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Haiku and Review: Gravity

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gravity

Yes, an astronaut…
In dreams I walked on the moon.
After this, no thanks.

You don’t watch Gravity — you experience it.  Much of this is because of the way it is filmed — every so often, the camera gradually moves away from the usual third-person perspective and into first-person territory.  Our intrepid avatar is Sandra Bullock, playing a scientist trying to fix the Hubble Telescope with George Clooney…until all hell breaks loose.  And when I say “hell” and “breaks loose,” I really mean it.

How wonderful it is to see a film set in space with no aliens or time travel or Sherlock Holmes–channeling–Mr. Roarke type of nonsense.  Gravity is a movie that must be seen in the theater, in 3D.  It’s an adventure of both mind and body, and it left me supremely satisfied.  I haven’t been this happy after seeing a movie in a long, long time.

Haiku: Breaking Bad, Season 5, Episode 16 – Felina

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Please, just get him home.
Walt must end what he started.
Let blue and red fade.

*

A pair of red dots
turns Elliott and Gretchen
into White trustees.

*

It’s Tuesday morning.
Lydia, my Stevia…
goodbye, fake sweetness.

*

Not for family
but for Walt himself, always.
He was good at it.

*

Walt says he wants this.
Jesse says do it yourself.
Time to walk the walk.

Only God Forgives & Man of Tai Chi

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The final night of my action-movie binge!

ogf Only God Forgives (2013)

Red red everywhere
Brooding karaoke cop
You’re not in good hands.

What a strange, strange movie. I’d say David Lynch echoes strongly here (Blue Velvet weirdness and singing), plus a dash of Terrence Malick (minimalist dialogue and cinematographic beauty) and maybe a smidgen of Takashi Miike (sudden gore a la Audition). This is an extremely uncompromising work; the sole focus group was the director, Nicolas Winding Refn. If you liked Drive (I loved it), you might be disappointed with this. But one thing for sure if you do see it — it’s a refreshingly original movie. Oh, and Kristin Scott Thomas steals all her scenes, but what else is new. She’s just amazing.

mot Man of Tai Chi (2013)

After all these years
Keanu directs his first
but he still can’t act.

What a terrible, terrible movie. Really, this is bad. The lead actor, Tiger Chen, never looks comfortable in the role. Even though he’s got all the moves, he just doesn’t have any screen presence, and he’s so small and slight…sometimes he looks like a teenager. And the less said about Keanu, the better. His acting has never been worse, though it is so bad here that it’s actually kind of funny. There’s a scene where he is supposed to laugh haughtily at Tiger (Keanu plays the bad guy, so it’s one of these bad-guy chuckles); it should absolutely win the Razzies for worst acting this year. Keanu Reeves, comprised of Meryl Streep anti-matter.

Faster Taken

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Over the past weekend, I hosted my mother. Unlike most women, she actually likes action movies, even the schlocky kind. So we ended up watching two of them: Taken 2 and Faster. Strangely enough, there was an actress who connected the pair of films — Maggie Grace. I remember her mostly for playing the part of Shannon, the quasi-incestuous sister to Ian Somerhalder’s Boone in the initially mysterious and ultimately lame Lost. In Taken 2, she plays a teenager in need of her driver’s license; in Faster, she is a sharp-shooting girlfriend/bride of a hit man who claims he has beaten yoga (I’m not making this up). I didn’t even know yoga needed a beating. In any case, a haiku for each, plus a smidgen of a review.

taken2

Taken 2 (2012)

Liam the hero

of a road Taken once more.

Rob Roy this is not.

They really push the Muslims = Bad plot point pretty hard in this film. Every time you see the overhead shot of Istanbul (mosques and whatnot) and hear the Muslim chants, you know we’re supposed to juice up the hate. So sadly simplistic, but then again, this is a movie directed by a French guy with the fake last name of Megaton (again, I’m not making this up).

Unintentional moment of hilarity: There’s an extended scene of Neeson instructing his daughter to drive away from the bad guys while he shoots at them. For the next ten minutes, we see the daughter (who, mind you, failed to pass her road test) suddenly driving like a professional stunt car driver (clutch-popping, 180-fishtailing, the works). The dialogue is a blast. This is the actual excerpt:

Come on, go!
Right.
Back, back, back!
Come on, move!
Come on, Kim.
Go, go!
Faster.
Keep going.
Left!
Yeah.
They’re in the taxi!
Keep going.
Oh, no.
Shit.
Stay low. Keep going.
Come on, faster.
I can’t.
You can do it!
I can’t!
Come on, move! Move.
Dad!
Keep going.
Move!
Right.
Oh, shit.

“Oh, shit” is definitely an apt phrase for this film.

faster

Faster (2010)

The Rock wants revenge

so he murders the guilty

then learns to forgive.

Dwayne Johnson does a pretty decent job of acting in this film, looking hard most of the time but also believably vulnerable in the flashbacks when he was younger and more innocent (but still as wide as a semi). It also stars Billy Bob Thornton (where has he been lately?), and the previously mentioned hit man rounds out the trio of characters who prop up this movie. The film takes a curious turn in the final third act, suddenly becoming all about forgiveness. It’s almost as if the movie is ashamed of the violence that has come before the ending. It’s not your typical Charles-Bronson-like affair, so folks in the mood for some mindless brain-bashing may not enjoy this all the way through. I sort of liked it.

Epic Snooze

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The top two male tennis players are going at it right now in Flushing, New York, home of the U.S. Open, the final Grand Slam of the year.  Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will vie for the title tonight, and if there are two things for certain, they are this: 1) I will DVR-watch starting at 8pm; 2) the fast-forward button on my remote will get a serious workout.  Because not only are these two the fittest players on the tour, meaning there will be a bevy of 20-30 shot rallies, they are also among the slowest, meaning they will take their time between points.  Nadal is especially guilty of delays, as he features a litany of OCD-like rituals before each serve.

He's just really tired.

He’s just really tired.

And there will be much serving and hitting and rallying.  Louisa Thomas over at Grantland recently wrote about what I bet many fans are feeling – the sameness of it all.  I have no beef against rivalries – I enjoyed Sampras vs. Agassi as much as any fan.  I also enjoyed Roger Federer vs. Nadal.  But this latest head to head between Novak and Rafa is just too drawn out, too much of the same styles of play.  Both of these men come, as most top players now do, from the School of Attrition, where they grind their opponent down with their dogged retrieving and clocklike consistency.  In Djokovic’s previous semifinal match against Stanislas Wawrinka, there was a 35-shot rally.  Impressive, yes, but not exactly entertaining.  The majority of the shots bounced on or around the service line, meaning both players were content to strike their safe shots to each other.  Granted, they were making small moves with their hits to eventually get the other out of position, but it just took too long.  I believe the sweet spot for rallies is around 10, with a max of 15.  Anything more than this, the shine of the exchange fades.

I cheated here — it’s not the US Open, but rather the China Open.  But you get my drift.

I’m not saying I miss the tennis of the early 90’s, when players like Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic blasted their rocket serves and followed up with a kill volley.  In that case, there were too few rallies and the game became robotic in a different yet ultimately same way.  What we need to make this game more entertaining and interesting now is to find a happier middle.  Unfortunately, I don’t think this will happen anytime soon.  With Roger Federer on his way out, what we have left is the three-headed human-machine-ball monster of Djokovic-Nadal-Murray.  It’s possible that Juan Martin del Potro may make that a foursome, or perhaps Tomas Berdych will, but all of these men are built to trade groundstrokes with each other in the back court.  None of them are shotmakers in the mold of Federer, who at his prime loved to strike short balls to draw his opponents into the net, where he’d then pass them with a wicked angled forehand.

The game has changed, and of course will change again.  But for me, right now is not the Golden Age of tennis.  Instead, it is the Interminable Age of tennis.