The Unstoppable Colossus

Review: The Men Who Stare At Goats

2009-11-15T20:30:00.000-08:00

It was disappointing to see this movie so close to Paranormal Activity, as they're both equally forgettable. This is more of a Rush Hour 2- "I can barely remember what happened in that movie!"- kind of forgettable than a Men in Black 2- "Wish I had a neuralizer to wipe my mind!" kind of forgettable but that's forgettable nonetheless. Why am I comparing this movie to two of the most all-time mediocre sequels? Because The Men Who Stare at Goats is basically a sequel to all of your favorite movies. It features so many redundant situations, conversations and experiences that you'll feel like you're watching a mixtape of better movies. Does that make it bad? Not necessarily. But when you exit the theater after seeing this picture I guarantee the only thing you'll be thinking about is something else.

The basic premise of Goats is that Ewan MacGregor is an American journalist (already shaky casting here) trying to prove himself as a man of worth. While doing puff pieces on the supernatural he stumbles across evidence of a secret government organization that attempted to use psychic abilities for warfare purposes. Ewan meets George Clooney, a quirky former-member of the psychic warfare platoon and they head into the heart of Iraq for a moderately enjoyable flashback-filled road trip. As mentioned above, there's nothing insulting or patronizing about the premise alone. It's frankly kind of amazing since a majority of the movie is based off of true events. That proves to be the movie's greatest comedic asset, as well as its downfall. Everything in the movie is so logically explained that even its broadest comedic strokes seem plausible. And with the film's basis firmly set in reality, it's hard to imagine any sort of escalation plot-wise that could result in someone actually using psychic powers to down a foe, at least not without some practical explanation too. And that's the problem. With a cast this impressive it's a shame that we never get to see the psychic squad working together to take down a common foe. Even if the movie ditched its supposed basis in reality for a trip to Tropic Thunder-land, it would have been a welcome surprise to see someone do something fun or unpredictable during the course of the story. Instead we watch grown men behave like children for 90 minutes with no other conclusion to be drawn than "Gee, that looks fun."

Is it really so surprising to see George Clooney as a quirky soldier on a seemingly impossible mission? If that sounds like a cross between his roles in O Brother Where Art Thou and Three Kings (or even laugh-out-loud comedy riot Syriana!) that's because it is. You'll be seeing a lot of that trademark Clooney charm but nothing new. As for Ewan, he's so busy keeping his accent in check he barely has time to develop a character. Most disturbingly, the nickname for the psychic platoon is the "Jedi" so expect a lot of uncomfortable moments where people stare directly into MacGregor's eyes and say, "You're a Jedi!" Yeah, because that was so entertaining the last three times he did it. Yeesh. If only the pointless redundancy ended there! Get ready for Kevin Spacey's breakthrough performance as a snarky and self-serving villain, not to mention Jeff Bridges' unprecedented work as a free-spirited stoner. This is only time you'll hear me say this, but I would have rather been watching K-PAX. Honest to God, K-PAX.

It's not that Goats is entirely poorly cast. Any director should be commended for wrangling together this much talent in a passably entertaining film. The problem is that we've seen all these choices play out before in much better movies. The Men Who Stare at Goats is so shamelessly derivative of popular films from the past two decades that it fails to distance itself enough to make itself distinct. Watching Jeff Bridges' LSD-fueled rants about psychic energy just made me want to watch Big Lebowski. Watching Ewan MacGregor generically deliver line after line in a phony American accent just made me want to watch Trainspotting or any other movie where he didn't suck so much. And if you're looking for a movie devoid of female eye candy, this is the one to see. Aside from a few brief shots of the redhead from Lost, there are no female characters in this picture. Whoops.

I hate the fact that it's so damn easy to rag on Goats, because at the end of the day it is hardly a terrible movie. It's fun and light and the kind of movie I could easily recommend to somebody's mentally enfeebled grandparents. But the reason it's so much fun to mock is that Men Who Stare at Goats just barely misses the mark. It's like the one note in a symphony played a half-step off-pitch that spoils everything. It's not that the movie is a travesty. It's that the movie isn't a travesty. The movie isn't anything. The only commendation I can share is for the director. The movie is competently shot and edited (which is definitely more of a challenge than most people give it credit) and it was never distractingly bad visually. But that's a microcosm of the whole enterprise: Passable entertainment, complete with competent camerawork and decent performances. Rarely have I seen a movie so inoffensive yet so ultimately unlikable. In a day and age where movies cost upwards of ten dollars, this is one you can surely skip. Instead, I recommend taking a second look at your DVD collection. Chances are you've not only seen The Men Who Stare at Goats before, you've also seen it done well.

Grade: C

Review: Paranormal Activity

2009-11-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

It's taken me a long time to write about this movie, mostly because it's hard to think of what to say. If you're a fan of horror films and enjoy the enterprise of being scared you'll most likely enjoy yourself for a majority of Paranormal Activity. If you're skeptical about the premise (and believe me, I don't blame you) then the movie probably won't work for you on a fundamental level. There are barely any special effects to speak of, so you're not going to be wowed by the technical brilliance of this film at any point. The acting ranges from passable improvisation to occasional charm. But is the movie genuinely scary? That's for the audience to decide.

I'm a big advocate for seeing horror films in the theater. While Paranormal could work equally well on DVD in the comfort of your own home (possibly better, as the movie definitely plays up the fear of being home alone) I think there's something to be said for the communal aspect of being scared. There's something deeply human and communal about a good fright, in the same way that it's oddly reassuring to hear the screams of the people ahead of you in a haunted house. Even if the worst is around the corner, you know you're not the only one experiencing it. Call it Schadenfreude or safety in numbers, but it's fun to know you're not alone in feeling scared.

I lucked out because my theater was ready to be frightened. Even though there were relatively few people in the audience, that didn't stop a nervous energy from creeping over all of us. My favorite moment of the movie was when a teenage girl shouted, "Oh damn!" at a particularly nerve-wracking moment. Everyone in the theater erupted in laughter, not at the inarticulate nature of the comment, but because we were all sitting there thinking the same thing. And it felt good to laugh, to be bonding with the other people in the audience on some human level. We paid to see a work of fiction. We sat in the theater like we've done countless times before. But rather than whispering quietly to the person next to us, we were unanimously joined in the gasps, shrieks, and yes, even the yawns of this picture. And regardless of the narrative quality of the film as a whole, the ability to elicit an emotional response from a group of people and unite them is something that should be greatly credited to this film, no matter what you think of it.

As for the story itself, it's pretty straight-forward Amityville-style stuff. An unmarried couple moves in together. They hear creepy noises. They get a camera to document it. Spooky stuff happens. Then spookier stuff happens, and so on. I would call this the haunted house soul-sister to 2003's Open Water, as both movies focus on a couple experiencing unpleasant things as captured on handicam. Unlike that movie, the characters in Paranormal are actually likable, which is a plus, but that doesn't stop Paranormal from feeling painfully long and pointlessly dull at points even at a brisk 86 minutes.

I'll admit that when I got back from the theater, I was relatively spooked by every normal house noise I heard, under the assumption that some post-movie ghost had followed me home Haunted Mansion-style. Like most ghosts, the feeling quickly evaporated. As far as lasting scares go I'd still place Orphan higher on the mantle than Paranormal. Sure, that movie was cheesy but it was three times more disturbing than Paranormal Activity ever even attempts to be. For most, this movie has the lasting value of a Communion wafer. You forget about it as soon as you leave the building. After the sixteenth time the couple went to bed and set up the camera to spot anything weird, the nuance of the trope was gone. By the time visibly horrifying things actually do happen in the movie (note: three minutes from the end) the result is less satisfying than it should be. It's the equivalent of seeing the alien at the end of Signs. Sure, it's nice to know what the creature looks like, but when we see it in broad daylight it kind of robs it of its natural power, like seeing a sleeping lion at the zoo. The ending of Paranormal is one of the biggest problems with the picture because there is no pay-off. Nothing that happens in those final moments is half as scary as the tension that preceded it, so you're left wondering if any of it mattered at all. (Hint: It didn't.) As you walk out of the theater, I challenge you to have a thought other than "that was kind of scary" or "that was kind of boring." Much like the spirits in the movie, Paranormal Activity is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Apologies to both Shakespeare and Faulkner on this one.)

Grade: C+

Review: Inglorious Basterds

2009-10-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

My friend Jim Rodman said this of Inglorious Basterds, "After seeing so many Tarantino movies that were a nine or a ten, it's kind of strange to see one that's an eight." I don't rank my movies numerically, but I certainly understand this sentiment. Inglorious Basterds seems massively unfinished, over-edited and convoluted even at a screenplay level. Its marketing is misleading and its climax is visceral yet hollow. In spite of these things, this is a Quentin Tarantino movie for God's sakes. It still has great dialogue, unbelievable cinematography and impeccable casting. The only problem is that QT's trademark tropes are as necessary as they are impractical at this point. It seems that throughout Inglorious Basterds Tarantino is stretching to say he can do more than the trademark pulp and violence for which he's known. The opening scenes are shot like a beautiful late sixties war picture down to the brilliant framing and camera movement. The slow extrapolation of details and increasingly menacing dialogue give the scenes a Hitchcock-like sense of calculated tension.

Later there are scenes in a theater lobby that look like the set was constructed for a high school production of Pygmalion. In fact a majority of the indoor and city scenes in Basterds look cheap and staged, more of an allusion to Grindhouse than classic war cinema. Especially because of this film's trademark gory massacre of a conclusion and its cerebrally cathartic yet misleading selling point - that American Jews are going to slaughter Nazis by the barrelful while making their way to Hitler - the film shares more in common with Kill Bill, Vol. 1 in premise than any of Tarantino's other movies. Yet Basterds contains the plodding longwinded pace of Tarantino's bank robbery opus Reservoir Dogs right down to the painfully long dialog-based scenes about actions that could have easily been filmed. Pair this with Tarantino's schizophrenic inability to keep his protagonists separate yet relevant to one another and you have what should for all intents and purposes be a stinker.

But Tarantino can't make a stinker. He's just too good. Even his ham-handed and clumsy efforts are made mystical by his awesome natural talent. In spite of the confusing narrative jumps, and awkward storytelling decisions the movie is a lot of fun. The performances are incredibly solid and the characters are all vaguely interesting, although I will complain that unlike most Tarantino films where vivid quotable personalities reign supreme, none of the characters in Basterds are onscreen long enough to be considered even remotely classic. Even the Bear Jew (Eli Roth's monstrous Basterd known for smashing Nazi skulls with a bat) is only around long enough to earn his name and say a few quips in the second half. When we see the Basterds onscreen there appear to be about fifteen of them, but we barely meet four. For a movie called Inglorious Basterds there sure weren't many Inglorious Basterds in it.

That's not to say that the other plotline - the one that starts the movie, about a Nazi raid on a family that smuggled themselves under their neighbors' floorboards - is disinteresting in any way. The problem with it is that like the majority of Basterds, this plotline doesn't go anywhere. At about thirty minutes into the movie it seems fairly clear what's supposed to happen according to conventional storytelling. The Basterds want to kill as many Nazis as possible and the little girl who survived the Nazi raid on her family is going to help them. Instead of fulfilling this simple request while providing trademark blood and gore along the way, Basterds jumps around to arbitrary scenes of Mike Myers as a British Captain, a meandering and ultimately meaningless card game scene, and the introduction of another third act female protagonist whose inclusion neither heightens the plot or validates itself, especially when the Jewish theater owner Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) fails to meet with or interact with any of the Basterds during the movie.

I was really hoping for a stellar central performance to rollick Basterds or at least for more of the Basterds themselves to be likable and interesting. In the same way that Kill Bill, Vol. 1 was an unstoppable amalgamation of pulp tropes into a thoroughly enjoyable masterpiece, Basterds is more like a Quentin Tarantino mix-tape that you can listen to in the car when you don't have time to turn on Bravo and see them playing Pulp Fiction for the eighty-seventh time (even so, I'd sit down and watch it). If you want a hit of QT without slogging through the seventies, you can watch Inglorious Basterds and see the same exact tone play across World War II. Hey, aren't those different decades with incredibly different feels? Yeah, they are. Whoops.

I'm not one to criticize Tarantino for taking risky storytelling decisions, but just because something is ballsy doesn't mean it's good. And that's the case with a majority of Basterds. Sure, it gets by on the charm of its actors and dialog, but ultimately what does it mean? Why did Tarantino decide to tell the story of Jewish Americans slaughtering Germans during World War II? With all of his little nods to the differences in language and culture throughout this movie, you'd think that he'd come to a bigger conclusion about the war, Jewish-German politics, or frankly anything. Having read the script before seeing this movie, I knew that it would be slightly disjointed and I was initially okay with that, assuming that like most Tarantino movies the ride itself would be too enjoyable to ignore. Basterds paces its ride in a weird way, and aside from a few dozen odd laughs, I was never sure if I should take it seriously or not.

I can't say I disliked Inglorious Basterds. I'm just disappointed with it. After years of hype and planning, Tarantino stood to deliver something different than he'd ever given to the public before, and in a way he succeeded. Unlike his more polished fair, and even the equally sluggish sequel to Kill Bill, Basterds is an unfinished and deeply flawed work that fails to equal the heights of its predecessors, while subtly suggesting that Tarantino is capable of more than we'd ever imagined cinematographically. The new tricks that he's trying (when he actually decides to try them) usually result in beautiful and captivating filmmaking decisions. Unfortunately so much of Inglorious Basterds looks like old hat that the entire second half of the movie looks worse than the warehouse in Reservoir Dogs. In spite of all of this the movie is surprisingly fun. The dialogue is well written and generally better than any you'll hear this year. This is why it's hard to hate Tarantino. Even when he disappoints, he wows.

Grade: B

Review: Zombieland

2009-10-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

I know I'm really late with this one, but here goes. Zombieland is practically the American version of Britain's Shaun of the Dead in that it features a cast of comedic characters in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. The key difference between the films is that Sean was a by-the-numbers zombie movie parody and Zombieland is a bit more free form. There are fewer nods to the style and formula of zombie movies, fewer allusions to horror movie history. In the absence of tradition the filmmakers chose to go the less obvious route: packing the movie to the brim with class act comedy.

Zombieland centers around Jesse Eisenberg's character Columbus wandering around a post-apocalyptic America. He runs into Woody Harrelson (Tallahassee) and they team up. They run into Emma Stone and Abagail Breslin, Wichita and Little Rock respectively. They team up. They crack jokes. Occasionally they fight zombies. There's a really choice cameo. They fight some more zombies. That's it.

Zombieland is like a really strong episode of the new NBC comedy Community. It sacrifices storytelling for jokes time and time again. This is usually a bad tactic, but in both cases the results are strong because the quality of the jokes is so high. Zombieland is unreasonably funny. Smart, tongue-in-cheek and vaguely serious all at the same time. There are certain choices that director Ruben Fleischer makes (like Columbus's zombie survival rules appearing visually onscreen) that give the movie a real flair, and if it wasn't for the ludicrously silly moments of the movie- the quest for Twinkies for God's sakes- this could have been a hipper more stylized version of the same basic concept. In a way the sloppy execution of certain aspects of the storytelling really make Zombieland more endearing. If Sean of the Dead was about aping Romero's zombie classics, Zombieland seems more concerned with mimicking Roger Corman.

And what's the deal with Jesse Eisenberg anyway? Can he only star in movies with the word Land in the title? How did he fall into the Jason Schwartzman nerdy but charming guy leading man role so easily? In any case he's great in this movie, as usual. People tend to give him shit because he always plays characters who are very similar to one another, but I don't think those people understand how you get cast in movies. You get cast in movies by being able to deliver something people like. If it worked the first time, the entire Hollywood system is programmed to believe that you the viewer will like it a second time, as soon as they can rehire the crew and slap a '2' on the poster. That means that once you make bank on a gimmick, you'd better stick with it for as long as the public will allow. Unless of course you're serious about your craft and actually give a damn about acting. (I'm looking at you, Daniel Day Lewis.)

Everybody's playing their schtick to its apex in this picture. Woody Harrelson is kind of dumb and kind of badass. Emma Stone is kind of tough and kind of hot. Abagail Breslin is both little and a girl, thus fulfilling the full extent of her contractual agreement. The only problem with the picture is that it's ultimately unfulfilling on a basic level, like a dinner based entirely of cotton candy. It's probably the ultimate distraction movie. It's undeniably violent and remarkably hilarious. It's rarely scary and mostly light. Afterward there isn't the slightest chance you'll be left with something lasting to really say about the picture besides, "You won't believe the cameo!" (Spoiler: Pot kills!) The entire movie can be summed up in the same sentence as National Lampoon's Vacation: "An unconventional family sets forth on a cross-country journey and hits many speed bumps along the way." There's even a Wally World at the end! (P.S. I'm not sure why anyone would think a Demon Drop / Power Tower ride would be a solid escape plan.)

I can't really discuss my problems with this movie without giving too much away, but the truth is that if you're looking for a good funny Halloween movie, this is the film for you. You'll laugh consistently throughout and live vicariously through the characters as they whack zombies and wreak property damage on the ruins of America. Again, I can't say much for the story, but I think my partial bias toward Sean of the Dead disables me from appreciating the movie as a fully original concept. Both films are great in their own rights, and quite different when it comes down to it. It feels weird saying this four reviews in a row, but I definitely recommend you check this movie out. Could this be the start of an incredible fall film and television line-up? My sources say, damn I hope so.

Grade: B+

Review: Where the Wild Things Are

2009-10-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

After hearing some of the backlash against Where the Wild Things Are I've decided to try to remain impartial. I understand the complaints that the movie is too dark and didn't contain the sense of childlike whimsy that the original picture book depicted. I fully acknowledge that the movie is dark and emotional and certainly not a comedy for children in the vein of Cars or Rush Hour. Frankly, that's why I like it.

This film has Maurice Sendak's seal of approval. It isn't childlike or whimsical, granted. It is harsh and real. It is deep and guttural. When the wild things roar you want to roar with them. And there's nothing make believe about this movie. Everything that happens is very real. The wild things aren't cartoons or stereotypes or rasta-ized to appeal to marketing numbskulls like their CGI predecessors, Jar Jar Binks and Matthew McConaughey, no. They are real people. Almost disturbingly real and astonishingly innocent. The wild things behave as though they were a colony of orphans left abandoned on the island, more Lord of the Flies than Peter Pan. Without any rules or social conventions, the wild things exist in a world where destroying your friend's home isn't immoral. It's simply something to do.

Not only are the wild things desperate, they're also out of ideas. When a strange child dressed as a wolf plummets into their lives they're basically at the end of their ropes. Both socially and literally speaking the village is falling apart around them, and when Max (the aptly named actor Max Records) appears to them from nowhere, it's easy to see why they mistake him for a savior. Still their society is in such upheaval that the wild things aren't sure whether to hug Max or eat him. As the story unfolds, Max is forced to learn what it means to be a savior to a group of individuals and how difficult it is to be a parent figure to anyone.

I'm an unabashed fan of Spike Jonze. Adaptation is one of my all time favorite movies. Having said that, this might be Jonze's masterpiece. I don't know how much closer he could come to making a perfect film. Technically speaking it's as if he captured the visual brilliance of Science of Sleep and attached a story to it that was actually likable. The wild things are a work of visual brilliance, and the voice work aside, it's no shock that early set reports suggested that the process was problematic. The wild things are that brilliant blending of animation and tactile practical effects that really allow me to lose myself in a story. I don't care whether or not they're really real. To me the wild things are as real as you can possibly get on film.

As for the voice work itself Catherine O'Hara and James Gandolfini give some of their finest performances in this movie. It's one of those rare instances, like Albert Brooks' performance in Finding Nemo, where the voice work rivals some of the actors' best live action work. James Gandolfini is alternatively adorable and terrifying. That's a delicate tightrope to catwalk and he does it flawlessly. Catherine O'Hara has a troubled and snarky character to perform, which she does with incredible aplomb. Some have told me they were distracted by the voice of KW (Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under), but I never saw enough of that show to really make a mental record of the actress's vocal patterns. She played the character well and had an honest charm that made her wild thing seem feminine in spite of its big hairy beard. Now that's acting!

But back to the darkness, yes, there is plenty of it. What could have easily been a happy sunshine Disney romp is actually a childhood drama if anything. Max is a terror around the house, torturing the dog, biting family members and playing pranks on his sister. When the wild things ask him to be their king, they really should have asked for a background check. Max hooks the wild things on some grift about killing Vikings and the poor rubes actually buy it. While being king seems fun to Max at first it turns out to be a lot of work, and he finds out that when the monsters asked him to keep their sadness away, they weren't kidding. The wild things are lonely, unappreciated and jealous. They seek approval from a higher authority. While Max has spent his entire childhood taking his family for granted, here is a group of creatures that seek nothing more than the comfort of knowing someone bigger cares for them.

I don't want to spoil any more of the story for you, but just know that Where the Wild Things Are is an experience. It might not be quite what you expected, but I ask that you keep an open mind to the experience at hand. The beautiful sorrowful honesty contained in this picture is enough to remind any child at heart what it was really like to be a kid, without all the sugar coating. And look around you in the theater. The kids like it. (Remember, this is the Harry Potter generation. These kids eat death for breakfast.)

Grade: A+

Review: A Serious Man

2009-10-19T16:24:00.001-07:00

Review: A Serious Man

A Serious Man is an uncompromising tale, densely packed with nuance and detail as well as the trademark charm synonymous with the name Coen. Absent from the film are the lackluster and arbitrary storytelling decisions found in recent Coen Brothers fare like Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading. Instead the Coens keep the relatively small story of a nebbish yet well-meaning family man piping with entertainment by forgoing cheap and easy laughs for the sake of real human pathos.

Primarily A Serious Man tells the story of Larry Gopnik, a mild-mannered physics professor (played aptly by relative newcomer Michael Stuhlbarg) whose life takes an unforeseen nosedive when his wife's fidelity comes into question. It also tells the story of Larry's son Danny who is perched on becoming a man at his upcoming Bar Mitzvah ceremony. This is the only movie I've ever seen where I felt a distinct disadvantage for being gentile, as my mostly Orthodox neighbors in Los Angeles laughed at jokes I couldn't possibly comprehend, delivered wholly in Hebrew. I wouldn't bring it up except for the fact that A Serious Man is by its very nature a story about Jewish storytelling and the tales the Jewish people pass down through the generations to bring them solace or hope. My extensive grade school bible-beating and that one Hebrew Narrative class I took at Northwestern (thank you, Professor Ben Solomon) helped me a little, but the majority of this film deals with a narrative tradition so intrinsically Jewish it made me feel more than a little out of the loop when it came to deciphering it. Thankfully, I'm always up for a challenge when it comes to complex storytelling, so I saw no reason why I couldn't go a little Gorillas in the Mist on it for you.

When I say that A Serious Man is uncompromising, I mean that it doesn't hold your hand at any point while watching it, and it certainly doesn't spoon-feed you an ending. I, for one, am a huge fan of this tactic. In an age where technological monstrosities like Transformers 2 literally ravage our eye sockets for three hours while begging to labeled as "entertainment," it was nice to see some competent filmmakers turn back to oral tradition, the method of verbally passing stories down from one generation to the next, as the basis for their narrative structure. A Serious Man opens with a seemingly unrelated ghost story immersed in Jewish culture. Never do we return to this prologue or acknowledge its existence in a literal way. It merely sets the tone and gives us a sense that yes, there were people living their lives with their own customs and cultures before our protagonists ever existed. How could an unrelated prologue serve as a strong narrative device, especially one strong enough to open a film?

Protip: It's not really unrelated. Throughout Larry Gopnik's trials and tribulations it seems that only one thing is certain: Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Bad things happen to Larry at an exponential rate, and as he turns to his rabbinical leaders for guidance, their inexperience and impersonal methods fail to comfort him. None of the rabbis offer a concrete method for hope. They only remind him that his people have suffered before, and the implication is that suffering needlessly is a part of being Jewish. A sensible and good-intentioned man, Larry is pushed to the brink of breaking his code of morality by the film's conclusion. The question is, will he be rewarded or punished further for his actions?

Without spoiling anything, I'll admit that I was startled when the credits started to roll, only because I expected there to be another half-hour of movie left. As I exited the theater, I realized the Coen Brothers had crafted what might be their most perfect film, a tightly contained universe bound in the tradition and oppression of their ancestors, deftly compressed into a microcosm of Jewish suffering through the seemingly mundane life of a single unlucky man. Everything you need to get out of A Serious Man is right in front of your eyes, but because it isn't handed to you it might be a little harder to spot. The moral ambiguity of The Man Who Wasn't There abounds, but unlike that dark and plodding tale, this film has a richer history than the Coen's oft-visited pulp noir genre of storytelling. Not that noir hasn't served the Coen's well in the past (see: Barton Fink, The Big Lebowksi, all the rest of them for cryin' out loud) but sometimes the well runs dry when you're pirating motifs from a relatively recently birthed genre (as old as film itself perhaps? Call my bluff on this one, please), and smartly enough the Coens went back to their personal history for guidance.

I recommend this movie so highly that I almost say you should skip Where the Wild Things Are this weekend to catch A Serious Man while it's still in theaters. However, both films are incredibly strong (for different reasons, more on WtWTA to come) and if you're looking for a brilliant, sincere and adult drama with many comedic moments you'll have no trouble finding yourself satisfied at the movies this weekend.

Grade: A+

Review: The Informant!

2009-10-10T23:45:00.001-07:00

Talk about a step in the right direction for Stephen Soderbergh! After a half decade of commercial wankfests (see any movie with Ocean in the title) and self-indulgent spankfests (how is Sasha Grey doing by the way?) Stephen Soderbergh finally decided to make a movie that was both commercial AND had a point. The result? The Informant! is a smart mix of clever screenwriting, solid performances and enough comedian cameos to keep your peepers percolating until the credits roll.

Matt Damon stars as corn-loving businessman Mark Whitaker. Mark decides to become an informant for the FBI because he suspects members of his own company are up to foul play. As the story unravels, Mark's reliability as an informant comes into question as his Midwestern charm butts heads with his new life as a secret agent.

I have a special bias toward comedy in most if not all cases. So I immediately fault the movie for not taking advantage of its capable cast of comedians. However, the performances are believable and the entire film takes place in a sepia-toned late 80's/early 90's wonderland. Basically everything this movie does is pure class from beginning to end. (Apparently some of George Clooney's smugness must have rubbed off on Soderbergh? It's an epidemic!) And it's hard to fault a film with such a subliminal advertising campaign. The poster is yet another in the line of movie posters to steal the 40 Year Old Virgin's single color backdrop and innocently goofy central character. Take a gander:

Pretty much the same exact poster, right? But it's not the only culprit.

A little more forgivable because it's still Apatow. But how about this?

Anna Faris once gave me a junior mint. True Story.

The reason The Informant's poster stands above the sea of cheap money-loving imitators is its boldfaced optimism. Check out that tagline: "Unbelievable." No attributed publication, no indication that it's a line of dialogue. That is a direct endorsement from Stephen Soderbergh himself that this movie rocked his shit. As if that wasn't enough, Soderbergh slaps on an exclamation point to the title's backside, so the movie can literally shout about how much it loves itself. Even Matt Damon seems thrilled that his story of lies and intrigue is so mind-blowing. You don't see that kind of gung-ho endorsement on the cover of Bubble, do you? Nowhere on the cover of The Good German do you see the words "psychotropic". It's as if every person who sees the movie sees something so life altering, they never go back to the same way they used to think about Matt Damon with a moustache. Clearly Peter Moore ran the marketing campaign for this movie, because every indication states that The Informant! will be ten times more vivid than a lucid dream.

And you know what? The movie is really, really good. I honestly wouldn't call it unbelievable, but any movie that's going to change my belief structure better have a forty-minute Bill Maher monologue at the end of it (just kidding). I don't want to spoil for you the many twists and turns of the plot, but I will tell you that the fact that the movie was inspired by a true story makes it all the more incredible. No, maybe incredible isn't the right word for it. Unmistakable..? Incorrigible? If only there was some soothing orange poster to give me the perfect word for this film! Urgh! This is so frustrating! Damn you brain! Why must you think for yourself?!

Grade: B+

Trailer WATCH! 00001

2009-08-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the teaser trailer for James Cameron's Avatar yet? Check it out here, exclusive on Apple Trailers. Ooh, exclusive. Must be good, right? I'unno, what do you think?

My first impressions are the same as my first impressions toward Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, only with a decade of sci-fi CGI schlockfest cynicism slopped on top of them. On second viewing, the quality of the effects shines through (now that you can actually kind of tell what the hell is going on). Avatar is apparently a movie about blue cat people who fight giant forest creatures and launch assaults on mountain fortresses as assisted by armed human Starship Trooper gunships. I'm surprised that Cameron chose another formulaic topic for his latest movie, but what can you say, the guy loves cat people.

Seriously though, is this what anyone expected? After re-watching a few of the effects shots, I'm already convinced the movie will look incredible in 3-D, so that's enough to guarantee my ticket price. That is, unless the movie is full of long boring dialog sequences inside the Galactic Senate.

TRAILER WATCH #1 of TEN THOUSAND

The Film: Legion

The Premise: Angels fight Dennis Quaid for the coveted "Most Ridiculous Premise" Oscar.

First Reaction: This is the stupidest goddamn thing I have ever seen in my life.

Second Look: It's like a b-movie script got funded, big time. As if Dennis Quaid hasn't squandered his credibility enough with this month's GI JOE he's practically defecating on the dregs of it here. God is evil and is sending angels to kill all humans. Humans use guns to stop them. I guess Sam Raimi could have made it work...

Release Date: January 2nd, 2010

The Film: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Premise: It's a heist movie with stop-motion animals and Wes Anderson aesthetics! Prepare to squeal with glee or vomit uncontrollably!

First Reaction: I think I would like this more if the animation wasn't so creepy. Or maybe if the animals spoke in German and the movie was subtitled.

Second Look: I'm just hoping that the movie is funny and clever enough to make up for its smugness. I'm a big Wes Anderson fan from way back, but even as a defender Life Aquatic felt overbearing and Darjeeling felt unfinished. I want the real deal, Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Bottle Rocket, something that feels full, touching and complete. This seems to be a move in the opposite direction for Anderson, that scary George Lucas-y direction. Once Wes Anderson converts all real actors into his paper-mache living dolls he'll be able to release Rushmore: Special Edition like he's always wanted, secretly all along! (Note: Jason Schwartzman's character was originally supposed to be played by a Wookiee.)

The Film: Where the Wild Things Are

The Premise: Some spoiled little bastard goes to magic land because he wouldn't eat his vegetables and take it like a man!

First Reaction: ...sob...so beautiful...

Second Look: I'm a really big fan of Spike Jonze and I think this stands to be a new classic if he handles it properly. Early buzz is that the movie is a lot darker than the studio was expecting, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Jonze has a twisted but honest perspective on humanity, and I think it could masterfully come to light here.

The Film: Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

The Premise: Japan. Enough said.

First Reaction: I think Racer X is secretly Speed's brother.

Second Look: Miyazaki has a way of creating strangely compelling animated features. This looks like a trippier version of Spirited Away and I am okay with that. In fact, I think this might be playing at the Grove, so hopefully by the next time I write an entry, I'll have the full review for you.

Movie Review: District 9

2009-08-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a long time to wrap my head around my own reactions to District 9. That's not to say that this movie is needlessly complicated in terms of plot, story or satire. In fact, it's rather straight-forward. But District 9 is a total anomaly in the Hollywood structure. How else can you describe a film with no celebrity actors that starts as a sci-fi pseudo-documentary and ends as an action shoot-em-up? If Children of Men made a baby with Flight of the Navigator you might find something similar to D9, but you might as well count on your 1,000 monkeys and typewriters script-writing scheme for better results. I was blown away by District 9. The special-effects, the creature and weapon designs, the not-so-subtle commentary on human nature, the moronic anti-hero, his reasonable yet grotesque alien sidekick, they all conspired to create one of the most creative motion pictures ever conceived. No summer movie since Spielberg's Jaws or Jurassic Park has managed to captivate me so constantly while leaving me completely baffled as to what was going to happen next.

To clue you in, the basic premise of D9 is that twenty years ago an alien craft settled above the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. The aliens- prawn-like creatures, some adorable, some horrifying- cannot fix their spacecraft and are forced to migrate to Earth. The South African government builds the aliens a temporary living space, a slum, and the aliens become immediate social pariahs. All native South Africans are united in their xenophobia toward the creatures. To alleviate the rioting and illegal profiteering on both sides of this conflict the government decides to evict the aliens from the slum and transplant them to a new "safer" environment. The aliens fight back. They do not want to move.

The man leading the government's efforts to suppress and torture the aliens in District 9 is Wikus van der Merwe (yeah, try saying that with a mouthful of peanut butter). He's a foolish and overconfident man, but compelling in a strange way. It's almost like watching Ricky Gervais' David Brent dealing with an alien invasion. He's totally unqualified to be in this position, but he makes up for it with sheer enthusiasm. When you see him burn down a building, he'll bear a sickeningly sweet smile as he describes the little "pop-pop" sound it makes.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot of this movie, because half the fun of D9 is the insane pace at which unpredictable events occur, throwing you into unbelievable situations at the drop of a hat, showing you things that have never been done this well on film before. The real story behind D9 is Neill Blomkamp, the writer/director formerly slated to helm the video-game mega-blockbuster Halo. When Halo cracked because of bickering studio mumbo-jumbo, big-time producer Peter Jackson decided to let Blomkamp do a pet project utilizing Jackson's extensive Lord of the Rings effects experts. The result is a movie that probably should have been released earlier in the summer, because it would have been nice to see a real science-fiction blockbuster take down an ugly red-headed stepsister like Revenge of the Fallen.

District 9 is not the greatest story ever told, nor is it the finest film ever conceived. But for a first time feature for this up and coming filmmaker, I think it's a movie to see this weekend, even if it means seeing two movies. My recommendation? See District 9 twice, QT will be in theaters til October. (Just kidding, you Basterds.)

Grade: A+ (for arm-ripping)

Review: Funny People

2009-08-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

Funny People takes a painfully long time to say nothing and go nowhere. It's the kind of screenplay that should have been cut in half, redrafted and then sent back to film school for notes. Unfortunately Judd Apatow is now at the point in his career where, as he put it plainly at last year's Comic-Con panel, he has the studios by "one ball" if not both. This would explain why at the hour-and-a-half mark of a movie about comedians in Los Angeles the film pointlessly transplants itself to San Francisco to become a love story about Apatow's wife, actress Leslie Mann, and conveniently reiterates how desirable and talented she is. While Mann is admittedly very funny and generally skilled at conveying a point, this movie is not and should be chastized heavily for leading its audience down two distinct and contrary trails, neither of which resolves itself or lives up to the funny promised in the title.

I don't want to sound like an Apatow-hater. The man has done more for comedy than Bill Clinton's dick. But at some point, like an aging musician who survived a whirlwind of success in his youth, old dog Apatow got lazy and started shoveling out anecdotes and instances in lieu of story and character. If you've seen the theatrical trailer for Funny People you know exactly what happens in the movie, point-by-point. The only things you're missing are the briefly hilarious moments featuring Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman as Seth Rogen's roommates, performers in one of the best sitcom parodies ever conceived. Everything else in this film is ancillary. The love story, the medical drama, the relationship between Rogen and Sandler- none of these threads result in anything funny, touching or particularly memorable. Whereas 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up had heart, Funny People has a gaping void where the soul should be, throbbing in agony as it listlessly stumbles to its conclusion.

I'd like to write more positively on the subject, but I really don't know what to say. Many of my friends have claimed that Funny People is two movies in one, to which I reply, "Yeah, two bad movies." If either movie was valuable on its own, we might have something to work with here, but neither Rogen's or Sandler's journeys are particularly noticeable or interesting. While Rogen is back to basics as a sweeter version of himself (after a brief and tremendously lousy stint with acting in Observe & Report), the real culprit here is Sandler, a generally fantastic performer capable of intense and powerful characterizations (i.e. Punch-Drunk Love) as well as moments of shocking hilarity (i.e. You Don't Mess With the Zohan). In Funny People, Sandler transforms into an old Hollywood douchebag, the kind of person we hope he'll never be in real life. It's neither fun or compelling to see him fill this role, and it's almost a shame we don't get to see him transform into a baby or portray a Merman like he does in the fake movie clips within Funny People. While patently retarded, at least those concepts have more legs/fins to stand on than Funny People, a movie that never decides what it wants to be, what it has to say (if anything), and why it deserves to exist other than to pat Apatow and his wife on the back for all the better movies they've made. By the time we reach the third act (of twelve) and Apatow shuffles all of his old comedy cohorts into one of many needless cameo compilations, the whole thing seems more self-indulgent than anything even Wes Anderson could have concocted. Rather than too-precious characters, we're dealing with characters and a universe that aren't precious enough, with nothing remarkable or interesting to take away from it. In the same way that Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, New York perfectly simulated real life by being both terrible and boring, Funny People perfectly simulates the life of a comedian in Los Angeles: it's painful, not as funny as it looks, and you definitely lose money on the deal.

Grade: C- *

* This grade is slightly higher than it should be because of the Jason Schwartzman factor. Plus Aziz Ansari, while painfully underused, is featured in this movie. Like twice. That has to count for something.

Review: Orphan

2009-08-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

Horror movies deserve to be graded on a different scale than regular movies. There's so much formula and history to the genre it almost requires an entirely different set of skills to create an effectively scary film than it does to create a compelling drama or comedy. The sort of character-driven, hero vs. obstacle storytelling that runs rampant in most movies is generally the antithesis of the modern slasher movie, where oftentimes the murderer is the most compelling character. It's been a gradual evolution over time from protagonist-driven scarefests like Alien or the original Friday the 13th to hilarious splatterfests like the Final Destination series. Rather than expecting the protagonist to succeed, the shallow characterizations of the heroes simply make them easier to visualize as imminent victims in an escalating sequence of graphic murders.

And to be honest, there's nothing wrong with that. Since its beginnings, film has been about marveling at spectacle, about showing the audience the formerly unknown, bringing the unbelievable one step closer to reality. In the same way that gamers get off on Grand Theft Auto killing sprees or watching their Sims starve to death in a door-less room, horror junkies have found cathartic release in the gory demises of promiscuous teens and the heart-pumping tension that precedes them. Whether you'd like to admit it or not, there's something all too human about rooting for catastrophe, as if religion and law were invented solely to prevent our natural predisposition for destruction. Like the people who watch NASCAR hoping for a crash, there's something strangely natural about the voyeuristic desire to witness the worst, only to receive a soma-like burst of schadenfreude in the end.

I doubt anyone was expecting a dissection of film and humanity when they clicked on a link to a review of the movie Orphan, but in the same way that it's easy to trivialize the written word in an increasingly technical age, it's easier still to write off a horror movie as cheap schlock before it's even given a chance to scare the bejeesus out of you. Orphan plays with that sensibility from minute one, providing an immediate look at the b-movie bullshit we've grown to expect and then turning it on its ear. Not only has director Jaume Collet-Serra sculpted a masterfully scary horror movie, his eye for shot composition and ability to coax beautiful performances out of actor and child-actor alike is something to be admired. Perhaps he fired his previous cinematographer or simply had a better script to work with, but Collet-Serra has come a long way from 2005's hysterically crappy House of Wax.*

Orphan has a ridiculous premise and its opening dream sequence is an homage to the schlocky horror that birthed it. Rather than continuing down the b-movie route, Collet-Serra takes us on a surprising turn toward humor, warmth and drama. The performances by the lead actors are consistently impressive for a horror film, especially that of Aryana Engineer, the young actress portraying Vera Farmiga's adorably deaf daughter (yes, I did just say that). Of course Isabelle Furhman steals the show as the secretly evil adopted Orphan with unclear intentions. There is occasionally too much plot and crybaby drama slowing things down, specifically with regards to Farmiga's alcoholism subplot and Peter Sarsgaard's dopey husband in disbelief moments, but Furhman's intensity provides the film with enough tension that the boring parts are few and far between. When the brutality happens (and man, does it happen) you can't help being caught between a rock and a hard place: Should we be rooting for Farmiga to wise up to her adopted daughter's cruelty, or for Fuhrman to off the whole family in the grossest ways imaginable?

In the end, this is a movie based around a twist which many of you have already spoiled for yourselves by reading it online. I blame the marketing campaign for highlighting the twist so blatantly, as its barely important for your enjoyment of the movie. Orphan is a successful horror film because it constantly keeps you on your toes and sustains a tension that is rarely seen in the genre these days. Shots of night-driving in the snow and the sequence when a car rolls backwards down a hill are enough to please cinema buffs, but the real joy is the ride that the movie takes you on, never letting you stop for a moment to question how asinine and bizarre the premise is and instead keeping you constantly curling your toes in nervous anticipation. The 11:35 pm Thursday audience at The Grove in Hollywood was filled with the late-night date crowd, and I haven't heard more terrified laughter since Sarah Palin was announced as a vice presidential candidate. This is a movie that effectively placates your emotions, letting you laugh at times and making your hair stand on end at others. I can't recommend this movie enough to mainstream audiences, because there simply isn't anything else scary playing right now, and at times we all need a reminder of why we go to the movies: to feel something, whether it makes us chuckle or shakes us to the bone.

Grade: B+

* I will give Collet-Serra credit for two great moments in House of Wax: How swiftly the pipe enters Paris Hilton's skull, as if there were no bone or brain matter to provide friction; and how hilariously morbid it is to watch an evil redneck clip off a girl's finger while having casual conversation with her brother.

Review: 500 Days of Summer

2009-07-21T19:41:00.001-07:00

500 Days of Summer bills itself as a story about love, but not a love story. While the movie is filled with romantic moments, it fights the sappy saccharine cliches of typical romantic comedies and instead exudes an indie rock personality far less contrived or cloying than its competitors (see: Juno, Away We Go). The story is deeply personal, and thanks to an especially funny note from the author at the beginning of the film, it's clear that while the film may be presented from the male perspective, it's also based in a very heartfelt reality.

Very rarely is there a film that achieves sentimentality, heart and humor so skillfully while still appealing to the very nature of aesthetically pleasing cinematography and set design. While an almost too-long endeavor, 500 Days never loses the charm it rides in on, and manages to highlight its central actors as both quirky characters and compatible romantic leads. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has matured into a leading man so nicely that when his character looks into his reflection in a car window and sees Han Solo staring back, it's not that far a stretch. Zooey Deschenel is cute and quirky as ever. The film doesn't take leaps to justify her characters' behavior, but as the film is from the male character Tom's perspective she is presented purposefully as an enigma. Even so neither character in the relationship is painted as stereotype. They're both given the opportunity to redeem themselves many times, and it's their missed connections that make the film feel so honest and endearing.

Mostly I can't get over the screenwriting of the film. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber crafted a screenplay with more time jumps than Star Trek and still managed to create something totally coherent and palatable. The story unfolds almost as a series of steam-of-conscious memories. Your only clue to the chronology is a constantly changing day counter that precedes the scenes, letting you know that even though we just saw day 342, we'll be hopping back to day 17 for the next scene, just to give you a little perspective. Lesser screenwriters wouldn't be able to present you with 500 days of a relationship in a single movie, but these guys really nail it on the head. I'm hoping to see a Best Screenplay nomination for both of them.

This is not to say that director Mark Webb doesn't deserve some accolades as well. The visual style of the movie hangs on that indie rock boundary between chic and twee that often plagues less successful low-budget dramedies. Perhaps the level of polish and precision in this film is the direct result of all the money thrown at it, but if that's the case then the filmmakers should still be commended for presenting a deep and intimate relationship story that manages to make Los Angeles look slightly less soulless than the average LA portayal. Through these characters eyes, the city is blossoming with romance. It also feels...human. Go figure.

I can't recommend this movie enough. Even if the romantic thesis of the movie doesn't gel with you, there's still a lot of laughter and fun to be had in this particular picture. I look forward to Mark Webb's next directorial effort, as well as the next efforts by the screenwriters. I look slightly less forward to Joseph Gordon Levitt's portray of Cobra Commander in the upcoming G.I. Joe movie, but if anyone can save that stinking turd from self-destruction maybe it's him.

Grade: A

Writers (WGA):

Scott Neustadter (written by) &
Michael H. Weber (written by)

P.S. Pink Panther 2? Yeesh. These guys have come a long way.

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009-07-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

Hmm. Apparently Radcliffe's on the John Travolta "only whole lobsters" diet. Down, Dobby! Down! Give the ladies what they want to see! (Rumor has it, the pubes are also shaved into a lightning bolt.)

Half-Blood Prince was always my least favorite Potter book. Why? Because our main protagonist sits by the sidelines for about five hundred pages while his best friends snog each other. The most action-packed moments of the story happen at the very end or in flashbacks, and Harry Potter loses almost all of his agency, a flaw that plagues the series for the first three hundred pages of the final book as well. Rather than actively seek out adventure like he used to, Harry listens to Dumbledore regale him with adventures from the past. To be fair, important information is revealed, information critical to the conclusion of the Potter series, but a writer as skilled as Rowling could have easily tied Harry more closely to the forward progress of the narrative, acting as the detective rather than an ancillary stooge.

Somewhat ironically the sixth Harry Potter film shines as one of the best in the series, utilizing the book's narrative malaise as a way of depicting the young wizard's growth into manhood. In previous Potter films the set pieces had been so bombastic and distracting there was hardly the time to get to know the characters beyond a series of pithy remarks, but director David Yates skillfully utilizes the natural awkwardness of his young actors to create intertwining romantic plotlines that are both hysterically funny and touching. Despite the dark dealings surrounding Hogwarts in this story, the character relationships provide some of this summer's finest comedy, perhaps with the exception of Pixar's Up.

It's hard to fault an adaptation that takes a stagnant story and brings it to vivid life, especially with such incredible camerawork and visual effects. There are certain shots, like the characters peering down from the rafters of the Weasley house and the early Death Eater assault on London that rival Oscar-worthy cinematography. That being said, there are occasional pacing problems, mostly the result of the adapted work itself than botched screenwriting. The script is piping with life and character, and thanks to some clever usage of love and luck potions, we get to see new sides of Harry and Ron that allow the actors behind them to really have some fun.

Visually stunning, emotionally honest and somehow still very grounded, this movie steals the crown from Prisoner of Azkaban. I almost wish Yates had directed the Goblet of Fire, but it's clear from his previous attempt in the series, Order of the Phoenix, that he definitely needed a warm-up before he nailed it.

Potter fans can look forward to TWO upcoming movies, as the final story "Deathly Hallows" will be broken in twain as a way to further drain the bank accounts of loyal fans. It's an unsurprising move fiscally, but a truly moronic one in terms of narrative. The first three hundred pages of Deathly Hallows suffer from a Potter without agency and mostly revolve around the three central characters bickering in the woods until some ancillary sidekicks miraculously reveal information pertinent to the central quest. I've joked previously that the last two books flail aimlessly because of Rowling's own inability to neatly wrap up the massive and incredible universe she's created. But even George Lucas gave us a Return of the Jedi (and those damnable prequels [and Indy 4]). Deathly Hallows has a tremendous ending full of heart, revelations and a huge destructive battle. Surely that'll make for some really swell filmmaking. At least in Part II. Grade: A

Summer Movie Round-Up: Part 2

2009-07-15T18:54:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to catch too many more flicks recently thanks to a torrential downpour of stupidity in my work and social life, so I unfortunately have nothing to report on the Harry Potter front. I'm very excited for HP6 though, as I've heard tell that it's the best in the series.

Public Enemies - A lot of people give Michael Mann a hard time for using shakey-cam on a period piece, but I really dug it. If you've never seen a Michael Mann movie before, you probably would be shocked to realize that Public Enemies is not an action movie, disappointed even. I know many of my comrades in the theater felt that way. Not me though. I loved every brilliantly calculated frame of this movie. Sure there's no jaw-dropping performances or real moments of drama, but this is an art film in the basest sense. Mann uses his actors as puppets to convey an overall message, that John Dillinger's celebrity benefitted the public more than his death ever could. This is not an intricate character study of a man's life. Rather, it is a depicition of a man on his way down the mountain, a glimpse at the simplicity and humanity of a person who could have been any of us. He just robbed banks and murdered people too.

It's not hard to root for Johnny Depp in any role, and I think that's the point of making him an everyman murderer. As opposed to co-star Christian Bale's intricately satiric portrayal of an American Psycho, Depp makes Dillinger's lifestyle seem almost plausible. The villains of this movie are the agents of the American government, sworn to uphold the nation's laws and protect its citizens. Even when he kills people, Depp's Dillinger never appears to be shaking the sheets of society in a chaotic way. He simply gives society a thrill in an otherwise sepia-toned existence. The real chaos ensues when Bale's FBI agent chases down and brutally murders a wanted felon in an apple orchard. The rich colors and scenery contrast the brutality nicely. The natural order is tainted by his presence.

There has to be something deeper at work here than Mann simply urging us to root for the bad guy, and I believe there is. When Bale and Depp finally collide at the film's end, there is a deadening silence that follows. That silence is the absense of personality, as if the color has literally been drained from American living with the death of one of its most iconic citizens. Can a man make life worth living through murder? This is the question Mann asks the audience in the film's conclusion, as further evidenced by the post-script about the fate of Bale's real-life counterpart.

This film's greatest mistake was its release as a summer movie. It could have done a lot better for itself in the fall or in the push toward award season. It's a bare-bones art film, not a shoot 'em up. For that, it may be forgotten by the summer crowds in place of bigger noisier entertainment. I'll always remember it as a beautiful and surprisingly quiet thinkpiece with shades of commercial interference, and as the movie whose set I broke onto last summer to audition for my first paid acting gig in Chicago. For that alone it deserves the Grade: A.

Bruno - I really wanted to like this one, folks. I really did. Sasha Baron Cohen is probably my favorite modern comedian (or at least was) and I'm a Borat apologist even in spite of the douchey frat guy quoting sandstorm that accompanies all popular comedies (I'm looking at you, Family Guy & Austin Powers). Thankfully (or maybe not) there's nothing worth quoting in SBC's latest movie, a gay-joke wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a velcro suit that barely bothers to scratch the surface of satire before diving back into the depths of MAD TV level vulgarity.

It's not that the movie isn't funny. It is occasionally laugh-out-loud ridiculous. The problem is that the laughs, like everything in the movie, are incredibly shallow. While SBC characters Ali G and Bruno had the ability to prolong their interactions with interviewees because of their brilliant blend of innocense and ignorance, Bruno is such an obnoxious asshole that no one is willing to defend him, whether they be gay, straight, Austrian or American. All of the "skits" in Bruno seem staged or rushed, as if the humor of the concepts was thought to outweigh the lousiness of the outcomes and there wasn't enough time to reshoot anything. Is it really funny to see Ron Paul become slightly uncomfortable while a straight man performing a gay stereotype strips naked for him? I guess. But is it funnier than Bob Barr's look of panic and disgust when he realizes he just ate cheese made of breast milk from Borat's wife? The brilliance of Borat is that all of his disgusting habits and beliefs could be chocked up to cultural differences, so people would struggle to keep things diplomatic despite all reason. While Borat's backstory was as contrived and jokey, it was quickly established that this character comes from some place where his absurdity is perceived as normalcy, that in some strange fictional universe Borat is the everyman. Bruno is just too unlikable to function as a fish out of water. His backstory is too shallow to allow for him to ever function as an everyman in any situation. It's hard to imagine a situation where Bruno is well-liked, especially in the Austrian gay community. As a result, SBC resorts to cheap, tired and repetitive Hitler jokes in between dropping his pants and saying something gross.

I really thought that a Bruno movie could surpass Borat in terms of cultural impact. While the original Borat sketches on the Ali G Show were at times funnier and more brilliantly satiric than anything that happens in the Borat movie, the movie did a great job of exposing American xenophobia in a gung-ho patriotic post-9/11 world. Whether SBC realized it, America needed Borat to poke fun at them so they could start to laugh at themselves and relax a little. When I heard that Bruno would be getting his own movie, I was overjoyed. Surely SBC could build off the satiric momentum of his last movie, and attack homophobia on a worldwide scale, forcing the ignorant to come to terms with their outdated and illogical beliefs. Instead Bruno's homosexuality is the biggest joke of all, reaffirming the stereotype of the outrageous flaming homosexual without providing the counter-balance of depth to make him seem like a real person.

In the original skits on Ali G, Bruno was an innocent thrust into unlikely situations. When Bruno went to a gun convention in the American south, you feared for SBC's life not because of how ridiculously he behaved but because of his quiet yet honest pride in his lifestyle. For the movie, SBC redesigned Bruno to parody the self-indulgent American fame-seekers with nothing to offer society, the Paris Hiltons and Spencer Pratts. What SBC was too short-sighted to see is that America's greatest pop icons are destined for their own brutal demise without his help. Britney Spears, Elvis, even the late Michael Jackson metamorphosized from edgy icons to media monsters thanks to the press and public's goading. We as a culture are aware of how stupid Paris Hilton is, and we like to laugh at her. That's the reason why she's famous, and that's the reason why The Hills is so popular. Those dumb enough to actually fantasize about being these vapid trollops will one day become them, and thus the cycle begins anew with younger, hotter sexier fools to entertain the court. In parodying American obsession with celebrity, SBC satirizes something too innately shallow to care about, and the resulting movie does more to make him appear as self-indulgent and imperceptive as the stars he's mocking.

The real death knell of the film happens at the very end. Bruno enters a California marriage office and tries to procure a license for himself and his lover. Rather than poking fun at the absurdity of repealing Prop 8, Bruno brings his lover in drag and tries to convince the man at the counter that his lover is actually a woman. Funny? Maybe when it was topical. You know, back when Some Like it Hot was released. In some ways, Bruno is the perfect representative for the fashion industry. He's constantly all dressed up with nothing to say. (Sorry Ms. Klum.)

Grade: D-

Summer Movie Round-Up! Part One.

2009-07-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest things about living in Los Angeles is that I reside next to some of the coolest movie theaters on the planet. The Arclight on Sunset is incredible, but I'm dead center between the Grove Multiplex, the Fairfax Mildewplex, and the New Bev. Usually, I don't have to walk very far for big screen entertainment. But this week I got the opportunity to revisit the Landmark in Westwood and visit the Arclight for the first time. Both incredible theaters, both with incredibly stupid assigned seating. I feel extra sorry for the poor schlub employees who try in vain to force people into their numbered seats. No thanks. This ain't Dodger Stadium. And even then, I'd be moving down after people cleared out in the fourth inning. If it ain't about a window seat, I don't need an annotated touch screen is all I'm saying.

I used to write a lot about the movies I've seen, but I've gotten into the bad habit of simply tweeting about it without giving you graphic detail. Here's a summer movie round-up for all the films you may have missed:

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Action Figures - This movie is not as bad as everybody says, but in the same vein as Spider-Man 3 it's so loud in its badness that it's hard to ignore. Giant robots with testicals aren't exactly brilliant subtlety. However, this movie should be credited for having Megan Fox occasionally onscreen. True, she gets humped by a Decepticon but rather than judge, I choose to live my life vicariously through said robot. I have to give them credit. They made senseless violence look damn convincing and almost exciting enough to care about, whenever you could tell what was happening.

If the first Transformers was stupidity wrapped in crap and giant robots, the second one is a somehow longer crap, minus Anthony Anderson, Jon Voight and the Australian Chick. You'd think that'd make it better, but it's not much. There's one bad jump cut in particular, when Isabel Lucas ditches Shia after the party that looks so amateurish that I wished the robots from MST3k were there to teach Michael Bay a lesson. Where does he get off crafting three-hour multi-million dollar crapfests when I'm stuck blogging better ideas in my sleep! In fact my 347 page draft of Beast Wars: Return of Dinobot gathers dust on the desks of agents around the city! It's ludicrous, I tell you!

But if you want a really great, really racist giant robot movie this is the one for you. Everyone hambones the idiot sambots but I think the painfully stereotypical Asian music in the opening fight sequence takes the racist cake. An old man is eating a meal. GIANT ROBOTS BURST THROUGH HIS HOUSE! He is slightly startled! (and like most "comedic" moments in this movie, the bit falls flat faster than the jetpack-hamburgers in Minority Report). Because Michael Bay doesn't want anyone to miss a "laugh," he adds in four seconds of audio-racism, reminding the audience that Asian characters in his films are stereotypes first, people second. That being said, I do recommend that everyone sees this movie on the grounds that it's something we can all hate this summer minus seemingly essential components Heidi & Spencer.
Grade: D-

Whatever Works - Larry David is a fine successor to Woody Allen, but the story surrounding him is not. While I'll be a fan of Woody no matter what kind of crap he schlocks out, this one is only watchable from the perspective that you're either a huge fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm or are a decade long Woody Allen apologist. In terms of bad Woody Allen it's a little worse than Scoop only in that Woody's never on camera, but it's decades better than Melinda & Melinda, a film that could never decide whether it was an unfunny comedy or a lackluster tragedy. It's worth it to see Larry David monologue clever Woody Allen quips, but it would almost be better to ask Woody to write a Curb at this point than expect the guy to invent a new universe as blissfully chaotic as that one. Say what you will about genius. It doesn't always age well.
Grade: C+

Moon - Duncan Jones' Moon is a technical masterpiece as well as an actor's thinkpiece. You will believe a man can act as Sam Rockwell brings introspective dialog to new heights, tapping into the subtle changes that manifest after three years of solitary confinement. I don't want to spoil too much of the plot, for as predictable as my friend Elizabeth thinks it is, I believe there's a whole sector of the populous who never enjoyed 2001: A Space Odyssey or Alien in their youth and would be wowed to know that good science fiction actually exists. Not only that, it's good science fiction that's well acted. Battlestar Galactica, eat your heart out. While Rockwell exudes Han Solo-like enthusiasm at times, this is hardly a bombastic film. Still an effects-driven space opera, Moon is more focused on proving its humanity to the viewer than satisfying mankind's natural desire for explosions and bouncing breasts. Simple moments like a high-five take on new meaning in this universe, and that's enough to promise a second viewing from this reviewer. (Also, Kevin Spacey is a robot who communicates through smiley faces. Hell yes.)
Grade: A

The Hurt Locker - The problem with The Hurt Locker is not that it has a bad message, or that that message is badly delivered. Its only flaw is that the message is one we've heard as a nation time and time before, that only a certain breed of man is cut out for the armed forces and that man must behave like a fearless demigod. While I have no doubt that our armed forces are packed with men and women with this sort of macho take-no-prisoners attitude, the stark realism of the film's environs present a depressing image of the American soldier. Even at his best in combat, the soldier is subject to so many horrors that the nature of his duties seem unfair to inflict upon any American citizen. The result is the sort of gung-ho patriotic message you might expect from this summer's upcoming G.I. Joe or Team America: World Police. "Be the impossible in any circumstance," the movie suggests to its viewers, "even situations that don't warrant it and might possibly make you look like an asshole."

In the same way that the past two Batman films strove to make the superhuman practical, Hurt Locker attempts to make the American soldier a superhero, rising above the call of duty no matter the cost. Of course this results in some needless breaking and entering, some mistaken identity, and some occasional friendly fire, but that's the nature of the beast for a bomb specialist. While skilled at showing the reality of the characters' external struggles, director Kathryn Bigelow occasionally misses the mark when attempting to display their inner turmoil. There is nothing particularly emotional about this film, which is a shame considering how high the stakes are. Otherwise this is another brilliantly shot technical masterpiece that forces us to relive the anxiety that we've ignored for the past few months thanks to recent celebrity deaths and imminent economic collapse. Our soldiers are still living a nightmare in a foreign land, never certain whether they'll live to see another day. Whether brave or riddled with fear these men deserve to know that coming home means they made a difference.
Grade: B+

That's all the time I've got for now. Stay tuned for more movie reviews! So far Star Trek and Moon are my favorites this summer, although Bruno is fighting for that position pretty hard (gay innuendo unintentional). I didn't see Terminator but I guess I'll just have to settle for seeing the OTHER Christian Bale movie this summer, Public Enemies. I broke onto the set of that movie in Chicago, which is undoubtedly one of reasons it's getting such lackluster reviews. I swear, I didn't mean to be such an anachronism, but I really needed to finish playing Tetris on my phone. In case I don't see ya, have a Happy Fourth of July!

My Breakfast with Wyclef (a.k.a. Jen Howell was right!)

2009-06-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I got accused of being a sweaty guy by Jen Howell, a girl I find very attractive. Heartbroken, I rebuked her conversational advances for the rest of the evening. Surely I, a man of wit, charm and good humor could hardly be described by such an uncouth adjective as "sweaty."

Damn her. She was right.

This morning I woke up semi-groggy from the aftermath of Brittania karaoke and a hugely successful improv show, vaguely remembering that yes, today was the day I was supposed to meet Wyclef. Still skeptical and shocked that the whole thing was possible and reeling from a day full of friendly jokes about the situation, I shot out of bed and stumbled to the shower unsure of what to expect. One of my comrades cleverly suggested that I was about to be punk'd, that the whole thing was a scam set up by Ashton Kutcher's twitter account. I brushed those thoughts aside, threw on my best Mr. Sparkle t-shirt and headed toward Sunset. I remembered that Jay, Wyclef's assistant, had told me the place was right near the House of Blues. (At this time I am willing to divulge that the secret location of our meeting was in fact the perfect place for Wyclef's new worldwide social movement: the international house of pancakes!) I dropped my car off at the meter and strolled by the Comedy Store to ask a guy where the iHop was. He pointed down the long hill south on Olive Street. It seemed wrong, but the guy worked at the Store so he had to know the area fairly well. Time was running short, and Wyclef had just sent a message to his followers saying "don't be late!" I headed down the hill and after asking a supermodel-ish brunette for further directions, I found myself on Santa Monica right near Barney's Beanery. There stood the glorious iHop, and I headed inside.

The place looked deserted. Aside from a few dining families, there was no sign of an international hip-hop sensation. I asked the hostess if there was another iHop in the area. She said that there was, but that it was on Sunset and Orange. Something triggered in my memory, and I recalled that Jay had mentioned Orange Avenue. "Is it in walking distance?" I asked. "No. Not that place," she replied.

Like a bolt of lightning I shot back up the hill on Olive Avenue, sweating and panting like Chris Farley on a treadmill. Through asthmatic puffs of breath and beads of sweat dripping down my glasses I managed to jog uphill while Google mapping the intersection on my phone. Most disappointingly, the real iHop was even closer to my home than the one I'd just visited. Sweltering from the heat and my own physical inadequacies I surmounted Olive Avenue, jetted back down Sunset, popped in my car and cranked the A/C. Last night's late night drinking hadn't helped my hydration any, and I was definitely feeling it now. I called Jay to let him know I'd be a few minutes late (the clock had just hit 10:00 AM on the dime). Jay seemed laid-back and let me know he'd pass the message along to Wyclef. I felt a little more at ease.

When I rolled into iHop (the one across from In 'N Out near Sunset & LaBrea, NOT the closest one to the House of Blues, although I can see how an out-of-towner could easily make that mistake) I was a sweaty mess. My Simpsons shirt was clinging to my body like a baby marmoset, and I was dripping beads like a slutty girl at Mardi Gras. I walked inside and saw a long table of about twelve people. There at the center, like a hip-hop messiah at his own last supper, sat the man himself, Wyclef Jean. He was looking slick in a white button down shirt with close-cropped hair and I looked like I'd just been on the Rotor at Geauga Lake. I sidled up to the table and strangely enough, Wyclef recognized me from my twitter picture. I reintroduced myself and shook his hand. They added some extra spots at the table and I sat down next to some adorable little girls, maybe six and eight years of age. Wyclef came over briefly to inquire about my background. I gave him a little run-down of my travels from the past four years and told him that I was sorry I was late but I had to run uphill to get here. He was calm cool and collected, as you might expect, and seemed to have little need for apologies or formality. The more time I spent in his company the more I realized he was a man who respects honesty and generosity of character, that no amount of schmoozing could ever win this guy over.

After downing five glasses of water and meeting a few more people, the lady in charge of Wyclef's new website started broadcasting a live streaming video of our breakfast. I briefly got to do a shout-out to the web where I pimped my blog and stated my appreciation for Wyclef's approach to Twitter and social media. I wasn't sure if we were broadcasting live at that point, or if I was being recorded for a future video montage, so I apologize if I seemed unprepared, awkward or incredibly sweaty. According to most people who aren't Jen Howell, I am less sweaty in person, I promise.

Wyclef bought us all breakfast and I got to chat with a guy named Grafiki about his idea for a new webisode series. It sounded pretty cool so we exchanged contact information and promised to keep in touch. Noticing Grafiki had left his seat across from Wyclef to talk to me and had now sidled over to a nearby table featuring two very attractive ladies, I took the opportunity to pop closer to Clef and ask him a few questions.

Me: So what's the next step for this online community?

Wyclef explained that gathering more support, followers (or Warriors, as we like to be called) and creating a real community is the next step. Wyclef envisions a world where artists and fans can interact directly without big business getting involved. While labels and traditional marketing companies have been helpful throughout Clef's career, there have been times when they have failed to promote certain events correctly or have misread his intentions. Clef dreams of cutting out the middle man and connecting to people directly, so that the true fans can share their messages and stories with the world and also experience the music firsthand. He wants to create more autonomous flash-mob style events rather than big corporate stadium shows.

Me: How do you feel about file-sharing? Has it affected you directly?

Wyclef replied, "With the economy the way it is, you can't expect people to buy something without giving something away for free." Yesterday Jay sent me some of Wyclef's newest tracks. Not only were they incredible, it was a great taste of the things to come on his latest album and they definitely made me hungry for more. Wyclef believes that if you let the people sample the music, they're more likely to buy the album when it drops.

Me: I think people really respond to your honesty on Twitter. I follow a lot of celebrities, but most of them just crack jokes and you don't feel like you ever get to know them as human beings. That's not the case with you.

Wyclef thanked me and said that for him "Twitter is a lot like a psychiatrist...sometimes you're feeling sad and you don't want anyone around you to know that you're sad, so you just- [pantomimes typing on phone]". We laughed and it was clear that many people at the table could relate. It was interesting that he thought of Twitter as a cathartic release, a form of expression. I didn't get to follow up on this point, but I would have assumed that his music was his primary form of catharsis. Perhaps the nature of the music industry, big business and traditional marketing had changed the nature of music in his eyes, that what was once performative and expressive had become a full-time job. Twitter and Clef Zone seem to be Wyclef's method for combatting that stagnancy and despondency that often follows the stress of work. Now he can connect with fans all the time, whether or not his album is getting press.

I asked a few more questions, but the answers were mostly covered by Wyclef's toast at the end of the meal. He thanked everyone for coming and for their support (especially the wonderful woman who constructed his new website and ran the webcast) and then reiterated that anything is possible with this sort of grassroots movement. He used to ride a donkey in Haiti and now he lives in a McMansion in the states. Anything is possible, but it all starts from communities like the one sitting around him at the table and the gathering masses online. He envisions outdoor shows in parks and creating new content for the streaming video on his website so that it runs twenty-four/seven like a real television channel. Clef suggested that everyone records everything, films whatever they see and shares it with the world (a sentiment echoed by my newfound friends at Found Magazine).

We took a few photos and said our goodbyes. As we were parting I asked the question I'd been dying to ask since I'd started chatting with the man: When are we going to see another Fugees reunion? Clef cracked a slight smile and said that I should look for it sometime next year. Yes. God Yes. I'll be blaring Fu-Gee-La all day, every day until it happens! Thanks, Clef!

So that's the story of my breakfast with Wyclef and how I inadvertantly proved the lovely Ms. Howell right, yet still retained my composure in the face of celebrity. It was a fun if not surreal experience, and I have a feeling it will be the first of many interactions with the Clef in the distant future.

If you haven't already signed up for Clef Zone, started following @wyclef (or me: @shorester) on Twitter, I suggest you do so now. If this isn't a story about the magic and wonder of Twitter, I don't know what is.

Wyclef, Preacher's Son, Ichiban

2009-06-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up a few times. The party last night was a real treasure, and I thank McGovern and the lovely Ms. Alex for their hosting. Old friends, new ones, and the promise of a few new fans for tonight's Ryan James Ponies comedy show (featuring me AND FREE BEER! Tonight at 9:30 PM at the West Side Comedy Theater in Santa Monica on the 3rd Street Promenade) made it a vastly unforgettable evening. But as is often the case with fun parties, especially ones tucked away in the needlessly confusing hills of UCLA, I awoke this morning feeling slightly dehydrated, more than a little groggy, and fully willing to return to bed.
What a mistake.
When I finally leaped out of bed and pulled the ripcord on my Saturday, I saw my phone blinking. There was a text message from Sprint demanding that I pay my overdue phone bill, which as you might imagine is a really unpleasant way to start the morning. I saw that I had a voicemail as well, and assuming it was probably Susie from Sprint I prepared myself for a few minutes of evasive maneuvers and excuses before buckling down and finally handing over my credit card number.
Man was I wrong.

This is the message I received: "Hey, Matt, what's goin' on? My name is Jay. I work with Wyclef. He actually wanted me to hit you up while he was in LA. Gimme a call back at..."

That's right. Wyclef. As in @wyclef. As in Wyclef Jean, international musical superstar and member of the greatest all-time hip-hop collaboration, The Fugees.

I'll allow you a minute to say WTF.

Perhaps I should explain. It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Twitter. A few months ago I sent a message to my followers promoting da Clef that read: "Also, I highly recommend you follow @wyclef . If you've ever wanted to see a hip-hop legend misspell many things, this could be for you." Pretty innocuous, barely funny, but kinda true. A few hours later I received the following response from Wyclef: "@Shorester hah lollll lov it!" Not only was it awesome that Wyclef read my @message and responded, he was also kind enough to prove my point by misspelling both LOL and Love at the same time! Thanks Clef!
It was a fun little exchange and I appreciated that a musician I respect so much took the time to respond to me. It was one of those moments that really proved how wonderful and serendipidous Twitter can be sometimes, that it's more than a Facebook knock-off, that it's actually a new technology worth venerating. I didn't think much more about it after the initial shock wore off, but I kept up with Clef's tweets just to see how the dude was doing.
In the past few days Clef tweeted that he was headed to LA and that any "Warriors" (Clef fans) in the area should send him a message with their phone number so he could contact them. On a whim, I sent Clef a message asking him how I could join up. He started following me on Twitter and I DM'd him my digits and thanked him for all the online entertainment so far. Then it was off to the party for an evening of fun. I literally had zero expectations for a response.

And here we are today. After being stunned into shock by the message from Jay, I waited a little bit to cool down and rang him back. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Jay, what's up? You called me earlier..?
Jay: Yeah, you said you were in LA and Wyclef wants to bridge the gab between the fans and the internet.
Me: Yeah, that sounds cool.
Jay: Cool, then I'll see if I can get him on conference call.
(This is where I paused to steel myself. I had no idea I'd be talking to the man directly. After a thirty second pause, Wyclef came on the line.)
Wyclef: What's up, Matt? This is Wyclef. How's it going, my Warrior? (Sic: This may be a little innacurate as I was still dealing with the shock of speaking to him. At first I was so stunned that I was worried I was being tricked by a Wyclef impersonator, but after a few brief moments listening to the lilt and cadence of his voice it was clear that this was the timbre of the man I'd been listening to on albums for years. Needless to say I was amazed.)
Me: Hey, Wyclef! What's up? Whag'wan, my brother? (I am an idiot.)

Wyclef went on to explain that he sees the internet as the future of everything and especially communicating messages on a global scale. He seemed excited about the prospect of being able to interact with his fans in a new way. After briefly telling him how much I appreciated his posts on Twitter that shared his new music and videos, he told me that he would pass me back to Jay but that he would see me tomorrow at the SECRET MEETING LOCATION at ten.

Me: Ten PM?
Wyclef: Ten AM. Warriors never sleep.

He passed me back to Jay. Jay let me know about the secret location (which out of respect for the man's privacy I will not divulge) and told me that Wyclef will be working with the BET Music Awards on a tribute to Michael. Jay and I shared some sorrow for MJ's passing, and since it sounded like Wyclef would be busy working on more important matters I resisted the temptation to invite Wyclef to play an accoustic set before our improv show tonight. (That would've been a much better use of the opening five, right Jeff?)
In any case, the meeting will go down tomorrow. I recommend that if you're interested in becoming more involved with Wyclef's warriors you head to his new fan site: http://wyclef.ning.com/ I'll keep you posted on what happens and if/when I get to meet the man in person. Hopefully he'll be there tomorrow morning, but I'll fully understand if something comes up. He is an international music star after all. In any case, you'll be the first to hear about it. Cheers. (And come see my show tonight! Free beer!)

P.S. If you know anything about Wyclef's secret meeting place, please keep it to yourself. There's no reason to make this a media frenzy when the guy's being so cool about it.

Annie, Are You Okay?

2009-06-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

It's no shocker to web-heads who read my stuff that I've been a long-term fan of Achewood. I have a hardcover copy of "The Great Outdoor Fight" sitting on my dresser as I write this. Chris Onstad's web comic is one part graphic novel and two parts psychedelic insanity. I appreciate it for its commitment to character, clever dialog and its undeniably unique art style. Sometimes Achewood transcends its ability to elicit the occasional chuckle, placing its index and middle finger squarely on the pulse of modern pop culture and giving it the kick in the pants it needs. Today isn't one of those days. Rather than mocking the nature of celebrity fandom or throwing dirt on the grave of a much-maligned musician, Onstad uses his digital soapbox to draw reverence and insight toward the fans themselves, giving voice to their concerns through the guise of character.

In addition to his (semi) daily comic strip, Onstad provides his readers with a bevy of additional material for them to injest, including a bunch of character blogs "written" by the lovable animals of Achewood themselves. Yesterday was a rough day for many of us. We lost two major celebrities, bringing the total to three this week, and while their relevance had lessened slightly with age the shock of each demise was startling enough to provide the public with a wake-up call. Human life is something to be treasured, and it doesn't matter how twisted you turn out, whether you began life as a child singing prodigy and morphed into a cake-faced sexual deviant, a running joke and a public pariah. A death is a sad thing, and a small morsel of respect for those passing is a necessity, if not for yourself then for your fellow man. We live in a society, and in some ways we're just as responsible for Michael's condition as he is. The only thing we couldn't take credit for was his incredible talent. It flowed through him like magic and enertained audiences who couldn't even understand his lyrics. There's nothing quite like lightning in a bottle, and while the storms that followed Michael would be his downfall, the magic of that first spark will never be forgotten.

Chris Onstad echoes this sentiment through the eyes of his character Ray in Achewood. Today's "emergency" blog post gives voice to the silence affecting fans worldwide. Should we treasure Michael for who he was or lambast him for what he became? Could any of us have seen this coming, and who's really to blame? The hard questions make it easy to feel stunned to the point of silence. Mitchell Lerner, one of my dear friends and comedy colleagues, and I shared a late-night conversation about Michael that was completely absent of our traditionally offensive humor. Instead we reflected on his character as a man, his talent and his descent into madness. If that's not a sign that something crazy has happened, I don't know what is.

For more thoughts about Michael and some pretty psychotic Fox News style argumentation, I suggest you check out Paul Baumbusch's Facebook page. He and I got into a pretty bad wall-post flame war over the subject. As an objectivist, he considers Michael's unwillingness to play classical music a great slight to society, and therefore a reason why we should feel nothing about his death. Feel free to send him some "love" on my behalf.

Found Art

2009-06-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

I want to alert you all to the existence of www.foundmagazine.com if you don't already know about it. I've been tweeting about the greatness of the publication since last night, when I had the distinct honor of seeing their live show at the Largo Theater on La Cienega Blvd. Found is a magazine that serves as a community art project. People world-wide submit letters, notes, photographs, signs and other belongings that they spot rustling in the bushes or blowing down the lane. The purpose of the project is to give these lost letters a new audience, to share their previous privacy with the world and in some small way remind us of our basic humanity.

Davy and his brother have slowly transitioned Found from a fun art project into a full-scale publication, complete with spectacular design, writing and of course the remarkable found letters. If you've ever had the pleasure of getting to see Davy perform live, you'll know he has a very conversational small-town approach to stage presence, in a way only masterered by some of the greatest of stand-up comics. At the after party, I spoke with him briefly about Found and found out that he's even been contacted by some of the people who wrote the letters that he'd discovered. Found changes the names of the letter writers so as to respect people's privacy, but even so, people have a tendency to find out when their stuff is being used without their permission. The surprising thing here is that Found might be one of the few cases where people are too proud to be mad about having their personal papers published. The nature of the project is so interesting, collaborative and down-to-earth that it's hard not to want to be a part of it. That may explain why their most recent book contained numerous celebrity endorsements, and why Seth Rogen and Fiona Apple were both in attendance last night.

Not to change veins too much, but perhaps the greatest moment of last evening (aside from the bevy of beautiful indie rock babes parading through the Largo and the after-party) was the opening act performed by a young man named Brett from West Virginia. Brett, as I assume is the case with many young West Virginians, is a circus freak. From the age of eight, his grandfather- a sideshow grifter by trade- taught Brett to swallow swords, light bulbs and other (supposedly) inedible items. Brett performed for a wide-eyed terrified audience last evening as he swallowed two broadswords, a kris, a screwdriver, a back-scratcher and a 37-inch balloon that he later popped from within his belly. Brett has been traveling the world with the boys from Found for the past few years, and even got to work with the good people at Amsterdam's Boom Chicago (a renowned comedy show that will soon feature my dear friend and comedy compatriot Jessica Lowe). Like Davy, Brett had a real knack for audience interaction in spite of his youth, and even more impressively it turns out that he's a friendly and charming guy in real life. I highly recommend you check out one of his shows if you're in the Venice Beach area, as he'll be performing live with the Freak Show starting next month. The kid's so normal and so talented he almost gives 'freaks' a bad name.

Last but not least, I have to pimp one final act from last night's cavalcade of stars: The incredible Watson Twins, a dynamic duo from Louisville whose soothing indie rock tunes brought solace to my soul both last night and all throughout today's righteous hangover. Not only are the twins very sweet and personable, they're incredibly skilled musicians with a beautiful sound and really great vocals. I bought their latest album Fire Songs last night and I've been listening to it all morning. Tracks like "How Am I To Be" and their cover of "Just Like Heaven" really highlight the minimalist versatility of their act. I dig on smaller groups like The Fiery Furnaces and the White Stripes, because it's cool to see two people stretch to fill the roles usually taken care of by a full band. The Watson Twins nail it dead-on, and I can't wait to catch them again the next time they're around my area.

That about wraps it up for last night's Found spectacular. I'll be posting more in the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled (especially for any scraps of paper that might blow your way). I decided to join the Found street team, and I suggest you do the same!

Listen Up, Twit

2009-05-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

If you refuse to Tweet and you're on Facebook you're a fucking idiot.

There's nothing wrong with Twitter. There's a lot wrong with Facebook. But for some reason, the ridiculous moral opposition to Twitter is enough to allow fools nationwide to proudly proclaim their animosity towards the device.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter is a community that works for you as much or as little as you'd like it to. You have complete control over what you post and who (if anyone) reads it.

Facebook is a conglomeration of stupidity vying desperately to become the next Myspace.

But it's good for PHOTOS!!! LOLLLL

Anyone who is morally opposed to Twitter doesn't understand how it works. Anyone proud that they've never tweeted is about as high on their soapbox as a person in the middle ages who was proud for never bathing.

Here are a few things to consider:

1. You can actually talk to celebrities with Twitter. Have something pressing to tell Ashton Kutcher or Rob Corddry? Feel free to send them an @message. Chances are they'll probably read it, and if you're lucky they might even respond.

2. Twitter keeps a track record of your accomplishments. If you're using Twitter right and not just babbling about your new toothpaste selection, you'll have a great little steam-of-consciousness blog that reminds you of everything you've done in retrospect. It may not seem monumental now, but there'll be a time when you're older and sadder when you can look back and laugh at all the things you thought were Tweet-worthy.

3. If you are strongly opposed to technology because you don't understand it, you're basically an iconoclast. Just because you're scared of something doesn't mean it'll end the world. If you really think that anything anybody writes on the internet is capable of that level of massive destruction, you're about as smart as the people who thought rock 'n roll was the devil. If the end of the world happens as a result of Twitter, I'll be happy to draw a pentagram on my chest and sacrifice a virgin goat to the Dark Lord in your honor. Until then, stop hyperbolizing and pretending you're smarter than something you don't understand.

4. Twitter is Fun. The reason it's popular is because it's fun. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. Is it so important to you to sound superior that you have to belittle others just for the sake of argument? Get over yourself. Twitter is more goddamn popular than you'll ever be. So popular that all of Facebook's recent advancements have been made to ape it. And if you don't think Facebook is becoming an overblown unfiltered shitstorm of needless information, then you're too dumb to understand the lovable simplicity of Twitter.

Go post your photos elsewhere. I like your camera, but your artwork sucks.

The Destruction of Mankind

2009-05-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to the latest social experiment from the mind of Shore.

Were we put here on this meaningless planet for any particular reason? I'd like to think so. But what and why? And how do we even begin to find out?

I've spent my entire life trying to deepen my understanding of the world around me through education, experience and mind-altering substances. So far, so bad. Nothing makes any more sense than it did before, and as I see it, the world gets necessarily more complicated the deeper you look at it. But I'd like to think that after a time or two we all come to grips with our unique perspectives and shut up to simply live and learn.

I'm not like most people. And I refuse to shut up.

Over the next few months, I'll be sharing stories from my life on this website. Maybe they'll touch you and change you, make you grow to be a better person. Probably not. But my hope is that if I can't deepen your understanding of the world around you, the best I can do is to deepen your understanding of the next most important thing I can think of:

Me.

I'll keep you posted.