Excess of Opinions

This movie blew my fucking mind, which is clearly exactly what it wanted to do. You have no choice but to go see it multiple times. Unlike Memento or The Sixth Sense, other mind-blowy movies, you don’t just watch this movie and you get the “a-ha!” ending and you go home and you’re done. You keep going back and peeling back the layers, trying to figure out what the fuck is happening. And the answer is there, you just know it, you just have to pay close enough attention to all the little excruciating details. If only you can knock the rust off your brain, surely you’ll puzzle it all out.

Christopher Nolan continues to do what he does best: admire and respect his audience enough to not spell it all out for them. Christopher Nolan knows you don’t need the whole thing exposited to you; Christopher Nolan knows you’re smart.

Another thing he does exceptionally well is have beautiful people do amazing physical stunts in nifty environments. These people, they are beautiful. I think the person-candy element to this movie is glossed over too often in other reviews. There is something for everyone, and each member of the cast is totally delicious in their own special way. Joseph Gordon-Levitt wears the hell out of a vest while defying gravity, for crissakes. Marion Cotillard is carved from marble. Ken Watanabe just gets improbably hotter with age. All of them: gorgeous. All of them: sharply intelligent.Christopher Nolan does not suffer fools, and would never ask you to.

I’ve read some reviews that accuse this movie of not having enough emotion to it, but I am not sure what movie those reviewers have been watching, because the one I saw abounded with sorrow, devotion, anguish, love and pain. There’s quite a lot of pain in all of Christopher Nolan’s movies, isn’t there? Christopher Nolan knows pain is the common human denominator. His characters can’t sit back and wail about their pain; they have work to do, saving each other and saving themselves. Christopher Nolan believes you can keep up.

This movie fills the brain-puzzles-with-hot-people hole in my heart that was left by the departure of Lost, except it fills it with 14 karat gold and chocolate and puppies. In its daydreams, Lost wants to be Inception when Lost grows up.

Not a lot in common with A Serious Man, other than the extremely compelling suffering of an attractive white man in the 60s that you definitely need to watch.

Directed by first-time director and famed fashion designer Tom Ford, obviously the clothes and sets were going to be sublime and elegant-yet-manly. He is working with top-notch talent from exquisite source material, of course, but Ford really needs a round of applause for the sheer quality of this film.This does not feel like a first-timer’s movie.

The cast is tiny and perfect; Colin Firth, beautiful and grave as always. I hear he’s really a goofy, rumpled, dirty-minded imp in real life, and that makes me enjoy his tortured, repressed typecasting all the more. Nicholas Hoult you may remember as the boy in About A Boy with Hugh Grant, but he is all grows up, my word. I look forward to him in the upcoming X-Men prequel spin-off. Julianne Moore, exactly as she often is: shrill but absorbing and vulnerably gorgeous. Matthew Goode, in flashbacks as Firth’s dearly departed, is breathtakingly pretty but…I dunno, there’s something sort of poisonous about him that I think is the actor, not the role. Right here and now, I’ve decided that I dislike Matthew Goode. So there.

I knew what the story was about, so I was expecting something much, much sadder than it truly was. True, it is a very sad story – we’re carrying the weight of this man’s grief with him for only a day, and it’s overwhelming. But his story is more about the many ways life and happiness keep trying to reach out to him, and his ultimate success saves it from being depressing.

I will admit that I balked at seeing this movie at the International Film Fest, and that what got me over my reticence was hearing that it was from the director of (and included several actors from) The Host. The Host was absolutely one of my favorite movies in 2006 – so unique, it was like 4 movies for the price of one. Mother sounded heavy and boring.

Well, clearly whoever wrote the blurbs at the film fest should be sacked, because Mother was a hell of a thing. It’s a mystery that slowly unravels, and I found it so gripping that I straight up forgot to breathe on occasion. The story isn’t so complex or unusual, but every character in it was extremely complex and unusual. After a while, I stopped trying to figure out the story and where they were going with it, because it never went where I expected. The moments of hilarity were laced all through it, and capped with a powerfully poignant ending.

Maybe everyone in Korea is that interesting and weird/compelling. I mean, I dig pretty much any movie that shows people in other cultures going about their totally foreign daily business, so they had me there. So now Korea can add “movies” to the list of Things I Think Korea Must Be Making For My Joyous Personal Consumption, alongside kim chi, karoake TV shows, bulgogi and college roommates.

I admit to being really put off by Hollywood hype; it’s really best if I get to the movie ahead of the hype, or else wait several months until nobody gives a care anymore. So I did go see this movie somewhat reluctantly. I did enjoy it, did find it a meaningful and exceptionally well-done film, and do feel considerably more positive about every single person associated with it (especially Jason Reitman and the cinematographer).

What I did not do was feel very involved or emotionally invested in the movie or its characters – ultimately, that’s a testament to the filmmaker’s prowess, because as our protagonist lives his life at a affectionate remove from other people, so I experienced his story at that same affectionate remove. Excellent movie that did not impact or stay with me at all.

I was curious how Wes Anderson would make an animated children’s movie, and the answer is very clear: exactly the way he makes all his movies. If you don’t like his movies, if you find them painfully awkward and self-consciously weird, you probably will not like this because, first and foremost, it’s a Wes Anderson flick. If you are fond of his films in all their geeky hipster glory, you will clap your hands like giddy schoolgirl at this one.

The stop-motion animation is a bit choppy and strange, and I say that as a devotee of the art form. It’s something about the knees that just isn’t right, but the urge to reach out and touch the animals surely means something is being done well. The dialog is snappy and adorably quirky, and the whole thing is just a super fun time. Where does George Clooney get off being charming and attractive when he isn’t even on the screen?!

HOTBOX!!

i watched this movie just because i heard that Macaulay Culkin dies in it, and i was dismayed to find that by the time that happened, i was so sucked into this movie that i was really upset by it.

i totally drank the Roberto Benigni kool-aid.

hollywood showed me Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet, and assumed i’d think Cameron was The Hot One(tm)?!! a surprisingly adorable movie, carried aloft by Kate and Jude’s overwhelming charm.

this just never gets old for me.

it embarrasses me how easily i am gotten by a good-quality chick flick. Cuba Gooding Jr. is hilarious, too.