The Island (2005)

                I had 2 objectives when I decided to watch this movie. 1.) To watch something that I would not have to think about afterwards, and 2.) To watch something that would allow me to test the capabilities of my new stereo system from G-Will.  Needless to say this Michael Bay film met all of my requirements.
              Set in the startlingly near future it left me worried about the fate of mankind, especially our clothing choices.  In a mix of cold gray concrete and sterile white laboratory adorned with LEDs the future us sit at mindless assembly line jobs like the current us.  If there is one thing they didn't learn form us it is how to get robots to do all the busy work.  The rest of the plot is too tedious to explain.
             The film is kind of a Truman Show meets Surrogates meets Michael Bay meets Every Other Crappy Sci-Fi-Dystopian-Neon-Future movie.  A society where everyone is the same, love is forbidden, heaven is just a lottery away, dudes in black are bad, etc.  Luckily the film cuts so fast you don't have to worry about your eyes getting bored.
             Yes this is the movie that Michael Bay would borrow shots from in his later Transformers blockbusters.  This movie cost $126 million and grossed $162.  Think how many smaller movies could have been made for that amount.
              It should go without saying that the vigor and enthusiasm with which I currently write is matches my enthusiasm of the film itself.

In much scarier news, Michael Bay is attached as producer of the upcoming Ninja Turtles reboot...uh oh.

Ewan McGregor Double Feature

            The possibility that Roman Polanski might not make another film renders The Ghost Writer an important piece of the director’s work.  The fact that it is so classically suspenseful and darkly tonal makes it worth just as much discussion.  It also stars Ewan McGregor, which marks its only obvious connection to Trainspotting.  Dark in its subject and humor, it is much more energetic and youthful and a more fitting entry for the early stages of McGregor’s body of work.

            Renton and his droogs are chemical pounding twenty-somethings whose only interest is scoring hits and having fun.  It is nearly impossible not to have just as much fun watching their convoluted antics render the situations more horrifying and delightful.  But there is more than mindless indulgences of chemical companionship and street-level scores.  However sickening and gross, they seem intent on not learning from their mistakes.  The death of a baby only serves as motivation to shoot up.  Even today, and perhaps because of its longevity, the film feels as edgy as modern fare and much more calculated.

            Calculated would be a proper word to describe Polanksi’s moody and dreary thriller.  The sun exists not in this East Coast intrigue and, having been filmed mostly in a studio, we should not be surprised.  Unlike the grimy street feel of Boyle’s film, Polanksi remains enclosed in a smoothly lit if still entirely inhospitable environment.  This is not to say it feel like a story world, it is just gritty-less in comparison.  And this is as it should be.  The story follows a clean-cut ghostwriter who steps into his predecessor’s shoes to pen the prime minister’s life story.  And as the trailer clearly tells us, nothing is as simple as it seems.

            In a squared cement house situated next to the ocean, the writer recomposes the 600+ pages of explication laid down by the work before him.  And as he delves deeper into his subjects career, and associates with his wife, finds the story not so clear-cut.  The usual twists and turns play out in a cold, largely shadowed arena.  The film remains evenly paced and taut from start to finish and concludes in a typically un-American simplicity. 

            Taken back-to-back, the films span almost the entirety of McGregor’s career and both are valued entries.  As is obvious by his casting, they represent age-defining entries as portraits of both his youth and maturity.  The no holds barred energy of his youth mark descriptive foil to his matured and composed aging.  And if anything, his endured diversity proves he has much work ahead of him.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

The trailer is funny, absurd, ridiculous, and supposedly true. The movie is very similar, but to the detriment of its longevity, it seems to stop there. It is certainly very relevant to consider the occasions when the military machine thrusts headlong, with taxpayer money in hand, into some new and expensive undertaking aimed at dominating world powers. This arrives at hyperbolic dimensions in the creation of Jedi warriors whose superior psychic abilities allow them to run through walls, disappear, and kill goats on sight. But after the consistent laughs and compounding absurdity we are left with little but questions about what and why. Not simply why these military acts were ever allowed or encouraged but what we are supposed to take away from their reenactments.

We cannot fully render their existence social commentary on the frivolity of war given the sparse placement of actual combat. We could start to ponder the notions of people supposedly out of place that find their calling where they least expect it. And we could certainly address, as mentioned before, the attempts at superiority by any means necessary on the part of our countries military. Yet even with these possibilities in hand the film feels empty on the larger scale. We get no message, we take it in stride, we laugh at the exaggeration but receive no warning. Certainly we could be left with the intent that any money spent on war is wasted, or any plan based psychically is ludicrous.

I will, however, commend the film for its subtle jab at current film posters by giving equal billing to both main actors and namesake goat. And of course, if you have not read the other article previously published, do so now. It has been out intent to respond to the same films as a combined post but as of yet such desires have failed to find fruition.