Chuggin' Along

So!  I have been dangerously delinquent on updating this blog.  I don't know if it was resolution fatigue or what, so I'm going to make a couple of preemptive statements regarding the future of this blog:

- Setting myself deadlines, it turns out, makes me not want to update.  SO.  Updates will go back to a "Whenever I feel like I have something to say" schedule.  Hopefully this will lead to an increase of words.

- Going forward, I am still going to try to keep to the "post reviews within 48 hours of seeing a movie" clause, because the fresher a movie is in my brain the better I can tell you all about it.

I'm playing with the idea of combining this blog and my book blog (Alternative Read) into one giant media entity, because then I can also flail all over about the tv shows I'm watching (spoiler alert: I get a lot of feelings about tv) and everything can be in one happy location.  I'm still trying to figure out what platform would best serve that purpose, so I'll keep you updated and, in the meantime, try to keep these things updated, as well.

ENOUGH ABOUT THAT, LET'S TALK ABOUT MOVIES.

Since last I spoke here, I've seen:

Mama.  I know, I KNOW.  Apparently I can't claim that I don't do horror movies anymore, because not only did I pay to see this in a theater, but I didn't actually have any nightmares after!  (I do have to make a studious effort to get it out of my brains if I think of it pre-bedtime, though.)  It was good!  Surprising no one, because Guillermo del Toro, duh.  Jessica Chastain and the little girls are fabulous - the girls especially do a great job of being creepy and endearing and feral and a whole bunch of other stuff.  The ending veers into melodrama territory, and is maybe a touch too overblown and tragic, but it's satisfying and ultimately makes sense.  I do confess to keeping my eyes glued on my knees during many of the scenes where you actually see the ghost, but: baby steps.

Fat Kid Rules The World, which: AWESOME.  This was one of the best YA books I read for my YA literature class in library school, and I was really excited when I found out that it got made into a movie and then successfully Kickstarted a distribution.  I got to see it when I went out to the American Library Association midwinter conference in Seattle, because someone from YALSA (the young adult division of ALA) e-mailed the director and said she wanted to screen it - he sent her a complementary copy and some awesome bumper stickers (proclaiming DON'T F*CK WITH THE FAT KID).  The movie, while obviously a slimmed down version of the story, captures the important stuff - and I felt like the people who made it really got the book.  It's about self confidence, self acceptance, punk rock, dealing with family issues, high school bullshit...all that teenage angst wrapped up in Troy, the titular fat kid, as he navigates what starts off as a pretty shitty life - but improves significantly when he gets involved with a drug addict/punk guitarist, Marcus.

Silver Linings Playbook, which was fabulous - the story itself has the skeleton of a typical rom-com, but the cleverness and sensitivity of the writing as well as the stellar performances elevated the whole thing.  Jennifer Lawrence, who I seriously want to be when I grow up (except that she's YOUNGER than me, which doesn't give me self esteem issues at all, thank you very much), is seriously charming - she's all broken edges and enviable hair and sharply witty remarks.  I like Bradley Cooper more and more, because I think he's very willing to step outside of his comfort zone and push his characters to the max; he does a whole host of things here that I haven't seen from him before, and it makes Pat's manic-depressive fluctuations believable, scary, and ultimately sympathetic.  Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver as Pat's long suffering parents are also pitch perfect, especially Weaver, who plays Pat's mother with a quiet tolerance that speaks volumes even when she doesn't.

Warm Bodies: I don't actually have a whole lot to say about this one, which speaks plenty in and of itself, I think.  It was...ok.  A serviceable zombie movie with an interesting perspective.  I didn't like how many things happened because Reasons (like the big plot hook, shown in the trailer - zombies are coming back to life because of...love?  OK, sure.), and the pacing felt off to me.  The acting is charming, but all in all I could have waited for the DVD release.

My Oscar Predictions go up on Friday.  Are YOU watching?

The Words

In spite of myself, I find myself becoming fonder and fonder of Bradley Cooper.

I have never liked him - which is not to say I don't recognize his talent, I thought he was quite good in Wedding Crashers and The Hangover (I was thoroughly underwhelmed by Limitless, for more reasons than him).  I've just always gotten this incredible...smug feeling from him.  He seems smarmy to me, like in real life he'd be kind of sleazily good looking and take advantage of every drunk girl in the room.  (PLEASE NOTE: I have NO IDEA if this is true.  It's probably not.  But it's the air I got from him.)

Well, I'm coming around.  While The Words suffers sometimes from being too clever for most of its plot lines - including never actually stating that it's about Hemingway's lost manuscripts, even though it's totally about Hemingway's lost manuscripts - it is saved by completely absorbing performances and the very bold risks it takes.

Let's talk about that for a minute.  When I was picking a movie to see this weekend, I narrowed my choices down to Lawless and The Words.  The deciding factor, after weighing hearsay, actors, and subject matter, was length: The Words caps out at 97 minutes long.  Aside from movies intended for children, I can't even remember the last movie I saw in the theater that was less than two hours long.  The trend seems to  be toward longer and bigger stories, which isn't bad in and of itself, although it does make for some poor editing choices.  The Words, however, commits to its short length, with tight storytelling and good editing.  There's no wasted time here, and no wasted space.

The only real missed opportunity is Zoe Saldana as the wife of Bradley Cooper's suffering author, who only ever pops up to react to something he's done.  What she does, she does beautifully (no one can cry like Zoe), but she's better than this role, and could have brought some real edge to Dora if she'd been given more material to work with.

But the story is the real star of this show, with three twisting strands: you have Dennis Quaid as author Clayton Simmons, giving a reading of his book.  That book is about author Rory Jansen, struggling in NYC to get his labor-of-love manuscript published.  He finds an old manuscript (A Farewell to Arms disguised by cinematic convenience and a briefcase from the 1940's) and, after finding his despair in it (he will never be half the author this mystery writer is, woe), he publishes it under his name.  Jeremy Irons reads it, recognizes his own work, and finds Rory to tell him the true story behind the transformative writing.

That's a lot going on, but due to some beautiful cinematics and the aforementioned tight storytelling, there's no confusion about where or when you are in the story.  The only vagueness wanders in at the end, and it's there for a reason: you as the audience are meant to contemplate the truth of the words, and decide for yourself what the edges of the reality for all three writers (Quaid, Cooper, and Irons) are.  It's a lot of meat for such a short movie, and I appreciated the chance to chew on it.

The other big risk here is that The Words is not out to please its audience, or even to provide a satisfying conclusion.  It doesn't even really end.  It's a movie about a moment, and the immediate fallout of a decision, and the lingering self-doubt and guilt that gets left behind.  It is almost refreshing its unwillingness to satisfy anyone, the audience or the characters, and while I don't think I'd make a habit out of watching movies of this flavor, it certainly made for an interesting experience.