Film: Star Trek Into Darkness

Director: J.J. Abrams
Genre: Sci-Fi Action
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinemas
Grade: B

There is nothing particularly wrong about Star Trek Into Darkness, and in fact as far as summer movie sci-fi goes, there's a lot that's right about it. Like April's Oblivion, it engages some interesting ideas and looks good doing it, and it has the added bonus of a cast and characters who are engaging, well-beloved (both from the original series and from the reboot of a few years ago), and a lot of fun. That it didn't hugely grab me is no real fault of the film, and I suspect on a different day I would have enjoyed it even more. For whatever else it may be, it's fun, it's stylish, and it's a good way to spend two hours at the movies.

That said, I do feel the film retread a lot of unnecessary ground from the first film (particularly the do-nothing "Kirk may lose command of the Enterprise" subplot and the "Scotty separated from the rest of the crew" plotline) for no necessary reason, particularly when they could have spent a little more time fleshing out Cumberpatch even more or given more supporting players something to do. I love Cumberpatch from the BBC series Sherlock, and he's thriving here: menacing, interesting, intelligent. I could watch him all day. 

Other than some great scenes for Spock, Kirk, and Scotty, however, the main Enterprise crew seems to have little to do, since there is so much time spent setting up the main plot. It's unfortunate, because I really do like all these characters from the first film, and I'd like to see more of them have opportunities to grow. Without question Spock and Kirk are center stage, and they should be, but Sulu and Chekhov in particular seemed relatively pointless here, and Uhura has little to do but pout. I understand the challenge of juggling all those character balls, I just don't think it was fully accomplished.

Still, this movie is fun. It really does move relatively quickly, and it starts to raise some interesting questions about the morality of how wars are fought, though it doesn't follow through as well as it could. J.J. Abrams does one-liners and little moments well (the space-jump crouch stands out in my mind), and he treats the material with a lot of respect. I won't delve into all the Star Trek II nods throughout the film (The Wrath of Khan is generally acknowledged to be the best of the OG Trek movies, and Abrams handles it skillfully), but suffice it to say I am satisfied enough that I will happily line up for #3 of the rebooted franchise. I just hope they come up with a better title.

Alternate Film Title: "Spock + Kirk: Best Friends 4Ever"

Film: Fast & Furious 6

Director: Justin Lin
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinemas
Grade: F

I feel like I deserve a "friend of the year" award for sitting through this movie with a buddy who didn't want to go alone. The writing, the plot, the character development: none of them have anything interesting to say or do. While there was some good fight choreography (mostly attributable to the presence of Gina Carano, who continues to put up a strong argument for being cast as Wonder Woman), nothing in this movie surprised me, made me care, or had any effect other than to serve as an advertisement for HGH. The franchise has now pretty successfully turned into the XXX dead-on-arrival franchise that Diesel was hoping for way back when, but that doesn't make it good. And at this point, the attempt to make the street racing scene appear to be still hip and cool just feels about a decade off. 

Ugh, seriously. And they didn't even have the courtesy to make it a ninety minute movie! They stretched it out to two hours and ten minutes. I could have been home cleaning out the lint trap or going through the junk mail. What a waste of time.

Alternate Film Title: "Male Power Fantasy for the Worst Kind of Dudebros"

Film: Becket

Director: Peter Glenville
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (1964)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: A-

The joy of "discovering" old films continues to be the joy of recognizing the complexity, dynamism, and sophistication of a bygone era--eras that as a child I had written off as somehow inferior to my own. Movie studios may have controlled the reins in a different way back then (as far as I know the independent scene was not thriving as it is now), cultural taboos may have prevented the type of explicit content on screens that is common now, and the technology may not have nearly as sophisticated as what I could buy now for just a few thousand dollars, but artists, directors, writers, and actors were still working at the height of their craft and producing some impressive results. In the same year that gave us great new works by Hemingway, Kesey, Miller, and more, is it any wonder that the film world was alive and thriving and producing some incredible works? The fact that I had never heard of Becket made me assume it was a minor work by some well-known actors--and perhaps it is--but there are other reasons I may not have discovered it until now as well. Looking at the Academy Awards in 1965, Becket was up for Best Picture--and thirteen other academy awards--against some heavy hitters: Zorba the Greek, Mary Poppins, Dr. Strangelove, and winner My Fair Lady. 
That's some stiff competition, and it makes sense that at least one of those films would fall off the radar as time goes by.

But I'm disappointed it was this one! This was my first Richard Burton film, and one of only a handful of Peter O'Toole films I've seen, but the dynamic and opposing acting styles of the two drew me in to the fractured friendship at the heart of the film. It's a good thing, too. Stylistically, the film reminded me of Camelot, which, though a few years later, shares Becket's slightly stale and soundstagey look. I'm not sure if that's wholly a result of the film stock being used, the art direction, or just the stylistic choices going into making a somewhat generic looking twelfth century England, but visually the film did not stand out for me.

But those actors. O'Toole is a raging inferno of emotion. He would play an older Henry II a few years later in The Lion in Winter, but his lusty and id-driven King here is both frightening and dynamic in a way that really electrified me. I have to wonder if he and Richard Burton split the vote for Best Actor, because while I haven't seen My Fair Lady in years, I don't remember Rex Harrison being nearly this fascinating to watch. At times it might verge on scenery chewing, but overall it's a stimulating and moving performance as Henry II pushes his need for obedience--and love--until he's locked himself into a corner. It's tragic, and if he doesn't get the outcome he had expected, he may get the outcome he deserves.

Burton on the other hand is playing the slow burn, as his Becket is everything the loud, boisterous, and unrestrained Henry is not. I would have liked to see a little more of a transition from him as he moved from faithful adviser to determined adversary, but Burton does a discovery of faith convincingly enough that I won't push him on it. It didn't match O'Toole's in intensity for me, but I can't help but feeling that was a deliberate choice on the actor's part.

At any rate, the film plays a nice contrast between the two, and it sets up some thought-provoking questions regarding loyalty, friendship, and morality. And perhaps my understanding of censorship rules in the early 60s is weak (probably the case), but I was surprised how the film pushed a few boundaries regarding Henry's sexual appetites as well--including a scene with a mostly nude woman in his bed. It was tame by today's standards, but still a surprise to me in a film from this era, and O'Toole's ecstatic throwing-back of the covers was effectively shocking.

In all this is the kind of discovery that's fun to make, and hot on the heels of Rosemary's Baby and Manhattan, I feel like I'm really lucking out in my older movie picks lately. Let's hope it keeps up, but at least I know that I'm interested in finding more O'Toole and Burton movies in the future.

Alternate Film Title: "Don't Let the Inconsistent Accents Get You Down"

Film: Rosemary's Baby

Director: Roman Polanski
Genre: Horror
Source: USA (1968)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: A-

As an adult I've come to a late enjoyment of horror films. Not the gore-fests popular among the kid's today (man, I sound old)--I have little interest in seeing Hostel or any of the countless Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes that seem to come out year after year--but I have come to appreciate the suspense, the dark, the exploration of what evil is and how we react to it. In this regard, Rosemary's Baby may be one of the best horror films I've seen in a long time. Side note: I love coming to these older gems a little later and finding a film that really stands up well even 45 years later. 

It's the slow burn of the film, and the blurred lines between reality and fantasy, waking and dream, sanity and insanity, that makes the film work. Mia Farrow is fragile and sympathetic as Rosemary, the wife of a struggling actor named Guy and the new occupant of a building with a history of murder and mayhem. Rosemary has semi-dreams, semi-memories of strange happenings going on around her, and as the film progresses, she struggles to figure out whether she is simply delusional--perhaps dealing with some sort of pre-partum paranoia--or whether she is caught in something much larger than she understands. Polanski creates these dream sequences with a masterful touch, as settings, characters, and Rosemary's mindset all seem to bend and twist in ways recognizable from our own dreams. They are haunting and effective, and they set a tone that carries through the rest of the film. The movie is not "scary" in the sense used today, where blood runs down walls and killers jump out of darkened doorways, but it creates a psychological atmosphere that becomes increasingly disturbing as it goes on. And if the final scene is a little bit comical (perhaps it's supposed to be) the final shots still managed to be effectively demented. It left me smiling, not struggling to sleep, but it still raised some interesting questions about trust, greed, and agency in an individual's life.

Looking at the film today, I can't help but wonder about the sexual politics of the era that may be part of the film's social commentary. Most chillingly, of course, is Guy's casual assertion that when Rosemary passed out he went ahead and slept with her anyway because he didn't want to miss the chance to conceive. Whether or not Guy is lying is a question from early on, but the casualness with which he suggests his actions (something that today would be termed as rape) were acceptable--and the depressingly meek protest Rosemary mounts in return--invite us to question the ways women are seen, used, and see themselves as objects in a world that seems to have little use for their own desires and feelings. Rosemary's increasing need to be heard takes up much of the film, and Polanski seems to suggest that ultimately no one is interested in listening. That assertion is just as frightening as anything else in the film, particularly at an era when women's rights were just beginning to be a political issue. I can even see examining this film in the context of the abortion debate, since Rosemary's control of her own body seems to be at the heart of the story. (Interestingly, Mia Farrow was served divorce papers during this film from her then-husband Frank Sinatra, who didn't want her to work anymore once they got married. Again, that question of female ownership of her own life raises its head.) If the film were remade today, I wonder how such issues would be reshaped and revised to fit modern sensibilities. Ostensibly we live in a more equal society, and yet the idea of women as objects of pleasure for others can still be found everywhere, from television to the internet and beyond. I think there could be some really interesting ways to make Rosemary just as relevant today, even if her reaction to her predicament would (one hopes) have to change. 

Is the movie dated? Sure. But I found myself not really caring. I was drawn in to the story, and the desperation that Farrow manages to exude so well, that a few hokey moments or silly twists really didn't care. I think it's a movie that stands up.

Alternate Film Title: "The Original 'Creepy Apartment Complex' Story Is Still One of the Best" 

Film: The Inbetweeners

Director: Ben Palmer
Genre: Comedy 
Source: UK (2011)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: C-

I have a soft spot for the British sit-com The Inbetweeners. My friend Dylan and I found it on tv one day and watched a few episodes. It's childish, crude, offensive, misogynistic, and often very very funny. I ended up watching the whole series at the gym, and I gained an affection for all four of the characters, even though I couldn't off the top of my head tell you any of their names.

Like many of my favorite recent comedy tv shows (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Workaholics), the show works because 90% of the time the lead characters are the objects of ridicule. They are idiots, they are clearly out-of-touch, and yet they are so confident and brazen about the whole thing that you can't help but like them. The misogyny, for example, is used to mock the misogyny of adolescent boys: obsession with women as objects prevents them from ever gaining relationships with any real women. Their childish obsession with female body parts is exactly what prevents them from getting closer to female body parts; they see women as a goal, rather than as people. Their idiocy is meant to be recognized, but it's also meant to be laughed at, with the hope that the audience recognizes that women are more than the sum of a few parts.

Perhaps that's giving the show too much credit, though. In this film, while the four boys are on vacation, they are repeatedly cruel, rude, and piggish to a set of four women they befriend, and yet somehow the women keep coming back for more--well before the boys have learned any sort of lesson. The fact that all four of the girls seem to give all four of the boys chance after chance undercuts any real social commentary and basically affirms a message that women are just waiting to throw themselves at boys, no matter how they really treat them. 

These competing messages just end up leaving the film as a British version of a teen sex comedy like American Pie--all surface, no substance, and tons of penis jokes.

Don't get me wrong. A few of the jokes made me laugh. But ultimately this was pretty forgettable. 

Neil. Neil is the tall goofy one. There, I knew I could do it.

Alternate Movie Title: "And You Thought the TV Show Was Dirty . . ."

Film: Scream 4

Director: Wes Craven
Genre: Horror/ Comedy 
Source: USA (2011)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: D+

It's amazing what 15 years can do. I really enjoyed the first Scream movie, which came out when I was in high school. Even though I wasn't a big horror movie fan, it captured something about movie fandom that worked for me--in addition to being clever and surprisingly creepy. Since then, each successive sequel has had diminishing returns, including this one, which tries to capture the magic of the original ("New Decade, New Faces, New Rules" is the tagline) and instead ends up just feeling like a retread. In a world where horror comedy has been done better (a clip from Shaun of the Dead is actually shown in the film), where the genre has been picked apart more adroitly (Cabin in the Woods, thank you), and where slasher movies have kind of gone out of style, this movie feels like an empty retread with very little left to say. It tries to be self-referential and clever, but it comes across as if it doesn't realize how out-of-date it is. It's trying so hard to be fresh that it can't hide how stale it really is. It thinks we somehow still care about these characters. 

We don't.

That said, there is one moment that I really enjoyed where the killer is revealed and goes about trying to mangle him/herself to look like one of the victim. Surprisingly brutal, oddly comedic, and desperately pathetic--it's the tone the whole movie was going for, but never actually got. But for those three minutes it worked really well.

Let's just hope they let the original die a peaceful death now, rather than trying to resurrect it for the millionth time. Then again, maybe there's something meta about that? I don't even have the energy to care anymore.

Alternate Film Title: "Hayden Panettiere Is Actually Kind of Good In This. Who Knew?"

Film: Iron Man 3

Director: Shane Black
Genre: Action/ Comic Book
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: B

I feel like I give a lot of B's to movies, but Iron Man 3 is the kind of enjoyable ultimately empty fluff that does the job but won't be remembered ten minutes after leaving the theater. It's fun, and it has a few interesting ideas, but it also doesn't break much new ground or seem interested in telling a story with long-term consequences. Still, it's a big step up from Iron Man 2, so I'll take it, and I'd see another Shane Black Iron Man film with no concerns.

As always, the best part of Iron Man is Robert Downey Jr. I'm not sure superhero casting has ever been so spot-on, as his brashness, his ego, and his sense of humor are all what make this character come alive. If he ever stops wanting to do Iron Man movies, I think the suits over at Disney are going to have to give the franchise a break for a while, because I can't imagine any other actor inhabiting the role the way he does. He is Tony Stark, and Tony Stark is Iron Man.

That question of identity and how well can you know yourself when faced with bigger questions and life-changing experiences is at the heart of Iron Man 3, which takes place not long after the events of The Avengers. Tony finds himself haunted by his experiences at the end of that film, unable to sleep and constantly tinkering and building. He finds himself unclear on where the suit ends and he begins, and Black solves this conundrum by basically taking him out of the suit for the majority of the film. He ends up in Tennessee, befriended by a little boy (ten years old? eight?) who both pushes him and questions him, and though it sounds really trite it all works pretty well. Downey Jr has good chemistry with the little boy, played by Ty Simpkins, and what could have gone the road of family-feel-good fodder actually stays true to the character and his crisis. Tony has to rely on himself--not the suit--in some of these scenes, and I can see the depth Black is going for. The question of identity and masks and what happens when those lines are blurred does provide some good moments.

Which brings me to Ben Kingsley, the highlight of the film for me, in a role that is both terrible and blindsiding all at once. Kingsley is clearly having fun here, and his second act conversation with Stark is one of my favorite superhero moments in a long time.

Which is why the fact that the film ultimately rings a little hollow is such a disappointment. Black doesn't go far enough with those questions of identity, or how much we rely on technology, or corporate/political machinations, or any of those questions he raises at the beginning. We end instead with a literally hollow battle, as Tony Stark and James Rhodes are joined by like 50 empty self-directed iron suits in trying to take down the bad guy. The scene takes the magic out of the fight for me, as you have to question why Tony goes into battle at all, when he can apparently program his suits to act fully independently. Even this could raise interesting questions about US drone strikes, but instead it is just about "Hey cool look at all the flying robots!" In addition, Tony makes a gesture at the end of the film that ultimately is going to be very hollow and pointless, and it makes me wonder why he bothered at all.

Don't get me wrong, Iron Man 3 is a good time at the movies. It just ended up having no real impact.

Alternate Film Title: "Glad to See the Guy From Rubicon Getting Some Work"

Film: The Great Gatsby

Director: Baz Luhrmann
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: C+

If the words "Baz Luhrmann is directing The Great Gatsby) conjure up anything in your mind, you probably know exactly what to expect with this film. Visually enticing, often frenetic (at times pointlessly so), merrily melodramatic, and with a touch of true pathos, Luhrmann's Gatsby may be my favorite of the three adaptations of Fitzgerald's classic work that I've seen, but I don't think it captures the spare beauty and devastating prose of the novel, even when Luhrmann is literally putting Fitzgerald's words on the screen. Fitzgerald gets the over-the-top style of Jay Gatsby's parties, but he can't quite capture the sentimental core underneath.

Not that he and his actors don't try valiantly. DiCaprio is a fantastic Gatsby, and Carey Mulligan is an inspired choice as Daisy, both of them finding more depth and honesty in the characters than did Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, the Gatsby and Daisy of the 70s version. It is a testament to the actors that the scene in which Gatsby throws his shirts into the air for Daisy, prompting her to break down sobbing at the "beautiful shirts," actually works here, a feat I was sure could not really be pulled off (I mean, it's such a silly scene). DiCaprio's Gatsby gets a little darker (or is it dumber?) than I envisioned the character as he tends tirelessly to his dream of what his life should be, but for the most part I found him endearing and entrancing. Mulligan, as always, is both beautiful and fragile, a woman of the world on the outside and a lost little girl inside. It's a role she has played repeatedly--from An Education to Shame--but it's a role she plays well.

But two things get in the way of this movie for me: one of them is named Luhrmann, and the other is named Maguire. 

Luhrmann, in the first place, never knows when enough is enough. It's not enough to have the absurdity of the party, we have to have the absurdity plus whip cuts and slow motion tracking shots and Jay-Z in the background and confetti--literally confetti--EVERYWHERE. His valley of ashes is literally a valley of ashes. It's in no way subtle, and it becomes just too much; after a while that much glitter and speed gets boring. He loses track of the story in favor of 3-D and overly emotional staging, and by the time Myrtle is literally sailing over the car in her ballet of death, it gets to be all just tiring.

But Luhrmann knows how to attract young viewers, and if the reaction among my students is any indication, he has succeeded in bringing the story to life for many teenage film-goers. It is lush, and if you haven't already seen all these tricks in Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, it can be exhilarating. 

Unfortunately, whatever he accomplishes to bring life to the film is consistently sucked out by Tobey Maguire.

I don't know what it is about Maguire that rubs me the wrong way. I loved him in Cider House Rules, I liked him in the Spider-Man franchise, and I've seen him in any number of roles where he works just fine. Unfortunately, he never seems to find a handle on Nick Carraway, and I think Nick is essential to the story as both observer, judge, and participant in the insanity of the novel. Maguire plays him as mostly dull, yet somehow tortured enough by the whole thing that apparently he becomes a mad alcoholic writer; Luhrmann and his screenwriters have overlaid a little bit of Fitzgerald's own demons onto Nick, giving him a side story wherein he works out his demons by writing the Gatsby story while in a sanitarium battling his alcoholism. His therapist there is a non-entity, apparently only existing to bring him tea and fresh paper, and the whole thing is both unnecessary and pretty opposed to my reading of Nick as both a sinner and a survivor of the world of the Buchanans and the Gatsbys, those careless people who smash things up.

And maybe that's ultimately my problem with the film: I just love the book too much. I was stuck constantly judging what was left out (No Nick/Jordan romance? No Klipspringer phone call to the funeral?) and what was changed to fit Luhrmann's vision, particularly when it contrasted with my own. I appreciate the film for what it is, but I'm not particularly interested in seeing it again, whereas the novel draws me back to it year after year. I guess it's just hard to be non-judgmental about something you love so much. Gatsby knows what I'm talking about.

By all means the movie is worth seeing--especially if you haven't read the book since high school, or if you just really love visual spectacle. But if you want the real emotional heart and prose that paints itself across your mind more dramatically than all the slow-motion tracking shots in the world, then skip the movie and pick up the book. It's worth the time

Alternate Film Title: "20s Fashion Never Looked So Good"

Film: Manhattan

Director: Woody Allen
Genre: Comedy 
Source: USA (1979)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: B+

"I finally had an orgasm, and my doctor said it was the wrong kind."

"You had the wrong kind? I've never had the wrong kind. Ever. My worst one was right on the money."

It's easy to see now why my first tastes of Woody Allen left me flat, and why now I find myself in the middle of a growing appreciation of his subtlety, his lack of subtlety, and the ways he has changed and grown over the years as a filmmaker. I loved Midnight in Paris and really liked Match Point, Scoop, and Vicky Christina Barcelona, all of which have found him getting outside of himself a little bit more (though maybe not Midnight in Paris) and exploring some different character types. But those characters are all still mixed up in their own sexual dysfunction, egomania, and intelligence to varying degrees--in other words, those same concepts that Allen has been exploring since the beginning.

Older Allen films have all that plus a heavy dose of self-loathing and neuroticism, but they also have an honesty to them that is both sweet and sad. Isaac, Woody Allen's character in Manhattan, for example, is searching for love, torn between the seventeen-year-old (yikes) actress/schoolgirl

he's been having an affair with and a desire for something more real. Isaac is an aspiring writer, and the film opens with his rewrites of the opening lines of his novel, trying to explain a love/hate relationship with the titular city that in some ways reflects the divide he feels within as well. Isaac wants a relationship, but he blames the failures of his past on others, and seems glib and unconcerned about the ramifications of dating a woman/girl 25 years younger than himself of falling for his best friend's mistress. He leaves the girl to develop a relationship with the mistress, and when she goes back to his friend, he returns to the teenager, begging her not to go on a study trip to London he had previously encouraged her to enjoy. That desperate and somewhat pathetic selfishness is both sad and comedic, as Isaac (we hope) is given an opportunity to grow up a little. Of course the film ends before that growth is achieved, a kind of in media res ending that I found myself really pleased with.

All this drama (and often unexpectedly clever dialogue, as seen above) is played out in beautiful black and white as Allen seems to be channeling the Manhattan of the films he fell in love with. He's playing with film tropes of the 40s--the classical soundtrack, even "silent" gags and montages as he takes his son out for an afternoon with shots that seem to evoke Chaplain or Keaton--even while he's showing us light and shadow in wholly new ways as well. A trip to the planetarium, for example, features back-lit and silhouetted figures against a field of stars, a thin strip of light illuminating their profiles, from Allen's trademark glasses to strands of Diane Keaton's hair. The wonderful experimental and assured and homaged feel of it all somehow fits together, and the film becomes a slice of life that is familiar and recognizable even while being nothing like my day-to-day life. The whole thing works, even when I feel like it shouldn't. Like the quote at the top of the entry, I get the feeling Allen is just happy to be playing with film, and even when he gets things wrong, he doesn't care because he's having such a fine time it somehow turns out right.

I get that Woody Allen movies aren't for everyone, and not all Woody Allen movies are for me. But I'm enjoying my forays into his filmography, and this one was a really satisfying cinematic experience.

Alternate Film Title: "Wherein Apparently Everyone Is Cool with Dating a Seventeen-Year-Old"

Book: The Illusion of Separateness

I wish I had found the time to write this review much earlier, because much of the novel has slipped out of my mind at this point. Van Booy's intentions and central theme is stated clearly in the novel's title, a variation of the semi-famous Thich Nhat Hanh quote "We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness." Van Booy creates story after story, each the piece of the life of a character, each story woven together by coincidence, by choice, by fate/God, for better or for worse. Thing of the film Crash, but with more sensitivity and gentleness (and perhaps less ego).

Van Booy's characters are gentle souls who touch each other's lives in sometimes inconsequential and sometimes shocking ways, and by the time the story comes back full circle at the end of the novel, it is both expected and satisfying. The spirit of the novel is so sweet (despite some of the occasionally appalling acts described) that I can see the novel becoming a favorite of book clubs in the coming year, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I expected to be turned off by it, but instead I found myself moved and recommending it to friends. The lack of long-term impact of the novel impedes my whole-hearted recommendation, but it's still a very fast and very enjoyable read.

I should also point out that I received an advanced copy of this novel due to Powell's Indiespensible Book Club, and free reader's edition of novels is just one of many possible perks that club offers in addition to autographed and custom-slipcased novels. It's $40 every six weeks or so, but the enjoyment of getting a surprise box every so often is worth it. I highly recommend it.

Grade for Indiespensible Book Club: A
Grade for the Book: B+

Film: The Thin Man

Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Genre: Comedy Mystery
Source: USA (1934)
Rating: NR
Location/Format: DVD
Grade: B

Several months ago one of my coworkers, unprompted and without much explanation, gave me a stack of The Thin Man movies to watch--all of them, in fact. The DVDs sat next to my TV for literally months, until recently I started to feel like I needed to watch them just so I could get them back to her! I sat down to watch the first of the series with a little bit of trepidation, and prepared to get my iPad out at the first sign of boredom.

Well, I won't say I never felt boredom, but I held off on distracting myself, and I'm really glad I did. While I wouldn't give this film to a friend as an entry point into classic film, those familiar with (and fans of) the early days of cinema could do much worse than to spend a couple hours with the movie. Not only did it teach me that the dog from The Artist was actually an homage to Nick and Nora's dog Asta, but also it reminded me how fun screwball comedies can be.

There is a mystery at the heart of this film: what happened to Clyde Wynant, and did he murder several people? But the mystery really doesn't matter much, at least not once Nick and Nora show up. William Powell and Myrna Loy have undeniable chemistry as the oddly matched married couple, and their banter and repartee is often laugh-out-loud funny. As they guzzle drinks and tease each other, you can't help but want to join in on the fun of their conversations and their marriage. It's that frothy pleasure I look forward to seeing more of, and I have no doubt that we will watch at least a few more in the series (there are six or seven total, with increasingly idiotic names, but if Powell an Loy are involved, I'll come back again).

I will say that it surprised me a bit that this came from a Dashiell Hammett novel, if only because I had it in my mind that Hammett's works were all hard-boiled detective novels, and while there is certainly detecting occurring, as I said, the tone of the investigation is hardly dark, gritty, or even particularly serious. I suppose authors can go in different directions, however, and adaptations in more directions than that! It does intrigue me enough to want to go back to the original novel. Maybe someday. For now, a few more hours in the alcohol and witticism drenched world of the films will be plenty.

Alternate Film Title: "Money, Liquor, Dogs"

Film: The Place Beyond the Pines

Director: Derek Cianfrance
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Island Cinemas
Grade:A-

If there's one thing this movie proves to me, it's how much better Ryan Gosling is than Bradley Cooper as an actor. It's not that Bradley Cooper is bad. In fact, he's actually quite good at this. It's just that the whole time he was on screen (only about a third of the movie, but I'll get to that in a moment) I was thinking, "Hey, Bradley Cooper's pretty good at playing a cop." Whereas the whole time Gosling was on screen--even after I got used to his terrible tattoos--I was drawn into his character's trials and psyche. It's the difference between a star and an actor. Cooper is probably the bigger star, but Gosling is the real actor.

The Place Beyond the Pines almost feels like an anthology film, in that there are really three distinct stories that happen to overlap characters. The first third is Gosling's, the second third Cooper's, and the final section is Chronicle star Dane DeHaan's. It's a testament to director Cianfrance that each story feels pretty well-contained, cohesive, and fleshed out even in its limited run time. Of course, one of the film's themes is the way in which we impact the lives of others, and so several threads--some thin, most blatant--connect the separate stories together. But they blend well together, and though I was sad to leave characters behind as the film moved forward, Cianfrance does a nice job showing how actions ripple forward through time, like a stone dropped in the ocean. There are moments that rely a little heavily on the tropes of indie films (long handheld shots, etc.), but overall I found both the story and the artistic weight of the film to stay with me long after I'd walked out of the theater. And if Cianfrance does get a little Sundance-heavy, he also has a surprising gift for invigorating action. The scenes of Gosling driving through the streets and woods on his motorcycle are some of the most intense I've seen in some time.

It's little touches like that that help the film stand above the fray. It's not the best film I've seen this year, but there's a chance it could make my top ten list.

Alternate Film Title: "Only Ryan Gosling Can Look This Stupid and Get Away With It"

Film: The Thin Blue Line

Director: Errol Morris
Genre: Documentary
Source: USA (1988)
Rating: NR
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade:C

The Thin Blue Line is one of those films that occasionally makes its way onto "Great Films" lists (or at least "Great Documentaries" lists), in part for the way it advanced the art of nonfiction film. Unfortunately, I watched this film in the complete wrong setting, so I will have to take a major portion of the blame for the fact that I was never fully drawn into the story. I know there's a lot of fascinating information here--perjury, racial bias, police misbehavior, legal loopholes, and so on and so forth--but somehow when I split my focus between the film and work/gym time, I just couldn't get enthralled enough to remember much about it. It may  also be the case that the film's style, complete with crime scene recreations totally reminiscent of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries from 1988 (the year of the film's release), threw me off a little. Again, that's my fault, but it is what it is. I loved that should when I was younger.

That said, there is a lot fascinating here, in part due to the after-effects of the film. The apparently-wrongfully-convicted Randall Adams had his case re-examined and overturned. He was freed from prison about a year later. So I guess documentary films do have the power to change the world at times. 

Alternate Film Title: "Hitchhiking: Still a Bad Idea"

Film: Oz the Great and Powerful

Director: Sam Raimi 
Genre: Fantasy
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG
Location/Format: AMC Orange Park
Grade:D+

So after seeing Oblivion in IMAX, we decided to make a day of it and turn our movie outing into a double feature. Unfortunately, we chose Oz the Great and Powerful as our second film, and this movie is not very good.

Sam Raimi. Really hit and miss for me.

This prequel to the Wizard of Oz has a few great things going for it: Raimi has fun playing with the 3D and the visuals, the China Girl is a pretty good little character, and Mila Kunis is still pretty good looking. Unfortunately, the story and writing are uninspired (a particular problem with prequels? We know how this ends!), most of the characters are uninteresting, and Mila Kunis is completely miscast. At least Rachel Weisz is there to make this world look like somebody belongs in it. 

Maybe the film is just pitched at an audience 25-30 years younger than I am, but I found myself incredibly bored, annoyed by bad jokes, and shocked by how bad I thought Mila Kunis's makeup was. Fortunately, the film's climactic siege of the Emerald City (including the incorporation of scarecrows and the world's greatest smoke machine) salvaged a little of the movie, but not enough to turn the tide for me. I'm glad I had already seen the far more interesting Oblivion, because at least I felt my time at the movies had not been a complete waste.

Still, Sam Raimi: you need to find your groove again. Because it's not in Oz.

Alternate Film Title: "Oz the Great and Terrible--Because When I Played Oz in My Junior High School Production of The Wizard of Oz, That Was My First Line, Shouted Boldly Through My Barely Pubescent Lungs . . . Good Times."

Film: Oblivion

Director: Joseph Kosinski
Genre: Sci Fi
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG 13
Location/Format: AMC Orange Park IMAX
Grade: A-

A friend of mine suggested that Oblivion is a mash-up of sci-fi's greatest hits, and he's not wrong. Within the opening shots of the film, the tone and set-up immediately brought to mind Duncan Jones' Moon. Elsewhere in the film, scenes reminiscent of 2001 (the grand daddy of modern sci-fi films), Solaris, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Wall-E (or Portal, depending on how you first see those drones), Mad Max (or any number of other post-apocalyptic future worlds), District 9, and even Independence Day caught my eye. I'm sure there were more than that--it's been a while since we saw it. But even as I saw and acknowledged all of that, I have to admit that I really enjoyed myself. Did I see plot twists coming a mile a way? Yes. Did I enjoy it anyway? Absolutely.

Some of that is due to the pleasure Joseph Kosinski takes in carefully designing his worlds. The director of Tron: Legacy (another critical flop that I really enjoyed), Kosinski presents an Apple-aesthetic future in which everything is white, glossy, and sterile--while still being really sexy also. The plane/jet/helicopter thing that Tom Cruise flies around this post-apocalyptic world looks like so much fun that I can suspend my disbelief regarding how it actually works. Much like I will accept the idyllic paradise Cruise finds seemingly minutes away from the ruined east coast--a true hidden valley that is both inexplicable and an all-too-obvious contrast to the sterile future Cruise's character Jack normally lives in. The nature versus technology thread is painfully clunky, but it worked well enough. As with Tron: Legacy, I liked exploring this world--both for its visuals as well as for the story behind it--that I was willing to forgive a little obvious metaphor. I particularly enjoyed seeing the film in IMAX, as the scale and clarity of the picture made Kosinski's world even more engrossing.

Here's my question, however (and it may include some spoilers): When the first third of your film hinges on a lone survivor battling a creepy band of aliens, why oh why would your previews include shots of that character getting captured and questioned by Morgan Freeman? Freeman's inclusion in the marketing campaign for this film makes several of the twists the film promises even more predictable and obvious, since we know before sitting down in the theater that the "figures out in the dark" are not alien but human, which should make us question the reliability of the narrator's understanding of the world, which should lead us quickly to where the film ultimately takes us. It's another case of marketing diluting the possible power of the film, and it's disappointing.

Still, I have no problem admitting how much I enjoyed this movie, and while I don't know if I liked it enough to buy it when it comes out, I do know that the visuals of the world are compelling enough to make me interested in a second viewing. For me, it wasn't a bad early kick-off to the summer movie season

Alternate Film Title: "Every So Often You'll Remember How Tiny Tom Cruise Really Is"

Book: Snow Crash

Take three parts digital prophesy, one part religious ur-myth, and a dash of absurdist humor; mix it with capitalism-run-amok, a hacker mentality, and a fondness for samurai swords, half-bake it all for 400 pages, and you've got something approaching the genius mishmash that is Snow Crash. Though for me the story didn't ultimately live up to the ideas, the ideas here are both eerily prescient and beautifully over-the-top, and it leaves me no doubt that I will pick up more Stephenson in the future.

To summarize this story would probably take pages, so here is a cliff-notes story: in a futuristic/parallel America in which corporate entities have redrawn national boundaries and in which much business is done in the virtual reality Internet world known as the Metaverse, a new drug known as--delivered digitally directly to the brain stem and affecting both the online avatar and the physical user--has begun to appear. In investigating the narcotic/virus's roots, its creator, and its purpose, pizza deliveryman, hacker, and self-proclaimed "greatest swordfighter in the world" Hiro Protagonist teams up with fearless skate-boarding deliverygirl Y.T. on an adventure that crosses time, space, and virtual worlds. It's a roller-coaster ride filled with comedy, action, and philosophical musings, and it's a lot of fun to read.

The plot, as it stands, is so insane that you can't help just go along for the ride. But where Snow Crash really worked for me was in how well, 21 years ago, it seemed to predict today's world. OK, the United States hasn't completely dissolved into corporate nations, but the power of the corporation continues to grow unabated. We now have corporations fighting our wars, deciding our political stances, even enforcing our laws. Are we really that far from a world in which franchise-states separate themselves more completely so as to create their own laws and policies--in which even the mafia can incorporate and go "legit"? I'm not so sure. And what of Stephenson's Metaverse, which though not the current direction of the Internet, can be seen in the gaming worlds of PlayStation Home, Second Life, even World of Warcraft and other MMOs--worlds in which information is interfaced with on a digital level, served up in bite-sized pieces through fiber-optic and wireless connections. Perhaps skateboarding isn't as popular now as it was when the novel was written, but Stephenson gets so much else "right" (as in, it feels like it could still be just around the corner) that I don't even care. Hiro's penchant for sword-fighting even pre-Matrixes The Matrix. And don't even get me started on the ways religion, race, and fears of immigration seem to play into the mix. 

My one disappointment is that after a while the plot gets so silly that the bigger issues the book wants to explore (language and the brain, religion as a virus, the blending of the cyber and the physical) get drowned out in the rollicking action set-pieces. It's fun, but it does dampen the more thought-provoking ideas that seem to drive the book forward. L. Bob Rife, for example, never gets fleshed out as completely as he could and should have been, and so for me some of the driving force of the novel petered out.

Still, whatever else this book may be, and despite being long-winded at times, I couldn't help but enjoy myself and got lost in Stephenson's world of anarchy and chaos, anchored by some really cool cats. Hiro and Y.T. are fun, and so the novel is propelled forward with energy, even when it gets lost in itself.

Grade: B+

Video Game: Bioshock Infinite

I am way behind on my movie and book entries, but I wanted to take a few minutes to write about Bioshock: Infinite while it was still fresh in my mind. It's one of the most compelling games I've played for a while, and since beating it on Friday night (really Saturday morning) at 1 a.m., I haven't stopped thinking about it. So I figured I ought to jot down some thoughts, since it's been on of the more impactful media experiences I've had so far this year 

"Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt," the story begins. You play as Booker DeWitt, a semi-alcoholic Pinkerton detective who is sent to find a young woman named Elizabeth, a Disney princess-esque young woman of indeterminate age who is being held in a tower in the middle of the city. In this case, the city is Columbia, a chain of interlinked flying islands that float above the world. Columbia was launched by the US around the time of the World's Fair of 1893, but by the time the story begins (I think in 1912), it has broken off to become its own independent nation, led by a man named Comstock, the Prophet.

Columbia has a unique and fascinating personality as a setting. It's sci-fi and a throwback to the past all at the same time. The city is torn by internal conflict between those in power--Comstock and others, known generally as the Founders--and the oppressed lower classes, the Vox Populi. Against this civil war, Columbia has plenty of room for fascinating story telling. There is a deep sense of religion--regard for Comstock as a prophet, for the Founding Fathers of the US as demigods, etc. You can only enter the city through baptism, and the religious elements return throughout the story in some really fascinating ways.

One of the ways the city works so well as a compelling setting is because the art is so beautiful. It's an amazing place to walk around, even on my medium-end pc. Light, shadow, fog, cloud, and more all play across the city in beautiful and surprising ways. Unlike the original Bioshock (which is fairly unconnected to this world), Columbia is bright and cheerful, full of sunlight and blue skies. And the music. I don't think I've played a video game before where the ambient sound of the environment was so creative. Rounding a corner to hear a barbershop quartet version of "God Only Knows" (originally by the Beach Boys) is one of the most memorable video game experiences I've ever had. You see Columbia is not just a floating city. It is also a city riddled with "tears" that connect it to alternate worlds and alternate times. Elements of those worlds have seeped through, particularly in the form of music. It creates a unique and fascinating sense of place.

Elizabeth, the Prophet's daughter, is held against her will in a giant tower because she can control (to a limited degree) these tears in reality, opening and closing them at will. Elizabeth's growing understanding of who she is and why she can do this becomes a major theme throughout the game, as do Booker's own reasons for his quest to protect her. Elizabeth has another protector/captor as well in the Songbird, a huge birdlike creature--somewhere between a living animal and robot--that keeps her in her tower and occasionally appears to hunt her down. The source of this creature is not fully explored (or if it was, I missed it) in this game, and I hope that some of the DLC will deal with the Songbird's origins. I suspect, as with all other elements of this game, that there is more going on than meets the eye.

As a game, Bioshock: Infinite is successful but full of problems. I got tired and bored with examining every trashcan, crate, and bag for items, and after a while I stopped noticing the amazing set design because I was looking for searchable items. I'm not sure if that's my fault or the games, because you do need those items, but the search pulled me out of the game. Similarly, the combat (while fun) does tend to get a little repetitive. Again, that might be a lack of imagination on my part, but even as I got much better, I did not always grow to enjoy it more.

Still, the setting and story--including themes like guilt and innocence, redemption and salvation--all resonate so well it's hard to find fault. The game took me around 19 hours to beat (I'm slow; other websites I've looked at reported doing it in 10 or so), and when I wasn't playing I was thinking about it. Like last year's The Walking Dead, my fascination with the characters and the story really overwhelmed the tediousness of some of the game play--enough so that I'm considering replaying it in 1999 mode (the hardcore mode) just so I can explore the world again. We'll see. I've considered doing that with games before and rarely do so.

What can I say though? I want to go back to Columbia.