Month: September 2009

Two great moments in Robert Altman films: Gibson as the sinister Dr. Verringer confronting and slapping the much bigger Roger Wade in The Long Goodbye ; Gibson as the vain and ridiculous country music ringmaster Haven Hamilton rising to the occasion and trying to reign in the chaos at the conclusion of Nashville

9 is a short (80 minute) animated film directed by Shane Acker, itself based on an Oscar-nominated ten-minute short by the same guy (producers include Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov and their signatures are all over this film, whether they were involved or not). It takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. How we got to that future is told in flashback, and it is a familiar story: man invents wondrous machine with brain; machine turns on man; devastating war destroys mankind. What survives are tiny burlap-covered robots of some kind, invented by the same scientist who created the original destructive machine. There are nine of them, and the film traces their efforts to band together, discover their purpose, and destroy the machine.

The animation is simply wonderful, with the ruins of a city rendered in fabulous detail, and all manner of metal creatures give chase to the little band of nine robots whose destiny it is to build the future. A lot is packed into the short running time, but almost all of it involves extended chase scenes, occasionally broken by moments of when the main characters have to decide between heroism or cowardice (symbolized by the difference between #1 (voiced by Christopher Plummer) and #9 (voiced by Elijah Wood). The story is too thin to sustain the movie (it really was better as a short), and the mystical ending strikes an odd note, but this is worth watching for the inventiveness of the animation alone.

Because of something I bought through Amazon, I just got a free movie pass to go see Surrogates at any local movie theater. Does this mean I have to go see Surrogates? The trailer features a freakishly young Bruce Willis (in surrogate mode) with hair similar to that he wore in the Jackal remake.  It looks scary.

Is Tommy Wiseau’s The Room (2003). I must admit, I’m way behind on this one (has someone posted on this film already?) as the film has had a sizable cult following–mostly in Los Angeles–for some time now. Let me share my feelings about this extraordinary…thing. Wiseau managed to cobble together 6 million dollars (how? no one quite knows) to realize on the big screen a play/novel he had written about a love triangle between Johnny (played by Wiseau), Lisa (played by…who the fuck knows, some woman he met in L.A. who had just stepped off a bus from Texas), and Mark (Greg Sestero, who had previously worked on “The Days of Our Lives”). Continue reading The Citizen Kane of bad movies