I told you I’ve been watching a lot lately…

Kontrol:
I have to be honest, I don’t really know what to say about this one. It’s a Hungarian film about the Kontrol force – men and women who work in the subway system, making sure that people bought tickets to ride. These people are generally despised by everyone because they’re sort of the mall cops of the subway system – they have some authority, but for anything really important they still need to call a real cop, which I never once saw a real cop anywhere, which tells you just how idle the Kontrol’s threats really are. They know they’re little more than a nuisance to the general public, so they only semi-seriously do their jobs. They seem to get more satisfaction chasing down habitual freeriders than anything else in their daily routine. So the only place to find respect is within their own organization, where teams of Kontrol officers compete in life-threatening “sports” like “railing”, which entails jumping onto the tracks after a train has passed and trying to make it to the next station before the next train does. There really is no second place in this game, as I’m sure you can imagine. The main character, Bulcsu, is an interesting one. He’s mysterious in that he stays underground 24/7, even choosing to bed down on the station floor after the subway system shuts down at night. The characters in Kontrol are really the focus of the film. We get to see into their psyches a little bit, but are never truly able to grasp their motivations. Perhaps that’s because they don’t really understand why they do this job, either, especially after all the shit they have to endure on a daily basis. But there are also a host of other strange folk who ride the subway we get to know too, namely a young woman who dresses in a bear suit and a mysterious black-hooded man who has a penchant for pushing people in front of trains. One thing I really enjoyed about the film is that it has a strange, almost ethereal quality, mixed with a gritty, flourescent aesthetic, that is at once beautiful, repugnant, and surreal. For this alone I would recommend the film, but mix in the sort of wandering storyline, the interesting characters, and a unique location (much like Bulcsu, the film never leaves the Underground), and this one’s definitely worth checking out.
3 / 5 bananas

Brick:
As I’m sure has been said in just about every review of this film, Brick is “The Big Sleep” meets “Dawson’s Creek”. Set in the modern era with a nod to the 1930′s, Brick is a detective film set in the world of high school dynamics. Our main character, Brendan, gets a note in his locker telling him to be at a street corner at a particular time. When he arrives, the phone booth rings and his ex-girlfriend, Emily, is on the other end. She sounds upset and asks for his help, uttering some strange things about a brick, a tug, and “The Pin”. Before Brendan can get an explanation out of her, though, a classic muscle car comes screaming around the bend, scaring Emily who was obviously closer than she seemed to be. Thus begins Brendan’s journey into the underworld of high school high crime. All of the noir standards are here – a criminal mastermind, the hot-headed muscle, the singer/dancer who knows too much, the flamboyant public figure who has a dark side, and, of course, the femme fatale. The only thing is, they’re all still awaiting graduation. I have to admit that during the entire running time I had to kind of keep from laughing, because it really feels like this is a high school play version of a Raymond Chandler novel. The kids seem to be acting tough, acting sexy, and acting like they’re brilliant detectives. It feels like they’re playing grown up. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not an enjoyable film. As I said, this is part Dawson’s Creek – mainly the part about the kids talking like they’re way too smart – and sometimes the lines work, sometimes they don’t. Once I was able to kind of let go of the fact that I was watching a 17-year old kid say hardboiled detective lines like “Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night. That puts me six up on the lot of you.” and “Maybe I’ll just sit here and bleed at you. “, I was able to get sucked in by the story and had a heck of a lot of fun. However, not all of the lines work. Like in a confrontation between Brendan, our pubescent Sam Spade, and his Vice Principal, who is like the somewhat shady cop that Brendan’s worked for before (another crime noir staple), this is how the conversation ends: “No more of these informal chats! If you have a disciplinary issue with me, write me up or suspend me and I’ll see you at the Parent-Teacher conference.” It’s that sudden jolt back into reality, that this is still a kid, that makes it hard to fully accept the film. I have to say, though, that I had fun with this one. It’s so close to being great that I have to recommend it if you’re a fan of crime noir films. If you’re not well-schooled in your Spade, you might have a hard time picking up on some of the influences and archetypes that the film uses and it will look more like “The Bayfield High School Players Present…”. But with this much creativity behind it all, you’ll still probably find it worth the rental.
3.5 / 5 bananas

Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Often that means you’ll get a 30-page dissertation here, but I’ll try to keep it down to 15 or 16-pages at most so you can still read it over your lunch hour.

The first thing I’ve been thinking about is marriage. Ya see, last weekend, Andrea and I went down to this nice little jewelry shop in “The Loop”, a pretty cool part of STL. We went with the specific mission of buying my wedding ring after I’d seen some good candidates there a while back. More importantly, the same rings at this store cost about double at the mall jewelry stores, so I knew it was going to be a good route to go. Anyway, long story short, I bought a wedding ring. It’s Titanium, which everyone says not to get because Titanium is like Run-DMC (“Tougher than leather”) and in case you’re in an accident and they need to cut off your ring, they generally don’t have the tools to do so. No, but if my hand is in such rough shape that they need to cut off my wedding band, chances are the finger’s barely worth saving anyway, so just dig out your garden clippers and call me “Stumpy”.

Wow. Talk about a tangent.

So anyway, I bought a ring. But here’s the thing – I don’t wear rings. I don’t wear jewelry. I don’t even own a “chain”, which is a guy’s way of saying “necklace”, which is like saying “action figure” instead of “doll”. Needless to say, wearing a ring is going to be weird for me. Pile on all the signifigance of this ring and things get even more bizarre.

Andrea and I have been engaged since July 4, 2005, which seems like forever ago. And that’s just it – it was always this thing way off in the future. Not only was the actual ceremony so far away that we could barely comprehend the enormity of it, but the concept of marriage has always been this distant thing as well. Because, honestly, we feel like we’ve been married for a long time already. So this distance felt more like it was in the past, rather than in the future.

For example, shortly after we got together, that Fall if I recall, I had a job opportunity that would have taken me down near Lake of the Ozarks. I never once said, “Well, this is my decision”. It was always, “This is our decision.” We knew even then that we were no longer two separate people acting alone, but two people who had to come to a concensus. In the end we felt that the opportunity just wasn’t the right opportunity and in hindsight I can definitely say we made the right decision.

So on the one hand I feel like I’ve already been married for a few years now. But on the other hand, there’s this ethereal, intangible thing out there called “marriage” that I don’t think either one of us can fully grasp. We’re already doing all of the things that married people do, but for some reason it seems like all of this is going to take on a much more concrete form once this ring is slipped on my finger. It’s going to be more than a tax break and a discount on car insurance, even though, really, those are going to be the only things that really change in our day-to-day lives until we decide to have kids. Well, aside from the fact that Andrea will have to undue 20+ years of training in signing her name (though she’ll still have to spell out our new last name for everyone just like she had to her old one).

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not taking this marriage lightly. This isn’t just a tax break and cheaper insurance. It’s not just someone that will make dinner and iron my shirts (both of which I appreciate immensely and make up for by cleaning out the cat boxes and doing the laundry). This is a real, life-altering thing we’re going to do here. I think the scary part is not knowing just how things are going to change. But then, that’s the same risk you take every day you decide to get out of bed. And as long as I have Andrea by my side, I’m sure we’ll be able to take on anything that comes our way.

Speaking of the future, I’ve also been thinking about the past.

If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you’ll know that I went through a bit of a change in the mid-00′s, when I lost a bunch of weight, got back into writing, found a career path I wanted to pursue, and, basically, found myself. As with all rollercoaster rides of self-image, I eventually had to plummet back down from the high point. Thankfully I didn’t go as low as I was before, but more like hit a plateau that has just been kind of coasting along for the last few years. I’ve stopped writing, I don’t really enjoy movies like I once did, and generally my self-worth has been on autopilot ever since. A big part of this plateau has been due to school. Really, ever since I decided to start attending classes again, I’ve been stagnant or even declining in these other aspects of my life. School has seemed to just take over my life and, admittedly, sometimes it did.

Well, this semester my schedule is such that I can go to the gym after class and still have quite a bit of an evening leftover. Add in the fact that Andrea and I are both watching our diet and this has done wonders for my physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

I’ve also been thinking about writing more. I haven’t actually gotten to it yet (Well, aside from this huge entry that you’re in the middle of now), but the thoughts are brewing partially in response to a book we’re reading in my Medieval Literature class. So the writing will come sooner rather than later.

I’m making time to watch movies like crazy lately (in case you hadn’t noticed) and the stories are beginning to fascinate me again. The same goes for reading, which had also taken a backseat for a while.

Long story short, I feel like life’s on an upswing right now. Not quite to 2002-2003 levels, but more like late-2001 levels; like good things are just on the horizon and I’m making the strides to get there. It’s important for me to recognize this, because for the last three years I’ve felt like no matter what I was doing – from getting a job in the field I’ve been trying to work in, to buying my first home, to getting through Spanish – I’ve always been comparing where I am with where I was in 2002.

Better late than never, I’m beginning to realize that that has been the wrong outlook to have. I can’t compare who I was with who I want to be because the circumstances I was in at that time made me who I was then (Did ya get that?). Just like the circumstances I’m in now – new homeowner, on a career path with some promise, about to become a husband – make me who I am now. I will never again be the guy who slimmed down, wrote a lot, read a lot, watched a movie a day, and felt like he was on top of the world.

But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be the guy who leads a healthy lifestyle, writes whenever he can, reads whenever he can, watches a movie whenever he can, does home improvement projects, spends time with his wife and kids, explores new avenues of interest, looks for new opportunities to grow in his career, and feels like he’s on top of the world. I can still be this guy, even if I can’t be the other one anymore. The key is to put the past behind me and become who circumstances and life-changes have made me today. I’m not saying it’s always going to be easy, but it’s the only healthy way to live, in my opinion.

In conclusion…
A) Holy shit! I’m actually getting married!
B) To take a cue from Popeye, “I yam, what I yam”.

Whew! I need a drink…

I’m getting to that age when people around me are starting to have babies. And, in the next few years, Andrea and I will be taking the leap into parenthood as well.

So it’s good to know that Baby Rock Records is releasing a full line of rock-n-roll-inspired albums for the little one in your life. With lullabye versions of Radiohead, Metallica (buying that one this week for a friend of mine who is soon to be a dad), Nirvana, The Pixies and many more, there’s no reason your kid won’t someday scoff at the bubble gum pop likes of Britney Spears and prefer to listen to Black Sabbath or The Beatles.

This is some early age indoctrination that I can get behind…

Fantastic Four:
Wow. Just…wow. What a horrible movie. I love the FF, specifically The Thing, whose image I’ve considered getting tattooed on my body more than once. So imagine my sadness in seeing this monstrosity. Granted, I rented it out of morbid curiosity anyway, but, still, it was quite disappointing. The film feels very disjointed as I never really knew what the main storyline was supposed to be. One minute it’s about the FF getting their powers, the next it’s about Victor VonDoom losing his position as CEO of his company, then it deals with The Thing and his feelings of alienation since becoming a man made of orange stone- it’s just all over the place. The special effects were really hit or miss, too. I always knew the stretchy qualities of Mr. Fantastic would be difficult to fully transfer to live-action film and, unfortunately, the filmmakers simply confirmed my beliefs. For the most part, The Thing wasn’t too bad, considering they had a real actor under all that make-up, though. Much better than a CGI Thing as had been mentioned early on in the filmmaking process. All this aside, the thing that was most bizarre to me about this film was the odd scenes shot with an audience of extras. There are about 4 scenes in the film where the FF act in front of people on the street. They have these big, flourishing scenes of dialog and all these extras are gathered around them on three sides, not involved in the scene, they’re just there. And the FF barely seem to notice them. They are literally backdrop to the main characters. It’s just a weird vibe you get while watching the scenes. Anyway, that’s the least of the film’s problems, but I found it especially odd to me. In the end, this one’s not even worth a rental. Wait for HBO if you even care.
2 / 5 bananas

Poseidon:
For our next disappointing film, we have “Poseidon”, based on the 1972 disaster classic “The Poseidon Adventure”, no matter how much the filmmakers will try to tell you differently. I really dig the 1972 film. It’s one of those that I’ll come across while channel surfing on a lazy Sunday afternoon and watch it till the end. The characters are interesting, vulnerable, and very human, even if their dialog is sometimes corny. The thing I love about the original is the overall Messiah metaphor, with Gene Hackman playing a defunct priest who, like Moses, leads his people through the wilderness to salvation. Possibly the best scene in the whole film is where our band of survivors meet up with another band heading in the opposite direction – both sides think the other is going to the end of the boat that will sink first. It’s here that the survivors must make a decision, just as we all must in life, to follow the path we have the most faith in. It’s one of those pivotal moments that changes the meaning of everything that’s happened in the film before, making it all a very clear alegory on faith. The 2006 version, “Poseidon”, has none of these moments. Nor does it have any of these characters, any of the heart, or any of the emotion that the original does. “Poseidon” is essentially a video game, filled with action and faceless, non-player characters. After watching it, I felt like I had just played “Half-Life” for 2 hours. There are very few scenes were the characters have anything to discuss, there’s very little doubt thrown into the journey or the next decision, there’s only one character that loses anything important to them, yet that loss is not important to us because of the way the death is handled (unlike how a similar death is handled in the original, which is absolutely heart-wrenching), and the ending is entirely too abrupt and convenient. All this aside, the action sequences are fun, the set is pretty amazing, the stunts are impressive, and the special effects are very well-done. But if you don’t care about the characters, what difference does any of that make?
2.5 / 5 bananas

Winter Passing:
A writer’s life can be tough. To be a truly great writer you need to be in touch with your emotions. Generally, emotions are not an easy thing to handle because inevitably they will take a downturn sometime during the course of your life. In the case of Don Holden (a J.D. Salinger proxy), these emotions have made him a well-known and respected writer, but have made him a less-than-perfect father and husband. Thanks to his emotional rollercoaster, it has driven away from him the two women he should have loved – his daughter and his wife. After his wife’s death, the daughter comes home to find her father a shattered version of his already broken form. He lives in the detatched garage, allowing his house to be overtaken by a former student and a lost rock musician, both of whom care for the man as though he were their own father. So when his distant, bitter daughter returns home, there is a period of adjustment for all involved as she tries to find her place in this very different house than she once knew. “Winter Passing” is not a film for everyone. It deals with emotions strong enough to drive people to madness, yet at the same time offers a sweet outlook on what it means to be a family. There is a feeling of hopeful redemption, that maybe things can be better if enough time, love, and effort are put into finding that redemption. Though it doesn’t promise that things will be perfect after all the cobwebs have been cleared from the past. Sometimes redemption doesn’t always mean a clean slate, but it can at least offer a clean spot for life to begin anew. The acting in this is top notch with the likes of Zooey Daschanel, Ed Harris (who is scarily convincing), little-known Amelia Warner, and Will Ferrell doing his best not to be distracting (though, sadly, only sometimes succeeding). The story sometimes veers into schmaltz, but it never goes over-the-top with it’s sap. While not a great film, it’s definitely a good one that deals with more mature themes and emotions than your typical Hollywood fare.
3.5 / 5 bananas

Capote:
In preparation for seeing this film, I actually read “In Cold Blood”, the book that was the product of Truman Capote’s time in Kansas. It’s always fascinating to me how seeing a groundbreaking work that has been copied countless times since can lose a little bit of it’s luster (like seeing “Psycho” after growing up on “Friday the 13th” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street”), so it was a nice change to see that Capote’s best-loved work still shines today. However, because I’ve read the book that Capote wrote after this experience, it was a bit disorienting to see how his relationship with the two killers played out. I had heard that he became a sort of friend to Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock, but this film sheds a different light on that friendship. Instead of a true friend, Capote did what he had to do to get his story, even going so far as to get them a new lawyer to get a retrial until he could get the full story from Smith on just what happened that night. It wasn’t about saving the men, but was about saving his book. The whole ordeal became more of a game for him than any kind of real fight to help these men. It was actually a little sickening to watch. However, the only flaw I can find with the film is that we are never really given any real sense of Capote actually getting close to the two men. We see glimpses of his time spent with Smith, but nothing to really make me feel like Capote was becoming involved in Smith’s life in any more than a passing way. This is where my knowledge of the final product, “In Cold Blood”, had to fill in the blanks left by the film. I understand that it’s difficult to cram a 4-year ordeal into a 2-hour film, but to me this is key to understanding the film and the moral quandaries raised. By only getting a brief idea of how Capote treated his subjects, I’m not sure we feel the sense of betrayal that Smith and Hickcock did when Capote grows tired of helping them. We hear the stories from Harper Lee, Capote’s best childhood friend, his lover, his editor, and others who feel that Capote is getting too close to the killers, but we never really see it. In the end it’s a somewhat big scar on an otherwise incredible film. So if you decided to see Capote, I highly recommend reading either the book the film is based upon (“Capote” by Gerald Clarke) or the book Capote wrote from his interviews with anyone and everyone involved in the murder, investigation or aftermath of the killings in Holcomb, Kansas, “In Cold Blood”. By doing a little homework beforehand, your appreciation of the film might be better than most. Which is why I’m still able to give it a fairly good review in the end.
4 / 5 bananas

I’d heard this was an excellent film. I saw the photos from the film and thought it was going to be a modern day cowboy movie. Boy was I wrong…in a way. The Three Burials tells the story of a young illegal migrant worker, Melquiades, who befriends the foreman of a ranch (Tommy Lee Jones). The two share their hopes, their dreams, and generally find a kindred spirit in one another that you can tell they haven’t experienced before. When Melquiades is accidentally killed by an overly-zealous border patrol guard, it’s up to Jones to see his friend’s last wish be granted – that he be buried in his hometown in Mexico. And so begins a Quioxitic journey that deals with the romantic ideas that many old cowboy movies focus on – brotherly love, honoring a man’s last wish, and blazing your own path when everyone else is going in the opposite direction. It has a vague sense of ethics, which I love. There are no purely good guys, nor are the supposed bad guys all that evil. It’s really about the gray area that we all have inside of us. I have a feeling that this is one of those films that will grow on me the more I see it. Definitely recommended for all you Western fans out there.
4 / 5 bananas