See Toy Story 3

Hey, you idiot pieces of human filth. Get up and see Toy Story 3. Find some way to pry the gelatinous blob you call a body off the couch, hop on your Rascal, take up a few seats on the bus, go to the theater, and see this movie. Try not to sit on any kids. They have calciumless, avian bones from all the soda.

I could talk about how the film actively directs your attention toward acknowledging how much you care about the characters Pixar has developed over the trilogy. I could discuss how Pixar's treatment of those characters has evolved and matured and how that evolution presents itself in a beautifully constructed kind of self-awareness paralleling the toy's odyssey with the relatively unseen events unfolding in the lives of Andy and his mother. I could cite the stunning short that precedes the film, as with many of Pixar's theatrical releases. Instead I will tell you what a shit you are for not having seen this movie already.

Toy Story 3 is fantastic, but obviously you are not. You are exactly what is wrong with America and the Western World at large. Settle into your permanent couch imprint and allow me to imprint something on you. I give more of a rat's ass about a plastic cowboy doll invented in the fanciful dreams of a Pixar employee than I do about you, a living (barely), breathing (unfortunately) human being (ehhhhh....). I think about you; about the fact that you haven't yet seen Toy Story 3, and I shudder. I know that we occupy the same world. Breathe the same air. Speak the same language. Have the same biological needs. It sickens me. You are so much less than I could ever be for not having seen Toy Story 3. Until you've seen this movie I have passed bigger things than you through my urethra, and they were less painful to me than the concept of you, let alone your (god help me avoid it) physical presence. My God, the fact that you have a corporeal body is just now sinking in. Okay, tangible person, let's get into a human aspect of the film.

I'm not the kind of reviewer who says things like "if you don't cry at this movie, you don't have a heart." That said, if you don't cry at Toy Story 3, you can go fuck yourself. Here is how many shits I give about the kind of person who does not at least fight back tears at this movie: zero. I'm all out of shits to give, and I certainly won't waste them on you. That was a pun on "waste." Try to keep up you slow, cellulitic, greasy, broken temples to corpulence. "I didn't cry at Toy Story 3," you say. You disgust me.

Hey, shit-for-brains, have you stopped reading this and gone to see Toy Story 3? I didn't think so. I don't understand how I could possibly be any more clear. How is this confusing you in any way? Go see the film. It is too good not to see. It is worth the money. If you don't believe me you are a syphilitic porn addict and most likely HIV positive. Get yourself checked out.

Oh, and don't see it in 3-D. I'm a vocal advocate for the technology most of the time, but it's more of a hindrance in this case.

As an addendum, allow me to repeat the advice I gave an acquaintance just moments ago: PIXAR CAN LITERALLY DO NO WRONG NEVER SKIP THEIR MOVIES.

A Movie I Like: 12 Angry Men

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

-Socrates (a pretentious but relevant person to quote)

It's a slow week as regards my viewing pleasures, and with the Oscars just passing, I wanted to talk about my favorite Oscar Nominee. Now, Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men lost Best Picture in 1957 to The Bridge on the River Kwai, which, if you're going to lose to anything, really isn't that shameful a film to lose to, unlike Avatar (thank God that scenario never unfolded). I began this blog with the goal of making fun of as many films as possible, but this update I'd really like to talk about what makes some movies great, specifically about what makes 12 Angry Men a great film and a personal favorite.

Lumet opens with a slow pan up the domineering face of the New York Supreme Court, following massive, impersonal columns to the chiseled words above them: "Administration of Justice is the Firmest Pillar of Good." An entire essay could be written on the excision of the rest of the phrase, which is "The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government," but we'll refrain in the interest of space. There are no people in this shot; justice, then, looking at this classical architecture, this lack of the human element, becomes an entity of cold rationality, ancient and infallible, held up by corinthian columns. And why shouldn't it be? Justice is the arbiter of truth.

We cut to a wonderful long take of the motion inside the courthouse. Nothing extraordinary seems to be going on. The camera follows a few men walking through the halls, we see a group celebrating something, presumably a legal victory, and the guard who quiets them down. Court is in session. In the courtroom the judge looks bored by his own words. He sums up the jury's duty mechanically, in a speech he must give dozens of times a day. The defendant, a young looking 18-year-old, has been accused of murder. The sentence, should a guilty verdict be reached, is death. And so the jury files off into deliberation and the film I love begins.

The ensuing story does not concern itself with blind justice. Rather, 12 Angry Men is concerned with what constitutes reasonable doubt, with motivation, with the dismantling of preconceived notions, with the power of dialogical discovery, and, most importantly, with people—intelligent and stupid, wise and rash, empathetic and uncaring: imperfect. The jury needs a unanimous vote, and all are ready to convict the boy, all but Juror #8, wonderfully played by Henry Fonda, who believes that, yes, the evidence against the defendant is strong, but there should at least be more discussion before putting someone to death. And no shit Henry Fonda is great in this movie, anyone could guess that. He's Henry Fonda, praising him is pretty redundant. More notable is Lee Cobb's performance as an embittered father alienated from his son. That shit kicks ass. Consistency of tone? More like consistency of shut up this is a blog.

As the narrative unfolds, we begin to see the individuals behind the initially impersonal idea of justice. What would bring them to accept the evidence so readily? It becomes evident that, perhaps, defendants in this so-called fair system are not necessarily innocent until proven guilty in the minds of those who control their fates. We examine in moving depth the preconceptions each juror brings with him, and begin to understand that justice may not be simply about Truth in some metaphysical sense. All have heard the evidence, some have accepted it with more rational reasons than others, but none, excluding Juror #8, have examined the evidence critically—none have bothered to question what they were told.

I love 12 Angry Men because it's not a film about truth. Whether the defendant is guilty bears no relevance on the action. What matters is doubt—the ability to look inside and outside ourselves and realize that we don't know everything. We can't know everything. In that ignorance is the beauty of being human. Our joys, our fears, our loves, our pains, all of them are bound in the beautiful ignorance that comprises us. We grow with every passing second, absorbing the information around us and becoming ourselves anew as we experience the world. Being is becoming, constantly changing and unstable. 12 Angry Men allows us to experience this process from an external perspective, watching as the jurors reexamine the truth as it is presented and, in the process, become. Beyond being a film about doubt, about the prejudice and anger and self-service and judgement we harbor inside ourselves, 12 Angry Men is a film about being. What is it to live in the world as political, social, communicative beings? How does that world attempt to shape us? How can we resist it, if at all? The value of doubting the world around us and the person inside us is immeasurable, and 12 Angry Men's presentation thereof is a priceless gift.

Starting a blog: a low content garbagepost!

So I was sitting in my apartment watching North by Northwest the other day and I thought "holy shit I watch a lot of movies what the fuck." Then I realized that I'd just cursed twice to no one and I thought "rude." It was at that moment that I understood how terrible every movie is. Every movie is a bad movie. Learn it. Love it.

At any rate, here I am. Glenn Beckett. The product of boredom, ire, urbanity, and good looks. The concept is simple. I liked watching movies. I watched a lot of them. Now I hate them. Also I'm a masochist. It's sort of like 12 Angry Men except there's only one of me and no one is innocent.

Will I review movies I hate?

Yes. I will hate them.

Will I review movies I like?

Yes, and you will like them, too. It'll be an emperor's new clothes situation in that either you'll like them or literally everyone will see you parading about stark naked. That metaphor doesn't work at all.

How often will I update?

Ideally I will update whenever I have time. You can't confine this beast to a schedule, son; I know no bounds. Click the follow button or whatever.

J. "Conrad" Cameron's Avatar

The Movie That Made More Money Than the Gross Domestic Product of Eritrea and the Total Donations to Haiti

Joseph Conrad's Avatar is a stupendous achievement in redefining cinematic experience. Even a simple loincloth, painstakingly rendered in breathtaking 3-D, symbolically ushers in a new era of visual engineering. As the stunning savages snort with bone-pierced noses, these Pandoran primates swing effortlessly through the jungle; they are masters of nature, beautiful in their bestial forms. James Kipling immerses us in a world filled with wonder—a world of, as a friend of mine aptly put it while discussing the refreshingly childlike nature of the impetuous Na'vi, "Ewok tree villages." The beauty of the savage and strange is truly overwhelming to the mind of the rational European.

I'm fairly sure that James Cameron has some kind of ancient magic dwelling inside him, and, judging by my experience in Avatar, it's safe to assume that magic is gibbering, grass-skirt, witchdoctor voodoo of the least sensitive order. No matter how thin and uninventive the narrative, somehow his films manage to remain incredibly successful. The Terminator series, its plot full of more holes than its extras, constitutes the most complicated narrative Cameron has ever woven. Alien and its acidic progeny boil down to little more than "There's an alien!" accompanied by some vague anti-corporate anti-expansionist threads. I'll let True Lies round out this action trio with this: the climax of True Lies occurs right around the time that Tom Arnold feels his testicles after a gun fight and, finding they are still there, thanks God for His infinite blessings. Still, these movies get a pass on compelling story; they are action films. We want Sarah Connor to destroy the Terminator. We want gushing alien blood to eat away at the hull of Ripley's ship. We want Tom Arnold to grab his nuts and squeeze a little. Films like these are suspense and catharsis, and in the case of True Lies certainly not a little tongue-in-cheek.

Avatar thinks itself above all this nonsense. It isn't a simple-minded action film; it's a call to action, an environmentalist tour de force. Its visuals are polished to a dazzling sheen. But there are some things you simply can't polish. What with the blood-lusting general, the greedy corporate shill, the be-loinclothed native, the pacifist scientist, and the handicapped soldier with a heart of gold, I'm certain that to write the characters, Cameron simply cut out a few paper dolls, scribbled a sentence of description on each, went out, and made love to your spouse. While you watched. And after he finished you gave him two and a half billion dollars. Peter Griffin is a more complicated character than anyone in Avatar. His motives arise from being fat AND stupid AND obsessed with pop culture. The triple threat. If Charles Foster Kane is a fully fleshed out and clothed character, and Peter Griffin is a skeleton with a hat, the characters of Avatar are the carbon dust of exploded stars that never made it to a place where life could evolve. Allow me to take a moment while I sip some coffee pretentiously for having brought Citizen Kane into the conversation like a cheap-shotting douche. Sorry, not "like." I am an opportunist show-off of the shittiest kind.

But so is Cameron. In the height of all things "Go Green," he releases this ham-handed environmentalist circus act filled with gorgeous visuals and nothing else. That's my biggest problem with Avatar. It thinks its inept hero story, lazy characterization, lazier treatment of race, and SPOILER ALERT deus ex machina nonsense ending all come together to produce some kind of important message with subtle lines like "these humans destroyed their planet." I'm still stunned that James Cameron, dressed in a green tuxedo, doesn't pop his head into frame over that line, tip his tophat to the audience, and wink broadly while doing the charleston. Avatar's subtlety is rarer than "unobtanium." What a good burn. Reread that sentence a few times. Soak it in. Behind the smoke and mirrors, the polish, the dazzling visuals, the glow of the silver screen, the sleight of hand, the christmas lights, the bells and whistles, is a film built almost exclusively from cliches, mortared together with self-congratulatory enviro-concern that offers no useful material to the environmentalist cause.

None of this would matter were Avatar simply a useless, ineptly environmentalist, dumb fun adventure film about flying through the forest with your man Friday. Going into Avatar with that attitude is going into a movie that you not only should see, but need to see. Avatar is the beginning of a new standard in visual effects. It is a beautiful but simplistic, mindless movie. That's all well and good. We should have films like that. Enter the clamor for this movie to win Best Picture at the Oscars. Are you literally fucking me? Is that what's happening right now? Avatar should and will win Best Visual Effects, but if Avatar wins Best fucking PICTURE then movies are dead to me.

Let's give Best Picture to every visually stunning formula blockbuster turned out by directors who always seem to weave box office gold out of straw movies. The worst part is that it's more than possible. After all, Cameron won Best Picture for Titanic, which, to an admittedly lesser degree, suffers from many of the same flaws as Avatar (lazy characterization being what comes most prevalently to mind). What I can't guarantee is that The Hurt Locker will deservedly beat out Avatar at the Oscars. What I can guarantee is that, wherever I am, if Avatar wins, I'll be the first at the party to drunkenly vomit on the spread.