The Green Mile

The Green Mile is a good movie trying very hard to be a great one. It's Frank Darabont's second film from the 90s, and like The Shawshank Redemption, it is a period drama set mostly in a prison in early 20th century America, featuring a bond that forms between a white man and a black man, and based on a story by Stephen King. It also features a strong cast, and is undeniably well made even if you don't like the story. The film has an extremely stately pace and feel, almost to excess, and tugs very hard on your emotions, although it's not quite the same as Shawshank. One of the biggest reasons is that the plot actually has a supernatural element, one that would actually qualify the film as a kind of fantasy story, and one that I imagine would greatly surprise anyone who came into watching it blind, especially since this element doesn't actually surface until a full hour into the film. A lot of things are like that though, since it's three hours long when the story seems like it could have been told in two. I wouldn't say it was too long exactly, or that it ever really got boring, I just don't see what the benefit was to giving every single bit of story as much time as the producers would physically allow to develop.

So Tom Hanks is in charge of death row at a prison. Most of the prisoners are decent guys who did wrong, but the two that get brought in after the movie begins are different. Michael Clarke Duncan is a saintly giant, the ultimate version of the magical negro. Sam Rockwell is a deranged, freakish bastard. Hanks is the boss of several recognizable faces as the other guards, who are mostly good men like he is, except for Doug Hutchison's character, a privileged piece of shit with family connections who wants to watch a couple crooks fry before transferring to a better paying job. Sam Cromwell plays the warden, and Patricia Clarkson is his wife dying of a brain tumor. Those are pretty much all the pieces that will be shuffled around, as the guards learn more about Duncan's abilities and realize why he ended up getting sentenced to death for the rape and murder of two young girls. The acting is good all around, especially the two leads, with Hanks' weariness over what his job is doing to him and Duncan's otherworldly innocence, despite the stereotypical nature of the character. It really is a well produced film, and I liked the mixture of fantasy bits with an old fashioned southern drama. But it seems like the kind of thing I'd struggle mightily to ever watch again, and the whole movie is quite possibly just a bit up its own ass. Still, I liked it.

Sons of Anarchy - Season 3

Not everyone has seemed to like Sons' third season as much as the first two, but personally I enjoyed it a lot. It probably helped that I ended up watching most of it very quickly, only managing to catch the final two episodes on their original air dates, which helped smooth over any pacing issues. And I can understand where people's problems lie. The show isn't perfect, occasionally having to warp believable plotting or character decisions a bit to accomplish a necessary task in the story in a limited time. And with how rarely I actually enjoy tumultuous romantic relationships in television, I really didn't like how they shoehorned in some of that drama here because they apparently felt it was still necessary. But for the most part I really had fun with this season, and especially its willingness to change location for a while.

It probably takes them at least an episode or two too long to get there, but the most important thing to happen this season was the gang's excursion to Ireland, which has story effects both immediate and otherwise. Obviously they have an immediate reason to be there, but it also becomes clear that the thing that's been hanging over this entire series, what really happened to Jax's father, is heavily influenced by the gang's previous time in the country. The shift in setting for a bit brings a shift in style, including a really cool redone theme song over the opening credits, and I liked how the show spent a bit of time with the main characters out of their element and let us in on how some of the other criminals in its world live. The Irish side of things was interesting enough that I feel like it could even sustain its own show, although probably not one with quite the same audience as Sons of Anarchy.

Ireland is really just part of the season though, as of course there's plenty of other stuff going on constantly for the characters to worry about. It wouldn't be Sons if things weren't just one second away from blowing up in everyone's faces. It culminates in the finale when a ton of plot threads that have built up over most of the show's run come together in one of my favorite sequences on television this year, offering a moment of pure fun and surprise that most shows don't attempt. Season two ended on a major cliffhanger and season three felt like a continuation of it more than its own entity a lot of the time, so I liked that they closed off a lot of things here, while also providing a definite direction for the fourth. I expect them to jump forward in time at least a bit this time, but it's hard to really say with this show. How much time has actually passed? Maybe a year? Not that it really matters, but the characters probably need a few moments to breathe at this point.

MI-5 - Season 4

I thought that the fourth season of MI-5 was a step down from the previous one, although it still had its share of interesting episodes and good moments. I felt like they were turning to the Islamic terrorist angle a bit too often this time, since it often results in some of the least compelling stories the show has to offer, although I'd hesitate to call anything the show has done thus far truly bad. We do get the series' first true two part episode, although honestly I'm not sure the bad guys here actually deserved to see their scheme get carried across nearly two hours. Andy really, they were dipping into spy story cliches a bit too much, with things like an agent's former spouse not being dead after all and a CIA agent orchestrating an attack in England to garner support for an invasion of Iran is about as silly as they've gotten thus far. On the other hand, a lot of the nitty gritty espionage stuff was as cool as ever, and the cliffhanging season finale involving a possible conspiracy around Princess Diana's death and a particularly well equipped nemesis is possibly the most fun I've had with the whole show so far. I've gotten a bit more used to the transience of the cast at this point, and I think it sort of works both for and against the show. The willingness of the writers to write out or even kill off central characters makes the stakes high in every episode and has resulted in some strong drama, but with how frequently it's been happening, it also makes it more difficult to become too attached to a character when you know how easily they could be replaced. It stunts character development just a bit when the people who get the most screen time are the most likely to leave, too. Still, the show has balls, and that's a good thing.

8 1/2

Famed Italian director Federico Fellini's most celebrated work is unfortunately not one that I can say I truly enjoyed all that much. It's a well-made film with a lot of thought, creativity, and inventiveness crammed into its two hours of meandering story, but at times I found actually watching it more of a struggle than a classic should be. There was obviously a lot of talent involved in making it, it just wasn't a movie that was made for me. I probably would have appreciated more if I knew more about Fellini's life and career, because it's known as an especially autobiographical film, as he delves into his own mind quite a bit. But as it is, that doesn't enhance it that much for me. I guess you could say it's about as watchable as an Italian expressionist film from the 60s could be, but it's still something that requires a lot of attention and forgiveness for certain production quirks.

It's about a film director struggling to come up with his next picture. He spends a lot of time talking with his writer and producer, meeting actors, and wondering what he will do. But while this is the focus of the plot, the film itself goes a bit deeper. There are tons of dream sequences, and they're usually interwoven with reality so before you know it you've transitioned from one to the other and back again. These scenes are often the most interesting in the film, because they shed light on the director's psychology, particularly in regard to all the women in his life, and they often have an energy that's missing in the scenes from reality. The film's score and visual sense are some of its greatest assets, with a ton of well chosen imagery and darn good cinematography for the 60s, and a mix of classical music that tends to enhance what's happening on screen. An unfortunate aspect of the way it was put together is the dialogue though, with every single line being overdubbed and often quite obviously not matching whatever the actor was saying on set. I realize that it was a choice by Fellini, but that doesn't make it less distracting, and with a movie that's basically filled to the brim with rapid dialogue as the director is bombarded with questions, it strikes me as a curious relic that I'm glad doesn't happen anymore. It's the kind of artistic movie that I think almost anybody could see the intelligence and craft in, although I think many would struggle to enjoy it as I did. Worth seeing if you love the medium, but definitely a long two hours.