Guilty Pleasures News/Radio

2013 Oscar Predictions

2013-02-24T12:17:00.001-06:00

Tonight's the big night. What will get the glory? Will Harvey Weinstein buy out the awards again? Will Ben Affleck's film (if not his own direction) find itself joining the likes of Ben Her or Schinder's List? Can Lincon or Silver Linings Playbook defy the odds and do the most shocking thing in recent Oscar history: surprise us?

That's why cinephiles watch the show every year. I tend to throw a party with a betting pool to see who can guess the most correct winners after we fill out our ballots. Here's my predictions going into the night out of all the categories with what I think will win in bold. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments.

Best Picture
"Beasts of the Southern Wild"
"Silver Linings Playbook"
"Zero Dark Thirty"
"Lincoln"
"Les Miserables"
"Life of Pi"
"Amour"
"Django Unchained"
"Argo"

Actor in a Leading Role
Daniel Day-Lewis - "Lincoln"
Denzel Washington - "Flight"
Hugh Jackman - "Les Miserables"
Bradley Cooper - "Silver Linings Playbook"
Joaquin Phoenix - "The Master"

Actor in a Supporting Role
Christoph Waltz - "Django Unchained"
Philip Seymour Hoffman - "The Master"
Robert De Niro - Silver Linings Playbook"
Alan Arkin - "Argo"
Tommy Lee Jones - "Lincoln"

Actress in a Leading Role
Naomi Watts - "The Impossible"
Jessica Chastain - "Zero Dark Thirty"
Jennifer Lawrence - "Silver Linings Playbook"
Emmanuelle Riva - "Amour"
Quvenzhane Wallis - "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Actress in a Supporting Role
Sally Field - "Lincoln"
Anne Hathaway - "Les Miserables"
Jacki Weaver - "Silver Linings Playbook"
Helen Hunt - "The Sessions"
Amy Adams - "The Master"

Animated Feature Film
"Brave" - Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
"FrankenWeenie" - Tim Burton
"Paranorman" - Sam Fell and Chris Butler
"The Pirates! Band of Misfits" - Peter Lord
"Wreck-it Ralph" - Rich Moore

Cinematography
"Anna Karenina" - Seamus McGarvey
"Django Unchained" - Robert Richardson
"Life of Pi" - Robert Richardson
"Lincoln" - Janusz Kaminski
"Skyfall" - Roger Deakins

Costume Design
"Anna Karenina" - Jacqueline Durran
"Les Miserables" - Paco Delgado
"Lincoln" - Joanna Johnston
"Mirror Mirror" - Eiko Oshioka
"Snow White and the Huntsman" - Colleen Atwood

Directing
David O. Russell - "Silver Linings Playbook"
Ang Lee - "Life of Pi"
Steven Spielberg - "Lincoln"
Michael Haneke - "Amour"
Benh Zeitlin - "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Documentary (Feature)
"5 Broken Cameras" - Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
"The Gatekeepers" - Dror Moreh, Philippa Kowarsky and Estelle Fialon
"How To Survive A Plague" - David France and Howard Gertler
"The Invisible War" - Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering
"Searching For Sugar Man" - Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn

Documentary (Short Subject)
"Inocente" - Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
"Kings Point" - Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider
"Mondays at Racine" - Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan
"Open Heart" - Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern
"Redemption" - Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill

Film Editing
"Argo" - William Goldenberg
"Life of Pi" - Tim Squyres
"Lincoln" - Michael Kahn
"Silver Linings Playbook" - Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers
"Zero Dark Thirty" - Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

Foreign Language Film
"Amour" (Austria)
"Kon-tiki" (Norway)
"No" (Chile)
"A Royal Affair" (Denmark)
"War Witch" (Canada)

Makeup
"Hitchcock" - Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" - Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane
"Les Miserables" - Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Music (Original Score)
"Anna Karenina" - Dario Marianelli
"Argo" - Alexandre Desplat
"Life of Pi" - Mychael Danna
"Lincoln" - John Williams
"Skyfall" - Thomas Newman

Music (Original Song)
"Before My Time" from "Chasing Ice" - music and lyric by J. Ralph
"Everybody Needs A Best Friend" from "Ted" - music by Walter Murphy, lyric by Seth MacFarlane
"Pi's Lullaby" from "Life of Pi" - music by Mychael Danna, lyric by Bombay Jayashri
"Skyfall" from "Skyfall" - music and lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
"Suddenly" - "Les Miserables" - music by Claude-Michel Schonbergm, lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

Production Design
"Anna Karenina" - Production Design: Sarah Greenwood, Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" - Production Design: Dan Hennah, Set Decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright
"Les Miserables" - Production Design: Eve Stewart, Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson
"Life of Pi" - Production Design: David Gropman, Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
"Lincoln" - Production Design: Rick Carter, Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

Short Film (Animated)
"Adam and Dog" - Minkyu Lee
Fresh Guacamole" - PES
"Head Over Heels" - Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly
"Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare'" - David Silverman
"Paperman" - John Kahrs

Short Film (Live Action)
"Asad" - Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura
"Buzkashi Boys" - Sam French and Ariel Nasr
"Curfew" - Shawn Christensen
"Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw) - Tom van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele
"Henry" - Yan England

Sound Editing
"Argo" - Erik Aadahl and Ethan van der Ryn
"Django Unchained" - Wylie Stateman
"Life of Pi" - Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton
"Skyfall" - Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers
"Zero Dark Thirty" - Paul N.J. Ottosson

Sound Mixing
"Argo" - John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia
"Les Miserables" - Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes
"Life of Pi" - Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin
"Lincoln" - Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins
"Skyfall" - Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson

Visual Effects
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" - Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White
"Life of Pi" - Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott
"The Avengers" - Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick
"Prometheus" - Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill
"Snow White and the Huntsman" - Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
"Argo" - screenplay by Chris Terrio
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" - screenplay by Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin
"Life of Pi" - screenplay by David Magee
"Lincoln" - screenplay by Tony Kushner
"Silver Linings Playbook" - screenplay by David o. Russell

Writing (Original Screenplay)
"Amour" - written by Michael Haneke
"Django Unchained" - written by Quentin Tarantino
"Flight" - written by John Gatins
"Moonrise Kingdom" - written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
"Zero Dark Thirty" - written by Mark Boal

So, my tally goes like this:

Life of Pi - 5

Argo - 3

Lincoln - 2

Django Unchained - 2

Les Miserables - 2

Amour - 2

Skyfall - 2

Paperman - 1

Buzkashi Boys - 1

Mondays at Racine - 1

Searching for Sugar Man - 1

Brave - 1

Anna Karenina - 1

Podcast Episode 9

2013-01-29T17:35:00.001-06:00

Here it is, in all its glory: click the link to download a free MP3.

Part One: (Star Wars, Will's News)
Part Two: (Founding Fathers, Hitler and Obama)

Thanks for listening, everybody!

Review: A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III

2013-01-27T09:33:00.002-06:00

The mentality following the termination of a serious relationship has been the subject of countless pieces of art, but two films really brought film to new levels on the topic. Those films were Annie Hall and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In both cases, you got a well developed sense of the internal despair of a hard breakup and the mental inability to stop analyzing and going over what happened, what was right, and, ultimately, why it all came tumbling down. Charlie Sheen returns to theaters for the first time in nine years in Roman Coppola's A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. Coppola's most recent cinematic efforts include co-writing the screenplays for Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom. Here, he attempts to add another story to the genre so incredibly well defined by Annie Hall or Eternal Sunshine.

Charles Swan III is a rampant womanizer, but he has been with a woman that he has really fallen for, but she has broken up with him following her discovery of a drawer filled with dirty pictures of his past girlfriends and hookups. Now, he is devastated and falling behind in his work as a graphic designer. Rather than deal with the issues, he is both stuck in the past and his fantasies of both the world and how the past could have worked. The film feel surreal from frame one, and never really gets to a point where the stylized universe it is set in is differentiated with some sense of reality. This style walks a fine line between style and substance. Woody Allen showed in the 70s how the two can actually mesh quite will. Roman Coppola, unfortunately, does not pay the same amount of attention to developing his characters as he does to their costumes or the soundtrack.

Ultimately, the single flaw that keeps Charles Swan from being a noteworthy film is the single dimension all the characters share. Coppola's characters don't really stand out because they're not developed. Everyone has a trait or two and all depth stops there. The characters aren't particularly funny, endearing, or memorable. More than anything else, the film fails to get you to either relate to or root for the failed love story. Everything takes such a stylized approach that you get a nice looking, visually interesting film, but no emotional core or anything to latch onto. A film like this cannot work unless the love story, whether you root for them to be together or not, is honest. There's no real world honesty in this film, like it was written by someone who hasn't experienced the subject matter but is guessing based on other movies.

That's not to say the film is hard to watch or necessarily a waste of time. It's hard to spend time with Charlie Sheen, Bill Murray, Aubrey Plaza, and Jason Schwartzman and not enjoy some of it. Each actor does a very good job with their respective characters, so much so that you really just wish the screenplay had a few more drafts to become something you can latch on to or even a memorable line or two. It's an interesting project, sure, but a failure to achieve anything at all. In a sense, I would rather just watch these four actors sit around and talk to each other for two hours, because I'm sure that would yield some incredibly entertaining results. As such a huge Wes Anderson fan, I couldn't let myself miss this film, but it's clear that Wes Anderson brings very different sensibilities to his stylized worlds than Roman Coppola. One critic said it better than I would by suggesting that this film probably appeals most to fans of Wes Anderson who don't understand what makes his movies special.

Some interesting writing, visuals, and acting all and all make this still more entertaining than the majority of action blockbusters I see in a year, but Charles Swan III is ultimately a failure at becoming a worthy addition to its genre. It has some nice direction, but leaves you unmoved and with little to remember. I'm not exactly sure who to recommend this to, because this isn't your usual Charlie Sheen work, even. I suppose this is a film for film lovers like myself who can't pass up an interesting project. Perhaps, decades from now, someone will find this to be a gem. As for now, I say just go back and rewatch Annie Hall.

6/10

The New Podcast is Available

2013-01-22T19:15:00.000-06:00

The Guilty Pleasures Podcast returns tonight on Spreaker Web Radio. Click on the links for a free MP3.

Part One: (Weird News, Ben, Cats, Green Day)
Part Two: (Jennifer Lawrence, Rap Music, 30 Rock, Oscars)
Part Three: (Obama Soundbites, Slavery, Lance Armstrong, Blood Doping)

Come back next Tuesday for another new episode!

The 2013 GP Movie Awards

2013-01-12T16:39:00.000-06:00

Well, the Academy Award nominations have been announced. They're sort of underwhelming this year, so here is my alternative. Welcome to the First Annual Guilty Pleasures Movie Awards. Here are the nominees with the winners in bold. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments below. I'm sure my choices have just as much potential for disappointment as that group of old white men's.

Before we go too far, let me point out that our poll for what you, our readers, would have nominated for Best Picture has concluded with the following ten nominees: Argo, Moonrise Kingdom, Zero Dark Thirty, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Master, Skyfall, Lincoln, and the overwhelming number of votes went to Les Miserables, which we can claim as our victor for the reader awards.

Now, it's my turn.

Best Production Design

Hugh Bateup, Uli Hanisch (Cloud Atlas)

Nathan Crowley, Kevin Kavanaugh (The Dark Knight Rises)

Arthur Max (Prometheus)

J. Michael Riva (Django Unchained)

Adam Stockhausen (Moonrise Kingdom)

Best Cinematography:

Roger Deakins (Skyfall)

Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty)

Mihai Malaimare Jr. (The Master)

Robert Richardson (Django Unchained)

Robert Yeoman (Moonrise Kingdom)

Best Original Score

Alexandre Desplat, Mark Mothersbaugh (Moonrise Kingdom)

Johnny Greenwood (The Master)

Dan Romer, Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)

Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek & Reinhold Heil (Cloud Atlas)

Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight Rises)

Best Editing

Sandra Adair (Bernie)

William Goldenberg (Argo)

William Goldenberg, Dylan Tichenor (Zero Dark Thirty)

Leslie Jones, Peter McNutlty (The Master)

Andrew Weisblum (Moonrise Kingdom)

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams (The Master)

Emily Blunt (Looper)

Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)

Kara Hayword (Moonrise Kingdom)

Kelly Reilly (Flight)

Best Supporting Actor

Leonardo Dicaprio (Django Unchained)

Michael Fassbender (Prometheus)

Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)

Samuel L. Jackson (Django Unchained)

Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

Best Screenplay

Judd Apatow (This is Forty)

Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master)

Mike Birbiglia, Seth Barrish, Ira Glass, Joe Birbiglia (Sleepwalk With Me)

John Gatins (Flight)

Drew Goddard, Joss Whedon (The Cabin in the Woods)

Best Actress

Doona Bae (Cloud Atlas)

Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)

Helen Mirren (Hitchcock)

Aubrey Plaza (Safety Not Guaranteed)

Michelle Williams (Take This Waltz)

Best Actor

Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)

Joseph Gordon Levitt (Looper)

Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

Paul Rudd (This is Forty)

Denzel Washington (Flight)

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master)

Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom)

Richard Linklater (Bernie)

Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

Robert Zemickis (Flight)

Best Picture

Bernie

Flight

The Master

Sleepwalk With Me

This is Forty

So, the official tally goes like this:
The Master - 9 noms, 5 wins
Moonrise Kingdom - 6 noms
Django Unchained - 5 noms, 2 wins
Flight - 5 noms
Bernie - 3 noms
Cloud Atlas - 3 noms
Zero Dark Thirty - 3 noms, 1 win
Les Miserables - 2 noms, 1 win
Looper - 2 noms
This is Forty - 2 noms, 1 win
Sleepwalk With Me - 2 noms
Prometheus - 2 noms
The Dark Knight Rises - 2 noms
Lincoln - 1 nom
Hitchcock - 1 nom
Safety Not Guaranteed - 1 nom
Cabin in the Woods - 1 nom
Take This Waltz - 1 nom
Skyfall - 1 nom
Beasts of the Southern Wild - 1 nom
Argo - 1 nom

My Favorite Films of 2012

2013-01-10T21:31:00.002-06:00

It's the end of the year, and thus time for the Best Of lists. Seeing as I live in Omaha, Nebraska, I'm stuck with the unfortunate reality that no one here has seen Zero Dark Thirty and won't until mid-January, so that will not be eligible for this list. Other than that, it's pretty simple. This year, I had a very unique challenge when putting together this list. It was honestly very difficult to think of ten films from 2012 that I have passion for. As someone who sees hundreds of movies a year, it made me sad to think that we had such phenomenal filmmakers like Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino Whit Stillman, Woody Allen, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, and many more all contribute to the year, only to find that most couldn't create the classics we expected. So this list is five films I liked, three films I really liked, and two that I loved. That's all I could muster. Let's hope 2013 goes better.

Top 10:

10. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Right way, I've probably lost some readers with this choice. No one seems to like this movie. I absolutely expected to hate it. Quite frankly, the previews for this looked dreadfully bland, as opposed to biting like the premise suggested. That being said, though this was not nearly as dark as I anticipated, I found myself frequently moved by its poignant emotional core. Steve Carrell and Keira Knightley gave surprisingly restrained performances, letting depth sink in in a much more realistic way than you would think. The jokes did tend to run a little more broad and silly than they needed to, but the emotions of the film were absolutely in the right place and it's ultimately a wonderful film.

9. Hitchcock

Admittedly, there are certain films that are not really made for general audiences. The average moviegoer today may have some idea of who Alfred Hitchcock was and what kind of movies he made, but few would see this movie and be as completely swept away by it as true cinephiles. That's really who this was made for and it hits all the great notes. It is a stylized biopic that may not strike the realism chord, but it paints a very entertaining picture of one of the most important genre revolutions in cinematic history. What if someone good made a horror picture? Witness the way Alfred Hitchcock brought horror into the A-Picture club and changed movies forever.

8. Django Unchained

I really struggled with where exactly I wanted to place Django Unchained on my list. I have very mixed feelings about it, but ultimately I think it is a very creative and unique movie. Maybe if it had come out months ago, I'd have enough time to really digest where it falls on a list like this, but I've only had a few weeks so I'm sorry. Quite frankly, I find the first half of this epic blaxploitation spaghetti western to be amazingly perfect cinema and some of the most entertaining work I've seen all year. Enter the second half, which is when Quentin Tarantino really let his trademarks take over in place of his western setting and things get a little bit more murky and less successful as things take a dark turn, followed by a silly over the top epilogue. Django is more of a mixed bag when looking at the sum of its parts, but 4/5ths of its parts are pretty dang wonderful. It's not the genius level of Inglourious Basterds or any of his 90s work, but there's enough to like here that this really deserved a place on my list.

7. Moonrise Kingdom

It's no secret that Wes Anderson, as far as I'm concerned, is the best filmmaker of all time. This guy speaks to me the way no other filmmaker ever has and I love his films with an intense passion. That being said, his most recent two films haven't struck that personal note with me that all of his early work did. Moonrise Kingdom is not vintage Anderson, but rather it comes from a place more akin to Fantastic Mr. Fox, a wonderfully clever and well made film. I always joke that a bad Wes Anderson movie is still probably going to be one of my favorite movies. Well, here's your example of that. While not bad by any stretch of the imagination, I wasn't taken with Moonrise the way a lot of these Anderson virgins appear to have been. That does not mean It doesn't have strokes of genius. The thing is, this is a different type of Wes Anderson film. Somehow, his trademark quirks are turned all the way to eleven as he tells a story of twelve year olds in love and running off to take part on their own adventure. A lot of the differences between this and the previous additions to Anderson's oeuvre is that he usually makes movies about adults that act like twelve year olds. Though Anderson's work elevates itself above quirky comedy by his masterful use of subtle drama and tragedy, that kind of character work is inherently much more entertaining than twelve year olds acting like adults. There is still a lot to love here in the epic love story of two young people that turn out to have as little of an idea of how the world works as all those adults trying to find them.

6. Flight

The most thrilling scene in any 2012 movie belongs to Flight, the dark tale of an alcoholic pilot played by Denzel Washington. This scene, depicted in the above picture, comes from the opening of the film as Washington flies a plane that begins to fall apart mid-air and he manages to land it while saving almost all of the passengers. Rather than being a hero, however, he is under investigation after the paramedics found alcohol in his system. The film is the struggle this man goes through as he must confront his lifestyle and the choices he has made. The only thing keeping Flight from being perfect is its somewhat cliched ending, but all in all, it's a wild ride and a fantastic movie.

5. Bernie

Bernie was one of those movies that I didn't really know much about. I never saw a trailer and maybe read a vague plot description a long time before it was released. It was purely because of word of mouth that my interest was piqued, and boy was it a good decision to see it. While I'd recommend you know as little as possible before watching this disturbingly entertaining true story, let me assure you it is certainly worth your time. Just watch it on faith, okay? This is the story of a Texas mortician's relationship with a mean old widow gone horribly wrong. That's all you need to know. Richard Linklater directs the action with fake and real interviews to heighten just how crazy this true story is and the payoff is wonderful. You should be shocked as the film goes on, and that's exactly why it works.

4. To Rome With Love

I seem to have strange reactions to Woody Allen movies. While I consider him one of the best filmmakers of all time, I'll gladly admit he's made a fair share of stinkers. Recently, however, I've found that he's been on a roll. I loved Whatever Works, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Midnight in Paris, and now To Rome With Love. Most critics will inform you that Midnight in Paris is the only one of that list that's worth anything, but I think Allen has gone back to his roots and is making some of the best work of the latter half of his career. To Rome With Love is not groundbreaking cinema; it contains some lightweight themes and a lot of broad humor, but it is legitimately hilarious. Part of the magic here comes from Allen putting himself in a role again, something I've been waiting for for the past six years. Woody may not have a lot of range, but when he's acting, he lights the screen on fire with his wonderfully silly performances. This is no different. The film is comprised of four vignettes in Rome, and is a great comedy for anyone looking for a simple laugh.

3. Sleepwalk With Me

Mike Birbiglia is a genius. I didn't really appreciate him until I saw Sleepwalk With Me, but following that, I downloaded his comedy albums and read his book and can now saw it with certainty. The man is smart, charming, and hilarious. Sleepwalk With Me is his directorial debut which he co-wrote and stars in. Though it showcases his personal humor, Sleepwalk With Me serves as a sort of Annie Hall for the modern world. It fictionalizes Birbiglia's personal journey to fame and self discovery while its emotional core lies with his struggle to manage his relationship while doing so. Birbiglia understands something it often takes filmmakers many years to get; real people can be funny too. Whether they're trying or whether the laughter is directed at their serious actions, the realistic tone keeps Sleepwalk With Me in a very intelligent genre of humor while being as silly as it needs to be to make all of its points and score a large amount of huge laughs. It is simultaneously a crowd pleaser and an art film, with points about life, love, and the road to success. I can't recommend it enough, and I personally cannot wait to see what Birbiglia comes up with next.

2. The Master

If this movie came out in late December, it probably wouldn't find itself so high on my list. Paul Thomas Anderson is one of those filmmakers that takes a long time to make a movie because he thinks about things. He analyzes and restarts and rewrites and ultimately crafts multilayered stories that are well packed to resonate with you in a number of ways, even if you don't realize their magic is working the first time you see the movie. The Master is his most dense work yet, following a man (Joaquin Phoenix) returning from WWII with PTSD before there was any real method of caring for these individuals. He is broken and lonely until he believes he has found hope in Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), who is the founder and master of a new religion known as The Cause. The film sort of failed to catch on in any big way, and seems like it may end up being one of those movies people 20 years from now look back on with more affection than contemporary audiences can muster. The Master is long, holds an unconventional narrative, and lets you think just as much as it wants you to. It's an intricate film that will leave you thinking for a long time after it's over.

1. This is Forty

You're no more shocked about this than I am. Never in my wildest imagination did I think this semi-sequel to Knocked Up would end up being the most entertaining movie in a year competing with the latest offerings from Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino. Yet it happened. Judd Apatow's fourth film is certainly his best. It's a film full of self centered, privileged and narrow minded people who are talented at finding reasons to feel sorry for themselves even if the audience can't help but not sympathise with the majority of their self inflicted problems. That's not to say the experience of watching this unfold is not absolutely hilarious, however. This is Forty finds that rare balance of characters that aren't quite people you root for, but every single action they do is completely honest. That's what's so charming about this movie. It's incredibly honest about its characters and life. Watching this reminded me of the experience of vintage Woody Allen or James L. Brooks. It's a very mature movie about immature parents just trying to get by. Nothing could stop me from loving this movie. Even if some of the editing was a little indulgent, it works here. Hands down, this was the most entertaining movie I saw in 2012 and I can't wait to see it again.

The Most Disappointing Movies of 2012

2013-01-10T21:09:00.003-06:00

This list deserves a disclaimer: disappointing is not the same word as worst. Every year, people call me out for my choices on this list by saying the film wasn't that bad. Well, yes, I realize that. There's only one legitimately bad movie on this list. The rest, to my great disappointment, are artistic misfires that had unbelievable potential. This potential led me to think I was in for masterpieces that. In most cases, these were movies I thought would be my favorites of the year. Instead, they ended up here.

5. Cloud Atlas

I never wrote a review of Cloud Atlas because reviews, while they are literal tellings of one's subjective reaction to a piece of art, are not supposed to be written exclusively as a reaction to the biases one had walking into a film. With Cloud Atlas, I wasn't just watching an inventive new film; I was eagerly anticipating the adaptation of one of my favorite novels of all time. I absolutely adore David Mitchell's groundbreakingly original novel. It just reeked of genius and after watching the five minute long trailer for the movie, I just started believing that they'd somehow pulled it off. Before seeing the movie, I purchased the soundtrack and once again let myself think My God, they've done it. Never before have I listened to a soundtrack for a movie based on a beloved book and felt that the composers perfectly captured the tone of the novel, but Cloud Atlas did it for me. At this point, I was convinced that the Cloud Atlas movie would be my favorite movie of the year, maybe of all time.

Then, when I saw it, reality finally settled in. It was always going to be extremely difficult to fit all the things that make Cloud Atlas work into a 165 minute long movie. In fact, I'd argue that it's impossible, as proven by the movie. This needed to be a 6 hour long miniseries on HBO to really work, and hopefully someday someone will give me many millions of dollars to make that happen. Today however, I'm left with this strange hybrid of the novel that made a lot of artistic changes that worked well for some of the stories, but butchered my favorite one. The structure of the original novel was a large reason for why its multi-layered story worked, but the film becomes more disjointed and ultimately works so fast that you fail to get attached to these characters or feel the gravity of the situations they are in. The film has some beautiful acting and cinematography but it turns out that it's just too much to ask for someone to create a broad, short version of the breathtaking novel. All that being said, I still listen to the soundtrack on a regular basis.

4. Seven Psychopaths

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Seven Psychopaths, Martin McDonagh's followup to In Bruges, was going to be great. After all, Bruges is such a perfectly woven film with perfect nuance and attention to all the details that this guy had exhibited none of the qualities of a one-hit wonder. The movie, however, suggests he may be just that. Rather than make a movie, we have a collection of characters and skits and vignettes that have potential but never really pull together because, as the writer's block inflicted protagonist will admit, there was never any direction when writing the script. It came from writer's block and is about writer's block, but fails to make any real points about the subject we haven't seen handled with much more subtlety in works like Barton Fink or Adaptation. The acting here was all superb, so it was really a shame that nothing ever came together in the end here. Oh well, at least we got Tom Waits holding a bunny.

3. The Hobbit

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was the most unpleasant cinema experience I had all year. The worst film I saw all year would probably be Rock of Ages, but that doesn't get the title because it at least had the courtesy to cut its runtime under two hours. Don't get me wrong - I love a good three hour movie. I can easily sit through any of the Lord of the Rings movies, even if they don't have the charm now they had when I was younger. Don't you ever make me sit through The Hobbit again, though. First of all, I'll more than likely fall asleep. Second of all, that's just plain mean. Peter Jackson showed with King Kong and The Lovely Bones that he's actually not all that good at telling stories, but I was more than ready to enjoy his return to Middle Earth, this time taking one novel and splitting it into three movies. Unfortunately, he followed the King Kong formula of endless chase scenes and not the Lord of the Rings formula of well developed characters. The Hobbit is a waste of time and a huge disappointment given the amount of talent that works on those films.

2. Damsels in Distress

Whit Stillman is a filmmaker that very, very few people know about. Those that do, however, tend to appreciate his wonderfully unique voice and talent. In the 90s, he made a trilogy (the Doomed Bourgeoisie in Love Trilogy) about the demise of the talentless upper class coming from old money. The films (Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco) each tackle different issues, though they have a lot of the same actors and themes. Each one is utterly brilliant. Stillman displayed a perfectly developed sense of subtlety and biting satire that has not been matched on the subject. Then, he didn't make any movies following 1998 until his 2012 opus, Damsels in Distress. The film looked promising, with a great new cast of talented young stars (Greta Gerwig, Adam Brody, Aubrey Plaza) and a quirky enough story to recapture the magic. However, where Metropolitan felt like it was made by a seasoned veteran filmmaker who now knows all the secrets to great storytelling, Damsels feels like an unpolished work from a novice filmmaker no one ever really criticized along the way. It's uneven, broad, and ultimately a weird experience that recaptures none of the magic his career had thus far thrived on. He still has a few projects left in him, according to interviews, so I can only hope he rewatches his older movies before commencing on anything new.

1. The Dark Knight Rises

There were a lot of disappointing films that came out in 2012. None of them caught me off guard quite the way The Dark Knight Rises did, however. Christopher Nolan's impeccable resume of great films, especially considering the first two films in his Batman trilogy, assured me that there was no way he could mess this up. All the talk of the story taking inspiration from A Tale of Two Cities led me to believe we were going to see a gritty class warfare epic unlike anything that has come out before. Upon seeing it for the first time, I was honestly just confused. Is this really what Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David S. Goyer came up with for the epic conclusion to the story? Really? Though there are flashes of great ideas sprinkled throughout the project, The Dark Knight Rises ultimately bites off more than it can chew as it tries to be a serious crime epic, a war movie, a mythological tale of a modern hero, and a crowd pleasing comic book movie.

The problem is: those genres don't really mix that well. Particularly when you limit your runtime to 164 minutes so IMAX can project it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's quite possibly a great five hour movie in here, but the not-quite-three-hour cut I saw was sloppy, underdeveloped, cheesy, and predictable. This is not A Tale of Two Cities. It's not even V for Vendetta. This is a plot hole filled, mostly lazy script that comes off more like a serious version of The Avengers than The Dark Knight. If Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were ahead of their time, The Dark Knight Rises is certainly years behind its. If it came out in 2005, perhaps it would have been more impressive, but rather than wowing me with the brilliance the trilogy had thus far been overflowing with, this third film had a been there, done that feel nearly the whole way through.

In my dreams, Christopher Nolan calls me up and tells me not to worry; this was just a joke project. The real epic conclusion is secretly in production right now and due for release next summer.

Django Unchained: Tarantino's Most Indulgent Film Yet

2012-12-30T10:00:00.001-06:00

Only a handful of filmmakers have final cut rights in every contract they sign. What that means is that the financier or studio can make as many suggestions about what could be change or tweaked to the script, cast, or finished film, but the director has no obligation to listen to a single thing. In short, these directors have 100% control over what they're doing. As a concept, of course, this sounds like the ideal setup for making movies. After all, what do studio heads know about movies? They're businessmen, not artists, right? Quentin Tarantino began in the independent circuit and by the time his second movie (Pulp Fiction) was released to huge profits and acclaim, it was clear that this man was one of the rare artists who would forever get final say on everything he did from now on. In the beginning, he had final say over a series of low budget, low risk projects, but as the 2000s rolled around, the budgets grew increasingly higher and Tarantino became one of the even more extremely rare few who could make blockbusters and take no criticism from anyone giving him money.

Now, that is not to say there was no one giving him opinions throughout that time on how to improve his work, be it through pacing, what plots could be expanded on or taken out, or even music choices. From the very beginning with Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino got this valuable advice from a woman named Sally Menke, his editor. With Menke, Tarantino found a genius to shape his massive narratives into tightly woven, fatless products. That's not to say every project the two collaborated on was a masterpiece; I'd argue that their 90s work towers far above the post-2000 films with the exception of Inglourious Basterds. However, it was clear that Menke had the sensibilities that a studio head may not; she could take an objective look at what Tarantino made and turn it into the best product the story had the potential for. Tragically, Sally Menke died in 2010 at the early age of 56. A year later, Tarantino began work on Django Unchained, his most expensive project to date and ultimately his longest.

Perhaps reading this, you're wondering why I'm launching this long exposition into a critique on editing when I could edit all of this out and just talk about Django but I think it's all important to keep the story behind the scenes on your mind for what exactly is wrong with Django, a film that could have reached the heights of Tarantino's previous efforts and become a highly original western/fairy tale set in the antebellum south. The ambitions of the project were every bit as amazing as they could have been and potential was magnificent. Clocking in at two hours and forty five minutes, Django Unchained tells the tale of a slave turned bounty hunter (played by Jamie Foxx) and the trials he'll go through to save his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Django is aided by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a seasoned bounty hunter with progressive views on slavery. Waltz needed Django to identify some of the men he needed to kill, and the two become partners of a sort for the winter before embarking on the journey to save Django's wife from Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), owner of one of the biggest and most dangerous plantations in the south.

For the first time in Tarantino's career, he's finally made a movie where the tone is an uneven mix of humor and atrocities. Sure, that's a very hard balance to find, but somehow his previous films hit that balance perfectly. Here, the backdrop of slavery provided some of the more disturbing moments in the film simply because almost every character we're introduced to in the south is a monstrous racist. Sometimes this is played for humor, an almost satirical view on how stupid slavery actually was. The first half of the film plays almost more like an all out comedy than anything else, and the laughs nearly always land. It's only once the real story begins to form and the audience is taken to Candieland that things start to get really gut wrenching. Here, you see Mandingo fighting where slaves are pitted against each other to fight to the death for the amusement of whites. You see a man torn apart by dogs. And, here you get one of the goriest finales that's been captured on film in a while. Yet the tone of the film does not intentionally fall into this dark territory as a myriad of jokes and silly moments continue to pop up from time to time. The only problem is you start to get a little too disturbed to be as lightheartedly amused as you were before.

In a way, I wish Quentin Tarantino would simply make up his mind on films like this to either make them serious or funny. The funny stuff works and the serious stuff could have worked, but the two meshed together just did not create the right atmosphere for a spaghetti western. Rather than letting us get really emotionally invested in the horrible life Django and Broomhilda have had to endure to this point, Tarantino has us laughing at a bunch of goofy moments and then getting serious and then getting goofy and then just getting over the top gory. Never before have his stories had so much trouble tonally. That being said, he's only done a love story once before, back in 1997 with Jackie Brown, which is undoubtedly his most mature work to date. It sometimes seems like Quentin Tarantino has started getting less mature with each film since it. Unlike Jackie Brown, Django leaves romance on the cutting room floor and simply has you accept the relationship since we know Django and Broomhilda are married. Your emotional involvement here stems far more from the satisfaction of watching these horrible despicable villains die than legitimately needing this couple to end up together. And that's too bad.

As far as the performances are concerned, Django Unchained has some of the very best performances you'll see all year. Christoph Waltz again proves he is impeccable with Tarantino's dialogue. Samuel L. Jackson provides a surprisingly dark and entertaining take on his character, a house slave in Candieland. Jamie Foxx does his best with the material, though it takes a while before his character gains the skills and confidence to really shine. The real surprise here is Leonardo DiCaprio, who gives quite possibly his most intense performance to date as Calvin Candie. The man is so despicable but played with every perfect subtlety there is. It's truly a magnificent performance and it looked as though he had a blast doing it. A variety of great actors fill out the smaller roles in the ensemble and there's only one weak link in any of the performances. It's no surprise really, because that weak link is Quentin Tarantino. I'm not sure even Sally Menke could've fixed that awful accent he affected for the bit part.

While the film itself is largely entertaining and there are moments of brilliance sprinkled in many places throughout the first two thirds of Django, this is Quentin Tarantino at his most indulgent and this new editor did not appear to have the capability to stop him. The film gets repetitive, somewhat bloated, and a little tiresome during the actual finale. It appears that Mr. Tarantino wrote himself into a corner about two hours in, where a forced character action had to bring about a gunfight, which then turns into Django's personal journey instead of the climax. The actual climax at the end of the film is full of so much gore it becomes silly. Tarantino's insistence on creating homages to the awful exploitation films of the 70s that he loves is detrimental when you're so taken out from the moment by how fake everything looks. Then you have so many modern songs Tarantino shoved into the movie that just gets tiresome. There is a moment where one song ends just so another song can play as a montage continues. It just doesn't flow well, which is what an editor is supposed to tell him.

So, it probably sounds like I hated this movie. No, that's not it at all. There's a lot to like, but there are certainly flaws along with Django Unchained. Tarantino is a wonderfully creative artist, but he's not a god. An exploitation/spaghetti western/love story was always going to be a hard combination to make work and he almost did it, but he forgot how love stories rely on an emotional core to work. Inglourious Basterds didn't need an emotional core because it was never not going to be satisfying to see the Nazis defeated. Django isn't about ending slavery, it's about reuniting lovers. Sure, I'm fine with these awful people dying, but that's not the point of the story. All that being said, this is still worth watching just for the moments that do work, especially the first half of the film. It's not a classic or a game changer, but Django Unchained is still a fun ride.

7/10

Happy End of the World, Everyone!

2012-12-20T10:34:00.000-06:00

I figured it'd be a crime to not post something today for those of you convinced tomorrow is the end. Of course, on the show we've had just about every guest bring up opposing viewpoints on the 2012 issue. My take? Nothing's going to happen other than people freaking out. This post originally was going to be a countdown of my favorite apocalypse movies, but my criteria included the world actually ending in them. Anything where Ben Affleck saves the day was immediately disqualified. So that left about four movies I actually like, and no list just has four movies. If you're really looking for some quality apocalypse entertainment, you don't have enough time to read The Stand so let me suggest you pop in Dr. Strangelove or Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Those are some solid movies.

If this is, in fact, the end somehow, thanks for reading and have a wonderful apocalypse.

The Hobbit: Three Hours You'll Never Get Back Again

2012-12-14T19:00:00.001-06:00

I'm not really big into fantasy. Let me get that out there straight away. That being said, I'm certainly a sucker for great storytelling, compelling characters, and narratives packed with more than enough story to justify a long runtime. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey exhibits none of these qualities. It is, of course, inevitable to compare this latest film to The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy that I hardly fawn over, but can appreciate. Middle Earth has never fascinated me, but with The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson showed that well cast and developed characters can certainly make you buy all the silly bits in the story. Certainly with those films you cared about the overall goal. In fact, the story was pretty simple: if that ring doesn't get destroyed, we're all going to die. Okay, sure. I get it, I guess.

Enter the horribly convoluted "plot" of this first in the Hobbit trilogy, a prequel taking place 60 years before the story we all know so well. Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellan), feeling especially snotty, decides to barge in on Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) with 13 oafish, uninteresting dwarves looking to reclaim their mountain home. The Lonely Mountain was the dwarf kingdom before a gold-craving dragon named Smaug came in and snagged it for himself. Apparently the dragon wasn't much interested in using the gold to buy things for himself, because he's taken to just sleeping under piles of gold as a hobby. So, why Bilbo Baggins? Well, these incompetent and stubborn dwarves don't really get it, and neither do I. The group begins the journey and encounters endless chase scenes where danger is constantly around the corner and no one can ever save themselves.

Much like we saw with King Kong, Jackson has decided it's far more interesting to disregard character development, entertaining dialogue, and something complex like a plot in favor of episodic scenes of peril with villains that have nothing to do with anything in the long run. No doubt these scenes were added or expanded upon from the original J. R. R. Tolkien novel because it's awfully hard to make a trilogy of three hour films with a book that's shorter than all of the Lord of the Rings novels. The Hobbit is not quite three hours long, but it feels like twelve. I learned more about Bilbo in the first half hour of The Fellowship of the Ring than I did in this entire movie that's allegedly about him. Martin Freeman does a wonderful job bringing a subtle life and charisma to the character, even though he is stuck in the background for nearly the entire movie as the plot goes on without his involvement. It should be no surprise that Freeman and McKellan bring a great life to the characters you actually want to root for, but Peter Jackson has let the film focus entirely on the dwarves.

The dwarves are not characters you care about. I dare you to even name all of them. They are ugly, annoying little creatures that honestly do not deserve their mountain back if they're always as incompetent as they are here. Every step of the way, they're wonderfully successful in annoying the audience as well as Gandalf. Numerous times in the film, Gandalf gets to leave, saying, "I've had enough dwarves for one day." That's about an hour into the movie, and boy did I feel the same way. Then I remembered I still had two hours of this movie and then another six hours with them before their tale was finally finished. They don't inject the film with moments of comic relief like Gimli did back with The Lord of the Rings. All they do is create countless conflicts for themselves and prove to the audience that there is absolutely no reason why they should be able to succeed in getting their home back. I root for them to fail, because it would be so much more satisfying to see one of them getting torn to pieces by a monster than overcome their problems.

All The Hobbit proved to me about these characters is that they really have no chance of beating a dragon. For all the action scenes they get in throughout this endless movie, they are never able to successfully save themselves. Not once. Gandalf comes to they day every single time. In fact, why doesn't Gandalf just go get that stupid mountain back for them instead? It'd sure be faster. The pacing throughout this movie is legendarily bad. I honestly think film schools should show The Hobbit in a lesson on the importance of a good editor and how NOT to pace a movie. Honestly, for the amount of plot we're given in the first of this long trilogy, about two hours could have been shaved off. If this was condensed into the first forty five minutes of a three hour long movie called The Hobbit, well, it might actually have been worth watching. Might being the operative word.

Now, it can certainly be said that the flaws I find with this story are not entirely Peter Jackson's fault, but rather I'm doing nothing more than attack a flawed book. Is that so? Well, maybe, but that's no excuse for the incompetent writing and editing exhibited here, showcasing only what new toys and special effects Jackson can think of instead of telling a story. There is no excuse for the runtime of this movie. A film is not a book, the pacing simply does not work the same way. What it is clear to see is that this entire movie is simply the first act of a story that's really not that long or complicated at all. Stretching one short novel into three mega-movies would have worked if it were focused on developing the characters or the world rather than flashy CGI.

There is no payoff here, only chase scene after chase scene after chase scene with cliches here and a little cliches there. Here a cliche, there a cliche, everywhere a cliche. There is only one scene that's any good in this entire $150 million movie. You guessed it: Gollum vs. Bilbo. Andy Serkis returns with a younger and more lively Gollum than we've seen in The Lord of the Rings and Martin Freeman finally gets to show off his skills in a wonderfully constructed and entertaining sequence that ultimately paves the way for the original trilogy to take its form. If the whole movie had the same attention to performances and character that this scene did, we'd have a great movie on our hands. Returning to the dwarves is so much more disappointing once this one scene stands out.

This is an absolutely awful movie. There is no getting around that. Peter Jackson should at least be ashamed of himself as he counts his millions of dollars. He can thank Tolkien for his rescued career, but I have nothing to thank him for after this. Towards the end of the film, Bilbo states that he thinks "the worst is finally behind us." Gee, I hope so, Bilbo. I really hope so.

2/10

Watch the First Trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's After Earth

2012-12-11T09:23:00.004-06:00

Here, Kitai Kitai.

Is there anyone out there who still heavily anticipates every new M. Night Shyamlan release? If so, this is the movie you've been waiting for since you apparently loved The Last Airbender. I'm working on a much longer editorial on the rise and decline of M. Night Shyamalan, so I'll save that for the next few days when that gets posted. Anyway, here's the plot description for his latest, After Earth:

After Earth is set one thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity's escape from Earth and Nova Prime has become mankind's new home. General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) returns from an extended tour of duty to his estranged family, ready to be a father to his 13-year-old son, Kitai (Jaden Smith). When an asteroid storm damages Cypher and Kitai's craft, they crash-land on a now unfamiliar and dangerous Earth. As his father lies dying in the cockpit, Kitai must trek across the hostile terrain to recover their rescue beacon. His whole life, Kitai has wanted nothing more than to be a soldier like his father. Today, he gets his chance.

That's right. The two main characters in After Earth are named Cypher Raige and Kitai. Now, onto the trailer!

After Earth gets released on June 7, 2013.

The Star Trek 2 Bad Guy Is. . .John Harrison?

2012-12-10T20:48:00.004-06:00

(Left to right) Zachary Quinto is Spock, Benedict Cumberbatch is John Harrison and Chris Pine is Kirk in STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS from Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions.

I honestly don't like Star Trek including the original series, the spinoff series, or the movie series, with one notable exception: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Really, that's a great movie. If I taught a film seminar about that really rare occurrence known as "good blockbuster writing," it would be absolute blasphemy to do anything other than praise the first Star Trek sequel. That one really understood what it is that makes big movies so dumb. Most franchise films have no sense of danger (of course no one dies, right?), bland characters/dialogue, and are predictable beyond belief. Khan throws all the cliches of an extremely cliche-filled series out the window and brings a balls-to-the-wall thrilling revenge story to the series that is not afraid to kill off anyone as the ruthless Khan makes things much more personal and series than you'd ever expect.

Last year, as J.J. Abrams' then-untitled sequel to his 2009 Star Trek reboot/reinvention/sequel thingy began casting, we had no information about the plot other than Benicio del Toro had been approached to play the villain. Well, it didn't take long to throw out a few reasonable guesses about what villain Abrams could possibly want another Latino actor for, especially a Latino actor with a resemblance to Ricardo Montalban. It's KHAN! Things were lining up for a sequel that could potentially bring the franchise back to its, well, only high point. My interest went from apathy to excitement in a second. Abrams is no dummy. I trust what would essentially be a remake of the great sequel to him. Then, del Toro could not agree on a price so he dropped out of negotiations, only to be replaced by a lanky British fellow - Benedict Cumberbatch.

I know what you're thinking- hey, what's wrong with lanky British fellows? Well, nothing's wrong with British lanky fellows except for one thing: Khan was certainly no British lanky fellow. Khan was a buff Latino with no semblance of high culture despite his brilliance. So, why would Benedict Cumberbatch be playing Khan? Time went on, scenes were filmed and there was no official statement about who the official villain was going to be until today as Paramount Pictures released the above screenshot with the description of the character named John Harrison. (I notice he's talking to the heroes from behind a glass cage, probably because he planned to get caught in his ingenious chaotic schemes, a common plot in our post-The Dark Knight franchises). Some quick research will inform you that this John Harrison fellow was not one of the iconic bad guys from any incarnation of Star Trek to this point. Is it possible that Cumberbatch is in fact playing a brand new villain, the tall lanky fellow looking for revenge even though this new fleet hasn't really even been around long enough to keep pissing off all these people? I guess so. I mean, sure, why not, right? Except I don't think it could possibly be that simple.

So, who is John Harrison? I think the more important question we should be asking is who is John Harrison really? Remember when Warner Brothers announced that Marion Cotillard was not playing Talia, but just a boring board member at Wayne Enterprises? And remember how no one believed that and we were all right? Yeah, I'm smelling something fishy about this John Harrison scenario. That name certainly fits a lanky British fellow, but that's not who J.J. Abrams wanted initially, is it? Would you look at Benicio del Toro and believe that guy is named John Harrison? It is the future, though, so maybe ethnic names have died out in the hundreds of years between our time and the time of Star Trek. Or. . .John Harrison is really an alias for Khan like we all thought anyway. As far as I'm concerned, that'd be much more interesting and lord knows J.J. Abrams can't get enough of confusing and directly lying to his audiences.

So, is Star Trek Into Darkness the result of a reboot where a brand new British revenge plot has been hatched or are we witnessing a disguised remake of The Wrath of Khan? I suppose the actual coolest thing that could happen is if Benicio del Toro is actually a part of the movie as Khan, who gets revealed as the major villain in a huge surprise to everyone. That's not likely, however. Nonetheless, my interest is piqued just by the possibility that there might be something good still left in the Star Trek series. How's yours?

Be Curry-ous, Buy Curry

2012-12-09T15:01:00.000-06:00

Experimentation can spice up your life in many regards, including in the culinary sense. Whether you normally cook for just yourself or for others, trying new things
in the kitchen can be extremely gratifying. And especially around the holiday season, it offers you all sorts of pronounced reactions that you’re looking for, as well as those you’re not: everything from “Mms” and puckered faces to flatulence and heartburn. So tread softly, friends.

But do still tread. Learning improvisation (sounds like an oxymoron, right?) in the kitchen this year has been an actual joy for me. Whether or not my roommates agree that the various ways in which I’ve learned to curry anything and everything is joyful, I’m sure is up for debate. Regardless, you’ve got to start somewhere, and for me that was currying things (particularly onions). How do you know what you want to make? Well, snoop around the kitchen, take inventory. I came to college with lots of spices on hand, which are relatively inexpensive, last long, and can be used to transform a simple legume into an Indian dish or a Southwestern one. But seriously, anything is fair game. Did you find some odd type of oil? A grain? Frozen vegetables? Potatoes? Canned tomatoes? They’ll all work. Try pairing things with familiar tastes first, then go crazy. (As a word of caution, baking is a lot less forgiving. Trial and error becomes very trying, so be patient with it if that’s what you’re going for. As an English major, though, chemical reactions just aren’t my style, so I stick to cooking.)

So once you’ve got everything in mind, consider starting with a basic thing you found. The thing about having your basic be meat is that it can be tempting just to cook it and say that’s that, so maybe use ground beef or another type of meat you have to use in conjunction with other stuff. If you’re going the spice experimentation route like me, sense of smell and mini tastes of individual spices can help inform your decisions. Remember that heat does bring out different flavors, so embrace that cautiously. If you’re not up for creating from scratch just yet, try amending a recipe: omit, add, cook it differently, whatever. Try diced sun-dried tomatoes instead of crushed tomatoes in a recipe. Try baking instead of boiling. Try peanut oil instead of canola.

To what end, you may ask?

Well, in case you are ever on a tight budget with repulsive food at best in your kitchen, remember those old spices and such that can create tolerable, or even tasteful, meals from virtually nothing. When something is out of season, but you are still craving home-cooked food or a flavor, having creative backups that satisfy your craving is another benefit. And ultimately, the gratification of creating and (sometimes) succeeding, because you WILL succeed sooner or later, is like that of any other art: it doesn’t need to explain itself. Just enjoy it.

Should I Give to Hobos?

2012-12-06T19:04:00.000-06:00

Ahem. This question has often circulated within religious and intellectual communities, not that the two are at all mutually exclusive. Since people inevitably fall pretty nicely into one of the categories, (that is, their actions are governed either by rational thought and ethical principles or by rational thought and moral dictums) let’s explore both sides.

We’ll start with religious people. I've seen countless examples of industrious Christians asking if they should share their hard-earned dollars with beggars, and the overwhelmingly popular answer is no. With “charity” and Christianity being so closely associated, it is an interesting phenomenon. The argument is as follows. Some people think that since Christ often begged himself and performed generous acts, he was all for charity. He didn’t just hand out cedar walking sticks and try to teach lame men how to adapt, he actually healed them. Or I guess we could just go with the whole “Give a man a fish; he’ll eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” expression, because he did that, too. Jesus gave people fish, okay? Yet others point out that saving that dollar bill handout is actually doing society more of a favor. Having that industrious Christian spirit and contributing instead to larger charities and institutions is promoting help for those who deserve it, who want to better themselves and will put the work in like the rest of us. The Bible stresses the importance of work to human existence and how staying away from idleness contributes to all people in society.

Countless other religions have role models who begged for their food or lived upon charity while disbursing it likewise: Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. In each, monks and prophets roamed around in skeletal bodies with dirty feet and lunatic ideas, but people believed in them and their “worth” to society. They were truth-seekers, and whether or not people agreed with the truth, they gave to those they found worthwhile on an intangible level, a spiritual one. Indeed, many religions have sects of holy people who survive solely by charity and are still considered worthwhile.

Now to the intellectual community. Certainly charity perpetuates the life of someone on the streets in that it keeps his body functioning, and he then continues to beg or eventually better his situation. There's that old question of whether or not people grow up to say, “I want to be a beggar, and since people give to hobos, I could really make a life for myself." Maybe some people do… I don’t know. If the recipient of charity is a drug addict, she could certainly use the money for drugs, but what about food donations? Can buying someone a sandwich possibly be a bad thing? A small inconvenience for one person to show a little charity could be a large inconvenience to society if the recipient is a psychotic killer. I know you intellectuals thrive on this stuff, so have at these questions and your consciences. For atheists with no ethical foundation whatsoever, congratulations. You are probably the only group, besides sadists, who can withhold food or money from beggars. As for secular humanists and all others, people guided by an ethical code, godless or no, it’s simplistic, but consider that humanity is waiting for a chance to learn how to pay it forward.

I’m not talking about that thing where people in the drive-thru of a coffee shop (here I go again, I know) pay for the $6.00 drink of the person in the car behind them. I’m talking about buying a $4.37 sandwich for a homeless man in a coffee shop with freezing cold hands and a thin waistline (like my pathos here?) One action supports what is likely a caffeine addiction of one’s own kind, in the upper class, and one keeps someone alive for another day. Even if the homeless person is an addict or murderer, are we really to judge all our actions by future events and consequences? Applying that kind of hypothetical questioning (like the intellectuals do) to real life could be debilitating. Likely this hobo is useless, tangibly speaking, to society; he is not the next Jesus or Buddha, right? And certainly his wife and children are not living in a tent under an underpass, but besides the fact that they might, and you might have the ethical obligation, hear this.

For the same reason that people have helped wandering anorexic monks or what-have-you, we can help beggars. I’m not saying to hand out lots of money to every beggar, all the time. But think about the habits we are breeding in fellow humans when we do. Compassion is gravely lacking in our society. Building and maintaining the ability to be compassionate and inspiring others to the same is something we should keep in mind. Regardless of how you express that, institutionally, through charities, or through handouts, how about not judging others’ ways of doing it? Who's to say that institution isn't discriminatory, that charity full of crooks? Compassion is vulnerable; things will happen. It’s the holiday season, folks, this couldn’t appeal to your tender hearts any more than right now. So consider it, hm?

RIP Dave Brubeck (1920-2012)

2012-12-05T21:03:00.001-06:00

Dave Brubeck, one of the leaders in the progressive jazz movement, died today at age 91. Jazz fans everywhere recognize the wonderful contributions Brubeck and the Dave Brubeck Quartet brought to the world. I know I play my vinyl copy of the album Time Out more than anything else in my record collection. Brubeck was truly a treasure to music in general. Here's the Brubeck family's statement:

Our much loved and revered father, Dave Brubeck, died of cardiac arrest today, December 5, 2012, one day before his 92nd birthday. He died peacefully with family present. The news spread before we even left Norwalk Hospital and our family is deepy appreciative of the phone calls, messages of condolence and continuing tributes in the media and those received personally, certainly a reflection back to us of Dave's powerful and positive impact on the world. He specialized in long relationships; married to our mother for 70 years, had few changes of personnel in his outstanding quartets or in professional management and many of his fans became personal friends he new for decades. We thank you all for your appreciation of him and the respect you have shown our family.

Darius, Chris, Dan, Catherine, and Matthew Brubeck.

If you're not familiar with the wonderful tunes Brubeck brought to the world, you owe it to yourself to give him a listen or two. In fact, here's the quintessential Brubeck piece. A master has passed on, but his music never will.

A Fascinating Director's Roundtable Discussion

2012-11-28T22:43:00.003-06:00

The Hollywood Reporter has put together this absolutely fascinating discussion between Quentin Tarantino, Ben Affleck, Ang Lee, Tom Hooper, David O. Russell, and Gus van Sant about the art of directing. Each filmmaker has a prestigious film that has either been released this year or will soon come out. It's really a great way to spend an hour if the craft of filmmaking interests you.

The Show is Cancelled Tonight, Sorry Everyone!

2012-11-28T11:17:00.002-06:00

Guilty Pleasures Radio is cancelled for tonight, sorry everyone. A last minute scheduling mixup has prevented one of the hosts from being there so we will not be able to perform the show tonight. We should be back and running for our premiere next week. We'll keep you posted.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2012-11-22T12:03:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers/fans of the show. We really appreciate all your support and hope you have a wonderful holiday. For all our international readers, well, I'll feel bad now if I don't post something on some foreign holidays so you'll get some recognition, too.

Anyway, be sure to tune into our podcast when it returns next Tuesday as well as the return of Guilty Pleasures on KVNO really soon. I promise the official start date will get announced any day now.

Have a great day, everyone!

Sex Toys and Dolphins

2012-11-22T07:41:00.000-06:00

Living in a household of phenomenally empowered and progressive women is a life experience everyone should have. In every discussion, from politics to religion, you get insights into the roles of gender, specifically women, as well as sex’s position in the issue. Whether it was during the presidential campaigns or a more recent trip to a sex shop, larger issues are always available upon which my roommates jump to elaborate and inform. While searching for bachelorette party gear at this particular store, we had the opportunity to engage in some particularly stimulating conversation. (And for fear of this whole entry becoming a succession of sexual puns, I will henceforth disengage from such colorful vocabulary… or at least try to.)

So I found out that the sex toy industry is largely unregulated. It seems pretty obvious, but unlike sex toys’ passive friend, porn, they can actually hurt you… really, physically hurt you. Their manufacturers, instead of according to FDA regulations (which themselves are another issue), sell their dildos and butt plugs under the “novelty” category, which eliminates necessary standards for something to be a medical device. Why is this a relevant issue? The industry has erupted, interestingly enough, in spite of the recession. And without real regulation, things like phthalates can slip into your covers and cause some damage. While some claim they are harmless, they have already been effectively banned from children’s toys (having been known to cause harm), which spurs action for a ban for adult toys as well. Additionally, things like product construction can lessen healthfulness of a particular toy, so it’s critical to be informed. There are lots of concerns…

Namely, that dolphin sex toys are a “thing.” Ha! You thought this whole article was either going to be about types of sex toys, with lots of fun visuals, or else a boring expose of the unregulated industry and its dangers from a feminist perspective. Well, it’s changing topic right now. My wonderful friends also introduced me to this piece of information about dolphins while we were in the sex shop, and shoot me, but this conversation made a deeper impression on me. I remarked upon the oddity of a dolphin-shaped vibrator whereupon one friend casually replied that was likely because dolphins rape people…

WHAT? How the hell do these things still have a good name as being intelligent and cute and fun to swim with? I know I really should have paid more attention to the other topic of sex toy safety, but I was compelled to research this dolphin stuff instead. And I have yet to come across information that contests the fact that dolphins have underwater sea caves inside which they engage in violent sex, rape of other animals or each other, as well as attempts at humans. Obviously they are hiding their criminal, disgusting nature from people when they are in captivity and have no dark depths to take people for little swims, but they want to nevertheless. Actually, I really don’t know if it’s more disturbing to me that dolphins are the oceans’ sex offenders, or that people like to use them to masturbate. Does that fall under S&M…?

Anywho, be careful of which sex toys you buy, because poor regulation can let some scary things slide. Always check out credible sources first; do your research. Also, be careful where you swim. And don't, for the love of all that is good, buy a dolphin vibrator.

Lincoln (Or, Spielberg's Middle School History Lesson)

2012-11-18T16:14:00.001-06:00

What do you know about Abraham Lincoln? In America, at least, middle school and high school tend to give off this mythical impression of the president that ended the Civil War and freed the slaves. There's generally some attention directed to the importance of the thirteenth amendment, as well as a basic understanding of the key players in the war. You know the generals, you know some of the politicians, and you know the political implications of Lincoln's actions. So, when Steven Spielberg announces he's making an Abraham Lincoln biopic starring Daniel Day-Lewis and a million other great actors, you're incredibly excited to see what the director of such biting true story films like Schindler's List or Amistad will bring to the table. At least, that was my reaction. This movie could teach me so much more about the depth of these incidents I've been learning about my whole life, right? Well, walking out of Lincoln, I honestly can't say I learned anything at all.

Does this mean Spielberg has failed to make a compelling film? Well, no, not really. In fact, there are parts of Lincoln that left me far more moved than I thought I would be and overall it does have a certain compelling quality to these historical scenes that are predictable, simplified, and ultimately tell you nothing new. The vast majority of the film details the courtroom drama of passing the thirteenth amendment to abolish slavery as the Civil War is moving towards closure. Spielberg introduces you to a wide variety of characters played by the likes of Hal Holbrook, David Strathairn, Sally Field, James Spader, and an absolutely wonderful Tommy Lee Jones. Each actor brings a great energy to their respective historical roles and helps bring them to life. The acting is often powerful and sucks your heart into the scenes that your brain is assuring you are silly in their overdramatization or oversimplification. Such is an issue I had many times throughout the two hour run time.

As far as the performances go, most are applauding Daniel Day Lewis for his effort, but I have to say this was one of the least impressive performances I've seen from him. Let me of course make the important distinction here that a not-as-impressive Daniel Day Lewis performance is still likely to be among the top ten performances anyone will see all year. What I took issue with was this high pitched voice Day Lewis affected for the role. In historical accounts, Lincoln was documented as speaking in a more shrill, high pitch, which Day Lewis does his best to create. It works for the most part, but his high voice never changes pitch and is never really able to capture emotion outside of inflection. Not everyone speaks at the exact same pitch at every moment with only volume and speed fluctuating, and every other actor demonstrates a wider vocal range than our title character. This certainly was a character, for its performance and the screenplay aren't interested in painting a flawed man. This is undoubtedly that mythical figure you've heard about since you were a child.

Who am I to say that Abraham Lincoln wasn't this fable-spewing social genius at all times? Well, I'm not to say that at all, but let me just say it didn't feel all too real. I'm not here to argue the history when something simply doesn't work in the film. These characters do their best to seem genuine when Tony Kushner's screenplay paints so many of them as simple caricatures. If you're a good guy, you show some mild range of emotions, are a Republican, and hate slavery with a burning passion. If you're a bad guy, you're a close minded Democrat who hates blacks. Lazy expositional writing keeps you constantly aware that you are, in fact, watching a scripted version of events that were probably not so conveniently constructed. If Lincoln was a play, its cinematic shortcomings might feel a lot more at home, but unfortunately, this is a freaking Steven Spielberg movie.

Where is the sense of shock at the depth of characters impacting history singlehandedly we were so wonderfully exposed to in Schindler's List and Amistad? Where is the bite this once great director was so famous for? Are we forever going to be stuck with these long, overly sentimental dramas like War Horse? What bothers me even more than just how safe Lincoln is was the moments where you can really sense Spielberg waking up and beautifully directing a scene to a well deserved impact. There are these great little moments in Lincoln that make you wish there was more to talk about, either historically or just in terms of his wide cast of characters. This should have been a thought provoking movie, but instead we are left with a simple middle school history lesson that would certainly bore the hell out of middle schoolers.

6/10

Skyfall: Bond Goes Wrath of Khan

2012-11-11T11:49:00.002-06:00

There are the occasional mainstream franchises that I absolutely adore. In most of those cases, I don't adore them by the time studios are finished with them, but there's some amount of love associated with the basic mythology and characters that carries into each new opus. Then, there are far more franchises I am either indifferent to or actively despise. The 007 series has been hanging around cinemas for 50 years now and I must confess I'm rather indifferent to the lot of them. I've seen a handful and yet none of them really left much of an impression. Most of them fell into the average category, with the only exception being Quantum of Solace, an embarrassment to all involved. That being said, Daniel Craig's more serious and realistic James Bond has always had a lot of promise to it and I went into Skyfall with the hope that the payoff I'd been hoping for since Casino Royale finally existed.

Skyfall is one of those movies that would no doubt play best to one who knew absolutely nothing about it, but for the sake of writing a review, I can't leave out all plot details. So here's my abbreviated paragraph giving you a small taste. MI6 is in trouble. A flash drive containing the names of every agent embedded in terrorist organizations around the world is stolen and released. Bombings target M (Judi Dench), the leader of MI6. James Bond (Daniel Craig), now the oldest agent in the organization is faced with the question: in the age of advanced technology, are field agents even necessary anymore when all this destruction can be caused with the use of a computer? Faced with a foe (Javier Bardem) unlike any of the traditional Bond villains with a personal vendetta and no grand conspiracy, and no fear of failure. This is truly a worthy adversary because, to use the old adage, this time, it's personal.

Director Sam Mendes (the only Academy Award winning director to ever helm a Bond feature) stated that The Dark Knight was what gave him the confidence to make Skyfall:

In terms of what [Nolan] achieved, specifically 'The Dark Knight,' the second movie, what it achieved, which is something exceptional. It was a game changer for everybody. And what Nolan proved was that you can make a huge movie that is thrilling and entertaining and has a lot to say about the world we live in, even if, in the case with ‘The Dark Knight,’ it’s not even set in our world. If felt like a movie that was about our world post-9/11 and played on our fears and discussed our fears and why they existed and I thought that was incredibly brave and interesting.

This is being clung to by many fans, saying this was very much the Nolan treatment on a Bond movie, but I'd actually have to disagree. Skyfall has its fair share of big and epic moments, but I wouldn't call it an epic story. This film decided to up the ante in the smartest way possible - by making you care. It's a personal, thrilling story of revenge based on personal motives and no clear trajectory. The bad guy never has to sit down and explain his plan to take over the world because he's not after the world. He just want to kill the woman who ruined his life. He's not out to watch the world burn. No, this isn't The Dark Knight. This is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAN

In quite a few ways, Skyfall was like Wrath of Khan for me. In both cases, they took a large, outlandish franchise that I'm not particularly a fan of and took things to a more intimate, scary level. This isn't some watered down Marvel film, there are real stakes here. People die, people fail, people have flaws. The bad guy actually has some sympathetic qualities where you end up leaving the theater actually wondering if his motives were even all that despicable. This is, without a doubt, the thinking man's Bond film and it's a wonderful experience because of it. Things get worse than they ever have before and personal relationships become the king, not campy explosions.

Thematically, this is such a clever deconstruction of the series while at the same time reaffirming why these movies matter. That question of whether agents are necessary in the age of computer hacking is a very valid one. Has the world moved on, leaving the kind of barbaric fistfights and action scenes behind? Can James Bond ever really belong to a post-911 world? Skyfall is here to tell you, "Yes, he absolutely can. Here's why." Though not strictly subtle, that's still a hell of a lot more subtext than you'll find in most Bond films. Bond here is stripped down, aging, still loyal to the old world, and ultimately vulnerable. This is the kind of vulnerability Bond is known to throw out the window. Here, he's human.

It helps that such a smart approach is met with phenomenal performances across the board. Javier Bardem's villain was unfortunately spoiled by the trailers, but he's quite an interesting man. As stated above, he's not unsympathetic, just like Khan's revenge plot came from a place that struck a chord of sympathy in viewers. That being said, he's ruthless, brilliant, and emotionally confusing every step of the way. Craig and Dench continue to portray Bond and M with an intense loyalty and bravado that's really realistic and appropriate. We also get the addition of Ralph Fiennes as Mallory, a bureaucrat investigating the security breaches. Do I need to describe that performance? Clearly not. Fiennes is always great. There's also Ben Whishaw as Q and Naomie Harris as Eve. It's a great cast all around, all shot beautifully by director of photography Roger Deakins. Deakins has shot the most beautiful looking blockbuster of recent times.

Perhaps this review is leading you to believe that Skyfall is some new god of cinema, like The Dark Knight was four years ago. I wouldn't go that far. It's not groundbreaking in the way Nolan's sequel was, but it is a fantastic step for this new era of Bond. Skyfall is endlessly engaging, thrilling, and fully entertaining. It has depth and a great personal approach that really can't be replicated again to the same effect in future installments. Sam Mendes may not have topped his ultimate inspiration, but he can always rest knowing he made a 007 sequel that's more competent and intelligent than Nolan's Batman finale. If that's not one hell of a confidence booster, I don't know what is.

9/10

Spike TV Offers $10 Million for Proof of Bigfoot

2012-11-05T23:09:00.003-06:00

Oh, you all know how much I love Bigfoot. As someone who is very (VERY) open to the strange mysteries of the world we live in, Bigfoot has gone from a subject of interest to something I ridicule after my show has gotten multiple fake scoops about the alleged revelation of proof of the Sasquatch race. Not only that, but even some of my friends working at similarly paranormal themed shows/sites have gotten pranked in the same way only to find that, like we all thought, there is no such announcement. This, naturally, means that we'll probably never be interviewing another member of those Bigfoot organizations, though you can listen to one on our Show Archive page. Spike TV is doing something to pique my interest in the subject, as it turns out, however.

The big question here is: how far would you go to prove Bigfoot's existence? If you look over to Animal Planet, they're currently airing season 3 of Finding Bigfoot, which offers more of the same ambiguous, sometimes laughable evidence brought up for the creature. Spike's bringing things to a whole new level with its new series 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty, which will air as 10 hourlong episodes intending to attract "the best scientists, zoologists, trackers, and Bigfoot hunters in the world in an attempt to prove or disprove its existence." Believe it or not, Spike TV just did something more logical than the Animal Planet.

The show is scheduled to launch next fall, and to bring even more common sense to a fairly nonsensical topic, Spike executives told the Huffington Post that their hope is that the show doesn't last more than its 10 episode first season. If your jaw didn't drop there, you must be an embarrassed BFRO member. Tim Duffy, Senior Vice President of Original Series for Spike even went further to emphasize an interest in bringing legitimate arguments to the table rather than prolonging what has already been disputed for years to come: "Nobody wants to watch another series of 10 or 13 episodes of television where nothing happens."

Take that, Animal Planet. Of course, should Bigfoot get proven real and humans go on to domesticate him, I'll totally sit down for an hour of My Bigfoot from Hell where Jackson Galaxy saves the day. Until then, we have Spike TV giving away the largest cash prize in television. This either means someone really believes in Bigfoot or really doesn't. Either way, hopefully this means there'll be no more false positives and this whole subject can get some much needed clarity.

As to whether there will ever be clarity, I really think this will provide some interesting and legitimate perspectives. Stunts like this would put the driving force behind Guilty Pleasures Radio out of business, but at least they'll be sufficiently informative. I think that's worth it in the end, don't you? I don't know if I'll sit down to watch every episode, but this can't be any worse than every other Bigfoot special, right? Will you be watching?

Halloween Movie Countdown #1: The Shining

2012-10-31T08:46:00.001-05:00

Here it is: The Grand Daddy of Horror. The Shining may just be the best horror film ever made. That's being said with full appreciation for the divisive nature of the film. Most people fall into three camps when they watch The Shining: the first camp falls completely in love with it, the second camp is pissed off because writer/director Stanley Kubrick changed too much from Stephen King's novel, and the third camp looks at it and says, "This is boring." Well, there's a reason for all of those, but I clearly fall into the first camp. That's why I'm writing this, obviously.

Though a plethora of viewers saw the movie with the hopes that it would be just like the Stephen King novel came out disappointed, the entire setup still remains from the book. Both are about Jack Torrance, a man hired to be the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel during the winter months while the hotel is closed. He takes the job so he'll have more time to focus on writing. Along with Jack is his wife Winifred and his son Danny. Over the months of isolation, Jack begins to slip into madness - but is that simply cabin fever or something far more sinister?

The Shining is a slow burn, there's no mistaking that. The scares don't start until a significant way into the film, but right away Kubrick works his movie magic to create a very strong sense of tone. The eerie tone is created through music and symmetrical shots that, under a less seasoned filmmaker, would have come off cheesy. Here, they do the job wonderfully. You're almost on edge for a whole hour just because you know something is going to happen, but things can't go too quickly. This is not The Evil Dead. The isolation is not met immediately with evil killing forces. No, this is much smarter than that, and much, much better.

If you're looking for iconic horror imagery, you really need look no further than The Shining, a film far more influential to the landscape of cinema that most are willing to admit. Stanley Kubrick's attempt to make a mainstream film may not have completely churned out one, but it did continue to inspire techniques that would be utilized by films of all genres to this day. Of course, the easiest to point out is the use of steadicam for many of the tracking shots, most notably following young Danny Torrance on his tricycle through the hotel. This film is arguably the most influential horror movie of the past forty years. So many attempt to emulate the subtleties of this film to no avail.

In true Stanley Kubrick fashion, The Shining is a terrifying, disturbing experience, but that's not at all to say it isn't entertaining. If anyone could turn the story of a man turning dangerously insane into an entertaining 150 minute ride, it's Stanley Kubrick. The performances across the board are both realistic and stylized in a way that works far better than it should have. Jack Nicholson in particular turns in a performance that's terrifying yet has odd bursts of humor throughout the most intense scenes. This is truly a mad man you're watching.

This is a film that will not leave you for a long time. If you want proof of that, look no further than the hundreds of insanely detailed interpretations longtime fans of The Shining have come up with. Ask some - it's an allegory for the faked moon landing. Ask others - it's about the plight of the Native Americans. No, no, it's about the Holocaust. It's obviously about the cold war. Let me just ask - could it not simply be about the recurrence of evil in human nature? Whatever you think the film is "actually" about, it's going to get you thinking. That's really all that matters. If you want to look further into the very detailed interpretations of The Shining, there's a documentary coming out about it next year entitled Room 237 that seems worth a watch if you're into over-analysis of films. Who am I to say it's not really about secret knowledge Kubrick had about the faked moon landing?

Even knowing the outcome of the film, as most do, The Shining continues to be extremely effective for just about any viewing. I'm incredibly envious of those who got to see it in glorious 70mm this past summer in California. That'd be a dream come true, for as great as the film is on DVD, this is a film meant to be experienced fully in the cinema. That's true of every Kubrick film - they're intense, cerebral, immensely entertaining, and all of them are celebrations of the magic of movies. The Shining continues to disturb and entertain new viewers all the time, and if you're in a position where you can fit either category, you better go for it this Halloween. Trust me, these are words of wisdom.

Halloween Movie Countdown #2: Halloween

2012-10-30T21:51:00.002-05:00

Fear can take many forms. In fact, fear is such an interesting topic because it can be very different for each person. In one of the most terrifying films of all time, fear takes the form of a masked killer. A relentless, chilling killer, one that knows no limits. Michael Myers will get you, it is that simple.

John Carpenter's 1978 film Halloween captures fear perfectly. The plot is simple; a masked man is attempting to kill you. I think it is safe to say that would bring fear to just about everyone. Laurie Strode, played by a young Jamie Lee Curtis, is living her life as normal, when, on Halloween, she continues to see a strange masked man. This masked man appears in several locations, including Strode's own backyard, where he is standing staring up into her window. Strode is concerned, but continues on with her plans, which include babysitting the neighbor's child for Halloween night. The masked man, revealed to be Michael Myers, continues to haunt Strode throughout the night, killing off her friends one at a time, before coming for her.

While the storyline is chilling enough as it is, Carpenter's product must be viewed in order to be fully appreciated. The film instills fear in the viewer, making them feel as if they are in the place of Strode. Jamie Lee Curtis does a phenomenal job in her first feature film portraying Strode. We are presented with a good, clean teenager, as opposed to her friends who can be seen engaging in appropriate behavior. We find ourselves "rooting for" Strode, to the point that we almost become her in the film. When Michael Myers comes after Strode, we really feel he is coming after us.

The fear of Michael Myers comes from two main things, both of which John Carpenter can be credited for. Halloween set the stage for the common horror film, both through it's general storyline and through it's scene style. Carpenter uses camera angles and atmosphere to portray horror and gore, rather than flat out showing it, as one might fin in a horror film of a more recent decade. Carpenter was able to create the right atmosphere in each scene, telling the audience what was happening without actually having to show it. This style of storytelling creates an even stronger sense of fear for the audience. By keeping Myers unexplained and undeveloped, Carpenter is able to create a figure that can be feared by all. Myers' appearance and characteristics create a horrifying figure, one that the viewer wants to stay away from, both physically and emotionally.

While the image of Michael Myers is terrifying enough, the music associated with him brings about it's own sense of fear. The score, composed and performed by Carpenter himself, is relatively simple, perhaps explaining why it is so perfect. The simple piano melody added to the image of Michael Myers slowly moving towards his victim will send chills down your spine.

Halloween captures the feeling of complete horror so perfectly. The audience is afraid of what will come next, where Michael Myers will be, what he will do. John Carpenter places the audience in the shoes of Myers' victims, and the audience, whether they realize it or not, fears for their own lives. Not only do they want Laurie Strode to get away, they don't want Michael Myers to get them. The film ends, the horror is over, yet the viewer is left with an utter sense of fear. Michael Myers is coming for you.

Podcast Episode 5

2012-10-30T18:02:00.004-05:00

Finally, here it is - episode five of the Guilty Pleasures Podcast with Tom Knoblauch, Matthew Wurstner, and Jon Vlach. Click on the link to download a free MP3.

Part One: (Disney buys LucasArts, Star Wars Episode 7)
Part Two: (Who will Jon vote for?, South Park, artificial intelligence, Frankenstorm)
Part Three: (Halloween movies that didn't make the countdown)