79. Get Low

Davis Theater

In the heart of Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood (or Lincoln Square, depending on how specific you want to be), the Davis Theater is one of Chicago's more than five hundred theaters, past and present. Cinema Treasures lists 24 Chicago theaters still open and showing movies today (in 2013) (though it also lists 24 for San Francisco, which my most liberal counting can only number as 22).

The theater was built in 1918 as a ~1,500 seat, one screen auditorium originally known as the Pershing Theater. The entrance is on Lincoln Ave., but the auditorium itself runs parallel to Lincoln Ave., behind the other shallow store fronts. In its nearly one hundred year career, the Davis Theater has shown both first-run and second-run movies, movies in English and in German, and both studio and independent features (source). Divided into four separate smaller auditoriums in the 1980s, the theater now shows both mainstream and art-house at the same time.

Outside, the building has a great old facade and blade.

Tickets are sold inside the door through what looks to me like an old bank teller window.

The lobby, with its low ceilings and minimalist decor, evokes none of the original charm it must have had at one point. I enjoyed the various movie posters on display, but the structure itself is unimpressive.

The auditoriums are the negative surprise, though. The largest auditorium seats only 228, while the smallest seats 171; the theater has 815 seats in total. In my auditorium, the floor actually slanted, horizontally, from left to right (you can see this effect in the picture below), such that I was sitting just slightly uphill from my girlfriend who was to my right. Very odd. The seats rock, but are a bit too loose.

The Davis is only the 5th non-Bay Area theater that I visited in 2010 (and my first theater outside of California, which would eventually grow to include California, Illinois, Nevada, and Arizona). Though I later moved within walking distance of the Davis, and lived there for more than a year, I nevertheless only visited it another four times, instead spreading my viewings out among ten different theaters in the greater Chicago area. This variety was driven partly by convenience of meeting up with friends, partly by film selection, but also partly because the auditoriums at the Davis leave much to be desired. (Though I am ever grateful for their air conditioning on a hot, humid summer day.)

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Pre-Show

An ad for Bleu de Chanel cologne is both interesting and confusing. It slams together competing narratives of a man looking at, chasing, or otherwise interacting with a few different women, but culminates in the disconnected statement, "I'm not going to be the person I'm expected to be anymore." Other than those scented inserts in magazines, fragrance advertising just doesn't make sense.

Filmed either in conjunction with or at least knowledge of the upcoming Tron sequel, a Scion commercial has its various colored cars racing through a futuristic cityscape, while the buildings and roads glide mechanical roadblocks into the path of the oncoming cars. Has the feel of Tron's cycle races.

I'm out of the loop on the Macy's parade, and what it's like to be at Macy's during the holidays, but this commercial suggests that the department store is all abuzz with preparations for the upcoming season. To fetch a pair of shoes, a store clerk must navigate a warehouse filled with celebrities, each fine-tuning their respective products in anticipation of launch day. Martha Stewart has a table of wares; Jennifer Lopez sprays perfume on a corsage for the clerk; Puff Daddy poses in a suit; Donald Trump badgers one of Santa's elves; and there are a few more cameos I can't place.

When a commercial shows a hero using their product, the message is clear: use the product. When the commercial shows a villain using a competitor's product, the message is mostly clear: don't use that other product; use ours. But when a commercial shows a villain we love to hate waxing tactlessly on a variety of topics, saying some things we guiltily agree with, it's really confusing what exactly we're supposed to do with the information. Jane Lynch, as Glee's tough-as-nails Coach Sue, speaks out against animals and rain forests, kids and education, artists and the arts, and in general being a good person. The commercial ends with "Don't be a Sue", and encourages me to join American Express's Members Project, which seems tailored to lazy people like me who contribute nothing charitable to the world, but nonetheless want a pat on the back every time I "like" a charitable organization on Facebook. What's really confusing about this spot is that I didn't know who "Sue" was at the time. I was left wondering if "Don't be a Sue" implied, "...be a Jane", and who the hell put this commercial together that makes fun of environmentalism, education, and the arts, not infrequent targets by a certain political demographic. Now that I get it, I'm glad that Jane is on my side. And apparently, so is American Express.

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Trailers

The Social Network

(Previously reviewed)

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Get Low

I'm not going to go into great detail here, because although I enjoyed this movie, three years after the fact I'm not recalling enough to respond to it in a meaningful way.

In Waking Ned Devine, a living man lends his name to a dead man, and gets the dead man's name in return, so the town can collect on the dead man's lottery winnings. As a result, he is able to attend a funeral where he is eulogized by his best friend, in a manner of sorts. That touching happenstance is the central premise of Get Low.

Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) is a reclusive hermit. Perhaps nearing the end of his life, he decides to hold a public accounting of himself. He invites the locals to come share stories about him, which at first we can assume is to satisfy some vanity in himself, but soon we get the idea that noone has anything good to say about him, and he knows it. Felix promises to be the main attraction at his own funeral, which he hires Lucas Black and undertaker Bill Murray to promote. (Murray's undertaker, having moved to this rural town from the city, and being unpleasantly surprised by the longevity of rural folk, says, "One thing about Chicago is people know how to die." What a thing to be nostalgic for.)

Why is Felix such a curmudgeon? Sissy Spacek drifts into the picture as someone who once knew him in a more tender way, and as with most movies from Citizen Kane to Revenge of the Sith, an old man's grumpiness can be explained by some deterministic event that cast him down the path of darkness, only to fight back with a last-minute, death bed repentance (in the words of minister Bart Simpson).

The twist here is that, whereas in most movies the curmudgeon, having forgotten his purity, must be reminded of it, Felix has never lost sight of that event that set him apart, and, most importantly, has never forgiven himself for it. His silent exile purposes not to evade judgement, but to deny people the opportunity to grant forgiveness that by his own accounting, Felix doesn't deserve.

78. The Expendables

Winchester 21

The Winchester 21 sits directly across from San Jose's Winchester Mystery House (its land was once part of that same estate). Built in 1963 by Syufy Enterprises, the theater is the first of Syufy's "Century" theaters, which would grow to become one of the largest theater circuits in the country (source). A few years later, Century expanded its footprint on the lot with two additional domed buildings: the Century 22 (expanded to three domes in the 1970s) and the Century 23 (now twinned).

Though Cinemark purchased Century in 2006, a restriction on the sale of the Winchester lot excluded the three theaters from the sale (though not that of the nearby Century 24). (The theaters were renamed from "Century" to "Winchester" in the fine print, but the original Century logo still decorates their awnings and marquee.) Syufy, seemingly out of the movie business, continues to run the three Winchester theaters to this day. There is speculation, however, that when the lot's lease is up in 2013, the theaters will be demolished.

Inside the Winchester 21, there is an arcade to one side, and long swooping ramps that lead to its single domed theater.

The theater seats a total of 953, making it the 5th largest auditorium in the Bay Area (of the 62 theaters for which I have single-screen data). The seats aren't particularly comfortable. Like the CinéArts @ Empire, a horizontal bar in the padding was digging into my back the entire time. Also, the armrests, respecting the curving auditorium, angle inward, and pinched my knees together.

The theater exhibited just 24 different movies in 2010, retaining some for but a single week, and others for up to four weeks, or in the case of Shutter Island, for five weeks. But when considering the entire Winchester complex, their six screens showed a combined 130 different films, more than did the 6-screen CinéArts at Santana Row, across the street.

(Below: the Winchester Mystery House.)

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Trailers

The Last Exorcism

(Previously reviewed)

Saw 3D: The Final Chapter

I cannot believe this franchise has endured to offer up this seventh installment. The premise is the same as with the others: people wake up in horrible situations, and must do horrible things (often to themselves or to other captives) to escape. The gimmick here is that it's in 3D, promising to make the traps come alive and possibly even kill the audience. No thank you. In addition to being a brutal trailer, with snippets of scenes from the previous installments, the trailer awkwardly tries to demonstrate its 3D technology by showing an audience watching the movie, then a trap approaching the screen, then a profile shot of the trap emerging from the screen toward the audience. In this recent push for 3D projection, most movies emphasize how they are enhanced by the process. This trailer, which tells us nothing about the plot, seems to be saying that the technology is the movie, and everything else is secondary. 84 cuts.

Machete

This looks to be some sort of serious spoof of every direct-to-video action movie released in the 1990s. Danny Trejo is a rogue FBI/CIA/DEA agent, whose family was murdered, who has nothing to lose, and who loves killing bad guys. He's up against a tycoon (Robert De Niro), a swordsman (Steven Seagal), someone in a luchador mask, Don Johnson, and lots and lots of guys just asking for it. Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez are competing love interests. When Alba, ever youthful, kisses Trejo, 37 years her senior and with a face that says "I beat the devil at a staring contest", it's like she's just mocking all her fanboys who will never get a shot with her. Cheech Marin co-stars as a priest with two shotguns. This trailer is ridiculously over-edited, with slow-motion, stutter cuts, 70s-style silhouettes, swirly effects, and action, action, action. The movie looks terrible but the trailer is awesomely bizarre. 131 cuts.

The Green Hornet

(Previously reviewed)

Buried

Here is a gimmick movie that isn't afraid to let its entire trailer demonstrate the gimmick, without revealing anything else. In a single cut, with a black screen, we hear a desperate Ryan Reynolds placing a 911 call. He was hit over the head. He doesn't know where he is. The operator tries to determine his location, but then the call drops. He manages to find his lighter, and although I was expecting the screen to light up, instead just a tiny corner of it does, suggesting, per the title, that he's deep underground. Think Cast Away, but filmed inside a sleeping bag. 1 cut. 2 cuts if I count the Lionsgate intro.

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The Expendables

A "Dad Movie", named after my father, is one in which there are good guys and bad guys, and, by the end, the bad guys are dead. The Expendables is a Dad Movie. It's as if someone did a Big Data analysis of all the movies my Dad has ever enjoyed, and distilled them down to one basic premise: good guys shooting bad guys. And then blowing them up.

Our team of good guys is comprised by an impressive cast of action stars, classic and recent, and with varying levels of athletic experience, both professional and fictional: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Terry Crews, with Mickey Rourke as their stay-at-home cheerleader. On the bad guy side, we have perpetual slime ball Eric Roberts, his mindless bodyguard Steve Austin, and an entire island full of mercenaries, who, like in a video game, are just standing around waiting to get shot. Team Stallone's motivation for taking on such odds? To rescue a deposed president's daughter, to get revenge, to prove their own relevance, to get out of the house, to have some bonding time, etc.

(The woman to be rescued is criticized for painting, which is "how it starts", i.e., feminism or independence or liberalism or some other trait undesirable in women. It's not clear if the audience is meant to be chuckling on the side of the criticism, but make no mistake, by the movie's end so many men will have died that the only decision makers left will be women.)

There's a 22 year difference between the team's oldest member (Stallone) and its youngest (Crews), but they all seem well past their prime. Even Statham, who has perhaps just peaked, looks older for being in this company and in such a genre-conscious movie, where the team distinguishes its members by doling out signature weapons. Statham is afforded the richest personal life, in that he has a romance with Charisma Carpenter (cut short when he demonstrates his violent prowess in her defense). Li is the butt of stereotypical Asian jokes (his nickname is Yin Yang) that have been out of favor in Hollywood for three decades. Lundgren, still smarting over his defeat at the hands of Rocky, is pretty much a jerk. Rourke, who looks just as beaten up as he did at the end of Get Carter, gives a speech about losing his soul that would have been more interesting to explore than watching his teammates shoot people.

In general, I enjoy Stallone's roles. As recently as Rambo and Rocky Balboa he has delivered believable, sympathetic, and interesting performances. His role in The Expendables is not such a performance. Perhaps the error is surrounding himself with so much testosterone that he doesn't look so tough any more, or with so little acting talent that he has no foil. But this is the worst Stallone movie I've seen since Rhinestone (and I'm guessing that if I went back and rewatched that Dolly Parton movie as an adult, I would enjoy it much more than I enjoyed The Expendables).

This is a movie that celebrates the fantasy of maiming other people. At one point our heroes shoot the bad guys, and then set them on fire. Enemy combatants are blown apart in disguising ways. A bit like trying to give play time to all the Pro Bowlers, the movie must constantly toggle which of its many beefy heroes gets to dispatch the next baddie. The only surprises come in the form of which good guy gets to kill which bad guy, as in these types of movies everyone is usually assigned a dance partner at the beginning. The camera jumps all over the place, with choppy and nauseating cuts and tight angles on bruised faces that break up the action and remind me I'm watching a movie.

And those cameos by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger we saw advertised in the trailer? A bit like those sensationalist shark attack videos on the Discovery Channel, I'm not sure it counts as a cameo if the trailer shows the entire cameo.

The concept of piling together all these actions stars is a fantasy come true, but thirty years too late. I can't believe it's already seen a sequel, with one more in the works.

77. Winter's Bone

Oaks Theatre

The Oaks Theatre opened on Solano Avenue in Berkeley in 1925. Designed by the Reid Brothers, who also designed the Grand Lake, the Oaks was originally a one-screen "Moorish" theater, but was later twinned in 1973.

At one time a part of Renaissance Rialto Theaters, the theater began the year as part of Metropolitan Theaters, but by April was being managed by Merriment Media (source). Sadly, the theater closed just a few months after my visit (source). While I was there, the manager told me that some patrons were confused, thinking that the theater was still closed from earlier in the year. Ultimately Merriment Media was able to keep the theater open for just nine months. A loss for the community.

Over the course of the year, the theater has shown blockbusters, independents, and Bollywood films, with an emphasis on kid movies during the day, and adult movies in the evenings.
 

The theater sports various decorative fixtures, like the mirrors at the drinking fountain, above, and gilded trim and elaborate wall sconces, below.

The hallway curves around the auditorium entrances, with stairwells to the closed balconies at either end. Overall, the theater is well maintained.

The auditorium doors contain etched glass, which does let in a bit of light, but is quite striking. As I walked down the hallway to my screen, I could see into the auditorium I was passing, a voyeur into the adventure being had by a different audience.

The auditoriums are long, an artifact of the twinning. Most of my fellow patrons were clumped together toward the front. The walls are thin; during moments of quiet, I could hear the movie next door, and noises from adjacent buildings.

Plaster trim rings the auditorium, with flowers and leaves stamped into it.

Though the theater originally had 1,500 seats, it now seats just 850 among its two screens (presumably because the balcony is closed). The seats are older, without any rocking.

A welcome change after so many modern multiplexes, the experience of being in an old theater is that of being part of history. I imagine decade after decade of excited movie goers streaming into the auditorium. It's peaceful and contemplative; sophisticated and fancy; it promises a romantic escape. A patron in front of me said, "I used to love ushers... they'd treat you like you were somebody." The ushers are already gone, but the beauty of the theater is still here.

This was my fourth and final visit to the theater, beginning with The Exorcist in 2000.

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Trailers

It's Kind of a Funny Story

(Previously reviewed)

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Winter's Bone

While a question remains unanswered, all things are possible. The closer one gets to the truth, however, the more claustrophobic become the remaining possibilities.

Ree (Jennifer Lawrence, in a role that would earn her her first Oscar nomination) lives in the Missouri woods with her younger brother and sister. Their mother is long gone, and their father is recently absent. Though burdened too early with the rearing of two children, Ree is ever patient. She teaches them to shoot a rifle, skin a squirrel, cook potatoes, and to spell. When she makes deer stew she says, "Watch how I make it". She is responsible and motherly toward her siblings to a degree that is a delight to watch. Yet all her instruction portends a time when they too shall be forced to fend for themselves at too young an age.

Her duties are further burdened when the sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) comes to the door inquiring about her father. The sheriff finds a cool greeting, and when Ree says she hasn't seen her father, we can't be sure if she's being honest or recalcitrant. Now motivated to find her father, at first perhaps to warn him, but later with more urgent purpose, Ree embarks on a quest that in a different community would be as simple as making a few phone calls. But in Ree's wilderness, everyone she seeks out is as close-lipped as she is.

With every scene we are cautioned that to speak is to betray. Ree instructs her siblings, "Never ask for what ought to be offered." One character tells another, "I said shut up already once with my mouth," warning that fists will follow. Noone speaks to the police; noone speaks to each other. A car driving up or a knock at the door are acts of aggression. Every house is guarded by a dog. Everyone is a suspicious protector and keeper of secrets.

At each door, Ree must navigate the strata of familial defense. Women act as the gatekeepers for their household, keeping visitors out as much for the visitor's sake as for their men's. Though her neighbors know who she is, Ree is treated little different from how she greeted the Sheriff. In making an active search, Ree has already broken out of her gendered role. She is questioned by one woman, "Ain't you got no men could do this?" The men, we come to learn, are volatile and dangerous. Ree's only ally is her uncle (John Hawkes); his allegiance is to Ree, but he is as interested as anyone in suppressing the truth; and we can never be entirely sure that he isn't a sexual predator.

The landscapes in Winter's Bone are beautiful but ominous, from the leaf-bare forests Ree walks through from house to house (she never takes roads), to icy swamps, to the houses themselves, surrounded by lawn ornaments, bicycles, and old vehicles, artifacts from some better life. In paleolithic times, humans feared the unknown stalking beasts of the night. Little is different here, except that the most dangerous creatures are other humans. Is there any other species that harbors a grudge, and seeks out a specific individual with the purpose of doing them harm? Winter's Bone is a haunting masterpiece of rural antagonism.

76. The American

Century Blackhawk Plaza

The seven-screen Century Blackhawk Plaza theater was built sometime before 2006 (source). Located near the Blackhawk Plaza shopping center, and in the unincorporated area of Blackhawk east of Danville and San Ramon, the Blackhawk Plaza is one of 31 Cinemark theaters in the Bay Area.

Inside, the theater's layout is similar to that of the Cinemark Movies 10 Redding. The theater has leather or faux-leather seats, and showed ~135 different movies in 2010.

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Pre-Show

The Cinemark "First Look" claims to be "the only pre-show entertainment that takes you behind the scenes", even though its programming is identical to that of Regal and AMC.

The History Channel has an entire show about the world's deadliest roads. I was floored that a show about driving on icy roads could even exist, let alone last multiple seasons, so a show about deadliest roads shouldn't be a big surprise. I wonder if ideas for shows like this drive the demand for more television stations, or if the number of television stations exploded at some point and we've been scrambling ever since to fill the void.

Another claim that movies are attracting "record-breaking crowds" without specifying which records are being broken. Inflated dollars spent by an increasing population isn't much of a metric.

A "one night only" promo for singer T.I. reminds me of a day in 2008 when he somehow took the iTunes Music Store by storm.

Behind the scenes with Greg Berlanti, the director of Life as We Know It, he says there are "no movies anymore that aren't afraid to make us laugh and cry." Whether that's true in their result, I would disagree that movies are afraid to try. Seems like every sentimental comedy is trying to do just that: funny for two thirds of the movie, then a teary eyed pat on the back right at the end.

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Trailers

Let Me In

An American version of the excellent Swedish film, Låt den ratte komma in (Let the Right One In). A young boy, Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) befriends his reclusive neighbor Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz), only to discover that she is a vampire. A trail of recent deaths lead back to Abby and her caretaker (Richard Jenkins), and soon to Owen as well, as Abby takes it upon herself to defend him against bullies. Meanwhile, detective Elias Koteas is closing in. Had I never seen the original, this trailer would have intrigued me. But its scenes are so familiar to its Swedish counterpart, I don't see what this version has to offer other than lack of subtitles. (And now having seen this version, I still recommend the Swedish original.) 117 cuts.

It's Kind of a Funny Story

(Previously reviewed)

Catfish

I wonder if the makers of The Blair Witch Project, with their first-person camera perspective, knew that they were establishing an enduring film conceit. I see this technique used most often with horror movies, perhaps because the camera itself (i.e., the audience) can be targeted, thus bringing us closer to the action. The obvious downside, other than nausea-inducing movement and often sub-par film quality, is that the movie must constantly struggle to explain why its characters, when faced with terror and imminent death, continue to film. This persistence makes more sense in the media-aware Vantage Point, in which Forest Whitaker chases after the action with his camera, to capture the event for the masses, and perhaps gain his moment of fame. The excellent Chronicle likewise gets away with it by focusing on a narcissistic teen, and by incorporating footage from other devices (e.g., nearby camera phones, surveillance cameras, etc.). What horror movies don't seem to realize is that the desire to throw a heavy camera at on oncoming monster could be a much more powerful impulse than to continue filming on the off chance that my film will survive (even if I'm simultaneously ensuring that I do not). Catfish looks to skirt the boundary between these two genres: that of media-saturated teens obsessed with documenting their own lives, and teens in peril who continue filming even when they shouldn't. A young man befriends a girl on Facebook. The two share various phone conversations. Eventually he decides to go visit her, unannounced, with his friends in tow (sure to make a great first impression). When they arrive at her house, though, what they find is a creepy barn with blacked-out windows. It's doubtful that the young men will find themselves pitted against a supernatural force; more than likely, the girl was an artifice, meant to lure them there; or is the victim of some twisted scheme and they will be her savior. My money is on the former. 76 cuts.

Fair Game

Based on true events, Naomi Watts plays a CIA operative whose cover is blown by the Bush administration, intentionally, as retribution for and to divert attention from her ambassador husband's report that casts doubt on Iraq's access to uranium. Though both Watts and Sean Penn (the husband) have solid dialogue, and are sure to shine in this movie, the trailer itself feels rushed and cobbled together, switching music and tempos abruptly, using slow motion at odd moments, and employing both text slides and a voiceover. Feels like a television spot. 104 cuts.

The Debt

Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, and Ciarán Hinds play older versions of Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington thirty years after an attempt to capture a Nazi war criminal in East Berlin. Whatever occurred on the fateful night of the operation has left lingering responsibilities for our trio, who must attempt late in life to resolve what their younger selves did not. Mirren, with the help of an identifying scar, easily conveys an older Chastain. I can't say the same for Wilkinson and Hinds, though, who look nothing like Csokas and Worthington. I'm not a fan of flashback sequences, and it looks like this movie will divide its time equally between the past and the present. Nonetheless, it's a compelling cast with interesting interpersonal relationships. 116 cuts.

The Company Men

Contrasted to Margin Call's microscopic view of the events leading up to the recent recession, this film details three families who must cope with unemployment as a result of it. Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, and Chris Cooper are laid off, the latter two after devoting their lives to their company. Affleck struggles to find work, finally swallowing his pride and apprenticing under his carpenter brother-in-law, Kevin Costner. Meanwhile Jones tries to build his own company, to help employ many whose jobs have been lost. In one scene, he explains to his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) why he spent the day golfing instead of job hunting: "I need to look successful". Other than that priggish statement, his character seems somewhat likable and sympathetic. A speech by a motivational speaker sets the tone that this movie is about persevering through tough circumstances. I'll be interested to see how perseverant the three characters are, who seem to have had it better than most before losing their jobs, and most likely will find work sooner than did so many others in the actual recession. 97 cuts.

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The American

George Clooney is one of the most watchable actors in Hollywood. His roles tend to fall into two categories: the charismatic charmer, demonstrated with his easy smile, and the wearied man, epitomized by the bags under his eyes. Danny Ocean, Jack Foley (Out of Sight), Everett McGill (O Brother, Where Art Thou?): smile. Michael Clayton, Ryan Bingham (Up in the Air), Bob Barnes (Syriana): bags. The American is all about bags.

Clooney plays an American assassin on the eve of the last job of his career. As part of his exit package, he's training up a replacement assassin. They set up shop in a mountainous Italian town, waiting for information on their target. The entire film is contained to this location, and the scope limited to the days leading up to the scheduled hit. This isn't a European caper movie where the assassin travels from city to city offing people, first on the run, and then with the upper hand against some shadow organization. This is a quiet, deliberative plot more about an assassin's idleness than his action.

Clooney is a craftsman, both of his own body (performing some impressive push-ups each morning), and of his weaponry. He rents a shed where he constructs a rifle and suppressor from scratch. He has as much desire for perfection as Eli Wallach's Tuco, but is more proactive. I'm not sure why an assassin would need to go to such lengths, even if border control were particularly tight, but customizing his weapon for each contract demonstrates an artisanal care for his work.

He takes trips to the forested river, both with his protege to test out the rifle, and with a local prostitute (though the town doesn't seem large enough to support a brothel), with whom he's taken up an earnest romance. Like all of these "last job" movies, doom suffocates each scene. Developing an attachment to someone makes Clooney vulnerable. The zealousness of his protege has, in Clooney, been worn down over the years into a dull apathy. And this being his last job, he is anxious for it to be over. The camera often follows the back of Clooney's head in tightly cropped shots, as if someone might put a gun to his head at any moment.

The film's generic title, contrasted to the European setting, explores a cultural disparity. As an American, Clooney is descended from a tradition of self-sufficient individualism, a belief that he can shape his own destiny, as he does his rifle, to his specifications; can earn his living on his own terms, and can make an exit at his discretion. Americans try to escape history, with each generation wiping clean the slate to make room for their own story. Europe, though, is steeped in history, stretching back thousands of years. With this sleepy Italian town as an example, people still live in the homes of their ancestors, still adhere to the old ways, and believe in both community and consequence. We cannot exist apart from each other; we cannot expect to kill people for a living, and then just walk away.

Clooney looks tired, and we are invited to wonder what his quality of life will be after retirement. His time in preparation for the job is idle and restless; will his retirement be any different? Though presumably Clooney has a cash reserve somewhere, everything he is shown to own fits tidily into a single bag that he keeps with him at all times, ever ready to make his exit. The film denies us intimate access to Clooney's thoughts. He is often shown to be weary, or suspicious, but otherwise his expressions tend to avoid anything specific, and his dialog is void of the personal.

I didn't dislike the film, but neither did I particularly enjoy it. I heard comments around me like, "Lame", and "It's like the stupidest movie ever". "Lame" might approximate the ending, which doesn't quite make sense in terms of choices he makes and how others react. Perhaps I need the movie to give me more personal insight into my character, and have more explicit a thesis so that I understand the import of each long, drawn-out scene. When Clooney lies beside the river with his lover, just before getting up, is that the center of his existence, a relaxed post-coital coma, free from worry? Or is he nevertheless distracted, waiting for the next contract?