A little insanity for you kind folks. Three months have now past in 2006 and I thought that I might give you a little update, number-wise, on how I’m doing. Because I know this is everyone’s favorite part for the same reason that everyone seems drawn to the freakshow tent.

As of March 31 I had seen 125 films (40 in March), 18 in the theater (7 in March) and 112 of those for the first time (36 in March). If I keep at this pace I’ll have seen 500 films by the end of 2006, 72 in the theater and 448 for the first time. [Last year’s records were 427, 76, and 357, respectively.] If you look at the past three years at this time, however, you’ll see that I’m really kicking those records’ asses.

2003: 56, 12, 38.
2004: 89, 11, 77.
2005: 96, 14, 83.
2006: 125, 18, 112.

Think about that for a minute. I’ve more than doubled the number of films I’ve seen in the first three months of the year since 2003. I’m a madman. And for some reason I feel like I’m letting myself down. I feel like I should be seeing MORE movies, that I haven’t seen nearly as many as I could have. Why do I feel this way?

Could have something to do with my addict level of DVD spending. So I saw 125 movies in the last three months. So what? You know how many DVDs I purchased in that same time period? 170. That’s right! You didn’t read that wrong. Currently I own 1,165 DVDs. Crazy! No wonder I can’t find any room for any of them. I’ve already got three bookshelves dedicated to DVDs and yet they still manage to spill out everywhere. Fun, huh?

Alright, so yeah, that was me procrastinating. Procrastinating from finishing up my taxes (which I did finally start) and procrastinating from writing my mountain of movie reviews. 125. You realize that I had to write a movie review for each one of those mothers? No wonder I’m behind. Well, here is another week of reviews, late, of course.

(March 20)

——M*A*S*H (1969)——

I have been a big fan of the television show for years. My sister is an even bigger fan, owning all of the DVDs and watching them obsessively. Until now I had never seen the Robert Altman film that started it all. Verdict? For the most part it is just like the TV show that I remember, just with a darker edge that you get with an R rating. We all can hum the M*A*S*H theme song. How many of us remember the lyrics? (The suicide is painless…)

While the cast of M*A*S*H the TV show has become immortal in our memories and each actor has become the character they played forever, I was still impressed at how the actors Altman picked out seem to work in their own version of this world. Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt, Elliot Gould (when I first saw him I was like, “shit! What the hell happened to Elliot Gould?), Robert Duvall and Sally Kellerman are all pitch perfect. The mood and tone of the film is perfect (although, like the show, it is still kind of obvious that this is more about Vietnam than Korea) and the only portion I found a little lacking was the football game that ends the film. Not because it isn’t funny. It’s actually really funny. But it just takes us out of the reality of the world that was created in the rest of the film, and for some reason just doesn’t feel true to me. But I should stop complaining, because it is still really funny.

(MUST SEE)

——Cache (Hidden) (2005)——

It’s not often that I say this about a film, especially one with the positive critical response that Cache has gotten, but this movie is absolute shit. I’m serious. This movie is shit. It is one of those movies that asks you to put a whole lot of time and patience and effort into it and yet it offers no rewards. If you see it and don’t want to throw something at the screen like I did, then you’re a better person than I. I hated this movie. It has some good cinematography, great actors, and some good shots but God, is it boring. Stay far away.

(AVOID!)

(March 21)

——Amadeus (Director’s Cut) (1984)——

I generally hate biopics, particularly those of musicians. I have no love for either Walk the Line or Ray, despite the fact that I recognize that there are definitely good parts to both of those films. The problem comes in trying to create a movie narrative out of a person’s life. No matter how interesting a person’s life is, it almost never makes for interesting plot structure.

But then there was Amadeus. What makes this film work amazingly is just the simple fact that the movie isn’t really about Mozart at all. It is about Antonio Salieri, the court composer in Vienna who has the gift of knowing good music when he hears it but doesn’t actually have the gift to create it. He gives his life to God in order to create just one piece of beautiful music. Talent never comes. Then he meets Mozart. Mozart is purposefully made to remind us of a rockstar. His wigs are a little crazier than everyone else’s. He’s loud, brash, crude and adolescent. He has a very loud and annoying laugh, much like a hyena on nitrous. Thus, the exact opposite of Salieri. And yet he can create genius music almost effortlessly. And Salieri hates him for this.

The great irony that drives the film is that while Salieri wants to destroy Mozart out of jealousy, he is also the only one that recognizes Mozart’s genius. For this reason, even on his deathbed Mozart still thinks that Salieri is his best friend because he has noticed that Salieri is the only person to have heard everyone one of his performances. The complexity of Salieri just keeps on going though. On Mozart’s deathbed, even though Salieri is the one that drove him to it, he still helps Mozart finish his last piece because as much as he wants Mozart out of this world, he can’t stand to not have another genius piece of his music in it.

I’ve held back on seeing this film until now because I just didn’t think I would be that interested in a biopic on a classical composer. My mistake. This Milos Forman film is immensely enjoyable from start to end, and not a minute of its 180-minute running time seems to drag. My mother came down a little after I started it and ended up staying for the whole thing. That’s how it sucks you in. Go check this one out now.

(MUST SEE)

——V for Vendetta (2006)——

A great movie for ideas, unfortunately V for Vendetta falls apart when it comes to actually being a movie. There is no real plot, nor is there any major character building. Instead the film consists mostly of exposition, hidden by carefully by clever editing and cinematography. There is lots great going for the film: great ideas, great actors, great contributors. That all feels hollow though if there isn’t a meaty story to go along with it.

V is a terrorist and the hero of our film. Instantly I like this idea. How often does a major American film have a terrorist as the hero? And V has lots of opportunity to cross a dangerous line into making us wonder whether or not we should be rooting for him. But that’s as far as it goes. The film is too safe. Just as V starts to really look dangerous the filmmakers pull back to our action hero stereotypes. When V tortures someone to help them, the film never really deals with the fact that HE JUST TORTURED SOMEONE. It just merrily skips on its way towards our happy climax. Where are the flaws? Wouldn’t the film be more interesting if they were stuck in there? Yes.

What does work for the movie are the ideas. They tend to flow through this movie much better than the philosophy of the last two Matrix films did. How often do you get a blockbuster that dares to ask tough questions about today’s society? That’s what good sci-fi is all about. Unfortunately the film isn’t fleshed out as much as the ideas. You’re entertained, you think about the ideas, but was the film actually any good? Not really.

(MISS)

(March 24)

——Why We Fight (2006)——

This is one humbling documentary. The first third to a half of it doesn’t seem that way. For anyone familiar with American foreign policy in the 20th Century this is going to cover a lot of familiar ground. As the second half of the film starts to pull all of the strings closer together, that is when the film becomes something else. What I found amazing was how the military-industrial complex has grown into a beast that America cannot easily be rid of. War has become a standard of foreign policy because the complex has made it so that Congress will never vote against it. University think-tanks come up with reasons for America to go to war that have absolutely nothing to do with reality. What is more shocking is the revelation at the end of the film that we might never leave Iraq. We are currently building 14 different bases in the country, presumably not to help out the Iraqis but to solidify our hold on the oil.

One thing that really hit me was our history with Saddam Hussein. In the 50’s England was having trouble with its oil wells in Iran because of political instability. So the CIA went in an assassinated their leader and put in their own. We all know how that turned out. To fight the newly militant fundamentalist Iran and to protect our oil interests in the Middle East, we put an anti-Iranian into office in Iraq. His name: Saddam Hussein. What I didn’t realize was that up until Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam was actually a big friend of the White House. As soon as he threatened our oil situation he became public enemy #1. Since Americans know about as much about Middle Eastern history as they do about quantum physics, it was very easy for spin-doctors to paint Saddam as a horrible dictator. The big cosmic joke about the weapons of mass destruction question was that the reason that we didn’t do a thorough search for them was because we already knew he had them. How did we know? Because we sold them to him.

The film is extremely well done, and unlike a film like, say, Fahrenheit 9/11 Why We Fight has as little liberal left spin as it possibly can. The filmmakers prefer instead to let the actions in the film speak for themselves, because there isn’t really much you can do to spin anything the other way. It gives equal time to both sides though, without vilifying any contributors. People who hate Michael Moore might want to give this one a shot.

On my drive home from Images I was listening to Faithless’ “No Roots” CD. The song Mass Destruction came on almost immediately and reminded me instantly of the film I had just seen. That on its own, however, doesn’t deserve mention here. The final line of the chorus of the song is “Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction,” which is repeated over and over at the end of the song. This reminded me instantly of the last line of Why We Fight. People throughout the film are asked the question posed in the title of the film. Your average person on the street has no idea. One of the main people interviewed, a woman who worked both for the military and for the state department, has an answer. To paraphrase (because I can’t remember what she said, exactly) “Why do we fight? Because people don’t stand up to their government and ask why.”

(MUST SEE)

(March 25)

——Debbie Does Dallas: Uncovered (2005)——

This is actually a review of two separate porn related films, this and its extra–Diary of a Porn Virgin–since both together aren’t much more than 90 minutes long and both carry very similar themes. Debbie Does Dallas: Uncovered isn’t really much about the actual film, Debbie Does Dallas, but is instead more about the people involved in the making of it, specifically the actors and the FBI undercover agent put in to uncover its mob ties. Since the movie doesn’t really tell you anything about Debbie Does Dallas aside from give you an idea how sad life is after you star in a porno film, the movie pales in comparison to the much more comprehensive Inside Deep Throat.

It does, however, make for a great companion piece with Diary of a Porn Virgin. Diary of a Porn Virgin follows three Brits who want to make it in the modern day English porn industry. They chose some interesting subjects. The main interest of the filmmakers is a 37-year-old mother and wife who quit her job as a successful businesswoman to fulfill her dream. Not your typical porn star. The most successful of the three is a Muslim woman who has yet to tell her parents of her new career path. Because she is only one of two working Asian women in the English porn industry she is very much in demand and can pick and choose where she works. Finally there is your car stereo installer whose character arc is the slightest of the three. The main (and only) question following him is: “Will he be able to get it up on camera?” [Spoiler alert: He does.]

The two documentaries go pretty well together. Debbie is mostly about the men, because only one of the women was willing to talk about her experience on camera (and for only 15 minutes, at that). Diary is all about the women. Debbie is about aging pornstars looking back at some bad career choices. Diary is about how pornstars make those choices to begin with. All and all, interesting stuff if you are into that sort of thing.

(SEE)

——Breaking News (2004)——

Some very positive things have been said about Breaking News, which caught my interest and was the main reason for my buying this film. I’ve never really heard of Johnnie To and to my knowledge I haven’t seen any of his other films, but according to the DVD box anyway, he’s a bit of a cult figure. But while there are some interesting camera moves in this film, on the whole the movie isn’t anything special.

The film opens with probably its best shot, one unbroken shot that follows a shootout between cops and gangsters in a crowded Hong Kong back alley. The camera moves around in circles, following each of the participants in the gunfight, even at times moving up into the heavens to give us a God’s-eye view of the action. As impressive as that shot is, however, one thing I noticed is how it doesn’t actually add anything to the scene by shooting it like that. In fact it might even lessen the scene’s impact. I never felt connected with any of the participants in the scene.

That scene kind of typifies the rest of the film. The plot is about how the scene I described above led to a camera crew catching the whole thing on tape and putting it one the news, showing how ineffective the police were at catching the gangsters, who escape on live TV. The police decide that not only are they going to catch these gangsters, they are going to do it on live TV to save face with the public.

The rest of the plot is pretty standard if you have seen any other cops and robbers films, especially any Hong Kong cops and robbers films. While this film isn’t bad by any means, I just rather pop in a early John Woo film instead.

(MISS)

(March 26)

——Five Easy Pieces (1970)——

After Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces is the film that made Jack Nicholson a star. It’s a pretty interesting film. I’m always amazed at the great American films that came out of the 70’s. There is just something so different and unique about them, things that you can’t ever find in even the best of today’s independent film movement. There is just something raw and real about this movie, right down to the surprise ending, surprising not in and of itself, but shocking in that you’d never expect a Hollywood movie to end that way.

Jack is an angry young man. He has talent, which we find out nearly halfway through the film, in that he used to be an excellent concert pianist. It wasn’t what he wanted out of life though, so he ran away and took various odd jobs. When the film starts he works on an oil drill, living a simple country life. He isn’t really all that happy with this either. He has a beautiful, loyal waitress girlfriend who only wants Jack to say he loves her, but he can’t even do that. Instead he sleeps with some floozies he meets at the bowling alley. He’s angry with the world, but more importantly he is angry with himself. He has no direction and can’t stand that fact.

He finds out from his sister that his dad has had a stroke and Jack goes out to the old family house to see him. The second half of the film thus deals with how he handles seeing his family again, seeing his old life again. Jack does some great acting in the film. The cinematography is also pretty fantastic for an obviously low budget film. While I think parts of this film don’t have the same impact that they did when the film first came out and became a pop culture hit, on the whole the film still rings true.

(MUST SEE)