her

The irony was not lost upon me as I drove alone to the theaters on a Sunday afternoon.  A lonely man going to watch a film about another lonely man that falls in love with a computer.  My sister and her fiance had tipped me off to this one.  With less than a week to Valentines Day the movie seemed more than appropriate.   I wasn't in the mood for smiles and puppy dogs.

Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is a professional letter writer and soon to be divorced from the love of his life.  Despite a gift for crafting emotional letters Theodore comes across as socially aloof, awkward, even strange.  He leans upon a close friend, Amy, and her husband for support.  Still lonely he purchases a self-aware Operating System (OS), Samantha.  As the plot unfolds the relationship of Theodore and Samantha blossoms as Amy's marriage collapses.  Theodore and Amy commiserate about love lost and Theodore begins to have doubts as to the practicality of a relationship with a computer.  At the urging of Amy he is able to look past this and accept happiness.  In an inevitable twist of fate Samantha branches out, forms new relationships and leaves Theodore.  The movie ends with Theodore and Amy gazing out upon the Los Angeles skyline.

Living and working alone I can honestly say I spend about ninety percent of my waking time alone.  It was easy for me to relate to Theodore and his need to connect with someone.  The many scenes of Theodore alone in his apartment were all too familiar.  I think this is why every review I read cautioned the heart broken and lonely: you might want to throw yourself under a bus afterwards.  Well, maybe a bit exaggerated but you'll certainly leave no less depressed than you came.

Leaving the theater there were a lot of questions that immediately came to my mind, some more important than others: What's with the OS Freudian mother question when creating the profile?  Why is Samantha so intrusive, reading all of Theodore's emails and files?  How about Theodore and Amy?  What the hell happened to denim and why are high water pants fashionable?  Where did Samantha go?

It is an easy movie to over analyze and there are plenty of thought provoking quotes to scrutinize.  Is technology making love easier to find or harder?  Does technology lead to intimate connections or further distance us from our immediate relationships?  And then there are the questions raised as to the nature of love itself.  Wow, I don't want to go there so just see the movie yourself.  Sure this movie drags, the subject matter is generally a bummer and the ending will probably leave you slightly less than satisfied but we could say the same for love right?

The Netflix Taste Profile

Netflix, it is the poor man's Comcast, a flea market of the recent, the not so recent and the down right obscure in cinema.  Chasing down movies in Netflix I feel like Michael Douglas in The Game.  There are so many dead ends and false leads.  But maybe that's why they have the "Taste Profile".

Since that Ed Snowden debacle there has been a lot of concern about what information the NSA is collecting on the average citizen.  I'm more preoccupied with what sort of data Netflix is collecting on me.  Just how is this Taste Profile constructed.  It all seems a bit convoluted compared to something like Pandora, which is a simple thumbs up/thumbs down system.

Put in the hours and your Taste Profile becomes the holy fucking grail to Netflix.  Typically my Taste Profile mirrors my movie preferences well with categories such as "Gritty Crime Drama" or "Oddball Comedy".  With enough views I hope to see some greater specificity with categories like "Harrison Ford Throws Bad Guys Off Moving Vehicles" or "Dramas Featuring a Nick Cage Meltdown".

Truth be told with this shitty weather I've been bingeing on Netflix like a crack fiend.  My profile is nicely tuned and spitting out recommendations for Less Than Zero and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.  Jesus, Sam Rockwell is one of my all time favorite supporting actors.  How the hell did Netflix know to find that for me?  It begs the question, what else does the Netflix supercomputer know about me?  Does it know my first non-G rated movie was Home Alone, that my Dad and I sat through Spice World so my sister would watch the 1998 World Series, that in junior high I was too scared to watch The Blob but years later laughed my way through Hostel, that I've watched both Dirty Dancing and The Notebook to get some, that Fight Club is the only movie I have watched with director's commentary, that I had a Natalie Portman poster in college or that I feel compelled to watch High Fidelity every time I get dumped?

But just when my Taste Profile is near Stephen Hawking level intelligence I go and do something stupid and ruin it all.  Usually following a night at the bar.  Returning home I'm feeling lonely and sentimental.  So I watch some coming of age drama that is listed as "popular on Netflix".

The next day I wake up groggy and hungover.  I boot up Netflix to discover my Taste Profile has dyslexia or some shit.  Gritty Crime Drama has been replaced with Understated Drama and Oddball Comedy is now Romantic Comedy with a Strong Female Lead.  The Netflix supercomputer has just pulled a Hal 9000 on me and now I'm out in the cold.

As a kid I would build giant card castles.  The Netflix Taste Profile is my new card castle.  It takes so long to build but just one foolish choice brings the entire house of cards tumbling down.  When will I learn?

The Wolf of Wall Street

HANNA: How many times a week?

BELFORT: Like um, three, three or four times maybe.

HANNA:  All right, pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers in this racket.  I myself, jerk off at least... twice a day.

I was already hooked after reading just ten pages of The Wolf of Wall Street, the first of two memoirs written by ex-stock broker and convict, Jordan Belfort.  His writing, while at times particularly crafted was far from dull.  The self absorbed narrative of lavish material wealth, extreme narcotic binges and uninhabited sexual escapades reminded me of another story I had once read, American Psycho.  Well, minus the ax murdering of course.

Reading the book before the movie is passe in my mind.  Maybe it was that, or the fact that Jordan Belfort was so articulately gifted at explaining the depths of a Quaalude overdose that I was feeling dizzy.  So I happily put the book down halfway through to head to the theaters.

Thirty minutes in and the movie had my full attention.  As Jordan Belfort discussed vaginal hair preferences with his father a couple in front of me got up and left the theater in disgust.  I was super pumped.  This movie was already completely vulgar, graphic and just down right deplorable and there was two and half hours to go!

It can be a fool's errand to hold the credibility of a movie too near to that of the book it is based upon.  If anything the movie is modest in the portrayal of the Long Island boiler room known as the brokerage firm of Stratton Oakmont.  DiCaprio does an admirable job of capturing the megalomaniac that is Jordan Belfort but in my opinion it is Jonah Hill that gives the more impressive performance as his off the wall side kick.  I guess Jonah Hill won't be remember just as that funny fat guy with a period stain on his jeans.

If you missed this one in theaters don't worry it will go down something smooth with a six pack from your recliner.  As you listen to ludicrously offensive office speeches, witness scandalous sex acts fueled by excessive drug abuse, and watch the destruction of numerous luxury vehicles just remember this: it all really happened... allegedly.

Dallas Buyers Club

Movie: Dallas Buyers Club
Release: 11/22/2013
Genre: Drama
Length: 117 minutes
Rating: R
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto
Director: Jean-Marc Vallee
Writer: Craig Borten & Melisa Wallak

I'm sitting with my family on a Sunday afternoon watching a hysterical Ron Woodroof scream at a physician that has just given him thirty days to live.  So begins the saga of Woodroof's battle with AIDS, his doctors, the drug companies and our government.  This movie is sure to be a total downer but its the holidays.  What better way to spend it than with your family, watching the story of a struggling AIDS patient.

The cast has caught my eye.  McConaughey has elevated what I thought was a 'take it or leave it' acting career to plug out some memorable performances and this I quickly decide is his best yet.  It's hard to watch McConaughey directly.  His body is sickly thin leaving him barely recognizable.  He devours booze and cocaine with cheap prostitutes in his trailer.

As the plot unfolds we are introduced to trans-gendered Rayon who Woodroof reluctantly enlists as a business partner in his efforts to obtain and distribute AIDS medications.  An equally sickly Rayon is played by actor-musician Jared Leto.  My recent memories of Leto are that of Thirty Seconds To Mars front man, standing on a building dressed from head to toe in white. Always with a flare for the dramatic Leto is not just pulling off the role of Rayon, he's crushing it.

You may find yourself wondering how someone could write such a story?  Well, they didn't.  Nothing is as entertaining as real life, right?  A word to the wary: if post-apocalyptically thin bodies, excessive drug use with a side serving of sex is too disturbing put this one on the back burner until you grow a pair.  If you can keep your shit together this movie has an entertaining (albeit depressing) plot featuring some first rate acting.

Thursday: Cinema Lost & Found

Movie: Thursday

Release Date: 9/25/1998

Viewed: Unknown

Genre: Action, Crime, Drugs

Length: 83 minutes

Rated: R

Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Paulina Porizkova

Writer/ Director: Skip Woods

A man sits in his dining room. His hands are taped behind his back to the chair he is confined to. He wears a scowl on his face for his captor sitting on the floor before him. Brandishing a gun she is a skinny brunette dressed in a skin tight, red dress. There is time to kill as they wait for their mutual ‘friend’. “Let’s fuck,” the girl says causally. The man expresses his displeasure and skepticism but she goes to the other room, puts on some music and retrieves a photograph of the man’s wife. “She wanted to watch.” The woman licks the photograph and sets it down on the table.

After the man again voices his disbelief she performs fellatio on him. It is at this point that the viewer realizes they are about to witness the skinny woman rape this poor man. She unzips the back of her dress and the camera zooms in on her pale boney back. Her dress drops to the floor. Naked she samples a cigarette and then climbs on the man. Strangling him, she tells the man she won’t kill him until he has cum and that maybe, if they’re lucky, she will get pregnant. The women then proceeds to ride him, screaming joyfully as she does. The man tries to dissociate, thinking of his wife. He looks like he is going to be sick.

This goes on for about a minute. The woman tells the man he has great self-control and goes harder. Just when the scene can’t get more disturbing there is a sudden bang. The man’s face is instantly covered in blood and visceral matter. The woman has been shot. Her head has just exploded like a melon. She drops from his lap dead upon the floor.

You are probably wondering what the hell you just read. Sometime in the late 1990s sitting by my lonesome I wondered what I had just watched. You can imagine my shock when I stumbled across this twisted scene on cable. For whatever reason I failed to learn or remember the name of the movie but the grotesque images of this rape murder were seared into my memory. For over a decade this movie would remain in my cinematic lost & found bin.

Even in the nineties one did not always know exactly what movie they had happened upon. For example, in my house if you were watching on the old television upstairs you won’t necessarily have a guide to identify the program or show. I could sit and watch the TV Guide channel but that took forever. If I was feeling industrious I could search the house for the paper TV Guide. Catching a movie from the beginning is always rare on cable. Back in the nineties with no Tivo or rewind functions you had no avenue to backtrack. Watching a full movie on cable takes planning and let’s face it, if you’re watching a movie on cable you’re certainly not planning anything. It makes for a lot of incomplete movies.

The cinema lost and found gives way to a phenomena which I will call cinematic deja vu. Picture for a moment you are at a typical American party. Kitchen counter covered with mixers, keg on the porch, music and a random movie playing with the sound off. The place is lively and packed. Your attention is divided but you view just enough to get that vague sense of recognition. Suddenly you’re ignoring a buddy inquiring about your beverage situation and you’re watching the movie. With still no idea what the movie is you begin to blindly ask your fellow party goers if they recognize the movie. Sound familiar? It usually happens to me with modestly budgeted films featuring one recognizable actor/actress of some clout but that tanked at the box office and is now relegated to the abyss of TV reruns. You know this sad state of affairs: ninety percent of a shitty movie with an additional hour of commercial inserts? The Crow comes to mind.

Today, not only do we have access to a wide array of entertainment media but we have access to an extensive catalogue of information about that media. Websites like Internet Movie Database (IMDB), Rotten Tomatoes and Wikipedia find an answer to even the most obscure movie trivia just a click away.

Life will never be neat enough to watch every movie and every show from start to finish. Inevitably you will still find yourself in front of a television with no answer as to what the hell you are actually watching. If your lost movie is not quite as colorful as Thursday and you feel that odd sense of cinematic déjà vu it is certainly a lot easier to track it all down.

Once lost, but never forgotten. At the time this movie was shot Aaron Eckhart was virtually unknown. Today he has a respectable resume, which includes but is not limited to: Thank You For Smoking, The Dark Night, Love Happens, and The Rum Diary. One faithful day in 2012 I was surfing the Netflix instant watch and stumbled upon a recent add that had Eckhart in it. I took a long look at the movie cover and plot summary and realized I had found it. After well over a decade I had finally located the movie that had provided such a vivid and disturbing memory. The movie was called Thursday.

You might be wondering what I thought of the rest of Thursday. I’ll provide a quick synopsis to save you the trouble. Casey thought he had left his previous life of robberies and drugs behind. Comfortably living the married life in suburbia he is interviewing with an adoption agency. Unfortunately his former criminal career catches up with him in the form of an old associate and a case full of blow. Unsuccessfully staving off a motley group of criminals Casey is eventually taken hostage in his home hoping to escape with his life. What follows is one of most shocking and frankly unnecessary rape murder scenes. While the dialogue is atrocious I don’t want to banish the film to the bowels of cinema purgatory. For shock value alone the movie may be worth an occasional footnote. Surely this movie was going for a Pulp Fiction like feel but came up painful short. To say one good thing about the movie, actress Paulina Porizkova did great job grossing me out, she was filthy and down right nasty.

On IMDB this movie somehow got 7.1 stars but Rotten Tomatoes gives Thursday a more realistic 33% rating. If you still feel compelled you may check it out yourself for free on YouTube. The YouTube viewer comments are generous to say the least. Certainly I don’t want to give this film too much credit. The rape, exploding head scene can be viewed at 52 minutes10 seconds.

Silver Linings Playbook: American Feel Good

Movie: Silver Linings Playbook

Release Date: 12/25/2012

Viewed: 1/15/2013

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romantic Comedy, American Feel Good

Length: 120 minutes

Rated: R

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver

Writer/ Director: David O. Russel

Tiffany: You know, for a while, I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me. But now I’m starting to think you’re the worst.

Pat: Of course you do. Come on, let’s go dance.

The business of romance has become a bewildering state of affairs. The days of boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy and girl have a family are long gone. In my family a conversation about romantic relationships inevitably draws the same question from my grandmother, “Well are they married?” No Grandma, my friends aren’t married, they just live together. To which she will often lament, “Why do people have to do everything ass backwards now?”

After divorce spread through my parent’s generation like chickenpox it might have left us kids a little jaded. The general life template prior generations appeared to have followed has gone out the window. I have friends with babies and no marriage, married friends with no house, friends with a house but neither baby nor marriage. There are no fundamental rules governing the success or failure of relationships. For those of us who are single it’s like fighting the crowds at a flea market; we're not quite sure what we’re looking for and when we eventually buy something and return home we realize the item is overpriced, poorly made or already broken. With no chance to return the item we muck it and move on. So where does that leave us single guys and gals? Surely the movie industry understands the plight of romance and life these days!

It is lunch time on a Tuesday and I am looking for my own silver lining to a week that is crawling by. My friend Jeff is never one to mince words so he just comes out and says it: Jennifer Lawrence is hot. Admittedly my curiosity has been peaked since Hunger Games. Who is this twenty-two year old goddess that has taken Hollywood by storm? The Kentucky girl next door: youthful, playful, candidly unabashed, bluntly crass, miraculously unfazed by her wild success with sex appeal to boot. Did I mention recently single? Thank god for bromance. What better way for two single men to spend a midweek evening than seeing a romcom together?

Jeff and I dropped by Taco Escobarr for a quick beer before the show. I love to ask questions so among the first words out of mouth were “Are Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence suppose to be romantically involved in this film?”  How the hell were they going to pull that off with well over a decade between them? The odds did not appear to be ever in their favor.

Silver Linings Playbook has something for everyone: mental institutions, running, football, dance...

So to Silver Linings Playbook. Our protagonist Pat (Bradley Cooper) has fallen victim to a series of traumatic events that has left him a shell of his former self. Here it may be most appropriate to quote Mitch from Old School, “…and then you catch the early flight home from San Diego and a couple of nude people jump out of your bathroom blindfolded like a goddamn magic show ready to double team your girlfriend...” Through happenstance Pat meets recently widowed Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). The writing is certainly on the wall as we watch a disgusted Pat fling a Hemingway novel out the window for its tragic ending. Translation, when this movie ends we certainly won't be looking to chuck it back to concessions. This bitch is ending on a silver lining.

A group of almost equally troubled and quirky characters (played by Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Julia Styles, John Ortiz) successfully distracted me from a predictable ending. Typically these types of movies tend to annoyingly beat around the bush as the two lovers fall hopelessly for each other much to their initial obliviousness. This film is no exception however both the acting and writing are strong enough to keep us entertained and not just wondering when Pat and Tiffany are going to get with the program and hook up. With that being said I thought for a moment Jennifer Lawrence might break character when Pat states he thought it was romantic to lie about his true feelings for a week. My alternative ending had an annoyed Tiffany mumbling “stop being such a pussy” and stomping off but we got a bunch of mush instead.

Let’s call this movie for what it is: American feel good. It has all the ingredients to make the average American feel good: Cast containing both veteran and rising star actors and actresses, odd humor, two likable main characters eventually shacking up and overcoming their woes (oh yeah and it has football). While this movie certainly isn’t earth shattering it excels at what it set out to do: keep you entertained, keep you laughing and make you feel good. At the very least I wasn’t sitting alone in my apartment. I was sitting in a movie theater with Jeff staring at Jennifer Lawrence in tight dance clothes. There is my silver lining.

Django Unchained: Unchaining Your Expectations

Movie: Django Unchained

Release Date: 12/25/2012

Viewed: 1/12/2013

Genre: Southern, Action, Violent

Length: 165 minutes

Rated: R

Cast: Jamie Fox, Christopher Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L Jackson

Writer/ Director: Quentin Tarantino

Calvin: Your boss looks a little green around the gills.

Django: He just ain't used to seein' a man ripped apart by dogs is all.

Calvin: But you are used to it?

Django: I'm just a little more used to Americans than he is.

Friday night had found me inebriated at a local dive and dance club, Bubba's Sulky Lounge. Friday nights at Bubba's are reliably the same: DJ Jon mixing 80's beats, music videos on the big screen, luminous floor, tons of eighties clad dancers. Expectations at Bubba's are widely met and often exceeded making it a solid choice to kick off any 'rockstar weekend.'

The next morning provides an ample opportunity to assess (piece together) the prior evening's tomfoolery (intoxication) with a relatively clear head (sober headache). Did I expect to dress up like looney tunes and dance my ass off on a multicolored floor drinking cheap PBR tallboys? Yes. Did I expect to nearly arrive at second base with a random girl while dancing. No. Did I expect her to thank me for a fun dance and walk off at the conclusion of the song never to be see again? No. Did I meet or beat my expectations for the night? Yes.

Based upon the prior expectations set the night was judged to be a success, enough so that I needed to sleep until noon the next day. Looking for a reason not to drink on a Saturday night is a conundrum for the single twenty-something male. To succeed a concrete plan is required. Django Unchained was to be my concrete plan.

My concrete plan.

Expectations can make or break movies, or dive bars for that matter. When American viewers expect one thing and get another they tend to be disappointed regardless of the quality of the movie. The Good Shepard was one such movie for me. Anticipating a faster paced Bourne like plot left me yawning in my seat. Further reflection finds The Good Shepard back on my list of movie to reconsider. My generalization of expectation may be incorrect but it may also explain the state of theatrical previews now. When I say 'state of theatrical previews' I am referring to the general formula utilized by the movie industry for trailers: condense the entire movie into two minutes, include the three wittiest lines with one being a catch phrase, include all major action sequences or dramatic events, mash and mix the segments within the trailer. The majority of the audience at any movie has seen the preview, probably multiple times. The audience sits in anticipation of the before mentioned specific lines or situations highlighted by the preview.

My Dad's standard comment after watching annoyingly long previews for exceptionally shitty movies: "Well I guess we don't need to see that one!"

The beginning of a new year is primetime for movies. Yet my decision was an easy one, when Quentin Tarantino makes a movie you go see it. Based on the cast, the budget and (oh yes) the previews my expectations were high going in.

There are some arguable parallels of Django Unchained and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Both films are inspired by prior movies of similar plot and title: Django (1966) and The Inglorious Bastards (1978). Both Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds are set in distinct historical periods of gross class inequality. Tarantino has championed the under privileged group (Blacks and Jews) in two stories of vengeance. All the traditional elements of a Tarantino films are present against the historical backdrop of the slave plantation controlled South and Nazi controlled Europe: gruesome violence that borders on absurdity, particular dialogue, and characters that epitomize the forces of good and evil (the latter being present in Tarantino's more recent works). Antagonizing the viewer with the well established evils of the ruling class the audience may rationalize the violence which unfolds.

Django! Django have you always been alone? Django. Django have you never loved again?

My favorite scenes of the movie (maybe no surprise) are both featured in the trailers: Dr. Schultz propositions Django to track the Brittle brothers in exchange for his freedom, and the introduction of Calvin Candie in the private bar. If you are a movie junkie there is plenty of trivia and hidden meaning to track down. For those of you hoping this flick is more than just a meat filled shooting gallery don't fret! There are plenty of layers to the characters and plot (for example house servant Stephen and the hierarchy among black slaves). While violence is never at a premium for those seeking maximum carnage put your blood lust on the back burner. The finale will certainly have enough blown knee caps, gut busters and groin shots to appease even the darkest of appetites.

In my opinion the acting was for the most part solid. My concern that the notoriety of Fox and DiCaprio would take away from their performances was unfounded. It was refreshing for me to see DiCaprio nail the part of the villain and to do so as a supporting actor. The cinematography was excellence, the scenes of post Civil War South gritty and bold. Tarantino left an interesting finger print on the movie in both the soundtrack and the dress of Django. Where does one get those sunglasses in 2013, let alone 1858? Well I am sure the Internet can tell me.

A common pitfall in the industry has been the diminished quality of the writing and acting in bigger budget movies to that of their predecessors (Matrix 2 & 3, the second Star Wars trilogy, Indiana Jones 4, etc). Unlike some writers and directors I believe Tarantino has maintained his unique style and spirit despite a $100 million budget at his disposal. So, did I find Django Unchained just as entertaining, gruesome and ridiculously awesome as Inglourious Basterds? Yes. Did Django Unchained exceed my expectations? Yes. Do I recommend getting off your ass to see it in the theaters? Yes. Worth a second view? Of course.