"The Dude Abides"

Confession time: I think The Big Lebowski is a little overrated. Yes, it has some inspired moments and great performances and the Coens are the best ever, but it just doesn’t do it for me from start to finish. Maybe it’s the fact that the main character, Jeffrey Lebowski (or as he prefers, “The Dude”) can’t finish a sentence without stammering or uttering the expression “you know,” or “man,” or something similar. A minor gripe, I know. And it isn’t what makes the movie not work me – but more on that later.

Lebowski follows the adventures of the Dude, a burnt out stoner who bowls with his buddies seemingly every night. We are introduced to the Dude in a convenience store, where he is bathrobe-and-sunglasses clad and writing a cheque to pay for a carton of half & half. The cream is a key ingredient to the Dude’s libation of choice – the white Russian, a drink he is rarely seen without.

After an unexpected visit from a strange man who urinates on his rug, Lebowski unwittingly finds himself at the centre of a screwball comedy. And oh man, is it screwy. The Coens stuff every scene of Leboswki with larger than life characters. Porn producers, bowling rivals, nihilists, and of course, Donny.

When Lebowski came out in the late 90s it was a sleeper hit, failing at the box office and not garnering much critical attention. It has since attracted a huge cult following, attributed (by me) largely to the philosophies espoused by The Dude himself. Namely, living minimally and just “abiding.”

In the final analysis, this is less of a movie and more of a mash-up of set pieces and scenes, loosely strung together, all populated by a rogues gallery of memorable characters.

Bonus: my favourite scene of the movie and the only part that really made me laugh out loud (my tastes are clearly sophisticated):

The unlikely spawn of Ron Howard

Every now and then I’m going to disagree with Ebert, in those cases I’ll set up a poll and see what you guys think. In the case of this post, I thought it was a little harsh to put ‘The Village’ on a ‘Most Hated List.’

I realize that it was potentially ill advised for M. Night Shyamalan to make another movie with a twist ending, thereby cementing his status as the most infamous wool-over-the-eyes-pulling-est director in cinema history. I read an interview with Shyamalan, published when The Happening was coming out, where he became palpably frustrated at the insinuation that all of his movies had twists. He sputtered (I imagine – I read it and they didn’t specify) that he had, at the time, five studio films: Lady in the Water, Unbreakable, Sixth Sense, Signs, and the Village, only two of which have twist endings. His point was that it is unfair for him to be pigeonholed as “the twist guy” when twists only constituted 30 per cent of his repertoire. Probably if Shyamalan could go back to being The Twist Director he would take that over the director he has become, The Director Whose Last Movie Scored An Abysmal 6% On Rotten Tomatoes.

For me, Shyamalan has always been a little hit or miss. I saw the end of Sixth Sense coming. I thought Signs had some great tension building scenes but it felt anti-climatic. I enjoyed Unbreakable. And I just never saw Lady in the Water. But for some reason the twist in The Village actually delighted me a little bit. Ebert compares the ending to the much-maligned It Was All A Dream ending – but I tend to disagree.

What was definitely helpful to me was going into the movie cold. I didn’t expect much and had heard practically nothing about the film, in other words, I wasn’t expecting a twist. Clearly I hadn’t learned that old Texas expression yet: “fool me once, shame… shame on you, fool… um… fool me can’t get fooled again!”

Ebert also points out that it’s impossible to talk about The Village without giving away some hints about the movie and even though I feel that there should be a statute of limitations on spoilers (it’s been seven years, if you haven’t seen The Village yet, you’re probably not going to), I won’t devote much time to discussing the plot. Essentially, the movie takes place in a village in the woods but there’s some spooky stuff in the woods and no one goes in the woods because of all the spooky stuff.

Suffice it to say, I didn’t hate this movie, and I think ol’ Roger perhaps was a little too hard on it, but what do you guys think? If you saw The Village, were you entertained, or did you feel like you’d been duped by the trickster yet again?

This has to be one of the weirdest movies on this list; it’s definitely the weirdest I’ve seen so far. Admittedly, I’m no movie critic. In fact, one of my main reasons for undertaking this project is to motivate me to see some movies that are different from the typical Hollywood fare and, by extension, movies that I wouldn’t necessarily know about or decide to check out.

That being said, I’m glad I checked the movie out. It’s a slow-boiling thriller that might take a while for you to fully get into (especially since the first shot of the film is about five minutes long and the camera never moves). But there is a payoff, after I finished the movie I immediately wanted to watch it again, definitely some key scenes.

In a nutshell, Cache revolves around a small family (husband, wife, teenaged son) living in Paris. They live on a quiet street. One day a videotape arrives on their front porch, the videotape contains footage taken of their house from the exterior. While innocuous enough, it sends a message: you are being watched. Then some crude illustrations and more tapes arrive. What follows is an examination of how people will behave when they suspect they are being observed.

I’m not going to pretend that I understood everything that happens in Cache, as I get the sense that this movie was purposefully enigmatic. What I appreciated was the oddness of it: the lingering shots, the POV movement of the camera, and the genuinely creepy nature of the tapes and drawings. I don’t believe that there is a satisfying conclusion to this movie, however, so be forewarned: if you need a movie to wrap itself up neatly, do not watch Cache. On the other hand, if you don’t mind walking away from a movie with something to think about and discuss, by all means see this one. (Then let me know what you thought, because I am seriously confused guys!)

Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.

The entire canon of hard sci-fi is indebted to Alien, a movie that rises above it’s subject matter to be so much more than it really should be.

Ebert compares it to Jaws (coming up in another review from me), and he’s not far off. Like Jaws, Alien knows that the scariest things exist in our imagination. Both movies keep their respective monsters off screen for more than an hour and, in my opinion, both movies are their thinnest when their monsters are engaged in monsterly duties i.e.: lurking, maiming, startling, and of course killing. Yes, the monster gets the ‘meat in the seats,’ as no one wants to watch a movie about a sleepy Rhode Island town, or a mining vessel deep in outer space. But make no mistake, it’s the people and their stories that has made these movies stand the test of time.

Even more so than Jaws, in fact, Alien still looks freaking amazing. Yes, the special effects are laughable in one memorable scene at the end that features an explosion. But the sets feel extremely real and the titular alien hasn’t been improved upon yet in terms of terrifying movie monsters. Witness the multitude of ‘Alien’ re-makes and wannabes that all try to capitalize on the success of the first movie.

For me, what makes this movie so great is the time that director Ridley Scott takes to tell the story. We meet the characters, learn their roles on the ship, and discover their mission. When they get a mysterious signal (distress beacon) and decide to investigate, we know it’s not going to end well. But the story builds logically and piques your curiosity, delivering some great surprises – even if you know they’re coming by now. I only wish I could have seen ‘Alien’ when it came out, as I’m sure the scene where the creature finally and suddenly bursts from Kane’s chest would have been mind-blowing back then.

The mythology of ‘Alien’ is so solid and the premise so singularly terrifying that it has spawned countless clones. Better yet, this is a movie inhabited by characters who respond logically to their circumstances. Not once did I want to yell “don’t go in there!” or anything similar, a rare feat for a movie with such a high death toll.

Double the Cage? Yes please.

In his prime.

Ebert’s review on this one knocks it out of the park. It’s an excellent example of why he is the best, it’s researched, insightful and well-written. But this blog isn’t (just) about how much I love Ebert – so onto why I love De Niro and Scorcese. But I’m not going to talk about the whole movie. Why? Because it’s my blog that’s why. But seriously, a lot of people smarter than me have said some very smart things about this movie. So what I’m going to do is focus on one scene. It’s one of my favourites and I think it’s one that’s overlooked due to how many other great, iconic, scenes are in this movie.

A little bit of set-up before we begin: Raging Bull was directed by Martin Scorcese in 1980. Robert De Niro won an Oscar for his portrayal of Jake La Motta, an Italian-American boxer nicknamed (you guessed it) “The Raging Bull,” who grappled with rage outside of the ring, as well as inside. Raging Bull is perhaps most famous as the movie that Robert De Niro gained 60 pounds during the shooting of. Joe Pesci plays Jake’s brother, Joey.

The scene that I want to focus on takes place about halfway through the film. What I love about this scene is the way it builds. It starts off with the brothers on opposite sides of the room. Jake starts questioning Joey about an incident at a nightclub involving his wife because Jake is suspicious of everyone when it comes to his wife. He interrogates Joey and the tension mounts. As this is happening they stand up and get closer to each other. The camera gets closer too, so only their faces are in the shots now.

Don't sue me George Lucas

To kick off this blog – and make this project seem less daunting – I thought I’d start with one of my favourite movies, on Ebert’s list or otherwise.

To attempt to say something new and insightful about the Star Wars saga is to attempt the foolish. But, hey, this is my blog so I’m going to do just that… Boy howdy do I love Star Wars. As a kid my joint obsession with Star Wars and Indiana Jones elevated Harrison Ford to such high levels of esteem for me that he can forever do no wrong in my eyes.

Unfortunately the same is not true of George Lucas. Man that guy is the worst. It’s almost like he hates being loved. Or more likely, he has no idea why people loved Star Wars in the first place (hint: it wasn’t for the ewoks).

Steven Spielberg had the decency to apologize for the changes he made to ET – and those weren’t even that bad.