Summer Wrap-Up

I need to do these things more often so that it can be more manageable. But oh well.

A lot has been going on since my last update. The day-to-day non-PA life has been easier, but it's still not where I feel I'm meant to be. But it's a nice foothold.

We've had some GREAT shoots on my personal projects, but it all still seems so far away. Got to keep pushing.

Our roommate Jason moved out to head off to Korea, and while we're sorry to see him go, I'm glad we were able to grab a new roommate that we actually know and trust. So everything's going fine there.

Honestly, this last month has been one of the hardest in recent times. In addition to some horrendous long hours at work my grandfather passed away, which made me reconsider what it is I'm doing with my life a little bit. My grandfather was a pretty awesome guy, and he truly left a legacy. I am certainly going to miss him. Unlike my grandmother, who we saw decline over a steady period of time, my grandfather went pretty quickly, and while it wasn't exactly a shock (he was 96) it wasn't something I was prepared for either. When you look at his life, you might think that after getting his master's and PhD he was "just" a high school biology teacher, but he influenced so many students (who would later become renowned biologists in their own right) that he really had a fulfilling life and affected a lot of people. We had SO many people show up for the memorial service...not just relatives (my father's family is not all that large), but many friends and colleagues in addition to just about everyone who lived at the retirement home, that it was clear this was a man who was loved by many. And these weren't just SB locals with nothing to do on a Sunday--people drove for hours, and some even flew in to pay their respects.

Perhaps more importantly, it's clear my grandfather was a man who followed his passions AND raised a healthy family of my father and two brothers. Right now my current job is a way to keep my head afloat, but there is so much else that I love that I'm not getting. It's a stepping stone, and it's an OK one, but in my heart I know I'm not in the right place. I look at the higher-ups I work with, and few of them are people I aspire to be like in any way when I'm there age. It's going to be time to move on to something else soon. I'm not even wild about the city of LA...the only reason I like living here is because I can be close to so many other creative friends of mine.

Yet at the same time there are SO many people out there...talented, smart, capable people...without any sort of work at all. I should be thankful (and I am). My grandfather struggled with jobs when he graduated school too because that was during the Great Depression. I'm surviving right now, but I'm not really living, and I don't want the life of someone who never created anything worthwhile; the life of someone who won't be remembered.

I went on that tirade longer than I intended, and it's similar to what I've complained about in previous blog posts, so I apologize. There have been good things going on in the last month, too. I've began some sort of relationship with a girl (be it just a close friendship or more I'm not sure yet), and it feels great just to have someone I can care about so much again. It's been over a year since I felt this strongly about someone, and it's nice and exciting. For a while I was feeling like I might be the kind of guy who will never find someone I could be content with because I'm too restless and scatterbrained, with so many million things happening at once that I may never settle down. However I've realized that whoever that person ultimately is, they CAN ground you, keep you centered, while the craziness whirls around you. There's something to be said for that person you can trust to always be there, open and willing to share with you and be your anchor. And it's nice when that person isn't your mom anymore!

So yes, lots on my mind. Hopefully my first out-of-school film will be wrapping up soon, and then its time for a new and exciting project!

On to the movies!!!

First, older ones I didn't see in theaters:

"The Fly" I'm trying to bone up on my classic horror. I've seen the Cronenberg version and I love it, but it's nice to see where it all came from. While a little dull in the middle, this movie is surprisingly creepy, and the (somewhat famous) ending still holds up pretty well.

"The Horror of Dracula" One of the more solid classic Dracula movies out there, although it again suffers from a sagging middle section (I guess they didn't feel the need to keep things briskly-paced back in the 1950s). Worth seeing as one of the few early vampire movies that's also in color, and also because Christopher Lee (as Dracula) and Peter Cushing aka Tarkin from Star Wars (as Van Helsing) fight each other, which is pretty cool.

"The Plague Dogs" I've always been disappointed in American animation because, for the most part, it has been pushed into the realm of "just for kids." Yes, studios like Pixar tell some pretty great stories that will give the grown-ups some food-for-thought too, but I've always felt the potential for animation is to allow no limits to the imagination, NOT just to find an easy way for the babysitter to do their job.
Luckily The Plague Dogs was not made in America. It was made in Britain by the same studio that animated Watership Down. Both films are based on novels by Richard Adams, and both films are NOT for kids...not by a long shot!!!
I liked The Plague Dogs (film, anyway) a lot more than Watership Down, probably because I am so attached to the rabbit book and haven't read the dog one, but this is not a movie for the faint of heart. The opening image is of a dog being drowned in a pool (yup!), who is then fished out by a net and revived. Turns out this is an animal testing lab, and the scientists have continuously been drowning this pup and reviving him to see how he reacts psychologically. Yeesh!
Anyway, two of the dogs escape the lab, but not before knocking over a cage full of rats infected with the bubonic plague. Though the dogs don't catch the plague (as far as I could tell), the scientists who run the lab think they may have, so the rest of the movie involves the dogs slowly dying of starvation in the Scottish highlands while the scientists hunt them down.
Oh yes, and one more scene that deserves mention...at one point one of the two dogs, who used to have an owner and still trusts people to a degree, is greeted by a recreational hunter in the forest. The dog nervously approaches, and for a brief moment we think he might make contact with this human and find happiness.
Nope! The dog accidentally steps on the hunter's gun, blasting him in the face! BLAM!!! No happy ending there!
A depressing movie, and a haunting forgotten one that you won't soon forget.

"The Lives of Others" Many considered it an upset when this movie beat out Pan's Labyrinth at the Oscars a few years ago, but after seeing both films, I have to agree that this movie deserved it. Pan's Labyrinth won for cinematography, art direction, and makeup, and deservedly so! But this is a better film.
What I like about a lot of foreign movies is they often have a coda after most American films would end...almost a "fourth act" to the traditional three-act structure. This movie is no exception, and when done correctly, these final sequences give a nice chance for the audience to breathe and live with the characters for a while after the dust has settled. It often doesn't work to have your movie continue on for much longer after the climax, but luckily a lot of international films somehow manage to pull it off quite nicely.
I don't want to really ruin this gem much more. I liked it a lot and you should go see it.

And now for the summer! Overall I was again disappointed, as a lot of Blockbusters didn't live up to their potential ("Iron Man 2" being the greatest offender) but there were a few surprises...

"Inception" It seems like such a long time ago that I saw this movie that I'm not sure what to say about it now. Suffice to say, I loved it. I think I'd rank it as Nolan's third best film (after The Dark Knight and Memento). For me The Dark Knight is Nolan's best thrill, Memento is his best character study, and Inception is his best "kick-in-the-chest" in that the ending took my breath away and I didn't have words to express myself as the end credits ran (and anyone who knows me is aware that is difficult to pull off!).
I love movies with ambiguous endings WHEN those endings add something to the story, and Inception does a great job of forcing you to twist your mind around what it is you've witnessed exactly, simply through the beauty of a final edit.
(SPOILERS) As I see it there are about three fairly solid interpretations of the film. One is that none of it is a dream, and it all actually happens as you think it does in reality. The other interpretation is that all (or most) of it is a dream, in that Cobb created the entire heist itself as a dream in order to formulate a way to get over the death of his wife and to be with his kids. Or (my favorite), everything leading up to the heist is real, until Cobb enters limbo, and he never comes back.
Or what if his wife was right (unlikely, but possible)? What if killing herself WOULD awaken herself from a dream, because that sequence still wasn't reality? Who's to say?
Honestly, it doesn't matter! Like Blade Runner, Inception is a movie where its virtue lies in its ambiguity. Were Nolan to ever definitively answer these questions, the strengths of the movie would be lost. Dreams CAN be someone's reality. That's the point!
Also, the hallway sequence was INSANELY cool. I wish studios would give talented directors oodles of money to make these kinds of movies more often!

"The Last Airbender" And on the flip-side of Inception we have THIS trash.
Shyamalan's been falling off the wagon for a while (I stopped watching his films after The Village), but this is undoubtedly one of the most overblown clusterfucks of a film I have ever seen.
What is disappointing is that it comes from pretty neat source material. I've only watched bits and pieces from the TV show, but from what I gather it's a very fun adventurous world, and I am convinced that had The Last Airbender been put in the right hands this could have been the next great franchise in the vein of Harry Potter and Star Wars.
The film LOOKS right anyway--production design, effects, and costumes all feel fairly accurate to what they should be. But the casting (race changes or not), acting, and convoluted plot is one of the worst in recent memory.
Between this and the Shyamalan-produced "Devil" that tanked, I hope we've seen the last of him for a while. He's clearly a man with some sort of talent, and his passion for movies is clearly evident, but BOY does he need some checks and balances!

"Knight and Day" This wasn't a great film by any means, but I saw it on The Fourth of July on what I consider to be one of the best days I've had this year, so it hits a wonderful spot in my heart.
This year for The Fourth I woke up early and saw an exhibit about mummies at the California Science Center with a bunch of close friends. Then we saw their awesome aquarium, rode an earthquake simulator, wandered around USC, rode the new ugly horse statue, saw this movie, played some Rock Band, got drunk, walked to see fireworks, and played some more Rock Band. AND it was the first day I got a call from the female I mentioned in the opening section, so it doesn't get much better than that (was it really JULY that that happened?...I need to step up my game!).
Anyway the movie is sort of dumb, but it's barely held afloat by Tom Cruise oozing pure charisma out of every pore. It also is one of the only movies that has giant holes in the screenplay blanketed over with such hilarious self-awareness.
Consider...
Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are captured by the bad guys. Diaz has been drugged. As she comes to, Tom Cruise is hanging upside down and tied up. Swinging back and forth he says, "Don't worry June, I got this." Diaz fades from the drugs.
CUT TO:
Tom Cruise, untied, fighting bad guys. Looks at Diaz (or her POV, since he looks at us). "Don't worry June, we're gonna be fine!" Fade out.
CUT TO:
Tom Cruise flying a freaking HELICOPTER as things explode outside the cockpit. "Don't worry, I got this!"
FADE TO:
Tom Cruise driving a speedboat on the open ocean, the wind throwing back his hair. "Almost there, June!"
...Well, that's ONE way to get your characters out of a nasty situation if you've written yourself into a corner.
Also, director James Mangold has one of the weirdest director's resumes I've ever seen. Kate & Leopold, Identity, Walk the Line, and 3:10 to Yuma? What a mish-mash!

"Predators" The best Predator movie since the first one (I HATE Predator 2)! Adrien Brody makes for an odd leading man, but it's fun to see a sci-fi monster flick that in many ways feels like it was made back in the '80s. Practical fight scenes, practical effects, and just some good old-fashioned sci-fi fun. And it's neat to finally get a little more info on how the predators interact with each other. The cast is decent, with my favorite performances coming from Alice Braga and (especially) Laurence Fishburne, who really lightens up the movie in what could have been a dry middle section (his entrance is the best part of the film).
However I think the part with the Yakuza samurai fight was stupid.

"Despicable Me" I was not excited about this movie at all from the previews, but when I finally got around to watching it I was surprised by how good it was, AND insanely cute. Similar in many ways to "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" which I also wasn't expecting to be all that great, but turned out be quite hilarious and fun.
While the screenplay is not only cute cute cute ("Adorable Me" would be a much more fitting title), much must also be said about the great distorted character and world design, and an awesome 60s-spy style score that kept this delightful movie bouncing briskly all the way through. I'm really glad this movie was a hit, since Universal needs one. Their track record hasn't been great.
Also, see it in 3-D if you can (we didn't, and there were a couple scenes where it was clear we missed out).

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" I was leery of this movie because, despite my nerdy tendencies, I'm not really a gamer (especially not of classic games), which seemed to be market they were trying to hit with this thing. Plus I also don't like movies with a lot of meta-jokes and flashy images if there's no substance behind them. And I hate hipsters.
However at the end of the day this movie was actually a lot of fun. Technically it's brilliant. The effects are inventive, and the sound designers were clearly having the time of their lives. A lot of the evil exes are enjoyable too, my favorite being Chris Evans (aka "Johnny Storm" and soon-to-be "Captain America") as the movie star ex-bf, who walks away with the best line of the movie: "That's my stunt-double. Sometimes I let him do wide shots when I feel like getting blazed back in my Winnie." Brandon Routh as The Vegan and Kieran Culkin are also a blast to watch. And newcomer Ellen Wong as Knives Chau is an extremely fun and adorable standout. If anything the two leads are a little bland, though they are both played by favorite actors of mine--Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth-Winstead (a very nice girl I've had the pleasure of working with, by the way).
However while I was certainly enjoying myself, there is a point at the end of the movie where a question is raised: Will Scott choose to be with Knives Chau or Ramona Flowers? And I realized that, despite how entertained I was, I didn't care. I hadn't fallen in love with the characters, nor did I feel that Scott deserved or needed to be with one of the two girls. And at the end of the day, that's what your movie needs to be about, so in my book it failed. It was an incredibly entertaining failure, but an emotional failure nonetheless.
Personally I would have gone with Knives, but then I've always had a thing for cute Asian girls.

"Piranha 3D" Weirdly enough, I cared for the characters in Piranha 3D more than I cared for the characters in Scott Pilgrim. My roommate David put it the best--Piranha 3D is the best possible movie that could come from the title "Piranha 3D."
In other words, I loved it. It's gory, trashy, and awful, but some of the best tongue-and-cheek filmmaking I've seen in a long time, and it features one of the greatest money shots I've seen in a wide release film in ages. I don't want to spoil it, but it involves the death and severed body part of Jerry O'Connell in full coked-out bat-shit crazy mode. The movie also showcases the smoking-hot Kelly Brook in a terrifically tasteless nude 10-minute underwater ballet scene, and I refuse to give a bad review to a film that gives us THAT.

"Going the Distance" Sometimes I don't understand film reviewers. I saw Going the Distance, and while it wasn't earth-shattering, it was a nice well-acted film that treated long-distance relationships with a sense of realism. True-life pair Drew Barrymore and Justin Long really let their feelings loose and FEEL like they're a couple, something that sometimes goes awry in these movies, but when done right can feel authentic because it IS authentic. I liked it.
Yet Hollywood reviewers generally gave the flick bad scores. What the hell? In an era where the top-grossing romantic comedies are garbage like "The Ugly Truth," "Couples Retreat," and other movies that have about as much realism as the Transformers flicks, it's nice when a film reminds you "Oh yeah, this is kind of what a real relationship is like!" And as a bonus, Going the Distance features the hilarious Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, an actor I've grown to love over the course of this year (and lately people have been telling me I remind them of him a bit...something I suppose I'm OK with).
And at the same time, opening that particular weekend was also "Heartbreaker," a romantic comedy from France. I saw part of Heartbreaker and hated it, finding it every bit as silly and stupid as most of the generic drivel that tends to star Katherine Heigl and/or Jennifer Aniston here in The States. Yet critics when gaga for it, only because it's French! I think half the time reviewers assume that because a movie is from a foreign country it should get a free(er) pass. I agree that often you have to look outside the US to see anything with a hint of originality from time to time, but just because you have to read subtitles doesn't make a bland rom-com any more sophisticated. Get a grip, critics!

"Machete" There was a lot about Rodriguez's latest that I loved, and it starts out great. Unfortunately the film worked better as the trailer it was based on, and the energy tended to fizzle at about the halfway point. Still there are many fun moments, and Rodriguez's grind-house aesthetic is something I can always appreciate (you can clearly tell the guy loves the HELL out of making movies). Jeff Fahey (who recently stepped back into the limelight a bit as Lapidus on "Lost") is terrific fun as the bad guy, and I'm glad to see him getting some work. Michelle Rodriguez and Danny Trejo are also great, and though Cheech Marin is underused, he's a blast too. The rest of the cast is OK...
The biggest problem, I felt, was that the movie had too much going on in it. For a grindhouse flick it was a terribly complicated plot, and in the final showdown I never really felt like I knew who was supposed to be the ultimate bad guy, or even what everyone's motivations necessarily were. It was all just too messy, and not in a good shlocky sort of way. It seemed they crammed in every idea and B-movie star they had hoping some would stick (and indeed, some do), and didn't bother to cull the herd and figure out what worked and what didn't. A sharper quicker script would have been a lot better.
I still had a good time though, and I appreciate a movie that's willing to approach the issues of the tortilla curtain with such zeal in these days of Arizona bigotry.
My favorite line: "Machete sent me a text."

"The Town" This is a very by-the-book heist film, but it does that book very, very well. I was satisfied in just about every way by this movie. After the second action scene I remember thinking, "You know what? I could use ONE more awesome action scene in this flick before we're done." Sure enough, that's what I got. It's also fun to see a movie set in Boston now that I've actually BEEN to Boston, and for my money this movie does a far better job of representing the place than, say, Clint Eastwood's overrated Mystic River did.
The acting is quite good all around, and features some fun performances not only from its stars (Jeremy Renner and John Hamm are especially cool), but also from some of my all-time favorite character actors as well. It's nice when Chris Cooper shows up (even if he's underused), and I LOVE any movie that features Pete Postlethwaite--someday I'd like to see a movie that assembles the coolest character actors of all time (sort of like The Expendables for actor geeks), and Pete Postlehwaite would be at the top of my list.
I also think Ben Affleck may be a better director than actor. A lot of well-known actors will eventually make the move to direct a feature at some point, and usually these are nice little films that showcase some good dramatic work and are shot with competence, if not a lot of flair. But man...Affleck knows how to shoot an action scene! I was knocked out of my chair by the car chase in the middle of the film...one of the best in recent memory! Affleck's ability not only to develop a dramatic scene, but also hold and build tension is better than a lot of the A-list "directors" out there today helming multi-million hits (or misses...Shyamalan!).
Even so, heist films can be tricky because, at the end of the day, these are usually still bad people stealing from banks, and the filmmakers have to try really really hard to make you sympathize with them. "Dog Day Afternoon" did this by making Pacino a character who practically robbed the bank by accident and was in way over his head. "Inside Man" was particularly clever because (SPOILER!) the bank job turned out to not be a real robbery after all, and the guns the burglars used were fakes! In this movie yes, we sympathize with Affleck's character, but I still think he gets off too easy at the end. Really...after doing all this awful stuff you still get to hang out in a beautiful New Orleans home on the bayou? Please.

"Catfish" It's best to say as little as possible about this gem so as not to spoil it. I will say the trailers are a bit misleading, but it's a fascinating piece of work nonetheless.
Documentaries are an interesting breed of film that I appreciate, but they can be tricky--for the most part even the best documentaries fail to engage on a storytelling level like a fictional film can (one exception to this rule is my favorite doc of all time, The King of Kong). Instead they are meant to inform or challenge the viewer on a certain issue. It can often be interesting, heady stuff, but docs usually don't draw the emotional connection that a fictional film will (if done right) by taking you on a journey with a character.
Luckily Catfish avoids this trapping because it IS about the people making the doc, and the pursuit of a mystery. And it's fascinating to see the mystery unfold--you really feel for these characters as things start to unravel around them. Ultimately it's a very sad film, and I may have gotten misty-eyed in the final scenes.
If you like docs, AND you like to be emotionally engaged in a story, then you'll love Catfish for being that rare film that does both quite well.

"Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" Call me crazy, but I loved this movie. Yes, it's a bit silly to see a film about warrior owls, and the screenplay is a tad pedestrian, but it was still SO FREAKING COOL to watch.
I saw it in 3-D IMAX, and it is one of the most beautiful animated films I have seen in a long time. Soaring with owls above the trees and through clouds, rain, and fire was elating and breathtaking. It really felt like a roller-coaster ride in the true sense of the word. And what stunning detail! I feel for the technical animators and engineers who worked so hard to put these incredible images on screen.
When people ask me about this film, I think the perfect comparison to it is "Avatar." Both films were gorgeous (and featured a lot of cool flying shots, come to think of it). But both movies also featured a screenplay that was a little...obvious. At the end of the day I preferred "Ga'Hoole" far more; at least the concept of warrior owls hasn't been done to death the same way all the ideas in Avatar have (even if some of those ideas have only been in science fiction books, and not onscreen). And more importantly, LOTG doesn't try to shove white-man's guilt down your throat and hit you with heavy-handed symbolism and morality. It's an adventurous children's film about owls, and it has no pretensions about being anything other than that. How refreshing!
Unfortunately, Ga'Hoole was sort of a bust at the box office, which is too bad. In this age of pop-culture jokey schlock (usually coming from Dreamworks), it's nice to see a "serious" children's film for a change. It reminded me a lot of the Redwall books that I adored so much as a child, and I wish they'd make more movies like this.
I'm calling it now...Animal Logic (the studio responsible) should make an AWESOME Watership Down adaptation. And if that DOES happen, I need to find a way to work on it.
So yeah...the bottom line is I like owls and think they look cool beating the shit out of each other in armor as only Zach Snyder can do (even if his slo-mo gets a little tiresome).

"The Social Network" I wanted to like this movie a lot more than I ultimately did. Many of my friends are raving about it, and it's a good film, but it isn't the masterpiece people seem to think it is.
David Fincher, at least, is in top form. His innovation and direction is impeccable, and I think he is without question one of the best directors out there today. Most of the acting is also quite good.
The major problem for me is Aaron Sorkin's script. The rapid-fire dialogue is clever, witty, and sharp...which is why it's completely unrealistic. I like to think I'm a smart guy, and that I engage in intelligent conversations with other smart guys (and smart girls when I can find them in this city). But not once do I ever have a conversation that is as polished and acute as the ones displayed here.
Ah, "But it's a movie, Dan!" you say? Fair enough. Dialogue in movies is heightened from realism to a degree, I get it. But there's a difference between heightened realism and showing off. I may have been OK with this film if only Zuckerberg talked this way, but ALL the characters seem to talk in terms of acid-tongued quips. I just don't buy it, even if they are supposed to be a bunch of slick power-hungry Harvard kids. And if you've got so much stylish dialogue scintillating through your movie, you don't leave time for the movie itself! Screenwriter friends may disagree, but I'm a guy who watches movies for the sake of CINEMA, that is, cool shots, innovative edits, mis-en-scene...all that bullshit! You need a great script, don't get me wrong...but a great script includes great dialogue while leaving room for all that other stuff. I kept feeling like Fincher was trying to direct (and doing a great job) UNDER all the oppressive Sorkinism, and not WITH it.
Also, the movie doesn't have much of an ending to it. The final scene is nice, and really gets at the heart of what Facebook is all about, but there unfortunately is no conclusion beforehand to wrap everything up. Halfway through the final scene I found myself thinking, "Well, I guess we're done." But emotionally I wasn't ready for it because it never happened.
Anyway, good film...I still liked it. But I want Fincher to knock me off my socks as he's done in the past, and just this didn't do it for me. I put it below Fight Club, Zodiac, and Se7en (love typing that last one), but above Ben Button and Alien3 (barely forgivable). Haven't seen Panic Room...not sure I need to.

Anyway, interesting summer. Piranha 3-D turned out to be one of my favorites, and I still can't decide if that's really pathetic or really awesome.