Saturday, August 13, 2011

"Can We Just Keep it Secular, Honey?"



Introducing The Latino Twins of Doom. I would expect nothing less than slow walking away from a fiery inferno of dead Mexican workers, Latino Twins of Doom.

Last year I watched a show called Breaking Bad. I don’t want to fall into the fan boy trap of hyperbolic gushing, so I will only say that the show was so balls-droppingly brilliant I was crying in a corner whilst listening to opera and giving myself Chinese burns. Trap averted.

I never thought I would simultaneously love and hate so many characters after the mountain-top experience that is The Wire. Having just watched The Tree of Life, I can say that in many aspects, what TOL is to film, Breaking Bad is to television. Not all aspects, but many. O.K, maybe we take the hyperbole, maybe we put it aside. But it should be said that Breaking Bad is one of the most exciting dramas on the talky box right now. Needless to say, I’m very excited for season 4. But I’ll be more excited after I’ve watched season 3.

I think Anita wonderfully described what we'll be doing, so here are my thoughts on 3.1 Finally!*

The opening scene gave me the heebie jeebies. Show me a man who is not shaken watching people crawl towards a shrine housing a creepy Indiana Jones skull and I’ll show you Omar Little. (I like The Wire a lot.)

I call it right now, those creepy latino psycho twins will haunt my dreams and my subway rides in the weeks to come. There’s a scene where they drive up to some family’s house, change their fly clothes for hobo clothes, then stare at a little girl before throwing their car keys on the horns of a goat. (Or a ram? Some kind of lamb? I’m not making any definite claims about what that was.) The little girl staring contest went on just long enough to make me think a massacre was imminent.

And then there was a massacre! The twins delivered on their implied bad assness, but those killed were Mexicans attempting to cross the border with some asshole white guy. What struck me as odd is the twins dnotdifferentiating between the baddie white man and the innocent Mexicans. It's like being a minority doesn't count! Even the way it was done, I mean, I've seen people blown up on television countless times, yet I was still creeped out by this. Also, the skulls on the Latino Twins of Doom’s boots are significant. I’m sure they’re referencing not only Alexander McQueen, but also denoting straight up OG-ness.

By far, the best part of this episode is Walter trying to explain to students at a school assembly how the plane crash from Season 2 could happen - but actually trying to rationalize his own actions. We get gems like “what you’re left with, casualty-wise, is just the 50th worse air disaster,” which could possibly be the worst thing to say to a room-full of traumatized kids. This is us seeing Walter’s flaws in stark daylight. The logic and mathematical problem solving with which he navigates social situations, often to his advantage in times of dangerous meth-cooking, is not useful here. Pure rationalization cannot solve these problems. If one life is disposable, what does that mean about any of us?

“We survive and we overcome, we survive, we survive.”

Hearing Walter insist this in front of a room full of people is amazing on so many levels.

In conclusion: GO SCIENCE! YEAH, Mr. WHITE! YEAH BREAKING BAD! YEAH, NON-FANBOY CRITICISM!

*Anita has had to ride my ass to get me type this. I don't know why I took so long. This is awesome.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Breaking down Breaking Bad: an amuse-bouche

Breaking Bad's fourth season begins July 17th. Sarah and I watched the first two seasons last year and DIEEEEEEEED. Other than The Wire, I have never heard the overwhelming amount of praise for a show I've heard for Breaking Bad. People fall over themselves trying to describe what a magnificent vision it is. From the first few minutes of the pilot it is obvious that this is no exaggeration. It has some of the strongest writing I have ever seen on a TV show, and the two protagonists are cast more brilliantly than words can describe. Bryan Cranston consistently gives the best performance by anyone on television (and winning an Emmy three years in a row is a pretty sweet vindication of that; there is just no competition - I'm looking at you, Jon Hamm. Pfft). Aaron Paul, who won a well-deserved Emmy this past year, is a considerable partner to Cranston. Their chemistry (more on that later) is palpable onscreen and it is one of the best things about the show.


If you will kindly take a look at the bone-chilling and endlessly satisfying poster for season four, you can see that the title card for the show uses elements from the periodic table. This simple yet clever artistic decision alludes to the fact that Walter White (Cranston) is a high school chemistry teacher who, upon learning that he has lung cancer, begins to use his considerable knowledge of chemistry to cook crystal meth. He goes into business with his former high school student Jesse Pinkman (Paul), who happens to be in the meth market already. Walter's ultimate goal is to earn enough money so his pregnant wife and son, who has cerebral palsy, can be financially secure once he dies.

As can be expected, Breaking Bad is, for the most part, a very heavy and intense show. The aforementioned brilliance in writing and acting make you incredibly invested in the characters, which can be quite emotionally draining. That said, the scenes with Jesse and Mr. White cooking meth and butting heads are so expertly done and contain such great comedic moments that you will never run the risk of burning out.

I don't want to ramble more than I already have. This is all a prelude to us watching and writing about the third season in preparation for the fourth season premiere in July. I do want to give a special mention to RJ Mitte, who plays Walt's son, Walt Jr. His portrayal of the character is stunning and his interactions with Walt Sr. are often some of the most emotional scenes in the series. Yet he's also often the source of much of the humour on the show. All this makes him, in my eyes at least, one of the best characters not only on this show, but anywhere on TV. Suck it, Jon Hamm!*

*I quite like Jon Hamm. On 30 Rock. And SNL.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Inevitable Change in Season Observation

The air is starting to thicken in Toronto which can only mean that it's summer! Kind of! It's still a little cold at night, but who gives a shit about the weather? Today it is only important because it reminded me of a film I watched a few months ago, "Swimming Pool" by François Ozon. When it was released theatrically I wanted to see it badly because the poster was so SUMMER. And so I watched it four years later.

It's a beautiful and odd little domestic thriller that somehow reminded me of Marie Antoinette (dir. Sofia Coppola). Both Ozon and Coppola capture the mundane, quiet moments of life in a picturesque yet authentic way. Of course it helps that these picturesque moments happen in Versailles and the French countryside, but in my head this is how summer in Toronto appears. In my head.






























































*also, how much does Charlotte Rampling resemble Audrey Tautou? Perhaps it is the heat. J'excuse.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The Hottest Docs

Last night in Toronto the moon was unusually three dimensional.* This reminded me of what a raging slacker I am. One would think that being unemployed would allow me infinite time to update this blog. One would think. But neveryoumind. Netflix wasn’t going to watch itself. And neither was Hot Docs, the Toronto Documentary film festival which ended May 8th. (Let’s say in this lapse of blogging, I was perfecting my smooth transitions.) Although I didn’t get to see as many Docs as I hoped to, I caught 2 that I loved. So here’s a little summarizing, a few thoughts and some punctuation on them.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
A Concise Summary: Leno leaves The Tonight Show, Conan hosts The Tonight Show, the ratings start to fluctuate, NBC panics, NBC goes cray cray, NBC kicks Conan off The Tonight Show, the world revolts, Conan starts a comedy tour across North America, a dude Conan went to college with documents it.

An Eloquent Summary: If there’s one thing I’ve learned from two seasons of The Larry Sanders show, it’s that talk show hosts are way more interesting when they’re not on talk shows. If there’s one thing I learned from this doc, it’s that Gary Shandling and I were right.

Although this doc didn’t delve as deeply as I thought it might into who Conan is (my misconceptions), it did a damn good job of chronicling his emotional state post-NBC hoopla.

The most interesting bits were Conan pre and post live-show, when his emotions were amplified. Despite the considerable monetary compensation it’s obvious that he was deeply hurt and shaken by the NBC breakup. As the comedy tour continued he seemed more and more wearied by the schmoozing side of show business. We see him graciously shaking hands and taking pictures with fans and V.I.P members, who pay extra money to see him. And a few minutes later, we see him raging about how much he dislikes doing this. And then one show later, we see him obliging fans again. Coco as a contradiction.

I must say though, tired and worn out Conan is fucking hilarious. In one scene Jon Hamm, Jon Hamm’s wife and Jack McBrayer (Kenneth on 30 Rock) join Conan backstage and we see Conan going to TOWN on McBrayer, just laying into him, making Alec Baldwin look like Mr. Rogers in comparison. I can't quite describe how amazing this scene was without showing you McBrayer's confused/deadpan face. Also, if you're into watching Colbert, Jon Stewart, Jack White, etc., hang out with Conan, there is a lot of that.

But Conan's assistant, whose name escapes me (shut up. She did leave a memorable impression, the impression just didn’t include a name). For some reason I thought Conan would be flanked at all times by male members of the Harvard astrophysics club who moonlight as editors of The Lampoon in their spare time. How many adjectives can I use? She was the young, sweet, curly haired, spacey but smart and very blunt foil to Conan’s jaded performer.

She was one of the aspects of Conan that cannot be seen between interview segments on TBS. A lot of people my age (erm, let’s say a young 17) grew up with Conan and feel like they know him in some way. I can’t remember who said it or in what (reliable, I know) but I’ve heard people say that Conan is one of the few people who are way funnier in person than they are on-camera. This doc was the difference between seeing a friend at school and seeing that friend at home with their family.

If we’re taking my comparison literally, the sweetest moment during the screening was when Conan was having a writer’s meeting in his house pre-comedy tour. One of his kids ran by him and he grabbed them and hugged them and said something in a Conan-voice, as Conan is wont to do. I’m fairly certain the entire audience felt their ovaries quiver, male and female alike.


The Good Life
A Concise Summary: A Danish 80 something mother and her 50 something daughter live in poverty, after their considerable wealth is lost. This doc chronicles the psychological and emotional effect of moving from extreme excess to extreme want.

An Eloquent Summary: This was hard. It was uncomfortable and hard but in the best way possible. After I watched this, Anita told me that people were comparing it to Grey Gardens, which seems like an accurate likening.

There’s something about watching rich people who become poor that makes me wish against sense and logic that they could be rich again. Like convicts who struggle to function in the real world, Mette (the mother) and Annemette seem too ‘damaged’ by their wealth to negotiate balancing their cheque books, or living within their limited means.

Annemette tells the camera that her old therapist in France told her that having a perfect childhood, like she had, is sometimes a horrible thing for a person. As they live their lives or plan for the future, they can’t conceive of anything better than what has already happened.

That said, director Eva Mulvad does an excellent job of not asking the audience to dislike or like the Beckmans. Rather, she seems most concerned that we understand their predicament. This makes for some uncomfortable but fascinating watching.

Annamette and Mette’s arguments are horrifyingly honest. They are all they havein this world. More importantly, they are the only ones who remember what their former selves were like in their ideal world. That dependency and intimacy seems like too much for any one person to bear for another person. At times it is, but again, Mulvad’s even-handedness balances the raw with the sweet. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s buoyant score helps as well; I don't think I've ever been so enamoured with a documentary soundtrack.

What's truly admirable about The Good Life is the balancing act Mulvad pulls off. It could have been too heavy to swallow, easily a sad-bastard look at two over-privileged, now poverty stricken people. But the portrait it paints is more complex. Like Coco, no one is ever only one thing. Said Captain Obvious.

Until next year Hot Docs, when I will hopefully see more than 2, maybe even 3 documentaries! To dream!

*I am such a raging slacker that a good many days past before I posted this. So in the interest of truthiness, last night the moon was no more remarkably three dimensional than it is on most nights.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

When I am through with you, there won't be anything left

People of Earth,

Please allow me to indulge myself on this hump night with a love letter to the creators of Damages, a show so pants-droppingly mesmerizing that I devoured it almost in its entirety in a matter of weeks, before I had to stop myself because I did not want the ride to end. I am a little more than midway through season three, and I am rationing for myself the remaining episodes so as to decrease the waiting period between my watching the season three finale and the season four premiere this summer. In the meantime, words fail me in describing how incredibly this show is written and paced, except to say that the WTF moments happen so consistently and thoroughly that I can barely gird my loins in preparation, but the casting is really where the jaw begins to drop. Below, a pictorial summary:

The show begins and ends with Patty Hewes and what Glenn Close does with this role is, in the words of Javier, UNBELEBABLE. She won two Emmys back-to-back for the first two seasons and there is just no competition. She is terrifying and it is incredible to watch her eyes light up with every new scheme she cooks up to take down everyone around her. Nothing more can be said. Her performance has to be seen to be believed.

Next up, Ellen Parsons. The sad-eyed, innocent waif gets scooped up by Patty straight out of law school and, as expected, has no idea what she's getting herself into. Rose Byrne is an interesting character. I've been flipflopping about her since I first saw her in Troy and I generally found her to be bland and uninteresting. But lately, she's turned me around completely, and it was Get Him to the Greek that cinched it. She goes through hell and back throughout Damages and, though she lost me in season two, that was more to do with where her character was going than what she was doing as an actor. She's become one of the main reasons I'm excited about Bridesmaids this year. I'm thinking she could outshine all the other seasoned comedians she's working with, though that would be tough as shit. Almost as tough as Ellen. Parsons.

Ahh, there he is. My love. Tom Shayes. If you'd have told me five years ago that Marissa's dad would weasel his way into my heart, I would have thought you were fucking my face. But alas, Tom Shayes. Tom Shayes Tom Shayes Tom Shayes. Patty's right-hand woman. What can I say about Tom? He dresses like a young Scott Disick. That's about it. Oh, and he's completely amazing in every way. No one was happier than me to see this happen, not even Tom (if you consider this a spoiler, please sit down before you fall down):

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Consider These For A Good Time

Rana here! Your friendly neighbourhood film-picker-outer. Might I recommend the following doozies the next time you are faced with the difficult question of what to watch?

The Darjeeling Limited: Wes Anderson and these lovely lads you see below. Really, you cannot go wrong. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back! (What? You didn't pay? Well if you are one of the lucky few who have been able to access our blog without payment just go thank your lucky stars! Uh...I kid, of course)



Youth in Revolt: Don't let your disdain for Michael Cera stop you. This movie is absolutely gorgeous (the wonderfully named Chuy Chavez is behind the cinematography) and it's airy, funny and unique. Fantastic supporting cast too. Oh and the costumes are very well done, they definitely added a lot to the film.




Keeping Mum: Three words: British Comedy. Cheers. Oh damn, wait, I have two more words: Rowan Atkinson.



Monsieur Ibrahim (Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran): French film starring Omar Sharif (he won the Cesar for it in 2004). It's a very fresh and funny film, oui oui I say.


Friday, March 18, 2011

Sexually Confused Friday

As you may have guessed from the blogroll, some of us lurve fashion blogs. I am one of that some. I lurve my fashion blogs like Melissa Leo lurves achtung! wah-POW! I can go through reams of images over tea, infinity. Is this some sort of regression to childishness? I am literate. I just like photos A LOT. Anyways, exposition exposition, here are some pictures. This is what I want to wear or what I want my world to wear via clothes in movies. Maybe I can always put up film stills under the title of Sexually Confused Friday? It's definitely better to be sexually confused on a Friday than say, a Tuesday. Behold! The Man Wears The Suit.