Munyurangabo (2007)

Munyurangabo is one of the best films I have seen in a very long time. It is set in Rwanda after the genocide and concerns two teenage boys, Sangwa and Ngabo, friends who are traveling from Kigali, the capital city, to an unknown destination. Ngabo has a machete.

The boys stop during their journey at Sangwa's family's home, where he has not been in three years. We soon discover a huge conflict between the two boys, and we find out where they are traveling. I won't go into that here. See the movie; you'll figure it out.

Munyurangabo looks like it was made for about ten dollars, and I mean that in the best way possible. There is nothing here to distract from the story and characters; the shots last several minutes at a time and there is almost no editing from shot to shot within a scene. I would say it's kind of theatrical if it weren't for the realism, the on-location outdoor setting, and the wide scope of most of the camerawork.

Two other reasons for the greatness of this film are its simplicity and its even pacing. Chung takes his time setting up the story, and everything unfolds the way it would in real life. There are no unnecessary plot points in the dialogue for the audience's benefit; everything is related to us through the concerns of Ngabo, Sangwa, and Sangwa's father.

Munyurangabo is truly an international film, which is one of the great things about the film. It was directed by Lee Isaac Chung, a Korean-American from rural Arkansas, and it is set and was filmed in Rwanda. The language is Kinyarwanda, and this is the first film ever in that language.

I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to see this movie.

Note: 2009 U.S. release.

Michael Jackson's This Is It (2009)

Michael Jackson's talent was always extraordinary. Unbelievable. Devastatingly impressive and unendingly inspiring. Of course, I knew all this before I saw Michael Jackson's This Is It. But this bittersweet documentary reminds me of these things, and proves that they remained true even through the final weeks of his life.

A documentary about Michael Jackson made this soon after his death could have been about many things. A career retrospective. A psychological exploration. A story of personal trials and sadness. All of those ideas would have surely been very interesting, but This Is It is so much simpler than that. It's video footage of the rehearsals for the tour he would have done had he not passed away. That's it.

There are a few brief interviews with people who worked with him to prepare for the tour, but that makes up only a few tiny moments in the film. Everything else is footage of Michael rehearsing, and it is absolutely astounding.

I can't really say too much about This Is It as a film because I am too blown away by Michael Jackson's performance. He is the reason to watch this documentary. His unbelievable ability is all I have been able to think about all last night and all day today. This Is It shows that he possessed this ability right up until the end, when he was 50 years old. This tour would have been the greatest thing the world has ever seen.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is hilarious. I knew it would be. After more than a year of hearing friends recommend this film to me, I finally got a chance to watch it last night, and it did not disappoint.

I think this is probably going to have to be a short post, because I'm not sure how much I can really say about this movie, other than that it's awesome. It works for many of the same reasons most of the Apatow-produced comic gems work (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, I Love You Man, etc.). It is hilarity mixed with emotion mixed with intelligence mixed with art.

Jason Segel wrote the screenplay (a fact of which I was not aware until tonight). He plays Peter, a dude who gets dumped by his girlfriend of five years, Sarah Marshall, who stars in a CSI-type television show called "Crime Scene" (the jokes aimed at these types of shows are some of the best in the movie). He goes on vacation to Hawaii and runs into Sarah, who is vacationing with her new boyfriend, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). At first I thought this was a bit of a far-fetched plot turn, but now I think maybe Peter really did follow Sarah to Hawaii. Just a thought.

Anyway, that's what happens; then some more stuff happens, stuff that will make you laugh and feel deeply for these characters.

I'm going to break down the awesomeness of this film into two categories, two main reasons why it's awesome:

1. The screenplay. Jason Segel wrote a hilarious, true-to-life script. The characters are phenomenal. There are no stock movie characters here, and there is no one who is completely at fault; everyone is a good guy, they are all just flawed enough to make mistakes that hurt one another. And the dialogue is perfectly hilarious.

2. The performances. Let me list some of the awesome people who are in this movie, all of whom are at the top of their respective comedic games: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Russell Brand, Mila Kunis, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Billy Baldwin, Bill Hader, Jack McBrayer, and Jason Bateman. How can this movie not rule?

I would tell you to make sure you see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but I think I may have been the last person in the world to see it.

Awakenings (1990)

1990 must have been a good year to be Robert De Niro. As if being a total bad ass in Goodfellas weren't enough, he had to go and perform the hell out of his role in Awakenings, too. And this is not the De Niro we're used to seeing. Here he plays Leonard, a patient in a neurological hospital who is victim to an unknown disease (we later find out it's an extreme form of Parkinson's) that makes him unable to move, speak, or do anything except swallow the food and water given to him by the hospital staff. Until Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) gets a job at the hospital.


I don't really feel like relating the entire plot here, but suffice it to say that Leonard and a handful of other patients with similar conditions experience a sort of "awakening," thanks to the research of Dr. Sayer and a drug originally made for Parkinson's patients. That means we get to see De Niro go from being completely paralyzed to speaking and moving and thinking as if he never had a disease at all. We get to see the transition throughout the film, and it is an absolutely staggering piece of acting. It's usually very easy for an actor to garner attention and praise by playing someone with a mental handicap, but this role is so much more than that. De Niro portrays Leonard at every stage of his awakening and decline while maintaining a character with intelligent thoughts and intense emotions. And his handicap is neurological, not mental. I can't help but be reminded of the advice Kirk Lazarus gives to Tugg Speedman in Tropic Thunder, regarding how to win an Oscar: "Never go full-on retarded."

Robin Williams' performance is equally spectacular, perhaps the best of his I've ever seen. His Dr. Sayer is the film's real protagonist, as he goes from a socially awkward researcher to a doctor who figures out how to care about people. That's really what the film is about.

But the performances are only one piece of what makes Awakenings a terrific film. It would have been so so so so so easy for director Penny Marshall to turn this movie into a sappy tearjerker, and I'm sure the film would have enjoyed the same amount of commercial success if that had been the case. I am so thankful that she chose to focus on the philosophical issues brought about by the remarkable story (which I'm told is true, by the way). The plot is neither unrealistically miraculous or heartbreakingly sad. It does, however, assert that the patients in this particular case have real human thoughts and, therefore, the ability to love, worry, and express anger, joy, and sadness. And it explores what that conclusion tells us about humanity. So just as she did in Big, (the film she made two years prior) Marshall takes what could have been a mediocre piece of popular entertainment and turns it into accessible art that will truly make audiences think about something profound.

Highly recommended.

The Headless Woman (2007)

After reading about its premise and checking out what were mostly very positive reviews, I was highly intrigued by Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman. It's about a woman, Veronica (Maria Onetto), who hits something with her car. She thinks it might have been a person, but she's afraid to get out of the car and becomes disoriented, so she keeps driving. She spends the next week trying to figure out if she has killed someone. That's all the information we have for nearly the entirety of the film.

I think this simplicity is probably the film's greatest strength. There is no attempt to turn this story into a suspenseful thriller or even to make it seem like a movie at all; the narrative plays a very diminished role here, so that all we are left with is the film's realism. We are intended to be more concerned with Veronica's state of mind than with finding out what actually happened on that road.

I was not completely blown away by The Headless Woman, but Martel does some nice things with it. There are several shots in which supporting characters carry on everyday conversations in the background or off camera, and Veronica's face takes up most of the shot, in the foreground, as she worries and ignores the others. This is an effective device, and Onneto sells it with good acting, but it happens so often it begins to feel redundant. If simplicity is the film's strength, it's also its weakness; this story probably could have been told in thirty minutes.

There's another thing Martel does where an actor's face will be blocked from the view of the camera by something while he or she is speaking. This happens a lot, and I'm not really sure what the use of it is. I find it a little annoying.

The Headless Woman is certainly an interesting film, but ultimately I think it has very little to say. But I do get the feeling that a second viewing would illuminate much more, so maybe I'll watch it again and my ideas about it will change. It merits a reconsideration.

Note: 2009 U.S. release.

The Descent (2005)

This is the first time I'm writing about a film I have already seen. I watched The Descent last night, and I think it was the fourth time I've seen it. Each time I view this film I find new things to appreciate about it. Of course, the first time was the scariest; I saw it upon its U.S. release, and anyone who has seen this movie or any like it knows that it is bound to be more terrifying in a theater. I nearly soiled myself.

Obviously I am a fan of The Descent (why else would I see it four times?), so I won't waste time discussing whether or not I like it. Instead, I want to discuss my new observations about it and what makes it such a frightening experience.
For those who have not seen the film, it's about a group of young, adventure-seeking British women who go spelunking in the Appalachians. Now, I know this movie has drawn a lot of comparisons to Deliverance, but I really think that's a stretch. The setting is where the similarities between these two films end. That, and the fact that they're both pretty unsettling.

Anyway, one of the girls, Sarah, loses her husband and young daughter in a car accident a year before the trip. That's all the information I can give you without ruining a crucial part of the film. Once they are deep in the mountains, the six women enter the cave, only to find out that Juno, the one who is leading the expedition, has purposely led them to the wrong cave system, a nameless one that she believes has yet to be discovered. This news comes after a frightening incident in which several falling rocks block the entrance into which they came, in a scene that is among the most terrifying in the film (especially if you're claustrophobic like me). All this before the creatures show up.

What follows is some of the scariest cinema I have ever seen in my life. Neil Marshall, the director, employs here a rule that is consistent with almost all good horror films: what you can't see is much more terrifying than what you can. He barely even shows the monsters until the film's third act; even during their first attack we have no clue who or what could be terrorizing these women.

Marshall never lets us know exactly what the creatures are, we are only allowed some conclusions one of the women (a medical student) is able to draw from studying a dead one; in fact, we never know any more than the characters do. This lets us share in their experience and their terror. For me, it means The Descent can still scare me even after it's over. And darkness plays a huge part in this movie. The way the film is lit, in order to make use of the darkness, is wonderful. The girls light red flares throughout the film, and the cave looks unquestionably like hell.

I've heard theories that the cave is supposed to be the entrance to hell, and the monsters inhabiting it are demons. I suppose this is as good a theory as any, but Marshall wisely avoids being literal here, which is the right choice for two reasons. First, the audience is left completely clueless as to what exactly is happening, which is much scarier than any explanation could be. Second, we are free to look at the experience symbolically. The Descent is really about the descent of Sarah, into madness or into hell, depending upon your view of what happens to her. She has lost a husband and a child, her friends are inexplicably dying by her side, and she discovers a betrayal that hurts as much as any of this. You'd want to go crazy too.

One thing that strikes me now that didn't before is how every bad turn of events can be traced back to Juno. It seems to me she is a kind of inadvertent antagonist. I won't give specific examples and ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it, but watch and see if you don't notice that as well.

One last thing I want to discuss is the difference between the U.K. and U.S. versions. The Descent was originally released in the United Kingdom, but the ending of the American theatrical version was edited, undoubtedly to soften it (the U.K. version is available on the DVD). I don't necessarily think this was a bad decision. The U.S. ending certainly offers more hope (although not much, admittedly), but I think I prefer the U.K. ending. With it, the symbolism is clearer, and so is the title. Thoughts?

Note: 2006 U.S. Release.

The Great Debaters (2007)

I watched The Great Debaters last night. It's a good film. It's certainly not great, but it's good. Denzel Washington directed it and starred in it, and it was released by Harpo Films. Get it? Oprah spelled backwards? My biggest problem with this movie is that I can see Oprah's fingerprints all over it. I don't necessarily mean she had a lot to do with the artistic production of the film (although that could be the case; I don't know), it just feels like the sort of movie that would be made for her production company. While it's still a pretty powerful story, there are a few too many cliches and sappy feel-good moments for my liking.

The Great Debaters is very formulaic, which may have worked better if it had been made in the 1940's. The problem is, I've seen this all before. In fact, halfway through the film, I wondered if I should even bother finishing it. It's not that I wasn't enjoying it, it's just that I knew what would happen, because I have seen Rocky and The Mighty Ducks and countless other films like this.

And yet, even when I recognize it, the formula can still work and create a fairly meaningful, if not entirely original, film. The hardships that these students and professors must endure as blacks during the Depression are portrayed with sincerity and hope. And a movie with this many outstanding performances will always spark in me some sympathy and affection for the characters. Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker are absolutely wonderful (surprise, surprise), and the actors that play the college students deliver terrific performances as well.

On a slightly less important note, the film is sprinkled with not-so-subtle socialist propaganda. It's not overbearing, just noticeable. It's set in 1935, so it's understandable, I suppose. I also find it strange that the debaters are always given the politically correct side of the issue to argue (one of these is "capitalism is immoral," just to give you an idea). Not once are they asked to argue something they don't believe.

All that aside, this is still a pretty good movie.

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

Overrated.

Happy-Go-Lucky is a film about some very obnoxiously chipper people who never have anything bad happen to them. A story without conflict is no story at all. Now hold on, I do have some compliments to give the film. But let me get the complaints out of the way first.

Poppy (played with energy and sincerity by Sally Hawkins) is the main character in this movie. She is a schoolteacher and she is incredibly happy (hence the film's title). I know people like Poppy. They are blithe and cheery and nothing in the world could possibly upset them; they live in a perpetual dreamland, with a "child-like wonder." A majority of folks find this type of person delightful. I find this type of person horribly annoying to the point of insanity.

Maybe I'm just an asshole, but I don't find a story about this kind of nutjob interesting. Or maybe I've seen City of God too many times to find Poppy's Disney-movie outlook charming or even believable. The problem is that director Mike Leigh sets up a very realistic world for this film and doesn't bother to give us a realistic character. The issue is certainly not Hawkins' acting; she attacks the role and never wavers. But it's all in service of a character who jumps on trampolines every day after work and makes bird masks out of paper sacks and doesn't mind if her bike is stolen. Again, it's probably just me, but I find it hard to care about such a protagonist. If I met Poppy I'd want to punch her in the face.

Of course, I'm sure lots of other people would find Poppy delightful, and those people should, by all means, see Happy-Go-Lucky. The film has many good points, some of which I will enumerate here:

First of all, the scenes with Eddie Marsan, who plays Poppy's driving instructor Scott, are easily the best of the movie. I think his character is not given a big enough chunk of the film, especially since he brings almost all of the story's conflict. He is hilarious and kind of heartbreaking.

Mike Leigh does a nice job visually in Happy-Go-Lucky, and you can tell he's a director who knows what he's doing. I appreciated the resistance to the temptation to toss in a lot of trendy indie film cliches. There are some creative shots here, and lots of bright colors that fit the film's mood very well.

If you're wondering whether or not you should see this movie, you should probably ask yourself whether you are drawn to or annoyed by happy people. Also, if you like something to actually happen to your protagonists, maybe this isn't for you. That's the best recommendation I can give.

Crazy Heart (2009)

Hot damn, this is a good movie.

Crystal and I went to see Crazy Heart last night, its first night playing in Indianapolis. I cannot say enough good things about this film, but I'll start by talking about Jeff Bridges, since that's who everybody else seems to be talking about (with good reason). The man deserves an Oscar. I'm saying it now. His subtle performance is just right; rarely have I seen an actor communicate such turmoil, love, passion, anger and regret while seemingly doing nothing at all. It's like he's using some form of telepathy on the audience. And this is the perfect script for Bridges: the dialogue is simple and rarely calls attention to itself, and with it (and with the help of Bridges, obviously) writer/director Scott Cooper has created one of the most memorable characters I have ever seen on a movie screen.


In case you hadn't heard, the movie is about a 57-year-old country singing has-been named Bad Blake. That should be enough to make you want to see the film. The soundtrack is full of some of the best country music I have ever heard (a lot of it written by T-Bone Burnett, I'm told) and the film's story and overall feel fit in perfectly with the emotions of an old country-western song. Drunken and melancholy, yet innocently hopeful.

Crazy Heart is definitely a film for actors, and Jeff Bridges is not the only one who brings a brilliant performance. Maggie Gyllenhaal is absolutely wonderful, and Robert Duvall and Colin Farrel are great in their smaller roles. And I couldn't believe this was Scott Cooper's first time directing.

If you don't go see this movie, I will punch you.

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt (2009)

Last night the lady and I rented Beyond A Reasonable Doubt (the 2009 Peter Hyams version, not the Fritz Lang original). The best aspects of this film, and I can say this with a great degree of certainty, are the car chases and explosions. Also, Orlando Jones was good in his small role.

That's where the positives end. And I am being generous in calling the action scenes positive. I really don't like to completely trash a film unless I find it offensively bad (Pearl Harbor, for example), and Beyond A Reasonable Doubt isn't that terrible. It's just not very good. At all. No mystery or intrigue. No character development whatsoever. The editing is very poor in spots, and the screenplay sounds like it was written by someone who just graduated middle school. I would say the acting is bad too, but I really don't think the actors are to blame. The greatest actors in the world couldn't have done anything with this script.

The film is about a pretty boy journalist who "suspects" his state's District Attorney of being crooked. No reason for this suspicion; it's just a hunch. Said pretty boy then sets out to prove the D.A. has been fabricating evidence in murder trials by implicating himself in a murder and videotaping the falsification. I may not be able to relate the absurdity of this scheme here, but if you see the film, I have confidence you'll recognize it immediately. Oh, and then the pretty boy falls in love with a prettier girl. We know this because they say "I love you" in a two-minute breakfast scene. Apparently that's enough to make us care about this relationship. After this a lot of predictable and melodramatic things happen, and the film ends with possibly the most ludicrous "twist" I have ever seen in a movie.

If you were thinking of renting this movie, you could save some time and just watch an episode of "Law & Order."

Broken Embraces (2009)

So I guess I'm starting this today. Here's how I think this will work: I will post stuff about each film the day after I see it. This way I can watch movies late at night if I need to, and I can have around 24 hours to let each movie sink in and to develop some of my thoughts about it. It should be noted that I have quite a bit going on in my life at the moment, so the likelihood of me actually following through with this whole one-film-per-day thing is probably not great. But I figure I should at least try. I thought about waiting to do it until my life calms down a bit, but I just saw a film last night that rocked my world, and I really wanted to write about it.

The movie I saw last night was Broken Embraces, the new Pedro Almodovar film starring Penelope Cruz. It was damn near perfect. I saw it at the Landmark Keystone Art Cinema in Indianapolis, which is a pretty great setting for viewing such a wonderful film.

About Broken Embraces, Roger Ebert wrote, "As it ravished me I longed for a freeze frame to allow me to savor a shot." This is exactly how I felt about the visual aspects of the film, which were both classic and completely innovative. I found myself wishing I had a remote control so I could rewind each scene and watch it several times before moving on to the next one. I imagine I will probably do exactly this when it comes out on DVD. The film's colors alone are among the most eye-catching I have ever seen in the movies; the color red plays a particularly important role. The actors are photographed beautifully, in a way that reminds me of 1960's European cinema (think Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt). any more description of the camerawork and cinematography would be tedious. Just see the movie.

The film is about a director who goes blind (an idea that was treated much more comically in Woody Allen's 2002 release, Hollywood Ending). This is one small aspect of the plot, but I mention it because I believe it to be the most important. Broken Embraces is about what we see and how quickly it is gone. It is also about the necessity of closure in film, work, love, and other areas of life. I would explain more, but I would probably be giving things away. Just see the movie; Almodovar can articulate all these things much better than I can.

I would also like to mention that Penelope Cruz is one of the most beautiful women in the world. It may have something to do with the way Almodovar photographs her, but she seems to have a beauty from another time, like a modern-day Audrey Hepburn, Claudia Cardinale, or Mary Tyler Moore. It's a quality that screams "movie star," and it makes her films that much more captivating.

I have now seen three Pedro Almodovar films, and it seems to me that with each new project, four things progressively become greater: the similarities to Hitchcock, the richness of color, the depth of the characters, and the quality of the films. I loved both Talk to Her and Volver, but Broken Embraces reached a whole new level for me. Please do yourself a favor and go see this incredible film.

Well, that's one down, 364 to go. I'm not sure they'll all be this long. It will be interesting to see how long I can actually make this last.

This is an experiment...

Okay, here's the skinny...I want to do this thing where I watch one movie a day for a whole year. Maybe it will last for the rest of my life. Or maybe I'll give up after four days. I watch a lot of films as it is, so it really won't be that much of a stretch to make this happen. The idea is that I will blog about the films I see.

The problem is that my life is currently pretty hectic. I won't go into boring details, but the point is I want to wait to start this experiment until I know I can really make it happen. Also, I have never had a real blog before, so I want to make sure I'm doing it correctly and effectively before I actually begin. So I may end up abandoning this blog and starting one that will be better.

At any rate, I thought I should give it a test run and see if this is something that I can make stick.

I should begin by saying that I love film, as both entertainment and a serious art form that can educate and inspire. That's why I watch so many movies. The blog that I envision isn't necessarily for film reviews, although I am open to that idea as well. What I really want to do is simply respond to my daily experience of watching a film. It might be to critique the film (I'm guessing this will probably happen a lot), but it could also be to simply talk about my admiration for it or to relate it to something in my life or the news or history or something I saw on Mad TV once. In essence, anything goes, at least that's the plan.

I have no outline for which films I will watch; it will most likely be whatever I feel like. Sometimes circumstances will dictate what I am viewing; for example, I am currently taking a class called Politics and Film in which, once a week, I must view a political film of my professor's choosing. That will be my film for that day of the week. I might also be with my girlfriend or some friends who want to see a particular film, and I might join them. As this time of year is what some refer to as "Oscar season," I feel I should see many new releases that will certainly be the most important films of the year. During the summer, I typically watch old films I have never seen. I might also choose to view some of my personal favorites. The point is that I will be watching a movie every day, and it could be anything. One film per day is the only rule.

Hopefully I can decide on a starting date soon.