My Birthday is On Janurary 29th. I turn 19. So BUY ME THINGS!!!.

My Review of the 25th Hour (appearing in the Badger Herald tommorow):

With so many films this year trying to capture the real feel of New York City or attempting to shine light on life post 9/11, Spike Lee’s newest feature The 25th Hour easily puts the rest to shame. More impressive than finally saying what a city as diverse as New York has been feeling, is that he does it without ever glorifying New York’s significant history pre 9/11 in the same cheesy nostalgic way. And even better, Lee knows not just to say it, but also to show it repeatedly in a thousand different ways.

The 25th Hour is the story of Monty Brogan’s (Edward Norton, “The Red Dragon”) last day as a free man in the big apple. Facing a seven-year jail sentence for pushing drugs, Monty spends the day trying to find something comforting that both explains why this happened to him and how he can possibly go on living. Accompanied by his Jewish English teacher friend Jakob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Red Dragon”), his power-lunch eating stockbroker Frank Slaughtery (Barry Pepper, “We Were Soldiers”), and his Irish recovering alcoholic father (Brian Cox, “The Ring”), Monty attends his going away party at a trendy nightclub.

Of course, the plot is a bit more complicated because of the mystery surrounding who tipped off the DEA: Monty’s right-hand Russian mob man Kostya Novotny (Tony Siragusa, Former NFL Star), or his Puerto Rican girlfriend Naturelle Rivera (Rosario Dawson, “Men In Black Two”). Even with that, the story is sprinkled with flashbacks of the DEA busting in and of meeting Naturelle, and topped off with the mostly mental affair that Jakob (and most male viewers of 15-19 age group) has with his student, the tantalizing Mary D'Annunzio (Anna Paquin, “Finding Forrester”).

The movie is also a film critic’s dream, filled with references to other films that really help in understanding the plot. In the opening scene where Norton saves a tortured dog, Lee uses the jump cut technique pioneered in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960), which is also about a criminal with only 24 hours as a free man whose foreign girlfriend turns him in (not to say that it was Naturelle who turned Monty in, but the plot reference is clear). In Monty’s apartment hangs a Cool Hand Luke (Stuart Rosenberg, 1967) poster, implying that Monty, like Luke, will not conform or survive in prison; adding a morbid tone to Monty in prison. Lee also embeds now classic elements of his own style in the scene where Norton rants racial remarks reminiscent of Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989). Together these elements not only demonstrate Lee’s foundation in cinema, but also really help the educated viewer see beyond what is on the screen by evoking the same feelings that these other cinematic gems are famous for, like Monty’s suspicion of Naturelle, his scapegoat nature, and his fear not of prison, but of death in prison.

Edward Norton is growing slowly as an actor; receiving roles that differ enough to elude typecasting, yet all allow him to always fall back on the now annoying character of the deeply troubled good-guy-bad-guy. His performance is solid and fits very well into the New York city Spike creates. The shinning stars of the movie, and for some will be the most purely entertaining plot line, are Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Anna Paquin. Their chemistry on screen is so seductive that the viewer, as Jakob, wishes that Mary were not his student. Although Lee seems to go a bit out of the way at painting Paquin as the bad girl, Hoffman makes up for it by appearing at the club wearing a Yankees hat and slacks only to fall asleep, which is a really terrific counter to Mary’s scant clothing and trashy henna tattoo. Barry Pepper’s performance is even and he does do the obnoxious stockbroker roll better than most, but it would be a shame to see his talents squandered down that spiral.

Mostly this movie is entertaining and thoughtful, not providing the viewer with any definite answer or solution (again a staple of Spike Lee), but leaving all sorts of clues for interpretation – whether as obscure as the French New Wave, or as obvious as Monty saving the tortured pup – that force an active viewing of the picture. In the end, Monty is the sum of the choices he has made in life. He can escape to rebuild somewhere else, or he can bare that, for better or for worse, and one day, return to his beloved New York.

My brother was in Madison with me this weekend. We had an awesome time. My furniture is assembled and my new apartment is looking good. All in all, daily life is coming back and I am keeping up with my hopes of becoming a productive person. I am doing my school work (mostly reading - King Lear and Conrad's Heart of Darkness). I wrote my review (which was really good IMO) so yeh, life is coming together. Exciting right? So get me birthday presents and wish me luck tommorow. I'll post more this week, promise. And happy birthday Dahlia! I love you.