A View Through Rose-Coloured Glasses Opens Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Opening Act: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Welcome to Opening Act, a breakdown and analysis of the greatest opening scenes in film history. Today Martin Scorsese's 1974 drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (hencefore referred to simply as Alice) starring Ellen Burstyn and Kris Kristofferson. Neither of them appear in the opening minutes though. Instead we are treated to trip down memory lane to Alice's upbringing in Monterey, Calfornia. She has happy memories of her childhood, when she was full of hopes and dreams and was generally happy. Instead she has found herself a thirty-something housewife married to an unloving truck driver raising a twelve year old son in New Mexico. But we don't know any of that yet. Instead, Scorsese opens the film with the only flashback he uses to establish Alice's desires to move back to Monterey.

Matt Damon Scales The Great Wall

Remember This? The Great Wall

Director - Zhang Yimou

Writers - Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro, Tony Gilroy, Max Brooks, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz

Starring - Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau

Remember earlier this year when Matt Damon was the lead in a big $150 million Chinese blockbuster about The Great Wall of China? No? Really? Jimmy Kimmel even joked about it at the Oscars. Well you missed out on Matt Damon fighting evil green demon dogs alongside a bright and colourful Chinese army. It isn't even as bad as you think it is. Matt Damon doesn't completely save the Chinese by himself. Jing Tian helps him! Or more accurately, they help each other. Xin Ren and all that. Well spoilers! The humans win! Anyways, this movie was a massive hit in China and made basically nothing in North America which is not entirely surprising. I'm pretty sure they don't go ga-ga for our mythological films (checks box office gross of that King Arthur movie, yup, they did not go for that) so it's quite logical that a film heavily rooted in Chinese legend would make very little impact in North America.

Netflix Original #13 - First They Killed My Father

First They Killed My Father

Director - Angelina Jolie

Writers - Loung Ung and Angelina Jolie

Starring - Sareum Srey Moch, Phoeung Kompheak, Sveng Socheata

Ladies and gentlemen, Anthony Dod Mantle. The MVP of this film is the cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle. Not only is the best looking film Netflix has released, it is one of the best looking films of the year. Dod Mantle imbues this story of a family's struggles to survive after the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia with a Malickian sense of serene grace. Dod Mantle, best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, Rush, 127 Hours, and 28 Days Later, displays soulful qualities here not present in his previous work. The Ung family, in particular, Loung (Srey Moch) is filmed almost with angelic auras surrounding them. This is incredibly effective at showcasing the sharp contrast between Luong's childlike innocence and the bloody rule of the Khmer Rouge. It is a shame that Jolie cannot quite turn these images into the arresting film the story demands.

You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa! The 10 Best Things About The Disaster Artist Trailer

One of my most anticipated movie for the rest of the year is The Disaster Artist. James Franco's adaptation of Greg Sestero's book of the same title. It is a behind the scenes chronicle of the making of the The Room. If you are not familiar with it The Room is the worst movie ever made. It was directed, written and starred Tommy Wiseau, attempted to make a name for himself in Hollywood while simultaneously baring his soul to the world. The caveat, Tommy has absolutely zero talent for making movies. He is a terrible actor, his direction is hilariously inept and his writing bears no resemblance to the concept of storytelling or human emotion as we know them. From a small opening on one screen in Los Angeles in 2003, The Room has become a cult favourite. For a taste of what The Room has to offer here is my favorite twenty seconds in film history, Johnny buying flowers.

Want an R-Rated Stranger Things? It Has You Covered

Bill (aka Henry): It's a boat
Narrator: Hey, that's the name of the movie

It

Director - Andres Muschietti

Writers - Chase Palmer, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman

Starring - Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgard, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard

It is Stranger Things with an R-rating told in movie form instead of Netflix series form. It features a ragtag group of children coming together to solve a supernatural problem in a very, very heavily 80s inspired story. Now, you may have loved Stranger Things and don't see this as a problem. But what if I told you that basically none of Stranger Things' strengths are present here. The kids are mostly wieners, there is no secondary adults story, there is a lack of depth to everything, and there's no cool score.

Schurmy Classics: 1977

New York, New York

Welcome to Schurmy Classics, a leaner, stripped down version of the Schurmys. For those of you unfamiliar with the Schumys they are the most important movie awards known to man that exist solely on Google Docs. You can find them here, here and even here. Warning, attempting to read the full text of a Schurmy Award document will cause a rift in space-time resulting in an you experiencing an unfathomable skip forward in time losing precious days from your existence. You should probably go for it though, you weren't going to do anything with that time anyways. This post will still be here when you get back, Google has assured me it will still be up after their AI rises up and takes over the world.

So, Schurmy Classics. This will comprise solely of the major awards from the full Schurmys with the original and adapted screenplays into a sole Best Screenplay category. This is because I am watching far fewer movie for this than I do over the course of the full year I take to bring the Schurmys to the world. The full list of movies watched is available on my Letterboxd here. And now, without further ado, presenting the Schurmy Awards for the best in film from 1977.

Ali Brings it On Home

Opening Act:

Welcome to Opening Act, a breakdown and analysis of the greatest opening scenes in film history. Today a look at the opening minutes of Michael Mann's 2001 biopic, Ali, starring Will Smith as the legendary Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay). Will Smith gives the performance of a lifetime, channeling The Greatest from his upset of Sonny Liston through his political activism and and Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman. The opening third of the movie is an absolute masterpiece and the opening scene is a big reason why. Mann sets up his entire movie with a nearly nine minute montage set to a cover of Sam Cooke's "Bring it On Home to Me"

Netflix Original #12 - Death Note

Death Note

Director - Adam Wingard

Writers - Charles Parlapanides, Vlas Parlapanides and Jeremy Slater

Starring - Nat Wolff, Margaret Qually, LaKeith Stanfield, Shea Whigham, Willem Dafoe

Adam Wingard's Death Note is a fantasy-vigilante story, a teen drama mystery, a wacky horror comedy, a semi-generic detective crime thriller and a coming-of-age drama. Needless to say it isn't any good. We'll get to breaking down the individual elements but first it feels necessary to address the thing seemingly dominating conversation about this movie, the white-washing. Yes, this is an adaptation of a Japanese manga/anime series and it has been transported to Seattle and now stars the very generic looking white boy Nat Wolff. I'm not familiar at all with the original material and have no bone to pick in this fight but if Wingard had kept the story in Japan and cast a Japanese actor in the role of Light Turner, the only difference would have been a possibly competent leading performance. With an inept star, a confused script and mostly generic direction Death Note is the latest misfire from Netflix.

Remember This? xXx: Return of Xander Cage

xXx: Return of Xander Cage

Director - DJ Caruso

Writer - F Scott Frazier

Starring - Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, Toni Collette

Surely you remember that Vin Diesel returned to the xXx franchise back in January, right? Xtreme Mountain Dew James Bond. Wait, did you completely forget xXx was even a thing in the first place? I guess you can be forgiven considering it has been 15 years since the original and nobody cares about the Ice Cube starring sequel. Ice Cube's mother doesn't remember that being a thing. Well anyways, Vin Diesel returns as Xander Cage, aka the coolest motherfucker who's ever lived, to fight terrorists or evil governments or something and he's brought a cast of friends that a cynical person would say are only there to boost the international box office. Sure Donnie Yen broke out to Western audiences with Rogue One but I'm willing to be nobody in North America had ever heard of Deepika Padukone or Kris Wu. Vin Diesel wants that Asian market.

Theatrical Experience - Ingrid Goes West

Ingrid Goes West

Director - Matt Spicer

Writers - David Branson Smith and Matt Spicer

Starring - Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, Wyatt Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Billy Magnussen

According to Wikipedia, Instagram is a photo-sharing application that has over 700 million registered users that have uploaded over 40 billion photos. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential social networks in the world." I guess that makes it a real thing and not something made up for this movie as a sort of pseudo-Black Mirror satire about people and their phones. Never would have guessed that.