The Alphabet Project - Part 1

Last Wednesday, I was struck with an awesome desire to do something active coupled with an equally awesome desire to do nothing that would be considered constructive. Normal people call this feeling "boredom". Therefore, I decided to alphabetize my DVD collection. I cannot tell you how much I thoroughly enjoyed the task.

As I entered the last DVD in my Mennonite-built spinning wooden rack (the movie was Unbreakable, if you must know), I wondered how cool it would be to re-screen all my DVD's in alphabetical order. And how even more cool would it be to 'blog about it. (And by "cool" I mean "weird and nerdy"). Thus began what I cheerfully designate "The Alphabet Project".

Aliens, 1986. Director: James Cameron.


Upon re-screening this movie, I was amazed at how badass it still is. Made before the CGI era, all special effects are practical, but to me the movie is still very fresh. And although I know just about every line and beat of the movie, it remains very scary.



Sigourney Weaver as "Ellen Ripley" was wonderful. Women in sci-fi are often given token supporting roles as either some sort of space hooker or militarized, masculine-ized, pseudo-male. Ellen Ripley is a godsend of a role, a resourceful sci-fi hero who's strength is linked to the nurturing, motherly instincts that the Newt character brings forth. This makes her a formidable warrior and compelling character, while still maintaining her femininity.

Also compelling, Carrie Henn as "Newt". In her early scenes, that kid portrays a thousand-yard stare that so effective, it makes me suspicious of what kind of prompting James Cameron had to do to get her to get her to look so real and truthful. All in all, the movie remains the best out of the whole Alien saga. It is so good that I refuse to consider the following movie installments as canon. Screw David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In my mind, Aliens 3 and 4 do not exist until James Cameron directs them.

Almost Famous, 2000. Director: Cameron Crowe.



It's hard not to enjoy this movie. Sweet cast, good music and kinda wistful.



At times it can get a bit schmaltzy, but in the end, the schmaltz works. Has one of my favourite bits of movie dialogue:

Lester Bangs: What, are you like the star of your school?
William Miller: They hate me.
Lester Bangs: You'll meet them all again on their long journey to the middle.

also:

Lester Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.
William Miller: Well, it was fun.
Lester Bangs: They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.
William Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.
Lester Bangs: That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we're smarter.
William Miller: I can really see that now.
Lester Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love... and let's face it, you got a big head start.
William Miller: I'm glad you were home.
Lester Bangs: I'm always home. I'm uncool.
William Miller: Me too!
Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world if what we share with someone else when we're uncool.

I truly wished I had someone to tell me stuff like this when I was in high school. It would have saved me so much useless angst.

Next movies:
[The] Aviator
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset

Announcing.., yet another blog.

Just a quick post here...

Feel free to visit our new blog: The Adventures of Ninja Baby http://www.ninja-baby.blogspot.com/.

Plain old Greed.

There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson



The reason I'm writing this blog is because my friend Grant wrote a review on it on his Facebook page, and I want to "one-up" him. How funny is it that the movie we both saw together, and both decided to comment on is about a man who's over-weening sense of pride, competition and greed eventually leads to his total moral destruction. I would say would propose that this is somewhat ironic, except, I really don't know what the literal meaning of "irony" is. I think I'll look it up...



There has been enough ink spilled over the greatness of this movie to replenish a southern Californian oil field, and really you're not going to hear much different here. I would dare say this film is my generations The Godfather. Friggin' awesome.

This is the fourth movie I've watched in as many weeks that has greed as a story central element. Wall Street, Goodfellas, Casino and There Will Be Blood are pretty damn apt representations of the effect that greed has exhibited on human culture within my lifetime. From junk bonds to asset-backed credits, from the Savings & Loan scandal to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, from Gordon Gekko, Henry Hill, "Ace" Rothstein, to Daniel Plainview, therein lies anything that everyone ever needs to know about the ultimate effects of greed.

In There Will Be Blood, Daniel Plainfield (as played by Daniel Day-Lewis) stakes out oil claims in early 1900's Southern California with his son, H.W. Plainfield, in tow.



But I think the key relationship in this movie, the overriding relationship that decides the fate of all characters, is the relationship between the elder Plainfield to his symbolic son Eli Sunday (as played by Paul Dano).



Both men could be kin. Both are driven by an overriding desire to acquire power, both exhibit a sense of contempt for other humans, both are unlikable human beings, but yet both have charisma powerful enough to attract others and the ability to bend their followers to their desires.

The one thing that separates them is that Daniel Plainview is self-aware. He knows he's a bastard, readily admits it, and struggles against every societal convention that forces him to pretend otherwise. Eli, on the other hand, does not even have the virtue of self-awareness. He's an opportunist who hides behind his theatre of faith. Plainview regards him with specific contempt. From his point of view, Eli builds his fortune by fleecing his flock, while trying to milk money and power from Daniel's fortune. A fortune that was built when Daniel, after a mining accident that resulted in a shattered knee, crawled on his back across miles of desert to the closest land registration office stake his first claim on an oil well.

The ultimate confrontation between these two characters is what makes this movie great. I will not even begin to spoil a climax that the movie builds with such masterful tension. I just recommend you watch There Will Be Blood, right away.

And take that Grant...