Will Smith as Hancock, finds more emotional room to explore in this character than his typical fun loving human in his typical summer blockbuster character. For Hancock is a much more human person than Agent J from the Men In Black movies or even Capt Steve Heller from Independance Day. This time, when Will saves the world, a less pefect, more complcated human being emerges. Hancock has flaws.
Hancock, the movie, has flaws too. For the first time we don’t see Will owning the screen at all times, for even he, as great as he is on screen, cannot distract us from Charlize Theron. Director Peter Berg has taken away Will’s trademark laugh, and his easy presence and presented us with an action figure deeply flawed with anger and loneliness. The charming Will Smith appears for only a moment, in a vulgar scene as Hancock goes home with a groupie. This tender, gentle, witty and at ease, Will Smith appears briefly as Hancock indulges in the sins of the flesh, with a mere mortal. While it is not a scene you want to explain to your kids, it is a scene with our Will Smith at his best.
Then once again the brooding Hancock takes over as Berg directs a closed and internal character. Will this lead actor, the director needs to get out of the way. Berg should decide which film he wants to make and let us have all of it. The action is first rate in Hancock. The special effects never overpower the story and are just fun. With Berg’s Smith as superhero, we don’t quite get as much fun, as we’d like.
Jason Bateman as Ray Embry is a perfect counterpoint to Hancock. Bateman is charming though small, as the little family man who has the perfect life and only wants to do good. In between drunken blackouts Hancock flies around saving people and causing great destruction in the process. Embry, the PR man rescued in just such a fun yet destructive sequence, attempts improve on the image of the super “John Hancock”. For his part Hancock, who doesn’t know his own past, is unmoved by Embry’s gratitude, until he spots Mrs Embry.
Sparks fly immediately, and perfectly subtly, when Hancock meets Mrs Embry (Theron). The force of their attraction to each other is immediate and powerful, though Hancock and ourselves have yet to understand the reason for this. The real dynamic of the movie is that we want more of Mrs Embry and we want more of Hancock, but we don’t want them together.
The movie might be perfect but Berg never releases Hancock from his brooding, long enough to make us smile through his moods. So we suffer, a little, through the action, as we wait for the drama to unfold. The movie is never completely comic nor tragic.
Classical themes abound in what really is a classical tragedy. Forget your love story and your “superhero saves the day” movie. This film has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, but turns perfectly American by the finale.
Hancock is a fine fun movie with two of the biggest stars today shining brightly. It succeeds in being two movies in one, but it perfects neither archtype, and thus fails to be a “great” movie. It is however, fun, and fast and stunning, and dynamic. And that one scene keeps it from being an easy family film, but Hancock eventually goes where it needs to and leaves us with the small warm fuzzies we crave.
Ok. It wasn’t perfect. It put me in mind of too many previous sci-fi cgi classics. Having said that Wall-e is a charming must see return to fun action adventure cgi movie making. It did however make me think of Short Circuit and the ‘alive’ robot number 5, ET (no? Look at the body shape!), Star Wars and the Love Boat. One can’t help but feel that Al Gore is standing behind the camera saying “Yep. That’s right” as if he were watching the “filming” of this movie.
Stunning rendering and attention to detail are hallmarks of Pixar (now Disney/Pixar) movies and Wall-e raises the game just a little bit higher. The moralizing is a little too front and center though the point is well taken.
So what are we left with besides moralizing reimaging of old tales and former characters? Action, romance, adventure, stunning visuals and charming characters in a 1:39 minute ride that seems to go by too fast. Our story begins on a desolate earth with no one living except the artificial life form (how did he come to be more than a robot?) Wall-e. Along with his trusty friend the cockroach Wall-e lives his dreary manual existence making big piles of garbage into small blocks of garbage until one day his ship comes in and he’s off on a tale of action and adventure that is fast paced and amuzing to both kids and adults. Without giving the plot away let’s say that the downfall of humanity is comfortably underway and the accidental love story between the somewhat masculine Wall-e and the nearly feminine Eve-a lead the viewer/participant on the journey to save not only the planet but indeed all of humanity, which has become soft and disfunctional over the years.
Not your typical story of man vs machine Pixar’s latest effort niether completely humanizes the robots nor completely demonizes the humans. There is a simple moral here – take care of your planet.
Perhaps it is the lead character’s failure to take up the cause as a moral imperative – he’s interested in the girl, she’s interested in the moral, that keeps this from being a 5 of 5 smiling Maxes. Perhaps it is the derivative design of Wall-e himself, though Eve is clearly generations ahead in our imagining of future mechanical helpers, whatever it is, something keeps this film just this side of perfect.
However, the characters are accessable, particularly Wall-e and the captain, the visualizations are wonderful, the action is plentiful and there’s enough humor to keep the whole thing from taking itself too seriously.
Rent it. Watch it. Wall-e is good good fun. And do watch the short features on the DVD. They’re fun too!
Overall, and despite what may have sounded like too much criticism, this is a must see.
I’m loving the fact that oil is now below $60/barrel. Remember it was $19 when the W took office, but that’s old news. What I want to know is who put the money in their pockets when it was almost $150/barrel?
I know where the money came from. It came from my pocket. Who has my money now and why did they stop taking it? I had to drive. I had to give it too them.
Somebody got really really rich being greedy. They should be in jail.
Some movies generate a passion. “Don’t go see it under any circumstances” or “This is a must see”. Unfortunately for this reviewer The Darjeeling Limited is not one of those films.
Symbolism abounds with this movie. Its ladened in every scene like an Easter basket poured over wiith sweets. You don’t know which to pick. And if that weren’t enough. There’s a short movie preface with more of the same. A separate short called The Hotel Chevalier starts us off with one of the three brothers from the upcoming train trip in a one sided passion play with his ex. As the ex, Natalie Portman is smoking hot, as Jack Whitman’s (Jason Schwartzman’s) ex girlfriend. She has bruises.
Like any good journey film, The Limited, takes us, via these three disfunctional brothers, to a point where we get off the train and learn to live. (Spoiler here) The brothers throw away all of their baggage at the end of the film. This is their fathers’s baggage that they have been retrieving along the way, as they run for a different train at the end.
Along the way we find that their father has passed and their mother didn’t go to his funeral. The oldest brother played by Owen Wilson seems to have taken over the mother’s role. Accepted her baggage if you will. The youngest, Jack, moves quickly into a loveless relationship with a “stewardess” on the train.
The middle brother Peter, seems to have become obessesd with his fathers things. Peter proclaims that his father said at his death, that he liked Peter the best.
Along the way there are significant slow motion scenes where the image of the boys walking calls to mind various iconic imges such as, the image of those three soldiers from the American Revolution depicted in that painting with the fife player and the drummer etc. Then again as one of them is barefooted in another scene perhaps we’re meant to think of the Abby Road cover (Paul is dead).
“Don’t play with me cuz you play with fire” from the Rolling Stones hisses in a scene (spoiler) where the boys finally do find their mother. She has said there is a tiger around and to not come to see her. One shot that makes you wonder if she is the threat or the threatened, appears as she stands framed in a doorway but with mini arches pointing down to her head like teeth. Is she the tiger, or the dinner?
The main symbolism comes into better focus as the our boys attempt to resuce three indian boys who are crossing a river with a heavily laden wooden pallet. Our boys jump into the small but rushing stream and rescue two of the three boys. The third, which Peter tries to rescue, doesn’t make it and our heros are invited to attend his funeral which they do.
More symbolism as the father, the son, and the dead child all had head injuries.
The train is left half way through the movie as the boys are thrown off it for bringing a snake on board, and other witless acts. Peter bought the snake at one of their many spiritual stops as they try to find rebirth, though austensibly they are searching for “spirituality”. Images of death and birth abound.
Every scene is ripe with metaphor. Have an intellectual or at least someone who likes to talk about movies, with you when you screen this film. This movie needs some explaining. The pace is slow, but the portrayals are charming.
This movie is not crisp and it isn’t that much fun, unless you want to think, because it may just be very very deep. It has that classic Wes Anderson feel and pace and droll droll humor. If you like Wes Anderson this is a must.
For me in a close one, I give it three smiling Maxes. Just enough to recommend it.
Getting out the door is always a task. Especially on Tuesdays because its garbage day. But most days you can leave most things till tomorrow if its going to make you really late. I’m not usually really late, and today was fairly typical.
Still, I was planning on bringing the hard boiled eggs I made last night, in the car with me. No eggs. Left them on the stove. Yes I turned it off, but that’s as far as I got. Made sure the cat box was clear, the cat food box was full, the cats had food and water, brought my clothes, my laptop, my work laptop that is, and the newly returned Macbook, their associated power cords, my phone and its power adapter, my camera (you never know) but left its battery charger, my teeth stuff, my comb – ok, kidding, the barcode labeller, the book of inventory, the inventory scanner with its power cord – you get the picture. And this is for a three day tour. A three day tour.
The weather started getting tough.
Now I had been told about the HHR (loaner from work) and how it is uncomfortable and has bad sight lines, so I took all of the headrests off except for mine. And for the first twenty miles the car was quite comfortable. Then I wanted to spread my feet out just a bit. Forget that. But the cruise was intuitive, which it hadn’t been on other Chevys and my podcaster worked with the radio, so I was off.
A little breakfast in Whiskey Point. McDonalds of course. I don’t like to stop and eat once I get rolling. My brother is that way too. Get in. Get there. Get out. Go pee.
Unfortunately you HAVE to stop for gas and peein on a 6 hour trip. If the weather holds.
The weather didn’t hold. By Palmyra it was a full on blizzard with white out conditions and driving behind a car with its lights on just so that you could see the road. At the point where I thought that I had an hour to Rochester and was going 40 miles per hour I thought I’d never get there in time for work, so I’d just see if I could get there at all. I really didn’t want to turn around, but I knew it was going to be a long drive.
Then it cleared.
Then it snowed again.
Then it cleared.
Then it rained.
Then it cleared.
Then it snowed again.
Then it cleared.
Then it snowed again.
By the time I hit 290 it was pretty much over.
At the Niagara Falls boarder crossing I was feeling relieved.
“What is your reason for going into Canada?”
“I have a meeting”
“A meeting with who? (sic)”
“A meeting with a guy I work with”
“I need a real answer here!”
“Um, I … um am meeting with a guy from work.”
“Where does this guy work?”
“Meadwestvaco.”
“Where do you work?
“Meadwestvaco.”
Then he said something about bringing weapons into Canada. I didn’t hear him exactly so I just said “I’m not bringing any weapons into Canada”
“What are you bringing besides your clothes into Canada?”
Innocent enough question, except the last time I said I was bringing 2 computers into Canada they pulled me over and searched my hard drives for porn. (Which they didn’t find!)
“My computer.” Notice the singular.
“Ok”
He gives me back my passport and I’m home free right? Got the podcasts going. I’m doing great. I might even be early. I made such good time and didn’t stop. I don’t remember what time that was because the clock in the HHR is still on DST.
However … the roadsigns in Canada aren’t quite as explicit as in NY and apparently I went west on the 403 instead of east on the 403 even though I specifically intended to go east on the 403 and know where I picked which road went east. It was where the road to Guelph was.
I went to Guelph. Then to Branford.
“Hello Peter? I’m in Brampton.” It took a while to make the connection that Brampton (my delusion) and Branford (my location) were not the same place.
When I got directions to Toronto and got turned around and was heading (yes, say it with me “East on the 403″). The sign said Toronto 85! Now that’s kilometers. But I had to pee. It still seemed a might bit far away.
So …
403
QEW
427
401 and then to the hotel and then work. Peter calls. No cell phone connection. Peter leaves voicemail. Voicemail works. (Why is this?) “There’s an accident on the 401 you won’t get anywhere. Take Eglington.”
I take Islington. Go pee at a Walmart in Islington. Ahhh yay Islington. Get directions to Eglington, and eventually work.
Now the thing of it is (an expression that always makes me think of Max) is, when you don’t know where you are, you don’t know how long it will take to get where you are going. So not only was the 401 stopped but by now it was rush hour and traffic in Toronto is tight! And every red light, even the one the block before Eglington, is a source of frustration and tension. Every 10 foot drive and stop makes your chest just a little tighter. Toronto is huge and it all looks the same and none of it looked familiar. Stopped on Eglington, I’d have sold my soul to be back on Floral Avenue, a road I used to curse when I was delivering pizzas and wondering if I would ever get off from it.
I love driving. On my own back roads where I know where I’m going, or when I have the chance to explore at my lesiure. But I had a place to go and every minute was nothing but traffic from the 401 through to Eglington. The trip back from Branford alone took at least an hour and a half, and I had to pee!
It was not a good day of driving. I did find the office. I did find the hotel. I did find a beer!
Short blog tonight. I was listening to TWIT and heard that it is possible that the government (ours I suppose) are allowed to confiscate all electronic equipment at the border for national security.
I thought about not taking the Mac.
But I just got the Mac back. Oh yeah, did I mention that my refurbished Macbook twice has had to have the hard drive replaced and this time I lost ALL my data? So I got the Macbook back last week and despite hardware troubles I’m bringing it to Toronto. I want to Skype from there. If you don’t hear from me … well, probably worse things than losing my Macbook have happend since I am brining my work laptop too! But it I don’t want to blog through it.
And I have an MP3 player and a cell phone and a camera and on and on and I hope they don’t take my gear. Its bad enough that I have to lie to …….
Hi there. This is my first movie review under the new system. So here goes. Go see Forgetting Sarah Marshal. Don’t bring the kids!! Bring the girl. This is a great date movie. All the better for her if she wants to see Jason Segel in the buffo, because boy will she get her chance.
I should start by saying that I watched the extended cut. So I’m not sure how much you get to see in the theatrical release. And yes guys, plenty of topless shots for the horny boys.
But forget that. I had fun watching this movie, and, at least in the extended cut, and yes, I counted, I litterally laughed out loud 6 times.
Mila Kunis (That Seventies Show) proves, and please people believe this, that you don’t HAVE to be blond. More than sizzling hot, Mila is subtley so sexy and at the same time so adorable I defy any man to not fall in love with her during this movie. If there is such an award as best supporting, or hell even best lead actress in a comedy, give it to Mila right now. She was that good. This is not the dumb girl from the TV.
I put this movie in my must see list (its all in my head) because of Kristin Bell. Because of Veronica Mars, and because she is SO damned hot! And brother she is hot in this movie. The great benefit of that is, that at least in one scene in at the front desk of the hotel, she wells up with emotion where her eyes water and her face gets all flushed and holy smoke she’s acting! So we have two good gorgeous females who can act, though in truth Mila steals the show.
The supporting cast fills in as quirky backdrops to what sometimes seems a script that’s a little too dumb. And though I love him (with his clothes on) Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother) somehow is flatly comedic in a role that a real lead actor could have made into a winnng romance.
And maybe that’s the only problem with this movie when its funny its laugh out loud funny, and when its love, god, you want the girl, I’m just not sure its always both at the same time.
So onto the new smiling Maxes. This movie gets four smiling Maxes. I fell in love and laughed out loud. What more could you ask for? [Maybe a little less of Jason Segel. Watch it without the kids!]
(Oh yeah, the best line was “Its kinda like a dark Gothic version of Neil Diamond!”)
p.s. I watched it again, as the short version. Much less nudity, but still not a movie that you want to watch with the kids.
This is how dumb George W Bush really is: He “let The Market” determine oil prices all the way up to $150/barrel. But now that his buddies, the Saudi’s, are feeling the pinch from “The Market”, he seems to have no problem with OPEC, which as an Economic Cartel [the last two letters in OPEC stand for economic cartel] would be illegal if there could have been such a thing in these United States … Now that OPEC has agreed to limit oil prodcution to keep gasoline prices artificially high, he doesn’t open the Strategic Petrolium Reserve (AGAIN) to fight this anti-free market activity!
When OPEC made this decision, oil went up $2/barrel.
When we REALLY needed him. When we were all spending twice as much money on gasoline as the year before, George failed us. Part of this economic turn down is related to high oil prices. Last WEEK we lost 516,000 jobs. 516,000 jobs in a week!
I talked to an old friend tonight. It had been too long since we’d talked. Its the second old friend I’ve reconnected with in a short few weeks. Once again it just felt great to speak with these people from years ago. And its not trying to get the old days back, its knowing they enjoy reconnecting – that something that was there is different now, but still there.
and even though I agree with him on new sources of fuel (and have since Jimmy Carter) I can’t help but thinking of the Swift Boat campaign every time I think of him.
Ok, now you can’t just say “The economy”. You’d have to say, the banking crisis, or the recession, or possibly trade or jobs. And you can include such vagueries as Hope, what would you say is the biggest problem that President Elect Obama should tackle first? Here’s a list I just made up. It may get changed.
1. Banking – without money flow, everything shuts down.
2. Guantanamo Bay – (As suggested by Bob Doty) Its illegal, its immoral, it hurts us in many ways.
3. Energy developement – let’s get out of the middle east completely
4. Get us out of Iraq
5. Recession
6. Infrastructure – another bridge collapse
7. International relations – speaking of bridges
8. Imigration
9. Manufacturing
10. Oil prices – Heating our homes. Its a terrible tax on all Americans and the drop in prices proves this was mostly about proffiteering. And this isn’t last and may be should be part of something else.
What do YOU think this list should look like? What did I forget?
Now we see if a Liberal can govern effectively, and with a generosity of spirit.
This segement, from President Elect Obama’s speech in Grant Park last night, suggests that he can.
“Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world – our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security – we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.”
Lately its come clear to me, that this year, as in other years, I’m voting for more than just the issues, though the issues are important to me.
This year more than any other year, I’m voting for hope.
I’ve poured my dreams into the Obama bucket. I think everyone pours their feelings into a bucket that reflects not a candidate, but what they feel that candidate represents.
And here is why there is a difference. John McCain ran on fear. He ran on the fear of what might happen in Iraq, the fear of Al-Qaeda and a generalized George W Bush type fear of an anonymous boogieman that was at our door. He also tried to make us afraid of a 1960′s radical, who had nothing to do with the election. Then he tried to make us afraid of Socialism. This was nothing more than the graduated tax system that we’ve had since the early part of the last century. Walking all around the issue of race, he encouraged us to be afraid of Barack Obama by saying he’s an unknown and allowing people to think Obama is Muslim, Arab and a terrorist, even despite the fact that he told that woman in the midwest that Obama wasn’t an Arab but that Obama was a good “family man”, as if they are mutually exclusive.
So if you are optimistic, as I am, and hopeful where do you pour your dreams? Into the bucket that says Obama. I’m voting for change. And I want the change to filter down through the appointments and bureaucrats that fill Washington and do the ‘day to day’. I believe in Liberalism, so it doesn’t bother me that Obama is one, though McCain wants us to fear them. In truth the biggest reason Obama is so liberal is that he is so different from George W.
And it’s Poetic Justice, as my friend Pat would say, that the man who George W. defeated by using fear, and who embraced the fear, would be brought down by George W. The Dubaya screwed him one last time.
But this story is about hope. Hope for a decent relationship between business and the government, with the government regulating business for the good of the people. And in case you forgot, this is about ‘the people’. It is also a story of hope for the readmission of the United States into the community of nations. Before W we lead the world. Now we are pariah!
It is a story of American conquering its own ‘original sin’ and for 18 percent of the population to feel fully enfranchised for the first time.
It’s a story of hope for peace. I wish I knew who said that war is a failure of imagination, because right now I’m imagining peace and prosperity; remember that? We had it 8 years ago.
Ok. The curve in the wings is the Sharpie, the curve in the tail is the Coop. So the Coopers Hawk is in Front?
Look at that round tail. Must be the Coop.
The Coop is following here…
Sharpie this time, I think
The Coop is the one in front here
Pretty sure this is the Coop
The Coop is above here I think
The Coop is in front?
oK. Occaisionally I go up to Franklin Mt to watch the hawks, see if I can see an eagle, and maybe help the counters find a few birds they might have missed. The thing is my eyes aren’t great and I don’t do the binocular thing well, I don’t hold them steady and I tend to see double.
So its no surprise that I haven’t learned to easily spot the difference between a Sharp Shinned Hawk and a Coopers Hawk. This is more difficult because the Sharp Shin tends to be smaller, but the female Sharpie can be larger than a male Coopers Hawk.
So, while I knew the Coopers Hawk tends to have a curved end of its tail, I just from this day learned that the Sharp Shinned Hawk tends to have a curved scoop like form at the front of its wings near the head and that the Coop’s wings are more straight across.
With that, I’ve picked which I think, is which, in each photo. Did I get it right?
