Matchstick Men

[Lysander]

This movie, while deadly dull in places, was still a good movie. That in itself is amazing. Because I really, really do want to like this movie. But I can't, for one reason: they never make us want to particularly give a good goddamn about the main character, becasue they never make us particularly want to like him, or feel for him.

See, here's the thing. The main character is a conn man. He pbreks the law so he can get money. This already a dangerous move, because those types of people are not, on the whole, the kinds of people who us Americans like particularly much. SO the person m,aking the movie has to either go the Conn Air route, making the characters so delectably EVIL that we grow to like them, or the Ocean's 11 route, wherein the criminals are fun, and they're stealing from big-shot Los Vegas casino owner Andy Garcia, who was probably involved in illegal actions himself, and who no one really likes becuase he's a casino owner, and goddamn, it feels good to get revenge on that guy for stealing all your fucking money at the Craps table, doesn't it?

Matchstick Men, however, does neither. It instead portrays the main character--the schmuck we're going to be following the *entire movie*--as a guy who has no debts and a comfortable house with stashes of money everywhere, going out and conning trusting old ladies out of $250 every week.

I do not like this man. I would not mind if this man was crushed to death by a falling Valuejet. And yet we're supposed to empathyse with him over the course of the entire movie.

Well, I do not. The damn movie didn't even make a token effort to try and redeme the guy through good actions--just one half-assed "a lot of times I steal from people who don't deserve it. I don't like it" throwaway line, and that's all. Pissing me off towards your main character is not going to make me like your movie, you stupid jackass.

Grade: c

[Vitriola]

This already a dangerous move, because those types of people are not, on the whole, the kinds of people who us Americans like particularly much.

This country was founded upon rebellion, cons, criminal endeavors and backstabbing. We hate authority. We hate the rich, the poor, the meek, the pansyass doing the speed limit, the kids, the old people, the corporate bogwigs, the suffering soccermoms, the alkies, the druggies, the straights, the religious, the anti-religious. We download anarchy. We step over the less fortunate and spit on the more. We don't like anyone particularly much, and we're all criminals. What were you talking about?

[Lysander]

Wanting to be a successful greedy bastard does not mean you will enjoy watching a greedy bastard become successful for an hour and a half, and watching him become succesful then fail at it will not give you a tender sense of satisfaction either, especially not if the movie is not playing it off that way..

[Debaser]

Wanting to be a successful greedy bastard does not mean you will enjoy watching a greedy bastard become successful for an hour and a half, and watching him become succesful then fail at it will not give you a tender sense of satisfaction either, especially not if the movie is not playing it off that way..

In an America where one of the most beloved characters on television is a mafia don, where are you getting this from? Thankfully, we have, as a nation, become jaded enough to root for just about anyone who is interesting and/or colorful enough to get our attention, and Nic Cage's character in Matchstick men is both.

But if you insist on looking at it from a moralist stance, bear in mind that at least 35% of the point of the film was that all Cage's neuroses were brought on by guilt over his lifestyle, and it was that damn nagging sense of virtue that pretty much did him in. If he'd just given the middle finger to his daughter, or stuck to doing petty cons until the end of time, or just walked away when he wanted to instead of doing that last big job to help his partner out, then he wouldn't be where he ends up in the end. And he'd also still be plagued with crippling mental problems that make him miserable, which he is noticeably free of in the final scene. So there you go.

[pinback]

Lysander's problem is that he believed everyone really wants to have the same moral structure that he does, they just haven't seen the light yet. He has no empathy for anyone other than "his type", because he's unable to comprehend that there could be people who are just genuinely different from him, wired from birth to stray from his [for the purposes of argument] straight line.

That being said, here are my latest MICRO-MINI-REVIEWS, as I struggle to catch up on movie-watching for the past year:

Matrix Reloaded: ***. I heard this was supposed to suck, but it was only slightly less entertaining than the first. I believe that if you didn't like Reloaded, you either didn't like the first one (which makes sense, since they're essentially the same movie), or you liked the first one WAAAAY too much, thinking it to be some neo-philosophical (pun discarded) deep-thinker movie, which it was most certainly not.

Master & Commander: ***1/2. First half, great. Second half, not quite as great. But still very very good.

Matchstick Men: ***. An excellent character study with excellent acting. Just telegraphed its punches a little too much.

Lost in Translation: ****. Ranked four stars not because it represents a monumental brilliance, but more because it's absolutely flawless. Broken people getting a brief respite from their brokenness by fixing each other. Also, Bill Murray. Also, that chick is hot.

More to come.

[Debaser]

Matrix Reloaded: ***. I heard this was supposed to suck, but it was only slightly less entertaining than the first. I believe that if you didn't like Reloaded, you either didn't like the first one (which makes sense, since they're essentially the same movie), or you liked the first one WAAAAY too much, thinking it to be some neo-philosophical (pun discarded) deep-thinker movie, which it was most certainly not.

Having yet to see Lost in Translation, I'll agree with everything you say here except this. Even discarding any aspects of theme/metaphor/etc. that may or may not be or may or may not be imagined in one or the other or both movies; the simple fact is that Matrix managed to stay consistently serviceable if unspectacular on a mechanical level, while Reloaded didn't. The pacing was horrible, the plot was structureless, and the special effects looked decidedly fakey at times. I'm not neccessarily saying that these aspects are the sole or central reason why Reloaded is so derided, but they sure as shit didn't help.

[pinback]

Having just polished off Revolutions, I can say that though Reloaded might not have been everything you were looking for, Revolutions makes it look like an Academy Award winner.

I can't give it a fully NEGATIVE review, because, yeah, some parts were cool, and Agent Smith is probably the best bad guy to show up in theaters since Hans Gruber. But, whew. A significant step down from the first two. Enough so when the Oracle Reloaded replies to the girl asking if they'd see Neo again, "Maybe...", I can only cringe at the possibility of another sequel.

Look, Wachowksis, you escaped (barely) with a good original and two passable sequels. Let's call it a day, shall we?

[Lex]

Apparently that scene was filmed to link the Matrix films with the Matrix Online game the Wachowski brother-sister team are writing. It starts off with tensions piqeuing again, but mostly between seperate human factions, some who want to work with the machines for a better tomorrow, some who want to wipe them out, etc. Hopefully there will be one dedicated to returning the Matrix to Matrix 1.0: The Utopia.

I would so fight for that team.

There don't appear to be many agents around, but there are a few. I don't get exactly how the story works.

[Roody_Yogurt]

Okay, glad to see pinback liked Reloaded (as I did) although I do have to admit, I've been uncertain on if I ever want to see it again. Same goes for the third one. Same goes for the first one, actually.

As far as Lost in Translation goes, it had a comfortable style to it, but I dunno, Sofia Coppola's stuff always pushes a wrong button for me and I really get a sense that her personality is showing through the work. Like, this movie is about how we should feel bad for the rich and famous because man, it sure is tough to feel so superior and alienated from the working class. I feel this is shown in a couple ways, like hot chick's resentment of the model (who may be a flake but at least actually earned her own way into high society) and her disappointment in Bill Murray for slumming and sleeping with a lounge singer.

Of course, there's been a lot of speculation that hot chick's husband was based on Sofia's boyfriend (husband?) Spike Jonez, which she has denied. I can believe that she didn't do it intentionally but I can't help but feel that her works represent her opinions on the world.

And while Bill Murray can't help but be likeable and engaging, his character's unhappiness seemed just as laughably surreal to me.

I bet if I was sober I could have made a better argument, but no, THIS IS ALL YOU'LL EVER GET (since when I'm sober, I won't want to talk about this again).

[Debaser]

I bet if I was sober I could have made a better argument, but no, THIS IS ALL YOU'LL EVER GET (since when I'm sober, I won't want to talk about this again).

Hey, before you sober up, then, please riff on the Virgin Suicides. I'm the only person I know who doesn't absolutely love that film.

[Roody_Yogurt]

Well, I liked Air's contribution to it and sure, it again, did some things well, but the over-the-top preachiness of oh-aren't-girls-so-wonderful-but-you'll-never-understand-us -and-look-we-just-killed-ourselves-aren't-we-a-compelling -enigma-for-the-ages aspect just irked me.

Seemed a very lopsided stroke of the brush to me.

[Lysander]

Matrix Revolutions=LARGEST DISAPPOINTMENT EVARRRRRRRRR. I'm probably alone here when I say that Matrix Reloaded was an excellent movie--possibly, originality completely aside, surpassing the first movie although I will have to watch the first movie again before I can say so for sure--mainly because it introduced so many elements and left it open for the next movie so beautifully; there is so much possibility to cap off the trilogy with a story that is absolutely brilliant. So with all this potential, how the fuck did the Wechouskis manage to fuck it up? Simple: Enter the Matrix and Matrix Revolutions. A double suckerpunch of unfiltered suck that slams into the side of an unexpecting Matrix fan like something you should do to Anne Coulter. Everything from mischaracterization* to boring special effects to ridiculously pointless and long action sequences to trite, hackkneed and obvious religious paralels to a final showdown that does not pass for ridiculous and thunders straight into complete stupidity, these two medias (mediai?) have managed to turn one of the greatest stories I've seen into a sad, sad joke. Its like the people making them decided to take everything that I thought was at all good about either previous Matrix movie and make it into a disgusting, twisted self-parodying mockery of itself just to piss me off.

*: Mischaracterization! In their own fucking movie trilogy! Not only mischaracterization, but completely antithisizing everything they were supposed to be!

[SPOILER SPACE]

Ooo, look, Gundam scene. This might have been impressive--ten years ago. Okay, that's enough. Really. We get that you're in cool machines. Okay, *stop*. Fifteen fucking minutes of blasting monstahs? I swear, *Asteroids* is more interesting.

Yeah, I can really tell that Neo feels bad that Trinity died--so bad, in fact, that after about fifteen seconds of grief he goes out and beats the shit out of them machine bastahds as though nothing happened. Yeah, way to make us really feel her loss. You asses. Still, though, her death does have some use; it provides would-be movie directors with a crystal example of how not to kill off their characters. And hey, you heterosexual males out there won't have to worry about getting Carryanne's tits confused with Kianu's ass, so there's definitly that to consider.

Christ paralel! My, I haven't seen this anywhere except for every movie ever made! (Except for the ones that didn't have one, but come on, work with me here.) The Brothers, in the first two movies, took their mythology refferences from everywhere, all over the place. And then the third movie wrapps up the trilogy with an old, obvious and all in all quite lame Christ story? Sickening.

Now... I don't know what braindead crack monkey designed the agent Smith/Neo confrontation, but whoever it was needs to be fired, shot, buried, eaten by rats, big rats, foot-first, with the pbeubonic plague, dug up, shot again, re-buried, and the rats fed to bigger rats. I can so totally see Neo and agent Smith talking smack about each other's power levels before they take off and violently pass each other approximately 78466833467 times. For a moment they land and start hitting each other, and you think "Ahah! Yes! Finally, some figh--erk!" But, ah-hah-hah, the joke's on you you stupid dumb bastard, they just flew into the air and passed each other again! Mwah hah! Fight scene? Dramatic tention? Not on *my* watch! Fooled ya, didn't I, biotches? Hahahahaha!

SO... yes. In conclusion, Matrix revolution=steaming, heaping pile of crap. The first post I ever read about the movie was titled "Hey guys! I just watched a Neon Exodus Evangelian/Dragon Ball Z crossover with Christian undertones!" And the sad thing is, I completely agree. I'd like to close with the fact that I not only could, but will, do a better job at making a sequel. I know, because I already have an nearly-completed outline for a movie which would make Revolutions look like an even bigger joke than it already is. Which is a pretty impressive achievment when you consider how much Revolutions already blows all that is ass.

This has been... a Lysander productions review!