Cody Clarke – Page 38

Upstream Color: Great Story, Awful Storytelling

Upstream Color (2013)
Written and Directed by Shane Carruth
96 min.

What’s more important, story or storytelling? I honestly have no idea.

A great story will stick with you for the rest of your life, whether or not it’s told well, because the beats of it, the brilliant bare components, resonate with your soul and become a part of you, and help expand how you see the world on a moral level. ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ is a great story. It’s so great we don’t even stop and think about how great it is. It’s just a part of us, as humans. You almost can’t remember a time in your life when you didn’t know it. And even if someone were to tell it to a little kid really poorly, its truth and importance would still come through.
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Red Tails: Watch It And Feel Like A Kid Again

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Unlike the Star Wars prequels, here’s a plot young kids can actually follow.

Red Tails (2012)
Directed by Anthony Hemingway
Screenplay by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder
125 min.

Right off the bat, I should warn you that Red Tails is not a good movie. At least, not in the traditional sense. It’s not even good ‘for what it is’. It’s just plain bad. But you will have a good time. You’ll be laughing at ineptitude in damn near every scene, and, even with all its cheesiness, this movie will touch you on a very deep level—in fact, partly because of its cheesiness. Let me explain.
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Documentaries: The Most Repulsive Genre

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Michael Moore, being repulsive. That was not intended as a dig at his physicality. He’d be repulsive even if he looked like Kat Dennings. Okay, maybe not then, but you get the point.

What is a documentary?

I know that may seem like kind of a ridiculous, pretentious question to ask, especially right off the bat of an essay or whatever, but I don’t mean it like that. I’m absolutely serious, and it’s an entirely valid question. What the fuck is one? I don’t think we really know. I mean, we know ‘em when we see ‘em I guess. Basically, they’re movies about real life. Nothing staged. Except interviews, of course. Interviews are, by their very nature, extremely staged and controlled and can very easily be manipulated by both the interviewer and the editor, but those get a pass, I guess. (As do dramatic reenactments, which can be very misleading, but are thought of as okay for some reason.) I think we can all agree though that documentaries definitely must not have a script that people are following. That’s for sure. Well—except of course in the case of a sort of monologue through-line or whatever. The documentarian gets a pass on having a script. Even if it’s way subjective. Man, this is getting contradictory. And confusing. And gross.
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Donnie Darko: Nobody Understands It Except Me

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Donnie Darko (2001)
Written & Directed by Richard Kelly
113 min. (Original Cut)
133 min. (Director’s Cut)

Spoilers ahead.

The first time I saw this movie, I hated it. Or rather, I hated where it ended up. I appreciated the journey, but not the destination. God damn does it wrap up in a cheese ball way. That ‘Mad World’ montage? Jena Malone’s and Donnie’s mother staring at each other? Man did that shit bug me. So much so that for a while I wrote off the entire movie as bad.

But then, here and there, I’d think about the parts I liked and want to watch it again. And each time I’d re-watch, I’d like the movie a bit more. But that ending remained a sticking point. It always made me cringe.

I can’t remember exactly when I came to the realization that the ending is supposed to make you cringe from its cheesiness—and that Donnie laughing in bed is meant to be him laughing at the cheesy resolution—but once I did, god damn. Fireworks in the brain. What a movie. Five stars.
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Netflix Longies #1 (Girl Model, Kumaré, Foreign Parts, I Like Killing Flies, Monica & David)

This is basically the opposite of my Netflix Quickies series. Instead of movies I picked randomly on Netflix Instant that I tried for a few minutes and hated, these are ones I fell in love with and watched all of. So definitely check them out.

By the way, these are all documentaries, because for some reason the only stuff I’ve given five stars on Netflix lately have been docs. Just been really lucky with them, I guess.

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Girl Model (2011)
Directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin
78 min.
Continue reading Netflix Longies #1 (Girl Model, Kumaré, Foreign Parts, I Like Killing Flies, Monica & David)