The Hobbit and The Dark Knight Rises Trailers

Two much anticipated trailers for your viewing pleasure.

Courageous Review

I have not seen the movie Courageous, but one commentator at the White Horse Inn blog says the following:

Courageous rejects nuance and the cross-bearing pilgrimage of the Christian life for artificially neat resolutions to the prayers of its one-dimensional characters. Sherwood continues to make films with God functioning primarily as a tool for our lives—whether he’s helping us win football games, repair our struggling marriages, or helping us find a job within seconds of a cry to the heavens. Brief, passing references to the gospel are only seen useful to convert a skeptic, who in a few tearful seconds somehow embraces the faith. Despite all the sermonizing dialogue—the story’s form and emphatic message has all of its focus on us and our accomplishments, not Christ and his work for us. In what could be page out of a John Elridge book, the “manly” vocation of police officer is used as the icon of fatherhood. Violent shootouts and car chase stunts ensure being a godly dad also looks as glorious as possible. Even the poster image calls to mind the slow-motion hero shot popularized by Michael Bay. As for the women, they are given little to do than look on approvingly.

HT: Blake White

Drive | Review

Ben Witherington has a review of the movie Drive, which I plan on going to see in the near future. He says:

First the disclaimers.  A movie for kids this is not.  A movie for Christian families with kids, this is not.  A movie for the squeamish when it comes to violence this is not.  If Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ caused indigestion while eating popcorn, this movie has moments that will do the same.  At the same time, this film shows the wickedness and brutality and life-destroying power of all violence, and frankly that is a good thing.   The reviewers are saying this film will get some Oscar consideration, and I agree. It is a powerful film.  You may ask— How can a film about vice have virtues?  Well, in fact it can, if for no other reason that it reminds us to ‘go and do otherwise’ rather than being tempted to ‘go and do likewise’.

Firstly, this film is a morality play, as are most all mob movies. Things always go wrong, not as planned.  Wicked actions always have unintended terrible consequences.  It makes you believe we really do live in a moral universe.   And that is a good thing.

Secondly, the cinematography in this film is spectacular, the camera simply fixated on Ryan Gosling, and to a lesser degree on Ms. Mulligan.  It does indeed remind one of the old TV series Miami Vice, and so does the music, though it is a bit less synthesized than Maroder’s Korg  marauders. I almost expected to hear ‘In the Air Tonight’ in some scenes. The nighttime aerial photography is spectacular.  It almost makes one want to spend more time in L.A.—- welllll, almost.

Thirdly, Ryan Gosling establishes himself as a true James Dean type. Strong, silent, and an incredible driver, and a gear head to boot.  In fact he is so silent, I’ll bet his entire dialogue in this movie amounts to about ten pages of script.  The boy doesn’t say much,  he just drives.  But that in itself speaks volumes about him.

Fourthly,  Albert Brooks is excellent in this film.  In fact you could say he is ‘wicked good’ and mean it.  A stylish crook, smooth talker, but in the end, willing to resort to ‘whatever means necessary’ to maintain his life in the style to which he is accustomed.  None of the characters in this film, except perhaps Irene and her child, are all that likable, but the film does highlight that in the midst of the darkness, there are some redeeming features to the ‘kid’.  He has a good heart…. he also has a violent one.   Here again love and death are effectively juxtaposed.

Lastly, precisely because there are moral consequences to immoral actions, even our anti-hero does not have things turn out as he would like. Indeed, he has to get the heck out of Dodge. Just drive kid, just drive.  The problem is— wherever he goes, there HE is.  You cannot outrun yourself, but you can drive yourself crazy.  Think about it.

Machine Gun Preacher

I saw the trailer for Machine Gun Preacher about a month ago and was instantly intrigued.

Christianity Today has a write up on the man and the movie.

While Sam Childers travels around North America promoting Machine Gun Preacher, a movie opening tomorrow based on his life story, the orphanage he founded in South Sudan is under fire from the community and local government for alleged neglect of the nearly 150 children who live there.

Witnesses have said that the children at Shekinah Fellowship Children’s Village are malnourished, unhealthy, and unhappy. Several locals—including pastors, government officials, and a high-ranking member of the military—tell Christianity Today that Childers has exaggerated or outright lied about his work in the African nation…

Childers is known as the “Machine Gun Preacher” because he says he fights, often with an AK-47 assault rifle, against  the infamous guerrilla leader Joseph Kony and the rogue Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), whose war crimes have left thousands of African children orphaned. In his 2009 book, Another Man’s War: The True Story of One Man’s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan (Thomas Nelson), Childers writes that he has “rescued more than 900 refugees of all ages. More than half of them were children who had been captured by the Lord’s Resistance Army.” He founded a group called Angels of East Africa, and he writes of “leading a rescue with an AK in my hands and a pistol on each hip.” He claims to have fought alongside the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) to liberate many of these children—and the movie depicts as much.

But an officer in the SPLA denies any association with Childers, and has asked Childers to stop “staining our names.”

 

 

Brave

Pixar meets Braveheart meets girl. You can watch the teaser for Brave below.

The Tree of Life Reviewed

It is a film that fascinates and frustrates. It enchants and exasperates.

2.5 hours of whispers, enrapturing scenery, and the occasional dinosaur. This will be a movie hated or loved, in fact, I find myself between the two.

Terrance Malick’s The Tree of Life is like moving from Ruth to Revelation. Most movies have a straight forward story, while Tree of Life uses images, sounds, and camera angles to communicate. The movie, like art, is meant to evoke feelings, and to be interpreted. Malick, as usual, breaks all of Holywood’s rules and composes a film that at times confuses, and other times soars. One reviewer rightly says:

The imagery focuses on life on a cellular level, to the family, to the vastness of space. It seems to show mankind’s place in God’s plan simultaneously as both insignificant and of the upmost importance. Beauty is shown all around us and emotion is displayed through the smallest facial gesture.

The Plot

The movie begins by quoting Job 38:4,7  “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding…when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” The entire movie is about God, the deep questions of life that only Scripture answers, and the opposing forces of nature and grace.

The plot begins with a tragedy in the O’Brien family and shows them struggling to survive with their emotions. Then as if harkening back to Job, Malick has a 15 minute section with no dialogue and an array of captivating scenery that chronicles the creation of the universe. Most identify it with the “Big Bang,” but my brain bent towards creation ex-nihilo. It felt at one point, as if I were seeing only what God saw before he made mankind.

The movie goes back to being 10 percent normal by rewinding back to the O’Brien family in Waco Texas in the 1950′s. Here it shows the complexity of this one family and the nature/grace dichotomy between the father (Brad Pitt) and mother (Jessica Chastain). Malick centers on the eldest son, Jack (Hunter McCracken, Sean Penn), entering the complexity of the emotions of a pre-teen. Through this boy Malick somehow combines a range of emotions that every child felt and did not know how to process. Guilt, happiness, anger, jealousy, lust, are all magically shown through the facial expressions and whispers coming through the screen.

The movie ends by showing Sean Penn symbolically dying and then entering the after-life on the beach with his family from the 1950′s.

Life

The movie is aptly named The Tree of Life because it has moved from the creation of the world to the death of it’s main character, Jack. Along the way the conflict between nature and grace are woven throughout its cinematic scenes. It is clear that the stuggle of Jack is a microcosm of the struggle of the universe.

Towards the beginning the narrator says “there are two ways through life, the way of nature and the way of grace.”  “Nature is willful, it only wants to please itself, to have its own way.”  On the other hand, “grace” is “smiling through all things.”  According to the way of grace, “the only way to be happy is to love.”

This dichotomy is most clearly seen in Jack. His father is a hard man, while his mother is full of grace. But as the movie goes on it is evident that Jack is turning out more like his father than his mother, he even admits it. Towards the end of the movie Jack whispers, “Father…mother…you are always warring within me.” With this line the scenes of Old Jack chasing Young Jack through the desert and beach begin to make sense. Jack is trying to figure out who he is, how he came to be.

Reflection

The movie moves beyond itself. At times it was pure worship, as if the Psalms and God’s speech in the whirlwind to Job, were coming to life before my very eyes. But at other times, I was bored and confused.

Is Malick just being artsy and the hipsters will love it because it steps outside the conventional ring? My wife began laughing when the credits rolled because she thought the whole thing was completely outrageous. And I sympathized with the laugh, the movie at times was completely loco. But I also sympathize with those who will love it, who can identity with Jack’s childhood, who can sit and appreciate the beauty that Malick has unfolded.

I think Malick could have made the film briefer, and easier to follow, but still kept his unique touch.

No matter what one thinks of the movie, they will walk away thinking beyond themselves. They will wonder where they were when the foundations of the earth were laid. They will wonder where the dwelling place of light is. They will come close to saying…

“I am of small account; what shall I answer you.” (Job 40:4)

And that is not so much a bad thing.

“The Tree of Life” Reviewed by Michael Horton

Michael Horton has a review of Terrance Malick’s The Tree of Life. I have not read the review, because I am waiting to to see the movie which is not playing in Louisville yet. Very frustrating.

HT: Brian Mahon

The Tree of Life | The Movie

Summer is a good time to save money and not go to the theaters. As some call it, these are the days of summer movie doldrums. But on Friday, a movie called The Tree of Life comes out. Now I don’t know if it will be any good. Usually Brad Pitt movies are either a huge flop, or really intriguing and well made. This one looks like it is thoughtful and has potential.

Here are some reviews from the huffington post and AM New York,

HP 7 Trailer

Calling all nerds. The final trailer has released.

A Man for All Seasons

There are movies, and then there are movies.  Take Fast Five for example. The trailer pretty much tells the story. There will be cars, girls in few clothes, explosions, and terrible dialogue. And then there are movies. Movies that inspire, movies that move someone to action, movies that you cannot get out your mind.

A Man for All Seasons fits the later category.

A Man for All Seasons takes place in the early 16th century. It centers on Thomas More and his opinion of Henry VIII’s divorce. More (played by Paul Scofield) is “quick-minded, urbane, meticulous, cheerful, admirable, and humorous.” Most importantly he is a man of conviction; a man who knows exactly who he is. More’s performance is inspiring and I kept thinking that they need to remake this movie, but I doubt that any could top Scofield’s performance so maybe it is best to leave it as it is. I encourage you to watch it.

Below is the trial scene at the end of the movie. To watch this before the movie would ruin it. But for those who have already seen it, it serves as a good reminder.

Get Low

Last night Hannah and I celebrated the start of my spring reading days by watching the movie Get Low. I do not want to provide a full review of the movie or spoil the plot but only make a couple of comments. The movie was unlike any other movie I have seen. Not much happened in the movie (some might think it was boringly slow) but it was carried along by a curiosity and the remarkable acting.

What was remarkable about the movie was that the theme of guilt held the movie together. Guilt seems to be a lost feeling in this culture and to have a movie all about guilt would probably have not made it to the big screens without Bill Murray and Robert Duvall.

The movie left me sorry for those who do not know where to place their guilt. It would be a great movie to watch with non-Christian friends and then talk about how Christ has taken all of our guilt and we are now free in him.

Read Russell Moore’s piece on the movie which says much more than this.

More on Movies

Mark Harris (the article referenced by Douthat) says the following about Inception:

You want to understand how bad things are in Hollywood right now—how stifling and airless and cautious the atmosphere is, how little nourishment or encouragement a good new idea receives, and how devoid of ambition the horizon currently appears—it helps to start with a success story.

Consider: Years ago, an ace filmmaker, the man who happened to direct the third-highest-grossing movie in U.S. history, The Dark Knight, came up with an idea for a big summer movie. It’s a story he loved—in fact, he wrote it himself—and it belonged to a genre, the sci-fi action thriller, that zipped right down the center lane of American popular taste. He cast as his leading man a handsome actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, who happened to star in the second-highest-grossing movie in history. Finally, to cover his bet even more, he hired half a dozen Oscar nominees and winners for supporting roles.

Sounds like a sure thing, right? Exactly the kind of movie that a studio would die to have and an audience would kill to see? Well, it was. That film, Christopher Nolan’s Inception, received admiring reviews, became last summer’s most discussed movie, and has grossed, as of this writing, more than three-quarters of a billion dollars worldwide.

And now the twist: The studios are trying very hard not to notice its success, or to care. Before anybody saw the movie, the buzz within the industry was: It’s just a favor Warner Bros. is doing for Nolan because the studio needs him to make Batman 3. After it started to screen, the party line changed: It’s too smart for the room, too smart for the summer, too smart for the audience. Just before it opened, it shifted again: Nolan is only a brand-name director to Web geeks, and his drawing power is being wildly overestimated. After it grossed $62 million on its first weekend, the word was: Yeah, that’s pretty good, but it just means all the Nolan groupies came out early—now watch it drop like a stone.

And here was the buzz three months later, after Inception became the only release of 2010 to log eleven consecutive weeks in the top ten: Huh. Well, you never know.

“Huh. Well, you never know” is an admission that, put simply, things have never been worse.

Moki also has visual evidence for why movies are getting worse.

Summer Movie Doldrums

Ross Douthat has an article about the dismal summer movie trend.  He says:

When the Oscar nominees came out, I suggested that this had been a good year for movies. But that snap judgment notwithstanding, I’m in complete agreement with Mark Harris, who has a long essay in the latest GQ arguing that we shouldn’t let a good run of highbrow movies obscure what a derivative wasteland the middlebrow movie market has become, and seems likely to remain. Harris frames his piece around the immense box office success of Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” which for a time seemed like it might actually send Hollywood studios on a hunt for (gasp!) original material. Not so much, he reports…

Incidentally, if you want a very specific example of what this mediocrity addiction means in practice, go read Daniel Zalewski’s New Yorker profile of the wonderfully talented Guillermo Del Toro, which concludes with Del Toro struggling — and struggling, and struggling — to persuade a studio to finance a big-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness.” Del Toro has James Cameron’s support as a producer, the possibility of Tom Cruise as a star, and genius to burn. But he can’t get a green light on the project, because Lovecraft’s Cthulhu isn’t as branded and pre-sold, apparently, as Captain America or Thor or the Green Lantern — or Stretch Armstrong, for that matter.

Favorite Movies of 2010

1.  Inception: A Block-Buster with Brains.  The story keeps getting better as the movie progresses.  Many times movies like this with twists end up disappointing, but at every turn, at every dream, this one raised the bar.  The acting was good (not great) and the directing was superb.  The score is wonderfully put together by Hans Zimmer.  As you will notice, every great movie has a great score/soundtrack. A sub-par soundtrack always makes for a sub-par movie.

2.  The Social Network: This movie will be remembered long after people forget about Inception.  I thought about putting it as number one, but I had too much fun in Inception.  It is “our” generations movie.  But this movie is more about the characters, specifically Mark Zuckerburg wanting to be liked. Facebook is the backdrop.  What made this movie so great was that it was not made to appeal to 15 year olds who like Vin Diesel.  Witty dialogue and the cuts switching between trial scenes kept this movie going.  The acting was surprisingly good, and the director made something fun and engaging, out of seemingly nothing. 

3.  The King’s Speech: Superb acting by Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush.  It is rare to see a movie about a leaders weakness.

4.  Shutter Island: Most will find this one as a surprise.  It has some horror elements, but not a horror movie by any means.  However, this movie had me thinking about it for at least a week after-wards.  This movie did not get as much credit as it should have.

5.  127 Hours: I almost passed out when he cut off his arm, but the part I was feeling well I enjoyed greatly.  It reminded me of Into the Wild where a loner finally realizes that community is what he lives for.  

6.  True Grit: Ross Douthat got this one wrong.  Jeff Bridges does a superb job, although Mattie Ross (the 13 year old girl) gives him a run for his money.  The story was not great, the acting carried the movie. 

7.  Toy Story 3: Another great Toy Story, but at the end I thought I am tired of Toy Story.  If they do another one it will jump shark.  My view is also skewed on this movie because the sound was off tune in the theater.  When it got emotional, I kept laughing because it sounded like a violin out of tune. 

Movies I did not see but got good reviews: Black Swan/Restrepo/Winter’s Bone/Carlos

Top Movie Scores

When I first started blogging I listed my Top 10 Movie Scores (they have not changed mainly b/c I have not bought any more).

Treven Wax listed his.

Joe Thorn listed some more recent ones.

Why 3D is Scientifically Stupid (aka: I hate 3D)

I have been meaning to go on a rant about 3D for some time now.  When I go to the theaters, if I have a choice, I always choose 2D.  And if not, I fork over 2 more dollars to rest a piece of plastic on my nose for two hours.  Well someone much more qualified beat me to the punch (and thankfully saved me time).  Read it, and lets stop supporting this ridiculous fad.

Rogert Ebert writes:

I received a letter that ends, as far as I am concerned, the discussion about 3D. It doesn’t work with our brains and it never will.

The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous. The case is closed.

This letter is from Walter Murch, seen at left, the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema. As a editor, he must be intimately expert with how an image interacts with the audience’s eyes. He won an Academy Award in 1979 for his work on “Apocalypse Now,” whose sound was a crucial aspect of its effect.

And here is the letter from Murch:

I read your review of “Green Hornet” and though I haven’t seen the film, I agree with your comments about 3D.

The 3D image is dark, as you mentioned (about a camera stop darker) and small. Somehow the glasses “gather in” the image — even on a huge Imax screen — and make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses.

I edited one 3D film back in the 1980′s — “Captain Eo” — and also noticed that horizontal movement will strobe much sooner in 3D than it does in 2D. This was true then, and it is still true now. It has something to do with the amount of brain power dedicated to studying the edges of things. The more conscious we are of edges, the earlier strobing kicks in.
The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the “convergence/focus” issue. A couple of the other issues — darkness and “smallness” — are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen — say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.

If we look at the salt shaker on the table, close to us, we focus at six feet and our eyeballs converge (tilt in) at six feet. Imagine the base of a triangle between your eyes and the apex of the triangle resting on the thing you are looking at. But then look out the window and you focus at sixty feet and converge also at sixty feet. That imaginary triangle has now “opened up” so that your lines of sight are almost — almost — parallel to each other.

We can do this. 3D films would not work if we couldn’t. But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the “CPU” of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true “holographic” images.

Consequently, the editing of 3D films cannot be as rapid as for 2D films, because of this shifting of convergence: it takes a number of milliseconds for the brain/eye to “get” what the space of each shot is and adjust.

And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain “perspective” relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are “in” the picture in a kind of dreamlike “spaceless” space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.

So: dark, small, stroby, headache inducing, alienating. And expensive. The question is: how long will it take people to realize and get fed up?

All best wishes,

Walter Murch

HT:  JT

True Grit (Trailer 2)

This trailer is better.  I can’t wait for this one.  Johnny Cash’s voice works perfect for this trailer.

True Grit

If you are a fan of the Coen Brothers, they have a new movie coming out this Christmas.  Here is the trailer:

I’m Still Here

I don’t know if you remember THIS from 2009.  Joaquin Phoenix went on David Letterman’s show and acted like a washed up drug ridden celebrity.

Everyone wondered what was happening, especially since this was after Phoenix’s Oscar Nomination performance of Johnny Cash in Walk the Line.

What makes the scene on Letterman so hilarious is that it was all an act for his upcoming movie, but Letterman (and everybody else) had no idea, till now.

Now the “Documentary” I’m Still Here is out, directed by Casey Affleck.

It is what you can call “gonzo filmaking” modeled by Hunter S. Thompson.  Phoenix spent two years on screen and off — as a bearded, drug-addled aspiring rap star, who, as Mr. Affleck tells it, put his professional life on the line.

Read an article in the Times about it HERE.

Update:  I just was informed that Letterman was in on the joke.

The Town-Reviewed

You think you know what to expect.  Some hardcore Boston guys, who stick up for their buddies.  Oh and they rob banks, and murder policemen and innocent victims.  But this is not who they really are.  Inside they are upstanding citizens.  Their actions don’t correspond to their heart.   And the movie makes you sympathize with them, despite the fact that they cannot stop saying four letter words and knocking out anyone who gives them a second look.  This mixed with  an excellent plot, and then a twist at the end makes a good Boston movie.

It all started with The Boondock Saints (at least this is the first Boston hard-knock movie I remember).  Then movies like The Departed and Gone Baby Gone fascinated the masses.

Now it is The Town.  And The Town had all the above.  They had the hardcore Boston guys.  They had guns.  They had guts.  They had the girl falling in love.

But Ben Affleck, the director and main actor, missed one part, and it was a crucial point.

The sympathy.

No matter how much he tried to make us sympathize, there was no getting past the fact that he was bank robber, a murder, and a liar.  No one could believe the girl would fall for such a guy, especially when the movie starts with her as a hostage.  In fact they tried to paint him as the good guy.  But as Jesus said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” The heart is not separated from action, in fact the heart determines action.  The Town tried to separate the two.

Most will expect this to be another The Departed or Gone Baby Gone, but the fact is, The Town departed from the string of good Boston movies.  And now it is gone from my mind.