Gran Torino

Yesterday afternoon Annie and I went to see Clint Eastwood's new movie Gran Torino. We both agreed it was the best movie we've seen in a long, long time. In case you haven't heard of it, Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a retired autoworker and widower who spends his days sitting on the front porch with his dog drinking beer and glaring at the Hmong family that just moved in next door. Walt isn't too big on his new neighbors, mostly because of their race, but through several occurrences he gets drawn into their lives and becomes their protector against the inner city gangs that roam the neighborhood.

There's a lot to like about the movies. Most of it's described in other reviews so I won't bother echoing them here. But one part I haven't seen discussed much, the part that struck me the most is the film's brilliant portrayal of masculine initiation.

The Hmong family has a teenage boy named Thao. At the beginning of the movie he walks around with no self confidence, scared of his own shadow. The only chance he sees at actually becoming a man is to join the local Hmong gang. Walt very reluctantly begins to let Thao into his life and their relationship becomes the center of the movie.

Thao is in what John Eldredge describes in The Way of the Wild Heart as the Cowboy/Ranger stage. A stage in life where a boy moves towards manhood through hard work, adventure and testing. Walt teaches him exactly what a boy needs to learn at that stage. He learns about tools, how to work, how to act responsibly. In the midst of his grumpy, crass demeanor Walt answers for Thao the central question every boy and man is asking (do I have what it takes?) with a resounding "yes!"

Thao is initiated into the Cowboy stage but it doesn't stop there. Walt teaches him how to talk to women showing him the beginning of the Lover stage. I won't spoil the ending but the film ends with Walt initiating Thao as a warrior in a way that is both subtle and brilliant. In the closing scenes the scared boy is gone, replaced by a man prepared for life.

Every man needs initiation and it is exactly what God is offering to us. The source of a man's initiation might be obvious or God might use someone as unlikely as Walt Kowalski. But what is portrayed in the movie is available to every man if only we'll let God begin to work in our lives.

The Dark Knight

Last night Annie and I caught the The Dark Knight at the Imax theater near our house (For the record we were not among those crazy people paying $150 for a ticket. We bought ours well in advance at the normal price.) I can't remember the last time I was this excited for a movie. I've been a Batman fan my whole life but was not all that impressed by the original four movies. The first two had their moments, Batman Returns is a good Tim Burton movie, but they completely missed the character. The third, Batman Forever, was alright but forgettable. Don't even start on the putrid, unwatchable Batman and Robin. (It features The Governator as Mr. Freeze who at one point conducts choir practice for his henchmen yelling, "SING LOUDER!" Yes, the movie was that bad.)

Batman and Robin effectively killed the franchise for nearly a decade. There was off and on talk of reviving it but quite frankly the fact that Warner Bros., the same studio that churned out B&R, still held the rights didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence.

That is, until they hired Christopher Nolan. I've been a huge Christoper Nolan fan since Memento came out. It's still one of my favorite movies and is one of the most rewatchable movies ever made. I'm not sure what they saw in him that made them think he was the guy for Batman but were they ever right on the money with their choice.

Nolan's first entry in the series, Batman Begins, was incredible. If you haven't seen it, it's required viewing before you check out The Dark Knight. It goes back to the origins of Batman and treats the character and the story with complete seriousness. It asks the question, what would it be like if someone actually decided to put on a bat suit and fight criminals? The movie is incredible, brilliantly acted and directed. It was the Batman movie that geeks like me had been waiting for. It was way more than any of us had hoped for.

But it doesn't hold a candle to The Dark Knight.

This one takes off from where Begins left off and never looks back. The most talked about aspect of this performance is the much hyped performance of the late Heath Ledger as The Joker and for once the hype is justified. Apart from Daniel Day Lewis, I have never seen an actor so completely disappear into a character. When Ledger was first announced as The Joker, the Internet went abuzz with angry fans and Brokeback Batman jokes. He seemed so wrong for the role. But whatever Christopher Nolan saw that the rest of us missed, he was dead right. It's the best villain performance I've ever seen, including Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.

Speaking of Hannibal, The Joker has him beat hands down as far as villains go. Hannibal was terrifying but there was also a refined elegance about him. He was a perfect gentleman who also happened to eat people. He was certainly evil and sadistic but not in the way The Joker is in this movie. The Joker has no agenda. He's not after money or power. It's not even correct to say he just wants to kill people. What he wants is to destroy as much as he can. He is an anarchist in the purest sense of the word. He believes in nothing but pain and chaos. And it's terrifying.

A lot is going to be made about the violence in this movie. It's very rough and very shocking. But the amazing thing is that it accomplishes that without being gory or graphic. There's almost no blood in the entire movie but despite that, the violence is more intense than most gore filled movies. Christopher Nolan proves that less is more. In this case almost too much more.

The Joker is the highlight of the movie but it would be a shame for Batman to get lost in the hype. Christian Bale continues to be one of the best actors working today. His performance here is great. The character's transformation through this movie is incredible. There's a scene where he is interrogating The Joker that is just brutal to watch. He's been pushed to his emotional and physical limits by this guy and he completely loses control. But the harder he hits, the more The Joker just laughs and one of the films many philosophical questions is raised: how do you stop a man who thrives on pain and doesn't care if he dies? It's a fascinating question with big time implications for today's war on terror.

The philosophy in the movie is fantastic but never preachy. I don't want to give the impression of this being an Ayn Rand style movie. It's not. But at the same time, the actions and choices of the characters raise big time ethical, philosophical and moral questions. I won't spoil them here but it's a deep film that will leave you thinking.

When I left Batman Begins I couldn't wait to see the sequel. Leaving The Dark Knight I'm almost afraid to. I'd rather have no sequel than a bad sequel. I don't have any idea how you come anywhere close to equaling this, let alone topping it. This is The Empire Strikes Back to Batman Begins' Star Wars. This is The Godfather Part 2. Both of those trilogies (and the Spider-Man series) had disappointing finishes (though I still love Return of the Jedi) and I do not want to see Batman's third entry join that dubious club. Here's hoping Christopher Nolan proves me wrong yet again and makes the third the best one yet.


Side note: The Dark Knight had one of the coolest marketing campaigns of all time. One of the best aspects was the vandalized posters. They released the normal posters and then a few months later put up ones that had been defaced by The Joker. Check out some of the better ones below.

Red is Back!

For geeks like me, this has already been a really good year for movies. We've had two pretty good superhero movies with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, plus the long awaited fourth Indiana Jones. But all that is nothing compared to what we have to look forward to in July.

In two weeks the new X-Files movie comes out and speaking as someone who has seen every single episode of the series, I'm pretty psyched. Next week The Dark Knight comes out. The early buzz is universally positive for it. One review even compared it to one of my all time favorite movies (and aside from the first two Godfathers the best crime movie of all time), Heat. Annie and I will be going opening night to the Imax so look for my review next weekend, sure to be filled with nerdy joy.

To help tide us geeks over while waiting for those two movies, Hellboy 2 was released this week. I missed the first one in theaters. Actually I thought it looked kind of stupid but after hearing enough good reviews I checked it out on DVD. It's an absolute blast, one of the funnest movies I've ever seen. So how does the sequel do at living up to that legacy?

HB2 outdoes its predecessor in just about every way. The monsters are cooler and scarier. The action is bigger, louder and better. Plus, this one is even funnier than the first (the scene where Red and Abe get drunk and sing along to Barry Manilow is an instant classic). Where the first movie centered around Nazis and Lovecraftian monsters, there are a lot more fantasy elements here (elves, trolls, etc). That's of special interest to geeks since Guillermo Del Toro recently signed on to direct The Hobbit. It's good to have him show just brilliant he is bringing fantasy to life on the screen.

Unfortunately, the movie has a couple of weak points. While I don't want or expect perfect logic in a movie like this (half the fun is suspending belief) there are a couple of plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. They don't ruin the movie by any means but they're obvious enough to be annoying. Also the main threat in the movie, the golden army, is pretty much wasted.

HB2 isn't perfect but it is a lot fun and, in my opinion, even better than the first. While I'm sure it won't hold a candle to The Dark Knight, it helps get July off to great start for nerds. If you at all enjoyed the first movie or are just in the mood for mindless, quality fun check this one out

HULK! SMASH!

Fear not comic book movie fans, The Incredible Hulk is nothing like the putrid, snore inducing, far too long Ang Lee's 2003 version was. Don't get me wrong, we're not talking Shakespeare here but the new movie does have a coherent plot, great action and mostly good acting.

The first half of the movie is great as Bruce Banner does his best to avoid being captured and occasionally turns very big and very green. There are some great chase scenes here (at times you'll think you're watching The Bourne Hulkamtum). It's suspenseful and a lot of fun.

The second half is way more conventional, culminating in a giant CGI Hulk vs. CGI Abomination battle that would be cool if we hadn't already seen the same thing in virtually every other comic book movie ever made. It's not bad but it's not that good either. Thankfully everything that comes before is more than good enough to make up for any failings here.

This should be a very good movie year for us geeks. We've already had Iron Man and next month we get The Dark Knight, Hellboy 2, and X-Files. This one will probably be the weakest of the bunch but it's still a lot of fun. If you're a fellow geek or just like big green monsters you'll enjoy it a lot