Sunshine

July 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment

In the not-too-distant future (50 years from now or so), the Sun starts to dim. Not like it has run out of hydrogen; more like its pilot light has gone out. Earth will perish if something can’t be done. A group of astronauts goes to the Sun in a big spaceship with heavy shielding to try to re-ignite it.

As the old joke goes, they forgot that you’re supposed to go at night.

Directed by Danny Boyle (TRAINSPOTTING, 28 DAYS LATER, MILLIONS).

Science fiction doesn’t have to be based around “this can happen”, it can be a speculative “what if this DID happen?”

The movie doesn’t try to explain why the Sun is going out; it’s happened, and these astronauts are going there in a huge spaceship, so they must have a plan.

If you accept the wonky premise, the rest of the film plays pretty fair with the problems of approaching the Sun.

It struck me that it’s the first real space science fiction film I’ve seen in a long time. There are various movies with spaceships, but usually they’re more action or horror movies; this is more of a traditional throwback scifi film. Lots of worrying about heat shields failing, airlocks breaking, fires on board, freezing, low oxygen, vacuum, cranky computers, space madness, and how to solve those problems. A typical week on the International Space Station, in other words.

The spaceship is called the ICARUS II, because another spaceship, ICARUS I, tried the same thing seven years ago and vanished without a trace. It seems to me that naming your ship that’s going to fly close to the Sun is risking bad luck by being named Icarus, who after all is the guy in Greek mythology who fashioned wings, flew too close to the Sun, and died. I’m thinking you might name your second attempt something other than ICARUS II. Maybe HAPPY HAPPY SAVE MANKIND SPACESHIP. Just a thought.

The first hour of this is pretty good, and then, it REALLY falls apart. Eventually it seems to come down to an endless number of crises that each require sacrificing one crewmember to continue onwards. It’s like “The Cold Equations: The Miniseries.” And then it really takes a turn for the silly that I won’t reveal here so as to keep the surprise, lame though it is.

In the end, this seems like a mix of the 1990 Charlton Heston film SOLAR CRISIS (A movie that turned out so poorly that Alan Smithee had to take credit for directing it), mixed with THE CORE, and a dash of EVENT HORIZON, and the Discovery part of 2001. And it’s every bit as good as you’d think a ladle full of that gumbo would be.

It’s disappointing, because the first hour of the film showed real promise.

The Fountain

July 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment

The end credits rolled and I just sat there, stunned. The gentleman to my right raises his voice and pleads with the people around him, “Ok…will SOMEbody tell me what the &*$# I just saw?!?”

I was RIGHT there with him.

The Fountain is not something I can describe and do the film any justice at all. The visual effects are beyond anything you’ve seen before. This isn’t because of the technology behind them, but rather for the unfettered imagination that came up with the imagery in the first place. And then there are the philosophical and metaphysical elements of the movie that defy any rational attempt to quantify.

I have given a lot of thought to this movie over the past few days and I still don’t fully understand what I was seeing in some places. But that’s kind of ok, I guess. There is a message in this movie. I got it. And the really odd thing is that I think the message will be different for each person that sees it. This is because you will be forced…no, that’s too strong a word. You will be urged to let your mind walk a path that you don’t want to go down; a path you probably have never even dared approach. It is the path of death.

Yes, director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) wanted to make a movie about death and what it means to us mortals. He does so by showing us three different timelines: Spain in the middle ages, the present day, and some future time. The movie posters and trailers say 2500, but there is absolutely NO way to reference that. The only *real* character you see in that timeline is Jackman’s and he never talks about what year it is. You can’t even judge by his surroundings since he is WAY out in space, floating along in the odd bubble and living in it like a hermit or monk.

In the Spain timeline, Hugh Jackman is a decidely loyal conquistador who pledges himself to finding the Fountain of Youth in order to preserve the life of his Queen, Isabel, and thereby Spain, as well. In the present, Jackman is a dedicated research scientist doggedly trying to find a cure for brain cancer. He is doing so because his wife, “Izzy”, is terminally ill with it. During his research, he stumbles upon a miraculous anti-aging compound that has interesting implications…and complications to his research. In the future timeline…ah, hell, I have no idea what was going on there. It was a spectacularly beautiful…and confusing acid trip.

I honestly cannot say whether or not I recommend this movie. It just defies normal ratings and classifications. I can say, however, that if someone very close to you has recently died or is dying, it will stir your very core. And that may or may not be a good thing.

Now if y’all will excuse me, I’m going to watch some football follies and continue my recovery from this flick.

The Notorious Bettie Page

July 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Let’s just get this out of the way first; Gretchen Mol is SMOKIN hot! OK, now we can proceed.

The Notorious Bettie Page is a documentary that’s not a documentary, but is documentary-ish… kinda like a Michael Moore film. I went into this not knowing anything about Bettie Page other than she was a hot pinup model from the 50’s and that she also did some bondage photos. Now I know that her mother was too strict, she married her first boyfriend who proceeded to beat her, after leaving him she was gang raped and then fled to New York City for a new life. She was also a very smart girl in school, barely missing out on a scholarship to Vanderbilt and was an aspiring actress before giving it all up and dropping out of the spotlight.

I guess I just kinda told you the entire plot of the movie, though I don’t think that counts as a spoiler due to the nature of the film.

Most of the movie deals with Bettie’s participation in creating bondage photos and films, both because it’s an excuse to show Gretchen in leather outfits and because of the scandal such photos caused back then. On a side note, it’s amazing how tame these photos are when you look at them now. We also see Bettie do some nude modeling and for that I’m quite grateful. Did I mention that Gretchen Mol is SMOKIN hot? Oh yeah, I did.

One complaint I have about the movie, and this is a rare complaint to make, is that it’s a little too short. It’s only 90 minutes long and at the 80 minute mark I was wondering how the director was going to wrap up the movie in just 10 minutes. Then answer is that he didn’t. Apparently in real life Bettie found Jesus while on vacation in Miami and dropped out of the business and the spotlight very quickly, and that’s just what happens in the movie. After the church scene we get one more of her preaching in Central Park before the credits roll. I would have appreciated a little more story here on what happened when she went back to NYC, what her friends did, etc.

Overall it’s a pretty good movie if you’re interested in the story, and is certainly worth watching if you’d like to see Gretchen Mol naked, and who wouldn’t want to see that?

Sicko

July 7, 2007 | 1 Comment

Michael Moore is an excellent filmmaker, but I really don’t like his politics. As such, I’ve skipped most of his movies as they would just end up pissing me off, but I decided to give Sicko a chance. While his extreme left bias is on full display he does manage tell a convincing story about the U.S.healthcare industry that will make you give some thought to what he has to say.

The main point of the movie is simple. The U.S. is the only major country in the world without socialized healthcare, and our system is corrupt beyond repair and should be replaced. If you’ve ever had to deal with a claim that was rejected by your provider, you’re likely to agree with him on this point. I myself fall into this category, having had routine stuff rejected at first and covered only when I pitched abitchfest on the phone and in letters to the insurer. Like most other Americans I just figured this was the way it was, so you work with the system and get things taken care of as best you can.

Sure, we all know that Canada has socialized medicine, but we also hear that it takes a year to get a simple MRI and that the waiting lists for getting other types of exams are just as long. Moore’s contention is that this info is false, feed to us by our elected politicians at the behest of thehealthcare industry. He does a very good job of showing this as fact simply by giving us the astounding dollar figures that are given to these politicians by the industry. There’s also the little known fact that there are FOUR lobbyist in Washington for each member of Congress. Insurers are public companies designed to make money, and a government run system would put them out of business or at the least drastically reduce their profits so it makes sense that they would have enough manpower on the Hill for 24/7 coverage of each and every elected official.

To tackle the idea of huge waiting lists Moore heads to Canada and visits clinics and hospitals, and while they don’t look as nice as some of the ones around here, there is no evidence of huge lines and unhappy citizens. He interviews several, and the feeling you get is that while there’s always someone who will complain that the overall feeling is one of satisfaction with their system.

Moore also heads to England and visits a pharmacy and hospital, where the drugs cost $10 regardless of type and amount and the visits are free. Heck, they even reimburse you for the expense of getting to the hospital. France? You know, the people we’re supposed to hate? Freehealthcare is just the beginning… the system there even provides new mothers with a nanny (who apparently like to wear really really tight jeans) a couple days a week to help out with the adjustment of having a newborn in the house.

Taxes. Yeah, all of these socialized systems are paid for with taxes and Moore lightly tackles this subject as well. His method of showing this isn’t an issue is to pick out a middle class family and let us tour their house. The couple in France both work and together bring in $96K per year. They live in a very nice place, have a couple of cars and travel quite a bit thanks to the mandatory 5 weeks off they get for vacation every year. What Moore doesn’t show us is an example of a family that doesn’t manage to pull this off, and you know there had to be plenty of examples available to him. Just look at the news when it comes to France and you’ll notice the youth (college age) are rioting in the streets on a regular basis complaining about how tight the job market is and how it sucks to be them. Oh to be in college again.

In England Moore interviews a doctor who makes around $100K per year as a government employee and still manages to drive an Audi A8 and living in a million dollar home. Those numbers don’t quite add up though, so I’m guessing his wife works or he has other sources of income on the side.

Then again, the point of these examples is to show how people with normal incomes can do quite well for themselves when they don’t have to pay medical expenses directly from their own pockets. How much do you pay in insurance for your family? Add the cost for drugs into that.. now, add that number to your salary..mmmm.. I’m starting to see his point.

But socialization is evil! We all know that, we were taught it in our public schools that is run by our government.. wait a sec.. our school system is socialized education! The fire department? Yep, socialized. Police? Yep. Think about your community and you’ll see that we already have many socialized institutions and while we bitch and moan about them (except the fire department, nobody wants to complain about them) they get the job done in most cases.

Moore emphasizes the negative parts of our system by showing example after example on how it’s failed people, and doesn’t show a single case where it’s been a positive in someones life. I’m sure he could have found examples of people who were happy with their insurer, but as I type this and try to think of someone I know who could tell me “yep, love those guys, happy to give them money every month” I’m drawing a blank.

Maybe Moore is right, maybe we should consider switching our system out to something closer to what Canada and England does. Damn him for making me think!

Black Snake Moan

July 6, 2007 | 3 Comments

In the modern Deep Deep South, Rae (Christina Ricci) is a trashy white girl who’s got a fire burning down below. It causes her to spontaneously masturbate in fields. It causes her to have sex with everyone in town. It causes her to drink and do drugs and pass out at parties, and wake up playing touch football dressed only in her underwear and football shoulderpads.

Lazurus (Samuel Jackson), is a poor farmer and former blues musician whose wife has left him. One morning while taking out his garbage, he finds Rae, passed out, beaten, and in her underwear on his driveway. He undertakes to nurse her back to health, and then, as he says, “I aims to cure you of your wicked ways.” He chains her inside his house so that her nymphomania doesn’t tempt both her and himself.

Well, it’s the best movie ever made about a black man in the Deep South chaining a trashy white girl to a radiator.

That said, I kind of wish I hadn’t seen the trailer, because the first half of the movie is really just the trailer elongated.

Or I wish this had just been another faux trailer in GRINDHOUSE.

I don’t think nymphomania is a recognized medical condition anymore, but even if it was, this is some weird movie nymphomania.

You have to give them points for audacity. But, really, the Grindhouse overtones of the movie are something of a bait-and-switch, it’s really MY FAIR LADY with a little light bondage.

The acting is pretty impressive. Of course, we’ve come to expect nothing less from Samuel Jackson, but Christina Ricci is fearless, and Justin Timberlake actually does a good job.

Look for Kim Richards, the girl from ESCAPE FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN, all grown up.

I think the second half of the movie suffers somewhat because so much of the writing energy went into producing the template for the movie trailer.

At first, I thought Christina Ricci was pretty hot, but then, eventually, my fantasy shifted to wanting to buy and watch her eat a steak dinner, followed by a cheeseburger and a milkshake and a slice of pie. She is a scrawny thing. But you have to give points for a character who would consider Daisy Duke overdressed.

Somewhat bizarrely, she seems to get skinnier when she stops drinking, taking drugs, screwing—-and after she starts eating some of Sam Jackson’s good home cooking.

Or, to put it another way, she’s hot and curvy when she’s mostly naked; paradoxically, when she starts putting on more clothes, she seems too skinny.