Day 19 - Outbreak

So I was adding all of the Kevin Spacey movies on Netflix instant watch to my queue the other day, and today I wound up watching this one. He doesn't star in it, but Dustin Hoffman does. So I'm not complaining.

Outbreak is a thrilling film about (you guessed it) an outbreak of a new highly lethal and contagious virus. It's scary.

The plot is fairly simple so I won't go into that too much. The best acting in the film is probably Morgan Freeman's, as unfortunately Dustin Hoffman's and Kevin Spacey's characters were too static to do much with.

With that said (and that's mostly all there is to say, as Outbreak is fairly simple), I'd like to go off on a little tangent. It has to do with the fact that this movie has a 59% on Rotten Tomatoes and how little I care about that.

My view is that movies (the ones we see, at least) are inherently good, for one reason or another. The folks who spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours to create movies wouldn't do so if they didn't think they had something good on their hands. As such, the bad ones tend to get sifted out and aren't made. But this poses a problem to the consumer. If every movie is good, how do we know which to see? I doubt there is anyone who sees every movie that hits box offices, and many see very few at all. Thus, people need a mechanism by which to make decisions about which movie they should spend their twelve dollars on. Therein lies our demand for critics.

Film criticism is very easily accessible (handy sites have even developed ranking systems created from scores of critic reviews) and so, for simplicity's sake, people have come to rely on them. Yet, with so many critics out there, the consumers who'd like to read actual reviews have come to prefer critics who provide a greater spark to their reviews. After all, everything (even reviews of entertainment) is entertainment. This has given credence to more critical critics and, as such, this has become the norm. Because of this, every movie that isn't the Mona Lisa on film is regarded as sub-par. For the sake of not beginning to rant, I'll end my tangent right about here.

I can't help but feel that we're moving in the wrong direction here. I have no means of uprooting societal tendencies like these, but what I can do is present a view of the films Hollywood spits out as they are: inherently good.

Day 18 - Shrink

Watched another one with my main man Kevin tonight.

'Twas a good decision.

In Shrink, Kevin Spacey plays Henry Carter, a Hollywood therapist to the stars who turns to smoking pot after the tragic death of his wife. While the first half (or so) of this movie is mildly depressing, it ends with quite a bang and is actually pretty moving and heartfelt.

Shrink flows like one of those many cheesy romantic comedies that incessantly ooze from movie theaters. They present several parallel stories of different characters who, through fate, wind up interacting and solving all of each others' problems. Because of this, I was prepared for something similar. Yet, while Shrink does follow a similar plot construction, the mood of the film goes another way entirely. It is a much more grounded movie in that it doesn't merely glorify everyday relationships (not necessarily the romantic kind), but rather presents them as being as necessary as the air we breathe for a healthy life. Shrink teaches that nothing is ever as grim as it seems, and Kevin Spacey does a fantastic job of shedding light upon the dark spots of life.

Day 17 - The Negotiator

...and on the seventh day, he made Kevin Spacey.

As Kevin Spacey is my favorite actor and I love him, I will proceed to watch more of his movies. Moon counts.

This one is like a cool inverted version of Die Hard. But I love hostage movies like this because of the way they make you think; one false move and it's game over for mr. hostage taker.

What's neat about The Negotiator is it's pretty much the opposite of any traditional hostage movie. The usual format is as follows: Heroic-type protagonist established, sinister hostage-taker established, hostage takeover, clever and risky police victory.

The Negotiator, on the other hand, is a story of a police negotiator who is framed for a crime his comrades committed and starts a hostage takeover of a federal building to learn what has happened to him.

Pretty crazy. Samuel L. Jackson is great in this (as he is in everything), but I'm quite partial to my Kevin.

Day 16 - The Grapes of Wrath

It's late and I'm super tired, so I'll keep this one short.

Quite a compelling story here. I'll admit that I haven't read the book, but I feel that this very accurately captures the trials and tribulations of settlers moving west after the Dust Bowl. Yet, despite the many mitigations of the Joad family's success, they manage to make it through. As such, the story does a wonderful job of highlighting the importance of human perseverance.

That's all for now, night folks.

Day 15 - Oldboy

Encountered technical difficulties again last night, so I wasn't able to post this then. But I'll be back on track today. Promise.

First off, thank god for Korean cinema.

This one is awesome. Completely nuts, but awesome. Gets back to that whole Korean thing I guess...

Oldboy is the twisted tale of Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik), a devil-may-care womanizer with alcoholic tendencies who winds up in prison after ticking off one too many powerful people. The following 90 or so minutes of the film proceed to spiral out of the realm of sanity, and into one of bloody, gruesome revenge.

Oh, and the scene where he eats a live octopus ain't too shabby either.

Oldboy is a wonderful movie with an artfully presented, multi-layered plot. There are intense combat sequences -- one takes place in a narrow hallway and is spectacularly filmed from the side, presenting a horizontal view of carnage -- and elaborate plot twists alike.

The film is a true jack-of-all-trades, comedic at times and horrifying at others. While I unfortunately wasn't able to watch Oldboy in the original Korean with subtitles (Netflix only has a dubbed version), it was still an incredible experience.

Day 14 - Moon

So I watched this last night, but was unable to post due to my computer dying a horrible death. Don't worry though, I didn't break the streak.

This one is quite like The Island, but without the ending and more emphasis on life before the realization of cloning. It's slightly more sci-fi (ten bucks if you guess where it takes place) and Kevin Spacey voices a robot, which of course makes it exponentially better.

While Moon is quite plot-driven, it is far more artistic than is The Island. The use of an extremely small cast emphasizes Sam Bell's (Sam Rockwell) character and his relationship with his environment, his fate, and himself.

The film does a masterful job of illustrating that, even in the worst of circumstances, amidst deceit, or far from home, hope for the future is never unreasonable.

Day 13 - Hard Eight

I'm really glad I chose this one.

Hard Eight is Paul Thomas Anderson's first full-length film directing, only a year before Boogie Nights. PTA was a ripe, young 26 at the time. While very good in my opinion, especially for PTA's first feature-length film, it is not perfect. However, easily observable are some of his "watermarks" (if you will).

One such watermark is his use of long, uncut, "shaky-camera" shots following the character (see the explosion scene in There Will Be Blood, it will blow your mind).

Another is less specific: use of sharp dialogue over punchy, plot-quickening dialogue. PTA personalizes his characters to a degree that, even through idle conversation, they tell their own stories. A great example of this can be found in Hard Eight's first scene, in which Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) and John (John C. Reilly) talk about Vegas over cigarettes and coffee. I think that this sacrifice of rapid plot development for advanced characterization is admirable, especially in an age laden with Riddley-Scott-style editing and pacing.

Thankfully, not everyone chooses to butcher 600-year-old tales of men garbed in lincoln green despoiling the cruel and aiding the oppressed. Yes, I'm still mad.

This is the fourth (of five) of PTA's films I've seen -- Magnolia is last, and I'll be watching it soon -- but having seen his most recent films, There Will Be Blood and Punch-Drunk Love, I can say that Hard Eight is a crucial milestone in Anderson's career.

Day 12 - The Elephant Man

This really is an incredible story.

The Elephant Man is an extremely humanizing film (and a mostly true one to boot) about Joseph Merrick, a British man of the 19th century with possibly the most disfiguring deformity the world had ever seen.

An unsuspecting viewer would never suspect that the film was directed by David Lynch (director of Eraserhead and other strange flicks), as it lacks his trademark quirkiness.

The movie portrays society's cruelty towards Merrick through how he is treated by the people he encounters, such as freak show attendees, children, and members of the high society. As is to be expected, society is for the most part colored as cruel. Yet, the film does not focus on this, but rather the minority of genuinely kind people. In doing so, it conveys very strongly the idea that humanity may often be found in unexpected places, and it is for this reason that The Elephant Man is such a powerful movie.

I don't mean to get preachy, but this one has forced me to entirely reevaluate the way I consider people.

Day 11 - Eraserhead

Dear Lord.

And I thought Blue Velvet was weird.

Not quite sure what to say about this one...

All strangeness aside, this is a very well composed movie, which is interesting considering it was David Lynch's first feature-length film directing.

But yeah, pretty strange, but in an intriguing, transfixing way.

This film is more one of those movies that you can't really understand through an explanation, only through watching. So I can't really say much more.

In heaven, everything is fine.

Day 10 - The Killing

Hot damn this one's intense.

The Killing is one of Stanley Kubrick's earliest works (1956) and it is perhaps the most interesting heist movie I've ever seen.

Then again, I have yet to see Reservoir Dogs.

Don't worry, it's on the list.

But back to The Killing.

The nonlinearity of the plot adds greatly to the intensity and keeps the excitement of the movie up throughout. Yet, this is done modestly, unlike many modern movies that attempt to do so.

Essentially, this film examines a scenario in which every element of a heist goes flawlessly (too flawlessly...) until a miniscule threat ruins everything in a drastic chain reaction.

All in all, this is one of my favorites I've seen thus far on the streak.

Oh, and I should add that this is incredibly paranoia-inducing. Yeah.

Day 9 - Hotel Rwanda

It's late and I'm tired, so I'll keep this one short and sweet.

Hotel Rwanda is effectually a modern-day (assuming 15 years old is modern) Schindler's List. Two ethnic groups, one trying to exterminate the other for no good reason at all. Sounds familiar.

However, I am sensitive to the fact that this is a true story and it is very well performed. Don Cheadle's portrayal of a simple, good-hearted hotel manager is impeccable, and the movie is very artfully presented as a whole. And who doesn't love Nick Nolte?

While some might consider the subject dismal, Hotel Rwanda is a vivid portrayal of an oh-too-recent terror.

A Quick Recap

Just because I hadn't started this blog at the time, I figure it won't hurt to post the wee list of movies from days 1-5. Here 'tis:

Day 1 - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Day 2 - Mother

Day 3 - The Dancer Upstairs

Day 4 - Moby Dick

Day 5 - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Word.

Day 8 - On The Waterfront

Boy do I love me my classics.

This is a great one about the fight against the Borg, one man against the (dare I say it?) anonymity of the masses.

In this mob/people's hero hybrid, Brando plays a spectacular character, conflicted between the life he knows and the life he knows is right. Yet, even the meek can only take so much injustice.

On The Waterfront was made in 1954 and, despite my tendency to think of color as having been popularized in the late '30s and early '40s (The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939 in beautiful technicolor), it really didn't catch on until the 1960s. Even so, the black and white film of Waterfront really highlights the grittiness of the film, and it would be very relevant even if the film were released today. Some things are just meant to be gray.

Nonetheless, this is truly a wonderful story. It must have been great making movies back in the day, when all of the good ideas hadn’t already been done…

Day 7 - Dial M for Murder

Well, damn.

It only takes a good Hitchcock movie to make you feel like a complete moron.

I don't like giving away parts of the plot, so I'll just say that this one's a REAL corkscrew. Definitely a thinker as well.

I haven't really seen too many movies of... whatever genre this falls into (I wouldn't really call it a murder mystery) so I don't really have much to compare it to. Yet, it seems that my long-held stereotype that they're all a lot of suspense and buildup with one big twist at the end is pretty wrong.

This is definitely a far cry from The Birds and other movies of his that I've seen, and I look forward to seeing more of them. That he directed 67 movies is pretty intimidating though.

Day 6 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

In honor of watching Episode VI on Day 6, I'll begin writing more.

It makes sense.

I promise.

So, I hadn't seen this one in over a decade. I've seen IV and V (Day 1) much more recently. I had forgotten how this one—and thus the series itself—ends. The core of the movie brings to mind many of the inconsistencies between the original trilogy and the new one; however, what takes place in the last 10 seconds or so shatters this image. Standing next to the ghosts of Obi Wan and... Luke's master (I don't want to spoil anything for the weirdos who haven't seen these by giving away names) is the true father himself, the spitting image of him as he appears in Episode III of 2005. Lets just say any previous continuity errors are forgiven.

Oh, and Ewoks are the greatest things ever.