Project: Blog Different

To follow up my post on the Sci-Fi, Musical, Action, Dramatic-Comedy that was Southland Tales, I thought I would write about one of my all time favorite movies, and one that really hasn’t gotten a lot of respect since it came out 9 years ago: Frequency.

The premise is a fairly basic sci-fi plot: an aurora borealis causes a time rift in which a son can speak to his long deceased father via their old transistor radio.

The story though, is far better than your average sci-fi flick. The characters are deep, well acted, and feel awfully (read: awesomely) real. In addition to the intriguing plot and the good characters though, was that the film actually did make you feel things, an aspect which is often lost in action/sci-fi films. The father-son relationship, as well as the relationships of the two main charactors with the women in their lives, is well executed and definitely touching.

What puts the movie over the top though in my mind though, is the role that the New York Mets play. Dennis Quaid’s story takes place in the late 1960’s as the Mets win their first championship, and Jim Caviezel’s takes place in 1999 as the Mets are just starting to get good again. The two discuss baseball throughout the film and its Jim’s character’s telling of the 69′ series which eventually convinces Quaid’s character that they are really talking to each other. On a random note, the film also has a very young Michael Cera in one of his earliest roles.

Last note before I stop gushing about Frequency. I’m also extremely glad this film came out in 2000, and is set in 1999, and not after the September 11th attacks. The entire film is about the NYPD and NYFD, and in an honest and equally heroic/violent light. Any versions of this which could have come out later might have become a glossier take and reached for the artificial sentience which so many films did in the past 8 years. I guess that’s what I liked about the film though, was how it portrayed two of my favorite decades, the 60’s and the 90s, all connected by a little science fiction, and baseball.

Less than twenty two days remaining, for those counting.

What’s that voice in my head? I should actually discuss some critiques with the film too if I’m trying to give it a halfway decent review? I suppose that makes sense.

The film is incredibly male dominated. The only female character who is the least bit strong is Dennis Quaid’s wife, but even she is victimized later on in the film (sorry for the spoiler). The other female characters are minor at best, and while well acted, the script does lack in that department. My only other real qualm is that I’d love more explanation for how the Aurora opened the rift in time. While I’m certainly willing to suspend lots of disbelief, I’d love some sort of explanation on how it all happened, even if its full of faux-science.

This sort of movie is oddly refreshing. While its a good action/sci-fi which subtly pulls at your heart, it does so in a somewhat real manner, not a contrived “I’m going to make you cry” fashion like a Closer, or well any Lifetime movie. If you haven’t seen it, give it a peek, and if you have, then thanks for reading this far down in the entry.

Welcome back faithful reader(s)! I hope everyone reading this had a lovely Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanza/New Years/Festivus/Etc, and is looking forward to 2009.
The topic for this post is going to be the apocalypse, the end times, the end of the world, what have you. If that’s a little intense for a Monday afternoon, you might want to read elsewhere, but if you do stick around, I’m going to discuss the Israel/Palestine Conflict as well as the flick Southland Tales.

Here we are in early 2009, and the never-ending conflict in Israel continues. It seems every year or so there is some new reason (or a continued old reason) for strife, but always centered around Israel vs. Palestine, Judaism vs. Islam, People vs. People, Religion vs. Religion. This incarnation of the conflict has Israeli forces invading the Gaza region after being provoked by Palestinian rocketeers in previous months. The media’s coverage of the conflict has been interesting to say the least. The American media for the most part (lead by the fine folks over at Fox News) has showed a borderline holy Israel defending themselves against the terrorist Palestinians. Much on the international news, and more critical American media outlets have placed heavy blame on Israel for the invasion, portraying the Palestinians as the victims. This latter coverage has come to really upset many of my Jewish friends. The former coverage, as well as the complete lack of impartiality from the American government and the incoming Obama administration have outraged a good Muslim friend of mine.

It’s important to realize that neither peoples really support the conflict in majority, and that this is really the work of extremists from both sides. You might say, “well…the Palestinians elected Hamas, so they knew what they were getting into”. To begin with, think of all the bollocks which gets worked into our own election system here in the United States. Then realize, that this is one of the most soundly run voting systems in the world, probably behind some of the parliamentary systems in Europe. After realizing that, then head over to the Palestinian Election System which lacks a lot of the safeguards of our own (not superb) system. So its entirely possible the election wasn’t that representory of the people to begin with, second even if it was 100% legit, a party or administration in power rarely represents more than 50% of a nation, usually more like 35-40%. On top of that realize that the main opposition party to Hamas is the Fatah Party which the U.S. as well as Israel has been opposed to for the past few decades, and in fact was the reason the U.S. pushed for Hamas to gain some power in Israel to break up the Fatah Party’s lock on power.

My Take- People killing people is people killing people. It doesn’t matter if they have shiny uniforms on with brand new guns or if you are wearing scraps of clothes and are using Soviet era rocket launchers. Of course Hamas shouldn’t periodically fire rockets at Israeli targets, but at the same time Israel doesn’t have to respond with a full out war in Gaza. What makes it all even worse is that Gaza is one of the most heavily populated areas in the world and that civilians are being killed left and right. Even the non-civilians engaged in this are basically forced to risk their lives as Israel has a mandatory military.

If the U.S. is going to play world policeman (which is a debatable item), this is the first place we need to step in. We need to drop our 100% Pro-Israel stance and go in as a neutral firm, but not militant, power, and work with both sides, as well as Egypt, Syria, and other surrounding nations to create not only a cease fire but a more long term solution for giving some more land and rights to Palestinians while forcing Hamas to constitutionally respect Israel as a nation. Obviously easier said than done. It’s no wonder that most people seem to believe the end of the world will begin in the Middle East, and specifically Israel where the world’s three main religions began.

On a lighter note regarding the Apocalypse though, I viewed the film Southland Tales last week: a musical, action, dramatic-comedy about the end of the world. The film is directed by Richard Kelly (of Donnie Darko fame), and stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Sean William Scott, Justin Timberlake, and Sarah Michelle Geller. It also has a host of cameos and smaller role parts played by one of the most diverse and just plain awesome casts I’ve ever seen (Kevin Smith, Norah Dunn, 3+ Saturday Night Live alums, Wally Shawn, and many others.

The film takes the story of Revelations and sets it in an alternate 2008 in which the U.S. has been attacked with a Nuclear bomb and the government has become more militant and controlling of the people’s lives (in a realistic manner though, not far from reality), in which a company called USident has taken the Patriot Act to a new level and now controls all Law Enforcement, Fire Depts., Military, and most other similar organizations.

The film debuted in 2006 at Cannes with awful reviews, and was released later that year to slim Box Office results. I only heard of it because Kevin Smith discussed shooting it in his book “My Boring Ass Life”. The script is messy, the plot is convoluted, the acting looks forced at times, yet I really enjoyed it and was engrossed in it. I’ve owned for a week and already watched it twice as well as all the extra feature content. I’ve wanted to discuss it with my friends and coworkers and convinced my parents to Netflix it. Even though I have a deep rooted hatred for Justin Timberlake’s music from both N’Synch and especially his solo career, he was quite good acting in Tales and one of the film’s high points for me was a lip synching drug induced hallucination of him singing the Killers’ “All These Things That I’ve Done” while Marylyn Monroe-esque nurses dance about him. Despite its flaws, I walked away really enjoying the film on both surface entertainment levels, as well as deeper levels regarding the film’s social commentary on entertainment, government, resistance, religion, and just how easily the world could shift in harsh directions, if not end. Yet, it’s a comedy!