The Best Movie Of The Year So Far...PTA's Magnolia On Acid...A Big Sprawling Mess...And I Loved Every Minute Of It

Can we all agree just on principle that there's never really been a film like this? I can't really think of one. This is a ballsy movie. Just plain audacious in the best meaning of the word. And in a lot of ways I think it kind of represents the future of sorts for filmmaking in general. Don't just bend a rule or two in narrative form and structure. Break them all. There are no truly distinct rules anyway, are there? There are only the conventions of generic Hollywood filmmaking and then there are those who exist outside the mainstream, directors who do their own thing. But this movie, and I mean this literally, has everything. It doesn't just cross genres and styles, it traverses the many many rivers of film in general. What a mad, enthralling adventure. What a poignant, tragic romantic drama. What an exciting, suspenseful mystery. What a terrifying journey down the rabbit hole of the future. What a primal realization of our spirituality. And what a madcap old school British romp.

But what does it all mean? Honestly, I don't know. And I don't care. And I don't care that I don't know or care. Because, you know what? It doesn't matter. I could spend the rest of my day connecting all the dots and picking up on every single solitary theme and subject matter that is addressed in this movie. None of it matters at all. AT ALL. And I never say that about a film. And I usually hate that in films. The movie is about...what? The human experience? Maybe, the range of emotions and characters and stories is so far reaching and yet so consistently the same it could simply be all about the connections that exist amongst humans. Maybe it's all about the irrelevancy of race and gender and sexuality, how they're nothing more than the restrictive shells we place around ourselves to cut us off from each other so we can better deal with our issues (or not.) The movie is an explosion of ideas and feelings, it never lets up, I never got comfortable, I was on the edge of each story, waiting, waiting, to see what happens next. And THAT'S what I think the whole movie is about. Not the sum of its parts specifically, or the ideas and ideals it proposes to us as a species- it all comes down to the experience in and of itself. Seeing this movie is like experiencing life. They're are all essentially the same people right? Displaced in time and location? Restricted by their flaws and by society and by the limitations of the body? They are born and die over and over and over again. They are life incarnate. And so is the movie. The joys, the horrors, the loves, the thrills, the sadnesses, and the comforts of existence. Think about the bookends of the movie. Hanks narrates from the future at the start and at the end of the story. Is it all in his mind? Is he remembering all of the pieces put together? Is he God stitching together reality and declaring, "This is Life."? Who knows? Who gives a shit?

I don't know much about Tom Tykwer's work. He did Run Lola Run. That's about the limit of my knowledge of him. It was a solid, insane 90 minutes. Nothing more, nothing less. He's a solid and unique visual stylist. Nothing more, nothing less. He's adequate in my mind. I'd like to see more of him in the future. Part of the issue, naturally, is that the editing of the film lends itself a certain difficulty from the audience perspective of picking apart what was directed by which director. The Wachowskis are obscenely awesome in their visualization of some pretty extraordinary new worlds and in the manner in which they convey the past settings. They've certainly grown since The Matrix trilogy and all of its grand ideas and middling quality executions. 

The genres, styles, and settings of the different stories are kind of outrageously distinct from a narrative perspective. They're all very separate in how they're conveyed and I never was confused as to what was happening in each story specifically. THAT'S hard to pull off. But more so than this, and more important by far is the fact that each story, strangely enough, feels as if it feeds into the next narrative chunk. It flows freely and yet is bound by the singular unity of the overall arc of everything and everyone.

The performances are incredible. We'll get into the whole racial thing a bit later. But on the basis of just acting, everyone nails everything perfectly. They're all separate beings, but they're all kind of the same too. There's no other way to describe it. Different, but the same.

The music, again vital to the film, is beautiful. A classic, basic, moving film score is a rarity in this age of over-produced electronic-vibed soundtracks. It lends itself wonderfully to one of the key recurring motifs of the entire movie.

Gender and race are bent in this film. Men play men as well as women; women play women as well as men. Blacks and whites play Asians. Asians play whites and latinos. Blacks play whites. There are no limits placed on the actors and the confines of their bodies. That's one of the key points of the movies. A wide variety of quality actors were chosen on the basis of their marketability and their legitimate acting talents. There are several foreign actors in the film who are not mainstream ones in the Hollywood sense and still get billing on the poster. That kind of surprises me. Black face was used in the past under specific racist circumstances for white producers to get out of having to pay extra money for black actors to play black roles. The same applies for yellow face. More so than the financial aspect was also the literal execution of the act- black and yellow face was used to denigrate Asians and Blacks. That concept does not exist in this film. One of the main points of this movie is the fact that it purposefully blurs the lines between race and gender and sexuality and humanity and human identity in order to emphasize the very basic, core idea of how we are all essentially the same people living similar lives and experiencing different trials and tribulations throughout our restrictive existences. Enter Karma. Once those lives have ended, our spirits, for lack of a better word, (our essences, souls, identities, whatever) continue beyond the constraints of death and begin again in a new form. That form can be anything. And so something can understandably shift in our literal appearance. We become a different race, a new gender, we make a different kind of choice, we're a different kind of person. This is NOT to say that I don't understand how other people can still be offended by the physical act being depicted on screen. A couple of cases are a little jarring and distracting. Whatever. The alteration of race in the modern sense is an incredibly sensitive matter, understandably so. Race, and gender for that matter, have significant cultural implications and we use such aspects of our identities as being representative of our past selves and ancestors. They have great meaning to us. I'm simply saying within the context of this movie, it is necessary to examine what is actually intended by the act.

Basically, see this movie. Hate it if you will, but see it. Something, an image, a character, an idea, WILL linger in your mind. It may all be fatuous, pretentious crap lacking in significant meaning, but really so are a lot of films. Let the movie exist for its own sake. And anyway, it's not what the movie is about, it's how it's about it. And that's what's so wonderful here. The stories themselves seem routine and a bit trite. But strung together in a complex, interwoven web of insanity, and done in a new and different manner- each story and each story together takes on a whole new level of, if not meaning, then simply pure experience of life, the universe, and everything.

The Last Blind Guy...The Surprising Complexities of Seven Psychopaths and Why They Ultimately Don't Matter That Much In The Long Run

Right. So...I can't really pinpoint any one thing to talk about in this critical review-analysis-thingy. This movie is just so very all over the place story and character-wise. What's it even about? Violence? Peace? Writing screenplays? Dog-napping? Really all I can say, and again this is only my opinion (and not a very concrete opinion at that), is that none of it matters.

This movie is wonderfully devoid of a single subject matter or theme that it just meanders in this gloriously semi-improvised, stream of consciousness manner. It's so unpredictable, and not in a Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master kind of way. It's literally impossible to know what's coming next. And what's so surprising is that it works.

I don't think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is all that great of a movie. I know I'm in the minority here, and I know plenty of people think of it as one of the most underrated and cleverest dark comedies of recent years. But really, it's not. And here's my main problem with it- there is no actual justification for the meta-tone taken by Shane Black with RDJ's narration. His constant overly-precious voice overkills everything in the film. The rewriting of events and the "oh, I forgot to tell you this..." jokes are without purpose. What do they serve for the sake of the story? Is RDJ's character even smart enough to make these kinds of self-referential quips and jibes? I don't think so. The movie is fun and not much else. Does it make any interesting points about anything? Not really. It's just a weird series of darkly comic events, which for me, would normally be enough, but like I said, that narration murders most of the humor and re-emphasizes the fact that the film is devoid of anything thematically unique.

Now. That's not to say that Seven Psychopaths is any better in terms of having a so-called message or theme or point (or for that matter actual story.) Except that's merely a surface level examination of the film. What's on the screen lends itself to the opinion that the movie is also devoid of thematic interest. BUT, there are these moments in the movie (like in In Bruges, but more so in that film than in this one) where the dark comedy screeches to a halt, and a character will say something rather profound about violence and how violence can be used and our expectations of violence (our titillation and exploitation by and of it). These moments usually occur with Walken (especially in his last scene where he narrates his take on the Vietnamese psychopath, but also with his confrontation with Harrelson over the death of his wife or his lack of confrontation thereof- that scene specifically sells me on how much of a ridiculously good actor Walken can be when given good material and when he's not mugging for the camera) but also occur in this fascinating sequence involving Tom Waits' narration over his past life as a psychopath, his flashback is so well executed in terms of writing and direction and acting it's not even funny. These moments define what makes Seven Psychopaths so more fascinating and so more brilliant than the awkwardly styled and toned KKBB.

What's more important about Seven Psychopaths in regards to KKBB is the fact that it really justifies its self referential qualities. Marty is Martin McDonagh, a writer in the movie who is sort of really the writer of the actual movie itself. Make sense? Not really. And the movie and the movie within the movie and the character(s) within the movie and the character(s) within the movie within the movie are all more or less aware of this. Think back on Sam Rockwell's constant references to the fact that he's trying to "help" Marty by killing people. Isn't the whole film this bizarre cycle of violence and what it means to the people who write about violence and what the violence means to them and how it could have literal repercussions?

Imagine how many real-life/true-crime movies there have been. Imagine (and this is re-iterated in the last scene with Waits) how many criminals (or for that matter innocent people) are involved in those movies? How would these madmen or these already suffering people react to a depiction of the violence that has already plagued their troubled lives?

But really, you know what I love most about this movie? The fact that there aren't any answers. Like In Bruges, virtually all of the emotional arcs are internal and kept that way. The men in these films are all afraid to show their true feelings because of their darker natures and because of what could happen if they changed their ways (think of Farrell in In Bruges or Clooney in The American). These guys can't be honest about what they think or feel about life and so the movie responds accordingly by not providing full and overly honest and obvious scenes of melodrama. The arcs are there, but they're hidden in layers of wonderful subtext.

And yet, like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the movie is also just plain fun. The casting is excellent and everyone turns in their expected performances of mild insanity and weirdness. Everyone can turn that comic charm off in an instant and switch into genuine dramatic acting, and in a movie like this, when scenes are so unpredictable and hard to follow from a plot and character perspective, this is especially hard to do.

This is definitely one of the best movies of the year. Smart, fun, funny, dramatic, exciting, and silly, but always with something interesting (and in some cases pretty profound) to say.

A Bag of Cats...My Opinions On the Major Marvel Movies

So the Marvel series isn't the best in my opinion. Marvel in general is a mediocre comic book universe and so it follows that the movies would be of fun and average qualities. I admit it's hard to define what exactly is fundamentally flawed in the Marvel world, but there is something. For me, I think it may be the lack of semi-reality. Obviously comic book movies don't have to imitate real life, but on some level, I think there needs to be something that we (the audience) can connect to on a character level. The majority of the heroes in Marvel are so over the top or at least so distanced from humans in their quirks and flaws and natures, that it's hard to empathize with them to a degree other than "oh, look, superheroes, we should like them because they're the good guys." I'll get into this more with each of the movies. For now, let's just say that I can only ever enjoy Marvel movies, I don't find them particularly interesting on a genuine story or thematic level. They're just well-made and entertaining films for the most part. Well, some of them are anyway...

Iron Man

I like Tony Stark only in the way I like Robert Downey Jr. He's an adequately flawed hero, but the way he's written as a character (in both films) is so overdone, so snarky, so smarmy, so self-congratulatory, and so egocentric that it undermines a great deal of the enjoyability of the movies themselves. The banter gets so over-written between him and Pepper and others that it becomes too much of a centerpiece for the film. Do you think Pulp Fiction relies on its dialogue? No. The dialogue is a strong element and helps to define much of the film in general. But there's also the structure, and the plot (as much as there is one), and the characters. Iron Man becomes so self-involved with creating rapid-fire Sorkin-esque chit chat that I literally lose focus on what the hell is going on in the film story-wise. I was legitimately surprised when during the last half hour of the first movie, Stane turns out to be the bad guy and starts going all Transformer-smashing through the labs and shit. I was like, "Oh, yeah, there's supposed to be a plot."

Also the inherent character plot to Stark is rather super obvious and kind of un-convincing. To me at least. Bruce Wayne loses his parents and all the life he's ever known at a young age. He becomes twisted and introverted and weird and scary and is actually traumatized by the event. THEN he becomes the hero as an adult. Stark is a douche. He makes guns. He gets captured for a bit and shows how he can be a badass and learns a lesson from some random dude who then dies. He then breaks out from his jail relatively easy as pie and decides he's changed on the whole making guns thing. But then he's also still sort of a douche. Except when he wants to be angsty because he's got a thingy in his heart which has CHANGED HIS LIFE. But he's still a douche most of the time. THEN he becomes a hero. It just feels muddled to me. He's a decent person and does some nice shit, but what has changed exactly? I'm not saying a dude has to CHANGE significantly to become a hero in a superhero movie, but this film gets praised so much for being so well written character-wise and I'm like...yeah, no. Not really. It's there, but it's confusing and often kind of dropped for the sake of the so-called plot or whatever.

But really the movie's well made. It's fun. It's bright and cheery. But the darker stuff could've been dropped and left to the Batman movies to figure out.

The Incredible Hulk

It's loud. It's long. It's really fucking loud. But most of all it's pretty stupid. But I enjoyed it. It has a sense of humor about itself and doesn't get too serious with its drama and characters. The Hulk is an inherently silly superhero anyway, there's no real way to empathize with Banner when he's big and green, is there? He's just big and green. The anger aspect tries to be legitimately dramatic and stuff which is nice, but really the quality of the writing is pretty subpar and uninteresting. The only stuff to look at and enjoy is the eye candy of the action which is pretty okay and distracting. It doesn't try to be anything super smart, which is fine. It's all just pretty adequate.

Iron Man 2

This movie is a complete and utter repeat of the first one and basically fulfills all of the requisite superhero formula regulations. The thing that makes it less interesting than the first film is that it tries much harder to have genuine drama with its characters. It fails miserably in that regard. There is absolutely no consistency in the subplots regarding Stark and the villain(s). Everything tries to have significant stakes and then just fizzles out. It ends up being more of the same from the first one- lots of fun visuals and action. It's bright and exciting, but not much else.

Thor

This movie is awfully enjoyable. And awful. It really is. There's so much that's at least borderline entertaining about it, but ultimately everything is just kind of wrong. Roger Ebert sums it up best in his overly-harsh review of the film when he basically says the fundamental flaw is that an audience cannot possibly connect on any human level with Thor. Why? Because he's a god. I don't care about him. He's a spoiled dick who stops being a god for a while, learns one single incredibly obvious lesson, and then becomes a god again. What the hell was the point? But the most egregious issue I take with the movie as a whole is the fact that the writers try so very hard to have a complex script in an incredibly silly concept. This film shouldn't be as complicated as it is plot-wise. Be direct and one-note. Don't try to inject macho pathos into Thor and his daddy issues and with Loki's problems with...EVERYTHING. And worst than all that is the fact that the plot itself is so poorly depicted on screen, I literally had to watch a Marvel movie three times before I could finally understand everything that happened. And this wasn't in a Gosford Park, multiple layers kind of way. It was in a my brain can't follow this story kind of way. It annoys me primarily because it shouldn't be that difficult.

But it's still fun. The visuals are nice, even in 3D. The action is adequate. In fact everything production-wise is just adequate. It doesn't try very hard, but it doesn't exactly end up being bad per se because of its lack of effort. It's just average fun.

Captain America: The First Avenger

I love this movie. It's like if Indiana Jones were a comic-book movie. But more so. I find there to be legitimate drama and characterization in this movie. Is it significant or original? No. But it tries. And it succeeds. Everything about it production-wise is fantastic and dazzling. It has that awesome retro-visual style where the CG emulates old-school comic books as well as WW2 propaganda movies and sensibilities. Also Chris Evans is adorable. Everything's adorable in this movie. It's so patriotic and simple-minded. It doesn't try to be sophisticated really, but it has its semi-serious moments. A solid mixture which is really what's important in these kinds of movies. The action is exciting. The visuals pop. And the plot, though overly-familiar, feels fresh in this age of super serious modernity. When's the last time someone did the Nazi's as legitimate villains in an action movie?

The Avengers

Joss Whedon. Enough said. Could've been a disaster. Saved by him. Witty, fun, dramatic, funny, exciting, EPIC, all in all, a perfect summer action blockbuster. I haven't had that much fun (and I mean actual, legitimate fun) at the movies in a long time.

When I Feel Down & Out...My Favorite Movies To Just Watch

There's no way to rationalize way I like these films. A lot of it is pure nostalgia for having watched them when I was younger. In any case, judge as you will for yourself my taste (or lack thereof) in movies that I still find entertaining and which will cheer me up no end if I feel crappy.

True Lies

"Are we gonna die?"
"Yep."

Hook

"Smee, stop me, Smee."

The Pagemaster

"He's afraid of tuna fish sandwiches."
"Mercury levels in the tuna-fish sandwiches."

Hocus Pocus

"Amok, amok, amok, amok, amok..."

Home Alone

"You live down the street from me, right? You know, anytime you see me, you can always say hello, you don't have to be afraid. A lot of stuff has been said about me, none of it's true." 

Mystery Men

"All right, I'll take point, you two flank. Let's triangulate." 
"Equilateral or isosceles?"

Independence Day

"Oops."

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle

"Do a little dance."
"Make a little love."
"Get down tonight."

Star Trek: Generations

"It was...fun. Oh my."

Mary Poppins

"Stay awake, don't rest your head. Don't lie down upon your bed. While the moon drifts in the skies... Stay awake, don't close your eyes. Though the world is fast asleep, though your pillow's soft and deep, you're not sleepy as you seem; stay awake, don't nod and dream... Stay awake... don't nod... and... dream."

Return To Oz

"Why did they bring you here, Dorothy?"
"Because I can't sleep, and I talk about a place that I've been to, but nobody believes that it exists." 

Religulous

"See you in heaven?"
"Who knows?"
"Exactly."

Mamma Mia

"The winner takes it all."

Hairspray

"This heart beats only for a size 60."

Death Proof

"There are few things as fetching as a bruised ego on a beautiful angel."

Flying In Trees...My Justification For Loving Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon As Much As I Do

Ok, I'll admit it. This isn't strictly a perfect movie. I rate it extremely high on my personal list of the best films ever (according to me). (PS- this list is on my personal Facebook profile). On that list I rarely (if ever) let my nostalgia for a certain film overwhelm my critical analysis of it. There are a couple of other clear examples of this- Mary Poppins and Return To Oz being the most obvious. But those movies are pretty far down on the countdown list anyway. They aren't perfect by any means (Dick Van Dyke's accent anyone?). So, why then is Crouching Tiger so ridiculously high?

The long answer is a bit complicated. But the short answer is- it remains the most incredible experience I've ever had in a movie theater. Commence gleeful praise in vaguely defined form: this movie is romantic, well-written (we'll get to that), exciting, dramatic, tragic, well choreographed, well shot, well edited (extremely well edited), well directed (very well directed), and well acted. It is entertaining, moving, and ultimately pretty damn overwrought. On the basis of pure quality and originality it comes up a bit short. BUT for me (and this is the important part) FOR ME it is everything I want from a purely entertaining movie.

I must distinguish my personal distinction between an entertaining and fun MOVIE and an intelligent and great FILM. I list my favorite movies separate from the films I consider great. There is a necessary difference between the two and if that difference didn't exist it would be nigh impossible to determine where every single movie in existence falls on the spectrum of being good. Many movies are bad. But that doesn't mean they aren't entertaining on some level. Van Helsing is essentially a pretty awful movie. BUT it is fun and exciting. It has elements of decent quality in its action and in its unabashed love of classic horror films and in its ridiculously good production design. I find it enjoyable. But I won't defend it against those who find it idiotic. Because it is. It REALLY is. A great film is one of quality and originality, one that has a legitimate point, one that has characters and theme and ideas rather than sheer silliness and lots of explosions. Sophie's Choice is an insanely good film and I will passionately speak on its brilliance. But it's not very entertaining, there's nothing remotely fun or exciting about it. It's a drag.

There's nothing wrong with either end of the spectrum. They are legitimate points I'm making, I feel. They help to discern the clear differences between the majority of the movies that are released every year.

BUT, there are also plenty of films that fall directly in both categories. They have become a rarity in our modern cinema. Hollywood feels obligated to churn out three kinds of films- the Blockbuster (released during the summer, usually pretty dumb), the Oscar Nominee (released during the fall and winter, Lincoln being one of the big ones this year), and the Middling Movie (any random 'shit' that falls in between). The Middling Movie could be anything, but usually it's the one that the studio doesn't strongly believe in or knows is bad or finds to be undefinable. Granted there are always exceptions to these rules, but I'm generalizing here to make a point, so bear with me.

I like smart movies. I like movies that are semi-aware of what they are and relish in that meta-ness. I like movies that attempt (in some way, on some level) to subvert the theoretical cliches that exist within the genre of the film. But above all else I like movies that fulfill the requirements of a great film (again a vague list of things that even I haven't clearly defined and really can't) that is also entertaining. To me one of the best examples of this (in relatively recent memory) is The Avengers. Much has been said about it. It's not the greatest superhero film ever. In my opinion, mind you. But it's razor sharp in its wit when a lesser superhero movie (I'm looking at you Green Lantern) would try to be an awkward mix of lame humor and DRAMA. Movies don't always have to walk such a fine line. They can be anything. ANYTHING. Trying to please to many people at once is a difficult game to play in the best of any kind of movie. Joss Whedon is consistently up to that challenge. He knows everything (because he's basically God). The Avengers doesn't work because of its action. It doesn't work because of it's humor. It works because of its characters. And I believe the best movies rely on characters above all else to connect an audience to a given story. The Avengers IS action-packed (and well done action at that), it's also very funny (bag of cats), but its source of genuine drama (and there is legitimate drama in the movie) stems from the clash of characters.

This is an example of what I'm talking about when I refer to a movie that can be both entertaining and smart. As with any film, the director has to make a choice in every regard and on every level of filmmaking- the tone, the style, the cinematography, the acting...the list is endless. Usually the smartly entertaining movies pick one thing and stick to it. Death Proof is all about the car chases and all about the dialogue. Not much else (and for me that's enough in a Tarantino film). Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon succeeds at being a complete and utter melding of everything that lies between what I referred to earlier as an entertaining movie and a great film. It IS perfect on THAT level. And as I just described it's hard to do that.

But onto the movie itself.

I love going to the movies. Seeing something on the big screen is just fun. Unless you're watching Catwoman (twice for some reason...perhaps someday my brain will rationalize that for me). I distinctly recall seeing Crouching Tiger TWELVE FUCKING YEARS AGO. Good lord, I'm so bloody old...But more important than the actual viewing (experiencing) of the movie is the short discussion that came beforehand.

I was with my mom and my second oldest brother. We three had decided to go see a movie. We weren't sure exactly what to go see that night. My brother had seen some pretty decent reviews of this new Asian film that had come out. It was getting some decent buzz. Being around ten-years-old, I wasn't too taken with the whole idea of seeing some foreign Chinese movie. Who wants to read subtitles? But I had seen the trailers. It had some decent-looking action. My mom, surprisingly, was down to go see it. I say that in jest, because in retrospect it makes perfect sense for my mom to have a certain liking for some Chinese films. She isn't the biggest foreign film fan, but the political and social issues that plagued China (especially during the early Communist era) leaves her with a certain fascination. But don't tell her I know this...because that'd be creepy. The point is, we went to go see the movie. I didn't really know what to expect. And that is my whole point.

I was ten. And I cried like a baby at the end. I didn't understand or appreciate every nuance of the characters and their actions within the context of the story. But the music, combined with what little dialogue I could comprehend, combined with the performances, it all moved me no end. Again, I was ten. That's not an easy age to elicit that kind of genuine emotional response.

So I cried. Big whoop. But I was also thrilled. It was so fast-paced and action-packed (again in retrospect there's only like five or so action scenes and each one is about five minutes or less in length). It was so grand. The camera had these shots that translated so well to a big screen. The landscape filled my eyes to the brim and I was agape at the beauty of this world I had never seen or been to in real life. But by the end of the movie, I felt like I had been transported. Which leads into the whole mythological aspect to the film, which I'll discuss later as well.

That was it. That was my greatest experience at the movies. It remains to be so to this day. I've never felt quite like I did when I saw that film and I'm not sure I will ever repeat it. And I'm not sure that I want to. In a sense, that movie is what awakened my love and adoration and appreciation for film. It spoke to me on a very literal and physical level of what a movie could be. It may not have intellectually stimulated my mind and gotten my brain thinking on a My Dinner With Andre level. It may not have viscerally thrilled me as much as Halloween. And it may not have hit so bloody close to home like Ordinary People. But it was still a FILM. It was infinitely superior to the tripe I had seen before and inexplicably loved (again I was a kid, so forgiveness please for enjoying Lost In Space as much as I did?)

Ang Lee is an interesting director. He's not my favorite director. His style is a little elusive and hard to pin down. But I appreciate him. He's made some decent films and he's made some pretty damn good films. Brokeback Mountain is really good, but not great in my opinion. It's very romantic, but what's the dramatic point aside from the homosexuality angle? To me, it isn't necessarily enough to drive the film completely, though admittedly there are other aspects thematically and numerous subplots involving the different characters. Crouching Tiger is his magnum opus. In it he shows a true sense of style with the action and the drama. There's a fascinatingly composed tone and mood to everything. But it shifts wonderfully with the romance involving the main characters, wherein the tone becomes passionate instead. These changes are subtle and hardly noticeable, but within the context of the film, such a mood shift is pretty sudden and significant to defining the characters.

Martial-Arts is hard to accomplish. I mean that literally. The stunts involved are extraordinarily complex and demanding on the actors. Crouching Tiger is flawless in this respect. I don't see the wires or the stunt men, everything appears real, even when the characters defy physics. Probably the most obvious example of this naturalness is in the flying involved with the action. People can't fly. But in this movie and in most Chinese martial-arts films the characters have near-supernatural or at least super-heroic abilities. And Lee knows this. Rather than over-emphasize and over-styilize this aspect, he underplays it and makes it feel a part of this world.

I love Michelle Yeoh. She's a ridiculously good actress all around. Chow Yun-Fat is pretty underutilized in Hollywood films I feel, and I enjoyed him in Anna & the King. And Zhang Ziyi proves herself as a capable actress despite her age at the time. They're all fantastic and really translate well the very old-fashioned dialogue of the script with their physical gestures and mannerisms while lesser actors (especially American ones) would severely undermine such things by giving over-the-top romantic and melodramatic performances. The big Hollywood epics of the 60's like Cleopatra were really guilty of this- hammy actors giving hammy performances in underwritten period drams with scripts of startlingly banality and simplicity.

It should also be noted that I disdain anyone who refuses to watch movies with subtitles purely on the basis of the fact that they...have subtitles. It's sheer laziness. I'm also against English dubbing of foreign films (unless it's Argento) because it basically completely ruins the entire movie experience.

Gender plays a big part in Crouching Tiger and this is really unexpected in an Asian film which are usually rather narrow-minded in their discussions of sexuality and feminism. The movie very overtly makes a great deal of commentary on the restrictions placed on women in ancient Chinese culture and the impossibility of the choices they have to make. And yet again, Lee underscores this rather radical concept (as he did with the homosexuality of the main characters in his earlier film The Wedding Banquet) by playing it both straight, yet subtle. There's a sense of humor at times in the dialogue regarding Jen's husband, but for the most part the entire film hinges on the extremely difficult and sexist circumstances that she is put into from the beginning of her life. The arranged marriage for the sake of her father. The male-centered ownership of the Green Destiny sword. Her desire to break away from the world she has known into a world of what she at first believes to be excitement and adventure and later realizes to be a world just as dangerous and impossible to survive as the previous one.

Revenge is a second recurring subject matter and theme in the movie, and unlike the gender aspects this concept is played fairly straightforward in the characters of Li and Jade Fox. And yet there are references to the difficulties on Li's part to take action in the revenge his master desired him to enact in the event of his death. Li, being an old school pro of the defensive and non-aggresive Wudang martial arts, finds it very difficult for him to rationalize the actions expected of him, especially when they contradict his desire to be with Shu Lien. Also in Jade Fox, is repeated the gender ideas, her want for vengeance stemming from the resistance met against her when she tried training in Wudang and was rejected because she was a woman. Ultimately these concepts and more are all intertwined and connected with one another to create the common tapestry of thematic cycles and repetitive actions on the part of unchanging characters. In that sense, it's all been done before, but with these ideas and in this way, it all seems fresh and original, which is again, hard to pull off in this day and age.

What makes Crouching Tiger work is the fact that the characters are essentially mythical. The world itself of the movie is essentially mythological. Therein lies both the thrill and the appeal. Aware that the story would be absurd in the real world, Lee places it in the classic martial arts realm of melodrama and romance meeting with extraordinary circumstances and abilities. People can't fly, but in Lee's world they can. People can't fight so severely as they do in the story, but in Lee's world they can. This melding with the heightened sense of drama and romance is what makes it all come together. Naturally none of this could be real, so naturally Lee doesn't try to make it be so. It's a fantasy, but one with pathos and arcs and emotion rather than constant action and plot. The characters are driven by their flaws and their desires rather than the contrivances of a standard story. And this mythical aspect comes across most clearly with the references made to the very real connections that supposedly exist for the main characters between this world and the next (the world of enlightenment).

Romance is hard to do. It hinges on the performances and the direction I think. Titanic is undermined in some ways because the characters too quickly (in the second half at least) become capable of doing things normal human beings cannot possibly do (swimming under water for extended periods of time, getting shot at a lot, etc). Crouching Tiger's characters stay consistent throughout and already being rather larger than life permits them a grandly stated romance. I find the twin love stories at the center of Crouching Tiger to be the most moving romances I've ever seen in a film of this sort. Everything is very underplayed for Li and Shu Lien and then everything else is semi-sexualized for Jen and Lo. It matches with the sensibilities of the characters as well as their ages and comments upon the pure tragedies of both. Li dies professing the love he and Shu Lien could never have but wanted. And Jen dies having loved Lo so very much but unwilling to continue because she wants to be free from the constraints of the male-dominated world she now sees reality to be. It all makes sense and it all works despite the melodrama of it.

The music is so lush and romantic and sorrowful. To cite my mother again, she hates the sad violin stuff frequently used in Chinese movies and music, but I adore it. There's an extraordinary sorrow that can be emphasized with the simple playing of a violin. And once more, Crouching Tiger takes even that small idea and carries beyond its usual range of directness. Tan Dun wisely chose Yo Yo Ma to play numerous cello solos throughout the score, bringing the dramatic tension to an even higher pitch. In a lesser film (or in a more overdone one) such an act would simply be another layer of cheese. But the level at which the music is played and the frequency with which it appears is perfect and complements all the right scenes. Even the simple and classic use of powerful drums in the action scenes has been done before, but something about the method here seems unique and fresh. It shouldn't work, but it does, and it excels.

I mentioned the cinematography briefly earlier. And it truly is incredible. The classic panoramic scope of a gigantic film can be overwhelming when seen on any size screen. That massiveness combined with a brief brash bold burst of bombast from the score can truly sell the grandeur of the setting and the story. I can still distinctly recall a very brief moment early in the film which focuses a shot solely upon the entirety of the city of Peking. That few seconds of screen time combined with a shock in the sonic sense from the soundtrack really sells the location of everything. It informs and in a sense foreshadows how large the scale of the film is going to be. It's truly breathtaking.

The editing too comes into play in this film. I should be emphasized again that I rarely notice editing in most movies, usually because the best of films make edits incredibly smooth, and also because my brain simply isn't tied into recognizing such aspects of movies. If I'm invested (in any way or on any level) in the story, then I become rather ignorant of what's going on editing-wise. I recently watched all of the action scenes in Crouching Tiger. The choreography set aside from the action scenes, it becomes very evident very quickly just how well edited each of these sequences are. There is an extraordinary speed with which all of the movements from the fighting players come across on the screen, and yet never, NEVER, was I confused as to who was doing what and how. Action scenes are notoriously difficult to get right and they almost all rely solely upon how well put together they are in the final post-production process. If they aren't spliced together just right, our suspension of disbelief and our tension in the scene itself is completely abolished. We lose the thrill of the fight or the chase. Crouching Tiger is flawless in this regard. It's fast, yet graceful.

And that's pretty much it. I don't want to do a whole re-summary of everything I've already said. So I'll simply end it with- this movie should've swept the Oscars. It's vastly superior to the other films nominated that year and successfully melds two very alternative methods of making movies into one flawlessly entertaining and enthralling experience.