Hey guys,

Fun little post today- I’ve been trying to up my movie-watching since the New Year (with great success so far) so I’m going to share some thoughts on two recent-ish ones.  But- only after I give another update on our long-brewing project “Manifest Destiny.”

“Manifest Destiny” Update

So- we’ve finally got this guy picture- locked, color corrected, and effects are pretty much in.  We’re moving to the audio phase- Pablo Manavello has already come up with some beautiful themes for the film and I’m very excited to get the whole thing done. It’s always surprising, for me at least, how much sound really contributes to the picture.  You look at this rough cut of only the dialogue and the picture over and over and over, tweaking, and you do kinda get it in your head that this is close the final film, and sound is only going to help here and there. Patently false.  Just watching the rough cut with the temp music Pablo wrote already has an entirely different effect- that’s why I love post, especially sound.  Eric and Brian will begin the final mix sometime next week- so we’re definitely still on track for the end of February.  Can’t wait to show this one around!

Lightning Round “We Need to Talk About Kevin” Review

Since I”m cramming three film reviews into a single post, I’m going to keep them short and sweet.

“We Need to Talk About Kevin” is an independent film that came out in 2011 and wowed critics while still struggling for a wider release, despite the earth-shattering performance from Tilda Swinton as a mother who tries to deal with the fact that her son is inherently evil and commits a heinous act.  Is this her fault, somehow? How does one’s relationship change with someone who they’ve loved unconditionally their entire life when they do something awful?  These questions are tackled with wonderful effect in this film.

Heavy material aside, the film is incredibly watchable thanks to the way in which it is constructed- time is extremely fluid, and we are teased to images (flowing, white curtains and the sound of sprinkles, the sound of alarms, a grating, saw-like sound) that gain great meaning once we have seen what the titular character, Kevin, has done.  The film metes out just the right amount of information and emotional tease to make the exact circumstances of the ending a must-see, even though the nature of the ending is quite clear from the first frame.

But it’s most noticeably a rousing success because of Swinton- one can clearly see and empathize with her struggle as the unwilling mother of a monster as she tries to recover from a terrible tragedy, accept her shortcomings as a mother, and possibly forgive and continue a relationship with her son. Deeply touching, powerful, and stylish, with a great moody score by Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood.

GRADE: A

Lightning Round “The Fighter” Review

I must admit that I was not excited about this film at all.  Due to the nature of story structure, there’s only a handful of ways in which a boxing movie can end- he either loses the most important fight, or he wins it.  The ways of getting there are all very well-trodden territory, and we’ve seen so many variations of this structure- he wins but he shouldn’t have, he loses but he gains hope and finds himself, he loses even though he wanted to win but it’s better for him that he loses, he straight-up wins (ala Rocky), etc.

Two things to report- one, the ending is predictable, the events along the way aren’t anything new, and it proceeds pretty much how you would expect.

But the other thing- the film is so choosy with his details (like having his crack-addicted brother tell his family that HBO is making a documentary about his big comeback when in fact they are making it about his crack addiction, and then forcing that character to watch his own documentary, thinking he will love it, and absolutely hate it and make him turn his life around, ARE pretty damn fresh.  But fresh aside, they’re effective in engaging us in characters who we’ve basically seen before but give them a slightly new flavor so that you forget about the old archetypes entirely. It also doesn’t hurt that the performances are so insanely committed across the board, particularly from Amy Adams and Christian Bale (no surprises on the latter) that they bring new life and meaning to an otherwise well-performed but stock Mark Wahlberg main character.  Was pleasantly surprised.

Also the fact that it’s a true story and that they may have used actual broadcaster remarks from the original fights and timed and edited the fight footage to the  broadcaster’s retelling of the fights is pretty awesome.

GRADE: B+

See you next week!

-Tim