• it’s been a long long time since I wrote anything for this blog
• no one reads this blog
• I don’t have a job
• I’ve never owned a pair of cowboy boots

But today of all days (Rex Manning Day? I don’t know) none of that matters.  Especially because of the epic review I’m about to write of the last two movies that I saw in theatres, both of which starred Ryan Gosling and neither of which I’ve had time to fantasize about whilst masturbating.  But I digress.

When I first saw the poster for Drive, it was in Manhattan and it was one of the posters with Carey Mulligan in it alone.  It caught my attention with it’s pink script and extreme closeup and I remarked that it looked like a poster for a Lifetime movie.  Of course, when I found out that Ryan Gosling was in it and it was, in fact, an actual movie I wanted to see it.  I didn’t really know anything about it except the stars and that “There’s no such thing as a clean get away.”  Okay.

Turns out Gosling is a mechanic and stunt driver who has these really cool driving gloves with holes over the knuckles and lives alone.  For extra cash and most likely for the thrill of it, he acts as a getaway driver for criminals.  One day he meets his neighbor, Carey Mulligan when she’s having car trouble and gives her a ride home and then, OMG, they’re in love.  Then, before they ever fuck, her husband (oops) gets out of jail and naturally all hell breaks loose, as it were and the whole thing moves from a kind of angsty movie about driving cars fast to a sticky, graphic, stylized bloodbath (but nary a nipple in sight, sigh).

Like, I know that it’s a cliché in movies, love at first sight, jumping, rushing in to an unexplained spiritual connection that transcends ‘dating’ and goes deeper than ‘sex.’  I get that that’s a thing.  BUT.  When you’ve got a character who time and again displays his lack of sympathy for fellow human beings, who revels in his solitary life and you’re going to give him a love interest (a mother, no less, as if) that he not only gives up all those things for, risks his life for, well you MIGHT want to give us a MOMENT where you explain what is so GODDAMN SPECIAL about this lady!  But no, she’s just pretty.  I mean, she’s definitely pretty.  But she works at Denny’s and just thinking about her makes me want to yawn.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Ryan Gosling as much as the next girl.  But I can’t help but feel that a lot of his acting talent is derived from his ability to widen and narrow his eyes.  That is, a lot this film consisted of him and Carey Mulligan staring at each other.   I don’t even really mind watching Ryan Gosling staring at things (ryangoslingstaringatthings.tumblr.com don’t take it my idea!) and the truth is that I enjoyed watching this movie, even the parts where people were having their brains splattered all over the inside of motel bathrooms.  But there really wasn’t much to it.

Still,

The Ides of March, on the other hand, has a political-thriller plot that certainly bills itself as “substance” and a dreary Cincinnati backdrop that wouldn’t be considered “style” and yet, it makes me angry just thinking about how bad this movie was/is/continues to be/will always be.  With a cast brimming with at least what Hollywood tells me is talent (Gosling, Clooney, PSH, Giamatti, Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, the guy from Social Network with the eyebrows) you’d think that it would be difficult to fail!  And yet!  Every scene was hackneyed, boring, predictable, stupid.  Lacking any charm, humor, suspense, realism, meaningful characterizations, believable dialogue.  ALL OF THOSE THINGS WERE MISSING.

Here, let me recount to you my favorite scene.  It’s before Evan Rachel Wood and Ryan Gosling have sex.  They are having drinks at a bar, sitting across from each other with their faces very close to one another.  This is the dialogue (I’m only barely paraphrasing):

 

ERW: How old are you?

Ry: How old do you think I am?

ERW: Ummm [bites lip] 30?

Ry: You think I’m 30?!

ERW: Ooh, sorry.  How old are you?

Ry: I’m 30.  [pause] How old are you?

ERW: How old do you think I am?

Ry: 21.

ERW: I’m 20.

Ry: That’s young.

ERW: Too young to fuck a 30 year old?

 

Oh hey, that was PAINFUL.  Evan Rachel Wood wants to FUCK Ryan Gosling (I approve) and it’s not sexy in the least!  It’s retarded!  (also, get some bronzer, girl – I know you rock that peaches & cream look but shit you’re so pale!)

The ‘love’ stories in these two movies could be held up in some kind of film or directing or casting class as an example of chemistry (Ryan Gosling & Carey Mulligan stare at each other and it’s like, ooooh yeah) vs no chemistry (Ryan Gosling & Evan Rachel Wood fuck and it’s like, ho hum, yawn, is this movie over).

It was terrible.  So terrible.  Still,

Um, yeah.

So, Paul Dano works at a mattress store and he really wants to adopt a Chinese baby even though he’s not married and doesn’t even have a girlfriend or a very good job.  He has this friend who works in a lab with mice and a coworker who is played by the guy that plays Lester on The Wire.  Then one day John Goodman comes in to the store wearing a scarf and buys this retarded expensive mattress ($14,000) and says “Oh ho ho my daughter will be back later to pay for it.”  Naturally, his daughter is Zooey Deschanel (don’t worry, her character name is “Happy” in case none of this was sounding quirky indie enough).  Zooey and Paul make friends and then hookup and Paul is all “I like this girl” to his friend in the lab and Zooey is all “I’m not wearing pants” and isn’t this so precious.  At one point Paul goes home to visit his dad (Ed Asner) and they do mushrooms in the woods. Oh, I FORGOT, Zach Galifinakis is trying to kill Paul Dano.  Anyway, then he (Paul) finds out that he’s finally on the real list to go to China and get the baby!  Then he tells Zooey and she pukes!  But we don’t know if it’s cause of the baby or cause of the goat meat stew that Lester fed her!

Then we find out Zooey is actually pregnant because of the time that they had unprotected sex (WTF) in the back of her dad’s station wagon (WTF) in a parking garage (ok, that’s hot).  But before that, she had stopped calling Paul because she doesn’t want to be a mom to a Chinese baby, so instead she went back to dating the sugar daddy she had before and decides to move to France to go to cooking school.  When Paul finds out he is devastated.  But then, get this, Zooey decides to get an abortion because her sugar daddy boyfriend doesn’t want to deal with a baby and her dad isn’t going to give her any more money because he hates the new boyfriend.  But just as she’s calling the clinic, Paul is calling on the other line and she realizes that she DOES want to have his baby.  So Paul takes his name off the adoption list, Zach Galifinakis murders the sugar daddy boyfriend and when the baby finally comes out it actually looks Chinese!  Happily Ever After.

*Please note, I fell asleep after the part when Zooey pukes, so I may have, um, made up some of the rest of the story.   Apologies.

Hey but have you heard Gigantic by the Pixies? Cause that song is great.

The opening of The Burning Plain is similarly uncomfortable with a haggard and naked Sylvia (Charlize Theron) sucking deeply on a cigarette and kicking John (John Corbett) out of her room in the small hours of the morning.  Frigid and blank, Sylvia’s character is no mystery and when we shortly find out that her lover is also her employee at an upscale restaurant in addition to being married to another woman, Sylvia’s unfeeling attitude towards him is not a surprise.  But just as the drama is ramping up in this dreary Portland debauchery, we’re transported to New Mexico where an adulterous couple has been burned alive in a mobile home, leaving their children to pick up the pieces.  Without giving anything away, these two stories eventually catch up to each other and weave together.  

Actually, the way in which they weave together, and the way in which I feel compelled to not give anything away, is one of the most irritating things about the film.  It seems to set itself up to be some sort of mystery, when to me the atmosphere, characters and storyline were much more those of a penetrating drama.  In this instance, the details being unnecessarily confusing becomes frustrating rather than rewarding.  When things are finally revealed and connections made, it feels like the filmmaker is looking directly at you and asking “Bet you didn’t see THAT ONE coming!” when, if you’ve ever, you know, seen a movie before, you most definitely DID see it coming. 

As a for instance, oh that’s so weird that she doesn’t want him to touch her boob I bet she had cancer and then 30 minutes later “I had cancer” comes out or her mouth and you wish you were the one who had cancer because if you were in the hospital at least you probably wouldn’t have to watch this movie because it isn’t even out yet and I assume in the hospital you have to settle for DVDs.* Arriaga is preoccupied with the complications of his characters, but rather than explore them, he seeks to disguise them in the complications of the story lines that don’t even end up being all that complicated,  just annoying.

The specifics of his characters’ problems could also be revealed in more subtle and organic ways.  When Sylvia (do you ever hear this name and not think of Sylvia Plath?  I personally don’t, and I think this is what Arriaga is banking on) walks up to the edge of a cliff, looking depressed and contemplates jumping over (we have to assume) it seems heavy handed and forced.  When the young girl, Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), who has watched her mother burn to death, burns herself without pain in that way that freaky chicks do,  it is much too neat and matter of fact and parallel.  It doesn’t seems real and therefore isn’t compelling.

What I really want to latch onto in The Burning Plain is the complicated mother/daughter dynamic, particularly the climax that this conflict often reaches when the daughter is an adolescent.  This is a universal struggle and I love the idea of it being explored.  I could embrace this theme if only there weren’t so much filler packed in around it and a general feeling of hostility and disappointment towards all the female characters.  Sylvia has numbed herself to pain and pleasure and has sex simply to feel anything.  She never seems sympathetic in her neutral colored J. .Crew outfits with her unemotional sexuality.  Even as her secrets are revealed, her redemption is too tentative to truly bring relief.  Mariana, the teenager, is similarly cold and unforgiving while her mother, Gina (Kim Basinger) is an adulteress, abandoning her children to meet her Latin lover in a trailer.  She dies without any redemption.  Even the wife of her lover, Nick (Joaquim de Almeida), is portrayed as somewhat heartless and not present for her children when their father dies.  For a story that tries to explore the complexities of women, it uncovers nothing but their faults and even goes so far as to exalt the father characters as affectionate protectors and providers while their female counterparts are only philandering and selfish.  It’s difficult to appreciate characters when it seems that the filmmaker himself has such contempt for them.  

There were some standout performances in the movie that served as pleasant distractions.  Joaquim de Almeida as Kim Basinger’s lover is penetrating and passionate, even pit against Basinger’s all too familiar meek and unhappy mother character.  The young actors were also breaths of fresh air, particularly Jennifer Lawrence as Mariana.  Though saddled with obnoxiously corny dialogue at times, she is bright eyed and sad.  

It wasn’t surprising to me to hear that Arriaga had spent over a decade working on the script for The Burning Plain.  It felt like it had been steeped in that kind of self-indulgence and that makes for an uncomfortable and unsatisfying viewing experience.  A film like this doesn’t have to redeem the human race, or even all of its characters, but when we’re forced to swallow a happy ending (ew) with no cogent explanation, what’s the point?

*can you get Netflix delievered to a hospital?

They fall in love and he gives her  her first orgasm on a couch.

WTF?

Ok, but at the very least, surely this shockingly blunt,  poorly acted, practically humorless teenage rom/com had some lessons thrown in there somewhere.  Let’s have a look.

Lessons Learned

1. It is A-OK to get completely shitfaced in NYC, barf in the Port Authority bathroom, and make out with strangers.  As a matter of fact, it is completely necessary if you want your best friend to fall in love.
2. It is A-OK to just drive away while your slutty ex-girlfriend does a striptease for you by the East River, leaving her stranded.
3. It is unacceptable to not have had an orgasm by the age of 17 if you are a female.  Everyone will know about it and publicly (pubicly?) shame you.
4. It is really easy to get cameos from John Cho, Andy Samberg, Seth Myers, Devendra Banhart and Bishop Allen for your movie no matter how much it sucks.  Filmmakers take note.
5. “Finger bang” is the unanimously preferred parlance for what Michael Cera does to Kat Dennings at the end.
6. Teenagers today have no parents.

I went to see He’s Just Not That Into You over the weekend.  It was pretty much against my will.  And it pretty much made me want to kill myself.  Now, I’ve never read the eponymous book – as a matter of fact, I’m not even certain I’m using the word “eponymous” correctly - but I can’t really argue with the basic tenets of said book, that are spelled out in the movie using oh-so-subtle intertitles (e.g., …if he’s not marrying you, …if he’s sleeping with someone else, …if he is Criss Angel…Ok, I made that one up, but I think you get the idea).  What I can argue with is the value of this stupid movie that, though probably disturbingly accurate in some cases, is not just offensive to women, but to all adults who purport to be capable of decent, mature interpersonal relationships.  Yes, everyone plays mind games once in a while, or makes a mistake, or posts a passive-aggressive status update on facebook, but for the most part, I like to believe that there are a lot of people out there who are decent and nice and not BATSHIT INSANE like everyone in this movie!

A rundown of the characters and the endless range that each actor had to display in embodying these incredible three-dimensional and completely sympathetic men and women (and a bunch of spoilers) after the jump.

GiGi (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a naive, trusting, and dare I say DESPERATE young professional woman, searching for love in the bustling metropolis that is Baltimore.  She is your female friend that checks her messages obsessively, stages “run-ins” when she doesn’t get a call back and dissects “signals” and “signs” to meaningless minutia.  Her completely mediocre date with Conor (Kevin “E” Connoly) begins the movie.

Janine (Jennifer Connelly) is a buttoned down control freak, untrusting of her hot husband, Ben (Bradley Cooper) and ready to have a baby.

Beth (Jennifer Aniston) is in a happily monogamous relationship with Neil (Ben Affleck), but still has a deep down desire to get married, even though he “doesn’t believe in it.”

Anna (Scarlett Johannsen) is a struggling singer who meets Ben at a convenience store and begins an affair with him.  Conor is in love with her, but she feels no spark with him and would rather steal another woman’s husband. 

Mary (Drew Barrymore) is Anna’s friend, who is also searching for love (surprise!) and giving Anna bad advice all along the way.

Alex (Justin Long) is Conor’s bar tending friend who ends up being GiGi’s shoulder to cry on and advice giver about the male species.  But guess WHAT.  She Changes Him and He Falls For Her.  I KNOW that goes against the very basic principles of the book, but that’s what Hollywood is for!  To create false hope!  Not give ADVICE!

I can understand that to translate a self-help book into a narrative film could be a challenge for any writer.  I can also see what the writers (Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein) were hoping for – something akin to a charming American Love Actually, but it didn’t work.  Instead, these characters are exaggerated stereotypes who garner no sympathy, aside from the occasional painful memory.  Bright, creative, ambitious, attractive, (incredibly) well-dressed women and all we know about them is that they have Boy Trouble.  And when their Boy Trouble is resolved, they are all better.  Yeah, I have Boy Trouble sometimes, but more often I have Friend Trouble or Job Trouble or Apartment Hunting Trouble or Car Trouble or any of those other troubles that make up a real life.  An interesting, real, LIFE.

I mean, there’s not even a good drunk dial scene, you guys.  How realistic is THAT?

The fact that this movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards makes me seriously question whether or not the voting members of the Academy actually watch movies.  Do they?  Does anyone have proof that they actually watch movies?  I’m going to suggest that voters have to take some kind of quiz that proves they actually watched the movie.  This might (MIGHT!) prevent Awards Disasters such as this.

I don’t need to tell you what happens in this most boring of Best Picture Contenders.  Brad Pitt is born as a wrinkly little baby, grows up (or down?) into sex incarnate, riding a motorcycle in mirrored aviators, and dies as a wrinkle-free baby.  Trials and tribulations.  Lessons in life and love.  Painful Southern accents all around.

Probably one of my least favorite parts of the movie (oh, there are so many to choose from) was the frame story.  Oh yes, just as Forrest sat on that bench with his box of chocolates, a really old lady (SPOILER 1: it’s Cate Banchett‘s character, only really old now and about to die) languishes in a hospital bed while her daughter (the much underused Julia Ormond) reads to her from Benjamin Button’s diary.  All of this set against the completely unnecessary backdrop of Hurricane Katrina.  Yeah, no, I’m actually serious.  So, in bits and pieces, with Brad Pitt’s slow and disaffected voiceover, we watch his stupid and pointless story unfold until we find out (SPOILER 2!) that Julia Ormond is actually Benjamin Button’s daughter.  First, DUH!.  Second, oh, wow, who cares?

The women in the film are offensively bland.  Blanchett with her regal beauty is relegated to a painful stereotype of fickle woman, punished for her sexual desires and forced to spend her life paying for them.  She is only a complete person once she has a baby.  Awesome.  Oscar Nominee Taraji P. Henson gives a reasonable performance as Benjamin’s adopted mother, but her character, again, is the stereotypical god-fearing, child-rearing, kind-hearted Mammy.  Tilda Swinton as Benajmin’s first love, Elizabeth Abbot, is the closest to being a complete woman that isn’t just a pain in the ass…but even she just needed some good Brad Pitt loving to help her achieve her goals.  Um, what?

Overly long with metaphors that are forced down your throat so far you’ll need to have your stomach pumped, the case of Benjamin Button is indeed curious.  That is, I’m quite curious as to how anyone liked this movie.  Damn.

Instead, The Reader tells the story of a Michael Berg (the young, German David Kross) who, when he falls ill on his way home from school, is cared for by the stern but kind Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet).  Over the course of months, the pair develop an intimate relationship that is immediately sexual but also sweetly intimate.  Of course, it is forced to end and Michael grows up with Hanna as a dear memory.  When he encounters her later, as a law student, he is forced to face the fact that just because he has fond memories of her, he really knew very little of this complex older woman.

The first half of the film, with scene after scene of sensual intimacy is provocative and compelling.  As Michael, Kross naivete is charming while his attractive qualities – a youthful smoothness in both his physicality and his mannerisms.  He is unapologetically enthusiastic about his affections for Hanna.  In her part, Winslet is cautious, but obviously taken in by Michael’s charms.  Stern and sometimes unyielding, but ultimately genunie in her feelings for him.

The second  half of the film was something I didn’t expect, to the point that I won’t give away Hanna’s secret.  Suffice to say, an older Michael is played by Ralph Fiennes (his resemblance to David Kross is passing at best), while Winslet it aged (not so masterfully) with makeup effects.  The story reinforces the true nature of their relationship and is touching, if not happy.

The Reader explores interesting themes of post-World War II Germany in a way that hasn’t been tested before and this alone makes it compelling.  These underlying notions in conjunction with strong performances and delicate direction make for one of the better films to come out of the 2008 Oscar season.

The much delayed ensemble romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You, based on the book of the same name that has been dog-eared by cat-owning women across the world, is finally coming out February 6th.  The poster went online today.  Hmm…I wonder what this movie is going to be like…

Check it out, after the jump.

I don’t know, do you think maybe some attractive people are going to fall  in and out of love and learn some life lessons along the way?  I DON’T KNOW, WHAT DO YOU THINK??

I understand that they want people to get what kind of movie it is, but for all the millions of dollars spent on movie marketing they can’t get any better than a photo collage that a 5th  grader could decoupage on foamboard?  Yawn.

At least this one is a little creative:

All that being said, if He’s Just Not That Into Her, why does everyone look so damn happy?

Australia starts out OK.  Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley does look fantastic in the period costumes: high waisted trousers and hats galore.  But after a beginning that drags on, reiterating over and over THIS GUY is evil and THIS GUY is good, once the story finally gets rolling, you’re not sure what to care about.  First, Lady Ashley has to save her dead husband’s cattle business with the help of Hugh Jackman.  Then she has to rescue a half-aboriginal boy who has been disowned by his white father.  Then she has to use her wiles as an unconventional woman to take an untameable man.  Then…oh god, I’m getting bored even summarizing this!  The point is, there are just too many stories and TOO much packed into the movie.  With an ungodly runtime of  2 hours and 45 minutes, I prayed for it to end at least 4 times…and even kept thinking it was going to.  After all, he’s not going to try to pack *another* story in, is he?  Oh wait.  Yes.  He is.

YAWN.

Oh Baz Luhrman, we know that an unconventional woman is all it takes to tame an untamable man.  WE KNOW.  Thanks.

“Man, that kid is SMART!”

Shooter

“I thought the dude was gonna die, but then he didn’t.”

Must Love Dogs

[insert sound of him leaving the room]