Okay, I am so jazzed about this movie. I was a big fan of Where the Wild Things Are as a kid but became an even bigger fan of it when I tackled it as an adult and began to see more than just the lonely boy finding an outlet for his mischievous energy. It became a larger story about the way that adults interact with children and about how deep anger and imagination run. My favorite part of the book is when Max comes home from the land of the Wild Things and finds his dinner waiting, still hot.

But even better is the song Spike Jonze uses in his trailer for the movie, Arcade Fire’s re-recorded “Wake Up” — yes, this song is only available in the trailer, not like I’ve checked or anything (scouring hype machine, for instance). As something different from the version off Funeral, here’s a version with David Bowie at Fashion Rocks recorded in 2005:

[See post to listen to audio]

The two versions of the trailer as well as an exclusive featurette are available at apple.com.

I’ve read reviews of the script and I hope that Dave Eggers and Jonze do not disappoint.

official image from the movie, The Fall

Okay, anyone who’s talked to me this year about movies has probably heard about “The Fall” — for some, it’s over and over and over. Such a freaking gorgeous film. I saw this trailer a year or so ago and have been stalking it ever since, hoping to see it on the big screen. In my book, it’s the lead contender for the best movie of the year — though “The Dark Knight” was also pretty amazing. Proof? I saw “The Fall” twice in one week. More, you want more? I think the trailer speaks for itself.

Apple Quicktime trailer

The movie, set in 1915 Los Angeles, is about an injured stuntman and how he befriends a little girl with a broken arm with an epic story about five heroes — an Indian, an ex-slave, an explosives expert, a masked bandit and Charles Darwin (yeah!) — on a impossible quest to destroy an evil man, governor Odious. All this to curry her favor so she might steal morphine from the hospital pharmacy for him. The line between his story and the world of the hospital blurs and bleeds into one another — think somewhere between “Princess Bride” and “Cinema Paradiso” but punctuated by larger than life costumes and sprawling backdrops (much like the space panels in “The Fountain,” also one of my favorites).

Tarsem, the director as well as one of the writers for this film, also directed “The Cell” (awful script but beautiful to see) and was previously a music video director, whose credits include REM’s “Losing my Religion,” and has worked on many commercials, how he found many of the locations for this film.

Shot in 18 countries around the world, this film features no computer special effects, opting instead for actual places and their naturally intense and vivid nature — an underwater shot of an elephant swimming overhead (looks as though it’s galloping through the water) comes to mind as does the above promotional photo, doesn’t that look like an M.C. Escher drawing? I would imagine that he got his fill of using CGI in “The Cell.” It took Tarsem 16 years to make this film and he nearly bankrupted himself. It was making the film festival circuits when Spike Jonze and David Fincher saw it and, stunned by what they saw, put up their own money to help put the movie into a limited number of theaters, which is how I saw it. Oh man, thank you guys.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the title type design was done by Stefan Bucher, art director of 344 Design (link) and the creator of Daily Monster (link). It’s bold and completely what the film needed for its identity, though not my style at all.

“The Fall” comes out today on DVD, I’ve already pre-ordered it and I can’t wait to see it again.

Powers of Ten is a short film (link) by Charles and Ray Eames made for IBM that starts on a picnic blanket in Chicago and zooms out 10 times every 10 seconds until you can see the bulk of the universe. The direction reverses and the point-of-view zooms all the way back down into the nucleus of an atom. (via kottke)

Awesome.

For decades, global warming has been written up and clamored about as a growing problem. But mostly, it’s been debated to death. If this movie is supposed to be a cautionary tale, it fails. But as a CGI vehicle, it’s like special effects pornography. Oh, and there’s a love story, a family-in-crisis plot line and some political tension — neither here nor there — it’s like the director Roland Emmerich just threw in the kitchen sink, typical behavior for a summer blockbuster, I suppose.

(I mention the director’s name because the only I’ve ever walked out of was his remake of Godzilla (1998). He also did Independence Day, a little better than Godzilla but not by a whole lot.)

For a disaster movie, there isn’t much destruction — after the first 20 minutes, I gave up on the dialogue. I mean Los Angeles gets thumped by a series of gi-normous tornadoes, taking out the Capitol Records building and disintegrating the Hollywood sign. But New York — hit by a tidal wave of water — suffers frozen skyscrapers (none fall over) and I never felt a clear sense of danger. Sure, wolves (from the zoo) wander the streets of Manhattan and ice balls the size of a human head pelt Tokyo, but what really happens? The northern hemisphere gets really cold, all Central and South American debt gets erased and the air gets clearer. Nothing Dennis Quaid’s snowshoes can’t handle.

Come on. Global warming and/or climate change is a serious issue that deserves thoughtful treatment. This movie is not that treatment.

As a side note, it was storming in south Austin last night and so it was interesting for the duality of watching a disaster movie while it’s thundering outside pretty fierce.

The set, the sound (the bleepy action song is killer), the costumes are beautiful. But the pace is deadly slow. I know it’s deliberate, I know it’s the point, but come on. It feels so artifical, so designed, so destined to be a critical favorite — smart nods to the audience (get it? you get it, right?), the deadpan paraody — and I felt every minute of the two-hour running time Thursday night.

I felt the same way about this movie as I felt about Rushmore, asking myself, “Why did I just sit through this movie?” I wanted a full refund of my time and energy. Like Waiting for Guffman — I smiled once while Parker Posey talks about working at the Dairy Queen — I felt like Life Aquatic never quite got going. Just when it’d get going and I’d peep a spark of character interest, the scene ended and my clock reset.

What was interesting is that the DVD has some solid deleted scenes. Scenes actually funny and endearing. Like Willem Dafoe on fire in a wet suit. Or Bill Murray asking for a cost analysis on the albino dolphins.

Technically, it was a riveting film. But I still dozed off twice watching it. If you love Wes Anderson, see it. If you’re wearing a Vote for Pedro t-shirt — not that I am — you should pass.

They searched everyone for camera phones. Um, what is anyone going to do, string together short seconds-long pieces of video into the film? Or even better, pictures of the film to make each frame? Come on, people. Someone who wants a visual momento of the movie that badly is going to find a way to get it. I mean, it was a few hours after the latest Star Wars flick was released that the work print began showing up in peer-to-peer systems. Tenacious.

In other news, they’re moving a house across the street. I was in back of it when they drove it down Lamar, taking up three lanes of traffic.

I took a few pictures but it’s after midnight, not a lot of light; they didn’t come out.

And boy, did it deliver. Did it ever!

It was the movie that Spy Kids II wanted to be. Even though the characters were computer generated, I felt a genuine connection with them. The jungle chase sequences were fantastic; I wonder how much time and work that required. The family, I mean come on, how can you not love ‘em? Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson. And the effects, they were infinitely better than Spiderman 2. No, really.

And the homage to the golden age of superheroes (1950’s retro stylings) as well as the spy movieish score were both nice touches. And the zany humor just about killed me on the spot.

My favorite scene was when Frozone was trying to find his super suit. All while all hell is breaking loose outside their high rise apartment.

Frozone: Honey? Where’s my super suit?
Girlfriend/Wife (off-screen): What?
Frozone: Where. Is. My. Super. Suit?
Girlfriend/Wife (off-screen): I put it away.
Frozone: Where?
Girlfriend/Wife (off-screen): Why do you need to know?
Frozone: I need it!
Girlfriend/Wife (off-screen): Uh-uh! Don’t you think about running off doing no daring do. We’ve been planning this dinner for two months.
Frozone: The public is in danger!
Girlfriend/Wife (off-screen): My evening’s in danger!
Frozone: You tell me where my suit is, woman! We are talking about the greater good!
Girlfriend/Wife (off-screen): Greater good? I am your wife! I’m the greatest good you are ever gonna get!

There’s even a gag about “monolouging”, the tendency for villains to endlessly explain their evil plans and deeds. Works like a charm. And the superhero costume designer E is a delightful homage to Bond’s Q (and her line of reasoning why capes are never a good idea is priceless).

In short, I would recommend this movie even if you don’t have kids. Two thumbs up. Way up. If you do have kids, I wonder how it holds up after repeated viewings. Someone let me know. Thanks.

For this movie (as well, I think, a television show on IFC), Morris used a two-camera and Teleprompter setup that posed the former Secretary of Defense in near constant eye contact with the camera (read: audience) for his three-hour conversation in 2001 with Robert Strange McNamara (for reals, his middle name). So, when McNamara wags his fingers or sits in silence, it’s like he’s talking to you, or not talking to you as the case may be. At times, it felt like I was sitting with him in a church confessional.

Throughout the film, Morris draws out of McNamara a stunning monologue. The words are haunting — the firebombing of Tokyo, the lucky breaks in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Agent Orange in Vietnam. The backdrops are historical footage, stills, and recently available taped conversations between McNamara and President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Although McNamara is talking about our not so distant past, he seems to speak directly to this country’s current defense paradigms and military philosophies.

Though McNamara has been very reluctant to comment recently on the situation in the Middle East, he had this to say in reference to Vietnam — which I think applies in spades to America’s current military conflict in Iraq — “What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should ever apply that economic, political or military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn’t have been there. None of our Allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can’t persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we’d better reexamine our reasoning.”

The Fog of War begins strangely, no pun intended. As McNamara, the first president of the Ford motor company not in the family, is getting situated for the interview session, he checks in with Morris about sound levels, then declares, “Now I remember exactly the sentence I left off on, I remember how it started. You can fix it up some way. I don’t want to go back and introduce the sentence, because I know exactly what I wanted to say.”

On the Sony Pictures website for the movie, I found Morris’ director’s statement:

The Fog of War is a 20th century fable, a story of an American dreamer who rose from humble origins to the heights of political power. Robert S. McNamara was both witness to and participant in many of the crucial events of the 20th century: the crippling Depression of the 1930s; the industrialization of the war years; the development of a different kind of warfare based on air power and the creation of a new American meritocracy. He was also an idealist who saw his dreams and ideals challenged by the role he played in history. Although strictly speaking, neither a work of biography nor a work of history, The Fog of War has produced important, new biographical and historical material.

First, although there have been several book-length biographies of Robert S. McNamara and many books in which he is a principal figure, none have discussed the pivotal relationship between McNamara and General Curtis LeMay, the infamous U.S. General, and their involvement in the firebombing of 67 Japanese cities in 1945. World War II is thought of as a just war. It is believed that the Allies fought on the side of good, and that what they did in their wartime effort was justified by that fact. What few people know is that before the United States dropped the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, LeMay’s B-29 bombers had already killed nearly 1 million Japanese civilians, including 100,000 in Tokyo on the night of March 10th, 1945. McNamara raises deep moral questions about his role and, by implication, the entire Allied role in winning the war against Japan by any means necessary. He asks, “In order to win a war, is a nation justified in killing 100,000 civilians in one night?” “Would it be moral to not burn to death 100,000 Japanese civilians, but instead to lose hundreds of thousands of American lives in an invasion of Japan?”

Second, for many people who are familiar with the Cuban missile crisis from the movie Thirteen Days, The Fog of War tells a very different story. Here is a story not about how John or Bobby Kennedy saved the world, but a story of blind luck, caprice and the limits of rational judgment. A story of a world out of control, where a nuclear holocaust was averted by an obscure state department official who had the temerity to speak up to the President and to urge him to empathize with his adversary.

Third, The Fog of War is the first historical investigation to make extensive use of taped telephone conversations from the Oval Office of the White House between Johnson and McNamara. Much of what has been written about Robert S. McNamara rehashes a familiar story – that of a computer-like man, a technocrat, a hawk who, through his arrogance, blundered into Vietnam. However, the presidential recordings – the weight of the historical evidence itself – do not bear this out. Instead, a far more complex portrait of the man emerges – one who tried to serve two very different presidents: John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. We hear McNamara explaining to Kennedy the need to set a timetable for removing advisors from Vietnam; we hear Johnson (after Kennedy’s death) admonishing McNamara for his unwarranted optimism in giving such advice; we hear McNamara urging Johnson to put the breaks on the bombing of North Vietnam; but, in the end we hear McNamara endorsing the President’s wish to continue the war.

In the end, I think Morris’ film is thought-provoking. It presents McNamara’s side of the story and rightly feels one-sided. But this makes it no less eye-opening.

For instance. Thirty years after the war ended, in the film McNamara talks about how he met with his Vietnamese counterpart and discovered each had completely misunderstood the other’s goals and motivation. I’ve always thought that the US was defending the Vietnamese from a Communist aggressor. But in The Fog of War, McNamara is shocked to learn that the Vietnamese, North and South, saw the conflict as a civil war, in which the US was meddling. Further, McNamara was told that the Vietnamese would never have stopped fighting the US, just as they had never stopped fighting the Chinese, who for over 1000 years had attempted to invade and conquer Vietnam.

In closing, I leave you with McNamara’s 10 Lessons, as rendered by Errol Morris in The Fog of War (the 11 lessons about Vietnam that McNamara draws in his 1995 book, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, follows):

1. The human race will not eliminate war in this century, but we can reduce the brutality of war – the level of killing – by adhering to the principles of a "Just War," in particular to the principle of "proportionality."

2. The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.
3. We are the most powerful nation in the world – economically, politically and militarily – and we are likely to remain so for decades ahead. But we are not omniscient. If we can not persuade other nations with similar interests and similar values of the merits of our proposed use of that power, we should not proceed unilaterally except in the unlikely requirement to defend directly the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii.
4. Moral principles are often ambiguous guides to foreign policy and defense policy, but surely we can agree that we should establish as a major goal of U.S. foreign policy and, indeed, of foreign policies across the globe: the avoidance in this century of the carnage – 160 million dead – caused by conflict in the 20th century.
5. We, the richest nation in the world, have failed in our responsibility to our own poor and to the disadvantaged across the wolrd to help them advance their welfare in the most fundamental terms of nutrition, literacy, health, and employment.
6. Corporate executives must recognize there is no contradiction between a soft heart and a hard head. Of course, they have responsibilities to stockholders, but they also have responsibilities to their employees, their customers and to society as a whole.
7. President Kennedy believed a primary responsibility of a president – indeed "the" primary responsibility of a president, is to keep the nation out of war, if at all possible.
8. War is a blunt instrument by which to settle disputes between or within nations, and economic sanctions are rarely effective. therefore, we should build a system of jurisprudence based on the International Court – that the U.S. has refused to support – which would hold individuals responsible for crimes against humanity.
9. If we are to deal effectively with terrorists across the globe, we must develop a sense of empathy – I don’t mean "sympathy," but rather "understanding" – to counter their attacks on us and the Western World.
10. One of the greatest dangers we face today is the risk that terrorists will obtain access to weapons of mass destruction as a result of the breakdown of the Non-Proliferation Regime. We in the U.S. are contributing to that breakdown.

McNamara’s 11 Lessons of Vietnam, as published in the Globe and Mail:

1. We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.

2. We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
3. We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
4. Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
5. We failed then — and have since — to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine … We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
6. We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.
7. After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.
8. We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people’s or country’s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
9. We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action … should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
10. We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
11. Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues.

Not just 80’s retro (too easy). And not just club (too loud). And not just hip-hop (too, well, I get tired of shakin’ my booty after a while). Disco will be kept to an absolute minimum.

And so, this is the first draft of the Motown + Stax era spinning.

1. Stevie Wonder – I’m Wonderin’
2. the Jackson 5 – the Love You Save
3. the Temptations – Ball of Confusion
4. Wilson Pickett – ‘Round Midnight
5. Solomon Burke – Got To Get You Off My Mind
6. Sam and Dave – Soul Man
7. Otis Redding – RESPECT
8. Stevie Wonder – Superstition
9. Sam and Dave – Hold On, I’m Coming
10. Sly and the Family Stone – I Want To Take You Higher
11. Lydia Lyndell – What A Man
12. Jean Knight – Mr. Big Stuff
13. Stevie Wonder – I Wish
14. the Staple Singers – I’ll Take You There
15. Sam and Dave – I Thank You
16. Isaac Hayes – Theme from Shaft
17. Sly and the Family Stone – Dance to the Music
18. the Jackson 5 – I Want You Back
19. Martha & The Vandellas – Dancing In The Street
20. the Staple Singers – If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)
21. Stevie Wonder – Uptight (Everything’s All Right)
22. Marvin Gaye – Stubborn Kind of Fellow

Any comments/suggestions are welcome.