ihavebeenfloated

I’m up, around, here. I’m working on laundry, nice being able to do laundry at three in the morning, it’s nice. I’m wrapping all the Christmas presents for everyone. I do everything perfect up until tying the bow, which I have no idea how to do all picturesque. Sure, my ties look nicer than most people, along with the meticulously smooth wrapping paper. I’m not sure how I know how to wrap presents so well, but I think it’s all my mom’s fault, watching her wrap countless presents, or how I would help my grandma wrap presents as well, but I was never good at it, in fact I was always sort of shitty. Now, though, perfection!

I went and saw Sideways last night. That is such an incredible movie, I’m not sure how they did it. There are a few parts, mainly one, that seems kind of over done after the fact, but everything, throughout the whole movie, feels perfect. I’ve never watched a movie that has contained all the emotional subtext that is normally reserved for a book, but here, in Paul Giamatti, you have an actor playing a character who’s mind you can read so easily through his face that you end up experiencing all the emotions he is, at the same time he is.

It played this way for the entire audience, I could feel it. At one point there is something happening on screen that first makes you laugh, and then you realize that maybe you shouldn’t be laughing, and then you’re horrified. And while the entire audience is going through this conundrum, our main character is up on screen experiencing the exact same thing. It might not sound like much, but when the movie manages to do this throughout it’s entire near two hours of run time, it’s a beautiful thing.

You owe it to yourself to see this one. It’s sad, it’s beautiful, it’s romantic, and it is hilarious at times.

I mentioned that I needed to review The Machinist, and I’ve never gotten around to it. At this point it’s become clear to me that I am probably not going to write a decent in depth review like I meant to, but I will say a few words. (*Editor’s Note:* This turns in depth really quick.)

When I got out of the theater finally after watching The Machinist, I emitted an honest sigh of relief, so grateful that it was finally over. I was pretty damn disappointed in this film, initially. It wasn’t at all what I expected. It wasn’t until several hours later that I realized that this film is perfect for what it is.

The closet comparison I can make, and that should decide for you as to whether you should see it or not, is that this is the modern day equivalent of a film like Hitchcock’s Vertigo. These two films, side by side, have so much in common as far as their mood and the way they are shot and paced that I believe they are spiritual twins. Both have meandering shots of their protagonist driving, meandering shots of women, meandering outdoor scenes that almost feel completely surreal, and an eventual climax that doesn’t hit you until hours, if not days, after seeing the film. Both films seem terrible, slow, and depressing at first, but later, when you have time to brood over them, it dawns on you that you witnessed something magnificent.

Fact is, like Vertigo, The Machinist manages to put you in the same awful mood that the protagonist is in through various means that could severely backfire and push away the viewer. One of them is that the pace of the film is, well, luxurious. It slowly works it’s way through every little minor bit, sometimes pausing at times and you’re not quite sure why. The colors are all very washed out and the sky is always blown out, perfectly portraying the world as you see it when you’re severely tired or delirious.

Christian Bale’s transformation is no gimmick here, I think it’s something drastically important for the performance and the final realization of character at the root of everything. All the acting is fairly superb, but what really matters is how much we believe in Trevor Reznik, and thankfully, with Christian Bale, we believe to the fullest extent possible, just like we’re able to with Jimmy Stewart. All the other actors are rather secondary and unimportant in contrast.

The music is one of the most troubling things about this film. It reeks of classic cinema, Hitchcockian yet again, even, with a hint of the most elusive of instruments, the Theremin, thrown in. It’s an excellent score, but I don’t think it fits the time and look of the movie at all. A lot of the time I would find myself being pulled out of the movie by the score, but now that I think about it, maybe that’s not a bad thing. Perhaps the score is meant to pull you out, to save you from being fully assimilated by the emotional assault on your senses. Regardless of any justification, the score is a very odd beast, beautiful and a little bit dangerous.

If you’re a fan of slow, meandering films that perhaps have little to no climax at the end of its story, much like Vertigo or like a certain modern day classic, Limbo, then this film is definitely for you. It grows on you, and even after two weeks, I keep thinking about it, and it keeps getting better in memory.