161-1 still possible

Game 1: Brewers 4, Cubs 3 (10 innings)

I'm sure a lot of Cubs fans are ready to jump off a bridge after a heartbreaking 10-inning loss to the Brewers on an Opening Day that, given the weather, almost didn't happen. I was at work, so I could only follow the game online (another unfortunate reality of post-college life) and I still haven't seen the highlights yet, which is frustrating because, even though the outcome wasn't what I was looking for it was a pretty exciting game.

Being opening day, each team had their ace on the mound to start and neither one would allow a run. Ben Sheets went 6 1/3 IP, giving up only two hits (both of which by Kosuke Fukudome; more on him later) and two walks. Apparently they had him on a pitch count for his first count because he left after 99 despite being so dominant. Carlos Zambrano has had a recent history of being awful in his first start of the year, but not so today. He went 6 2/3 IP allowing only 3 hits and 1 walk with 5 Ks in a surprisingly efficient 89 pitches. However, he left after a (successful) pick-off play at second where his forearm cramped up after the throw. Zambrano's seemingly chronic cramping problem was the subject of much discussion next year, and the fact that it happened on opening day this year on a mild, rainy day (its been theorized that his cramps step from dehydration) isn't a good sign at all. At the same time, while he was in the game, he was excellent and didn't get mired in 30+ pitch innings as he's been known to do, especially in early season games.

Carlos Marmol relieved Zambrano and pretty much picked up where he left off last year, pitching an inning and a third of perfect baseball. With the game still scoreless in the top of the 9th, enter: Kerry Wood. As I posted in my preseason threads, I've felt that Marmol, despite his youth, is the best man for the job. Well, my point was backed up today as Wood gave up three runs in the 9th to put the Cubs down. Obviously, this is only one game, and I'm sure Wood will have more than a few successful outing this year, but I still think Marmol is going to wind up being the closer by some time in May.

So, on a day in which the Cubs who weren't Fukudome were being no-hit going into the bottom of the 9th, it looked like a shutout was pretty much inevitable with the oft-injured, but one dominant Eric Gagne in to close. But then something crazy happened. Derrek Lee led off with a single, then Aramis Ramirez drew a 4 pitch walk. Up comes the new guy, Kosuke Fukudome, already 2-for-2 with a walk, who promptly hit a 3-run homer to tie the game. So Fukudome finished having reached base all 4 times (he did get picked off once) and was a triple away from the cycle. Not a bad first day on the job. Felix Pie tried to keep the 9th going with a single, but Mike Fontenot wasn't able to drive him home. Then, alas, the Brewers scored their 4th run on a sac fly in the 10th off of Bob Howry, and then David Riske worked a 1-2-3 bottom half to end the game. Frustrating game to say the least. Zambrano and Marmol were at their absolute best while they were in though, so hopefully the poor offensive output from everyone who isn't Fukudome was a one game aberration. There have been years in which the Cubs have been horrible offensive when they've scored like 16 runs on opening day, so who really knows. Off day tomorrow, then the Brew crew again on Wednesday.

W - Gagne (1-0) L - Howry (0-1) S - Riske (1)

No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (****)

Without question, No Country for Old Men is a movie that you need to see more than once to really understand. I was able to discern enough on my first time watching it to know that I really liked it, but I will certainly have to go back and watch it at least one more time to fully grasp everything that the Coen brothers put into the film. Hearing from other people who have seen it, I'm not alone. The film has a lot of subtleties that are easy to miss, and doesn't hold your hand with a lot of exposition explaining everything there is to know. Even if you don't want to feel like you have to study the intricacies of every scene, however, No Country for Old Men is still a tremendously exciting movie, and the reasons why it gets so much praise aren't hard to see at all.

First and foremost, this film is a huge departure from their previous films with both serious and funny elements like O Brother Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowski. This movie is very dark and very muted and much more grounded in reality than the lighter side of Coen brothers movies. It sticks very close to the book on which its based, (so I'm told) and a lot of the film's dialog is lifted from it.

...

I put this off for way too long to remember what else I was going to write, but basically cliff's notes: its a very solemn, and subtle movie with a classic "unknown is more frightening than the known" type of villain that I think needs to be seen more than once to really appreciate.

Top 10 list for last year has been updated

The Darjeeling Limited

The Darjeeling Limited (***)

I kind of feel like I'm going to look back at this review at some point and wish I scored it higher, because Wes Anderson movies seem to grow on me the more I see them, but then again, who knows? The Darjeeling Limited is, indeed, the most recent film from auteur Wes Anderson, and unmistakably so. Anderson wastes no time reminding everyone of his off-beat style from the very beginning of the film, by actually beginning with a 10-15 minute "short film", dubbed "Hotel Chevalier", which is only later made clear to be in the continuity with the "main" Darjeeling Limited film. The short film is somewhat bizarre, introducing us to Jason Schwartzman's character Jack Whitman living in a surreal looking hotel room when he is suddenly visited by his once girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman. This scene/film/whatever runs for 13 minutes, contains almost no dialog, and adds almost nothing that I can discern to the main film that makes it worth it. I appreciate Wes Anderson's off-beat style, but in this case the whole venture of this short film is just awkward and detracts from the rest of the movie more than benefits it.

After the "Hotel Chevalier" segment, The Darjeeling Limited itself begins and quickly establishes that its less avant-garde and easier to digest than the aforementioned opening. At the same, it still is unmistakably Wes Anderson. The film's title refers to the train of the same name on which the three main characters spend much of the movie. Like the Belefonte, Steve Zissou's ship from The Life Aquatic, the Darjeeling seems sort of otherworldly in its design, and takes on a life of its own as Anderson pans from room to room. The central characters in the story are the Whitman brothers-- Francis, Peter, and Jack-- played by Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, and Jason Schwartzman respectively. The relationship between the three brothers has been strained ever since the death of their father, and a trip on the Darjeeling through India is Francis's plan to reconcile the brothers, hoping they'll have some sort of spiritual revelation along the way. Each of the brothers seems to possess a fatal flaw: Francis is too controlling (orders for his two brothers in the dinner car), Peter is clingy (wears his father's glasses - with his father's prescription in them), while Jack writes passive-agressive stories with fictional characters who obviously aren't entirely fictional and seems to want to bang anything that moves.

The brothers go through some amount of reconciliation throughout the film, but like most of Wes Anderson's movies, the ending is somewhat muted, and the film seems to be more about how all the characters get to the ending. In The Life Aquatic, this was in the form of a voyage to kill a jaguar shark complete with claymated ocean scenes and a preposterous battle with modern day pirates. I actually liked the over-the-top surrealness of Life Aquatic (most professional critics seemed lukewarm at best about it), but I found myself liking Darjeeling Limited as well. Even though the train itself seems to come directly from the oddest corner of Wes Anderson's mind, some of the starkest scenes take place off of the train out in the vastness of actual rural India. The film is of the same sort-of comedy, sort-of drama, hard to place mold of his other films, though more towards the serious side than Royal Tennenbaums or Life Aquatic (that's not to say that there aren't a few laugh out loud moments because there are). The film is quieter on the whole, and seems to be itself a sort of meditation in the same vein that the characters within the film are trying to find. I'm not sure if it led me to any great personal revelation though.

The biggest flaw in the movie is one in all his films-- one which seems to turn off a lot of people completely, while I can deal with it, though nevertheless acknowledge it-- namely, that Anderson seems to be too eager to make the film as off-beat as possible. I already mentioned the biggest example of this: the strange short film before "the real film" that is in the same continuity but doesn't have the same tone whatsoever. But throughout the film there's examples of dialog between characters where one character will ask a question, and the other will give a response that doesn't seem to be applicable to the question at all. Sometimes, it's for humorous effect, but a lot of the time its merely distracting, and its hard to take the emotion in the film as serious as it should be taken when characters don't seem to interact like actual people. There are other examples of this same basic idea, like Owen Wilson's character, whose head is wrapped in an absurd amount of bandages and keeps losing teeth throughout the movie because of a motorcycle accident. It seems at first like its supposed to be funny, but later on there are hints that Owen Wilson's character may be suicidal, and suddenly its hard to determine how you're really supposed to feel.

Even with all the off-beat stuff in Rushmore, Royal Tennenbaums, and Life Aquatic, I "got" those movies more than I did this one, I think. Even though Darjeeling seems more grounded in reality, his previous movies seemed to resonate more with me for some reason. Still, there are some enjoyable scenes that use the backdrop of India beautifully, and the performances by each of the three brothers are quite good. There are many worse ways to spend an hour and a half

CUBS: Spring Update 3

Jason Marquis pitched 4 innings yesterday, giving up no runs on 2 hits and 2 walks. This is his second consecutive good start, and it certainly looks like he's going to be in the rotation. As I said in my first post about this year's Cubs, I wasn't a huge fan of Marquis last year, so I dunno how I feel about that. His ERA in '07 wasn't that bad, but a lot of his good starts were towards the front of the season, and towards the end of the season he didn't seem to be able to get much past hitters. The last time I played baseball was coach pitch, but just observing on TV, it seems like he pitched worse last year than his ERA indicated. His ERA of over 6.00 the year before that with the Cardinals goes a long way to backing me up on that, methinks.

The Cubs made a round of cuts a few days ago and are now down to something like 42 players. Shingo Takatsu was among them, not surprisingly, as he got roughed up in several of his spring outings. He says he still wants to play in the states if given another opportunity, but he's not getting any younger and I really don't see it happening. I think it would be a futile effort on his part. Apparnetly, the Cubs are leaning towards a 12 man pitching staff, which I certainly advocate as every time the Cubs have tried to go to an 11 man staff since I've followed baseball closely everything has seemed to immediately go to hell. Also, according to Len Kasper the last time I saw the Cubs on TV, the Cubs are considering starting the year with Scott Eyre as their only left-hander. Carmen Pignatiello has yet to give up a run in 4 1/3 IP, which would seem to warrant a look, but we'll see.

One other note that I just heard while going to lunch on The Score, apparently the Cubs are now offering a package of Ronnie Cedeno, Donald Veal, Sean Gallagher, and someone else whose name escapes me for Brian Roberts. I suppose I'd be okay with that. It's giving up some young pitching, but Roberts would look great at 2nd base for the Cubs, and the Cubs are in a "win now" mode all the way.

Closer race update:

Carlos Marmol: 6 IP, 0.00 ERA, 1/1 Sv
Kerry Wood: 5 IP, 5.40 ERA
Bob Howry: 5.1 IP, 11.81 ERA

I said at the beginning of the year that I'd like to see Marmol get a chance, and the numbers seem to be in my favor to this point. ^^

Derrek Lee is now hitting .107 with 0 home runs for the spring, which is discouraging, but there's still another 2 weeks before opening day so we'll see what happens.

Next update: Probably after there's another round of cuts and battles for the last few roster spots start to manifest themselves.

CUBS: Spring Update 2

(Updated Sunday)

The Cubs played two split-squad games yesterday, winning the game in which most of the probable starters for the regular season played with Jon Lieber on the mound, and losing a game with mostly reserves (Daryle Ward was hitting clean-up) with Sean Marshall starting. Lieber was excellent, pitching 4 shutout innings allowing just 2 hits and no walks. Earlier in the week, Sean Marshall pitched 3 shutout innings himself. Today, Ryan Dempster went 4 innings allowing 1 run vs. the Royals. The Cubs put up 20+ hits against the Royals' pitching staff. Daryle Ward went 4-for-4 and Felix Pie had 3 hits of his own. Cubs look pretty good right now.

CUBS: Spring Update 1

The Cubs are 2-4 for the spring so far, and are beating the Diamondbacks 4-1 as I write this. Spring training records are always pretty much arbitrary, and indeed this year, despite the losing record, the individual performances for players who are actually going to make the roster have, by and large, been pretty good.

Let's start with Carlos Zambrano, who made his 2nd start of the spring today finishing with 3 IP
, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 3 K. Zambrano has been notoriously shaky at the start of seasons, especially last year, so hopefully we keep seeing numbers like this as he starts to build up more innings. Certainly only 1 walk is a stat you like to see, as Z's control was kind of all over the place last year. Oh yeah, he threw in a solo home run at the plate as well.

Also pitching today was Rich Hill, who finished with a line of 3 IP, 1 ER, 0 H, 3 BB, 1 K. Ted Lilly has made one start giving up 1 run, while Jason Marquis and Jon Lieber have been a little bit shakier, giving up 2 runs each in 1 start. Ryan Dempster has pitched 5 IP and allowed 2 earned runs, so the Dempster as starter experiment is off to an okay start. Obviously it's only March 5th, and going 2-3 innings barely constitutes "starting," so I don't know how much can be read into these numbers. I don't think anything will be settled in terms of the rotation for a while yet.

Carlos Marmol, with 2 scoreless innings, has fared the best out of the contenders for closer thus far, with Bob Howry and Kerry Wood giving up 4 and 3 runs respectively between them in 2 IP each. I'm on record as saying I'd prefer Marmol for the closer's spot. Elsewhere in the 'pen, Neal Cotts, trying to come back from a season in which he got sent down to AAA, didn't do himself any favors getting rocked in an outing on Sunday in a game that I actually caught some of on TV. Shingo Takatsu's return to American baseball is off to a rocky start as well.

As for the hitters, first and foremost let's talk about Kosuke Fukudome, who's done well for himself thus far. 5 games in his Avg/OBP/Slug is .400/.600/.700, and he hit his first spring training home run. Obviously, he's not going to have a .600 OBP in the regular season, but hopefully he does get some walks on a regular basis, something that Cubs hitters have not been able to do well enough in recent years. Ryan Theriot is off to a good start as well, with 7 hits and 2 steals. People fell in love with Theriot at the beginning of last year, but kind of wavered on him towards the end of the season when he got into a hitting slump. Hopefully he can start off well again this year and keep the momentum going this time. Geovany Soto's hitting 4-for-10 thus far, after a great end to 2007, so every indication points to him being just fine as the Cubs' starting catcher this year. Felix Pie probably has the early lead for the center field job, as he's hit 2 home runs already. Derrek Lee has 2 singles in 8 ABs, but he has 4 walks as well. There's no reason to believe that he won't be as good as should be expected.

So yeah, that's what's happening so far. Obviously these are really small sample sizes for statistics, and things may be completely different come April. We'll see. Next update: Whenever I feel like. Over the weekend maybe.

Full spring stats

Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton (****)

The tone of Michael Clayton is set immediately as the film begins with a voice over from Tom Wilkinson's character, Arthur to the title character played by George Clooney. Off of his medication, Arthur, a manic-depressive, claims to have had a moment of clarity when he steps outside of the huge law firm where he works. After going through several alternate theories, he eventually concludes that as he emerges from the office building, its as if he's emerged from "the asshole of an organism who's sole function is to excrete the poison, the ammo, the defoliant necessary for other, larger, more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity" (IMDB). This grandiose monologue is a microcosm of the entire movie. It's a biting commentary not just about the greed of corporations or the ruthlessness of the lawyers who represent them, but also about the entire lifestyle and business culture that encapsulates them.

Despite his struggles with his mental illness, Arthur is an absolute genius at what he does, and has made a Arthur has been working on the same case-- the defendant in which is a fictional company that makes agricultural products called uNorth-- for something like six years. Essentially, uNorth is facing a class action lawsuit over the possibility that a weed killer that they produce has posed a risk to humans. As the case has sluggishly played out, Arthur amassed boxes upon boxes full of data breaking down every meticulous detail. At some point, Arthur became simply tired of working on the same case, or realized he couldn't in good conscience defend uNorth any more (maybe both) and appeared to begin to change the way he looked at the case so as to start building a case against uNorth. At the same time, he goes off of his antidepressants which leads to him becoming obsessed with one of the plantiffs, a young girl named Anna who lives on a farm. Everything goes to hell when Arthur naked while rambling about Anna during a routine hearing (no seriously). This would pose an obvious problem for uNorth were it to be disclosed. Enter: Michael Clayton.

Michael is the "cleaner" for the same law firm that employs Arthur (think Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction -- he solves problems). He was a trial attorney before and liked it, but he has shown a knack for being able to handle the dirty work, and his boss, played by Sydney Pollack has every intention to keep him in his current position. He's been friends with Arthur for years and has nothing but respect for him, but its his job to diffuse the situation, and its in his best interest to do his job well at the moment. Michael attempted to open a bar, something he could fall back on in anticipation of the day when he would want out of his current career. To do so, however, he had to borrow money from people who don't like to have debtors. And so Michael has a two-fold dilemma: he has to do his job and do it well if he's to have the money to get out of debt, but as time goes on and shady dealings start to reveal themselves, he has a hard time not sympathizing with Arthur. The antagonist in the film is Karen Krowder, a uNorth employee who wants to keep the company's pristine image in tact no matter what the cost. While her actions are certainly villainous, she's not really portrayed as an evil character, so much as she's portrayed as someone whose worked her way up the corporate ladder to a position with prestige, but that also requires morally bankruptcy, and is too meek to try and change that fact.

I think one of the keys to Michael Clayton is that Arthur, the "crazy" guy, is actually the character who seems most trustworthy to the viewer. It's an important distinction, that while his manic depression is a very real and very serious illness, his revelation about the system in which he and his colleagues work is genuine. That he seems to see the truth that's clouded to everyone else around him is what makes Arthur a great tragic character and it's what makes Michael Clayton stand out so far above and beyond most legal thrillers.

...to be the best in the National League

As promised, part 2 of my look at the Cubs going into the 2008 season, focusing on hitting.

The Cubs were a so-so hitting team last year. They were 8th in the NL in runs, basically putting them right in the middle. Really, they had a lot of the same problems that they've seemed to have for a lot of years now, even though the roster has complete changed. Even though some of the worst offenders are gone, like Corey Patterson, Juan Pierre, Jerry Hairston Jr., Sammy Sosa, et. al., their plate discipline was still pretty bad, and they were 2nd to last in the NL in walks. They also left guys on base in a lot of key situations, which they were notorious for in the Dusty Baker era. They hit far fewer home runs than they had hit in past years, but in a way that's actually encouraging, because they did find a way to get some runs home regardless, even if they should've been able to score more than they did. So here's a breakdown of the Cubs offensively as they look now:

Outfield

The big free agent move in the off-season for the Cubs was the acquisition of right-fielder Kosuke Fukudome from the Chunichi Dragons in Japan. Fukudome played 8 years in Japan (stats) and had a .300+ average and an OBP close to .400. Who knows how well those numbers will transfer over though. Often times Japanese hitters have really good plate discipline, so hopefully Fukudome is of that ilk. Apparently, Lou is toying with idea of having Fukudome hit 3rd with Lee in clean-up, which would seem to be a big endorsement of his hitting. Soriano is going to be in left again, which leaves center field which is going to be a much less cut and dry situation. It seems like its Felix Pie's job to lose, but if he hits like he did at times last year who knows if he'll stay there. They really don't have as many options at center though. Matt Murton can't really play center with any degree of success, and he may end up being traded before season starts. Apparently Ronny Cedeno spent the winner learning center field in an attempt to stay on the team as a utility guy, but Cedeno in center on any sort of a regular basis isn't really anything I want to see. Then there's Sam Fuld who was called up last September, but didn't really do anything besides pinch run. I have no idea if he can hit or not. So all signs seem to point to Pie starting in center. He needs to show much more consistency than he did last year though. He kept alternating from AAA to MLB, and it seemed like every time he was called up he'd go on a brief hot streak and then all of a sudden not be able to make contact with the ball.

Infield

Derrek Lee obviously has the 1st base position locked up. Darryl Ward will see be around to back him up there. At 2nd, it looks like DeRosa is the starter for now (at least he's first on the depth chart on cubs.com), but if Fontenot goes on a tear again maybe he'll win the job. Shortstop would seemingly belong to Theriot who was very good for most of 2007 before slowing down at the end, and Ramirez will be back at 3rd, at least until he gets hurt again. 2007 was awful for the Cubs at the catching position. They began with Michael Barrett, who was promptly traded after fighting Carlos Zambrano in the dugout and playing generally terrible defense. They then went through a clusterf*** of Rob Bowen, Koyie Hill, and Jason Kendall, until they finally brought up Geovany Soto at the very end of the year and, as it turned out, the kid could hit. I'm very exciting to seeing more of Soto this year. I've seen him on a couple of different top prospects lists, and who knows, maybe he could make a run for rookie of the year.

So it seems like the lineup is going to look something like this going into 2008:

1. Soriano
2. Theriot
3. Fukudome
4. Lee
5. Ramirez
6. DeRosa
7. Soto
8. Pie
9. (pitcher)

That has the potential to be a very good lineup if Fukudome makes the adjustment to MLB pitching well enough to hit 3rd effectively. I like the idea of Ramirez down a spot. Obviously, he has a ton of power, but he also has a habit of grounding into double plays at inopportune times and I think Fukudome and Lee will be better at ensuring that runs get home. If The Riot doesn't return to the form he showed in the middle of last year and just sort of hovers in the ~.250-.260 range and doesn't draw that many walks, I'd like to see him possibly moved down to 7th, with Soto bumped up a spot, and DeRosa or Pie in 2nd depending on which one of them is hitting better. If he hits close to .300 again though, obviously you want his base stealing ability high up in the order.

So yeah, that's what I think. But then again, the last time I played baseball was coach pitch in like 2nd grade, so what do I know really?

Next update: Thoughts on the first few spring training games that are going to start at the end of the month.

They got the power, they got the speed...

Alright, so this year I decided I'm going to blog about the Cubs this season. We'll see how long this lasts. Anyway, it seems like a big thing in the media this year is going to be the fact that this is "year 100" since the Cubs won the World Series. People in the media seem to be playing this up to be way more significant than it actually is, and I'm sure it won't be long before people start talking about how they're destined to win it all this year. That's not to say that I don't think they're capable of winning the World Series this year, because they very well could. At the same time though, people have to reign in their excitement and realize that this is a team that was 85-77 and reached the playoffs largely because the NL Central was a terrible, terrible division. They have made some good additions, but none of them seem to scream "this makes them the frontrunners!" especially with the Mets acquiring Johan Santana, making their rotation a pretty damn good one if it can stay reasonably healthy.

So let's break down exactly how the Cubs are looking going into Spring Training:

Starting Pitching

For the first time since 2003, the Cubs had a rotation that stayed healthy and, for the most part, effective for the entire year. They had 4 guys make 30+ starts, and Sean Marshall made 19 after being inserted into the rotation after Wade Miller started off the year in awful fashion. Jason Marquis was pretty erratic, and finished with a so-so ERA of 4.60, but the rest of the rotation had ERAs under 4. Carlos Zambrano had a down year by his standards and had some serious issues like the fist-fight with Michael Barrett, and yet still managed to win a career high 18 games. With Kerry Wood, Bob Howry, and Carlos Marmol in the running for the closer's spot, the Cubs are trying to work Ryan Dempster back into the rotation. Dempster made 6 starts at the beginning of 2005 and was bad in that role, but we'll see what happens this year. They also acquired the one time ace of the Cubs staff Jon Lieber, who has battled injury since leaving the Cubs, but is still a solid pitcher when healthy. On top of that they have guys who spent most of 2007 in AAA like Sean Gallagher who could come in in a pinch. So the Cubs might have somewhat of a logjam at starting pitcher, but better too many than not enough. Personally I think a rotation of Zambrano/Lilly/Hill/Marshall/Lieber sounds good to me. I don't know if the Cubs will be willing to have Marquis as the odd man out though, as they paid a good amount of money for him.

Relief Pitching

As mentioned above, the closer's role is going to be openly contested between Carlos Marmol, Bob Howry, and Kerry Wood. Kerry Wood made 22 relief appearances last year, and looked somewhat shaky at first, but managed to post a 3.33 ERA. If he's as healthy as is being claimed now going into the season, I'd say there's a really good chance he'd get the job. The biggest question mark would be how he would be able to handle pitching on consecutive days if the Cubs had a big string of close games. Carlos Marmol was fantastic last year as a set-up man and has shown he could handle the workload, appearing in 59 games last year despite the fact that they didn't call him up until about a month or so into the season. Bob Howry has also been very good in the back of the bullpen, with a 3.32 ERA last year, but may not be overpowering enough to be a "lights out" closer at this point in his career. Personally, I'd like to see Marmol get a shot, but I'd understand if they went with a more veteran option. Will Ohman and the Cubs parted ways at the end of last season, so the Cubs are probably going to have to find another left-hander to go along with Scott Eyre in the bullpen, who had a down year last year. The Cubs resigned Neal Cotts, so he might be an option, even though spent most of last season in AAA. They also have Carmen Pignatiello who appeared in some games scattered throughout last year. It'll be interesting to see what they do with Kevin Hart, who was called up in September and looked very good in 11 innings pitched. They also still have Angel Guzman and Michael Wuertz available. I dunno if this is going to be an overpowering bullpen, but it will probably be reasonably deep in the case of injuries.

Next update: Hitters

Juno

Juno (****)

I've been neglecting this again, and now it's been a while since I saw Juno so this review isn't really going to do the movie justice. In short, it's the best movie released in 2007 to this point (still have a lot of work to do there though). The title character as well as Michael Cera's character are both fantastic, it's brilliantly written (by a first-time screenwriter), and the movie has a Wes Anderson-ish quirkyness to it that absolutely sells the whole thing. Juno represents the same sort of celebration of non-conformity that Napolean Dynamite did, except Juno is a much more complete and much less annoying character.

3:10 to Yuma & Cloverfield

Picked up 3:10 to Yuma on DVD and watched it in the afternoon yesterday before going to see Cloverfield in the evening.

3:10 to Yuma (***1/2)

A western that reminded me somewhat in tone (if not so much story) of Open Range, 3:10 to Yuma is an enthralling western that combines some great gunfighting and action sequences with an interesting presence. Russel Crowe and Christian Bale star in what could be considered the roles of the villain and hero respectively if you had to sum the movie up in one sentence, but the film is very morally ambiguous and more complex than a good vs. evil story.

The film opens with Crowe's character, Ben Wade, leading a gang of outlaws as they rob a train full of railroad money, and kill the pinkertons assigned to guard it in the process. Meanwhile, Christian Bale's character, Dan Evans, is a rancher and Civil War veteran (who lost a good part of his foot in said war) in debt to people who don't have much sympathy for debtors. Their stories intertwine as Christian Bale witnesses the robbery, which eventually leads to Ben Wade's captor. Wade is scheduled to be transported by train (the 3:10 to Yuma specifically, hence the title) to where he'll be tried (and hung since his guilt of numerous crimes is obvious). In the meantime, however, Wade's tremendously imposing gang is scheming to free Wade from his captors. Evans agrees to guard Wade until he can be put on the train and collect a reward for his service.

Evans's oldest son William has always thought his father to be somewhat of a coward, and is somewhat seduced by Ben Wade's much more direct and violent way of handling situations. Wade and Evans, also develop a "two sides of the same coin" sort of relationship, as they realize they respect certain aspect of each other's character, even if their moral fabric is not much alike. As the film develops it becomes more about Evans's struggle to save his ranch by collecting the reward for the delivery of Wade, rather than Wade himself being brought to justice. At times, Wade seems to show a genuine sympathy for Evans's plight. In this way, the film is a lot like a Sergio Leone movie, in that its not so much about a heroic figure bringing evil men to justice on behalf of the townspeople, as it is a story with very complex and individualistic characters who seem to exist outside of the realm of the "commonfolk."

3:10 to Yuma also sports some beautiful cinematography, and takes time to show the beauty of the setting, and has some great shots that visually match the tone of the story. The only thing that may be off-putting to some is that in a few climactic action sequences the film seems to develop a case of "Bad Boys syndrome," and becomes more focused with the violence and body count itself rather than why its happening.

Cloverfield (**1/2)

Cloverfield is a movie that's not quite like any movie that's been made before, and that's not entirely a good thing. On one hand, it's a great technical achievement, combining state-of-the-art computer effects with a very "ground level" documentary style. At the same time, however, there really isn't much substance to the film besides the experience that this combination creates, and while it was fun to watch the first time, I can't really imagine the film having a lot of staying power. There's a couple genuinely terrifying moments, but at other times the entire thing almost seems too surreal for it to even register as fear.

2007 Top Ten list

Like the other ones, expect this to be edited from time to time as I getting to seeing other '07 movies in the future.

1. Juno - An amazingly well written movie that takes a story about a teenage girl getting pregnant and spins it into a broader exploration into what happens when someone who is a complete non-conformist has to deal with some huge societal issues. Plus, it's really funny.

2. Michael Clayton - Awesome legal triller that both gets you involved in the plot while also offering a scathing commentary on the whole system in which corporate lawyers thrive.

3. No Country for Old Men - A movie with a lot of subtleties that I'm not sure I picked up on fully watching for the first time, but even at face value its a great cat and mouse story with a terrifying "the world is meaningless so I might as well kill everyone" sort of villain.

4, There Will Be Blood - Even though it looks like a period piece with a grand message about what it meant to live in that place and that era, this is in fact a movie that looks inward at its black-hearted, nihilistic main character. Daniel Day Lewis's performance is fantastic.

5. American Gangster - A lot of people called this a new Scarface, but Denzel Washington's character is more quiet and calculating than was Tony Montana, and Russel Crowe's parallel story as an honest cop in a dishonest city adds a lot.

6. Sweeney Todd - Great black humor and great visuals from Tim Burton. A musical for all of us who feel musicals are too sappy.

7. Once - Review of this coming soon. A very low-key and simple film about two people who randomly meet and realize that together they make a great musical voice.

8. Black Book - An intense film taking place in occupied Holland in World War II. An exciting espionage movie, and simultaneously a melancholy personal story.

9. Knocked Up - Judd Apatow's dialog is some of the funniest ever put to paper.

10. Zodiac - David Fincher, whose Seven was creepy as hell because of its black atmosphere, makes another creepy and intriguing movie here, and does it this time by sticking very close to the facts of a real life case. Probably one of most interesting murder mysteries out there.

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11. 310 to Yuma
12. Hot Fuzz
13. Bourne Ultimatum
14. Superbad
15. 300
The Darjeeling Limited
Breach
Transformers
Spiderman 3
Beowulf
Pirates 3

Movies I have not seen that I suspect could make the list: There Will Be Blood, Eastern Promises, Paprika, Persepolis, No End in Sight, Grindhouse, King of Kong, and probably some more.

Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (***1/2)

More musicals need wanton, graphic violence. That's my conclusion upon seeing Tim Burton's movie adaptation of Sweeney Todd, originally a Tony award winning musical. Johnny Depp, oft-used in Tim Burton films, stars here as the title character who was once a barber in industrialized London, before a corrupt judge (Alan Rickman) sentences him to a false charge out of envy for his wife. The judge ends up raping his wife and keeping his daughter as his ward. Years later, Todd returns to London hellbent on revenge. He meets Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who has taken over his old barber shop and converted it to the self-proclaimed worst meat pie shop in London. Sweeney retrieves his old barber's shears, which he seems to treat like a samurai would treat his katana, buried underneath the floor on the upper level. He's set to slit the judge's throat with them, but he finds the judge difficult to get to. Eventually Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett get sidetracked and devise a scheme which significantly increases the reputation of Mrs. Lovett's shop, while at the same time turns the tables on the wealthy elite in London and finds them at the mercy of the poor, in a manner of speaking. Mrs. Lovett is eventually convinced that she and Sweeney can start a new, if somewhat bizarre, life with each other, while in the meantime a young sailor attempts to steal away Joanna, Sweeney's daughter from the captivity of the judge.

I like some of the songs in Sweeney Todd better than others, but then again I'm really not much for musicals in general, and I have to admit that at its best the film's music is pretty damn good. The setting of industrialized London is perfect for Tim Burton to run wild with the dark, Gothic style he's become known for. Some of the set pieces are fantastic, and if anything some of them are actually too "loud" and distract from the characters to an extent.

Overall, Sweeney Todd is a lot of fun with brilliant macabre humor and social commentary with a lot of fun, outside-of-the-norm musical numbers.

Superbad + Futurama's back!

Superbad (***1/2)

In the same year as the similarly brilliant Knocked Up, comes Superbad, another movie from Judd Apatow's production company. The film isn't directed by Apatow, but it's co-written by Seth Rogan, who starred in Knocked Up, and the movie has the same sort of dialog that's over the top vulgar, yet more accurate to real life than that of most any other movie. The movie is essentially a chronicle of high school seniors being high school seniors on their last big weekend before graduation. They're horny, they want to get trashed, and they don't really care what ridiculous measures they have to go to accomplish either of those two goals.

Michael Cera, who was absolutely brilliant as George Michael in "Arrested Development" is amazing here as Evan for the same reasons. He has excellent comedic timing, and has one of the best "wow, this is awkward" type of expressions around. Jonah Hill (the guy from Knocked Up who used a hospital wheelchair to do a Steven Hawking impression, among other things) is hilarious as well and complements Evan, who is more of the straight man, very well.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score (***)

The first of what is to be four direct-to-DVD Futurama films tells a great story, and has several memorable bits, though at the same time a fair share of bits fall flat. Enough of them work to make it worth a buy, and if you liked the series you'll like this.

Capote (***)

Had this for a while but just watched it recently. May do a write up soon. Lazy right now.

Beowulf

Beowulf (**1/2)

Firstly, I saw this in I-Max 3D and, if you ask me, any novelty in the 3D effect wears off pretty quickly and eventually just gets distracting. As for the movie itself, Beowulf has some elaborate and satisfying fight scenes, but doesn't really have enough supporting these fight scenes to be anything more than a run of the mill action movie. Neil Gaiman co-wrote the script, and at some points his knack for successfully combining myth with history-- which he does so well in his graphic novels like Sandman-- is able to come through, but at other times its unevenly paced and awkward. There isn't much character development, which is in part due to the fact that the movie is based on the centuries old epic poem, but more still needed to be done to make Beowulf a protagonist worth caring about. There is a big jump ahead in time midway through the film after which point Beowulf becomes much more of a two-dimensional character, and this half of the film is much more enjoyable. Almost no effort is made to establish the origins or motives of the villains: the grotesque zombie-like Grendel and his Siren-like mother, played by a very naked Angelina Jolie. Again, this is party due to the fact that this is based on an epic poem which has more room for ambiguity, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating watching characters battle demons whose reasons for being haven't really been established whatsoever. The animation is far superior to the genuinely creepy animation of Robert Zemekis's last animated film, The Polar Express, but some of the character's motions are still a bit stiff looking, and there is definitely some degree of an Uncanny Valley effect still going on.

Knocked Up & American Gangster

Knocked Up (****)

One of the best comedies in recent years which, like The Forty Year Old Virgin shows Judd Apatow's ability to combine edgy-- but not overly crass-- comedy with a well-written and intelligent story. Seth Rogan is very good as Ben, the well meaning but lazy and uncultured stoner, as is Katherine Heigl, the woman who gets "knocked up," as well as Paul Rudd, as a married guy wishing he was still single. There are brilliant examples of satire involving all of these characters, combined by some hilarious bits from Ben's cast of stoner friends. An excellent comedy.

American Gangster (***1/2)

A very enjoyable crime drama from Ridley Scott, based on the true story of Frank Lucas, a black man who beat the Italian mafia at its own game selling heroin in New York City. Denzel Washington is very good as the unassuming, but methodical and calculating Lucas, and the way his plan to undercut the mob comes to fruition is interesting to watch, but the best half of the movie may be the other half. On the opposite side of things, a cop played by Russel Crowe tries to discover the source of the new heroin while constantly trying to dodge entanglements with others in the police force who are corrupt and don't like people butting in on their jurisdiction. His performance is very good as well. There's an epilogue that's sort of necessary to tie of the story, but doesn't quite fit with the rest of the film, and some other sections throughout that probably could've benefited from better pacing. Still, this is a movie that runs near three hours and remains pretty engrossing throughout. A very good movie that might see a few Oscar nods.

The Bourne Ultimatum

The Bourne Ultimatum (***1/2)

A perfect final installment in the Bourne trilogy (although it might not actually be final), The Bourne Ultimatum's frantic action sequences manage to capture the same excitement that the first two provided without feeling redundant nor jumping the shark. Matt Damon gives another very good performance as Jason Bourne, a man who has a stoic resolve but is deeply internally haunted by the fragments of the memories he has of his entry into the "Treadstone" program. Joan Allen reprises her role from Supremacy as Pamela Landy, a woman trying to balance the responsibility of her government job with her sympathy and understanding of Bourne's plight. Paul Greengrass Ultimatum as he did Supremacy and he directs it in the same sort of ground level, "shaky camera" documentary style. This is sometimes distracting and can make it difficult to follow the action, but at the same time it captures the every-second-counts nature of Bourne's pursuit. The Bourne series provides some of the best action films in recent years and this entry is no exception.

Another half-assed update

Still too lazy to write reviews as long as I'd been writing them before, but I don't want to totally abandon this.

Zodiac (***)

Based on the true story of the Zodiac killer, this film details the lives of those trying to solve the case, notably Jake Gyllinhall's character, a newspaper cartoonist with no expertise except for a personal interest in the cyphers used by the Zodiac. Gyllinhall gives a very good performance, as does Robert Downey Jr. While it lacks the atmosphere of Seven or the raw intensity of Fight Club, David Fincher does another solid job of directing here. The film does have some pacing problems, mostly because of the nature of the real life case, in which there were several long stretches of time during which the Zodiac didn't communicate with the media or police nor had any known victims. Still the case is one of the more intriguing unsolved mysteries out there, and Fincher clearly took great effort in adapting the real-life events for the screen.

Children of Men (****)

This film is probably best classified as science fiction, as it is set in a dystopian vision of the near future, but at its heart its a very focused and human drama. The film follows Clive Owen, a former political activist who is now too cynical, burned out, and alcoholic to care, who stumbles into the role of guarding a pregnant woman -- the first woman to become pregnant in almost 20 years. The film makes some very pointed political commentaries about present day reality. Britain,--which proclaims itself to be "soldiering on" amidst the chaos the infertility crisis brought upon the world--is seen as oppressive and jingoistic, and scenes of imprisoned illegal immigrants recall images from Guantanamo Bay. Still more than anything, the story at its heart is a story of human perseverance. Clive Owen's character, Theo, despite the depression he'd sunken into, finds something worth fighting for, and Children of Men is the account of how far he's willing to go to accomplish it. Despite some of the grandiose battle scenes and the near-future setting, the film is directed with a pretty minimalist style, using long, documentary like takes. And as I explained, the story is really a very simple and focused one and this simple style suits it perfectly. Even though its plot is quite different, I could see this being remembered in much the same way Blade Runner was remembered, in that its a story set in the future, but which is more about the people than the setting.

Half-assed update

I've neglected this for a little while, but here's a couple movies I've seen recently.

Pan's Labyrinth (****)

Deserving of every bit of the praise it's received, this is a brilliant movie from Guillermo Del Toro intertwining a dark fantasy story with a period drama set in the Spanish Civil War. The story follows a young girl as she migrates between the real girl and the fantasy world which may or may not exist outside of her own head. The visuals are amazing, and the story is effectively and beautifully simple.


Transformers (***)

It has many of the trademarks of a Michael Bay movie in that its obnoxiously loud and more than a little bit cliche, but I have to admit that it was fun to watch. The Transformers are great to look at, and the movie has a number of amazing action sequences. Despite the inherent campyness of a movie based on '80s action figures and the one-dimensional nature of a lot of the characters, the movie can be touching in some parts. A decent popcorn movie.

Black Book

Black Book (***1/2)
(Zwartboek)

It's been about a week and a half now since I saw this, so it's not completely fresh in my mind, but this is in World War II era espionage-type triller directed by Paul Verhoeven, aka the dude who made Robocop. All of the characters speak their native languages, and so the film is subtitled with English, Dutch, German, and Hebrew all being spoken.

The film's protagonist is Rachel Stein, a Jewish woman hiding out in the countryside in the Netherlands during German occupation. She decides to flee on a boat which takes passengers to liberated territory under cover of darkness. The boat, however, is quickly discovered by a German patrol boat and its passengers are gunned down, with only Rachel escaping. The remainder of the film follows Rachel as she attempts to aid the Dutch resistance movement, while also trying to discover what happened the night the boat was discovered. As part of this effort, she seduces a German S.S. officer and begins working at the local Gestapo headquarters under an assumed name.

The film is probably not the most profound movie ever made about World War II, but it does do an excellent job of painting a portrait of the Netherlands during and immediately after World War II, and makes a number of interesting social commentaries. But moreso than that, the film really works as a thriller, and Rachel's elaborate double agent role leads to a number of tremendously tense scenes. Black Book is easily worth a watch.

PotC: At World's End

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (**)

The Pirates movies have been perhaps not the most important movies made as of late, but they have worked as entertaining escapist adventure movies. The third leg of the trilogy, At World's End, however tries to do way too much, and ends up being more exhausting than anything else. Even though there was a significant cliffhanger at the end of the second film leading into At World's End, in many ways the first two films were basically self-contained. Curse of the Black Pearl centered around Jack Sparrow and company facing off against Barbosa's crew for the cursed Aztec treasure, while Dead Man's Chest centered around Jack's debt to Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman. In contrast, At World's End's plot is incredibly complex, incorporating characters from both of the two films, who create a number of entangling and changing alliances with each other. I don't know if the last two films were planned out when the first was created, but watching this movie, some of the new things revealed about the characters certainly seem forced to try and fit them into this web of intrigue. All this would be well and good if it added up to something great at the end, but the film's climax, nor any other part of it, is really any more exciting than the sequences that the first two movies culminated with after much less set-up.

If you've seen the first movie you know that (highlight) Jack is dead, and that Barbosa and company are setting out to find him and bring him back. The movie begins with them in Singapore stealing maps to "Davy Jones' locker" to accomplish this task. They meet Chow-Yun Fat, who is sort of wasted as a largely uninteresting pirate captain local to Singapore. They, of course, eventually find Jack, but not before a surrealistic scene of Jack in a sort of purgatory which is mildly amusing but which goes on for way too long. The movie gets more ridiculous from there, as the British navy and the East India Company tries to use Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman as an enforcer for their own aims. Barbosa and Jack decide that a conference needs to be held with the nine Pirate captains from all over the world to try and stop them, lest pirates become extinct. The entire notion of a pirate council seems too far over the top. The series obviously never attempted to be realistic, but when all the pirates gather around a table in their own crazy looking, stereotypical ethic costumes it almost reaches self-parody (and yes, Keith Richards is in it).

Jack is still funny, the action is still visually cool, and there are a lot of moments which put a smile on your face, but the attempt at adding multiple plot twists and creating a huge web of entangling alliances between the characters is just a bad idea. What results is a convoluted plot that detracts from the simple sense of adventure which is the reason why the series is popular for people other than the 13-year old Jack Sparrow demographic. The movie's run time is three hours, which was fine for an epic like Lord of the Rings, but just exhausting in this case.

Stranger than Fiction

Stranger than Fiction (***1/2)

If Stranger than Fiction is remembered years from now, it'll probably be because of Will Ferrell's performance. Ferrell, known more for his loud, over-the-top, performances like in Ancorman shows that he can still be funny without yelling and running to walls, and is capable of very serious moments as well. In the film Ferrell plays Harold Crick. He works for the IRS and, even though he's quite good at it, he doesn't seem to care much for his job. He seems to aspire for more in his life, but is too timid to take any sort of initiative. Really, he's not very interesting as a movie character except for the fact that he hears a voice in his head. Not just a voice, however, but a female voice narrating his own life as it happens.

The early part of the film explores this idea. What would it be like if your life was being constantly narrated? How would it be described even when you were doing the most mundane of things? How could you possible concentrate on your life when you heard someone narrating it, and then how would your ensuing frustration be addressed by the narrator? All of this leads to some very funny scenes which, again, show that Ferrell has potential beyond some of the obnoxious characters he's famous for.

The film's real hook comes when the narrator mentions Harold's "imminent death." She doesn't mention how or why he's going to die, only that he is going to die, and soon. Harold goes to see a psychologist who tells him he's schizophrenic, leading to this exchange:

"Mr. Crick, you have a voice speaking to you."
"No, no to me. About me."

And so Harold decides that he has to find someone whose expertise is in stories. He finds English professor Jules Hilbert, played by Dustin Hoffman, who is just eccentric enough and just enough into literature to think that helping Harold might actually be possible. He suggests that Harold try and determine whether the story being narrated about him is a comedy or a tragedy, leading to some funny scenes where Harold awkwardly attempts to get to know Ana Pascal, played by Maggie Gyllenhal, a woman who Harold is enthralled with but is in many ways his opposite.

Over the course of the film it becomes apparent that the narrator in Harold's head is an actual writer named Karen Eiffel, who was once critically acclaimed, but is now trying to overcome writer's block and finish her first novel in a number of years. The movie's ending raises questions about writing, and about death in fictional stories that would seem crazy to even consider, but somewhat seem to make perfect sense in the context of the film. Would we place the same importance on art if people actually died when art portrays death? It's an interesting question.

The film's ingenious plot is what stands out most about the film, but also of note are some of the visual effects used in the film. Harold, being very much left-brained, thinks entirely about math, and as we see him go about his day, we see things he encounters and interacts with overlayed with a mosaic of numbers and diagrams. On the bonus material of the DVD, the artists who created it called it a GUI, as in the GUI of an operating system. It is a unique effect and my only complaint about it is that it isn't used consistently throughout the film, and at times when it crops up it detracts from the dialogue going on at the same time.

Stanger than Fiction is one of the more interesting comedies in recent years. Its strange but enthralling plot let's Will Ferrell create a memorable character that is both very funny and at times a genuinely sympathetic figure.

Spiderman 3

Spiderman 3 (***)

The Spiderman trilogy (although it sounds like its going end up as more than a trilogy) as a whole is a lot of fun and a worthy adaptation of the long running comic book series. The third installment, however, is the weakest of the three and more erratic and less focused than the previous two. The first two movies were fairly simple, giving Spiderman one main villain to contend with and allowing plenty of time for Peter Parker to grow as a character and his relationships with Mary Jane and Harry Osborn to develop. These relationships are in no way abandoned in Spiderman 3, but they aren't as interesting because the movie simply has too much going on.

Chief amongst my complaints is the fact that the movie has one too many villains. Where the first film had the original Green Goblin and the second had Doctor Octopus, Spiderman 3 meanders between storylines involving Harry becoming the new Green Goblin, Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church) becoming The Sandman, and Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) becoming Venom. None of them are really given enough time to be truly memorable, except maybe for Harry, who has had a conflict with Spiderman/Peter building since the end of the first film. Even still, Harry's part in the film seems somewhat thrown together. In his first confrontation with Peter in early the movie Harry is thrown from his glider and suffers head trauma that manages to cause him to lose his memory of most everything past the death of his father. Afterwards, Peter tries to rekindle his friendship with him, and Mary Jane comes to confide in him regarding issues with her relationship with Peter. In this way, Harry is kept close to both Peter and M.J. for the remainder of the film. This seems too convenient, even for a comic book movie.

The main players in the Venom storyline: Eddie Brock, Gwen Stacy, and the black suit that eventually becomes the entity that is Venom are all introduced fairly early in the film, but are then mostly set aside while The Sandman's origin is told and he faces Spiderman in a visually cool but somewhat anti-climactic battle. The plot then shifts back again, as Peter begins to don the black suit, date Gwen Stacy and embrace his "dark side" in a sequence that's already led to thousands of emo jokes across the internet. The bottom line is that the lack of focus on any one of these characters means that their sum total doesn't add up to anything as interesting as the grand sum of the first two movies. We learn a little about The Sandman's motivations, and certain scenes cast him in a somewhat sympathetic light, but we don't see enough of him to truly care about his characters fate, nor does he really get a chance to develop much of a personality.

Meanwhile, the creation of Venom, while true to the comics, is similarly rushed and there isn't enough tension built before the inevitable battle. The film's ending does have some emotion to it, and while room for a sequel is definitely left open, there are significant developments and it does work as the closing to a trilogy. I was bothered, however, with some of the events leading up to the climax. There is an alliance made at the end of the film that seems to have a shaky justification based on what we're shown as an audience. It seems like a scene is missing. Again, the film seems to be rushing too much and trying to hastily find connections for multiple complicated story arcs. At times it felt like the filmmakers were trying to create Spiderman 3 & 4 at the same time. There is a rumor that Sam Raimi, who directed all 3 of the films, wanted to continue focusing on villains from the early period of the comic book series and originally wanted to include the Sandman, and only the Sandman in the film. Producer Avi Arad, allegedly, then more or less forced Raimi to write in Venom to appease the fans, many of which grew up reading Venom in comics during the 1990s and saw him in the cartoon show during the same period. I'm in no position to know if this is true or false, but it certainly seems plausible.

I have laid out some major problems I had with the movie, but I don't want to act as if I completely hated it. The humor that was in the first two films is still there (including another great Bruce Campbell cameo), the action is still both technically impressive and exciting to watch, and there are still a lot of moments that put a smile on your face. Even though I feel it is a step backward I don't think it destroys what the first two films began, nor does it do injustice to the characters or to the original series. All of the films have been worth the price of admission, and the series stands at the forefront of the recent trend of comic book movies, though it may soon be overtaken when the successors to the excellent Batman Begins are released.

Hot Fuzz plus 2 other short reviews

Hot Fuzz (***1/2)

Hot Fuzz is a loving tribute to the genre of over-the-top, Michael Bay style, explosive-filled cop dramas. The type of movie where physics and probability are of little to no consequence, and the main character always winds up the hero despite usually recklessly endangering dozens of people. It does for these sorts of movies what Shaun of the Dead did for zombie movies, which makes sense because it was written, directed, and acted by many of the same people.

The movie centers around Nicolas Angel, a cop in London who gets transferred to a one-horse down out in the country, simply because he's too good. He has a tireless devotion to his job and the best arrest record on the force, so much so that he's making everyone else looks bad. As the film begins, he tries to get accustomed to his new home of Sandford, meeting the various folksy inhabitants and his new co-workers. The police force in Sandford is much more lackadaisical, and understandably so, as there isn't much to do in the small town. Nicolas tries to shake off being such a fish out of water, and applies his knowledge from his London beat to his new assignment but it really doesn't work well. Where he used to be chasing down fleeing criminals, he now finds himself chasing around escaped swans. Futhermore, he finds himself frustrated with his well intentioned but mostly incompetent new parter, Danny.

The beginning of the movie is funny in its own right. Nicolas and Danny play off each other well, and all of the eccentric townspeople are-- one of which is a mustached Timothy Dalton--are great. But what the movie is going to be remembered for is its last half hour, where it intentionally becomes every bit as ridiculous as Bad Boys II and all the other movies its parodying with a series of preposterous action scenes. Nicolas eventually finds something is amiss in Sandford, and he has to set things right in the traditional Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer fashion. In a mere half hour, there are countless quotable one-liners and applause-inducing "Oh ****!" moments. It is absolutely spot on as a parody and is going to be referenced for years to come as one of the funniest sequences to any movie.

I think the last half hour really works because the movie up to that point is so docile. It's the payoff at the end after we've gotten to know some of the characters, and their relationships have been developed a little bit. They could've made the entire movie as ridiculous as the ending and created sort of a new Naked Gun, but while the Naked Gun movies are hilarious in their own right, I don't think it would've worked as well in this case. The fact that the premise of the movie is initially more or less plausible makes the shenanigans at the end that much funnier. The entire movie builds to the end, and it delivers in every way. Hot Fuzz is a smart, well-written comedy that's probably going to become a cult classic alongside it's predecessor Shaun of the Dead.

The Weather Man (**1/2)

This is a movie starring Nicolas Cage as a David Spritz, a downtrodden, recently divorced, middle-aged man working as a TV weather man in Chicago. Some parts of the movie are written better than others. There's a few memorable lines and Nicolas Cage's narration in particular is great, but there are a few scenes where conversations seem kind of forced and awkward. Probably the strongest point of the movie is a great performance by Michael Caine as David's father.

Attack the Gas Station! (**1/2)

Uh... yeah, I wasn't really sure what to make of this. This is a Korean film from 1999 about a group of teenagers who, quite literally, attack a gas station. They rob it and hold people hostage, but more as a sign of rebellion against society than for any sort of monetary gain. There are a few flashbacks explaining how each of them were somehow wronged by a parent or an authority figure, or somehow had their dreams crushed. But really, beyond this, the movie basically just documents what happens as these four people try and torment the legitimate employees (and gang members who inexplicable show up) while trying to maintain the illusion that they're actually running the gas station themselves. Some of this is pretty amusing and it's an enjoyable watch, I'm just not sure if the broader stuff about the troubled past of each of the characters really adds up to anything except a flimsy pretext for why they're attacking a gas station.

300

300 (***)

I don't really feel the need to write a huge review for this. The story is more or less based on the historical battle of Thermopylae, but the story is basically a loose outline between huge, stylized fight scenes. Like the trailer, characters yell a lot of stuff dramatically, but the dialogue is really not all that important. Visually, the movie is amazing. Like Sin City, it's a testament to how CGI can be used to create otherwise impossible settings, without being loud and obnoxious and distracting from the human performances.

300 is in no way as deep of a work as Sin City. Sin City was just as stylized and violent, but each of its main characters went through a tremendous amount of development throughout their respective stories. While 300 follows its hero Leonitis, from his childhood up to his famous last stand, it's first and foremost about the battle itself and not about giving any deep insights about his character. But it's impossible not to find the fighting badass, and in the end that's really all you need for a movie to be entertaining enough to be worth the price of admission. If you like action movies, you'll like 300.

Breach

Breach (***)

Breach is based on a true story, and follows the investigation and eventual arrest of Robert Hanssen, "the worst spy in U.S. history" as he is described in the movie. Before a case was finally built against him in 2001, Hanssen worked in the FBI, and sold huge amounts of classified information to which he had access. The movie begins with a young FBI agent, played by Ryan Phillippe, getting the assignment of posing as his new clerk, essentially distracting him enough to allow for his possessions to be sifted through for evidence.

Hanssen is played by Chris Cooper, who portrays him as an arrogant, controlling, super type-A personality sort of figure. He constantly talks down to Phillippe's character, Eric O'Neill, treating him as an errand boy, despite seeming to have a certain respect for his talents. At the same time, Hanssen is (or at least seems to be) a very pious and traditional Catholic. A good part of the film deals with Hanssen attempting to become sort of a father figure and spiritual advisor to O'Neill, which puts him at odds with O'Neill's non-practicing wife, who knows Hanssen only as O'Neill's boss and not as a man under investigation.

Over the course of the movie, the FBI attmpts several ploys using O'Neill to gather evidence from Hanssen's car and his PDA, amoung other things. Gradually, O'Neill becomes frustrated and somewhat paranoid of the constantly suspicious Hanssen. The film's biggest moments of suspense are examples of O'Neill having to think on his toes to weave through precarious situations where he has to stay in character as Hanssen's loyal assistant and yet at the same constantly distract him from the searches taking place around him.

The movie is worthwhile because Hanssen is an interesting character and Chris Cooper's performance is very good, but the film never really builds a tremendous amount of tension, despite the espianoge and spy games that are central to the story. The movie never seems to make up its mind as to whether it's trying to be a triller and focus on the actual circumstances of Hanssen's treason and O'Neill's investigation, or to be a movie focused on the subtleties of Hanssen's character. At many times it seems to be the latter. There are several scenes of Hanssen in mass, which he claims he goes to on a daily basis, which would seem to suggest that the movie is trying to focus on the apparent hypocracy of his character. But in the last act of the film there are two scenes which seem like they're trying to be climax of a Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan type of espionage movie. Because so much of the film before this point has been so introspective of Hanssen, they don't have the tension you would expect them to have. The movie as a whole seems somewhat slow-going and unexciting, especially considering the gravity of what both main characters are involved in. The film is interesting, but doesn't seem to exact all the potential from the true story on which it is based.

--EK

The Prestige

The Prestige (****)

Off the heels of directing the excellent Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan directed The Prestige, a film with a very different subject, but which not only has the same dark visuals, but is equally enticing. The film follows magicians in 1890s London, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, who are somewhat different in technique, but are both at the top of their profession. Jackman's character has mastered the acting and the showmanship required to hook an audience, while Christian Bale's character has mastered the actual innerworkings of the illusions, in part because of his total devotion to his craft.

The two men are connected by a man named Cutter, played by the always ridiculously cool Michael Caine, who serves as a mentor and maybe a bit of a father figure to both of them. An incident occurs causing the illusionists to dispise each other. They engage in a riviarly where each sabotage's the other's performances, in part to physically hurt the other, and in part to show their superiority in sleight of hand. The rivialry comes to a head when Christian Bale's character, Alfred Borden, debuts his "The Transported Man" trick, where he is seemingly able to walk through a door and walk through another on the opposite side of the stage within a fraction of a second. Robert Angier, Jackman's character, becomes obsessed with the seemingly flawless illusion, dismissing Cutter's claim that the man who emerges from the second door is simply an excellent body double.

Angier's obessive quest for the secret of the illusion leads him across the pond to America, and more specifcally to Colorado Springs. It is against this snowy backdrop that Nolan displays some hauntingly beautiful visuals, which represent the very best of the film's overall excellent cinematography. Angier travels to Colorado to visit the eccentric scientist Nikola Tesla, played by the homo superior himself, David Bowie. Angier presses him about the possibilities of teleportation, convinced that Borden's illusion is rooted in science, and not just deception. It is here that the film takes a turn towards science fiction. This could've been extremely campy and ruined the entire film, but Nolan's direction and the screenplay (which was written by Nolan and his brother, Johnathan) gives it a sense of legitimacy and makes it all work.

At the beginning of the film, Cutter explains in a voice over that a magic trick consists of three parts: the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. These scenes with Tesla would certainly represent the film's "turn" if it can be said to have one. What began as a film about two men in a professional and personal rivalry, becomes a deeply philosophical film with much more universal themes. The film's "prestige" then, is its revealing ending, which again, could have played out in a very B-movie way, but is handled excellently. Some people probably won't be thrown off by the end reveal (I don't consider myself that good at guessing plots before they play out and I partially predicted the events of the ending correctly, though I didn't have an explanation for them) but I think most everyone will find it compelling regardless.

Simply, The Prestige is a film which, on the surface follows a figurative chess match between two bitter rivals, and on quite another level provides a study of depecption and of human nature. Either way you choose to look at it, it is exellent, and anyone who felt what Nolan did for Batman was a breath of fresh air for the character will certainly love his latest work.

--EK

The Last King of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland (***1/2)

The Last King of Scotland begins with Nicolas Gerrigan, a recently graduated med student in Scotland, perhaps unwilling to follow in his father's footsteps as a physician, deciding to travel somewhere at random. He ends up picking Uganda, follows through with it, and ends up working as a doctor at a mission there. He meets a married woman working there, played by Gillian Anderson, and nearly seduces her into an affair. But his travels take a drastic turn shorter thereafter, as he treats Idi Amin, the new Ugandan president (read: oppressive dictator), who injures his hand in a car accident. Distracted while treating the injury, Gerrigan shoots and kills a noisy and apparently injured cow using Amin's own pistol. Amin, impressed by his initiative and fearlessness, oppoints Gerrigan as his personal physician.

Slowly, Gerrigan's job as Amin's physician morphs into a job as his political advisior, as Amin becomes increasingly impressed with Gerrigan's character as he gets to know him more. Amin puts a great amount of trust in Gerrigan, partly because, being from Scotland, Amin feels Gerrigan somehow shares a distrust of the British, a feeling Amin developed as a boy growing up under British occupation. Gerrigan is, at first, a loyal lackey, hinging on every word Amin says about improving Uganda's infastructure, and gratefully accepting Amin's lavish gifts. It is only late in the film, and after Gerrigan has made several crucial mistakes, that he begins to piece together the gruesome reality of Amin's Ugandan revolution.

Forrest Whittaker won an Oscar for the film, and his performance is clearly the strong point. Whittaker at times shows Amin's charismatic facade that drew Gerrigan in, and at other times is nothing short of terrifying. Near the end of the film, as world opinion is turning sharply against Amin, and Gerrigan is administering him uppers to get him through the day, Whittaker simultaneously shows his almost pathetic state of frustration, and his enduring and frightening vengefullness.

The movie's main weakness is Gerrigan's character. It has nothing to do with the performance of James McAvoy who does a very good job opposite of Whittaker. But the film doesn't do a great job selling Gerrigan and how he gets into such a tumultuous position. The Gerrigan character is ficticious and a composite of several characters from the novel of which the film is based. At times it seems like this composite was never fully fleshed out. The film never really establishes why Gerrigan so brashly steals Amin's gun to shoot a cow and yet at other times seems as nervous and uncertain as you would expect a man barely out of college to act in unfamiliar territory. It never establishes how Gerrigan appears to be as well-studied and composed as a seasoned doctor, and yet seems so naive and oblivious to much of anything else going on. I've never read the novel, but judging by the issues with Gerrigan's character, I can guess that the film may have benefitted from staying closer to the original work.

The Last King of Scotland clearly is not flawless, but Forrest Whittaker's performance alone makes the film worth watching. Furthermore, the film does an excellent job of documenting the rise and fall of Amin, one of many figures in Africa who caused the deaths of many, and yet is much less infamous than he would be had he existed in the "first world." In this way, The Last King of Scotland is invaluable.

--EK

Bad song lyrics of the day #3

"Acting like a robot
Its metal brain corrodes
You try to take its pulse
Before the head explodes
Explodes..."

--Megadeth - "Symphony of Destruction"

Bad song lyrics of the day #2

"It's like a deadly game of freeze tag,
I touch you with a 44 mag and you're frozen inside a body bag"

--Dr. Dre and Ice Cube - "Natural Born Killers"

Bad song lyrics of the day #1

"Invisible kid
Locked away in his brain
From the shame and the pain
World down the drain
Invisible kid
Suspious of your touch
Don't want no crutch
But it's all too much"

--Metallica - Invisible Kid

I fully intend on making this a recurring thing for some reason. Most of them are probably going to be from this album.

Fearless

Fearless (***1/2)

Fearless tells the story of Huo Yuan Jia (which is actually the film's original title), a renowned Chinese wushu master who competed during the beginning of the 20th century and formed a school which still exists internationally today. Huo Yuan Jia is played by Jet Li, supposedly acting in his final martial arts film at the age of 44. The film follows Huo from early in his life up until his death, and in this way is a very focused and personal film. At the same time, however, the film ties Huo's rise to national fame to China's desperate need for national pride, during a time when foreign governments had begun openly exploiting the country, and its once subservient neighbor of Japan had begun to force its will upon it.

The first half of the film begins with Huo as a youth aspiring to be like his father-- also a wushu mater-- and following him as he gains notoriety as a fighter himself and founds his martial arts school. This first act culminates in a bloody confruntation with another wushu master who injured one of his students. After this, the film transitions into a more relaxed interlude where Huo goes into a self-imposed exile in a rural farming community. This segment has no fighting and very little dialogue, but still contains some of the more poignant scenes in the film, as Huo meets a blind woman with whom he seems to develop an unspoken bond.

As beautiful as some of these scenes are, Fearless is clearly going to be remembered first and foremost for its fighting. Supposedly, very few wires were used in Fearless's filming, and its evident. The fighting is raw, fast, and intense and the full range of Jet Li's martial arts prowess is shown. The movie culminates in a scene in which Jet Li fights four different international fighters with four different fighting styles, with each fight having at least one "That kicked ass" moment. The film is going to be remembered for a long time amongst fans of martial arts movies.

Fearless is only a little over an hour and a half long, and the scenes setting up the political intrigue and cultural backdrop surrounding the fighting seem sort of barebones. There aren't any exchanges of dialogue that are going to be incredibly memorable-- save perhaps a scene where Huo philosophizes with a Japanese sword fighter-- and the vilification of the foreign characters seems somewhat over the top even in their limited time on screen. Still, the film's incredible fight sequences and beautiful fight scenes speak volumes even if the dialogue sometimes does not. And indeed, the most powerful statement of the film during the climactic fight requires no words whatsoever.

If Fearless is indeed Jet Li's last martial arts film, it is a good way to go out.

Movies I saw in 2006

The following are lists ranking all the films that have been released in the past 3 years. It'll be updated periodically.

2006 Movies

1. The Departed
2. V for Vendetta
3. Casino Royale
4. Thank You for Smoking
5. The Prestige
6. Inside Man
7. An Inconveinent Truth
8. A Scanner Darkly
9. Stranger than Fiction
10. Borat
11. Clerks II
12. Little Miss Sunshine
13. The Last King of Scotland
14. Fearless
15. Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest
Superman Returns
Lucky Number Slevin
Crank
Nacho Libre
X-Men: The Last Stand

2005 Movies

1. Good Night and Good Luck
2. Crash
3. Downfall
4. Sin City
5. Batman Begins
6. Oldboy
7. King Kong
8. Kung Fu Hustle
9. Syriana
10. A History of Violence
11. Millions
12. Proof
13. Star Wars: Episode III
14. Kicking & Screaming
15. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
The Producers
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
War of the Worlds
The Pacifier

2004 Movies

1. Million Dollar Baby
T-2. House of Flying Daggers
T-2. Hero
3. The Aviator
4. Kill Bill 2
5. The Life Aquatic
6. Ray
7. The Terminal
8. Spiderman 2
9. Collateral
10. The Bourne Supremacy
11. Hellboy
12. Garden State
13. Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman
14. Anchorman
15. Napolean Dynomite
16. Supersize Me
17. Fahrenheit 9\11
18. Dodgeball
19. Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
20. Team America
Starsky and Hutch
Van Helsing
Alien vs. Predator
Saw

Hey, I'm back

Well, I haven't used this in about... four months, but whatever. I saw a couple of excellent movies recently that I feel the need to write about.

The Departed (****)

The Departed is a movie about organized crime, a subject that Martin Scorsese has made movies about before, but The Departed has a distinctly different feel to it than any of his other films, though its every bit as good. It is apparently loosely based on a Hong Kong cop drama from a few years back called Infernal Affairs. The central characters are two men who are each moles in their respective organizations: one a police detective feeding information to the mob, the other an undercover cop who has infiltrated the mafia. But the man who steals the spotlight is Jack Nichelson as the head of the mob organization. At times he's hilarous, at other times he's stone cold scary. It's a great performance that could become as referenced as his Joker performance in the original Batman.

Unlike Raging Bull, which jumps from a number of key points in Jake Lamotta's career and then holds there, allowing scenes with long conversations between characters to play out, The Departed has a much more fluid and dynamic feel to it that really works for the film. Scenes are often very quick and we jump back and forth very quickly from the police to the mob and back again. Trying it all together is a great soundtrack in which the same music is often allowed to play over the course of several distinctly different scenes. The effect keeps the tension driving and provides a glue to connect for very frantically paced scenes. In a way, it actually reminded me of the way the anime series Fooly Cooly used its soundtrack provided by the band The Pillows. The Departed is a different sort of Martin Scorsese movie, but a great one.

Casino Royale (***1/2)

Die Another Day sucked. I feel the need to express that up front. The James Bond series has always had some level of absurdity to it, but by Die Another Day it had reached a tipping point where it felt to absurd, even for Bond (somewhere around the point where he managed to outrun a heat ray from space in his Aston Martin, which could also turn invisible). Apparently realizing this, the filmmakers behind Casino Royale wisely took the film on a different tangent. In a way, Casino Royale is the Batman Begins for the Bond franchise. A lot of the ridiculous fluff has been stripped away, allowing for the focus to be left on the core elements of the series, and of the Bond character itself.

Casino Royale wastes no time distancing itself from previous Bond movies, even forgoing the famous "blood dripping down the gun barrel" opening briefly to make room for a gritty, black and white flashback sequence where Bond kills two people in a fairly merciless faschion. The scene establishes a darker, more sinister side of Bond that hadn't existed in recent films. I haven't read the original Ian Fleming novel, but I'm told that the film stays resonably true to the story, with many of changes being necessary ones for purposes of updating the setting from the early cold war, to post 9/11. The middle act of the movie revolves entirely around the high-stakes poker game (baccaract in the book) that Bond enters into to counter Le Chiffre, who is using the money to pay a terrorist organization that he has been bankrolling. This section could be brutally boring, but the filmmakers do an excellent job of adding just enough intrigue outside of the game itself to keep the tension moving without being a complete distraction.

The new Bond girl is Vesper Lind, played by Eva Green. Vesper is much smarter and more independant than the average Bond girl, something they actually tried with Halle Berry's character Jinx in Die Another Day and failed miserably by comparison. Vesper is also unique among women in Bond movies for several other reasons, firstly that Bond seems to have genuine feelings for her beyond her being another girl of the evening, and the other reasons involve plot points that I won't give away.

Casino Royale is a great action film that keeps things exciting while focusing on its characters rather than prop gadgets and special effects. It establishes Danial Craig as an excellent new Bond, who is every bit as witty as previous iterations, while adding an aura of edgyness and intimidation that hasn't existed for a long time. After Die Another Day, I wasn't sure if I wanted to see another Bond movie again, after Casino Royale, I wish the next Bond was out already.

Clerks II

Clerks II
***1/2



Clerks II doesn't have the same indy movie feel as the first film, it doesn't have the same deep philosophical conversations, and it doesn't have the same emotional weight to it... but damn is it funny. Clerks II shows once again what most people already know, that Kevin Smith's films are some of the best dialogue-driven comedies out there. The movie is, in a lot of ways, in more the same category as Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back in that the humor is a lot more farcical and ridiculous, whereas the original Clerks had its fun, but tried to keep everything fairly plausible and down to earth. For example, there's a Bollywood style dance scene inexplicably thrown in the middle, among other things.

At its core, though, Clerks II, like the original, revolves around Dante and Randal. And even though its been more than a decade in between films, the characters still hold up pretty well. Dante is almost identical, save for maybe a bit less depression, while Randal doesn't seem to age quite as well. Some of the outrageous stuff Randal says-- and it is at least equally as ridiculous as anything from the original-- somehow seems less funny and maybe a little creepy now that the character is supposed to be 32. Despite this, Randal still has a number of laugh out loud moments, and he steals the movie with one bit in particular toward the end that I won't give away.

Clerks II takes place during Dante's last day at Mooby's before he moves to Florida with his fiance, the fast food joint where Dante and Randal go to work after the Quick Stop burns down in an accident. Rosario Dawson plays their boss and does an excellent job playing a character that probably has the most deadpan serious dialgoue in a movie with a lot of ridiculous gas. She develops an interesting relationship with Dante, and not just interesting because she's not his finace. Jay and Silent Bob make their requisit appearances and... basically are Jay and Silent Bob. There is another newcomer, Elias, a devotly relgious 19-year old whose main concerns are Transformers and Lord of the Rings. His main purpose is to be a whipping boy for Randal, but he does manage to have some funny moments of his own, and Kevin Smith's dialgoue brings the whole thing to another level beyond the traditional "watch the nerd get abused" scene.
Not everything works in Clerks II. You've probably seen the trailer which shows a donkey at one point. Yeah, it's pretty much what you think it is, and where the scene is going is blantly obvious from the get-go, but it gets drawn on way too long. But again, most of the movie is genuinely funny, and if you laughed at all at any of Kevin Smith's other films Clerks II is a must-see.