//Take a seat and drift into the mind of Charlie Kaufman.

5 / 5 stars
`04's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Directed by Michel Gondry and Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman; Starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo and Kirsten Dunst

"Random thoughts for Valentine's Day, 2004. Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies.. to make people feel like crap."

The first line of the movie.. and pretty much the one line, that I think, sums the beginning of this movie up. Director Michel Gondry really cooks up a visual feast for the eyes in this one, along side screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malcovich, Adaptation) who never fails in writing an off the wall movie. Most movies of our time, are filled with too over the top CGI, where as Gondry's style of direction, is standing alone. Not many directors out there, put the theory of camera tricks in their films.. especially those directors that have just a cinematographer doing the work for them. Not that any of them are bad, but directors who put alot of stock into their vision, get the best results.

Eternal Sunshine is a movie about two thirty-somethings, Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski, played by comedic genius Jim Carrey and actress Kate Winslet. These two endure love, disagreement, and pain (in that order) over a 2 year period and begin to grow tired of one another. This movie forces us to ask ourselves, "If we could, would we have certain memories erased from our brains, to stop the pain that we experiance when losing a loved one?" This is the movie's main concept, which works very well, being that it's relate-able to most human beings.

The brains behind this possibility, is Lacuna LTD., a surgical clinic ran by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). After a tough breakup, Clementine finds Dr. Mierzwiak, and what he does. And being the impulsive person that she is, she decides on the surgery. Sometime after this, Joel goes to Barnes and Noble where Clementine works, and is baffled to find her ignoring him and there with another guy.

Being torn by this, he takes comfort with two friends of theirs, Rob and Carrie. While Carrie is trying to explain to Joel, why Clementine is the way she is, her and Rob get into a fight over a very important piece of paper, that Rob gets out of a near-by dresser drawer.

Dear Rob and Carrie Eakin:

Clementine Kruczynski has had Joel Barish erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again. Thank you.

LACUNA, LTD. 424 GRAND STREET, NY, NY

After reading this card, Joel confronts Lacuna, and is in disbelief of what is said. After he leaves, he stresses over Clementine, and cannot believe she'd do something like this. Not knowing what to do, he decides to go through with this procedure as well. As he forces himself into Dr. Mierzwiak's office, his assistant Mary (Kirsten Dunst) tries to stop him, and insist he wait in the waiting room. Joel cuts her off by saying, "Okay, I want it done, Now!"

They record Joel talk about the history of him and Clementine, and easily make a map of his brain activity, by having Joel react to everything he owns that has some association with Clementine.

Joel: "Is there any risk of brain damage?"

Dr. Mierzwiak: "Well, technically, the procedure itself is brain damage, but on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss."

Let the mind trip ensue, because here is where Michel Gondry's brilliant directing style shines. Never before have I seen a film directed like this, nor have I ever saw a film that got so much out of its characters in only a couple of hours. It's like watching a book, in that it has so much detail, you'll be dazzled.

The score constructed by Jon Brion is something to talk about. With it's heartwarming, robotic like, piano notes and it's acoustic bass & guitars, to the tracks written by some of today's pop icons, Beck and Polyphonic Spree. Beck contributes only one song, titled "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime", which I think counteracts very well with this film.

This film will touch you unlike any film in the world, and will force you to rethink some of your most cherished memories of your loved ones. This film may confuse you, but you'll be left wanted to watch it again and again and in doing so, you'll find out things that you didn't the first time.

This is by far my favorite film, and my first movie review, so I hope I've lifted some eyebrows, and caught some of your attention.

Happy watchin',

--Brok Spiker.

Quotes from The Newmarket Shooting Script series for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

//A movie worth staying in your thoughts.

5 / 5 stars
`05's Stay
Directed by Marc Forster and Screenplay by David Benioff; Starring Ryan Gosling, Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts

"Stay with us Henry, stay with us."

With the sound of rubber gliding on a highway, us viewers are stuck like claustrophobics, in-between rubber and metal. The viewer's point-of-view, is inside of a tire. Suddenly a burst.. then a spark. You've just witnessed the first 5 seconds of the film; a car wreck. You experience one of the most creative ways to show-off a car crash, in film history (in my opinion). Enter, Henry Letham... a mysterious figure, who seems to have come out of this accident, unscathed.

As Henry walks towards the camera, there's a smooth transition to the next scene. Meet Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor), a man in his 30s, or so it seems.. a man, who like most smart people living in a city, is shown riding a bike to work. After Sam arrives and heads into his office, we see a figure standing by a window, awaiting an arrival; but not from Sam. As the figure turns around, we see that it is Henry, and to find out, he's not so happy that Sam is there.

Henry: "Who the fuck are you?"

Sam: "I'm Dr. Sam Foster.."

Here we find out that Sam is not his personal psychiatrist, but a substitute "shrink" as he calls him. Henry is not happy that his previous doctor, Dr. Beth Levy (Janeane Garofalo) has given up on him. As Henry gets calmed down, he and Sam start to talk; slowly, Sam gets Henry to talk about the accident, and why he thinks it's his own fault. Henry pushes things to an end, as he mentions something about hail, and needing to go home before it starts. Here the camera slowly lifts away from Henry, and looks out the window, where we see Sam and what seems to be his girlfriend Lila Culpepper (Naomi Watts), sitting on a bench.

(Note: this movie doesn't cut from scene to scene like most movies; the scenes flow, and transfer in on eachother. So you may see a character in a completely different place, but out of nowhere, they appear somewhere else.)

After a small conversation on the bench. It starts to hail, and what you thought was real, turns to question. "How did he know that?" you ask? You don't know.. and possibly may never find out. That is what the beauty of this film is, it forces us to ask plenty of questions and to ponder dozens of theories. I'm trying not to give anything away, because if I let even one single part of this film slip through my fingers, it'll ruin its mysteriousness for you.

This movie is simply about a man involved in a car accident, who feels guilty of the outcome and forced to do whatever it takes to receive forgiveness.

"Your troubles will cease and fortune will smile upon you."

David Benioff (Writer of Stay) really wrote a touching movie about coming to terms with one's guilt.. and learning to forgive, before being able to rest assured. Be open minded when watching this movie, it's very complex, and has many moments that are left wide open for theories and discussion.

Marc Forster (Director of Finding Neverland) directs a lucid like journey through a man's head. Each scene is filled with beautiful colors, and tied in together so smoothly, that you almost love the movie right away for the cinematography. And I could never forget the wonderful score written up by Asche & Spencer. The music is almost as distorted as Henry's own view on reality... very sticky stuff. It stuck in my head for months until I finally found the soundtrack... now I can listen to each scenes' theme. This music is so greatly matched with this movie, that I could close my eyes, put on the soundtrack, and watch the movie in my head. Great stuff.

To you IMDb-heads, ignore the bad reviews, they simple didn't get it for it's masterful storytelling, and beautiful imagery.

Henry Letham: "Do you know the Tristan Rêveur quote about bad art? It's "bad art is more tragically beautiful than good art 'cause it documents human failure."

So I'm closing, let me say.. You will be shocked. You will be moved. You will be confused. And most importantly, you will be thinking of this film years after each viewing.

Stay is 2 on my list of favorite movies, right under Eternal Sunshine, and if you watched that and appreciated it like I did.. you'll love Stay, because it'll stay with you for years and years.

--Brok Spiker

Quotes from IMDb.com, The Internet Movie Database.

//Sin is your worst enemy.

4.5 / 5 Stars
`07's The Number 23
Directed by Joel Schumacher and Screenplay by Fernley Phillips; Starring Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen and Logan Lerman

"Be sure your sin will find you out." - Numbers 32:23

As so it does for Walter Sparrow, played by Jim Carrey, in this psychological thriller about a dogcatcher who's fately put in the path of a tattered red book called The Number 23, written by an author only known as Topsy Kretts.

After spending some time reading, he finds similarities between him and the books main character, Fingerling; a detective who as a little boy, loved detective stories.

"Imagine me if you must, as someone you once knew. Someone perhaps you like, or better yet.. imagine me as you. As a kid I was at the top of my class, not because I liked studying, but because I realized that an education was my best shot at getting out. Ya see, the stork dropped me in a small, dust-bowl-of-a-town.. there wasn't anything wrong with it, as far as boring towns go, I'm sure it ranked above average. I had friends, but.. I always felt alone. No one ever left.. and I wasn't going to die here, as much as I loved him, I didn't want to be anything like my dad. He seemed so distant, its sad. Numbers were his life. He was an accountant and I guess he expected me to take over the business he had built, but I had other plans.

My mom was tickled pink on my 8th birthday, when I announced I wanted to be a detective. Can't say the same for my father, he really put the kabosh on his master plan and it fueled his hatred for the widow Dopkins; she lived next door. Sounds odd but, her dog Alfie.. was the reason I became a detective. The grass is always greener on the other side, atleast.. according to Alfie, that's why he was always in our yard. It was my job to catch him, but I never crossed the fence into the widow Dopkins yard, that was my father's rule. On my 8th birthday, I broke the rule... now I must admit that my lonliness and obsession with detective stories, fueled fantasies.. so I'm not sure of the details; except one..."- read by Carrey's character during a visual sequence showing Fingerling's childhood.

By this point, Walter is mystified by how much he and the character Fingerling, have in common. Fingerling got his detective name from a book he once read as a child called "Fingerling At The Zoo", which Walter also read as a kid. Even most neighbors have dogs these days, but Walter's neighbor had a dog named Chief. "Mischief" his father liked to call him, he always got out, which ultimately led him to become a dogcatcher.

Sparrow's wife Agatha replies, "but Fingerling was a detective."

Walter argues, "I used to collect detective magazines."

As his wife thinks he's innocently overreacting, his son Robin, gets in on it pointing out even more similarities. Everything in Walter's life, his birthdate, his license plate number, his home address; it all adds up to twenty-three, Robin's comments puts Agatha in a protective role of going along this ride with her husband and son, to find out what this book means to their family. A Mysterious murder, a not-so innocent man, and a guard Dog are among the weird vile, that fill the screen. All contributing to an ending so shocking, it'll make you ponder some of the things you've done, and gotten away with.

Weirded out yet? Confused at what I'm trying to get across? I'm not trying to explain anything, I'm just giving you a taste of how creative this movie is.

If you love voice-over acting, you'll be excited to know this movie is chalk-full of it. Movies with voice-over acting, are as close as Hollywood's ever going to get to capturing that feeling of reading a very discriptive book. You can explain so much in little time, without showing it. Same goes for films with little dialoge; in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you're subject to many quick-as-a-flash shots of characters, whether it be cuddling, fighting, etc.. you don't need to hear any dialoge to understand what you're seeing.

This movie will keep you locked in for the remainder of the ride, as you're treated with a very visualistic style of directing. In one flashback scene of Fingerling's childhood, the camera glides from Carrey's shoulder, to inside the book, all in one smooth transition. As you're now in the book, things pass by the camera as if they are straight out of a pop-up book. Somewhat stuck in between 2D and 3D. All of the cinematography when inside the book.. gets darker and darker as the characters do. At one moment, the director's using very bright contrast on a scene that's slightly still non-depressive, but quickly goes into the darker gray tones to show the characters decline from sanity.

As for the score, there's nothing I feel I need to say about it. It's perfect for this film and this film only. The score and the film do very well of being on the same page. Very moving.

I think this movie is the only movie to ever have a negative and positive ending stapled together.
You'll be shocked, just as if you would watching some of Hitchcock's best thrillers, because this movie very well has a Hitchcockian vibe to it.

I leave you with one last line from the movie,

"There's no such thing as destiny. There are only different choices. Some choices are easy, some aren't. Those are the really important ones, the ones that define us as people."- Walter Sparrow

I suggest you do what I did, buy this movie. Even if you don't rent it first.. let it be one of those movies you buy not knowing how it was going to turn out. I assure you... it won't be one of those mistakes.

Are you afraid that your sins will come back to haunt you?

--Brok Spiker

Quotes from the "Number 23" DVD subtitles