Mad Men: 'Christmas Comes But Once A Year' - I'll Never Do What The Swedish People Do

- The show continues it's strong start, and while this episode is perhaps less substantial then the last, it's still a terrific hour of TV. What is notable about recapping Mad Men is that it feels on closer inspection a lot less episodic then the two shows I've covered before, Lost and Breaking Bad. I would say that individual episodes of those shows have a distincter identity in and of themselves then an average episode of Mad Men. There are exceptions to this, the JFK episode stands out to me, but generally its a show about the bigger picture, where moments pay off beats 10 or eleven episodes ago without the need to clarify themselves. Its like The Wire in that respect, only replacing labyrinthine plotting with labyrinthine character drama. This is neither a plus or a minus to the show, but its interesting to note.

- So to start off, I liked the Sally Draper plot in this episode. Enamored with creepy neighbor kid Glen, returning from season 1, and detailing to him how truly disparaging it is to be a Draper child. And in a consequent gesture that I can only deduce to be an act of courtship, Glen trashes Henry and Betty's home, a place she has come to resent, and leaves her room clear. Erm, buy a consonant for the word sociopath? Still, it impressed Sally, who may have found herself a delinquent and creepy boyfriend.

- So given the current belt-tightening at the agency, Uptight Brit and not a stereotype at all Lane Pryce decides that minimalism will be the theme of the Christmas party this year, which irritates all those fun-loving Americans no end. Unfortunately for financial responsibility, plans change when Lee Garner Jr, Lucky Strike big man, announces his plan to attend.

- I like Jared Harris on this show, and while he has a tough role with Pryce, I think he does a good solid job with it.

- Don meets a quirky new neighbor in Nora Zehetner, who y'all might remember from playing the chick who could control people's minds on the first season of Heroes. Anyway, I cared for these scenes less then Don's date last week and just felt a little simpler. We're not done with her I'm sure.

- The Christmas party sequence was terrific, again because so much of what is happening isn't being said. I very much appreciated it when Roger took Lee's baiting and attempts to humiliate him rather then do what most shows would have done and have him explode at him. I think they call it taking one for the team. Even if you have to dress up like Santa.

- The scene between Don and and the Demographic lady was good, with her confronting him after he walked out on her survey. Don being Don, he doesn't want to fill out any information about himself, but she called him out on this pretty good. Life is a mixture of what you want and what's expected of you, after all.

- ' I'm sorry, nobody likes to think of themselves as a type.'

-Poor Allison the secretary. What a gutting episode this was for her. That was a dark sublot wasn't it. Drunk Don leaves his keys at the office, and when Allison brings them to him, he comes on to her and shit goes down. The next day, 'thank you for bringing me my keys.' Her face of pure joyful expectancy made that pretty hard to watch. Then to kick her in the face when she's down, Don gives her a previously discussed bonus in two fifties. Way to make a girl feel like a cheap hooker Don. A brilliantly acted scene by Alexa Alemmani.

- Don Draper, fighting back feminism, one girl's self respect at a time.

- At a side note, if this show has a sad sack, its probably Harry Crane.

- Another great episode for Elisabeth Moss, who seems to be being given far and away the most material of the female cast members this season, liked her scenes with the now reformed Freddie. Who may be reformed, but is still an outdated relic, believing all women define themselves by men and all just want to get married to somebody.

- Not a momentous episode, and still not enough Joan Holloway, but its a confident start to season 4, and the new status quo is continuing to work well for it.

Rating: 7/10

Next Week's Movies

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore: I pity the fool. Expectancy Level: 2/10

Knight and Day: Lots of gun-fights, Cameron Diaz in a Bikini, and a Tom Cruise we're all pretending isn't crazy. Is it the Year 2000 again? Expectancy Level: 6/10

Step Up 3D: For fuck's sake. I loved when musicals weren't hip. It was a simpler time. Expectancy Level: 3/10

Inception: Thoughts On A Second Viewing

I'll keep it brief, because I reviewed it a couple of weeks ago. Just wanted to through out a few thoughts on how it stood up on a second viewing

- I felt when I first watched it I was waiting for things to get going, but knowing what's going on really does lend an extra-dimension to this movie. I still think the first half can be a little ponderous, but all the little touches and the details work a treat.

- I'm even more militant against the idea that you have no emotional connection to this movie then I was the first time. Originally I gave more credit to DiCaprio and Cotillard then Nolan, and I'd still probably stand by that.

- The zero Gravity sequence is still the shit. Best 15 minutes of any film all year.

- Joseph Gordon Levitt and Cillian Murphy are awesome

- The inter-cutting of the dreams scenes is some stellar piece of screenwriting. Its an idea that seems to convoluted in theory but it works wonderfully and thrillingly.

- I didn't mention it the first time round, but Hans Zimmer deserves an Oscar nomination for the music in Inception. Its fucking awesome.

- Nobody does sequences of exposition better then Nolan, and I think he explains some very dense ideas in a way that consistently fascinates.

- Leonardo Di Caprio for an Oscar nomination. Heard it first here.

- I still don't think Ken Watanabe is very good at English dialogue. Like in Batman Begins, I like the performance but don't always understand everything he says. He's very good though.

- Was that Talulah Riley as the random hot girl Hardy pretends to be? I think it was

- Inception in a rich, rewarding experience that only deepens upon second viewing. Nolan is a genius with the ability to masquerade intellectualism as entertainment rivaled by no-one. This is as similar to Synedoche, New York as it is The Matrix, and for a movie this high profile that is something.

REVIEW: The A-Team

A remake of The Warriors can not be far behind.

Continuing the recent run of 'Hey its that thing' movies revolved around kitsch properties from the 80's. We've had Transformers, we've had Miami Vice, we're soon to get Tron Legacy and 21 Jump Street and in-between we have this, a big budget remake of an ironically popular TV show. I was sure that the appeal of that particular show was that it was kind of balls, yet here we are with a polished up, super slick movie where everything is taken predominantly seriously and characters have arcs and stuff.

Which I guess would be OK if all that stuff was done well, but everything seems a little uneven. Stuck between ridiculous, yet somehow uninvolving action sequences and its desire to be a real movie. The stronger aspects certainly feature the more far out stuff, and the film contains at least two performances that understand what film their in. Sharlto Copley provides some laughs as Murdock, and its a shame for the movie that he's not in it more then he is, because he's a lot of fun to be around, and does a surprisingly spot-on impression of Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Ditto Patrick Wilson, who takes a somewhat flat fairly generic yuppie villain and gets to be kind of hilarious with him. He seemed to get into things more as the film progressed too so that was good. But Rampage Jackson is a depressingly flat BA, with not much acting talent or opportunity to kick much ass either. Bit of a letdown really. Liam Neeson doesn't give a shit and why should he. He's Liam Neeson and this is The A Team. Jessica Biel is handed a real sourpuss of a character who not only gets to do very little but what she does get is pretty insipid. It looks good I guess, but its a very synthetic movie that has lost any kind of charm the DIY quality of the show possessed. Lost in paychecks and apathetic film-makers I would imagine.

Its not a terrible movie, but its the kind movie that washes straight over you, leaving little impact or memory of enjoyment. I saw it a mere 5 hours ago and I'm having trouble remembering it. A big empty spectacle with nowhere to go, that somehow sucks the fun out of a big, brainless action movie. It doesn't help that Bradley Cooper is douchier then even he usually is, too. If it wasn't for Copley and Wilson I'd probably give it less of a break, but they made it less of a joyless experience then it would otherwise have been. There, and not one pity the fool joke either. Maturity guys. Grows like a parasite.

Rating: 5/10

REVIEW: Gainsbourg

There's a skeleton in the room. Assonance high five.

A while back I was cruising YouTube looking for interviews with film directors, you know in between budding Crystal Meth hits and trawling for bitches, and I came across something that validated a feeling that I had but was way too cowardly to express. It was an interview with Quentin Tarantino talking about from all the movie genres, his least favorite was the biopic. The interviewer seemed pretty bemused and the debate went on for about ten minutes, but I relate to the idea very much. On the surface it seems silly, because biopics are the ones that win all the big actors their Oscars and reap joyous reviews from a bevy of intellectual publications, perhaps because a lot of their respect is earned by our exterior knowledge of whoever or whatever their subject matter is, so because of that they don't stand on their own. They demand respect, they demand politeness, but I doubt I'll be ever be able to fall in love with a biopic because as works of cinema, there's just something missing. Too bound by reality to succeed like a drama can, yet too bound by dramatic convention to be as fascinating as a documentary can, and just instead seem to focus on giving actors showreel moments.

Which brings me to Gainsbourg, and the fact that the problem hasn't gone away. The film showed some desire to mix things up a bit perhaps, but as always with these things, a famous subject doesn't always translate to an interesting subject and through the fault of reality ends up following that weary musician's biopic template, where they go from discovering their art, to succeeding in their art, to being with women to using some kind of intoxicant which drives everyone away until they somehow redeem themselves at the end. It could be Ray, it could be Walk The Line, just with a bit of throwback to the french new wave thrown in there for good measure. In the first half this is more blatant, with the film trying to focus a bit more on Gainsbourg's character then his accomplishments, and a intermittently interesting voice in his character played by awesome mime artist Doug Jones, who so terrifically played Pan in Pan's Labyrinth. But then it degenerated into a checklist of the famous songs he wrote and women he banged, and the film stopped being about the character of Gainsbourg and more about his music the lifestyle of the times. I get that's what people want but when its made up of impressions rather then performances and ciphers rather then characters then the world they exist in is such a plastic fabrication I just don't give a shit anymore.

The film's 'frenchness', so to speak, got increasingly intolerable. I don't wish to sound like I'm hear to dent Anglo-French relations, but there's an arrogance to french cinema sometimes, both from a storytelling point of view and an intellectual one. This is certainly the case here, in which characters speak in half-baked existentialism's and everything is so irritatingly self-satisfied. A polar opposite would be La Vie En Rose, which covered not too dissimilar material and made it so much more engaging and fascinating then this. Its a shame, because the first half hour showed the promise of something unique and I want to praise it for trying to be something different, but the less Jones and the accompanying style that came with, was in it the more it degenerated. And by the end I was just flat-out bored. Don't see unless you care passionately about either the French New Wave or the music of Serge Gainsbourg. Then there's probably a lot for you here.

Rating: 5/10

TV REVIEW: Glee Season 1

Spot the missing minority.

Any regular reader will know I'm not above small-mindedness, so when I say I marathoned 22 episodes of Glee for the expressed intention of ripping it to shit, you know I'm telling the truth. True, this may not be the most inspiring act of critical integrity, but neither is giving this show 19 Emmy nominations. In fact in comparison to that, an article driven from ignorant, petty revenge ( In a year where Community, which for me is the best new comedy in some time got exactly jackshit) is an act of the highest moral standing. I've seen Ryan Murphy shows before, so I had all my pre-conceptions ready to go. Murphy is a kind of rarity for me, in that I think he's a great, cutting writer, whose work I almost unanimously despise. He's got a great ear for dialogue and a leaning toward dark comedy I enjoy, but his talent is always suffocated in glutenous excess. With Nip/Tuck, excess was very much the watchword and restraint was very much a dirty word. Of course this was very popular at the start, until you realized you were watching soulless camp caricatures doing increasingly ridiculous things in an increasingly ridiculous universe and you bail.

Glee, amazingly enough for fans of the show, is actually a toning down for Murphy and for me probably the best thing he's ever done, in that it's OK. He goes too far on fewer occasions then in the past and I think attempts sort of to write legitimate characters. Its kind of composite melding of its obvious influence High School Musical and its less obvious influence Election. But its borrows from that movie quite liberally, from its frequent use of slightly satirical voice-over montage sequences to even its characters. Rachel Berry is pretty much Tracey Flick with a singing voice, and a tad less venom, and the actor who plays Finn ( Cory Monteith, I'm told by IMDB) is pretty much a dead ringer for Chris Klein in that movie, both in their creepily similar visual appearance and identical characters. Depending on which one of these influences its currently being tapped is how much I like the show really, and I deeply prefer it when its trying to be funny then when it indulges in its high school soap opera.

Something about its fundamental ideology kind of ticked me off a bit though. In the pilot there's a lot of talk about acceptance, and allowing people to be who they are and that kind of thing. But this seems to be a glee club only policy in regards to the show, because its seems that otherwise it seems to enjoy laughing at its freaks. From Jacob, the nerd it runs out every couple of weeks to remind us that nerds are ridiculous and laughing at them is OK. To football coach Ken, whose entire storyline in pretty much an exercise in meanness, I know I was supposed to root for Mr Schuester and the cute ginger lady who so adorably mispronounces her L's, but all I could think about was poor Ken, particularly when ginger lady details exactly how loveless and empty their relationship will be to the guy and while in a different context this might have been an awesome scene of black comedy, in a show like Glee, which wants us so desperately to fall in love with it, it just felt out of place and plain vindictive. As if to say a certain kind of outcast deserves unlimited tolerance but another deserved to be chastised. Glee isn't a plea for acceptance then, but a repeal that The Glee clubbers are solitary diamonds in the rough and should be treated as such, and that every other demographic on the show is laughed at or mocked in someway. Particularly people who enjoyed sports.

Still, its easy to ignore sub-textual spitefulness when you get choreographed cover versions of 'Bust a Move' and 'Dream On' all about the place. It's a hard show not to enjoy at times, with the music making a little bit of an effort to be varied, sure show-tunes and Diva anthems are more present then say Metallica, because the show knows its audience and shockingly enough is quite gay. But everyone can sing and when you get the occasional wild-card like a song by The Doors or by Beck, you appreciate it a little more. The performances are a mixed bag really, Matthew Morrison's Schuester is functional at best, dude can sing but his acting and character are one-note and may be known in years to come as the silliest Emmy Nomination of 2010. Lea Michele I think gives a good performance as Rachel and is probably the shows best voice, it may not be terribly naturalistic but it is amusing. But I think like many viewers, my favorite characters are the supporting ones, perhaps because they remain untainted by the shows painfully melodramatic moments of 'sincerity'. Puck comes off quite well, and his 'find a hot Jew' montage is one of the funniest moments the show's had. Ditto moronic cheerleader Brittany, who is an extra for the first ten episodes or so and then quickly became my favorite thing about the show, delivering her lines kind of like a stoned 12 year old girl, only more awesome. Obviously Jane Lynch enjoys herself as Sue Sylvester, but I can feel her acting a bit too much sometimes. She's funny but not as funny as the show thinks she is.

The soapier stuff does suck the life out of the show though, and its still very excessive, sometimes to the point of offense, most notably when they bring teenager paralyzed from the neck down after a football accident to hit home an emotional moment. That was a flashback to Murphy shows of yore that leaves you wanting to throw stuff at the screen, so cheaply crass and manipulative is what's going on in front of you.

Like I said I enjoyed Glee when it tried to be funny, Murphy and crew throw out some surprisingly articulate one-liners and I like Election so much that when something rips it off I like that thing too, but Murphy simply can't write smart drama without going too far with the emotional grandstanding, which means every episode ends in a big, often unearned moment of soul-baring, and these mean nothing when you do them every week. An unless that problem is solved, Glee doesn't have the longest shelf life in the world. To be fair I came in hoping to annihilate it, and as much as I still want to because pettiness disquiets my soul, I'm not going to do that. Glee is an OK show. Does it deserve more nominations then Mad Men and Breaking Bad, no. Not even close to being a question a normal person would consider. But its not High School Musical either, so there's that. Hell I'll probably even keep watching. Tentatively.

Rating: 6/10

Mad Men - 'Public Relations' - Put It On The Expense Account So We Can Charge It As Whores

At times I have an adversarial relationship with Mad Men. No-one in their right mind can call it anything but a great show, but for me it has the tendency to sit on its laurels a little bit, and the third season in particular wasn't enough of a step forward for me and I don't think for many other viewers either. I think it was this that started the rumblings of the great usurper Breaking Bad being called the better show, whereas in the past to pose the question in regards to anything being better then Mad Men would be in itself ridiculous. Thankfully though, this stellar premiere suggests a sense of the re-vitalized, a new status quo suggesting a new energy.

- Somewhat tellingly, the first line of season 4 is ' Who is Don Draper?'An encouraging tack for the show to take, because the mystery surrounding Draper, so fascinating in the early years had began to feel like a bit of a crutch. And Don, despite consistently great work from Jon Hamm, becomes a bit of a cipher for all the sociological points the show is making, putting its philosophies over its characters and that has always hacked me off a bit. So I was very, very happy to see the show get into this a little bit, and many ways acknowledging that, with Don essentially being the public face of the new agency, the veil has to come down a bit.

- This was brilliantly portrayed in the opening and closing scenes of the episode, the first seeing the 'my ideas speak so I don't have to' Don in full effect, conducting an interview with a reporter, shall we say reluctantly. Dodging questions and presenting himself as enigma, or a cipher depending on your point of view. To use a particularly hilarious metaphor, pulling a Kristen Stewart, enjoying and reveling in the work his success allows him, but affronted by the exposure that comes with. But the one-legged journalist called him on this, even using the word cipher in his article. Thus putting an end the good grace earned by Don's Glo-Coat commercial.

- That commercial was awesome by the way.

- The bookend saw Don in the same situation, only this time he has to talk himself up, doing justice to the mythic mutiny in the finale of season three, and like any great storyteller, building up his own myth in the process. A great piece of acting by Jon Hamm and just a great fucking scene. And I'm even more in love with the implications it has for the rest of the season.

- What is worrying, is where Betty Draper seems to be heading. Betty was never the warmest person, always kind of bullied her kids, but married to colossal dealhole Don always had her maintaining our sympathy. Because with the possible exception of Henry VIII, there's no one less suited to marriage then Don. However, with that taken away the woman is coming across pretty loathsome, humiliating her child at thanksgiving and not allowing her daughter to call Don on thanksgiving. Right now she's a cruel entity, and while that can last for a while, too much of this is going to take the character to a place that perhaps it wouldn't be wise to go. Still Jones is still putting in some good actressing.

- I loved how Henry's mother called Betty a silly woman. I get the feeling that the ex-Ms Draper might be the Don to Henry's Betty.

- I love Elisabeth Moss on this show these days. She and Vincent Kartheiser (who will always be Conor from Angel to me damn it.) made her caper like subplot almost the most enjoyable thing about the episode. I do it love it when the show allows me to enjoy it as much I appreciate it, it doesn't happen too often but it worked here.

- " It was going great...Until it wasn't."

- Another hall of famer for great client confrontations, and it tied well into the themes of the episode. A swimwear company wants to somehow sell bikini's without selling sex, yet complain that their competition is making more money then them. Like Don wanting to sell everything else yet complaining when asked to sell himself. You can't have your cake and eat it I guess. Anyways whilst Don comes to grips with this, the company doesn't and Don awesomely kicks them out on their ass.

- Not nearly enough Joan Holloway in this episode. Can you say glorified extra?

- I liked the scene with Don's date with Bethany, but didn't love it. I liked there being a woman not falling for Don's aging tricks, but I didn't think it was the best performance or the most fascinating character. Still loved the opera story.

- Overall, I think this was a very solid reboot episode. Mad Men did need to re-vitalize its universe, and while the 'moving house' trick seems a little thin on paper, it worked a treat. New dynamics present new opportunities and this episode fills me with confidence that Mad Men is going to be good to itself.

Rating: 8/10

Next Week's Movies

The A-Team: Underwhelming box-office and poor reviews in the US have killed our collective buzz, but still its got Sharlto Copley in it. So I'll just stay here! In this shack! Expectancy Level: 5/10

Gainsbourg: Erm, yeah. love my docu-drama's about famous french 1960's singers. Holler at the man. Expectancy Level: 6/10

Mid-Term Report Card 2010

I'm planning to a fairly hefty awards feature come January, so this is more for a frame of reference. But hey, I love my statistics, even if they are a work in progress.

Movies Reviewed: 84

Percentage of movies graded 1-4: 25%

Percentage of Movies graded 5-7: 63%

Percentage of Movies graded 8-10: 12%

Current Top 7 Movies:
1) A Prophet
2) Toy Story 3
3) Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans
4) Ponyo
5) The Road
6) Inception
7) The Killer Inside Me

Current Lowest 7 Movies:
1) It's A Wonderful Afterlife
2) Leap Year
3) The Bounty Hunter
4) Case 39
5) Dear John
6) The Rebound
7) Sex And The City 2

Current Top 5 Male Performances:
1) Nicolas Cage, Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans
2) Casey Affleck, The Killer Inside Me
3) Tahar Rahim, A Prophet
4) Viggo Mortensen, The Road
5) Kayvan Novak, Four Lions

Current Top 5 Female Performances:
1) M'Onique, Precious
2) Kate Hudson, The Killer Inside Me
3) Helen Mirren, The Last Station
4) Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air
5) Rachel Weisz, Agora

By Grade:
10's: 0
9's: 2
8's: 8
7's: 12
6's: 20
5's: 21
4's: 13
3's: 6
2's: 1
1's: 1

Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency

Because TV recapping is a drug to sweet to detox from, I'll be recapping the upcoming Mad Men Season 4 all up through here. To be honest Mad Men has always been I show I appreciate more then enjoy, but is great television and I'll be paying its due respects every Monday in the form of free-form recapping. The only way we do it here.

REVIEW: The Rebound

This is a great moment of self-referential acting by anonymous blond biker.

Romantic comedy is a phrase to strike fear in any movie goers heart in the last couple of years. Bride Wars, The Proposal, The Ugly Truth, Did You Hear About The Morgans, Leap Year, Valentine's Day, When In Rome and The Bounty Hunter but to name a few. It seems there's some endless studio conveyor belt pumping out one cynical, dead-eyed movie after another, all unfunny and somehow depressing in their endless and insincere gleefulness. For a genre essentially about how human beings relate to each other and without any kind of genuine humanity, films just lay down and die. And then we're forced to watch them decompose on screen, a never ending abyss of awkwardness, mawkishness and soullessness.

The Rebound is certainly no exception, and wonderfully takes on all those negatives and adds douchiness and self-satisfaction to the mix. Great. Catherine Zeta Jones picked a bizarre film to try to resuscitate her career with, which since her semi-ridiculous Oscar-win with Chicago has come to quite a severe intermission, thanks to a few bad choices and possibly some kids (I don't follow Us weekly as fervently as one might) she's found herself in the position where making a movie like this is viable, it raises her profile and blindsides the cinema going public for about 30 million or so but ultimately its a ninja decision, get in, get paid and get out. Or at least I hope it is. Jones floats through, fairly invisible in her own movie whilst co-star Justin Bartha, who frankly just seems happy to have a lead role in a movie, comes across quite badly. The most horrific thing about it though is the way the movie kind of congratulates itself as it goes along, believing its dull, self-righteous leads to be entirely trailblazing and leaning on some artificially cute kids how just make you re-evaluate your opinions on infanticide.

In its hypothetical defence, Leap Year set the bar so unbelievably low that The Rebound doesn't quite make you want to commit acts of annihilation in quite the same way. Instead it just leaves you painfully and thoroughly bored. Almost numbingly so, until the boredom somehow consumes you and all you can think about is that when Zeta Jones does her wide-eyed exasperation thing, she looks like Dory from Finding Nemo. This film sucks.

Rating: 3/10

REVIEW: The Karate Kid

Jacket on, Jacket off is no Wax on, Wax off. As much as I wish it could be.

The most jarring thing I take out of this movie is that a 12 year old Jaden Smith could probably beat the shit out of me. Sure I could say that I didn't try my hardest because he's a kid and I didn't want to crush his little kid face, but that would be folderol. Judging by some of the moves he displays here, such as ending a 180 flip by kicking someone in the face or beating his way through the chinese school system. My face would like something like Harvey Dent's when he was done with me.

To be honest, I was expecting the Karate Kid to be a lot more tedious then it was. Granted its hideously overlong (2 hours 20 mins), as cliched as a film could possibly be and more then a little po-faced, but its got a handmade, fairly low-key kids movie with next to CGI and some suprisingly brutal ass-kicking. Perhaps because I'm so used to seeing less then organic fight sequences, that seeing these kids smack the crap out of each other felt somehow refreshing (not in a kind of creepy way at all) and you can't help but get into the tournament showdown, even as you recognize every familiar beat and everything happens exactly the way you think it will happen, but even with knowing these things, its a harmless and earnest enough movie for me not to mind a great deal. Smith seems to have inherented some of hid dad's screen-presence, and is good value here. Jackie Chan makes a good 2D mentor and Zhenwei Wang makes a suitably evil with a capital E villain.

Its not high art, or any kind of art for that matter, but its nice to see a kids movie less cynically put together then the usual fare. Plus people get kicked in the face pretty hard, so that's like way awesome.

Rating: 5/10

REVIEW: Splice

I guess its lucky I look like this then.

It's been far too long since there's been a decent film about genetic engineering. Its not just for zombie movie exposition anymore. Splice is for the most part, the kind of science-fiction film that is depressingly rare these days, given that it centers around the exploration of an idea, rather then the exploitation of an idea to allow it to contain kick-ass action sequences. It's pleasingly cerebral, or at least has enough ambition to be cerebral that it is pleasing, and explores science-fiction through the impact it has on character. Like with Natali's previous cult hit Cube, not everything works as well as everything else. But also like Cube, the ideas seen on-screen are unique and intriguing enough for you to forgive the movie its flaws.

Splice follows Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley), two genetic scientists who rather intelligently decide to create themselves a human-animal composite embryo, Dren, in a decision that the trailers tell you can clearly come to no good. Of course these are movie scientists and an extension of that label is that they're going to do some erratic and borderline psychotic shit for the plot to further itself, the film ends after twenty minutes if they do the logical thing and gas the freak. But I didn't mind this segment as much as I usually do, in part because of the strength of Sarah Polley's performance, which is simultaneously likable and subtly unhinged. It makes you believe in some of the more irrational things the character does yet not lose sympathy for her. It's a very impressive performance from the Oscar nominated screen-writer and heroine of Dawn Of The Dead. It kind of leaves co-star Adrien Brody in the dust a little bit, and while he is good, things are almost always better when Polley is on screen. Particularly in a scene where she plays sweet and doting mother to Dren as she tries to get her to recognize her name.

Its a shame the film felt compelled to be a horror movie, because it was working much better for me as an occasionally gruesome allegory for parenthood, in which Brody and Polley raise their little monster complete with all the surprises and horror's that come with being responsible for a child, like feeling powerless when they're sick or the heartbreak when they show the first pinings for independence. Of course in this case that means humanoid monster on the loose, and somewhat inevitably the last half hour of the movie turns into chase scenes in the woods and cheap shocks, which for me kind of betrayed what the first hour was about. Oh well.

Natali's the kind of director whose ideas perhaps outpace the living, breathing worlds he creates so while that means his films can be a little wooden at times, the value he places in approaching ideas intelligently as possible means I have time for him. Splice is an interesting little film, because it tries to tell a sci-fi story from how it affects human beings and that is so rare in this genre I'm more then willing to cut it some slack, particularly in regards to its ending and somewhat ridiculous incestuous/inter-species sex scene. All though in fairness I have never seen one of those before.

Rating: 6/10

Resolution Ten: No#2 - The Searchers

Cinematic aging is both a difficult and fascinating thing to discuss, because when you watch a film celebrated in its day and don't get it, the first instinct is to blame yourself. To think there's some aspect that passes by the comprehension of you undetected, to think you're simply not clever, cultured or smart enough to get what makes it so great, I mean if all those dudes who fought the Nazis liked it, surely this is on me. But if a film ages with its critical generation, growing rusty, outdated and surpassed then I think it is not only critically dishonest but downright redundant to continue to preach its gospel. Don't get me wrong, I find a large part of criticizing things is defending your position left, right and center, and that can lead somewhat inevitably to stubbornness.

But if its there, it will out. As is seen by a younger generation of critics muscling out there predecessors in regards to replacing the 'Greatest Film Of All Time' Citizen Kane with the masterpiece of their own adolescence, The Godfather. Or why Nosferatu can stand up, yet the Bela Lugosi Dracula feels like a post-modern spoof of itself. I think the key to understanding why some films age better then others is probably the tone of the execution. Methods, styles and technologies are going to date but if the quality of the material has a kind of timelessness to it, it might just be OK. What that timelessness is I have no idea, but you know it when you see it and I didn't see it this time.

Having said this, I would begin by saying The Searchers was a masterpiece for its time and place, perhaps, but because of this it means it has lost some of its value. It seems so specifically dependent on subverting the tropes of its genre, introducing a great deal of darkness, violence and stiff upper lip to the landscape - and John Wayne's image - that to a viewer half a century later not brought up on a culture where the western reigns as the escapist supreme, I can't instinctively recognize its qualities as a game-changer, which I'm told by many different websites and lecturers that it was, and nor can anyone else born later then 1970 for that matter, and thus it ages badly. And this is why I'm not surprised when people call it a masterpiece of its time, but because its so dependent on its time and what came before it that by its very nature, of its time is all it can be.


I don't wish to give the impression that I disliked The Searchers, it has a lot to recommend and certain aspects of it remain impressive to this day. From John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards being an absolute, unrelenting douche without the movie ever having to apologize for it. Which works as somehow refreshing given how much time movies of all genres and ages spend telling me how heroic their heroes. Edwards works almost as a comment against that traditional sense of American masculinity, in which toughness is confused with virtue and being able to beat seven shades of shit out of a guy makes you morally superior to him. But here Edwards is, unforgiving, uncompromising, kind of racist and full of hate toward everyone, a note of derision in every word he ever says. Granted this could be a consequence of John Wayne's limitations as an actor but if so its a happy accident, because The Searchers arguably gave birth to the modern Western anti-hero, and for that we have a lot to thank it for. Having a protagonist so refreshingly detestable is a huge feather in its cap. Being a John Ford film, the fact that it looks as good as it does isn't surprising, and some of the imagery stands up, with Ford and his DOP Winton Hoch making the deserts and the plains more striking then many that came after.

Similarly worthy of appraisal is the aforementioned darkness present in the searchers, where the violence is felt and ever-present even if it occurs off-screen. Its consequences are felt almost in subtext, due to the censor limitations of the time no doubt, but there are times during the Searchers that one could mistake it for a post-apocalyptic movie, so bleak is the atmosphere and endless is the empty road. Perhaps it feels like this because The Searchers represents in many ways the last great chapter of that golden age western, and all that's left is a near nihilistic resentment. The violence is worth mentioning also because it gives me a fairly smooth transition into the worst aspect of the film, which for me was the acting. I don't mind the occasional bad performance, particularly in a genre film, but it ends up undermining much of The Searchers impact. Most notably is a scene near the beginning of the film where Wayne ingenue Jeffery Hunter discovers his surrogate family murdered, in what in theory is a horrifying moment, becomes entirely undermined by Hunter, whose entire performance is kind of an over-zealous cartoon and not in a good way, more in the way that he doesn't know how to nuance emotion and so bigger is better, the moment lost a great deal of impact for me because of how unconvincing Hunter was and this happened more then once throughout the film.

Sadly it doesn't stop there, with many of the supporting characters, most notably Mose Harper and Charlie, coming across like refugees from a bad horror movie about inbred southerners, so broad are these characters. In fact the acting landscape a whole disappoints and dilutes much of the visual and tonal strengths that the film works so hard to achieve. I refuse to blame the time for this, because I've seen movies of this time period that don't do this at all. I'll give Vera Miles a pass I guess, but I'm tempted to say that John Wayne is the best performance in the movie, and if that's the case then, well...


At times the framework of the film, much of the dialogue and characterizations, feel dated. I word I hate to use but is undoubtedly the most appropriate description. the one-note depiction of the Indians is something I want to criticize too but I guess I'll forgive that one, as this movie was born before the politically correct hordes descended, but it means that the final battle has less stakes then it might. I guess it makes sense for a movie, that for all intents and purposes is about searching for something and hanging onto something that doesn't exist anymore. Debbie the kidnapped girl has been raised as an Indian, so the red, white and blue pink tailed Debbie is dead regardless of whether they recover who she is now or not, something the younger Hunter accepts and the elder Wayne can't. Which leads to what in hindsight is a twisted finale, in which the happy ending (SPOILER) is that Wayne doesn't kill his teenage niece for representing a race he hates. This action is worthy of a soundtrack swell and triumphant beat. Some dark shit.

Ultimately, I think The Searchers is the kind of film that when analyzed, looks a lot more progressive and better then it actually is. Its agendas, beautiful look and that tone of frustrated hatred are very admirable, and give the film a unique feeling, but too much of it creaks under inspection and I would say it doesn't quite have the weight to be what it wants to be, pulled back by poor acting and a few too many moments of atmosphere destroying cheapness or caricatured characters. It has moments that implied the film I was told about, but something was lost slightly in cross-generational translation.

Rating: 7/10

What The Emmy's Should Have Been According To Me

In my fairly labyrinthine reaction post to the emmy's, I covered pretty much every conceivable thought I could have had on the subject, except to a clear and referable ballot of my own. So I'll do that now, free of words and any other such distractions.

Best Drama:
Breaking Bad
Mad Men
Sons Of Anarchy
Treme
Friday Night Lights
The Good Wife

Best Comedy:
Parks And Recreation
Community
Modern Family
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Party Down
Archer

Best Dramatic Actor:
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights
Hugh Laurie, House
Michael C Hall, Dexter
Wendell Pierce, Treme

Best Dramatic Actress:
Katey Sagal, Sons Of Anarchy
January Jones, Mad Men
Anna Gunn, Breaking Bad
Julianna Marguiles, The Good Wife
Connie Britton, Friday Night Lights
Melissa Leo, Treme

Best Supporting Actor In A Drama:
Terry O Quinn, Lost
Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad
Dean Norris, Breaking Bad
John Slattery, Mad Men
John Goodman, Treme
Clarke Peters, Treme

Best Supporting Actress In A Drama:
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
Christina Hendricks, Mad Men
Khandi Alexander, Treme
Kim Dickens, Treme
Christine Baranski, The Good Wife

Best Comedic Actor:
Joel McHale, Community
Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Adam Scott, Party Down
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
Steve Carell, The Office
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock

Best Comedic Actress:
Lea Michele, Glee
Amy Poehler, Parks And Recreation
Toni Collete, The United States Of Tara
Portia De Rossi, Better Off Ted
Lizzy Caplan, Party Down
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie

Best Supporting Actor In A Comedy:
Danny Pudi, Community
Nick Offerman, Parks And Recreation
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Martin Starr, Party Down
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother

Best Supporting Actress In A Comedy:
Alison Brie, Community
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family
Jane Lynch, Glee
Gillian Jacobs, Community
Aubrey Plaza, Parks And Recreation
Merrit Weaver, Nurse Jackie

Next Week's Movies

Splice: I'm probably more excited for this then would be wise, and my official prediction is that I'll like it despite it not being very good, but I have a soft spot for smart sci-fi, and given that director Vincenzo Natali also gave us Cube, who knows? Expectancy Level: 6/10

The Karate Kid: The people want what they want, and clearly that was a remake of a kind of shitty 80s cult classic, but whatever, seeing Jackie Chan in a film that's not straight to video makes my day. Wax on wax off. Expectancy Level: 5/10

The Rebound: Oscar winner Catherine Zeta-Jones stars in a film to give Leap Year a run for its money as the most obnoxiously awful movie of the year. I don't fancy it's chances. Expectancy Level: 3/10

REVIEW: Toy Story 3

Whatever bad things I said about the attic, I take them all back now

Cinema has generally spat in the face of the saying great things come in three's. We've got The Godfather Part 3, Superman 3, Batman Forever, Army Of Darkness, Spider-man 3, X-Men 3, The Matrix Revolutions, Return Of The Jedi, Alien 3, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines and of course Bring it On: All or nothing. Perhaps by a third movie it becomes impossible not to repeat yourself and all the ground to be covered has simply been covered and the trusty corporate mantra if you can't do it better, do it bigger comes into play. And when this happens, it's over before its begun.

But this is Pixar we're talking about, and the biggest game changers in cinema since Walt Disney aren't about to be bound by any cinematic ghost stories or supposed curses. They are near ridiculous in their flawlessness of late, making films of such rich quality that you'd submit them up against anything Disney ever did and frankly against almost anything anyone ever did. And Toy Story 3 is certainly no exception to that, in fact its one of the best films they've ever made. Combining they're trusty immense emotional punch with fierce excitement and a dark, dark tone (that repeatedly took my by surprise and will you to, particularly if you see it with any kind of kids) to make it not only outstanding, but something we haven't seen before even within the Toy Story franchise. Sure we've seen it do scary, we've seen it do searing heartbreak, but somehow this one melds all the best things about previous installments and brings all together gloriously, so while the parts that make the whole are pieces we've seen before, the whole itself ends up being an entirely new, wonderful experience and a very fitting conclusion to what just might be the best trilogy hollywood has ever produced.

But most importantly they toned Joan Cusack down as Jessie, who to put it politely could be quite ear-wrenchingly irritating in the past, but emerges here a semi-likable presence, which as far as I'm concerned is a big win. The new additions work a treat, with antagonist Lotso (Ned Beatty) being the darkest character the franchise has yet to produce, but in that true Pixar method, he's given the sufficient material to be more then just a rent-a-villain, and is a sympathetic and fully rounded even in his evil ways. Some excellent work from Ned Beatty there. Ditto from Michael Keaton as a Ken Doll, who just short of steals the entire movie as the metro-sexual Barbie accessory. Everyone else is as reliable and effective as they have been before, and do well to create a world of rich, believable and thoroughly supportable characters.

But I think its how well Pixar handles the emotional material that makes them such great film-makers. It never feels trite, or manipulative. It earns its your investment and works it in the richest way possible, and so when bad stuff happens to these characters we care, and a scene in the final act of Toy Story 3, which I don't want to spoil because, which is simultaneously darker and more heart-breaking then anything I can remember seeing in a good long while, works so well precisely because of that earned emotional investment. Toy Story 3 is pretty much the perfect adventure movie, precisely because its not afraid to have loss and sadness as such an integral part of its dialogue. It explores the wonders and innocence of childhood, yet acknowledges that it must be lost. In a funny way it puts the toys in the position of the parents, watching frozen in time whilst their kids outgrow them. This film is in many ways about accepting this rather then fighting it, which is an admirable position to take.

Yet again, Pixar outdoes itself, creating yet another film that deserves the heaps of praise it has received.

Rating: 9/10

REVIEW: Twilight: Eclipse

Hey is that Oscar Nominee Anna Kendrick with two minutes of screen-time? It sure is.

This is my third Twilight review on this website, which means I have officially devoted more words and time to this particular franchise then any other. While I think on the ramifications of that for a while (clicks the safety off, and the time for purification is at hand) the rest of you can wisely deduce that the venom hasn't really been out for Eclipse the way it went out for New Moon. What's the point. Everything wrong with those two films is still wrong with this one, the critics have said their piece twice over and the numerous clinks of cash registers and the ever lightening hordes of tween purses have delivered their retort. Whatever bitches. So it gets to the point you don't even have any hate left to spew at this movie, much like the Harry Potter franchise, its become immune to all that.

I guess Eclipse is the best of the Twilight movies, in large part thanks to David Slade, the very promising director of Hard Candy and 30 Days Of Night, slumming it good here but brings some of his inherent darkness and love of violence with him. With him behind it its just kind of unassumingly functional rather then flat and dull like number one, and overcooked, overlong and embarrassing like New Moon. Still, it still has that unmistakable Twilightian gormlessness in that it fills its cast with vampires and werewolves and have them all talk about their sissy feelings for two and a half hours in the most simplistic terms possible.

I Love you.

No you don't.

Yes You do. And I'm going to prove it to you.

There's nothing to prove.

Yes there is.

No there isn't.

Why won't you let yourself love me?

Dude you are an abbed-out supernatural being who can turn into a wolf and pound the shit out of vampires, take your pick of every female on the planet and let the skinny bitch be. An elegant segway to the Bella Swan anomaly I feel. Yet again, one spends the whole movie wandering what two alpha-beings are doing fighting over Kristen Stewart, who is an actress I like but is so horribly miscast here, at odds with all the 2D soul-baring and empty sentiment. These two should clearly be doing a Scarlett Johansson each, and to have them frothing at the mouth for such a plank of a human being just diminishes their badassness. And so on and so forth. But that's a given when you buy the ticket I suppose.

On the plus side there's a bit more killing in it, it spends more time with the vampires and at least attempts to give some of those wallflower characters some shading. I liked the Jasper flashback the best, despite it being as badly written as the rest of the film, simply because it seemed I appreciated seeing a bad movie that looked more interesting then this, and there's a semblance off a plot line this time, despite new blood villain Riley just being basically sap for Victoria and going out like a COMPLETE bitch (erm, spoiler). From the trailer I thought we were actually have a badass vampire in the Twilight universe, but wouldn't that be ridiculous.

Let me submit this to you. Edward is over 100 years old, he's lived over a lifetime and must have seen more then anyone can imagine, yet I've spent three movies with this guy now and I know nothing about him apart from that he loves Bella and will do anything to protect her. The films kindly tell me this every ten minutes in case I forget. But who is he, how did he come to be here, why is he endlessly repeating high school like some kind of huge nerd. There are so many potentially interesting things about him that I don't even know where to begin, but he's there to be a lust object, a creature to be looked at and panted over. I give more of a shit about who he is then Stephanie Meyer does and I truly don't give a shit about Twilight. Therein lies you're problem, and tied with the fact that in order for romance to succeed on screen, it has to be more then just pretty to look at, it has to make love fascinating and engaging. Twilight's version of love is is as thin as the notion that these films can be anything more then slightly tamer vampire fetishism then True Blood.

Rating: 4/10

REVIEW: Inception

Protecting your sub-conscious with a steam train. 24 hours a day.

No-one does better press for control freaks then Christopher Nolan. Not only is he a prime example of why sometimes it can be a good thing to trust no-one else, because they just don't do it quite like you do. But its right down deep to the core of his films, what motivates them almost, is an almost innate fear of the loss of control and order. In each film he makes, Nolan throws a brutal spanner in the works of the ritual of meticulousness and sees how it can function as chaos closes around it. The most literal of these anarchic forces is obviously The Joker, irrationality incarnate, out to destroy the sense of order established by Batman in Gotham City. But it runs deeper then that for Nolan. There's Leonard Shelby's short-term memory deficiency in Memento, thrusting him into almost everlasting anarchy, never allowed to be coherent or rational, the poor man living Nolan's worst nightmare so he doesn't have to. There's Al Pacino's insomnia in Insomnia, The Magician's rivalry in The Prestige, both stop otherwise meticulous characters living out their respective lives in glorious organization.

Inception sees Nolan deal with anarchy on its home turf, the dream state, in which whatever happens happens, not allowing you to prepare or control, simply to vulnerably experience. Particularly to student of psycho-analysis, which Nolan most certainly is, its powerlessness pure and simple. So of course Nolan makes a film of characters attempting to process and install order to the dream state, what else would he do. Its a film that is fleetingly outstanding, but on a more consistent basis just very good. Graded against Nolan's previous work like The Dark Knight or Memento it falls short, but stopping and bailing at that is to do a disservice to a fascinating, involving and deeply intelligent movie with a deceptive amount of humanity.

What it does so fantastically well is that conversion of intellectualism that nothing in recent memory has achieved to such a high standard, short of The Matrix. Its a specific compliment, but there's a part of this film that I personally think is the best 10 minute sequence in a film I've seen since Up. To try and explain it is to be ridiculous, but in the interest of blanket labeling, we'll call it the zero gravity fight scene. The elegance of the execution, with a three dream narrative all impacting on each other just worked so fucking awesomely that it leaves with you with the kind of pure, fuck yeah joy you get to experience so rarely at the movies. Unfortunately these moments of cinematic ascension came a tad too rarely, and a slow-build start that was perhaps a little too slow, and generally you just have to settle with a very good movie, that's strengths severely outweigh its weaknesses.

Sure its supporting cast is full to the brim with heist movie stock characters (which this movie is at its core, with the idea of breaking into someone's meticulously protected sub-conscious.) and Nolan's analytical approach to emotions and character can be a little distancing at times. But I think that Leonardo Di Caprio and Marion Cotillard between them made me invest in this movie, with performances that superseded Nolan's difficulty with emotional nuance. Particularly the former, who gives a star's performance here with more difficult material. Cotillard too, playing a character that may as well be a hypothesis on a blackboard. I also enjoyed Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance as no nonsense badass, and deeply resent a fellow viewer's assertion that he gave a Keanu Reeves performance in this film. It was smart and simple, rather then vacuous and dull a la Reeves. Crazy. I think Ellen Page deserves a lot of praise for doing a lot in a difficult role. I can think of few actresses who come across as intelligently as she does on screen. Credit to goes to Cillian Murphy, who demonstrates an impressive amount of range in comparison to what we've seen him do before.

Perhaps you could throw at the film that Nolan doesn't have the pure sense of creation that say, a Guillermo Del Toro or a David Lynch would have had making the same film, but fuck it, neither of those guys can make a film about ideas as well as Nolan can. He's brought intelligence to the masses and they love him for it, and more importantly Inception is as classy, original and personal as summer movies can be and has the quality to match. Not quite a masterpiece then, but I refuse to be negative about a film this good. My expectations were and are my own problem and are, frankly, irrelevant.

Rating: 8/10

Next Week's Movies

Inception: It seems everything is staying well clear of Nolan's latest and quite possibly greatest opus, as fuck all comes out to compete (until Toy Story 3 on Monday). I'm trying to stay reserved but the buzz is infectious and I find it hard to believe I'm not about to see one of the best movies of the year. Expectancy Level: 8/10

Toy Story 3: I don't know who to believe in regards to how good this film is going to be, there are some tepid reviews amidst the ecstactic so like with Inception, I'm choosing not to pre-emptively blow my critical load. Expectancy level: 8/10