Read This: Education

Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education.

This is a great read and gives some interesting food for thought.

Watch This: Melancholia

Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo.

This trailer for the new film by Anti-Christ director Lars Von-Trier might start off as the most conventional thing he has ever committed to celluloid but trust me when I say this is definitely the movie you make after Anti-Christ. The plot is as follows, taken from wikipedia.

The film begins with the destruction of Earth and then jumps back in time. The story will be about two sisters, Justine and Claire (Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg), who are becoming increasingly more distant from each other. There will be a wedding during the first part of the film between Justine and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård). Soon after the wedding Justine becomes melancholic, which makes her stay calm when Earth is threatened by a collision with another planet that has recently emerged from behind the sun, while Claire, on the other hand, becomes fearful of what is to come. Trier has said that he considers all of his previous films to end happily, and that this will be the first with an unhappy ending.

Review: Hanna

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who had been kept hidden from the world by her father for her own safety. You see this girl was special and there was an evil CIA agent looking for them. So her father taught the girl everything he knew so when the time came she would be able to defend herself. With this crazy premise, a score by The Chemical Brothers, and an amazingly talented cast, this European-techno-rave-CIA-fairy tale-music video-revenge-thriller from the director of such action heavy films as Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, and The Soloist is completely out of the ordinary, which is what makes it so damn cool.

And trust me Hanna is a damn cool movie. In fact some may argue that the only thing going for it is the overwhelming style that Joe Wright has brought to this revenge fairy tale. That would be underselling some of the great things that make this film work so well. But before I get to that let's talk about the style for a minute.

Full of crazy camera angles, fast cuts and a heart pounding score by the aforementioned Chemical Brothers, Hanna is nothing without this style. Action scenes last less then you would expect given the marketing for this film and yet they all feel extremely furious and kinetic. Moments skip beats and even play off the music which is used particularly well in the films first major action scene, playing into both the fairy tale and music video vibe at the same time. It's jarring at first but take the entire film by the throat and chokes every single ever loving drop of energy out of it. There was not a single moment where I didn't feel the exact emotions pour off the screen be it tension, loss, or exhilaration.

This is coupled with the set designs being very ethereal and having a storybook quality to them, albeit one that comes from a quite screwed up storybook. They do have a couple of places that look more grounded in a reality we can understand but even those keep a consistent tone and feel to everything else.

However, none of this would work with out two other important things; and great screenplay written by David Farr & Seth Lochhead, and a cast able to pull out the emotions and weight need behind every scene. For seemingly first time feature film screenwriters Hanna is a great debut. It has the style and tone of many different genres yet hands them well enough to not feel out of place, while also finding the human and funny moments of a girl trying to find out who or what she is.

Not enough can be said about Saoirse Ronan as she deftly carries this film and balances between the little girl who never had a childhood and the cold, calculating assassin that could kill with a look. She is the heart and soul of the film and I believe this the breakout role for the 15 year old actress. She is also thankfully surrounded by an exceptional supporting cast with Eric Bana as her ex-CIA father and some equally great villains.

Tom Hollander's crazy German nightclub owner hired to find Hanna and her father is so cool he even gets his own theme that he whistles whenever he pops onto screen and Cate Blanchett as the evil CIA witch that has been tracking her across the globe. A fairy tale needs a great evil to be the foil for our hero and Blanchett does a fantastic job being the most completely evil witch she can be with no remorse or compassion. She strikes fear into her lackeys and is constantly planning one step ahead making her presence felt at all time times, striking fear and terror into the audience that something bad is about to happen.

Hanna works on more than just style. It has wit, charm, and have I mentioned a score composed by The Chemical Brothers, well it's great and with all the competing tones it's a wonder this film doesn't completely fall flat on it's face. The performances from Ronan and Blanchett specifically do wonders to elevate the film that would have faltered in lesser hands. One of the best action movies I have seen in a long time and damn sure one of the coolest and best films so far this year.

5/5

Watch This: Friday

Oh boy is it Friday all right. Watch these videos in Top to Bottom order.

Review: Source Code

I'll admit that i wasn't very interested in Source Code from the commercials I had seen on TV in the weeks leading up to it's release. It came over as a bad science fiction flick with a one note premise. Thankfully that is not the case as director Duncan Jones and writer Ben Ripley have crafted a good sci-fi action mystery that is elevated immensely by a great performance from lead Jake Gyllenhaal. As a follow up to Duncan Jones' first film Moon, Source Code may not be as completely out there after it's conclusion as the heady space trip and character depth that filled the station of moon. Yet, Source Code will more likely find a bigger, more approving audience at it's feet.

Gyllenhaal plays Captain Colter Steven, a helicopter pilot who mysteriously wakes on a train with no idea of how he got there or who any of the people around him are, including a girl Christina (Michelle Monaghan) who seems to know him as a man named Sean. While completely disoriented the train explodes killing all passengers aboard, while Colter wakes up in a chamber, strapped to a chair and being greeted by Carol Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) who explains that Colter is inside a machine called the Source Code and that he has eight minutes to stop the bomb on the train he was just on to prevent a more devastating attack from occurring later. From there the film becomes a mystery as to stopping the bomb and finding the bomber.

Luckily Gyllenhaal is a strong leading man and is quiet capable of pulling off many ranges of emotions that go through Colter's mind as he continues to try again and again to halt the trains destruction and rescue Christina who he slowly starts to fall for. Michelle Monaghan does well as the pretty girl of Colter's affections, but is mostly given little to do. Vera Farmiga fairs better with her and Gyllenhaal having good chemistry together. The cast is rounded out by Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) who created the Source Code and is quiet menacing when he needs to be yet sometimes feels a little one note.

As to why this film is lucky to have a strong leading man it's because the science fiction, while extremely important to the overall plot, doesn't seem to be as important as the character drama and intended romance that ultimately don't strike as big a cord as the explanations as to what is truly going on, both Colter's predicament and the Source Code itself. This is apparent as the 92 minute film starts to draw to a close with at least 20 minutes left to go filled with moments to don't feel as important now that we know that's happening. Coupled with a slightly sappy tone to some of the romantic moments including swelling happy music that becomes particularly annoying and drag down what could have been and amazing movie to just really good.

A compelling premise, great direction from Duncan Jones, and the best Jake Gyllenhaal performance since Donnie Darko elevate this slightly more simple sci-fi thriller in to something greater than the sum of it's parts. For such a short movie I feel weird wishing some of the ending had been trimmed and was also slightly peeved by the most intriguing concept showing up as the end even if I had seen it coming, but despite all that I still very much enjoyed my time in the Source Code. Just take all my criticism slightly.

4/5

Review: Rango

Let me get one thing perfectly clear, this is not a kids movie. It's animated, produced by nickelodeon films, and stars Johnny Depp who has in recent year transitioned from more adult fare to kid friendly family films. Your kid is not going to understand at least half of what happen in Rango, hell they might even be frightened by some of it. From a highly detailed dead bug to a straight homage to Apocalypse Now complete with "Ride of the Valkyries", this movie is for fans of film. It's both shockingly funny and brilliantly smart as well as completely head trippy and surprisingly violent.


From moment one Rango doesn't feel like a traditional animated film. Sure there are anthropomorphic talking characters but not a single one of them looks clean and crisp, all of them are just slightly off be it a weird quirk or physical deformation. The opening of the film has our title character Rango, played to perfection by the wild and quirky in his own right Johnny Depp, trying to stage a play wide a half-headless barbie doll, a bright orange mechanical fish and a plastic palm tree. This is a play he wrote, stars, and directs to a group of inanimate objects because he has no one else. That is until the tank he's in comes crashing out of the vehicle it's in and slowly crashes to the hot black asphalt of the open road. He's ventures into the desert and comes across the town of dirt, a town plagued by drought. through a couple of scenes of improvised acting, Rango manages to not only avoid certain death but becomes the town new sheriff. From here the true journey begins and it's one of strange images and adult themes.

Speaking of strange imagery, the wizards at ILM should be given a round of applause for what they have accomplished here. Rango is certain to be one of the most beautiful animated films of the year. Bright colors peer down in the barren desert wasteland to the cold blue that is a fixture of the night, Rango has countless scenes that would not look out of place as a still painting. Combine that with the great score from Hanz Zimmer that takes cues from the best westerns and you will feel transported to the wild world of Rango.

A world that is filled with the great personality and characters voiced by actors Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers), Abigail Breslin (Zombieland), Harry Dean Stanton (The Green Mile), Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2), Ned Beatty (Toy Story 3), Ray Winstone (The Departed), and Bill Nighy (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest). It's a who's who of actors that all bring life and color to the characters they inhabit.

On top of this is an obviously natural love for film and while I have not seen all of the films that Rango both obviously admires and pays homage to I know enough of them to get by. From the visual cues of Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly to Director Gore Verbinski's own Pirates of the Caribbean films, Rango fails to fall into an easy classification which can be extremely hard for some audiences to grab hold of and enjoy. Constantly throughout the film I was shaking my head in utter awe that they had just made a reference to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or classic abstract art. It gives Rango a feel all it's own, setting apart from the myriad of other by the number kids films that come out in a year. And there is no doubt the Rango will not be the overall crowd pleaser that certain other animated films with talking animals in it will be, but if your willing to let go and bask in the complete and utter craziness being thrown on screen then Rango will absolutely win you over.

5/5

The Criterion Collection #1: Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion

In 1990 Jean Renoir's war classic was finally released on the home video market as the first film in the Criterion Collection. It had been a long road getting there. As explained by Renoir himself the film had been cut, edited, and censored numerous times by many different countries, and with the original thought to have been lost during WWII it seemed that Gran Illusion would fade into the abyss. However the German soldiers had actually saved the film in one of their film archives in Berlin. It was reclaimed when the American soldiers took the city back. The history of Grand Illusion is an interesting parallel to the theme's of the film itself, War and how it effects everything around.

As prisoner's of war, Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin ) experience first hand what war does. For an audience of the 21st century it may be a shock as all the prisoner's are treated exceptionally well as long as they follow the German laws. They even eat better then their captors as packages sent to the camps are delivered without a single item missing post inspection. Maréchal and Boeldieu are about to escape before they are sent to another camp controlled by Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) who finds a kinship with Boeldieu.

In many ways there are almost three different movies going on. The war film that deals with what being a prisoner of war in WWI was like. An escape film with two major plots being shown to the audience, yet we are told that over there 18 month imprisonment both Maréchal and Boeldieu have tried to escape 11 times. And a character study of how different classes of people see war and where they fit in. For the most part this all works well to keep the film feeling fresh and moving, but by the last twenty minutes it slows down to a snails pace with a tacked on love story that could have been completely cut to keep the film going.

That being said as a historical piece or rumination on war, Grand Illusion still stand up in 2010 as a film with enough modern ideas and simple story telling that anyone who like a good war film should check it out.

4/5