A Present From The Easter Bunny

Since I wore the damn costume yesterday at work, entertained some kids, made some parents happy, impressed my bosses and genuinely enjoyed myself (fuck it, I love kids dude) I figured I'd continue the spirit of things today, and drop a present down onto you fools.

And yes, I made it maself, son.

                                                                                                                                                            Click for larger image

A Review: Robot & Frank

*This review is riddled with hyperlinks (highlighted in blue) that give support and insight into the ever-speedily-moving, mindbogglingly and purely utterly fascinating world of advanced robotics. Please do not hesitate to click them and watch the videos I have located to enhance your understanding that the future of robotics has already arrived. 

--Munki



"Some things take time Frank."
                                               --Robot

Here we have a pleasantly brilliant film. And please mark those words as they are the correct labeling through and through. Both pleasant to the highest heights of the word, and, brilliant in the execution. 

First time director Jake Schreier and screenwriter Christopher D. Ford have crafted a simple tale about a retired thief who gets a robot butler and the ensuing adventures that follow. The kicker being his dementia is slowly eroding his mental facilities. 

Nothing in the film is exactly what it seems, and I'll say it now, there's even a "Bruce Willis is really dead?!" moment in here that makes a lot of sense when you think about the minor ticks and occurrences where that point in the plot is hinted to. Which is an ode to the power of the filmmakers and that one element that they used to enhance that point.   Here we have a splendid and  curious little series of events that unfold for us. 

A Review: Double Indemnity

"It's straight down the line for the both of us. . . Remember?"
                                                                                      --Phyllis Dietrichson

Here is a film about a rotten person who does rotten things that behold for them rotten consequences. One, a textbook sociopath, another fool-heartedly in love, another just doing there job. These three never saw the ending coming the way it does, who could have? For when the smoke clears and the blood starts to run into the fabric of the characters, all we're left with is confessions and remorse. 

Leave it to Billy Wilder to grab a hold of us no matter what the material is, the genre, the actors. With a particular potent talent for manipulating the best of any actress he wields in front of his lens. For the love a women, maybe the sex in-itself a muse all it's own for him. Some say this is one of the most important Film Noirs around. Having a secure amount of knowledge and expertise in the genre: I wholeheartedly agree.  

We watch as Macmurray sells to Stanwyck's Phyllis and then it turn, as she sells right back to him. Clear and cut like a crystal the decadent actions that have taken place. But then, slowly, we see the fog roll over ore eyes as the motivations of the those action become less and less clear. And now, Macmurray doesn't know who or where to turn. Or who he can trust. Which brilliantly leads us ultimately back to his Dictaphone confession that book-ends Wilder's fascinating film.

One night, bruised, bleeding and emotionally broken, Macmurray's Walter Neff stumbles into an office at the Pacific All Risk building and yanks out a Dictaphone. After a moment he begins a terrible series of confessions through a wild tale to his boss, Edward G. Robinson's Barton Keyes played to a heartfelt success that only a man of his stature and acting deftness could provide us. And so the story goes through flashback. . .