I love sleeping. After having sex and reading books, it’s my favorite thing to do in bed. So you may think I was annoyed when my roommate walked into my room at 5 AM this morning, rousing me from my delicious slumber. Instead, I found it amusing to see him standing there in his underwear, glassy-eyed and confused like a moronic zombie.

“Hey.”

“Oh, hey,” he said, like he was surprised to find me in my bed an hour before dawn. Must be bewildering when people intrude on your dreams.

I thought he’d leave, but instead he started grabbing my hoodie off the back of my chair.

“Um, that’s my hoodie.”

“Oh,” he said, and paused for a moment, then started grabbing my other hoodie.

“That’s also my hoodie.”

“Oh yeah. I thought… everyone… sometimes… has a new… hoodie…” and then he walked out of the room, but backwards, still facing me, like I was the Queen of England.

If it had never happened before, I’d have been freaked out, but I’m used to it. To his credit, it’s only happened a few times, because after the first incident my roommate started barricading himself in his bedroom with a metal stool. Sometimes I wake up to the sound of him sleeptripping over it.

Sleepwalking is silly to me, but to people who suffer from somnambulism, it can be a serious curse. People can write coherent emails, prepare and eat food, drive cars, ride horses, and even have sex with strangers while sound asleep.

Comedian Mike Birbiglia once went sleeprunning out a second story window. He now sleeps in a sleeping bag with mittens on his hands so he can’t unzip his nightly cocoon. He has to protect himself from himself before nodding off.

Wikipedia has a dedicated page to ‘Homicidal sleepwalking’. Some of the highlights include:

A teenage girl who sleepshot her family members to defend them from a monster.

A guy who sleepbeat his landlady to death, thinking she was a Nazi.

A Parisian dude who sleepswam across the river Seine, stabbed a dude with a sword, and sleepswam home.

Some people who get ty-ty and end up committing sleepmurder later get acquitted due to temporary insanity, while others are found guilty and imprisoned or sentenced to death. Seems like a nightmare either way. And being a jury member on a sleepmurder trial would be no cakewalk. But I feel especially bad for the victims. Seriously, wouldn’t it suck to get murdered by someone who’s asleep? If I ever get murdered, I hope my killer will at least have the common courtesy to be conscious.

Tuna fish swim in their sleep. Swifts sleepfly. Donald Duck sleepwalks through a zoo. Donnie Darko sleeptalks to Frank the Rabbit. Ed Norton turns into Brad Pitt when he’s asleep, so he can manage Project Mayhem. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly sleepdestroy their kitchen in Step Brothers. Lady Macbeth screams “Out, damned spot!” while compulsively sleepwashing her bloodstained hands. The wife in Paranormal Activity gets out of bed and stands there staring at her husband for hours. It’s such a simple scene, yet so scary, because we’re at our most vulnerable when we’re asleep. That’s why sleeping with someone, literally sleeping with someone, is such an intimate act. Perhaps that’s when we’re most ourselves, when our eyes are closed and we’re off in dreamland.

Do monkeys sleepwalk? Do giraffes? Did the dinosaurs?

How do I know I’m not a sleepwalker too? What if every night I eat mayonnaise sandwiches while riding the Q train, and I don’t even know it?

The most interesting human behavior is the stuff nobody can fully explain. Scientists say sleepwalking has to do with genetics and stress, but they don’t really know what’s going on. It’s a mystery, and that’s OK. Mysteries are cool.

I hope my roommate doesn’t kill me.

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James Franco: Finish triple masters’ degrees in the following ultra-exclusive mini-programs offered by, respectively, Stanford, Arizona State, and Kenyon College: Post-Post-Modern Feminist Francoism Theory In The Digital Age, Why People Are Obsessed With James Franco, and Melodrama And Gentricity In Cinema As It Relates To James Franco With A Minor In Alternative Theories About Why People Are Obsessed With James Franco.

Kim Kardashian: Commit to a long-term relationship that lasts at least four months.

Ryan Gosling: Induce a paradigm-shift in “Top Sexiest Men” lists wherein instead of relatively “insignificant” write-ups in “puny ass” (his words) magazines, “Top Sexiest Men” lists become, simply “Top Sexiest Ryan Goslings” such that all “Top Sexiest Men” lists are composed only of ratings and analyses of myriad Ryan Gosling photos and internet memes.

Kanye West: Maintain a Twitter account for over six months without having a catastrophic meltdown before 10 AM.

Skrillex: Stay relevant.

Zooey Deschannel: Perfect the Manic Pixie Dream Woman image: an iteration of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl who feels comfortable shopping at Ann Taylor Loft and driving a minivan, on occasion, as needed. Look into cost of commissioning a concept artist to create ‘life-size,’ fully-functional pixie wings out of the wings of a thousand dead dragonflies and the additional finances necessary for fully-functional surgical implantation of said wings.

Jesse Eisenberg: Submit to McSweeney’s Internet Tendency under a pen name, “just to be sure.”

Michael Cera: Kill Jesse Eisenberg.

Beyonce: Successfully derail Jay-Z and Kanye’s relationship by a combination of withholding sex, frequently demanding that Jay-Z “Facetime” with in-laws when in the studio with Kanye, and instilling in Jay-Z a Pavlovian response to Kanye’s ring on Jay-Z’s iPhone such that whenever Jay-Z hears the ring he immediately, subconsciously desires a “sh-t ton” (this is the word Beyonce used, to her nutritionist) of fried, “cheesy ass” (again, Beyonce’s words) foods and so instead of picking up the phone is compelled to “gobble” the closest approximation to a fried, cheesy food in sight.

Ashton Kutcher: Co-star in Dude Where’s My Car, The Sequel opposite Seann William Scott and more barely-legal breasts than a poultry slaughter plant.

Chris Brown: Let go and let god.

Leonardo DiCaprio: “Finally” overcome the “f-cking” (his words) baby-face image with a series of roles predominately directed by Clint Eastwood, Terrance Malick, and Woody Allen portraying, for the most part, “musty” 80-somethings struggling with identity, masculinity, sexuality, and successive layers of dream-sleep.

Drake: Connect with Amanda Bynes on Twitter, who followed Drake prior to deleting her first account but has since abstained from refollowing him, despite Drake feeling certain that, as child stars, the two are kindered spirits with an unspoken bond that could potentially grow into something more.

Woody Allen: Divorce wife, propose to great-great-great-great-great-great-adopted-grandaughter.

Tim Tebow: Convince Broncos management to shoot fireworks from the top of Mile High Stadium everytime he performs his signature move.

Lana Del Rey: Via surgical processes and an intense botox regime, transcend existing corporeal form as pop-hipster-millenial-faux-underground goddess to become the first-ever identity to exist as brainwaves designed to elicit response in pleasure centers of 18 to 25 year-old urban males.

Brangelina: Adopt at least 20 more children from 3rd-world nations; begin a process of educating them in high-powered business management and political indoctrination for the express purpose of creating a “bunch of little Hitlers that’ll overthrow the governments of the world’s wealthiest nations… Just putting our pawns into place for the takeover. Viva la revolución, babe,” as Brad put it, secretly, to Angelina, at the peak of a two-day coke bender this September in Dubai.

Tom Hanks: Punch out the next “asshole” on the sidewalk who yells “Run, Forrest, Run!” at him.

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1. Kirsten Dunst and Jake Gyllenhaal

Do yourself a favor and fall into a Google image k-hole with photos of Kiki and Jake. The couple dated for two years before finally splitting in 2004 and let’s face it, they both have downgraded since. Jake has resorted to patrolling local high schools for future girlfriends (Taylor Swift) and Kirsten has endured one particularly stormy relationship with alcohol. Why can’t they just find their way back to each other again and skip away to a patch of indie sunflowers together? OMG, I bet their convos used to be so cute. “Babe, have the last sip of my aloe vera water.” “No babe, that aloe vera water is all you. Kill it!” It’s hard to say why they ever broke up but we can only speculate. I’ve tried calling Kirsten for comment but she blocked my number and threw her shoes at me when I tried to approach her at Westway. WTVR, diva.

2. Mischa Barton and Meth

Mischa’s been looking a lot better these days but is it weird that I kind of miss it when she used to look like this? Those were the daze, weren’t they Misch? Full disclosure: My friend used to work at a fancy spa in L.A. and had access to all of these celebrities’ phone numbers, so I made her give me Mischa Barton’s number so I could do some prank calls. The first time I did it, she actually picked up (um, who picks up numbers they don’t know, desperado?!) and I started screaming, “Oh my god, Mischa. It’s Cara and Danielle! We’re outside your house and ready 2 rage!!! Come outside, you slut!” Mischa was like, “What?” and then pretended to be someone else, which was fruitless because, hello, you can spot that faux-British accent from a mile away. Anyway, she never picked up my phone calls again and I was depressed for, like, a week after.

3. Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt

I mean, can you believe these two ever dated? They were the ultimate ’90s dream couple! They also looked like identical twins, which was creepy but kind of hot in its own way. It’s a bummer they had to break up because now they’re both stuck with people they  clearly traded down for. Even though Angelina Jolie is gorgeous, she has Pitt and their 20 adopted orphans by the balls in a chateau somewhere.  Meanwhile, Gwyneth is married to the # 1 snoozefest, Chris Martin, who probably weeps in her arms every night before bed. Ugh, no thanks. Brad and Gwyneth need to have a rende-screw ASAP.

4. Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder

The two misunderstood goths of Hollywood would date. Of course. It’s too perfect! A publicist’s nocturnal emission! But these two actually seemed to be totally madly in love with each other. Johnny Depp even tattooed “Winona Forever” on his body (which he later changed to “Wino Forever”, natch) and they used to make out all kinds in public. I’m not sure why they eventually split but I bet it was when the coke and Ecstasy ran out and Johnny just looked at Winona and was like, “Oh, You’re crazy. Oops!”

5. Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake

This couple was the teen dream. They were everyone’s idol, the true personification of young love! And you could just tell these two were in disgusting teen love with each other. The kind of love where if you don’t hear from each other for ten minutes, you’re like, “Beb. Where are you beb? I feel really distant from you right now. Did something happen? Did you fall out of love with me when you went to Walgreen’s to pick up your prescription? ANSWER ME!” Yeah, they were definitely in that kind of love. They even wore gross matching denim outfits to award shows! Their break up was devastating. Ordinarily, when you get your heart broken for the first time, you try to soil their name at your high school, but because Justin and Britney were superstars, they took their revenge to the Billboard charts (he with “Cry Me A River” and she with “Everytime”).  God, being famous must be really weird sometimes. Remember the alleged dance-off Britney and Justin had after they broke up? Obsessed. Anyway, they need to get back together. Justin will CPR Britney back to life and Britney will save him from Mary Camden. Win/win!

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When I was young, my parents taught me that I could do anything I put my mind to. As of today, I have resolved to become People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.”

The way I see it, I’m already two-thirds of the way there. I am a man, and I am alive. Those two attributes, given my age and gender identity, will remain fairly constant over the coming years. I plan on being alive for five to six more decades, and I intend on being a man the entire time.

So all that’s left, really, is “sexiest.” I think I can handle that one too. Now, I don’t think that I am currently the sexiest man alive. Bradley Cooper captured the 2011 title yesterday, and I don’t believe that I am in his league. Yet. That would be delusional, and self-awareness is a very important to winning the coveted SMA award, if 1997 and 2006 winner George Clooney is any indication. Clooney has aged gracefully. He doesn’t walk around dressing like a man in his twenties or thirties. He has dignity and poise. That’s why he was able to win the award twice, his two victories separated by a decade. Know thyself and be sexy.

Yes, I have studied what it takes. From Pierce Brosnan (2001) I learned that accents are sexy. From Ryan Reynolds (2010) I learned that a good head of hair goes a long way. From Jude Law (2004) I learned that it’s sexy to be, like, really sexy.

Confidence is sexy. Right Matthew McConaughey (2005)? If you’ve somehow got abs that somehow extend up most of your torso, show that bizarre 12-pack off! It’s sexy! Shirts are for squares. Except billowy pirate shirts. That’s right, I’m looking at Johnny Depp on this one. Depp, a two-time winner, took home his second Sexiest Man Alive trophy (there’s a trophy, I assume) in 2009 after the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out. Yes, two years after the movie came out, but do you think he was pulling the award down on account of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus? NOPE. Rock that weird fluffy shirt with pride. But rock it like a pirate, not like a Yanni. There’s a reason they don’t give out the award live at the Acropolis. Yanni doesn’t have the charisma to be a swashbuckler, or a SMA. In order to achieve maximum confidence, I’m going to stop hanging out with anyone who won’t high five me on demand. I don’t need that drama in my life. From here on out, it’s all positive energy. I’m going to build my self-esteem up until I can walk down the street with no shirt and MC Hammer parachute pants.

Fitness is sexy. There’s never been a dumpy looking “Sexiest Man Alive.” Brad Pitt (2000) and Hugh Jackman (2008) were both pretty ripped when they pulled down the award. Pitt in particular earned his SMA nod a year after his turn as jacked brawler Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Maybe Jackman and Pitt don’t make quite the show of their fitness that McConaughey does, but no one would argue that they need to step up the cardio. I’m on my way there. I just joined the Planet Fitness location in my neighborhood. So I’m probably mere weeks away from a hot ripped bod. I’m going to do so many crunches. My abs are going to look like a gravel driveway. It’s going to be very, very sexy.

But it’s not all rugged good looks and swagger. A huge part of sexiness is being someone people want to spend time around. You’ve got to seem agreeable and un-diva-like. Who wouldn’t enjoy a day out on the town with Denzel Washington (1996) as a rookie cop in training or just as a pal? Wouldn’t it be great to drink some Sam Adams out on a stoop in Charlestown with Ben Affleck (2002)? Don’t you think it would be a real thrill to help Harrison Ford (1998) sort out his meds for the week? Just kidding, Harrison. You’re the prototypical Silver Fox. You’d probably be up for playing an unexpected prank, like TP-ing Tommy Lee Jones’s house or giving Mark Hamill a wedgie. Christian Bale is pretty sexy, but he’s not on the list. Why? Because he seems like a real live American Psycho. Not cool, C-Bale.  I think I’m closer to a genial Richard Gere (1999 and also 1993 as part of the “Sexiest Couple” with Cindy Crawford) than a petulant Jeremy Piven. And I’m ready to step up my polite game to prove it.

So look out, world. From this day forth, the Josh Gondelman you all know and love (well, some of you know and love me) is dead. He has been replaced by the new Future Sexiest Man Alive Josh Gondelman. A man who is more confident, athletic, and approachable than ever before. I will toil ceaselessly in pursuit of my goal. And if all that work isn’t enough, then I will run over Ryan Gosling with a car. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to win. And what’s sexier than a winner? Nothing.

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So, we were talking about Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds’ abs. Who do you like more, and why?

Scarlett Johansson’s husband, the whole look of him I like it. It’s not his abs I like, I like the look of Scarlett Johansson’s husband. I kind of feel The Notebook actor his eyes are cross-eyed. I really think so, do you think?

His name is Ryan Reynolds, and he’s Scarlett Johansson’s ex; and the actor in The Notebook is Ryan Gosling — but yes, now that you mention it, his eyes do feel somewhat crossed. You had been comparing my lack to abs to Ryan Gosling’s abs in that movie, which I said was like comparing one’s daughter’s body to Scarlett Johansson’s, an ideal body, and how that is not nice, would you agree?

I rather you look like a little bit overweight like Jennifer Lopez rather than look like Nicole Kidman. That’s too skinny, just like you are now.

Okay, I see. So it’s not the abs, it’s the overall weight you are concerned with. Tell me about this movie you saw.

Phil, what is that movie we saw? [Father in background, squeezing orange juice]: Crazy Stupid Love. Nothing to tell, you go to see it.

Ma, no you were just talking about it, tell me about Crazy Stupid Love.

It’s very funny, it’s like your experience and you know their feelings, and you feel funny, it’s not like Dumb and Dumber that kind of stupid funny.

I will not see the movie, sorry. But aren’t all movies about one’s experience? What makes Crazy Stupid Love so special?

Because I only remember the past two months the movies I saw, the others I already forget.

Okay, what other movies do you remember seeing recently?

There’s one really really stupid one called “Trace of Life,” Brat Pitt.

Trace of Life? What are you talking about. But whatever, tell me about it.

When they started the movie, I asked your father did we get into the wrong theater, because I thought that’s some movie like those Channel 9 movies.

You mean public television documentaries?

Yes.

Oh, you mean Tree of Life; you had said “Trace of Life.”

I don’t remember.

I’m transcribing this now. I can show you. Okay, tell me about Brad Pitt’s abs compared to Ryan Gosling’s and Ryan Reynolds’.

I never saw him naked in a movie, so I don’t know.

He showed his abs in Fight Club.

Flight Club? That’s too long ago I can’t remember.

But did you see it? You and dad tend to see every movie that ever comes out.

Yes.

And you can’t offer anything about Fight Club? Just tell me everything you can remember, and don’t worry about being accurate.

I only remember those two people fight and had a lot of blood on the face. I don’t even remember why they are fighting for.

It was about anarchy, late capitalist discontentment, and ironic patriarchal self-hatred with homoerotic overtones.

What’s that mean, I don’t know what that means.

Sorry, I don’t know either.

Oh! We have to change Jennifer Lopez to Beyoncé as the overweight one; that is better.

I would like to offer that the latter is simply bootylicious.

Bootylicious!? In all my life, I hate my hips because it’s too big, so I don’t like bootylicious!

Okay, sorry.

I will never do this again. Whenever you got your computer, I don’t talk.

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So Tree of Life just ended—wait no it didn’t. There’s some more running around on a beach. There’s a mask floating in the ocean. Why’s there a mask floating in the ocean, Terrence Malick? Okay, so Tree of Life just ended—fuck, we’re back in space, and there’s the image of an undulating nebula thing. Is it done yet? It’s going… it’s still going… Okay, so it seriously just ended, and I have this tremendous sense of relief. I let out a huge sigh and look around at my friends for a reaction, but they seem just as confused, perhaps even astonished that Malick cared enough about the audience to give the film an ending, having felt that the movie might just transition into a ten hour planetarium show punctuated with additional creepy whispering. I awkwardly half-smile, shift my eyes back and forth, scratch the side of my head. I go over the movie in my mind. How am I going to react to this?

It would be easy to say this is a bunch of pretentious bullshit, a grandiose operatic (with opera even!) product of an out of control ego. I could make jokes about how the movie should’ve been called Sunlight Filtering Through Leaves because of the billion shots of sunlight filtering through trees, grass, behind people’s heads, sparkling in sprinklers, behind the earth—hell, even a scene where the sun swells up and devours the planet. In the way that Star Trek had a lens flare in nearly every shot, Tree of Life always has sunlight flickering behind something.

It would be easy to bring up the dinosaurs, all those CG dinosaurs. There’s an unintentionally hilarious scene where a velociraptor type dinosaur puts its foot on a dying dinosaur’s face, lets its foot off the face, then puts it back down on its face, then lifts it up and walks off. There’s another scene where a Loch Ness monster lays silhouetted on a beach, and he (or she maybe) swings a long rubbery neck toward the camera as it looks at a fat gash in its side, and then away in a gesture that can only say, “Seems bleak.” I seem to recall there’s another scene of a miniature triceratops running around in the woods, confused, lost maybe. Maybe I made it up.

It would be easy to bring up the endless section in outer space where you see a galaxy forming, a close-up of stars churning with rumbling bass noises, Hubble photos brought to life—all set to opera with the occasional whispered non sequitur. It made me think of Dune with all the whispered thoughts (“And how can this be? For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!”).

It would be easy to bring up Sean Penn. Did Terrance Malick really need an Oscar Award winning actor to portray a character who simply wanders around skyscrapers and rock fields looking sad and confused, saying almost nothing to anyone for the entire film?

It would be easy to say that the movie seems like a never-ending perfume commercial (“The new summer fragrance from Dior…Ennui™”). Or a jeans commercial for that matter.

It would be easy to bring up the epigraph from the Book of Job, another time-tested hallmark of pretentious art. I think of all the creative writing classes someone passed out a piece with an epigraph at the front, how it nearly always meant a thirty page story about a guy who sits on his roof and contemplates existence. I mean, if someone said, “Brad, write a parody of an art house film,” the resulting film would probably look something pretty similar to Tree of Life with its opera soundtrack, explicit symbolism (“So, like, the mom represents grace and the dad represents nature, and then the mask falling into the ocean represents our masks falling off at the end of our lives, and then…”, the deliberately crazy camera angles, and the random unnecessary dream imagery of the mother floating or in a glass coffin.

It would be easy to bring up all of these things, but I can’t dismiss it because the movie’s genuinely beautiful, profound, and I would’ve been completely thrilled by it if I’d seen it in, say, an art gallery. But in a movie theater, I sort of expected more entertainment or at least to be actively engaged for a majority of the duration. I didn’t expect that I would need to expend such a great deal of cognitive effort to interface with this goddamn movie for so long. There were approximately fifty times when I adjusted in my seat, looked around at my friends, and thought, ‘I’m watching a movie right now. It’s a “deep movie”, but I’ve become disengaged. I would like this experience to end now, but it’s going to keep going for a long time, and there’s no way to skip through to the end. I can only endure.’

I look at my friends as we exit the theater, trying to gauge the reaction. It’s important not to be seen as a philistine, but also not to be seen as a movie snob, someone desperate to appear artsy and intellectual by expressing one’s adoration for the highly wrought movie. No one wants to be the dumb one, the one who doesn’t like smart things, the one who maybe wants to go home and watch Night at the Museum, the one who enjoys Jeff Dunham and Kevin James, the one who probably hasn’t read a book for awhile.

“I liked the dinosaurs,” says someone.

“The dinosaurs were cool,” says someone else.

“During the time when there weren’t dinosaurs on the screen, I thought, ‘When are they going to show more dinosaurs?’”

“That was probably the most disappointing aspect of the movie. Not enough dinosaurs. The movie should’ve been called Not Enough Dinosaurs.”

“I was hoping for a scene where Brad Pitt’s yelling at the kids and then a dinosaur comes in and bites his damn head off.”

“Agreed. It needed a scene where one of the boys says, ‘I have a confession to make,’ and then he pulls off a mask to reveal a dinosaur head and says, ‘I’m actually a velociraptor. I hope this doesn’t make things weird between us.’”

“Not that it wasn’t a good movie,” I say. “But I’m glad that experience has come to an end.”

I wait for the other members of the group to submit their tentative ambiguous opinions, and, listening to them, I then feel more certain of my own opinion, can shape all my disparate feelings into an overall thesis that is neither dumb nor pretentious, but still authentic. I think, ‘It’s important to transcend the knee jerk reaction of, ‘That’s a bunch of bullshit,” and to remain open to artsy films.’ But man, sometimes, it’s so hard.

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Terrence Malick’s upcoming film The Tree of Life is probably getting more buzz than any other spring/summer release this year, and a new clip posted on Entertainment Weekly’s website has only added to the hype. Unfortunately the video above is the only the trailer (itself a beautiful short film of sorts); you have to navigate here to see the new clip.

The reason what many are calling the summer’s most anticipated film is getting so much attention is simple: Malick rarely makes films (this will be his fifth; his first was Badlands in 1973), and each time he does it’s a huge cultural event. Not only that, but the details around The Tree of Life’s story are shrouded in mystery, and no one has really said what it’s about other than in vague terms.

Because of the scarcity of information on Malick’s new film and the lack of any other previews besides the trailer, much is being made of this brief clip. What does it tell us?

The clip shows three brothers (one of them presumably the child version of Sean Penn’s character) teasing their mother with a lizard. Noting the backdrop, one recalls the setting of Malick’s Badlands, 1950s South Dakota. One is struck by the mobility of the camera and the way it freely follows the characters around, a stylistic flourish uncharacteristic of Malick, especially in interiors. The editing of the sequence is also unlike Malick, and it’s jump cuts (when there are perceived gaps in space/time between shots that create the feeling of something being skipped or jumped over) perhaps suggest a new stylistic development.

These differences aside, it’s clearly Malick. The legendary director’s films often have long sequences in which time is compressed; real time moments are rare and only serve to punctuate montages. Such is the case with the first few moments here; after a few lines of dialogue, the sequence plays out as a montage accompanied by music, and we only occasionally hear diegetic sounds (sounds from the story world).

Only having seen about a minute of it, The Tree of Life seems like part of a logical progression of Malick’s style, which after his debut with Badlands has become increasingly more oblique and elliptical. On May 27, the day The Tree of Life premieres, we’ll know for sure.

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Starving artist, Julia Roberts, got paid $1.5 million to star in this Italian commercial for Lavazza coffee. Although Roberts doesn’t actually speak in the commercial, she does flash a $1.5 million dollar smile. I’m so happy Julia Roberts got this gig. For a second, I was worried about how she was going to pay her rent, how she was going to be able to survive in this terrible economy. She’s been grossly underpaid her entire career and terribly under-appreciated. You guys, Julia is finally getting the respect she deserves!

Roberts isn’t the only celebrity who’s cashed in abroad. Lindsay Lohan, for example, got her drug money by also doing European commercials. We’re not sure what she’s actually selling in this bizarre Italian commercial for Fornarina but we know we’re buying.

Brad Pitt sold coffee in Japan.

George Clooney sold coffee in France.

George Clooney. Brad Pitt. Julia Roberts. Like Lindsay Lohan, they’re career-challenged actors who’ve had to go abroad to make ends meet.

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Hit-Girl

Kick-Ass has got me to thinking… If I were to assume an alter-ego super-hero persona, what would be my outfit choice? I could go for a classic look, combining army camouflage with a modern aluminium helmet-shoulder-knee pad infused twist, or I could perhaps embrace my feminine side opting for pastel pinks, a silk cape – because capes are cool and silk is soft – and, to conceal my identity a rather fetching red leather mask.

True… that all sounds a little more like Leatherfest getup than super-slick comic book icon, but nonetheless, Kick-Ass has a point. Anyone can, potentially, become a super-hero with the right attitude.

It was around this idea (one vaguely borrowed from Watchmen) that the comic-book visionary, Mark Miller – The Ultimates, Wanted – created the Kick-Ass comic series. The great thing about having creative friends is that the meeting of minds can ignite ideas and produce truly exciting, groundbreaking art. Millar pitched his Kick-Ass idea to Matthew Vaughn who, fresh from the success of 2008s Stardust, lapped up the gritty concept, and set about making the film version of a comic concept filled to the brim with messed up violence.

As audiences become tired of the same old overindulgent, re-hacked, paint-by-numbers, material churned out by the Hollywood studios, now is the time of the independents to step up their game and take control of the potentially huge profits a successful film can create. Ever the opportunist, Vaughn, who made a cool £9 million producing Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – and even more from Snatch – is leading the heard with Kick-Ass. The close-to-the-mark camaraderie proved a little too much to stomach for Hollywood who politely declined the concept at script stage. So Vaughn did the unthinkable and made it himself without the backing of a studio. Brave? Perhaps. Stupid? Perhaps.

Kick-Ass invites us into the world of Dave Lizewsk (Aaron Johnson); an average New York high school kid who, while chatting to his friends in their local comic-book-come-coffee-shop stumbles across an obvious question which will change his mundane life for good. “How come nobody’s ever tried to be superhero?” he asks. Queue heckles from his quick-witted, uber-geek buddies with uninspired retorts like: “nobody in the real world actually has any super powers.” Bruce Wayne did it without powers right? “Yeah but he had all those expensive gadgets that don’t exist.” Undeterred Lizewsk sets out on his quest towards hero-dom – creating a MySpace page, and ordering a green scuba suit online – and before long, Kick-Ass is born. The set up is deliberately cliché, exploiting parallels to comic adaptation predicators, poking particular fun at Rami’s Spiderman franchise.

Alongside Johnson’s Kick-Ass, the film features an array of other super-hero wannabes. Vigilante Father-Daughter duo, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and the one that’s causing all the fuss — Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) — add real Ka-Pow! to this fast-paced tongue-in-cheek crime fighting caper. Cage is back on form after a questionable decade of role choices (National Treasure,Ghost Rider). Sporting a wardrobe designed by Batman’s very own tailor, Cage’s Big Daddy is a nut that has truly cracked. Sounding like Christian Bale possessed by Adam West, his words trickle out with the comic delay of William Shattner’s recording career (I’m a rocket… man).

For a crime fighting maniac with highly questionable morals and revenge on the brain, Cage does well to portray Big Daddy’s unconditional love for his daughter, as he simultaneously teaches her the fine art of mass murder. Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s Red Mist adds that friend/foe sidekick/enemy ingredient into the mix, and offers his own (now reliable) unique, cute and venerable charm to the role.

Pioneering in both style and substance, this slice of American pie is very much a British affair. The adaptation of a Scottish comic-author, with a screenplay penned by two Brits, a British leading actor, and shot predominantly at Elstree Studios (A film called Star Wars was filmed there). It’s hard to believe the Scarface-esq den of Mafioso bad guy, Frank D’Amiso, with glamorous views of New York’s discerning Upper West Side was created in a sleepy suburb of outer London.

For the filmmakers involved, this movie is all about the detail. Like all great Directors, Vaughn has a clear-cut understanding of the importance of flow. The scene transitions are innovative and glossy and the soundtrack binds together any stray jagged edges. The Matrix-slow-mo-style shoot-off scene between Hit Girl and D’Amiso’s heavies is glorious cinematography, effects and gore combined.

While the uptight will cry with horror as the ‘C word’ passes through Hit Girl’s pre-pubescent lips – dressed as a school girl, brandishing a silenced pistol – the rest of us will revel in its twisted absurdity. There’s no sense in penalizing these free-thinking rebels for making killing, decapitation and revenge look very, very cool. Art and literature have been doing it for centuries; and this is art.

Kick-Ass does more to invigorate a comic-book adaption than any of its predecessors.

The back-story is strong, and the strength in the screenplay really shines through. From its opening sequence it’s evidently clear that this is a film with a difference. A film unbounded by the interfering eyes and ears of the studio. A film which pushes the boundaries and creates controversy while being fresh, engaging, witty and cool. And which seeps into our own lives, inspiring all of us to kick some ass.

I just saw Inglorious Basterds and have yet to fully mull its many splendors and so I’m using the venue as a way to do said mulling. Excuse what comes, please.

This is an odd, odd film. But it is not for naught. On the contrary, it seems that for Tarantino in oddity — in images and affects that meander and linger, that cut and tease — there is a certain freedom, dignity, and justice.

The undeniable climax of the film — we’ll have to return to what a climax is — is exquisite, mad, and patently untrue. That is, in a film that takes on the timbre of the historical, IB conspicuously flaunts its inaccuracy. This is not Valkyrie (a film I’ll admit I a) have not seen; and b) want to see just to get a glimpse of Tom Cruise as a pirate Nazi with a heart — which may be stranger than anything QT can create).

In disregarding historical fact in a film that seemingly borrows much from the historical record, Tarantino makes a claim about the status of film: it is distinctly not a referential creature. It is not beholden to the presumed real; it is the real. Yes, the reel is the real and vice versa.

And yet then what of propaganda? What of Nazi film making? If we disregard film’s obligation to the presumed real, then does it not open the door to what some might call irresponsible image making? To mass coercion?

Inglorious Basterds takes this question head on — and sideways and backwards and not at all. It is a nasty, funny, bloody, beautiful film that is itself multiple films, or at least a film with multiple threads. It begins one way, moves to another, then picks up the earlier thread years later then watches the two threads collide, synergistically and indifferently, in a fuck you all, we win, woopeee of an event.

And this — this power of film to literally burn the audience, to move them, and to do so with no allegiance whatsoever to ideology, concept, or narrative — is Tarantino’s answer to propaganda. Film serves no end other than itself — and that itself is (in)glorious and may be a basterd but it is free and lovely.

Inglorious Bastereds is a fuck you to the totalitarian cinema of any sort. This film does not flow and build. It builds, jumps, forgets, remembers, jumps, rams. And yet it cops the thrilling tension of narrative. Scene after scene is ripe and peculiarly taut. Resolve is often surprising and grotesque in a Coen brothers sort of way.

And tempered with the beautiful, tender, rowdy, and heart breaking (sort of). In these moments, strewn together in odd ways, there is a power and a love that is palpable and real.