MYST #3 Birdman

  I was somewhat concerned about watching Birdman.  I have this thing where I have heard nothing but praise for a movie for the longest time, and then I finally saw it and was disappointed because it seemed like I was being promised something more.  This is what has kept me from truly loving films that everybody else loved like Moonrise Kingdom.  But I needed a movie to base my third post around and this was the first movie I saw on demand, so I just rented it without really thinking about it.  That was on Friday night, and I've been doing nothing but thinking about it ever since.  I've been thinking about it so much because I've rewatched it so many times over the weekend and it has so many themes and stories and subtexts that I don't really know how to explain what it's really about.  What I can tell you is that ii is one of the most clever movies I've seen in a while, and has everything I would want to see in a movie.

  It's a rise and fall story.  It's about the short attention span of the media.  It's about art vs. commercial trash.  It's about our desire to be loved and respected by everyone.  It's about criticism.  It parodies big-budget blockbuster superhero movies.  It parodies snobbish, pretentious art.  It's about letting go of our past.  It's about becoming old and irrelevant.  It's a father-daughter story.  It's about resurrection.  It has action, it has comedy, it has drama.  LOTS OF DRAMA!!!!  It has yelling and punching and screaming and punching.  It also has punching.  It has drumming.  LOTS OF DRUMMING!!!  It's about Michael Keaton playing a washed up actor who once played a popular superhero named Birdman, much like how Michael Keaton is a washed up actor who once played a popular superhero named Batman.  It has Edward Norton playing someone who is a great actor but is also an a**hole, much like in real life.  It has Emma Stone playing a girl who is a drug/alcohol addict, much like someone who Emma Stone bears a striking resemblance to...Lindsay Lohan.  The whole movie is in one shot (or at least looks like it).  It has a narrator with a badass voice.  It's about love.  It's about loss.  It's about being more focused on your cell phones than your life.  It's about being more focused on your life than your friends and family.  It's about appearance vs. reality.  It's about popularity vs. artistic integrity.  IT'S ABOUT EVERYTHING!

  The basic story is about Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) who wants to make a comeback in his career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway play.  When he intentionally injures an actor who he thinks is doing poorly, he hires an actor named Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), who quickly begins to interfere with the production and ruin Riggan's plans, even to the point of seducing Riggan's daughter (Emma Stone), attempting to rape the lead actress (Naomi Watts) onstage, and drinking real alcohol on stage.  And that's the least of Riggan's problems.  He also has to deal with the fact that he has a voice in his head continuously taunting and manipulating him.

  Some people have criticised this film for being based around the gimmick of seeming like it's all in one shot, and I have to respectfully disagree.  Director Alejandro G. Inarittu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel, Biutiful) does this in order to give the illusion that you are watching a stage play, and it actually gives you more connection to the characters and their predicaments as a result.  And while the casting of Keaton and Norton in their roles can be seen as a one-note joke that takes a jab at their real-lives, I find that their characters are so fascinating that even if different actors were given the roles, I wouldn't care, because I would still be so invested.  And while apparantly Inarittu made this movie to comment on the overabundance of superhero movies, despite the fact that I have grown up reading comic books and watching the blockbusters the filmmakers apparantly dislike so much, I understand the point he is trying to make, and it is fun to witness.

  What I also love about this movie is how it manages to tackle all of these subjects, and yet it still manages to be entertaining the entire runtime.  I was never bored or confused, despite this being a very strange film and being about so many different things.  I wish I had enough money to purchase this on blu-ray, just so I could watch it even more times, because I have a feeling that there are still a great many things that I can discover and analyze.

I give Birdman 10 out of 10 prosthetic noses (you'll know what I mean when you see it)

Formal Film Study: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End

  I have a confession to make: until recently, I had never seen either of the following films, despite the fact that they are all notable geek favorites and I myself am a geek.  This is particularly shocking because all three of these films are directed by Edgar Wright, who directed the box-office failure that is still beloved by many, myself included; "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World".  He is also apparently the same director who left the Ant-Man film project at Marvel over creative differences, so I am still kicking myself for never having seen these films until recently.  So I decided now would be a perfect time to watch all three of these films back to back and study what makes these films similar and different.

  "Shaun of the Dead" is the story of Shaun (Simon Pegg), a slacker living in London who works a mediocre job at an electronics shop where his younger colleagues hate him, lives at home with his housemates, the very uptight Pete (Peter Serafinowicz) and fellow slacker/drug dealer Ed (Nick Frost), has an overprotective mother, Barbara (Penelope Wilton) and troubled relationship with his step-father Phillip (Bill Nighy), and is struggling to keep his relationship with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield).  One day, a zombie apocalypse breaks out, and Shaun and his friends must stick together to try and survive.

  "Hot Fuzz" is the story of British police officer Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), who despite being the best performing officer on thee force, is forced to relocate due to just that, because therefore the rest of the police look incompetent by comparison.  He moves to the small, boring town of Sanford, Gloucestershire, where he joins the police force run by Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent) and is ridiculed by all of the other officers except Frank's son, Danny (Nick Frost), with whom he strikes up a friendship.  Then all of a sudden, people start turning up murdered, but are being reported as nothing more than accidents.  Sensing that things are not as they seem, Angel decides he needs to take charge and determine who is commiting these murders and why.

  "The World's End" is the story of five childhood friends, Gary King (Simon Pegg), Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman), and Peter Page (Eddie Marsan).  They had attempted a pub crawl at the point of graduating high school, but failed.  Years later, while everyone else has moved on with their lives, Gary wants to try the crawl again, and convinces all of his friends to come back with him to their hometown of Newton Haven.  Just as they are getting started with their pub crawl, the inhabitants of the town start acting suspiciously, and soon they start attempting to fight for their lives in addition to finishing the pub crawl.

  What these films do that I love is that they feature much of the same cast, but never as the same characters.  They each tell their own separate story with their own separate themes, while also satirizing different genres.  Shaun of the Dead is meant to be a parody of zombie films, with plenty of clever references to classic zombie films, particularly the classic George A. Romero films like "Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead", and "Day of the Dead".  Hot Fuzz is meant to be a spoof of classic cop films like "48 Hrs." and "Lethal Weapon", most evident in a scene where two characters sit down to watch "Point Break" and  "Bad Boys II" (I knew I couldn't be the only one who loves that movie.... DON'T JUDGE ME!).  The World's End is meant to be a satire of body invasion science fiction films such as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".  And while I mentioned in my Kingsman review that parody films have kind of left me behind, much like Kingsman (also directed by a British man, maybe that's why), these films manage to do it in a way that is consistently funny, and you can tell that Wright has actually seen these films and loved them.

  Something particularly interesting about these films is the way Wright shoots and edits.  He manages to get laughs from the way he edits a scene together and the sound effects he uses, because the cuts are so jarring and they cut to such funny situations, and the sound effects are timed perfectly to match the feeling of a scene.  He also finds humor in camera movements from pans, to things entering/exiting the frame, to zooms.  There is also an amusing running gag in each film involving a character attempting to climb over a fence that somehow never gates old, and an actor who has played James Bond appears in the latter two films.  These techniques are also evident in Scott Pilgrim.

  So, overall, while these films may be different in genre and story, they are very much the same in terms of style and sense of humor.  They also contain fascinating themes including the idea of growing up, the dullness of suburban life, and the incompetence of the police force.  And that is why both of these films are so appealing even to people who have not seen the films they are making fun of, and why Edgar Wright has officially become one of my favorite directors.

MYST #2 Inherent Vice

  Well... it looks like I am going to have to be that guy.  I'm going to be the crazy guy with long beard wearing a cardboard sign saying everything from "Doom is coming" to "It's all been for nothing", and I'll be wondering why nobody else is as crazy as me.  Did I say looks?  I meant looked, because apparently more people are on my side than I had initially thought as I was watching this film.  Paul Thomas Anderson's newest film has polarized a lot of people, and after seeing it for myself, it is not that difficult to understand why.


  In the year 1970, pothead private detective Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is minding his own business when his old girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston) returns to ask for his help in solving the mystery of what is going on with her billionare boyfriend, his wife, and her boyfriend.  Kidnapping is involved in some way, and during this journey he comes across such eccentric characters as Detective Christian "Bigfoot" Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), the husband of a local former drug addict Coy Harlingen (Owen Wilson), and Doc's lawyer Sauncho Smilax (Benicio del Toro).

  If you're wondering why I am not offering a more in-depth explanation of what the plot of this movie is, it's because it has only been a couple of hours since I have seen it, and I still can not tell you what it is really about.  I've only explained as much as I have because I had to look it up online to make sure.  Now, if the movie had actually moved at any form of a pace, I would be perfectly able to forgive it and just go along for the ride.  I can accept a movie being confusing or convoluted.  What I cannot accept is a movie being confusing or convoluted, and also boring.  I kept nodding off throughout this entire film, and the only reason I didn't flat out fall asleep is because my dad was sitting next to me and kept shaking me awake.  When I am on the verge of falling asleep during a nude scene, you know your movie has problems.


  Paul Thomas Anderson is a filmmaker whose work I always appreciated, but occasionally had trouble grasping the concepts he was going for.  In a film like "Boogie Nights", I managed to avoid this problem.  But sometimes there is a film like "The Master", which while boasting great performances and moments, still left me somewhat cold and confused.  But now it is suddenly much easier to understand when compared to this sloppy, meandering mess.  Some critics may say that he is attempting to give the audience the feeling of actually being high, and I actually agree with that assessment, because you are seeing a number of insane things and colors and whatnot, and you have absolutely no idea what is going on.

  That doesn't mean there aren't some things to enjoy about this film.  It has a very colorful and vibrant look to it, and I quite enjoyed the music.  And the cast does the best they can with weak characters.  Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro actually managed to get some chuckles out of me every once in a while, and I will watch Joaquin Phoenix in absolutely anything.  But ultimately I can't help but admit that I was very much underwhelmed by this film.  And that's too bad because I wanted to love this, especially after watching the trailer.  But ultimately, I simply cannot recommend this.

I give Inherent Vice 2 out of 5 joints