Yearly Archives: 2008

My Latest Discovery: Undeclared

Leave a reply

I actually wouldn’t call this a totally new discovery. I first discovered Undeclared while I was first discovering Freaks and Geeks. It’s the second TV series by Judd Apatow (once Freaks was cancelled) and I wasn’y hugely impressed by it. Maybe it was because I was expecting a more dramatic hour-long show along the lines of Freaks. Instead, it was more comedy than drama and ran for a paltry 30 minutes (seems like barely enough time for any depth). 

Then, recently my sister was watching it and I decided to give it another try (mainly because I saw Jason Segal’s face). And I found something unexpected: even as it was more a comedy, it still contained Apatow signature moments of poignancy as well as extremely lovable characters. As always, Apatow allows us to look past the character’s flaws and seem them all as real people with tangible emotions and problems.
I would say to watch Freaks and Geeks and then Undeclared. Undeclared focuses on Steven (Jay Baruchel) an awkward high school nerd who hopes to reinvent himself and forget his past high school years once he gets to college. While there he forms a friendship with his roomates, womanzing Llyod (Charlie Hunnman), and oddballs Ron (Seth Rogen) and Marshall (Timm Sharp). He also tries to make things work with a girl above his league (Carla Gallo) and deal with his parents’ recent divorce. 
The show balances brilliant humor, painfully awkward experiences, and a great human story. The show has a brighter, less moodier feeling than Freaks had. That’s because it is a more optimistic show, instead of being stuck in the hell of high school it’s about moving on daring to be change, explore and be a new person.
Why the hell was this cancelled (after just one season)? It’s a mystery. But Fox might’ve wanted it cancelled badly for some reason, especially with the fact that it was aired out of order. If it had given a chance, it could’ve gone slower and been able to progressively slow down the character development and find out even more about the characters. Along with guest star appearances from Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell who wouldn’t want to watch this show? Well, you should.

The Most Vile and Corrupt Thing On the Planet: The MTV Movie Awards

Leave a reply

There was a time when I loved and valued the MTV Movie Awards. After all, they were one of the few award ceremonies smart enough to recognize Kill Bill. As MTV’s TV shows progressively worsen (I’m talking to you My Super Sweet 16 and The Hills) so has their awards ceremony.

The MTV Movie Awards were designed as sort of a counterpart to the Oscars, choosing what audiences really want to see win an award. From the looks of the winners, either the MTV Movie Award voters are on crack, or there’s something seriously wrong with audiences movie taste nowadays.
The winner? Transformers. TRANSFORMERS. Guess my Michael Bay boycott hasn’t been working as the biggest d-bag in the industry went up to accept the only award he’ll probably ever win (except for a Razzie maybe). Well, Transformers beat out loved-by-everyone Superbad and Oscar nominated Juno.
Many other things saddened me over the course of the ceremony as well. As great and actor as Johnny Depp is, he was quite an awards hog last night, taking home two trophies for categories he didn’t deserve. While I didn’t see Pirates 3 (and never plan on doing so) I did see Sweeny Todd for which he picked up the best villain award. And while I thought it was fantastic and he gave a chilling performance, in no way did he deserve best villain. It belonged in the hands of Oscar-Winner Javier Bardem, whose chilling Anton Chigurh still haunts my dreams. Why he lost is inexplicable.
The other award Depp picked up was Best Comedic Performance for Pirates 3. While I didn’t see the third installment I did see the first two. As funny as he was in it his antics grow kind of tiring as the film reaches close to the 3 hour mark. Shouldn’t a great comedic performance never grow tiring and always make you laugh? That’s why it’s a shame both Jonah Hill’s performance in Superbad and Seth Rogen’s turn in Knocked Up both lost the award. Both were risky and made you laugh the whole way through. Two of the best comedies of the year went home from the ceremony totally empty handed. Tear.
A few other shameful events include Zach “Zaquisha” Efron winning best breakthrough performance for Hairspray even when he already broke out in High School Musical. He also managed to beat out three actors from Superbad who were nominated as well. They all had true breakouts this years. Also, Step Up 2 won an award which hopefully wont inspire another sequel.
Host Mike Myers was very funny as usual. His Wayne’s World reunion was a hilarious and welcome surprise that answered my question as to whether or not Dana Carvey is still alive (answer: yes). The only thing that bugged me about Myers’ hosting is the fact that it was all a plug for his upcoming Love Guru, a summer comedy I encourage nobody under any circumstance to go see.
Hopefully, next year MTV will realize these mistakes and make a better awards ceremony next year, one that includes films with at least one brain cell. They could’ve this year: No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood may’ve been Oscar winning “adult” films but they were both hip and are loved by teenagers as well as adults. Maybe MTV needs to interview a few kids before they pick their winners.
Next goal: Get MTV to put Beavis and Butthead back on the air.

Movie Review: Drugstore Cowboy

Leave a reply

What do you see whenever you think of a cowboy? The glamourous image of a hero riding on horseback, cigar in mouth, maybe shooting up some bandits. Or, a junkie getting high off prescription medication? You’d never think of the last one but that’s the cowboy seen in Drugstore Cowboy, a harrowing drama about how far one can drift from consciousness, and if one can ever return.
The story revolves around Bob (brilliant Matt Dillon), his wife (Kelly Lynch) and the rest of his “family” (Heather Graham and James LeGros). They are a “family” of junkies living as outsiders in Portland Oregon. They go around robbing drug stores for all of their prescription drugs to add onto their worsening drug addicts. As the cops begin to crack down on them, Bob and the rest of the gang flee and travel around the Pacific Northwest, robbing more stores and end up on a journey of regret, enlightenment, and redemption.
Drugstore Cowboy was directed by Gus Van Sant who also directed the masterpiece My Own Private Idaho. In a way, Cowboy can be seen as a predecessor to Idaho: both films take place in Portland amongst those who don’t live normal, wealthy lives. It concerns those in the drug culture, trying to stray as far away from the “straight” life as far as possible. However, as Cowboy Bob and Idaho Mike and Scott soon find out that the more involved they get in drugs and crime, the more they long for a “normal” life. Both films contain characters so overwhelmed by the hallucinations of drugs and narcolepsy that neither the audience or the characters can distinguish between reality.
What differs between Cowboy and Idaho is that in My Own Private Idaho Mike wanted so desperately to escape his lonely impoverished life but just couldn’t get away as Scott did everything he could to get away from his rich life and live in the hood. They represented the battling forces of fate and freewill and in the end the movie left you with a question mark of which would win in the end. Drugstore Cowboy contains only Bob trying to escape his drug-riddled life but finding himself being pulled right back in. What Van Sant is proposing here is that in the end, your past will always come back to haunt you.
Along with stirring up the emotions, the film is also technically and visually stunning as well. Between the drastic backdrop of Mt. Hood amongst the old industrial section of Portland and the grainy old home video footage, it makes us wonder more and more, will Bob ever escape or be condemned to his pharmacudical-drug laced fate?

This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse

1 Reply

…ABC sitcom According to Jim is being renewed for an 8th season? 8TH SEASON?! Does anyone even watch this show (or find it funny to say the least)?

Sidenote: Arrested Development was canceled after three seasons, Freaks and Geeks after one season, and 30 Rock may be getting canceled after just two seasons. What is the major malfunction of these networks?

Something is wrong with this nation when smart shows are canceled and the dumb ones succeed…I blame George Bush. And Larry the Cable Guy.

Movie Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

1 Reply

If I could regret anything from this past year it would be that I hadn’t seen The Diving Bell and the Butterfly earlier and this masterwork was denied a well-deserved spot on my top 10 list.
The directing choices are daring and groundbreaking. The cinematography is stunning. It is a story that is both emotionally devastating but at the same time one of the most optimistic films in years.
The film is based on the true story of “Jean-Do” Bauby, the editor of French magazine Elle who unexpectedly gets a stroke. The stroke leaves him in “locked-in syndrome” in which Jean-Do can think, but can’t move a single part of his body or speak. All he can do is blink his left eye, indicating yes or no. Every thought he has, is locked up inside of him.
He is soon introduced to a system which ends his silence. A speech therapists dictates the alphabet to him and through a long and strenuous process, Jean-Do writes an entire book without writing down a single word.
The director, Julian Schnaebel, was a former painter; and it shows in this work. Many images are like paintings, some you could stare at for hours. What makes this film so unique is it’s treatment of the character’s illness. Instead of showing his suffering from other perspectives, we see it from inside of his head. This way we understand the terrible pain he goes through being imprisoned in his own body but we also are able to see him beyond being a vegetable. We can hear him speak and see him through his own imagination. Although we pity him, we still see him as a living human being and Schnaebel succeeds in making him real.
Doing this also helps to make the story so optimistic. It is saddening to see his illness, but uplifting that no matter what he’ll never give up. His imagination and his memory almost make up for the loss of everything else he could once do.
Diving Bell is so uplifitng in it’s belief that no matter what, the human spirit will always triumph. The fact that he can still blink one eye shows the fight that’s left inside of every human being. Those obstacles that everyone must go through in life, no matter how severe, can never stop you from doing what you love. This is the kind of movie that needs to be seen by everyone, it’s the kind that reminds you of the goodness in the world and that with every tragedy, there is hope.

Movie Review: American Gangster

1 Reply

Denzel Washington as always played the challenged man, the good, the righteous man. The man struggling to bring down evil. Now, the first image of American Gangster is of Denzel pouring gasoline all over a man while torturing him before shooting him multiple times.
I began watching American Gangster and although I was excited to see it. I expected the typical cliches of the rise-and-fall of a powerful gangster story. We’d see his humble beginnings, his corruption into crime, his rise to power, his elevating madness, and then his downfall. American Gangster strays away from this formula showing his rise and then leaves the audience with a question mark of whether this character has changed or will continue his life of crime.
This true story starts in 1968, at the peak of the Vietnam War. Franks Lucas (Washington) works for Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson. After his death, Lucas assumes Johnson’s role as the drug lord of Harlem and Manhattan. He uses ‘Nam to his advantage, as he finds a way to go into the region for its vast amounts of pure, cheap heroin. He makes millions and becomes nearly invincible to capture. Detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), the only honest cop in sea of corruption, plots to bring down Lucas’s drug empire.
American Gangster had the potential to be the typical crime thriller story. But thanks to excellent decisions in writing and directing as well as fantastic acting, the film is daring, original and extremely entertaining. Despite being just 20 minutes short of the three hour mark, this film is never boring. It is part of a movement of films of this decade like Munich, The Departed, and Michael Clayton that capture the spirit of the thrillers of the 70s such as The French Connection, Chinatown, Serpico, and The Godfather. Gangster contains these films dark cinematography, brooding tension, and unexpected thrills. The audience doesn’t get the big shootout until the way end because until this time, the film is building up to it with little jolts of violence and brilliant character development.
What most keeps this film from falling off the edge is the performance of Denzel Washington. He portrays Lucas as more than a violent man, gangster, and drug lord. His character is more complex then that as he is a human being just as much as Roberts is. He shows only love and respect for his wife and family, and would never give up the chance to lend a hand to his fellow people of Harlem.
This film is directed by Ridley Scott. He mastered the sci-fi genre with Blade Runner, the historical epic with Gladiator, and now the crime thriller with American Gangster. It succeeds as a film that asks deep questions about the fight between good and evil. In a world as full of greed, corruption, and dishonesty as 70s New York, how can you tell who’s good and who’s bad? After all, your friendly neighborhood cop could be just as bad as the loyal drug lord.

Movie Review: Son of Rambow

Leave a reply

First off, let’s clear things off: Son of Rambow is not a sequel/prequel to the series of the beloved mumbling action hero. No, it’s a different kind of film. It’s the rare kind of comedy that everyone will like with an ending that could move even someone like me to tears.
Son of Rambow begins at a slow start, so don’t get too impatient. The film is set in a small but very religious British town. Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) comes from a family where the Bible comes first. But in his own mind, his crazy fantasies and wild imagination rule. Lee Carter (Will Poulter) is a tough kid who can’t keep himself out of trouble. The two meet in the hallway and in order to repay a debt, Lee asks Will to help him make his movie. After watching First Blood, Will decides to contribute his own ideas for a story in which Rambo’s son goes to save him. Action! Adventure! Flying Dogs!(?)
At first, it seems as if the two boys couldn’t be anymore different. I’ll try not to ruin the movie but what I can say is that the bond that forms between the two is incredible and unbreakable. They teach each other the value of commitment. Lee almost uses his film not just for fun but as a way to make a friend. We see another side of a bully through Lee: he is actually a boy from a rough family and he has not a single friend until Will comes around.
Son of Rambow can fit into the category of “quirky” comedies. Some people think being quirky is a bad thing but me, I think its great. Many of the things that happen in this film are not what you’d see everyday (a flying dog) but it’s captivating and hilarious. And it makes you wonder, who’d have ever thought of something like that?
There’s a great deal of good comedies out in theaters right now. If you want you can go with the dirtier option of Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Harold and Kumar or the more family oriented Son of Rambo. Despite their differnces all three movies are very similar in theme. They all are about the meaning of commitment, true friendship, and the things in life that make one realize it’s time to mature. This seems to be a new territory being explored in comedy nowadays and it should be. That is because, despite the cruelties, growing up and finding true friendship is too ridiculous to be taken seriously. We’ve gotta learn to laugh every once in a while.