Category: Movie Reviews

Inspired by the Enron – Smartest Guys in the Room Documentary

A decade ago, I was in a job interview for a place I ultimately was employed. My soon-to-be boss asked me how much money I’d like to make in, say, 5 years. It was about that time, blackouts were rolling through California and Wired, Fast Company, Red Herring were all obese with advertising. We were giddy with optimism.

Tonight, I watched 2929 Entertainment‘s documentary, Enron – Smartest Guys in the Room. It took me back to that moment in a more measured, rational, and methodical way than Startup.com. Perhaps 4 years of hindsight had something to do with it. 😉

From the documentary, Enron had a singular goal – to make money.

Problem is, that’s a goal for a robot. A goal as Enron proved, that can be abstracted from reality and automated. Like counting the number of times a file was downloaded doesn’t mean more people have read it – just means it’s been downloaded more times, something a robot can do. Both of these examples miss the point that the goals (money, downloads) are actually byproducts of the process – not the end result.

I remember the number I declared. An arbitrary number. One I’ve stopped paying attention to since working for myself.

The Vastness of America at 10 MPH

One of the reasons we drove to Boulder was to remind ourselves of the vastness of this great country. Miles and miles of little more than telephone line. Maybe a house. Maybe a gas station. Dirt road intersecting the highway.

Even in the most remote areas, someone has a house. With electricity and a phone.

The fact ribbons of highway run multiple directions through every state with phone and electrical line spun even tighter is a remarkable feat. Something we take for granted far too often.

If you haven’t yet, check out the trailer of Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell 10 mph Segway journey from Seattle to Boston.

Kansas at 80 mph was a long day. At 10mph? That’s plenty of time to think.

Backyard + Laptop + DVD = New Drive-in

It was such a gorgeous day here in Minneapolis, I moved my home office into the backyard. Aside from a curious squirrel it was very peaceful day.

This evening, I returned to the backyard and, as Jen and I have done so many evenings this week, turned on the Powerbook’s DVD player.

The drive-in’s of yesterday knew this – there’s very little better than watching a movie outside. No matter how small the screen.

It’s both fortunate and unfortunate we can do this in our own backyards. The community of a drive-in movie, like the St. Paul, Vali-Hi, is something magical.

Batman Begins: Hast du Angst vor mir

I’ve been so focused on client projects and podcasts, I didn’t know a new Batman was on it’s way until I listed to Elvis Mitchell’s interview with Christopher Nolan for KCRW’s the Treatment. In it, Nolan talks about how the entire story is about fear. It’s a good listen, and it’s what got me into the theater.

Before Batman Begins began, I sat through an advertisement for Sky High. A new Disney film about young superheros going through puberty. The acting was overly melodramatic, the lighting was overexposed, and the props were done by Little Tykes. Christopher Nolan’s Batman makes Tim Burton’s 1989 version – and the others – feel more like Sky High than Nolan’s tormented Dark Knight.

A few years back, Snickers had a tv commercial where a football player takes a hit and thinks he’s Batman. In the English version, the final line is, “Would you like to ride with Batman.” The German version ends, “Are you afraid of me?”

The difference between those 2 sentiments is the difference between all the previous iterations and Nolan’s Batman Begins.

The movie’s most successful aspects were the non-superhero scenes – the dialog and the character development. The manifestation of Gotham is superb – part Chicago, part New York, part comic book dystopia. I found the serious, non-melodramatic villians refreshing. On the flip side, the scene where Wayne gets the Batsuit and the Batmobile felt more stapled on than believable, more a means to quickly go through a checklist than deliberately advance the character.

I agree with peterme, the car chases are immediately forgettable. I also agree that Batman Begins is “not nearly as fun” (as Spider-man). The Batdance was fun, Jim Carey as the Riddler was fun, the Adam West’s campy TV series was fun. I didn’t see anything in Nolan’s retelling longing to be fun (any of Nolan’s other films).

After credits roll, I believe we are left with as Dave states, “the best superhero movie ever”.

Primer – Like a Time Travelers Convention

Last night, Jen and I watched Primer. Its got the same amateur, black-n-white, intimate cinematography as Pi. I like that. Makes the story feel raw and unpolished – real. Though, unlike Pi, I didn’t feel there was a central hub Primer’s plot spun around. I agree with Kottke;

“…that’s ok because the science fictiony stuff was actually not as interesting for me as what happened to the characters in the film.”

During the Q & A session at today’s Push the Future Conference, someone cynically asked about the MIT Time Traveler Convention. Push Singh replied with how brilliant an idea it was; first, there only ever needs to be one convention and second, a time traveler could attend and then not attend cause it was lame. Sounds like a win-win for everyone.

The plot in Primer could have been around high school friends going separate ways, a dot com blowing up, or a son reconciling his father’s death, for the interactions between characters and each characters’ transformation were the good parts. Shane Carruth could have started with the plot and simply removed it at some point deciding time travel was lame. Like the Time Traveler Convention, it would have been just as powerful.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith Blow Things Up

Tonight, while another summer t-storm swept through our fair city, Jen and I caught Mr. and Mrs. Smith. First off, I prefer Brad Pitt playing insane people (Fight Club, Snatch, Twelve Monkeys, the Mexican) and his odd body language throughout the movie was just enough insane for me. The his and hers hit squads with Vince Vaughn as Pitt’s buddy made it feel like Dodgeball mixed with Ocean’s Eleven; trash-talking dialogue mixed with lots and lots of explosions. Did I mention the shoot outs? or the explosions? or where Mr. and Mrs. Smith change into something more fashionable before walking into a gun fight?

My disbelief was suspended like an elevator right before the charge on its cable detonates.

Star Wars III: Unsafe at Humanscale

Jen and I caught an early showing of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith tonight. Kraig Larson warned I should bring earplugs to avoid the dialog and try to look past the robotic direction.

He was right and I appreciated the tip. Unfortunately, that was just the half of it.

Lucas’ best work is the wide, landscape, city, and spaceship shots. They have the detail and clarity of a panoramic photograph, flying past suspension of disbelief and making the on-screen world real and tactile. Then, right when I get enveloped, the scene cuts. Blah.

More trouble when Lucas zooms in. The interior spaces are flat, as if shadows and textures can’t exist indoors. In many of the scenes between Anakin and Padmé and at the Jedi Coucil, I found the view through the windows far more defined and engaging. Zoom in further, where fewer than 3 people are on screen, and everything falls apart; cheap-looking special effects, flat dialog, and yes, robotic direction – even for the non-robots.

Though I don’t see picking it up on DVD, I’ll gladly attend a comprehensive photography exhibit of Star Wars’ exterior scenes that I could walk through at my own speed.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Review

Despite my earlier prediction, Jen and I went to the new Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy this weekend.

Being a huge Hitchhiker addict since way back, I can confidently say it was: Good.

The intro dolphin song was a wonderfully amusing touch that stuck in my head all the way through. The screenplay adaption was 80% spot on the story I could in-fact recite from heart. I suspect this is because Adams had plenty of practice (original movie, radio show). As with any Hitchhikers retelling, the divergence from the original book was both interesting and consistent with the overall HH storyline.

Two things told me I spent too much time with this storyline as a child:

  • Thinking how brilliantly Zaphod’s 2nd head and 3rd arm was handled.
  • The glee that came over me when I noticed the original Marvin and Arthur (Simon Jones).

On the way out of the theater, I was pondering the giant human-powered computer similarity between Hitchhikers and the Matrix.

Jen just reminded me in the movie, the plans were “in the cellar”, not “on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard” as in the book. Belgium. That’s one of the best lines.

Historical Political Drama Double Feature

Last night, Jen and I watched All the President’s Men, off the Netflix. It’s the screen adaptation of the Watergate investigation starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward & Bernstein, or “Woodstein”.

Considering the whole thing went down months before I was born, my understanding of Watergate is ethereal at best. The movie is more than a retelling of one of America’s low points, it helped form the basic language of our cloak-and-dagger stereotypes; the smoking informant that will only meet the dark of night, hints just falling into your lap, and a nondescript enemy foiling you at every step. Or maybe that’s just Washington politics.

The dynamic between Hoffman and Redford was remarkable, the Washington Post’s office furniture stylish, and the intrigue kept me on the couch and away from the laptop for more than 2 hours.

As Redford was searching through a stack of big, heavy telephone books, I couldn’t help but wonder how different this same investigation would be today. With Google, weblogs, and 24 hour news, would it be easier or more difficult to uncover the conspiracy?

I vote for the same.

On the subject of enlightening historical political dramas, The Fog of War – Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. McNamara was Kennedy & Johnson’s Secretary of Defense, putting the subject of this movie just a few years ahead of All the President’s Men.

This movie gave Errol Morris an Oscar for best documentary and he deserves it. Walking into it, Jen and I had no idea who McNamara was – just that Morris is a brilliant documentary filmmaker.

By the end, I was stunned. Stunned at how little I knew about; the Cuban Missle Crisis, the Vietnam War, and how the Cold War wasn’t so much.