Flawless

Let's just say it wasn't. For a heist movie, it wasn't even a very clever heist, but I did watch the whole thing. So that forces me to give it
3-stars

Batman Begins

My friend Aaron is so jazzed for The Dark Knight that he already has his reserved seat at the Arclight on opening night. He reminded me how this story was really about the nature of good and evil, the question of whether one could be defined without the other, and the journey of finding where one fits within its spectrum. While I will probably wait until week two to see the latest installment, I thought I would at least get myself ready for this new adventure by re-watching Batman Begins, looking specifically for these themes.

To start, let me just identify the similar plot attempt between Batman Begins and Wanted. Both have thousand year old secret societies (the League of Shadows and the Weavers Guild) who have self identified as the "keepers of balance" in civilization. Apparently, these societies have decided that God made the wrong promise when he told Noah he would no longer destroy the world even if evil was rampant. So they have taken it upon themselves. At least in Batman, the players take ownership for their decisions, and don't transfer power to a "Loom of Fate". The two societies also hang desperately on to power and ideals when things don't quite go right (e.g. the Loom names its leaders or Thomas Wayne's methods actually begin to work).

In Batman Begins, the questions of the difference between good and evil are prominent. At different times, the ideas proposed are that 'compassion' is the difference, the 'willingness to stand between', 'protection of the innocent', and 'justice is not only revenge'. On this last, I take issue with the 'only', since it suggests that a portion of justice is revenge. And we at least are setting up the debate about tactics. Does flying around in the night and instilling fear constitute good? Even if the fear instilled is in "bad people"?

I can only hope that Batman struggles with these issues in The Dark Knight and truly finds another way. What would happen if Bruce Wayne would try the tactics of his father, instead of those taught by the League of Shadows? More discussion after the next installment.
4-stars

Innocent Voices

There are movies that one wants to see, and there are movies one should see. Innocent Voices is the latter. The story of a young boy in El Salvador during the long fight between the government and the guerrillas. The film demonstrates the probably all too common juxtaposition of childhood playfulness and fun and the complete loss of innocence of children in a war. Both the government soldiers and guerrillas were recruiting child soldiers and for the central character, 12 year old Chava, loss of innocence culminated with the decision about whether to shoot his neighborhood friend. It baffles me how children survive in these situations, and even more, how adults can continue to perpetrate the atrocities of war. A particularly chilling scene of the execution of "guerrilla children" shows how completely inhuman we can be. I wanted one of the children to stand up and face his captor. To humanize this violence and change the course of war with a gaze into the face of a child. I wanted a happy ending.
4-stars

Chris and Don: A love story

This is a fabulous love story. One of the best I have seen on film... ever. A well made documentary of the life that author Chris Isherwood and artist Don Bachardy shared in Southern California from the late 40's through the 80's. With Bachardy narrating the story of his relationship, one sees how two people can be truly soul mates, truly living for each other, truly not selfish.
5-stars

Persepolis

When a movie is based on a book, one generally expects the movie to be different. A different medium, the inability to effectively create a third person narrative, etc. results in a different tone, plot alterations, a shifted focus. However, when a graphic novel is made into an animated movie, it turns out that the movie and the book can be exactly the same. Such is the case with Persepolis. And both the graphic novel and the movie are excellent descriptions of the life of a young girl growing up in revolutionary Tehran. And while in book form, this biographical story could have been effectively told as a graphic novel or in prose, the film version would not have held up in live action. The biographical nature of the story actually required the animation to hold my attention. Putting this story together with Reading Lolita in Tehran gives a good picture of life in Iran.
4-stars

Hancock

Brilliant. I realize now that I was just sitting, watching and enjoying the movie, with no thought about what might be coming next. My attention was held, even though in hindsight, I should have noticed that the fairly predictable plot would not sustain a 90 minute movie. Only to find that the fairly predictable plot was not so predictable. It had all the right touches, right opportunities to laugh, grimace and enjoy. Clearly the best summer movie of 2008.
Hancock (4-stars)

In hindsight, I need to downgrade The Promotion to 4-stars. This happens sometimes. As I was thinking about that movie (which I really enjoyed by the way) it didn't hang around in my head. It doesn't satisfy the "I would own it" criteria required for a 5-star movie. In the same way, let me use this opportunity to remind our friendly readers about Elling. This movie was originally rated 4-stars, but after about a month, I upgraded it to 5-stars. I still laugh once in awhile when I remember certain scenes in that movie. The birthday gift exchange in particular, showing the true nature of friendship. Knowing exactly what would make a friend extremely happy, and making sure that they got that.
The Promotion (4-stars)
Elling (5-stars)

Shoot Em Up

It is good that I saw this in the heels of Wanted. There were probably 100 people shot in Shoot Em Up and only about two were graphic, CG shots. This is what I was looking for in Wanted. So it goes. Otherwise, this was a decent summer flick. It was so sensational in its plot lines that it did not even try to take itself seriously. An excellent example of nodding to the silliness that you are producing, and enjoying the ride. For example, putting a 2 day old baby in a bullet proof jacket, when that baby has already been carried through a glass window (after jumping off a building) and survived a car chase while laying on the front passenger floor shows the level that this movie is going for. And perhaps indicating just how wide my 3-star range is...
3-stars