Movie: Shutter Island

The last movie that Leonardo deCaprio did with Martin Scorsese directing it was 'the Aviator' which my Wife and I saw on our first date, so I'm not entirely unbiased about this, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it a great deal. The quality is good and it doesn't try too many gimicks, especially unfair gimicks to get its point across.

The basic premise of the movie is that two Federal marshals are called in to an asylum for the Criminally insane (note that it is not called Arkham) called Shutter Island 11 miles off the coast of California. The girl is gone when they get there, and the staff and patients are all behaving rather erratically, as if they are clearly hiding something. One doctor wants to use benevolent treatments while the other believes in old school treatments like Lobotomy, and there are hints early on of associations with the horrific German experiments at Auschwitz. The main character helped liberate the death camps in WWII and as such is highly suspicious of the older doctor.

In short, I liked it. The acting and the directing were perfect. The music score was occasionally a bit too overbearing and loud but I didn't notice it until after the fact when it was pointed out to me.

Movie: Batman - Gotham Knight

So the idea that a bunch of DC comics writers and Japanese anime artists collaborating to make Batman sounds neat...on paper. In practice what it means is that you end up with something similar to 2 out of 6 segments having awesome animation; 3 out of 6 segments having awesome writing and only 1 out of 6 segments having both. I think one of the things that hampered this was the idea that they were tying it in to the Dark Knight universe from Batman Begins (ie the highly popular movies) setting the story between them. They were obviously trying to go for something similar in scope to the Animatrix, but the thing is with the animatrix, the artists (I think) wrote their own scripts as well. I mean, had the anime people been able to take their own twist on Batman (as the whole video was originally marketed) I imagine that they would have been able to tell stories much more suited towards their animation style. I mean you could have had an homage to the 60's era Batman or the 90's cartoon or the Graphic Novel Dark Knight or even something wholly original. Instead they told a series of interlocking stories that could have been interesting but for the most part weren't.

The lesson from this is that one or two neat ideas might work in synergy...but three or four and you'd better wait to try it first with something simple before you take a huge leap into the abyss.

Play: Mama Mia!

Mamma Mia is an excellent play. It is essentially a story written around a stuttered medley of Abba disco songs. You can tell they created the plot primarily based on the lyrics of the songs but they mesh together in an almost seamless format. There was one minorly uncomfortable moment where the main female young lead sings what was clearly written as a love song but with ambiguous lyrics to her father “What’s the name of the game” in a much more different context, but in the end it managed to work well. The play itself is just plain fun and contains a high amount of energy. The costumes are well done. The set is fairly minimalist but since this is a quasi surrealistic musical it doesn’t really need stunning vistas. More over, they are able to cram an extremely large number of characters into only almost two hours and still make them dynamic, believable and quasi realistic. I highly recommend seeing it if you get a chance.

Movie Review - Terribly Happy

Terribly Happy is an interesting move entirely in Danish. The showing that we saw had a bizarre bit of Danish Film Festival propaganda about how cool Denmark was and how they were essentially the center of all things cultural, without actually seeming arrogant about it. It wasn’t really that bad but it was an interesting chaser right before the movie.

The basic premise of the film is that an out of favor cop from Copenhagen is sent to the middle of nowhere (and they spend like, the first three minutes of the film showing just how in the middle of nowhere it is) to be given a second chance and ‘do his time.’ The film states that it is based on ‘actual events’ however a careful search on my part could find absolutely no indication anywhere what those events were. I’ll explain below.

On the whole I enjoyed the movie. I found the actors and the plot moved at a reasonable clip and it had enough twists and turns that it easily drew you into it. The self described genre of the film is ‘Thriller’ and I found that appropriate. It has also been compared to Twin Peaks meets Northern Exposure. I think it has a little bit more Northern Exposure than Twin Peaks, because while there are no supernatural elements they do do a very good job of portraying just what life would be like in a very small Danish town in the middle of Southern Jutland (which is apparently the middle of nowhere.)

(Spoilers follow)

So, I spent like 30 minutes looking everywhere I could find on what the hell these ‘actual events’ were. The movie was based on a Danish novel called Frygtelig lykkelig by Erling Jepsen. After googling all of these people there was nothing mentioned about the actual events. Was it just a few events, like the fact that people died and they made wild speculation about it, or was it pretty damn close to the bizarre plot of the movie? The reason I wanted to look this is up is because, quite frankly, there is absolutely no explanation about how anything is discovered.

I know I said spoilers, but I don’t want to give too much away. But people DIE in this thing and the bodies are discovered, and the killer and many people involved end up going on their merry way (and yes, that’s not by itself the biggest spoiler of the damn movie….). So how did anyone see anything? As near as we can tell, the little girl who witnessed everything might have put the pieces together when she grew up and written a tell all or gone to court?

Who knows.

TV Show: The Wire - Season 1 and Season 2

This program was originally made for HBO. It has a lot of swearing, a lot of graphic violence and a lot of nudity. With the exception of the swearing, however, it is not as gratuitous as some of the other original programming they have in the 'look, we're on cable and we can do this stuff' that I've seen with some of their other programs. (I'm looking at YOU Sex and the City). More hints and shadows. What makes The Wire so good is the writing. The writing is excellent which happens to be coupled with excellent actors and very competent directing.

The series for its first two seasons does an excellent job of basically showing the realistic obstacles, life styles and challenges of a police department in the city of Baltimore Maryland in dealing with criminals who are far more strategic in their thinking and in their level of sophistication. It is particularly adept at showing how society is harmed by the petty bureaucracies that often exist in our society and within the law enforcement community itself. Anyone who despises or wants to reform government would be well off studying The Wire to learn that the government can do a lot of good but that it is all about how the system itself is designed. People are human and are going to behave like human beings, which is to say good, wonderful, flawed, horrible and greedy.

Even the most heroic characters have their flaws, and even the most vile villains have their good side. This is largely the truth and the screen rarely wastes our time on cartoon characters or two dimensional characters. This is the way Law and Order was meant to be done and perhaps would have been done if it didn't have to be made for the lowest common denominator on Network Television. This is particularly ironic really since the very people the networks hope to capture the attention of are portrayed far more realistically in the Wire. People say "The suits" mess things up, but the truth is, that they really do.

And when you compare "The Wire" to "Law and Order" you really begin to see why.

Movie Review - Fortress (1985)

This delightful little tale is a class example of a story that inspires children. As a parent, this movie is for you if you want to:

*Have scenes with the teacher disrobing in front of her student to swim in a cave.

*Have repeated double entendres from the teacher and others involving the use of spears.

*Teach that children and teachers should lie to law enforcement.

*It is an acceptable form of revenge to cut the beating heart out of your kidnapper and display it in a pickle jar at the back of your classroom.

However, aside from the terrible acting, terrible script, terrible characters and supremely predictable plot, there are some very nice shots of Australia.

Oh. Right. I should say something about what the movie is about. A teacher and 9 students are kidnapped by four insane guys who bring them to a cave and leave them down there alone while they slide a rock into the cave. They light a magic fire that runs on magic fuel while Teacher and Author Avatar Young Boy go to find a way out. Teacher disrobes in front of student who does not seem to mind him not looking away (not reacting at all really) and then swims out. They traipse through the wilderness and get to civilization where the bad guys are waiting. The bad guys then foolishly lock them alone again in a barn, only now they send in one guard who is trapped and accidentally shot. The kids then go to the wilderness and create a fortress with sharp sticks. In a brief struggle, the bad guys end up dead. At the end, the students and teacher are singing songs (there are a LOT of songs in this movie) and the police ask about irregularities in the body. The teacher says, "are you arresting us?" The police inspector says, "No." "Then shut up and mind your own business!"

The movie ends showing a human heart in a pickle jar.

It does, however, have a nice lord of the flies scene in which small children, big children and teacher are spearing a bad guy to death and enjoying it.

Fun for the whole family really.

Movie: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

This movie is based on a 40 page book by Roald Dahl.. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The basic plot is about a fox that lives with his family and promises to 'go straight' when they have kids. He does that for a while but decides to take on last job where he robs three farmers. This causes problems for all of the animals and the farmers psychotically try to kill them all. Mr. Fox must get them out of trouble.

The thing about the animation and the script is the general feel of the movie. It is unique and a thorough pleasure to watch. The dialog is well written as is the pacing. Small children and adults should enjoy this. I highly recommend it.