Take a deep breath.  Relax.  Now let me give you two completely different premises. 

      A young girl, just out of high school is accepted to the very prestigious organization known as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Her whole life she’s been enamored with the stars, the planets and the galaxies of the universe.  All of her dreams have seemingly come true.  To celebrate she has a few drinks with friends; although underage, this victory almost legitimizes the small indiscretion.  On her peaceful ride home she is distracted by a local radio station and ruins not only her life but the lives of four others; innocents whom just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

      A second premise. SETI, the institute for the search for extra terrestrial life, discovers a new planet, capable of sustaining life orbiting closer and closer to our own blue sphere.  As the years go by, it becomes clear that everything about this planet, the land masses, the environment, even the cities on its surface are identical to our own.  In fact, it is discovered that there is a duplicate of every human being on the second earth.  What would happen if the two meet?  What would you ask yourself?

      Mike Cahill’s most recent directorial effort, Another Earth, is a miraculous merging of this two very disparate concepts.  Much more relationship drama than science fiction film, both sub genres only benefit from their unlikely joining. 

      The previously mentioned girl, Rhoda, recently out of jail, attempts to apologize to the man who has lost everything because of her.  In a moment of weakness, Rhoda fakes being a maid offering John, the man, a free trial cleaning.  What follows is an unconventional relationship between the two.  John, aching for happiness and companionship; and Rhoda metaphorically and literally cleaning up after her mess.

      What follows is a lite sci-fi picture with a heavy emphasis on relationship drama.  Both actors dominate in their roles and completely commit to the film.  When they hurt you feel hurt and when they play you join in their euphoria.  It’s a complex tale, with the concept of a duplicate earth looming over both of them, literally.

      I can’t recommend Another Earth enough.  This is what happens when independent filmmaking lands on its feet.  Last night I had the pleasure of attending an early screening with co-star and director in attendance.  Although the two of them now had a picture officially picked up by Fox Searchlight, they both still held on to their independent ideals.  Brit and Mike were thrilled to talk with us and participated in a fairly lenghty question and answer session after the film.  They seemed like real people, they connected with the audience and didn’t reek of Hollywood corruption like many independent filmmakers who are finally recognized.  If these two hold on to even a shred of the decency and humbleness they exhibited last night, the world as just gained a powerful duo of original thought and vision.  It’s been a long time since a film made me think as much as Another Earth did last night.  I’m talking to you, Bay.

      Do yourself a monumental favor and go see Another Earth when it’s released later this month.  It’s about time we acknowledge the brilliance and originality of independent filmmaking.  July 22nd is your chance. 87

                I remember when I first saw the trailer for ‘Repo: The Genetic Opera’: the musical horror film directed by the dude who directed ‘Saw’s 2, 3, and 4. Super ultra-violence AND show tunes?  Sign me up.  However, the movie was long, drawn out and pretty much all around awful.  Never had my hopes for a film and the actual results been so disparate… That is, until Mr. Snyder entered the picture.  I’ve been pretty vocal on this blog about my love of Zack Snyder’s pictures.  I wrote my freaking master’s THESIS about his ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remake, ‘300’ and ‘Watchmen’ are two of the most faithful comic book film adaptations ever made and I even liked the DAMN owl movie.  When I heard that this guy was FINALLY gonna get to make something with original source material AND it included a bunch of sexy ladies, explosions, and giant mechs?  I was beyond stoked.  How could anything go wrong?  Time passed, I approved of the various trailers, more time passed and “this film [was still] not yet rated”.  Well, crap.  Everyone knows what that means, when they hold off this long, you know they’re struggling with the whole PG-13 or R debate.  Seeing as this is the guy behind  three of the more violent movies filmed in the past decade, I figured the R rating was a sure thing.  Nope.  PG-13.  Huge letdown.  Don’t get me wrong, a RATING certainly doesn’t make a film good or bad, but I personally feel that Snyder’s heart comes from a place where f-bombs are plentiful and blood flows like Old Faithful, so when it failed to achieve said rating, I questioned the validity of this film being Snyder’s true “vision”.  However, my undying faith in the auteur got my ass in the seat.  I loved the introduction.  The film begins with a shot of a stage with the curtain drawn with the Warner’s logo on it which opened to reveal a small stage where the action of the movie begins.  This leads us to believe the whole film could just be a show or a figment of someone’s imagination.  Then the story begins to unfold: two girls’ mother is deathly ill and their overbearing EVIL stepfather is just waiting for the woman to die so he can inherit her cash.  After her death, it turns out he left her nothing and decides to take it out on his step-daughters.  One of the sisters as well as the film’s protagonist, Baby Doll, fights back and accidentally shoots her sister.  The evil step father then commits her to an insane asylum.  This whole sequence unfolds with almost no dialogue with a thumping electronica cover of the Eurhythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’.  It was amazing.  It was shot beautifully, acted wonderfully, and had the edge and style that I expect from Snyder.  However, the rest of the film is basically rinse and repeat.  To cope with staying in the asylum Baby Doll and her sexy compatriots take part in these strange drawn out dreams within dreams (sound familiar?).  Each of these sequences is more of the same, too much mediocre CGI, crappy acting, and little or no plot with an electronica cover of a pop tune.  It just got increasingly monotonous and the “real” portions of the film in between the dream sequences was just disjointed and, again, very badly acted.  I think I know what Snyder was trying to do here.  I feel he was trying to do something different and I’d really like to see what he has to say if I can bring myself to watch it one more time with the eventual director’s commentary, but until then the only sucker punch during this film was the one I got right in the gut about half way through the flick.  I wanted this to be great, and it just isn’t.  Damn.  64

         I grew up with a certain amount of respect for cartoons.  Never were they dismissible pieces of trash, they were useful additions to the world of media just like television, film and music.  My father could reenact every 15 minute segment of Loony Tunes and my mother could explain the subtext behind every little music queue.  Because of this upbringing, I maintained a watchful eye throughout the remainder of my childhood, ever watchful for more animated bliss.  Batman: the Animated Series was a staple, Swat Kats was pretty much the coolest Hanna-Barbera cartoon ever, and Ren and Stimpy was disgusting brilliance in a bottle.  Everything changed one Saturday afternoon when, for whatever reason, the Sci-Fi channel was actually showing a copy of Otomo’s 1988 classic, Akira.  I was young, 8 or 9, and I was absolutely enthralled… and terrified.  I somehow, without the use of the internet, figured out what it was and secretly coveted this secret of “Japanimation” that I had discovered.  My love remained hidden until the big anime resurgence in the early 2000’s and a couple of my friends roped me into Dragonball Z and I remembered that I had seen something much like this in my past, but much cooler, and far more graphic.  Thus began my nerdy anime phase.  For a while in middle and high school all my friends did was watch Japanese animation, play Japanese video games, read Japanese comic books and watch Japanese video games.  Many hours and hundreds of dollars were lost during these years, but much was also gained.  I discovered some of the greats: Miyazaki, Kon, and Anno, but nothing has ever impacted my life as much as the short six episode run of Tsurumaki’s FLCL.

                It’s not that it was cancelled or anything, there are ONLY six episodes of FLCL.  The first question everybody asks is, “what does FLCL stand for/ mean?”  The only help I can give you is, “exactly”.  This show is incredibly random, brilliantly written, and more or less the greatest anime of all time.  The show stars 12-year-old Naota, whose older baseball playing brother has moved to America and left him alone with his father and grandpa.  Naota’s life is boring, as he states it, “nothing amazing happens here”.  All he does is go to school, do his homework, and tolerate the strange affectionate advances of his brother’s ex-girlfriend.  One day, seemingly without reason, a strange pink-haired girl called Haruko riding a Vespa smacks Naota in the head with her bright blue guitar.  A large unsightly and irregular bump appears on Naota’s forehead… and eventually a robot comes out.  This provides FLCL’s “monster of the week”; a robot of sorts pops out of Naota’s head every episode and must be dealt with. 

                Sure, the show has some great action set-pieces and the hilarious dialogue is certainly key, but the greatness of FLCL comes from its amazing storytelling.  This is basically the same-old same-old coming-of-age story we’ve all seen at least a thousand times.  Except this time, robots are coming out of the protagonist’s head.  This changes everything.  Naota is 12, quite possibly the most awkward time in a boy’s life.  No longer a child, yet not quite a man.  He has no idea what to do or how to feel, and all of a sudden there are these two strange women in his life… AND ROBOTS.  One of the greatest moments of the show happens in episode 4, my favorite, and features a giant satellite with a bomb in it falling towards Naota’s small town.  Earlier in the episode, Naota participated in a baseball game in which he never once actually swung his bat.  The entire episode centers around Naota and how he has never been a doer; he always goes with the flow and never really asserts himself.  Haruko says he could “really be something” if only he could swing the bat.  Finally at the climax of the episode with a newly obtained guitar at hand and a speeding projectile heading his way, Naota must decide whether or not to swing the bat.

                Now, of course, this has NOTHING to do with the imminent doom of the town, it has EVERYTHING to do with the act of growing up and maturing.  Can Naota finally stand up for himself and stop living in his brother’s shadow?  Can he be his own man? The entire series is full of similar quandaries throughout its 150 minute runtime.  Today is February 22, 2011 and this amazing series has finally come out in a near-perfect and much more affordable edition on blu ray.  I just finished watching it and had to write about it.  Like I said, this is pretty much the greatest anime every committed to film (video?) and must not be missed by anyone: otaku, casual anime watcher, and anime hater alike.  Go buy this now. 97

I really wanted to go see Javier Bardem’s new picture, but the movie theater’s schedule just didn’t work out with mine.  I refused to see the silly Gnome movie, Cedar Rapids wasn’t showing for another 6 hours, and everything else I had either seen or was crap, so I ended up watching ‘The Eagle’ the new sword and sandal Channing Tatum flick directed by Kevin Macdonald.   Sure it looked like the same old same old… Guys yelling at each other and swinging swords with no real graphic consequences.  I mean how exciting can a PG-13 sword fighting movie be? More on this later.  But I had some hope; Macdonald had directed one of my favorite pictures of 2009, neo-noir thriller ‘State of Play’ with Russell Crowe.  Sadly, my hope was mislaid. 

                The flick starts out decent enough. Some nice expositional text, strong title card, and we’re in this thing. It’s ancient times in Great Britain and Rome keeps getting their asses handed to them by the native populace of the far north.  Channing Tatum is Marcus Aquila who has just taken his position as commander of the northern most Roman post in Britain.  Unbeknownst to his minions, he is the son of the leader of the legendary 9^th legion who marched north with the symbolic golden eagle of Rome and were never heard from again.  On one of the first nights of his command, Aquila is woken by his animalistic instincts and gets his men ready just in time for a night ambush from the deadly locals.  It was during this sequence the film shined brightest.  Before he orders the men to be woken, Aquila just stands on the fortress’ wall looking into the blackness.  He asks, “did you hear that?” to one of his men, but he’s also asking us, the audience, and my ears were perked and I was on the edge of my seat.  Some brilliant suspense.  Then there’s a great payoff, a couple of pretty well choreographed battles, and Aquila ends up wounded with an honorable discharge.  It’s here the film’s plot actually begins and everything else begins to fail miserably.  Aquila is super whiny because he can’t be a soldier anymore and what he REALLY REALLY wants is to get the DAMN golden Eagle back.  So he and his northern slave buddy, Esca, played brilliantly by Jamie Bell, set off into the northern wilderness.  Ugh.  After that, everything stops making sense, the script throws up all over itself, and I’m never quite sure what to think.  At one point we’re led to believe Rome IS evil and the barbaric northerners are the most sane, but then the barbaric northerners get EXTRA barbaric and maybe evil Rome isn’t THAT evil after all.  It’s all very confusing.

                At the end of the day this movie was a lot better when it was super violent, rated R, directed by Neil Marshall and called ‘Centurion’.  Seriously, it’s basically the prequel to this film and is all about the legendary 9^th legion.  So go see that one.  It’s still not the greatest film, but it least its accurately SUPER violent and the script isn’t nearly as one sided.  So the Eagle was strong out of the gate, then tripped all over itself.  Till next time, watch more movies, it’ll do you good.  55

Most of my favorite films of all time were released before I was born.  And if not that, they were released before I could have seen them due to age and parental choices.  Mostly the former, since I saw both Starship Troopers and Lethal Weapon 4 in the theater.  Thanks mom! 

Anyway, one could argue that seeing a film AT the movies with an audience is part of the experience, and that without those elements, some of the magic of film is lost.  I reluctantly agree.  There’s something about being with other people, not being able to pause the movie to go pee or make a sandwich; something about feeling the tension of the audience build that increases the quality of the movie ten fold.  Dr. Kenneth Jurkiewicz, Central Michigan University professor and personal friend, has told me on several occasions that the best movie going experience of his life is when he went to go see John Carpenter’s horror slasher masterpiece Halloween when it was originally released in 1978.  Now remember, slasher films didn’t exist, Halloween invented the genre.  Dr. J talks about how he could feel the electricity in the room, and when something terrifying happened EVERYONE lost it.  He has likened it to a ROLLER COASTER RIDE.

That said, I haven’t actually “seen” almost all of my favorite movies.  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is my favorite movie of all time and the best I can do here is to slap the blu-ray into my PS3 and watch it on my 40 inch Samsung.  Don’t get me wrong.  Watching blu-rays on my 40 inch Samsung is pretty sweet, but it doesn’t compare to sitting in the theater with a bunch of folks who love and respect film just as much as you do.  I was lucky enough this summer to go to Detroit, MI and see one of my most beloved films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, in the original 70mm at the Redford Theater.  I was accompanied by my fiance Kat and good friend Phil.  I cried exactly 4 times.  The title card, bone crushing sequence, HAL’s death, and space fetus.  I’ve seen 2001 probably a dozen times and had NEVER cried.  Seeing it on the big screen, the way it was meant to be seen, in a movie theater built before World War II made all the difference.  It was and is still the greatest film experience of my life thus far.

However, a couple of events as of late have come close.  Living in Evanston, IL as opposed to my old home of Mount Pleasant, MI has many perks.  One of them is the fancy movie theater with 12 regular screens, 6 “Artsy” screens, and LOTS of cool special screenings.  Every month or so there is a FATHOM special HD event and every weekend there is a midnight movie.  Last week they were The Exorcist and Full Metal Jacket respectively.  I was thrilled.  One of the best horror films of all time followed by one of the best war films of all time two days in a row.

The Exorcist was playing because the blu-ray is coming out soon, so the print was a super clear ultra HD silky smooth presentation.  It was nice, except I do believe it was the director’s cut, not the crappy ultra CGI director’s cut, but still, kinda lame.  But you know what?  It really didn’t matter.  Just being able to sit in a theater with a bunch of other people who wanted to be there was the greatest.  A couple of default college guys behind me had never seen it and within the first few minutes were whispering to each other, “Now I’m gonna have nightmares”.  Awesome.  It was great, it was terrifying, and it was easily the best time I’ve had watching the film.  There was also a cool added making-of thing after the film which was kind of gimmicky, but still informative. 

However, the HD remastering, streamlined production, special event screening and bonus features made it not as special.  This is why my Full Metal Jacket experience was way better.  My entire evening was perfect.  To start out I got to the theater way too early.  So my only choice was to sit at the bar and have a beer.  Meanwhile I get to listen to the awesome bar pianist play Stairway to Heaven and Hey Jude. Awesome.  After a few minutes of sweet tunes and drinks it’s showtime.  I head to the theater and sit.  It’s doing the lame pre-show thing and it’s hilarious because it’s the “children’s movie” pre-show thing so they’re talking about Mac and Cheese and new direct-to-DVD Scooby Doo movies which I find particularly funny because we’re all waiting to watch a super violent war movie.  Pre-show over, lights go dark, I hear the clanking and grinding of the trusty old 35mm behind me and strap in.  Then my brain EXPLODED.  A TRAILER FOR ESCAPE FROM LA.  I almost had a heart attack.  I had NEVER seen a trailer for Escape from LA, much less see one on the big screen.  Kurt Russell wise-crackin with Steve Buscemi, surfing past Jaws rides, and hang-gliding into battle.  Again, Awesome.  The trailer ended and the movie began.  You could tell the actual film was from 1987.  It was a little beat up, the sound wasn’t great, and cigarette burns were in tact.  It. Was. Perfect.  I ceased to exist in 2010.  It was now 1987 and I felt like I was seeing FMJ for the first time.  Every joke, every line, every bit of dialogue and nuance seemed brand new.  Ermey’s insults, D’Onofrio’s suicide, and Baldwin’s stupidity/courage were all instantly fresh and brilliant.  After the film, I now feel completely different about FMJ.  I had watched it before, both at home and at school, but I had never SEEN it, until last week.

This incredibly well made documentary marks my first entry in both my twitter account (twitter.com/thedailyfilm) and this blog here.  I have decided that documenting my motion picture adventures would be a great idea.  Actually, I was talking about what my future held and it was my good friend, Eric Limarenko, who gave me a nice solid kick in the ass to go out and do something about it.  For that, this blog entry is dedicated to you.

To begin, no one watches enough documentaries.  It’s true.  When was the last time any of you saw a documentary at the theater?  Now, it’s not necessarily your fault.  Many of us live in small towns which are lucky to have a movie theater with more than one screen, much less one willing to spend money to show films they think no one wants to see.  Since the dawn of film and especially during the bleak days of the great depression, film has been the release and escape for the American people,  That said, documentaries are generally about REAL LIFE and movie goers with the intent of escaping and releasing don’t want to here about real life. 

However, that was then.  This is now.  Although we are in one of worst recessions since the great depression that’s still no excuse to not be watching documentaries.  In some respects documentaries can be much more fulfilling than their fictional counterparts.  A good documentary can teach, inform, and entertain all at the same time.  A great documentary can somehow take the most innocent, benign or boring concept and turn it into a riveting avalanche of harrowing exciting.  This happened for me with Marsh’s Man on Wire about Phillippe Petit walking between the world trade center towers on a tight rope.  Don’t get me wrong, balancing on a tight rope on top of two of the taller buildings in America is certainly exciting, but Marsh takes this already exiting story and tells it like a heist film.  You know how the movie ends.  The cover of the DVD shows how the movie ends.  BUT IT DOESN’T matter, you’re STILL on the edge of your seat the entire time you’re watching the film.  THAT is what a good documentary can do to you.

To get the point: tonight I watched Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts which was directed AND photographed by Scott Hicks.  Many musicians are familiar with Philip Glass due to his large contribution to the area of music known as “minimalism”.  Many film studies academics are familiar with Philip Glass due to his involvement with many ground breaking films including: Koyaanisqatsi, The Hours, and The Truman Show.  The film is broken up into 12 parts (as indicated by the title) that focus on a different part of Glass’ life.  The interesting thing about these pieces is their purposeful lack of connection.  They are not chronological or sequential in any way.  Each segment (mostly) stands on it’s own.  There is an episode about his past, one about his most famous opera, one about his summer home in Canada, and one about his painter buddy in downtown New York City.

One of my favorite things about this doc is how informal it is at certain points.  The director, who is also holding the camera the entire film, asks questions and gets direct answers from Glass (who is never sure whether to look at the camera or Hicks, by the way).  In one scene Glass is explaining when, during the creative process, he “knows” what the piece is about, and right in the middle of his really deep explanation, one of his children breaks a glass.  Instead of filming the segment again, Hicks leaves it in, cuts to a shot of Glass picking up small pieces of glass, cuts again to Glass’ wife pulling out the vacuum, and FINALLY gets back to the original question before the debacle.  Near the end of the film, Glass is explaining his favorite part of an opera he wrote the music for when he cell phone begins to ring.  Again, the director deliberately leaves in the “mistake” of the phone going off.  There are three or four more examples of this throughout the film.

Now here’s the question.  Why did the director choose to leave in these “mistakes”?  He could have EASILY re-shot each of these scenes and made his documentary that much “smoother”.  So why not?  I believe it is because Hicks didn’t want to portray Glass as a perfect man.  Too often are the famous and well-known put up on pedestals of perfection, usually on cable reality television.  I think this doc is an honest look into the life of a man who writes music for a living.  In fact, much of the movie isn’t about writing music at all.  There is an entire segment about his various spiritual beliefs and how the combination of multiple faiths is what keeps his mind at peace throughout his struggles. 

Overall, a fantastic look into the man behind the music.  Highly recommended.  88