Playlist: Machete

Awesome. Coolest movie of the year. Let's see: Danny Trejo as the baddest Mexican on the planet (I'd love to see him in a Proactiv ad), Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan (either naked or in a nun's habit), Cheech Marin, and the resurgent Robert Deniro doing the kind of comedic turn he should have been doing all along (get this man a Ben Stiller restraining order). And the best use of intestines. Ever.

Robert Rodriguez makes fun movies. His Planet Terror blew away Quentin's Death Proof and his Grindhouse faux-trailer turned into this full-length kickass fest. And RobRod also seems to get fun performances out of his actors. Jessica Alba, in particular, is more life-like than she has been since, well, the guess-who-directed Sin City. Speaking of Jess, since she's a classy dame, they digitally removed her clothes for her shower scene. More proof that technology is evil. Sic em, Neo.

Here's some fun trivia from IMDB:

As Robert Rodriguez tells it, after conceiving of the character of Machete and telling Danny Trejo about it, Rodriquez started receiving phone calls at random hours of the day from Danny, trying to convince him to make the film. One day, Robert said to Danny that he was busy and asked why Danny can't just send a text message instead of constantly calling, to which Danny Trejo replied: "Machete don't text." Machete says this exact phrase in the film.

Trailer Park

Finally, an E.T. sequel. Seriously, how did this not happen before?

Playlist: Stone

When discussing a prospect in sports, scouts often refer to the player's floor and ceiling. The better the player the higher the ceiling for their potential success. If the player has a health risk or is still very young, their floor is also low, as in there's a good chance they might never even make it. Weighing these risks is the heart of player development and goes a long way to deciding the fate of your favorite franchise.

Average players, the necessary filler guys who allow you to field a full team, are generally low ceiling, high floor. Keep your expectations in check because what you see is what you get. Stone has nothing to do with sports, but I couldn't help feeling that I was watching a film with a low ceiling. It's a small story without much promise of being more than what it presents in its first half. I wasn't in the least bit surprised to discover that it was originally conceived as a play. 

None of which is to say it was bad. Actually, I'm not really sure if it's a plus or a minus in the ultimate Distillery sense of things (not that director John Curran is anywhere near the front of the Big D queue). I admit I lost interest during some of the slower scenes, particularly when it became apparent that nothing "bigger" was going to happen. I do think movies need that extra something. Not a car chase or an explosion, but some bump up in tension. 

The actors, though, are in top form. Robert DeNiro does his best work in a decade, probably since The Score, also not about sports, but also with...Ed Norton, who plays a white trash con trying to get parole. For the record, Ed Norton should not be playing a white trash con, especially one with corn rows. He's just too Ed Nortonish, too smart-looking. But he committed and I stopped being bothered by it by mid-movie (though seeing him in prison made me think of American History X.) Finally, stealing the movie from these two titans is none other than Milla Jovovich, getting the chance to show off some thespianic chops after years of kicking ass on screen. As I've mentioned before, I'm a fan, and not just because she's gorgeous (a word that feels oddly outdated to use, but also seems to fit perfectly). That said, let's just leave it with how it's a shame her nipples didn't receive some sort of Academy recognition this year. Travesty.  

Playlist: The Killing (1956)

If you haven't seen Stanley Kubrick's third (first?) feature film, you have. Maybe it was titled Reservoir Dogs. Ok, in fairness to our boy Quentin, he freely acknowledges the influence on his work. That's his thing after all. In truth, the original script by the director and ace noirvelist Jim Thompson (based on Lionel White's novel, Clean Break) is a non-linear, out-of-sequence, shifting perspective crime thriller template that is still in use today. 

Sterling Hayden is Johnny Clay, looking for one last score before he goes straight with his gal. He pulls together a crew of old cronies and desperate inside men, including Elisha Cook, Jr., to knock over a racetrack on the day of the biggest race of the year. What could go wrong? 

Some things that went right:

• Marie Windsor steals the show as Cook's scheming wife, chewing and spitting out Thompson's rat-a-tat dialogue in classic femme fatale fashion
• When Hayden's head heister is looking to lay low, he rents a room from an old cellmate's little old Italian father. The father's name? Joe Piano.
• Clay calls on an old wrestler friend, Kola Kwariani, for a favor. You can't understand a word Kola says in his thick Russian accent, but he's the kind of guy that lets his body do the talking. The body? Think George "The Animal" Steele. 
• The wrestler spends his days taking pawns at the Academy of Chess and Checkers. Five cents an hour. A struggling Stanley Kubrick made a little money playing chess in NYC before his photography career took off. 
• Timothy Carey, as sharpshooter Nikki Arane, is something to watch. Looking like a tougher John Tuturro and grinding out his lines through clenched teeth, Carey doesn't fail to leave an impression. So much so on Kubrick that he casts him in a bigger role in his next film, Paths of Glory. But wait, there's this: Nikki Arane is the hidden  face behind George Harrsion on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Seriously.
• Toward the end, there's a poster on a wall for a Burlesque house featuring a show by comedian Lenny Bruce. Some inadvertent cool. 

Spring Training

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Detroit Tigers star Miguel Cabrera got pulled over for DUI:

According to the arrest report, Cabrera smelled of alcohol, had slurred speech and took a swig from a bottle of scotch in front of a deputy. Police say Cabrera repeatedly refused to cooperate, saying, "Do you know who I am, you don't know anything about my problems."

Typical modern journalism. Where's the information we want to know? What kind of Scotch was it?

Playlist: Toy Story 3

The no-brainer Oscar pool pick in what was a down year for animated films (though I did enjoy How to Train Your Dragon). Not that it would have mattered, really. The quality of the entire TS trilogy has been amazingly consistent. And clever. The use of thoughtful visuals and character details that enhance the viewing experience is in stark contrast to what's become the standard cartoon throwaway sight gag crutch. This is probably what gives Pixar films their "heart" compared to the dreck of Shrek.

Which is all well and good, but I know what you want. You want to know if I cried. Apparently, everyone else did. Everyone. So, in what may be the shock of the year, I didn't. Not that I didn't get a little ocularly moist. I did. I'm not that big of a bastard. But I knew it was coming and that took a bit of the edge off, or at least allowed my testosterone to lay down a protective layer of machismo. It's that damn nostalgia, isn't it? It's the disease of this generation, by which I mean my generation, of which you have no idea since I am ageless on the Internet. Not immortal, exactly. More like interminable.

So, have I ever cried during a movie? Maybe. Maybe during The Pride of the Yankees. Best speech ever. Field of Dreams. Maybe Big Fish. We're not talking breakdown here, like the teenage girl in front of me during Titanic who seriously needed her coven of BFFs to help her out of the theater. We're talking about those moments that get you right there (tap your chest...no, a little lower). And it's nothing to be ashamed of either. We're being manipulated. Hell, we're paying to be manipulated. It's the same reason why you shouldn't try to stop your toe from tapping during some crappy pop song. Someone spent millions of dollars figuring out how to make you do that. Who the hell are you to stop it?

Thought of another one: The Road. Yes, I see a theme: baseball and fathers. The Road hitting me from the other side of paternity. Everyone has an emotional weakness. What's yours? What movies made you wet?

Hold on, that sounds like a Vin post. What movies made you cry?

Distillery: Christopher Nolan

Film	Year	Vin	Frank
Following	1998	+	+
Memento	2000	+	+
Insomnia	2002	-	-
Batman Begins	2005	+	+
The Prestige	2006	+	+
The Dark Knight	2008	+	+
Inception	2010	+	+
FINAL DISTILLATION		86%	86%

Key: + = Film Liked; - = Film Not Liked; x = Film Not Seen

Playlist: Never Let Me Go

What terrible marketing. Terrible. I remember seeing the preview for this and wanting to doze off before the two minutes were up. But then I heard that there was a twist of sorts. Then, that the book on which it was based was really good. Award-winning even. And then it got some buzz once people actually saw it.

That buzz was still not enough. Enough for me to see it, but not enough for what it deserves. This British countryside drama is actually a fascinating science fiction film, and one of the best in a long time. If I were to Hollywood pitch it to you: Atonement meets Children of Men.

Carey Mulligan (who I can't say enough about without coming away with a restraining order), the suddenly everywhere Andrew Garfield, and the contractually-obligated to be cast in every movie like this Keira Knightly grow up together in what looks like a traditional boarding school (the children picked to play their younger selves are spot on). It turns out the school is anything but traditional. And it turns out it's hard to talk about this film without undermining its power.

That twist I heard about isn't a twist at all because it slowly unfolds from the start when it's revealed that we're in an alternate history where medical advancements have made it possible for the average lifespan to reach 100. But, of course, what makes this high concept so powerful is the humanity captured in Alex Garland's script and Mark Romanek's direction. The plot and the emotional performances are intertwined, feeding off each other, neither one cheating or undercutting the other. It's really an incredible balance and a remarkable film.

Playlist: Buried

When we talk about ambitious films, our thoughts typically drift toward the epic. Peter Jackson's scaling the heights of the insurmountable Lord of the Rings is the most often cited example. But a lot of what we're talking about in those instances is logistics. Just figuring out where to start something on that level is a victory in itself.

But there's also a more compact form of ambition that simply deals with the craft of storytelling (the whole point of movies) and it's that which intrigued me about this film from the moment I heard about it. How was director Rodrigo Cortes possibly going to pull off this ambitious premise: one set and one actor for 90 minutes? Or, more to the point, how was he going to do it successfully?

The key, it turns out, was not to rely on gimmicks (ok, one snake) or cheats. It really is just Ryan Reynolds, as a kidnapped truck driver in Iraq, in a coffin the whole time, barely able to maneuver in the tight space and with only a cell phone to communicate with the outside world. I thought Reynolds did a very credible job in a role not in his usual wheelhouse (actually just surviving the claustrophobia of filming should win him an award). Really, who's to say how someone would react in that situation. Yes, he makes decisions I hope I wouldn't, but maybe I would make worse. I kept thinking of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and tried to remember it's probably not that easy to dig yourself out of your own grave (even with a knife).

As you've read, my esteemed colleague caught the bored bug a few times, but I was hooked by waiting to see how Cortes would dig himself out of the hole he had dug for himself. To my pleasant surprise, he showed a lot of creative discipline and stuck to the premise to the end. That alone is a plus for me.

The Hi-Life Reason #1

As we get older we tend to appreciate the finer subtleties in pleasurable things. Maybe it's because we eventually realize that life is short. When I was young I thought everyone lived till 100. That gave me a definite END. But in fact I lived fast, as any young sprouting boy would. Life flies by and now at a more mature age I can understand that as life flies by, the pace must slow in order to savor the unexpected variations in life's travel. Whether your tastes are in music, wine, scotch, film, food, or other diversions, you can find solace here...in the Hi-Life. A place to be inspired and to connect with those who may turn you on to a new life experience. Right now I am between Hi-Life obsessions, trying to come up with one thing that truly defines for me right now and what it is that most describes a Hi-Life moment.

I bought this last week for the "Big Game"...I really like Sam Adams and can remember the first time having some years ago with our co-host in the Hi-Life, Franco. This beer gets its name from only having the hops from farms in the 48th latitude region (check a map, people) of Europe and America. It's also an Indian Pale Ale which means it is a different taste then your normal Budweiser and Rolling Rock. It takes you a moment to actually swallow it (Ed. note: That's what she said.). It has for me hints of grapefruit (which I hated as a kid, but every now and then the hint of it is a good experience)...The Sam Adams website states that it has an earthy character, which I like and agree with...think dry, not mushroomy. Good beer and we paired it with Bratwurst for the "Big Game" . Generally I like to try the Sam Adams varieties...they have a chocolate one I had my eye on and the holy grail of Sam Adams, "Utopias," which is rare and they make it as if it is a scotch. Hope you enjoyed the first edition.

Playlist: Freakonomics

Never got around to reading the book, though I read enough excerpts and articles about it to get the gist. Important work.

The authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dunbar, are engaging on film and take us through some of their more interesting findings. The movie is broken down into segments directed by different filmmakers and, not surprisingly, my favorite was the one by Morgan Spurlock. It explores the power of names and how much of a role they play in our success (or lack thereof in the case of some of the more whimsical ethnic monikers).

One of the most controversial, and thus interesting, findings from the book is also discussed here: how the rise in abortions in the 1970s after Roe v. Wade is the number one reason behind the drop in the crime rate during the 1990s. Shockingly logical when it's put on the table like that.