Montana: Toyota Tundra Shoot Days 0-3

Color Palette

Livingston, MT

 

 

 

Wheeler Butte School

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sailing San Diego Bay

Inception: Best Fare of the Summer

The blockbuster of the summer Christopher Nolan’s Inception has grossed $486M worldwide for Warner Bros, while only costing the studio $160M.  All in all, the gamble paid off.  Should we be congratulating WB for going out on a limb in this economy and have the guts to produce something that wasn’t a third or fourth film in a  tired franchise?  The other studios have been playing it safe, so why shouldn’t they?  Humans are risk averse and that includes consumers who don’t like the idea of forking over more than $10/person for a movie they might not enjoy, particularly when movie night might not roll around again soon with everyone’s belts still clasped at that too tight notch.  But what exactly was the gamble?  Nolan’s last three films have been highly profitable, with The Dark Knight grossing $1B worldwide.  The fact that the lead is played Leonardo DiCaprio is alone enough to get butts in seats.  With a trailer promising a film that’s action packed competing against films like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, it was a recipe for success, even if the plot was “mind-bendy.”

The film itself is extremely entertaining.  Just enough to make you think and keep your mind occupied,  the film is also constantly in motion.  Despite it’s 148 minute runtime, the entire film is so engrossing you just might forget about that popcorn you splurged for.  Beautifully shot, and pulsing with Hans Zimmer’s sonorous soundtrack, Inception is sensually awesome to consume.  In Cobb’s (DiCaprio) world, corporate espionage takes place in the mind, thanks to a U.S. military program to develop “shared dreaming.”  The young widower and corporate spy wants desperately to return to his small children, but his guilt over his wife’s death is ripping at the fabric of his consciousness, threatening to completely tear away his grasp on reality and his control of his dreams.  His hopes rest on one last big job that will buy him the right to return home to his family.  With a cast of experts he will attempt the impossible: inception, or the planting of a thought in the mind of the target without his detecting its foreignness.  As the team attempts to plan this seed with a complicated strategy involving multiple levels of dreaming, the viewer is completely caught up in the “science” and “art” of constructing and controlling dreams.  As a work of fiction, we accept the premises, but it begs an interesting question at the end of the film, when your mind begins to sort out what was “real” and what was a “dream.”  None of it’s real of course, which is sort of the point.  We allow ourselves to accept these elaborately constructed dream worlds, as long they end after two hours or so, we know, that is not real.  When you walk out of the theater and into the street, you know that reality has recommenced.  But how often have you simply wished you could disappear into that world and just never come out?  Who’s to say you can’t choose your own reality? 

Overall, there’s plenty of food for thought in the film, but never once did the philosophy get in the way of the plot.  Highly entertaining, visually stunning, and thought-provoking, what more can you ask from a Hollywood blockbuster?  So skip your Starbucks for a week and check it out in the theater, if just visually and musically, it demands a big-screen experience.

Check out these links for some interesting Inception info:
"Why intriguing 'Inception' is the Hollywood exception" - Christian Sicence Monitor
Inception soundtrack created entirely from Edith Piaf song - The Guardian

Getty Villa: Macro Filters

Mad Men Returns!

The opener for Season 4 of Mad Men aired last weekend and it promises to be yet another summer of sinfully superb entertainment.  Beautifully lit and shot as always, Mad Men appears ready to reclaim the mantle of best show on television.  As an added bonus, Time-Warner Cable finally carries AMC HD, so I get to watch it in all it’s glory now.  Since the show began in 2007, Mad Men has influenced the direction of fashion and decor, helping sell products from Zippo lighters to precisely cut Banana Republic suits and dresses.  Interesting, if not morally inspiring, the characters feel real and three-dimensional.   The carefully selected dialogue and the well-constructed scenes, like a Don Draper advertisement, lead you to an inevitable conclusion: this is what I should be doing right now... sitting here, watching this.  I can’t wait for Episode 2.

For a dose of reality, check out this NY Times Blog with Q & A from a “real mad man.”

Ciro-flex Experimentations

"Treme" : The First Season

After digesting the first season of David Simon and Eric Overmyer’s new show "Treme," I am not 100% satisfied.   I feel like the show still exists as a possibility, it has promise.  I am hoping that plots begin to thicken and gain more substance and immediacy in the second season.  Right now, I don’t feel invested in many of the characters, though they are interesting and varied.

I can’t help but compare it to “The Wire,” as I’m sure many can’t,  and feel that it has fallen short.  It is a completely different show, I understand that.  It doesn’t really delve into the institutional corruption involved in the rebuilding of New Orleans, as it could, as the “The Wire” would.  It gives us a teaser of what’s there, but instead of following the thread, it, like Steve Zahn’s character Davis, is sidetracked by prospect of enjoyment and indulgence.  While it does have powerful moments, it wastes time with narratives that feel trivial or poorly developed, like that of Sonny, the unsympathetic and irritating street musician.  Food, parties, and above all, music, dominate much of the run time.  Don’t get me wrong, the music is amazing.  I’m ready to play the "Treme" soundtrack all day, as soon as it comes out.  However, it can’t carry the whole of the show.  The acting too, I have no complaints about, so really I have hope that the writer’s will hit their stride during the second season, which HBO mostly likely bestowed because of the success of “The Wire” rather than the performance thus far of “Treme.”

HBO's Site has links to buy some of the music: http://www.hbo.com/treme/index.html#/treme/episodes/1/10-ep-10-ill-fly-away/music

Review: Winter's Bone

I saw Winter’s Bone a couple weekends ago and I am still not sure what I think about it.  I think it’s taking me so long to make up my mind because I wanted it to be better than it was.  Debra Granik’s narrative feature based on Daniel Woodrell’s book by the same name won a jury prize at Sundance and people raved about the indie flick.  The film follows 17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) as she searches for her bail-jumping father before their land is snatched out from under them to cover his forfeited bond.  Finding no help from her practically catatonic mother and feeling the weight of her two young siblings on her shoulders, Ree attempts enlist the help of her father’s recalcitrant brother Teardrop (John Hawkes).   He finally comes to her aid as she tries to get information out of a clan of tight-lipped and brutal meth-cookers, her father’s last known associates.  Besides following the story of Ree, the film is a look at the harsh reality of rural life in the Arkansas Ozarks.  The problem is, although Granik goes to lengths to avoid exoticizing the culture, the viewer still feels very much like an outsider.  We are never allowed into the mind of Ree.  She is tough and kind with her siblings.  She stands up to all the forces trying to rip her family apart.  Her moments of vulnerability are quiet, private, and real, but they are insufficient to create a real sympathy between viewer and the character.  Her hopes and dreams, if she dares to have any, remain locked behind her stony mask of determination. 

The color scheme is the cool blues and greys of winter and the dialogue and action are as spare as the title would suggest.  Perhaps too spare.  Another problem with the film, and I hate saying this, is that it possibly is too realistic.  The storyline jogs along, escalating in the logical places, but there are no twists.  The end is not particularly surprising and doesn’t reveal anything new, however the denouement is probably the best scene of the whole film.  Since I still think the film is worth seeing, I won’t spoil the ending.  I can’t believe I’m saying this either, but I would have loved to see a version of this film made with a bigger budget.  The final scene, which takes place at night, but is shot day for night, would have been so much more powerful filmed actually at night, lit with the glow of balloon lights.  I don’t take issue with anything else in that scene, however, and I think where the camera looked and more importantly didn’t look, was perfect.

Final verdict: watch it at home for a look at a world that many of us know nothing about and is interesting and intriguing in it’s own right.  I plan to check out the book too, just to see how Granik chose to adapt it to film: Winter's Bone: A Novel by Daniel Woodrell.