Unabashed

I won’t bother you with the details of the demise of my family’s weekend. Suffice it to say we’ve all been lying in bacterial comas and haven’t seen the sun since Friday. Today I’ll venture out into the day again–it’s a nice day for it. It’s supposed to hit 70 today (and 46 tomorrow).

I pegged all my Oscar predictions but one: supporting actress, which I thought would go to Elizabeth star Cate Blanchett. But I correctly picked best picture, best actor, and best director(s). I didn’t have an opinion of best actress. Curiously, I didn’t see any of the movies, which either says I am a genius at picking Oscar winners or the Academy is very predictable. (I am not a genius).

SPOILER ALERT: 3:10 to Yuma 

The movies I did see through the half-murk of fever chills was 3:10 to Yuma, which was, as a movie, pretty good, but what I was really left with when it was over was the Russell Crowe character, Ben Wade, who just vaulted into my top-10 greatest movie bad guys of all time. He has all the requirements: Ruthlessness but with an almost-impenetrable vulnerability that never really becomes visible until the movie is over and you’re thinking about it. He’s more tragic than evil, the product of a tortured childhood. He’s talented in many things, gifted even, and you feel somewhere down deep inside that in murder, for him, there is art. He’s intelligent and, given a few right turns in life rather than left, he might have been a writer or an artist; but he deals only in bullets. And, most importantly for the great bad guy (this is the spoiler part): when the story’s over he’s still alive. He’s one of those characters that’s so good he deserves his own movie, except you know that if they make one they’ll ruin the thing that makes him so phenomenal. Like when Marvel decided to tell the history of Logan (Wolverine), effectively erasing all the mystique that had made him so attractive for so long. Same thing for Pitch Black character Riddick, who was subjected to his own Chronicles, and likewise went from icon to crap in one fell swoop.

For a full review of the movie, and, curiously, a review with which I agree on virtually every point, check out the NY Times review. Here’re the high points:

Ben Wade, the prodigious robber played by Mr. Crowe, is a more familiar creature: a sociopath whose twinkly charm masks both his ruthlessness and his perverse integrity.

Dan is much more than a movie star in costume: with his gaunt, haggard face and wide, awe-struck eyes, he seems to have stepped out of a daguerreotype or a murder ballad.

But Ben and Dan discover an unlikely bond, or at least some common enemies, and Mr. Bale’s haunted reticence plays well against Mr. Crowe’s roguish relish. Their characters open up a bit too much toward the end, in confessional moments that soften the clean, hard contours of the story and bring to the surface themes that would have been more interesting if they had been left half-buried.

Exactly. ‘Nuff said.

I also saw 1408, a movie I was very excited about, especially after I saw the first creep-filled half hour of it and had to wait three days before I could rent it and get it home, get the kids to bed and watch the rest of it. At the end I can only say that I want my three days back. After that first thirty minutes the movie steps up the effects, kicks the spook factor into overdrive, and really, really tries really hard to be scary. And fell flat on its face. I’ve always been a fan of John Cusack, and he delivers, but where this movie fails is as an adapted screenplay and in the production/direction.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: 1408, Bale, Crowe, Cusack, Yuma