"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (2011)

Love the poster for this.

I caught "Tinker Tailor..." after work. Not being a fan of LeCarré, but enjoying Gary Oldman's performances. I thought the movie did a good job, although it's kind of weird to see an early 70s-era Cold War spy thriller done long in the wake of the Cold War's passing. The movie was well-done, with assiduous attention paid to the 70s feel of the era, and with the rhythm and texture of English life at that time. That period detail, and things like the director's clear attention to sound, gave the movie a strong kinesthetic vibe that served to heighten the tension. I remembered snoozing through the original as a kid, but thought this one was well-done, with good montage and intercut sequences, and conveying the sense of paranoia surely endemic to anybody involved in espionage. I thought everybody did a good job in their performances, and there was a lot of subtext running through the story that was both dated (ooh, gay spy lovers) and yet worked in the context of the story. For a remake, it stands very well on its own, I felt -- they did justice to the original and probably surpassed it, in truth. Oldman's reptilian protagonist managed to be both urbane and oh-so-English and a cipher of a man, which felt very authentic -- much the way Max Von Sydow's gentleman assassin character was in "Three Days of the Condor," long ago -- genteel, but with that sense of chill deadliness to him.

Also, was tickled to see Mark Strong get some attention in a movie -- he always does a credible job in the roles he gets, and has that great voice of his, so, well-done, Mark Strong!

"The Grey" (2012)

The Big Bad Wolf gonna blow your house in, little piggy.

I caught "The Grey" after work. Had been impressed by the trailer for it, this gritty survival action movie. I liked it, although it is very much more than simply an action movie or thriller; rather, it's more of an extended meditation on mortality, honestly. This carries all the way through it, from start to finish -- "Don't be afraid." It's not really about man vs. wolves, even though the wolves carry throughout it, and are marvelously presented. Some folks have groused about the use of CGI for the wolves, but they are very effective, and the director makes good use of them. If anything, he uses them with restraint. I wished he'd had more howling with them, although in some scenes, it's done to great effect. Really, the wolves are a metaphor for mortality, or for the ineffable savagery of nature, the inevitability of death, and the futility of man's paltry and hubristic ambitions in the face of it, while at the same time the need for honor and compassion and kindness in the face of it. Death comes quickly and horribly to the characters in the movie, and in so many different ways. It's like the Angel of Death swoops in and *voila* you're gone. And for this to plague a group of men who survived a plane crash, no less, it's even more affecting/haunting.

This is not a comforting, comfortable movie, but it was a well-crafted and -executed exploration of mortality. The plane crash scene alone is devastating and effective, unadorned and devoid of sentiment. there is merely the will to survive and endure in the face of nearly impossible odds.

I don't think it's a perfect execution (pun intended) of the premise; I would have liked more characterization of the characters in it, in other ways than them having actorly talks around the bonfire (the kinds of scenes actors probably love, the chance for monologue), and at nearly 2 hours in length, they could have made more use of moments to bring out that characterization. I imagine people seeing this movie thinking that it's going to be an action flick will be pissed off by it, but the logic of the film is woven throughout it, and, as you reflect upon it, it makes perfect sense, and is as admirably constructed as it is grave. I left the movie feeling pretty down, which stayed with me awhile, and, having been bathed in this frigid Alaskan wilderness for a couple of hours, found the well-lit noise and human hustle-bustle of the streets of Chicago to be a jarring transition. Our culture runs and hides from death, as a whole -- the message of advertising is "enjoy today, forget about tomorrow" and "be young forever!" -- and having come out of that movie, this cognitive dissonance was very apparent.

All of the actors worked credibly within their roles, and Liam Neeson did a good job, as ever. He manages that gravelly gravitas that is well within his comfort zone, but which he brings to bear with that earnest, unadorned nobility. I'm glad that Neeson has managed a kind of late-era action hero status -- you can tell that he's the action hero for the senior citizens/Baby Boomers these days by the fact that he's risen over the years as the go-to guy for these kinds of "old guy kicks ass" movies. It's like as the Boomers take one last, long slide on the banana peel they've been standing on their whole lives, headed for the grave, they cling to someone like Neeson to make it alright.

Anyway, good movie, a serious movie, and one that'll leave you thinking, if you're inclined to think at all. Which means that many people will probably be disappointed and disillusioned, but I wasn't one of them.

Fabulous

I love these vintage Chicago posters! They're so great! It's amazing to think that at one time so much attention was paid to illustration like that, to create these beautiful posters.

Quickly

Can't believe January's nearly over. I wonder how it feels to old people, if time shoots by even quicker for them. When you're a kid, an hour can seem like an eternity, and a month might as well be a year. But nowadays, a month blows by so quickly, seemingly.

The boys are peacefully sleeping right now, very sweetly. I love that B1 sleep-laughs. That really cutes me out. He never remembers what made him laugh, but they're hearty laughs, whatever it is. B2 doesn't sleep laugh, but rolls around a lot.

I'm looking forward to "The Grey" coming out. Hopefully it's at least an entertaining movie. The trailer for it looked promising enough, but we'll see. I'm a little worried, since they sometimes bury crap movies in January, but because it's so snow- and cold-themed, maybe they ran with that. Not sure. But I'll find out, anyway. I'm guardedly hopeful, I guess.

Saw that we were having some solar flares recently. I wish the US would be smart about protecting its infrastructure, but it seems like forward-thinking things like that are not our country's strong suit, anymore. Maybe that'll change. Maybe having massive power outages in the wake of a major solar storm sometime will change people's perspectives. I dunno.

Was marveling that we have 50 million uninsured in this country. There was just an article in the NYT the other day, comparing the US system to the rest of the First World (and, yes, all of those countries have national healthcare), and how much more expensive our system of care is, relative to theirs. We have good outcomes in particular areas, but the cost differences are extraordinary. For the supposedly more efficient private system (with 25% of the overhead tied to the administrative paper-shuffling of the insurance industry *koff koff*), our system is terribly expensive. A huge percentage of personal bankruptcies in this country are tied to healthcare. It's like a slow-motion trainwreck -- more and more employers opting out of coverage of their employees, more and more people unable to get the care they need, more and more uninsured. It's a disaster. And, unfortunately, a preventable one. We'll just shamelessly lurch along with our 50 million uninsured, with politicians (themselves covered by national healthcare, mind you) busy trying to scuttle Medicare and Medicaid and push everybody into the private insurance industry, whether they can afford to pay or not. Disaster.

Although I will qualify it by saying that around 43% of those without insurance are non-citizens. But that still means we have 25 million Americans who don't have health insurance, millions of whom are children and the elderly. That's just a mess. And as more companies opt out of coverage, that number is going to continue to climb.

This is kind of a fun applet, tracking your food spending. According to what I input on this, I spend far more on groceries than most Americans, but I eat out far less than most Americans, too. Maybe it's because I enjoy cooking, I'm not sure. Still, it's fun to see that data compared.

Windy

All of that snow we got the other day mostly got washed away in some thunderstorms. Now it's turning into a windy mess as the temperatures crash again and we're supposedly due for some more snow.

The boys were watching some Star Trek: TOS. B1's favorite episode remains "The Doomsday Machine," as I knew it would be. It was the first episode he ever saw (and I picked that one as the first one because I knew he'd love it so much). We were talking about the nature of the Planet Eater, and B1 had his share of theories about it, which cracked me up. The enhanced DVDs actually work well -- the CGI they used to update the special effects were really well done, are seamlessly woven into the story.

6 to 8 Inches

Winter finally decided to show up properly in Chicago! We're getting a snowstorm right now, supposed to deliver 6 to 8 inches of snow. The city's grinding through it, as ever, but traffic's a mess. Our first real snowstorm of the year. Makes me glad I did my big grocery run last weekend, since it means I can just hunker down and not sweat the weather. And the new sleds I bought for the boys came in, just in time! I'm really happy about that; the timing couldn't have been better. They'll be super-stoked to try'em out tomorrow. Actually, I will, too! I'm curious to see how much we'll get, but it looks like there's already 4 inches on the ground. It's really coming down quickly.

Chillin'

Man it was damned cold today! Beautiful light, but just COLD. I'm not complaining, just stating the facts of it. I'm pretty resistant to the cold, and even then, I still felt chilled by the winds nailing the city. Brrr! Still, less annoying to face the cold than massive snow and the cold; usually, when it's super-chilly in Chicago, we don't get much in the way of snow.

Sure

Ever have a day like this?

Draconic

So, I'm probably the only person in the world who hasn't read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (or wanted to, frankly), since it's like the bookfad of the past year or so. I call a "bookfad" any of those books that become bestsellers beyond their actual merit as works of fiction -- like the whole "Twilight" series (which people far and wide criticize as being terribly written, but it hardly seems to matter).

I saw the Swedish original movie was in a discount bin (figuring that they were trying to piggyback on the whole American remake of it being out), and so I watched it, and was bored by the movie. It's packaged as a crime thriller, but I'd call it a crime un-thriller, honestly. It was about the slowest-paced "thriller" I've ever seen, and at something like 2.5 hours, it took a long time to mosey where it was going.

Didn't think the characters were particularly well-drawn, and the one people seem to love, "Lisbeth," was even more boring to me. Surly wunderkind neo-goth, hairy-armpitted, overmuscled, photographic memory-having, motorcycle-riding computer hacker chick? Okay. I wasn't terribly convinced by the character, didn't find her particularly compelling.

And given the obvious themes of the movie, I did some background reading on this whole bookfad, and I guess the late writer's back story was something about how he saw some girl getting gang-raped a long time ago, and did nothing to stop it, felt guilt about it, and crafted this character (who was, allegedly, her namesake) as a way of atoning for his failure to do anything in the real world. Which is very writerly, of course, but I think it is also lame, in that the character is just hard to swallow (pun intended).

She's like the perfect girlfriend for Hellboy, honestly -- there's that same kind of arc between those characters. A disagreeable superbeing who has a bone to pick with the universe. It's so clear that the writer loved this character, without there being anything particular about her to love.

Obviously, it's the movie I'm critiquing, here, but many reviews I've read of the book point to the bad writing and the poorly-drawn characters, so it looks like they translated that well in the screenplay. But, where bookfads are concerned, it doesn't actually matter. Nothing matters, because people are buying it, regardless.

There were a couple of reasonably good scenes in the movie, but it was largely a snooze for me. I found myself getting fidgety and bored watching it, and even some of the "outrageous" scenes were kind of rote to me.

Now, one could claim that Lisbeth's militant neo-feminism might have been off-putting to me, except that it's just not so. I just didn't find the story terribly striking, didn't find the mystery so mysterious, and, following my general rules of thumb regarding suspense movies, was able to figure out who the killer was with ridiculous ease. All of the components of it didn't coalesce for me.

I read somewhere that the title of the original book was something like "Men Who Hate Women" -- and those themes are very apparent, which makes me think that the book is maybe for Women Who Hate Men Who Hate Women or something like that, which probably accounts for its success. But at least in the movie, following the character's progression, she's a flat line -- she starts out bad, she ends up bad (oh, with a whisker of feeling for another character in the story, but she still comes off as one badly damaged Pop-Tart).

Again, with bookfads (and the accompanying movies they inevitably inspire), actual criticism of them as books is ultimately meaningless. Adherents might say I should read the books and decide for myself, but the concept just doesn't compel me, and I've read enough reviews that rip on the writing to make me think it's not worth my time -- life's too short for bad writing. But I certainly watched the movie thinking "Wait, so THIS is what people are spurting about?? THIS??" and feeling ever more chagrin that this is what passes for edginess with the mainstream.

It's like the pop culture equivalent of a bunch of barnyard animals calling out in fear and awe from behind the fencing because somebody spraypainted a fox on the side of the barn. Oooh!

Getting the Sled Out

I'm going to take advantage of the momentary snow on the ground to take the boys sledding today. They've been waiting for a proper snow for the past month or two, so I'm going to make the most of it, since I don't know how long the snow will last, honestly. But for the moment, there's enough, so we're on it!

Oscar Grouching

I enjoyed "The Artist" the second time around, although, having researched it a bit, I was kind of peeved that the leading lady in it is the wife and/or squeeze of the director. They have a couple of kids together. That somewhat tarnishes her otherwise great performance, in my view. I never like when the squeezes of directors get plum roles that way. But she does a good job in her performance, so I don't complain much.

The attendance was very good, too. I was glad to see that. The movie should win some Oscars, but we'll see how that all shakes out, politically. It'll probably snare the Foreign Film category, maybe Costume Design or Cinematography or something. We'll see. It likely won't win Best Picture, compared with some of the others it's likely to go against. But it should win some Oscars, to be sure. And more than one. I mean, you'd have to be a total asshole not to enjoy this. Even John Goodman's very well-played producer asshole loved it! Baha!

It was frickin' cold last night! Outside, anyway. The apartment is toasty as ever, but outside, bitter cold. It's like the area remembered that it's winter, and Old Man Winter came in with gusto. Many months of this ahead, of course. I'm cool with that (get it? Winter? Cool?)

Once Again

I'm going to see "The Artist" again this evening; it's the first time I've seen a movie twice since "Midnight in Paris." I'm greatly looking forward to it!

The winds are howling outside. Proper winter has momentarily arrived. Although, with the steam heat in my building, it's all toasty in my place.

I kept waking up last night, so I'm a little sleep-debted. Meh. I could try to wrangle a bit more sleep, I suppose, but I doubt it'll happen. When my brain wakes me up, that's that (almost always).

Gonna do a big grocery run tomorrow, my usual monthly foray, with the snow offering a slight complication to the mix, but no big deal. Just makes it a bit more of a PITA to park.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Snow, Man!

Finally got a winter storm! Can't believe this is our first one -- that we're nearly into mid-January, and this is the first proper snow we've gotten! Amazing.

The boys are stoked, of course, hoping to take the sleds out. We'll see if we get enough snow (and if it stays -- supposedly the temps are going up again).

It certainly looked pretty, though.

Shout It Out

Lost my temper the other day, which is a rarity -- this old guy blithely ran a stop sign at a pedestrian crosswalk I happened to be crossing, and the guy nearly hit me, had to swerve to avoid me, and I shouted at him "STOP SIGN. STOP. SIGN!" and then gestured, yelling "PEDESTRIAN! CROSSWALK! YOU [BLEEEP-BLEEEP] IDIOT!" The guy saw me and took off. He looked like he was afraid I was going to stomp on his car (and I was tempted, but I held back). I was so pissed, for like a minute, which is about how I operate. I so seldom lose my cool like that, but when somebody does stuff like running a stop sign and nearly clipping a pedestrian (who happens to be me), it pisses me off. The moment made me realize how rare it is for me to get pissed like that. I try to take most things in stride, and am largely successful at that -- I don't whine or complain, I don't get pissed very often. I do get annoyed from time to time, but that's about it. It takes something particularly bad to piss me off, I guess, and even then, I am probably likelier to laugh at the absurdity of it than to shout about it.

Speaking of shouting, I took the boys to their favorite pizza place, and we were in a nice corner booth, and across the room was another family -- dad, mom, and two boys, one of whom was very young, I'm guessing about 4 years old? My boys were kind of fascinated by that, because the little kid looked over at us and made noise, and my sweet boys waved to the kid. But the dad was this surly guy, and he actually yelled at his kids a couple of times (one of the exchanges was him yelling at his son "Go ahead! Take a bite of the pizza, you'll burn your mouth, and I guarantee you'll never do THAT again!"), and it totally upset my boys. They were like "Those poor kids; they have a mean, yelly daddy!" And the dad was browbeating the waitress, too, which was upsetting to me (he kept after her, kept carping about things, barking orders, like "Bring me another water. With lemon. Make it a FRESH lemon! And plenty of ICE! No, wait -- make it a LIME. Do you understand? A FRESH. LIME." -- and he's yelling this at her) and the waitress caught my eye as she went off to do that with a look like "Yeah, that guy's a fucking asshole!" B1 said to me later about it (I always know when something bothers him like that, because he mulls it over and will talk to me about it later) "Why'd he yell at the little boy? The kid was too young to know he'd done anything wrong. That'll just scare him." I just said that some parents thought yelling was the way to keep their kids in line, and B1 said "But that doesn't work; it'll just make the kids mad or scared of their own parents." B2 had his own opinions on it, mostly saying that he was really glad I wasn't a "Yelly Daddy." And I'm not, thankfully; I take most everything in stride where the kids are concerned. I think Exene yells more than I do, from what the boys say. I don't know; I think seeing a "Yelly Daddy" in action seemed very strange and unfamiliar to the boys, so they reacted to it with contempt and dismay.

Of course, if they'd seen me at that stop sign, they'd have been shocked by that, too. And if I'd had the boys with me when that prick had run that stop sign, I'd have probably broken his windshield with my invective.

The Artist

I saw "The Artist" tonight, the black-and-white silent movie, and it was great! I enjoyed it mightily. It was everything I think "Hugo" aspired to be. Amazing achievement, and I'm so glad I saw it on the big screen. As a movie lover, it was just so much fun to watch the director's clear love of movies show in how he shot it. A picture-perfect period piece, and as a silent movie, no less! I was very impressed.



I really enjoyed "The Artist." Everybody about it was enjoyable -- the casting, the costuming, the shots, the situations -- it was both staggeringly self-referential and postmodern and incredibly entertaining. It's the first movie I've really enjoyed in a long time. It was a sweet lil' love story, an exercise in cinematic style -- funny, inventive, delightful.

And it was really weird for me, since I watched "The Shadow" last night, which was a fairly lavish, if somewhat empty retro movie (which had Penelope Ann Miller in it, among others), and tonight I watched "The Artist," which had a much-older Penelope Ann Miller in it!!! WTF? That was just very trippy.

Totally worth your time, and a trip to see a silent movie about silent movies in this day and age. Bravo!

Happy Birthdays!

To the King...

And the Thin White Duke!

Remember the A La Mode

I had a strange and amusing dream last night, which was in a kind of documentary style, about this decorative Alamo that was, for some reason, in Chicago, and this tycoon who had flown into O'Hare, and had seen that Alamo as he was coming in, and had asked one of his friends where he should stay, and one of them quipped "How 'bout the Alamo?" To commemorate this, the guy then hollowed out the decorative Alamo (which was about the size of a tool shed) -- he had landscaping around it, and had stairs leading into it from either side. Inside it was this very shiny, liquid-smooth black benches, with rose- and blue-hued neon and argon lighting. The whole effect was like something straight out of the 80s. You could just sort of hang out in this odd, Vegas-seeming Alamo, with, of course, a commemorative plaque recounting the story of this bizarre construction, which had become a kind of legendary tourist attraction. I was there with my mom, explaining that to her, so there wa the straight-up documentary voiceover part of the dream, and then there was me explaining the place to my mom, who found it amusing, as well.

Landa

Having watched "Inglorious Basterds" again, the villain, Hans Landa, really stands out. The Austrian actor (Christoph Waltz) who portrayed him did a great job with the character. Definitely one of the best cinematic villains to emerge in years.

Landa Laughing

Landa montage (fake trailer)

It's not easy to take something freighted with baggage like a Nazi character and make him more than a caricature of evil, but Landa was a great character, combining a serpentine charm with a toadlike oddness and a diabolical intelligence to make for a perfect villain. Any scene he enters, you can't help but feel dread, and, to his credit, Tarantino uses him masterfully throughout the movie.

Radiator

I don't know if the hissing radiators did it to me, but I dreamed I was driving a Mercedes and the thing was perilously close to overheating, so I stopped the car somewhere and checked the radiator, which was nearly out of water, and went about filling the radiator up. Some celebrity had a cameo in the dream, like the gal who was fetching the water. It was like Claire Danes or Naomi Watts or somebody equivalent. I can't remember, now, but I kept having her get water, before realizing that there was a hose nearby, and that I could use that, instead. Anyway, I took care of that, only to wake up to the sound of the radiators, so I think my subconscious was on task, trying to solve the problem of it being too hot and/or me being thirsty, etc.

New

So, now it's 2012. Woo hoo! Nothing much exciting to say. It's frickin' cold out. Winter is finally, properly here, at least for the moment. True to form for Chicago, it'll likely hang on until March. We'll see if we get another mega-blizzard like last year. I think the pattern of the warm(er) temps and accompanying moisture in the air raises the risk of a big-ass snowfall. We'll see if it happens.