Margin Call is a perfectly solid movie. But as it stands, it should have premiered last Saturday night on HBO instead of being released in theaters last Friday. Pensive and cautious in its approach, the movie covers a 24 hour period leading up to the financial meltdown of Fall, 2008. Tension is immediately established when a team of efficiency experts raid an investment firm’s trading floor and lays off more than half of the employees. Among those let go is Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), who, ironically, leads the risk management team. Before he is escorted out of the office, he slips a data drive to Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), asking him to look over some puzzling data and subsequently warns him to, “Be careful.” This is an intriguing setup. What I had expected to follow was a movie working a long con. That is, things set into motion for a big payoff. Instead, I got a procedural. One that, in the most rudimentary sense, partially explains the credit crisis that has a direct hand in our current economic shitstorm. But so what? A dry, conflict-free flowchart of who did what can hold a TV audience in place for an hour or so, but not someone who’s watching a movie. Good acting by Tucci, Quinto, Jeremy Irons, and Paul Bettany can only get you so far. In fact, there have been two shows that already aired on PBS that kicked this movie’s ass in the drama and thrill department – they were both “Frontline” documentaries on the credit fallout and its aftermath. Good intentions can get you only so far when it comes to filmmaking. Time for the writer/director, JC Chandor, to take a refresher course in screenwriting. (The trailer below, btw, is pretty much the movie.)
Of all the fast food franchises, I think Taco Bell understands its products the best. Their idea is painfully simple: take the same old ingredients, layer them differently, give it a name, and sell the shit out of it. Everything begins as a taco or a burrito. Put the filling in a flatbread, and you’ve got a Gordita. Put it on a fried flatbread, and you’ve got a Chalupa. Put the hard taco shell inside a tortilla, and you’ve got a Crunchwrap supreme. This is the same approach that Luc Besson and his frequent writing partner, Robert Mark Kamen, emulate to an excruciatingly familiar degree. Together, they’ve written, among others, The Transporter (all three), Taken, and Colombiana, an actioner that features Zoe Saldana. In all of their films, there are only three kinds of people: Killers, cops, and bimbos. (There’s actually a fourth kind, and that’s the ignorant immigrant, but I won’t get into that now.) It’s just a matter of deciding who’s who. In this one, Saldana plays the killer, the British character actor, Lennie James, plays the cop, and Michael Vartan, plays the bimbo. Vartan is hilarious in this movie, mainly because he seems confused playing the vapid whore and not the gun-slinging hero. Honestly, he seems completely clueless. Saldana has appeared in some big hits, but she doesn’t have much of a persona – until this movie. She’s lean, mean, and ready to kill in some ridiculous ways. Finding different ways to kill people seems to be the real theme of this movie. Actually, it’s a theme that often gets visited in Besson’s picture, and it was never done better than in Leon. But that movie had a special blend of camp and intensity. Also, it had Gary Oldman at his peak. While Colombiana is nowhere near as polished or as interesting as that film, much like Taco Bell, it could just hit the spot, even if it does leave you with a little bit of indigestion.
Jang In Hwan was one of the first Koreans to enter Hawaii at the turn of the 20th century and became involved with the Korean Independence Movement. You see, in 1904, there was this asswipe named Durham Stevens, a former US diplomat and Japanese agent who was hand picked by Japan as an adviser to the Korean government. Being a Japanophile since the late 19th century, he was a strong proponent of the annexation of Korea to Japan. By the time that occurred in 1910, Stevens was dead for two years because in 1908, two Korean expatriates who were living in San Francisco, popped a cap in Stevens upon his arrival to the fair city. While it was found that Jeong Myeon Un and Jang In Hwan acted independently of each other, both fired at him. Jeon missed, but Jang did not. Jang was sentenced to 25 years and served ten. Upon his release, he was repatriated to Korea but came back to the US. In 1930, he committed suicide and is buried in San Francisco. Jang has been posthumously awarded by the Korean government.
yellowface killah
Drive is a movie that can put you in limbo. Once the end credits roll, you could easily think, “Hey, that was almost a great movie.” Almost…but it isn’t. At the same time, it is far above mediocre, so where on the great linear spectrum of star ratings is it? Three? Four? I like the movie, but it seems like a task to figure out how much I think I like it.
In generic movie terms, Ryan Gosling’s character, the Driver, is like Clint Eastwood’s, The Man With No Name. His past has no temporal relevance to his present, but his present is relevant to his future. (If it didn’t, then that would be one dismal cinematic experience.) The Driver has only one thing in life that provides some semblance of connection to the world, and that is, of course, driving. The car, as a machine, is the vehicle through which he relates to the world. This changes when he meets a quiet girl named Irene, his neighbor. In short time, he begins to fall in love with her, and even takes a shine to her kid. Just when Irene becomes a legitimate connection to the world, her felon husband, Standard, (played by Oscar Isaac, who should be ashamed for taking part in the insulting and vile Sucker Punch), gets released from prison. Standard carries a lot of debt to those who protected him while he was inside, and is tasked with robbing a big bundle of money. The Driver gets involved to ensure that Standard’s family doesn’t get mixed up, but when the shit hits the fan, he realizes that he’s more deeply involved then he originally thought.
There’s a great supporting cast at work in this movie (not including Oscar Isaac). Bryan Cranston as the Driver’s handler puts in nice work, and so do Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks. Perlman looks like he was born to play a movie heavy, but it’s Brooks who does really fine work here. His ease with sudden brutality is surprising and impressive. There are some comedic actors who, when charged with playing a menacing character, can do so with startling grace. Brooks is one of them. Carey Mulligan doesn’t get to do much but to coyly smile, flirt, and be emotionally guarded. But she fills the role with such natural skin, she merited longer screen time. Then there’s Gosling – channeling his inner Steve McQueen – who plays the Driver with no tricks, ticks or gimmicks. It’s a performance that’s played out with his eyes.
The film was directed by a Dane, Nicolas Refn. I don’t know much about him, but I’m guessing he’s watched plenty of films by Michael Mann. It’s not just the heavy use of aerial shots and draping the scenes with nighttime blue: like Mann, he is just way too cool for school. Aloof, sleek, slick, charged but never ready to diffuse, Refn guides the scenes with both care and a slight disdain because the film’s detachment comes off as cocky. The Driver doesn’t live in our world. We live in his. And so, the camera, the movements, even the dark, 80s new wave soundtrack – all of these elements converge not just to unfold a story, but to convey to the viewer why we could only wish to be as cool as the Driver, but would be foolish to even try to be like him.
It’s very easy to admire the film – quite different than to truly enjoy it.
Just as an aside…I never posted my review on Sucker Punch, but suffice to say, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a crime against humanity. It is a hateful film. Oscar Isaac wasn’t first billing, but it was a substantial role. And even divorcing the fact that I find that movie to be like someone peeing on the audience’s face and then forcing them to eat poo, Isaac’s performance in that film was unforgivable. Anyone associated with that fucking heap of shit should hang their heads low.
Kristen Wiig should have been arrested for stealing scenes in Knocked Up from Katherine Heigl. Mind you, an earwig can act circles around Heigl, but Wiig showed, in a few scenes, that she has comic timing in spades. Now that she’s a marketable name, Wiig co-wrote, co-produced and stars in Bridesmaids, an affable comedy helmed by veteran tv director, Paul Feig. Wiig has surrounded herself with a pretty good cast, and for a dose of irony, Melissa McCarthy steals the film from Wiig and never returns it to her. McCarthy is so damn near brilliant as the bride’s soon to be sister-in-law, Megan, that she really deserves a nomination if not a win. Her impeccable timing, sense of abandon (though it’s crafted purposefully), and her obvious joy in playing the role of someone who doesn’t want to hide her quirks and silliness, is really one of the best performances I’ve seen in a long time.
The movie is a fun two hours though it’s bogged down by a few curious elements. One, the director who was one of the creators of the thoughtful, but short lived NBC show, “Freaks and Geeks,” constructs scenes as if he’s directing a two hour long sitcom. Some scenes take too long to unfold and then remain static. Feig doesn’t care to push the sequences and the effect is like a hummingbird flapping in one place when it should be moving. Second, there are too many extraneous characters that detract from the main story and the subplots and exist in a vacuum. For example, Wiig’s roommates, played by the annoying Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas, should have wound up on the cutting room floor. Every time they are on the screen, the movie comes to a halt. Another issue, albeit minor, is the casting of Ellie Kemper as one of the bridesmaids. She’s so completely vanilla, it makes me think that she got the job because someone liked her.
But really, this is McCarthy’s show, and she is so fun to watch. We all know that the Oscars aren’t always about rewarding the best performances, but if she doesn’t get nominated for some major award, then I’m gonna have to come up with the Huckleberries or something.
the drastic side effects of wilson phillips
No one steals the show in Horrible Bosses. And despite what other reviewers think, this includes Jennifer Aniston. What she does is play against type as a horny dentist who molests her sleeping patients and says things like, “Are you going to slap my face with your cock?” But in the end, we’re still watching Rachel, and I say this not because she’s so wholly identified with her role in “Friends,” but because she’s just not someone with range. Neither is Jason Bateman, who plays the straightman, but at least he can act. Colin Farrell looks like the character Tom Cruise played in Tropical Thunder. It’s amusing for a few seconds, and then it becomes mundane.
I didn’t laugh, I didn’t cringe, I barely reacted to the movie. It put me into some mild catatonic state for the entirety of its running time, and after a while, I was just waiting it out. Why care about three guys who decide to kill each other’s bosses when it’s joyless, not clever and offers a very lazy denouement?
Speaking of waiting things out, that’s essentially what I was doing with the British film, Page Eight. An aging MI5 bureaucrat, played by the usually interesting Bill Nighy, runs across a document that could unravel US-UK relations. It is, in some ways, Three Days of the Condor, on sedatives. The movie drags so much, that by the time it gets to where it wants to be, only a shot of ephedrine will perk you up to get interested. While watching this BBC Films production, I kept thinking about that line from Pink Floyd’s, “Time.” The one in which David Gilmour sings, “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.” After years of being puzzled by what that line means, now I know. It seems that a sense of urgency is not a particularly prominent trait among the British.
Want to see a good movie? Well, there’s one playing every Sunday night on AMC, and it’s called, “Breaking Bad.” Sure, it’s technically a tv show, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie that can cinematically rival that great show.
Being a big boxing fan, I used to have a notebook with my own scorecards of bouts I watched on tv. Thank Jesus I can’t find it since I’d hate to have actual paper trail of how I spent my Saturday nights…and some Tuesday and Friday nights. But boxing isn’t called ‘the sweet science’ for nuthin…the precision, the physical demands, the mental acuity…all of these things come into play in a sport that can end in a flash.
Anyway, as some general sports followers may know, the past Saturday night featured a match between Floyd Mayweather and Victor Ortiz. I’ve seen plenty of Mayweather fights, and maybe two of Ortiz. The advanced word was that Ortiz was a long shot, but Mayweather haters (which pretty much includes the entire HBO announcing crew), were all either loudly or secretly hoping that Ortiz would pull a miracle out of his ass and put an ignominious end to Mayweather’s career.
Well, that’s not what happened.
Having watched countless boxing matches, I saw something that I had never seen…like, ever. Hope you’re asking, “what?” ‘cuz I’m about to tell you: I have never seen anyone get so scared, so quickly, and become so desperate and so weird as Ortiz. After being on the shit end of a string of Mayweather’s right hand punches in the third round, Ortiz became so afraid of being hit, that in the the fourth round, one of the first things he did was to jump and headbutt his opponent. Now, Mayweather wasn’t unleashing a flurry of combos. Rather, in an expected move, he punched, moved back, set, and punched again. It was methodical and safe as it should have been. No self-respecting 34 year old champion boxer is going to go out there with his arms swinging and chin hanging. I don’t know what Ortiz was expecting, but he acted like he’d never been squared up by right hook before, and the kid ran. And when he couldn’t run, he got scared and confused, and out of desperation, Ortiz started to wail like a firecracker that spins maniacally on the ground, flaring off different colors in all directions. Then, when he realized that he was only landing glancing blows, he went back to Desperation Move, No. 1: the cannonballing headbutt.
When the ref called time to deduct a point, Ortiz walked up to Mayweather (again, something I’d never seen in boxing), and then kissed him on the cheek (now, that was just straight up odd). Perplexed and certainly not amused, Mayweather decided to end Ortiz’s unpredictability by slapping him with a left (and believe me, it was a humiliating blow for Ortiz), and then the right came across and snapped Ortiz’s head, dropping his weird, nearly pathetic ass to the ground. And as I expected, when Ortiz finally sat up, he smiled like it was all a funny fucking joke. Call it a cheapshot, but I’m with Mayweather on this one. It may have been bad sportsmanship, but Ortiz did everything but to verbally ask for it.
I hope I never get as scared as Ortiz was. Even if I do, I certainly hope I hide it better.
The picture below is a matter of duality…being and nothingness. There’s so much going on. Yet, nothing’s going on. A schoolgirl in uniform who’s pulling up her top. Her navel is connected to one end of a tube with the other end leading to mysterious box that looks like furniture from the 70s. The box has a metal pipe on its underside that is dripping green slush that has been pooped out by the box, making a mess on the floor. A young man is dressed in a Big Bird type of suit with the tail curled out in front of him. A miniature set of what seems like military or industrial machinery is in the bottom forefront of the picture. And then, there’s the guy your eyes can’t avoid. Hair like silent film actress Dorothy Janis. A really tight maitre d’ jacket. Black tube socks. Hot pants with his underoos showing. Whatever he’s doing, it’s important. The schoolgirl and the bird costume guy are looking at him with fear and admiration respectively. Someone please…tell me what this picture is about. 
MacGruber is a dumb, goofy, occasionally funny movie, and that’s strictly its intent. I knew vaguely that the movie was based on a SNL sketch, but seeing how I haven’t watched that show since, well, Molly Shannon was doing her Mary Katherine Gallagher bit, I’m a little behind the times. While this movie hasn’t reignited any desire to watch that show again, I was pleasantly surprised at how light, airy, and funny this movie was.
I’m not going to recap the plot since it’s a throwaway story at best. But, MacGruber’s, “I will suck your dick. I will suck your fucking dick,” monologue was laugh-out-loud funny, not to mention his willingness to use office supplies as lube. The scenes in which he uses a celery to distract armed guards and when he simulates sex with the the ghost of his dead wife are also surprisingly hilarious. For the most part, I was watching the setup just so that I could watch the payoff scenes, and they usually didn’t disappoint.
But just to be a stickler: Val Kilmer, the now bloated human specimen who looks like he ate two of his old self, completely dials in his performance as the main foil, Dieter von Cunth. Frankly, he looks bored, as if he were checking his mailbox everyday to see if the paycheck is in. Kristen Wiig was so terrific in Knocked Up, she made Katherine Heigl look like a casting couch phony. But here, she acts with such a muted straight face, it feels like she was threatened to not act (perhaps in fear of upstaging Will Forte). Forte doesn’t have the unhinged comedic madness of Will Ferrell, but his performance was fun.
I have a feeling that this film will kind of be like Old School – perhaps not appreciated and under-watched at the time of release, but it’ll gain some loyal fans who will randomly scream out, “Tell me what you want me to fuuuuccckkk.”
There’s an unnerving rawness to Lee Chang Dong’s films. Simply put, he’s not afraid to reveal everything. From shrieking emotions to moments of utter desperation, Lee’s films, from Peppermint Candy to Poetry, are really about opening, exploring and thoroughly examining the pains of human interconnections. The uber-realism that Lee utilizes is echoed in Yoon Sung Hyun’s debut film, Bleak Night. But the comparison ends with the tone. Whereas Lee’s films are often driven by the story, Yoon’s film is perfectly satisfied with not telling the full story. In fact, it’s amazing how a 2 hour running time can reveal so much text without revealing anything at all.
The skeleton story is this: Three best friends in high school, Ki Tae, Dong Yoon, and Baek Hee, are finishing up their junior year. Through the use of flashbacks, it’s revealed that Ki Tae has died while Dong Yoon has dropped out of school and Baek Hee transferred out and moved out of the neighborhood. Ki Tae’s absent father seeks out his son’s friends in an effort to shed some light on what happened. And that’s exactly where the viewer winds up as well. Even the most basic information about Ki Tae’s death is never revealed. Was it a suicide? An accident? There are other elements to the story that are only hinted at. It’s like having a huge box being placed on your doorstep, but you can only take a peek at it through the smallest crack. And even if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking at, you like what you see.
This is obviously a small budget film despite the fact that CJ Entertainment – the most prominent movie studio in Korea – is the distributor of this notable film. Almost all shots are hand held which allows a steady flow of movement as the narrative creates three main story arcs. The indoor shoots were not done in a studio, so when the camera is not moving, there’s a lot of shot-reverse-shot, and consequently, a lot of tight shots as well. Despite these seeming restrictions, the movie is a fresh injection of creativity to recent Korean cinema. While watching the fluidity of the drama unroll slowly and methodically, I couldn’t have been happier to watch a Korean film that wasn’t about revenge, truly excessive violence, or any of the other recent, hyperbolic movie trends. Instead, the film is held together by a purposely cryptic script and three of the best male performances I’ve seen in years. The three main actors, Lee Jee Hoon (Ki Tae), Seo Jun Young (Dong Yoon), and Park Jung Min (Baek Hee), are all surprisingly adept and honest, and much like the movie, they reveal enough without betraying the spirit of the movie.
Bleak Night premiered last year at the Pusan Film Festival, where it received the New Currents Award. That’s a pretty good start for a director that shows a lot of promise.
With roughly six weeks left in the regular season of Major League Baseball, many out-of-contention teams are starting to look to the next season. One of the first order of business in re-establishing a club is to start from the top which often means getting a new General Manager. A name that is being bandied about by some teams is Kim Ng, the Senior VP of Baseball Operations for MLB. Once considered a viable candidate for the Dodgers GM position (back when she was the assistant GM for the team), Ng, a Chinese American, has a real chance of becoming not only the first female GM of a team in the big three (MLB, NFL, NBA), but also the the second Asian American top exec in a major sport. (Rich Cho, a Burmese American, is the current GM for the Charlotte Bobcats.) Word is that Ng is being seriously considered for the top position for the Chicago Cubs.
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