Ant-Man and the Wasp (4/5 Stars)

Like an antidote to universe-sized seriousness, Ant-Man and the Wasp sneaks into theaters just a few months after Avengers: Infinity Wars. Importantly, it takes place before that movie. A good thing since the Ant-Man franchise is notable in its complete lack of bigness in both themes and superhero size. It stars the nice and cute Paul Rudd as a petty thief named Scott Lang who teams up with the reclusive scientist Hank Pym (played by Michael Douglas) who engineers for him a suit that shrinks his size but outsizes his strength, you know, like an ant. Hank’s daughter, Hope Pym (Lost’s Evangeline Lily), gets her own suit this time around and becomes The Wasp. Really, she was better at this thing than Paul Rudd was even in the first movie. She was the one who trained him after all.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is all fun and action. I mean really, it is a Paul Rudd movie (everybody is nice or at least means well) but with car chases and quantum mechanics. However, to explain anything that happens in this movie takes a stupid amount of exposition. In fact, this movie could serve as a screenwriting class on exposition. There are some really good examples and others not so good.

Exposition is something that all movies need to do. Since Ant-Man and the Wasp is like the twentieth movie in an intertwined Marvel Universe, much exposition is needed to explain what this particular movie is about. The best exposition in this movie happens in the first ten minutes as a soliloquy performed by the scene-stealing Randall Park. (I’ve been doing this for so long that I can say about Randall Park what I said about Paul Rudd after “Knocked Up”, I think this guy is a leading man who needs his own movies). Randall Park plays a FBI agent who is checking in on Scott Lang during his house arrest. Scott Lang’s seven-year-old daughter asks why the FBI doesn’t like her daddy. Randall gets down on his knee to better connect with the little girl. “It must be hard to understand for you,” he relates and then speaks at length in a direct and literal tone about the various legal codes in effect since Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. Classic. This does three things: One it explains the most important events of past Marvel movies concerning Ant-Man’s situation. Two and Three: It is a character-defining joke, the FBI agent seemed like he knew how to relate to a girl by getting down on her level but comically revealed that he was too straitlaced to do so.

The worse exposition concerns all the explanations concerning Hank Pym’s wife being lost in the quantum realm, how the quantum realm works, and the nature of the movie’s bad but not so bad guy Ghost. These do not come along with jokes or character development. They are necessary scenes but pales in comparison with good exposition as above. In fact, it pales in comparison with a scene of unneeded exposition provided by Luis (played by the scene-stealing Michael Pena) who answers the simple question “Where is Scott Lang?” in a very funny not simple at all way.

But besides the exposition, what is this movie like? Well, it’s got a bunch of good people trying to figure out problems. There are a few bad guys but they are either kind of goofy (Sonny Burch played by Walter Goggins) or mean well (Ghost played by Hannah John-Kamen). They have car chases over and about the hills of San Francisco. You may have seen that before, but have you seen it with cars that shrink and unshrink and sometimes a huge Ant-Man? It is good times.

This movie has notable diversity. It is a casting laundry list of the better actors of various ethnicities in its supporting roles. Obviously Paul Rudd is the straight white male. But two main superheroes beside him are both female (The Wasp and Ghost). Paul Rudd’s friends who run a security agency are hispanic (Luis), some sort of Eastern European and black. The FBI agent is Korean. The lesser bad guy is a southern gentleman (Walter Goggins) who employs at least one Indian. Given the movie’s location, San Francisco, the cast seems possible and besides me, I don't think anybody has made a point of it.

The Ant-Man franchise adds another complexity to the nature of the Marvel Universe. Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy added the vastness of the universe. Dr. Strange added new dimensions. Ant-Man adds the minute quantum realm. The science behind these complexities is real if thinly realized. What is more interesting perhaps is how these various thin interpretations of real science will interact with one another. This is bound to happen in the next Avengers movie given how Ant-Man ends.

The Martian (5/5 Stars)

Science. It works, bitches.

- XKCD T-shirt

“The Martian,” like this year’s other great blockbuster “Mad Max: Fury Road” is a movie that would not have been possible before the silent revolution in moviemaking that took place early this century. It is a niche blockbuster that combines the sort of expensive spectacle you have seen before with an unapologetic high common denominator focus of a particular audience. With Mad Max it was gearheads and metal freaks, in this case its engineering nerds and space wonks or whatever they call themselves. Gone are all the trappings of a Hollywood movie. There is no love triangle or family drama, no superpowers or aliens, no class warfare or crime, or even sex and violence. There is a Mars mission already underway at the start. There is a sandstorm and the team has to abort. During the abort, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by debris and presumed dead. The crew leaves Mars without him. But he is not dead. He is very much alive and now marooned on Mars. It will be another four years before the next mission can get there. How will he stay alive?

No, really, how exactly will he stay alive? Because the math (and there is a lot of scenes of Mark counting things and making calculations) says he will starve in 300 sols (Mars days) if he keeps to the rations he has stored. What follows for the entire length of the movie is a series of engineering problems. Mark has to use his knowledge of botany, chemistry, physics, and several other nerdy things to stay alive on this alien planet for years with nothing but the tools that were brought for a thirty day excusion. In the past studios were very hesistant to give a bunch of money to a movie that would take ten minutes to take the audience through a step-by-step chemical process on how to create water (interesting spoiler: it takes fire to create water) so the main character can grow potatoes. But this movie has taken that chance and given the box office receipts, it will succeed wildly in finding an audience nobody cared to cater to before. 

If you are into this sort of thing. If you are not turned off by people being smart and building cool things, then “The Martian” plays as an almost absurdly easy crowd-pleasing movie. The optimism and can-do attitude and cooperativeness of the best of science is all over the place. Whereas many other mainstream movies are individualistic in that stupid Ayn Randian sort of way (good me against bad world!), Mark Watney’s experience is no Robinson Crusoe type of existence. He is surviving by standing on the shoulders of giants: the knowledge passed down to him from his education, the equipment built for him by the NASA network, and once he achieves communication with NASA, the around the clock expertise, problem solving (math!), and selflessness of everybody on the ground and in space.

For a movie that is ostensibly about one person on one planet, the star power of the cast belies that it is merely that. In the spaceship, the rest of the crew includes Commander Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, and the underrated Michael Pena. On the ground Jeff Daniels runs the show, Kristin Wiig is his press secretary, Sean Bean is in charge of the astronauts, Benedict Wong and his team builds the rockets over there at the Jet Propulsion Lab, Chiwetel Ejiofor is the satellite expert, and Donald Glover is calculating the fail-safe plan in Astrodynamics. Everybody is working together to save Mark Watney and though there are many arguments about the best way to do it, nobody is working against each other. Thus although there is plenty of suspense, there is pleasantly no drama.

Not that it’s easy. And this is where this kind of movie, even as successful as it will be, will be hard to replicate. It was based on a book written with no time constraints by an engineer in network with a bunch of nerds who were checking his work for scientific errors. The whole point was to be as scientifically accurate as possible not merely do enough to assuage an audience. I do not know how to replicate that on purpose but I sure hope some studio will try.

Ridley Scott directed this movie. He made his name a long time ago with such movies as Alien, Blade Runner, and Thelma and Louise. It has been awhile since he has been culturally relevant but he never stopped being an extremely competent filmmaker. He was the perfect person to be in charge of this movie, which is less about drama and more about technical expertise. Matt Damon stars as Mark Watney. This too is perfect casting as he excels at playing exceptionally smart/charming/handsome people.

One last note: would you be surprised that this movie was almost Rated R? As I said before, no violence and no sex, but there are Fucks abounding. The rule is that you have one Fuck. Two Fucks is an R.There are at least six or seven Fucks in this movie. The astute filmmaker will take notes on how you can have a Fuck in a movie without adding to the Fuck count. And yes take note on when to use that one real Fuck. I think they made the right choice here. After performing self-surgery without anesthesia is fine use of your one Fuck. Having said that, Fucks notwithstanding, all parents who want their kids to go to college and study something other than art history should take them to see this movie, It is a wonderful humorous optimitistic story about determination and teamwork that is appropriate for kids of all ages.

Fury 3/5 Stars

‘Fury’ purports to be one type of movie, does it exceedingly well, and right at the moment of truth blindsides the audience with an incredulous conclusion that has no right whatsoever to be in a movie of its type. This movie is intended to be a serious movie about a very specific place and time, the invasion of Germany in World War II by Allied tank divisions. War is hell, the movies shows. Hitler, the ultimate asshole, refuses to give up a lost cause going so far as to start conscripting German children into the army and hanging those that refuse to fight. The allied tanks roll past hanging corpses of kids with placards hung on them that read ‘Coward.’ The other children have guns and so the Allies have to kill them themselves.

As most war movies feel they sort of must do, we are introduced into one particular tank division through the eyes of a green youngster by the name of Norman (Logan Lerman).  Get it? Norman equals Normal Man. This is a cliché but not a particularly bad one. After all I don’t know anything about tank warfare or warfare in general and sort of need a character to identify with. The tank division is led by Wardaddy (Brad Pitt). He has a tight knit group of gritty comrades. Among them are Grady ‘Coon-ass’ Travis (Jon Bernthal), Trini ‘Gordo’ Garcia (Michael Pena), and Boyd ‘Bible’ Swan (a nicely non-annoying Shia Lebouf). You will get to know these guys as well as you can possibly get to know guys in war in a two hour movie, that is, pretty well. The movie, which is serious, shows them dirty, drunk, vile, prone to epithets, and perfectly willing to take advantage of desperate poverty stricken german women, which very much happened during the war, all over the place. At one point after Norman conscientiously refuses to shoot dead bodies on the ground to make sure they are dead, Wardaddy takes him over to a real life German prisoner of war and orders him to shoot him in the back. ‘I made a promise to get my men out of the war alive, and you are making it harder for me to make good on that promise,’ Wardaddy tells him matter of factly before forcibly putting the gun in Norman’s hands and making him pull the trigger. A little hardhearted? Well, no, that’s just war.

There are two excellent scenes in this movie. One is a tank battle between three crappy American tanks (and yes historically speaking they were crappy) against a superior German panzer. Watching the scene I was struck with the truth that I had never seen a tank battle in a movie before. At least I had not seen one with as much suspense and clarity of strategy as the one here. Apparently the thing about American tanks is that they weren’t built strong enough to withstand german tank fire. One direct hit and the inside of the tank would burst into flame burning everyone inside alive instantly. Those things were literal death traps.

The second excellent scene takes place immediately after the allies take a town. Wardaddy spies an occupied apartment and takes Norman in to it to explore it. Inside they find two German women (played by Anamaria Marinca and Alicia Von Rittberg) who undoubtedly are afraid that they will be raped and/or killed. Given Writer/Director David Ayer’s treatment of the first half of the movie, it is quite conceivable something along those lines may happen. It doesn’t happen and Brad Pitt instead puts the women to work making dinner from potatoes and eggs he has stashed. (This is a good deal given the fact that the German women probably haven’t had a decent meal in long time.) However, about twenty minutes through the scene the other three men show up and they are not happy that Wardaddy is having this dinner without them, and what about the women? And here we can notice a real balancing act of fine acting (and good writing) by Brad Pitt and company. Wardaddy won’t actually order his men to behave because they have been living through hell for years and will be back out there doing it again together no matter what happens in that dining room. His loyalty to his men stops him from putting two anonymous German women over his crew. But he also does not want a mean scene to occur. So he stops it essentially by declaring he is going to have a nice meal and won’t allow his boys to stop it. He provokes good behavior by example and his boys follow him because of respect not necessarily because it is the right thing to do. This is a long and complicated dinner table scene (which are not easy to shoot/edit) and it speaks much about the director’s faith in his audience’s attention span and emotional intelligence to grasp the meaning of what happens in it.

Of course, the last scene in the movie is like a nice hard slap across the face reminding the viewer that yes the director and/or producer and/or studio ultimately thinks you are a mass-market dumbass. The last scene is a John Wayne avalanche of bullshit. Think of every stupid (i.e. not serious) and false thing you’ve seen in a war movie. It is inexplicably all contained in this one final last stand battle where our heroes are prepared to commit heroic suicide against an entire foot division of S.S. soldiers. Why these particular guys we just got to know as people who very much want to live would want to commit heroicide is completely beyond me. Why there is an entire division of well-uniformed S.S. troops marching around from nowhere to somewhere is also beyond me. Why would the battle take all day and all night long? Why would the S.S. waste so many men in dumb charges? Why couldn’t they just bring that sniper guy up at the beginning before so many of them died? Why would the German stop shooting so the wounded good guys could say tearful goodbyes to each other? All of this, what is it doing in a serious movie?

Did David Ayer think that I wouldn’t be satisfied if he didn’t end his movie with a ‘Wild Bunch’ climax? If he didn’t think so, what was the point of making a serious movie about war at all? Why didn’t he just make the whole thing bullshit? I don’t get it. I don’t get it at all. There was so much good stuff here that I can’t even say the ending ruined the movie for me. It just did not feel like it was part of the same movie at all. 

Tower Heist (4/5 Stars)

Beautifully orchestrated if not especially funny

What is most impressive about “Tower Heist” is the obvious superlative aspects of its production. The story takes place mainly in the Central Park West Trump Tower, herein referred only as the “Tower.” It is a beautiful building in a beautiful part of New York City and the cinematographer, not to mention, the location scouts, have milked the opportunities for all its worth. We see really gorgeous vistas of the Manhattan skyline, we witness the opulence of the tower itself and especially its spectacular penthouse apartment, and in a rather convenient move, the title “heist” takes place during the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade when all those gigantic floats of Snoopy and Kermit the Frog are making their way down the skyscraper-laden avenue. The professionalism shown by Ben Stiller and company is perhaps the tops of any comedy production team around. Notice how they have put in special care to develop the vast array of characters, from the building manager Josh Kovacs played by Ben Stiller himself, the concierge Charlie played by Casey Affleck, the doorman Lester played by Stephen Henderson, the new elevator operator enrique played by Michael Pena, the maid Odessa played by Gabourney Sidibe, etc. etc. The story sets up that this is a well-oiled team of superior service professionals and then actually puts in the effort to prove it by throwing in the requisite vocabulary, routines, and details needed to establish such a claim. The team of writers, Ted Griffin, Jeff Nathanson, Adam Cooper, and Bill Collage seem to know what they are talking about. But above all else, notice how clean and clear the editing, directing, and score is in moving the story along. Ben Stiller’s last movie “Tropic Thunder,” was especially impressive to me in the exact same way. It did something very hard in that it kept up a breakneck pace that never confused the storyline. To help accomplish this, they seamlessly edited hardcore rap into many of the scenes. In "Tower Heist," the story's action is perfectly complemented by a brilliant "heist" score composed by Cristophe Beck. I was humming the main tune as I left the theater. Beck deserves an Oscar nomination. And I would, if I felt I had more technical expertise, also claim that the editors, sound editors, and director, Brett Ratner, also should deserve some recognition. Having said that, there is something missing here that “Tropic Thunder,” one of the best movies of 2009, had that “Tower Heist” does not: consistent laughs. “Tower Heist,” is a well-made beautifully orchestrated movie but it is not especially funny.

One of the main reasons for this has to do with the actual storyline. Whereas “Tropic Thunder” dealt with ridiculous characters making a serious Vietnam movie for the purpose of baiting the Oscars, something that is far more pretentious than actually important, the heroes of this movie are hardworking honest working men who have been defrauded of all of their pension and retirement money by the penthouse billionaire Arthur Shaw, played with just the right amount of sociopathic tendencies by Alan Alda. One of the workers, Lester the doorman was just about to retire and travel the world with the 73K he had responsibly saved up during the last three decades he had been opening doors for people. It is shown that Arthur Shaw knew his ponzi scheme was going to go up in smoke in a few months when he took all of Lester's money in order to “invest” it. When the fraud is found out and the doorman learns the fate of his life savings, he attempts suicide. This is not funny. It’s more enraging than anything else, especially because of all the real world parallels involved. Such a story line is definitely effective. We love the heroes who are trying to steal their money back. We dislike with special venom the dishonest and disrespectful billionaire. We care about the outcome of this story, but we aren’t laughing all that much during it. The fate of the doorman’s pension is not a joke.

“Tropic Thunder,” had the almost uncanny ability to get laughs from every single character in the movie. Even the straight man, Jay Baruchel, was funny. Here only a few characters can be described as comic. Gabourney Sidibe, Michael Pena, and Matthew Broderick tend to say funny things from time to time. Eddie Murphy is the funniest although his part is hardly large enough to make the movie a full blown comedy especially when the two main characters, Ben Stiller and Alan Alda, don't get any laughs at all. What they are involved in is a dramatic game of life chess with rather big stakes attached to the outcome. Like I said, it is effective, but it isn’t all that funny.

Of course in the end, a heist movie, whether it is comedic or not, will always be judged by how well done the heist is. In other words, would it have worked in real life? That’s a good question here. There are a few moments when I was like, well that shouldn’t have worked that way, but overall there were enough intelligent parts of the heist (like for instance how they got Arthur Shaw out of the apartment, how they snuck into the tower, how they cased the place, how they knew where the safe was) that the few moments that are a bit ridiculous could be swept under the movie rug we call the “suspension of disbelief.” At times the direction of the movie was so clear that I was vaguely reminded of how it felt to watch "Die Hard," the landmark movie that all skyscraper thrillers should be judged by. "Tower Heist," does not rise to the heights of "Die Hard," but I will say this; I hope you are not afraid of heights. There are some moments in this movie where you will definitely be feeling the vertigo. It was sort of unrealistic how Matthew Broderick didn’t die but hey, I can forgive the movie for not killing him.

Everything Must Go (3/5 Stars)

Nick Halsey has just been fired from his job of 16 years as vice-president of sales. It wasn’t a problem with his work. It was a problem with his drinking. There may have been an incident with a woman at a conference in Denver. It’s hard for him to explain his behavior because he can’t remember what happened. It seems though, from the way he walks and talks (one part resignation, one part vague guilt mixed in with a measure of self-loathing/pity) that he certainly believes he could have done something bad. On the way home from work he stops by the mini-mart and stocks up on PBR. He intends to drink it as quick as is comfortably possible. The house he comes home to is empty. All the locks on the doors have been changed. All of Nick’s furniture and stuff has been moved to the front lawn. On the door is a letter from his wife explaining that this is the last of these letters. Nick finds his easy chair, plops down on it, and continues drinking. His suburban neighborhood has bylaws that state a yard sale can be held for, at the most, five days. So given the front of selling his stuff, Nick has about that amount of time to hang out on his front lawn, drink some more, and decide whether he has hit rock bottom or if there is still plenty of self-destruction left to go.

“Everything Must Go” is directed by Dan Rush and based on a short story by Raymond Carver. I haven’t read any of Carver’s stuff but after seeing this movie and Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” (itself a very good movie that compiles several of Raymond Carver’s stories), he makes my impossibly long list of books that would be so great to read some day if only it didn’t take so damn long to read books. The movie itself is very much like an elongated short story. It is contained entirely within five days, it takes place almost entirely on Nick’s front lawn, and attention is spent more on small details than big action. The ambition and budget is limited. For what it is, as they say, it is what it is, and as they also say, it does a fine job of doing what it does. There is nothing wrong with “Everything Must Go.” It’s just a small movie. If you are in the mood for that sort of thing, add a star or two to the rating up top.

Nick is played by comedian Will Ferrell in a role that is hard to believe anyone else could pull off as well. The sight of a man living on his front lawn with all his stuff is absurd and the location of this movie, being a suburb in sunny Arizona, lends the movie lots of light, which bounces off all the furniture in bright colored hues. All the lawns around him are bright green. Nick even owns a Tiki Bar and a George Foreman grill. This lends the movie a cheery tone even if its subject is so dreary. Nick isn’t getting drunk in a dark bar like Nic Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas.” He’s out in the open and fresh air. A comedian like Ferrell looks like he belongs in such a situation. And since all of this creates such an expectation of comedy, it is that much more effective as a drama when Ferrell doesn’t try to go for any jokes whatsoever. Sure there may be some witty asides to smile with (especially the talks with a bored kid played by Christopher Jordan Wallace whom Nick hires as a salesperson), but overall this movie takes alcoholism seriously. And watching a funny man that is too drunk to be funny is not funny. It’s especially sad. Even more so when one considers that the irresponsible man-boy characters that Will Ferrell usually portrays would perhaps at one point meet the same fate if they lived in the real world. It has been noted with surprise from many critics that Will Ferrell is a good actor in this movie. I agree but do not take it as a surprise. I can only assume that those critics don’t consider comedy acting as “Acting!” Watch “Old School” again and see Will Ferrell strike some of the same notes he does here. Besides being hilarious in that movie, he also realistically loses both his wife and home to drinking.

I’m sure there are a myriad of reasons why some people drink too much. Nick Hasley here seems to be doing it almost as a self-imposed punishment. A major theme of the movie involves Nick’s quest to find a reason as to why he deserves to be a happy functioning sober person. In this search, he employs the kid, a neighbor who just moved in next-door, played by Rebecca Hall, and his AA sponsor played by Michael Pena. He even goes so far as to contact a woman, played by Laura Dern, he hardly knew in high school and hasn’t spoken to in 20 years. She wrote in his yearbook that she considered him to be a diamond in the rough and suspected him to be nice even though he was a jock. So Nick, because I guess he was curious as to why someone who hardly knew him would think something like that, looks her up and shows up on her doorstep. He says he was just in the neighborhood, but come on, this is the suburbs. Nobody goes anywhere on accident there.   

And here I’m going to now pause and take my geeky liberty to talk about city planning and real estate development. If anyone living in the suburbs decides to watch this movie, please take a special interest in the scene between Will Ferrell and Laura Dern. It is the perfect example of why every house needs a porch. A grown man that just shows up on your doorstep after 20 years is inherently a weird thing. Under no circumstances should that man be let inside the house. This is something Laura Dern conveys quite explicitly in her body language. However, it is perfectly fine to talk to him on the front porch. After all, there is a possibility that he isn’t insane and you still have the ability of being able to walk inside the house and lock the door. Thus, having a porch gives one the ability to talk to strangers without sacrificing privacy or safety. It is elemental to making friends in a neighborhood. This nice conversation could not have realistically happened had Dern not had a porch. Now contrast this with the fact that Nick’s house doesn’t have a porch. In fact, even though this neighborhood is in Arizona, a place with such great weather that porches would be the most obvious things ever, none of the surrounding houses have porches. That is distressingly normal in suburbs that have been built in the last quarter century. What effect this has on the neighborhood is keenly observed in this movie. Take note that the only neighbors Nick has regular conversations with during his five day yard sale is the woman who has recently moved in across the street and the kid on the bike. In my opinion, this is completely realistic. Really, the only time one can strike up a random conversation with a suburban neighbor is the week they move in. After that it is awkward and usually an invasion of privacy. After all, you need a reason to invite yourself into somebody’s living room. Without a porch, taking the initiative to talk to people in the suburbs is more likely to be rude than friendly. The kid by the way doesn’t live in the neighborhood. His mother works there as a home nurse. She can’t afford daycare so she brings him along. He spends his days biking the desolate streets. He talks to Nick mainly out of sheer boredom. That too, I can personally attest, is completely realistic. 

Observe and Report (4/5 Stars) April 11, 2009

I recommend Observe and Report not because it’s funny (it isn’t really), but because it actually did remind me of such early Scorsese pictures like Taxi Diriver, Raging Bull, and especially The King of Comedy. Plus it also contains the first definitive proof that Seth Rogan can act.

Observe and Report is by no means a mainstream Seth Rogen comedy. It is a jet-black comedy about desperate and delusional people. It was written and directed by Jody Hill, who had previously made The Foot Fist Way, a movie about a bullying kung fu instructor played by Danny McBride. Like the main character in that movie, Seth Rogen’s mall cop (named Ronnie Barnhardt) is a none-too-bright aggressive and self-important asshole. He finds some purpose when a pervert starts flashing people in the parking lot, including the woman he has a crush on, a dimwitted ditz named Brandi (played courageously by Anna Faris) that sells cosmetics. What is Ronnie Barnhardt going to do? In his own words, spoken to a news reporter, he’s going to “Murder the M*****F*****!!!” And he means it. What becomes apparent very quick is that Ronnie is a seriously disturbed individual. Disturbed to the point that the laughs in this supposed comedy are quickly stifled and replaced with nervous tittering and incredulous ‘Did they just go there?’ knee-jerk reactions.
It sometimes amazes me whom the movies can make me empathize with. Ronnie Barnhardt is not a good person. He beats up skateboarders, he yells at children, he calls a Middle Eastern vendor Saddam Hussein, and I’m pretty sure you can classify what he does to Brandi as date rape. (I’m very surprised that scene is being treated as supposedly funny by the trailers. It’s not funny in the movie, and I don’t think it was really meant to be anything than the inevitable conclusion to a date between two very flawed people. If anyone is laughing, I think it’s simply not to cry. Which is what I believe is the natural reaction people have to most black comedies). But this movie also instills in Ronnie’s thick skull certainly noble, yet delusional ideas. Like Don Quixote he seems to be on some sort of incredible quest against imaginary forces. He’s sees himself as the guardian of all the very weak other people in mall. Who’s he fighting? Well, there’s the pervert and a robber, but his biggest enemy seems to be the actual police. Ray Liotta plays a cop who becomes Ronnie’s object of scorn simply because he steals his thunder by invading his jurisdiction. According to Ronnie he is completely incompetent. In reality, of course, it’s Ronnie who’s incompetent, but the guy is so far gone any polite attempts to explain that to him falls on deaf ears. So what Liotta eventually does is drop Ronnie off on an incredibly dangerous street corner in the middle of the night. This is where the movie first got scary because the story had instilled so much blind stupidity and aggressive stubbornness in this character that I thought it somewhat inevitable that Ronnie would get seriously injured or killed. And that’s when it hit me. I actually cared whether Ronnie would get killed or not. Somehow, Hill’s story and Rogen’s acting made me care about this guy. He certainly deserved everything he got, but I secretly wanted him to succeed and you know be happy. 
Jody Hill must know someone like this because I sense that this movie isn’t entirely making fun of Ronnie Barnhardt. There is genuine concern for this guy. One scene is especially telling: Liotta tells Ronnie that he can’t be a cop because he failed his psychiatric evaluation. Another cop hides in the closet because he thinks it’s going to be funny. But seeing Ronnie’s dreams fall apart isn’t funny, it’s just sad, and the guy admits that as he leaves.
I compare this movie to those early Scorsese pictures because they all are candid and unflinching portraits about irredeemable people. The big difference is that Jody Hill is not as good a technical director as Scorsese is, but the picture’s heart is in the right place. 
Until this movie Seth Rogen had never really played a character, only versions of himself. In a way this is the first serious role he’s ever had. I think it does an good job. Whether, like Adam Sandler who proved he could act in Punch Drunk Love and then went straight back to dumb comedies, it’s anyone’s guess if Seth does more roles like this. It’s good to know that he can though. 
Anna Faris, one of my favorite actresses, is also very good. This is a totally fearless performance. I mean could Brandi be anymore of a stupid tramp. It just shows how delusional the Ronnie character is that he would be interested in her. As of right now, it’s the best performance by an actress this year. I’ve only seen three movies so that doesn’t say much. I’ll bring it up again if anyone else does a better job.
Another actor I’m fond of, Michael Pena, I didn’t even recognize until a long time after I left the theater. He plays Ronnie’s sleazy right hand man. I can’t believe this is the same dude who was in Crash and World Trade Center. He just seemed so noble in those films. He plays such an awful person in this movie it really is eye-opening. But hey I can say that about the entire film. 
By the way, what is going on in the Great Basin lately. It seems like there’s a cinematic renaissance going on down there that excels in telling stories about desperate losers reaching for impossible dreams. In the past few years we have had Little Miss Sunshine, Hamlet 2, and now Observe and Report. I hate to say this about Arizona and New Mexico, but that godforsaken desert is the perfect location for these types of movies.

World Trade Center 10/27/06

I have always been an Oliver Stone fan, from the first time I watched Platoon and JFK. After seeing those I quickly raided Blockbuster of everything Oliver Stone: Wall Street, Midnight Express, Scarface, Nixon, Natural Born Killers. Ive even seen Any Given Sunday and somewhat like Alexander. This movie is so different from the rest of those movies. So different.
There was somewhat a consensus when this movie was first mentioned that it shouldnt be made. It was too early and please anybody but Oliver Stone. A gifted filmmaker yes, but his works are great thrillers that include angry monologues, sensationalist spectacles, and controversial topics. How can that type of filmmaker be trusted with September 11th. Most people thought it couldnt. I can truly say Oliver has proved everyone wrong.
This movies main feeling isnt fear or anger or pathos of any kind. What permeates this movie is love. Its a whole big fat basket of good American apple pie and Jesus love. He doesnt show planes hitting the towers, he doesnt mention terrorists at all. He limits the movies view toward those that responded to the attacks with only the desire to help. The most cynical piece of language uttered is the word "bastards." This is said by a cop in Sheboygan, Wisconsin who afterwards took his whole company to New York, set up a barbeque at ground zero, and fed everyone.
Nicolas Cages performance is also a bit of a triumph. It probably wasnt easy creating a character who doesnt move for that last hour and a half of the film. 
I assume that every character in this film is an actual person. That makes me proud to be an American. I felt proud when the cops stepped forward to go into the building and try to save some of the people even though the sight of the fire was especially frightening. There is also a great scene in which Jimeno is carted out of the hole and there is a great line of firemen and cops there to help move him quickly and safely to the hospital. This is the type of goodness that moves people. I would guess that most people who cry at this movie are probably doing so because they are touched by the charity of those involved in the aftermath not because of the horrible acts that occured beforehand.