Sinema Vérité

The Artist (2011) - % % % %

2012-02-01T22:10:00.002-06:00

This is such a lovely movie.
Leave it to a French director to re-create the joy of classic Hollywood, silent-cinema with enough modern twists to keep it fresh and interesting.

Joyous is the one word that keeps coming to mind, and that shouldn't be surprising since there's an adorable Jack Russell Terrier in nearly every scene, let alone every shot.

The film follows the fall of a silent era star and the parallel rise of a new 'it' girl and then they fall in love. Singular periods of darkness and an interesting examination of the loss of purpose when faced with creative failure and loneliness keep the film from being too fluffy and generic. And the finale wraps the challenges and sadness up with a glorious bow and dancing! It's delightful!

Hunger (2008) - % % % % %

2012-02-01T22:01:00.000-06:00

This may be the best English language film I've seen in years.

"Hunger" is about hunger, literal and figurative. It tells stories surrounding the 1981 hunger strike in the prisons of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The many sides of hunger are present in these men's lives, starting with the simple breakfast of a guard, readying himself for his day at work, to the extremes of starvation experienced by the prisoners. There is the metaphorical hunger for freedom and the aspiration to greater lives desired by the IRA members, as well as the gnawing, aching growl which pervades everyone's existence at the prison.

I was unprepared for how beautiful and thoughtful this film is. It is brilliantly directed, by British artist Steve McQueen (not that Steve McQueen), with extraordinary intention throughout.

As an audience member, I feel I must warn some potential viewers that parts of the film are stomach churning. I do not think that one should turn away from any part of the human experience, especially since this is not a documentary and the thin veil of illusion ought to be enough to protect an audience from true trauma. But as I get older, I do occasionally wish I could extricate certain images and experiences from my mind. "Salo" often comes to mind. "Hunger" does not contain anything too violently graphic for contemporary audiences, but it may be upsetting to those with weak stomachs. Prison apparently may lead men to be resourceful and to use their basic materials in graphic ways to reject the means of their imprisonment. It's raw and the thought of it makes my eyes water.

I want to memorize the film. The shots are precise and potent. It's reminiscent of Antonioni in the framing, creating a feeling of alienation and abstraction from observing crumbs on a napkin or a car door opening. The times of the film are ominous and the direction draws out the violence and trauma implicit in every moment. Camera movement is judicious and, when used, infuses an operatic and hallucinatory tenor to the scenes.

I can't say enough. I feel like attempting to review this film and do it justice would involve spelling out every single frame of the film.

The acting is amazing. Michael Fassbender is so potent and charismatic that even in a near death state, practically comatose, he compels the viewer to observe the slightest movements of his facial muscles and the pace of his breathing for signs or indications of what he's thinking and experiencing.

Bravo, Steve McQueen. When I saw your Turner Prize winning piece, I never imagined you would develop such an extraordinary prowess with the medium. Bravo.

Hereafter - % % %

2011-10-08T11:01:00.001-05:00

Why was this movie made?

Is a film deserving of three stars because it's well-made, well-directed and shot, and well-acted? But lacking in convincing me of its need to exist?

I suppose this film was intended to delve into the pessimistic resistance to an after-life by a skeptical society created by a man approaching the end of his life. Clint Eastwood, who directed and produced and composed the music, was 80 at the release of this film in 2010. He is approaching his end-time and has an extraordinary career recently capped with two Oscar wins for directing suspenseful adult dramas about murder, human sins, redemption and guilt, "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby". In interviews he compared this to a French film, and perhaps that explains why one of the three interwoven stories of the film is centered in Paris. This is the story of a French journalist who has a near-death-experience in a tsunami in south-east Asia, a twin boy who loses his brother and Matt Damon, a psychic who can't come to grips with his ability to communicate with the dead.

I credit this film for taking a premise I hold with enormous skepticism, a psychic who has visions when he makes psychical contact with others, and getting me to empathize with the character and suspend disbelief for the sake of the plot. But every time the film moves to another story, I am reminded that I don't understand why this film exists.

The French journalist experiences a great deal of resistance to her pursuit of the story and writes a book about the conspiracy to resist information about near-death-experiences and the possibility of an afterlife. In conjunction with the Matt Damon story, in which he has difficulty sustaining a regular life because of his ability's forced intimacy, and its physical and emotional strain upon him, the film seems to indicate the perspective that it's hard to deal with death but cruel to resist its presence in our lives. And yet, the issue of an afterlife feels unnecessary to this point. It feels hokey.

Furthermore, the other plot line involving the sweet boy who's twin brother dies in a car accident is extremely pitiful and feels designed to elicit the most pity possible from the audience. His mother is addicted to heroin and can't really take care of the boys. After his brother is beset by bullies while picking up their mother's methadone prescription, he escapes them by running into the street. The surviving brother is the shy one who depended on the gregarious other to make decisions. He is shy and must be placed in foster care while his mother goes into rehab. And his brother's funeral is short and his foster parents put a second bed in his room so that he can feel closer to his dead brother, who's cap he now wears. The character is out of a Dickens novel. He's played by a boy with saucer eyes, pale skin and weak shoulders. It's all too much. Of course he tracks down Matt Damon to talk to his dead brother and begs him to come back because he can't be alone.

It's overcompensating for the resistance that the audience may have to the idea of an afterlife and it can't. Perhaps there is an afterlife. Many, many people think so. But if this were a film about death, and the ramifications of just death, it would be nearly the same film. It's not a persuasive film. It's more philosophical than that. Yet it never drew me in enough for me to apply the film to my own life. Perhaps I haven't lived enough or am not old enough to really consider my own mortality. Or perhaps I have considered it enough to think that an end to life without a hereafter is an important motivator to seize the present and that a hereafter in which we are floating with our loved ones isn't appealing enough to find comfort in. I prefer the idea that we just end. Life stops and there is nothing after death. It's also a kind of relief to think that this is all there is and there is an ending. An after-life is only interesting if such a story were appealing. This timeless, floating with our loved ones sounds a lot like retirement to me, or a really good Christmas or family reunion.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - % % %

2011-09-02T23:32:00.000-05:00

The joy of watching a gorilla attack a helicopter makes up for many of the unfortunate missteps of this prequel to the 1968 original, 'Planet of the Apes'. This film will still be enjoyable for those who aren't familiar with the original, but there are numerous hints and lines referencing it which will seem odd and out of place in this new film.

The Rise imagines how the Earth may come to fall into the hands of super intelligent chimps and gorillas through animal testing. It does make an interesting argument that, as Frida Pinto's superfluous character repeatedly makes, one can't or shouldn't control everything. And yet, this is a profoundly anti-science argument that none of us can accept because obviously we all benefit from immunizations and cell phones and so on. Rather than treating this film as a philosophical equal, it's best to discus it as nifty fantasy made possible by CGI.

And while this film is made possible by remarkable CGI, it isn't made good by it. I never once forgot that the chimp, Cesar, adopted and experimented on by scientist, James Franco, was CGI and I never really felt that much for him. As he enters his adolescence, he stops being cute and becomes sullen and grumpy, not helping me to empathize with the character. It's an interesting coming-of-age story and a father-son drama, but these fall apart upon closer examination.

Franco's character raises this ape from infancy, but doesn't quite seem to fully embrace the fathering role he claims. It made me confused at times when he was able to walk away from his son so easily, and to me this is the main problem with the resolution of the film.

But the plot is interesting and Cesar's road to adult independence is very well crafted. Kudos to the several listed screenwriters, the team that brought us 'The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'.

Basically this film is carried by the awesomeness of a bunch of monkeys kicking ass. They smash up several buildings and take over a San Francisco street, tearing up parking meters and hurling them through cop cars. And then they ***SPOILER ALERT*** move to the climax on the Golden Gate Bridge, which is pretty awesome. Like I said, a gorilla attacks a helicopter. It's fantastic and super cool. ***

Aside from that, the characters aren't engaging, the plot is interesting and then it's over. Sure, I'm maybe rethinking how the animals are sourced for testing and certainly may make a donation to a chimp sanctuary, but I'm not willing to go back to a world rampant with polio because of this movie. It doesn't really engage enough.

***SPOILER ALERT***The director pulls so many punches, having the apes spare human lives over and over again, although certainly some people were killed when they charged the police line on the bridge, but also with Franco. It's the director's choice to keep his character from having a greater emotional bond with Cesar. Franco's father dies in his arms and he remains stoic. My father broke down repeatedly the day his mother died and he's hardly a warm and fuzzy guy. It's terrible for a parent to die and it's also incredibly painful to say goodbye to a child, let alone to leave them in a prison or in a forest as they move to reclaim the planet. It's emotional, but Franco plays it strong and it just feels like a lost opportunity. ***

This film is interesting because of the very rational fear that all humans have of very strong animals. We are only in our position in the food chain because of our ingenuity and linguistic skills. We would very quickly be defeated by a stronger species if they ever gained such abilities. It'd be an amazing site to behold, too. And that's the only reason this film gets three %s rather than the two it otherwise would deserve. It's a good premise and the plot is well executed, but the characters are weak and the direction waters down the drama and excitement too often to keep it from being truly terrifying. Too bad. The end of human domination of the planet should be scary. Petrifying, in fact. Instead it's just kinda nifty. Too bad, indeed.

Tangled - %

2011-09-02T13:51:00.000-05:00

Disney's 50th Animated Feature is major tragedy. The animation quality aside, the film epitomizes all that is generic and shallow about the current studio. The plot is acceptable but the characters are cloying and obnoxious. The dialogue is some of the worst attempts at humor I've perhaps ever seen. Ever.

The central 'prince charming' is repulsive. In theory, through getting to know the princess, Flynn sheds his macho, smarmy charm and accepts his real self. We barely see any evidence of his sincere self and the oily, sociopath that he starts out as is so excessive and nauseating that it is impossible to shake through the weak resolution. It's not enough that he admits his real name is Eugene. It's not enough that he is willing to die in order to break the spell trapping his princess. It's a good turn, but the first guy we meet is so gross that there's little to engage the audience into caring about him.

The princess Rapunzel is pretty vacant and has very little personality. She's spunky in defending herself, but perhaps it's just naivety, really. She likes to paint and her best friend is a chameleon. That's it. Her naivety supposedly charms a bar full of medieval thugs in a hot second. It doesn't make sense, although it does set up the only good sequence in the film, a musical number about the dreams of ogre-like ruffians, including an odd little old man in his underwear dressed like cupid. That's so weird that it's wonderful.

And Pascal, the chameleon, is cute for sure. But how on earth does a chameleon end up in a tower in the middle of somewhere in Europe?

According to wikipedia, there are chameleons in Spain, so is this film set in Spain. It sure doesn't look like it at all. France or Germany perhaps. As opposed to a film like 'Princess and the Frog', with its embrace of a particular culture and time, 'Tangled' is a mish-mosh of fairy tale ahistorical associations. It's so vague as to be un-engaging and generic.

And the villain is the woman who kidnapped Rapunzel at an early age and raised her as her own, played by the talented, Tony-award winning, Donna Murphy.

Even though we, as the audience, know this, it's hard to want Rapunzel to hate the only person she's ever known and to want her to hate the woman she calls mother. It's too complicated psychologically for such shallow fare. And how is someone who has lived her entire life alone in a tower with three books, one window, and a chameleon so socially capable? It's an impossible leap of faith for any adult. The original Grimms Fairy Tale is dark and tortured, allowing for such leaps of faith, whereas a chipper Disney film just can't support such psychological murkiness or fantastical flights of fancy.

The animation is very impressive. The textures of fabrics and natural items like trees and leaves is very true to life. But this makes the slapstick violence and absurd physics of, for example, a man flying over a castle wall and landing on the saddle of a horse without injury too much to bear. There are just so many ridiculous slapstick head-bonks with a cast iron skillet and crotch kicks and leaping and landing without injury that I became irritated with the physical absurdity.

There is a whole sequence in which Rapunzel tries to shove the unconscious body of Flynn into a wardrobe but his floppy body keeps falling out, often on his face. He's unconscious because she's hit him in the head twice with a cast-iron skillet. Yeah. That's hilarious. I love Warner Bros. cartoons of Wile E. Coyote falling off cliffs, but the set up of emotionally connecting with the characters prevents me from giggling when they are tortured. The story doesn't need such stupidity and if these are meant to reinforce the fantastical setting, in reality they serve to push the audience out of the film with their absurdity.

It's a wreck and I sure hope no child develops their ideas of beauty, love or romance from such a crummy, poorly executed film. Bleck.

To Live and Die in LA (1985) - % % %

2011-08-21T15:58:00.006-05:00

I decided to watch this hoping for some light and unchallenging '80s fun. The opening credits' style amused me and then I was informed that the soundtrack is by the band Wang Chung. 'Oh, yes,' thought I, 'this will certainly be goofy fun, at least.' The opening titles included the expected shots of smog-ridden LA, but also odd moments of women dancers baring new-wave/tribal face paint in a slightly erotic manner. 'Excellent,' thought I, 'the 80's in LA possessed such a strange style. How marvelous!'

On a more serious level, I was curious about the performances of Willem Dafoe and John Tuturrow as the bad guys and the director, William Friedkin, who hasn't made a very good film since this, but who, in the '70s, directed 'The French Connection' and 'The Exorcist'.

The plot doesn't distinguish itself until the last half hour, following a base-jumping 80's Secret Service agent, played by William Petersen,
whose partner gets murdered investigating a counter-fitter, played by Dafoe. Dafoe plays an artist who lives in a fancy post-modern home with his nearly naked, exotic dancer girlfriend where he burns his other creations, oil paintings, if he doesn't approve of them. He's some oil-painting sociopath who makes a mean faux greenback.
Not much of a villain, but then Petersen isn't much of a hero. He's a protagonist, for sure. He's determined to avenge his partner's murder and he uses his lover/confidential-informant to get information to catch him in a sting, while threatening her to have her probation revoked. Real classy. So he comes off like a scum-bag with contemporary eyes, but then the plot thickens. His determination to catch Dafoe leads him to wrangle his new partner, a young and seemingly-noble John Pankow, best known as Pauly's best friend, Ira, on 'Mad About You'. They can't get enough money from the secret service to make a buy from Dafoe so they decide to hold up a diamond smuggler and ***SPOILER ALERT*** inadvertently kill an FBI agent. The chase following the murder is fantastic and makes the movie worth watching on its own. Pankow starts breaking down and is totally freaking out because not only has his crazy-thrill-junkie partner gotten him to rob a diamond smuggler and use the stolen money to make an unauthorized buy from a counterfeiter but he has murdered an FBI agent. Upon attempting to make the final buy and arrest Dafoe a serious plot twist threw my mind into a tail spin. This twist is actually so good, I won't say any more. I've probably said too much already. You should see the movie. ***

I'm so surprised by this plot twist. I was enjoying the strange world created by the film. It took some suspension of disbelief, but I was enjoying the Wang Chung and Petersen's athletic careening through LA. But the twist made me sit up and pay attention. And then, in a major crisis of traditional plot, a beautiful and glorious scene emerges, full of fire and moral confusion. The film truly captures and relates the Film Noir crisis of moral ambiguity into a universal setting. ***SPOILER ALERT*** Instead of being lured into the darkness by a criminal mastermind or a beautiful, sexy woman, nor by accident or fate, the tragic hero is lured there by an arrogant, confident, handsome epic hero who sweeps poor Pankow up in his scheme for glory, vengeance and just order. And then he is face to face with Dafoe amidst his burning art studio. Engulfed by flames, Dafoe asks Pankow why he didn't try to stop Petersen when he knew it had already gone much too far. 'Because you couldn't turn in your partner.' Pankow is distracted by his moral crisis and the flames leaping about them. and Dafoe beats him to the ground. Just as Dafoe is about to set him on fire with the shredded counterfeit money, Pankow shoots him and he's engulfed by flames.

The film ends with Dafoe's attorney watching home sex movies of Dafoe and his girlfriend. This girlfriend leaves with her new girlfriend, another exotic dancer from the club, played by 'Frasier''s Jane Leeves.
Pankow goes to Petersen's lover's apartment and accuses her of setting them up to kill the FBI agent. He tells her that she's working for him now. She flashes to thinking of sex with Petersen and then cue the Wang Chung and credits rolling over industrial LA at sunset.***

Much of the movie is clumsy and flat, but the plot twist alone makes this well worth watching. The '80s fun cushions the stilted acting, plodding procedural scenes and the totally pointless plot line with Tuturro. Petersen is great fun playing this agent with unrestrained machismo, contrary to his fairly similar role in Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' from the following year.

And while this movie has an interesting moral core, it is still a bit ridiculous with contemporary eyes. The female characters are mannequins roaming about with the lure of sex trailing from their emaciated limbs. They are as relevant to the plot as the furniture. A group of black gangster associates of Dafoes are absurd stereotypes and four of these muscular thugs are defeated in hand-to-hand combat by a painter (Dafoe) and one other white dude in a puffy green army jacket that reminds me of neo-nazis. Stupid. And it's oddly gory. Several people get shot in the head and each time the film cuts to a quick close-up of their head, center screen, with a bullet hole in their face. Kind of fun, but it tells you the maturity level the film is aiming for. Then again, no one is watching this movie to see respectful portrayals of anyone. Watch it for the kitsch and the noir fun of the myth of LA in the '80s.

Sister Kenny (1946) - % %

2011-05-26T17:02:00.003-05:00

Why are biographic films so terrible? "Sister Kenny" is the heroic tale of an Australian nurse, played by Rosalind Russell, who discovers an unorthodox treatment for polio. Kenny is noble and resolute. Early in her life she considers leaving nursing to marry, but the children command her attention. She is practically made of granite. Her methods meet extreme resistance from doctors, all men, embodied in one figure, Dr. Brack, a mean old buzzard who dismisses her because she doesn't have a medical degree, reserved solely for men.

It's interesting to learn about the evolution in the treatment of polio, but as a film this is terrible. Kenny is clearly an excellent person from the beginning and Russell plays her as a stoic champion. She does attempt to exude humility and passion, but each of these deviations from the stoic quality serve to exaggerate her saintliness. It's a waste of time. There's no drama. Even as she stands up to the medical establishment, it isn't a real argument but rather a bombastic declaration of her greatness against an argument better elucidated an hour earlier in the film. It's repetitive and uninteresting. It is remarkable that the real Elizabeth Kenny faced so much resistance and it does remind me that medicine is not an exact science, but full of tradition and prejudices. The real Sister Kenny had a remarkable life and her story holds interest for history lovers, but the film makes this groundbreaking woman seem wooden.

You Can't Take It With You (1938) - % % % %

2011-05-23T21:38:00.004-05:00

This is by far my favorite film by Frank Capra.

I would love to live in the zany Vanderhof household. Headed by a heartfelt, contrarian grandfather, played by Lionel Barrymore, the home is filled with dancing, cheering and firework experimentation. Everyone does whatever they want to have fun. It's delightful.

For some reason the naivety that grounds all Capra films bothers me far less in this film than in his others. I'm usually disgusted by the sappy, non-judgemental and non-analytical approach of Capra's films. Perhaps because this film is based on an already established play, Capra's hand in the storyline is limited.

And yet, watching this film in my 30s and in 2011, I am bothered by several issues in this film that I don't recall when I first viewed it at the age of 20. Why does this cheerful family, in which everyone does what they want, have servants? Rheba, played by Lillian Yarbo, sure seems like a member of the family and she seems pretty happy, but she's still seemingly a cook and maid. It feels odd through modern eyes for this egalitarian family to have a black maid. She is a great dancer, though.

I am also troubled by the simplistic resolution of the father-son conflict. I suppose I shouldn't hope for more dynamic and fulfilling resolution, rather than the pair of looks and smiles we are offered. Everyone forgives the evil, nasty banker who destroyed lives and cruelly proclaimed his superiority over all those unfortunate to be poorer than he. Having decried him in court a week earlier, everyone hugs him now that he's remorseful and playing a harmonica with grandpa. I get that this particular family is very open and forgiving, but it still feels like a bit of a stretch. And I suppose I have found the Capra naivety that I may have over looked in previous viewings. It's still my favorite Capra film, but in my opinion the bar is set pretty low. There are moments of sincere humanitarianism and great screwball comedy in his films, but these are drowned in the sappy, marshmallow gooeyness of the superficial resolutions and impossible Pollyannaism overall.

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) - % % % %

2011-05-23T15:47:00.007-05:00

Most noted for Harry Belafonte's role as a gambling addict, "Odds Against Tomorrow" is the first film noir to feature an African-American in a primary role. It is also a bleak film of failed lives overwhelmed by tension and fear, followed by rage. Produced by Belafonte's production company, the despairingly titled film works to give a context to racial tensions through the pitiable and harrowing lives contained by this heist flic.

The fascinating set of characters, mean and desperate, draw in the audience with their treacherous attempts at easing their struggles.

Robert Ryan costars as Earl Slater, a white ex-con with a chip on his shoulder and a temper to follow. He chafes at his inability to improve his lot or to avoid violence, ricocheting from bar fight to the door of his pretty, married neighbor, whom he degrades, manipulates and forcefully seduces.

As is often the case with films spearheaded by actors, the character development is primary to the script, and the action begins nearly halfway through the film, as Slater finally commits to a burglary scheme. Then he confronts his new partner, Belafonte, who is also desperate to cash in on the job to pay off his thug creditors from the race track. Slater's racism steams through his eyes and words, and the tension between the two is terrifying. There is no high ground. There is no noble character to raise the situation up to unify the two and bring them together. Instead, these troubled men are thrust together and head off to the heist. "It's gonna let us live again."

Best known for directing musicals like West Side Story as well as The Day The Earth Stood Still, director Robert Wise gives New York a harsh, frigid atmosphere. Bare trees and bitter winds penetrate the scenes, causing the actors to brace themselves against the world. Rather than filling this underworld with inky shadows, low angles peer up at the many shades of gray in this morally unhinged arena. Positioning the camera low to the ground, gives the impression of a towering weight about to fall on the characters at any moment. They appear isolated and imbalanced. Out on the streets, buildings loom up in the darkness; the sky is completely out of sight.

For a film about race and social issues, it holds up surprisingly well to this set of contemporary eyes. The score, although occasionally distracting, serves to layer anxiety and 50's jazz strains and intrigue. The conclusion gives the film the feeling of a morality tale, distracting from the potent tension created by these two actors. If the ending had only retained the seething interactions which engage the audience the most, this would have been a far more satisfying film.

Black Swan - % % % %

2010-12-13T22:30:00.005-06:00

Startling and hallucinatory, Black Swan is a psychological horror story. Nina, played with every muscle by Nathalie Portman, achieves her lifelong dream of playing the Swan Queen in her ballet company's production of Swan Lake. Nina is a fragile perfectionist dominated by her live-in mother, a former dancer herself. Nina is already fraying at the edges from the physical pressures of professional ballet, so the elevation to her new role and the challenges, amplified by her director's sexual manipulations, lead her down the rabbit hole.

To succeed, we are told, one must give everything of themselves with abandon. Be free in the full sacrifice to one's craft. The greatest artists, athletes, whatever one admires, completely immerse themselves in their passion and are dedicated to perfection, n'est-ce pas? Nina releases her ego and identity in the complete submission of herself in the role of prima ballerina and she dissolves.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, the film excels in this dissolution of reality. No other director achieves such a tangible, empathetic form of fear and nausea at the destruction of the human body. I left the theater after seeing Requiem for a Dream, thankful for my arms and for never having been so desperate or tragic in my life to succumb to prostitution. "Black Swan" makes me so grateful for the solidity of my body and my fingers and my bones and the entire thing. He achieves a rare squeamish terror that directors of Saw films should envy.

Furthermore, the disorientation of the climax and finale is complete and unpredictable. Unlike a film such as "Shutter Island", there are no explanations drawn out for the audience. The events swirl around Nina like the hallucinations they are. I've never seen such an accurate portrayal of the effects of Ecstasy on film. That alone is quite impressive. Nina's identity refracts like shattered mirrors as her self becomes her only real human connection and as she disintegrates into her new role.

Her body, her ultimate tool, rejects her and transforms itself, or perhaps she unconsciously transforms herself. Like a neurotic twitch that one cannot restrain, her skin and fingers and blood begin to alter against her will. A ballerina must be a master of her body, and her bulimia enables an illusion of physical and psychological control.

She is fragile and pale, like an egg, and as the pressure increases she cracks in a messy, messy way. It's exhilarating and spectacular and queasy and actually scary.

The casting is fantastic with the former prima, whom Nina replaces, played by Winona Ryder, and the new challenger played by Mila Kunis, who I am delighted to see in a drama. She is fantastic and utilizes her charisma to seduce with danger, rather than self-deprecating humor. The director of the company is slyly portrayed by Vincent Cassel using his sexuality and authority to embody that special kind of manipulative, seductive machismo. Rounding out the cast is Deborah Winger as the mother. She is quite terrifying yet believable. She resists the caricature of the failed mother living through her daughter and deftly plays the mind games of the most brilliant passive-aggressive matriarchs. Nathalie Portman deserves award considerations. She carries the film. Her character is nearly hysterical through the whole film yet she never becomes shrill or irritating. At the open of the film, I was saddened that such a good actress should immediately call to mind the stilted dialogue of Padme from Star Wars. To my relief she obliterated that character from my mind with her passion in this new role.

I will say as a draw back that the sound effects, while effective, were occaisionally over done and comical at first. Such a hallucinatory film is difficult for an audience to transition into at first and the sound effects just felt goofy for the first quarter of the film. Even towards the end, I found them heavy handed.

The pacing of the film was excellent and reminded me of the great psychological thrillers of Hitchcock. I am extremely impressed and thrilled that Aronofsky has returned to such dream-like territory. He is, in my opinion, at his best and most unique when creating a whirl-wind of the mind. His dryer character drama, "The Wrestler" was epic and poignant. But it lacked the joy and magic of creation that Aronofsky holds. If you are capable of extraordinary flights of fantasy, I'm not sure why you would ever tell such a miserable story, no matter how well told or illuminating it is. It'd be like Terry Gilliam directing Erin Brockovich. Why? And I think The Wrestler was a fantastic story of great depth and interest. I'm just so thrilled to get more from Aronofsky's imagination.

There is so much more I could say about the body manipulation inherent in such religious ferocity and the self-destructive commitment to success and work as a form of enslavement. What is success for? Is anyone really remembered in our ADD society? Are professional athletes any different than this woman crushing her toes to be beautiful? Is the drive for success always based in a lack of self-confidence and a frailty of identity?

Awesome. Scary. Trippy. Cool.

You accidentally came to my website and welcome!

2010-12-11T23:33:00.003-06:00

I am thrilled by this new addition to the blogger arsenal. Se here's the tracking of where my visitors have been from in the past. Pretty nifty.

Pageviews by Countries
United States 20
India 3
Switzerland 2
Spain 2
United Kingdom 2
Greece 2
Australia 1
Canada 1
Iceland 1
Jamaica 1

Since I don't know anyone in Greece or Jamaica, I'm going to guess that all the other views are also people who wandered here from Google. I hope you found it interesting. Now that I have confirmation that this blog does get some views even with the previously crummy way I've been keeping it, perhaps I shall be better motivated to improve my content. I am having an oddly sincere and probably nonstrategic moment, but I confess that I would like to offer something of value to the internet. I like processing my ideas about films through reviews, which could be useful for others. I'm not sure what will be most appealing for an audience. I'll mull it over, but if anyone has suggestions, I'm open to 'em. Thank you for visiting.

The Road - % % % % %

2010-12-11T22:43:00.005-06:00

I have not seen such an engrossing and encompassing film in many months. Something about the intensity of the genre demands the audience's attention, and yet this film was more penetrating in its sparseness and more emotional in its anonymous performances, making none its equal.

Marvelous. It is a miserable story. At its core is the essence of why we live. In creating a truly desolate world, the story from the novel "The Road", by Cormac McCarthy, strips away the other concerns in life that we are cluttered with living in modernity. This leaves the hunt for food, the fear of danger and violence and then the radical question, why live at all?

After an unknown apocalypse of such extreme proportions that all life aside from human has ceased, a father and son head south. Flashbacks expand on their situation, telling the backstory of a wife and mother, Charlize Theron, who finally gives up so completely and, spoiler alert, removes her layers of warm clothing to walk into the dark and cold wild. Alone with the boy, the man, masterfully played by Viggo Mortensen, trudges along fighting to get the boy to an age when he can survive on his own or prepare himself for the likelihood of merciful suicide. The film deftly allows in the most gruesome of realities without reveling in their monstrous power. Many of the surviving people have taken to cannibalism since all of the animals and plants are dead. The horrors of this environment are acknowledged and momentarily explored to establish the extreme danger for the pair, but are not embraced with prurient thrill as is often the case in the apocalyptic genre. The film is filled with fear and allows horror, but is more elegant than a more base thrill or shock. Rather, it holds the suspense of morality at its core. Is this the right decision? Can I live with this choice? What will be the consequence of my decision? And the suspense of these moments does not fade in the resolution of the events because the mind holds the tension of such moments long after they have passed.

This is a story written with a masterful understanding of the human condition at its essence. It is brilliant.

The film is dominated by gray and dirty landscapes of dead trees and decayed society. Interspersed with poignant close ups of hands clutching at tenderness and tears trickling down worn cheeks, the story keeps the man and his son at the center. They don't have names. They are unnecessary in this world since other people are a danger, and everything unnecessary has been stripped away. There are moments of joy interspersed accidentally in their journey. A swim under a waterfall. A discovered can of coke. The embroidered couch cushion with blue flowers in his parents' living room. Some elements of modern life that we occupy ourselves with remain in this wasteland.

The performances are universally real and compelling. I can't imagine how a director was able to elicit such a performance of raw fear, vulnerability and justice from a child. Extraordinary. The scenes involving strangers like Robert Duvall, Guy Pierce and the underused Michael K. Williams
(c'mon and hire this man more, people! He is Omar from the wire and the most extraordinary actor from the whole series! That man needs a better agent!) are filled with fear, curiosity and tenderness. They allow the film to breathe, filling moments with the real grace of life, human connection. And that is what leads to the unexpected happiness of the ending. It seems unimaginable until it finally happens and is in parallel with sparse, barren nature of the film. This visual metaphor, the boy and the man alone in a barren world illuminates the core of the story. Human connection is the reason for life. It's the reason to go on. It is what love is. It is what life is. I am astonished by the profundity elicited by this film and moved by how effective it is in pervading an audience with its story and themes. Magnificent. Magnificent.

Director John Hillcoat's previous film "The Proposition" takes another raw genre centered around survival and the human condition, the Western, and offers a bleak and cruel perspective as well, but not to the same effect. In The Proposition, familial loyalty is tested and the situations never create enough tension to mentally shake the audience into philosophical crisis in the same way that he manages to in The Road. And he's Canadian. I didn't think it possible for a country with a functioning NHS and little poverty to speak of to produce such a morose dude, but I guess those long winters can put one in touch with the power of bleakness. Really a fantastic movie. Brilliant.

Great Migrations - TBD

2010-11-15T22:41:00.005-06:00

I am becoming a great aficionado of nature docs. Perhaps the great turbulence of human lives has become too much for me to endure on a regular basis. Nature docs offer a meditative beauty and a sense of scientific assuredness at their core.

Watching my first installment of "Great Migrations", I am struck by the power of the narrator. Don't get me wrong. Alec Baldwin is no David Attenborough. Attenborough's joy and tenderness make him second to none. But I love the poetic turn that Baldwin brings to this new series. I can't imagine Oprah pulling off describing the sun as "the great watch-maker". Instead of the humanizing folksiness attempted in "Life", "Great Migrations" astounds with the drama inherent in the ebbs and flows of the non-human world. The cinematography may not be as staggering as in 'Life', but this is entirely to "Great Migrations"' advantage. Rather than spending all of their money on a few shots and then replaying them in different segments, "GM" seems to be focusing its attention on the stories of the critters and the poetry of the dramatics. The direction of this series is actually quite touching and mesmerizing.

The creation of this series by National Geographic, rather than the Discovery Channel, aids the production in another way. National Geographic rightly should be the premiere creators of nature docs from the US. "Great Migrations" includes a clarifying device that other producers may not be able to produce with as much grace and precision: maps. It is so important to orient the stories. I hate being distracted, wondering where this is taking place.

All in all, I'm impressed and eager for the next installment. I sure do hope that they don't recycle stories and repackage shots like 'Life'. It ruined the entire series, but I guess there wasn't much there in the first place.

And now I'm off to watch Nature on PBS. It's about Wolverines!

American Experience: We Shall Remain - % % % % %

2010-11-06T15:00:00.002-05:00

It never ceases to amaze me how little I know about North American Native American peoples. I learned all about Aztecs, Maya, Incas and Nazcas. But I know diddly about Algonquin or Shawnee people and culture.

This series is beautifully constructed of recreated scenes and interwoven interviews with historians and descendants of the historical figures. Watching the first episode I was struck over and over how enlightening this program is. Our children's history books are mediocre and fail all of us.

500 Days of Summer - % % %

2010-11-06T14:14:00.003-05:00

Nestled inside a nifty structure, moving throughout a relationship by days from middle to beginning to end, is a romantic comedy of mediocre and flimsy proportions. Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt carry the film admirably, but from the very beginning the narration indicates that this film is filled with crummy people who do stupid things and aren't worth our time. Really. The film tells us that these people suck at the beginning of the movie. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character Tom is shown in flashback as a child and we are told that he sadly misunderstands love, and then we learn that Deschanel's character, Summer, gets everything more easily in life because she is cute. From the beginning we are told not to trust or respect the main characters. Bleck. Why should we want to watch this movie then?

I have a nit-picky problem with this film as well. According to the film, these characters are two years younger than me. There were no eight-year-olds listening to Joy Division when I was 10. I knew who they were because of my brother, seven years older than I. As I pieced together the time-line of Tom's life, I think this screenplay is 10 years old and no one thought to up-date it. In the intro, we see Tom as a child listening to "bad British pop music" while wearing a Joy Division t-shirt. Joy Division was British, but they were neither pop music nor bad. This is a total mis-characterization of the music. This odd misunderstanding of the music indicates a misunderstanding of the main character. If the screenwriter misunderstands this seemingly autobiographical story, how can the audience be expected to connect with the story?

I did get swept up in the the joyous moments, like the choreographed dance sequence following the consummation of the relationship. And while I enjoy a nicely designed set and costumes, this film went into a nauseatingly heavy-handed cutesy-ness of 60's sharp suits and brunette bangs. Heck, they play house in a set of Ikea furnished rooms, as if their romance is entirely an idealized facade. The film, like the furniture, may look cute at first, but it's made of hollow cardboard and won't hold up. A film like "Singles" is a great example of capturing a style or music scene without overloading the film and crushing what little substance it may contain. Perhaps this has to do with the particular style of the film, rooted in child-like illustrations and clean, sharply-styled 60's fashion. Such a style resists a productive outlet for anger or depression. It is meant to evoke nostalgia, innocence and polish. It's exhausting even midway through the movie.

No one seems to have a sense of humor about themselves either. They are all so serious and sincere. Early on in the film we see Tom smashing plates in his kitchen, devastated at the loss of Summer, who just isn't that into him (no better explanation is ever offered). It's ridiculous but no one laughs at it. His precocious little sister speaks sage wisdom in a monotone to him trying to set him straight. A little laughter might release the intense pressure in Tom to hang on to his crummy relationship. A little levity and humorous self-reflection might endear the audience to the characters. In the end, Tom meets Autumn and starts it all over again. Bleck.

The Proposal - % % %

2010-03-28T20:47:00.004-05:00

I am genuinely stunned by how well executed this film is. I actually enjoyed it.

I am surprised because most romantic comedies are terrible. It's a genre with very clear rules and it's well worn territory. From the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s to "When Harry Met Sally" in 1989, the genre hasn't changed that much. We know we want an opposed couple drawn together through circumstances out of their control but compelled by their often opposing desires. We want banter. We want charm. We want self-deprecating humor. And we want penetrating contemplative looks at pivotal moments.

If you've seen the trailer, you know that Sandra Bullock is the bitchy tough boss to Ryan Reynold's dutiful, hardworking, enslaved assistant. She is going to be deported and needs to marry him to keep her job as top editor that she has worked so hard for. They go off to tell his family in order to convince the immigration officer of the veracity of their relationship and of course, her cold exterior is broken by the love of a good family and small town in the beautiful wilderness, and he sees that she's actually a very special woman after all.

The Proposal fulfills the obligations of the romantic comedy and exceeded my very low expectations with a thoughtful screenplay and very charming actors. It develops the characters well, but not so much that the film loses its momentum. Betty White is charming and delightful as Ryan Reynold's Gammy, and as always, Reynolds looks amazing without his shirt on. Wow. Very well executed.

What the film lacks is truly real characters that don't rely on generally held preconceptions about certain people and their relationships. Romantic comedies often fall back on these preconceived notions as shorthand for genuine and well developed characters. So the films feel superficial because they are. While the characters are well rounded, the details that indicate their characters never feel finely drawn, unique and textured. We are told that Sandra Bullock's character has a tattoo that represents her dead parents, but the story is that simple. There's no texture to tell us how they died, how she was told, why she choose sparrows to represent her parents. We just hear the story pat and are meant to derive the meaning for the information from what? Other movies we've seen? Our own lives? It's too ambiguous to be truly resonant and powerful. It's why When Harry Met Sally is fantastic, the subtle details telling us so much about the characters and their lives and environments. And it's why The Proposal is well executed but not super. But with the few surprises that The Proposal works with, it's still charming and well made.

By the way, thank you to whomever encouraged Ryan Reynolds to bulk up. I am really grateful. I even watched Amityville Horror just for the two or three scenes with his steaming torso. Shizzle is riCockulous.

Also. mad-props to Sandra Bullock for not being a skinny, tragedy but a slammin, curvy, svelte woman at 45. She doesn't look tortured like Renee Zellweger or Madonna, nor extraordinary like Halle Berry. (But who does?) I have a lot of respect that she never boobed up like Demi Moore. She is beautiful but not tortured or fake. And that in Hollywood, unto itself, may be reason enough for an Oscar. Well, if not that then some kind of lifetime achievement award at least.

PPPS There's a great moment when Bullock gets down on her knees in her tight, posh suit and stacked heels to propose to Reyynolds and because of her proper attire can barely get back up again. I think there need to be more moments of comedic mockery of women's fashion expectations. What competent woman would wear something that immobilizes her so? Ridiculous.

PPPPS Also Oscar Nunez deserves a frickin Golden Globe for his role as Ramone, the Alaskan small town's caterer, general store manager, exotic dancer and marital officiant. His creepy flirtations are fantastic! He brilliantly meanders across the friendly/sexy line wobbling between endearing and skeevy. I love it!

Breaking Bad - % % % %

2010-03-17T14:00:00.002-05:00

Fantastic show built on brilliant acting and witty writing. But I must fault it for a few mediocre members of the cast, such as the wife, and the often pedantic cinematography.

I just watched an episode from the second season in which Jesse, played by Aaron Paul, is thrown out of his house, and then booted from a high school friend's house, and then rejected over a pay phone by another friend and then his bike gets stolen. He breaks into the tow lot where his RV/cook house is being stored and falls into a port-a-potty. It's gross and tragic and while climbing from the blue ooze he cries like a little baby. Once in the RV he collapses on the floor and covers his head with a gas mask to protect from his own stench. It's awesome and brilliant!

It's like a new chapter in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Green Zone - % % % %

2010-03-17T13:10:00.001-05:00

Green Zone is the latest film by Paul Greengrass, best known for the Bourne films, but also the filmmaker who created United 93, a suspenseful, dread-filled docu-drama. Green Zone is a combination of these two styles – a tension filled spy action film crossed with a political historical drama. As king of the low-light shakey cam, Greengrass pulls off a twisting turning suspense with incredible shots of helicopters and a taut military procedural plot. But as a historical political film, it indicts the Pentagon and makes the CIA look like noble handlers of the world. Matt Damon’s character, Chief Miller, has just landed in Iraq in March 2003 and leads a team to investigate suspected and empty locations for WMDs. He begins to question the Pentagon intelligence and this leads him on a chase through Baghdad with his new friend, Freddy, played by Khalid Abdalla, from the Kite Runner. As a military procedural it is exciting like Black Hawk Down. But as a drama, it misses. By exciting the audience with semi-accurate portrayals of historical events, almost like a dramatized episode of Frontline, it fails by being a fictionalized account of a very serious issue, the fabrication and falsification of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq. I agree with the sentiments expressed in the film that the American public was lied to and failed by our government officials and the press, but by fictionalizing and generalizing a subject of such massive importance, Greengrass dulls his blade. Matt Damon, who has no character other than wanting the truth and doing his job well, gets to shout condemning statements at the Pentagon official played by Greg Kinnear, but it’s truly pointless with our knowledge of the quagmire that is to come. That is one thing that Green Zone does get right. It ends with a devastatingly defeated feeling that many of us feel about Iraq. It’s a disaster and there’s so little that we can do about it. The come-uppance at the end can’t be satisfying because it’s so tragic.

Shutter Island - % % %

2010-03-17T13:09:00.005-05:00

To start with, this is a film about a US Marshall played by Leonardo DiCaprio who enters a mental asylum for the criminally insane to investigate the disappearance of a prisoner/patient. You immediately know that the obvious plot would be some version of insidious hospital torturing sane patients or an insane narrator. We’ve all seen these movies before. And this doesn’t disappoint by avoiding obvious plot expectations. It disappoints by following them and then flushing them out completely until you are bored and then bored again as everything gets spelled out. I don’t need to ruin the “twist” but you know exactly what it is without me saying anything.

It’s too bad because the first hour of the film is beautiful and haunting. There are striking dream imagery and some genuinely scary moments. But this is the problem. The first half of the film is dramatic and filled with action, sets, interesting characters and complex conversations. It starts as a surreal mystery and then the last hour and a half is several boring conversations. There’s an entire scene of at least five minutes that feels interminable in which DiCaprio has a boring conversation with Patricia Clarkson that consists entirely of cutting between a close-up of him and a close-up of her. Back and forth and back and forth. I’m insulted by how boring it was. And then there are another two or three scenes of conversations that explain one way of looking at things and then explain in words another way and then Ben Kingsley who runs the asylum uses a diagram written on a board to explain something else like it’s a class lecture. If you can’t show it with action, do not spell it out like a lecture. That’s not filmic! That’s boring. They should have known that they were doomed when they couldn’t storyboard that scene any better. It feels like Scorcese just gave up directing half way through and then slapped an ending on top of the boring section that follows through illustrating all the stuff they talked about before. Terrible. Just terrible. DiCaprio is good through all of this and I don’t usually like him. And then the very last scene has another twist. But by then it’s too late and you are begging for it to end. All the visually interesting parts have long since passed you by and you are in reality which is totally dull after the spooky, fascinating and trippy first half. A total let down.

Alice in Wonderland - % % % %

2010-03-17T13:09:00.003-05:00

Alice in Wonderland is the perfect project for morose, quirky director, Tim Burton. The scraggly trees and fog that greet Alice upon arrival in Wonderland are straight from his repertoire, such as Sleepy Hollow or The Corpse Bride. But along with the shadowy darkness and child-like fascination with death, there is the beauty and charm of the fanciful and vibrant world created by Lewis Carol. And Burton develops this fantasy in beautiful fashion. In Wonderland fire is not just flame colored, it’s got sharp bursts of pink electricity.

Again we have the team of Burton and Johnny Depp, in crazy teeth with a variable accent that jumps around the British Isles according to his mood and eyes that change color accordingly like a mood ring. I am stunned by how many crazy-drunk voices he can create and still establish a unique character.

This is not the usual story of Alice, which is brilliant since we all know the original and it would be difficult to keep the film suspenseful or interesting if one simply followed the book. Instead we meet Alice as a young adult about to be trapped into a marriage with a sniffling wimp. She disappears down the rabbit hole again and discovers that she is not a heroine any longer, because she isn’t much like a hero. She has lost her muchness. This film follows her gaining confidence and muchness through rescuing the Mad Hatter and others and standing up to the Red Queen. The plot is weak in this part and the devices that serve to strengthen Alice are not as innovative or moving as the visual creativity on display in every nook and cranny of the film.

I’m totally impressed by Burton’s creation of a scary fantasy world of beheadings and madness that never becomes too scary for kids or too lame for anyone. The macabre cruelty of the Red Queen is enhanced by the tortured birds carrying her chandelier or the monkey butlers holding up her chairs and tables. And who doesn’t want monkey butlers? Awesome.

In fact one of the most child-like aspects of the film is the deep love of animals from the affection of the delightful monkeys and frogs in the Red Queen’s service to the hound dog who saves Alice and the grizzly Bandersnatch whom Alice befriends. It’s sweet without being bubblegum and it fits so well into a story in which animals are both deceitful and mad, as well as the oracles to wisdom.

It’s really good and although the plot could be more inventive, I think it’s Burton’s best film in years.

The Hurt Locker - % % % %

2010-02-15T23:39:00.003-06:00

Why am I not CRAZY over this film? It's wonderfully crafted. The action and scenario are interesting. The characters are well developed. But I think I don't feel moved by them. The acting is very good and they follow revealing lines and interrelations. I really really like it, but... I can't give it 5 percent signs. Too bad.

In the commentary, director Kathryn Bigelow talks about how she felt that the war was under-reported. I think she explains it in a new way. I have been looking to long form documentaries to tell me the stories I want to know or am curious to see. I want to understand more complex aspects than can be told through a 500 word article in a newspaper. I want to understand the war in broad strokes. The small portions that happen in a few hours or in a day are the stories of military movements and deaths. In "The Hurt Locker" we finally get to see the work-relationships and the missions and how the war is being waged. It's fascinating and a great credit to the screenwriter, Mark Boal, who spent time imbedded with a bomb disposal unit in Baghdad.

I'm super happy to see David Morse in a small part. He's always so great. His pudgy eyes belie the deepest sorrows of Saint Elsewhere.

I wonder if it's because I watched it at home. I bet if I had watched this on a big screen, I'd have been as terrified as during "Black Hawk Down", the scariest movie I've ever seen.

Cadillac Records - % % %

2009-12-13T15:07:00.002-06:00

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 - % % % %

2009-11-22T05:35:00.005-06:00

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 - % % %

2009-11-21T21:36:00.004-06:00

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) - % % % %

2009-09-19T23:56:00.006-05:00

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 - % % %

2009-09-08T22:42:00.006-05:00

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 - % % % %

2009-09-08T00:39:00.003-05:00

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

2009-09-06T23:51:00.003-05:00

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 - % % % % %

2009-09-06T22:29:00.005-05:00

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 - % % % % %

2009-09-05T12:51:00.002-05:00

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 - % %

2009-09-05T00:22:00.003-05:00

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) - % % % %

2009-05-26T17:20:00.003-05:00

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 - % %

2009-05-20T01:56:00.006-05:00

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 - % % % % %

2009-04-11T22:41:00.007-05:00

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

2009-04-10T16:25:00.007-05:00

“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

2009-04-09T23:18:00.005-05:00

from Jump Cut, no. 7, 1975, p. 27
copyright Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 1975, 2004

***I'm not going to include the entire article, mainly because I don't like/agree/find interesting the entire article. But I do think that Kleinhans brings a necessary skepticism to Vogel's work that I do not possess. Like much skeptical work, it's a little too grumpy for my perspective and I don't think that all of the article has a place on this blog. But you can certainly skip my censorship and check it out in its entirety via the link above. Also I have added some photos and images because all that text seems so dull and dreary on a blog.***

(He works at Northwestern! I should give him a call and see what he thinks 30 years later)

... Can form subvert content, can content subvert form, can either or both subvert the audience, how, when, why, for whom, and does it really matter? Vogel is convinced that it does matter, and I'm inclined to agree with him, which is why I wanted to review the book. But after reading it, I'm not sure that he’s got a handle on the question at all.

Form subverting content is as old as parody and irony, which is to say it’s a very ancient business. And the question of content subverting the audience has been on the aesthetic agenda since Plato endorsed state censorship in the Republic. More recently, and in the world of film, various British film critics have tried to argue a case for Douglas Sirk (MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, WRITTEN ON THE WIND, IMITATION OF LIFE, etc.) on the grounds that his stylized form subverts his sugary sentimentalism, though strict auteurists seem to be the only Americans who can swallow that idea. And, of course, the form/ content/ subversion question animates a great deal of discussion of militant political film and the avant-garde. So, the questions at the heart of Vogel’s book are really very important ones, and are basic to the liveliest issues being debated today in film criticism. Questions we face go from “What is a positive image of women in Hollywood film?” and “What is Michael Snow trying to do with film?” to “What is a revolutionary political cinema?”

What Vogel delivers to this ongoing discussion is a magnificently illustrated, extremely comprehensive survey glued together with a tissue of contradictory analysis. We have subversion of form: the Soviet 1920s, expressionism, surrealism, dada, pop, (mostly silent) comedy, and a heavy dose of the international avant-garde. Then we have the subversion of content: Godard, Third World, Eastern Europe, and Nazi cinema. On to forbidden subjects: sex, birth, death, religion. And a final mushy celebration of the counterculture and “the eternal subversion”:

“In the last analysis, every work of art, to the extent that it is original and breaks with the past instead of repeating it, is subversive.”

So what else is new?

Vogel has a very wide acquaintance with films, both orthodox and experimental, and a lively interest in the new and unusual. Politically his heart is in the right place (he comes out and says Hiroshima and Vietnam are cases of genocide). But it’s never clear exactly what he means by “subversive” except that it helped him string together a book on films he obviously liked. It is clear he has an endless capacity for swallowing things at more than face value (e.g., an actress walking upside down in 2001s gravityless spaceship “opens us to a sense of cosmic consciousness”), and idealism (e.g., the “eternal tension between organized society and creative artist”). And at this late date he still refers to women as girls and can't seem to connect the depiction of women as objects and victims with female oppression except on the rarified (and therefore basically irrelevant) level of taboo. ***I haven't noticed this yet, but it's probably right. Hmmm... Can I judge him harshly for this like I do with others? We shall see when I find the context.***

***Ack! It's Vogel with a baby-faced Werner Herzog!***

It’s hard to tell what motivated this book, especially because Vogel’s analysis itself is such an intellectually mixed bag. In the same paragraph he mentions the decline of capitalist civilization (Marx) and the collective unconscious of the race (Jung). Vogel has a subject matter, but no consistent thesis, and he never comes to terms with the contradictions of jumbling different thinkers. But whatever the book’s intention, it must be considered in its effect (though with an evasive apology Vogel tries to confuse the issue by offering, “this book is an approximation of a draft of a first edition”—a statement worthy of Ron Ziegler). At last glance, precisely because the analysis is so thin, it’s another coffee table film book. With its Random House imprint, well-executed design, and lots of stills, it’s just a high class version of a sleazo porn publication, “The Making of DEEP THROAT” or “Modern Marriage Techniques Illustrated,” with a veneer of commentary to dress up the action. Basically this is your 1975 version of the Hollis Alpert-Arthur Knight Playboy series, “Sex in the Cinema.”

Maybe Vogel’s apology means something. Maybe he had to pay off a gambling debt or something in a hurry and churned out a potboiler ... or maybe he was just getting the money to do the book he could do. But we don't need apologies, what we need is the solid piece of intellectual work he’s capable of. As the book stands now, it simply suberts itself: it’s slick, but trash nonetheless."

This last paragraph is some crappy sour grapes. If it's not so great, what other book do you propose in its place? If anyone has suggestions for me to check out, I'm open. I think calling something trash is pretty forceful and I'd like to know what is a "valuable" version of this book in Kleinhans' opinion. If history has the final answer, Vogel's book is called seminal in numerous other current locations and I find it pretty fascinating. And while I know that hanging out with John Lennon isn't necessarily a Good Housekeeping coolness seal of approval, I'm not sure what else would be a better standard of at least being interesting.

Film as a Subversive Art - with Amos Vogel

2009-04-09T22:53:00.005-05:00

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

2009-04-09T01:11:00.004-05:00

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 - % % %

2009-03-09T01:43:00.005-05:00

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.

Salvador Dali (1939) - "Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time"

2009-03-08T16:58:00.004-05:00

The painting is thought by some to be a satire of the sexualization of child stars by Hollywood.
See: "Most sacred monsters: Moral panic over the sexualisation of child stars is not only a modern phenomenon" Mark Lawson, The Guardian, Friday 1 June 2007
"Writing in the October 1937 edition of the magazine Night and Day, Graham Greene considered the performance of the then nine-year-old Temple in Wee Willie Winkie. The novelist argued that, though marketed as an innocent kid, the performer had a "more secret and more adult appeal" and was, in truth, a 'complete totsy' with a 'well-developed rump'. Although paedophilia was not a term in common use in the 1930s, Greene's meaning is clear when he suggests that, for her male audience, 'the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire'."
Baby Bitches From Hell: Monstrous-Little Women in Film

The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel) - % % % % %

2009-02-26T20:26:00.004-06:00

Devastating - Marlena Deitrich, the essential femme fatale, seduces a professor whose life crumbles away into disgrace. Emil Jannings yet again performs misery brilliantly. Much as in The Last Laugh, his character begins as a pompous man and is transformed by the cruelties and unsympathetic nature of humans into a humiliated and degraded madman. And then he dies. There is no pitiful reprieve as in The Last Laugh.

Directed by Joseph Von Sternberg, in 1930 German Expressionism was fading in films, after the financial crisis at UFA because of the lavish production of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The town appears dark and aged. I felt as if I could hear the creaking of the medieval staircase leading to his attic room at the school. And the club for which the film is named is a dark hole of drunken sailors jeering equally drunken dames in their drawers. The star is Deitrich. She struts around, hands on hips, shoulders hard, glowing with sexuality.

(Spoiler - skip to next paragraph if you like surprises)
At first one might imagine that she could benefit this professor who gives up his job to marry this fallen women. But no. I don't even know why she'd marry him except that perhaps she believed no one would ever ask her and she'd like a man-servant. Shortly after their marriage he has decayed into an unshaven shlub peddling nudie photos of his wife. And four years later he is forced to return to his home town to perform in his wife's show as a clown assistant to a magician. The magician cracks eggs on his head and the audience of his former pupils laughs him into total insanity. His wife is making out with a useless strong man performer who is super hot for her. The sight of this drives him to attack her while clucking like a chicken. It's so frickin crazy amazing. I actually believe that this simple man might totally lose it and freak out in this extraordinary way. It's wonderful. And the closing shot of the film is marvelous.

It starts slowly, but be patient. The climax and Dietrich are worth it. It's totally depressing but also amazing.

Beauty Shop - % % %

2009-02-22T02:33:00.003-06:00

Attending film school and writing my own scripts has given me a new-found appreciation for mediocre comedy. Comedy is really really hard. Even obvious comedy is hard.

And so I gave Beauty Shop a chance. Everyone can probably guess at the formula for Beauty Shop. Women come together to run a business, meet wonderful men, kick the crappy ones to the curb and look fabulous.

Yup. Queen Latifa stars as the upcoming single mother hairstylist. The film opens with her working under the ridiculous Jorge, marvelously played by Kevin Bacon. And this is one of the best parts of this film. Along with Bacon, Andie MacDowell, Alicia Silverstone, and Mena Suvari, all white actors who usually wouldn't be anywhere near a black-centric film, are included in the film and are very good. Kevin Bacon is great and really creates an absurd yet genuinely funny master stylist, a boy from Nebraska masquerading as a European with kinky highlighted mop hair and a crazy loopy accent.

So perhaps this film is trying to open up the "black" film to a white audience. That might explain why the super hot black male stylist (Bryce Wilson) doesn't get totally smacked down for getting with a white girl, Silverstone. Instead, she proves that she can work it like a black girl and everything is ok. In a more realistic world, the black women would be pissed. I know I would be. There are not enough fine, hard-working black men for all the fine, hard-working black women. Let alone enough for the great number of fine black men who date only white women. That leads to a lot of single black women. I'd be pissed.

Ooh, and the other hottie man-candy is Djimon Hounsou. Shazam! He is so ridiculously beautiful. He has his shirt off only once, which I was surprised by. But you can tell how fine his body is regardless of what he is wearing. I wouldn't say that this is a role in which he shines. He's kind of a blank canvas, meant to be neutrally attractive. His character is made to be widely attractive, and his portrayal is blank for probably the same reason. It's too bad because he is capable of greater depth. I really liked him in the Four Feathers.

Queen Latifa is very good and compelling. She can definitely carry a film like this. She is a little over the top in a few scenes, but is universally lovely throughout and keeps the ball rolling.

So the plot is not the reason to watch this film. It is obvious. Jorge tries to sabotage her, but she holds it together and he gets his comeuppance. And the acting isn't really the reason to watch. There are great side characters, to be sure. Bacon and Sheryl Underwood as Rita the Catfish Lady are great side characters. Silverstone could have been a bit bolder and more confident, instead of wimpy southern-Cher (her character in Clueless). But then her booty-shaking wouldn't have been the surprise that wins over the ladies at the shop.

The reason to watch this film is to spend two hours feeling good about black ladies. When was the last time that happened in your life? It does slip into some stereotypes, which could be precarious for white audiences, but it's cute and simple, as it should be. It's a nice film. And Kevin Bacon is hi-larious. And it gives you quite a few new options if you play Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

As for the director, Billie Woodruff, who previously directed a few pop videos and the Jessica Alba vehicle, Honey (ouch), he does a decent job. I guess I had hoped that when I checked out his IMDB profile that I would find some evidence of his desire to make art. As far as I can tell, he's a workman climbing the Hollywood ladder. Good luck to ya!

City of Cranes - % % % % %

2009-02-11T02:50:00.003-06:00

A rumination on the experiences of crane drivers, floating above London, between buildings, carrying great loads with concentration and meditation. This 14 minute short doc is wonderful to watch. It's charming, narrated by interviews with crane drivers, and it's absorbing, marvelous and wondrous, filmed mainly from the crane operators' perspective, containing abstract images of modern life and the balletic dance of the epic cranes sweeping through the city.

At 14 minutes, you should definitely check it out. Next time you sit down for dinner or a snack, instead of turning on the tv, go to POV's website and watch. Glorious.

Directed by Eva Weber. The website for the film. She has also directed The Intimacy of Strangers, available on the Full Frame compilation, disc 5, available on Netflix. I'm bumping it up on my queue, rest assured.

Jericho - % % % % %

2009-02-01T18:05:00.004-06:00

I can't believe it myself, but I just watched all of Jericho in two and a half days and I was on the edge of my seat and crying and thrilled almost the whole time.

Yes it is super-patriarchal and there are some philosophical questions I'd like to pose to the writers, like should a town continue to be run by the same family for three generations?

But I really loved it! There is just something about a post-apocalyptic world that is fascinating. And you all have probably heard me talk about how Red Dawn is one of the greatest films ever made. I really love the passion of survival and the notion of resistance.

And it is a total fantasy that any group would be able to survive like the citizens of Jericho do in this show. They held on to their morals in an extraordinary way and still came out alive and strong, for the most part.

It is a totally white town, with the exception of a CIA agent who just moved in. That unto itself bothers me immensely. Apparently we can only get along with a black family that makes every sacrifice for us and are badass killing machines. And the only Latino on the show is named Beck. And even this very brown German man (he could be Argentinian or Brazilian, but come on! unlikely) has to work very hard to overcome his allegiance to a foreign power of evil.

And the women, while very plucky and "tough broads", are still just girlfriends. They fight alongside the men, but they are rarely leaders. It's getting there though. In Red Dawn, the women are pathetic, traumatized rape victims. So there's definitely improvement.

I will say that the acting is actually pretty decent. Skeet Ulrich totally steps up to leading the show. His father and mother, played by Gerald McRainey and Pamela Red, are excellent stalwart tv actors and they are magnificent centers to the first season. And no one should talk about this show without discussing the marvelous Lennie James. He rules the show. He is captivating as a mysterious CIA agent with many many secrets, all of which could turn the world upside down. A revolution for the post-apocalyptic world. He's fabulous.

Oh, and in opposition to HBO writers whose shows get canceled, these writers wrapped it all up in a timely and satisfying fashion.

And even though the super bad guy is fighting for the same thing as the good guys, he is still bad because he's willing to kill civilians. So it is very true to American and Amurican values.

I have always been very anti-guns. Although I certainly see the need to have a well armed defense force. Allowing citizens to own firearms has given the US a death rate per capita by handguns alone that is 2000% that of other similar nations. Pretty gruesome. And the main reason that Canada doesn't have the same extent of the problem seems to be its lack of horrifying poverty.

So when we eliminate the main causes for violence, which generally boils down to inequality and extreme poverty and desperation, then I'll be totally behind more liberal interpretations of the 2nd Amendment.

Until then, I don't want more firearms in my city. Hell no!

On the other hand, and the reason that I say all of this, is that I do understand the value of being able to handle a firearm and I do agree that a militia to defend against tyranny is also valuable. I just think that there are still other ways to make improvements and changes to our society other than with violence, although I'm not surprised when others don't come to the same conclusion.

If you take away the non-violent means for change, you leave only the violent means.

All power to the people.

Stroszek - % % % % %

2009-01-26T14:45:00.004-06:00

OK, it's by Werner Herzog, so I obviously love it.

But this is one of his fiction-ish films and it is remarkable for its close relationship with the characters in an almost loving and appreciative way. A socially awkward, ?alcoholic, musician gets released from an institution and along with a beaten down prostitute and his elderly neighbor, they move to the neighbor's nephew's town in rural Wisconsin. While Wisconsin is an improvement in many respects, these three simply do not form a family.

Bruno Stroszek, the musician, appears at first as simple-minded, but soon shows that he is quite capable of extraordinary philosophy and a passion for music fulfilled in his instrument collection and his outdoor concerts for local apartment buildings. Eva, the sex worker, has a truly skeevie set of pimps who beat her for having sex with someone at the opening of the film and then again for not making enough money to get their stuff out of hock. And then again. They walk into Bruno's house and humiliate him, tearing apart his accordion and taking Eva off. Herr Scheitz, Bruno's neighbor, suggests that they all move to Wisconsin with him. Herr Scheitz' nephew is a humorous local mechanic native to Railroad Flats. His only German is to say, "What's loose? The dog is loose." But he is an endearing sort of fellow to offer his uncle a home and his odd friends work and a new life.

These three find solace with one another. Bruno needs companionship and affection, Herr Scheitz needs companionship and conversation, and Eva seems to need safety. But as time goes by, their support of each other is not enough. Upon entering the country, Bruno's beloved bird is confiscated. He left all of his instruments behind except his horn, which he plays atop the Empire State building on their way through New York, and his according, which is barely ever used again.

I kept thinking throughout the film that it was going to quickly spiral out of control and spend the last hour wallowing in horrible misery. But it doesn't. Yes, everything falls apart, but in a quirky, almost delightful way. These characters are not filled with pathos and self-mutilative desires. They try to keep it together. (Skip to the next paragraph if you want to keep the ending a surprise) Eva needs to take care of Eva, so she leaves with some truckers to go to Vancouver. Herr Scheitz concludes that the reposession of their trailer is a conspiracy and attempts to hold up the local bank. When he finds that it's closed, he and Bruno hold up the barbershop next door and then, after tossing the shotgun into the front seat of their car, run across the street to buy groceries. Herr Scheitz is arrested and Bruno runs off with a frozen turkey and the shotgun. It's almost madcap and relieves the oppressing misery of so many films which depict a downward spiral. And thank god! I can't handle another Sherry Baby. Ugh.

I think we all know the other shoe is going to drop. Nothing really ends in happily every after. So is it really illustrative of anything other than repetition or lack of creativity to tell the same miserable story again and again?

I hope to never tell such a miserable story as Sherry Baby or anything by Lars Von Trier. I am not a sadist, nor much of a masochist. It's not instructive to repeat the same narratives again and again, with no illustration of anything new or hopeful or even causal. Where do we make mistakes? Are there good things that come from mistakes? If we all live in misery forever and ever and over and over again, well, lets just nuke the place. But we don't. There are wonderful redeeming elements in life and we do think that it will change and maybe be better. Enough with the ominous dread. Even sad endings can be more than miserable.

Which is why Stroszek is great! There's a dancing chicken at the end! Chickens are always funny and this one is magnificent.

United States of Tara - % % %

2009-01-17T09:13:00.003-06:00

I'm impressed by the way this show handles Multiple Personality Disorder in a funny, interesting way. The personalities develop the main character and they act as foils for the other members of the family. But I'm going to reserve my final judgment/endorsement until I see more episodes. It feels a little sit-comy and could get lame after a few episodes.

The daughter is a great character and I'm excited to see where they go with her. The son is funny and sweet as well. Even John Corbett, who can be a tree stump of an actor at times, is actually really good. He had range and utilized his cuteness and charm to good effect.

It's got real potential. I was a little nervous when I saw the trailer for the show in the movie theaters along with Patrick Swaze's new cop show (so sad), but it seems like the writers are working it and can keep it interesting in the future. And obviously Toni Colette is fantastic and amazing. I was never worried about her role in this.

With All Deliberate Speed - % % % %

2009-01-17T07:52:00.003-06:00

Combining myriad source materials, interviews, readings by celebrities, and narration, "With All Deliberate Speed" moves from segregation, through the Supreme Court cases that led to Brown vs. Board of Education and into the present day devastation of the public school system.

Made by Peter Gilbert(Hoop Dreams, At the Death House Door, Kartemquin Films), much of the film is spent on meeting and detailing the struggles of black students and their community in fighting court cases which led to Brown. It is a searing reminder of how far we have come that such violence is no longer commonplace. Mixed in with these testimonials though is contemporary footage of black students in today's dilapidated and, once again, segregated schools. Instead of using the law to segregate white students from black, today's white America uses their financial advantages to put their children in private schools and once again, limits the funding of the facilities, thereby leaving black students in unsafe buildings with few books and little respect.

I am torn in my opinion of the film. I think that it is excellently crafted. The narration by Jeffrey Wright is, as is everything he does, marvelous. And yet, the film misses the drama of the subject. It comes close, but I'm not sure that I understood the fear of these children. I am profoundly affected by their continuing emotions on the subject. To know that these experiences have stayed with them all of their lives is profound. And I sympathize greatly with today's student activists, battling a system so much larger than themselves. But the overall tone of the film is sadness that so little has been accomplished by such a great victory. I think I want to see the rage of injustice, but that might just be my personal enjoyment of indignation.

Mad Men - % % % % %

2009-01-17T05:06:00.005-06:00

I've only watched the first three episodes, but I can see why this show has won so many awards. There is a lot going on here. The protagonist is a mystery, there are so many points of conflict that I don't know where to begin, and it's fascinating to see a time when people drove drunk, smoked around their kids, let them play inside plastic bags, and openly sexually harassed each other. What a lot has changed in 50 years!

And since this is brought to us by Matthew Weiner, writer & executive producer of the Sopranos, we can be sure to explore masculinity, the male myth and the psyche of men in fascinating and unexpected ways. I hope I don't end up getting lost and realizing I know so little about men, like I did with the Sopranos. I just couldn't get into it cause I didn't get it. But I digress.

So I'm loving this show and I recommend it!

PS How brilliant is it to interrogate men and capitalism through advertising! I love it!

An American Crime - % %

2009-01-17T03:47:00.003-06:00

Why did I rent this movie? What review did I read that gave me the impression that it would be good to watch? Why are Ellen Page, Catherine Keener, James Franco and Bradley Whitford in this terrible film?

"An American Crime", based on a real crime committed in 1965, follows Sylvia
(Ellen Page) and her slightly disabled sister, who has a leg brace from her bout of polio. Their parents leave the two with a single mother from their poor, small-town church for a short time while working a carnival circuit in Florida. The single mother, Gertie (Catherine Keener), is a mess. She has regular bouts of mental illness, and struggles to raise her 5 girls and one boy. Her mooch boyfriend (James Franco), who fathered her most recently born child who screams and cries throughout the film, is too young for her and instead of paying child support, scams what little money she has.

Into this crap situation, the two girls befriend the sisters and it seems that the story will focus on the elder sister, Paula, and her pregnancy with a child from her affair with a married bagboy from the local liquor store. But no. The two girls' check from their father is late and so Gertie whips the girls with a belt. What? The girls take it and move on. When the bagboy attempts to rape Paula to get her to shove off, Sylvie saves her and tells the bagboy that Paula is pregnant. Paula is furious with Sylvie and to make matters worse, the creepy neighbor boy who follows Sylvie around overhears the secret and blabs it all over their high school. Paula assumes it was Sylvie and gets her in trouble at home.

From here it all spirals out of control and it's hard to understand how this family and the neighborhood kids who get involved could possibly think that any of this was ok let alone a good idea. Gertie accuses Sylvie of flirting with her crap boyfriend and the gossip at school gets back to Gertie who accuses her of being a slut and - get this - forces Sylvie to shove a coke bottle "up her". After this Sylvie is thrown down the stairs into the basement. From this point on, Sylvie regains consciousness but never moves. Instead of getting her to a hospital, the family burns her with cigarettes and matches, punches her, kicks her, hoses her down with cold water, ties her up to a post and just generally tortures her. It isn't clear if she's paralyzed or just wasted away from neglect, but Sylvie is a limp whimpering ragdoll in their mean mitts. The little son is particularly cruel and invites/cajoles the neighborhood kids to join in on the fun. Finally after discovering Paula's pregnancy, Gertie brands a phrase into Sylvie's stomach. Yeah, you read that right. She brands, "I am a prostitute and proud of it" with the assistance of the creepy neighbor stalker boy who claims to like Sylvie!

All of this is clearly exploitative but the film tries to make the characters rounded and its clear that the filmmaker wants to tell a more nuanced story about sexual repression and the cruelty of children. But this subject matter is so crazy that it'd be nearly impossible to avoid the titillation of the audience. So just make it a gothic, exploitation Lifetime miniseries and go for it. There's nothing wrong with that. But no.

So we suffer along with Gertie and Sylvie and I can't say that I stayed engaged after Sylvie was tossed down the stairs. It was too extraordinary. And the film pushes the audience out of the story by framing it with the trial of Gertie and the testimony of the neighbor kids by the DA, played by Bradley Whitford, who I would watch read the ingredients of pudding pops. Yeah, I love him. The audience's horror at the acts is voiced by the DA asking the children why they did it and why they didn't get help. But it's just sad. The kids all reply, "I don't know".

There's a side plot with a boy from school who is handsome and likes Sylvie, which leads to the bottle incident. And that along with the teen pregnancy leads me to believe that sexual repression and shame for having children is what leads Gertie to torture Sylvie, or that's what the director is aiming for. But I don't really find a subtle understanding of sadism. I never sympathized or comprehended with the driving force of Gertie and the kids and so it just seemed crazy. The material was there to make a connection between oppression and sadism, but it felt superficial.

The camera stays with Sylvie's perspective and so we don't get inside the madness. Catherine Keener is compelling in many respects, but plays it too subtly. The words show that she's coming to a boil and that she's projecting things onto Sylvie, but she's so restrained and pained as a character that it's hard to believe that the kids would go along with such a mild mannered woman. She's just not crazy enough to enjoy torturing a young girl in such a terrible manner. Yes, many people are responsible for this crime and yes, they might seem like nice and normal people. But someone who is at the center of such a heinous crime would show some signs of mental illness outside the normal realm of behavior. For example, in reality, Sylvie was often punished for being unclean. This obsession of someone being dirty is evidence of Gertie's madness. It would make her a more understandable character.

Then there's a ridiculous scene where Sylvie escapes. Paula and the creepy neighbor boy come to their senses and take her to her parents. They return for the little sister and at this point the film re-enters the house where Sylvie is dead on the floor of the kitchen. I like this choice in that it follows the audience's natural desire for someone in the film to act with some sense and our desire for a happy and victorious ending. But these kind of fake-outs are always irritating.

So in the end, Gertie gets life and eventually accepts responsibility and regret for Sylvie's death. The neighbor kids, Paula and the little son all get prison time too. And Sylvie's parents leave her sister with the DA's family and go back on the road. What?! What awful parents! I would think that they would be so ashamed of themselves for abandoning their daughters to such horrible people and handing Sylvie over to her murderer, that they would never let their remaining daughter out of their sights. I think there are other villains in this story beyond Gertie's family.

I just feel that there is more to this story than the sexual repression angle. Doesn't their poverty have something to do with this? What about group behavior makes kids succumb to peer pressure to do even the most horrible things? Why would sadistic behavior be satisfying? What the hell is wrong with Gertie?

I don't know who suggested this movie to me, but I will find them and tell them that they were wrong. This is not a good movie. It may be well acted, but it is poorly handled and not even melodramatic enough to be entertaining.

Ah ha! I've figured it out. The film was praised for its acting at Sundance last year.

Hail the Conquering Hero - % % % % %

2009-01-15T15:35:00.000-06:00

another laugh riot from Preston Sturges.

The funniest war film ever made. And the most inspiring film about Marines I've ever seen.

Seriously, ridiculously, laugh-out-loud funny.

You want plot twists, there are plot flips and flops and flips again.

You want heart-warming, there's love, compassion, honesty, humility, courage, triumph over evil, and the love of a mother.

You want humor, it's written and directed by Preston Sturges. There's physical comedy, dramatic irony, slapstick, witticisms, ridiculous characters and lovable characters.

It's great! They sure don't make 'em like this anymore and it's a damn shame. But then again, this movie is so great, there's no need to make another.

Yeah, I know the acting is wooden and the love interest has a botoxed expression, inexplicably well before the procedure was invented. But so many of the other characters are so wonderfully ridiculous, like the mayor, the guy in charge of all of the parades and events, the mother-loving marine, and best of all (as always) the Sarge! (William Demarest, best known as Charley from My Three Sons)

Slumdog Millionaire - % % % % %

2009-01-13T09:36:00.004-06:00

I really don't have more to say on this film that hasn't been said a bajillion times elsewhere.

I wonder if Danny Boyle goes through life looking for subject matter that fits well with his aesthetic style? Druggies, apocalyptic sci fi, India... Fast paced, colorful, gritty,... Mumbai! Totally fits.

I also like that he is a filmmaker who isn't trapped by his own culture. We're always told to "write what you know" and that translates into only telling stories about people like us in ethnicity, culture, gender, socio-economic background. But that only propagates the dominant and privileged culture. If only white men have access to the expensive and narrow supplies of filmmaking and they tell stories about white men, we'll just continue the structure of privilege. I want to tell the stories of those different from me, but of course that means I'll probably do a kind of crummy job, because I speak from my limited perspective. But it's what I find interesting and we need to know more about others. I'm still working on this theory/methodology. We'll see where it goes.

So yeah, go see Slumdog Millionaire, and not just because it won the Golden Globe, but because it's a great story about childhood in difficult circumstances, horrific circumstances, and it's about how to live nobly as an adult through difficult circumstances. We can use and abuse each other or we can embrace each other and rise up together. And it's beautiful and ends with a Bali-wood dance which made me so ridiculously happy. I hope it does well in India, where it opens this coming week.

And the soundtrack includes songs by M.I.A. How perfectly formulated for one another: MIA & Danny Boyle!

Encounters at the End of the World - % % % % %

2009-01-12T04:40:00.006-06:00

I really do want Werner Herzog to narrate my life.

With his monotone, accented voice describing metaphors and philosophical ideas about life on Antarctica, Encounters cuts back and forth between glorious, magical imagery below the ice & in caves or fumaroles, and the more prosaic lives of the scientists and maintenance crews who live above in McMurdo, a US National Science Foundation base town, operated by defense contracters. He often cuts people's stories down by stepping in and saying, "This story goes on forever." He then summarizes and ponders some tangential thought projected off into philosophical space by the interviewee.

Yet these individuals provide an interesting medium for exploring human idiosyncrasies, one of Herzog's favorite topics.

Several people explain their theory that those who are not tied down to the earth, tend to fall down to the bottom. One fascinating interview is with a linguist on a continent with no languages. A compulsive traveler who possesses an odd carnival-esque skill of folding herself up into a piece of carry-on luggage.

Overall, Werner comes to Antarctica to pursue the question of why humans push our boundaries and how that makes us different from other species. He also mourns our marks upon the otherwise pristine face of nature.

In a marvelous tangent, we go to meet Ashrita Furman who holds the world record for crossing continents by pogo stick, summersaulting, walking with a bottle on his head... Why do we have to push the limits? Why do we want to distinguish ourselves in such a manner?

In the commentary, Werner makes a hilarious and brilliant statement about this Furman guy: "There's something not right about it. It's a disease of civilization. ...Why don't we leave Mount Everest alone with its dignity. We do not need to be up there. The strange thing is all people of nature who live there, Sherpas, never climb these mountains. They would have certain reverence and they would keep the sacredness of the mountain in tact." A disease of civilization to push the limits to unhealthy, purposeless degrees. Hmm... That certainly puts a damper on the risk-taking philosophy of the US in the 80s. Hmm...

Why do these eccentric people end up here?

Through an interview with a penguin expert, we learn that female penguins may hook up with a male, let him "copulate" and then walk off with rocks from his nest for her own. And then we see a tragic penguin who wanders off into the center of the continent to die. Even if one were to drag him back, the penguin would immediately head back for the interior. It breaks my heart. I want to grab him and shout, "No! It's 50 km with no water and no fish! There's still swimming for you and delicious fish."

Suicidal penguins? Explorers? Disoriented or crazy? Hmmm... an interesting parallel for those we meet on the continent. In the commentary, Werner posits that disorientation may be an indication of insanity in animals.

These people are kinda nuts for living in such a dangerous place. Everyone has to learn how to survive in a white out, how to build an igloo to survive on the ice. Upon visiting a vulcanologist studying one of two open volcanoes in the world, Werner is warned to not turn his back on the crater, rather if a lava bomb were projected into the sky, he should look up at it and step out of its way as it comes back to earth. And apparently 30 years ago a team tried to climb down into the crater and towards the open magma lake. What?! Where were their mothers? I know mine would never forgive me so it must have been a team of orphans. Nutso. Of course there was an explosion of magma and the lead climber was injured.

Climate change is discussed, but in a doomsday perspective. Everyone seems to believe that we are on the precipice of going the way of the dinosaurs.

As markings of our presence for future earthlings, there is a tunnel to the mathematically precise south pole where several trinkets are stored including a frozen sturgeon, a photo of a green and blue lake, images of flowers, bad poetry and a wreath of popcorn. what? We are obviously doomed.

It is beautiful when away from the human settlements: an alien, majesty pervades the scenes, accompanied by choral music. The earth is extraordinary. Nature is remarkable. As one who lived nearly all of her life in urban areas, I've recently become aware of this and thanks to the national parks I've learned that we have gone too far. Why, why why must we possess everything? We'll all have to agree to have less for our sake and for the earth.

In the commentary, Werner says explicitly why I love his films. He says that through filmming, he fell in love with the world. In the earlier parts of his career, he explored the hideous internals of the human character, and now he seems to explore the grandeur of nature and the marvelous absurdity of humanity. I hope that in my films it will come across that I make films because I love exploring the world.

Hellboy II - % % % %

2009-01-07T22:30:00.003-06:00

Better than the first!

I liked the first one a bit. But it was lacking more developed characters. But the plot was interesting, as it related to the creation story of Hellboy and involved paranormal-obsessed Nazis.

If you haven't seen the first, don't watch the second. The characters will be even less well developed for you. Selma Blair is back as a temperamental fire-starter now living with Hellboy, a nearly indestructible being from hell, a parallel universe-type-thing, where he is the prince. He's got a giant stone hand that smashes stuff, a pointy tail, red skin and two horns the grow out of his forehead but which he sands down every day so that he can blend in more with humans. And he loves cigars and shooting at stuff.

In this installment an elf prince is fed up with humans ruling the world because we have holes in our hearts that can never be filled no matter what we possess, but we keep on trying! So he goes on a quest to capture all of the pieces of a crown that controls an indestructible golden machine army that can easily destroy all of humanity. And we're off.

This installment benefits from an increased budget and Guillermo Del Toro's experience filming Pan's Labyrinth. His style is more developed and there are loads of very unnerving trolls and demons dwelling in extraordinary sets. The final battle is set amongst gigantic wheels like in a clock. It's incredible and must have been so much fun to build.

So it's fun if you like comics and sci fi. If not, you're not missing much by skipping these.

Frost/Nixon - % % % %

2009-01-05T00:05:00.005-06:00

Great, superb, outstanding acting. I know mimicry is different from acting, but combining both together is pretty impressive.

I'm stunned that the same actor, Michael Sheen, who lulled me into believing he was Tony Blair got me to believe he was swinging, talk show host, David Frost.

And Frank Langella is outstanding as Nixon. I thought that Anthony Hopkins did a good job, but in comparison he was obscenely over the top. Langella is subtle, reserved, aged, and he still makes the gestures and the face work.

The downfall of this film is that no one is likable. Frost comes together for the final act and Nixon breaks his steely surface, but so what? I don't care for anyone. Sheen's performance got a little repetitive, using shifty eyes and a fake smile to show the cracks in Frost's confidence. And he over does it when he shows how bored or incompetent he is while interviewing Nixon. And who is his girlfriend? She feels like a real person, but I know nothing about her.

The researchers, played by Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt, are great! Sam Rockwell's character hates Nixon and has written four books on his crooked administration. I did feel joy when he gets the admission of guilt he desired from Nixon. And I'm so glad that there was a character who served the purpose of explaining all of the atrocities of the administration. Oliver Platt is kinda always the same guy, but I like him so much that I don't mind. Matthew MacFadyen appears as the level headed producer of this show that almost wasn't, and his reaction to their success is delightful.

All in all, I felt like Ron Howard did a good job. There were definitely many changes made in adapting the play to the screen that worked very well. It must be pretty challenging making two people talking to each other visually interesting. I particularly found the compositions including both the actual person and the monitor showing the video feed of their face to create a splitting of attention that made me question what I wanted to watch. Did I want to see the real face or did I want to see what the audience at home would have watched?

I have to say that the last 8 years were brought to mind several times, particularly when Nixon defined presidential powers and the legality of any action taken by the president. If the president can do anything and be above the law, then he or she is a temporary king or queen. And if you can use signing statements that gut laws or add new parts in, like our current president, the transformation from democratic leader to despot is nearly complete. Ack! When will we learn? Will it change on January 20th? Fingers crossed.

Aguirre: Wrath of God - % % % % %

2009-01-04T06:44:00.003-06:00

Extraordinary and epic. Man pursues glory, power, wealth, greatness. Man versus nature. Nature wins.

Klaus Kinski, as Aguirre, is a Spanish soldier of many who have set out with Pizzaro from Peru to search down the Amazon river for El Dorado, the fictitious city of gold. He undermines the royalty who begin in command. He sets up a puppet government with an emperor, and then kills him off. He begins as a hostile sociopath, and becomes a megalomaniac convinced of his great destiny and buoyed by his feverish mind and power over men's destinies that he declares himself, "The Wrath of God".

God certainly unleashes her/his wrath upon this group of conquistadors. Through simple attrition, Aquirre is the last man standing. His force of will propelling him on, even though his pathetic, sinking raft of death is covered with wily, tiny, swarms of monkeys.

In his final monologue, and I'm not giving anything away to say that no one ever found El Dorado, Aguirre declares that he will put on history like a play. He will be god, writing the destinies of all, controlling fate. It is not just greed for gold, but rather what that gold can bring: a delicate beauty, a mighty army, a great empire. The tales of others' successes, particularly Cortez in Mexico, have fueled his desire to be a great man who can mold the new earth he has "discovered".

All of this enormous power struggle is set amongst the beautiful forests of the Amazon. We begin in the groups' final decent down from the mountains and into the forest. It's incredible how totally impractical these people were. Two women accompany the soldiers and their Incan/Quechua slaves. They are carried by four men in large covered chairs above the earth. The group has brought along several horses and a canon. I can't imagine how it is possible to get a canon, even in pieces, over the Andes mountains along precariously narrow trails.

As the end nears, the survivors become delirious with fever and starvation, and the film takes on what I can only describe as a Terrence Malick style. I haven't seen Malick's first film, but Badlands came out a year after Aguirre and I wonder if there was something in the air in the early 70s. The jungle takes on a magical quality. One of the women just walks away, in her golden gown, into the trees, vanishing without a trace.

The most eerie moment, aside from the end with the monkeys, is the abandonment of a horse. The horse had endangered the poorly constructed raft and so the "emperor" decides that it must be tossed overboard, still wearing its military style hood. The horse swims to the bank and stands in the trees and brush watching the raft slide away. The white loops rimming the horses eyes follow the crew. Aguirre looks back and I felt an unusual sensation of surreal regret.

It's a great journey and its punctuated by mysterious moments and intriguing character conflicts.

I wonder in what ways we may be like the conquistadors. How do we mold others' realities and lives to fit our expectations? How are we impractical and yet blind? How much do I desire to write the script of my life? Can I stop feeling the need to be a great person in history? Some feel the need to achieve fame, but I think many parents try to instill a desire for greatness in their children so that they will try, work hard and achieve some kind of success. But in young minds it often gets carried away. Do I have real, practical goals or are they too deeply rooted in a desire for greatness?

A very very good movie. It is after all, directed by Werner Hertzog. Ah, Werner...

The Party - % % %

2009-01-04T04:29:00.003-06:00

This Blake Edwards film from 1968 was a gamble for me. I've heard such wonderful things about Peter Sellers and I certainly love him in Dr. Strangelove.

But the parts that were funny were also painfully awkward. And Peter Sellers is in brown face and talks with a ridiculous Indian accent. I suppose the character is Indian to emphasize his "fish out of water" confusion, but it's a terrible accent and stereotype that damns the movie.

The biggest problem I have is that the entire film is a set up. I suppose all star-focused comedies are just platforms for the comedian to do their shtick. (Like every Steve Martin comedy of the last 20 years. Watch out, Will Ferrel!!! Step-Brothers was not that great.) It's just so predictable and therefore more awkward.

I have been accused of being a harsher critic of comedies than drama, and it's true. Comedy is more difficult and when it's done poorly, it's sooooo much worse. It's insulting and cheap.

But this may simply be an example of the comedy DVD curse. You can't really enjoy a comedy alone and as we all watch more and more movies at home, we're going to enjoy comedies less. I watched "Borat" at home and thought it was just ok. I lost my mind and laughed for the entirety of "The Aristocrats" at a theater, and everyone I know who has seen it at home thought it was the dumbest thing ever.

And there is a rumor that Sacha Baron Cohen is interested in doing a remake of this film. He's already gotten all of Kazakhstan pissed off with him, I wonder what nation is next. I wouldn't recommend the entire sub-continent of India, with a population of 1,129,866,154, as of July 2007. They have nuclear weapons too, buddy.

Doctor Who - the new series - % % % % % !!!!!

2009-01-03T15:30:00.005-06:00

I am totally gaga over the new Doctor Who, courtesy of the BBC. It's still got nifty sidekicks, quirky doctors, danger, aliens and some odd science, but it's great adventure and features some outstanding acting from some of the cream of the crop of British acting.

Both Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant are fantastic. They are goofy, eager, energetic, but with a sophisticated charm that shows a depth of character.

And it's so well written. There's all sorts of talk about this being the golden age of television because of serial dramas like the Wire and Deadwood. And it's true. But I think that some more credit should be given to Doctor Who. There are several episodes that are outstanding in their complexity, tension and character development. Most of the series is just really fun, a little Buffy-ish at times, but there are particular episodes, especially "Blink", written by Stephen Moffat the incoming writer and executive producer in 2010, that are extraordinary and like nothing else on TV.

Check it out. If you're not into sci fi, or don't possess whimsy as a friend tends to put it, then just watch "Blink". I was so freaked out and scared. I can't remember the last time I was so tense. I even thought about turning it off to catch my breath and calm down.

A new Doctor will appear sometime later this year. My fingers are crossed. He has some big shoes to fill. And why can't the Doctor become a woman? Hmmm....

Here's some info for finding episodes on the web. They're also snuck onto youtube through coded titles like DW S1E1. (Doctor Who Season 1 Episode 1) So you can give that a try too if you're interested.

Shut Up & Sing - % % % %

2009-01-03T06:10:00.005-06:00

So I gave this doc 4%s for surprising me. It's a well told story of real conflicts in a set of adult women's lives. I didn't end up admiring the Dixie Chicks, in fact I'm sad that they were so wishy-washy, and apologetic when the controversy started. And they never really said anything too firmly. But the story of the group finding themselves as musicians and mature women was interesting to watch.

The film jumps back and forth between 2003 and 2005/6. In 2003 on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, while playing a gig in London, the lead singer, Natalie Bains, said that she was with the audience, on "the good side", probably meaning that she was with the enormous anti-war protests occurring in London at the time. And she wrapped up by saying that they were ashamed that the president is from Texas.

That first tour shows the Dixie Chicks dressed up in trendy semi-punk fashion and working with a corporate sponsor for their tour, Lipton. They start out as total commercial material and through the controversy, lose their fan base. They realize that many of their fans were very fickle and extremely judgmental. As time goes by and the controversy doesn't ease, it frees them as a group from their commercial limitations as are attached to the country music market. Country radio stations won't play them because of a grass-roots boycott by an extreme right nationalist group.

This rejection fuels them creatively and for the first time ever, they write (nearly) all of the songs on their new album, in 2005. The music isn't my taste, but it's moving to see women really express their feelings and experiences through music. Their maturity, confidence and strength are exciting and push them forward into making more interesting and less common music. And as they mount their next tour, they dress like adult women. No more fake punk skirts and bizarre makeup. It's still heavy fashion, but it's more sophisticated and subdued. And they are all mothers at this point. They have families and have been through a rough patch and came out stronger and more independent. They begin to say, screw the record company, screw the financial instability. We believe in ourselves and our music. They take a greater ownership and seem to be more involved in their music. It's a great transformation to see.

It's not going to revolutionize anything, but it's quality. It didn't change my worldview or leave me in tears. But I think it is a telling statement of the US and traditional country culture that they could toss out these fine musicians so fast and support an ignorant ass like Toby Keith for bashing the Dixie Chicks. Bleck. He comes off as simple minded and as an opportunistic reactionary thug. So I say good luck, Dixie Chicks! I hope their new found freedom enables them to pursue their lives and their music into new directions.

Surfwise - % % % %

2009-01-02T19:40:00.005-06:00

Ah the Paskowitz family. "The First Family of Surfing"

Surfwise introduces each parent and child, all 9 of them - 8 boys and one girl. They are each interesting characters, mainly resulting from father, Dorian, and his egoistic, semi-cult leader persona. Dorian decided to raise his children by piling them into a camper and traveling the world surfing. His wife, Juliette, remains enthralled with him as a passionate idealist.

The children, now all adults, have varying degrees of enthusiasm about their upbringing. The film, directed by Doug Pray, concedes to the fantasy for the first part of the film, depicting the sun-tanned, lean, wild, surfing children and their quirky father's ideas of how to raise a family. Dorian at one point shouts that he wanted to be as good a father as a gorilla. So if a gorilla breast fed until the baby was two, that's what they would do. He seems to have taken bits of information from many places and latched on to a father knows best mentality.

The rules of the family, including morning calisthenics, all sleeping in a small camper together even though the parents had sex every night in ear shot of the kids, surfing every morning, eating seven grain cereal, etc... sound very 60s cultish. But much of it is appealing.

The siblings all clearly love each other and family is very important to them all. But as the film progresses, the usual cracks appear in family dynamics. The children resent the father's authority, particularly since he was an absolute dictator. The eldest child takes on a fatherly position and the other brothers resent him and compete amongst themselves, especially in surfing competitions. They were so poor that they didn't all have clothes. Many went shirtless at times. They all express regrets about their lack of formal education. None of them ever attended school, and now as adults have a difficult time reintegrating into society.

The film is lovely, incorporating interviews with this very beautiful family, old family photos, and film of them surfing. It is captivating to see such vibrant children and the ocean's eruptive waves. Clearly surfing is a lot of fun.

It's a great documentary that shows a rounded depiction, with an ambiguous perspective, of a unique family of interesting characters. It explores issues of familial loyalty, best parenting practices, consumerism, hindsight, health and love. All with a gorgeous background of beaches and tanned skin. It's a fun watch.

The Counterfeiters - % % % %

2009-01-02T09:12:00.006-06:00

A great story with a great conundrum at its heart.

A world-class forger, Jewish in 1938 Germany, Solomon, Sally for short, is imprisoned in a concentration camp. After a time of starvation and desperate conditions, his skills are recognized and he is sent to lead a team of fellow prisoners in the quest to forge the British pound and then the US dollar. By the time they get to perfecting the dollar, they have worked out that Germany is bankrupt and perhaps this is the turning point of the war.

Sally, on the right, masterfully played by Karl Markovics, believes firmly that you must take care of yourself and no one else. A traumatic incident is alluded to, presumably his family were killed in Russia. But his coworker Burger, left, played by August Diehl, and the character whose autobiography the film is based upon, is a communist and attempts to delay the printing of the dollar, putting his life and others at risk, hoping to protest or attack the Nazis.

This is not the Pianist. It is not the greatest story ever told. But it is an interesting one and it is affecting and tense. It's got moments of absurdity. The characters are interesting. It's funny sometimes. It's filmed extremely well and the acting is superb. It's bookended with an interesting story set after the war, which I usually feel is cheating because then you know atleast some characters survive, but in this case the bookending story actually adds to the film and is a compelling short piece in itself.

I'm still pondering what I would do in their situation. Do I hold to my ideals and protest, getting myself and others killed, or do I try to survive at all costs, hoping that then I will win out in the end.

Totally watch this film. It's not as good as The Lives of Others, as far as new German cinema goes, but it's a great movie.

Taxi to the Dark Side - % % %

2009-01-02T07:35:00.005-06:00

Well executed summary of the US' history of torture starting in Afghanistan and leading to the policy in Iraq. But I was never engaged emotionally, nor interested philosophically. It's not smug. It's not super partisan. But it's just not much of anything.

There are so many competing documentaries that tell similar stories. I will say that this is a good overview if you want to show it to your sophomore civics class, but otherwise it's pretty boring.

Unlike Standard Operating Procedures, directed by Errol Morris, "Taxi..." encompasses much more than Abu Ghraib. And it includes press conferences and government documents to back up the soldiers' stories about the intentionally poor oversight and regulation of torture. But the interviews aren't compelling. I wasn't affected by any one person because there are many, many interviews, all of which are 2 minutes at the max (I'm guessing, I didn't really measure), and are so intercut with others that it's difficult to make a connection with anyone, even the dead man who this movie follows from his village taxi service in Afghanistan to his murder at Bagram.

Unlike "Why We Fight", this film is limited in its scope and doesn't attempt a philosophical exploration of how we got into this and why, but rather says that the torture on "24" has prepared the US society for accepting torture and gives very little explanation of the motivations of Dick Cheyney and Donald Rumsfeld, other than PR and carelessness.

Taxi... does include an interview with John Yoo, legal adviser to President Bush and author of the "torture memo". He's one slippery cat. He claims that there's no advantage to imprisoning innocent people for years in Guantanamo and so therefore it must not happen. That's some poor logic from a UC Berkeley law professor. I think I'd rather have some added safe guards in place beyond it just not being a good use of resources to imprison and torture people for years with out trial.

Because there isn't enough material to make the story all about the taxi driver, Dilawar (only three photos are used of him that were taken prior to his death), it includes interviews and a short history of the torture policies of the Bush administration. So it starts with a human story with a face and then disappears for an hour into Iraq and Abu Ghraib, all of which has been covered better in other films, and then comes back to Dilawar's death and explains that he was so badly beaten and forced to stand for long periods with no sleep that his legs became, and this is from the coroner's report, "pulpified". Eew. But we don't get to know the soldiers that well, nor the Afghanis and Iraqis. So it's really the equivalent of a poster board presentation. Good information, boring, by the facts delivery.

See Standard Operating Procedures, Iraq in Fragments and My Country, My Country. You'll get the torture, the nation and the people much more than from "Taxi..." and if you want to understand the US government's role, watch Why We Fight and some of the numerous episodes of Frontline available for streaming on their website for free.

I can't believe this film won an Oscar. The best part of it was the title design. But Best Documentary doesn't have a sub-category for Best Graphic Design, so I guess the Academy had to roll-in all together.

Inheritance - % % % %

2009-01-01T02:56:00.004-06:00

A very troubling documentary about the fallout of trauma for both the survivor and the perpetrator's offspring, "Inheritance" introduces us to Monika, daughter of Amon Goeth, Nazi concentration camp leader and vicious murderer, who was played by Ralph Feinnes in Schindler's List. Monika's life has been haunted by the sympathizers, like her mother, who hid the truth from her and taught her their own kind of hatefulness, and the growing realizations of from whom she came. She is a sad person, whose shoulders slouch and whose hair falls in her face, attempting to conceal the shame and fear she bears.

Monika contacts Helen, a survivor of the camp who worked in Goeth's home as a servant, who now lives in New Jersey with her three adult children. They arrange to meet to provide information and closure for each other.

But while Helen is able to come to a greater sense of personal closure through the trip, Monika remains thoroughly shattered by the shadow of her father's brutality. She is so shamed to have come from such a monster and so afraid of becoming him, that she willingly tortures herself by meeting with one of his surviving victims and visiting the actual location of the brutality.

This film revisits one my current themes: children filter the trauma of their parents. If we are all fortunate to live lives without further trauma, perhaps we can come to a greater society. Until then, the tortures and miseries of previous generations will be worked out by their children, who are better capable of seeing their parents' ills, but will necessarily inherit and absorb some of them.

And so Helen, who survived such horrors, has made a kind of peace with herself, but the somewhat younger Monika has been handed the full weight of her father's sins without anyone to help her comprehend their ramifications. She is crippled by her upbringing and the realization that her father was a monster. There is a mention early on that Monika and her husband are raising their grandson because their daughter has a drug problem. It seems to me like so many children are burdened with things they were not present for, but whose results profoundly affect their approach to life, and they are unable to cope. So perhaps Monika's grandson will find a healthier state of mind.

The film was so uncomfortable with Monika's sorrow, but I came away with a pondering question. How can we help each other heal? Monika expresses fear that Helen's daughter will look at her with hate, and she also recognizes the terror in Helen's eyes when she discusses Amon. Can the next generations assist the previous? How can one face such circumstances, or accidents of birth?

It's so sad how much we desire to know our parents, as if we can get a firm grasp on ourselves through understanding them, and as if we could gain control or power over them by understanding them better. Monika's desire to know and understand her father seems to hold a need to be loved and I suspect she hopes that she might meet someone who might one day tell her something good.

The two moments of greatest tension between Monika and Helen point to some of the greatest fears present in our social unconscious. Helen becomes overwhelmed by the power of Monika's feelings and she must walk away to protect her own fragile feelings. And later, Helen makes it clear that she cannot even hear the lies that Monika was told. While Monika wants to express the change between her and her parents' generation to gain appreciation from Helen, Helen simply cannot accept a discussion of the lies because it is so offensive to her. Other peoples' experiences can be so upsetting whether because of empathy and/or because of our ego-centric perspectives on their experiences. What does it mean for me?

Reason # 594985 that film is important:
In a post-screening interview, Helen says that "Schindler's List" made it possible to discuss the horrors of the Holocaust with family members and strangers. By having a reference point, others became more able to understand, and after becoming engaged by the film others have more of a desire to understand the experiences.

Curious Case of Benjamin Button - % % %

2008-12-28T01:40:00.005-06:00

Meh. Better than Forrest Gump, but still didn't quite have the emotional or philosophical impact I feel the filmmakers (dir. David Fincher) intended.

Like Forrest Gump, we have a special southern protagonist, and the same screenwriter, Eric Roth. Strike number one. He wanders through the decades of the 20th century, and his special nature tells the audience about themes of life and how to live a happy life. Unlike Gump, the soundtrack doesn't feel hokey, the historical moments aren't forced down our throats, and the main characters aren't shallow moralistic templates.

So yes, it's pretty good. But no, it's not great. Cate Blanchett, the love interest and bookending dead character, uses her breathy voice to approximate a Louisiana accent, but comes off in the end as a bit too vacant. She is wonderful at portraying the naive, confidence of youth. Her character's life as a dancer is a good parallel in a story about aging. Only certain athletes like gymnasts and ice skaters can share such a tragic life pursuit.

But Brad Pitt, who is well cast as an image, who wouldn't want to grow hotter as time goes by, walks through the movie with little affect. He is too vacant in his performance. His physical condition, as a person aging backwards, constitutes the entirety of his character. Otherwise, Benjamin wanders around, captivated by powerful personalities and bemusedly smiling along with their lives.

Then there is the tragically overplayed metaphorical object. Will someone contact Scorcese? because most of this is his fault. there is a hummingbird that magically appears when a character dies at sea. It's preposterous that a hummingbird would be seen deep at sea, let alone that it would appear after a man with such a bird tattooed on his chest dies. It's cheesy. And I call out Scorcese because he similarly keeps using animals and objects in cutaways to slap the audience in the face with a metaphor. The rat in the end of the Departed? The Bible tossed into a river in Gangs of New York. It's hokey and it needs to stop. I got the hummingbird metaphor when the character explained his tattoo, but seeing one at his death and at the death of Daisy, Cate Blanchett, is just banging the audience in the head with a foam cheese hat from a Packers game.

I'm also not sure why Tilda Swinton's character of a British emissary/Russian spy's wife was even included except to kill time while Benjamin was away with his heart growing fonder and to show Benjamin that after he has a daughter that life is to be lived and it's best to be independent and fulfill your own personal goals. It didn't work and, while making me appreciate the odd morality of the film, made me sad that pursuing one's own life must come at the sacrifice of supporting and intensely loving one's family according to the film. What a man's perspective on fulfillment. I kept thinking that even though it was going to be hard for everyone that he was growing younger, that Benjamin was cruel and foolish to abandon his family that he clearly loved so deeply. Just because something is extremely hard, doesn't me that it's not worth doing.

The Gump analogies continue with his youth spent in a boarding house - this time a senior home, a quirky parallel black friend - this time a pygmy from Africa whose stature makes him a carnival attraction, a gospel loving mama who teaches him some choice phrases, a lost father, and a childhood love who can't see what she's got until it's almost too late.

I do like some aspects of the book ending of the story, although since Saving Private Ryan I generally loathe book ending. Telling the story on Daisy's deathbed creates a palpable contrast with Benjamin's death and life. Yet, the reveal of Daisy's daughter's true father is tossed aside as Hurricane Katrina comes crashing in. I also like the use of Katrina as a manifestation of the unpredictability of life and of time's painful erasure of all of our lives.

the themes of the film are good to emphasize, that the future is unknown, yet it often feels like things and people come together at just the right moment from time to time. Yet there was an emotional crevasse, probably stemming from Pitt's vacant performance.

My final gripe is that I pity the cinematographer who works with Fincher. Someone needed to tell him to cut it out with the After Effects. There is a sequence set in the past that appears as if it was filmed in the 1910s, but colorized, and it's too much. There's no subtlety in the technique of aging the film. It's annoying.

While the makeup was good, it wasn't great. The youthification was impressive, but as usual, much of the aging felt plastic and the CGI is trusted too heavily to achieve many of the effects.

The ending possesses a certain magnificence, watching a man turn into a child and go senile. But all in all, it's too long and not potent enough for me to have felt struck by a masterwork. Good, but not great.

PS I love Tilda Swinton and found it very sad that she was described as plain looking in the film because she's stunning looking. She's got those incredible eyes like pools of ink like Mathieu Almaric. But this dress makes her look like she has five boobs, right?

Prime Suspect: Final Act - % % % % %

2008-12-26T04:22:00.003-06:00

Wow. Now this is drama. Helen Mirren is outstanding at conveying the multitude of emotions coursing through her character. "Final Act" is an extraordinary depiction of the horrible climaxes of life when everything is coming down on you and you can't quit, you can't break down. You must hold it together as well as you can, admit that you must change yourself and persevere through the guilt and shame and fear and trauma, hoping that you will come out the other end eventually without screwing anything else up. Wow. I'm stunned by the complexity of the story, characters and direction.

At the end of the episode I just watched, a climactic scene takes place in a parking lot and instead of opting for the close-up to involve the audience, the director shows the CC TV of the action, putting the audience in a hopeless, out-of-control vantage point, illustrating the lack of control that any of the characters have at this point. Events happen, cutting back and forth between the painfully distant observation of the action and the involved, director's camera. The emotions and consequential action are shown and then we are tossed away and shown the futility of our presence in the action. We, as is Mirren, are helpless to stop the violence. Wow.

I must now watch earlier episodes and catch up, as should we all. This, not Deadwood or Weeds, is evidence of the golden age of television. wow.

Numb3rs Season 3 - % % %

2008-12-24T00:35:00.005-06:00

It's nothing special, that's for sure. But the ten minutes of dorkiness per episode and plots that semi-revolve around wacky academics, who likely have Asburgers syndrome, make the crime procedural portion of it bearable.

I, along with most of the US apparently, need some kind of crime show to watch in the background while I fold laundry or vacuum. And rather than watch CSI which is totally stupid, especially the Miami one (that David Caruso is awful and who cast that walking bag of skin cancer in a show set in Florida?!!! He's a pale red head. It's suicide.) or the endless reruns of Law & Order (which is perfectly fine as a repetitive tv show - they've got a good pattern), I pick Numb3rs. I loathe the actual number in its title, but it's got five actors I really like and demonstrations of wacky physics phenomena.

Diane Farr (check her out on Rescue Me), Peter MacNicol (Fame), Judd Hirsch (Taxi was my favorite show when I was 4), David Krumholtz (slums of beverly hills), and Rob Morrow (hottie Jewish guy extraordinaire).

Greatest American Hero - % % %

2008-12-24T00:21:00.004-06:00

I have been watching this on Me TV and I have to say, it's as good as I remember. It's cute and fun and I really still like Robert Culp. Is this where I know Connie Sellecca? Or is it just Lifetime movies? But I digress.

The best thing is getting to hear and sing along with the theme song. I could sing it all day, and I ordinarily loathe light 70s/80s music. Oh, except for the Family Ties theme song. That's great, too.

Believe it or not, I'm walking on air. I never thought I could feel so free ee ee!
Flying away on a wing and a prayer. Who could it be?

Believe it or not, it's just me!

John Adams - % % % % %

2008-12-23T23:39:00.004-06:00

I wish it were possible to see history in this fashion through other eyes. I'd love to see Thomas Jefferson or John Jay similar biography-series like this.

It's wonderful to see such an intimate portrait of historical figures who appeared to me, thus far, as figures in paintings, like greek statues or paintings of aristocrats. I love hearing the theoretical accents of people of Revolutionary America and their changing fashions and cadences. I trust that the series has been thoroughly researched and I can thus draw conclusions about the lives of early Americans. Like that they didn't have much stuff at all. What cluttered lives we live. Even the rich people in Europe had vacant homes, in order to impress one with the enormity of their spaces, I assume.

Laura Linney is great. But I must say that Abigail Adams appears to be the most perfect, wise, and sensitive person ever created. Aside from feeling unstable due to the prolonged absence of her husband, she never seems to falter from being an intellectual and poetic ideal. It's a bit much. Paul Giamatti somehow erases his Italian ancestry and appears an uptight, New England stoic. I really enjoy the increasing cantankerous crankiness present in the character.

Thus far, the supporting characters have been fascinating, especially Thomas Jefferson (Stephen Dillane), Sam Adams (Danny Huston), King George (Tom Hollander) and Tom Wilkinson as Benjamin Franklin. I like the inclusion of Adams' children's lives, although they seem to be narrow depictions of dutiful, eldest son, rebellious middle child and attentive mother-modeled daughter. But they complement the depiction of the founding father's character and life-narrative.

There are way too many canted angles and the regular, highly-mixed sound of insects buzzing becomes repetitive. It's useful to illustrate the different standards of cleanliness and the rugged nature of lives of the time, as well as to illustrate the increasing madness of Adams' fevered state while in the Netherlands, but it is too loud. It gets repetitive and annoyingly noticeable as the series progresses.

I've only seen the first five episodes, so there will surely be more to follow on this series.

So HBO executives and Tom Hanks, super producer, make more of these. Thank you Tom Hanks for providing better entertainment as a producer than as an actor. It's true... Band of Brothers, John Adams, From the Earth to the Moon etc... I therefore forgive him for Polar Express, a beloved childrens book ruined by creepy CGI and a mediocre, boring plot.

Back when people took their nation's politics seriously.

stuff I've dug up while being bed ridden due to repeated bad news this past week

2008-12-22T18:24:00.000-06:00

Animal Camouflage: bugs that look like leaves; then vertebrates that look like leaves, like frogs, fish, gecko, ... cool

Cassette Coin Purse

Booklet on the history of numbers

Quantum of Solace - % % % - And why I hate movie theaters

2008-12-19T23:55:00.004-06:00

I could barely comprehend what was going on in the opening chase scene from the new James Bond film. I was in the fourth row from the back and I still could not see the whole screen. It was so loud I couldn't distinguish sounds within the onslaught.

If I had watched this in my home, the volume would have been more moderate. I would have watched it on a large screen tv or projected on a 15 foot screen and sat at such a distance that the screen would only have taken up two thirds of my vision rather than 150% of it. I also would have been able to eat and drink and whatever in comfortable folding chairs or lounging on a couch.

Instead I lost two years of my hearing and feel traumatized.

I do feel a great loss at the closure of so many theaters and the hard times the industry is experiencing. But bringing in "live recordings" of operas and self-help symposiums is not the way to revitalize the theater industry. But what do I know. I thought those Japanese game shows were the lowest echelon of programming possible, but then I watched a trailer for "Mama's Boys". Clearly reality competition dating shows are lower. And those game shows are joyous and a great use of the temporary nature of tv.

As for the film, it was ok. While it attempted a meditation on revenge which felt weak and a second thought, the action scenes that make up the core of the film were exciting once the initial chase scene ended. The next chase was on foot and I could catch snipits of the architecture and space they were rushing through. But man, it was hard work. How can I be frightened that James Bond is going to crash into the bad guy if I can't comprehend that the rope he's hanging from is attached to a seesawing beam that rotates around the room? With no establishing shot, nor one that lasts more than two seconds, I imagined the plausible hypothesis for what I was seeing and conjecture for what the director might want me to think. Garrgh! Frustrating.

I haven't seen Casino Royale, so maybe the revenge plot might have been more compelling to others.

I did like the main plot about an evil multinational organization buying up all the water in the planet and blackmailing developing countries into paying their extreme prices, all under the cover of an environmental organization preserving untouched lands. And Mathieu Almalric is a wonderful bad guy. Why are his eyes so black? They are pools of ink and when he scrunches his face, he transforms into the countenance of demonic possession.

I liked the characterization of the female foil, Camille (Olga Kurylenko). She was tough but with a real justified fear of fire. And another woman gets crude oiled in parallel to the golding in Goldfinger. Really great visual.

I also liked that there were less fashionable but still beautiful locations like Bolivia, Port au Prince etc... and not just Europe and Japan. Or is it that those locations in the global south are now fashionable?

But the fight sequences involved lots of jumping, which reminded even my 69 year old father of the Bourne films. And this from the man who thought, after overhearing a gossipy conversation between my mother and I, that Julia Roberts was a friend of hers from college.

Although I respect the darker, less self-referential direction that the franchise is pursuing, I have never gotten the charm of Daniel Craig. When I first saw him in Tomb Raider, I was confused as to why anyone would cast such a gnarled face opposite Angelina Jolie. Yes, he has clear blue eyes and a certain British charm, and no, one needn't be pristine in order to be attractive, least of all men. But, I don't quite get his "magnetism".

And directed by Marc Forster of Finding Neverland fame? I'm surprised.

Paul Haggis? ack. The screenwriting kiss of weak emotional assumptions of underlying shmaltzy goo. crap.

Why do all the Bond villians have sidekicks with hideous haircuts?

Judi Densch gives my favorite performance of her time in the series, in a role actually written to take advantage of her skill. And I love that the relationship between Bond and M is more closely detailed.

Wiat I just realized that I did see Casino Royale. Ouch. That's a bad sign for the plots of the current phase of the series. Sorry to the writers, but it's true. I had no recollection of the previous film.

There are loads of ridiculous assertions in the film, particularly the action sequences. Bond jumps on a Haitian fishman's shack/boat and can out run inflatable, modern, boats with top of the line engines? Security in these inflatables are using guns and never shoot and deflate their crafts? Bond is so tired by the end of the film that a businessman (Almalric) can almost kick his ass into a firey pit through hand to hand and then axe to hand combat?

I'm just going to steal this next point from Pajiba.com - Ted Boynton: "The Daniel Craig iteration of Bond may not realistically portray espionage, but this depiction has the stones to grapple with the philosophical dilemma of using ultra-competent covert operatives to accomplish what legitimate diplomacy and lawful police work cannot." And this film makes the point, repeatedly, that there are not good and bad guys in international relations, but rather governmental/military entities who serve the economic interests of their tax paying corporations (the corporatocracy).

Dark Knight - % % % %

2008-12-17T00:00:00.012-06:00

I wasn't sure how they were going to pull off changing the actress playing the love interest (a big improvement), and plotting two super villains, but Christopher Nolan achieved it admirably. Not perfectly, but admirably.

To the film's advantage, it was shot in Chicago and utilized some of the best downtown locations since the Untouchables. Chicago actor, Ron Dean, plays a corrupt cop, and I'm always happy to see him outside of my regular viewings of the Fugitive. Although I found the integration of Chicago and "Gotham" (aka NYC) a bit odd at times, like the intersection of 25th and Cicero? Wha? But the use of the odd half streets/alleys off of Jackson, the gorgeous LaSalle, footed by the stock exchange, El covered Lake Street, Lower Wacker Drive and a host of other fab locations made me exclaim numerous times that "every movie should use x location!" or "Why aren't more movies shot in Chicago?", and my personal favorite, "New York is so ugly in comparison."
This includes the scariest parking garage ramp I've ever had the horror of driving down. (Rush Hospital off of Ashland)

I previously used "admirably" instead of "perfectly" because, while the parallels between the two villains' agendas work on paper, in the film, they felt glossed over and forced. I had little emotional investment in Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) - his fiance & Batman's love interest, or even the moral highground of Lucien Fox, played by Morgan Freeman. And when an audience isn't engaged by Morgan Freeman's moral highground, you've just got too much going on, damn it!

But, wow! Heath Ledger is unrecognizable. With his hunched back, sunken eyes, early 20th century accent, and grimacing laughter, he creates the only truly terrifying Joker. This Joker could kill Robin with a lead pipe. This is the Joker of the Dark Knight. Wonderful. His performance declares the great tragedy of his loss to the art of film. He clearly had an extraordinary range and talent. And he's totally gonna get an Oscar.

His performance reminds me why the Tim Burton Batman franchise just didn't hold up. I usually blame Michael Keaton and the penguins with striped rockets on their backs. But really, with the exception of Danny Devito's astounding Penguin, the earlier Batman franchise was too goofy and cartoony. The Batman comics of the last 25 years have been so terrifying and gruesome, so bleak and corrupted, that the Burton Batman feels absurdly operatic in comparison. Operas have their own wonderful quality, but one would be hard pressed to claim that they are emblematic of a contemporary reality.

The use of the Jackson and LaSalle St. Chicago locations, which hearken back to the Untouchables and obviously much earlier films of the depression, link our currently bleak and destitute times with that era. Serendipitously, the Dark Knight coincides with the worst economic situation since the depression and I think we are all looking to that time to brace ourselves and prepare our minds for what is to come.

The special effects were all great and the Bat-Mobile has never been badder. But for the characters, the film depends upon the audience having seen the earlier Batman Begins in order to feel or understand anything about Rachel or Lucien, or even Bruce Wayne for that matter. The corruption of two cops holds little punch other than an intellectual scorn for failed officers. The death of Rachel involves a twist that distracts from any emotion the audience might feel at her loss. Although I do love the characterization and performance of Harvey Dent's descent into madness and villainy and the progress of Commissioner Gordon into a commissioner.

So it could have been better. But it could have been soooooo much worse. And I did really enjoy it, was shouting at the screen and loved the adventure.

There Goes My Baby (1994) - % %

2008-12-13T18:08:00.005-06:00

Anticipating, and dreading being right, are some of the most mediocre emotions elicited while watching movies. Boredom and nausea are obviously far worse. Aside from some "sweet" performances from Rick Schroeder, Dermott Mulroney and Kelli Williams, and the one compelling performance of Noah Wiley, I experienced boredom and disappointing expectations throughout the film. And then there were the false notes. Like a 1950s burger joint being torn down and turned into a strip mall. It's just too convenient for a "1960s nostalgia" movie.

For example, each character represents an archetype. The smart black kid from Watts with a scholarship to Princeton who grows up to be a US Senator; the hippie chick who gets knocked up and valiantly hides the pregnancy from the free-wheeling drifter father, only to move to San Francisco; the noble civil rights enthusiast quoting Bob Dylan who becomes a protester and then a University professor; the shy girl who narrates it all because she grew up to be a writer. And of course someone dies in Vietnam. Vomit. the school teachers are all a-mur-ican patriot fascists. Most of the parents too.

The one interesting item, that it all occurs on the opening night of the Watts riots, gets lost after the first half of the film. What could have been an interesting story about a wealthy white kid and his family's black servant's son, who grew up like brothers, and ventured into Watts during the riots to retrieve and protect the latter's grandmother, just goes back to the basics in the middle and focuses on the fears of an enlistee and the pregnant hippie. There's an anti-war protester who gets killed while in custody. It devolves into a riot on the front lawn of the high-school. Noah Wiley pours gasoline onto the school's statue, turning the civil war era soldier into a flaming totem, while Dermot Mulroney fist fights the principal. Not as funny as you might expect. And not as compelling as the filmmaker hoped. Blah.

I only finished it to hear the obligatory voice-over epilogue of where each character ended up. Total cliches. Bleck. Except that the hippie named her baby Pirate. Ha!

Of course they have to sell the movie with shirtless teen boys.

I think that the new "This" channel 26.4 is going to lead to similar reviews in the future. There's something pleasant and indulgent about trash on a Saturday afternoon.

30 Rock - % % % % % - rox

2008-12-10T20:49:00.004-06:00

Few series hold up to successive viewing - cough - 24 - cough cough. But 30 Rock amazed me. I never stopped laughing out loud or being charmed by the characters' foibles. I did realize that Josh has disappeared and Pete is totally underutilized (props to my Second City alumna!)

Man, I love Tina Fey! I love her self-deprecating humor. I buy her compulsive consumption of crap much more than itty bitty bony arms Deborah Messing. Yeah right she eats a whole box of Crispy Cremes. My ass. Only if she barfs them all up immediately afterward. But Tina Fey, maybe. And drinking wine while walking on her treadmill and drunk dialing her hopeful condo-board, priceless. I would totally do that. Oh, drunken yoga is a much worse idea than you'd imagine. Glurb.

Alec Baldwin becomes a little one note, but it's such a great note that I want to hear it all night long.

The show is rando, but in a charming way - thanks in large part to Tracey Jordan. His interpretation of fame and pop culture madness is brilliant. A few parts mocking racism, a few parts mocking insanity/sanity, and a whole lot of cutey baby eyes for forgiveness.

Kenneth has changed over the years and I like the chances they're taking on mocking his hillbilly Christian background. "Hillbilly milk"! marvelous.

Even Jena is a great send-up of actors, and musical theater actors at that. As a reformed thespian, I did sing the songs of Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, and many more painful musicals in the halls of my high school. Sorry everyone. I also apologize to the citizens of Paris for the Little Mermaid medley. It wasn't my idea! I didn't even know the words for most of those songs!

I'm stunned by how many times an episode I explode with a vociferous "HA! ha!" Or flop on my side laughing.

thank you Netflix. You can't know how you've changed my otherwise crappy week. Instead of feeling like you can't really trust people, I'm titillated by our foibles and forgiving for our sweet flaws.

Crumb - % % % % %

2008-12-07T16:37:00.010-06:00

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating these films' quality, but this was honestly a well made biographical documentary of a very interesting person. Honestly.

A comic book artist is certainly a great subject matter for a film. Composed primarily of Robert Crumb's drawings and interviews of him and those in his life, "Crumb" depicts the sad life of the Crumb family and Robert's attempts to live beyond the mediocrity of his childhood by processing his own psycho-social issues through his drawings. He is paralleled with his older and younger brothers: one who lives at home with their mother and is continually on tranquilizers to moderate his violent tendencies; another who lives alone, meditating on a bed of nails for several hours a day to quell his impulses to pull women's shorts down.

His former girlfriends and old haunts are interviewed as well. We follow Crumb around, watching him draw people, seeing the world through his eyes. Yet Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World, Bad Santa) refrains from mocking the people on the street directly. Indirectly, there are definite allusions between characters Crumb sees and his seemingly subsequent drawings. Yuppies in a yogurt shop are followed by caricatures of muscle-bound, meat heads. Zwigoff's presence isn't denied, nor is it obtrusive. He occasionally prompts those on screen with questions, but relies on the camera and editing to point out the connections intended for the audience.

Interviews with cultural critics, from art critic, Robert Hughes (who calls Crumb the Breugel of the second half of the 20th century) to former Mother Jones Magazine editor, Deirdre English, including a very young Peggy Orenstein, cut back and forth showing the many interpretations of the work. When Orenstein tells Crumb that as a young girl she saw her brother's collection of Zap Comics, including many of his cartoons, and that she was extremely confused about adulthood and sexuality, Crumb at first tosses his hands in the air. He says that he can't defend himself, but follows with a story of his daughter's fear and confusion watching Goodfellas. So some art is only for some people, even then only those who choose it, and his is therefore not for children.

It is a sensitive telling of a small man's life which connected with other men's lives. His work is controversial because it exposes many of our species' and society's ugly impulses. The film does not interrogate whether his sexual fixations and fantasies are biological or psychological, which would be an interesting, although expansive, discussion. While it touches on the racist imagery depicted in some of his work, especially from the 60s, the film neglects to include any African-American voices, nor those well versed with African American History. I suppose that the previous editor of Ms. is familiar with the kinds of bigotry and oppression involved in any discussion of racism, but no other experts or authorities are called upon to respond.

The film is also shot on the eve of his departure from the America he so successfully satirizes. At the end, Crumb, his wife and daughter, move to the south of France. The US was not a fantasy-fulfillment land for him, and so he takes his fantasies and exits. He seems to be someone who narrowly escaped mental illness, unlike his two brothers, through expressing and experimenting with his demons. These expressions found camaraderie with others' demons and gave him friends, love and support. It seems that without these friends and support, that he might be living in a one room apartment in squalor and greasy hair. Instead he lives in France. Ah! The transformative power of art!

Finally! It has happened to me, right in front of my face, and I just cannot hide it!

2008-12-07T12:20:00.001-06:00

Ah ha! Netflix has accomplished the seemingly impossible. They have opened the ability to watch online to Mac users! Yay! If it's Netflix' or Apple's fault, I blame them both.

And now I will likely never leave the house. I've been fortunate to have had a wicked cold for this week and have thus been able to watch a bajillion different tv shows and films. I don't need people anymore, I have got a history of cinema to catch up on.

Peace out.

link to another review of Born in Flames

2008-12-07T12:17:00.001-06:00

deeper into movies: Screening: "Born in Flames" - March 13th, 7:30 pm

Born in Flames - % % % % %

2008-12-07T11:48:00.004-06:00

I don't intend on giving 5%s to every movie, nor writing only on the films I give 5%s.

But this film is awesome. It's nutso. I love it. It's super low-fi, using varied formats and awkward camera placement reminiscent of home photography and security cameras. It cuts unexpectedly into the next scene, leaving the audience with the sense that we're just flipping through conversations between these women.

It's a marxist-feminist-1968 revolutionary fantasy. 10 years following the Liberation Revolution, women are still frustrated by the rhetoric of equality and the lack of follow through by the new government. Thus the Women's Army is formed, initially chasing rapists on bicycles, but eventually moving to armed resistance following the prison murder of their leader, and uniting women in the struggle for equal work and the end of masculine-focused society.

In an interview included on the DVD, filmmaker Lizzie Borden claims that she intended the audience to disagree with the violence in the film. I find this hard to believe. The militancy is so admired by the attention given to certain characters and the non-violent, bourgeois, cultural, educated elite are dismissed as out of touch and afraid of action. I think she, like many who came of age after 1968, admires the firm stance that many took during the fight against the Vietnam War and the willingness to completely sacrifice for a cause. It is romantic and foreign to bougie college kids like Borden at the time, and myself for that matter. College educated, liberals long for a passionate commitment to a movement. If our heroes are Dr. King and Gandhi, we naturally fantasize about civil disobedience. If one's heroes are Bernadine Dorn or Malcolm X, one fantasizes about militant revolution.

The romanticism of the film is further developed by the two radio djs, Honey and Adele, one a firm, forward, black, soulfully-voiced leader & one a punky, opportunistic, painfully-rapping, feisty provocateur. They are folk leaders whose messages ignite the imaginations of their audience and the audience of the film.

I, for one, enjoy the fantasy of bands of bike riders coming to save the day, blowing rape whistles to prevent sexual assaults, and groups of women coming together to provide daycare, eldercare and equal employment in male dominated occupations (i.e. nearly all). The film's movement demands respect for nurses, teachers, waitresses and secretaries.

I wish I'd seen it when I was in high-school, but I don't know if I'd have been gutsy enough to embrace it.

Shock Corridor - % % % % %

2008-12-07T11:02:00.009-06:00

Bookended by the quote, "Whom God wishes to destroy he first turns mad. (Euripides, 425 BC)", Shock Corridor indicts 1960's society for numerous ills: racism, repressed sexuality, war crimes, nuclear war, and unbridled ambition. Each character's madness is derived from these ills. The only African-American student at an all white college goes crazy and believes that he is a KKK member, terrified that a black man will marry his daughter. One of the creators of the atom bomb regresses to childhood because his adult choices and their consequences are too painful to countenance or to responsibly own. A room of women, diagnosed as nymphos, must possess men, driven by their weakness in society when independent of men.

This alone makes the film interesting, but I'm giving it 5%s because it's also interesting as a film, with oddly cute superimposed images indicating the hallucinations of the main character. While the acting of Constance Towers, as the cabaret-star girlfriend of the main character, is over the top and hysterical, the extreme emotional swings of all the characters artificially indicate the torture everyone experiences.

It's fun to watch and interesting to ponder.

Economic Hitman Speaking Freely - If you like Noam Chomsky...

2008-12-06T22:14:00.014-06:00

While essentially an extended interview of one man in one location, “Speaking Freely: John Perkins” posits numerous paradigm shifts for the economically and politically minded. Filmicly, it is boring. As one who possesses an economics undergrad major, and a passionate advocate for social justice, I found John Perkins’ description of the world to be a good, hard push on a swing. It spun me around and gave me a new perspective on what I had thought I knew so clearly, and simultaneously connected with suspicions I’d had for some time.

In the opening minutes of the documentary, Perkins claims that poverty is not the core problem. It is extreme wealth that necessitates poverty, which is to blame. It is not possible for a small percentage of the world to be as profoundly wealthy as many are in “developed” nations, without the rest of the world being profoundly poor, without resources or opportunities for significant advancement. Thus over half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. And they are getting what they pay for.

One of the first concepts taught in economics is scarcity. There are a limited number of anything. There are only so many gold deposits on earth, so many potatoes at any given time, or so many hours in a day. We affix a price as a means of estimating the goods’ or services’ relative value. Four frappaccinos is worth as much as a sweater at H&M. So for a small percentage of the people on earth to control a vast percentage of the resources, objects, land and people, it is necessary for most people to not have any access or control over those scarce resources. Wealth is a representation of power over goods and people.

Instead, the conversation in our society is directed towards the lives of the poor, when really their circumstances and choices have little effect for change. It’s the choices of the wealthy and powerful that determine the circumstances of the lives of the poor. The poor have few choices. Should I work at this degrading job or work at that poorly paid job? Do I live in this slum or that shack? What can I afford to eat? So we should flip the conversation around and discuss how the wealthy and powerful can equalize the circumstances by equalizing access to resources. And this sounds very Robin Hood indeed.

Who is in control of this system? The corporatocracy. This marvelous word, apparently created by Perkins, draws attention to the power structure of the economy. We don’t live in a democracy. Corporations and those who run them finance our elections. They control the conversations politicians can have and what most people can learn about through the media. They are not a monolith, but rather operate within the same system, based on the assumptions of economic theory, and resultantly think alike.

And then he gets into his area of expertise. As an “economic hitman”, his self-appointed title, Perkins worked for one of the major international monetary funds, like the IMF or the World Bank, convincing the nations of the global south to accept development loans in exchange for accepting disadvantageous policies, such as dictating the subcontracting US or European companies or dictating the domestic policies of such “developing” nations.

As evidence he sites the fact that the poor are poorer and more populous. If these financial deals were indeed intended to improve the standard of living of people in the global south, they have failed. The forecasts created to justify these loans were totally off. This points to the real intentions of those who designed these loans. The loans have been clearly been designed to favor the wealthy nations, and particularly the wealthy corporatocracy, and to maintain the status quo.

While the World Bank was founded upon noble intentions to rebuild Europe after WWII, it quickly devolved into a means of securing loyalty to the west and alienating the communists, who would disturb the distribution of wealth and power. Once the CIA succeeded in inserting the Shah of Iran, as Perkins' narrative formulates, the powers that be realized that war, an ugly and embarrassing means, was not the only means of maintaining their hold. They could use economic incentives to manipulate a few powerful leaders in various nations to follow their dictates.

Once these nations are securely in debt, wealthy nations extort these weaker nations' resources by forcing them to sell off their natural resources or keep their wages and benefits low for multinational companies to take advantage of.

And we all, on some level, do know that this is how it works. We live in a society in which brazen selfishness is considered street smart or intelligent. Of course USAID doesn't pass on its finances to foreign NGOs. Why would the US government want to benefit foreign NGOs? Well, because the money is intended for the people living in poverty and it doesn't matter how it gets to them. Of course, we say, we can't just give the poor money. They'll use it for other purposes. Those governments are corrupt. That homeless guy will spend it on crack. We continually need to maintain power over other people by defining the ways in which they live their lives so that it will benefit us the most.

What makes people without financial power more dangerous than those with it? Are they really more sinister? more psychologically damaged? more reckless? more financially stupid? Our nation spends $12.4 billion a year on plastic surgery and we're all worried that the guy on the street is going to buy beer with the nickel we might give him. But I digress.

Aren't there checks and balances in these large non-governmental financial organizations to prevent this kind of corruption? Yes, says Perkins. There are some within the IMF and World Bank who's job it is to point out inconsistencies and manipulations. But inevitably, it's in the interest of these institutions to go forward with the loans. The money, after all, comes from the wealthy governments, which comes from the wealthy corporations, and the leaders of these institutions are selected by the wealthy governments, like Paul Wolfowitz, recent Bush placement as president of the World Bank.

What I find most interesting is his personal analysis of how good people can do bad things. Because their actions are not illegal, they exist within large structures, it takes so much effort to make small improvements, and they are making good money, it's easy to justify their part of the system.

I always wonder why people have different takes on the world than me. Is it lack of information or lack of education or what? Am I fortunate enough to have had the financial cushion of my education, which enabled me to move into the arts, knowing that if worst comes to worst, I'll be a secretary at a non-profit, like my last job. I won't starve. I have access to a living wage without sacrificing too much. So I can buck the system. and I've been raised knowing that the church isn't right about everything. Women are equal to men so they should be able to be priests. And the government isn't always right. Look at Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal. Our nation has done some pretty terrible things, like killing Native Americans and supporting legal slavery and discrimination. So that leaves existing within a large structure and that it's just plain hard to get anything to change. Fair enough. People discriminate when everyone around them does the same. People want to enjoy life and not struggle every day against the flow. I see that. So what do we do?

This discussion proves why privatization is a tempting evil. Governments receive large sums of money in exchange for control of their resources. Chicago is in the process of privatizing our parking meters. The city will get a large lump sum to pull us out of the red for a year or two, or to finance our preparations for the Olympic bid. But we'll spend it all now and not have that revenue stream available in the future. In fact, whomever purchases the contract for parking meters will certainly make more money over a few years than they paid the city in the first place. Why else would they do it? So five years down the line and our parking rates are extortionist and the city is broke. I guess it'll help lower traffic and air pollution. Maybe even improve CTA ridership. But who says how many meters the company is allowed to install and operate? Are there any limits on where future meters are installed? There's no government regulation once the control has been sold off and no democratic control over that city resource.

This narrative explains how US citizens can be treated well and welcomed to many nations but the US government can be so deeply hated. The US government manipulates officials, or the entire government and military like in Nicaragua, in order to benefit US corporations, who pay politicians to get elected. Foreigners know that US citizens are almost as helpless as they in this matter.

Included in the discussion of governmental manipulation, is Saddam Hussein's rise to power. I did not know this, but as a member of the Ba'ath party, Saddam was part of a 1959 US-backed attempt to overthrow the new military dictator. According to NewsMax.com, "he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim." "Little attention was paid to Qasim's bloody and conspiratorial regime until his sudden decision to withdraw from the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in 1959, an act that 'freaked everybody out' according to a former senior U.S. State Department official. Washington watched in marked dismay as Qasim began to buy arms from the Soviet Union and put his own domestic communists into ministry positions of "real power," according to this official. The domestic instability of the country prompted CIA Director Allan Dulles to say publicly that Iraq was 'the most dangerous spot in the world.'" There's more to the story, but I found this quite interesting. I had learned about the US' ties in the '80s to Saddam, and I laughed out loud at the photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, but I didn't know how far back his ties with the CIA went. Another example of the US governments' sneaky plans backfiring in all of our faces. And an example of the actions of the US government when the economic policies and the CIA aren't successful. If we can't manipulate the government peacefully or orchestrate an assassination, we invade.

Perkins' discussion of undocumented US immigrants leads to the conclusion that the only way to stop extra-legal immigration is to alter our trade policies to end our exploitation of their economies, so that people can make a living wage in their own home nations. Using a band-aid on the wound won't stop the bleeding. Slapping a wall up on our border, won't end the need on either side of the wall.

Perkins makes another interesting analogy. He connects modern day militants and "terrorists" to his ancestors who used militancy and guerrilla warfare to toss out the British when they, farmers facing desperation, were forced to bear arms.

He ends on the "it's a small world" note. The misery of those in Afghanistan can affect us. The world is so interconnected that we can't close our eyes any longer. Unlike the citizens of the British Empire, the violence in our foreign policy is clear to us and affects us personally. We don't have continents between us and the consequences of our policies. TV, the internet and air travel bring it into our living rooms.

So yeah, it's an interview inter cut with images of the global south and common people of those areas. But it's got some important ideas that we should be discussing.

FYI Bizarre bit of scientific history

2007-11-10T17:31:00.000-06:00

In watching the fifth disc of "Planet Earth", which btw is fantastic and everyone should watch the whole series - it's amazing, I discovered that early pregnancy tests involved injecting women's urine into mice, then frogs, then rabbits.

http://german.about.com/library/blfroschtest.htm

Bizarre.

Dexter % % % % %

2007-09-09T18:39:00.000-05:00

Woo hoo! I knew this show would kick into gear eventually and in the last episode on the second disk, it did. The ice truck killer's identity is brilliant. What an appropriate occupation! And now Dexter's having real feelings, instead of convincing himself that he's an alien, the show can really become compelling and exciting.

I particularly liked the interplay of sex and making love and the real emotional intimacy required for the latter. It's tough, and rare. I'm surprised that women tossed Dexter after sleeping with him because he was emotionless. I've had a few hollow emotional relationships and I never booted someone for just fucking. It's nice to think that women have those standards and that awareness, but I doubt it's all that common.

Cat People ('82) % %

2007-09-09T17:58:00.000-05:00

I rented it by accident. I meant to get the Val Lewton/Jacques Torneur 1942 Cat People.

This is not a great movie. It fails narratively, since there's no real sympathy for the blank Natasha Kinski, Irena, the main character who is discovering her deep secret, that she, like her brother and her parents before her, becomes a leopard when she gets sexually arroused. Even the director, Paul Schrader, has a hard time saying what the film is about. In the extras, there's an on set interview with him, in which he resists reducing the film to it's narrative, and then goes on to say that it's about myth and subconscious desires. This means that the film isn't traditionally engaging as entertainment, and it fails in exciting in a sexual or horror style as well. I didn't find it exciting, seductive or intellectually stimulating. He further can't really explain how he and Natasha created her character, which is because he didn't really create any engaging characters. In fact, Schraeder comes off as a creepy, over-intellectualized jack ass with no emotions or honest feelings. That's not to say that there aren't interesting and appealing aspects to the film.

The soundtrack is by Giorgio Moroder. It's awesome. And the theme song is sung by David Bowie, "Putting out a fire with gasoline". The cast includes Malcolm McDowell as Irena's murdering, incestuous brother; John Laroquette, Ruby Dee(A Raisin in the Sun), Frankie Faison (playing another cop) and Ed Bagely Jr in small but delightful roles.

The intro scenes involving the primal historical sacrifices are interesting in that they expose a pre-adolescent boy sexual fantasy, much like Conan the Barbarian. The theme of the movie is sexual imagination, according to the director, and it shows a fairly juvenile sexuality. But that can be fun sometimes. It's an amusing conceit that someone's sexuality can turn them into a murderous beast. But with the inclusion of the brother, it makes it less about feminine sexuality, and more about sexuality in general, and then it becomes too broad to really be all that exciting or engaging.

So blah. It had some cool spots, but I could have watched Ray on UPN for the second time, and been better off. But then again, there's alot of nudity in Cat People, and a very cool scene in the forest at night that's shot in black and white and colored in post. So it's got some neat stuff, but you don't need to watch the whole thing, and it feels like it could have ended three times over.

INLAND EMPIRE % % % %

2007-09-09T13:42:00.000-05:00

Baffling, as always, this is Lynch at his most unrestrained. Working without a completed script and in digital video, David Lynch bounds through various themes: Hollywood, violence, sex, interconnected times, mysteries of the night, suburban secrets, 50s pop culture, and just anything that might creep out a viewer. There's strobe lights at uneven paces, screams, blood red lighting effects, decay, alter-egos, doors through time and space, demented women running at the camera into a close-up and more awkward closeups. And more closeups. The light digital cameras enable super-close shots at slightly odd angles, and Lynch utilizes the most irritating of digital camera mistakes to his unique motives. He manipulates focus so that the background is in focus when the face in close-up is out of focus, contrary to expectations. It's a little unnerving, and suggests that no one is ever clearly known.

Following an introductory scene involving a couple enterring a hotel room, presumably a sexual/business relationship, in which both people's faces are blurred, the first hour or so is fairly linear, and surrounds Laura Dern's character, Nancy, an actress in Hollywood, married to a powerful and mysterious man. She meets her new neighbor, played by a standard Lynch actress, who is super weird and says that she cannot tell tomorrow from yesterday. She also tells an odd story about a boy who goes out to play and creates evil. Evil. Evil. It doesn't make sense at the time, and I kept hoping it would click with something else in the film, but I got nothing out of it. Nancy gets a new film role and the linear plot follows the making of the film, which concerns a couple who enter into an adulterous affair. Nancy begins to lose control over the difference between her life and the film, and this is where is all goes bananas.

Nancy goes through a metal door off of an alley, goes back in time to an earlier scene and then gets trapped in a fifties-ish coral living room. She explores the house and spends most of her time with a group of young women, sexually provocative and dimly lit. There's screaming and red lights, bright flashes and choreographed dancing to 50s pop songs. The film moves to Poland, where Nancy's husband is involved with an invisible woman and some old men. And then Dern, dirty and dishelveled, meets with a man in a dark room high in a dilapadated warehouse, where she discusses her past abusive relationships and the ways she's beaten the men she's escaped from. There's also a side-line involving Julia Ormond, who I haven't seen work in a while, who goes into a police station. She's disturbed and has been hypnotised by some man in a bar and told to stab someone with a screw driver, but she's already stabbed herself with it. Then later she reappears as the wife of the adulterer in Nancy's film, and again as the first crazy version, stalking dirty Dern on Hollywood Blvd. Here the young women from the house are now prostitutes but still snapping in time together. Dern gets stabbed, staggers past the stars on the boulevard and collapses next to some people sleeping on the street waiting for a bus to Pomona. Not to mention the interludes of sitcom style scenes about a family of rabbits who speak in odd sequiters, as if part of an absurdist play.

There's all sorts that I've left out. Some of which I can't recall because it didn't make sense to me and some of which, like the Beck song on the soundtrack and the burlesque club, that felt awkward to me because of their contemporary connections. It felt to me that there was too much freedom. It went on too long and in so many different directions. And the film retread a great many of Lynch's themes that it at times felt like a satire.

So I found it an interesting freak out, but it lacked the mysterious beauty of films like Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, and the cohesive feeling of purpose of Lost Highway. I thought a few times around the two hour mark, that I would never indulge another filmmaker like I would Lynch, and with good reason. The dirty Dern was truly creepy, and the strange hallways leading to other places captured that archetypal mysterious feeling found in everyone's unconscious that brings me back to Lynch again and again.

The Lives of Others % % % % %

2007-09-04T14:38:00.000-05:00

Brilliant screenplay! A story within a story, convincingly told in a grey communist block palate and a rigid, symmetrical mise-en-scene reminiscent of fascist architecture.

And the theme is the transformative power of art. The life of art transforms the most brainwashed, rigid, suppressed, government stooge into taking risks, acting passionately and laying his own well-being on the line for others.

And while this transformation is truly affecting, the man, a Stasi spy in East Berlin, does not completely transform. This isn't a sappy, childish fantasy. This is East Berlin. He sacrifices himself, his power in life, to enable another with more revolutionary potential power to continue on and to affect their society in a more liberating direction. But in becoming more courageous, he is stymied by his supervisors and the institution for which he works. East Germany falls, Berlin changes, and in the end he is too poor to be free or dramatically free-willed. He pushes on and that in itself is courageous.

Dexter % % % %

2007-08-31T21:16:00.000-05:00

I'm still not totally sold.

But it's well written, acted and directed. Michael C. Hall is great. I love everyone from Six Feet Under so much, that sometimes, I miss them. Like old friends, I miss them. It's pathetic, but damn those were some well written characters. The writing got a little wobbly towards the end. But damn. I loved that show. I cried when it ended because it was over. And because the ending broke my heart. I still get wistful thinking about Keith.

So, my SFU aside aside, I think the writing on Dexter is great too. And it's totally quality visually. But... I don't know if I care yet. I don't know if I care about the characters. And really this is the challenge of a show about a likeable serial killer. So we'll see. I'm not totally convinced yet, but I do like the progressions of the characters that I've seen thus far. And it is a fascinating conceit that anyone would have a parent who loves them so much, that regardless of one's inclinations, habits or compulsions, that a parent might still help them to fit into society. I'm sure most parents like to think that they adjusted their parenting to the people that their kids presented as, but I think it's far more likely that most parents try their damnedest to make you fit their idea of you. Which, perhaps is really what happened to Dexter. And it is this conundrum that is drawing me on.

Keep up the good writing and I'll keep watching. And maybe I'll change my review to 5 %s.

Zodiac - % % % %

2007-08-27T21:23:00.000-05:00

Following a set of characters of varying connection with the Zodiac murders over a period of 25 years is a tall task. Like biopics, true life historical films are tricky. Real life is just too random, boring, disconnected and NON NARRATIVE. It doesn't fit the stories we like to tell, because inherently the stories we like make us feel better about our lives by implying that there's order or meaning or resolution, when really there's very little of any of that. So I'm pretty impressed by the way that Zodiac creates a traditional emotional narrative arc out of material without any peak in action, aside from the murders that start everything, and a notoriously poor resolution. Just to let the cat out of the bag, no one is every arrested for the murders. Nor does anyone know for sure which murders should really be attributed to the Zodiac killer.

By focusing on the author of the true crime book on the Zodiac case, played by Jake Gyllenhaal in an earnest but childishly naive and foppish manner, the screenwriter garners the viewers' sympathy. We, like Gyllenhaal, are intrigued, fascinated by the seeming randomness of the killings, and perplexed by the letters and puzzles. But the middle of the film focuses on the actual police work, spread out over many years. The lead to the likely killer and his character development isn't exciting. The actor isn't creepy in a Hannibal Lector way, nor is he terrifying in a suspicious or secretive manner. He's just weird. And his trailer full of squirrels isn't as scary as it should be. Squirrels are crazy when trapped inside. They scrape up the walls and tear down curtains. They just weren't scary enough.

So all we're left with is the itch. And Jake the cutie. And he pushes his family away. And I could see what he was doing and that it was bad, but I didn't care. Chloe Sevigne was so mousy she was empty. So I didn't care that she left. I was glad that she took her sour face out of the film. His kids are cute, but I figured they understood, and it seems so, since they enjoy helping their dad with clues in the case.

But I will admit that the filmmakers made the climax and resolution work. They pulled it essentially out of thin air, but emotionally it was good. Jake follows a lead to a creepy house and I was sure terrified. Now that guy was creepy and ominous and threatening. And of course the basement was scary and there was a locked door full of tension. Following this the film follows with the publishing of the true crime book and the finale, the only living witness is found and identifies the main suspect. In titles, we learn that the suspect died just before they could interrogate him on the basis of this new evidence. But this ID gives the audience confidence that we know who done it. It feels resolved. And we learn that Jake's kids still love him, even though, presumably, his wife does not.

Not a great film, but competently filmmed by Fincher, our modern, precise, Hitchcockian auteur. And the story is intriguing because it's true, and we're all sickos fascinated by serial killers and kooks.

I was left scared and reminded that the killer lived for years after the murders, free to molest kids, go to jail and generally to live his life freely without justice for these crimes. Which then reminded me of the BTK murderer, who lived in suburban safety with a family and a community, all unaware of his horrible horrible actions. Killers do live among us, and aren't we all unpunished criminals in one way or another. Not that we're all sickos, just that our justice system is a great sieve.

Things you should read:

2007-08-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

"LaVena Johnson died in Iraq on July 19, 2005. The seemingly happy and healthy 19-year old Private First Class soldier was found dead by a gunshot wound with bruising, a dislocated shoulder, an indication that someone tried to set her body on fire, and a number of other signs including a blood trail outside of the tent she was found in. But despite all of these factors, the U.S. Army declared that her death was caused by suicide and shut the case quietly."
From feministing.com

The greater outrage
We are more aghast at Michael Vick's crimes against animals than athletes' crimes against women. And that is criminal.
Rick Morrissey, Chicago Tribune
Do you ever think that the women in abusive relationships ask for it, are gold diggers willing to live like mercenaries (I'm lookin at you, Kanye), or are idiots who deserve what they get if they won't just leave? Hmmm... because life is ever that simplistic.

The New Science of Netflix Addiction

2007-08-22T18:49:00.000-05:00

I hang on my postman's every step. It's true. I curse him when he doesn't show. I've written letters, angry letters, to the post office snitching on him.

I check my queues (yes, queues - plural) and make adjustments several times a day. The reason I have several queues is that you can only have 500 titles in one queue. So I created other family members. There are just too many movies to see. They're constantly coming out, pouring out faster and faster as technology changes. And then there's the backlog of classics, historically relevant or cult films that have influenced the films I love. It goes on and on, like an endless waterfall. (Jonathan Rosenbaum, a film critic for the Reader, makes this point in a couple of places but particularly in Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Cannons.)

And I've gotten my friends to match up with me on the site and now I can stalk them and their movie choices. I find it fascinating what they think is brilliant or ass. I love the list of films that we all agree on. No.1 is Monty Python and the Holy Grail (brilliant!) And then there are the comment debates. I love being opinionated and riling up others. I find we're all too complacent and blah and unfortunately sometimes an assinine statement can be quite enlightening. Assuming of course that we're all adults and willing to admit that we can be wrong and be proud of our endless process of maturation. An unexamined life and all that...

So a great deal of my entries are going to be about all the films I rent.

I will also make this disclaimer. I am deeply saddened by my contributions to the demise of the movie theater. I've got a big projector at home and a giant screen so I can watch really big pictures at home. I do lose out on the beauty of film, but for all the money I'm saving, and I'm one of the many living paycheck to paycheck, there's not enough remorse to make me sacrifice any more financially. I don't have cable, so it's all through DVD rental. I wish that for all the moping that critics make about the mainstream audience abandoning theaters and watching little pictures, that more would encourage people to buy projectors and watch movies on the walls of their bedrooms. It's bomb. I know too, that I'm contributing to the every progressing modern isolation that began with the radio and was cemented by the television, but I can smoke and drink at my movie theater and did I mention that I can watch the big screen from my bed? Yeah. It's bomb.

Aight, I'll have much more to say about my netflix jones in the future. I'm bout to watch Dr. Who season 3 from my bed from a burned cd copy of a friends. All the good side of technology. May I be aware enough to combat the dark side.

In the beginning

2007-08-22T18:23:00.000-05:00

So I've created this blog in order to chit chat about all the movies I watch and my various associated opinions and passions. Lord knows I need to channel all those hours into something purposeful. But I'm hoping this'll be a good way to develop those ideas and passions by flushing them out, exposing them to the world (that is priviledged enough to afford or gain access to the internet), and hopefully connect with others of a similar mind or not.

I enjoy alot of entertainment, but I'm willing to throw myself into the fire and watch something that may not fulfill the nagging desires of my short attention span. Hell, I'll sit through anything. I've seen Salo. I made it all the way through Dragonheart and the Dreamcatcher. There's very little I won't expose myself to. I'm generally pretty curious. But that's not to say that I won't trash talk the garbage afterwards. But I'm hoping to develop some constructive critical skills. I'm too intuitive and informed by a modern sensibility.

So bear with me if you disagree with something I write. I'd appreciate the benefit of the doubt. I'll try to be open to other ideas. I do think that syncreticism is possible through dialogue. We can all come to understand each other. That doesn't equal agreement. I hold my beliefs very passionately. I've come to them through a fair amount of thought and purpose.

So here goes.