The Social Network review

How does one make interesting the dull story of the creation of a website that has in many ways defined a generation? Some would say lie, but others might say you need not but re-analyze the truth. "The Social Network" isn't so much about facebook as much as it's about it's introverted, egotistical founder Mark Zuckerberg and his various relationships he had with people around the time of the sites creation and rise to fame. It is a 120 minute dramatic, funny, intelligent and sometimes tense ride through the modern business world as seen through the eyes of college kids. And it may also be David Fincher's best film to date. I'm not 100% on that as I do strongly LOVE "Zodiac", but this is a damn fine piece of work that deserves all the acclaim it's gathering currently.

Interestingly enough though still so many people write off the film simply as 'that facebook movie' and so on. Can I call you closed minded? I'll call you closed minded, but perhaps it isn't your fault. For all I know you could have some... issue or brain dysfunction that impairs you from putting the various pieces together that this isn't something that simple. This isn't a movie of the week, here now gone tomorrow. The point isn't simply to tell us of the creation of a website that has for better or for worse changed the internet. I don't feel like I'm spinning wheels here either. Realize that facebook is such a giant that it is used as a contact more often than just people exchanging numbers. Business' will create profiles on there to easily reach out to the consumer and let them 'feel' like they're part of something special by getting online exclusive offers that otherwise they might have never know about. You can nearly skip entire conversations and avoid bringing up the wrong subjects just by paying attention to someones listed interests, their status updates and so on. Hell the only way you might know about this review is through fucking facebook (or possibly twitter and tumblr). It is the dominating social networking site.

Now onto the flick. Jesse Eisenberg has been doing the small, indie scene for sometime, but had a big mainstream hit last fall with "Zombieland". Basically he can play the awkward teen much like Michael Cera, but with a little more cockiness to him. Much like Cera in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" however Eisenberg steps up his game A LOT as Zuckerberg. Is he awkward? Yes, but not in the conventional movie terms. His version of Zuckerberg (or Citizen Zuck as he's been renamed) appears to have more a disorder than simple shyness. He's cocky in his own way, smart and unfortunately knows it, but appears uncomfortable around large groups and even after a while close friends. He seems like an asshole and honestly probably is one. You can youtube some of his real life interviews and make your own assessment as well. Andrew Garfield (who has been getting some killer work lately) plays Eduardo Saverin, Mark's best friend, co-founder of facebook and later on someone who would sue him for everything. Garfield plays Saverin with a careful ease. It's not as playful of a type of character like Zuck, but one built more off of his diction and manners. Of course having a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin doesn't hurt you either.

Sorkin (who also has a brief cameo in the film) in my mind may have clinched a Best Adapted Screenplay victory with this. It is occasionally showy diolouge in the David Mamet way, but it's delivered with a careful flow that is perfection to listen to. You know when you hear film speak and it's just like beautiful music? This is it. Speaking of music we have something interesting and damn near the best score I've heard all year. Now... yes I AM a Nine Inch Nails fan and thus do already like Trent Reznor and all, but as a stand alone piece of work, he and Atticus Ross (who also did a great job scoring 'The Book of Eli') have made a score that perfectly compliments the visuals, enhances them at times, has fun with them at times and as a musical piece apart from that is also beautiful and emotional. In fact there isn't much of anything I didn't enjoy in "The Social Network".

From the opening scene between Eisenberg and Rooney Mara you see the pace and the tone of the entire picture. It's serious, but funny. It's fast, but methodical. It's got whimsy, but it's pretty damn dark. When we start getting into the flash editing between the Harvard days and his court cases with him against Eduardo and with him against Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra (who claimed Mark stole the idea of facebook from them) we see the dark humor and the dramatics coming out in spades. When we're introduced to Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) the darkness sets in more and more and there's this added foreboding to entire situation that was there for a while, but never this quietly intense. There are a number of scenes that might include humor and other emotions that still maintain a subtle intensity due to the acting, music and directing.

This is VERY much a David Fincher film. You get some visual echos of past Fincher films like "Se7en" and "Fight Club", but you also get that newer and more matured simplification of style that we saw in "Zodiac" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". These are strong characters and there are strong themes that run throughout the entire film. They aren't messing around when they say things about it's elements being as old as storytelling itself; they're right. These are strong and basic themes that make stories interesting and here they are so fucking interesting that I could hardly believe it. Furthermore it works as a tech movie by filling you up with shit you have no idea about (or at least I didn't), but making not the words important, but the meanings and emotions behind them. It's very similar to Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" films in that sense. I don't know much of anything about the stock market and yet those film are FILLED with stock jargon and even though we don't know all the definitions we still care about what happens. It's the driving emotion.

Simply put I can't tell you how much I honestly love this film. I've been finding some really good and some great stuff lately, but hands down this exceeded my exceptions. Sure I thought I'd like or love the movie, but I wasn't sure quite how much. When I watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and reviewed it I remember writing that it was my least favorite of Fincher's great films. I imagined loving that film to no end, but that simply wasn't the case. Here though I might have found the best movie I've seen all year and possibly the best from Fincher. But I don't know fully just yet. Rest assured I will be watching it again soon and might even offer further insights and thoughts on it. However for nearly four in the morning on a Friday I'll have to leave it by saying that this is a great, entertaining film and also a very important one.

Kick-Ass review

Before I delve into the actually nitty gritty of the ‘Kick Ass’ review, I’d like to vent or rather expel some issues and a degree of confusion, frustration and overall disillusionment I’ve been having with the cinematic world of late. Recently I’ve been conflicted in a personal sense due to a lot of the films I’ve been watching both old and new and the world of film criticism and land of elitist film viewers. The conflict arose when time after time this belief that the only way to make a great film or even a good film is A: in the independent market and B: seemingly inspired by foreign works; some old and some new, but mainly old. And that anything made within the confines of the ‘mainstream’ or studio system is automatic shit. If you earn money, you’re automatic shit and a sell out. If you get big press, you’re automatic shit, a sell out and pomes. I suppose the same can be said of elitist views in the music world as well, but that’s not my the point. I began to question why this was. I started looking back further and further, going through my owned films and seen films and old reviews and thinking, is there something I’m missing? Am I blind to something that I can’t wrap my mind around? Why don’t I think the same thing?

I mean sure I love foreign pictures quite a bit, I may not own as many I’d like but I don’t have forty bucks to drop on a criterion every week. In fact having forty dollars once week for anything would be nice, but in truth I can’t buy DVD's in bulk as I used to. As for independent works, sure some are great and some suck just like anything else. I spoke with a friend about my feelings on the matter, which I probably haven’t described too well, but that’s because it’s hard to truly explain and she told me that it’s a generational thing. That depending on the time and what’s out there will very much dictate what we see coming out on both ends. In addition to that I re-watched the documentary “A Decade Under the Influence” which chronicled the 70’s filmmaking world. I loved hearing the big names of then (and many that are still big now) talking about how French and Italian new wave got them into wanting to make movies and so on and so fourth, but what I found really fascinating was that the filmmakers they loved from the 60’s and what not were inspired by a lot of the “bad” movies we were making over here. None of them talked up the work of John Ford or Billy Wilder as their inspiration. After a while I began to develop a hypothesis.

Sure there’s independent movies coming up and dying to see, just as there’s summer blockbusters I’m looking forward to (although much less than usual), but there’s so many terrible things getting pushed out there on both plains that it’s clouding the view of the better ones. A lot of the independent filmmakers of today seemed to have gotten their inspiration from those same 50’s and 60’s auteurs, however the difference is with those inspired in the 70’s and the ones now is that then they loved the idea of smaller stories and of a different style that was unlike what they’ve seen before. Now they love the idea of telling a little story, but don’t care for style, think as long as the characters seem ‘different’ from what we see in the mainstream that it makes the characters truly different and original and often those little stories they’re telling aren’t that original.; in some cases filmmakers telling almost the same stories, but with different actors and locations. So again I ask, what makes them so much better than the mainstream if they’re lacking originality and creativity but with less money and resources?

Now this brings me to ‘Kick-Ass’ which lands in that zone of a creative, ballsy and original independently made film that people might not recognize as such. I’ve sadly never read too much of the comic, although I have seen it in the past; but as a film it succeeds as an action picture, a dark comedy and as a satire of comic book heroes in an ultra violent and over the top manner while still placing some realistic looks at the aspects of costumed heroics. Could this movie been made as easily in the a straight studio zone? Ehhh… probably not. But thanks to producer, co-writer, director Matthew Vaughn, co-producer and co-writer Jane Goldman, Brad Pitt and Plan B and of course Lionsgate it could be made and presented to the popcorn munching public as best as possible.

Is it flawed? Yep. I really dig Aaron Johnson as this kid, but his voice got tiresome. Works for the character, but a tiring voice. Some music choices were off putting, while some were great (Hit Girl’s action sequences probably the best example of great choices). And as with any satire it takes me a little bit to ease into that mindset and world. Everything else though, I dug the hell out of. Some of shotty CGI, works for me. The lack of a moral and often emotional compass with allowing an 11-year old girl to drop fucks, cunts and bodies like clock work, while getting kicked around by the likes of Mark Strong, who has yet to make me dislike him, reminds me of the old days when movies had that bit of balls that made them stand out. And the dark humor works almost every time.

However suggesting this movie is a bit tough. Easily I can see why Roger Ebert felt the way he felt about it. Partly because I’ve been a reader of his for a long time and this isn’t the first time his feeling or morality effect the way he reviews a film, but just in general I could see someone being put off by the films violence and crass humor. For the mainstream crowd I guess I’d try to appeal to need to see a good popcorn flick with action and laughs and to the indie crowd I’d attempt to appeal to their possible knowledge of more violent independently made films of the early 90’s like ’Bad Lieutenant’, ’Menace II Society’, ’Reservoir Dogs’, or ’El Mariachi’ mixed with the satirical humor of ‘Clerks’.

'Kick-Ass' is at it's core a throwback movie to a time when action movies didn't always play it straight. When who was a hero and who was villain was a bit if-y and when people had the guts to make something unconventional at a time when everything is considered controversial. I've been a fan of Vaughn's past two directorial works, the british crime, dark comedy 'Layer Cake' and I even had some mild affection for his fantasy romp 'Stardust', but 'Kick-Ass' returns him to that violent and jivy feel he had with 'Layer Cake' and his produced films with Guy Ritchie. Having not read the books prior to going into the film also allowed the film to surprise me more than I expected with just how out there it was willing to go.

Personally I miss getting to see films that go as over the top as they can or films that don't have that attempt for something more than being the next indie darling. I miss that ridiculous fun or seeing something original and fresh that isn't a melodrama or a melodrama trying to pose as a comedy with a serious point about the human condition. It seems like the amount of Vaughns or Duncan Jones' or Neil Blomkamps in the cinema world either aren't getting enough work, not getting it displayed or frightening enough don't exist.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans review

I love contemporary noir films. They hold such bold constructs and characters, have that kind of stark imagery that's foreboding and often show you much seedier places than the average crime picture. All these things are very true in Werner Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans" and more. The more being Nicolas Cage creating as kick ass a character as he did. This is the kind of thing he did when he was younger and the dollar signs of big budget adventure spectacles weren't dancing in his head. Hell this is the kind of stuff that got him his reputation and his Oscar. The last time I've been this impressed with him was probably in 2005 with "Lord of War" and "The Weatherman", but this is the type of character where his talents really shine. You see his character Terrence is a junkie. A bad junkie. A junkie cop.

After saving a jailed inmate during hurricane Katrina, he suffered an injury that would give him severe back pain for the rest of his life. He's prescribed painkillers, but after a year or so... well that just ain't enough. He moves on to cocaine.... then heroin and crack cocaine. He has it stolen by friends in the evidence room or he steals it from local youth and drug dealers. But he's not a bad cop. Well... not in the same sense has like Denzel Washington in "Training Day" or something. He does care about what's doing down in the city and he is very good at what he does. Despite all his problems (which he has tons and tons of), he still finds time to deal with issues involving the murder of an entire family in one of the poorer sections of the city. Everyone knows who's behind the murder, a local gangster named 'Big Fate' played by rapper Xzibit; who finally is in a good film AND actually shows that after all his shitty work he CAN in fact actor pretty well.

But perhaps that's credited to the strong writing here and the great character moments throughout the film. Eva Mendas plays Terrence's high class hooker girlfriend. Cage and Mendas' chemistry in "Ghost Rider" might not have worked, but here they conversations and interactions are very believable. They both care for one another as one junkie to another. Mendas plays it noir style, perhaps even more than the other actors. In those films the love interest didn't have much to do in the film and here honestly she doesn't have a ton to do either, but involvement in Terrence's life is important. Because the time spent together that they have displays a slightly more human side and loving side to both parties and by the end you see how that helps everyone. And I shant leave out Val Kilmer as one of the fellow officers, who's a bit more toned down then you'd expect this sort of role, but manages to impress in his few scenes.

Something to remember is that this is... in a sense a "remake" of Abel Ferrer's 1992 film "Bad Lieutenant" with Harvey Kietel. However it's only in remake in that they have similar titles and both involve drug addicted cops. The characters are very different and the tone of each film is very different. Herzog's film is really a dark comedy, noir pretending to be a simple crime drama. There's a lot of funny things in the film. I mean they even bring back the ole' Nic Cage flip out scene. You remember those right? Back in the 80's and 90's he had to have at least one scene where he completely flips out on someone for some reason. He's good at it. Last time he really had one of those was in "Matchstick Men". But here's is one of his very best ones. I don't really wanna spoil it, but explaining how a cop, high off his ass on coke, tired and stressed to no end, decides to break into a nursing home and cut off the oxygen to an old woman in order to get information from her nurse, then pull a 45. on the two women and begin screaming about how they're ruining the country well... it's funny either way.

The film has been in limited release for a little over a month now and perhaps it'll spread, but I'm guessing it won't be as wide as some of the other films coming along right now. This picture is gritty and cool in the best sort of ways. Every character has their subtleties and they over-the-top show off moments. Herzog takes chances with plot and visuals as often as he likes without making it look like a test movie and Cage reminds us why he got that Oscar. Perfection.

"Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans" **** out of ****

World's Greatest Dad review

I urge you (more than likely next month when it hits DVD) to see the first funny Robin Williams comedy since "The Birdcage". And I say that having actually combed through his imdb profile and discovering that he hasn't made one movie I've found funny since then... seriously. His dramatic work on the other hand is actually quite impressive and the only draw back is that those films aren't quite the financial success. So now we movie to "World's Greatest Dad" perhaps the best dark comedy he's ever done and it is quite dark. Williams plays Lance Clayton, a teacher who aspires to be on author and has tried several times to get published.

Lance is also a single father and his son Kyle (played by Daryl Sabara of "Spy Kids") is for lack of a better term an asshole. He's mean, sexist, obsessed with masturbation and is highly disrespectful to his father. Much as this may seem like it's going to be a run-of-the-hill bad son, good dad movie... it takes one hell of a left turn about twenty minutes in. I would like to say what happens... but spoiling it would ruin the moment I feel. In any case the aftermath is what defines the rest of the picture. It's a bit of parody about people after tragedy and how they tend to act like they care more. The movie gets it all down to the nugget and is almost completely great, although there's something a little left empty in me with the ending. It fits, but not all the way.

"World's Greatest Dad" is written and directed by Bobcat Goldhwait, who you might remember as a stand up comedian and actor who has for the past few years directed tons of episodes of "Reno 911!" and "Chappelle's Show". This is perhaps the best thing he's done with his career and if he can keep making films this funny and intelligent then he's going to come back in a big way. Williams' performance is one that really plays into his wittier brand of humor, but also uses his dramatic chops which creates a great blend. Further more dark comedies are harder to come by now-a-days, not unlike pure mystery films. Here is a prime example of good story telling and comedy that most people are going to overlook because it's a small release film. But I'm saying watching it. Theatrically it's just about gone, but it'll be on DVD the first week of December. Pick it up. And for an added bonus pick up Terry Zwigoff's "Art School Confidential". One of the few stand out dark comedies of the 2000's that people missed out on.

"World's Greatest Dad" *** 1/2 out of ****

A Serious Man review

One wonders exactly where the Coen brothers could go from where they are at. Right now they are two of the most important, most creative and most interesting filmmakers working today. They have one countless accolades and awards and yet they've never fully gone pure Hollywood, the closest they will ever give is a version of it that's filtered through them; so we don't get a Hollywood film but more or less a Hollywood produced film created by Joel and Ethan Coen. However "A Serious Man" is not that film, in fact they haven't done that film since "The Ladykillers". No "A Serious Man" is a dark comedy that's among their very best films. I'm saying like this is perhaps their best dark comedy since "Fargo" (if you consider "Fargo" a comedy that is).

Instead of casting big name stars like last years comedy "Burn After Reading", they aimed for little known or even first time actors and actresses including the film's star Michael Stuhlbarg who plays professor Larry Gopnik. Larry's life is leading to a very rough patch and he's beginning to feel as if he's never going to get out of it. His wife is leaving him for a much older man, who insists on comforting Larry about the whole ordeal. Someone is attempting to sabotage him at the college he works at, his children see him as just another tool of the house and his brother is a magnet for trouble that Larry ends up having to deal with. And all throughout these perils Larry tries to speak with Jewish leaders to get some advice that will fix things in his mind. All this to no or little avail.

"A Serious Man" manages to be crafty within it's humor by giving you this very strange under towing mystery to what's 'really' going on in this man's life. In truth this film is hard to talk about plot wise because so much happens that reflects upon other things so you can never tell too much. Performance wise the film is perfect to a tee. Casting unknowns was the best idea they could've had with this kind of story. Shuhlbarg really makes you feel for him because it's as if he's being punished for something he never did. Sari Lennick (in her first film role) is great as his wife Judith who manages to turn almost everything out of Larry's mouth around on him and make it work for her. Then there's the wide supporting class of characters that will forever belong in the filing cabinet of Coen characters that are so funny and interesting in the most subtle and absurd ways that no mere explanation can really pin it down for people.

In short this is a great film, one of the very best of 2009 and deserves to be seen by the public. For me this belong in the rose gallery of their best films like "Barton Fink", "Fargo"and "No Country for Old Men". And to answer the question that I began with, where do the Coen brothers go from here... well as it turns out... no one knows until they've gone there with them. Seriously see this movie.

"A Serious Man" **** out of ****