From Roger Ebert's review of Atonement, more on that great tracking shot.

The film cuts back and forth between the war in France and the bombing of London, and there is a single (apparently) unbroken shot of the beach at Dunkirk that is one of the great takes in film history, achieved or augmented with CGI though it is. (If it looks real, in movie logic, it is real.) After an agonizing trek from behind enemy lines, Robbie is among the troops waiting to be evacuated, in a Dunkirk much more of a bloody mess than legend would have us believe.

Atonement

I walked into Atonement thinking it would be one of those highly respected period British films that has wonderful costume design and takes place in some old country estate. The kind I used to see previews for on old VHS tapes and wondered who ever watched those. This film it is that but it is also much more. Beautifully photographed with wonderful performances, Atonement is easily the best romantic tragedy in some time (I honestly can't think of the last good one). It starts out as one thing and then right when you are getting settled in switches to another, completely different. It also has a way of doubling back onto itself. Showing you a situation from one point of view then showing it again, only you don't even realize you are watching it for a second until the scene is over. It is only when you see these instances a second time that you truly understand what has taken place.

There is also a great amount of style in this film. Director Joe Wright has sort of thrust himself onto the A list of directors with this, the way he frames his images, or the simple close ups before a transition. It is so good that I want to go back and see his first film, Pride and Prejudice, something I never thought I would say. There are images here that almost feel like paintings, the way the people are staged before the camera, but this is by no means a slow moving film or uptight in any way. It moves at an astounding pace and right when you are starting to think it couldn't get much better, Wright has the audacity to pull out a five and a half minute tracking shot that is as good as anything in last year's Children of Men.

I must also make special mention of the music from the film. What is a somewhat traditional score is taken to another level with the use of striking typewriter keys to act as its percussion. At first you think the noises are coming from another room and only when they stop do you realize it has been mixed in with the different themes. It adds almost another level to the story, especially when the finale comes and you realize the sounds may have actually been coming from the mind of one of the main characters.

NOTE: I meant to put this in the review above but I completely forgot to. The film also has quite a few funny moments and I have never seen a story that hinges almost completely on one word. A word probably a little too vulgar to post here for anyone reading this at work. It is presented here in large letters that fill the screen and that makes me laugh (I will give you a hint, the word rhymes with a kind of hard candy that are shaped like different fruits).

I'm not sure if I should keep posting these full lists because they take up a lot of space but over at Red Carpet District they have the full list of nominees for the Chicago Film Critic awards. This is the most diverse list of names I have seen so far with such outside the box (but totally deserved) nominations going to Once for best picture, Leslie Mann (Knocked Up) for best supporting actress, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for best music. No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood continue to go strong also.

Here are the nominees for the Broadcast Film Critics awards. Good to finally see Into the Wild getting some recognition with the leading number of nominations. The awards will be broadcast live on VH1 on Monday, January 7, 2008, LIVE at 9:00 p/m.(e.s.t.).

Best Picture
American Gangster
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
Juno
The Kite Runner
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
Sweeney Todd
There Will Be Blood

Best Actor
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd
Ryan Gosling - Lars and the Real Girl
Emile Hirsch - Into the Wild
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises

Best Actress
Amy Adams - Enchanted
Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie - Away From Her
Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose
Angelina Jolie - A Mighty Heart
Ellen Page - Juno

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
Catherine Keener - Into the Wild
Vanessa Redgrave - Atonement
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton

Best Acting Ensemble
Hairspray
Juno
No Country for Old Men
Sweeney Todd
Gone Baby Gone
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Best Director
Tim Burton - Sweeney Todd
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
Sidney Lumet - Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Sean Penn - Into the Wild
Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joe Wright - Atonement

Best Writer
Diablo Cody - Juno
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
Nancy Oliver - Lars and the Real Girl
Sean Penn - Into the Wild
Aaron Sorkin - Charlie Wilson's War

Best Animated Feature
Bee Movie
Beowulf
Persepolis
Ratatouille
The Simpsons Movie

Best Young Actor
Michael Cera - Juno
Michael Cera - Superbad
Freddie Highmore - August Rush
Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada - The Kite Runner
Edward Sanders - Sweeney Todd

Best Young Actress
Nikki Blonsky - Hairspray
Dakota Blue Richards - The Golden Compass
AnnaSophia Robb - Bridge to Terabithia
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement

Best Comedy Movie
Dan in Real Life
Hairspray
Juno
Knocked Up
Superbad

Best Family Film
August Rush
Enchanted
The Golden Compass
Hairspray
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Best Picture Made for Television
The Company
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Tin Man
The War

Best Foreign Language Film
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
La Vie en Rose
Lust, Caution
The Orphanage

Best Song
"Come So Far", Queen Latifah, Nikki Blonsky, Zac Efron, Elijah Kelley - Hairspray
"Do You Feel Me", Anthony Hamilton - American Gangster
"Falling Slowly", Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Jesse L. Martin and Cast - Once
"Guaranteed", Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild
"That's How You Know", Amy Adams - Enchanted

Best Composer
Marco Beltrami - 3:10 to Yuma
Alexandre Desplat - Lust, Caution
Clint Eastwood - Grace Is Gone
Jonny Greenwood - There Will Be Blood
Dario Marianelli - Atonement
Alan Menken - Enchanted

Best Documentary
Darfur Now
In the Shadow of the Moon
The King of Kong
No End In Sight
Sharkwater
Sicko

The guys over at CHUD have revealed quite a few new details from the Harold Ramis film, Year One, in a fairly positive script review. Read this at your own risk though, it contains quite a bit of spoilers.

And here comes a zany Biblical satire that calls to mind Wholly Moses more than it does The Life of Brian.

Granted, it’s an awfully brainy Wholly Moses. Co-written with Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky from NBC’s The Office (Ramis directed several episodes for the intermittently great show), Ramis’s narrative begins with the creation of the universe and shoots right into its loopy rendition of the Adam and Eve tale. For Year One’s purposes, Adam and Eve are Zed and Maya, and they aren’t on their own for long; in fact, we soon learn that they’re members of a primitive tribe. Unfortunately for Zed, he’s a gatherer, not a hunter, which makes him undesirable to Maya and just about every other female around. The same goes for Zed’s pal Oh, who has a thing for the highly solicitous Eema.

When it’s discovered that Zed ate fruit from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he is swiftly exiled from the village for having violated the most sacred law of the land. (“Since the Great Turtle climbed from the sea with the Earth on his back, drank the ocean, pooped out the mountains and the first man fell from the stars.”) This, in a way, is fine by Zed; for years he’s been wondering what lies on the other side of the mountain range which, according to the villagers, represents the end of their world. Perhaps there’s more to life than hunting and gathering; perhaps, if he ventures out and makes something of himself, he’ll earn the respect of his people – and get in Maya’s loincloth.

Oh joins Zed on his quest out into the great unknown (and proceeds to get the worst of it from just about every obstacle that gets in their way), and this is where the narrative may confound. The first historical figures the boys encounter are Cain and Abel, who almost immediately get into their fatal dust-up. Having just witnessed Cain kill his brother without much remorse (he proposes to keep the very dead Abel warm by covering him in dirt), Zed and Oh accept the psychopath’s rather insistent invitation to have supper with his family. This almost works out splendidly for Zed, who is offered an evening with Adam’s daughter, Lilith. If you know your Old Testament lore, you probably have an idea as to how this would-be escapade ends. (Oh, on the other hand, shares a bed with Seth, who entertains his guest with a fart cantata.)

Before the boys can get too comfortable, Adam works out that Cain offed Abel, and soon they’re on the run. The next stop is a slave market, where Zed and Oh are briefly reunited with Maya and Eema, who are about to be sold into servitude. After a double cross by Cain, Zed and Oh are on their way to backbreaking, unremunerated labor as well.

Zed and Oh eventually escape from the slave caravan, which brings them to their next major historical run-in: Abraham and the fixin’-to-be-sacrificed Isaac. Our heroes actually prevent Abraham from offering up his son to God, and, after a near-miss on the circumcision, um, tip, they’re on their way to Sodom with the happy-to-be-alive Isaac.

The major failing of Year One is the Sodom passage, which occupies the entire second half of the narrative. Though the writing is still fairly sharp (aside from a dreaded “What happens in Sodom, stays in Sodom” utterance), the momentum of what was shaping up to be a Biblical “Road” movie is extinguished. And while Zed’s epiphany (after being enshrined as the “Chosen One”) is affecting, it’s not quite the finale of Groundhog Day. Or Bedazzled for that matter.

Or maybe it is. Reading Year One, I kept asking myself if I would’ve spotted Groundhog Day as a potential classic on the page. And then I remembered that I didn’t realize it was a masterpiece until the third or fourth time I caught it on cable.

Another clip, this one from Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth and it is all kinds of weird. It also shows that Coppola has shied away from film with this picture and gone the HD route (something you can hear him trying to convince his daughter, Sofia Coppola, to do on the making of Lost in Translation feature from the DVD).

A really interesting article from Jim Hill that gives a complete history as to the length at which Pixar have gone to embed characters from previous and/or future films, into each production.

Leonardo DiCaprio joins Lebron James as a fan of the neck beard. Below is the first image from Body of Lies, the Ridley Scott directed film that also stars Russell Crowe.



He also seems to be going for this look, Non from Superman II.

A clip from my least favorite movie of the year and I haven't even seen it. I didn't know it featured director of Queen's Boulevard and Medellin (as well as a fair amount pornos under pseudonym Wall Balls) Billy Walsh though.

Joan Allen will star with Richard Gere in A Dog's Story, a remake of the Japanese movie about a faithful dog and his owner. The film is being directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who also directed Gere in The Hoax. The story is based on the true tale of an Akita dog that kept vigil for nearly a decade, waiting for his master, who died and didn't return home. The dog is celebrated in Japan every year and had a statue erected in his honor and placed in Tokyo. Gere plays a college professor who takes in the dog. Hallstrom has previously directed (in addition to many other films) My Life as a Dog, so he knows something about making a movie with dog in the title.

It seems like everybody from the Judd Apatow universe is now graduating and moving on to bigger things. Paul Rudd has been cast in the DreamWorks comedy I Love You, Man, which John Hamburg is directing from his own script. Jason Segel is in negotiations to costar. The story is about a man (Rudd) who is searching for a buddy (Segel) to be the best man at his wedding. Rudd will next appear in Little Big Men, which he also wrote. Hamburg's additional writing credits include Meet the Parents, Along Came Polly (which he also directed), and Zoolander.

Little Boston News, which was showing production photos from the film, now has a deleted scene up from There Will Be Blood.

This is from online script review of M. Night Shyamalan's next film, The Happening. It is the first plot description I have read of it anywhere.

Reports of strange deaths begin to come in from cities around the world. It's only after the main characters -- Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel -- begin their trek out of Philadelphia do they begin to realize the scope of the death toll. People everywhere are succumbing to an urge to kill themselves. [It soon becomes clear] that the deaths have been caused by the release of a toxin by surrounding plant life in an evolutionary last-ditch attempt to protect themselves from the predator that endangers them the most.

NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE - 2007 AWARDS

BEST FILM: No Country for Old Men

BEST DIRECTOR: Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)

BEST ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood)

BEST ACTRESS: Julie Christie (Away From Her)

BEST SUPPRTING ACTOR: Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)

BEST SCREENPLAY: Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood)

BEST DOCUMENTARY: No End in Sight

BEST FOREIGN FILM: The Lives of Others

BEST ANIMATED FILM: Persepolis

BEST FIRST FILM: Sarah Polley (Away from Her)

This is sort of just a test. I posted about Hulu a while back and my password for beta testing was just sent to me. I have been watching episodes of Arrested Development all morning and then realized I had the option to embed these files. Here is an episode of The Office from earlier this year (Local Ad) and I just wanted to see how it looked on another website. I have made the picture smaller here so that it would fit but over on their site you can watch full screen or their normal size with quality that is far superior to anything I have seen like this on the internet.

I thought I had already posted this but I was wrong. It is the trailer for the Will Ferrell basketball comedy Semi-Pro. I watched this so long ago I can't remember if it looked funny or not and I didn't want to have to sit through the advertisement that play before it to check. I do remember being dissapointed that no actual basketball is shown though.

Beowulf

The last thing I expected to be while watching Beowulf in 3-D was bored but for the majority of its run time that is exactly what I was experiencing. To be fair, there are exhilarating action sequences but they are few and far between. The majority of this movie takes place in a great hall of some unnamed village with a bunch of drunk warriors, or in darkened rooms with these digitally created actors talking in hushed tones about the great beast that haunts them. Sure the 3-D is great and a neat gimmick but I never thought that the one thing missing from over the shoulder dialogue driven shots was depth perspective. I cared so little about what was happening on screen I did something I never do, got up in the middle of a scene and went to the concession stand. I spent the second act more concerned with a popcorn kernel stuck between my teeth than what was happening on the screen.

Director Robert Zemeckis also has some strange fascination with the nude figure in animated form. I am sure by now everyone has already seen the image of Angelina Jolie, naked except for some gold liquid strategically covering certain body parts, emerging from a pool of water. We are also treated to a fight between Grendel and Beowulf where Beowulf has just awakened from a nude slumber and begins the brawl before pulling on his pants. This is a PG-13 rated movie though, so the shots of Naked Beowulf are handled in a way that is as funny as anything from the similar scenes in Austin Powers. I can't wait for the unrated DVD so everyone can see Beowulf's digital dick flailing across the screen.

Oddly, the one character I did care about in the film is Grendel. Maybe it is because of the comedic possibilities his character holds (see Grendel), or maybe because somehow Crispin Glover makes you care for this ugly, murderous beast through his strange accent and crying out to his mother. All he really wants is some sleep and these drunk mercenaries insist on staying up late and partying like some sort of medieval frat house. Every time he attacked the humans I was rooting for Grendel, nobody deserves a good ass kicking more than noisy neighbors.

"Do you wanna know a secret that I didn't tell anybody ever?... You know how ducks fly home in a V? It's like a v-shape when they get home? I was walking my dog and I looked up and there's this big V above me, there's all these ducks flying back to their home. And right when they flew above me, I saw 'em and, they crashed into a big house. The whole V. And then, they hit the ground, and they just kinda curled up. You ever fucking see that? Have you ever seen a mistake in nature? Have you ever seen an animal make a mistake?"

Okay, at least one more of these. Here is the New York Film Critics Online list of winners. I don't understand the list of their top ten at the bottom. How can There Will Be Blood win best picture but then be listed 11 on their list? The win for The Darjeeling Limited for best screenplay is a little out of left field.

Best Picture: (tie)
There Will Be Blood & The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Actor
Daniel Day Lewis for There Will Be Blood

Best Actress:
Julie Christie for Away from Her

Director:
PT Anderson for There Will Be Blood

Supporting actress:
Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There

Supporting Actor:
Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men

Breakthrough Performer:
Ellen Page for Juno

Debut Director:
Sarah Polley for Away from Her

Ensemble Cast:
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Screenplay:
Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola for The Darjeeling Limited

Documentary:
Sicko

Foreign Language: (tie)
Lives of Others & Persepolis

Animated:
Persepolis

Cinematography:
Robert Elswit for There Will Be Blood

Film Music:
Jonny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood

Top Ten Films:

1 Atonement (Focus Features)
2 Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (THINKFilm)
3 The Darjeeling Limited (Fox Searchlight)
4 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Miramax)
5 I'm Not There (The Weinstein Company)
6 Juno (Fox Searchlight)
7 Michael Clayton (Warner Bros.)
8 No Country for Old Men (Miramax)
9 Persepolis (Sony Pictures Classics)
10 Sweeney Todd (DreamWorks)
11.There Will Be Blood (Paramount Vantage)

I'm not sure how many of these are going to be released today but here is the list of winners from the LA Film Critics. This is the first list I have seen with no mention of No Country for Old Men.

Best Picture: "There Will Be Blood"
(runner-up: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly")

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
(runner-up: Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly")

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
(runner-up: Frank Langella, "Starting Out in the Evening")

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
(runner-up: Anamaria Marinca, "4 Months, 3 Months and 2 Days")

Best Supporting Actor: Vlad Ivanov, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
(runner-up: Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild")

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone" and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
(runner-up: Cate Blanchet, "I'm Not There")

Best Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"
(runner-up: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood")

Best Animation: tie "Persepolis"/"Ratatouille"

Best Foreign Language Film: "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
(runner-up: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly")

Best Documentary/Non-fiction Film: "No End in Sight"
(runner-up: "Sicko")

Best Production Design: Jack Fisk, "There Will Be Blood"
(runner-up: Dante Ferretti, "Sweeney Todd")

Best Music: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, "Once"
(runner-up: Jonny Greenwood, "There Will Be Blood")

Best Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
(runner-up: Robert Elswit, "There Will Be Blood")

Best Douglas Edwards Indie Award: "Colossal Youth" directed by Pedro Costa

Best Career Achievement: Sidney Lumet

Here is the full list of D.C. Film Critic winners.

Best Film: "No Country for Old Men"
Best Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Best Actor: George Clooney, "Michael Clayton"
Best Actress: Julie Christie, "Away From Her"
Best Ensemble: "No Country for Old Men"
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Best Breakthrough Performance: Ellen Page, "Juno"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, "Charlie Wilson's War)"
Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody, "Juno"
Best Animated Feature: "Ratatouille"
Best Foreign Language Film: "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly"
Best Documentary: "Sicko"
Best Art Direction: "Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"

The list of winners from The Boston Society of Film Critics.

Best Picture: "No Country for Old Men"
Best Director: Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Best Actor: Frank Langella, "Starting Out in the Evening"
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Best Screenplay: "Ratatouille"
Best Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Best Documentary: "Crazy Love"
Best Foreign-Language Film: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Best New Filmmaker: Ben Affleck, "Gone Baby Gone"
Best Ensemble Cast: "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"

Some new FYC ads have shown up over at Awards Daily. Here are a couple of my favorites.

The print is a little small so I will tell you this is the poster for Crispin Glover and David Brothers' It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.

And the award for lamest tag line of the year goes to...The Happening. Evoking two of your pasts successes looks likes a little like begging to me. Why no mention of The Village (which I actually really like) or Lady in the Water? Guess they couldn't fit Unbreakable in there either. Via Coming Soon, as the watermark points out.

The trailer for next summer's Speed Racer is now online. My reaction? It's basically like candy for your eyes and too much could make you sick. In some of the scenes the actors almost seemed removed from the background. I know that this was shot with mostly green screens and that this is still early but they felt like they were on two different planes. I like that they are going all out and trying to make it look like an actual anime but this could turn into a disaster, or could be so crazy that it turns out great.

Michelle Williams was recently dropped from one of the voice roles in Spike Jonze' Where the Wild Things Are but it doesn't look like she waited around too long to find another quality project. She is joining Shutter Island, playing the wife of U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the Martin Scorsese-directed drama.

Here is the trailer everyone has been waiting for, the Sex and the City teaser. It plays exactly like one of those promos they used to show on HBO before and upcoming season. How much you want to beat that the movie ends with a Sarah Jessica Parker voice over that ends in a question?

I didn't even know there was a Grammy awards like this so I just copied and pasted this from Red Carpet District.

What might be presumed the two frontrunners for Best Original Song, "Guaranteed" from "Into the Wild" and "Falling Slowly" from "Once" both received Grammy nominations today. They were the only two songs nominated for films released this year, as the other three tunes in the category were from "Casino Royale," "Dreamgirls" and "Happy Feet" respectively.

This should be my last post on this but American Gangster continues this years best trend: put a mustache on Josh Brolin and he delivers a great performance. He has sported one in no less than four films this year and it is no coincidence that all of the films have been of an upper quality. Okay, I hated Planet Terror but he actually has a goatee in that film so who knows if that even counts. Here is a visual history.

Grindhouse

In the Valley of Elah

American Gangster

No Country for Old Men

I just realized that RZA was in American Gangster. He is (obviously) on the left in the image below. He actually was my favorite member of Richie Roberts' (Russell Crowe) team put together to catch Frank Lucas.

This is really just a continuation from the post below but since it didn't have anything to do with American Gangster I thought I would make it a separate post. After the film ended and feeling that the Movie Tavern owed me another movie I slipped into the screening of No Country For Old Men. It was about thirty minutes into the film and it played even better on a second viewing. It was much funnier than I remembered and just as intense. The ending also played much better when I knew what to expect. Like I've said before it is perfect but I didn't realize how much a seemingly unimportant scene with a seemingly unimportant character sort of leads us to the ending. It happens a few minutes before and it is the only appearance of this character but he basically sums up the whole film in his very spare dialogue.

I know this is going to sound pretentious but I really think the ending may be too smart for a lot of people. I didn't fully understand it after the first time I saw it and was only able to fully comprehend it (at least my interpretation of it) after seeing it a second time and knowing fully what to expect.

I am pretty sure everyone in the theater wasn't a fan of the film. The group in front of me was already upset that they stopped serving beer at 11 and I overheard another guy leaving having this conversation with no one in particular:

"That was bullshit, I want my money back. Hell, I wasn't even paying attention."

Probably why this film won't win best picture, even though it completely deserves it. I'm not sure that people will take the time to really try and understand it.

American Gangster

I'm not even sure if I should review this movie. The be honest, I wasn't even particularly looking forward to see it but then from the opening moments I was hooked. The performances were great, I was completely interested in the story, and even though the film is long it was moving forward at such a brisk pace that I never noticed the running time. This was easily becoming one of my favorite Ridley Scott films (up there with Black Hawk Down and Matchstick Men, maybe Blade Runner) and was one of the best movies of the year. A sort of throwback seventies crime drama that feels authentic.

Then somewhere around the 2 hour mark something happened. The sound in the front speakers went out and the voices of the characters became so mumbled that it was impossible to hear. All the other speakers were fine so that all the effects and music were still coming through in surround sound, just the voices were covered up. One by one people started to stand and leave. I was too caught up to get up, I wanted to see how it all finished. Eventually an usher came in and was surprised to see someone left. I asked her to please just change the audio from stereo to mono, hoping they could direct all of it to one speaker and just bypass the two that were going out. She went to get a manager who came in and gave me a free pass to any movie I wanted and told me he would do what he could with the sound but that he thought it was a problem with the film. I have no idea since I have never been a projectionist but I think he was wrong, it seemed to be a speaker problem more than anything else. After another five or so minutes passed (close to ten minutes total) the vocals kicked back in but with a horrible scratching, sort of like the needle of a record in between tracks. I had already invested in over two hours of my time into this movie and decided to stick it out until the end. It did seem like the conclusion came a little to quickly, and was rushed. Then again, I have no idea since I couldn't hear most of what led up to it. Either way, it was completely worth staying and seeing the ending, it's a really good movie.

NOTE: I saw this at the new Hulen Movie Tavern, wanting to see if there was another theater worth going to in Fort Worth (Rave being the best). It really is nice, they have completely redesigned the old UA Hulen and even fitted the theaters with stadium seats. It isn't perfect though, other than the problems I had tonight, the night before I had tried to see the same film. When I arrived the place was completely shut down, no lights on, no cars in the parking lot, nothing. When I called the next day they told me that the power had gone off. I understand this but at least leave a note on the door. So basically what I am saying is that after two trips to the theater I have had two major problems with it. That, or American Gangster hates me.