In a Better World (2010)

  This was the Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film in 2011.  I can totally see why.  This film kicked my ass.

Christian (William Johnk Nielsen) and Elias (Markus Rygaard) become best friends because they are both slightly damaged.  Christian's mother has just died from cancer and Elias is bullied at school.  Neither boy feels that anyone understands their pain but Christian in particular is a seething ball of rage looking for an outlet.  His father (Ulrich Thomsen) has no idea how to break through the kid's prickly shell.  Elias's father (Mikael Persbrandt) spends most of his time working in refugee camps in Africa, patching up victims of a local warlord.  He tries to impart the philosophy that violence doesn't make you powerful, but that is not a concept twelve-year-old boys are willing to accept.

This was an intensely powerful film, filled with real depth and emotion.  Not the kind of emotion where you come away crying, but the kind where you're exhausted afterwards.  Exhausted but cleansed.  I was riveted the entire running time.  Nielsen's performance especially was amazing.  He seemed like the angriest kid on the planet.  You could practically see his fuse getting shorter.

This is not a film I could ever watch again but it was excellent nonetheless.

Heathers (1988)

  I have returned from my sojourn down South!  It was unseasonably warm, which was the nicest present I could have gotten.  I missed yesterday's post (again) because I was traveling all day and had no opportunity.

Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) hates her friends, the poisonous Heathers, but especially ringleader Heather Chandler (Kim Walker).  Heather delights in making everyone around her as miserable as possible to reinforce her own popularity.  But Veronica's boyfriend, J.D. (Christian Slater), has the perfect plan to put Heather in her place:  kill her and make it look like a suicide.  Veronica soon finds herself caught up in a rash of teen suicides (both real and staged) and starts to think J.D. may not be the most positive influence.

I love love love this movie.  Always have.  Always will.  The more times I see it, the more I'm impressed with its fucked up brilliance.  This was the movie that gave me my schoolgirl crush on Christian Slater, which lasted an embarrassingly long time.  He was exactly the person I wanted to date in high school, murderous impulses and all.

If you liked Mean Girls but thought it could use a lot more death and destruction, this is the movie for you.  The hair and costumes scream the 80s but the underlying snark over how high school enforces the law of the jungle, lemming-like social behavior, and blatantly disregarding someone's actions in life in favor of tender eulogies are still very prescient today.

Magic Mike XXL (2015)

      This was the Christy pick for December.  She thinks she's funny.

Mike (Channing Tatum) has given up the stripping business to focus on his furniture company but when his stage buddies call to remind him of the annual Strippers Convention in Myrtle Beach (because of course you'd have a stripper convention somewhere classy), he decides to put on his sequined thong one more time.  Along the way, the guys confront their issues with being left in the lurch by their manager (pimp?) Dallas (Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Film).  Mike assures them that he has an MC picked out that will do a bang up job so they swing by Savannah, GA to visit Rome (Jada Pinkett-Smith).

I don't know why anyone would watch this movie when there is an entire Internet full of porn but it exists nonetheless.  Maybe you like painful dialogue, cheesy plots, soft core thrusting, and an homage to early-00's boy bands.  If so, you and your 20 cats should definitely watch this.  It was actually less painful to watch than the original, thanks to the reduction of Alex "Can't Act" Pettyfur and the addition of Donald Glover, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and a cameo by Elizabeth Banks.  Still, nothing was going to save this short of a comet hitting the convention center during the finale.

The Drowning Pool (1975)

  Sorry about missing a post yesterday.  I was traveling to my family's house in Alabama and by the time I got in, I was too tired to function.

This is the sequel to Harper from last week.  This time, Newman invited his wife to the party.

Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is called down to New Orleans by an old flame, Iris Devereaux (Joanne Woodward).  Iris is being blackmailed over an affair she had.  She thinks the fired chauffeur (Andrew Robinson) is behind the plot but she wants Harper to make sure.  He soon discovers a more sinister force at work with oil magnate J. Hugh Kilbourne (Murray Hamilton) after the Devereaux's land and the murder of matriarch Olivia (Coral Browne).

This also features Melanie Griffith as the underaged and oversexed Devereaux daughter.  It's weird to see her so young and plastic surgery-free.  Be warned, the sequel is a lot more depressing and noir than the original.

Harper (1966)

   Here's a little number from the swinging 60's.

Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is a private investigator hired to look for a missing man.  The wife (Lauren Bacall) thinks he's off with another woman.  The daughter (Pamela Tiffin) is kind of a man-eater and doesn't really give a damn what happened to her father.  The pilot/chauffeur (Robert Wagner) thinks the whole thing is a big joke.  Only the family lawyer (Arthur Hill) seems to want to find this guy and that's mostly because he wants to marry the daughter.  Harper follows the clues dropped by all the members of this sordid little drama but the climax encompasses more that he could have imagined.

I don't think there is a single person who does not love Paul Newman a little bit.  He always looks like he's just sailing along a lake, calm and unruffled.  Here, he gets to be a little more gritty and disheveled but he never loses that impenetrable coolness.  It's not my favorite of his films, but it's a pretty decent detective movie.  I have high hopes for the sequel, which I'll probably watch next.

Annabelle (2014)

  It's not the best poster, but it's what I got.

You all know my monthly feature, The Christy Experiment.  The December pick is coming soon.  This, however, was a special request from Christy.  She will tell you that she hates horror movies but every once in a while, her curiosity gets the better of her.  She called me and asked if I would be willing to watch Annabelle with her on Saturday and I agreed.  I had to conform to her rules, which are as follows:

1.  Viewing has to be during daylight.
2.  She has to have something with which to distract herself (cross-stitch, stuffed animal, live animal).
3.  I am only allowed to make funny comments, not scary ones.

With those strictures in place, I settled in to watch the demonic doll movie.  It wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't nearly as good as The Conjuring.

A young couple, Mia (Annabelle Wallis) and John (Ward Horton) Gordon, are expecting their first baby.  John surprises his wife with a new doll for her collection and she places it in a prominent location in the nursery.  Then their next door neighbors, the Higgins, are violently murdered by their estranged daughter, Annabelle (Tree O'Toole) and her boyfriend as part of a ritual to summon a demon.  They break in to the Gordon's house next, the boyfriend stabbing Mia before being gunned down by the cops, while Annabelle slits her own throat, holding the brand new doll.  Anxious to resume a normal life, Mia and John move to a new apartment, but it isn't long before Mia senses something evil has followed them.

The possessed doll thing has been done numerous times with varying levels of success.  I would put this one somewhere around the middle of the scale.  Frankly, my biggest problems with the film are the lead actress and the cop-out ending.

Annabelle Wallis is a stunningly beautiful woman but she has the acting range of a turnip in this film. A stunningly beautiful turnip.  I couldn't tell if she was trying to channel Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby or if she had just suffered a concussion.

Obviously, for spoiler reasons, I can't go into great detail on the ending but it is so lazy and pat that it left a sour taste in my mouth.  Alfre Woodard and Tony Amendola are totally wasted in this movie.  That's the real horror here.

Harakiri (1962)

I know there have been a lot of reposts lately.  I'm doing my best.  Now that I'm done with school for the semester, it will hopefully run a little smoother.

I bought the Criterion Collection release of this and it came with a really nice booklet featuring an interview a professor/historian had with the director.  It was an interesting read and made me focus a lot more on details when I watched it the second time.  Mr. Kobayashi talked about the geometry of certain scenes, for example, and his influences.  I thought it was primarily about honor but it's much more of a fight-the-man kind of piece.  Tsugumo is an individual standing up to an entire system by himself in order to protest the inherent unfairness.  It's a much more powerful film this way.  Originally posted 7/22/13    I can't believe I totally forgot to write a post for this movie.  I watched it last week and even wrote it down on my wish list for a future Buy but I never actually did my review.  I suck, you guys.

If only there were some sort of ritualistic death one could perform to abrogate shame...

Anyway, this is a fantastic film.  It clocks in at over two hours but it doesn't feel that long.  Even though it's 90% dialogue, it had zero problems keeping my interest.

A ronin named Tsugumo Hanshiro (Tatsuya Nakadai) shows up at the Iyi Clan house and politely asks the use of their foreyard to commit hara-kiri -ritual disembowelment- in, as he has fallen upon hard times and would rather an honorable death than a slow one by starvation.  In the relatively peaceful time, many samurai have found themselves without masters and with no other skills.  However, some enterprising ronin have taken to asking for space to kill themselves when they really want to guilt the house into giving them some money instead.  In an effort to forestall this, the Steward (Rentaro Mikuni) tells Tsugumo the cautionary tale of the last ronin who came by:  Chijiiwa Motome (Akira Ishihama).  In return, Tsugumo tells the Steward his story.

Everything else you need to see for yourself.  It's a beautiful piece on the concept of honor, bringing the philosophy to life in a poignant and powerful way.

73rd Golden Globe Awards Nominations (2015)

Holy shit, you guys.  The Golden Globe nominations came out yesterday and I totally missed them!  WTF!  I have seen almost none of these and a few I've never even heard of so my Netflix queue should be really interesting in five or six years.

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
CAROL 
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD 
THE REVENANT 
ROOM 
SPOTLIGHT

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA 
CATE BLANCHETT – CAROL
BRIE LARSON – ROOM
ROONEY MARA – CAROL
SAOIRSE RONAN –  BROOKLYN
ALICIA VIKANDER – THE DANISH GIRL

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA 
BRYAN CRANSTON – TRUMBO
LEONARDO DICAPRIO – THE REVENANT
MICHAEL FASSBENDER – STEVE JOBS
EDDIE REDMAYNE – THE DANISH GIRL
WILL SMITH – CONCUSSION

BEST MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY
THE BIG SHORT 
JOY 
THE MARTIAN 
SPY 
TRAINWRECK

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY 
JENNIFER LAWRENCE – JOY 
MELISSA MCCARTHY – SPY
AMY SCHUMER – TRAINWRECK
MAGGIE SMITH – THE LADY IN THE VAN
LILY TOMLIN – GRANDMA

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY 
CHRISTIAN BALE – THE BIG SHORT
STEVE CARELL – THE BIG SHORT
MATT DAMON – THE MARTIAN
AL PACINO – DANNY COLLINS
MARK RUFFALO – INFINITELY POLAR BEAR

BEST MOTION PICTURE – ANIMATED
ANOMALISA 
THE GOOD DINOSAUR 
INSIDE OUT 
THE PEANUTS MOVIE 
SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE 

BEST MOTION PICTURE – FOREIGN LANGUAGE 
THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT (BELGIUM / FRANCE / LUXEMBOURG) 
THE CLUB (CHILE) 
THE FENCER (FINLAND / GERMANY / ESTONIA) 
MUSTANG (FRANCE) 
SON OF SAUL (HUNGARY)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN ANY MOTION PICTURE
JANE FONDA – YOUTH
JENNIFER JASON LEIGH – THE HATEFUL EIGHT
HELEN MIRREN –  TRUMBO
ALICIA VIKANDER – EX MACHINA
KATE WINSLET – STEVE JOBS

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN ANY MOTION PICTURE
PAUL DANO – LOVE & MERCY
IDRIS ELBA – BEASTS OF NO NATION
MARK RYLANCE – BRIDGE OF SPIES
MICHAEL SHANNON – 99 HOMES
SYLVESTER STALLONE – CREED

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
TODD HAYNES – CAROL
ALEJANDRO G. IÑÁRRITU – THE REVENANT
TOM MCCARTHY – SPOTLIGHT
GEORGE MILLER – MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
RIDLEY SCOTT – THE MARTIAN

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE 
EMMA DONOGHUE – ROOM
TOM MCCARTHY, JOSH SINGER – SPOTLIGHT
CHARLES RANDOLPH, ADAM MCKAY – THE BIG SHORT
AARON SORKIN – STEVE JOBS
QUENTIN TARANTINO – THE HATEFUL EIGHT

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE 
CARTER BURWELL – CAROL
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT – THE DANISH GIRL
ENNIO MORRICONE – THE HATEFUL EIGHT
DANIEL PEMBERTON – STEVE JOBS
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, ALVA NOTO – THE REVENANT

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE
“LOVE ME LIKE YOU DO” — FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
“ONE KIND OF LOVE” — LOVE & MERCY 
“SEE YOU AGAIN” — FURIOUS 7
“SIMPLE SONG #3” — YOUTH 
“WRITING’S ON THE WALL” — SPECTRE 

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
EMPIRE (FOX) 
GAME OF THRONES (HBO) 
MR. ROBOT (USA Network) 
NARCOS (Netflix) 
OUTLANDER (Starz) 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA 
CAITRIONA BALFE – OUTLANDER
VIOLA DAVIS – HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER
EVA GREEN – PENNY DREADFUL
TARAJI P. HENSON – EMPIRE
ROBIN WRIGHT – HOUSE OF CARDS

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA 
JON HAMM – MAD MEN
RAMI MALEK – MR. ROBOT
WAGNER MOURA – NARCOS
BOB ODENKIRK – BETTER CALL SAUL 
LIEV SCHREIBER – RAY DONOVAN

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – MUSICAL OR COMEDYCASUAL (Hulu)  
MOZART IN THE JUNGLE (Amazon Video) 
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK (Netflix) 
SILICON VALLEY (HBO) 
TRANSPARENT (Amazon Video)
VEEP (HBO)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – MUSICAL OR COMEDY 
RACHEL BLOOM – CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND
JAMIE LEE CURTIS – SCREAM QUEENS
JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS – VEEP
GINA RODRIGUEZ – JANE THE VIRGIN
LILY TOMLIN – GRACE AND FRANKIE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – MUSICAL OR COMEDYAZIZ ANSARI – MASTER OF NONE
GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL – MOZART IN THE JUNGLE
ROB LOWE – THE GRINDER
PATRICK STEWART – BLUNT TALK
JEFFREY TAMBOR – TRANSPARENT

BEST TELEVISION LIMITED SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
AMERICAN CRIME (ABC) 
AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL (FX) 
FARGO (FX) 
FLESH & BONE (Starz) 
WOLF HALL (PBS) 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISIONKIRSTEN DUNST – FARGO
LADY GAGA – AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL
SARAH HAY – FLESH & BONE
FELICITY HUFFMAN – AMERICAN CRIME
QUEEN LATIFAH – BESSIE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION 
IDRIS ELBA – LUTHER
OSCAR ISAAC – SHOW ME A HERO
DAVID OYELOWO – NIGHTINGALE
MARK RYLANCE – WOLF HALL
PATRICK WILSON – FARGO

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
UZO ADUBA – ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
JOANNE FROGGATT – DOWNTON ABBEY
REGINA KING – AMERICAN CRIME
JUDITH LIGHT – TRANSPARENT
MAURA TIERNEY – THE AFFAIR

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, LIMITED SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
ALAN CUMMING – THE GOOD WIFE
DAMIAN LEWIS – WOLF HALL
BEN MENDELSOHN – BLOODLINE
TOBIAS MENZIES – OUTLANDER
CHRISTIAN SLATER – MR. ROBOT

Happy Feet Two (2011)

Back just before Rob and I broke up, I was concerned that he would take his server (with all the free movies and TV shows I had come to rely on) with him.  I started buying movies that I had seen on the server that I liked, in case I wanted to watch them again.  He ended up cloning me a copy of everything he had, which was very nice, so I didn't have to buy this but whatever.  Eventually, I'll figure out how to transfer all my movies to digital so I can use the shelves for books but that day is not today.

I don't really have anything extra to add about this movie.  It's still just as cute as when I originally saw it.  The message of global warming affecting the habitats of animals is much more subtle, compared to the first movie.  I know to notice this because my friend won't let her kids watch Happy Feet due to its "liberal agenda".  That is a true story.    Originally posted 5/12/14    I almost forgot to get this posted!  This is what happens when I get sucked into watching seasons of TV shows.  I've now gone through seasons one of Grimm and Hannibal, and seasons two and three of Chuck.  Hannibal was absolutely amazeballs and I can't wait to see the second season.

It took me this long to watch the sequel to Happy Feet because I was convinced it couldn't live up to its predecessor.  It does feel a little derivative, but the addition of some excellent supporting cast makes it worth buying.

Now happily married, Mumble (Elijah Wood) and Gloria (Alecia Moore aka P!nk) have their own chick, Erik (Ava Acres), who is struggling to find his place in the Emperor Penguin world.  He has not shown a talent for dance or singing and fears the ridicule of adults.  When Mumble's constantly-striking-out friend Ramon (Robin Williams) decides to go back to his own tribe, Erik and his two friends follow.  The Adelie Penguin tribe has discovered a new hero in the meantime, Sven (Hank Azaria), a mysterious Northern refugee who can fly.  Erik immediately becomes his biggest fan, much to Mumble's chagrin.  He shepherds the children home again, but discovers that a calved glacier has crashed into Emperor Land and trapped the rest of the penguins.  Without aid, they will all starve to death.

Ok, the best characters in the entire film are voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon as a pair of krill, Will and Bill, who leave the safety of the swarm in search of adventure.  They don't get musical numbers but every scene with them is hilarious. 

Hang 'Em High (1968)

  Did I just skip all the H's the last time I went through my collection?  Because I haven't written about any of the good ones.

If you can't tell, I'm more of a Clint Eastwood fan than a John Wayne one.  I have nothing against The Duke, I just tend to resonate more with Eastwood's brand of revenge-soaked Westerns.

Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) is minding his own business, herding some cows he just bought, when he is accosted by a posse of men claiming he is a rustler and murderer.  They ignore his protestations of innocence and decide to hang him then and there.  A marshal (Ben Johnson) was hot on the posse's trail and cuts Jed down before he can suffocate.  He hauls Jed off to the county seat, the only jail in the Oklahoma Territory, and leaves him to the mercy of Judge Fenton (Pat Hingle).  Fenton tells Jed that his story checks out and they caught the real murderer, but Jed wants justice served to the lynching party.  Fenton agrees to make Jed a Marshal so he can hunt the men down, but insists that he brings them back alive to be tried.  He's not handing Jed a license to murder.  Jed soon discovers that "justice" is a concept that is easier to pursue on paper than it is in reality.

It's funny how movies you watched as a kid have a deeper significance when you're an adult.  I don't think I understood before the moral and political conflicts in this film, or if I did, they never stuck out to me.  As a kid, I sympathized with Jed but as an adult, I found myself more on Judge Fenton's side. He has a great speech about being the only judge in the territory and the terrible responsibility that comes with being the final authority over life and death for the captured criminals.

On a completely unrelated note, I find myself bogged down once more with TV shows in my rotation instead of movies.  On the server, I have started watching the anime Naruto which is, if not a classic, extremely popular.  So popular, it has over two hundred episodes.  They are not broken into seasons, so I have no idea where a good stopping point is.  Right now, I'm just taking them ten episodes at a time but it still takes me like a day to get through them.

Over in Netflix Land, I started watching a telenovela called La Usurpadora about a woman named Paola, henceforth to be known as Evil Twin, who finds a woman who looks just like her named Paulina (aka Good Twin) working as a bathroom attendant in a club.  Evil Twin blackmails Good Twin to take her place so Evil Twin can jet off with her billionaire boyfriend while Good Twin tries to repair the damage Evil Twin has caused to her husband's family.  I've never been a soap opera person but Netflix swears I will like this.  It's only one season but, fun fact, that season is 108 episodes.  Apparently, Mexican TV shows just go until the story is done and then they're over.  None of this cliffhanger, come-back-after-Winter-break-to-see-if-your-favorite-character-is-still-alive bullshit.  I was also unprepared for this.  I'm taking it ten episodes at a time as well but again, it takes time.

So if you're wondering why I seem to be posting less this weekend, there you go.  I am deep into a well of subtitles that I am trying to claw my way out of, but it is slow going.