Minor Details That Account For A Major Detail

This a beautifully paced drama/thriller...



The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a film that rests on its own laurels. It operates within the parameters of reality, but still succeeds in relying on its own characters and its own separate plot(s) to push the film along.

The film starts off right away during a court hearing about an investigative reporter who is being brought to trial for reporting libel information about a wealthy tycoon. It is in this moment you are introduced to one of the protagonists of the film Mikael Blomkvist (the reporter). You see that he is obviously a man that knows defeat when it's presented to him but he takes it with a certain poise and silent dignity that obviously let's you know he's a man of modest feelings and some intellect. Next, you meet the "l337-goth-hacker" Lisbeth Salander (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). She embodies the character of an emotionally damaged individual as her "goth-ness" implies, she's very quiet and keeps to herself and is always shrouded in black and a hood which implies she's an introverted individual, but her key skill makes her very valuable in the eyes of the wealthy for she is a brilliant hacker.

The film centers on these two characters and their ability to see more than what's on the surface.

Although, Mikael's been sentenced to prison he is still hired by a billionaire by the name of Henrik Vanger to investigate a 40yr old case in which his favorite neice went missing without a trace; and to this day he still is obsessed with finding her dead or alive. With his prison sentence looming over him Henrik Vanger hires Lisbeth to spy on Mikael to judge whether or not he is capable of handling the case. Here we begin to see another dimension of Lisbeth for she not only spies, but also helps out Mikael, does this mean she has a soft spot for bringing the guilty to justice? I believe so.

The characters eventually meet in a very casually executed scene and then eventually team up to solve the murder mystery.

Their characters are very real; not perfect looking like how a typical Hollywood film normally portrays their characters in a movie, Mikael's profile fits the bill perfectly on how one would imagine an investigative reporter to look like in his middle ages and Lisbeth is far from the cultural standard of "beautiful" with her short hair, facial piercings, rippling muscles and even armpit hair. Another notable feature of this film is the very obvious presence of the Mac OS X in which the characters use what I think is Photoshop to analyze photographs, it gives it a very authentic feel.

One of the great things about this film is how they develop the characters, so that the audience has a good idea of their past, present and future. It's like you get to know them and judge them based on your own intuition, which makes the film that much more exciting because you're looking forward to their interactions.

With its running time of 148mins one would hope the payoff of an otherwise considered "long" movie is well worth the time. This film not only succeeds in delievering a successful plot, but it somehow marginalizes the film into what actually felt more like a film that barely reaches the 2hr mark.

The film is in Swedish, so it is going to take borrowed effort for the audience to enjoy it since you have to *gasp* read.









4/4

-DK

Sixties Chic

This movie is outlandishly gay.



First things first, I had no idea what this movie was really about before I started it. All I knew was that Colin Firth's character had lost someone he loved and was trying to find meaning in his continued existence, and that it's directed by Tom Ford---I thought that someone he loved was Julianne Moore; damn you misleading movie posters!

From the get go the film opens with Colin Firth walking forward toward a dead body of a man to place a kiss ever so gently upon his lips; this was also when I said to myself, "say whaa..."

The film is about a teacher living in Los Angeles during the 1960's. He loses his "partner" in a tragic car accident and from that point on finds little to no meaning in continuing his own life; alone.

George Falconer (Colin Firth) is a college professor in Los Angeles (the film doesn't tell you where he teaches). After losing his partner Jim (Matthew Goode) he struggles with his day to day life, emotionally. He hates waking up and worst of all he's very afraid of becoming old and dying alone as he stresses in one of his classroom lectures. Throughout the film you see his sadness slowly unravel as he contemplates suicide at one point, and that's really it as far as the story goes.

However, the main strong point of this movie is Colin Firth. He carries this entire film on his back. He is an amazing actor and is very professionally candid; I was convinced that he actually is gay, because his sadness was just that convincing. It really gives the gay lifestyle another dimension other then the normal Hollywood cliche of gay people being "super" and "fabulous," you know what I am talking about.

Another strong point of the film is the cinematography. Every scene is picture perfect, literally a feast for the senses...especially if you're into any kind of design. The tints used in the film are very reminiscent of Soderbergh's vision for the film Traffic, in which the color of the scene tells the audience from who's point of view the story is being told. Except in A Single Man the color becomes all vivid whenever something happy or dare I say "colorful" (haha) happens in George's life.

This film is definitely worth watching, Tom Ford proves that not only can he be a fashion designer but also a talented film director.

Let me give you a fair warning though, because I know for some people, the subject of homosexuality being depicted in another form other than comedy can sometimes be taboo...the film gets pretty gay.

Anyways, all personal opinions aside this movie was wonderful. Every scene was shot so well; it's as if Tom Ford was just introducing his new line in a photoshoot...except in the form of a movie...yeah.


Suicide preparations


Remembering fond moments with Jim


Teaching


Carefully hitting on a student


Getting seduced


Hanging out with an old friend

4/4

-DK

Titanic

Just like the Titanic (not the movie), Tron Legacy looked spectacular, but it had some major design flaws...



Before, I get into semantics about how Tron Legacy is a bad movie I am going to explain how I knew it would suck six months prior to its release.

"He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak."

- Michel de Montaigne

How is that quote relevant? As a lot of you noticed Disney was literally marketing the shit out of Tron months before its release; typical, yes. It is after all a multi-million dollar production that exceeded the $100 million mark and rumored to have even broken $200 million, with those types of numbers being thrown in the air, that means that there's a lot riding on its hopeful success; basically failure is not an option. So, what does Disney do in their marketing campaign? Hit every for sure market to over exaggerate the "cool" factor in a movie about a video game program wanting to take over the world.

Disney stopped at nothing to try and make Tron a relevant topic amongst all things "hip" nowadays from customized motorcycles, fixed gear bikes, random little pop up shops in new age art exhibits and even hiring Daft Punk to do their soundtrack Disney has exploited the "underground" market to its fullest for this movie. They even highlighted the "hot bitch" factor in a sci-fi film. There's your biggest indication as to how bad a film is going to be when one of the main selling points are "hot bitches," because "hot bitches" are rarely relevant. Why? Because most of them cannot act, but no matter what the topic, "sex" always sells.

Atop of those factoids you cannot overlook the fact that they hired a newbie director to direct the film. (hint) Big studios hire small directors so they can be pushed around and be told what to do, and we all know how effective a studio's advice can be for a movie...

So, Tron Legacy, I saw it in IMAX 3D from the advice of the trailers, since we are told that we should watch it in IMAX as it was "intended" (I don't think the inflated ticket price has anything to do with it---lol), and I was sorely disappointed. Granted the IMAX sequences looked amazing, but then again so did the scenes in Transformers 2 and we all know how great of a movie that was...

What also was troubling was how one has to watch it in 3D when you're in the IMAX and to attribute to the poor quality of the film there's a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie stating that the movie was shot for 2D...motherfuckers.

The movie starts with a quick montage of events that lead up to Tron Legacy from the original Tron film from 1982, and then to the present where you see an older mischievous Sam Flynn try to sabotage his father's fortune 500 company, this is a key quality in all young rich protagonists, because it automatically gives them a "down to earth" characteristic so the audience can like him, because we all know how selfless trust fund babies are -_-.

Blah blah, he gets into Tron and is immediately thrown into the fray in a gladiator like death match that is known as "the games," this in my opinion was the coolest part of the movie and to me where the movie should have ended haha. Anyways, everyone in Tron is known as a "program" and actual humans are known as "users." The programs are all designed within the parameters of the game program known as Tron which was created by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) back in the first Tron film. Sam, enters this digital world in search of his father whom has gone missing for the last 20 years, but to his dismay he's accidentally placed right in the middle of a conflict; which is his father's own doing for he created a program in Tron from his own image to make sure everything ran smoothly and this character's name is CLU (it's an acronym, but I forgot what it meant).

CLU, wants one thing and that is to leave the digital world and into ours, but he cannot achieve this due to the fact that he doesn't know how to open the portal to the real world. So, he tricks Sam into opening the portal and entering Tron. Now, the portal is open all CLU needs is Kevin Flynn's disk because it contains all the information he needs in order to take over our world. While in the meantime Sam's one goal is to return back to the real world with his long lost father Kevin Flynn, and Kevin Flynn's main goal is to keep CLU inside Tron to prevent the end of the world. Get it? Real simple.

I like how in this film there's a lot of philosophical references that get mentioned and barely discussed, I guess it gives the film a brain, but in its own right it's also the reason why the movie sucks. It presents all these great ideals and vocab words like "genetic algorithm" to make the audience feel smart when in actuality majority of the audience hears "blah blah blah light cycle blah blah *daft punk soundtrack* blah blah light suit blah blah hot Olivia Wilde." The film even dares to enter the territory of Asimov---wherein the technology supersedes the authority of the creator and takes its function to a literal extreme just like the film I, Robot (which also sucks).

The best part about this film was the short lived "games" sequences with the disc fighting and the light cycle battles; lastly, Jeff Bridges and his CGI composite CLU. They did a really good job integrating a younger looking Jeff Bridges into the film using CGI, it's borderline disturbing.

Why do the programs feel emotion? Why does CLU need to deliver a motivational speech to programs? Can programs be motivated? Can technology evolve on its own? And if it did why does it just regress into typical human patterns? Why is there even a homeless program? Why do programs like to party? Why can't a $170 million dollar budget produce a better film? No one knows. Just leave it to Disney to over simplify a complex topic.







In retrospect when you watch this movie (which I know a lot of you will) think of these films Fifth Element/ Inception/ The Matrix/ Jurassic Park, because it took all the basic points of these films and combined it into a light show.

2/4

-DK

Homicidal Hallucinations of a Lesbian Ballerina Perfectionist

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.



Darren Aronofsky has done it again in his visceral-drama thriller Black Swan, the film about a ballerina striving to become the best amongst her peers.

Aronofsky is a master at portraying the truth behind masters of their crafts i.e. drug addicts in Requiem for a Dream and a washed out wrestler in The Wrestler. The film does an excellent job stalking Natalie Portman as she slowly deconstructs herself and her sanity in her quest for perfection as the White & Black Swan. I really would like to see him direct sports films.

This film has a very effective means of communicating with the audience through the aspect of Aronofsky and his ability to capture the struggle a ballerina goes through whether it's at home or at the studio. He captures the subject in their own respective environments giving the film a very personal and raw feel to it.

The protagonist in this film has a very vivid blueprint to success already outlined in her head, all she has to do is follow it down to the T and she'll get to where she wants to be. However, the role she is going for calls for a more rambunctious free-form kind of movement that someone so technically inclined cannot follow through with, because being a "free spirit" would mean one would have to not have a blueprint. Of course she struggles through this throughout the whole movie to the point where it drives her insane, where her own thoughts and fears begin to takeover her everyday life affecting her and those around her, but she cannot see through this due to the fact that she refuses to believe she isn't perfect.

Along the way she meets Lily (Mila Kunis) whom embodies the very aspect the director of the studio is looking for, someone who looks free spirited and makes ballet look like child's play, because the movement comes so naturally for her. Thus, making her the epitome of a "free spirit," and the fact that she has a tattoo and is also a ballerina gives her an edge lol.

It's in this very nature of perfectionism that we see the best out of Natalie Portman, no longer is she this precious young actress we all grew to love, she is now a villain in her own right. (And yes the sex scene with Mila and Natalie is awesome)

I can only imagine the amount of diet and exercise each actress went through to achieve their bodies in this film...it's quite amazing.

I know a lot of girls will relate to this film due to the very nature of their own personalities; you know what I am talking about, perfectionists. A lot of you should learn from this and learn to let somethings be and accept the fact that sometimes it really is out of your control.

Just know, unless you can tell me the meaning of life you cannot call yourself a perfectionist, its like a scientist calling themselves a scientist when they know nothing on their field of expertise. The only supposed "perfect" being is God and you're not it. The better you understand and grasp that concept the easier life will be for you to understand.





4/4

-DK

Rap Opera

Kanye does for rap what Queen did for rock n roll...

Lyrically I lost faith in Kanye the moment I heard Jesus Walks, don't get me wrong the song is epic but I thought it was funny how he crammed in "Theysayyoucanrapabout anything except for Jesus" it's in the song, listen to it I guarantee you will hear it. And then in his Late Registration album he just goes off on a lot of random tangents in his lyrics, especially in his poetic song Roses, as beautiful as it should be, it's also kind of awkward; in the sense that there's too much info. Now by this time I have come to accept Kanye's lyricism as part of his production. I just listen to the song as a whole and act as if him rapping is just part of the beat.

With that being said, his latest album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" displays Kanye as a man with jokes and someone who is very much into their own penis and money. I say jokes as in he does a lot of play on words i.e. "Head of the class and she just want a swallowship," ha!

I basically place Kanye right next to Lil Wayne in the category I just made up known as "emcees who are simple minded, and tell it like it is." ...I'm finally beginning to see why a good friend of mine kept telling me not to buy the album cause Kanye's lyrics aren't great.

But the production value of this album...woo! It's incredible, Kanye really draws out the best in people. Whenever artists are featured I feel like they are just a commercial before it gets back to the original singer, but as you will witness in this album he draws out a side of people you haven't seen; Jay-Z doesn't have his normal tell-all monotone flow that he's able to stretch out for an entire beat, he actually breaks down in a fit of anger to the point where his voice almost cracks. Then you got Nicki Minaj who hits another level of crazy, just when you thought she couldn't get more animated...I am starting to like her.

I know this album will disappoint most who are expecting what essentially is considered "rap." Keep in mind that the album is titled "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" from a man with a career consumed by crazy things he's said and done:









...Yeah, so when a crazy narcissistic genius calls his album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" you can imagine just what it is he's going to rap about, and judging by the album Kanye thinks of himself as being Malcolm X, a rock star, and a porn star, which in my opinion falls perfectly in line for the overall theme of the album, but god forbid you if you think I am saying he's some lyrical genius.

The tracks on this album are hard to listen to as a standalone, and I think in that aspect Kanye did a good job piecing together every track to go along with the overall theme of his album.

In conclusion this album is really different. It reminded me of when I first heard the Outkast album where Big Boi and Andre 3000 did their own thing and made Speakerboxxx and the Love Below, some may not be ready for it and others may have been waiting for it...Kanye is truly working hard at changing the face of rap so it can break out of the commercial hell that it's been rolling around in for the past decade. It has a very strong thematic element to it.



8/10

-DK

The Other Guys

How do you make a Will Ferrell movie?



Simple, make sure Will Ferrell isn't the only oblivious character. Yes, it's true The Other Guys was actually pretty good, even for its PG-13 rating, which seems to be the downfall nowadays for comedies...and everything else, haha. Also, place him next to an actor who isn't funny on purpose; Mark Whalberg was a let down in the film, but he successfully betters Will Ferrell's on screen prescence to the point where Will Ferrell begins to look like the smartest person in the movie...paradox.

The films formula is simple, it's a simple parody on cop films i.e. movies in which the cop must get everything taken away from him/her before they are able to foil the evil schemes of the rich guy. But, like all good comedies the formula is just a structure or set up for the comedy to unleash its jokes. Whether it was quick little quips about Prius and their owners or the usage of slow motion and "high octane" stunts, The Other Guys accomplishes its goal pretty well without losing the audience's attention.







3/4

-DK

When You Came In The Air Went Out

The ultimate guilty pleasure.

Never have I watched a series in which I felt guilty watching other than True Blood. There's so much raunchy sex and violence in that show to make you feel like it's a sin watching it...no joke. The only thing that rivals my guilt is the graphic novel series Preacher.

For those of you who doubt True Blood let me just say this; the series is one of the most well written shows to ever come around. It goes to show how you can have crap content, but with proper execution that crap content can turn into gold!

The main point I'd like to stress is the structure of the show, everything is explained well and the best part of it is, is that the show doesn't rely solely on its vampirism and mythology to get by, there's actual human emotions that are greatly painted throughout the show with exceptional character development. And on top of that when the vampires are slain they die in a very Tom Savini-esque fashion almost reminiscent of Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Til Dawn.

I too hated the show at first glance mainly due to my vampire bias, because of Twilight and the fact that Blade or a figure like Blade wasn't in the series...haha however, I still think the show can do better with someone like Blade in it. "Jussayin."






In this scene vampire Bill and his maker are having sex in front of a dying woman and her dead husband, whom they murdered.

-DK

Dead

Zombie movies have seriously run their course on the "big screen" nowadays.

There's proof in this because, George A. Romero; the father of zombie films has been making nothing that comes anywhere near his 1978 American Classic, The Dawn of the Dead and that was well...in 1978. Since then he made the "decent" Land of the Dead in 2005 and the just barely okay Diary of the Dead in 2007, I basically drew the final straw when I saw running zombies in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, which wasn't a bad movie but running zombies? The only time running zombies are okay is in 28 Days Later.

However! I do love the zombie genre, it's something about the vicarious imaginations I have when I picture myself living in a post zombie apocalyptic world, what would I do? What will I be doing for survival? Will I be alone? If I weren't alone who would be with me? How many would be with me? I am going to drive backwards on the freeway.

To me plot is not really important for the zombie genre, just structure. If you can create a successful parallel universe to make events that occur easy to relate to, then the audience will be enraptured, because that could be them in a not so distant future...The problem is Hollywood thinks one cannot make a zombie genre film without a story because the audience needs an ending otherwise you're going to have a lot of people who want their money back, and believe me nowadays you have to really think about going to a newly released movie (where I go tickets cost 12$). So, how do you satisfy the fans of the zombie horror genre? You make a television series out of the brilliant graphic novel The Walking Dead! And milk the franchise slow and steadily cause it's a television series!

The story is simple, it's a record of the trials and tribulations of a small band of people as they just try to survive on a day to day basis; testing the sheer limits of human mortality and humanity.

I always loved reading The Walking Dead, but due to financial issues I had to stop after Book 4 (major sadface).

But now AMC is coming in strong with this little gem:



-DK

Annoying Tenacity

Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan aka M. Night Shyamalan; is quite possibly one of the most gifted filmmakers alive today. So, why has he been failing miserably?

I am only thinking about him because I recently watched The Last Airbender, and was deeply mortified at how such a brilliant director ended up with this piece of shit film, and I've been seeing ads for that new movie Devil everywhere.

Back when I was really into "marketing" I read up on a lot of innovative marketing campaigns and methods that are being utilized to make us, the consumer want specific things. Of course throughout time people's way of thinking tend to evolve with the ever fast paced improvement in technology forcing marketers to also evolve with the times making certain methods look very archaic. But one thing sticks to my mind whenever I go out and stare at advertisements and that my friends is a simple concept known as "branding."

In short "branding" is what makes you buy Duracell batteries over Kirkland batteries or a piece of shit Sanrio toaster versus an actual toaster made by let's say like Black & Decker, get it? It's the association of a name and its value on an object. How much value you see in the name depends heavily on how it's marketed to you, which in turn adversely affects how much your willing to pay for the object; whether it's with time, money or even both.

So, why is M. Night Shyamalan's name being associated with the new film Devil even though he's just the producer of the film? Because M. Night also made The Sixth Sense and movie studios want you to remember that fact when you pay the inflated ticket price to go watch Devil. I think this is retarded because at this rate how will M. Night ever learn that he's not God and he needs to be slightly more open to criticism of his films rather than rejecting them, and labeling criticism as people misinterpreting his films. I only say this because I did enjoy The Sixth Sense and I thought Signs was amazing, and I would like to see M. Night get back to the top of his form. This will never happen if Hollywood keeps sucking up to him and allowing him to hog all the creative credits for his movies. Honestly, how many bad movies does it take for people to realize this man cannot handle all that workload on his own? When will numbers cease to measure the quality of a film? It's like if all of Scorsese's films made after Goodfellas was total crap but they were all advertised as "from the director of Goodfellas," yes this situation does aggravate me to no end.

I feel like the beginning of his downfall came when Time magazine called him, "the next Spielberg," even then I felt it was too preemptive to be calling such a new and young director a legend. Fuck you media.

I know this is an age old argument in Hollywood where studio heads are just looked at as money grubbing business men who have no appreciation in film, but come on!



-DK

Melodramatic Hilarity

This film is quite possibly one of the better Judd Apatow comedies I have seen, and I give all that credit to 3 people; Russell Brand, Jonah Hill and Nick Stoller.



Get Him to the Greek, is a film with all your typical story elements, the passionate and down to earth protagonist, the very particular know it all boss with nerves of steel and the out of control rock star.

So, what's great about the film? Everything. The writer/director does a good job taking all those typical elements and putting very strong performances to back them; Jonah Hill and Russell Brand's on screen chemistry is ridiculously harmonized throughout the film, there's never a dull moment when they are both on screen.

The plot is simple, a recording label needs something to re-ignite their revenue stream so a young aspiring intern by the name of Aaron (Jonah Hill) comes up with a brilliant idea to resurrect Aldous Snow's career by moving off the momentum of Aldous Snow's anniversary of his famous live performance before his major flop "African Child."

Yes, Russell Brand's character is the same one from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the director does a good job at poking fun at that fact, in respect to the universe in which the two comedies thrive in.

That one portrait of the "Sad Clown" comes to mind whenever I watch comedies involving fame, money, passion, and realism. Especially, when it's coming from the new age writing that Judd Apatow seems to favor so much, the painful realization of watching people who make people laugh for a living end up getting kicked in the ass by reality is almost like a voyeuristic guilty pleasure for me; the audience.




4/4

-DK