1. UP - The only film on my list to bring a tear (or two) to my eyes. From the moving opening montage to the hilarious adventures of a disgruntled old man, a wilderness scout, a talking - SQUIRREL! - dog, and Kevin the bird, I had a smile on my face. Pixar does it again!
2. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - If there were any tears shed during this movie, they would have been a direct result of laughing too hard. Tarantino is, once again, razor sharp with his dialogue. Sure, he rewrites history a little. But, out of all the possibilities for revenge fantasies, who wouldn't choose the Third Reich?
3. PUBLIC ENEMIES - Mann was a little more faithful to his source than Tarantino. From his beautiful use of HD (the clouds in the opening prison break sequence POP off the screen) to the excellent performance by Johnny Depp as Dillinger, I wasn't disappointed with another successful Michael Mann crime saga.
4. DISTRICT 9 - I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but this is the first of THREE sci-fi films on my list! However, this film defies you to label it simply as a sci-fi. The documentary style of the film brings a realness to the action.
5. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER - An extraordinarily atypical romantic comedy. A story about love rather than a love story. It doesn't hurt that I love Zooey!
6. THE HURT LOCKER - Wow, what an unbelievably intense movie-going experience! Unbelievably, this film about soldiers in Iraq was executed without any political pretense at all. Jeremy Renner was absolutely awesome.
7. AVATAR - This is the second sci-fi film on my list. While it is a little light on story, it is more than made up for in imagery. I forgot at times that what I was watching was not real, but CGI. The painstaking detail that went into the creation of Pandora was worth the 12-year break that James Cameron took between TITANIC and now.
8. STAR TREK - That's it! If this is the future of the Star Trek brand, then sign me up! I'm a Trekkie for life! From the directing (JJ Abrams) to the acting, there is nothing to complain about from this summer blockbuster.
9. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE - Make no mistake, this was not a kid's movie. This was a movie about childhood for all audiences.
10. CHE - By no means am I a Che supporter, but I love Soderbergh. If he makes a film, I'm going to see it. This was a beautiful film about an important historical figure. Grand filmmaking!
Still to see... UP IN THE AIR, THE INFORMANT!, INVICTUS
A cappella music is huge on college campuses across the United States. Straight No Chaser (from Indiana University) provides this entertaining version of The 12 Days of Christmas.
For more entertainment (without instruments) check out the Tufts Beezelbubs, UVa Hullabahoos, and the UNC Clef Hangers.
The coverage this dunk has received has elevated it to the level of myth. This is no longer a dunk. It's a dunk over King James. It's a facial worthy of being confiscated; worthy of confiscation in avoidance of embarrassment courtesy of YouTube, Twitter, et cetera. This could be the greatest dunk never told.
Or it could end up being one of many dunks executed during a game of this thing invented by James Naismith a long, long time ago called basketball. In other words, not a big deal!
So, make a choice. Click the link and potentially laugh at the PR nightmare Lebron and Nike created for themselves by covering up something entirely silly. Or run away from the link as fast as you can and let The Dunk's myth grow to legendary proportions.
I saw the trailer for WATCHMEN last summer and initially thought two things: 1) Oh, great. Someone taking another (likely unsuccessful) stab at a comic book movie.; 2) WATCHMEN? Who are the Watchmen? I've never heard of them before.
My curiosity was piqued.
I could have waited for the movie to hit theaters. But when the source material is at your fingertips courtesy of a local library, why wait?
Because the movie is hardly ever better than, or even equal to, its source (THE GODFATHER possibly being the one exception). That's why.
There's a reason Alan Moore's WATCHMEN was named one of TIME magazine's top 100 novels of all time. There's a reason WATCHMEN has developed a legendary cult following. There's a reason so many Hollywood-types have wisely stepped away from this project.
I'm not the comic book - excuse me, graphic novel - type. At least I wasn't before I read WATCHMEN. It's the anti-superhero story. It's like a great detective novel with the protagonists running around in costumes. It's also dark and uber-cynical. But it's engaging in its vivid illustrations and narrative structure.
WATCHMEN's narrative structure was my main concern in regards to the movie. The action - both past and present - would not be difficult. It's the other narrative devices - such as chapters from an ex-superhero's tell-all autobiography or the comic-book-within-a-comic-book, Tales of the Black Freighter, that adds rich, layered dimensions to an already fantastic story - that are virtually unfilmable.
So here we are. Zac Snyder, director of 300 among other visual orgy-fests, has taken on the daunting task that no one else dared to.
And you know what?
It wasn't that bad. Snyder was extremely faithful to the graphic novel (minus a slight altering of the climax), using the source material itself as the film's storyboard. I watched the theatrical version on DVD and I would assume the Director's Cut, with 24 minutes of extra footage, would add even more detail to the story. There's also news of an ultimate edition (due out this Christmas) that will include Tales of the Black Freighter within the movie. That's the version I want to see!
My complaints are few, but important to a great movie. The movie was loooooooong-long, mainly due to Snyder's faithfulness to his source. Using flashbacks throughout, the movie had a hard time gaining narrative momentum (which can unfold much more slowly within the pages of a novel). And maybe it was because of Alan Moore's brilliant - and unfilmable - narrative devices, but some of the characters (NOT Rorsharch; he was awesome!) were entirely too one-dimensional. Or maybe it's because Zac Snyder is a visual director, not an actor's director.
I'll definitely watch the ultimate edition of WATCHMEN when it's available. Who knows if it will change the movie from good to great? For now, WATCHMEN (the movie) can serve as a launching point for those uninitiated readers into Alan Moore's world of the Watchmen.
June 8th: A Hamilton Avenue woman asked police to watch her mailbox after she reported that young children were putting colored pictures in it and may have put a cigarette in the mailbox as well.
June 11th: A Greenbriar Lane resident reported seeing a bearded man wearing a hooded sweatshirt walking down Greenbriar Lane with a gun held to his head. Police checked the area but didn't find anyone matching that description. Another resident reported seeing the man but said he was talking on a cell phone.
July 14th: A Lakeshore Drive man said sometime between April and June of this year, someone stole several items from his car.
I neglected the blog for quite a bit of time at the start of 2009 so I didn't get to chronicle the Tar Heels' dominating run through the NCAA tournament. It was bittersweet to see those guys come back from such an embarrassing performance against Kansas last year to take it all this year. And what a storybook ending to Tyler Hansbrough's career.
But my favorite moment from that Monday night in April is Roy Williams' postgame speech to his team. He may be one corny son-of-a-gun, but DAGGUMIT he is the best coach in college basketball.
I'm a big fan of Lebron James. I love how he plays the game of basketball. He's a leader on the floor. He gets his teammates involved. He makes everyone around him better. If I've ever thought anyone could eventually be mentioned in the same sentence with Jordan, it's Lebron.
But King James just took a step back in my book. Word around the internet is that James had a two-handed dunk thrown down on him by Xavier's Jordan Crawford in a pick-up game at Lebron's basketball skills camp. Shortly after the dunk was caught on tape by a couple of cameramen, the tapes were confiscated by a Nike representative. According to one cameraman, Lebron called over a Nike representative and immediately afterwards his tape was taken.
And, get this, videotaping is permitted at Lebron's camp. These cameramen had been shooting footage all day. But one little dunk in a pick-up game got Lebron's (and Nike's) heartrate going.
Humility is a good thing. Nobody's perfect. Learn from Devin Harris, another NBA starter:
I mean, I realize that once something hits YouTube, every single human being is going to see it. And if it's potentially embarrassing, then that makes it a little worse for you. But grow up. Who cares if you got dunked on in a pick-up game? It's not the end of the world. We've been witnesses to your greatness, Lebron. Let us witness those things that make you mortal, too.
Michael Mann is, quite simply, the master of crime cinema.His neurotic obsession with his ‘men and their work’ spans all the way back to THIEF (which I, ashamedly, haven’t seen), was perfected with HEAT, and has been tinkered with visually in COLLATERAL, MIAMI VICE, and now PUBLIC ENEMIES.If I remember correctly, most (if not all) were released during the summer blockbuster season.But make no mistake; Michael Mann’s action movie is nothing like Michael Bay’s action movie.We can all be thankful for that.You can’t simply check your brain at the box office counter for a movie ticket and a box of popcorn.He demands your attention; to characters, to setting, to actions, to details.
PUBLIC ENEMIES uses the non-fiction narrative of the same name (by Bryan Burroughs) as its source material.The narrative tracks the criminal exploits of the likes of John Dillinger, Alvin Karpis and the Barker gang, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde.The fledgling Bureau of Investigation (or the FBI as we now know it) and its young leader, J. Edgar Hoover, are responsible for bringing these criminals to justice in the first War on Crime.The book itself is a mesmerizing piece of reporting, using FBI files released within the past two decades or so to do most of the work.As fascinating as it is to read about the short-lived criminal lives of these characters, it is equally fascinating to see the level of ineptitude shown by the newborn FBI and its ‘college boy’ agents in their chase of these crooks.
The purpose of both the narrative and the film, I believe, is to dispel the mythology created for many of these characters by Hollywood.Bonnie and Clyde weren’t the picturesque, sympathetic images portrayed by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.They were dirty (seriously, they didn’t bathe for months at a time) rednecks who murdered anyone that disrupted their fun.Ma Barker wasn’t some evil, plotting grandmother.She was the mother of two criminals who nagged them incessantly.Now there’s John Dillinger and the ‘Robin Hood’ myth.Yeah, he robbed from the rich.But none of it was given to the poor.There were accounts in newspapers of Dillinger telling bank customers to put their money away; that they were only there for the bank’s money.But that’s where Dillinger’s generosity ended.He was a bank robber, pure and simple.His celebrity built up because he took from those who many thought were responsible for the Depression.
Mann wants us to see Dillinger for who he was in that short span (1933 to 1934) when he was living in the moment.Those expecting HEAT: 1930s EDITION will be extremely disappointed.Melvin Purvis is no Vincent Hanna.He is just a part of Dillinger’s story that is necessary.In fact, Dillinger and Purvis never actually meet in Burroughs’ narrative.I understand Michael Mann’s revisionist history in the screenplay.This is Hollywood.Some changes were necessary to the story in order to make a more compelling movie.Some will complain that Christian Bale’s Melvin Purvis is underdeveloped.That’s honestly how he was portrayed in the book.He, along with a majority of the Bureau’s agents, was in over his head.Losing suspects because of poor surveillance, getting agents killed in shoot-outs because of a lack of formal gun training, and the fiasco at Little Bohemia where three civilians were killed (along with several agents) while the bad guys got away.
Mann drops you into Dillinger’s life as he’s breaking some friends out of a jail in Michigan City.There’s no backstory.You’re just dropped right into the proceedings.Mann has been criticized for this in films like ALI, COLLATERAL, and MIAMI VICE.Critics of his storytelling techniques feel he shorts the moviegoer on character development.But this, in my opinion, is where Mann truly excels as a visual storyteller.Beginning with ALI in 2001, Mann has experimented with filming in High Definition in each of his last four features.His experimental techniques have divided audiences, love it or hate it.Granted, HD cameras provide a more grainy print than film does, but Mann uses the benefits of HD cameras to tell his stories.His cameras are mostly handheld throughout, ready at a moment’s notice to move as the story dictates.There is an immediacy to this type of filmmaking.Mann uses extreme close-ups on his characters (pores seep from the screen in HD, as close as many of us will ever get to Johnny Depp and Christian Bale) and one feels as if they’re right there, in the middle of the action.
And, oh, the action!Mann choreographs and directs the most brilliant action sequences.Beginning with the aforementioned prison break, Mann starts the movie with a bang.Speaking of bangs, no one that I know of in film makes gunfire sound like real gunfire like Mann does.When gunfire erupts, it’s like you’re right there in the gunfight.Mann stages brilliant bank heists with the efficiency that Dillinger and his gang once did, right down to the tiniest of details.He is also obsessed with every bit of historical accuracy he can muster in his films.Mann stages Dillinger’s most famous prison escape (with a wooden gun) at the actual prison it took place in over 70 years ago.The climax of this scene also provides for the tensest use of a stoplight in film history.
Mann saves the best action set piece for another historical landmark of Dillinger’s: the Little Bohemia lodge.This scene also serves as a calling card for why HD should be used more often in movies.Mann has shown us in ALI, COLLATERAL, and MIAMI VICE how his cameras penetrate the night.But in the Little Bohemia sequence, he choreographs one of his best action sets, regardless of time of day, in the middle of the night.By the time the Little Bohemia fiasco has passed by, Dillinger’s days of robbing banks are reaching their end.
By the time Dillinger’s story is coming to an end, Mann provides us with one of the best scenes of the movie.Incorporating scenes from the gangster picture, MANHATTAN MELODRAMA, that Dillinger saw on the last night of his life, Mann hits home on the point of telling this story on the big screen.“Die the way you lived.Don’t drag it out,” says Clark Gable’s character as a smirk crosses Dillinger’s face.Dillinger’s celebrity was widespread and his career was accomplished, and he reached all of this within a short span of two years.And even as Dillinger embraces Hollywood’s glamorous image of gangsters played by Clark Gable, the life’s inevitable outcome is awaiting him outside the theater.Everything glamorous and glorious collapsed in one frame for Dillinger, and life went on.
I didn't see enough films in 2008 to make a Top 10, but even if I had I'm not sure I would've been able to find enough for a complete list. For once, the blockbuster summer movie season released the best films of the year.
mr. brown is happily married to mrs. marietta-brown. in his spare time he sculpts young kindergarten minds, pays tuition to become a master, bleeds carolina blue, watches 'the wire' reruns & plays with his wii.
6. THE HURT LOCKER - Wow, what an unbelievably intense movie-going experience! Unbelievably, this film about soldiers in Iraq was executed without any political pretense at all. Jeremy Renner was absolutely awesome.
