It's pretty obvious what Movies & TV blog is about. We churn out recaps, reviews and news on the stuff that interests us.
Tony Black and Zack McGhee have been together for nearly 4 years. They spend altogether too much time watching movies and TV, and being glued to their computers. This blog combines all three at once, thereby gaining them maximum efficiency.
By Zack McGhee | Saturday, March 7, 2009, 11:20 PM
Twitter makes my world go round.
Thanks to YouTube celebrity extraordinaire Josh Hall (AKA @skishua), I just watched the Spanish trailer for Pedro Almodóvar#39;’s new film, Los abrazos rotos. It will be released in Spain this month, and then make its way to the USA via Sony Classics in (yeesh!) November. Stupid awards season.
Anyway, Josh put out a call for an English translation, and @LacryAlex stepped promptly up to the plate. Here’s the clip and the breakdown.
Penélope Cruz: “Which one is it?”
Man: “Where are you going?”
Penélope: “I’m leaving you Ernesto”
Title: Broken Hugs
Man: “Please baby, baby, listen to me baby”
Short-haired woman: “I don’t know what you’ve been talking about during all these days, but I do know what I haven’t told you during all these years.”
Man talking to Penélope at the beach: “It’s a trick for you to come back, the annoucenment is only missing a ‘Wanted’ sign”
Penélope: “And what are we gonna do?”
Woman: “Mateo, tell me something.”
Mateo: “Mateo has died, Judith.”
Again, special thanks to @LacryAlex for the translation.
By Zack McGhee | Thursday, March 5, 2009, 01:08 PM
Watchmen introduces us to a 1980s America that has turned on a once-beloved assortment of citizens-turned-superheroes, now outlawed. Two of the Watchmen continue their work for the government: Dr. Manhattan, a nuclear-powered physicist played by Billy Crudup, and the only one of the Watchmen with supernatural abilities; and the just-murdered Comedian, whom the skilled fighter and vigilante Rorshach — still active in spite of the government ban — believes to be the first victim in a government-sponsored Watchmen-killing spree.
Collaborating with Dr. Manhattan on a massive renewable energy project is the wealthy Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), the only member of the Watchmen to have revealed his true identity to the world. Patrick Wilson is the mellow and retired Dan, formerly the Nite Owl, who’s got a thing for Dr. Manhattan’s girlfriend, Laurie (Malin Akerman), formerly Silk Spectre, and the only woman of the bunch.
With five estranged main characters, a murder mystery, the history of the Watchmen, family secrets, the Cold War, Nixon still in power, and a Doomsday Clock that broadcasts the probability of worldwide nuclear calamity, Watchmen has a lot of ground to cover. Unfortunately, for much of its three hour running time, Watchmen wanders aimlessly, and lacks passion or a clear vision.
The movie opens with the murder of the Comedian, and from the start it’s clear that director Zack Snyder will rely too heavily on stylistic flourishes to compensate for the meandering screenplay. Just as he did in his repulsive homophobic battle epic 300, he relies heavily on loud music and slow motion for emphasis, a tactic that should’ve been off limits to all filmmakers since The Matrix claimed it so effectively ten years ago.
I haven’t read the graphic novel by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins on which the movie is based, and which is beloved by many fans. Based on its Wikipedia plot summary, the movie is extremely faithful to Moore’s story, maybe to its detriment. The idea of a five-term Nixon presidency may have seemed powerful and scary in the ’80s, but now the reality of that time — the specter of Reagan and the 30-year-trajectory of greed that haunts us today — is both more frightening and more relevant.
My interest level in the characters varied. The dynamic between Dr. Manhattan and Laurie is an interesting one. Manhattan’s perspective has shifted since he acquired his powers. He sees time as constant, and views everything objectively. Laurie sees him as removed, and borderline inhuman. Patrick Wilson infuses a little personality into Dan, who’s otherwise likable but dull. Finally, Veidt’s purpose is so singular as to become transparent.
Some things that bothered me, which I think are probably Alan Mooreisms, leftover from the comic: We learn some despicable things about the Comedian. We see him shoot an innocent and pregnant woman in the head, point blank. Another woman, he tries to rape. For a while, the movie neither condones nor rushes to condemn him; yet ultimately it seems to err on the side of sympathy. There is also some boys-will-be-boys-style fetishizing of underage girls, which made me seethe.
The bright light of the movie is Jackie Earle Haley as Rorshach. Haley was Oscar-nominated for his role in Little Children a few years ago. (That movie also starred Patrick Wilson.) Passionate, committed, and incredibly determined, Rorshach is an incredibly interesting character, and even though he is ultimately the driving force of the plot, he doesn’t get enough screen time. In the few showcase scenes the movie allots him, Haley is incredible; if Watchmen is worth seeing, it’s for him.
Since I’ve been derelict in my blogging duties for several weeks, I thought I’d try to get back on track. To start out, I’m catching up with the major releases of January and February in this blog post — including the Oscar contenders, Fired Up!, He’s Just Not That Into You, Friday the 13th and the indie flick Wendy and Lucy.
OSCAR SEASON
After I confessed my disappointment with Slumdog Millionaire, several people expressed surprise. Its Best Picture nomination (and subsequent win), presented me with an opportunity to give it another shot. Tony and I went up to Columbus to meet a friend for the All-day Best Picture Showcase at the AMC Easton.
Though we skipped the torturous, three-hour mediocrity that is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, this 2nd viewing edged me into the pro-Slumdog camp. Though it’s just as painfully contrived, it felt less distant, more moving. I’ve still got problems with it, in other words, but now I’ll think of it with affection rather than indifference. (Milk and Frost/Nixon remained my favorites for the Oscar.) The showcase also gave me an opportunity to catch up with Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, which I’d neglected. I thought it was shockingly powerful. I just couldn’t believe this was the same guy who made The Hours!
Of the other Awards season releases, I enjoyed The Wrestler, though not to the extent many critics did. And Revolutionary Road blew me away, though I thought the overly simplistic last act failed to live up to its tremendous promise. Catch it if you can, though — Kate and Leo are just incredible.
FIRED UP!
How this hilarious teen comedy could’ve flopped, while He’s Just Not That Into You flourished — yeesh! (I pretty much hated Not That Into You. Lots of talented people in the service of an insipid, hateful movie.) Nine years after Bring it On, here is its male counterpart, though its focus on cheerleading is nonexistent. But there’s the same biting wit, the same joy in the performers. It’s not as smart, maybe, but I laughed through the whole thing. (On crocs: “You’re not an old lady gardening or a baby on the beach. Put some shoes on, you’re embarrassing yourself.”) Also, Nicholas D’Agosto is the hottest thing I’ve seen on a movie screen since DeMille’s burning bush in The Ten Commandments; he is pure sex.
WENDY AND LUCY
In the indie world, Wendy and Lucy opened last week at the Landmark Gateway in Columbus. Wendy is the first Kelly Reichardt film I’ve seen, since I was all of 10 when Rivers of Grass came out, and since then I’ve been busy catching up with such worthwhile entertainments as Friday the 13th and the 1976 King Kong. Reichardt’s wildly acclaimed Old Joy (2006), on the other hand, never landed a commerical release in the region (other than a one-time show at the Wexner), and has yet to make it to the top of my Netflix queue. (A random, first-ever email about its release status did lead to my involvement with the Little Art, however.) Anyway, back to Wendy and Lucy, with its beautifully observed moments, pitch-perfect restraint, and a dynamo performance by Michelle Williams.
It nevertheless falls flat.
Yet another in a growing line of movies about how difficult it is to live outside The System (most recently Revolutionary Road and The Wrestler, but in this case most obviously Into the Wild), Wendy gets tangled up in the movie’s immorally superior sense of entitlement, shoplifting even though she has $500+ and in spite of the fact that it puts her immediate goal (to get to Alaska) — and her beloved dog, Lucy — at high risk. The relationship between Wendy and the security guard played by Wally Dalton is genuinely affecting, but their final encounter rings false: Reichardt doesn’t stop to consider that even a working-class guy knows that $6 in clandestinely delivered charity raises more hopes than it’s worth, so determined is she to make her point, which conveys all the wisdom of “it’s the thought that counts.” These bold contrivances dilute the effect of Wendy’s struggle, and the climactic scene oddly vindicates the hard-line capitalist thinking of John Robinson’s cold-hearted grocery clerk (“If a person can’t afford dog food, that person shouldn’t have a dog.”), which had seemed in complete, diametric opposition to the movie’s reckless liberal sob-story affectations.
Collaborating with Dr. Manhattan on a massive renewable energy project is the wealthy Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), the only member of the Watchmen to have revealed his true identity to the world. Patrick Wilson is the mellow and retired Dan, formerly the Nite Owl, who’s got a thing for Dr. Manhattan’s girlfriend, Laurie (Malin Akerman), formerly Silk Spectre, and the only woman of the bunch.
I haven’t read the graphic novel by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins on which the movie is based, and which is beloved by many fans. Based on its Wikipedia plot summary, the movie is extremely faithful to Moore’s story, maybe to its detriment. The idea of a five-term Nixon presidency may have seemed powerful and scary in the ’80s, but now the reality of that time — the specter of Reagan and the 30-year-trajectory of greed that haunts us today — is both more frightening and more relevant.
Some things that bothered me, which I think are probably Alan Mooreisms, leftover from the comic: We learn some despicable things about the Comedian. We see him shoot an innocent and pregnant woman in the head, point blank. Another woman, he tries to rape. For a while, the movie neither condones nor rushes to condemn him; yet ultimately it seems to err on the side of sympathy. There is also some boys-will-be-boys-style fetishizing of underage girls, which made me seethe.
