Cadillac Records - % % %

Meh. Nothing special.

and that is a tragedy. I'm glad that millions of people will learn some of the profound history of Chess Records from this film and it has reminded me of some music that I have neglected to purchase. But the deep, powerful, universal themes of the music and lives of the people who built the house of Chess Records are not effectively portrayed by this film. It's there in the screen play and the acting comes close to being affecting. But by encompassing all of the characters from Len Chess to Chuck Berry, no one's story gets told very well.

And I feel that this is a little petty, but Beyoncé should have tried harder to imitate Etta James rather than relying on the vocal techniques that distinguish her own career. It made the second half of the film a modern reinterpretation of the music, and mirrored the challenge facing the original artists as those like the Beach Boys and Elvis delivered paler versions of their work. Beyoncé's versions of James' classics just feel plastic and cheap, like a crappy toy manufactured in China, rather than the original word-carved creation that your grand-dad played with. She does a decent job with the acting but is not believable as a junky. She doesn't gasp the true well of sorrow that James could access in her songs.

Jeffrey Wright knocks another performance out of the park. That man is simply amazing. He is a true chameleon. He is extraordinary in transforming himself into another person so far from his own life in aspect and quality, while at the same time creating an inner world of extreme depth and vastness. I stand amazed by him again.

As for Adrien Brody, he was wonderful in The Pianist, but this is another film that shows what an exception that film is. Perhaps he was not given the material to flesh out or the direction to force him to greater depths, but the depiction of Len Chess felt flat and cursory. This character felt common and too familiar. The hardworking business man who was never home and struggled to maintain success. The moments that evidence the extraordinary character of Chess don't seem to translate into the man himself and feel just like logical indications rather than truthfulness or innate qualities.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible movie. It was competently written and directed by Darnell Martin, a rare female director working in Hollywood. But this film lacks the potent emotion and deeper psychological complexity she has shown herself capable of with her break-out film, I Like It Like That (1994). It seems all of her work in television serials, like Law & Order, has done her great harm as a director since this film suffers greatly from an efficient pace and frugally clean direction.

The Men Who Stare at Goats - % % % %

My web-review was selected as part of the Rotten Tomattoes Show on CurrentTV episode airing on Nov. 13, 2009, which was very exciting for me.

You can find it on the Rotten Tomatoes Show's website.

And here's the complete review I submitted to them.

Blindness - % % %

While this is an interesting concept, the entire world suffers from a contagious disease that induces a form of blindness, the execution fails at points and the dismal view of the ensuing conflict hits a few false notes. In the end, following how society breaks down is always an interesting exercise and I was engaged until the end.

The main characters are a couple played by Mark Ruffalo and Juliane Moore. Ruffalo plays an optometrist, who the first victim visits for help. Moore plays his wife and from the first scene with them together we are to infer that she is a neglected and shy housewife, and that their marriage is not filled with passion or much warmth. If their relationship had been better developed in the beginning, it might have made the rest of the film more engaging than an exercise in curiosity. Ruffalo does a descent job showing his character's struggles and emotional complexities, but Moore fails to connect with the audience's sympathy as she forges on, bearing enormous responsibilities without any joys or pleasures. She suffers in silence and when she does fall to tears, it has no power, but reminds me of other scenes from Boogie Nights and Magnolia when her tears affected me deeply. Here she feels too distant, drowned out by the extraordinary spectacle of an entire society collapsing around her.

The film is set in an unnamed urban location with unnamed characters. The execution of this is excellent and the feeling of a multicultural metropolis is achieved with remarkable skill by director Fernando Meirelles. Much of the film is in gray tones, and through glass and steel and mirrors, we see the civilization fall apart. Immediately the sick are quarantined in substandard facilities with no staff to attend to the newly blind. They are herded in and abandoned to care for themselves with occaisional deliveries of food. The film gets very dark very quickly. As the hoards of new victims enter the facilities the lack of institutional structure leads to a de-evolution in the small society.
A man (Gael Garcia Bernal) declares himself king and his male dominated wing take control of the food supply. They demand all the valuables from the others in exchange and then they demand the women. The decent into this abhorrent anarchy forces questions into one's mind, attempting to find ways out of this situation. But these means and avenues are not fully explored and the violence is not convincing enough to accept the plot at this point. The consequences do feel natural and a final twist brings the entire situation crumbling to ashes.

At this point the few characters we have come to know form a small family who exit the facility into a totally abandoned and collapsed city. The world has fallen apart and much of the city is abandoned to roaming and staggering groups of the blind. After the first section of the film, the silence and sparseness feels a great relief. What could feel long and drawn out, is a fine easing of the tension into the final resolution. I commend the filmmakers for restraining themselves. In another film, like City of Men, it could be one trauma after another. In Blindness however, the destruction leads to silent scavengering and eventually to the creation of a refuge. The happy ending is earned, although leads this audience member to question the purpose of the exercise in the first place. If it all works out in the end, did the couple and their accompanying new family need to suffer through all of this to find a real appreciation for family? Is that the value in this epic journey? Perhaps if the villains had been better developed psychologically, I might come to feel more confident that loving and caring for one another is the true answer. But since this is based on a Jose Saramago novel, I am not surprised that there is little character development. In this translation into a two hour film, the story might have been aided by a bit more standard psychological development. Saramago can get away with nameless characters because we can enter their heads and read their thoughts slowly over the course of several hundred pages. In a film, a bit more is required to understand how a man can become so cruel and selfish, and if it is that he is simply selfish that makes him cause so much evil, as in Bernal's character.

Il ya longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long) - % % % %

A brilliant concept for a character-driven drama, Kristen Scott Thomas plays Juliette who moves in with her sister's family after 15 years in prison for murder. Her sentence comes out pretty early in the film, so I don't think I'm ruining anything by telling you that she killed her son when he was six. It's a remarkable story of the struggles of resiliency. How does one go on after something so horrible and then after losing so much of one's life in such a shameful and impossible to understand manner?

Kristen Scott Thomas is excellent. Really excellent. Her eyes hold a well of sadness known particularly to those who have lost their children.

The script is excellently written and directed by Phillipe Claudel, including paralleling stories and characters that broaden the main plot and elaborate upon Juliette's journey. She is befriended by her parole officer who suffers from his own demons. Her sister, well played by Elsa Zylberstein, has two young daughters of her own whose mere presence continually emphasizes the conflict and develops opportunities for inter-character conflicts. She has chosen to adopt because of her fears after her sister's actions. It is profound how our actions lead to the understanding of our younger family members' worldviews and this is a deftly woven example. As Juliette is developed, set pieces illustrate and remind the audience of her struggles, from wheelchair bound extras to the new birth of a friend's child. Again and again, she must revisit how her life will always be different and similar to others. It's magnificent at times.

And yet, there are moments that are too heavy handed. A friend tells her that he doesn't judge her because he worked in a prison once and has learned that we, the free and the convicted, are all the same. Oh, brother. It's already clear after explaining that he worked in a prison for a time, but he goes on and explains it all so unnecessarily. It's too bad because it's otherwise a wonderfully tender and hopeful moment. There are others included in the film and still more in the extras' deleted scenes. I wish they had cut just a little bit more. The film could have soared even higher.

All in all it's very very good. I put off watching it because I thought it'd be too depressing and, while there is a deep sadness to it, the film is extremely hopeful. This is not misery-porn like Cherrie Baby or some Lars Von Trier sadistic parade of emotional torture. Kristen Scott Thomas' reserve becomes a force of strength and hope and the surrounding cast is a crew of some of the best people one could ever hope to know. Perhaps a bit too optimistic, but there are plenty of judgmental side characters for balance. It never feels too cheerful. It is true that spending an evening with a bunch of kids running around a beautiful home and walking around a vineyard with a bunch of intelligent friends is wonderful and it does regulate the dreariness of life. This is a character who, like her social worker and parole officer say, is very lucky to have family. And through these thoughtful adult relationships and the bonds of communal, daily, family living, a very wounded soul can be a resource of love and support as well. And maybe live happily ever after too. Well, can live ever after, which is often the best we can reasonably hope for, and that's OK too.

Poetic Justice - % % %

The script is just way too contrived, much like the title. A film about a girl named Justice who writes poetry named Poetic Justice. Ouch. Add to this that the characters are too erratic to feel like real people, let alone anyone you'd want to care about.

Spoiler
The film follows Justice and her friends as they travel from LA to Oakland on a road trip. The film opens as Justice (Janet Jackson) loses her not so great boyfriend (Q Tip) in the very first scene. He gets shot in the head, the blood flying onto her. The scene is typical of the film. The characters simply go back and forth, shouting, kissing, fighting, without much underlying arc. Their personalities and moods simply serve to move the plot along too conveniently. And the plot has ridiculously unnecessary sections like the stop at the carnival. I can see that in editing it was decided to keep the section because it develops the relationship between Justice and Lucky, but it should have been obvious in the screenplay that it felt especially gimmicky after a similar side-story at a family picnic. And then

Justice and her love interest, Lucky (Tupac Shakur), have vulnerable moments, but the rest of the cast are shallow, often heartless and cold. It may be that Singleton wanted to show the various people like this, but it is a harsh statement from a man who knows that he is a rare cinematic voice of the African-American community. Justice's best friend, Iesha (Regina King), and her boyfriend, Chicago (Joe Torry), are particularly juvenile and trifling characters. Regina King has become a fantastic actress, as noticed in Ray. But these characters are ridiculous. Iesha's moment of vulnerability happens quickly. Suddenly after vomiting and being told that her drinking is a problem by her best friend, she comes around and makes a sweeping apology. It's a terrible scene on many fronts. Later she and Chicago break up in a violent fight, instigated by his lack of stamina at sex. It's pathetic for both characters. Is Singleton using these two as a foil for the better love between Lucky and Justice? If so it is too strong a contrast, and they are too awful as people for anyone in the audience to learn any lessons from.

In comparison with his later films, like Baby Boy, I could just chalk this up to youth and immaturity. He was 24 when he made Poetic Justice, so fair enough. That's impressive. There are kernels in the film, especially Janet Jackson and Tupac's performances. They have real chemistry. Justice's character is buoyed by the poetry of Maya Angelou, whose performance and role in the film as a family elder is unfortunately awkward and forced. The film as a whole lacks subtlety and sympathy, let alone a script editor. But there are so damn few films about young black Americans, I'll take what I can get.

Furthermore, I love that it is a respectful story about a postman and a hair-stylist. I think we should revel more often in the stories of more average people. Don't get me wrong that I think film should always reflect reality, but looking at even the indie films of this summer, very few revolve around any people remotely modest or average in their occupations.

Inglorious Basterds - % % % %

Ridiculous.




I could just leave it at that. Fun, funny, gory. I'm still mulling this one over.


What's the point of this movie? Is it that revenge is essentially wish fulfillment, as is much violence? Hollow, fun, and leaves you with a skip in your step but little else?

The ridiculousness permeates every little bit of the film. "Once upon a time... in Nazi occupied France" opens the film, establishing that this is a fairy tale, and a preposterous one at that. Brad Pitt as a hillbilly scalping sergeant. Eli Roth as the Bear Jew who beats Nazis to death with a baseball bat. That's some brilliant casting. I loved the musical selections. I laughed so hard when Bowie's theme from Cat People played to the Jewish heroine prepares seductively for her night of revenge. It's so over the top, I'm not sure how to take it. The most brilliant part of the film is the use of nitrate film stock as an explosive. That's a genius metaphor. Film exacting an eruptive revenge while the heroine laughs maniacally immediately following her gruesome death.

I'll write a more coherent review soon. I just had to get something down. So ridiculous.

Comments

If you have read any part of this, would you please leave a comment? I'd like to know if anyone has checked this out and if I ought to tailor it for an audience or if it should continue as an exercise for myself. Thanks!

Besieged - % % % % %

Why is this film not talked about more often? It is beautifully executed by a filmmaker, Bernardo Bertolucci, at the peak of his abilities. It stars Thandie Newton and David Thewlis in daring, subtle and charged performances. It is from an excellently written script, Bertolucci and wife, Clare Peploe, brilliantly adapted and changed from a short story by James Lasdun, The Siege.

Shot by shot, the film is composed of elegantly selected perspectives which follow these two characters, "emotional exiles" and their developing love for one another. Shandurai is an African immigrant fleeing trauma and seeking a new life as a medical student in Italy while working in the home of a solitary pianist, Mr. Kinski (Thewlis). Newton is beautiful. She is extraordinarily beautiful. Thewlis has shown potent sexuality in the films of Mike Leigh and here he is reclusive and intense. The strength of the character develops through his music and implied actions.

After declaring his love for her, she is terrified and infuriated. He demands to know how he can make her love him and she tells him that he could get her husband out of prison in their home which has become a military dictatorship. He is stunned at not even knowing that she is married. And here begins a parable of devotion and love. The film opens with a folksinger singing in Luou, and he appears in Shandurai's dreams, pressing her feelings and passions forward. Spoiler: He sells everything, his inheritance and eventually his Steinway, his voice, to buy the freedom of her husband. She comes to love him and they share one night together, and in the morning her husband arrives at the door freed.

The film is nearly silent, but for the powerful presence of music: the piano played by Kinski and the African pop music loved by Shangurai. The film unfolds detail by detail and in the excellent commentary by Bertolucci and Peploe, Bertolucci explains that he wants to follow the style of Hitchcock, by creating suspense in the audience. It is a story of two wounded souls who must press beyond their safe, structured lives in order to find love and companionship. Maturely, there is not a traditional happy ending, but rather an understanding, which is often the most that can be hoped for in adult relations.

In the commentary, Bertolucci reveals that he doesn't do a storyboard. He creates a shot list the day before. He digests the material and then proposes a means of approaching the story. I can't believe that. His Cinematographer must go nuts. He also talks about showing off in his shots, being acrobatic, and he feels that age has subdued him. True, Il conformista is a dazzling film. And yes, Besieged is more subtle, but the editing is more challenging and exciting. Close-ups of Newton are divided, using jump cuts to strike notes of emotions, "palpitations of the heart of the movie" he describes in the commentary. For example, two shots of Newton getting news of her husband were taken in two different emotional tones and then intercut to create a complex moment and story. The film was shot with three cameras! What a luxury!

The themes of loving difference, the means of moving towards another and the connection between generosity and passion. I can go on and on. It's wonderful. Unexpectedly, the love scene is so different from Last Tango in Paris, for example. They put their legs over one anothers' in a tender moment and awake at the final moment nude and embracing, preventing the other from moving without one's consent.

The film feels small in many ways, stemming from the intimacy of the cast and location in a beautiful Roman home, pierced through by a spiral staircase. There are entire characters whose faces we do not see. We only see what is important and essential. This narrowness makes it feel like folklore, a modern parable, leading to a moral that generosity and self-sacrifice lead to, and are inherent in intimacy and love. It's wonderful.

According to the author of the short story in the commentary, it is based upon a medieval tale by Boccaccio. So there.

Killer of Sheep - % % % % %

Killer of Sheep has been called a hidden masterpiece for decades. Problems with securing the rights to the music in the film kept it from getting distribution. Few people understand the extraordinary prices attached to music rights that generally serve to promote the music and future music sales. But I digress from the film, which is quite extraordinary.

Why are there no other films quite like it? Killer of Sheep follows a man through his middle aged life trying to make it through a difficult job, living poorly with crime always a tempting opportunity, raising kids while sustaining a relationship with his wife. Pretty mundane in many respects. Yet the film exists in a hot dream-like world. Shot in 16mm black and white the film transports us to a kind of rural reverie, akin to the opening of the Wizard of Oz, without the intensely performed musical numbers. In Killer of Sheep, the only musical performance is that of a little girl in a closet singing to her doll. The main character suffers from sleep deprivation and this dreary, muddled atmosphere follows throughout the film, lulling the audience into a somnambulic acquiescence. We are awakened by heart-ache as we see good intentions crash from the back of a pick-up truck or the sad dignity of this family trying to keep the lure of crime at bay.

The scenes of kids playing in vacant lots surrounded by buildings nearing collapse and train yards with paralyzed cars cemented in place create the magic of the film. The central performances are powerful and intimate, but the scenes with the children reveal a resilient joy and a befuddled persistence. These qualities are what make Killer of Sheep unique and appealing.

Julie & Julia - % %

Yes, after a summer of watching nearly nothing, I watched this. It was cute at points and not as annoying as some (male) reviewers have made it out to be. I won't say much because there isn't much to say.

The film revolves around a sad twenty-something who wants to be a writer but like many has not been able to find a way through hard work and tenacity to accomplish her goals and so has a temp job. It's a legitimately depressing temp job. Well they all are in legitimate ways, essentially depressing, but this one involves attempting to assist the survivors of the World Trade Center attacks. But instead of finding inspiration in her work, Julie finds it in an exercise. She decides (with the help of her shallowly depicted husband whose only characteristic, aside from being saintly, is to not like having it rubbed in his face) to begin a blog of cooking all of the recipes from Julia Child's famous book on French cooking.

And so begins Julie's creation of Julia Child in her imagination. Meryl Streep is obviously, unsurprisingly wonderful. But the plot lines with her would have been more interesting as a documentary I might watch on PBS one Sunday afternoon. She sounds much more interesting than the parallel story of the imagined Julia and the real life Julie, a simple woman without much to deal with in real life except her own underdeveloped self. So she develops herself into a better cook and a sometimes writer. She faces obstacles. Things don't always go her way. But eventually she gets profiled in the New York Times and gets a book deal. She apologizes to her bland husband and all ends happily. Yawn.

The only interesting thing I've found about this film is that Ben and Ben on At the Movies thought that Julie was whiny and childish. That's not too far from the truth. What makes this character different than say any Meg Ryan character ever is that Julie doesn't have anything going for her. I can't imagine why her husband married her. Since the book is autobiographical, apparently the author doesn't get it either. And the process of getting Julie to a place where she becomes someone of interest is painful because it illustrates a theory of mine that schooling doesn't really develop adults, life does. And much of schooling is structured to prevent maturing. Intense academic rigor should perhaps be reserved for the more matured and young adults should staff gas stations and janitorial closets and learn a bit more about themselves and life before getting fabulous educations. Then when they graduate from Barnard they perhaps won't spend eight years temping and feeling like failures.

Star Trek (2009) - % % % %

Great!

I have issues with the film, being a Star Trek fan, but you can't please all the people all the time. That said, I think that the film is exciting, the characters are charming and the plot is stupid but doesn't ruin the film.

Most of my issues are with the story. You can't skip whole sections of the story by using a mind meld! That is so stupid. It's rude to the audience and if you have to resort to such devices, your script sucks. Also, the audio tricks that indicate that we are hearing Spock's thoughts are way over blown. But I love the opening with the USS Kelvin. It's great. The exodus of the little shuttle crafts fleeing the monstrous mining vessel is fascinating.

And the introductions of the main characters are charming. Although I think it's stupid that Uhura just stood by while her male classmates act like barbarians. I would have hoped that in the future women could kick ass too and keep morons from defending their honors. Too bad. But the introduction of Bones is great! I love the back-story with his ex-wife taking the planet in the divorce. Love it!

Gene Roddenberry would probably never have stood for such poor science. What is red matter? trash. Then the weirdo fleshy ant that chases Kirk through a frozen wasteland is unlikely biologically. It doesn't make sense, but it pales in comparison with the ridiculous turn that chases the big bug away.

I think it's great to show how awesome Star Trek can be for a bigger audience. But I think that throwing logic out the window gives Star Trek a bad name. This isn't Star Wars, after all. It's Star Trek, damn it! And we are nerdy, but smart! Don't give me black holes that act like time travelling devices! I call bullshit.

But it was fun bullshit and Sulu makes me want to be a ninja!

Taps - % %

I am sad to say that I am disappointed by this film, because I remember it being a big deal when I was growing up and I recall my brother liking it alot. I love teen films, and I love survival stories, like Red Dawn. But this film's love of tradition fails the main thrust of the narrative as it marches head long into anti-social territory.

And I disagree with Roger Ebert, which I also find sad, since I generally find so much coherence in his reviews.

It starts out well. Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn and George C. Scott are great.

But Tom Cruise is just a douchebag. How could any of the other cadets be friends with such a jerk. It struck me as odd at first, but I wrote it off as perhaps something I don't understand about boys or military schools. I supposed that at a boarding school that everyone learns to love something about each other in such a closed environment. Who finds that guy attractive? I don't get it. (Btw I have always felt like this and it is not a result of his bizarro behavior in the past few years.)

Ebert makes an analogy between the school in which Taps is based and Lord of the Flies, which are a book and films that I love. I appreciate this analogy and it holds until 2/3s of the way into the film when the story gets stuck.

The students hold their military school with weapons and barricades against the state guard who want to close the school and send the boys home. Timothy Hutton is the head cadet, Sean Penn is his booksmart best friend with existential issues. Tom Cruise is their cohort who is tough and ruthless.

Evan Handler is great as another friend who doesn't seem so gung-ho. His character isn't so easily typed, but he comes off as a good guy. And so cute as a young kid! Cute as a grown up too, imo.

spoiler alert
So in the end a youngster gets killed accidentally and Hutton berates himself. There is a nice moment when his character talks about how it feels to hold a dead boy in his arms and to just think about what a neat kid he was. It's tender and it works. So the conscience of the film, Sean Penn, talks him into declaring victory and just going home. As they bring all the boys in to end the stand off, Tom Cruise's character decides to shoot the commanding officer of the state guard and then grabs an automatic gigantic gun and just goes nuts. He says, "It's beautiful, man!" just before he and the intervening Hutton get killed. I agree that there are kids who just want to go for it and enjoy the exhilaration of violence, who would have a hard time backing down. What's wrong with this kid, though? What did he learn that no one else did? Or if this is a possible result of the military education system, there needs to be a serious overhaul.

So we're left with a parallel between Hutton and Cruise. Hutton was rewarded because of his diligence and reserve, whereas Cruise, who led the red berets, was too rigid to be able to fully succeed. There is an acknowledgment then, from the beginning, of Cruise's character's limitations and troubles. But there is still a place for such a boy in the military. It's only in the end that a boy like this can't be trusted or must be killed. That's a strange message to end a film with.

The film ends with two deaths, both the result of a young man taking charge of a situation and entrusting other young men with responsibility. Essentially Hutton's character does a great job. Things go wrong because accidents happen, the first death was a result of escalated terms of the stand off. The last deaths happen because young people are ... what? Erratic? Untrustworthy? Thrill-seekers? Or is it that life hasn't weeded out the psychos yet? That young people can't have learned that death is terrible and murder a terrible choice? I don't think so. I think maybe I'm being rough on this film because by now there have been films like Bully which explore the hostile, psychos that teenagers can be, so I expect a bit more character development.

But Sean Penn used to be really cute. Too bad he grew up into a bit of a bastard. Who cheats on the Princess Bride? For crying out loud! And why would such a talented woman put herself through that? We really need to stop encouraging such terrible behavior in men. Ugh.

Let the Right One In - % % % % %

OK, obviously not featured by Vogel, I am still watching other films, and I streamed this one as my Saturday afternoon comfort film.

I don't even know where to start. The sound is outrageous! The background sound is amplified over the dialogue at times. It's incredible. It's as if one were underwater and occasionally bobbing up and catching clear bits and slipping away again.

Incredibly shallow focus complements the sound design. It's gorgeous and creepy.

I'm not sure that the boy who befriends the vampire girl really does learn to stand up to the bullies, but rather he learns to not be afraid of them. He accepts their violence without rage or revenge. But allows his girlfriend of the night, not a hooker but a vampire in this instance, to fight his enemies for him.

I'm also not cool with the resolution to the bullying being spoiler alert them getting a violent comeuppance. This is a film that asks us to understand the challenges of Oskar's mother raising her son alone and the challenges of Eli needing blood, and therefore victims. How can we not sympathize with semi-murderous little boys trying to prove themselves? There must be a reason for their cruelty. Just as there are reasons for the main characters' murderous behavior. Even Oskar fantasizes about murdering at the beginning of the film, so I can't blame the other boys enough to want them dead. So the continuation of the friendship at the end after the gruesome murders of an innocent man, investigating the death of two of his closest friends, and these boys feels sad for Oskar. I don't know what would have been a better ending, but there is one out there. Perhaps what would be better is an ending in which Oskar learns to live on his own and without murder as a complication and crutch. I don't think every film needs to have a happy ending, but maybe someone can tell me what Oskar's decision means or comments on within 70s Swedish society. Perhaps I don't know enough about the contextual society to understand Oskar's continuing allegiance with Eli.

I love their relationship. It is brilliantly written. The two are so awkward around each other at first and unsure of how or what to communicate. They are both so lonely. Oskar is so frightened and needy, and Eli is sad and aloof. But the progression of the two towards each other is delicate and the change in Oskar as he comes to understand that Eli "is not a girl" is remarkable. It is so subtle and then powerful. He becomes the protector for a moment. And in that moment when faced with the reality of the violence he runs, rejecting his safety blanket-hunting knife. It seems in this moment that Oskar has rejected violence, but no. He just can't do it himself.

But I can't think of the last time I've seen such amazing acting from two children. And the setting of 80s Sweden is super cool looking.


My questions for others who have seen the film: Do you think his dad is gay? Why do they call him a pig?

PS. I think I've realized why the film treats bullies with such vengeance and why the relationship between Eli and Oskar continues. And why Eli's caretaker is with her. And it's that this is a horror film. The most frightening thing possible is that one might only have sympathy for their own murderous actions and not for others. The truly frightening world is one in which survivors of torture would enable and commit far worse acts against their bullies. And find joy and relief in those heinous moments. And love in their selfish cruelty. Eli starts out sad and forlorn for having to murder, but finds a purpose in the end for her violent cravings. If one can have love, one may do anything and justify anything for the love of another. And that is truly terrifying.

And I've gotten a submission for the question of why the little boys call Oskar a pig. It stands for Parent Is Gay. I don't think it's a winning answer, but it's a contender.

Check out the May edition of Sight and Sound magazine for a great article on this film.

I have one challenge to the article. In it, Mark Kermode argues that sex isn't the source of the horror, but I would argue that sex is more important than he gives it credit. The one particular moment of unabashed sexual curiosity ends in a dead end. Eli doesn't have genitals, but rather a shriveled up, kind of scab where one's vagina would be. Oskar wants to see her naked but discovers this oddity about Eli. They will never consummate their relationship and this, I suppose, makes their departure together more tragic. She can never be what he needs and she needs something so destructive only doom must follow.

Kermode also discusses some elements of the source material that are not included in the film. There is apparently a greater emphasis on transgenderism.

opening quotes - my thoughts & ramblings

“Your order is meaningless, my chaos is significant.” — Nathanael West

***But what if my order is chaos? How's that for you Mr. West? Also, without some kind of structure, how can one really analyze and assess anything? Hmm... Externally imposed order is foolish, in that it is impossible to accept an external order. Your brain won't do it. So I agree that it has no meaning for whom it is imposed upon.***

“I like my movies made in Hollywood.” — Richard Nixon

***This from the man who later, in his autobiography Beyond Peace (1994), claimed: "Hollywood is sick... Its values are not those of mainstream America." So I don't think he really liked movies much at all, or really knows much about mainstream America either. OR understands the concept of values or morals, for that matter.***

“Only the perverse fantasy can still save us.” — Goethe, to Eckerman

***I'm not sure that I've got a handle on what Goethe is talking about here. I do agree that fantasy is a large part of progress towards the saving of humanity, but I think there's more to it than perversion. Challenging assumptions, sure that part of
perversity is important, but the part of perversity that involves reenacting Pasolini's Salo is not OK.***

“Behind the initiation to sensual pleasure, there loom narcotics.” — Pope Paul VII

***From the opiate of the masses itself.***

“By the displacement of an atom, a world may be shaken.” — Oscar Wilde

***If just one may make incredible harm, perhaps the work of one can make comparable benefit to others.***

“Film is the greatest teacher, because it teaches not only through the brain, but through the whole body.” — Vsevolod Pudovkin

***And this is why I am currently torturing myself and others by making narrative films. Documentaries generally preach to the converted, but narrative/fiction films might fool people into seeing them without knowing the content of the film. Like I got suckered into going to "Dreamcatcher", a film so awful, I'd never have spent money on it if I'd not been tricked by the trailer.***

“The cinema implies a total inversion of values, a complete upheaval of optics, of perspective and logic. It is more exciting than phosphorus, more captivating than love.” — Antonin Artaud

"'Don't go on multiplying the mysteries,’ Unwin said, ‘they should be kept simple. Bear in mind Poe's purloined letter, bear in mind Zangwill’s locked room.’
‘Or made complex,’ replied Dunraven. ‘Bear in mind the universe.’" — Jorge Luis Borges

Film as a Subversive Art: Self-subversion, by Chuck Kleinhans

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Film as a Subversive Art - with Amos Vogel

From Film as a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16 (2003)
An hour-long filmed profile of Amos Vogel, 82-year old New York resident and Austrian emigre, founder of the New York Film Festival and America's most important film society, Cinema 16.


From The Sticking Place, www.thestickingplace.com

And some others' opinions on Vogel:

"Vogel's New York–based Cinema 16 boasted thousands of members during its existence in the '40s and '50s, long before the rise of film festivals and art houses. His provocative, even controversial, programming combined films by respected auteurs with experimental and political fare. In the '60s, Vogel took this spirit to the new Lincoln Center by helping found the New York Film Festival, and in 1975 published his seminal tome Film as a Subversive Art, a book he calls "the culmination of the efforts of a lifetime."

Part movie guide, part philosophical treatise, Film as a Subversive Art analyzes and champions works that challenge viewers and thereby precipitate new ways of seeing society and existence. For Vogel, films could provide more than mere entertainment; intelligent programming could be a means of consciousness-raising; he screened "anything that made people question an existing value system, that opened up people's minds to other possibilities," Vogel tells the Voice. "The aesthetic and the political have always been joined. To me the avant-garde, whether they knew it or not, was always part of a radical view of society and of the human psyche." "

" .Some sections bear the stigma of faded taboos – subversion, as Vogel himself acknowledges, remains a movable feast. For example, Vogel’s hopes for the ‘porno-political’ and what he calls ‘erotic realism’ look quaint, as does his lament at the lack of on-screen ejaculations. The book is certainly blotchy, partial, sometimes sententious. Nevertheless, Film as a Subversive Art, in this facsimile edition, now resembles nothing so much as an archaeological find. At the time it was presumably intended in part as a sourcebook for other programmers; now that independent (and particularly 16mm) film distribution and exhibition have been almost obliterated, it is a guide to an invisible city. Cinemas as subversive spaces, thriving on their suppressed sociality – places we go together to be alone, as Jean-Luc Godard, one of Vogel’s avatars, once put it – are in perhaps terminal decline; film has receded into an increasingly amorphous moving-image culture, in which viewing is more fundamentally solitary. Between the lines Vogel’s book is testament to a history of screenings and cinema-going as much as it is to the films themselves. While Vogel’s contemporary Manny Farber produced his best insights in microcosm, with his elegant decompositions of individual films, Film as a Subversive Art provides a kind of complementary aerial perspective: a scattergun survey of vanished filmic vistas."
Mike Sperlinger freize, Issue 94 October 2005
-Carnival of Anarchy

Film as a Subversive Art

I am embarking on a new project essentially for a paper for my Theory & History of Cinema class, but also because I am methodical and curious. From an early age, I have known the satisfaction of methodical inquiry. I am one of those kids who read the encyclopedia. Fortunately ours was not many extensive volumes, but it is a big book. What I am now proposing is nowhere near as expansive a quest.

I am preparing to write a paper on Amos Vogel, spectatorship and why we are such poor cinema audiences. The film industry is going down like a sinking cruise ship and it just keeps hoping that by adding rides, like 3D and crazy explosions, that they will be able to forestall the inevitable. It breaks my heart to see old movie theaters like the Uptown or the Annex just sit empty and decrepit.

I am hoping to be able to discover a unique experience that people would come out for and enjoy like an indie rock show at the Empty Bottle. Brew and View at the Vic is close, but it's filthy and the movies suck. I wonder if a cine-club is possible and exciting for others. I love watching films and then chatting about them with cool peeps. I want to save the filmviewing experience from solitary, mediocre DVD or worse, streaming, home viewing.

To that end, I will be watching as many films from the brilliant Amos Vogel's Film as a Subversive Art. Hopefully you'll be inspired to watch some weird films and we'll collectively be inspired by the more than 20 year-long running film club, Cinema 16, created by Vogel in 1947 in New York. (I'd also like to think that Chicago is an amazing enough city in which to pull this off.)

I'm open to suggestions and will now enable posting from others. So send me your thoughts and let's save film and society too!

Coverfield - % % %

While I did enjoy the film, I think that has more to do with my interest in how filmmakers depict the apocalypse or the destruction of New York, than with the film itself. This is an entertaining destruction of Manhattan. The Statue of Liberty gets decapitated (it's shown on the DVD menu so I'm not spoiling anything) and the Brooklyn Bridge also faces assault. Whole buildings are torn to pieces and Central Park is the site of a gruesome death. So it's entertaining to watch another filmmaker attempt another cover of this modern-day folk song, but aside from the essential interest in the subject and the interesting creature created by the special effects team, the film is pretty terrible.

The acting is awful. The script is offensively stupid. The characters are loathsome and hollow. They are all insipid, 20-somethings living in Manhattan, going to house parties and trying to get it on with other cute and vacant people. The main character holding the video camera through which we view the film is a complete moron and repeatedly says terribly stupid, insensitive things. Why would the screenwriter choose a dufus as our guide? Why would he continue to be so irredeemably dense?
The rest of the characters are flat. Little is developed thematically, except perhaps that love moves people to do foolish things. This theme leads the characters to what is probably the best part of the film.

Semi-Spoiler! The group of survivors from the going-away party that opens the action go in search of the protagonist's love interest. Her apartment is at the top of a high-rise which has been knocked over and leans against a similar building. The group must climb to the top of the stable building and crawl out over the roof of the leaning building. It's a pretty neat idea and interesting to watch being executed.

And the extras are lame. The "alternate endings" are slight edit choices that hardly change the end at all. Weak.

As for the assertion that it is a "screw-you to yuppie New York", the people that it shames for their foolishness and stupidity are the only people we see. They aren't funny and there's nothing ironic. For the film to function, the audience is supposed to identify with the main characters. Otherwise the tension wouldn't exist and no one's interest would be held. So if we are supposed to identify with these characters, the filmmakers think very little of their audience.

Furthermore, in the commentaries and extras, J.J. Abrams, the executive producer, talks at length about his desire to have an American Godzilla. I hardly see much condemnation of the innocent on the ground in this analogy. And as a response to Godzilla, the monster is barely on the screen and cannot be identified until the very end. Godzilla is exciting and captivating because we see the monster clearly and the low-quality of the effects is endearing and entertaining like a cartoon. "Cloverfield" is none of these things. It's a teen thriller/chase movie. It's a video game with obstacles and monsters one must defeat in order to move on and save the golden princess.

So I'd say it's a fun film. Don't expect too much, watch it with a beer and friends, and you won't be too disappointed.