the groundhog day project

Sometimes, things don't go as you plan. The movie I had planned for today--it turned out it was unavailable. Couldn't even steal it, not that I'm admitting I would. Watching What's Eating GIlbert Grape the week that DiCaprio is going to, as they say, finally get himself an Oscar, seems appropriate. It was even on one of the earlier incarnations of this month's schedule. Then, it had to start with some unnecessary voiceover. It's like a sickness. Like Hollywood doesn't have confidence in its ability to introduce a story without some extra exposition... It occurs to me now that I'm doing the same here. You don't need to know that the order of movies got mixed up. I could just jump right into What's Eating Gilbert Grape . To be fair, this blog is not a movie. Also, I have never written a screenplay that used voiceover. Plus, I'm not sure there is a main action today. I hadn't planned for this movie--combine that with it being a movie ...

Opening shot of The Revenant : Hugh Glass and his Native American wife and child. That's one white guy, and two people of colour. Suck it, Jada Pinkett Smith. Or, you know, watch the rest of the movie, which focuses quite a bit on the white guys. Plus, that wife and kid are soon dead. But, that sort of anecdotal evidence is all the rage among the... Whatever you would call the anti-#OscarsSoWhite crowd. Republicans? There's a list going around among the crazy conservative groups I follow on Facebook, a list of something like 56 people of colour who have won Oscars in the past 16 or so years. I went after the list on Facebook with some math pointing out that 56 out of 1840(-ish) nominations-- And that thought got interrupted by the opening battle sequence in The Revenant . If Inarritu wins the Oscar, this is why. Not the somewhat gimmicky thing of only using natural light so his shooting time per day was reduced but a sequence like this, dozens of actors and extras, practical...

Two very different movies today-- The Revenant and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang . The former: a beautiful film, visually, with minimal dialogue, bouts of serious violence and blood, and Leonardo DiCaprio trying for an award again. He should really take on roles like Tom Hardy's here. There's more nuance to it. But, I digress. The latter: one of the great Christmas stories--Shane Black writing and directing a nice Christmas yarn about a missing girl, some murders, incest, violence, and some kickass narration. You know, classic Christmas trappings. Meanwhile, you've got Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu directing Leonardo DiCaprio--who despite my tone above, was awesome as real-life Mary Sue Hugh Glass--Tom Hardy, Will Poulter and Domhnall Gleeson (who just keeps showing up this week) acting the crap out of a script with a lot less--a lot less dialogue--than Shane Black's talkative Hollywood noir...           And then, I'm here just watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang because it...

I Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is like any other 1980s alpha male. Only more so. If that makes sense. His drives are the drives of men in business, men on the prowl for women. He's the bastard child of the men of Mad Men , the contemporary of the men of Wall Street and his generation bypassed the problems of John Rambo or Tyler Durden--two different angles on emasculation. Patrick Bateman, as capitalist extraordinaire, would never put up with emasculation. He's too territorial for that. He'd sooner kill you than let you even attempt to take away his power. Maybe that's exactly the same situation as Rambo or Durden, except Bateman has money. He doesn't need to hide behind anonymity or an alias because his name has clout. But, I'm interested in something else about American Psycho . Patrick Bateman is also interested in brand names, owning the right things (far from Tyler Durden). But, then there's a problem; see, I'm reading on the trivia sectio...