Year One

Year 2, Day 65 - 3/6/10 - Movie #430

BEFORE: The last film had Robin Williams as a caveman (sort of) so let's stick around in ancient times for a while, before time-traveling back to the present. I could use a good comedy, after the last two films, which were way too serious.

THE PLOT: Zed, a prehistoric would-be hunter, eats from a tree of forbidden fruit and is banished from his tribe, accompanied by Oh, a shy gatherer.

AFTER: No, I said a GOOD comedy. Actually, this one was OK for a few laughs - the film mixes up the caveman experiences with references to Biblical times, and most of the humor is derived from Jack Black and Michael Cera playing their characters as if they have modern sensibilities.

Of course, the Bible chronology is thrown out of whack for the sake of comedy - Adam and Eve wouldn't have co-existed with Abraham and Isaac, or the town of Sodom - but sodomy is funny, so they need to be able to reference it...and since the Bible is a work of fiction anyway, who cares, right?

We also get to see the invention of things like the wheel, and French kissing, and we get to laugh at the primitive sensibilities of people who believe that sacrificing virgins will bring rain and a good harvest.

Unfortunately, the flip side is that the movie is sort of scattershot as Zed and Oh make their way through Mesopotamia and biblical history, and also gets sort of predictable (gee, Cain and Abel, I wonder how this sub-plot's going to end...)

Also starring Oliver Platt, David Cross (as Cain), Paul Rudd (as Abel), Hank Azaria, Harold Ramis (who also directed), Bill Hader (almost unrecognizable as a shaman), and Horatio Sanz (though I thought that was Danny McBride...)

RATING: 4 out of 10 spears

Being Human

Year 2, Day 64 - 3/5/10 - Movie #429

BEFORE: On a similar theme, this film has Robin Williams playing characters in several different time periods.

THE PLOT: One man must learn the meaning of courage across four lifetimes centuries apart.

AFTER: Like last night's film, this movie features stories taking place in different centuries, with little or no explanation of what the connection is, if any. Robin Williams' character is named "Hector" in each segment, but there's no clarification - is this meant to be 5 separate stories, or one long story about an immortal man?

We see Hector as an early caveman type, a slave in the Roman Empire, a man in the Dark Ages who falls in love with a French (?) woman, a Portugese man who survives a shipwreck, and finally as a modern divorced dad taking his kids on a trip to a beach house.

And again, I'm having trouble determining what the point is of this little storytelling exercise. Is there a moral? Some insight gained by juxtaposing events across the centuries? I sure don't see one. Take care of your kids? Don't trust Spaniards? Speak up for yourself?

Also starring John Turturro (last seen by me in "Jungle Fever"), Vincent D'Onofrio, Hector Elizondo (last seen by me in "The Taking of Pelham 123"), and Lorraine Bracco, with cameos from Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, William H. Macy (last seen in "Somewhere in Time"), Lindsay Crouse.

RATING: 3 out of 10 turtle eggs

The Fountain

Year 2, Day 63 - 3/4/10 - Movie #428

BEFORE: Another film that didn't fare so well at the box office - I heard it was hard to understand. But it's about time-travel (I think) so let's get it watched.

THE PLOT: Three stories - one each from the past, present, and future - about men in pursuit of eternity with their love.

AFTER: Jeez, I don't even know where to begin in describing this one...there are three storylines, all starring Hugh Jackman - but are they all supposed to be the same person, in the past, present and future? Is one of the storylines real, and the others imagined or fictional? I know, they're all fictional, but are some more fictional than others?

We see Jackman as a Spanish Conquistador, searching the Mayan lands for a lost treasure, also as a doctor researching a cure for his dying wife's tumor, and a bald man traveling through space in a large bubble with a tree.

The movie serves as something of a kit, I feel like it gave me the pieces of a storyline, and made me do the heavy lifting. The complication lies in determining where the storylines intersect, if at all, and what it all might mean. As best as I can determine, the lost treasure is the tree of life, or the "Fountain", and after finding it and drinking its sap, the Conquistador becomes immortal - centuries later, the man is the doctor, searching for a way to keep his love from dying (and aging), and then for some reason in the future, brings the tree across the galaxy to the nebula his wife saw with her telescope.

But I feel this is only one of many possible interpretations - for example, is the tree in the third story the same tree from the first story, or the second one? The dying wife in the second story was writing a novel, does the novel contain the first story, or the third story, or both?

The dazzling effects shouldn't be a substitute for actual events, or some kind of, I don't know, plotline? Is that too much to ask? It's sort of like the last 10 minutes of "2001: A Space Odyssey" - that really arty, confusing Kubrickian stuff - got expanded into an entire feature.

Also starring Rachel Weisz and Ellen Burstyn, with a cameo by Ethan Suplee.

RATING: 3 out of 10 monkey brains

Deja Vu

Year 2, Day 62 - 3/3/10 - Movie #427

BEFORE: Another movie with a time-travel theme (sort of...) though I can't help but feel like I might have seen this one before... (joking!)

THE PLOT: An ATF agent travels back in time to save a woman from being murdered, falling in love with her during the process.

AFTER: Damn, this movie's set in New Orleans - if I had known that, I would have watched it right after "Benjamin Button"...

Last night's movie required me to believe that a man can see two minutes into the future, and tonight's movie requires me to believe that a man (with a team of techies) can see four 1/2 days into the past. The gimmick is that with an array of satellites constantly processing data, computers can analyze the data (with a 4 1/2 day delay) so that the FBI tech team can look virtually anywhere (or is that "virtually look anywhere"?) to get the data to solve a crime.

Agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) is an ATF agent called in by the FBI to look at the crime scenes from the past, since he has an ability to look at the satellite images, analyze them, and direct the team where to "look" next. The crime is the bombing of a ferry carrying U.S. soldiers and their families, and Carlin suspects that the murder of a young woman is connected, and the key to solving the crime.

When it's revealed that the FBI technology is actually using a wormhole to the past to gather their images, Carlin believes that since light can travel forward across the wormhole, then light (and matter) can be sent back. The tech team seems divided about the nature of quantum mechanics - one school of thought says that everything in the past is unchangeable, since it already happened - and when the teams send a message into the past and seemingly cause past events instead of changing them, that theory seems to be supported. But the other school of thought says that viewing the past (on a quantum level, natch...) also changes the past, in the same way that knowing your future could cause you to avoid it, rather than cause it to happen.

Carlin decides to play dice with the universe by sending himself back 4 days, with knowledge of what will happen - to save the girl and prevent the bombing. Time paradoxes are neatly avoided (since Carlin manages to avoid running into himself) and all the little confusing details are neatly explained....so kudos for that. ("Don't forget to leave the keys, Bill and Ted!")

Welllll....except for one rather glaring time-travel created paradox at the end - but if you believe that changing the past causes reality to branch off in a different future direction, then I guess we can let this one slide.

And damn, the movie takes place on "Fat Tuesday", which was last week. If I hadn't added so many movies to my "Fame" chain, or if Easter weren't so early this year, I would have hit it right on the nose.

Also starring Val Kilmer, Jim Caviezel, Bruce Greenwood, Adam Goldberg.

RATING: 7 out of 10 Mardi Gras necklaces

Next

Year 2, Day 61 - 3/2/10 - Movie #426

BEFORE: Time-travel movies, or stories about people who move through time differently, is the theme - and it's not just about romance. Sometimes they're action movies - last night's film was based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and tonight's movie is based on a book by Philip K. Dick (who also wrote the book "Blade Runner" was based on...)

THE PLOT: A Las Vegas magician who can see into the future is pursued by FBI agents seeking to use his abilities to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack.

AFTER: Again, we have to suspend our disbelief that a man can travel in time, age backwards, or in this case, see two minutes into his own future.

Cris Johnson, aka Frank Cadillac (Nicolas Cage) is a Vegas entertainer with a psychic/mentalist act. All of his tricks, plus earning a good living at blackjack, can be accomplished by his 2-minute clairvoyance. In some situations in the film, this ability is demonstrated by seeing Frank getting shot, or injured in a car-crash - but then that event is revealed to be the possible outcome, and then Frank makes an adjustment in his actions so that horrible event doesn't come to pass.

In the most dramatic use of his ability, we see him using one pick-up line after another to talk to a woman in a diner (Jessica Biel), and from that process he learns that none of them will work, and only the final approach turns out to be the right one, and therefore the only real one.

Cris is pursued by FBI Agent Ferris (Julianne Moore) who needs his ability to help locate a stolen nuclear device - but his powers only reveal his own future, so the only way to help out is to get personally involved. At first he resists, and only gets involved when his powers show him that there is no other course of action that will benefit him - so he's sort of an anti-hero, who mostly has his own best interests at heart.

There's a disappointing cheat at the end, which I won't reveal, but I got the feeling that the screenwriter had painted himself into a corner and had no sensible way of getting out of it.

I did like the visual effects that demonstrated how his powers worked - seeing multiple images of a man working out a way to dodge a barrage of bullets was an original take on the "Bullet-time" seen in the Matrix movies - I actually wanted to see more of this. (seeing a man "thinking" out a plan is not as visually interesting, guys...)

RATING: 5 out of 10 security cameras

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Year 2, Day 60 - 3/1/10 - Movie #425

BEFORE: The last film was about someone with a genetic time-based anomaly, so that sort of leads me to this one, about a man who ages backwards.

THE PLOT: Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences.

AFTER: See, it feels good to get ready for Oscar season - I've got a good feeling about Brad Pitt being nominated for Best Actor... Huh? What's that? The nomination was for last year's Oscars? Damn, well it turns out this won awards for art direction, make-up and visual effects...

My first reaction is that this film was much too long, clocking in at 2 hours and 45 minutes. Surely some of this new-fangled "editing" process could have been applied? I mean, his life seemed interesting, but did we as the audience have to witness every single minute of it? This was based on a SHORT story by F. Scott Fitzgerald - so with all the additions, this is much more than the original author ever intended.

My second reaction, as a codicil to point #1, is that this film takes much to long to get to the "message", and once it does, the pay-off isn't worth the effort. Again, I'm treating this film as an analogy, since people can't actually age backwards - so we learn that people often turn their back on love for a variety of reasons, and end up wishing they had spent more time with their loved ones. I think even the message of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", which was "Be excellent to each other!" carried more weight.

Finally, let's look at this aging-backwards thing. On one level, you might think it's no more or less ridiculous than a man who jumps through time - but a baby who's born old, with cataracts and hardened bones and joints? Maybe, but then how does he grow to be a full-sized senior citizen so darn fast? Now we're not just defying the rules of time, but the rules of matter - entropy dictates that all matter in the universe decays rather than rejuvenates. And you might have heard that immediately after people are born, they (or their cells, to be specific) start to die. So how can Benjamin Button be getting not just younger, but healthier?

Then we've got a storyline that unfortunately bears too much resemblance to "Forrest Gump", except transferred to the first half of the 20th Century, instead of the 2nd. There's growing up in the south, an adventure on a boat (marine salvage, not catching shrimps), interaction with some colorful historic characters, war, love, loss, and a lot of folksy wisdom...

Not a complete waste of my time, but I was still left scratching my head, wondering what the point was, and what all the fuss was about. There's also a story-within-a-story about a clockmaker, and I really didn't understand the implied connection between the two stories.

Also starring Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Elias Kotseas, Julia Ormond, and a bunch of people who played Benjamin who weren't Brad Pitt - so what's up with THAT? Couldn't they age Brad Pitt with make-up or visual FX? Casting other actors seems like a bit of a cheat...

RATING: 6 out of 10 wheelchairs

The Time Traveler's Wife

Year 2, Day 59 - 2/28/10 - Movie #424

BEFORE; I don't say this about a lot of movies, but I've really been looking forward to this one... That's probably an understatement, since I just paid the $4.99 to watch the movie On Demand, even though it will probably be on Premium cable in a couple of months - but I can't wait, I'm doing time-travel movies now, it fits in my chain here, damn it.

This is based on a book by Audrey Niffenegger which I greatly enjoyed, due to its portrayal of time-travel continuity (more on that later...) and is probably the only fiction book I've read in the last 5 years that didn't have both "Star" and "Wars" in the title...

THE PLOT: A romantic drama about a Chicago librarian with a gene that causes him to involuntarily time travel, and the complications it creates for his marriage.

AFTER: Back-to-back time-travel movies set in Chicago, excellent!

I feel I should preface this review with an explanation of why I like time-travel stories so much - my wife, for one, doesn't seem to understand my preoccupation. You see, when I was just a boy, I asked my mother, "What will I be? Will I be pretty, will I be rich?" Here's what she said to me: "How the heck should I know?"

Seriously, what kid doesn't want to know what their future holds? Then I watched a movie called "Slaughterhouse Five", about a man named Billy Pilgrim who becomes un-stuck in time and travels freely within his life, visiting key moments in his World War 2 service, including the bombing of Dresden, plus his marriage and eventual abduction to an alien zoo on the planet Tralfalmadore (where they teach him to time-travel, so it's a neat little loop). This led to me reading the complete works of Kurt Vonnegut, and then I read the "ABC's" of sci-fi - Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke - and of course I caught on to old reruns of "The Twilight Zone" around the same time.

The general consensus in the sci-fi community seemed to be, at least from a storytelling point of view, that if time travel were to be invented, it wouldn't be possible to alter the past. You could go back and try to prevent the Chicago Fire, for example, but something ironic would happen, and you might even end up causing it. Another theory tells us that since a time-traveler from the future might want to go back and kill Hitler as a baby, let's say, the fact that no one has done this might means that either time-travel will never be invented, or the past simply cannot be changed. (or else killing baby Hitler would lead to an even worse timeline somehow...)

So, this movie (and the novel it's based on) neatly avoid any time paradoxes by making everything that happens part of the same inevitable fabric of reality. For Henry (Eric Bana) time is not a straight-line, or even a pretzel folding in on itself, it's more like a bowl of pasta, with all the strands of his life on top of each other and interacting. If he should meet himself along the way, or kill his own grandfather, well, it's all part of the plan. In fact, the first time he time-travels as a young boy (leaving his clothes behind), a 30-year old version of himself is there to greet him with a warm blanket, an explanation of what just happened, and an assurance that everything will ultimately be OK.

Now, you may have heard of the time paradox in which a man from the future jumps back and gives himself the blueprints to build a time machine - in this case, who invented the time machine? Something similar happens between Henry and Clare (Rachel McAdams). Since Henry is "pulled" to important people in his life, he visits her in a meadow near her house when she is a young child. The first time they meet, from her P.O.V., she's 6, and he's in his 30's (it's not as creepy as it sounds, even though he's naked)
but the first time they meet from his P.O.V, he's in his late 20's, and she's 19, but she's known him since she was a little girl - so who met who first? And if older Henry told little Clare about their relationship, and 21-year old Clare tells 28-year old Henry about it, then it's a slight circular paradox. And I guess we'll resolve the tricky issue about destiny vs. free will later, unless you believe that the future is just as unchangeable as the past...

It's a bit of a male fantasy, to have a woman approach you in a library, say that she knows everything about you, and can't wait to get past the first few awkward dates and get to the physical stuff, which she's been thinking about for years...umm, and what was your name again? But then I suppose it's a bit of a female fantasy to have an older hunky man come visit you at random intervals and give you hints about your future marriage...sort of like that "Mystery Date" board game.

As the wife of a time traveler, Clare has to endure a lot - I won't reveal all the plot points because there are some genius-level "Aha!" moments - but for a man who's prone to blinking out, missing dates and occasional holidays is just the beginning. Except for having to explain his disappearances and cleaning up the things he drops, I suppose it isn't all that different from a relationship with a spouse who goes on a lot of unexpected business trips. But turning up naked in random locations is problematic for Henry - fortunately he keeps a set of clothes stashed at his office, he's got friends who cover for him, plus he learns how to break into stores, and run from angry mobs.

This movie didn't do so well at the box office last year, and I can sort of see why - some people might not have understood the non-linear timeline, or have spent as much time thinking about the implications of time-travel as I have. But to me this story is an allegory, since I think that we're all time-travelers - we're all moving through time, we just can't control the speed or the direction. We all face personal challenges and crises, and we're each lucky if we find someone to share our life, who manages to put up with our quirks. We all know, on some level, what our ultimate fate will be, even if we don't know the exact details about how or when it will happen. And over time, other people are going to pop in and out of our lives, sometimes at random intervals, so we all need to celebrate their presences and not begrudge their absences.

Also starring Ron Livingston, Arliss Howard, and perhaps my favorite character actor, Stephen Tobolowsky.

RATING: 9 out of 10 broken plates (1 point off for making me cry like a baby, otherwise a near-perfect film)

EDIT: Upon further review, I realized that a character from the book, Henry's ex-girlfriend, is completely absent from the movie. On a positive note, it simplifies the relationship between Henry and Clare, but on the other hand, it may OVER-simplify the relationship between Henry and Clare. The judges have ruled this to be a "push" and the original rating stands.