Hidden Gems #4

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

George Clooney has many accolades. Sexiest Man in Hollywood. Academy Award winner. Every guy wants to be him, and every girl wants to be with him situation. All-around nice guy. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was his first chance at directing, and in my opinion was a grand slam. The overall look of the film looks like a '70s flashback with a very distinct color shceme and camera filter, which complemented both the gritty and whimsical settings appropriately.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind chronicles that ambiguous secret life of real life television producer Chuck Barris. By night, Barris was depicted as a CIA hitman taking missions on his game show winners prize trips.

Outside of the uber-cool spy world premise, the movie also showed the personal bird-dogging lifestyle of Chuck Barris and his internal thought process of trying to make new shows. It was also edited together with testimonials from Barris' close friends including famed TV personality Dick Clark and Gong Show regulars like the Unknown Comic.

CODM's greatest achievement is spotlighting Sam Rockwell, who until this time was mostly comic support. He takes the lead role of Chuck Barris and plays him as the tragic hero the story depicts him as. He's witty and depressing, crazed and likeable, all at the same time.

This is also one of the few movies I liked BETTER than the book. The book dragged and was much more of an old style, surveliance area of spy work and Clooney's character, Barris' boss, was much less intimidating.

Hidden Gems #3

Way of the Gun

Way of the Gun is probably my favorite underrated classics ever. Christopher McQuarrie creates a fantastic film that combines a Tarantino-esque cool crime caper with the grit and attitude of classic spaghetti westerns. McQuarrie effectively uses the yellow, brown, and gray color scheme against a dusty western backdrop to make modern day feel like 1880.

The title refers to the "way of the sword" which says, "you live by the sword, you die by the sword," a classic samurai philosophy that sets up the gung-ho lone gunmen mentality of the characters and continues the comparison of samurais and gunslingers started by the spaghetti western originators. The two main characters are played to perfection by Ryan Phillipe and Benicio Del Toro who did such a great job of "talking" to each other without words that their long lines of dialog written by McQuarrie were written out for their symbiotic relationship. This was partly in thanks to McQuarrie's trick of leaving the camera rolling after the scene finishes and allowing the actors to stay in character and continue the scene naturally leaving much of the scripted work on the cutting room floor.

Overall, McQuarrie sews a very cool crime yarn in a world where all of the characters are amoral and everyone has a secret, not all of which are revealed. A modern cult crime flick with heavy influences from classic westerns is always good in my book.

9/10

Hidden Gem #2

Feast

I watched this project greenlight and thought that they were doing everything wrong. Dimension decided to supersede every ones script vote and pick Feast instead of even thinking over Affleck, Damon, or Craven's opinions. They picked a director who was borderline incompetent and unready for a studio picture, and none of the people on set seemed to like each other. But I have to say I was impressed.

The writers described the script as "Army of Darkness meets Die Hard." The story takes place in a bar in the middle of no where, where a rag-tag group of bottom barrel degenerates team up to fend of the likes of evil, hungry creatures

The actors do a bang up job, better actors than you would expect in a movie of this caliber. The direction was amateurish but fit the style of a very funny and scary monster movie. The gore was excellent, and the monsters were better than most prosthetics live up to these days. The story was more interesting than expected. Overall this flick is incredibly surprising at what it does.

Before watching of course, you should firmly place tongue in cheek and enjoy the gore and one-liners for what they are. Superficial horror fluff, but damn fun.

Hidden Gems #1

SLC Punk

SLC Punk is a great film showing the angst ridden subculture of 1980s and the inability of rejecting responsibility. The film also doubles as a well-made argument of the ineffectiveness of anarchy in society (the pure chaos kind poser punks adhere too).

Matthew Lillard stars in this tale of a '80s punk (blue hair and all) and his voluntary rejection of modern society. He is on top of his game with a Chuck Palahniuk like inner monologue as well as an energy for his fictional cause. Its movies like these that allow actors to shine, even those who are seen as the comic relief (a typecast Lillard may never let go).

I recommend this to anyone who likes to turn up the Sex Pistols to deafening volumes and hang out with friends. A great eye opener for incoming high school and/or college students who have yet to find their maturity (a proverbial boot in the ass, if you will).

Most memorable scene: Matthew Lillard's oral report on "The Fight."