Glenn Greenwald, You're My Hero

Notice how MSNBC puts their thumb on the scale in this segment showing footage of Iran test-firing rockets ad nauseam. Then the host has the nerve to tell Glenn at the end of the segment not to cast aspersions on the other TV pundits, since no one explicitly calls Iran an evil regime.

We spend more on defense than every nation on Earth combined. We are currently at war in two predominately Muslim countries. Our most favored ally in the region has recently launched major offenses against Lebanon and occupied territory in Gaza. And as Glenn points out, they refuse to let the IAEA inspect their nuclear facilities or arsenal. But of course, Iran is the aggressor. Iran poses the existential threat. Their behavior is just bat $#!t insane, right?

To quote Jack, "Go sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here."

Justice is very, very patient (plus, AP in action!)

Roman Polanski is about to get his. You cain't run from the law fer'ever, partner.

I liked The Pianist as much as anybody else, but you can't just drug and sodomize 13-year old girls and go about your merry way. Book him, Dano!

Snagged this from the AP. Looks like an IM exchange posted as a story. Odd (click to enlarge):

(Unexpected) Movie Recommendation of the Month

Dreamworks take note: this is how you make an animated film that competes with Pixar (or at least doesn't embarrass itself trying). I had no intention to see this movie, but my girlfriend is a 1st-grade teacher, so I guess it was inevitable. I was not in the greatest mood either after having to trek down to the lobby twice in order to get the prerequisite 3-D glasses necessary to watch the movie without developing a migraine. Our ticket-taker neglected to hand them to us despite the box being directly behind her and the theater not being particularly busy. Then when I came back downstairs sans ticket, she told me I needed the ticket in order to get the glasses. You know because people like taking cheap 3-D glasses for no reason save for how kewl they look. Why must it always be so difficult?

Anyways, the film managed to lighten my mood considerably. Bill Hader provides the voice of Flint, the somewhat hapless inventor in the small town/island of Swallow Falls (located under the 'A' in 'Atlantic Ocean' on the map). I didn't even realize it was Hader until the credits. Between this and his dead-on James Carville on SNL a while back, he's really starting to impress me. (Another note to Dreamworks: actually employ voice talent based on talent, and not just how famous the actual voice is, mmkay?) James Caan voices Tim, Flint's Luddite father who spends most of the film disapproving of Flint's work with his demonstrative furrowed brow. The film also employs the under-appreciated comedic talents of Anna Faris (if she were a guy she'd be as successful as Seth Rogen by now; there is no justice!). Plus there's Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell and Mr. T (!). Really impressive line-up to say the least.

The plot is pretty straight-forward with Flint inventing a device that turns water into food and accidentally launching it into the atmosphere. This in turn makes Swallow Falls the most sought after tourist destination in the world. Of course things go awry as the machine goes haywire from over-use. The movie takes its time to flesh out the relationships between the characters, especially the one between Flint and his father which is central to the film. We also get a nice romantic angle with Faris's somewhat ditzy (but secretly brainy) Sam Sparks. One of the most memorable scenes involves a reversal of the cliched "girl takes off glasses and lets down her hair, turns out to be stunning"-routine seen in countless stories since Hans Christian Anderson picked up a pen.

The movie does get all action-adventure-y in the 3rd act, but I didn't mind. It didn't feel as if the transition was unwarranted. It fit with the story well enough. Also I liked how most of Flint's past failed inventions popped up again for a bit of redemption. Some real thought went into this project. This adaptation couldn't really rely on the book for its narrative or so I've been told. So much credit to the creative team behind the film (I loved how the film opens with the credit "A film by a lot of people").

Let's be clear: this does not match up to Pixar in top gear (i.e. Wall-E, Nemo, Up or Ratatouille). But it's miles beyond the execrable Shrek sequels. I'd put it right up there with Toy Story 2, maybe a bit above. Definitely above say Cars. Either way, Sony should definitely be proud of this. It won't do anywhere near as well as the Ice Age franchise (I guess you can't compete with prehistoric mammals, who knew?), but artistically this is revelatory for a non-Pixar film. Expectations have been raised.

TIFF '09 Day Quattro

Fun Fact: Corn Pops in Canada is a completely different product than Corn Pops in the states. I found this out late one night after a Midnight Madness screening. I bought one of those single-serve cereal bowls and much to my surprise found a cereal with a completely different texture and taste. The domestic version of Corn Pops is more of a air-puffed sweet nugget with a popcorn-like lightness and consistency. The Canadian version has the look and feel of a glossy sugar-coated Kix pellet. It's not bad, but I much prefer the American version. Perhaps I should submit this information to a travelogue.

But I digress. So what munificent bounty did the final day of movie-watching yield? Let's see...


The Men Who Stare At Goats – I feel as if I should have enjoyed this movie more than I did. It’s smartly written and really well-acted. Yet, I found it only intermittently funny and somewhat scattershot. Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. You couldn’t really ask for a better cast. There were a few meta-jokes involving discussions of Jedi Knights that were pretty funny.

McGregor plays a small college-town journalist (Ann Arbor!) who heads out to Iraq to experience war, find purpose and perhaps win back his ex-wife (she leaves him for his editor in a slightly amusing subplot). Instead he meets Clooney who is an ex-special operations soldier trained in "psychic warfare." At first McGregor's Bob Wilton dismisses him as a nut, but slowly he begins to buy into some of what Clooney's eccentric Lyn Cassady is selling. It's sort of a road movie as we follow the pair across the Iraqi desert on what Cassady swears is a super-secret mission. We also get flashbacks to his training under Jeff Bridges' New Age-y Bill Django who somehow gets the military to fund his bizarre operation. The film reminded me of Three Kings with its subversive take on the military. The final act ties the film to one of the most controversial political issues of the day, torture, but it doesn't really spend to much time dwelling on its revelations. It's understandable since that would have made it an entirely different film. Still it would have been nice if they would have gone deeper into that territory. Still recommended.


Valhalla Rising – The dude from Adam’s Apples (nifty film that I can’t recommend highly enough) and Casino Royale plays One-eye (most likely an incarnation of Odin; thanks to Neil Gaiman I know more than I probably should about Norse gods), a mute warrior who is really handy with a hand-axe. I was unfamiliar with the director’s work, but he’s fairly established. The film has a lot of slow-motion camerawork accompanied by ominous and portentous music, but not much really happens. It actually reminded me of Aguirre the Wrath of God, the Werner Herzog film set in the Amazon with an inimitable Klaus Kinsky performance. Man that guy was intense. Anyways, this film is all about atmosphere and it does have a haunted feel to it. I just wish there'd have been more of a narrative going on. As it stands you get an interesting depiction of Christian Vikings (does that make sense?) coming to the New World and getting their arses handed to them.


The Warrior and the Wolf – This movie should have been called The Warrior and the Rapist. The film has an odd three act structure in that none of the acts feel interrelated. We start with the story of a reluctant soldier, a gentle soul who’d rather tend to his flock than fight in a war. A general has taken a liking to him and keeps trying to convince him to join his army. The guy finally agrees and becomes an officer, I think. There are so many flashbacks and flash-forwards, it's hard to keep up.

We then shift to the reluctant military officer leading the (apparently fatally wounded) general's troops home from the front lines after a defeat at the hands of some unnamed enemy (they look like Mongols). On the way, the troops hold up for the winter in a Harran village (the Harran's are depicted as a kind of primitive tribe living in the mountains). The guy finds a Harran woman played by Maggie Q living in a secret passage in the hut. After he catches her the first time, they struggle for a bit until he sees some of her exposed leg and then pounces. And when I say pounce, I mean it. She resists, but he forces himself on her and towards the end of his transgression, she starts to relent. (You know how it is, sometimes these b!tc#es don’t know what they want ‘til you give it to ‘em. Am I right? Hunh, hunh?) The scene didn’t sit very well with me to say the least. If it had just been him taking her against her will, then okay, within the context of the time period and the circumstances it’s deplorable but realistic. My issue was that she falls in love with him after the fourth or fifth time this happens. And this scene replays itself numerous times in the same lurid fashion. I noticed several walkouts and I can only assume they had the same objections as I did.

The third act is short and somewhat surreal. The general who seemed to die at the end of the first act returns only to have some of his men killed by wolves (wolves who happen to be his old lieutenant and his raped-into-submission-lover). Then the general tries to kill the wolves and the former soldier-turned-wolf can’t fight back because it’s his old friend, but the general ends up dying anyway as the she-wolf eviscerates him when he attacks her lover. I would have been interested to talk to Maggie Q about her decision to take this role. I also would have liked to talk to the director about his choice to depict such a thoroughly repulsive love story. I wouldn’t have been surprised if these questions were raised during the Q&A, but I just didn’t have the patience to stick around once the lights went up. Not recommended.

So all in all, it was a pretty good year at TIFF. I would have liked to stay longer as there were some great films showing later in the week, but most will be out eventually so no real loss. As always, the city was beautiful and welcoming. My only complaint is that the dollar just keeps getting weaker. They were actually doing me a favor accepting U.S. currency on a 1-1 basis. Wow.

TIFF '09 Day San

The City of Life and Death – You know you’re in for a downer of a movie when one of the most sympathetic characters is a Nazi. Lu Chuan’s The City of Life and Death depicts one of the most sensitive episodes in modern Asian history, the fall of Nanking.

Americans hear very little about the Pacific Theater until our own involvement following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Prior to the film, I was vaguely familiar with Sino-Japanese relations during the early 20th century. I knew they'd fought but not the specifics of those wars. I’d heard the phrase “the rape of Nanking” on occasion and perhaps had read a brief bit on it, but not enough to prepare me for this film. The film opens with the Japanese siege of Nanking as thousands of Chinese soldiers begin to abandon the lost city. A small contingent stays behind to mount one final wave of resistance against the advancing Japanese. After a brief but valiant effort, the remaining Chinese soldiers are rounded up and summarily executed. These executions are shown in brutal detail and are all harrowing to watch. Live burnings and burials, repeated bayonetting, mowing down thousands with heavy machine gun fire, you name it. The Japanese seemed to revel in how many ways they could liquidate their captives. After the remnants of the Chinese army are disposed of, the Japanese soldiers begin indiscriminately killing civilians, mostly men, some children. Then things get really bad.


A group of international aide workers (its never really clear who they work for—the patches on their arms seemed to suggest the Red Cross) has gathered many of the city’s remaining residents in a “safe zone” under the protection of a Nazi businessman, John Rabe (historical figure). The trouble begins when Japanese soldiers begin raping young girls inside the “safe zone.” The military leaders initially apologize for the offense, but you soon realize not only are they insincere, but they have perhaps encouraged their soldiers to behave in such a way.

It only gets worse as they begin demanding women be turned over to act as “comfort women” for the Japanese soldiers. There is one Japanese serviceman with a shred of conscience whom we follow through the film, Kadokawa. He seems to be the only honorable Japanese person in the film (there's also a Japanese prostitute whom he falls in love with who is a pretty blameless if pathetic character). Even so, the director took criticism for showing any sympathetic Japanese characters. It’s like having a sympathetic Nazi in a Holocaust movie. (I don’t believe there was one in Schindler’s List). Not saying this is necessary, but it makes the movie more bearable for the viewer to at least indulge in the speculation that there were soldiers who actively disapproved of what was going on. It was also a brave choice on the director’s part.

The movie does not hold back in showing the atrocities of the Japanese army. Many of the events depicted were grounded in fact and the recollection of survivors so I don’t doubt the authenticity (interesting to note that just like Holocaust deniers, there are "Rape of Nanking"-deniers as well). It’s a lot to absorb though. It’s the kind of film that gives me doubts about humanity. Whenever I see films that depict some of the darkest moments in modern human history such as the Holocaust or Rwandan genocide, I just wonder: “how can people act this way?” It raises the uncomfortable idea that within all of us is the capacity to rape or murder or dehumanize another person almost completely. It’s really quite frightening. Other things I left the movie eager to find out about were: how did the Chinese end up revering Lenin, what caused the Sino-Japanese War and how did the Chinese lose so badly? Highly recommended.


Triage – Why isn’t Colin Farrell more appreciated as an actor? The guy is good. Really good. Triage tells the story of a couple of war photographers capturing the escalating hostilities in Kurdistan between Kurdish rebels and Iraqi forces. Farrell's Mark wants to go deeper into the front lines of the war, while his best friend and fellow photojournalist, David (Jamie Sives doing a great job communicating how war can get to even the non-combatants) is ready to bounce altogether (his wife is expecting their first child). Bad things happen, but we don't find out exactly what until much later in the film. The movie does a great job of evoking a sense of foreboding in the audience. We know this can't end well when Mark returns home without David after the two get separated in Kurdistan. In the meantime we watch as Farrell's character continues to show the debilitating effects of war on the human psyche. Enter Christopher Lee as the retired psychoanalyst who helps Farrell and us get to the bottom of the mystery and his growing misery. I also loved this film because Christopher Lee gets to remind us that a.) he’s still alive and b.) he’s a hell of an actor. I hope this film gets distribution stateside. It's not going to be many people's first choice for a night at the movies, but it's worth two hours of your time.


Survival of the Dead – I think George Romero needs to take a break from making zombie movies. I think this is his sixth one? The ideas are just getting threadbare at this point. And if I have to sit through yet another zombie movie where somebody gets infected and we have to watch while the person slowly deteriorates and has to be ‘Old Yeller'ed’, blecch. This one takes place mostly on an island as a group of military deserters turned bandits take sides in a feud between two old Irish clans. The basis of the feud not only seems irrelevant, but halfway through the film one side seems to abandon the principles that lead to the fighting to begin with. I just stopped caring after a while. I thought Diary of the Dead had its moments and was an interesting angle with the whole ‘new media’ stuff. This just feels like a lark.

TIFF '09 Day Deux

One of the little things that I always notice when I'm in Toronto is the pedestrian crossing signal. The Lite-Brite man looks so confident in his stride, no hint of the slight trepidation apparent in the posture of his American counterpart. I finally figured out why that is: universal health care! You see, the Canuck doesn't care if he gets hit by some reckless driver. There's no chance he'll lose his house or face financial ruin due to exorbitant medical costs. Of course he can walk across the street with that cocksure strut. Pinko bastard...

Ahem, back to the films, yes?

Day 2 of the festival was pretty light viewing, only two films.


The first was a Filipino film, an earnest little movie called If I Knew What You Said about a rebellious young girl who reluctantly befriends a deaf kid at a camp. The film feels competently shot most of the time. It looks like it was shot on DV which added to the somewhat amateurish feel of the production. Actually it felt like something that might play as an ABC Afterschool Special. There was an interesting part showing how the deaf kids learned to dance to music they couldn't technically hear. Also I found myself intrigued at how easily the characters went back and forth from Tagalog to English. Other than that, I couldn't really recommend it. Still glad I saw it though.

Daybreakers, the second Midnight Madness film turned out to be much better than I ever expected. I'd watched the Spierig brothers first film, Undead on the dearly departed Monsters HD. It was decent enough with a dash of quirky humor. Didn't really give any clue that they would be capable of this.


The world of Daybreakers is one where vampires outnumber the human population to the point where the vampires fear humans may go extinct. This is causing the dominant vampire society (which is practically identical to our own w/r/t social/economic structures) to become unstable. It's also causing undo stress to our protagonist, Ethan Hawke, who is working nights and pulling all-dayers in order to perfect a blood substitute. Hawke's vampire hematologist also has a conscience and refuses to taste human blood, preferring to sustain himself on animals instead. He not only wants to find a blood substitute but save humankind from being cattle. Of course, there are others who have different plans. Sam Neill gives a great turn as the corporate reptile employing Hawke who wants to preserve not only the vampire way of life but his own economic fortunes.

What so impressed me about the film was all the little details that the Spierig brothers managed to cram into the picture. Their vampire world doesn't feel so much like a fantastical concoction as the natural and plausible result of their deceptively clever scenario. I sat there never doubting the world they'd created. The film doesn't overdo it on the action, nor does it try to shoehorn in any unnecessary love interests. It just handles its business.

Oh, and I forgot to mention it has a kick-@$$ Willem Dafoe element to it.

Every time I think the vampire genre is dead, that there's no more juice in that turnip, something like Daybreakers happens. I'm not complaining. I'll probably pay to see this again.

Toronto: TIFF Day 1

Back in the USSR! (Sorry, been hearing Beatles music everywhere with the new Rock Band and everything I suppose.) I was reading this profile of Michael Ignatieff in The New Yorker and the author gave an elegant analogy that perfectly articulated the philosophy of Canada, the beliefs I have such an affinity towards: "No man is an island, and rules made for imaginary islands ignore the fragile ecology of the actual archipelago. We are people who live in communities and our sense of who we are derives from what the people around us are like." Take that Libertarianism!

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be talking about films.

This year I have ten, maybe twelve films I plan to see. This is pretty light for me, about half of the usual. Still this should be enough to slake my cinema jones for a while. It's been a quiet movie-going year for me. The best film I've seen all year was Let The Right One In and that came out last year. So I'm looking for Toronto to be a barometer as to how '09 will end. The pre-fest buzz has been good, but we'll see how things shake out. Either way, there's always Mad Men.

Thursday began with a plane ride where I got the chance to listen to a gaggle of journalists talk shop. Film criticism seems like a nice gig if you can get it, but I can't say I found their world too enticing. I'd much rather stay on this side of the wall. Movies are a passion, but I wouldn't want to think of viewing films as work. Saps all the fun out of the entire enterprise. I will say you'd be hard-pressed to find a chef with a set of knives sharper than a film critic's.

I ended up seeing two films today. The first was Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces starring Penelope Cruz. It's only the third film I've seen by him (the other two were Volver and Talk to Her). I really enjoy the worlds Almodovar creates. You could watch his characters interact with each other for hours. They are all fairly layered; their motivations complex. Even the bad guys aren't really all that bad; they're just human.

Penelope Cruz gives a good performance as the woman who makes a deal with a devil of sorts (who you really can't blame save for one incident) and tries to renege for a chance at true love. Lluis Homar has a more challenging role which he executes with aplomb. His Mateo Blanco is the portrait of a man humbled by loss but not broken. Almodovar imbues him with a wry sense of humor that I especially enjoyed. The plot is full of more twists than a soap opera; it has melodrama entwined in its DNA. And there's nothing wrong with that. The film toys with being absurd at times, but Almodovar is very assured here. He knows exactly how to string us along. I found myself enthralled from the opening frame through to the credits.

I was also happy that the film didn't feel constrained by genre. It presents itself as a mystery--a murder mystery to be exact. But that's not what it delivers and I was actually grateful for that. Such a structure presents life as some puzzle that can be solved--event X happens because of action Y--when real life is usually far more random and more maddening. Almodovar's films all seem to capture the messiness of life--especially when it comes to love. Highly recommended.



The second film was Jennifer's Body, the second screenplay from Juno-scribe, Diablo Cody. The film stars most notably Megan Fox who gets to do more than just straddle motorcycles in demeaning sexpot poses (thanks again, Michael Bay!). If you didn't care for Juno's chock-full-of-pop-refs-and-elaborate-putdowns dialogue, then you should just avoid this film altogether. Horror junkies will not find a fix here. The scares are tepid and the gore if not exactly restrained, then unremarkable. Still I enjoyed the flick. I laughed enough at some of the so-hip-it-hurts dialogue. I like Cody's sense of humor. I mean the plot alone is genius: mediocre alt-rock band tries to sacrifice a virgin to Satan so they can be somebodies "like the lead singer from Maroon 5"; only she's impure and becomes a half-demon feasting on the high school boys.

Amanda Seyfried and Adam Brody give solid performances. Seyfried plays the mousy "Needy" who slowly learns the truth about her best friend and has to overcome her fierce loyalty to end the carnage. Brody's part is short but sweet as a wannabe rockstar, virgin-sacrificing tool. Megan Fox gives a workmanlike performance that doesn't really make me suspect any great things will come from her as an actress in the future, but doesn't make me write her off altogether either. On a side note, she's super-skinny in person, I hope she's healthy at least; I hate that this is what Hollywood puts out as the quintessence of beauty . The star of this film though is the script. It's Juno with bloodletting (minus the heart as well) which isn't a bad thing. It's about what I expected to be honest. Diablo Cody catches a lot of flack for her work, but I like her self-creation and knack for publicity. How many screenwriters are known by name in Hollywood these days? So bully for her I say.



So far, so good. Two solid films to open the festival. There is nothing like watching a movie with a festival crowd. If regular crowds were like it, I'd go to the movies a lot more often. No crying babies, no talking during the movie, no cellphones, no texting...just sitting back and enjoying the show. The way it should always be.