pictures. And the leads, well, they are who they are and they play who they are.

Then again, the problem may have been the story. There’s all this business about an ominous raven, which we know (since this is a Holmes story) is just so much jerking us around. The pièce de résistance of the villain’s evil scheme is to bring the US back into the empire. Oh, the horror! Soccer! Fish and chips! “Spaced,” “Fawlty Towers,” and “Walking with Prehistoric Beasts”! Give me a break. By the time the movie gets around to flat-out ripping off The Da Vinci Code, I was through.

My wife, on the other hand, enjoyed the heck out of it.  Then again, she'd happily watch Robert Downey, Jr. fold socks, so your mileage may vary. I wanted to like SHERLOCK HOLMES. I was ready to invest in SHERLOCK HOLMES. But I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief.

It's a Wonderful Life

You know about aspirational marketing, right? It's selling not just a product, but a lifestyle, a self image. It's pretty much everything at REI, which we buy not because we need a high-quality oceangoing kayak, but because we want to the be kind of people who need a high-quality oceangoing kayak. It's why everyone in Apple commercials are young and hip, because hey, we're young and hip, right? It's about the difference between who we are and whom we wish to be.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is aspirational marketing for the noble life. George Bailey is the person we want to be, an individual who puts others before self, who stands up for what's right, who meets his responsibilities kindly and gently. And we see him garner his rewards in ways large and small, from the inner satisfactions of doing the right thing under hard conditions to the outer ones of earning the regard of his friends, relatives, and neighbors. George is even played by the man we want to be, an individual who spent his life doing the right thing; earned the regard of his friends, relatives and neighbors; and even rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve. The supporting cast, of course, feels just right after all these years: Donna Reed is luminous, Lionel Barrymore is so evil he reminds us of Dick Cheney, and Henry Travers is just plain delightful as AS2 Clarence Odbody.

The whole thing works because it wears its heart on its sleeve. Frank Capra returned from WWII determined to celebrate the heroism of the common man, and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE doesn't deviate from its theme by one iota. Each episode of George's life speaks to the idea of doing one's best within one's sphere, and its culmination in inspiring the people of Bedford Falls to do the same inspires us. It inspires us to aspire to be better people.

That's something I can settle down to every Christmas Eve.

PS Last night's screening represented the first time my 9-yr-old sat for the whole thing. I'm so thrilled that he enjoyed it.

Here's a review by my eldest son:

I just watched STARWARS CLONE WARS VOLUME 1 and it’s not good. Well, I don’t think so. The new computer animated one’s better. I think they should’ve given the clone troopers more personality. They didn’t fail that in the new computer animated series. By the way I’m 9 years old. I think they made their lines to short, & didn’t bother givin’ ‘em a stronger accent . In STARWARS CLONEWARS VOLUME 2 they gave them more personality, but still not as good as the new computer animated series. The new computer animated series is AWSOME!! ...by the way.

Avatar

I saw AVATAR with my wife. We agreed that Cameron has created a beautiful and interesting world, but she lost her suspension of disbelief during the second-act crisis while I kept it going right up to the end credits.

I think that where she saw a simplistically anti-military romanticization of neolithic culture, I saw a golden age of science fiction, Edgar Rice Burroughs - type story brought to life. This is "Astounding Science Fiction," illustrated by Frazetta and rendered in fabulous 3-D.

So what if the story is standard pulp? This is pulp done right, filled with treats for science fiction fans (Sigourney Weaver taking on "the corporation," a Vasquez - type character kicking butts, multiple nods to _Dune_ and other classics of the "warrior gone native" subgenre), astoundingly beautiful environments for the spectacle - seekers, and good old-fashioned Hollywood liberalism for everyone else.

You wanna see a completely realized alien world? Here ya go. You wanna see stuff blown up real good? Here ya go. You wanna revel in a favorite genre's pulpy past? Have at it. AVATAR offers all these delights, and in spades.

I got what I paid for.

La Dolce Vita

I need to see every Fellini movie in the catalogue.

8 1/2 is the best film I've ever seen. LA DOLCE VITA makes the top 10. I'm having a Kurosawa moment, a time when a filmmaker blooms in my consciousness as a major, defining force; a time when I realize that I must seek out an entire oeuvre, consume it, internalize it. If these two pictures of Fellini's are so earth-shakingly brilliant, I must discover what else is out there.

Fellini's meditation on what actually constitutes "the sweet life" is beautiful, insightful, silly, and profound. Marcello Mastroianni (Fellini's Mifune) is at his most charming and shallow best, and he anchors a picture that says nearly everything there is to say about the disconnect between who we are, who we think we are, and who we want to be.

What a magnificent picture.

Gommorah

You gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

--Tony Montana, Scarface

The average crack dealer earns $3.30 an hour and stands a 25% chance of getting killed in a four-year period.

--Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics

Two teenage boys find an arms cache of a local cell of the Camorra, or Neapolitan mob. They gleefully help themselves, then play among the ruins of a dilapidated housing project, pointing their weapons at one another and shouting, “I’m Tony Montana!” “No, I’m Tony Montana!”

Their time would have been better spent reading Levitt and Dubner.

GOMORRAH, the searing film based on the nonfiction book of the same name, takes us into the lives of the people on the lower tiers of the multi-level marketing scheme that is Italian organized crime. It does so at an interesting time, mostly due to the unintended consequences of an Italian crackdown on Camorra leaders in the Naples area. See, Naples had been at peace, its criminal factions in equilibrium. But then all the top bosses went to prison, all the politicians got reelected, and all hell broke loose. Without the bosses to impose order, Naples became a free-for-all. It was a blood-in-the-streets kind of city while ambitious young thugs slugged it out to become the new bosses. And that’s where this film comes in. GOMORRAH puts us in a world in which two cells, formerly part of a larger organization but now independent (presumably, due to the imprisonment of their common boss), fight for domination of a particularly nasty part of Naples. As is so often the case, of course, the innocents and foot soldiers do most of the dying while other men get rich.

The film weaves five storylines into a depressing, yet compelling tapestry of life in the business end of organized crime. It does so through a near-documentarian photographic style, careful casting, and smart editing that keeps us moving among stories without ever losing the thread. This is a film worth watching.