Movie Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

Prepare yourself, this film is amazing on multiple levels. First, it's amazing that someone even tried to tackle a project like this. Director Derek Cianfrance's follow up to 2010's Blue Valentine continues exploring the dynamics of dysfunctional families. While his last film was about the woeful dissolution of a marriage, The Place Beyond The Pines highlights the relationship (or lack thereof) between fathers and sons, spanning across three generations.

Like I said before, this film is epic in every sense of the word. A triptych tale, The Place Beyond The Pines is basically three separate movies that momentarily converge at one crucial point. Again, it's amazing that someone could even get a movie like this made in this day and age. Ryan Gosling plays a motorcycle riding drifter named Luke who is blindsided when a fling from his past results in fatherhood. He turns to a life of crime in order to provide for his son, and that's when he crosses paths with Avery, a rookie cop with boy scout sensibilities and a young son of his own, played by Bradley Cooper in one of his best performances to date. That's all I can divulge without going into spoiler territory. Let's just say, it's epic. You get action, thrills, nerve racking suspense, echoes of romance, heartbreak, violence, tragedy, all these elements hit you at different times as you wonder just what the hell is happening.

The cast, led by Gosling and Cooper, deliver outstanding performances. Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn, Dane DeHaan and a uber sleazy Ray Liotta are especially noteworthy. It's amazing that someone as beautiful as Mendes (or Gosling...or Cooper) can appear so believably haggard and run down over the course of a movie like this. Gorgeous actors, coupled with astonishingly beautiful shots of Upstate New York's wilderness, saturated with tremendous amounts of grief and melancholy to the point where they're no longer pretty...just sad. My boy Mike Patton's score for the film only accentuates the emotional beatdown that transpires onscreen. Good (in a morose kind of way) stuff there.

As awesome as this film's trailer is, don't fall into it's trap. It's more akin to The Godfather than Heat if you catch my drift. Is The Place Beyond The Pines perfect? Definitely not. Is it a challenging and ambitious film that deserves both praise and discussion? Totally. Props to Derek Cianfrance for even trying this one, but congratulations for it coming together so well.

Faith No More @ The Palladium, Hollywood. 11/30/10.

I was too young to appreciate Faith No More during their heyday in the late 80's/early 90's. I remember watching their video for "Epic" as a little kid and getting freaked out by the dying fish but that's about it. Flash forward to the mid 00's and a lot of my favorite mind fuck metal bands cite Faith No More as huge influences. The Dillinger Escape Plan's EP with Mike Patton is one of my favorite records ever. Needless to say, I did my homework and fell in love with Faith No More for myself. This short lived reunion after their 13 year hiatus/breakup/exile was an event I couldn't miss!

she had some moves!

The sold out venue waited for FNM to come out for what seemed like forever. No really, we waited HOURS. One of the opening bands was forced to back out so we got stuck standing around for a looong time. They had a midget comedian lady and some creepy magician come out and try to hold us over inbetween the first opening band the the eternity before FNM came onstage. Luckily, that first opening act was good...damn good. San Diego's The Creepy Creeps play a kind 60's psychedelic surf rock on acid that cannot be stopped. The dudes wore matching polyester tuxedos, masks and shaggy Ramones wigs. The icing on the cake were the go-go dancers they had on stage. The brunette near my side of the stage literally stole my soul with her dance moves. I honestly can't wait to see The Creepy Creeps again.

Get. That. Dirt off ya shoulder.

So after waiting a fortnight for them to rock our world's, Faith No More reunited before our eyes....playing Peaches and Herb's "Reunited" as their opening song. They immediately followed with "From Out of Nowhere" which turned The Palladium into a warzone. Really, I've been to tons of death metal shows and dealt with kung-fu fighting hardcore dancers in my time, but those all paled in comparison to the army of hyped up mid to late thirty year old's reliving their youth by moshing their balls off during Faith No More's reunion. Seriously, it was a sight to be seen. Watching the band rip through classics like "Caffeine," "Surprise You're Dead," and "We Care A Lot" was awesome, but rare songs like "Everything Ruined," and "Spirit" were even more special. The band's stage banter was hilarious, w/ Roddy Bottum rambling on and on about how old he is and Mike Patton speaking spanglish to the crowd and encouraging people to spit on him.



Speaking of Patton, holy Jesus his voice sounded amazingly strong. Stronger than any youtube clips had lead me to believe. The dude was belting shit out with some power. Especially during their oh so cheesy but always appreciated cover songs, like The Commodores "Easy," Burt Bacharach's "This Guys's in Love With You" and as you'll see in this clip, The Bee Gees' "I Started a Joke."

So the show was amazing. Yeah, I wished they didn't play so much material from their final record, Album of the Year since I'm pretty 'eh" about those songs; and wish they had played "The Real Thing" or "Zombie Eaters" or "Land of Sunshine" or....but overall, they still slayed! I'm glad I finally got to see the mighty Faith No More in concert. Hopefully they don't call it quits forever. One more thing, Mike Bordin aka "Puffy" may be rocking grey haired dreadlocks these days, but the dude still beats the hell out of his drums!