Interview: Composer Nathan Johnson

This is impossibly late, but somehow I never got around to posting it anywhere when I conducted it last year (around the time of the film's release). I hope you enjoy it - I've liked everything I've heard from this guy to date, and look forward to continuing to follow his career.

Clark Douglas: We're joined by composer Nathan Johnson. His previous work includes Brick and The Brothers Bloom, and his latest effort is Looper, a sci-fi thriller directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt and Bruce Willis. Nathan, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

Nathan Johnson: Yeah, definitely, thanks for having me.

CD: Well, this is your third collaboration with your cousin Rian Johnson. I know that every director/composer relationship is different, so I wanted to ask you what your process is like when the two of you begin determining what sort of musical sound is required for a movie.

NJ: It's really fun with Rian. The one great thing about working with Rian is that I come onboard really, really early in the process, which is actually really rare. The composer is usually brought on at the last minute. Yeah, so we start really early talking back and forth about what the world's going to feel like; the sounds that Rian has been thinking about. A lot of times he'll give me references sound-wise; even other composers or musicians and we kind of just dial it back and forth from there.

CD: As you said, composers are generally brought on pretty late in the process, but since you get such an early start on it... do you ever start writing before you've had a chance to see any of the film, or do you prefer to wait until you've seen some footage?

NJ: Yeah, yeah, no, I actually do start writing early sometimes. I will have read the script a number of times. For instance, with The Brothers Bloom I was out in Serbia while they were filming it; hanging out on set. But then, during the day back at my hotel room I'd be working on themes and showing those to Rian. So with Bloom, we actually established the main melodic themes really early on before they even had a rough edit of the film.

CD: Now that's really interesting - you get the opportunity to spend some time on set, and that's something most composers don't get to experience on a regular basis. Does that help you in any significant way during the writing process?

NJ: Yeah! It's really nice to just kind of steep in the feel of the world. It's also really great to see the performances live as they're happening, to see the sets, to be on location... I think it's sort of a luxury, but the more you can put that into your musical world, the better.

CD: There are quite a few distinctive sounds present in this score. I understand you essentially created some new instruments for this movie. Can you tell us about some of the musical experiments you've conducted?

NJ: Yeah, one of the first things Rian and I talked about for Looper was, "How can we create a score for a big action movie without going down some of those well-trodden roads?" So we talked about the idea of gathering field recordings. I actually went down to New Orleans where they were shooting the movie, and I just wandered around the city with a field recorder and a pair of headphones recording anything that I thought was interesting. Some of that was on set; recording mechanical things around the set, but then also wandering around the city recording industrial fans... I did a lot of stuff with the treadmill in our hotel. Then we took all of those sounds, manipulated them, sped them up, slowed them down and spread them across the keyboard so we could actually create the core fabric of the score from these organic; real-world elements.

CD: Those sounds seem to play a particularly dominant role early in the score, but as it moves along you seem to transition into more traditionally musical material.

NJ: Yeah, and it kind of parallels the feel of the movie. A lot of the movie happens on a farm as we go on; that sort of dominates during the second half of the movie. The first sound you hear - the first cue - doesn't have any real instruments in it. It's all stuff that we created from the field recordings. That sort of develops and by the time you get to the very last cue, the last thing you hear is a live celesta being played alone in a room. So it kind of moves along and eventually strips everything back; which sort of operates in parallel with the emotional core of what's going on.

CD: I'm curious, what's the total size of the ensemble? Because at certain points, it does sound like a very big score but for the most part has a more intimate feel than many traditional thriller scores do.

NJ: We kind of split it half and half. The main fabric - what we started with - was built from these created things, but then we worked with the Magic Magic Orchestra (which is this great modular orchestra in San Francisco) and we worked with 14 amazing string players, 3 horns. We had them play like normal string and horn parts, but also had them create textures and atmospherics. There's piano and celesta, and another violinist that I worked with just to create sounds from his violin that I could use atmospherically. Then there's percussion and drums... so it's fairly small, probably twenty-five pieces when you add everyone up. But it's definitely approaching it in a constructed way rather than just a purely capturing than a room approach.

CD: It does seem you've got a pretty diverse array of ways to capture this music. As you say, not just putting a bunch of musicians together in a room, playing and recording and then you're done - there's a lot of additional production involved in an effort like this.

NJ: Yep. Yeah, definitely.

CD: When you begin a project, do you tend to start with your thematic material and then work from there, or do you prefer to figure out the general tone before you start hammering out themes?

NJ: Yeah, I almost always start thematically, but Looper was the first time that I didn't start thematically at all. It was completely tonal and atmospheric on Looper. Rian actually sent me two scenes when we were really early in the editing process, and said, "Hey, we're having trouble finding temp music as placeholder stuff for these. Do you want to just dive in and see what you come up with for this?" So I did that, but that actually felt very much like going down a dark, unfamiliar path for me. Usually, I have the whole thematic arc sketched out and all the different melodic themes, but I knew that this was gonna be so different. I kind of just dove in with those. The demo sketches that I made for those two scenes are almost without change exactly what you hear in the final cut. Rian listened to them and said, "This is it. This is what Looper sounds like; you've found it. This is what we start from."

CD: Is this the first time that you've started on a feature without having some sort of temp track in place to reference at any point?

NJ: Well, those were only a couple of scenes that didn't have temp music. There was temp music for everything else. But yeah, so far all of the features I've done have started with temp music.

CD: One of the interesting things about this score - as we talked about a little earlier - is that while there are those large parts, it often feels more intimate and personal than typical scores along these lines. Was there ever any pressure from the studio or others to create a bigger, more traditional action score or were you free to do whatever you wanted to do?

NJ: Rian does a good job of - if there is that sort of pressure - of insulating his team from it. So if there was, I wasn't that aware of it. We were up in Toronto recently for the premiere, and someone asked me if I felt nervous. At that point, I actually truly didn't feel nervous; it was just excitement. For me, when I'm working on something like this, the director is the only person I'm concerned with satisfying. I get nervous when I'm sending music to the director, and once it feels to them like it's the right tone and like it's telling the story that they're wanting to tell... that's the main thing I care about, helping them advance their vision.

CD: So you're writing music for an audience of one, essentially?

NJ: Yeah! I know that theoretically it's more than that, but I really feel like - even in a way that's different from writing music for my own projects - this is all about bringing one director's vision to the screen.

CD: How much do you think about or worry about creating music which is a satisfying experience on album divorced from the movie? Is that something that enters your mind, or are you just focused on creating something which is effective when married to the images in the film?

NJ: I mean, I definitely think about it. You kind of want to not think about it too much. The thing is, I know there's going to be a soundtrack album. The soundtrack album is kind of a secondary thing, but it crosses my mind. One of the things we did on Looper is once we had mixed the movie, we took a break and came back to revisit everything. I kind of stitched things together and expanded other things so that it worked a little better as an album that you could sit down and listen to; so there weren't twenty thirty-second cues on the record.

CD: Are there any film composers past or present who have influenced you or been a source of inspiration for you?

NJ: Yeah, yeah, quite a few! I mean, Morricone and Nino Rota are two of my favorite classical-type composers. Obviously some of the big boys like John Williams. I grew up loving Star Wars as a kid, and John Williams was kind of my first exposure to film music where I was really aware of what was happening and how into it I was. There are lots of guys working right now, too... I really enjoy some of the stuff the guys who come from more of a songwriting or band background are doing. Obviously, Jonny Greenwood; I'm a big Radiohead fan, anyway. Jon Brion. I thought Trent Reznor's scores for The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were really fantastic, as well.

CD: You've mentioned that you've written music outside the film music world - was film music always the dream, or just sort of something you slipped into?

NJ: No, I actually came from a performing/songwriting/producing/band background. When Rian was doing Brick, I had just finished this concept narrative record with my band. It told a story and had a graphic novella that went alongside it that my brother had illustrated. Rian actually heard that and put two and two together in his head and asked if I'd be interested in taking a stab at doing the music for Brick. I had never thought about the idea of being a film composer. I was obsessed with the idea of narrative storytelling and I grew up just loving movies and music, so looking back I can see the thread, but it wasn't something I dreamed of being when I was a kid.

CD: Just over the course of the three feature films you've score for your cousin, you've the opportunity to explore a pretty wide range of sounds and styles...

NJ: Yeah (laughs).

CD: Is there a particular type of score or project you're eager to try your hand at someday?

NJ: I'm not sure. I guess the answer is that I don't really have a checklist of, "I'd like to do this type of score." The great thing about working with Rian is that when I get a script, I know it's going to be a new, different world. What goes hand-in-hand with that is figuring out a totally new, different approach to the music - which has been really fun and challenging on all three things we've done so far. I guess the "sort-of-answer" to your question is that I'm a lot more interested in the quality of the work than the genre or style of film music.

CD: So as long as it's worthwhile, it doesn't matter what type of music you're doing.

NJ: Yeah, totally. It's so thrilling to be involved with something that you're really excited about artistically. I guess it's a bit like an actor; you get a chance to put on a different hat. Your stamp is always on the music, but it feels really fun to step in and out of different worlds. That's one thing which is very unique to film music which is different from being a performer or in a band.

CD: The comparison to acting is interesting, and perhaps particularly apt in your case and your cousin's case given the diverse nature of your work so far. Brick, The Brothers Bloom and Looper are such wildly different efforts that the average person wouldn't look at them as a group and think, "Oh, all of this came from that guy."

NJ: Right! (laughs)

CD: Was one of those projects more satisfying than the others, or have the experiences been pretty comparable?

NJ: I don't know if as a sum total one was more satisfying, but they were definitely satisfying in different ways. Bloom was extremely satisfying in terms of melody and a songwriter's perspective, whereas Looper has very little of that. But Looper was very satisfying in terms of trying something brand new and seeing where that went. I mean, there isn't much melody in Looper, but it feels very satisfying to have gone down this rabbit hole of building new sound and taking a tonal approach to the world.

CD: Looking ahead, what's next on the horizon for you?

NJ: I've got a couple projects that I'm working on that I'm really excited about, but I don't think I can publicly talk about them yet. They will become apparent very soon*, and I think they're gonna be really cool. (Laughs)

CD: Fair enough. Nathan, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us about your work.

NJ: Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.

*Mr. Johnson is scoring Joseph Gordon-Levitt's forthcoming directorial debut Don John, which hadn't been announced at the time of this interview.

Back at ya later

A Few Thoughts on Roger Ebert

It took a few minutes for the news of Roger Ebert's passing to sink in. This couldn't be right. Sure, Mr. Ebert had faced a number of severe health problems over the course of the last decade, and he had recently revealed that his cancer had returned. However, when addressing the matter, Roger spoke as if the cancer was nothing more than another obstacle to be overcome. He had successfully beaten one health problem after another, and continued to remain active in the realm of film criticism despite the fact that most men in his position would have called it quits. He had every reason in the world to hang it up and relax, but his love for his profession demanded that he keep writing until he reached the point where he was physically unable to do so. Even as his physical form deteriorated into an unrecognizable version of its former self, he retained his unmistakable voice as a writer.

The realization that I would never again read a new Ebert review was nothing short of alarming. The man is more or less single-handedly responsible for my interest in film criticism. During my teenage years, I would quickly follow each movie I watched with a visit to Ebert's website to read his review. Sure, I read reviews by other critics, but my relationship with Ebert was on a different level. There was something about the deeply personal, candid, unpretentious way that the famed Chicago Sun-Times critic expressed his views which really resonated with me. His work had a conversational quality; a plainspoken sincerity which made him stand apart from the crowd. He marched to the beat of his own drum regardless of where critical consensus drifted, and permitted his emotions to drive his reviews to an extent that few other critics seemed comfortable with. On many occasions, this approach permitted Ebert to develop a reputation as a man ahead of the curve (after all, he was one of the first critics to endorse Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey - movies which are regarded as classics today but which were hotly debated by critics upon their initial release). At other times, it made him look out of touch (such as when he panned A Clockwork Orange and labeled Godfather II as a disappointment in contrast to its predecessor). Even so, there was never any doubt that he was always delivering his honest opinion, critical trends be damned.

I have to admit that there's a good chance that I love many of the films I love simply because Ebert loved them. Ebert was a great entertainer, and his negative reviews were often delightfully savage (so memorable that Ebert saw fit to compile many of them in collections endearingly titled Your Movie Sucks and I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie). However, he was at his best when he was praising a movie, which isn't something which can be said of many critics. As Steven Soderbergh recently noted, critics tend to be immensely creative when they're crafting insults but turn dull when they're trying to describe a film's greatness. Not in Ebert's case. When the man was passionate about a movie, his enthusiasm was infectious. On literally hundreds of occasions, I would read a four-star Ebert review and excitedly head to my local video rental store to see if they had that particular title in stock. I'd watch the film, form my own opinion and then go back to re-read the review. I had some of his particularly thought-provoking reviews more or less memorized.

Movies have been an integral part of life, and Mr. Ebert guided me to so many of my most rewarding cinematic experiences. Yes, there were plenty of established classics (2001: A Space Odyssey, Taxi Driver, Vertigo) that I probably would have gotten around to eventually, but there were also countless smaller, more obscure films that Ebert championed with equal gusto: Gates of Heaven. Ikiru. Winter Light. The films of Werner Herzog, Ramin Bahrani and Krzystof Kieslowski. He was such a champion of cinematic underdogs that he even began Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, devoted to spotlighting recently-released films which he felt hadn't received the level of praise and/or attention they deserved. It was through his accessible, thoughtful reviews that myself and countless others began to explore movies beyond the major studio fare and learn how to regard movies critically. Some have declared that Ebert dumbed down film criticism when he and Gene Siskel introduced the thumbs up/thumbs down system, but anyone who feels that way neglected to hear the words which accompanied the thumbs. More than any other critic, Ebert worked hard to expand the horizons of the average viewer.

Visiting his website each Friday was a weekly highlight, as I would eagerly devour his latest batch of reviews (and would often use them to help determine which two or three movies I would see over the course of the weekend). I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent many Thursday nights hitting the refresh button and impatiently waiting for Mr. Ebert's reliable editor Jim Emerson to upload the week's new reviews. Reading his work gave me a hunger not only to see new films, but to write about them myself. Had I never discovered him, I doubt I would have begun dabbling in the realm of film criticism.

I never had anything resembling a personal relationship with Mr. Ebert. We exchanged e-mails on a few occasions over the years (he was gracious enough to reply to a handful of compliments, complaints and questions I sent his way - and he treated an unknown nobody like myself as if I were one of his peers), but that was the extent of it. Even so, I can't shake the feeling that I've just lost a good friend. I know there are countless others who feel the same way. Over the past few years in particular, Ebert invited his readers into his personal life and took them on a step-by-step journey through his assorted medical battles. Even though his reviews grew increasingly erratic in his final years, he did some of his best writing on his personal blog, where he tackled any subject he felt inspired to tackle: politics, religion, sex, evolution, death, books, travel, movies, food, music, health, etc. It seems appropriate that the title of his memoir is Life Itself, as the man had valuable, thought-provoking things to say about nearly everything. He was a fine film critic, but more importantly, he was a great human being.

There are so many other things I'd like to say, so many other anecdotes about the various ways in which Ebert's work has affected my life - but for now, I'll simply say that I miss him so very much.

In conclusion, a few words from the man himself which are well worth remembering:

"Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. I didn't always know this and I am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

They Just Fade Away

The story I'm about to tell you isn't the sort of story I generally tell. Most of the encounters I talk about on Facebook are of the humorous or unusual variety; attempts to take snapshots of peculiar encounters. However, the story I'm about to relay is a story of romance, nostalgia, heartbreak and regret. It's a bit messy, because I've tried to preserve this story as it was told to me without grammatical or structural embellishment. I have left out specific names, however.

I spent a large portion of this morning in conversation with a 92-year-old World War II Veteran. He called the station and asked for me by name. He told me he just wanted someone to talk to. I asked why he had asked for me specifically, and he told me that he had heard me on a few programs and that I sounded like, "a pretty nice guy." He had a story he wanted to tell me.

"I was in the army in World War II," he said, "I never did see any action, but I suppose that's a good thing. I would have been ashamed if I hadn't at least been ready to fight, though. I spent most of my time in the military right here in the U.S. After the war I was stationed in Alabama, and while I was there I met a beautiful girl. You know that Blueberry Hill song? The one about the guy who found his thrill on Blueberry Hill?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, that song pretty much describes everything you need to know about what happened between us. It's basically our story. Sometimes I think whoever wrote that song must have been spying on us, but I know that ain't true. Anyway, before too long she was pregnant. Now most fellas would be pretty scared if they found out their girl was pregnant. But I wasn't scared. I was in love with this girl and I was happy. She was happy, too. We were going to get married - we wanted to do it pretty quickly before anybody really knew that she was pregnant. And I thought everything was going to be just great. Unfortunately, I had a nemesis."

"A nemesis?"

"Yeah. The sergeant above me. He was the meanest S.O.B. who ever lived. He hated most everybody, but he especially hated me. He always said I wasn't man enough for the army and he would make me do all the dirty work around the base. Anyway, my captain liked me and wanted to give me a promotion, but the sergeant wouldn't go along with it. So the captain waited until the sergeant was on furlough and then he got me a promotion. When the sergeant found out about that, he was really mad. All this was before me and the girl were going to get married, you understand."

"I see."

"Well, when he found out we were going to get married, he decided he was going to get revenge on me because I got that promotion. He told me that I was being transferred immediately and that I needed to leave the next day. Now, this was on a Tuesday, and I was supposed to get married on Saturday. She had gone out of town to visit her family for the week, and she was supposed to meet me back at the base on Friday. Now, believe it or not, I didn't even know where her family lived and I didn't know how to get in touch with her. I asked the sergeant if he could give her a message and tell her where I'd gone when she got back in town so we could make new arrangements. He grumbled about it and said I was a fool for getting married, but he said he would tell her.

"Anyway, I got transferred to a base in South Carolina and I didn't hear anything from her. I was worried, but back then I didn't have a way to get in contact with her. I was worried sick for a few weeks. Finally I was able to get enough time to drive back to Alabama for a couple of days. After I did some looking around, I discovered that she was still there - but she was married to one of my buddies! I was so upset I didn't even know what to do. I went marching over to see my friend and I was all ready to get into it with him. We almost started fighting, but he explained what happened. He said that the sergeant had told the girl that I had left and that I never wanted to see her again. Then my Buddy explained that he had seen her crying and asked her what was the matter. She told him what she thought I had done to her, and he felt real bad for her. He had a crush on her when I'd been seeing her, so he offered to marry her. She took him up on the offer 'cause she wanted to be married when she had her baby.

"My friend was real nice about it and all - he said that he didn't intend to let her go now that he was married to her, but if I wanted to talk to her alone and explain the situation he wouldn't object. But I said no. I couldn't bear to see again and know that I couldn't have her. I told him that I wouldn't want to do anything to interfere with his marriage and just asked him to tell her that I wished her all the luck in the world.

"Well, after that I was just in agony for a while. I wasn't really religious then - I'm saved now, but I didn't get saved properly until a few years ago - but anyway, I was praying all the time asking God to help me forget. Then I had a stroke and it really messed me up for a while, but it definitely took my mind off the situation. I don't know if that's something that just happened or if that was God answering my prayer in some funny way. But that happened. And after a while I was able to forget all about it. I never did get married, because any time I thought about romance I thought about her, and I didn't figure it would be fair to any other girl to get married when I was still in love with another woman. So I just focused on my work and my hobbies and other things."

There was a long silence.

"I don't know what to say," I said. "That's an incredibly sad story."

"Well, it was tough for a while," he said. "But I thought I had gotten over it. That's actually the reason I wanted to tell somebody - I've been having these dreams."

"What kind of dreams?"

"Dreams about her. Almost every night now. I keep thinking about her and wondering if she's still out there somewhere. She might be gone by now - I'm 92 and she'd be in her late 80's. But I don't know why, after all these years, I've started thinking about her again. Maybe once you get towards the end of life you start thinking about all the things you missed out on. Are you married?"

"Yes," I said.

"Are you happy?"

"Very much so," I said.

"Well, that's good. If I could tell young folks one thing, it would be when you find the love of your life, you should hold onto 'em no matter what. Doesn't matter if it costs you your job or your reputation or anything; none of that stuff really matters."

We talked for a while longer, as he filled me in on some of the other chapters in his life. He talked about how long he had been listening to the radio station, and that tuning for a couple of hours each morning was a part of his daily routine. He said he felt like everyone at the station was a personal friend, even though he hadn't even spoken to most of us. I asked him if I could share his story with others.

"Oh yes, please do," he said. "If it just helps one person out there, then that'll make me happy. That'll make me feel like at least some good came out of it, you know? Because right now it just feels like there's nothing good about it at all."

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You: June 2012

Hey folks,

It's been over a month since my last post, though that isn't due to lack of writing. There are about five different semi-completed drafts waiting to be fine-tuned, finished, reconsidered or scrapped entirely. Hopefully at least a couple of those will see the light of day at some point, but in the meantime, let's move on to our monthly look at the films coming up over the course of the next month.

June 1st

"Ha! Look at David Hasselhoff satirizing his Baywatch image!"  - Something no one says anymore due to how often The Hoff has done this in recent years

I've been slowly but surely warming up to the idea of Snow White and the Huntsman, as the marketing has gotten progressively better and the buzz has been encouraging. Additionally, considering how many sarcastic reworkings of fairy tales we've gotten in the post-Shrek era, it's kinda nice to see a movie erring on the side of taking things a bit too seriously. It's only wide release opposition is Pirahna 3DD, which... yeah. Elsewhere, there's the "teenagers compete with each other in a dance competition" flick Battlefield America and a movie about stoned teenagers aptly entitled High School. Basically, that Snow White movie looks better by the minute.

June 8th

Glad to see the franchise hasn't lost its subtly witty touch.

There's probably no way that Prometheus can possibly live up to the expectations which have been placed upon it, but I'm incredibly excited about seeing Ridley Scott return to science fiction (the genre which produced his two finest films to date). For the wee ones, there's Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, though I still can't force myself to demonstrate any interest in that tedious series (and this is coming from an animation junkie who will probably watch yet another Ice Age movie in the theatre later this summer). Again, the choice is pretty obvious. In limited release, we have a diverse slate of options: the Aubrey Plaza comedy Safety Not Guaranteed, the Robert Pattinson-starring period piece Bel Ami, the Greta Gerwig comedy Lola Versus and Jane Fonda's return to theatres with Peace, Love and Misunderstanding (a sigh-inducing title if ever there was one).

June 15th

How is it possible for Paul Giamatti to look even more Paul Giamatti-ish?

The musical comedy Rock of Ages has a terrific cast, but so did Mamma Mia! and look what happened there. Also, in the wake of M:I:IV, it seems like the public might just be ready to embrace Tom Cruise again, but I'm not sure this is the path which best suits him. Adam Sandler also continues his ambitious attempt to determine just how little effort the American public is willing to tolerate with the inevitable future Razzie nominee That's My Boy. In limited release, the Ethan Hawke thriller The Woman in the Fifth is arriving (and has generated solid early reviews) alongside Lynn Shelton's indie comedy Your Sister's Sister (starring present-day indie staple Mark Duplass).

June 22nd
 

A still from Impenetrable Fog: The Movie

Fingers crossed that Brave represents a return to form for Pixar. No, Cars 2 wasn't an abominable disaster, but it was the first of their films which felt like it could have been made by any major animation studio. Honestly, the Brave trailers haven't done a lot for me, but Pixar's marketing campaigns have traditionally been pretty poor indicators of the final product's (usually impressive) quality. Its biggest competition is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which I suspect will turn out to be one of the summer's most ill-advised experiments. It's a cute idea for about 30 seconds, but the trailers make it look like an exceptionally tedious long-form joke. I'm far more interested in the comedy/drama Seeking a Friend at the End of the World, which looks like it might actually bring some fresh ideas to an increasingly overused idea. Finally, Woody Allen delivers his annual feature with the comedy anthology To Rome with Love. Considering Allen's track record, he'll undoubtedly follow his unexpected Midnight in Paris success with a film which disappoints viewers and causes them to dismiss the prolific director for the umpteenth time.

June 29th

Eugene Levy and Tyler Perry in a playful scene from Formulaic Adventures Test Market Audiences Enjoy: The Movie

The final weekend of the month offers a blend of peculiarities, beginning with Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike, a romantic comedy set within the world of male strippers. Former real-life male stripper Channing Tatum removes his shirt (and more, presumably) alongside such other frequently-shirtless actors as Alex Pettyfyr, Matthew McConaughey and Olivia Munn. If nothing else, it once again demonstrates that there's nothing Soderbergh won't try at least once. Tyler Perry delivers his latest in the form of Madea's Witness Protection (this time bringing Eugene Levy along to do yet another variation on his "square white man" routine), and Seth McFarlane takes one of the year's biggest risks by spending $100 million on Ted, a movie in which Mark Wahlberg gets into hallucinatory R-rated adventures with a stuffed bear. Good luck with that, pal. In limited release, the critically-acclaimed Beasts of the Southern Wild is finally arriving in theatres. Several folks have described it as a live-action Miyazaki flick, which sounds amazing. Also, Transformers/Star Trek/Fringe writer Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci turn their attention to robot-free drama with the Chris Pine vehicle People Like Us. Curious to see how well these two fare when dealing with more down-to-earth material.

Picks of the Month

3. Seeking a Friend at the End of the World

Starring Keira Knightley and Rick Santorum.

2. Beasts of the Southern Wild

Childlike Whimsy: The Movie

1. Prometheus

Welcome back, creepy H.R Giger-designed visual metaphors.

What are you looking forward to?

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You - May 2012

Summer movie season is upon us, ladies and gentlemen. Let's take a look at some of the big blockbusters on the horizon (along with some of the smaller movies which will be quietly pleading for your attention).

May 4th
 

Actor Tom Wilkinson, seconds before snapping into a violent rage after a nosy photographer interrupted his afternoon prayers.

Summer kicks off in grand fashion with Joss Whedon's The Avengers. Most of the Marvel movies have essentially been feature-length trailers for this star-studded spectacle, so expectations are understandably high. Happily, early buzz is quite strong and many are suggesting that Whedon has managed to keep his own distinctive voice intact. I'm looking forward to it, even if we're now on our third big-screen Bruce Banner of the 21st Century. A smart piece of counter-programming is being offered in the form of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a romantic comedy for viewers of a certain age who would much rather watch Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith wander around India than witness Iron Man and Thor punching each other. Seriously, it does look like a nice movie. And for the people who no interest in either of those, there's a movie called LOL which stars Miley Cyrus as a heartbroken teen named Lola. And the sequel will probably be called LOLA, and the trailer guy will say, "Get ready to Laugh Out Loud Again!" And I will sigh heavily.

May 11th

Because nothing says "deadly psychopath" like a pony sweater.

Tim Burton returns with Dark Shadows, a goofy updating of the moody vampire-themed soap opera. I can't exactly say that I'm excited about it, but it at least looks like a step up from Alice in Wonderland. The Danny Elfman score is enjoyable and the cast is talented. We'll see. Not much of note competing in wide release, though in limited release we'll see the lightweight Eva Mendes vehicle Girl in Progress and the hotly-debated-even-though-most-people-haven't-seen-it-yet comedy God Bless America, in which a middle-aged man and a teenage girl wander across the country murdering people who annoy them. In other words, it looks a bit like the movie an internet message board might make if internet message boards were people who made movies.

May 18th

A scene from the forthcoming epic Battleship: The Musical 

The world has already decided that Peter Berg's Battleship will not be good, and early reviews have drawn unfavorable comparisons to Michael Bay's recent work. Eeesh. Then again, Michael Bay's recent work has done quite well at the box office, so maybe Berg and John Carter star Taylor Kitsch shouldn't start crying into their beer just yet. What to Expect When You're Expecting looks terrible in an entirely different way, though that's not really a surprise: no one other than Woody Allen should be permitted to make movies based on self-help books. Sacha Baron Cohen returns to theaters with The Dictator, which is his first traditional feature. Cohen's a talented guy, though his material does a lot less for me than it does for many critics (I found Borat overrated and pretty much hated Bruno). He's subtler and funnier in his more reserved turns in Hugo and Sweeney Todd. Finally, we have the period comedy Hysteria, which stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and documents the invention of the vibrator. Expect many scenes in which elderly British actors (hey, Jonathan Pryce!) raise their eyebrows in astonishment.

May 25th
 

Because nothing says "terrifying cinema" like the letter R printed backwards.

Hey, here's Men in Black III! This probably would have been a huge hit in 2005 (y'know, instead of a full decade after the last Men in Black movie), but now? I dunno. This should be a valuable indicator of whether Smith is still an unstoppable force at the box office (some people said that Seven Pounds proved otherwise, but c'mon, no actor on planet earth could have turned Seven Pounds into a megahit). The trailer doesn't exactly look promising, but I must admit that casting Josh Brolin as young Tommy Lee Jones was a smart move. Also: where else are you going to find Michael Stuhlbarg and Lady Gaga in the same movie? Chernobyl Diaries looks like straight-to-DVD material to me, but one can rarely predict what audiences will go for when it comes to horror (remember how The Devil Inside made a killing at the box office earlier this year?). In limited release, we have Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, which I can't wait to see. Anderson's twee, formal style is easy to mock, but the sheer soulfulness of his movies is often overlooked. He's an enormously gifted director who seems to grow just a little bit more with each new effort, and this one looks like another winner.

Picks of the Month

3. Men in Black III/Dark Shadows (Because one of these has to be decent, right?)

Actor Will Smith, revisiting Men in Black II for the first time in years and realizing that it really wasn't his finest hour.

   

Actor Johnny Depp explains how he used Roseanne Barr, Count Basie, Andy Warhol and a beetle he found behind the sofa as models for his latest performance.

2. The Avengers
 

A forgotten classic returns to theatres in 3-D!

1. Moonrise Kingdom

Actor Bruce Willis, using glasses as a way of denoting that he is actually making an effort to act.

What are you looking forward to?

Back at ya later

Should I Be Concerned?

One of my co-workers - an energetic, middle-aged man who has a rather contentious relationship with technology - asked me if I could do him a favor.

"Sure," I said. "What's up?"

"Well, see, you're good with all of this equipment around here. Could you help me patch a song through to a girl's answering machine? Today's her birthday and I'd like to butter her up; make her feel good."

"Yeah, I can do that. This your new girlfriend?"

"Well... I mean, we see each other now and then. You know how it is."

"I see. So what's the song you're looking for?"

"Well, that's the other thing I need your help with," he says. "It's this birthday song... all about birthdays..."

"I assume you're not talking about the usual birthday song..."

"No, no, no, it's this other birthday song from back in the day."

"Is it the Beatles song?"

"No, not that one. It's a guy singing to his little girlfriend - something about teenagers, sweet sixteen, happy birthday..."

"Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen?"

"Yeah! Who did that one."

"Neil Sedaka, I think," I replied, quickly turning to Google to confirm my suspicions. "Yeah, Neil Sedaka."

"Yeah, so that's what I wanna play for her."

"Okay. I hope it's not actually her 16th birthday?"

"I'm not sure which birthday it is. She lives on her own in Atlanta, though, so she's old enough. She made me some cake on my birthday, too, and that's definitely a grown woman thing to do."

"Your evidence seems pretty unshakable."

"Oh, that reminds me - when you dial the number for me, be sure to press *67 so nobody can look at her phone and see who's been calling."

Back at ya later

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You - April 2012

April is generally an intriguing month, as studios push out products they actually have some faith in but which probably wouldn't survive against the heavy May/June/July competition. Let's take a look at what we're getting.

April 6th

"Did you ever think this series would be, like, our legacy?"

In recent years, the American Pie franchise has grown irrelevant. The former pop culture phenomenon has devolved into a series of increasingly miserable-looking straight-to-DVD affairs marketed towards easily-amused jocks without internet access. Still, that's not going to stop anyone from attempting to recapture the old magic (?) with American Reunion, which reunites the original cast and provides them with undoubtedly contrived reasons to behave badly. The only other wide release it will compete against is the re-release of Titanic (in 3D, natch), and I wouldn't be surprised if the latter ends up sinking* the former.

*I apologize.

April 13th

Curb your enthusiasm. Seriously.

I keep hearing good things about the horror/thriller Cabin in the Woods, and I keep being informed that the less you know, the better the film will be. I know very little about it, aside from the fact that it was penned by Joss Whedon and reportedly features a cabin in an area filled with trees. Speaking of horror, the Farrelly Brothers are bringing The Three Stooges back to life. The terrible trailers combined with Peter and Bobby's weak track record in recent years have thoroughly scared me away. Lockout looks like a decent slice of genre fun, though its producers can't seem to figure out whether it's "Taken in space!" or "Escape From New York in space!" Either way, it's definitely recycled material. In space. Finally, T.D. Jakes follows up his cinematic version of Woman, Thou Art Loosed with a sequel awkwardly entitled Woman, Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day. I hear it's a combination of Taken and Why Did I Get Married, but it's probably less fun than that description makes it sound.

April 20th

"Are you sure people are gonna believe that I drive a pickup truck filled with bags of fertilizer?"

The Lucky One is a Nicholas Sparks adaptation which stars Zac Efron. Odds are that sentence either fills you will unspeakable joy or makes you physically ill. We also get an adaptation of Steve Harvey's relationship book Think Like a Man (advice I've found helpful on multiple occasions), though it has a metatextual twist: it seems the male characters get upset because they've discovered that the female characters have been using the advice in Harvey's book against them. No word on whether Steve Harvey plays himself, but it seems that Ron Artest does. Remarkably, we also get two competing nature documentaries, both of which will undoubtedly remind us that A) animals are adorable, B) are just like us and C) do the darndest things. You can either check out Chimpanzee (narrated by Tim Allen) or To the Arctic 3D (narrated by Meryl Streep).

April 27th

"While I nodded, nearly napping/they placed me in these period trappings."

First up, we have the romantic comedy The Five-Year Engagement. It's another collaboration between director Nicholas Stoller and actor Jason Segal, who made me laugh with both their surprisingly enjoyable Forgetting Sarah Marshall and their screenplay for The Muppets. On the more dramatic side of things, we have V for Vendetta helmer James McTeigue delivering the From Hell-on-Steroids thriller The Raven (which amusingly features the increasingly droopy-eyed John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe). The Pirates! Band of Misfits doesn't have a great trailer, but Aardman Animation has a strong track record. Whether it's good or bad, it will be absent one mildly amusing leprosy joke. Finally, Jason Statham's latest installment in his Film-of-the-Month club is Safe, which involve the Russian mafia, a kidnapped Chinese girl, corrupt New York mobsters and other elements which blatantly appeal to specific markets around the globe.

Honestly, another weak-looking month. I'm not one who regards blockbuster season as the highlight of my cinematic year, but summer 2012 can't get here quickly enough.

Picks of the month:

3. The Five Year Engagement

That moment when a roaster finally crosses the line and no one else notices.

2. Lockout

"But seriously, my favorite weapon is sarcasm."

1. Cabin in the Woods

A strong indication that the film will deliver what it promises.

 What say you, folks?

An Evening with The Boss

Though I've been a music lover all my life, I've never really been a concert-goer. My general dislike of loud, crowded spaces has consistently overwhelmed my desire to see certain individuals perform live. Sure, I've been to Atlanta Symphony Orchestra events on a number of occasions (and enjoyed them a great deal), but that's a very contained environment where everyone sits, listens and behaves themselves. However, for a variety of reasons, I figured it was finally time to confront my inhibitions and dive into a full-blown rock concert. But where to start?

There were a number of options on the table which interested me. Radiohead was in town recently, and there's no telling how long it might be before they're back in the area. Elton John was playing in Augusta, but the drive was long, the concert conflicted with my work schedule and ticket prices were at least twice as high as everything else. After taking a look at the assorted options, the best choice revealed itself pretty quickly: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I own nearly every Springsteen album and love the music ("Born to Run" and "Darkness on the Edge of Town" would both make a list of my favorite albums of all time), knew that Springsteen and the E Street members were still going incredibly strong as musicians and knew that their live show was held in very high esteem. There was no way that couldn't be a blast, right?

My wife and I arrived early - approximately two hours before the concert was supposed to start. Turns out that was probably too early, since we were in reserved seats and the doors didn't even open until an hour before the concert. Still, I was eager to be on the safe side. Alas, the only unpleasant part of the evening was waiting in line, as the gentleman in front of me was a surly, irritating fellow who kept turning around and blowing cigarette smoke in my face. After we got inside, I was alarmed to discover that this same gentlemen was sitting in my section. Fortunately, he was several rows back and would be too far away to cause me any additional grief.

The concert was supposed to begin at 7:30, but it was clear that wasn't going to happen. Assorted members of the stage crew fiddled with instruments, adjusted lights, climbed ladders and moved music stands as a selection of amiable golden oldies quietly wafted through the room. This continued at 7:40, and 7:50, and 8:00. Every now and then, the lights would start to go dim and the crowd would murmur with excitement for a moment before realizing that it was just another lighting test. Finally, around 8:05, the lights went down completely, and James Brown's "I Feel Good" started blasting from the speakers. The music was so loud that I could feel the ground tremble beneath my feet... or maybe that was just my own excitement for the show to begin.

After Mr. Brown's legendary tune was finished, Springsteen sauntered to center stage and provided his own tongue-in-cheek introduction, including a proud declaration of the fact that, "his new record has been number one on the charts for four straight days!" Without further ado, the band launched into a furiously energetic quartet of songs both outraged and outrageously catchy: the new tunes "We Take of Our Own", "Wrecking Ball" and "Death to My Hometown", with the classic "Badlands" sandwiched in-between. I thought the James Brown intro was loud, but that was soothing in contrast to the live performance - it was deafening, but it only sounded muddy for the first minute or so, as I adjusted to listening with shattered eardrums. After a short while, it was as if I had been listening to music at that volume all my life.

On his previous tour, Springsteen didn't play many songs from the album he was promoting at the time (the tuneful, upbeat "Working on a Dream"), opting instead to focus on older material and audience requests. This time around, he played nearly everything from the new album. I've been listening to "Wrecking Ball" quite a bit in the days since its release, and I like it quite a bit, but it quickly became obvious why Springsteen was placing such an emphasis on the new material this time around: these songs were meant to be heard live. They have a rowdy, infectious quality which encourages audience participation, sing-a-long choruses and massive orchestration which was meant to fill an arena. There are fleeting moments in which the album versions of the songs tentatively incorporate some run-of-the-mill adult contemporary effects (light drum loops, echo effects, etc.). These moments aren't terrible, but they often feel like an uncomfortable attempt to pull sprawling, rambunctious tunes into a more intimate setting. Live, the tunes are thunderous and instantly memorable. It's no wonder that the crowd responded with as much enthusiasm to the new material as they did to a handful of Springsteen's greatest hits.

"Wrecking Ball" has a very specific narrative arc, starting with bleak, angry tunes and slowly working its way towards optimism and hope. It's one of Springsteen's most blatantly political albums (a good deal of it was inspired by Occupy Wall Street, though Springsteen makes his points with more directness and elegance than many of the protesters), and also one of his most blatantly spiritual (references to God and Jesus abound, and the album's final section relies heavily on gospel influences). The concert as a whole offered a similar (albeit larger) arc, and touched on similar themes. While Springsteen kept his well-known political beliefs contained to the lyrics of his music and a passing comment on the economic crisis before playing "Jack of All Trades," he occasionally adopted the raspy tones of an old-fashioned evangelist during some sequences. "We're here to wake you, to shake you and to take you to higher ground!" he crowed while introducing the band.

Despite the weighty themes at work in many of the songs, Springsteen never seemed inflated with a sense of his own importance. Above all, he seemed interested in ensuring that the audience had a good time. After all, they had spent their hard-earned money to escape the troubles of the world, not to wallow in them. Early on, he vowed that everyone would get their money's worth: "We're gonna leave you with your hands tired, your feet tired, your voice tired and your sexual organs stimulated!" he joked. And he more or less lived up to his word, proceeding to deliver over two and a half hours of enthralling music.

After his thunderstorm of an opening section, Springsteen proceeded through more eclectic territory - the moving "My City of Ruins" (from his 2002 album "The Rising", which was also featured prominently throughout the evening - appropriate, given that its exploration of a nation's attempt to heal in the wake of 9/11 fits nicely with his new album's exploration of a nation's attempt to heal in the wake of economic collapse), the wildly entertaining "E Street Shuffle", the moving ballad "Jack of All Trades", the rough-n-tumble obscurity "Seeds" and the stomping "Easy Money."

Catchy as it may have been, the front half of the show was loaded with darker material. It was a good time for a breather. The audience received precisely that in the form of the chipper "Waiting on a Sunny Day" (in which Springsteen did a great deal of back-and-forth with the audience and even allowed a female audience member to sing a few lines), followed by a dazzling performance of "The Promised Land." Things then took an unexpected turn as Springsteen decided to take a musical trip to Motown - after all, he had a brass section with him. He began by rattling off a cheerfully corny speech about the education the music gave him during his youth: "We got geography from The Drifters, who told us where the #$&! Broadway was. We got math from Wilson Pickett, who told us that 99 1/2 won't ever do. And we got sex education from Marvin Gaye!" Bruce and the band then proceeded to deliver a soulful take on The Temptations' "The Way You Do The Things You Do" and a wildly enjoyable cover of Wilson Pickett's "634-5789" (during which Springsteen went crowd-surfing).

The concert then proceeded to its final "official" segment, which offered an increasingly hopeful series of tunes. "Shackled and Drawn" was yet another "Wrecking Ball" tune which killed in its live incarnation, and the one-two punch of "Lonesome Day" and "The Rising" was enormously moving. "We Are Alive" played like the world's greatest campfire song; an affirmation of the human spirit delivered with hushed excitement. Finally, Springsteen tore into the great "Thunder Road," which was as spectacular as ever.

These days, an encore isn't really an encore, but the encore portion was thrilling nonetheless. In fact, the final six tunes may well have been the highlight of the entire concert. Springsteen provided the entire crowd with a magnificent Sunday evening service with the pairing of two new songs: the tender "Rocky Ground" (featuring a surprisingly touching and effective rap interlude courtesy of Michelle Moore) and the soaring "Land of Hope and Dreams." The latter in particular was such a moving experience live, and its (admittedly simplistic) chorus was awe-inspiring when accompanied by thousands of additional voices:

This train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This train
Carries whores and gamblers
This train
Carries lost souls
This train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This train
Faith will be rewarded
This train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This train
Bells of freedom ringing
This train
Carries the broken-hearted
This train
Thieves and sweet souls departed
This train
Carries fools and kings
This train
All aboard

It was the performance which deviated the most thoroughly from the album version, with a new introduction, a richer arrangement, a terrific interlude featuring Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" and an extended conclusion. "Let me see your faith!" Springsteen yelped late into the song, raising his hand in the air.

From there, it was an adrenaline-filled sprint to the finish light. The lights came up and the band powered through "Born to Run" and "Dancing in the Dark," then jigged their way through the foot-stomping, hand-clapping and very Irish "American Land". By this point, everyone in the crowd had let go of their inhibitions. People who had simply politely observed were dancing, clapping and singing - sometimes rather badly - but they were dancing, clapping and singing nonetheless.

There was a bit of a shadow hanging over the evening from the beginning. It was the start of Springsteen's first tour since Clarence Clemons' death. Of course all of the members of the E Street Band are talented and essential (Max Weinberg's drum work is a remarkable thing to behold), but no supporting member shaped Springsteen's sound quite so memorably as The Big Man. Would the band be the same without him? Of course not. But the subject was addressed in simple, touching fashion early on. After introducing the members of the band, Springsteen quizzed the audience: "Are we missing anybody?" Lights came up on both Clemons' traditional spot onstage and on the organ once played by Danny Federici (who passed away in 2008). After a while, Springsteen leaned on his microphone stand and said, "All I know is that if you're here, and we're here... they're here."

Filling in for Clemons was Clarence's nephew Jake, who received an enormous amount of support from the audience on his first night. The crowd roared with approval as Jake tore through the sax solos on "Badlands", "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Thunder Road", "Born to Run" and others. The evening concluded with a tremendous performance of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out." When Springsteen arrived at the song's passing reference to Clemons ("When the change was made uptown / and the big man joined the band..."), he paused, allowing the crowd to clap, shout and express their love for Clemons for nearly two minutes. At long last, he and the band dove back in, finished the song, thanked the good folks of Atlanta for being so supportive and enthusiastic on their opening night and departed.

Rebekah and I were in something of a daze as we left. We could barely hear ourselves speak, or even think. The reaction from the crowd was unanimous: we had all just seen something incredibly special, and despite the show's considerable length, it was over far too soon. Any concerns I had about being stuck in the midst of a rowdy crowd had been obliterated; once the music started, nothing else mattered. I don't know how much longer these guys will be touring - Springsteen is 62, though he performs with the reckless energy of a 25-year-old - but if you get a chance to see them, don't pass it up. Thanks for an experience I'll never forget, Bruce.

Back at ya later

A Few Thoughts on the Bource Backlash

Personally, I wouldn't have given the Academy Award for Best Original Score to Ludovic Bource's work on The Artist. However, I did quite like Bource's effort, as it's a breezy, infectious, warmly-orchestrated throwback to golden age film music which works superbly in context.

Unfortunately, it seems that some are remarkably angry about Bource's win. Not because they found his original material lacking in quality, mind you (though some certainly do), but rather because of the manner in which The Artist incorporated an iconic musical selection from Bernard Herrmann's score for Vertigo. It's doubtful that any of the folks complaining will actually read this, but I feel a need to clear up some common misconceptions for the sake of aiding those expressing misguided outrage.

1. It's not Bource's fault.

Quite a few have accused Bource of demonstrating shameless behavior by simply ripping off the Vertigo theme instead of writing original music. The decision was made by the director, not Bource. In fact, Bource actually wrote original music for the scene, which was rejected in favor of the Herrmann piece (you can actually hear Bource's fine composition for the scene on the soundtrack album).

2. The music wasn't stolen.

The piece of pre-existing music was licensed by the filmmakers and was used in entirely legal fashion. This is done in almost every movie - a song written for a Tom Waits album turns up in Domino, a piece of music from The 13th Warrior turns up in Kingdom of Heaven and the theme from Across 110th Street appears in Jackie Brown. Granted, it might have been inadvisable to use such an immediately recognizable piece of film music in this case, but The Artist doesn't violate Vertigo any more than Kill Bill violated Navajo Joe (and it certainly didn't "rape" Kim Novak's "body of work"). If the Herrmann estate didn't want the music used in the film, then they wouldn't have allowed the producers of The Artist to buy the rights to that particular selection.

3. The music wasn't re-arranged for the movie by Bource.

This is a smaller complaint, but a surprisingly common one. The music wasn't arranged by Bource. It is actually a 1993 recording of the theme conducted by Elmer Bernstein. So much of the vitriol lobbed at Bource has gone back to his alleged employment of the Vertigo theme in his score, but Bource simply had nothing to do with it.

The misplaced anger is exasperating, but not exactly surprising. Surprisingly few film critics actually bother to learn anything about what film music does or how it is created, which leads to every other critic referring to any large-scale orchestral score as sounding like a rip-off of John Williams. This also leads to artists who avoid traditional film music technique - Ry Cooder, Trent Reznor, Vangelis, A.R. Rahman, etc. - getting overpraised, simply because their music is so explicitly different from the norm that many critics can't help but recognize that it doesn't sound like everything else. In fact, the distinct nature of Bource's score is likely what earned it the Oscar win in the first place. His music is too thoughtlessly praised, too thoughtlessly condemned and not appreciated enough for what it really achieves.

Back at ya later

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You - March 2012

Let's take a look at what March has to offer...

March 2nd

The Lorax: Now with 100% more Danny DeVito!

The month gets off to a rather underwhelming start with the one-two punch of The Lorax and Project X. The former looks like a painful reworking of the beloved Dr. Seuss book, transforming the title character into a lovable crank and adding new characters for the purposes of getting Zac Efron and Taylor Swift into the mix. Meanwhile, the latter appears to be a fairly unbearable use of the found footage format, offering a feature-length version of the sort of party I would do my best to avoid in real life. Still, to each their own. I've never been able to warm up to the fratboy antics of Todd Phillips, but others seem to get quite a kick out of his stuff.

March 9th

"What? You thought I was in the middle of a comeback?"

Truthfully, the more footage I see from John Carter, the more excited I am about it. It could be a massive flop, but I've got to take a chance on a new movie from the guy who gave us Finding Nemo and Wall-e. Perpetually uninteresting director Lasse Hallstrom returns with a new movie called Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, which sounds like a Simpsons joke, but is somehow a real thing. Ewan McGregor is in it, continuing his role as the patron saint of films which exist somewhere between the mainstream and obscurity. I don't know too much about the comedy Friends with Kids, but it certainly has a gifted cast: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm, Chris O'Dowd... wait, is this Bridesmaids 2? Anyway, early buzz seems positive. Right about now, Eddie Murphy ought to be coasting on the high of the box-office smash Tower Heist and a successful Oscar-hosting gig. Alas, Tower Heist tanked and he skipped the Oscars. To make matters worse, now he has to witness the release of the long-delayed A Thousand Words, his latest collaboration with the director of Norbit and Meet Dave. Eeesh. I'm somewhat intrigued by the horror thriller Silent House, as it offers another role to Martha Marcy May Marlene star Elizabeth Olsen and has taken the unusual approach of presenting the entire film in one lengthy take (though odds are they've taken the Rope approach and snuck a few subtle cuts in there).

March 16th

Que?

The big-screen update of 21 Jump Street looks pretty limp, but it is directed by the guys who gave us the surprisingly entertaining animated flick Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Perhaps they'll deliver another unlikely success here? The month's biggest oddity is the comedy Casa de mi Padre, which looks like a typically unhinged Will Ferrell comedy save for the fact that the whole thing is in Spanish. Props to the man for trying something new, I suppose. The trailer is one of those experiences which gives you a strong indication of the film's flavor without really telling you whether or not it's going to be a waste of time.

March 23rd

"Try opening your movie on the 23rd. Make my day."

The Hunger Games, hungry for attention, consumes the multiplex. That's it in terms of wide releases, so one can only hope that it's a worthwhile endeavor. The cast is strong and the premise is compelling, but director Gary Ross didn't really bring anything special to his two previous respectable-but-somewhat-overrated turns behind the camera (Seabiscuit and Pleasantville). Still, I'm there, as I've been assured by many that the source material is solid.

March 30th

"You will watch my antics and you will enjoy them." 

For some reason, we're getting Wrath of the Titans. The trailer makes it look a little more interesting than its bland predecessor, but it's made by the director who gave us Darkness Falls, Battle: Los Angeles and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Blah. It also looks like they're still pretending Liam Neeson's Zeus is Ingrid Bergman circa 1940 with all of those glowing, soft-focus close-ups. Still, the movie looks better than Mirror, Mirror, which appears to represent the talented Tarsem Singh officially hitting rock bottom. I'm not much of a Sean William Scott fan, so I'm not exactly excited about the hockey comedy Goon, but early buzz is mostly positive. Likewise, I've heard pretty good things about the Clive Owen-starring horror film Intruders. It's directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose previous film was the excellent 28 Weeks Later (which I've kind of grown to like better than Danny Boyle's more well-regarded 28 Days Later).

Picks of the month:

3. Intruders

Father and daughter, watching The Eagles perform on PBS. 

2. The Hunger Games

Severus Snape's hippie brother. 

1. John Carter

McNulty: Now with 100% more furry armor. 

Another fairly unexciting month, honestly. What are you looking forward to?

Back at ya later

Some Thoughts on the Oscars

I really enjoyed watching the Academy Awards last night, but as always, that was largely because I was with a crowd of people I enjoy hanging out with. The actual ceremony was... well, it was an improvement on last year. That isn't saying much, but the show was rarely embarrassingly bad this time around. No, it was safe, with a typically pleasant and inoffensive Billy Crystal cranking out wheezy old jokes (he started by calling himself a war horse and claiming that "extremely loud and incredibly close" is how his relatives watch the Oscars). Everything about the Oscars felt a little old: the jokes, the host, the nominees (Best Supporting Actor winner Christopher Plummer is now officially the world's oldest Oscar winner) and, uh, the movies highlighted.

Strangely, there was little emphasis on the movies 2011 had to offer, as we were given numerous sequences which highlighted movies of yesteryear. An opening montage paid homage to flicks like Ghost, Jaws, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc. A series of Errol Morris-directed montages featured a host of celebrities waxing eloquent about the older movies they love. A clever short film by Christopher Guest recreated a focus group discussion following a screening of The Wizard of Oz. A bizarre Cirque du Soleil performance took place in front of a screen offering clips of older movies. However, there were surprisingly few moments highlighting the actual nominees.

Perhaps that's appropriate, given that 2011's nominees were also ruminating on the past. Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris may be a lesson about how we need to appreciate the present, but it still luxuriates in the glory of days gone by before it gets there. Hugo is in love with older movies. The same can be said of The Artist and Rango. Moneyball and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close look back at momentous events in the recent past, while Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Help, War Horse and The Tree of Life look back increasingly further.

Most of the wins were predictable. Hugo racked up a large number of technical wins, including Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects. It was good in all of these areas, but wasn't the best in any of them. Meanwhile, The Artist took home five larger prizes, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Score and Best Costume Design. It was expected that one of these two would take Best Editing, but instead that went to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (a movie which wasn't nominated in any other category). I really like both Hugo and The Artist, so I don't exactly begrudge them their success, but a good deal of superior work was overlooked in most categories in order for these two charming flicks to earn their pile of Oscars. Screenplay awards went to The Descendants and Midnight in Paris, because the Academy wanted to recognize both of those movies in some way without giving them the biggest prizes: the former because it was so good, and the latter because it was Woody Allen's most popular film to date. As usual, Allen didn't attend the ceremony, as he was undoubtedly busy playing jazz or working on yet another screenplay.

I was happy to see Rango win Best Animated Film. It's a deserving winner, even if the overall category was a disaster this year. Similarly, I was happy to see Bret McKenzie's "Man or Muppet" win best song, as it was possibly the best movie song of the year despite landing in a category which was handled horribly this year (the only other nominee was the middling "Real in Rio" from Rio). Octavia Spencer was given an Oscar for her colorful supporting turn in The Help, though Viola Davis gave that film's finest performance (alas, Ms. Davis was robbed by Meryl Streep, who acknowledged that most of America was probably groaning in dismay as they watched her accept yet another award). Christopher Plummer gave the evening's loveliest speech, and examined his Oscar with affection: "You're only two years older than me. Where have you been all my life?"

Overall, it was a rather unmemorable evening. There were no significant upsets aside from Streep, few truly inspiring victories, few painfully bad moments (save for Cirque du Soleil and whatever that was Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. did) and fewer moments of legitimate hilarity (save for the aforementioned Christopher Guest short and Chris Rock's pointed, entertaining routine on racial typecasting in animation and the challenges of doing voice work). 2011 offered a lot of great stuff, but this year's Oscars offered very few indications of that. For a show all about celebrating the greatness of Hollywood, it seemed awfully hesitant to boast about its latest achievements.

Back at ya later

The Best Films of 2011: Part Two

And now, the top ten...

10. A Dangerous Method



Most of director David Cronenberg's films have been centered around moments in which characters begin pushing boundaries and soon themselves facing severe moral dilemmas. Consider Jeff Goldblum's experimental scientist in The Fly, Jennifer Jason Leigh's computer programmer in Existenz, numerous characters in Crash, James Woods' television programmer in Videodrome, Viggo Mortenson's ordinary family man in A History of Violence... the list goes on. Because of its lack of extreme violence or bizarre imagery, many have suggested that Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method just doesn't feel remotely "Cronenbergian" (er, "Cronenbergundian"). Nonsense. The director's comparatively low-key chamber drama is yet another fascinating exploration of his pet themes, as he examines a clash of ideas between two men still regarded as titans in the strange field of psychiatry. The intellectual battles fought between Michael Fassbender's Carl Jung and Viggo Mortenson's Sigmund Freud are fascinating moments fueled by sterling performances and impressively nuanced dialogue, but there are many moments of surprising contrast between the drama which plays out in medical journals and the drama which plays out in real life. The personal lives of Freud and Jung alternately contradict, inform and complicate their official positions on psychiatric subjects; a notion Cronenberg illuminates in subtle, compelling fashion. The heart of the film is formed in the relationship between Jung and his tormented yet intelligent patient Sabina Spielreim (Keira Knightley, who has rarely been better); a relationship which shifts uneasily from professional to personal while turning sticky, sweet and strained at various points along the way.  Cronenberg's film has a great many things to say (and it's a vastly more effective biopic of the three central individuals it features than a more conventional narrative would have been), but the one that really lingers is this: most truly inspired discoveries are ones which lead the discoverer to understand just how far they are from actually understanding anything.  A Dangerous Method is a dialogue-driven movie, but it's the look in Jung's eyes at the film's conclusion which says it all.

9. Drive



To a certain extent, Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive plays like a Michael Bay movie for hardcore cinephiles.  It's landed on the top of quite a few critic's list this year, and it's easy to understand why: Drive feels like a movie made by a person who read every significant critical complaint about glossy Hollywood thrillers and responded accordingly.  General audiences largely responded with displeasure to the film, shaking their heads at its unexpectedly meditative tendencies in much the same way that they shook their heads during Anton Corbijn's The American. For movie buffs, it played like a dream come true; a magnificent exercise in style which fused B-movie pulp, classic noir and European arthouse flicks into a sumptuous cinematic potpourri.  Refn directs like Ryan Gosling's character drives: with consummate skill, precision and timing. The much-lauded car chase sequence which opens the film serves as guide to the film's style: it knows when to charge ahead at full speed, when to take left turns and when to simply stop, look, listen and wait.  The basic story follows a fairly simple noir thriller template, but it's the elegance of Refn's direction which makes it so engaging (I'm still marveling at how the potentially standard-issue climax was transformed into something so strangely beautiful).  It sounds like the sort of thing which might keep its characters at a distance, but another considerable part of Drive's effect is its almost uncomfortable intimacy. The romantic developments, the professional schemes and even (especially?) the killings don't feel like plot developments so much as intense moments of personal revelation. The performances are enjoyable diverse but uniformly excellent: Ryan Gosling's "Man With No Name" poker face, Albert Brooks' passive aggression which occasionally transforms into aggressive aggression, Bryan Cranston's well-intentioned haplessness, Cary Mulligan's slightly frightened curiosity, Oscar Isaac's unexpected sincerity, Ron Perlman's profane crocodile grin... these are such striking, compelling people. This is such a striking, compelling movie.

8. Hugo



Some may raise an eyebrow at the notion of director Martin Scorsese setting aside gangster movies and turbulent period dramas to helm a warm, innocent family film, but Hugo (based on a lovely book by Brian Selznick) is an immensely satisfying change-of-pace for the esteemed director. The story takes place in a Paris train station during the 1930s, and centers on an orphan named Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) who has secretly made a life for himself there. The first half of the film is primarily focused on Hugo's assorted misadventures (in which he makes a new friend played by Chloe Moretz, irritates an elderly shopkeeper played by Ben Kingsley and escapes the grasp of a bumbling station inspector played by Sacha Baron Cohen), but the film quietly, beautifully segues into a tribute to one of the pioneers of early cinema during its profoundly moving second half. I wouldn't dream of spoiling the surprises Hugo has in store, but suffice it to say that the story aligns nicely with some of Scorsese's own personal passions. It's no surprise to discover that while the small character moments are touching, the moments which really resonate are those in which Scorsese gets to demonstrate his deep, unyielding love for the movies. It's positively magical stuff, and Scorsese demonstrates that he can whip up an enchanting all-ages experience worthy of Steven Spielberg. It's also one of the few films I've seen which at least partially justified its employment of 3-D, as the director makes atypically strong use of the format and effectively immerses us in his distinctive cinematic world. The movie illuminates a happy fact which is often overlooked: whether he's placing the spotlight on his childhood home, great musicians, lost cultures, pulpy thrillers of the 1950s, religious icons or pioneers of early cinema, Scorsese is one of the world's finest writers of cinematic love letters.

7. I Saw the Devil



The premise is simple: a man's wife is killed by a serial murderer. Aching with grief and hungry for revenge, the man sets out to find the psychopath who killed his wife. However, his plan is far more complex than simply hunting down the bad guy and killing him: he wants to make the killer's life an endless nightmare. I Saw the Devil is a Korean film which plays as a sharp rebuke to western revenge flicks; a movie which gives audiences their cathartic vengeance and then makes them choke on it. As a thriller, it's nearly as polished and carefully-constructed as No Country for Old Men; it moves forward with both merciless logic and dark humor (a scene involving a screwdriver managed to make me cringe and laugh simultaneously). The word "haunting" is overused in criticism of all sorts, but I Saw the Devil is precisely that.  Striking moments, stricken faces and the melancholy howls of the soundtrack linger with me vividly. I can't shake its raw power. South Korea has transformed into a force to be reckoned with in recent years, and this film is one of the most striking recent examples of the kind of great work that country is producing. It's more violent than almost any American film released in 2011, and yet uses violence more effectively and more responsibly than many American films.

6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy



Though Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy won a great deal of acclaim, there's one common complaint that I'd like to address: the notion that the movie is too confusing. Alfredson's adaptation of John le Carre's great spy novel is an intentionally disorienting experience that flings viewers into cold water and then orders them to stay afloat. Part of the thrill of the movie (and many le Carre novels) is the exhilarating sense of discovery: that moment when a little piece of information finally clicks and all of the pieces start falling into place. Many thrillers attempt to build excitement by allowing the audience to watch as the characters slowly discover information we found about out about long ago.  This one builds excitement by allowing us to slowly catch up with the characters; it's a movie which requires the viewer to lean forward and engage with what's happening. Fortunately, the film rewards our attention with precise, unwaveringly well-organized direction which allows us to feel that we're in good hands. The movie also benefits from a host of fine British actors populating even the smallest of roles, with Gary Oldman leading the charge as the weary, unflappable George Smiley. There's a great moment midway through the film in which we hear a line of dialogue which has been uttered in countless movies over the years: "We're not so different, you and I." It's a line which is usually delivered from the villain to the hero, but it's the protagonist Smiley who utters those words in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In Alfredson and le Carre's icy Cold War world of deceit and impersonal treachery, it can be difficult to distinguish the heroes and villains amidst all the shades of gray. The film's sharp left hook of a climax simultaneously reveals the full extent of the film's chilliness and the surprising depth of its empathy; leaving us as disoriented emotionally as the film's opening scenes left us disoriented narratively.

5. The Descendants



"You'll laugh, you'll cry," is the oldest critical blurb in the book, but it just might be true in this case. The Descendants is a movie which finds enormous humor in its bleakest moments, and one which reveals enormous sadness during its funniest moments. Part of the reason it's so moving is that director Alexander Payne resists easy sentiment; The Descendants elicits its tears by recreating warm and painful familiarities rather than simply offering crass manipulation. The complicated emotions the movie generates are reflected by the complicated premise: a husband and father (George Clooney) is told that his wife (who is in a coma after a boating accident) will die soon. Shortly after, he learns that he wife was cheating on him. The combination of anger, confusion and grief combined with the responsibility of raising his two daughters on his own makes his existence nearly unbearable. The film might have been, too, but Payne and Clooney find so many bracingly irreverent laughs without ever cheapening the depth of the film's emotional undercurrent. The latter's performance may not seem like a dramatic change-of-pace at a glance, but look closer: Clooney strikes some new notes and allows himself to be more emotionally exposed than ever before. The Descendants is one of the year's most impressive and challenging tonal balancing acts, and by the time it concludes you feel you know its rich characters personally.

4. The Artist



Here's why this movie is ranked so high on this list: it made me really happy. It might be easy to take a quick glance at the movie's promotional materials and guess that I'm honoring this movie because it employs the double-gimmick of being both silent and black-and-white while paying homage to a long-forgotten cinematic era. No. The Artist is a marvelous romantic comedy which uses its position as a silent movie as a springboard for tremendous humor, invention and joy. It's liberated rather than constrained by the lack of audible dialogue. To be sure, it pays affectionate homage to the old hams of the silver screen (this movie's version of silent movies runs closer to Douglas Fairbanks than F.W. Murnau), but the movie is in love with the limitless potential of the medium - silent or not - to bring happiness to viewers. The humor is frisky and frequent, the moments of drama have legitimate weight, the romance is persuasive and the actors seem incredibly pleased to be a part of the whole affair.  There are fine supporting turns from well-known pros like John Goodman (very blustery), James Cromwell (very noble) and Penelope Ann Miller (very rigid), but the movie belongs to French stars Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo. As established silent star George Valentin, Dujardin offers a smile so radiant that the screen can barely contain it: when he grins, he seems so overcome with delight that you can't help but grin along with him. Meanwhile, Bejo offers an exuberance not entirely dissimilar to Paulette Goddard in Modern Times; a fresh-faced energy and warmth that allows one to instantly understand why Valentin falls for her as quickly as he does.  The machinations of the plot require these two to spend a good deal of time apart, but that's only because it knows how badly we'd like to see these immensely likable people get together.  The only thing wrong with The Artist is its title, which effectively disguises what an accessible, appealing crowd-pleaser it really is.

3. Melancholia



There is a part of me which would like to place this film much lower on this list.  Not because it's lacking in craftsmanship (director Lars von Trier delivers exhilarating contrast by selectively dropping artful, elegant, jaw-droppingly gorgeous sequences into a movie largely built on effective shaky-cam naturalism) or great performances (Kirsten Dunst does the best work of her career, and is backed by a uniformly impressive supporting cast) or thematic depth (von Trier incorporates potent symbolism much more persuasively than he did in this film's companion piece, Antichrist), but because my relationship with it is so fractured and contentious. Melancholia is the most effective portrait of depression I've ever seen, made by a director who has famously used filmmaking as a way of dealing with his own depression.  While Antichrist was an impressive, disturbing movie about depression, Melancholia seems to take things a step further: the film itself is depressed, and depressing (perhaps the most potent rebuttal to Roger Ebert's claim that no great movie is truly depressing). Melancholia is also a blatantly nihilistic movie. That's nothing special in and of itself, but leave it to Von Trier to find liberation and exhilaration in nihilism. Melancholia is nearly as persuasive in its anguished, disgusted, despairing view of the world as The Tree of Life is in its serene, uplifting perspective.  Melancholia is a film of dangerous beauty; crushingly sad yet bizarrely enthralling and cathartic.  It's almost certainly von Trier's most accessible and immediately engaging film, which only adds to its potency. Lars von Trier can be maddening, exciting and unsettling, but he should not be ignored. By all means proceed, but proceed with caution. An easily-seduced deep thinker like Michael Fassbender's Carl Jung wouldn't stand a chance against the death-affirming arguments of Melancholia.

2. Take Shelter



I spent a great deal of time debating which film to put at the top of my list for 2011.  It pains me to put Take Shelter in second place, as it's genuinely one of the finest films I've seen since I began reviewing movies (in fact, it sat on top of the list for a lengthy period of time before I changed my mind yet again - I came so close to caving in and just calling it a tie). Nothing could have prepared me for this emotional wrecking ball of a movie. Sure, it's a brilliant film on many levels. On a basic surface level, it works superbly as a Twilight Zone-style thriller (even though that description makes me wince a little, as it makes the film seem vastly more gimmicky than it really is). On a deeper level, it provides a pitch-perfect snapshot of life in present-day America; subtly nudging us with painfully familiar little reminders of the countless political, social and economic storm clouds which have been quietly building in recent years. On yet another level, the film functions as a showcase for actor Michael Shannon, who delivers one of the strongest, most searingly authentic performances I've seen by anyone, ever (Shannon makes some of this year's highly-touted awards-bait performances look remarkably shallow in contrast - the fact that he wasn't even nominated for an Oscar is shameful).  However, beyond all of that (though incorporating much of that), the movie creates an emotional vortex which quickly sneaks up on you and then consumes you. Take Shelter is relentless once it has you in its grip; leaving you spent and in a daze by the time it finishes dragging you through an increasingly affecting, impossibly tense series of developments. It's common for some reviewers to employ aggressive hyperbole when describing certain movies: "It grabs you by the throat and won't let go!" they'll say of something like the latest Luc Besson action flick. However, such hyperbole is merited in the case of Take Shelter. Once it hits you, it leaves a mark.

1. The Tree of Life



It's entirely possible that Terrence Malick's latest film is the most ambitious, audacious piece of cinema since Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The structural similarities between the films are striking: they begin with two shorter opening chapters, move into a lengthy third chapter which forms the central storyline and the bulk of the film and then conclude with an enigmatic trip into the future. Both offer beautifully-told tales of specific people in a specific place (Kubrick offers the saga of the relationship between two astronauts and a devious computer, while Malick offers the coming-of-age story of a young man living in 1950s Texas), but both are about so much more than what they're about. Of course, Kubrick and Malick are dramatically different filmmakers on some levels, as Kubrick's movies are as chilly and sterile as Malick's are teeming with untamed organic life. Even so, it's increasingly hard to shake the feeling that the two are very much in the same class. How many other filmmakers share the remarkable combination of raw talent and endless ambition which Kubrick and Malick have demonstrated?  There are too few filmmakers willing to dream big, and even fewer capable of actually realizing those dreams. 2001 and The Tree of Life are truly great movies, but much of their greatness is found in what the viewer brings to the table beforehand. The wonder of The Tree of Life is the manner in which it manages to tap into so many basic-yet-profound elements of human existence, inspiring us to recall our own childhoods, belief systems, spiritual journeys and family relationships as we reflect on the enormous questions Malick poses. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, it all might have come across as eyeroll-inducing new age hokum. Then again, a lesser filmmaker probably wouldn't have even attempted it. Many films have left an impact on me in assorted ways, but few have stirred my soul in the way The Tree of Life does. My emotions were all over the place when I left the theatre after seeing it for the first time, but the overwhelming one was gratefulness. I was so grateful that I had been given the opportunity to witness such an awe-inspiring work of art. The Tree of Life is the best film of this year and quite a few others.

An addendum: Last year, I placed Shutter Island at the top of my list because it was the ultimately the film which had the largest emotional impact on me (some might judge this as a suspect way to pick the year's best film, but I would contend that cinema is fundamentally an emotionally-driven medium). It's no mistake that the three films which top this year's list are movies which had a similarly overwhelming impact. At the end of Melancholia; I was convinced that it was simultaneously one of the most genuinely depressing yet strangely exhilarating movies I had seen. At the end of The Tree of Life; I was convinced that it was one of the most legitimately profound and transcendentally beautiful movies I had seen. At the end of Take Shelter; I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that I had only been watching a movie. What a remarkable year 2011 was.

I'd love to hear your thoughts/picks/etc., so hit me up with your feedback.

Sometime soon, I'll offer some honorable mentions and useless awards.

Back at ya later