Movie Review: The Pursuit of Happyness

The Pursuit of Happyness: Torgo disapproves

Let me explain. It's a good movie in many ways. I've never seen Will Smith give a better performance. I didn't see Last King of Scotland, and I love Forest Whitaker in every movie I've seen him in, but Will Smith is amazing as Chris Gardner in this movie. It's a very good role for him. And his son, Jaden, plays his role very well, too.

But this movie is torture for parents of young children. It's incredibly bleak and harrowing. Worse, aside from the many anachronisms (most of which I don't think you'd spot unless you live in SF and know some things aren't from 1981), it's quite realistic. Sure, they condensed and altered Gardner's story, but I think they did so in ways that make what happened over several years happen over a believable stretch of movie-time.

This movie makes me want to:
1) Never be poor
2) Never put my child in day care
3) Never be poor

The slide into homelessness, like something Theodore Dreiser would write, is gradual and inevitable. Even though you know it's coming, even though you know he'll eventually become a millionaire, it's still brutal to watch.

When he finally gets the job that will save him and his son, it's hard not to be crying along with him.

I disapprove because I think it goes too far in emotionally decimating the audience. Maybe I'd have a different reaction if I didn't have a 2-year-old. I'm not sure if having a 2-year-old and living in SF makes a difference; it might.

Wish List for Lost: Seasons 4-6

If you haven't watched the season finale, but plan to, or your name is Doug, don't read this.

1) No more Jack with bad, fake beard.
2) No more Jack storylines that go nowhere and mean nothing, at least nothing lucid.
3) No more proving me wrong about Jack's flashbacks/forwards not being capable of being any more bleak and depressing.
4) No more Jack/Kate/Juliet/Sawyer love square/rhombus.
5) No more Mikhail, the Russian Jesus who just won't die.
6) No more inexplicable Walt, the baby Jesus who grows up but doesn't go away.
7) No more Charlie. Oh, wait, they took care of that. And I liked how he went out. Very heroic.
8) More forward-moving, loose-end resolving action, as in the beach slaughter.
9) On that point, more quick decision-making, as in Sawyer killing Tom.
10) More ending of ridiculous stories, like the Alex/Rousseau separation (God, how big is that island supposed to be?!)
11) More Desmond. Not flashback, loser Desmond, but action-packed Desmond.
12) More shows with minimal flashback time (regardless of whether the flashback time is squandered in tedious exposition like last night or has something interesting to add).
13) More usage of things that seemed insignificant at the time becoming important in fun, fruitful ways, as in Hurley's VW bus (again, that beach scene had lots of good things going).
14) More resolution of important cliffhangers quickly, as in Jin, Bernard and Sayid not being dead.

Book Report: Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dracula: Torgo disapproves

It's not terrible, but I have a whole panoply of contentions with this book.

First off, it never would have gotten out of a fiction workshop. That's not to say workshops should have any merit as to judging literature. In fact, they often stifle creativity. But Stoker could have benefited from a lesson in how to structure and pace a novel.

It begins like a good horror story should, with Jonathan Harker going to Dracula's castle. The villain is introduced with foreboding, then we get the real thing, mysterious but not a monster at first. Harker quickly realizes what Dracula is, and until Act 1 ends, it's a gripping story.

Then it's all downhill. Act 2 lasts an eternity. I took issue with the fact that none of the people could figure out that the mysteriously ill woman with two puncture marks on her neck that don't heal who was found hanging out in a graveyard at night with a mysterious, red-eyed man in black, and needs constant blood transfusions, and has a big bat flapping at her window might, just might, have been bitten by a vampire. And that's probably unfair. They couldn't know about vampires b/c they're in the original book (though it is an old myth).

But they spend way too much time sitting around doing nothing. And if that's not bad enough, when things finally are about to get moving, they spend a chapter compiling notes (the book is all told in journal entries), reading them, talking about reading them, and the writing more and reading them. If this is the birth of metafiction, I wish it would go away.

Meanwhile, Dracula himself seems to be in a much more interesting novel and that's why he doesn't appear anymore in this one.

Honestly, he spends the final act in a box on a boat, not doing anything, then they kill him in what certainly must be the world's most anti-climactic ending.

I was surprised to find what the novel of Frankenstein was like, because it's not at all what I expected. The plot is much more interesting than the stock movies make it out to be. Dracula, too, is surprising, but in a more infuriating way.

1/2 Bay to Breakers and back again = a lot

So there's this thing in SF called the Bay to Breakers race. It started shortly after the 1906 earthquake as a way to build the city's spirit. Runners start at the SF Bay, on the east side of the city, and run west, ending at the Great Highway, or Ocean Beach, on the west side of the city.

The route follows my bike ride home, though I don't have to go all the way to the beach. It's about 7.5 miles.

It's a really big deal. One year, they set the record for the world's largest footrace, with over 100,000 participants. This year, there were about 60,000. This is what that looks like:



But wait, this is San Francisco, so it's not just a serious race for serious athletes, it's also a costume contest/freak show/chance to walk the length of SF naked and drunk at 8 a.m. on a Sunday in May.

It's one huge party where anything is ok and people have a great time. Up close, it looks like this:



Sure, a group of Kenyans won, but that happened long before we even got there.

What we did is walk down by the de Young Museum, which is in Golden Gate Park, around 6th Avenue. That's maybe 2/3 of the way into the race. We then walked along JFK Dr in the park towards the Polo Grounds. That's about 30 blocks.

We saw a group of Storm Troopers (including a Sand Person, Boba Fett, several Imperial officers, etc.), lots of fairies, Thing 1 and Thing 2 (a few times), people with those Halloween costumes that we refer to as "slutty cop" or "slutty nurse," a guy dressed as a rock that said "I'm a rock" on it, three people dressed as Snap, Crackle and Pop, and several naked people whom you wouldn't want to see naked.

At the Polo Grounds, we met up with friends and headed into the neighborhood, not before passing some street preachers from out of town who were trying to convert the heathens, spouting on about how we're all damned because we live in San Francisco and don't mind guys in dresses. They were stationed near some Obama campaign tables (which were likewise kind of random and out of place).

We found a great Mexican restaurant near the beach, then walked back. Cracker was playing at the Polo Grounds. I love that band. But I'd stumbled across their soundcheck set yesterday, and today you could hear them well into our neighborhood, so I didn't feel compelled to brave the sweaty masses. They sounded awesome, though.

All in all, we walked to the race, which was about 4 or 5 blocks from our apartment, then to the beach, which was about 40 blocks, then home, which was about 45 blocks. Sure, it was a lot of walking for a woman 9 months' pregnant, but I was pushing a stroller.

Movie Review: Dreamgirls & Good Night, and Good Luck

Dreamgirls: Torgo approves

I don't like musicals. I've seen a lot and there are maybe 3 or 4 I don't mind so much. I probably wouldn't watch "Dreamgirls" again, but I enjoyed it, despite characters randomly breaking out into song at seemingly inappropriate moments. Fortunately, most of the songs have their place as the movie is about musicians. (As opposed to, say, Les Miserables, where the people who sing and the times they sing seems entirely counter intuitive.)

In fact, "Dreamgirls" is a lot like the recent Ray Charles and Johnny Cash biopics. It moves quickly through history (though here it's fictional), covering the "Behind the Music" moments. At times, I wanted it to move more slowly and take some time developing scenes. That's a negative.

Yet the acting and singing are good. Jennifer Hudson over-emotes, in my opinion, but that fits the character. Beyonce is good. Eddie Murphy is just Eddie Murphy for most of the movie, save one scene where he looks absolutely decimated and old -- I'd give him an award for that one scene.

Good Night, and Good Luck: Torgo approves

There's also singing in "Good Night, and Good Luck," but it's all by some random jazz singer who was apparently locked in a studio at CBS and forced to sing for months on end. They just cut to her every once in a while.

That's ok, it's a very good movie. David Strathairn is terrific. I can't help seeing him as Whistler in "Sneakers," b/c I've watched that movie countless times.

And George Clooney has a hard time getting over his incredibly massive ego. I mean, really, if you look up 'arrogant' in the dictionary, it will say "George Clooney before he won an Oscar." I don't dislike him, it's just grating at times.

Patricia Clarkson (who was in the awesome "Station Agent" and the less awesome but terrifying "Jumanji" as well as the ok "Untouchables" -- I had to look it up b/c she's so familiar yet seems to keep a low profile) and Robert Downey Jr. provide good comic relief as the secretly married couple.

Jeff Daniels and Frank Langella are pretty much always good in everything.

Beyond the acting, I have to give Clooney credit for directing. There were many good decisions made in making this film. Using actual McCarthy footage, instead of an actor, gives the film weight and lets McCarthy hang himself again. The story is also nicely balanced. There are subplots and minor characters, all with seemingly appropriate screen time.

The camera also hangs on Murrow after each broadcast, every time, but each time it gives something new and revealing. It doesn't feel flashy (like Spielberg saying "look how awesome I am") but a little like Scorcese, where the film-making tricks are there but you can miss them; they're subtle. (Not to say Clooney is as good as Scorcese, but he's thankfully less violent.)

I did feel like taking a shower after all the smoking in this movie. I mean, it was like Laura Bush when she's not on camera with all the smoke and haze. But oh well, I didn't have to work on the set, just watch it on dvd.

Movie Review: National Treasure

National Treasure: Torgo approves

I know I've been blog-tardy (oh, that sounds like an unpleasant bowel condition). Life experiences that give me things to blog about come in direct proportion with a lack of time to write those entries. It's like one of those graphs from economics I struggled with. I hated that class.

But though I have much to write about, you're getting this, a review of National Treasure.

It's good. Rainster said this, I believe, but it's a movie we watched expecting little and were pleasantly surprised. It's not high art, sure, but it has some good history (mixed with totally bogus history) and it's entertaining. There are many good actors, like Harvey Keitel and Jon Voight. Jerry Bruckheimer restrains himself to just one explosion. Also, there are some good laughs.

I remember being about 11 or so the first time I went to Washington, D.C. At the National Archives, I stood in front of the Declaration of Independence, heard about the security, how it drops into a sealed vault based on all the sensors, and, of course, thought about how cool that is. It was like Mission: Impossible before Tom Cruise went and, well, was Tom Cruise.

Wisely, the movie moves quickly. The theft comes early, then it's a big chase with stock parts and characters, but it's all put together well and Nicolas Cage deserves much of the credit. He has a way around the more ludicrous moments that keeps the whole mood light.

I don't think we'll rush out to see the sequel later this year, but we'll probably see it on dvd.

Book Report: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment: Torgo approves

This was the fastest 628-page Russian novel I've ever read.

Knowing the Dostoyevsky had been in Siberia prior to writing this, I was expecting something more akin to A Day in the Life of Ivan Denosivitch, only much, much longer. But no, the crime occurs in Act 1, then Acts 2-5 center on the main character's wrestling with whether to turn himself in or not and all the other events in his life. The literal punishment doesn't arrive until the brief epilogue.

With all the cop shows on tv that focus on that post-crime, pre-arrest time from the police perspective, it's fun to read about that space in time from the criminal's point of view. That wouldn't make a sustainable tv series, but it makes for a good book.

And despite it's length and the seemingly small time it covers, there's quite a bit of drama (and some melodrama) in the book. More time is devoted to romance, poverty, friendship, and wacky families than to violence. There's certainly plenty of psychological probing, but it's never overwhelming.

The biggest fault I found wasn't with the story, but with Russian names. I read several parts aloud to the boy while he was in the bath, and I couldn't keep his attention because I kept stumbling over names.

There's Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the protagonist; Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, one of the villains; Dmitri Prokofych Razumihin, the BFF; Alexander Grigorievich Zamyotov, the snoop; Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, the wacky drunk; Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, another villain. And Dostoyevsky uses full names and nicknames and very few pronouns. It reads a little like the ingredients of Skittles.

But you need to look past that. One nice surprise was the characterization of women. Raskolnikov's sister, Dounia, or Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov, is strong and clever, unexpectedly so. Then there's Sonia, or Sonya Semyonovna Marmeladova. She's an odd mix of introvert and hero. She ultimately plays a huge role in the way things play out. There's also Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladov and Pulkheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov, two hopeless, clueless older women, but Dounia and Sonia make up for their deficiencies.

I tried reading War and Peace recently, but quickly got bogged down in all the characters. Crime and Punishment is much easier to handle and much more accessible.

Movie Review: Talladega Nights, Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Seventh Seal

Ok, ok. This is as disparate as it gets. But this is what we watched in the last 3 days.

First up:
Talladega Nights: Torgo approves

This movie is like hot chocolate. It's comforting and nice but not inspiring. It's funny. John C. Reilly is great. Sacha Baron Cohen is funny. Will Ferrell is good as usual. There are a couple of clever cameos (Mos Def, best of all). The outtake reel is perhaps funnier than anything in the movie.

That got me thinking that what's most funny about Will Ferrell comedy is what SNL did: those moments when everybody's having trouble staying in character from laughing. His movies lack that, except in the outtake reels. But they make it worthwhile.

Then, this:
Breakfast at Tiffany's: Torgo approves

But barely. Mostly for Audrey Hepburn. She's great. It followed the book closely until I fell asleep. Oh, yeah, well, we started it kind of late. So I haven't actually seen the last 45 minutes or so.

One complaint is Mickey Rooney doing the buck-toothed, horribly offensive Chinese caricature. What the hell? I remember the racism from the book, but this adds something different and wholly unnecessary.

Finally:
The Seventh Seal: Torgo approves

We actually haven't finished this. I fell asleep again. But I wanted to see this for a long time, not realizing it's entirely in Swedish. Swedish! Who knew?

It's a wacky movie about the plague, the Crusades, a chess match with Death, good stuff for comedy. And it's in Swedish!

Maybe I'll add more when I've seen the end.