"A Screenwriter's Inception"

ADAPTION.

Year: 2002
Country: United States
Language: English
Number: 1008
Script: Charlie Kaufman, Donald Kaufman
Director: Spike Jonze
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox
Oscar wins: Best Supporting Actor (Chris Cooper)
Oscar nominations: Best Actor (Nicholas Cage), Best Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep), Best Adapted Screenplay 

Charlie Kaufman is probably one of the few screenwriters around that is known for being a screenwriter, without being a director too. He have also done the extraordinary thing of being more famous than the directors he's worked with, and for once we have a writer that gets the credit he deserves. Do you remember who directed "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind"? Adaptation is his semi-autobiography, his eight and a half. It's a great insight of how a writer thinks. It's all of Kaufman's thoughts, his writer's blocks that drives the story.

This is the story: The successful screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicholas Cage), who's had a great success with the script for "Being John Malkovich" is having problem with adapting Susan Orlean's (Meryl Streep) best selling non-fiction novel "The Orchid Thief" into a screenplay. The novel focuses on her investigation around the orchid-stealing red neck, John Laroche (Chris Cooper) who seems to have a great passion for Orchids. A passion that Susan wished she had. But the book ends with something that seems to be an unfulfilled love affair hidden in the subtext, which seems to be the problem with the story, since nothing between Susan and John not really happens, which Charlie find hard to adapt. So instead he decides to write a screenplay about himself trying to write the screenplay, which of course is the movie itself.

Adaptation is loosely based on Kaufman's own experiences of trying to adapt the novel. With loosely it means that for instant that Charlie also has a twin brother named Donald (also Nicholas Cage) who's a big fan of structured Hollywood storytelling, and sees the famous story guru Robert McKee (Brian Cox) as his idol. While Charlie wants to be as independent and original as possible. Donald Kaufman does not exists. It's clearly one of Charlie's personalities, an inner struggle between the structured story telling and the original and pessimistic storytelling, with on-screen narration where Charlie constantly thinks for himself "I'm fat, I'm ugly, I'm Bald".

It's a wonderful meta film, or something deeper than that. Like a screenwriter's Inception. It's a story about a story under development, it seems to take form while we watch it, a character written story. Remember when Jeff Daniels played a character on the silver screen in Woody Allen's "Purple Rose of Cairo" that suddenly jumps out of the screen and into the real world. In Adaptation it feels like the opposite, that the writers jumps into the screen to fix the movie and give us the ending we desperately need. And it also show us all the storytelling techniques and cliches that no matter how hard we try, we can't hide from them.



Other things besides the amazing screenplay is the amazing cast, with Nicholas Cage in one of his greatest performances, who kind of resemblance Gene Wilder's character in The Producer, in sense of look and lack of self confidence. Cage does a great job in giving us two different performances, with such a big contrast, but at the same time a great comical chemistry, because they are in-fact twins. Meryl Streep give us as always a superb performance, but it's Chris Cooper who steels the show, with his southern accent, missing front teethes and with a red neck attitude that is a great contrast to his love for orchids. He really deserved that Oscar.

My conclusion of Adaptation is that it's a great meta meta film, with one of the most original screenplays that jokes about the story structure itself, by breaking it on purpose. It's specially a treat for those who have read Robert McKee's book to look at this film with admiration and wondering. But it doesn't matter if you have read the book or not, because his lectures in the film give us a great insight into his theories. Adaptation is simply a screenwriter's joy, and it's also an inspiring film for those who might want to become a writer, no matter what medium. Thumbs up.

Grade: A

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"Ever considered taking an Airplane?"

MONSTERS

Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English, Spanish
Number: 1082
Director: Gareth Edwards
Starring: Whitney Able, Scoot McNairy

Monsters is a science fiction film that takes place in a not so distant future, where NASA have found life on one of Jupiter's moons. A probe is launched to collect samples, but crashes upon re-entry over Mexico, and a new alien life form begins to develop into an octopus-like creature which is spreading fast. And half of Mexico is quarantined as an "infected zone", and the US and the Mexican military struggles to exterminate the aliens without causing collateral damages . The plot is set some years later in the unaffected Mexico, where alien attacks is quiet usual, in which we follow the Photographer Andrew Kaulder, who's tries to get good pictures of the situation, but he gets another mission: to get the chief editor's daughter, Sam, in safety back to the US. Getting away with boat is impossible, so they have to go through the infected zone.

Monsters is after my opinion one of the worst, and least thought off science fiction scripts that I've ever seen! I'm not a nerd, but this is one of those films where lack of common logic is ruining the film experience. My essential question is: Isn't there any air plains? Why not go south and take a boat from Honduras for example? Why go through the infected zone when you know it's dangerous? I tell you why: because it's an excuse for a love story between Klauder and Sam, which is perhaps the only thing that makes this film worth it's D+. All this lack of logic wouldn't have mattered if there was any good action scenes, or scenes where anything is at risk and damages the characters, but there isn't any. The journey through the infected zone seems to be a walk in the park where the only thing that matters is their love life. The aliens are horrible, or in this case not horrible enough and doesn't do any harm to the main characters for some reason. There's no conflict in this movie!



It seems to be one of those science fiction movies that wants to be a metaphor for a political subject matter. Like with District 9 is an alien metaphor for the South African apartheid regime. Monsters seems to wanna be a movie based on the military war against the Mexican Drug Cartels, which causes many civilians their lives. District 9 seemed to have a clear message, while Monsters seems to have no one, except the fact that the aliens are people too, and it's the war which cause their anger. So the message is to let the Drugs Cartels be left alone? That's not a very pleasant thought. Monsters is not a popcorn flick, nor is it a political thriller, it's just a love story that could have been a simple road movie, or better, a Motorcycle Diary. Thumbs down. And it certainly don't deserve to be included in this book!

Grade: D+

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"As Little as Possible"

CHINATOWN

Year: 1974
Country: United States
Language: English, Cantonese
Number: 584
Script: Robert Towne
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Diane Ladd

Oscar wins: Best Original Screenplay
Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound  

Roman Polanski's Chinatown, or should I rather say Robert Towne's Chinatown, because it's he who wrote the excellent script and the story. Chinatown is one hell of a film noir, and Polanski really gives Towne's script the treatment it deserves, by making it indeed very authentic and also true to it's genre, supported by a great cast and a believable structured corrupt cooperation that destroys the city and makes the life tougher for the common man.

Chinatown is set in a 1930s Los Angeles where the former police officer J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) whom after quitting the police department in Chinatown is now working as a private detective, where no serious jobs like adultery suspicion is quiet normal. But one day, a woman named Evelyn Mulwray (Diane Ladd) suspects that her husband, Hollis is cheating on her. After following, Hollis around the city and finally takes a picture of Hollis with another woman, which is printed in the paper the day after, Gittes meets a woman who claims to be the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway). This means that woman in the start was an impostor, who was paid to set Gittes up into a even bigger mess than just one simple adultery case, but involves every one at the top.



Chinatown is a well structured story, with all the right elements of a great mystery film, that escalates from the lowest unimportant investigation to the worst cases of political corruptions, that can possible be imagine. It also contains many great twists, and even one of the most horrifying twists in movie history. The cinematography is just perfect, it give us a dried out Los Angels with no water, like a desert. It's not the L.A. we're used to. The performances are just marvelous, with Jack Nicholson in the lead as a tough and fearless detective, who's not afraid to use violence. And with the noir godfather himself, the director John Huston, playing the creepy and corrupt Noah Cross, a role that certainly should have gotten an Oscar nomination.

All the good things I've written so far, might sound like an A+ review, so if you feel it's weird that I give it a B stars instead of an A. The reason why is because I found it a little boring, and literary dry because of the cinematography, but then again it's suppose to be dry, but then again it wouldn't feel right to give it full score. I must always follow my gut-feeling. But after watching it for the third time, my view have improved since the two previous times. Thumbs up.

Grade: B+

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"More Dinosaurs, Please"

THE TREE OF LIFE

Year: 2011
Country: United States
Language: English
Number: 1093
Director: Terrance Malick
Starring: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain
Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography
Cannes Film Festival: Golden Palm (Palm D'or)

Well, the mole Terrence Malick is in the mood to pup out of his hole to make another crazy project. This time it's a movie called "The Tree of Life", an ambitious film with a wide specter that has everything, that not every one will quiet understand the connection between, or if it ever was any. Like what is the connection between Brad Pitt in the 1950s and a bunch of dinosaurs millions of years ago? Well it's what I (except all others) finds the least surrealistic. In my case I only wish there were more dinosaurs.

The Tree of Life is an extraordinary film, because it's covers the birth of the universe, the creation of the earth, the first lifeforms in the water, the dinosaurs, the big comet that killed them, and then suddenly jump right to the 1950s, where we follow an abusive father (Brad Pitt) who want's to learn his three sons how to manage in a tough world, while their mother (Jessica Chastain) is more of a kinder nature, who doesn't want to step up for them against their father. We also follow one of their sons, Jack (Sean Penn) in the present where he's still hunted by the past.

The Tree of Life is definitely a cinematographic masterpiece without a doubt, with all the beautiful shots that just amazes you every time. This is Malick's trademark. I have no problems with the dinosaurs, it might sound weird, but it's the dream sequence or what ever you like to call them I have a problem with. They are beautiful, but I think they destroy the whole story as a naturalistic one, because I think there's one thin red line that everything has to do with nature, not fantasies. But The Tree of Life is definitely a great painting. Thumbs up.

Grade: B

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"Runaway Groom"

SEVEN CHANCES

Year: 1925
Country: United States
Language: Silent
Number: 25
Director: Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards, Ruth Dwyer

Buster Keaton's Seven Chances is another of his masterly crafted comedies, that really makes people laugh, and that are timeless. Slapstick humor on it's best. While Chaplin enchanted us with his charm, Keaton gave us adventures that blew us away and where the slapstick is more in focus. In Seven Chances we follow the young business man, Jimmie Shannon (Keaton) whom together with his partner Billy is about to go bankrupted unless they come up with some money, but one day Jimmie receive a letter from his deceased uncle, who gives him 7 million dollars, only if he marries before his 27th birthday, 7 O'clock. The only problem is that he's birthday is on the very same day, and they only have few hours to find him a bride, after he's girl friend declined his proposal when she found out he only did it for the money.

Seven Chances is a quiet entertaining slapstick comedy, with a lot of laugh out loud moments, and fantastic and exhilarating stunts, like with the amazing scene where Keaton is running away from a bunch of big rolling rocks following him. And I must not forget the funniest part when Billy is publishing an article in the afternoon paper that Jimmie needs a bride. And of course hundreds of women have showed up, and Keaton has to run for his life. I hope for god sake this picture remains unspoiled, and that Adam Sandler keeps his dirty paws away from this concept, and don't ruin it like he did with "Mr. Deed" and "Just go for it", and I just get the chills of thinking about one hundred transvestites played by Sandler running after Sandler. Every body knows now these days, that all you need is marrying a Las Vegas stripper. So this movie wouldn't have worked to day at all, so that's a relief. Thumbs up.

Grade: A-

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"The Georges Méliès Roast"

HUGO

Year: 2011
Country: United States
Language: English
Number: 1102
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen

Oscar wins: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing
Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score  

Martin Scorsese's latest film, Hugo is the second film of 2011, along with "The Artist" that is a tribute to the silent film era, and Scorsese does a great job of going back to the very beginning to see how one pioneer, Georges Méliès, a magician who saw this new medium more than just moving pictures on the sideshow attractions, but as a vehicle to other worlds, other planets and other realities. It was of course the Lumière brothers who invented the camera, but it was Méliès who first used it to create illusions.

Hugo is set in the year 1931, in Paris where a young boy named Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) whom after his father's (Jude Law) death is forced to live with his uncle (Ray Winstone) at the train station, and Hugo have to leave school to work as a watchmaker. But before his father's death, they were both working on finding all the missing part to an automaton (A mechanic robot) which Hugo brought with him at the train station, but he need the missing parts. And it's only one store on the station that have those parts, is a toy shop, run by a man named Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley). After having caught Hugo of stealing, Hugo is then set to work for Méliès to pay his debt. But Hugo's search is far from over.



Hugo is funny enough a family film, by one of the most violent directors of our time. But we must not forget that Scorsese have given us some big surprises over the years, like the musical "New York, New York", the period drama "Age of Innocence" and the historical epic "Kundun". But this only shows us Scorsese's love for the cinema itself in every form, and Hugo is for sure his greatest tribute to something he really loves more than everything, the movies. And Hugo is full of every kind of tribute to the great silent classics, such as the scenes where the Station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) is chasing after Hugo, or when Hugo is hanging from a clock, like Harold Lloyd. And it's indeed funny to watch. But the problem might be that it's more of a tribute than a movie. Overall I did love Hugo, and I really hope that more people will open their eyes for the silent cinema. Thumbs up.

Grade: B+

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