21 Grams

In a truly amazing display of style and grace, 21 Grams takes a story of tragedy and pain and really twists the knife when we discover how it’s all connected. This is indeed a tragedy as a man (Benicio Del Toro, Snatch) who has been given much, an opportunity to overcome the pain and sins of his father, to be a faithful father and husband, is the perpetrator of a tragic accident, and makes some bad choices. He ends up crashing and killing another man with two young daughters in towe. In the ensuing trial, he is given a 4 year sentence. When he gets out, his faith and character are ruined, and he goes to work in the oil rigs, abandoning his family and leaving the church far behind in another life.

Meanwhile, the man who was killed was an organ donor, and his heart is given to a man who desperately needs a transplant (Sean Penn, Mystic River). However, as inevitably happens, the world is connected at every point, and Penn goes in search of his donor, only to find the mans widow (Naomi Watts, I Heart Huckabees), embittered and scared. He falls for her, and in the process, they go in search of her husbands killer, kind of a strange, desperate vengence twist. The ending is so sad, and so bizarre.

The non-linear style is used very effectively, and the dialogue and acting are so impassioned and stark, there’s just no way you can’t feel the pressures and know the pain of all the characters involved. The color and frame have a cold metallic matrix-esque feel, as if to say "Life is hard, but 21 Grams shows it at its hardest" A 2 to be watched again.

Neo-sploitation

Quentin Tarantino is easily my favorite director, but that's something a lot of people would say. One of the themes in his constant stream of homage, is a nod to the exploitation films of the 70's, he's always incorporating elements from asian kung-fu flicks, blacksploitation, and in general, the more gritty, grindhouse style film of that era. While this was fairly unique to him, the work of his cohort, Robert Rodriguez in works like Machete, along other works like House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects and more recently Drive Angry and Hobo With a Shotgun, bring this bloody, graphic, overtly sexual, in your face, and incredibly absurd to a point that it is beginning to be it's own genre, though an obscure one.

Personally I like it a lot. I know some people will say I'm going to hell for that, but there's something strangely endearing about a horribly graphic, cheesy, overdone piece of crap that allows you to relax. People work too hard having opinions about entertainment.

I return to Bazan when it comes to how I read a film, I firmly believe that as a film plays itself out, you are hearing the voice of the director, and the directors of these exploitive cheeseballs are absurdist comedians with dark streaks. There is almost a sense in which they know, that the audience will fear to look on, but dare not look away. These are not flops, they are not supposed to be technical masterpieces. They are the stunts of the film genre, they are engineered car crashes. They are parodies of the idea of making a film that has any shred of authenticity, and for that I applaud them.

Source Code

This movie is basically Groundhog Day meets Quantum Leap, with a dash of The 6th Sense. But, unoriginality aside (maybe it has some homage factor, but, didn't really sense a tongue-in-cheek-ness to the most obvious scenes) I really liked it. And usually I am not even a fan of the quantum time-stream new reality theory motivated endings (Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Back to the Future 2, Deja Vu) but for some reason I still really liked the movie even though it has a very "wish upon a star" ending.

Spoiler alert by the way.

But, I think the themes of redemption come in loud and clear through the voice of Cpt. Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhall, Donny Darko) who thematically asks "if you had a minute to live how would you use it." and routinely seeks validation and displays his flaws and needs. Which is good because he is a demonstrative MacGuyver type, who could easily come off as untouchable.

But he is confused and constrained throughout the movie. I have actually hated Gyllenhall in some of the other movies he's done, but, I think he pulls this off very well, and like most sci-fi scripts, there is a huge suspense-of-realism required. You have to give yourself to this one, or you won't like it. And in the end, there is a restoration of reailty that is very cathartic, and very satisfying. There is a clear distinction of rightness and wrongness, and yet the movie is able to go into ethical grey matters, as well, wrestling with the value of human life, the authenticity of human life, and the moral obligation of the individual to society vs. the priority of choice in moral individuality.

And a train blows up about a dozen times, and the effects are actually quite good, they never snap you out of the movies projection of reality, so there's some good eye-candy. The supporting cast is underplayed, I'm a big Vera Farmiga (Running Scared) fan, she comes off fairly flat and unappealing, even though her character, Cpt. Goodwin, wrestles the most tension at the end. There just weren't any other dimensions to any of the other characters, and so Cpt. Stevens is the only person we care about. Even the bad guy is pretty tame, underwhelming, and not very fun to hate.

All things considered, I give this a 2, but I would only want to watch it again with people that hadn't seen it yet.