Best Friends

My best friend left town the other day. Well, perhaps I should qualify, ONE of my best friends left town the other day. Actually, should I feel the need to qualify? Contrary to what some may assume, being "one of" or "among" many best friends should not cheapen the title. Instead it should simply show that I have been particularly blessed by the company of many, many wonderful people over the years. Or maybe it means I'm not discerning enough. I really think it means there are five people from which I truly cannot decide who is the front runner, though some recent choices may belie that reasoning.

Having your best friend around is like being in a time warp, at least for me. My best friends have been around for 14 years if not more, long enough to have their own arsenal of embarrassing tactical nukes against me, and vice versa. In the case of my Misses, she's known some of her companions for more than 25 years, so while that does trump me, we aren't talking about her. Being with them suddenly transports me to a place where it's okay to be out until half 3 in the morning, drunk and ruined beyond acceptable limits. It means them letting you watch the Rugger match without complaint even if they can barely follow it. Most of all it means that you know them better than they know themselves, and you can all behave as if you've just skipped class and done something wholly inappropriate for a day.

"Know them better than they know themselves". Isn't that the truth. My best friend is in my dog house, if only slightly. There are certain sexual conquests in his past that I feel I must hold against him on a purely jealous factor. Yes, jealously is a terrible thing, especially jealousy of your friends, but I am well aware that I have life elements in my favor that out do him - somewhere in there it's a wash. I miss him. I miss everything that we did in the last three months that I wasn't 'supposed to'.

I miss him. And I worry about him. I worry because I'm watching him spin his wheels furiously in the dirt of futility while most everyone else since found drier ground to drive on. I want to shake him, yell at him, get to listen not only to me, but to the other 3 (him being the forth in this quintet) and to the facts of life itself. If you can't get a car working after 13 years, is the car really worth driving any more?

And yet I'm afraid that's where the problem lies. I'm telling him, the others are telling him, but sometimes, the best of intentions bring about the opposite effects. Like when Marshall, Lily, Robin & Barney all convinced Ted to dye his hair blonde by saying how bad an idea it was. I fear the more I try to help, the deeper I push him back down that path of desperation. I know there's nothing I can really do for him, only those great 'friend' things. Be there, be supportive. Watch him while he tries yet again to slay that windmill, and be the friend he needs on the other side.

REVIEW: "Funny People"

Funny People (2009)

Written by: Judd Apatow

Directed by: Judd Apatow

7/7

This is not a funny movie. It IS a movie about people who are funny (I believe Apatow graduated from the frugal school of moving naming) involved in all the things about our world that are not funny. And it made me laugh, but not with the oh-my-god-must-change-pants regularity of "The Forty Year Old Virgin" or even with the quiet terror of "Observe and Report". This was a film, and I use the word purposefully. Not a comedy, not a movie, but a true film.

Perhaps it was the markedly understated cinematography from living legend Janusz Kaminski (slumming it would seem between Spielberg outings) or maybe it was the best-of-his-career performance from Adam Sandler (who would've known he could be so powerful playing himself?) but so many elements of this film struck me as masterful that I found myself unable to label it a 'movie'. So he'll never be Soderberg or Bergman (how many times have I typed 'berg' in this last paragraph?) , Apatow has done what every legendary film maker does in their career, moved from making genre to making filmic literature.

"What?" You say, "but the whole movie is an overlong pondering on dick jokes, commentaries on masturbating and musings on narrow vagina's". Yet, it is those things that make the movie so powerful. The characters aren't making dick jokes because they are trying to make us, the audience laugh. They are making dick jokes because it's what they do. Anyone who's ever been to Yuck Yucks knows that a good dick joke is the bread and butter of stand up comics. So this isn't Apatow trying to shock, this is comics as they are. "Funny People" presents a beautiful insight into the worlds of the people who we demand make us laugh, and the presence of the comically 'un-funny' films of Sandler's George Simmons throughout the movie only work to reinforce the idea that this is not a comedy, but a treatise on those who make us laugh.

Seth Rogen's Ira Wright (or Weiner, as you like) is less obnoxious to a power of ten than the multiple other iterations we've been presented with in the past. Seeing Jason Schwartzman as the guy who fucks the girl is a brilliant piece of casting (as much a piece as the "Hey Teach" show he leads). But, as stated before, hats off to Sandler who anchors the film in stark reality. His turn with the married woman at the end reminds us that no matter how 'mature' we may think we are, love can still make a fool out of us all. By the way, no offense to any of them out there who may be reading, but Eric Bana wasn't acting. That was a true red blooded Aussie male, through and through.

No wonder that the actual 'Stand Up' parts in the film (few and far between, cleverly so) are hardly as funny as the rest of the dialogue. Parts of the film, I felt I really was back in twelfth grade watching a bad VHS copy of "Lenny". Apatow even gets props for re-mastering the race-to-the-airport sequence, inverting it and making it even more of an unmitigated disaster than it would've been had Ira never taken to the wheel.

All in all, a true masterpiece from someone who we'd never expect to deliver one. It's highly unlikely that Apatow will ever again hit on something so real, but I will rest easy knowing that when he went looking for, Apatow found his sad clown.

Much ado about Douchebags

We all know them. Or at least know OF one. A beard that won't grow in quite right. A shaved head that requires *just* a little less distance on the razor. Cheap earrings. Or worse -EXPENSIVE earrings.

Everyone knows how to identify one, but do we really know what to do about them? Now call me a National Socialist if you like, but I think they should wear armbands. They should wear armbands and we should shuttle them away into Douchebag ghetto's where the Douchebag version of Ben Kingsley (Alan Arkin, no okay. I kid. Larry Linville) works to find factory jobs for other less qualified Douchebags.

This idea can work, if we all put our minds to it. We CAN exterminate Douchebaggery in our lifetime. But it will take sacrifice. Yes, there will be some easy girls in bars who might not be able to go home with some Douche one night. But not to worry, there's plenty of Losers and Try-Hards out there to take up the slack. Seth Rogen wanna-be's need love to after all. And it won't be easy. We might need to throw a fresh baseball cap off of a bridge (sticker intact and all) and tangle the earrings of two Douchebags together, you know, just in case one is somehow smart enough not to go, he will definitely get pulled over by the other. This is due to the fact that it is excessively unlikely you will find more than 1 in 2 smart Douchebags.

And what benefits will the rest of us reap? Most important to me perhaps is that never again would you have to deal with some 3/4 drunk, loud mouthed Douchebag sitting in with you and your group of friends at the bar, with his eye on one of the female members of the crew, loudly proclaiming in the middle of humourous anecdotes that everyone should 'bounce' and head for another club/bar (no line, no cover and free drinks of course) where this scene will invariably unfold:

Douchebag: "Yo' man, where's Roscoe?"

Douchebags Friend: "He's inside man."

Douchebag: "He didn't wait for us? Is it still free cover?"

Douchebags Friend: "Fifteen bucks."

Douchebag: "Okay - everybody wait. Free covers over but I can still get us in. I need to make some calls."

In the words of Mr. 12 Gauge sawed-off: "Ku-chik - BLAM!"

REVIEW: "The Hurt Locker"

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Written by: Mark Boal

Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow

Rating: 6/7

Fitting that my inaugural post should be a film review.

Now I haven't seen some of the other entrants in the fledging war sub-genre that is Iraq war films (I think of "Stop/Loss" & "Redacted") but I can tell you that "The Hurt Locker" goes a long way to establishing and solidifying the touchstones of this new topic base. Kathryn Bigelow has done war movies a great service by creating this (dare I say it, and sound like a real mass-media reviewer? Yes, I dare...) taut and suspense laden thriller.

You won't find any synopsis in my reviews. Go see the movie your damned selves. What you will find is a thoughtful critiquing of the use of filmmaking techniques and evaluation of entertainment value, and "THL" pulls off both aspects very well. Bigelow & Boal deliver a late season actioner in the dead heat of summer. Just when I needed something worth thinking about between "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" it delivers in spades. (or Jacks of Clubs, if you catch that drop.) Whereas most WWII era movies are epics, whether directed by Attenborough, Dwan or Spielberg, Korean war movies are practically non-existent (apologies to M*A*S*H* & Altman of course) and Vietnam era movies are brooding comments on morality and its relation to humanity ("Apocalypse Now", "Platoon" & the magnificent "Tigerland") "THL" foregoes any examination of the politics/morality of the war it is set in, and instead focuses entirely on the humanity of its characters. Jeremy Renner is surprisingly subtle in his portrayal of the typical 'wild man' war protagonist, the kind who plays by his own rules and seems to have missed the whole 'following procedure' part of basic training. Not to worry though, with Anthony Mackie playing by the book and Brian Geraghty awaiting death at every edit there's plenty of of mortal angst to go around.

The movie could have been just another tale of the 'loose canon makes good' story we've seen so many times before, but the script and the director never let the old stereotypes take hold of their masterpiece. With the opening scene showing us just how it easy it is to do everything right and by the book, and still end up as a stain on the inside of your visor, its easy to buy into Renner's character's haphazard and casual approach to dealing with unexploded artillery shells. Progression through the film does show however, that such a cavalier attitude toward process and regulation (a requirement in any branch of the military) usually does end up getting someone hurt, and as usual it isn't the person who's fault it was in the first place. When James takes his team on a scouting mission for unidentified (and probably non-existent) triggermen behind a terrible attack and one of the ultimately ends up a casualty, the flaw in James heroism is painfully evident. The strength of this film is that it does not idolize the 'wild man' approach to EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal), it merely presents the possible consequences of the decisions made by someone who loves their job a little too much.

And love his job James does. So much so that it is his pursuit of this love that creates his characters flaws (and I LOVE flawed characters). While Geraghty's Specialist Eldridge is happy to be far out of the firing line when possible and Mackie's Sanborn is definitely a soldier first and EOD tech second, Renner (both character and performance) revel in the art of denying the reality of high explosives. It's an almost uncontrollable love that pains James to such a powerful degree. Following what he loves tends to get others hurt or killed. Just when you thought was were no new ways to depict a characters utter meltdown while in the shower, Bigelow and Renner add one more innovative iteration to this tried and tested dramatic moment, definitely worth remembering. Watching James try to behave as a 'normal' person in between assignments and the short depictions of his life at home (with a distracting cameo by Evangeline Lily, a great Canadian actress yes, but a wholly unneeded talent for such a small role and ultimately misleading as to the relevance of the character - the only mistake in casting I could find) show that he is truly a regular person, and not in the morally superior way soldiers are typically depicted in American war movies. He might be a 'good guy' but he's no more morally conscious than anyone else. And seeing just how prostrate James is when dealing with an Iraqi professor in his own house (and later his wife) outside his explosives suit shows that he is no super soldier, but a man who truly has a talent for what it is he does when he's on duty. This can be no better depicted than by James' final words to a doomed man - "I'm sorry." As if that would somehow absolve this surrender to the reality of the situation.

The movie is as much crafted as it is directed. Instead of dealing with a Tommy Lee Jones as a mad bomber or an ever escalating series of detonations laid by Jeremy Irons, the bombs that James if faced with seem to work their way down the scale of power. We begin with the six shells from the stark film poster and find our way down to a suicide bomber's vest. While exploring the other possibilities behind this nerve shattering job we are also treated to some delightful cameo's by Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce & David Morse. Any day you can find a way to work Ralph Fiennes into a movie is a good day for me. Chalk full of iconic and memorable images, the cinematography of Barry Ackroyd generates a film that would fit in perfectly as a double pack with David Simon's "Generation Kill". The detonations are real, the production design spot on accurate and the landscape a bitter world of ruined stone and sand. Iraq is less a country and more the backdrop to a well paced play between Renner, Mackie and several thousand kilo's of explosives.

And just when you thought you'd seen it all, this movie drops in a gunfight at what must be the slowest and most white knuckled pace ever depicted on film. The gunfight during the Private Contractors sequence makes any exchange of fire in Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" appear as if it were directed by Michael Bay. In fact, her shunning of any kind of (obvious) trick, trap or convention in bringing the action to the screen puts Bigelow head and shoulders above most any war movie director of the last five years. Instead of a true war movie we're given a character study fueled by long periods of unbearable suspense. Even if you know Renner isn't going to be killed by one IED or another, you're willing to believe that neither he nor the director was as sure of it at the time.

Priceless in its honesty, genuine in his brutality and unconventional in its approach to war, "The Hurt Locker" is well worth the price of admission at any level. And isn't that really the best recommendation a film can get?