I've Got You

Despite all the hype and anticipation, I can't help but admit that I was disappointed by JJ Abram's Super 8. Maybe nothing could have lived up to the highs of the perfectly cut teaser trailer. That trailer encompassed all the best of the Spielberg nostalgia that Abrams is trying to evoke with its suburban boys on bicycles, strained parental relationships, and John Williams score. Unfortunately, the other aspects of the film get entirely in the way of what could have been a great piece of homage to one of my favorite filmmakers.



Its been made clear from interviews with Abrams and Spielberg that, in essence, Super 8 is two movies crammed into one. I just wish that I could have enjoyed both of those movies equally, or that Abrams had found a way to better incorporate the two ideas and meld them into a satisfying whole. Instead, we get a great and emotionally resonant first act, where we meet Joe Lamb and spend time with him and his friends as they make their zombie movie. If each of the kids may be slightly one dimensional, and I could easily delineate each to a single characteristic (Cary= the pyromaniac; Charles= the filmmaker; Martin= the nervous vomiter,) their dynamic as a group is anything but. I would have been happy to just spend two hours watching these kids make their movie and deal with their every day dramas. If the movie had simply been about the love-triangle between Joe, Charles and Ali, the boys all making their movie, and the Lambs dealing with their grief all set in the nostalgia glow of Spielberg's 70s, I'm actually convinced I would have truly embraced the whole movie. As a short hand that may only make sense to me, it could have been like David Gordon Green's Snow Angels without the violence.

Instead, in trying to mash the very real world drama, with a very by the numbers monster movie, the film ultimately falls apart. While the suspenseful scenes with the monster are well shot and provide some real scares, especially the scenes at the gas station and convenience store, they mostly feel like a distraction from the movie I was previously enjoying so much.

It's odd that the monster elements of the film manage to feel so disjointed from the opening. If anything, the two stories being combined should be a natural fit in a Spielberg homage. Close Encounters expertly balanced the disintegration of a family with the alien plot, just as E.T. was able to address Elliot's feelings of abandonment and loneliness due to his parents divorce with the supernatural relationship with E.T. But, somehow, Abrams is just unable to make the pieces fit, no matter how hard he tries.

I don't want to sound like I wanted the movie to be something that it wasn't, but the film would have resonated a lot more had Abrams spent less time try to hide the monster, but instead did more to reveal its feelings or its relationship and symmetry to Joe or any of the other human characters. You can tell that with the fact that the monster can sense feelings and that final moment when he touches Joe that this is what Abrams was going for, but it hardly feels earned.


Nonetheless, somehow between the closing shot of two children and their fathers, the water tower shattering open, Giacchino's score swelling, and Joe Lamb finally letting go of his mother's locket, it did get a little dusty. I just wish I could have walked away as in awe of the entire film as I was of the opening act, and the performances of Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning.

Ponyo Loves Sosuke!!!!!!!!!

Limit Your Exposure

Last night before exhaustedly passing out watching "I Love You Man," then waking up, going to work, and finally catching up with the season premiere of "Mad Men," I am struck by how much more excited I've been about television than movies over the past several months. So much so that while the list of movies I've missed this summer keeps growing and growing (over 20 new releases to catch up with since last April), I have been quick to both catch up with and rewatch a whole slew of television series on DVD. While a part of this has to do with large screen viewing available comfortably and conveniently in my own home, with no additional purchase beyond what's already on my shelf or on my cable, I think comparing my two most recent viewing reveals a little more.

While I wouldn't even propose to say that "I Love You Man" is even comparatively the caliber of film that "Mad Men" is to respective television series, irregardless of this, there is something to be said for the sheer amount of originality, and in turn unpredictability of "Mad Men," compared the very formulaic "I Love You Man."

Again, "I Love You Man" is just another conventional romantic comedy. I mean, it was written and directed by the guy who brought us "Along Came Polly," and it's only real twist on the genre is to make the love story about two hetero guys and their friendship (I refuse to use the b-word) so maybe I shouldn't expect much as for originality, and maybe I am talking in far too great of generalizations, but I think it's safe to say that out of the 20+ movies I want to see, I have a pretty good idea how each of them will end. In their 2 hour run time, they will quaintly and conveniently reach a satisfying and most of the time happy ending, one which I can either predict right now, or one that I will be able to see coming not less than 45 minutes into the affair.

But week to week, hour to hour, and season to season of most of my favorite ongoing television series, I have no idea how they will end or where they are going next. And it's not just "Mad Men." It's "Lost," "Dollhouse," and "Chuck," and even the late "Battlestar Galactica." Even when they follow formula, such as most weeks I know that Don Draper is suave enough to bed another woman other than Betty, I remain dazzled not knowing a thing about where things are headed, and actually comforted by the fact that I know they could actually end badly and with more remaining questions and things to ponder, rather than every loose end nicely and simply wrapped up.

Ultimately, I guess I am just shocked that with high budget television as opposed to high budget studo filmmaking, with budgets that still exceed a million dollars per episode, there is such a disparity in the risks that showrunners and writers are allowed to take and where stories are allowed to unfold in relation to most modern films and filmmakers.

Pretty Pretty Good

I didn't even make it through all of season 6 of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (which I plan to rectify), but I cannot wait for the brilliance that will be this next season!

Where Soul Meets Body

A confession. I was disappointed when Dollhouse was renewed for a second season. I wanted it canceled.

While the series had improved over the course of its run, starting with the promised uptick with "Man On the Street," with a really moving performance by Patton Oswalt of all people, and the wonderful reveal of Alan Tudyk as Alpha in the final two episodes, it never changed the fact that I was watching more out of what felt like obligation than actually being entertained or intrigued. But after watching "Epitaph One," the unaired thirteenth episode, I can safely say that I'll be watching next season not only as a Joss Whedon loyalist, but because the show finally has seemed to realize the potential of its premise.

"Epitaph One" skips ahead to 2019 and throws us into a world of actuals versus imprinted. It seems that Rossum Corp., the company behind the Dollhouse technology has let imprint technology rage out of control to a point where those seeking freedom must escape from technology in order to maintain their own personalities.

While I am always a sucker for post-apocalyptic visions of the future (X-Men's Days of Future Past; Buffy's The Wish; Heroes' Five Years Gone) , what makes "Epitaph One" work so well is how over the course of the previous 12 episodes, the groundwork has subtly been laid for this possibly inevitable future. We've seen Topher discuss the possibility of remote wipes and imprints, we've seen the growing bonds between Victor and Sierra, we've been warned that Rossum may have other ideas for the technology other than to serve their rich clients, and in what seemed like just another throwaway standalone, we've seen imprinting used for a sort of immortality as Ms. Dewitt brought her friend back to solve her own murder in "Haunted." "Epitaph One" takes that all to it extreme and logical conclusion.

Finally, the show seems to have realized that instead of leaving us questioning why anyone would hire an imprinted active instead of an actual professional, the real issues the show can delve into are what actually makes us who we are. The technology doesn't just serve the purpose of hiring out the perfect professional with no memory, but the possibility of immortality by moving memories and personalities from body to body. Is there a difference between our memories and personalities that shape who we are and our actual physical bodies and beings? Am I who I am with all my memories and experiences, if I am in a different body? And would I be comfortable living knowing I wasn't in my actual body? There is a real sense of dread presented by Felicia Day's Mag and the rest of the actuals about the idea of being wiped or imprinted over, and ensuring that they stay intact with their bodies.

While I don't know if the show is now going to try to fill in the gaps from Omega to Epitaph One in Season 2, I'll be a little disappointed if it doesn't. It would be a little ridiculous to see our present day characters try to fight a future they don't know exists. Either way, I'm glad to see the show now have larger issues to tackle, and because of it, much larger stakes. While the show is still ultimately about the more personal story of Eliza Dushku's Echo finding Caroline, her true self, it's also about a larger conflict between Rossum Corp. and "actual" humanity itself.

Terrible What Passes For a Ninja These Days

Wow, do I wish I saw Speed Racer on the IMAX. Seriously, this film got a bum rap for no good reason. It's visually inventive, kinetic, emotional, and exciting. There wasn't a minute I wasn't thoroughly entertained. Really, why this was panned is beyond me as it truly is a live action cartoon, with its layers of live action and CGI frames, along with a mature anti-corporate message. After the travesty that was Matrix Revolutions, the Wachowskis really made a comeback with this one. I have to thank Dennis Cozallio and his wonderful blog for convincing me to see this critically panned film, which is actually one of the best of 2008. Go Speed Racer Go!

Ms. Bronte...

Mike Leigh has always been one of those directors I have been meaning to catch up with, but after Career Girls, I can't say that I am too excited to see more.

I remember back when Secrets and Lies was up for Best Picture I just knew it was not for me. It looked like non-stylized melodrama, and while my tastes have grown and changed since then, I didn't get much out of Career Girls.

While Leigh's attempts at naturalism, and his ability to let scenes play despite not feeling like set pieces, but rather just an oppurtunity for his actors and characters to vamp and for us as an audience to get to know them, their quirks, their tics, and their facial rashes, it lead to me feeling dissatisfied by the lack of much of anything. I can see falling in love with a Leigh film if the characters are just right, because it seems to fall in love with his characters is to fall in love with his films , but this was not the one for me.