THE FALL (2006)

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For film lovers. For art lovers. For those of you who have ever fallen in love with a story and its teller.

The Fall speaks in color and beauty – transcending traditional filmmaking. This is an art film. Each scene a painting in itself, this film is a Salvador Dali come to life. The director, Tarsem, offers a magnificent opening sequence (as featured: http://www.artofthetitle.com/2009/01/09/the-fall/). Genius. The rest of the film is shot in over twenty beautiful countries.


The motif of “falling” is the resplendent repetitive notion of lives in motion, making mistakes, sinning, falling from our pedistals of chance and fate and grace. It’s a question. It’s a fear. It’s a risk that, once taken, affects the entire rest of your life. It’s about life and living it. It’s about family and fathers. It’s about loving someone enough to stick around for the rest of the story. It’s the retelling of a silent picture as seen in the mind of a little girl. The teller (Lee Pace) becomes her hero and her friend. The percieved quest is one of external healing; the actual is internal as the listener becomes the unexpected hero to save her dear friend.

This film IS found in the horror genre for some disturbing violence. But as I promised Andrew that I would, I’m letting you know now that it ends well.

TRANSFORMERS 3 Dark of the Moon

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Dear Michael Bay,
Your robot action scenes in this latest “opus” were your tour de force.
No, really. You promised metal on metal fight sequences and you truly delivered. That’s one small step for Shia, and one giant Optimus leap for you personally, Mr. Bay. Your budget must have been enormous – no exaggeration. And your cast? Come on! John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, McDreamy, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese – and that little guy from Community and the Hangover movies who is always saying how proud he is to be asian? Shia was no slouch either. You must be doing something right in the big budget movie world. I mean, every junior high boy will most likely start mowing lawns or selling puppies for the chance to see a movie that they will feel like they wrote, like they could have acted in, that they all would have cast the lead girl in. These same boys could grow up in the belief that girls like that actually exist for real. Not to burst bubbles boys, but she is a robot. No, not in the movie. For real. Shia may be the only real person in this flick. I know because he cries seven times. This movie stretches the imagination – it makes us all believe that alien robots exist, that losers can score chicks, that bad writing can be covered over with better and more explosions, and that models can act. It’s all make-believe. Thanks, Michael Bay. Directing robots, it’s your gift.
Sincerely yours,
S.J.P.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011)

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I spent the loveliest week in Paris this afternoon. No, I know, I have always wanted to go there. It was perfect – just as I’d imagined it. Who? Oh, I was there with some of my favorites like Owen Wilson, Michael Sheen (no relation to Charlie, no), Woody Allen, and Adrien Brody.

T.S. Eliot, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and a few of their artistic companions joined us, Matisse, Dali, Degas, Gauguin & Picasso to name a few.

Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, & even Alison Pill & Kathy Bates were there.

 

We all swooned and danced to Cole Porters tunes and fell in love under the same sparkling pink lights lining the Seine.

I shall always agree with Gertrude Stein who said, “America is my country and Paris is my hometown.”

TREE OF LIFE (2011)

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I read a book that changed my life. The priest Henri Nouwen spent two years of his life contemplating Rembrandt’s painting called “The Return of the Prodigal Son” and allowing the biblical truths exuding from the story within the art to change his life’s direction. From then on, he lived to aid the disabled.

Terrence Malick, writer and director of Tree of Life, is a painter whose medium is film. Each screen shot an ethereal glimpse, otherworldly. I feel that I could sit before his art as Nouwen did Rembrandt’s and gain a sense of place and purpose.

Malick would prefer that his films be experienced. True. They wash over like ever-present repetitive tide. New understanding rolls in with each new wave, christening the viewer. Life at it’s origin streaming on even plain with creation at it’s chaotic, violent genesis. A baby is born, and another. Adam & Eve. Cain & Abel. The Fall – Sin enters the world. “Mother. Father. Always you war inside me.” Grief. Death. Pain. Regret. It’s all there. Whispered in prayers to God creator.
The father and mother attempt to impart a perfect existence, but fail, and often. Children sweet and freshly taught have inherent, sin-imputed, imperfect natures. “Mother. Father. Always you war inside me.”
New baptized, audiences leave in silence. This water is as chaotic and cataclysmic as the flood, but as filling to the senses as Reepicheep’s beloved sea water in Dawn Treader. Ah, Lewis. Ah, Malick. Ah, vivid, visceral joy.

Watch the art of life as painter makes screen his canvas and film his medium from which to question the very fabric of life, from Dust to Dust.

SUPER 8 (2011)

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In this summer’s surprise smash hit, J.J. Abrams teams with his own hero mentor, Spielberg, to give us a Goonies meets Band of Brothers monster flick.


It’s the recipe for a great film: take a heaping dollop of daddy issues, followed by two generous spoonfuls of 80’s small town in peril, a tablespoon of star-crossed lover scenes (don’t hold back on the eye-contact). Fold in neatly with enough gasp-enducing special effects to keep the wide-eyed curiousity aglow. Bake in quirky, unforgettable characters with sass and style –  knowing that the secret ingredient is the boy, a lovely, likable, unlikely hero of great character, forgiveness, integrity, bravery, and worth. Only he can save the day. Brilliant. Profound. This film makes me want to make movies. I didn’t love the bad language, but when do I?

I believe that art mimics artist when given a life of its own. J.J. Abrams is a filmmaker.

This word is now synonymous with a Wonka-esque dreamer in my mind. One who makes candy from nothing.  Just as Frankenstein’s monster reveals both the cruelty and heartache of his maker, so J.J.’s film shows J.J. himself – as a child dreaming of making movies. Certainly this fiction roots in reality. We write what we know. J.J. is all about the characters, the journey. Please watch J.J. Abram’s Ted Talk on “The Mystery Box.” Recognize with delight that both the first starship on Star Trek (2009) and the prominent gas station in Super 8 are both named for his beloved grandfather Kelvin who bought him his first Super 8 camera.

Super 8 reminded me of a few great life lessons:

On Monsters and aliens – 1) both are dangerous geniuses – light years ahead of us technologically. 2) All aliens, perhaps since E.T., still just want to go home. 3) If it looks like it could eat you, it probably will. 4) Most monsters have a level of empathy, and therefore require it in return.

On Humans – 1) Bad guys are no longer two-dimensional and therefore more cunning. 2) Forgiveness is paramount – the key to freedom.  3) Drugs are bad.  4) Kids CAN save the planet, and, 5) Fathers can be heroes after all.

Happy Summer, one and all!

PIRATES 4: On Stranger Tides

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A fresh start on the old tides. A new director, (Gore Verbinski directed the last 3) Rob Marshall offers a likable new storyline under fast action starring our classic hero. Jack Sparrow is as likable as ever – perhaps more so. No despicable rabbit trails in this one – sure this one has zombies, but even they are likable. And the three or so longer moments of “background story” dialogue are fashionably delivered when a lull is allowable. Pirates 4 tasteful with only the expected amount of double entendre, surprising with Penelope Cruz on set. She plays the perfect pirate, perhaps her most fitting role yet. But, the favorite character was the prayerful one. Reverence, and the fight for a soul despite his past sins – this is a rare theme in popular cinema. We’ll now be on the watch for the up and coming Sam Claflin. This precious boy fights for even the worst of characters, stands up for the helpless, and sacrifices to save others. He is not overtaken by lust. He is the true hero of this story. Pirates, we well know, are not men of their words, do not stand for truth, and serve only selfish ends. This character, Philip, redeems the soiled name of the clergy by remaining righteous to the end.
At last, a new Pirates movie that did not make me stand up at the end and scream, “I want my life back! 3 hours of my life!”
I’d see it again. Absolutely.

THOR

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Thor. Norse God of Thunder. I’ve never been prouder to be Norwegian. I know now more than ever that I come from a people of stoic grit, of muscle and beauty, of intensely sexy loyalty, and of refreshing strength… of character.

Thank you Kenneth Branagh. I thought you couldn’t top your King Henry the V speech, but I am once again happy to be wrong. You are a monarch of the Shakespearean genre, and now a director hero in my heart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM

I was shocked by the pleasant blend of decent, believable characters in this smashing story of legend.

Great Mother’s day event for my 100% Norse mama.

NEVER LET ME GO

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 Foreboding and fearful. A marriage of beauty and heartbreak.
Never Let Me Go shows unlikely grace as tension lifts the veil of innocence revealing sweetly mingled ashen, somber, inevitability. Clones designed for “completion,” being raised to donate piecemeal organs. A sci-fi thriller was never wrapped in prettier packaging of sunset bows and pale blue hues. Never, since perhaps The King’s Speech, have British accents so beautifully and curiously canvassed a topic of this magnitude.
Performed brilliantly by Carey Mulligan, Sally Hawkins, IzzyMeikle-Small, and Andrew Garfield. The scene on the abandoned boat makes me love Garfield (and gives me hope for the future Spiderman).  This film destroys me. Most shots were framable. Despite the ache in the pit of my stomach, I am wooed by the beauty of this film, by the stark pain, by friendship, by the power of a song, by pity, by love.

A SINGLE MAN

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Ponderous tragic eloquence. Shot by shot a masterwork. Beautiful.
Stop time.
Refuse to budge as the butterfly takes wing.
Notice each moment as if it were your last.
Cry for broken people.
Ache for lonely hearts tempted to catastrophe.

I didn’t know that a single film could saturate to this level of desperate sorrow. I am wrecked. All humans need to shelter within our Savior. He is our only hope in this life and beyond.

FAST FIVE

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My brother took me to the perfect birthday movie: FAST FIVE. Imax. Bellevue. 11am. I’m one of 2 girls in the theater. This movie has everything that a true action movie should: a) non-stop, pump-up action scenes

b) fist pumping and high-fiving (puns intended)
c) explosions and hot people

d) high kicks and crazy parkour jumps off of buildings

e) short sentences

f) family bonding and team training scenes ala Oceans 11,12,&13.

g) fast face close-ups leading to slow curving half smiles that exude those juicy one-liners like Vin’s “We gonna need some guns.” followed by his, “We gonna need some cars.”
[aside: I think I need more Vin in my life].
And finally, what we’ve all been asking Santa Clause for for years now: a muscle to muscle, brawn to brawn, fist battle between Vin and the Rock.
Mark Sinclair Vincent versus Dwayne Johnson. Pipe-busting, cement-crushing, face-mashing, throat-choking fun. I haven’t laughed so hard in a movie since…

This one is about loyalty, about fatherhood, about sticking up for your family and your friends, against the Brazilian bad guy who smuggles hot cars and weapons and drugs, who uses the police to forward his cause, who kills blindly for money in Rio – …gorgeous, sweaty, tropical, colorful, crowded Rio.