Archive | 5:49 am

Elizabethtown: Images and words CAN matter more

16 Oct


Two things to remember when watching movies: 1) NEVER go in with preconceived notions and 2) Once in awhile be ready for heart to beat out your mind on enjoying a piece of cinema.

Cameron Crowe is an amazing writer/director. For a generation, this films have touched on the feelings of hopeless romantics everywhere. His characters are charming, his dialogue winning, and his soundtracks are co-stars in the movie in which they inhabit. From “Say Anything” to “Singles,” “Jerry Maguire” to “Vanilla Sky” and now “Almost Famous” to “Elizabethtown.” Crowe’s films are a clearly stenciled path of an alternate reality where great music always plays at just the right moment and characters realize the potential in which they are always slightly missing achieving actually resides in their soul, yearning to be found.


“Elizabethtown” follows Drew Baylor played with quiet uneasiness by Orlando Bloom, as he is fired from his job, dumped by his girlfriend, and positioned for public failure akin to the creators of New Coke. As he prepares to commit suicide, his sister calls to inform him that his father has passed away. Thus Drew begins his trip to Elizabethtown, Kentucky to represent his west coast family for a southern memorial service rife with conflict. During the red-eye flight, Drew encounters Claire, an overly friendly stewardess who is eager to help him get through his troubling next few days. The two enter a quirky romance that hangs in the wings as Drew tries to understand who his father was and who he is going to become, all the while trying to navigate every family reunion landmine imaginable.

First, the gripes. Every critic that seems to think that they matter have attacked this film’s lack of realism and it’s cluttered nature of scene construction. The romance has been criticized as unbelievable and over the top while the ending seems to not fit with the rest of the film. Second, the middle of the film has been criticized for dragging down the rest of the movie and might even contribute to gripe number one. To this, I have only to say, “Shut up and watch, you heartless blowhard.”

This movie is not meant to be a linear story, but rather a film where an out of left field girl helps a depressed and confused boy deal with the greatest loss he can comprehend during his height of utmost failure. That’s the whole movie right there. Drew is a cipher for every twenty-something male lost at sea and misguided by the thought that being a success defines who you are. Claire is a fantasy woman, but she is meant to also be the light the end of a tunnel of self-discovery. When you’re ready to face what you’ve failed at, when you’re ready to actually love life despite the pitfalls, you’ll find a girl like Claire waiting for you. Losing your father can be very hard on a son. I dread the day when I might have to put my own to rest. There is no preparation for that and no amount of cynicism can curb the fact that it’s obvious Crowe is still trying to find the words to describe his loss. What he has attempted to do here is create a landscape for his own feelings to come out and talk about what he’s feeling. If you can empathisize with them and join in, maybe find a foothold with which to relate, then this film will make you feel full of life. If not, just try to enjoy an amazing soundtrack and some great scenes of the countryside that makes up this land of ours.

Favorite scenes?

The whole phone conversation between Drew and Claire that leads up to their watching the sunrise is one of the most modern romantic fantasies ever put to film.

Drew’s entire walk of shame and subsequent breakdown are very scarily sympathetic.

The end roadtrip is so well done, it tugs on every heart string until you’ve run the same gauntlets as Drew has.

“Elizabethtown” is not for everyone. I can think of at least three people off hand I would never recommend this movie to. It is still a great piece of film-making and should be seen by anyone who is ready to shut off their critical thinking and embrace what it feels like to go through every emotion of failure, loss, and discovery that we’re capable of.

Serenity: You can’t take the sky from me…

16 Oct


So I haven’t made many updates due to a little distraction. Actually, not too little. We’re talking about a big damn movie that should never have gotten made, but bucking the law of averages, there it was; larger than life and twice as amazing. I am, of course, talking about “Serenity,” the Firefly movie.

First, some backstory: When I served my purgatory that was Best Buy, I met a man named Lawrence, a self-professed “Whedonite.” What the hell’s a “Whedonite”? They’re someone who loves writer/director/television-show-creator Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Now, Lawrence was also preaching about some new show that had just been released on DVD called “Firefly” and how it was sad that it’d gotten pulled from the air. I looked at the box and read the back, but saw nothing that really struck me as truly amazing or ground-breaking. At this point, I wasn’t even a fan of the man. Lawrence made me a deal, though. Since he was waiting on a paycheck and couldn’t by the set, he told me to buy it. If I didn’t like it, he’d buy it back at the standard retail price and I’d make about fifteen dollars on the whole deal. “What if I want to keep it?” I asked. He smiled, “Then I win.” Suffice it to say, I still own a rather worn and loved “Firefly” DVD set that has since been loaned out multiple times over the last two years. During those two years, I was a cult leader akin to Charles Manson, enlisting disciple after disciple in the religion of “Firefly” until every one of my close friends all owned copies of the series and we all waited patiently for the rumor to come true: There was going to be a “Firefly” movie.

Whedon put a part of himself into creating this show and when it was canceled, he was beyond scarred. The thing is, it’s hard to keep a good idea or a good idea man down and through a little bit of fan support in pushing the DVD numbers through the roof and a rival studio of the company that produced the series looking for a new property, Whedon got his greenlight. This became “Serenity.”


“Serenity” follows the cast of “Firefly,” Captain Malcolm Reynolds, his first mate Zoe, their pilot Wash, engineer Kaylee, and mercenary muscle Jayne as they protect a young doctor, Simon, and his psychic, River. Set in the far future, where civilization has grown so advanced that the lower-castes actually resemble the old west, the crew of the transport, Serenity, scour the system for jobs, legal or otherwise. When they offer to protect the young Simon and River from the allied government who are chasing them for unknown reasons, they bring on a world of hurt for very little profit, but a cause worth fighting for.

The message of “Serenity” is not one of action and adventure. It’s one of belief and what you’re willing to do fight for what you believe in. The Alliance has sent an Operative to kill River and whoever stands in his way. This Operative believes in the dream of a perfect world promised by the Alliance. Throughout the film, every character is forced to face their own beliefs, most of all the Captain. Malcolm lost his faith in God during a vicious war that his side ultimately lost. Since then, he’s been a hard man of very confused principles, silently searching for something, anything, to believe in and fight for. To him, without him actually knowing it, defending River from the hands of the Alliance IS that belief that he’s been missing. The moment in the film when he’s forced to face it… “I am to misbehave.” There are moments in movies where someone can feel the room actually shake with the realization that a character is actually going to do whatever it takes to fight for what they think is right. That scene is one of them.

Now, I’m a fan of the show. That is beyond obvious. I loved “Firefly” and was so passionate that I enthralled others to be just as in love as I was. The thing is that I actually brought other people to this movie, non-fans, who had never seen the show nor were total sci-fi fans. Indie movie lovers, action movie junkies, and people just out to see something different. They all loved it. Once again, my DVD box set is making its rounds with a whole new group of people.

“Serenity” is a film built on winning dialogue, fun characters, great action, and a pre-battle speech that we can sum up the movie in one monologue: “Y’all got on this boat for different reasons, but y’all comin’to the same place. So now I’m asking more of you than I have before. Maybe everything. Sure as I know anything, I know this: In a year or maybe ten, perhaps even on this very ground, they’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people better; and I don’t hold to that. I aim to misbehave.”

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