Cinemango

The Passion of Joan of Arc

2010-12-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

Dir. Carl Theodore Dreyer, 1928

There are perhaps few who have not heard of Joan of Arc in some way, either as a martyr, French symbol, soldier, or literary character. This role has been performed in countless films and plays, and has been referenced in countless songs, stories, and even video games. Despite the fact that she is a real historical figure, everything about her appears mythological and fantastical. Even the most unsentimental history seems highly unlikely, and every telling of the story is riveting by its very nature. None more so than The Passion of Joan of Arc, an absolute wonder of a film whose focus is not the visions, battles or capture of Joan, but her emotional state and condemnation by religious tribunal.

As early as the opening scene, a shackled Joan is escorted heavily into a room lined with the disapproving faces of a bloated bunch of monastic fatcats who hold her fate in their hands. They patronize her, insult her, spit on her, threaten her with heresy and torture, and allow her to be humiliated by the jesterlike guards. Through it all, Joan watches and takes it, opening her eyes wide to the behavior around her and shedding tears for the dilemmas put before her. She knows that she has been ordained by god to lead the French armies to freedom from the English, but in order to stick to her guns, she has to deny Mass and communion, and accept a gruesome death. The sympathy or faith of a few monks is not enough to save her, and her death sets off a domino effect of dissatisfaction and rebellion among the peasants who live near the church.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this film is that it requires complete suspension of disbelief. It is inconceivable that something that has such continuing relevance, visually and contextually, is over 80 years old. It's eye=opening to discover that so many cinematographic styles have a single source. Joan of Arc appears so modern because the composition of the frames, the camera angles, tracking shots and swift swings of the camera have been used everywhere since then. I had no idea that in the early days of cinema (for this is from the silent period), there was the technology to do such dramatic things with equipment. The most compelling aspect is the intimacy of the close-ups. Dreyer did not allow his actors to wear makeup, and good he did, as you would certainly be able to see it on the faces.

The faces are incredible. Both cartoonish and human, grotesque and familiar. I felt like each character looked like someone I knew or had met, and the name was just on the tip of my tongue.

The typical overly hammy performance of a silent movie star is completely absent here: the emotions are so raw. One can really empathize with the range of Joan's sorrows and fears, the snide judgments of the monks, the sympathy and pity of the few clergymen who believe in her, and the shifting curiosity and outrage of the peasants. It is a feat of human expression. Not only amazing for the time period that it comes from, but for any performance of any era.

I was fortunate to have seen this twice with the UC Alumni Chorus and an orchestra performing the score live. The piece that they performed was not the original from the 1928 release, but a more recent composition by Richard Einhorn, "Voices of Light." It has an appropriately hallowed sound to it, and the vocal talents were exemplary, making the entire spectacle all the more momentous. It was an engrossing and moving experience, one that I would revisit any time.

A Single Man

2010-01-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

Dir. Tom Ford, 2009

A directorial debut is always an interesting venture. Sometimes, it reveals the filmmaker to be a visionary, a true artist, a person whose future work you greatly look forward to. Sometimes the first film appears somewhat sophomoric, and you either hope for this filmmaker to redeem him/herself with later films, or you don't particularly care. Somehow, A Single Man inspired in me all three of these sentiments. That which clothing designer Tom Ford did well, he did superbly, and where it was flawed, it seemed beyond correction. And yet, overall, it was enjoyable enough for me to be curious about the future directorial pursuits of Tom Ford.

A Single Man is based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, and follows a middle-aged college professor, George Falconer (played by hot-again Colin Firth), whose partner of 16 years, Jim (Matthew Goode), has died relatively recently. We go through one day with him, from his morning routine to his day at work, the people he encounters and his memories. He has minor adventures that paint a kind of tableau of his perceived necessity of detachment and the pain of remembering. Occasionally, he feels a sense of joy or pleasure at seeing a handsome man or a beautiful setting, but it is bittersweet. Only when one of his pupils, Kenny Potter, takes a particular interest in him, does he start to reconsider his outlook on life.

It has to be said, it is really nice to see Colin Firth look good again. He was delicious as the Misters Darcy (Fitzwilliam and Mark), but after that, he's been kind of schlubby and slightly lame. But oh! Behold:

Ford, the designer for Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent Accessories, and his own label, pays a ridiculous amount of attention to the styling of both the characters and the settings, making all of the actors look irresistible, at their aesthetic best. Setting the film in the early 1960's provides an opportunity for a sleek, retro, modish wardrobe. Julianne Moore, who plays George's best friend, Charley, is a beautiful woman, and Ford dressed her to look devastating, drunk, wealthy, past her prime, sexy, and slightly pathetic all at the same time. Actually, it's not easy to tell how much the clothing helped, because Moore is a pretty good actress, and plays beautiful, sad drunks fairly often. But! She did look excellent.

The cinematography is quite stunning. The opening scenes are a series of wispy glances at what appears to be a naked person's body adumbrating through water. Later on, we experience a flashback to Jim and George at Vasquez Rocks together, and the light is so harsh, the black-and-white so contrasty and sharp, much like lying on sandstone in the sun feels. At the moments where George feels despair, the colors are muted and desaturated, but flush into vibrancy during his fleeting moments of sentimentality. These are the moments that the film was made for, seeing the world in the stylish splendor of a fashion designer. This is why I would recommend the film to someone, and this is why I would happily see another film of Tom Ford's, should he take on celluloid again.

Sadly, Ford's strength is also his weakness. In trying to make such a beautiful film, he sought out beautiful sets, beautiful clothing, and beautiful actors. This last component, while undeniably pleasing to the eye, is not always enjoyable to watch. For example, Kenny Potter, George's infatuated student, is played by Nicholas Hoult, who has become quite the beau-gosse since About A Boy.

Grown up quite a bit, hasn't he? He is quite handsome, but he is just not a good actor. He is, unfortunately, a very important character, so there are quite a few slow and pseudointellectual conversations between Kenny and George that can quite painful due to Hoult's lack of gravitas and, well, skill. The purpose of his scenes is largely to showcase his attractiveness and the carrot of possibility of a happy future that he presents to George, but we are not George. We are the audience, and to watch Hoult drone unconvincingly about fears of mortality is rather tedious.

I have not read the book, so I'm not sure how the sequence of events plays out in a written medium, but the film dragged a bit. There were quite a few moments that could have easily been the last scene, but it just kept going. Ultimately, the conclusion was appropriate and poignant, albeit somewhat predictable. The film is carried just enough by Firth and Moore and most of the visuals, so overall, it can be classified as worthwhile. It is something of an emotional quandary to judge a film like this; the good parts are really so good, and the mediocre parts are somewhat difficult to watch. In the end, I am heavily seduced by eye candy, and after a few days, I find the visuals to be the most memorable. They stand the test of the short term, and save the film from overall failure.

Happy-Go-Lucky

2009-11-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

Dir. Mike Leigh, 2008

For once, I'm going to cut to the chase here. I love this film. I have seen it twice, now, and the second viewing has done nothing to lessen my love for it. In fact, it has intensified, because much like Mike Leigh's other films, there are many layers of depth among the characters that are very subtle, and that become more evident upon multiple viewings. As Leigh would tell you himself, his directing style is not so much about taking command and making his vision come alive. Rather, he starts with an idea or a general scenario, and he hires actors to collaborate with in developing the characters and the actual events that take place in the movie. It takes a village to make his films, and the result is that every single performance is rich, nuanced and powerful, such that you can't imagine that the actors actually have personalities different from that of their characters'.

The film revolves around Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins, who is a somewhat lower-middle class schoolteacher in London. She is perpetually chipper and giggling, wanting nothing more than to like and to help everyone. After her bike is stolen, she resolves to taking driving lessons, and is paired with her polar opposite, Scott, a bitter, misanthropic man who has no patience for Poppy's constant joking. This, however, is only the major source of conflict in the story, otherwise the film largely follows Poppy's life through injury, dance lessons, work, friendships, family relationships and love. This may sound somewhat Hallmark, but there is no saccharine sweetness to the story; it is a stark exposition of this woman's daily routine.

If I were to meet Poppy, I might possibly find her aggravating. In the very first scene, she is shopping and goes into a bookstore where her sprightliness is so irritating to the cashier that he does not engage her in conversation. Poppy takes all of this in stride and seems aware of her sometimes off-putting nature. She continues to live like this, because the friends who love her seem to truly love her for who she really is, and isn't that all that really matters? She does have a serious side, however, as shown in the way she handles a troubled student in her elementary school class. She takes him aside and arranges for him to meet a social worker, and her jocularity does not come through. If I were to know Poppy for a long time, I think I would grow to love her.

The story of Poppy and Scott, her driving instructor, is difficult to watch, but extremely engrossing. Poppy cannot help but push Scott's buttons, for he does baffling things like make vaguely racist assumptions, decry the entire English governing body, and designate a ridiculous mnemonic for checking mirrors (Enraha, the holy triangle). It is laughable, and Scott is kind of pathetic, but Poppy sees the troubled child that he must have been and, against better judgment, alternately tries to psychoanalyze him while continuing to "take the mickey" out of him. Scott is far too angry and confused about himself to understand Poppy's nature, but he refuses to give up on his driving pupil, so they continue to see each other, with somewhat grim results.

Just for kicks, I read some of the user reviews on Netflix after my second viewing, and I was pretty floored by the poor reception. Now, my taste diverges greatly from the average Netlix subscriber's, as evidenced by the fact that I strongly dislike to feel completely apathetic toward the majority of the 100 most popular titles. Yet I was surprised that there were not more people who were enchanted by Poppy's touching sweetness and humor, mixed with her flawed, though relatable, nature. The most common critique was that Poppy was annoying and the film was boring. I can understand people finding Mike Leigh's films boring, because he focuses much more heavily on character studies and interactions than plot, and he is definitely not a director that appeals to everyone. But despite the fact that, yes, Poppy is annoying, she is such a good person, and Sally Hawkins's portrayal is both subtle and bold. There are no flat characters, and no single person can be reduced to a caricature or stereotype.

Because this is how things are, because humans are varied and inconsistent, this is why I love Leigh's entire filmography. Not all of his movies are great, but he chooses to focus on building and developing really complete characters with the actors cast in the role. If what you are really seeking is a great story or exciting diversions or great artistry or special effects, and you could not care less for the characterizations, perhaps these films are not for you. There are nice stories sometimes and varying amounts of set design, but the acting is the main attraction. I love to see really great performances and characters who are as realistic as people you could meet in real life. There were times that I thought Poppy was being foolish or unwise, but people don't always make the right decisions and sometimes put themselves in dangerous or bad situations. It is brave and that might be why it is unpopular to take this strategy in filmmaking, but it works for me, and I always look forward to the next one.

Interview with the Vampire (DVD)

2009-10-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

Dir. Neil Jordan, 1994

Picture it: 1994. The Northridge earthquake happened, gas was $1.40 per gallon. Brad Pitt was a young heartthrob fresh out of Kalifornia and about to grace the screen with Legends of the Fall. Tom Cruise was famous from A Few Good Men, and was the other heartthrob that teenaged girls dreamed about. Christian Slater wasn't yet irrelevant. Kirsten Dunst was 12 years old, pure and cute as a button and not yet the strange sad-eyed hipster of modern occurrence. When Interview with the Vampire came out, it was like pornography for women. Here were all these sexy, long-haired stallions pouting their lips and seducing women, baring their teeth and flashing their unnaturally blue eyes at us all. Anne Rice was exceedingly popular; it was Twilight for the older generations. This was one of the biggest films to open that year, and a slight controversy only added to its intrigue.

Fast-forward 15 years. I am sitting alone in my bedroom, procrastinating a little bit, and remembering my decade-old fondness for this film, which is available to view instantly on Netflix. I imagined that it would be fun and possibly humorous to revisit such a relic from the mid-90's. I was not prepared to be slightly bored and uncomfortable with the deliberateness and seriousness of this film. Director Neil Jordan clearly took great pains to make this film what it is, and while it's not entirely awful, it is very much a film for the time, and does not translate well to today's standard and aesthetic.

For those unfamiliar, or those who have simply forgotten, the plot follows Louis Pointe du Lac (Brad) as he wallows in misery from mortality to immortality. Because he is a childless widower, he feels he has no reason to live, which is apparently perfect for vampire makin'. The vampire, Lestat (Cruise), picks him up and sucks him dry, and then the two of them live in devilish abandon in Louis's giant plantation house in New Orleans through much of the 19th century. They grow to hate each other because Louis, apparently, didn't realize what vampires do, and he has a crisis of conscience over killing people. Lestat is just, like, whatever, and bites prostitutes in the breast and kills them that way. (I'm sure you remember that scene. It certainly made an impression on me.) Their intense hatred for each other drives them to collectively vampirize the young and motherless plague victim, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), who is a source of further sexual and non-sexual tension between all of them because it just wouldn't be a movie without it.

Claudia and Louis, whose love affair is hardly portrayed on film (as Dunst was 12 years old when the film is made), scheme to free themselves of Lestat, whose main flaw appears to be that he is just too vampirish. Feeds on human flesh, breaks things. Louis and Claudia are more subdued, but at that point, Louis has reconciled himself to the inevitability of murder for survival, and Claudia is a good little vampire who lures in adults with her childlike wiles. They commit the ultimate crime, vampiricide, and leave the charred remains of Lestat behind in New Orleans as they take off for Europe to find more of their kind. And in the hundred or so years that they spend scouring the continent, they realize that their kind is just like Lestat. I won't reveal the end, but it is incendiary.

It's very difficult not to be tongue-in-cheek about this. It is absolutely not a terrible movie, not at all, but it's excessively melodramatic. The visuals are lovely. There is a rich darkness about the film that Neil Jordan was careful to preserve from the source material, and it is very appropriate for the tone. But it is quite absurd. There is a gravity to everything that happens, a complete and utter humorlessness about it all, that it's laughable. Such a snapshot of mid-90's male cheesecake cannot but be hilarious. Reading the IMDb trivia, and seeing the other actors that were in consideration for Lestat and Louis's roles (Rutger Hauer! Johnny Depp! Julian Sands!) just completes the snapshot of what this film was going for.

The most interesting component of this film is definitely Louis and Claudia's relationship. Because laws are what they are, as previously mentioned, there is nothing portrayed between them, only heavily insinuated. But even then, it's glossed over very lightly as though the filmmakers didn't want to suggest too definitively that there is a relationship between an adult man and a girl child, even though in the context of the film, the girl child is about one hundred years old. Kirsten Dunst was easily the best part of this film, as she appears to be world-weary and jaded, and yet youthfully bratty. It would be difficult for a film to explore the motivations for Louis and Claudia to explore romance together without it being either painfully pretentious or blunt, pandering to the lowest common denominator and insulting my intelligence. But it has the potential to be so intriguing. I'd even read the book if I liked Anne Rice's style at all.

If I had been watching this with someone else who felt the same way I did, I'd probably have a great time giggling about the pedantic dialogue, the cheapness of the vampire-teeth dentures that make the actors talk like their mouths are full, and the absurdity of the casting. But I watched it alone, over the course of three or four days, and I did not have a particularly good time, except when I could laugh about it afterward with the friends of mine who'd seen it relatively recently. Standards of beauty have changed, as has public opinion of Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Kirsten Dunst, so seeing them as the paragons of beauty, sexuality and purity no longer works. I remember my mindset when I first watched it, and I remember why I liked it. Unfortunately, it is no longer enjoyable, since it took itself far too seriously at the time that it was made. A little levity next time, folks!

Public Enemies

2009-07-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

Dir. Michael Mann, 2009

As I was watching this film, I found myself momentarily confused. I was unable to remember who the director was, what it was that had made me want to see this film so much, or if it was only the cast that drew me in. As tantalizing as Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard may be, I'd like to think that I am more sophisticated a moviegoer than that. (I admit that sometimes, a pretty face or acting chops are enough to get me into a seat, but none of these actors satisfy that yen for me.) Only when the credits started rolling and the giant "Michael Mann" splashed across the screen was I fully aware of the extent of my disappointment.

With a subject matter as rich, exciting, and myth-riddled as the lives of bank robbers during the Great Depression, let alone that of the most notorious of them all, John Dillinger himself, you would think that a film in the hands of as capable a director as Mann would be amazing. If not extraordinary, at least fascinating, thought-provoking, or even challenging. Public Enemies is, of course, none of these. It is merely a telling of what happened. These guys. Did stuff. And then they did other stuff and more people came along. This is how the film presents itself, a detail-less narrative of events and occurrences, peppered with machine gun fire, pretty faces, and arch smiles delivered from one polished face to another.

The opening scene appears to be Dillinger being admitted to a prison in the midwest somewhere, when all of a sudden you realize that it's an elaborate bust. Back in the days where security could not contain the likes of Dillinger and his gang, they just beat up a few cops and run away, leaning out of the windows and shooting guards with Tommy guns as they go. A close friend of Dillinger's goes down in the bust, and they periodically hearken to him, fondly, remembering his words on how to be most successful in their "business." After holing up for a little bit and then taking down a bank in Chicago, Dillinger sees Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) at a nightclub and determines that she is great and they are going to be together forever. She is part French and part Menominee Indian, and this allegedly lends her some appeal beyond her physical beauty, but we're just going to have to take their word on that one.

Meanwhile, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) is such a great FBI agent that he is promoted by J. Edgar Hoover (played by a fairly comical Billy Crudup) to helm the investigation to apprehend and kill Dillinger and any others in his gang. Purvis has a bunch of meatheads working for him, so he asks for a special task force to help out. So then a couple of grizzled old experts waltz in and suddenly know everything and how to really take 'em down. But John Dillinger is a tricky sumbitch, and he manages to flit around a little more before the final climactic showdown(s) where there are lots of special effects and bullets flying and we all grip our armrests in wide-eyed anticipation. Pardon the possible spoilers, but this is theoretically based on a true story so, I mean, obviously something happened.

Michael Mann has had a long-ish, illustrious-ish career of making films with short titles: The Insider, Collateral, Ali, Miami Vice. His films are usually powerful and intense, with some probing into the seamier side of human nature. However, his films are a bit like melba toast with cottage cheese and marmalade: good quality, full of things that are good for you, and wonderful if that's exactly what you're in the mood for. But they can also be dry, overwhelming, and unsatisfying if you really just want something sugary or to really fill you up. A film like Collateral was just right for what it needed to get across, which wasn't much, and The Insider did a really excellent job of laying out the facts as they were while Russell Crowe and Al Pacino took care of the rest. Those films were satisfying, filling. Public Enemies should have been a meal, not a snack.

It must take a unique personality to rob banks, kill police officers, escape prison, and keep a network of friends, associates and safehouses across the country. Someone like John Dillinger would have to be incredibly intelligent, ruthless and unbelievably charming. He would be in excellent physical shape and yet look unassuming enough to not draw excessive attention to himself. The Dillinger in Public Enemies only vaguely resembles the person he must have been. He doesn't appear to have much of a sense of humor or a particularly magnetic personality. His intelligence translates more as quickness and strategic skill, and his athleticism best used for hitting people really hard. Johnny Depp has taken on many roles where a strong personality shines through, so I know it is possible for him to execute such a task. The fault really must lie in the screenplay, and with three writers, it's a wonder that such a critical detail slipped them all.

I haven't read the book, and this movie didn't really instill in me any desire to do so. I never really found Dillinger that fascinating, but he probably could have been. He and all of his notorious brothers in arms: Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Pete Pierpont, etc. Only Nelson was played with any obvious idiosyncrasy, but he was probably the easiest to reduce to a caricature. It is so frustrating to think about how, how, GREAT this film could have been! I am not a screenwriter, so I don't really know what I would do to enhance the personalities, but I would start with some research.

These gangsters seem like they're just anybody. Any maybe that's the point, but what is really so irresistible in films about gangsters and criminals is to see just how off-kilter they are amid the regular human characteristics. Maybe these gangsters aren't sociopaths or psychotic, and maybe they are just opportunists who happen to be really good at something, but come on. This is a film. Give me something to watch.

Star Trek

2009-05-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Dir. J.J. Abrams, 2009

Here is the obligatory disclaimer about how I am not an avid fan of "Star Trek" the television series, in any of its versions and generations, and I don't think I've seen any of the films prior to this one. I've probably watched two whole episodes since entering my teens, and before that, I was probably only half paying attention. When I was in junior high, I came upon a bumper sticker that said, "Klingons, Ferengis and Borgs, Oh My!" and so I did a little scouting to find out what on earth that meant. I have seen countless spoofs (countless), so I feel that I am pretty well aware of the major catchphrases, characters and events that have entered into science fiction lore. That being said, I am not sure at all whether that puts me at an objective advantage or disadvantage when it comes to appreciating this particular slice of cinema.

I won't keep you in suspense. I liked it! At first I was profoundly disturbed by how pretty the characters of James Tiberius Kirk and Mr. Spock were, and what a departure that was from the dated looks of William Shatner and the immortal scowl of Leonard Nimoy. I found it highly unlikely that a guy as attractive as Chris Pine could end up as the captain of an intergalactic spaceship with a crew of thousands. I suppose this is the point, as the golden boy, Jim, not only succeeds in part from the legacy of his heroic father, who sacrificed himself to save hundreds of people, including his own son, but also from his dizzying intellect. However, he is continuously breaking the rules, getting in the way, destroying things, and somehow defying all odds, yet turning up time and time again with hardly a hair out of place, and a new great idea for how to save the universe. He couldn't be less of an underdog.

Spock, played bizarrely by the giant-featured Zachary Quinto, deals with the typical inner turmoil associated with being torn between the Vulcan code of emotional detachment, and his half-human heritage which is the exact opposite. His character exists as only slightly more than a foil, then a cheerleader for the mindbending efforts of Kirk as he expresses his disdain for order and no-win situations. Perhaps it is only my perception, but it seems like the character of Spock is the more difficult one to take on, because of Nimoy's legacy, and the constraints of playing a character that cannot be reinterpreted too liberally without losing the entire essence of his purpose on the Enterprise.

Guys, the plot is exciting and convoluted, and deals with black holes and alternate realities, and, to be quite frank, I'm still sort of wrapping my brain around that one. Suffice it to say, it's not the same old song and dance action movie premise. In the first scene of the film, Kirk's father takes over the helm of the Enterprise when the previous captain is summoned into a giant Romulan spacecraft emerging from a black hole. The Romulan leader, Nero, interrogates the erstwhile captain about taking responsibility for something that apparently hasn't happened yet. When this captain professes confusion, and names the star date as 2233-04 (or something, as if I could actually remember that), Nero becomes so incensed that he rams his giant pointy staff into the captain's chest, and opens fire on the Enterprise with great vengeance and furious anger.

Fast forward 25 years, and the new class of the Starfleet Academy is getting ready to start their training. Enter: Jim Kirk, destroyer of cars and initiator of barroom brawls, who cheats his way out of an unwinnable qualifying exam programmed by the one and only Spock, colludes with the one Dr. McCoy to shanghai himself onto the Enterprise when responding to a Vulcan distress signal. Spock has chosen the Enterprise over the Vulcan Academy because he is tired of being Vulcanly discriminated against for being half-human. They assemble the usual cast of characters, played refreshingly by charming young actors, and the lot of them get together and hyperspace here and there to seek out worlds unknown and stuff like that.

Star Trek is entertaining and exciting and, though this may seem like a backhanded compliment, not at all phoned in. I mean, think about it. With such iconic lines as "Set phasers to stun!" "Dammit man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!" and "Live long and prosper," this could easily fall into tongue-in-cheek parody. However, the actors embrace both the dramatic and campy, but most of all, they completely own their roles. It took a while to get used to seeing some of the actors in the styling of 24th century astronavigators, like Karl Urban and John Cho, and it took me a while to figure out where I saw this adorable elf before:

(Answer: Charlie Bartlett)

It is a heavy burden to reinvent a classic. J.J. Abrams was up against a lot of naysayers, though he is not one to be discouraged by what some may tell him is not a good idea. He takes risks, chooses interesting projects, and even if something seems gimmicky, like Cloverfield or baffling, like any episode of "Lost," it's always a fun and entertaining ride. For the start of a reboot, it's promising. I do look forward to the second installment in the series, not as a sequel but as a second chapter. It officially joins the ranks of "Serial Movies I Look Forward To," alongside the James Bond flicks, the Batman series and the Iron Man franchise.

Sin Nombre

2009-04-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

Dir. Cary Fukunaga, 2009

I have been trying to think about why this movie isn't amazing to me. Is it possible that my time-honored history of enjoying relatively depressing movies is at an end? A formula that used to fulfill me on a basic emotional level now disappoints me. But it's more than just the fact that the film is relatively solemn that put me off somewhat; the other reason is, unfortunately, something I can't quite put my finger on. I'm inclined to say that it's because of the somewhat recycled subject matter, but when I actually stop and think about it, I have not actually seen that many films about Mexican gangs and illegal immigration. Perhaps it's my proximity to the subject, having grown up in Southern California? Whatever it is, it's unfortunate, because I suspect that this was probably pretty good.

The film starts by following two characters that appear to have very little in common besides general geographical proximity. The first is a teenage Honduran girl, Sayra, who is reunited with her father after some years, and is persuaded to ride the trains to the United States through Mexico. She appears somewhat conflicted about this, in part due to her conflicted feelings about her estranged father and his new family in New Jersey, and most likely also due to the dangerous nature of the voyage. She, her father, and uncle trek through some jungle before catching the train and stowing aboard on the roof with other immigrants hoping to find a better life in Los Estados Unidos.

The second story line follows a gang member named El Casper, or Willy, depending on your emotional proximity. He is a little bit distracted from his duties, which involve gang member initiations and keeping an eye out for rival gangs, because of a relationship that he tries to keep a secret from the rest of the gang. Eventually, the gang leader, Lil Mago, finds out about his girlfriend, and due to some kind of code, attempts to rape her but kills her instead. Lil Mago's coldness disturbs El Casper, and in an attempt to rob the immigrants on a train going north to the US, and starting to rape Sayra, El Casper kills Lil Mago.

From that point on, El Casper and Sayra are linked by destiny, or something like that. He is her guardian, and she gives him a way to redeem himself for the life of violence. Classic tale of redemption and discovery, love and loss, angels and demons, etc. Perhaps it's that kind of thing that feels slightly stale to me. Even though it's a fairly unique setup, as far as typical film plots go, it's such a commonly used theme that the details seem incidental.

The argument that sticks with me is that of my filmgoing companion, who agreed that while it was not exactly an entirely original setup, it was well done. And for that, Sin Nombre a "good movie." I agree with this, I believe it is well done. The performances are on target, the script is good enough, and there is nothing about it that bothers me on any level. It is produced by Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, which has given this film the opportunity to use good quality equipment, better actors, and to film in good locations.

However, all of these things aside, I still can't get past the fact that it didn't wow me. I was not disturbed by anything: the violence was almost rote for such a subject matter, and I am much less squeamish these days anyway. It was entirely bleak and depressing: who knows if that might have bothered me as well, but the fact that it didn't just completely crush my soul OR leave me feeling hopeful and uplifted was a bit of an emotional letdown. This second point is kind of weird, considering I put off watching the film for several weeks because I was worried that I was in too delicate a state to be seeing something that was really going to depress the hell out of me. For instance, The Constant Gardener upset me for days, and I was not nearly as stressed when I saw that as I have been lately.

This may all be a result of my desensitization to terrible events from sensationalism in the media. Maybe I'm getting older and jaded, and I really need to be blown away, or moved to tears, or to just somehow be impressed by something entirely new. I wish I had a better reason for only feeling lukewarm about this film, but the fact is that it must just be on some metaphysical level that this doesn't work for me.

Oldboy

2009-04-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

Dir. Chan-wook Park, 2003

Has everyone seen this movie yet? Am I the last person to finally see what the big deal is? If you haven't seen it yet, then don't read on any further, because I am going to talk about this frankly. I wouldn't want to ruin the ending for anyone, like multiple people have done for me.

All right. I wonder what this movie is like to watch without having any idea what it's about, the bumps along the way, or how it turns out. When this film came out a few years ago, it was such a sensation among such a cross-denominational body that on a regular basis, I would encounter people talking about it and, inevitably, revealing something. I can tell that there is something appealing for almost anyone, so long as they have a tolerance for the other aspects of it. For instance, a hopeless romantic might even like Oldboy, so long as he or she doesn't mind gore. The buzz about this film was so fevered that, unfortunately, it's almost impossible to look at this in a vacuum, and to judge it on its standalone merit.

Oh Dae-su is just some asshole who happens to stumble upon the worst luck possible: he is suddenly imprisoned by an unknown captor for 15 years for a crime he cannot immediately recall. While locked up, he pontificates on his past life and learns to fight. He goes from soggy loser to hardened badass. The minute he is let out of his prison, he embarks on a journey to understand what led to his incarceration, starting by answering anonymous cell phone calls and eating something alive. [Spoiler number one: I tell anyone that my favorite animal is the octopus, and they say, "Oh! Have you seen Oldboy? He eats a live one!" I knew it was going to happen, that some poor octopus would die for the sake of art, but that doesn't make it any less disturbing. Octopi are some of the smartest creatures on the planet. I'll bet he didn't even enjoy it.]

Ahem. So that happens, and in the process of choking down Earth's most intelligent cephalopod, he catches the flu and wins the sympathy and sanctuary of the cute little sushi chef, Mi-Do. You all know this. While avenging his own misery and tracking down the guy who made it all happen, he also develops a kind of relationship with Mi-Do based on mutual desperation and fear of losing the other. Eventually, he makes the 5-day deadline and figures out what all happened, and it all spirals out of control into the mutual revenge-fest that is befitting of one of the installments of the Revenge Trilogy. (The other two of which are Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance.)

Okay, so if you're still reading along with me, you know, blah blah, Oh Dae-su caught the jerk who orchestrated this whole thing having inappropriate relations with his sister and blabbed it all over the school, leading to the sister's suicide. This, I actually didn't know. I did not know that this was the driving force of Captorman's (forgot his name) evil plan, and so that reveal was actually a surprise, though I found it very thematic with the whole incest undertone of the film. Because we also all know that Captorman's evil plan involved hypnotizing Dae-su and Mi-Do into meeting and falling in love. But she's his daughter! Man, that must have been such an amazing twist for the people who don't have annoying friends!

But I do have annoying friends. And live in an annoying city full of annoying people who don't understand that some people like to see movies with a blank slate. So I can only tell you what this movie is like for someone who knows what's going to happen. And, you know, it's a little anticlimactic, when all is said and done. After the major reveal, the film really does not need to go on for another 15 minutes. We were all there for the twist, now we don't need to see a guy cut out his own tongue, another guy shoot himself in the head, and a ridiculous return to hypnosis. It's kind of like watching The Usual Suspects after you know that SPOILERSPOILER Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze. I mean, it's an interesting movie with interesting details, but it really exists for the ending.

I do know that there are people who bought this movie and watched it multiple times, and perhaps there is a reason for it. It was definitely entertaining, and the moment when Dae-su first resurfaces in the world and encounters the first human being in 15 years; that is a really touching moment that was very well done. It's a thrilling ride, and the gritty fight scenes with the flying blood and body parts are undeniably fascinating. But it doesn't really stand up as an entirely satisfying film without the twist or the anticipation of the moments that make the film so infamous.

Tokyo Sonata

2009-04-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2008

In my years as a film-viewer, which is the only kind of credential I really have to present, I have seen quite an assortment of unbelievably strange films, and other incredibly slow films. Being categorically slow or strange doesn't automatically turn a film from my good opinion, and sometimes it actually makes it better, or more interesting, or that it just suits the topic so well that there is no other way to present the idea. However strangeness or slowness is a kind of subtlety that requires great skill to handle correctly. Just like a film on any kind of controversial topic, there will certainly be a audience that will be uninterested, so it's best to cater to those who will accept the strangeness or slowness, and tell the story that needs to be told.

I'm not sure that Tokyo Sonata succeeds in this regard. It's both slow and strange, which, right now, to me, seems like a rare combination. I am also a fan of Japanese cinema, new and old, and I appreciate the fresh look at metropolitan culture through a different lens. This film is just odd. Something just doesn't work. Halfway through the film, I shot my filmgoing companion a quizzical look, and he confided, "I don't quite get the...thesis here." Whether or not this is the film that Kiyoshi Kurosawa had envisioned, it's misdirected and has too many disparate parts.

The Sasaki family, a fairly nuclear family living in Tokyo, falls prey to the laws of chaos theory once Ryuhei, the father, loses his job due to downsizing. Too ashamed and prideful to tell his family or to immediately take a new, lesser job, he goes around pretending to still be a high-ranking administrator, while taking advantage of the soup line and haunting the unemployment office. His dutiful wife, maybe bored, maybe disenchanted, sees him one day eating his free meal, and she suddenly understands everything. Ryuhei, meanwhile, tries to control the only thing left in his life, the activities of his children. He forbids his younger prodigious son from taking piano lessons, and his older son from joining the American army. We all know what happens, though, with this kind of desperation, and the appropriate rebellion ensues.

All of the events leading up to the Moment when the film comes together (you know there's going to be one) take about an hour and a half. It's slow, but the anticipation keeps you around, keeps you alert. (Except for one man in the audience who had only come, clearly, to kick off his shoes and snore his way through the second act.) All of a sudden, the film takes a drastic turn for the dramatic, but because it is so unexpected and unprecedented, it is difficult to look at the action with a serious eye. It all just seems so comical when the three main characters - mother, father and younger son - supposedly hit rock bottom with the kind of gasping, bumbling imperfection of a minor Shakespeare character. It reminded me a bit of The Host, which was decidedly a black comedy interspersed with dramatic and tragic moments. The emotional push-pull in that film was disconcerting, but it remained consistent throughout.

In case you already bought advanced, non-refundable tickets and you are cursing yourself for the lack of foresight, it isn't all bad. If I had seen the two parts separately, I'd have possibly enjoyed them for different reasons, and could say positive things about them as two different films. The characters of Ryuhei and his wife are a bit sad, but also familiar. The secretive husband and the quiet, sacrificing wife are common enough to engage an emotional response, though they don't entirely avoid being a cliche. There are some sweet and interesting scenes that are relevant to the film as a whole, and others that are maybe just vignettes to set the place and time. In the moment, there is enough to enjoy that I didn't feel uncomfortable or bored. Unfortunately, I never managed to shake the feeling that there was something slightly off.

The director, Kurosawa, perhaps intended for Tokyo Sonata to be a statement about the social pressures of Japanese society and the need for a patriarch to save face in front of his peers and family. I am not Japanese, nor have I visited the country, so I can't make any blanket statement about the importance of honor, but I know what I've heard from other sources. It is a popular theme in modern Japanese cinema, and I've seen it executed more successfully. Even with strangeness and slowness thrown in. Perhaps I'm incorrect in pinpointing that as the failure for this film, and after I finish this, I'll probably think of another slow, strange film that worked for me. (Yep. The Taste of Tea and Last Life in the Universe.) But I can say that the disconnect between the tone of the first three-quarters of the movie and the last quarter caused me, and at least one other person that I know of, to furrow our brows in confusion.

2009-03-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys. (To my two readers.) I obviously dropped the ball on this, and now it's sort of late to be doing this. I'm taking a break from this project (clearly) until a time that I can look myself in the face and really believe that I am not saying the same thing every single time. Thanks for sticking around. I enjoyed doing this, for a time.

Everything I Saw In Theaters In 2008 And Up To This Week

2009-02-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

Atonement- 1/6/08
The Golden Compass- 1/12/08
Cloverfield- 1/19/08
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly- 1/20/08
The Savages- 1/25/08
Persepolis- 2/8/08
Be Kind Rewind- 2/22/08
In Bruges- 3/19/08
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day- 3/29/08
Young @ Heart- 4/19/08
Smart People- 4/20/08
The Band's Visit- 4/27/08
Iron Man- 5/10/08
Topsy-Turvy- 4/30/08
The Visitor- 6/6/06
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull- 6/8/08
The Fall- 6/22/08
Get Smart- 6/25/08
Wall-E- 6/27/08
Wanted- 6/29/08
The Incredible Hulk- 7/4/08
Hellboy II: The Golden Army- 7/12/08
Hancock- 7/13/08
The Dark Knight- 7/18/08
Wall-E- 7/19/08
Pineapple Express- 8/10/8
The Dark Knight: Imax Experience- 8/10/08
Vicky Cristina Barcelona- 8/23/08
The Little Mermaid Sing Along- 8/24/08
Hamlet 2- 8/31/08
Tropic Thunder- 9/7/08
Girl Cut In Two- 9/12/08
Burn After Reading- 9/13/08
Miracle at St. Anna- 10/3/2008
Choke- 10/5/2008
Cool Hand Luke- 10/7/2008
W.- 10/17/08
Rachel Getting Married- 10/18/08
Ashes of Time: Redux- 10/24/08
Happy Go Lucky- 11/01/08
Rock n Rolla- 11/06/08
Synecdoche, NY- 11/13/08
Quantum of Solace- 11/14/08
Passion of Joan of Arc- 11/23/08
Milk- 11/27/08
Slumdog Millionaire- 11/23/08
Ciao- 12/14/08
The Wrestler- 12/22/08
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- 12/25/08
Revolutionary Road- 12/26/08
Let The Right One In- 1/9/2009
Taken- 2/01/09
Gran Torino- 2/16/09
Frozen River- 2/17/09

Frozen River

2009-02-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

Dir. Courtney Hunt, 2008

In a time when the most prominent female figures in cinema are the leads in such films as Confessions of a Shopaholic or He's Just Not That Into You, here is a film driven by the kind of woman you might one day actually meet, and might actually like. It takes independent cinema to portray people with struggles and difficulties more complex than just managing an unrealistic credit limit or trying to figure out whether or not you're correctly interpreting a guy's mixed messages. In Frozen River, the characters are stark and yet rich with emotion and nuance, with responsibilities and scars more profound than could possibly be written into a script.

Melissa Leo, an extremely underused and underrated actress, plays Ray Eddy, a mother of two boys living in a trailer in the far north of upstate New York. When we first see her, she is sitting in the passenger seat of a car with the door open, glove compartment hanging open, thinking through some emotions before putting on a brave face for her kids. She stays cheerful for her giddy five-year-old son, who is excited about the new double-wide that they are getting. As the new trailer drives up, Ray runs to meet them and tries to bargain with the salesman to set up installation payments, or to pay at a later date. They turn her down, give her an ultimatum, she turns to face her 15-year-old son, TJ, who already knows what happened. Apparently, her husband had run off to Atlantic City with the four thousand dollars they were going to put toward the double-wide.

Rather than this film turn into the story of a woman coping with having no man, getting her man back, or meeting and falling in love with a new man, this is about a woman who can do it, and does it. She tracks down her husband's car, picked up by Lila, a young woman from the Mohawk tribe, with problems of her own. The two women are at odds at first, and what starts off as indignant coercion turns into a common convenience over which they form a willing partnership. They begin to smuggle illegal immigrants from Canada to the United States by driving over the expanse of frozen river that normally separates the two countries. It started off with Lila and Ray holding each other at gunpoint, but the steady incline in trust and understanding leads to solid teamwork.

The great thing about most performances in independent films is the refreshing subtlety. I last saw Melissa Leo in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and she was good, but I admit to not having thought too much about her as an actress. It is clear to me that whatever fame and notoriety she is missing is because nobody must know who she is. Because she's pushing 40 and has visible lines on her face, she will never be a Hollywood household name, but her style is forceful and confident. She's hard as nails, but her tenderness is visible, never cloying. She interacts well with Missy Upton, who plays Lila. Upton, too, has a quiet kind of strength, and never once plays into cliches. Even the actor who played TJ, the 15-year old son, is effective in the way he incorporates teenaged sarcasm without turning into a caricature.

It's also refreshing to see a successful female filmmaker, especially one who addresses issues of racial tension and poverty. I can sense the woman's touch in a film's production, and it seems to be in the details: the genuine maternal intuition, the expression of emotions, the relative scale of the drama. As a woman, I can identify with this perception of the world and this understanding of humanity and certain experiences. Courtney Hunt chooses to show us the oft-seen story of the "unlikely friendship" (a phrase a strongly dislike) against a backdrop of muted social consciousness and the importance of family and self-sacrifice.

I had watched a lot of studio films in a row before seeing Frozen River, and it was like eating an apple after days of processed food. It feels real, natural, fresh, good for you. Almost a relief. I was allowed to think for myself, to process the nuances and secrets hidden in a glance or a flourish in the background. Even the reduced quality of film was a nice change from the overly polished glamor of big-budget flicks. Best of all, it didn't immediately vanish from my mind as I walked out of the theater. I could ponder and dwell on things that bothered me or that I needed to process. Thinking just feels so good.

The Mango Awards

2008-12-16T22:53:00.000-08:00

I know I only have between zero and three regular readers of this blog, but I would like to celebrate my favorite movies of the year, with my first ever Mango Awards Ceremony. I am going to evaluate all of the movies I have seen in the last year, or to the best of my ability. There will be two classes of categories: the awards for films released in 2008 and films that I saw on DVD that are most likely released in any of the years preceding 2008.

This should be interesting and pretty easy, since it's only me voting. I'll list everything I've seen, for my own reference, then later decide the winners. In the unlikely event that anyone would like to weigh in, the polls are open, and maybe I'll have a reader's choice award or something. I might as well call it the "Bryan Award" or whatever, since I doubt more than one person will say anything, if at all.

So stay tuned!

Ciao

2008-12-15T13:33:00.000-08:00

Dir. Yen Tan, 2008

Loyalty is a strong bond. It is probably the one noble incentive for doing something fairly unpleasant, scary, or uncertain. Loyalty to a friend can lead you to take care of his posthumous affairs, even when it is emotionally taxing, and to face the unknown. While loyalty is one theme in Ciao, it is also what kept me watching the entire film rather than leave during the first 10 minutes. I am glad I stayed to watch it because once it found its stride, it was a moving and thought-provoking film. It is very flawed, at times uncomfortably so, but it contains the seeds of a promising career for all of the parties involved.

While I do not personally know, nor have I met the filmmaker, director, writer, anything, I know someone who knows the editor. This is two degrees of separation, but they are good friends, and I am always willing to support friends of friends, especially in the face of the harsh Hollywood machine. I know that it is difficult to translate a good idea to film, and that there are so many variables that are so difficult to control, plus budgetary limitations, time constraints, etc. I needed to open my mind and look at the intent of this film, to understand it as an entity rather than just the small details of its component parts. It was uncomfortable at times, but in the end, I gave in completely.

The film leaps immediately into the drama: a man, named Mark, somehow dies rather suddenly, leaving his best friend, Jeff, as the only one able to sort out his personal business. This involves answering emails and notifying friends and acquaintances that he is deceased. Thus, Jeff meets Andrea, an Italian man who met Mark online and had arranged to fly out to meet him for the first time. They would be lovers, hopefully, and Mark's death was a sudden shock, as Andrea was already in the country. Jeff, intrigued by this mystery man whom Mark had kept a secret, invites Andrea to come out to Dallas anyway. It's a little crazy, sure, but the love that both Andrea and Jeff felt for Mark clearly told them that someone so meaningful probably can't be all bad. It is a rather reckless leap of faith, but one that I cannot admit to finding unrealistic.

When Andrea arrives, there is awkward uncertainty as the two men gauge each other and slowly let down their guard. Jeff is still boggled that Mark never mentioned Andrea, with whom he apparently communicated frequently for some time. Andrea is still boggled that Mark died so suddenly, and seeks to learn about him from and through his best friend. After a while, their conversations grow more intimate and they allow their emotions and secrets to come out. Each man is nursing wounds from unrequited loves, and dreams of the possibilities afforded from things beyond their reach. It is only a matter of time before they feel love for each other, which we know will happen from the film's poster, and because of the nature of a story like this. It is an old story, but set in the repressed banality of the life of a homosexual man in a conservative, post-industrial city.

The events in the film are very sympathetic, and the emotion is very human. As the characters learn more about each other, we learn more about them, and about the events that bring people together. This might sound cheesy, but whatever skepticism or antagonism one may feel about someone, the immediate reaction to a loss is sympathy and compassion. Jeff hadn't known about Andrea because Mark was afraid he would judge him for his previously impulsive love life. While he may have dismissed Andrea as just another "fuckoff," his heart was softened by his friend's death, and as a tribute, or to honor one last wish, Jeff chose to understand this man from across the world and to embrace Mark's personality. Mark did not have a dying wish, but if he had, it would probably have been understanding and acceptance of his nature. That kind of friendship and loyalty is touching, and yet understated.

The amateurism of the film is evident in some of the typical film-school techniques employed: stationary camera repeating exact shots multiple times, somewhat stilted, theatrical dialogue with awkward timing and lack of facial expression, and somewhat beginning-level actors. By far the most pleasing person to watch was Andrea, played by Alessandro Calza (who also wrote the script). He was not necessarily the most natural, but his awkwardness was more forgivable as a foreigner. Jeff's stepsister, a somewhat unnecessary character who clearly was mostly a tool for allowing Jeff's inner monologue to be spoken out loud without the use of voiceover, was the weakest character. The film equipment was good quality, and the images were lovely, but perhaps the crew needed a bit more practice and experimentation to fully understand the possibilities afforded by high definition work.

That being said, the nuances of the emotional range were hidden between the unnatural-sounding words and odd actions. My tendency is to use realism as the measure of quality, but even though this played out very much like a "film," there is a real, developed maturity in the content. There is an understanding of human nature and the strength of friendship and love affairs. Curiosity and grief drives Jeff to a potentially dangerous situation, especially when he knows that Mark was previously in an abusive relationship. While actor Adam Neal Smith does not necessarily physically evoke the stages of grieving, Jeff's character is full enough that if he existed, we'd know that he was seeking answers and looking to complete his view of Mark by reading more emails than necessary and eventually asking Andrea bold questions about their international relationship.

I'm not sure I would be so forgiving and patient with this film if I were not tangentially and indirectly connected to it, but I sought to understand it and take it in. I was patient with the annoying parts, and cringed at the less effective writing at times, but I wanted to get to know it. Often there is more than what meets the eye, and a little patience can reveal a lot more than what appears at face value. I am quick to dismiss something as "terrible," but perhaps this was a good exercise in opening my mind and reserving judgment until I get more information. It was ultimately worth my time, and I was impressed by what I could take away from it. If the measure of a good film is what kind of mark it made or how it influenced me, then I can say that this is a good film.

Ashes of Time Redux

2008-11-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

Dir. Wong Kar Wai, 2008 [original release, 1994]

Wong Kar Wai's films are so multisensory and tapestry-like that I just want to devour them with a spoon. He and Christopher Doyle have made some of my favorite movies and when the films are over, I am as satisfied as if I had done everything I loved doing for the perfect amount of time. So it goes without saying that I was on board with this film even before seeing it. I was already convinced that I would love it, and I did no research on it beforehand so that every moment would be original and untainted by expectation or anticipation. Coming to the film was like coming to a dinner where I knew I would be served my favorite food.

I almost feel as though it's unfair for me to review this alongside any other film because it impacts me in such a personal way. Here is one of my favorite directors working with one of my favorite cinematographers and some of my favorite actors. If there are any flaws, I'd be willing to overlook them and chalk them up to character or charming imperfections, whereas any other film would get dinged for somehow dropping the ball. Luckily, there are no glaring flaws, so I didn't have to have an internal battle over how I should feel about it.

The plot is unclear, mysterious, labyrinthine. We see a man, Huang Yaoshi, who lives alone in the middle of nowhere, who is awaiting a friend of his. The friend, Ouyang Feng, comes bearing wine that makes you forget, and seems to be carrying the burden of his painful memories himself. We don't know who they are, only that Huang appears to be some kind of hitman, and his Ouyang to be pathologically attracted to and by women who are spoken for, destroying engagements as he passes. As Huang meets with other people who request his services, he finds a common thread among them: they yearn for something intangible and desperately cling to hope for finding peace.

A pair of siblings come to Huang with conflicting requests for revenge, and Huang is unable to accommodate them because they turn out to be the same heartbroken woman, scorned by Ouyang. Tony Leung Chiu Wai, who plays a blind swordsman, has a vague request for Huang which he is unable to persuade him to fulfill, and which Huang later discovers was not what it appeared to be, anyway. A woman comes to Huang, asking him to help her avenge her slain brother, but can only pay him in eggs. Another man, whom Huang subcontracts to do his dirty work, contends with his duty and his indomitable wife. All of these figures rotate around Huang, who harbors his own demons, and nurses his own broken heart and wounded pride. Wong Kar Wai's frequently used themes of loss, revelation and reflection seem so fresh and unrepetitive

For those familiar with Christopher Doyle's cinematographic style, I don't have to mention the visual splendor of the color scheme, startling landscapes and dramatic distortions. But for anyone doubting that a film like this might be worth seeing, think of it as a moving tableau. The light is positively heavy with emotion and sensuality, and everyone onscreen is so beautiful, even if not classically so. Every other review I have read, glimpsed, or heard reference to has said, even if they did not love the movie, that it is best seen on a big screen. Doyle works with images like a master violinist with his own craft. The mastery with which he and Wong Kar Wai communicate their visions is evident in how seamlessly the content and the appearance blend into a complete work of art.

I could wax poetic about this film all day, but it has already taken me far too long to write this review. Normally I'd end with a full-sized paragraph, but I just want to post this thing.

Rachel Getting Married

2008-10-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

Dir. Jonathan Demme, 2008

The most widely advertised component of Rachel Getting Married is the acting performance of Anne Hathaway. At the movie theater, the projectionist came to the front of the auditorium and welcomed us all, told us that Hathaway's performance has been critically lauded, and that she's a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. All of this is true, but what the media has failed to remark upon is also the strength of the rest of the cast, the excellent script, and the tactful directing. This is exactly the kind of film I love to watch, where every scene holds the possibility for something, but the movie remains unexpected.

The film opens with Anne Hathaway (not actually playing Rachel, but rather, her sister, Kym), sitting with a nurse and another patient on a bench outside. The other patient begins to whine and Kym sharply scolds him. The patient responds with malicious sarcasm, "Are you going to run someone over again, with your car?" Kym looks away quickly, scanning the horizon, and smoking her cigarette. So much is revealed in that short exchange, yet it opens up a whole universe of questions. Did she actually do this? Is she at a hospital for rehab or for an injury? Is she looking for someone? Who is Rachel, then?

As the film progresses, our questions are answered, but oh so slowly. Rachel is Kym's sister. Kym was in rehab. Kym was a model for at least some time. Kym goes to NA meetings and really, really believes in them. The plot of the film seems to move around her for the first part; she drifts into scenes and creates drama with her neediness and her wounded self image which battles her still-inflated ego. The other characters are correct in saying that Kym makes everything about herself, from taking it personally when she is neither selected to be the maid of honor due to her chronic unreliability and her "past," nor informed that Rachel and her husband-to-be, Sidney, are moving to Hawaii after their nuptials. Kym is a whirlwind of self-importance and brittleness, sharp tongue and shame.

Portrayal of family can be very hit and miss in films, though it doesn't seem like the complexity of this kind of interpersonal relationship should be so difficult. Yet I think portraying a dysfunctional family that still has a lot of affection for each other is the most challenging because it requires a sensitivity to the ways in which people who love each other can be cruel, but then make amends almost as though nothing happened. Rachel Getting Married does this without ranging into the sentimental or the improbable. Kym, Rachel, their parents and their friends are all intelligent and emotional people, but the conversation never strays into the trite or the pretentious, and the compassion that they express seems genuine. This is both testament to the writing and the acting, but the entire ensemble just brims with talent and aptitude.

As much as I enjoyed this film, it wasn't perfect. Any film laced with tragedy borders on the melodramatic at times, and this is no exception. Although, sometimes a real-life situation can be melodramatic at times, and truly, there is no other way to show a confrontation between mother and daughter than tearfully maudlin. Additionally, there is the occasional scene in the film that is meant to show the closeness and the quirkiness of the family, but they can be a little strange and a little bit long. For example, there is a scene in which Rachel's father and Sidney race to see who can load the dishwasher in two minutes with the most dishes. This scene seems hardly edited for time, and we experience every moment of that two minutes, down to the scrubbing of the platters and the re-stacking of the plates, and including the time in between the dad's and Sidney's rounds. It's kind of cute, kind of funny, and then takes a turn for the sad, but then you realize that there has been some portion of the film has been devoted to watching people load a dishwasher.

Altogether, I loved Rachel Getting Married. Anne Hathaway may have the greatest star power and therefore the loudest accolades, but Rosemarie DeWitt has gained recognition for her stint in Mad Men, and so will her marketability increase with this. It's not a film with an obvious protagonist or villain, but in it, we can see the multi-faceted nature of people who really do mean well, but say and do terrible things. It is a subject that I enjoy seeing in movies because it forces me to look beyond the forced dichotomy of good and evil that so many stories present, and most things in life are not so simple.

Margot at the Wedding

2008-10-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

Dir. Noah Baumbach, 2007

I don't really know what Noah Baumbach's deal is. I can see that he's a really weird guy, and that's his shtick, but it doesn't work every time. Now that I have seen three of his films, rather than thinking the first one that I didn't love, Kicking and Screaming, was just the odd one of a presumably successful repertoire, I can see that the one that I do love, The Squid and the Whale, is actually the odd one out of an apparently lackluster repertoire. Margot at the Wedding retained some of the sparkle of relatable humanity that was so wonderful about The Squid and the Whale, but the oddness of the characters and the disconnectedness of the scenes from one to the other were ultimately disappointing.

Nicole Kidman plays Margot, who, along with her son, Claude, goes to the sudden wedding of her sister, Pauline, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. The two sisters are sharp and witty, but with different outlooks on life: Margot is a pessimist and Pauline is an optimist. Margot's "still got it," and Pauline thinks she needs to just take what she can get. Each sister's respective children have more in common with each other than the actual siblings do. While at first we are unclear why Margot would go such a distance for a wedding she was predisposed to disapprove of, we soon realize that she was promoting a book, arranging a tryst with a neighbor, and running away from her husband, who is never portrayed as anything less than a decent guy.

Pauline, on the other hand, reveals that she is pregnant, which is why she has chosen to leap into matrimony with Malcolm (Jack Black). Malcolm is chronically unemployed, disgruntled, immature and has other unspeakable issues. He and Margot cannot hide their contempt for each other, though Claude and Malcolm get along quite well. Claude is sadly torn between his loyalty for his mother and his sympathy for his aunt, whom he cannot see as the fool that Margot describes her to be. Preparations for the wedding include some friendly moments which someone's hissy fit inevitably ruins, or screaming matches that we wonder will ever get resolved.

I'm not sure which, if any, of the characters are meant to be sympathetic. Pauline starts out as the obvious choice for her sweet desperation, but then she proves to be just another Dumb Girl. Malcolm seemed like a poor old slob until you learn that his behavior is morally reprehensible. Margot somewhat earns our sympathy for being so emotionally cut off and unable to deal with her own self-loathing that she projects onto everyone else, but her words are so unpleasant that while I could intellectually feel for her, I know I would absolutely despise her if she actually existed. This leaves Claude, the unfortunate recipient of a broken home and a confused pre-adolescence. Perhaps someone with a similarly dysfunctional upbringing could relate more to him on a personal level, but I had difficulty overcoming his weirdness.

In The Squid and the Whale, the similarly pre-adolescent Frank has a similar oddness that he expresses in public sexuality and binge drinking. His parents are like Margot in that they are very intellectual and literary, and emotionally incapable of an appropriate relationship with anyone. These adults are developmentally stunted and have not taught their children any useful tools for existing in society. And yet Frank is more believable than Claude, more understandable and more sympathetic. Perhaps it is because he has a bigger role that he is allowed more screen time to develop more layers of personality, or perhaps it is because the words that Frank and his parents exchange seem more like realistic words than those between Claude and Margot. It seems as though Noah Baumbach took his good ideas in Squid and looked through his emotional thesaurus to find an equivalent, but as we all know, synonyms don't have the exact same meanings or implications as the original word.

I really wanted to like this film, nay, love it. The Squid and the Whale was full of such bittersweet humanity that watching it was like inspecting a fine gem and being blown away by the intricacies. Margot at the Wedding was too similar to not be compared, but too different exist alongside as an equal piece of art. While I have heard that Baumbach drew strongly from his own life for Squid, I can believe that he was a really weird kid who felt alienated from his peers because of his uniquely screwed up home life. While Frank made me want to give him a hug and buy him a sandwich, I just wanted to keep an eye on Claude and to make sure he didn't break anything or steal my underwear. It is a subtle difference between the two films, and a subtle departure that makes one excellent and the other middling. Repetition of theme, and overuse of device? That is a large part of it, but the rest may just be physical exhaustion from such exposure to irreparably weird people.

W.

2008-10-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

Dir. Oliver Stone, 2008

I had no intention of seeing this film until about two weeks ago. It's hard to say what exactly changed that influenced my decision, but I think that my masochistic streak must have gone into gear. As someone who likes neither George W. Bush nor Oliver Stone, I figured there would be nothing in it for me, except to be possibly be annoyed, or to reaffirm my pre-existing feelings. Then, I thought it might be an important film to see for the awards season so that I would have my own opinion of the film and the performances. I found that while I by no means loved the film, and my views of Bush are neither changed nor augmented, it was interesting and ambitious, with some good ideas mixed in among expected weaknesses.

It was brave of Stone to make a film about a president while he is still in office, not only for the criticism it will inspire, but because of the fact-checking required to assure that it is not a work of pure fiction. I have neither the time nor the inclination to research things about Bush's past and present to make sure that Stone did not take liberties, but I suppose it cannot be avoided. The film covers W.'s life from when he was a fraternity pledge at Yale to the end of his first term in 2004. The history behind the man and the administration years are inter-cut together to show both Bush's upbringing and the result at the same time. In the end, this makes a it film built on dichotomy: on opposing sides, opposing views, and opposing goals. At times this works well, and at other times, it appears to be two films battling against each other.

In documenting Bush's early life, Stone portrays W. as a good ole boy, not particularly bright, but definitely personable. He lives his whole life in the shadow of his accomplished father, whom you may recognize as George Herbert Walker Bush, or "Poppy." Whenever W. wants something done, his father pulls whatever strings he can to make it happen, but the result is bittersweet: the victory is tainted by the shame that W. didn't do it all his own, and that his brother, Jeb, could have. Poppy's opinion of his son is that he should work for his living, but is willing to enable his slacking if it means saving the face of the Bush family name. W.'s inferiority complex leads him to plow through meaningless jobs, a marriage proposal he regrets, and a failed congressional election. Only in his governorship and his presidential election was he able to prove that he could pull himself up by his own bootstraps, but Poppy is always quick to chastise him for poor timing, or for stealing Jeb's thunder.

As leader of the free world, President W. is battling with his cabinet for how to best justify to the American people the decision to invade Iraq despite no tangible proof of WMDs, or reliable reports about Saddam Hussein's purchase of yellow cake Uranium from Niger. It is a political drama involving heated debates around ovular tables, punctuated by moments of prayer, and campaign strategists working to properly word speeches and press releases and fact-checking with world leaders and journalists. In this segment, W. is not sympathetic at all; his upbringing contextualizes his need to definitively capture Saddam Hussein and to tie al-Qaeda to Iraq to accomplish what Operation Desert Storm did not, but a few cautioning words from Colin Powell and smarmy speeches by Dick Cheney indicate that Stone believes that these are ill-chosen decisions and represent Bush's misguided and sinister presidency.

In describing it this way, it hardly seems like one film at all. Stone does not smoothly reconcile the early years with the later years, except to contrast the one from the other. While we can believe that Early W. and Present W. are the same person, all that Stone does to build W. up as a sympathetic figure, always seeking his father's approval is ultimately torn down by his depiction of W. as bumbling, tongue-tied, and taking direction from his Vice President. The Bushisms are expected, but they are not funny anymore given how often they are quoted in calendars, Newsweek, and the internet. When Stone chose to turn the tone from humanizing to ridiculing, I was less able to see characters, but rather actors doing impressions. I can see what his intent with the film was, and it was clever, but one of Oliver Stone's major flaws is his lack of subtlety. Had he allowed for a more neutral middle ground in the two approaches to W.'s life story so that they wouldn't appear so separate, the film would have been more successful.

When the casting for W. was first announced, I was pretty puzzled. Josh Brolin seemed far too beefy, Elizabeth Banks far too pretty, and Thandie Newton far too sweet for their respective roles of George W. Bush, Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice. On the other hand, Jeffrey Wright as Powell, James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush, and Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush seemed well-chosen. The film held surprises, both pleasant and not. Brolin was quite good, and by the end, had perfected W.'s voice so well, that I was unsure to whom I was listening when he was giving speeches. Newton's portrayal of Rice was unflattering and a bit distracting in the way that her speech was so affected, and her face so wrenched up in a grimace. I didn't know that Richard Dreyfus had been cast as Cheney, and I was pleased to see him again, although a bit unsettled at hearing such poisonous words come out of such a differently familiar face. As a sort of sideways homage to The Daily Show, noted political satirist Rob Corddry unexpectedly comes in as Ari Fleischer.

Along with Stanley Weiser's commendable script, Oliver Stone puts together a commendable film. For the most part, it is interesting to watch and it is important as a historical artifact for what some people's perceptions of the administration is and has been. However, Stone was fighting a battle already in choosing such contemporary subject matter, and that has limited him in the scope of the film. Because I know that Bush is still in office and was re-elected in the 2004 election, I was unsure when the film would actually end. For the last six or seven scenes, I was sure it would be over, and then I was surprised that it went on. Who is to say that in the last two and a half months of George W. Bush's presidency, something noteworthy may happen, worth mentioning in a film? That would perhaps make for a more natural story arc.

Choke

2008-10-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

Dir. Clark Gregg, 2008

When I first saw Fight Club, it was so new and exciting and original. That edgy, gritty, yet polished style of moviemaking hadn't yet quite taken off, and the plot was engrossing and surprising. It motivated me to dive into the writing of Chuck Palahniuk to see what this guy was actually like. The book, Fight Club, was fun, and I read it with relish. I was pleased that the film adapted it so closely, and it may be one of the few films that actually surpasses the original book in quality. After that, I read Survivor, which I thought was an even better book, but that I wish I had read first. Because the styles of the two books were so similar, even though Survivor was great, it felt stale and repetitive. I figured that I shouldn't read another Chuck Palahniuk book, because I would probably find it even more stale, and I wasn't in the mood to confirm this.

In case you weren't following, I haven't read Choke. But I feel that my initial fears about reading another Palahniuk were reflected in my viewing of the film, Choke in that I was mostly entertained but the pattern of the events was so reminiscent of the other two stories that it wasn't quite fresh. Palahniuk is intrigued by the depraved, perverted anti-hero who steals hearts and finds an equally enigmatic woman to share his bizarre existence with. In Fight Club, it was Tyler and Marla. In Survivor, it was Tender and Fertility. In Choke, it's Victor and Paige.

So Victor, living what can only be the result of an immensely screwed-up childhood, works as a "historical interpreter" (models as a 17th century colonial for tour groups), goes to regular sex addicts anonymous meetings (but is definitely off the wagon - or is it on?), and makes a pittance in sympathy checks from wealthy men in restaurants who save him from choking. His mother, who neglected him as a child, is living in a nursing home and is suffering from either Alzheimer's or dementia, it is not quite clear. The question of Victor's birth father comes up, and his mother's doctor, Paige, translates her diary to find that some rather startling revelations. Without giving the hook away, Victor's perspective on himself and his mother changes somewhat, and he begins to search for something more substantial without really knowing what that is.

This film is crude, dark, and not particularly funny, but whether it is my own dark side or my continued fascination with Palahniuk's style, I did not dislike it. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what I liked about it, though a large part is probably that I quite like the actors. Anjelica Huston plays Victor's ailing mother with a frightening tact reminiscent of both Etheline Tenenbaum and the Grand High Witch in The Witches. I've always enjoyed Sam Rockwell and Kelly MacDonald (even though, as a friend of mine once pointed out, in her film roles, she always "gets fucked"), and there are some fun little cameos from people whose faces I recognize but could never for the life of me place.

I was disappointed, actually, that it was not as funny as I'd hoped it would be. I laughed a couple of times, and there were certainly no jokes that were over my head, but that's about it. The script is ultimately a little formulaic, with no unique flair. Clark Gregg clearly believed that the plot of the film is all it would take to captivate an audience, and that the book contained enough quirks to possibly carry over into the film. I suppose he was right, since I remained entertained, but I was hoping for something unique, like a cutting-edge soundtrack or ballsy performance, as Fight Club had to keep it relevant and re-watchable. My review is coming out more negative than I expected. Sometimes, I guess mediocrity can be okay.

The arc of a Palahniuk story is irresistible, and somehow restores my faith in the fact that I'm a decent person, because I'm nothing like these guys. This very concept is not enough to carry an entire literary work, and so I have no plans to revisit those books, or any new ones. It is unlikely that I see another film based on one of these books either, because its novelty will surely wane, and I doubt that I will need the regular reaffirmation of my relative morality. For now, Choke gets a pass, but I won't be seeing it again.

Miracle at St. Anna

2008-10-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

Dir. Spike Lee, 2008

I have a lot of respect for Spike Lee. He is a very clever director, and one that always makes me think. I know that when I see one of his films, it won't do to check my brain at the door; I have to be fully engaged. I love this. I love a director who challenges conventions and conventional thought, and who clearly invests a lot of himself in all of his films so that you know that he never just makes a movie to raise money for the next one. For this, I was looking forward to Miracle at St. Anna. If I didn't love the movie, I knew that it would at least affect me on a more profound level. I did not anticipate the fact that the movie, while thought-provoking and paradigm-shifting, would actually have a few structural faults.

The film starts off in the noir fashion: the camera crawling through a harshly lit hallway, with the sound of a movie playing in the background. We see the main character, Hector Negron, watching The Longest Day and responding to John Wayne as though in personal conversation with him. Cut to Negron at his job in a bank. He is mechanical in his duties until a familiar face comes to his window. In apparent cold blood, he shoots the man with a German luger, and, impervious to the panic and uproar around him, calmly drops the gun, and closes his window. The police can't figure out why an upstanding citizen, decorated war hero, and otherwise unproblematic man would commit such a crime. Finally, we get the whole story when Negron flashes back through his history; the only hint he gives to a reporter is the mention of the "Sleeping Man."

This intriguing introduction sets the scene for a film that, ultimately, is nothing like that. The noir aspects from that point on are completely absent. The writing then takes a turn for both the brutally dramatic and silly. After a devastating attack on the WWII Buffalo Soldiers and a betrayal by their own white commanding officer, the four surviving soldiers plod through a sort of slapstick, sarcastic plot wherein they make fun of each other and find the little boy, Angelo, who will follow them throughout the remainder of their journey. This mood, too, will not continue beyond this gathering of scenes, and about an hour and a half into the film entire do we realize exactly what kind of movie this is.

It is, ultimately, a sort of supernatural tale of magical leaps of faith and human interaction. Angelo proves to be quite a remarkable boy, with instinct like a cat. The townspeople in the little Florentine village where the soldier quartet find themselves have experienced a sort of miracle of electricity that they attribute to having somehow pleased the nearby mountain known as the Sleeping Man. Tragic events ensue and befall all characters involved, and eventually, through a series of entirely unlikely and, dare I say it, miraculous events, we understand the motive behind Hector Negron's seemingly cold blooded murder.

Each of these component parts would make an interesting film on their own, and it's almost like they were separate films. However, there is little except continuity of characters to tie the three portions together. It is as though the final idea of the film was never quite fully figured out, or that the footage for each of these parts pleased Lee and the crew so much that they didn't wish to alter them to make the film more cohesive. Whatever the reason was, it felt rather disjointed.

This is not to say that it is a bad film. The attention to detail is quite remarkable, from recurring themes to the sets, and the acting on the part of everyone involved is above par. Some of the loveliest parts of the film are the interactions between the main characters; that sentiment of tough-love brotherhood, affection and disgust at the same time. Some big actors play some very small parts, which are fun, but then it's a little boggling that they pretty much disappear entirely.

As with many of Spike Lee's films, his credo, "by any means necessary" comes into play. He appears to truly believe that violence can be justified if the ends are worthwhile. I don't know how fully I believe in this notion, but my personal history is quite different from that of Lee, and of many other people who believe as he does. Oftentimes, as I watch his films, I have difficulty reconciling my beliefs on violence with the point of view that he presents. He makes a convincing argument for why it was necessary for Negron to kill this man the very moment he laid eyes on him, nearly 40 years after the war ended, as he makes a good case for violence or uprising in other films. However, that element just doesn't completely sit right with me all the time, so much of my viewing experience is combating cognitive dissonance.

I look forward to every Spike Lee film that comes out, and even if I don't like it, I always take something away from it. He likes to present unique perspectives on history and society, often at the expense of the audience's comfort level. There were protestations in Europe against his choices in Miracle at St. Anna because it did not portray the Italian resistance in an overall positive way. For cinematic effect, surely, he chose to stretch the truth of the circumstances behind the titular "miracle" at Sant'Anna. While I often dislike when filmmakers take liberties with historic events for the sake of good cinema, without the events being what they were, without that element of subversiveness and scandal, it would simply not be a Spike Lee film.

Xanadu

2008-09-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

Dir. Robert Greenwald, 1980

It is difficult to explain the appeal of musicals to someone who is either unfamiliar with the medium, not particularly receptive to it, or socially conditioned to believe it is stupid and therefore a waste of time. Musicals contain a unique intersection of whimsy, improbability, hokeyness and entertainment that may seem overwhelming, though one or two of those elements at a time may be perfectly manageable. Fundamentally, musicals exist as a fantastic diversion from reality to a world where everyone knows the words and the dances, or to provide a unique perspective on a social issue placed in an operatic context. For some, it just doesn't work. For me, however, it is the ultimate guilty pleasure.

I had heard about Xanadu multiple times from my old friend, the internet, usually in a joke about bad acting, Olivia Newton John, or having hair reminiscent of a sex toy. Yes, the movie contains all of these things. It is a fabulous display of the 1980's view of modernity and the classics, mixed with recurring roller skating and sass talk. Simply put, Sonny (Michael Beck) is an unsuccessful painter who runs into Kira (Olivia Newton John) when contemplating the purpose of his life. Kira turns out to be one of the Greek muses, and helps Sonny and his geriatric friend Danny (THE Gene Kelly) create a time-warping nightclub called Xanadu. Kira then argues with her parents (presumably Zeus and Hera) and gets to stay on earth forever and ever to be with Sonny. The end, hallelujah.

But the genius is in the details. As I was watching this ridiculous film (streaming from IMDb - and you can too!), I was overcome with a rush like the first time I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Plan 9 From Outer Space: I was witnessing immortalized camp. This was a cultural milestone, completely comfortable in its relative mediocrity, striving for one kind of success but achieving another entirely. Did the filmmakers know that they were creating a terrible movie? I'm inclined to think not, but they did know that Olivia Newton John would essentially carry the movie on her own, and she is a rather flimsy actress. Did they know that it would not only become a cult classic, but an icon of gay culture? Surely not.

The swanky Sonny, who backtalks his boss, is apparently a babe magnet, and meets music legends on the beach, is not as attractive as he is a good backdrop for Kira and her glowing blonde hair. Perhaps he was meant to be a heartthrob for female viewers, and I can't say how many women in 1980 were actually attracted to him, but to me, he was far too reminiscent of Andy Samberg. It's really all about Olivia. She doesn't have the sassy fabulousness of Dr. Frankenfurter or other cult legends, but her magnetic singing voice and Australian charm is enough for some. She beams with sparkling white teeth, roller skates around in chaste white dress and ribbons in her hair, and in the final scene, where she sings the award-winning song "Xanadu," she makes an astonishing 4 costume changes spanning from disco queen to her childish Muse getup.

What really immortalizes Xanadu are the weird, avant-garde moments. There is a scene when they are preparing for the club Xanadu's opening night, and Gene Kelly goes to a trendy clothing shop to try on some sharp new duds. The music montage involves the height of early 80's fashion, and some strange items that nobody has probably ever worn, including the above spiderweb-themed cocktail dresses and catsuits. In another scene, there is a battle of the bands between a 1940's-style swing group and an extremely of-the-minute synth rock band, complete with Devo-esque jumpsuits and flailing limbs. At first, it seems a discordant melange marked by completely different styles of suggestive dancing and sequins, but then the two musical styles blend together so perfectly that one begins to believe that maybe these guys actually had something in mind when they orchestrated that weird, weird scene.

This is not a movie that you either like or don't like. You either love it or you think it's crap. Or both! I fully realize that it is a crappy movie, utter crap, but it is so great. All parties involved act atrociously, and the million-plus dollars they spent on the Xanadu club set was largely wasted, because it really just looked like a gratuitous birthday cake of a set with blinking lights and rotating stages. But at the same time, there are moments of bizarre genius that make it all so glorious. It truly deserves the cult status that it has attained, and was truly enjoyable to watch, in all of its campy glory.

Female Trouble

2008-09-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Dir. John Waters, 1974

Female Trouble was John Waters' follow-up film to Pink Flamingos, and he employs largely the same cast in similar roles. What differentiates the two films are their focus: Pink Flamingos is clearly about the lows of society and the limitations of cinema and decency, whereas Female Trouble is a feminist film, crassly defending the struggle of women through over-the-top scenarios. It's comical, but the notion is out there that views of women are somewhat tainted by societal norms rather than the content of women's character.

Divine again plays the heroine, Dawn Davenport, a juvenile delinquent who gets knocked up by Earl (also played by Divine; a funny "go fuck yourself" moment) and runs away to Baltimore. There she pays her dues to society starting off as a waitress, then a burlesque dancer, and finally a prostitute and petty thief. She leads a miserable single life with her irritable child, Taffy (played by Mink Stole, whom I love more daily), until she marries Gater, a straight hairdresser who lives next door with his heterophobic Aunt Ida (the inimitable Edith Massey). Then, she is miserable and married with only her ostentatious salon hairstyles to make her happy.

The owners of the hair salon, the Dashers, take notice of Dawn's "unique" beauty and make an offer for her to model for them while enhancing her loveliness with criminal behavior. The Dashers photograph Dawn while she robs houses, beats her daughter, and breaks things in her house. When she kicks Gater out of the house, Aunt Ida comes storming in and throws acid into Dawn's face. She is terribly disfigured, but the Dashers believe this only adds to her beauty. They book her a performing gig where she executes all kinds of repulsive acts, including rubbing dead fish on herself and shooting a member of the audience. Dawn is so wrapped up in her fame and notoriety that she crows about her infamy through her friends' treachery and her eventual dismal end.

Waters holds the female condition near to his heart in this film. At the start, audiences will identify with Dawn as she sasses back to her teacher, smokes in the bathroom, and throws a tantrum when she doesn't get cha-cha heels for Christmas. As she struggles to make ends meet doing a variety of odd (and odder) jobs, the audience may feel sympathy for her. Only when the typical vulgarity of Divine's persona starts to shine through do audiences realize that this has all been a ruse to conjure up some feelings for Dawn Davenport before exploiting her before wealthy opportunists and the media circus. Were it not for Divine's extra-cinematic fame, the audience might have fully invested in the well-being of this girl, but because it is also a cynical romp, we are one step removed.

As this removed audience, even though we feel for Dawn, we still want to know what kind of hijinks she gets into, and we hope to be wowed, grossed out, and offended. Dawn will always remain more an object than a true female heroine, a vehicle for humiliation more than a figure living the American dream. But while audiences of the 1970's could detach from this film as fiction, it was a time when women were still seen as objects for men's amusement, and didn't garner the same respect as men in social issues and the workplace. Feminism had taken huge strides since the early 1960's, but there was still domestic inequity and, to this day, women get paid less than men for comparable jobs.

Perhaps Waters' message was intentional, perhaps not. I have heard him speak, however, and he is quite an intelligent person, so I would not deny him that insight. He is cited as having his finger on the pulse of contemporary society, and of understanding the basest aspects of human nature better than most. Female Trouble might seem like an ironic title at first, but it is very particularly selected. The troubles don't necessarily belong to the main female in the film, rather, it is about the trouble people have with reconciling females as equal citizens, and the disconnect between realizing that the objectification of a film character may not be so different from someone's home situation.

Tropic Thunder

2008-09-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

Dir. Ben Stiller, 2008

Dear Ben Stiller,

I must congratulate you on your triumphant return to cinema after your last film, The Heartbreak Kid, which earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of 30%. Your recent run of movies has been pretty uninteresting and uninspiring, which is the most polite way to put it. In fact, not since Keeping the Faith has the idea of you being in a movie not totally turned me off to the point of revulsion. When I heard you actually directed Tropic Thunder, I was pretty surprised. Not very optimistic, but surprised.

I consider your best work to be the stoic Chas Tenenbaum, whose humor came from the completely deadpan delivery of your comically tragic lines. This works so well for you, and you did it again in the aforementioned Keeping the Faith, although it was not nearly as good a movie. So with Tropic Thunder, even though your role is anything but subtle, you finally own up to the goofball throwaway actor that you actually appear to be most of the time. (I am sorry, but your father is a lot funnier.) In this film, you seem to embrace your own mediocrity and to the role that you inevitably play in the Hollywood circus: the clown.

Tropic Thunder did not look like a good film at first glance. In fact, after seeing the trailer about twenty times, I was convinced it was the next of a string of disposable gross-out humor flicks like the Farrelly Brothers are prone to making. It was only after people that I truly respected said that it was actually a funny movie, full of Hollywood inside jokes, that I came to look at it differently. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually a very detailed satire of the Hollywood machine, a very complex set up with every stereotype imaginable illustrated in unforgiving clarity. Right off the bat, with the fake movie trailers for actors Tugg Speedman, Kirk Lazarus and Jeff Portnoy, the scene is set for the audience to take in the spectacle of a good, old-fashioned parody.

Seeing this movie so soon after Hamlet 2 was weird and gratifying, because I had just described Steve Coogan's career of self-deprecating roles. In this film, he plays another such loser, a weak first-time director on an out of control movie set. Robert Downey, Jr., as Kirk Lazarus, the Australian, multi-Oscar winning method actor is brilliant, as is Brandon Jackson as Alpa Chino, the rap artist-turned-actor who is at constant odds with Lazarus who is portraying an African-American soldier. Jack Black is still annoying, although here it works, since his character is an annoying comedy actor of vulgar proportions. But it is you, Ben Stiller, as Tugg Speedman, the lousy action star who finds his inner dramatic actor, who makes an interesting point.

You really do play two roles, Ben Stiller. Sometimes you are Tugg, even though you do not actually have the career of an action star, though Tugg's struggle to win an Oscar and prevent himself from going "full retard" might very well be your own struggle. But your role as yourself is substantially present as well. Your name is sloshed around the credits far too generously, even if you did put a lot of work into it. The credits for director, writer, producer, and actor are surely merited, but is it really necessary to top it all off with "A Ben Stiller Film?" I would argue that it is necessary if the point you are making is that the farce continues into real life as well. Having gratuitous credits is very much the M.O. of an overblown egomaniac. Which I would not be surprised to learn that you are.

In sum, the film is a fine one. It is funny and clever, possibly too clever for its own good. I loved most things about it, though there is an obvious over-the-top-ness that will never be absent from films starring you, Jack Black, and Danny McBride (who also does a good job, and is much less annoying than in Pineapple Express). War films are sacred in Hollywood, and it was a clever setting for the ultimate "in-your-face!" gag. At times your douchery was a bit strong, and if I never hear Jack Black make another oral sex joke again, I would be all too pleased. So carry on, and stop returning the Farrelly brothers' phone calls. It'll do you some good.

Hamlet 2

2008-09-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

Dir. Andrew Fleming, 2008

This movie. Let me tell you about this movie. There is so much to say, and even though I saw this five days ago, I am still forming the words because this movie just evokes such a range of emotions from me. To save you from reading all the way through before getting to my final conclusion (which I may change my mind about once I get to the end of this article) I should say that I loved it. Not every minute of it, but it is so brilliant. I was pretty lucky to have seen no trailers, no posters, and to go into the film with only the slightest hint of what it was about, plus riding my fascination with Steve Coogan's career.

Steve Coogan is an actor who is charmingly aware of his irrelevance in the entertainment world, and of the overblown importance that we give to the entertainment field. The projects he chooses often feature him playing himself, but a loser version with an inflated sense of self-importance. That, or a character with the apparent awareness that he is a parody of himself. In 24 Hour Party People, Coogan plays a Tony Wilson (legendary record label owner) that is constantly talking to the camera about his portrayal of the real events in the film. In Tristram Shandy, he plays himself as the star of the film based on the un-filmable novel, and is the admittedly weakest member of the cast. These examples from his filmography are a major reason why I was so attracted to this film, and would not rest until I saw it.

In Hamlet 2, Coogan plays Dana Marschz, a washed up "actor" teaching drama in Tucson, AZ. The first minutes of the film show some footage of commercials from Marschz's erstwhile career with Coogan's giant toothy grin hawking the Magic Bullet and herpes medication, paired with dramatic voice-over by someone who sounds exactly like Jeremy Irons. It starts the film off with such a bang that I nearly squealed with excitement at what greatness I could be witnessing. Rather than simply teaching drama to a couple of schmaltzy, overeager thespians, some disaffected roughs join the class because of the dissolution of elective programs due to budget cuts. At the provocation of a wry sophomore journalist, Marschz decides to put on an original play rather than an adapted one (the last of which was Erin Brockovich), and reinvents Hamlet with time travel, forgiveness, Jesus, and musical numbers involving the harrowing experience of getting raped in the face. (It's about his relationship with his father.) Needless to say, nobody wants him to put this show on, and staging it becomes a struggle of epic proportions.

Abortions of cinema like Meet the Spartans ultimately fail because the filmmakers don't understand the line between imitation and parody. Movies of that kind simply imitate other films, piling pop-culture references upon each other until the result is a completely meaningless string of profanity and gross-out "humor." Hamlet 2 is an excellent example of parody gone so, so right. The film pokes fun at the Inspirational Teacher movie so blatantly that Marschz tries to engage the class by asking if anyone has seen Mr. Holland's Opus. More than just name-drop, later in the film, at the peak moment where The Quiet One gives the Get Off Your Ass Speech and says "carpe diem," Marschz desperately whimpers "That's from Dead Poets Society!" as though that was the culmination of all of his effort.

But, like good parody, Hamlet 2 brings so much more to the genres satirized here. The film is so self-aware that every known actor in the film plays a meta-parody of his- or herself. For example, Elisabeth Shue plays Elisabeth Shue, a "retired" actress working as a nurse in a fertility clinic; Steve Coogan reprises the aforementioned role of the hapless, talentless loser; Catherine Keener plays the devious bitch from the Being John Malkovich era; and David Arquette plays the role he was meant for: the impossibly dumb, clueless roommate. The less known actors play archetypal roles (the rabid drama types, the gangsta who's an amazing actor with disapproving parents, etc.) with such flair, you'd think it was completely original. Even the voice of Jeremy Irons (if it is actually him) is such the perfect choice for the narration of something overblown and dramatic.

Where the movie does not always succeed, however, is in overall execution. Occasionally, the jokes are a little too easy and too crass for how utterly brilliant the rest of it is. Amy Poehler (unfortunately, the weakest part of this ensemble) enters as the ACLU agent hired to protect Marschz's freedom to put on his play, and drops the most baffling line: "I have nothing to lose, I'm married to a Jew." Normally an epithet of this type doesn't bother me, even if I belong to the scorned demographic. There is clearly a reference here that I am missing, because it seems like the line is just thrown in to complete the offensive spectrum, even though it is not clever at all. While there are some parts that are so split-second hilarious, like Marschz's theatrical jump-kick to reveal a flash of unclothed genitals (to the horror of the high school class before him), there are also many parts that are so bluntly slapstick (like repeated head injuries to the same Quiet Student) that I wonder if the two writers simply didn't collaborate much. I wonder if the good stuff came from Pam Brady, writer for South Park, or from director Andrew Fleming, whose last notable work was Nancy Drew.

I am willing to forgive those lapses in cleverness and funniness for the overall success of the film. I knew so little about it going in that I could only be impressed, and I was. It is one of the better comedies of the year, and the only one that comes to mind that actually made me laugh out loud recently. If the ultimate goal of a comedy is to make someone as picky and uptight as me actually laugh by my own accord rather than riding the wave of paroxysmal audiences, then Hamlet 2 passes with flying colors. Dare I even say, I would see it again.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2008-08-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

Dir. Woody Allen, 2008

The Woody Allen machine is, alas, a trainwreck. The tragedy of it all is that he is a director that, deep down, I respect and admire for the majority of his body of work. His films have made me laugh, cry and think, in addition to rendering me embarrassed, annoyed and disappointed. But with this new film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a new emotion seeps from my loins: disgust. I had hoped it would be at least as good as Deconstructing Harry, or, more optimistically, Match Point, but I had long given up the expectation of seeing another Manhattan, or even Mighty Aphrodite. This film is by far my least favorite of his, and I've seen The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Small Time Crooks and Hollywood Ending.

Woody (I feel we're old friends by now, so I can be familiar) chooses the overused plot device of two college-aged girls on vacation in a foreign country, where they will do new and different things that will change their lives. Usually you can find that setup in a horror film where the life-changing event is death or mutilation. Maybe that would have made Vicky Cristina Barcelona more interesting, rather than having the two girls pretentiously explore sex, Spaniards, and art. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is the more straitlaced of the two, engaged to be married and stridently pursuing a master's degree in Catalan identity. Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is a "free spirit" (kill me for using that term), unsure of what she wants, but only certain of what she doesn't want. Wah, wah, wah. The two girls meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a not-subtly-so fiery Spanish painter who invites them for a debauched weekend out of town so he can make love to both of them. For reasons that only a work of fiction can devise, they agree.

Cristina, content to leap into bed with Juan Antonio immediately, is sold on the dramatic lifestyle of an artist. Vicky attempts to keep her head but is seduced by the torrid painter over a private guitar concert. While Juan Antonio shacks up with Cristina, Vicky marries her fiancé but pines theatrically while gazing over picturesque Barcelona landscapes. Then, in the midst of Juan Antonio and Cristina's cohabitational bliss, in sweeps Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), J.A.'s suicidal ex-wife, who at first schizophrenically mistrusts and threatens Cristina, but then joins their conjugal life in a supposed perfect tripod of mutual love.

The story is so insipid that it's embarrassing so spend so much time on it, but clearly Woody is so proud of his decisions that just in case we didn't catch it, he assigns a dull and obvious voice-over narration to fill in all the spaces between dialogue. At some points, the level of detail in the voice-over is even insulting; for example, when Juan Antonio gets a phone call in the middle of the night and rushes out to the hospital, the narrator says, "Juan Antonio ran out in the middle of the night and raced over to the hospital." I can't, for the life of me, understand why Woody thought his film needed so much narration. Perhaps what he really wants to do is write a book, but feels his time is finite, so why not stick as many words in one two-hour space as possible?

While watching the film, I tried hard to enjoy it, either by taking in the sweeping shots of Gaudi's architecture or the sensuous way that the light ripples off of Javier Bardem's unusual features. But the first moments of real entertainment came with the introduction of Maria Elena. While her character was not particular original, Penelope Cruz fully commits herself to the role, and manages to breathe some much-needed life into the film. In non-Spanish films, she is usually pretty bland, but I was very impressed that she could carry it off in a way that made it seem like her character was not actually as cookie-cutter as it was probably written.

I cannot say the same for any of the other performances, however. It is a shame, because I already know that Javier Bardem is an excellent actor, and I've liked the little I have seen of Rebecca Hall. (I now also know that Lost in Translation aside, Scarlett Johansson is simply not a very good actress, so I didn't expect much and didn't get it.) While the actors get the facial expressions right, every word that comes out of their mouths loses all credibility because they deliver their lines like Woody Allen himself. In his early films, Woody's neurotic stammer immortalized his Lower East Side persona, but with his words in other people's mouths, it seems much too much like he is vainly attempting to turn his cast into his protégés. I can just see him yelling, "cut!" mid-scene and pulling Rebecca Hall aside, saying, "Look, you're doing great, but you're saying your lines too clearly. Throw some stutter in there so that we know you're thinking about things while you're talking. Make us believe that you're a little neurotic. Make us believe that you're unsure of yourself."

I can't imagine going back to a time before I'd seen any of Woody's other films, so I can't imagine how this film must come across to those unfamiliar with his work. Do I only dislike this film because I know it's so much worse than his others? The things I do not like about it probably only bother me so much because I know that Woody is better than this. Perhaps some viewers would be excited by the prospect of an onscreen threesome, and are appeased by a "hot" darkroom scene, but I don't go to the cinema to see dispassionate same-sex kisses. I didn't expect much from this cast and crew, but I was unprepared to see the lowest common denominator from all involved, Penelope Cruz excepted. What should have at least been a decent diversion turned out to be more like a pretentious college drama production.

Pink Flamingos

2008-08-21T00:29:00.000-07:00

Dir. John Waters, 1972

In 1964 Justice Potter Stewart officially stated that obscenity is impossible to define, but added, "I know it when I see it." He was referring to what is protected under the first amendment, and his statement officiously took the power out of the hands of moviemakers and artists; judgment of their art would be at the discretion of the authorities. The very same year, Susan Sontag wrote "Notes on Camp," wherein she defines camp through a list of examples, exceptions and anecdotes. Camp, like obscenity, belongs to the realm of the intangible and unspecific.

Along comes the 1970's, and with it came a new face in cinema. If there was ever a person who wanted to put a fine point on both camp and obscenity, it is John Waters. With his films that seem to portray the absolute worst of society, he lays the foundation for the Church of Camp, and the Camp Bible is none other than Pink Flamingos. In this film, he pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable, what is tolerable, and what you can portray in film. Pink Flamingos is not his first film, but it is the first that is readily available with Netflix. It is also arguably his most well-known and notorious film, which people discuss in shocked whispers. "This is the one where Divine eats shit!" "This is the one where she puts a steak under her skirt!" "This is the one with the Egg Man!"

There is actually a plot here, but it's so improbable that it only serves to provide an excuse for showing some of the most outrageous acts committed to film. Divine, John Waters' muse and the queen of camp herself, is hailed in the local paper as the "filthiest person alive," much to the chagrin of the local filth, Connie and Raymond Marble (played by Waters regulars Mink Stole and David Lochary). They take it upon themselves to usurp the title from Divine at any cost, which starts a war of filth and licentiousness, and which Divine predictably wins. There are other characters, Divine's entourage and the servants that the Marbles employ to do their dirty work, but it is Edith Massey's role as Edie, Divine's mother and egg enthusiast, who gives the most memorable performance. Who, having seen this film, can forget the be-girdled woman in the playpen, bleating for "Mr. Egg Man?" Kudos to John Waters for realizing that eggs are the most disgusting food ever to be binge-eaten.

While 1970's film had taken great strides in breaking cultural norms and depicting things that had previously been considered taboo, Pink Flamingos took it to a whole new level. Other films were fiercely anti-war, toying with political disaffection and breaking down sexual mores, but this one depicted absolutely everything that people had not yet wanted to face. Public murder, cannibalism, incest, rape, mutilation, animal cruelty, voyeurism, exhibitionism, fetishism, and that's just off the top of my head. It was extremely controversial, protested by almost every single political advocacy group, and was banned in several countries. On top of it, Waters added a very ironic, bubble-gum pop soundtrack, with such hits as "The Girl Can't Help It," "(How Much is) That Doggie in the Window," and "I'm Not A Juvenile Delinquent," which play over various acts of lewdness and vulgarity.

John Waters knew exactly what he was doing in making this film. He employs all sorts of cinematic devices to get his point across, from the aforementioned irony, to his encyclopedic knowledge of film clichés to abuse and exploit. At one point, he even breaks down the 4th wall, referring to Divine as not only playing the character of the Filthiest Person Alive, but actually being the Filthiest Actress Alive, when she famously eats the dog feces. He made quite possibly the filthiest film ever made, and he could very well be the filthiest director alive. But you have to know the rules to break them, and he takes obscenity and camp to the far reaches of the imagination, doing better to define them than any theoretician ever could. The country may not like it, but John Waters made his impression on American society in a way that could never be reversed.

Pineapple Express

2008-08-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Dir. David Gordon Green, 2008

I have the current misfortune, in reviewing this film, of being entirely the wrong audience for it. It was a very successful film, well-reviewed by many, but I did not enjoy it very much for reasons that extend a little bit beyond the actual content. Despite doing my best to keep an open mind and to be amenable to the fact that I might like it, I was relieved when I did not, because it could better galvanize my stance on the world of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, and, albeit in a different way, David Gordon Green. I have yet to enjoy a film experience with any of these variables in play, but I will try to explain this is the most unbiased way possible.

The film opens with Dale Denton (Seth Rogen), a pretty smart guy who holds a pretty unchallenging job as a process server, and who has the time to call into talk radio shows and smoke weed in his car. He's kind of a loser, but in that marketable way that kids these days seem to really get into. One day, upon visiting his dealer, Saul (played quite excellently by James Franco), he acquires a rare variation of the cannabis that is as identifiable as a fingerprint. This comes into play as Dale goes to serve a more notorious drug dealer, Ted, and witnesses him and a LadyCop (Rosie Perez) commit a murder. While panicking, Dale drops his identifiable joint, which Ted and LadyCop use to track him through Saul, and Saul's provider, Red. The chase ensues, and there are madcap shenanigans and explosions and fistfights, and all other kinds of insanity.

I'll start off with the positive. James Franco really is quite good, as I'm sure most reviewers are pleased to declare. He really commits to his role, and has good comic delivery. He hasn't had many comedic roles in his recent years, though it's possible that his success with Pineapple Express will lead to more. I can only hope that they don't start typecasting him as the goofy sidekick kind of supporting role, because I think he's better than that. Another positive note in this whole endeavor is that it really would have been worse if David Gordon Green had written the script. Whatever there is to say about writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, their script fits the genre well, does what it needs to do, and many people will like it because that is their brand of humor. Green's writing is atrocious, and although there are some who like his style, it would definitely appeal to a much, much smaller audience.

And this is where I let loose with all the things I didn't like. True, it could have been worse, and my poor opinion of Green is informed by All the Real Girls and Undertow, and not George Washington or Snow Angels, which I hear are actually good. I didn't sense much of his strong influence in this film, aside from one scene of dancing around in the woods which is reminiscent of the awfulness of All the Real Girls. What is more noticeable is the absence of Judd Apatow as director, which is the nicest way I can put it. Apatow's influence is quite definitely present, but it is diluted by something else, an "indie" awkwardness that some may interpret as an edge of believability and genuineness. I saw Green's decision to focus more on weird little moments more of a disconnect from the flow of the narration.

Seeing this film has definitely showed me the relative strengths of the writing versus the direction. The writing and the directing styles are recognizable enough to be able to tell at what point which force took over and had more weight. This is definitely a Seth Rogen film rather than a David Gordon Green film. However, that is where I am, as a moviegoer, completely alienated. I don't like Seth Rogen. Where some see an Everyman, I see the kind of annoying guy that I used to know in high school and didn't particularly like. He is not the type of person I'd get along with, and I don't feel that he represents me or "my kind" of people. The kind of humor in this film is one that appeals to the majority in my age demographic, probably, but I don't laugh at "gay" insinuations or long, long fight sequences where someone will just not die. The people in the theater with me had a really great time, though, so good for them.

Why did I watch this then? Honestly, it's only because the IMAX screening of The Dark Knight had sold out, and we needed to kill some time before the next one. Had it not been playing at the right time, or if Brideshead Revisited had started just a half hour earlier, everything would be different, and I'd probably be sitting here, complaining about that movie instead. I didn't come out of it entirely feeling like I'd wasted my time, because it's good to be reminded of what's out there, and to reaffirm that your tastes are actually what they are. I would love to believe that if it were a really great film that I'd admit to liking it, but I'm not sure that I could. If that invalidates this review, I suppose I can accept that.

The Dark Knight

2008-08-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

Dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008

What is there to say about this film that hasn't already been shouted from rooftops by many more articulate than I? I suppose one more jubilant essay won't disrupt the balance in the universe. While for previous superhero movie reviews, I have entered the theater knowing either nothing at all or very little about the culture of the comic, such was not the case for The Dark Knight. I readily admit that my nerdiness runs far and wide, but I have always had a snobby aversion to the comic book variety. But the Batman appeal cannot be denied.

I have glanced over several reviews that start off with "Batman is the only superhero I've ever been interested in" or something to that effect. Without meaning to be redundant, I, too, belong to that group of Batman-but-not-any-other followers. While some may have been interested more in the story, my fascination was largely with the artwork. The comic book covers (I have still never read a superhero comic), the cartoons, the earlier films' mise-en-scene was always so much darker and moodier than the others. In my synaesthetic mind, all other superheroes are big, bouncy bubbles, and Batman is sharp, jagged triangles. I was lucky that "Batman: The Animated Series" was well-written, intelligent and entertaining, because I would have watched it anyway. The villains were so much more melancholy, just like the hero, and it fascinated me to no end that the animators actually drew on black paper instead of white.

The Dark Knight shows the extent to which this moodiness and darkness can extend. It is far cry away from all the previous Batman movies, even the Tim Burton ones, even Batman Begins. The first scene involves the Joker's takedown of a mob-run bank, which is brilliantly, beautifully executed. The mafioso are up in arms; who is this lunatic who stole their money? Who has the stones to rob from the most dangerous people in Gotham City? Only a complete loose cannon of a villain, the "better class of criminal" that the city deserves. The Joker brings completely new light to the brutal irony of his name, the frightening uncertainty of his motives, and the thorough extent to which he continuously plays mind games. I'm sure you have all heard how excellent Heath Ledger is in this role, and it bears repeating. They can never make another film with the Joker. He died with Ledger.

There are many other things that are taking place at the same time: Bruce Wayne is battling his purpose in Gotham City, hoping that the brazen new District Attorney, Harvey Dent, can clean up the city the legit way, allowing Wayne to retire Batman and become a normal member of society and to win his childhood flame, Rachel Dawes back. This is as hopeful and cheery as the film gets, for the downward spiral of Dent into Two-Face after the wretched demise of Dawes proves that Batman is, in fact, the necessary hero and scapegoat, who will bear the burden of responsibility for Two-Face's destruction.

The ending is grim, the suit is revamped, Batman gets a new vehicle. The Joker and Batman battle time and time again to test who knows the nature of the people of Gotham best. The cinematography is so vast and bleak that it takes your breath away, and never before has there been a Batman franchise where the real grit and downfall of a formerly prosperous city is so clearly depicted. I have heard some legitimate criticism of the film: it is too long, Christian Bale's "Batman voice" is too cartoonishly gruff, the editing is too choppy and frenetic. None of these things bothered me, though I can see them being distracting. In this day and age of epic action movies with explosions and fight scenes galore, I didn't even notice the length or the editing. I was too wrapped up in feelings of excitement and despair to notice any shortcomings, even upon second viewing.

I feel that there are two histories of Batman. There's the 1960's Adam West, pun-filled, slapstick type that evolved into the camp George Clooney/Val Kilmer Batman of the 1990's. Then there's the Tim Burton, Batman: The Animated Series, and now Christopher Nolan's version. Each has its own merit, depending on how light and fluffy you want your Batman to be. I definitely enjoyed the old TV show, but I don't even associate it with the charcoal and smoke world of the latter category. When it comes down to the debate between which view is better, more interesting, more loved, we might as well be comparing two different superheroes all together, not the same one.

The series has been rebooted, reviewed and reinterpreted so many times because Batman is the Everyman of superheroes. While he has extraordinary strength, courage and skill, he does not have any supernatural endowment of any of these things. He so embodies the struggle of man through his extraordinary struggle with crime and inner demons, because these are "normal people" problems, not making sure your eyes are covered so you don't accidentally kill someone with your laser eye beams. This is not a new revelation, and indeed, the time it took for me to actually write this review has almost rendered it unnecessary. I don't even necessarily believe that I can present a unique experience. But I, like so many other people, do identify and love this character because of everything he represents, and I do still want to write about it, only because it satisfies my craving for somber and tortured artistry in conjunction with exciting action sequences. It does not surprise me that this film is so successful, because here is finally a truly excellent film version of possibly one of the most popular heroic figures in literature and pop culture.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (DVD)

2008-08-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

Dir. Gore Verbinski, 2007

It has been a while since the Pirates of the Caribbean movies took the world by storm. At the the time, who knew that these films would be as successful as they were? Or maybe they did know. Hipsters and high school students had already taken on pirate chic, sporting skulls and cross-bones and wearing ironic t-shirts. Putting Johnny Depp in ragged clothing and giving him a charming, ne'er-do-well attitude is pretty much always cult, if not box office, gold. Clearly they were on to something, even after the second two films of the trilogy received only mediocre reviews. On paper, and so in the annals of time, these films will probably not be looked at as anything more than an excellent moneymaking venture which happened to capitalize on very up-to-the-moment trends and the star power of its young and attractive stars.

At World's End has the misfortune of being the third part of a trilogy, or at least the second half of a single story arc. It definitely cannot stand alone as a film, and the burden rests on it to resolve whatever convoluted nonsense the previous films have set up. Sometimes, this makes for a very good film, one that is satisfying and ties things up nicely, like with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Often times, however, it is severely lacking in originality and makes all attempts at resolution feel tacked on. At World's End is, oddly enough, neither of these, though I cannot say it is a good movie, it is definitely not entirely a bad one.

One thing that makes the film tolerable is to completely ignore the plot. The second film sets up a supernatural type quest for the attractive cast to retrieve Jack Sparrow (Depp, as if you didn't know) from Davy Jones's locker, where he has been in purgatory, sniffing for peanuts and riding on waves of stone crabs. At the end of Dead Man's Chest, everyone is feeling sad and guilty for sending Jack to his watery "grave," and they all resolve that they must bring him back for unspoken reasons that seem to be rather affectionate. Tia Dalma, the witch-woman, manages to resurrect Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to lead the expedition. However, once this cavalcade does magically bring the dead man back from the dead, all sincerity is gone, and the film becomes a farce of secret bargains, double-crossings, pretend betrayals, and crap.

That's when the brain gets turned off, and I can appreciate the spectacle for what it is. Johnny Depp is a terribly attractive man, and is probably the only person to ever make filth look sexy. Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) is one of the most intriguing looking villains in CGI villainry, and the various landscapes of the Arctic, Caribbean, middle of the ocean, and middle of nowhere are breathtaking. I don't particularly care for the health and well-being of the characters, since the outcome is fairly guaranteed to be pat and neat. The writing is at times atrocious, though there are some decently good jokes that aren't throwbacks to the one-liners of the previous Pirates of the Caribbean movies. If this were a silent film, with the same visuals but little speaking at all, this would be a smashing success.

All the same, I quite like it. I did give it 3.5 out of 5 mangoes, which is generous considering how awful the script is. The fact that this film is self-realized as a mediocre action flick is refreshing. It is so aware of the fact that it puts together a winning combination of Kiera Knightley/Orlando Bloom/Johnny Depp sexiness, slapstick humor, and allusions to the Disneyland ride, that it is relaxed and allows us to ride the wave of prettiness. It is enjoyable to take in, provided you don't try to figure out what is going on. Certain moments are exciting and the cinematography at other times is heart-stoppingly beautiful. It is unpretentious fun and does not take itself seriously.

Sometimes, people talk about how a film can take itself seriously, so I'll elaborate on that. When there are moments in a film where the action stops, the dialogue picks up and one character tries to relay a moral, or meaning, or life lesson to another, or possibly the characters are meant to discover these meanings for themselves through long scenes of training and meditation: that is serious. When an action/adventure type film wastes the audience's time with morals and lessons, it takes itself far too seriously. I cannot imagine hoping to gain anything meaningful from your average action flick. Wanted is one such film that seeks to impart some wisdom upon its audience, beckoning the viewer to evaluate his or her life, and as "What the fuck have you done lately?" At World's End is nothing, empty, a flash in the pan. And good! That's all I want from a movie with explosions and cephalopodic villains. If I want intellectual, I'll see a film written by someone I respect.

I may seem like an action movie apologist, and to be fair, it is a personal preference for my action movies to be pretty and brainless, just like a stereotypical supermodel. Yet I am nothing if not the product of my environment, and I have been told that you get different things from different places. The "one stop shop" film doesn't come along very often, and there is absolutely no film I have ever seen that has everything I have ever wanted in a film. I compartmentalize, and therefore satisfy a single craving at a time. At World's End is a very satisfying film, if only for special effects and eye candy. At times, that is all I want, and that is all I need.

WALL-E

2008-07-21T13:01:00.000-07:00

Dir. Andrew Stanton, 2008

It is rare that a film comes along that really seems to defy categorization, and that takes a classic idea and successfully modernizes it. There have been many rehashings of Shakespeare dramas, or reiterations of tired romantic plotlines, but it is unusual to see a film that takes a completely original approach to a classic, and makes it work in every way. This year, I have been relatively unimpressed with what I have seen, but I had high hopes for Wall-E to be at least sweet and funny, and well animated. I was unprepared to be totally thrown for a loop. This film really went to the roots of the classics, the story of creation, and went with a risky idea that threatened to alienate some audiences, but that ultimately has such broad appeal for whatever anyone can hope to find in a movie.

The opening moments of Wall-E present a sparkling view of outer space, paired with the optimistic opening lines from the song “Sunday Clothes” from Hello, Dolly!, which leads one to think that this will be the start of the cute and fun love story between the Wall-E and Eve, which we know is coming, thanks to the trailers. Then the camera takes a dip down and shows us the Earth, dusty and brown and encrusted with a filthy layer of satellites. As the music wells and fades, we see that the surface of the Earth is dry, barren, dead, and heaped with trash of all kinds. It is truly a shocking view of what may come, and one that does not seem improbable. But then we see a little guy, rolling around, playing this uplifting song from Hello, Dolly!, and we know that we have seen our hero.

Wall-E is the last robot of a class of clean-up machines, the Waste Allocator Load Lifter- Earth Class. Years ago, everyone on Earth went off into outer space on a luxury-cruise style ship, the Axiom, leaving the Wall-Es to clean up, with the intention of returning in 5 years when all the trash was taken care of. At this point, we do not know what has become of this plan, but it looks like a lot more time has passed. So much time, in fact, that Wall-E has had the time to rifle through the artifacts of the human lifestyle and to develop an idea of what the culture must have been like. From watching Hello, Dolly!, he has also developed a notion of what love is, and to realize that he is lonely. One day, out of the sky, comes another spacecraft with a beautiful, Macintosh-esque robot, Eve (E Vegetation E) whose “directive” it is to find some sign of life of Earth. Wall-E is instantly smitten, and does anything to try and introduce her to his life here on Earth and his highly amusing collection of items, including a little plant that he’d just found. Eve, upon seeing the plant, sends out a signal for the spacecraft to come back for her so that she can bring the plant back to the Axiom. Wall-E, unable to imagine being alone again, follows along, and the adventure begins!

This entire portion is completely without dialogue beyond each robot’s repetition of the other’s name. I mean, how else are robots going to communicate? The only narration is from a talking billboard that advertises the Axiom and the Five-Year Clean Up Plan, and the lyrics to the Hello, Dolly! songs. And yet, it is engrossing. The children in the theater did not seem antsy at all, but appeared to be as transfixed as anyone else. There is enough slapstick humor to keep things at a “children’s movie” level, but it never ranges into the idiotic. The rest of the film, the majority of which takes place on the Axiom, changes tone considerably and becomes a kind of action-adventure film, where Wall-E and Eve combat the ship’s computer, which has a directive of its own, unbeknownst to even the captain of the ship, an actual human. It is a triumph of the will story in this respect, and a satisfying one.

But the story of creation lies in the details. The humans, who are revealed to have been on the Axiom for 700 years now, have lived idle lives on levitating lounge chairs, plugged into a screen that tells them when to eat, what to eat, what color jumpsuit to wear, and which direction to coast. After all these years, their skeletons have shrunk, they can hardly read, most likely cannot walk, and appear to have no free will. They are all infants, at every stage of their lives. Even the captain admits to only having one duty on the ship, which is to advertise the perfect conditions of the Axiom, as maintained by the ship’s computer.

Then Wall-E comes in, and through a series of missteps and stumbles unwittingly becomes the agent for free will. He tracks terrestrial dirt into the ship, and because he is the only entity on the ship that does not follow a pre-set path, he leads the automatic cleaning robot, MO, off of his set path. When trying to break into the flow of manned lounge chairs, he knocks one human, John, off of his seat, and brings his attention to the surroundings of the ship, which even though he has spent his whole life there, he has never actually seen. Similarly, when trying to get close to Eve, who is being taken to the control deck, he interacts with another human in a floating chair, Mary. She, too, is snapped to cognizance, and begins to see their lives for what they actually are. Mary and John (hinting at some Biblical themes) find each other, and begin to enjoy their lives and try new things for the first time, like splashing in the water and marveling at the view of the cosmos that the ship affords.

When Wall-E finally meets the captain of the ship, and becomes the instrument by which he learns of the Five-Year Plan, Wall-E also inadvertently teaches him about such fundamental aspects of Earth living, like agriculture and dancing. The captain realizes that this is what humans are meant to do, rather than to gradually atrophy and take up space in the Axiom, and he overtakes the ship’s computer, a HAL-like being that seeks to maintain the status quo. The human spirit overcomes, and free will reigns.

It is a beautiful irony that the instigator of free will, the savior of the human race, and the one who introduces love to humans and robots alike, is a man-made machine. Wall-E only has one basic function, but through years of cultivation, has become the Prophet. Although everything that he does is unintentional, this is the only way that a story like this could be bearable. Without it, the film would appear too preachy, too Biblical, and much, much less entertaining. (It is, after all, a kids’ movie, and pratfalls are necessary to keep them in rapt attention.) It is a bold move for the Pixar people to make a film like this, one with little dialogue and with such a serious message. I’m not entirely sure if this is something that most kids would catch on to, but the message would surely grow on them.

Not only is this film an indictment of man’s wasteful nature and a proponent for alternative conservational lifestyles, it is also an optimistic view of a life where man and machine can live in harmony. Rather than it being an apocalyptic view of the future where computers and robots are in control and humans have to overthrow them entirely in order to survive, it is accepting of the habits that people already have, and does not rely on a reactionary lifestyle to show hope for the future. While many visions of the future involve a kind of battle against technology that develops independent thought, this film attempts something quite different and is therefore much more bold. It is hard to see our somewhat destructive lifestyle as positive, but it is also easy to lay the blame on technology.

When I first saw Wall-E, I absolutely adored it, but it was so avant-garde that I was almost afraid to fully take in everything that it was saying. Andrew Stanton is an excellent director, but he doesn’t have the humanistic genius of Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles). For this reason, I felt less of an affinity for Wall-E and Eve, and felt that the film was slightly lacking in credible sentiment. But then I saw it a second time, and I realized that Brad Bird wouldn’t have made the same kind of film as this one is, and the higher level of human relatability would not necessarily be appropriate. This is a film about robots, and so there has to be a degree of mechanical detachment. Additionally, the ideas in the film that seemed so frighteningly ambitious had a little time to sink in, and I was able to fully appreciate the brilliance the second time around. It is a very detailed and very clever film, and one that really works to hint at the dangers of a wasteful lifestyle, while providing a realistic glimpse of a future where we don’t have to let go of our technological activities.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

2008-07-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

Dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2008

Pan’s Labyrinth was one of my favorite films from 2006. I thoroughly and unabashedly enjoyed Hellboy 1. Because of this, I had very high hopes for Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and it was one of the films I most looked forward to this year. And because of this, I feel like Guillermo del Toro personally let me down. It makes me want to find him, sit him down, and say, “Memo, what’s the deal? What happened?” While it definitely was a visual spectacle like none other, it was so without content that it played like a beautiful slideshow narrated by a really annoying person.

Hellboy II starts off with a moving flashback on when Young Hellboy learns the fable of the Golden Army. Many years ago, a race of (let's say) elves warred with humans, and the elf king was tired of his army's casualties. He hired a smith to create an unvanquishable golden army that completely obliterates the entire opposing army. Consumed by remorse, Elf King shuts them down and breaks up the gold crown that someone of royal descent must wear in order to control into three pieces and hides one among the humans. The king's son, Prince Nuada, disagrees with this policy, so he runs off and trains in martial arts for many centuries.

The main action of this second film picks up about where the first film left off, with Hellboy and his girlfriend, Liz, undergoing relationship problems, Abe Sapien moons around, pointing his omniscient hand at things, and the supernatural world continues to interfere with the human world. One third of the royal golden crown (the one that controls the golden army) is being auctioned off, so Nuada naturally steps in to reclaim it, this piece having finally been located after a truly indefinite amount of time. Strong premise! Strong setup! Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there.

I shudder to think that it was the decision of Del Toro, someone whose total lack of schmaltz and devotion to the macabre made Pan's Labyrinth so wonderful, to put such heavy focus on the utterly uninteresting romance between Hellboy and Liz. Ron Perlman is a mighty talented actor, and it was a shame to see his prowess limited by eye-rolling and drunken sentimentality. The conflicted, evil-or-not Hellboy is completely absent here, and is replaced with a slightly sarcastic but mostly emotional heap of blubber. When I want to see a romantic comedy, I'll go and see one, but action/adventure is not the place for it.

Hellboy's character is so rich, with so much potential for internal struggle, above and beyond that in the first film. It is what separates Hellboy from any other heroic badass; that he is actually a demon, and therefore the draw to ultimate evil is inherent to his existence. I know this without even having read the comic, because there can be no other reason to have a character who is constructed in this way. His pairing with Liz is nice because he's the only one who can withstand her flammable outbursts, and it has a sort of star-cross'd destiny about it, but when it turns into sitcom type banter, it is such a waste. Hellboy is the ultimate anti-hero: he rescues babies from giant plant monsters, but he is a demon. If ever there was a better battleground for good vs. evil, I have yet to see it. It is a premise that is breached in the first film, though perhaps a little bit too brief. In Hellboy II, there are a couple of off-hand comments that hint at this possible internal struggle, but nothing happens.

I have heard Del Toro accused of having a "monster fetish," but I was really excited to see what his imagination would yield. There is a fun sequence in a troll market that feels a bit like a cross between that one bar on Tatooine and a Middle Eastern bazaar. It is by far the most entertaining part. Additionally, the Tooth Fairy myth is revisited and transformed into a nightmarish, Brothers Grimm-esque story. But the most intriguing character that drew me in when first I saw it in the trailer is this:

It is presented as Hellboy's Death, and it presages the end of the world at the hands of Hellboy himself. Ironically, his death is his savior in this film, which, again, was glossed over so disappointingly quickly. For a creature that is so intricately beautiful and freakish, and who provided the biggest draw to the film, it is only in it for about three minutes. I will be mighty miffed if the prophecy is only there as a hook, and meant to entice you to see Hellboy III: End of Days. (I am making that title up; I have no idea what is to come.) Rather than there being a final showdown between nature and nurture, the ending is so anticlimactic that I might actually have said, "Is that it?" when it was over. I can't even bring myself to talk about it.

As if totally diluting the main character wasn't bad enough, the supporting cast is clearly phoning it in. David Hyde Pierce did not return to voice Abe Sapien, which I was surprised to find gave the character much, much less personality. Selma Blair's performance does not even dignify an adjective. Jeffrey Tambor is humorous, as usual, but is also only in the movie for a couple of minutes. The lesser-known actors playing the rest sure try hard, but it all seems dull and heavy-handed. The sumptuous visuals are nice, and I did enjoy looking at it, but I have come to desire more from the films that I watch. I want content. I am no longer satisfied with just images; I need to be intellectually stimulated, legitimately kept on the edge of my seat, or impressed with an original approach to whatever genre the film happens to inhabit. Guillermo, I know you're better than this. I've seen your previous work. Don't let me down again.

Hancock

2008-07-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

Dir. Peter Berg, 2008

In a season full of superhero movies, some based on comics, some not, one's expectations of greatness are dulled. Hancock didn't have the flash of the Marvel movies, the fancy suits and the glittering CGI. It looked like a Will Smith Movie, with sass and silliness, plus a little panache thrown in there by Jason Bateman. I had low hopes, which were not aided along by mediocre reviews and lackluster reception. But ultimately, I had fun watching it, and appreciated its relatively novel approach to the otherwise tired genre.

Will Smith plays Hancock, a jaded, boozing superhero who causes much collateral damage as he helps the city of Los Angeles fight crime. He appears to have a particular sensitivity to being called "asshole," which inevitably comes up as a frequent feature, much like, "Don't call me Junior." His delinquent destructiveness eventually pushes the fine citizens of the City of Angels over the edge, and they demand for Hancock's incarceration. Jason Bateman plays Hancock's PR guy, as a service in thanks for (sloppily) saving his life, and recommends that it might be good for his image to turn himself in. In doing so, he is reconnected with all of the petty and not-so-petty criminals that he put away himself. As an added bonus, the Angelenos realize that maybe they do need Hancock to do such fancy things as swat bullets away like flies and whisk away bad guys with a flick of his wrist.

What separates Hancock from other superhero films of the genre is that it jumps into the tale in the middle of his life rather than setting up a series or a canon. Hancock starts off as the boorish antihero that he is, without any highfalutin story arc of the other epics of this summer movie season. It feels more like this movie is intended to be a stand-alone film rather than part of a franchise. As previously mentioned in the Incredible Hulk review, this cheapens the film and lessens its credibility as an actual work by a director. Instead, the franchise films (with a few notable exceptions [Batman]) seem to not hide the fact that they merely exist to capitalize upon a recent fad and to make as much money as possible.

I don’t deny that the makers of Hancock want to make as much money as possible; putting Will Smith in any movie is enough to garner several hundred million dollars in profit and to appeal to a wide range of moviegoers. But one gets the feeling that the writer cared about the action in the film and wished to create a significant arc that served a greater purpose than just setting up numerous sequels. The character development is complete and there is no obvious foreshadowing to future conflicts with steadily more daunting supervillains.

And yet, Hancock is not an excellent film. Will Smith has excellent star power, and his delivery is without compare. Jason Bateman is ever charming, and the film starts off strong, albeit a bit slapstick and brash. But about halfway through, the filmmakers choose to take it in a strange direction. While I admire them for trying something new, it doesn’t quite work. Hancock is shown to actually belong to a race of gods or angels, and finds out that his soulmate and lifelong partner is none other than Jason Bateman’s wife, played by Charlize Theron. When they identify each other as partner, a sort of clash of the titans ensues, complete with breaking of cars, city streets, and high rises. This is not particularly interesting, since it eventually becomes a kind of dull, extended love story.

I personally belong more to the demographic that wants to be swept up with exciting action sequences and clever one-liners tossed off by Bateman and Smith. There’s some of that, but there’s also an awful lot of stuff that is probably just the studio quota for the number of times that Smith is allowed to say “bitch” and the number of minutes that two romantically linked characters are supposed to gaze meaningfully into each other’s eyes. It is filler, and it would be so much more interesting if more conventions had been broken. Even though it is interesting and exciting to see explosions and general mayhem, I begin to feel sorry for all those imaginary people whose cars get smashed, windows get blown out, and who get stuck in the worst possible traffic because a giant piece of the freeway collapsed.

All in all, however, I appreciate that Hancock broke any conventions at all. Two years ago, before the superhero movie craze really took flight, this might not have seemed so unusual, but it definitely is now. Variety is the spice of life, and this summer has felt like night after night of macaroni and cheese. It’s good once or twice, but the novelty wears off quickly, and even the best still seems like a tired standard. Hancock is, let’s say, macaroni with white cheddar and hot dogs. Gets an A for effort.

The Five Obstructions (DVD)

2008-07-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

Dirs. Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier, 2003

I have spent so much time recently reviewing and thinking about big budget, superhero, franchise, action-adventure type movies, that when I saw The Five Obstructions, my mind was completely blown and I felt that I did not have the mental capacity to even take it all in, let alone write about what I thought. The film is such a drastic turn from what I had become accustomed to that I felt that it was the greatest film ever made, that it was simply brilliant and I was a mere intellectual fledgling in the world of thought-provoking art. This may not be the most articulate words said about the film, but it's all I got.

I had put off seeing this because I have not recently been in the mood to see a film so crushingly depressing as I know Lars von Trier can make. So when I found that it is actually by him and the stately Jørgen Leth, and therefore not at all like the other films of his I have seen, I was a bit relieved. Not only is it different, but it is unlike any other movie I have ever seen. Conceptually, it seems as though it would be tedious or dull, but it is entirely enrapturing.

In 1967, Let made a short film called The Perfect Human, which illustrates a man and a woman as they do commonplace things like eat, groom, and dance, and marvels anthropologically at how a "perfect" person does these things. It presents a series of rhetorical questions, like "How does the perfect human lie down?" and "Why does he dance like this?" In The Five Obstructions, Leth joins von Trier in re-examining this short through a series of "obstructions" (a word which is given a different connotation than what I am familiar with). Whether to test the short's timelessness, or Leth's true skill is not entirely clear at the onset, but it is so interesting that one never wonders what, exactly, is the point. The film presents itself as a documentary, but it is also composed of Leth's obstructions, five more experimental short films. It quite defies specific categorization.

The first obstruction involves von Trier throwing out suggestions, at random, on how to re-film The Perfect Human, but with restrictions and conditions meant to be difficult to accommodate. Originally shot in Denmark in Dutch, the first obstruction is to be shot in Cuba with no set, will have no cut longer than 12 frames, and is to answer the existential questions proposed in the original film. The outcome is fascinating. Leth himself says that the 12-frame cuts were a gift, because what resulted was a frenetic, stylish version of the (admittedly) dated black-and-white narrative of The Perfect Human. The "real hombre" who plays this paragon of humanity has a fabulous face, and the set up with the answers to the short's questions feels more natural than the original film.

The remainder of the obstructions appealed a bit less to me on some level or another. The second was set up in the red light district of Bombay with Leth himself playing the perfect human, serving to juxtapose the posh, quiet privilege of the introspective film with the overwhelming misery of the surroundings. While Leth was very observational and detached in the original short, the intention was for him to be more emotionally involved, or emotive. Von Trier felt that Leth failed this one, because he did not completely leave the surroundings out of the film, but rather diluted it slightly by putting a translucent plastic screen between him and the multitudes of envious Indian onlookers. This set up, while it made sense in a way to challenge Leth and make him uncomfortable, felt very exploitative although it was beautifully shot. Leth was sensitive enough to insist that he could not return to Bombay to film it again, and dangle this absurd set up in front of so many impoverished locals, but the audacity of the set up was disturbing.

Because he failed, Leth was punished by either going back on location, which, as previously mentioned, he refused to do, or to re-attempt the short again, this time without restriction at all. Von Trier had felt like all of these limitations on the films were like suggestions, so without it, Leth was coasting purely on his own ideas. At this point, he was getting frustrated, but he cranked out another version, this time modern and Belgian, which was decent, though a bit flat and impersonal. Von Trier, ever irritated by the constantly excellent quality of Leth's films, tells him the next obstruction is to make the film animated, a medium that they both utterly despise. Again, though, Leth turns out a brilliant work, stylized by the rotoscopist who worked with Richard Linklater on Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly.

The final obstruction was done entirely by von Trier. In the course of the documentary portion of the film, von Trier had been making his own version of The Perfect Human, featuring Jørgen Leth himself as the perfect human being. Such a trial this entire process has been, an exploration into how one man functions in the guise of exploring how other people function. By throwing all of these seemingly impossible iterations of the original short film, von Trier kept expecting Leth to fail, but did not. The Perfect Human, though notable for its detached and impassive narration, was clearly personal and meaningful to Leth, and his life had become so intertwined with it that all permutations thereof are coherent, interesting, and developed. When the unflappable Leth gets frustrated, he looks into his reservoir of good ideas and comes up with something quite good.

The film seems like a game, albeit one for the gifted and privileged. While there is hardly any action and the short films are somewhat odd, the segments are so short that it is easy to stay interested. It is a fascinating set up for the project, and probably the best format they could have done. While the original short film may stand alone as a cinematic work, the obstructions cannot necessarily without the reference point, as well as the conversations between Leth and von Trier. Everything in the film depends on everything else, making it a beautifully constructed gem.

The Incredible Hulk

2008-07-12T02:58:00.000-07:00

Dir. Louis Leterrier, 2008

A friend of mine had complained, upon viewing Iron Man, that this current batch of superhero flicks do not exist outside of the franchise. While the action may be satisfying enough, the film does not exist as an entity, but rather an extended commercial for the coming sequels and spinoffs, complete with blatant foreshadowing and thinly-veiled hints. I enjoyed more about Iron Man than just the bare minimum ability to entertain me, so it didn't bother me that we all knew that the Avengers movie would follow, and that Samuel L. Jackson would helm the band as Nick Fury. Not being a comic book connoisseur, this meant nothing to me, so I was neither excited nor disappointed.

This is not a review for Iron Man, but rather a comparison of execution. (My review of The Incredible Hulk will remain in the vacuum of itself, without contrasting it with Ang Lee's 2003 film, which I did not see.) Iron Man had merits that I believe allowed it to stand as a fully enjoyable film, in addition to an extended commercial for its sequels, while The Incredible Hulk did not. There is a noted lack of directorial style, character flair, humor and creativity that would make this film anything but a set up for its own branch of spinoffs. I did not share my friend's complaint about the former film, but I fully understand it regarding this one.

The origins of Bruce Banner are so well-known, that the filmmaker, Louis Leterrier, clearly chose to gloss over it and shoved it, warped-image-wise, into the opening credits through a green filter. I hear that it is quite true to the comic, but, again, I didn't read it, so I had to use my superior powers of deductive reasoning to assume that a radioactivity experiment went awry, and transformed mild mannered Banner into the seething verdant mass that he becomes once his heart rate exceeds a convenient 200 bpm. The credits jump straight to the Avengers foreshadowing by flashing through several official government documents, one of which has Nick Fury's name emblazoned in quite visible, quite legible Courier. You could miss it if you blinked many times in a row, but I'm pretty sure that anyone who didn't obviously catch on probably stored it in their prefrontal cortex for subliminal purposes. (Note: I did not study the brain. I am just guessing.)

Edward Norton, who is shamefully miscast as Banner, begins by hiding out in some favela in Brazil where he works at a soft drink bottling factory and gets paid under the table. The ever-so-brilliant U.S. Government figures out where he is once a drop of his blood ends up in one of these bottles, and Stan Lee consumes it. They trace the bottling source to this particular factory, and all Brazilian hell breaks loose, notable spearheaded by the ambitious and frightfully wiry Tim Roth as a British/Russian mercenary. Well, these guys piss Banner OFF, he flies into his heart-rate elevating rage, be-Hulks, smashes everything and has to run away ALL over again, and gosh, how inconvenient. Through some magic of illegal immigration, he ends up back in the United States where he dangerously bums around in his hometown, and where his erstwhile girlfriend, Liv Tyler, lives. They team up, take on Uncle Sam, and All Green Hell breaks loose again and again and again.

That's all you really need to know about the plot because it's lackluster, uninspired, and predictable. It really is there ONLY to set up the next films. They throw in the obligatory supervillain, played by the over-stimulated and overHulked Tim Roth, now the Abomination, but there was no way that there was any doubt that Hulk wouldn't improbably and yet completely defeat him. I mean, we know that the superhero is going to defeat the bad guy in EVERY case (except for the notorious Superman Is Dead! issue, but they tell you that on the cover, too), but he could at least do it interestingly. Large explosions and crashing cars do not an exciting scene make. Somewhere along the course of his battle with Abomination, Hulk develops the lexical capability to utter "Hulk Smash!" before chunking his fists into the ground, creating a far-reaching chasm. That's apparently also in the comic; I'm sure the writer, Zak Penn, is nowhere near clever enough to come up with that brilliant moniker.

What really made Iron Man for me was the way the cast carried it off. Robert Downey, Jr. has all the suavity and swank of the best villain AND hero, and his supporting cast was not in the least annoying. Not so much in Incredible Hulk. Liv Tyler spends the majority of the film simpering into the camera in teary-eyed, bee-stung lipped concern, while miraculously calming Hulk down into human again and again, despite his supposed lack of emotional control. Gosh, she must be some girl. As previously stated, Edward Norton is a terrible casting choice, mostly because his face is so deeply associated with the milquetoast characters of his past filmography, but also because he doesn't bear a shred of resemblance to his alter-ego. Neal McDonough and Eric Bana have the physiques and head shapes to ostensibly become something big and square, while Norton is notably more ovular. This is a personal qualm, but it was distracting. William Hurt is similarly poorly used and poorly cast, so much so that I was sure that it was merely "that guy" who always plays a military guy. Alas, William Hurt is one of my favorite actors, and it pains me to see his far-reaching talents not utilized. Finally, I will never buy Tim Blake Nelson as an intellectual or even as a smart person. Call it typecasting, but he does not look scientific in the least.

Because the cast of this film is uninspiring and miscast, there is nothing to distract the viewer from the evident mess that is this mise-en-scene. While Ed Norton apparently exerted his typical control issues and rewrote various scenes, it couldn't save this paltry script. (Is he even a good writer? Why does he do this? Maybe it was just that bad to begin with.) Any attempt at humor falls flat and prompts this one to roll her eyes. After an infuriating experience with a New York taxi driver, Liv unconvincingly makes use of the one "fuck" that this PG-13 film is allowed, and lets the driver have it. Banner looks at her and cracks, "I have some tips for you for controlling your anger." Har de har har. Really? Tim Blake Nelson, the unconvincing scientist who hopes to help/exploit Banner's abilities, is being set up to become another villain in another film, which is apparent to anyone who's ever seen a film with a sequel before. His story is not followed through in the film, so with all and every likelihood, he will use the infusion of Hulkblood to match strength to become Hulk adversary #2, Abomination II. Or whatever they'll call him. Nelson probably wanted some money, and to impress his kids, so he took on this embarrassing project. I don't even have to look this stuff up.

The tipping point, for me, came at the close of the film, not even after the credits where Tony Stark (Iron Man) comes up the William Hurt, the other Hulk exploiter, and says he has a proposition for this Green Man to join him and Nick Fury. Well, duh. But, couldn't they have at least pretended that the film preceding it meant anything at all? Also, when did General Hurt become Hulk's agent? Last we saw him, he exerted no control over the Rage Machine at all. Seems that Stark would be better off hunting Banner down in Canada to ask him himself. But, you know, Tony wouldn't want to ruin his nice suit. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. What a piece of crap! Apparently, the Captain America flick, which is already rumored to star Thomas Jane or his doppelganger Aaron Eckhart, will somehow play into the formation of the Avengers movie. I mean, how could it not? He would complete the quartet of Famous Actors As Superhero Types. Why have the movie at all? Why not just swindle the American public of $150 million and let us use our imaginations to put together a coming-of-superhero-age movie for Captain American and just jump straight to the Avengers so we can get over all of this hype?

Wanted

2008-07-07T00:18:00.000-07:00

Dir. Timur Bekmambetov, 2008

As I was composing this review in my head, I was thinking of many vitriol-fueled things to say about how bad I thought this was. However, I saw this over a week ago now, and my feelings of ire have somewhat subsided and I'm left with a dull lull of indifference. At the onset, I had felt angry and betrayed by what I had hoped would be a fun romp à la Matrix, but the film was far too heavy and proselytizing to merely take lightly. Now, however, I see that it was actually a misguided attempt to lend some gravity to what would have been fine as merely a fun romp. I also see that I, once again, erred by reading too much into a film based on a comic book.

Wanted is either about the secret society of the Brotherhood which uses physics-defying techniques to execute flamboyant assassinations, or about a disgruntled anxiety-ridden office worker (James McAvoy) who rises above and finds his true calling, which is to defy physics and execute a series of flamboyant assassinations. Either way, the sultry Angelina Jolie ropes him into the Brotherhood, where he proves to be something of a natural, shooting the wings off of flies on his first day, and quickly learning how to run on top of trains and knife fight with stealthy butchers. All this is fine. Pretty exciting stuff, actually. Who doesn't like a Rocky-esque training montage, overlaid with grinding heavy metal?

McAvoy is being conditioned to assassinate the alleged killer of his alleged father, whom he had never met. Because we, as the audience, have the gift of detachment, it is obvious that there is more at stake here. Morgan Freeman, the leader of the Brotherhood, reveals to McAvoy the orchestrator of their destinies, the Loom Of Fate. I'm not sure if there has been a sillier object with a sillier name. I could hear smirks around me as these heavy words were uttered. Anyway, the Loom Of Fate automatically pumps out coded yards of fabric with names encrypted in binary. It is this way that the Brotherhood knows who the next target will be. When McAvoy (understandably) questions the legitimacy of a cloth machine, Angelina tells a heart wrenching story of a child whose life is ruined by the murder of her father by a killer who was not slain at the beckoning of the Loom. As if we didn't know that she was talking about herself.

One great tragedy here is that the cast is sadly underused. This is a stellar ensemble: McAvoy, Freeman and Jolie, plus Thomas Kretschmann, Common and Terrence Stamp. Such talent here has such potential to really class up the flick, but some of them have only one or two lines, at most. McAvoy has shown with his work in Atonement and Last King of Scotland that he really is talented, but the best he does is to feign sweaty, debilitating anxiety and act pained when he is beaten up by surly henchmen. Angelina Jolie, who has yet to knock my socks off performance-wise, does nothing more than seethe in the camera and make this atrocious face:

Horrid.

As if misuse of cast, silly and predictable plot, and ill-advised expressions weren't bad enough, the most aggravating aspect of this film is the confused politics. It is unclear whether this film advocates free will or team loyalty, the value of life or the thrill of killing. The very last shot shows McAvoy, after a convoluted kill, sneer right into the camera and say, "What the fuck have you done lately?" Besides this being a somewhat poor use of the word "fuck," it is such a self-righteous gloat that makes me wonder whether these people really believe that someone will think that their life would be better if they gave up everything and took up assassination for hire.

After cracking down and discovering that the Brotherhood is all a sham held together by Morgan Freeman who didn't have the stones to follow the word of the Loom and sic his entire organization on each other and wipe themselves out, Angelina does what the filmmaker/comic book author clearly thought was the most noble choice and perform one last feat of aerodynamic bulletry and decimates everyone, self included. I DID just give away the ending, but I don't really care because it was, again, appallingly self-righteous, and completely contradictory to the end scene with McAvoy's pride in his kill. In following the word of the Loom, even though it called for the disbandment of the Brotherhood, is to give yourself to fate, whereas trigger-happy McAvoy is so proud to have taken the reins and made the most of his life, doing what he wants... which is killing and following the Loom? Without the Brotherhood, does the Loom still manufacture binary targets? Will McAvoy be the next, since obviously the Loom doesn't want the Brotherhood to exist as a destructive force? Should he just bite the bullet and actually bite the bullet for the sake of Our Lord God Loom? So many unanswered questions, so many plot points not thought out.

I know that this is based on a comic book, that it is not Bekhmambetov's best, and that because I have not seen his other films OR read the actual comic, my critique is not best informed. I think that it is valid, however, because the filmmakers have to anticipate the uninformed audience, and some of us will have a brain and will be thinking about the film as we watch it. If they want to rely so heavily on previous knowledge of his style and the original medium, the film will be inherently flawed because it's as though the uninformed haven't been let in on the whole story. Other graphic novel-based films can successfully draw the uninformed viewer into the story without alienating anyone, so I feel confident in the umbrage I have taken. For that, I declare Wanted to have been an utterly disappointing and unsuccessful film, a squanderer of talent and confounder of message. Whether or not this is the fault of the comic book itself or the adaption, I do not know, but I only saw the movie.

Get Smart

2008-07-03T02:36:00.000-07:00

Dir. Peter Segal, 2008

For some reason, I feel the need to qualify this with "Well, I liked it." While watching this film, it didn't even occur to me that the people I was with might not be enjoying it. Which is not to say that this is the greatest film ever made, but simply a pretty fun one that stayed pretty true to the spirit of the original television show. A friend who was sitting to my immediate left was squawking in laughter throughout the whole thing, so when we were leaving and she was saying discouraging things, I was baffled. What were they expecting?

When I was 11 years old, I spent a long period of time in the hospital with a broken leg. My sleep schedule was erratic, because every time I had nothing to do, I would just nap. This led me to being awake at strange times, and seeing strange things on TV. "Get Smart" used to air at 2 or 3 in the morning (or maybe it was in the afternoon), and while I didn't fully understand the intricacies of the espionage aspect of the plot, I found it amusing when Maxwell Smart would bumble around and use his shoe for a telephone. I don't recall anyone ever watching it with me, though I suppose someone had to explain the Yiddish jokes to me. I wouldn't necessarily say that I have a profound or meaningful relationship with "Get Smart", it was never my favorite thing to watch, and I never particularly looked forward to it. But it was fun, filled the time, and made me laugh.

That is exactly how I feel about the film. Fun, filled the time, made me laugh. It's all I wanted, all I expected. Some of the jokes I even found particularly amusing. I guess sometimes things just work. Steve Carell brings a sort of modern, goofy sincerity to Maxwell Smart, and Anne Hathaway keeps Agent 99 classy. They are a humorous pair, though their chemistry falls somewhat flat. Although we are meant to believe that Anne Hathaway's face is a result of excellent plastic surgery intended to make her look much, much younger, she does not even act, let alone look old enough to be a love interest for Steve Carell. He is not old, and I don't mean to appear ageist, but the age difference is pretty dramatic. It's one of the least convincing pairings since Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe.

This really is quite a stellar cast, actually. All the supporting actors are so enjoyable to watch: Alan Arkin, James Caan, Terrence Stamp, Masi Oka, and Bill Murray. Even Dwayne "Always Known As The Rock To Me" Johnson thoroughly redeems himself from shattering mediocrity in Southland Tales and makes the most of his hammy inability to act. He's a big buffoon, to quote M from Casino Royale, he is a blunt instrument. It is a mistake to give him depth, and in this, he is as shallow as you can get. But he does bring some bravado to the mix, and his comic timing isn't too bad. Some might say that this fun cast can't save the film from what it is, but I chose to see this as an opportunity to see a lot of good actors play off each other, and that was satisfaction enough.

There were some things by which I was incredibly put off: fat jokes, genital jokes, vomit, and Nate Torrence, who has never been funny to me, and looks like the discount version of Joey Fatone. As I mentioned earlier, the romantic plotline was totally unbelievable, and to make you further sentimental about it, they replay key moments in the film in the most pointless flashback ever committed to film. They showed things that happened literally minutes ago. Finally, the action scenes are somewhat exciting, but I have a limit to how many pratfalls I can watch when they are not balanced out by adequately inspiring events.

I could have chosen to dwell on these faults and get annoyed by the mugging and the screaming and the falling down, but I chose to focus on the humor, which I believe is ultimately the point of the film. It is a venue for silly jokes and spastic antics, and for Steve Carell, et al to exercise their comic timing. That part was fun. I laughed, probably more than a lot of the people in the theater which almost never happens, and certainly not for a movie I don't feel passionately about. I would call it successful in not having wasted my time, and showing me that Mel Brooks is still doing what he does best. For that, I can say that I liked Get Smart.

The Fall

2008-06-26T00:55:00.000-07:00

Dir. Tarsem, 2007

I have such respect for Tarsem [Singh]. He is truly a great artist. The "Losing My Religion" music video still stands as one of the best I've ever seen, even seventeen years after its release. The Cell, while undeniably similar to The Silence of the Lambs and not particularly strong script-wise, was also breathtaking, and he blew my mind with his choice of color and composition. The Fall was supposed to be the culmination of his skill as a visual master with a good story, thereby making it a better movie. Making it a good movie. While it did not disappoint in the least in visuals, I was left disappointed, again, by the film as a whole package. I wish that he could have made it good.

The story is pretty interesting at first, and sets up an unusual intersection of Hollywood and agriculture in the early years of the city of Los Angeles. A five-year-old orange picker, Alexandria, falls out of a tree and is in the hospital with a broken arm, when she meets Roy, a semi-paralyzed stuntman who has lost his will to live. By some twist of fate or gust of wind, Alexandria runs into Roy's hospital room, and he begins to tell her stories to convince her to get painkillers for him. He makes up a tale of vengeance that follows five bandits each sworn to destroy the Emperor Odious for doing something terrible to them. Roy's imagination is not as exuberant as Alexandria's, but we see this story through her eyes, and we see the influence of her life, while the actually tale is mostly taken from Roy's experiences. Such a good setup, had such potential to be so good.

Roy's and Alexandria's psyches combined make an interesting sort of classic epic tale that is not unlike Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's overblown, but it's all right, because you know that it's just a story that some guy made up and some kid embellished. I could see the faults of the film already, in the beginning, so I turned off my brain so I wouldn't be able to predict the outcome of this story. Alexandria, being an immigrant from Romania, has surprising bleakness in her disposition at times, but is otherwise pretty happy-go-lucky, so when Roy's depression/suicidal tendencies/alcoholism get the better of him, the story takes a turn for the excessively tragic, and Alexandria's imagination fills in with some haunting imagery. It is interesting, but it doesn't really work. It is dangerous to make a movie with child actors because the line between convincing and cloying is so fine, and I generally have low tolerance for hammy child acting. Catinca Untaru, the actress, usually stays on the tolerable side of the spectrum, but lost it during the film's climax. It's not entirely her fault, because the material that she had to work with was poor.

Two of the three screenwriters, Nico Soultanakis and Tarsem himself, only have this film to their writing credit, and the third, Dan Gilroy, has a few more, but they are uninspiring. I wish it could be so easy as to blame everything on the script, but I wonder if this would have been so much better with a different one. There's not as much wrong with it as there's just not enough right with it. The actual plot is pretty interesting, but I can see how it would be a difficult story to finish. The end is strange, and I don't really like it. The characters could have more substance, and there is far too much energy spent on the formulation of the story-within-a-story, so the "real life" part of the film is not very fleshed out. But it was the "real life" part that I found most interesting. I wanted to know more about Roy and Alexandria, but it seems as though as an audience, we're supposed to fill in the blanks ourselves. Because Roy is so flat, I didn't feel much sympathy for him, even though I wish I could have. There was the material for greatness, but it was in the wrong hands.

I don't even have to tell you about how absolutely stunning it is. You can tell from the trailer that it is. I already knew it was going to be. In fact, it took me such a long time to start writing this review because I had saved so many screencaps that I couldn't choose which one to put as the photo to start off the article. In fact, I'll just include the rest here:

I recommend clicking to enlarge.

I wish that all it would take for a film to be successful and enjoyable was something pretty to look at. (As an aside, if Lee Pace had had more screentime, there would have been quite enough pretty to look at right there.) I wish this had been a great movie. I wish I could say that I loved everything about it, and that it didn't disappoint. But I really was disappointed. I wish I, like Roger Ebert, could be okay with the fact that it is what it is, and not have any higher aspirations than that. But I want more from it. I want more from Tarsem who has completely mastered one aspect of filmmaking, but is quite deficient in others. If he could team up with someone, writer or director, and combine his talent with another, the combination would be out of this world. To just sort of fantasize for a moment, if he and Wong Kar-Wai put their heads together, I think it might almost be overwhelming. That's the kind of potential that is there!

All in all, however, for all my criticism, I was not bored. Some reviews called it dull, but I was more consumed either by how beautiful it was or how much I wished it were better to leave any time for boredom. I enjoyed it more than I didn't, which is more than I can say for a lot of things. There were moments that were genuinely brilliant, like the opening sequence which was a silent, slow-motion telling of Roy's suicide attempt. It was absolutely perfect. There was no dialogue, which surely helped, but nonetheless, excellent. And there were other such moments where I really was amazed at what this team could do. It almost seems unfair to tempt the audience with what could be and then not deliver. All I can do is look forward to Tarsem's next oeuvre and hope for the best.

Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen (DVD)

2008-06-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

Dir. Shari Cookson, 2001

I need to see this again. I watched this little documentary on YouTube, actually, which was pretty disappointing because more often than not, I would have to use my imagination to see the details of the unbelievable circus that is the world of child beauty pageants. Low resolution is not the way to view something that is as flamboyantly over-the-top as Living Dolls, but I found some screenshots that aided my imagination along. The documentary follows Swan Brooner, 5 years old, and her mother, Robin, as they go from pageant to pageant with the hopes of being the most beautiful and the most talented.... little kid?

What is shocking about Living Dolls is that you can see that the director, Shari Cookson, did not present the material in a way other than how it simply appears. There is no voice-over narration providing judgment or commentary; there are only a few title cards to inform the viewers where Swan and Robin are going next or to give us a bit of trivia about the ages or number of wins of a particular child. At times, whether Cookson asked Swan or Robin any questions or whether they are just saying what's on their mind is unclear. Nobody seems to be defending his or herself, and there is a real sense that all the people involved in the pageants are comfortable and used to the cameras, so there is no need for anyone to ham it up or shyly run away. Which, in itself, is somewhat disturbing.

My feelings about child acting, modeling, beauty pageants, etc, are probably among the majority, so I do not feel that I necessarily have to voice them here. This is not really about how anyone feels about it, because these parents will continue to put their children through it, regardless of how anyone on the outside feels about it, and there is not enough of a case for them to be prosecuted for endangering the health and safety of their children. We really can only watch. And that's what they want, that's what the kids are there for. They are meant to be looked at, for people to either remark on how beautiful they are, how talented, or how doll-like. Because, yikes:

That is Swan. Swan really is just a regular kid who is preternaturally blessed with Barbie-doll perfect features. Her mother is not a beautiful woman (anymore?), but she has the background in military to push her daughter through the training, trials, tribulations, tears and terror of the pageants, teaching her dance routines, songs, how to present herself during the beauty round, and how to hop around in the sportswear round. Swan does not seem to be a particularly unhappy child, although she does her fair share of sulking. Really, she seems pretty happy for people to think she is beautiful and adorable, and to show off all of her talents and make her mother proud.

In her bedroom, she proudly shows off her trophies and medals from past wins, although her age shows when she admits that she cannot remember where she won them. For her, it is not the point. She probably doesn't have a notion of what the use of attractiveness is, she is simply good at one particular thing, and she has the support and encouragement (if you want to call it that) of her mother and her family. While it is possible that she will not or has not stayed that way, she seems to be a child with pretty normal interests, like zooming around in a pedal car and splashing around in the pool with a friend her age. Her main rival during the big final pageant, a seven-year-old girl named Leslie Butler, also seems pretty willing to play while they are both primped and groomed to best the other in the pageant. It does not appear to faze them at all that they are competing against each other.

Leslie Butler is considerably more concerning than Swan Brooner. I could not find any photos of her at 7 years old, since her name is more generic, but when she has makeup on, she looks very old. Swan still looks about 5 years old, just quite literally like a living doll. Leslie looks like a very short adult. She was bred from three weeks old to be a pageant star, and if the internet serves me correctly, she has continued to win into her teens. She must be about 17 or 18 now, and she looks exactly the same as in 1999. Just a little bit bigger. Swan has faded from the annals of Google, the only evidence of her existence being a blurry image from a local newspaper in Alaska.

Leslie Butler now.

I know I keep going on about Swan and Robin and Leslie instead of talking about the film itself, but the content is quite distracting. As a film, I'm not entirely sure there's anything particularly extraordinary about it except that it merely presents the facts as they are: these are a bunch of people interested in this one particular thing, and outside of that one thing that most other people think is pretty crazy, they don't really do anything that weird. They're not shown being evangelically religious or eating extinct animals or running down roadkill for fun. Outside of child pageants, these seem like pretty regular people. So for me to focus on the contestants themselves rather than the film, is in essence focusing on the film. It is a story that has a defined story arc with a hook, failure and triumph of the will.

There's no grandiose score to highlight the impact of any particular moment, because there is no need. The people themselves are so fully invested that you can almost imagine how the orchestra may well up in their minds as they see their beloved children prancing around with makeup, big hair, and sparkly dresses. This is totally what they are into, what they love, what they want. Whether the children really want it because they genuinely want it or if they are seeking to please their parents is another matter, but it is a part of their lives. It is not any of our business, so our opinion doesn't matter. Swan, Leslie and Robin do what they do and they don't care.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-06-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2008

If you've not yet seen this, everything you've heard is true. It is what it is: cheesy, silly, sometimes exciting, sometimes not, sometimes a good idea, sometimes unnecessary. It is all of those things. What puts you in the "love it" or "hate it" faction is whether or not you accept these obvious faults. If you can get past the dumbness and have fun, you'll like it. If the dumbness just overcomes you, it'll probably be excruciating. Lucky for me, I could deal with the dumb, and I had a pretty good time for most of the film. Anyway, I've seen worse.

I should start this off by saying that I am not the Indiana Jones franchise's biggest fan. I have, at best, a passive appreciation for the third movie, and at worst, an active dislike for the second. My feelings for the first are somewhere in between. I wouldn't buy the trilogy (or the tetralogy for that matter), but I would probably watch the movies if they were on in the room. Unless it was the second one, in which case, I'd probably say some wicked things about it and then leave. Regardless, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was decent and held my attention, and I genuinely enjoyed the first half or so.

So Indy is back, and this time the bad guys are the Russians. It's somewhere in the 1950's, the Cold War is in full swing, and this time, the Russkies want a big magnetic mummy. Why? Oh, I don't know! Maybe the fact that it's stored in Area 51 should tip you off... but nevermind. The beginning is just a showcase for how "spry" Indy still is, and how the bad guys just keeping the hits coming. Through some incredibly improbable location and utilization of a lead-lined refrigerator, Indy survives an atom bomb explosion, and comes face to face with the most laughably George-Lucas-esque part of the whole film: a CG gopher. For a multi-millionaire, he sure doesn't have much artistry. But whatever.

Because it's the 1950's, and Dr. Jones was just goofing off with the Soviets in a secret government base, there is a threatening undercurrent of Red Scare, though it doesn't really make any impact on anything; it's more for historical contextualization. So Indy is fired from his teaching job, and right before leaving for some exotic location, a young upstart on his motorbike (Shia LaBeouf) comes up and rescues him from a train full of KGB agents. What follows is one of the better action sequences in the film, and therefore, the least credible. No way Indy is going to slide on his hip for half the length of a library and not fracture something. He's no spring chicken. But it's great!

That's what the whole series is about, really. There are chains of completely improbable events that by some defiance of gravity and the laws of physics, Indy manages to escape. I imagine that one's general feelings about the whole franchise plays a part in how one feels about this particular contribution. It has the exact same story line as Raiders of the Lost Ark, but this particular brand of supernatural, super-human unattainable glory that leads to the eventual downfall of the bad guys is different. I won't ruin it for the one person who hasn't heard what the "big secret" is, but it's not really that cool. In fact, it's extremely cheesy. It didn't have to be as cheesy as it was, but somewhere along the line, someone made the decision to skimp on the screenwriting and storyboarding budget, and went in a fairly ridiculous direction. I'm sure some people loved it. I rolled my eyes.

All this being said, it was better than the first two movies. Karen Allen, who returns to reprise the exact same role as in the first movie, is just as annoying as in the first one, but she's in it less. Shia LaBeouf (I always have to look up the spelling) has become a pretty interesting, able and funny action hero. Cate Blanchett is beautiful, but sadly, sadly underused. Harrison Ford totally phoned it in, but that worked for his role. With constant jokes about how it's "not as easy as it used to be," he seems as tired as he probably is, but then, he would be that tired if he had to run around various exotic locations all the time trying to stop the forces of evil from manhandling mythological artifacts. There are a couple of other cameos which are kind of funny in a "hey, that guy!" kind of way.

It's also a pretty good idea. One thing that I've liked about the series is that they take pretty well-known myths, like the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, and delve into it in a sort of Da Vinci Code kind of way, but way before that book came out and made the idea of supernatural archaeology smug and self-satisfied. A good idea goes a long way, but sometimes it is poorly handled. Just like in The Butterfly Effect the good idea gets points, but if the execution is flawed, you can't help but feel some disappointment. The idea for Crystal Skull was interesting enough to get me hooked, and the early pursuits in the first half of the film were exciting, but they didn't deliver at the end. It's too bad, really. I don't know who to blame more: George Lucas for being a terrible artist and ham-handed producer, or Steven Spielberg, whom I do not like much, and who has a nauseating penchant for the sentimental. Their collaboration has worked in the past, but it's not a sure thing to me.

I sound like I'm more on the fence than I feel. I mostly liked this! I am one of the people who could overlook the improbabilities and exaggerations and clunky storytelling, and get into it and enjoy it for what it is. The fact remains, however, that there are a lot of problems, though they are not unique to this particular film. All of the Indiana Jones films have these problems; it's a silly series. Occasionally exciting, and mostly entertaining, but pretty ridiculous. I've nitpicked the faults that the series has, because it is not perfect. But it's not horrible, and it doesn't ruin everything. An eyeroll is a pretty harsh critique, but it's completely deserved. I'd say it was consistent with the series, and serves as a legitimate continuation thereof. For better or for worse.

The Visitor

2008-06-13T02:11:00.000-07:00

Dir. Tom McCarthy, 2007

If you have not seen The Station Agent, drop everything and do it now. Tom McCarthy, actor and director extraordinaire, is one of the up and coming directors that I think is on his way to doing something mindblowingly fantastic. You're going to want to be in the know when that happens. Why? I'm not sure! But I am nothing but pleased to know this man's work because I am enjoying every minute of it. The Station Agent, his first film, was beautiful in its simplicity, humanity, and humor, and it introduced me to the wonderful Bobby Canavale. It is altogether a sparkling gem of a film that would be incredibly difficult to follow up. Yet, somehow, The Visitor managed to follow it with a similar poignant success. It shows that Tom McCarthy is more that just a one-trick pony or a lucky guy with a good idea, but someone with a true eye for pathos and humanity.

The film follows a widowed university professor, Walter Vale, who leads a repetitive and passionless life, and who is persuaded by a coworker to go to New York City for a convention. In doing so, he returns to his apartment in the city, which he has not visited in about 10 years. When he gets there, he finds that the apartment has been temporarily inhabited by a Syrian and Senegalese couple. Rather than let them fend for themselves in the big city, he invites them to continue to stay with him. The man, Tarek, warms to Walter more quickly, and teaches him to play the drums, while it takes the woman, Zainab, longer to see Walter as a friend. They are all brought closer together when an unfortunate mishap in the subway leads to Tarek's arrest and consequent detainment, for he is in the country illegally. Zainab cannot visit him, or she too will be detained, and soon Tarek's mother, Mouna, comes from Michigan to find him. Walter, all the while, has clearly been taken by this lively and loving group of people, and does all that he can to save Tarek from deportment.

I don't know anything about Tom McCarthy's personal life, but it is intriguing that he would choose subjects that seem so outside of his apparent "world," but then I realize that while they may seem different, they are, in fact, just like anyone else. In The Station Agent, the main character is a dwarf whose best friend and business partner suddenly dies, leaving him a small piece of property in a town in New Jersey, where he must adjust to his curious neighbors. The Visitor is about an insider who is the outsider among outsiders, involving a clash between religions, cultures, and governments. His "fish out of water" scenarios seem so unique that you don't even realize that it follows a fairly common story line. His characters are always very simple, and yet complex, facing issues that both everyone and no-one faces.

Walter Vale, who is played brilliantly and sweetly by Richard Jenkins, comes off as cold and pathetic at first. His performance hit really close to home with me; he perfectly portrayed how a complete lack of inspiration and creativity in your life can make you feel empty and unfriendly. His gradual interest in the drums was quite realistic, and once it became a pivotal part of his life, I felt that there was so much more concealed within him than just expression of his latent creativity. I had only known Richard Jenkins from "Six Feet Under," and his role was not particularly interesting to me, so I was pleased to find that he is actually quite an excellent actor. What made his performance so appealing was how heartbreakingly sweet it was, yet it didn't make me cry by employing cheap heartstring-tugging techniques. You can see that he is sad that his friend has been detained, but rather than break down and sob in a bathroom, or some other cinematic cliche, he quietly and stoically acts as messenger between Tarek, Zainab and Mouna, selflessly using to everyone's advantage his unique freedom to go between the outside world and the detainment center without fear of legal repercussions.

The fact that the film is about a Visitor rather than Visitors is a brilliant move on McCarthy's part. Walter is clearly the outsider, even though, legally, he is the free one, the employed one, the citizen. Throughout the entire film, he appears uncomfortable in his own skin, even among his peers. He eventually learns to loosen up a bit and play his drum in public, but even though he is clearly moved by the music, he retains some of the awkwardness and unhip-ness that he's carried throughout. Again, this resonates so strongly with me, because even when I feel "comfortable," I am still so self-conscious and aware of my surroundings, and it is interesting to see how someone can show this without outright saying it.

So the acting is good, the script is good, the plot is good, and it certainly doesn't hurt that nearly everyone in this film is gorgeous. Visually, it is colorful, intimate, slow and loving, a true sonnet for the Northeast. The actors who play the roles of Zainab, Tarek and Mouna are not conventional beauties, but the kind of people that you could imagine meeting through another friend, and growing familiar with their faces. Mouna even reminds me of my own mother. Every detail of this film seems precision engineered, down to the crinkles in her face. I really loved this, and will wait with bated breath for Tom McCarthy to grace the world with his third film.

The Butterfly Effect (DVD)

2008-06-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

Dirs. Eric Bress & J. Mackye Gruber, 2004

When this first came out, I sneered at it. I assumed it would be terrible, that it would be about some dumb guy who lived alternate realities that were tied together by a Satanic roommate with lots of eye makeup and big, spiky hair. I did not give it more than one thought, and proceeded to forget which movie it was whenever it was mentioned, only to finally identify it as "that Ashton Kutcher movie." It was not a film I took seriously, and I probably would never have seen it were it not for the recommendation of someone whose opinion I value. So I thought I'd check it out. At the very least, I might be able to laugh at it.

What made me consider watching it, besides this friend merely saying it was good, was her saying that it was a really good idea. I can appreciate a good idea, even if it is not perfectly executed. And it is a good idea. Ashton Kutcher plays a guy, Evan, whose childhood was so profoundly traumatic that it left him with blackouts instead of memories, and ruined the lives of his three childhood friends who experienced all or most of these traumatic events with him. His mother moves him out of the town after the neighborhood bully, Tommy, burns Evan's dog alive, knocks out his own sister, Kayleigh, and psychologically wounds Evan's other friend, Lenny. Evan promises to come back for Kayleigh, but only remembers her 6 years later, in college. He finds her working as a waitress in a truck stop, where she is harassed and molested daily, and when he asks her about what she remembers from their childhood, she becomes so upset that she runs off and kills herself. All this happens within the first 12 minutes or so.

The film becomes a whirlwind of time travel and rewriting history: Evan finds out that by rereading his old journals, he is taken back in time to when the traumatic events of his childhood took place, and he is able to retain the memories and knowledge of his past lives in order to change his actions and decisions, and therefore change the future. However, each time he changes something to improve one of his friends' lives, someone else's becomes equally ruined, including his own. Ever the optimist, he continues to try new things, until a major sacrifice has to be made: his own happiness. By going back in time, he learns more about people than he was able to know from the first run of his life, and therefore make the decision to change everyone's priorities.

What works in this is also exactly what doesn't work. It's pure fantasy, and therefore can't really be taken too seriously, but if it could happen, what does happen may or may not be the most likely outcome. Many of the changes in time and history that occur appear too contained, too pat, but then again, if they really did spiral out of control into the proverbial hurricane caused by those proverbial butterfly wing beats, the film would be far too convoluted, and therefore completely impossible to follow and maybe not entirely pleasant to watch. Or maybe not! Maybe I'm only assuming that my perception of the altered future must be closer to real, when I can't possibly know that. The point is, there were stylistic choices made, and this is fundamentally a piece of fiction, pretty well, but not excruciatingly well researched. A good effort, and a good piece of imagination committed to film.

However, because the filmmakers are creating an alternate universe, they are creating one with a whole set of rules. Those rules dictate that when Evan reads his own memories, he's transported to that time, where he apparently has the option to make some minor change, like injure himself, and then will himself to snap immediately right back into that same reality he jumped out of, or make a really big change and end up back into that chronological place in an alternate reality. It's totally arbitrary, and who's to say that once he goes back in time, so long as he's there, he shouldn't relive everything else all over again, all those 10, 8, 6 years it takes to get back to "now?" This is only one such rule, but in order to remain consistent, regardless of how arbitrary the rules may be, they must be adhered to. It doesn't have to make sense in my universe, but it has to in theirs.

Laws of the universe aside, this is also a pretty sweet movie. Not sweet like "sweet, dude, where's my car," but rather, amusing and charming. This is probably aided by the presence of Amy Smart, who plays Kayleigh, and is just the cutest thing. Her acting skills are pretty average, but she adapts her look to compensate for what may not come naturally as an actress. Ashton Kutcher does an acceptable job of not playing Kelso or Ashton Kutcher. I allow myself to be impressed by the surprising acting prowess of someone otherwise perceived as being one-dimensional. I was as much impressed by Seann William Scott in Southland Tales (possibly the most satisfying thing to come out of that train wreck), and I was pleased to see that AK did not resort to his overused mannerisms or delivery. He and Amy Smart make a pretty pleasant couple, and I found myself getting occasionally caught up in their romance and hoping for the best.

I'm sure that someone who was really in the mood could easily have a field day pointing out all the inconsistencies and unlikely events and violations of the laws of physics, but I do not have the will nor the education to do so. I like for my intellect to be challenged a little more than this, but it was a stalwart effort. The script is thin at times, the connections tenuous, and the drama a bit heavy-handed, but the overall effect was pretty entertaining. I'm in far too positive a mood right now to really bash the thing for what it might possibly deserve. I was not bored, nor did I roll my eyes, and sometimes that is a major credit.

Traffic (DVD)

2008-06-10T02:06:00.000-07:00

Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2000

I've seen this movie before. Back in 2000, when I first saw it, I was amazed, and it stayed with me for a long time. I consider its Oscar loss to Gladiator one of the worst travesties of film history, but that's another story. I have long wanted to see it again, and have had access to it, but put it off because it's so intense that I never felt in the mood. Finally, all the conditions were right, and I indulged in this piece of cinematic mastery. The last time I saw this, I was 17 years old. I don't really remember in detail what I thought of it, only that it made a great impression upon me. It is now eight years later, and I feel that seeing this with a "whole new" set of eyes and so many years of maturity and experience have changed the way I look at it somewhat.

Traffic follows three story lines that interweave through the relations between the characters and the geographic regions that they inhabit and visit. The first is the Tijuana plot, involving two cops (one of whom is Benicio del Toro, who is excellent) who are coerced by General Salazar to help him bring down one of the drug cartels in order to further his interests as an investor in a rival cartel. The second follows Bob Wakefield (Michael Douglas) who is newly commissioned as leader of the War Against Drugs, but his daughter (Erika Christensen) is an ever-escalating drug addict. The third follows the trail against a known drug lord in San Diego, apprehended through an informant (Miguel Ferrer) by two American cops (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman), and whose pregnant wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) takes matters into her own hands to eliminate the informant who will be the star witness in the prosecution trial.

I think what makes this so appealing is the way that everything is presented in such a way that the lines between villain and hero are either blurred or nonexistent; morality is relative and the bigger picture can be too big for any one person's scope. There are "good" guys, as in decent guys, who are clearly doing things with their hearts in the right place, but some of their actions may affect other people negatively. I am very interested lately in seeing things outside of an obvious good vs. evil dichotomy, since I have a maddening tendency to think along those terms, and I am constantly battling my own brain to stop doing this. But everyone's best efforts seem to be kept in check by everyone else's, and you can't really fault anyone completely, or absolve anyone completely for any of the actions they undertake.

This relativity seems to also be reflected in the color palette: In the beginning of the film, the cops in Tijuana are filmed in grainy yellow. Bob Wakefield in Ohio and Washington DC is filmed with a cold blue filter. The characters in the San Diego setting appear mostly neutral. However, as the film progresses and the characters move around, Benicio del Toro in San Diego is shown in a neutral hue. Bob Wakefield turns grainy yellow when he visits Mexico. The colors are not assigned to the characters so much as they are prescribed to the geographic locations, as though these are all dimensions of reality, each one with its own culture and sense of justice.

Is it wrong to protect your own and the future of your own children? The knee-jerk answer is yes. Even if it means killing someone who could justifiably incriminate your husband for drug trafficking? It's funny, because this is obviously about illegal, recreational drugs, which are pretty difficult to defend in any setting. I mean, you can, but it's definitely not a popular position. However, there are plenty of legal-yet-sketchy, or not-legal-yet-maybe-should-be enterprises where the same scenario would be somewhat more controversial. If I were to devise a totally improbable situation, like someone serving as star witness against someone accused of prostitution, and this prostitute has a family who suffers greatly from his/her incarceration, it is kind of a different story. There are many compelling arguments in favor of legalized and controlled prostitution, and if you believed with all your heart and soul that the life of one person was worth sacrificing for the greater good of your family and young children, it might be an attractive idea to have that star witness snuffed out.

However, this film does not address any grayer-area issues like prostitution. It DOES deal with illegal drug trafficking. Many people believe without question that this is wrong and bad. Other people believe without question that it is not a matter in which the government needs to have a hand, and that it is the perpetual enforcement of laws outlawing it which make it more appealing, therefore resulting in ironic self-fulfilling prophecy. Topher Grace, who plays Erika Christensen's boyfriend, has an interesting speech wherein he lashes out at Bob Wakefield for sneering at the state of downtown (Cleveland?), saying that selling drugs is so lucrative here because white people already know to come to the black ghetto looking for them. Were the roles switched, and black people started coming to white neighborhoods asking how to score some drugs, white people would quickly turn to making the easiest, most obvious profit. This is a pretty bold statement for a film that had such a wide release. But then again, Hollywood is often marginalized as crazy.

I love depressing films as much as anyone. Probably more than just anyone. When a film ends on such a helpless note that you feel completely consumed by the futility of your life and all of your actions, I love that. It gets a good cry out of me, I think really hard about my role in society, rededicate myself to my ambitions, and then, post-catharsis, continue on my merry way. As I get older, though, I find myself enjoying slightly less tragic turnouts. Traffic is totally satisfying for its ability to strum that chord of tragedy, but still flirting with the possibility that there are still good people in the world, or at least well-meaning people whose net output is positive. At the risk of giving everything away, which I probably mostly have anyway, most characters manage to succeed in some way, making things better for themselves and those that they care about. Sometimes, it injures more than other times, but it successfully paints a detailed picture of the complexities of human nature and the code of ethics and morals that govern both nations and individuals.

Fido (DVD)

2008-05-31T22:50:00.000-07:00

Dir. Andrew Currie, 2006

I've been mulling for a while over what to write about this film, obviously, since the timestamp reads May 31 and I'm actually writing this on June 5. I mostly just started this because I am anxious to write about the next film and I want to finish this review first. Actually, that pretty well sums up how I feel about the film.

The film begins with a sort of cheesy newsreel recapping the last few years of history, when a giant radioactive cloud from Outer Space! came to earth and started re-animating dead people. It led to a giant, epic war, wherein small safe zones were created, surrounded by chainlink fence, to keep the zombies out, and the living people in. Meanwhile, one of the great minds of our (their) time created a way to make good use of zombies by turning them into domestic servants controlled by electronic collar. Rumor has it that he had a hard time giving up his deceased, re-animated wife. The newsreel ends, and it is an elementary school class presentation. There is a guest speaker, the new chief of security at Zomcon, the company that controls and manufactures the zombie servants. This guy has a prim, intelligent and outspoken pretty young daughter who catches the eye of what we can only assume is the main kid character: a Culkin lite without the acting chops who thinks that Zomcon is stupid.

The setting is pretty intelligent. I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the filmmakers and assume that it was their idea to make this post-apocalyptic society more like the 1950's (complete with car styles, dress and bold hues) to replicate the post-WWII society that emerged once everyone felt that the threat of the end of the world was over. Actually, I'll go a step further and say that it must have been intentional because it's pretty brilliant to have the illusion of security of the post-war society, when really there is a second war going on, the "cold war" if you will, of man vs. zombie, but on a smaller setting. There is a sense of paranoia and disquiet in this community, because people do not trust the elderly and infirm, and would prefer that they removed themselves from society to prevent accidental zombie outbreak.

I might also be giving the filmmakers too much credit. Anyway.

Discount Culkin's mother (Carrie-Ann Moss) chooses the day that the new chief of security moves in to acquire their first zombie servant, Fido (Billy Connolly), even though she knows that her husband (Dylan Baker) will not approve, as he also thinks that Zomcon is stupid. CAM is tired of being the only family on the block without a zombie, and that new family has four! Dad completely distrusts the zombie, which we learn is because he had to kill his own re-animated father. Turns out, the electric zombie collar can go haywire if repeatedly struck by a blunt object, returning the zombie to its natural state. This, of course, happens to Fido, and madcap comedy ensues.

Well, not really. I couldn't with all certainty say how gory the movie actually was, since I saw it on television, on Fear.net, which I suspect edits its films. Regardless, what I did see was reasonably bloody, and somewhat humorously ironic, thought it didn't seem to commit enough to it being either a comedy or a horror movie. I was also pretty distracted a lot of the time by how much Carrie-Ann Moss looks like a darker version of Elizabeth Mitchell:

Wow!

The reason the "other" comedy zombie film, Shaun of the Dead works so well is because of its commitment to the medium. It is both satire and homage, thoroughly researched and well written. I have the feeling that Fido tried to make something that was terrifying, touching, hilarious, and somewhat socially relevant without the script being good enough or doing enough research. There were some sweet, though extremely predictable moments of obvious self-sacrifice. There is one really, really good joke which I will not ruin for anyone who actually wants to see this. But this filmmaking team is just not as clever or funny as the Shaun team, and the comparisons just cannot be avoided.

It's hard to say whether this film was trying to go along with a fairly conventional 1950's suburban society storyline with an ironic culture, or if it was trying to be entirely novel by turning conventions backwards and putting an otherwise very futuristic scenario in a very vintage setting. I would say that the first option is most likely, though neither of them seems to have been particularly successful. It made a valiant attempt, and overall, the performances were enjoyable, that one joke was really very good, and there was clearly care put into the appearance of the film. But it was just not enough. There are hints of homage to the ill-fated romances from Douglas Sirk films, and the tragic heroes of war films, but it is so very superficial.

As I've been writing this review, my opinion swung from being impressed with what I thought the filmmakers were trying to do, to ultimately deciding that they were not quite so clever as to successfully pull off a cross-historical, ironic horror/comedy. If it turns out that they had every intention of creating irony by putting the zombie apocalypse in the cliche 1950's idyllic lifestyle, then I congratulate the brains behind that operation, and feel sorry that they didn't manage to get the whole picture in their heads before actually making the film. If they were actually trying to make Shaun of the Dead 2.0, then I am disappointed that they didn't try hard enough.

Casino Royale (DVD)

2008-05-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

Dir. Martin Campbell, 2006

I was kind of composing this in my head, and really, all I could think was to compose it in terms of top-5 lists. Which is to say that, in my opinion, Casino Royale is definitely one the 5 best James Bond films. I have difficulty really ranking things in order of preference, because I feel that it really does change day to day, according to my mood or what I have seen more recently, but there is no doubt about which would be in the top.

Goldfinger
You Only Live Twice
Live or Let Die
Casino Royale
Die Another Day

I would venture to say that this is a perfect Bond film. It is stylistically spot-on; the Bond girl is both stunning and interesting; Daniel Craig is smoking hot and has the right wry persona to seem like both a credible spy and badass; the theme song is really good; the plot is convoluted, but understandable, and socially relevant without being instantly dated; and the humor is ever-so-slightly more highbrow than past Bond films, which, to me, makes it funnier. (I might be a humor snob. I will further investigate this claim.)

I love the Bond franchise. Somehow, it just appeals to me, and I have seen every single film, even the ones that are out of character or context, like On Her Majesty's Secret Service and the first Casino Royale, though of some of them, I remember little. I love the slick, improbable action and the corny humor, even though you could easily fault these films for being ridiculous and cheesy. Casino Royale just works so well for me because it just upped the ante on all the components of the formula.

As far as a reboot of the series, the decisions that they made are quite intelligent, though I'm not entirely a fan of all of them. I think the idea to reboot it at all was particularly brilliant, even though Pierce Brosnan was a good James Bond, because it had become extremely stale. The 40-year story arc, which, even though it is not explicitly admitted to be so, was dated. The kind of battles that spies theoretically would be fighting right now are not large-scale Cold War or even North Korea conflicts anymore, even though it is still a concern to foreign policy. The real "war," much as I don't like it, is the ever-present war on terror, which has been taken on by a variety of Western governments. It doesn't make sense to follow the patterns of obvious national enemies, because like the Vietnam War on a larger scale, anybody could be a terrorist, and the inherent distrust and frustration that stems from it makes for some more realistic cinema.

The film begins with James Bond's second kill, which elevates him to the rank of 00. Bond 2.0 is cold, brutal, and not quite as smooth or funny as the previous Bonds, but his humor is much drier, his wit far more acerbic. He is the perfect action hero, who is credible as being as bad-ass as any variety of muscle-bound heroes, but still smooth enough to wear a tux, order a mixed drink, and kill someone without letting an entire room full of people notice. He goes on to try and catch a supposed bomb-maker in Madagascar, proving that he is not only a perfect action hero for this generation, but skilled at parkour, which should make him a hit with the indie kids of today. He catches this delinquent, then violates the Geneva convention by shooting him in his own embassy on camera, and M does not hesitate to give him all kinds of crap for it.

The plot is obviously just a vehicle for an exposition of muscle and beauty, brilliantly choreographed fight scenes, tender/sensual love scenes, and of the new set of life-preserving toys that Q must have prepared for him, though he does not actually appear in the film. Rumor has it that Q will not appear in the next Bond film either, which is disappointing because some of the best humor was the banter between the ever-impatient Q and the goofy side of Bond. I agree, however, that it was not in the spirit of the film to have this interaction, and would have disrupted the pacing, but I did miss it. However I feel that John Cleese, the replacement Q of the last Brosnan Bond film, would have been too silly for the new Bond. Desmond Llewellyn would have done nicely, but, unfortunately, he died in 1999.

I think what ultimately sets this over the edge is its dedication to the Bond genre throughout its revision. The silly, nude-women in silhouette opening credit sequence is a completely ridiculous and dated device, but still used, though interspersed with interesting graphic effects. Plus the theme song is a little more hard rock than all the previous ones, contributing further to the new Bond persona. Additionally, because I have seen the entire canon, I know about the Bond back story, how he met a woman that made him let down his guard, only to have that taken away from him so brutally that he could "never love again." In the original films, it took the parenthetical 1969 On Her Majesty's secret Service to show this to the world, while this time, they just start it off right away. The circumstances change in this one, however, because rather than the love of his life getting killed, she betrays him and kills herself, which more understandably hardens Bond into the unfeeling womanizer that he becomes.

Die Another Day, which as mentioned before is one of my top 5 Bond films, I believe tried to breathe some life into the series by setting new records (the first time Bond is portrayed having sex with a Bond girl, the first time the singer of the theme song [Madonna] appears in the film itself), but they are things that few people really cared to see except for already die-hard fans, who were more interested in catching all the references to past Bond films, which they did to commemorate the 40th anniversary of James Bond. To rework it and change the rules altogether worked to re-engage the movie-going public in the franchise, and to refuel the interest of pre-existing fans. While some key components were taken out completely, like Q, there were some that were rejected humorously, like Bond's lack of interest in whether his martini is shaken or stirred. Such amendments are both fresh and interesting to catch, for both kinds of viewers.

To sum, I was impressed, entertained, excited, and engaged by the idea of the new direction that Bond is going. I've seen the film twice now, I believe, and for the first time, I am actively looking forward to the next in the series rather than merely being happy to see it once it does arrive. I expect Quantum of Solace (what a name, though, eh) to be a good time, and if it is anywhere near as good as Casino Royale, it would become, for me, the best action franchise that is currently in the works.

The Band's Visit

2008-05-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

Bikur Ha-Tizmoret, Dir. Eran Kolirin, 2007

There is something that I feel a lot of critics tend to have difficulty discerning, and it is the difference between supposed intent of a film, and what it actually achieves. Because of this, there are some awful films, mediocre films, misguided films, or underwhelming films that are so highly critically acclaimed, merely because they hint at something very socially conscious, or at a unique idea that is not actually carried to term.

This is what I feel about the critical reception of The Band's Visit, an ultimately decent film, but one that does not stir anything special in me. It is not a bad movie, but it is not a great one. What it does do, it does well, which is to paint a portrait of a group of (I cringe to use this phrase, but that's what they are) unlikely characters who end up in the same space and get to know each other, reflect on their differences, and have some sweet, funny, or sorrowful moments. And that's it.

It is mostly set in a small town in Israel where a small police band from Egypt accidentally ends up due to errors in pronunciation of the foreign tongue. They believe themselves to be in Petah Tikva, where there is an Arab cultural center, but are actually in Beit Hatikva, where there is "no culture, not Arab culture, not Israeli culture." The buses run only once or twice a day, so the band members will have to stay in this cultural wasteland for a whole night! They are split into three and taken in by a female proprietor of a small restaurant, Dina, someone else she presumably knows who lets them stay in the restaurant itself, and an out-of-work family man whose wife resents him bitterly.

There are nice moments. One of the band members, a tall, blue-eyed Lothario, Khaled, who is blamed for the botched whole mishap, ends up with the lieutenant of the police squad, Tawfiq, in Dina's apartment. They are all three very different and probably sort of hate/are intrigued by each other, and so everything they do and say to reveal to each other their relative humanity is both amusing and kind of cute. Dina takes a night out with Tawfiq, where they talk about things, offend each other, and then open up to each other in the formula typical of the fish-out-of-water scenario. Khaled hitches along with a youngster from the town on an ill-fated date, teaches him a thing or two about seducing women, and hilarity ensues.

This film isn't really about the plot, obviously, as you can pretty well figure out what's going to happen. The acting is very good, the music is interesting, the cinematography is very Wes Andersonesque with a touch of Wim Wenders, so it's quite pleasing to look at. The characters are varied, quirky, relatable, and it is really nice to see them interact. That is what I enjoyed about the movie, is experiencing the culture clash and the inevitable acceptance by and of the characters. It doesn't happen with everyone; the unemployed family man's family was not at any time pleased with their visitors, and the band members themselves seemed eager to just get out of there. But it's set up so that this day that the police band took the wrong bus to Beit Hatikva was probably one of the most memorable days in the lives of all involved.

And I think that the analysis ends there. I know that there is a heavy assumption that this is a commentary on Israeli-Arab relations, but I don't believe that it was actually addressed. Perhaps when you make a film about Arabs in Israel, or Israelis in in any Arab nation, that degree of social commentary is implied. But implication does not a political movie make. They could just as well have been Mongolians in Israel. They weren't however, and that's the point. But there has to be more commitment to this social commentary in order for the filmmaker(s) to take credit for it.

I do not need an idea beaten over my head. I am not one of those people. I knew that there would be an issue for all Israelis in the movie to be housing and feeding a group of broke Arabs, and that some of them would get over it and some of them wouldn't. To this day, some of my own family cannot conceive of thinking something good about Muslims. It's just how people are. But in this film, there is no growth. It takes place over such a short time that the people who were going to be accepting of the Egyptians in the beginning, were so in the end, and those who were not, were also not in the end. There doesn't need to be growth in a film, and it can hardly be expected for one that takes place over the course of about 24 hours. But rather than it being a commentary on Israeli-Arab relations and building some sort of bridge between the two cultures, showing that we are all human and this is all just one big messy misunderstanding and can't we all get along, blah blah, it is a snapshot of what some people can think about each other, right now.

The big realization that any of the characters have is of their own selves. Among the Egyptian policemen, the lieutenant Tawfiq and the young buck Khaled both realize that the other is not a stuffy automaton and a mindless sexaholic, respectively. They learn to respect each other, and this is catalyzed by Dina's presence, but probably would have happened even if she were not Israeli. At the home of the unhappy family man, one of the police officers was stuck with a symphony that he had started writing long ago, plays it for the family man who is amazed and thinks that it's a great piece. They have a conversation about how sad each and the other is, and when the family man walks out of the room, the policeman hears the baby's lullaby mobile and gets the inspiration to finish his piece. This is hardly personal growth or cultural awareness. It's plagiarism, if anything. But for all I know, it's an Israeli lullaby which he would have never heard had they not taken a wrong turn, and so hooray for cultural differences?

Perhaps I expect too much from films. I expect my political commentary films to have something to say, not just ride the wave of cultural expectation. It seems like an easy way out to have Muslims in a Jewish land and for them to get along. That's as easy as it is to make an edgy, gutsy film, apparently. No edge, no guts, just riding on the tension that the audience expects from such a set up without actually creating it. It's lazy filmmaking, really. If the exact same film were made with the same plot but with the Egyptians getting lost in, say, Russia, nobody would call out about its supposed message about resolving centuries-long cultural conflict. There are some who certainly will not agree with me, but I feel that this is merely an adequate movie.

Southland Tales

2008-04-24T16:48:00.000-07:00

Dir. Richard Kelly, 2006

I haven't been writing reviews because I sort of felt that nobody should really care what I have to say about movies, but then I figured that's the wrong attitude to have, but by then I'd gotten out of the habit, and I am nothing if not a creature of habit. But this film really made me break that habit because I have a lot to say about it. And it all mainly stems from how disappointed I am.

Last year, there were a lot of movies whose trailers made me really excited. When I saw the Southland Tales trailer, it was officially the movie I was most looking forward to. If not the most, then definitely among the top 5. It was because visually, it looked fascinating and original; the cast was terrible, but I thought that there would be an ironic terribleness to it that would end up working really well, and because I really liked Donnie Darko, I was looking forward to the next film by Richard Kelly. It seemed like a winning combination.

Alas. And this is a big alas. I did not like it at all. Who knew that a bad cast would actually be just that: a bad cast? Turns out that Justin Timberlake isn't a great actor. Turns out that The Rock doesn't really do tweaky and weird very well. Turns out that I will never be able to stand Sarah Michelle Gellar and Cheri Oteri will never not be annoying. Turns out I will always hate Christopher Lambert, and turns out even Lou Taylor Pucci couldn't make a white cholo work. The big surprise was actually that Seann William Scott, someone I had entirely discounted from being worth anything at all, plays the straight man pretty well. He should look into dramas, I think he might actually have the chops. I was really hoping that Wallace Shawn would utter just one self-referential "inconceivable!" but, alas.

The cast really was the least of it, I was just particularly disappointed that it didn't work out. I love post-apocalytpic films, books, anything, so I really thought that this would be the next, new, absurd and surreal post-apocalypse as dreamed up by the creator of Donnie Darko, and that just sounded so awesome. This film is NOT post-apocalyptic, it's pre-and-presently apocalyptic. It is surprising to me that this is less interesting than the post- scenario, since the apocalypse seems like something that would be exciting and action-packed. I suppose it could be interesting, since I like monster disaster movies, but the political meltdown/Orwellian downfall is a bit less captivating. Or maybe it wouldn't be if it were in the hands of someone with a better sense for storytelling and coherent narrative.

Because, really, the biggest disappointment was how bizarre and disjointed it was. Bizarre and disjointed can work sometimes, if there is an overarching narrative or point that will eventually be made obvious, or if the director is David Lynch, whom Richard Kelly is clearly trying to emulate. (There were some painfully blatant "homages" that looked more like cheap ripoffs, like having Rebekah del Rio sing a haunting version of an old standard in a fairly pivotal scene.) One gets the idea that there should be a lot more information about the "history" leading up to the apocalypse because there are characters whose names are hardly mentioned, if at all, and whose presence do not seem necessary, but nonetheless are portrayed by fairly famous actors. Similarly, the introductory narration at the beginning of the film seems to gloss over things very quickly, giving you only a vague notion of what the intended importance of that information actually is.

I learned that there was a series of comic book prequels to this film that were released, and I think that might work really well. It seems like the kind of story that needs to be long and explanatory, with different parts of the story and different characters each having its own focus. I might actually check those out once I get the bad taste of this film out of my mouth. As a film, however, there is nothing to really latch onto in order to grasp any meaning behind the characters' motivations, and you hardly even learn their names. It seems like a rich source for an alternative history of the United States/world, but unless you make it up in your head as you go along to flesh out the scenarios, it's nothing but brief vignettes with some shiny special effects and pretty people in makeup and costumes.

This wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it might be the biggest letdown. Richard Kelly is clearly riding on the popularity of Donnie Darko, thinking that he can use tactics previously employed since it worked so well. What worked once doesn't always work twice, and a semi-non-linear, deconstructed narrative makes sense in a movie that is kind of about time travel, but not in one with so many characters and where there is so much information trying to be conveyed. I don't know if I have any suggestions on how this could be better. I wish I did, because I would watch this movie remade, revamped and retooled. It has so much potential for something good, and all that potential was squandered.

Grindhouse

2007-04-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

Dirs. Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, 2007

While this is billed in some countries as two separate movies, and is rumored to start being released as separate movies, I think that the two component films of Grindhouse need each other in order to best be understood. The two films, Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez and Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino, are interesting on their own, and showcase the talents of the directors well, but without the context of the other film (and the fake trailers before and between them), they are just a campy zombie movie and a car chase movie.

Although I have seen a few movies by Robert Rodriguez, El Mariachi (a really long time ago), "The Misbehavers" sequence in Four Rooms, Sin City and now Planet Terror, I feel like I haven't seen THE Robert Rodriguez movie, Desperado, so I don't know what is typical for him or not. Now that I actually lay it all out, I suppose I have seen a decent amount of his stuff, but anyway. In this film, you can see that he really, really wanted to make this movie, and that were he directing in the 1970's, he would have fit in perfectly among the standard grindhouse fare.

His is a movie about a society upon which a biological substance is unleashed on the population of a town or village or something, and the locals start turning into oozing pustule-covered zombies. Only a group of magically uninfected people, most notably Cherry played by Rose McGowan and (El) Wray played by Freddie Rodriguez, can fight them off and make the world safe for humans again. Among this group is also a sort of naughty nurse, played by Marley Shelton who has been trying to escape her evil doctor husband for a presumably long time. This large group comes together and fights off the advancing zombies in increasingly silly and far-fetched ways, much to everyone's entertainment.

I am not a huge aficionado of this genre, but I can easily recognize it, and I can see the effort that went into making Planet Terror. It is difficult to make a really good movie, and presumably not as difficult to make a mediocre or unintentionally bad movie. But to deliberately write a cheesy, campy, off-the-wall gory and absurdly objectifying movie must be hard work. It can't sound too good, and it can't sound too convincing. There must always be the right amount of eye-rollingly corny one-liners and tender, meaningful moments that are really just filler while the zombies wreak a little more havoc. Freddy Rodriguez, whom I had admired before in Six Feet Under has perfect delivery of these lines and seems to have been born to do C-rate movie camp. Rose McGowan is a captivating kind of actress, whose acting talents have nothing to do with anything, but whose face, figure, and perfectly made-up lips are well suited to be the sensitive but hard machine-gun leg wielding heroine.

Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof is a little more complicated. While Planet Terror could be zapped back 30 years into the past and fit in as one of the zombie goresploitation genre, Death Proof is a modern take on the 70's action film, and is more of an homage than a stand-in for the real thing. Which is to say that while Rodriguez may have been making a film outside of his regular modus operandi, Tarantino makes, well, a Tarantino film. I've read several reviews and opinions on Grindhouse and some people hated Death Proof and found it drawn-out and boring, and others thought it was great, the better of the two films. I am in the second camp, but just barely. Again, I feel that they could stand alone as separate films, but do not.

Tarantino's style is quite evidently employed here, with long conversations about seemingly irrelevant topics; lingering shots over the female characters' feet and other body parts; quick, sharp, witty dialogue that is predictably profanity-laden; and quick fleeting moments of solitary vulnerability. While watching this, I had no idea what was going on. I had seen Rosario Dawson in the credits, but she didn't make an appearance until halfway through, so I was unsure what, exactly, I was watching. I realized that this is Tarantino making us grow attached to his sexy, strong women on their night out together before he sics Stuntman Mike, played by Kurt Russell, on them.

Kurt Russell was never creepy to me before, perhaps because all I knew him from was Escape From New York and Big Trouble in Little China, plus some very small cameos in films that I wasn't paying that much attention to. But it is perhaps his uncreepiness and surface amiability and uncoolness that makes him kind of scary. He is so impossible to read, and if I didn't already know that there would be some kind of death and demolition in this movie, I'd think that he was just some guy. But he is a brilliant serial killer, using his death-proof stunt car as a weapon for causing epic accidents and walking away nearly unscathed.

Finally, the second half of the films rolls around and you see the "big" names. (Those being Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms whom I know from Rent, and Zoe Bell, the brilliant stuntwoman who doubled Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and Lucy Lawless in "Xena." There is a fourth woman, but I don't know her and she is less important.) Zoe is visiting the United States from New Zealand, and has decided that what she really wants to do while she's there is to test-drive a particular Dodge that was featured prominently in the 70's film, Vanishing Point. When taking it out for a dangerous, stunt-laden spin, she and her friends come across Stuntman Mike who is out again on one of his murderous rampages. However, this time he is met with resistance and hilarity/suspense/shock/awe ensues.

One can obviously not talk about these movies without the fake trailers. There are four of them, one before Planet Terror and three before Death Proof. Each one is directed by someone different, from Rodriguez himself, to Eli Roth, to Rob Zombie. Because they only have to be a few minutes long, the directors take it upon themselves to make these the funniest, goriest, and most cliche short films that they can. Rob Zombie's is called Werewolf Women of the SS and features such talents as his wife, Udo Kier, and Nicolas Cage as Fu Manchu, who yells something completely unintelligible, but probably hilarious. Eli Roth's short, Thanksgiving is the same kind of sick that the rest of his movies are, and while it's really hilarious, you sort of wonder what happened to him while he was growing up that he can think of such appalling situations. The best trailer though, and the one that is apparently getting made into a full-length movie (straight to video it seems), is Machete, directed by Robert Rodriguez. It is one of those vigilante Mexican federale movies, and stars Danny Trejo. Barrel of laughs, that one.

I prefer Death Proof only because I think the dialogue is well written (as to be expected), and because I apparently have a soft spot for exciting car chases and Rosario Dawson. But I think that in terms of really capturing a style and putting the work into making a film that looks like something out of a time capsule, Robert Rodriguez was really able to stretch himself and put in all the gore, cheese, barbecue, hokeyness and cliche that the genre requires. Again, I can't be sure how much of a departure it was from his style, but it seems like it was, and for that, I do applaud him. Tarantino is very good at making his kind of movie, but is it a masterpiece if it is a tribute in your own style, or if it works to be outside of your style and striving for authenticity? I suppose they are two approaches to a similar end: something exciting, shocking, and deferential to a retro style.

Kicking and Screaming

2007-04-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

Dir. Noah Baumbach, 2005

I see what this film is trying to do. I can identify in some ways with it, since I am soon a college graduate myself, constantly faced with such existential questions as "what do I do with my life?" and "am I okay doing nothing?" However, I think that the early- to mid-nineties generation, way of life, and set of values is somewhat dated. This is a period I lived through, even, though I was mostly in junior high school and didn't carry the burden of existential dilemmas.

The group of graduated students in this film are also not the exact same kind that I am; they're from an east coast school, extremely well read in philosophy and far more articulate than any college students I've met. This I obviously attribute to them being east coasters, since even though I am from California, I imagine Californians to not be as witty. But I do relate, even though I'm a different breed of misguided youth. And this is the kind of movie that probably relies on a target demographic to see themselves in the characters and laugh, cry, and fall in love again with themselves.

I can tell based on the packaging and the buzz that this movie prides itself on its witty dialogue. And it is quite witty in ways that Oscar Wilde's protege would be giggling to him as he wrote the next chamber play, but it is so intellectual that it is almost an anachronism. The first scene is a garden party for the new graduates in which they pontificate their future prospects and living situations, but it is rather contrived and overly-theatrical that it falls rather flat. Latter scenes are a bit better, but overall, not very realistic.

The most successful character in this movie is not one of the new graduates, but rather the perpetual graduate student, Chet, played by Eric Stoltz. He is JUST like what a graduate student is: way too smart, terrible social skills, and a willingness to discuss anything at any length in the most excessively literary or intellectual way. There is one scene in which he, as the bartender at the local college student-populated bar, serves a drink to the local drunk and says, "If Plato is a fine red wine, then Aristotle is a dry martini." This line pretty much sums him up. He's nearly thirty, has taken every single class at the university, and he will never graduate. He's found his niche in society; he is the grad student. And I've met a ton of people like that.

Overall, it seems like I am split on the verdict of whether or not this is really something that I identify with. In principle, it is, and my anxieties are similar to theirs, but on the other hand, the way that the characters talk and the things that they think about on a day to day basis are not necessarily my thoughts. And I am just not as smart as they are. It was pretty entertaining, most of the time, and most of the characters are endearing, but I don't think I'd see it again, or recommend it extremely highly. B- I think. If I were working on that kind of grading system.

The Lives of Others

2007-04-04T23:21:00.000-07:00

Das Leben der Anderen, Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006

Obviously this is an excellent movie, they don't just give Oscars out to anyone! ...Oh wait. Seriously, though, this movie is different. And not different in the way that the new guy you're dating is different no really he is, but completely fresh and breathtaking.

I have seen a lot of movies, and that is an understatement. I have seen more than probably 90% of my generation, and it is something I pride myself on. However, in all my (albeit 23) years of movie watching (that's right, I started young), I have only ever seen one other film that addressed the topic of Cold War East Berlin, and that was Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which isn't at all about it. I don't know why there aren't more films about this; it's a veritable untapped font of material. (Way too many fancy words in that, sorry.) In this day and age where there are constant remakes, rehashings of old stories, and sequels and/or prequels ad nauseum, it's so refreshing to see something new.

This is 1980's Cold War East Berlin where the police monitor every aspect of society, or at least try to. This secret police, the Stasi, wiretap apartments with true German precision and efficiency, and report anyone who engages in a breach of political loyalty to men in suits who effectively ruin their lives. It's a scary time, and while we are no longer living in the nuclear age of the Cold War, the drab greyness and fear is illustrated so well.

What made watching this film so enjoyable was that because the topic was something I have not been exposed to often, and because foreign, especially German, films can be so unpredictable, I really didn't know what to expect. I found myself for the first time really, really hoping for a happy ending and not at all thinking it could possibly end well. I love depressing movies, and I am fully aware that this was not a happy time, but I wished unlike ever before for the well being of all of the characters, even those that I found despicable.

The acting in this is lovely; subtle and understated. I knew only one actor from another film, but I was impressed by how sensitive each person was when they needed to be, and, in turn, how hard they could be. The face of the actor Ulrich Mühe (who plays a Stasi agent who monitors the apartment of a suspected subversive playwright), hardly changing expression at all, conveys so much anger, bitterness, loneliness, and sympathy. Similarly, the actress Martina Gedeck (who plays the actress girlfriend of aforementioned playwright) is more expressive, but her portrayal of pain and indecision puts performances like Julianne Moore's in Magnolia to shame. So many people hold so much of their emotion inside, and it is so rare to find an actor who can project so much inner turmoil through small movements and slight changes in tone of voice.

This film was so satisfying. I came out of it feeling so many things, and wanting to hug anyone I saw. It almost restored my faith in humanity. Much like the film, Joyeux Noel, I thought that maybe I could understand why in times of war and hardship, people can find something to feel happy about, and continue living another day. This is not something I require of movies, nor is it something I generally seek out. But it is something that I can appreciate when it is done well.

300

2007-03-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

Dir. Zack Snyder, 2006

Three words: overblown, heavy-handed.

Well, let me start off by saying that I did not hate it. In order to hate it, I would have to really take it as a serious piece of movie-making, and I don't.

I started writing another review earlier, but I have since become unsatisfied with it because a few things have changed. But not many. Before, I had the above two sentences written, and I didn't delete them because I still think they apply.

When I started writing the review, I hadn't even seen the comic, and I had dismissed a lot of what was wrong and awkward about the movie as poor decision making and bad directing. I realize now that it was the unsuccessful attempt to perfectly recreate the comic book, down to particular details and shots and dialogue. Sometimes when a film tries to duplicate something as exactly as possible, the translation doesn't work, and you end up with something awkward and overly pedantic. And yet, when the film strayed from a direct adaptation and put in some original characters/dialogue/story line, in attempting to keep consistent with the feel of the book, executed it poorly.

What is good about the movie is what most people come to see, the action and the fighting. It is, at its core, an action movie, and if you put in enough gore and clashing, clanking swords and armor, it's enough to get anyone's adrenaline pumping. The Spartans are a warrior community, and this is a battle for honor and glory (as they never cease to remind us), and for keeping all Greeks free citizens. Preventing the spread of slavery and godless decadence as personified by a gilded Xerxes, resplendent in gold head necklaces (headlaces?), eye makeup, and gold codpiece. Xerxes himself is one of the most exciting parts of the film; we await his appearance, and wonder how exactly this guy is going to match up to all the hype, first of all from what everyone says about him, and also because he actually existed.

There is blood and there is gore and there are beheadings and other loss of limbs and impalements and death to various large animals just so you really know that these guys are a bunch of bad mofos. The battle scenes are pretty formulaic, though, in that the filmmakers employ overused tricks to make them seem really exciting. For instance, the armies are advancing with a grinding background of heavy metal music, battles are choreographed using extreme slow motion, then sped up, then slow again so you can see these fantastically muscled men thrust their spears through the big, bad Persians subtle movement by subtle movement. If you really want to see original and novel battle scenes, I don't recommend this, but rather something like Lord of the Rings, which this film quite obviously wishes it was.

What is worst about this film is the dialogue. And this might seem to be a moot point because the general movie-going public doesn't need dialogue, they need flash and awe and increasingly menacing foes. But unfortunately, it is not all battles; there is some plot and some pontificating on the part of a surprisingly terrible narrator, in addition to a whole story arc back home in Sparta in which King Leonidas's intrepid queen takes on the Senate and The Law and tries to save her husband's honor and glory and Sparta and freedom. There are some political debates between the queen and some old men about whether or not to send in reinforcements, and some of the rhetoric espoused by these characters is reminiscent of our current administration, arguing in favor of deploying troops in order to preserve these values that we hold dear: freedom and democracy.

As for the visuals, it's not all spectacle and slashing. The makeup and special effects are uncommonly bad. Had Weta Workshop taken on this project, surely the beasts and bruises wouldn't look as ridiculous as they do. I would imagine that in this day and age, the goal of computer-generated visual effects was to maximize realism and have us wonder if there really could be such things as monsters. But clearly all of the work went into making decapitations look as good as possible because the scars that many of the characters wear look like putty, and the CG animals look like they are years behind the times. Had the animators only decided to work on a few things to make them look perfect, they might have succeeded, but this film is packed with characters and creatures that are only on screen for a few seconds, and unfortunately look BAD.

The sexuality in the movie is obviously put in to attract and excite the hordes of male fans. It's pointless and excessive, and when trying to be seductive, it falls flat as being horrifically cheesy. The casting call for the female lead who plays the queen must have been, "somewhat over 30, great tits." Because that is all she really has to lend the film. Additionally, in a scene where Xerxes is trying to recruit an castoff Spartan to his side, he has a slew of naked dancing girls performing all sorts of anachronistically tasteless sexual acts upon each other and the Spartan. Instead of looking sexy, it looks strange and misplaced.

This film is excessive by all counts. It attempts to replicate a comic book directly, add some historical depth, and play up the mythology part without being able to fully commit to one of those three genres. Had there been some really famous actors in the cast, one could at least be happy seeing familiar faces and wondering at their ability to bulk up and become so muscular to possibly distract one from the overwhelming mediocrity of the rest of movie. But aside from David Wenham and arguably Rodrigo Santoro, the faces are anonymous and force you to pay attention to all the rest of the details without distraction. Again, I didn't hate the movie, but it is something I wouldn't be interested in viewing again. If someone really wanted to see it, I'd recommend paying more attention to Xerxes in all his gilded fabulousness and an early scene involving a writhing oracle. I genuinely liked those parts. Otherwise, I wish I'd rented it.