Murder in Three Periods

I've just finished filling my head with three fictions (or semi-fictions?) over the course of this week. All centered around murder most foul, and all were satisfying narratives in their own way.

The first was a novel called "The Interpretation of Murder," by Jed Rubenfeld, who also happens to be a law professor at Yale. The story is based around Sigmund Freud's visit to Manhattan in 1909, his first trip to the U.S. and the beginning of the psychiatric watershed in the States. His understudy takes on the case of a girl who was attacked after another young girl was killed. The story is very clever, a real page-turner, basically historically accurate, and full of surprises. Involves turn of the century New York, architecture, conspiracy, Shakespeare's Hamlet, social strata, guilt, sexual psychology, science vs. nature themes, and of course, evil deeds.

While reading this book, I rented two DVDs I had my eye on. One was "Brick," a detective story set in a U.S. high school today. An ode to Dashiell Hammett and film noir, the movie doesn't wink as it lays out a complex plot complete with hard-boiled dialogue, tough but nosy protagonist, sleazy tramps and dealers, the femme fatale, the trusted accomplice, the law and order figure, and the underside of high school life: lockers, drama class, social strata (again), losers and jocks, etc. Fascinating, intriguing, and fresh, but I needed the subtitles to keep up. Looks and feels like a masterful independent work. Made Entertainment Weekly's list of Top 50 High School Movies, though it surpasses most of the dreck in that genre. All due respect to "Back to the Future" and "Dazed and Confused".

Finally, I was able to snag my video store's only copy of "Zodiac," directed by David Fincher. I was very excited about this: I love the director, it has an incredibly talented cast, it is a period piece set mostly in the seventies, and it is based on the case files of a notorious murderer. So it was a very good film, but perhaps my expectations were too high. I wanted to be dazzled by Fincher, like with "Fight Club" and "Se7en", but this was a straightforward cop/journalism story with moments of tension at the crime scene. I think Fincher was going for a more mature film without getting pigeonholed with a genre ("Alien 3") nor playing off today's headlines/fears ("Panic Room"). That being said, the film is very good, requiring the first hour to introduce everything, and the next 1.5 hours to care about the characters and the situations in which they find themselves. Great production design and soundtrack. Robert Downey Jr. is once again remarkably watchable and frenetically funny.

Time to get back to reality. If I hear the neighbor's stereo one more time, I'm going to kill him!

P.S. Why doesn't the alternate U.S. ending of "Pride and Prejudice" (Keira Knightley, 2005) feature giant transforming robots destroying England's stately homes? The filmmakers really missed an opportunity there.

Dreaming in Cels

Thanks to a gift from my brother, last night we watched the brilliant film Waking Life. This film is kind of like Slacker, but taken to a new beautiful level. I recognized a few of the locations, including the boat-car, and some of the star cameos. The DVD has lots of great extras too! Nice one.

Wired magazine online has photo coverage of the 2007 New York Comic Convention. Check out the costumes and how Gary Coleman looks pretty dog-tired. He too cleaned up well in an animated version (see him as a kung fu fighting security guard on the Simpsons).

Also from Wired, an interview with Zack Snyder, director of Dawn of the Dead and the forthcoming 300, based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller (Sin City, etc.). The article says that Snyder will be helming Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, based on one of the greatest modern books around (and I can't wait for Moore and Kevin O'Neill's latest volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

Here is a gallery of photos from 300, including comic page-to-screen comparisons of some shots. Looks beautiful and exciting. Finally, I present here a review of 300 (I don't think it will spoil anything) that transcends the boundaries of geek reviewdom into the realm of classic comic literature. From Aint-It-Cool-News:

I just saw a movie that’ll give your eyes boners, make your balls scream and make you poop DVD copies of THE TRANSPORTER. It’s called 300. I don’t know what the title has to do with the movie, but they could’ve called it KITTENS MAKING CANDLES and it’d still rule.

It’s about these 300 Greek dudes who stomp the sugar-coated shit out of like a million other dudes. I have a feeling that a lot of high school sports coaches are going to show this film to their teams before they play. Also, gay dudes and divorced women are going to use screen captures for computer wallpaper.

The movie takes place about a million years ago, and it’s sort of like a prequel to SIN CITY. Except way less guns and cars but twice as much skull splitting. If you watch this movie and go into a Taco Bell, and say to the cashier, “I need some extra sauce packets” guess what? You’re getting twenty sauce packets because your face will punch him in the brain.

I can’t spoil the plot because THANK GOD THERE ISN’T ONE. Just ass kicking that kicks ass that, while said ass is getting kicked, is kicking yet more ass that’s hitting someone’s balls with a hammer made of ice but the ice is frozen whiskey.

TWO COOL THINGS ABOUT THE MOVIE AND ONE THING I DIDN’T LIKE:

COOL THING ONE:
HEAVY METAL DURING BATTLE SCENES

Who gives a shit if the music isn’t historically correct? LORD OF THE RINGS could’ve used some Journey. This movie has that chu-CHUNG kind of metal that you hear in your head when your shift supervisor at Wetzel’s Pretzel is telling you that you’ll have to stay for clean up and you wish you had a sock filled with quarters in your hand.

COOL THING TWO:
FOES, MINI-BOSSES AND A BIG BOSS

Basically, the Greek dudes are fighting these Persian dudes, but the director, who must have a dick made of three machine guns, does it all like a video game. The Greeks fight every death metal video from the last ten years. There’s wave after wave of giants, freaks, ninjas, mutants, wizards, and a hunchback who looks like he’s got Rosie O’Donnell on his back.

Would I have been happy if Dom DeLuise from HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART I had shown up? Maybe, but this movie more than makes up for that glaring oversight.

NOT SO GOOD THING:
DUDE NUDITY (“DUDE-ITY”)

These are Greek times, when there were a lot of naked women around. And there are some naked women in this film, but almost every naked woman scene has a muscular dude giving the screen an ass picnic. Dude-ity is something directors put in their movies so people will think they’re serious, I guess, and not just throwing in naked hotties.

Any directors reading this – IT’S OKAY TO JUST THROW IN NAKED HOTTIES.

Can’t someone make a movie about naked Amazons and call it PAUSE BUTTON?

My final analysis is 300 the most ass-ruling movie I’ve seen this year, and will probably be the King of 2007 unless someone makes a movie where a pair of sentient boobs fights a werewolf.