Catching Up, Round Three: Movies I've Watched Here Lately

I've watched quite a few movies recently. Let's dive right in. Shall we?


Moneyball (2011) - Dir. Bennett Miller; Starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman

I, for one, find baseball statistics fascinating. Of all the reviews I've seen of this film, the most oft-heard comment is that this movie makes something boring entertaining. I agree, but that is not what I was thinking about as I watched. What I was thinking was how great a performance Brad Pitt gives as Oakland A's General Manager, Billy Beane. I truly believe what Beane has done there really has revolutionized the inner-workings of baseball teams in many ways. And this movie about it is one of the best movies of the year.

50/50 (2011)- Dir. Jonathan Levine; Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Kendrick

My girlfriend described this movie as "an experience of the whole range of emotions." When the characters laugh, we laugh. When the characters cry, we cry. This is what makes a movie good: a response of feeling. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a twenty-something dude who gets cancer. Sad and depressing, right? Wrong. Seth Rogen is in it. And Anna Kendrick. Both play important people in the life of this young man, best-friend and shrink respectively. Both light up the screen. Lively and funny, a little bit sad, funny again, a little bit sad, funny again: a roller coaster. But that is precisely what Amanda and I both liked about this film.  Leaving the theater after 50/50 was over, I felt as if I had experienced a true connection with these characters, true emotions, a truer movie than most "true" movies.

Clerks. (1994) - Dir. Kevin Smith; Starring Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes

I have a list that I made when I first starting dating Amanda. This was nearly two years ago, and it contained about 40-50ish movies. We have made it down to the very end. We have about ten left at this point.  Clerks was on the list, but I didn't have the DVD. Therefore, finding in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart was a blessing to us. Kevin Smith's original, dirty, grungy, talky debut has now reached cult-classic level. It is really a crappy movie. It looks awful, sounds awful, many of the "actors" are horrible. But, then again, I think look awful and sound awful was the mantra of Generation X, and Clerks, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of that scene, that time. It is about the people who made it. It is incredibly funny. I laugh out loud still after seeing it 50 times. The dialogue is so great that I quote it when it's over. I want to watch it again.

Swingers (1996) - Dir. Doug Liman; Starring Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston

I figured since I was on a kick of watching movies I used to watch in college, memorize, and recite with my friends while drunk #Clerks., I may as well introduce Amanda to Swingers as well. It is "so money, baby." It's a Hollywood movie about Hollywood, but there is no glitz or glamour. We follow a group of struggling young actors, played by emerging actors at the time (Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau), who have now gone on to great success, trying to simply make it. One of them, Mike (Favreau), has only been out West for a little while. He broke up with his girlfriend of six years. He is depressed and struggling, hosts an open mic at a small comedy club. He and his friends, led by Trent (Vince Vaughn), skip from party to party trying to meet women, get connected, staying sober enough (most of the time) to maybe make an audition the next day. All we see is the nightlife. Small clubs and bars. A very cool Old Hollywood vibe. Great conversations about how long to wait to call a "baby" after you get her number...among many others. It is a very funny movie! I'll leave you with a quote, "Vegas, baby!"

Red State (2011) - Dir. Kevin Smith; Starring Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, John Goodman

I follow Kevin Smith news online fairly closely. He does things in a very interesting way. He basically promotes his own movies, makes them cheap. He does a podcast, which is often very funny. He pretty much maintains a fair amount of success by promoting himself. He is, first and foremost, a comedy man. That he has made a movie like Red State is awesome. His latest movie, it strikes such a stark difference to his first movie (see Clerks.), it is incredible. Red State is an all-out thriller. It is non-stop action and violence. It has much to say about religious fanatics by examining a cult-like Christian "family," radicals, who have no trust in or respect for life outside of their "community." A group I liken to those religious groups that go out and protest at funerals because we are all sinners. A fairly conservative friend of mine was saying something the other day about Christianity being "under attack" in this country. I don't quite believe that to be true, but I think that there are Christians out there who have lost sight of what it is they are truly trying to achieve thus bringing the attack on themselves. Kevin Smith sees this and comments on it with this film. By far, his darkest. And as far as his work as a director goes, his best.

J. Edgar (2011) - Dir. Clint Eastwood; Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts

The things that most people think about when they hear the name J. Edgar Hoover are as follows: FBI, Lindbergh baby, cross-dressing. That's pretty much what I knew about the man when I walked into Clint Eastwood's masterful new biopic. Leo plays the man at various points in his life spanning over fifty years. Armie Hammer (who should along with Leo win an Oscar nomination next year) plays Clyde Tolson, who would become J. Edgar's right-hand man in the Bureau and his companion as well. Yes. The notion that J. Edgar Hoover was homosexual is not glossed over here, yet it is handled in an incredible way, a believable way. Naomi Watts (as Helen Gandy), Hoover's life-long personal assistant, and Judi Dench (as Hoover's mother) round out the inner-circle of trust. They are both terrific here as well. It is rare to see a movie that spans such a long period of time. It is even more rare for it to be believable. It's a long movie (and needs to be) and is made longer by its slow-pacing, which keeps it from greatness, but it is well worth seeing. There will not be much better acting this year.

The Breakfast Club (1985) - Dir. John Hughes; Starring Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy

John Hughes movies just never get old. I could watch The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles once a week for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. The man had an unreal knack for getting inside the emotions, hopes, dreams, fears, etc. of the teenaged mind. Watching The Breakfast Club all the way through un-edited for TV was like a stroll down memory lane. When I was a budding young movie-buff, this was one of the first movies I felt connected to. It seemed important even when I was just 13 or 14-years-old. It is truly timeless. And despite a few over-the-top scenes very true and believable. It is iconic in its images. The dance sequence on the library railing. The Wang Chung on the soundtrack as they try to allude Mr. Vernon in the hallway. The incredible dialogue. The one location. Only ten actors. It's a stage play that works as a movie. It is funny, sad, dark, light, and a true depiction of stereotyping at its worst. It is so great! And classic!

Catching Up, Round Two: Movies I watched in September

So, apparently I'm only going to write new blog posts about once a month. It really irks me that this fact has come to fruition: I just don't have time to write. Anyway, I am now saddled with a week off from work and figure today is the day to play catch-up.

The Help (2011) - Dir. Tate Taylor; Starring Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain

Mississippi in the early 1960s was perhaps the most racially divided place in the country at that time. The Help tells the story of four young white women and their relationships with the black maids that serve their families. And, watching it, I posed an interesting question to myself: Are the white women just as much victims as the black women? It is made clear early on that it is these maids who raise the children, do the cooking, love and care, and for what? Little pay and a separate bathroom in the garage in the 100+ Mississippi heat. It seems to me that there is a fine line between ignorance and evil. This is clearly and immediately seen by Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), a hometown girl turned college graduate, who comes back home to Jackson to try to start her writing career at the local paper. She is instantly embroiled in the town society functions led by Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is one of the most evil movie characters in recent years. It becomes clear, however, that her evil is borne out of ignorance. The ignorance of prejudice and racism. When Skeeter begins writing a housekeeping column, she enlists the help of some of the maids, including Aibileen (the incredible Viola Davis). Thus begins a project in which the maids are given a reluctant voice to speak out against the racism and hate and ignorant prejudices. This movie is very well-acted, and it gives us a look at the more personal side of the Civil Rights-era American South. It is obvious and pretty tame as far as the subject matter goes, but it raises some interesting questions I would have never thought to ask.

Something's Gotta Give (2003) - Dir. Nancy Meyers; Starring Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Amanda Peet

Nancy Meyers' movies are strange to me. They contain characters that are just so obviously in a movie. I have trouble getting past that. Her writing is funny; the dialogue is consistently entertaining if a bit overwritten, but the locations and situations seem so ridiculous to me. How can all these people just happen to be at the same New York City restaurant on the same night at the same time while addressing the main theme of the movie? Older men who date younger women. Jack Nicholson plays a never-married, aging playboy, who, while on a weekend getaway to The Hamptons with his new girl, Amanda Peet, ends up running into trouble when her mother (Diane Keaton) shows up unexpectedly. When he suffers a heart attack and ends up under the care of the Keaton character, the movie does get good. Can a man like this actually be attracted to a woman his own age? Can he fall in love? With lesser actors and dialogue for them to speak, this movie would be on the bottom shelf of the Lifetime catalogue, but I actually enjoyed it pretty well. It is often hilarious, and Keaton and Nicholson have a great chemistry. It's not as good as Meyers' latest movie It's Complicated, which I found way funnier, but it's a good one to pop in on a random Monday night when you need a few laughs. 

Goodfellas (1990) - Dir. Martin Scorsese; Starring Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco

I'm not sure of the consensus on this, but, to me, Goodfellas is the quintessential Scorsese picture. Amanda was extremely reluctant to watch it, despite the fact that it is essential viewing for anyone who even remotely likes movies. She hates violence. This movie is certainly violent, but it is so much more. It oozes Scorsese's well-known stylistic touches. Zooms and pans and freeze-frames. Never-ending arrays of perfectly placed pop music. Brutal and inventive beatings. It is over two-hours long but non-stop storytelling. Never slow, always entertaining. It is, at its center, like Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, and follows in their footsteps as a story about men trying to reach unattainable levels of power and machismo. This time it is the "true" story of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), a half-Irish, half-Cicilian boy growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950s, coming-of-age as a gangster in the '60s and '70s. This movie glides through nearly thirty years of life in the mafia. The best things about it: it's lack of plot (it's just a history of the mafia), the music and the beatings (Is there anything cooler than DeNiro's foot coming down on some poor "mutt's" head as Donovan's "Atlantis" plays on the jukebox?), the voice-over narrations from multiple characters, including Henry's wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco), and, of course, those memorable scenes engrained in every film buff's psyche (walking into The Copa through the back door, "What do you mean I'm funny?," Peters and Paulies, paper-thin garlic, and veal cutlets). Goodfellas is one of the best movies ever made. I'll just go ahead and assume you've seen it, so I don't have to scoff at you. 

V for Vendetta (2006) - Dir. James McTeigue; Starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving

Guy Fawkes was a man driven by a distrust in his government, a man who wanted to change things, a man hanged, drawn and quartered in a 1606 for his plot to blow up Britain's Parliament on November 5, 1605. V for Vendetta opens with the line "Remember remember the fifth of November / The gunpowder, treason and plot / I see no reason why gunpowder, treason / Should ever be forgot."A man who calls himself V (Hugo Weaving) and wears a creepy Guy Fawkes mask rescues a young woman, Evie (Natalie Portman), from the Secret Police one evening in a future, totalitarian Great Britain. He takes her to a rooftop where he makes it known, as classical music begins to play, fireworks go off, and buildings blow up, that he is a terrorist bent on changing the British government. He will stop at nothing to end the injustice. He plans to blow up Parliament on November 5th. Thus begins an action-thriller unlike many I've seen. It is very smart, dedicated, has some wonderful dialogue, including V's alliterative speech upon our first seeing him, and some really quite subdued, thoughtful scenes about the possible state we could come to if we continue to buy into and live in fear. There is a scene in which Evie is help captive that serves as a sort-of interlude to the action of the main plot. This is brilliant and worth the price of the DVD. V for Vendetta is very well-written, well-acted, and relentlessly entertaining. And it makes you want to put on a British accent and recite, "Remember remember the fifth of November..."

Catching Up: Three of My Favorite Movies

I haven't written in six weeks. And it gnaws at my soul that I just don't have time since school started back. However, in that time, I have been quite productive. Since I last posted, I have thrown a great party for my girlfriend's and sister's birthdays, played a good round and a bad round of golf, brought myself up-to-date on the HBO series "Entourage," been to two high school AND two middle school football games (and only one win out of four -- Go JV Hawks!), taught and assessed about eight Tennessee State Standards for 7th and 8th grade Reading/Language Arts, drafted my Fantasy Football team, shattered the screen on my iPhone 4, and watched Them Vols beat Montana. What I haven't done is watch many movies.

What will now be is a game of catch-up, if you will. Here are a couple movies I've watched in the last month-and-a-half, and how I feel about them:


Monsters Inc. (2001) - Dir. Pete Docter; Starring John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi

There are some movies so sweet and so rewarding to the audience that it's hard to even describe it in words. Pixar's Monsters Inc. is one of those movies. Pixar has a knack for developing movies that appeal to everyone. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be excited. That should be their motto. Monsters Inc. is the story of the monster in your closet from the monsters' point of view. Yes, the business of making kids scream is just that--a business. And yes, monsters are real, and they generate the power for their cities with the screams of children. The best and most successful at this is James P. "Sully" Sullivan (voice of John Goodman). Now, I've gone and made this sound all serious. It is actually quite light-hearted and very funny. Funny to see that the monsters of Monstropolis are as scared of children as the children are of monsters. Funny to hear Billy Crystal's voice in the body of a round, green, one-eyed, wise-cracking monster. And interesting to have a film that is perfect for children have so much to say about love, friendship, and even energy crises, while being hilarious (for adults and children), exciting (with ingenious action sequences), and heart-felt bringing tears of happiness with its brilliant closing scenes.

The Apartment (1960) - Dir. Billy Wilder; Starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley Maclaine, Fred McMurray

Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning The Apartment is set in the days leading up to Christmas and New Year's. And it's a romantic comedy so great that the "rom-coms" of today should take a step back, have a viewing party, and see how it's really done. Jack Lemmon plays C.C. "Bud" Baxter, an insurance clerk making his way up the ranks of the company by hiring out his bachelor pad to the exploits of senior executives. He is sweet, sort-of shy, lonely and one of the best movie characters I can think of. Embroiled in the office and sexual politics of his time (think "Mad Men" in black and white), Bud is a step behind the game but right in the middle of it at the same time. He is crazy about the elevator operator, Ms. Kubelik (a cute, bubbly, but lonely in her own right Shirley Maclaine), but his advances towards her are constantly thwarted by the game that his his job and his livelihood. What he comes to learn about himself in these two winter weeks of the shortest days of the year is great to watch. And this movie has not dated a bit. It is as fresh now as it was then and one of my all-time favorites.

Tin Cup (1996) - Dir. Ron Shelton; Starring Kevin Costner, Rene Russo, Don Johnson, Cheech Marin

Of all the movies about golf, this one is my second favorite. Mostly because, unlike Caddyshack or Happy Gilmore, it is actually about golf. It's not as pretty or well-made as my favorite golf movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance, but it is realistic in the obsessions one must have to be a truly great golfer. Kevin Costner teams back up with Bull Durham writer-director Ron Shelton playing a lowly driving range pro from West Texas named Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy. He almost-proudly proclaims to a new "student," a local psychologist Dr. Molly Griswold (Rene Russo), that his unfinished swing relates to the fact that he never "finished anything in his life." He was once an All-American college player and amateur, who let his risk-taking ego on the course get in the way of professional glory. In an attempt to prove his love for the Russo character and embarrass her boyfriend, tour pro David Simms (Don Johnson in all his sleazy greatness), Tin Cup and his low-rent team of misfits, led by best-friend and caddy, Romeo (the great Cheech Marin), make a historic and nearly impossible run at the U.S. Open. While the dialogue sometimes feels fake and over-written, you gotta love a guy who lives his life speaking in golf metaphors and can shoot par with a 7-iron. 

Conversations with Rich Teenagers in Manhattan

Originally Posted: 11/13/2009

I just re-watched a movie tonight that I absolutely love. It takes place in a world that I know nothing about, yet it touches me to the extent that I am smiling right now. So, this is me adding one to my Christmas list for this year--the Criterion DVD of Whit Stillman's 1990 debut Metropolitan. If I don't get it as a gift, I believe I'll gift it to myself.

Most people I know have never even heard of this movie. However, it is generally regarded by critics as a good film with great dialogue. In his original review of Metropolitan, Roger Ebert wrote that Stillman, "has made a film Scott Fitzgerald might have been comfortable with, a film about people covering their own insecurities with a facade of social ease. And he has written wonderful dialogue, words in which the characters discuss ideas and feelings instead of simply marching through plot points..." That is so true. I like movies where the dialogue overrides the plot. Sometimes it is just more interesting to hear what people have to say than what crazy plot they're involved in. 

Stillman gives us, in Metropolitan, a group of young men and women embroiled in the Manhattan debutante season during Christmas break. The film opens with Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), a very serious young man, sharing a cab outside The Plaza with the late-teenaged spawn of the Upper East Side. Tom, you see, is a "West Sider" and not as wealthy as Nick (Chris Eigeman) and the others. They haven't seen him around at the "dances" this season, but they invite him to the after-party anyway. Tom pretends to be opposed to all this stuff, but comes to love it. Audrey Rouget gets a crush on him, but he's in love with the elusive Serena Slocumb, who is in love with the pony-tailed Rick Von Sloneker and so on and so on and "Cha-cha-cha." 

The young rich begin going to Sally Fowler's parents' penthouse, talking through the night about French socialist writers and the idea that "preppies" like themselves may be doomed to downward mobility. There is presented scene after scene of just simply talking. The comedy is in the dialogue. Very dry, straight-forward comedy. A comedy-of-manners. These young people are brutally honest. They have it all but must act like they don't want it. When the deb parties begin to slow down, the group starts to break up and go back to school or Paris or wherever. And you feel Tom Townsend's loneliness in the fact that this is the time in these people's lives when it is time to begin growing up. To begin the possible downward slide--the "failure." Or maybe not. There's still time. 

The great thing about Metropolitan, apart from the dialogue, and the reason I relate to it so much is that it is about the idealism you feel as someone in your late teens/early twenties. I grew up middle class in East Tennessee, but I've felt these feelings and had these conversations and confusions and desires. Maybe not in the same way but close.

There's Gonna Be a Showdown

You know those people who go to the Thursday midnight showings of new movies? I became one of them last week when I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. There were a lot of dorks there. Many in costume. Hilarious! This also marked my first time seeing a feature film in 3D. I was not impressed.** However, the movie itself, the final chapter in the Harry Potter saga, was really good. It is the perfect conclusion to a perfect story, and it does the book justice. 

Split into two parts, the first part, which came out last fall, gets us caught up with all the background and nearly 2/3 of the book. This final part gives us all the action, the final battles and showdowns. I was entertained from start to finish in a crowd of people that were just happy to be there. It's ironic that I came from Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, in a theater with maybe three other people in it, to this movie, which I viewed in a packed house with 13 other packed houses surrounding it. I criticized Malick's film for being beautiful and thoughtful without the entertainment. For this one, I can say that it was entertaining (no doubt), beautiful (for what it is), not extremely thought-provoking but thoughtful to its characters and their story. The crew I was with all had a great time. 

I have followed these movies relentlessly since reading all the books a couple years ago. It has really been great to see these actors grow with the characters, and it is impressive that they've all been able to stay with it for so long. Like the readers of J.K. Rowling's novels, you can tell that Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione), and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) have a vested interested (besides the millions they've made) in seeing this thing to the end. 

Director David Yates, who helmed the 5th, 6th, and 7th movies in the series, has really created, in these later movie versions, a true vision of Rowling's novels. They are almost exactly as I envisioned them as I read: darker, more mature. Yates is a master of special effects, and this one is his magnum opus. It is action-packed from beginning to end. And I don't even care that he and his writer (Steve Kloves) tweaked the ending battle with Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) a bit. For those of you who know the books, the epilogue did not work in the movie quite as well as it does in the novel, but I'm glad they filmed it. 

It would appear that nearly everyone in America has seen this movie. It just broke the opening night and weekend box office records. For those few of you that haven't had anything to do with it. Take it from me: Read the books, then see the movies. The Harry Potter series has been an important chapter in popular culture, world culture, and entertainment, and I'm happy to be part of that. 

Note: I have to agree with many of the critics out there who nay-say about all the 3D these days. This movie does not need it, didn't utilize it to its full-extent, and the glasses were just annoying to me after awhile. I'd like to see it again in regular 2D or IMAX. 

Wrestling Between Us

What a debate I had with Amanda about this film! She absolutely hated it. To the point where she was using foul language. Indeed Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is not for everyone but for pure film fanatics. I have no doubt that it is involved in ongoing discussions amongst artsy college students like I used to be. For them, I recommend seeing it and seeing it again. It has left an impression on me, and I plan to see it at least one more time. For everyone else, it will probably just seem a frustrating mess.

There is no plot. There is haunting voice-over from the mother telling us of two ways through life: "The way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow." Then the death of the adult son of the O'Brien family and their sadness, the grown son (Sean Penn) dealing with his past as a middle-aged business man, the creation of the universe, dinosaurs, the growth of a Small Town, Texas family in the 1950s, its function and disfunction, flowing dreamscapes. We are left, in the end, to make sense of all this for ourselves. There is almost no dialogue. There are stunningly beautiful images and music that continue to haunt me, that "wrestle inside me."

Terrence Malick has only made five films since 1971. He is reclusive, never does interviews, hates the Hollywood system. The Tree of Life just took home the Palm D'or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Malick didn't bother to show up for any press conferences or Q and As. In my mind, he simply wants people to see this and have it bother them, take them over, confuse them, and be captivated by its craft and beauty. As of now, this is my least favorite of his movies. It is difficult and deliberately slow, but it is fascinating. That was the one description I could mutter when I left the theater. Malick moves his camera around with both "nature" and "grace." He strings together images that seem impossible. It is beautiful to see. Many call him a poet. But where is the entertainment?...

...Which brings me back to the argument with Amanda. Movies are supposed to be entertaining escapism. To me, movies are at their best when they are not just thoughtful and beautiful but also providing a sense of entertainment. Amanda's problem, and most people's I would say, is that, in the end, Malick doesn't leave us with much to grasp onto. Nothing is resolved in an understandable way. The heart of the film (and the best part) is the story of Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) raising their three sons from birth to adolescence. In the beginning, we find out that one of the sons dies as a young adult, but it is never made truly clear how it all turned out. This is where the frustration comes in, even for me. In the end, I was entertained only by Malick's ability to evoke beauty and nature and grace and confusion. Maybe that's enough. Amanda found no entertainment value. Neither she nor I were satisfied with its attempt to tell a story. Maybe that's the way it was meant to be.

Three Men and a Little Work Trouble

At some point earlier in the summer, I saw the trailer for Horrible Bosses. Amanda and I laughed through the entire thing. Amanda has a way about her when she laughs. I don't know what it is, but (when I hear it) I know that I can't live without her. (Yes. That was Billy Joel.) Anyway, I love to hear her laugh. And laughter is most certainly contagious. When she laughs, I laugh (usually), and when a movie makes both of us laugh to the point where our cheeks hurt, I know it's good. Horrible Bosses is one of those movies.

Nick (Jason Bateman), Dale (Charlie Day), and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) are three best friends who love their jobs but hate their bosses. I guess that's just the nature of the beast. I've had bad bosses before, and it pretty much sucks. But I've never had a boss as bad as Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston), or Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell). While the three leading men work great together and are all some of the funniest actors around, it is the three bosses that make this movie a great summer comedy. They all play characters unlike any they've played before, and it is amazing to see. The first act of the movie gives all the setup with Harken the psycho bully, Pellitt the incompetent asshole who wants to "trim the fat," and Dr. Harris the sex-addict nutcase dentist who looks an awful lot like that chick from "Friends." Trust me, you will not believe what comes out of that pretty mouth.

These bosses are so awful to their employees that Nick, Dale, and Kurt conspire to have them killed. If only they were as good at this as they were at their jobs. But that is another movie entirely. This movie is relentless in its hilarity as the three dudes plot and fail and keep plotting. There are a lot of unexpected twists and turns. One of them involves an excellent cameo by Jamie Foxx as a "hit man" whose name is worth the price of a ticket.

If you're down for a good hour-and-a-half of no-holds-barred, delightfully profane, fast-paced comedy, this is the movie you'll want to see. Like the original Hangover, it is unexpected and refreshing, which is more than I can say for The Hangover, Part II. Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis share a comedic timing that (dare I say it?) is better than the Cooper, Helms, Galifianakis trio. Jason Bateman is always great and is one of my favorite comedic actors. Jason Sudeikis is on the rise, has some great one-liners, and I can't wait to see him in the final season of HBO's "Eastbound and Down." And Charlie Day (from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia") is especially great, and I'm glad he's getting some play on the big screen. As for the bosses, you've seen them do all that Oscar-winning, romantic comedy it-girl, and epic drama stuff, now see them all doing something completely different astounding you with antics you have to see (and hear) to believe.

Pigs on the Wing

There's a shot in Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 film Children of Men that looks just like the album cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals. I'm quite sure this was no accident. As a director, Cuaron is just that good. The Floyd album is said to be based on George Orwell's Animal Farm, a critique of the decay of Britain's society. In hard times, humans resort to their most basic instincts and become, in many ways, animals. This is certainly true for the futuristic Britain in Children of Men, the most Orwellian of any movie ever made.

Set in 2027, it stars Clive Owen as Theo, a former activist who has given up fighting for peace and justice and lives a drunken life in a torn world. We are from the very first shocking scene immersed in a Great Britain of complete chaos. Furthermore, the world's major cities are being destroyed, people are revolting, the governments have finally made it from bad to worst possible, illegal immigration is more serious than any other crime, and, the kicker, no woman has given birth to a child in over 18 years. Theo is saddened, alone, and often scared. He seeks solace in the home of an old friend Jasper, an aged pot-smoking hippie played by the brilliant Sir Michael Caine. They talk about how things have deteriorated since the early 2000s, how war and hate have finally got the best of peace, and how it could be that women cannot get pregnant anymore. Then, Theo is "recruited" by his ex-wife, Julian (Julianne Moore), a leader of a "terrorist" organization bent on leading an uprising against the British government. He is tasked with the job of escorting a young woman named Kee to the coast...I can reveal no more plot.

This movie should be seen with all its surprises by ALL people. It works as a sci-fi action movie, a study of the Clive Owen character, and, most importantly, an indictment of the society we all live in now. A society that is beginning to crumble economically, that is torn by war and terrorism across the globe, and that is fearful of "illegal" immigration. Added to this, the movie is expertly made by its director, Alfonso Cuaron, a Mexican filmmaker who has literally done everything right. It is said that he made the third Harry Potter movie to be able to get financing for this one. This movie is mightily paced. It glides along, and we are captivated, oftentimes without the camera cutting. There are two action sequences composed of literally one single 4 or 5 minute shot. No fancy, fast, choppy editing. No cuts from here to there. You are literally right there in the middle of it. And it is so cool.

Perhaps the greatest thing about Children of Men is that it can appeal to anybody. There is humor, action, violence, social commentary, tragedy, hope, and love. It is a labor of love and joy for its filmmakers, despite its harsh themes. I have seen it at least half-a-dozen times and can't wait to make it a dozen and so on. It is simply one of the best movies I've seen.

What About Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Blake Edwards's 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's is one of those that has eluded me for many years. Mom tried to get me to watch it years ago, and, at the time, just couldn't hold my attention. It still can't. I sat down to watch it earlier this week and really just found it boring. There are some really funny, classic Blake Edwards scenes, but I just found myself frustrated with it for the most part.

The beautiful Audrey Hepburn plays the classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl (see footnote*), Holly Golightly (great character name, by the way...Thanks Truman Capote!), a Southern girl turned New York socialite, who makes her bones as a sort-of escort to older wealthy men. She is, to me, a classic gold digger. A handsome young writer named Paul/Fred (George Peppard) moves into her building, and they instantly strike up a friendship. He is a sort-of gold digger himself humoring an older woman (Patricia Neal), who claims to be his decorator. There are some really great scenes between the two leads, including a date filled with things neither have done before. However, I never could get over how fickle and flighty Holly is and how Paul/Fred kept chasing after her. Having been under the spell of a Manic Pixie myself, I just ended up feeling sorry for poor Paul/Fred.

This is the iconic role for Audrey Hepburn, who, as Holly Golightly, dresses the walls of many-a girl's college dorm room. She and New York City look great in this film. And I really enjoy the presence of Audrey Hepburn. She is cute and funny and beautiful, but, in the end, I just didn't like her. All these men gush over her, but never seem to take the time to really know her. Only Paul/Fred ever really does, and he just misses getting burned. Blake Edwards's style shines in one great party scene at Holly's apartment where things escalate in the way only a great 1960s farce can do. It reminded me of the much better Edwards film The Party, starring his greatest collaborator, the late great Peter Sellers. This scene brings the most laughs the movie has to offer.

At one point, Amanda turned to ask me, "Do you think this is weird some?" I answered, "Yes." It's weird in a not good way. The subplot with her "ex-husband?" Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen) and her brother Fred doesn't work at all for me and comes off as strange. Audrey Hepburn is beautiful and George Peppard is handsome. They are young and like each other. Why do the unrelenting complications have to get in the way of this so much?


*Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a stock character in films. Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after seeing Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown, describes the MPDG as "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." MPDGs are said to help their men without pursuing their own happiness, and such characters never grow up, thus their men never grow up.

Kids with a Movie Camera

When I was about 13, I fell in love with the movies of Steven Spielberg. It was about that time that I watched Jaws for the first time and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Those movies evoke in the viewer the joy of making movies. They play with light and shadows and create suspense and wonder. J.J. Abrams was probably a kid just like me, and like so many others, who found and were inspired by the magic of the earliest works of Spielberg.

In his third major film as a director, Super 8, J.J. Abrams (TV's "Lost", Mission Impossible III, Star Trek) brings us into a town and a time when kids still ride their bikes across town and get into trouble and make movies for fun instead of sitting there, stuck in front of a mindless TV show or video game. They are the kids who will one day be a Steven Spielberg or a J.J. Abrams. This movie, just as the trailer suggested, oozes early Spielberg. You can see it in the streaks of blue across the screen from the small town street lights, you can hear it in the realistic way the young characters (all around 12/13) talk to each other,  and you can feel it in the way the suspense builds to the finale, when we finally get a look at this other-worldly creature.

Let me go back a bit: Super 8 is centered around a kid named Joe Lamb (brilliant young actor Joel Courtney) and his father Deputy Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler of TV's "Friday Night Lights"). Joe's mother has recently died in a tragic accident at the local steel mill leaving the two guys in a difficult situation. At the beginning of the film, Joe and his buddies, recently out of school for the summer, are making a zombie movie on an old Super 8 MM movie camera. Joe's best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) has recruited Alice (Elle Fanning), the object of their desire, to be the female lead in their movie. Late one night, while filming a scene outside a train station, they witness a horrible train wreck and then very strange things begin happening around town. Joe must come to terms with his mother's death, his strained relationship with his workaholic dad, his first big crush, the strange goings-on, and the secrets he and his friends must keep. Young Joel Courtney does an incredible job with a huge range of emotions throughout the film.

Super 8 is carried by a very young cast and very well, I might add. Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning are great young actors. I actually think Elle may surpass Dakota in acting chops. All of the young supporting characters are great as well. The young human characters are so good, in fact, that it's almost disappointing when the movie turns into a full-fledged science fiction story. The special effects are as good as they get and work well with the plot, but I, as my friend Joshua and I discussed, would've been just as happy with a story about these young characters making a zombie movie in late 1970s middle-America. My only other real criticism is that the adult characters are just not given much to do. Kyle Chandler is a fine actor, and I really would've liked more of the relationship with his son and the story behind the struggle between he and Alice's father, Louis (Ron Eldard). No matter though. Super 8 is a very entertaining movie that is paced perfectly and is filled with bits of humor and wonder and light. Just as it should be. I'm sure Mr. Spielberg, as the film's producer, was proud.