Smilin' Through

Due to the fact that this past weekend contained my senior prom (which was very exciting, for anyone who may care!), I have not gotten a chance to watch a single movie since last week's Elizabeth Taylor tribute...and that feels like so long ago. Today I struggled to stay awake for all of Goodfellas (1990), and not because it was a bad movie. Anyone who's seen it knows it's anything but boring, but I was buckling under the exhaustion of a very long weekend and I just couldn't seem to keep my head up. I had to rewind it to watch the scenes I snoozed through, and even then my eyelids were fighting me. Needless to say, it was a very difficult accomplishment.

This has got Martin Scorsese's brilliant little handprints all over it- certainly an apogee of the director's bold style. The technique I dig the most is his tendency to pair upbeat classic songs with macabre scenes of death and violence...it keeps his films from ever rolling over into the deep end of drama. Emotional detachment like this feels refreshing in today's drama genre, where every new film out there seems to be trying so hard to make us cry that it forgets how to be good.

Robert De Niro is one of the funnest guys to watch onscreen.
Seriously...every time he steps into the frame of a movie a little part of me wants to jump up and applaud because I just know it's about to get good. And while he gives a satisfyingly awesome performance here, I don't think he wins this film.
If I were going to hand out a medal to the actor who does the most powerful mobster impression in Goodfellas, I'd have to give it to Ray Liotta. His screaming, cursing, gun-slinging gangster is as bad-ass as they come...so where was his Oscar, Academy?
Instead, the award went to Joe Pesci, a bronze-medal-er in this one, if you ask me, slotting himself in well behind Liotta and De Niro on the figurative acting podium. Incidentally, Pesci's acceptance speech was among the shortest of all time. The guy got up there on the stage, picked up his statuette, and delivered the following eloquent, emotional address: "It was my privilege. Thank you." Really, that's all you got, Joey? No genuine appreciation of any kind? I'm sure Ray Liotta's speech would have been brimming with joy and sincere gratitude if he had been given his rightful crack at the golden man.

Anyway, I seriously loved this movie, but it failed to surpass The Departed (2006) in my book. That's Scorsese at his finest, if you ask me, and anyone wanting to brush up on this director's modus operandi ought to pop that one out of their Redbox.

I'm approaching the realization that this list is not going to be finished by the end of the year, and though the thought of failure makes me want to give up completely, I'm just going to keep smilin' through until the credits roll on 2011 and see how far I've come by then. Who knows...maybe I'll have some sort of breakthrough in a few months and power my way through the remainder of the movies. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

True Grit

Why does time pass so much faster when you have important things to get done? It's like some sort of switch exists in the space-time continuum that flips on and off depending on the urgency of the tasks at hand. Seriously.

But anyway. It took some true grit on my part to stay awake and watch a movie tonight. I'm nearly nodding off now and I would be asleep already if I hadn't just witnessed such an awesome movie.

Before tonight, the only Scorsese film I had seen was The Departed (2006), and it was so good that I sort of bought into the whole Scorsese-craze. But after conquering Taxi Driver (1976), I'm all in. For real, this guy is a savant.
He gives his movie such an edgy, desperate vibe that I feel like I've become more hard core just from watching this one. Seriously, I could probably go rob a bank right now and not even break a sweat. Thank you for the inspiration, Marty.

Then...

...and now






It almost made me sad to see a fresh-faced, vibrant young De Niro after having watched his current geriatric self hobble through his latest work on Saturday. I miss this old Deer Hunter, muscle-bound, silky-locks De Niro (have you checked out his hair lately?? yikes...); this movie reminded me exactly why we consider him to be one of the greatest actors alive. I'm pretty sure he's the only guy out there who could make a reclusive taxi-driving potentially racist quasi-stalker seem like a lovable guy while also shooting up an entire whorehouse in the presence of a young child. That pint-sized whore was played by a young Jodie Foster, who wasn't Scorsese's first pick for the role by any means, but after a string of girls turned it down, the already established child-star Foster was tossed the part. Personally, I thought she did a pretty good job. But nowadays she just sort of bothers me. I really can't put my finger on why...but for some reason I want to throw my coke at the screen every time her face is on it.

Anyway, I loved Taxi Driver. LOVED it. I see now why it's up there with the greatest movies ever made (number 52 on the American Film Institute's list)...it's certainly up there with the best movies I've seen. So, in light of my new-found love of gritty Scorsese flicks, I'm thinking Goodfellas (1990) is going to be my next viewing. And with that, I'm heading off to bed.

Well, with that, and... "You Talkin' To Me?????? I Said...You Talkin' To Me??"
(Greatest. Line. Ever).

The Lost Weekend

If you're trying to get your movie nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, but you're at a loss for titles, here's a suggestion: name it a name. That's right- a simple, first & last name title is a thing of value to the Academy, and I did the counting tonight to prove it. 17 films with name-names have been nominated for the award since they started handing these things out: Alice Adams(1935), David Copperfield (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), Kitty Foyle(1940), Mildred Pierce (1945), Johnny Belinda(1948), Julius Caesar (1953), Elmer Gantry(1960), Tom Jones(1963), Mary Poppins (1964), Barry Lyndon (1975), Annie Hall(1977), Norma Rae (1979), Forrest Gump (1994), Jerry Maguire (1996), Erin Brockovich (2000) and number 17,tonight's feature, Michael Clayton (2007). I'm sensing a pattern here.

Clayton starts with a bang, lets up, and then has you figuring out what might possibly be going on for the better part of two hours in a long series of cryptic conversations and dramatic stares into mirrors and out car windows. Still, for all that mental work you have to do to actually enjoy the film, it ends with a pretty subdued catharsis. It's Erin Brockovich-meets-Jason Bourne without the do-good joy or the gritty action, but let me be clear: it's not a bad movie. It just isn't an explosion...the matte, emotionless format that Tony Gilroy shapes always feels like it's building to something, like it's holding back a bull that's just about ready to burst out of its stall and stampede...only we get to the end, and it turns out that the bull was just a lamb all along. And that's not a bad thing, because lambs are good too, they just aren't bulls. Which is a little disappointing to someone who came to see the bullfight.
But I have to hand it to George Clooney; he really made this movie. Suave, tough, smart, caring- there's few dimensions Clooney doesn't develop in his performance, except maybe fearfulness....Michael Clayton doesn't do fear. Clooney gives Clayton just enough smooth awesomeness to make us love him while keeping the character grounded in reality, so we can hope that someone this cool might really exist out there. Love it.
And Tilda Swinton is scary good. She's got fragile evil in the bag, delivering to us a villain that doesn't look the part- one that we almost feel sorry for, all wrapped up in a neat little bow. I'd say she totally deserved the Best Supporting Actress Oscar she won for this part.
So anyway, my final verdict is this: good, but not explosive. That makes this picture so real. But my question is this: do we really go to the movies for reality? Or do we go to get swept up in larger-than-life stories that only Hollywood magic can create?

Return of the King: Jackson is back!

In other news, production has FINALLY begun on the long-awaited Tolkien project The Hobbit, helmed by Lord of the Rings mastermind Peter Jackson. The two-part epic will surely grab much more attention as it picks up momentum, since it will be serving as a prequel to Jackson's wildly successful Rings trilogy. Personally, I could not get enough of LOTR...collectively, the three serve as one of my favorite movies of all time. The only fantasy film ever to snag a Best Picture Oscar, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) is still regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made. Basically, the bar has been set pretty high for the latest installment in the franchise (if it can even be considered that), and Jackson should be feeling that pressure all the way in Wellington, New Zealand where the shooting is taking place. Unfortunately for us, we will have to wait until late 2012 to see the first flick hit theatres (and til late 2013 for part two).

Now this has absolutely nothing to do with the BPC and is therefore very unnecessary, but seeing as I went to the theatres for the first time in a long time this weekend, I thought I'd share some thoughts.
It's not often that you can get me to pay ten bucks to go see a movie when a DVD is five to own or one to rent, and the extra expense is just to see it on a much bigger screen with louder people sitting around you. Let me save you some time and money by advising against my latest expenditure: Limitless.
It was a good idea. Really, it could've been an OK film had it been done well. But relative newcomer Neil Burger sort of strangles this one in the crib with tedious narration and an effects overload. Luckily, Robert De Niro is awesome (if not aging) no matter what he does, and Bradley Cooper is extremely attractive (and has a lot of potential, if you ask me)...so that in itself may warrant a Red Box rental later on down the road. Maybe. Just exercise caution when approaching a half-baked movie like this...you may end up losing some IQ points.

Anyway, that's all I've got to show for this whole weekend. I'd call that another lost weekend for sure. When will I ever learn my lesson: stop trying to sleep at night, stop having a job, stop doing schoolwork, stop having friends, and watch more movies! I'm starting to feel like I'm drowning in a project that I can't possibly hope to finish...