Went and saw U-TURN tonight, had a damn blast. Well as usual here is how my day went, that set me up for this fantasticly entertaining sick twisted as hell ride into the town I went to high school in. (Not literally, but really really close)
Once again my day started with a phone call, most of my days begin this way now. Paul, the supercool dude, was calling me to take dad and I to get the pass for U-TURN. The giveaway was at a local used CD store at noon and we needed to get there. Buuuuut, our van broke down. It's the starter you see, and we ain't got the funds that the mechanic quoted. That sucks! Oh well, when a mechanic says $____ you pay it, or your car don't run. So as a result the van sits in my front yard like white trash art. Doesn't quite have the style of a pink flamingo, but damn it's my unmoving metal piece of sh*t.
We hooked up with Paul and off we went to get our tickets. Sure enough we get there, and guess what. THE LINE PEOPLE are already in place, stretched out from the door of the CD store out into the street, ending in the shadow of BEST BUY. So I sat down upon the red Fire Zone curb, bathed in the shadow of corporate hell awaiting my ticket for an Oliver Stone film. No irony there... nope.... none in sight.
The whole time we waited cars kept trying to drive through the center of the line, causing chaos... hmmmm... chaos in a line for an Oliver Stone ticket. Who'd a thunk it? Finally the line moves forward and lo and behold... we have our ticket. Paul takes us on a few errands and we eat at Kim Phung, the absolute best Vietnamese food I've ever had. This place rocks. We figured we'd consume Vietnamese food in honor of Oliver Stone. Man using Stone as an excuse to eat at Kim Phung is a great idea. In fact any reason you can come up with at all to eat there is good. Yum yum eat em up.
Paul drops Dad and I at the house of harry and leaves to go do his other good deeds of the day. Dad and I go in and lay down. We're stuffed. Arg, ate too much. After zoning out for a couple hours, Paul is at the front door and it's time to leave for the theater. I tell Dad to take a certain script that a certain cool filmmaker sent me (I ain't gonna say who, so don't ask). It's a classic, if the studios and men in suits pull their heads out and realize coolness set in Victorian London can rock.
The screening was at the Lincoln theater and as usual the smell of burning popcorn greeted our nostrils. Mine had just recently cleared after a bout of a head cold, and man, there is nothing like getting a whiff of burning popcorn to burn your eyes and wish for a stuffed nose. Smiling like an idiot I sit down with the concept of reading the script for IRON GIANT, but I get to talking to Paul, and my wife, Ron, (long story, not a real wife or romantic interest, just a joke that goes way back) wanted to read it. So I swore him in as a defender of the truth and off he went. Page after page he turned, while Paul and I talked Saturday morning cartoons and after school cartoons. He grew up where the Marvel cartoons didn't play. You know the stiff animated ones, well that was probably the pivot that made him an aggie. Sigh. We all take the wrong road from time to time. :) After a while I look over and Ron is about 2/3 finished with IRON GIANT.
Then we head into the screen. A loyal geek and reader of the site, had printed out the last couple of days of AICN news updates, and had them to show his non-net friends. Really weird holding copies of my pages. Feels... umm real. Began wondering about how many people do that. I mean seriously how many people have been reading my site off print outs that get passed around high schools. I wonder, is the stuff I'm writing being confiscated and thrown away by evil ogre teachers? I hope so, that'd be very cool. It'd be like my experiences with Starlog and Famous Monsters as a kid. Like some sort of underground rag distributed in corners and folded into a library book. Ahhhhhhhh, cool thoughts.
Actually after entering the theater I got off to a bad start to begin with, because these people began grabbing the seats I wanted. You see, I was suppose to grab some seats around mid-theater for Mr. Cool and Mr. Huh- Huh, but they were taken from me, so I sat as far back (yet forward) center I could, and saved two seats. Always keeping my eyes open for them, the screening room went dark and it was time for trailers.
GATTACA- I really dislike this trailer. It's not annoying. It's just not powerful for me, at all. The script was great, and the film looks right, but this film really needed to do a trailer that showed NO FILM FOOTAGE, and was a classic tease trailer. It's an intellectual film (or that's what it'll attempt). It needs to feel smart, the trailer doesn't. I might be seeing this film Friday, we'll see.
I SAW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER - Pretty cool trailer, I've heard great things about it, and they are already looking for someone to write a sequel, according to my sources. I'll see this one next Thursday, and will report back atcha.
Then a trailer that had some beautiful photography but was absolutely uncool. It had a hideous voice over talking about how great a love, a love sooooo powerful (HOOOOOW POWERFUL WAAAASSSS IT?!?!?!?!) yadda yadda yadda. It stars that annoying fella from CROW II: CITY OF ANGELS, and Ian McKellen, who is cool. Bad trailer, might skip this one.
STARSHIP TROOPERS- Ok either the theater didn't have the sound on, or whoever did the audio work on this trailer should be fired. I mean it sounded sooooo flat and uninvolving. Spectacular images, but no OOMPH to the soundtrack. Trailer causes a few smatterings of giggles, but the audience will show, I WILL.
BOOGIE NIGHTS- I'm dying to see this film. Been hearing great things about it. Should be seeing it sometime in the next couple of weeks. Good trailer, makes ya wanna see it.
Then that damn floating dust THX trailer. Oh this is where I found out the theater didn't flip the switch for the THX to come on. Nothing worse than hearing a THX trailer with low volume and the system not on. All the work that goes into the making of a film, and if the theater doesn't flip that switch... nope. It can make a difference.
Then that horrible DOLBY DIGITAL canyon trailer came on, this is when the speakers came on. Though you don't really get a sense of surround with this trailer. Need better directional use of sound. Specific sound placings to highlight it would do nicely.
Then it was time for U-TURN. Now first off I'm an Oliver Stone fan. He hasn't made a movie I haven't enjoyed to some degree. I find his films to generally be technical marvels, and very innovative in his style of story telling. Does his frills get in the way of telling his stories? Not to me. Stone is like that Uncle that was so different from your Dad/Mother. He told stories in a completely different style, waving his hands around and doing character voices and faces and props. It's just a style of storytelling where anything goes. That's Oliver Stone.
Then there is Stone's politics which tend to alienate a good portion of the public. Strange though that as long as our government is hiding a deceiving us in the fictional world (ie X-Files) it's groovy, but along comes a guy trying to get his audience to question the facts the government has given us, and he's a kook. I don't believe all crackpot theories (including my own) but there is a certain mental exercise that takes place in tracing and validating those theories. A lot like sorting through the rumors and innuendo surrounding Lucas' little project in Leavesdon. I believe in conspiraces, because....
Well let me put it this way, if a kid in the back bedroom of his father's house can put together and semi-organize thousands of people in countries around the globe, by himself, have them infiltrate top secret screenings, sets, etc. Leak me scripts, designs, set photos, videos, etc. Then imagine what a group that actually has money can do....
Ok, that covers that, but personally I think everyone should divorce Stone's politics of question authority aside if they bother you, and concentrate on the film as a work of art, entertainment and cinema.
U-Turn succeeded for me at all three levels.
Art - Ummm beginning with the opening credits and continuing throughout Stone uses basic tricks learned in film school, and turns them on their ear. Playing with our sense of perspective. Sped up motion, slow motion, regular motion, blurred motion. The perception of reality through a sweaty tired eye. The passing of time, the wind blowing Lopez's beautiful raven hair across her face in tight close up, and even her lips with the hair blowing across in yet still a tighter close up. He elevates the Peckinpah (Wild Bunch / Convoy) classic opening to his own stylings. Buzzards on roadkill as a work of beauty.
Entertainment- Well the audience laughed, moaned, and did that squirm of uncertainty quite a bit. You know the scene in Pulp Fiction where those two guys stumble into the Pawn Shop to beat the crap out of each other and end up in hell the next. This film is filled with life sticking it's nasty damn head up and taking a bite out of your ass. The audience had a great time with this film. Vastly entertaining. I'll be seeing this again Friday.
Cinema- Well it is a movie. It's feature length and all. It's shown on a screen, but is it cinema. Sheeeet yeah!!! Not all films are cinematic to me. This means (to me) the telling of a story that actually takes the person through the screen and all the events and deposits them safely in their seat, amazed at all the shots, sounds, images, phrases, performances that they have just seen. This film won't be for all types, but it certainly was my type, and Mr Cool sounded like he liked it too.
The Best of the Film:
Billy Bob Thornton & Sean Penn. Heheheehehe, man these two people are fantastic together on screen. You understand both characters... perfectly. You'll go around talking about both of them for days, if not weeks, months, years.
Ennio Morricone's Score - This originator of that "whistle whistle whistle, wis wis tlle" for the For a Few Dollars More and so on. The score is insane, fun and a blast. As are the songs in this one. If this comes out on CD it'll be in my player.
Finally Cinematography & Editing - Just wait till you get a load of this. I was smiling throughout. Stone does have one hell of an eye.
BAD
Well, I don't really have anything to say here.
Now for all you squemish pansies out there that can't stand a paper cut, well stay at home. This is for us cooooool people. yeaaaaah.
Stone and his films may not be for you, and ultimately your opinion no matter what it is, is everbit as "important" as my own. Have fun and see the damn movie.
