I’m a big supporter of giving great filmmaking its due regardless of genre. One of the most critically ignored genres is that of the children’s film. Where in literature works for children such as “Through the Looking Glass” have been canonized for generations of scholars, yet it seems that some amazing children’s films have been overlooked simply because they share a genre with flicks starring sunglass-wearing gerbils voiced by has-been comedians. So here’s my list of children’s movies I feel should be given credit as great films outside of their genre.
All of these songs and their artists are highly recommended by me, as evidenced by the fact that they seem to dominate my new computer’s iTunes:
10. “Make Her Say” by Kid CuDi – One of the best songs on the radio this summer, I can’t seem to get myself to stop listening. Kanye + Lady Gaga + talented rap newb = awesome.
9. “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire – Maybe it’s my love of the “Where the Wild Things Are Trailer” (so good, I’m not even sure we need a movie) or maybe it’s my love of good music, but I put this song at the top of my summer driving mix and it takes a few listens to get to song #2.
8. “Bang Bang” by Sara Schiralli - I first heard this on that episode of Weeds when Nancy makes a horrible life choice (oh wait, that’s all of them). Schiralli puts other shy-voiced indie singers to shame by actually singing with amazing emotion. It’s just plain cinematic.
7. “Gravity Rides Everything” by Modest Mouse - I put this song in my first student film, which made me feel hip at the time and cliched in hindsight. Regardless, it’s an under-hyped Modest Mouse song with a driving beat and powerful melody.
6. “Ordinary People” by John Legend - I just remembered how much I liked John Legend and revisited this song a lot this summer. Maybe not his best song, but certainly his most memorable outside of his collaboration with Andre 3000.
5. “B.O.B” by Outkast - If you love music, you’ll love this song. Actually, if you love music and haven’t heard this song, you may be mistaken in your definition of music. (Hint: It goes in your ears.) Sadly, I just saw this as #1 on Pitchfork’s best songs of the decade list. Damn you, Outkast! Making me agree with Pitchfork!
4. “Machine” by Anni Rossi – Ethereal yet earthy, a gorgeous song that can be appreciated if you let go of the quirk factor.
3. “Paper Planes” by M.I.A - It makes me feel like a bad-ass when I listen to it.
2. “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here” by She and Him - This is a bit unfair since I’ve been learning to play this song, but I can’t deny that She and Him have a charm few other bands can match.
1. “Modern Leper” by Frightened Rabbit - From another band that likes animals and adjectives (see “Modest Mouse” above) is one of the best anthemic indie rock songs I’ve heard in years. If you can feel those vocals over the steady rhythm guitar, you’re a freakin’ rock and should maybe think about joining the CIA.
I’m not sure why it took me this long to review what ended up being one of my favorite movies of the year. Rachel Getting Married
Rachel Getting Married is both fascinating and real, humorous and genuinely dramatic. I’m still not sure why this Jenny Lumet-penned flick didn’t take the best screenplay prize when it has some of the most realistic and entertaining dialogue I’ve heard it quite some time.
The film starts Anne Hathaway as Kym, a young 20-something who gets out of rehab for the weekend to attend her sister Rachel’s wedding. As Kym’s neediness for attention brings out some old family scars, the wedding becomes a crock pot of suppressed feelings about to overflow. The film questions how one continues to love a sister or child after she has done the unthinkable, testing the limits of what any human can forgive as a mistake.
Hathaway manages to give a gritty performance that doesn’t gloss over Kym’s imperfections to highlight her physical beauty. Over the course of the film the audience goes from being charmed by Kym’s off-color humor to annoyed with her neediness to angry with her selfishness to finally sympathizing with her as an otherwise decent humanbeing with some pretty heavy issues.
I would recommend this movie to anybody in a heartbeat. Anybody.
I had the awesome opportunity to see Alexander Brøndsted and Antonio Tublén’s dark comedy, “Orignal.” The film, which is something along the lines of “Amelie” meets “Fight Club,” balances its quirky fairytale tone with dark plotlines fairly well. (The film takes on a sort of unpolished “Pushing Daisies” vibe, so fans of that show should definitely check it out!)
The film follows Henry, a banker who gets fired when he flips off an angry would-be loaner. Surprisingly, Henry strikes up a friendship with the same man who got him fired and the two decide to run off to Spain and start their own restaurant. Before he can leave, however, he needs to find a way to say goodbye to his mother, who has been institutionalized since a breakdown after Henry’s father died in a hunting accident. Henry goes to Ikea to fake a video of the “home” he told his mother he started and recruits the punkish yet adorable clerk, Marie, to play the part of his wife. Things turn complex when Henry falls for Marie and gets tangled up with her boss’s drug run in an effort to raise enough money to bust his mother out of the asylum. What follows is the makings of a charming comedy with a thrilling yet zany crime plot.
The performances are magnificent, with all of the leads creating characters that are both absurd and sympathetic. Sverrir Gudnason, who plays Henry, is particularly appealing as a loveable romantic who is innocent without being unrealistically doe-eyed. Marie, played by the talented Tuva Novotny, is strong-willed and independent, which is a refreshing change from the stock “girlfriend” characters we often see in plots with either crime or romance.
The film is in Swedish and Danish with English subtitles. I haven’t heard anything about it being picked up for an American release, but I can’t imagine anyone would let this goldmine of comedy and charm go unsold for long. Keep an eye out for it! (Especially those who miss the adventures of Ned, Chuck, Olive, and Emerson!)
It’s been a while, but I thought I’d write a quick post on how RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME the Chuck finale was. Even though I had read some early spoilers, I was completely surprised by the ending. The suspense was thrilling and it just goes to show how scripted television can outdo unscripted shows anyday.
For those who don’t know, this incredibly entertaining series is on the bubble for cancellation. It’s dedicated fanbase even took to the streets and started a campaign to buy Subway footlongs all day and send the receipts to NBC to show that product placement in the show works. I thought this was creative (though ultimately, I think ratings and upfronts will be the dealbreakers). Crossing my fingers that the numbers are up this week!
For a glimpse of the sandwich campaign, watch Zach Levy (AKA Chuck) lead 600 Chuck fanatics to a Subway:
If you haven’t seen Chuck, get thee to your media viewing platform of choice and watch it NOW!
While I know the show is two seasons in, I have to give today’s recommendation to NBC’s “Chuck.” First of all, tonight’s episode (“Chuck Versus the Dream Job”) was one of the best it’s had to day. Second of all, the ratings have been dropping and there’s rumors of cancellation, so I thought I’d give my voice of support.
The show combines comedy, action, and drama in a thoroughly entertaining way as it chronicals the life of a computer store repair guy (the eponymous Chuck) who accidentally has every government downloaded into his brain. Despite the rather unrealistic high concept, the show creates a believable reality for its sci fi-ish premise and feels less like a Star Trek episode and more like if a young Kevin Smith directed a James Bond movie. Most episodes center around an A-plot featuring Chuck and his two government handlers as they thwart some criminal master plan using Chuck’s ability to “flash on” (i.e. remember) images related to crime organizations and a B-Plot that deals with either Chuck’s loving sister and her fiance (nicknamed “Captain Awesome” by Chuck) or his nerdtastic friends at the “Buy More” (a fictionalized Best Buy) where he works.
While most of the action plots are familiar yet well-crafted, what makes Chuck really stand out is its development of its characters. Chuck’s handlers, for example, are the NSA’s tough-ass John Casey (played by Adam Baldwin, which is reason enough to watch the show) and the CIA’s attractive Sarah. These characters could easily be a stock brute and blonde bombshell, yet the show’s writers have given them the chance to make interesting choices that flesh out their personalities. Casey is torn between his growing protectiveness of Chuck and his orders to eventually kill Chuck if a new “intersect”/super-computer-that-replaces-Chuck’s-mind is built. Sarah has to act as Chuck’s cover girlfriend while keeping their actual feelings for each other buried. The result is a constant tension between the handlers and Chuck that can be both hilarious and heartbreaking.
It’s not too late, fella’s. Turn on your TVs Monday at 8 for the awesome. Especially recommended for anybody who loves comedy, action, or secret agents sheltering a human super computer.
While The Stingy Scholars is not the most active blog on the internet (it’s last post was in December 2008), its archive of information on free learning resources is definitely worth browsing. If you ever wanted to learn a language, take a no-credit college course, or read a free textbook, this is definitely a blog you should check out.
The blogger who runs The Stingy Scholar posts lifelong learning finds for those who wish to expand their knowledge without shelling out the bucks for a college or professional development course. He lists colleges that have open courseware (where they post the syllabus and lecture notes for their classes so non-students can follow along), online databases for free textbooks, language learning sites and podcasts, and other educational finds. All of the links include comments on how and why the resources are recommended.
If you’re like me and find learning on your own a source of entertainment in itself, you might also want to check out Self Made Scholar, another site with amazing resources for self-learners. It has a very comprehensive list of self-learning resources online, free online courses, and free textbooks.
The above links are recommended for nerds, geeks, and the incurably curious.
For those who enjoyed the singing Hugh Jackman post or Wolverine/X-Men in general, check out some of the awesome Wolverine Fine Art Cards at Full.Body.Transplant. Basically, they’re illustrations of Wolverine as if done by famous artists.
While the Dali one is most impressive, the funniest is a Van Gogh-styled portrait with a severed ear in Wolverine’s claw.
One of the best Christmas presents I ever received was the Criterion Collection DVD of one of my favorite films, The Third Man
First of all, for those who aren’t familiar with this classic thriller, The Third Man (starring Joseph Cotton, Allida Valli, and Orson Welles) follows a pulp western novelist, Holly Martins, as he travels to post-WWII Vienna to visit his old school buddy Harry Lime. When he gets there, he’s greeted not by Lime himself but by Lime’s funeral. While the British police tell him to leave the matter alone since Lime was a shady character in the Vienna, Martins decides to investigate what looks like more than a car accident anyway. The resulting story is one of the best thrillers studio Hollywood has ever created, full of both surprising plot twists and moral dilemmas as Holly learns more and more about the war-torn city and its struggling inhabitants.
I won’t give away the ending, but I must say it’s one of the most touching and poignant final shots I have ever seen. If you don’t want to spring the extra bucks for the Criterion edition of this classic, I definitely would recommend at least renting the flick on Netflix to experience how the collaborative Hollywood system of filmmaking (this film is definitely anti-auteur) can produce some amazing and complex cinema.
The Criterion Collection edition of the film reminds you that DVD still has a place in the movie-viewing experience. Watching the extras included on this 2-DVD set is like taking a semester-long film class at college. They aren’t just filled with interesting trivia and entertaining extras (though they are entertaining), but they actually provide amazing insight onto the theory and practice of making a film like The Third Man.
First of all, the restoration of the film is amazingly crisp. It shows the deep shadows of the high-contrast black-and-white cinematography as closely to the original film as possible on a TV monitor. There are two sets of commentaries, one by director Steven Soderbergh (whose own style certainly has been influenced by this film) and another by film scholar Dana Polan. This combination of practical and theoretic examinations of the film carries on throughout the rest of the extras, which serve as a buffet of information for film buffs and casual viewers alike. The complete list of extras, from the Criterion website, are as follows:
- Video introduction by writer-director Peter Bogdanovich
- Two audio commentaries: one by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Tony Gilroy, and one by film scholar Dana Polan
- Shadowing “The Third Man” (2005), a ninety-minute feature documentary on the making of the film
- Abridged recording of Graham Greene’s treatment, read by actor Richard Clarke
- “Graham Greene: The Hunted Man,” an hour-long, 1968 episode of the BBC’s Omnibus series, featuring a rare interview with the novelist
- Who Was the Third Man? (2000), a thirty-minute Austrian documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew
- The Third Man on the radio: the 1951 “A Ticket to Tangiers” episode of The Lives of Harry Lime series, written and performed by Orson Welles; and the 1951 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation ofThe Third Man
- Illustrated production history with rare behind-the-scenes photos, original UK press book, and U.S. trailer
- Actor Joseph Cotten’s alternate opening voice-over narration for the U.S. version
- Archival footage of postwar Vienna
- A look at the untranslated foreign dialogue in the film
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Blu-ray edition includes a booklet featuring an essay by Luc Sante
- Double-DVD set includes Sante’s essay as well as pieces by Charles Drazin and Philip Kerr
As you can see, there are way too many features to discuss in this post. If for nothing else, it’s worth it to check out these DVDs for Welles’ fantastic radio series about Harry Lime, which is amazingly written and performed.
In summary, I definitely recommend this film to fans of classic movies, thrillers, or the amazing human being that is Orson Welles.
