A Mile Up in Heaven

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - (2007)

Directed by Sidney Lumet

Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke,

Marisa Tomei, and Albert Finney

Sidney Lumet's crime drama is always on the verge of going somewhere before a flash back or flash forward interrupts. The effect of this is a subtle distraction that kept me ignorant of the film's heavy substance up until the end. With that said, the idea of knocking off your own parents' jewelry store to cure your dire straits should weigh impressionably enough but Lumet manages to downplay it for me. Its like listening to a song that has no verses just a repeating chorus and then, all of a sudden a grippingly epic bridge, after which the song ends.

The characters are each in good hands as the cast delivers, poignantly, a dark story about loyalty and desperation. I was a bit over anxious to see Albert Finney, who's full entrance is a bit delayed. This was not a problem since Philip Seymour Hoffman as a cocky jerk is always great to watch.

I admit I chuckled a few times, because I remember Sidney Lumet being described as an actor's director, not so much indulging in camera techniques and special effects. This is true, he doesn't but Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is the closest I've seen to a contradiction of that notion. Maybe it was accidental but there were a lot of nicely, seemingly, prepared camera shots. And not mentioning anything of the flashbacks/flashforwards, I was simply surprised that there was a soundtrack. Its pretty cool to see one of your favorite directors taking a fresh take on their craft and still pull through effectively.

Readiness is All

Anonymous Love Letters to Athena

I'll hold you close. Its just you and I now, there is no world, we are enough for the universe; fully finding what it searched during its expansion and contraction. At the heart, body and brain of that point, I'll hold you. How tight? How long? Could we even notice or determine force, time, space when we become so close to each? Essentially entwined, defined into its seams, separation would be like removing hydrogen from an ocean and expecting water to remain.

Frame me with you

border me mine, woman most woman of all

look me there, eye me mine

if all we are then nothing is the goal

an erase, an elimination of one another

canceled and matched, nothing rising from us

the universe, a sheet that wraps only us within

frame me with you

pre-sent us ours, definition

completion, a known thing

No background, no mind, and thought has yet to catch up to action, as we stand there in the void fulfilled. You'll cast the one glance that can prove to me that I indeed have sight, I'll say the one word that finally proves you aren't deaf; and then, when I look at you and you speak to me, its two suns embracing into a black hole romance. Massive, central, and overwhelmingly insatiable. Queen of the half world, empress of the maiden council, and mother to the would-be elements that remember how well you fit in my arms.

I know I said I wouldn't write anymore, that this must end. Yet, I satisfy not, with a dim fading, a quiet exit with subtle shifts of tone and depth; shifts that disappear directly before the viewer, years before he even begins to notice. We have to explode, we have to crash in a frenzy and then release an energy stored within the tension and hostility we use as magnetic fields. I'll peel back the layers and it will be with Truth that you'll discern me, and I you. If only for a moment that I could fully have you in exchange for myself, in your possession, everything in its right place and nothing else having any matter whatsoever.

Universally yours,

Une Ammiratore

I'm Drowning...

Brothers - (2009) Directed by Jim Sheridan

Starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman

Today I saw Jim Sheridan's new film, Brothers. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire as brothers, with Natalie Portman as the latter's wife. Tobey's performance was pretty good, Jake and Natalie Portman were okay but nothing special. The soundtrack was corny and besides the climax when Tobey is scaring the hell out of you, there isn't much more in this film to take home. Katherine Bigelow's The Hurt Locker did far more for the topic of a soldier's psychosis and her play on tension, far more stimulating.

I understood Sheridan's split between Tobey and Jake's characters in the beginning after Tobey's character Sam is presumed dead. This division, was also one of mood, where it seemed one was actually watching two movies. On one hand you have a commercial, romantic drama about an army widow who manages to piece her life together and eventually find love with her husband's brother. Its sappy and all the more cringing to watch because of the music thats played along to these scenes. On the other hand, you have a commercial, action, contemporary war thriller about a hostage soldier and his survival and psychological breakdown. The only reason I absorbed the romantic drama was to feel the awkward mending of these two worlds when they finally converge. Such a payoff went short changed.

I do hope Maguire continues to deliver performances of note, like he has in Brothers. I might not be the only one who'll confess I'll be alright if he's not in Spider-Man 4.

You Have No Idea How This Works, Do You?

Persona - (1966) Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann

Just as when I watched my first Godard, then my first Fellini, with Bergman its going to be a while before I can respond to what I saw.

Michael Clayton - (2007) Directed by Tony Gilroy

Starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Michael O'Keefe

Sydney Pollack, Tilda Swinton

I should've saw this in theatres. Love the pace and the art direction. Next time I watch the DVD I'm going to see it in black and white, even though the color looks really nice.

First Scene Dissolve

Anonymous Love Letters to Athena

I'm so tired. My legs barely stand me and there is a hunger inside that echoes tumultuously, with tempest of most concrete vigor do I move about. Hatred is my propeller; my engine, a glowing heart erupting with magma and fumes of shame. The few times I saw you today (I try to see less and less), it was as if, my hatred were offered a compromise. As if noted by my palely apparent countenance, one of deprived honor and starved dignity, a pathetic hand was extended forward with a cupcake.

My sweet tooth and all its fallen graces!

Its an insult! One perfectly visible and recognized, yet how I long to reach for you; such a waist to not have.

I took a break and on a street, under a canopy, I stood. The rain was cold but the air warmer. I had space and my lungs went to work on the early night's dew. You walked out with a colleague, speaking. I wanted some water, it was raining all around me; I was the thirsty, drowning man. It took every bit of each lung to punch my chest forward; every wattage of street lights, to keep my eyes from parking on you.

You are all they have to offer me, and it is true that you are indeed a great offer; but I can't--it wears me out. My fake plastic love, do you understand? It wears me out. I need this hatred and these lungs to roar, snatch, claw, and tear at the winds that so eagerly wish to pass me by. I need my tension, my open eyes that sleep and cry very little but do only absorb, greedily, everything in its path.

Its with love that I must leave you, its with further hate that the action springs awake into motion.

Universally yours,

Une Ammiratore

Weekend's Playlist

Mutliplex Identities.

The Prize - (1963) Directed by Mark Robson

Starring Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Elke Sommer

Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson. It was a fun movie and Paul Newman really seemed to be enjoying himself but I wanted to see more of Edward G.

From Here to Eternity - (1953) Directed by Fred Zimmerman

Starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr,

Donna Reed

Not what I expected at all. I guess because of the famous beach kiss scene, I was under the impression that the entire story was to be lead by Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. I was expected far more romance, in epic scales, and overly dramatic departures; I was expecting An Affair to Remember mixed with Casablanca. What I got in the stead of my imagined plot was a really good drama about identity, responsibility, and capability.

I couldn't get over that the film wasn't an epic love story until the bombing of pearl harbor. Being aware of the film's setting one would think I'd be obviously expecting the bombing of Pearl Harbor but it caught me off guard just as much as it did the soldiers in the film. Some really good action scenes.

The Wilby Conspiracy - (1975) Directed by Ralph Nelson

Starring Sidney Portier, Michael Caine, and Nicol Williamson

I had my doubts at the beginning but as the film progressed, it became better to watch. Its so interesting how violence in films changed in the seventies, it definitely became more about realism and pushing the boundaries of dismantled censorships. And, what is a 70s film without some sort of car chase scene? In this case a jeep chase.

The ending has its pay-off and so does Rutger Hauer's appearance, it almost makes up for the bad driving scene that takes place with a fake background in the first quarter of the film.

All of Me - (1984) Directed by Carl Reiner

Starring Steve Martin, Lili Tomlin, Victoria Tennant

Yes! This movie is awesome...Of course, I removed the color from my TV set. Lily Tomlin is so darling.

December Heart Beats for Kylie Minogue