Batman: A Running Diary

Yet another blogger is here to write about Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise!  I’ve mentioned the series once or twice here on the blog, and delineated my thoughts on the director in general in various discussions of Memento and Inception.  With the final installment of the series coming Friday, I sat down this week and burned through both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and instead of doing something more boring, I kept a little running diary of my thoughts.  I will be back on Friday or Saturday latest to offer up my thoughts on all things The Dark Knight Rises.  In the meantime, enjoy my running diary:

Batman Begins

-This movie starts out generic, with the whole young Bruce Wayne being afraid of bats thing, but this actually makes more sense than usual cliché child flashbacks because of what ends up happening to his parents.

-One thing I’ll say, these movies have the scope and the look to hold up for a long time.  Kind of weird comparing them to Burton’s films, which are good but are such a 90’s time-capsule that they won’t hold up the same way.

-Man, WB taking a chance on Christopher Nolan is probably one of the best gambles a major studio has ever taken.  To that point, he had Memento and Insomnia under his belt—neither of which really screams “excellent superhero movie director.”  His pitch for the franchise must have been fantastic.

-And so begins the pulsating, ever-present Hans Zimmer music. 

-Possibly theory: was this movie the launching point for the “older Liam Neeson, action star” phenomenon?

-Enter recent-divorcee Katie Holmes!! UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT: I liked Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes a lot more than Maggie Gyllenhaal.  Seriously though, what an idiot for not reprising her role in The Dark Knight.

-Favorite quotes of the series, #1: “Justice is about harmony...revenge is about getting what you want.”

Speaking of casting choices, Tom Wilkinson isn’t very believable as a mob boss.  And this is coming from a card-carrying member of the T-Wil fanclub.

-Favorite quotes, #2: “People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy.”

-One thing that’s been interesting to me about the series is the color scheme of the movies.  Begins has a dark orange sunrise-hue for a lot of the film, perhaps signaling the, ahem, “beginning” of something?  Knight, on the other hand, has a lot of black and steel blue (as in “dark” and, um, “knight”).  Upon reflection, Nolan is a little too obvious sometimes.  More on this later.  But I’m interested to see what color palette will be used in TDKR.

-Was it a nod to Tim Burton when Batman does the whole “I’m Batman” head-butt thing?  Or is that a Batman thing in general?  I should really know these things.

-Favorite shots in the series, #1:  Batman standing on top of the building as Nolan circles around him with the camera.  Hans Zimmer accompanying. 

-Opinion I’ve formed: Michael Keaton was the best at the playboy Bruce Wayne...but Christian Bale is a better Bruce Wayne and Batman in every other facet (well, if we’re not counting Adam West, that is).

Thematic undercurrent that’s beginning to form: a lot of references to fear, and overcoming it.  Never noticed this much before.  Let’s see where this goes.

-The whole plot point of Katie Holmes defending herself and that little kid was a little overcooked.

-Fight on a speeding train would normally be cliché but again, was set up very well here...it had significance that ran several layers deep.

-Nolan knows how to end a freaking movie.  “I never had a chance to thank you.”  “And you’ll never have to.” (Favorite quotes, #3)

The Dark Knight

-Again, pulsating Hans Zimmer to begin...really sets the tone for the movie.  Also love the first shot in the movie...I remember seeing it in IMAX for the first time, and the first shot of the movie with the building floored me, one of the first films I think I saw that was actually shot with IMAX cameras.

-Enter Heath Ledger: “Whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you stranger.” (Favorite quotes, #4)  Had to get that entrance right here, and everyone nailed it: Nolan, Heath, Zimmer.

-Upon several rewatches now, The Dark Knight is quite a bit campier than Batman Begins.  I know this is intentional, but it honestly knocks Dark Knight down a peg or two because of it.

-They really didn’t flesh out this whole “multiple Batmen” subplot in the beginning here...could have done without that I think.  “What’s the difference between me and you?  “I’m not wearing hockey pants.”  That exchange doesn’t really cut it in terms of tying up the subplot.

-Favorite shots in the series, #3: Batman falling on top of the van in the parking garage.

-One thing I’ve always liked about the movie is the compare/contrast between Harvey Dent and Batman.  Once again, not extremely subtle, but still effective.

-Heath KILLS this the scene where he ambushes the black mobster dudes, in which he gives us the now-iconic “Why. So. Serious?” line.  He vacillates between terrifying and maniacal seamlessly. 

-Favorite shots, #4: Batman standing on top of the tower in Hong Kong...Nolan really has the circling around the building thing down pat.

-Bale doesn’t get too much of a chance to shine in TDK.  Certainly not anywhere as much as in Begins.  It’s obviously a showcase for the Joker, but I do wish Bale had been give a little more to do.  I hope this changes in TDKR.

-I still love the scene where Morgan Freeman gives the little monologue to the accountant who finds out Batman’s identity.

-Favorite shots, #5: Joker hanging out of the cop car.  

-Is it even a debate that the car chase scene culminating in the showdown between Batman/Joker is the best action scene in the first two films?  Can Nolan top this in TDKR?

-As I said in the BB running diary, I preferred Joey as Rachel Dawes to Ms. Gyllenhaal; however, Maggie is really good in her final scene. 

-Honest opinion time: I think I need to take a few years off from watching TDK.  I like it less and less, save for Heath’s performance, every time I watch it.

-Okay, the whole “fear” current I was feeling in Begins was actually a thing: scene with Joker and Two Face in the hospital: “Oh and you know the thing about chaos?  It’s fear.” (Favorite quotes, #5)

-I like the idea of the two ferries with the civilians versus the criminals thing...I don’t think it was executed very well, to be completely honest.  Pretty cheesy acting..."those guys HAD their chance!”

-Even more of a misstep here, after the civilians vote to blow up the criminals’ ferry: “We’re still here...that means they haven’t killed us yet either...”  Oh, is that what it means Nolan?  IS THAT WHAT IT MEANS???  See, this is a Nolan thing that doesn’t continue.  In The Dark Knight and moreso in Inception, Nolan treats his audience like they’re idiots with respect to the plot points.  Ellen Page’s character in Inception existed almost entirely for the purpose of being a mouthpiece for the audience, having every little thing explained to her.  

-The final Batman and Joker dialogue on the building will always be an iconic scene to me, like not just for the Batman movies but for movies in general.  “This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object...you and I are destined to do this forever.” It’s just such a damn shame we won’t get more of this in Rises.  It was the film America deserved.

-Harvey seems a little whiny just for having to listen to his girlfriend die...I mean, geez.  Not quite the same as pointing a gun at a man’s young child right in front of him, dude. 

-“The only morality in a cruel world is chance...fair.” (Favorite quotes, #6)

-So, when Dent falls off the building as he throws up the coin, and the coin lands on “heads”...a lot of people think this means he’s still alive...to me the movie clearly shows that it just means that’s how Gotham will view him historically, since they will never know about his turn as Two-Face, rather than as two face.  Seems pretty obvious.  Whatever.

-Second only to the Batman/Joker scene above is the final scene with Two Face/Batman/Gordon.  Further shows the compare/contrast Nolan is making between Batman and Harvey Dent.  That Batman, as a vigilante, could never accomplish what Dent could have as a public servant, which is why the Joker targeted Dent: “Because you were the best of us.”  The Joker could break Gotham’s spirit fully by making Dent turn.  This is further shown in the final montage at Dent’s funeral, where Gordon describes him as “the hero Gotham needed, but not the one it deserved,” whereas Gordon describes Batman as “the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.” (Favorite quotes, #7).  

-Favorite shots in the series, #6: The final, shot, Batman speeding away the Bat-Bot.  I’ll say this one more time: NOLAN KNOWS HOW TO END A FREAKING MOVIE.  I’m thinking this bodes well for the ending of the series.   

Needless to say, I’m quite excited about going to the theater tomorrow.  Regardless of whether The Dark Knight Rises is as good as it’s predecessor, it’s good to know going into a movie that it will at the very least be an entertaining, cerebral blockbuster.  Nolan has never let me down on either of those two things in any of his movies.  

Mad Men: A Retrospective

Sometimes I think about what it would have been like to see a movie like Gone With The Wind or The Godfather when it was originally released in theaters.  I like to wonder what the experience would have been like for someone like myself back in those days, before years and years of history continually affirmed each of the movies’ greatness within the annals of filmdom.  I like to think about what was going through people’s minds, say, when Scarlett O’Hara cries the now-legendary line “If God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!” or when a young Michael Corleone pulls off a double-murder in the famous Italian restaurant scene, thus beginning his dark descent into a life of corruption and power.  My guess is that in many cases, the reaction was something like this: “I don’t know how this movie is going to end, but right now this in unlike anything I’ve ever seen...I’m watching something truly special right now.”

And that brings us to where we are before tonight’s Season 5 finale of Mad Men.   

Fat Betty and Other Fun Season 5 Adventures

A show that simply refuses to stop getting better, Mad Men has given us everything we could have asked for in its fifth season.  Perhaps due to Netflix and the ability to watch the first four seasons, it seems like people are finally catching on (the ratings are higher this season than ever before) to Don Draper & the gang.  This season has given us “Zou Bisou Bisou,” Fat Betty, Pete becoming as close to a villain as the show’s ever had, Don & Joan and a Jaguar, Lane’s unfortunate demise, Roger taking LSD (more on that later), and Peggy’s tearjerker of a resignation.   More than in any season before, the show has been appointment TV for everyone I know who watches it, and I’ve had more discussions, email and twitter conversations, texts, and phone calls about all the events I’ve just mentioned than in the first four seasons combined.

And although these events have been fun to dissect and discuss, I keep thinking about them in terms of the larger picture.  When the season 5 promotional banner came out (picture on right), there were obviously tons of bloggers and writers flapping around like schoolgirls over what the meaning was.  The answer has been fairly clear from the beginning of the season: more than ever, women are having a large impact on what is happening in the show, and are far more powerful than they’ve been up until this point, and all in different ways.  Megan is finally reeling Don in (and is also very career driven and apparently good at everything she does), Peggy finally took her life under control and, for better or worse, got out from under Don’s wing, perhaps forever.  And let’s not forget that without Joan (who is now a partner), SCDP doesn’t land Jaguar. 

This 1967 view of women is a far cry from where we began in 1959, with oblivious Betty, skanky/flirty Joan, and sheltered Peggy.  The paradigm shift is significant, and for all of the time we spent hoping for the “Don is BACK!!” storylines this season, perhaps something as simple as the promo banner could have told us it wasn’t in the cards.  Are we so naïve to believe that the titular Men of Madison Avenue will one day catch up to this world when all of the signs point the other way? 

And that’s one of the underrated great things about Mad Men—you sometimes forget after five seasons where we came from.  It has such slow, calculated shifts (not only the one I just mentioned but several others as well), that much like in real life, you have to take a step back and remember where you started for it to register its full impact on you.

A Brief History of My Favorite Episodes

It’s also part of the reason that Mad Men, for me, has gotten better with every season. Every season features at least one episode that becomes my new favorite episode of the series.  Season 2 features a compelling duo of episodes in which Don spends some time in California with his “wife,” Anna, which gives us a glimpse into Don (or, Dick) as he truly sees himself.  Season 3’s finale, “Shut the Door, Have a Seat,” topped that, when Don successfully makes his bid to start the new ad agency.  Then it happened again in Season 4’s “The Suitcase,” a brilliant bottle episode on the eve of the Ali-Liston fight in which Don and Peggy go a few rounds themselves trying to come up with an idea for a Samsonite campaign.

And then there was “Tomorrowland,” Season 4’s completely enraging finale. In retrospect, the episode is one of the smartest unexpected turns the series has ever taken, culminating in Don’s unlikely proposal to young Megan Calvet after a season of wooing the much-preferred Faye, causing me and millions of people across the country to yell at their TV screen “WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU IDIOT?!?!!!” over and over and over again.

Far Away Places

And finally, Season 5 gave me yet another favorite episode of the series, “Far Away Places.”  Three concurring storylines involving Don, Peggy, and Roger are spread across this episode, yet we get to see each one evolve separately.  This artistic measure was one of the best that the Mad Men writers have ever come up with—the three-act structure it took on contained very different plots, but all with a similar tone and theme. Peggy’s story involves her frustrations at work—her Heinz Beans campaign is rejected, which causes her to go on a Don-esque tirade against the Heinz reps. In fact, the rest of her day goes just about like Don’s might—she skips out of work, goes to a movie, treats a random dude in the theater to a Peggy delight with a capital D (after sharing his joint), and heads back to the office to crash on Don’s couch. 

Don and Megan’s storyline starts with an unanticipated trip to a Howard Johnson, of all places, and ends in the legitimately frightening scene of Don chasing Megan around their penthouse, stripping Don down to his most primal state.  In between all of this, they get in a fight about orange sherbet, Megan disappears, Don doesn’t know where she went, and he spends the long night in the café of the Ho-Jo, alone in his thoughts about what he’s done (or rather, “Far Away” in his thoughts). 

Roger & His Magical Singing Stolichnaya Bottle

But Roger. Oh, Roger.  Roger & Jane experience a much different kind of trip than Don and Megan—they spend their evening in a psychiatrist’s home tripping on LSD.  This scene of Roger on a hard drug proves quite entertaining (but not over the top), and ends with a devastating shot of Roger and Jane on the floor in bath robes, wondering what happened to their relationship, not in an immature or selfish way—but rather, in complete and utter clarity, courtesy of that good ole’ acid they dropped some several hours before.  Then and there, they admit they don’t love each other anymore, and that their marriage is, for all intents and purposes, over.  And then Jane says these words: 

“I knew we were going somewhere, and I didn’t want it to be here.” 

Which, for me, sums up not just the episode, and not just the season, but perhaps even the entire series of Mad Men.  It’s an underlying feeling we all get when watching the show—we want all of these characters to change, to succeed, to find happiness; but we know in our heart of hearts there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, and that what awaits our beloved antiheroes is not success, but failure. Not change, but unrelenting stagnation.  Not happiness, but tragedy.  It’s the truth we all know we are headed for, though unlike Roger & Jane we don’t need to take LSD to prove it to us.  As with Scarlett O’Hara, a “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,” seems a lot more plausible ending for these characters than a “they lived happily ever after,” doesn’t it?

The End?

Mad Men will end someday sooner rather than later.  I don’t know what will happen in tonight’s finale, and I don’t know the fate of Don Draper, Roger Sterling, or Peggy Olsen over the show’s final seasons.  I know that in real life there are ebbs and flows—last season we saw Don at his absolute worst, this season we see him at his best with Megan.  And I expect this up and down trend to continue.  But in the end, this is not a show about redemption—it is a show about people.

Whatever the outcome is, whatever happens tomorrow night or in the seasons beyond, I know that like those lucky enough to see Gone With The Wind or The Godfather when they were released, I feel similarly lucky to be watching something extraordinary unfold as its happening.   

Better shows than Mad Men may come along, but there’s never been anything quite like it, and there never will be.  

Review: The Avengers

The best part of box-office record obliterating The Avengers is not one of The Incredible Hulk’s ridiculous trouncings of various extra-terrestrial beings, or Thor and Captain America’s exciting early standoff in the park, or even Scarlett Johansson in a tight black leather suit. No, the best part of the film is a bit after Tony Stark meets a muscular, long-haired pretty boy Thor about a third of the way through the movie, and without missing a beat calls him “Point Break,” a reference that I doubt many of the teenage fanboys understood this past opening weekend of the film (which made it all the more funny to me).  Clelyn and I were in stitches.

Director Joss Whedon took his cues from the success of Iron Man, which relied so much on this kind of wit and sarcasm from Robert Downey Jr., and he spread it all across the 2 hour and 22 minute runtime and around to each of the major characters in the film.  The approach is clear: Whedon and the actors all share the singular vision of just making it FUN, and it totally works.

My favorite superhero movies all have compelling themes: The Dark Knight is a crime saga with implications about spirituality and the nature of human free-will; both X-Men and X2 contain excellent commentary on equality and civil rights; and The Incredibles (if you consider it a superhero movie) speaks quite poignantly about the need for humans to achieve their true potential.

The Avengers, on the other hand, doesn’t really hold up to the others I just mentioned in terms of being thematically moving.  It touches a little bit on the idea of a dysfunctional family coming together when needed in order to achieve the greater good, but overall I would say the film, as a whole, does not attempt the depth of those other films.  Rather, as I mentioned, it just focuses on having fun.  The film is almost wire-to-wire with action sequences, and the way those scenes were executed kind of reminded me of how my friends and I would play with our superhero action figures when I was 7 years old: balls-to-the-wall crazy, almost cartoonish in quality, yet still first-class entertainment. 

The only major downgrade for the film is its villain, Loki, who is remarkably uninteresting and as non-threatening a villain as I can recall in a movie of this magnitude.  Even from the beginning of the film, the audience knows that he is merely a pawn for a greater evil (which apparently we will see in the next installment), so his attempts at being sinister didn’t really have any significance other than empty threats.   Too much screen time was wasted on him, especially considering that the superheroes were so much fun to watch.

All in all, the chemistry of the major players in The Avengers works so well to take a larger-than-life action film and make it, well, come to life.  Let’s hope that this film is the first of several summer blockbusters that live up to their promise (if I’m honest, the trailers for Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX were almost as good as the film itself). 

Oh, and one more thing, if you haven’t seen it yet: be sure to stay until the end of the film.  The VERY end.   

Catching Up With 2011

A lot of quality films were released in 2011, and unfortunately, since I have certain obligations such as my career (kind of), hanging out with my dog, exercising (sometimes), doing the dishes, sleeping, eating, and commuting for over 2 hours every day, I wasn’t able to catch them all (oh, yeah, I do have a wife as well...).

But a trip to New York to see some old pals recently gave me a few hours to kill on a couple of rather cramped airplanes (side note: I’m kind of a HUGE jerk on airplanes and have no shame in busting out my laptop and bringing fast food on the plane and basically just taking up every inch of space afforded to me...I paid for this stupid flight and I’m going to do everything in my power to enjoy it, okay?). 

So anyway, I was able to catch up on three 2011 films that slipped between the cracks for me this past year: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, A Dangerous Method, and We Bought A Zoo, and I felt compelled to type up a few thoughts on them.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a Cold-War era espionage film starring the great Gary Oldman, who is, as usual, amazing in this film.  He portrays George Smiley, a recently ousted British Intelligence Agent who is brought back in by the government within the course of the film to trace down a mole within his former unit.  There’s something about the aesthetic of modern spy movies that I really enjoy: Munich and The Good Shepherd, for example, were two films that everyone has forgotten about already but I still think of more often than most people. Tinker Tailor now falls under this category for me. 

Gary Oldman is doing probably the best work of any of his contemporaries right now, and he proves it in spades with this film. Smiley is a solid rock of an agent, a cold, calculating man of the British old guard who has perhaps the best poker face you’ve ever seen.  Somehow this performance, with such little speaking and minimal emotion, is still one of the best performances I can recall of 2011. The supporting cast is also great, and there are so many excellent actors in this film that I won’t even bother naming all of them.  They all do their part. 

Through the first third of the film or so, I was ready to name it my favorite film of2011 and give it every accolade possible. About at that point, however, the story begins to drown under the weight of all the detail it insisted on providing, and begins to drag through most of the rest of the film because of this.  It shifts from an excellent character study into a whodunit, to its own detriment, since the character study aspect of the film is the most engaging.  Still, it’s one of the best I’ve seen in its genre: it piqued my curiosity from the beginning, and made me think of every scene as an important puzzle piece in solving the mystery.  An easy 8/10 from me for the flawless acting ensemble, the sleek ‘60’s aesthetic, and a fantastic music score.  Oh, and I don’t know what the deal is with everyone being hella-confused at what happened in the film, but I feel that I understood it perfectly fine, so who knows.

A Dangerous Method

Along with TTSS above, A Dangerous Method was on my most-anticipated list for 2011, but for whatever reason, I never got around to seeing it.  I’ve never been the world’s hugest fan of the director, David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises, A History of Violence, The Fly, etc.), but I felt that the material in this script—a study of the birth of psychoanalysis and the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung—was a perfect fit for the director, who has always veered toward dark and psychological themes in his films. 

The major focus of the film is Jung, played stoically by Michael Fassbender, and his doctor-patient-rule-violating relationship with Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a young woman with quite the case of psychosis.  The more interesting parts of the film, however, come with the scenes involving Freud (Viggo Mortenson) and Jung’s entertaining and thought-provoking scenes in which they ponder one of life’s great mysteries: the human mind. Viggo’s performance reminded me of just how awesome he is in the right material, as he stole every scene he was in. In fact, I believe he’s a much better character actor than he is a leading man.  But the common tie of these scenes is Jung’s gradual manipulation of himself, and how he allowed this to effect his family, his practice, and his reputation. 

Unfortunately, this point was not necessarily hammered home with as much impact as it should have had.  For a movie that confronts the often-dark side of the human condition, the movie was decidedly bland and not dark.  It would not bother me except that the material promised something that the story didn’t ultimately deliver, at least for me.  A 6/10 for the art direction, costumes, a promising narrative, and Viggo’s performance. 

We Bought a Zoo

The last film on my list, We Bought a Zoo, is a Hollywood fastball down the middle, and I enjoyed it, cheesey as it may be.  Matt Damon stars here as a widower with two children who buy a home that happens to have a zoo on its land; fun and drama ensues.  It kind of reminded me of an old-school studio film: handsome leading man who’s a really good guy, obvious storyline about overcoming the odds to reach the zoo’s potential for the good of his family, wacky zoo employees as the supporting cast, and obviously, a love interest (although the film is based on a true story, I doubt that in real life, the zookeeper was one of the five hottest females on the face of the planet). 

Despite the obviousness of it all, it’s still a lot of fun.  There are several strong moments in the script, particularly a couple of exchanges between Damon and the kid who plays his son, as well as a very touching plot point concerning an aging Bengal tiger. 

Overall, it’s the type of movie you rent on a lazy Saturday night and can just enjoy with the family without thinking about too much of anything.  7/10. 

Top 5 on Netflix: Top 5 Films of the 1970's

If you missed the opening post for my new Netflix Series, check below.

I have this ongoing inner debate with myself concerning which was the best decade for film (awesome, I know) and it’s always between the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s.  The ‘70s are consistently regarded as a sort of turning point in American cinema, a time when auteurs who grew up watching European cinema from the ‘50s and ‘60s were able to thrive, taking the medium to a place beyond what the traditional studio system had been offering up to that point.  The ‘70’s, of course, brought us directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and saw the coming out parties of others such Woody Allen and Robert Altman.  So, the point here is that I won't be doing a Top-5 for every decade of cinema, only this one and maybe one other, because it's so chalk full of great classics that are available right now.  

At various points in time, several of my all-time favorites from this period have been available to watch instantly on Netflix: Network, Annie Hall, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, etc.  All of these would probably make this list were they still available.  So the key here is that you need to take advantage of watching the films on this list while you can.

One other quick note before my list: two films that aren’t from the ‘70’s, but resemble the style and themes of that era in just about every way (and it could even be argued that they paved the way for the ‘70’s) are Midnight Cowboy (1969) and The Graduate (1967).  If for some insane reason you haven’t seen these, then please add them to your queue, along with the others listed below.

Top 5 of the 1970’s:

1.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

There’s a reason that Jack Nicholson is simply referred to as “Jack” in Hollywood, and if you’ve ever wondered why, then look no further than this film.  His performance as R.P. McMurphy, a recent admittee to a mental institution, certainly goes down as one of the best all-time leading performances in my book.  As McMurphy begins to win over the other patients in the institution and undermines the terribly evil Nurse Ratched, an uplifting Christ-figure story plays out with such humor and effortless charm that it will make you grin from ear to ear at points and tear up in others. 

2.  A Clockwork Orange (1971)

My favorite Stanley Kubrick film, Orange is an endlessly stylish tale of adolescence in futuristic Britain.  Malcolm McDowell stars as Alex DeLarge, one of the creepiest lead characters in any film ever, who leads a band of “droogs” in a series of violent crimes before being subjected to a government brainwashing program.  Kubrick’s use of explosive colors and his patented long takes are just a couple of the things that make his direction a perfect complement to the source material.   

3.  Paper Moon (1973)

Father-daughter combo Ryan and Tatum O’Neal star as a couple of depression-era cons in this hilarious comedy by Peter Bogdanovich.  The dialogue is sharp and quick, and the O’Neal team (Tatum in particular as a 10-year-old) develops amazing chemistry throughout the movie as they deliver this dialogue.  The always amazing Madeleine Kahn also stars as a call girl.  Don’t miss this one. 

4.  Chinatown (1974)

It’s Jack again.  In this Hollywood crime drama by Roman Polanski, Jack stars as Jake Gittes, a private investigator who gets caught up in a case that’s simply way over his head.  As the ball of yarn unravels on the case, the eerie atmosphere is amplified and strange details emerge (to say the least).  Faye Dunaway (who’s always great) costars here in a particularly meaty role.

5.  Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.  That’s really all it should take to get you to watch this if you haven’t already.  A very realistic story about the parents of a young child splitting up, something that sadly, millions of American families must go through every year.  There’s a scene where Dustin Hoffman makes French toast with his son, and it’s one of the more touching moments I can recall in any family drama.  

Top 5 on Netflix Series

I frequently get texts or tweets from friends asking me to recommend something on Netflix streaming (which, by the way, pretty much makes my day when that occurs).  So I’m starting a new series for the blog in which I will pick a specific subcategory of films or TV shows on Netflix streaming and lay out my Top-5 in each of those categories. 

More often than not, when the wifey and I set out to find something to watch on Netflix, it ends up with me searching for something for over 10 minutes because I see the same stupid recommendations over and over, and then we settle on something neither of us really want to watch that much and then fall asleep or just completely tune it out while we play Angry Birds or Tetris.  Also, don’t you just freaking hate it when you know there’s something you spotted while browsing that you wanted to see, only you forget to put it on your queue, and then later you can’t remember what it was that you wanted to see? 

So that’s the point of this series: next time you can’t decide on something, and all of the recommendations are totally uninteresting, you can come here to the blog and look and say, “Oh YEAH!! I’ve been wanting to see Chinatown! How could I forget?!”  And then you can call me and thank me after watching it, and then we’ll go ride a tandem bicycle together and drink iced tea and discuss the merits of Jack Nicholson’s performance (or, you know, something like that, it’s not like I’ve thought it all out...)

Top 5 On Netflix: Top 5 TV Dramas

Few mornings go by where I don't wake up wishing I turned into
Don Draper overnight.

I never really talk about TV on this blog, although I have wanted to on several occasions, so for my first post on this series I want to recommend a few of my favorites. As one of my idols, Chuck Klosterman, put it recently, slow-burning TV dramas have “replaced reading.”  As sad as that is, I agree.  For example, it takes a similar frame of mind to be able to sit down and watch an episode of Mad Men as it does to read a chapter of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. 

I know the ink isn’t exactly still drying on the news that the shows on this list are awesome.  But I’m always surprised at the people who would be into these shows (and equally, enjoy wasting their time on TV as much as I do) who haven’t seen one or more of the shows on this list.  Having instant access to every episode of all five seasons of Friday Night Lights, for instance, is some kind of incomprehensible gift from Heaven; it’s like those times when you go shopping at a nice clothing store and find some ridiculous deal on something that would normally be twice that price, and you assume somebody must have mismarked the price tag, and then even after you pay that price you walk out feeling like you stole something. 

For most of this series I will write a little bit about each of my choices, but for this first one since I’ve already babbled on long enough, I will let my choices speak for themselves.  Just know that on any given day of the week it's a debate for me between my number one and two choices.  

Note: because HBO continues to be douchebags refuses to put any of their shows on streaming (and reportedly will stop offering their shows even on DVD soon), great shows like The Wire and The Sopranos couldn’t be a part of this list. 

Top-5 Television Dramas

1.  Mad Men

2.  Breaking Bad

3.  Friday Night Lights

4.  Lost

5.  Dexter