The Last of Anne Frank's Protectors
Dies at 100

Miep Gies, who along with her husband hid Anne Frank's whole family and four other Jews from the Nazis for over two years in occupied Amsterdam, died Monday night.

Sadly, she could not prevent the Nazis from eventually finding Anne and her family, but she preserved the one piece of Anne that was left behind; her diary, which has helped cast a human face and a unique, heartbreaking child's perspective on the Holocaust for generations. Both actions on the part of Mrs. Gies can only be described as true heroism, even though she would tell you her efforts were a failure.

They most certainly were not. Evil could only be held at bay for so long outside that house, but thanks to people like Miep Gies as well as soldiers with guns, it was eventually defeated and the proliferation of stores like Anne's have given the world powerful reminders of the horrors of intolerance. Mrs. Gies lived a good, very long life, and now she can rest with Anne....

Watching 'Avatar' Might Make You Kill Yourself

Jim Cameron wanted him film to be beautiful and escapist, and he certainly pulled that off. Maybe a little too much for some people....

Audiences experience 'Avatar' blues

'Bond' is About to Get Artsy

Well, maybe. Apparently the next entry in the revamped Bond franchise featuring Daniel Craig is set to be directed by Sam Mendes, one of the industry's premier dramatic filmmakers. Mendes is the Oscar-winning director of 'American Beauty,' 'Jarhead,' 'Road to Perdition,' and 'Revolutionary Road,' and is by far the highest pedigreed director to ever take on the franchise, which has mostly been helmed by above-average, action-focused stand-ins.

Before anyone runs off totell their film junkie friends, this is not set in stone, and Mendes has not officially been named the director of the 'Quantum of Solace' sequel. Announcing an attached director means that the studio must get into production quickly due to contract and availability issues, and Bond household MGM is going through some pretty rough times financially and may even be sold. So for now Mendes is being listed as a 'consultant' on the film, but the writing is on the wall. It's almost certain that the next Daniel Craig 'Bond' film will be directed by one of the most talented artistic filmmakers in the business.

I love this move, and I love it primarily based on the direction the franchise has taken with the last two films. These are still exciting, action-packed spy flicks, but what the writers and Craig have done with Bond has been incredible and its injected new life into a floundering series. This Bond is tougher than ever, but his external and internal struggles are wrought with much more complexity and believable stakes. Mendes has shown his ability to mold similar characters in 'Jarhead,' where he peeled back the ultra-masculine veneer of those whose job is it kill and revealed the internalized psychological chaos common in such people. That's just what Craig has been doing with Bond.

Expect this one to be the most exquisitely filmed entry in the entire franchise. I certainly do.

Top 10 Films 2009

Now that the entire year is in the books, let's look back on the 10 best films that came out in 2009. It was a solid year for a films both big and small, featuring some top-grade stories and leaps in visual technology that could usher in a new era in digital filmmaking. Here's a list of the best releases of the previous year....

10. 'Watchmen'

Somewhat forgotten due to impossible fanboy demands and a lack of mainstream awareness of the source material, Zach Snyder's faithful and extremely ambitious adaptation pulled off the feat of presenting a cohesive, thoughtful, and striking film based on Alan Moore's graphic novel. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but to be honest neither was Moore's book, and this film boasts some sequences of bravura filmmaking that are as good as anything produced this year (the Dr. Manhattan creation story) and a gale-force performance from the resurgent Jackie Earl Haley as masked sociopath Rorschach.

9. 'District 9'

Not quite as original or intellectual as some expected before its release, but it turned out to be an explosive and jaw-dropping action piece that stands up there 'Aliens' and 'Terminator 2' as a gem of the scifi/action genre. That those two films are both Jim Cameron flicks is not a mistake. Debut director Neil Blomkamp could indeed be the next Cameron and flashes some serious filmmaking chops in the movie's fantastic set-pieces, notably in a climax where the hero controls a walking mech-warrior suit that can deal a serious punch. Top-tier visuals and an incredible debut performance from Sharlto Copley make the whole thing an exciting breath of fresh air. That this film was made for $30 million is astounding.

8. '500 Days of Summer'

Good romantic comedies are hard to come by, and great ones are damned near impossible. But this quirky yet restrained film hits all the right notes in it's honest portrayal of a love that just won't work. By shirking and even attacking the grating heartlessness of modern romantic cynicism, and even indulging in some earnest and honest sentimentality, it's both classical and new-era at the same time. It's observant and clear in its observations of modern 20-something romance, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt should be a bigger star than he is.

7. 'Up'

Seriously, Pixar might one day go down as the greatest movie studio of all time. It's certainly the most consistent. Their latest is at once more oddball and more mainstream than their other films, and the first 10 minutes might be the best I've ever seen in an animated feature. When their teasers come out a year before each release, I worry that every one might fail, and this one was no exception. But by placing the emphasis on storytelling over visuals (though the animation is always the best around), the people at Pixar have put out another masterpiece.

6. 'Public Enemies'

Many just can't get into Michael Mann's style. They need more back story. They need more consequence. They need more affirmation. Mann doesn't deal in those things. In his razor-precise story of John Dillinger's epic crime spree, he gives you another existential meditation of a character and his moment in time. Dillinger existed purely for the now, with no regard for the future, and this film treats his illicit adventures the same way. The high-def camera gives every frame a stunning immediacy, and Johnny Depp fully inhabits the soul of man willingly hurtling toward oblivion. Toss in some vintage Mann shootouts and a blood-pumping soundtrack, and you've got another excellent entry in the director's obsesso-masculine canon.

5. 'Inglorious Basterds'

Perhaps no film will split audiences this year like this one, but to my eye Quentin Tarantina has produced his greatest piece since 'Pulp Fiction.' If the film was only the first 25-minute scene at the farmhouse, I'd feel like I'd gotten my money's worth. Christopher Waltz should bag himself an Oscar for his performance as Nazi Colonel Hans Landa, one of most mesmerizing and watchable cinematic creations in recent memory, and the Tarantino knack for tense, dialogue-driven stage pieces and blood-spattered insanity is on full display. Every scene, every character, every plot device fits together so perfectly that just watching these people talk is a cinematic joy as only Tarantino can deliver, and it feels as though his whole career has been working toward something like this.

4. 'Moon'

Once upon a time, science fiction was about ideas. In his stunning feature debut, director Duncan Jones has crafted an old-fashioned sci-fi in the cerebral tradition of '2001' and the original 'Solaris,' with a terrific one-man show from Sam Rockwell and incredibly realistic visuals made more impressive when you know that the whole film cost a mere $5 million. But the heart of this one is it's focus on some heavy intellectual cargo, dealing with nothing less than what it is to be human. It's too bad that pure science fiction like this is such a rarity these days.

3. 'The Hurt Locker'

In a male-dominated Hollywood system, you'd be hard pressed to find a ballsier filmmaker than Kathryn Bigelow. Here she's put together the best war film in quite some time and certainly the greatest dealing with current world conflict, crafting the most intense, genuine tension I've seen on screen all year. The idea of following bomb squads at work in the deadly streets of Iraq sounds nail-biting enough, but Bigelow and her excellent breakout star Jeremy Renner make every step, every click, every glance down a dusty alley an excruciating exercise in survival, as well as a fascinating character study of a man born to do this job and nothing else. Top-notch realist filmmaking.

2. 'Avatar'

This isn't just a 'visually impressive' movie as some throw out as half-hearted praise. Film is a visual medium, and the way in which we view them is as integral to the art form as any other element. What Cameron has done here is completely shifted the manner in which audiences view films. He's altered the way we are transported to new worlds and introduced to new characters we never thought we'd see in a realistic or believable way (Zoe Saldana's alien princess Nyteri is a profound leap forward in motion-capture character creation). Complaints about the simplistic, old-fashioned story are sometimes pointed but often completely miss the goal of the cinematic experience. This is a high-epic pulp novel in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs transported to an alien world that has been visualized like nothing else ever on a movie screen. Jim Cameron in an unabashed populist, more concerned with thrilling and wowing and moving large audiences than catering to the cynical, irony-starved sensibilities of his critics. This is classical filmmaking on the grandest scale ever achieved and done so with a grace and beauty of vision that will shape the way films are made from this point forward. It will become a classic, and once again Cameron has proved his doubters wrong. 'King of the World' he remains.

1. 'Up in the Air'

Just as in literature, there are occasionally stabs at the 'Great American Film', a movie so well made, thematically balanced, interpretive of its time, and timelessly universal that it represents a capsule of American art that will stand amongst the canon until this nation is no more. It's about as daunting a task as it sounds, and though I would surely slip into hyperbole if I claimed right now that Jason Reitman has accomplished that with this film....damned if he doesn't come really, really close. In his graceful portrait of a modern America dealing with some troublesome economic and cultural shifts, he lets a pitch-perfect George Clooney capture the screen in a role reminiscent of the movie stars of Old Hollywood. As a disenchanted hatchet man sent to fire other companies' employees, he exhibits all the flaws and qualities and eventually the hopes and dreams of our age, where technology and 'efficiency' replace humanity and decency all too often and with ever greater speed. The film hits every note with both an austere maturity and a beautiful sense of goodwill that leaves any hint of cynicism on the cutting room floor. We can change, if we choose to, and for all the heartache and tragedy present in this airborne tour of the turbulent American landscape, you'll leave the theater feeling good about what we could create at the end of the tunnel. Just slow down and look at each other. Live with each other. When all is gone, job or money or all those other constructs, that's all we really have left.

A gorgeous, genuine, and nearly perfect film at the close of the first decade of the new millennium, and the best film of 2009.

Detroit Really, Really Sucks, Vol. 1

The slow death of Detroit added another sad chapter as the Rust Belt city continues to reel from the economic downturn. The Detroit Silverdome, which has played host to a FIFA World Cup, an NBA All-Star Game, and even a Super Bowl, sold for the depressing sum of $583,000. So basically, if you can afford a one-bedroom flat with a park view in Manhattan, you can probably afford at least two giant mega-stadiums in this rotting husk of a great American metropolis.

Housing prices in Detroit are currently around $11,000, and the more discerning buyer can buy a complete home in several "lost" neighborhoods for somewhere around $400. The abandonment and demolition of vast grids of residential real estate have created swaths of street wilderness that urban researchers say has not been seen since the worst days of the Great Depression. And now the increasing plains of desolate industrial yards and empty structures give a vivid picture of a city seemingly without a future or a purpose in the new American century. Even Steel Belt landmarks like the Packard Plant and Ford's Piquette Plant, where the first Model-T rolled off the assembly line, stand abandoned and decrepit.

The pathetic sale price the Silverdome suggest that there is practically no confidence in the commercial market potential of greater Detroit. The upkeep of the damn place cost more than three times the total sale price annually. But this is just one further, if grandiose, illustration of the downfall of what used to be a shining beacon of the American industrial machine. This didn't begin with the economic collapse last year. It's been a symptom of a changing American landscape and the demise of our nation's industrial backbone. The banking disaster just twisted the knife. Unlike the rest of the the country urban centers, which show signs of either recovering from the downturn or at least stabilizing within the boundaries of the new 21st century sphere, Detroit looks more and more like a city that may very well be lost for good. It's happened many times throughout human history, but there doesn't really exist such a large example in our nation's own past. Great American cities have grown and shrank, risen to dominance and settled back into less prominent niches. But never have we seen a Great American city die, and that may be what we're seeing happen before our very eyes in the rusty sprawls of urban Michigan.

How Important is a Movie Trailer?

Very important. The use of trailers to advertise Hollywood films can kick-start or derail the crucial hype machine that allows blockbusters to produce the gigantic opening weekends necessary under the modern market model, wherein films aren't given much room to breath and build word-of-mouth audiences unless they're lower budget projects that don't present substantial risk to studio profits.
James Cameron's upcoming space epic 'Avatar' is not one of those low budget films. It's a $300 million mega-movie that promises to change the way films are presented to audiences, featuring revolutionary 3D technology and the long-awaited return of a filmmaker whose last film venture made a handsome hair under $2 billion. As such, and considering its release is only a month away, you'd expect the full might of Hollywood's formidable marketing machine to be pounding the drums and making the most of every single publicity angle.
Inexplicably, that hasn't happened. The marketing of the film has been underwhelming and perplexing, with a paltry website updated for enhanced user interaction very late in the game and with a teaser trailer that left many people confused and cynical. The original 2-minute teaser seemed to be a failed attempt to lure in some of Cameron's 'Titanic' audience, highlighting some of the romantic aspects of the film without putting them into any context. The blue aliens caught many off-guard, and without setting up their nature or the nature of their tropical world, they came off as somewhat cartoony and brought back memories of the more cringe-worth CG creations of the 'Star Wars' prequels. All in all, the whole thing just didn't pique much interest, and it didn't present the film for what it truly seems to be.
The new -minute full trailer does exactly that. It's gorgeous, violent, epic, and it firmly established the intriguing "Dances With Wolves in Space" storyline that Cameron has been boiling up for 15 years now. The aliens, now presented as graceful yet dangerous natives of a graceful yet dangerous planet, look stunning in some of the short clips. It's important to note that judging the visuals in this film is hard to do without seeing them in the new 3D format Cameron and crew have designed, but even with that caveat, they look incredible. The battle scenes simply took my breath away, and they really give a sense of the sheer scale of the conflict on display here.
The release of 'Avatar' is rapidly approaching, and it's better late than never for the marketing of the film to really get people pumped. I'm old enough to remember the lead-up to 'Titanic', and I'm hearing a lot of the same skepticism and grumbling and talk of disaster that I heard then, that Cameron can't possibly pull this off. But the guy's become a legend by doing things you aren't supposed to be able to do in movies, and at the point I'm fully confident that he'll wow us again with his super-sized space epic. A game-changer might well be on the way this December.

Check out the new trailer here:

Scientists Welcome. Cash Upfront.

Scientists are finding it harder and harder to gain access to ecosystems and biological specimens for study, blocked by bold, young, and volatile governments looking for quick cash. The shield being used to prevent scientists from doing important field work in developing nations around the world is called the United Nations Treaty on Biodiversity, and it's creating an unfortunate rift between the global scientific community, where universities and research institutes have increasingly limited funds for field study, and developing countries that would do well to include themselves in the high-speed international scientific discourse.

The treaty was created with good intentions. What it does is give developing countries internationally recognized 'copyright' over their biological resources. For instance, if Zimbabwe has a rare orchid that an American pharmaceutical company uses to develop a cure for epilepsy, then Zimbabwe would be entitled to financial compensation for the use of its unique natural resource. The goal, of course, is to prevent the big bullies of the West from exploiting less prosperous nations and making off with loot that isn't immediately recognized as valuable. A country can't go into another and take gold without paying the appropriate price, so in theory it shouldn't be able to profit from an animal or plant without paying accordingly.

But as a natural reaction, many developing countries have locked down access for truly altruistic scientists interested in study for sake of enlightenment, both out of fear of sneaky exploitation techniques and out of a desire to get as much cash as they can as quickly as they can in the belief that any Western group has money to be milked (which most of these academic scientists do not). Foreign officials often make no distinction between academics and pirates sent by pharmaceutical companies. Researchers from Stanford University were barred permanently from Nigeria for making off with insect specimens without getting a government clearance (pricey to be sure) they didn't even know they needed. As the world economy changes and science's ability to benefit from the genetic qualities of alternative resources increases, a bag of bugs could be worth a hundred times its weight in gold. It makes sense to get compensated for future profits, but sealing the lid so tight so that nothing can be gained in the first place is a key issue.

United Nations officials say they are considering a reexamination of the treaty for ways to give academics easier access as nations around the world clamp down on their twigs and beetles. But this is just one of numerous potential issues the treaty presents to a world situation already driven by resource competition and where that competition, magnified by rapid overpopulation and increasing demand, is sure to get exponentially more fierce. If a piece of paper prevents university scientists from exploring for the sake of bettering humanity, then the United Nations is truly failing at its job even as it strives to expand its job description. What else is new.

Getting This Blog Back On Track!

Well, I consider myself pretty well adjusted to the ebb and flow of graduate school by now, so I feel I'm ready to get this blog rolling again. I apologize for letting it sleep for so long, but better now than never! Buckle up and enjoy.

Checking In On The College Football Season

I'm still catching my breath after Miami's thrilling victory at Florida State, a 38-34 win made possible by an outstanding breakout performance by our young QB Jacory Harris (Yes, I use the word 'our' when I talk about Miami sports. Sue me.) It was a great night for the team and a gutsy showing that will hopefully lead a big season.

FSU didn't help the appearance of the win, however, by nearly losing to Division 1-aa Jacksonville State at home this evening. The Seminoles had to come back at the very end to pull it out. They were a couple minutes from me needing to call my Nole friends to make sure their heads were still out of the oven. Not sure what happened there, but the money is definitely on BYU when the Noles head westward to play them next weekend.

There were some nice upsets today, with Houston's high-wire slashing of #5 Oklahoma State the biggest one so far. A great offensive display by the ever-dangerous Cougars.

Florida is looking excellent, much to my chagrin. They gashed a Troy squad that's usually very speedy and competition. I still think the Gators lose a couple this year, but until I see them beat someone by less than 50 points, I guess I'll have to sit on that prediction. Man, I hate the Gators.

As I write this, USC and Ohio State are locked in a very close and exciting game at the Horseshoe, and now I'm off to catch the end of that one. The college football season is off and running, and with a great win by the Canes already in the books, I'm feeling the fever.