Unraveling Skynet: Part II - Between the Lines

     At six foot, two inches tall, and two-hundred, fifty pounds, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a very intimidating man, and an even more intimidating cyborg. It can rip you apart with its bare hands, calculate the physics of your movement to shoot you down and will stop at nothing to complete its task: terminate your life. The T-800 of James Cameron's 1984 classic The Terminator is one of the most well known icons of fear in cinematic history. It is also the perfect example of what the 80s considered to be "a man," despite the fact that Schwarzenegger is actually portraying a machine.

     The 80s "man" is rugged, strong, independent, tough, almost mean, uncaring, unkind and in it to win it. The T-800 exemplifies this notion: it is strong, mean, uncaring, and willing to stop at nothing to kill its target. When the T-800 first arrives in 1984, it searches for Sarah Connor using the phone book. Since there is more than one listing for Sarah Connor, he goes through each one, in order of how they appear in the phone book. The first Sarah opens the door for the T-800, he asks if she is Sarah Connor and she replies with a yes. Without hesitation, the T-800 barges through the door and shoots Sarah Connor to the ground. Sarah is the future mother of John Connor, the man who leads humans to the ultimate destruction of the Skynet system, which the T-800 represents. John Connor is a threat to the T-800's existence, and by eliminating his mother, the T-800 can ensure that it will continue to exist.

     What kept the T-800 continuing its murderous rampage if Sarah Connor had already been killed? Certainly we know that this is the wrong Sarah Connor, but we know the T-800 doesn't:

Dr. Silberman: Right. Now, why were the other two women killed? 

Kyle Reese: Most of the records were lost in the war. Skynet knew almost nothing about Connor's mother. Her full name, where she lives. They just knew the city. The Terminator was just being systematic.

The death of more than just one woman makes this machine more than just a threat to Sarah, it makes it a threat to women. This has an impact on the audience, making them hate the Terminator even more, and love the women's savior Kyle Reese. Even though Kyle Reese is more liked by the audience – has feelings, falls in love, saves the day – he is still the 80s man. He is independent, rough with Sarah, seemingly unkind to her, He is the one who knows how to defeat this machine and he won't take orders from her.
     Sarah, on the other-hand, is quite the 80s woman: soft, dependent, but a straight-thinker, moving toward the point where she too can be independent. She lives with her girlfriend at the beginning of the movie, is un-intimidated by her pet lizard, and really isn't that completely frightened when the Terminator comes to kill her (she has fears, but is still able to compose herself).
     Throughout the movie, her character goes through somewhat of a change. Sarah begins to want to know more about the future, despite its grim qualities; she learns to make pipe bombs, and wields a gun; she attempts to order Reese around after he gets wounded ("Move it soldier! On your feet!") and of course, in the end it is her that defeats the machine after Reese has died. But she still bears the traits of the dependent, soft woman. In the Motel, after she makes the pipe bombs, Sarah decides to call her mother, a move that Reese has strictly forbidden her to do. She begins talking, and the audience is shown her mother's house as they talk: a dilapidated house with the appearance that someone has broken in. The Terminator sits at the phone, its voice mimicking Sarah's mother's, and asks where she is. This is another thing Kyle told her not to do: tell anyone where they were. But she is soft, and breaks under the pressure, telling her mother their exact location. Sarah is one step between the 80s woman and the future. 
     Seven years later, the audience witnessed what was for Skynet merely seconds. The second terminator that Skynet sent back in time to kill John Connor was sent at the same time as the T-800, but arrived eleven years later. T2: Judgment Day is James Cameron's 1991 blockbuster sequel to The Terminator, that many claim is equally if not more amazing than the original. With a budget in the range of ninety-six million dollars more than its predecessor, T2 has the chases, the explosions, and the special effects to blow the audience away, and it can stand the test of time.

     But apparently, the characters couldn't stand the test of seven year's time. Although we see the arrival of a new terror, the T-1000, the true difference between the first movie and its sequel are the main characters. A new T-800 is sent back in time, a cyborg that looks exactly like the one that tried to kill Sarah eleven years ago. But its mission is the opposite of its predecessor's: John Connor must be protected. We can almost immediately tell that something is different, for when he searches for clothes to wear, he doesn't rip apart the first person he sees with his hands. Instead, he disables and tortures the people at a bar until they give him what he wants.
     The new T-800 is wimpy. Despite the fact that its physique is still Arnold Schwarzenegger, this Terminator is not the 80s man of the first movie. He is kind, caring, protecting, unwilling to leave John Connor, and ready to fight anyone and anything that would try to get at his family. Sarah Connor says it herself:

Sarah: Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator wouldn't stop, it would never leave him. It would never hurt him or shout at him or get drunk and hit him or say it was too busy to spend time with him. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers that came over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only thing that measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.

The T-800 is a family "man," giving up his individuality to be with John Connor, giving up his freedom to protect him, and caring for him, attempting to understand him and what he goes through. Some go as far to say that, since Sarah Connor leaves John with the Terminator just after she says he is the "sanest choice," that we can see the T-800 as a motherly figure, too. It has to fill the roles of both the father and the mother, and by protecting John from death, the T-800 is literally the mother of human kind. Because it is John who leads humanity to victory over the machines, and because the T-800 is giving John life, he is the mother of man's future.

     I don't know if I'd go that far... but there are some semblances between the Terminator and a motherly figure, especially in comparison to Johns real mother, who's "soft" self has now completely vanished. For instance, when John and the T-800 break Sarah out of the mental institute, Sarah yells at John, asking why he would risk his life, the most important life in all of mankind, for a measly woman like her. John then begins to cry and the T-800 turns around and asks what is wrong with his eyes. Whereas Sarah is angry and un-motherly to John, the T-800 attempts to understand what John is going through. When Sarah tries to kill Miles Dyson and stop the future herself, she finds she cannot do it, but instead of actually crying, she makes a horrendous noise and moans, holding back her tears. But the T-800 continues to ask John why people cry. He wants to understand, he attempts to plug into human emotion. The new Terminator is not the 80s man, he is a "man" in touch with emotion, willing to protect his family at the cost of his life.

     Sarah Connor, on the other hand, is not the 80s woman. Linda Hamilton, in fact, changed women forever. She buffed up for the role, lost weight almost to the point of looking sickly. It challenged the way women saw themselves, and actually started a new trend for women to look like Sarah Connor. Although it was somewhat controversial, Sarah's new look was a change from the past and a move toward the future. She is now the independent, uncaring, unkind, almost mean individual who pushes John to be a real (80s) man. Sarah is first seen doing pull-ups, she wields weapons (literally using anything she can find as a weapon: a broom handle, a syringe, guns, knives etc.), takes charge of situations and runs off on her own missions, trying to change the future herself. 
     But ultimately, this new look doesn't suit her. Despite the fact that she looks the role of the man, she really isn't. When it comes down to it, Sarah cannot complete the tasks that a man "must" do. When she goes to Mile's Dyson's house to assassinate him, believing that by killing him there will be no Skynet, she comes to the point where he is lying on the ground begging for her not to shoot, his son leaning over him begging the same thing. We see then, that this is just a façade. Sarah isn't really this brute, rampage-driven woman, because she cannot bring herself to shoot the man that will, in essence, murder millions of people.  And again, at the end of the movie, though she is driven to kill the T-1000, and she has nearly completed her task, the gun she uses runs out of ammo. She needs the T-800 to save her. Hers is still just a façade.
     Just as Sarah wears this façade of being manly, the T-1000 wears the façade of being human. This liquid metal man moves like a machine, but acts like a man, a truly frightening concept. Yet, the most frightening aspect of him is not that he can turn his arms into knives, but that he can take the shape of a woman. Like the T-800 from The Terminator who speaks with Sarah's mother's voice, the T-1000 takes the shape and voice of John's foster mother. This un-natural fluidity to change between man and woman is frightening and nearly disgusting, giving the T-1000 its evil.

     Seemingly taking from what the first and second Terminator movies provided, the TX of T3: Rise of the Machines is just as evil and scary as the first two. This time, Skynet sends a woman, now capable of destroying other terminators, who is part machine skeleton, part liquid metal, the best of both the T-800 and the T-1000. This new weapon is not only capable of that same transformative, gender-fluid freakiness that the original two had, but it can create weapons out of its arms, and has a less human like "skeleton" which makes for a more fearsome machine. Since the machine can not only move fluidly between male and female, but it can move from human to non-human just as easily, adding yet another layer of terror to its arsenal.

     The return of the Terminator series, after having been lost for twelve years, also saw the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the slightly improved T-850. This machine is somewhat of a return to the 80s man cyborg of the original movie. In his first scene, the T-850 symbolically rejects the femininity of the T-800 from T2 by destroying the star sunglasses found in the pocket of the stripper whose clothes he "stole."  The T-850 now makes more of its own decisions, even though it often gives in to the will of Katherine Brewster, whose orders he is programmed to follow. Another slightly symbolic act of rejection of the feminine aspect of the Terminators is the fact that the T-850 defeats the TX. She "infected" him with the virus that allowed her to remotely control him, but he was able to overcome the virus, and to destroy the TX itself. 

     The gender binary of female-male roles in films seems to have flip-flopped throughout the years. In the first movie, Sarah played the passive role while Kyle Reese played the active one. Almost as a foreshadow to the second movie, Sarah was the one in the end who became the active character, defeating the Terminator. In the second movie, the two characters of John and Sarah are somewhat the passive/active roles of the first movie reversed. Sarah appears to be the active role, trying to kill Dyson, trying to kill the T-1000 when the T-800 disappears, etc. And John appears to be the passive role, a helpless boy who only knows how to run (even though he orders the T-800 around and helps it break his mother out of the mental institute.

     In the third film, John Connor is once again in the active role, literally breaking free of his passive self when he breaks out of the cage that Katherine Brewster puts him in, only to keep her trapped in her own car later on. Here, the active passive roles from the second movie reverse, the female once again in the passive role, and the male in the active role. John convinces Katherine to go stop her father, John forces the information out of her father on how to stop the war, and leads Katherine to Crystal Peak where he thinks he can blow up Skynet, all while Katherine seems to be along for the ride and to retrieve information from the T-850. 

     Most recently, seeing as how the first two movies were made twenty years ago, and the third one still seven years ago, Terminator Salvation does little to move cinema toward a more equal-stance world. If the goal of modern cinema was to give male and female role an equally active part in the plot, then Terminator Salvation would fail. Although McG, the film's director, recently made Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, (and one might argue that that is more about women as spectacles and not agents of plot than a lot of films), his recent venture into the world of the Terminators is highly male-oriented. There are only three main female characters: Katherine Brewster/Connor, Dr. Serena Kogan, and Blair Williams (and a little girl, Star, who is the mute sidekick of young Kyle Reese). Of these characters, two are hardly ever seen, while the third is exiled and nearly killed for falling in love with a machine.

     John Connor is the main character of this film, a near complete return to the 80s man. He is independent to the max, not following any orders, directly disobeying others, and taking thing into his own hands. He knows the future his mother told him about, and he tries with all his might to be the man with the answers, the one who will lead the humans to victory: but he's not even in charge. He has a few followers, but for the most part he is alone. He can often be harsh, unkind, and care for nothing than seeing to it that his future comes true. Connor may have a wife and a baby on the way, but for being a family man, he's not with them very often.

     His wife, who we see almost as little of as Dr. Kogan, is strong and resilient, and therefore not seen very often. The screen isn't big enough for both John Connor and Kate Connor when they are both independent and strong. Blair Williams is first seen being rescued by a Marcus Wright, the half-human cyborg... (even though a cyborg is already half human... he's actually half human). She leads him to her camp, on the way needing him to save her again. At the camp it is discovered that he's not fully human and he's locked up and interrogated by John Connor. Blair rescues him and frees him but is, herself, exiled. Marcus convinces John to let him try to infiltrate the nearby Skynet compound where he finds Dr. Serena Kogan. It's not really her though, just the machine using her face and voice to convince Marcus that killing the humans is the right thing. But I digress...

     All in all, the world of the Terminators, created by that genius James Cameron, is one of gender confusion. Each film seems to have a new take on the roles men and women should have in the cinema. T3: Rise of the Machines seems to be the most confused, using comedy to lighten the tension it creates with the gender issues, and Terminator Salvation seems even more biased toward men than The Terminator, which was actually made in an era where the independent man was an idol.

References:
"Visual Pleasure and narrative Cinema" by Laura Mulvey
"Can Masculinity Be Terminated?" by Susan Jeffords
"Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, Excess" by Linda Williams
"Is the Gaze Male?" by E. Ann Kaplan

Unraveling Skynet: Part I - The Timeline

    The quiet alleyway is suddenly ablaze with blue lightening. The frizzle sound of sparks and bolts startles a nearby homeless man. High above the street, what appears to be an orb materializes before the man's eyes. The lightening continues as the orb's size increases, its metallic outside reflecting the man below and dark sky above. Suddenly, the orb vanishes in a blinding light and where the sphere once was, a man, naked, now falls to the street.

     Kyle Reese has made it back to 1984, sent from the year 2029 when the war against machines has just ended. But the Skynet machines have been working on a plan. They invented time travel and decided to send back a Terminator cyborg to kill the man who will lead humans to victory. That man's name is John Connor, and he hasn't even been born yet. The cyborg is there to kill his mother, Sarah Connor whose only protection is Kyle Reese. For, when the humans learned of what the machines had done, they sent one of their own back to intercept the cyborg. The chase ensues, and Kyle falls in love with Sarah, impregnating her before he gives his life to save her. The future has been preserved, and John Connor will survive to destroy the machines in the future.
     The problem is, at the same time Skynet sent the T-800 to kill Sarah Connor, they sent a T-1000 to 1995 to kill John himself. This is a newer model, not just human flesh over machine skeleton, but a liquid metal that can take the form of anything it touches (but not complex machinery like a gun). Thankfully, the resistance of humans has learned the skill of reprogramming the cyborgs and has sent a T-800 model to protect John. The young John and the T-800 retrieve Sarah from a mental institute and attempt to flee the state. Sarah realizes that Skynet's plan is a brilliant one: stop the future by destroying the past. If she destroys the company that builds Skynet in the first place, Judgment day will never come.
     And that's just what happens. As a group, and with the help of Miles Dyson (the "inventor" of the cyborg chip), Cyberdyne (the company that eventually becomes Skynet, according to the T-800) is destroyed. See, the first Terminator sent back was only half destroyed: an arm and a microchip remained in tact. Cyberdyne systems used those materials to create new technology, which ultimately became the very thing that started it. This is what we call a time paradox. It is like asking the question, "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" If the Terminator chip gave the engineers the idea to create a chip like the terminator's, then the terminator chip never existed outside this time loop. It was never invented, because the chip came from the future where it was already invented in the past by finding the chip from the future!
     "The future is not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves." Although these first two movies were based on the fact that the future timeline is alterable (that Judgment day can be stopped), we can find more time paradoxes that will prove otherwise. True, because the family trio (John, Sarah and the T-800) destroyed Cyberdyne and all the microchips that could lead to the future, Judgment day does not happen in 1997 like the T-800 said it would. BUT, if Skynet was stopped at the time Cyberdyne was destroyed, John Connor and the T-800 would immediately cease to exist, a Jumanji effect if you will (Alan and Sarah start the game, Judy and Peter finish twenty-six years later, and then are wiped off the face of the planet because they don't exist in a world where the game is finished, and Alan and Sarah are back in the Parrish home twenty-six years earlier). Because Kyle Reese was sent back in time to stop the first T-800 and impregnated Sarah with John in the first place, if the future does not exist then Reese can't be sent back in time to create John. AND, the T-800 would never have been sent back to kill Sarah Connor, therefore the chip that is used to create the machines would never be sent back to start the whole process. Immediately the world of the Connors would have changed: John would not exist and Sarah most certainly would not be where she was: in the middle of a steel factory having just escaped from a mental institute (because she wouldn't have gone crazy thinking and talking about the machines because they never attempted to kill her because they never existed).
     And so, we get to the year 2003, when the military has taken over Cyberdyne systems and created an artificial intelligence that they call Skynet. A TX is sent back in time to kill John Connor's lieutenants and associates, including his future wife Katherine Brewster. The TX can't find John because he has dropped off the radar since the destruction of Cyberdyne, and they don't care to kill him all that much anyway, since John Connor was dead in the year 2032 when the TX was sent back. Katherine Brewster reprogrammed the T-850 that killed John to go back in time and stop the TX from killing her and John. The TX succeeds in killing several of her targets before she finds Katherine and the man who is with her: John Connor.
     The TX, as the T-850 explains, is the machine that Skynet created having now anticipated the past: she is a Terminator capable of destroying other Terminators. Because the existence of the Terminators in the past is unknown until one is sent back, it is only after the second Terminator (the one sent to kill John in 1995) destroys the T-1000 that Skynet realizes that it needs to be able to stop other machines. See, when first future existed, there were no Terminators sent back to kill Sarah or John, otherwise Skynet would have anticipated the use of another T-800 as protection. So, once the two Terminators are sent back (one for Sarah, one for John), Skynet realizes that it needs to send something that can kill other Terminators as well the second time. So it sends the TX after Katherine and finds her with John. The TX attempts then to kill both, but cannot and proceeds to the Skynet headquarters where she kills Katherine Brewster's dad, but only after he has successfully initiated Skynet... See, the artificial intelligence that is Skynet created a virus that would take down all communications. Then, all it had to do was wait for Mr. Brewster to connect it to the system where it could send out the nuclear bombs and destroy all humans.  John and Katherine survive and head to Crystal Peak, an underground bunker where they simply wait for the nuclear fallout to be over.
     Just before this nuclear fallout occurs, Marcus Wright is approached by Dr. Serena Kogan. He is about to be put to death, and she wants him to donate his body to science. He complies. Fifteen years later John Connor, still alive and kicking, infiltrates a Machine compound and is the lone survivor, except for Marcus Wright, who emerges after dark, as naked as the T-800 when it first arrived in 1984, a clue that it is part machine. Unaware of the events of Judgment Day, or who John Connor is, or even that he is part machine, Wright finds himself in the hands of the resistance and tells them he wants to fight for them. As of now, this is the most advanced combination of machine and man, because the T-800 model is only now being built. The only thing roaming the desert plains of the post-nuclear world are the T-600s, a bulky, clunk machine that only resembles the figure of a human.

     So, anyway, Skynet has created a radio signal that they leak to the humans. The signal tells machines to shut off. Unfortunately, it was created by the machines to fool the humans into thinking they have the answer to the end of the war. Wright finds this out a tad too late, as an arsenal of humans attempts to attack Skynet central in California. Skynet has also captured young Kyle Reese, an attempt to once again stop the future, this time by killing John's father before he is even sent back in time to Sarah Connor yada yada yada. John Connor eventually saves Kyle Reese by giving his life after fighting the brand new T-800 model, but Marcus then gives his bio-enhanced heart to save John who lives to see another day.

     So ultimately, the timeline is rather screwy, messes with your head, and comes down to this: John Connor is the key to winning the war, and the key to starting the war. If he hadn't won the war in the future, the machines wouldn't have sent a Terminator back in time to kill him which would mean the machines would never have been created in the first place. But, the future is inevitable, and therefore, no matter how many machines were sent back to kill John, he can't die, because there is such a thing as fate. Despite the fact that John destroyed Cyberdyne, he was still called to war unwillingly. He still had to destroy the machines once and for all. Terminator Salvation, the story of Marcus Wright, is the future before the TX was sent back to kill Katherine Brewster, which means that if and when the 5th and 6th movies are made, the future really isn't set. The future that the T-850 told them of isn't the future that now exists, because 1. The TX killed several of the people involved in the winning of the war, and 2. John and Katherine now know that a T-850 will try to kill him in the year 2032.
     So, no future that existed in the original trilogy exists now for the filmmakers to tell. They will be giving us a whole new future, but one that must somehow allow for: 3 terminators to be sent back in time to kill the leaders of the resistance, Kyle Reese to impregnate Sarah Connor, and John Connor to win the war, forcing the Terminators to use time travel to solve their problems.
     Now, I could get into the time between T2 and T3 which were covered by the Sarah Connor Chronicles television show, but since that messes with time even more, I don't want to get into it.

The Results!

     It was a night of anticipation, a year in the making. The 82nd Annual Academy Awards were last night, March 7, 2010, the night when moviegoers and moviemakers alike sit down to watch the best of the best win the trophies: the Oscars! With ten best picture nominations and a female and an African American in the running for best director, tonight was a night of firsts. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosted the event, their opening number being a bash of all the nominees in the highest categories, but did little else the rest of the night.
     It was a three and a half hour tribute to films and the people that make them, a length that was more than unnecessary, being filled for the most part by clips of the nominated best picture films. Unlike most years, this year had only two musical numbers, one being the opening song, sung by Neil Patrick Harris, and the other being a dance set to the nominated best original scores. Overall, the show turned out to be a bit bland.
     An attempt to spruce it up was a tribute to the late John Hughes, and a second tribute the remaining deceased film-makers and actors (a blatant pass over Ms. Fawcett, with a tribute to Michael Jackson). There was also a tribute to the Horror genre... a collage of clips from movies, presented by Twilight's Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner. ("even an unexplained homage to the horror film, a genre that is very much alive." -Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times).
     The awards saw some surprises, such as The Hurt Locker's numerous wins, and some non-sruprises, including the win for best supporting actor and actress. The oddest part of the night, however, was the ending. Due to the lengthiness of the show, and the fact that the best picture award is always given at the end of the night, Tom Hanks walked on stage, opened the envelope and read the winner. There was no, "and here are the nominees for..." It was a rushed ending to allow the producers and director a chance to give their thanks, and no time for Martin and Baldwin to wrap up the evening.
     The complete list of wins by movie is as follows:

•The Hurt Locker:
-Best Picture
-Best Director
-Best Sound Mixing
-Best Sound Editing
-Best Original Screenplay
-Best Editing

•Avatar:
-Best Cinematography
-Best Art Direction
-Best Visual Effects

•Crazy Heart
-Best Lead Actor: Jeff Bridges
-Best Original Song: "The Weary Kind" by Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett









•UP
-Best Animated Feature
-Best Original Score

•Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
-Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique
-Best Adapted Screenplay

•The Blind Side
-Best Lead Actress: Sandra Bullock

•Inglorious Basterds
-Best Supporting Actor:  Christoph Waltz










•The Young Victoria
-Best Costume Design

•Star Trek
-Best Makeup










•El secreto de sus ojos
-Best Foreign Language Film









•The Cove
-Best Documentary Feature








•Music by Prudence
-Best Documentary Short

•Logorama
-Best Animated Short

•The New Tenants
-Best Live Short


"The Hurt Locker" Wins Big at Oscars by Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

The Drama of How The Race Is Won by Melena Ryzik

Supersizing The Show (Austerity Is So 2009) by Alessandra Stanley

Alice Tops Avatar

     Friday night I, along with apparently tens of thousands of viewers, flocked to see Tim Burton's latest release Alice in Wonderland, an Adaptation of Lewis Carol's two works Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Although I myself, along with other critics, found it rather slow and uneventful, a film of spectacle rather than events, the audience would have you believe otherwise.

     Domestically, the film produced an impressive $116.3 million (estimated) total over its opening weekend, a gross that places it in the 6th spot for all time opening weekends. When we take into account the fact that 70% of its gross can be attributed to 3D, we also find that it's the biggest 3D release ever, no doubt boosted by the audiences reception of Avatar in 3D. Speaking of Avatar (as it seems I'm always doing these days), Alice's records actually broke this all-time worldwide grosser's opening weekend for domestic and worldwide stats, raking in a total of $210 million, actually earning it 14th place in the all-time worldwide opening weekend slot. Alice also broke the record for biggest IMAX opening with $11.9 million, beating Avatar's $9.5 million.
     No doubt Avatar paved the way for such a feat to be possible. There were even talks of not allowing Alice to be released as wide as it was (not allowing it to take as many screens), because Avatar has been doing so well (already over $2.5 billion in just 80 days). Alice in Wonderland's release took 7,400 screens, approximately 2,500 of which were 3D (more than Avatar). So, although the industry and theaters nationwide were worried about removing Avatar from their playlist, Alice in Wonderland proved that it had the gusto to actually do better than Avatar, though it will most likely fizzle as fast as Spider-Man 3.

Weekend Report: Moviegoers Mad about 'Alice'
by Brandon Gray

A Serious Man (2009)

     Now in their fifties, Joel and Ethan Coen have ventured through their career with high hopes, pumping out a movie a year for the past three years, and earning many an Oscar. Two years ago, No Country for Old Men won them the awards for best picture, best director(s) and best screenplay. Now, with A Serious Man, their up for it again, best picture and best screenplay.

     Inspired both by the book of Job and their personal lives growing up in a Jewish household, A Serious Man is a bold, intriguing look at the many misfortunes of Larry Gopnik (played by Michael Stuhlbarg), professor of physics at a Jewish college and father of two. His wife is leaving him, his children are "a mystery" to him, and his brother is in trouble with the law. To top it off, his neighbor seems to dislike him, one of his students bribes him for a good grade, and his other neighbor's husband is seemly never there - just one more temptation to let his life slip away. Still, he continually finds himself questioning why God would be doing all these things to him and maintains his faith.
     The film truly is quite dark, implying that there is not much that can go right for this man. Just as God allowed the devil to toy with Job, Larry cannot see God helping him through this rough period of life, and offers him no answers. He often has dreams that seem to give him an answer to his problems, then show him exactly why that's a bad solution. Oddly enough, the films title is first seen relating to his wife's lover, Sy Ableman as he calls himself "a serious man." Larry, when attempting to call himself such a person, finds he cannot do it, but instead claims "I've tried to be a serious man." (just an odd little tidbit I found interesting I guess.)
    Despite its dark nature, the film is rather comical, Michael Stuhlbarg's acting reminiscent of Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth from Arrested Development. It is a quirky "am I the only one who sees the lunacy of this situation" kind of acting, and he pulls it off quite well. The other acting in the film is equally impressive, something that probably comes from the impeccable ability of the Coen's to create an ensemble of characters unlike anything else, yet somehow entirely familiar.
     Story and acting aside, the film is a visually stunning one, editing and cinematography alike. Although each shot feels quite standard, there's something about them and the way their put together that adds new meaning to the story and the film as a whole. The choice of music and the new compositions by Carter Burwell flow into the dark theme of the movie that is both empathetic and anempathetic (music that seems to be as haunting as the image and story, and music that is so entirely oppositional that it enhances what we feel about what we are seeing).
     Really it is a rather mysterious and challenging film. The ending is dark and open-ended (especially for the son Danny). Questions are raised about why these terrible things happen to this man, but in the end I believe the following quote sums it up quite nicely (even though his dreams might try to tell him otherwise (is Larry just trying to be ignorant?)):

"The Uncertainty Principle: It proves we can't ever really know what's going on." -Larry Gobnik

The Blind Side (2009) (spoilers...)

    Up for two Oscars, including best picture and best actress in a leading role, John Lee Hancock's emotionally turbulent film The Blind Side is one of the best I've seen in several weeks. Not only is it a beautiful story, but the cinematography was decent and the acting was above par.

     The story is based on the real life events involving the Tuohy family and Michael Oher. The owners of 85 local restaurants, the Tuohy family generally has it all. Michael, whose past remains a mystery for most of the film, has little more than the clothes on his back. As Michael finds himself drifting between homes and families, one father gets him into a christian school where the Tuohy family attends. They notice Michael's hardships and decide to bring him into their home, giving them things he'd never had before. The experience changes Michael, Liegh Anne the mom, and Sean the dad as well.
    The largest problem with the film was that it was highly unfocused, plot-wise. Michael eventually gets to play football for his highschool, and quickly learns that the only high score that he got on his aptitude test (protective instincts) pays off. Now colleges become interested in Michael's talents, but he needs to improve his grades in order to be accepted into any of the schools. As the grades improve, in a lovely montage sequence, he's torn in deciding which college to choose. His new family is all for Ole Miss, and "gently" push him in that direction. This ultimately causes a scandal about why the Tuohy family brought Michael in in the first place.
    Really, the film does a good job of giving the audience all the important details, but since the opening scene is really one of the last ones, it is hard to not see the scandal as the main focus of the film. Unfortunately, if this is the focus, we only get to see a fifteen minute portion of the film dedicated to unraveling the mystery of the scandal. There's so much more to the story than just the scandal, especially since it is resolved so quickly and so simply. However, had the movie not opened with the scene about the scandal, it would have felt less focused. In all truthfulness, I believe I still would have liked the film, even if it didn't have a clear focus, because the film is really about the characters.

     Despite the hard topics the film discusses, it's levity was enough to bring last night's audience to laughter more often than I had expected. The audience filled the auditorium, an impressive feat since this was its fifteenth week in theaters (107 days). This is a film that truly deserves to be in the running for best motion picture of the year.

Ever Seen It: Coma (1978)

     Many people may be able to recognize his name, but many fewer are actually able to give an example of his work. Michael Crichton, author of such books as Jurassic Park, Sphere, Congo, Disclosure, and Timeline (to name a few), is known even less for his directorship. Director of the films Westworld (1973), The Great Train Robbery (1979), and Looker (1981) Crichton's slew of films may not be the most renowned, but are decent nonetheless. Coma, his 1978 adaptation of the book of the same name by Robin Cook, is definitely in the style of his other contributions to the world of cinema.
     Young doctor Susan Wheeler's best friend comes out of surgery in a coma. Nothing overly suspiscious about this, save for the fact that it was a routine surgery that went off with nothing more than a slight loss of blood pressure in the patient. Susan believes it to be more than just a mistake and decides to search deeper into the issue to determine the true reason behind the coma. What she discovers is shocking and horrid, and the worst part is: nobody believes her.
     At least, it is supposed to be shocking and horrid... unfortunately, this high-suspense action/drama is riddled with sidetracks and elongated chase sequences that provide the audience with little excitement. Where the true heart of the film lies within the shock received from paranoia, the chase sequences last too long. The audience is provided with a respite from pure paranoia and given the opportunity to prove the conspiracies, but then they are forced to watch poor Susan get chased for over ten minutes.
     The film comes down to the last fifteen minutes of the story, finally providing the audience with answers they most likely guessed after the first fifteen, but with at least one forgiving and relieving detail (that I won't discuss here due to its spoileristic qualities).  All-in-all, Chrichton's film is a bit bland, a bit predictable, but still intriguing. The acting, although decent, can be as bland as the plot of the story, especially from the supporting actors and extras.

Snooping in the O.R. by Vincent Canby

Shotgun Stories (2007)

I required a much-anticipated second viewing before fully addressing this film with more depth than a sentence or two. To my satisfaction, this occasion outmatched its predecessor and firmly solidified the film as one of my favorites. And it could be for its simplicity, the static camera and location filming, or it could be for its complexity, the social implications of moral and personal motivations, but is probably for their fusion.

In a small Arkansas town, the death of a father refuels hatred between seven sons. The two sets of half brothers, one set estranged from their mother, one encasing her, were raised to hate the other. And in a cold yet decidedly personal conflagration of emotion the sides are forever damaged. Michael Shannon, plays Son, who with his younger brothers Boy and Guy, carve out a meek existence in a sedated and un-stimulating small town. With the death of their father, and words exchanged at his funeral, their brotherly rivals demand that the feud end. If the threat wasn't clear enough, blood will have to be spilled to do so.

The camera in this film is an observant bystander; it could almost act as another unseen sibling. It watches the interactions with formal documentation, identifying the players involved and letting their actions determine outcomes. There is nothing flashy in the delivery; even the title could be considered a misnomer by suggesting a prevalence of shotguns. The trailer itself is much more action oriented than the film remains, although for a trailer there is still very little. The film relies on a brooding and unrelenting anger, a deep seeded and growing bond of hatred. Nichol’s film is so stylistically understated that it could easily be confused with something drab and unrewarding. Rather, its execution becomes flawless, not relying on commercial tactics to build its much more developed climax.

For a film about family, it is truly scary. At the same time, its devotion, for a lack of a better word, is inspiring. The rounded characters do not exist as cut outs of small town yokels, but exist in a much more fully formed state than much of what we see today. It is difficult not to notice the aggression fermenting under the mellow, if stern, facades. A town, so depressed and uninspiring, has bred people whose complexity and intensity make up for their un-motivating surroundings. We are not to be distracted by an abundance of environmental stimulators with such a precarious status of social networks.

Shotgun Stories is a fascinating portrait of small town life. It is disarming and alarming in its content and discerning and concerning in its depth. The film broods over anger and the perpetuation of rage. And it does not, for one minute, suggest that the world is an un-navigable or inhospitable place to be.