http://mymovie.medialife.org/ Brian's informal notes on the movies he sees en-us Copyright Brian Miller, even the weird stuff. http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2155 notes later http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2155 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:40:50 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2154 Notes later but holy fucking shit! http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2154 Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:26:15 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2153 So I'm a homeowner now. In terms of this blog that means I pretty much don't watch movies anymore. At least not for the past few weeks, where it seems like there's always a wonderful(ly expensive) new facet of homeownership to discover in my time that's not work. So i have a new ceiling fan and sink faucet and lawn mown but not many movie entries to write notes on. I'm sure that'll balance out. at some point.

I definitely wanted to see Toy Story though. I really enjoyed the first two and am happy that they revisited such iconic source material. I think it's great that they managed to address another major aspect to a toy's life that is somehow universally-known but also new to the screen with this one. Together with the collector aspect of the second film, these almost make the rivalry story of the first film seem insignificant. It's really great how they found a way to meaningfully continue to explore the world with these toys that we the audience have grown up with along with Andy.

Of course, they know that and use it to make grown men cry. Bastards.

So I loved it. Pretty much everything about it. Love that there is no full-on musical interlude yet still uses the Randy Newman music that is so closely associated with the series. Everything with the movie is great and just as it should be. um... i guess i could go on but i can't think of specifics at the moment.

Also, This was my Gold Class experiment movie. I don't know about the normal 2D movies but right off the bat a $30 ticket fee is... pretty high. The food was cheaper than the website indicated but still pretty expensive (about on par with the Alamo). The chairs and the consequences of those chairs (more space between people, less people in the theater) are easily the best parts of the experience. The screen is average, the table is a little awkward if you have more than two drinks and one plate shared between the two chairs. The waitstaff try to be fancy but are less practiced than the Alamo staff. The front bar was glitzy and douchey and not my scene at all. All told it was a nice experience but I probably don't have the disposable income to make it a habit. http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2153 Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:04:00 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2152 This was also on while I packed. I haven't seen it in a while and really like the film, but since i was in and out of the room i only half watched it. I still love all the man-love going on... macho sentimentalism... they can't really make movies like this anymore. I guess The Hurt Locker comes close but nah... http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2152 Tue, 25 May 2010 18:09:05 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2151 It was on while I'm packing. Very goofy in a sunday afternoon kind of way... Basically a nincompoop explains how he caused the bay of pigs. Kind of similar to The Man Who Knew Too Little but without Bill Murray. Basically the fun of the movie is seeing actors popping up as various historical figures or whatever. Anthony LaPaglia as Fidel Castro is pretty sweet.

Anyway, it was ok. http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2151 Tue, 25 May 2010 14:23:24 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2150 I've been a fan of Clutch for a long time. I strongly identify their early stuff with the highschool version of me and have found that, over the years, as my tastes have changed their sound has evolved as well. I feel like they're the musical equivalent of my friend Jim. I had a circle of friends in highschool just like I had a whole stage of musical involvement, but both the friends and the music have moved away as my tastes and interests have changed; all except Jim and Clutch. While I am not super all the time best friends with either, I still feel connected with them and think they have grown in a similar track as me.

So a lot of this documentary was a lot of fans at a lot of shows saying basically the same thing. I find that pretty cool... that this band has cultivated perhaps a whole generation of fans who are able to enjoy a band for 15, 20 years. I feel like I've grown up with them and am really comforted that their new albums still rock and the same four dudes are still together making music.

Plus they are so Maryland. Looking at the early footage included on this disc, they are totally dudes who could've roamed the halls of my high school. They're really just a few years ahead of me... I have vivid memories of being turned on to them by my neighbor and friend Cameron... going to this crappy amateur hardcore show with like 30 kids there just because he said they'd show up (they never did), getting a copy of their 7" on tape, listening to Juggernaut over and over again, their Passive Restraints single, their first album with that ridiculous Rats song, see them once then twice then who knows how many times... The old 9:30 club, the new 9:30 club, some random club with just me and TJ waiting outside for the doors to open and my dad freaking out because we were in such a crappy neighborhood, going with Bill Brown to see them at Hammerjacks where they played with Prong, but mostly I remember their second album coming out and really defining everything I like about Rock n Roll music. The first two songs went together and although Big News II was well hard, it wasn't your typical hardcore wall of distortion, and Neil had toned down his gravelly scream to actually sing, and there was this weird near-theme of space and aliens and conspiracies weaved through all the songs and the last third kind of dips into a slower spacier section that fades into an instrumental jam that you kind of feel you could put on while you sleep and unlock the 6 hour version with Tim Sult battling the greys all night long.

So this DVD is half concert film, with Clutch performing that personally pivotal self-titled album in full at the 9:30 club, then a second disc with a full-length doco following them on the road and interviewing everyone involved.

One thing that I really enjoy about this band is that they are clearly not geniuses. I mean, in interviews Neil has stated that they got together for the same reasons a lot of bands got together: they weren't particularly athletic and got mediocre grades. So for regular dudes from Silver Spring... they are now pretty well respected in the musical community for their craft... and it's really just because they never got super famous, they never broke up, and they never stopped playing music. JP Gaster has evolved from the weird-lookin dude without a shirt on in the band picture from their first album to... a weird-lookin dude who is maybe the most technically proficient and soulfull drummer in any contemporary rock band today. His solos are on par with the great jazz drummers who commanded their own bands. He's like the a#1 dream drum teacher of all time, talking here about the differences in tone between kits that he plays on the albums vs. taking on tour and sitting with his drum tech to practice on pads. Then you have Dan's solid basslines in perfect time with the beat. I love how this doc proves Dan to be "the quiet one" just like Almost Famous. And Tim's completely unique guitar sound that's equal parts blues and rock perfectly melded and Neil's penetrating eyes and deep voice and truly enviable beard... Perhaps it's a good thing they hardly ever come to Austin because i'd probably be the guy in this doc who poses with Neil for a picture and just before the flash goes off says quietly "you know i love you," completely freaking him out.

So this disc is great. Plus!!!! They sent a huge-ass Clutch sticker signed by the whole band just as a sweet-ass surprise! Maybe everyone who pre-ordered got one I don't care... what an awesome touch!

I'll probably never ever get to make a movie or anything like that, but I seriously have this fantasy... please don't laugh. I'm sitting in a studio in Santa Monica being interviewed by Elvis Mitchell for The Treatment and he's asking me how I came about deciding to entirely score my film with Clutch music. And I start by saying something about how Virgin Suicides kind of got criticized for AIR's music invading the film too much but in this case I wrote the movie from the start with this idea in mind... and how on one level I just wanted to have the excuse to sit in with them while they jam but also see how they'd do with longform composition. And I'd mention The Cinematic Orchestra doing an alternative score for Man with the Move Camera, and the Alamo's shows where they bring in bands to supply live scores to silent films and all that stuff then I'd mention how we ended up projecting the film at a club (probably somewhere in Austin although the 9:30 club could work as well) and having the band play live and just take the board recording for the score rather than have them record in a studio and the soundtrack will be a digital download because it's 100 minutes long but also there will be an audio-only track on the dvd and just revel in my cinematic success tied so closely to Clutch.

Some would say pitiful, but fuck you it's my fantasy i can do what i want. The root of that is that I think they are capable of an amazing score. I even tinker with making a fake soundtrack for a fake film out of their existing stuff but the problem is there is so much i'd want to put on it that I can't come up with a track list.

Anyway, i've been typing a long time. I liked this disc a lot. http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2150 Mon, 17 May 2010 19:48:23 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2149 So... I wonder what the rest of the country (or the world) thinks of austin at this point. I feel like I got here late and that was 5 years ago. Now, the city seems to be that much more exposed and bloated and notable and I wonder if all the other cities out there are just sick of hearing about us.

Anyway, I thought this was pretty decent. I personally haven't been to a txrd match but I remember seeing them practicing one day when I found myself at an Austin Studios tour during the first sxsw that I was in town for and of course that raucous night at the Alamo when QT played Kansas City Bomber and Unholy Rollers when all the movie geeks in the room had to be upset at the talking very quietly lest we get our ass kicked by a girl, and Molly has a friend who played on the Hellcats so she has pretty vivid memories of the old good times and we both agreed that the portrayal of the sport in the old airport hanger with the douchey bands and guerrilla atmosphere was spot on. Also, I think the women in the film did a great job actually playing the game and all that.

Directorially, it's pretty rough. Not bad per se, but a lot of scenes don't really flow and some cuts are pretty off. I bet they just didn't get enough coverage, considering Dylan Tichenor and Bob Yeoman were involved. Sometimes it worked (a few reaction shots like the kid in the shower or birdman) but other times it seemed a little messy.

And story-wise... it is what it is. There are no surprises here so it's more about whether you enjoy the journey.

I did like most if not all the performances. I think I just need to realize that I have a movie-crush on Kristen Wiig. I wish there was more to do for Zoe Bell and Eve but it was still nice to see them as part of the group. I also loved Andrew Wilson and Daniel Stern, but you know... not in the same way.

so yeah, i liked it. It's kind of cool to see a story that i'm at least aware of... not some spy story in Iraq or NYC urban hipster drama or LA celebrity comedy. Although that kind of makes the little montage where we see every Austin "cool" location in a row seem cheap and easy like they just spent a weekend here then went off and shot in Michigan (why Michigan!?). I wonder if people who live in NYC or LA think the same thing... They're probably just way too cool and over it to even think about because their lives are so busy and interesting with real things, god! http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2149 Mon, 17 May 2010 08:29:55 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2148 I've always respected David Twohy as a filmmaker... I was pretty surprised to see that he had made what looked like a forgettable thriller so I thought it was worth a look.

It must be pretty tempting to set anything you write in Hawaii. I'm sure it makes things more expensive or whatever but... you get to live in Hawaii for a few months. I've heard pretty weird things about living there full time but I don't think you can beat it for an extended vacation.

Anyway, about the movie... I thought it was decent. It's hard when you have a whodunnit with only 3 people involved (in this case, three couples) because no matter how many red snappers and twists and turns you throw in there, it HAS to be one of those 3 people. So I can't say the movie completely blew me away with it's ending or anything like that but I still thought it was worth watching.

The rest of my notes deal with spoilers. ye've been warned.

So... Timothy Olyphant. I thought it was a good idea to play around with both his and Steve Zahn's "type" to layer expectations a bit more than average, but it created a kind of third layer of drama for me. Specifically Olyphant supposedly being the crazy killer. If this were 6 or 8 years ago, I'd say that was perfect, but now he's much less the drug dealer in Go or porn dude in Girl Next Door and much more the sheriff in Deadwood or Marshall in Justified. He's a good guy now... so while he can definitely still play menacing if he wants, I don't WANT him to. So the first part of this movie kind of held back because i didn't want him to be the killer (which he more or less had a 50/50 chance of being one). However, when the twist comes and you learn that he is, in fact, just a crazy dude who's hard to kill... that's an awesome moment. In fact, I wish there was more with the knife fight and chase at the end just to get more time finally being able to sympathize with him rather than Zahn.

And the very ending is pretty weak. I wish there was a less rushed finality to it. But it was definitely awesome when Steve Zahn's hand comes up slit in half. http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2148 Sat, 15 May 2010 14:02:11 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2147 Nic Cage. I think this movie is critical in understanding Nic Cage's career path as an actor. A lot of people like to say that he "used" to be good but now is crap because he used to appear in movies like Leaving Las Vegas and Raising Arizona but now he's in stuff like Ghost Rider and Next. i was definitely in the camp that thought he's just going crazy and the roles he's choosing were reflecting that, but after seeing this movie I get the feeling that it's all been a fairly conscious decision on his part to move away from acting in the conventional sense of the word and try expressing his characters more like a modern dancer or something... like how an alien who had no concept of humanity would approach things... a much more abstract take that hearkens back to a Wild at Heart style of raw nerve vitality unencumbered by civility or conformity. Don't get me wrong, the net effect is still the same: the dude comes off as batshit crazy and if you ask me each movie he does gets more and more entertaining because of it. But still, with this movie I see several deliberate choices ring out and have to wonder if this is just the first movie he's done in a while that stylistically matches his intentions, or involves a director smart enough to see what he's going for.

In this film he's a literal monster. Hunch backed, gigantic gun poking out of his belt, Richard Nixon impressions wafting in and out of his voice... he's a monstrosity. The first Bad Lieutenant had a grimy feeling of dirtiness because Keitel took no pleasure in being bad. His face seemed to communicate that he was somehow compelled to depravity, whereas Nic Cage in this movie really seems to love being bad. Instead of making the movie uncomfortable, it makes it funny. Plus you add in Herzog's willingness to go for it and you end up with iguanas and break-dancing souls and old ladies with guns to their heads.

So this movie is perfect for Austin and Alamo crowds, who seem to revel in the insanity that film can reveal. I can see how "normal" movie-goers might not get it or hate it or think it's crap. I got a pretty big kick out of it (although again, the overhype thing... but i'm tired of typing that). http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2147 Tue, 11 May 2010 08:52:25 GMT http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2146 I really really liked this movie until the end because I chose to watch this as an origin film for a Batman villain. As an actual real-world film it's pretty ridiculous and absurd, but scene in a Dark Knight type of lens, it's perfect. Again, until the end... which is spoilers so stop reading.

So the ending... I really had a problem that there was no post-credits bumper where he somehow survived the explosion. He could be burned up to a crisp or something or deformed and missing an arm or something like that so he's forced to wear a mask that represents John Q Public or something like that, but he has to live to cause chaos to Batman later in life.

But instead, he dies not because he gets outsmarted - because really it's an arbitrary decision on the part of the writer to have him not see this coming instead of the rest of the film which - but because this is an American film and bad guys still have to die at the end. Bullshit!

Anyway, so yeah... seen in that perspective, i loved it! http://mymovie.medialife.org/?action=movieDetails&movieID=2146 Sat, 08 May 2010 12:51:54 GMT