The Rental Rack: Memento

Memento
Running Time: 113 minutes




I've got to hurry. Chances are by the time i finish this review i won't remember starting it. You see, i have a condition. I have no short-term memory; i can't make new memories.

This is the premise of Memento, the story of fragmented memories and complicated murders. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) wakes up in a hotel room. He doesn't know where he is, or why he's there. The last thing he remembers is his wife being raped and murdered, shooting the assailant, and being knocked unconscious from behind. He remembers everything up until that point too. And so far, this seems cliche: you've seen amnesiac crime-solvers before. Here's the catch: Leonard remembers everything up until his wife's murder, and that's it. He has lost his ability to create new memory because he's lost his short-term memory, the necessary predecessor to long-term memory.

Due to lack of evidence at the crime scene and Leonard's memory loss, the cops disregard his claim that there must have been a second person in the room with him. The only one who believes Lenny is him, which works well because as it turns out, Lenny is also the only person he can afford to believe. Day by day, to keep himself functioning, Leonard establishes a routine in the hopes that he will create memory due to repetition, somewhat like a lab animal. In the meantime, he has sworn to find and kill the second man, whoever it is.

In order to keep himself informed of his findings, Leonard has developed a system. He writes down the facts, takes pictures of people and places he needs to know, and when it comes to key aspects of the man he is hunting, Leonard gets new tattoos. Everyone, everything, else cannot possibly be fully trusted. Sure, there are those who claim to be his friends--there's Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), his old pal that thinks he should probably get out of town before the second guy comes back for him; and then there's Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), the bartender who he can evidently trust because she, too, has lost someone important to her. They want to help him. Or at least, he thinks so; he can't remember.

Of course, even chronologically this story is tough to follow, since it is told from Leonard's perspective and hey, the guy doesn't remember starting the stories he tells. But director Christopher Nolan doesn't just want to bend minds; he wants to twist them into double pretzels. Thus various scenes are shown out of sequence, sometimes showing you a little bit before a previous scene, sometimes going a bit further. Black-and-white scenes are perhaps the most key, as each one builds on the next using information the viewer has gathered through the haze of interposed scenes. Ultimately the movie begins with the ending and ends with the beginning.

Now, as may be expected with a film about a man who is chronically nervous and frustrated, there are quite a few f-bombs and such flying about Memento, so it's probably not the sort of movie you'd want to watch while babysitting. But if you think your mind is up to the challenge, the film comes with a hearty recommendation. Just remember: some memories are best forgotten.

You see, i have a condition. I have no short-term memory; i can't make new memories. This is the premise of Memento, the story of fragmented memories and complicated murders. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) wakes up in a hotel room. He doesn't know where he is, or why he's there...



Links:
~Memento on IMDb
~Memento official site

At the Box Office: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Running Time: 116 minutes





A man with a sweet tooth for revenge and a woman seeking a new ingredient for her meat pies. Stephen Sondheim's musical about a vindictive barber with a plan to slit his enemy's throat--even if it means going through every other throat in London first--and his lover, who is all too happy to conceal the evidence in savory crust has been remade again, this time by acclaimed director Tim Burton, the man behind Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas. And if those dark, quirky films are any indication, Burton's personality is probably the best to take this twisted musical and actually make it work on the silver screen.

Benjamin Barker was a mild-mannered barber, married to a beautiful young woman with a beautiful baby girl. Yet, tragically, Benjamin Barker was also naive, and believed the world to be his box of chocolates. Never did he imagine that there might be others who wanted a piece of what he had, and when Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) accused him of a crime he'd had no part in, he had nothing to say to the life sentence he received. Torn from his lover's arms, Barker was exiled to prison, never to return.

Fifteen years later, a sailor finds a man floating on the tides and reels him in. He sports a rather scattered appearance--his hair sticks out wildly, a white streak breaking through the otherwise oily black forest upon his head. He introduces himself to the boy as a fellow traveller--name's Sweeney Todd. Life has not been kind to Mr. Todd, and his brooding personality and harsh tones accentuate this fact.

Sweeney finds his way to Fleet Street, home of Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pies. He steps in, shocking the frazzled patron. Quickly, before he can escape, she forces him to try one of her pies--"these are probably the worst pies in London," she admits--and something strong to wash it down with. He inquires about the room above her shop: apparently, it's haunted by the ghosts of those wronged in it fifteen years ago. Benjamin Barker was his name, a man wrongfully accused, his wife poisoning herself after having been raped by the local magistrate only to leave her daughter in his clutches.

Todd's reaction to the news confirms Lovett's suspicions--"Benjamin Barker?"--to which the dark figure replies that that man died long ago. All that is left within this shell of a man is the clawing need to have revenge on the man who has taken everything from him.

One day Lovett and Todd are in town and they see Signor Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), the self-proclaimed "King of barbers and barber of kings." After enduring Pirelli's attempt to sell of some miracle hair-growth elixir Todd steps forward and challenges Pirelli's claim to being insurmountable in his trade. He deftly defeats the Italian and wins a sizable sum from him. The following day Signor Perelli arrives in Todd's barber shop with a threat: he recognizes Barker, and would hate to have to reveal his identity to, say, a certain judge. Half of Sweeney's profits from now on would probably stop him from making such revelations though.

Cornered by fear and anger, Todd grabs a nearby kettle and swings it into Pirelli's head, bludgeoning him continuously until his blood has all but stained the wooden floor. And so begins the bloodbath. Indeed, a movie with a serial killing barber slitting throats would be rather ridiculous without a proper amount of crimson flow, and as Todd promises his silver blades--his "lucky friends"--they will soon drip rubies. Lots and lots of rubies.

A series of events prevents Todd from successfully slitting Judge Turpin's throat upon his first appearance in Sweeney's chair, resulting in a furious "epiphany" of sorts. "There's a hole in the world like a great big pit / And it's filled with people who are filled with s--- / And the vermin of the world inhabit it / But not for long . . . / They all deserve to die!"

Thus begins a downward spiral into what becomes senseless murder, deception, and cannibalism. How murdering people will help get the judge back into Todd's shop doesn't seem to be an issue--all he cares about is revenge: "Not one man / No, not ten men / Nor a hundred / Can assuage me." With no idea how he will go about getting this revenge, Todd vows to "practice" on lesser blokes.

It should be mentioned that most of the vulgarity of this movie is not in the murders themselves. The blood was apparently orange (so that Burton could darken and de-saturate afterward) and although the spurting seems quite realistic (the penultimate throat-slashing douses Todd and the walls behind him in warm, spewing liquid), they are done just stylistically enough that you probably won't find yourself on the brink of vomiting at any time (except, perhaps, when the "meat" is shown in all its glory). No, the true horror of Sweeney Todd is the way in which Todd and Lovett become possessed by the crimes. What begins as a perhaps justifiable attack on the unfair, inhuman class system that allows a man such as Turpin to wield power unjustly against the poor below becomes a warped series of logic jumps--"For what's the sound of the world out there / Those crunching noises pervading the air / It's man devouring man, my dear / And who are we to deny it in here?" is how the pair justifying baking victims into pies. The final scene is so brutal in a psychological sense that it is impossible to leave the theater with an ounce of the laughter evoked throughout the movie by the incredibly witty dialogue.

However, just because Todd ends on a sour note doesn't mean it's off-key. Plot-wise, the musical is ingenious and inspired. The social commentary it offers behind the bloody veneer is one that all can relate to, even if the cramped locale of Fleet Street tends to exacerbate the tension a bit. Musically, it's amazing how well these non-vocalists perform. Admittedly, you might find a few of the younger cast members to be slightly annoying (young, British kids usually are) however the songs are clever and catchy.

The movie definitely deserves its 'R' rating, but for those with the stomach for it Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is an exceptionally tight, brilliant musical. Throw in talent like Johnny Depp and directing gold-mine Tim Burton, and you've got one bloody good show.




Links:
~Sweeney Todd on IMDb
~Sweeney Todd trailer on Apple Trailers
~Sweeney Todd official site

This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship

Indeed, it's outright cliche to use a line from Casablanca to title my first--indeed any--post [Edit: 1.18.08 I have now seen Casablanca. It was quite excellent]. Anyhow, with all the extra time i've had on my hands during this Christmas break i've done very little. Yet in the span of one week i've managed to watch six DVDs (three of them rentals), one movie on television, and two films in theaters. And suddenly it occurred to me: Sure, i've not studied film theory for years. For a while i'll probably sound like a moron as i learn how to avoid common pitfalls (whilst falling into them). Yet, if i find it to be something enjoyable, and there's a chance for a career in it--here's looking at you, EW--then gee, why not?

And so, despite my obvious lack of qualification, i am going to write film reviews.

In case you are curious about the title i've chosen for this page, beta movement is a sort of optical illusion that people experience when seeing static images with similar qualities. For example, a picture with a man on the left side of the image, and a picture with a man on the right side of the image, if shown in quick succession, may result in the mind bridging the gap between positions. Thus, despite the fact that you never saw the man in transit, you may report to an inquiring mind that you watched the man move from the left side of the image to the right--and that you saw him in between, where he never actually was. As you might imagine, this concept in rather important as far as moving pictures go, especially in older days of film in which slow fps meant that the film depended on people's minds to fill in the gaps--sometimes seconds long--between frames. For a very simple example, please feel free to examine the title animation.

I'm probably going to get a Netflix subscription for while i'm in college. I will also probably look into getting a job at Blockbuster for over breaks. That said, you can be sure that i'll find a way to provide a reasonably constant string of reviews, though perhaps not nearly as frequently as over the next few weeks while i'm at home.

So sit back, grab some popcorn, and let beta movement bridge the gap between my writing and actual talent.