Oh, The Messenger. You made me have a contemplative day.

When I first heard about The Messenger, I was only vaguely interested. Oren Moverman was directing for the first time and wrote the script. I'd loved both I'm Not There and Married Life to death, so I was pretty down for that. Everybody loves Woody Harrelson, so duh. Ben Foster is undoubtedly a great actor, but the roles he'd been playing had been getting pretty exhaustingly turbulent.  The plot sounded interesting enough, but the love story seemed a little forced. It was a wait-and-see situation.

Well, I saw The Messenger today and it blew me away. Oren Moverman is an incredibly talented man, and for a first time director he's really done something remarkable here. The Messenger is one of the most humanistic films I've seen in a long time. The tone shifts from moment to moment. Dark, sweet, funny, tragic, bitter, joyous, painful. Moverman allows the film's wealth of conversation to flow naturally, often played in single takes.

The performances in the film are stunning. Although the trailer made it seem like Ben Foster would again be playing a troubled, angry Holden Caulfield-type, that thankfully isn't the case in the film. Foster plays Will Montgomery as a complicated man attempting to leave his troubles behind. He effortlessly portrays a real man on the screen, one rife with pretension, loneliness, sardonic humor, and an embittered and quickly depleting patriotism. Will Montgomery is more interested in people than ideals, and as we watch him try desperately to protect everyone he meets, we come to understand and relate better than almost any character I've seen in a theater in the past year.

This goes double for Woody Harrelson's Tony Stone. Harrelson displays his usual easygoing likability throughout, along with a stern, sober professionalism. The layers peel away as the movie progresses, however, and we come to understand Stone as well as any troubled friend.

I groaned when I saw the seemingly arbitrary and shoe-horned love story in the trailer. But in the film, it really works. It makes sense. It's beautiful and passionate and doesn't ever really go where you expect it to. Samantha Morton is excellent.

I'll admit that I wrote this review in two sittings, and this is the split. But it's with good reason. I couldn't stop thinking about how emotionally connected I felt to this movie. It overpowered me so much it held me back from being able to properly convey it with words. Why this movie more than so many others I've seen lately? I'm not sure. Moverman does some really interesting, masterful things here that one wouldn't generally expect from a first-time director. He opts for long, single takes rather than quick-cutting. He uses still shots for character-building scenes, but uses wild, vulnerable handheld for the scenes in which Stone and Montgomery notify NOKs. He never shows us what characters are looking at, ditching the inserts for lingering looks at these peoples faces as they process and feel what's only being described to you. It's an interesting effect. You don't necessarily see through these character's eyes, but you come to understand and empathize with them as much as your best friend.

The Messenger blew me away. See it and talk about it, because I'm disappointed that the guilds don't seem to be. After Inglourious Basterds, I'd say it was the best 2009 film I've seen.

Oh, Mae West. Everything about you is the greatest thing about you.

So my roommate picked up a copy of Mae West's autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It, today. Now we're big Mae West fan's in our home, ever since we first saw Sextette. I've seen it about twenty times now. I won't go into the amazing salad that is Sextette right now, but I think I owe the internet a massive review one of these days. For now, allow this little ditty to tide you over:




At this point, anyone previously unaware of Miss West's ability to turn anything anyone has ever said ever into an innuendo should be caught up. That's why the information she divulges about her father is even more awesome. Because you can really see the hereditary badassery at work.


His name was John West. But he went by Battlin' Jack West, the Champion of Brooklyn. BATTLIN' JACK WEST, THE CHAMPION OF BROOKLYN. You can't earn a nickname like that these days. There's just no way. He had to have done some astounding shit to get a nickname like that.


Oh, right, he fucking DID.


Battlin' Jack was a street fighter from the age of 11. IN LATE 19TH CENTURY BROOKLYN. I shouldn't have to tell you how tough things were in late 19th century Brooklyn, do I?  


Shit like this happened ALL THE TIME. 





According to Battlin' Jack, there were times when he'd "prefer fighting to eating" because at least that satiated his lust for violence.


One time, Battlin' Jack was at a bar with the woman who would one day be lucky enough to have Mae West chill inside her for nine months. The owner of the bar gave his girl a look he didn't fully appreciate. So he decked the sucker.


That's when allegedly one-hundred patrons of the bar charged at Battlin' Jack. His solution?


B'J grabbed two glass mugs and smashed them together. He then proceeded to slice and dice his way through the crowd and left with his lady in tow. He left a bloody mess in his wake.


But seriously, who else could have produced the seed that became Mae West?

Oh, Sound Editing. I hate the shit out of you.

I'll be sound editing a film I shot on RED at the beginning of November this afternoon, but afterwards I hope to catch a showing of The Messenger. I'm Not There was my favorite movie of 2007, which was the 1999 of the '00s if you're into absurdist labelling, so I'm pretty psyched to see how Oren Moverman does as a director.

Although I am growing weary of Ben Foster being internally tormented in everything.

Whatever happened to this Ben Foster?



Anyway, expect a review later tonight.

Oh, Legion. You either tried too hard or didn't try. I have no idea.

Thursday night I went to a karaoke bar for a half hour to kill time before the midnight showing of Legion. I saw two people sing "Somewhere" from An American Tail. Then they sang Enter Sandman. Legion made less sense than that.

So I, like everyone in the world, saw the trailer for Legion on every movie that came out in the past three months. And I, like everyone, thought to myself, "Oh holy shit!" So when I say that I left the theatre without ever once yelling "YEAAAH!", understand that my heart broke a little bit that night.

I mean, look, the story is there. Noah's Ark-esque extermination of corrupt humanity, but this time via mace-toting battle angels? With room for bloody shoot-outs with deformed old people, children, and ice cream men? Look, for chrissakes this movie has Dennis Quaid AND Tyrese AND Charles S. Dutton. That's like our generation's Three Musketeers.

And yet, these elements of badassery often played second-fiddle to drawn-out, archetypal, ludicrously philosophical monologuing. I'll say this: one of my all-time favorite movies is Army of Darkness. I understand intentional cheese. I understand playing on cinematic stereotypes. I understand B-movies. But you know what a B-movie isn't? Boring. You know what a solid B-movie has? More than one character you like watching. You know what a B-movie wouldn't do to me? MAKE ME NOT ENJOY MY CHARLES S. DUTTON.

That being said, somehow a majority of the actors really sold one of the most laughably poor scripts I've heard this year. Tyrese was likeable. Dennis Quaid actually knew what movie he was in and played it OTT. I was even convinced that Paul Bettany could beat another grown man up.

But that doesn't make up for the fact that I was not entertained. You hurt my feelings, Legion, by not living up to your promises off ass-kickery. And I think you owe Charles S. Dutton an apology.