Movies: Invictus

…directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Anthony Peckham and John Carlin, starring Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Jason Kgoroge, Patrick Mofokeng.  Invictus is a good movie about a great man.  It details Nelson Mandela’s early years as president of post-apartheid South Africa against the backdrop of the 1995 Rugby World Cup.  As the preferred sport of the Afrikaaners, the Springboks (South Africa’s national rugby team) were beloved to the white minority.  This same minority that had just lost power after ruling the country for hundreds of years.  Many in Mandela’s ruling ANC party wanted to do away with the Springboks entirely – with their colors, their name, the team.  Yet Mandela recognized how powerful this team was a symbol to the whites, many of whom the country needed to function and survive.

As for the rugby team themselves; the Springboks had just re-entered international competition after a decades-long ban due to apartheid and were set to host the next World Cup.  They were a good not great team, and certainly not a favorite.  But Mandela also recognized that the tournament would be broadcast worldwide and was not only a great international PR event, but the chance to begin to heal some of the wounds in his own country.  Enter Francois Pienaar (Damon) the Captain of the Springboks.  In the sports-movie portion of this film, Pienaar, after visits with Mandela, realizes how important the tournament could be to his country and sets about inspiring his teammates even as he himself is inspired by Mandela.  It’s pretty inspirational.

Movies: The Men Who Stare at Goats

…directed by Grant Heslov, written by Peter Straughan (script) and Jon Runson (book), starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, & Kevin Spacey.  The Men Who Stare at Goats chronicles the efforts of a small-town reporter named Bob (McGregor) to uncover the story of the Army’s efforts at developing and using paranormal and psychic powers.  After an interview with a veteran of the Special Forces’ First Earth the Battalion and being cuckolded by his wife, Bob heads for Iraq to try his hand as a war correspondent.  There he runs into Lyn (Clooney), the Army’s former top psychic, who has his own mission in the desert.

We learn about the First Earth Battalion’s founder,   Lt. Colonel Bill Django (Bridges, reprising the Dude in some respects), who came back from Nam and conducted extensive research on all the New Age stuff you could hope for, and convinced his bosses at Fort Bragg to start the psychic/paranormal soldier program.  Django wants to train Jedi-knights – warrior monks of peace who can convince the enemy to move beyond conflict through reason and telepathic manipulation - and enlists Lyn and others in this pursuit.  They’re interested in remote viewing, precognition, phasing, and of course physical psychic manipulations (hence the goats).

October Good for Lovecraft

Any month is a good month for the fiction of horror master H.P. Lovecraft, but October provides an added aura of foreboding.  Not that many of Lovecraft’s stories are particularly Halloweenish, and he was more apt to include ageless alien demi-gods in his fiction than ghosts or witches or the like, but there’s something about a gray stormy evening with a cold autumn wind blowing that makes passages of nameless horror especially tasty.  For this reason I’ve been re-reading at least one classic Lovecraft story each October the last few years.  (Having read virtually all of them the first time back in college.)

Movies: Zombieland

…directed by Ruben Fleischer, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin.  Zombieland is a light-hearted buddy comedy about the eventual Zombie apocalypse that will consume us all.  It begins with the standard zombie premise with which we’ve grown accustomed – a horrible viral infection turns people into ravening beasts and all hell breaks loose.  We learn from our narrator Columbus (Eisenberg) the rules to surviving in Zombieland, including 1) cardio, 2) the double-tab, and 3) seatbelts.

Columbus, it turns out, is the kind of young guy with a lengthy list of phobias and a penchant for World of Warcraft.  This actually serves him well, because he’s so cautious and paranoid he’s managed to avoid most of the mistakes that seem to have befallen the rest of the populace.  When he meets up with Tallahassee (Harrelson), he find a complete opposite in nearly every trait.  Tallahassee is fearless, somewhat careless, and an absolute zombie-crushing machine.  It’s your standard end-of-days odd couple, and fortunately for the viewer, the two actors have a good sense of timing and chemistry.

The two men soon meet up with a young woman called Witchita (Stone) and her twelve-year-old sister, Little Rock (Breslin).  These ladies eventually convince  the crew to head for L.A. (why anyone would want to go to an urban area in a true zombie infestation is beyond me).  

Video Pick: Donnie Darko

Written and directed by Richard Kelly, starring Jake Gyllenhall, Mary McDonnell, Maggie Gyllenhall, Jena Malone, Patrick Swayze.  For years, people whose opinions I value have recommended the 2001 film Donnie Darko highly.  Last weekend we finally sat down and watched it, so now I understand why.  This is one of those movies that defies convention:  Is it sci-fi?  Is it psychological thriller?  Teen drama?  You can tell the studio was having a tough time pinning Donnie Darko down as well – the trailers and on the DVD were just awkwardly awful.  (Note the dueling themes of the promo materials below.)

Pseudo-Horror Promo

The movie starts with young Donnie (Gyllenhall) waking up on the side of the road beside his bike.  He smiles to himself and pedals for town, and your immediately asking yourself what’s going on with this kid.  Writer/director Kelly quickly proves adept at holding back certain details of character and plot points until just the right moment, which adds to the mystery and suspense.  It turns out, Donnie has been taking psych meds to deal with his emotional and mental problems as well as seeing a shrink.  The Darko family is otherwise a fairly standard suburban crew.  Older sister Liz (M. Gyllenhall) is taking a year off before going to college, younger sister Samantha seems a decent kid, and Mom and Pop are supportive and perfectly normal.

So when Donnie gets into an argument with Liz, curses at the dinner table, and acts like a total dick to his mom, you have a tough time reading him.  Is he a spoiled kid or does he really have issues?  Turns out, it’s the issues.  That night a voice rouses him to a trance-like state and entices him from his room, telling him he needs to get out of the house.  Donnie follows, sees the source of the voice in the distance (a mysterious yet sinister figure in a bunny-suit), who tells him the end is nigh, about three weeks from now.  Donnie wanders off and ends up sleeping at the golf course.

Books: Moving Pictures

…by the indomitable Terry Pratchett

In Moving Pictures, the denizens of Pratchett’s Discworld inadvertently find themselves awash in movie madness.  Yes, those scatterbrained alchemists have figured out how to transfer captured pictures (painted very quickly by captive demons in small camera-like boxes) to film.  They quickly find it necessary to move from the city of Ankh-Morpork to an arid outpost without much going for it but the everpresent sunshine (to avoid the wrath of the wizards at Unseen University).  That outpost’s name: Holy Wood.

Very soon people (and trolls and dwarves and talking animals) find themselves drawn to Holy Wood for unexplainable reasons.  It seems right.  They know they can make it.  And they want to be in the moving pictures. Among them are perennial student-wizard, Victor Tugelbend, a dude who can’t sing, can’t dance, but can handle a sword OK and looks great in front of the camera, Ginger, former milkmaid from the-little-town-you-never-heard-of, who looks great in an evening gown, and Gaspode the talking wonder-dog.  Soon Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most celebrated salesman of sausages-0f-dubious-origin, arrives and proceeds to set himself up as the mogul.  A group of dwarves suddenly discover an overwhelming urge to sing the hi-ho-hi-ho song.  A troll changes his name to ‘Rock’ and whittles off bits of his nose to increase his appeal and versatility.  These folks literally find they have stars in their eyes.

Movies: The Informant!

…directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by Scott Burns from Kurt Eichenwald’s book, starring Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, and Joel McHale.

The Informant! has been marketed as Matt Damon clowning in the cornfields – a shrewd move on the part of Warner Brothers.  But anyone who knows how Steven Soderbergh works will realize it’s a little more complicated and darker than that.  The movie provides an ironic examination of a landmark price-fixing case from right here in  central Illinois.  Yes, everyone form around Beemsville remembers those strange days 15 years past, when good ol’ ADM found themselves with the hand in the lyceine-cookie jar.  And we also remember how those articles in the Decatur Herald & Review kept rolling out, each one making the government’s star witness Mark Whitacre seem stranger and more crooked.

Damon plays Whitacre in this film.  A goofy, somewhat vulnerable, and yes, likable Mark Whitacre.  Give Soderbergh credit: it’s the only way the movie could possibly work.  If the audience doesn’t connect with Damon in the first fifteen minutes, if we don’t begin to wonder what’s really ticking in the brilliant but flawed head, this becomes more  a curiosity rather than a story.  But Soderbergh and Damon are in top form, and like Special Agents Brian Shepherd (Bakula) Bob Herndon (McHale), we want to believe him.  We want him to help bring down the greedy arrogant corporate giant.

Highest Video Rec: The Wire

Last weekend we finished the final episode of the last season of HBO’s The Wire.  What a great show.  I know we’re not exactly breaking new ground here, and the series has been off the air for a while, but I thought I would go ahead and post it here:  highest video recommendation for grown-up drama.  And in the era of home-DVD video, it’s easy and well worth your while to check out the entire five-season run.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of crime/police drama or just someone interested in excellent storytelling, if you’re willing to deal with some sad truths, some depressing reflections of reality, you also get first-rate characterization, multifaceted narratives, and just plain compelling drama.

Books: Shadow’s Edge

…by Brent Weeks

Shadow’s Edge is the second book in the Night Angel trilogy, which chronicles the struggles of Kylar Stern, assassin, Logan Gyre, aspirant-King, Vi, another assassin, and others against the sadistic Godking, Garoth.  The Godking’s forces successfully invaded Cenaria at the close of Book 1, Into the Shadows (see review), bringing a lot death (and presumed death), mayhem, and misunderstanding to the major characters.  Kylar’s mentor, master assassin (or ‘wetboy’ as Weeks has unfortunately designated killers with magical talents) Durzo Blint is gone, and Kylar soon swears off killing to pursue his childhood love, Elene.  This means leaving the city and fleeing in search of a more normal life.

Unbeknownst to Kylar, his best friend Logan is not dead but rather imprisoned in the Hole, which is the most brutal dungeon in the land, filled with the rapists and cannibals.  Logan has to survive down there without revealing his identity and completely losing his humanity.

When the Sa’kage (the city’s vast underworld crime syndicate) soon learn they can’t bargain with the brutal Godking, they begin to oppose him and help form the resistance.   For that they need Kylar, who has now absorbed an ancient magical forces called the ka’kari and has become nearly immortal, and they need an heir to the throne – Logan.  A fairly straightforward plot that still manages to get bogged down for nearly half the book.  Some of the subplots turn out to be far more interesting – at least until the book’s climax.

Review: Inglourious Basterds

…written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, et al.

Inglourious Basterds is a Tarintino World War II film.  For some (like yours truly), that’s enough to get us in the theater all by itself.  The movie has the typical QT tropes: revenge fantasy, spaghetti western homage, awesomely conceived musical score, foot fetishism, internal film history references, and archetypal genre characters.  There’s humor – black humor, subtle humor, clever dialogue humor.  There are iconic filmed sequences.  Oh, and the violence, of course, waiting there for you like a mugger in the dark.

The plot is pretty straightforward,  right out of the TNT Memorial Day War Movie Marathon:  Special Forces types (the Basterds), a unit of Jewish-Americans, go into Nazi-occupied France to terrorize, disrupt, and scalp Nazis.  Eventually, they are enlisted in a secret British operation to kill Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, and other senior Nazis at the Paris premiere of Goebbels’ latest and greatest propaganda film.  Throw in a Jewish girl who survived the slaughter of her family in the film’s opening sequence only to escape to Paris and set up shop as the proprietress of a local  cinema and well, there’s your storyline.