Cinema of the Future!

Well, it's been a week since my last post. Which probably means this blog thing has become, at least inadvertently, a weekly event. I mean, for good reason, what with my being in Ottawa, and the marked increase in interiority this seems to bring about. Gone flashing lights, hello endless winter of the soul! Hah.

What's happened? Well, a lot, really. I suppose I shouldn't be too unhappy, since where else but in Ottawa can you see someone biking in -20 degree temperature, at about midnight, with an accordion strapped across his chest? I wonder where he could possibly have been going?

MOST PLAUSIBLE SCENARIO POSSIBLE:

Tall, mustachioed gentleman, wearing a crushed purple velvet suit, hair all pomade-slick: "ORDER! ORDER! ACCORDIONS AT REST! Welcome all to Ottawa's first official Underground Marxist-Leninist Winter Accordion-Biker Festival!"
"HERE HERE!!"
"We are gathered here today, in this large abandoned government warehouse - with wheelchair access for Stevie -"
"HI STEVIE!!"
"to HERALD THE DESTRUCTION OF CAPITALISM! PLAY ON COMRADES! PLAY ON!"

But in all seriousness, there's a lot of stuff. It has ocurred to me that it is simply no longer viable to ramble on and on interminably, you know, factoring in as I have done (with complex mathematical and statistical measuring devices) the precise duration of a typical person's attention span. So, for a change, I will attempt henceforth to keep my rambling short, sweet, but considerably more frequent.

Wonder how that'll work out.

To begin (and end) today's ramble, for it is my intention to linger on the subject of New York until I've exhausted my supply of delicious memories (no, honestly, the food! the FOOD! if you could only eat these thoughts!), today's topic will be:

DREW'S MOVIE REVIEWS!

Well, I considered using the ever-more cutesy "REVIEWIES", but then felt the last shred of my masculinity disappearing, and so I didn't.

In New York it was my ambition, since it is truly the CITY OF LIGHT

(being all flashy and blinky and stuff, and did I mention I am particularly awed by all things shiny and flickering in nature? especially when they loom above you like tall, glimmering tombstones)

to attend as many excellent films of no fewer than 5 stars in quality.

Internal Philo-Art Snob: "You know, Andrew, that whole 'star' rating thing is entirely arbitrary, and stems from a bloated economic infrastructure designed to pander to the basest common-denominator in consumer gullibility, and in no way accurately reflects the inherent, and fundamentally subjective worth of a film"

Drew the Intrepid Movie Reviewer: I WILL NOT BE CULLED BY YOUR LIES!

Film, the First! (Please note, since films are by their nature full of excitement, this blog entry shall contain an abnormally high! quantity of exclamation marks)

Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)
by
Guillermo del Toro

This film truly requires no introduction. Or review, for that matter. Go see it if you like Spanish people, civil wars, gobs of fertility symbolism, subdued Christian allegory, and imaginative creatures with hand-eyes.



I was going to rate this film something like "SHALO-", you know, as kind of like an almost-complete "shalom", because I swear to g-d that word is easily six times funnier when I say it. Unfortunately, it sounded like "SHALLOW", which is utterly inaccurate for this film, so instead I'm gonna give it:

4/5 Giant Leaping Tortoises with Flaming Wings that Double as Portals to a Secret Dimension Full of Cake

Film, the Second!

The Departed
by
Martin Scorcese



Premise: Take the very very first time you ever played Cops and Robbers, as you fired your clickety plastic orange gun and shouted hysterical taunts you believed were totally representive of the way both cops and robbers spoke, especially to each other, like:

"I'M GONNA GET YOU!"
"DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!"
"Bzoo! Bzoo! Bzoo!"
"Pow! Pow! Pow!"
"I GOT YOU! I GOT YOU!"
"NO YOU DIDN'T! I HIT YOU FIRST!"

and then hone in on the nagging thought, steadily dawning on you, that, Gosh, if you really wanted you could pretend to be EITHER a cop OR a robber, expand that notion into an extremely long script without significantly altering the above dialogue, hire every bloody well-known actor on the planet, give it to Martin Scorcese, and BOOM! You'll have Departed (ohhhhhhh that one was bad).

I give this film a hefty 3.5/5 Ingenious Plot Twists (though in fact the movie possessed something more on the order of 15).

Film, the Third!

Children of Men
by
Alfonso Cuarón

Honestly, I am a bit speechless about this film. It is amazing. It is so good in fact that my typically childish and irreverent tone fails me, almost completely. The movie is brilliant, gripping, gorgeous, visceral, detailed, and best of all - post-apocalyptic sci-fi!

I am, and have been for some time now, a /huge/ lover of this genre. I will not lie, the origins of this crush are nestled somewhere in the dark recesses of my video-gaming past, in the creepy Mutant-filled depths of a certain FALLOUT 2. But really not even there. No, rather, in the mother fuckin' brilliant Louis Armstrong "Kiss to Build a Dream On" opening video with backdrop of horrific nuclear annihilation, the destruction of all earthly hope and order, and the savage reality of the deadly driven winds of atomic winter... the chills! the nerdy but awe-inspiring chills!

Woaahh Nellie. I think a went a little code-red on the geek scale for a minute there. Sorry about that.

If the genre, top-notch cinematography, acting, set design, suspense, and overall majesty of the whole film are not enough to get you to see this movie, then let it be known that two of the most intense, continuous, cut-free scenes I have ever seen in any film (even (marginally) surpassing the like 8-minute one-take fight scene in Hard Boiled with Chow Yun Fat that spans several floors of a building, via elevator, and contains lots of really flexible kicking), are here, in all their mind-blowing glory.

I can't describe... I just can't find the words... the words..... THEY SHOULD HAVE SENT A POET! Fuck it, I'll just draw the awesomeness of one of the scenes for you:



Children of Men: 5/5 Geniuses in Total, Eerily Almost-Telepathic, Agreement

Now stop reading and go see it, before the world really /does/ end and you miss your chance!