Source Code Review (Spoiler Free): The Boy Done Good

The first thing I did when I came home from seeing Source Code was look up reviews and read only the bad ones.  There weren't many - and the ones that are out there are mostly similar in their critiques (of which some I agree with and some I don't) - but satisfied that I hadn't missed anything major in my assessment of it, I decided to proceed with my own review as if I hadn't read anyone else's.

Source Code is pretty damn good.  I liked it.  

And I could leave it at that, actually.  But I won't...  (It's me, after all.  I'm bombastic and wordy when it comes to reviewing Jake movies.)

Look, you may not know this about me, but I kinda like this Jake Gyllenhaal.  Yeah, he and his entire family and everyone associated with him - personally and professionally - has been pretty douche-y to me for the past five fucking years, but he's like an old friend that I still run into from time to time.  I've earned the right to give him shit but I don't wish him any ill will.  I want him to succeed.  It was hard for me to watch his last two movies collapse under the weight of their own stupidity the way they did. 

As I drove up to the theater yesterday, I had a surreal moment of contemplation, the same that I had when Zodiac came out (the first Jake movie released after I started blogging about him) but haven't had since:  This is what it's all about.  We all sit around and talk about him, write about him, speculate about him, but we're here because he makes movies.  And when he has a film out, none of us are any different than the people sharing the theater with us.  Everyone in the room has paid the same amount to be entertained.  There's something so mystically satisfying about that, about sitting in a dark room with strangers and entering a new world.  The people in the theater with me no more knew that I was "Prophecy Girl" than I knew anything about them; when the lights dim, it stops being about any of us and our personal interests and it starts being about the communal human experience of enjoying a story.

This is what he is paid to do.  This is why we are all here.  And at the risk of offending some (many?) of you, he doesn't always come through.  Sometimes you can see him "acting."  Sometimes the story is shitty.  Sometimes all of us are confronted with the undeniable truth that Jake Gyllenhaal isn't an actor who can draw an audience.  He can draw us, but we're the exception.  We're emotionally involved.   The vast majority of humanity isn't.  The vast majority of those who were involved after Brokeback Mountain, even, isn't.

Source Code wasn't perfect.  There were moments when it didn't flow and moments when I thought that Jake, great as I think he is, has yet to grow into his charisma.  It's the same complaint I've always had:  He rarely makes me believe this is what he wants out of life.  It can feel as if I'm looking through him when he's on screen.  The same nagging doubts have followed me ever since I learned (in my Jake-driven youth) that he's often cold to fans.  Why? I wondered.  Why be a movie star if you don't like attention from your audience?  (Isn't that the whole point?)  Why act if in doing it you're merely going through the motions?  Why is it, exactly, that he does this? 

Source Code is a good story.  But it's not impeccable.  It makes you think, but it won't change your worldview.  And Jake is excellent, but excellent for him has yet match the excellence of the top echelon of Hollywood.

I know why he's a hard sell as a leading man.  But right now, I'm proud of him.  He did well.  He entertained me.  And I'm about as hard of a critic as he's going to get... 

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Prophecy Girl Reviews Love & Other Drugs!

Before we get started here, a few caveats:

1.  I'm not big on romantic comedies.
2.  No matter how well he inhabits the character he's playing, Jake Gyllenhaal always looks like Jake Gyllenhaal to me.
3.  I have an intense dislike of the commercialization of the pharmaceutical industry.

*very minor spoilers below*

Love & Other Drugs opened last Wednesday and has, to date, grossed $14 million.  Amongst Jake Gyllenhaal flicks, this puts it on the low side of average.  I walk the same emotional tightrope every time Jake puts out a movie.  Being emotionally invested, I want his films to do well...but also I'm shamelessly piggybacking on his reputation and thus, on a personal level, his hopes become my hopes.  I've gone through this several times now, and after three, four, five rounds of interviews and talk shows, I'm feeling the wear and tear.  He always looks so damned earnest when he's selling his movies.  Does he really believe that the one he's talking about at that moment is going to be a hit?  I don't know.  It's his job to make us believe he does.  All I know is what I observed through this community, and that's that the interest and excitement for Love & Other Drugs peaked way too soon...

I'm extremely interested in the reactions of those who saw the movie early.  I've never heard of a film being screened so widely before its release, and considering all the positive buzz coming from the test audiences, I wonder if the movie they saw was the same one I did, or if I'm just being a nerd as usual and looking far too deeply into things.

So here are my thoughts:  The movie was alright.

But.

(And this is the point at which everyone rightly rolls their eyes and groans at me.  Because here I go again!!)

The first half made me depressed, because (see point #1 above about romantic comedies) I don't even have an incurable disease and no one ever relentlessly pursues my affections.  The second half made me even more depressed, because, er, it was depressing.  And by the end of it, I realized that all I had really wanted to watch was a movie about the sleazy underside of pharmaceutical sales.  Because that was the part of the story that was legitimately interesting. 

Unfortunately, more screen time was given to Hallmark-Hall-of-Fame-style confessional home videos than any exploration of the ramifications of working as a drug rep in the amoral world of pharmaceuticals.  I realize this movie wasn't made to either condemn or celebrate America's colossally dysfunctional healthcare system, but hell, maybe it should have been.  The way it stands, the potential political statement was steamrolled by the love story and the love story was stuffed haphazardly into the career subplot and really, why was there all that nudity?  For all the promises of an "adult" love story (with crazy sex and toplessness), the whole thing felt pretty damned conventional in terms of a movie relationship.  What's so shocking about a film where all men (even your doctor!) are sex-obsessed jerks and all women jump into bed with anyone who will have them at the first opportunity?  And where's the originality in following a womanizing playboy who falls in love and renounces his ways?  The woman's a bitch with a problem, the man's a player with a sensitive side, and this is every romantic comedy ever made.

It's just...the potential was there!  It could have been great!  But it wasn't great.  And now I'm a bitch for even saying this because for years I've been lobbying for Jake to step outside his comfort zone and do a movie like this (or Prince of Persia) and now that he's done it, I'm denouncing the end result.

There's no satisfying me.

A few specifics:

- Josh Gad's character...WHY?!  I like Josh Gad as much as the next Daily Show junkie but he was wasted here.  Jamie could have been an only child and nothing would have been lost...except for a lot of discomfort on my part.
- Anne Hathaway was brilliant and totally stole the show.
- That said, if Anne Hathaway hadn't been in the movie, I would have liked the storyline better.
- The biggest laugh of the film for me was when the bus door hit Jake in the face.  Because I'm actually 7.
- I was horribly disturbed at myself when, during Jake's nude scenes, my primary thought was, "Yeah, this is nothing I haven't seen before."
- Did Anne Hathaway work in that coffee shop?  What was that??  And what was with her trucking seniors across the border?  Was that her job, too?  And did she sell her artwork?  I don't understand her financial situation.  And maybe it's not that important, but if so, why give her three jobs over the course of an hour or so of screentime?
- And maybe that sums up all of my problems here.  Why that detail?  Why any of the detail?  Why did it matter that Jamie was a drug rep?  Where was the coherency?
- Tellingly, the most enjoyable close-up of the entire film for me came when Jake said, "I'm full of shit."
- I love a good montage (the opening one was fan-tastic) but Christ, this movie was on montage-steroids.
- I read a review that said this film took place from 1996 to 1999.  Did it?  Where was that passage of time noted?
- I was kind of looking forward to some closure with whatshisname, the rival rep, but no.
- The hype over the sex scenes and nudity was so overblown.  Ohmigaw.
- Jake did a good job and none of my complaints reflect on his performance. 
- Speaking of Jake, for the second time in a row, he really looked like he was having fun with his chosen profession.  Praise Jesus.

In summation, I'd love to know what those early test audiences thought about the final product, I'd love to know the thoughts of people who like romantic comedies, and I'd love it if movies were released at the same time the world over so we could all talk about this at once.  But most of all, I'd love for all of you to yell at me now about being impossible and not loving this.  Because I didn't.  Even if Anne did make me cry twice.

6.5 out of 10 stars.  And it only gets the point-five for the Macarena.  [Insert joke about me being a "hard sell" here.]

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Prince of Persia: The Most Video Game-Like Movie Based On A Video Game Ever

(Please excuse the tone shift for this entry.  I take my movie reviews very seriously!)

I will be the first to admit that I have, in the past, been critical of Jake's film choices.

His previous three movies (Zodiac, Rendition, and Brothers), in particular, seemed to be lacking.  Unpopular though the opinion may be (and trust me, I've heard loud and clear from those who disagree with me), I didn't feel his enthusiasm in those films.  I watched them and felt as though I was looking through to Jake underneath the characters he played.  In each, he seemed to be going through the motions.  I saw little genuine passion for the stories he was telling.

So how ironic that I wasn't critical of any of those movies when they were announced, but Prince of Persia had me baffled.  Why in the world would Jake Gyllenhaal risk his carefully crafted indie-boy, "serious actor" image on a big-budge Disney film where he was cast not for his acting chops, but because of his looks?  The horror!

But from the time I saw the first Prince of Persia trailer until last night, when I finally saw the movie, my mind has slowly been changed on that subject.  While he's said repeatedly (repeatedly!) in interviews that he did this movie because he wanted to have fun, for once, I actually believe his hype.  He meant it.  He actually looks like he's having a good time in this movie.  There is nothing about his character, Dastan, that seems strained, or unnatural, or made me think 'hey that's Jake Gyllenhaal up there acting his little heart out.'  Crazy as it may sound, to me, this is the best performance he's given since Brokeback Mountain.

That said, the problem is that Jake is leagues better than the movie he's in.  Granted there isn't a person alive right now who hasn't heard that this film is based on video game; I just didn't realize how much seeing it was going to be like walking through that video game.  There are quests, and bad guys to kill, and bosses to defeat before we move to the next level.  What there isn't is a clearly understandable storyline.  And while the action is non-stop from start to finish, there are (strangely) few truly memorable scenes or one-liners.  The movie just kind of there, almost-but-not-quite living up to its own ambitions, somehow moving too quickly and relying a little too much on close-ups of Jake and Gemma Arterton to show any real confidence in its audience to invest in the complicated (if flat) plot.

So no, it's not Oscar material, and yes, gamers may find the presentation more palatable than the average movie-goer...but hell, for 2 hours, Jake Gyllenhaal looks like he's having the time of his life in his chosen profession.  And for that, Prince of Persia is nothing short of a miraculous movie.

Thoughts?

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And now, because the mood of this post is already so somber, let us turn to The Pixel Project, which is a non-profit, volunteer-led organization that aims to brings global awareness about violence against women.

Currently, they aim to raise "US $1 million in aid of the USA’s National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Malaysia’s Women’s Aid Organisation via an online fundraiser in which a 1-million pixel mystery collage of 4 to 6 globally known Celebrity Male Role Models will be unveiled online as donors 'buy' each pixel for US $1.00."

So how does ISJ fit into this?  Jake is one of 5 nominees whom we can vote for to be part of this collage, and The Pixel Project has asked us to help get the word out about the project and to vote for Jake (who is currently in third place...the shame of it!).

You can vote by clicking HERE, and I'll put a link in the sidebar a little later today.  Should Jake be one of the top two vote-getters, he will be sent an online petition, which you can sign HERE.  And because no good campaign is without a Facebook page, you can find that HERE.

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And now,  because I have a reputation to maintain and this has been entirely too serious so far, here is the BEST INTERVIEW THAT I MISSED during the Prince of Persia rounds.  This interviewer is amazing and all interviewers everywhere should aspire to be more like him.  In fact, after seeing this, I'm ashamed that I didn't dress up like Dastan (or Dastan, Jr.) to go to theater last night.  (Instead, I showed my support by wearing my "I was a gay cowboy before it was cool" shirt, because I'm committed like that.)

 
Huge thanks to Trijs for the YouTube find!!

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