The Downfall of Music Part 2

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There Will Be Old Men

Hrmm.

I hate it when I may be wrong. It really pisses me off and is quite the blow to my eternal feeling of perfection in all things.

But...

I may have been mistaken in my movie reviews from Sunday morning. I might have been hasty and speaking before I had time to process them a bit and wrap my arms completely around them.

And no, I'm not just saying this because they were both successful on Oscar Night. I was really thinking about There Will Be Blood specifically for a large portion of the day.

As I said earlier, my only real issue with it was the lack of cohesive feel... the lack of a continuing narrative from one segment to the next... the thread that ties the movie together rather than it being four or five individual portions of a film. The ending, while very well-done, also felt a little... off... to me. It seemed extreme and out of character. But the more I've thought about the movie and done a little digging on the Interweb to get a sense of what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish, I get a better feeling about the movie. I start to embrace it a bit more and understand more of what they were aiming to do.

Yes, I know. It seems odd that you have to research a movie to figure out if you like it but... well, it is what it is. I think There Will Be Blood was going to be an easier sell to me as I liked the acting and almost everything about it... but I just needed that one thread to tie it all together to be able to embrace what the movie was _truly_ about. I knew the plot... but I didn't understand the point. I think I've got a grip on this one now and while I still don't think it was Best Picture worthy, I can see it being nominated... and yes, I think I would be more-than-willing to watch it again to see if a second viewing will make me like it as much as I think it might.

No Country For Old Men? Well, it dawned on me Sunday night that it was made by the Coen Brothers... which instantly made sense to me. Years ago, Mrs. Blue [before she was Mrs. Blue] dragged me to see some movie that was getting a lot of buzz called Fargo... yes, that Fargo. I despised it. It just didn't click for me and came off as hollow. Years later when I rewatched it, I found myself enjoying it and I've actually seen it a few times lately on Starz. It's an excellent flick that grew on me with time and... oh, let's just say "maturity" for the chance to be both "artistic" and "ironic." The Coens were also behind The Big Lebowski which I completely hated when I first saw it and now cling to like Linus to his blanket to the extreme of having bought a bunch of talking Lebowski bobbleheads at Comic-Con last year to distribute to my friends.

So, the Coens and I go way back in me misunderstanding and despising their work inititally only to find great enjoyment in it years later. When I realized that NCFOM was their work... well, let's just say I looked forward to watching it on the HD IMAX of my mind in 2013 and enjoying the fuck out of it.

I'm still not sold on NCFOM's ending... I'm just not. I loved the rest of it [minus a few snags] and thought it was very well done... until the last ten minutes or so. Can ten minutes completely kill a movie for someone? I drew the comparison earlier but there's been many a wrestling match that has gotten rave reviews that spotlight, "It would have been a Match of the Year... except for the shitty finish." That is NCFOM in a nutshell to me.

BUT...

That being said, sometimes it takes a little insight to bring enlightenment... and after a LOT of reading Sunday night on the Interweb, I think I "get" what they were trying to do. It's sad that it comes to that... but yeah, I think I get what they were trying to accomplish.

Look, I appreciate television and movies that make people think. I don't like to be spoonfed bullshit that is paint-by-numbers... all the time. Everything has it's place in the entertainment world... except King Arthur. Fuck that shit.

So, with that in mind... if I'm correct in what they were trying to accomplish with NCFOM, well... they succeeded. In trying to paint a bigger picture, the smaller details were forsaken and they left behind an audience saying, "What the fuck?" It's a bad thing short-term... but it's only a bad thing if the road ends there. If you take the time to figure it out... well, it can end up being a rewarding experience.

I think I "get it" which makes me smile a bit - at both myself for so completely reversing opinions and at the Coens for making me do so. I applaud them for thinking outside the box... as long as they knew what they were getting themselves into.

I'm being very vague here and I know it. But... well, I feel a little guilty for tearing into these two films now. Both should be viewed so people can decide for themselves. There will be movies, TV shows, albums that I will flatly tell you are not worth the shit on my shoes and should be treated accordingly. These two I'm giving advance warning that... well, you may not like them when you walk out but don't let your brain check out there.

Think a little bit about it... discuss it with others... then form your opinion. If you still think it's asstastic, more power to you.

But even the best of us still have the ability to surprise ourselves... and that's a hell of a thing to treasure.

Speaking of movies to think about, Major League is on. Man, Ricky Vaughn's motivation and drive chills me to the bone as does the director's political statement on a post-Cold War society trying to deal with the harshness of demilitarization.

Or maybe it's just a bitchin' baseball flick.

Fuck it. You figure it out.

And the Oscar goes to...

Wow! What a day I had yesterday!

Thanks to a tipoff from a friend from college, we discovered that the AMC theater chain was showing all five Best Picture nominees yesterday for $30. Not a bad deal and since we have always wanted to see all five before the awards, we decided to do it.

Mild spoilers to come so... yeah, consider yourselves warned.

They started off with Michael Clayton. I dug it. It wasn't anything blowaway friggin' fantastic but I dug it. I could probably watch it again if I stumbled across it on HBO or something. Clooney was cool in it as he tends to be cool in just about everything he's in... except Batman And Robin. Is it just me or does that man just ooze coolness? I don't want it sound like I have a Vince Vaughn-ish mancrush on him or something but damn... he just seems cool. Did I mention yet that he seems cool? Plus, it's got the psycho mob boss guy from Batman Begins in it as he plays... well, a psycho lawyer. "Help me, help me, Dr. Crane. I can't take it anymore." Good shit. I'll give this one a thumbs up... check it out when it hits DVD.

There Will Be Blood was next. Sigh. Okay, going into this day, it was fairly obvious that everyone and their mother was calling There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men as the favorites in the Best Picture race. In fact, another friend told me there was no point in seeing anything else on the list. So, I was really looking forward to this one. First, the good... the acting in this was awesome and I believe without looking at the list of nominees, Daniel Day Lewis deserves the Best Actor nod. That being said, this movie just didn't do it for me. It was very enthralling at times and I would really get into it. But once it was all said and done, I felt a little hollow from it. It just seemed to fall flat at the finish. There was a very emotional and dramatic finish... but when the credits were rolling, I just couldn't wrap my head around what it all was supposed to mean. I couldn't put my finger on the plotline that ran all the way through to conclusion. Maybe it was just over my head. Maybe I was too distracted by how cold it was in the theater. Not sure. But it just fell flat to me and didn't seem like a Best Picture.

Atonement was next... and as much as it absolutely kills me to say it, I actually enjoyed this one. Yeah, it was a sappy love story but it had some substance to it and actually worked for me. I thought the first portion of the movie was very well-done and had me interested to see how it turned out. The second part wasn't as good but it was at least still interesting to see how things will be resolved. The finish, which some will hate, was okay to me... was logical... and was tied up nicely. It may not have the type of ending many will be looking for but at least it didn't try to get too cute for it's own good. At this point, I actually had this in the lead for my favorite of the day.

Juno was after that. We had actually already seen Juno a few weeks ago but we decided to sit through it again even though they were letting people come and go as they wanted. The second viewing didn't lose much and actually endeared it to me even more. It's a smart, funny, clever flick. It has good actors playing their roles very well and is a movie that will age very well, I think. I would be pretty shocked if they won Best Picture but I would be very happy for them as well. Whoever described it as this year's Little Miss Sunshine hit the nail on the head. It's a comedy with a lot of heart and that's a rare thing in the Meet The Spartans and whatever movie with Martin Lawrence in a fat suit is out this week.

The finale was No Country For Old Men which my friend had complained about going on last since it was "the likely winner." Hrmm. You ever have a friend telling you about a movie they saw recently and their "review" has the line, "You know, it was a really good movie until the ending." That sums up this movie to a tee. There were things about it I really liked as it was progressing and things that I really didn't like... but on the whole, I thought it was well on its' way to being the easy pick for Best Picture. But then, it ended. And I was left saying, "Wait... what?" And then you hear the rumblings like, "Well, that's two hours of my life I'll never get back." not every movie has to wrap up things in a pretty bow to be good. Sideways was a fantastic recent flick that is an example of that. But that one was just too open. It was too much of a dangling narrative with no resolution... and I suppose it may have a resolution if you imagine your own but seriously, if I wanted to imagine my own ending, I'd buy some Choose Your Own Adventure books.

In conclusion, I'd say Sweeney Todd got fucking hosed. It may not have been the best movie of the year but it damn sure didn't deserve to get shut out of this category. I'd say it was even better than a movie I liked in Michael Clayton let alone the couple I didn't care for.

But in further conclusion, I'd say Juno or Atonement deserves this win. I'd love to see Juno win it but I wouldn't be upset if Atonement got it. Michael Clayton is in the middle. It was good... but it didn't knock my socks off. I'd be surprised if it won and I'd think it wasn't deserving. The other two... I can see the lemmings following right along and voting for it since everyone told them how great it was.

I guess in conclusion of the conclusions, when the wrestling websites and newsletters are discussing the Match of the Year... I always think that the basic criteria should be that if you think you'd ever want to see that match again, you should consider it for Match of the Year. So, in the most simple terms, the movie that you want to watch again should be considered the Best Picture. And of course, you probably eliminate stuff like Walk Hard or Superbad because it's obviously not the best acting or the best plot or whatever... but yeah, at heart, I'd say it's the best movie you saw all year that you would actually want to see again... not the one that everyone else tells you is the best movie you saw all year.