I Miss U all my Blog

In a world where inflation has run to the point that the class system is ever more evident, Remy works as a repo man for The Union a company that among many things offers mechanical organs at a high price to those that need a medical solution. If you can’t make your payments, Remy or one of his partners will come and repossess your implant. The problem is Remy never sees this as murder, merely as a business transaction, until he ends up on the receiving end of a transplant. With a new perspective Remy becomes unable to continue being a repo man and ends up running from The Union.

Repo Man is an entertaining movie – entertaining but not great. This has nothing to do with Jude Law, Liev Schreiber or Forest Whitaker but more to do with the fact that this is a film that thinks it’s a Philip K. Dick story – the only one that can pull off a Philip K. Dick idea is Philip K. Dick. The world of Repo Men is a world where dystopia reigns, the government and corporations extort the people and the poor have no option but to run. The entire time I watched this film I felt like it was an homage to Bladerunner but wasn’t aware of it.

Also, whether it was unrelated or not I found it odd that this film follows so closely on the heels of Repo: the Genetic Opera. I have not seen Repo but it’s not every day that films about a future society that collects the organs of people who can’t pay comes out and yet Repo Men comes out only a year after the rock opera…

The great thing about this film was Jude Law. I’ve never really considered myself a die hard fan of Law, but the more I see him in the more I appreciate him. Even though Repo Man falls just short of being a great film, Law is charismatic, entertaining and manages to make Remy into an engaging and sympathetic character. Law is an incredibly talented actor of this Hollywood generation and I look forward to the journey he will take as he continues to expand his resume through the next few years.

I wish I had more to say about Repo Men but honestly, one of the reasons the film stops short of being a great film is that the film itself is a little confusing to figure out – it makes a left when the entire length of the film it tells you it’s making a right – and I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. I mean no disrespect to Miguel Sapochnik, but I almost feel that if the film were in the hands of another director perhaps the feeling of being cheated by the third act and the Philip K. Dick homage would be gone…

Director: Miguel Sapochnik
Writers: Eric Garcia & Garrett Lerner
Remy: Jude Law
Jake: Forest Whitaker
Beth: Alice Braga
Frank: Liev Schreiber

Max is trying to figure out the world around him and he’s very confused. His big sister whom he adores no longer give him the time of day and his mother is dating. When Max sees his mother kiss a man in their living room he acts out, throwing a fit for his mother and running out of the house; as he runs he goes further into the recesses of his imagination and discovers the land of the wild things. This is a land where the large, scary monsters are actually friends, and Max is king of it all.

When I was in film school a professor once told me adaptations weren’t so much about being literally faithful to the events, but finding and capturing the spirit of the story. The fact that Spike Jonze was able to fully capture the spirit of Maurice Sendak’s book and turn it into a fully realized feature film for Where the Wild Things Are astounds me. The book is all of 10 sentences about childhood temper tantrums, disappointment, anger and imagination and Jonze found a full length film in this; he turned it into a film about what it’s like to be a child without control over anything and being on the precipice of wanting to understand adult concepts and wanting to run away from change and anything that might actually make you grow up.

Despite being a brilliant film, Where the Wild Things Are will not be a popular movie. Like most films of its kind, people go into a movie like this and whether they are conscious of it or not they expect a glossy, happy children’s movie. Where the Wild Things Are is not that film, and it is better for it, but the fact that there is violence, scary moments, and that Max is a liar and sometimes a bully will turn people off. However, it is these things about the film and about Max that make the movie transcend from being a children’s movie and turn into a beautiful film experience. Through the course of a fight with his mother and a trip into an imaginary land Max completes a character arch, one that teaches him he can’t control the world around him no matter what he pretends and all that really matters is that his family loves him. This might be a simplistic character arch, but it is the arch of a child, and a child is what the movie and the book is all about.

Director: Spike Jonze
Writers: Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers
Max: Max Records
Mom: Catherine Keener
Carol: James Gandolfini
Alexander: Paul Dano
Judith: Catherine O’Hara
Ira: Forest Whitaker
The Bull: Michael Berry Jr.
Douglas: Chris Cooper
KW: Lauren Ambrose

Carol: It's going to be a place where only the things you want to happen, would happen.
Max: We could totally build a place like that!