100 reasons why you stepped into the theater

Sometimes it’s a trailer, other times it’s an actor or actress - but the one thing that can actually stand out for a movie is its poster. A poster is important because you’ll see it when you walk out of the theater. If it catches your eye, it’s successful. If not, they need to go back to the drawing board. Trailers may ultimately be a final basis for whether someone will decide to see a film, but a poster relies solely on the gut reaction of the viewer. Some really outstanding movie posters that definitely made their mark (in no particular order):

Got Apple?

I’ve always been a fan of the iTunes/iPod commercials, mainly because they’ve managed to perfectly encapsulate the love of music through their 30-seconds ads. I remember flipping out when at the first one I saw; it was the ad featuring Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” and it was so awesome. I know it made me want to get an iPod at the time.

Apple has become such a trendsetter that almost every artist on the planet acknowledges the power of the internet. Radiohead released their newest album exclusively online for about a month or two, and some artists have started to simply sell their stuff online and then coming out with the CD later. Apple has been able to also set the trends in terms of which artists to listen to. They basically put Feist on the map as a mainstream artist (which, as a music snob, I have to say, about damn time, since I’d been listening to Feist forever), and they also make already well-known artists seem even cooler by showcasing their new tunes, such as U2’s “Vertigo” and more recently, Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”.

I have to say, Apple and Coldplay have completely outdone themselves this time around. I think this is the best commercial ever, and this is evidenced by the fact that I can’t stop watching this 30-second ad! I had to download it because it was so good. It’s 30 seconds of pure bliss, and everytime I watch it it makes me feel like I’m flying or something. The ambiance and the trademark silhouette visuals of the ad are particularly awesome, and add to that the excellent Viva La Vida track and the band rocking out…30 seconds of awesome!

I had some leftover credits from my last iTunes gift card so I used that to download “Viva La Vida” off iTunes. It’s definitely a cool song, and it should be, considering Coldplay teamed up with music maestro Brian Eno to produce this whole album. I am definitely excited to see what Chris Martin and co. have in store for us in this European-inspired album with the Frida Kahlo painting namesake.

Laughter for all the wrong reasons

Daniel Tosh is one of my favorite comedians, simply because he tells it like it is, and then some. Oh, and he doesn’t take sides. On his show, no one is safe. He makes fun of everyone. And by everyone, I mean that he goes through the whole politically incorrect checklist and goes after people you would have never thought would be subjects of a stand-up show. From his grandmother to David Beckham, George W. Bush (who doesn’t make fun of him these days?) to dead people, this guy can make anything sound funny. Even the serious issues like abortion, gay marriage, safe sex, Hurricane Katrina and the war.

What I like about him is that he is extremely intelligent, and you can tell just by listening to his routine. His delivery is always on-point, he’s self-deprecating and doesn’t really give two shits what anyone thinks, it seems. He’s very well-read, and he likes to insert current events and pop culture references into his skits that you can relate easily to what he says. His routine is very well-rounded. He talks sports, sex, relationships, religion, politics, science…he covers everything. And as I said before, no one is safe from this guy. Not even Heath Ledger, R.I.P. And he’s not afraid to say what he thinks. Like when he says that he’s glad that guy got mauled by the tiger at the San Francisco zoo. It’s what everybody else thinks. He’s like the Simon Cowell of comedy, only cuter, less upright and with a penchant for run-ons.

There was this one part of his routine where he started talking about taking the troops to Nebraska to fight the war there. After which he non-segueways into a whole talk about how his car doesn’t run on ethanol and how ethanol is a silly dream that will never happen, especially in Brazil. A bunch of people at the audience react with “Ohhhhs” and he then goes into a whole tirade about ethanol and how it’s expensive, impractical, etc. And he finishes with, “So I get it, you don’t want to learn.” And the audience just erupts in laughter. I like that he does that–makes fun of his audience. I mean, it’s good to be able to laugh at yourself once in a while.

I also like his rapid-fire style of comedy. He goes on and on with one joke and he ends it with something completely left-field from where he started. Like, he starts off with an Adam and Eve story and pretty soon you get an ending involving Mariah Carey’s too-far-apart boobs. I like that he references things that most of the audience doesn’t get. Like when he mentions a bad Sandra Bullock movie, I was thinking, “Is he talking about Speed or The Net? Probably The Net, because Speed was a pretty good movie.” And then he brings up The Lake House, which I have seen (and as it looked like, I was probably the only one in that audience who saw that movie. Keanu fans are uber-loyal, as you know).

Anyway, I had a blast and I think so much more of him now that I have seen what he is like live.

Show me the money!

So I think I fulfilled my quota of foreign movies this month. I saw this Japanese sci-fi flick called Casshern last weekend, and then the Romanian 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Tonight I saw The Counterfeiters, an Austrian movie that I have been dying to see since I first heard about it.

Now I don’t exactly have the stomach for movies about real-life situations that we all know has happened and which continues to resonate with people today, but this movie is just brilliant. Usually, when Saving Private Ryan comes on or something or Band of Brothers, I switch the channel because it’s too painful to watch. Hell, I could barely sit through Titanic the first time I saw it, but I was what, twelve when I saw the movie? I’ve sat through The Pianist and that was really difficult. I have never seen Schindler’s List. I’ve seen a lot of movies that I think you kind of need to see but are painful to sit through because of the subject matter.

Anyway, so The Counterfeiters [Die Falscher] is a film directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, an Austrian filmmaker. Now an Academy Award-winning movie for Best Foreign Language Film, it revolves around Salomon Sorowitsch (played by Karl Markovics), an expert Jewish counterfeiter at large in Nazi Germany. He is captured by a young officer who is then promoted to Herr Herzog in charge of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where Sorowitsch is sent. At Sachsenhausen, the Jewish prisoners are assembled to start printing money for the Nazi war effort, and Sorowitsch is assigned to assure quality control of these counterfeits.

The film raises some important questions. If you were in Sorowitsch’s shoes, would you help the Nazis by printing money to save your own skin? Or would you rebel against them, even if it meant losing your life and the lives of the other men in the concentration camp? It’s a complicated scenario, and the movie portrays this beautifully. Ideally, people would say, “Oh, I would rather die than help out the men who murdered my family and who will most likely murder me too.” But this movie takes you back into that time and most likely realists would then say that Sorowitsch was clever in his devices to use his experience in counterfeiting to turn the tide, however minimal that tide was.

With tremendous performances from every single character in the film, it’s overall a very well-done movie. It’s got sharp dialogue and gripping performances, and it means something. It’s an important movie. I just found out that the film is actually based on the book by one of the characters in the movie, I’m assuming a real-life concentration camp prisoner, Adolf Burger, who is played by the extremely talented Auguste Diehl, who has appeared in several Austrian films. Diehl kind of overshadowed Markovics in some ways, because his dramatic performance and overall intensity that he brought to the character was so phenomenal that you almost wanted to jump out of your seat and give him a hug and tell him everything will be all right. Markovics, however, showed more range. Imagine, having to struggle to stay cool when you’re being peed on by a Nazi officer who constantly rags on you about being Jewish filth?

The film was heart-wrenching, and this is a good thing, because if it didn’t elicit sighs of sadness or gasps of horror at the events that most probably took place and were probably more brutal than can be tolerated on screen, then there’s something wrong. I cried a little in the film, and rightly so. I cried in Titanic but only because Leo DiCaprio died and he was cute. But this movie? I wanted to bawl my eyes out but instead, opted for the composed tearing up of the eyes.

Overall, I give this movie five stars because of the overall quality of the film, actor performances, direction and writing (both by Stefan Ruzowitzky). This film deserved the Oscar and I am happy that it is being recognized nationwide for its outstanding delivery.

Whine and moan: the new sensation

So everyone on the internet has been raving about this show Quarterlife, which is basically a place for “artists, thinkers and do-ers” to post their video blogs. Okay, to put it simply, it’s quarterlife.com and people post their video diaries for the internet community to gawk at. It’s art! It’s art! Waa waa waa. And the site has a show that revolves around the site, if that makes sense. Basically the show is about 6 friends who are going through the twentysomething crisis of not knowing what do with yourself. It’s a predicament that plagues twentysomethings everywhere: you’re in a rut; you thought you’d be brilliant and successful at age 23 but you’re interning for a company that you don’t believe in, and your boss is a crazy bitch, and you have a nonexistential love life (or a love life that’s comprised of a series of meaningless hook-ups that only serve to fulfill that instant gratification drive your Id is screaming at you to fulfill). Waa waa waa, bitch and moan. It’s easily relatable. And who spends the most time on the internet griping about their inadequacies and insecurities but the twentysomethings? With the steady rising of blogs as media of expression, it’s only understandable and inevitable that the next step, video blogging (as in the case of lonelygirl15, which turned out to be a complete hoax. Ha ha, you got punk’d!) would start to gain popularity.

Anyhoo, so I know one face on that cast, and it’s Scott Michael Foster, who plays Cappie in one of my favorite shows, ABC’s Greek (which returns this March! Woohoo!). He’s pretty much the same character on this show, only more melodramatic and less charismatic. I’ll admit, the show is pretty addictive. 15 minutes of pure, unadulterated narcissism from characters who think they’re supposed to be interesting. The storylines are pretty blah. Our protagonist, the annoyingly tortured soul Dylan, is programmed to meet the twentysomething ideal of representative to the demographic. Basically, Dylan is supposed to be the epitome of the twentysomething artist: painfully introverted (yet shamelessly blogging about what she thinks of everyone else’s life), insecure, tactless and unsure of herself. Yet here’s the kicker: her endearing qualities are supposed to be that she’s unaware of how gorgeous she is (as seen in one episode where conventionally prettier character Lisa tells Dylan she’s got sexuality, to which I rolled my eyes for the umpteenth time).

Okay, the show is inventive, sure. There’s nothing like it elsewhere. Let’s give it points for originality. However, the fact that each character is in love with another character within this little circle is reminiscent of, oh, a little show called Dawson’s Creek, and it’s annoying. Everyone’s in love with everyone else, there are all these melodramatic love quadrangles and declarations of sex. The humor of the show is somewhat interesting and there have been some fun scenes to watch. However, it seems like the show is in love with itself. The characters are in love with themselves. The main character Dylan’s room is carefully designed to appropriately reflect what an artist’s room looks like: unkempt, littered with posters from unknown, unsigned bands and vintage paraphernalia. Insert product placement of the Apple laptop she uses to masterfully craft her self-obsessed snippets. It’s too Juno. By this I mean that the concept is there, but the delivery is just a bit too-cool-for-school. All these “the bourgeoisie exists to blah blah blah consumerism”. Please. It’s that Chuck Klosterman quality that makes this show a bit tiresome.

Which is not to say that the show is not without merit. It’s definitely something new and fresh. Heck, it’s very timely, what with the whole Barack Obama thing and the buzz about how the internet is such a revolution these days. And video diaries aren’t necessarily new ideas, but the way it’s being used in the show is interesting. But really, I shouldn’t talk, right? I mean, a blog has pretty much the exact same degree of narcissism that quarterlife has. It’s all me, me, me after all.

Ah well. Maybe I am just a twentysomething going through the motions of the seemingly inescapable rut that is my quarter life. In which case, maybe a video blog is the answer. It’s art! It’s art!

Oh, shut up.

A peace to end all wars

I saw the play Lysistrata today at the Howard Brubeck Theater. The play is based on Aristophanes’ play and is directed by Michael Mufson.

“No peace, no pussy” pretty much sums up the entire play. A war was raging between Sparta and Greece and the women were growing more and more restless worrying about whether their husbands would be able to come home safely from the gruesome battlefield. Lysistrata recruits women from all over Greece and even some from Sparta in an attempt to end the war as peacefully as possible. She proposes to the women: when their husbands come home from the war, the women must refuse to have sex with their husbands. At first, the proposition elicits shocked gasps and the vigorous shaking of heads. The women are reluctant to submit to this proposition because they themselves feel they haven’t been getting adequate attention from their husbands as well. But Lysistrata tells them that it is the only way to end the war permanently and without casualties. Eventually the women consent and Lysistrata formulates a plan to march to the city treasury and use their feminine wiles to take it over from the guards. Then they must lock themselves in the treasury and refuse to attend to the demands of the men until the peace treaty is signed. Lysistrata hopes that withholding the pleasure of sex from their husbands and controlling the money as well should be enough to force the men to submit to the peace treaty. Basically, she’s trying to say that men are driven by only two things: women and power. Taking away both will weaken them.

Lysistrata is the epitome of feminine strength and intelligence. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. The play is a reflection of the roles that men and women play in society. Women are supposed to be submissive and should only concern themselves with taking care of their husbands and giving birth to more children. Men are supposed to be arbiters of strength and power, protecting their countries and providing food and luxury for their wives. When men downplay the role of women, the women are smart enough to know that they are indeed capable of bringing about change. At one point in the play, when the men constantly refuse the women’s proposal, a character declares that the women will ultimately stop giving birth. They refuse to give birth to boys who will be sent to die on the battlefield. They refuse to give birth to girls who will be forced to give birth to even more children. The men realize that child-bearing is one of the things that women have complete control over and with an ultimatum like “peace or complete annihilation”, the men are likely to concede.

I thought the play was very well-cast. I thought it was extremely funny. The actress who played Lysistrata was very eloquent and had very good stage presence. The audience seemed very receptive to the play, even when one of the characters proclaims she would “pawn her vibrator collection” just to end the war. Even when profanities were being thrown around, and the play was riddled with plenty of sexual innuendo and sexist remarks, the audience seemed pretty open to them. Overall, I thought the play was hilarious. My only criticism would be the slapstick-like acting of some of the minor characters.

Art is what you can get away with

What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the president drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke, and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one that the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

-Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), 1975Andy Warhol is a pioneer, rock star, icon and original all rolled into one. His work has been around for ages, and despite all the time that has passed, it is still known for his portrayal of pop culture in a completely different light. We all may remember him best from his pop art Marilyn [Monroe] or his controversial Electric Chairs. I remember him because he was the most unpretentious artist of his time.

“Unpretentious artists?” One might ask. “Is there a kind?”

When Warhol famously declared, “I am a deeply superficial person,” he was remembered for his candor and honesty. He liked being famous and did not try to hide it. He did not think he had to be brooding and anti-social to achieve greatness in art. He didn’t devote countless years of work to abstract art in order to show his depth or his passion. Because for Warhol, why mask your love for pop culture when you can embrace and devote your entire life’s work to it? Pop culture and the media surrounded everything there is about Warhol, and he enjoyed it tremendously. “I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.” And there you have it. Andy Warhol, the artist, the man, all summed up in that one statement.

So when Jessica and I finally made it to the Andy Warhol Dream America exhibit in the San Diego Museum of Art, I was relieved and excited. Relieved that we had finally gotten this much-postponed trip over and done with, and excited that I would be seeing Warhol’s work.

“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.” And look we did. We understood more about Warhol through his art than we had expected. You can understand how he felt about American consumerism, fame, money, beauty by looking at a single piece of art. I completely got his Campbell’s Soup collection. It was sort of a testament to how the public, for some reason, gets fed the same things everyday. Consumerism is rooted in the public’s love for repetition. There is something safe and secure about having the same product over and over again. Warhol knew it and decided to convey this idea through art by using one of American culture’s most beloved product: Campbell’s Soup.

My favorite Warhol pieces include the ones on Mick Jagger, Muhammad Ali, Shoes and Electric Chairs. I love how Warhol captured the strength and vulnerability of Muhammad Ali as well as the sexuality of Mick Jagger. One of his more moving pieces was the Kennedy piece with Jackie Kennedy.

I’ll end this post with a quote:

“Everybody has their own America, and then they have pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can’t see. When I was little, I never left Pennsylvania, and I used to have fantasies about things that I thought were happening in the Midwest, or down South, or in Texas, that I felt I was missing out on. But you can only live life in one place at a time. And your own life while it’s happening to you never has any atmosphere until it’s a memory. So the fantasy corners of America seem so atmospheric because you’ve pieced them together from scenes in movies and music and lines from books. And you live in your dream America that you’ve custom-made from art and schmaltz and emotions just as much as you live in your real one.”