Flying Solo.

It took me long enough, but I finally watched Toy Story 3 this past Saturday. I couldn't find anyone on short notice to come with me but I also didn't want to put off watching the film, so I flew solo and attended the 4:00 matinee showing at a nearby theater. You'd think that I'd save a bit of cash by going to an early show, but since I'd opted to watch the 3D version, the ticket still ran me $10.50. This actually didn't surprise me anymore and I figured I'd be paying even more for a later show, so I shelled out the money and was handed a pair of 3D glasses along with my ticket.

pick a seat, any seat

I was the first person inside Auditorium 1, a fairly-large split-level theater. It seemed like the upper level would be the best place to watch so I climbed the stairs and picked the center seat in the second row. I settled in with my $4 box of Mike N Ikes (in clear violation of my diet, but hey it was a Special Occasion) and a few minutes later the local advertising spots and pop culture trivia video loop began playing. Around the same time, small families and couples began trickling in below. After a while it became apparent that I was the only person who was there alone.

I've been going to the movies by myself for several years now. I think the first one I watched solo was The Others at a downtown Seattle theater, when I decided to just go spontaneously after work. It was interesting to be out watching a scary movie without being with friends or a date -- people to share the experience with. But I still enjoyed it regardless. Riding 20 miles back to my apartment at 10pm on a non-express bus, however, was somewhat less enjoyable. But I digress.

Is there still a stigma about going to the movies by yourself? I don't really think there is, but at the same time I'm not aware of any friends who do this. (At least, they haven't explicitly offered this information.) People rent and watch DVDs at home by themselves all the time, but I think there's some kind of social mechanism that generally inhibits us from doing certain activities by ourselves. Movie-watching is the obvious example, but eating at sit-down restaurants and going to concerts/shows also come to mind. I don't know anyone who does these things solo on a regular basis (or at all, to be honest).

What gives? Are we conditioned by social norms to do certain public things in groups? I guess that might have started waaay back in pre-school or kindergarten, when we were encouraged to perform activities with other children. In grade school all the way up to high school, I know that it wasn't necessarily desirable to be considered a loner, that it was considered weird to eat lunch by yourself. Not so much in college thankfully, but I can only conclude that society still unconsciously upholds this stigma to a certain extent in the "real world."

Which is unfortunate, really.

Okay, so: In the continuing effort to expand my own horizons, I will go to an upcoming concert/show and eat at a restaurant by myself, just to see how it goes. In actuality I probably should've done this years ago. I mean, I don't want to miss out on what might be a great experience just because no one else is around to come with me. The city is full of things to do -- if I end up doing some of those things by myself, that's okay with me.

By the way, Toy Story 3 was excellent. I shed tears and dammit, I'm not ashamed.

Not All Hope Is Lost. Yet.

This past weekend I was in a dystopian Blade Runner-ish kind of mood (blame all the winter grey outside) and needed a movie to match it. Scrolled through my movies and decided to watch Children Of Men, which I'd been neglecting for a couple of years for some reason or another.

As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices.
- "Miriam"

Well, it definitely fulfilled on all fronts. Children Of Men is set in the not-too-distant future. Women, for reasons unexplained, are no longer able to bear children and (as a result?) global society has largely deteriorated into anarchy and chaos. England is the only remaining "stable" country, having become a brutal police state rounding up immigrants and generally terrorizing its own citizens. There was an omnipresent undercurrent of barely-restrained tension. It was terrific.

The first thing that struck me was how incredibly grimy the environments looked. I have to give it up to Alfonso Cuarón's set designer -- you could've dropped Marcus and Dominic from Gears Of War into this movie and they'd feel right at home. Set design usually serves to set the tone for the movie, but in this case the pieces were characters themselves. The future looks exhausted, repressed and utterly bleak.

[via]

Clive Owen plays a former activist who gets in over his head by agreeing to help smuggle a pregnant woman to the relatively safe confines of The Human Project, an organization devoted to researching why the world has become infertile. However, trust in other people during the journey becomes an increasingly valuable commodity, and things go awry very fast.

Beautifully scored and acted with roles by Michael Caine, Julianne Moore and Clare-Hope Ashitey, Children Of Men is a fascinating blend of violent action, social commentary and chase thriller. It raises interesting questions about how (quickly) we would devolve if we had, literally, nothing left to hope for. These moments of relatively quiet contemplation are interspersed with scenes of despair and sudden violence, which thankfully are never over-the-top or implausible. There are several visually enthralling takes in the film, my favorite being a 6+ minute siege scene in the final third that completely encapsulates the feeling of desperation, fear, dread and hopelessness pervasive to the movie's message.

If you have a couple of hours to devote to a singular movie experience, I'd recommend Children Of Men. It'll stay with you long after the screen goes dark, and might spark an interesting conversation or two. After watching the movie, check out the movie trivia on IMDB, which made me appreciate it even more and warrants subsequent viewings.

War Is A Drug.

... or at least it's what The Hurt Locker would have you believe. This theme bubbles under the surface of the film, which takes place in 2004 Iraq and follows an American EOD squad as they face the dangers of defusing bombs and attempt to get along with each other in the process -- all without getting killed.

Upon viewing, it wasn't hard to see why this was such a critic's darling. Director Kathyrn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days) imbues the movie with a constantly palpable and satisfying tension. It probably didn't hurt that the film was penned by a freelance writer who'd been embedded with an actual bomb squad during the war. I could feel almost everything, from the baked-in heat wafting up from the cracked asphalt, to the drowsy maddening weight of the bomb suits, to the near-frantic anticipation of the inevitable sniper's bullet. It's exhausting and exhilirating at the same time. The moviemakers get Giant Gold Stars for execution; Locker is beautifully made and looks stunning.

Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty, who play the three members of the EOD unit, are simply fantastic in their roles. Each a soldier with his own motivations, they struggle to really mesh as a team and find themselves in a few perilous situations as a result (including one which slightly strained my suspension of disbelief). By the end of the film however, each man finds what he's looking for -- more or less -- and the film's theme becomes more apparent. I finished the movie with a renewed appreciation for our troops overseas, and was thoroughly entertained and pleased.

The Hurt Locker is not your typical war/action film. Yes it takes place in Iraq, but doesn't have any overt political messages. Characters are fully fleshed out which more than makes up for the lack of a grand, overarching plot. The atmosphere is humid, dense and startlingly vivid. I'd recommend this movie if you're in the mood for a gritty, intelligent take on an overlooked aspect of the military effort. I guess it could be considered "eye candy" of sorts with the explosions and gunfire, but it really is a smarter film than that. Press Play on this one.

Torture Porn? Hardly.

This isn't necessarily a movie "review" per se, because I generally like most of the films I end up watching. Plus I don't usually review much of anything save for the occasional music album. I guess this would be more like a reaction to the viewing.

It's been a while since I've dedicated a couple of hours to just sitting and watching a movie. So, feeling the need to make some kind of progress on the movies piling up in my queue, I selected Martyrs, a French horror film released in 2008. I hadn't seen any trailers and knew absolutely nothing about the movie aside from the fact that some people had labeled it "torture porn" like the Saw or Hostel series. (Now don't get it twisted, I like a good scare every now and then, but I don't pick and choose movies just because there's someone getting sliced up or ripped apart in them. I do have some semblance of taste. I think.)


The movie drew me in immediately, with scenes of a screaming, tortured child escaping from her demented captors in a decrepit industrial building and running half-naked down the street. Lucie is institutionalized and ends up befriending Anna, another patient, who eventually becomes a protector of sorts. Lucie is periodically tormented and attacked by a gross-looking demon, which naturally freaks her the hell out, so it's usually up to Anna to calm her down and dress her wounds. Fast-forward fifteen years, and the two are still close friends, but Lucie believes that she has found the couple responsible for her childhood capture and abuse, so she goes to their house with shotgun in hand.

It's hard to post my reaction to the movie without giving away any spoilers, but let's say the first and second thirds of the film conform somewhat to traditional supernatural and physical horror movie standards, with the requisite blood and gore (and there is a lot of blood and gore) and accompanying squishing and crunching sound effects. The second act ends where lesser movies would be happy to end, and it's the third portion of the film that really puts it on another level. Yes, the scenes are drawn-out and physically gruesome -- and had me squirming and cursing under my breath -- but the psychological components were what truly disturbed me. I wouldn't consider it "torture porn," however, because I don't believe any of those scenes were gratuitous (although I'm quite positive that many, many viewers will vehemently disagree with me).

Director Pascal Laugier knew what he was doing. The vast majority of horror movies are content to treat the viewers solely as casual observers, so that there is a slight disconnect between them and the protagonist. Martyrs, before and especially after certain motives are revealed, succeeds in both shell-shocking the audience and immersing them almost fully into the sheer brutality of it all, because there is a reason for it. Call it empathy or at least a deeper understanding of the perverse forces at work within the film, but don't call it "torture porn."

The ending leaves much room for interpretation; I'm still trying to work out an explanation in my head that I'm comfortable with, but in a good way. These are the types of movies that I love -- uncompromising films that present an aspect of the human condition in such a fashion that forces you to come to terms with it through the director's vision, but allows you to make your own take on it after you leave the theater (and make great coffee-table conversations).

Obviously this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I would recommend Martyrs to anyone with a (very) strong stomach -- and a curiosity for just how deep a movie can take you inside your own head.