Movies I'm Excited About: "Juno" and "Charlie Wilson's War"

As some of you may have noticed, on the sidebar of this blog I have added a section called "Movies I'm Excited About" with a list of links to the imdb.com pages of those movies. (Note: I don't pick all of these because I think they'll be good or great movies. Anything with Keira Knightley will be going up on the list.) Two movies added to that list are Juno and Charlie Wilson's War.

First up is Juno, about a teenager with an unplanned pregnancy. Feel free to stop reading to see the trailer below.

Why this movie? For starters, anyone who's seen Thank You for Smoking knows it is one-of-a-kind humor, in part for the narration and editing. Take a second look at the how, when she tells her parents the father is Paulie Bleeker, the editing and cuts go to the the super-nerd from Superbad (Michael Cera as Paulie Bleeker). Again, when talking about the "stink-eye," the cuts are well-timed for the girl with half a face. Imagine a movie full of these, just as Thank You for Smoking was filled with similiar cuts to keep it well paced and moving.


The gem and centerpiece of the movie would be a great performance by Ellen Page. Her resume includes the suspense thriller Hard Candy and the walk-through-walls Kitty Pyle in X-Men 3. She may never have recieved enough attention for her role in Hard Candy, where a 14-year-old girl uses herself as bait for a trap against a pedophile. The movie is a two-man (or one-man, one-girl) show that she carried half the weight of in the tortureous settings. It is one thing for an entire movie to rest on two actors, but it is another for the movie to be so well-done in mind games that we keep guessing Page's age throughout the movie. (She was 20 at the time of making the movie.)

Equal appreciatation should go to J.K. Simmons and Alison Janney, who's few lines in the preview define the family's approach. I couldn't think of a better group, and I definitely couldn't think of those two together, but their sense of humor (compare Janney on "The West Wing" to Simmons on Thank You for Smoking and you'll start to see) works well off of each other.

I had the previlege of meeting Charlie Wilson when he spoke before a group of students at Texas A&M University. He told us about how he won is first election was it was the first chance for many black citizens to vote in his city, so he volunteered to drive people from the local black church to the polls, where, along the way, he would just tell them in passing the man he was running against had killed his dog (I don't believe he was lying about the dog as the man was his neighbor and the death of his dog is the very reason Wilson sought to unseat the man in office). As the photo above shows, the three key actors in Charlie Wilson's War have the look, and I personally know Tom Hanks has the character down. Again, feel free to stop reading to watch the trailer below...

Aside from the fact I miss Aaron Sorkin ever since his time ended on "The West Wing" and "Studio 60," and his film resume has been slightly small, there is one thing he always nails: he can make politics clearly understood. When the government student and the apathetic can sit down and be on the same page throughout an episode of "The West Wing" and The American President, you have some great writing. While I know the politics and consequences following the events in Charlie Wilson's War, I cannot explain them to you so clearly as Sorkin can.

The other half of Sorkin's writing is the humor, be it workplace ("The West Wing"), courtroom (A Few Good Men), or the uner-the-table deals (Charlie Wilson's War). Regardless of your political affiliation, the characters surrounding Sorkin's writing are just plain fun. If you didn't get a smile out of something in that preview, you weren't paying attention.

Furthermore, the timing for this movie couldn't have been better. Even if interpretted as scolding Wilson for providing weapons to Afghanistan (guess who's weapons they're still using now), the point of looking at the long-road and how to avoid more devastating battles in the future remain the same. The topic alone, if given in the proper light to historical facts, would make this movie one everyone should see to better understand the world around them.

Thanks,
--Jack

The Quiet Guy and the Wild Guy

If I had to put money on two actors that are going to become more and more of a household name, it would be Joseph Gordon-Lovett and Ben Foster.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the actor who's name isn't big enough (yet) to put in a oscar contender, but he avoids the major budget films for those with acting in them. He is easily the other side of Shia La'Beouf's career, no Transformers or Disturbia, but he goes for the understudies. In Brick (2005) he played a high school gumshoe looking into the death of his ex-girlfriend. It was a visual piece, as the former editor of personal favorite May (2002) tried his hand at directing. It was a visual success, and Gordon-Levitt completed the success by his acting in different character stances for the camera. Next was The Lookout (2007), where he is a brain-damaged janitor beside a blind Jeff Daniels. Both were convincing, but the movie was released at the wrong time of year. It wasn't a summer blockbuster, but a late winter/early spring drama of a heist. Gordon-Levitt's performance is thoroughly convincing as the semi-capable janitor exploited by "friends," and given the proper role, he could easily be nominated for an oscar. Richard Roeper calls The Lookout one of the best movies so far (this was said in May 2007). The story of his career. The best, until the bigger comes. His time will come.

The wild guy, and also a "third guy" is Ben Foster. You've probably seen him more than once in the movie, and you remember the character but not the actor. Ben Foster is that character. He doesn't play the leads. He usually plays the person with a memorable role, little screen time, a trailer clip, and large plot importance at either the beginning or end. The pop status (and fangirl obsessions) started after he was beside Kristen Dunst (whom he later dated) in the small-hit teenager film Get Over It (2001). The real start for him was in Hostage (2005) where he played the psychotic Mars Krupcheck in extra creepy scenes with Bruce Willis' daughter. After that was X-Men 3 where he played a small, yet visually symbollic role of Angel (seen left). In Alpha Dog, he played the supporting role of the dealer who owes money to the kids that kidnap his brother. He is opposite Sharon Stone and one of the few actors in the film that targetted the pop/white-gangsta crowd with Emile Hurst (The Girl Next Door) and Justin Timberlake. A true rise of roles came around in 3:10 to Yuma, where he is the third most interesting and intimating of the gunslingers. He plays Charlie Prince, the quick-draw double-gunner who has grown to have affection for Ben Wade (Russell Crowe). The performance and deadliness is unmatched, appearing almost as a monster of the West, a creature and force to be reckoned with. The final character is the stranger in 30 Days of Night, who's creepy line, "That cold ain't the weather. That's death coming." The line made the trailer, if not the movie. The signifigance of this filmography is the variety and the memorability he puts into even the small roles. Much like Val Kilmer switching from Batman to Doc Holiday, Foster switches from gunslinger to gangsta to semi-vampire as fast and easy as Christian Bale does for his roles. This variety gives him the advantage to fill any big role, and the recent history of the memorable smaller roles in multiple movies makes him one of the most marketable and promising actors right now.

Keep an eye on these guys. Foster is hard to recognize he changes his appearance so often, and Gordon-Levitt isn't in the most advertised movies, but I can bet you money one day they will be.

Welcome to the Red Tie Rant

This blog was created to remove the more stupid stuff from the other stupid stuff. This is everything that doesn't really mater and isn't cohesive thought. This is my ranting and fanboy spot. Reviews are on www.redtiereview.blogspot.com, my list of greats are on www.redtiegreats.blogspot.com, and my laws for movies are on www.redtielaw.blogspot.com.

Thanks,
--Jack