Knowing

Double feature yesterday ...

Another Nick Cage film, starring Nick Cage as Nick Cage. Ah, what are you going to do? At this point, he doesn't come any other way.

Regarding the film itself, the first thing that occurs to me is that there were some really good special effects. The sequence with the airplane crash was pretty spectacular, although it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the context of the entire film once it's played out.

Typically, I'm not very satiated with a good effects film that otherwise pretty much wasted my time. But Knowing did have some decent plot twists and enough freaky stuff going on that I was at least intrigued to see the ending. But there is the problem with how this film ends. Mass audiences simply are not going to go for a film that resolves this way, and I think that's where this film stumbles a bit. Always tough to take this kind of road, although the director Alex Proyas has had some success dealing with (dark) subject matter in the past.

The International

Overall a pretty good film. Certainly a lot more action than I had imaged. Although throughout the entire film I kept thinking, "why would a banker be up to these kind of shenanigans when they can just legally rob people all day?" But whatever. ASSUMING a banker wanted to be an international arms dealer, the rest of the movie made ... slightly more sense I guess. Typically I try not to get too mired in the details, but again, it was a reoccurring thought throughout the whole movie.

On a (very) positive note, the cinematography in this film was excellent. There was some very nice use of actors crossing through the scene to introduce new angles, and the overall feel of the film was very modern, and I thought very beautiful. Especially that last dolly shot on the roof to a close-up as the film ended ... the edge light coming from the rising sun was just so crispy and well planned, kudos to the photographer, Frank Griebe.

Oh, and in case you haven't noticed yet, Naomi Watts is not a very good actor.

Away We Go

Pretty nice little film here. I should say that I think Sam Mendes has some real flashes of brilliance, and is overall an A list director. This film may be below his bar, but that's still higher than most directors reach.

It's nice to see Krazinski and Rudolph stepping out of the comedian roles, although this pairing was essentially two "straight men." Good thing the rest of the supporting cast is the funny man in the double act as this pair tries to find their place in the world.

Perhaps the film lags a little bit in the middle act, but watching these two young comedians venture into some dramatic work. Nice film overall.

Valkyrie

[Double dipped last night; Seven Pounds came from RedBox kind of randomly. I prefer RedMail myself.]

Considering some of the reviews this film got, I wouldn't have been surprised if the thing were a total trainwreck. Happily, it was not. The Tom Cruise character was portrayed as grotesque, to be sure, which I suppose might be laughable to some. But the other characters around Cruise helped create a sense of the tension, the sense of urgency these insurgents must have felt.

The film butts up to the Titanic problem, however, in that the entire audience knows the resolution to the story, and so at the climax, the viewer is left wondering not what is the resolution, but rather how will the inevitable play out? Here, there's not much doubt about how the Nazi regime would deal with traitors like this. So the story is left with is how emotionally sympathetic the characters are, in terms of the payoff for the audience. At least for me, in this film, I didn't feel connected enough to these characters to really be moved by their deus ex machina.

Seven Pounds

"I was like, WTF mate?"

Pretty interesting last quarter of the film, which made suffering through the three quarters almost bearable. The trouble is, with this story arc, if the first part were more cohesive, it might give away the story. Once the narrative got more linear, it was abundantly clear how the film would end, and thus the audience is left wondering how the inevitable resolution will play out.

But whateves, I don't really expect that much from Hollywood anyway, so I wasn't that disappointed.

Rescue Me: Torch (S05E05)

So it should be no big secret right now that FX is doing some of the best original programming out there right now. Case in point is Rescue Me with Dennis Leary.

The best part of the series the ebb and flow of the characters and the tone of the show: some parts are hilariously funny, and fifteen minutes later, it's the lowest of the low for Tommy and the crew. Elements like Shawn's drug-induced musical fantasies help break up what could easily be a very heavy-handed drama.

Of course, the protagonist's love life is the same mixture of comedy and tragedy blended into puree. That's what was so good about tonight's episode: the strange melange of pain and pleasure that was Tommy's booty call with Sheila. Without going into too much detail, it was perhaps the finest moment between these two very compelling characters in the entire series.

Great show from a great series.

The Hangover

Wow. Just wow. A friend of mine described this film as a game changer. That's a bit much, but it certainly is the best comedy to come out in recent memory; the kind of film that will be quoted in dorm rooms and around water coolers for years; the kind of Lebowski-like film you can pop in on any random night when you just want to laugh at the same thing over and over again.

The best part of the storytelling was that we, the audience, got to discover what happened right along side the characters in the story. It's a rare screenplay that allows this kind of character discovery. Not since Momento has there been a film where the audience was as out of the know as the protagonist(s).

But enough sotrytelling-blah-blah-blah. The Hangover was just a good ride, a great way to spend 90 minutes in a movie theater. I never got bored, and tried my best to NOT laugh, so I could hear all the great throw-away follow-up lines. Guess I'll just have to buy the DVD.

Great movie, but then again, I'm a sucker for a good beeper joke.