Pillow talk should never involve bringing up how the chick you just banged reminds you of your mother.

During my Sucks To Be You, Blockbuster Video shopping spree last year, I managed to get a few films featuring The Adorable Amy Adams (she's so precious). Some I'd already seen, others I'd yet to watch, and one I didn't even know existed: Moonlight Serenade. Because it was from Magnolia Home Entertainment, I assumed that maybe it was one of those joints that played for a week at the Nuart while simultaneously available via VOD, but that wasn't the case, it was a DTV deal. The DVD box gives out 2009 as the year it was released but the film's end credits reveals that this was a 2005 production, which means this was probably made shortly before or after her role in Junebug, the film that really got people's attention as to who this precious redhead was. 

The tagline under the title says: "She'll sing her way into your heart" which I honestly didn't think was necessary because, c'mon people, that's like saying putting a gun into your mouth and pulling the trigger is most likely going to kill you -- well, duh. Amy Adams is sweet enough, she doesn't need you to help convince people of her powers in being endearing. I mean, all they really had to do for cover art is just have a picture of her precious face giving out that endearingly peculiar smile of hers with the name Amy Adams under it and people will be like AWWW and there you go, she just sang her way into your heart without singing a fuckin' note. 

So the movie stars one of these Scottish motherfuckers who thinks he can come to my country and play an American-born American better than my fellow countrymen. He was also in those made-for-cable Dune joints that was meant to satisfy all the Dune nerds who got all bent out of shape the first time out, when David Lynch took that book and went all Frank Booth on that literary Dorothy Vallens. Anyway, he plays a dude working a high-paying job doing the financial managing thing for one of those firms that tell you the best ways to invest your money, only to shake in their expensive Italian shoes after you leave because when it comes down to it, they have about as much a clue about that shit as you do. 

Some of these guys, they like to unwind by bro-ing out with their fellow suit-wearing bros at the local sports bar, while others like to take prostitutes home and chainsaw their vaginas or something, but Low-Budget Ewan McGregor, he prefers to chill out at home with a glass of scotch and his piano, before heading off to his favorite nightspot where he drinks alone (like me) and gets hit on by Moon Bloodgood types (not like me). But these assholes always have to be all fucked up over something; turns out homeboy can really tickle the ivories but for some reason, he keeps it to himself, not even letting his buddy (who heads a jazz band at said nightspot) know about this. I guess he's supposed to be the singing musician equivalent to some martial arts master who can fuck everybody up but chooses not to, no matter what, because long ago he killed somebody in the ring. Or maybe he's just an asshole, I don't know. 

I say that because his friend would probably really dig having his bro join him on-stage, but Ewan McGregor Lite won't tell him about his talent. Yet, such is the power of the coat-check girl played by The Adorable Amy Adams that he's running up to her on the street and singing that old When I Fall In Love song that got popular again when Celine Dion and some limey sang it at the end of that Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy -- you know the one, the one that ends with them getting together and living happily ever after. No, the other one.

It's not just because she's Amy Adams that he's understandably smitten with her, it's also because one night while boozing it up at the piano alone in his supposed New York apartment (more on that later), he starts singing and is suddenly joined by some mysterious girl standing outside on the sidewalk below. Long story short, he finds out it's Amy Adams, but because he managed to insult her beforehand, she's all like Go Fuck Yourself. Part of that attitude is because he's an asshole who's better off auditioning for The Asylum's way-too-late cash-in on Trainspotting (Asylum's title: Scottish Heroin Addicts) rather than try to get up in her guts through the magic of Song, but because she has a deadbeat loser drug-addict boyfriend (aka Me Two Years Ago, except it was booze) waiting for her at home, stinking up her cheap couch while watching Huell Howser, I'm sure. 

Let's talk about this loser druggie boyfriend. For most of the running time, I thought this movie was so low-budget that they couldn't afford another actor, because they keep mentioning him but you never see him. At one point, you hear him cough in the next room and I thought Holy Shit, that's as deep as that character is gonna get, but eventually he does show up near the end. 

By the way, I've never gone through a drug withdrawal, so I've never seen dead babies crawling on my ceiling as a result of Kicking Junk, but apparently when you're trying to kick that shit, you need not only hot soup, but lots of untoasted plain white bread to get through it. I notice that -- soup & bread -- in a lot of movies with scenes like that and I noticed it here when Amy Adams brings her recovering boyfriend that meal. I've been sick many times, due to plain ol' everyday viruses, and I've subsisted on chicken noodle soup, crackers and 7-up while I recovered. But never the untoasted/unbuttered white bread. Maybe there's a magic to that combination, maybe plain white bread is nature's methadone. I'm gonna ask Robert Downey Jr. about that if I ever see him. 

But yeah, what was I saying? Oh yeah, this is a very low-budget movie; someone who supposedly worked on this movie posted on some comment board (that I can't remember the name of, at this moment) that Moonlight Serenade was a 7-day shoot and cost a bit under 100k to make. I can buy that; there are a couple scenes where I swear Adams and Newman also served as background extras whenever they weren't required to be a major part of any given scene (it could be their stand-ins, but I doubt it, they probably couldn't afford stand-ins in this movie, at least not those with the same exact hair and body types). 

The movie takes place in New York, but it's obviously Los Angeles, leaving me to wonder why they even bothered trying to pass it off as the city that never sleeps. They were better off trying to convince us that this took place in fuckin' Toronto. I guess there's a larger jazz scene in the Big Apple, but who gives a shit about verisimilitude in a movie where people occasionally break into song during dramatic scenes (yeah, this is kind of a musical)? Or maybe they had it set in New York because most of these kinds of old-school musical romance joints took place there? I don't know, all I do know is that Not Ewan McGregor lives in an apartment with huge windows and yet the curtains are always closed. Because that's what you wanna do with your New York City apartment that you're paying up the motherfucking ass for -- you wanna fuck yourself out of a great view of the city and convince yourself that you're living in, I don't know, Tulsa. 

His office -- which also always has the shades closed -- isn't that impressive either, and when The Adorable Amy Adams first enters his office, she makes a comment like “fancy digs”, which left me confused as to whether she was being sarcastic or if she actually meant it, and if she actually meant it, that would be even weirder because his fancy digs aren't so much fancy as they're just digs. Or maybe she was genuinely wow'd because compared to the closet she works inside of, his office looks like fuckin' Adrian Veidt works out of that motherfucker. The fucked up thing is that someone in his position would probably have a modest office like that, it's just that we're so used to offices in movies that are always too grand to be real, kinda like how we kinda got used to some sitcoms featuring low-income people living in huge apartments. 

There's nothing really wrong with this movie; it's not terrible, it's just, I don't know...uh...it's just there. I can see what the filmmakers were going for, a mid '00s version/tribute to those romantic-kinda-musicals, only it comes off more like a tribute to the poverty-row versions, the ones that played as the bottom half of a double-bill starring nobody you know or people you used to know, following up something truly grand and kick-ass. 

What you have here is an OK-at-best movie that didn't get distribution for a while, leaving me to wonder why much shittier movies didn't have any problems getting picked up. But then I realized why: this flick, it's too slight for theaters and too old-fashioned for DTV. The movie is about as steamy as a Davey & Goliath cartoon, and at the time it was made, Glee and High School Musical were but a mere gleam in a homosexual's eye. It's hard enough to get a movie with no stars into theaters, but it's even harder to go DTV with a no-star movie when you don't even have those magical selling points of SEX and BLOOD and OWNAGE to get a motherfucker to cough up the bucks and make copies to send to Redbox. But then as the years went by, Amy Calico Adams was becoming more well-known and I'm pretty sure she's the reason why this flick eventually got picked up. 

I kid Mr. Alec Newman with the McGregor cracks; he's fine in the role, even though his character is too much of an asshole at times. The Adorable Amy Adams is of course, The Adorable Amy Adams as she always is. I'm usually pretty good about people disagreeing with me, but in this case, I'd probably feel a serious case of the American History X curb-stompies coming on if you did. I guess you can say that she did this movie because it probably brought her fond memories (!) of singing during her dinner theater days, but that's probably not true, she probably was just happy to have a gig.

And maybe that's still her modus operandi today: Work Work Work. Critics were giving her shit for doing movies like Leap Year and the IMAX one where she ran around in jodhpurs, but give the girl a break; she struggled for years and now she's gonna take advantage of her time in the spotlight by Gettin' Crazy Paid, and besides, she's already held her own against hardcore motherfuckers, like Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Christian Muthafuckin' Bale, she got nominated like 2 or 3 times for an Oscar, she's proven herself. 

Speaking of Bale, I bet you if Amy Adams was on the set of Terminator Salvation on that fateful day, shit would've gone differently. I bet you if he looked over and saw The Adorable Amy Adams' concerned face, he'd stop mid-rant, take a breath, and begin to tear up. He'd choke up and tell The Adorable Amy Adams "I'm sorry luv, it's just, it's just that acting...they don't understand, they don't appreciate what we put ourselves through sometimes" and then she'd slowly nod and say "I know Christian, I know. We're only human" and then he'd stumble up to her waiting arms and return just as warm a hug as she's giving to him, all the while bawling while Adams slowly strokes that gifted angry manchild's head. The cameras would be still be rolling, but McG -- fuckhead that he is -- would never bother using it, because he's fuckin' McG, man, what can you do?

Anyway, I guess the real reason for this movie is the singing, and thankfully Moonlight Serenade is a success in that department, the song department. It's all jazz standards and the music's really nice and Adams & Newman do very well supplying their own vocals. Newman's got a cool smooth voice to him, and the scotch & piano aesthetic fits him like the proverbial glove. Holy shit, writing that last part made me feel like the proverbial douchebag. Amy Adams could probably stand to dial it down a tad -- her singing seems more attuned to playing large theaters, rather than small jazz clubs -- but that still doesn't change the fact that she has a lovely singing voice, which of course you should know by now because I know you've seen Enchanted by now, I know you're not trying to hurt my feelings here.

So I guess what you have here is the musical equivalent of a low-budget action movie with blah dramatics but kick-ass setpieces, and in that case, I have absolutely no problem calling Moonlight Serenade the romantic musical equivalent of one of those Richard Pepin/Joseph Merhi productions for PM Entertainment Group, only instead of Cynthia Rothrock and Gary Daniels, you have Amy Adams and Alec Newman.

Holy shit, there's an idea. Some of my Twitter friends have brought up that they want to see Cynthia Rothrock come out of retirement/sabbatical/whatever-the-fuck-it-is and maybe Quentin Tarantino is the one to John Travolta that shit for her. I want to add to it by throwing Adams in the mix. Maybe it can be a buddy cop movie done Tarantino-style, or maybe they're assassins-for-hire, kinda like a female version of The Mechanic with Rothrock in the Bronson role and Adams in the Jan-Michael Vincent role. Or a hard-ass chick Western like Bad Girls, only good.

Man, this shit almost writes itself and I can help except I am but a learner and Tarantino is the fuckin' master, so he should write that shit. C'mon, QT, it's up to you to put this shit together. I don't know what it'll take to convince you to make this movie, but I'm sure they'll be fine with you spending an entire day filming their bare feet or letting them walk all over you or whatever it is you foot-fuckin-masters are all about, if that's what it's gonna take. 

What the fuck happened to you, Arclight Cinemas? Shit, your ass used to be beautiful!

The girl was somewhere in the 18-21 range and she had the obvious aura of someone who'd rather be Anywhere But Here, working this summer job -- and only a summer job, get that right! -- here at the formerly awesome Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood. Her name tag did not have her favorite film written on it, like the name tags usually do at this establishment, and in retrospect, that should've told me everything right there.

Anyway, after she asked me what I wanted -- and that's how she said it: What do you want? -- I looked over to the soda dispensers (it's been a while since I last came here) and I could've taken half a second and it still wouldn't have been quick enough for her: "CokeDietCokeSpriteRootBeer!" she told me. Oh.

She then went "OwwwwwOOOOwwwwOOOOWWW" after placing my soda on the counter. Figuring that showing sympathy would lessen her apparent dislike of the Fat Ugly Fuck on the other side of the cash register, I asked her what had happened and she told me that she bumped her elbow on the counter earlier and she was still sore. She then told me that the day before, she had banged the side of her foot near the bottom of the other counter. I responded with "I hate when that happens. It's like when I accidentally stub my toe on the couch" except I didn't say that, I only said "I hate when that --" before she shoved the soda closer to me and said "Enjoy your movie". I was the only one there, nobody else was in line -- unless you count the many invisible undead that I was holding up, hence Time Of The Month's quick dismissal of me.

I noticed a man in glasses go up to the ticket-taker and tell her that his seat was still full of trash, even though the picture was to begin in 10 minutes. She sighed and told her fellow employee, who responded with "But they're showing the movie all day", before taking off with her trusty broom and trash pan.

Before the movie started, another employee of the female persuasion stepped up to give the intro, which went something like this: Ladiesandgentlemen, welcometo,uh,the Arclight Cinemas presentationofTheTreeofLife, uh, starring Brad PittandSean, uh, Penn. Um, this movie, is uh, runs about, uh, an hour and fifteen minutes? *brief pause* Uh, yeah, an hour and fifteen minutes. Uh, enjoy the movie. For the record, The Tree of Life runs two hours and eighteen minutes.

Another tell-tale sign that things changed at this place, this former standard by which all other movie theaters measured themselves: she did not do the usual bit about employees checking the print every once in a while to make sure that sound and picture were top notch. Because sure enough, the print seemed a little jittery. Thankfully, you can only notice this during the credits and whenever the image was completely motionless (the camerawork is handheld and never seems to stop roving about). Sure, I could've gotten up and complained to the staff, but that would mean having to miss some of the movie and for what? To be met with blank stares? I didn't want to find out what other rude surprises were in store for me in the Land Of Employees Who Don't Give A Fuck. Also, it would've involved me having to get up.

What happened? I'm reminded me of that bit in Casino, when Ace Rothstein laments the death of the personal touches the old casinos used to have, before they got taken over by corporate cunts who were all about maximum profit for minimum effort (in other words, The American Dream). The employees at the Arclight used to act like they gave a shit with their friendly attitudes & smiles, and while I knew it was an illusion -- a trick is something a whore does for money -- I was fine with it because I was paying for the illusion. We all pay for the illusion, also known as Customer Service.

But I don't know what happened since; did they start paying less, and therefore got what they paid for, employee-wise? You know, over at the burger joints they pay more and offer better benefits at In-n-Out Burgers, compared to McDonald's where they start off at minimum wage -- perhaps that's why the workers are always smiling at In-n-Out and frowning at Mickey D's. Is this a result of the Arclight franchising out to more locations, and spreading themselves thin as a result? Maybe. Or maybe they just started hiring assholes.

Or maybe I just came on a bad day.

Every Malick film features narration but their uses differ, depending on the film. In Badlands and Days of Heaven, the characters are recalling events to the audience and adding more detail/humor to them with their thoughts. In The Thin Red Line and The New World, the characters are speaking from their souls, pretty much talking to no one but themselves. But in The Tree of Life, it's a mix of that inner soul monologue along with a dialogue with the Creator, whoever the fuck that's supposed to be. Yeah man, I guess you can say all of Malick's joints are religious experiences but this one goes even further or farther or both as it attempts (and succeeds!) to encompass every fucking thing about this universe while asking out loud What Does It All Mean?

The way I saw it, Malick took a different approach from going with the God-Vision camera he used to make The Thin Red Line with, instead, he went over to Panavision or Arriflex or Red and asked -- nay, he demanded -- that they give him a camera that can film the inner mind and soul of the protagonist. Because what most of this movie consists of -- at least to me -- is all of the shit going through Sean Penn's character's mind during one particular day (if it was actually Sean Penn's mind we were looking into, it would probably be filled with very liberal, blow-hardy, and ultra-serious bullshit with no sense of humor whatsoever).

The film focuses on Penn's past, growing up during his personal Wonder Years in Texas but every once in a while, we cut to Right Now and watch Penn doing whatever the fuck he's doing in that office building. I bet you whatever he's doing, it's making him CRAZY bank, or maybe not, because based on the look of his very nice home, the motherfucker can afford nice digs and nice threads but came up short when it was time to buy some fuckin' furniture.

Anyway, we're seeing his childhood memories along with the passing thoughts that stem from them in retrospect, contrasted with the thoughts he had at the time -- this motherfucker has a lot on his mind. And why not? I don't know about you but sometimes thinking of a deceased loved one (Penn's character's deceased brother) might put you in a real introspective/existential place. You begin to wonder about shit, like, what's the meaning of All This? Is there a God, and if there is, what the fuck is His fucking problem and what's His fucking point? And that's where the scenes involving the creation of the universe come into play, so you can wonder to yourself "Really, man? Dinosaurs?"

Early on, we see some dinosaurs and for a while I wondered if they were going to get an inner monologue as well. Part of me wishes they did, because it would've cemented to the rest of the critics and moviegoers that everything is, in fact, bigger in Texas -- particularly Terrence Malick's balls. Also, it would've been both bewildering, admirable and fuckin' hilarious (the dinosaur narration, not Malick's testicles). Imagine how it would look and sound, pensive shots of dinosaurs framed in beautifully-composed images of Nature Long Ago: "rawr. rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr. rawr? rawr rawr rawr? rawr." and because it's a Terrence Malick-style monologue, it would all be done in a whisper.

I'm kinda glad that I didn't grow up going to Catholic school, otherwise I'd be an atheist today for sure. Instead, I'm in that non-committal area -- agnosticism -- and when you get right down to it, it's so much more fun to not be sure. Otherwise I'd be like one of those assholes on either side who has an answer to everything and is Just So Fucking Sure that they're right, even though a dot of doubt surely rests somewhere in that soul of theirs. Because when you get right down to it, who the fuck knows? There are no good solid answers to me, just a betting sheet with different horses and their varying odds, and a lack of willingness to bet everything and Let It Ride.

Shit man, we might not know why we're here or who made us, but the one thing we know for sure is that Love is always a good thing to have and to give. Without that, without just living your life and appreciating the things you have (the things you know -- the fuckin' things you know for sure) then there really is no point to your existence, you're just a robot passing time, meaningless and sad (much like my blog in general).

It's all just a fuckin' mystery and the more you spend trying to figure it out, the less time you have to appreciate the shit that you know is real -- like, every tangible fucking thing that you can see right in fuckin' front of you: the beauty of nature, the wonders of Netflix Instant, the deliciousness of a Chicago-style pizza, and if there's room, the love and companionship of your family & friends. That seems to be what Penn's mom is saying when she says something to the effect of "life flashes by, unless you love", because you're throwing away some perfectly Good Times when you try to live life as Mr. Hard.

I think that's who Brad Pitt's character represents. I know the credits call him Mr. O'Brien, but Mr. Hard is what he acts like. He's not an evil fucked-up dude, he's just strict, and I think one of his flaws is that he thinks love is something that can be demanded and scheduled like a weekly chore. He tells his kids to kiss him or give him a hug in the same manner that he asks them to pull weeds from the lawn, then he wonders why the kids favor the mother. The poor guy, he loves to play piano and you find out later that his is one of those lives where he chose Making A Living over Doing What You Love, and you get the feeling that sometimes all this guy looks forward to after a day of work is sitting on his chair and listening to his Brahms albums. To his credit, he encourages his children to follow their dreams and not let anyone tell them otherwise.

It's kind of a running theme in a Malick joint, this battle between dualities; you have Jesus Christ and Sean Penn (and Elias Koteas and Nick Muthafuckin' Nolte) in The Thin Red Line duking it out -- it's Live Life With Love & Compassion vs. Fuck That Shit, You Gotta Do Some Cold Shit To Get By and they're both right. There's the fuckin' rub. Life is ugly, but it's also beautiful, and it's kind of like God's twisted pay-per-view amusement to see what his creations decide to do about it, which way they decide to Get Through This. Malick's all like "Man, thanks for the free will, but goddamn it's hard to be a good dude in a world of bad motherfuckers."

Here at the Young Sean Penn household, you have a one-parent-is-cool-while-the-other-parent-is-kind-of-a dick dynamic: You have Mrs. O'Brien (aka Miss Grace), this pretty ethereal lady with her loving & caring ways, then you have Mr. O'Brien (aka Mister Nature) coming in to hit the boys with a dose of Man Up, This Is The Real World whenever he enters the picture. Mr. O'Brien is the kind of guy who will send you to your room without dinner, while Mrs. O'Brien would probably sneak you a plate and make you promise that you won't do that again. Mrs. O'Brien would wake you up by gently rocking you awake, while Mr. O'Brien would just yank the blanket off of you. Mrs. O'Brien parents like this, while Mr. O'Brien parents like this. Black people drive like this, white people drive like this.

Anyway, because we're human beings capable of doing both good and bad things, we do both, and sometimes we forget about the things we did, and sometimes we don't and we're haunted by it as a result. Even worse, more often than not, it's usually those we love that are the victims of the rank shit we sometimes pull. Is Malick telling us this? I don't think so, I don't think he's pulling some lame Mt. Olympus bullshit, like Look At You Lame Humans With Your Frailties, he's definitely just as guilty of this shit as the rest of us and The Tree of Life (all of his movies, really) is basically him wondering/confessing out loud and projecting that shit in 35mm and charging us $12.50 at a theater that used to be my homie, used to be my ace.

I remember reading in Jewfro's book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" that Malick grew up with 2 brothers in Texas, and that his father worked in the oil business (that's funny, Penn's character has a very similar upbringing) and that one of his brothers went to Spain to study guitar with the guitar-playing equivalent of Pei Mei. Anyway, I guess Malick's brother thought he wasn't good enough or Spanish Guitar-Playing Pei Mei's cruel tutelage was too much for him, because he later broke BOTH OF HIS FUCKING HANDS.

So Malick's father e-mailed (or whatever it was they did to communicate back in the 60's) Terrence to go over to Spain and make sure the dude was all right, and I don't know, help him wipe his ass or scratch his nose. Terrence was like "Nope, I know he's my brother and he ain't heavy but fuck that guy, I ain't carrying shit." Cut to some time later, and Malick's father contacts Terrence again and tells him, "Yeah, I went over to see your brother, oh and by the way, just a little FYI for ya, I'm bringing back his body because he killed himself." So yeah, it's obvious none of this real-life shit inspired this movie, I'm sure. I don't know why I even brought it up.

There's a line of inner monologue involving Young Sean Penn getting all Book of Job with God. The kid just witnessed another kid die from drowning, then he saw the anguished mother scream in tears, so to God he's all like "Where were you? You let a boy die. You let anything happen. So why should I be good, if you're not?" Lady and gentleman, I came thisfuckingclose to sobbing in that goddamn theater when I heard that, because as much as I'd love to be the cool motherfucker who never had similar thoughts fill my head, as much as I'd like to admit that I don't question Whoever The Fuck Is In Charge up there about such shit on a frighteningly daily fuckin' basis, I'm not and I do.

The Book of Job was definitely one of my favorite parts of the Bible (like The Prestige, the Job section is really intriguing until the disappointing ending), back when I tried to fool myself as a kid by attending Sunday School, back when I had that extra bounce in my young steps, back when I didn't question anything but believed everything. Now, I'm more of a fan of that book because the guy's name sounds like Will Arnett's character from that awesome show that got cancelled, once again compelling me to ask God: "Why oh why?"

Some people are complaining about what they see as an overly-simplistic message in this film, like if somehow being a simple message disqualifies it from being true and worth saying -- because it is true and it sure as fuck is worth saying. Then you have those calling Malick pretentious and if I was a complete piece-of-shit (I'm only 82% shit), I'd find out what movies those motherfuckers love and call those movies pretentious. I really don't consider Malick pretentious -- if anything, his joints are dripping with the purest uncut and non-cynical sincerity and that's part of why I love his films. I'd throw the "love" word towards The Tree of Life, but I need a second viewing of any movie before I use the L-word, and by L-word, I mean Lesbian, obviously. As of now, I will settle for calling this movie Fan-fucking-tastic and Phe-fucking-nomenal -- typical Malick, in other words.

I could tell you that the movie is masterfully-crafted and beautifully shot (Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki! Raza!), but to say that about a Terrence Malick film is like telling you that the sky is blue, water is wet, and women have secrets (and ol' Satan Claus, Jimmy, he's out there and he's just getting stronger). I also noticed in the end credits (which should've started with "You just got your shit owned by TERRENCE FUCKING MALICK" rather than the usual "written and directed by" credit) that there were five credited editors for this flick. Goddamn, the last time I took notice of that many editors being credited in a movie, it was for Street Fighter, which proves the indisputable fact that cinematic masterpieces require more than 3 people to cut 'em.

Listen man, I know I'm a Terrence Malick fanboy and that Malick's an acquired taste for many and your mileage may vary. But I'm gonna take a guess and say that if you dug his other works, you'll dig this one. If you didn't like his other movies, then don't even fuckin' bother, man. Go see X-Men: First Class -- and then tell me how it was, because I want to see that shit too but I have a feeling there would be a higher probability of texting in that audience, and I'm just too hyper-sensitive for the real world and would rather just wait for the Blu-ray.

James Bond speaks better English than Jean Claude Van Damme (who's Belgian) and kicks more ass than Saoirse Ronan (who's a girl)

Lumping together a few of the movies I saw in the past few days: 

Went to see Hanna at a discount house, and I'm sure I would've liked the movie, being an ultra-stylish action film with touches of weirdness throughout, all done to a thumping Chemical Brothers score, and all -- except I was too distracted by the couple behind me who felt the need to add running audio commentary to the proceedings. It was beautiful, the comments they shared with each other; during one shot of a lonely snowy cabin in the middle of the woods at night, the lady told her man "That's scary!" Then during one scene involving Cate Blanchett's fetchingly cold-blooded (and stylishly-dressed) CIA agent character, the same lady then told the audience, "She's evil!" 

I decided to try something different from the usual "Can you please be quiet?";  I turned around after one of their comments and said "Yeah, I know, right?" in a really friendly way. It was a passive-aggressive masterpiece, that move, because it confused them as well as gave them the message that they were being loud cunts. 

Unfortunately, there were a few other people that Saturday night who figured, hey, it's only $4, no one will care if I take out my cell phone, hold it up so everyone can see it, and start texting my obviously important thoughts to some other asshole miles away. Then a boy with a cup of soda decided that there was no other greater pleasure than to suck on that straw after all the soda was gone, making that sweet, sweet music of a straw slurping the remaining cola moisture hidden in the minute crevices of the ice cubes. After that, he decided to turn the straw into a makeshift talkbox and do his impression of Roger Troutman, that is, when he wasn't just humming through it non-stop. 

At this point, I decided to no longer fight. There is no reward in fighting, only a delay in the inevitable heartbreak that Fighting For A Cause leads to. This fight against Acts of Douchebaggery in the Cinema, it is over. I tapped out. I sat there and Zen'd my soul out of my body and went somewhere else, somewhere quiet. The images of Briony Tallis and Eric Bana beating the shit out of people and bringing down severe pain upon their enemies, they did nothing for me, because my eyes were glazed over and I was no longer in the theater at that point -- only a desiccated shell of my former self was seated 

One day, I will rent the DVD or Blu-ray and watch it proper, the way I should've watched it in the first place -- at home. In fact, I will attend movie theaters far, far less frequently than I used to. Off the top of my head, the only movie I want to see in the theater in the coming weeks (after The Tree of Life, of course) is Super 8, and that's about it, really. Maybe a couple more movies, but other than that, I'm just going to wait to see them at home. If I do go to the movie theater, it will most likely be at a revival house like the New Beverly Cinema, or a Friday midnight show at the Nuart, but even then, I REALLY have to want to watch it. Because it's over, man. The douchebags have won. The cinema is now theirs. It's like Dawn of the Dead and we're running out of safe havens, only it's an even scarier threat than zombies -- it's human beings who should know better.

I don't want to end my current Hanna ramblings on a down note, so I'll tell you my positive Cate Blanchett story. She once held open a door for me at the Arclight Cinema as I did that lame fast walk towards it. She saw me going to the same theater (to a screening for Notes on a Scandal that I was attempting to sneak into) and she held the fuckin' door open for me, because that's what decent people do for their fellow man. Either that or she thought I was handicapped and needed help, because Leonard Maltin did the same thing at the American Cinematheque before a screening of Los Angeles Plays Itself, so maybe there's something about me that screams Please Hold The Door. 

Anyway, she held the door open for me and even gave me a warm smile when I caught up and took over door-holding duties, which was either a display of friendliness or her wanting to laugh at my dumb duck-wobbling ass. I said "thank you" by the way, because that's what you do to show your appreciation -- either that or a simple nod of acknowledgement -- you don't just walk past and ignore the door-holder like most assholes at the post office do to me. 

The next day, I watched Sudden Death, which I really dug back in the final week of December '95 in the theater and I really dug it this time as well. The premise is absurd (Die Hard in a hockey arena) and Van Damme really amazes with his lack of acting ability, but goddammit, he's trying his heart out and so is the movie. With the exception of completely depressing garbage like A Sound of Thunder, Peter Hyams is not only a solid director in the non-artist category of Artisan or Skilled Craftsman (or Hack, if you wanna be a dick about it), he's also one of my favorite cinematographers and it's too bad he only D.P.'s his own flicks (with the exception of the surprisingly tight Universal Soldier: Regeneration, and that's probably because his son directed it). 

Hyams' flicks all have that soft, hazy look combined with his You Don't Have To See Everything aesthetic when it comes to lighting a scene and god forbid you should see one of his joints at the drive-in. But in a properly projected theater (or at home), the shit looks damn near beautiful in its darkness.  If Gordon Willis is the Prince of Darkness in the cinematographer world, then Peter Hyams is the....whatever is below the prince. 

There's an interview somewhere online where Hyams talks about how even though he's worked on some huge Hollywood joints like 2010: The Year We Make Contact and End of Days (that's the one where Arnold figures the best way to fight Satan is with a shitload of guns), he's not only never been interviewed by American Cinematographer magazine, he's also had his membership applications rejected by the American Society of Cinematographers because these assholes hate motherfuckers like him and Steven Soderbergh for being their own directors-of-photography; How DARE a director also light his own set and compose his own shot?! Directors are supposed to be at our mercy -- the cinematographers who are truly responsible for the success of a film, certainly not the director and certainly not those faggy actors and those douchebag screenplays! 

Van Damme plays a former firefighter/current fire inspector named McCord; they explain the accent by saying he's originally from Quebec. The former situation leading to his current one was that he failed to save the life of a little girl during a fire, so he's all bummed about it. Even then, he's trying to keep his head up and be a good dad to his kids (despite divorcing their mother and putting those children in Broken Home City, population: them) by scoring them tickets to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. 

But because the filmmakers intended the title to have more than one meaning, something goes down during the game; a group of asshole mercenaries and former government agents plant C-4 all over the arena and take control of the skybox, holding the Vice President of the United States (and a group of hostages mostly comprised of Eventual Dead Meat) hostage, demanding the usual exorbitant amount of money or else, you know the deal, the innocent get shot or blown up. 

The screenplay is credited to Gene Quintano, the motherfucker responsible for writing Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol and National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1. Now, most of you read those credentials and think What A Bunch Of Shit, but me, I look at those movies and go, Thank You Mr. Quintano For Teaching Me How To Laugh Again. Sure enough, this flick is actually pretty funny (for the most part) when it's not being dead serious, and in some cases, it manages to do both at the same time, like when Van Damme throws down with a 6'5 assassin chick dressed like a giant penguin. 

The bad guys in this movie are Eeeeeevil Boo Hiss types; they make shitty jokes in between shooting innocent unarmed people. The villains in Die Hard were willing to blow up a rooftop of hostages, but in their defense, there's a cold logic to it -- they needed to do that so they could get away while the authorities think they also died in the explosion. But the bad guys here seem to get off on shooting old ladies and pretty blonde girls and while they may not be the most multi-layered characters, let's be honest here -- who gives a fuck. They're evil motherfuckers and it just makes you cheer louder when The Van Dammage shoves a bone into their throats or barbecues their asses with Super Soakers filled with lighter fluid. 

Powers Boothe is the leader of the bad guys and he's genuinely threatening, even when he's making lame jokes. He also seems like the kind of guy who would enjoy a big fat bloody steak; I read somewhere that when he was in the film MacGruber, he had to operate the stick shift for Ryan Phillippe during a scene where Phillippe was driving him around in a jeep, and I bet you Phillippe felt like a fuckin' lame-ass bitch not being able to drive stick in front of a man's man type like Powers Fuckin' Boothe. I bet you at least once, Boothe probably asked Phillippe something like "Really? You don't know how to drive stick?" and even though he probably asked as nicely as possible, because he's Powers Boothe that shit still sounded like "Go put on a dress and heels, woman, and bring Daddy a bourbon". 

Anyway, if you haven't seen Sudden Death, you should. It's a solid action flick, with a pace damn near as fast as the hockey game occurring during the film, and while he doesn't Kumite these assholes as much as he did in other movies, there's still a nice amount of Van Dammage throughout -- plus, he pulls a very well-deserved act of Motherfuckery to the bad guys during the climax. I'd say this movie and Hard Target are my favorite Van Damme flicks. Oh, and Knock Off too -- that movie was made by escaped mental patients/former prop comics from Hong Kong, I'm sure. 

The first movie I rambled about on this blog was Dr. No, and since then, every once in a while I'll pop in a 007 flick. Over the years, I've been watching them in order, catching up on Bond movies I never saw before while re-visiting the rest. Recently, I've gotten up to the Timothy Dalton joints, having an Inspired By The Approaching Expiration Date On Netflix Instant double-feature of The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill. 

I had never seen The Living Daylights, and for some reason, I was under the impression that it wasn't one of the better Bond joints. How wrong I was; this is a pretty damn good entry in the series, in fact, some people believe this to be the last true Bond movie. I can see their point while not entirely agreeing with them; this is the last Bond film to still have that old-fashioned feel to it. With a few adjustments, this story could've been told back in the 70's with Roger Moore (supposedly it was written with the intention of him starring in it) and it even looks old-fashioned, and I think part of that is due to the work of cinematographer Alec Mills, whose old-school veddy British classical manner of D.P.'ing involves lighting the shit out of everything and composing each shot with less importance on looking stylish and more importance on making sure the audience can understand what's going on. 

In this one, Bond is assigned to make sure Jeroen Krabbe (playing a KGB general, not as Jeroen Krabbe) defects from his country without getting his cap peeled back by those borscht-eating motherfuckers. Said cap-peeling almost happens; a hot Russian cello player is about to sniper the guy until Bond does some sniping on his own, except he doesn't kill her. At first, I was as pissed as Bond's partner in this mission -- this fuckin' guy had his scope aimed right in the center of Russian chick's pretty little forehead, before suddenly changing his aim to the rifle in her arms and blasting on that instead. 

It really looks bad for Bond, given his well-earned reputation as being a notorious slut with the ladies (the common thinking among his colleagues is that he let the little head do the thinking, rather than the big head), but it turns out that he was able to tell that this chick was holding that sniper rifle the way a Catholic priest would deal with a naked pair of titties -- like someone with no fuckin' idea on how to handle that shit. 

This was the last Bond movie John Barry scored, and that's a damn shame. I wonder why he stopped; was he done with doing 007 music or was he never invited back to the James Bond party? Either way, his stuff is missed; nothing against guys like Michael Kamen or David Arnold, because those guys are good, but goddamn, this was John Fuckin' Barry -- a true legend. He was right up there with Morricone, if you ask me. The action music is exciting and catchy, but it's his romantic themes that I really enjoyed, and in true Barry style, they manage to be these grand & majestic tunes that are also tinged with just the right amount of sadness. 

The end credits song, written by Barry and Chrissie Hynde (who also sings it) is a lot like k.d. lang's end credits song in Tomorrow Never Dies in that they're both better than the opening credits song. I guess a-ha was a bigger deal than The Pretenders back in '87, and as for Tomorrow Never Dies, the producers probably heard k.d. lang's song and thought to themselves, "Wow, she sings like Shirley Bassey but she goes down like Ron Jeremy and we need a pretty girl, not some ugly dyke to headline this sucker" and that's a damn shame. 

Joe Don Baker is in this, and because JDB is awesome and fat, he showed up in the Brosnan joints as well, playing a different character. But in this one, he's an arms dealer and his entry in the douchebag sweepstakes is that he's one of these guys who never served in the armed forces but thinks himself a fuckin' military master. He's introduced hanging out among a bunch of statues of famous military conquering motherfuckers like Genghis Khan and that guy Colin Farrell played in that Oliver Stone movie, only they're all made out to have his face. This fuckin' asshole has his own little private army, wears military attire and all of that shit, but he's as military as your average right-wing radio show host (with the exception of that rat-eating mofo G. Gordon Liddy). Fuck this guy. All he's got going for him is that he's played by Joe Don Baker. 

The next Bond film, Licence to Kill, is like the Timothy Dalton of Bond movies, if that makes any sense and I'm sure it doesn't; this one is pretty dark and intense compared to other Bonds, and that's kind of the complaint some people had about Timothy Dalton's portrayal of Bond. They forget that Bond's a dude who's been through some serious shit -- all that killing with a licence can get to a guy sometimes, and I like to think that compared to Connery & Moore, Dalton's Bond is less about drinking-for-fun and more of a drinking-to-forget type. 

The Netflix Instant version was the unrated cut (reinstating stuff that was trimmed to get a PG-13), so it was pretty cool and even a little jarring to see some of the extra violence -- a motherfucker's head goes Scanners in one scene and you see one poor guy's bloody stump after Deep Blue Sea starts chomping on the fuckin' guy. It was probably still jarring in the PG-13 version; up until now, the violence in a Bond movie had never been that particularly visual in it's brutality. But hey, this one's got a particularly brutal story. 

Shortly after his bro Felix Leiter is maimed and Leiter's new bride is murdered (and it's pretty obvious she was raped too), Bond resigns and has his licence to kill revoked as a result, but that really makes no difference to the guy, because it's fuckin' Revenge Time and he's out killing the guys responsible and the ones he's not killing, he's setting them up to be royally motherfucked in one way or another. It's pretty awesome to watch, all this motherfucking. 

Bond uses his particular set of skills to get in with drug kingpin Robert Davi (doing the Eye-tie playing-a-Latino thing). Davi's a pretty interesting villain; he does some pretty harsh shit to people which is actually pretty typical for a Latin Druglord (he has his men tear the heart out of a guy who was dicking Davi's dame), but I honestly didn't consider him nearly as evil as your typical Bond supervillain. I mean, he's a businessman -- he's not out to kill millions of people (not directly, anyway) or take over the world, he just wants to make money. Based on what I see him do in this flick, his big deal is loyalty, and if you're loyal to him, then he's cool with you. It's only if you try to fuck him (or his money or his lady) that he'll then teach you the most painful and permanent of lessons. 

If anyone is genuinely Eeeevil, it's his right-hand hatchet man, played by a very young, rail-thin Benicio Del Toro. That dude really enjoys the perks of his job, watching the victims suffer and beg, or raping helpless former actresses from Three's Company before murdering them. Yeah, that chick is in this movie too, as is that one chick who was in Law & Order for a while. You also have that dude from Quest for Fire and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (Stephen Lang must've been busy) and you also have Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat jumping in for some Intimidating Asian fun. 

There's also a bit of a Die Hard reunion because both Agent Johnsons (Davi and Grand Bush) are in this film, not to mention Michael Kamen is the film's music composer -- adding even more shades of Die Hard to the action palette used in painting this picture. Also, Wayne Newton is in this movie too, even though I couldn't quite figure his character out; he's either dumb, or weird, or just plain blinded by backed-up semen, given his behavior near the end and what he'll accept from a beautiful girl. 

The downside of this movie is that, yeah, this doesn't quite feel like a Bond movie compared to others, but that's because the whole point of this movie is that Bond isn't operating by the same set of rules as in the other flicks. He's gone rogue (or renegade, if you want to get all Captain Kirk about it), he's not even supposed to be doing this, so he's going about things differently. You know those awesome moments of cold-blooded ownage in a Bond movie like Moore kicking that asshole in the Mercedes off a cliff in For Your Eyes Only, or Connery killing the assassin who ran out of bullets in Dr. No, or Brosnan disarming Vincent Schiavelli and then shooting him in the fuckin' face in Tomorrow Never Dies? Well, that's pretty much all Dalton does to the bad guys in Licence to Kill, and that, dear readers, is what I consider the upside of this movie. 

It's interesting to find out that this movie was a disappointment at the box office in the U.S., and I would guess it's because it came out in the same summer as Batman, Lethal Weapon 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Abyss, and Ghostbusters II as its competition. Goddamn, that was a pretty good summer for Hollywood flicks. Hell, Ghostbusters II wasn't even that great, if I remember correctly, but nowadays it would probably be showered with praise in comparison to most of today's big-budget summer extravaganzas. I wonder if people figured Bond was old news and too proper compared to Mad Mel's broken collarbone theatrics, which is why they didn't bother going to see this movie -- which is kind of fucked up because I think Licence to Kill and Lethal Weapon 2 are actually kindred spirits, both solid examples in the Die Motherfucker Die sub-genre of action movies. 

Supposedly, Entertainment Weekly called this one of the worst Bond movies, and I guess it is if you consider how un-Bond it is in comparison to the others, but that doesn't mean it's a shit movie. I mean, Diamonds are Forever and A View to a Kill are among the worst in my opinion, and those were still very much Bond movies. This, on the other hand, is Good Times and when you get down to it, that's all that matters. Also, there's one of the most awesome Iguanas I've ever seen in a movie, the fuckin' thing is wearing a diamond-studded collar because it's all about bling-bling.

Anyway, that's it. I leave you with some NSFW parting words from Mr. Ice-T, which actually kinda could've worked as an intro to Licence to Kill: 

Dances with Jailbait

Hey, was Step Up 3D shot with 3D cameras or post-converted? And do 3D movies look better on 3D TV's? I ask because I went to Fry's last Friday and went to one of the 3D demo setups and that movie looked very impressive for some bullshit about a bunch of spastic good-looking young bastards who are going to change the world (not to mention the minds of those who Simply Don't Understand) through the power of Dance. Ah, whatever -- I didn't come to watch in 3D what I can see in Real Life at any water fountain/bench area in the middle of any shopping center (no, I don't have change), I came to buy a movie I wanted to watch.

Yeah man, I managed to snag a copy of the extended cut of Terrence Malick's The New World at Fry's for about $5, but that probably has to do with the plain & simple fact that nobody was buying them the first time around when that shit was selling for $20, and even at $5 no one's buying it. The public has made it very clear to Mr. Malick -- Step Up or shut up.

Colin Farrell plays John Smith (the guy from the cartoon Pocahontas), and some Native American actress with a name too complicated to remember, she plays Pocahontas (only they never call her Pocahontas, they don't call her anything, and if they did, I certainly didn't hear it). He's part of a whole group of these British dudes who come the titular New World and notice a bunch of "naturals" already living nearby, so they're like Oh yeah, I guess we have to deal with this nuisance if we're gonna settle here.

Actually, that's not quite exactly the deal; Christopher Plummer is the leader of this voyage, Captain Newport (because he loves smoking those menthols) and he's kind of decent about the whole deal. He tells his men not to rock the boat (figuratively; they've since disembarked) with the natives, because it's not cool to be a dick, and besides, they might have to trade for food and supplies and you just don't bite the hand that could potentially feed you.

Captain Pall Mall also rescinds the execution order for Smith to hang (for kinda being a mutinous motherfucker), and the scene basically goes like this:

Captain Pack o' Smokes: Did you learn your lesson? 

Smith: Yes.

Captain Pack o' Smokes: Good. Now don't you go doing that again, you crazy kid. 

There's this other dude named Wingfield, played by David Thewlis, and he's just a fuckin' hater and he's always talking shit about Smith. Newport has Smith lead a team of men to go see some of these Native Americans and see about working out some kind of hook-up on supplies (it didn't take long for these Brits to Bogart their whole stash), and then Wingfield jumps in with his badly-disguised bitch-fit. Apparently Wingfield must've watched Dances with Wolves too many times, because he thinks Smith is going to form some kind of alliance with the Naturals and use his knowledge of the Brits' strengths and weaknesses to take the whole settlement down.

Anyway, Smith gets taken by the natives and is just about to get his scalp handed to him when in comes Pocahontas to convince them otherwise. What follows is a tale about Smith getting friendly with the natives, while getting really friendly with Pocahontas, all told through the magical lightly hallucinogenic-glazed lens of one Mr. Terrence Muthafuckin' Malick.

Smith is into Pocahontas, and why not, she's cute in a natural (read: rarely bathes) kinda way. After I first saw this movie, I went home and looked her up on the Internet. While typing her name up, I thought to myself "She's cute, she's got a nice body", then I found her IMDB entry and read on her bio that she was born in 1990 and since this movie was shot in 2004-2005 that would mean -- OH MY GOD, NO! OH PLEASE GOD, NO! OH MY GOD, HERE THEY COME! THEY'RE COMING IN THROUGH THE WINDOWS LIKE IN TERRY GILLIAM'S BRAZIL! WHY AM I MAKING MOVIE REFERENCES RIGHT NOW? OH NO, PLEASE DON'T ASK ME TO SIT DOWN RIGHT OVER THERE, CHRIS HANSEN, I DIDN'T KNOW, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW, I MEAN SHE'S HOOKING UP WITH COLIN FARRELL AND YOU'D FIGURED SHE, I MEAN, YOU WOULD THINK, I MEAN, THEY WOULD NEVER HIRE, UH, I, UH...

I SWEAR, I THOUGHT SHE WAS OVER 18!

Speaking of this chick who almost got me thrown in jail, a friend of a friend attended a screening of this film with Ms. Under 18 in attendance for a Q&A after, and after the whole deal, he went outside and saw her trying to get something from the Dippin' Dots machine. He said that she displayed a remarkable patience as she repeatedly put the dollar in, just to have it spat back out at her. I think that patience might have something to do with having spent a long time playing a character in a setting where there was no running water, no electricity, no microwaves and no Hot Pockets. You had to put in work to eat; you had to plant crops, grow crops, do all the crop-related things just to get some food in the belly. Back then, fishing was a necessity, not a sport to do with your drunk friends. You also had to grow some balls and hunt a fuckin' animal every once in a while. Anyway, she eventually got the Dippin' Dots, my friend said. I can only imagine that those Dippin' Dots tasted great, considering how hard she had to work at getting them.

When this film was first released in L.A. and Nueva York back in late 2005, it was 150-minutes long and for some unknown reason, I didn't immediately go. I guess I had other things to do, and besides, it's not like the movie's going anywhere anytime soon, right?

Holy shit, I should've held a mirror up to my douchebag face the moment I found out that Malick had the movie pulled so he could re-edit it; I was fine putting my trust in the director here, assuming he's cutting a better version of the movie that reflects his ultimate vision -- but now I felt assed out of watching a cut of the movie that will most likely never be seen again. It's like Kubrick re-editing 19 minutes out of 2001: A Space Odyssey after the premiere; on the one hand, he probably improved that masterpiece, but on the other, the rest of us are left wondering just what was in those 19 minutes.

Anyway, when the movie was re-released in early 2006, it was not just cut by 15 minutes but it also had some stuff that wasn't in the previous version, as well as having some stuff moved around. I eventually saw this 135-minute version of The New World twice; once in theaters and then a few months later on DVD. I dug it both times and while it didn't match The Thin Red Line (his best work so far, in my opinion -- keep in mind I haven't seen The Tree of Life yet), it was still pretty goddamn good (about even with Days of Heaven, I'd say) and just another shining example of why Terrence Malick is one of a select few who in my humble opinion, Own The Fuck Out Of The Cinematic Arts.

This group I just created in my head, this group of Filmmakers Who Own The Fuck Out Of The Cinematic Arts, is different than a group of who I think the best filmmakers are. There's a difference. I'm not talking about filmmakers who are great at what they do, no, I'm talking about filmmakers who are not only great, but who also never made a bad film. I'm talking about motherfuckers who never slipped, who always knocked it the fuck out every time they stepped up at bat. This, of course, is a personal opinion, because I know there are plenty of people who don't like The New World or The Thin Red Line. Not me, though, I loved those movies and I love Terrence Malick films and I even love you, hater of all things I love.

So let's see: Spielberg? Sorry, son -- the guy made Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (oy!) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (OY!!!), and even though he certainly directed the shit out of those flicks, I left the cinema damn near tears at how disappointing they were. Cinema has owned him a couple times, unfortunately, saying "Nice try, kid -- but not this time."

Kubrick? Well, it took that big boy a couple of movies of crawling before he cinematically walked. You watch Killer's Kiss and you see a young talent who's gonna really kick some cinematic ass soon, but that's about it.

Coppola? He's directed some of The Greatest Movies Ever Made, sure, but one can only defend Jack for so long before looking ridiculous, and a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous!

How about Scorsese? Well, I haven't seen all of his films (gasp! terror! righteous indignation!), so the jury of one that is Me is still out on that guy. I'm not too hopeful though, because I watched New York, New York and did something with that movie I've never done with any other film EVER -- I stopped watching it. I tapped out about an hour in. I've sat through Cannibal Holocaust and Irreversible and came out both times bright-eyed & bushy-tailed, but that film fuckin' defeated me, daring me to continue watching what should've been called Asshole Time or something equally unpleasant.

One day I will return to New York, New York and sit through that entire goddamn film, even if I have to Clockwork Orange my fuckin' eyeballs to finish it. (Alternate version of the last sentence for Dario Argento fans: One day I will return to New York, New York and sit through that entire goddamn film, even if I have to Opera my fuckin' eyeballs to finish it.) Because if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.

I guess, as of now, because I don't want to continue with this, I guess I'd say that Quentin Tarantino and Terrence Malick are the only guys who not only came out with their dicks swinging the first time out, but have managed to maintain the motion of said organs after all these years. This, again, is merely my opinion; the other filmmakers I mentioned are still bad motherfuckers. But when it comes to a spotless record of Consistent Excellence, the top 3 guys are Malick, Tarantino, and whoever directed all of those Ernest movies, except for the one he didn't direct -- that one was a fuckin' travesty.

So while the 150-minute cut is nowhere to be seen (unless you live in Italy), we thankfully now have an extended 172-minute cut, and that's what I watched a couple of nights ago. The sticker on the box says it's 30 minutes of new footage, while the description on the back of the box says it's 20 minutes of new footage. Meanwhile, I'm comparing it to the 135-minute version I saw, so to me, I don't know, it appears to be about 37 minutes of new shit. Or is it 36? I'm not sure. Maybe 38. I'm probably wrong because when it comes to math, I'm like the Highlander franchise -- I make things worse with each attempt to get better and I should really stop trying.

The cool/weird thing about this version is that nothing really stood out in this version, it felt like I was getting more of a good thing without really knowing where the "more" part begins and end. Usually, with the extended versions of Dances with Wolves or Aliens, you can tell what new shit they added, but not with this movie. Yet it doesn't feel longer, the flow is right on -- actually, the flow is improved, so at least I was able to notice that. How the fuck does Malick do that? What's with this fuckin' sorcerer, he who is able to conjure 20-40 new minutes of phantom material without flint or tinder? Maybe I just don't remember as much from my last viewing back in 2006. Maybe I'm just a fucking dumbass.

My guess is that the majority of the new stuff serves mostly as extensions of existing footage. There are certainly more lovely shots of nature in this version, so I think he just fattened up sequences with more stuff to cut to and maybe in some cases he just extended the In and Out points on the ol' Avid. But again, because this guy is a fuckin' master magician, none of the new stuff causes the old stuff to feel like it's overstaying its welcome. In fact, I'm like Hey, you're welcome to overstay, bro.

Maybe it's because a Malick joint isn't about propelling the plot forward; his flicks are about the journey, not the destination, and in this case, homeboy took the scenic route with the extended cut. I mean, if you were to tell me that there's going to be an extended 4-hour version of Muthafuckin' Fast Fuckin' Five, my first reaction would be Fuck Yeah, but then I'd have a second thought about that. What that movie has going for it is speed; it's got the right ratio of action beats to character grooves, and unless the new footage consists of more cars smashing into each other and more people getting riddled with PG-13 bullets, I'd have to pass. I don't think I want to see more shots of assed-out Vin Diesel drinking Brahma beer, feeling sorry for himself. I don't think I want to see more shots of The Rock sweating like Barry White on a hot August afternoon. And I certainly don't want to see more shots of Paul Walker doing whatever the fuck Paul Walker was doing.

But I do want to see more beautiful shots of poetry, which is why I'm down with this particular extended cut. Terrence Malick is all about chilling out and letting the atmosphere envelop your ass like one of those fuckin' blanket-winged monster things from The Beastmaster, and more of that atmosphere is a good thing. One thing I certainly did notice was that this longer version now has title cards every once in a while, like chapters in a book. You know who else uses chapter cards in his films? Fuckin-A, right, he does, because these FWOTFOOTCA's, you know how they do.

I also noticed that the asshole douchebag cunt character of Wingfield has a couple more noticeable moments for him to do his thing, which makes the end of his character arc feel even more justified. You like how I did that, the way I spoiled something in so many words without actually saying it straight out? C'mon man, don't be angry with me -- if I was to really spoil something for you in a Malick joint, I'd describe how he frames and lights a shot of an animal or something.

Yeah, I know -- Malick doesn't do all of this stuff himself, so I'm giving props to Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki, the ace Mexican cinematographer. From what I understand, little-to-no additional lighting was used during this production, it was mostly just natural lighting coming from God's gaffer. This is a good thing, because Christian Bale is also in this movie, and shooting with natural lighting meant he had no fuckin' lights to trash, which was probably a relief to Lubezki because lights are expensive.

Like I said, Lubezski is a Mexican from Mexico and some of you might be like Whaaa? Come on, not all world-class directors-of-photography come from Italy and China, you know? They also come from Mexico, like Guillermo Navarro and Gabriel Beristain. Yeah, I know Beristain moved to England, but are you gonna blame him? I mean, I love mi gente and I'm deeply proud of our culture, but c'mon -- it *is* Mexico. One day, someone non-corrupt is really going to bring that place back to its old glory, and that'll be the same day when a cure for Cancer is found, a Republican will tell a Democrat (or vice versa) "I completely agree with you and we should work together on solving this issue", and people refer to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the past tense. Because I am nothing if not optimistic on all things Human.

I bet you there's a couple of American-born cinematographers out there who look at mi gente kicking ass behind the camera and they seethe, man, they fuckin' seethe in anger at these fuckin' Mexicans who probably swam across the Rio Grande with a satchel of clothes slung over one shoulder and a 16mm Bolex over the other: These fuckin' beaners, man, they come to my country illegally and take all the cinematography jobs and us hard-working Americans have to pay for it when we spend our hard-earned American dollars at the ticket booth and ask for two tickets for the 7:20 showing of Children of Men.

These angry American cinematographers (who I would wager have the kind of complexion that keeps them from properly tanning in the sun without peeling), they don't understand that my Mexican brothers are simply taking the jobs that Americans won't take. We're too proud to accept a job lighting a movie for David Mamet or Michael Mann. These guys, though, they're willing to work for scraps, and by scraps, I mean Oscar nominations and the occasional win.

Listen, if you liked The New World, you'll like the extended cut because it's more of the beautiful same (not to mention more of the great-sounding same), and if you didn't like it, then you certainly won't like the extended cut. Personally, I think this is the only way this movie should be seen, this is the one I'll go to for a rewatch. If you've never seen it before, I don't know, I'm very tempted to recommend this version for your first time. You don't need the Cliff Notes cut, you shouldn't even ask for it, man up and go Extended. But perhaps you shouldn't listen to me, because I'm more than a little partial to this guy's work, I mean, it's obvious that I'm Gay-tham for Malick.

Next to the message boards at Yahoo News, there is no other horrifically ugly (and accurate) example of Humanity At Work than the message boards on the IMDB.

Living a lifestyle that is easier on your emotional psyche also has its drawbacks, as in, you don't have as much money to burn on obscene ticket prices, like the $15 required to buy a ticket for a midnight screening of The Tree of Life at the Arclight. I was like damn, if only I hadn't quit that job I hated to pursue other ventures, then I can be like "Fifteen dollars? Why sure! One for The Tree of Life, please!" So I didn't go to see Terrence Malick's new flick, but that was cool, because it gave me the opportunity to watch one his last joints again, The Thin Red Line. 

You know how the narration in Days of Heaven has a rambling, inarticulate feel to it? (Come to think of it, this blog has a rambling, inarticulate feel, so this shit probably reads a lot better if you imagine it being read in Linda Manz' voice). And you know how said rambling narration contrasts with the on-screen beauty of the shots created by Malick and Nestor Almendros? Well, I like to think that there's something similar going on in this movie, only Malick inverted it or flip-flopped it or whatever you think sounds better. 

What I mean is that you have all these soldiers from different walks of life, and when it comes to the way they communicate with their fellow brothers-in-arms, some are more articulate than others, and others more talkative than some, and then you got those who don't talk much at all. Yet, their inner monologues are all similarly poetic at times, and I guess you can be an asshole and say it's because they're all written by the same poet filmmaker, but then why wouldn't he have them all talk the same way either? I like to think it's because it's not so much their inner monologue, some talking to themselves kinda shit we're listening to, it's something way deeper and more awesome -- we're listening to their fuckin' souls talking here. If souls can talk, they'd sound like this. 

We all have shit we want to say, and within ourselves it sounds as pure a statement as one could ever make, and yet somehow we can never communicate it out of our fuckin' mouths the way we'd like to; our brains and egos are holding us back from really saying the shit we wanna say in the way we wanna say it. Let me put it to you this way; I think most of us have music within us, we're whistling or humming shit, but not all of us know how to play a musical instrument, so we have to settle for whistling or humming that shit. 

That's how I see it, anyway, I think we all have some Serious Shit in our hearts that we're capable of saying -- because we sure as shit are capable of feeling it -- but not all of us are Aces in the Articulation department, so instead you struggle to say it the best way you can, or you just shut the fuck up and say nothing, or you just keep it to yourself and mock the rest who try. Anyway, Malick's tapping into that shit, not by letting us hear what's going through these motherfucker's heads, but what's going through that Divine Spark you hear about every once in a while. Yeah, I know I'm speaking for myself here. The rest of you assholes are all William F. Buckley, Jr. in this motherfucker, I know. 

Fuck 3D, this movie was shot in fuckin' God-Vision; it's like we're able to tap into God's fuckin' DVR while he goes through it late one night (God couldn't sleep, so he figured he'd make himself a sandwich and watch a little of The Ultimate Flatscreen), and he was going through the DVR playlist and decided to click on "Guadalcanal 1942-1943" to watch how his creation was doing during that time. He's like "Oh yeah, I remember my trees and beaches looking like that back then, oh and here are my birds and crocodiles chilling out. Oh, and here's the black sheep in my family -- Man -- up to their usual bullshit with that Free Will I gave those dumbasses". 

That's why you have all those cutaways to stuff like mist flowing through leaves and lizards kicking back on a tree during heavy battle sequences -- in addition to serving as a contrast between nature's beauty and man's ugliness, those cutaways give us the opportunity to watch what God's watching, and that motherfucker is watching everything and everyone, and you're probably like "Everyone?" and now I gotta go Stansfield on your ass and clarify "EEEEVVVVEEEERRRRYYYYOOOONNNNEEEE!" 

Speaking of Stansfield, the motherfucker who played him, Gary Oldman, I think he was supposed to be in this movie. A lot of people were supposed to be in this movie, but they got cut out. Mickey Rourke, Jason Patric, Viggo Mortensen, Bill Pullman -- fuck, you can make a pretty badass movie with the leftover scraps. To paraphrase some Tarantino interview, the only list more prestigious than the list of actors who survived the final cut of The Thin Red Line is the list of actors who didn't. It sucks to not be seen in the movie anymore, I'm sure, but I figure they at least have awesome Terrence Malick stories they can tell their grandchildren, and then the grandchildren would respond with "Who's Terrence Malick?" Martin Sheen was also cut out, but that guy already has a performance immortalized in a Terrence Malick joint and got to work with the guy twice already, so I'm not crying for him. 

I'd love to see the fabled six-hour cut, though. I want to see what the deleted actors did in that version, I want to hear Billy Bob Thornton's original narration, and I'd love to see how Adrien Brody's character came off in that version. Apparently, he was like the main character in the long cut; think about that, you're an unknown actor and you not only get a role in Terrence Malick's next film, you get a choice lead role! If he only knew that Malick was a fiend for reinventing movies in the editing room; in the end, his character only has about two lines of dialogue and one of them is off-screen. It's pretty funny how his role transformed, though -- even though he was drastically reduced, he's still a major presence in the film throughout. He's almost like that girl in Schindler's List, the one in red, only his character stands out because he's the scared-looking guy who pops up everywhere but never says a word. Like Sheen, I'm not crying for him, he got a fuckin' Oscar a few years later AND macked on Halle Berry. Fuck that guy.

Jesus Christ, is he a good actor. I'm talking about Jesus Christ from The Passion of The Christ, he's really good here. I think this was his first big movie and it's easily his best work. A part like this could be overplayed in the wrong hands and come off really fuckin' fake -- less talented actors would over-Jesus the performance. But given that Malick actually hired the Son of God to play Private Witt, all he had to do was tell Jesus to bring it down a tad. As a result, you have a character who can calm a dying motherfucker down without being too angelic about it. 

This guy Witt, he watched his mother die and he watched her accept that shit like it ain't no thang -- just advancing to the next level, I guess -- and it's rocked his world proper. Now, his deal is to reach that point where you're no longer afraid of death -- that doesn't mean you should put yourself out there and welcome it, that's suicide, son -- but when the time comes that it's obvious that your number's up and it's Time To Go, then just smile at that motherfucker Death, look that life-taking motherfucker straight in the eye and say Let's Do This. Take the joy out of that asshole's already shitty job. 

That Spicoli-playing motherfucker Sean Penn, he's always got a bug up his ass about something, and in this movie, he's got a Jesus-sized bug up his ass about Pvt. Witt's attitude. This guy's a fuckin' hater, man, he can't be like Hey Man, Congrats On The Whole Accepting Death Thing, no, he's always trying to convince Witt that it's foolish to have that attitude because when you die, that's fuckin' it, man. Fuck risking your ass for someone else's, because if you get got, there's no reward other than total fuckin' blackness forever. FOR-EV-ER. 

Then halfway through the movie, you start to wonder, who is Penn really trying to convince? It's after you see Penn's character occasionally exhibit a Witt-like spark, that you realize this motherfucker should be spitting all of this bullshit he's been spitting to a fuckin' mirror, not my man Witt. He'd love to be like Witt, but he can't fully accept it, so out comes the booze and the tough-talk. Sorry to call Sean Penn a bitch, but the lady doth protest too much, methinks. 

Whoever thinks this movie is anti-war is probably the kind of motherfucker who polishes his gun collection every day and talks mad shit but would douse his fuckin' drawers if he ever had to point that shit at something that wasn't a paper target with Osama's face on it. This shit isn't anti-war or pro-war, it just Is War, man. Malick's not trying to make any statement other than how hard it is to figure us human beings out. I guess you can say Kubrick was doing the same thing with Full Metal Jacket, but it's obvious that there's a negative worldview to everything going on in that movie, it's like he's saying it's in our nature to be pieces-of-shit to our fellow man. Malick is saying that, yeah, it's in our nature, sure, but so is love and compassion, and life is a daily battle to keep the darker side of your soul from winning out over the lighter parts -- it's just that war makes it so much harder not to keep that shit at bay. Because watching your friend slowly die from wounds received by the enemy makes it soooo fuckin' easy to want to bash a fuckin' Japs head in and pull his teeth out with pliers, rather than simply taking him prisoner. 

During one violent charge at the enemy, you can see one Japanese soldier huddled over his fallen buddy, and he's wielding a knife, keeping any approaching Americans away. Goddamn, can you imagine the story between those two, the fuckin' 3-hour movie that transpired between those two characters? These guys might have been lifelong friends, or they became friends during the war, or shit, maybe it was like one of those buddy movies where they hated each other at first, then grew to love each other as brothers -- and then one of them gets shot. 

I saw this in the movie theater, back in January or February of '99 and it was an odd experience because you can sense the packed crowd at this neighborhood multiplex grow more and more impatient as each minute passed. I can't blame them, they weren't prepared. I mean, you look at that poster, you see all the famous names and you see the soldier with a rifle and you figure This Shit Is Gonna Rock, right? You have to understand, Saving Private Ryan rocked motherfuckers worlds six or seven months prior, so lots of people figured it was gonna be All-Star American Asskicking vol. 2 in this motherfucker. But instead they got a Terrence Malick picture and you Just Fucking Know most people didn't know or cared to know what the fuck a Terrence Malick was. 

They didn't know what to make of all those shots of nature or of all of that fruity narration asking about What Is This Evil Where Does It Come From, and what's with the lack of Payback Time moments where we see a Jap's head getting blasted open by a BAR for sniping my friend (he was gonna get married to his sweetheart as soon as the war was over, goddammit!)? Where's the overall feeling of America Fuck Yeah? Shit, George Clooney is in this fuckin' movie, and I can only imagine all the Dr. Ross/Seth Gecko fans getting pissed when they realized The Peacemaker wasn't showing up until the end, and only for a couple of minutes, at that. I don't think the uninterrupted hour or so of non-stop Awesome Ownage was going to make it up for them either, I think the movie lost them by the time the soldiers arrive on the beach and not a single round was fired in the process. 

I'm planning to watch the extended version of The New World soon, then I plan to finally get around to watching The Tree of Life (at a cheaper price than fifteen-fuckin-dollars), but as far as his first three films go, The Thin Red Line is definitely my favorite. Even if his latest isn't as good, fuck man, he's already made 3 great films, one better than the other. He has nothing to prove other than you don't need weed to get your senses owned by a Terrence Malick joint -- and he already proved that shit with movie #1, so there.

In conclusion, any movie that features Nick Nolte going Nicolas Cage on Casey Jones while shit's exploding in the background is a masterpiece in my book. 

Do I really need to mention how weird/awesome Christopher Walken is in this movie? Of course not -- so I won't.

BILOXI BLUES -- originally posted on Tumblr, 5/25/11

I remember eating with my family at Hometown Buffet once, back in 1995, and some time after that I asked my parents why there hadn't been any return visits to that establishment, and they were like “uh, yeah, we won’t do that again”, which I didn’t understand because while it didn’t knock me out or make a great impression on me, I remember liking the food. Flash-forward to 2011, and now I’m an adult and Goddamn it, I’m going to have a meal at Hometown Buffet because I want to. So I went to my local HB and a while later after eating my fill, guess what?

Uh, yeah, I won’t do that again.

The food isn’t bad, all it needs is a little salt, pepper, ketchup and mustard – which also happens to be a line in the film Biloxi Blues, regarding the food they served at the Army chow hall. I love that line, it’s quite possibly the best way to describe any meal that is less than flavorful. Speaking of which, I remembered when I went to see Julie & Julia in the theater and when the scene came up where Amy Adams’ husband takes out a salt shaker and sprinkles liberal amounts all over his serving of the boeuf bourguignon Adams made, I could tell who the foodies in the audience were because they were the ones who gasped when he did that shit.

Anyway, I’m not here to talk about that particularly wonderful film that managed to combine two things that I love (food and Amy Adams), I’m talking about Biloxi Blues.

I’ve seen this film countless times growing up, thanks to HBO, and as a result, I remember it fondly and it’s in that special category of films, the category of I’ll Watch The Whole Thing If I Come Across It On Cable.

I don’t recall ever laughing out loud at this movie in the past, but then again, I’m unfortunately a difficult person to make laugh and therefore I give the appearance of Daria at the movie theater, but I guess I’m more of a laughing-on-the-inside type. I wish I could be like the guys in Biloxi Blues who are just about pissing/shitting themselves in laughter while watching an Abbott & Costello short. Doesn’t mean Biloxi Blues isn’t funny, because it is, I guess it was more of a chuckle type of comedy for me. Who says they all have to be knee-slappers? At least I chuckled a lot during this.

Maybe I just like how pleasant the whole movie feels, which is interesting because most of it consists of the characters being put through very uncomfortable situations — long forced marches through the hot (Africa hot!) swamps and dirt roads of Biloxi, Mississippi, constant punishments consisting of push-ups (which START at 100!), hourly opportunities for humiliation, and then of course, there’s the food.

Perhaps it’s not supposed to be the most realistic, since what this movie (and the play it’s based on) really is, is some rose-colored lenses kinda shit, looking fondly at the past. I mean, at the end of the movie Eugene Jerome pretty much sums it up, saying that at the time he was going through it, he hated Basic Training and wasn’t too crazy about the people there, but now he loves (read: misses) every damn one of them. To be honest, that hit me harder than Richard Dreyfuss’ final written lines about never again having friends like the ones he had when he was a boy, in the film Stand by Me, the one based on a short story by that Green Goblin-looking motherfucker and directed by that one fat fucker (no, the other one).

“Because I was young” says Eugene, when explaining part of the reason why he loved that part of his life in retrospect. Goddamn, don’t I know the feeling. I’m surprised by the shit I look back on and even more surprised that I get a tad wistful about it, something I never thought I’d feel during the time I was going through it. I’m trying not to feel this way, I’m trying to appreciate my time now because I know that as old as I feel (I go through the Renewal process during the fiery ritual of Carousel in less than a couple of months), I’m still pretty damn young in the scheme of things. There are people 10 years older than me who wish they were my age, but the bitch of it is that I feel the same way about kids 10 years younger than me. I don’t know what to do about it, but if there is a God, and if I somehow manage to hustle my way to the pearly gates at the end of my life, well, that motherfucker has a LOT to answer for when I get to him.

Stuff that was merely amusing as a kid, plays a lot better with the hindsight of Having Gone Through It, like the scene where Eugene loses his virginity to a prostitute. I remember the awkwardness of the deflowering process (nice romantic language there, chief) during My First Time, and having paid for it once, I also remember the awkwardness of getting it on with a woman who pretends to be all into you (the girlfriend experience) but basically sees you as another ready-to-assemble widget on the assembly line, so to speak.

I wasn’t in the military, so I can’t really relate to that experience, the closest thing I can come up with as far as relating to the experience of bonding with a group of guys who I never knew and probably never would’ve bothered knowing, was when I was assigned to bunk in the same room with a bunch of them at camp. Yeah, I’m talking about going to camp — in my case, it was what I derisively call Martial Arts Camp because I can’t remember the official name for it. Back when I studied taekwondo during my pre-teen years, our entire school would to the woods every summer for about two weeks to enjoy nature and to hang out with other martial arts schools. I don’t know if they still do that, but it would be cool if they did, because it was lots of fun and you made lots of friends — friends you never kept in contact with afterwards, of course.

You know, there was a time where I seriously considered joining the military; I’d had done the research and visited the recruiter and all of that. I even got in prime shape. Then something happened: I got a job. Suddenly, the idea of serving my country didn’t sound nearly as appealing as getting a nice-sized paycheck. Patriotism is strongest in the very poor and very rich, I’ve learned. Some time after that, 9/11 happened; I did the math and realized that I would’ve been out of Basic and among the first shipped to Iraq. I had also realized that I was never really ready for military life, despite how I felt otherwise.

I wanted the discipline, the knowledge, the exercise, hell, even the shitty food, but most importantly, I wanted to come out knowing I had What It Takes to be a soldier in the Army. But I guess I also wanted to get through it without having to make the Ultimate Sacrifice. Hell, it’s not even so much that I was afraid of dying (that’s something I’ve unfortunately not only made peace with, but even welcomed the idea of during the darkest moments of my life so far), or that I was afraid of coming back missing a leg or something (medical science is pretty goddamn amazing for not accomplishing jack shit with Cancer, MS, muscular dystrophy, AIDS, the common cold, etc). What I was really afraid of, was coming back from war with less than 100% in the emotional/psychological department. Now THAT, that scared/scares the shit out of me.

I guess what I really wanted was the Eugene Jerome experience: everything but the whole going-to-war thing.

Anyway, it had been at least 10 years since I saw Biloxi Blues in its entirety, and it was just as Good Times watching it a few hours ago. It holds up, thank God, since many fondly remembered childhood re-watches rarely do, and it’s even funnier now, which was a surprise. Seriously, I laughed out loud a couple of times. The DVD I watched was also the first time I got to see this flick in its original 2:35.1 aspect ratio; my many HBO/Encore viewings had always been in 4:3, which wasn’t that bad since the movie was shot in Super 35, but it was cool to see the original theatrical compositions — sure, I miss being able to see Park Overall’s entire leg as she lounges back in bed, waiting for Eugene to man up, but that’s such a minor damn-near-nonexistent quibble, and such is the give-and-take of that troublesome format, anyway.

It’s also the first time I really took notice of the long takes Mike Nichols used in this movie; it’s not done in a show-offy way, I just think maybe Nichols likes using long takes, and besides, shooting that way kind of lends itself to the material’s roots on the stage. Yet the movie rarely feels like a “filmed play”, which is an easy pitfall when you’re adapting this kind of shit (props to that Jaws-shooting motherfucker Bill Butler as well). I particularly enjoyed one scene between Matthew Broderick’s Eugene Jerome and Penelope Ann Miller’s Daisy Flanagan; they meet, chat, have a slow dance to Pat Suzuki’s cover of “How High The Moon”, and say goodbye — all in a few minutes, all in one long shot that manages to be awesome without ever yelling to the audience just how fucking awesome it is. This is the loveliest Ms. Miller has ever looked in a movie, by the way, she looks exactly like what a fond memory of a first love would look like.

Plus, some dude gets in trouble for blowing another dude, so there’s that too, if you’re looking for it.

It’s not Full Metal Jacket, nor is it supposed to be. It’s Neil Simon fondly looking back at a time in his life that he wasn’t so happy with while it was happening. Come to think of it, that’s life in general — you never fully appreciate certain moments of your life until they’ve passed; it’s like that Joni Mitchell song (or the Janet Jackson song featuring Joni Mitchell, if you’re too young for the original) whose name I can’t remember. But to be fair, you need the benefit of hindsight to ever truly appreciate something, anyway, because it’s only after the fact that you know how something played out. Kinda like a movie; some movies play better the second time around because the suspense and agita that comes with wondering How The Fuck Will This End is no longer affecting you, now you can just take in the performances, writing and scenery. Written like a true asshole.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, I think you should. It’s not a great movie, but it’s one I really enjoyed over the years and maybe a movie doesn’t have to be filled with cinematic virtuosity and painfully human portrayals of characters to be great — maybe it just has to be the kind of movie that makes you feel good while watching it, and this one is.

Listen, going back to how I started this entry: I’m not completely dissing Hometown Buffet or the people who like eating there, if anything I envy those who enjoy the place. One positive thing I can say about it is that you can eat, then take a break and let the food digest while you – I don’t know, I’m just creating an example here – write some ramblings on your laptop about a movie you recently watched that you intend to post later. Then, after you feel like you can continue, you put away the laptop and continue eating the underwhelming food. Because you have no shame, hypocrisy is like oxygen to you, and your maw is always open, always demanding for more foodstuffs to be jammed down your gullet, you fat fuck.

Days of running around unwashed and shooting people or screwing over Sam Shepard

BADLANDS/DAYS OF HEAVEN -- originally posted on Tumblr, 5/25/11

 

What a fucking treat to know that the new Terrence Malick joint is already hitting theaters shortly after winning the Palme D’Or at Cannes; usually you have to read all the written fellatio online or in newspapers and then wait at least six months before the fuckin’ movie hits theaters Stateside. But The Tree of Life comes out in about a couple days, and I decided to use this as an excuse to revisit his previous films — which is great because I’m always looking for an excuse to watch a Malick film again. It’s safe to say he’s one of my all-time favorite filmmakers.

I had a double feature earlier this early morning of the first two joints in his oeuvre; the showtime was unintentional, it just worked out that way. But watching them that late at night/early in the morning is a cool way to watch a Malick flick because afterwards you can step outside and take a walk while the sun is slowly rising and the grass & leaves have that morning dew on them and you’re still under the fuckin’ Terrence Malick Nature Spell, that shit is 10x more of an experience. 

 

Your receptors to that kind of shit are really open after watching one his films; like the pupils of your eyes opening wide from being in a dark room, right before you suddenly step out into some bright light, then you’re like AIIIIEEE in a good way. Fully owned by your surroundings (without the use of weed!), you walk down the nearly empty streets, taking in blue-tinted morning, and then stop at the awesome donut shop that has fresh & hot donuts at this time and inhale them because you love the idea of dropping dead of fat-related illness before 40.

You know, there was a time long ago when I considered Badlands a good-but-not-great movie, one that showed Malick’s potential that would go fully/better explored in future films. That was also the time when I had suffered from severe breathing problems as a result of having my head fully implanted up my ass. I say this because watching this film again after a six-year gap from the last time I watched it, I’m now declaring that this motherfucker Malick had it going the fuck on from the start. From the fucking first frame of film, he had it. I guess his is what most would call an “assured debut”, and by “most”, I mean me.

Perfect casting man, that’s what Badlands has; Martin Sheen is great as this James Dean-looking dude, he exudes enough of that cool/dangerous vibe about him that it makes sense why a bored teenage girl would think of him as dreamy. And I liked how casual he makes it look when he kills someone, but he’s not some MWAHAHA psycho, either. I don’t think he necessarily enjoys it, it’s more like something he feels he has to do because there’s no other way around it — and yet, it comes so easy to him.

Like, I think he hates it when he shoots someone and then realizes they’re still alive because it means he now has to choose to finish the victim off or not. He picks the latter and waits for them to die of their wounds, or in the case of that one couple in the shed, he doesn’t even check, he’d rather assume he got them and takes off. I don’t think it’s some kind of psycho enjoyment deal, I think he can only commit to the deed as far as shooting them and then hoping they’re dead because the last thing he wants to do is shoot them again. What a fuckin’ weirdo.

Sissy Spacek, to my knowledge, was only hot in one movie — Prime Cut — and that was it, after that, she had more of the attractive vibe to her without actually being attractive, if that makes sense (and it doesn’t). She’s great, she looks the part and she manages to make it come across that while she’s not dumb, most of her narration shows how dim and/or eager-to-believe she is to accept Sheen’s justifications for the things he does. If she ever objects to any of this, she certainly isn’t showing/telling, at least not in some showy This Is Wrong kind-of-way. Sometimes it’s best just to walk away and let the other guy make up his mind.

Malick himself shows up as some dude who gets assed out of visiting the rich dude Sheen & Spacek are currently holding hostage. Supposedly someone else was gonna play the part and he didn’t show up, so my man T.M. played that shit. Nowadays he’s all fuckin’ sensitive about having his picture taken, but he didn’t seem to mind acting in his first movie. Maybe he figured that was good enough; he was about 30 or so when he made that movie, and that’s as good as he was ever going to look, so maybe he doesn’t mind having that as his reference. Except there’s also that picture of him that was taken of him on the set of The Thin Red Line with this Well How About That? look on his face, and now I see that there are some recent pics at a couple award ceremonies. I don’t know where I’m going with this now, so I’ll move on.

He’s kind of an enigma, this dude; on the one hand, you have actors on his last couple films go on about what a fucking master he is at his craft, and how wonderful it was to watch him work, and on the other, you read about how he wasn’t the most actor-friendly on Days of Heaven and you’re wondering Just What In The Fuck Am I Supposed To Believe Here?

Maybe both stories are true, maybe he was more about visuals with his ‘78 joint and during his 20-year hiatus, he learned how to rock a thespian’s world while trying to shoot a pretty picture. There’s a pretty awesome book called “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls”, and that Jewfro-wearing motherfucker Peter Biskind writes about how Malick shot miles and miles of footage, went overbudget, then took about two years to find the movie in editing. Luckily the film ended up a masterpiece, because otherwise I don’t think we’d hear from that motherfucker ever again.

It’s like with Michael Cimino; granted he spent tons more cash and time making Heaven’s Gate, but if that film ended up being a box-office success and award-winner, his maddening style of shooting would’ve been justified. But it wasn’t, so now people bring up the examples of how he filmed and edited that shit as What Not To Do.

I mean, David Fincher shoots about as much footage as Michael Cimino did and no one is bitching/warning others about his method. But then again, Fincher stays on budget, that probably saved him right there. Same with the late Stanley Kubrick (as opposed to the alive-and-well Stanley Kubrick who’s living next door to me, playing his fuckin’ Steely Dan albums way too fuckin’ loud); his movie shoots lasted longer than most Italian governments but because he used a small crew and had it down to a science, his budgets were no bigger than your average Hollywood film.

Biskind also wrote something that I’m not quite ready to believe (that tends to happen with a lot of the shit Biskind writes), about how once Malick was sitting down and brought himself up by grabbing onto producer Edward R. Pressman’s ear and pulling from it. Holy shit, if that’s true, then Malick isn’t quite the peaceful, introspective nature-lover that his movies lead you to believe he is. Besides, doesn’t it take about seven pounds of pressure to pull a motherfucker’s ear off? Malick’s a big dude and the most recent photo of Pressman shows him with both ears intact. Maybe Malick was just holding it to freak Pressman out while he stood up, like Look What I Can Fuckin’ Do To Your Ear If I Wanted To.

Richard Gere is in this and if I gave a shit about him, I’d continue, so instead let me talk a bit about Brooke Adams. Again, typically perfect casting in a Malick joint. She’s very pretty but she also has an air of the street about her; she looks like she came from hard times, whereas most actresses who try to play like they’re slumming it look like princesses playing make-believe and I don’t buy ‘em. You know she’s married to Tony Shalhoub? I didn’t, but good work, Monk.

Sam Shepard is in this movie too, and watching him on the beautiful Criterion Blu-ray, I think here he looks like a guy who probably had a one-night-stand menage with Jim Carrey’s mom and Denis Leary’s mom, then after he shot his load and they were like “Call us?”, he was all “See ya later, sluts — I have plays to write because the stage, she waits for no man!”

I guess the narration in Days of Heaven wasn’t originally part of the movie, that was some shit Malick came up with while trying to figure out how to edit the motherfucker. I really like it, it has such a rambling, stream-of-consciouness feel and plus Linda Manz has a serious fuckin’ low-class city accent, it’s hilarious. The unrehearsed/unprepared-sounding narration also makes a fantastic contrast to the expertly-composed/beautifully-lit visuals.

To be honest, the story isn’t as important to me in these joints and I don’t think they are to Malick, either. Otherwise, I’d be able to hear the fuckin’ dialogue clearly, over the ultra-crisp sounds of the breeze passing through the wheat fields, or the tweeting of birds or the running of a stream. Even Ennio Muthafuckin’ Morricone’s beautiful music has to take a backseat to The Sounds of Nature. Compared to all of that, the dialogue is very mumbly and low — Malick’s all like Mumblecore THIS, You Motherfuckers.

Or maybe it’s not so much that Malick doesn’t care about story — fuck that, he cares a lot about story — it’s that he doesn’t particularly care about the blah blah blah coming out the actor’s mouths. The characters talk because you have to give the actors something to say, that way they don’t bitch and complain, but the visuals tell you everything you need to know about what’s going. That’s why what little dialogue there is, is pretty cut down to the bone.

Terrence Malick joints really do need to be seen on the biggest screen you can find; I think the reason why I probably liked Badlands a whole lot more this time is that I was watching it from my projector (which I didn’t have, the last time I saw Badlands). Man, the projector is one of the best investments I ever made (back when I had that kind of cash to throw away) and I highly recommend getting one if you can. You don’t even have to get a top of the line one, at least I don’t think so, just get one that is bright and displays a big image.

Granted, I’ve never been anal about line-resolution and stuff like that — the older rig I have only goes to 720p, and I’m sure your average contributor to Home Theater Magazine would scoff at my setup and the highest praise he’d give it is “quaint”, but that’s OK, I’m happy with it and maybe one day I’ll have the cash to upgrade to some 1080p shit. 

 

Besides, I’d never invite some Home Theater Magazine asshole over to my crib, I don’t need his shit, not unless I can kick him in the balls after and film him go OWWWWEEEEEEOWWWWEEEEEEEEEOWWWWUUUUURRRRROWWW (people only say “My nuts!” or “My balls!” in Steven Seagal movies) and then I can upload it on YouTube and then maybe it’ll show up on Tosh.O and Daniel Tosh can say something hilariously mean about it because all comedians are sad and have low self-esteem and need to hurt other people’s feelings in the name of Comedy when you get right down to it.