My Ticket To Shutter Island

I've had mixed feelings about Martin Scorsese's films. Most recently we were offered The Departed and while much of it was clearly brilliant the plot had holes big enough to fly an airship through them.

Seeing previews of Shutter Island made me think quite a bit about his past efforts and how many of them seem to fail to fully impress me. Goodfellas was fantastic but I can't even think about Gangs of New York without laughing out loud.

But in the end it's Scorsese and it's hard to be a fan of movies and not see what one of its noted masters has produced so off I went.

The movie started out a bit jarringly with Leonardo DiCaprio sporting an accent that took me a good 10 minutes to ignore. However, aside from that it managed to take hold and not let up.

Scorsese does a wonderful job of telling this story and using everything he's learned to maximum effect. Every scene drips with realism. We get acting of the highest caliber from everyone involved. The look of every scene is just superb. Effects are applied not for the sake of the effect but to heighten the storyline with extreme precision. The first shot of the island itself underscores the attention to detail. Every nuance of the island is just what's called for. It's haunting just sitting there and shot from the right angles.

I also realized early on that this will be a film that demands subsequent viewings as Scorsese has managed to hide a litany of key plot elements throughout the film. The most popular example is a scene involving the questioning of female patient on the island. Upon receiving a requested glass of water we see her take a drink but the shot clearly shows no glass in her hand. The next shot, however, shows her sitting the glass down onto the table with the expected clunk sound fully intact. Was it just a continuity error? No way. It's all part of the experience. Scorsese wants us to feel off-balance here and the effect works. We question what we see and that's the point.

I rarely notice music in a film especially when it's not intricately essential to the plot of the movie like famous classic rock tunes in Pirate Radio. However, here the music deserves a mention. It's pitch-perfect throughout. Every scene seems to have been matched with the most optimal score possible. Whoever was responsible deserves an Oscar mention.

The biggest issues I have with the film is that I figured out the puzzle way too soon and that made the rest of the film drag a bit. I noted that those who didn't figure it out loved it from start to finish. Regardless this is definitely a thinking person's film. Go in prepared to be challenged and keep your guard up at all times. You'll be rewarded for a discriminating eye.

When Coincidence Gets Too Close

So I went to a friend's birthday party on Friday. The friend happens to be gay which is important to the story but you'll have to wait for it.

It was a large gathering of people so discussions were somewhat segmented into sections of the table. The bulk of the group was made up of friends who met at a social gaming group I'm affiliated with.

During the evening's discussions we got to talking about seemingly strange oddities and I mentioned one I'd heard that I found compelling. Ask someone the following questions:

"What's 5 + 1?"

"What's 4 + 2?"

"What's 3 + 3?"

"What's 2 + 4?"

"What's 1 + 5?"

After each response the respondent should, of course, say "six". Then ask:

"What's the first vegetable that comes to mind?"

I've found that about 80% of the time the answer will be "carrot".

We talked about this a bit and then wondered what the response would be if you ignored the first part and just jumped right to the final question. Would people still say "carrot" just as often?

So now the fun part. I like polls. I like being called for surveys. I like doing them in malls. It's my way of feeling like I take part in things and maybe, just maybe, things will trend towards my view of things since I added to the mix. Related to this interest is my membership in a polling service called Polling Point. Every so often they send me an e-mail asking me to take another poll. Most of the time it's about politics. When it's not it's about brands.

They'd sent me one about a week ago and I was too busy to get to it so I finally decided to give them 10 minutes and answer it. The first question was curious. They wanted to know if I play games and, if so, what kinds? Interesting. All these years and they've never asked about games. Cool.

Then the next question floors me. It states, and I'm not joking, "Before we begin, please think of a vegetable. Just write down the name of whatever vegetable first comes to mind."

What?! So I get asked about gaming and then this, out of nowhere, pops up? I continue on with the survey and it never mentions games or the relevance of the vegetable question again. Instead is asks about chefs and various prepared dishes showing pictures of them and asking me to identify the food by the picture.

Then it informs me it's almost done but there's just one more question. They want to know if I know any gay or lesbian people personally.

So, just like that, Polling Point wants to know about games, the first vegetable that comes to mind and if I know any gay or lesbian people personally and this happens just three days after a get-together of gamers where we ask the same question at the party of a gay friend of ours.

Maybe I should play the lottery today?

Gagne Gets His Goal Back

Last night the Flyers played the New Jersey Devils and there were a number of coincidences that were curious.

First, just like in the previous game (also against the Devils) the Flyers fell behind 2-0 and came back to win 3-2. However, in this game an apparent goal by the Flyers Scott Hartnell was disallowed. This was very similar to my earlier Flyers post when Simon Gagne was robbed by officials in a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins (and which later cost a TV station employee his job).

In this game future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur made what looked to be a miraculous save against Hartnell until the view from above was shown. Once again the on-ice officials didn't call it a goal even though this top view angle would have had to defy physics for it not to be a goal. On frame-by-frame replay you can see through the webbing of Brodeur's glove and watch the puck clearly cross the goal line. Once again, however, the officials back in the league offices in Toronto blew the final call and judged it not to be a goal. The end result was that the game first ended in a 2-2 tie sending it into overtime where the aforementioned Simon Gagne scored the winning goal. In fact, Gagne looked like he was possessed on that final shift pulling off moves I haven't seen from him in ages and practically willing the puck into the net.

Having been denied the goal in Pittsburgh he now gets one that, in all honesty, shouldn't have happened and only became possible due to the earlier blown call. Thus, this shows that most things have a way of working out. One blown call robs him of a goal and another gives him the chance to get it back.

So now the big question I have is when does Scott Hartnell get his robbed goal back?

All My Senses Were Apparently Frozen

As the blizzard of 2010 approached us I decided to go check out the new movie Frozen. It's a lower-budget independent film that reminded me at once of Open Water--a no-frills movie shot almost entirely in a single oddly claustrophobic set with people you've never seen before.

Let me say that I've enjoyed similar films done in this fashion. Open Water wasn't a great movie but it certainly kept me on the edge of my seat. I'm pointing that out because, quite frankly, it's going to be very hard for any other movie to surpass this one as the worst movie of the year. It's just a complete joke. In most of the reviews I put up I say very little about the story itself but here I can't help but to point out how ludicrous it all is.

Three friends head off to a local mountain to get in some skiing and snowboarding. The group consists of Dan, his best friend Joe and Dan's girlfriend Parker. There's a subplot about Parker's coming along and how it's some sort of direct assault on Dan and Joe's crucial bonding time but, like the rest of the film, you won't care one bit about that.

The three of them, it should be noted, are apparently quite cheap and have no intention of paying for lift tickets. Instead they use Parker to bribe the lift operator into letting them head on up. Now I ski and every mountain I've been to uses lift tickets attached to your jacket as proof of payment. Unless they only plan to ski a single lift all day and hope they get the same operator the entire time this plan doesn't make any sense. No surprise there.

The three spend the day enjoying the mountain and before too long it's getting dark and we're down to the last run. The operator they bribed is shutting down the lift but Dan just has to prove his manhood by talking the guy into one more run. The operator relents and up they go.

Now we get a series of misadventures with the operator. He's called off and the replacement doesn't have all the correct info about who's on the lift. He ultimately comes to the conclusion that it's all clear and shuts it down while our cast is, of course, only part way up the mountain.

Yet again reality takes a nap. Nearly every such lift on any mountain is a direct line up the mountain. Any operator can simply look up the lift and see people on the chair. Furthermore unless it's a tiny resort (and this doesn't appear to be one) there should be people at the top of the lift who can also look down to see them. Nope. Not here. Additionally most mountains include a ski patrol that skis the runs and the lifts to assure no one is left behind. Apparently this resort doesn't believe in such luxuries.

Annoyance then turns to real concern when the lights are turned off. It's not total panic as apparently there are several large moons in orbit on this night given the ease with which we can see every detail. It's then we get another hint of the small nature of the resort as it's mentioned that they won't be open again until the following weekend. Then the hinted-at storm rolls in.

We now get shots of the three complaining endlessly about how cold and biting the storm is but apparently it's not so bad that any of them feel the need to actually zipper up their jackets, pull their hats down, tighten their hoods or put on their goggles. Parker, most obviously, could have just reversed her jacket putting the hood over the front of her face and the warmth of her breath would have worked wonders but not in this movie.

Once the storm abates it's time to consider options. Dan, our dashingly good-looking hero, decides he should jump. They've got to be at least 40 feet up. Somehow none of the three notice that they're sitting on a long padded seat mat that's held to the chair by several bungee cords which would make for a really effective rope system. Dan, flowing with testosterone, doesn't even feel the need to reduce the distance and just pushes forward and launches into the air from a sitting position. To no one's surprise he hits the ground with full force and experiences multiple compound fractures on both legs. Bones sprout out like weeds and he's there with legs splayed in shocking angles. Every so often he manages to shout out "ow" a few times.

Now I've broken lots of things in my life. I've broken my leg skiing and it wasn't even a compound fracture and the pain was absolutely excruciating. I nearly passed out from it. Not our hero Dan. He's having a full-on conversation with Joe and Parker and has to tell them that, no, he doesn't think he'll be able to slide down the mountain. What they expected him to do down there even if he could is a complete mystery.

Joe gets the idea, in ski boots, to climb up the chair and shimmy along the cable to the ladder-equipped support pole. Where's Dan in his snow boarder boots when you need him? Of course that fails miserably. Dan, apparently a cable manufacturer back home, warns that lift cables are razor sharp and I guess we have to take this as fact as we really have no choice. However, having seen these time and again a lift cable spends all day every day getting run through all sorts of compression and looks about as smooth as possible to the eye.

So now we have two people stuck on the lift and Dan incapacitated on the ground with some slightly annoying pain. Then the wolves appear. Thankfully within minutes we no longer have to be bothered by any more of Dan's goofy story line.

Back to Parker and Joe. Sadly we now have to get a lot of back story no one cares about and that just drags the whole thing out longer. Frostbite is setting in but it looks nothing like frostbite and the duo still sees no reason to bundle up.

Through all of the chaos Parker has also lost her right glove and apparently suffers from some malady that prevents her from keeping her hand in her pocket. In fact, it's so debilitating that she manages to not only sleep that night with her hand outside her jacket but firmly squeezing the frozen metal safety bar all night. She awakes in the morning to find it both fully adhered to the bar but also, amazingly, fully functional if a little worse for wear.

Once again Joe decides to try climbing. His method is, like the rest of the film, highly questionable. On his ascent he manages to loosen the mechanism that holds the chair to the cable. Also, instead of pulling up his legs he decides the best method is to just hang by both hands and gloves and use the dangling hand-over-hand attack. Much to everyone's surprise it works. Joe makes the ladder but now, of course, the wolves (who apparently know about weekdays) are back in force. Joe descends right into their midst and manages to stave them off with an errant ski pole because we all know wolves are petrified of ski poles.

Joe then shows us entirely what he's made of by immediately sitting on one of the boards and, using the pole, tries to row down the mountain with the wolves in full pursuit. Parker can rest assured that Joe will have no trouble with this approach and rescue can only be right around the corner.

Then day turns to night and night to day. What could have possibly happened to Joe? Parker then decides to attempt her own escape and wants to jump for it. Having seen Dan's stylistic approach she instead decides to hang down from the chair and then drop. At that moment, of course, the now faulty chair begins to break away from the cable and drops half-way to the ground. Parker drops off it and we're given a brief shot suggesting the falling chair may have grazed her leg. There's an even longer shot of her boot stuck mildly in the back of the chair and with a slight turn it's freed.

She then starts down the mountain laying face down essentially applying a nice swimming stroke. It's then she comes upon Joe and the cadre of wolves still leisurely enjoying their after-dinner mints. They pay little attention to Parker (she is a bit skinny) and she continues down the mountain and onto a two-way road. Wow. A road right in the middle of the trails. That's got to be a safety concern.

Parker gets picked up and we get paroled by the credits. The ride home was filled with more tension than this movie.

The Year In Movies

2009 was a year I'm glad is now behind us. I lost my mother, lost my job, got hit by a drunk driver, saw both of my cars mangled in accidents (in addition to the one with the drunk driver) and, most appropriately, saw less movies as a result. The total was 34 which was down from 49 and that was down from 53 in 2007. The list includes two films--The Uninvited and Cold Souls--that I managed to forget to review and I seem to have one or two of those every year.

I generally felt 2009 was a very down year for films and have to wonder if it's just a result of my having seen less of them or that they just weren't that good.

The list (with my ratings):

• Invictus ***
• Up In The Air ** 1/2
• Avatar ***
• Fantastic Mr. Fox ** 1/2
• The Men Who Stare At Goats ** 1/2
• Pirate Radio *** 1/2
• A Christmas Carol *** 1/2
• Paranormal Activity ** 1/2
• Capitalism: A Love Story **
• The Invention Of Lying **
• Surrogates * 1/2
• 9 **
• Inglorious Basterds ***
• Thirst * 1/2
• District 9 *
• (500) Days Of Summer ****
• Bruno * 1/2
• Moon ****
• Public Enemies * 1/2
• Food, Inc. ** 1/2
• The Hangover ****
• Drag Me To Hell ***
• Up ****
• Star Trek * 1/2
• Monsters Vs. Aliens *
• State Of Play *
• Earth **
• Knowing ** 1/2
• I Love You, Man **
• Watchmen **
• Taken *
• Coraline * 1/2
• The Uninvited *
• Cold Souls ** 1/2

Last year was a comparatively flat year for movies but this year beat it in every way for blandness. Yet again the highs weren't as high and the lows were pushing the border of downright ludicrous.

The five best films of the year in order of seeing them were Up, The Hangover, Moon, (500) Days Of Summer and Pirate Radio. With Up we got another Pixar masterpiece that managed to find yet another way for them to move the technology bar. It had more raw emotion than anything they've done so far. The Hangover was the funniest movie I've seen in quite a long time. Scenes still pop into mind now and again and I still don't know what the deal was with the chicken. The most surprising movie of the year for me was Moon. I didn't expect much of anything and it blew me away. It's worth seeing just to experience Kevin Spacey as the latest twist on HAL. (500) Days Of Summer stole my attention away from the first lines and never gave it back. It was so real and so touching and yet also endlessly rewarding. The odd-ball of the lot is Pirate Radio. It didn't do well at the box office and I ran into some who didn't like it but I loved it. It was quirky, imperfect, slow in a spot or two and yet still a wonderful romp.

I'm glad to say that this lot of five is a strong set in an otherwise slow year. It's not easy to choose one but since that's the idea I'm going with (500) Days Of Summer.

The sheer brilliance of the story and the wonderful portrayals from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the seemingly endlessly talented Zooey Deschanel just sets this movie apart from all the others. I haven't seen it again on cable or on DVD and that's mainly because I didn't want to ruin the feelings I have for it by risking another viewing that might impact my thinking before I could write this entry.

I've enjoyed many similar movies and the one it reminds me most of is Notting Hill. If you're a fan of that film then I'd be extremely surprised if you didn't enjoy this one even more. The realism that's conveyed is also something to be applauded and rewarded. No cheap turns anywhere to be found. Bravo.

Once again choosing the five worst films of the year didn't take long at all. Those would be Taken, The Uninvited, State Of Play, Monsters Vs Aliens and District 9. With this bunch we get a washed-up Liam Neeson in a plot so unbelievable it could only happen in real life. We get Elizabeth Banks in a movie I think she did while sleeping. Then there's Russell Crowe and other forgettable people in a political "thriller" I think I watched while sleeping. We then have a bland animated film that has virtually no discernible benefits and lastly we get a revolting in-your-face message film pasted onto an effects team wet dream.

Out of the bunch the bottom of the barrel has to be Taken. I can find nothing what-so-ever to recommend it. Liam Neeson, nearly 60 and looking every bit of it, tries to look like a 40-ish Dad with a teenage daughter and instead comes off looking like an incestuous pedophile. In nearly every scene I couldn't keep my attention off his overtly artificial dye job. And then there's the story. Take this broken-down guy and then put him in scenes where he's able to eradicate entire teams of commandos without breaking as much as a sweat. You also get completely forgettable efforts from Maggie Grace and, sadly, Famke Janssen. Even the look of the film is bad. I caught this again a month or two ago and saw it for the exact same reason I avoided seeing this year's best movie again. I hoped maybe I was being too harsh. I wasn't. The movie stinks from start to finish.

On the plus side I notice I was right last year when I said I had a hard time believing anything in 2009 could be as bad as the X-Files movie--last year's worst movie of the year.

Plagarist!

A friend sent me a link this morning to a blog on The Daily Beast about how Republicans don't seem to have the ability or desire to remember President Reagan as he actually existed.

I found it quite compelling reading as I'd written virtually the same thing 8 months ago on my own blog. At least I gave this guy a link in my blog. Would it have killed him to do the same?

I've been disturbed at the lengths the Right has gone in re-imagining Reagan. The sad reality is that he doesn't need to be re-imagined. His term was noteworthy in its own, albeit more realistic, right. What Republican zealots are doing now is to attempt to create an entirely new concept of conservatism and shoehorn Reagan into this design even though he doesn't resemble any part of it.

It's one thing to remember people fondly. It's entirely another thing to completely fabricate just about everything regarding someone after they're gone and that's what's been going on in his behalf. His own son has been out there pointing this out at every turn. It's great viewing when some talking head comes on and attempts to tell Ron Reagan about his own father.

I find it galling for people like Sarah Palin and others to invoke Reagan in a manner that simply doesn't reflect reality all in the hopes of riding his coattails to any degree they can pull off. Then you've got Sean Hannity out there who claims to be a Reagan historian but doesn't seem to know the first thing about him after his full name.

What really bugs me is that the Democrats are so brain-dead that all of this is actually working! I just wish we could have an actual functional third, fourth and fifth party to break up this lunacy.