Movies, Movies, Movies
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman, Scatman Crothers, Mwako Cumbuka, Will Sampson, William Redfield, Brad Dourif, Sydney Lassick, Dean R. Brooks, Danny DeVito
written by: Ken Kesey (novel)
directed by: Milos Forman
It's hard to believe this film was released in 1975 and it still stands up as one of the greatest, thought-provoking films of all time, even 40 years later (wow, can't believe it's actually been that long). The film's messages have stood up against time and I've even seen them been paid homage in more recent pop culture (re: television shows or other films). The general message is that it is "a lot easier to make noble points about fighting the establishment, about refusing to surrender yourself to the system, than it is to closely observe the ways real people behave when they're placed in an environment like a mental institution."
The outsider fighting the system in this case is R.P. McMurphy, a seemingly sane convict who is sent to a mental institution as a punishment for his troublemaking, as opposed to going to prison. This role belongs to Jack Nicholson and he is an incredible actor, with such amazing charisma that everything is so believable. McMurphy breaks into/through to a group of patients who have been condemned to a lethargic life of being drugged and numbed to the world. Nurse Ratched is McMurphy's antagonist, the complete opposite of his personality. The passive existence of these patients in the institution is reinforced by Nurse Ratched's unsmiling and domineering presence, while she hands out tranquilizers and leads them through their group therapy sessions.
It's a wonderful, albeit rather old parable of anti-establishment.
.........................................................................
"The New World"
starring: Colin Farrell, Christian Bale, Q'orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer
written and directed by: Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick knows how to make a beautiful film. That cannot be denied. He gets the camera to move steadily through something as simple as tall grass in an expansive field of a "new world" discovered. There's a soft and quiet beauty in the rustling and enveloping grass of this new world. Malick is a transcendentalist in the form of a filmmaker and he doesn't mind taking his time to tell his stories, because he knows it will be worth it. With "The New World," Malick is attempting to show the elements involved in the birth of America through the imagined interactions between the first Jamestown colonists and the "naturalists" (re: natives) in Virginia during the early 17th century. Given Malick's signature, the film is filled with visual and emotional grandeur that have come to define his films. In a time when technology and visual effects have driven films, it's nice to still have a director/writer like Malick who invokes his best imitations of poets like Whitman with a camera.
What bothers me the most about this film though is the insipid love story Malick has chosen to include, you know the one I'm speaking of: Captain John Smith (played by Colin Farrell, who never impressed me as an actor) and Pocahontas (played by Kilcher). The romance between these two is actually quite speculative and if all accounts are said to be true, it's rather disturbing, since the Indian princess was said to be like 12 years old! Captain John Smith does spend time wondering aloud about his role as the spoiler to the natives' naivety and innocence, but ultimately, if what I've since learned about Captain John Smith (contrary to what I learned in school), he was not actually a decent human being. At the beginning of their relationship, their task is to learn about each other's culture, they sit together on the river banks and in the tall fields playfully enjoying their discoveries. But then, when he takes her back to England, seen more as an object of novelty for the royals to observe for themselves. I would have enjoyed Malick's film a lot more if he had avoided this middle section-love story between the two characters, because this New World story is strong enough on its own to not need a love story to drive the middle of the story.
...........................................................................
"Natural Born Killers"
starring: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield, Jared Harris, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Edie McClurg, Russell Lewis, Robert Downey Jr.
written by: Quentin Tarantino
directed by: Oliver Stone
Here's what I remember about "Natural Born Killers" when it first came out in 1994- my parents walked out of it (probably like many other audience members), disgusted.
This is a film that should definitely be studied in filmmaking courses. Take a look at all the techniques Oliver Stone uses in this bizarre trip of a film right from the outset.
Berserk from the outset, Natural Born Killers lunges for our collective viscera in its opening sequence (surely one of the most brilliant establishing sequences of all time) and never lets go for the next two hours. Not only does this opening shockingly familiarize us with the abominable mayhem of which Mickey and Mallory Knox (Harrelson and Lewis) are capable, the sequence also flings us from our safe moorings and smack dab into the technical maelstrom used to advance and layer the story. Visually and thematically,NBK is the most audacious movie to come out of Hollywood in a long time and it may also rank as the best conceived and executed movie of Oliver Stone's career. Using cockeyed angles, cross-cutting between images as seen through a multiplicity of camera stocks and formats (35mm color, black-and-white video, secondary TV, and newspaper echoes), exaggerated caricatures, and hyperbolic acts of violence, the opening sequence introduces us to the technical frenzy that is yet to come. Rear and front projections, matte shots, morphing, animation, adjusted speeds, warped lighting, printing manipulations, and laugh tracks are just some of the effects used to augment the hyper-reality of this story and take us into the mindsets of its subjects.
It's a film told in 2 Parts. Part One- tells and shows the antiheroes on their murderous spree in all their random grotesque glory. Part Two- follows the characters entrapment in the judicial system, first with the police and then the penal system.
Mickey and Mallory's remorselessness in the first half of the movie is countered by the despicability of the vultures they encounter in the second half. These range from the “not a peace officer” detective (Sizemore) whose attachment to these mass murderers is in itself pathological, the dim and ridiculous brute of a prison warden (Jones, in a performance so outlandish that he out-Tommy Lee's himself), the sleazy and amoral host (Downey) of a tabloid TV show American Maniacs who lures Mickey into a prison interview by telling him that his ratings have already surpassed Bundy and Gacy, though not Manson (to which Mickey replies: “Well, it's hard to beat the King”), and, of course, society-at-large which vaunts the lovers into superhero status.Harrelson and Lewis turn in spectacular performances at the film's core. Also, all the supporting performances are brilliantly outrageous and chilling, and the appearance of Rodney Dangerfield is nothing less than an absolute shocker. Music is also essential to the movie's structure is its use of music.
Here's a film definitely making a statement, but...
"It's a statement, though I'm not 100% sure what it's saying."
That might be why this is a widely misunderstood film, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as a study piece.
.................................................................................
"Blackbird"
starring: Gillian Jacobs, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Guy Boyd, Ross Brodar, Christopher Denham
written and directed by: Adam Rapp
Be forewarned. This is a dark, dark film. It's an indie film starring Gillian Jacobs, before her star rose thanks to "Community." The film's story is about a 32 year old junkie looking to make his life right and sort himself out, thanks to the help of a friend. Along the way, he meets a stripper and they get together and begin to make something of their lives (both separately and together). Cue the song, "Against All Odds." And hey, life brings surprises, and for these two, those surprises are not going to be positive, but that's to be expected. Their destructive nature gets the best of them and secrets are revealed. When the time comes to make choices, they both clearly make the wrong choices, which leads them down a horribly self-destructive path, which leads the viewer to wonder, if two people like this had not found each other, would their lives have turned out differently. I couldn't help but not feel sympathetic because you have to judge people on their actions, and these two characters cannot help but be self-centered and defeatists, but that's what drug addicts tend to be. And, I'm not speaking from experience, other than secondhand, because one of my ex-girlfriends seemed to be the girl in this story.
The performances of these two is fantastic. Paul Sparks plays Baylis and he owns the role. And then, there's Gillian Jacobs, who is very convincing as a naive and innocent girl-turned-stripper-turned-drug-addict with a dark secret, revealed towards the end of her downward spiral. Their relationship is rather touching and gives one of the sense of a spark of light.
....................................................................................
"Plush"
starring: Emily Browning, Xavier Samuel, Cam Gigandet, Dawn Oliveri, Thomas Dekker
written and directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
It's hard to believe that the director of "Thirteen" (such a great film) also did the first "Twilight" film. She seems to know a thing or two about defiance, and fighting against the law, as well as how to dive into a certain subculture and expose it for the audience to dissect on its own. She also seems to be going in the right direction with this indie film about a rock-star wife and mother (Emily Browning though seems a bit young to be playing a believable mother of two).
Here's the story, in a nutshell.
Following the loss of her brother and band's guitarist due to a drug overdose, popular singer/songwriter Hayley (Emily Browning) attempts to throw herself into her creativity to cope with the grief. Feeling detached from her children and journalist husband, Carter (Cam Gigandet), she tries to work out her despondent attitude by writing an album that's mostly dedicated to her brother, meeting a less than stellar reception while fending off the pursuits of a stalker-ish fan. Desperate for relief, she finds herself drawn to her new guitarist, Enzo (Xavier Samuel), a black-clad, gloomy guy with a look that reminds Hayley a bit of her brother. A dangerous relationship forms between them as they're on tour, mostly hinged on Hayley's need for a release, where Enzo's attention -- involving a little roughness and light bondage -- teeters on the darker side of things. Hayley doesn't realize that she's playing with fire this hot, though, until his attachment to her transforms into fixation.
At first, Plush plays out more like the soft-core exploitation drama you might find on late-night cable instead of an adequate character examination, seeming as if the film intentionally meanders until another opportunity arises to witness its surprisingly lurid alt-lifestyle hookups. Lengthy, uninspired scenes of Hayley's band performing on-stage commingle with rigid displays of her visceral attempts to cope with creative blockage, while the drama back home with her twin boys and handsome husband establish little emotional connection beyond those lingering responsibilities that might later result in guilt.
It doesn't really matter whether Plush would prefer for those watching to seriously consider its twisted domestic drama and examination of the creative process once its darker inclinations take over, transforming into a full-blown, schlocky thriller hinged on obsession born of warped psychosis. Superfluous shock-value plot developments layer atop one another as Hayley sinks deeper into the hole she's innocently dug for herself, riding a downward spiral involving pregnancy, murder, and the contrived discoveries of mysteries surrounding her crumbling life. There's so much inane goings-on crammed within the final act that it's surprising how hollow director Hardwicke delivers it all -- partly because of the lack of empathy felt for the young starlet/mother, but also because the conclusion doesn't seem to know when enough's enough. Hardwicke might have another solid directorial outing stirring within her creative space, but she's missed an clear opportunity to realize it here.
This is definitely an avoidable film. Don't waste your time, because there's other films that have done this story in a much better fashion, which is too bad for director Hardwicke.
starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman, Scatman Crothers, Mwako Cumbuka, Will Sampson, William Redfield, Brad Dourif, Sydney Lassick, Dean R. Brooks, Danny DeVito
written by: Ken Kesey (novel)
directed by: Milos Forman
It's hard to believe this film was released in 1975 and it still stands up as one of the greatest, thought-provoking films of all time, even 40 years later (wow, can't believe it's actually been that long). The film's messages have stood up against time and I've even seen them been paid homage in more recent pop culture (re: television shows or other films). The general message is that it is "a lot easier to make noble points about fighting the establishment, about refusing to surrender yourself to the system, than it is to closely observe the ways real people behave when they're placed in an environment like a mental institution."
The outsider fighting the system in this case is R.P. McMurphy, a seemingly sane convict who is sent to a mental institution as a punishment for his troublemaking, as opposed to going to prison. This role belongs to Jack Nicholson and he is an incredible actor, with such amazing charisma that everything is so believable. McMurphy breaks into/through to a group of patients who have been condemned to a lethargic life of being drugged and numbed to the world. Nurse Ratched is McMurphy's antagonist, the complete opposite of his personality. The passive existence of these patients in the institution is reinforced by Nurse Ratched's unsmiling and domineering presence, while she hands out tranquilizers and leads them through their group therapy sessions.
McMurphy has no insights into the nature of mental illness, which is his blessing. He's an extroverted, life-loving force of nature who sees his fellow patients as teammates, and defines the game as the systematic defiance of Nurse Ratched and the system she personifies. In many of the best scenes in the film, this defiance takes the shape of spontaneous and even innocent little rebellions: During exercise period, the patients mill around aimlessly on a basketball court until McMurphy hilariously tries to get a game going.
He also makes bets and outrageous dares, and does some rudimentary political organizing. He needs the votes of ten patients, out of a possible eighteen, to get the ward schedule changed so they can all watch the World Series -- and his victory is in overcoming the indifference the others feel not only toward the Series but toward existence itself. McMurphy is the life force, the will to prevail, set down in the midst of a community of the defeated. And he's personified and made totally credible by Jack Nicholson, in another of the remarkable performances that have made him the most interesting actor to emerge in the last two decades. Nicholson, manically trying to teach basketball to an Indian (Will Sampson) who hasn't even spoken in twelve years, sometimes succeeds in translating the meaning of the movie and Ken Kesey's novel into a series of direct, physical demonstrations.
It's a wonderful, albeit rather old parable of anti-establishment.
.........................................................................
"The New World"
starring: Colin Farrell, Christian Bale, Q'orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer
written and directed by: Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick knows how to make a beautiful film. That cannot be denied. He gets the camera to move steadily through something as simple as tall grass in an expansive field of a "new world" discovered. There's a soft and quiet beauty in the rustling and enveloping grass of this new world. Malick is a transcendentalist in the form of a filmmaker and he doesn't mind taking his time to tell his stories, because he knows it will be worth it. With "The New World," Malick is attempting to show the elements involved in the birth of America through the imagined interactions between the first Jamestown colonists and the "naturalists" (re: natives) in Virginia during the early 17th century. Given Malick's signature, the film is filled with visual and emotional grandeur that have come to define his films. In a time when technology and visual effects have driven films, it's nice to still have a director/writer like Malick who invokes his best imitations of poets like Whitman with a camera.
What bothers me the most about this film though is the insipid love story Malick has chosen to include, you know the one I'm speaking of: Captain John Smith (played by Colin Farrell, who never impressed me as an actor) and Pocahontas (played by Kilcher). The romance between these two is actually quite speculative and if all accounts are said to be true, it's rather disturbing, since the Indian princess was said to be like 12 years old! Captain John Smith does spend time wondering aloud about his role as the spoiler to the natives' naivety and innocence, but ultimately, if what I've since learned about Captain John Smith (contrary to what I learned in school), he was not actually a decent human being. At the beginning of their relationship, their task is to learn about each other's culture, they sit together on the river banks and in the tall fields playfully enjoying their discoveries. But then, when he takes her back to England, seen more as an object of novelty for the royals to observe for themselves. I would have enjoyed Malick's film a lot more if he had avoided this middle section-love story between the two characters, because this New World story is strong enough on its own to not need a love story to drive the middle of the story.
...........................................................................
"Natural Born Killers"
starring: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield, Jared Harris, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Edie McClurg, Russell Lewis, Robert Downey Jr.
written by: Quentin Tarantino
directed by: Oliver Stone
Here's what I remember about "Natural Born Killers" when it first came out in 1994- my parents walked out of it (probably like many other audience members), disgusted.
This is a film that should definitely be studied in filmmaking courses. Take a look at all the techniques Oliver Stone uses in this bizarre trip of a film right from the outset.
Berserk from the outset, Natural Born Killers lunges for our collective viscera in its opening sequence (surely one of the most brilliant establishing sequences of all time) and never lets go for the next two hours. Not only does this opening shockingly familiarize us with the abominable mayhem of which Mickey and Mallory Knox (Harrelson and Lewis) are capable, the sequence also flings us from our safe moorings and smack dab into the technical maelstrom used to advance and layer the story. Visually and thematically,NBK is the most audacious movie to come out of Hollywood in a long time and it may also rank as the best conceived and executed movie of Oliver Stone's career. Using cockeyed angles, cross-cutting between images as seen through a multiplicity of camera stocks and formats (35mm color, black-and-white video, secondary TV, and newspaper echoes), exaggerated caricatures, and hyperbolic acts of violence, the opening sequence introduces us to the technical frenzy that is yet to come. Rear and front projections, matte shots, morphing, animation, adjusted speeds, warped lighting, printing manipulations, and laugh tracks are just some of the effects used to augment the hyper-reality of this story and take us into the mindsets of its subjects.
It's a film told in 2 Parts. Part One- tells and shows the antiheroes on their murderous spree in all their random grotesque glory. Part Two- follows the characters entrapment in the judicial system, first with the police and then the penal system.
Mickey and Mallory's remorselessness in the first half of the movie is countered by the despicability of the vultures they encounter in the second half. These range from the “not a peace officer” detective (Sizemore) whose attachment to these mass murderers is in itself pathological, the dim and ridiculous brute of a prison warden (Jones, in a performance so outlandish that he out-Tommy Lee's himself), the sleazy and amoral host (Downey) of a tabloid TV show American Maniacs who lures Mickey into a prison interview by telling him that his ratings have already surpassed Bundy and Gacy, though not Manson (to which Mickey replies: “Well, it's hard to beat the King”), and, of course, society-at-large which vaunts the lovers into superhero status.Harrelson and Lewis turn in spectacular performances at the film's core. Also, all the supporting performances are brilliantly outrageous and chilling, and the appearance of Rodney Dangerfield is nothing less than an absolute shocker. Music is also essential to the movie's structure is its use of music.
Here's a film definitely making a statement, but...
"It's a statement, though I'm not 100% sure what it's saying."
That might be why this is a widely misunderstood film, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as a study piece.
.................................................................................
"Blackbird"
starring: Gillian Jacobs, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Guy Boyd, Ross Brodar, Christopher Denham
written and directed by: Adam Rapp
Be forewarned. This is a dark, dark film. It's an indie film starring Gillian Jacobs, before her star rose thanks to "Community." The film's story is about a 32 year old junkie looking to make his life right and sort himself out, thanks to the help of a friend. Along the way, he meets a stripper and they get together and begin to make something of their lives (both separately and together). Cue the song, "Against All Odds." And hey, life brings surprises, and for these two, those surprises are not going to be positive, but that's to be expected. Their destructive nature gets the best of them and secrets are revealed. When the time comes to make choices, they both clearly make the wrong choices, which leads them down a horribly self-destructive path, which leads the viewer to wonder, if two people like this had not found each other, would their lives have turned out differently. I couldn't help but not feel sympathetic because you have to judge people on their actions, and these two characters cannot help but be self-centered and defeatists, but that's what drug addicts tend to be. And, I'm not speaking from experience, other than secondhand, because one of my ex-girlfriends seemed to be the girl in this story.
The performances of these two is fantastic. Paul Sparks plays Baylis and he owns the role. And then, there's Gillian Jacobs, who is very convincing as a naive and innocent girl-turned-stripper-turned-drug-addict with a dark secret, revealed towards the end of her downward spiral. Their relationship is rather touching and gives one of the sense of a spark of light.
....................................................................................
"Plush"
starring: Emily Browning, Xavier Samuel, Cam Gigandet, Dawn Oliveri, Thomas Dekker
written and directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
It's hard to believe that the director of "Thirteen" (such a great film) also did the first "Twilight" film. She seems to know a thing or two about defiance, and fighting against the law, as well as how to dive into a certain subculture and expose it for the audience to dissect on its own. She also seems to be going in the right direction with this indie film about a rock-star wife and mother (Emily Browning though seems a bit young to be playing a believable mother of two).
Here's the story, in a nutshell.
Following the loss of her brother and band's guitarist due to a drug overdose, popular singer/songwriter Hayley (Emily Browning) attempts to throw herself into her creativity to cope with the grief. Feeling detached from her children and journalist husband, Carter (Cam Gigandet), she tries to work out her despondent attitude by writing an album that's mostly dedicated to her brother, meeting a less than stellar reception while fending off the pursuits of a stalker-ish fan. Desperate for relief, she finds herself drawn to her new guitarist, Enzo (Xavier Samuel), a black-clad, gloomy guy with a look that reminds Hayley a bit of her brother. A dangerous relationship forms between them as they're on tour, mostly hinged on Hayley's need for a release, where Enzo's attention -- involving a little roughness and light bondage -- teeters on the darker side of things. Hayley doesn't realize that she's playing with fire this hot, though, until his attachment to her transforms into fixation.
At first, Plush plays out more like the soft-core exploitation drama you might find on late-night cable instead of an adequate character examination, seeming as if the film intentionally meanders until another opportunity arises to witness its surprisingly lurid alt-lifestyle hookups. Lengthy, uninspired scenes of Hayley's band performing on-stage commingle with rigid displays of her visceral attempts to cope with creative blockage, while the drama back home with her twin boys and handsome husband establish little emotional connection beyond those lingering responsibilities that might later result in guilt.
It doesn't really matter whether Plush would prefer for those watching to seriously consider its twisted domestic drama and examination of the creative process once its darker inclinations take over, transforming into a full-blown, schlocky thriller hinged on obsession born of warped psychosis. Superfluous shock-value plot developments layer atop one another as Hayley sinks deeper into the hole she's innocently dug for herself, riding a downward spiral involving pregnancy, murder, and the contrived discoveries of mysteries surrounding her crumbling life. There's so much inane goings-on crammed within the final act that it's surprising how hollow director Hardwicke delivers it all -- partly because of the lack of empathy felt for the young starlet/mother, but also because the conclusion doesn't seem to know when enough's enough. Hardwicke might have another solid directorial outing stirring within her creative space, but she's missed an clear opportunity to realize it here.
This is definitely an avoidable film. Don't waste your time, because there's other films that have done this story in a much better fashion, which is too bad for director Hardwicke.
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