"Stranger Than Fiction"

"...in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." - Ben Franklin

In a sparsely furnished office, novelist Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is suffering from writers’ block. After working on her novel "Death and Taxes" for many years, she cannot decide how to kill off her main character, IRS Agent Harold Crick. In an equally empty apartment on the other side of Chicago, IRS Agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), is hearing a voice in his head. His every action seems to be narrated by Eiffel, who pushes Crick closer and closer to his eventual demise, and the conclusion of her novel.

This is a good movie. It explores themes of fate and self-determination like in "Donnie Darko", and it uses fun plot methods like "Delirious." Will Ferrell plays a character quite out of character from what we expect from him, like Adam Sandler in "Punch-Drunk Love." But what I think is the fatal flaw in this film is the fact that, from what we are exposed to, Eiffel’s novel isn’t the masterpiece that we are to believe. While great novels have been written about lives of quite desperation, Crick’s life isn’t desperate, its just quiet.
4 stars

“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”

There have been few documentaries before that exemplify a foreigner’s journey through Americana like this. Borat Sadgiyev (an agent of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Tourism) goes through a journey much in the same way that Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” explored America during the late 1950's.

Borat’s movie begins in Kazakhstan. In Borat’s hometown, he gives us a glimpse of his people, like his nationally acclaimed sister, or his neighbour, or the town rapist. The artistry used in his film is more telling than was used in even “The Marathon Family.”

Though a good deal of Borat’s actions can be lost in translation, I believe that the underlying theme of brotherhood is truly felt throughout the movie. Some may say that it is ridiculous for a man to travel across the United States with only a camera crew, a producer, and a bear, in a used ice cream truck, for the purpose of befriending Pamela Anderson. What do they know?

“Borat” his been number one in the box offices for the last two weeks. I can attribute this to its only competitor “The Santa Clause 3"; which is just the out-takes of the first two movies due to the death of Tim Allen last year.

I believe “Borat” is the most educational film since “The Inconvenient Truth.”
4 stars

"Word"

(this was written for a meeting of some poetry group at the local coffee house)

Word.
Word Up?
What is the word? And what does its relative height have to do with what is being said?
Shall I raise my word to you?
Word up.
Greetings above all others.
Words up.
I give you my word on this.
Take my word, please.
Because we have a connection going on here. And this isn’t just about what is said. This is about what is not said.
Above words.
Not just a sentence, but a statement.
And that’s word.
Perhaps David Blaine knows the magic word.
Is this your word?
Word up.
Bird’s the word. Everybody has heard about the bird. Bird is the word.
Bird up.
What is the word that is going on about in your realm at this moment?
I hear your mother is sick.
Word to your mother.
Word. Word up.
Words are cheap, but up is forever.
That’s deep, that’s up.
Are you down with that?
Word up.

"Flags of Our Fathers"

“Flags of Our Fathers”

“I’m not a hero. I was just trying not to get shot,” weeps Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) as one of the men who raised the flag on Mt. Suribachi over Iwo Jima in “Flags of Our fathers.” This gritty, South Pacific “Saving Private Ryan” centres on the three surviving men from that iconic picture from WWII. The movie goes back and fourth between the battle and the journey these men took as the heroes of Iwo Jima.

Were they heroes? Maybe Ira Hayes was just a marine who took a lot of shit for being an Indian. Maybe Doc Bradley (Ryan Phillippe) was just a medic who did his best to forget the atrocities committed against his buddy there. Maybe Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) was just a runner who helped five other combat marines pick up a heavy flag poll.

Clint Eastwood has made a movie here where you can take from it what you want. For some people, it will reinforce their idea of war being the product of some perpetual war machine. Others will look at it as a story of racism, or heroics. The three heroes of Iwo Jima weren’t the real heroes, but they represented those heroes who never made it off the black sand of Iwo Jima.
3.5 stars. Eastwood has directed better, and his choice to write the score himself was questionable.