There's something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul and something of its inconceivable mystery

Moon is a difficult movie for me. Not because it's a "difficult movie", but because it's not a difficult movie.

Moon tells the tale of an astronaut, Sam Bell, who is the lone operator of a lunar mining complex and has been for almost all of his three-year contract. There he oversees the machinery that harvests H3, a real-life substance that has saved Earth from its energy crisis. This detail is appropriately tossed off and probably just there to help me stall for time as I try to decide how I feel about this film.

The beginning of this film is extraordinarily promising, as Sam begins to see things in his lonely tin can (sorry) and soon even stranger things begin to happen, but are they real or have they been fabricated by Sam's increasingly unstable mind?

I was disappointed when the film decided to resolve this issue very quickly, but it's done in such a compelling way and presents a clever story in its stead, full of opportunities for Sam Rockwell to show what so many filmmakers have been missing out on, that I really can't figure out why I'm complaining.

This is merely an example of some of my favorite films coloring my expectations and me becoming angry that they haven't been met, and it's really unfair to level that against the film. And it's sort of stupid to say that I'm docking a film points because it isn't abstract enough.

In fact, the film is rather straightforward in its setup and execution, so much so that I'm surprised the film had such a hard time finding financial backing. It's really quite accessible, the only thing about it that's truly strange is that it's essentially a one-man show, but audiences rushed to see I Am Legend. I digress.

What I'm about to say could be considered a spoiler, but I think I would have enjoyed the film more if I had known. After an accident in a rover, Sam awakens in the facility's infirmary. He is informed of the accident, but quickly devises a way to investigate the accident on his own. In the rover, he finds a facsimile of himself, unconscious but still alive and bearing the injuries we saw him sustain. Placing the unconscious Sam in the infirmary, Sam becomes cold and angry, the answer to this strange occurrence being immediately apparent to him. The wounded Sam reacts with denial as he becomes more desperate and sickly, but they both react with fear when they're told that a "rescue team" is coming to help them get the base back in working order.

It's not a bad thing for Moon not to dig as deeply as Solaris or 2001, but it constantly calls those films to mind. It's not being fair to itself when a lonely astronaut begins to see familiar things and have conversations with people who have no reason to be standing in front of him. It has the testicular fortitude to tread the same ground as those films, but it faces all the problems you would expect. I don't know if this is something that endears it to me or not.

The movie on display is a fine film with, above all else, an extraordinary performance from Sam Rockwell. Rockwell has often been a scene-stealer and has been truly great when given the chance, but he's never been given an opportunity quite like this one. This is the sort of role that actors live and die for, and Sam Rockwell is the man for the job. If this doesn't get the Academy's attention, nothing will.

On that note, I'd like to mention that this film proves my long-standing point that every movie with Sam Rockwell in it needs less other stuff and more Sam Rockwell. It then gives us even more Sam Rockwell than I had previously considered tasteful. His performance is dynamic, a portrait of the same man reacting to the same situation in different ways.

The director, Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie (and I cannot tell you how hard it was to NOT title this review "Major Tom to Ground Control" or something lame like that), is more than capable. From what I've heard, he's a huge science fiction fan, and with this film to kick off his career, I can only hope that he's around to breathe some life into the science fiction genre.

Yes, he gets a great performance out of Rockwell, yes, the film is immaculately paced, and yes, he made the film on $6 million. But the real masterwork here (aside from Rockwell), is in the production design. For my money, the practical effects in this film are as good as or better than anything that ILM could have put together for $100 million. As hard as you try, nothing will surpass the magic and believability of something real. The base breathes like a moon base would breathe; everything seems to have a purpose. Perhaps many years ago it was sleek and futuristic, but now it's dingy and cracked and dirty and in disrepair. It's graffitied and used and derelict.

I guarantee this film will benefit from a second viewing, but I can't rate a film based on what I think I'll think of it when I see it again. I have a strict policy of using the grade that feels right, and for this film, it's an

8/10

But if you just read my review, you'll see how scared and confused I am over my actual opinions.

Crushing disappointment

God fucking damn it.

This totally ruins my day.

It's hard to swat a fly...when you love it.

As I've said many times before, there's something to be said for turning a genre piece inside out, refining its more tactile elements to a mirror shine. David Cronenberg's The Fly is one of the best possible examples of this. If I were to give you a plot synopsis (which I will), and you were unfamiliar with the story, you could easily mistake it for any number of cheap 80's creature features.

Driven scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) has made something great: a teleportation device. He shows it to a female reporter, Veronica (Geena Davis), who begins to document his struggles with the machine. As their romantic relationship begins to take form, so does the machine. One night, Seth impulsively decides to test it on himself. Little does he know that a fly has made its way into the teleportation pod with him. He teleports to the other side of the room and fuses himself with the fly. At first, Seth feels great. He has more energy than he thought possible and is developing almost superhuman strength. Slowly, though, the effects become more perverse. As the fly begins to take over his body, he fights for control of his mind.

This is the best work Jeff Goldblum has ever done. This continues a long line of actors doing not only the best work of their career, but work miles above anything their previous or subsequent work suggested them capable of, in a David Cronenberg film. For example, James Woods, Jeremy Irons, Christoper Walken, Viggo Mortenson, etc., etc.

He has the awkward passion of Brundle, the anger and malice of the fly, and the tragedy of Brundlefly from the first moment you see him to the last, under literal pounds of makeup, acting with only his eyes. If there is proof of a flaw in the Academy Awards process, exhibit A would be Jeff Goldblum's lack of a nomination, and subsequent win, for this film. In fact, exhibit A would be the fact that it took until 2007 for an actor in a Cronenberg film to get a nomination.

And that Cronenberg himself has never been nominated.

David Cronenberg cut his teeth on horror films in his younger days, and he seems to have a true passion for them. He is clearly a Goremonger, but no Goremonger before Cronenberg has been able to tap into our fears of mutation and bodily disfigurement the way Cronenberg does (for the best example of this, see Dead Ringers, one of THE BEST films ever made--as in, top 10 best films ever sort of Best Films Ever). This is the first time I've seen this film since I was thirteen years old, when I had nightmares for days. Up to that point, I had never felt violated by a film; clearly I had never seen a Cronenberg film. No one has ever, and I doubt anyone will ever, harness horror the same way Cronenberg has. He is the god of the genre, and anyone who disputes that can get bent.

And my GOD does this film make a case for practical effects over CGI. There is no way in the name of all the pretty demons of Hell that CGI could make anything this grotesque without it becoming completely synthetic. That we can still see Jeff Goldblum's features and that the fly seems to be growing out of Brundle's own skin instead of changing his skin into its own is the sort of visceral horror that no amount of money spent on any amount of computer generated imagery could ever duplicate.

It's a great thing when your only complaint about a movie is that it isn't long enough, but that's the only negative thing I can say about it. It's a visceral cross-section of man, insect and machine (made literal in the final moments of the film). It's a monster movie only Cronenberg could turn into a tragedy, and there will never again be anything like it.

11/10

At Midnight All the Agents...

Going to midnight releases is a huge deal for me, and something that I look forward to every summer, along with concerts, amusement parks and harassing kids at skate parks. Even if I think the movie is going to be a pile of dog dicks I still go to the midnight release. The more immersed you are in the hype, the more fun you'll have at the midnight release. The less immersed you are in the hype, the more Fear and Loathing you'll feel as you stare at all the pre-teens dressed like wizards or Spartans.

Observe the rules. Bring people. Talk to the people you didn't bring. Show up at least two hours early. Make fun of the people who dressed up. Enter the theater an hour early. Make friends with the people who are sitting next to you. Cheer when the manager comes in and tells you to turn your fucking cell phone off when the movie starts or their biggest usher will disembowel you in front of the screen. Cheer when the movie starts. Cheer when you see your favorite character shows up.


In fact, cheer all you want. This is the only time that behavior is tolerated, because midnight movies are about the atmosphere.

I want to hear about your best midnight movie experience, so I'll tell you mine.

Last summer, when I went to see The Dark Knight, I probably would have died of a broken heart if I had to wait any longer to see that movie. I went with a big group of friends, we found even more of our friends when we got there. I high-fived the manager as he walked out of the theater. When the movie started, the frame was split. Everyone started booing and throwing popcorn at the screen. I shouted "I don't know what you guys are complaining about. We're getting twice the movie". Everyone laughed. The theater erupted in cheers when the Joker took off his mask. When Skyhook took off flawlessly. When the semi flipped. When the Batpod reversed. When Gordon took his mask off. When the Joker said "I think you and I are destined to do this forever". When Gordon's monologue ended and the title card flashed on the screen.

At that moment, the entire audience erupted into a standing ovation. I couldn't pull myself out of my seat.

This year I went to the midnight releases of Watchmen, Star Trek, Wolverine, Transformers, Terminator: Salvation, Drag Me to Hell and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. My expectations tend to be colored by how much fun I have at these releases. Some people don't get midnight screenings, which is okay. Some people don't want to absorb the atmosphere or have an audience cheer in the middle of the film.

We've Eaten Plastic Weather

My history with the Harry Potter books and films is a bit complicated.

I'm of the generation that read the Harry Potter books as I progressed through my childhood, from when I was seven to when I was seventeen. As such, I enjoyed them immeasurably and they were an integral part of my childhood and my friends' childhood. In fact, while I probably wouldn't put any of them on lists of my favorite books, I have a great deal of nostalgia and affection for the series.

J.K. Rowling's writing abilities were on a sharp upward incline the entire series, meaning as my appreciation for prose and dialogue grew, so did her ability to write prose and dialogue. Until, of course, the seventh book. It all bottomed out when J.K. Rowling died and the publishing company scoured the internet for fan-fiction. They then loaded it into a cannon, fired it in the air and collected whatever pieces were left, pasted them onto the pages of a 10,000-page book and proceeded to burn piles of money when their bankers said "Sorry, no more room". All the good will built up by the first six books in the series was demolished like an orphanage on Orphan-Crushing Day.

At the same time, I often point to the Harry Potter films (along with many, many other films) when people talk about how sequels are always worse than the original. That's a different rant for a different time, though. My point is, every Potter film has been better than the one that preceded it, meaning I tend to get pretty excited about these films as they come out. But it shan't last, for the next film will be the first part of the Deathly Hallows, a pair of films which I'm not sure I can even bring myself to watch.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the last hurrah of the Harry Potter films, and it's a great way for this series to end, because in my mind, it IS over. There IS no seventh book. J.K. Rowling was eaten by bears, goddammit, and I won't listen to anyone who says otherwise.

Don't I feel silly. Five paragraphs in and I haven't even started talking about the film.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the best film in the series so far. Every film made so far, the filmmakers have learned lessons and applied those lessons to the next film. Every film has been a step forward, and this film is a culmination of all those baby-steps.

I know I'm wasting my time, but I feel unwashed if I don't give a plot synopsis. Harry Potter and Friends travel back to Hogwarts for another year of obscenely dangerous adventures on the Hogwarts campus under the eye of teacher who should probably be doing more to take care of the 11-year-olds who find themselves in the company of dangerous three-headed dogs. This is a bit more cerebral of a film than the last few. A lot of it is concerned with tracing the rise of the evil Lord Voldemort without actually showing him in all his Ralph Fiennes-y glory. Similarly, there are far fewer magical shootouts this time around, which was a bit of a disappointment for me, although a shallow one. I have nothing but high praise for the magical shootout at the end of the fifth film and had hoped for more of that this time around. More on that later, though.

The film also concerns itself with the melodrama of teenage angst as the characters develop their first loves and all that. The actors in this case all acquit themselves nicely, although none of them seem to be able to go beyond the call of duty and really garner the audiences sympathy and affection. That's okay. We're stuck with Chris Columbus' casting choices, so I'm not really surprised that these kids didn't turn out to be great actors.

Nothing short of top-drawer talent is present in cast. The mind-boggling entourage of the greatest living British actors from Michael Gambon and Helena Bonham Carter to Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith return for this film. Jim Broadbent is the most recent addition to this cast, and he is absolutely delightful as the vaguely scummy Professor Slughorn.

I had been very excited to see Michael Gambon stretch in this film, as the book is very Dumbledore-centric, but a lot of that was toned down for the film. The book is also very Snape-centric, but a lot of that is disappointingly toned down as well. More on that later.

But someone I'd like to single out for praise is Tom Felton, one of the younger actors and the one who plays Draco Malfoy. Most of his scenes are without dialogue, in fact I think he only really has a handful of lines in the entire film. But he does so much more with less, making his character the most fascinating, compelling and, strangely, sympathetic of everyone in the cast. This is an enormous tribute to his acting skill, considering that Malfoy is possibly the least-sympathetic character in the series. Cannot praise this performance enough. During a certain confrontation between him and Potter (again, more on that later), I was truly hoping it would end with a big hug.

Director David Yates, making only his second feature film after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix two years ago, proves again to be more in-tune with the series than any other filmmaker to have sat in the director's seat. He brings a flat-out brilliant visual sense to the film, breathing more life into them than I could have imagined and making all the previous films look like calculated failures.

But it's not just him. David Yates' long-time editor Mark Day and the great cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel conspire to make the film exceedingly beautiful and efficient.

In particular, the bathroom duel between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and is not only the highlight of the film, but possibly THE highlight of the entire series. I have a nasty habit of hyperbole, but it's been almost 24 hours since seeing the film and I can't gush enough about that scene. Anyone who will stay in one place long enough has heard my giddy, malformed praise for this scene in excruciating detail, but I'll spare you, dear reader, for I want you to see it and enjoy it all on your own, free from any bias provided by my schoolgirl crush on this scene.

If I have any complaints about this film, it's that we need more time with Snape. His actions and the big reveal at the end of the film are more shocking the more time we've spent around the character, and we spend very little time around the character. That didn't stop the film from moving everyone in the audience to tears, though.

This is one of the best films I've seen all summer. It's exciting, unique, scary, suspenseful and singularly cinematic. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

9/10

Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in...

...a Mesh T-Shirt

If only that were the real title.

So I belong to an intellectual elite of people who consider Borat a modern comic masterpiece. Also, I'm a huge fan of Da Ali G Show and Sacha Baron Cohen in general. How many other entertainers are willing to put their life on the line or go to any of the extremes he does for their art? Not many. And how many of these people turn out to be using these elaborate schemes to veil their lack of talent? Many.

It thus disheartens me to say that Bruno is something of a disappointment. Not that it isn't funny, for I laughed many times. More times, in fact, than many recent comedies. But it doesn't work as a film. But, as always, I'm getting ahead of myself.

For those of you who don't know, Bruno is a character that Sacha Baron Cohen used on Da Ali G Show, the same show that gave birth to the Borat character. Bruno is a homosexual Austrian fashion expert whose main purpose as a satire is to lampoon homophobes and the vanity of the fashion world.

That's a very specific vein to spike, unlike in Borat where the target of the satire was simply "America's differing attitudes towards foreigners". While there's an incredibly deep well to draw from there with shocking revelations of how Cohen can get these people to act, Bruno is a far shallower character.

Any half-way intelligent person already knows that homophobes are stupid and that the fashion industry is completely vacuous and self-important, so nothing is revelatory. Mostly Cohen winds people up for the sake of winding them up, and it makes the whole act completely transparent.

At the same time, people have much less patience for a flamboyant fashionista that offends them at every turn than for a loveabley confused foreigner who doesn't seem to grasp the niceties of western culture. And I mean a LOT less patience. It's actually the film's biggest problem. None of the situations last long enough to make an impact and none of the things he manages to get out of the people he's talking to are very good. They don't reveal anything to this character because they don't trust him and he's simply an offensive stereotype. For instance, there's a scene where Bruno interviews a real, live terrorist, but the scene ends far too soon when the terrorist becomes offended.

But this scene is a perfect description of everything that is good and bad about this film, so let's take a look at it.



That scene lasts forty seconds. In it, Cohen manages to make one joke. And it's a very funny joke, but he doesn't get anything out of the terrorist. The terrorist merely becomes offended and kicks him out. It actually smells like failure. Performing this style of guerrilla comedy, you want reactions out of the people you're interviewing, and when you don't get a reaction, you've failed. Essentially this whole movie is Sacha Baron Cohen being funny, but no one else going along for the ride.

It's a shame because Cohen is clearly giving it his all, but the Bruno character just doesn't work as well as the Borat character.

Cohen could have great luck as a serious actor or as a comic actor. I really hope for the best for him, but I think that this sort of film is over. I don't think it will ever work as well as Borat, and while Bruno is a nice effort, it simply doesn't work. It can't work.

5/10

Herr Machine Presents! Classic Reviews: Twister

If I'm just being honest, I can't help but think that's a pretty damn cool poster. It's dark and spooky, the color palette calling to mind more supernatural thrillers. The text is more than appropriate and you can't help but wonder if this movie is going to be played as more of a horror film.

But this isn't a review of the poster, this is a review of the movie, Twister.

The story goes like this: Professional Storm Puncher Bill Harding (the ever-boring Bill Paxton) is all done with excitement. He wants to sell out (?) and become a weather man. He needs to get his divorce with fellow Storm Puncher Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) finalized so that he can marry some lady whose name I don't remember. Through a series of wacky shenanigans, Bill and Jo end up on the trail of a bunch of tornadoes on Tornado Day, trying to launch a bunch of science balls into the tornado in the hope of getting long lists of science on their 45-pound laptops.

But wait, there's more! Jo had a traumatic event in her childhood. The F5 Tornado (the most powerful kind of tornado there is), showed up at her house as a child and killed her retarded father, which is okay because he basically ran into the tornado, a trait his daughter shares. We're happy to have a gene pool free from people who run straight at tornadoes with their arms in the air, screaming nonsense in an attempt to scare them off.

But what this means for Jo is she has a personal stake in their battle against the F5, and the F5 has unfinished business with Jo.

But wait, it gets stupider! Since a natural disaster aptly dubbed "the finger of god" wasn't enough of an antagonist, they hired master thespian Cary Elwes to portray villain Jonas. Jonas is a rival Storm Puncher who got himself a bunch of corporate sponsorships so that he could, get this, have state of the art technology to aid him in his quest to learn more about tornadoes! Doesn't it just make you want to vomit? How villainous of him. So basically they paint him as an arrogant prick who's in the Storm Punching business so that he can get piles of money and women will worship the ground he works on, because women fucking love scientists. And men that are Cary Elwes.

For the most part, though, this film is incredibly run-of-the-mill. It's as if they took an action-thriller script, crossed out every time they had written "terrorist" or "Russian" and replaced it with "tornado". Which led to a few interesting shootouts being filmed.

And speaking of the action and excitement, the action and excitement is pretty lame. Well, some of it is all right, but I just couldn't get over one scene. Driving over a lake, Bill and Jo are surrounded by not one, not two, but THREE motherfucking tornadoes. These badass motherfuckers are kicking cows to each other like hackysacks, but when all three converge on their car, they do little more than rock the car back and forth, like someone with above-average lung power is blowing on their car. Oooh, real scary, Jan de Bont. You may as well have called this Gentle Breeze: The Movie.

All the actors (including a pre-fame Phillip Seymour Hoffman being typically the best part of the movie and Jeremy Davies, one of my favorite underused actors) seem to be acting on their lunch break, but I do have something nice to say about Helen Hunt. Every time there's a strong female role, the woman is essentially written as a man (think Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2). For once, there's a female character that's strong and resilient and all that, but retains feminine qualities and can even come off as attractive at times. I think that's more Helen Hunt than the way the character is written, though, because I feel the same way about her in As Good As It Gets. It's nice to see a female character in an action movie that isn't being boned by James Bond and doesn't have a ballsack.

That said, her character IS an idiot, as she aptly demonstrates every time she sees a tornado and tries to get close enough to have a conversation with it.

Whose idea was this movie? I can't decide if it was a brilliant idea that paid off brilliantly, or a stupid idea that the idiots in charge bumbled their way through and ended up with piles of money that they probably spent on ice cream. They try to make a strong case for the movie's importance and dedication to the art of storm chasing, but it's just a hilarious failed attempt at manipulation, with sad piano music and sad families standing by the side of the road, crying because they're sad that the mean tornado kicked their litter of kittens to death. And then there's the scene where Jo's aunt is attacked by the F5, which was preceded by a deleted scene where the tornadoes powwow on top of Mount Olympus and start chanting "Attack her heart! Attack her heart!". It all reeks of that effect that big-budget movies try to have on the popular imagination, where immediately after they see a movie where they make storm chasing to be a thrill-a-minute science-aganza where you save old ladies from their collapsing houses and chase off F5s, everyone is excited about tornadoes and all the little kids buy tornado lunchboxes and tornado action figures.

I can't recommend this movie to anyone outside of stroke victims, but I had a good time watching it with a friend of mine. If this is your kind of thing, you probably know it already, and if it's not, then it's not. It's a mid-90's blockbuster, and those never aged very well, this being no exception.

3/10

An Open Letter to Lost

Dear Lost,

Thanks for all the great times. You've not always been perfect, I know. I famously promised myself I would give you up during the god-awful first half of the second season, and I gave you one more episode to prove that you weren't suffering from Arrested Development Syndrome, and you proved it to me. Since then we've been on an upward swing. No, you'll never top the glory of the first season, but that's because the best part of the show is never the answer, but the question. It's great to see you knock the pins down, but watching you set them up is fucking magical.

But that's not what we're here to talk about. In the fifth season, you killed off about 99% of the cast, including my favorite character. Fuck you. The only thing I want out of the sixth and final season is for Daniel Faraday to rise from the grave. I'm not terribly interested in having all my questions answered, because the payoff is backwards. All I want is more goddamn Jeremy Davies. Did I mention fuck you? Fuck you.

To be honest, this was a great season. Maybe even the best since the first. You haven't ran laps around us this effectively since the brilliant second half of the second season. But if you keep killing off characters with this much enthusiasm, by the third episode of the sixth season we'll get fixed shots around Skullfuck Island for an hour every week.

Also, fire Josh Holloway. The man has two expressions. You gave one of the best characters to that asshole? I don't care if you get a fat black man (that's a good inside joke, Oliver) to play him as long as he's a good actor, but you're wasting a great part on that dipshit.

But none of this matters to you, does it? I imagine the show was written without an ending in mind, so you could set up the pieces with impunity. That's okay, though. You've crafted a brilliant show, one of the best of all time, and you could chalk all the mysterious goings-on to alien farts and we'd be cool with that.

I care that the sixth season holds up the standard set by the last, and I care that you stop killing off everyone. How many shootouts can you get into on a dessert island? Really, it's a writer's crutch. I know the Lost writers are all very powerful beings that walk around the office using their giant, exposed brains to make things float around, so why do they have to solve every situation in this show with someone getting pistol-whipped? I love violence as much as the next guy, hell, I'm something of an action movie enthusiast, but your story does not require this level of violence. It's incredibly out of place.

On occasion, though, the violence in this show has been appropriately shocking, powerful and, best of all, mysterious. Examples include Ben calling Jack on a payphone, soaking wet and covered in blood.

After all this, though, it may seem like I have it in for the show. Just the opposite, in fact. This is the best show on television. Period. It's not perfect, but it's incredibly dense, so I'll forgive some errors in logic. It's beautifully shot, incredibly well-written and acted by people who have every right to be huge stars (I'm looking at you, Terry O'Quinn).

But please, Lost. Stop doing all those things I said not to do. And also, because I forgot, have characters actually ask questions. If I were walking around with Ben Linus all the time, I'd be asking him some fucking questions about smoke monsters and giant feet and shit. None of the characters seem particularly interested in this shit anymore, like it's all a day at the fucking office, right up there with doctors and physicists firing two pistols while jumping through the air.

Heterosexually yours,
Oliver

P.S. - There were spoilers in this post.

Johnny Depp Wears a Hat: The Motion Picture

I'm almost totally ashamed that I've seen so few of Michael Mann's films. Ever since I lost my Netflix account I've been falling behind on these things, but I positively love Collateral, Heat and Last of the Mohicans. I've heard nothing but good things about Thief and The Insider. Collateral appeals to so many of my own favorite themes and aesthetic choices: two protagonists, a narrative unfolding over one night, blah blah blah. In addition, Jaime Foxx and Tom Cruise give performances that are, quite possibly, the best of their careers. Similarly, Heat was the last jolt of life in the floundering careers of Pacino and De Niro (although Pacino would get Insomnia a few years later), and has what very well may be the greatest action sequence of the 90's.

So, as I'm sure you can imagine, I was wetting myself in anticipation for this movie. Did it live up to my expectations? Yes. Yes, it politely met my expectations. Shook their hand and was on its way. It couldn't have been politer about it. At no point did this film exceed my expectations or go beyond the call of duty. But that's okay. My expectations for this film were reasonably high, and I'm very happy that my expectations were met at all.

Public Enemies weaves the tale of John Dillinger, notorious Indiana bank robber who essentially ruled the fantasies of Depression-era America and his cat-and-mouse game with the original FBI G-Man Melvin Pruvis.

I don't know how true-to-life this movie is, but Melvin Purvis shot himself in 1960, and if we're going by the movie's characterization of him, I imagine that the only reason he did that was so that he could personally punch Satan in the balls. After Satan fell over on the ground and started crying, Melvin Purvis tore off his wings like a kid playing with a fly and strapped them to his back. According to my research, Melvin Purvis then became Satan and created the modern vision of Hell, basing it on his recurring nightmare of bears that can read.

Christian Bale is a much better actor than people tend to give him credit for these days, and while that's pretty understandable after his incredibly static, black hole of a performance in Terminator Salvation, he seems inclined to become cinema's new whipping boy. He isn't about to blow audiences away in Public Enemies, but he does remind us why his slow drawl and steely gaze make him such a brilliant leading man. But Jesus Christ, according to this movie, Melvin Purvis was single-handedly responsible for taking down every bank robber in the world, ending the Great Depression and winning World War III.

Johnny Depp, similarly, is more energetic and charismatic, making him a great Dillinger and an even better foil for Bale. In fact, they're really a perfect match-up and is a great example of how great casting can improve the drama of a film. He's a very good Dillinger, but he doesn't set the world on fire. It's probably the straightest Depp has played a role since Finding Neverland. That doesn't make it a lesser performance, it just means that it lacks all the exciting ticks and quirks that make Johnny Depp one of the premiere actors of his generation.

And I'd comment on Marion Cotillard, but I'm pretty sure the fact that I'm in love with her makes me biased.

But let's shoot the elephant in the room: the cinematography. It wasn't as jarring as I thought it would be most of the time. The opening scene is very rock-and-roll and the clarity of the digital photography is almost other-worldly. The dialogue scenes and action scenes looked fine for the most part, but tracking shots really brought out the motion blur-free effect that is the most noticeably ugly aspect of the process.

There's a trade off, though. The night scenes look beautiful, and the digital cameras capture muzzle flashes like nothing I've ever seen before. I simply wish the day scenes would be dressed up to look like traditional film or shot on traditional film like Mann did in Collateral. When I could tell it was digital, it was because it looked ugly.

But none of that matters because this film contains what may be the greatest action scene of the summer in a shootout that takes place in a cabin. I immediately wanted to watch the entire film again just to see that scene for a second time. Further proof that Michael Mann can blow my mind without even trying, and it bears his distinctive fingerprints.

Ultimately, it's a bit of a sterile experience, but it's got some interesting experimentation, a trio of very good performances at its center and the best action of the summer, and that's good enough to justify my $7. No one is doing the best work of their career, but when you have a group of artists this talented, they don't have to be doing the best work of their career to outshine most other things out there. It was fun and interesting at the same time, which is something that more summer movies should aspire to be.

8/10