A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Originally uploaded by salvame maria

One of the best things about my love affair with the movies is that I can see a movie more than once and get something different out of it every time. The movie can take on a new meaning, inspire me, force me out of a funk or just relax me for the night. I watched A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints this week and this time this film has inspired me in a way that makes me want to start making another film.

I can’t quite put my finger on why I love this film so much, or why I find it uplifting instead of saddening, but I do. When I watch A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints I know this summer in Dito’s life was traumatic and horrible, but watching the film you know that it was actually transforming, it was something that made him who he is today and he can’t escape that which is why the last line of narration in the film is so damn important – “In the end – just like I said – I left everything, and everyone. But no one, no one has ever left me.”

For me, everything I love about this film actually goes back to the style inherent in the film. It’s incredibly unique and that’s why I find it so inspiring. From the music choices, editing style, actors chosen, time line and narration of the film every element in this film works together perfectly to give you a snapshot of a summer and a man, and the style gives it a clear insight into what he must really be like and who he’s become.

The fascinating thing about A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, at least for a film intellectual like me, is the perspective of the film. Dito Montiel is played as an adult by Robert Downy Jr, and as a teen by Shia LeBouf; it’s about the summer that changed his life and that he ends up writing a book about as an adult and comes back to visit his neighborhood. However, Dito Montiel is also a real person, not just any person but the man who wrote and directed the film and actually wrote a book about these events in his life called A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. This might be one of the most autobiographical films I’ve seen in a long time and I can only imagine how unique an experience it had to have been for Montiel to put it on screen himself.

Right now A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is making me wonder if there is anything in my life, stylized or not, that would be just as entertaining to watch and as healing to put from page to screen. I don’t know the answer to that, but you can bet I will be thinking about that. I can’t imagine what that would be like as an artist to have something I can put out there that’s so literally personal, and how freeing it might be.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I grew up with G.I. Joe. I played with my brothers action figures, I watched the cartoon and when we played as the Joes I wanted to be Scarlett. I even remember the last issue of the comic, when Joe got shut down because of the military down sizing during the Clinton administration. So trust me when I tell you that I do have sufficient credentials to speak as a geek and fan of G.I. Joe.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is silly, over the top and very exaggerated. Duke & Ripcord are inducted into an elite team known as G.I. Joe led by General Hawk because they happen to be guarding a high priority shipment that Baroness attempts to steal and as luck would have it Duke knows Baroness’s identity. What ensues is the first cat-and-mouse game between Joe & Cobra.

Along with my childhood love for G.I. Joe I think a lot of my love for this film comes from my love of Stephen Sommers. Sommers directed The Mummy & Van Helsing - two of the most fun films I’ve seen in the past decade. He turned Brendan Fraser into an action star. The movies he makes are stylish in a good way, and the kind of popcorn film that makes me remember why I first fell in love with the escapism the movies provides – and the best part is unlike some of those kinds of films I don’t feel like I have to check my brain at the door.

G.I. Joe does have some obvious flaws. Though there is a plot to the film it is a bit fuzzy to say the least, and you really can’t think too hard about it or it might start to crack. But dang is it fun.

Growing up Scarlett was my favorite Joe as she was the kick-ass girl I wanted to be. The only problem with the portray of Scarlett in the film is that Rachel Nichols played her as far too soft and feminine. Scarlett may be the major female resident of Joe, but she is though as nails, a deadly accurate shot, incredibly faithful to Snake Eyes, and basically not overtly flirty or feminie. In the film she seemed to be all about the hair flips, giggles and being a southern bell. Whether this came from Sommers or Nichols it doesn’t matter, I felt like reminding them both the whole movie that Scarlett can be sexy without being girly. Sienna Miller as Baroness blew Scarlett away in this film.

On a personal note I was also freaked out by Snake Eyes costume. While I LOVE the character and think Ray Park did a great job as my speechless hero it was the mask that got to me. The visor was cool, the body was great, but the fact that the mouth was built into the mask was just a little too much for me. It literally covered his lips. Give me back the mouth covering mask he had in the comic books, the one he’d lift to do anything that required a mouth. It’s not like he needs it to give long expository monologues. In the comic he only says a few words and they are usually in private, to Scarlett – he doesn’t need to have a mask tailored to his lips.

To truly get the most out of G.I. Joe you have to go in expecting nothing more than to have fun. Sommers didn’t make the film to redefine action or the war movie, or even to compete with Michael Bay. He made the movie to pay homage to great, fun characters we grew up loving and to just let us have a good time at the movies.

Director: Stephen Sommers
Writers: Stuart Beattie, David Elliot & Paul Lovett
Heavy Duty: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
McCullen: Christopher Eccleston
Cobra Commander: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Storm Shadow: Byung-hun Lee
Scarlett: Rachel Nichols
Snake Eyes: Ray Park
President: Jonathan Pryce
General Hawk: Dennis Quaid
Breaker: Said Taghmaoui
Duke: Channing Tatum
Zartan: Arnold Vosloo
Ripcord: Marlon Wayans
Sergeant Stone: Brendan Fraser

General Hawk: Technically, we don't exist. We answer to no one. And when all else fails, we don't.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

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Originally uploaded by sean's jawns

Lately, I have had a fascination with watching Robert Downey Jr. movies. I’d forgotten how much I love him as an actor until I picked up Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and threw it into my DVD player a few months ago. Now I am obsessed. Since I opened a Netflix account and now have access to everything I added most of Downey’s catalog and Christian Bale’s to my queue. The latest Downey film I received is A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.

The film is autobiographical about the life of the director/writer of the film and book - Dito. In the film Dito is played by Robert Downey Jr. in the 2005 time line and Shia LaBeouff in the 1986 time line. In the present Dito has just written the book about his life as a teen in Queens and why he left, and his mother gives him a call because his father is sick and won’t go to the hospital so she wants Dito to attempt coming home and taking him. Dito left home in 1986 and hasn’t been back since. The film recounts the events that led up to Dito fleeing home in the flashbacks with Shia LaBeouf.

I enjoyed this movie, but I don’t think that it is one that will appeal to the mass audience. The director has chosen to add some experimental elements into the film that won’t sit well with a large portion of the audience. There is subtitles put in the film when they would not normally be necessary, portions are edited similar to The Limey where you flash forward and backward with characters during a conversation so you don’t see them speaking while you hear them conversing, and the fourth wall is broken multiple times.

It is my opinion that this film worked in this format because it was made by the author of the book. It is obviously not a faithful adaptation to the entire book, but rather focuses on something very specific that Dito needed to work through – his relationship with his father and the life that he wanted for his son. This is actually one movie that really makes me want to learn more about the man behind it and read the book.

Director & Writer: Dito Montiel
Dito: Robert Downey Jr.
Young Dito: Shia LaBeouf
Flora: Dianne Wiest
Laurie: Rosario Dawson
Young Laurie: Melonie Diaz
Diane: Julia Garro
Jenny: Elenore Hendricks
Guiseppe: Adam Scarimbolo
Nerf: Scott Campbell
Young Nerf: Peter Tambakis
Antonio: Eric Roberts
Young Antonio: Channing Tatum
Monty: Chazz Palminteri
Mike: Martin Compston
Frank: Anthony DeSando

Dito: In the end - just like I said - I left everything, and everyone. But no one, no one has ever left me