The Captive. There is way too much going on here.

Jurassic World. There are at least three establishing shots early in the movie that make sure you’re ready, later on in the movie, for a terrible jab about high heels. It’s that sort of dedication to the stupidest things where this movie really shines. I’m curious about how this amped up B-movie plays for a young audience that doesn’t have ties to the earliest film. There’s a lot of fan service here with “remember how ___?” nudges throughout. The cellphone ringtone that pulls from the main theme was a nice touch. Along with those references, I thought I saw some borrowing from other movies, too: *Predator*-vision with people getting killed in the jungle; *King Kong*, where a monster looms over a woman in a tattered dress; flying creatures pouring over the horizon, like *The Wizard of Oz*; the scene people with tossing air tanks off the back of a vehicle has a hint of *Jaws* to it. There’s also a complete orgy of product placement! Converse, Beats, Samsung, Verizon, Coca-Cola, Blackberry, Mercedes, Starbucks, Margaritaville. I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting another 5-10, minimum. Totally shameless. It’s too bad that Chris Pratt is no fun here, mostly posing stiffly and asserting. They killed his charm, but he’s somehow still the best thing going here. D'Onofrio manages to make his Hoskins character more interesting than it should be, with all the swagger and bluster. Most of the others are pretty bland. Least (spoiler) favorite (spoiler) part (spoiler): the viciously indulgent death of the British nanny. Other downsides relate to its general overstuffed-ness. Earnest family bonding moments and a vast insider corporate conspiracy? That I have so much to say about this says… something. So anyway, go watch Jurassic Park instead.

Top Gun. Exhilarating for the first 80 minutes or so. Intoxicating. Is there any other movie where people are this cool? So many blinding, aggressive smiles. I remember when I was a kid I thought Iceman was a punk. Now he seems so chill and reasonable. “It’s not your flying, it’s your attitude.”

nevver:

Gluyas Williams

Blade Runner (Final Cut). I like how the more I watch this the less I root for Deckard and the more I pull for Roy, Pris, Leon, and Zhora. Deckards’s kind of a jerk, right? Fits with the film noiriness to have a hero with a dark side. Those elements stood out a lot more this time, too, so much smoke and fog, backlighting, rainfall leaving everyone bundled and drenched. I forget how jarring some of the cuts and transitions are, but I’ll forgive a lot. Such a whole, rich world. You feel like you could go there. Filed under: Blade Runner.

nationalgeographicscans:

Rug Washers in Tehran, Iran, 1960

Adaptation. I dig it. Weird and lively. Nicolas Cage is genius again. My Spike Jonze rankings:

1. Her
2. Adaptation
3. Being John Malkovich
4. “Flashing Lights”
5. “Sabotage”
6. “Get Back”
7. Where the Wild Things Are

Internal Affairs. The main reason I watched this was becase I’d recently watched Infernal Affairs, so I figured why not. Pretty solid! I love the undercurrents of menace and heat. So much imagined, suggested, inferred. And always fun to see a charming star like Gere play someone who’s just a terrible human being.

I read Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places, but I didn’t finish. It’s really into being dark, and it leans so hard on its ugly rawness that it seems a little… insecure? Let this not dissuade you from reading or watching Gone Girl, though. That one. That’s the stuff.

I went on a little hike last weekend.

Infernal Affairs. The source material for The Departed, and every bit as good as it’s remake. Maybe better. I appreciate its briskness where Scorsese tends to linger. Good soundtrack for the occasional jolt, and I like the emo, slightly soap opera moments, too. I also enjoyed Tony Leung in the excellent In the Mood for Love.

I read Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams and enjoyed it. Short and sharp. I like the “scenes from a life” method here. Hits some highlights, not strictly chronological, plenty of asides and characters that aren’t strictly relevant to any plot (such as it is), but add color and fragrance to the story. Parts of it based around the Pacific Northwest logging scene reminded me of The Golden Spruce.

Jurassic Park. Damn this movie is good. One of those movies where just skimming through search results looking for a good headline image had me smiling. Dr. Sattler is up there amongst the best heroines of the last couple decades. Smart, tough, funny, bold, decisive. (“We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back.”) There’s a lot of humor I’d forgetten in this one.

“Are these characters… autoerotica?” “No, we don’t have any animatronics.”

Some catchphrases (“Hold on to your butts.”), and a few great monologues, like…

I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it.

Also nice to see an action/thriller that, despite it’s crazy dinosaurs, is very human. It isn’t heavily reliant on overt evil, just self-interest and shortsightedness that devolves (see what I did there) in just about the worst ways possible. And the heroes are pretty regular people, out of their depth, but thinking on their feet and for the most part working together. Even the kids make some good decisions. Maybe the best sequence in the whole thing is where that teamwork is undercut by each group working with limited information. Dr. Grant and the kids are making their way back to HQ, while the folks at HQ are working to get the power back on. It’s brilliant. Each group is separately in danger, each one needs to succeed, and the success of one group of good guys, at the wrong time, is really gonna screw over the others. I’m surprised more movies don’t do something like that – the same team accidentally working at cross-purposes. If you haven’t seen this in a while… fix that.

The Secret of NIMH. I’d heard about it for ages, but this was the first time I’d seen it. Stumbled on a big-screen showing on a recent trip to San Francisco, and I figured why not? So much more funny and bizarre than I expected. I’m having a hard time imagining a similarly weird movie like this coming out any time soon. Refugee displacement, magic, biomedial ethics, eugenics, interspecies rivalry and cooperation, etc. I’ve been watching (slightly) more animated stuff lately, with good results.

Margin Call. “Be first, be smarter, or cheat.” Good ensemble corporate thriller. I don’t understand Kevin Spacey. Given the strength of this and All Is Lost, I guess I should get around to seeing A Most Violent Year. Other good movies about corporate crises: Arbitrage, Michael Clayton, The Insider, The Social Network, The Informant!.

The Cine-Files » THE TINNITUS TROPE: ACOUSTIC TRAUMA IN NARRATIVE FILM.

How—if at all—do increasing or changing representations of acoustic trauma articulate with changing notions of nation, security, and warfare? Tinnitus is the top disability in American troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and untold numbers of westerners have experienced it after terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid, London, and Boston. It does seem plausible that consequence-free cinematic explosions began to strain credulity (not to mention morality) after such attacks, even for those who have not directly experienced acoustic trauma. Tinnitus offers an economical representation of trauma in films that aspire to some level of realism and empathy—and in fact, researchers view tinnitus and PTSD as related. Could a nation’s trauma be sounding in the ears of its onscreen heroes?