Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan

What is a dream? Well, that’s a pretty heady concept for a normal action movie, but Christopher Nolan isn’t into normal action movies. He goes quite a bit deeper.

First, though, let’s check out a preview or two.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK–I actually wasn’t all that interested in this until I saw who directed it (David Fincher) and wrote it (Aaron Sorkin). Other than that, it’s just the story of how Facebook got it’s start and it stars stunt Michael Cera, Jesse Eisenberg. (Not to take anything away from Jesse. I like him and all, but I really feel like Michael has the market cornered on this character.)

I dunno. I’ve never been very interested in the story of the guys who invented Facebook. It’s not particularly compelling. But with Fincher behind the camera and Sorkin behind the computer, I’m there.

THE TOWN–”From the director of Gone Baby Gone.” That’s one of the first lines of this trailer for a film that stars Ben Affleck…THE DIRECTOR OF GONE BABY GONE! Why do they not use his name?

Anyway, this is the story of a thief who falls in love with a bank teller who was traumatized by hast last heist. As the truth gets closer to her, things get more intense in his life, too. I’m up for this one. Gone Baby Gone was great and I can’t wait to see if Affleck can direct himself.

Ok, let’s get back to those dreams.

The less you know about Christopher Nolan’s latest mindfuck of a movie going in, the better, so I’ll do my best to keep plot points under wraps. All you really need to know is that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the leader of a gang who go into peoples’ dreams to find out their secrets. The team includes Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy, the new Mad Max) and, in a way, Saito (Ken Watanabe). He manages to get a new team member out of his father in law (Michael Caine). This new member is college student Ariadne (Ellen Page).

The crew has been hired to do one last job by Saito on a young man named Fisher (Cillian Murphy). If they succeed, then Cobb gets something that he’s been trying for for about a year. If they fail, they could all lose their minds.

And what the hell is Marion Cotillard doing popping up in all of the dreams?

This is a pretty typical “one last job” movie, but with such a twist that it rises FAR above that rather low-concept plot and becomes something much more complex and deep. Something that only a star psych major could truly understand, but laymen such as myself can really enjoy a lot.

As the plot (and the dream world) gets deeper, so we get deeper into Cobb’s life and psyche. It’s an amazing journey and is full of tension and intrigue. We’re so invested in Cobb and his band of merry dream stealers that it’s hard to watch as things get harder and harder for them and they go deeper and deeper.

I loved pretty much everything about this movie. It’s an action movie with more brains than most brainy indie movies lately. It’s proof that, not only should Nolan be given however much money he wants when he wants to make a film, but he should be allowed to collect actors for his repertory along the way. It was nice to see familiar faces from the Batman movies pop up throughout the film.

Most likely, this will end up being the best live-action film of the summer. (Toy Story 3 MAY edge it out as the best film overall.) We can only hope that it gets the box office and accolades that it deserves. So far it seems like it is. The film world may be redeemable yet.

By the way, listen for a lot of Edith Piaf music. Har har har.

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Written by: Terry Gilliam/Charles McKeown

A new Terry Gilliam movie is always a reason to celebrate for me, but I’ve been a little bit hesitant after his last couple. Brothers Grimm was fun, but not all that great and the less said about Tideland, the better.

What did I think of his latest opus? Find out after these messages.

RED RIDING–A trilogy of films about a British serial killer and the investigation that played out over a decade? Yes, please! This looks really cool. Each film takes place in a different year with the same characters in different parts of their own investigations of the killings. Each installment has a different director so, hopefully, a different style. If only I had gone to Telluride this year, I would have seen them already.

They’ve already given remake rights to Ridley Scott. One movie. Dumbasses.

That’s the only preview I can remember, so on with the show!

Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is in dire straits. He’s immortal and hates it. Not only that, but he promised the Devil (Tom Waits in the role he was born to play) his daughter on her 16th birthday, which is fast approaching.

What’s a 1000 year old man to do?

He and his troupe of out-dated performers have a run-in with a very strange man named Tony (Heath Ledger, among others) who was hanging from a bridge, seemingly dead. Is he a godsend? Or is he something worse?

Parnassus’ daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole, who I can’t wait to see in other movies), is falling for the charms of Tony, but fellow actor Anton (Andrew Garfield, also in Red Riding) is madly in love with her. Will he ever convince her to his clumsy charms are more real than Tony’s suaveness?

Then there’s Percy (Verne Troyer in absolutely his best role), the real brains behind the crew.

This is a Gilliam movie, so there is plenty of magic, darkness and full-on crazy to go around. And the world that Parnassus and his crew live in is pretty amazing. They’re back-dated, it’s true, but who cares? They travel in a gypsy-like carriage pulled by a team of horses. When they pull the stage out, a new world of old magic opens up to a world not willing to watch anymore. Like moviegoers in our own world, the audience in Parnassus’ world aren’t interested in the stories that he was meant to tell. They only want sturm and drang. And that’s too bad, because the old man has some great stories under his belt.

Is this Gilliam’s way of telling audiences that they’re stupid for making the likes of Michael Bay as popular as they are and relegating filmmakers like himself to the discount theatres? Quite possibly. But he doesn’t do it in an insulting way. He suggests that it’s all conditioning. Times change and so do styles. Sure, old storytellers could change with the times, but they have to stay true to themselves or they become hacks. Tools of the Devil.

I loved this movie. It took a while to figure out exactly what was going on, but that’s true of just about every Gilliam film. Give it the time and energy that it deserves and you’ll be rewarded.

Be warned that the special effects are, in a way, sub-par. But that really doesn’t matter. The CGI is only used in the fantasy world behind the mirror. (No, I didn’t explain that. Find out for yourself.) That’s why the cheap effects work so well. Sure, the giant cobra looks cartoony and silly, but it’s supposed to look cartoony and silly. Just go with it.

Now for what we’re all waiting for: how was Heath in his last role? Actually, he was pretty amazing. Yeah, it hurts that he didn’t get to finish the film, but the way they get past that is pretty ingenious and it works perfectly. (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell do great Heath impressions.) In fact, it’s almost hard to imagine the film being made any other way.

I’m a little upset that it took me so long to see this film, but I did finally get to see it. Do yourself a favor and go see it now. It’s one of Gilliam’s best films.

Luckily, both of my choices were wise.

MOON

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Duncan Jones
Written by: Duncan Jones/Nathan Parker

Two men are stuck on the moon in a three year contract with a company that harvests H3 for the Earth’s energy consumption. They are just about ready to go home…but they are the same person. Or are they? And are either of them the original?

Duncan Jones and his star, Sam Rockwell (who is becoming one of my favorite actors these days), came up with this basically over dinner and it ended up being, so far, the best film I’ve seen at the Festival. Like the great sci-fi films of the 70s (Silent Running, Logan’s Run, Outland, etc), they have managed to create a movie with a great story, pretty realistic science and great practical effects that looked SO much better than any digital effects. (The split screening was done REALLY well, too. It looked like to different actors playing these two guys. I never thought, “Ok, that’s a double.”)

I loved this movie. Duncan could have more great films ahead of him. Sam was able to develop two characters who are seeded from the same character and make us care for both of them. And the story is told at times in a very emotionless way, but other times it is full of emotions. It’s kind of amazing how it manages to walk that line.

My favorite of the three characters in the film was actually the computer, Gertie, voiced by Kevin Spacey. They give him a smiley face to show his “emotions” and it’s pretty hilarious. It also makes him more human than you would think. (Shades of HAL, of course.)

Go see this movie. It’s a pretty amazing film that needs an audience.

MIDNIGHT SHORTS

This is one of the shorts programs that I always do my best to go see. They’re always fun, but I think this may have been a better batch than usual.

TREEVENGE (2008)

Directed by: Jason Eisener
Written by: Jason Eisener

–I saw this one before, which means that I’ve already reviewed it. This time, though, I really noticed how cool of a 70s style horror movie it is. Still freakin’ awesome.

WARM AND FUZZY FEELING (2009)

Directed by: Tom Kuntz/Matt Dilmore
Written by: Tom Kuntz/Matt Dilmore

Um…I really have no idea what to say about this one. Gramma gets a new puppy and it has quite the gift for her. There’s no dialogue and, in fact, it all seems to be in slow motion. There’s some nice, muzaky music. And then the creepy starts. A minute long short that is long on…uh….yeah.

BUTTHOLE LICKIN’ (2008)

Directed by: Kanako Wynkoop
Written by: Kanako Wynkoop/Bridget Irish/Missus Sarah Adams

A couple of lesbians do a bit of experimenting. Unfortunately, the receiver doesn’t want to to kiss after the experiment is over. This starts a rift. Shot over a weekend, director Kanako Kyle Wynkoop wanted to show that lesbian sex was just as funny and at times uncomfortable as straight sex. It’s a funny look at the intricacies of trying something new and trying to get comfortable with it.

BIG PUSSY (2008)

Directed by: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Written by: Todd Strauss-Schulson

A guy loves his girlfriend. But what does he do when she smells…down there? In the case of Todd Strauss-Schulson’s film, hilarity ensues. I loved his trainer. “Man, you got to tell her about that shit!” Awesome.

RECEIVE BACON (2009)

Directed by: James M. Johnston
Written by: James M. Johnston

–A couple are going at it in the bathroom of a bar. He bends her over and she sees something that makes her laugh….a lot. A little setup goes a long way in this one joke film. Pretty funny stuff for a short film. I don’t know that I would give the filmmaker a grant for a feature, but that’s not what this was all about. It was about telling a joke in a minute or two. And that he can do.

FISH OUT OF WATER – THE NIGHTMARE (2008)

Directed by: Ben Barnes
Written by: Ben Barnes/Joel Huggins/Gabriel Tigerman

Two roommates decide to take on the monster in their third roommate’s dreams. Will the monster get the better of them? The fact that the third roommate is a fish doesn’t even enter into the picture. The second in a series of films about these guys is pretty damn funny. It sets up the characters, makes us care and then gives us a great ending that actually makes sense. A lot of fun and I can’t wait to check out what Ben Barnes and his crew do in the future.

SCATTERBRAINED! (2007)

Directed by: Joe Avella
Written by: Joe Avella

A couple of guys sit at an overhead talking about a hot new disease: Scatterbrain! They’re developing an educational video to warn people against Scatterbrain! The short uses little blurbs, cheesy slides and Mountain Dew make this a pretty funny little skit that would fit nicely into any improv theatre’s repertoire.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT (2008)

Directed by: Will Hartman
Written by: Will Hartman

Two teenagers indulge in their deepest urges. When their teacher catches them in the act, she shows them exactly why they shouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t want to create even MORE brain eating zombies, would you? This was a really cool short with a pretty predictable ending, but that didn’t matter. It was a lot of fun.

I LIVE IN THE WOODS (2008)

Directed by: Max Winston
Written by: Max Winston

–A blue haired man who lives in the woods does whatever he wants, including finding God…and doing some very surprising things to the deity. Everyone seemed to like this one a lot. I thought it was pretty good, but not amazing. It had its moments and the puppets were pretty cool looking. Not much more than that, really. But the character was pretty damn funny.

THE FAMISHING (2009)

Directed by: Tony Durke/Toby Gorman/HS Rathore
Written by: Tony Durke/Toby Gorman/HS Rathore

–A good story and good, gross effects in a short? Weird! A couple of guys are walking around a seemingly barren land with only a couple of saltines between them. When they come up on a guy cooking meat, they get excited…but so does the local cannibal. It’s a bit overlong, but it’s really cool and gets a lot across with no dialogue.

MANBABIES (2009)

Directed by: Will Elliott/Kirk C Johnson
Written by: Will Elliott/Kirk C Johnson

–I usually don’t really dig on the whole “putting words in babies’ mouths” joke, but this was pretty funny. “Osh Kosh By Gosh, where did you get those kicks?” The effects were funny and the dialogue was, at times, pretty hilarious.

SAFETY FIRST (2008)

Directed by: Ross Wilsey
Written by: Ross Wilsey
Based on book by:

–A bunch of ugly puppets and a Mexican standoff. Not the best of the shorts, but it did have it’s “shock” moments. That’s about all it had, though.

BOOB (2009)

Directed by: Jonathan Milott/Cary Murnion
Written by: Jonathan Milott/Cary Murnion

A slight transformation from a bit from Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex and yet, it was still pretty funny. A woman is getting a government issued super-weapon implanted in her breast. Unfortunately, the weapon has a mind of its own, tearing the boob off and going on a killing spree. Funny stuff and bloody as hell. Not amazing, but I liked it.

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Henry Selick
Written by: Henry Selick
Based on book by: Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is pretty awesome. I think most of us know this. I haven’t had a LOT of exposure to his work (I recently read American Gods and have seen Stardust), but what I have been exposed to I’ve really liked. I know that movies aren’t exactly the best way to get to his stuff, but it’s a start.

And, really, who better to bring one of his worlds to life than the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas?

But we’ll get to that. Let’s hit some previews first.

9–(Try looking that one up on the interwebs.) The world of man has collapsed. Now all is a Tool video. And 9 has been created to help save what is left of the world. With the help of producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (director of Wanted), he just might be able to do it. Elijah Wood, John C Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer are all along for the animated ride. I’m so there.

UP–Pixar just keeps getting better. The 45 minutes of this one that I saw at BNAT were pretty amazing even without being complete. The preview is great, but it doesn’t do it justice. Go see this movie. I’ll be right behind you.

MONSTERS VS ALIENS–I really hope that this one is as good as it looks. The trailers, though, seem to be pretty much the same every time. I saw bits of this at BNAT, too, and it looks like a lot of fun. I’ll see it…in 3D.

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE–This was actually one of those behind the scenes featurettes that they’ve been playing before showtime. But that doesn’t matter. This movie looks like it’s going to be pretty awesome. Not only does it look like director David Yates has finally realized that these movies are supposed to be funny as well as thrilling, but it looks like he may have the thrilling down, too. I’m all over it.

(And I love that moment between Harry and Hermione where she tells him that a girl is only looking a him because she thinks he’s the Chosen One. “But I AM the Chosen One.” *HIT* “I’m…..kidding…..”)

Now, how about the little girl who hates buttons?

Coraline (Dakota Fanning) hates her life. She’s been moved to a new place that she hates. She’s bored out of her skull. And her parents don’t have any time for her at all.

She goes in to bug her dad (John Hodgman from The Daily Show and the Apple commercials) who tells her to go around counting all of the windows just to get her off of his back. (He actually seems like the more loving of the two parents, but he’s at a deadline and blah, blah, blah.) That’s when she finds a semi-hidden door to another world where she has an Other Family. A family with buttons for eyes. Everything is perfect there…but why is the neighbor boy, Wybie, unable to speak in this strange world?

And what the FUCK is up with her Other Mother (Teri Hatcher)?! (Why does she sometimes look like Courtney Cox-Arquette?) And the buttons on everyone’s eyes?

Director Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas and (whoops) Monkeybone) knows how to create a creepy world for stop-motion, but I think that he dragged the story on a bit long. The movie is an hour and forty minutes long (the longest stop-motion film ever made, according to IMDb.com) and I kind of started to feel that length after a while.

This doesn’t make it a bad movie at all. I actually liked it quite a bit, but I think it needed to be tightened up a little.

The voice acting was decent, but nothing too special. I don’t think that any of the lead voice actors were used to doing this sort of thing. Some of the smaller characters, though, were perfect. Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French played the crazy old actresses in the bottom apartment of the house Coraline and her family were living in, Ian McShane was the crazy Russian acrobat upstairs and Keith David was the cat who could only talk in the button world. They area all great. Dakota was really good, too, but I think she still needs a bit of work on her voice acting. There was something almost false about it at times.

Overall, though, there was a certain magic to the movie. And the 3D didn’t hurt. It was very well done. At first there was a bit of the “Oh! It’s comin’ right for me!” aspect to some of the shots, but that stopped pretty early on. (Also according to IMDb, this was the first stop-motion film to be shot all in 3D. That’s not entirely true since only the scenes in the fantasy world were in 3D. Unless you took your 3D glasses off (as I do occasionally for some reason), you wouldn’t really know that. It’s pretty subtle.)

If you liked Nightmare Before Christmas, you will most likely like this one. Even if you didn’t like Nightmare, you might like this one. There’s a creepier vibe to it and a more interesting story. Nightmare is a classic, no doubt about that. But I think this one will please some of its detractors, if only because no one bursts into song. Not even They Might Be Giants, who did the score.

And there are batdogs. That’s cool enough for me right there.

The ending was a bit of a surprise, too. No, everyone didn’t die. Sorry to spoil that for you. But it didn’t end exactly the way I thought it would.

I love the ad campaign for this (although they seem to have painted Coraline’s hair black…it’s blue, bastards!). They made a poster for each letter of the alphabet with a couplet for each letter. Collect ‘em all!

THE RUN (2005)

Directed by: Shawn Costa
Written by: Shawn Costa

As one guy said right after this film was over, “The credits are longer than the film!”

A kid hears a noise behind him in his deserted high school corridor. When a man comes running at him, his first reaction is to run. Run like hell.

The music gets louder. The tension builds. And then…it doesn’t end exactly the way you (or the kid) would think.

Or, actually, it ended about the way I thought it would end. Still pretty funny, though.

FINISHING THE GAME

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Justin Lin
Written by: Josh Diamond/Justin Lin

When Bruce Lee died in 1973, he left behind 12 minutes of footage for his dream project, Game Of Death. So, of course, someone had to exploit that footage.

Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow, Annapolis) decided to exploit the exploitation. Finishing The Game is a mockumentary about the audition process behind finding the “new Bruce Lee.” Would it be Breeze Loo (Roger Fan), the mega-star who doesn’t do any of his own fighting? Or Tarrick Taylor (McCaleb Burnett), the half-Asian guy who looks white, but embraces his Asian half militantly? Or maybe Troy Poon (Dustin Nguyen), the actor who has tried to find a good role ever since his cop show was canceled? Or maybe the overly gentle guy (whose character hasn’t been entered into IMDb yet, for some reason) whose girlfriend is representing him?

Maybe not the greatest movie ever, but it’s pretty funny. And DAMN, did they get the era right. It looks like it was filmed in the late 70s.

I don’t know how much of the story is true. I mean, I know all of the characters are fictionalized. But I’m not sure about the events themselves. It makes for a pretty funny movie, though. One that is especially worth checking out if you’re a Lee fan. And, of course, Justin Lin puts some Asian issues in. (Constant casting as delivery guys seems to be the big one here.)

Watch for some cameos from James Franco and MC fuckin’ Hammer!

INTRO TO LUCID DREAM EXPLORATION (2007)

Directed by: John Grigsby
Written by: John Grigsby

A short made on an Etch-A-Sketch. Yup. That’s right.

A guy gets on a subway (going right by Coney Island! YAY!!), falls asleep and dreams in Etch-A-Sketch. It’s not the greatest premise, BUT IT’S DONE IN FUCKING ETCH-A-SKETCH!!! THAT’S AWESOME!!!

Check it out here.

RETRIBUTION (2006)

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Written by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Japanese horror has really kind of worn itself thin lately. After movies like Pulse and The Grudge, I was pretty much done with it.

But something made me want to see this one. It certainly wasn’t the fact that it was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse). I hate to bad-mouth anyone named Kurosawa, but Pulse was crap. How it swept Japan, I’ll never know.

Luckily, Retribution was quite a bit better than Pulse. Still not a great movie, but better than fucking Pulse.

A cop is trying to solve a murder, but why does he keep seeing the victim everywhere? And why does she keep telling him that he killed her?

The movie isn’t particularly scary, but the woman is pretty creepy looking. At first, I thought she was hot. Then I realized that, with her face painted white the way it was, she looked a lot like Michael Jackson.

No longer hot in any way, shape or form.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Based on book by: Upton Sinclair

This was our Closing Night Film and we had no idea that it would play. Not really a “Fantastic” movie, but definitely a fantastic movie.

Paul Thomas Anderson directs his own adaptation of an Upton Sinclair novel. It’s the story of an oil tycoon, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis doing an amazing Jack Palance impression), who will say anything to get his fortune. He takes over the small California town. His first conquest is the Sunday family, which is pretty much run by Eli (Paul Dano from Little Miss Sunshine). Eli is the leader of a Christian cult which basically runs the town. The more power he gains, the more Plainview tries to wrest it from him.

It’s unclear who the good guys or bad guys are in this. Your sympathies switch from Plainview to Eli constantly. And that’s part of the brilliance of the movie. I pretty much hated Eli as soon as he started spouting uber-Christian junk at Plainview. But Plainview is such an ass that it was hard to really be on his side, either.

With our reliance on oil in the modern world, it’s good to kind of get a vantage point on where it all came from. Oil is the Earth’s blood, and we’ve been sucking it out of her for far too long. And this film shows that our own blood flowed in order for us to get at it. Far too much of our blood.

A very good film that will probably not find a real audience, like most of Anderson’s films. It’s good to see him branch out, though, and do something very different from what he’s done before. Besides a few long tracking shots, it’s almost hard to tell that this is one of his films. But the quality gives it away.

The only “complaint” that I have is that it seems to end in a really strange place. I guess we basically know where it goes after that, but there are loose ends that could have been tied up.

Nitpicking. I loved the movie.

INVISIBLE TARGET (2007)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Benny Chan
Written by: Benny Chan/Chi-man Ling (as Rams Ling)/Melody Lui

There was a short before this one (Monster Job Hunter), but I got in the movie half-way through it. No review for that. Although, I didn’t really like the “Shut up and watch the movie” short the same people did. So there’s my review.

I love Hong Kong action. It’s pretty much been great since John Woo came on the scene back in the mid-80s. It’s still good, but people have lost track of it because most of the big ones are over here now making crappy movies.

Johnny To is still in Hong Kong, though. So, that’s one great director they have left. And now it looks like Benny Chan could be on his way to being another one. (Starting now, pretty much. His earlier movies, Gen-X Cops and Who Am I? aren’t all that great.)

Chan Chun (Nicholas Tse from A Man Called Hero) lost his fiancee during a bank heist two years ago. The criminals who pulled it off got away and it has haunted him ever since. He teams up with two other cops when the gang shows up again.

That’s the WAY short version of the plot. But a) it’s hard to describe everything that happens in this movie and b) the best way to go into this movie is to not know too much about it. Just know that it’s an awesome movie. Maybe not a perfect film, but it’s so much fun and the action is non-stop. Non…fucking….stop. And it’s all kinds of action. Martial arts, gunplay, car chase…everything.

Like Hong Kong action movies of old, this one is all about loyalty amongst non-brothers. The gang are seven people who grew up together in an orphanage and the three cops become very good friends after they kick the asses of about 100 douchebags in a bar. There’s even a scene where one of the cops bonds with one of the gangsters.

And all of this makes it better than just any old shoot ‘em up, kill ‘em all movie. It’s awesome.

And it was a great way to close the Festival. It was a really fun Festival, but it’s all over now. And I already kind of can’t wait for next year.

What happens when a president, loved or hated, gets assassinated? What events are set in motion in order to catch his killer? What does it mean for the idea of Freedom?

In this British film, the president who is killed is our current one, George Walker Bush. According to the movie, it happens almost exactly a year from now. We see the events leading up to the assassination and the investigation afterwords. And it’s riviting from beginning to end.

Many will call this a mockumentary, but that’s kind of an unfair word for it. It’s so well detailed and so well researched that it’s almost a pre-emptive documentary. There is footage of the actual assassination made with archive footage of the president and CGI special effects. (And, no, it’s not graphic. There are shots and he’s thrown into the car. Not much blood is shown at all. So, already, it’s less violent than the footage we’ve all seen of JFK getting killed.)

After the assassination there is a violation of Freedoms that we all hold dear. Cheney is put in office. A Syrian who was trained as a terrorist is accused. PATRIOT ACT III is put into effect. We are all on lockdown, basically. It gives the Republican party leverage to take away some of the last rights we have.

Is the movie anti-Bush? No. Not really. It doesn’t make a judgment call as to whether he was right to go into Iraq or not. It shows plenty of protestors, but it never agrees or disagrees with them. (Although, they are shown as sort of a violent bunch.) If anything, this movie is saying, “Please DON’T let this happen, because this is what will happen.” It’s kind of anti-Cheney, actually.

It’s a very interesting movie that is in questionable taste, but considering the questionable taste of Bush and his cronies, I think it was a risk worth taking. Ballsiest poster ever, too.

Good luck seeing it, though. At least two major theatre chains have decided against showing it. Look for it at your local art house…maybe.

STORIES OF DISENCHANTMENT

After two hours of watching this movie, I still am a little confused as to what it was about.

Ximena (Ximena Ayala) and Diego (Mario Oliver) are two kids in Mexico somewhere around the turn of the century. They seem to be kind of lost in their own innocence. They walk around town in a strange daze of happiness until they walk into what they think is an abandoned building. It turns out to be the home of Ainda (Fabiana Perzabal), who is possibly a Harpy. (She definitely has wings.) They all have sex and sing and then it’s all over for these two crazy kids. Then they both fall in love with her and decide that change is the only thing that can save themselves from Ainda’s devious ways.

Since the movie takes place in some sort of dream state (and Ximena can see into her dreams…or something), it’s all shot in a really strange way. It almost looks like you’re watching a really low-res video on a laptop. Some shots are clearer than others, but it’s all super-ultra-saturated and a little bit out of focus. At first I thought something was wrong with the projection, but it made more sense as the movie went on.

This movie definitely isn’t for everyone (the guy in front of me walked about about 15 minutes into it), but I really liked it. How could you not like a movie where a heart rips itself out of a character and sings a song to them? (Yeah, it’s sort of a musical.) I certainly didn’t understand everything that happened, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying it. If you’re into surreal Mexican cinema, check it out.

And keep your eye out for Diego Luna in a very small cameo towards the end. I didn’t even notice until the credits roled.

But in some ways women are FAR stronger.

Take being friends with someone you’re heavily attracted to for instance. Women will run off and date other guys while they secretly have a crush on one of their male friends. They might even have many male friends that they are attracted to.

We, on the other hand, will have that one girl that we always hold on a higher level than all others. Sure, we’re friends with her, but we’re also so attracted to her that sometimes we just forget all of the other women around us. We always hold out hope that, someday, she’ll come around. No matter how many of our friends say, “She’ll never date you.” we still believe.

We’re cock-eyed fucking optimists when it comes to being in love with a friend. We’re pussies.

Only a man who has had his mind broken by a good friend could come up with a movie like The Science Of Sleep. Fuck When Harry Met Sally. THIS is what it’s really like to be in love with a good friend. You’re on an all-time high when you’re with her and an all-time low when you’re not. You love being around her, but you hate not being able to be with her.

Michel Gondry understands this. And he knows that all guys have gone through it at least once in their lives.

Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal) is just such a guy. But he has the (maybe) good fortune of also being unstuck in his dreams. He sometimes can’t tell his dreams from his reality. So there are times that he believes that his friend and next door neighbor, Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), is in love with him. Then there are times that he believes that she hates him. All he knows for sure is that he is quickly falling in love with her. The more they hang out together the stronger his feelings get. And the more confused he becomes as to what’s real and what’s not.

As with Gondry’s other films, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, there is a heavily surreal side of the story. Stephane’s dreams sometimes take place on the set of “Stephane TV.” Others take place in more fantasical places of Stephane’s mind. But they all involve Stephane’s coworkers and Stephanie.

Stephane’s coworkers at his dead-end calender type-setting job are an interesting crew. There’s Guy (Alain Chabat) who is the voice of reason/crass asshole of the bunch. He is also Stephane’s best friend besides Stephanie. The other two, Martine and Serge (Aurelia Petit and Sacha Bourdo), are constantly called gay by Guy. He doesn’t seem to care that one is male and the other female. To him, they are the same.

Of course, after Guy offers to have Martine give Stephane a blowjob, Stephane puts her in his dreams as an unwanted sexual predator.

So, let’s go over the women in this movie. I think it tells a lot about where Gondry is coming from.

First and foremost, there’s Stephanie. She’s awesome. Totally creative and a perfect match for Stephane in every way. When he comes to her with his crazy ideas, she sees them for the strange genius that they really are.

Then there’s Zoe (Emma de Caunes), Stephane’s original obscure object of desire. She is beautiful, but she’s a tease. She has a boyfriend, but she’s not letting Stephane know that. She actually wants Stephane to hook up with Stephanie, but she thinks it’s awesome that he wants her.

Stephane’s mother (Miou-Miou) lied to get him to come to France. She told him that she was going to get him a great, creative job when all she got him was a type-setting job. She’s pretty conniving, too.

Martine is asexual everywhere but in Stephane’s dreams. Then she becomes some kind of weird-ass sex kitten. But, after Stephane starts to really fall for Stephanie, Martine becomes just another character in his dreams. No sexuality at all.

That’s it. Those four women. And they make up most of Stephane’s world. Three of the four somehow hurt him. The one who doesn’t is called gay.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

The Science Of Sleep is an amazing, emotional movie. There’s not a bad performance or false move in the film. Anyone who has ever had their heart broken should be in line to see it. I already can’t wait to see it again.

Then Rick started making real movies with real storylines. Dazed And Confused was awesome. Before Sunrise was even better. SubUrbia (the only one not written by Linklater) was also really good. And The Newton Boys, well, I seem to be the only one who liked that one. But who cares? I had to make up for my indifference to Slacker, right?

Now Rick has gone in a direction that no one would have ever seen: the philosophical animation film. Hell, it’s not even a genre that anyone knew existed!

There’s no real story here to speak of. Think of this as Slacker with more brains (in fact, maybe too many brains for some) and an even more philosophical bent.

Wiley Wiggins (from Dazed And Confused, Love And A .45 and the awful Boys) is an aimless twenty-something who drifts back into his hometown only to get picked up by a guy in a boat/car (for a ride, not some weird sex thing) and promptly gets hit by a car. What happens to him from there is something that could only happen in this movie: he moves from one person to the next as they tell him about their theories on life, evolution and dreams.

Wiley is only drifting through life (“sleep walking through his life or wake walking through his dreams”) and isn’t even sure if his life is actually life or just a dream. If it’s a dream, he can’t wake up from it.

First off, let me say this: if you have no interest in this sort of philosophy, avoid this movie. It’s extremely heady and not everyone is going to understand it. Hell, I consider myself slightly above average in the intellect department (there are a LOT of stupid people out there…look at the success of The Mummy movies) and I didn’t get all of it. In fact, the first half hour was very much like sitting through a philosophy class. And I reacted to it in the same way that I would a class. I really wanted to be interested and really wanted to understand, but I just didn’t. So I almost started to nod off. He just goes from one person to the next for about 20 minutes of the movie and they pontificate very loudly about their thoughts. At one point he walks up to a guy, says “Hey, man.” and the guy goes into a speech. Now, I realize it’s only a movie, suspension of disbelief and all that, but come on! No one does that!

But then a very strange thing happened. Something clicked and it all started making sense. There was a reason for this unrealistic sort of speech. And when they started talking about dreams it got very interesting. By the end of the movie (which leaves more questions than answers) I loved it and wished it had gone on longer than its 97 minutes.

And the animation fits the story so well that you almost forget that it is animated. But it would be a shame to do that because it’s animated in such a cool way. Linklater shot the whole thing on digital video then had a huge team of animators (including Wiley) rotoscope the whole thing. But they didn’t do it in the normal Ralph Bakshi way. They did it in their own wacked out styles. Backgrounds move in fifty different directions at once. Eyes don’t quite stay on bodies. Words form in peoples’ lips. Characters suddenly shift styles.

And let me tell you, I think the animation helped a lot. A friend of mine told me that Rick thought that the movie would be too pretentious if it hadn’t been animated. I think he was right. With Wiley floating all over the place and people just suddenly bursting out into Platonic verses it would have seemed like Rick had gone off the deep end and finally made a movie showing just how crazy he really is. But in animation you can do just about anything, and he did it all here. (Including violence. One scene is so jarring as to seem like it’s in a different movie. I don’t think anyone in the audience saw it coming at all.)

And I think the animation helped Wiley’s acting. There was no more playing with his nose in this one. (I HATE that!!!!)

Keep an eye out for Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy playing two people who could be their characters in Before Sunrise. Also watch for Austin musician Guy Forsythe (playing a ukelele), Adam Goldberg (from Dazed and Saving Private Ryan), Steven Soderbergh and Rick himself.

This is a pretty brilliant film from some one who we’ve always known had it in him, he just needed some time to come up with it. Now, is he really this smart? Or did he have a lot of help with the writing? That’s the key question here.