Gone Girl

Information. That’s the real object of David Fincher’s obsession. It’s the reason he keeps coming back to police procedurals. In a world flooded with information, it is the job of the detective to wade through the mess to find the truth: Mills and Somerset (Se7en), Toschi and Graysmith (Zodiac), Blomkvist and Salander (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), they all fulfill the job in some capacity. In Gone Girl, Fincher’s latest, this thankless task falls to Detective Rhonda Boney. 

As played by Kim Dickens, Boney comes across as intelligent and empathetic. Like Fincher’s previous protagonists, she is meticulous and committed to her job. In many ways, she embodies the role of the prototypical Fincher protagonist but with one minor modification: she’s not the film’s protagonist. Gone Girl is not the story of a determined detective seeking the truth (like Zodiac or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Instead, the film centers on the subjects of her investigation, Amy and Nick Dunne. 

At the start of the film, “Amazing” Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), the woman who inspired a popular children's book series, has gone missing. Rapidly, the high-profile case attracts the attention of the media who immediately hunt for a suspect, stumbling upon Amy’s husband, Nick (Ben Affleck.) At first, Nick seems innocent and distraught, but Fincher soon reveals that he had been having marital difficulties and an affair. The media quickly jumps on this and starts calling for his head. To counter this perception, Nick gives interviews in which he paints himself as a bad man who nonetheless loves his wife, a move that wins him some sympathy in his community. In retaliation, Amy, who turns out to have framed her husband, places anonymous calls to the police that point to Nick’s guilt. Gone Girl is structured around Nick and Amy’s manipulation of information to forward their agendas, and, in most instances, their manipulations work. Boney’s partner, for example, buys entirely into Amy’s staged narrative of her disappearance and would like to arrest Nick with little evidence to save himself the trouble of working on the case. Boney, the only character who resists manipulation, is pushed to the sidelines. 

As soon Fincher establishes that nearly all of his characters are either manipulative or subject to manipulation, Detective Boney, even though she does not get significant amounts of screen-time, becomes the only reliable surrogate through which the audience can view the film. Throughout, she is the only character who withholds judgement and looks for substantial evidence to carefully consider before accusing, let alone arresting, anyone. At first, she is hesitant to believe Nick was responsible for Amy’s disappearance, but at the same time, she knows that there is more to him than meets the eye and never comes to trust him completely. In the last part of the film, she becomes the sole crusader willing to question Amy’s shady captivity story and unlikely escape (which Amy invented to return home safely), but, in a sick twist of fate, no one onscreen acknowledges the truth she tries to pursue.

Like her idiot partner whose opinion constantly sways back and forth with that of the public, her superiors would rather believe in the story fed to them than to question the incongruities of Amy’s tale. Sadly, the hard work Boney puts into this hellish case ends up being for nothing. Kim Dickens’ resigned attitude in her final scene is heartbreaking. She’s not devastated or angered, she merely stops caring. In Fincher’s cruel world, only people like Amy, those who can dexterously manipulate information, succeed. 

In the end, Gone Girl is not a tragedy because Nick is forced into a life with the psychopathic Amy; the two twisted souls deserve each other. The film is a tragedy because Boney, the only person equipped with uncovering the truth, gives up the fight. Her work of finding out the truth, revealing the real criminal (central to films like Zodiac and Se7en) has been marginalized. Boney accepts that the truth doesn't matter nearly as much as public opinion. In a world where people would rather turn away from reality than tarnish the pristine image of Amazing Amy and her perfect family, there is nothing she can do, and it is terrifying. 

Verdict- 4/4

Gone Girl (2014) 2h 29min. R. 

Random Thoughts 

- Rosamund Pike, who plays Amy, has been doing great work for years now but has just now gotten the recognition she deserves. She's amazing, as always, but Kim Dickens is simply better this time around. For more of Pike's work check out her role as Bond Girl Miranda Frost in Die Another Day and Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. 
- Watch Deadwood! Kim Dickens plays Joanie Stubbs. 
- Ben Affleck never stopped being a great actor. Here's more proof. 
- And Tyler Perry shows up as a crooked lawyer who turns out to be the character with the most integrity because this is a David Fincher film. 
- Neil Patrick Harris is in here too. This movie is a treasure trove of incredible actors. 

A Most Wanted Man

A Most Wanted Man begins with a closeup of a harbor in Hamburg, Germany. Waves rhythmically crash against the cracked stone structure of the piers, probing its defenses. Onscreen text informs the audience that Mohammad Atta conceived the September 11 attacks from that city, an event that went ignored by it’s inefficient intelligence community. Since then, it says, Hamburg has been on high alert, intent on not repeating past mistakes. Immediately afterward, director Anton Corbjin cuts to a man, later identified as Issa Karpov, as he suspiciously rises out of the water and, with the cover of the night, disappears into the open, unprotected city. In a few minutes, Corbin effectively establishes the paranoia that took a hold of the city after 9/11, and he works hard to build that same fear in his audience. He forces it to ask, is this Hamburg’s next mistake? The world’s next threat?

The rest of the film focuses on the efforts of several individuals, many of them spies, as they struggle to locate and deal with Karpov and what he might represent. Gunther Bachman (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a German spy, leads the chase for Karpov with a team that includes his protege, Erna Frey (a fantastic Nina Hoss), and an American diplomat, Martha Sullyvan (Robin Wright). The case later involves Karpov’s reluctant banker Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe) and the goodhearted lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams) who decides, against all advice, to defend Karpov. All of the characters are forced to ask themselves tough questions. None is spared: Who are these “terrorists” we deal with regularly? Why do the act the way they do? Most of them would like to believe in the innate goodness of themselves and other people, but the memory of the attacks linger in their minds, making them adopt a “guilty until proven innocent” mindset that by the end of the film proves catastrophic for all involved. 

While Corbjin exploits the political atmosphere of the post 9/11 world, he restrains himself from ever declaring a political agenda. He is not concerned, for example, with the morality or effectivity of torture, nor does he make a case for or against intelligence institutions and their increasing prominence in recent years. Yes, torture is a part of our world. Yes, institutions like the CIA have massive powers that they didn’t have before. But Corbjin doesn’t use these universally accepted truths to make argue for or against a political position. Instead, he uses them to explore how they have affected the people involved with them. In that way, A Most Wanted Man is more philosophical than political in the question it raises. “Every good man has a little bit of bad, doesn’t he?” the cynical Martha tells Gunther. In this modern, post 9/11 world where people are inclined to see the worst in each other, A Most Wanted Man dares to see the best, and central to this viewpoint is Philip Seymour Hoffman's humanizing performance.

Hoffman plays Gunther as a disillusioned, beaten down spy. Gunther’s job consists mostly of gathering information, talking with his sources, and persuading other people to help him achieve his goal. He is the anti-cinematic spy, which is to say real life spies probably have jobs more akin to his than to that of any other spy ever depicted onscreen. Hoffman’s labored breathing and broken expressions convey the great weight the job has on Gunther, but no matter how hard it gets, he keeps pushing through “to make the world a safer place,” an idea that makes the horrors of his job bearable.
There are so many tired tropes Corbjin could have lazily relied upon, not just with Gunther, the hardened spy, but with the rest of the characters as well: the evil businessman (played, of course by the devilish Willem Dafoe), the seemingly peaceful Muslim who is lured by the terrorist cause, the naive idealist lawyer whose rosy world view is shattered by the events of the film. It’s a miracle that none of these characters ever become as simple as they could have been. Take Dr. Faisal Abdullah, a suspected terrorist whom Gunther and his team closely survey. He could have easily been the big bad bearded terrorist out to destroy Western civilization. Instead, he turns out to be a genuine philanthropist and a family man with a strong bond to his son. Though he’s not shown much, Corbjin makes an effort to understand him, and so does Gunther in a powerful scene in which he tries to think through the other man’s motivation. Both see the humanity in a person many would like to believe is a faceless monster. 

In the end, the film is optimistic in that it truly believes in the efforts of its protagonists, but it is never delusional. It ends with a (literal) crash that seems to wake up its characters to their harsh realities. Corbjin does not pretend that a few good people will change the way society behaves. What they can do, he seems to say, is to keep working on changing the minds of the majority until they see the light, but that takes time and effort, generations, even. (The film is full of sons intent on correcting the mistakes of their fathers.) In that sense A Most Wanted Man is neither like the idealistic "The West Wing" (1999) nor the hopeless "House of Cards" (2013) (two of the representative pre/post 9/11 examples of political filmmaking), but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

Verdict- 3.5/4
A Most Wanted Man (2014) 2h 2min. R.

Five Perfect Scenes

A few simple scenes that demonstrate what it’s like to transmit meaning (ideas, emotions) through purely cinematic means: 

1) A father shares a rare moment of kindness with his son. Look at how the natural lighting (only the sun and source light seen onscreen) enhances the purely organic and spontaneous nature scene that takes the father by surprise. See the joy in his son’s face and the resentment in the other brother, lurking in the background (his thoughts are later heard through voiceover). 

 The Tree of Life dir. Terrence Malick: 

2) Two strangers realize that, perhaps, they are in love. Lack of editing is as important as splicing a film into pieces. Performance and perfect timing are also essential to make the scene work. They both know that the other is looking, but they never make eye contact. Listen to the lyrics, which the characters can hear as well. 

Before Sunrise dir. Richard Linklater: 

3) A long a waited reunion. The narrator anticipates the scene and builds up its importance. Nico’s “These Days” is perhaps the most perfect musical moment in film. 

 The Royal Tenenbaums dir. Wes Anderson:

4) A lie is exposed, and a marriage disintegrates in just three minutes. This is a more classically constructed scene with a focus on precise lighting, camera movement and controlled performances (save for one unhinged character). It also has a great beginning (the door to Michael’s office opens), middle (accompanied by rising action as Connie and Kay confront Michael, who denies all accusations), and end (with a beautiful cliffhanger as the door is shut on Kay’s face the moment she realizes the true nature of her husband).The music here is noticeable, but (like the almost invisible editing), it is subtle and doesn’t take precedence over the dialogue. 

 The Godfather dir. Francis Ford Coppola: 

5) Sometimes, to make a scene work, all you really need is a beautifully scripted monologue to come in at an opportune moment. Arguably, the purest, most honest moment in film. 

A Charlie Brown Christmas dir. Bill Melendez:

Bonus) Movies are made of images. If you’ve ever seen any movie, even if you’re not the kind to recall particular shots, you have at least one image stored permanently in your memory; that image is in this scene. Movies can make people fly. 

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial dir. Steven Spielberg:

Boyhood

In his review of the six hour Italian epicThe Best of Youth, Roger Ebert commented that “the two hour limit on most films makes them short stories. The Best of Youth is a novel.”  “When you hear that it is six hours long,” he tells the reader, “reflect that it is therefore also six hours deep.” Boyhood is not nearly six hours long, and yet it’s running time doesn't begin to scratch its surface. While it runs shy of three hours long, Boyhood remains, simultaneously, twelve years deep, old and wise.

Around the year 2002, director Richard Linklater, known by that point for his romantic one-off Before Sunrise, decided that he would make a movie that would span twelve years and track the development of a kid from age six into young adulthood. He would film during the summers in his home state of Texas, and he would then wait and see where the project took him, advancing without a solid script. Miraculously, his dream came true when the film was financed by IFC Films, and he began to shoot later that year. Since 2002, Linklater’s School of Rock and Bad News Bears remake helped sharpen his comic sensibilities and allowed him to learn to work with kids. Meanwhile, the homegrown Bernie, based on a local newspaper’s story, solidified Linklater’s standing as a proud Texan filmmaker. More timed passed. Before Sunrise gave way to Before Sunset which evolved to include Before Midnight to form a masterful trilogy on the passage time, the meaning of love and the beauties and hardships of marriage. As Linklater matured as an artist, he chipped away at Boyhood and applied his knowledge towards filming and editing it, until finally, earlier this year, he unveiled it to the public. The result? One of the most audacious, breathtaking and humbling artistic achievements I’ve ever witnessed, and one unlikely to be equalled in stature any time soon.  

The first shot of Boyhood is of the open blue sky. In the second shot, we see Mason (Ellar Coltrane), a six year old boy, looking up at this sky, dreaming. His parents have gotten divorced, which we later find out, so perhaps he's contemplating the fact. It is the first major event that will shape who he will become. The movie follows an odd structure that emphasizes the seemingly insignificant moments of everyday life. Mason grows a bit older with each subsequent scene. He learns to ride a bike, and he begins to question the existence of fairies and magic, nothing momentous. His mom remarries (twice) and so does his dad, but the weddings are never shown. Presumably Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter), have birthdays, though they are also bypassed. These weddings and birthdays, major events people normally use as markers in their lives, are less important than the effects they have. Linklater is not interested in the cataclysmic events that determine our lives. Those are boring, since they make up the subject of every other film out there. Instead, Linklater implicitly points towards these events by showing their results. 

One of the most common criticisms issued against the film is that Mason “doesn't do anything,” but that he simply “reacts to things." That is correct, in most respects. But, why is this such a bad thing? It’s challenging and decidedly untraditional, but Boyhood, from its contemplative beginning onwards, announces itself as different. Mason is not intended to be anything like a typical protagonist. Listening to “Hero” (by Family of the Year), the song Mason plays as he drives away to college, reveals Linklater’s intention concerning Mason. With the song’s lyrics and a couple of visual gestures -- like Mason stumbling upon the song on the radio but then cranking up the volume -- Linklater tells us everything we need to know about Mason: “Let me go / I don’t wanna be your hero / I don’t wanna to be a big man / I just want to fight with everyone else… Everyone deserves a chance to / Walk with everyone else.” Mason refuses to be special. He will not conform to what audiences expect of him, to the ideals of a traditional movie hero, and it’s exhilarating. He is passive and observant (a defiantly unheroic characteristic), traits established in the first shot of the movie, traits that later evolve into a love for photography. At the same time, Mason is not spineless, and he possesses a constant moral core.  He works hard in both his day job at a restaurant and his hobby as photographer. He stands up to his drunk stepfathers at home, and he has sense enough not only for when to listen to the adults in his life, but also for when to discard their advice, which he learns to do when he finds out that they are mostly just as screwed up as he is. In other words, Mason is unheroic, but not an antihero. He’s more complicated than either category. He’s human. 

As various scenes roll by, we become deeply aware of the passage of time. Even though it happens imperceptibly from one scene to the next, the cumulative effect is outstanding: Mason learns to drink. Unrelated, he buys a car. He also gets his heart broken once or twice. All of a sudden, the kid who was six at the start of the film, under three hours ago, drives off to college! For the most part, both characters and actors end up gracefully aging into their roles. Patricia Arquette as Olivia, Mason’s mom, gives what may be the most impressive performance of the film by expertly balancing a character constantly teetering on the edge of failure and despair. Olivia is always a mess, but at the same time she raises both of her kids admirably, and she incessantly improves herself by getting a degree in psychology and then working up to a teaching position at a university. Her arduous journey ends up being the most satisfying of all, not least because she’s the character whose odds of succeeding were mostly stacked against her. Mason Sr, played by the great Ethan Hawke, begins as the most irritating character (not too many will be forgiving towards his stoner/absentee dad), but he slowly transforms from a heedless free-spirit into the husky, wise voice of reason -- a change solidified by Hawke’s changing, coarsening voice which was greatly altered by the actor’s smoking habit -- until he eventually becomes the father Mason never had growing up. “We’re all just winging it,” he counsels his distressed son. A nugget of wisdom that Boyhood offers through him: No one has their lives figured out, but they’re all just “winging it,” doing their best to lead good lives. 

Part of the unexpected tragedy of Boyhood comes from scenes in which characters look back on their lives and, using the perspective gained through time, examine their past mistakes. Mason Sr, then, after remarrying and becoming an active father, regrets being the absentee dad to his oldest kids, while Olivia wishes she had broken free from the several drunk boyfriends who curbed her potential and made Mason into a bit of an anti-authoritative rebel. Although it is lovely to witness these two people mature and find a measure of stability over time, it becomes hard not to wonder. Boyhood raises the question of what it would have been like had they known better before they irrevocably altered their lives forever. Olivia says something to that effect, that she would have eagerly embraced Mason Sr if he had just gotten his act together a little earlier in life. The bitterness of looking back, of “what ifs,” has rarely stung so hard. 

Mason, too, even though he’s not old enough for past mistakes to really haunt him yet, also learns a lot from his countless experiences chronicled in the movie, experiences which alter him imperceptibly and quietly shape who he becomes. Midway through the film, for example, the previously insignificant moment in which Mason’s stepfather gives him a camera becomes a major event, since it provides Mason a focus that will propel him towards college, where he eventually goes to study photography. After that, he’s on his own as the movie simply and quietly concludes without a grand finale or any unifying statement. Life goes on. 

There is something incredibly moving, wonderful, and painful in seeing a child grow up onscreen that can't easily be put into words. Even if the execution of this incredible concept had been botched, Boyhood would still have been worthy of admiration, but Linklater somehow pulled it off, in large part because Ellar Coltrane matured into a such a charming and captivating figure. He was good as the dreamy eyed boy seen in the film's poster, but he grows into his role as the film goes on, becoming more subtle, intelligent, and articulate as time passes and he changes with his character. I can't imagine all the ways this project must have affected Coltrane's life, but I'm grateful he stuck through it all. His performance is a gift, which, like Boyhood itself, I had never seen before and probably will not see again in quite some time, if at all.

Verdict- 4/4

Boyhood (2014) 2h 46min. R. 

Begin Again and the Personal Film.

In late August, after its initial theatrical run, Begin Again was re-released by the Weinstein company, presumably as an attempt to garner awards recognition. Though the script, acting, and directing are uniformly excellent, the move seems to be geared towards giving the maximum amount of exposure to the music of the film, the element most likely to score nominations, and deservedly so.

Writer-director John Carney has managed to make the rarest of musicals: that in which the music plays a pivotal role in the shaping of the story. Begin Again opens with the serendipitous encounter of Gretta (Keira Knightley), a down on her luck musician, and Dan (Mark Ruffalo), an unsuccessful producer, who decide, on a whim, to record an album together. The movie that follows is not only populated with several original songs, but it also contains a multitude of character musicians, producers, professional and amateur instrumentalists, and music critics. 

For the main characters, however, music transcends their professions. With two of his features (this and Once), Carney has demonstrated a keen understanding of how music moves and influences people.Take, for example, the scene in which Greta prepares to have dinner with her rockstar boyfriend, Dave, on his first night back from a trip. The mood is quiet and romantic, that is until he decides to share with her a song that he composed on the road. Quickly, a tension invades the scene; Carney holds on a lengthy shot of Greta as she listens to the song, slowly realizing that the love interest Dave so ardently sings about is not her. Carney neither shows nor explains Dave’s infidelity, but he doesn’t have to. The lyrics of the song and Keira Knightley’s pained expression are enough. 

In another pivotal scene, a suicidal Dan walks into a bar.  There, he sees a young woman with a beat up guitar singing a song about that irrevocable “step you can’t take back,” a step  Dan was all too ready to take until that beautiful melody stopped him in his tracks. During the song, every extraneous sound drifts away on the soundtrack. That simple act of letting the background noise subside lends an incredible weight to the song. Dan, who was ready to kill himself, literally drowns out everything else; he begins to live for the music.

Originally, the film had the captivating title, “Can a Song Save Your Life?” a question Carney enthusiastically answers in the affirmative. Carney, a musician, carefully crafted the film’s soundtrack, writing two critical songs, including “A Step You Can’t Take Back,” the catalyst for the film. His personal involvement with, and dedication to, Begin Again reminded me of two other recent films from directors who went beyond what is traditionally called for in a director to faithfully bring their visions to the screen, and who have proven, through the success of their films that there is a place for small-scaled personal films amidst the wasteland of impersonal blockbusters (read Trans4mers) that populate Hollywood today. 

In Chef, director Jon Favreau set out to make an independent, low-stakes film to take a break from the massive superhero movies that had consumed his career. Instead of music, however, Favreau focused on the ways food can bring people closer together. Favreau, who both wrote and directed, plays a chef who leaves a high end restaurant to open up a Cuban cuisine food truck, a project that helps him reunite with his estranged son. As can be seen in a mid-credits scene, Favreau learned to cook for the film. He was so inspired by the culture he was representing that he took the extra effort to bring it to the screen in the most authentic way possible. The result is some of the most delicious food I’ve ever seen onscreen.   

Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic comedy about love and betrayal, Much Ado About Nothing, also has the spark that made Chef and Begin Again so special. Although mostly keeping close to the original play, Whedon made a few key changes that reveal his modern, more cynical sensibilities. The film, though not explicit, is more sexually open, externalizing subtext that is hidden in the play. In one of his shrewdest departures from the original, Whedon shows that before the events of the film, the infamous couple, Benedick and Beatrice, had had an affair that ended painfully, a fascinating bit of exposition that complicates their relationship afterwards. It’s dark and painful, and provides one more obstacle they have to overcome before choosing to commit to a romantic relationship, but it makes the film’s ending much more satisfying. Whedon also financed the film and shot it at his home, a testament to his dedication to the project. 

Begin Again, Chef, and Much Ado, may be about universal subjects — music, food, and romantic love respectively — but the directors of each finds a particular way of demonstrating what they find so attractive about each, giving audiences one of the great gifts a movie can give: a glimpse into the mind of its maker.

Twixt

"There are no minor decisions in moviemaking. Each decision will either contribute to a good piece of work or bring the whole movie crashing down.” - Sidney Lumet. 

Twixt tells the story of a writer, Hall Baltimore, who is trying to regain his stature as a preeminent horror novelist by writing his first vampire novel. For inspiration, he hides away in an isolated, ghostly town where Edgar Allan Poe once lived. As he begins to write his novel, dark memories of a troubled past begin to haunt him while reality and alcohol infused dreams meld together into a frightening, sometimes farcical nightmare from which there is no escape. 

Twixt could have been a great film. In theory, a Francis Ford Coppola vampire movie starring Val Kilmer and Elle Fanning sounds wonderful. In reality, that movie turned out to be a major disappointment, brought crashing down by more than a few terrible decisions. 

First, it was shot using digital cameras. Big mistake. The pristine quality of the digital image makes everything in Twixt look absolutely awful. There's no texture to the picture, no real darkness or shadows. Everything looks too good, too perfect, making the whole visual style  of the film flat and lifeless. The effect becomes less bothersome during Baltimore’s black and white dream sequences, which avoid the disaster of the color segments most of the time and are even beautiful on occasion. Coppola can still compose great images, so it's even more frustrating that they look so poorly. However, even if this was shot on film, from which it could have greatly benefitted, or had some significant changes made to its digital photography, it still wouldn't have mattered much. Twixt is a fumbling mess of a movie, never sure of its tone or where its story is going. 

Is this supposed to be Coppola having fun with genre conventions and doing his own little thing, or is he trying to accomplish something meaningful? For most of the time, the picture comes off as dull and bizarre in its overbearing attempts to create an unsettling, tragic atmosphere. You start with a creepy looking town? Great. You have a narrator telling us why this town is creepy? Fine, but we can see that already. You then have the angry old sheriff/bat-house maker of the creepy town telling the protagonists about the resident serial killer that makes the town even creepier? You're starting to annoy me. Perhaps Coppola was trying to be humorous with that one, but he sure seemed to be taking seriously the dream sequence where his protagonist named Baltimore has a chat with Edgar Allan Poe who tells him that Eleanor, Annabel Lee, and all of the female protagonists of his poems are based on his dead wife, Virginia, a name awfully similar to Vicky, the name of the deceased daughter of Baltimore whom he also meets regularly in his dreams. Oh, and the overriding theme of the movie, if you haven't guessed, seems to be something about the protagonist coming to terms with the death of said daughter.  A bit on the nose for my taste. 

Meanwhile, when he’s not being chased by the specter of his daughter, Baltimore impersonates Marlon Brando and a gay black basketball player from the 60s. With both comedy and tragedy, Kilmer’s incredible. It's just baffling that these many disparate scenes are part of one movie. Sidney Lumet also said that he knew he was doing his job as a director well only if everyone on his team was making the same movie. No one here was making the same movie. 

Even then, some of the scenes carry real weight and a melancholy beauty, particularly when images just flow together without any dialogue as when Baltimore struggles to unsuccessfully to repress the memories of his beloved daughter. The fact that Coppola lost a son in the same way as the protagonist lost his daughter makes even the duller moments of the movie sting. Elle Fanning works wonders with the shoddy material she's given as a young girl who reminds Baltimore of what he lost. At least Coppola steers the comedic elements clear from her storyline, so she has a steady, tragic tone throughout her scenes, making them relatively coherent. While alive and well, she radiates hope. When she is betrayed, true innocence is lost.

Lumet failed to mention that one great decision can elevate a middling movie. Twixt was a great concept brought crashing down by many bad decisions. The visuals crippled it. The story dealt the death blow. Yet, with the aid of Fanning, it came back to haunt me. 

Verdict- 2/4

Twixt (2011) 1h 28min. R. 

Pacific Rim, Take II.

Pacific Rim starts out with a giddy Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) waking up his brother as if it were Christmas Day. The cause of his excitement? A massive Kaiju (extraterrestrial dinosaur) has just been spotted coming from the sea, and it is up to them to pilot their one-of-a-kind Jaeger (a big, customized robot) to stop it before it reaches land. Pacific Rim is a magnificent action film, and from the opening fight scenes, director Guillermo Del Toro delivers.

Del Toro brings an impressive clarity of vision not only to the elaborately detailed, Kaiju ridden, cynical world he created to stage his fights in, but also to every beautifully composed shot of the film. Pacific Rim is never dull or dark, like so many contemporary action movies, a phenomenon that can be traced to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. It relishes fluorescent blues, bright neon pinks, greens and oranges above all. It is brimming with color and life in every frame, and it is edited in a way that lets viewers behold the majesty of the Jaegers and the Kaiju with plenty of wide shots -- to emphasize the overall choreography of the action sequences -- and loving closeups  -- to take in the painstakingly designed details, such as the rocket-propelled metallic arm of the main Jaeger, the Gypsy Danger. But for all of its monsters versus robots glory, at its core, Pacific Rim is a film about relationships, about the bonds we build to make life worth living.

 At the beginning of the story, even before the first fight, Del Toro takes care to show how much Raleigh’s brother Yancy means to him. He dies relatively quickly, but the impact of that loss carries deep consequences which resonate throughout the film. Raleigh loses faith in humanity as a result of his personal loss, and resigns himself, like most of the scattered population, to hiding from the Kaiju by building a wall that no one really thinks has a chance of stopping the beasts, but a wall that allows enough escape from life to be a welcome project for many who no doubt have suffered similar loses as Raleigh did. Del Toro quietly studies the cynicism which has corroded humanity, but never shines a spotlight on it like he does on the action. It exists just beyond the edges of the frame, making it much more powerful and understated. But it is there, and it lends an emotional weight to the action lacking in many movies. When Raleigh fights the Kaiju, we get a feeling that he’s fighting to restore humanity from its current, broken state. 

After the prologue, the film picks up with Raleigh in this dark place and traces his classic hero’s journey as he regains hope and finds new reasons to live. I find the drift -- the connection which requires Jaeger pilots to be honest with one another, to share memories and feelings as they jointly control their machine -- to be a brilliant, incredibly useful concept. It is used as a simple metaphor to explore our need for our need for codependence, and it also serves as the justification for a few flashbacks, thus providing the film with some of its finest scenes and images (Idris Elba piloting a Jaeger solo!). In the drift, Raleigh is forced to face his past and the death of his brother, which eventually allows him to move on, with the help of his copilot Mako, of course.

There are  so many great character moments in this film that it astounds me that it was simply brushed off as another massive, meaningless action film. Almost every character is given someone to care about, someone to fight for, and Del Toro provides plenty of scenes with several different pairs of characters to deepen their bonds and show us why the battle against the Kaiju is worth the trouble. A particular favorite scene of mine features Marshall Pentecost, the resistance leader, quietly chatting with Mako, his adoptive daughter, before he goes to his death. He reassures her, and lets her know he's proud of her, but before he goes on to give his "cancel the apocalypse" speech to the troops, he looks her in the eye and straightens his posture, something that makes Mako snap up from her slumped position. It is like a little private joke to which the audience is only partly privy.  These characters have a shared history, a life that extends beyond the film, and possibly into an unknown future. That’s the reason they fight the Kaiju. They make the action matter. 

Verdict- 4/4
Pacific Rim (2013) 2h 12min. PG-13

Random Thought
- “Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out,” said Martin Scorsese. I thought about the quote a lot while watching Pacific Rim this time.
- Hannibal Chau, “you like the name? I took it from my favorite historical character and my second-favorite Szechuan restaurant in Brooklyn.” 

Sky High

Sometimes, I revisit movies from my childhood just to see what they were really like. Occasionally, they inevitably end up dissatisfying me and are only worth the watch for the nostalgia factor. Other times, however, no matter how many films I've watched since then or how much film history and theory I've studied, some of them simply turn out to be well made movies that still have the capacity to delight and impress me now, many years later. I'm proud to say Sky High falls into the latter category. 

Sky High follows Will Stronghold, the son of the world's most famous superheroes, The Commander and Jetstream, in his quest to discover the true meaning of heroism, a particularly hard lesson for him to learn since he did not inherit any powers like his mother's flying abilities or his father's super strength. In superheroland, this means that once he enters his new school, the titular Sky High, he's relegated to the ostracized sidekick community, which is full of lovable oddballs with subpar superpowers (like glowing, turning into a ball, and melting) who are taught to worship and serve all heroes. At first, Will is bummed that he is not as special as he once thought, but he eventually finds out that sidekicks can be heroes too. Awww. 

Broadly outlining the story yields almost no surprises. Like any high school movie, Sky High comes with bullies (one super fast, the other one extremely elastic); stuck-up cheerleaders that just seem like an omnipresent force in all schools; a goth chick with a heart of gold; the awkward hero; his girl next door best friend; his nemesis; and his senior-year crush, a beautiful girl with a sinister secret that betrays her flowery clothing, her charming musical motif, and the soft-focus three point lighting reserved for her. Spoiler, she's the bad guy.

Sky High instead embellishes this broad, universal story with little grace notes and pitch perfect execution. Watch the painful attempts Will makes at hiding the fact that he has no powers so that he can avoid the inevitable heartbreaking conversation with his parents. Notice the beautiful encouragement his best friend Layla provides on how to break the news to them. “When life gives you lemons,” she tells him... I won’t spoil the punchline, but it is surely sweet and unexpected. A conversation that takes place in a Chinese restaurant in which a villainous character reveals a little wisdom and a lot of previously unseen kindness is a favorite of mine, and it is but one of many charming touches that elevate Sky High above the standard superhero popcorn fare. 

The performances are mostly good, with remarkable work, as always, by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who for some reason remains a largely unknown and underrated actress. Throughout, she shows small hints of the anger and psychopathic lust for revenge behind the high school sweetheart stereotype her Gwen seems to embody, until, in the end, she just unleashes the madness that is Royal Pain. Danielle Panabaker gives Layla an openheartedness and an earnestness that make her irresistible. In a movie full of superheroes hiding behind their false identities, superpowers, and labels, Layla is the only completely honest, innocent character, something Panabaker pulls off without ever seeming pretentious or frail.  She's the MVP of the movie. The action, too, is worthy of praise, since at least director Mike Mitchell has a clear sense of pacing and spatial relations that make the action sequences enjoyable and stand in stark contrast to the headache inducing, anarchic, handheld shaky-cam free-for-all that characterizes modern action filmmaking. The final battle that crosscuts among several one on one superhero duels throughout the school while the structure comes crashing to the ground is pure, manic fun yet never disorienting or overindulgent. 

Burdened with nine year old special effects that look embarrassing today and Mitchell's odd fetish for canted angles -- the film’s major flaw, presumably used to make slower scenes visually exciting and the action even more frenzied -- the movie still fares well compared to a lot of "action" films of today. One more thing about Sky High: it has fun with superheroes, and it embraces the silliness of men in tights punching things. Remember, not every superhero movie (or most, even) should be modeled after The Dark Knight! I have absolutely nothing against that film, but sometimes I wonder if it did more harm than good to the genre. Scripts like this one, full of sly jokes and witticisms, silly superheroes and evil duplicitous villains, should get more attention as potential sources of inspiration. Anyway, the script is pure fun, with some great wordplay to boot, yet another of its many appeals; Even if Sky High tells a largely traditional story, it goes about it in an unconventional, emotionally moving way. I couldn’t ask for much more from an old favorite. 

Verdict- 3.5/4 (Bumped up an extra half a star because of what this movie has meant to me since I first watched it in the theater.) 

Sky High (2005) 1h 40min. PG

2046

I would have no idea what to make of 2046 had it not been for its predecessor, In the Mood for Love, a film which casts a large shadow over everything that takes place in 2046. The first movie -- which is really the second in the series that started with Days of Being Wild, though that one is of lesser importance -- tells the story of two neighbors who discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other. They find this out together, and their spouses become the first topic of many conversations. The infidelity that brings them together, however, also keeps them apart, for consummating the love that so clearly exists between the two would also mean that they would be no better than their cheating partners. In the end, they part, but the way Wong Kar-wai concludes the film suggests the possibility of a brighter future.

In the Mood for Love

Fast-forward to 2046. In the film, this is both a year and a heavenly destination where those seeking love go, by train, never to return. Once you give yourself over to that boundless love, to that mysterious, unknown place that is 2046, you can never go back. 2046 is a fantasy, a dream that lives in the mind of Mr.Chow, the protagonist of both this film and In the Mood for Love, a writer living in 1960s Hong Kong who created this magical story world, like so many artists, to confront his demons and obsessions. In his mythology, the only person who has ever returned from 2046 is a character shaped after himself. This character seems to suffer from some physical ailment, but whatever he experienced in 2046, he keeps to himself. 

2046

Bittersweet, is the word that keeps coming to mind. The sweet, ecstatic love of In the Mood for Love has been replaced by the bitter aftertaste of regret. In 2046, Chow has become a broken shell of a man, incapable of overcoming his past, his one true love. He uses and abuses the women of his life -- ironically the occupants of the neighboring room 2046 of the hotel in which he lives -- whom he desperately wishes would fill the emotional space that Su Li-zhen still dominates, just as they fill the physical space that used to contain her. 

Zhang Ziyi

The secret of his love for Su Li-zhen, which sadly could not remain buried, haunts him. From what little I had heard of 2046, I thought Wong would tell another epic love story, spanning years and a healthy running time of film. I was expecting Wong to outdo himself, and to provide me yet another In the Mood for Love. I was disappointed and shocked (I'm still quite stunned, actually), not because 2046 is any less great, but because it was the antithesis of what I had expected. Instead of retelling the greatest love story ever told, Wong went out and made a film about the misery of a man living without love, and the damage that his lovelessness causes not only to himself, but to those around him. 

It was a brutally painful experience (quite similar to the shock of watching Before Midnight), particularly since it is the extremely likable and charming Tony Leung playing Mr. Chow once more. Could this cruel being really be the same man who glanced longingly, caressingly across the crowded stairwell at his forbidden love in In the Mood for Love? It broke my heart. For a while, I thought that Chow might transform himself to find some happiness with the elusive gambler Su Li-zhen -- Gong Li, tantalizingly similar to the first Su Li-zhen, who was played by Maggie Cheung -- or perhaps with the impassioned Bai Ling -- the ethereal Zhang Ziyi, playing a woman as world-weary as Chow, yet more willing to open herself up to a true, loving relationship with him. 

These beautiful, beautiful women -- has anyone else photographed the fairer sex with such delicacy as Wong Kar-wai? -- practically throw themselves at him. With their patience, grace, and beauty, they offer up salvation from his misery, but not without a cost. In return, they ask for his love and devotion, something Chow thinks himself incapable of giving. I guess "the first cut is the deepest," if Cat Stevens is to be believed, and the cut left by the unfulfilled love of Maggie Cheung's Su Li-zhen never fully healed, leaving Chow scarred for life, or at least for now. 

Gong Li

So, instead of throwing himself into love, Chow hides himself in his stories. The fantastic world he creates for himself, as brought to life by Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle, truly is something to behold. His future consists solely of ghostlike buildings made from pure light and color, and intersected by ever accelerating bullet trains with no apparent stops or destination. Inside one of these trains, android goddesses, bearing uncanny appearances to the women of Chow’s life, tend to the needs of the worn out hero, the only occupant on the train apart from a mysterious figure that warns him not to fall in love with any of the androids he meets. The minimalistic, hypermodern interiors of the train, intended to symbolize Mr. Chow’s distressed state of mind, convey the most unbearable loneliness. 

I'd like to believe that Chow can find love again. It is too painful to see that last shot of him alone in that cab, photographed in black and white, a sad mirror of that unforgettable ride so many years ago when he first experienced true love, and believe that his story ends there. The end of this movie should instantly loop back to that of "In the Mood for Love," in which the secret of a forbidden love is laid to rest, but the possibility of rekindling it is never fully extinguished. Then again, perhaps Mr. Chow has learned an even more valuable lesson than the need to hold on to love once you find it. " ‘Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.” Maybe the next time he finds love, he will be ready to reciprocate, and then he can have his happy ending. 

Verdict- 4/4
2046 (2004) 2h 10min. R. 

Random Thoughts
- Alfred Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H" commonly referred to as, " 'Tis better to have loved and lost..." can be found here, in full: http://www.online-literature.com/donne/718/

My Blueberry Nights

Wong Kar-wai loves subways. He cherishes their rushing, violent movements and the screeching sound the metal makes as they turn over a city corner. He adores the otherworldly lights cast out by the rectangular, symmetrical windows found on every cart, and the headlights that illuminate everything in front of the train. In the case of My Blueberry Nights, these lights are green and sickly, subtly conveying the cold and unwelcoming winter of New York City. In Happy Together, they are white and lively, marking the endless possibilities of its protagonist’s future. Always, Wong sneaks in shots of subways or trains into his films, like Hitchcock did. Also like Hitchcock, Wong has a flair for romances, and in a crowded city, where his films always take place, subways are the perfect vehicles to bring people together or tear them apart. The potency and singularity of his vision ensures that he will find a way to make room to present the things he loves in a way that will make audiences love them like he does. 

One night Elizabeth is mugged in a subway, an incident that sends her running into the nearest cafe. There, she befriends the owner, Jeremy, who by some bizarre coincidence was also mugged that day. Perhaps it’s Wong’s mischievous way of letting audiences know that they were meant to be. They engage in long conversations of romantic longing while eating the juiciest, most vibrant, and exquisite pies ever put on film. This makes up the sweetest portion of the whole film, as Wong establishes a welcoming environment where Elizabeth feels safe. Soon, Jeremy falls in love, and Elizabeth does too, though she’s not fully aware of it yet. She takes a cross-country trip to figure herself out. 

First, Elizabeth makes her way into a downtrodden Memphis bar that seeps regret from every corner. The red glow of the neon signs, paired with the warm glow of the southern sun brightly shining from the outside makes the place feel uniquely alive, yet bursting with tension. Elizabeth, calling herself Lizzie, observes a local cop who tells her of his struggle with alcoholism and of his estranged wife. Arnie, the cop, has difficulty letting go of the thing he loves, though not for a lack of trying. His wife, Sue Lynne, abandoned him for another man. It is implied that she became sober after leaving him. He is played by David Straithairn and she by Rachel Weisz, both extremely talented actors who bring unexpected complexity to their roles that make it impossibly hard to set the blame on the shoulders of one party. They are both hurt, and both partly responsible for the deterioration of their marriage. Sue Lynne has a monologue that reveals the depth of her love for a man she appeared to despise. Wong Kar-wai has often been criticized for making pictures devoid of any real content: style for it’s own sake. The early scenes with Sue Lynne are shot through with red lights and filters, making them bold and melodramatic, intensified by Weisz’s over-the-top performance, perhaps going a touch too far. But her monologue, shot in a more quiet and restrained manner, ultimately offers proof that nothing is as simple as it seems. Wong always has something in mind other than the pretty pictures. Lizzie watches and learns, perhaps drawing parallels between Arnie’s devotion to Sue Lynne and her own unhealthy obsession to the boyfriend that hurt her so much that it made her leave New York. 

Elizabeth, now Beth, settles down in a small Nevada casino that gives her the opportunity to study the reckless personalities of the crooks and gamblers that frequent it. One in particular catches her eye. Natalie Portman’s Leslie has no regard for the past. She lives in the moment, her only concern being the cash she needs to get her hands on to stake her next poker game. Even while she plays, she’s relentlessly singleminded and refuses to see a larger picture other than the cards that are placed in front of her. Leslie’s style makes her either win or lose big, with no middle ground. She doesn’t seem to care either way, as long as she gets the thrill of instant gratification when she goes all or nothing. Critics have said that Wong’s films existing solely in the present tense, yet his own criticism of Leslie paints a different picture. Wong (and Beth by extension) admires the foolish courage of the lifestyle (which is maybe what critics pick up on), but in the way he develops Leslie’s story he demonstrates an understanding that the past cannot be fully erased or abandoned. 

Norah Jones (Elizabeth), exhibiting an almost angelic beauty, quietly witnesses the events of the film. She plays a passive heroine, occasionally offering a kind word of advice or a warm smile. Her primary purpose, though, is to watch and learn. Through her travels, she gains perspective. Jones adequately delivers the required dialogue, as well as several lines of poetic voiceover in the form of letters to Jeremy, but most of the growth in character comes through her expressions. This is her first film, and already she exhibits the careful control that takes many actors years to perfect. With the subtlest of smiles and eye movements, she conveys Elizabeth’s innate empathy and curiosity, her need to evolve and improve herself. Most actresses in her situation would have opted for histrionics, something she tactfully avoids. She’s a pro. 

Wong's visual jazz underscores every moment, gesture, and frame of My Blueberry Nights, beautifully enhancing the meandering story of this lost woman wandering through the country. His signature step-printing and bold colors make every image last a little longer and seem a little brighter than usual, leaving deep impressions as they pass: the closeup of Elizabeth’s high heels as she misstep on an uneven New York City sidewalk after being shaken to her core; the first sensual bite of blueberry pie she takes to forget her troubles; the smoke rising from Jeremy's cigarettes, mixing with his cold, foggy breath as he patiently awaits his beloved's return by the side of the street. These perfectly crafted, achingly romantic, images represent an almost perfect distillation of the personal style of Wong Kar-wai, one of the few directors who can make viewers see the world as he sees it. Cinema doesn’t get much better than that.  

Verdict- 3.5/4
My Blueberry Nights (2007) 1h 35min. PG-13