December 04, 2006
Looking forward to "Ordinary Joe"
From a brief news article:
ABC has teamed with the co-creator of "Felicity" to develop a pilot for "Ordinary Joe," a character drama based on a British concept.
In the vein of "Sliding Doors," the project centers on a guy who at 21 wondered whether to go after a girl he was secretly in love with or to get together with the girl that had been after him.
The show joins the guy a dozen years later, chronicling the three different lives he would have had if he'd ended up with one girl or the other or had remained single.
Each episode will follow the three versions of the main character in three separate stories, which will be linked thematically.
I adored Sliding Doors, so I have hopes for this one. Then again, I'm not sure how much of my love for that movie was based on the what-if aspect and how much was just the wonderful characters. We'll see.
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July 23, 2006
A few quick reviews...
I've actually seen a decent number of films lately, so I'm hammering out a few quick reviews:
Cars: It was pretty good but far from Pixar's best. Basically, it was a retelling of the film "Doc Hollywood", and that's a good story to use. If you're over 20, though, I think you'll find "Doc Hollywood" told the story better. If you're a kid, not so much.
Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest: It wasn't quite as good as the original, and it suffered from a problem common to the second installment of trilogies. Namely, you go through a whole hell of a lot, but you don't really resolve much because you're mostly setting stuff up for the finale in the third installment. Still, it was a really fun ride.
The Da Vinci Code: Oh dear, it has completely revoked my entire faith in the Bible and the Church. I must now cast aside all my beliefs and go digging through Europe's ruins. Ok, maybe not. The religious backstory was so-so, but I do have to give the storyteller credit. It was gripping. I cared about those characters. I wanted them to succeed, and the ending was of one of my favorite styles. That is, the characters have survived and had a minor victory, but true victory has escaped them, and then... in the final moments of the film, you see that victory is really about to be theirs after all.
National Treasure: Oh, man, what a stinker. Clearly, the film-makers read the Da Vinci Code and said, "We need to film that!" But the rights had already been sold. No problem. Just invent a new mythology, new legends, even swipe a few of the same ones used in Da Vinci. But I didn't care about these people. They were paper cut-outs.
Flightplan: It was more than a little convoluted and improbable, but it was also very gripping. As a parent, I thought it was particularly good.
Papillion: This is one of the classic "great escape" films of all time. I thought it was a little long, but it delivered. Still, it's got nothing on "The Shawshank Redemption".
Hitch: This was a fun little film, and for a trite romantic comedy, it was very well written. The dialogue flowed remarkably well. As a friend put it, "it was written far better than it needed to be."
Rumor Has It: This was something of a sequel to The Graduate. It wasn't all that great, but it was good enough to keep me from fast-forwarding through it.
The Devil Wears Prada: There had lots of good scenery, and the "villian" was so fun that well, I was routing for her more than the protagonist. After failing three clue-checks in a row, the protagonist kind of lost me.
National Lampoons Barely Legal: This was surprisingly funny. I rented it mostly for T&A, but it was the story that really got me. Basic plot: three high school guys decide to make a professional porn film, with professional actors, a "script", sets, the whole thing. I know it sounds stupid, but it had some really great moments, like trying to explain what's happening to the parents that interrupted the shoot, or when the 17-year-old virgin is giving tips (and good tips) to the older, jaded porn producer on just what makes a compelling porn scene. It's good stuff.
Shaun of the Dead: Best Zombie Film of All Time. 'Nuff said.
Aeon Flux (the movie): You know, I never even got into the animated version that much, and I still thought this one sucked. Nice to look at, but it was weak.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith: Fucking hilarious. It had a bit of a slow start, but by the time the Smiths were working together, it was a definite ROTFLMAO. The mini-van scene took the cake.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: If you had to watch this without access to a fast-forward button, I pity you.
Wedding Crashers: A lot of fun. Not great cinema, but a lot of fun. Boy meets girl at wedding. Boy fucks girl. Boy is never seen again. Repeat. Then boy falls in love with the Senator's daughter... the Senator's engaged daughter... and did I mention that his best friend just nailed the younger daughter at the eldest daughter's wedding?
View/rent at will. YMMV.
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May 31, 2006
Blade Runner on DVD again / first-time ever
Not so much a review as news: Blade Runner is being released on DVD again.
Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic "Blade Runner," one of the first movies to appear on DVD in 1997, is being restored and remastered for a brief reissue in September.
The DVD, featuring the 1992 "director's cut," will be deleted after four months, and replaced by a 25th anniversary "final cut," which Warner Home Video is billing as Scott's "definitive new version" of the film.
After a limited theatrical release, the newly spruced-up "Runner" will be released in a multidisc special edition DVD that also will include the original theatrical cut, the expanded international theatrical cut and the 1992 director's cut.
This is very exciting news for me because I'm one of those few who actually prefered the original theatrical release with the voice-over narration, but that edition has never been released on DVD.
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April 26, 2006
Lucky Number Slevin
In keeping with my desire to not work insane hours for a while, I went out to see a movie tonight and had a thoroughly good time. The movie was Lucky Number Slevin, and I went to see it purely on the basis of its starting time, its cast, and a vague description about a New York mob war. It was definitely a lucky pick.
Our protagonist Slevin is having a bad run of luck. He got fired, learned his apartment had been condemned, and then walked in on his girlfriend having sex with another man. His good friend Nick invited him to New York for a week of debauchery to make him forget what’s-her-name. Unfortunately, Slevin’s bad luck seems to follow him. He gets mugged on his way from the airport, and once he gets to Nick’s apartment, he can’t even find Nick.
Then it gets messy. It turns out Nick is in pretty heavy debt to two different mobsters, and not just any two, but two who are in the midst of a ruthless war with each other. Why is this Slevin’s problem? Well, he looks a little like Nick, he’s in Nick’s apartment, and he has no ID since the mugging, but don’t worry. He can make it all go away by doing his little part in the war against the rival mob, right? Against both? By this point, of course, the police are starting to take note of Slevin and want a piece of him for themselves.
After that... well, then it gets complicated, and I’ll leave that for the movie itself. It has a wonderful cast of Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, and Josh Hartnett as Slevin. Hartnett was the unknown for me in that lineup, but he delivered a wonderful performance as he moved through the insanity with a relaxed air reminiscent of Mel Gibson in Payback. It was also one of those satisfying movies where everyone got what they deserved.
I give it four and a half clean kills. Check it out.
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September 27, 2005
Closer than I wanted to get
I spent the evening with a most unpleasant little film, Closer. I think it originally attracted me just from the headliners (Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman), and it kept my interest mostly because I wasn't sure how to pronounce it. That is, is it "closer" (a decreased distance) or "clozer" (one who finalizes or closes a business deal)? While they never made it explicit, it was "closer", and I got closer to these characters than I wanted. This is a good film to watch to convince yourself to dump an asshole, though you'll want a shower afterwards.
The film centers on four characters: Dan (Jude Law), Alice (Natalie Portman), Larry (Clive Owens), and Anna (Julia Roberts). In fact, the others characters in the film are trivialities, typically limited to single lines.
Dan is the debatable protagonist in the film in that we focus more on him than the others, but not by much. There's also various attempts to make him the sympathetic character, but he's not someone you'd want to date. He starts off in an uneven relationship with Alice where he holds most of the power, and then he has an on-and-off affair with Anna. Eventually, he unceremoniously dumps Alice, and then goes back to her when things don't work out. He lies and cheats with only a meandering sense of guilt, i.e. "oh, yeah, I'm a bad person for doing this...", and yet he can't forgive anyone who would do the same to him.
Anna is a bit less garbage but not much. She starts in with Dan when she knows he's living with Alice, and she keeps this up while dating Larry. She even marries Larry while secretly sleeping with Dan, and eventually, she leaves Larry to be with him. And then, of course, Dan shows off his tarnished character, so she goes back to Larry.
Larry carries less of the blame for all of this in that he just fell in love with Anna only to be dumped and then reclaimed by her. However, he's an incredibly spiteful man who seems to to be at his best when intentionally inflicting emotional pain on others. He had even tried to sleep with Alice to have revenge on Dan, and even after she refused, he told Dan that he had, in fact, done so, just because he knew it would mess up their relationship. "I was going to lie to you about it," he said, "but I hate you too much for that courtesy."
Alice is the closest thing we get to an innocent party. An ex-stripper/waitress, she serves as the source material for Dan's failed novel, and she gives Dan up for Anna without a fight. Then going back to stripping, she refuses to be Larry's "revenge fuck". She even takes Dan back and prepares to wisk him away on a surprise vacation, but then she grows tired of his endless needling about what had happened with Larry that she lies and says that she did have sex with him. It all goes to hell at that point, and she smartly walks away, leaving Dan behind. But then, in the final irony, we discover that she's been lying to everyone for years about who she really is, even using an assumed name the entire time.
About the only redeeming thing in all this was Natalie Portman's performance. She plays a character much closer to Matilda (Leon/The Professional) than Padme (Lucas' self-love trilogy), enough to most assuredly break her out of any damsel-in-distress typecasting. Plus, she looks damn fine in a thong.
Overall: one flaming bag of dog-shit.
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June 22, 2005
Top 10 not in the Top 100
The American Film Institute has furthered the case for their disolution by releasing yet another Top 100 list. This time it was the Top 100 Film Quotes. While there were some good ones in there, there's always plenty of better ones left out. Part of it, I suspect, is that they needed to keep the list at PG-13, but others were left out surely for a lack of class -- on the part of the list maker, not the quote. ;)
So, let's start a little meme/parlor game. What are the top 10 quotes left out of the top 100 quotes?
- "Luke, I am your father." The Empire Strikes Back.
- "Yippikiyay, motherfucker." Die Hard
- "Snakes... why did it have to be snakes?" Raiders of the Lost Ark
- "There is no spoon." The Matrix
- "The first rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about Fight Club." Fight Club
- "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." The Princess Bride
- "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." Patton
- "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." (response) "Fucking-A!" Aliens
- "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die." Bladerunner
- "Monkeys? You think a money knows he's sittin' on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys they know that, see? Well, I'll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV." The Right Stuff
What are your top ten?
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May 19, 2005
Review of the Sith
I just got out of the midnight showing of Revenge of the Sith, and while a few notes fell flat, this was enough. George Lucas finally delivered on the tragic arc of Anakin's story.
George, I forgive you.
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May 04, 2005
Hitchhiker's Guide... Don't Pan It!
Well... actually, do pan it.
I went to see it this evening with a coworker because we had won free movie tickets via a trivia game on the bus ride over to the baseball game. (Rangers over A's, 16 to 7, rained out in the ninth inning.) And at $9.50 per ticket, we were glad someone else had paid for the movie, especially for this one.
Mind you, I have read the books and seen the BBC TV version, but I wasn't a fanatic on it. Well... technically, I could quote sections of it at length, but just because I'm that guy... you know, the geek who can quote nerd films at length. Anyway, I went in with an open mind, fully prepared for it to stray from the books/etc.
It varied between sticking closely to the origionals (almost line-by-line) and straying from them, and there were good parts in both areas. There were also somewhat lame parts in both. By and large, it was just inconsistant, though it did at least start fairly strong. The ending, while annoyingly trite, was at least marginally decent. I stress that: marginally decent. Not glorious, not even good. Just decent. Maybe. I'm on the fence here.
I give it two white mice and a towel.
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April 28, 2005
Radio of the Sub-Genius?
The tape deck in my car died recently, so I've started listening to the radio again. I was bouncing back and forth between KMFA (classical music) and KGSR (eclectic rock w/ an Austin twist) when I discovered "Bob-FM" at 103.5 MHz.
At first it was really pretty cool. The premise, which they keep telling us over and over, is that this is Bob's radio station, and we're just listening to Bob's massive CD collection which spans the 60's through today. I liked the idea of that. It's similar to what I'd do if I ran a radio station. It wouldn't be Metal or Rap or Top-40. It would just be good music that Dan liked.
My tapes were like that, just collections from CD's, and I had mixed together about twelve hours worth of music ranging from Queen and the Eagles to Tori Amos and the Alan Parson's Project. I probably could have doubled that if I'd both taken the time and was willing to accept the songs that I just sorta liked. People who rode with me on trips would comment, "Damn, this is a really good tape." If I had access to the budget and the time to search for the music (let's leave RIAA vs. Napster out of it for the moment), I could probably rack up 100 hours of pure music. [Reality check: consider the top 40 songs from 40 years to get 1600 songs... 3.5 minutes each yields about 93 hours.] That's over four days. Toss in the news reports, some commercials, a minimum of DJ chat to remind you that yes, that really was the Turtles singing "Happy Together". That would bring you up to five or six days. Maybe toss in a little extra of the more recent stuff (say, the last 3 years), and you should be able to get up to about a week. Yep, you could listen to a radio station 24/7 for a week without hearing a repeat.
Well, that's not what Bob-FM is. The honeymoon lasted about two days of intermittent driving before I heard my first repeat, some psuedo-Country piece about "living like you were dying". And then more repeats, which then repeated. In a couple of weeks, I've found about ten or fifteen songs on there that I keep hearing again and again. Now, there IS a good mix of older stuff that breaks up the monotony, but I'd bet it's still about 60% or 70% Top-40 being repeated over and over.
Maybe I should cut Bob some slack. Well, maybe I would if he played Eurythmics more than Backstreet Boys.
In the meantime, I'm going to start looking for my dream car stero unit: an MP3 player that would read songs from a dual-layer DVD. At 8.5GB, I could store 140+ hours of music, almost six days worth. It really would be my own little radio station: KDAN. Considering that I don't drive very much, it would last for months. Heh, imagine the shuffle on that taking you from bagpipes to the Village People and then off to Sarah McLachlan.
Mmmmmm.... shuffle....
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November 04, 2004
Incredible Buzz for The Incredibles
I've been seeing a lot of good buzz for the coming Pixar release of "The Incredibles", but then I saw a news snippet that briefly worried me a bit.
It may seem odd, if not incredible, that Pixar entrusted the film, its first centered on human characters and tailored for adults as well as children, to a director who has made just one movie -- a commercial misfire loved by the critics.
Ok, while I do like some of these critical sleepers, the general description of "commercial misfire loved by the critics" is often a euphamism for a stinker loved only by NYU film students. The article didn't say what that misfire had been (another sign of a stinker, the assumption that I would not have even heard of it), so I decided to look up this director, Brad Bird.
Well, he hasn't directed anything in five years -- man, can it get any worse? -- and here it is, that commercial "misfire":
The Iron Giant, one of my favorite animated films of all time.
Ok, now I'm not worried. I'm all jittery with excitment.
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October 09, 2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tonight. I'd been tempted by it when it was in the theaters because it didn't look like the usual Jim-Carrey-as-Sillyman fare. I'm not a huge fan of Carrey, but I'd been pleasently surprised by the Truman Show several years back. It's less about his acting ability (which is actually decent) and more about his ability to pick a decent script. He's far from 100%, but this one goes in the win column.
--- A Few Minor Spoilers ---
Joel (Carrey) discovers that his girlfriend of two years, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has gone to "Lacuna" to have a doctor erase her memory of him. When he sees her in the bookstore, he's just another customer. Heartbroken, he signs up the for the same procedure.
What follows is a trip, and I do mean trip, through Joel's memories as the not-so-professional Lacuna team erases his memories that night in his apartment. Joel is mostly along for the ride through these memories, but he's also conscious of what's being done. At first, he's enjoying it, living out the ultimate break-up experience, essentially tossing Clementine out of existence, but as it continues, he begins to realize how many good memories there were. Ultimately, he changes his mind, but it's too late. He can't tell them to stop.
So he does his best to cling to the memory of Clementine, with his memory of her acting as a willing accomplice. Things really go down the rabbit-hole after that, turning about as surreal as Being John Malkovich if not more so. Meanwhile, the Lacuna team is having fits, some pot, and a few problems of their own. In the end, all the memories are gone, or are they? Look for a hopeful chance and one last monkey wrench.
--- End Minor Spoilers ---
All in all, it was extremely surreal while still keeping the narrative moving at a good pace, and ultimately, it was very sweet. I give it four sugar cubes, laced with LSD.
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September 28, 2004
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
MAW and I went to see "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence" tonight as our last date night before our nanny leaves on Friday. Good, but not stellar.
Minor spoilers follow.
First of all, the plot was as gripping, inscrutible, and hard to follow as it was in the first film. Instead of cryptic cyborgs fighting with ultra-violent humans, it's cryptic humans fighting with ultra-violent cyborgs. Ok, there's more to it than that, but there's not much point in me going into it here.
So, yes, lots of deep philosophizing peppered with incredible action sequences that would never get below an NC-17 if they'd been live-action. Plenty of religious quotes, and some nice observations on the nature of sentience, humanity, and the ever-questionable souls. Plus, the dog is adorable. (Awwwww....)
My only real complaint is that the animation was a mix of CGI and cell animation. The pure-cell animation was top-notch, and the pure-CGI was pretty good too, but it was jarring when they were mixed. The CGI was too photorealstic at times, especially when the cell animation overlayed it, somewhat remiscent of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" but stiffer. Parts of the CGI even felt like I was moving through a first-person shooter game, complete with heads-up displays for the cyborg point-of-view. The only thing missing were the health and ammo packs littering the ground.
Bottom line: 3 1/2 Descartes' and a bottle of Dramamine. I'll probably still buy it when it comes out on DVD.
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August 21, 2004
The Hercules Text
I just finished reading The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt. Technically, this was an updated version contained in a two-novel bundle titled Hello Out There. In the author's notes, he says that he significantly altered the background politics in the story to remove the rather dated 80's references to the Soviet Union.
The cool thing about this book is that it gives us an interesting look at the Prime Directive. Specifically, it shows what happens to Earth when an alien civilization doesn't follow it.
They don't show up in their shiny warp-drive ship or anything. Instead, this is the tale of what happens when we finally receive that much sought-after radio signal from an extra-terrestrial intelligence. At first, it’s just a mathematical “hello”, but then we start getting the full Encyclopedia Galactica.
I’ll give you a bit of flavor for it with this excerpt:
“Is there a correlation between intelligence and compassion?” Rimford asked.
“Yes,” said Harry.
“No.” said Wheeler. “Or if there is, it’s a negative one.”
“Well, I don’t guess we have a consensus.” He opened his arms to the sky. “I’m inclined to agree with Pete.”
“What’s your point?” asked Harry.
“Any society smart enough to survive its early technological period should conclude that even the knowledge of its existence could have deleterious effects on an emerging culture. I mean, we’ve figured that out. It even shows up as Star Trek’s prime directive. Who’s to say what such knowledge might do, for example, to the religious foundations of a society?”
“That’s an old idea,” said Wheeler. “But you’re suggesting we might be listening to a culture that is actively malevolent. That takes satisfaction in disrupting societies it hasn’t encountered. And will never know.”
“It might be perceived as a religious obligation,” said Rimford, slyly.
Wheeler nodded, refusing to take the bait. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“There’s a better explanation,” said Harry. “The old cliché: Never ascribe to malevolence what can safely be attributed to stupidity.”
“Morons with the technology of their bright ancestors,” said Rimford. “Now that’s an interesting thought.” He refilled their glasses, and they gazed out at the surrounding woods. “There is something we need to consider though. We know the Hercules transmitter is a product of extreme sophistication. What happens if we get a million years’ worth of technology overnight?” His face was hidden in shadow. “Pete was talking about the philosophical problems that might arise. Here’s a variant. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, some physicists announced that nothing remained to be learned in their discipline. From that point, it would all be simply a matter of measuring and cataloging. It’s an interesting notion, and it’s been showing its head again recently. The end of science. Break through to the Theory of Everything, and after that it’s over. What would happen to us, to all of us, if that indeed were to happen? If these people just flat out told us how everything worked? Left nothing for us to do?”
Harry had found a canvas chair, and he relaxed in it, setting his beer down on a side table. “It wouldn’t affect most people at all, Baines. Most of us just want to pay the mortgage and watch TV. It’s only a handful of troublemakers who’d worry because we no longer needed supercolliders.”
Rimford made a sound deep in his throat and glanced at his watch. “We may be about to discover the true nature of time. Except that we won’t discover it. The Altheans will explain it to us.” He shook his head. “I think the bastards, if they’ve really done that, are mean-spirited. And it’s hard to believe that wouldn’t have known what they were doing.”
Rating: Three deep thoughts and a passion fruit.
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July 22, 2004
Club Dread & The Butterfly Effect
I’ve been down with a bug, so I spent some time the other night just lying down in front of a TV. Fortunately, I have Netflix to keep me from watching the normal poor fare, so I watched Club Dread and The Butterfly Effect.
I got this for two reasons: 1) It was billed as being from the makers of Super Troopers, which was hilarious, and 2) various vid-caps from the web promised some hot chicks. I should say that I’m not a big fan of the horror genre. I’ve probably seen more horror spoofs (Scream, Scary Movie, etc.) than proper horror films. They mostly seem to send the message that if you have sex outside of marriage, you will meet a violent end. That must satisfy enough of the tightwads in the world to allow much of the anti-violence rhetoric to be shifted towards Schwarzenegger-style action films.
Anyway, Club Dread disappointed me on both counts. It wasn’t nearly as funny as Super Troopers, and the chicks weren’t nearly as hot or naked as I’d been led to believe. There were some humorous bits, but they weren’t all that funny, and the horror parts weren’t really all that horrific. It seems like they couldn’t decide between being a comedy or a horror film, so the failed to do either. Others have shown that it’s possible to do both, but they fell short. Rating: one overripe, bruised banana.
When I first saw the previews for this I thought it looked really cool. It was generally panned because everyone says that Ashton Kutcher couldn’t act his way out of a mime’s maze. It was enough to keep it off my “what movie to I get to go out to this quarter?” list, but I still flagged it for a rental later on. This is because similar things had been said about Jim Carrey and The Truman Show, a movie that gave me a very pleasant surprise.
Let me start by saying that Kutcher’s performance was fair, not great but not dismal. He did manage to break out of the Michael Kelso box, but not with much force. However, the real stars in this tale are the tale itself and the young actors playing younger versions of Kutcher, John Amedori and especially Logan Lerman. I’ll get to why in a spoilers section below, but first let me just say that I haven’t seen a film this gripping and disturbing for a while. Disclaimer the disk I saw was the director’s cut, which is seven minutes longer than the theatrical release, and I can imagine that the wrong seven minutes cut from this could have ruined the film.
- - - Spoilers begin - - -
The movie begins with Evan (Kutcher) in an asylum, hiding from the staff, and writing a note. We then get a long flashback sequence to his childhood, where he had some minor mental problems in that he had memory blackouts from key stressful times in his life. He just didn’t remember them. These varied from sexual abuse to incidents of violence and cruelty. Evan’s father had had similar problems and had gone fully mad when Evan was just a baby. Their psychiatrist recommended Evan keep a journal in hopes that it would help him remember what happened during the blackouts.
We return to the present to find Evan as a bright college student who has left all of his childhood troubles behind. He still keeps the journals, but he hasn’t had a blackout in seven years. Then one day while reading a journal entry about one of the blackouts, he suddenly remembers the true events so vividly that it’s almost as if he’s there. He then tries to reconnect with some of his childhood friends, including his childhood love, who lived through the same traumatic events as he, and he discovers that this new memory of the blackout is true and that it was just a link in the chain of events that destroyed the lives of everyone he had cared about.
Then, through a rather clever plot gimmick, Evan realizes that he’s not just remembering these events but that he can control his actions and change the past. It’s a little as though he’s just been living his life out of order in a Vonnegut “Slaughterhouse Five” way. And so he sets out to change the past and save his friends and mother from the pain and anguish wrought in the previous years. We get to see a lot of the earlier blackouts unfold, except now the young actors playing Evan act with the style and maturity of the adult Evan. That convincing switch from innocent child to vengeful adult really made this time travel aspect work, hence my kudos for the young actors.
The problem is that no matter what Evan does, someone else still pays a terrible price. We then learn that Evan’s insane father had been able to do the same thing, and that had been what sent him over the edge, the endless guilt at causing a different destruction at every turn. Ultimately, these changes bring us to Evan in the asylum we saw at the beginning of the film, as he makes one last attempt to put things right. He makes the ultimate sacrifice in a very disturbing way, especially disturbing to a parent. Yet what got to me more was the implication that this wasn’t the first time someone had been forced into that choice. I’ll keep that aspect spoiler-free, but it really got to me.
- - - Spoilers end - - -
So, while Kutcher won’t get any notice from the Academy for this performance, it’s still a pretty good flick. Rating: three deep thoughts and one nightmare.
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