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inception [updated]

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Update: The post here was written the day after viewing the movie. I’ve come through with edits and notes. I hope the edits aren’t too confusing. Because it’s been a week, I’ll even break my own rule and go crazy with spoilers.

I won’t ruin the ending of this film. Granted, I’ll try my ass off, but I’ll fail. That’s how good this is. It’s so good the end is meaningless. [That the top falls or not doesn't matter. His indifference to whether it falls is (hopefully) the whole damn point.]

Let me fail to explain. (more…)

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looking forward to November

Friday, May 7th, 2010

George W. Bush has a book coming out. I’ll let that sink in.

Now, with his decision-making and demeanor, I bet you’re surprised he could legibly write his name. I am too. But computers are glorious machines and maybe he learned how to pay someone to type.

I suggest you read the excerpt highlighted by The Awl. (I’ve been working through my noted items in my reader and finally got to it.)

First, I have to make note of his being baldist. I get that he should fear or loathe Dick Cheney (everyone should) but even for him this sounds hurtful to the hairless:

But he and the bald man had kept in touch. I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being bald bothered me. My idea of baldness came from the movies. In the movies, the bald were always trying too hard, like they wanted to make up for their lack of hair. My friend Karl was that way. At any rate, a bald man in my house was not something I looked forward to.

That’s cold, Georgie. Cold. (Granted, I have friends who probably meet my presence with trepidation.)

Second, you’ll note from that little bit and the passage (if you read it), he writes like a prepubescent. Cool narrative style, right?

Unfortunately, (if you read the passage; seriously, did you read it?) this story can’t take place more than seventeen years ago, so he’d be forty-six, at the youngest. That cool narrative turns into a depressing look at his capacities.

(Sigh.)

Generally, it’s a poorly written, glossy portrayal you’d hear in an octogenarian blogger’s memoir about his first Christmas memory. If that story included homoerotic architectural sketching with a weak-hearted, grunting uncle full of booze. (Which, I think you’ll agree, would be awesome.)

This is how he decided to run for the Presidency? Is it that easy? Along those lines, this is a story about his decisions and there aren’t any. What’s the point? (That’s rhetorical.)

If this is any indication of the rest of the book (I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be), it saddens me it was even put to print. That Palin, Beck and Bush can sell so many versions of their ignorance is telling of where our nation is heading.

I’m looking forward to November.

Photo courtesy New York Times

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2010 Oscar Predictions

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Do you hear the trumpets? If you were reading this on an i[Tab] you’d hear trumpets…

So the nominations are in and, like ’07, ’08 and ’09, I’m here to throw in my four cents. As always, I’ve listed my favorite and the likely winner. These are usually different because I don’t have any vested interest in terrible movies making money from year to year, like some people who will remain nameless (because I don’t know their names).

I’ve even thrown in some underdogs to justify my drinking during the show on March 7th. You can see all the nominees listed at IMDB.

Best Animated Feature:
 My pick: Coraline
Winner: Up

I liked Coraline because the story and animation were more intriguing (scary as all hell, awesome). That won’t matter.

Best Achievement in Visual Effects:
 My pick: Avatar
Winner: Avatar

Every single one of these smaller, technical awards that Avatar is up for will bring home a statue for them. It’s a technical marvel. If only they would stop there…

Best Documentary Feature:
 My pick: Food, Inc.
Winner: Food, Inc.

With the caveat that it’s the only one I’ve seen, it’s also the only one that made money. This is a big deal for an industry trying to look deep with no interest in being deep. It’s a great film in its own right but making a little scratch never hurts your chances in this category.

Best Foreign Language Film:
 My pick: Das weisse Band
Winner: Das weisse Band
Underdog: Un prophète

Again, this is the only one I’ve seen in this category but with all the buzz, it’ll take the statue. And it should (despite many misunderstanding it as a commentary on the social climate that bore Nazism). But maybe the voters will misunderstand Un prophète as “profit” and throw their votes that way.

Best Achievement in Editing:
 My pick: Avatar
Winner: Avatar

Because… uh… it’s Avatar?

Best Achievement in Cinematography:
 My pick: Das weisse Band
Winner: Avatar
Underdog: Inglourious Basterds

Guys, black and white is soo classy, right? (It’s like when there were movies before iPods or the eighties.) That and I don’t want Avatar to take all these damn statues. It’s blatent theft.

Best Screenplay based on Previous Material:
 My pick: Up in the Air
Winner: Up in the Air

Sorry, all, but this one’s too easy. District 9 is great if you’re into sci-fi but most aren’t (which is a fact fans of sci-fi love to forget). Up in the Air is adorable to the point the word is sort of obnoxious and it still worth watching. That’s nearly impossible and deserves some kudos.

Best Original Screenplay:
 My pick: Inglourious Basterds
Winner: The Hurt Locker
Underdog: Up

Inglorious Basterds has no chance at any others, unfortunately. This fact alone should get Tarantino the win but it doesn’t matter because, if the Academy decides to go with Avatar as the Big Winner, Hurt Locker may get the sympathy win here. Also, I liked Up. What of it? (That opening sequence was understated, powerful and made my tiny heart sob.)

Best Achievement in Directing:
 My pick: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Winner: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Underdog: Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds)

She has the critics on her side, why bet on anyone else? Avatar was a total tech-gasm but purely on merit, James Cameron just doesn’t get close. He has no nuance or scope and hasn’t directed anything worth watching since 1991. Really, I just hope Tarantino pulls this one out, which would be very… uh… Tarantino? (Except for all the death.)

Best Performance by an Actress, Supporting:
 My pick: Mo’Nique (Precious)
Winner: Mo’Nique (Precious)
Underdog: Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air)

Mo’Nique has this and has since the first day she strapped on a bandana and nom-nommed her first chicken wing. That said, Kendrick is a huge part of that obnoxious adorable mentioned earlier. A win here could break her free of the excrutiating hell that is the Twilight series. We here at the Chasm wish her luck.

Best Performance by an Actor, Supporting:
 My pick: Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds)
Winner: Matt Damon (Invictus)

HaHA! Okay, I’m just having fun here. Who the hell gives two shirts about that movie? Rugby? South Africa after Hotel Rwanda? Yawn.

When he puts that glass of milk to his lips… just so… #boom! Oscar. Had this been any other year, Woody Harrelson would have easily taken the prize.

Best Performance by an Actress, Leading:
 My pick: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
Winner: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)

Dear readers, it hurts. The pain of putting Bullock’s name in “ink” is that of a thousand paper cuts. If the paper were on fire. But she’s the only one on this list. Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep and she did a great impression of Ms. Child, I guess. Just not enough to combat the feel-good, sassy-shorts Sandra who came at it with big-haired guns blaring.

Best Performance by an Actor:
 My pick: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
Favorite: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
Underdog: Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)

Morgan Freeman‘s impression of Nelson Mendela is great and all, but, like Streep, he doesn’t have a chance. Renner, though, put in a haunted performance and could have won… if it weren’t for Bridges having this one in the bag. It appears those that vote are behind him 110%.

Best Motion Picture:
 My pick: The Hurt Locker
Favorite: Avatar
Underdog: Inglourious Basterds

I wish I could say Hurt Locker, the far better movie, takes home the statue. Unfortunately, bedazzled by the money and effects, Avatar will probably take it. Like Pedobear would were he to have the chance.

Also, this blatant ploy to get a bigger audience involved is desperate and horrifying. The Blind Side? That wasn’t even the best family film of the year, much less the best overall. If movies weren’t already dead I’d say nominating ten movies for the Best Picture would kill them. (Here’s a great article about how Hurt Locker winning could change things quite a bit.)

Photo courtesy About.com

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the ideal i[Tab] user

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Friday I mentioned a reason I’m not getting an i[Tab].* I’ve had some time to think about it and am still not in the market for such things. Instead, I’ll explain who is in the market for such things. The ideal people that will buy an i[Tab]…

… have never learned to type.
Hunt-peck is all you need and all you’d want with a keyboard that’s ergonomically useless. In fact, better they’ve never used a keyboard. They’ll be impressed with the non-responsiveness of it.

… haven’t bought a television in three… err, seven years (let’s be safe).
Any more recent and they’ll have seen widescreen format. Those familiar black bars at the top and bottom will remind them of home no matter where they are.

Aside: Why not make it widescreen in landscape mode? Disable the touch on the sides and dim those portions to black when in portrait mode. Apps could still develop for the fullscreen format but why not cater to those that want a sweet as video player? Disappointed!

… love iTunes.
For as much as you have to use iTunes to maintain any media on the i[Tab], they’ll have to be über fans. Maybe to the point they feed their kids with it.

And finally, they have to be old enough, mature enough or dim enough not to comprehend the glaring double meaning in the under-thought name. I mean, the jokes are endless. (Thus excluding anyone on Twitter.)

Essentially, I’m describing your grandmother. Yes, the i[Tab] is cool and will be popular but only because of the idea of it. In reality it does quite a few things adequately but nothing well.

It’s a cumbersome music player, a poorly designed video player (widescreen!), an unfortunate book reader and an unintuitive (zoom much?) browsing machine. But, it will sell because Apple aims for the market that should exist, not the one that does.

It paves the way for a future of “automatic” computing but that’s not the market I fall into. My parents had the desktop and I have a notebook; maybe this is the next stage of computation but it’ll take a minute for me to jump on board.

* I refuse, at least digitally, to refer to this thing with the absurd, marketing misstep name Apple provides.

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avatar

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Being a cynical skeptic, I wanted to dislike this movie. I wanted the story to be trivial, the action to be a yawn fest and the much-heralded effects to be very 00s. Most of that ended up being true but I still liked it.

Before I go on, I’ll give you the short version (it’s been awhile since my last movie post and I’d hate to bore you). This makes Star Wars look like the pathetic, stolen from a million clichés, hack job it really is… purely because it’s the same thing with cooler toys (and stronger processors).

The story (like the aforementioned, poorly directed sextilogy) is stolen from a million anti-genocide, anti-war melodramas. It’s not spectacular. There are a lot of inane moments but it’s laced with enough allusions to our current reality to give it relevance. (Read: war propaganda, dehumanizing slurs, breaking from the natural order, “shock and awe,” etc.)

I was impressed with the action, which doesn’t happen often. Here’s where (full-disclosure) I’ll admit I saw it in IMAX 3D. This gives me a skewed perspective but I stick by the statement.

The scenery is stunning, the graphics are mystifying and the sequences of action are enthralling. I started to ignore the glaring redundancies of the story and got into the damn thing. It’s immersing. The effects are that good.

Really, it’s about the message. For that, it blows FernGully out of the water. The beauty of it (and probably why it’s so damn long) is you can take any number of themes from it. It’s anti-war, pro-Gaia, anti-corporatist, anti-fossil fuel, pro-loincloth and many others, depending on your mood, tax bracket or hair style.

For me, it’s about regaining our link to the natural world. Most of you know I think the free market’s perpetual growth is a joke no one’s allowed to laugh at, politicians are only able to reenforce misconceptions, our food is just as fake as anything on Pandora and we’re too far from natural selection to advance our species any further so my interpretation is probably a given.

Throughout the film, in varying contexts, the phrase “I see you” is used. Ultimately, this a call to see the world around us, the one we’ve been actively ignoring for more than a century (or millenium, depending on how you enjoy repetitious history) in the name of a small minority’s progress and an even smaller one’s profit.

The movie’s about a culture that exists within the cycles of nature coming up against a culture oblivious to them. It’s a fantasy not only in cinematic style, but because the former holds their ground against the latter. A quote near the end, “the aliens go back to their dying world” is haunting.

Superficially, it’s a fun show. It follows a predictable but fun-for-all-ages arch, has some neon blue nipple for the teenage boys, action for the dads, a simplified love story for the girls and a hint of feminine empowerment for those a bit older.

It doesn’t deserve all the hype but I enjoyed it a ton. It’s not a great movie but it’s one of the best this from last year.

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VMA performances, rated

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Jay-Z at VMAsWhile I was watching the Packers barely edge out demolish the Bears on NBC.com it appears MTV was trying hard to be interesting. Having missed it and in a fit of boredom and curiosity, I objectively (haHa!) watched some performances from the VMAs and will now dazzle you with a brief, in-depth (intentional oxymoron) rundown, worst to best. (Click headings to watch.)

Remembering DJ AM

So… I don’t know much about the guy but he worked with famous people and (like so many other “geniuses”) dosed himself to un-breathing. The performance, in kind, featured more people and a song I don’t know (maybe a cover?) that appeared to be the manifestation of a hip-hop’s sigh.

Lady GaGa is psycho

Why do people like this “lady?” Is it the new face? the odd, trying-too-hard-to-be-interesting performances? the mind-numbing lyrics and over-produced, thumping “music?” (Maybe just the giant fire-cracker bra?)

What was I talking about? Oh…

“Her” performance had something to do with her shitty song about being too famous, or whatever. She’s dancing in front of millions (including almost 36% who think it’s a music show) in underwear while complaining that people won’t leave her alone? Thou protest too much…

Beyoncé does her video live, with clone stamp

If I’ve said it a dozen times I’ve said it seven, the Beyoncë thing confuses me. She’s a great singer, adequate dancer and the single most overrated “songwriter” of our age. Her contributions to female empowerment are:

  • dropping two members of her group, then two more, to keep focus on her
  • being proud of curves, then slimming considerably
  • encouraging women to drop ultimatums just after marrying a demigod.

But I digress. The performance is… her “Single Ladies” video… with those background dancers duplicated a few ten times. Oh, and stop the video often and unexpectedly. Outside of proving her hips gyrate and she can pull off a leotard, nothing to see.

Pink travels with the circus

I like Pink. She simultaneously accepts and rejects the pop model. The performance tied directly to her song, showed some daring and was different. Not death-defying or anything but just enough spectacle to be overshadowed by the Diva Beyoncè and her thighs.

Taylor Swift takes the train

No, I’m not saying the performance was better just because Kanye was a douchebag again. She deserved the award and he’s an asshole but the performance stood on its own. Why?

Because it’s adorable, to the point and somewhat elaborate. It embraces pop and has an elegance to it. Who needs fireworks and smoke and lasers when you have a pre-recorded bit and a cab? (Beyoncê?)

Speaking of lasers…

An epic tribute, through dancegasm

Maybe because it was MTV that made him and how big he became, but this was a solid tribute. The videos were well-chosen, the dancing was entertaining and it was conceptually spot-on. (Almost as good as this.)

Then Janet came out and rocked the dance-duet with his projected image over her left shoulder. Epic. He brought pop to another level and it’s been decaying ever since. (Also: The Gloved One was awesome.)

Brooklyn steals the show

Brilliant. No flash. Bare bones music, something MTV has been violently opposed to since the mid-90s. From the walk-out to Beyonc∑ with Lady GaGa wearing a bird’s nest behind her to the lady inexplicably injected into the final seconds of the performance (intentional?), it was all gold.

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