Revolutionary Road

A film changes quite a lot for me when I find out what the intention was behind making it. It took me a second viewing of Zodiac, after all, to realize that it was meant to be that slow and frustrating. So, I guess I'm hoping that Sam Mendes intended the audience of his fourth feature to feel as though whatever tethered Frank and April Wheeler together was long dead.

My best estimate is that it takes less than 10 minutes for the unhappily wed couple to get at each other with some raw verbal combat. Ten minutes of screen time, that is - the film skips over their perhaps rosier early years. It's ugly and foreboding, and exceptionally well performed. Leonardo DiCaprio is satisfied here to take a role that is anything but glamourous - Frank is a bastard and a coward, and the film wastes little time getting you to that conclusion. April, as performed with naked desperation by Kate Winslett, is a woman stripped of her dreams, one by one. She starts out with great fortitude as a character, but she is gullible. She is betrayed by Frank; she allows herself to be betrayed by him.

I suspect there will be two distinct readings of this film - one by the wed and one the unwed. I read elsewhere a reviewer horrified by the film and the way that it undermines the mental image of marriage by poking at every insecurity felt by those in one. For a single person like myself, it's far more cautionary, like an extrapolation of watching that couple you know who don't belong together but stick with it anyway. This, I think we are meant to fear, is where they are headed.

You know from the get go that Frank and April won't escape the mess they've gotten themselves into, so you can't help but wonder at the point of all this. The trappings of marriage have been explored elsewhere, and this doesn't say anything new. As exquisitely performed as it is by all parties, with special notice going to Michael Shannon, the performances don't move us to like Frank or April, and I struggle to understand why that wasn't important.

We're never given an opportunity to see the Wheelers as a happy couple. In fact we're never allowed to see them as a happy family, either. Oh yes, did I mention that they have kids? That's where I'll leave it - the word count is proportionate to how much time they spend in the movie, implied or otherwise. Because we move so quickly to seeing them disintegrate, we can never care about where the movie is inevitably going. It goes to some bleak, broken places, but it's fated to. No matter how bad it is when we get there, the reaction isn't one of shock or awe, it's a grave nod of the head, because we all knew where this Revolutionary Road was leading.

Fresh Ingredients - week of 01/26/2009

As I write this, the no. 2 episode of Battlestar from part 2 of this final season is playing. It's an improvement over last week, which pulled the rug out a few two many times. This week (or technically last week) they've returned to some extra fun practicality - cylons are friends, enemies, people are too, people are also uprising and it's all a delicious mess.

Also picked up and thoroughly recommendable: The demo for Project Origin (also known as FEAR 2) . It's goddamned scary is what it is. Scarier than the first game. They made the graphics better, which only helps the terrifying atmosphere. And when I say helps, I mean it helps prompt you to pee your pants. Full version on February 10th

Tomorrow (the datestamp will read today because it's late-ish) I will be checking out Revolutionary Road.

I'm behind on the following, I really need to catch the hell up:

Slumdog Millionaire

The Wrestler

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost / Nixon

Gran Torino

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

... I must still be missing something. Some of that is gonna be on video soon for god's sake.

So, thoughts on Revolutionary Road tomorrow night.

Histories, futures

Welcome back to the internet, I say! You weren't gone, but I was. Last night, Carly revealed that while bored at work recently she perused my entire LiveJournal history (she's totally not a stalker) and made me not only think of Live Journal for the first time in years, but also glad that I had, at one time, that place to let my thoughts out - as much as they were usually just kid stuff. It was important then, so it's part of me. I went back and looked at a couple posts, and wow.

Things are different now. Still, it didn't take long for me to come upon this quote, from my number one go-to guy, Mr. Matt Good. I stand by its timeless quality:

Welcome to today? How do you feel?

This is what today looks like. Is it what you expected?

There will come a time when you will wake up and realize that there will come a time when you will not.

There will come a time when the version of you on this day will seem stupid.

It is not your fault.


So, moving forwards ... I intend to mostly write about film, TV and music on here, though I'm sure I'll add in other things.

Also, if you've just discovered this and you don't know me, here's some basic stuff. As I write this, I am a 24-year-old video editor for CBC News in Toronto, Canada. I am a graduate of Guelph-Humber University, where I ran out the door holding a diploma in Journalism and a degree in Media Studies. All media-related news fascinates me, and I am way behind on my movie-watching. My family and friends (whose status is kind of interchangeable for the most part) are the dearest part of my life.

First thing's coming soon: A review of whatever movie I finally catch up with this weekend.