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First Reformed (2018)/ You Were Never Really Here (2018)
Both First Reformed and You Were Never Really Here use sly genre subversion to act as commentary on what kinds of movies the audience associates with these kind of haunted men, their arcs, and the nature of violence. Subverting audience expectations is in and of itself not necessarily a better option. You can have unexpected things happen but the narrative that happens after needs to be compelling, and if possible, unavoidable in hindsight (Game of Thrones is good at this). By the same notion, the finale of Breaking Bad was pretty easy to anticipate but that's because of how well written the storytelling trajectory was pointing to its natural end. I can tell a tense father-son reconciliation story and then if I end it with a meteor wiping out the Earth all of a sudden, well that's unexpected but that doesn't make it better storytelling. What helps elevate both movies is that the subversions are thematically related to the relationship between violence and vengeance, absolution and atonement, and the audience and our desires with these films.
In First Reformed, Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke, enthralling) is the caretaker of a small upstate New York church where the weekly attendance can be counted on one hand. The church, First Reformed, is nearing the commemoration of its two hundred-fiftieth anniversary that will be celebrated by local dignitaries and the governor. Reverend Jeffers (Cedric the Entertainer, surprisingly adept in drama) is the pastor for the mega church that seems to have everything that First Reformed lacks. Jeffers wants to help out Toller but the humble man of the cloth refuses. Rev. Toller is pushed out of his comfort zone by the husband of a pregnant woman (Amanda Seyfried) who challenges him on man's stewardship of the environment. The husband worries about bringing a child into this world and contributing the larger problem of climate change. This interaction gets Rev. Toller to think about his own culpability and sets him on a path of righteous justice.
Writer/director Paul Schrader is famous for his stories about violent men confronting the wickedness of the world around them. From Taxi Driver to Raging Bull to Hardcore, Schrader has a penchant for documenting the self-destructive recourse of flawed men who feel removed or constrained by a society they feel is out of step with morality. What better canvas then for Schrader than a middle-aged pastor at a small, reclusive church? Rev. Toller is so humble he doesn't own more than a few sticks of furniture in his home, the adjoining parsonage to the church. He's friendly but often choosing to keep to himself, forgoing comforts and perceived handouts from the people around him. A woman his own age keeps trying to connect with him, their romantic coupling in the past a platform for her to continue hoping he'll come around to her. She's a perfectly nice woman, a choir headmistress for the mega church down the road, but she reminds Toller of his weakness and maybe even something worse. The aforementioned mega church basically keeps Toller's small parish afloat as a charity (First Reformed is nicknamed the "gift shop church" for its historical notoriety). Rev. Jeffers is concerned about his fellow man of the cloth and the toll his solitude and seclusion is taking on him. It's like he's trying to atone for something, taking on a very Christ-like path of penitence. It's around here that the character is activated into a higher calling in conflict with the church.
I'll explain what I was expecting given the premise and presence of Schrader. I was expecting a movie much in keeping with A History of Violence, where a small-town man is thrust back into a past life of violence by outside forces and he has to confront how far this "new him" has come from the sins of "old him." I was expecting Toller to become more violent and radicalized, pitting others in his cross-hairs for retribution. That's not really First Reformed at all. First off, it's the slowest of slow burns. You better be prepared to luxuriate in the day-to-day details of Rev. Toller's simple life, from unclogging toilets to visiting with parishioners in their homes and having long philosophical conversations with them about faith and man's role in the ecosystem. That conversation specifically teeters toward ten minutes and serves as the end of Act One, and I think if you're still invested by then, you'll be along for the rest of the film. However, it's not going to be an easily accessible movie. This conversation stirs something deeper inside Toller, dissatisfaction with the church and how it coddles with big business, the chief polluters of God's kingdom. Toller becomes a late-in-life environmental activist who questions the stewardship of the church body. This sets him on a path that seems destined for bloody violence. He's going to go out in a fury of righteousness. We're expecting a big bang by the end, especially given Schrader's history of these kinds of stories with these kinds of men. But that doesn't happen.
I'll try and avoid spoilers but discussion over the thematic relevance of the end of First Reformed will unavoidably suggest to the reader some significant plot developments, so please feel free to read this paragraph or skip to the next one. The second half of the movie is setting you up for a very specific ending, one where Toller strikes back against forces he feels are detrimental to the well being of the church. It's setting you up for a climactic showdown with powerful forces that feel unaccountable for their actions. I was ready for a final rush of violence to serve as the crescendo to Schrader's slow burn. This is where the movie swerves away from audience expectations. We're prepared for a meaningful death but instead Schrader's ending, in retrospect, makes us question why we should have desired such a violent and vengeful finale. Why should this character be a martyr for our bloodlust against the powerful? Ultimately, Schrader's movie ends on a romantic, optimistic note of personal salvation after setting you up for a dark story with a predetermined, self-destructive end. The abruptness of the ending may inspire some titters, but when you look back at the film, it makes complete sense and calls into question why we would wish for blood and violence over human connection and forgiveness. Schrader is saying that you wanted the wrong kind of movie.
First Reformed takes the modest aims of its protagonist to heart when it comes to the presentation of its story. Schrader films the entire movie in the old-fashioned 4:3 aspect ratio, the square box of old pre-high definition televisions. It's an aspect ratio that keeps everything centered for the audience and on display. I think there was exactly four camera movements in the entire movie; almost the entirely of the 113 minutes is from a stationary, documentary-styled camera. It's a very specific visual style that limits the visual information and dynamism but manages to personalize the main character even more. It's his movie and his journey of self, so the visual representation is also restrained. There's really one flash of upsetting violence in the whole movie, as if to remind the audience how a violent death is not something to be celebrated. For an R-rated Paul Schrader movie, it's far more reserved, subtle, and thoughtful. It left me thinking about Rev. Toller and his messianic mission and our desire for a big bloody finish. The idea of a selfless death directed toward violent retribution is inherently self-involved. It's not death that provides meaning but life, it's not how we end but what we do with the days beforehand.
You Were Never Really Here is built as a hitman thriller based on Jonathan Ames' novel. Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is a hired gun who specializes in rescuing young women. He's hired to find the missing adolescent daughter of a senatorial candidate. He investigates the underbelly of sex trafficking to save this little girl, but larger forces are at play and will make Joe suffer gravely for interfering with their wanton exploitation.
The average audience for You Were Never Really Here has been steadily fed a diet of these kinds of movies, from the artful (Luc Besson's The Professional), to the pulpy (The Long Kiss Goodnight), to any number of hollow, nihilistic video game-styled murder fantasies (Hitman, a thousand straight-to-DVD movies). We're expecting men of action who are ruthlessly efficient and clever when it comes to their killing. We're expecting stylish merchants of death who leave behind a heavy body count with swagger. That's not what brilliant Scottish writer/director Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) has in mind at all. She takes the iconography of the hitman thriller and turns it into an expectation-smashing existential character study, but not just of its disturbed main character but also for the audience and our relationship to these movies. We expect remorseless killing machines that turn death into splashy and cool tableaus. These movies aren't so much key on mediation and reflection, beyond the standard "reap what you sow" adage.
Much of the violence is kept off screen or purposely denied to the audience. I'm trying to remember if we even see Joe kill anyone on screen. The infiltration of the sex trafficking organization hops between fixed security angles, edited together in a dissonant manner, where the last shot doesn't fully line up for a smooth edit, leaving a half second. The effect is one that's knowingly alienating and challenging. When Joe does unleash his violent skills, it's rarely given a showcase for entertainment. This is a movie that doesn't celebrate its violence. There's a moment where Joe lies on the ground beside a mortally wounded bad guy. They exchange a few cordial words, he procures some vital information, but then Joe stays with the man and the two sing a song together. It sounds bizarre when written out but it's a moment that really stuck with me. After everything, these two men can find a small sliver of humanity between them to share. Even the final confrontation, the big climactic set piece of any other movie, ends with a shoulder shrug, as if Ramsay is saying to the audience, "Why would seeing all that be cathartic?"
For Ramsay, the focus of the movie is on the man committing the acts of violence rather than how stylish and cool and cinematic those acts of violence can be. This is the one area where I feel a longer running time could have better helped her goal. I think Ramsay might be the best filmmaker we have for triptych narratives. 2011's We Need to Talk About Kevin is a startling and insightful movie that opens up the guilt of a woman whose son grew up very badly, jumping around time periods, using a repetition of images to provide visual stings and associations. You Were Never Really Here does similar labor, establishing our strong silent protagonist through glimpses of a troubled past, from a childhood with an abusive father and a mother he would have to save, to incidents during military service and police investigations that reminded Joe about the depravity of others, in particular the ability to exploit and dehumanize women as disposable property. Ramsay offers discorded images and brief flashes and asks the audience to put together the pieces to better understand Joe as a man propelled and haunted by his bloody past. However, at a slim 89 minutes, the audience could have used more time and opportunity to better develop and analyze this central character. The pieces are tantalizing but I wanted more, and as a result I found Joe to be an interesting start to a character that was in need of more time and attention to transcend the boundaries of his archetype. I needed a little more from him and his world.
There are several moments that quickly come to my memory, sticking with me because of the level of artistic arrangement or implication. Because Ramsay wants to take the Hollywood hitman revenge thriller and deconstruct it and provoke her audience and its desires for violence, there isn't much of a plot to this movie. I could literally spoil the whole thing with the following sentence: a man of violence is hired to find a missing girl, finds her, loses her, and finds her again at great personal expense. The movie is more of a poignant and intriguing exercise in our relationship to these kinds of stories. There are moments of beauty in the movie that took my breath away, like when Joe lowers a wrapped body into the depths of a lake, and with the shafts of light, the curls of hair, the small visual details, it felt like watching a living baroque painting. There are also several bizarre moments that stand out, like when Joe fantasizes about blowing his brains out at a diner while the patrons, and the blood-soaked waitress, go about their day. It's these little flourishes that make the movie stand above other hitman movie deconstruction exercises like George Clooney's overly solemn The American. It's not all tragedy and inescapable dread. Amidst Joe's tortured past and troubled future, there's a necessary sense of hope. You don't know what will happen next but you're not resigned to retrograde nihilism.
Both First Reformed and You Were Never Really Here are slow burn indie character studies that ask their audience to question the movies they've been set up for. Schrader and Ramsay are deft storytellers who pair their visual gifts to the psyches of their damaged, haunted, and self-destructive middle-aged men. Hawke is phenomenal as Rev. Toller and Phoenix is suitably unsettled from a life of confronting predatory violence. Both movies have also stayed with me, though First Reformed I find to be the better developed, better executed, better acted of the two films. It's enough of a comeback for Schrader, whose last film I remember seeing was the laughably bad Lindsay Lohan "erotic thriller" The Canyons. These are two movies that aren't exactly the most accessible. Both challenge the audience to analyze the personal relationships with genre storytelling. If you have patience and an open mind, both First Reformed and You Were Never Really Here provide thoughtful and methodical examinations on genre, violence, and the visceral appeal of empty bloodshed.
Nate's Grades:
First Reformed: A-
You Were Never Really Here: B
Posted in 2018 Movies
Tags: amanda seyfried, book, cedric the entertainer, drama, ethan hawke, indie, joaquin phoneix, lynne ramsay, paul schrader, religion, thriller
This is one of the most difficult reviews I've ever had to write. It's not because I'm torn over the film; no, it's because this review will also serve as my break-up letter. Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA), we're just moving in two different directions. We met when we were both young and headstrong. I enjoyed your early works Paul, but then somewhere around There Will be Blood, things changed. You didn't seem like the PTA I had known to love. You became someone else, and your films represented this change, becoming plotless and laborious centerpieces on self-destructive men. Others raved to the heavens over Blood but it left me cold. Maybe I'm missing something, I thought. Maybe the problem is me. Maybe it's just a phase. Then in 2012 came The Master, a pretentious and ultimately futile exercise anchored by the wrong choice for a main character. When I saw the early advertisements for Inherent Vice I got my hopes up. It looked like a weird and silly throwback, a crime caper that didn't take itself so seriously. At last, I thought, my PTA has returned to me. After watching Inherent Vice, I can no longer deny the reality I have been ducking. My PTA is gone and he's not coming back. We'll always have Boogie Nights, Paul. It will still be one of my favorite films no matter what.
In the drug-fueled world of 1970 Los Angeles, stoner private eye Doc (Joaquin Phoenix) is visited by one of his ex-girlfriends, Shasta (Katherine Waterston). She's in a bad place. The man she's in love with, the wealthy real estate magnate Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) is going to be conned. Mickey's wife, and her boyfriend, is going to commit the guy to a mental hospital ward and take control of his empire. Then Shasta and Mickey go missing. Doc asks around, from his police detective contact named Bigfoot (Josh Brolin), to an ex (Reese Witherspoon) who happens to be in the L.A. justice department, to a junkie (Jena Malone) with a fancy set of fake teeth thanks to a coked-out dentist (Martin Short) who may be a front for an Asian heroin cartel. Or maybe not. As more and more strange characters come into orbit, Doc's life is placed in danger, and all he really wants to find out is whether his dear Shasta is safe or not.
Inherent Vice is a shaggy dog detective tale that is too long, too convoluted, too slow, too mumbly, too confusing, and not nearly funny or engaging enough. If it weren't for the enduring pain that was The Master, this would qualify as Anderson's worst picture.
One of my main complaints of Anderson's last two movies has been the paucity of a strong narrative, especially with the plodding Master. It almost felt like Anderson was, subconsciously or consciously, evening the scales from his plot-heavy early works. Being plotless is not a charge one can levy against Inherent Vice. There is a story here with plenty of subplots and intrigue. The problem is that it's almost never coherent, as if the audience is lost in the same pot haze as its loopy protagonist. The mystery barely develops before the movie starts heaping subplot upon subplot, each introducing more and more characters, before the audience has a chance to process. It's difficult to keep all the characters and their relationships straight, and then just when you think you have everything settled, the film provides even more work. The characters just feel like they're playing out in different movies (some I would prefer to be watching), with the occasional crossover. I literally gave up 45 minutes into the movie and accepted the fact that I'm not going to be able to follow it, so I might as well just watch and cope. This defeatist attitude did not enhance my viewing pleasure. The narrative is too cluttered with side characters and superfluous digressions.
The plot is overstuffed with characters, many of which will only appear for one sequence or even one scene, thus polluting a narrative already crammed to the seams with characters to keep track of. Did all of these characters need to be here and visited in such frequency? Doc makes for a fairly frustrating protagonist. He's got little personality to him and few opportunities to flesh him out. Not having read Thomas Pynchon's novel, I cannot say how complex the original character was that Anderson had to work with. Doc just seems like a placeholder for a character, a guy who bumbles about with a microphone, asking others questions and slowly unraveling a convoluted conspiracy. He's more a figure to open other characters up than a character himself. The obvious comparison to the film and the protagonist is The Big Lebowski, a Coen brothers film I'm not even that fond over. However, with Lebowski, the Coens gave us memorable characters that separated themselves from the pack. The main character had a definite personality even if he was drunk or stoned for most of the film. Except for Short's wonderfully debased and wily five minutes onscreen, every character just kind of washes in and out of your memory, only registering because of a famous face portraying him or her. Even in the closing minutes, the film is still introducing vital characters. The unnecessary narration by musician Joanna Newsome is also dripping with pretense.
Another key factor that limits coherency is the fact that every damn character mumbles almost entirely through the entirety of the movie. And that entirety, by the way, is almost two and a half hours, a running time too long by at least 30 minutes, especially when Doc's central mystery of what happened to Shasta is over before the two-hour mark. For whatever reason, it seems that Anderson has given an edict that no actor on set can talk above a certain decibel level or enunciate that clearly. This is a film that almost requires a subtitle feature. There are so many hushed or mumbled conversations, making it even harder to keep up with the convoluted narrative. Anderson's camerawork can complicate the matter as well. Throughout the film, he'll position his characters speaking and slowly, always so slowly, zoom in on them, as if we're eavesdropping. David Fincher did something similar with his sound design on Social Network, amping up the ambient noise to force the audience to tune their ears and pay closer attention. However, he had Aaron Sorkin's words to work with, which were quite worth our attention. With Inherent Vice, the characters talk in circles, tangents, and limp jokes. After a protracted setup, and listening to one superficially kooky character after another, you come to terms with the fact that while difficult to follow and hear, you're probably not missing much.
Obviously, Inherent Vice is one detective mystery where the answers matter less than the journey and the various characters that emerge, but I just didn't care, period. It started too slow, building a hazy atmosphere that just couldn't sustain this amount of prolonged bloat and an overload of characters. Anderson needed to prune Pynchon's novel further. What appears onscreen is just too difficult to follow along, and, more importantly, not engaging enough to justify the effort. The characters fall into this nether region between realism and broadly comic, which just makes them sort of unrealistic yet not funny enough. The story rambles and rambles, set to twee narration that feels like Newsome is just reading from the book, like Anderson could just not part with a handful of prose passages in his translation. Much like The Master, I know there will be champions of this movie, but I won't be able to understand them. This isn't a zany Chinatown meets Lewboswki. This isn't some grand throwback to 1970s cinema. This isn't even much in the way of a comedy, so be forewarned. Inherent Vice is the realization for me that the Paul Thomas Anderson I fell in love with is not coming back. And that's okay. He's allowed to peruse other movies just as I'm allowed to see other directors. I wish him well.
Tags: benicio del toro, book, comedy, cops, drama, drugs, indie, jena malone, jillian bell, joaquin phoneix, josh brolin, katherine waterston, maya rudolph, mystery, oscars, owen wilson, paul thomas anderson, period film, pretentious, reese witherspoon, stoner
It's been several years for Spike Jonze since he escaped the turmoil around Where the Wild Things Are, an ambitious adaptation that ran afoul with studio execs over the oppressively sad tone (I agreed with the execs). He's one of the most stylish visual directors working today, but Her is something very different for the man. For starters, it's a film Jonze wrote himself; no collaboration with Charlie Kaufman this time. It's also a pared down love story, focusing heavily on two characters and their exciting and emerging union. There are no visual tricks, no gimmicks, no overt special effects, nothing to distract from the central relationship commanding the screen. It's a different kind of film from Jonze but one that's just as brilliantly well made as his best. Her is a beguiling winner.
Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is a man struggling to get his life back together. He's a star at his job where he writes other people's personal letters for them, but he's a sensitive soul still refusing to sign the divorce papers from his ex-wife, Catherine (Rooney Mara). He doesn't want to lose that part of his life. After watching an ad, Theodore buys a new computer operating system (OS) that promises to be the most lifelike possible. He pops the software onto his computer and, voila, the voice of Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) emerges, chipper, helpful, and compassionate. Theodore is a new man with her assistance, and soon they grow even closer together on a romantic scale. Theodore and Samantha embark on the greta unknown together, but can a relationship work when it's with a voice in your computer.
It's been weeks since I first watched Her and I keep thinking back upon it, turning it over in my mind, finding more and more to like about this captivating little movie. It's a tenderhearted and poignant movie that also manages to have something to say about human connection. And this really is a love story, and an engrossing one at that, despite the fact that it's man and machine. The romance between Samantha and Theodore is never looked down upon, marginalized, the setup to some punch line about how nerd can't get dates with real women. You think the film might go there, and then Theodore's co-workers just shrug when the truth comes out and treat his relationship like any other. I suppose you could make all sorts of analogues, but they are unnecessary because Samantha truly feels like another person. She's given complexity, curiosity, impulses, and, yes, as voiced by the husky-voiced Johansson, an alluring edge. Because she's a disembodied voice minus form, theirs is a relationship built upon intellect, conversation, personality, and a burgeoning connection, though they do cover the sex part as well. In fact, the climactic (pardon the pun) vocal exploration is simultaneously awkward, funny, heartfelt, and yes, even a little sexy, and the music crescendos to give it even more oomph. Samantha is learning just as much about herself as Theodore is. Their relationship is opening both of them up to the possibilities they might never have sought. In that respect, Jonze's film falls under that sweet spell all engaging romances achieve where our spirits are lifted and we swoon along with the onscreen coupling.
I've found it tricky to talk about Her at least in describing the premise to other people; comparing Samantha to Siri has helped rather than just referring to her as an "operating system." One concern I had was that Jonze was just going to deliver the premise in a very expected manner and Her would serve up more of the same. But he doesn't. While this is a light science fiction film, it is extremely well developed and thought out. Jonze has taken remarkable care to flesh out his story and enrich the not too distant future world. It felt like a world that could reasonably exist. I enjoyed the fact that there were so-called surrogates for hire, people that would serve as the physical embodiments of the OS personalities, providing a different kind of encounter, one meant to converge intimacy with touch. I could see these people existing if this were the future. Even better, Jonze takes great care to develop the central relationship between his lovers, so that every unique complication is given some form of respectful coverage. They discuss the limitations but not just what you would assume. Yes Samantha has no body, but she can also be in many places at once, doing many things at once, and simply will outlive all her carbon-based life form companions. Can they make this last? Even with the technological component, old problems can rear their head, particularly jealousy, like when Samantha begins communicating with other OS personalities. Then there's Theodore's lingering divorce with his wife, a woman who can stir up old feelings and doubts. Without giving too much away, the end manages to be hopeful, melancholy, expected, and satisfying.
Jonze also manages to slide in some subtle jabs about the state of communication and connection. There's an early shot where Theodore is riding a train and everyone on board appears to be talking except that they're all talking to their OS, each person an isolated unit. Theodore's job also seems like a perfect social commentary as well as a clever conceit for a man who has unsurpassed skill with words but difficulty with the flesh-and-blood interaction. It works directly with the theme of the film. I also find it humorous, and a bit subversive, that Theodore has long-standing relationships with clients. He's been writing letters for certain couples for years going all the way back to their first meeting. Think about that, this couple's communication and courtship rest upon the words of an intermediary paid for his services. These people could go their entire lives thinking their partner is the author of such wonderful, heartfelt, observant words. That's the dearth of honest communication plaguing human relationships, but it's not a new problem. We've all ducked hard conversations. Many of us would love to have someone come in and do the dirty work while we sit back and reap the rewards. But a relationship built upon deceit or convenience will ultimately fall apart, or, in this new age of technological isolation and greater deception, will it?
Jonze's direction seems invisible, like we're dropping in on these characters and peaking on their lives. The overall technical aesthetic of Her is a clean, simplified look and feel for a love story that manages to be new and familiar. The production design has an eye-catching degree of colors, which bathe the film in a consistently dreamy, gauzy aura, echoing the screenplay's warm heart. The score by the Canadian alternative band Arcade Fire is low-key but just as vulnerable, resonant, and special as the characters in the film. It's mostly pared down piano trinkles but the reoccurring motifs stick in your head, elevating Jonze's film. When Samantha takes up composing songs to express her sum total feelings of a moment, capturing a snapshot of a particular time as she refers, it's nice to have talented musicians able to bring this to life.
Phoneix (The Master) gives such a tender, vulnerable performance that you worry that he's going to be crushed by life. He has this remarkable way of making you want to hug Theodore, like he's this sad puppy that just needs a good home. There are moments in the film where just one perfectly executed crinkly-eyed crooked smile tells me everything about this character. Phoenix plays his character as a good-hearted, amiable, and deeply romantic individual, and the sheer strength of his performance will knock you back. Theodore has such great pools of empathy, and a poet's soul, which allows him to excel at his job but it also makes relationships hard. A relationship takes work, and Theodore may have not been up to the labor, as his ex-wife argues. Personally, I found a lot of striking points of similarity with the character and I think others will as well. Who hasn't, in a moment of dark-clouded funk, wondered if they've reached the apex of their emotional experiences, that everything will somehow be lesser variations? Who hasn't feared that they somehow tapped out on their ability to love as powerfully as before? As Theodore is picking up the pieces of his life, trying to determine his new sense of self, we're learning alongside him exactly how Samantha is changing him.
Before this movie, I would have said a Johansson (Don Jon) performance minus her body would be a travesty, but damn if she doesn't give a performance that is worthy of the Oscar buzz. It's easy to understand why Theodore falls for Samantha, and you will too. Johansson has never been this winsome and loveable but she's far more than some idealized Super Girlfriend to be placed precariously on a pedestal. She's learning too, making choices, some of them bad, and exploring the consequences. The depth of emotion she's able to convey with a character only heard audibly is impressive. Samantha is a fully formed character that wants to be treated as such, and Johansson give her all the shadings of a living being. She's inquisitive, funny, curious, but also eerily human in her mannerisms, like when she uses short breaths when feeling awkward even though she has no use for breath, obviously. Johansson is so easily sultry, voice included, but Samantha is not relegated to some high-tech toy, some quirky sexual fantasy. She feels real, which is why their relationship feels genuine and so moving and charming.
Who knew the most affecting love story of 2013 would involve a man and his computer? Her is an insightful, touching, and rewarding movie that hits you on many levels, satisfying all of them. It's a smart film that explores the various complications of its premise while widening its scope further, it's heartfelt and humble as it approaches relatable matters of love and loss and feeling adrift, it's sweetly romantic while at the same time being tethered to reality, finding a perfect balance, and at its core it's the tale of two people, one human and one mechanical, that find happiness in one another. People will likely pick the movie apart to search for personal messages from Jonze about his own divorce from filmmaker Sofia Coppola in 2003. Maybe that stuff is buried in there, but Jonze has crafted something far more applicable and enjoyable. Her is an openly romantic film that doesn't shortchange heartache, and it posits that love is love no matter whom it's directed at. Her is an extraordinary sort of movie and one I plan on revisiting again. Give this unconventional romance a chance and you may be delightfully surprised.
Nate's Grade: A
Tags: amy adams, brian cox, chris pratt, drama, joaquin phoneix, oscars, romance, rooney mara, scarlett johnansson, sci-fi, spike jonze
The Master (2012)
Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson met with great resistance when he was shopping his script around for The Master. It was dubbed the "Scientology movie" and reportedly based upon the controversial religion and its leader, L. Ron Hubbard. It looked like Hollywood was spooked by the prospect of a movie that appeared to take on Scientology. Eventually Anderson got his financing and made the movie he wanted to make. Calling it the "Scientology movie" is misleading. I wish The Master was a Scientology expose because that would be far more interesting than the exasperating film I got, which is one nutty guy who dabbled in a Scientology-like cult. Maybe the resistance Anderson experienced wasn't an indication of the subject matter. Perhaps it was only an indication that The Master just wasn't a compelling story, a charge I can agree with wholeheartedly after viewing this disappointing film.
Freddie Quells (Joaquin Phoenix) is struggling to adjust to life after World War II. Fresh out of the Navy, he works as a department store photographer, until his rage and social awkwardness lead to him being fired. He's drifting about and hops onto a ferry leaving town. Onboard is Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who describes himself as "a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher, but above all, a man." Dodd has gathered a revered following. He believes that people can regress to past lives trillions, yes you read that right, of years into the past. Dodd's own children admit that dear old dad is "making it up as he goes along." His movement, known as The Cause, has been called a cult by detractors, the will of one man, and the followers don't take kindly to challenges from the outside. Dodd adopts Freddie as a project. He's on the verge of completing his second major treatise and Freddie seems to be an inspiration for him. Freddie finds some measure of acceptance within Dodd's community of followers, but his erratic behavior keeps people on constant edge.
I found The Master to be boring; uncompromisingly boring, hopelessly boring, but worse than all that, pointlessly boring. Was this really a story that needed to be told? I cannot fathom why Anderson chose to tell this story or, in particular, why he chose to tell it through the character of Freddie Quell. A story about a huckster exploiting people with a religion he made up is a fascinating story with or without the Scientology/L. Ron Hubbard connections. That's a story worthy of being made. Now, instead of this, we have two hours of a guy acting nuts. I would better be able to stomach the Freddie character if I felt like anything of significance was happening to him. He's a broken man, clearly mentally ill in some capacity, and prone to outbursts that turn violent. Does he change? Does he grow? Does he do anything? Does his life have anything of significance happen to him over the course of 137 minutes? Not really. He's pretty much the same guy from start to finish; his arc is essentially that he's crazy at the start, meets Dodd, and then is crazy at the end. We get it, the guy is messed up. He makes a drink out of paint thinner for crying out loud. I didn't care about him at all. I don't need to see static scene after static scene of this guy acting out. I wasn't a There Will Be Blood fan but at least Daniel Plainview was a strong central character with enough dimensions to carry a film. Freddie Quell just isn't that interesting or entertaining. He's actually a tiresome character because you get a perfect sense of who he is in just 10 minutes. The rest of the movie just seems to remind you what you already know.
It is a disappointing realization but I feel like the Paul Thomas Anderson I enjoyed is slipping away, as his flashy, propulsive, plot-heavy early work has given way to opaque, reserved, and plotless movies. It's like I just watched someone with the verve of Martin Scorsese transform into a poetic film somnambulist like Terrence Malick; not a good move. I don't know what Anderson's message is or what he was trying to say, and I'm unsure why he decided to use a limited character like Freddy Quells as his prism. It almost feels like Anderson is compensating for his plot-driven films of his early career, like he has to balance the scales in his mind. I shudder where this recompense might take Anderson for his next film. I like to think of myself as an intelligent moviegoer who enjoys being challenged by movies. But that doesn't mean I'll accept anything challenging as quality. Case in point: Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialism, which was contemptuous of its audience. I don't mind doing work but you have to give me a reason. There has to be a reward, either with the narrative or with the characters. I found no rewards with The Master and it's not because I didn't "get it," film snobs, it's because the movie was too opaque to say anything of substance beyond simplistic observations about the abuse of power and influence.
When I say plotless I don't mean that we're simply watching paint dry, though there are stretches of The Master where I would feel that could be a suitable test from Dodd. There are events. There are scenes. There are changing relationships. It's just that none of this seems to matter, or at least it never feels like it does. There's no build, no increase in urgency, and The Master just sort of drifts along to the detached rhythms of Freddie. The movie can feel interminable, and you may ask yourself, on a loop, "Is this going anywhere?" There are two scenes that stand out because there are so few that seem to matter. One is shortly after Dodd and Freddie have been arrested. The two men are locked in opposing cells and they explode in venomous anger. It feels like Anderson can finally allow his characters to vent out what they've truly been feeling. Another memorable scene, just for weirdness, is when we jump inside Freddie's head. All the women, young and old, at a social gathering suddenly lose their clothing (think: Choke). It's one of the best scenes at exploring Freddie's sexual compulsions, plus it's just peculiar. I wanted more scenes like this where we try and get inside the man's mind. The rest of the characters are underwritten, especially Amy Adams (Trouble with the Curve) as Dodd's wife and fierce protector. This is a movie about two strong-willed men and everybody else gets relegated to minimal supporting positions. I miss the sprawling humanism of Boogie Nights and Magnolia.
From a technical standpoint, the movie is very accomplished. The 1950s era setting is lushly recreated, aided by cinematography that seems to present this bygone age in a colorless manner. By this I mean that the world feels muted, repressed, the colors are there but they don't pop, and I think this look fits the movie marvelously. Anderson shot the film in 70mm, which would offer startling detail to his images. I did not see the film projected this way (as will most) but you could sense the time and effort put into getting the details of his world right. The musical score by Johnny Greenwood is minimalist but effective, with a few key strokes of a guitar to note rising tension.
The true draw of the film is the performances, which are excellent and at least provide a reason for staying awake. This is Phoenix's first role since his two-year performance stunt documented in I'm Still Here. It feels like his off-putting, confrontational, bizarre antics for that faux documentary were all just training for playing the character of Freddie. The man has sad, droopy eyes, a fixed sneer that denotes his permanent displeasure and cocksure attitude. He speaks in mumbled sentences, he walks with his arms pinned out, donning the posture and behavior of a chicken. It's at once an odd and striking performance, and Phoenix does his best to make the character worthy of your attention. He gives it his all, but sadly Freddie just doesn't merit prominence. Hoffman (Moneyball) is equally alluring as the charming huckster who seems to come alive under a spotlight; the man exudes an oily presence, and yet there are a handful of moments where he lashes out, venting the roiling anger that seems to be barely contained at times. Hoffman's performance is one of willful self-delusion rather than rampant self-destruction, which makes him far more compelling in my opinion. I would have preferred a Lancaster Dodd movie rather than a Freddie Quells movie.
The Master is a confounding, airless, opaque character study that is far from masterful. The faults of the film and its stilted ambitions lay squarely at the feet of its flawed central character, Freddie Quell. The movie adopts Freddie's demeanor, managing a distant, standoffish, defiant attitude that thumbs its nose at audience demands. Don't you know entertainment has no place in art, silly filmgoers?
Anderson is still a vastly talented filmmaker but I lament the path his career has taken. I adored the first four movies of Anderson's career, but now I wonder if I'll ever get something along the likes of Boogie Nights or even Punch-Drunk Love again. At this point Anderson has earned enough artistic latitude to tell whatever stories he so chooses. This is why my frustration has mounted because I am at a loss to why he feels compelled to tell this story and in this manner. The Master is an artistically stillborn affair. You want to believe there's more under the surface but I don't see it. The main ideas and themes are hammered with little variation, the slight plot drifts aimlessly finding no sense of momentum, and the characters are kept at such distance that the film feels clinical, like we're observing creatures under glass for study. It just so happens that none of these characters warrant the attention. The Master will be praised by a plethora of film critics. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said it renews your faith in American cinema. I had the opposite reaction. The Master made me lose faith, mainly that I'll ever enjoy a Paul Thomas Anderson film from this point on.
Nate's Grade: C
Tags: amy adams, cults, drama, indie, jesse plemons, jillian bell, joaquin phoneix, laura dern, oscars, paul thomas anderson, period film, phillip seymour hoffman, pretentious, rami malek, religion
I'm Still Here (2010)
Joaquin Phoenix may not be the most stable of actors, but anyone could have successfully guessed that his public meltdown and entry into rap, complete with a scraggly mountain man beard, was a hoax. Phoenix and his brother-in-law Casey Affleck worked out a two-year piece of performance art, with Phoenix completely committing to his egotistical, self-destructive send-up of actors. Affleck directed the exploits, which is another clue that everything is a hoax. Do you think his brother-in-law, and a respected actor, would film Phoenix going overboard, snorting coke, lying with hookers, having an assistant literally defecate on his face, and then try and turn a buck? I'm Still Here is like a Saturday Night Live sketch, or an improv game, that stretches on forever. Whatever points Phoenix and Affleck may have had in mind get utterly lost at a plodding 108 minutes. The movie feels as bloated as Phoenix's expanding waistline. Phoenix's Andy Kaufman-esque practical joke is admirable but that doesn't mean anybody needs to see this ramshackle, artless mess. It all comes across like a self-indulgent jape between friends, a personal project that loses all meaning outside a limited circle of friends.
Tags: addiction, casey affleck, documentary, drama, joaquin phoneix
Reservation Road (2007)
What happened here? Director Terry George was coming off of 2004's stirring Hotel Rwanda, he had A-list talent like Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly and the results end up feeling like a parody of awards-hungry prestige films steeped in grief and set in suburbia. To be fair, the acting is mostly respectable even if the characters start yelling a majority of their lines. The film moves at an absurdly swift pace that doesn't allow much time for the actors to react reflectively about grief and guilt. The movie is kept afloat by some contrived coincidences, like Ruffalo's lawyer being hired by Phoenix to find the culprit responsible for the hit and run that killed his son (surprise, it was Ruffalo behind the wheel!). Reservation Road doesn't dwell too long on the plot setups it crafts and stumbles into a sudden and convenient epiphany by Phoenix. The conclusion is neither satisfying nor emotionally grueling, and the movie just kind of ends abruptly with little resolved, crushed under the weight of failed pretensions. This movie wants to dig deep and say Big Things about the human condition but it's hard to do when you're as emotionally inert and dramatically flaccid as Reservation Road. Seriously, what happened here?
Tags: drama, elle fanning, jennifer connelly, joaquin phoneix, mark ruffalo, mira sorvino, terry george
I found this movie enjoyable but full of your standard, by-the-book biopic moments (rise/fall, addiction, famous faces, losing a brother at young age); still the performances were what the film hinged on and they were fantastic, especially with the added pressure of singing in their own voices. Walk the Line was good but didn't really connect for me, and I think part of that is because the plot revolves around June Carter refusing to "be" with the Man in Black for 10 years. Yes they were each married to other people and their time on stage was like a forbidden courtship all its own, but it's just not that compelling of a conflict, to me at least.
Nate's Grade: B
Tags: biopic, drama, ginnifer goodwin, james mangold, joaquin phoneix, musical, oscars, reese witherspoon, romance
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Hotel Rwanda almost didn't get off the ground. You see, veteran supporting actor Don Cheadle is a favorite actor for directors but he's not exactly box-office gold. Initial producers of Hotel Rwanda wanted none other than Will Smith to star. I don't know about you good people but a sobering, challenging movie shedding light on the Rwandan genocide would lose some credibility if Smith was the above-the-title star. Producers also wanted Denzel Washington as a candidate; a better choice but still not right. The true-life portrayal of Paul Ruseabagina needed to be done by an actor that didn't look like he could kick your ass. Paul was an ordinary man that didn't ask to be a hero, not a hero looking for a fight. Cheadle was the perfect man for Hotel Rwanda. It just took a while for it to happen.
Back in 1994, Rwanda underwent a tumultuous civil war. In Rwanda, there are two ethnic groups, the Hutus and the minority Tutsis. Though the two look indistinguishable, there is an underlying tension because way back when Rwanda was under Belgian colonial control, the Belgians separated the Rwandan people by arbitrary rules like nose size, skin tone, etc. There is a rising tide of Tutsi resentment (radio propaganda refers to them as "cockroaches" needing to be exterminated). The Rwandan president has been assassinated and Hutu radio broadcasts are already pointing the finger at Tutsis.
Paul Ruseabagina (Cheadle) is a Rwandan hotel manager that stocks up favors by scratching the backs of the right people. The wheels of Rwandan authority need to be constantly greased, and Paul knows when to deploy a well-timed gift, joke, or bribe. Paul?s wife Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo), a Tutsi as well as their children, is concerned when she starts seeing neighbors taken away at night. Paul assures her that their Tutsi relatives will be safe. Hutu rebels begin to start corralling neighborhoods to root out any Tutsis. Paul and his family retreat back to the hotel. As the violence increases more refugees arrive at the hotel for sanctuary, but Paul must keep the illusion that the hotel is still operational to ward off violence.
The United Nations promises to do something, but they remain only peacekeepers and not peace enforcers. The commanding officer (Nick Nolte) laments that he has only a handful of U.N. peacekeepers in charge of the whole nation. The United Nations and the West does do something: they evacuate all the white people. Citizens of Western nations are escorted out of the conflict, while they leave the rest of Rwanda to its own devices. Paul?s clinging hopes for Western involvement get bleak, and he assumes the responsibility for saving as many lives as he can, Hutu or Tutsi.
Cheadle gives one of the best performances of the year and he's been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. The strength of his character's power lies in Paul's ordinariness. He's not a figure of intimidation, nor is he some kind of altruistic saint. There's more than a passing resemblance to Oscar Schindler in Schindler's List. Like Schindler, Paul is a man reluctantly pulled into risking his life for others and by the end he becomes consumed with saving as many lives as he can. Cheadle is so commanding that he can make you wince just by watching the weariness in his eyes.
There's a moment late in Hotel Rwanda, where Paul is stalking the hallways trying to find his wife and children. And in an instant he suddenly remembers careful instructions he gave to his wife. Paul nearly bowls over with the sudden pang of terror but keeps his stride. It's a sharp and powerful moment where the audience thinks alongside Paul and experiences the same awful gasp. In that moment, as well as countless others, Cheadle has worked his way so deep into his character that the two are one in the same. Cheadle has long been one of the most underrated actors, and now with Hotel Rwanda there is no doubt that Cheadle is one of the greatest living actors we have.
But Hotel Rwanda is not just a one-man show. Sophie Okonedo also garnered a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Okonedo is no pushover and she does more than needle Paul when it comes to the well being of their family. She's a strong, caring, thoughtful woman. What makes her even more impressive is that, as a Tutsi, she could be murdered at any time. She gives an equally powerful performance of a woman finding strength amongst her own fear.
Writer/director Terry George keeps the emotion high by smartly relying on restraint when telling his portrait of horror. The events of the Rwandan genocide are so appalling, that it would have been so easy, and even understandable, had George loaded his film with scene after scene of graphic violence to jar the viewer. However, George refrains from numbing an audience with violent depictions, and instead chooses quieter, more somber moments that turn out to be far more terrifying than just seeing blunt violence. Hearing an aid worker recount witnessing a massacre of children to wipe out the next generation of Tutsis will chill you to the bone. There are some disturbing moments, like when Paul takes a very bumpy ride in the mists, but George refuses to numb an audience and works our emotions to a breaking point.
Hotel Rwanda is sobering and very emotional, but you will also leave the theater with an overwhelming feeling of shame. It's easy to watch films about dated atrocities like depictions of the Holocaust. You can say, "Well, I wasn't alive. If I was, and people like me, surely we would not sit back and let such actions take place under our watch." Not this time. Not with Hotel Rwanda. Everyone seeing Hotel Rwanda more than likely was alive in 1994, and we did exactly as a character warned: we watched what was happening on TV and went back to eating our dinners. Nolte's U.N. rep tells Paul that the West refuses to see him and Rwandans as valuable ("You're worse than a n****r [to them]; you're an Af-ri-can."). You?ll feel many emotions while viewing Hotel Rwanda and the deepest and longest lasting may be shame.
The film is clearly in the genre of "outrage cinema," normally a genre that overpowers a viewer's emotions. In lesser hands Hotel Rwanda would have been unrelenting to maintain a level of shock. George allows an audience to feel for the story's characters before he lets the horrors loose. The result is that an audience attaches itself to characters because of who they are, not just because of the anguish they endure. As the intensity of the situation mounts we feel stronger ties to the people of Hotel Rwanda. That is good cinema.
Hotel Rwanda is an emotionally gripping portrait of the dignity found during our darkest days. George has skillfully created a sobering movie. Cheadle and Okonedo deliver wrenching performances as the faces of good amongst ongoing genocide. This isn't like Black Hawk Down where the faces of screaming, angry black people merge into one black form the audience uneasily grows to hate. In Hotel Rwanda, the heroes are everyday Africans, the bad guys are everyday Africans, and the West is the apathetic referee unwilling to act. Hopefully after George's film, it'll be hard to hear about a million massacred and go back to eating your dinner.
Tags: don cheadle, drama, joaquin phoneix, nick nolte, oscars, sophie okonedo, terry george, true-life
When saying director names you can play a fun little game of word association. Someone says, ""George Lucas,"" and things like big-budget effects, empty storytelling, and wooden dialogue come to mind. Someone says, ""David Lynch,"" and weird, abstract, therapy sessions dance in your head. The behemoth of word association is M. Night Shyamalan. He burst onto the scene with 1999''s blockbuster, The Sixth Sense, a crafty, moody, intelligent thriller with a knock-out final twist. Now, though, it seems more and more evident that while The Sixth Sense was the making of M. Night Shyamalan, it also appears to be his undoing. His follow-up films, Unbreakable and Signs, have suffered by comparison, but what seems to be hampering Shyamalan''s growth as a writer is the tightening noose of audience expectation that he kowtows to.
With this in mind, we have Shyamalan's newest cinematic offering, The Village. Set in 1897, we follow the simple, agrarian lives of the people that inhabit a small secluded hamlet. The town is isolated because of a surrounding dense forest. Mythical creatures referred to as "Those We Don't Speak Of" populate the woods. An uneasy truce has been agreed upon between the creatures and the villagers, as long as neither camp ventures over into the other's territory. When someone does enter the woods, foreboding signs arise. Animals are found skinned, red marks are found on doors, and people worry that the truce may be over. Within this setting, we follow the ordinary lives of the townsfolk. Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the daughter of the town's self-appointed mayor (William Hurt), and doesn't let a little thing like being blind get in the way of her happiness. She is smitten with Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix), a soft-spoken loner. Noah (Adrien Brody), a mentally challenged man, also has feelings for Ivy, which cause greater conflict.
Arguably, the best thing about The Village is the discovery of Howard. She proves herself to be an acting revelation that will have future success long after The Village is forgotten. Her winsome presence, wide radiant smile, and uncanny ability to quickly emote endear the character of Ivy to the audience. She is the only one onscreen with genuine personality and charisma, and when she's flirting and being cute about it you cannot help but fall in love with her. And when she is being torn up inside, the audience feels the same emotional turmoil. I am convinced that this is more so from Howard''s acting than from the writing of Shyamalan. She reminds me of a young Cate Blanchett, both in features and talent.
It seems to me that Shyamalan''s directing is getting better with every movie while his writing is getting proportionately worse. He has a masterful sense of pacing and mood, creating long takes that give the viewer a sense of unease. The first arrival of the creatures is an expertly handled scene that delivers plenty of suspense, and a slow-motion capper, with music swelling, that caused me to pump my fist. The cinematography by Roger Deakins is beautifully elegant. Even the violin-heavy score by James Newton Howard is a great asset to the film''s disposition.
So where does the film go wrong and the entertainment get sucked out?
What kills The Village is its incongruous ending. Beforehand, Shyamalan has built a somewhat unsettling tale, but when he finally lays out all his cards, the whole is most certainly not more than the sum of its parts. In fact, the ending is so illogical and stupid, and raises infinitely more questions than feeble answers, that it undermines the rest of the film. Unlike The Sixth Sense, the twist of The Village does not get better with increased thought.
Shyamalan''s sense of timing with his story revelations is maddening. He drops one twist with 30 minutes left in the film, but what's even more frustrating is he situates a character into supposed danger that the audience knows doesn't exist anymore with this new knowledge. The audience has already been told the truth, and it deflates nearly all the tension. It's as if Shyamalan reveals a twist and then tells the audience to immediately forget about it. Only the naïve will fall for it.
Shyamalan also exhibits a problem fully rendering his characters. They are so understated that they don't ever really jump from the screen. The dialogue is very stilted and flat, as Shyamalan tries to stubbornly fit his message to ye olde English vernacular (which brings about a whole other question when the film''s final shoe is dropped). Shyamalan also seems to strand his characters into soap opera-ish subplots involving forbidden or unrequited love. For a good hour or so, minus one sequence, The Village is really a Jane Austin story with the occasional monster.
The rest of the villagers don''t come away looking as good as Howard. Phoenix''s taciturn delivery seems to suit the brooding Lucius, but at other times he can give the impression of dead space. Hurt is a sturdy actor but can't find a good balance between his solemn village leader and caring if sneaky father. Sigourney Weaver just seems adrift like she's looking for butter to churn. Brody is given the worst to work with. His mentally-challenged character is a terrible one-note plot device. He seems to inexplicably become clever when it's needed.
The Village is a vast disappointment when the weight of the talent involved is accounted for. Shyamalan crafts an interesting premise, a portent sense of dread, and about two thirds of a decent-to-good movie, but as Brian Cox said in Adaptation, ""The last act makes the film. Wow them in the end, and you've got a hit. You can have flaws and problems, but wow them in the end, and you've got a hit."" It''s not that the final twists and revelations are bad; it's that they paint everything that came before them in a worse light. An audience going into The Village wanting to be scared will likely not be pleased, and only Shyamalan's core followers will walk away fully appreciating the movie. In the end, it may take a village to get Shyamalan to break his writing rut.
Tags: adrien brody, brendan gleeson, bryce dallas howard, drama, joaquin phoneix, m. night shyamalan, monsters, sigourney weaver, thriller, william hurt
Kenai (voiced by Joaquin Phoenix) is the impulsive younger brother in a tribe of Native Americans living in Northern America. Where exactly? Well, I don''t know but someplace where Kenai and his brothers can surf wicked glaciers dude. Kenai wants to be accepted into his people more than anything. Too bad he's a screw-up. Some fish he leaves out attracts a bear that inadvertently kills Kenai''s older, wiser brother. Kenai swears revenge against the bear and kills it. But lo, this upsets the spirits of nature and they turn Kenai into a bear himself. Oh the irony. Kenai must learn all about coping in the animal kingdom while looking after a young cub Koda, whose looking for his lost mother. Take a guess what happened to his mother. No, seriously, go on and guess. I''ll sit here and wait. Done? Okay then.
The story of Brother Bear has as much life as a bearskin rug. Once again we have a hotheaded jerk that walks a mile in someone else''s paws and learns valuable life lessons through their bizarre transformation. The only thing this movie is missing is Rob Schneider in the main role.
I don''t know what the makers of Brother Bear were intending. Is this for young kids? Well there is endless slapstick and cutesy woodland creatures. However, the first part of the story is quite dark and all about family loss. Great way to start a family film huh? With some family killings? If this is also intended for kids I''m pretty sure they''ll be bored at the preachier moments talking about animal cruelty and tolerance.
Disney once again plays it too safe and by trying to please everybody they end up likely pleasing nobody. This is 20,000 leagues below the artful Finding Nemo. Why does it seem like when the Diz does things in-house they're so adverse to risk? What the audience is left with is a formulaic piece of fluff that's only memorable attribute is being extraordinarily ordinary.
The ending is so bad that it's beyond belief, so allow me to spoil it. Kenai transforms back into a human after he's learned his valuable lesson. He then chooses to remain a bear to watch after Koda. What? Why don't they turn Koda into a boy? Or turn everyone into bears? Or why not turn everyone in the audience into people watching a different, better movie?
The animation of Brother Bear is clunky and awkward amidst a crayola-colored backdrop. The visuals often seem drab or like the templates for a better movie. The human characters appear so stocky. The best element of Brother Bear is the voice work of Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis doing a moose variation on their McKenzie brothers.
Phil Collins provides the painfully monotonous pop claptrap that's cued whenever a montage is needed. How the hell did this man win an Oscar for Best Song over the likes of Aimee Mann, Sarah McLachlan, and the creators of South Park? The best way to describe Collins' collection of unmotivated ditties is that they're like soup for the ears: runny, bland, forgettable, and dreadfully unsatisfying. If you can't tell, I don't really care for soup ("Soup is too a food!").
Brother Bear is yet another half-hearted effort from the Mouse House. The story, animation, and voice acting are all sub par. It's the same sing and dance al over again, except this time it's in the woods, and this time the sing and dance is your senile grandfather with his pants around his ankles doing the jitterbug. Yeah. You get the idea.
Tags: animated, disney, joaquin phoneix, michael clarke duncan, supernatural


The home has recently had full interior and exterior paint, along with brand new top of the line water-resistant plank laminate flooring throughout the home. The kitchen has gone through a recent makeover with beautiful new colors on the cabinets and island. Adjacent to your kitchen is a living room that last year had a full remodel with the addition of a full entertainment center. Top this off with a back yard that features a covered patio and a brand new 170 sq/ft shed. The owners has spared no expense as they have prepared your back yard with new grass, curbing, shrubs and trees.


Speechie Freebies: All About "Super" Me!
For those of you who are just back to school this week, I wish you the very best of luck with your scheduling! I hope everyone fits neatly into the time slots you have available and you have enough sticky notes to work it all out without losing your mind!
I have made this quick print and go activity to help you get to know your students at the beginning of the year.
They are sure to enjoy telling you just how "super" they are!
You can download your free printable here.


Today I am grateful for those who made sacrifices for our country and our freedom and I pray for the families they leave behind. When my husband was on the road all the time the military families were what kept things in perspective for me. Spouses, sons and daughters...not knowing when or if they will come home. At least I knew when John was coming home. I knew he was not in immediate danger, and that I could say goodnight to him on the phone most nights.


Skin: 7 Deadly s[K]ins – Halloween 2018 GROUP GIFT Skins – On Halloween day!
Quote: All Souls' Night, by Hortense King Flexner.
Quote: Silence, by Edgar Allan Poe.
Everybody scream! October arrived to Second Life, and while my town is already pushing Christmas pastries, at the other side of the pond the pumpkin tones rule through the grid. In the spirit of giving our home a rather eerie redecoration, I took a joyride at the Gacha Guardians.
Zero named this scene "Even scarecrows can die"… clearly it was outnumbered!
Anachron presents a new super awesome collection of Jack-o'-lanterns, in different colors and shapes. The ghost and scarecrow stands are the rares, and they can be used with any of the pumpkin heads.
In the Gacha Guardians, if you play 10 times on a particular machine, you will receive a special gift. For Anachron, it's a super cute witch stand, with hat and all!
I'm wearing the Gift of the Guardians from Wicca's Wardrobe, the Tabitha Necklace (which matches my super cool Tabitha outfit, complete with arm bands, bracers, boots, hat, and even the eyepatch), and my Steampunk wings are the GotG from Ersch.
Maitreya Lara Mesh Body / Slink Elegant Hands and Deluxe Feet / LOGO Alex head / .::WoW Skins::. 2016 Erica Bronze / IKON Destiny Eyes – Nymph / [RA] Enchantress Hair – Grayscale.
Wicca's Wardrobe – Tabitha Set1 RARE (Corset dress, hat, eyepatch) / Tabitha ArmParts LOW [Green] / Tabitha ArmParts UP [Green] / Tabitha Boots [Green] / Tabitha Necklace [GotG] / ERSCH – Royal Steam Gacha TGOG.
Anachron – Jack 'O Lanterns: Digi Orange / Jack Stripe / Sinister Orange / Jack 'O Lantern Stand – Ghost RARE + Skeleton White / Jack 'O Lantern Stand – Scarecrow RARE + Sicko Green / Anachron – Haunted Sunken Chest / HPC Ghostly Flower Girl (sound).
The house is from BlueMoon, and it's my (and Zero's) home sweet home.
The month started with me venturing through the delights of the Twisted Hunt, one of my favorite things in Second Life. It's the most diffficult hunt in the grid, and the coolest too. Even the numerous cheaters with their snapshots and videos couldn't blur the fun we had.
Awesome prizes from awesome stores, and the satisfaction of finding them all! Here I wear the Complete Twisted Dawn Collection, by Zuri Rayna. The exquisite necklace, head piece, and leather cuffs were the store prize; the ring and the earrings were the special treat of the endgame, for the brave who became Twisted Survivors. It was Zuri's first time in the hunt, and we had fun hiding the cubes, planting the decoys, creating the hints, and participating in the coolest, most twisted group chat ever.
I'm also wearing my favorite Goth Top by Yasum, my Maitreya Lara mesh body with a sweet Asia skin from Glam Affair, and a cool half-shaved hair by Homage, the Laith, which I got at the last Hair Fair. The background is one of the stores participating in the Twisted Hunt, and I wish I hadn't lost my notes, because I can't remember which one for my life! If anyone knows, I will edit.
Next, I wanted to share a bit of the fun I had this month dressing up at the store.
This Wicked Witch is sporting Zuri Rayna's Dark Faith Elite Set, I'm wearing the Glam Magic Outfit by Purplemoon, and the super cool Lillith Heels by Wicca's Wardrobe, which I found at the Fantasy Collective. I complemented it with the Fable Moss skin by Lumae (now on retirement sale!), IKON Witch eyes, Glamour Doll hair by Soonsiki, and the awesome Succubus Claws by Gauze, flames and all. I'm at the Lacrimosa Cathedral in Ethereal City.
This was one of my favorites, the Spider Demon. I'm wearing the fabulous Enchanted Spiders Elite Collection by Zuri Rayna with The Hierophant Dress by Aisling. I matched it with the stunning Ogre Horns by Cerridwen's Cauldron (gacha rare), IKON Immortal Eyes -Nectar, and the amazing Bone Tail that wiggles around, by Cerberus Xing. My skin is Lady of the Shadows -Coal, by Fallen Gods (also gacha rare), and my hair is Summer, by Doe (gacha common). The picture was taken in the beautiful Revenland.
My sweet and creepy Voodoo Doll made an impression. I'm wearing the Voodoodonna Outfit by Purplemoon, adorned by the Neo-Victorian Cats Set, by Zuri Rayna, Mrs. Brawler Steampunk Boots, by Pixel Box, and the super cool Whoo Are You Tophat, by The Mad Hattery. I had a cute windup key on my back, but it doesn't show on my picture. My skin is Niska Varda -Hollow, by Lumae, with the Fear Creepy Tattoo of the broken doll, by Frick. This cool hair is Edita, by DUE, and the eyes are Cyborlyte Blush by Snow. I'm at the Carver's End Horror Halloween Game / Hunt, which was also a lot of fun brought to SL by Pulse Games.
I found this spectacular outfit, inspired in La Catrina, during the TAG! Gacha – The Haunted Mortuary. The dress and its accessories were yet another wonderful prize from Devious Minds, and a wonderful match for Zuri Rayna's Not So Harmonious Jewelry Set. I'm wearing Lumae's Niska Varda skin with Frick's Fear Creepy Tattoo again, this time with Flawless Makeup Día de los Muertos. The picture was taken at the cemetery at Carver's End.
As Winter Demon, I was wearing the Iseult Gown by Evie's Closet with Zuri Rayna's Ice Queen Elite Collection, complemented by the beautiful Renaissance Glass Horns by 8f8, Fable -River skin from Lumae, IKON Immortal Eyes, and hair from Red Mint.
As the Ghost, I used two of Zuri's newest creations, Mist Elite Collection and Zahra Floral Crown. I was wearing the Rusalka Dress by The Dark Fae (which I got during the Spring Twisted Hunt!), Pure -Ivory skin by Fallen Gods with slightly gruesome Conjuncted Skin face tattoo by Antielle, IKON Deadshine eyes, and The Flutterbie Hair by Olive.
October can be great fun in Second Life. Most places from all over the grid happily embrace the spooky atmosphere of that traditional holiday, born in the glorious days of the fallen empire. Last October, my guy and I went to see what ghouls and fears there were in another ancient fallen empire, Valyria, created by the imagination of George R.R. Martin in his fantasy novels. The Calas Galadhon's Park offers a number of fantastic sites to visit, including his inspired rendering of old Valyria.
The sights were spectacular. On arrival, you were given a flashlight, and all the freedom to wander around the different scenarios prepared, and discover the ruins of the lost world.
No flying was allowed, which added to the sense of immersion of the experience. Unless you rode a dragon. And we totally had to ride a dragon!
There was also a little game, where certain magic parchments took you to different places of the sim, where you could admire the beauty of the builds… or find yourself surrounded by the wandering spirits of the long dead Dragonlords!
Same as GRRM's Valyria, Calas Galadhon's Valyria is now no more. But I'm looking forward to the next adventure!


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Category Archives: Student
NERDS growth in 2023
Happy new year! We are excited to report many new faces at NERDS, on one hand due to an increased number of interns joining, and on the other hand through Luca's Carlsberg grant which now starts to kick in.
With Jan 1st, joining us is the new long-term member Arianna Pera as PhD student, who recently got her master degree at Universita Bicocca in Italy. She will work in the area of computational social science, and especially with topics related to coordination. At the same time, we have postdoc Alessia Antelmi from University of Salerno in Italy. She will be with us for 6 months working on higher-order interactions applied to online conversations. Furth er, Lucio La Cava is a PhD student at the University of Calabria in Italy. He will visit us for three months, working at the intersection of collective coordination and Web3. A future PhD student will be Anders Giovanni Møller, who is currently still a Master student here at ITU. He will start his PhD with us in June but he is already around before then. His main focus is NLP and he will work at the intersection of NLP and social network analysis. Apart from this new batch of 2023 people, we have two more master student interns, Henrik Wolf and Carlson Büth, who are visiting us since fall from Germany, Dresden and Münster, respectively.
All of these excellent new people bring more life to our group – they also have almost filled up all our tables in our large 3F29 section and we might need to look for new space soon. We are happy about all the buzz and intellectual cross-pollination going on!
Our interns are happy and becoming numerous due to our group's and university's efforts to be welcoming to visitors. To quote our Positions page:
We are very open to welcome self-funded research visitors if the topic of collaboration makes sense – for such inquiries please contact us via email. If you need funding let us know too: There might be / we might know of possibilities of third-party or internal funding.
Stonks 📈
This entry was posted in Chronicle, Student, Team change on January 9, 2023 by misz.
Arianna Pera has joined NERDS
We are thrilled to welcome Arianna Pera to NERDS!
Arianna will be a PhD student for 3 years, working with Luca Aiello on the Carlsbergfondet project COCOONS on fostering collective cooperation in online social media to tackle societal dilemmas. Arianna recently got her MSc in Data Science from Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca. She will work at the intersection of Network Science and Natural Language Processing. Welcome, Arianna!
This entry was posted in Student, Team change on January 8, 2023 by luai.
Luigi Arminio has joined NERDS
We are happy to welcome Luigi Arminio to our research group!
Luigi joins us as PhD student for 3 years. He'll be supervised by Luca Rossi and work on the EU-funded PolarVis project on online propagation of visual narratives in the context of climate change communication. Luigi achieved his MSc in Data Science at the University of Trento with a research thesis, realized in collaboration with the Fondazione Bruno Kessler, in which he investigated the flow of information (and misinformation) about Covid-19 in the Italian context by means of NLP and Network Science techniques.
This entry was posted in Student, Team change on December 6, 2022 by lucr.
NERDS at Digital Tech Summit 2022: NLP, Fake News and Social Media
ITU will be present at this year's Digital Tech Summit, and NERDS will play a role in one of the sub-events on NLP, Fake News and Social Media, on 25. Oct. 2022 14:30 – 15:15, which will be chaired and moderated by our Luca Rossi.
Register here – it's FREE for students: https://my.eventbuizz.com/event/digital-tech-summit-2022-10651/detail
This entry was posted in Activity, Student on October 14, 2022 by misz.
Call for PhD scholarships by the Danish Data Science Academy
The new Danish Data Science Academy (DDSA), which we helped to establish, invites applications for ten three-year PhD scholarships for individual research projects within any field of data science, including all research topics pursued by NERDS. The DDSA encourages visionary and ambitious young data scientists to develop their own research projects with the assistance of a supervisor from a Danish university (like ITU).
See more information here: https://ddsa.dk/open-calls/open-call-for-phd-scholarships/
Deadline for application is 20 March 2022
Given that both our currently existing PhD students (Anastassia and Ane) were hired through similar calls, there is a good probability to make this also work out for future candidates. If your research interests overlap with ours and you are interested please get in touch with one of our assistant or associate professors to explore options to apply!
You will need to come up with your own research plan, but feel free to get inspired by our most recent master level project ideas: https://nerds.itu.dk/2021/09/01/research-project-market-2021/
This entry was posted in Call, Student on January 6, 2022 by misz.
Ane Rahbek Vierø has joined NERDS
We are thrilled to welcome Ane Rahbek Vierø to our research group!
Ane joins us as PhD student for 3 years, funded by the Danish Ministry of Transport for an application which she authored, supported by her new supervisor Michael Szell. She completed her Master's degree in 2020 from Lund University on a thorough analysis of Copenhagen's bicycle network, and has been working since then as research assistant at Aalborg University. Her background is in Geographical Information Science which is a great complement for our existing NERDS expertise. She is also well connected in the Danish cycling research community, having co-organized the recent CRBAM21, which will additionally strengthen our research group's connections within Denmark.
Given her professional expertise in bicycle network analysis, her GIS background and procedural approach via Python, and her past experience – such as an internship in the cycling development team of the municipality of Copenhagen – she is the perfect person to undertake this ambitious PhD project: Network analysis of the Danish cycling infrastructure.
Together with our PhD student Anastassia, who works on a very similar topic and who also joined recently, we anticipate an increasing output in cycling research in the coming years. Our goal is not just producing research papers, but more importantly to improve the Danish cycling landscape locally, and to provide general insights and methods towards a modal shift to sustainable transport on the global level.
This entry was posted in Student, Team change on January 1, 2022 by misz.
Establishing the Nightingale Network
Together with Sune Lehmann and Laura Alessandretti from SODAS/DTU we are establishing the Nightingale Network: The Nightingale Network brings together faculty, postdocs, and students based in Denmark who share an interest in Computational Social Science, Complex Systems, and Network Science.
More info and subscribe here: https://www.socialdatascience.dk/nightingale
We aim to strengthen the Denmark-based data and network science community, and send out a monthly newsletter listing relevant events, news, and job postings in Denmark and beyond. Please also share your tips, calls, and job postings!
We will also organize regular gatherings. The first event was the first Nightingale Network Night which happened last week at ITU, and which successfully established and strengthened many social and culinary connections, from Scaccia to Borek and Apfelstrudel:
We will also share the nerdy party games we created on our github page so that others can replicate the fun! https://github.com/NERDSITU/nerdyicebreakers
Sign up to our news, and see you soon (modulo lockdown)!
This entry was posted in Activity, Call, Student on November 30, 2021 by misz.
Sandro Sousa has joined NERDS
We are delighted to welcome Sandro Sousa to our research group!
Sandro joins us as Postdoc coming from Queen Mary University of London. He recently completed his PhD in Complex Systems, on quantifying the heterogeneity of spatial systems through random walks on graphs with a particular interest on urban segregation.
Due to his Brazilian origins, before that he had worked on projects focusing on São Paulo, for example on social segregation, transport accessibility, or graph-based approaches to quantify topological changes in Sao Paulo's public transport network at different spatial scales. Before his research career, he worked on IT consulting and data solutions for more than 7 years. Find more info about Sandro on his stylish webpage: https://sandrofsousa.github.io
He is hired through our recently won VILLUM project, at NERDS he will therefore be focusing on topics of Science of Science and success together with Roberta Sinatra, including algorithmic fairness in research.
This entry was posted in Student, Team change on November 1, 2021 by misz.
Anastassia Vybornova has joined NERDS
We are excited to welcome Anastassia Vybornova to our research group!
Anastassia joins us as PhD student from Vienna, Austria. She recently completed her Master degree jointly supervised at KU, BOKU Vienna, and at ITU by Michael Szell, accomplishing an outstanding thesis on Identifying and classifying gaps in the bicycle network of Copenhagen. She has won a competitive, ITU-supported PhD grant and will therefore be with us for (at least) 3 years.
Anastassia's background is a crazy mix of physics, environmental science, and transcultural communication, and she is educated in complex systems and network science – all of which makes her fit perfectly into NERDS.
Her PhD topic at NERDS will be Network analysis of urban transport networks: for a green transition from car-centricity to cycling, with Michael Szell as supervisor, for which her ideal combination of skills from physics, sustainability science, and programming will be indispensable. To taste an hors d'oeuvre of her work, see her talk in two weeks at CRBAM.
This entry was posted in Student, Team change on October 1, 2021 by misz.
Yanmeng Xing has joined NERDS
We are thrilled to welcome Yanmeng Xing to our research group!
Yanmeng joins us as a visiting PhD Student for one year. Yanmeng is a PhD student in Complexity Science at Beijing Normal University who won a prestigious Chinese fellowship to spend one year abroad.
At NERDS he will be working on Science of Science topics, specifically investigating the effects of the pandemic on scientific collaborations and career dynamics.
At NERDS we are researching network and data science applications to social systems. More info..
We are Research Environment of 2022
FOLLOW NERDS ON MASTODON
NERDS growth in 2023 January 9, 2023
Arianna Pera has joined NERDS January 8, 2023
New NERDS paper: Multidimensional tie strength and economic development January 2, 2023
Accolade (13)
Chronicle (10)
Team change (15)
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'Avengers: Endgame' is ultimate love letter to Marvel Universe
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Marvel Studios | Daily Texan Staff
Published on April 23, 2019 at 9:32 pm Last update on April 23, 2019 at 9:33 pm
"Endgame" wields a powerful gauntlet of nostalgia, heartbreak and resolution.
"Avengers: Endgame" is the culmination of over 10 years of Marvel storytelling, starting with 2008's "Iron Man." Anthony and Joe Russo take the directorial reigns to conclude the story they set up in last year's "Infinity War." The film follows the surviving Avengers as they band together to try and reverse the effects of Thanos' infamous snap. The film mostly succeeds in its nostalgic send-off to a 10-year story.
"Endgame" has a large ensemble cast, as most Avengers movies do, that works as effectively as it did in the other films. Robert Downey Jr. is confident as Iron Man once again and is efficiently accompanied by Chris Evan's Captain America, Chris Hemsworth's Thor, Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo's Hulk and Don Cheadle's War Machine. Most performances remain consistent with previous films, while Hemsworth's Thor has a new comedic persona as a deadbeat version of his godly character.
Additions to the main cast include Paul Rudd's Ant-Man, Brie Larson's Captain Marvel and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye. Rudd adds his unique comic flavor to the ensemble, while Larson's Captain Marvel lacks a notable presence and usually just serves as a deus ex machina. Renner powerfully portrays Hawkeye as a grieving assassin who is hell-bent on avenging the death of his family. Josh Brolin is back as Thanos, and he's as menacing as ever.
While serving as the climax of a decade of storytelling, "Endgame" also provides a unique superhero ensemble adventure. Within the first 30 minutes of the film, it becomes clear that it will not be following the expected path. The plot makes sure to use its iconic characters, locations and events to its advantage. Characters travel to all areas of Marvel Cinematic Universe, bringing back fan-favorite locations and sequences. The battle scenes are tightly edited and framed, making sure to retain focus on the actual characters and not just the explosions. Despite its nearly three-hour runtime, the film never seems to lose itself and keeps the viewer engaged.
Despite the barrage of out-of-this-world special effects, the film still manages to provide shockingly humane scenes with its super-charged character roster. Characters grieve and try to move on from the devastating events of the Infinity War. They act like humans, despite their supernatural powers, and it enables the audience to resonate more with a fictional superhero world. One scene in particular involves Johansson's Black Widow nibbling on a peanut butter sandwich while fighting back tears. It certainly doesn't get more human than that.
While the film is generally an awesome experience, it certainly is not perfect. It falls into the same clichés and weaknesses many modern superhero films often do. Characters magically "figure out" how to invent ridiculous machinery, conveniently survive highly dangerous experiments and often get a bit muddled in the "rules" of its world. But like every film set in a fictional world, suspension of disbelief is necessary.
Another weakness of the film is that, despite its unique and surprising first half, it starts to become a bit predictable toward the end of its three-hour run. Unlike "Infinity War," which marveled in its ability to shatter expectations, "Endgame" starts to become a bit conventional in the way it handles its major resolution. Regardless, there are still some impactful surprises to spice up the generics.
Overall, "Avengers: Endgame" is the satisfying conclusion Marvel fans have been waiting for.
Rating: 4.3 dust particles out of 5


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Internet Expert Witness
Jonathan Hochman is a consulting and testifying expert for Internet and digital marketing cases.
Website Security & Monitoring
Website Usability & Accessibility
The Cost of Pay Per Click Advertising— PPC Trends and Analysis
Advertisers often ask, How much does PPC cost? These statistics help answer that question. Each advertiser can set a monthly budget, and a maximum cost per click by keyword. We've seen budgets ranging from $50 per month to $500,000 per month and even more.
To provide useful guidance, our benchmark shows average results for a group of approximately fifty advertisers on the Google AdWords ad network. AdWords text and image ads are displayed along side and above the main Google search results, and also on Google's content network sites. Our advertisers include companies in a variety of industries with a mix of local, national and international campaigns. Our data set is not necessarily representative of the entire market, but neither is the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is still very interesting to look at the data trends over time.
Average PPC Costs 2017-2020
Cost per click (CPC) $1.03 $0.99 $1.18
Click through rate (CTR) 1.8% 2.1% 2.5%
Cost per mille (CPM) $18.71 $20.90 $29.46
Conversion rate 5.2% 3.1% 2.7%
Cost per conversion $19.64 $31.79 $43.52
Invalid click rate 5.7% 6.6% 7.5%
Cost per click (CPC) $2.14 $1.58 $1.02 $0.92
Click through rate (CTR) 1.16% 0.8% 0.9% 0.5%
Average Ad Position 1.6 1.8 1.9 2.1
Cost per mille (CPM) $24.74 $12.07 $8.81 $4.70
Conversion rate 6.5% 3.6% 4.7% 8.8%
Cost per conversion $33.00 $44.50 $30.25 $10.50
Invalid click rate 10.7% 9.8% 7.8% 8.3%
Click through rate (CTR) 0.5% 0.4% 0.7% 0.3%
Cost per mille (CPM) $4.03 $3.97 $8.55 $3.34
Invalid click rate 8.0% 10.9% 6.7% 5.5%
Cost per conversion $7.02 $6.41 $7.63 $10.18
Invalid click rate 4.9% 6.5% 3.5% n/a
Within the group, each advertiser may have a different definition of what constitutes a conversion. The conversion action could be a sales transaction, a sales lead, a sign up, or a visitor who navigates to a key page on the site.
The decrease in click through rate (CTR) from 2005 onward is attributable to the growth of Google's content network. Content network sites usually have lower CTR's and low cost per click. In our experience, the content network produces acceptable results if the advertiser avoids over-bidding.
2016 Notes
Like last year, we continued to increase re-marketing, including display re-marketing, search re-marketing, and dynamic re-marketing. Through better targeting of ads I see improvements for both the advertiser, in terms of lower cost per conversion, and the advertising network, in terms of increasing cost per thousand impressions (CPM).
This year we saw an increase in unit costs because there was a greater focus on search network, and re-marketing. These are higher value clicks than those obtained via the display network. Cost per conversion rose because of the increased use of call tracking, and spreadsheet uploads of conversion data, to measure "hard" conversions, rather than "soft" conversions. When the conversion criteria is tightened, there are few conversions counted, but those tend to be more valuable.
The sample size this year is 52 advertisers. I excluded a few very large advertisers who would have skewed the data to reflect their metrics. The idea here is to generate a survey reflecting a semi-representative sample of the whole market. When calculating conversion stats I eliminated about a dozen advertisers who didn't have conversion tracking deployed.
The sample size this year is 51 advertisers. Increasing ad position may reflect the increasing amount of mobile impressions. On a mobile screen there is less room for ads. Therefore, position may need to be higher to achieve an impression.
In 2012 Google provided more opportunities to target their display network with options such as topic and interest targeting. As a result, we broadened the reach of many campaigns and bought more clicks at a lower cost per click. The market seems to be very competitive and costs per conversion have been moving up.
Most remarkable is the rise in invalid clicks. Either there are more people trying to defraud advertisers by running scam sites, or perhaps Google has gotten better at detecting inimical activity.
The rise in cost per conversion may be the result of a change in business mix, improved ad positions, or a rise in competition. As more and more businesses discover the benefits of PPC advertising, it has become necessary for advertisers to wring every drop of value from each click. That can be done by raising conversion rates or raising the value per conversion.
For deeper analysis of trends in the PPC market, please contact us.
Jonathan Hochman2020-07-15T22:49:42+00:00
About the Author: Jonathan Hochman
After graduating from Yale with two degrees in Computer Science, Jonathan Hochman set up his own consulting company in 1990. He has been an Internet marketer since 1994.
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In my relentless quest to hold in as much information as possible and share it with the world comes this great tip for grilling. I learned it from Cook's Illustrated. The tip is this; buy an aluminum foil roasting pan to superheat your grill.
When grilling, you want to get those brilliant grill marks on what you're cooking. Either having those diamond marks or parallel lines, the key is having the grates loaded with enough heat they cause a tight sear on what you're cooking. This tip helps that process.
Use an aluminum foil pan you'd get at the market to cover the burners where you plan on cooking. This creates a cover over the burners and the grates, where the heat goes back into the grates. This superheating creates an instant sear onto whatever you're cooking. It's super helpful and I've used it all the time while I've grilled. Try it with pineapple or steaks. Or anything.
After about 5-10 minutes of preheating it should be ready. Because the grill is so hot it'll sear instantly and release easily, so you don't need to oil the grill.
Enjoy this tip and happy grilling!