cinephile

Review: In Time

2011-12-19T22:25:00.000-08:00

If you like to watch beautiful people run, this movie is for you.

Sometimes, a film's only job can be to convey a compelling set of ideas. Sometimes, that is all a film needs to do. In Time, the latest piece of sci-fi from writer/director Andrew Niccol of Gattaca renown, needed a little bit more than the fascinating thought experiment it shows us. The experiment presented here is a near-future world not unlike our own in many ways, wherein all humans are genetically engineered to cease aging at 25, and are then given a year of time, which has replaced our idea of money. One pays rent in days and weeks, and works to earn more time; the poor must work tirelessly and waste not a second, for when a person's clock (emblazoned stylishly along the forearm) runs down to zero, they die. The wealthy are essentially immortal, and the less fortunate live in a poverty that threatens to kill them at any minute. The brilliant simplicity of this scenario is the best kind of science fiction. A universal, complex, and controversial facet of life such as money is morphed only a little, and the entire thing in turned inside out and thrown to the extremes.

On a conceptual level, the script is great, but on the practical level, it is gruelingly dull and blandly stupid. The dialogue is frustratingly trite, and the plot is so thinly laid out that it might tear at any moment. Not helping things are the clumsy direction, and mostly over-done or under-done acting. Justin Timberlake, who is a natural at comedy but not so much with the drama, never finds the depth or complexity necessary for his portrayal of Will Salas, our protagonist from the ghetto who suddenly comes into a century of time and goes on the run from the Timekeepers, a temporal economy's lawmen. Timberlake glides handsomely across the surface of the film, never making a big impression or drawing us into the world he is supposed to inhabit. Even in the most extreme situations, he doesn't seem to be concerned, and so we are not concerned for him and our attention drifts to the consistently pretty photography, or to the mysteriously sloppy editing. Cillian Murphy reliably delivers a suitably world-weary and no-nonsense portrayal as Raymond Leon, a Timekeeper who gives chase when Salas takes possession of what might be ill-gotten time. Murphy knows exactly what kind of movie he's in, and we end up wishing he was the protagonist instead of Timberlake, who never seems to know what is needed of him.

The main take away and best aspect of In Time is the concept it is built to display, and it does an okay job if it. It's just a shame that the package could not have been a little more graceful and robust, instead of a blunt, dumb instrument of conveyance.

Scenes from the Great Recession

2011-10-29T23:49:00.000-07:00

Color in the Pan Teaser from Corbett Jones on Vimeo.

Here's a nice little taste of a documentary about modern day gold seekers in California. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Green Wave, cont.

2011-10-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

Some good news for a change.

An Iranian court has overturned the lashing sentence imposed on an actor after she appeared in a film critical of the Islamic republic's repressive policies, according to Amnesty International. Marzieh Vafamehr, who appeared with her head uncovered in the film My Tehran for Sale, was released from prison after her sentence of one year in prison and 90 lashes was overturned on appeal. Vafamehr, wife of the acclaimed film-maker Nasser Taghvai, was arrested in July after Iranian authorities took exception to the film about an actor whose theatre work is banned in Iran.

The Iranian authorities detained Vafamehr for criticism of the exact repression they enacted upon her and continue to level on many of her fellow actors, filmmakers, and artists. Doesn't the government realize that the more they try to squeeze and silence dissent, the more it will slip out of their iron grasp?

(Video: Trailer for My Tehran for Sale, 2011.)

Kickstarter Project: Elder's Corner

2011-10-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

from SIJI on Vimeo.

I recently came across this intriguing project via Teju Cole, who compares it to Buena Vista Social Club. From the film's Kickstarter page:

Shot against the colorful and gritty backdrop of some of Nigeria’s urban cities particularly Lagos and through the clever use of extensive in depth interviews, archival footage and still photographs, Elder's Corner will take viewers on a musical journey through the country's turbulent and colorful history. It will chronicle and showcase the lives and work of some of the leading exponents of the various musical movements that spawned Afrobeat, Juju, Apala, Highlife and Fuji music.

As of this writing, the project is less than $1500 away from being funded. You can donate here.

The Green Wave

2011-10-26T23:56:00.000-07:00

Perhaps what fascinates me the most about Iranian cinema is the urgent, visceral interaction between the zeitgeist of oppression in the country and the craft the filmmakers use to react to and comment on it. With renowned directors like Jafar Panahi (Offside) and Mohammad Rasoulof (The White Meadows) being arrested and banned from filmmaking by the Iranian regime, the stakes are so high for all filmmakers in Iran that such jeopardy cannot help but coat the characters and stories in their films.

The latest example is Dog Sweat, wherein young Tehranis pursue such innocent desires as alcohol, companionship, and musical expression, all in the face of systematic oppression.

The trailer is reminiscent of another recent Iranian film, No One Knows About Persian Cats. This, the fifth directorial work by Iranian-Kurd Bahman Ghobadi, follows a couple of bandmates as they race around Tehran trying desperately to both secure visas to travel to London for a music festival and plan one last underground concert in their home country before leaving. The film is a wonderful and at times hysterical journey through the electric, boisterous world of illegal music in urban Iran; its a universe that is quite similar to yet terrifyingly different from the one this American viewer inhabits. What might get you played on KEXP in Seattle will get you arrested in Tehran if you are not careful.

Indeed it is true that all cinema, regardless of national origin, reflects the reality it is conceived in to some degree, but the films coming out of Iran, especially since the unprecedented post-election protests and deadly crackdown, seem like a natural and crucial part of the life of that country.

Review: The Tree of Life

2011-06-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

For an art so young, it is not surprising that vast regions of cinema have yet to be mapped. Terrence Malick is one of only a few bold enough to venture into the untamed wilderness in search of something new; with The Tree of Life, he's gone deeper than before, and what he found is glorious.

If there is such a genre as the memory film, The Tree of Life is of that category. Framed by the premature death of a beloved family member, the story concerns Jack O'Brian as he relives extreme, ethereal, and sublime moments from his Texas childhood.

The film does well to express this restless, endlessly, violently curious boyhood. When you are a child, what surrounds you is your whole universe. And so it follows that the story of young Jack O'Brian should be placed so solidly on par with the frightening, magnificent creation of the universe and the ancient evolution of life on Earth. To a child's fresh mind, nothing has come before, and nothing can be imagined to someday be a memory but this electric moment. Such a vivid, immersive depiction of boyhood has never, I think, been shown to us.

And why not show the birth of everything? It is rendered gorgeously, and to behold such a thing strikes a cosmic chord in all of us, as we are all, of course, citizens of this universe. With such authenticity and grace, The Tree of Life shows us parts of the cinematic language rarely spoken. This film comes at life from both sides; the innocent, unformed, frustrated sponge of ever-changing youth, and the dusty, gray, frozen, existential nostalgia of stagnant adulthood.

Light and Music: Stranger Than Fiction

2011-06-02T17:54:00.000-07:00

Stranger Than Fiction is a film about wrestling your own destiny from forces seemingly beyond your control. Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is a bland taxman whose meticulous life comes unraveled when he starts hearing a voice narrating his actions.

At this point in the film, Harold has fallen for Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a baker he was sent to audit. He has also recently started teaching himself the guitar, a lifelong dream. These threads reach their apex in this glorious scene. It's a great use of a simple song, first played quietly and unassumingly by our earnest hero, then cranked on the soundtrack as we get our sparkling screen kiss. It is another example of music being utilized as a dialect of the cinematic language.

Review: My Perestroika

2011-05-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

There are two important themes in Robin Hessman's documentary, My Perestroika - Nostalgia is relentless and grows on every memory; and patriotism is far more deeply rooted than simple military parades and flag-waving, and infinitely varied.

Concerning the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the film tells us Russia's recent history through candid interviews with 5 Muscovites who came of age in the late 80s and early 90s as part of the last generation to grow up behind the so-called Iron Curtain, along with frenetic contemporary footage of the transformative time in question.

One brilliant sequence comes as the subjects recall the wave of political upheaval that swept the Soviet Socialist Republics. It begins with a performance of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, but soon intercuts dramatic black and white footage of tanks rolling through the streets Moscow. The ballet's impassioned refrain swirls around the urban-bound artillery to form the emotional apex of the film.

For an American, particularly one brought up since the events discussed, the film is an immersive if sometimes bewildering history lesson, related by those who lived it. Like any patriot, they each have a complicate and ever evolving relationship with their homeland. Some insist that life was better in the Soviet Union, and indeed all share at least some degree of wistful, inevitable nostalgia for that bygone era. Others are glad of the USSR's evaporation, while some are just as disaffected and dissatisfied now as they were then. Running through every interview is the sense that life goes on, that this too shall pass. Each person's complacency was shaken by the fall of the Iron Curtain; it taught them that the future is never certain.

SIFF Review: Without

2011-05-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

For reasons we are left to guess at, 19-year-old Joslyn takes a job on Whidbey Island as a live-in caretaker for Frank, an elderly, vegetative man.
Written and directed by Seattle native Mark Jackson, Without is an expertly crafted film that deftly blurs the line between Joslyn's inner, psychological turmoil and the outer, real world chaos that forms as her passive-aggressive relationship with catatonic Frank devolves.

Jackson elegantly stacks the banal minutiae of Joslyn's new job to build a dark, vibrating tower of isolation and tedium that steadily drives our heroine mad. This is a director that understands and can harness the power of moments. Locking all the sliding glass doors, crushing some pills, buying coffee; collectively and on their own, these drops of everyday life have power.

Without taps into a recurring narrative motif in Western storytelling - that of the island as both physical and metaphorical location. From Shakespeare's The Tempest to television's Lost, the island reflects and comments on the protagonist's inner life. We find Joslyn in such a place; she washes up on the cold, gray shores of grief and does her time thrashing about in a borrowed house for a mute, motionless audience who offers no comment but the occasional wordless moan.

Jackson and his cinematographers, Jessica Dimmock and Diego Garcia, show an aptitude with the unique Northwest color palette, and brush the screen with deep, soggy greens and blues. Taking brilliant advantage of cinema-capable DSLR cameras, the filmmakers get us physically and psychologically closer to Joslyn than film could have. It's exhilarating to see the future of filmmaking unfolding before you so starkly.

Light and Music: The Man Who Knew Too Much

2011-05-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

There is relatively untapped power in using music, specifically source music (that which is heard or played or sung by characters in a non-musical), as a cinematic storytelling tool.

I came upon this notion last night after watching Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. Day being, at the time, more famous as a singer than an actress, I suppose it seemed only natural to try and incorporate her hit "Que Sera Sera" into the film some how. When it first appears early in the film, sung playfully by Day and her onscreen son, it reads as just a little forced and corny. But later, once the film has built to it's suspenseful climax, Day's character desperately recapitulates the song in an attempt to find her kidnapped child. Plunking percussively at a grand piano, she raggedly belts the tune until her son whistles back an answer.

Review: TRON: Legacy

2010-12-20T23:58:00.000-08:00

Any fans of 1982's TRON who complain that its recent sequel, TRON: Legacy, is badly written, lacks depth, and only exists to showcase the latest advancements in movie-making technology have clearly not watched the original film in some time. TRON was a silly, written-by-committee corporate product that had nothing but then-state-of-the-art visual effects to justify its existence. It was a spectacle, and so is TRON: Legacy, but even more so.

Ignore the first 15 minutes or so. The film is actually pretty lame until Sam Flynn (son of Kevin, hero of the first movie) is sucked into the computer world of "The Grid", a virtual city created by his father. He's come in search of his forebear, who's been missing for the past 20 years.

Once we're in The Grid, the film finally starts in earnest and things hit the ground running. The digital environment is rendered with skill, sophistication, and imagination, and far surpasses the modest, blocky canyons of the first film. The Grid really has a bustling, believable life to it. It's almost as if this virtual world has been growing and flourishing on its own all this time.

Practically the minute he materializes in The Grid, Sam is captured and forced into gladiatorial combat against ferocious "programs", digital humanoids who exist only in this virtual reality. This battle sequence is exquisitely and excitingly pulled off. It follows a video game logic, as does the whole film from this point, that just didn't exist yet in 1982. The use of 3D space in particular is pretty clever.

After a sequence where the famous "lightcycles" make a magnificent return, Sam is suddenly rescued by the mysterious and beguiling Quorra, played with aplomb by Olivia Wilde, who's origin goes unexplained for some time. Quorra is the film's biggest surprise; Wilde renders her with such honesty, curiosity, and depth that its hard to believe she is only a computer program (or is she?). I won't say she belongs in a better movie, because she gives this dark, thinly written film some much needed heart. She is by far the most satisfying and fun character to watch.

Garrett Hedlund as Sam Flynn is really nothing special, just a more comatose version of Chris Pine's Kirk in Star Trek. Bruce Boxleitner is surprisingly effective. Reprising his role as both Alan, Kevin Flynn's best friend, and his digital alter ego, Tron, he has a kind of wistful, old soldier quality to him; the pain of Kevin's long absence is far more present in his eyes than in Sam's.

Jeff Bridges, who helped make the original TRON so much fun, has duel roles here, both as Clu, our villain who turns out to be something of a digital Hitler; and as Kevin Flynn himself, now grizzled, shamanistic, and somewhat bemused. In the latter role, Bridges is definitely in post-Dude mode; he even walks around in a bathrobe the whole time.

TRON: Legacy is unfailingly entertaining and unendingly gorgeous. Instead of relying entirely on blue screen, first-time director Joseph Kosinski opted to have physical sets built, and to clothe the actors in working lightsuits; these decisions help to give the look of the film some substance. Credit is also due to cinematographer Claudio Miranda, who manages to light faces in a unique and grounded way. Kosiniski and his team have finally done justice to Steven Lisberger's original vision of virtual reality, which was so far ahead of its time back in 1982.

Review: Black Swan

2010-12-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan is a suspenseful masterpiece of body horror and paranoia set in the rigorous world of the New York Ballet as the company rehearses a new, "stripped down, visceral" rendition of Swan Lake.

We follow Nina, a technically brilliant but emotionally timid ballerina with the company. She lives with her mother (herself a retired dancer), does no socializing, and thinks only of dancing. Nina has built and perfected her ballet technique over the years while letting all other parts of her life atrophy and slough away. She is ballet.

Two things fall into Nina's world to challenge her. One is the prospect of being cast as both the white and black swans in the company's upcoming show. The other is Lily, an imperfect but free-spirited newcomer. Thomas, the director of the ballet, subtly casts envy in Nina's mind for Lily's apparent effortlessness and ease of expression, which Nina has yet to attain. So begins a psychological character study that skillfully descends into the most terrifying depths of Nina's fragile, beleaguered psyche.

As Nina, Natalie Portman just might be giving the performance of her life. Her voice is a brittle leaf in the wind. When confronted with embarrassment or ridicule (which happens often), her face struggles to mask the crippling blow to her self esteem; the heartbreaking way Portman renders Nina in the first act of film is impressive on its own, but not until our consummate ballerina begins her slide into madness does the portrayal become truly masterful. Oh, and not to mention that the actress does 95% of her own dancing, and believably at that.

As opening night draws closer, the pressure mounts and the terror builds. Nina has nowhere to turn for comfort, not to her director, not to her mother, and certainly not to her fellow dancers, who belittle each other at every opportunity. This is rare in cinema story-telling - a protagonist with no safe place to land, no port in the storm. We feel that same hopelessness, that same despair. It gets under the skin.

Black Swan feels like a culmination of everything Aronofsky has made thus far; there is the paranoid psycho-drama of Pi and Requiem for a Dream, the elegance of The Fountain, and quite a bit of the deep character study that The Wrestler did so well. The film also evolves into a very loose adaptation of Swan Lake, with it's story of seduction, rivalry, and chaste beauty vs. lustful passion. Long-time Aronofsky composer Clint Mansell even lets Tchaikovsky's opus seep into the score. And the cinematography by Matthew Libatique (also an Aronofsky veteran) dances with the actors, at times caressing them and at others mercilessly cornering them. The film and the 19th century ballet feed off each other; there are no islands in the arts. Aronosfky knows this, and it show.

Review: Agora

2010-11-20T16:27:00.000-08:00

Agora, Spanish-made but filled with the king's English, tells the mostly forgotten story of the female astronomer Hypatia, a proto-feminist and secular aristocrat who teaches the fledgling science of the heavens to classes full of men in ancient Alexandria, a city boiling over with religious strife. Brought heroically to life by Rachel Weisz, Hypatia is an intellectual and political force to be reckoned with. She wades headlong into the male-dominated seas of philosophy and religion in the face of radical Christian leaders who loudly declare the dominion men must have over women. This creates tension right from the start, and you get the sense that at any minute the fanatical masses will rise up to put Hypatia in her place.

One thing I did not expect was all the stoning; there is a lot of stoning. Christians stoning Pagans, Pagans stoning Christians, Christian's stoning Jews, Jews stoning Christians. Apparently it was the mass murder weapon of choice in those days. The sound of the stones is so strange and benign, like fat raindrops, as they cast death.

Lensed by cinematographer Xavi Gimenez, the film is unfailingly gorgeous. Director Alejandro Amenabar, however, shows his greatest aptitude with actors, especially in the quieter, subtler scenes. Moments between Hypatia and her slave, Davus (Max Minghella), who falls hopelessly in love with her, are particular tense and riveting.

For a swords-and-sandals picture, Agora is admirably fresh and accessible; the acting and much of the dialogue is natural, the production design is robust and lived-in, but what stands out most is the cinematography. The lighting and shot-making really give the action room to breathe. It's rare to see a film set circa B.C. that is not stuffy or overly ponderous.

The film's major flaw is its overall pacing; most individual scenes have a good flow to them, but the picture as a whole feels uneven, at times too slow and at others jarringly rapid. There must be a steadier director's cut tucked away somewhere, and indeed the cut that screened at Cannes last year was longer by 20 minutes, but given its lukewarm critical and box office reception (in this country, at least), I fear this or any better version may never see the light of day.

There is an excellent film lurking just beneath the surface. Agora should have risen to Gladiator-type levels of praise and cultural relevance; alas, it is largely lost in the sands of time, much like Hypatia herself.

Review: Boxing Gym

2010-11-18T14:55:00.000-08:00

Each great film creates a world, which the audience marinates in for the length of the picture. Documentary director Frederick Wiseman's Boxing Gym meticulously and beautifully constructs the rhythmic world of Lord's Gym in Austin, Texas. As is his style, Wiseman uses no interviews, voice overs, or title cards to explain the action; he simply captures it, then cuts together a narrative from what he gathers.

There is no musical score, but then there doesn't need to be, for the soundtrack pulsates with the human beats of fists on punching bags, sparring boxers' shifting feet, and exhausted grunting breathes. The images cut clearly and obviously, but the sound melts together to form a delicious aural collage which swaddles the whole film like a sonic blanket.

The star of Boxing Gym is Richard Lord, the wise and crusty old proprietor of the gym that shares his name. When he's not talking to perspective and longtime members in his charmingly cluttered office, Lord floats around training kids, giving advice, and overseeing the place from which he is inseparable; he is the gym.

The gym's patrons represent a microcosm of Austin, and indeed America. There are new moms, aspiring Army Rangers, high school kids, veteran boxers and people of all colors who simply want to better themselves. There is such harmony in this place, such a sublime come and go, peppered with idle and profound talk between strangers and old friends. I wanted to live in this world forever.

The Passion of the Silent Era

2010-11-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

Last week I had the chance to watch the silent, 1928 French film The Passion of Joan of Arc, starring the talented and awesomely named Maria Falconetti as Joan. The print we saw had been rescued from a janitor's closet of some Norwegian mental asylum in 1981, a bizarre piece of trivia that helped to set the mood for what turned out to be a gloriously strange cinematic experience. The film depicts Joan's trial and execution at the hand of the English, and it is told almost exclusively in close ups on the actors' faces. If you are a filmmaker, and you want to know what a close up should look like, see this film. Apparently, the director, Carl Theodor Dreyer, insisted that his actors not wear make up, a subtraction which simply was not done during that eon of cinema. Add to this the use of then-newly developed panchromatic film stock, and you get 82 minutes of the most emotionally resonate and harrowing close ups the art form has thus mustered.

On the rare occasion that Dreyer does cut to wider shots, in part because of their infrequency, they have a breathtaking impact. This director's sense of movement, both with the camera and people inside the frame, is so modern and ahead of its time that one can hardly accept it was achieved so early as 1928. The cinematic bravura on display in The Passion of Joan of Arc is so complete and intense, it dives so deep, that it gives us a small window into where film might have gone had sound not crashed the party a year earlier. I was talking to my friend after the movie about what a shame it is that the silent era had not lasted longer. Once we could hear the actor's talking, filmmakers got lazy, cameras grew immense and far less versatile, and the art died a little. Imagine the innovations that could have been made; think of all the vocabulary that could have been written into the cinematic language had the crutch of sound not crippled us. We may be just now doing things with movies that might have come about in 1940 or so were it not for evil, easy sound.

Another thing I realized while watching this masterpiece is that silent film is not given nearly the respect and appreciation it deserves. Firstly, almost no one realizes that most films of that era were shot and projected at 18 frames per second, not 24 as we are used to today. It is such ignorance which is to blame for the ridiculous, sped up look we have become accustomed to when watching silent films. Unfortunately, this formerly asylum-bound print fell victim to this practice; it was clearly shot at 18 fps, but then transferred at 24 fps. So, though it was Dreyer's original cut of the film, I still have not seen it as he intended. Ignoring the original frame rate is just as destructive to a film as inflicting pan-and-scan on a letterboxed movie to make it fit 4:3 televisions. Hopeful someone who knows what they're doing will get their hands on this print and release a correct transfer on DVD. If we had been watching silent films at the proper frame rate all along, I have no doubt that modern audiences would take them millions of times more seriously and be more willing to fold them into our collective memory of cinema.

(Above: Maria Falconetti as Joan of Arc in a still from The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928)

Box Office Mojo is a depressing website

2010-11-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

I was filled with a new level of dread about the state of popular cinema today on a visit to the perfectly benign looking Box Office Mojo.com. First I saw this weekend's top 5 grossing films:

3 sequels, two of which are in 3D, and Red, based on a comic book, leaving Clint Eastwood's Hereafter the only original film in the bunch. I thought, good god, this sequel/franchise and 3D mania has really gotten out of hand, so I took a look at the top ten grossing films of 2010 so far:

7 mostly 3D sequels and/or remakes, one 3D based on a book, and one 3D with an original story (and by original, I simply mean not a derivative work; I'm making no judgments about the actual story of Despicable Me). Only Inception is both completely original and 2D, and its all the way down at number 5. 3D aside, the mere sight of so many franchise films at the top of the financial heap is distressing. But this must be a recent trend, right? Surely Hollywood must be going through a phase. So I went to look at the top grossing films for each year of the past decade or so:

Damn it! We have to go all the way back to Saving Private Ryan in 1998 to find a film that is not a sequel, prequel, book adaption, or Avatar. Okay, maybe its just a millennial thing. What about the 20 some odd years previous to that?

Better, but nearly half are still based on existing books and movies. Will the trend continue? Won't Hollywood eventually run out of original ideas to sequelize? Surely even the cynical, tasteless hacks that run major movie studios will be loath to green light Saw 26: the Ultimately Finally Final Chapter: in 3D and Smell-o-Vision. Maybe this desperate 3D sequel and remake explosion is really just Hollywood's death rattle.

When You Know Too Much

2010-10-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

I cannot see The Social Network. Let me back up. Usually, a movie you haven't seen yet is ruined by spoilers, details about the plot that lessen the impact of the film's surprises. Occasionally, however, a movie becomes so talked about that the peripheral chatter outweighs the film itself and overshadows it. I've experienced this three times: with Brokeback Mountain, Slumdog Millionaire, and now The Social Network. I've read about it in every newspaper, on every website, and seen news about it on every TV show. I'm too aware of it. The film occupies too large a part of my brain without having seen it. I would not be able to experience it in a fresh and enjoyable way at this point. Now I have to wait until the film is no longer on my radar so I can see it and judge it fairly, on its own terms, without being burdened with knowledge of awards buzz, critical analysis, details about the production, or its perceived cultural impact. I fear this may be never.

(Top: still from The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956, Paramount Pictures)

The Hobbit gets ugly

2010-10-22T22:54:00.000-07:00

Though it has recently been announced that a film version of The Hobbit is finally going into production this February, directed by Peter Jackson and staring Martin Freeman as Bilbo, there are still some unresolved issues. Its really a quite contentious saga involving striking actor's unions, corporate intimidation, and bitter international rivalry. Watch a rarely riled-up Jackson explain things from his side:

Zach Galifianakis gets a taste of his own medicine

2010-10-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

You might be familiar with Zach's on going web series Between Two Ferns, where he awkwardly interviews the likes of Sean Penn, Jon Hamm, and Natalie Portman and asks them inane questions like "do you like websites?" and "did you also shave your V for vagina?" In this video from a local news station in Texas, Mr. Galifianakis finds himself being interviewed by a real life counterpart to his Between Two Ferns persona. Its hard to tell if the guy is for real or just putting it on. Take a look -

"I didn't hurt it!"

2010-10-20T22:55:00.000-07:00

The Vimeo Awards were announced earlier this month, which is where we find "oops", the winner for best experimental film. It is brilliantly and seamlessly cut together from found footage of people dropping their cameras. Take a look.

The camera becomes like a portal to these little extreme moments in people's lives. Some are more inane - "I'm gonna drop my camera into my laundry basket. Here we go!" - but many are filled with sheer exuberance, joy, shock, panic, fear, and wonder. My favorite moments: the remote-control plane smash cutting to a roller coaster, and the pure warmness and thrill of the father and his small daughter sledding. Just gorgeous.

Review: Winter's Bone

2010-10-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

Debra Granik's Winter's Bone is a creaky, noirish hero's quest set in the impoverished Ozarks in the brittle dead of winter. Ree Dolly, a 17-year-old girl with a steely gaze and a quick mind, is saddled with raising her younger brother and sister and caring for their catatonic mother in the wake of her absent, meth-cooking father. Ree teaches her siblings to cook, shoot, and other adult responsibilities, as if, even at these tender ages, they may have to suddenly fend for themselves. Their is a wary, knowing doom in Ree's eyes that is heartbreaking; no 17-year-old should possess this kind of foreboding wisdom, but for her it is a necessity.

A thick undercurrent of cold, stinging dread lies beneath every scene; as Ree searches for her father, who has skipped out on his court date after putting the family home up for bail, she comes up against a frozen wall of secrecy almost everywhere she turns. Through it all, Ree faces enemies, gains allies, and passes trials and tribulations.
I'll not end without discussing what everyone who's seen the film is talking about: young Jennifer Lawrence's topnotch performance as Ree. A less ballsy director than Granik would have cast a 20-something to play the teen, and it would not have worked; there is no one better, of any age. Lawrence inhabits the character so thoroughly that it is hard to imagine she is not naturally of the film's milieu.

Review: Enter The Void

2010-10-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

Trudging away from the theater as the end credits rolled, I had to struggle to keep from collapsing, the cosmic weight of Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void is so great. Expansive is too narrow a word to describe the film's universe and cinematic language.

Oscar is a young American living in Tokyo, dealing drugs small time to raise money for his sister's plane ticket so she can join him in this far eastern city of lights. We open on a scene of them bickering (the language of siblings), shot from Oscar's POV; this take lasts for at least the first 20 minutes of the film, wherein we see the lights of Tokyo, drug-induced hallucinations, and Oscar's moment of death at the hands of the police. Then things get weird.

Though we are with Oscar for every second of the film, the real star is Paz de la Huerta as his sister, Linda; we see her brother's face maybe twice, and mostly when he's dead. De la Huerta delivers a towering, harrowing, and fragile performance that is daring on a number of levels. Noe is a director who can win an actress's trust completely; those who've seen Irreversible know what I'm talking about. De la Huerta does everything, bares all (physically and emotionally), and goes everywhere the film demands.

Noe takes universal paradigms - life flashing before your eyes at the moment of death, the afterlife, and reincarnation - and runs with them. What blew me away was how the film explores these anxieties so deeply yet so simply. After he is killed, Oscar's spirit or ghost floats around the city watching over his bereaved sister, all the while trying to make sense of this new and confusing plane of existence. Like the opening scene, it unfolds entirely from his strict POV.

Perhaps the greatest pleasures of Enter The Void for me as a filmmaker are the lighting and color; the photography marinates in green and purple neon, such a great relief from the insidious orange and teal plague that is afflicting more and more films these days. Though filmed almost entirely at night, the city of Tokyo is so bright it acts as one giant practical light, providing all the illumination we need for a picture about death and life and all the sticky, unpleasant details in between. Some may find this method of cinematography a bit graceless; characters' faces will disappear into darkness for chunks of time and so on, but if you're bothered by this then you're missing the point.

I can safely say that Enter The Void is unlike anything you have seen; I don't have to know you. The film is so completely unique that I have utter confidence no person has seen anything like it, no person but Gaspar Noe.

The Prestige: They Want to be Fooled

2010-09-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

Part 4 in a series of essays on the films of director Christopher Nolan. Originally posted December 12th, 2008.

The Prestige is, on the surface, a story concerning rival magicians in Victorian London. But, at the heart of things, it is really a film about film-making.
As far as I'm concerned, the goal of any film is threefold. I call it the 3 Es: Engage, Entertain, and Enlighten. Before either of the later two can happen, the audience must first be engaged. This means giving them a point of reference; that is to say, introduce them to something familiar right off the bat: a character that is relatable, and a situation or conflict that is easily comprehended. Once the audience is engaged, it is the filmmaker's duty to then entertain them, by putting the established characters in humorous or nerve-racking situations. There is a certain flare for creating truly entertaining scenes that only a few select directors possess. There is a kind of showmanship quality to film-making. The final thing a film must do is enlighten the audience. That is, the film should come to a point that stimulates the mind of the viewer. This is not always achieved and is even more difficult to pull off than pure entertainment. This third aspect is what separates great films from those that are simply good. It helps the film stick in people's minds long after they have seen it.
The above three elements of the film viewing experience are directly comparable to the three stages of a magic trick, as discussed in The Prestige. These are The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige. The Turn is when the audience is shown something ordinary; a handkerchief or a small bird. This is much like the beginning of a film when the audience is engaged by something equally familiar. The second part is The Turn, when the ordinary thing is made to do something extraordinary, like disappear. "But," as Michael Caine's character says in the the film, "you wouldn't clap yet. It's not enough to make something disappear. You have to bring it back." This seemingly miraculous return of the vanished object is The Prestige, and it is the most important part of the trick. These latter two parts are similar to the way entertaining the audience can bring them to something enlightening; how a heart pounding chase scene can wind and twist and turn, and then deposit us at some great, profound truth.
Another convention of magic tricks that is shared in film-making is the suspension of disbelief. It is said in the film that the audience knows that it is only an illusion, but they don't want to know how it is accomplished. "They want to be fooled", as they say. This is equally true with the film viewing experience. Any individual of even average intelligence knows full well that what they are witnessing on screen is not entirely real, but they ignore that fact. They want something extraordinary. They want to see something aside from their familiar reality. They want to escape, and it is the job of both the magician and the filmmaker to render a believable fantasy for the viewing public.
Filmmakers are the magicians of their day. With both magic and cinema, people go to the theater to see something outside of their own, regular experience. They are, at first, presented with something against which they can compare their own lives. "I know what this is. I get this", they think to themselves. Then, through this relatable proxy, the audience is taken on a journey into previously unknown territory, where they witness things they had never imagined and certainly did not expect. Then, at the end of this voyage, and indeed because of it, we come to a profundity that we had not known, yet it is undeniably true. We leave the theater having gained a fuller experience. Or course we know it was all smoke and mirrors, but to dwell on this notion would ruin something very special.

The King's Oscar Speech

2010-09-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

Every year gives us at least one film with its eye firmly on an Oscar statue, and 2010 is no exception. This time it appears to be The King's Speech, a film about King George VI's speech impediment. Cinematical examines its chances:

There are plenty of things in Speech to appeal to the Oscar voter. It's a period piece about the inner workings of the British monarchy, and, more importantly, about the vulnerability of those in power. Like I said, everyone loves an underdog who overcomes and thrives in his or her new milieu, but even more so when it's someone who is in a position of great power.

And WW2 is involved. But will Americans, even those who are Academy voters, care that much about some boring British monarch with a speech impediment? I already don't. And I would hardly call the goddamn King of England an "underdog". Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but I doubt the greatness of Inception will be hard to forget, even come Oscar time.

Colin Firth looks pretty bored already. Not a good sign.

Review: The Square

2010-09-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

Boring, even when wet.

This sloppy Aussie noir could have been a really great film; it gets off to an excellent start, but becomes lazy and uneven as things plunge to a finish.

Produced by many of the same blokes who recently brought us Animal Kingdom, it is in fact directed by Nash Edgerton, whose brother Joel played a supporting role in both films and helped write The Square. Understandably, it feels very much of the same cinematic universe.

The main problem is our blandly stoic protagonist. This is the second Australian film I've seen in as many weeks with a boringly morose hero who's expressionless visage and blank attitude make it very difficult to empathize with him. His face remains frozen in the way pictured above for almost every minute of the film. Additionally, and I don't think this is too much of a spoiler, he doesn't appear to really learn anything by the end of the story, and his constant grimace does not help. He has no arc, he just does things, then the movie ends. If we cannot sympathize or at least be entertained by the protagonist, then nothing else matters; the hero is the face, of the movie and if the face is nearly comatose, then so are we.

Review: Animal Kingdom

2010-09-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

The short version is that writer/director David Michod's feature debut is an Australian answer to Goodfellas.

The long version is that Animal Kingdom is a lyrical, operatic, and beautifully brutal film about the unraveling of a Melbourne crime family, anchored by some brilliantly visceral performances.

The Codys are a family of bank robbers, mostly made up of adult children who've grown up in this life and know nothing else. We find the Cody clan as they grapple to stay one step ahead of the cops; the law in Melbourne has been driven to shooting gangsters unprovoked in broad day light in a desperate effort to clean up the city.

The family, in these waning days, consists of plucky, calculating matriarch 'Smurf' (charismatic Aussie vet Jackie Weaver, giving what might be the year's best performance) and her four grown, near-feral sons, who snarl and sun themselves like a pride of lions. The boys are given to fits of confused, frustrated rage as they feel the ravenous heat closing in on them, and a crushing paranoia settles on their psyches, particular that of 'Pope' (played with unsettling vulnerability by Ben Mendelsohn), the eldest and perhaps most vile.
The film begins with the estranged Cody sister dying of a heroin overdose, leaving her teenage son, Josh, with no place to go but into the care of his diabolically loving grandmother. Josh, or 'J', is clearly a reflection of what Smurf's sons once were, as they are a foreshadowing of what J might become if he follows in their lawless footsteps.
Played with constant restraint by newcomer James Frecheville, J provides provides us with a guide through the world of the film, but also presents its two main flaws. The teenager narrates for the first act or so to fill in some narrative gaps, but I didn't really find this necessary. It doesn't give us any essential information, and his delivery is crushingly monotone to the point of distraction. This brings me to the film's second flaw - Frecheville's performance itself. I can appreciate that J is meant to be an awkward, introverted kid and all, but the actor and director take it too far, and he just comes off as nearly comatose, which is not what you want, especially in a character that was so obviously added to the script in order to be an audience surrogate.
The boring protagonist aside, Animal Kingdom is an excellent film and a promising debut from young Aussie auteur Michod; the unique zeitgeist he evokes, and his virtuosic mastery of mood, tension, narrative momentum, indicate a cinematic master in the making.

Review: Centurion

2010-08-31T14:13:00.000-07:00

Genre maestro Neil Marshall's new film, Centurion, is all killer no filler, an economic narrative about a band of Roman soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in Northern Britain. The mis en scene is lean, agile, and tough, like its characters, and similarly smeared in dirt and drenched in neon-red blood. Story and execution work brilliantly and symbiotically together.

Rising star Michael Fassbender (pictured) fronts a solid ensemble, which includes fellow Brit Dominic West, Irish veteran Liam Cunningham, and strong female characters brought to life by lethal Ukrainian beauty Olga Kurylenko (also pictured) and mousy yet quietly confident englishgirl Imogen Poots. There is no ego in this cast; everyone works towards the quality of the whole, while still managing to shine in there own rights. This unity perfectly reflects the ideal dynamic among Roman soldiers, which is tested as Quintus Dias (Fassbender) leads his fellow warriors through the treacherous proto-Scottish wilderness.

One surprising element of Centurion is its contemporary sensibilities; it will resonate with modern Americans for its themes of soldierly brotherhood, the physical and emotional scars of war, the difficulties confronting a foreign army against insurgency. Above all, and indeed through the prism of these ideas, the film asks the timely question of what a conflict is worth. These ideas are thankfully subtle, never coming close to insulting, Avatar-esque levels of obviousness.

As with many films in the historical action genre, Centurion is fueled by healthy doses of testosterone, but is not without a woman's touch. Though it does not pass the Bechdel Test (there are only two major female characters, and one remains mute), it still provides realistic examples of women in a genre usually dominated by men. In film's of this ilk, on the rare occasions that women do show up, they are usually nothing more than eye candy or helpless damsels in need of rescuing by a strong alpha male. Not so in Centurion; Kurylenko's Pict warrior Etain is a brooding, intelligent, and deadly force of nature, who can hold her own against any man in the picture without coming off as overly butch or blandly evil. On the other end is Poots as Pict outcast Arianne, who has convinced the leaders of her native, patriarchal society that she is a witch so that she may live a peaceful, independent existence on her own. Quintus and his brothers-in-arms come upon her at their most desperate hour, and it is she who does the rescuing. She treats their wounds, feeds them, and gives them refuge for the night, but she is not simply here to serve the men. Arianne has a rare agency; a wholeness that we don't often see. She and Quintus are drawn to each other, but not to fulfill some lame, trite requirement that our hero have a love interest; they are equal entities, and the attraction that forms between them is very real and perfectly natural. Credit is due to Fassbender and Poots, who convey this budding relationship with admirable subtlety, and create a bond that lingers even as Quintus and his troops move on down the road.

Review: Robin Hood

2010-08-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

Russell Crowe pondering what retirement home would be good for Old Man Scott.

Ridley Scott is getting senile. Case in point: his latest directorial gig, Robin Hood, starring frequent muse Russell Crowe as the eponymous English folk hero. The film might be Scott's worst to date; it is laden with tired action adventure cliches, populated by one-dimensional characters, and meanders directionless for most of its running time. The story is so confusing and muddled that just 24 hours after seeing it, I cannot for the life of me relate what it is; the goals and motivations of each character change so frequently that, not only are we unreasonably challenged to figure out what they are doing and where they're going, but the actors themselves seem to have little if any idea.

In addition to the director's apparent senility, another factor that likely contributes to the film's jumbled story is the fact that the script went through a number of labored iterations in Development Hell, and was even being severely rewritten during filming. This explains a great many things, from lazy character development to jarringly uneven narrative momentum to a number of painful violations of story logic and continuity. Perhaps the constant script modifications are also to blame for numerous, inexplicable moments of extremely ill-advised attempts at sit-com level comic relief, shoe-horned in with no regard for tonal appropriateness.

As far as I can decipher, the original intent of this film was to give Robin Hood a believable and gritty origin story, Batman Begins style. I can appreciate this, and there are brief glimmers of this premise shinning through at certain moments, but when the rest of the ordeal is such an embarrassing mess, it only makes the film an even greater tragedy.

Considering the people involved, this realist interpretation of the Robin Hood myth could have been really great. With previous historical epics like Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven (the director's cut), Ridley Scott has shown the capacity to be the David Lean of his day; it is all the more painful when a giant of cinema trips and falls so far. It might seem low to blame Robin Hood's terribleness on Scott's advanced age, but the audience gets the distinct feeling that the director's failing mind, coupled with the ever-changing and confused script, created a perfect storm of screen hackery.

Review: The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle

2010-08-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

Writer/director David Russo's The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle continues the rapid expansion of Seattle's cinematic language we've been witnessing recently.

If the film has a traditional story, it is as follows: a young computer programmer suddenly comes down with an existential crisis, compelling him to bombastically quit his cubicle and get a job a with a corporate custodial service. One of the companies in the office building he cleans tests experimental cookies, to which he becomes addicted. Then things get weird.

The film has just enough brilliant sequences to keep us interested, including a clever riff on the "Flight of the Bumble Bee" scene from A Clockwork Orange, and yet another instance where the mere repetition of the the word fuck equals hilarity (although slicker than the opening of Four Weddings and a Funeral, it is still not as genius as this scene from an early episode of The Wire). But perhaps the most original scene is the first one: a rapid-fire journey following a message in a bottle through the waters of Puget Sound to a pebble beach in Seattle, set to the music of "Awesome", a local band that provides the entire score.

Owing equal debts to both Fight Club and Eraserhead, Russo's film already feels like it has settled comfortably into the cult cannon. The film bastes in macabre corporate satire and nightmarish, Cronenbergian body horror. Additionally, there are enough Snatch-esque quick cuts and spastic splashes of traditional animation and dancing text to satisfy a wide range of arty tastes.

Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

2010-08-11T21:58:00.000-07:00

Noomi Rapace, who reprises her role as Lisbeth Salander in this sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is far and away the strongest element of The Girl Who Played With Fire. While the first film in the so called Millennium Trilogy was a solid and gripping mystery, its successor is merely a pale reflection, resting entirely on the understated greatness of Rapace’s excellent performance.

There are some things here for fans of the first film or of the books each is based upon. The intrigue this time has more to do with Lisbeth’s past; those reoccurring flashbacks from the first film of a 12-year-old Salander lighting a man on fire are finally put into context and explained. Also, Lisbeth’s sadistic case worker, Bjurman, factors into the mysterious plot. This kind of continuity is comforting, and helps us to ignore the film's weaker direction and lazily uncreative photography. By picking up these threads from the previous film, the trilogy takes on the same familiar feeling of a serialized tv drama.

More on the lazy cinematography. Film blogger Todd Miro wrote an article at Into The Abyss about “one of the most insidious and heinous practices that has ever overwhelmed the industry.” - The orange and teal color palette. He explains how it came about:

You see, flesh tones exist mostly in the orange range and when you look to the opposite end of the color wheel from that, where does one land? Why looky here, we have our old friend Mr. Teal. And anyone who has ever taken color theory 101 knows that if you take two complementary colors and put them next to each other, they will "pop", and sometimes even vibrate. So, since people (flesh-tones) exist in almost every frame of every movie ever made, what could be better than applying complementary color theory to make people seem to "pop" from the background. I mean, people are really important, aren't they?

Now it seems this color theory has been exported to other countries, namely Sweden; The Girl Who Played With Fire suffers from this grading worse than any film I’ve seen, and makes the examples Miro highlights on his blog look subtle in comparison. In nearly every shot, the only two colors are orange and teal, regardless of location, mood, or what have you. Here are just a few examples from the film:

This really needs to stop; it is ugly and lazy and just plain weird. There are plenty of beautiful colors, why not photograph them? The world is full of contrast already. I’m not saying every film has to be as vibrant as the work of Pedro Almodovar, but at least throw more than two colors in there. Here is my plea to any filmmakers who might read this: please do not fall victim to the lazy and uncreative habit of smothering your frame in nothing but fugly orange and teal. Thank you.

Review: Bass Ackwards

2010-07-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

    Linas Phillips proves the importance of cinematography and music to the art of film with his first non-documentary feature, Bass Ackwards.
   After an ill-fated affair with a married woman, Linas (played by Phillips himself) gets a (literally) shit job on an alpaca farm, where he discovers and falls in love with a lemon - a VW bus that has had its middle third removed and then welded back together. Deciding that he needs to move back in with his parents in Boston, Linas takes the strange looking vehicle and sets off from Seattle for a trip across the country. this cross-continental excursion forms the heart of the story; the random encounters he has with strangers on his way East bring a genuine spontaneity to the film.
   Shot by Sean Porter, the film looks singularly gorgeous; it was filmed on a micro-budget by a skeleton crew, but you would never know that to behold it. The camera is always handheld yet never unsteady or nauseating, as is too often the case with films in the so-called 'mumblecore' genre, which Bass Ackwards is akin to in many ways. If Lynn Shelton's Humpday had been shot this beautifully and deliberately, it would have had more going for it than just acting; it would have been a complete film.

And there is no reason why films of such a small production magnitude and loose style cannot look so good. Film is not just about the writing, or the acting, or the cinematography; it is a marriage of all these elements. the best films bang on all these cylinders, creating an indefinable harmony on the screen that can only be called cinema.
Another essential element that adds to Bass Ackwards' greatness is the original music by Lori Goldston and Tara Jane O'Neil. it is composed mostly of contemplative, spacious acoustic hooks, with the occasional dollop of gentle electric guitar added for good measure. Not merely obligatory or thrown together, the score is a robust, living and breathing creature that comes along for the ride and acts almost as Linas' sonic mood ring.

The look and sound of Bass Ackwards together successfully create a dreamlike blanket of tone that would not exist without either of these things. The writing and acting can be brilliant and affecting (and in this film, they both certainly are), but they cannot stand alone and do not a film make.

Insomnia: Increasingly Fictionalized

2010-07-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

Part 3 in a series of essays on the films of director Christopher Nolan.

Insomnia, Nolan's first post-Momento film, is full of metaphors for the writing of a film or novel, from developing details to killing off characters, from constructing a narrative to fandom.

When Ellie Burr first meets detective Dormer, she gushes about his career, telling him she’s followed all of his cases and that she even wrote her thesis on him in college. She is his biggest fan. Similarly, as the cops uncover the mystery behind Kay Connell’s murder, we discover that Kay was a huge fan of local crime author Walter Finch, and even got to meet and spend time with him. It is not a coincidence that Ellie and Kay are both at least partially defined by their respective fandoms; it compliments and foreshadows the collaboration between the men they admire, Dormer and Finch.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead)

Every fictional character’s live is at the mercy of their creator; the author. Dormer’s next step down the path to authorship is when he actually kills Hap, much the way a writer will metaphorically kill off a character in a movie. Dormer is essentially killing off his partner. Adding to his narrative omnipotence is the fact that no one sees him do it; no one, that is, except for Finch, his eventual collaborator.

Dormer is no stranger to influencing a case; when the film starts, he is under investigation by internal affairs for possibly planting evidence, which as it turns out, he did. The film begins with extreme close ups of the blood he left in a suspect’s home with an eye-dropper. The blood seeps into the fabric of the suspect’s clothing, much the way the planted evidence, or more specifically, the fact of the evidence seeps into the story of the case, and later how other made up facts seep into Kay Connell’s murder investigation. It is notable that blood is notoriously difficult to wash out, as planted evidence and false leads are in the story of a police investigation.

The villain, Finch, is a crime author, and it is almost as if he is writing the very movie he is in. Firstly, he commits the murder that sets events in motion, killing off Kay Connell, and then blackmails Dormer into influencing the investigation, enlisting the detective as his co-writer, so to speak. There is one scene, in fact one shot, in particular where the din of the film almost falls away and we are left, for a moment, with Dormer and Finch. They have met on a ferry at the author’s behest, and the scene eventually moves to this incredible two shot of the men discussing what story to fabricate to deflect attention away from themselves for their respective murders.

The two characters bounce ideas back and forth like a pair of screenwriters formulating plot points, which is something quite remarkable to behold. The flashy covering of the film has been momentarily pulled back, and we are suddenly privy to the inner workings of the narrative; we see the fabric of the story being woven even as it unfolds. Then, as quickly as they were revealed, the gears of the movie are hidden once more; the scene cuts, the music washes back in, and the film carries on.

As the story progresses, the investigations of the murders of Kay Connell and detective Eckhart become increasingly fictionalized. Dormer is influencing both of them, but is also a character in each, and so he is subject to their ebbs and flows; this strange act of participating in the very story he is helping to create has some hazardous effects on our protagonist, as well as foreshadows a theme Nolan explores in his subsequent work, specifically Inception; creating the world around oneself as one experiences it.

Memento: Extreme Moments

2010-07-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

Part 2 in a series of essays on the films of director Christopher Nolan.

Christopher Nolan’s Memento comments upon and explores the relationship between films and memory; this is most effectively achieved through the film’s unique editing, both how events unfold in reverse order, and by juxtaposing silent, out of context snippets with the scene at hand.

Like any experience, watching a film creates memories. Likewise, these memories are unique for each person; what shape they take depends greatly on the individual’s state of mind, previous experiences, world view, and engagement with the film. After you are finished watching a film, you have a new set of memories, and, again, like all memories, they were triggered by intense emotions. Therefore, the parts of a film you remember will be different than those recollected by your neighbor, because you have responded to certain shots or scenes or musical cues based on how they made you feel, and what existing memories they recalled and are now tied to.
In the case of Memento, for example, if you have ever gotten a tattoo, or you are a tattoo artist or know one, your mind might assign specific emotional significance to Leonard’s tattoos, where as others in the audience who do not share this kind of experience will only treat these inky notes on the body of our protagonist as merely parts of the story. Likewise, if you own the same make and model of the car that Leonard drives, you will more than likely create a memory of the film focusing on this detail, while others will pay it no mind. Technically speaking, you are all watching the same film, but in essence you are not; the film each person remembers will be different, because as it enters the brain it is melted down and blended with a person’s biases, interests, and life experiences to create something completely unique. The filmmakers address this subjectivity directly, when Leonard says, “Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record...”

    Memories are like waking dreams; they are rooted in real events, but are molded by emotions. Memories also do not obey the laws of time. When you recall a party, lets say, you do not remember the entire event from beginning to end, but only the highlights, the moments that caused an intense emotional response: the anxiety before arrival, winning a game of beer pong, a seconds-long glimpse of a beautiful stranger from across the room. Long after the red plastic cups have been disposed of and the revelers have returned to their every day lives, these moments linger in the mind, and together form your own personal movie of this party.
    Similarly, a film does not depict entire events, but only the important parts, the parts worth remembering and reliving. If Memento depicted every second of its story, it would be several years long and unwatchable. instead, like every film, it gives us only important moments in the life of our protagonist, just enough to know what he is doing, why, and how he feels about it.
    Many, including myself, feel that cinema is the most emotionally affecting art form. Much of this can be attributed to a film’s similarity to memories. When watching a movie, our mind recognizes the form and flow of it immediately, and can therefor quite easily process it and store it away in much the same way as a memory. Films are pre made memories meant for mass consumption.
    One element that sets film apart from all other art is editing, what with the juxtaposition of images, and the burden of the constant passage of time. In one way, the pace of a film is a slave to time, but the filmmaker is also time’s master. The story unfolds as suddenly or as gradually as the director wants.
    Memento is linear, but not in the traditional sense; it simply goes backwards, starting at the end and ending at the beginning. The reverse structure of the film continually comments on the nature of memories. We can begin to piece the story together because the end of one scene is the beginning of the previous one. For example, there is a scene that begins with Leonard sitting in the bathroom of a hotel room, holding a half-empty bottle of whiskey. His ever present voice over ponders, “I don’t feel drunk.” And we wonder, too, if he might have just imbibed. Setting the bottle down, he then gets in the shower. After a moment, a man comes into the bathroom, and a fight ensues, during which Leonard grabs the bottle and knocks the man out with it. Soon it is revealed that we are in the mysterious man’s hotel room, and that Leonard came here to kill him; he grabbed the bottle to use as a weapon, but then promptly forgot why he was holding it as he waited.

The entire film operates this way, and by telling the story backwards, Nolan manages to put the audience in the same mindset as Leonard, our forgetful protagonist. This effect was driven home to me when I recently sat down to watch Memento for the Nth time, and within a few minutes realized that I could not for the life of me remember what would happen next. Just before the film began I could recall the plot in great and complete detail, but once the unique structure had me, I literally forgot what I had just been thinking. Nolan so successfully conveys Leonard’s state of mind that the audience actually takes it on; this is the very height of psychological filmmaking.
One other major benefit of film editing besides time manipulation is juxtaposition. Nolan and his editor on Memento, Dody Dorn, exploit this benefit to ingenious effect. The main driving force behind all of Leonard’s actions is his relentless search for the man he suspects raped and murdered his wife. At key emotional moments in the film, silent, seconds-long shots of Leonard’s wife will suddenly be dropped in, completely out of context: the sunlight catching some errant stands of hair, her running to a window, a view over her bare shoulder as she reads. Leonard even talks about these bits of memory in the film.

You can just feel the details. The bits and pieces you never bothered to put into words. And you can feel these extreme moments, even if you don't want to. You put these together, and you get the feel of a person.

Nolan brilliantly conveys this concept through the use of juxtapositional editing; in a matter of seconds, we get “the feel of a person”. And this effect works so well because it is of course reminiscent of how our minds work. We just feel the details, the extreme moments.

Review: Inception

2010-07-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, due to the nature of Christopher Nolan's latest film, Inception, I am unable to write an adequate review of the film without spoiling it. One of the biggest thrills about seeing the film is discovering just what it is about, who all the characters are, and the world they exist in. To describe that here would be to rob the uninitiated of a rare and breathtaking experience.
I considered perhaps instead talking in depth about how the film made me feel, but I am finding myself at a literary loss. And besides, my emotional state while watching Inception has already been summed up quite thoroughly by a man the Internet has dubbed "Double Rainbow Guy". He hits every emotional note that I did while experiencing the film.

Following: The Hazards of Observation

2010-07-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

Part 1 in a series of essays on the films of director Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan’s debut feature film, 1998’s Following, is a story about the voyeuristic nature of moviegoing as much as it is about a lonely young man who follows people around the streets of London.

The unnamed protagonist, a struggling writer, begins following random strangers to gather material for his novel. Things take an odd turn when one of these strangers, a sharply dressed man named Cobb, notices him and takes an interest in the young man’s strange hobby, quickly pulling him into a life of petty burglary. The young man joins Cobb, as he is hurting for cash - and human interaction - and justifies his participation in the crimes as a way of accruing story ideas.

(warning: spoilers ahead)

Events become even more bizarre when the Young Man starts dating a women whose flat he and Cobb had burglarized some time before. Credited as simply “The Blonde”, she is as archetypal a femme fetale as Howard Hawks or John Houston ever put on screen. She smokes like a campfire and talks down to our protagonist like he’s a lapdog, regarding him with the sleepy, apathetic eyes of Marlene Dietrich.

As it turns out, The Blonde is in fact in collusion with Cobb, and has been since before The Young Man knew either of them. Our hapless protagonist learns this all to late for his own good, after being used for Cobb’s calculated criminal purposes and then tossed aside, as the elegant villain slips once more into the shadows.

The three central characters - the Young Man, Cobb, and the Blonde - function subtextually as surrogates for the audience, the director, and the actor(s), respectively. The way they behave and interact with each other, and the roles they play in the universe of the film, make these parallels obvious.

The Young Man begins by watching people who are unaware of his observations, much like characters in a film are unaware that an audience is seeing them go about their lives. He feels his actions are innocent; he’s not hurting these people by watching them, he doesn’t follow them into their homes. But then he meets Cobb, and pretty soon he is in strangers’ homes, also without their knowledge.

As the film unfolds, we learn that Cobb has crafted events to a degree we had not anticipated; the whole affair is really his show. He takes the Young Man on a journey, just as a film director takes us, the audience, on a journey. And, of course, the Young Man is unaware that the story he’s been dropped into is constructed. He is at Cobb’s mercy, just as a film audience is beholden to the cinematic decisions of the director.

Playing the part, as it were, of the actor in a film is the Blonde, who puts on a performance at Cobb’s instruction as part of his elaborate show for the Young Man. Only when the Young Man buys her a drink, thus breaking the fourth wall between audience and performer, do things start to go wrong and people start to die. Everyone was safe as long as they stayed on their own sides of the screen, played their parts. But as soon as the waters start to mix, so to speak, the order of this drama is thrown off and the dream begins to collapse. Almost as soon as the Young Man steps into the story he is at its mercy, murdering for the femme fatale before he knows what he's doing.

Perhaps it is going too far to suggest that Following is an indictment of the film viewer, on the same level as Michael Heneke’s Funny Games, but it certainly comes off as a cautionary tale about the hazards of watching, the hazards of observation. It is safe to say that Following is another solid entry in the sub-genre of observer cinema, alongside other thrillers such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, and Florian Henckel von Donnersmark‘s The Lives of Others. All of these films play with a notion that has become more apt in our increasingly spectator-oriented society, yet less talked about as time goes on. We are now so acclimated to seeing other people on a screen of one kind or another, that when we observe strangers in real life, we still feel that same disconnect; we still feel insulated from what we are watching. As such, we must be careful that we are not so busy watching someone else that we fail to notice when someone is watching us.

"We create the world of the dream."

2010-07-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

With the impending release of Inception this week, I've decided to write a series of essays about the work of director Christopher Nolan; one on each of his films, which include Following, Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and now Inception. One of the things that fascinates me the most about Nolan's films is how they explore the very nature of cinema itself, from creation to consumption. This will be the guiding thesis for each essay. Look for the initial piece, titled "Following: The Hazards of Observation" to be posted sometime this week. I'll try to post these on a weekly basis. Until then, enjoy this:

Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

2010-07-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

The original Swedish title of this intelligently flashy mystery film, Man Som Hatar Kvinnor, translates literally to Men Who Hate Women, and it is unfortunately quite apt. The horrors that the male villains perpetrate on their female victims are depicted with unforgiving vividness. These men hate women indeed.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo might have been just another competently slick European thriller were it not for the presence of Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, the titular tattooed girl. Lisbeth is not your typical protagonist, as the feminist film blog Act Your Age notes:

Utilizing her technological prowess (a rare quality for female characters!), and at times resorting to revenge and physical violence, Lisbeth [....] aims to correct the wrongs inflicted on women by men in power.

With Lisbeth, Rapace expertly crafts a brooding, burningly intelligent performance that elevates the film to a more memorable place than it might otherwise have occupied. Though small of frame, she nonetheless fills the screen with a character that will remain crushingly silent for long periods of time until finally exploding into righteous, ferocious rage in response the afore mentioned misogynistic violence.

Providing a foil and unlikely partner for Lisbeth is investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist, who has been hired by a wealthy old business man to uncover the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his teenage niece 40 years prior.

Once this pair teams up, the film unfolds at a breathless yet meticulous pace as Lisbeth and Mikael piece together a string of decades-old murder cases that are somehow tied to the old man's vanished niece. The investigation is rather standard mystery fare, complete with panning close-ups of grisly crime scene photos and not a few research montages. Two things that save the film from feeling too ordinary are the thrill of the chase, and the always fascinating Rapace.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first in a trilogy, based on the books by Stieg Larsson, and it very much feels like it, the way characters are established and the partnership between Lisbeth and Mikael is set up. You will be left with a desire to immediately see the second installment in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire, which has fortunately just opened in US theaters.

Review: Women Without Men

2010-07-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

The destinies of Iran and its women are inseparable; this is a major theme of Shirin Neshat's debut feature Women Without Men. Set against the unrest of the Anglo-American coup to remove democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and install the shah, the film zooms in on four women suffering various kinds of oppression: Zarin, a depressed prostitute, who scrubs herself bloody at a public bath in an effort to purge the johns from her body; Munis, a politically aware young woman who voraciously devours news of the demonstrations outside, but is kept from leaving the house by Amir Khan, her religiously zealous brother; her best friend Faezeh, who lusts after Amir Khan from beneath her hejab, much to Munis' bewilderment; and Farrokhlagha, a general's wife who's finding herself suffocated by the pro-shah Tehran aristocracy she and her husband exist in.

Though the whole ensemble does outstanding work, the one performance that sticks out is Pegah Ferydoni as sweet, unassuming Faezeh. She provides a quiet emotional center for the film. While everyone else is going kind of crazy, she becomes saner and grows quite a bit.

The film follows a kind of dream logic, fueled by the complex history of Iran and the rhythm of Persian poetry. Iranian scholar Hamid Dabashi said that if jazz is the rhythm of American culture, then Persian poetry is that of Iranian culture. This kind of poetic focus brings a unique structure to the scenes; each sequence is a whole statement, while still helping to stitch the tapestry of the film entire. This is also no doubt influenced by Neshat's background as video artist.

In order to get some fresh air away from the tumult of Tehran, Farrokhlagha buys an Edenesque old orchard in the country, to which Zarin and Faezeh are both inexplicably drawn. For a while they live in blissful harmony, but there is a foreboding calm-before-the-storm undercurrent which lets us know that they cannot escape the changes happening in their nation for long.

Review: REC

2010-06-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

REC (2007) is as much about TV journalism and the creation of the moving image as it is about a quarantined Barcelona apartment building. Because events unfold entirely through the lens of a television news crew, the camera is essentially a character, putting us as in the action as cinematically possible.

Our guide and unwitting heroine is Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco), a young reporter who, along with her cameraman, Pablo - played with athletic and graceful cinematic skill by the film's actual camera op, Pablo Rosso - is assigned to cover the work-a-day life of a group of firefighters. She quickly becomes restless, quipping to her laconic cameraman that she wishes there would be an emergency call for them to film. She soon gets her wish; her and Pablo ride along with the firemen to the doomed apartment building where the rest of the movie takes place.

As a student of the moving image, what fascinated me in the first act of the film was how the news crew behaves in a situation that quickly deteriorates, and how the other characters react to the omnipresence of the camera; a policeman who takes charge of the unfolding crisis is at constant odds with it. Angela, being first and foremost a reporter, tells Pablo to "film this, film that. Did you you shoot that? Are you rolling?" When Angela is interviewing a little girl in the building after it is quarantined, the child's mother keeps offering answers, until the reporter stops her, reminding the woman that she's not in the shot, the girl is. Even in a heightened and possibly life-threatening situation, the newswoman is ever mindful of how her image looks and sounds. In other scenes, her and Pedro brave ill-lit rooms that may contain blood-thirsty cannibals just to get a shot. It is almost as if Angela is directing the very film she is a character in; whether this notion was on the filmmakers' minds or not, it is profound nonetheless, and it totally works. This meta-fictional undercurrent is only one of a bevy of original bits of genius contained in REC.

The story unfolds in a loud-quiet-loud rhythm, like a Pixies song; there are extended scenes of hushed, pulsating terror punctuated by sudden explosions of blood-flecked chaos. Added to this is the fact that we see events transpire through only one camera, so there is no safe refuge to cut away to; we are taken along for the ride whether we like it or not. Because of the one-camera, real-time aspect of the film, there are several sustained shots that last for upwards of 20 minutes each, involving a dozen or more actors running, falls, fighting, and gushing blood. This in itself is a feat to behold.

A sequel, REC 2, is scheduled to hit American screens this summer, but it is difficult to fathom how it can top this masterpiece of taut horror film making.

Movie Review: Splice

2010-06-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

David Cronenberg would be quite amused. Director Vinzenzo Natali's Splice is thick with body-horror, just enough thought to stimulate scientific discussion, and a proud product of Canada.

The first 20 minutes of the film are actually really great. Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley play a married couple of genetic scientists, or "splicers", as they call themselves. We open on the birth of their latest creation, a football-sized sea urchin called Ginger, which is a hybrid of many different fauna and produces some kind of drug that stops cancer, or something - its never really explained in depth. Riding high in the success of Ginger, the splicers set their sights on combining human DNA with that of animals to create an even more revolutionary creature. Forbidden from doing so by their financial backers, they go about it anyway, in secret.

These early scenes, mostly set in the splicers' advanced but believable laboratory, are extremely well done in every aspect. The writing is taut and intelligent, the acting is accessible, and the atmosphere that Natali establishes is creepingly exhilirating.

Without revealing too much, it can be said that the splicers create a human-animal hybrid the likes of which neither of them imagined. The film starts down a strange path as the creature rapidly matures and the scientists raise it as the child they never had. Things become more bizarre still when the hybrid, called Dren, reaches adulthood, and exhibits enough of a human femininity to fill Brody's character with deviant, weirdly incestuous thoughts.

From this point, Splice takes a trip to camp and never returns, which is a shame, given the great promise of its first act. It feel very much like the writers (Natali and Antoinette Terry Bryant) put all their thought into the concept and beginning of the film, but then simply fell back on cliches when it came time to cobble together an ending. It begins as a film, but ends merely as a flick.

Aside from the initial act, the film's other main attraction is the realization of Dren. Brought to life with a seamless mix of CGI, practical effects and human acting, Dren is an original and impressive creation. She is played with acrobatic aplomb and heartbreaking depth by French-Canadian actress Delphine Cheneac, who is the only thing that saves the film from becoming completely intorrerable when things go south and even Brody's and Polley's performances turn to ham.

Despite a weak ending and the squandered potential therein, Splice is a thoughtful and exciting sci-fi horror outing packed with imagery that really sticks to the side of your skull.

Humpday and the value of mumblecore

2010-04-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I'm biased because it is a product of Seattle, but Lynn Shelton's most recent film, Humpday, is the best example I have seen of the so-called and fledgling mumblecore genre so far. It has a focus and forward moment that no other film of its ilk has yet exhibited.
For those who don't know, the basic tenants of mumblecore are thus: ultra-low budget with an equally low-fi visual aesthetic. There is usually no script, but rather a list of outlined scenes that the actors improvise and rehearse their way through, to mixed results. Plot and character wise, almost all films in the genre focus on over-educated 20-somethings meandering aimlessly through life, often played by the filmmakers themselves. It all comes off as a little self-indulgent.
The goal of having the actors completely improvise their scenes is to pump up the authenticity and verisimilitude, but more often than not the players end up stating the subtext of the scene out loud, and it unfolds more like a therapy session than a riveting piece of drama or hilarious piece of comedy. I appreciate the intent behind this method; we need truth and originality in cinema where ever we can get it. But it takes a steady and precise directorial hand to pull off the right balance between truth and drama. Luckily, Seattle native Lynn Shelton has that hand.
Shelton's third and most recent film, 2009 Sundance darling Humpday, is very good, but not without its flaws. The camera work is inexcusably sloppy, and a few of the scenes do fall victim to the boring therapy rut mentioned above. But these are outweighed by the film's enjoyable traits. Shelton may not yet be a master of beautiful images (which is required to be a great filmmaker), but her skill with actors is approaching genius. In Humpday more than almost any other film, we get a sense that we are flies on the wall; this story is not being presented to or performed for us. We just happen to be there to see these events transpire. The characters speak the way real people do (sometimes to a maddeningly mundane degree), and there is an overriding aura of genuine spontaneity. It is a pure and sometimes exhilarating joy to see things unfold.
As alluded to, one problem with the film (and indeed all of mumblecore) is the lack of attention paid to creating deliberate, compelling, and well composed images. Cinema is, above all else, a visual medium. Writing and acting are indeed important elements, but they are only the skeleton upon which to place the images, the meat of cinema. By ignoring this, Shelton and her mumblecore comrades are forgetting why films are important and what makes them live. Humpday is a good idea for a film, but it doesn't really do anything that couldn't be accomplished by a stage play.
I think mumblecore has valuable things to offer, but it will never rise to great cinematic heights as long as the images are neglected. We are still waiting for a film that harnesses the methods of mumblecore to tell a compelling, unusual story in a film powered by beautiful images.

Review: The White Ribbon

2010-02-16T08:38:00.000-08:00

Austrian writer/director Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon is the kind of film that the term 'masterpiece' was coined for. Every aspect of the film, from writing to camera movements to acting to lighting to sound design, all come together to create a very real and immensely disturbing atmosphere.

Set in a small German village in the months leading up to WWI, the story focuses on a young schoolteacher who takes it upon himself to investigate when a series of strange crimes rock the tiny community.

More that anything, the pale, ghostly children in the town aide most in creating this sense of horrific unease. At one point, one of the older girls wanders into the pastor's study, wet hair hanging in front of her face in tangles. She takes a pair of scissors from the desk, then reaches her hand into the birdcage. The scene cuts away, but we know what she intends to do to that little bird. Haneke just can't resist making us accustom to the idea of evil children.

The children are not evil in an Omen kind of way, or in a truant, Bart Simpson kind of way. Yes, a couple of them are outwardly malevolent, but mostly their venom is kept under the surface.

Being aware of Germany's history in the decades after the time the film is set, as most people are, gives the whole affair a simmering, foreboding feeling. Cutting to a close up of one of the children, we get the inescapable sense that we are looking into the eyes of a future Nazi. Indeed, it is likely that Haneke intentionally set out to explore the roots the evil that took old of central Europe in the 1930's. This examination is terrifying, yet it helps to contextualize a political and military movement that we all too often mythologize.

Review: Ballast

2010-02-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

Writer/director/editor Lance Hammer's Ballast is a brilliant and beautiful film. Set in the Mississippi Delta region, it focuses on a sullen man named Lawrence who reconnects with his estranged nephew and sister-in-law after his twin brother's suicide. The film establishes an easy, meandering rhythm that is not often on display in cinema; it drips off the screen and into your psyche like molasses.

One aspect of Ballast that strikes the audience first is its gorgeous, rain-drenched cinematography. Every frame marinates in a palette of mossy greens and damp blues. Many of the scenes are set outdoors, and the sad, green, crumbing, rural Delta is captured wonderfully and heartbreakingly

Something that may frustrate some viewers is the film's crushingly sparse dialogue. All the sound could be sucked out, though, and we would still understand what transpires. Similarly, there is no music, but this may be intentional; the filmic language Hammer employs is so rhythmic and lyrical that any musical score would be redundant.

Review: Whip It

2010-02-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

So-called "feel-good" films get a bad rap. Serious critics and cinephiles disregard them as trifles manufactured by studios to appeal to Middle America (whatever that means). "A film that makes people feel good cannot possibly be of any cinematic quality", they opine. Director Drew Barrymore's Whip It proves them wrong.
Ellen Page sinks her teeth deep into the lead role of Bliss Cavender, a teenager in tiny, podunk Bodeen, Texas, who dreams of escaping the suffocation of her backwards hometown and the endless series of beauty pageants her overbearing mother (Marcia Gay Harden) shoves her into. One day, she discovers a roller derby league in nearby Austin, and immediately she sees her ticket out of the sticks. Bliss quickly joins a team called the Hurl Scouts, but must participate in secret, knowing her parents would disapprove; this sets up an inevitable confrontation that everyone will see coming.

When Whip It first hit theaters, many people wondered, "can the actress Drew Barrymore direct a movie?". The answer is yes, which shouldn't be a surprise; the girl has spent most of her life on film sets. She succeeds on every level: mood, pacing, shot composition, mise-en-scene, and most especially acting. Again, this last item should not be unexpected. Naturally an actor would excel most at directing her fellow actors. Every member of the cast bangs on all cylinders and is each given their moment to shine. From the afore mentioned Page and Harden, to Daniel Stern as Bliss's Joe Sixpack father, to Alia Shawkat as Bliss's best friend, to the excellent Kristen Wiig as the Hurl Scouts' matriarchal captain.
Does Whip It provide any cinematic revelations or contribute greatly to the filmic language? Not really. It is simply a perfectly crafted, brilliantly acted, delicious little American fairy tale.

Review: Vanished Empire

2010-01-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

Director Karen Shakhnazarov's Vanished Empire can most succinctly be described as an amalgam of the book Catcher in the Rye and the Coen bros' recent film A Serious Man, but set in 1970's Soviet Russia. The similarities to Salinger's novel in particular are quite pronounced, and the film almost reads like a back-door screen adaption of the notoriously anti-Hollywood author's work. Our Slavic Holden Caulfield is Sergey, a freshman at some generic Moscow university who spends his time striking up neglectful relationships with co-eds and pawning off his grandfather's antique literature to pay for vodka and contraband Western LPs.

To an American, Vanished Empire feels at first blush like a typical European existentialist coming of age film; the camera work is mostly handheld and sloppy, events transpire without much explanation, and it is all cast in a flat, beige color palette. While this film mostly falls under that description, it does have a few aspects that make it worth watching. First is the acting. All the players are quite naturalistic and understated, which is par for the course with regard to European cinema. The standout performance, however, is delivered by newcomer to the screen Yegor Baranovsky as Sergey's earnest best friend and classmate Stepan. Though not the focus of the film, Baranovsky brings a smoldering honesty to the role that cements him as the moral and emotional center of the piece. As Sergey makes increasingly morally questionable choices, ergo becoming difficult to sympathize with, we are able to latch onto Stepan as an anchor of integrity.
Another value that this film has, especially to a Westerner, is as a window into the later years of the Soviet Union. During much of the 20th century, the USSR was painted as the Evil Empire, and there was not much importation into this country of their culture and arts; this is a drought that persists even today. So films like this one are invaluable to help humanize a people who were our supposed enemies.
Thirdly on the short list of reasons to see Vanished Empire is the final scene. We'll not spoil it here, but rest assured that it makes the entire experience worthwhile. It is a coda like none this critic can think of.

Review: Ratcatcher

2009-12-11T13:44:00.000-08:00

Garbage is piling up all around the neighborhood due to all sanitation workers being on strike. All this refuse lying around suburban yards appears meant to symbolize the people who live in this place. Young children frolic wantonly upon mountains of garbage, while their adolescent peers rape, murder, and pillage throughout the neighborhood. These kids are trash. It is clear that the filmmaker wants us to make this connection. The adults have produced these children and then carelessly strewn them all over their front yards, paying no mind to the damage they cause, just as they do with the rotting bags of trash.
Scottish writer/director Lynne Ramsay's 1999 film Ratcatcher is not about a literal catcher of rats. It begins with the the accidental drowning of a young boy while playing with his friend. That friend is James, an aimless 10-year-old in 1973 Glasgow who provides the stoic little center of the film. The canal is the ratcatcher, and the children are the rats, frolicking in garbage and treating everyone with an antisocial, rodent-like regard.
Ratcatcher is in a spiritual and thematic cousin to two seminal American films: Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, and Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show. All three films concern and explore elements and emotions of childhood that are rarely discussed, either in cinema or in everyday life. Also, each film is essentially without traditional plot, instead opting to follow its characters’ through their everyday lives, finding theme and profound meaning by the end.
Also like those two older films, Ratcatcher is brilliant, beautiful, and mesmerizing. Every element is staggering in its dreamlike authenticity and comes together to create a film that contributes immensely to the cinematic language.

Critique: It’s Called a Change Over

2009-12-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

Director David Fincher’s Fight Club was released last month on the Blu-Ray format in a commemorative 10th anniversary edition, packed with all kinds of interviews, commentaries, and other special features. An honor like this is not bestowed upon just any film, especially one that did so poorly at the box office and was nominated for only one Academy Award (which it did not win). Additionally, the critical response of the time ranged from bewildered at best, to disgusted at worst. The film Fight Club could not be fully appreciated in 1999 because contemporary critics knew not what to make of it as it was so different from what they expected, and its influence upon the art and business of cinema had yet to be witnessed.
Critics and general audiences alike went to see Fight Club not knowing what to expect. The marketing campaign put together by the studio, 20th Century Fox, led people to believe that the film was all about underground boxing, when in fact that is only a small part of the story. The film does feature boxing, but it is only one ingredient that David Fincher used to tell the story of a man frustrated and numbed by the culture of consumerism he lives in. The marketing did not sell the real gist of the film to moviegoers, instead opting to push the action as much as possible, and in so doing, accidentally created a false expectation of what the film was like. If the film had been sold instead as an art film, or as a psychological thriller, it might have been more successful at finding an audience while still in theaters. Alas, audiences and critics were confounded when what they thought was a straight action film turned out to be an intelligent, multilayered cinematic trip about societal emasculation and schizophrenia, which they did not recognize at first; this led many critics to write negatively of the film:

Fight Club isn't a movie so much as it is a series of blows – three fast shots to the gut, an uppercut, a left-right combination to the head and a final jab that splinters your rib cage. It doesn't end; a bell rings. You stagger to your corner, beaten and pulped, sucking for raw oxygen. Is this the same as being a good movie? Well, not exactly, though the director, David Fincher, clearly thinks so. (Hunter)

The contemporary review quoted above, which appeared in the Washington Post, uses a multitude of boxing metaphors to describe the film negatively, and even takes a passive-aggressive shot at Fincher himself. This kind of hostility from a critic exemplifies how frustrated many reviewers and filmgoers were when they first laid eyes upon Fight Club. The film challenged audiences in ways they didn’t expect and could not recognize at first.
In the decade since its release, Fight Club has influenced countless films and found both a devoted audience and the critical respect it deserves. Critics have been able to views the film in the proper historical context:

Indeed, a few short years later, it is now viewed as a milestone, a benchmark in the careers of everyone involved. For Fincher, the story of a young man discovering the beauty - and the inherent danger - in embracing your inner maleness become a commentary on an entire sub-generation of dejected men. Thanks to Palahnuik’s brilliant deconstruction of the bottomed-out baby boom, complete with IKEA “nesting” instincts and designer mustard mandates spoke volumes back when Clinton was canvassing the White House, and now, two regime changes later, it seems even more prescient. (Gibron)

The above review of the recent Blu Ray release of Fight Club has ten years of hindsight to work with, and this historical perspective helps the critic better appreciate not only the artistic merit of the film, but also its significance in cinema and pop culture.
Fight Club has had a strong influence on subsequent films. Mostly, filmmakers have been inspired by the film’s unique and riveting visual style. Take, for example, the opening credit sequence in Brian Singer’s X-Men (2000), a computer generated backward tracking shot which twists and turns through strange clouds and patterns, accompanied by fast-paced, dramatic music. It is almost identical to the opening credits sequence in Fight Club, the only difference being that the original scene takes place inside the protagonist’s brain, where as the copycat moves through some generic, nebulous ether. Fincher started with setting the scene inside the character’s brain, and then the style and technique came from that, whereas Singer and his effects team saw the sequence in Fight Club and copied the style, without putting any intent or purpose behind it. This hollow mimicry is evidence of Fight Club’s extreme originality.
When people saw Fight Club for the first time in 1999, they failed to grasp how mind-blowing it was. Nothing like it had been done before, and it had yet to be imitated, so it did not jive with the accepted notion of what a film is supposed to be. Over the last ten years, however, many people have come to recognize just how revolutionary the film was. It has not only changed our idea of what the art of cinema can do, but also opened a previously closed window into our collective unconscious and, in turn, helped to shape our cultural discourse in ways we are still struggling to comprehend. The most famous line from the film, “The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club”, has been quoted and paraphrased so much that it has evolved beyond the film to become a part of our everyday lexicon. In the years after the film’s release, actual fight clubs began to spring up all across the country. The film was so powerful that it inspired young men to get together and beat each other up. What other film can this be said about? Fight Club is now such a large and integral part of American culture that it is mind-boggling to imagine that it was not embraced and revered more widely in its own time.

Critique: Give ‘Em a Thrill: Action Films Past and Present

2009-12-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

What are the common staples of the action genre? Set pieces, heroism, violence, villainy, an explosive climax. Buster Keaton’s The General is an excellent and revolutionary example of an action film, and indeed solidified many tropes of the genre that continue to be used; 1988’s Die Hard is one example of a film that employs these elements.
The General strikes the perfect balance between story and action; never do we feel that either element is overplayed or laid on too thick. This being said, however, the story is really only there to provide a skeleton for the action to rest upon. Nearly two thirds of the film depict action set pieces, most of which are centered on trains. The whole reason the film was made was to stage these highly original and breathtakingly impressive real-life train stunts. This is the purpose of every action film, to give the audience a thrill. The story, however sparse, is still critical, as it gives us a reason to care about the people imperiled in these cinematic feats of daring.
When The General was released in 1927, audiences had never seen anything like it. The stunts were thrilling and, sometimes, actually threatened the lives of the performer, namely Buster Keaton. A reason for this might have been to impress the audience, or perhaps it was due to the limited filmmaking technology of the time; there was no green screen, no stop-motion, no CGI. Keaton actually had to run atop trains and demolish bridges in order to depict these events on screen.
The General may seem typical to today’s audiences because its tropes have become so familiar. Take, for example, Die Hard, perhaps the greatest action film of the 1980s. From a literal perspective, these two films are not very similar, but if we ignore the specifics of their respective story lines and focus more esoterically, we can see how they are in fact quite alike. Each concerns an everyman who finds himself in an extraordinary situation: a high speed train chase in the case of The General, and a terrorist takeover of a skyscraper in the case of Die Hard. Also, both films are set in and around familiar, ordinary constructs, trains in one, a high-rise office building in the other. And, as with The General, the story in Die Hard is only there to give the action a framework. But even if we focus more specifically, the similarities between the two films remain. Die Hard’s protagonist, John McClane, begins the film outside the good graces of the woman he desires, much the same way Johnny Gray does in The General. But, through heroism and rising to the occasion, each man proves himself and wins the heart of the girl in the end. A trial by fire to obtain what one desires is one of the main tropes of the action genre. The locations and time periods are different, one film is silent while the other features extensive synchronous sound, but they are akin in their use of action to entertain the audience.
What is the goal of an action film? The goal is to give the audience a thrill. Through an engaging yet sparse story line, sympathetic characters, and heightened, exciting situations, action films as varied as The General and Die Hard thrill the audience, whether the year is 1927 or 1988.

Critique: Conversation of Blood: How Sound Tells the Story

2009-12-08T23:14:00.000-08:00

When synchronous sound first appeared in films in 1927, many filmmakers feared that the art of cinema was dead। Over the years, however, ways were found to integrate sound usefully into the filmic language. The films Throne of Blood and The Conversation are two excellent examples of how juxtaposing sounds and images can be used to help tell the story and infer deeper meaning.
The sound in Throne of Blood is very literal; it is always attached to an object on screen. One of the most striking and memorable uses of sound in the film is the lonely, hushed swishing of Asaji’s gown upon the floor as she flits around the fortress in the tense minutes just after the murder of the Lord. It is practically the only noise we hear, and this near vacuum of sound serves to create a haunting and foreboding atmosphere. If the film were silent, the same effect would not be rendered. This is an example of how sound helps to expand the impact of the scene. The same notion would not be accomplished with music; indeed there is no score accompanying this sequence, and with good and deliberate reason: it would be too much. Kurosawa knows this, and so, uses admirable restraint. The sound of Asaji’s swishing gown goes everywhere with her, like a devious whisper. It is quite literally attached to her. it is a sound we would hear were we actually in the room with her, yet on the screen it takes on a special significance. This small sound has a big impact; it tells us that she is a maniacal schemer inside a deceptively quiet package. The sound of the swishing gown, being the only noise present, tears through the scene, simultaneously building and cutting the tension. The sound is simple, mundane even, but the context it is put in causes it to mean something more.
Conversely, the sound effects in The Conversation are used more metaphorically and symbolically. They start out holding onto literal objects, but quickly let go and are allowed to roam around the ether, attaching themselves to things they should regularly have no business associating with. This detachment and reassignment does well to create new and precise meaning. A perfect example of this is the titular, spied upon repartee that Caul records. We first witness the conversation as it happens in real time, attached to the images it originates from. Later, though, as Caul listens to bits and pieces of it, it is out of context, assigned to new images. The words take on new meaning; repeated over and over, they begin to lose their traditional definitions and become just sounds, almost like music. Indeed, the score of the picture is quite minimal, leaving room for these orphan syllables to fill the sonic gaps and punctuate the action themselves. Another function that Coppola employs this method for is to represent Caul’s state of mind cinematically. He starts out sane. We see him listening to the conversation as it happens, in context, unfolding from beginning to end. As the film progresses, however, Caul begins to loose his grip on reality, just as the sounds he listens to again and again are no longer connected to the situation that birthed them. With The Conversation, Coppola proves that sound design can be used to enhance images on screen, rather than detract from them.
Similar to Throne of Blood, though, is Coppola’s deft use of the absence or near-absence of sound. Take the elevator scene, wherein Caul inadvertently shares a ride with one the subjects of his surveillance. For the first time in the film, there is a hush, and it is suffocating and deafening, making us and Caul feel trapped. Again, like Asaji’s swishing gown upon the floor in Throne of Blood, this quiet in the elevator, in the larger context of the film, does more than any carefully crafted effects or musical score possibly could.
Another thing the two films have in common with regard to sound design is juxtaposition. Loud scenes are adjacent to quiet ones. Juxtaposition is a key element of the cinematic language. Usually, it is thought of with regards to opposing images, but it applies equally to sound. As discussed before, Coppola removes certain sounds from their original places and pairs them, or juxtaposes them, with new images.
Through expert use of juxtaposition, Kurosawa and Coppola prove that sound does not have to be a crutch, but can in fact greatly enhance the power of a film.

Critique: Kubrick’s Path to Glory

2009-12-08T23:09:00.000-08:00

(SPOILERS) Who has the moral high ground on the battlefield? Is there any place for morality during war? With Paths of Glory, director Stanley Kubrick attempted to answer these questions, using dynamic lighting, juxtapositional editing, economical mise en scene, and archetypal characters to symbolize good and evil, and in so doing defined himself as one of the 20th century’s most important and elemental filmmakers.
The film is shot in black and white, or rather black or white; there is no gray area, an absence which represents the moral absoluteness of the characters. When General Mireau tours the trenches, he is brightly lit and clean, whereas the soldiers are dirty and mostly in the shadows. Since we have already been introduced to Mireau in a bright, sterile environment, it is almost as if the general is in a bubble, protected from the realities of war by his place in the social order. All of this is achieved simply with lighting. Additionally, when we are first introduced to Col. Dax, our heroic protagonist, he is rather neutrally lit, representing his place as a sort of moral center between the innocent soldiers and the evil general.
Kubrick cuts from scene to scene very abruptly. Frequently, we are taken from Mireau’s great, white, palatial headquarters suddenly to the dirty, claustrophobic trenches where the honest, hardworking soldiers reside for the first third of the film. This is clearly meant to bring our attention to the disparate conditions experienced by the men who give the orders, and those who actually carry out those orders.
Often working in tandem with the editing is Kubrick’s use of very efficient mise en scene. This is most obvious, once again, in the early trench scenes. Take, for example, one of the long, backwards dolly shots of Col. Dax walking through the trenches. We see not only Dax, but also dozens of soldiers going about the business of making war, loading weapons and so on. In the same shot, we can see bombs exploding over head, just outside the trenches. This helps greatly to suggest setting, and quickly and effectively creates a foreboding and oppressive atmosphere. The soldiers are literally under the bombs, just as they are figuratively under the generals, who are equally as lethal and uncaring as the artillery.
Later in the film, during the court martial, Kubrick takes care to arrange the characters in a very specific way. The judges, legal counsel, and various other court officials are grouped tightly together, around a long table; General Mireau, the orchestrator of the whole affair, is nearby, watching and relaxing upon an opulent sofa. This comfortable cabal is placed in great contrast to the three soldiers on trial, who sit several feet away in nondescript chairs. This arrangement is shown to us plainly in a high angle wide shot which looks almost straight down on the scene. The people at the table are one object, while the soldiers are each alone, adrift and helpless. This is brilliant mise en scene, as it is not only immediately informative, but also visually compelling and, perhaps most important of all, symbolic of the various characters’ situations and states of mind.
Col. Dax is clearly good, and General Mireau is obviously bad. There is not much moral ambiguity with regard to the characters in Paths of Glory. Yes, they are both technically on the same “side”, being French officers, with a common enemy in the Germans, but it is obvious within the first reel of the film that the two are opposed; Dax as protagonist, Mireau as antagonist. When we first meet Mireau, he is lounging contentedly in an open, luxurious setting. He discusses tactics and the loss of life so casually that it is difficult to sympathize with him. Later, as he commands the attack on the German Anthill from his safe spot behind the trenches, he screams maniacally and indignantly at his subordinates when they question his order to fire on their own troops. He is so obsessed with winning the war and maintaining discipline that there remains no humanity within him. We are clearly not meant to like this character, and in fact, over the course of the picture, we come to hate him. He is archetypically evil.
Col. Dax, on the other hand, is always presented sympathetically; he is modeled after the righteous hero archetype. When we are introduced to him, he is shirtless, his bare skin meant to represent his innate humanity. Additionally, he is always on the side of his troops; he openly challenges his superiors in defense of his men, first in the trenches, then more formally as their legal counsel in the courtroom. This animosity between French officers rather than between nations is driven home by the fact that we do not actually see any krauts until the very end, when the sweet, angelic German girl is made to sing in a rowdy tavern, causing the drunken French soldiers, and the film itself, to take on a sobering silence. We realize that this story was never about French vs German, but instead about the lower class foot soldiers vs the aristocratic high command, and, in a broader sense, the righteous human spirit vs the madness and folly of war.
Does Col. Dax gain the moral high ground on General Mireau by defending the three men accused of cowardice? If so, what does he accomplish? The men are still found guilty and thence executed. Perhaps nothing is accomplished, save only to show the world that war cannot completely crush every person’s humanity and compassion. Whatever the case, with Paths of Glory, as he would with all of his subsequent work, Stanley Kubrick showed that he had a fundamental understanding of the power of film and how to harness its various elements, be they lighting, mise en scene, or editing, to create a singular, visceral cinematic experience.

Review: The Headless Woman

2009-10-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman is the best head-injury film since Christopher Nolan’s Memento. Through a breathtakingly remarkable and original use of cinematography and shot composition, the Argentine auteur effectively yet subtly puts the audience in the head of her disoriented protagonist.

Vero is an upper-middle class woman living a comfortable life in suburban Argentina. She takes the kids to the pool, drinks wine with friends, and so on. One day, while driving alone along an empty country road, she runs over something, banging her head in the process. Stopping, she slowly collects herself, then drives on, making a point not to look back at the thing she has hit. This places great doubt in her newly-injured mind; was it a person, or just a dog? The uncertainty haunts her.

Do not expect a traditional narrative from this point on. It is not Martel's intent to present a clear story. We often do not even know who certain characters are or why particular events are happening. None of this matters because this film does not exist to present a story, but rather a unique state of mind.

The way we are pulled into this state of mind is through the gorgeous, subtly bizarre cinematography. Most scenes consist of only a single shot which often stays completely stationary, allowing the various characters to move in and out of frame, between foreground, middle ground, and background. When attempting to create a psychological state on the movie screen, directors will often move the camera more, and include a multitude of cuts. This method is over-used and lazy. Martel understands this, and so makes a great effort to do something different. It pays off. The restrained camera movement and conservative editing are, together, a stroke of genius, and do more to put us in Vero's rattled mind than any impatient, MTV-style moviemaking could.

Review: The Informant

2009-10-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

The Informant! is a bizarre and brilliant film. Directed by Hollywood indie auteur Steven Soderbergh, it is inspired by the real-life story of the Arthur-Daniels-Midlands price-fixing scandal of the mid-1990's, told from the questionable point of view of engineer turned executive Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon). Whitacre is a devoted family man, has a fulfilling, high-paying job, and seems altogether content, so when he suddenly goes to the FBI with inside info on his employers' possible illegal activity, something is probably up.
The film begins routinely enough. Whitacre narrates as he drives his son to school, telling us some facts about corn we might not know (his company is a corn conglomerate, among other things). The score is light and upbeat, the cinematography is bright and glossy; we appear to be in for a pleasant, if predictable, 108 minutes of entertainment. This familiar and comfortable feeling is fleeting, however. We don’t really notice at first, but things slowly start to take a strange turn into to unforeseeable territory.
Matt Damon is a very well-liked movie star, and Soderbergh uses this to his advantage in order to take the audience somewhere they cannot possibly foresee at the outset. The fact that Whitacre, with much to lose and apparently not much to gain, not only rats out his company, but goes undercover as an informant for the FBI, endears him to us immediately. He is an everyman, portrayed by the afore mentioned beloved movie star, putting himself in a heroic position; there is almost nothing that could turn the audience against him. Almost nothing.
Aside from Damon, there are no widely recognizable faces in the picture. many key supporting roles are played by standup comedians; they all do a fine job, to be sure, but it is a strange move on Soderbergh’s part. Stranger still, is the the superb choice of Quantum Leap alum Scott Bakula as the beleaguered FBI agent assigned to Whitacre and the ADM investigation. Bakula’s last high profile role was as Captain Archer on the dreadful Star Trek spin-off Enterprise, a part for which, many felt, he was terribly miscast. So it is a baffling yet welcome surprise to see Bakula tearing through a meaty role that suits him to a tee. His Agent Brian Shepard is a gruff, world-weary, and honest man who doesn’t take any crap, and he makes the perfect foil for Whitacre, especially as the latter’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Bakula’s presence in the film is weird and wonderful, and helps to elevate things above the normal Hollywood fare.
Another lesser known actor who almost steals the show is Melanie Lynskey as Whitacre’s loving wife, Ginger. She takes a role that easily could have been phoned-in as a standard ‘supportive spouse’ to another level. Her performance is subtle and honest in a way that Damon’s certainly isn’t, and it gives the film its moral and emotional center. Later in the film, after certain things have been revealed regarding Whitacre, the only reason we continue to care about him is because she cares.
Soderbergh takes what on the surface seems completely ordinary and turns it into something unexpected. The film is not what it seems, just as Whitacre is not. The narration that our protagonist provides throughout the movie actually has nothing to do with the action on screen, or even the story; he talks about the hunting behaviors of polar bears, or wonders what kinds of tie he should buy. It is such a bizarre thing, a voice over that does not help to illustrate or explain what we are watching. However, we do not even notice this incongruence until very late because we are so used to hearing voice overs in films. Soderbergh takes what the audience is familiar with and mutates it in order to challenge us without our knowledge.

Review: Big Fan

2009-09-18T20:34:00.001-07:00

"I can't tell you how sick I am." That is the first line of Big Fan (2009), writer Robert Siegel's directing debut. The line is uttered by the lead character, Paul (Patton Oswalt), an obsessively devoted New York Giants fan, as he rehearses a tirade to be delivered later that evening on a sports talk radio call-in show. This is a nightly ritual, and it is one of the biggest, and only, parts of his small life. Over the course of the film, we come to learn just how apt that line really is.

Siegel is most recently known as the Onion editor turned screenwriter who penned the Mickey Rourke comeback vehicle The Wrestler, and Big Fan is very much in the same vein, in that the film follows it's lonely subject through an episode in his life that challenges everything that he feels is right.

One night, while out with his admiring and lone friend Sal (a Christopher Walken-esque Kevin Corrigan), Paul catches a glimpse of his favorite player, Quantrell Bishop. Without hesitation, the two follow Bishop from Staten Island to a strip club in Manhattan, where, due to a misunderstanding, the drunken athlete beats Paul to unconsciousness. He wakes three days later in a hospital bed, and the first thing he wants to know is the score of the latest Giants game. Horrified to learn that not only did they loose, but that Bishop, their star player, has been suspended as a result of the assault on Paul, he refuses to cooperate with the police investigation. What follows is a harrowing and fascinatingly original journey into the depths of guilt, loyalty, obsession, and revenge.

The writing is brilliant, the direction assured, the digital cinematography beautiful and dynamic, but the main attraction here is Patton Oswalt. Known to many as one of the great comedians of his generation, Oswalt has made appearances on the big and small screen in mostly supporting, character-actor roles, but with his stellar work in Big Fan, he soars to a higher echelon; he joins that rarefied fraternity of comedic actors who have proven they can blow the doors off serious drama. As Paul's dilemma unfolds, Oswalt takes us to a dark, dark place; the struggle and pain on display is frightening, heartbreaking, and unwaveringly honest.

Review: Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

2009-09-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008) is a German movie, but it drips with American cinematic influences. This is ironic, as the central characters (the founders of the Red Army Faction [RAF]) carry out acts of terrorism in protest of what they call American imperialism which stretches from Vietnam to Israel to their native West Germany. It is directed by German TV director Uli Edel, but its operatic scope and gruesome yet cartoonish violence smack more of American masters of blood and guns such as Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese.

Our anti-hero is Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck), a well known liberal journalist who is attracted to the burgeoning RAF by their political message (the West German government is fascist) and free-spirituality. She is at first taken with the charismatic leaders of the group, lovers Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek), but, as the RAF's actions become more violent and brazen, she begins to see them for who they are.

There is a key act of he film set in the secluded desert hills of Jordan, where the Baader-Meinhof gang goes to get trained by Palestinian freedom fighters in the ways of guerilla war far. During the classic crawl-rapidly-with-gun-under-barbed-wire-through-ditch-while-being-shot-at exercise, Baader gets bored, telling the perplexed Arab insurgents "we just want to rob banks". And in another scene, during target practice, the hot-headed Baader ceases firing one bullet at a time and opens up rapid fire, telling his frustrated instructors "its more fun". These scenes serve to reveal the RAF's true colors; they are not the righteous, oppressed freedom fighters they pretend to be, but simply bored, sociopathic brats taking advantage of the political unrest of the period (1967-1977) to kidnap and kill public officials and recruit disenfranchised youths to carry on the carnage; the good-hearted Meinhof realized this all too late, and it drives her insane.

While the people portrayed may not be admirable, the film itself is quite excellent. The action is artfully yet organically staged, the camera work is frenetic without causing nausea, and the direction is compelling. But this is really an actor's showcase. Bleibtreu is explosive and rakish as Baader; Gedeck's Meinhof is the moral center of the film, and she sells her heart breaking realization extremely well; and perhaps most impressive is Johanna Wokalek as Ensslin. Wokalek steals every scene she's in; she is a restless, dangerously beautiful force of nature who might shot you as soon as look at you.

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex might seem tedious to some, but it pays to stay with it, especially if you have even the slightest interest in post-war German history. But the film is not only informative, but also full of enthralling cinematic moments. However, the film is a contradiction; it uses cinema to canonize and mythologize people who killed and maimed, themselves fueled by some sort of fantastical notion of fighting the power. They claim to fight against so called American Imperialism, yet they drive around at night, wantonly shooting off their guns, listening to western rock music. The leaders of the RAF act as if they are playing parts in their own action film, so the whole endeavor has a kind of life-imitating-art-imitating-life quality to it.

Review: Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

Inglourious Basterds (2009) is a strange and wonderful entry in the vast pantheon of World War II-based cinema. It is Quentin Tarantino's first film in five years, and it signals a new phase for the eccentric writer/director. His career so far is broken into these stages (including only films he has both written and directed): we've got the "Los Angeles Trilogy", consisting of Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), and Jackie Brown (1997), which, aside from being set in the same city, are each populated by ensembles of obsessively foul-mouthed, shady characters who get themselves into violent situations mostly through stupidity. Next we have the "Homage Trilogy", which includes Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), and Death Proof (2007). Each of these, as the name of their grouping suggests, is a naked tribute to the genre flicks that Quentin grew up with (kung-fu in the case of the former two; grindhouse car horror with the latter). Whether his newest film is the first in a new set, or simply an island, of coarse remains to be seen.

Basterds happens in 5 chapters, the first of which opens on a farm in Nazi-occupied France. We are reminded, intentionally no doubt, of those sweeping, Western landscapes, from the lone farm house, to the laundry hanging out to dry, to the Nazi patrol in the distance coming towards our idyllic scene like a marauding posse. Leading this band of Nazis is Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a brilliant, slitheringly charismatic, jew-hunting German officer who serves as the film's antagonist and main attraction. Waltz is an Austrian actor who has mostly appeared on German-language television over the course of his 30+ year career; it's mind-boggling that this is his first American film, or that no one is already familiar with him outside of Central Europe. Christoph Waltz gives not only the best performance in Basterds, but of the year. This previously unknown master thespians threatens to displace Daniel Day-Lewis as the greatest actor of his generation.

Half the reason to see Tarantino's latest is Landa; the other half is everyone else in the film. Despite Brad Pitt's name standing alone on the poster, the picture is really an ensemble piece, with not just one protagonist. Pitt cartoons it up as sarcastic hillbilly Aldo Raine, the leader of the eponymous "Inglourious Basterds", a group of eight Jewish-American soldiers who tear through France killing, scalping, and generally terrorizing the Nazi's.

Joining the male dominated cast are Melanie Laurent as Shosanna, a secretly Jewish young Frenchwoman who runs a movie theatre in Paris while planning her revenge against the Nazis for murdering her family; and an unusually good Diane Kruger as German movie star Bridget von Hammersmark.

With Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino has essentially filmed a master thesis on what cinema means to him. The entire film is really not much more than a series of extended, loosely connected dialogue scenes which all threaten to explode at any moment. He brings filmmaking down to one of its most essential elements: tension. Yes, there is humor, but this is largely a product, or perhaps a reaction, to the razor-tight tension that tethers us breathlessly to the screen; we need to laugh so we don't cry. Yes, there is violence, but this trope must be established to keep things from going slack, to keep us suspended.

See it, and witness not only the mainstream introduction of a future acting legend, but also a master class in sophisticated, boisterously entertaining cinema.

Review: District 9

2009-08-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

The fact that District 9 (2009) became an immediate box office hit in the age of vacuous tween-oriented marketing and Michael Bay's Transformers franchise is nothing short of a miracle. Just as miraculous is the film's very existence, no less at the hands of a major studio. First time writer/director Neill Blomkamp's film is fueled by a level of originality, creativity, and disregard for convention that is nowadays only evident in the most hard-scrabble of independent cinema, and some of the more daring serialized shows on TV.

Set in Blomkamp's native South Africa, District 9 is a faux-documentary which morphs seamlessly into a narrative film. We are dropped right into the situation as if it were real. About 20 years ago, A giant alien space craft entered Earth's atmosphere, eventually coming to rest over Johannesburg. The South African military cracks the derelict craft open to find over a million malnourished extraterrestrials huddled and shivering, clearly in need of assistance. Complicating matters is that all of them appear to be essentially uneducated workers, with no leaders. The South African government hires MNU, a massive, militaristic corporation, to move the beleaguered aliens (referred to by the epithet "prawns") to a piece of land outside Johannesburg dubbed District 9.

Moving forward to the present, we meet Wikus Van De Merwe (first-time actor Sharlto Copley), an eager desk jockey working for MNU. We follow him as he leads a team into District 9 with the task of informing the prawns that they are being relocated to a larger area. These eviction scenes are where the film really comes into its own. There is so much thrown at us. The aliens, first of all, are an achievement all by themselves. Realized through CGI motion capture, they are photo-real. While this computer-aided technique has been used all too commonly in recent years, and to varying degrees of success, the digital artists behind District 9 have taken it to the next level. The prawns not only look real on the surface, but they also move organically, which is something that has, up to this point, been seemingly impossible to achieve with CGI. Similarly, they mesh seamlessly with the real world environment, another notoriously difficult feat to pull off.

In addition to the breathtakingly realistic prawns, another aspect that grabs us in these early scenes is just how dirty everything is. This adds realism as, sadly, it causes District 9 to resemble all too well real world slums and refugee camps, which were no doubt inspiration for the film, especially given South Africa's history of apartheid. The prawns root around in garbage heaps for food and basic supplies; intoxicated residents vomit and relieve themselves in public. These conditions, coupled with the prawn's natural and believable appearance, cause us to sympathize more with them than with any of the human characters.

Chief among the aliens is Christopher Johnson (no doubt a name given to him by the humans in charge), a smarter-than-average prawn who is building...something; to reveal what would give far too much of the plot away.

As the film settles into a narrative track, "Christopher" emerges as the main protagonist, with Wikus acting more as a catalyst. It is really a testament to the digital artists, and the actor behind Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope), that a computer generated character who only speaks in clicks and clacks ends up tugging at our sympathies more than any of the humans.

District 9 is not only topnotch science fiction, with the most believable first contact between humans and aliens perhaps ever depicted in cinema, but also an allegory for how we, both as individuals and as a society, relate and react to people and creatures that are not outwardly like us. In South Africa, the film reminds people not only of their all too recent history of apartheid, but also the ongoing crisis of refugee camps there and all across the continent. And in the United States (this critic's home) we see the film and think of our own record of racism, from Indian removal to slavery to segregation, while in Germany it strikes yet another cord. And on and on.

Review: The Hurt Locker

2009-08-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

The Hurt Locker (2009), a nail-biting, fall-off-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller about a US Army bomb squad in Iraq, has no political agenda, and that might be the most impressive thing about it, though it has so many elements rightfully vying for our admiration. The only set up it gives us is "Baghdad, 2004". We, a well informed audience, can fill in the rest with our preconceptions and strong opinions.

Our protagonist is Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner), a brilliant, fatalistic bomb tech who marches to the beat of his own drummer. Renner brings a reckless, troubled charm to the role, and he owns the film. Save for the opening, he is in every scene. There is really no plot; the film is simply a series of insanely tense ordnance disposal sequences, with deftly subtle character details sprinkled in at just the right moments.

Written by first-time screenwriter Mark Boal, a journalist who was embedded with a real-life ordnance disposal unit in real-life Iraq, the film is palpably authentic. Perhaps 95% of the action is set in the war zone, and we come to feel that we have actually ridden along with these soldiers.

Considerable praise is also due to director Kathryn Bigelow, who, in concert with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd and editors Chris Innis and Bob Murawski, has finally managed to find a perfect equilibrium between stationary, traditional camerawork and vomit-inducing shaky-cam. Paul Greengrass should take note.

With The Hurt Locker, Bigelow (responsible for much mediocrity as Point Break and K-19: The Widowmaker) has suddenly revealed herself to be a master of suspense. While diffusing a bomb is a cheap and easy way to build tension, she takes it to the next level, serving up a cinematic feast of details in such a precise order and combination that we are taken somewhere new. There is no overarching plot or goal; we are given moments, and as such allowed to bathe completely in each moment, as of course these soldiers must do in reality. The Hurt Locker has the rare distinction of being both informatively true to life and so cinematically innovative as to add new vocabulary to the filmic language.

Review: Gomorrah

2009-06-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

What strikes the viewer first and most evidently is that Gomorrah (2008) feels nothing like any mob movie we have seen. It is indeed appropriate that the film takes place in Naples, Italy, the origin of so many mob families that washed up on the New England shore and went on to help inspire the entire mob movie genre in America. Called Napoli by the locals, the city is really the film's most prominent star. Set in the present day, the film peels back a thin, dusty layer of romanticism to reveal a 21st century city that sits rotting atop ruins, both literal and figurative.

Another thing that is blatantly peculiar about this film is that the mobsters depicted do not remind us of those romantic, almost stately warring families from such films as The Godfather and Goodfellas. Most of the "soldiers", as many members of mob families are called, are very young, some no older than 12, and they are more akin to the gangs of Southern California than anything that Martin Scorcese ever put on the screen. Maybe we are finally seeing how Italian mobs really are, sweeping away the myth of the Corleones, or maybe, being set as it is in modern times, this similarity to homegrown American gangsters is evidence of the global, post-national world we now find ourselves living in. The kids in Gomorrah wear bling, listen to rap and electronica, carry out drive by shootings, and even act out scenes from the film Scarface. This current generation, too young to remember the Soviet Union, is coming of age in one nation, all over the world. Free-trade, American cultural imperialism, and the proliferation of the internet has knocked down old borders and laid waste to old customs and traditions.

Cinematically, this picture reminds us of two films. First, Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep; both films clearly know the worlds they depict in amazing, vivid depth, and each is largely a collection of moments from these worlds. At the end of many scenes we are left to wonder why we have just been shown what we've been shown and what on earth the characters were doing. Another film that comes to mind is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Amores Perros, in the way that it's filmed, and the fact that each tells several parallel stories that are all connected in the grand scheme of things. Gomorrah, however, feels more voyeuristic than these films. Things are presented in a very fly-on-the-wall fashion.

That is not to say that we are kept from connecting with the characters. Perhaps the most memorable is a pair of teenage Scarface enthusiasts who knock about in their rundown section of Napoli, robbing arcades, annoying the local kingpins, and wantonly, ecstatically firing a stolen cache of automatic weapons at the Mediterranean Sea.

Many of the familiar tropes are present, from the cycle of retribution and questions of loyalty and influence to the kind of autonomous society the families create, but they are laid upon a framework that is utterly original. Gomorrah is not only a challenge to mob pictures, but to cinema in general. The structure, narrative, editing, fluid camera work, and complete embrace of real locations as compelling set design all threaten to redefine, or at least further refine, what filmmaking is in the 21-century.

SIFF Review: Moon

2009-05-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

Moon (2009) is writer/director Duncan Jones' debut feature, and it is a promising start to what should be a long career. The film is a throwback to pre-CGI sci-fi gems of the 70's and 80's, such as Alien and other such offspring of the phenomenon that was 2001: A Space Odyssey. Though the practical models and sets may have been constructed more for financial reasons than anything else, the effect is nonetheless welcomed; the whole thing feels very authentic.

Set entirely upon the moon in some not-so-distant future, the story revolves around Sam Bell (Oscar-worthy Sam Rockwell), a blue-collar everyman who's 3-year contract on a lunar base that produces some kind of fusion energy is almost up. He is alone, aside from a robot named GERTY, so it not too surprising when he appears to be losing his mind after such a protracted stint away from humanity.

Though other human actors are featured on computer screens and in brief flashbacks, the film rest entirely upon Sam Rockwell. The term tour de force is trite and really doesn't do justice to his performance here. He is given the unenviable task of filling the vast emptiness of the moon with life, and he delivers. It would be rather narrow to simply label this film as 2001 with a pulse, but that notion definitely comes to mind.

As mentioned before, the filmmakers steer away from the standard 21st-century practice of spraying CGI all over the screen, instead using traditional physical models and miniatures to represent everything from the exterior of the moon base to the lunar rover to the giant ore collectors. The effect is really much more believable than anything that can be done inside a computer, and it boggles the mind why we do not see this used more often.

There is a twist that we do not see coming, and it is quite original. Sam suddenly encounters a double of himself, but he and the audience are forced to wonder: is he just going crazy, or is there something sinister at work here? The praise for Rockwell's performance is not complete without addressing this double situation. Most of the film plays out with two Sams, and its in the trailer, so talking about it will not spoil things. One actor playing two characters at once is nothing new, but here, it is taken to another level. It is impressive to see Sam Rockwell engage in fisticuffs with and even at one point play ping-pong against himself, but what makes the whole thing work so well is the acting. Rockwell manages to create two versions of the character, the first is 3 years moon-bound, the second a younger, more hot-blooded incarnation, but they are still, in essence, the same person.

The director, Duncan Jones, was at the screening I went to, and he took some questions from the audience. He alluded to the idea of making another film set in the same universe he has established with Moon, and we can see this happening. If Hollywood loves anything, it is a franchise, and, should this film be a success (and I think it will be), it will be no surprise when we see a sequel.

Review: Star Trek

2009-05-10T22:31:00.000-07:00

With Star Trek (2009), Director JJ Abrams has successfully rescued a franchise that should have been dead ten years ago. In injecting new life into the series, he has not only resurrected an American institution, but further developed his frenetic, easy, smartly crafted style of story telling, pushing narrative cinema in a new and surprising direction.

The most important scene in a film is the first one, and Abrams seems to understand this. We open on the USS Kelvin, a Federation Starship, as it does generic scientific research in orbit of a star. Suddenly, some kind of wormhole bursts opens in front of them, and out pours a gigantic alien spacecraft that resembles a poisonous flower. Unprovoked shots are fired, demands are made, and the Kelvin's captain goes to the enemy ship, leaving one George Kirk in command. The captain is killed upon the alien ship, more shots are fired, and Kirk orders all hands to abandon ship, including his very pregnant wife. What follows is a heartrending study in sacrifice and fast, decisive action in the face of certain death. The scene is beautifully shot and wonderfully acted, and, if nothing else, Abrams has an uncanny talent for getting the audience to immediately care about characters we have never met before.

The film is fresh and new, and this starts with the cast. Leading the pack is douchy-looking Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, future captain of the Starship Enterprise. Despite his troubling resemblance to Disney teen star Zach Efron, Pine is actually quite good; his young Kirk is a bright, impatient punk kicking around in the desolate farmlands of Iowa when we first meet him, throwing one liners at every beautiful woman and punches at every dumb thug. He's plucked out of the Midwest by Captain Christopher Pike and joins Starfleet Academy, and proves to be quite the whizkid, but not without a little smarm and rambunctious sarcasm. His diametric opposite is one Mr. Spock, a half-human-half-Vulcan misfit who finds his place at Starfleet. Played by Zachary Quinto, this young Spock reminds us at first blush of Dwight Shrute from "The Office"; he appears a humorless, power-hungry rule-nazi. But as the film progresses, he is given some heart and just the tiniest glimmer of a soul.

Drawing from the Princess Leia archetype is Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura, a spunky, brilliant linguist who, upon her first encounter with Kirk, says "I thought you were just a dumb hick who only has sex with farm animals." Her affection is one point of competition between our "dumb hick" and Mr. Spock, who, throughout most of the film, completely despise each other. Some critics have bemoaned the film's villain (Nero, a Romulan... pirate, or something, from the future, seeking revenge for some nonsense that will be explained later by Leonard Nimoy) for being ill-conceived and lacking in screen time (strange complaints to come from one person's mouth, but many critiques are along these lines), but they fail to see that the real struggle, the real animosity is between Kirk and Spock. Nero is merely a catalyst; he's around only long enough to set things in motion. Kirk and Spock are constantly butting heads, and they even come to blows and one point. And Spock, as acting captain of the Enterprise, is so irritated with Kirk that he goes so far as to stuff him in an escape pod and leave him on some Hoth-like planet.

The rest of the principle cast is uniformly superb, though they are given scant screen time. Kiwi actor Karl Urban is an inspired choice for Kirk's best friend, Leonard "Bones" McCoy; he perfectly renders the curmudgeonly, acerbic Southern doctor, though his American accent can be heard slipping at certain points. Comedy actor John Cho is passable as Sulu, pilot of the Enterprise, and genuine Russian youngster Anton Yelchin is actually kind of hilarious as Pavel Chekov. Similarly, Simon Pegg, an actual Brit, is perfect as Scotty, a genius engineer who apparently moonlights as a comedian. The entire ensemble is great together, and we look forward to further installments with this new breed of intergalactic travelers aboard a shiny, new Starship Enterprise.

Review: Watchmen

2009-05-10T17:17:00.000-07:00

From a filmic standpoint, Watchmen (2009) does not remind this reviewer of anything. Director Zack Snyder, just three films into his career, has managed to create a style that is completely original and uniquely cinematic. Perhaps it was born out of a desire to imitate the kinetic stillness of comic books, but with this film Snyder finds a place in between the action. The glorious title sequence, for example, at first glance looks like a series of still photographs, but upon closer observation, we realize that these are moving images captured with high speed film. There are sequences like this all through out the film, and it quickly settles into a visual style that, it can safely be said, has never been seen before.

Sticking like glue to the plot, pacing, and even dialogue of Alan Moore's original graphic novel of the same name, the film has not an original bone when it comes to the things that happen; where it breaks new ground is how we see these things happen. Filtered through Snyder's brain and the faces of his actors, this cinematic endeavor brings Moore's vision into the living, breathing world.

This is more of an ensemble piece than any other comic book movie to date (even X-Men). We are first introduced to aging, retired superhero Edward Blake, aka The Comedian. He is killed within the first three minutes, but, because of the nonlinear narrative, he is featured throughout the film. Played by Seattle native Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Blake is a violent, cackling psychopath, and everything revolves around trying to solve his murder. The Comedian was part of a band of superheroes in the 1940's called The Minutemen, and then joined the group's successor in the 70's, called The Watchmen. Their activities were eventually outlawed, but one still roams the streets fighting crime: Rorchach (Jackie Earle Haley), an insane noir ninja whose paranoid journal entries provide voice-over throughout. Both Haley and Morgan turn in explosive, charismatic and psychologically subtle performances that save these comic book archetypes from coming off as mere caricature. Rorchach's former partner, Nightowl aka Dan Dreiberg, lives a normal, apartmental existence. Patrick Wilson takes Dreiberg, a somewhat boring character in the comic, and creates a complex and sympathetic every-man who just happens to have a history of fighting crime in a silly costume.

Perhaps the most impressive character is Dr. Manhattan, a former scientist who is transformed into a literal super being through a freak accident. Now he can rearrange matter and perceive time in ways no human can; this unique perspective renders him completely apathetic to the fate of humanity, a fate he can change with but a snap of his fingers. Played through motion-capture by a reflective and tragic Billy Crudup, Dr. Manhattan is the most realistic and impressive CGI character since Andy Serkis' Gollum. His blue skin emits a light that shines upon his surroundings in a surprisingly realistic way, he moves with an earthly weight, and his face is relatable and does not fall into the uncanny valley (thanks, no doubt, to Mr. Crudup).

Rounding out this group of retired superheroes are Malin Akerman as Sally Jupiter, and Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, but neither is visibly old enough for their parts or equipped with enough talent, especially next to their much more impressive cast mates.

Watchmen, the film, has been criticized for having an unwieldy story that is at once over stuffed with subplots and too sparse. These critics do not realize that the film is not here for the story; the reason it exists is to present a collection of moments. The first two thirds are a glorious exhibit of live action filmmaking stretched and bent to fit into new and wondrous places. From the title sequence, to Dr. Manhattan's heartbreakingly beautiful origin story, to The Comedian's final, fatal battle, Mr. Snyder shows us some kind of new, uniquely 21st-century vision of where cinema is going or ought to go.

Review: Wendy and Lucy

2009-05-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

Writer/director Kelly Reichardt's third feature length film, Wendy and Lucy (2008), is strange and beautiful. It follows Wendy (Michelle Williams, laconic and make-upless), a 20 something making her way from her home in Indiana to a prospective job in Alaska. Along for the ride in her dying car is her best friend Lucy (played by an affable dog named Lucy). The story opens as they stop for the night in a small suburb of Portland, Oregon. Waking the next morning, Wendy discovers that her car will not start. The nearby auto shop is not open, the local strangers are apathetic, and some bad decisions lead to a missing Lucy.

Reichardt possesses an easy, observational directorial touch. She keeps a tantalizing distance from her subjects, in a way very much like Jim Jarmusch or Charles Burnett. There is something almost voyeuristic in the way we just sit and watch strangers interact in strange and perplexing ways.

Both set and filmed in suburban Oregon, the film is doubtlessly the work of Northwesterners, evident in the respectful yet passive-aggressive distance people keep from each other, the aching sprawl, and the unrelenting grayness of both the weather and the infrastructure. Wendy and Lucy is a study in stranger apathy, post-American-Dream America, and the time that comes in every person's life when they realize they are truly alone.

Review: Doubt

2009-05-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

Doubt (2008) is based upon the play of the same name by John Patrick Shanley. Set exclusively inside a repressive catholic school somewhere in New England in the 1960's, it is a film about the struggle between doubt and certainty, and how this struggle can blow up into a heartrending, soul shattering battle when the combatants are forced to exist in such a buttoned-down environment.

Amy Adams (pictured) stars as Sister James, a young nun and teacher at the school. She is a quietly positive, gentle little flower pressed into a black habit. Brilliantly played, Adams' Sister James is the fragile, calm rope that two opposing forces tug at voraciously, each with possibly ill intent. One, the instigator, is Meryl Streep (insert requisite praise here) as the school's hard, cold principal. Streep is downright hawk-like here, her birdy face stone-cut, her big spectacle-eyes like lasers. She suspects that the head priest and one of the students are engaged in... something; it is never addressed straight on. This is how repressed these people are; even behind closed doors, and in the throws of what passes for passionate speech, they cannot bring themselves to say what everyone seems to be thinking. The priest, played with superb aplomb by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is the other tugger here. He is kind and intelligent and progressive, all qualities that Sister James can appreciate and in fact admires. So Streep and Hoffman do their dance, their duel, and sweet Sister James has a choice to make; this little leaf threatens to be torn asunder.

Shanely seems to have some understanding of cinematic storytelling. In the beginning, at least, he lets the camera do most of the talking, which is as it should be. Little scenes that just watch, from afar, the daily life at the school are really quite sublime. It is only later, when accusations are thrown and much near-exposition is spat that things sag and become uninteresting. It can be said without spoiling things that this reviewer felt the end of the film did not deposit us in a different enough place than where we began. Or it was not compelling enough. It said what it wanted to say, but it might have taken too long to say it.

Essay - Fahrenheit 451: At Once Real and Fake

2009-04-11T23:37:00.000-07:00

Ray Bradbury's 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 is not so much about the censorship of literature, but about modern society's lack of interest in books, an apathy born from a preoccupation with television (and film, similarly). So it is a contradictory exorcise to adapt this book to the movie screen, the very medium (visual story-telling) that the text accuses as it's murderer. This contradiction is epitomized by the fact that the filmmakers had to actually burn books to illustrate the horribleness of burning books. When it is read on the page, the books only burn in your mind, but to put the image on screen, the action must actually be carried out and photographed. This paradox reminds us of the inherent exploitative aspect of filmmaking. The actors must actually cry. Cars must actually crash. Punches must actually be thrown. The act of putting oneself on screen and performing things one would not otherwise do is some form of ritual sacrifice. Baring the soul to the world. In a book, we read that she and he kiss, and there is only the words and the harmless, victimless image in the reader's head. But on screen, he and she are real people, and their real lips really touch, and our eyes are provided with the real image of a kiss, no imagination required. These real people, pretending to be fictional people, are likely not really in love, and therefor the kiss is at once real and fake. When projected from the page to our mind, the kiss is in a way more real because the only people involved are the characters, who really are in love, yet at once it is not happening at all, save in the mind. But on screen, the physical act of two mouths meeting is real, there is proof, it is documented. However, it is more fake, for the kiss is only happening for show.

Fahrenheit 451 (1966) was french auteur François Truffaut's first foray into color film, and his only film in English, a language he understood very little of at the time, as is evident from the sparse and stilted dialogue which he foolishly wrote himself.

Austrian actor Oskar Werner is protagonist Guy Montag, a "fireman" (bookburner) who begins to question the system he is a part of. British beauty Julie Christie is on double duty, both as Montag's conformist wife, and as a rebellious school teacher who dares to illegally keep and read books. Christie is the star here, pulling off these disparate roles expertly and with flare. Werner is another story. His Montag is stiff, emotionless, and at some times appears on the verge of narcolepsy. Perhaps his Austrianess is to blame, or maybe his onset animosity with the director. Having seen none of his other work, this reviewer cannot say.

From it's unfortunately ironic existence, to it's independent filmmaker's ill-advised and jarring transition to Hollywood, to the reported onset arguments and clashing of ego's, Fahrenheit 451 is a perfect example of why some books should not be filmed, and how moviemaking can be so absurd.

Review: I'm Not There

2009-04-10T23:21:00.001-07:00

If writer-director Todd Haynes' film I'm Not There. (2007) is to be taken as a straight up biopic about the life and work of music icon Bob Dylan, then this is what we take away from it; Dylan was a phony, pretentious, unoriginal crybaby. But the film's beyond unconventional structure and presentation suggest that it is instead intended as something else.

To call it experimental would be a misnomer; experimentation is connected to a lack of certainty, and this does not describe Haynes' work here. His assured vision and direction guide the film along at an intentional pace, down twisting ally ways and up into the mystifying heavens. The experience is however arthouse; the narrative, if it can rightly be called such, tennis-balls hither and thither between five different characters and timelines. Beautiful cinematography by Edward Lachman, alternately in color and black-and-white, elevates the film from insufferable pretentiousness to purer cinematic territory.

Central to the project are the actors that play five characters based on various aspects of Dylan's life. First is newcomer Marcus Carl Franklin, who plays Woody Guthrie, a kid riding the rails with dusty guitar in hand, affecting a poor southern twang when he is in fact a middle-class northerner. Next is Christian Bale as Jack Rollins, an iteration clearly inspired by Dylan's folk days and initial rise to fame. Health Ledger shines as usual as an actor who catches his big break playing Rollins in a film. Though filmed and released before The Dark Knight, it is nonetheless worth contemplating the fact that the most recent incarnations of Batman and his arch-nemesis the Joker play two sides of the same coin here. Bale (Batman) as the honest, humble people's musician, and Ledger (the Joker) as the sociopathic, womanizing sham-artist who rides the former's fame.

Of course, the main attraction, the exhibit everyone is talking about, is actress Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn, Dylan's gone-electric Judas character. The hype is deserved; Blanchett so convincingly and casually plays a man that this reviewer would not have known the difference without being aware of the casting. From the voice to the walk to the expression, she captures Dylan at the hight of his apathetic rock star phase.

Rounding out the ensemble is Richard Gere as Billy the Kid, probably meant to be Dylan as he is now, an outlaw of sorts and a wise, wondering old folk sage.

As is stated above, narrative is not really a word that fits in a description of this film. It is a collection of interconnected moments, and they are juxtaposed and added up to equal something that is not immediately apparent and cannot be quantified. Haynes clearly has some wild and unique understanding of cinema, and it oozes in I'm Not There.

Review: "For Your Consideration"

2009-04-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

Haha, okay, we get it. Actors are pretentious whores, Hollywood sucks your soul away, blah blah waah haha we get it move on.

Christopher Guest's latest cinematic offering, "For Your Consideration" (2006), is a heavy handed, groan-inducing, inside joke about the film industry. Like his previous films, it is cast with a familiar ensemble of comedy actors and relies greatly upon improvisation. But, unlike those films, this one fails to be good or even very funny. In all his films, Guest lays everything on the skeleton of his improv troupe, but here the bones are brittle, and the whole thing collapses. It is really sort of painful to watch these usually gifted actors struggle and grasp to make things funny. There is nothing here beyond the concept that the film industry is a constant and supposedly hilarious battle between artistic integrity and commercial viability. Things never focus. There is no chance for the characters to have much depth.

One thing that might throw viewers familiar with Guest's previous films is that this is not actually a foux-documentary. Similarly, we are let down because he has set the bar so high.

SPOILER ALERT: We are here going to relate the funniest... no, make that the only funny part of "For Your Consideration". It is a line uttered by Fred Willard (pictured), and goes like this, "You know what they say about blind prostitutes. You really have to hand it to them." There, the only funny line in the whole movie. We have just saved you 86 minutes of improv comedy at its worst.

Review: "Once"

2009-04-04T23:25:00.000-07:00

As loath as we are to use superlatives, it is nonetheless accurate to say that "Once" (2006) is the best musical this reviewer has ever seen. It is also perhaps the most original film musical since the inception of the medium. Shot sparsely and cheaply with a handheld, digital camera in and around Dublin, it stars two non-acting musicians, essentially playing versions of themselves. They play and sing original songs that they have written, and the music is not beholden to any traditional musical theatre conventions.

Glen Hansard plays an Irish street musician who is quickly befriended by Markéta Irglová, and young Czech girl who sings and plays piano. At first glance, Irglová threatens to be nothing more than the dreaded Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but to our relief she turns out to be a complex and relatable character.

Everything that matters is great in this film. The acting is organic and lovable, the cinematography and editing are beautiful but not distracting. What makes this the greatest musical we have seen, however, is the music, or, more specifically, how and when the music happens. There is a scene early in the picture when Irglová and Hansard go to a music shop. She sits down in front of a grand piano, then he begins playing a tune on his guitar. She joins in on piano and they both begin to sing. As we write this, we discover that words really fail to express the magic of how this scene unfolds. To attempt to describe it further would do a disservice to the film and any reader who has yet to see it.

Nothing more can be said. See "Once", and witness the deconstruction and redefinition of what a film musical is.

Review: "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime"

2009-03-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long) (2008) is very French. Along with being in the french language, written and directed by Phillippe Claudel (a frenchman), and set and filmed in France, the film has many of the tiresome cliches that Americans have come to recognize in these kinds of ventures; flat, undynamic cinematography, beige and lifeless color palette, laconic dialogue, and an uncomfortable deficit of exposition. longtemps exhibits all of these, and for its initial half hour or so they combine into a sticky molasses of almost unbearable french bleakness.

The only aspect here that will keep a non-francophile from falling asleep or just giving up is the film's star, English actress Kristin Scott Thomas. How fitting that the most entertaining part of a french film is it's one non-french component. As Juliette, recently released from prison after a 15-year sentence, she is a shell of a woman. Scott Thomas does a brilliant job of suggesting so much about this person with the smallest gesture or expression.

Upon her release, she is reunited with her younger sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein) and goes to live with her and her family, which includes Léa's two young daughters, her husband, and his wacky, mute father. Juliette is standoffish, the kids are precocious, and everyone is French.

Juliette's crime is not immediately revealed, and once it is, the motive for it is left for us to guess at until the final scene. It can be said here, without spoiling things, that this final revelation is handled surprisingly poorly, given the filmmakers' care throughout to craft a detailed and realistic experience. It is especially disappointing because the entire story is built around what Juliette did and why, and whether she was justified.

I did end up almost losing consciousness, but I cannot determine if this was because the film is boring, or because it slowly creates some dreamlike reality parallel to the real world, where former prison inmates live.

Attack of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

2009-03-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

A new film archetype has popped up in recent years - the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She is always a spontaneous, wacky, beautiful young woman. She has no real soul; her only purpose is to fall in love with some brooding, laconic young man who's usually in the process of 'finding himself'. First appearing in smaller films, and then spreading like a cheery, sexy virus to more mainstream fare, the MPDG is a scourge. She has most recently taken the form of indie princess Zooey Deschanel in two upcoming findies (faux indies) - Gigantic, wherein she fawns over master of broodery Paul Dano, and 500 Days of Summer, which finds our vapid, non sequitur sexpot attempting to bring Joseph Gordon-Levitt out of his shell.

Here are the two films' respective trailers.

Like any overused archetype, our Manic Pixie Dream Girl has gone stale, as is evident in these above film advertisements. Also what is clear, in case it was not before, is that Zooey Deschanel always plays the same exact character in every film. She's sarcastic, hilarious, apparently smart, and gorgeous in that independent record store kind of way. Furthermore, she relies far too much on her gigantic, oppressively blue eyes. She will spread her lids the same way to express every emotion from surprise to joy to sadness to anger to horniness. Those eyes must have their own acting coach.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl needs to go away. We are tired of depressed, shlubby guys standing around all mopey until this hollow fairy poofs in and "changes his life FOREVER!!!1!!". We are also weary of Hollywood trying to make indie films; this venture is, by its very nature, a contradiction. A true independent film is made for little to no money (and I mean no money, quite literally, not 1 or 2 million dollars), by unknowns, starring unknowns. No crew, no industry involvement. What the big studios are throwing at us are anything but independent. Big stars, big budgets, popular soundtrack, industry directors (the helmer of 500 Days of Summer got his start directing Green Day and Jesse McCartney videos), and recycled and cliched scripts. They are findies - faux indies. What would be much more artistically progressive, and less expensive (moneymoneymoney), than making these farces themselves would be to go out and find true indie film, buy them and distribute them. This is a win-win.

Review "Little Children"

2009-03-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

"Little Children" (2006) is based upon a book of the same name, and it's literary roots are inescapable. Beginning with the redundant narration (a character will look out a window, and the narration will intone "Sarah looked out the window". We needn't be told about what is plainly visible on screen) provided by "Frontline" narrator Will Lyman, more and more elements pile up chaining the film to the book. The structure and story feels at once overly busy and lacking, as a bulk of the meat was no doubt stripped to fit the running length, yet not enough care was taken to rework the story so as fit a cinematic frame.

Sarah (Kate Winlset, brilliant as usual, and only one more nude role away from her obligatory Oscar) is a stay at home mom who spends her days taking her toddler to the park and moping about her huge house and mentally deriding three fellow moms at the park, who each feel distressingly like stock characters from a yogurt commercial.

One day, Brad (Patrick Wilson, affable yet unbelievably toned for a middle-class, American dad) comes to the park with his small child. He and Sarah strike up a friendship, which starts as an attempt to freak out the other park moms (and it does to a surprising degree, when Brad and Sarah share a kiss. The moms come running; "Come on, kids. You can't see two people kissing, EW!"), but it soon blossoms into something more intimate.

This is upper-middle-class suburbia, most likely somewhere in New England, and things are accordingly bland and at times pathetic. Brad mopes about his beautiful wife who brings home all the bacon, and wastes time nostalgically watching skateboarders when he should be studying for the Bar exam; we realize that he is probably not that bright. His ex-cop buddy spends his nights harassing a local sexual deviant named Ronnie who has recently returned from a prison sentence for exposing himself to a child.

Lifted to sympathetic authenticity by Jackie Earle Haley, Ronnie is a lonely, complex, sad individual. He lives with his loving and protective mother (Phillis Somerville), and these two are the only remotely likable characters in the whole drama. Demonized by his neighbors, Ronnie spends most of his time indoors, and eventually unravels quite disturbingly when tragedy finally strikes.

Throughout the film is the sound of a train in the background. This is not only ambient noise, but a clear signal that some kind of impending and life-shattering event is heading for our protagonists. Once this factor was gleaned early on, this reviewer was expecting something gloriously tragic, or at least some kind of profound climax that would leave the parties involved irrevocably changed. Not to spoil things, but this was not found to be the case.

The title of "Little Children" does not refer so much to the toddlers, who are treated increasingly, by their parents and by the filmmakers, as mere props, but to the adults. Our stars, Brad and Sarah, each have very good lives that they are inexplicably unsatisfied with, yet we are meant to feel sorry for them. Meanwhile, the "villain" of the story, Ronnie, ends up getting most of our sympathy because he has real issues that he tries desperately to surmount, with the help of his mother, while facing hostility from all sides. What sells him to us and flays open his soul is a scene wherein he attempts a date. He and his date are both supremely awkward at first, but they soon warm up to each other, and there is the briefest of moments when Ronnie perks up when the young lady begins to talk about a personal struggle in her life that he identifies with. Haley, in this moment, shows us that Ronnie is in many ways gentle and caring, and here in lies the tragedy of the man. He would be a perfectly normal and acceptable human being if not for his impenetrable sexual disorder. It is a heartrending realization, and we immediately want to push aside Sarah and Brad and their pathetic non-problems.

This film real didn't need to happen, not in this form, anyhow. It can't decide whether to be faithful to the book or completely break free from it, and so it is kept from existing completely in the realm of cinema. The whole thing ends up playing like a superbly acted, 2 hour commercial for the book. The only unique element here is Ronnie, and the film really should have been all about him.

There are some strong points. The cinematography is quite good, being gorgeous with out calling attention to itself. And there are some qatsiesque sequences with excellent use of juxtaposition that suggest that director Todd Field has some understanding of the cinematic language, which makes the literary dependence and lazy, convenient ending all the more curious.

TV Review: "Kings" (Pilot)

2009-03-16T22:53:00.001-07:00

"Kings" (NBC) just premiered this Sunday, and it has promise. It is a speculative fiction series about some alternate present day America that is ruled my Monarchy instead of republican-democracy. Ian McShane (pictured) is the King of a very Manhattan-looking megalopolis city-state called Gilboa. Most people will know McShane from HBO's "Deadwood", and he is no less deliciously menacing and malevolent here (although sans profanity); he is really the main reason to watch this show, it seems.

The Pilot episode, "Goliath", shows signs of your typical first season shakes, things like as-yet ill-defined supporting characters and rather generic dialogue and story minutia, but it is the opinion of this critic that given a proper run and a cohesive vision, "Kings" could blossom into something quite good.

Directed by Francis Lawrence ("I am Legend"), the show looks great. The camera work is frenetic when it needs to be (a very tense and brilliant war scene) and at other times elegant. Judging from this initial episode, the two main attractions of this new series are the cinematic aesthetic and McShane.

I fear that one of two things might happen here: either it will be renewed by the network but then decline in quality, or it will get better with each episode and then get prematurely canceled. Hopefully the quality and ratings will be proportional.

TV Review: "24" (Season 7)

2009-03-11T23:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, I give up. And I'm sad. 24 sucks now, I don't think it will ever get anywhere near it's former magnificence.

Season 7 had a promising start. Disbanding CTU and moving the action to DC was a good start, and there were some interesting new characters thrown into the mix. President Taylor, for one, is a vast improvement over her two predecessors, and maybe the best since David Palmer. Also, Agent Renee Walker is a character worthy of her own show. Additionally, the return of Tony Almeida was quite welcomed, but as the season has moved, he has been criminally left in the background. He, too, deserves his own show.

maybe five episodes in I started to sense that something just wasn't right with one of my favorite shows. I finally figured out that it was the writing, and not even the over all story or the major beats, but the little stuff - dialogue, scene breaks, minute story logic. This perplexed me, as these elements have long been some of 24's strong points. Paying attention to the credits, I found the problem - Brannon Braga.

If you are a follower of the Star Trek franchise, then you are more than likely familiar with the name Brannon Braga. For those who don't know, he was mostly to blame for running "Star Trek: Voyager" into the ground, and he was the main creative force

behind the abortion that was "Enterprise". Many Trekkies give him credit for killing Star Trek. Given this, seeing his name associated with 24 is all kinds of horrifying. I haven't the slightest clue why show creators Joel Surnow and Robert Chochran would even consider bringing him on,

let alone allowing him to actually write some of the episodes. Have they not seen the last 3 seasons of "Voyager"? Braga is like the syphilis of television producers. He infects a beautiful show and rots it from the inside, until it goes insane and it's balls fall off.

This is just what is happening to 24. It is not as smart as it once was, the pacing is weird, and it all just feels tired. Jack is tired, we are tired. The show has no life to it; it's testicles have shriveled up and sloughed off. We should just kill this mad cow before it suffers further.

Tv Review : "Breaking Bad" (season 1)

2009-03-11T22:23:00.000-07:00

With the exception of "Lost", all the best tv shows are currently on some form of cable or another, and they have been for a while. "Battlestar Galactica", "The Shield", and now "Breaking Bad" on AMC. The show premiered last year, and, like most people, I did not see it. The word of mouth train has just recently reached my station, and so yesterday I went online and watched the first three episodes. Wow.

Brian Cranston is high school chemistry teacher Walter White. He's got a teenage son, a pregnant wife, and, as he learns in the pilot episode, inoperable lung cancer. He needs to work another job just to put food on the table, and so he begins to worry about how his family will get by once his eighteen month prognosis is up. An idea strikes him when riding along on a drug bust with his DEA brother-in-law: meth. He quickly teams up with a former student (Aaron Paul) who knows the business, and they get to cooking crystal meth, which, of course, Walt is brilliant at, given his vast academic knowledge of chemistry.

Cranston, many times lauded for his comedic work on "Malcolm in the Middle", recently won an Emmy for "Breaking Bad", and it is certainly deserved. He brings the same wildly entertaining, bumbling frustration to this show, but his Walt White is a truly complex creature. There is pathos aplenty, to be sure, but there is also something sinister in this seemingly mild-mannered chemistry teacher which Cranston gradually, deliciously pulls to the surface. Paired with Paul as paranoid burnout Jesse Pinkman, Walt comes to life as some kind of hybrid of your average middle-aged goober and an insane super-villain.

Many props to show creator Vince Gilligan, who got his start writing for "The X-Files". He writes most of the episodes and directed the pilot, and he makes evident a gift with dark comedy and realistic story-telling.

"Breaking Bad" is like a Coen Bros. film multiplied into a tv show. It is a fact that television these days is increasingly better than mainstream cinema, and this show is certainly no exception. The second season recently premiered on AMC; please watch it so that it does not join "Firefly" and "Freaks and Geeks" as an excellent show that was cancelled too soon.

Review: "The Wrestler"

2009-03-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

Mickey Rourke, Mickey Rourke, Mickey Rourke. "The Wrestler" (2008) redefines what constitutes a proper star vehicle. As washed-up wrestling legend Randy 'The Ram" Robinson, Rourke balances the entire film upon his hulking, creaking shoulders. His raged, leathery frame fills almost every shot, and his labored breathing and grunting make up an integral part of the sound design. He delivers a total character, a more-than-lived-in entity who grabs us and guides us (quite literally, for many of the shots are handheld over-the-shoulder as he walks into the wrestling ring or behind a grocery deli counter) through his tale.

Set down in Springsteen's crusty old New Jersey, we find the Ram working the amateur wrestling circuit and getting peanuts for it. Most of his 'rivals' (it is revealed here, as many people have already figured out, that professional wrestling is very much staged, and even specific moves are planned by the wrestlers before hand, like a rock band reviewing their set list before a concert) today were children when he was in his prime. Randy is coasting here on the scant fumes of his former glory.

His only companion outside the ring is a milfy stripper (Marisa Tomei) called Pam. She gives him lap dances while they spit idle conversation about life and stuff that would be normal in any place but a moldy strip club. She's still got it, as they say, but her old age (by stripper standards) makes it increasingly difficult to do her job, that is, get guys off. They are both, the stripper and the wrestler, working past their primes in body-careers that demand to much. Pam and Randy revolve like twin moons, pulling each other out of orbits that have become wobbly.

The film happens in three very distinct parts. The first meanders through Randy's wrestling routine - buying steroids, visiting the tanning salon, buying "weapons" to use in the ring at a dollar store, getting his hair done. And, of course, there is the actual wrestling. And I mean actual, as Rourke does perhaps all his own stunts, astonishing at the age of 56 and with all the drugs and things he put in his body in the '90s. Most of his fellow wrestlers are played by the genuine article, which is only appropriate; the entire film feels very much like a documentary, by way of a hangover. In one harrowing sequence, The Ram fights a guy who shoots both of them with an actual staple gun. There is also an excessive use of barbed wire and other such bloodletting miscellanea. It is directly after this fight that The Ram collapses with a heart attack.

So commences part two. A doctor tells Randy that continuing to wrestle would pretty much be deadly. "But I'm a professional wrestler," Randy insists. "That's not a good idea," advises the doctor. Here is the essence of the film's middle - Randy doesn't know how to be anything but The Ram, and no one else can understand this.

I will not spoil the third act, but you will see it coming. Though the addition of a traditional, forward-moving plot is perhaps a bit jarring after the sublime fly-on-the-wall experience of the opening 20 minutes, this reviewer deems it necessary. There is a side story involving Randy's estranged, grown daughter, Stephenie, that falls flat and serves only to demonstrate, in case there was any doubt, that The Ram can't lead a normal life. Played to the edges of melodrama by Even Rachel Wood, Stephanie Robinson feels like she belongs in another film, or perhaps a television drama.

Props are due to director Darren Aronofsky for stepping back and letting Rourke do his thing, while weaving around his star a silky web of bleak yet feverishly vivid visuals. Aronofsky is indisputably an auteur of the highest order, but he recognizes that this is Mickey Rourke's film (the actor even wrote much of his own dialogue).

"The Wrestler", to be summed up unsatisfyingly and inadequately, is about time building up on a person until they are stuck in the mud. The film really is a cinematic experience in the truest and purest sense; we are given information, that info is feed through tribulations and emotions, and we come through in the end with something we did not have before. Never, though, have I encounter such a profound example of this unexplainable ride in the form of an out-and-out star vehicle. Perhaps this is something new. Perhaps this is something unrepeatable. Mickey Rourke has been in our collective consciousness for almost three decades, during which time he rose to stardom and acclaim, fell bombastically from grace, and is now making a dignified return, showing perhaps more talent and power than before. "The Wrestler" runs along side it's star's real life; conversely, Mickey Rourke does everything he can to bring his fictional doppelganger, Randy "The Ram" Robinson, to life, and it is glorious. The fictional and the actual become mixed to the point of inseparability, and what we are left with is a film that has no predecessor, nor can it have a successor. It is an island in cinema could only have happened at this point in time with this exact actor at it's center.

Review: "This is England"

2009-02-20T22:29:00.000-08:00

A less insightful critique would label writer/director Shane Meadows' autobiographical film "This is England" (2006) as merely "English History X", but it is far more than that. The similarities are present, insofar as it is a skinhead-coming-of-age picture.

12-year-old Shaun (stellar newcomer Thomas Turgoose) has recently lost his father in the Falklands War. He wears bell-bottom pants that his father gave him, and is bullied for it at school. Being this is northern England circa 1983, he soon falls in with a group of older skinhead kids, whose friendliness greatly raises his self-esteem. This lonely adolescent finally has a clique to hang with; what follows (a shaved head and so on) is just a part of it and feels harmless enough.

Shaun and his new friends run and frolic through rundown suburban England, and a care-free time is had by all, until the gang's former leader, Combo (pictured), returns from prison. Lines are drawn, and the "real" skinheads emerge. Brought to explosive, charismatic life by Liverpudlian actor Stephen Graham, Combo is a frighteningly real yet altogether otherworldly and unholy creation, a malevolent force to rival Heath Ledger's Joker or Daniel Day-Lewis' Bill the Butcher.

Combo takes an immediate liking to Shaun, in whom he sees a younger version of himself. They seem made for each other; Shaun sees a father figure, and Combo is drawn to the boy's unadulterated, bully-induced rage and, probably, his moldable mind. It really is quite terrifying watching young Shaun slip obliviously into the depth of racism. Just the way "Paki bastard" bounds out of his mouth is horrifying, primarily because it is merely blind, child imitation.

Meadows appears to have quite a talent for crafting realistic scenes that are alternately tight and loose. The camera never calls attention to itself, and it shouldn't; this is an actors showcase. Witness nonactor Turgoose perform beyond most of the ensemble. His Shaun is a witty, angry and precocious kid careening toward manhood. He is defined equally by his temper and his insightful wit. In one scene he will unflinchingly engage Combo in fisticuffs, while in the next he will shoot off lines like, "What are you giving her porn for? She has her own nipples." It is a wise and surprising performance, especially from a 13-year-old novice thespian. The only one who comes close is Graham as Combo.

"This is England" is a brilliant film, which is at once soul-crushing and charmingly hilarious. See it and glimpse the dark side of The Clash's England.

Review: "Frozen River"

2009-02-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

"Frozen River" (2008) is the debut film from writer/director Courtney Hunt. It is a beaten-down tale of two working class mothers who turn to illegal immigrant smuggling to make ends meet when their men leave them (one through death, the other through a gambling addiction).

Ray (Melissa Leo, subtle, heartbreakingly convincing, and Oscar-nominated) has two dependent sons and an impending payment for a double wide (this is the American Dream, right? A double wide?). Her gambling-addicted husband has recently run off with a big chunk of their money when the film starts, and he never shows up again. Ray finds his abandon car at a Native American bingo hall, where she meets Lila (a fiery Misty Upham), a Mohawk woman who's involved in smuggling illegals through her tribe's territory, which straddles the US-Canada border. it is a chance encounter that sends both women down a life-altering path.

Set as it is at the northern border, this is a film about people pushed to the edge of the American experience, both geographically and regarding quality-of-life. Ray and her kids routinely have nothing more than popcorn and tang for dinner, and everyone lives in trailers. Everything is frozen.

The cinematography is sparse and documentary-like, perfectly capturing and complimenting the desolate snowscape. The performances are uniformly superb, but not showy. Hunt clearly knows this desperate world and it's denizens well, and she knows how to let her actors act.

"Frozen River" is not without flaws. being a debut, perhaps this is understandable. The story descends into melodrama towards the end, and there are some minor screen direction issues (I'll admit, this second item is nitpicking on my part). Overall, however, it is a worthwhile filmgoing experience, if you appreciate fine acting, and authentic American stories.

Review: "Killer of Sheep"

2009-02-14T22:51:00.000-08:00

"Killer of Sheep" (1977) was writer/director Charles Burnett's Master of Fine Arts thesis at UCLA's film school, and it is perhaps the grandest student film ever. Filmed on weekends for two years on location in the Watt's region of Southern Los Angeles, it initially smacks of the urban man's response to "The Last Picture Show" (1971), what with it's black-and-white depiction of bored American existential quandary. It is, however, it's own film.

Burnett knows intimately the world he lays bare here. Gaggles of children run and play amongst the city's decaying infrastructure, while the adults are either stupid, brutal, or, in the case of Stan (Henry G. Sanders), depressed and contemplative.

There is no tangible plot, but, of course, there is not meant to be. We are simply shown moments in the every days of these people, and from this tapestry we glean some kind of meaning. This inherent and full-bodied understanding of cinema is rare, least ways on display in a director's first feature.

The real world history of this film is somewhat storied. Completed in 1975 and first shown publicly in 1977, it was held up in legal tanglings for 30 years until the rights to the music could be purchased, and it was worth the wait. As with most great films, the juxtaposition of music and images is it's best element. The score is all pop and blues songs, the most effective being "This Bitter Earth", sung gloriously by Dinah Washington. It is first used when Stan dances with his wife, and it shows up again against images of Stan in the titular profession. Indeed, it is clear that the mechanized slaughtering of sheep is meant to be some kind of metaphor. The film will cut directly from crowded sheep milling about mindlessly right to a group of children giggling and play-fighting.

Aside from some (rather endearing) sound and editing stumbles (this is a student film), "Killer of Sheep" is something quite marvelous. Original, thoughtful, meditative, wry and original, it has landed at our 21st century feet like a cinematic time capsule from childhood neighbors we saw but never met.

Review: Irreversible

2009-02-10T23:10:00.000-08:00

Irreversible (2002) is a remarkable, expertly crafted, beautifully tragic film by writer/director Gaspar Noé. It is the story of lovers Alex (the glorious Monica Bellucci) and Marcus (Vincent Cassel, animalistic and unhinged), and the urchins of society that they encounter one night by happenstance. Unfolding in reverse, it could be considered France's answer to Memento (2000).

One aspect that viewers will notice immediately is the nearly nonstop camera. This may leave the audience feeling nauseous at first, but it becomes more relaxed as the film progresses (or regresses). The first half hour or so may be disorienting and claustrophobic, but as we slip further into the past, things become steadier and more pleasant.

The wandering camera is indeed a character unto itself, spiraling up, over, and around the actors to create a truly visceral and cinematic experience. The entire film is meant to look like one continuous, fluid shot, and this effect is pulled off wonderfully, without even an ounce of obvious pretension. It is dizzyingly chaotic in the opening scene, but the camera quickly finds a comfortable groove.

The plot of Irreversible cannot be discussed in detail without spoiling things. Discovering who these people are and how they come to do what they do is a big part of this cinematic experience.

It should be mentioned that there is a very graphic murder within the film's initial ten minutes (the end of the story). It is so graphic, in fact, that this reviewer (who doesn't flinch when faced with Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List) was forced to look away. Working backwards from this point, we are gradually shown the incidents that lead up to this crime. Also, be forewarned that nearly halfway through there happens a punishingly protracted scene of rape.

Though you may be disgusted at first, stay with this film to the end. You will be glad you did.

Review: "Deja Vu"

2009-02-09T17:35:00.000-08:00

"Deja Vu" (2006) is the third collaboration between leading man Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott (bother of Ridley). Washington (bringing his usual free-floating, dogged charisma) is an ATF agent investigating a terrorist attack on a ferry in New Orleans. He is quickly recruited, rather informally, by an experimental government agency that, through the use of many satellites, is able to look at anything that happened in the city exactly 12 hours and 4 days previous. They intend to use this technology to catch the perpetrator of the ferry attack. One drawback, however, is that they cannot rewind or record this sophisticated surveillance image (no viable explanation is given for this quite obvious dramatic devise, nor is it explained why they can only look at one thing at a time. Lazy writing on the part of Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio, the screenwriters [seeing as the latter's previous credits include the Pirates of the Caribbean films and 1998's atrocious Godzilla remake, I suppose this is not a surprise]). As such, the team (Washington is joined by Adam Goldberg and a criminally underused Val Kilmer) spends much of the first two thirds of the film spying on the last moments of Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), a woman who washed up burned and dead mysteriously up stream from the exploded ferry.

Scott is a capable enough director; while not an auteur by any means, he knows how to let actors act, and he can set a scene realistically and entertainingly. But where his films usually suffer (and this one is no exception) is in the editing; there are too many unnecessary cuts and unhinged camera moves. I suppose in this case it is meant to distract from some of the plot holes and dumb science, but it makes for an unwieldy and unfocused cinematic experience. It is hard to tell if Tony Scott truly lacks clear vision as a filmmaker, or if his craft is being buried in over-editing. Given his long career of similarly edited films, I'm guessing the former. An average shot length of 2 seconds coupled with too many uncalled for camera angles are the mark of a director who is bereft of cinematic confidence.

"Deja Vu" is very surface. It floats along pleasantly and stylishly enough, and it's fun if you try not to think about it too much, or if you get some friends together and use it as drinking game fodder. Denzel carries the whole adventure firmly and solely upon his shoulders, and he is more than capable.

The final third of the film slips surprisingly casually into a full out time travel picture, and it's enjoyable, if a bit derivative and simple. Sending characters back in time is always tricky, especially if you want the audience to take the whole premise seriously. Time travel being of course strictly theoretical in the real world, there are two or three fictional conventions that one must choose from and then adhere to. There is the divergent timeline, wherein our hero goes back in time and creates an alternate timeline through his actions. Then there is the predestination paradox, wherein our temporal sojourner is meant to go back in time and cause something that has already happened (see "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"). This film seems to osculate between the two, which is not acceptable. Time travel enthusiasts will be irritated, and the uninitiated will be confused. Note to filmmakers (and storytellers in general): if your story involves time travel, commit to it, and please know what you are getting yourself into.

Mini-Review/Discovery: "Signs" (short)

2009-02-03T20:16:00.000-08:00

I don't know what this is exactly or how it came about, but it proves that silent cinema is not dead. Yes, there are sound effects and some incidental dialogue, but what tell the story are the visuals. Everything we need to know is shown to us. We know exactly who this guy is as soon as we see him.

Another thing that makes the film so great is that it could take place in just about any city in the world. The story and themes are universal.

Though evidently filmed very recently, "Signs" recalls the earliest days of cinema. It is a Chaplinesque tale of trying to find happiness in the big, bad world. Our morose hero is like The Tramp squeezed into a cubical.

I must admit that, upon initial viewing, I was half convinced that this beautiful little short would turn out to only be an elaborate commercial. I suppose this is just residue from watching expensively produced Super Bowl ads this past weekend, but I was afraid that someone was going to crack open a Pepsi and smile at this camera.

Upon further consideration, I come to the realization that the only place in mainstream entertainment where essentially silent cinema persists is television advertising. It's kind of sad. I wonder now if there could be a resurgence of silent movies. Commercials, along with music videos I suppose, have acclimated a new generation to wordless, visual story telling.

I am going to track down the makers of this picture and return with more info.

Review: Blood Simple.

2009-01-31T22:10:00.000-08:00

Blood Simple. (1984) is the very first film by the prolific and talented filmmaking entity known as the Coen Brothers. It sets the framework for just about every film they have made hence, both cinematically and story-wise.

The story is the sort that has become the Coens' trademark; it is a simple tale that becomes complicated by misunderstanding and the inherent stupidity of the central characters. Ray (John Getz) and Abby (Frances McDormand, the quiet, sane center of the picture) are lovers, but Abby is married to Marty (Dan Hedaya, menacing and slightly Nixonesque), Ray's boss, who wants them dead, and hires a private eye (M. Emmett Walsh, in a role that would define his career) to off them. Some hesitation and panicking later, the wrong people are dead and things begin to spin gloriously off the rails.

Though made on a small budget by new filmmakers, Blood Simple. is masterfully shot and cut. The Coens show us only what needs be seen to tell the story. This is narrative filmmaking in it's purest form. The screen is dripping with dynamically lit close ups and insert shots. The virtuosity and economy of the cinematography and editing should be studied by any filmmaker, both aspirant and veteran.

Blood Simple. is like a Tom Waits song. It bases it's universe around the down and out, the muling, simple creature of the American West, just trying to make sense of a very confusing world.

Not about movies, but important

2009-01-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

Neko Case is very concerned about animals. The critically acclaimed singer and songwriter, whose last album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood has sold more than 200,000 copies in the U.S., informed us that she and her record label, ANTI-,would donate $5 for every blog that posts the song and $1 for every time a user of iLike adds the song to his or her profile.

Her new album (pictured) comes out in March.

Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2009-01-18T19:49:00.001-08:00

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) is the thinking man's Forrest Gump (indeed, the two films were penned by the same screenwriter, Eric Roth). It is a quietly tragic tale of one man's very unique journey through the 20th Century.

Directed to near perfection by David Fincher, the film is not only a well crafted fairy tale, but also a meditation on age and the unrelenting passage of time. Based upon a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Button follows the titular character from his birth as an elderly infant on through to his death in a similar state. This breadth of material explains the film's near 3-hour running time, and causes things to become a bit unwieldy now and then. There is a framing gimmick involving Daisy (Benjamin's love interest, played by Cate Blanchett with her usual elfin grace) upon her death bed, recounting to her daughter the tale of Benjamin Button. This element wouldn't be so bothersome if it didn't cut into the proper film so much; each time it does, it's like cold water dowsing a soothing flame. Apart from this, the film is nearly flawless.

Conjured with the same meticulous beauty as most other Fincher films, Button crafts a golden vision of the 20th century that is both nostalgic and authentically real. The camera lingers on just the right detail at just the right time; a character's expression or the cresting sunrise. The cinematography is immaculate and delicious.

Paramount among the films qualities, however, is the acting. Taraji P. Henson brings just the right amount of tenderness and wisdom to the role of Queenie, Benjamin's surrogate mother, to keep it from lapsing into caricature. Tilda Swinton is watchable as always as a British aristocrat who carries on a short affair with Benjamin.

On parallel double duty are Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt as fated lovers Daisy and Benjamin. This is their film; all other players, while skillful, are here only to shepherd these two through the story.

This film displays some of the finest age work in the history of cinema. The practical make up is subtle and convincing, but more importantly the performances are spot on. Blanchett especially manages to capture decrepit old age surprisingly well for a woman of only 39; her eyes take on just the right kind of weariness, her voice is wise and aching to just the right degree. She takes Daisy on a bittersweet journey from young adulthood to middle age right on through to death's door.

Similarly, Brad Pitt gives maybe his greatest (definitely his subtlest) performance. He is tasked with first giving a digital performance for the film's initial third. Much akin to the method that brought Gollum to life in The Lord of the Rings, Pitt had his face recorded by a computer and then pasted onto older and shorter actors to realize Benjamin as an elderly looking child. This might be the finest example yet of this very new technique, and it is very much the focus of first part of the film. But once Pitt takes on full acting responsibilities, providing not only his face but this whole, real body, Benjamin becomes the quiet little center that the noisy universe of the film revolves around. Pitt's work in this film confirms what I've suspected for awhile - that he is in fact a character actor in a leading man's body.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is cinematically melodic. It is not only the thinking man's Forrest Gump, it is the anti-Gump.

Review: "3:10 to Yuma" (2007)

2009-01-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

"3:10 to Yuma" (2007) might be the first real 21st-century Western. The performances are complex and pathological, the production design is gritty and realistic, and the cinematography is artistically kinetic. Granted, it is not the first Western to be made this century, but it feels like the first of it's ilk that is indicative of 00's film making.

It should be noted that I have never seen the original "3:10 to Yuma" (1957), so if you are looking for a comparison of the two films, this is not the place. The modern film is based not only on the 1957 screenplay, but also upon the 1953 short story.

Dan Evans (Christian Bale), is a wounded Civil War veteran living on the frontier with his wive and two kids. They owe more money than they have, and the current drought is worsening matters. Evans sets off into town to settle his debts when he crosses paths with Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), a middle aged gang leader who's looking to get out of the thug life. This is the second time the two of them encounter each other in as many hours, as Evans had stumbled upon Wade's latest stagecoach heist in progress earlier that day. Wade is arrested, and Evans volunteers to escort him to the prison train, the titular 3:10 to Yuma. And so the film becomes a road picture.

Among its many stellar qualities, the acting is far and away the best element of "3:10 to Yuma". Leading the pack is Crowe's reflective posse leader, a portrayal that is perhaps the most quietly naturalistic in any western that this reviewer has seen (I have not seen many). This is not a good guy; he shoots a member of his own crew to keep the rest in line, and he repeatedly tries to escape from captivity on the road to the train station. He is not, however, the villain of the piece (that role is filled insanely by Ben Foster [pictured]). Wade might have been a good man had life dealt him a different hand. There is a gentleness to him under all those years of crime in the wild west, and he is beginning to embrace it.

Playing exact opposites of the morality spectrum are Bale and Foster, the latter of whom dives into the role of Wade's fanatical right hand man with firebrand precision. His Charlie Prince is the very definition of loyalty taken over the edge of sanity into the chasm of deranged, single-minded evil. He wantonly shoots civilians, burns people alive, all in the name of freeing his beloved Ben Wade. Bale's Dan Evans, on the other hand, is a good man just trying provide for this family. His performance is gritty and real, as always, but he is only here to act as mirror for Crowe's Ben Wade.

Rounding out the main cast are Alan Tudyk as the town doctor, Logan Lerman as Evans' eldest son, and an unrecognizable Peter Fonda as a grizzled veteran bounty hunter. Like Bale, but to perhaps even more of an extent, they are only here to help tell Ben Wade's story. This really is Russell Crowe's film, and he rides off into the sunset with it.

Review: "Encounters at the End of the World"

2009-01-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

Antarctica. The last continent to be discovered by man is a strange and beautiful place, as "Encounters at the End of the World" (2007) shows so exceptionally. Directed by master documentarian Werner Herzog, this film continues his career long fascination with nature. The plot is simple: Herzog boards a giant military plane bound for Antarctica, and, upon arrival at it's largest settlement (which is not even a square mile in area), goes about capturing the day to day lives of some of the 1000 people who live there. These most southerly of travelers originate all over the place - America, Russia, Chile. One of them explains their presence this way: these people are not tied down, so they end up dropping to the bottom of the world - Antarctica.

Guided by Herzog's omnipresent, Bavarian-accented narration, the film quickly moves out of the camp and into the interior of the continent. We are first treated to a hilarious safety exercise involving white buckets as headgear, but then things start to soar. First we meet seal researchers, living and working in a tiny cabin upon a frozen lake. It is here the audience is treated to one of the most hauntingly beautiful sounds in all the natural world. Then it is off to visit some daring vulcanologists, and finally an introverted penguin researcher.

The cinematography is the definition of gorgeous (especially the underwater footage), and the multicultural soundtrack is serene and perfectly complimentary to the images.

"Encounters at the End of the World" is failed by mere words. It must be seen to be fully understood. In many of Werner Herzog's films, there is an underlying sense that the filmmaker is searching for something. I don't know if he found it with this film, but he comes closer than ever before.

TV Review: "24 - four hour premiere: part 1"

2009-01-12T19:18:00.000-08:00

Holy shit!!! Ok, ok, ok. Alright. So, the opening scene, I mean the very first thing we see in the premiere episode of the long awaited 7th season of "24", is this shluby looking guy driving young daughter somewhere, I don't know where. But they're just having innocent father-daughter time when (cut to an angle out the side window) they get freakin' t-boned by some big, black van! And the guy is like "oh my god, my innocent little daughter! Are you okay?!" and she's like "AHHHH!!! DADDY!!!". And then another big, black van hits them from behind! At, like, 50 mph! and the girl is like "OMG, how am I still alive?!" And then these terrorist-y looking dudes jump out of the vans and snatch the dad, and he's like "oh snap, I'm being fuckin' kidnapped! This must be because I am the only person on the planet who knows how to reprogram some gadget that protects the entire power grid, air traffic control grid, and defense grid for the United States!!"

While this is going down, Jack Bauer (who is Jesus wrapped in Batman couched within ten thousand Supermans) is at the capitol taking some shit from some jack-off senator (who is probably a liberal. Fucking liberals.) So this guy is like "Mr. Bauer, you tortured this one terrorst, like, a million years ago. Don't feel bad about this?" And Jack just looks at him and says "No. I saved people by torturing that towelhead." And pinko senator is like "but you hurt that guy real good." But then Agent Renee Walker (pictured), the greatest human female every created, comes in and is like "I need Jack Bauer", and Jack is like "thank Me, an excuse to leave." So he books it with Agent Super Fox. "Suck it, Congress!"

So they go back to the FBI office, which is basically a stand in for the defunct CTU, and Agent Goddess Face says to Jack "your old buddy Tony Almeida, who you thought was dead, is not only alive but also a terrorist." And Jack is like "I don't believe any part of what you just said." But then Agent Fire Freckles is like, "Ya, rly. See, here's a picture of him." And Jack looks at he's like "No way! He even has the menacing terrorist face and everything." And Agent Thunder Thighs is like "You help us catch him now?" and he's like "Sure. My life is pretty empty anyways."

Meanwhile at the White House, the new lady president is meeting with her peeps, and she's like "Oh shit, there's this crazy dictator in some fake African country the writers made up, and he's genociding all these people. We gotta stop him." And everyone is like "Okay", except for this one guy, but then the president is like "Agree with me or you fired," and then he says okay, too. Also, there's the obligatory presidential family drama that has nothing to do with the rest of the story. What. Ever.

So Jack and Agent Sunset Eyes go to talk (just talk) to this guy that might be supplying Terrorist Tony (Jack still can't quite fucking believe it). I don't want to spoil anything else from this point on, but there is terror in the skies, federal agent infighting (the best kind of infighting), and Jack Bauer running around shooting at things with Agent Amber Hair Hot Stuff.

Only two episodes in, and this is already way better than that shitty season 6.

Review: "Chaplin"

2009-01-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

I must make it known from the outset that I have a weakness for films about film making. "Chaplin" (1992)is one of these. As the title suggests, it is the life story of Charlie Chaplin, perhaps the most famous star of the silent film era.

We begin, naturally, at the beginning. Chaplin is a small child living in London's East End in the 1890's, enduring quite the Dickensian existence. His single mother just barely supports him and his older brother with vaudeville work, although it quickly becomes clear that young Charlie is far more talented in this arena than his she. Fast forward several years, and Charlie is making a name for himself on the London vaudeville stage after a painful episode wherein he must commit his mother to an insane asylum. Chaplin is quickly noticed by a producer from Hollywood, and he is invited to California. It is at a small movie studio where he discovers the fledgling form of magic that is film making.

Far and away the best aspect of "Chaplin" is Robert Downey Jr.'s immersive and charismatic performance as the title character. His cockney accent is spot on (as far as this American can tell), and he perfectly captures Chaplin's onscreen persona. He is truly The Tramp incarnate.

The film is competently, if not inspirationally, directed by Lord Richard Attenborough, who was also responsible for the biopic "Gandhi, but most people will know him as the Dinosaur entrepreneur in "Jurassic Park". Lord Attenborough's real strength as a director seems to be coaxing authentic yet entertaining performances from his actors, a talent that is on full display here.

As with many biopics, especially those that cover the entire breadth of a person's life, "Chaplin" lacks a real clean focus, other than, of course, Chaplin's life. There are certain threads that weave throughout the picture, such as his affairs with and marriages to much younger women, and J. Edgar Hoover's quest to prove Chaplin to be a communist. The film is made up of a number of quite insightful and entertaining moments (not the least of which involve Chaplin on the sets of his films), but it never really adds up to anything in the end. I speak of the cinematic sense of an end, in that the conclusion of the film deposits us somewhere we were not when the thing began.

There is a framing gimmick that all these scenes are couched within, which takes the form of an elderly Charlie Chaplin revising his memoirs with his editor. This only serves to take us out of the film, but it endeared me to the director somewhat when I discovered that this gimmick and the related ending were foisted upon him at the last minute by the backers.

I recommend "Chaplin" to fan's of: biopics, Robert Downey Jr., period pieces, or anyone with an interest in film making and/or film history. Perhaps the reason I have a special affinity for films about film making, especially those concerned with the start of the industry, is that they have as their subject the very thing to which they owe their existence.

Review: "Bound for Glory"

2009-01-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

"Bound for Glory" (1976) follows Woody Guthrie (an uncanny and beautifully understated David Carradine) as he rides the rails, from his home in Texas, to California in 1936. He has left his wife and children behind in search of better fortunes out west, but, while he manages to escape the Dust Bowl, he cannot elude the Great Depression.

Rewinding just a bit, our story starts out in northern Texas, in a very small, dust ravaged town. Woody spends his days picking at his guitar, writing songs, and occasionally making a few dollars here and there painting signs. This first section of the film floats by quietly, and serves to show a small town boy who will soon transform into the voice of the working man. He is friendly and helpful to everyone he meets, simply by his nature. This, and the music that just drips out of him like a leaky fosset, are the first two ingredients that help turn Woody Guthrie the man into Woody Guthrie the folk hero.

The film, directed by Hal Ashby, feels like a documentary, what with the handheld, under lit camerawork and no evident makeup upon the actors' faces. It is in fact quite a tome for Steadicam enthusiasts, as it contains some brilliant examples of the technology when it was still in it's fetal stages. There are sustained tracking shots following Woody thro

ugh shanty towns, that lend themselves to the documentarian aesthetic of the picture. Some of the most exhilarating single shots depict our hero jumping onto and off of moving trains, where it is also clear that Carradine did his own stunt work.

Shot on location in San Fernando Valley, California, "Bound for Glory" is perhaps one of the most realistic and authentic films about the Great Depression, or any era. It is certainly about this period in American history just as much as, if not more than, the formation of a famous musician. Indeed, we are taken on a tour of the era, with Woody Guthrie as our surrogate. Yes, some of the standard music biopic drama does crop up, but the film merely glides over these scenes, acknowledging them, while making clear that this man's life is not the focus, it is instead what he saw.

This film would make a good double bill with "The Motorcycle Diaries" (2004), as both tell the story of how a 20th century icon was shaped by bearing witn

ess to the suffering of his people.

"Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet."

2008-12-18T23:29:00.000-08:00

I have begun writing a spec script for my cinematic vision of Frank Herbert's "Dune". As most Dunatics are aware, the previous film version of the book failed, and the television venture was even more disastrous. Why is this? Is the novel simply unfilmable? No. It is my belief that a talented filmmaker can bring any source material to cinematic life. The problem with the film and tv interpretations of "Dune" is not unfaithfulness to the book, but rather the quality of filmmaking on display. David Lynch's film from the 1980's is well made but inaccessible, while the tv miniseries is just plain bad.

I have just recently read the book, so my script should be finished in 2 months at most. I definitely want to get it out there before the ball starts rolling on another hollywood stab at "Dune". Peter Berg is tentatively lined up to direct this time around. Berg is the mastermind behind the recent Will Smith classic "Hancock", wherein Smith plays a deadbeat super hero who flies around drunk. I think it won something like 800 Oscars.

I shall post my spec script on this blog when I finish it.

Review: "Wild At Heart"

2008-12-12T22:56:00.000-08:00

"Wild at Heart", written for the screen and directed by David Lynch, is the middle chapter in what I feel is a thematic trilogy that begins with "Blue Velvet" (1986), and ends with "Lost Highway" (1997), both also by Lynch. They do not share the same characters or anything literal like that, but all three have the same feel, and not just because they are made by the same director. Out of all of Lynch's work, these films just seem to fit together nicely.

"Wild at Heart" stars the incomparable Laura Dern as Lula, a passionate, rebellious young woman who, despite fiery protestation from her mother (pushed over the top by Diane Ladd), sets off across the southern United States with her recently paroled boyfriend named Sailor (Nicholas Cage, playing a cross between Elvis Presley and Brad Pitt's character from "Kalifornia" ), in search of... something, it's never really made clear. Perhaps their goal is to fornicate in every state. What ever it is their up to, Lula's mother gets in touch with a former lover who might be a mob boss, and they send some goons down Texas way to shoot Sailor in the brain. In fact, the reason sailor was in prison was for killing a previous hit man that Lula's mother had sent after him.

So Lula and Sailor make their way from the Carolinas to New Orleans to San Antonio, screwing in every hotel along the way and stopping on desolate stretches of highway to loudly declare their love for each other. And this is essentially what fills up most of the film's running time. This and a tiresome multitude of extreme close ups of cigarettes being lit. The action does pick up a bit at the end, and its good. This film is actually excellent when things are happening. The brutal, bloody fight right at the beginning, and the heist at the end (initiated by a deranged-and-loving-it Willem Dafoe) are great, but in between is just a bunch of fucking and fake southern accents.

"Wild at Heart" is really only for diehard Lynch enthusiasts, or anyone who's wanted to see what would happen if you took Elvis, "Natural Born Killers", and the freakin' Wizard of Oz, mixed them together in David Lynch's head, and then poured the resulting concoction onto a movie screen.