WE SHOULD ALL BE PISSED

Doug Liman's Fair Game bothered me.  It angered me.  George Bush and all of his cronies really got away with some sinister, un-American shit.  They should all be ashamed of themselves and they all should have been thoroughly whipped and beaten.  Now that that's out of the way...from a movie stand-point, Fair Game is very compelling stuff.  Liman's film focuses on Valerie Plame (perfectly played by Naomi Watts), the much-reported-about covert CIA operative who was outed by corrupt White House officials after her crusading husband, Joe Wilson (the customarily intense Sean Penn), wrote a New York Times article stating that the Bush administration had faked intelligence about WMD's in order to invade and destroy Iraq.  It's a classic "David VS Goliath" tale, and it's down-right fucked-up how our country treated someone like Plame.  Liman directs in an unfussy, doc-like manner (a stark comparison to the gritty yet slick stylings of The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and benefits from a lean and fact-packed script from Jez and John-Henry Butterworth.  It makes for a nice companion piece with Green Zone even if there isn't anything in the way of action or shootouts or explosions.  It really struck me as a project that would have been a natural fit for HBO; I think it would have cleaned up at the Emmy's.  It's a really good, if very frustrating, political thriller.

QUICK BITS

Waste Land deserved its Oscar nomination. Amazing documentary. Extremely powerful.  Amazing score by Moby.  Good on Vick Muniz -- he's got a huge heart and a shit-ton of talent.

Rabbit Hole is essentially flawless. Aaron Eckhart was great, as was Nicole Kidman. Very sad subject matter (the death of a child) but never overly sentimental or too heavy-handed. Sharp writing and clear-eyed direction by John Cameron Mitchell. 

In the Loop was wonderfully profane and very funny.  I wish it had had subtitles at times but overall I was able to follow it.  Paired nicely with Four Lions.

MORE TREE PLEASE

TODAY'S BLU

Sweet dreams...

EPIC

PUNCH ME

Sucker Punch is yet another visual tour de force for Zack Snyder, who has now cemented himself as a true cinematic artist/auteur. It’s not what I’d call “great” cinema, and I do think he went a bit CGI-crazy, but in the realm of pure fantasy (especially one where the main character is “escaping” their reality, like in The Fall), I feel like all of his aesthetic decisions worked. The action sequences were, for the most part, astonishing and visually glorious to behold, especially the WWI bit and the single-take-madness with the robots on the train. I know I LOVED watching it in IMAX format, and that I was BLOWN away from a sensory perspective. I just feel like Warner Brothers fucked with the final edit and that an even better film will be arriving in “director’s cut” format on Blu Ray.  I've got lots more to say on this one coming up.  If nothing else, Sucker Punch succeeds on one major movie level that I hold dear to my heart -- SHOW ME SOMETHING I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE.  This is becoming increasingly difficult for filmmakers to accomplish.  Snyder has now done it more than once.  I for one cannot wait to see his take on Superman.

MOVIES FOR THE WEEKEND

Sucker Punch on Saturday.  It's getting trashed by the critics but I could give two shits.  I loved Dawn of the Dead and consider it to be one of the best modern horror movies, I saw 300 five times in the theaters, and Watchmen is a bold and beautiful masterpiece.  So...yeah...I'm a fan of director Zack Snyder and his brand/style of action-movie mayhem.  I still haven't seen that owl movie, though...

From Netflix is the Oscar nominated documentary Waste Land.

HD On Demand options include: The Tourist, Stone, Cracks, and a few others I think...