Stone

April 27, 2011June 12, 2011 / nicholasdaletaylor / Leave a comment

Edward Norton and Milla Jovovich in Stone

Stone leaves the now home audience immersed discussing pseudo-philosophies, the placebo effect, moral responsibility versus guilt and the validity of a true character change.

Jack Mabry (Robert Deniro, Casino, Taxi Driver) reviews inmates terms and behaviors deeming them either worthy of early release or subject to full term. One such case revolves around Gerald “Stone” Creeson (Eward Norton, Fight Club) convicted as accessory to the murder of his grandparents in addition to the following arson. Wife to Stone, the “dime” atheist vixen Lucetta Creeson (Milla Jovavich, The Fifth Element) plays temptress on the outside luring a suspect Jack into her influential disarming prowess. Nearing the end of his incarceration Stone experiences a dark epiphany as witness to a needless murder afterwhich he seeks new knowledge and guidance for renewing his character; he finds transforming truth which leaves both his reviewing cop and promiscuous partner at a loss.

Zukangor, a fictitious eastern philosophy (found in easy to read pamphlet form) inspires this inmate to seek enlightenment through first “the sound,” which is described to next evolve into an enveloping light. While most note that people don’t change overnight, the shift remains evident in Norton’s portrayel of the character’s new found guiltless disposition. Attempting to share this disovered inner harmony with Jack and Lucetta only leads to unintended frustration and conflict. To compact confrontation, the same pamphlet later finds its way into the hands of Jack’s wife, Madylyn (Frances Conroy, Six Feet Under). Sharing with her husband on the porch, she describes the journey of spiritual development within the faith as beginning in an early life form (from smaller primitive life into larger animals), slowly earning our human state while all the time paying for the sins of our past lives. Although she doesn’t subsribe this doctrine undoubtedly serves as a fiery catalyst for her future. Do these new reflections lead these two characters into fresh frames of life or is it simply convenient self-trickery?

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What’s more daunting than the haunting truths of Stone’s past is the brilliantly transitioned opening scene between Jack and Madylyn where a child becomes bargained bait for the parents’ future dissolving into the present day couple seated in church. Mixed throughout the film are soundscapes of continuous judgement, religious talk radio and fear evoking news reports which pair the internal maddening monologue of the old man approaching retirement.

Daring departures sometimes falter but not in this instance. Jovavich proves the perfect player balancing pseudo-innocence with fearless frivolity. While often viewed as the super powered action heroine, this actress flaunts verile versatility and an unwavering gaze of paralyzing seduction. Do not dismiss such a complimentary critique as simply another assimilated, typical lusty role. A subtle madness lies behind those eyes.

While contrary to some of the earlier, established reviews (as from Rex Reed of the New York Observer) which bash the premise and the performers left and right a second opinion for film is always sound; a good movie entertains while either educating or inspiring intellectual conversation and to end in an agreeing last line quote from Reed, “Wait for the DVD,” it is here. This rainy day selection is a quick Red Box away.

Stone

running time 105 min., written by Angus MacLachlan, directed by John Curren

The Life and Death of Planet Earth

April 24, 2011August 21, 2011 / nicholasdaletaylor / Leave a comment

In observance of the recent passing holidays and emergence of spring my twelfth pick focuses on cycles, indeed the greatest of our globe, The Life and Death of Planet Earth: how the new science of astrobiology charts the ultimate fate of our world.

Astrobiology is a relatively new science emerging as a culmination of astronomy, biology and paleontology and offers a predictive view into the future inevitable demise of our present planet. Yet, eschatologically speaking, what is the significance of data that does not include the walk of our species? In other words, when our world is engulfed by the ever expanding sun the human race will have either suffered earlier extinction or ventured into a a galactic pursuit of new livable terrain.

Consider the batteries in your mouse. Sometimes our intelligent computers will alert us with a “low battery” message. This allows for a new mark on the shopping list, “pick up batteries,” and ultimately for you the reader to continue navigating your way through this article and onward towards an abundance of web information. Given the significant stretch of planetary life, Earth’s “low battery” indication may have already lit. Compressing 4.6 billion years of earthly existence into the face of a clock leaves Homo sapiens marking only the “last two seconds of [a] twenty-four-hour day” (pg. 14). Accounting for only our recorded history of civilization those seconds are even further reduced.

As the book moves through the eons, eras and periods it visits evidence of the stratigraphic record, the harmony of our encircling satellite and a delicate axis tilt, past the explosions of life as presented in the Burgess Shale (pg. 122) on into shorter days, returning super continents, uninhabitable conditions and a fascinating chapter dedicated to the loss of oceans. To anthropomorphize, visualize the planet as a living organism not unlike a common individual cell, life’s biochemical sphere; now relate the emanating energy field or human aura if you will to the images captured by “‘Carruther’s camera'” from Apollo 16 that “provided stunning images, which show Earth to be surrounded by a ghostly halo of fluorescing hydrogen gas” (pg. 136). While this ring extends only “a few tens of kilometers before it is lost in the blackness of space,” observation within the ultraviolet range reveals a strange “Lyman alpha aura [extending] tens of thousands of kilometers outward, a sphere of escaping gas much larger than the Earth itself” (pg. 136). To those less inclined to hire images on ones own accord a highly recognizable introduction from Universal Pictures proves picturesque.

Click here to buy The Life and Death of Planet Earth

As escaping elements and gravitating atoms have, do and continue to leave us I am reminded of one final quote highly relevant to the subject at hand. “Yet even today, less than 1 percent of the original hydrogen of cosmos–the simplest atom–has been converted to more complex elements. The atoms of your body–and indeed, of our world–are products of evolutionary recycling in the cosmos” (pg. 26).

All cosmos aside, at the local level the book contains references to The University of Chicago’s Jack Sepkoski and Chicago Paleontologist David Raup and their respected contributions to the argument of diversification and introduction of the term “background extinction rates” (pgs. 41, 45).

To say the long and short, it is a good science read.

Source Code

April 20, 2011June 12, 2011 / nicholasdaletaylor / Leave a comment

Source Code provides for a realization of entertainment that merits repeating.

Anyone who frequents the movies may find themselves stumped by a paralyzing plethora of sequels for the summer line-up of silver screen cinema. Thankfully, like a man emerging from a cold, metallic chamber taking in a much-needed breath, writer Ben Ripley lays out a script of clock breaking originality.

An inbound Chicago train contains a bomb which, in one reality, has exploded. Believed to be the first of many attacks on our fair city, one man holds the needed neuro-know-how.

Soldier Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain, 2005 ) awakes to find himself at the core of an experimental homeland protection program where the subject undergoes “time reassignment,” for a duration of eight minutes in order to recover data to avert future atrocious acts. Proving a jarring task for a performer, Jake delivers a highly believable sense of initial disorientation traveling through a well-sustained arc of discovery into a grounded sense of his transubstantiated self.

While having to cope with blinding bursts hurling Stevens back into the loop, he faces a mirror to see a face not his own. He inhabits another man’s body, one of similar physiological traits. Cycling through suspects while retrieving bits of data our Quantum Leap-like soldier is guided by the face of Coleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air, 2009) who must eventually make a choice of epic moral proportions concerning the duty and duration for the future program, the weight of which lands within the full circle journey of dueling dualities and parallel worlds.

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Ironically, during always approaching chaos the chance for love at first sight remains on continuously play as our protagonist falls for Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan, Gone Baby Gone, 2007) only to see her die time and time again. Compelled and driven towards absolute truth Colter mangles his way past repetition and panning paranoia through multi-dimensional plot lines racing to the hub of the downtown Chicago transit heart.

Among others within the intimate cast of characters are Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright, Casino Royale, 2006) the man in charge of the current version of the project and Derek Frost (Michael Arden, The Good Shepherd, 2006).

Finally, to those bent towards a disposition where nothing can be original, only rediscovered and rehashed, I simply quote Colter’s character, “It’s the same train but it’s different.”

Source Code is a refreshing flash of timely thought-provoking escapism directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, 2009).