I’m sitting here, drinking my organic black tea, blasting yet another great song off of the magnificent Once soundtrack through my computer speakers, thinking, why didn’t I love this movie more? Don’t get me wrong… it’s a decent film. I just expected something special. In that respect, the movie didn’t deliver for me.

I started hearing great things about Once all the way back in January, when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Audience Award for World Cinema. Since the winner of that very same award two years, a terrific film named Brothers, made my top ten list of 2005, I became instantly excited for this film. When I found out it was a musical, I knew that I was going to love it. I love love love musicals, and with the lack of them lately (despite a resurgence a few years ago with Moulin Rouge and Chicago), it’s exhilarating to be awaiting a new one. It’s been out in LA for most of the summer, and there have been a few close calls in going to see it, but these excursions never panned out. Finally, after two months, the movie opened at the local independent cinema in Encino, and I finally had no more excuses. I paid for my ticket, sat down in the theatre, and I became ready for what would surely be a memorable experience. A worthwhile experience? Sure. A memorable one? (more…)

So I didn’t realize until too late that it was a mistake to walk into Waitress hungry. I mean, I knew that the film centered around a pie shop, but I had no idea just how much focus would be put on close-up shots of mouth-watering pies. Wow. There should be restaurant screenings of this film.

Waitress is a joyous movie, told simply, executed beautifully. It’s the kind of heart-warming movie that doesn’t feel sappy or sentimental, with an ending that’s earned, not tacked on.

Jenna is stuck in a joyless marriage and trapped in a job at a small pie diner where making pies provides most of the happiness in her life. When she finds out she’s pregnant, she’s not ecstatic or upset or relieved, just indifferent. All she cares about is that nobody congratulate her on the pregnancy, because it’s nothing to get excited about. Things get complicated in her life when she starts an affair with her new doctor. She doesn’t really understand her attraction toward him, but what she does know is that he is definitely good for her. Back at the diner, Jenna has two friends who have equally pitiful lives, and she also has a close friend, an older man who owns the diner and enjoys making small talk with her.

That the film puts Keri Russell front row and center as a commanding new screen presence is an understatement. I’ve loved Ms. Russell ever since her days on (more…)

The most original ride of the summer! This one reminded me of classic 80’s fantasies like The Neverending Story, the kind of unpredictable adventure tale isn’t made much anymore. I never knew exactly where this movie was going, and that made it really unique in this final (more…)

I’ve always had a strong dislike for Kevin Costner. I don’t know what it is–the quality of many of his films, his rather blase screen presence–but if Costner has a new movie coming out, don’t bet on me rushing out to see it. Look at the list of some of the movies he has done in the last decade–Wyatt Earp, Waterworld, Tin Cup, The Postman, Message in a Bottle, For Love of the Game, 300 Miles to Graceland, Rumor Has It. There have been rare occasions of strong films and performances, particularly the underrated The Upside of Anger with Joan Allen and the slow but effective Open Range (and I still have yet to see Dances with Wolves and Field of Dreams). But for the most part, I try to avoid his work as much as possible. That’s why Mr. Brooks was such (more…)

Viggo Mortenson and David Cronenberg re-teamed for this well-made yet rather stale thriller that is a step down from their masterpiece A History of Violence but still an interesting film with one truly memorable sequence. The movie works better than it should due to the outstanding performance by Mortenson, who plays an even more buffed out and scarier version of the former life Mortenson character from A History of Violence. He’s joined here by Naomi Watts, adequate as a woman named Anna who becomes obsessed with the case of a lost Russian girl who was raped and impregnated, leaving a baby right before she dies a grisly death. In searching for the baby’s home, she finds herself in the midst of a dangerous situation involving a Russian crime family who don’t exactly want the truth behind this incident released. Mortenson plays the driver Nikolai for this group of people, a man who has conflicting principles and a plethora of enemies. Also starring in the film are Vincent Cassell and Armin Mueller-Stahl, playing Kirill and Sernyon, in a most twisted display of father-son relationships. They practically deserve each other.

David Cronenberg is a richly talented filmmaker who has made films that I don’t like but never a film (more…)

Every once in awhile, I don’t just see a movie, I experience it, due to my own personal attachment to the material. Back in 2003, just two weeks into my first semester at Loyola Marymount University, I went to see Lost in Translation. I hadn’t really made too many friends yet, and I was in a new city and state that I knew little about. Thus, watching Lost in Translation, a movie about two people in a foreign land who have seemingly little to get through the day before they meet each, was an emotional experience. I didn’t love the movie for its narrative. I loved the movie because it hit me on a personal level at that time in my life that no other film had. I have had a few more emotional filmgoing experiences since that day, Brokeback Mountain and United 93 in particular, but no movie since Lost in Translation has affected me on such a personal level than Sean Penn’s Into the Wild.

Here is a true story about a college graduate named Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) who goes against everything that is expected of him. He’s got the degree, intelligence, good looks, a surefire job path, and wealthy parents who are willing to buy him anything he needs. What does he do? He essentially disappears, donates all of his 24 thousand dollars to charity, and leaves town in his junky little car. He doesn’t go straight into a job. He doesn’t go home for a vacation. Tired of expectations, society demands, hypocrites, he just takes off on a journey that’s more than an adventure but an entire lifestyle change.

I just graduated from college and have been trying (more…)

Alfred Hitchcock is my all-time favorite director. Whenever I need some inspiration, all I have to do is re-visit some of his classics, and my imagination and excitement for filmmaking gets brimming. My favorites for the master aren’t unusual by any means–I like Psycho, Rear Window, The Birds, Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest. I also have strong affection for his more melodramatic Rebecca, and an absolute gem of his, which until yesterday remained the oldest of his films that I had seen, is the funny and entertaining The Lady Vanishes.

As much of a fan I am of Hitchcock, there are still at least a dozen of his films that I’ve never seen, most of which he made in Britain before he came out to America in 1940. I’ve seen The Lady Vanishes, and I’ve heard of a couple other ones like The 39 Steps and Sabotage, but for the most part, I wasn’t really aware of his films made between 1925-1939. Many of these films are not available on home video, but I thought it would be time to go back and watch his films in order… films of his I’ve seen… films of his I haven’t seen. and watch, for the first time, his progress over five decades of filmmaking.

Hitchcock’s first film was The Pleasure Garden, considered a strong debut on most parts, but unavailable on DVD. His second film, The Mountain Eagle, is the only Hitchcock movie to be 100% completely lost, without a single copy anywhere to be found (Hitchcock later told Francois Truffaut that he was happy about the film’s disappearance). I took a look at Hitchcock’s third feature, The Lodger, often considered his first “Hitchcockian” movie, but it didn’t leave me with much to get excited about. I found it rather slow and hard to watch, especially considering the crappy DVD transfer I watched of it. In the next three years (more…)

As a huge fan of the horror genre, I thought it was about time to check out what is widely regarded as the first true horror movie ever made. Made before other famous horror silents like Nosferatu and The Phantom of the Opera, this film, made in Germany, was incredibly influential and still has an impact 87 years after its original debut. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is an amazing piece of art and a really fascinating film.

My reservation with silent films came into fruition with D.W. Griffith’s early work of Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. These two films are mind-numbingly boring. I don’t follow the stories and I don’t care about what is happening on screen. Intolerance is the much better film, with more to sustain your interest. Both films are very important, particularly in the early development of film narrative, editing, production design, etc. But as a viewing experience, the movies don’t really hold up all these years later. The only silent movie that I saw outside of a class and enjoyed very much was Nosferatu, which I’d actually like to check out again. It’s scary and simple, with a chilling performance by Max Schreck.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is short and sensational, beautiful and tragic. It also has a story that doesn’t feel dated in the least. A man named Francis tells an elderly man a terrifying story about what happened to his friend Alan and fiancee Jane. Francis and Alan go to a fair where they meet the weird old man Dr. Caligari, who shows them to his somnambulist Cesare, who can predict the future. Alan asks how long he has to live, and Cesare says he has until dawn. When Alan is murdered, Cesare becomes the suspect, and Francis goes about trying to solve the mystery of Cesare and Dr. Caligari.

The whole film plays out like a beautiful short story (more…)

Toward the end of All Quiet on the Western Front, one of the young soldiers rests in the trenches, cold, tired, melancholic from all the death and violence. He has a moment of catharsis when he sees nothing other than a butterfly up on the dirt in front of him. He reaches out his hand to touch it in a moment of sheer joy. This beautiful moment, one of many in this movie, proves that All Quiet on the Western Front, which won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture, was way ahead of its time and still works as a commentary of the absurdities of war.

Based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the film tells of a group of German schoolboys who are essentially mindwarped into going off to war by one of their jubilant teachers. Thinking that they are going to be heroes for their country, disillusionment begins to set in when they begin to witness the mutilation and killing, and they begin to question the very nature of the war in which they’re fighting in.

All Quiet on the Western Front is not some naive cheerful war movie of the 1930’s. The themes in this film are still resonant in the world today. I was surprised how well this holds up despite it being nearly 80 years old. Roger Ebert once asked director Howard Hawks what makes a great movie, and he responded, “Three great scenes. No bad scenes.” There are at least three great, memorable scenes (more…)

A young cheerleader sits on the bleachers, looking out at the football players, singing the Beatles’ “I Want To Your Hand.” The camera zooms in toward the players, past the players, toward another beautiful blonde cheerleader. We realize the cheerleader is interested in another girl. She then proceeds to walk down the bleachers and past the other cheerleaders, all in slow-motion, as she realizes she will never have that cheerleader’s love. This is one of just many beautiful, heartfelt moments in Across the Universe, a frustrating piece of work that’s ambitious but maddening, artistic but poorly paced. There’s a lot to like here, and some things to love, but the movie has problems.

The movie is a love story (surprise, surprise) about a Londoner named Jude (the dashing Jim Sturgess) who comes to America in search of his father and ends up falling in love with Lucie (Evan Rachel Wood). They make their way to New York City and make friends (and enemies), only to find themselves in the midst of the chaos of the Vietnam War, with their friend Max having to go and fight, and with Lucie’s boyfriend coming home in a body bag. Their relationship becomes strained when Lucie becomes overly involved in the fight against the war, and Jude has problems with his immigration status.

First of all, on the positive side, something must be said for the pure joy it is to hear (more…)