Review: The Social Network

When I first heard about The Social Network, I didn't think much of it. The commercial didn't seem that good. I knew almost nothing of Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook. What little I knew was something about how Zuckerberg "stole" Facebook from the original creators and made a fortune. I had thought he had been the savvy business type, a Steve Jobs that took over from lowly Steve Wozniak.

But then I heard David Fincher directed the film and Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay. David Fincher has been a notable director, even if his name is not as widely known as, say, Steven Spielberg. Until Fincher directed his first feature, he was best known as one of the directors of Madonna's video.

Fincher got his start in that incubator of talent: the Aliens films. The first had been directed by Ridley Scott, known for his visual style. The second was a hyper-kinetic space romp directed by James Cameron. Fincher helmed the third film and Jean-Pierre Jeunet did the fourth (he also did Amelie). Fincher got notoriety in that most gruesome of cop buddy movies: Se7en about a serial killer who murders based on the seven deadly sins.

Fincher went on to direct other movies like The Game, Panic Room, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Zodiac. Fincher is a technician, a director whose cool precision sometimes draws attention to itself. There is a certain detachment, a little like watching a Kubrick film, although Fincher seems more assured in how he wants a scene to look.

I found it a bit puzzling what would draw Fincher to this story. It doesn't seem to follow his usual brand of film, whatever that may be. This is a story of geeks that develop a social networking site that takes over the world.

The story begins at Harvard where Zuckerberg is a computer science major. The opening scene, which is made up for dramatic effect, tries to set the tone for the entire film. In it, Zuckerberg is telling his girlfriend that he wants to join one of the elite houses at Harvard. It helps to know something about how Harvard works.

Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (I believe) have a house system. Typically, students enter their first year in the dorms, then they join a house where they will stay their remaining years. A house is perhaps more akin to Harry Potter's house of Griffyndor than, say, a fraternity. The house is co-ed and serves as residence, dining hall, and communal gathering place.

Beyond this basic living structure, there are also "final clubs" which are social clubs with eight all-male clubs and five all-female clubs. The all-male final clubs have been around for over a hundred years.

Zuckerberg wants to join such a club and tells his plan to his girlfriend. She seems intelligent. Both trade verbal jabs courtesy of Aaron Sorkin until it's revealed that this girlfriend goes to Boston University, and Zuckerberg has ambitions to work his way up the social hierarchy. He's dumped when she feels it's too much of a burden being his girlfriend and that he's basically an asshole.

Without this opening exchange, it's hard to read much into Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg. Looking much like Michael Cera, he lacks Cera's huggable loser quality, but has enough of his geek to make it plausible that this guy could be the programming genius that starts Facebook.

Indeed, Eisenberg's face rarely registers any emotions. He never seems ecstatic, nor sad. His emotions are expressed more through words and he seems a bit emotionally detached, perhaps a bit of Asperger's, and yet, Zuckerberg is ambitious.

Although Facebook's creation is the result of computer programming, Fincher and Sorkin only touch on that aspect. They find enough computer consultants to keep certain parts reasonably accurate. Zuckerberg is shown blogging on LiveJournal. You can see his screen is filled with HTML, although of the most rudimentary sort. LiveJournal likely has a way to edit raw HTML, but most people don't use it (because they don't understand it), and one wonders if Zuckerberg would have edited raw HTML, because there's a bit of tedium to it. Even so, there's some accuracy to this.

There is some historical research that was done to create some of the sense of the early 2000s. I bought my first Mac around 2001 or so. The earliest power cords were round and glowed at the connection, unlike the new magnetic version that allows the cord to slip off without breaking. They were able to find a Mac circa that era in the opening scene when Sean Parker is introduced (who is momentarily unrecognizable, despite being played by Justin Timberlake).

At one point, Zuckerberg says that he's going to fire up emacs and edit the Perl code, and it does indeed look like Perl code, at least, from a cursory glance. Emacs is one of two Unix text editors in wide use (the other being vi or its successor, vim). Zuckerberg talks about keeping the servers up as well.

To show some of Zuckerberg's genius, he is shown sitting in a computer hardware course as the teacher is explaining details of how paging is done though the quantities he uses (256 bytes for a page) seems small. To increase the melodrama, the class is only 15-20 students seated in an auditorium meant for 100. As Zuckerberg leaves the class early to deal with some business related issue, the teacher notes that many students have gave up on the course. As Zuckerberg leaves, he identifies bits of a status register. The teacher makes an inane comment "That's correct--do you see how he got this?", when the answer is "he memorized it". There was nothing to infer. The status register was the way it was defined by the person or people who designed it.

Since this is a plot-driven story, there is a need to prune away enough characters that might otherwise distract from the storyline. There are roughly four main characters other than Zuckerberg. Although Zuckerberg is an emotional cipher, the everyman that we're meant to relate to is his best friend, Eduardo Saverin, who provides the money to help Zuckerberg, but is put down, even as he makes inroads to join one of the "final club", Phoenix. Saverin is shown as a big supporter of Zuckerberg, and is distrustful of Sean Parker, inventor of Napster, who eventually helps Zuckerberg grow Facebook.

There is a kind of genius picking Justin Timberlake to play Sean Parker. Timberlake, a ex boy-band pop singing sensation, has shown some acting chops. He must have liked the idea of playing an uber geek, but one reason Timberlake may have been chosen is because of his star persona. He can then play Sean Parker not only as a geek, but a cool savvy coding rock star, someone that Zuckerberg becomes enamored of. Perhaps echoing Wall Street (a sequel came out recently too), Zuckerberg must pick between the guy who takes him places or his best friend, and while Zuckerberg does side with Parker, the film leaves it ambiguous about his final feelings to Saverin.

The other two main characters are the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, both played by Armie Hammer. They look something like Nordic gods, and yet Sorkin/Fincher do something clever. Since they are both at Harvard, they are made out to be pretty smart guys (at least business wise). They work with Divya Narendra (played by director Anthony Minghella's son who does not seem to be Indian). Furthermore, the brothers act differently. The leader (I guess Cameron) is more worried about appearances and seems the more patient of the two, and the other is more impulsive, similar to Divya.

Sorkin, in particular, has some fun about the two being twins, making them more "twin-like", i.e., about how they mention they are brothers, almost as if the twins in the second Matrix films had intelligent dialogue.

Roger Ebert, in his review, notes that nearly all the women (except the girlfriend at the beginning) are Asian. Although Zuckerberg is almost seen as being uninterested in women (and for dramatic purposes, he is shown trying to friend the girl that dumped him at the start of the film), his to-be-wife appears as two of the groupie Asian girls that make out with Eduardo and Mark. Fincher uses indirect cues to get his idea across. Zuckerberg is showing wearing the Adidas flip flops into the next stall over from Eduardo, the same one shown during the hearings that interweave through the entire film.

Rather than show Bill Gates in focus, he is shown blurred, wearing a sweater, and a voice impersonator does the talking so unless you're paying attention, you might not know that it's Bill Gates being portrayed (although it's mentioned in a subsequent scene).

Fincher knows he has some difficult material to try to dramatize, and to this effect, he falls on an interesting crutch: music. Many scenes have music over it to add drama to the situation. Fincher also adds tension by cross-cutting time frames, from a hearing, and going back historically.

Fincher employs tilt-shift in a key crew scene, one where the Winklevoss team starts to close on the winning boat, but ends up short. This is a metaphor for how close these jocks came to perhaps creating the next Facebook (though probably not really).

Ultimately, although there are a lot of geek aspects to The Social Network, it is about the desire to be a mover and a shaker in the world, and not about why Facebook ultimately worked.

There are two or three theories that are posited in the film. The Winklevosses mention the first reason: the Harvard name makes the desirability of the social network rather high. Second, there's the idea of putting the social status (single, etc) on. The one real reason isn't given. Facebook inverted what the home page was about.

In LiveJournal, each person's home page is their blog. In Facebook, the home page is basically a feed of all your friends. What keeps you coming back to Facebook isn't what you are doing, it's what your friends are doing. It seems obvious, but many social networking sites didn't get that. To be fair, Facebook looks sleek and clean and not the dirty, gaudy clutter of MySpace.

There are two aspects of Facebook that The Social Network avoids. It doesn't try to explain why Facebook is so addictive. It merely states that it is. It also doesn't get into the group that helped create Facebook. Most of the coders are only in the background. There is a competition (that most likely never existed) where coders must take shots as they try to hack in somewhere.

Even the parties that are portrayed are sexier than reality, done to jazz up the reality that was. We understand, as movie goers, that drama is amped so that viewers don't get bogged down by the day to day mundane details that reflect reality. Zuckerberg is likely a far more personable person than the Eisenberg potrayal, but that isn't seem to be a problem for me.

Though the story is about Zuckerberg, it's Saverin we come to sympathize with. Zuckerberg is more enigmatic. In the end, he seems to worry if he is an asshole. There are few women in the film with anything more than a cursory personality. One is the lawyer that is shown to be on Zuckerberg's side. She reassures him that he is not an asshole, though he seems to be trying hard to be one.

As Zuckerberg stares as the business card that Parker helped him craft "I'm the CEO, bitch", he realizes that Parker is a bad influence and being the CEO, bitch, means he is ultimately responsible for Facebook's reputation. Saverin may have been right, but Parker was, in his way, also right.

The film focuses on the drama of how one person or a small group of people took ambitious steps to work to the most successful social network, and it's in this human drama that the film works, because it's hard to mine drama out of algorithms and code and to explain why social networking was so compelling to so many people.

Review: Moon

Science fiction movies, at least those set in space, have been influenced primarily by three films: Alien, Star Wars, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Of the three, Star Wars may be the least influential. Indeed, it's hard to call it a true science fiction film. There are elements of "science" in the film, from Death Stars to light sabres, to ATATs and myriad vehicles. However, they are mostly treated as part of the scenery. They look cool, but the society merely uses these advancements without questioning where it came from. Better to call it science fantasy, as it appropriates elements from Lord of the Rings and other ancient tales.

Alien is perhaps the film that is mimicked the most. A crew that is somewhat military in nature works on contract for some nameless faceless mega-corporation that seeks profit through dubious means. In general, these corporations seem to scrimp in some ways (few people are used) and are extravagant in other ways (the ship itself, androids, etc). It depicts the isolation and danger of space and the people that serve as its pawns.

Finally, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Of the three, 2001 has the best pedigree. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the look of the film still holds up quite well after 40 years. Lacking traditional CG special effects, it's one of few films that depict weightlessness and the slow movement of space.

Although 2001 has been imitated many times, many are afraid to imitate it too faithfully. In particular, Kubrick didn't care that much about the main characters, Dave and Frank. They are ordinary in every sense. You aren't meant to care about their plight. Other characters are similarly shown as less than human, cogs in a military machine.

Indeed, the one character that has personality is not even human. It's HAL. HAL turns out to be quite a menacing character. Designed to be "perfect", HAL gets in a conundrum. He is instructed to lie to the crew about their mission. Only those in suspended animation know the true mission and they stay asleep during the trip. In a perverted sense of logic based on "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a noise", HAL figures if no one is alive to catch his lie, it didn't happen.

All throughout, HAL believes it is perfect, but when Dave disassembles HAL, in a sequence that takes many minutes to complete, HAL slowly loses his mind and desperately begs not to be killed off.

Ever since, such AIs have been used, and it's not clear whether they are there serving human needs (see Aliens) or not (see Alien).

Kubrick would probably be saddened by the amount of homage paid to 2001, a sign of lack of creativity. Smaller SF films seem to prefer the Kubrickian vision of space from Danny Boyle's Sunshine to Duncan Jones's Moon.

The lack of imitation to 2001 lies mostly in character development. In a film ostensibly about the next stage in humanity, the most human character, perhaps a kind of Satan, is HAL. The rest of the humans are made out to be rather bland, perhaps reinforcing the notion that humans need some evolution.

The sequel to 2001, namely 2010, chooses, as many films do, to develop characters. Unlike 2001, where Kubrick only wants you to care about the characters enough to see that they are recognizably human, mostly so you can imagine yourself in their place, and to serve as a contrast to the panoramic weirdness of Dykstra special effects, a scene that is meant to represent a kind of New Age awe, 2010 wants you to care about the characters of the film. It's hard to sell a film where you don't care about the characters, and perhaps that is where Kubrick's genius lies. He's able to grapple a deep issue "where do we come from" without resorting to normal characters.

Moon's trailer reveals what seems to be way too much information, but turns out not to be. Sam Bell, assigned to do repair work on the Moon, for harvesters that provide limitless energy for the Earth (hard to believe, but anyway) is alone, in the last few weeks before he is scheduled to return to Earth and reunite with his wife and newborn daughter. He discovers, while checking out a failed harvester, large tank-like objects resembling Jawas moving vehicles, that there is another man still alive, and surprise, surprise, it's him.

Well, a clone.

This information is revealed in the film's first 30 minutes because to reveal it late means to have spoilers that wouldn't be kept secret.

The film doesn't mind looking less than sleek. The spacesuits still look circa 1960s. The rover still looks much like a rover. A laptop that makes an appearance is humongous. Like 2001, communications is delayed enough that there is no live interaction. Sam's hair is cut by a flowbee-like device. The future still has homages to the past.

Like 2001, Sam is kept company by a HAL-like AI named Gerty who uses smilies to indicate his emotion. Most of the time, Gerty wants to make Sam food.

Moon, in its way, explores what it means to be human. It doesn't explore it too deeply, to be fair. It doesn't intend to be a philosophical treatise. Indeed, the interaction between the clones is not what you'd expect. There are signs throughout that the film wants to fake you out and become menacing, but it never chooses to go in that direction.

The film doesn't answer a lot of questions. For one, if there is AI technology, what's the point of Sam? Given all this money the company could be making, why not run the operation legitimately? Sam isn't shown as being particularly gifted. He's meant to be an ordinary Joe.

Indeed, Sam doesn't fully question life as a clone. Indeed, he barely questions it at all. There are nods to other films too. There is the notion of a megacompany using people to its advantage, as in Alien. There is some similarity to Gattaca where Ethan Hawke plays an ordinary human who imagines he'll go to space. It's almost an inverse of that. There's nods to Blade Runner and their notion of replicants.

So although one feels the plight of Sam, and even to some extent, his relationship to Gerty, the ideas never feel that fleshed out, and the ideas never seem that deep. Indeed, if anything, Gerty should have been a more interesting character. What is the purpose of Gerty? To be the real communications to Earth, instead of Sam. And yet, Gerty is alone, always having to lie to each Sam clone. Gerty has grown to care for each incarnation of Sam. But this isn't fully explored. It's much closer to HAL in 2010 who is talked into self-sacrificing for the good of the human crew.

I'd like more movies to be made like Moon. But it seems thin on ideas and thin on characters too.

Review: The Big Lebowski

This is a classic movie by the Coen brothers that came out after Fargo. Fargo was considered the most accessible of the Coen brothers. The story was fairly straight-forward, involving a guy (William Macy) who wants to have his wife kidnapped so he can get money from her father. The kidnapping goes awry. Frances McDormand plays a sheriff who investigates the crime. The quirky characters, the mildly grisly violence, the Minnesotan accents all lead to a fairly enjoyable experience.

The Coen brothers don't try to be too accessible. You figure they're up to something, but not sure what.

They followed up Fargo with The Big Lebowski. Ostensibly, a film about bowling, it's more about the weirdness in Jeff Lebowski's life. He's not the titular "Big Lebowski". That would be a wealthy man in a wheelchair. This Lebowski is unemployed, mostly drunk, loves to bowl, and prefers to go by "The Dude".

The film is really well shot. The director of photography, Roger Deakins, does a great job with the look of the film.

"The Dude" is a pretty chill guy. He's probably meant to represent Jesus, despite another character in the film named Jesus. He contrasts with the short tempered John Goodman.

Watching the film, two things come to mind. One, David Lynch. Lynch's films are usually strange, but not terribly humorous. The Coen brothers are similarly strange, but usually, there's a sense of humor, as odd as it may be. Two, that there is a lot references going on that I'm missing.

For example, let's go with "The Dude" as Jesus idea. I can't say I know the Bible well enough to point out what certain scenes mean. Indeed, I know I can't do that.

Here are things that are puzzling. There's the rug. Clearly, the Dude likes his rug, but he doesn't mind having a rug from "The Big Lebowski" instead of his own. Why is the rug important?

What's the deal with Maude? She eventually reveals the details of "The Big Lebowski" and whether he's really as rich as he pretends to be. Is she Mary Magdalene?

What is the meaning of bowling in their lives?

"The Dude" doesn't have followers. He doesn't seem to minister to anyone. Indeed, he seems to be in a stupor. His lack of employment is mentioned quite a lot. Unlike his buddy, he doesn't seem to need money, and yet appears to have enough money to live on.

Why does he drink white Russians? He drinks it quite a lot. He smokes joints. He doesn't seem to care for sex, but doesn't mind getting into it. Doesn't seem to want a real relationship. Why does Maude want "The Dude" to be the father of her child?

Despite the weird things that happen to "The Dude", he takes everything in stride. He's not above lying here and there if it suits his needs, although he's a generally positive character.

Is the setting of Los Angeles important? It means "The Angels" and there have been films using "Lost Angels" as a variation.

There is the notion that Jesus went to h*ll after being crucified. Does the story chronicle a version of this story? Is bowling used because the Coens consider it a sport that someone might be punished to play?

Why is "The Dude" always sniffing the milk? He seems concerned that it will go bad, and is always checking for it.

Does everything have a meaning, or are their quirks thrown in, for quirks sake? The Coens are rather literary. They refer to all sorts of things, then tell a strange story taking elements from all over.

Despite the strangeness of the film, if you get into it, it's eminently watchable. If you don't care that the movie has to be about something that makes total sense, then it's enjoyable. I mean, if you can believe that a guy would get into all these weird situations and love bowling, then you can derive pleasure from the film.

By the way, does "The Dude" ever bowl in the film? I seem to recall everyone else bowling, but I don't seem to recall him bowling.

Watchmen

Watchmen, so I've learned from reading several articles, is based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore, the same guy who penned V is for Vendetta. Moore has generally been viscerally opposed to any film adaptation of his work. However, fans of his work--and they are numerous are curious, at the very least, how it would turn out.

Given the big budget affair that most superhero movies have turned out to be, an action that generally attracts many well-named actors to roles, think Tobey Maguire in Spiderman or Robert Downey Junior in Iron Man or many of the cast of Batman, it's quite amazing to have a film where you struggle to recognize the actors. If you're the casual filmwatcher (no pun intended), you might not recognize any of the actors.

I recognized two, and even then, only barely. Billy Crudup, who shares the same birthday as me, plays the CGI-ed up Dr. Manhattan who is mostly very blue, very naked, and very unemotional. I also knew, somewhat of Patrick Wilson, who plays Nite Owl, the awkwardly straight-laced superhero who generally admonishes the crowd to behave themselves.

Contrast this with Batman, where there are, at least, tons of famous character actors from Gary Oldman to Michael Caine to Morgan Freeman to Christian Bale. In the latest, Dark Knight, you get to see the incredible Heath Ledger playing a demented Joker. But Ledger is so famous, even before his untimely death, that you would know "that's Heath Ledger, wow he's good".

In Watchman, you're so engaged with these actors as the roles they play, you don't even think "that's so and so". So many films are scared to cast relative unknowns to play roles. I understand these aren't hacks. These are actors with reasonable resumes who've done well in much smaller parts. But it really helps to be engaged in the storyline when you don't think of the people playing these roles.

The mainstream comics, Marvel and DC, have defined the modern superhero. Usually, though not always (Batman being an exception), the superhero is imbued with superpowers, in someway. They can climb walls, or have adamantium claws, or can have flames emanating from their body. There's usually an origin story. There's usually some maniacal bad guy who is just as powerful, or, at the very least, a mad genius. Think Lex Luthor.

Oddly enough, in a world of superheroes, the government never seems to think it's too weird or feels too threatened that they cower to the might of the superheroes. They simply pass laws and such restricting behavior and the superheroes sometimes listen. Although the film isn't a traditional superhero movie, The Incredibles has this theme where the government has told superheroes to clamp down and stop being super. And oddly enough, they listen.

OK, to be fair, that film really explores Bird's thesis that there are hugely talented people out there (artists, in his world) and the PC attitude that everyone is good is doing a disservice to the geniuses. But beyond the subtext, the film is still a superhero film and takes its cues from comics.

People have claimed that Watchmen is a dark movie, and perhaps it is. But I thought The Dark Knight was darker. The Dark Knight is not so much about Joker vs. Batman, at least in any conventional sense of bad guy vs. good guy.

It's more like real-world ethics where Joker is presenting one real-world ethical dilemma after another. He poses questions that Batman needs to answer. Does Batman want to save the woman he loves, or the man that could save Gotham. That Batman picks the woman, and ends up realizing he's been tricked, well, that doesn't matter. Joker, ultimately, isn't about anything. He's not a character that has his own goals and motivations. He's a teacher, a tester, a challenger. He is the foil for Batman, making him deal with his personal demons.

It helps the second film is not an origin film. That was the first film.

If Watchmen draws analogies to Batman, at least, the Christopher Nolan version (though any would do), it makes sense. Batman is really the wealthy Bruce Wayne. In such a world, the wealthy have access to genius engineers who build special cars and special suits. They are superior fighters and movers, but otherwise, lack any other special powers. They're just superhuman enough to win any fight, but not so superhuman to fly or have any particular power.

Except for Dr. Manhattan. We'll get back to him later.

The origin story of Batman also serves as some inspiration to Watchmen. Batman wasn't a do-gooder. He had a traumatic childhood event, and spends his life as a vigilante. He's not the "dark knight" for no reason. He's not a paragon of virtue like, say, Superman is.

Watchmen tackles several themes that superhero movies don't usually deal with. First and foremost is politics. The films generally have the worldview of commies and pinkos and liberals on the one side, and the righteous conservative view on the other. And most of the Watchmen lean on this end. They feel they need to be just outside the law to do what they need to do.

Many of the superheroes, perhaps The Comedian, most notably, are deeply flawed heroes. They don't take responsibility. They revel in power like renegade cops. Even the heroes that are close to wholesome, namely Nite Owl, have to deal with other heroes that are less than wholesome. Nite Owl serves as our protagonist.

In real life, he's much like Clark Kent. Meek, shy. His superhero persona is merely a rigid reflection of his more timid self. Constantly cleaning his glasses, he's repressed. He's Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark without the confidence. The film never quite establishes how or why he gets along with Rorschach who is the resident psychopath/detective.

The film, set in the 1980s, also pays homage to heroes that preceded them. This is one idea that really never gets explored in superhero films. Nite Owl is really the second of two Nite Owl's, the original already too old to fight crime. The younger, lacking the bravery to ask Silk Spectre out on a proper date, at least goes to cheer up the older Nite Owl, drinking and talking about the good old days.

Indeed, each hero, especially the male heroes, are different reactions to power. The Comedian is like bad cop, who does whatever he wants, because he's got power. Rorschach believes in vigilante justice. He's got a code, but once he decides you're the bad guy, he's not above any method to deal his brand of justice. (Maybe like The Punisher). Nite Owl is the closest to a straight-laced superhero, but who puts up with the shenanigans of other heroes. He's a bit helpless to stop their bad behavior.

Ozymandias is the smart one, who uses his brain to become, well, Tony Stark? He's successful in business. He's revealed his identity so he can use his talent and wealth to help the world in some way.

Dr. Manhattan is also a genius, in his way, but an otherworldly one. One who gets increasingly detached as the film goes on. Despite practically godlike powers, the early parts of the film shows that he isn't above manipulation, nor above being in relationships. Superheroes often are considered super-moral. Because Crudup plays him so detached, and because he's, well, distracting as a hero (they once claimed Hulk would be naked in the film), it's easy to overlook that he's not particularly moral himself, partly because he is so detached. There's a key scene where The Comedian does something particularly awful and he points out to Dr. Manhattan, much like he points out to Nite Owl (really Nite Owl 2), that he has the power to stop him, but doesn't.

Indeed, the characters that are considered "good" often lack the strength to do good, even as those that prefer "by any means necessary" choose less than savory means to achieve their objectives.

This is far from a traditional superhero film. The Dark Knight for all its ethical quandaries is still about a good (well, kinda good) guy against a bad guy, and their confrontation with each other, although it's really about a split identity. A key scene in The Dark Knight has Joker asking what Batman believes in and what is he prepared to do when push comes to shove. But despite pushing the traditional boundaries of how good and bad guys behave, it is, more or less, structured in this framework.

Watchmen doesn't have a traditional bad guy. The bad guys resemble some of the faceless henchman in some of the Timothy Burton Batmans who have superior fighting skills but zero personalities (at least, in the Watchmen, there is minimal personalities for the bad guys that appear in the middle of the film).

The Watchmen explores what happens if ordinary people became superheroes. The special effects have a strongly retro feel to it. There's a certain realness to the Nite Owl flyer that, like Batman's vehicles, mimics his character. Despite it's obvious large windows that look like eyes, it pays homage to heroes like Batman, but because Nite Owl is not burned into the collective psyche like Batman (another thing in the film's favor, I'd say), the craft is somewhat charming.

Finally, this is a world that is about the real people behind the masks and spends as much of its time there as it does in the superhero mode. Even in real identities, these characters spend little time dealing with real people. They hang out with one another. It's not like Clark Kent hanging out at the Daily Planet where he interacts with Perry White, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen.

The Watchmen lacks the intensity of the recent Batman films, but it poses a lot of heady ideas. The world depicted in the film isn't fully realized, but it is full enough to keep the audience thinking about what it means to be a hero and what it means to have a life outside of being a hero.

Review: Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a film of the "World is Flat" era. Although Bollywood films have been around for years, they were beginning to register in the brains of Americans perhaps in the mid 90s. I had heard of such films from 1991 or 1992, but it probably took Americans until 1995 or so to get some idea of Bollywood films. Roger Ebert wrote about Bollywood when he went to visit India some number of years.

With a large number of Indians in the US, the advent of freely available video on YouTube and the like, Bollywood films are at least somewhat accessible in the US. I remember a few years ago, some company, I think DirecTV made a commercial with a guy sitting and dancing in his seat to a Bollywood film when the actor in the film stops acting and says "This is awful! You should be watching an action picture or science fiction!" and goes on to suggest DirectTV before continuing on with the dance. I thought that was particularly obscure, though very funny, tapping into a phenomenon few Americans were aware of.

India's impact in the popular imagination has come courtesy of the Internet age, which has meant a transformation of the world in so many ways. For example, the increasing access of the Internet to well-educated Indians has opened up the world to India, and this means more than entertainment. It also means access to software.

The open source revolution would not have been half as successful without the Web, which allowed you to get to the software. The computer revolution not only transformed the US, but it meant other countries could get involved, and thus was born, merely a few years after the browser, a huge Indian IT industry and the well-known call centers.

Slumdog Millionaire taps into all of modern India, though it focuses on a side of India that few people, including Indians, have seen depicted in Indian films. Most developing nations seem to go through a phase where film becomes extremely popular. At one point, Taiwanese were the most avid filmgoers. Eventually, film is replaced by television and the quality of television goes up, while films become less escapist fare and deal with topics that are more artistic and less wildly popular.

The common Bollywood film is escapism (Bollywood, so called, because its center is in Bombay, thus Bombay Hollywood, or Bollywood, for short). Due to the strong traditions of song and dance in India, infused through centuries of tradition, most films have their Austin Powers like moment where the lead actor and actress dance and "sing". I say "sing" because singing has been a tradition, and you don't let actors and actresses (a la Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter) do their own singing. Oh, no, that won't do.

Although the trend in American musicals, however rare they are now, is to let the actors do their own singing, when musicals were popular, it was common to dub other singers. Julie Andrews apparently sang for Audrie Hepburn in one film. In this case, though, it was one singing actress singing for a non-singing actress. In Bollywood films, singers whose faces never see the light of day, but whose name are well-known, e.g. Asha Bhosle, voice over famous actors who are asked to act and dance, but not sing their own songs (just as most actors would not play their own musical instruments).

There have been films set in India before, but usually, in stereotypical views of India, or from a mostly Western viewpoint, or from the long past.

Slumdog Millionaire explores the seedy underbelly of huge cities, termed "metros" in India, where large numbers of the extremely poor live in slums.

Interestingly enough, the film focuses on two Muslim brothers, Salim and Jamal. Jamal is the ostensible hero of the film, who is on the verge of winning 20 million rupees on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?. The film, as most people know, is told in flashback, as Jamal explains how an uneducated slumdog knows the answers to very difficult questions, and each answer reveals a dark period in his life.

You can appreciate the accuracy of some parts of the film if you know a bit of Hindi and have visited India. I was in Mumbai about two years ago, and there are kids who come to the taxis begging for money. I was told that if you have a baby, you would get even more money. The average well-to-do Indian is as unmoved by this experience as we are when we see beggars on the street. Americans are typically shocked, and want to give money to the poor Indians, which they are more than happy to take.

One of the scenes involves a child who sings well enough that his keepers decide to blind him purposely so he can fetch even more money. I will say I didn't see any blind child beggars, but I could see this happening.

Roger Ebert notes that these kids (Jamal and Salim) are scam artists and convince foreigners to take their shoes off so they can steal them. However, what he doesn't know is that various temples (like the Taj Mahal) require all visitors to go barefoot, with their shoes held at a central area and picked up at the end of the day. The idea, I believe, is more out of respect for the area much like Asians prefer you to remove your shoes before entering the main house.

You can hear terms like "chai walla" used in the film, which basically is a tea guy. Jamal works at a call center where he delivers tea to employees. When you have a country of a billion people, keeping them employed is a big issue, so small services like delivering tea to IT employees is one way to do this. It's considered a lowly job which is why the host of the game show makes fun of his background.

Mumbai is well known for dabbawallas. These guys pick up meals from the wives, lunch boxes called "tiffins" (apparently a British term, but like many British terms, only preserved in modern Indian English), deliver the meals to their husbands and return the boxes after lunch. The efficiency of delivering these meals for low cost to many employees is considered a marvel of logistical efficiency. These guys are also called "tiffin wallas" which means the "tiffin" or "lunch box" guy.

Knowing some swear words also helps. Sprinklings of "mother chod" or "chutia" (which is motherf*cker and c*nt) respectively add to the roughness of the film, something that again, would probably not be seen as much in Bollywood films which are generally family entertainment.

The film opens up with classic films by Amitabh Bachchan, who is India's most famous actor (at least, in Bollywood). His son, Abhishek, married Aishwarya Rai, called by 60 minutes as the most beautiful woman in the world. Unlike their Hollywood equivalents, movie star weddings are generally for life. There's no Elizabeth Taylor, seven marriage equivalent, in India where divorce is still practically unknown and where arranged marriages are still quite common.

Funny enough, Slumdog Millionaire does follow a convention of Bollywood films which is the main characters are in love. As much as arranged marriages are the norm in India, it doesn't make for good drama. Parental involvement with children is still huge, and one way it often manifests itself is through arranged marriages. Jamal pines for Latika, his childhood sweetheart.

I give credit to the casting director for finding little kids, especially the one that plays Salim, that resemble the adult version. I'd almost believe they cast the kid first and found a comparable teen to play the adult role.

Although a film set in India, there are Western touches, including Danny Boyle's very visual eye. He also portrays Westerners who are sympathetic to the slumdogs. This comes from an understanding of how the West perceives Indians (as tourists).

Boyle had music done by A.R. Rahman, a famous Bollywood compose, compose music for Slumdog.

The film ends in a Bollywood dance scene, though clear the actors are not dancers. This is done with the casualness of average people doing dance, which leads to a kind of realness, and is perhaps the cleverest way to keep an audience sitting through credits (for those that hate to do credits).

Ah, so the film itself. Well, I had basically known the outline of the plot. Although the visuals are stunning, the history interesting, I just couldn't get into the main story. It probably doesn't help that Dev Patel is only OK as an actor. Also, the idea of using Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as the conceit was, I dunno, a bit too cute.

Even that idea is a commentary on the international spread of ideas. That show, along with Big Brother and American Idol (which was Pop Idol in the UK), have spread throughout the world. Using this show is a sly way to comment on this phenomenon.

I'm currently listening to Jai Ho, the song used to accompany the dance sequence at the end. It's interesting how they decide to let the woman sing in a "lower" voice. Bollywood songs have women sing in falsetto to sound even younger. It's so commonly done that I'm sure the average Indian doesn't even think that the women are singing so high. Admittedly, all the men sound alike. You never hear a gruff voiced or extremely baritone man sing a song in these films. This is one fallout of lacking singer-songwriters. Singers sing, and songwriters write song, so it creates generic sounding singers and songs.

So the film was good and gives a view of India I has only barely seen, though perhaps more aware of than those who haven't visited India. However, I had a tough time getting fully engaged in the story of Jamal's longing for Latika, since she is something of a weird distant memory, a little bit like Anakin's longing for Amidala/Padme.

I'd give it about a B, I think. Worth watching to give insight into India, and I'm sure some folks will love the way it ends.

Milk

Unless you've watched your fair share of American documentaries, you probably have never heard of Harvey Milk. In the last few years, the topic of gay marriage has come up. The notion that evangelicals and the right discovered this topic that appeals so strongly to the base that they will come out in droves to vote is not something that's ten years old. It dates back to the 1970s.

The anti-gay movement found an unlikely leader, one Anita Bryant, a Christian singer and promoter of orange juice. Raised a Baptist, she fought against anti-discrimination laws saying that gays did not deserve equal protection for employment. In other words, it was fine for gays to be fired for being gay.

At that point, there had been no openly gay official elected.

Harvey Milk ran as supervisor, which is a kind of city representative for several years. Although he could court the gay vote, he really needed a coalition to be successful, so he recruited union workers, the elderly, African Americans, etc. Although he ran and lost three times, the fourth time was the charm as redistricting gave him enough votes to get elected (the election used to be city wide, rather than different parts of the city voting for the person that might best represent their interests).

At the same time he was elected supervisor, so was one Dan White who grew up Irish Catholic and ran on more conservative grounds, despite living in the fairly liberal city of San Francisco. At first, Milk tried to work with White, but when he realized it was not in his interests to do so, White greatly resented what he perceived as backstabbing and chose to oppose every action Milk proposed.

White eventually resigned his position because he felt the salary he made was too little to support his family. However, the conservative police encouraged him to ask for his job back. As the sole conservative supervisor, other supervisors, including Milk begged the mayor not to give White back his job. The mayor agreed. White decided to sneak into the building through an unguarded window (even at the time, there was a metal detector to enter the facility) and proceeded to shoot and kill the mayor and then shoot and kill Harvey Milk.

White then turned himself in to the police. A sympathetic jury let him off with manslaughter, moved by his plight. He spent five years in jail. When released, he wanted to move back to San Francisco though was advised not to do so. In 1985, White killed himself through carbon monoxide poisoning in a car in his ex-wife's garage.

The film, despite my summary of history, mostly focuses on Milk, as it should.

He's not made out to be particularly saintly, but a man who feels that gays needed to be more proactive. While most gays in San Francisco were willing to let change occur slowly, Milk, who loved the publicity of campaigning took a more direct route.

The problem with telling a story like Milk is that a person's life is not easily summarized in two hours. There's a bit of a clunky voice-over, in this case, Milk reading into a tape recorder (which is based on something Milk did). Then, you have to pick and choose what events to cover, including two boy friends (the activist/politician Scott Smith and Latino, Jack Lira), and various campaign bids.

When you want to be reasonably truthful to history, then there are speeches that need to be used near verbatim. Of course, one takes a few liberties. In the film, Lira kills himself as he did in real life, but in real life, Lira had already split up with Milk though certainly still liked him.

Gus Van Sant is generally an experimental filmmaker, more so than most in mainstream filmmaking. Despite that, he occasionally makes blander fare, telling a more straight-forward story. These would include films like Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester.

Van Sant does have a few visual flourishes. At one point, Milk is running away from someone he perceives is out to attack him. To achieve this visual effect, the entire background is blurred until you just see hazy lights and the shadow of a person.

Van Sant uses his trademark "following camera" used as early as Elephant where the camera is behind a person's head as he walks down hallways, and occasionally in front of his head as he is walking. This is used when White goes to find the mayor and Milk.

Although it is a film about a gay man, the gay scenes are not particularly explicit. In particular, there are no frontal nudity scenes. Most of the scenes are usually close up kissing, usually much closer than conventionally filmed scenes.

The film has a pretty simple theme that it tries to get across. It starts when Milk complains that at the age of 40, he's not accomplished anything in his life that he's proud of. By the time he's nearing 50, he is able to get himself elected as city supervisor, which is surprising given the year is 1978, a scant 30 years ago. Despite the progress in the gay movement and the changing public perceptions, this is still very recent.

His death stirred tens of thousands of people to mourn, bringing candles out into the street.

So how was the film? Well, it is clunky in parts, because of the need to tell important parts of his life. Van Sant does what he can to keep things light and humorous and not perpetually angry.

Sean Penn does a masterful job at creating Harvey Milk. Honestly, if you wanted to get an actor that looked like Milk, you'd probably hire Hank Azaria. Penn, nonetheless, does a great job. The funny thing is that Milk didn't have a gay campy voice where Penn chooses to play him with a slight affectation, perhaps to increase the believability to the audience, who might otherwise not feel Milk was gay enough.

And there may have been a point. Perhaps Penn felt that people might like Milk more if he didn't sound gay, but that they should like him regardless. So by voicing him this way, audiences would have to accept Milk despite a potential dislike of the way he speaks (as portrayed by Penn). Or maybe he just wanted to up the level of difficulty in portraying Milk.

The other capable acting comes from Josh Brolin who plays Dan White. Early on, Milk suggests that White may have been a closeted homosexual, although this is never played up beyond that mere suggestion. Brolin captures how wired up White is, unable to make friends, wanting to do something for his constituents, feeling backstabbed by Milk who found himself wanting to help White, but feeling that he couldn't.

The good thing about historical films is what they teach you. Admittedly, this may not make for the best drama. Indeed, the acting is stronger than the plotting and pacing of the film, although the film gets stronger towards the end.

Although a lot of progress has been made in gay civil rights, the film shows, in the backdrop of today's politics, that in some respects, some things, especially scare tactics, have not changed. Where the film had a political happy ending (the defeat of Prop 6 to prevent gay teachers from teaching), real life did not match that (with Prop 8 passing).

Overall, a good well-acted film but not a great film. Good for its historical insight and even handling of the characters. B.

Fourth Time's No Charm

Last night, the Disney Channel was showing the film Holes. Aimed at kids, it combines the worst of kid sitcom stylings with a peculiar storyline about a teen rehabilitation camp with kids digging holes to find some treasure, and then an action director in Andrew Davis, most famous for his modern retelling of The Fugitive.

Holes is also famous for being the first film starring Shia LeBeouf, who had for the most part been acting in television. Since then, Shia has been in Bobby, Disturbia, and Transformers, enough, apparently, to make him the new "it" guy.

This isn't the first time the Raiders series has opted to find young talent to augment Harrison Ford. In particular, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, River Phoenix, looking every much River Phoenix, and not a whit like Harrison Ford, plays young Indiana Jones, in a flashback scene where he first learns to yield a bullwhip.

Early reviews suggested that the latest installment of Indiana Jones, with the lumberous title Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a flop, and while any Spielberg-helmed film is going to have more than its share of clever bits, this almost feels like a favor to Harrison Ford, then a well-thought out plot.

The first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, revived a new idea to movies, the swashbuckling hero, except, being post-1970s, Harrison Ford didn't play a traditional swashbuckling hero. He wasn't the manly, full-of-confidence, wooden acting hero of the 30s and 40s. Karen Allen plays the tough-as-nails bartender-slash-daughter of an archaeologist, the kind of role women used to find more common in the pre-women's lib movement than now.

What made the first film successful, other than its vivid scenes of faraway South America and Egypt, there is a certain level of seriousness in that film, in particular, the rather creepy Ark itself and the rival Rene Belloq, who takes a fancy for Marion.

The second film jettisons the independent Marion for the ever-frightened "Willie" Scott played by Kate Capshaw, in the more traditional 40s-style woman (rather than someone like Kate Hepburn). While her character was more slight, the rather dark, claustrophobic scenes in the Thugee headquarters lead to a creepy effect. Among the three films, this is the weakest, and even still, the chase scene inside the railway leaves one gasping for breath.

The third film adds a lot of clever elements that make the story more interesting than the first. This time, unlike the first two films, there is a femme fatale, played by Alison Doody, Dr. Elsa Schneider is beautiful, smart, and ruthless. She is the dark mirror of Indy's characters.

But the real revelation in the third film is casting Sean Connery against type. Rather than play the James-Bond like character, who would be the natural father of Indiana Jones, Connery is a bookish sort. A key scene occurs when his father starts squawking with an umbrella, which causes a bunch of geese to jam up a biplane set on mowing down the intreprid Jones. Even the casual ride in the blimp is fun. And opening up the film with young Indiana Jones as a color that the previous films didn't get to.

The fourth film, coming nearly 20 years after the previous one, decides to jettison the Nazis. After all, Harrison Ford is also almost 20 years older too, and to keep setting the film during the 40s is to deny that Ford is not as young as he used to be (even though he's kept in remarkably good shape).

This time, the Communists replace the Nazis, and it's about the Red scare in the 50s. This too has some issues, because it's only dealt with rather lightly (mostly in early scenes), and then they become the generic bad guys. Cate Blanchett is vaguely unrecognizable as the vamped up Irina Spalko, reminiscent of a dominatrix more than anything else.

Part of the story involves the titular crystal skull and another archaeologist played by a bumbling John Hurt who stumbles on its secrets. Ray Winstone who had a good turn as Mr. French in The Departed plays Mac whose obsession with gold has kept him in the treasure hunting business all these years.

The problem with the fourth film is trying to figure out what the heck to do with Mutt. Since it's set in the 50s, a favorite era for George Lucas, Lucas gets to show off cars from the era, and Mutt as prototypical greaser. The problem is how to get Mutt and Indiana to have reasonable dialog with one another. Mutt's just not the same character as Prof. Henry Jones as played by Sean Connery, who at the very least, often coasts with his considerable charm.

Spielberg has a lot of clever bits in the film, from hinting at Area 51 and Roswell, to the clever devices shown throughout the film, to an echo of his early days with E.T. and Close Encounters. Yet, the whole story seems far less engaging than any of the previous outings, where some of the seriousness of the first films have been replaced by bubble-gum shenanigans. And, yeah, the CG effects, they could be better!

CG still has work to go. Even if models and puppets are also fake, there is more realism because they are made by physical objects. At times, if the story is good, like Lord of the Rings we can forgive the less than realistic appearances of castles and monsters because we are engaged in the story.

Is it awful? No. But over the years, we've expected a lot more from this very successful franchise.

Boys With Toys

Iron Man is practically the anti Spiderman. Where Spiderman was about a brainy kid who struggles to keep a job, pay his bills, and discovers his newfound superpowers, while trying to woo the girl next door, Tony Stark, aka, Ironman, is Marvel Comic's answer to Batman.

Like Batman's Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark is a wealthy industrialist whose company sells weapons to governments, including his own. Unlike Bruce Wayne, whose motivation is vengeance for the death of his parents, the origin story of Tony Stark isn't quite the same. Indeed, this film decides to take a modern twist on the origin story.

In this case, Tony Stark is held hostage by a terrorist group. But in this modern day of PC, it's not a good idea to demonize all people with brown skin. In this case, he is held prisoner with a middle Eastern fellow who has been educated in the west, and is willing to sacrifice himself so Tony Stark can see what his vision has done.

When I first heard that Robert Downey Jr. had been cast to play Tony Stark, I didn't really see him as the superhero type. However, Downey is such a versatile actor, that he can play the drunken playboy at one moment, yet be a believable remorseful person the next, and even convince you that, yes, he's an engineer.

Of the superhero movies to have come out, Ironman seems the lightest, playing up comedic bits far more readily than say Spiderman or the vastly darker Batman. And much like Spiderman, Ironman's Tony Stark realizes that the woman of his dreams has been working for him all along, the efficient Pepper Potts, played by Gweneth Paltrow.

Ultimately, it's these smaller bits, rather than the Obadiah Stane story (which gets rather comical towards the end, being a bit too cartoony) that make Ironman. What these Marvel movies do is to not focus on the teenage comic fanboy view, but to have something the women can get into as well, whether it be the relationship of Peter and Mary Jane, or between Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.

Jon Favreau, the director, gets to the root of what you want a fabulously rich man to have. Toys. And lots of it. From fast cars, to the Iron Man outfits, to artificially intelligent robots, Favreau presents a nearly fetishistic obsession with technology, but he balances this with humor throughout, which means that Downey, far from being a bad casting decision, seems the perfect choice.

Favreau, like Spielberg, also employs grossness to get reactions from the audience, from a tube inside Downey's nose that seems way too long, to Paltrow reaching inside Downey to pull a mechanism out.

By pulling together so many elements, Favreau presents an Iron Man that's a lot of fun, even if it isn't particularly deep. It lacks some of the emotional resonance or the satisfaction of a Pixar film, which, to be fair, often take years to craft, but is still a pretty good yarn for the start of the summer blockbuster season.

Movie Review: Paranoid Park

Ten years ago, Gus Van Sant tried an experiment. He wanted to reproduce Psycho, the Hitchcock classic, shot for shot. He made two changes that would affect how close the copy matched the original. First, he obviously picked different actors. He instructed the actors to give their own interpretation. He didn't want them to mimic the exact performance of the original. Second, he shot in color.

Most critics felt the remake was unnecessary. When movies value originality, copying the original seems less an homage than a pale imitation. Consider how often plays are done and redone, or how music performances, like the New World Symphony are also played again and again. Each time, the actors can provide their nuances and perhaps produce a performance even greater than the original.

However, in film, the original seems like family. No matter how much someone might act like a family member, they aren't the same.

One interesting criticism, made of Van Sant, was as a director. Hitchcock was famous for having a love-hate relationship with his blond actresses. He both loved and yet resented them, and this, an interviewer suggested, came across in his films. Van Sant is gay, and the interviewer suggested that he didn't have that same sensibility, and so lost something in the translation.

Van Sant's sexuality comes across in his films, though typically, not in any overt way. Originally tapped to make Brokeback Mountain before the job eventually fell to Ang Lee, it makes you wonder how Van Sant's interpretation would have gone. Van Sant has taken some detours into ordinary film-making. As entertaining as Good Will Hunting was, it was not a particularly Van Sant film. Neither was the mostly forgettable Finding Forrester.

Van Sant wanted to go back to his roots as an avant-garde filmmaker, stretching the language of film. This includes the series of films: Gerry, Elephant, Last Days, and his latest, Paranoid Park.

I've seen both Gerry anf Elephant but have yet to see Last Days. To watch these films is to see film as something besides conventional plot and conventional characters.

Gerry stars Casey Affleck and Matt Damon, who decide to go out into the desert, and promptly get lost. Much of the film is about them wandering, in a kind of hell, with no real chance of escape. It's as much watching their hypnotic movements as it is trying to understand what the film is all about. His ability to cast Affleck and Damon must have come from directing Good Will Hunting and their willingness to act in the film allowed it, I suspect, to be made at all.

Elephant had a little more of a storyline, given that Gerry pretty much had none. It follows several teens, on a day, very much like Columbine. Critics have complained that the incident was still too raw to film, and that his formalist tendencies was a bit insulting to a real event. There are some odd comic moments, in particular, one characters drunk dad, which gives a kind of levity at the end of the film that is very out of place.

Van Sant offers no answers to why things happened. He posits all sorts of theory. The kids watch some documentary about Nazi Germany. The two teens kiss one another and shower with one another on the fateful day. A kid seems to hear something while at lunch.

Perhaps Van Sant's sexuality explains why he generally doesn't have such developed women characters (not that his characters are terribly developed). He seems to view women as shallow. There is the gawky teen girl which guys don't seem to like. There is the cheerleader types that puke their lunch so they won't get fat.

Paranoid Park is perhaps the best of the teenage angst films. Newcomer Gabe Nevins plays Alex, a skateboarder that is questioned about the possible murder of a security guard. Van Sant pretty much casts unknowns for this.

The film is more about memory, visual surfaces. When most people who watch films concern themselves with figuring out what the plot is, Van Sant almost wants you to watch the surfaces, to create this sense-memory, as he weaves events non-linearly. Working with former Wong Kar-Wai collaborator, cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, Van Sant produces images of crystal clearness, alternating with the haze of low quality digital.

Mike D'Angelo points out a key scene, where Alex is taking a shower, the kind that is often shown when the main character is dealing with some kind of traumatic incident, and yet it's filmed so that you stop paying attention to Alex's problems and stare at the visual oddity, his silhouette in black, with water running down his lengthy hair.

Van Sant repeats his favorite motif, as he follows his characters either from behind or just ahead, and have them walking at least a minute to their destinations. He freezes on close-ups of the Asian-American detective, and Alex, letting the audience figure out what is meant. Does the detective sense that Alex has done something? Or more importantly, since Van Sant is gay, does the detective have something for this kid? He plays a similar scene with a friend of Alex staring at Alex.

Van Sant's not so interested in a plot as he in trying to reproduce the turmoil and detached actions of Alex. By selecting non-actors, he can have everyone underplay what they do. By that, imagine American Idol with folk singers who have deliberately tried to remove all affectation.

Despite his push for naturalism, the main incident, when shown on the screen, is at such bizarre counterpoint to the naturalism, that it seems both shocking, and yet, hardly real.

And, as that interviewer points out how Hitchcock's relation to blondes informed his filmmaking, there is a sense that Van Sant is staring at Nevins. He removes his shirt, his boxers peak out, but all handled perfectly naturalistic, despite the fact it's a film, and therefore is all but natural.

Van Sant takes a more honest conclusion, even if Alex seems oddly detached from what he's done. The closing scenes suggest something about film and creativity, rather than Alex's personal situation.

The film was marred by an audience member, sitting to my right and ahead of me, sighing as if he couldn't fathom what was going on, and was uttering his disapproval. It's not a film for everyone, but has Van Sant at the top of his game.

I'd rate this an A-.

One Thing After Another

I knew it.

I was a bit tired today, so I slept early, which meant that I got up in the middle of the night, and flipped on the television to see what was on. I caught the last half hour or so of The History Boys which I had seen in the theater sometime ago.

The story, I suppose, is about history, more specifically, two different approaches to history. One, by the venerable Hector, played by character actor, Richard Griffiths, represents history studied for history's sake, to learn simply because it's so interesting, not to be highly reverent of the subject, but to understand that what happens is often by chance.

Hector, alas, has a weakness: his fondness of boys. Oh, he can never properly indulge in a serious relationship. He relegates himself to the sideways glance, the inappropriate grope, and the boys? They seem to tolerate his advances, as a sad move by a joke of a person, even as they find his teaching unorthodox.

Mike D'Angelo criticized this point in his review, realizing, were his gender preferences different, how utterly creepy it would be. Yet, it probably comes across less than for at least two reasons. First, somehow, despite their formative age, these guys seem very in control of their lives, perhaps betraying the film's play origins, perhaps betraying the playwright's desire to depict highly literary kids, who quote from the world's great authors or sing show tunes at a whim.

This is Dead Poet's Society (DPS) where the kids already appreciate education, and are, indeed a bit too erudite. They lack the academic innocence of the teens in DPS. Like DPS, perhaps even more so, the kids, those that have personalities, represent different facets, from the shy Posner to the outgoing Dakin.

On the flip side of Hector, is the pragmatic Irwin, who finds the goal of prep school is to get into a good college. Cambridge. Oxford. And to get in requires a provocative approach in the essays. Be interesting. Be bold. But, in the end, it's a game, trying to impress those who read the essays, those who determine whether you get the keys to the next level.

Both Rudge, the athlete, and Posner, the kid coming to terms with his sexuality, take two extreme reactions to Irwin's approach. Rudge knows he's an athlete. He's not particularly academic. He knows colleges wants athletes, but doesn't like the idea that he has to do a song and dance to make the colleges feel good about the lie they tell themselves. Posner, on the other hand, still takes Hector's lessons to heart, both good and bad, interested in the act of teaching, but pained by the life of a closeted individual.

For a while, the film is about these clever kids, and these two approaches, but then it takes a different tack. Dakin, the boldest of the kids, the guy who's too cool, is fascinated by Irwin, the teacher, and despite being straight, wants Irwin to have a tryst with him. Stephen Campbell Moore must have enjoyed this role where he portrays an outwardly confident teacher, who has secrets to hide, not just his interests in guys, but also his credentials. In effect, he's living the lie that he wants his students to follow, yet, it's not nearly that cynical. He understands he didn't play the game well enough as a teen, but he knows how to teach others to play the game. He is Salieri, but instead of lamenting his lack of Mozart talent, he realizes you can fake that talent.

The key drama, then, is that rarity of real life, the advance of a student on a teacher. Dakin's advances are so confident, and Irwin's response so tentative, that despite the inappropriateness, you feel Irwin's the one being taken advantage of. Hector offers his advice: lay off, which seems funny, because he manages to excuse his own actions as a kind of "lesson", a lie he tells himself.

The film manages to blunt the actions of inappropriate teachers by students that are a bit too savvy, a bit too wise, but it tries to make a point, which is that people aren't so easily pegged into a simple label. Teachers, especially high school teachers, often run into problems. They are both authorities, but also surrounded by teens that are only beginning to understand the opposite sex, and this has, on occasion, lead to inappropriate behavior (this happened at my high school). The film makes the rather bold suggestion that people can still be more than simply lechers, that they can still be good teachers.

One of the more touching scenes, despite its obvious play roots, is a scene at the end, where the teens, scattered throughout the audience, are addressed by Mrs. Lintott, who provides the sole female voice of reason. She tells the future of each of the students, and what happens to each of them. It's far more effective than the usual endings of docu-dramas which fill you in on the details of all the real-life characters.

While the film is flawed in many ways, mostly in unrealistic kids that are a bit too advanced for their age, it is nevertheless a lot of fun precisely because they are so precocious (and precious). It deals with two big topics: education for education's sake versus playing the game of impressing an admissions committee and the cynicism behind that. It's also about how teachers deal with education versus the issue of teacher-student relationships. Although this can be seen as providing the film its edge, it's more accurate to say that this is a gay film that is wrapped in education, and suggests the two complementary feelings of playwright Alan Bennett.

In many ways, the film feels like a kid who's precociously singing a song. There's something adorably sweet, and yet awfully impressive about the way the kid sings the song, but you realize, if they still sang like that as an adult, it would still seem very kid-like. In the same way, The History Boys is awfully clever, with kids that are not quite stereotypes, but also not quite real either. Yet, you don't seem to mind following this rosy, nostalgic romp through the upper echelons of British high school education.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

I must have been around ten when I first saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I had watched pretty much all the episodes. At that time, of course, there was no other series (other than the animated ones-ick), no other series. This would, in Bond-like manner, lead to nearly a dozen other Star Trek films, and finally one more that is scheduled to break the usual creative control (which lead to pedestrian TNG films).

I recall this being a rather spooky film, a bit scary. Now I realize that much of that was inexperience watching films. The more you get scared, the harder it is to get scared.

This was Star Trek as inspired by 2001. Of course, some fans point to the episode The Changeling about a robot that is to destroy imperfections, which is a small-scale version of what the film is about. (The joke goes that the film is called "Where Nomad Has Gone Before", playing on the name of the robot, Nomad, and the famous Star Trek phrase "Where No Man Has Gone Before").

As much as it tries to deal with heady plots and themes of God and what the meaning of life is, it is still, at its heart, derived from a television series, and as ardent as its fans were and are, you can't be too experimental, too way out there as Kubrick was in 2001. Indeed, Kubrick was perfectly happy having drones as characters, where the strong character is HAL, and by a long shot.

ST:TMP (as the original is known) has both too much exposition (Spock has to explain everything) mixed with long stretches of nothing. The opening of the film is a starfield with music lasting some five minutes. The entrance to the Enterprise in dry dock goes on about ten minutes. The Enterprise maneuvering into V'ger's interior is one special effect shot after another, with the crew mostly looking agape at what they're seeing, and that last minutes too. Perhaps half an hour of the film has no dialog.

Despite that, these long sequences are pretty brave for a film that decided to put all its special effects on the screen.

There's also a lot of funny things you notice. For example, there's a ton of wardrobe changes. Kirk easily wears half a dozen outfits, as does Spock and McCoy. Dekker alternates between wearing a one-piece gray uniform to a two-piece uniform. And, man, does everyone look spectacularly young.

The film is more of a visual feast for the eyes, than something that is particularly awe-inspiring. There's the final scene where Dekker unites with V'ger. I suppose I should give it credit that it almost makes sense (but not quite), especially with his desire to unite with Ilia.

There are a few things that don't hold up so well. One is the big distinction the film makes between machines and people. Indeed, there's a ton of "mechanism" bias. Dekker, who is about to have feelings for the Ilia probe, is informed she's just a mechanism. The crew is amazed V'ger has achieved consciousness, even if plenty of idiot humans have achieved it just fine, thank you.

Surprisingly, I thought Ilia had a lot more lines. She barely has any before she becomes a probe.

There's a particularly silly scene where Spock decides to journey into the interior, and somehow, in random wandering runs into, well, another Ilia probe? That looks like a mannequin. And then he's tossed back to the Enterprise, where Kirk is in a spacesuit outside the ship, what, hoping Spock comes back?

There are some gaps in logic. McCoy who's been out of Starfleet for a while knows the name of an ensign (to be fair, one would imagine, in the future, there would be something that would automatically tell you the names of other people as you meet them). Nurse (sorry, Doctor) Chapel seems to know Ilia, even though she's only been aboard barely a day.

The Enterprise alternately can and can't communicate with Starfleet when inside the cloud. It flits this way and that way, as the whim of whatever the plot requires.

There's a ton of tiny missteps (the oddly blurred scene when Spock first comes aboard, where half the background is blurred out, to odd effect, where one of the bridge officers has his arms crossed doing nothing in particular, except giving the background some interest).

It's decent, but not quite as awesome as I recall.

Movie Review: Private Lessons

Around 1980, a film (if you can call it that) called Porky's came out, and the success of this teenage raunch film lead to a series of other films following similar themes, mostly of teenage boys lusting after teenage girls. In Porky's, for example, teenage guys manage to sneak peeks into a girls showers, and hilarity ensues.

During the spate of such films, there was Private Lessons, about a rich teenage boy whose chauffeur has some plot to get money from the son while the father (the mother doesn't seem to be around, probably divorced) is out of town. He has a foreign woman (apparently a Dutch actress whose acted in a series of Emmanuelle films) try to seduce the teenage boy. There's something creepily unnerving about this

The plot itself is almost totally ludicrous, and seems to only serve to prop up the main point which appears to be to get the woman naked and have the boy sleep with her. The guy seems a bit like Fred Savage, and so it is awkward to see this happily smiling boy being seduced by an older woman, who, for her part, plays it sympathetically. Because it fit in with other movies of the genre, and because the rest of the film seems so sitcomish, it almost hides the fact that such a film could hardly be made today, given the backdrop of teachers sleeping with their students.

Indeed, were it not for its laughably dumb idea, it's perhaps one of the few movies that attempts to explore older woman, younger man relationships, if you can call it an exploration. Another film that somewhat explores this issue is Beautiful Girls, which, on top of exploring a town where no one much seems to leave, where people relive high school glory (an issue also dealt with in Friday Night Lights), explores the fascination of Timothy Hutton's character with a precocious Nathalie Portman who plays the teenager next door.

In movies like that, and, say, American Beauty, there's some sense that the guy knows that he shouldn't be attracted to teenaged girls half his age. Private Lessons, having the genders reversed, treats it as some adolescent fantasy, and is borderline sitcom about it. About the only realistic aspect is how scared he is to do it initially, which gives the film several more opportunities for he and she to get together.

European films tend to look at this rather seriously, say, The School of Flesh (though the male is a bit older in this film, and has a considerably darker history, than the wide eyed innocent of this film).

Fundamentally, it has the same appeal as Porky's, namely, teenage males that want to see nude women, and yet, wraps this in a plot that would ordinarily be far more subversive than what actually makes it on the screen, and while that hardly redeems the film, it makes it a little less than completely forgettable, and one imagines, under surer hands, it would be quite a bit more offensive or offending than it already is.

Re-review: Into The Wild

You can see why this kind of film has a kind of appeal. People feel trapped by societal obligations. Most people don't mind them, but few do much about it, trying to escape, and live a simpler life.

Into The Wild treats Chris McCandless in a somewhat reverential way. He reads books like Thoreau and inspired to leave a potentially "successful" career and head to Alaska, where he imagines that living in the wilderness will get him to appreciate nature, and escape the insincerity of the world.

Since the film was made with the cooperation of the parents, there is some acknowledgment that for whatever faults the parents have, they were hurt by Chris leaving them with no attempt at communication, abandoning his given name for Alex Supertramp.

If he harkens back to a hippie lifestyle, this is reinforced by meeting some real hippies, and some rather giddy Danes. At two and a half hours, his adventures drag a bit, but to Penn's credit, he doesn't try to amp the tension of hitchhiking into The Hitcher, nor does he seem to encounter anyone that wants to take advantage of him.

Indeed, given the trouble he had with the honesty of his parents, they could have perhaps made him seemed more like damaged goods, rather than some misunderstood genius.

Penn doesn't try to give equal time to his detractors, who thought him a little naive to head out in the woods without a map, and trying to survive on so little, thus being ultimately responsible for his own death. But then, that's not exactly Penn's point, is it? There's a certain precociousness to toss away everything you've been brought up with, though, Penn gives history to why McCandless came to this viewpoint (admittedly, via voiceovers from his sister).

Compelling mostly because it makes you think, rather than any inherent drama from what's shown on-screen.

Oh yeah, those miniature digital cameras weren't around in 1990. (McCandless's mother takes a picture during graduation early on). William Hurt has a small role, but is pretty good. It's surprising how this actor, considered by many to be at the level of Deniro and Pacino in the 80s (without the same intensity), seems to have faded, even more so than Meryl Streep, whose made a mini-resurgence in her own career.

Emile Hirsch does well as the idealistic Chris, having to lose weight (though not to the scary extent that Christian Bale did for The Machinist). With this film and Speed Racer, expect to hear more from Emile, who is this year's newcomer.

Re-review: Into The Wild

You can see why this kind of film has a kind of appeal. People feel trapped by societal obligations. Most people don't mind them, but few do much about it, trying to escape, and live a simpler life.

Into The Wild treats Chris McCandless in a somewhat reverential way. He reads books like Thoreau and inspired to leave a potentially "successful" career and head to Alaska, where he imagines that living in the wilderness will get him to appreciate nature, and escape the insincerity of the world.

Since the film was made with the cooperation of the parents, there is some acknowledgment that for whatever faults the parents have, they were hurt by Chris leaving them with no attempt at communication, abandoning his given name for Alex Supertramp.

If he harkens back to a hippie lifestyle, this is reinforced by meeting some real hippies, and some rather giddy Danes. At two and a half hours, his adventures drag a bit, but to Penn's credit, he doesn't try to amp the tension of hitchhiking into The Hitcher, nor does he seem to encounter anyone that wants to take advantage of him.

Indeed, given the trouble he had with the honesty of his parents, they could have perhaps made him seemed more like damaged goods, rather than some misunderstood genius.

Penn doesn't try to give equal time to his detractors, who thought him a little naive to head out in the woods without a map, and trying to survive on so little, thus being ultimately responsible for his own death. But then, that's not exactly Penn's point, is it? There's a certain precociousness to toss away everything you've been brought up with, though, Penn gives history to why McCandless came to this viewpoint (admittedly, via voiceovers from his sister).

Compelling mostly because it makes you think, rather than any inherent drama from what's shown on-screen.

Oh yeah, those miniature digital cameras weren't around in 1990. (McCandless's mother takes a picture during graduation early on). William Hurt has a small role, but is pretty good. It's surprising how this actor, considered by many to be at the level of Deniro and Pacino in the 80s (without the same intensity), seems to have faded, even more so than Meryl Streep, whose made a mini-resurgence in her own career.

Emile Hirsch does well as the idealistic Chris, having to lose weight (though not to the scary extent that Christian Bale did for The Machinist). With this film and Speed Racer, expect to hear more from Emile, who is this year's newcomer.

Movie Review: Into The Wild

The Hitcher probably did as much to dramatize or sensationalize the dangers of hitchhiking, so it's to Sean Penn's credit that Into The Wild doesn't try to amp up the tension of travelling as hitchhiker, harkening back to a time when people weren't so scared to pick up hitchhikers.

Into The Wild is the story of Chris McCandless, who gave up what savings he had, and wandered the West, with a desire to head to Alaska, leaving his parents and sister behind. Given his general lack of money, hitchhiking seemed his primary mode of transportation. There's no scary guy trying to kill, nor someone wanting to swap sex for favors.

Instead, there are bits and pieces of the people McCandless meets in his journal.

Part of the intrigue of what he did, to me, is when he did. McCandless was born a few months before I was, graduated the same year I did. Between the year I graduate college and the year my brother graduated college, Chris had wandered the West Coast, deliberately cut off from his family, eventually making it to Alaska, meeting various folks along the way, most of them quite friendly.

One obvious question: why? The question is perhaps as old as man, especially once man could stop worrying about how to feed himself and stay alive, which is, what is the meaning of life. The Matrix, in its way, asks these questions (btw, the kind of stylistic flourishes that the Wachowski brothers were so noted for seem far more obvious in the original Matrix film, but not so much in the sequels--perhaps the style began to grate on them, which is why they used it less in subsequent sequels).

In The Matrix, intrepid hero, Thomas Anderson has a hidden hacker personality, Neo. Eventually, he discovers his daily life, as a programmer, is a fraud. This is, for a brief time, a revelation.

In a more mundane, but more realistic way, Chris McCandless wants to escape the constraints of society to find a truer way to live, out in the wild, without money, much like Thoreau (who apparently, didn't quite abandon society). This escape is perhaps as much rebellion from his parents, who, it turns out, had the two children (Chris and his sister) out of wedlock, while the father was still married to his first wife.

The film isn't terribly plot driven. It shows as much as Chris wanted to live on his own and as much as he felt he didn't need relations with other folks, that indeed, he did make friends, and had to take jobs here and there, to survive. But all that is somewhat beside the point.

The point is to give up all you know, and head out into the wild. In this, there are echoes of several other men. In particular, there's Timothy Treadwell (of Grizzly Man) who, several months a year, would live in the wilderness with the bears, only to be mauled (perhaps as a minor tribute, a bear shows up near the end). It also reminds me a little of Touching The Void, about mountain climbers, who, for a week or so at a time, head out by themselves or in a small group to a mountain, and try to conquer nature.

This is a challenging film to make. Was Chris so idealistic? Did he not rail against his parents? I find I don't particularly understand Chris, even if he touches something in most of us who want to escape what society has put on us. "Society, society, society!" which asks us to take jobs, which asks us to make money, which asks us to buy stuff, which asks us to raise kids. Who among us haven't thought it might be cool to give that all away, only to be yanked by the reality that they'd rather be rich, having all their needs taken care of, then to live a spare life, contributing "nothing" to society.

In the end, it's hard to say whether Chris regretted what he did. Perhaps he might have been a bit more educated about how he went out into the wild, and would have figured out how to get back to society, the one he shunned so much. Penn's film idealizes his trip, deciding that even in grips of death, it was worth it to do what he did (of course, Penn made a movie about this, so he surely had some sympathy for such a guy).

The film does make one wonder about Chris's relationships. He makes good friends, but he never quite gets a girlfriend, nor does he seem to long for such relationships. Even Timothy Treadwell, who spent months along, had several girlfriends. Did the unhealthy relationship of his parents make him not want to get into a serious relationship? Indeed, there's also hints that his sister and he had a really close relationship, though not quite sexual, but perhaps the closest he had of anyone he knew, and even then, as she points out (in, ugh, voiceover), he never contacted her, never contacted the family.

This kind of abandonment of society always seems far more romantic than the equally improbable dedication of a person to want to be successful in a society. The desire of the latter seems impure, requiring a knowledge of business, and a personality of persistence that many of us not only lack, but find rather distasteful.

The film runs very long, and despite its sprawling nature, feels rather small and intimate, because McCandless only ever relates to one or two people at a time. One interesting point is how the movie emphasizes his embrace of his own name, where he had adopted the moniker Alex Supertramp (and the rather ridiculous belt loop to indicate how much food he was eating).

All in all, a movie that's perhaps more interesting in what it makes you think about, then what it is actually.

District B13

I suppose I'm not surprised to find out that District B13 was written by Luc Besson, the guy who also wrote The Fifth Element, which, I have to admit, while not being a great movie, is a guilty pleasure.

District is noted for its extensive use of parkour, which is urban running, a la Jackie Chan. People leaping over bars, between buildings, through windows. In other words, pretty much everything Jackie Chan does without the light humor. All French seriousness.

Sort of a French version of Escape From New York, the story is roughly about a cop who is supposed to disable a neutron bomb in a city that's been walled off because there are a bunch of criminals inside (see what I mean about Escape from NY?). Rather than being ruled by Isaac Hayes, some bald guy with a goatee is in charge.

What prevents this story from devolving into something totally sophomoric is that distrust between the two main leads, one a cop, the other a criminal who wants to save his sister (and apparently, the "inventor" of parkour). This tension means you're never quite sure how they are going to react to one another.

Then, there's the goth sister, handcuffed to a missile, propped up on a tripod, lying and moping, and probably not feeling much worse for wear from her typical day.

Still, between the two protagonists and the parkour, it's a fun enough romp.

No Country for Old Men

In a film which puts its audience on edge, sometimes the quiet moments say more than the carnage.

No Country for Old Men is the Coen brothers' latest, and pits, if that's the right word, three characters against one another. There's Llewelyn Moss, who stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad, and picks up a pile of cash, which seems, in most films, a cause for trouble. There's Tommy Lee Jones, the sheriff, whose trying to figure out what's going on. You wonder, perhaps, like Misery, whether his inquisitive nature will get him into similar consequences as the sheriff in that film. Then, there's Anton Chigurh, whose much like the Terminator. You can't stop him.

His character reminds me a little of Samuel Jackson's character, Jules Winnfield, in Pulp Fiction. To be fair, Jules, outside of his killing, seems to go on about his life as usual, trying to be cool and hip. Eventually, however, he wonders whether his life is meant for killing, and has a change of heart.

Whether that's what happens to Chigurh, is not entirely clear. Up until the ending, the film seems to be building up, as many films of this kind of genre are, to some kind of final showdown, to see who is the most clever, and who wins in the end, and yet that would lead, I imagine, to something the film can't easily deliver.

Why does Chigurh do what he does? How is Llewelyn so darn clever? Why doesn't Chigurh kill the sheriff (it seems that he could have)? Does Llewelyn's wife survive? If she doesn't, why does he seem to feel remorse? If she does, what does that mean? Has mercy meant that he's now going to pay for a life full of mayhem? Was he some kind of devil's spawn, forced to see good, and then punished for it?

Almost aside from the cat-and-mouse of the two men are the quiet conversations with Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. He relates a story early on about the old times when the sheriffs didn't need guns. What does that say about now? That we're heading to lawlessness?

And what of the rather bizarre weapon that Chigurh uses? Why does he pick something so strange? Is it because no one will suspect it is a weapon? Indeed, we don't. Many of the people he kills are randomly innocent. Does he use the weapon because he sees them as some kind of cattle, being slaughtered by him (perhaps echoing some basic idea in Killer of Sheep).

There's no doubt that the Coens are good at what they do, building up tension, but not keeping it ratcheted up throughout, letting the quiet moments be, as the sheriff recounts stories of the past.

And what of the Mexicans? They serve no function except to be some vague threat that Chigurh disposes of. What is their role? (Javier Bardem, as it turns out, is Spanish, so his American accent is fairly impressive).

The film's ending is, of course, rather abrupt. The kind of ending you don't have in really popular films because, well, it doesn't seem to satisfy. But it leaves at a point where you don't know what's going to happen. Is Llewelyn just a more sympathetic killer, who will eventually do what Chigurh does? Does the sheriff decide to leave this violence? Is the sheriff the son of Chigurh (that was a random thought I had)?

An intense film worth watching, even if it leaves your head scratching.