Review: Make Your Move

78. Make Your Move
I enjoyed this film, though it benefitted heavily from the low expectations I had going in. It probably can't be considered a "good" movie when viewed in a larger cinematic context, but if considered solely within the genre of the "dance" movie, it acquits itself well, avoiding some of the genres pitfalls. It's not ideal for a film to show merit only when graded on a significant curve, but if the goal in seeing the film is just to kill an hour and a half, it can suffice.

The story, about forbidden love against the backdrop of feuding New York clubs, is nothing to write home about, but I was impressed that it wasn't just one giant buildup to a big "Dance Battle" at the end of the film. My experience with dance movies is limited, so perhaps I'm being unfair, but that's what every other film I've seen in the genre has ultimately been about. To see that plotline averted was refreshing.

I also thought that the dancing itself was more skillfully integrated than in other films I've seen. In my previous experiences with dance films, they would come to a complete halt every time anyone started dancing, making each instance of choreography show-stopping in a bad way. Here, an effort was made to tie the dance sequences into the plot, allowing them to serve as expressions of the character's emotions instead of just being dances for their own sake. Sometimes dances were even allowed to occur in the background of a scene and would even be cut away from as the characters in the foreground took action to further the plot. While the plot the choreography was servicing was very thin, it was a pleasant surprise to see a film in this genre where the dancing served the story instead of the other way around. By taking some of the biggest problems that exist within the genre and fixing them, "Make Your Move" managed to become, if not a good film, at least a fun one.

Review: A Haunted House 2

77. A Haunted House 2
I'm not going to spend much time discussing this film, simply because it doesn't deserve much thought being given to it. It boasts an incredibly bad, undeveloped script that could have been written in a weekend. The writers seem to have always opted for the first joke they came up with for any situation, never taking the time to see if it could be made funnier, or if there was another, better joke to be told.

This was one of the stupidest films I have ever seen in theatres, and I can honestly say that I did not laugh a single time. I may have cracked a smile once or twice, but even then, the jokes were pale imitations of those in other films. Some comedies take the approach of telling joke after joke, as if they were throwing pasta against the wall, hoping that at least some of it will stick. In this case, they forgot to even cook the pasta first. Every last strand bounced right off the wall.

Review: Bears

76. Bears
"Bears" was the first documentary I've seen in theatres this year, and I can't say that I was very impressed. The scenery was beautiful and was captured well by the cinematography, but it was in the assemblage of that footage into a final cut that the film fell apart.

For a "documentary", the film often hewed annoyingly close to traditional plot structure, especially at the end. Most movies have the moment at the climax where all appears lost, but then the heroes manage to overcome adversity at the last instant and emerge victorious. That's all well and good, but I don't need that shoehorned into a documentary. This film gets to the point where the bear family is ready to just lay down and die because they haven't found enough food to last them for the winter. But then, at the last minute, they find a stream so full of salmon that all the bears in the area get along peacefully, so they are free to eat their fill without fear of being attacked. I am very skeptical that this was the actual series of events that took place, and I find it insulting that the film was edited this way. Either make a nature documentary or make a film telling a traditional narrative--don't try to do both.

I was also not at all a fan of John C. Reilly's narration. It called way too much attention to itself. Instead of just being an objective narrator, he often spoke in character as the animals, usually in ways that trivialized what was really happening on screen by making them seem more "human". That may be entertaining for kids (who, admittedly, are the target audience for the film), but I found it distracting and unnecessary. Why not let the images just speak for themselves, with only minimal narration being used to explain what was happening. The kids would still enjoy themselves, and they'd leave the theatre with a better understanding of what the situations they'd seen were really like.

I remember seeing nature documentaries on television when I was a kid that were far better than this. It's unfortunate that the best way to get one into theaters is to dumb it down.

Review: Transcendence

75. Transcendence
I found this film to be consistently entertaining and it kept my attention throughout. It may not be quite as thought-provoking as the filmmakers had hoped, but it does have several interesting aspects to it. I think it deserves better than the generally negative reviews and middling box office it has gotten. The high concept premise and well known cast may have been part of the reason for this, raising expectations beyond what the film could meet.

The film's basic concept would have been even more fresh and surprising if a little less had been revealed in the trailers. The plot concerns an artificial intelligence researcher, played by Johnny Depp, who is assassinated by an extremist group. Before he dies, his consciousness is uploaded onto a computer, where he begins to gain more power and eventually becomes a potential threat to the current world order. I wish the trailers had limited themselves to only showing the first part of this story, but they went as far as showing scenes of the military attempting to shut him down, scenes that take place near the very end of the film. This gave away the direction the film would be taking, leaving little room for surprises along the way. The film is bookended by a pair of scenes set a few years in the future, where almost all technology and power has been lost. I thought including the prologue scene was effective, as it set a fatalistic tone for the film. It could have been even more effective if the trailer hadn't spoiled so much of the film's trajectory, as it would have further piqued the viewer's curiosity as to what events might happen to cause this future.

It is to the film's credit that, in spite of the trailer giving away too much, it still managed to slip in a few unexpected twists. Chief among them is the approach it took to its subject matter. The film was not entirely a warning about the risks that go hand in hand with technological advances. It takes a more nuanced view, exploring the good that Depp's character manages to do with the massive amounts of computational power he acquires. The easy way out would have been to make stopping Depp a necessary victory that was achieved at great cost. Instead the film asks, in the end, whether stopping Depp's character was really the right thing to do. Were the things he was doing really that bad?

While the film does not transcend the medium (sorry, I couldn't help it) and become something truly original, it does have its share of original moments that made it a fun, and more interesting film than I'd expected.

Review: Heaven is for Real

74. Heaven is for Real
Based on the trailer, I wasn't expecting a very good film when I went to see this, and my fears proved to be well-founded. I could tell that it was likely to be a heavy-handed film that would never come close to resembling anything in the neighborhood of subtlety. I could tell that it would likely only be a truly accessible experience to people who came in sharing its world view (I tend to dislike such exclusionary films whether I agree with them or not). While both of these reservations I had turned out to be true, they were not the giant, flashing, neon red warning sign that my last concern was. Even in the trailer, it was painfully obvious that the child actor in the film's central role was absolutely terrible. When I saw the film, I found that my concern was all too valid.

I've seen my share of bad child actors, both in person and on screen, but this kid truly set the bar to an all-time low. His facial expression barely changes throughout the film--it seems to come with two settings: squinting and not squinting. His line deliveries are similarly vacant and repetitive. Every line gives the impression that it was fed to him just before the cameras started rolling, and he is merely repeating the words without inflection or emotion. I don't know who to assign most of the blame to for this--it's not all on the kid, since he obviously didn't cast himself. I've often found that with child actors, the quality of the performance depends far greater on the quality of direction than is the case with older actors. If a director is able to relate to the kid and make it fun for them, they're more likely to get a good performance. Maybe this director just wasn't able to do that. Maybe the kid couldn't deliver no matter what the director tried. Regardless of who is to blame, the kid's performance utterly destroys the film. If he were only a side character seen in the background of a few scenes, I would be able to overlook it, but since the film focuses so heavily on his character, the performance is downright unacceptable.

Greg Kinnear and Thomas Haden Church do their best, and manage to bring some quality acting to the film. Their scenes together are a relief in comparison to the rest of the film, but the material they're given here still isn't that great. The heavy handedness of the film and its unexciting, plodding script doomed it from the start. It never had a chance to be more than a just below average film. The kid's performance, however, completely negated any redeeming qualities it could have ever hoped to have.

Review: Rio 2

73. Rio 2
The second consecutive film I saw that is a sequel to a film I haven't seen, "Rio 2" failed to impress. It is the textbook definition of mediocrity, a film made for the sole purpose of cashing in on the original's success, even though the filmmakers did not come up with a story worth telling.

In an attempt to mask this, they try to tell far too many stories concurrently, none of them compelling enough to carry the film. The primary storyline concerns the main characters finding others of their species (thought to be extinct) in the wild, and their attempts to fit into the society. This storyline brings nothing new to the table, with every twist visible from miles away and not a single fish out of water cliché left untouched. The second storyline is the environmentalist morality play about evil loggers who must be stopped from cutting down the forest. Again, nothing that hasn't been done over and over again in the past. The last storyline features (I assume) a villain from the first film seeking revenge for his defeat. This is the best of the storylines, as it provides some humorous moments, but its also the least developed, and disappears for long stretches of the film. While the film works hard to make sure all of these storylines intertwine in the climax, it is too little too late. For much of the film, they are completely separate from one another, making it unclear what story the film is trying to tell.

Ridley Scott's 2003 film "Matchstick Men" also juggled three different storylines. It followed Nicolas Cage's character, a con-man, as he dealt with his near crippling obsessive-compulsive disorder, sought to pull off one last "big con", and got to know the teenage daughter he never knew he had. That movie intertwined all three storylines throughout the film, both directly and indirectly. "Rio 2" mostly treats each of its storylines as separate entities, which calls even more attention to how weak they are. It's almost as if the filmmakers came up with three different possible sequels, but decided that if they threw them all up on the screen at once, they wouldn't need to spend the time developing them. Unfortunately, that's not how it works.

Review: The Raid 2

72. The Raid 2
I have not seen the first "Raid" film. From what I've read, it has a bare bones plot that functions as an excuse for fight scenes, takes place over the span of less than a day, and has a run time of just over 100 minutes. "The Raid 2" would have been well served by taking a similar approach. Instead, it has an overly complicated plot that spans years and is stuffed to the brim with clichés, and its runtime is two and a half hours, almost half again as long as the original.

Much of this unnecessary screen time goes towards servicing the unoriginal, boring plot. The basic storyline of a cop going undercover to infiltrate the mob has been told countless times before, and this version of the story brings literally nothing new to the table. When a movie's major appeal is its elaborate fight sequences, it is often better to keep the plot minimal and let those sequences do the talking, as it seems the original film did. If you're going to disregard that method, you'd better have an interesting story to tell. The worst thing you can do is what this film does: try to tell a more complicated story, but end up doing it so ineptly that I'm praying for the movie to end before it's half over. I could almost feel the plot awkwardly contorting itself to make up excuses for fight sequences that involved characters only tangentially related to the rest of the story.

The fight sequences aren't bad in their choreography. Some of the fights near the end are actually quite impressive...probably. To be honest, the film had completely lost me long before it got anywhere near its climax. Even if the ending had featured the greatest fight scene in the history of cinema, it would not have earned more than a shrug from me. I was still sitting in my seat, but this plodding, overlong film had seen me mentally check out long ago.

Review: Oculus

71. Oculus
For most of its runtime, "Oculus" is more intriguing than scary. The first third, spent setting up the story was especially interesting and kept my attention, though there are practically no genuine scares to be found and even moments of simple unease are in short supply. Unfortunately, when this dynamic changes near the end of the film, it does not change by becoming more scary, but by becoming less interesting, ultimately leading to an ending that is (at least in its broad strokes) predictable and boring.

The film follows the efforts of a brother and sister to destroy an evil mirror that they believe is responsible for several murders, including those of their parents. The brother has just been released from a mental institution after spending years there following their childhood trauma. He is reticent to believe his sister's claims about the mirror, dismissing them as leftover childhood fantasies. This conflict between them as she seeks to convince him of the truth drives the first half of the film. It is an effective and organic way to disseminate the necessary exposition as she explains to him the history of the mirror. She is also giving this explanation to a series of cameras she has set up in an attempt to prove her theories about the mirror before destroying it, a good answer to the question "Why don't they stop talking and smash the thing already?".

These early scenes, and the rest of the film, are intercut with flashbacks showing the events from the characters' childhood, when the mirror drove their parents to murderous acts. I did not find these scenes nearly as compelling as the present day scenes, largely because we already know where they are headed, removing the suspense from the proceedings.

Once all the exposition is provided and the mirror's tricks are discovered, the film starts to become less interesting. The mirror's only major trick is that it can alter the perceptions of those nearby. It can make them see or hear things that aren't there, it can make it so they cannot see things that are there, and it can even make them do things they aren't aware of. The characters come into the situation taking every precaution they can think of, but once the mirror's power to alter perception is made known, they really have no way to counter it. The rising action that should be present in a film like this would dictate that the characters should find a way to see through the illusions, only for the mirror to come up with something even more powerful for them to overcome. Instead, the film becomes a series of scenes where the characters are repeatedly fooled into believing what the mirror wants them to. In addition to being boring because of its repetitiveness, it also removes any potential for true horror. As an audience, when we become conditioned to believe that what we're watching might not even be real, it becomes a lot harder to find it scary.

The film's ending is a letdown, not because it is a downer ending, but because it is just another in the cycle of repetitive scenes. The mirror ultimately achieves its victory by toying with the character's perceptions of reality, the same thing it has been doing all along. Downer endings can actually be very satisfying when cleverly done, but this one just made me shrug. The film started out promising, but, much like the mirror, the script only had a limited number of tricks to pull, and that number was not enough to carry a full length movie.

Review: Draft Day

70. Draft Day
It remains to be seen whether I'll find "Draft Day" to be a particularly memorable film in the long term, but at the very least it is a fun diversion that feels fresh and consistently entertains, with very few stumbles along the way.

The film follows Kevin Costner's character, Sonny Weaver Jr. on the day of the NFL draft. It is an especially stressful day for Weaver, the General Manager for the Cleveland Browns. Not only is he under pressure from his team's owner to handle the draft in a particular fashion, but he's also frequently at odds with the head coach, has just found out that his girlfriend (and coworker) is pregnant, and his mother has decided that this is the day they must take care of scattering his father's ashes. If "Draft Day" has a weakness, it is in the handling of this final storyline. While the pregnancy storyline is clearly inserted into the film to inject more drama, it is introduced very early on and thus doesn't feel out of place. When Weaver's mother shows up partway through the film and insists on pulling him away from urgent matters to participate in the scattering of the ashes, however, it feels like an artificial complication. It is never explained why that needs to occur on this day of all days.

Even with that small misstep, the film as a whole maintains a fast-paced, energetic tone. It's fun watching Costner deal with each new obstacle he faces, the personal and the professional. We're never sure if he really knows what he's doing or if he's grasping at straws as he negotiates with executives from other teams, but his determination is mesmerizing either way. Costner delivers a solid performance, managing to come across as weighed down by everything the day throws at him, yet steadfast in his will to fight through it. The film also features an effective supporting cast, with Denis Leary, Jennifer Garner, and Frank Langella serving as allies, enemies, or foils to Costner depending on the scene.

One of the more interesting aspects about the film is that it is a football movie with next to no actual football in it, as it takes place during the off season. That the film still manages to be compelling is a testament to the energy with which it is made. While not football, the mental contest Costner engages in with other GMs is a game in and of itself as he bluffs and negotiates his way through the day. The film uses a creative editing technique for these phone call scenes. They're done split-screen, with Costner on one half of the screen and the other character on the other side, but the two images sometimes overlap. For example, if Costner makes a hand gesture while speaking, his hand might extend onto the other half of the screen. This helps forge a connection between the two halves of the scene and keeps things visually exciting, very important for a film with so many such scenes.

"Draft Day" may not be a new classic, but for the most part it does what it sets out to do very well. I had a lot of fun watching it, and it's certainly one of the better films in theatres right now.

Review: Frankie & Alice

69. Frankie & Alice
Ironically, this was the second film in a row I saw that got its theatrical release long after being completed. It received a limited awards qualifying run in December of 2010, but didn't see a wide release until just recently. Basically, it was Oscar bait, but the Oscars didn't bite.

The film is not terrible, but neither is it ever truly compelling. Movies like this that focus on a character battling mental illness (in this case, multiple personality disorder) need to really connect with the audience right away to create real dramatic tension. "Frankie & Alice" doesn't manage to do that. It got me to feel, at most, mild interest in where the plot was headed. Halle Berry's performance is, just like the film, blatant awards bait (as most performances by A-list actors playing mental patients are). I haven't been able to decide if there was something in her performance that was too over the top, making it hard to connect with her character, or if the problem was with the script itself. I lean toward the latter. There have been other, better films about similar struggles with mental illness, and with nothing new to offer, the script feels like an unnecessary retread.

I did enjoy Stellan Skarsgard's performance as Berry's psychiatrist. He brought a strong presence to the film and anchored it as well as could be expected. His character was, in some ways, even more of the protagonist. He was, more than anyone else, the character with clear goals he was trying to accomplish. The film was at its most compelling when he was on screen.

Overall, while there is nothing flat out horrendous about the film, there is nothing new or special in it, either. It is the kind of film that would typically escape notice, falling between the cracks of the national cinematic consciousness. Which, considering its delayed release, seems to be exactly what it did.

Review: Jinn

68. Jinn
This film is, at best, what one would expect from a not very good SyFy television movie. Apparently it finished filming way back in 2010. I don't understand how it got a theatrical release after all that time.

It's obviously a project the writer/director was passionate about, as he is credited in several other departments as well. I'm sure he's familiar with the film's mythology, but he isn't able to explain that mythology to the audience in an effective manner. I was able to get the gist of what was going on, but it was all too complicated to fully understand everything.

Just about everything about the film is second rate. The screenplay seems to be written from a template, awkwardly introducing new characters and clumsily meandering from moments of clunky exposition to lackluster action sequences. I wouldn't have been impressed with it even if it had merely aired on television, but releasing the film theatrically further highlighted its vast shortcomings.

Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

67. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
While I had a few issues with this film, it was a significant improvement on the first Captain America film, and is one of the better films in the current run of Marvel superhero movies.

I was not a big fan of "Captain America: The First Avenger", because the character was uninteresting and had no narrative arc. Yes, he went from being a thin weakling (yet with a strangely masculine voice) to a buff super soldier, but there was no interior transformation. He was a nice, self-sacrificing guy at the beginning of the film, and nothing had changed by the end. "The Winter Soldier" gives the character more to do. He struggles adjusting to the new times he is living in. He finds that some people he's been working for are really agents of the enemy. The character is forced to take charge and make decisions on his own, rather than simply being the bland, loyal soldier that he was the first time around.

The film's plot is weightier than most of the recent Marvel films. "Iron Man 3" and "Thor 2" were entertaining enough, but they were also somewhat hollow. Their action scenes were fun to watch, but there was never any real tension behind them. "The Winter Soldier" had some good twists in the plot, which in turn lent more meaning to many of its action sequences. An intense action sequence involving Samuel L. Jackson's character was one of the highlights. It was not nearly the most elaborate in the film, but tons of explosions and boffo special effects are not necessary to create an effective action sequence. It is telling that in my opinion the least effective action sequence was the grand finale, which featured the most explosions and effects shots. The movie had reached the point where its ultimate destination had become obvious, and the action felt obligatory and drawn out.

My major problem with this film was with the character of the Winter Soldier himself. SPOILER ALERT. It turns out that the Winter Soldier, a mysterious assassin who has carried out several high profile jobs over the past several decades, is actually an old friend of Captain America's, seemingly killed in the first film. This is a great set-up for drama--two old friends forced to fight on opposing sides. Unfortunately, The Winter Soldier doesn't have any memory of his old life, or his friend, robbing the scenario of at least eighty percent of its dramatic potential. Captain America still feels conflicted about fighting his friend, but the opportunity for dramatic exchanges between the two is lost. The character also feels unnecessary. The film already had a good plot in place with plenty of effective twists. Perhaps it would have been better to save the Winter Soldier's introduction for a later sequel where he could have been explored more in depth.

In spite of a few shortcomings, it was a nice relief to see a Marvel superhero film that went beyond action for action's sake and actually had something to say.

Review: The Silence of the Lambs

66. The Silence of the Lambs
Another film from the "classics" series. "The Silence of the Lambs" is a very good film, and in the over two decades since its release, just about everything that can be said about it has been said. Instead of just discussing the movie on its own, I would instead like to examine its portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in comparison to the currently airing television show "Hannibal", which features many of the same characters and themes.

I mentioned just before this season premiered that I think the television show boasts the best filmed depiction of Hannibal Lecter. This is not a criticism of other actors who have played the role, but a reflection on both the show's writing and the brilliant performance of Mads Mikkelsen. In actuality, the show probably boasts the best filmed depiction of every major character in the cast--it's just that the character of Hannibal tends to get the most attention.

Anthony Hopkins' performance in "The Silence of the Lambs" became almost instantly iconic, and not just because of what he himself brought to the table. The audience's first impression of him occurs before he even appears. After hearing his doctor relate the story of how he attacked a nurse and ate her tongue, almost anything Hopkins did would have been effective--the audience was preprogrammed to be impressed. Hopkins does deliver an unsettling performance, often staring directly into camera. For the movie, that is enough, but there isn't actually much there in the way of realism or believability. I didn't really notice this until I saw Mads Mikkelsen's take on the character.

"Hannibal", so far at least, covers the time period before the title character has been imprisoned for his crimes. He actually helps the FBI to catch other serial killers. The first season sees him teaming up with Hugh Dancy's Will Graham (the main character from the novel "Red Dragon"), and the show follows the complex relationship that forms between these two characters. The characters' situation alone gives Mikkelsen a much more dramatically interesting character to play. We get to see Hannibal functioning as a practicing psychiatrist and cannibal. We get to see him attempt to hide his true nature from others whom he genuinely considers to be friends. We get to see him become nervous when his cover is at risk of being pulled aside. This is much more fascinating than the imprisoned, over-the-top boogeyman the character was in "The Silence of the Lambs" film. The best representation of the fundamental difference in the two portrayals is the famous line where Hopkins' Lecter speaks of eating a census taker, and then makes a slurping sound. Mikkelsen's character wouldn't be caught dead making that sound. When this realization struck me, it force me to examine the scene from the film more closely. While before the moment had served to make the character even more creepy and unsettling, I now realized how kind of ridiculous it was. If that had taken place in real life, I wouldn't have been scared--I would have probably laughed in the guys' face.

The creators of the show have said that they hope to eventually cover the events from the books. I hope they are allowed to get that far. I can think of many scenes from the films that would be positively electric when played between the characters on the show who would have several seasons worth of conflicts and emotional baggage. "The Silence of the Lambs" is a good movie, but "Hannibal" may be the best television show I've ever seen.

Review: Le Week-End

65. Le Week-End
There were moments in this film that made me think of two films I enjoy very much--"Sideways" and "Before Midnight". The comparisons did the film no favors, however. Rather, they highlighted how much better the other films were.

"Le Weed-End" tells the story of an elderly couple who is returning to Paris, where they took their honeymoon years ago, seemingly in an attempt to rekindle their fading love. For much of its runtime, the film seems aimless. It establishes the characters and their situation effectively, then doesn't seem to go anywhere for a long time. Events happen, of course, but they're all variations on the same theme. Something happens to create a spark between the characters, and they have a few moments of excitement and optimism, but then something else happens and they start to fight again. This happens several times, continuing long after we've gotten the point. Although "Before Midnight" involves a younger couple, it still deals with many of the same themes--the annoyances and resentments that can build up over the years of a romance. "Before Midnight" has a much defter touch, as the conflicts are introduced early and slowly build to a breaking point over the course of the film. It's writing is also both more realistic and emotionally satisfying. "Le Week-End" features some sequences that take away from a feeling of realism, such as one extended scene where the couple tries to escape from a restaurant to avoid paying the check. It's this kind of scene that reminded me of "Sideways", but while similar moments in that film rang true, here they felt like an artificial dramatic device to once again start the characters' love/hate cycle.

It's a big relief about halfway through the film when Jeff Goldblum shows up as an old friend and invites the couple to a party at his place. This gives the characters other people to interact with, breaking the stale cycle. Goldblum himself also brings some much needed energy to the proceedings. His quirky physicality and vocal patterns command your attention. The scenes at his party were the best in the film.

If the first half had been trimmed down significantly, this film would have been much better. It's still not a bad film, but I can't particularly recommend it, either. Jeff Goldblum's work is worth seeing on its own, but going through the first half in order to get to it may be asking too much.

Review: Cesar Chavez

I'm going to be featuring only one movie per update for my next few posts. This should help me keep my goal of still updating every other day, and will keep me from running out of movies to post about. I anticipate returning to two movies per post in a little while.



 

64. Cesar Chavez
I often stay for the entirety of the end credits when I see a film, even if it wasn't that good. It's a nice way to slowly detach from the world of the film and get back to real life.

I never leave before a movie is over, no matter how bad it is. If a film truly offends me on a level deeper than it being just a sub-par film, the greatest insult I can give it is to ensure that I am up out of my seat and rapidly moving for the exit the second the end credits start. That is what I did here.

Films that are sympathetic to a particular political point of view are sometimes so sure of their own opinion's infallibility that they don't bother to justify it. For me, it doesn't usually matter whether or not I agree with the film's point of view. All it has to do is justify that viewpoint within the context of the film. For example, I don't believe in the conspiracy theories espoused by Oliver Stone's "JFK". I am aware that there are factual inaccuracies in the film, but I am still able to enjoy it because it takes the time to establish the main character's actions as virtuous within the world of the film. I don't necessarily leave the film with the opinions on history that the filmmakers may have wanted me to, but I do leave it entertained.

In the case of "Cesar Chavez", the filmmaker's unwavering faith in their own opinions manifests itself in the protagonists. Most of the characters are self-righteous and overly sanctimonious. Midway through the film, a worker's strike led by the title character has led to a businessman being willing to negotiate and capitulate to some of their demands. During the negotiation scene, several of the workers crowd the businessman's office, being loud and disrespectful. One of them even goes into an adjoining bathroom and starts urinating without closing the door. I sat in the theatre dumbfounded. Were these really the characters I was supposed to be rooting for? There were many other similar scenes in the film.

I don't know much about the real life events this film was based on. Maybe the crass behavior was accurately portrayed. But films like this need to make the protagonists likeable if they want to successfully connect with the audience. By making them unlikeable, it connected with me in a different way--I actually began to root for the antagonists (which is never fun, because you know they're going to lose).

I've seen over sixty films in the theatre so far this year. This one is by far my least favorite. It was smarmy, sanctimonious bullshit. Even though I saw it for free, I'm ashamed that using my Movie Pass contributed in any way to the film's box office.

Goals for April

My goals for this month:

1. Watch at least 10 different movies in the theatre. My perennial goal.

2. Re-write the first 30 pages of my screenplay. I'm trying to be less ambitious with this goal than I was last month. I just want to make sure I get these initial pages into strong working order before I move on.

3. Finish cleaning my room. Self explanatory.

4. Make a blog post every other day. I've been doing this successfully so far. Much like my February goal to go to the gym every day, this goal is to make sure I stay on track despite how busy I'll be for the next few weeks with rehearsals/performances.

March Goals Wrap-Up

I had more trouble with my goals for March than in either January or February. I was perhaps a bit too ambitious, but I've also been going to rehearsals almost every Monday through Thursday. When combined with frequent trips to the movie theater, this didn't always leave me with tons of time to devote to my goals.

1. Watch at least 10 different movies in the theatre. I almost doubled this goal, making it to 19 different films in March.

2. Complete a first draft of a screenplay. I made it about 30 pages into my screenplay this month. While I was mostly happy with what I've written, there are a few things I have issues with and some fundamental changes I need to implement. As a result, I think it's better to rework those 30 pages before moving on.

3. Clean my room. I did some cleaning, but did not complete the job yet. I was able to clear a path to my bed so I don't have to pole vault into it anymore. This goal is still a work in progress.