Reviews

Upstream Color (2013)

9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Director Shane Carruth (or perhaps we should now call him auteur?) is a man on the rise. This movie is a breath of fresh air in every possible respect. It is complex and weird and wholly original and will possibly (likely?) warrant a higher score upon repeat viewings. What is going on here? There’s some sort of mystery, there’s some sort of romance, there’s a whole lot of freaky connections between people and pigs, and it’s all painted with the beauty and the precise skill of an artist with a original vision.

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Animal Kingdom (2010)

9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Oh yes. Oh Hell Yes.

David Michod is a director on the rise and this is a very, very good film.

Hey, you know me by now, right? I make some jokes, I talk a lot of bullshit, I generally speak in terribly grammatically incorrect circles and tangents, but I’m not going to do that for Animal Kingdom. I’m not going to do it. I want to do it, but I can’t and I won’t. The movie is just too good to do anything except give it a proper standing ovation. The film is sort of like going to a monster truck rally when you are eight and being all excited to both see giant machines crushing and crashing into each other and waves upon waves of mullets and then, to top it all off, the lights drop off the earth, the engines become machine guns of explosion, and the trucks fly off their jumps and into the stratosphere,

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The Descendants (2012)

9/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

I’m going to paraphrase something George Clooney says in The Descendants. He’s talking about the perception of life in Hawaii from the perspective of those on the mainland. Life in Hawaii is a never ending beach vacation filled with Mai Tais, jet skis, and blissfully warm weather year round. Or so the mainlanders imagine. It’s a fantasy, and the reality is that Hawaiians have all of the normal problems in their lives, and the additional grip of living in the most expensive state in America. Though, of course, to that the mainlanders just shrug and say it’s the price of doing business in such a beautiful place. Everything always looks greener on the other side, right?

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Closer (2004)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

I like Closer a bit more than I probably should. Not that there’s any problem with liking the film or anything, but I happen to think it’s maaaybe not worth it’s 8.5 score. It’s teetering on the cusp, but this scene puts it over the edge into Grilled Seal of Approval territory. What a great scene!

I watched Closer for the second time because I had been looking for Anti-Valentine’s Day movies or The 10 Movies Not to Watch on Valentine’s Day. Closer, with its near-continuous stream of lies and infidelity, certainly fits the bill.

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Modern Vampires of the City (2013)

Somehow I missed the boat on listening to Vampire Weekend’s latest album, Modern Vampires of the City, when it was released last year. I had never been much of a Vampire Weekend fan or at least I had never given them much of a chance, so I delayed and delayed until finally I scheduled a time to process the album. There is a song on the album that affects me much more than it should. It’s always interesting how a certain chord progression or vocal melody or whatever can inspire a powerful reaction in its listener.

The particular moment came to me in song three, Step, when in the chorus the singer, Ezra Koenig, belts the lyric, “I feel it in my bones, I feel it in my boooooneeees.” For some inexplicable reason, the second iteration of “bones” affects my soul like nothing else.

“I feel it in my booooooooneeess.”

God. I am so jealous. What a wonderful feeling to affect a person in such a way that they keep repeating and repeating and repeating and dissecting and listening and consuming the same exact three seconds. Is it pure luck to create something so beautiful? Is it the result of thousands of hours of effort? Is it the random result of God smiling down upon his ignorant heathens? What is it? What is it that forms such beauty?

Pink Flamingos (1972)

9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

I left Pink Flamingos sitting unwatched on my computer for at least six months before I finally let it roll. I had heard a few rumors, a few tremors of delight, a few murmurs of disgust, but really I knew nothing about the film. All I knew was it would take a very special occasion to watch it. I needed to be in exactly the right mood. So I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. I’ve seen many (too many) movies over the past six months, but Pink Flamingosremained sitting, waiting, and untouched.

Then, it happened. Maybe there was a strange breeze that blew down from the North, or maybe I was just feeling a little mentally ill, but whatever it was, the feeling smacked me in the face like a bushel of rotten oranges.

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Fruitvale Station (2013)

10/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Forget Wolf. Forget Hustle. Forget Gravity. Forget whatever else came out. Fruitvale Station is the Grilled Life BEST FILM OF THE YEAR. A high distinction, but one that I, of course, do not bestow lightly. It’s always difficult for me to emotionally connect with a film to the extent that I will be shedding tears, but I at least came close with Fruitvale. Powerful and depressing and shocking and wonderful and terrible. Such a useless death.

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In a World… (2013)

9/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Hello, Lake Bell!

I never would have guessed you had something like this inside your mind! I have to admit that I am not the biggest Lake Bell fan. First of all, she was on Surface, a show about watery creatures or aliens or some shit like that, I don’t really know cause I never watched it. But the commercials were always on TV – SURFACE!! – accompanied by gurgling water noises and the – BUM BUM – noise that means This Show Has Some Creepy Supernatural Weird Shit In It – BUM BUM. You know the sound, I don’t need to act it out.

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Sid & Nancy (1986)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT DRINK FUCK ATTACK SHIT FIGHT FUCK ATTACK DRINK DRINK ATTACK MUSIC ATTACK DRINK DRUGS DRINK DRUGS FIGHT ATTACK DRINK DRUGS FUCK FUCK DRINK DRUGS ATTACK ATTACK

Much of this movie feels like someone is standing next to you screaming in your ear. And I mean that in the very best way possible. I am frightened to see people acting this way in front of my eyes. It’s something I can’t comprehend. It’s something foreign and abrasive. But so much energy! I want to jump into the crowd and thrash around, throwing out my elbows and socking someone in the face, blood billowing into the air like a cloud above the spitting mass, writhing together like a thousand dying… octopuses.

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Happiness (1998)

10/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Wow. By far the greatest movie ever made about pedophilia (I’m assuming, it’s not like I specifically set out to watch movies about pedophilia [although I did just see Hard Candy as well…]). Incredibly dark and disturbing, but god damn is it funny. This is black black black comedy at its finest. A world so cruel and bizarre and amazing that it stops being a story and transforms into a horribly realistic portrayal of dysfunction.

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