Obsolete Your Idols

So this is my review of Sicko.

Well, it was going to be. When I started my day, I was planning to see Sicko as my third and final documentary of the day. But then a funny thing happened. Vy had joined me for dinner and we walked past the Gaia Arts Center hunting the wily burrito. Lo, and likewise, behold, it was Documentary Tuesday at the Center. That meant a free showing of Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room!

I'd been meaning to see this one since I first saw trailers for it, but I don't normally go to the movies. Or so it seems to me. So we jumped at this chance. Or I did and Vy humored me.

My take on Enron: a symptom of the problem.

The problem: systems built to diffuse responsibility combined with pursuit of money above all other concerns. It's a triumph of single minded obsession lauded as an individual and group virtue. It's sick and it's disgusting and it's how things work.

Pissed me off.

The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters was the second movie I saw. Again, a documentary. Again, highly rated at Rotten Tomatoes. Even better, it had things in it I'd actually seen. There's a video game tournament from 1982 ... in Ottumwa, Iowa.

You know, where we used to have to roll up the window to drive past the Hormel plant so we wouldn't gag from the stench.

Oh, yes. I've been to Ottumwa. I even remember when that tournament happened. I wasn't allowed anywhere near it, of course.

Just as I remember the Twin Galaxies video game arcade in Fairfield, Iowa. I remember going in to it and being dazzled by the options, the lights, the sound. I remember staring at those boxes and knowing that inside of each one there was a simple computer doing all of the work I was perceiving as sound and sight.

I was in there once and then never again. I suppose I must have not shut up about it in a way which worried my parents that I'd fall into the trap of pouring a lot of money (not that I had any) into the machines. But I did go in once and it was amazing.

There's also some bits about Transcendental Money-extraction in the movie which is just as creepy now as it was when I was living right next to it.

I didn't recognize any of the current day streets of Fairfield stuff but how would I? So much has changed. The last time I visited, I didn't even recognize much of the stuff on the main drag. I could find my way to the schools I'd gone to and that's about it.

But this documentary isn't really about Fairfield, it's about playing arcade video games competitively. It's about doing whatever it takes to win, including estranging your wife, neglecting your kids, social engineering, acting through proxies, playing mind games, and spending hours a day playing. This story starts off playing for laughs, gets unseemly pretty quickly, and turns into something of an underdog tale.

Very good movie for the nerd set, the retro gaming set, or people who like barbecue sauce.

Not so good for people who never saw classic video arcades, don't care about video games or who think dude rivalry films need guns to be worth watching.

Yesterday I saw three documentaries. The first one was one named The Devil Came on Horseback. I chose it on the basis of the Rotten Tomatoes rating it had: 96%. That's a pretty amazing score for a documentary.

It's an amazing documentary. It's brutal, bleak, tragic with dashes of hope and optimism. It really moved me with pity and compassion for the suffering the people of the Darfur region of Sudan suffer at the hands of their own government.

This movie is brutal but should be mandatory viewing for any citizen of the world.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is far funnier than I had any right to expect. From the opening short cartoon to the closing credit sequences, this movie tickles several ribs. It's got the mandatory quotable dialogue, the artfully artless acting, the exquisitely overly prolonged shot, which should make this movie a delight for fans of the B movie genre.

Of course, it's obviously deliberately bad and that's just fine. Think of it as hipsters sitting around telling a ghost story inspired by Plan 9 From Outer Space. Or don't think of it as anything at all and just revel in the winking badness.

I could tell you that I believe this to be a fantastic movie. But as a scientist, I believe in nothing.

UPDATE 2007/12/30: Seen Again
I saw it a second time and it was, if possible, even more amusing. Possibly because I knew what to expect of it this time out and so I was able to pay more attention to the nuances of acting and dialogue. Still heartily recommended for dumb fun.

I saw Lost in Translation and it was everything I'd heard it was. I was hooked from the opening title shot right until the end of the scrolling credits [despite a pressing need to rid myself of the previously consumed liter of water and pint of zero carb beverage]. It's a tastefully understated story about a pair of tastefully misunderstood characters. I'm sure it has homages to many famous romances but someone like a film critic will have to bring them to light for you, the review reading masses.

Here's my recommendation to you: do not drag your feet on seeing this film if you haven't. Go. Go with someone you love or go alone. Don't go with some insensitive brute like myself. It's a bittersweet story with a sound-track which almost but not quite distracts. For the first time in my life, this movie caused me to enjoy karaoke. So that's something.

It's got a lot of Japanese in it, so maybe someone who speaks Japanese would find it more or less funny than I did; as a cloddish non-speaker of Japanese, I could identify with the sense of confusion the characters express at the torrent of unknown words and inexplicable directives. I think it's probably rated R because of some breasts seen in a strip bar. I don't know; I've been to strip bars. The strip bar scene here is almost G-ish, by comparison with the reality. But maybe the Rating Board don't get out a lot. Just, you know, close your eyes, if you hate breasts, or are scared of them, or whatever, when you see Bob Harris [Bill Murray] waiting alone in a loud place.

My favorite part of this was Bill Murray's expressiveness, especially in contexts where he was embarrassed. A suitable maturity of the inchagrinable Peter Venkmen of Ghostbusters. This movie could have been improved by cutting the swimming pool scenes so that it would have ended about ten minutes earlier and reading closing credits wouldn't have been a feat of bladder control.

Of the previews I saw, the only one that caught my interest then and there was Monsieur Ibrahim. Omar Sharif! Some young boy! It's like Batman and Robin, without all the fetish wear. Incidentally, a full price ticket is about one hundred fifty percent the cost of a small popcorn and small soda. That has nothing to do with the movie, I just like numbers.

Henry V is pretty darned good.

There's a lot to like here. Branagh really carries off the role, the story is structured [obviously] well, the dialogue is [of course] tight and moving. For people who like Shakespeare, there's nothing here to dislike.

Yes, I do realize everyone has already seen this movie. But I liked it. Shut up.

Moulin Rouge could have been a pretty good movie. It wasn't. It could have been a great musical. It wasn't. As it was, it was a pretty okay musical.

How could it have been a pretty good movie? Easy. Take out all the song and dance and replace it with spoken scenes to convey the same mood and information. It then becomes a pretty interesting story about a love triangle between an ambitious actress who is unknowingly dying of consumption, an idealistic writer and a villainous powerful man, set against end of the century frenzy.

How could it have been a great musical? Harder, but still doable. Take out all the songs which are covers. Write original songs and let the cast show their obvious singing talents with songs they can make their own.

But. That's not what this movie was. This movie was a hodge-podge of pop music, flashing costuming, overdoses of dancing and camp staging and fun with CGI. Distracting at best, off-putting and annoying at worst, this movie was disappointing for me mostly because of what it could have been.

After years of hearing it referenced, I sat down with The Court Jester and saw what the fuss was all about. This quirky musical comedy from 1956 has hypnosis-as-magic, silly songs, magnetism, heroic escapades, poison and, oh yes, Danny Kaye.

It's a fun romp, with lots of clever wordplay, banter, nice emotive acting, and a storyline which is one disaster for our hero after another. It's got a baby with a birthmark, a squatter on a throne, a daring highway robber, some sword fights and at least one dance routine. Fun, light-hearted romance full of twists and turns, with quotable and memorable lines which I'd heard before and now have a context for. I recommend it.

Continuing my streak of finally seeing things everyone's already seen, I recently enjoyed Like Water for Chocolate. Going in to it, I had heard it was a movie with lots of food in it. That it did. There was also tragedy, frustration, passion, love, taboo and humor. It's got a great villain in the form of the protagonist's mother, a domineering, controlling, vindictive and utterly self-assured obstacle.

In the end, it has a happy ending, assuming you consider death and fire happy. I got the feeling that this movie was more of the magic realism stuff which I seem to be encountering in piles, lately. Things happen which could be natural, could be supernatural and it's all sort of ran together with a strong thread of subjective point of view to make sure one can't really trust any of the narration.

I wasn't so keen on the haunting by the mother but I did enjoy the transformation the sister underwent when she became more like the mother in appearance, voice, and bearing. Those who do not remember the past are doomed to marry their mother, or something like that. Not exactly a funny movie or even really a fun movie, but it was moving and passionate and parts of it will stay with me.

I recently had a chance to see The Reduced Shakespeare Company's Complete Works of Shakespeare [Abridged]. Thirty-seven plays, over one hundred fifty sonnets, three men and a dizzying array of condensations. It really works well.

Starting off with Romeo and Juliet, including an intermission, and culminating in Hamlet, it's well worth the time to watch. Clearly, these guys know their stuff. Watching it on DVD, there are even some amusing extras, such as video footage of the first ever performance of the play. It's a breakneck paced tour through the plays of Shakespeare.

Time is saved by consolidating all of his comedies into a single convolute narrative.

The culmination involves the kind of tomfoolery with Hamlet you'll enjoy if you're a fan of Stoppard's Fifteen Minute Hamlet. All in all, a cute silly abuse and homage of The Bard, all at once. It seems they're touring with other shows, as well. Probably worth the price of admission.