Blog-aversary!

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the Amblog's launch (with a review of The Trip). Time marches on, and there are many movies to see, so I won't spend a lot of time reflecting. Instead, I'd just like to point out a few highlights from Year One:

- I'm pretty proud of my 2011 Year in Review, probably my best long-form piece to date. I'm also quite fond of the Studio Ghibli edition of Jump Cuts, though I didn't know that I would also be seeing the superlative Grave of the Fireflies just a few weeks later.

- Drive remains my only "perfect" 5-star review. I wanted to see it again immediately after it was finished, and I don't have that reaction very often. The ratings, by the way, are more art than science. I'll usually go with whatever my gut says as I start to write a review. The words are far more important than the numbers, obviously. The Interrupters and Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie are a couple more of my better raves.

- The only enjoyment I derived from The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence was in panning it last October; it's still my favorite takedown. Two more of the worst that brought out my best: The Vow and Margaret.

- It's easy to forget that I did not initially intend for this blog to focus on movie reviews. For the first month, my Wide Angle posts covered topics from music to patriotism to travel. Weird stuff, but very indicative of my various preoccupations (and loads of free time!) before I started to spend my weekends at the multiplex.

- My relentless posting got me noticed by the founders of Screen Invasion, where I've cross-posted my reviews and contributed some original content. Though I enjoy being a hermit in my little corner of cyberspace, I'm also very proud to contribute to such a dynamic and diverse site with writers voracious love of pop culture matches my own.


I've been blogging (or writing an "online journal," if you remember that term) in some capacity for almost 10 years, toiling away in front of a monitor for hundreds and hundreds of unpaid hours. I'm amazed that I keep doing it! But I'm even more amazed - and humbled - to know that there are people who enjoy reading what I write. Thanks to all of you who visit this space and keep on coming back. You've made this more rewarding than I could've hoped.

Happy Blog-aversary, Ambler Amblog!

Drive (2011)

Drive (2011)
Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

5 out of 5

Let's get this out of the way - there isn't all that much driving in Drive, at least not of the sort promised by a film about an unnamed mechanic and stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) who moonlights as a wheelman-for-hire. He's an agent of shadow, not a speed junkie, who clings to anonymity as a sound strategy for survival. His favored vehicle is the one that will blend in the most. He utters, at most, a few pages worth of dialogue. It's a part that fits the luggish, taciturn Gosling like a second skin, a electrifying performance that's made in the subtle manipulations of his supine temperament. As such, Gosling stands out as the only element of Drive that's not crying out for attention. Luckily it deserves every ounce of attentiveness its audience is willing to give.

Drive is a film that communicates through mood rather than plot. Combining expressionistic visuals with an angular synth score that evokes Risky Business and Chariots of Fire, director Nicolas Winding Refn lends a bit of magic to the mundane and suggests a timelessness in the film's examination of what compels people to endure risk to their lives, their hearts, and their identities. In this sense, "drive" refers not to Gosling's occupation but his raison d'etre, his intractable nature that strictly governs his choices but leaves more than enough tolerance for uncertainty. Such is his dalliance with Carey Mulligan, the loyal wife of jailbird Oscar Isaac, that also sets the gears of the story in motion. Though Isaac returns before anything untoward can happen between the new romantic pairing, Gosling's affinity for Mulligan and her young family pushes him deeper into the Los Angeles criminal underground that he's worked so diligently to keep at arm's length. Here Drive hammers home the loneliness and impersonality of Gosling's labors, as he seems duty bound not to fight for a love of his own, but to fight on behalf of love in general.

Drive is as much a genre film as it is an oblique commentary on the archetypal quest narrative of a Clint Eastwood-style stoic. It has the requisite cuddly mentor in Bryan Cranston's wizened mechanic/capo and a stylish, against-type turn by Albert Brooks as a weary crime boss who commits violence with the same resignation he projects in corralling his uncouth partner played by Ron Perlman. There's also plenty of Refn's trademark gore, often accompanied by his incongruously heroic use of slow motion, smash cuts, and the pulsating soundtrack. But don't get the wrong impression - thanks to Gosling, the movie is decidedly laconic, a slow-burning powder keg that compresses tension to a fine point and releases it in exhilarating, symbolic bursts of action. Most decent movies have to strain to make even one shot or sequence feel iconic. Refn's effortless combination of restraint and release, as well as the film's complex understanding of human motivation, guides Drive toward a poetic perfection. Let other films worry about delivering action beats and star-driven fireworks - Drive's triumph is in its substitution of horsepower with humanity.