Rainn Wilson rocks The Rocker

I saw The Rocker on Friday night. I love Rainn Wilson on The Office, he plays a character named Dwight Shrute who somehow manages to steal the show. (In my opinion.) I wasn’t sure what to expect out of his feature debut as the lead character, though I had appreciated his cameo in Juno, and his roles in My Super Ex-Girlfriend and The Last Mimzy. This was really HIS film. He carried it off admirably. Rainn Wilson has such an unusual charisma about him, both dorky and charming, likable and vaguely off putting at the same time that he is a real magnet for the eye on screen. You are literally waiting to see what he will do next, his face can make the strangest gross out contortions and then moments later look bereft and all little boy lost. In this film he plays a man stuck in a moment that happened 20 years ago when he was booted from a band that went on to great fame. He has burned with rage ever since and when his Emo nephew asks Fish (Rainn) to sit in as the drummer for the Prom gig his band ADD has managed to scare up, all hell breaks loose. While the plot can be a bit predictable, what’s fresh are the supporting actors who play ADD, the nephew’s band. A couple of faces will be familiar from SuperBad. The performances all around add depth and development to the relationships which relieve it of the one note gimmick it could have been in the wrong hands. Poignant and sweet with a clear message. I.E. hope and optimism and the values of friendship versus the values of shallow, self serving, self promoting pursuit of fame and wealth. Overall a nice little pic. A perfect Friday night flick.

I've Fallen for The Fall

I went to see The Fall by Tarsem. The film was amazing, truly beautiful, a veritable work of art.




I got goosebumps watching it, I cried, I gaped open mouthed at some of the visuals, and the music was haunting and evocative. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92: II. Allegretto (Instrumental). This movie is now on my list of top 10 of all time, which is saying something. It’s about the nature of storytelling and how the listener or reader and the storyteller are collaborators in the creative process. The main character is a little girl named Alexandra. While in a hospital in 1920′s California, she meets Roy, played by Pushing Daisies’s Lee Pace. He tells her an epic story because he wants to trick her into stealing morphine for him so he can commit suicide. He is in a deep depression over the loss of a girlfriend he was madly in love with and a terrible injury he's had on set during his job as a Hollywood stunt man. When he lost his mojo, he lost the girl, who took up with a rich actor.
When he starts the story he introduces each of the characters and as he does, we see them through the eyes of Alexandra’s imagination accompanied by the sound of Roy’s hypnotic voice. He tells of the Indian married to the most beautiful squaw in the land, and Alexandra who has only ever seen an Indian from India imagines him, in his traditional Asian Indian garb with his beautiful wife. Is the story really a product of Roy’s imagination or Alexandra’s? There are times when Alexandra herself interrupts and changes the story, exerting the insistence and power of a child’s boundless hope against Roy’s loss and despair.
It’s also about the redemptive power of stories. Combine that with arguably some of the richest, most powerful, and eye dazzling imagery ever shot on film and it’s easy to see why Tarsem is considered a genius in many circles. I’ve been reduced to watching the trailer over and over on my iPod to hear the music.
Still, it’s worth it.


I also admire Lee Pace, the lead actor who plays the Black Bandit, and the young actress Cantica Untaru who is the female lead is truly magical. Here they are, as they live in her imagination, guided by the words of his storytelling.