Your Paycheck/ The Joker

REVIEW: Upstream Color 2: Which God left us Here?

Warning: plenty of spoilers ahead. This is the edition of the blog where I dig deep (hopefully) into  the thoughts behind the imagery of the film.

. I'm going to go over the main points, so feel free to chime in with things you saw or thought about.

I guess my favorite thing aside from the artistry of the story-telling is the entanglement of emotional attachment.

For people taking the drug together you become completely in sync with your best friend, AWESOME. For others, your soul becomes permanently attached to some pig-vessel that houses your soul. The couple in the movie is attached because of their similar drugging experiences and because their pig-vessels are in love as well. The pigs' and peoples' relationship echo off each other to reinforce their relationships. These two things seems to make a love more intense than any that could happen in real life. But I believe that's the beauty of romance, is that because of our emotional journey through life we either become attached to those who've experienced similar tragedies or someone who can save us from the demons awoken because of them. In this movie, both happens, which is beautiful. For some people this tragedy is divorce, for some it's drug rehabilitation or alcoholism, for others, it's a death or moving away, or loss of purpose in life.

Another echo in their bond is that they begin to share memories, Jeff cannot tell his memories from Kris's and she can't tell hers from his. This is probably because somehow in the ether between their lives and the pig farm their souls became completely intwined in a way that isn't possible without the parasite. I suppose it's the same for married couples in a way, they know the other spouses' stories so well and they've had a lifetime together of sharing experiences that became stories. My father tells stories about my brother saying they're about me and vise versa all the time, which drives me insane. But the way memory goes, a story loses touch with reality until only the words exist to remind you of the story you used to tell. This movie gives those mistakes purpose, which is reassuring. It's reassuring to know that the little things we quibble about with our family and loved ones could be the result of some beautiful message from the universe.

I believe the greatest emotional entanglement addressed is mans' emotional attachment to their perceived God, or collective conscious or great magnet or what have you. Face it, even if you're the most die-hard atheist you have those days where you're inexplicably angry or depressed without any explicable catalyst. There's some outside force shitting on your day. You can't explain why but you just want curl up, you push the day away. The scene where they're tangled together so uncomfortably in the bathtub reminds me of that feeling. Like Wily Coyote who prepares everything just right but can't catch the Roadrunner,
the universe keeps working against us even when we've planned it all out. And we curl up in a ball or we find someone to share the feeling with and you just let it all out. I remember at governor's school I was in a trance-like malaise at the beginning of senior year. Everything seemed distant and I found Melody Rood and Jack Wadell were feeling about the same. We took knives from the cafeteria and threw them at squirrels in the park, god knows why, I guess to feel instinct kick in for a moment.


On the topic of external forces perhaps the most formidable emotional attachment is that echo between the Jeff, Kris and their pigs. It sort of adresses that the reason you love someone is because there is another place where your souls are doing a dance you cannot see or they've been together forever. This is like the modern spin on romanticism, not with the pigs obviously, but the scientifically-viable explanation for romantic love.

God represented by the "farmer" he is trying to bring his children back home. He is a silent nurturer who causes pain we can't explain but keeps us safe in our flock. He can see everything we do though we cannot see him and he provides us free will but protects us from the world like when the other farmer tries to buy a pig and our farmer shrugs him off. If we see God then we kill him. This last theory is accepted by Christian scientists who believe that science is really humans allowing us to see "God's design". That science has progressed to show us the machinery inside the world but it also promotes skepticism about a God's existence.



So the great tangle becomes you thinking about your soul and what it means and so the pigs become more important than the people. And when the pigs are more important to the audience then it's the same for the characters in the movie. The people go off and take care of the pigs because they have to, because their lives are directly entangled with the characters'. Just as the web of life connects all living things in a way we cannot see, so the entanglement becomes this ecological metaphor.


It's the story about the condition of our society straying from nurturing into cold the network of the jobscape. And it can also be seen as calling for the reanimation of us taking care of the environment. Because we all have the power to unify and help cultivate the world we live in if we can pull ourselves out of that cold machine. I believe the answer is that it will take a catastrophe like Alaska reaching 100 degree weather for the first time since Sabor Tooth Tigers were around (oh wait, that just happened). It doesn't say that this is the solution, it doesn't directly adress any global issues, because we all know they're there. Instead it asks the question: If this is what it took for you to change and for everyone to change the world around them would you do it? A greener earth, becoming more cultured, finding true love. I think if most people were given the option to take the drug and endure the parasite they would definitely say....

FUCCCKKK THAT. Worst hangover ever

Of course the movie raises more questions than it answers, including: Did she kill the "farmer" in real life after finding out where he was or did she travel from her reality to his and kill him within some hyper-reality? Is the drug-guru actually a force for good, as in this sort of experience is what it'll take for humanity to become care-takers of nature again or is he just a selfish fuck looking to make some money? And finally: if that drug-guru can extract tens of thousands of dollars safely from his victims then why is he dangerously trying to sell pills at seedy bars for a quick buck like an idiot?

If the main characters ever ate bacon could it be considered cannibalism?

REVIEW: Upstream Color: The Final MPDG movie

This is a little review/motivator for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. Here's the trailer, one of the best trailers I've ever seen, promotes intrigue without giving anything away.: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/upstreamcolor/

For those who have seen it check out the second review on my site: "Which God left us here?" for some brain teasing about what is going on in the movie on a global level/personal/whatthehellisgoingon? level. BUT anyways, on to the review,

I'm going to go ahead and say that watching this movie made me feel like I'd never seen a movie before. It is hopeful, it is beautiful, it allows you to feel when other movies are shoving action in your face. Usually I spend time dissecting movies, critiquing, sometimes I really get engulfed and am entertained but few movies give me real pause. Upstream Color dropped my jaw to the floor and kept it there for the entire movie, it made me think about things I didn't even know the movie was about til days after I was still thinking about it. When I watched it I couldn't move, couldn't check my phone, didn't get another beer, didn't do anything. I recommend watching it with someone who isn't a heckler or stickler or watch it alone, it'll be worth it, because the movie is very intense, complicated, and most importantly it's about you.

The movie intentionally avoids answering certain questions and can be perceived as vague but it does so with purpose. See the movie isn't about the characters, it is about you, your interpretation of this impossible thing that happens to them. Of course many movies do this with metaphors, but this does it with unspecific plot points, that yes they'll make sense the second time watching, but the first time, it's like music, you're just feeling through the movie. It's attributed to the artistry with which Shane Carruth tells the story.  It wraps artistry amid strong emotional entanglements, peeks into unanswered questions even as the credits roll, and tackles the idea of dancing souls.

Basically the movie is about Kris, a successful, cold, typical cog-in-the-machine character with her pragmatic life on track but not much spirituality in her life A drug-inducing guru with an amazing narrating voice guides her through a trip that will jump-start her life to give her new purpose and reprioritize what is important to her. She loses all her money and assets, loses her job, her house, her sense of identity, her self-assuredness. In her new life she takes a shit job, she becomes sullen and nervous, cuts her hair short, and indulges in strange activities like collecting rocks in a pool while quoting a book of poetry. This transition finally explains that parasitic hallucinations are the cause for manic pixie dream girl syndrome.

With any great MPDG movie there's of course a dark-haired male protagonist who compensates his own dull, unsuccessful life by blindly indulging in her quirky, absurdist activities like listening to rocks fall in a drain pipe, reciting poetry while swimming, and crying about a noise only she can here. And they resolve her problems by buying a album "you probably haven't heard of." Hahaha, just saying. I mean I love the movie, just poking fun. I think the chivalry of his faith in her is one of the most inspiring aspects of the movie, that love is about the choice to have faith in someone. Definitely watch this movie if you haven't already, my second blog in this series has plenty of spoilers.

REVIEW: Cloud Atlas

So Cloud Atlas is essentially the Wachowski "Brother's" take on The Hours. If you haven't seen The Hours, don't worry, you're probably a straight male and don't ever need to.

So incase you haven't seen it, Cloud Atlas has perhaps the one of the most heart-warming/wrenching trailers of all time, aka http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s.
It's universal, it's heartwarming, and uplifting, it has everything for everyone and it plucks heartstrings with that solo piano rippling through time and our lives' importance and unimportance.

This movie is the unlosing-est smorgasbord of movie genres as any could possibly be. We have forbidden love, golden years love, gay love, love at first sight, past action, future action, Apocolyptico action, conspiracy theory, apocalyptic distopian future, slavery, blaxploitation, and yet not once in the whole movie did I see a dog. Genius actor Tom Hanks and booty call Halle Barry, I say that because directors cast her and Rihanna for the same reason.

This movie is awesome. Heads above most of the other trash you could see at your Regal Cinemas this weekend. It's funny, it's action-packed, it's heart warming and reassures you about the fears of life, death and afterlife. It's like when your stoner friends get together and start up that conversation: yeah, but if you think about how big WE are and how big the earth is, and how big the universe is, do we really matter? Does anything really matter? Well it does, and this movie shows that we matter to each other and that our actions ripple through time with a persistance that we will never fathom, so treat each other well.

 And before I go into some rants about execution and style management, I just have to say, if you're going to see something this weekend, this'll be heads above Loopers, the Guvnah in another action movie, the millionth James Bond, or Paranormal Activity, or that shitstain by the Regal pig patch Twilight: Ranking Lawns II.


SPOILERS

This movie is going to need two watches to appreciate and though I haven't read it myself, I hear the best experience is to read the book and watch the movie for it's visuals and interpretation. Aside from the action, the different stylization, the eye candy and amazing makeup work, this movie has a lot of heart cheese. I'm not great with emotional films. I will never watch Precious, I couldn't give a shit at the end of Cold Mountain or Green Mile. But in this movie I did care for the characters and some of the love scenes were worth the stakes you put into the characters, though you only got glimpses of them.

Yet some of this great emotion is sucked from your heart to your head when XXXXX and XXXXXX finally kiss and then your thrown back into 1968 and Hugo Weaving is murdering an old man. Sometimes they play out the emotion through all stories simultaneously, which works pretty well, though is a bit erksome. Sometimes they really needed to slow down and just let you be with the characters for a minute to feel for them but too often would cut to another scene for the sake of a cliff hanger. I mean I wanted to mourn Sexsmith's death, he was such a key binding character and a cool one, I mean the song of the movie was named for him.

Seeing the movie for the first time is like watching Inception backwards. There are six plots to follow, the narrator unifying them but you can't keep up because you were distracted wondering it that was Hugh Grant or Hugo Weaving behind all that makeup ? I do enjoy the theatrical aspect of this choice. In a lot of live theatre you recast one actor as different characters so that was enjoyable to watch the acting ranges of the actors.
 Perhaps this is a new form of movies that move along at supersonic rates like Gamer or Crank or Enter the Void. Keeping channel-flipping audiences entertained. I expect we will keep seeing movies that are more episodic and quick-paced than we usually have.

All in all the trailer is actually better than the movie is but maybe that's because the movie is a chore to watch and keep up with, though worth it. I recommend downloading the trailer for rewatch on Snapz and reading the book.

Exciting Upcoming Movies

Taking some time off today to talk about some exciting movie announcements, soon to theatres and far in the future.

I love asian movies, they're always pushing borders with their amount of violence, weird sex acts, visual appeal, kung-fu action, and outlandish plots. Perhaps my favorite movie of all time is Old Boy, it's sick, it's noir, it's epic as a Greek Tragedy and so well put together that I can't wrap my head around how they even began to conceptualize it. So, that being said I have some very exciting news.

1. Spike Lee is remaking Old Boy Americana style. They keep tossing around the cast, but last I heard the star is either going to be Josh Brolin or Samuel L. Jackson. I hope it's Brolin, because he seems more the type and I think Sammy J would be a very strange pick unless he were the merciless bad guy, I could see that working with the crazy factor through the roof. Fun fact: Will Smith was originally going to play the main character, I think he's a great actor, but the role is extremely visceral and requires a lot of embarrassment and raw emotion. I mean, the actor had to eat a live squid for the role, masturbate, and a wild array of other stuff they might not do in the American version. I really hope Spike Lee does a good job, like David Fincher with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and less like what Hunger Games was to Battle Royale. My concern is that there's only one writer on the bill, and it's the guy who fucking wrote Thor, which was soooooooooooooo hard to watch. But he also wrote I am Legend and Mass Effect so I'm on the fence. In the original Old Boy the authors of the manga plus three screenwriters plus the director worked on the screenplay and it shows. Sooooo.... I'm gonna go with: either complete copy paste remake with different visuals = AWESOME or American watered down snoozefest trying to ride the coattails of another great movie.

2. The director of Old Boy is coming out with a movie called Stoker. It's got that gruesome, plot-maze, and brutal emotion that I loved about Old Boy and the rest of Chan-wook Park's Revenge series. Here's the trailer, it really says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNpDG4WR_74
                 - I also very much like that the uncle just hints that there's a wider conspiracy, illuminati of murders kinda deal. I just read the Straw Men series which was absolutely impossible to put down and if this is even close to that then holy god this movie is going to be too cooler than being with obama and Jay-z in the same room.



.... well maybe

3. There's another american remake of another Korean movie, Bittersweet Life. The original is directed by Jee-woon Kim, who made I Saw the Devil and The Good, The Bad, and the Weird. He's a wild and diverse director who knows how to cast, has great ideas, and amazing visuals. I haven't seen the original Bittersweet Life, but I'm going to now. Also, guess what, curve ball, Eminem is helping produce for the American remake... weird.

Also the announcement has finally been made, Sin City 2 is finally going to begin filming in November. It's going to be based off Frank Miller's A Dame to Kill for. It has my favorite people from the original cast, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, and CLIVE OWEN! Of course it's being directed by Robert Rodriguez who makes the most innovative and exciting trends in the action film genre and I hope, hooppppppe, gets Tarentino to guest-direct again. I usually don't approve of sequels, they're basically always for money and a sore attempt at starting franchises, but this one I am super suuuuper stoked for.

My favorite actress of all time, Rosario Dawson, from Clerks 2 to Sin City to A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. She's a dream boat; smart, deep, sexy, funny, geeky. So pumped for Sin City 2