The Social Network

When Aaron Sorkin's name is attached to a project, you know I will be excited. It is just who I am. His hyper-literate self important characters speak to me and I want to be them. However, his name attached to a movie about Facebook was odd to me. To have it be directed by David Fincher, star Jesse Eisenberg, co-star Justin Timberlake and have the score done by Trent Renzor, looked off. On paper this is a movie that should not work. Then the teaser came out and I was hooked again. Then the full length trailer came out and it immediately became my must see fall movie. My expectations could not be managed or handled. I was setting myself to be disappointed because with every passing moment, I was getting more and more excited. I needed this movie in my life and that, as we all know, can be a problem. a little over a week before the release I got the chance to see it. Could it possibly live up to the expectations I set for it?

In Harvard in 2003 an awkward, yet arrogant young man, Mark Zuckerberg(Eisenberg) is being dumped by his girlfriend after he insulted her with his honesty. Drunk, depressed and lonely, Zuckerberg blogs. As he blogs, he creates a website where he puts the pictures of Harvard girls up and people can vote on which one is hotter. To do this, he has to hack into dorm websites and break a few other honor code laws, but in just over 2hrs, the site gets 22,000 hits and crashes the entire Harvard Internet server. This gets him in considerable trouble, but it also catches the attention of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss(both played by Armie Hammer) who are trying to build a Harvard dating website and need a programmer. Zuckerberg takes the job because these two guys belong to the most exclusive club at Harvard and Zuckerberg wants in. At the same time Zuckerberg gets the idea to create an entire on-line networking site. He wants to take the entire college experience and put it on-line at Harvard. He approaches his best friend Eduardo Savarin(Andrew Garfield) with the idea, Savarin loves it and puts up the capital to start it. The site, The Facebook, is an instant smash. Zuckerberg gets sued by the Wilklevoss twins, but the site keeps growing until it catches the attention of Sean Parker(Justin Timerlake) who created Napster. Sean has ideas on how to really make money from Facebook that will make them all rich.

Told with Aaron Sorkin's trademark fractured narrative, The Social Network not only met my insane expectations, it surpassed them. The story is told to us through the two lawsuits involving Zuckerberg. The winklevoss twins' suit and Eduardo's suit against him for pushing him out of the company. In between the scenes of the depositions, we get filled in on what happened, from all of the different perspectives. The film does not point fingers with any confidence, it just presents the factually based story and allows the audience to make up their own minds as to what really happened. Sorkin's script is absolutely perfect. His dialogue blisters off of the screen when spoken by Eisenberg and company, but he also gets the stuff on the outskirts of the dialogue. Sorkin understands the pacing of this story and he knows how to create polarizing characters. he presents this story with biting commentary on the world in which we live, but he also allows the characters to find their voices.

The characters, as portrayed by the entire company are really something to watch. Eisenberg is a revelation as Zuckerberg. He plays him with insane arrogance, but he also plays the withdrawn, unsure side with just as much zest. Eisenberg is already adept at playing fast talking characters, but here is always speaking with purpose. He is a man with no filter and he knows he is the smartest person of any room, including his peers at Stanford. However, what really sold me on him was everything that happened after the Sean Parker character is introduced. Eisenberg's transformation from that moment is stunning. For his Timberlake sets the movie on fire. The manic glint in his as he tries to sell himself to the idea of being on the Facebook team is excellent and he handles the "Sean Parker is crazy" stuff with realism as well. He loses his Justin Timberlake-ness every time he comes on the screen and he leaves a trail of flames every time he exits the picture. Andrew Garfield (our new Spider Man) is remarkable as Edaurdo Savarin. He is kind of our hero in a way. He is the one we really feel bad for, but Garfield is not going for our sympathy, really. He plays Savarin as a man who is arrogant, and savvy, but also wounded and loyal. He believes in the friendship fully.

David Fincher took a risk with this picture, I think. Fincher has a distinct look in his films and The Social Network does not really fit that look. Fincher decides the story, the dialogue and the characters can tell this story and they just need someone to gently point them in the right direction. Fincher does the job exactly how he should. He does get to add his touch, with the colors, especially the way the movie transforms the color scheme when the action moves to Los Angeles. I also love the way he shot the Regatta race. I like that he included the Regatta race. I am not sure it is totally needed, but it added something to the Wilklevoss characters. It kind of makes you ache for them a bit. I love the way the camera or the way it was edited can totally change a moment and capture the tiniest moment from Zuckerberg. The score is also top notch. Reznor's moody, cynical hypnotic searing score adds so much to the entire mood of the film, especially in the scene where Zuckerberg has created the girl rating site and the student body is exploring it.

I cannot say enough amazing things about this movie and there are probably people out there who have been able to better articulate their thoughts, but here I am four days removed from the film and all I can think about is how excited I am to see it again. The opening scene's buzzing back and forth dialogue, to Justin Timberlake's excellently delivered "A million dollar's isn't cool. You know what's cool..A Billion dollars" and everything else is stunning. The movie not only features all of this technical jargon, that sounds pretty good actually, but it has these epic lines like "Every creation myth needs a devil." Aaron Sorkin is the star of this movie, but his performance in writing it enhancing everything else we see and hear. No one knows controlling like Sorkin and here is has crafted this perfectly complex character with Mark Zuckerberg and Eisenberg plays each of those complex layers in a way that you can, at times, feel for Zuckerberg. All he wanted was this girl and in the end his inability to connect to people in a real way was his downfall. He created this perfect tool for faking real connection, while allowing us to stay completely detached and perhaps that is the only thing Zuckerberg really knows.

It is a fast and funny movie as well. Do not get bogged down in the idea of law stuff, or computer geek stuff. The Social Network has everything you need. It comes armed with great jokes, very smartly written jokes at that. It has teenage awkwardness. It hints at sex, it has intrigue to go along with all of the bad ass dialogue. The Social Network will most likely end up as my favorite movie of the year and to be honest, it will probably end up as one of my all time favorite movies if subsequent viewings hold up, like I expect they will. It is a case of master craftsman coming together for one amazing project and hitting it in every beat, scene, word, sound, and frame. There is not a wasted moment to be found in the very tightly paced 2 hour movie and I truly cannot wait until Friday when I can see it again.

Final Grade: A+

P.S. If "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies" is not the best tagline for a movie, show me what is?

Easy A

I remember first hearing about this movie thinking "A modern day, teenage version of The Scarlett Letter sounds painful!" When I read what the movie was actually going to be, I was a bit more interested and when they cast the lovely, charming and hilarious Emma Stone as the lead, I was very much more excited. Ever since Superbad, I have felt Emma Stone was a star in waiting. She outshone Anna Farris in House bunny and I have just been anticipating the moment she got the chance to break out. She is sexy, but in a way that hits you differently. She comes off as approachable, and whip smart, but sexy. She is a very version of Ellen Page and it is kind of fitting that this is her break out role, because in a lot of ways, Easy A comes off as a sexier version of Juno. And your enjoyment of this movie might depend on if you want a sexier, little more mainstream version of Juno.

Olive(Stone) is a girl telling us a story through a webcam. She lets the audience know "There are two sides to every story and this is mine, the right one." Olive was once par tof the faceless masses at her high school. She spent her weekends in her room lip-syncing to "Pocketful of Sunshine" and she gets straight A's and never causes a stir. She has a sexy, slutty best friend, Rhiannon(Aly Michalka) who bugs Olive to tell her the story of the date Olive said she had. Olive made the whole thing up, but soon the rumor went around that Olive was kind of slutty. She lived up the notoriety. She kind of gets off on the infamy. However, things start to spiral for her when she fake has sex with a gay guy to help his reputation. Soon she has losers of all types paying her in gift cards to fake have sex with her. The Christian group on campus, led by Marianne starts to make her life hell and instead of fessing up to the stuff, Olive decides to wear it proudly. As she is studying The Scarlett Letter in English class, Olive decides to stitch a giant red A on her entire new slutty wardrobe.

I am not sure I can do the movie justice in terms of the story, but I think I did a pretty good job. What matters most is that Easy A is flat out hilarious! Emma Stone is absolutely wonderful in every aspect of the film. She is funny, vulnerable and makes it sort of believable that this ridiculous story could happen. She is the entire movie, so it really hinges on her performances. She reacts well to her fellow students and to the adults that pepper the movie as well. Thomas Hayden Church as her English teacher, Lisa Kudrow as the counselor, Malcolm McDowell as the principal and the absolutely delightful couple of Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive's parents all offer something to better the film. Amanda Bynes does great work as the Christian leader and Penn Badgley shows up as the potential love interest for Olive and is not at all afraid to get goofy.

Easy A offers a lot to things that came before it. yes, it clearly is influenced by The Scarlett Letter, but as a work of post-modern film, it also owes worlds to the movies of John Hughes and it acknowledges it by explicitly referencing them and showing clips from them. In fact, the film is, at times, a Ferris Bueller style fairy tale, and it nods to Ferris Bueller with a shower scene Mohawk and later it shows a clip from the movie. Olive, as a narrator is interesting because she admits from the beginning there are two sides to the story and to be honest, the story is outrageous and if you stop to think about where the story goes you might forget to just sit back and enjoy the show.

Tucci and Clarkson, as these hippie style parents get the most laughs, and are clearly inspired by Juno. The film is also hyper literate and very very smart. The dialogue is quick witted, Olive talks like an adult and the film is very knowing in how unlike real life it is, but it also lovingly mocks 1980s movies, while giving us the closest thing to a John Hughes movie as we can probably get these days. Everything in this film is coated with a great sense of humor and self awareness that even when it spins out of control, and it does spin out of control, you can forgive it because it is so genuinely hilarious. I love the reference to Mark Twain's Huck Finn and the callback to it towards the end of the film and I love how smart it is in general.

I laughed my way through the whole movie and for a comedy that is all you really need, but I also think Emma Stone is going to break out in this movie, the way Reese Witherspoon did in Legally Blonde, or Lindsay Lohan did in Mean Girls. Comparisons to Mean Girls abound in reviews all over the place, but I actually think movie is funnier and even zanier than Mean Girls. It gets just as unrealistic, and they are both offering a different kind of commentary on high school but this does it better. The English teacher has a few great rants, especially one on Facebook and how teenagers think everything they say is the most important and pressing issue in the world. Yes, Easy A is having its cake and eating it too, but when it is this much fun, I am perfectly okay with it.

Final Grade: A-

The Town

It seems like only yesterday Ben Affleck was kryptonite for a movie. If you put him in your film, it would fail, but not only would it fail, it would be panned mercilessly. I always felt like he got a bad rap because of his relationship with Jennifer Lopez. He was the ultimate victim of this idea of celebrity overwhelming the work. Go back and watch some of those movies and you will see they are not the worst movies ever made. Affleck did a smart thing after that. he took a supporting role in HollywoodLand and then he co-wrote and directed the absolutely stunning Gone Baby Gone. His eye and ear for detail in the mean street of Boston coupled with this excellent story of moral ambiguity mixed with a wonderful set of performances revitalized Affleck's career and took it in a completely different direction. Of course the first questions asked about The Town, from inside my brain, were all about whether Gone Baby Gone was a fluke, a one off perfect storm that caused Affleck to succeed. Would The Town realize my fears, or brush them aside?

Charlestown, Ma, a small blue collar town just outside of Boston is the bank heist capital of the United States. They are big on car jacking and muggings as well. it is a place for people with no real future and who are doing anything to scratch out a living. Doug(Affleck) and James(Jeremy Renner) are life long best friends who were raised on these mean streets and they run a four man crew of bank robbers. On one of their jobs, James gets out of hand and they briefly take a hostage, Claire(Rebecca Hall) and worried that she will cause problems, James wants her offed. Doug does not want murder on his hands, so he says he will watch her, but he does more than watch her. He falls for her. With the F.B.I, led by Agent Frawley, on their heels, Doug wants to take some time before their next project, but James is a hot head and Doug owes him, but when things go terribly wrong, Doug wants out. He wants Claire to go with him and he wants to find a way to start fresh away from the old neighborhood. Agent Frawley will do anything he can to put a stop to as much of this serial bank robbery as possible, but can he catch these guys?

The Town is a tight, intense and raw film starting to solidify Ben Affleck's career as a big time director. His acting is good, serviceable, if a little lackluster when compared to Jeremy Renner, but the pacing of the film is excellent and his confidence as a director shines through. He is not afraid to establish the world in which we are immersed. If the characters are a bit flat and the relationships a bit rushed, it can be forgiven because he establishes the world with these great B-roll shots of a broken, beaten little offshoot of Boston. The dialogue is incredibly blue-collar and filthy and the accents are all very hard. Everyone is just a bit dirty and there is a whole layer of filth covering everything. We understand the world from the on-screen text, but Affleck does not let the text do all fo the work, he works hard for us to understand why these characters feel trapped the way they do.

Aside from that work, Affleck gets great performances out of everybody, including Blake Lively, who has limited screen time, but makes the most of it. She is believable, makes interesting choices and overall made an impression on me. She is probably capable of more than just playing rich snobby girls on The CW. Jon Hamm has the thankless task of playing the "cop" role. It is a role that is so often thrown away in films like this, but Hamm is a presence! He has real star power and he delivers Ferocious lines with juicy intensity, including the most hardened line in the screenplay that will leave you in between a giggle and shock. However, Jeremy Renner is the star of this show. In The Hurt Locker, Renner had a tightly wound intensity, but here he lets loose and goes for it. His accent, line delivery, mannerisms and just the way he carries himself, you never once question whether or not he will go crazy, it is just a matter of when.

One of the most brilliant moments in this film comes at a cafe. It starts as a fairly innocent scene, an almost cute scene and by injecting Renner's character into it, the entire scene flips and Affleck brilliantly handles the scene shift and the pacing of the scene and the editing of the scene all change at exactly the right time. Of course, this scene is not what everyone is going to be talking about, but it was this scene that made me a full believer in the picture. That is not to say the big action sequences are not great because they are. The opening bank heist is a wonderful introduction into what kind of movie we are watching. Full of quick cuts, striking violence and this gritty realism Affleck exudes, the opening Heist really captures the audience, but if the rest of the film had been mishandled, it would not have been so impressive.

To say The Town borrows from Michael Mann's Heat may be obvious, but Affleck does not just copy it, he makes it his own. Yes, he was clearly influenced by it, but I have seen many movies with big shoot outs clearly inspired by Michael Mann, including other Michael Mann movies, that were not successful. The final shoot out in this, though, is incredibly successful. The bullets sounds like they are whizzing by your head and they pop with such violence that you cringe and bullets fly like the world is running out of them and they all need to be shot off to save the world. When you think the shoot out is over and then it spills out into the world, then it gets even more intense for a few seconds. You actually wonder who will live and who will die and I like when a movie can do that.

Really great intense movies do not come around all that often and The Town does the job. It is intense, for sure, but it also entertains. It is an edge of your seat cops and robbers story, where you are not entirely sure you know what you want to have happen to the characters. Affleck's attention to detail as a director overshadows his own performances and the love story might feel a bit shoe-horned and rushed, but there is so much to love about the movie that it can be forgiven. It is worth seeing for Renner's performance alone, but there is so much more to enjoy. From beginning to end, The Town succeeds!

Final Grade: A-

P.S. one of the best things about bank heist movies is seeing the masks and the masks in this one do not disappoint.

The American

From people on The Facebook I have heard nothing but how boring this movie was. I have heard from critics I read that the movie was smart, slow and ultimately rewarding. George Clooney is a strange animal. He has this old school movie star charm, but he often makes movies not for the general public consumption. He is not afraid to remove his natural charm to make a movie. He has always chased movies/roles that interest him, even if he has to fight hard for them. He is never content just being Clooney and doing that Ocean's 11 thing in every film. For every Ocean's he does a Michael Clayton and so on. The American, from the trailers, looked like Clooney's foray into the action movie, his Jason Bourne style role, but those reviews I mentioned at the top had me believing the trailers were quite misleading.

Jack(Clooney) is a man of few words and in those words most of them are lies. He is a killer, but "cold blooded" does not really describe him. he is certainly a man who has seen too much and done too much to ever really find peace and when he finds a girl, he has to kill her. This is the beginning of the movie. He is being chased by people from Sweden, so he hides in a little town near Rome. He wants to do one more job and then get out. He meets a hooker, he meets a priest and he tries to keep his head down. If this sounds a bit straight forward it is. Jack wants out of the game and he wants to take his hooker away and try and find some peace. That is pretty much it.

The American is a very slow, deliberate, quiet movie. It might be the first arthouse assassin movie. It opens with this quick burst of violence, has 1 or 2 more quick bursts of violence, including a quick car chase, but other than that, it is a very moody, atmospheric film. It has a minimalistic score, but every time you start to hear the score, you pay close attention because the film gets tense in those moments. The cinematography is gorgeous and we get a lot of wide shots of sunsets, bodies of water and bodies of water. There are long stretches in the movie where we hear almost nothing because nothing is being said. We are just watching Clooney quietly try and live his life. Can it be boring? Yes, there are times when I was wondering what the hell the point of it all was.

Clooney has excelled in playing these guys who are lonely, but they are lonely because of what they do, or that they prefer it that way. In this movie, it is clear the character does not want to be lonely any longer. He finds this knock out hooker and while it starts as just him paying for sex, it moves into something much more. There is a fair amount of female nudity and there is a sex scene that could be considered awkward because it is not set to gorgeous music and you just see the girl the whole time. There is break from it. It certainly turned on the couple seated to my right. Of course, the movie may have just been boring them.

The direction is nice, if a little on the lacking side. Both of the on-foot chases look exactly the same, which is never a good sign for an action scene. The blocking could have been a little less bland, but the set up the camera and shoot thing kind of works. I mean there is toying with close ups and such, but often the movie is shot from this semi wide angle and we just kind of see what is in camera.

Also, it is the kind of movie where you know exactly how it is going to end and you spend most of the movie hoping it does not end that way. For whatever reason, because of the subject matter, the star, the tone, or pacing, you just know exactly where the movie is going and that is not a bad thing necessarily, but I did spend the final 40 minutes hoping to be thrown for a loop.

There is not a lot to recommend about the movie and there is not a lot to talk about, either. The movie is this pseudo navel gazing arthouse movie starring one of the biggest A-listers in the game. There are no other known American actors, the director is not well known, the guy who did the score is a German musician and the story does not appear to be something that interests American audiences. I am sure there are plenty of people who feel like you did not get the movie if you did not like it, but I am not that person. I enjoyed the film, but have no trouble believing people out there will find it dull and awfully slow.

Final Grade: C

Machete

I will never understand how this movie got made. I will never understand how Robert Rodriguez was able to con a studio into giving him the money to make a full length Grindhouse style movie from a fake trailer Rodriguez made to put in front of the under performing Grindhouse. Then, how he got Robert De Niro to agree to be in it with Steven Segal, Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan is a whole other story. Regardless of what Rodriguez had to agree to do, or how he worked his trickery, he did it. He got this movie made. They released a Cinco De Mayo trailer and took some jabs at the Arizona racial profiling bill, which is somewhat factored into the story. So going into the movie my main thought was "How did they get this movie made?" and my question coming out of the movie was "How did they get this movie made?"

Machete(Danny Trejo) is one bad ass Federali. By his nickname you can guess his weapon of choice and he uses it to hack off various body parts and basically clean shop, but the man was betrayed by the chief and a naked girl, who pulls a cell phone out of her vagina after stabbing Machete. Cut to a few years later and Machete is just another illegal alien in the United State looking for work. He makes friends with Luz(Michelle Rodriguez) and is being watched by Sartana(Jessica Alba), who works for Immigration. Machete is approached by Booth(Jeff Fahey) to kill Senator McLaughlin(De Niro), but it was a set up and soon all of Texas is looking for Machete. McLaughlin is courting the hardcore Conservative vote by wanting to build a protective fence to keep illegals out and this shooting has him rising in the polls. All the while Luz has set up an underground army of Mexicans ready to fight for the right to be in The USA.

Told with complete tongue in cheek violence, cheesy B-movie dialog and acting, Machete hits and misses, but ultimately falls flat. Danny Trejo is an invaluable character actor in so many roles, but as the leading man, he just does not have enough presence. Rodriguez wisely gives him minimal dialogue, but he just cannot carry the movie. Because of this, Rodriguez has assembled an impressive roster of actors both A list and C list. Jeff Fahey is a wonderful talent and does great work in this movie and his subplot involving his dirty thoughts towards his daughter, Lindsay Lohan, provides the one subplot I actually liked. De Niro is clearly having a blast hamming it up and both Alba and Michelle Rodriguez are bad ass enough, but the characters really should have been condensed into one character to save us about 10 minutes. Michelle is sexy as hell in the climax and Alba does get to kick some nice ass using the heel of a stiletto as a weapon.

The action is such a mixed bag. The movie starts off incredibly strong with this twisted, gory action sequence and it ends with a huge bang in terms of action, but the few action sequences in the middle of the movie are not as impressive. Robert Rodriguez seems a little gun shy at times to really let loose on the movie. he understands how not to take himself or the material seriously, but something is just missing with this one. A part of it is the material just does not warrant a feature length movie. It feels stretched way beyond what it should be. We get these side characters played by people like Don Johnson that do not serve enough of a function to make an impact on the screen or on the story.

Steven Seagal being the main villain was absolutely a big draw for me. I know that sounds stupid, but I grew up watching his movies on television. I loved his 1980s persona as a quiet, effective anti-hero who could not be killed. To see him as the full on villain was a treat and he did not disappoint. While he certainly does not move the way he used to, I had a total blast watching him squint and angrily whisper his way through the movie.

Machete does not lose the sense of ridiculousness as Lindsay Lohan is seen in a Nun's uniform shooting De Niro with a shot gun and for some that is worth the price of admission, but I cannot say I that I had as good a time as I had hoped. I loved Grindhouse, both halves, but this is almost Grindhouse light. Rodriguez had the actors and they were clearly game for whatever he was going to throw at them, but he squandered the opportunity, which is too bad because I was really hoping to just sit back and have one hell of a ride.

Final Grade: C-

The State Theater

I imagine anyone reading this blog came to it because they know me. I doubt too many people who check this blog out are randoms, and if they are, it should be evident I love movies. Movies have always been a huge part of my life. My family sees a movie every Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that is merely the tip of the iceberg. My dad and mom still go rent movies almost every weekend and when I lived at home and was not in a show, I would sit on the couch with my parents and watch a dvd with them. I can barely remember a time when movies were not a huge part of who I am. I was 13, though, when I fell in love with movies. I am not going to delve into that here, maybe another time, but my love of movies extends beyond just movies. I love movie theaters.

Everyone has some way of coping with a bad day: retail therapy, drinking, whatever it is...I go to a movie theater and watch a movie. I love the entire experience and I like being to just sit in a dark theater, turn off the world and get sucked in. If movie theaters act an escape to me, The State Theater was like my fortress. Before I was old enough to work there, I would spend entire days of my summer watching all 3 movies the theater had to offer. It is a glorious old movie house, rich in history and full of secrets. Opening in 1937, The State theater was built specifically as a movie house. It was a single auditorium seating over 800 people and in the 1980s it expanded to include 2 much smaller auditoriums.

By the time I started to frequent the place in the early 1990s, some of the luster or polish had been knocked off, but it was still special to me. When I was old enough to work, I just wanted to work there and luckily for me, I got the chance. It was the dream high school job. There was enough downtime to do whatever school work/line learning I had and there were all the free movies, soda and popcorn. But it was more than that. For the most part, I was with like minded people. My managers and I would spend hours discussing movies, coming up with promotions and just reveling in the fact that this was our job. I spent my summers loving my job and I could often be found working on projects like a giant paper mache spaceship to promote Men In Black.

Towards the end of my senior year, the business was sold and when the new regime came in, we all quit, but after two years, I could not help but go back to watching movies there. Quickly, I started to chat up the new manager every time I went in and for years I looked forward to learning insider movie stuff from him. When I decided to go back to college and get my degree, I had to quit my full time job and find something part time. Fate struck again as I went in to watch Grindhouse. The manager, Mike, asked me if I happened to be looking for work. I jumped at the chance to work there again! So, for the last 3 plus years I worked there again.

The State Theater was always more than a job to me. I liked the paycheck sure, but on a bad day, I could go in on my day off and just hang out. I loved the people, I loved the regular customers, and I loved the atmosphere. That building is so rich in personal history and movie history. It is the place I suffered my first concussion, I watched a man get caught cheating by his wife on New Year's Eve there. I celebrated 4 or 5 birthdays there. There are countless other memories tied to that place. When I worked there the second time, the other employees became a second family to me. I still talk to hang out with most of them. School and work meant my participation in Community Theater had to be put on pause, and I did not mind it because for so long working at the theater was so much fun.

I do not want to over-romanticize my time there in any way because most of my close friends know my last few months there were extremely rough on me, but even after I quit, I kept going back, both to watch movies and to hang out. As recently as 3 weeks ago, when I was having a soul crushingly bad night, I got in my car, and drove right to the theater, just to hang out and to see my second family.

In a year where I got my heart broken, lost two extremely valuable friendships, saw my family move and saw the house I called my home for 21 years get put on the market, The closing of The State Theater came as a true blow to me. I saw the warning signs starting last November, and even when Mike told me it was probably going to happen back in July, I did not want to believe it. How could this place close down? How could this big gorgeous building that housed movies not succeed any longer? I know the answers but they are not important. On Tuesday of this week when I went into the theater to pick up my last check, it killed me. From the time I was 13, this place was my escape and now it is gone and even if it comes back, which I pray to God it does, will it really be the same? It does seem fitting that the ties I have to Woodland get less and less as I try to go away from it, but The State Theater and Mike running it felt timeless.

A part of me will always be sad to have lost this place. I kind of thought it would be the kind of place I would take my family to and show them around, and take them on a tour to see all of the random doors and rooms. I was thinking I could take my kids behind the screen in State 1 and show them the projectors and how the movies work. I know the building looks old now and I know it was starting to get too rundown, and I know that is what people saw, but it is never what I saw. I always saw the movie magic of a place like that. I always wondered the stories the walls had from the 1940s and 1950s.

I always said if I had the money, I would buy that place, fix it up and help it become what it once was. I think The State Theater could still be the catalyst to help revitalize the Downtown Woodland area and I know many other people in the town feel the same way. While Woodland is looking more and more like a big box town, there is a rich history in the town that needs to not be forgotten and I truly believe The State Theater symbolizes that. Even as I sit here typing this, I am reminded of all of the memories I made there and how I hope other people get the opportunity to make such memories for themselves.

Going the Distance

I cannot really put my finger on why I wanted to see this movie, but I really wanted to see it. I felt like there was a chance it would be surprisingly funny, or genuinely sweet or something. It was like there was something beneath the trailer that was pulling me into the film. I am not particularly fond of Drew Barrymore and buying Justin Long as a romantic lead proved difficult in He's Just not that into you, so I really have no idea why I being drawn to it. A friend saw it and loved it, so that kind of solidified my need to check this flick out. With the summer movie season coming to an end and no real great comedies birthed out of the season, would this movie give me the kind of laughs I had craved? Or at least the warm romantic side of my being satisfied?

Erin(Barrymore) is a 31yr old summer intern in a dying field(newspaper reporting) She is in New York for the summer, but Stanford's Grad program awaits her. Garrett is a man unable to truly commit to a girl and is also working in a dying field(music A&R). The two meet one night, get incredibly drunk and have a great time together. They have such a good time, they decide to spend the rest of summer, 6 weeks, together, with the knowledge whatever they are doing will end when Erin goes back west. At the end of the 6 weeks, neither wants it to end, so they decide to give a long distance relationship a try. Both people have relatively non-supportive friends and family, and the time difference and expensive plane tickets complicate matters, but they really love each other. Erin tries to find Newspaper work in New York and Garrett tries to find music work in San Francisco, but when Erin gets a job opportunity at a paper in San Francisco, tough decisions have to be made.

If I were to tell you that Going the Distance is the funniest movie I have seen all year, you probably would think I was kidding, right? Well I am not kidding, it is flat out the funniest movie I have seen all year. It is raunchy, hilarious, kind of sweet and just flat out a great movie. The trailers are misleading like crazy. I did not know this was rated R, but it is a hard R with great dirty jokes that are clearly inspired from the Judd Apatow school of film making, but here the girls ge to play as well. Barrymore and Christina Applegate, as Barrymore's sister, have this great conversation about how they hate when a guy looks up while going down on a girl, which Barrymore acts out, to surprisingly hilarious results. Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day play Garrett's best friends and every time either one is on screen, hilarity will ensue. Day has great subtle comic timing and Sudeikis's loud bold humor blends perfectly with that. There are moments where the guys are just sitting at a bar having these hilarious conversations or asking ridiculous questions, or discussing how Day never sees baby pigeons anywhere.

Aside from the great conversations, there are entire scenes where funny things keep building. In the trailer you get a glimpse of the scene where Justin Long is fake tanning, but that scene builds a lot more into the next scene where there is table sex going on, which you also get a glimpse of in the trailer, but the scene keeps going and getting more absurd and bleeds into more scenes and just keeps getting funnier. Jim Gaffigan provides Gaffigan style humor to Erin's brother-in-law and that is always appreciated. Long and Barrymore are no slouches in the comedy department either. While they are the "straight man" roles, they get plenty of funny stuff to do.

The romantic part of the movie is nice as well. The 6 week montage is a little labored, but I believed the rest of it and I believed the challenges of the long distance thing, but also believed these two loved each other and wanted to make it work. I like that the movie did not take the easiest way out possible. I think the climax was inevitable and the resolving event also pretty inevitable, but they went about it in a different way than I was expecting, which is nice. I know Barrymore and Long are a couple in real life, and that is nice, but their on screen chemistry does, at times, come off as too friendly. This is not necessarily a bad thing because it really helps the first 25 minutes, but I guess I was hoping for a bit more heat.

Going the Distance is a surprisingly hilarious and at times, shocking movie that can easily enjoyed by both men and women. The first 25 minutes are absolutely laugh out loud funny and as the movie settles in it offers plenty of other funny moments. I was disappointed by a lot of the comedy thrown at me this summer, but this makes up for it in many ways. Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis deserve to enjoy the breakout success Zack Galifinakis enjoyed after The Hangover last year and I hope to see them in a lot more movies in the near future. Do yourself a favor and check it out!

Fall 2010 television (new shows)

This is mostly for Taylor, who has been asking for it, but also for anyone else who reads this thing and for whatever reason cares about my opinion.

The Fall 2010/Spring 2011 television season is going to be interesting for me because two of my favorite shows, 24 and Lost, are now gone. Granted they both aired in the Spring, but I feel a void has been left in my viewing habits, in terms of the serialized mystery and the action genres. The Fall season always offers a whole host of new shows, 3 or 4 of which I watch all the way through and another few I start off watching and eventually stop. I am not going to go through every new show, but go with the 6 or 7 I am definitely checking for and a few others I am going to at least give a shot.

The 5 I will definitely be watching:

6/7. Walking Dead/Boardwalk Empire- These shows are not on your regular channels, so I am going to lump them together. Walking Dead does not premiere until November anyway. Walking Dead is about, well, zombies. I am not sure how that will play every week, but it is created by Frank Darabont and the pedigree is insane. Boardwalk Empire is another show with a great pedigree, produced by Scorcese and the pilot was directed by him as well. I will have to download these shows to keep up, but they are both interesting to me.

5. Nikita- I think this show is going to fill the 24 void in terms of action. Maggie Q is sexy as hell and The few television critics I like say the pilot is great and should work. The fact that it is on the CW should worry me, but my favorite current show, Supernatual is on that channel. I know the CW believes strongly in the show and the action from the trailers make it look pretty awesome.

4. No ordinary Family- The Incredibles/Fantastic Four hybrid show, that looks like it has the sense of humor Heroes generally lacked. The cast is really strong, even if it might take a few episodes to see them in new roles. Chiklis as a good family man and not as a cop who killed people, is going to be tough. I am pretty excited for more superpower stuff on television, and the effects look pretty good. I guess the show could go either way, but I am optimistic for it.

3. Lone Star- I need a low down dirty soap in my life and this one fits the bill. Actually it seems this is the show people/critics are most intrigued by. The story looks interesting, steamy and sexy and Jon Voight was great in 24, so I am sure he will be great in this Dallas-esque show. I am not entirely sure what is going on, but I think the mystery is part of the hook. I am kind of following the lead of the critics on this one.

2. Undercover- J.J Abrams produced/created television will always be high on my to-watch list. This sexy spy show is not different. It looks a bit like Alias, which is not inherently a bad thing. I like spy shows, and I like watching sexy people do sexy spy things. Much has been made of the African American leads, but it will not matter if the show is not good. Abrams knows how to create tension and put people in awesome circumstances and the two leads are sexy as hell. The tension will carry this show for sure.

1. The Event- I do get sucked into these types of shows and they can reward me like Lost, or frustrate me by getting cancelled like FlashForward, or they can just burn out like Heroes.I am always willing to take the chance that one will capture me the way Lost did. A kidnapping, a hit on the President and other crimes are not the event but they lead up to the event. We do not know what the event is, but I want to know just based on what little I have seen. This show has the biggest potential to fail miserably, but I kind of like that as well. I like the risk factor, even if I can get my heart ripped out.

Some other potential shows:

Hawaii 5-0- I would not think this is a show I will like, but Scott Caan and Daniel Dae Kim being involved interests me a lot more. I am sure it is going to be a more raw show than the original and that could be cool, but as far a cop shows go, it is going to be hard for something to be more interesting than The Wire or The Shield. Still, I think I will check it out.

Running Wilde/Mike and Molly- A year after Modern Family and Cougar town made me think interesting sitcoms were making a comeback, nothing in that genre really does much for me. These two I am going to check out based mostly on the cast. Running Wilde has Keri Russell and Will Arnett, both of whom have great television credentials and Mike and Molly has Sookie from Gilmore Girls and is about fat people, of which I am one. Because they are only 22 minute long, they might work for me.

Detroit 1-8-7- I think this kind of looks like NYPD Blue, but in Detroit, which means it could be even more raw and gritty. I loved NYPD Blue, so I am going to give this show a few weeks to grow on me. It might end up being too procedural for my tastes, but it could end up being a really interesting cop show.

Guilty Pleasure television:

Hellcats: It is a show about sexy cheerleaders on The CW. I should not have to say much more. I am sure the show is awful, trashy and probably going to get cancelled after 1 season, but I am excited for the catfights, cheerleader skirts and sexy time!!