Review: Shine a Light (2008)

For some inexplicable reason there was a bit of difficulty for me to comprehend the fact that Martin Scorsese wanting to spend time directing a concert film. Why would an A-list movie director from New York City want to spend any of his valuable time calling the camera shots as if he were sitting in the control room of the television news show? There is no personal vendetta. I hope that it would be safe to admit that I am not harboring any negative feelings toward concert videos. However, I have placed an invisible and intellectual barrier between a traditional rock concert video and the director of several successfully artistic films. His professional history as a director should present enough proof that he is capable of directing video material for the music industry. Scorsese has directed the music video for Michael Jackson’s song Bad (the video can be viewed on YouTube). In addition, he is not the only A-list director to have stepped behind the camera of a music video for Michael Jackson. How could I forget about Francis Ford Coppola’s work on the seventeen-minute short film Captain EO (1986) or John Landis’s work on the short film and music video hybrid Thriller? Setting aside my reservations about any preconceived notions that I may have regarding big name directors working on concert films there is no argument that I can muster up to disprove that Martin Scorsese has indubitably been credited for directing the concert film Shine a Light (2008) for The Rolling Stones. Despite the clearly defined attribute of procrastination from lead singer Mick Jagger as witnessed at the start of the film, it can be a bit surprising that footage came out above my own expectations if I were placed in the same shoes as the video director for the concert. The set list was not distributed to the production crew until an hour before the concert started, which leaves very little preparation time for crew to organize and finalize the list of camera shots for the show. I would only imagine that Scorsese would have to go through the entire catalog of Stones music and create a rudimentary list of camera angles to set up for every single song regardless if the song is performed or not during the concert. I wonder how many antacid pills he had to ingest during the pre-production stage.

For the running duration of the final cut of the film, it would be plain spoken and obvious to say that Shine a Light is a straightforward concert video. It was taped live in front of an audience in a small venue located in New York City as the band performed song after song straight through an entire concert. However, the final cut of the film does include an introduction that includes what occurred behind the scenes of the concert as the crew and the band were planning the execution of recording a major concert in a relatively small venue. In addition, a few interludes have been seamlessly placed at particular points within the film to serve as a bridge between songs. The interludes include various bits of interviews and footage to shed a bit of light upon the history of the band.

When the film was theatrically released, it was an opportunity that I did not want to pass up when I discovered that it would be played at the local “IMAX” theater near my house. (NOTE: It must be observed that I am using the term IMAX very loosely here since the movie theater that I am talking about does not house a proportionally accurate IMAX screen. For more information about the issue please visit Aziz Ansari’s editorial on the subject.) It was exciting to imagine watching a Rolling Stones concert on the huge screen with bazillion watts worth of sound blaring through the speakers. I could only imagine that it would be a stone’s throw away from the physically attending a concert. Therefore, truth is told I ended up watching the concert on the “IMAX” screen twice before it was pulled from its initial run. My ears were ringing after the first showing as if I had actually attended the concert in person and that was a positive experience (I think) for me.

Now that I have sat down to write a review for the concert film it would be a safe bet to say that I want to rent a DVD copy of it and watch the entire concert all over again for a third time. There is something inherent within rock music that gets the adrenaline flowing. Regardless if you are in the band or listening to the music being played it can be an entertaining and enjoyable experience.

Review: Tyson (2008)

Over the last twenty years, there have been many conversations about the well known professional boxer Mike Tyson. If you know him, then I would not doubt that you have some kind of opinion about him or his career. In my mind, he is one of those people that are so impressionable on others that it would be difficult not to form some sort of an opinion about him. Not that anyone would even care to hear my thoughts on him, but I must say that my narrow viewpoint has expanded a bit after viewing the documentary Tyson (2008). He is a human being just like the rest of us. The documentary shows that he keeps everything in a very clear and simple perspective. Transference of Lenny’s simple-minded personality from Of Mice and Men can be easily recognized in the body of a contemporary professional boxer. This is not quite intended to be an insult, but it would be a clear description of his ability to view the complexity of life in a more simplified manner than the rest of us may observe. An interesting approach for the documentary is that the vast majority of it is Mike Tyson speaking a lengthy monologue about his childhood, his career, and the rough spots that he experienced in his life. The audience is not hammered with speeches from other people who are relaying the information of Tyson’s life story, but we are hearing the stories straight from the man himself. It would not be a question of misaligned objectivity, because no one should know Tyson’s life story better than Tyson himself. Am I wrong? The drawback to this approach would be incessant rambling that he does throughout the interviews. However, a bit of editing has placed his stories into an organized and linear fashion for the benefit of the audience who would be able to connect one story to another in a more fluid manner. The film has altered my perception of him and it was a positive change. It was tough listening to Tyson’s whiny voice for the entire length of the film, but the story of his career and inclusion of archive footage of his fights was intriguing to watch.

Review: The Blind Side (2009)

Usually the appearance of a sports themed film at the movie theater will have me searching the listings of the other films that are playing simultaneously. For the most part I will admit that there is very little bit of personal enjoyment that I can derive from watching the sports movie, because the underdogs known as the home team will always win the championship at the end of the movie. If the few cases in which they do not win the top honors of the game then there will be some kind of moral to promote the ideology of team spirit will always win the game regardless of the final score of the season. For the football movie of the fall season we are introduced to the story of Michael Oher who currently plays for the Baltimore Ravens. Ar the start of the film The Blind Side we are introduced to Michael who is an economically poor teenager who struggles with learning anything at school. In order to over simplify his situation it is clear that any hope for success in his future was looking bleak. No one is willing to help him out until one day an established, upper-middle class white woman meets Michael on the streets after a volleyball match at her daughter's high school. Cue the heroic music! Leigh Anne Tuohy is goal-oriented person with a capital Type A personality with just the right mixture of personal compassion for others. Almost immediately, she wants to help Michael, because she wants to make sure he has a dry and warm place to sleep when it is cold and raining outside. Soon there after she enrolls him in the same private school that her children attend and she does what she can in order for him to earn a solid education.

With nothing less than the truth, I must admit that this film was produced, but it was not snapping into place for me. As this review is being written, I must say that I have not heard a single negative comment from anyone who has seen The Blind Side. It has grappled to remain within one of the Top 5 slots of the weekend box office for domestic ticket sales in the United States for seven consecutive weeks after its initial release (as of January 3, 2010). Speaking in terms of financial success the film has all the ducks lined up in a row. Personally talking with several people who have seen the film while simultaneously reading several review ratings for the film it has been noted in my book that it is a very popular and highly regarded film. However, for me personally I will admit that I enjoyed the story and laughed at the humorously clever punch lines, but I would have easily forgotten about the film after leaving the theater if it was not for my intention to sit down and write this review.

So, let me say a few words about what I specifically enjoyed about the film followed by a few words about what I did not enjoy about it. There are a few positive attributes in the story to be observed. The main element of the entire film is the element of hope. The film demonstrates that hope serves as an unbiased and equal opportunity for everyone to desire a better life. It is a story that will cheer us all up when several of us are living within economically strained conditions. This is what draws many people into the movie theaters or the bookstores from the start. A lot of movie watchers and book readers want to experience something different from their daily grind. The Blind Side was a perfect ray of sunshine for those people who are looking for it.

Another element of the movie that I enjoyed was the point that it contains a strong female lead role played with a southern kick in the pants performance by Sandra Bullock. After all she must be good in the film since she just picked up a People's Choice Award for her work. Should I mention that it has been a while since I can even remember seeing a strong female character in a primary role? The last one that suddenly jumps to my mind is The Silence of the Lambs (1991) with Jodie Foster, but there had to have been plenty of other strong, leading female roles since that one. I am not really including action roles (ahem, Tomb Raider), so do not bother crying to me about it. So, watching Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side as an independent and strong female woman prominently placed in the lead role of the story is good to see. It is definitely a nice change from the usual humdrum films of recent years.

Now it must be explained that I have very little to say about what I did not like the movie. The film is not flawless, but it failed to get me completely involved in the film on an intellectual and emotional level. If any film can score high points in both arenas or even find a very specific target to hit that would make it a memorable experience for me then I would mark it as an instant classic and personal favorite film. Bullock’s performance was tremendous and well handled especially after the utter failure of All About Steve (2009) which was released a couple of months prior to this film. Gasp! That comedy film looks like nothing more than a desperate grab for a paycheck for Miss Bullock. How sad for her.

My experience of watching the film could be quickly forgotten since it just could not click for me. I will be honest on that point that I enjoyed the brief time I spent sitting in the theater and watching the movie, but it just was not a memorable movie for me. I would definitely offer a recommendation of this film to every dedicated sports fan out there that would connect with the story a lot more than I would ever be able to do on my own. In fact, I am thinking of one particular sports fan who watched this movie before I did and told me he thought it was a great movie. Thank you Mikey for offering your thumbs up recommendation in favor for the film; because he is the type of sports fan who I would imagine would be the ideal person to suggest watching this film as soon as possible.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

In the winter of 2009, I had watched a dramatic film set during a post apocalyptic time where a father and son are traveling upon a road with the hopeful intention to discover a safe haven to live out the remainder of their days on earth. The film stars Viggo Mortensen as the father and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the son. Although the story moves at a slower pace than other films of recent years, a definable mood is overwhelmingly present within the film’s storytelling. After reading the book in which the movie is based upon I have discovered the origin of the dark mood that surrounds the story of survival and last hope. The Road is a dramatization written by Cormac McCarthy. His other written work has also been adapted into films such as No Country for Old Men and All the Pretty Horses. The prose that is written upon the page within his books is intentionally simple and on several occasions defies the basic grammatical rules of the English language. Why would “cant” be written without an apostrophe when “he’s” been written into the same paragraph and include one? This little bit of quirky behavior is rare treat for successfully published writers. The only other author with particular sense of writing style would be Hubert Selby, Jr. who holds the notorious style of substitution by placing the forward slash symbol (/) as the permanent replacement for an apostrophe in addition to ignoring the rules for other punctuation symbols. However, there is more to The Road than the petty nuance of the author’s style of writing.

The structure of the book does not completely stick to the traditional narrative of fiction storytelling. It strays from the traditional methods by describing brief moments in time that appear as fragmented memories. Two primary characters, a father and a son, are placed in the present tense of the story. Their daily travel down the road is written as a daily log of what they do and what they discover. The father recalls memories of their former life with his wife, but it is told in brief flashes of memory. Nothing is ever specifically referred to explain what happened to the world that would leave so many people wandering the Earth as vagrants. Despite the lack of a traditional arc that would build an emotional and character development as the reader is accustomed to witnessing, there is an ongoing tension of survival for the two main characters. They must avoid the cannibals, find shelter from the rain in order to comfortably sleep every night, pillage for edible food and clean water as often as possible, and to grasp on to every ounce of hope that could be mustered up. Only speaking on my own personal experience with reading the book it was more entertaining to watch the film adaptation than it was for me to read the book. In comparison between the book and the movie, there have been a couple of changes that I consider an improvement. The flashback scenes include more information about the mother. Why she was willing to abandon her family? The movie attempts to explain her reasoning behind the decision. In addition, a few scenes from the book have been intentionally misplaced in the film’s timeline. The decision was clear to me that the movie wanted to build upon a growing tension within the character development and emotional story. Although the changes with the timeline are rather minor, in my opinion, the story draws a more satisfying development arc.

Review: Solaris (2002)

Is the film a remake? It is not necessarily the case. Is it an adaptation? More likely, it is an adaptation, but not directly connected in spirit as the author of the book has intended the story to be. Solaris (2002) is based upon the Polish novel by Stanislaw Lem that serves as an existential story about the human interaction with living beings from another planet. The movie that has been directed by Steven Soderbergh focuses upon the emotional interaction between a human male and a being that he believes is his wife. The pacing for the film is slower than most other contemporary films that are being commissioned from Hollywood. While watching this film I was reminiscing of the slow and methodical pacing of a film from Stanley Kubrick. There is enough material packed within the story to keep everything moving along just fine and dandy, but the steady pace allows the audience to reflect upon what is happening between the characters. Refer to Kubrick’s films The Shining (1980) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to understand the type of methodical pacing that I am referring to here. For considering the benefit of using a slower pacing in Solaris, it was an excellent choice for Soderbergh to have made for the film. There is an inclusion of several flashback sequences within Solaris to explain the history of the relationship between the two main characters.

Let me take a step back for a moment to offer a broad overview for the purpose of the film. The story occurs sometime in the future. There is a space station with a troubled crew aboard who is in need of psychiatric evaluation. One of the crew members asks for the assistance of an acquaintance who is a licensed psychologist. However, the psychologist carries a large amount of emotional baggage after the recent loss of his wife; she committed suicide. He boards a transport ship that carries him to the space station. Upon his arrival, Dr. Chris Kelvin discovers the acquaintance has died. There are two surviving crew members and a child who live on the station, but they offer very little information about the events that have transpired before the arrival of the psychologist. The morning after Chris Kelvin’s arrival on the station, he awakes to the mysterious reappearance of his wife. He is surprised to see her alive and on board a space station thousands of miles away from home where she has been buried.

Speaking in terms of the artistic nature of the film, I do believe its structure and pacing is perfectly suited with the purpose of allowing the audience to reflect upon the personal history of Chris Kelvin and the emotional battle he is experiencing when he discovers the return of a lost loved one. With the intention of editing the material to jump back in time to when his wife was still alive is a perfect method that allows the audience to gather historical information about the married couple. In addition, the flashback sequences have been strategically placed within the film as a way to plant particular memories in to the mind of the resurrected version of the wife. As a person with amnesia, she cannot remember anything that has happened prior to her arrival at the space station until Chris recalls the memories while he is sleeping. While he is attempting to figure out the scientific possibility of the reappearance of his wife there is an endless amount of questions that he presents to the two other crew members. He wants to know if they have any loved ones who have mysteriously arrived at the space station.

The performance given by Jeremy Davies as the tick ridden crew member who stutters and stalls his way through just about every conversation is extremely well played that should have deserved some form of an award. The character he portrays is not overbearing or annoying, which can be easily achieved if he stutters through his speech too much, but there was a perfect mixture of ticks, quirks, and hand gestures littered throughout his way of talking that the body language was a unique form of a speech all by itself. His performance was thoroughly considered with every tiny detail that surely beats a boring performance with a deadpan tone of voice and a lackluster amount of body language. Ahem, sorry Keanu Reeves.

The other surviving crew member is portrayed by Viola Davis before she garnered an Oscar nomination for her role in Doubt (2008). In regards to her performance, two particular items should be observed. First, this role has shown a strong promise that she is a performer with the skill to offer a strong and believable performance. Second, I believe it was a positive casting choice to see a black woman portray an intellectual scientist in a prominent position on a space station. It is an example that not all intellectual careers are bogged down by white men.

Overall, the film could be described as a hybrid story that pulls together elements of fantasy and science fiction, but it the vast majority of it is pure drama. The audience is emotionally pulled into the romantic relationship. However, a small amount of suspense and mystery helps keep the audience ton consider any logical explanation for the odd predicament in which the characters are experiencing in the story. It is the perfect mixture of story elements, which makes the film very enjoyable to watch. Of course, I would not want to discount the excellent performances given by the cast, and the talented knack that director Steven Soderbergh has for telling a good story.