Double Feature Duel (Rd3): Requiem vs. Stranger

Double Feature Duel (Rd3):
Requiem for a Dream vs. Stranger Than Fiction

Two powerhouses of the tournament if the criteria was based on me not being able to figure out how to capitalize the title.

Title: Well, I looked up what requiem means. It’s still a cool word, but I think I liked it better when I didn’t know what it meant. Kinda like the word “prolapse.” (Point, Stranger 0-1)

Funnier: On his best day - trying to be funny - Marlon Wayans couldn’t be funnier than Will Ferrell trying not to be funny. (Point, Stranger 0-2)

Better Turn: Tough one. I do oh so enjoy Will yelling at the narrator trying to kill him, but I kinda knew that was going to happen. Requiem’s turn snuck up on me. Like the one on Northern Parkway to get to the lacrosse field. Trust me. (Point, Requiem 1-2)

Better Ending: Once again, a movie about an author that couldn’t figure out how to end her book imitates life. (Point, Requiem 2-2)

Better Message: This just isn’t Stranger’s category. 0 for 3. (Point, Requiem 3-2)

Better Acting: Wow. This one is tough too. I do so love Will Ferrell but I super love Ellen Burstyn. I didn’t really hate anybody else in either movie. Nor did I love them. I guess I have my answer. And it doesn’t look good for the favorite. (Point, Requiem 4-2)

More Creative: Mounting a comeback and needing the last three to win it, it’s nice to have a lay-up to get you started. (Point, Stranger 4-3)

Poster: Probably the weakest category for both of these films. But I still hate the eyeball and for some reason, I overlook it every time I try to find the poster. I suppose that says all that needs to be said. (Point, Requiem 4-4)

Watch again: This is as close as they come, folks. And on a different day, this answer might be different, which makes this question sometimes the hardest to answer. I’m thinking about sending back in both my Netflix DVDs and getting these two movies just so I can really let it play out. And as much as I’d like to see both of them, I think right now, I’d pop in – well it might be a coin flip which I do all the time. But I did watch Stranger Than Fiction twice when I had it. So I’m going to have to go with the favorite. And I really didn’t do this because it was the favorite, but I can see how you’d think that since I’m making the odds and reffing the contest too. You really don’t think I have the integrity to do this, do you? How vain do you think I am? Did you see Body of Lies get to the Sweet 16? This is why we don’t hang out more. Where was I? (Point, Stranger 4-5)

Overall: This was probably the first contest where I legitimately didn’t know who was going to win. Really, up until the last sentence, which I stopped typing to think about. Anyways, the better team won. And on to face the winner of Body of Lies and Big Fish (see, I kinda know how that one is going to end).

Double Feature Duel (Rd 2): Das Boot vs. Requiem For a Dream

Double Feature Duel (Rd 2):
Das Boot vs. Requiem For a Dream

Hello! Welcome to the Round of 32! We’ve weeded out the crap and it’s time to get to business. Make the hard decisions I will one day get paid for. But until then, I will make these hard decisions here – for free – if for no other reason than to stave off doing anything considered productive by society. This includes joining Google Plus and figuring out what the hell it does. OK. What’s up, Das Boot and Requiem for a Dream?

Title: Das Boot is German for “The Boat.” I don’t even really know what a requiem is and that alone is better than a movie called “The Boat” in any language. Maybe if it was German for “Jelly Donut.” (Point, Requiem 0-1)

Funnier: Yikes! Everybody dies in both of these movies. But I’d say that the 3 ½ hours of Das Boot numbed whatever laugh sensors I had anyway. (Point, Requiem 0-2)

Better Turn: Both turns exposed the hopelessness of the situation. Dramatic as it was to see that the German crew had to go back out on a suicide mission immediately upon their return, the scene where the son tried to get his mom to realize she was addicted to diet pills out-hopelessed Das Boot. (Point, Requiem 0-3)

Better Ending: I just watched a really good movie last night called Das Boot. Ron: “What was it about?” It was a World War Two movie shot from the perspective of a German U Boat. Ron: “It didn’t end well, did it.” Not so much. But it did. (Point, Das Boot 1-3)

Better Message: “Don’t do drugs” vs. “Don’t mess with America.” Maybe not exactly like that, but that’s one takeaway. (Point, Das Boot 2-3)

Better Acting: Once again, Ellen Burstyn brought an unexpected thrill to this movie. I didn’t even know what the guys in the other movie were saying. In fact, how the hell did a German movie get to the second round? (Point, Requiem 2-4)

Poster: I’m not particularly affected by the giant eyeball. If they were going for disturbing, I suppose they got close enough to the target. Otherwise, the Das Boot poster, from picture quality to choice of font, shows a graininess and pixelated quality, which may just be the quality of the jpg, but is still enough to win this. I guess. (Point, Das Boot 3-4)

More Creative: The use of some creative camerawork and music along with the “Juice By Tappy” commercials made Requiem as uncomfortable to watch as Das Boot without having to be in German or last 3 ½ hours. (Point, Requiem 3-5)

Watch again: Have I mentioned yet that Requiem for a Dream wasn’t 3 ½ hours long? (Point, Requiem 6-3)

Overall: OK. We have our first Sweet 16. I wouldn’t exactly call Requiem an underdog, but mid-majors don’t usually escape the round of 16 too often. Good luck, Mason.

Double Feature Duel: Requiem For a Dream vs. How To Train Your Dragon

Double Feature Duel:
Requiem For a Dream vs. How To Train Your Dragon

Only the second installment and I already changed the name (Thanks, Annie). Anyway, this is another one pitting two completely different movies against each other, but this is one that I have no idea who is going to win. I’d have probably had to tweak my system a bit if a movie nominated for 6 Oscars lost to a movie with a 32% on the Tomatometer Rating System last time. But not this battle.

Requiem for a Dream is the final movie in my quest to see all the movies by Darren Aronofsky. Some were decent (Black Swan, Pi), one sucked (The Fountain) and this one was a really riveting peak into the lives of a couple drug addicts, shot in a way to take you with them on their journey. How To Train Your Dragon is a DreamWorks buddy film about Viking times where a clumsy, scrawny youth accidentally grounds a super-special dragon and they become friends. Believe it or not, these movies were written by completely different people.

Funnier: Kind of another no-brainer unless there’s a sadistic meth-head out there who revels in the drug-induced pain and panic of others. Plus, Marlon Wayans is in Requiem for a Dream. Point, How To Train Your Dragon (0-1)

Better Turn: It’s hard to really pinpoint when Dragon’s Act II started, but it doesn’t matter. Requiem had such an emotional scene when the main character came to visit his mother after starting a profitable dope-dealing business to find that she was getting unknowingly (to her) high on her diet pills. It showed an earnest love for his mother, which we weren’t really sure about yet, and a powerlessness to help anyone else out of their situation, as he was too messed up to really dig his own way out of his. Point, Requiem for a Dream (1-1)

Better Ending: I really would have liked to see one of the four main characters make it out of Requiem. All four suffered pretty gruesome fates, depending on your take on Jennifer Connelly’s situation. But the quick montage with the disturbing music and the violent clips were pretty moving. I had to watch it several times to get it. This led to the imperfect but moving dream sequence, mirroring all four of their nights, with the camera pulling back to find them all in their beds. Meanwhile, Dragon’s ending was cute and feelgood, but typical and predictable by kid’s movie standards. Point, Requiem (2-1)

Better Message: Requiem’s message is not simply “don’t do drugs,” though I can see how one would confuse them. It delves a little more into how anyone can get hooked, knowingly or not. Dragon’s message is the same as most movies of this nature. Give the people who aren’t like us a chance. They may not be all that bad. Also, just because we always did something this way doesn’t mean we have to do it that way now. Maybe it’s been done before, but Requiem was a little too over the top to really have an effect on the way I see the world. Point, Dragon (2-2)

Better Acting: Ellen Burstyn was amazing in Requiem. I couldn’t believe she didn’t win Best Actress (which she was nominated for) until I found out it was the year Julia Roberts won for Erin Brockovich. She puts this movie into a much different category than it would have been had you had to concentrate on Marlon Wayans any more. Dragon is an animated movie. I should have started and ended with that. Point, Requiem (3-2)

More Creative: Tough choice here, but I feel like movies about drug addicts have been done. This one brought the mother into it and it was shot very well, but I can appreciate the idea of trying to fix a dragon’s tail feather to make him functional again. That was pretty cool. However, the plot of Dragon was pretty formulaic and Requiem’s “Juice by Tappy” commercials were a creative way to make the film even more disjointed and disturbing. Point, Requiem (4-2)

Watch again: Another tough choice, as I’ve waivered back and forth with this even as I’ve been typing. I feel like I could watch Ellen Burstyn’s performance many times over and that’s where I’m leaning now, though I’d rather see either compared to the last two movies I saw. Point, Requiem (5-2)

Overall: Well, I’d probably rate both of these movies pretty high on the bug rating, but the facts have played themselves out and made Requiem for a Dream the winner of this Double Feature Duel. Thanks for reading and I’ll probably have another title for this column next time.