Tampa Film Fan

film fan finding:horton hears a who

Looks like I forgot to write a review of Horton Hears A Who. In the interest of time, I’ll copy and paste what I submitted to the Tampa Tribune way back when:

What I Liked: This is my favorite Dr. Seuss story, so I’m a little biased. Jim Carrey does a great job as the voice of Horton, the shy but friendly elephant who discovers that the entire world of Whoville exists on a tiny speck stuck to a flower. Whoville’s goofy mayor is voiced by Steve Carell, who also does a great job. The movie’s animation is vivid and colorful by itself, but Carrey and Carell make the movie come to life with their energetic, entertaining voice performances.

Score: 8 out of 10

Film Fan Finding: A

film fan finding:fool’s gold

This is way overdue, so I’m just going to copy and paste what I wrote about Fool’s Gold for the Reel People section of the Tampa Tribune a while back:

What I Liked: I wanted to like this movie. The lush, gorgeous shots of the ocean (filmed in Australia) were breathtaking to see on the big screen. I like Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson and the chemistry they have together. Donald Sutherland is usually amazing, no matter what the role. Did I mention how beautiful the Australian beach scenes were?

Score: 2 out of 10

Film Fan Finding: C+ (I don’t know what happened with the score of 2 above. I think I was going for a 4 and made a typo.)

film fan finding:cloverfield

If a large, seemingly-unstoppable monster of unknown origin suddenly attacks New York City and no one in our cell-phone-addicted, self-obsessed, it-hasn’t-happened-until-I’ve-blogged-about-it society records their last panicked moments with their camcorder, did the end of the world really happen?

If a movie needs a viral marketing campaign, scores of devotees providing explanations on message boards, and a “secret clue” revealed by playing the brief audio clip (from the end of the credits) in reverse in order to shore up the non-existent backstory and fill in the holes of the plot, is that movie worth a trip to the local cineplex?

Does Cloverfield’s unusual and somewhat intriguing first-person point of view make it any easier to sit through 80 stomach-churning, headache-inducing minutes of violently shaky, unsteady camera work?

Does suspending one’s disbelief enough to watch a monster/disaster movie in the first place make it any easier to overlook weak characters, lapses in continuity, hastily-conceived plot points and an unsatisfying ending?

If I hate a movie so completely that I was actively rooting for all the characters to die so that I could get the hell out of the theater, do I have to waste my time struggling to write a proper review that’s not sarcastic and grumpy?

No, no, no, no and hell, no.

Film Fan Finding: C-

film fan finding:i am legend

Here’s what I thought of I Am Legend (scroll down to the third review).

Film Fan Finding: B

film fan finding:no country for old men

I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

– Sailing To Byzantium by William Butler Yeats (Online text © 1998-2007 Poetry X. All rights reserved. From The Tower, 1928)

No Country For Old Men is brutal. Mesmerizing. Stark. Bleak. Haunting. Depressing. Upsetting. Annoying. Thought-provoking. Confusing. Beautiful.

In other words, it’s a Coen brothers adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel.

The film opens with scenes of barren but beautiful Texas landscape, with a voice-over by Tommy Lee Jones as the world-weary Sheriff Bell. He recounts the case of a teenager who murdered someone just because he was curious. Bell’s monologue explores the main theme of this film: the nature of the human soul. McCarthy took the title for his book from the first line of Yeats’ poem Sailing to Byzantium, posted above. The poem never reveals the fate of the speaker’s soul and neither does the film. Like the speaker in the poem, Sheriff Bell is on an exploration for which there are no easy answers.

Josh Brolin is the self-reliant Llewellyn Moss who, during a routine hunting excursion, stumbles across the aftermath of a failed drug deal. Moss isn’t upset by the bloody bodies and deserted cars; instead he’s curious. His curiosity leads him to return to the scene, where he tracks the remaining victims and discovers a suitcase containing over $2 million dollars.

After Moss finds the money, the film turns into a slow, steady, suspenseful game of cat and mouse. He doesn’t know who or when or where, but Moss knows that sooner or later, someone is going to come after that money.

That someone is the relentless assassin Chigurh. Javier Bardem is incredible in this role and has created one of the creepiest villains of all time. Unlike Hannibal Lecter, Chigurh doesn’t revel in his wickedness or take delight in terrorizing his victims. He kills because he’s evil. Because it has to be done. Because people are in the way, or because he made a promise, or because of a coin toss.

Moss is on the run with the money. Chigurh is chasing Moss. Moss sends his wife away to hide. The businessman behind the drug deal hires another assassin, played by Woody Harrelson, to follow Moss. The Mexican drug dealers want their money back. Chigurh is stalking Harrelson’s character. Moss’s wife is looking for her husband. Throughout it all, Sheriff Bell is looking for all of them, even though he’s not sure how many people to look for. He knows that it won’t end well for most of them and there’s not much he can do to prevent it.

That’s the way the audience feels, too. There’s no musical score to the film, no aural cues that encourage a particular response or warn of impending doom. I watched this movie with one hand over my face — which is my standard viewing pose for horror movies, which this movie is not — because the suspenseful anticipation kept building and building. I knew things probably wouldn’t end well for most of the characters, but I had to see it through to the end. I had to find out what happened to these characters that I had become so invested in, no matter what happened or how painful it might be to watch (hence the hand over my face).

And then — poof! The movie is over. With key scenes taking place off screen. With storylines unresolved. With questions unanswered. With haunting dialogue by Sheriff Bell that bookends the opening monologue.

The Husband and I instantly and vigorously disagreed about the ending. He thinks it is brilliant to not spoon feed the audience every detail. He says that things don’t always wrap up neatly in real life, so this film’s ending is realistic. He likes being able to interpret the characters’ actions for himself.

Not me. I like my film endings neat and tidy, with everything resolved and all questions answered. I feel like I’ve been cheated by the jarring, abrupt ending. Where’s the last third of the movie? From what I’ve read, the movie is fairly faithful to McCarthy’s book, which also ended without tying things up neatly. Kudos to the Coen brothers for not changing the ending…and damn them for that as well. Perhaps the whole point is that there are no answers. Life is a jumbled mix of good and evil, smart decisions and bad ones, accidents and coincidences. I get that; really I do. I still want answers, though, especially at the end of such an intriguing movie.

We talked about the movie for days afterwards, dissecting every detail. The cinematography was beautiful, the omission of background music a stroke of genius, and the casting absolutely perfect. And the questions; always the questions. What really happened? Why was this particular action shown off-screen? Who ended up with the money? What would have happened if the characters had made different choices?

We plan to see it again over the holidays and will probably still be discussing and dissecting it come Christmas time. After you’ve seen No Country For Old Men, please join the discussion. We need a tie-breaker on some of our questions.

Film Fan Finding: A-

film fan finding:sharkwater

“Life on land depends on life in the ocean.” — filmmaker Rob Stewart

I wrote briefly about Sharkwater a while back, but wanted to write up a complete, more “official” review. (Very belatedly, I know. My apologies.)

Photographer Rob Stewart started out making a simple movie about sharks and ended up — five years and millions of dollars later — with a moving documentary about shark preservation.

Did I just say shark preservation?  Shouldn’t we just kill all the sharks before they kill us?  Absolutely not and this film tells us why.

Sharkwater opens with crisp, lush scenes of the ocean, then a beach, where Stewart walks along the sand with the beautiful blue water as a backdrop.  Through his narration we learn of his life-long love for the water and for sharks.  “The animal we fear the most is the one we can’t live without.” He states that sharks are not like they are portrayed in the media and the film takes us on a whirlwind look of various “shark attack” news clips and videos, including part of the ominous opening scene of Jaws.

As part of his job, Stewart went to the Galapagos Islands to dive near two underwater volcanoes known for their large schools of hammerhead sharks.  He found more than he was looking for, however.  His crew discovered abandoned illegal fishing “long lines,” lengthy lines embedded with hundreds of hooks designed to capture large numbers of fish.  Stewart and his crew pulled in all the long lines and set free over a hundred sharks and other sea creatures that were still alive, and released the many that weren’t.

That discovery was the turning point for Stewart.  He left his job as a photographer to make a movie about sharks.  Despite the predatory image ingrained in us through movies and TV news, sharks only kill a few people a year.  Sharks have two senses that humans don’t have and use those senses to bypass humans and hone in on their intended prey. Stewart explains how sharks are vital to the ecosystem and how their population is being decimated, often for the Asian culinary delicacy shark fin soup. He mixes “hidden camera” footage of shark finning with interviews with various activist and ecological leaders. Stewart also provides ample gorgeous footage shot underwater and set to a beautiful soundtrack.

Stewart joins the crew of renegade activist Paul Watson’s ship and documents the activist group’s trip to Costa Rica. They confront angry fisherman, engage in physical combat with the fishing boat, sneak into a shark fin-processing plant and secretly film what they saw there, anger the Taiwanese mafia responsible for the illegal Costa Rican shark finning industry, get arrested for murder, sneak out of the country, confront the Coast Guard, and finally escape to international waters. Oh, and after all of that, Stewart is hospitalized with the flesh-eating disease and then sneaks back into Costa Rica after recovering.

Stewart’s dedication to his mission is beyond question. His filmmaking ability isn’t bad, either. Sharkwater is beautiful, moving and educational. However, I wish Stewart had inserted more data and hard facts in the film to back up the claims made onscreen. I don’t want to see graphs and slides a la An Inconvenient Truth, but I think that including some of the research that supports his assertions into the film would make Stewart’s case stronger. (I’m pleased to report that after I saw the movie, I spent a couple of hours researching Stewart’s assertions online and found supporting documentation to back up all of the statistics and claims from the film that I had jotted down in my notebook.)

Film Fan Finding: A

To learn more about sharks, Sharkwater and Stewart, visit www.savingsharks.com.

film fan finding:elizabeth:the golden age

Here’s what I thought of Elizabeth:The Golden Age (scroll down to the third review).

Film Fan Finding: B

go see the movie sharkwater this weekend

I caught a screening of the new documentary Sharkwater earlier this week and have been thinking and reading about sharks ever since. In the movie, filmmaker/photographer Rob Stewart presents “the softer side of sharks” — did you know that soda machines kill more people per year than sharks do? — and teaches the viewer about how vital sharks are to the ecosystem and to us.

Stewart also exposes the horrors of the shark finning industry.  Sharks are caught, their fins are cut off while they’re still alive and they’re thrown back in the ocean to bleed to death, drown or be attacked by other sharks.

I met Stewart at the screening and had a chance to talk to him again this afternoon.  Well-spoken and knowledgeable, Stewart is passionate about spreading awareness of sharks and the need to protect them.  In addition to being educational and moving, his film Sharkwater is absolutely gorgeous, with beautiful underwater scenes.

I’m 3/4 of the way through my review of Sharkwater and 1/2 of the way through transcribing today’s interview, but some personal medical stuff has popped up and I’ve got to take a brief break from blogging.  I’ll post the review and the interview first thing after I get back.

In the meantime, go see Sharkwater when it opens tomorrow!  Visit www.sharkwater.com to learn more.

(Don’t just take my word for it…ABC Action News’ Brendan McLaughlin liked it too.)

film fan finding:harry potter and the order of the phoenix

I’m glad I’m not a professional film critic.  While that would be a dream job, I would get fired once I turned in a review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  I’m not a Harry Potter fan…there, I said it.  So I was dragged to this movie against my will.  I saw Order of the Phoenix and still have no idea what it’s about. 

Let’s see…it was dark and ominous.  Harry and his friends discover a secret, fight against evil and try to protect Dumbledore.  Strange things are happening at Hogwarts.  Weird characters…spells…attempted spells…thwarted spells…some Hogwarts characters were barely in the movie. Dark…and a little boring.

On the plus side, Hermione has finally discovered conditioner and the red-haired kid doesn’t yell “Hair-ree” in that annoying way anymore.

Film Fan Finding: B-

film fan finding:the great pretenders

Back in the spring, I saw the short film The Great Pretenders at the Sunscreen Film Festival. In a very brief review at the time, I said “Wickedly keen with solid acting. One of my favorites of the festival.” Since then, I’ve tracked the film’s successful progression through the film festival circuit. Because I enjoyed the film so much, I volunteered to write a longer review for the filmmakers. Here is that very belated review:

Did you know that there’s a funny side to job layoffs? I didn’t, until I watched the short film The Great Pretenders. Writer/director Jeremy Cohen tells the story of middle manager Scott Matter, who gets laid off from his corporate job and sent to an outplacement service for job-seeking assistance. Run by Hope Withers (the name says it all), the outplacement service offers job hunters an office environment in which to conduct their job searches. At first, Matter is positive, energetic and doesn’t worry too much. Soon, however, the stress of corporate life starts to wear him down…until he remembers that he doesn’t have a job. He’s in a man-made “corporate purgatory” that has sucked him into the rat race in a most hilarious way.

In addition to Cohen’s brilliantly snarky social commentary, this movie features superb acting talent. Kelly Miller is great as the earnest Everyman Scott Miller, while Bruce Sabath is perfect as the lonely, sad-eyed, permanent job seeker Cliff. Part Glengarry Glen Ross and part Office Space, The Great Pretenders is an absolute delight.

Visit www.greatpretendersmovie.com to learn more about this film.

Film Fan Finding: A