Straight Edge Life

A matinee price and a doubledecker busload of English soccer hooligans driving the wrong way down a French street cursing at the French for driving on the wrong side of the road makes for a fun afternoon. Eurotrip plays on a lot of stupid stereotypes, yes, but if you’re able to take a joke, including many about Americans, you will probably have fun with this light teen flick about four friends traveling across Europe. There is no plot to speak of. And anyone who needs a plot in a movie like this should have tomatoes thrown at them by other moviegoers who actually have a sense of humor. There are a ton of funny little moments in Eurotrip, which is exactly what this movie is about. And I’d love to tell you about them… but won’t because you should see them for yourself. It’s worth it, especially at a matinee price.

Oh, and it might be worth mentioning that this movie has more comedic nudity in it than I’ve seen in quite some time. Including, I’d say, 40 penises, 10 breasts, and one hella funny S+M scene in an Amsterdam sex shop. But that was in the preview so I’m not really giving anything away.

Yeah, it’s pointless. Yeah, it’s dumb. But sometimes that’s exactly what you need. Right?

I have a good friend in LA who is a bit of an audiophile. When I say “a bit” I mean that in the

“hey I just bought some new speaker cables”

“oh yeah, how much?”

“$1000″

“woah, did you wire up your whole house or something”

“No, they’re just for my main speakers. They’re 6 feet long.”

…kind of way. He’s a nut, a great guy, and he knows his stuff. I asked him once about what makes a good system. Rather than tell me about a bunch of components he simply said “A good system is one where the speakers vanish and you feel like you are in the room with the musician”. This is exactly what I feel separates a good movie from a great movie… When the filmmaking completely disappears and you are in the room with the characters. When the plot, story, characters and settings are the only thing you notice. It opens a door between the audience and the story and makes it infinitely more enjoyable as an experience.

Go see Monster. The filmmaking is completely transparent. It’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Charlize Theron deserves every award on the face of this planet for her performance. The movie is incredible.

It’s not an easy film to watch. It’s pretty hard actually. From the comfort of my cushy chair at Cinemark 17 I felt as uncomfortable as I have ever felt watching a movie. A week prior to seeing it I got an email from my friend in Minneapolis, Sara, telling me that she had to console a friend for an hour after seeing it because she couldn’t stop crying.

It’s disturbing not only because of the content itself. The circumstance, the events, everything… it’s tough to watch. But what’s most difficult is how easy it is to relate to the characters. And it’s not just in a rational way. You don’t sit there and go, ok, that makes sense, she’s killing because this or that happened to her and that justifies what she’s doing (in a street vengeance sort of way). For me, and I think most people, it’s more experiential than that, it’s more emotional and primal. You RELATE because you are so close to the characters. The acting is so strong that there really is NO barrier between you and the events that have shaped them into who they are. And what it might tell you about yourself, the way you might feel while watching this, well that’s the scariest most disturbing part of it. This represents the best in moviemaking in my opinion. I give it 10/10.

From imdb: A freak accident brings together a critically ill mathematician (Penn), a grieving mother (Watts) and a born-again ex-con (Del Toro).

I didn’t know Penn was playing a mathematician. It’s not important I guess. But I guess I can understand why they included it in their plot outline. As far as “plot” goes, this is pretty accurate. Because this movie doesn’t really have a plot. It’s a movie about intense physical acting. It’s about emotion and transition and collision above and beyond any plot. Above any story. It’s about storytelling.

You go and see this movie and you may or may not even care about plot, but you’ll care about the characters. You’ll watch the inevitable approach of chrusing pain and feel for those on the sharp end of the knife. Not many movies do this to me. And it’s taken me a couple of weeks to find out how to put all of this into words. It’s a good movie.

And if I do say so, Naomi Watts deserves high credit for her performance in this movie. As does Benico Del Toro and Penn. But Watts especially.

I love movies like The Butterfly Effect. Entertaining, suspenseful and you walk out of the theater thinking about something cool. You don’t leave thinking about the movie necessarily, but about some idea presented in the movie that caught your interest. The Butterfly Effect is one of those quantum brain tickler movies that high school physics professors credit themselves and their profession as having given to hollywood with the birth of quantum mechanics. Among such discipline it is theorized that the universe is connected at subatomic levels. One event effecting ALL other events. A butterfly flaps it’s wings in china and causes a thyphoon half-way around the world.

Ok, so anyway… the movie is about a boy who discovers that he’s got the ability to go back in time and change specific events. I won’t say how, or why he feels compelled to do it. I’ll just say that it makes for a good movie. Story threads overlapping in time. The one thing I will tell you is that the seemingly awesome power of going back in time is tempered almost immediately, and remains that way for a number of suspenseful scenes (the whole movie actually). I jumped, twitched, covered my eyes, and almost screamed at least once.

It’s got enough humor to keep it from being a horror. It’s got enough plot and character development to keep folks like me happy. And it’s got enough suspense to make me give credit to the editors and photographers. 8 out of 10 for The Butterfly Effect. And as a side note, Aston Kutcher is, not surprisingly, very effective in this role. He spends a good part of the beginning of the movie waking up completely surprised in unknown locations and times. It’s well cast all around actually.

I liked Mona Lisa Smile. It didn’t blow me out of my shoes and pin me to the back of my seat. It didn’t actually evoke all that much emotion at all… but I liked it. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s a rock star and I’ll go see anything with her in it, no matter how small the role. She plays a student who’s living a life of easy virtue and has to put up with a pile of crap from a self righteous peer played by Kirsten Dunst. Kirsten is frighteningly good in her role as the controlled daughter of the dean (don’t quote me on this) of Wellsley. The dynamic between Dunst and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s characters is, I think, the strongest in the movie.

Julia Roberts and Julia Stiles fit somewhere in the plot. I didn’t pay all that much attention to anything but Roberts dazzling smile though (insert “you pig” comment here). Really though, Roberts cast character was well beneath her acting abilility and, although her performance was solid, it wasn’t enlightening like I expected it to be. This was, afterall, a movie about a liberal college professor at an all women’s college during the 50’s. You’d expect Roberts to play the role with a bit more passion. At least I did. I like to see people stretch.

Anyway. It’s a good flick and there’s enough good acting in it to make it worth the ticket price. Don’t go expecting anything amazing. I guess it wasn’t exactly played up as this year’s big meaningful movie. I just expected a bit more from Roberts. Damn she’s got an amazing smile though. It’s possible I was just distracted by those pearly whites. I don’t know. Six out of Ten for Mona Lisa Smile.

Went and saw the 11:55 showing of The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise at Cinemark 17 this morning. I frequently judge an actor by their ability to dissolve into the character. If Tom Cruise weren’t able to do this, I would have become bored with him long, long ago. Just watch a rerun of Leno from last week, you’ll know what I mean. But he’s solid in The Last Samurai, very solid. The whole movie, as a matter of fact, is solid. Rock solid. Strong acting, strong plot, strong photography and art direction, strong costuming and sets, strong editing and sound. What’s more, ideas drive this movie as much as anything else. The ideas of honor, tradition and change combine closely, periously close, and create a sense of emotional tension that carries you all the way to the satisfying conclusion of the movie. You’ll leave thinking about all of it… maybe for a minute, maybe for an hour, maybe for a month. The Last Samurai isn’t so different from a traditional western; a battle between old and new fought on a frontier between cultures… if it weren’t for the excellent filmmaking and acting (traditionally absent from all westerns) I would almost go so far as to call it a Japanese western. I shouldn’t even mention that, it’s an excellent movie. I don’t like westerns.

There are a lot of little things that make me very fond of this movie. One; the romantic sub-plot is truely a sub-plot. It doesn’t hijack the movie or recast it as a “Hollywood” story. Two; every scene with violence in it is immediately followed by a contrasting scene of sensitivty which very distinctly illustrates the complexity of the Samurai Way. Among many others… Most of all, this movie simply tells a story while at the same time illustrating the heart of an entire culture. There was a quote near the beginning of the movie, it went something like this: “A Samurai’s sword is his soul”. By the end of this movie you will have a sense of this statement. I loved it. Wonderful movie. 9 out of 10 for The Last Samurai.

One more reason not to read a book before you see a movie based on it. Because if you do with Timeline, you’ll be even that much more disappointed with this movie. Do it the other way around; see the movie first. Well, you know what, Timeline the movie really wasn’t very good. I don’t really recommend seeing it. Well, unless you’re in the mood to see a pointless, shallow, incomplete rendering of a fairly good book. And I loved the book. It was very rich, gave you a sense of the period and had some excellent characters throughout. I’m giving the movie four stars simply because it was sort of fun and the action was non-stop, but it left out so many details… replaced them with action scenes that weren’t even in the book. There is no character development, nothing to support the plot or increase the texture of the incredibly rich historical setting. There really isn’t all that much to say about it. I recommend reading the book.

The plot is simple, it’s a rescue mission time travel thing. A group of scientists working on an archaeological dig in France have to go back in time to save the head of their dig who’s been sent back there by the finacier of their dig. In the book you get to learn a lot about each of the scientists, and, in turn a lot about the fourteenth century. Before they even go back you get a great preview of what’s to come. It’s something like in the beginning of Titanic, when a scientist demostrates how the Titanic hit an iceberg, filled with water and sank. It’s a very effective way of building anticipation and getting the reader excited. Timeline the movie didn’t take the time or make the effort to do any setup work. Net effect, it’s stupid and it doesn’t matter, because you don’t care enough to care. Does that make sense?

Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Penelope Cruz

It’s a bit of a commercial rip off. A number of other good movies cannibalized. The plot and special effects lack real originality. Really, The Ring, Sixth Sense, Panic Room, and maybe a couple of others. I can pick out distinct elements from each and point them out to you in Gothika. Plot elements from The Ring and Sixth Sense, and camera work from Panic Room. Maybe I’ve been seeing too many movies lately and they are all blurring together. Maybe not. But this movie relies heavily on it’s star power, that’s a fact. There are a couple of wide angle shots that are superb textural intros to scenes that can stand on their own, but otherwise the photography, editing and effects will feel a bit predictable. Stale even. This movie revolves on an axis of good acting.

Penelope Cruz delivers. Halle Berry, expectedly, delivers. Robert Downey Jr., playing a comfortable role as a semi-creepy colleague of Berry’s, delivers; even if it’s not much of a stretch from his normal roles. Cruz, Cruz, she was great in Gothika. I fell in love with Cruz in Belle Epoque, a spanish language, comedy set in the time of the Spanish Revolution. She’s broken out of the role of the young, innocent and sexy femme, and started playing for keeps in Gothika. Her performance is tight, completely on-point. I was really happy to see her transition so gracefully from a terrible performance in a terrible movie, Woman On Top, to a more complex emotional role in Gothika. I think, given the chance to stretch, she’s got a lot of potential for a good leading role. It might not have been fair to put her up next to Berry, where her performance could easily be overlooked. It’s brave on her part to take the roll.

Now, on to the plot… You won’t be able to figure it out. In a world of infinite possibilities, you have to select one to end a movie with right? Well, that’s basically what happens in Gothika. You spend the entire movie trying to figure out whodunnit, and in the end you find out, but it’s not completely satisfying because it could have been damn near anything. From the supernatural to the merely human, to the pharmaceutical. The ending they choose is plausible, good even, but it doesn’t bring that all-encompassing sense of resolution that I was hoping for.

I give it a 6 out of 10 for effort and for Penelope’s performance. Otherwise I’d have to keep it at a 5.

What’s this? Russel Crowe talking humbly about the greatness of another man? It can’t be. Impossible. Well, it’s true, and this one scene in the captain’s dining room is just enough to help me forget about how much I don’t like Crowe and sit back to enjoy the movie Master And Commander.

I don’t want to give away too much. I’m going to recommend this movie to you. That much should be obvious already. And maybe that’s all you need to know. From the previews you already know it’s an epic sea battle between the French and the Brittish with Crowe as captain of the Brittish ship. I’ll only go as far as saying that the battle itself plays a distant but supporting second to excellent character development and acting. Everything, even the battles themselves, support the characters. The characters, in fact, make up the real plot of this movie.

Don’t worry, you’ll get enough action to keep you happy. You’ll see enough good and dramatic photography to keep your artistic eye sparkling. You’ll see plenty of good costuming, excellent and realistic shipwork, and even a bit of humor.

All told, this is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Go see it. Full price or matinee, it’s worth it.

Bill Murray plays an aging actor who’s brought to Japan to film a whiskey commercial. Scarlett Johansson plays the wife of a photographer who comes with him on a series of shoots in Japan. Murray and Johansson meet, although not because Johansson’s husband, played by Giovanni Ribissi, is Murray’s photographer, that’s just a coincidence, they’re staying at the same hotel. Both are displaced and unhappy with their positions in life. That’s all I’ll tell you about the plot. On to the review…

Sofia Coppola did a better job with The Virgin Suicides than with Lost in Translation if you ask me. Lost in Translation is effective at bringing you close to the experience of the characters themselves by effectively using textural photography, sound, and finely tuned pacing… but overall it feels a bit like a film student’s creation, relying too heavily on abstracts concepts rather than truly solid directing. Maybe Sofia is developing a new style. Maybe I’m clueless, but I found myself bored for prolonged periods during the movie. I got the message almost immediately. Displacement. Displacement with a tiny bit of humor and a some romance. And a bunch of boredom. 4 out of 10, although it was a good effort. I just can’t give it more, I nearly fell asleep. If you are interested in getting a good picture of Tokyo it might be worth seeing. Otherwise, wait until it’s out on video.

Gene Hackman, Rachel Weisz, John Cusack, Dustin Hoffman

Wow. You you can’t talk about this movie without talking about the poor state of moviemaking in the USA. Why? Because it brings it to light. This movie is good. Good in ways that other movies aren’t. The characters are strong. Strong enough to support a suspense plot that isn’t all that thick. You know what I mean. I know you do. Once you’ve seen The Life Of David Gale you will understand. The life of David Gale has a good plot. It’s not entirely transparent, a few twists here and there to throw you. All in all not award winning, but Spacey and Winslet’s performances where convincing enough to make the overall experience good. Well, it’s the same with Runaway Jury, but to a more polished degree. Where The Life Of David Gale fails, Runaway Jury kicks ass. You watch this movie and you are so busy being amazed by the relationships between the four main characters that you aren’t given the opportunity to open the plot so much as to give away it’s secrets. The relationship between one character and another and between the audience and those relationships is demanding. Enough so that I’m very tempted to go see this movie again. Why? To unravel the plot, to figure out it’s secrets, the things I missed? No, this movie isn’t a one trick wonder. There is no plot twist to trick you. It’s doesn’t pull any cheap standard red herring bait and switch foolery. You can’t watch it again and “figure it out”. This is an audience’s movie. It’s a movie lover’s movie. I will watch it a second time to enjoy it. And thoroughly, just like tonight.

So what’s it about? It’s about a court case between a widow and a gun manufacturer, two rival attorneys and a jury that’s for sale. Set in New Orleans with atmosphere and superb acting enough to keep the pickiest critic in a desperate flailing spin for negatives. Four actors at the top of their game. I give it a 9/10. Why not a 10/10? Because no movie is better than Smilla’s Sense of Snow; just like no book is better than The Monkey Wrench Gang. That’s just the way it is.

If you’ve seen it, what do you think? Am I way off base? I loved it.

I almost decided against seeing or reviewing this movie. The Matrix Reloaded was horrible. Having seen that one only out of allegiance to the art directors, well… If you read my review, you know what I think about it. It didn’t leave me with a good taste in my mouth. Perhaps for the same reasons I felt compelled and here we go…

Despite ignoring my gut, I went to see The Matrix Revolutions a couple of days ago. I was pleasantly surprised. The technical errors (and I’m being nice here) of Reloaded were corrected. The score is appropriate for the choreography of the fight scenes. I definitely would have prefered a tight soundtrack of industrial pop music rather than an orchestra. There’s something about the orchestra that makes it feel too hollywood for me. It also lacks authenticity. But I digress. The Matrix series has only two things going for it. 1. The fun pseudo philosphy and brain teasers that, if only for a moment, made us think about ourselves and our place in the world. 2. The special effects and art direction. The Matrix Revolutions delivers on the latter; leaving the former to dissolve into the wash.

It’s a good action flick. Good enough that I wasn’t bugged by it’s complete failure to tie up any of the philosopical loose ends of the first Matrix. It’s unfortunate, because that was something many of us were looking forward to seeing resolved. When you walk out of the theater after watching Revolutions you probably won’t even remember what some of your questions were. You kind of forget about them. This is because it becomes apparent almost immediately that the producers, directors, writers and actors didn’t give a rat’s ass about it. Why should you? And for that, I’m not sure whether to thank them or curse them. It’s a cleaner movie. Easier to like because it’s not diluted. But it’s a pain because it feels like a cop-out. They could have tied up those loose ends. They could have done more with it. But it was enjoyable. I don’t know which way my scales truly tip. For now I give it a 6 out of 10. Technical excellence alone won’t get you an 8 on Straight Edge Life; it get’s you a five. I only add one for a total of six because they did manage to make me forget half the things I care about in this series and delivered well on the other half.

Love Actually. I saw a sneak preview of this last night with my buddy Ann and my dad. In the spirit of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones’ Diary it’s a light-hearted romantic comedy, only multiplied about 11 times with simultaneous stories running in all directions. Because of this it feels slightly scattered at times and even fails in the end to tie everything together completely. I suspect that you won’t mind. I didn’t. It’s a good and very funny movie. Strong acting, interesting plot lines, great Brittish humor and enough realism to keep the cheese factor to a minimum. 8/10.

I bet you’ll prefer The Ring over Ringu. For two movies that are identical in plot and characters, these two movies couldn’t be more different. Ringu feels like a B-Rate horror. It’s got a certain amount of creepiness to it, but it gives away far too much to build much anticipation. Each surprise is an inevitable surprise. Each change in the plot is a lecture rather than a thrill. The american version, The Ring, uses far more effective photography, editing and sound, and far less dialogue. The story is told with images. The collective effect is one that both demands the viewer to draw their own conclusions and kicks their butts for thinking they know what’s coming next. The overall flavor of the movie is creepy. Real creepy. For a PG-13 flick, The Ring is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. 9 out of 10 for The Ring. 5 out of 10 for Ringu.

I watched this movie for the second time tonight. The first time I saw it I admired that it didn’t romanticize or glorify war excessively. Beyond that I didn’t think too much of it because I’m not a big war movie fan. Tonight wasn’t all that different. But it’s cool to hear other people’s perspectives and take that into account. The funny thing is that nobody really had all that much to say. The only person I’ve ever heard talk a lot about this movie is a marine buddy of mine who I met in Boston. So what’s the bottom line? It’s a well made movie by a director I admire, but all-in-all it didn’t change my perspective on war… didn’t move me into fury, sadness or anger… didn’t motivate me to write my congressional reps. Basically it didn’t do much. And maybe this is because I’m desensitized. Maybe it’s because I’m still in awe as to why people make war movies at all. 7 out of 10 for technical quality, cast, and direction.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. The all-important quality of the photography was good. Plenty of scares. Bad acting. A few jokes. It wasn’t as strange as Cabin Fever, which sort of weirded me out for a couple of days after watching it, but it was pretty good for the standard horror flick. You know, the lighting was pretty good as well.

The basic plot line is this: there’s a bat creature thing that feeds for 23 days once every 23 years. It’s evil, it’s hungry, and it’s super strong. There’s a busload of basketball players, a country road, and a pissed off farmer. You do the math. I give Jeepers Creepers 2 a rating of 6 out of 10.

I didn’t see the first Jeepers Creepers but I overheard a girl on the way out of the theater tell her date that the first one was scarier. I’ll have to rent it this weekend.

Excellent but flawed.

Ebert described it as frightening. Not really the truth unless you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be thirteen and have a 13 year old daughter. It focuses on the flavor of life at 13 with drugs, sex, and family relationships at the center of a whirling drama as one child decides she’s willing to do just about anything to fit in.

Two things are very unrealistic about this movie. 1. The girl got into the “in” croud much too easily and didn’t question anything her new best friend did in the very least. In fact she actually mimicked her like a little monkey during one scene. 2. There was far less violence and cruelty than I think even most 13 year old girls experience. There was a bit of cruelty but it was executed with far more patience and strategy than 13 year old kids know how to demonstrate.

I might compare this movie to Kids, a truly frightening movie that shows kids not only acting dangerous but having dangerous things happen to them. Thirteen doesn’t really show any of the real consequences for their actions. And this is really the 3rd thing that isn’t very realistic about the movie. The photography, acting, directing and editing were all very supportive. Maybe enough so that there could be some awards for this picture, but it lacks when it comes to really hitting home with the viewer. It failed to make me personally invested in the characters. I’d give it a 10 if the writing and plot were a little stronger.

Ebert gave it 3 1/2 stars and I agree with him. Sean Willam Scott, Christopher Walken, and The Rock (ok I can’t take it, I’m calling him Rock. I refuse to call anyone The anything) do an excellent job together in this entertaining action flick that plays out in and around a mining town in Brasil. One of the things I liked a lot about it was that the special effects are very believable. No guys jumping impossible heights. No flames shooting out of a guys chest when he’s shot with a standard bullet. You might actually find yourself saying ouch, shit, ooh, damn and stuff like that specifically because the effects are well done. The fight scenes are excellent and well choreographed. There’s a bit of humor, and a relatively believable plot. Can’t ask for much more in an action flick I guess. Cool enough.

A lot more fun than the previews make it out to be. Given, I probably wouldn’t see it at the full-price theater, but it’s worth $1.50 at the cheap theater. If only to see the vampire lady make her first kill. Yowza.

All of the characters are famous characters from literature, so it’s slightly more than just a special effects overload with no purpose. Mr. Hyde for instance, finally a face with the name. He’s an ugly sucker, and really the only really overdone effect in the movie. But it helps to know that the effect is merely someone’s interpretation of the literary character. Overall it’s sort of fun. My dad caught a lot of the literary references. Might be good to bring your own dad with you for the same purpose.

Thoroughly enjoyable. That’s assuming that you go into this movie expecting it to be stupid because it’s only the campy quality of it’s total stupidity that gives it any value whatsoever. It doesn’t have the style or humor of horror flicks like Scream. It doesn’t have especially remarkable special effects or photography. It doesn’t even have many of the traditional “don’t go in there” moments that engage the audience to it’s fullest. It’s just a stupid battle between two of the biggest icons in horror movie history. The movie pretty much just rides on the infamy of Freddy and Jason alone. Fortunately Freddy vs. Jason doesn’t play too heavily off of their previous movies. It uses what little character identity that’s been established over the years effectively. But really, how much character development can you have with Jason? I mean he doesn’t actually even say a single word in the whole movie. Anyways. If you just found out from a hotel owner (looking to track your wife who bounced a check there) that your wife spent a weekend there with her boyfriend, and his name is Stephen, and your name is Ari, well then it’s a good movie to see. Helps burn a little energy.

A damn fine cast. But somehow the friggin’ Dell Computer commercial kid worked his way into the main villain character. What the hell is that? Actually I’m not entirely positive it’s him but it’s enough of a resemblence that it bugged me. Which I guess is effective enough when he’s in the villain character. But about the movie itself… Good action, not a lot of gore, a bit of comedy. All good. I give it 6 out of a possible 10. It seemed a tiny bit over-acted. The camera movements were a little too refined for an action flick, which had the effect of feeling a bit slow in the beginning. Overall it seemed realistic enough and it was definitely paced quickly enough to keep you interested. Even though it was a bit slow at first It didn’t drag at all. Matinee.

My god, don’t spend money on this movie. It’s got cute girls in it, but that just doesn’t make up for the fact that it sucks. It’s a roughly strung-together series of cookie-cutter action sequences with little or no plot and absolutely none of the style that made T1 and T2 so much more fun. It’s sad to see a nice science fiction idea with so much potential demolished so completely. It’s as if, when designing the movie, they picked the action sequences that they wanted and tried to wiggle a plot in around it. They failed. It’s terrible. But if you can set all of that aside and want to watch a couple of cool action sequences; see it. But don’t pay full price and go with a friend so you won’t have to laugh at it’s stupidity alone.

Michael Kane and Brendon Frasier might not be the first two people you would place together in leading roles in a movie about pre-war vietnam, but it works, and works well. Kane plays a brittish journalist and Frasier plays an American cia agent working undercover and the dynamic between them is hearty. Love, politics and war mix together so completely that any hope of a black and white understanding of each character’s actions is impossible. It’s the fist time when I’ve seen this narrative style delivered so effectively.

The entire movie was shot with normal lenses, probably in the range of 35-70mm and is frighteningly sharp. The audience is teased with stunning visual clarity while being forced to negotiate a tricky narrative style. The exposure ranges from nearly bleached in daylight scenes to delicate and well detailed in indoor scenes. The harmony of photography and storytelling is wonderful. If you are a sensitive or observant viewer you will get a lot out of the film. Including a good understanding of the underlying reasons for US involvment in Vietnam. As frightening as it turns out to be.

I watched part of this movie years and years ago and thought it was really cool. I finally rented it and watched the whole thing yesterday. It’s damn long and it’s not quite “captivating”, but I really liked it. American culture, science, and personalities mix together to paint a very entertaining portrait of America’s first efforts in space. The all star cast certainly didn’t hurt.

Three good things about this movie: jock boy (Ostereicher), jock boy’s girlfriend, and Kevin’s girlfriend aren’t in it. It’s down to the core team of Jim, Stiffler, Shitbrick and Kevin. That is about it. It’s got some funny parts but really just failed to keep me interested from one scene to another.