Katy Perry -- Firework

Loathe as I am, historically, to condone over-produced poppy mass pop, I just watched the video for Katy Perry's single Firework, and actually, physically, teared up.

I don't even like this song very much. It's predictable and even dull on its audio own. So, here's proof that visuals sure help people pay attention.

It has all the makings of a fearsomly air brushed, sentimental tear drop of a video. Airbrushed heroine. Candy-sweet colors. Linear build-up of action to a climax. That climax features spontaneous dancing in the streets.

And the supposed plotline follows some of the more saccharine stereotypes: Female Alopecia Victim. Fat Girl at Pool Party. Scared Gay Boy in Public. And of course, as Perry's gospel-trained voice swells, they break out of their shells and join the fun! woo!

Things that counteract this:

1. Ridiculously bright fireworks bursting from their chests. At first inkling of challenging their inner fears shows as a little glow. When the camera catches them making the decision to live fully, little sparks appear. When the Victim runs out of the hospital, Fat Girl jumps into the pool in her panties, and Gay Boy displays some very public affection, these sparks shoot forth in volleys of ecstatic color. I am such a sucker for surreal imagery.

2. The fact that there is a clear telling of each character's story. In 3 minutes and 45 seconds, the viewer swallows no fewer than 5 fully told story lines.

3. There is a woman in severe pain, giving birth. She's only a step in Victim's journey, but she bursts with fireworks. Damned cool.

4. Perry herself ends the thing wearing a summer dress I think I own. Go fashion sense that doesn't always demand sluttishness.

Yep. Maybe I'm over tired, under exposed to humanity, haven't been hugged in awhile. Maybe the idealistic nature of my work is getting to me (I did overdose on JFK and Sargent Shriver videos yesterday) but whatever it is, I suggest you head over to YouTube and watch this thing.

Brick

Brick

2005, Rian Johnson

A black and blue detective story told without pulling a single punch or dropping a single cliché. Beautifully written and directed. Delicately acted. With a host of teenagers playing what could quickly become a melodrama, and with mouths full of slang like:

Brick - A term used to describe a pound or kilogram of any drug, in the case of this film, its heroin.
Bulls - Cops; e.g., "What first, tip the bulls? Also, as a verb, to turn over to the cops; e.g., "I bulled the rat."
Copped - Obtained; e.g., "She copped the junk."
Duck Soup - Easy pickings.
On the Nail - immediately; e.g., "He wants cash on the nail. That's a pot-skulled reef-worm with more hop in his head than blood. Why pay for dirt you can't believe?"
Pick - A ride in a car (as in "pick-up"); e.g., "Did she get a pick?"
Raise - To get in touch with; e.g., "You couldn't raise 'em?" This is also used cleverly when Brain asks Brendan, "You couldn't raise her?" referring to Emily whom he could neither contact nor raise, as in raise from the dead.
Shamus - A private detective.
Shine - To wield (as with a weapon); e.g., "He shines a blade."
Take A Powder - To slip away; e.g., "Why'd you take a powder the other night?"
Yegg - A criminal

It's a wonder the cast does not blow the screen up with hot air. How the characters all remain calm and collected is a mystery in itself.

It's probably due to two things: Johnson's direction and his casting choices. Our lead is the grossly underused Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and he is supported by chameleon Lukas Haas, Lost's Emilie de Ravin and the gorgeous (I swear she looks just like my friend Faith) Nora Zehetner. The whole lot are talented character actors and it shows. They find ways of posturing, leaning, slouching, blinking, smoking, holding hands, running. They're amazing.

Granted, they have a tight script and pretty well-worn characters to fulfill (Brendan was Bogey, Laura was Greta Garbo, the Pin – Sidney Greenstreet).

Our Bogey/Sam Spade is Brendan Frye, loner extraordinaire. He eats lunch behind the trash cans of the school, reading Faulkner. Ostensibly, his ex girlfriend Emily Kostich ate there too, three months ago, before they broke up.

She dumped him, you see, because he was so determined to be this loner, to hate on everyone. And he ratted out one of their small time drug dealing friends to the school VP.

Yep, the romance is laid in the tangled plot of a drug deal gone horribly wrong, and little Emily takes the rap. Our very first image, in fact, is of sweet Emily's limp, braceleted hand in a sewage stream. No punches pulled.

The rest of the movie follows Brendan as he sets out to “break some deserving teeth.” Of course he learns more than he ever wanted to know, and nearly loses a few of his own teeth in the process. And so a dozen supporting characters surface and glitter their exquisite word play, and down play their emotional motivations, mislead, swipe at and dodge each other, pushing Brendan to the brink of what a normal 17 year old is capable of handling.

He's not a normal 17 year old, he's a character, by all appearances 30 years older, so he can. Johnson has remade the Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammet story and dressed it down to a place we would never have expected or recognized it. It's Swiftian satire, but with absolutely no humor or irony.

Not a brilliant turn, perhaps, but it has a brilliant outcome. Brick is stunning from start to finish, from music to schematics. If you know nothing or everything about film, this is a beautiful thing to behold.

Unless maybe you have a glass jaw. In which case, scurry down to the local Blockbuster, or scurry to your remote and order/download The Brothers Bloom. Brilliant for all the same directorial reasons, but with a fun, upbeat heist through Eastern Europe feel.

Fun Fact You Can't Find on IMDB: The whole cast of Brick appears in the first party scene of Bloom. Apparently they quite liked each other off screen!

The Kids are All Right

The Kids are All Right

2010, Lisa Cholodenko

Don't let the light color palette and airy trees and open spaces fool you. This film means to be taken seriously. Lesbian raised families are now a norm in California, sure, and the kids are super normal suburban kids. . . but what's this? A sperm donor? Curiosity? What?

Enter the nominee roles of Annette Benning and Mark Ruffalo. They play the head of said family and donor, respectively. Both put in an effortless seeming performance. Both pull sympathy from their audience, and their characters hate each other. If not directly in accordance to the script, then certainly in accordance with their humanity.

That is, they are written as people trying to comply with society in order to nurture the teenagers on the brink of success/failure from opposite court ends. They even, conveniently, represent opposite ends of parenting extremes. It's beautiful. It's a p.c. American Beauty. Will Benning win this time round?

Honestly, I hope not. Her role in AM had a dozen more turns of emotion than this. Though it's brilliant to see a woman directing / writing up for Academy recognition, she tries so hard to present normalcy that the movie itself falls a little flat of its objectives. She even sets up a Chekov's Pistol in the form of a hot hippy chick with dreadlocks, and dumps her two lines out of a requisite five.

Bad form.

It's nice, evenly paced, well costumed, well acted etc. but it does not jump out and grab you and demand you listen. In fact the most interesting characters (son and cheater half of the parenting duo) are snubbed over all. In an attempt to be totally equal and forgiving of everyone, there is no lead role. The fact that Benning is up for Best Actress is a joke because she is written as a supporting role of Julianne Moore and Ruffalo, who in turn support the kids, who in turn support the hippies, who supprot Ruffalo who supprots Benning.

It's brilliant if you want a panoramic view of a contemporary family unit, post-Diablo Cody, but otherwise kinda dull.

The King's Speech

The King's Speech

2010, Tom Hooper

A lovely movie whose settings barely matter in the face of the actors. That is The King's Speech, as you may be able to tell from reading a one-line plot blurb, is only worth watching if you want to see actors giving performances. The plot is dull, the writing trite, and the cinematography and music overwrought in the hopes of lending weight and emotion to a simple turn of tension: The first king of the civilized world totally on the airwaves has a frightening stammer.

Colin Firth surpasses an already stellar career. Geoffrey Rush is average Geoffrey Rush. Supporting cast of Helena Bonham Carter and Guy Pearce are fluid and engaging. This film is made for the physical personality of the Academy Awards. In fact, Firth and Rush are so good their chemistry outshines the romantic roles prominent in this years awards. As much as I love Marky Mark, he just can't deliver passion to my perfect Amy Adams as well as either of these men.

Otherwise, seriously, this movie just puts every effort possible into drama that simply can't be felt by a normal audience. The only blip of real energy in the film is in the last 9 minutes. In these last 9 minutes Firth delivers the speech of a generation—that given on September the 3^rd, 1939 by George the third to the entire empire going up against Hitler.

The whole bloody plot leads to this, and no where in this plot do we care. However, the Anglophile audience member will have heard this speech delivered a dozen times, and teared up each time. Thus, an actor impersonating it, with a sweet montage of empire hoipoloi tearing up, cannot help but bring a bittersweet sting to the listener's ear.

Otherwise, almost a total waste of emotional investment and 2 hours of my time.