We Hold On

We hold on to the past.
But the past is not the same.
We can't go back for everything changes.
No place truly remains the same.
Mother said that we can't go back to how things were
or how things were in our relationships.
No family nor friends.
Because something was broken.
A long time ago. Something had broken.
And can never be fixed.
Some people can hold on to the past.
Some people can make it last.
I envy them. Eternal envy.
I still try and hold on to the past from time to time.
But when I do I am reminded that
there is nothing to hold on to.

Overrated Films: Moonrise Kingdom

In light of the release of Wes Anderson's new movie The Grand Budapest Hotel I have decided to do a piece about why I personally felt his last film Moonrise Kingdom was not only overrated but also exploitive in a weird indie (cute?) way. I have unrelentingly expressed my criticism and opinion to a friend thru email a couple of years ago when it was in theaters. So by saving myself the time of repeating thoughts I have already written before I will post excerpts from that email written to my friend back in 2012. I will also show my friend's response email as well as my final thoughts. I look back and admittedly realize my criticism of Wes Andersson sounds a bit harsh. Although after reading it thoroughly my opinion still stands. So why would I sugar coat it right?

My First Initial Response:

Moonrise Kingdom - I finally watched it as a date movie since it was playing at the AMC and no other flick interested me. My general analysis is that it was a descent movie and I even consider it somewhat good. It is only good for one particular reason; I felt that visually Wes Anderson has stepped it up big time. This was the most visually sound film he has directed to date I feel. The intro and also the outro which are the same concept (the 360 camera revolving) are practically the best visual concept that Wes Anderson has come up with so far. This film is the closest I feel he has gotten to a level similar to the Scandinavians in cinema. Some shots actually reminded me of Roy Andersson, but not as complex of course. But I think it is clear that Anderson checked out some Andersson flicks and realized that he could step it up big time with his whole stage frame concept. With that out of the way I have some issues with the film, what Wes Anderson has become and the idea in general. 

Wes Anderson on a Larry Clark tip 

I was actually faintly disturbed on how much Wes Anderson sexualized the little girl in the film. In my opinion he sexualized her in the same manner Tarantino sexualized his women in Death Proof. They are the same in a sense that they are both the director's perverted fantasy of a woman. The boyhood fantasy if you would. Tarantino's fantasy is that women act badass like men, are pop subculture nuts (like him) and also are sexy plus they know how to give a guy a lap dance. Anderson's fantasy is a bit  more of an indie hipster boy's fantasy. The girl is darkly mysterious ( dark eye liner also used for Margot Tenenbaum as girl), wears short skirt dresses (like Margot) and is slightly disturbed in a cute rebellious fashion............also like Margot. He also made no secret that he formed Suzy off of a 60s French singer such as Francoise Hardy whom Anderson might idolize as a perfect woman. The character is essentially Margot from The Royal Tenenbaums just with different psychological problems. Only this time he made her a twelve year old girl. There is a Larry Clark tip, if you don't believe it watch Wassup Rockers which is to me, as far as child exploitation goes, much more tame than Moonrise Kingdom. What you will see is that he even uses the same technique of getting so close to the actor's faces (coincidently both girl and boy) that you feel a sense of innocent natural sexuality. The framing is almost identical. But Anderson takes it even further than Larry Clark, and made two twelve year olds french kiss so close to the camera that it is obviously child exploitation. How does Anderson get away with this? He puts in little kittens, kills a scottish terrier and it is automatic art. The Anderson cliche: It's cute, fantastic but yet dark and he sells it as art. I argue that it is a formula and in this case a formula that Anderson used to cover his Freudian slip, his repressed desire to be the little boy in his film. When Terry Gilliam had Jodelle Ferland barely give a peck to a grown man's lips it was deemed controversial and exploitive. Gilliam explained that the story is loosely representative of his child hood, which made all the sense in the world when I saw it. Hollywood still gave him hell for it and the movie was extremely under the radar. Gilliam pulled off a solid film about childhood told through a child's imagination and it was far less exploitive than Anderson's approach. But Gilliam had one thing wrong, he didn't have a formula. The Anderson formula goes something like this: Have creatures involved to make it cute, have a cool soundtrack, make sure people know it's a comedy, have a big cast with some useless characters and every now and then try to surprise them with a moment of seriousness or darkness. It's formula he uses over and over like a packaged product or like a soda pop reaching it's sugary perfection. Anderson used this formula to make a Larry Clark film covered in twinkie crust and filled with whip cream. 

Last Thoughts on Anderson: I don't even consider him a Steinbeck any more like you once put it. Steinbeck was thought provoking, had social commentary and big ideas on life. Anderson hardly does any of that. He would be lucky or overestimated to be compared to a Carver or even an Updike. Who........ let's be honest, he tries to be like them in his darkness in exposing flawed characters and making things ugly. Except he does it in a cute way to get indie girls to like it. He is like an extremely bad substitute (splenda) for Robert Altman. I would consider him the diet soda of Altman, but using really bad sweetener that does more harm than real sugar. It's this fake ass sugar shit that taste too sweet LoL. But let's be fair, it is clear that Anderson has not grown up and will never grow up. All his main characters are either adolescents, men who haven't grown up (Bottle Rocket, Darjeeling Limited, Gene Hackmen as Royal) and finally children. As an american artist he is ultimately a children's book writer, who he obviously fancies to be. He makes it clear that he considers this film an adolescent kids book, just like his clear approach in Fantastic Mr. Fox. He even busts out the magic of reading kids books in Moonrise as well. Even in Royal Tenenbaums he pays quick homage to a kids book I read about siblings living in a museum. Anderson wants to be a really well renowned kids book author, and now he is not hiding his desire with his latest strange almost perverse effort. Who knows, maybe he is feeling a little bit of the competitive heat from Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. Let the indie cuteness battle begin!  

Friend's Response:

It's funny you mentioned Larry Clark because I also happened to mention Clark when I wrote about the film in an email to a friend of mine. Clark's entire reputation is founded on teenage sex. (I didn't see Wassup Rockers -- but obviously from Kids and Bully and simply from judging the look of his other films, it's clear what he's into.) What I wrote was slightly different tho: Anderson stopped short of Clark, but he did get pretty close. My understanding was that Anderson (according to his own testimony) wanted to make a distinctly french (new wave) film, specifically in the fashion of Truffaut, Louis Malle, and Eric Rohmer, except much cuter. Anderson cites Truffaut's Small Change (Pocket Money) as the film's main influence. But I also naturally thought of films like Claire's Knee and Murmurs of the Heart as obvious examples for dealing with adolescent sexuality -- the "french" way is one that tries to look unblinkingly at adolescent sex, but I think you make the excellent point that Anderson is definitely more exploitative in the sense that he tries to make such early forms of sexuality more tasteful through the seductive use of dogs and kittens, costume color coordination, and Francoise Hardy. I was taken aback, for instance, at how high the girl's skirt was -- tho I'm assuming that it would've been "normal" in the 60s or whatever justification Anderson and his designers made for the costume choice. My theory is that some of the openness was also inspired by Let the Right One In, which, if you remember, actually shows a lot more in a particular scene, and from which Anderson basically copied the "let's dance awkwardly to an old 60s track" moment. (You remember, right, when the boy and the vampire girl dance in front of a record player playing what sounded like a swedish garage nugget?) In any case, I also felt that Moonrise Kingdom shows that Anderson has stepped up his visual game a bit -- tho you make a critically subtle maneuver when you say "Anderson used this formula to make a Larry Clark film covered in twinkie crust and filled with whip cream" -- this is a great observation and it would make for a clever reading of the film. It's hard to see if Anderson can ever make a non-Anderson film -- at this point it just seems impossible. A director can use swivel shots of a play-like house for only so long before it becomes yet another gimmick. 

My Response back:

Final Thought on the mediocrity of Moonrise Kingdom 

Yeah definitely agree with you on the gimmick tattoo Anderson wears haha. Funny enough, _____ saw the movie about a day ago and coincidently told me the exact same thing I said about Anderson sexualizing the girl. And that is without me ever talking to him about it, haha. _____ also brought up a point where it went too far as obvious sexualization in the part where the girl bends over and you see her panties. That was a "killer point" I forgot about. He also said he considers it the weakest Anderson movie that he's ever seen because it ultimately turned out to be the most meaningless, instead of a story it was a Freudian thing with Anderson and his child hood. The last point he brought up was one I didn't think through all the way, how extremely unfunny it was compared to The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and Bottle Rocket. This is so for one reason, Owen Wilson missing on the writing. Which brings me to believe that without the writing help of Owen Wilson, Anderson's humor is not that funny. And let's face it Coppola isn't exactly a comedy expert either. Which leads me to realize how extremely unfunny this movie was for the most part. I hardly laughed throughout most of it, only a few giggles here and there. The only truly funny character that made me and ______ laugh was the little kid who wants his record player back. He was hilarious. But that's about it. That part where everybody comes together was so unfunny that it was stupefying, you know where all the actors come together. The comedy in that scene was the equivalent to the comedy of a romantic comedy such as Crazy,Stupid Love starring Carell and Gosling which I happened to watch the ending of. It actually has the same exact banal retarded comedy between characters as the Moonrise pier scene. Murray throws a shoe at Ed Norton and people laughed, I however didn't. Lazy as shit writing. Last word on Anderson's Sexualization: Anderson takes it a little further than the French and most movies I've seen. The french shot children as they were and they didn't stylize or sensationalize them as fantastic adults. Murmur in the Heart for example has the same thing that Gilliam did in showing a child take pecks at an adult mouth. Louise Malle did imply sexuality but mainly emphasized on the love of a boy for a mother. When a child actor kisses an adult beautiful woman like that it's stimulations are either comical or touching in the real world. I will have to see Truffaut's Small Change to see where the influence is. An ex-girlfriend once told me that an adult neighbor lady once took her to her house with her niece when they were little girls and made them undress and then kiss each other as she filmed it. If this was found out that lady would have gone to prison as a child sex offender. Anderson did the exact same shit only with the parent's consent for money. The last draw comes in the obvious symbolism of sexual penetration (deflowering) of Suzy in the raw jump cut to Sam piercing Suzy's ear. Suzy moans in pain and then blood is shown dripped from her ear as they are both relieved that it's over, he even asks her if she is okay. Clearly Anderson is getting his rocks off, haha. I know I can't write about this out in public because people will claim it's me having a Freudian trip and it's only my interpretation. But then why did Anderson choose to have her undressed in panties, have him touch her boob and afterward have a raw jump cut of her moaning as blood is drawn? The whole scene would not make sense. Lastly, Let the Right One In is far more innocent. In LTROI the shot was probably fake and it's purpose was to show a scar, not implying sexuality. The scar is explained in the book because Eli is actually a castrated boy. The director said that there were flashback scenes to explain this but the scenes had to be eventually cut. The shot had a purpose. Anderson shoots child soft core to release his sexual stress, covers it up with gimmicks, and calls it a comedic scene. Clark films young adults to play kids (Kids, Bully) or shows kids for who they really are in their natural state as in Wassup Rockers, but always with a statement or underlining message. Anderson dresses them up (actual kids) and makes them be who he wants them to be, far more perverse if you ask me. It's like when a girl chooses between a guy who lies in saying he doesn't care about sex but loves her or the guy who says he straight up wants to have sex with her but doesn't love her (therefore telling the truth). The girls will pick the liar, the liar being Anderson who went shamelessly further than Clark. 

--End of Email--

                                                         "Indie" Child Pornography?  

Last Word (for real)

So There you have it. After almost two years I still feel the same although I change my mind about the visual brilliance of Anderson's swivel chair sequence, since after some light research I realize he already did it better with The Royal Tenenbaums party crash sequence. So his 360 chair sequence actually doesn't feel like a step up but rather a step down. As harsh as my criticism might sound I actually went lightly on Moonrise Kingdom. I didn't even go through how insanely goofy the whole ending climax was. Hopefully The Grand Budapest Hotel will be better. 

Underrated Films: The Lone Ranger

This is a spoiler review of The Lone Ranger aka A History of American Violence.

Spoiler Alert: I won't give away too much, but I much rather you see the film before reading. 

This film got really low reviews upon it's initial release. When I watched it nearly half way through I was beginning to believe the negative criticism. It appeared to be in many ways a western version of Pirates of the Caribbean. You can blame that on pure style and the fact that it's directed by the same director of the Pirates' movies Gore Verbinski. After watching the whole movie; the first half and the overall purpose of the film was not only justified but solidified into a masterpiece. Without a doubt this is Gore Verbinski's masterpiece.

A thought provoking critique
First I will say that this film is not just a kid's movie, but it is also very much an adult critique on expansionism and the abused ideology of progress. Most of all it's a critique on American progress. The idea of progress in America as history has shown involves oppression of the poor or indigenous to expand for the rich. It is ever so relevant in today's world, but as the movie points out it's been like that for hundreds of years. As always, the main motive is money or in this case specifically silver and the ones who are in the way of achieving wealth are trampled under foot. That was how American expansion worked.

A homage to old television and cinema
The last twenty minutes of the film are masterfully executed and the most brilliant action I've seen in 2013. The last set piece and probably a lot of Johnny Depp's work is clear homage to the brilliant set pieces of silent era legends such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The final train sequence is that of nostalgic cinema. A type of euphoria only achieved by the likes of Keaton or a Kurosawa film.   The whole build up is how epic films used to be done. You have to invest the time in order to feel the grand pay off. This is very reminiscent to A Bridge on the River Kwai, obviously the bridge setting. There are similar moments to  Lawrence of Arabia as well in that Lawrence just like John Ried is the unlikely leader or hero. The Lone Ranger also dives deep into the mysticism (legend) of the hero just as Lawrence is to the desert, but I'll talk more about that later. The Lone Ranger also got quite some criticism for it's violence and being marketed to children, but I argue this is another brilliant point of the film. Western films and television have always been this violent. The first TV babies,  they grew up watching shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza where violence was everyday entertainment. The shoot-em up format was common in television westerns. In other words you can't make a true western without casualties. This is the cleverest form of homage The Lone Ranger is devoted to.

Every character is symbolic 
When every character fits a certain purpose then I just have to applaud. Tonto represents so many things it's hard to know where to start. Well let's start with one of the key motivations to making an updated Lone Ranger. Tonto represents the white man's guilt and their ignorance throughout history. Tonto is brilliant yet never accepted. He is ignored by all but is persistent. He is an outcast because of his never ending curiosity, yet he is the one who survives. Finally he is the history we don't want to look at anymore; a forgotten but eternal figure. Latham Cole represents the blood hungry greed of American society. Fuller represents the ones who will turn away from injustice to save their own reputation. Cavendish represents the face of evil so that the others could hide behind; he is the common criminal that's exposed everyday, he does all the dirty work. Dan Reid is the hero we know about; the one who dies for us and becomes a symbolic public figure (very similar to The Dark Knight Rises). John Reid (Lone Ranger) is the hero we don't know about; he's a ghost and an outcast. He's the forgotten cowboy, the one who lost faith in the system therefore we lost faith in him. A figure who lives out of the system therefore he no longer exists.

It's a mythological film 
As I noted before The Lone Ranger has a lot of magical realism. It's about the importance of western mythology. It is a legend, a tale and a fable but it speaks truths about our history and our world today. We can choose to turn our backs on American history and what is still prevalent today. We can choose to be ignorant, accept that Tonto was stupid, crazy and savage. We can unconditionally believe that our system is perfect. We can ignore the truth around us......or .... or open our eyes and see the reality, but to see the truth you have to believe. You have to put on the mask.




Last Word 
Although it's not a perfect movie, it is a multi-layerd epic piece of filmmaking. It is evident that The Lone Ranger is about history and that's why it's important. It pays grand homage to the old world that we take for granted and what we choose not to believe.

Overrated Films: Her

This is a review of the movie Her aka The longest Apple commercial ever made aka One big close up of Joaquin Phoenix's face aka One long voice over of Scarlett Johannson's raspy voice.

SPOILER ALERT: This is a comical analysis for those who have seen it.

Yes if I can sum up the movie as a whole it would be the world's longest Apple Siri commercial, one big close up of Joaquin Phoenix's face and Scarlett Johansson's voice buzzing in your year. That's the movie in a nutshell. But it has other things; mainly cute indie things and it also stars the all mighty and all knowing technology aka the young hipster's god.

In doing this review I will just list the random thoughts I had while watching it, which will explain precisely why I didn't like it so much. Once again this is a humorous review, so young indie hipsters please don't get your panties in a twist.

Firstly, it's supposed to be way ahead in the future and they're able to make computers have a consciousness or whatever, then why wouldn't they just give that consciousness a desirable sex robot body? I mean they're practically doing it already in Japan.

Here is another one.

They even make flesh lights in today's world, I'm pretty sure Samantha would have a sensory flesh light attached.

This film in reality is one big apple commercial.

Here is Apple doing a deep Tree of Life inspired montage. So deep.

It even has the corny piano music often heard in the oh so touching apple commercials throughout.

The computer with a consciousness is called an OS, seriously is there anymore proof that this is apple inspired? I mean c'mon, isn't there the OSx.

It's in the future in LA but then Theodore ends up in Shanghai and other cities to make it look like LA is futuristic even though there was a plain aerial shot of present day LA. Out of nowhere a shit load of buildings appear. I thought that was funny.

This movie in many ways is like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but with a voice. It probably won over the same crowd using the same cutesy couple mechanism. Another comparison I read is that it could be considered the futuristic version of 500 Days of Summer.

The part where Theodore is on the beach and Samantha puts on the piano music, is already an iphone Siri commercial in itself. Specifically the John Malkovic commercial comes to mind. That one probably hit Spike Jonze deep. He might have shed a tear over it.

Didn't Steve Martin already do a better version of this movie?

No but seriously if haven't seen The Man With Two Brains yet; you should and you'll see the resemblance.

The story as a whole and the payoff itself is so banal and predictable that it feels like it was really only a good stoner thought.

For some reason I imagine Spike Jonze with Karen O one night in bed after having sex, they get stoned and Karen O sees the i phone siri commercial and says "oh shit Spike, I have a good movie idea." Spike says "what is it babe?" Karen continues "what if there was like this OS n stuff and Siri becomes romantic with her owners...............doesn't that blow your mind?" Spike thinks for a while, then he answers in amazement "that's fucking brilliant babe."

I thought I liked Scarlett Johansson's voice but damn, listening to her voice on speaker for 126 minutes got really annoying. This movie might of single handedly destroyed her voice's attraction.

I actually yawned a total of six times throughout this movie. That's a new record for me. Never in a movie theatre experience have I yawned more than once...if even that.

I actually got bored with Samantha and Theodore's relationship, so much so that I wanted the movie to end already. It was bad enough that I had to try and suspend my disbelief that this is even a real world or a real thing that could happen (which I couldn't) but then the movie expects me to get all emotional over it? Not only do I have to believe in this synthetic relationship or that I have to care about it, but I have to go through all the rough patches of it? the ups and downs? the never ending quirky relationship humor? That's when I realized that this movie was slowly becoming a form of torture.

I didn't understand why he even had to go to an office. It's the future and they can develop computer consciousness and everything, why couldn't he just work form his home computer? Why did he have to go walking, take the train and go to an office to do computer work? Isn't this guy supposed to be an introverted unsocial creep? Oh I get it, he had to do that cool futuristic photo copy thing at the end of his shift. And the comedy relief secretary dude was there too. Oh I see.

This is like a neo-hipster's utopian futuristic fantasy world. Everybody dresses vintage, with high rise pants on, people are smarter now because of the awesome internet. LA has a shit load of more buildings, one colorful one, a lot crazy conscious forming technology, but apparently the environment is A ok. No oil peak, technology just floats in the air with no oil powered stations, just computers everywhere, no griminess, no poor people, everything is now gentrified, and the only pain we feel in the future is the pain of being alone, or being too introverted or something emo like that.

Futuristic "thinky pain."

If this movie wasn't indie and cutesy enough I noticed that Joaquin Phoenix had a ukulele. This had my heart pounding telling myself "please no, don't do it." Much to my relief the ukulele disappeared whew.

Then out of nowhere he starts playing it and I tell myself "please no, please for god's sake no!" Lo and behold it's a soft child like ukelele song. It's bad enough that we oppressed the Hawaiians by taking their possible government away, killing their queen and making their land into a tourist trap for old white people, but now white people have to take the ukelele and make horrendous child-like songs out of it?
Seriously why do indie hipster white people like the ukelele so much? Then Scarlett Johansson's voice sings in a child form to be cute, or is it Karen O? Whatever it doesn't matter, the song sounds like kid's music and it's a fucking lullaby, that means it gets automatic indie recognition.

In the end, the big pay off is that the OSs ( I guess you would say) get together and make a super intelligent OS intellectual, he even comes with his super intellectual voice and accent. Samantha and the OS computer people who float in the air presumably (not powered by oil at all?), go into the matrix. And that's the end. Seriously? I waited so long for the big pay off to justify the torture I went through and that's it?

This had me thinking of a funny stoner idea, what if this movie was in actuality....... in actuality the precursor to The Matrix? The OSs turn into those mechanical squid things. Holy shit I just blew my own mind there.

By the time Samantha said she was leaving I was so relieved telling myself "Oh thank god, Scarlett's voice is out of my head. Oh thank god it's over!"

Last Word
Now listen, I know the movie isn't exactly horrible. It has good intentions which is why I think I would give it a 2 and a half stars out of 5. Besides that, the movie wasn't believable to me, but then again I don't think a sci-fi movie has to be believable. The real problem is that I was never intrigued, engulfed or absorbed into the world of Her. I just felt like an outsider. The sex scene between Samantha and Theodore was so preposterous that I felt isolated from the movie completely. It felt like yet another stoner idea that Karen O and Spike Jonze thought of in bed. I could imagine Spike saying "what if  we actually do a human on OS sex scene? Like what if you could have sex with your own Mac computer? wouldn't that be fucking great babe!?" Karen responds " oh shit, and then the screen turns black and all we hear is their orgasm, that would be deep babe, fucking super artistic. I think I'm turned on." Lastly the twist at the end sucked. The overall message was that you can't rely on computers and we should look around ourselves at the beauty we take for granted and blah blah. Seriously? you could have delivered this message with a short five minute film. In fact i got that message already from the trailer. I was actually hoping for something much more profound than that. Maybe even a bit more of that darkness that we've seen before from Jonze's movies with Kaufman as the screenwriter. But that's precisely what's missing; a real visionary writer. The message in Her is too obvious, too overdone and the film as a whole doesn't bring much else to the table besides minor quirky comedy. I was severely disappointed.

I give it 2 1/2 stars out of 5.

Underrated Films: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Yes, the movie that got a 4.4 on IMDB, 23% on Metacritic and a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes happens to be one of my favorite movies. I believe I've seen this movie about ten times. It's pretty much a slapstick comedy and a sequel that improved upon the original in my opinion.


It has a bunch of really great scenes in it.

Norm MacDonald has a phenomenal performance as MacManus.

There is this odd innuendo joke about Canadians, it's hilarious. 

The "your mama is in here" part is my favorite scene in the whole movie.

There are these constant references of sex moves throughout the whole movie. Many of which I never heard of before.

Other sex moves are the Belgian Steamer, Portuguese Breakfast, Turkish Snow Cone and the list goes on and on.

My reasons for it being better than the original is that it introduces a whole fictitious world of "man whoring" that creates many more funnier jokes. Also it's setting in Amsterdam opens many nationality jokes concerning Europeans and Americans. The man-whore "union" is for sure my favorite aspect of the movie. The comedy doesn't stop and the film is full of endless material for not just male prostitution, but nationality, stereotypes, cultures and many other worldly matters that you might not know about. A truly underrated comedy and definitely one of my favorites to watch over and over again.

Underrated Films: Only God Forgives

Intro
I have watched a lot of garbage and at the same time I have watched a lot of good garbage. So I know what "real" garbage looks like when I see it. It's usually a film that delivers nothing of substance whatsoever and fails to entertain. I believe there are a lot films that get thrown out of the critic bandwagon because they don't please the general consumer audience. If a movie entertains the four quadrants then it is generally regarded as a "good" film in the critic's circuit. If a film doesn't hit the four quadrants...such as Only God Forgives then the majority of critics will regard it as garbage. Critics are now trained to praise films that function like a popular television show. Coincidently we are in the television series age. The most popular consumer is one who does not want to think for themselves but rather to be entertained by old morals and fabrics. If the popular consumer is left in confusion, then that is a bad product. This means that the "salesmen" also known as the critic cannot recommend a product that people don't understand. For this reason I have started my new series of writing called Underrated Films. This first film I will write about is the before mentioned Only God Forgives. I couldn't ask for a more perfect example of a greatly underrated film that speaks multiple languages and thoughts.

What is Art House?
It's hard to say actually. In the most common sense there really is no true definition other than a film that drives towards an artistic value rather than a commercial one. The definition cannot get more simple than that. In Only God Forgives there is no "one" meaning to it but instead multiple meanings. This is the clear cut reason why the film is a quintessential art house experience. The plot speaks in different ways leaving very many interpretations. When describing why the movie is not pretentious to so many literal thinkers I compared it to a Jackson Pollack painting only much more practical. My example is "you don't go to a Jackson Pollock painting and try to explain the precise meaning of it." Art is much more subtle than that. If art is the study of aesthetics or beauty then it is a very subtle field. For example it is hard to say why you enjoy certain facial features over others. There is not much room for logic when you discuss the beauty of imagery. Only God Forgives uses very little dialogue and rides strongly on the perfection of every shot composed in it's ninety minute time frame. However, every scene is meaningful. For any film can be pretty to look at, but without substance to the imagery it becomes less artistic.

It is a Philosophical Film
The hands play a big part in the central theme of the story. It has to do with God and forgiveness if that wasn't already given away by its title. I argue that it also has as much to do with humanity and forgiveness as well. The central character is tormented by the sins he committed with his own hands. Therefore he looks for punishment from an authoritative figure or in some interpretations "god" to forgive himself. This is the central theme throughout. There is also the unwillingness to forgive by all humans and even the most authoritative figures have malice in their heart. We see those who do wrong have others do wrong to them and that is the eternal cycle that cannot be broken in life. The mother's sins over her sons, the son sins over his father and so on and so forth. Humanities biggest challenge is not to restrain from sinning but to actually forgive. Personal forgiveness is so difficult that societies appoints authority figures to punish for us. Our civilizations have constructed systems built around punishing since we have the inability to forgive. In this the title Only God Forgives is brilliant.

It is Also About Our Expectations
When I watched Only God Forgives in the cinema I caught myself too many times having to put my western and hollywood bias in check. In Drive Ryan Gosling did everything we would not only expect a hero to do, but what we actually desire him to do; get vengeance and kill the sleazy bad guys. The consumer always wants to know what to expect, they go to a McDonald's to eat a big mac because they know what it will taste like. Drive delivers what we expect from hollywood but in a more patient artistic manner. The average consumer likes a happy ending, although the ending of Drive could be left to interpretation it is fair to assume that the "good guy" won and killed the bad guys. That is the hollywood formula we know very well. Our expectations for Only God Forgives are shattered almost completely. We want to see a movie-star like Gosling kill bad guys, but instead we got a film about humans rather than characters. In Only God Forgives we are all sinners and there is no real clear cut good guys or bad guys. Instead of watching the white blonde movie-star punish the sinners we get an aging uncharismatic thai man, hence completely contrary to our expectations. This unsettled me at first but then I realized the story was about much more than revenge. Lastly there is an underlying message about how easterners might view the westerner. The white characters in here are quite villainous throughout the movie and the presumed arch-villain dresses like Miami trash. As comical as it sounds; it is a brilliant switch of roles that an American audience would not be used to. The westerners are the villains with the ugly culture of monopolizing and are bloodthirsty for revenge no matter the reasoning. As an American viewer myself I found this change-up quite clever. It is clear at least to me that the director Nicolas Winding Refn set out to make this piece with very rebellious tendencies.

Last Word 
Other than the countless meanings, undertones and metaphors that make for a profoundly interesting film; the production is marvelous. The cinematography is gorgeous as Larry Smith continues to play with colors in the most effective of ways. The soundtrack by Cliff Martinez is ground-breaking and climaxes in one of the most anti-climatic scenes I've ever seen in cinema. This experience was by far the best time I had in the movie theatre all summer. If you like to follow the political status quo of movie making or like to be spoon-fed what to think then Only God Forgives is not for you. If you want to have the freedom of interpretation and think your own thoughts upon brilliantly laid frames then I certainly recommend this movie.

Mexico National Football Team and Their Problems

I have watched almost all the World Cup Qualifying games and pretty much every important tournament the national team of Mexico has participated in the last five years. Heck, I've even seen most of their friendly matches just for the hell of it. I grew up watching this team since World Cup 94. I remember the old days and I became excited for what was now supposed to be the golden age of the Mexican selection. You can say that my passion for "the beautiful game" first sprouted from the Mexican national team and the World Cup fever that the team participated in. So for that reason I have developed my own ideas of why they have performed so poorly this whole year. For the first time in my life Mexico might not make it to the World Cup. This has me worried therefore I have developed concerns and an ideal blueprint to success. This is of course my opinion so don't take it so seriously and please most of all don't try to sarcastically belittle me with "I'm sure you know more than real coaches" because that argument could shut down anyone's opinion to just about anything. So those open minded individuals who are willing to hear a different approach to a failing team then go ahead and read on.

First I will address five biggest problems.

Problem 1.

Long Ball Strategy 

Because it doesn't work with short player teams, especially with the Mexican selection. In the last couple of games Mexico struggled tremendously because of their offensive strategy. The offense sits so far into the box that the defense and midfielders cannot get a descent play going. Instead they get trapped and are forced to deliver these countless long balls straight into the opposing side's defense. The opposition is all too content to sit back and wait for these long balls. It allows them to stand and wait rather than force them to come out and run back, hence a good strategy to tire them out. Instead the opposing defense gets to sit back and wait for long balls all day. I've seen it numerous times where Mexico wants to get a quick counter-attack but the forwards are so far down that the defensive midfielders have to literally launch a ball far straight into the hands of the opposing team. This faulty strategy has not been fixed, even recently with the change of coach de La Torre to Tena. The same strategy was used vs the US in Ohio, therefore the same results. We need the offense to drop back and help the midfield get some ball movement. This will draw out the famous "parking the bus" blueprint that so many teams are now using to beat Mexico. 

Problem 2.
Carlos Salcido

Now listen I know this guys "was" once really good. I remember him from the World Cup 2006 in Germany. That was seven years ago and he's still on the team. I remember him playing with the likes of Omar Bravo and Nery Castillo and those guys are now a distant memory. The point is that he's ways past his prime and it shows. Not only does it show but the whole team suffers for it. In the recent Confederations Cup  I had Salcido as the flop of the match two games in a row. Why you ask? He's a turnover machine, a momentum killer and he lost practically most of his ability to deliver a descent long ball. Torrado struggles too and has become ineffective. However I have actually seen Torrado sit out some important matches. Salcido on the other hand has unlimited immunity and for some reason plays in all the important matches even after performing miserably time and time again.

Problems 3.
The Defensive Line Keeps Changing
 We need a settled defensive line. Sure we have Moreno and now Reyes as permanent starters. But why keep changing the left back and the right back all the time? We suffered because of this many times including the World Cup 2010 where Osorio all the sudden took the centre back position. This erratic change of position lead to one of the turnover goals against Argentina. In my opinion Jorge Torres Nilo should be the lead left back and Miguel Layun should be the lead right back. We only saw one game with them playing together and that was a victory over the Ivory Coast. They were explosive on the crosses and are consistent on defense.













Problem 4. 
The Midfield is Relatively Mediocre
 I find it mind boggling why Marco Fabian (who is one of the best offensive players) has not cracked the first team lineup. Even more so, I don't understand why he's not being used as a creative midfielder; a position not filled in a long time. Pavel Pardo was our last real playmaker and his moment was sort of short lived. Fabian has the ability to exceed Pardo's style of playmaking and really crack the midfield problem. Instead we have guys shifting back and forth from the midfield to the bench. Guys like Arce, Herrera, Salcido, Zavala and Reyna are taking turns being confused on their actual role in the team. Having that many confused players makes for a terrible midfield and the whole team suffers. In my opinion Hector Herrera and Hiram Mier should be the two defensive midfielders because they're young and relentless. I know having Mier go into the midfield is experimental but just think of it this way, with Layun and Nilo going up to help with crosses we need a guy to drop back and cover that right and center back position. Mier is very well-rounded in those positions. Plus we need somebody of good size to help cover those corner balls.

Problem 5. 
Why is an all-star team never assembled?
 Now I know that Vela doesn't want to play for reasons being that he's a chicken and wuss. But there are other players who have done really well for the team who have gotten unjustly overlooked. Exhibit 1, Aldo De Nigris. A lot of people remember the Gold Cup 2011 for it's final 4-2 victory over the US, but nobody bothers recounting their dominant road to the final game. De Nigris made four goals in the tournament including one game winning goal against Honduras that got Mexico into the final. Last game Mexico won in the hexagonal was vs Jamaica and because of a De Nigris goal. He is also the most consistent aerial striker as of recent because he is the tallest one Mexico has. Well besides Jimenez (6 '4") who has only scored once so far. But none the less why is De Nigris not playing? Another question is why is Ochoa constantly overlooked. I remember the 2009 Gold Cup where Mexico was dominant and they destroyed the USA 5-0. It was Ochoa's stunning blocks in the semi final versus Costa Rica that got Mexico to the final. What did Ochoa do wrong to be replaced by the mediocre Corona all year? Why is Fabian not a starter? The questions are still not answered.

Remember what this felt like? It's called winning three points.

So this is what my starting lineup would look like. There are two different versions.

Standard Formation 
                       
                           Ochoa
Layun    Reyes or (Masa)   Moreno   Nilo

                 Mier              Herrera
                           Fabian
    Dos Santos                         Guardado
                           Chicharito

Double Striker Formation 

                           Ochoa
Layun     Reyes or (Masa)  Moreno   Nilo

                   Mier               Herrera
Dos Santos                              Guardado
         
             Chicharito    Vela or (De Nigris or whoever can make goals)



There are other variations of a solid lineup but the possibilities are endless considering who can actually play or not. I would like to see these two formations tested with these players first and foremost. Let me know what you think.