Liven Up Yourself

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.”

Marley is a pretty straight forward biography of Bob Marley’s life, from being born of a white man in St. Ann Parish in Jamaica to his final treatments for melanoma in the mountains of Germany. This documentary doesn’t take many risks when telling us about the life of Bob Marley, but it does manage to infuse the movie with Bob’s irrepressible spirit. Or maybe it’s just that Bob’s lyrical music is playing throughout making it seem so joyous and sad at the same time. Knowing that this great man who had so much energy and musical genius, who had such an impact on not only the world of music but on issues relating to the poor and violence in his country, died at a mere 36 years old seems so very wrong and so sad. I couldn’t help loving Marley and don’t think it’s just because I love Bob Marley.

50 Best Movies on Netflix Instant from Paste Magazine

I thought this list was interesting. I particularly recommend Winter's Bone with Jennifer Lawrence (Hunger Games) and Half Nelson (Edgy teacher movie) with Ryan Gosling.

Tree of Life

I wanted to see Tree of Life, really I did. A person such as myself who likes to think she is up on all that’s cool, hip and now (in movies that is) should see Tree of Life. But it sounded kind of boring. So how did it stack up against my preconceived ideas? Well, it was kind of boring. Yes, it’s cool looking and all that – but on my small screen the awesome visuals could not make up for the inexplicable. For example: What is with the molten lava amid opera music? Views of space overlaid with whispered words — and then dinosaurs? I was like Wha? The whole experience reminded me of watching the animated Fantasia – a movie everyone praises for its loveliness, and I find torturous to watch (have I mentioned that I’m not a big fan of animation). Now, Tree of Life

has a narrative where a family is struggling after the death of one of their boys. There is good acting – I was especially drawn to the oldest as a boy who has an expressively sad face. But the director’s, Terrance Malick, decision to present the story with little dialogue where we merely get a glimpse on everyday scenes of their life, is frustrating. I think there is supposed to be a grand theme about the birth of life or some such thing, but man, I gotta have some plot!

Margin Call

Do you want to be annoyed/angered at the rich bastards who cavalierly rob the general public out of their meager dollars? Then Margin Call is the movie for you. Granted I don't understand half of what is going on about how the millions of dollars are blithely moved around by a phone call here or there, but I understood enough to be pissed off! Margin Call “follows the key people at an investment bank, over a 24-hour period, during the early stages of the financial crisis." (I quotes because I can't figure out how to explain this one) Stanely Tucci's character uncovers some major ef up that will apparently cost the regular Joe a financial crisis on the same day that he is getting fired for downsizing. Tucci's brilliant underling puts the pieces together and calls the big bosses, starting with high-powered characters played by Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, Demi Moore (token female suit) and then the big, big gun Jeremy Irons. The big guns try to decide how to minimize the damage to the company before the public gets wind of the major ef up. At first I thought there was going to be a character who was going to act as a whistle blower – a heroic character whose conscience would get the get the better of him and he would risk all and call the newspaper and or some such thing but to no avail. These a-holes are way more worried about their own million dollar salaries than the impact their actions will have on society. Margin Call makes me want to occupy Wall Street!

Two Documentaries

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
Documentaries can be so wonderful because there about real things and often tell stories that if they were fictional, no one would believe it. This is so true of Resurrect Dead. This movie tells the story of tiles, tiles that a mysteriously show up throughout the Eastern United States and South America.

(see a picture of one here) They show up on busy roads, smack dab in the middle of the road. Not only is this the story of cryptic tiles, but also it is the story of those who seek to solve the mystery of the tiles, in particular one man named Justin Duerr. While getting the answers to the mystery are worth watching this movie for, the portrayal of Duerr is another compelling part of the movie. He becomes obsessed in this kind of low key way. If an obsessed person can be low key, that is. I think this movie tells us something about the nature of obsession and what makes people pursue an endeavor that to others seems pointless. Suspense builds as Duerr and his companions get closer and closer to the answers of the tiles and while the answer may or may not be everything we hope for, we realize that the journey was pretty cool.

Project Nim
Project Nim is the story of one cute, sad, and abused little chimpanzee and the freaky folks who took turns trying to care for him. Nim starts out as a test subject in one university doctor’s effort to teach a chimp sign language. Nim’s first host family is a 7Os hippy mother who goes as far as to try to breast feed Nim but not discipline at all and Nim rules her strange household. The Doc in charge, who by the way previously had an affair with hippy mom, decides Nim needs a new home and finds a secluded mansion that he stocks with eager graduate students ready to teach Nim sign language. The egotistical doc has an affair with one of the students. Meanwhile Nim grows up gets violent and unruly. Finally, unable to care for him, the doc moves him again abandoning his language project. This time Nim is sent to a crazy place that houses chimps and does experiments on them. There’s more to Nim’s story and while I won’t give away the ending, it does end in a satisfying way, sort of. The movie is full of real people, most who turn out to be shmucks (from the documentarian’s perspective, of course) but a few turn out to be heroic in their small way.

Catch Up

Summer Vacation! A time when I can take a deep breath and slowly exhale! But before I can start watching a whole host of movies and TV series on DVD, I have to finally get around to writing about the movies I watched this Spring (some of these I actually watched as far back as January). Yikes.

So here they are:
Mildred Pierce: a two part HBO series that is a remake of a 1945 film of the same name. The title character is played by Kate Winslet as the mother who is both ambitious for herself and her daughter (Evan Rachel Wood -- she sure has played some freaky characters for such a young actress). I had heard the movie dragged but I liked it. I think it revealed what it might have been like to be a woman with ambitions in the 30s and 40s even though this particular woman was a tad off her rocker. Despite the craziness of some scenes or maybe because of it, this series was fascinating to watch.

50/50: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen play two randy young men about town. This movie starts out as a buddy movie but quickly turns toward a much more serious topic: cancer. Levitt’s character learns he has a rare cancer in his spine and has to learn to cope amid his hip-happening lifestyle. 50/50 is well acted and says something real about patients and friends who go through this diagnosis even if at times it seems overly trite on the topic.

Cedar Rapids – Ed Helms plays a lovable, naïve goof ball (similar to his Office character, actually) who is also a small town insurance agent who goes to the mid-sized town convention where he encounters all kinds of new experiences from silly to absurd. I was kind of ho-hum about this movie although it did have some original moments.

Secretariat – I did not see this movie when it first came out but was at the library so I thought what the heck. I liked it even if the script was full of cliché’s of the sports movie variety. Predictable but not the worst.

P.S. I Love You – dumb, sorry I watched it, but did watch the whole thing, so maybe it wasn’t that dumb. No, it was that dumb.

Like Crazy

– I had heard this naturalistic indie film about the romantic lives of two hipster-types was good. What I found was a painful trip through two not very likable characters kind of boring relationship. Did NOT like.

Zeigfield Girls (1941) – The CBS Sunday Morning Show profiled Heddy Lamarr who was a fascinating person: she was both one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood and a brilliant mathematician. After seeing this profile, I decided to watch one of her most famous movies, Zeigfield Girls. Every once in a while I like to watch an old movie just to remind me how far movies have come, especially in the way they portray women and minorities but in this film there are so many other fascinating weirdnesses for the modern eye. Heddy Lamarr plays a married woman who is forced to become a Zeigfield girl because she and her husband are near financial ruin. Her story is just one of many in the film of women who seek the dream of become one of these famous dancers. Others in this ensemble cast are the likes of Judy Garland, Lana Turner, and Jimmy Stewart.

Ides of March again

I watched Ides of March again. Such a great movie. It’s a movie that’s got it all. It’s got PLOT! It has political intrigue, character development, style, and, Ryan Gosling. What else do you want in a movie. I first saw it in the theatre and thought it seemed a little long, but today I watched it on DVD and found it trim and speedy (101 minutes, actually). This one belongs on my list of great political movies too!

Hereis my original blog entry: