Drive

The best word to describe Drive might be "specific". It is very specific in its style and the tone it tries to create, and you have to have a very specific mindset to enjoy it appropriately. Because despite what you might assume based on the trailers, it is very much not a typical thriller or car chase movie. I would call it moody and intense before I'd call it exciting, and I would say it's much more plainly violent than action-packed. Tension is built through the careful application of suspense, of waiting for something terrible to happen until it finally does, rather than with fast editing and big special effects. There are all of two scenes in the film that could be called legitimate car chases, and only a brief third one that I would really call action at all. The scenes are masterfully done, telling you a lot about the main character and delivering moments that really quicken the heart-rate, but that's about as far as it goes on that direction. The rest of the movie is more of a character study, broken up by flashes of brutality that let you in on how badly the driver's world gets turned upside down when he steps outside his normal routine.

That driver is played just about perfectly in my opinion by Ryan Gosling, who portrays a nameless, quiet young man who hides his capacity for ruthless self-preservation under a calm, if slightly disquieting demeanor. Gosling, his costar Carey Mulligan, and director Nicolas Winding Refn spent a lot of time trimming out dialogue where they thought the film didn't need it, and the lack of speech is a big part of the creation of the character. He doesn't say much unless he has to, and even then his sentences are as short as possible. It makes him seem unusual, almost like he might have some sort of slight social disorder that prevents him from being normal. It's most pronounced in his scenes with Mulligan, a neighbor with a young son and a husband in prison that he develops feelings for, who also doesn't talk much, making their relationship a very simple and sweet one. Some people have said that Gosling is just too pretty to pull off a tough guy role, but I think his looks actually benefit the character. They help explain why someone might find him charming and attractive even though his conversations consist of little more than a few words and a smile, and they also make the revelation of his darker side more stark and surprising. The rest of the cast supports him very well, most notable Bryan Cranston as his talkative mentor and Albert Brooks as a gangster who's menacing in just how indirect the threats he makes are.

I haven't said much of anything regarding what the movie is actually about. It's pretty simple, really - Gosling does stunts for movies and works in a garage by day, and occasionally works as a getaway driver for crooks at night. He gets involved with a job that goes bad, and failing to extricate himself and his new friends from danger peacefully, is forced to resort to much harsher means of protecting them. It's a basic crime movie plot, which succeeds in driving the action without getting in the way of Refn's direction, which is what made me truly love the film. The film is dripping with style, from the expertly crafted moments of violence to the uniquely slow paced character moments to the memorable way they shoot LA at night to the singularly memorable soundtrack, which features songs that sound like they were produced 25 years ago but match perfectly with the character's identity. Drive is a movie where I can see why a lot of people would not respond well to it, and I can only feel sorry that they aren't able to enjoy a movie that's not quite what they expected. It's so sure of itself in every aspect, and so mesmerizing to watch that even tiny moments that don't completely work are easily forgiven. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen in a theater. That's a significant caveat, but one that shouldn't detract from the message that I thought the film was brilliant, and it's still in my head a couple days after seeing it.

Finding Nemo

I feel like the first several Pixar movies were good but not quite exceptional like their more recent output, and Nemo sort of marks that transition to true brilliance. It's not a favorite, but it's really quite good, capturing the right combination of humor, excitement, and heart. I guess they really figured things out when they started making things sad. The movie doesn't linger on it, but the opening scene where Marlin loses his wife and most of his children is probably harder than anything else the studio had done to that point, and it works very well to inform the character for the rest of the film. Marlin searching all over the ocean for his son isn't a terribly different story from say, the toys trying to rescue Woody after he gets stolen, but the knowledge of that earlier tragedy gives everything a greater weight and urgency. You want him to find Nemo because you know it will destroy him if he doesn't. One of the best family relationships the company has done.

It doesn't take over the whole movie though, as there's plenty of opportunity for the expected clever action sequences and windfall of entertaining celebrity voices. Sequences like Dory reading the address by the light of an anglerfish and escaping from the seagulls in the beak of a pelican are a lot of fun, and while I think having famous people do voices because they're famous can be damaging in pointless, everyone here seems really well cast. Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres make a good leading pair, it's surprising hearing a very young Shane from Weeds as the titular character, Willem Dafoe is entertaining as the gruff leader of a group of aquarium fish including Brad Garrett and Allison Janney, and you'll probably hear a few more recognizable voices at some point. It's a nice looking film if not as eye-popping as what they've done in the last few years, and it tells its story and wraps it up at a very nice pace. Not my favorite animated movie, but a pretty good benchmark for what family films should aim for.

Taxi Driver

It's sort of hard to articulate my thoughts on Taxi Driver. It's a character study of a man who at first appears relatively normal except for perhaps too strong of a negative opinion regarding the other people in his environment, yet as it goes on he quickly becomes more and more psychotic. He talks about how the streets should be cleaned up, eventually deciding he should be the one to do it. I'm a little unclear on the amount of time the film covers. It doesn't feel too long, but the character undergoes a lot of change and some telling details are sort of skipped over. A lot of the film is just him watching the world around him, though it never gets boring and it's punctuated by moments of grave intensity, including the totally alarming climax which is only hampered slightly by the dated special effects. It's really a movie propelled by Robert De Niro's performance, at different times charming, pathetic, and harrowing, and without which I'm not sure the film succeeds.

His is not the only good performance, with Harvey Keitel making the despicable pimp of an underage girl somehow a bit likable, and Jodie Foster holding her own in an early role as said prostitute. There's some early stuff at a campaign center with Albert Brooks and Cybill Shepherd that doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of the movie but provides a bit of relief from De Niro's ever-deepening dementia, and also provides a glimpse at where his mind is truly headed. It's a good collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader, just one of many, as they somehow make the unusual story work. I'm not sure I agree with every decision Scorsese makes, but most of it succeeds and it seems pretty groundbreaking for 1976. The ending is definitely odd and can work with a couple different interpretations. At first it seemed to come out of nowhere and mesh poorly with what I had seen just before, but in hindsight I think it works better than something closer to what I was expecting. I still feel like there's something just a bit off with the whole thing, but it's certainly a staple of the decade and has me wanting to watch more by both the director and the lead.