Winter's Bone

For those who do not know me: It's not likely that I would pass on a movie set and filmed in the Ozarks, so this one was a 'must see'.

Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17yr old mountain girl on a quest to find her not-good-for-much meth-cooking father, who put the family's cabin and land up for bond during his latest drug arrest. He's now gone missing, and she's got to find him, lest her little brother and sister and crazy-whacked emotionally comatose mother are cast out into woods.

Along the way she struggles to act as mother, protector and provider to her siblings, while enduring a life of crushing hillbilly poverty.

A little at a time, at threat to her own life, she begins to pull the loose ends together, grabbing clues where she can, dealing with some dangerous folks in an outlaw community where everybody knows something, nobody knows anything, talking is forbidden, and you best not ask.
She's determined, a survivor above anything else, who won't take heed or back down when she hits another dead end.

• The film is strikingly real in it's realism. There are no overdone settings. It's as if they filmed within the actual homesteads of real Ozark rural dwellers. You can't fake what this camera saw. The clutter, the dust, and the grime. It's too subtle to be any other way.

• Panoramic/scenery shots are not included. The Ozarks are known for their beauty, but none of this is included. It's not part of the story. Instead the camera films in close, capturing the people and dialogue, warts and all, in such an intimate way that draws the viewer into the drama, instead of as a spectator. It is as your own eye would see and focus on if you were there in the room, and not peeking through the window.

• The gun culture is on full unabashed display, with zero swagger. Nobody is walking around with a .45, or wielding an AK-47. Firearms are tools of survival first. And is why everybody is not far from a shotgun or squirrel rifle. It's real, and not 'movie-like'.

• There are no teeth-deficient "Deliverance"-types. No cliched presentations of what Hollywood thinks a hillbilly is, how they dress, or how they talk.

• My favorite scene: Ree is teaching her siblings how to prepare the squirrels they just caught... in graphic detail. The camera gets in close. I've cleaned enough squirrels to tell you... these were real squirrels, freshly dead, with real guts and intestines spilling out around that knife.

• Jennifer Lawrence is a very attractive young lady playing the lead. Yet, all of these good-looking looks are overlooked if not completely ignored. The story is the story, and this mission is never forgotten. She's also on camera for nearly every minute, and does such a fine job. Once again, it's the subtleties. The lack of obvious 'acting' that makes her role here so good. She is the character, and not playing the character. Very natural.

I don't recommend this one for everybody. Some movies are designed to entertain, while others tell a story using the artistic medium. This is of the latter. It may be the best film, from an artistic merit, that I'll see this year... and I've still got six months to go.

Maybe even two years.

Winter's Bone, official site Check it out.

Randoms And A Crazy Cat Lady

I do not know if George Zimmerman should have been arrested that fateful night or not, but I do believe that there are people who need need to be arrested now.
Saying "Sorry" just doesn't cut it in this case.

To the north... in a cost cutting move, Canada has raised it's retirement age to 67. We've already done that, and we still have a problem. We can't cut our way out of this one. We need to breed our way out, or we are screwed.
Time to ban contraception. The future of the republic demands it. Don't laugh. If drafting men's bodies for war in defense of the republic is doable, why not drafting women's uterus's? Or is it uteri?

If you haven't seen "Winter's Bone" yet, why not?

The next round of electioneering in California will feature a increase on cigarettes. An additional $1.10 per pack, supposedly to fund 'cancer research'. Seeing how much of the money voted to combat Global Warming ended up in the pockets of politicians (Yes, even Arnold made bank on it), I suspect the funds for this one to meet the same fate.
Still, the anti-tax-raising climate in California is so toxic right now, even a tax on smokes, which used to be a slam dunk in days gone by, may not happen. This is good thing.
California is screwed in many ways, but before there was the Tea Party, Californians were holding Tea Party-like rallies every weekend. Some things we can get right.

Obamacare: the question isn't it defeat, but how badly.

This story (by the way, I know where this is, not too far from where I used to live) brings to mind my early days and the pizza delivery job I had (loved it, actually).
There was an apartment I used to deliver to once a week, maybe more.
The woman who lived there was mid to late 20's maybe, always wore cutoff shorts, a bikini top and nothing else.
She not only tipped well, but she was hot. Smoking hot.
The level of hot where we would send newbies to that address and they would return with talk of her hotness, and the... well, I'm getting to that...
The only drawback was her cat fetish. Not exaggerating... I once counted over 20 cats in the living room with the door open. Who knows how many were hiding out of sight, or in the other rooms.
I had already trained myself to ring the bell and step back from the door because the stench was enough to knock you on your ass.
Awefulbad is the best word I have for it.
When I see/read stories like this I have to to wonder about the level of mental illness these folks must be suffering...
And if that ultra-hot perfect-body babe ever found a man.

She lost control, kinda like that crazy cat lady.

Hunger Games

Several hundred years into the future, two teens (one male/one female) from each of twelve governmental districts are chosen by lottery to partake in The Hunger Games, a national spectacle where the participants fight to the death on national television until there is one survivor.

It's blood-dripping reality TV that takes on a bizarre twist with all the pomp and ceremony leading up to the big event. Creepy.

The film centers on Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, a tough and nimble gal who volunteers for the games when her younger sister is chosen. Lawrence is on-screen for nearly every shot, something she pulled off well before in "Winter's Bone". She'll be a big star now.

It's a good story, something American cinema desperately needs to break out of it's comic book fad. Also appreciated is the lack of over blown digital effects, another sad trend.

On the negative side, slow moving. I had hard time focusing my attention to what was going on before me. I'm thinking that I wasn't the only one since there seemed to be way to much conversation happening among my fellow theater goers, many of whom walked out early.
My estimate, maybe 15% of those who started the show did not finish. What started out as a nearly full room produced several empty seats around me before closing time.

Or, it may have been the 'shaky camera' style. This is where stable-image techniques are nearly abandoned for handheld camera work. This element is fine for some things, like the D-Day landing in "Saving Private Ryan", but totally sucks when 90% of the movie is filmed this way.
I think more than 90% of the movie was filmed this way. I was getting motion sickness just sitting there. By the time the end credits rolled, I was sick to my stomach. Almost too queasy to make the drive home. It was bad.

Be warned.
This is a difficult movie to watch, but not for it's subject matter.
Sequels are already in the works. I won't be seeing any of them if filmed in the same manner.

Stuff

"I'm not from the South!"
It happens every so often that somebody at work will make a reference to my being from the South.
I was born in Chicago.
Moved to California before I was three.
I have never lived in the South.
What the hell is it about me that passes for a Southerner I have no idea.

Half of a pipeline is not a pipeline. Kinda like a garden hose, you need to hook it up to a source at the other end if you expect anything out of it. But I guess with just the right teleprompter settings you might be able to fool enough of the people who are inclined to agree with you anyway.

Through no fault of their own, some people know not what they do. Is this why they offer free contraception in Sweden?
I give the defense a 'B' for originality. A+ if they pull it off.

Been hearing a bit about this "Hunger Games" movie. The word is that it's going to be the biggest thing this year. Maybe, maybe not.
What I do know is that it stars Jennifer Lawrence in a big way.
Yeah, Jennifer Lawrence, who became one of my favorite actresses after turning out one of my favorite performances in what is still one of the best films I have ever seen: Winter's Bone.
If you haven't already taken my excellent film watching advice, now would be a good time to do yourself proper and see it.
View the trailer here.