Edward Norton.....a fine wine.

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Pride & Glory.

The one thing I love to see is progress in art. Any art. Any progress. Often I feel our country is regressing in its culture and appreciation for the arts so I always find myself refreshed to find an actor growing or a film that celebrates true art.

Today's feature was Pride & Glory. Now I don't want to come off sounding too much like it was a fantastic movie in the sense that the story line blew me away or the plot twists were a-mazing. It was intriguing, it was tense, the acting was superb and the cinematography was brill. It was not a shoot-em-up action flick or a police drama it was a well crafted piece of art.

Edward Norton is one of the most understated and incredible actors of his time. Every new film I see him in I'm riveted by his performance. He is difficult to pin-point as far as his genre goes. I'd like to compare him to someone as a reference point but every time I do I come up short. He is one of those actors that stands alone in his craft and does so wonderfully and more importantly subtly. In acting especially it seems good acting must come with the grandeur of show, in the public perspective. One must be devastatingly good looking or a rock hard action hero or a raunchy comedy genius to last. Yet Norton is not one of those things. Nor is he all of those things. He has this indefinable talent which is perhaps why he just continues to get better with each film he puts out. P&G was no exception, he could have easily taken his role and made it stereotypical good cop or martyred hero but he makes Ray honest and believable.

I do also have to note Colin Farrell's gripping turn in this flick. Typically I would brush Farrell off as all talk and no snuff as far as his craft goes but P&G proved that if given the proper circumstances he does a very good job at being an actor.

The best performance in the piece though came from the un-taggable name, Noah Emmerich. Without his performance the movie could have floundered into a horribly overdone NYPD version of good cop/bad cop. The addition of this conflicted, tortured middle man was well played and acted perfectly. Furthermore the scenes between Fran and Abbey were just poignant. Plan and simple good writing, great setting, beautifully executed.

On a final note the angles, the camera work and the sound make this movie complete. Some of the shots used fascinated me and the utilization of song versus score versus silence should receive adequate recognition by someone higher up in the film industry than this avid film watcher/part-time amateur critic.

<3

Talk about rag-tag.

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Watchmen.

This film (now watchable, as I did, on DVD) is difficult to decide whether you like it or not. There are a laundry list of things that make it both "visionary" as the poster would suggest and annoying as hell.

Pros:

- Visual effects are stunning. This is not a comic book/graphic novel genre film in the sense of cinematography and special effects. It actually does an artistic and dare I say beautiful job of weaving in these fantastic special effects and imagery , with shots looking like any other typical drama and even throwing in some historical seeming footage.

- Unique story. Graphic novels making the leap to film have a tendency to be overly violent bordering on grotesque.....but Watchmen takes a stab at a legitimate story line that reaches out to an audience slightly broader than the "fan boys", perverts and barely pubescent men of all ages. Certainly (as I will be happily detailing later) there are plot holes, unnecessary subplots to be found I do have to applaud on the whole the efforts made to pitch the piece as an ensemble drama, about superheroes no less, with a pinch of action, a dash of gore and the zest of the graphic-novel-adaptation genre.

Cons:

-Casting. I do not shy away from the fact that I feel Hollywood has gone beyond itself by not just making stars but making talent-less stars, it is depressing, infuriating, annoying and ruining a historically fabulous art medium all at the same time. So initially I was excited that Watchmen carried a C-list, possibly some B list actors on its roster. No cheesy attempts at allowing Bruce Willis to pretend he is still an action star (that is you Sin City) or taking mediocre, albeit visually interesting roles, and prematurely creating quote-unquote "the new star" (see Gerard Butler, 300). HOWEVER, when you actually get somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 way through the movie you realize that the casting directors failed the film horribly by picking a bad rag-tag cast. Malin Akerman makes a respectable turn in her barely treading credentials into this action/drama. Her portrayal falls quite short through as her sexy vixen with daddy (translating into romance) issues comes off as comical, and this is not a low rate Farley Brothers hot mess. Billy Crudup's Dr. Manhattan had an interesting story-line but the robotic performance left me wondering if the stiff, emotionless drone is all he is able to play (for reference see: all other Billy Crudup performances). Jackie Earle Haley's character was intriguing with his mask on but as soon as he de-masked and kept his creepy Little Children voice it was all ruined. I'm so sick of Patrick Wilson in film that I wish he would just jump off the B- list and just save us all the film squares. His character was one of his more compelling as far as plot line but even that doesn't help when you have a sap on hand who cannot act. Jeffery Dean Morgan was the only actor who really compelled me in the piece. His Comedian was a highlight in the piece, obviously not for moral fiber, but this was a new turn from his previous roles and I think it was well played. Too bad his character was on film way less than the other characters.

Length - 2.7 hours???? really necessary???? No. The beginning got me hooked then all the dramatic babble of the love triangle and reuniting the group bored me in the middle so by the time it started to pick back up in the end I'd forgotten (perhaps maybe it wasn't that interesting....hmmmm) or no longer cared about the loose ends they were trying to tidy up. Editors really need to start realizing that audience members have lives and they should stop wasting them. I'd take a powerful, memorable, dynamic 1.5 hour movie that a floundering 2.7 that picks up in the last 30 minutes. Thank you.

So unfortunately I have to leave this one up to the audience. I wasn't disappointed with Watchmen as a whole. That being said there were some significant flaws that I would hesitate before saying I liked it or recommending it to someone else.

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Funny People.

Holy Hell Judd Apatow.....what were you thinking????



The only thing funny about this flick was the complete lack of comedy within it....and that is only in a non-ha-ha dark ironic kind of way. And while that is my sense of humor, I was not impressed.



At first I appreciated the fact that despite all of the bowel humor the movie had a more mature, dark edge to it. It always is refreshing to see an artist take their great formula but let it grow with them. Apatow and clan haven't matured well.

My major ongoing problem with the advertising world ruining the film industry has resurfaced again. Watch the trailer for Funny People. It made me laugh so much I really wanted to go see if when it opened in theatres. I rarely say that. No fast forward to me sitting in the movie theatre. Half of the funny jokes in the trailer are missing from the film. Not only that but they are replaced with terribly unfunny, immature, attempts at humor. Also there are some unnecessary gratuitous sex scenes for Mr. Sandler. I mean I wouldn't have wanted to see that when he was young and in his prime, like I want to see it when he is middle aged???? Oh and the preview gave away almost all of the first half of the movie but failed to get at the horrible third act that is just an infuriating waste of my time, money and patience. I mean good lord all the Yo Teach! things with Jason Schwartzman were like the funniest thing in the movie and its so trite AND cliche. Argh!!!!! I'm still angry at Apatow, clan and this whole movie. Even all of the cameos in the movie cannot save it. Because the cameo's alone prove what this movie is. As some of Apatow's favorite jokes in the film reference, this was a masturbatory act of film. This was an act of self indulgence, self-pleasure for director, writer, family, friends with not a single thought to the audience. The comedy is like just filming the after school romps of a bunch of teenagers and then they decided to market it and make obscene amounts of money so we'll wrap a lifetime style drama in the middle and call it kosher.

I haven't been this angry leaving the theatre since I got tricked into seeing the Dukes of Hazard. Ugh. Horrific. Carnage. Funny People was dead before it left the gate. <3