Further Thinking on Rendition

I was talking to my brother about the movie and something occurred to me. The movie saves face by making a point midway through the film. Peter Sarsgaard's character is grilling Meryl Streep's character about a man she ordered to be interrogated in another country. She asks if he's taking issue with the treatment of one man he has personal ties to or rendition as a policy. If memory serves me correctly, Sarsgaard doesn't answer. And in that way he does. Rendition is about rendition in the case of one man whose terrorist involvement is up in the air, but is most likely a case of misunderstanding. Very early on, we learn that Anwar passed a polygraph that should have saved him from the ordeal but was dismissed as inconsequential.

If the film had dealt with rendition in the case of someone who was interrogated and revealed information that saved hundreds, thousands, or millions of lives, the policy could have been seen in a different light. Still, the questions of whether evil is ever necessary, or if the ends in the case of rendition justify the means are some worth talking about.

Further Thoughts about The Color of Money

I was thinking...maybe Fast Eddie was prideful at the end of the movie. It was a different kind of pride than when he was broken by Forest Whitaker's character. This kind of pride included integrity (forfeiting after playing a fixed match) and character much like the character Fast Eddie said he had gained during the final scene of The Hustler. But he had pride nonetheless. I won't fight that assertion any longer.

Further Thinking on A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

I previously wrote, "At first, when I didn't like it, I likened the film's attempt at realism to be a kin to David Gordon Green's films, although his films are set in forgotten burgs and southern podunks (and are great whereas AGTRYS is merely good)."

Now I see that the comparison is not fair to either filmmaker. I don't believe either filmmaker wants to make the same movie. Dito Montiel is no David Gordon Green and to expect him to be is unfair. I guess what I was getting at is how each director seems to value naturalistic acting, warts and all. Moments seem to flow out of boredom and laziness in the best way (really). Each filmmaker uses his own style to capture their films' moments. Green uses clean camera work and basic shot setups, while Montiel goes for the flashy shaky handheld shots. I prefer Green's style, but the setting and nature of Montiel's story lended itself more to the style he used. Again, Green equals great. Montiel equals good. Green does not equal Montiel.

Stranger Than Fiction (2nd Viewing)

I've recently had this awakening to the fact that it is impossible to duplicate the feelings of a first viewing of a film in the theater upon seeing that same film again (and again and again and again...). I felt the difference with my second viewings of Stranger Than Fiction and Children of Men. This is a bit frustrating because my intitial experiences of the films were some of the best of my life. And the second viewings weren't bad by any means. The films are still wonderful and amazing, but the "magic" is fading. The elation I felt leaving the theaters after my first viewing of the films is gone.

Good news: my parents liked the movie. This was pleasantly surprising. I had wondered if Stranger than Fiction was too "weird" for them. I asked my mom about that and she said that I've gotten her more used to "weird" movies over the years. So, kudos to me and my mom.

Children of Men (2nd Viewing)

I saw Children of Men again last night. It is amazing. I didn't have the same intense theater going experience as I did the first time, largely in pary to the fact that I knew the plot from beginning to end. However, I still cared deeply for the characters and their plight. This time out, I marveled more at the cinematography and the vision of chaos the film portrays. There is a scene where a single shot is used for 5 - 10 minutes (maybe more). Blood splatters a bit on the camera and it is part of the audience's view for much of the single shot. I wondered the first time what was meant by this. Why would the director choose to break the reality of the film in favor of the blood. My conclusion upon seeing it the second time is the single shot was so good on that take, so good the minutes before the blood splatter, that the director kept rolling and let the actors continue with their action. The weird thing is that the blood disappears from the camera view three or four minutes after it is splattered. I expect they did this with CGI because wiping the blood away would ruin the shot. That makes me wonder if the blood was CGI'ed onto the camera in the first place. If so, that puts me back at square one of my investigation. Again, great movie.

Babel (2nd Viewing)

My second viewing was a reaffirming of my earlier feelings for the film. Themes became more noticeable and I was able to be more involved in what was happening in the present of the film because I knew the future. I had a bad audience to see the movie with. The movie theater was packed with older people (the gray-haired clans of Canton and surrounding villages). They must have thought they were at home because they constantly said things out loud to the people they came with. People laughed or snickered during serious moments in the film. A woman behind gave a running commentary of how she was feeling about what she was seeing on screen. But I persevered. I liked the movie the 2nd time around, a good sign the movie will remain on my top ten favorite films for 2006.

Jeffrey Overstreet review on christianitytoday.com

A Scanner Darkly (4 viewings)

In my last post about this movie, I said, "The animation truly suits the movie, though at times the effect of the beautiful look in some scenes is lessened by the animation's use in drives in the scenes where everyone is just acting stoned and crazy (barring the hallucinations, which really come alive)."

After watching the film twice more since then, I have changed my mind about the animation, or rather my opinion of it became clearer. The animation is always beautiful. The look borrows from comic books and paintings more than anime or disney. Things are authentic looking and easily observed even though the reality it depicts is slightly "above" or "more (beyond)" when compared to ours. And that is what I was trying to say earlier. The scenes where everyone is just hanging out being paranoid don't seem spectacular because at that point, I had become accustomed to the style and tone of the film. Seeing these events that I could witness in my own neighborhood or on the highway depicted in animation seemed different from the other scenes in the film. Again, they looked real enough to be real, but were actually just off center enough to make those scenes heightened and more acutely observed. I think that I started to look past the visuals into the stories and the moments within represents a great quality of the animation. I watched the movie with the commentary on and it was a very unusual, good commentary. Linklater, Reeves, a producer, one of Phillip K. Dick's daughters, and a Phillip K. Dick expert all watched the movie and talked about themes and ideas and the source material more than "how'd they do that?" sort of information. There were instances of "HTDT?", but the larger portion of the commentary was different from what I've come to expect from commentaries. That isn't to say I haven't encountered the like before. The movie continues to grow on me. Part of the reason I've watched it so often is it's new to me and one of the only new movies I had in the house. Plus, it's good. It's interesting enough to reveal more and more to me each time I see it. The commentary certainly revealed a great deal to me. The true test of the film will be how fresh it feels in three months or so.


Jeffrey Overstreet review on lookingcloser.org

Actors in their mid 20's

It was asked of me that if Joseph Gordon Levitt was not the most talented actor of his generation, then who is? My suggestion is Ryan Gosling or Jake Gyllenhaal. If you have any other suggestions, let me know.