Is the truth the most valuable thing in a story, or is it what happens after it is told more important? Bloom played by Adrien Brody says, “The greatest con is the one where everyone gets what they want.” But isn’t a con merely a story that is used to manipulate people out of their money (or some other prized possession)? A story that webbed with lies that usually all the parties don’t get what they want, not really.
The Brothers Bloom tells the story of Bloom (Adrien Brody) and Stephen (Mark Ruffalo), two con men who want two totally different things. Bloom, who early in life found that being a con man is a pretty lonely life –despite gaining a rock star status in the underworld- wants nothing more than a girl whom he can love. All Stephen wants is to protect his brother, but when Bloom decides to shut his brother away because the life that they live is actually quite lonely.
So, our story begins with our two morally dubious protagonists and their silent Asian sidekick Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), tracking their mark, Penelope (played by Rachel Weisz). Penelope, had a fairly lonely childhood, and has many skills, such as being able to play the accordion, the harp, and the guitar. She is able to juggle chainsaws and is a creative photographer, but she is still very rich and lonely. The Brothers are able to give her adventure and meaning.
All the characters are played quite well, none of them to unbelievable, or too stylistic. They all have flaws, wants, needs that money can’t buy- companionships mostly- but all in different levels and for different reaons. While there were no sub-par performances, Rachael Weisz does a great job playing the lonely, but optimist Penelope.
Near the end we see what each person really wants, and the price that they must pay to get it, is it worth it? It depends on what matters more to each character, living in a particularly elaborate fantasy land, or living in a world where they have what they want, but are vulnerable.
While there is nothing really wrong with the story, or the acting, or the directing, I felt like I have seen this movie before and unfortunately couldn’t share the same level of enthusiasm as the rest of the group that I went with to see it, but despite my own personal taste, I would say this is a movie worth watching.
Two and ¾ stars.
Pros. Everything.
Cons. Perhaps a bit to redundant of a story.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thoughts On the Good Enough Revolution
The good enough revolution as written in the latest Wired magazine by Robert Capps is an interesting concept. The idea is that companies only need to make products good enough for a mass market user group to be successful. But what the masses want has shifted from the highest quality they can afford to getting what is good enough. Products need to be accessible, easy to use and shareable. For instance, the article talk about MP3’s as the perfect example of good enough tech. The sound quality isn’t nearly as good as CD’s or their earlier incarnation Vinyl, but the MP3 format has become the choice of most users to buy (or pirate) music. It doesn’t sound as good, but people can store hundreds of MP3’s on an I-pod Nano, and upload their own MP3 files onto the net easier.
The article made some interesting observations, the health and military industries are currently going through their own good enough revolutions. MQ-1 Predator Drones are being used by the military in many combat zones. They don’t go very high, or fast, and only hold 2 rockets. Not nearly as fast high as many of their fighter jets or bombers, but what he Predator can do is scan an area for almost 20 hours without a recharge, much longer than a pilot can fly without needing a break. Plus if they are shot down, they are cheaper to replace than a fully manned jet (and more humane, at least to the pilot.)
You get the idea, as long as a product is able to do it good enough for a specific job which people want then that product can do well in the market. We are seeing it everywhere, flip cameras, net books, even the future of legal advice is changing because of the good enough revolution. elawyering is emerging as a new way to give legal advice. Richard Granat designed and marketed applications that people who need legal advice can use on the net without seeing a lawyer. For example if a couple is going through an easy divorce where the two parties are more or less agreeable with each other, they can upload an application and answer certain questions, and the application can give them the paperwork they need to file the divorce. Of course this won’t replace lawyers as there will always be messy divorces and other lawsuits where people need to talk face to face with their legal representative, but for certain purposes elawyering is good enough.
This makes me wonder though, how long will the good enough revolution last? As long as a product does 80 percent of what we want, we seem to be happy-for now. Will quality diminish and die out? As almost every generation predicts as they see the world change in weird and interesting ways? Is there any genuine reason for concern or optimism because of the good enough revolution? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions; I know the world will continue to evolve as people evolve. New ideas are shaping the world all the time and it will be interesting to see how far and how long the good enough revolution will last.
The article made some interesting observations, the health and military industries are currently going through their own good enough revolutions. MQ-1 Predator Drones are being used by the military in many combat zones. They don’t go very high, or fast, and only hold 2 rockets. Not nearly as fast high as many of their fighter jets or bombers, but what he Predator can do is scan an area for almost 20 hours without a recharge, much longer than a pilot can fly without needing a break. Plus if they are shot down, they are cheaper to replace than a fully manned jet (and more humane, at least to the pilot.)
You get the idea, as long as a product is able to do it good enough for a specific job which people want then that product can do well in the market. We are seeing it everywhere, flip cameras, net books, even the future of legal advice is changing because of the good enough revolution. elawyering is emerging as a new way to give legal advice. Richard Granat designed and marketed applications that people who need legal advice can use on the net without seeing a lawyer. For example if a couple is going through an easy divorce where the two parties are more or less agreeable with each other, they can upload an application and answer certain questions, and the application can give them the paperwork they need to file the divorce. Of course this won’t replace lawyers as there will always be messy divorces and other lawsuits where people need to talk face to face with their legal representative, but for certain purposes elawyering is good enough.
This makes me wonder though, how long will the good enough revolution last? As long as a product does 80 percent of what we want, we seem to be happy-for now. Will quality diminish and die out? As almost every generation predicts as they see the world change in weird and interesting ways? Is there any genuine reason for concern or optimism because of the good enough revolution? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions; I know the world will continue to evolve as people evolve. New ideas are shaping the world all the time and it will be interesting to see how far and how long the good enough revolution will last.
Departures and The Ritual of Death.
When movies make us question our own mortality, usually we leave with an uneasy feeling and are quick to forget about it. Not so with “Okiribito” (Departures), a wonderful film from Japan that confronts the questions of mortality, happiness, life, death in the rawest, barest ways, after all this is a movie about people who ritualistically send the dead off to the great divine.
The story begins as most movies where the protagonist undergoes a major transformation, in the middle of that transformation. The audience learns that the protagonist has moved back to his hometown from Tokyo and that the last few months have been awkward. This is a great way to grab the audience’s attention, forcing them to start to ask questions. But another great strength about the opening scene is cinema photography, the winter snow a perfect white, the road still visible, going somewhere, but we do not know where, after all the character is in the middle of his journey, spiritually, mentally, physically and we must go back to the beginning.
We quickly learn that the protagonist, Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) was a cello player for an orchestra that was recently dissolved. Figuring that he isn’t talented enough to get into another orchestra he suggest to his wife Mika, (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) that they move to his hometown. Unemployed, he looks for work, and finds an ad for departures, by a company called the NK Incorporated, figuring it might be a travel company he applies.
Soon we learn that the job deals with dead bodies, which he would be, expected to touch, clean, and beatify with makeup. But he soon learns, the beauty of the rituals that his employer Ikuei Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki), perform to help send the dead off, beautiful and fresh. Eventually he is able to perform the rituals by himself.
The death becomes a metaphor for transformation. Not only are the bodies dead and cold, and then made warm and beautiful from the undertakers care, in front of the families, Diago and Mika undergo a transformation in life. Their marriage, strained from the move, and eventually from Diago’s work, isn’t a strain comfort; Diago makes more money than he did before, but a strain from the loss of prestige, and of the bigness of the city. We all want our lives to have space, and scope, we want to do great things, things that people will see, and say, ‘Hey that person is doing something great!” We want our lives to be full of adventure, and to ultimately mean something. But we often forget that our life intrinsically means something by the very act of living. That by our communication, our touching, our sharing with others that we give meaning to each other and validate life. Diago learns that while his job has no prestige, and that he lives in a small town with a fraction of the number of people as did Tokoyo, his life had more meaning because he was able to touch, and heal more people than he could ever have in Tokyo, that his job wasn’t a celebration of death, but a confirmation of life, that someone lived, that his audience, were people that were touched by this now passed on person.
“Okiribito” then becomes a movie that isn’t trying to make the viewer feel sad, or uncomfortable, but to help them confirm that their existence matters, just by doing what they do, breath, eat, love, work, play. Only then is the true beauty of the undertakers ritual of death fully bloomed.
The story begins as most movies where the protagonist undergoes a major transformation, in the middle of that transformation. The audience learns that the protagonist has moved back to his hometown from Tokyo and that the last few months have been awkward. This is a great way to grab the audience’s attention, forcing them to start to ask questions. But another great strength about the opening scene is cinema photography, the winter snow a perfect white, the road still visible, going somewhere, but we do not know where, after all the character is in the middle of his journey, spiritually, mentally, physically and we must go back to the beginning.
We quickly learn that the protagonist, Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) was a cello player for an orchestra that was recently dissolved. Figuring that he isn’t talented enough to get into another orchestra he suggest to his wife Mika, (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) that they move to his hometown. Unemployed, he looks for work, and finds an ad for departures, by a company called the NK Incorporated, figuring it might be a travel company he applies.
Soon we learn that the job deals with dead bodies, which he would be, expected to touch, clean, and beatify with makeup. But he soon learns, the beauty of the rituals that his employer Ikuei Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki), perform to help send the dead off, beautiful and fresh. Eventually he is able to perform the rituals by himself.
The death becomes a metaphor for transformation. Not only are the bodies dead and cold, and then made warm and beautiful from the undertakers care, in front of the families, Diago and Mika undergo a transformation in life. Their marriage, strained from the move, and eventually from Diago’s work, isn’t a strain comfort; Diago makes more money than he did before, but a strain from the loss of prestige, and of the bigness of the city. We all want our lives to have space, and scope, we want to do great things, things that people will see, and say, ‘Hey that person is doing something great!” We want our lives to be full of adventure, and to ultimately mean something. But we often forget that our life intrinsically means something by the very act of living. That by our communication, our touching, our sharing with others that we give meaning to each other and validate life. Diago learns that while his job has no prestige, and that he lives in a small town with a fraction of the number of people as did Tokoyo, his life had more meaning because he was able to touch, and heal more people than he could ever have in Tokyo, that his job wasn’t a celebration of death, but a confirmation of life, that someone lived, that his audience, were people that were touched by this now passed on person.
“Okiribito” then becomes a movie that isn’t trying to make the viewer feel sad, or uncomfortable, but to help them confirm that their existence matters, just by doing what they do, breath, eat, love, work, play. Only then is the true beauty of the undertakers ritual of death fully bloomed.
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