Let me begin this post by thanking, many times over, our guest bloggers for this week and for as long as they can stand to do it. I very much enjoyed each of the three posts from The Christopher Myers, Mike Ward, and Timothy J. Huff. Having four people currently posting here certainly keeps it fresh, and offers a much needed alternate perspective to my daily ramblings. I can't thank these guys enough. Over the course of a week they saved this blog from the path of destruction that it was headed it down. It may still be headed down that path, but it is at least going much, much slower now. And they seem to have big plans for future posts, so you will definitely want to stay tuned.
It looks like we have a Steve Colmus list coming in soon, and a second TJ, and I think a second BrotherHop as well. So it is still working like this: I post on Monday, TCM on Tuesdays, Wardo on Wednesdays, TJ on Thursdays, and lists on Fridays if we have them. If we don't have them I'll either do a second post for the week, or we'll have some rotational guest bloggers. Already, George and Colmus have expressed interest in guest blogging. That option is open to other people as well, if that have some insight they are dying to let loose via the world wide interweb. OK, great. Business taken care of. I hope the readers are enjoying the guest blog team posts as much as I am. Nothing quite on the level of a poopy Friendly's booth yet, but I'm sure we'll get there.
I had a couple of other ideas for a post today (it is great to have a couple ideas, BTW, and not be straining to come up with one!), but when I came to HSV's after my gig she had The Fountain just waiting to be watched. So we watched it, and I'm certainly glad that we did. She had already seen it, so had some clue as to what was going on, but I was left in the dark for the majority of the film. I am constantly impressed by this Darren Aronofsky fella. If you remember my rave reviews of The Wrestler from January, you know how much I enjoy this guys work. The Wrestler is still my favorite of his films, but I really enjoyed The Fountain and would recommend it to anyone else as well. Also as previously mentioned, Requiem For a Dream was cerainly an amazing accomplishment for the director, and I think the film was incredible...I just can't bring myself to recommend it freely like his other works. I remember loving Pi too, but saw it so long ago that I couldn't tell you a thing about it. Netflix, HSV?
Anyway, a plot summary of The Fountain is out of the question. To give a plot summary I would have to first understand what went on in the film, which I didn't, and need to watch again. There are three very interesting storylines occuring simultaneously, and I just need to see it again to keep everything straight. The storylines themselves are actually very easy to keep track of, because one is in the far past, one the present, and one the future. It is just how they all eventually unfold that left me a little confused. All of the three plotlines feature the character of Tom (or Tommy, or Tomas) play by Wolverine and his modern day wife is the leading lady played by Rachel Weisz. All three plotlines revolve around the idea of immortality (and mortality) with a central image being the Tree of Life. Of the four Aronofsky films I have seen, this is by far the most sci-fi/fantasy based and he does it very well.
The visuals in the film are out of this world, or stunning as one might call it. Really, I could have even less of an idea as to what was going on with the plot and would still enjoy the movie for the filming alone. You get a good idea of this from the trailor I've included below. You also get to hear some of the great film score by Clint Mansell (who scored Requiem and Pi as well), performed by awesome rockers Mogwai and The Kronos Quartet (who recorded the entire score for Requiem). Awesome, right? The second clip below gives you more of an idea of this soundtrack pairing. See this movie. If you buy it and don't like it, TJ will refund you in full. Clips...trailor first, clip for soundtrack purposes second:
