Excuse Me, What?

The Great Gatsby (2013) - dir. Baz Lurhmann

TWO reviews in one day?? Be still my laptop.

All I’m saying is that if Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t win an Oscar at this point…I’m pretty sure the Academy is just doing it as a running gag at this point. ”And the winner for Best Actor is…DANIEL DAY LEWIS AS LEONARDO DiCAPRIO AS JAY GATSBY!” ;_; creys 5eva I don’t even know.

This is the third movie version of The Great Gatsby I’ve sat through after reading the book in high school like every other high school senior in the country. And while I admit that I’ve read the novel like once since graduation, it remains one of my favorite portraits of the decadence and opulence in the lives of rich socialites in the Roaring Twenties. This latest adaptation by Luhrmann far and away brings that to life in a way no other adaptation has done.

But what did you expect? It’s Baz Fucking Lurhmann, the man who brought you a modernized Romeo and Juliet (1996)and the wonderfully exuberant yet tragic Moulin Rouge! (2001). This is his latest glitter-and-drama-studded baby and it’s FANTASTIC, I DON’T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS.

The consensus on movie aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is that Gatsby is all style and no substance. Time to re-read the source material, peasants. BRACE YOURSELVES, FORMER ENGLISH MAJOR IN THE HOUSE:

The F. Scott Fitzgerald novel is made not just of ink and pages, but of heart and soul. The heart of the novel is the eponymous Jay Gatsby’s longing to have Daisy Buchanan back in his life, but preferably as Daisy Gatsby. He is so entirely smitten with her, even before the Great War (oh how young and unscathed by the horrors of the world they were, woe) that he held all these parties and bought all this amazing shit with the disgusting amount of money he procured from various questionable activities and family deaths. Which brings us to the soul of the novel, which is the over-the-top, bombastic and wanton luxury that is Gatsby’s, Tom Buchanan’s, and anyone else’s lifestyle in the West and East Egg parts of New York. Granted, rich people who aren’t Gatsby are much less, I don’t know, overly blatantabout their wealth. Which is dangerous territory to tread because Tom has some buckaroos, lemme tell ya. I’m pretty sure they took the plantation from Candieland in Django Unchained and added six hundred more rooms with a jockey field out front. So yeah, dude’s rich as fuck and you better recognize. But that about sums up the soul of the novel: varying levels of disgusting wealth and it is so much fun.

The point I’m trying to reach here is that Lurhmann’s version has equal measure of heart and soul created by the source material. It’s the visual feast you’ve come to expect from one of his films while absolutely retaining why all of that shiny stuff and colorful Indian cotton shirts exist: for her. Daisy. The green light of Gatsby’s life. All of that and it still wasn’t enough.

And the casting. OH LAWD, THE FLAWLESS CASTING. Everyone was perfect sit the hell down no exceptions Oscars for everyone bye. Carey Mulligan’s Daisy was wonderfully naive without being annoying like she is in the book and the dialogue made much more sense through her interpretation that didn’t make much sense to me on paper or were said in other adaptations like they’re just being recited. Tobey MacGuire makes me cringe in ways I can’t fully explain, but I liked his Nick Carraway. I think he did the role justice. Newcomer Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan is exactly how I imagined her and HOLY SHIT I JUST LOOKED UP JOEL EDGERTON ON IMDB AND HE WAS OWEN LARS IN THE PHANTOM MENACE AND I DON’T KNOW MY LIFE ANYMORE. Sorry, that was actually shocking to me. That’s the only thing I’ve seen him in and it was such a negligible role. I very much enjoyed his performance because Tom Buchanan is such an asshole, but he came off as rather sympathetic to me. Yeah, he was a cheating douchenozzle that pretty much caused Gatsby’s demise (spoiler alert hurr durr go read a book), but here’s this guy out of fucking nowhere trying to steal hiz gurl. While he’s also cheating. ACK, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO FEEL. Which makes him perfect. I love it.

BUT LEST WE FORGET: LEONARDO SWEETBABYJESUS DiCAPRIO. I can’t believe I felt anything other than love and adoration for this man. He is Gatsby. HE IS GATSBY. Gatsby, what Gatsby? DIS GATSBY. You get the idea. Like, I was borderline crying when the camera panned up and there’s Jay Fucking Gatsby with his ritzy drink in his ritzy house and his ritzy existence going, “I’m Gatsby.” Cue the theater erupting and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. DiCaprio has come into his own so goddamn hard. No longer is he the blond heartthrob sinking into the bottom of the North Atlantic to sad flute music because Rose couldn’t scootch the hell over on that door. No, he is an absolute powerhouse that demands your attention and respect as a master of his craft. He’s a brilliant actor SO GIVE HIM AN AWARD OR A CHOCOLATE BUNNY (except he’s an animal rights activist lol) OR SOMETHING FOR HIS EFFORT. In the immortal words of Gob Bluth: COME ON!

But we can jerk about Leonardo DiCaprio’s perfection all day (or I could, anyway). Let’s talk music! BRACE YOURSELVES AGAIN, FORMER PRE-MUSIC ED MAJOR IN THE HOUSE (I’m indecisive okay):

People complained right off the bat about the rap music in this movie and that Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter was a producer and headed most of the soundtrack duties, blah blah blah. I don’t listen to a lot of his stuff, but I respect the dude as a businessman, entrepreneur  and musician. YES, RAP IS MUSIC, DEAL. The music in The Great Gatsby is an extraordinary fusion of modern pop music and the swing/jazz music that is quintessential to the 1920s. The anachronistic nature of it doesn’t draw you away from the film. Or maybe it did for you. Sorry about that, I guess. PLUS, who could turn their nose at soundtrack contributors like Florence Welch and Lana Del Ray? Dirty commie bastards, that’s who. Probably. [citation needed]

Honestly, the only negative thing I can say about this film is that I wasn’t a fan of the text appearing on screen like an AMV on YouTube whenever Nick Carraway was writing. I didn’t feel it necessary, but it was a small part of the movie and didn’t detract from it, so whatever.

Incidentally, this was a movie that I actually did want to see in 3D because I believe that was Luhrmann’s way of taking 3D for exactly what it is nowadays: extravagant and gimmicky. You know, like the soul of the novel and film. SO DEEP. But alas, I was/am too broke to get the full metaphorical experience.

I try to be as professional as possible while writing these thingSAHAHAHAHAHA DID YOU SEE THAT? I WAS ALMOST SERIOUS. These aren’t professional at all. God. But what I mean to say is that I don’t like to completely dismiss a bad movie or totally fawn over a great movie and completely polarize the issue with a “you can agree with me or be wrong” mentality. Oh, well. You can love and appreciate The Great Gatsby as much as I do or be wrong. Boom, roasted.

Final Verdict: A+

Iron Man 3 (2013) - dir. Shane Black

WARNING: Extreme fangirling imminent. If you’re not into that kind of thing (and I can hardly blame you), you would do well to skip the bolded paragraph below:

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Before I begin, it is important to note that I am in LOVE with Robert Downey Jr. and would burn down an orphanage if it meant I could meet him and possibly do devastating things to his criminally sexy self. In the interest of maintaining a semi-serious film blog, I am using this time to get my fangirling out of the way before actually reviewing the film in a semi-professional manner: ASDGHASKLGHDOIGHAHSDLGHAIDOGHAOGAHSGOHEOHBSSHG I FUCKING CAN’T WHY IS HE SO PERFECT AND GORGEOUS AND GOOD AT LITERALLY EVERYTHING THE MAN CAN SING, ACT, DANCE, AND MAKE PEOPLE OF ALL WALKS OF LIFE AND SEXUALITY SWOON LIKE WHO EVEN IS GEORGE CLOONEY GIVE ME ROBERT ANY DAY WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO LIKE THE ONLY PERSON THAT MAKES ME ANGRIER AT THEIR PERFECTION IS BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH UGH UGH UGHHHHHHHH WHYYYYYY.

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Thank you very much for your patience. And now, to get on with it:

So. Jon Favreau takes off the director’s hat he’s donned for the first two installments of Robert Downey Jr.’s autobiography Iron Man and passes it along to Shane Black, probably best known for the Lethal Weapon series and my personal favorite of his: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Fans of the same movie will recognize a lot of snappy dialogue in IR3 (yes, I am too lazy to spell out the title. Shut up; it’s finals week) that’s in a very similar vein to KKBB. While I found the funnier dialogue to be a welcome addition to the film, much of the criticism toward the film was about the dialogue. Plenty of people felt that it distracted from the heart of the film and that it turned IR3 into a comedy rather than a superhero film. This is a valid criticisms because the film is chock-full of one-liners. But I felt that they were especially present during RDJ’s scenes with Harley (Ty Simpkins) and helped build their relationship in the film.

Ty Simpkins, by the way, blew my freaking mind. You may have recognized him as Dalton from Insidious(2010), or if you’re like me, you totally didn’t because that kid is a powerhouse now. The kid totally carried his own against the perpetually snarky Tony Stark and was the perfect mixture of funny, annoying and adorable. A Stark in miniature, if you will. For once, a child in an action movie wasn’t used solely for emotional manipulation, but as a fairly round character in his own right.

The character development in this installment was pretty stellar, too. Pepper Potts is a strong female character and without giving too much away plot-wise, REEEEEAAAALLY holds her own at the end of the climax. Some people wrote it off as a deus ex machina, but I enjoyed it. Go see it to know what the hell I’m on about. But Pepper aside, what was really remarkable to me was that Tony admitted right from the beginning of the movie that he has panic attacks. Do you understand how rare that is?? Movies with male protagonists with issues spend 75% of the movie trying to hide or ignore their psychological problem(s) until it blows up in their faces during the climax and they have to overcome it to end the movie properly. Not this time. Tony acknowledges his panic attacks and…doesn’t really deal with it too much aside from telling Harley to fuck off occasionally, but the fact that he admitted it is a huge step in changing the way future characters in future films deal with things of that nature.

In this installment, we are introduced to the latest villain: the Mandarin. Again, can’t give too much away, but if you’ve seen The Incredibles (I haven’t, but saw enough GIFs on Tumblr outlining the similarities), then you’ll know what’s up. Ben Kingsley’s performance had me rolling. And while Guy Pearce always impresses me in everything that he’s in, the trivia on IMDb states that Jude Law was considered for the role.

STOP RIGHT THERE - TIME FOR SOME SHERLOCK HOLMES FANRAGE: DO YOU EVEN REMOTELY FATHOM HOW FUCKING PERFECT THAT HERO/VILLAIN MATCHUP THAT WOULD BE. ALL THOSE CROSSOVER FANFICTIONS FALLING THROUGH THE CRUST OF THE EARTH - THAT’S THE SOUND YOU’RE HEARING RIGHT NOW. IRONLOCK MANHOLMES VERSUS DR. JOHNRICH WATSIAN. UGH, YOU’RE TEARING ME APAHT, IRON MAN.

Ahem. Anyway.

I’m not so good at reviewing superhero movies because they’re based off of comic books that I don’t read. I can’t comment on how well they transcend different mediums. However, maybe that’s advantageous because I can comment on the nature of the film without making a comparison to the original source material. I dunno, maaaan.

I saw the film in LieMAX 3D (sorry not sorry, White Marsh AMC, I call it as I see it), and…eh. I had a headache before going in, so that did nothing to improve things. I think they’re getting their shit together where 3D is concerned because it’s looking better, but the extra expense still isn’t justified.

All in all, Iron Man 3is a rockin’ good time with lots of laughs, lots of action, and lots of still not knowing where Robert ends and Tony begins. Sooooo totally okay with that.

Final Verdict: A

District 9 (2009) - dir. Neill Blomkamp

Eh. This movie didn’t do too much for me at all. I’m not a huge fan of alien movies anyway (says the gal vamping up to see Star Trek: Into Darkness when it opens) and this one is no exception.

A TL;DW for you: Alternating between documentary and cinematic styles, a ship of aliens hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa and settle into District 9. The rest of the movie takes place 28 years after the hover-landing and is spent relocating the millions of aliens that created District 9 into a slum into District 10, turning into military v. aliens v. Nigerians in a slightly-trying-too-hard allegory of the end of apartheid in the 1990s.

Personally, I found the BTS information far more interesting than the movie itself, during which I dozed off lightly for a good 20 minutes or so. Turns out I didn’t miss much. The weaponry in the film is based off of real South African military artillery and the language that the aliens (known derisively as “Prauns”) speak is a mixture of several African languages, the most prominent being Xhosa. The military personnel have a heavy South African dialect and there’s plenty of colorful Afrikaans vernacular in the dialogue, which I found amusing. The cast itself is relatively unknown; in fact, Sharlto Copley (Mikus van de Merwe) had no intention of pursuing an acting career at all and the vast majority (if not all) of his dialogue was improvised. The aliens with speaking roles (of which there are three) were all played by a single actor (Jason Cope) and his lines were dubbed in post.

Speaking of the prauns, they were hysterical. They were oddly violent towards inanimate objects, butchered cows a lot, were addicted to cat food, and the main alien that befriends Wikus has a strangely cute alien kid and was named Christopher. Christopher.  It’s like after George Lucas said “fuck it” to naming his space creatures awesome names like Ask Aak and Orn Free Taa and instead went for General Grievous (which LITERALLY MEANS GENERAL EVIL OR GENERAL BAD LIKE ARE YOU KIDDING ME GEORGE. WHY) in Revenge of the Sith, other directors making sci-fi films followed suit. Or maybe this is just an anomaly. Point is, an alien named Christopher is an alien I am going to take seriously for 0% of the movie. But I suppose they made an adequate representation of black Africans during apartheid because I did feel some empathy for them during the eviction sequences. They were stuck in this tiny shithole caused by militarization and after making the best of it, they’re forced into a (maybe) slightly bigger shithole. Not cool, white soldiers. Not cool.

So, that’s what I was reading up on while the actual movie was playing because I am a terrible movie-watcher. But honestly, there wasn’t a ton of substance in the movie. It’s very intense for sure, but didn’t really become story or character driven until the climax. I gave no fucks about the outcome for any of the characters. I thought the technology and science in the film were pretty nifty and I thought the shift from documentary to cinematic and back to documentary styles were well done. But other than that, I’m not quite sure how or why the film was as well-received as it was. Maybe viewers were relieved that it wasn’t another Cloverfield style of film, I dunno.

To sum up, District 9 did a stellar job with development, but couldn’t hold my attention with the finished product. On the other hand, I did like the ending. But still. Sorry not sorry.

Final Verdict: C

So, I’m not the smartest bulb in the box, or however the saying goes. But it frustrates me when I feel like I have something to contribute to something simple, like a group exercise, and no one listens.

Today in lighting, for example. I thought we could use the umbrella diffusion as part of the set up because the light kit was short a RIFA. So we had to improvise: use a DP light with a single layer of Q2 diffusion to soften the light. We used that plus a scrim, plus a silk to diffuse and shape the light. I figured we could eliminate the scrim and the diffusion and just use the umbrella, but our professor insisted that it wasn’t needed.

Okay, except we the students are supposed to be doing the set-up. Basically he was like “Okay, so you guys are going to set it up, but if it were me, I’d put X light here and Y light here and use the bounce on Y light by this wall…” etc. Yeah, that’s not letting us do the work. We ended up setting it up exactly how he said.

Some people consider it working smarter, not harder. But I don’t know, I think I learn better by making my own mistake and experimenting using techniques that have been taught to me. I may be overreacting a little here, but it would have taken me five minutes tops to set up the light the way I wanted to see how it would look. But the professor said it was unnecessary, so that was the end of it. Maybe it was. But let me figure that out myself. That’s the point of school.

Plus, we had like ten people setting up a two-light scene. That’s like eight people too many. Many hands make light work, but too many hands means standing around and not learning because the same people take over the assignments and other people then won’t step in because it’s like, “Okay, guess you’re all set…again…knowing what you’re doing…because it’s always the same fucking people doing group assignments in class.”

That’s why even though it’s a large addition to my workload this semester, I’m glad we do assignments out of class. Three or four people in a group working three lights…everybody gets to get their hands dirty. Practice makes perfect, but it looks like any practice is never going to happen in class. Which was probably an unrealistic expectation anyway. Welp.

Can’t find it.

I have a corporate shoot in four and a half hours

and a music video shoot on Sunday.

Music videos are what I want to do, so I’m excited for the latter

especially because I’ve had two professors so far diss editing to music.

It has its place, sirs. It has its place.

What I love the most about film that I never thought I would love the most about anything is that it’s a collaborative effort. Everybody on one project has the same vision, but is slightly or vastly different from the next person, from the writer to the producer to the director to the DP to the editor. The same but different, and it must all work together to bring a single idea to life. I love working with my fraternity on projects and watching them work on projects with which I am not involved (which, sadly, is many). The video I posted, the BTS of the 48-hour festival, is the best example I have of watching brothers make art. It’s mesmerizing and inspiring.

I shot my own film called Anxiety over winter break. I have yet to edit it because I am lazy/tied up with school, but I’ve sort of looked at the footage and it’s terrifying. Unlike all the other projects I’ve done, this is a totally solo effort. I wrote, directed, shot, starred in and edited this film completely on my own. My brother Ryan has a cameo, but that’s it. It’s all me.

I have found that doing this project alone is just as satisfying, if not more so, than a joint effort. Any good things about this film I can take full credit for. Likewise, I must be held accountable for any sub-par or just plain awful parts. My apprehension of screening this in front of people is also a large contributor to why it isn’t finished yet. It’s a two minute film; there’s really no excuse.

The point is, I have single-handedly deconstructed the group mentality and clockwork of filmmaking and took it all upon my shoulders. There are parts that work and parts that don’t (it is VERY hard to shoot yourself with a camera and maintain proper framing). This particular film is also very personal to me, which is why I chose to do everything myself. It’s not an endeavor that I would take on again anytime soon, but it has made me fully appreciate working on projects with a group as well as alone.

I missed the first hour and a half (so basically the first two categories) due to Joel McHale and my shame that I only saw one Oscar-nominated film this year (worst film major EVER, I know), but I seen’t enough. It’s 1:57 AM, I have homework to do still and paragraphs will just make me angry, so here’s a list of stream-of-consciousness regarding the 85th Academy Awards (oh sorry, it’s been officially rebranded “The Oscars,” like okay):

• Goddamn, that was a long-ass ceremony. Bless Seth MacFarlane for making it easier. He is the funniest man…when he isn’t making shit like The Cleveland Show…and soooo nice to look at. :D Dat smile.
• Jean Dujardin is basically the French Antonio Banderas and I thoroughly approve.
• Jennifer Lawrence was created in a lab to fool all of us into thinking that she is just like us with quirks and a great sense of humor and no equilibrium whatsoever to make it seem like she’s on our level except I have an Oscar for Best Actress and a Golden Globe in the same year oh heyyyyy. Seriously, as soon as she won, I fucking KNEW something was going to happen: speech flub, tripping somewhere…o hai, staircase! Props to Jean Prince Charming Wolverine Valjean for being there, too.
• Don’t get me wrong, I love me some JLaw, but…her flaws are too perfect. I’m just so afraid that it’s all a huge PR stunt and that she isn’t real…the entertainment industry has jaded me prematurely and permanently.
• THANKS FOR REMINDING ME THAT MERMAID MAN AND CHARLES DURNING DIED. If they had shown a still of MM for Ernest Borgnine during the Memoriam, I would have fallen over dead. Seriously.
• Get the fuck off my screen, Barbra Streisand. You are the worst.
• ADELE. Sweet, lovely, brilliant Adele. You are too precious for this earth.
• Kristen Stewart obviously found her bong backstage, but not a hairbrush. Jesus, KStew, get it together. You’re rivaling Tyrone here.
• Having the First Lady present the winner for Best Picture was nifty, but her speech was so generic and honestly, we’re going into hour four of the ceremonies and God himself could not have delivered anything interesting at that point.
• QUENTIN GODDAMN BAD ASS MOTHER FUCKER HEAD BITCH IN CHARGE TARANTINO. I LOVE YOU, BABY. NEVER, EVER CHANGE. I AM SO PROUD OF YOU AND SO EXCITED TO EVENTUALLY MARRY YOU.
• “This is the year for writers, man.” A to the men, though.
• Christoph Waltz takes the award for Best Supporting Actor, no surprises there, so proud of you too bb.
• I want Joaquin Phoenix’s face when they cut to him after they showed the clip from The Master forever etched into my brain. His hatred for the Academy and their bullshit is so thick and rich I could make 900 hate sandwiches out of it.
• Soooooo many potential gifs came out of this ceremony. Here’s looking at you, Tumblr. That J-Law stair-trip set came out like 30 seconds after it happened live and it already has like 90,000 notes. Ah, the power of Internet.
• I still need to see Argo, so I can’t make head or tail of their Best Picture win. Ben Affleck’s speech was kinda adorkable, though, so I think we can let go of Gigli now.
• I just wanted to give Ang Lee a big hug. :3
• I was so proud of Meryl Streep for being able to open her damn envelope without making it seem like she was dismantling a bomb. Sit the fuck down, plebes. The Mistress of Everything is in the hizouse.
• If Jack Nicholson weren’t Jack Nicholson, he would’ve been in jail for 20 years already for first degree creep factor. Eesh.
• We missed you, Leonardio DiCaprio, but we can’t say that we blame you. Make sure you get Joaquin Phoenix on speed dial, if you haven’t already.
• Daniel Day-Lewis winning Best Actor was okay, I guess. He makes like one movie every 10 years and wins all the awards every time, so I…don’t really feel anything about this. There’s a bullet wasted [insert Lincoln joke here]. Classy dude, though.
• It was nice of Norah Jones to leave her apartment in downtown Obscurity to sing part of the song from Ted. Always liked her.
• I’d like to personally thank all major and minor deities for not allowing Les Miserables to win Best Picture. Excellent cast, okay sets, but the shittiest cinematography. Holy long shot closeups, Batman! Oh god, how I loathed it.
• Charlize Theron is so tall and Dustin Hoffman is so short. Wow.
• Hi, Kristen Chenoweth! Stay awesome.

That’s about it. I’m glad I got to see the parts that I did see and I’m glad that I live in a time where I can catch the parts I didn’t…not that I’m going to. But it’s an option, which rules! THE FUTURE IS NOW, PEOPLE.

Lemme see what you got in 2013 for me, film world.