Day 165 - Planet B-Boy

Planet B-Boy (2008) directed by Benson Lee

Confession. A guilty pleasure of mine is watching YouTube videos of b-boys (and girls) dancing. I appreciate the smooth moves, the body control, the intricate choreography, and the insane athleticism. As Ken Swift, an OG breaker, says in the 2008 documentary Planet B-Boy, "Breaking is a legitimate dance - as legitimate as any other dance that has existed."

Planet B-Boy takes the viewer around the globe as dance crews from different countries prepare to compete for Battle of the Year, the World Cup of breakdancing. It is held every year in Germany with little fanfare outside of those who actually care. The competitors aren't even put up in hotels; they are afforded mattresses on the floor of of an elementary school and they practice in the school gym. There is a grand total of 3000 euros for the winners. But try telling these people that their dreams are small in the grand scheme of things. To them, dancing is something they've dedicated their entire lives to; it's what they love, how they express themselves, and what drives them.

We get to learn a little bit about each of the crews, what dance means to them and how it differs from country to country. For instance, the French are known for their artistry, the Koreans for their powerful moves and the Japanese for their innovation and energy. While they may be from opposite corners of the world, they understand each other through dance. As you would expect, a common theme of the film is the universal language of dance, how it crosses borders and can bring people together. The French crew, Phase T, has a young white kid in their group. His mother admits her apprehension to the idea of her son hanging out with a bunch of big black guys. His teammates were "6 feet tall and black, black, black." Her son is "petite and blonde, blonde, blonde." She's since come around to the idea. And there are of course the compelling individual stories. One Korean dancer dances for honor hoping to make his father proud. A Japanese dancer dances for his dead father's memory.

The highlight of the film obviously is the dancing which is of course amazing. Throughout the film we see the crews practice routines and individual dancers doing their things, but in moderation, balanced nicely between the lengthy exposition. When the crews finally arrive in Germany and the competition begins, you pretty much get a highlight reel of amazing dance moves till a winner is crowned. But this movie isn't about who wins or loses at the end. It is to show the passion and common bond these people have for dancing and it shows big time.

Grade: B+

Day 164 - 50/50

50/50 (2011) directed by Jonathan Levine

While I was in college, my good friend was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. One day we were talking about being roommates, a couple days later he was telling me that he had to transfer to a school closer to home for treatment. It just really blew me away, only 18 years old and fighting for his life. Thankfully they caught it at an early stage and he's fine now, but it could have just as easily gone the other way. So when watching 50/50, a movie about a young man who finds out he has cancer, I tried to think back on my own experiences with my friend and it struck a chord with me. No, it wasn't me who had cancer nor was it me that had to take care of him, but I do remember the times we were able to hang out, how useless I felt in trying to help.

No one likes to talk about it, but being around sick people is exhausting, guilt ridden and depressing work. My grandmother suffered a stroke a couple months ago and is now in a nursing home. I try to visit as often as I can, but it just depresses me to no end to see her laying there. In many ways, illness can affect the people around the patient even more so than the patient. What I liked a lot about 50/50 is that the film isn't just about Adam's perspective regarding his cancer, but also how the cancer affects the people in Adam's life.

Adam's girlfriend Rachel, who was already losing interest before the big news, is stuck in an impossible situation. How do you just pick up and leave your dying boyfriend? So, she puts on her brave face and tells him she will stay and take care of him. But she is his girlfriend not his nurse. She can't even bear to go inside the hospital for his chemotherapy. The sickness proves to be too much for her to handle and she ends up looking like the bad guy. It works for the sake of the film, but I think it is too convenient make her the villain, even though she is wrong. Cancer is messy and painful; there are rarely ever clean decisive answers.

The other major relationship of the film revolves around Adam's best friend Kyle, who tries to cheer Adam up by making everything a big joke and trying to put a positive spin on it. He comes up with the idea of using Adam's cancer as a way to hook up with girls. It works for Kyle, but not so much for Adam. Even if it seems like Kyle is just a selfish jerk, you realize he is doing the best he can to cope with losing his best friend. On the day of the big surgery, it is Kyle who drives him there. 50/50 was written by Will Reiser, who was diagnosed with the same rare spinal cancer that Adam has and Seth Rogen, who plays Kyle, is a close friend of his. Much of what Reiser writes about were actual conversations and experiences he shared with Rogen. Their therapy seemed to have revolved around their sense of humor. Through much of the film, Adam is quiet and somber, while Kyle is crude and obnoxious, and extremely funny, in a way that only Rogen seems to be able to pull off.

There is also Adam's mother, who is overly worried overbearing, but you can hardly blame her. Her husband is afflicted with Alzheimer's, now her son has cancer. She has every right to be just as devastated as Adam himself.

Another interesting dynamic is between Adam and his therapist, a young and eager shrink played by Anna Kendrick (by far the best actor to come out of Twilight). She is trained to help Adam cope with his cancer, but everything she knows about therapy comes from books and has little experience in dealing with people in Adam's state.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam pretty close to the chest. He displays little emotion throughout, instead opting to deal with his cancer quietly, almost in denial. He tells his shrink that he feels perfectly normal. What good is it to tell her that he is probably going to die anyways? He tries to keep in good spirits but you can see the fatigue in his face, the wear on his mind. He doesn't really open up about how he feels but it is written on his face.

They say the best medicine is laughter and it is clear that Reiser felt this way in writing 50/50. Yes, cancer is a mean and nasty sickness, but it doesn't mean it has to live your life with the same seriousness as the disease. The film is very funny throughout, but it's not all laughs though. It also takes great care to be serious when it needs to be and is surprisingly heartfelt and emotional.

Grade: A-

Day 163 - Heavenly Creatures

Heavenly Creatures (1994) directed by Peter Jackson

Within the first two minutes of Heavenly Creatures I was hooked right in. It opens with a series of Pleasantville-style clips of Christchurch, New Zealand, then cuts to the two girls Pauline and Juliet running through the woods screaming at the top of their lungs. The scene is frantic, mysterious, foreboding, almost scary, and in the end we get to see their faces more clearly, splattered with blood. Something terrible has just happened. The screen fades to black with this inscription: "During 1953 and 1954 Pauline Yvonne Parker kept diaries recording her friendship with Juliet Marion Hulme. This is their story. All diary entries are in Pauline's own words." And now the film begins.

This opening scene gives all the subsequent scenes an eerie sense of doom since we know how it is going to end. We get to see the two girls' relationship with each other grow to unhealthy levels while nobody around them really understands the true depth of their obsession. Even when the parents voice their concern, they really have no idea just how far gone Pauline and Juliet have become.

Pauline is sort of a loner at school but is immediately intrigued by the new girl Juliet, who within a couple minutes is already correcting the French teacher. Pauline, normally so reserved, is drawn to Juliet's bold personality and love of the arts and in turn, Juliet can appreciate Pauline's receptiveness and wild imagination. The two girls are practically joined at the hip upon meeting each other, laughing and giggling to themselves, immersed in their own little world in more ways than anyone could imagine. They create their own fantasy world of Borovnia where, as the film progresses, they visit more frequently and with more intensity to the point where they, and the viewer, cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality. Director Peter Jackson blends the fantasy elements into the film with such style and imagination that I sort of slipped into their world with them. It is a truly unique and imaginative film.

The intensity of their relationship is so overwhelming that its almost suffocating. It is even more than just love (the film implies some homosexuality), it is infatuation and obsession. They are so emotionally intertwined with each other that attempting to break them apart will prove deadly. However, as is the case in many instances, if the two never met each other in the first place, they probably would have turned out okay. It was just a matter of two emotionally disturbed people coming together at the right time.

This film is notable for being Kate Winslet's debut role and she is really good here as Juliet. It's always interesting seeing one of an established actor's earlier roles and she basically looks exactly like she does now and has the same kind of presence to her in her other films. This was also Melanie Lynskey's debut role as well, who plays Pauline and is equally up to task. I actually don't really recognize her at all, even though after looking at her filmography, I've seen a bunch of her movies. I wonder why their careers have diverged so much despite starting at the same point. It's sad to say but I strongly suspect looks has a lot to do with it; Kate Winslet has always been pretty.

Anyways, this is a great film that left me sort of reeling. I think more than anything it is really good at conveying the psychology of the two characters, which is enhanced by the film's wonderfully strange fantasy elements. Forget Lord of the Rings, this is Peter Jackson's real masterpiece.

It is interesting to note that Juliet Hulme only spent five years in prison and has since changed her name to Anne Perry, a best selling crime fiction author who's now 72. It's kind of crazy to think about really after watching this film.

Grade: A

Day 162 - Weird Science

Weird Science (1985) directed by John Hughes

This is going to be a somewhat shocking confession: I have not seen any of the films from John Hughes's 1980's teen comedy trilogy, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science. I don't really have any reasonable explanation for why, I just never got around to watching them.

Weird Science is sort of like every geek's life goal but played out in fantasy form. Study hard in school, get good grades, get a good job, attract a woman who is looking for stability and intelligence, score. That is how the real world works, but unfortunately not how high school works. The geeks and dweebs get picked on by the cool kids and ignored by the girls, while the cool kids run the school. This is obviously hyperbole but still kind of true. It never made sense to me of course, since the nerds are the guys who end up being rich and successful while the cool kids end up in cubicles working for them.

Anyways in Weird Science, best friends Gary and Wyatt decide to skip the whole growing up part to get the girl and just make one themselves, Frankenstein style. The only problem is that after creating Lisa, they're still the same socially awkward geeks. It's all about growing pains and getting over that hump. As most of us get older, we become more mature and sure of ourselves and thankfully the girls that are worthwhile do too. Lisa wants Gary and Wyatt to be comfortable as who they truly are, two wonderful guys any girl would be lucky to have. It is a kind of cliche made for the movies type lesson, but it does have a ring of truth to it.

So the film is pretty cheesy and its target audience is obviously for boys aged 15 and younger but I enjoyed watching it for pure nostalgia, which is strange since I've never seen this movie before and I was never older than seven during the '80's. Yet, I understood the kids' fears and anxieties perfectly well and, let's be honest, who hasn't fantasized about creating their perfect woman? I'm 28 years old and I am still pretty shy and socially awkward so the film still has some relevance to me. Weird Science isn't really a good movie, in fact some parts are actually pretty bad, but its cheesiness actually works for it making a fun and light coming of age story.

Grade: B-

Day 161 - Killer Elite

Killer Elite (2011) directed Gary McKendry

The other day my friend and I were discussing movies based on fact; you know the classic movie tagline, "Based on true events." It is somewhat of a misnomer because that can mean almost anything. Characters are changed around, inconvenient facts are ignored, other events are flat out invented, so it is important to take movies that present itself as factual with a grain of salt; they almost never are.

There is a caption in the beginning of the film that claims Killer Elite is based on real events. If this were true, it would be an incredible story full of espionage, murder, and intrigue. However, the characters are a little too incredible, the action a little too good for me to really believe this. Take away the "based on real events" tagline and what you end up getting is a somewhat pedestrian action thriller. The action would be spectacular in real life, but not really in the movies. The story would be fascinating if true, but not really in the movies. If you're going to take liberties with the truth, you might as well make it bigger and louder and more intriguing, otherwise you end up with a sort of wishy washy movie that tries to ground itself in fact but touched up for Hollywood.

As it turns out, the events of this movie are based on the book The Feather Men which itself claims to be based on fact. So why is the movie called Killer Elite rather than The Feather Men? Well aside from the more macho title, it's because the movie isn't really even about the events of the book. It takes one premise of it, the assassination of former SAS members over a seventeen year period, and makes an action picture out of it that spans no more than one month led by one man when in reality it must have been an entire multi-million dollar covert government operation. From what I gather, the character that Clive Owens plays may very well be based on a real person, but Jason Statham's character, the protagonist of the film, is almost certainly fictionalized or heavily altered. This begs the question then, if you don't have fact based characters and events to limit you, then why couldn't the writer of the screenplay write something more interesting than what he came up with?

Anyways, all that aside, it isn't a film's responsibility to present itself as factual. I don't hate on period films if they're wildly inaccurate, that is of course unless they claim themselves to be based on fact which Killer Elite sort of does. Either way, the film isn't really that interesting. It is also a bad sign if in the middle of an action movie, you think to yourself, "Man, this is a really long movie," only to find out that it isn't even two hours long. I like Jason Statham but it seems to be he plays the same character in every movie.

All in all, a pretty mediocre action movie that has its moments of intrigue and excitement, but also has long lulls that I wish were cut shorter or made more interesting. One of the questions I like to ask myself about the worthiness of a film is if I will remember anything notable from it three months from now; the answer to this movie is no.

Grade: C+

Day 160 - Man Bites Dog

Man Bites Dog (1992) directed by Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel and Benoit Poelvoorde

Man Bites Dog begins with a strangling filmed with casual indifference. This immediately sets the tone for the rest of the "documentary," in which fictitious serial killer Ben goes around causing all sorts of mayhem, which includes more murder, breaking and entering, robbery, and rape. He is no philistine though as he also provides invaluable insight to his crimes, such as the proper technique for weighing dead bodies down under water and why he rarely ever kills children (while suffocating one under a pillow). "They're too much of a hassle," he says. "Especially when the media gets involved."

This is an ironic statement considering the role media plays in this film. Ben is followed diligently by his camera crew who attempt to film a fly-on-the-wall type of documentary with as much objectivity and indifference as possible. However as the film progresses, the film crew becomes more and more involved with Ben's crimes. It begins with shining the camera's light in a dark room so Ben can locate his victim. It progresses to Ben allowing one of them to make a kill himself. In the pinnacle of their debauchery they take turns raping a woman.

The film is so over the top violent that it cannot be taken seriously, yet it is enough to make you think as to what they are trying to say. I took the relationship between Ben and his film crew as a statement of the media's role regarding the attitudes of violence. This can be seen in the news every day as the leading stories seem to always be crime related; murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery, etc. Man Bites Dog puts all this out in front and works well as a satire. While being very dark and morbid, it is also at times very funny. We are allowed to laugh because we realize just how ridiculous it is.

I like violence in my films as much as the next guy, and I think this film does it well, but its message seems so simple and obvious that I wonder if all the blood could have been saved for something more poignant. Or maybe there is something deeper, I just haven't figured it out yet. (I haven't read any reviews or analysis of the film yet.) I will give Man Bites Dog credit for having such a unique premise though; it had me hooked from the very start. It is helped by Ben's character, who is clearly a psychopath, yet is so affable and funny, making him almost likable.

Grade: B

Day 159 - The Long Good Friday

The Long Good Friday (1980) directed by John Mackenzie

Doesn't it seem like every gangster wants to make it in the real world? They always have dreams of going legit but as soon as they have one foot out the door something seemingly always pulls them back in. Meet Harold Shand. He is a London mob boss working on the deal of his life. With the help of the American mafia financing part of the deal, he intends to flip a bunch of real estate that could potentially earn him billions. But just as Harold is about to get everything he wants, an unknown enemy sets out to destroy everything he's built; first his good friend is stabbed to death, then a series of bombs targeting Harold's establishments. Harold only has the next couple days to find out who's behind it all before his American investors back out of the deal.

Almost the entirety of the plot is devoted to Harold trying to keep everything under control while figuring out who's behind all the anarchy. He often mentions the ten years of peace and prosperity under his rule that is now being threatened. He's graduated beyond the petty bullshit of the street, but as the story progresses he slowly but surely returns to his roots to get things done. Much of the joy in the film is in watching Bob Hoskins play Harold with a fierce conviction. He is without a doubt a tough as nails gangster. In one scene, he rounds up a group of suspects, hanging them upside down in a warehouse alongside racks of meat.

The film works as a mystery that slowly reveals itself to Harold and the viewer. We are introduced to characters and events that we have no context for until later in the film. If you're not paying attention (like I wasn't at some parts of the film) then you'll miss the answer to a question somewhere down the road, or conversely you'll have an answer to a question you didn't even know was asked. We can relate to Harold's frustrations as he seeks information but can never seemingly get it.

Even though I was lost at some points, I really enjoyed watching Hoskins just own the screen. His monologue, or rather diatribe, at the end is quite good as is the close up of his face to close the film. If there was just one thing to take away from this movie it would be Hoskins's performance.

Grade: B