The long awaited second episode of Reel Geeks is finally out. In the new episode Nick Allen and I mainly cover the mind bending film Inception and a few thoughts on the upcoming film The Social Network. Hope you enjoy the show. Subscribe on iTunes now.
Reel Geeks is a show produced by my myself and a friend Nick Allen. In the show Nick and I just discuss and joke about films. We both were inspired to do the show because this is how our conversations normally go when we discuss film. Critical discussions of films that quickly lead into random and obscure jokes about them. The only difference this time is that we record our discussions and share it with the rest of the world.
Here are the behind the scenes of the show. We both met at Columbia College Chicago. I have already graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Film and Video with a focus in Traditional Animation. Nick is still at Columbia and is working toward his Bachelor’s Degree in Film and Video with a focus of Film Critique. We both record the show and I painstakingly edit it. Nick’s musical talent was used to produce the great music you hear.
The first episode just went live today. Hope you enjoy the show. Subscribe on iTunes now.
The Princess And The Frog is the return of traditional animation by Disney. The film is Disney’s own take of the fairy tail, The Frog Princess, but with a new twist. The story is about a young African American girl named Tiana. All she has ever worked for in her life was to make enough money for her own restaurant. She wishes upon a star for her dream to come true. The interesting thing is, the fairy tale of The Frog Prince actually exists in the films world and the characters are aware of it. So after making her wish upon a star, she sees a frog and sarcastically questions if she needs to kiss him to turn him into a prince. Since it is a talking frog, she finally grudgingly agrees to kiss him. Since this is a twist on the original tale, instead of the frog becoming a prince, Tiana herself becomes another frog. The story continues from there in the classic Disney animation style of the two going on an adventure while meeting new friends along the away.
I think Disney did a very good job at creating the characters of the film. They are not the stereotypical fairy tale or classic Disney characters that we are use too. This is the first Disney Princess film in a very long time to feature the Princess with a mother. Out of the eight former Disney Princesses, there has only been a single Princess with both a mother and a father. The past five Disney Princesses only had a father and no one ever mentioned a mother. In this film, Tiana actually starts with both parents until her father passes away. After his passing, Tina’s motivation is living up to her fathers dream. Which is a very strong motivation for any character. The princess himself, is actually very poor. Trying to get rich again is his motivation. This seems very shallow and negative at first, but this allows room for his character to grow and change is ways and become a more dynamic character. I even teared up during a very sad moment during one of the final scenes of the film. I was completely surprised and still unable to think of another one of Disney’s animated films to have same emotional rich plot point in the film.
Not only is The Princess And The Frog a return to traditional animation, but also the classical idea of it being a musical. I had almost forgot completely about the idea of singing in an animated film. It was very rare for any animated film over the past decade for a character to brake out in song and dance. This film featured many songs, maybe too many. I am not a fan of this musical style of animated films any more. It might of been fun when I was a kid, but I enjoy a more traditional way of telling a story now. Instead of a character braking the flow of a story by singing their feelings and motivations. The only saving grace was that it just reminded me of all my favorite classic Disney films and their song and dance numbers of my child hood. I actually enjoyed the very first song, because the character’s did not stop what they were doing to sing and dance to it, instead the music was just background music during montage like sequence. I hope Disney loses the complete musical style format, and instead make it more subtle background music.
A very important note is that, spoiler alert, Tiana does becomes a princess. This means she is the first African American Disney Princess. There had been so many Western European Princesses, a Middle Eastern princess, a Native American Princess, an Asian Princess, and even some kind type of Fish Princess. So after already having the majority of races, and even a fictional one, it was finally time for Disney to have African American Princess.
Since The Princess And The Frog is brand new, of course it is missing the nostalgia factor of all the classic Disney animated film. But I can easily see how a young generation and generations to come will classify this film in the same nostalgia category that my generation and I do for Aladdin and The Lion King.
Almost anyone who has seen the film Up In The Air can easily tell you that it is one of the best film of 2009 and I agree wholeheartedly. Up In The Air is about Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney. His job is to fly around the country and lays off employees for bosses who are unwilling to do so themselves.
His disconnected and hollow life might seem unappealing to the outside observer, but Ryan enjoys it and would not want his life any other way. Since he has no real life prospects to look forward to, the only thing he has, since he flies so often, is to save up his frequent flier miles to reach a goal of 10 million miles. This is his only goal in life and he would be the 7th person to ever achieve it. He also gets by with making small connections with random women in between flights. Ryan’s latest minor connection with another frequent flier is Alex Goran, played by Vera Farmiga. They enjoy each others company enough they start a casual relationship by comparing flight scheduling to see when they will meet up next.
Ryan’s own boss, played by Jason Batman, grounds Ryan and makes him return to the home office to find out that ironically his own job is threatened. A new young employee, Natalie Keener played by Anna Kendrick, has a new cost saving plan. Instead of spending a lot of money physically flying people around the country to perform a layoff, they now would layoff people over the internet with a video call. Ryan is upset by this because his shallow way of life and job, that he personally enjoys, is now disrupted. Ryan convinces his boss to allow him to take Natalie with him on his next round of layoffs the old fashion way. The rest of the film involves Ryan showing Natalie the old way versus the new way, and Ryan actually trying to make a real connection with another person for once, Alex.
Up In The Air is very well paced. Featuring many funny, dramatic and unique true life moments. The delivered and performance of the witty and smart dialog helped emphasis the great quality of the writing. After the first viewing of the film I thought it was the best film of the year. On a second viewing of the film, it reconfirmed that my choice was right. The film was actually better the second time around, which I did not think was possible. On the seconded viewing, now having the foresight of what will happen in the film, it was even more clear of how well the film was structured. The character’s actions and development are true to life but still very original.
Even though the film is based on a novel from almost 10 years ago, this film truly captures a unique perspective on this current financial economic crisis. It is a very realistic and relatable film. An interesting thing the director Jason Reitman did, was include real people that had actually been fired from their job, in the film. This is done three times through out the film. They basically slightly look past the camera and talk about the what it feels like to be fired. The footage was used by inter cutting between George Clooney and the person that had been fired, making it appear as if he had just fired them. Almost every word the real people said about losing their job was heartbreaking.
Out of the 10 Best Picture nominates, Up In The Air is my favorite. Hope it wins as many Academy Awards as possible. There are many other films that I hope win as many awards as possible, but then there are films that don’t need to win many.
Up is a fully computer animated feature film created by Pixar and Disney. It is an adventure film, and like all Pixar films, it is meant for the entire family. The story is about an old man named Carl Fredricksen, voiced by Ed Asner, trying to achieve his dream of one day going to South America. He attaches thousands of balloons to his house to make it fly. Mistakenly, a little boyscout named Russell tagged along. As the two adventure on, they meet new friends and enemies, that will help them and hinder them on their journey.
Up is a very emotional film. At the very beginning of the film it shows a montage of Carl Fredricksen and his wife’s life. There are two extremely sad moments in the montage that that will leave a grown man crying, myself included. Even multiple viewings still make me tear up a little. Then through out the rest of the film, Carl comes up agents struggles that are hindering him from achieving his dream. These moments are also very emotionally overbearing. Little Russell talks very briefly about his personal life, and it is very sad. The friends that Carl and Russell meet up with also have problems of being hunted and outcasted by others.
If I had to fault Up for anything, it would be the evil old man villain story line. I felt that was much weaker than the rest of the films plot. It was kind of weird to have an evil old man villain, contrasting with a emotional journey to achieve someones dreams. I understand that they needed a major conflict in the film, but I think they could have come up with something better. Maybe Pixar should have extended the journey itself and made it a bigger conflict than it already was.
Like all Pixar films, the art direction and animation was outstanding. They created a very interesting world that was familiar but different. The character designs are stylized enough that they will never look out of date. These things make this film an instant classic. It is sadly not my favorite film created by Pixar, but it is many unique qualities that separate it from the rest of the collection. I would have to place Up on the top half of my list of favorites out of the 10 best picture nominees. I am happy this film is nominated for best picture because it is very rare for animated features to be nominated. Up is only the second ever to be nominated, Beauty and the Beast being the first.
A Serious Man is about a Jewish American man in the 1960s as every aspect of his life falls apart. From the extremely large spoiler heavy things, to the completely minor things, like the TV going out, there is nothing in his life that is untouched. It even extends to his entire family, with all of them having parts of their own lives falling apart. My review is very spoiler heavy and becomes less of a review and basically becomes an analysis of the film because so many people did not understand it. Read on if you have already watched the film or do not mind spoilers.
The opening scene of A Serious Man features a seaming unrelated story on the surface to the main film, but it has a deeper purpose. It features an older Jewish family in the early 20th century in Europe. They never explicitly states that the main character in the film is related to them, but by the rules of Chekhov’s gun, not only are they related to the main character, but their own miss actions are the cause of the main characters misfortune. The opening scene could have three other major points; the idea of telling far fetch family stories, the old idea of curses, or just to show a traditional European Jewish family in the early 20th century. So maybe in the end, it was actually needed.
Spoiler Alert, here is where I get spoiler heavy with the plot and ending. The entire film loops around back to the exact spot where it started. Ignoring the opening scene, the very first scene we see, is the main character’s son trying to pay off the another kid at school. He loses the money and though out the entire film he cant pay the kid back. One of the son’s few problems he has to deal with. The son finally gets the money back and in the very last scene we see is him, in the exact same manor as that the very beginning of the film, the son gets ready to hand over to money to the other kid before the film cuts to the credits. The second scene we see is the main character at the doctors office. The second to last scene the doctor calls the main character to come into his office for bad news. So the film ends on the same note as in began.
A lot of peoples problems with the A Serious Man is that there is no resolution to anything but instead the film cuts to credits even before the final climax. At first I was shocked when I saw the credits rolling but then seconds later I realized everything and actually thought it was funny what the Coen Brothers did. Through out the entire film they blatantly stated multiple times the idea of no resolution to a story.
The opening scene had no resolution, unless the entire main part of the film is the actual resolution to the minor story.
The main character has multiple dreams but wakes up during the climax, so there is no resolution to any of them.
The main character is a professor of physic and explains two different ideas about quantum mechanics. Lucky for me, I have already read up on the basic ideas of quantum mechanics to under stand it when it comes up in media, such as this film. So I already knew both quantum mechanics ideas that were explained before viewing this film. The first, he explaining Schrödinger’s cat. A very deep and complex idea but to put it simply; It is a thought experiment of the idea of putting a cat in a box with acid and closing the box. Then you do not know if the cat is alive or dead, thus no resolution. The second theory he talks about was the Uncertainty Principle. The name alone tells you that you can not know everything because some things will be left uncertain.
Then the most blatant of them all. The main character is told a long pointless story that has no resolution. The main character even goes as far as to state that there was no resolution and that he wanted to know. The story teller response by saying who cares.
All these things add up and everyone should have not been surprised when the film had no resolution. First off the films resolutions could only go in two direction. Second it would actually be boring an unnecessary to see it. Either the doctor tells the main character he is fine, or there is seriously something wrong. The doctor called the main character over the phone, but forced him to come in, which means only one thing, there is something seriously wrong. As for the main character’s son, either him and everyone else dies from the tornado, or they survives it. Both parts we do not need to see. This is my third favorite film out of the 10 best nominated for best picture. I think very highly of this film and it is in third place only because I like the other two just slightly more.
…-dary! How I Met Your Mother celebrated its 100th episode with a comedic driven, Mother teasing, suit wearing, dance spectacular!
Lets start with this episode’s secondary plot. Barney struggles with hooking up with a bartender while Marshall, Lily and Robin fight over if the bartender is actually hot or not. Robin says its only circumstantial hotness because she is behind a bar. This results in Robin sneaking behind the bar and for a small moment, during which she becomes extremely irresistible. Meanwhile, Barney, played by NPH, normally has no troubles suiting up and getting with the ladies. But this time his two favorite things, girls and suits, conflict with each other because the bartender hates men who wear suits. Barney’s story concluded in a climatic dance number joined by the rest of the cast, about Girls Versus Suits, titled “Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit“.
Now for the main plot of Ted Mosby’s continuing struggles to tell the simple story to his kids of “How I Met Your Mother“. Finally, in the 100th episode, everyone gets to meet the person we have been anticipating since the first episode. That’s right, we all finally met the Mother’s roommate. The missed opportunity of this episode being called “How I Met Your Mother’s Roommate” actually resulted with a great comedic and engaging story. At the start of the episode Ted Mosby meets Cindy, played by cute Rachel Bilson. Due to the unreliable narrator and clever writing of the show we are led to believe that Ted has finally met the Mother. A quarter through the episode they flip it on us and reveal that she is not the Mother but instead the true Mother’s current roommate. The twist was introduced when present Ted, in 2010, picks up a little yellow bus and future Ted tells his children that that was the first time he saw the bus that is currently on the shelf behind them in 2030. Major props, pun intended, to the writers to think to include a prop in the story that has been in the future 2030 scene of Ted talking to his children since season 1. After Ted picks up the bus, Cindy quickly explains that it is not her little yellow bus, but in fact her roommate’s. Sadly that is when we learn that Cindy is not the Mother but lucky for us she is fully willing to explain what kind of person the true Mother is.
Cindy has a roommate complex because she always fears that her roommate will steal her boyfriend, (which she, obviously, eventually does). Ted promises that he will never fall in love with her roommate, (which he will). On the date Cindy can’t stop talking about her roommate. Cindy tries to explain the weird things her roommate does but Ted loves all of them. The Mother making paintings of robots playing sports and also likes making breakfast food sing show tunes. Future Ted says that in 2030 the robot volleyball watercolor is currently in the den and the Mother’s rendition of “Memory” by an English muffin is the most hauntingly beautiful thing he as ever heard.
Since Ted is a teacher at the same university Cindy is attending as a student, she stops her relationship with Ted, even though he does not have her as a student and they are not even in the same department. She has a scholarship and does not want to lose it if something happens. The true Mother also goes to the same university but she might not be so concerned about the strict university rules or have a scholarship to worry about. Plus, Ted wants to ignore the rules with Cindy, so of course he will want to ignore them when he finally meets the love of his life. As far as we know, Ted and the Mother might not even meet for another few years so they could both have finished working or attending the university.
In 2010, however, Ted does not want to give up on Cindy so he goes to her apartment in the rain with the yellow umbrella. When he gets there Cindy says her roommate is in the shower so they talk in Cindy’s room. As Ted tries to get back together with Cindy, he tries to find things in her room they have in common or that he finds interesting. He ends up picking the only three things in the room that are her roommates, showing that his true love and future wife is only a few feet away. Ted picked up the roommate’s album that Cindy is borrowing, “Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone” by The Unicorns, and Ted has never met anyone who owns the album. The roommate liked World’s End by TC Boyle enough to give a copy to her roommate, which Ted also liked. The roommate also plays bass in a band and Ted says his ideal woman plays bass. Ted leaves Cindy’s room defeated, as they decide that he is clearly not into Cindy. He ends up not meeting the woman of his dreams that night, but happens to see a glimpse of her foot as enters her bedroom from the bathroom. Ted leaves the apartment and forgets the yellow umbrella, inadvertently leaving it with the original owner.
It was a great episode overall but I am a little disappointed that Rachel Bilson does not play the Mother. She would have been great in the role but I am assuming she does not want to commit to a TV series. I hope Rachel Bilson does show up in more episodes as the Mother’s roommate because she would be an interesting side story until Ted finally meets the true Mother.
The thrilling tale of everyone’s favorite serial killer is back again for the fourth season of Dexter. The Showtime original TV series, based on the Darkly Dreaming Dexter novel, tells the story of Dexter Morgan, a serial killer whose modus operandi is to kill other killers. The narrative and Michael C. Hall‘s portrayal as Dexter are strong, showing him as the lesser of two evils, that you will find yourself supporting the likable serial killer and hoping he does not get caught.
Most seasons of Dexter are setup with a main antagonist, another serial killer who Dexter is trying to hunt down throughout the entire season. Meanwhile, Dexter is satisfying his own personal fix by killing other murderers in almost every episode. Normally, the antagonist is a mystery and stays in the shadows for the majority of the season, but in season four, the opening shot introduces him and shows his face. John Lithgow is The Trinity Killer, one of the most notorious serial killers in the country, who finds himself in Dexter’s town of Miami, Florida. Dishonest detective Dexter is a blood spatter analyst for the Miami police, who discovers clues about the new serial killer in town. Finding and killing the Trinity Killer would be the ultimate trophy in Dexter’s collection, but it will be a race against the Miami police before they find and deal with The Trinity Killer the legal way.
I normally do not like knowing who the main antagonist is in a TV series because it always adds to the compelling mystery. The fact that it is the high profile John Lithgow and seeing his kills from his perspective will balance out the show’s lack of the mystery. The writers always find an interesting new approach to the show each season so Dexter’s character does not get stale. Along with Dexter’s strong competition of The Trinity Killer, Dexter has also become a new father. Family life is distracting daddy Dexter and making him a more clumsy killer, putting him at risk of getting caught.
Dexter season four premiered September 27, 2009. The beginning of the episode was a slow burn of exposition, but ended with a giant cliffhanger of dozing driving Dexter crashing his car. The crash happened after one of Dexter’s kills, leaving the viewer believing there was a severed body in the back of his car. I hope that all of season four can keep up the high impact storytelling that ended of the first episode.
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