Babel

Alejandro González Iñárritu, USA / Mexico, 2006
2.5 out of 4 stars

I liked this film, but it didn’t really work and it was not a success. The subject of the film is an attack upon two American tourists, played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, but neither actor is really the “star” of the piece; if anything, the film revolves around them while marginalizing them as subjects, in order to focus more on subjects that are more typically marginalized; in this case, families in Morocco, Mexico, and Japan who go through trauma as a result of what has happened. Actually, scratch Japan off that list, because the story that takes place there, while arresting, has only a shallow connection at best to the rest of the story. This would be fine, were it not that the other stories are very closely interconnected, and that there doesn’t even seem to be a thematic connection in this case.

I think that there is a clear and useful message in this film, and I do like how Iñárritu showcases the people on the outskirts that suffer as a result of the trials of the privileged, rather than making the white folks the POV characters, as would occur in a single-narrative film. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but feel like he was making all these stories as one film because no one would give him funding for any one of them by itself; I would think that this has to be the explanation for the Japan story, but I have heard that at least one of his earlier films is a bit like this as well, although not on such an international scale. I do think that there needs to be some real questions asked as to whether this hodgepodge narrative, fused with the Hollywood “message” picture, really works, especially as it is becoming an annual occurrence.

Source: Paramount 35mm print
30 December, 4:10 PM

Yi yi

Edward Yang, Taiwan / Japan, 2000
3 out of 4 stars

I found it hard to get a handle on this film, but ultimately, I found it to be rewarding and worthwhile. Being that it is almost three hours long, Yi yi is able to be a rather leisurely portrait of a Taipei family whose members are going through a series of lowkey personal crises. Although there really aren't that many main characters, it is hard to keep everyone straight at first, because you don't know who is who and who is important, and because Edward Yang shoots most of this movie in wide angle shots that, at least on video, don't exactly help the viewer discern one person from another.

Why is this movie worth watching, then? It definitely has a good organic, naturalistic feel, and it is free of much of the hysteria and melodrama one has regrettably come to expect from a film about a semi-dysfunctional family. It also features one of the better child performances I've seen in a while on the part of the 8-year-old son who develops an interest in photography. It seems to be a film about patience, both in what it's about and in how it was made, and overall if you are able to be patient, I think you'll find this family worth spending almost three hours with.

Source: Image DVD
21 December, 8:15 PM

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Danny Leiner, USA / Canada / Germany, 2004
3.5 out of 4 stars

Despite all the hype and positive comments from friends, I ignored this film for a while due to my prejudice against what I refer to as "grossout comedies." However, I should have listened. This film is actually quite groundbreaking in that it manages to destroy the assorted "model minority" and "perpetual foreigner" stereotypes that are the plague of Asian Americans, specifically young men in this case, in an entirely "conventional," mainstream setting, through the vehicle of the stoner buddy comedy, which, even if you don't enjoy this kind of film all that much, you have to admire the project. I find it fascinating that the whole thing was written by a couple of apparently Jewish (I'm just guessing from the names here, but they did insert a doppelganger stoner buddy pair that is more overtly Jewish) writers, who apparently understood representation enough to feel like they wanted to do write by their Asian college buddies (in the DVD they say that there is even a real Harold Lee).

Of course, this film could provide all sorts of great comedy and yet ultimately work more against its purpose if it turned out not to be funny. Luckily this is not the case, although i suppose it's impossible for me to know if I would have found it less funny if I wasn't the kind of viewer to appreciate "low" comedy better because of its "political" content. John Cho and Kal Penn are certainly very likeable though, and the fairly traditional quest structure of the plot is largely effective in maintaining our interest while serving as a vehicle for jokes and character development. The only real problem with the film (aside from a few moments that are perhaps a tad bit overkill, although overall this movie fell short of my "grossout threshold") was the low budget, which occasionally required the director to stage an instant night-to-day (and vice versa) transition, something that I've never seen before, at least not so glaring as it was here!

Source: Warner DVD
20 December, 8:42 PM

Stranger Than Fiction

Marc Forster, USA, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

The genre or convention known as "metafiction" usually involves a play within a play, a novel within a novel, and so on, but I imagine this work is not the only example of a meta device in which the internal work is of a different medium; in this case, it's a novel within a film. It's not just any novel, however; novelist Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is a producer of modern "literature" (you know, the stuff no one reads) and Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is her main character, who, as you probably know from the trailer, has started to hear her narration in his head.

There are of course various pitfalls to be avoided in making a film like this. The filmmakers wisely decide to avoid explaining how any of this can be possible, and they avoid prolonged scenes in which people simply tell Harold how crazy he must be. The other concern, however, is whether a Hollywood screenwriter can convince us that the "novel" would in fact be a serious, worthwhile piece of literature, which is something I felt skeptical about when I saw the ads for the film.

I think, overall, that the conceit works. To some extent, you really do wonder how great a novel this would be, or whether it's only great because they tell you that it is, but the glimpses we get do suggest a meaningful creative process, and this is what the film is about, but not in a way that is overly derivative of films about filmmaking such as Adapatation.

Finally, the film could have easily floundered on the ending, and for a short while I was convinced that it had. However, the filmmakers really show that they have earned their ending, which is really the most important thing, and so I felt that it actually gave more meaning to the film than I would have guessed. I'll conclude by saying that Dustin Hoffman's performance is quite entertaining, and Will Ferrell, while not exactly vibrant, is a convincing everyman.

Source: Sony 35mm print
18 December, 7:15 PM

The Maltese Falcon

John Huston, USA, 1941
3.5 out of 4 stars

Having done a unit on Walter Mosely’s novel Devil in a Blue Dress, I showed my composition students this film so that they could get a handle on the more “archetypal” noir drama and therefore have something to compare the novel to. I knew I was in for some trouble, though, when Miles Archer was shot very early into the film, and most of the class started cackling at the slight whiff of cheese. I understand that sometimes it’s hard to relate to “old” film, but I was frustrated because I knew that they were consciously distancing themselves, rather than trying to bridge the gap and appreciate the film.

As for me, well this was my second time watching it, and I think it’s been more colored by the articles I’ve read in between (and right after this viewing). Mary Astor really does suck, this is even more apparent after watching Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep; granted, that’s an unfair comparison considering that Bacall’s character has agency and is likeable, but the gap between them is apparent enough even so. Astor just doesn’t seem like she would inspire any real passion, and she just doesn’t seem capable of leading all these men to their demise. The movie mostly survives on Bogart’s attitude, as well as the unique fact that you can actually follow the plot (Dashiell Hammett, unlike Raymond Chandler, has clearly accounted for the deaths of each of his characters). The sex is oblique thanks to the Hays Code, but this doesn’t detract too much. The best part, finally, is the ending; my reading of it may be unique (and that’s sort of the point), but I see it as a tragedy of morals, which (at least when I read the book, before even seeing the film) surprised me greatly.

Source: Warner special edition DVD
4 December, 9:13 AM

A Prairie Home Companion

Robert Altman, USA, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

First, I want to let you folks know that I did not check this DVD out because the director had just passed away; actually, it’s just been sitting in its Netflix envelope on top of my player for a horrendously long time.

As for the film itself, this is an interesting sort of mood piece in which the main character (playing himself, from a screenplay that he himself wrote) shows himself to be deeply flawed, and yet ultimately does not experience any sort of epiphany whatsoever. That said, I’m not sure that Garrison Keillor’s semi-autobiographical depiction of himself (as “GK”) is even the main character, as the weight is pretty well spread around for what is a very good ensemble cast.

This, however, does not come as a surprise. While I don’t want to over-simplify things, much of Altman’s work consisted of ensemble pieces in which events unfolded in a somewhat free-form fashion, indicated especially by his penchant for overlapping dialog… this can be maddening for someone like me who likes to understand every word that is spoken, but I’ve still seen six of his films, counting this one. On the other hand, we have Keillor’s show, witty at times, but also repetitive and a bit too precious, but nonetheless, something I sorta grew up on.

The reason, I think, that I liked this film better than some of Altman’s critical followers is that it was like the “powers combined” of two artists whom I had some affinity for, but who also have frustrated me on more than one occasion. Because this film tries to capture the laconic, Minnesota ethos, I don’t feel like I’m missing some crucial plot point when I can’t understand a piece of dialogue. And Keillor’s screenplay gamely takes some shots at his tendancy to repeat himself and at some of the excesses of the show. I don’t know that I recommend this or that I can justify my fairly-high rating, but I certainly enjoyed it. Finally, I liked the “angel of death” bit because it grafted just the right amount of plot onto this self-consciously fictionalized slice-of-life piece. As someone pointed out, everyone will be looking at this film through the lens of Altman’s death, but when it comes down to it, I think it was a good note for him to go out on.

Source: Warner DVD
25 November, 3:04 PM

Casino Royale

Martin Campbell, UK / Germany / Czech Republic / USA, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

An astonishingly leisurely film, one that sets the right tone, but does drag a bit at the end due to some interesting plot choices. Actually, for a film that runs about two and a half hours, there is surprisingly little plot to go around. The bad guy has something to do with terrorism (a surprisingly well-handled update to Ian Fleming’s old novel), and the way to defeat him, strangely, is to beat him in Texas Hold ‘em. I felt quite fortunate that I’d become familiar with the game over the last few months, for had I still been clueless about it, the whole movie might have failed for me (but it’s hard to be sure of these things).

I did think that toning down the whole scifi excesses of the last couple of films was a good call on the part of the producers, as James Bond’s adventurers should not be based on the same sort of CGI one-upmanship that governs the rest of the action film marketplace. Surprisingly, another thing that has been toned down is the womanizing; I’m not the first one to observe this, but it seems like Daniel Craig (criticized, for whatever reason, by various heterosexual males I know for not being attractive enough) himself is more objectified by the film than his female costars.

The bit I really have the most problem with, or at least, the bit that seemed the strangest to me, was the ending, and for that, I had better keep quiet. I will just say that I’m glad to hear there will be more of a continuation sequel. It’s not as if events just break-off in mid scene, but there’s something unsatisfying about how this film resolves itself.

Source: Sony 35mm print
24 November, 6:30 PM

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Larry Charles, USA, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

It’s probably too late for this particular piece of advice, but if you plan on seeing this film, stop reading the articles and whatever you do, do not watch that special on Comedy Central… and while you’re at it, you probably shouldn’t watch any more of Da Ali G Show. For my part, I’ve only seen some of the special and some of the show, but I’ve definitely read too many articles. That said, this film was definitely still hilarious much of the time, but I got a very strong déjà vu feeling during many of the scenes. That’s mostly the fault of the overactive hype machine (and the endless commentaries invited by the nature of the film), but what my friend says, that some of the gags repeated are repeated from the televised Borat segments, is a little harder to forgive, if true.

I don’t know if it was the déjà vu, the reactionary commentary I read a few days ago, or what, but I wasn’t really that shocked at the behavior of the “average Americans” Borat encounters during this film. I will say that my blasé reaction wasn’t so much reactionary as it was a cynical failure to be surprised. Yes, of course many of the people you meet here will either condone or openly espouse racism… it’s horrific (and, yes, often hilarious) but not, to me, surprising. There’s also a tension in this movie as to what the real goals are of those who made it. A scene near the end with some frat boys provides some of the more hateful comments made by the drunken college students, but the scene isn’t particularly funny. Something like Borat really doesn’t need to be made without the much-needed subversive angle, yet the subversive and the amusing aren’t always the same thing. Sometimes, as the commentary I was reading pointed out, it is quite amazing how far Borat has to go to rile people up, and it’s times like these that the satire seems to fail. A very strange film (and one with, it must be said, a genuinely pornographic and horrific scene).

Source: Fox 35mm print
18 November, 7:10 PM

The Marriage of Maria Braun

(Die Ehe der Maria Braun)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1979
4 out of 4 stars

The other film I saw by R.W. Fassbinder, one of those famous European “arty” directors, demanded a lot more of the viewer (but was still good), but this is good in a different way. I’ve seen it described as an “epic” and there’s definitely a touch of bombast here. The movie is about a young woman who marries a soldier very near the end of the war, and then finds increasingly compromising ways to make do when, after the war ends, his return proves increasingly unlikely. That is to say, she never stops believing he’ll come back, but if anything, it’s her soul that becomes compromised even though she herself, materially, seems to be thriving.

Fassbinder clearly had a problem with the complacency of his postwar Germany, and here he does an excellent job of levying his critique against the society in general through the depiction of this one opportunistic woman. Lest this sound like some kind of misogynist scapegoating, let me be clear that the men don’t exactly come off clean either. Maria doesn’t allow herself to be exploited, but ultimately, she exploits herself, and Hanna Schygulla turns in an excellent performance while bringing this across to the viewer. The film is also visually stunning, vibrant but also suggesting decay, and the plot is very compelling. Although there are plenty of undertones, it doesn’t necessarily have the air of an “art film” in its accessibility (although I may be wrong).

Source: Home Vision DVD
18 November, 10:28 AM

The Prestige

Christopher Nolan, USA / UK, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

This was a very compelling, and at times (especially near the end), quite disturbing tale about revenge and male posturing. As you may have heard, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play two turn-of-the-century stage magicians that develop an implacable hatred for each other that manifests itself in a cycle of increasingly worsening reprisals. It’s definitely an odd piece for multiplex fare, not just because of the subject matter (which improbably, is quite similar to that of The Illusionist and to a lesser degree, Scoop), but particularly because neither man is the protagonist; although I do think that one of them definitely comes off as “more evil” after the final reveal, I’m sure others would disagree. It’s also a beautifully shot film, and quite riveting throughout all its twists, turns, and temporal shifts… basically everything you should expect from Christopher Nolan.

Source: Buena Vista 35mm print
4 November, 10:20 PM

Marie Antoinette

Sofia Coppola, France / USA / Japan, 2006
2.5 out of 4 stars

It’s certainly very pretty, but it’s hard to know what to think about the film besides that. I do have to admit that I was a little tired going into it, but it did seem rather long despite only being two hours. It also tends to be a film with long stretches of inactivity and then a large number of key events telescoped, by shorthand, into a few brief scene; while I don’t doubt that this was deliberate, it makes for a strange viewing experience. It’s also hard not to shake the feeling that Kirsten Dunst just isn’t up for it, even when “it” is just a party girl from 300 years ago (in fact, I’m not sure that being shallow helps one play a shallow character, and the point of the Marie character here does seem to be that she didn’t start out shallow). After a while, it seems like too much of an uphill battle to continually try to take these “it-girls,” selected for some level of stardom solely based on looks, and thrust them into a leading role in an arty pic, hoping that they will rise to the occasion. Why don’t we just take a cue from the Brits and actually garner actresses for the A-list that can act really damn well?? As it is, there are hardly any such persons to turn to when a director like Sofia Coppola needs to get a marketable star for a piece like this. I’m not convinced that a “weightier” actress would have saved this, but it would have at least helped.

Source: Sony 35mm print
29 October, 9:35 PM

United 93

Paul Greengrass, UK / France / USA, 2006
4 out 4 stars

When filmmakers promise me “realism” and “accuracy,” I usually have low expectations, as the notion of “reality” is simultaneously over-valued and endlessly travestied in modern culture. Jerky camera movements are supposed to reassure the audience that they’re not witnessing something that’s too “Hollywood,” as if we should trust something that deliberately seeks to provoke nausea while evoking little more than The Real World. Meanwhile, fidelity to minute details can often lead directly to an unwillingness or refusal to convey any real truth about the events at hand.

Miraculously, Paul Greengrass has avoided all of these pitfalls to create an astonishingly worthwhile piece about the America-changing trauma that was, and wasn’t. Of course, he avoids making the “let’s roll” guy into Rambo, something that would be terrifying to me but perhaps gratifying to many others, yet at the same time, his depiction of a largely helpless assortment of people (in the air and on the ground) who mostly react to whatever confronts them rather than decisively, out of some grander ideology.

We see all the times the dots should have been connected, and we even see the willingness of people in different offices to connect them, and yet we see how completely awry everything went. Most chilling of all, and still unfortunately relevant when one thinks about Katrina, is the reminder that TimeWarner (through CNN) is so much better equipped and aware of crucial goings-on then that government we pay so much for (and think how incompetent the news channels are!). What’s frightening about this film is that it is a quite real take on a national crisis that has been compared to Hollywood film catastrophes with unsettling frequency; by showing us a certainly mundane terror behind the whole thing, Greengrass actually takes some of the Hollywood out of it.

Source: Universal DVD
20 October, 10:07 PM

The Departed

Martin Scorsese, USA, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

I’m not even sure about the extent to which people are aware that Scorsese’s latest is a remake of a 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, a film I only saw last year. My awareness of the original certainly made for a different viewing experience than that of my peers, as I couldn’t help but spend much of the screen time marveling over how much of the story had made it into the new film.

There are certainly, however, differences worth talking about, which therefore make the movie worth watching. The performances are all stellar, and Jack Nicholson’s in particular outshines his predecessor, Eric Tsang. The overall feel is certainly grittier; I hesitate to use the word “realistic,” but the original was a lot slicker and shinier while this one is almost hyper realistic in its high levels of obscene language and blood-spattering (making allowances for the fact that a gunshot will always be more impressive on the big screen, at least until I can afford surround sound at home!). Overall, this film is a bit more organic, and it’s interesting to see the two different approaches.

Finally, Scorsese and his screenwriter, William Monahan, develop the background at the beginning more thoroughly, and add a coda to the film’s ending that is perhaps the only real departure from the plot of the original. Both are quite dark conclusions in different ways, which in itself is interesting. I suppose I would recommend that you watch the original first, if only because I am a bit worried that you might think less of the original if you saw it after the remake! I’d have to watch Infernal Affairs again, but my feeling right now is that Scorsese put a bit more meat on its bones in his version.

Source: Warner 35mm print
20 October, 10:15 PM

Closer

Mike Nichols, USA, 2004
3.5 out of 4 stars

Although I’m sure I’ve read it somewhere, I don’t think I needed to be told that this was a film adaptation of a play. The film only contains four characters, and it is composed of a finite number of lengthy, talky scenes. Just because it’s obvious, however, doesn’t mean that this is a bad adaptation; in fact, it’s quite the opposite, as I felt that Mike Nichols found a very good balance of cinematic and theatrical sensibilities in this piece.

The stagey origins of this film comes out is through the deliberately artificial quality of some or much of the dialogue. The characters often speak to each other in various series of incisive, if improbable, questions and answers. Julia Roberts is the weakest link, to a point, but overall the actors manage to make this style work, and they therefore make the film possible. As for the plot, I’m not sure if I took it as seriously as I was supposed to; for instance, was I really supposed to take the online sex chat as comedy? I think the piece does succeed in being emotionally involving and engaging, nonetheless, and I suspect, speaking as a lover of the theater, that this play probably works better on screen, with the breathing room it gets through the sets, the outdoors, and Nichols’ camera angles. On a stage, it seems like it could become stultifying.

Source: Sony DVD
19 October, 10:22 PM

Secrets & Lies

Mike Leigh, UK / France, 1996
Two and a half stars

I felt really absorbed by this film for most of its running time. It seemed to be a really chilling display of emotional squalor, like the director was really dragging me through the mud of human misery, and all this despite the fact that most of the characters are fairly mediocre in their tragic-ness. While I realize that that is the point, ultimately this film can only disappoint by not really going for the jugular. It’s really almost like the director said, “oh, wouldn’t it be interesting and challenging if this happened” and then went ahead and put it on screen without trying that hard to make it interesting. Furthermore, there is a kind of optimism that creeps in towards the end that complete undermines the entire tone of the film up until that point, making one wonder what good the film is if not as some kind of coherent philosophical viewpoint. I think the performances are good – Brenda Blethyn is hard to listen to, but then, that helps us understand why some of her relatives are so hard on her – but they are not really used towards some greater purpose. The whole affair is largely underwhelming.

Source: Fox DVD
16 October, 10:22 PM

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Adam McKay, USA, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

I’m not a fan of what I have been known to call, in full elitist mode, “dumb comedy,” so I was immensely surprised at how much I enjoyed this film. I know he’s certainly made some dreck, but it may be that I simply haven’t given Will Ferrell enough of a chance before now; this is actually the first Ferrell vehicle I’ve ever seen!

In truth, this movie isn’t dumb at all. Ferrell and McKay present us with a wealth of incisive observations about modern bourgeois American culture and its consumerist, religious, and hyper-masculinist affectations by depicting the most unembarrassed manifestations of these phenomena, the so-called “red staters,” but by showing the real heart and humanity of these characters, and by refraining from letting their “blue” counterparts off the hook, they manage to do it without any of the costal elitism that I myself find hard to avoid at times.

It would be disingenuous for me to say, “ideological critiques aside, the movie is extremely funny.” It is, in fact, the funniest movie of 2006 that I’ve seen, but the humor is definitely tied up in that business. I appreciate that Ferrell surrounds himself with a very strong cast, especially the hillarious Sacha Baron Cohen as his gay French rival. Cohen seems to be setting himself up as the reincarnation of Peter Sellers (in a good way), and his portrayal surprised me especially for not being particularly hateful (allowing for the possibility that people who are actually gay and/or French might disagree). I don’t know if it’s reasonable to say that the characters are not caricatures, but the film does avoid the cheap trick of trying to elicit laughs from humorless, tired stereotypes alone, and most of the characters have life to them; they aren’t merely foils for Farrell’s wackiness.

As a side note, I have discovered a bargain theater in Moreno Valley at which evening screenings are merely $4! My friend and I were alone in the audience, in front of a very large screen. We suspect they might not even have started the film if no one showed up. The main downside was that the film seemed to be out of focus the entire time, which was hard on my eyes (it’s also possible that the print is just worn out, I suppose).

Source: Sony 35mm print
13 October, 9:35 PM

Fearless

(Huo Yuanjia)
Ronny Yu, China / Hong Kong / Japan, 2006
2 out of 4 stars

This film has some interesting things to say about provincialism and nationalism, seeing as how it depicts its hero as struggling to “progress” from the former to the latter.” The message is quite clear and not at all muddled, but the only problem is a lack of balance in the depiction of his progression. There’s a lot of time spent on his bad old days in Tianjin (which at least contains many entertaining fight scenes), but when he starts having a change of heart, it leads to this fairly random change in ideology that takes place almost concurrently with his growing moral conscience, but there’s no real coherent connection made there. Instead, we see him profoundly inspired and influenced by that most tired of outmoded film clichés, the newsboy yelling out the plot points, even crucial decisions by the protagonist.

Some complained that Hero was a propaganda piece for Chinese nationalism (at the exepense of, say, Tibet, Xinjian or even Taiwan), but if it was, at least it was a good one. This film wants to convey some image of virtuos nationalism, but it seems like they couldn’t find a way to make it worth watching, to actually make the propaganda work, so the director just starts barreling through seemingly important events in his hero’s life after all the pointless-but-fun fights are over. At least Jet Li finally gets the chance to strike a literal blow against European imperialism by fighting white folks with Western fighting styles, although once again, the final fight is against a Japanese martial artist (the film hedges in an interesting matter regarding the Japanese, while it’s fairly non-committal about the Europeans). His acting sucks in this one though, and you may think that’s stating the obvious, but he showed much more pathos in the recent Unleashed, and his rarely-seen carefree persona was much more appealing in the earlier Swordsman II, so I thought it was worth noting.

Source: Universal 35mm print
8 October, 7:05 PM

After Life

(Wandafuru raifu)
Kore-eda Hirokazu, Japan, 1998
3 out of 4 stars

What starts out as a seemingly obscure philosophical exercise turns out to have an actual plot to it. This isn’t that surprising when you consider that a film about people in an afterlife waystation, compelled to choose one memory to live with for eternity, contains some ideas that could easily be forged into a Hollywood remake (violating the sprit or the original, naturally). The insertion of some human interest, mostly in the final third of the film, adds some poignancy to the proceedings, which I appreciated. I couldn’t help but wish that Kore-eda could have had just a slightly higher budget, though… basically, the actors have to keep saying they’re halfway to the afterlife until the audience decides to believe them, as there’s not much, visually, to back them up. There are also some weird moments, like when the heroine ventures out into the city, that had me wondering what we were supposed to be seeing, actually. This isn’t to suggest that there is nothing here visually, as the scenes where they film the chosen memories are creatively-depicted. Overall, this is a sedate film that does ask the viewer to do a certain amount of work, for good or ill. It’s worth a viewing, but it doesn’t entirely draw you in or carry you along.

Source: New Yorker DVD
4 October, 11:46 PM

The Proposition

John Hillcoat, Australia / UK, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

Like any good western, this film is about bringing “civilization” to those who are uninterested in it, but ambiguity sets in as the villains seem almost like the victims at the beginning, and when they reveal themselves later to be far from harmless, we find ourselves unsure how the film wants us to regard the idea of civilization… and that seems to be the point of it all. The main character in the film turns out to be the lawman (an capital in the imperial army though, not a sheriff) who proposes an interesting way to deal with the villainous gang, and then watches his society and even his own marriage nearly break under the strain when his choices gradually come to light. The relationships between the murderous band of outlaws are a bit murkier, and perhaps required more work to understand than I was willing to put in (especially as far as the ending was concerned). Overall, though, the film manages to be taciturn without being inscrutable, which is always nice. Certainly worth a look for the interesting questions it raises, and then refuses to answer.

Source: First Look DVD
26 September, 8:37 PM

Reality Bites

Ben Stiller, USA, 1994
2.5 out of 4 stars

Winona Ryder stars, generally exhibiting her desirableness and her lack of talent. Ethan Hawke is her co-star, playing the scuzzy asshole who gets the girl even though I sometimes wished he didn’t, and concurrently found it very probable that he did. Director and secondary love interest Ben Stiller is the most interesting case though, as he plays a viable if hapless foil to Hawke in perhaps the only human performance I’ve ever seen him deliver (as opposed to his current career, which consists entirely of encouraging the audience to enjoy bad things happening to him). This is particularly fascinating because within the overall film, Stiller the director uses his own character more as a symbol of a lifestyle and ideology than as an important participant in the plot.

Actually, the long stretches of the film in which Stiller disappears seem to enable the two-headed nature of the film, as it lunges between the romance plot and the career plot. While these wouldn’t seem to be particularly contradictory, the film uses his presence or absence to dismiss one plot, almost out of hand, in order to focus on the other, which leads to a resolution that actually seems to ignore what the movie was about… well, at least half of the time.

All that said, Reality Bites is an interesting time capsule of a film, if wildly uneven, and it does contain some genuinely great character moments. My favorite of these is Stiller’s speech about Yorick, the only time when the film doesn’t try to convince us that Hawke has one-upped him.

Source: Universal anniversary DVD
24 September, 7:21 PM

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Ashutosh Gowariker, India, 2001
3.5 out of 4 stars

Unlike, say, Once Upon a Time in China, with which this film shares at least its English (sub)title, this is populist anti-Western colonialism done right! For one thing, having the villains actually be white goes a long way; Paul Blackthrone is an extremely effective "evil Englishman," and he actually speaks Hindi for a good chunk of his role! As a result, we get a real struggle, rather than an ultimately-meaningless proxy battle as we usually do in Tsui Hark's film. This is, however, no Gibsonesque exercise in Anglo-bashing, and everything comes out extremely balanced, perhaps too obviously so. He does, after all, have a sister that helps out the village people as they try to learn cricket and beat his wager. More importantly, untouchables and Muslims, despite earlier misgivings, are welcomed into the team, providing a heartening, inclusive vision of Indian resistance against the occupier.

What's nice about this film is that it is clearly a high-profile Bollywood picture with an eye towards crossover, but it is not so compromised that it becomes unrecognizable to anyone who is already somewhat familiar with Bollywood. I imagine this is one of the better "gateway drugs" for the genre, as the music is good and fits with the plot, and one rarely feels that the more-than-three-hour running time is needlessly padded. Sure, they could have made it shorter, but this is actually epic enough to deserve it.

Source: Sony DVD
13 September, 8:17 PM

Thank You for Smoking

Jason Reitman, USA, 2005
2.5 out of 4 stars

To no one's surprise, I wasn't able to get this one written until quite a while after having actually watched it, so it will be slight, to say the least. This is the first movie in a while that I can remember watching from start to finish on an airplane. It was certainly an effort, as I had to hold the headphones to my ears to understand what was being said. Luckily, since this was British Airways, no censorship was employed, meaning that there was both sex and bad language. What was the most curious was the way in which they chose to deal with screen ratio. Some scenes were in widescreen, but then others were cut off at the sides. The weirdest thing was when this transition occurred in the middle of a given scene!

Okay, as for the movie itself, I'm not even sure if it could be classified as satire. It features a rather engaging antihero, the tobacco lobbyist, who faces enemies that are largely bufoonish. As our sympathy is continually placed with the lobbyist, we start to wonder who is being lambasted, exactly. There does actually seem to be a larger point that the filmmakers want to make about the system, but I'm not entirely sure if pays off. The humor is wry, although not as dark as it could be. Most of the enjoyment comes just from watching the man work and not caring if it's "right."

Source: Jaguar airplane video
17 August, 4:45 PM

The Illusionist

Neil Burger, Czech Republic / USA, 2006
2 out of 4 stars

So is this a mystery film, a fantasy film, or what? Well, rather than successfully blurring the boundaries of genre, this film just seems to be a confused muddle of several genres, including the period piece. It's actually hard to speak in much detail about the film without spoiling it. What I will say is that while I enjoyed the character who played the main role in the film, I felt that some more focus on the other characters might have made the goings-on more meaningful. I also felt that the film suffers greatly right up until the ending, as it starts to appear even more pointless than it really is just for the sake of an interesting ending. While the "German" accents of the Austrian characters are actually not half-bad, they are still woefully unnecessary (if you want it to be authentic, film it in German!). Finally, there's the "small" matter of using Asian people as props in search of some mystical shorthand; I think it would be disingenuous to say that this is only supposed to work within the film. Overall, while not a painful experience, it was largely forgettable and not as clever as it was meant to be.

Source: Yari 35mm print
14 September, 11:55 AM

Brick

Rian Johnson, USA, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

I always thought of noir as a genre, but after watching this film and talking with my friend about it, I’m beginning to see that even (especially?) at its best, it’s really more of a formula. Chinatown seems to be the exception which proves the rule (or at least proves that noir doesn’t just have to be variations on a theme), but then again, some quite good films are made by introducing very unlikely or outrageous variations on said theme, such as The Big Lebowski.

The premise of this film is both fascinating and in danger of becoming old before you even see it. High school noir? Haven’t these people seen Veronica Mars? In fact, Brick tries to fit high school into noir, whereas Mars more successfully fits noir into high school. Certainly, a high school setting shouldn’t define a production, considering the wide varieties of quality and genre among films and shows which such settings. This wide variety, however, does lead one to wonder if setting anything in a high school is something to get that excited about. This is after all an “indie” film rather than a wide-release, mainstream piece, but it nonetheless comes off as a weird cross between a high-concept studio pitch and a film school experiment (you at least seem to need to know a bit about noir in order to get much out of it).

All this said, it’s a good film, if not entirely great or as clever as it’s meant to be. The very-stylized dialogue is nigh-impenetrable at the beginning, and it rubbed me the wrong way at first because I felt like someone was just showing off to me. Eventually I did get sucked in, but I’m not sure I was jolted in quite the way I was supposed to have been at the beginning there. The hero is engaging, if significantly less sympathetic than his predecessors. The plot is, well, formula, but the best feature, aside from the brief, kinetic fight sequences, is the sight of the noir formula transpiring in suburban homes and veritable wastelands. Noir usually takes place in Southern California, but this manages to be the least “glamorous” depiction of the usual noir landscape yet.

Source: Universal DVD
14 August, 10:29 PM

Velvet Goldmine

Todd Haynes, UK / USA, 1998
2 out of 4 stars

I really wanted to like this colorful flick about glam rock, featuring thinly-veiled portrayals of two key figures from the time and an ostensibly-fictionalized intimate relationship between them. Unfortunately, the film is a mess despite the great music, the trippy performances and the compelling recreation of a classic subculture. Todd Haynes tries to slap some faux-Citizen Kane writing-an-article narrative onto what is otherwise a surreal, drug-induced haze of rock and sexual ambiguity, and while the journalist has his own story to tell through flashbacks, this only serves to throw us more off balance as we try to figure out which of the three male leads is supposed to be the protagonist. Haynes’ work is frustrating because he can’t decide whether to go for narrative or non-narrative, surreal or realist, linear or non-linear, and instead, he just goes with “all of the above.” What this leaves us with is a wealth of good content made tiresome by the awkward, fractured structure of the piece.

Source: Buena Vista DVD
12 August, 8:47 PM

The Best of Youth

(La Meglio Gioventú)
Marco Tulio Giordana, Italy, 2003
Three and a half stars

This epic six-hour film (more of a television miniseries actually, but its quality apparently netted it some festival showings and distribution, in two parts) tracks an Italian family from the 1960s to today. While there were clearly references to pieces of historical background that I wasn’t able to pick up on, overall this film does a good job of portraying a “slice of life” for Italy during most of the postwar period. Because Marco Giordana has so much room to breathe due to his running time, he is able to fully develop a wide variety of characters and themes, none of which end up seeming shallow or insubstantial. Although he uses these elements to comment on modern Italian historical and cultural phenomena, he doesn’t make the mistake of boiling his characters down into mere allegories. The result is a very rich, nuanced viewing experience, and while you may find yourself more interested in some plotlines than in others, Giordana has nonetheless created a wonderful tapestry that is well-worth your time (although you may well choose to watch it in multiple installments, as I did and as the original Italian TV audience did).

Source: Buena Vista DVD
9 August, 10:40 PM

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Shane Black, USA, 2005
3.5 out of 4 stars

What a shame this film didn’t get a real wide release, because it seems like with some real promotion and distribution, this might really have caught on. Here you have a seemingly worn-out premise, the buddy/romance/detective picture, somehow brought to new life with just the right flavor of wit. Writer-director Shane Black was responsible for writing the Lethal Weapon series (I only saw the fourth one and some of the many imitators), and it seems like this movie is about as revolutionary (from what I’ve heard of the original) in attempting to rejuvenate the genre… too bad nobody is ready for that anymore nowadays.

Robert Downey, Jr. and Michelle Monaghan are quite formidable here (in different ways), while Val Kilmer is more just okay, although his gay detective character is great anyway. Downey narrates the whole film (as his character, but also as a “narrator) and his commentary is mostly hilarious, although there are a few moments of meta that fall flat (and that must be saying something considering how much I love meta). The plot is convoluted, but it sets off the difference between “fantasy” and “reality” in a much more creative and even insightful way than how these films usually present outlandish events while impotently asserting their verité. It’s not perfect, but I do feel vindicated in my constant protests that mainstream film doesn’t have to be the thoughtless swamp of nonsense that it usually is now. The experiment doesn’t always work, but overall this film is meant to entertain and succeeds; are you really telling me that it was “too challenging” for the average moviegoer?

Source: Warner DVD
6 August, 9:32 PM

The Big Lebowski

Joel Coen, USA, 1998
3.5 out of stars

When I first saw this movie on video as a teenager, I didn’t understand what a stoner film it was (I don’t even know if I understood what he was drinking), or what a cult film in general it had become, or even, in a more general sense, the Philip Marlowe tradition that the Coen Brothers were once again subverting here. I personally think it’s pretty clear that they do a lot better job than Robert Altman did with The Long Goodbye, but this is just a much more viscerally entertaining film, bloody hilarious in its absurdity and likeability. The plot actually works, but it doesn’t need to and it doesn’t have that much to do with why the film works… or does it? The truth is, The Big Sleep is not at all affected negatively by the presence of an incident in the plot that could never be suitably explained, even by Raymond Chandler himself. This film, as far as I can tell so far, doesn’t have any such moments (I’m probably wrong) but it just manages to underscore the degree to which the detective plot doesn’t matter and is a mere vehicle for something else; comedy in this film, romance in Big Sleep.

Source: Universal DVD
6 August, 7:37 PM

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

(Angst essen Seele auf)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1974
4 out of 4 stars

This film is the starkest thing I’ve ever seen in such bright (if ultimately eery) colors. It’s a “more-than-meets-the-eye” melodrama about intergenerational and interracial love back when such things were even more frowned upon (and even the protagonist is shown, in odd ways, to have Hitler on the brain, despite her love for a younger Arab man). Even before they get together (fairly early on) there is such a weird sense of menace and discomfort, as if you’re being forced to see how strange and “wrong” this is even though you yourself don’t feel it personally. Everyone who thought Crash was somehow insightful should watch this film, because it’s definitely the best film about racism that I’ve ever seen, even though it’s also “more” than that. The first part of the film is not oblique at all; if anything, it’s direct, like a series of punches to the gut. The final third, by contrast, moves inward more as we see the price of compromise (and some other factors that are more difficult to understand). This is one of those film-school classics that actually lives up to its reputation, and I strongly recommend it.

Source: Home Vision DVD
6 August, 8:49 PM

Rebels of the Neon God

(Ch'ing shaonien na cha)
Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan, 1992
3 out of 4 stars

In his first film, international “arty” director Tsai Ming-liang tells what is apparently, for him, a fairly accessible tale about two fake thugs, the sometimes-girlfriend of one of them, and a younger teenager who has a strange preoccupation with the three of them. He does so largely with long, one-take, unmoving shots (when the action moves into the background, the camera usually doesn’t follow). It’s not always easy to understand the relationship between these various characters, which is just as well, as it is pretty languid and obscure in general; teasing out the nuances of these relationships was my main source of interest while watching this film. Overall, it seems to be worth a try, but not worth a recommendation. I got a generally positive impression from it (meaning that it didn’t just totally irritate me), but it didn’t provoke a strong visceral aesthetic appreciation (that’s a little paradoxical I guess) that I get from my favorite “art films.” I’m tempted to watch one of Tsai’s later, “better-known” (relatively speaking) films, but I’m not sure that I’m that enamored with his visual style or his style of storytelling (as opposed to, say, that of Wong Kar-Wai).

Source: Wellspring DVD
3 August, 8:37 PM

Clerks II

Kevin Smith, USA, 2006
2 out of 4 stars

Kevin Smith is an interesting guy. I was reading something about how his box office has never measured up to his media hype, and I think it’s largely because of Smith as a personality, whether he’s starting feuds with comic writers, dishing about the Superman production process, or prancing around in his own work. Even at his best, his films tend to be missing something, as if Smith mostly seeks to impress you by what he’s willing to bring up, rather than by what he actually says about it. Here, he tries to have it both ways, throwing both the tasteless, apropos-of-nothing comedy and the mawkish sentimentality that we’ve seen in his work before, but he doesn’t fully succeed at either. There are undeniably some hilarious bits, but there is also too much dead air, mostly consisting of unfunny shock attempts by the often-tiresome Randal, and impotent objections from Dante, the protagonist. In the harsh light of color, the actors who portray both characters seem really flat and dull, leaving the luminous Rosario Dawson to practically carry the whole movie (and she does a better job than I would have thought her capable of).

The unfunniness isn’t really caused by the plot or the sappy stuff, but this stuff doesn’t work either. Part of it is that the pathos of something like Chasing Amy is missing here, because the choices are too easy and everyone is so shallow and one-note in the first place. Ultimately, though, the thin-skinned Smith should have known better than to (rightly) mock The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for its multiple endings, only to commit the same sin. Oh, and Jason Lee was shamefully wasted.

Source: MGM 35mm print
24 July, 10:50 PM

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

(A Cock and Bull Story)
Michael Winterbottom, UK, 2005
3.5 out of 4 stars

As I’ve said before, I’m sucker for meta, so my enjoyment of this film was all but guaranteed. However, aside from a disorienting ending, A Cock and Bull Story is actually quite linear, largely giving us a 24-hour period in the making of an actual Tristram Shandy film (the original British title making the point that this is not that film; presumably it was changed because we Americans genuinely don’t know what a “cock and bull story” is).

Much of it, then, consists of Steve Coogan portraying himself. He’s clearly the protagonist in Michael Winterbottom’s film, but his most of the Coogan character’s efforts are spent making sure that he will in fact be the protagonist and lead in the film that “Mark” is making. Considering that I’d never even heard of Coogan before, I was quite glad that the American DVD distributor included a trailer for the box set of his old mock talk show, which comes up several times throughout the film (and is therefore a must-view for fellow clueless yank viewers; it’s the last one that plays before you get to the menu). Even with this admittedly fuzzy knowledge, I still really enjoyed Coogan’s persona and the unerringly hilarious antics that the film provides. There’s also a lot of good observations and snarky commentary implicit in the how Winterbottom deals with high literature and high film, and the usual cluelessness that the characters, especially Coogan, have regarding both despite the task at hand. Amazingly, there is even a bit of a plot too; it’s just not Shandy’s story, although I did actually wish we’d seen a bit more of that, despite my appreciation of what I did get.

Source: Warner DVD
23 July, 2:37 PM

Collateral

Michael Mann, USA, 2004
4 out of 4 stars

There’s no denying that the flawless style of Michael Mann is the main reason this movie is as remarkable as it is. However, this is also the movie that made me a big Jamie Foxx fan, even though I’ve still never seen Ray. Much like Damon Wayons in Bamboozled, I sensed both times I watched this film that Foxx was basing his role off of one of his comic personas, specifically the passive loser. Spike Lee talks on the Bamboozled DVD about using comic (black) actors in dramatic roles because he believes they’re capable of more (and probably because he hopes to redeem the buffoonish portrayal of blacks in film) and he was right; he just had the wrong guy.

Wayans never managed to rise above the level of preprogrammed comic persona, whereas Foxx, despite my initial skepticism on the first viewing, does a fantastic job at slowly progressing his character through a sometimes-ludicrous series of transformations and epiphanies, mostly revolving around how he both reacts against and is molded by Tom Cruise’s villain character (and Cruise-as-villain seems rather prescient now that people have turned against him; today, Foxx might well have gotten the top-billing he deserved).

I’ve read criticisms about the plot in spite of the style, but honestly, I’m not bothered by any of it, not even the ending that I’ve seen criticized the most frequently. What I love about this movie is that it’s a mainstream film that beats most art films at their own game. It doesn’t actually have to be so polarized. Imagine that.

Source: Universal DVD
20 July, 8:08 PM

Not One Less

(Yi ge dou bu neng shao)
Zhang Yimou, China, 1999
4 out of 4 stars

Surprisingly, I never lost my patience or got bored while watching this, even though it is very slow, understated film in which there is a great deal of repetition and very little character development. Zhang Yimou takes us along with a 13-year-old substitute teacher, played, like the other characters, by a nonprofessional actor (the credits even tell you where each person comes from, and that most of them actually do the jobs in real life that we see them doing here).

It is fascinating to see the bonds develop between the teacher and her students almost without anyone trying. The film barely even seems like it needs a “quest,” but when one develops, the teacher’s plight is even more poignant. I will say that I’m not sure I got any great insights into the problem of “poverty in rural China,” but the mindset of the characters as Zhang shows them – obstinate and determined – was quite captivating.

Source: Sony DVD
18 July, 10 PM

Blazing Saddles

Mel Brooks, USA, 1974
3 out of 4 stars

Maybe I jinxed it by reading about how important it was too many times, but it was unquestionably funnier and a better film than The Producers, which had me beginning to wonder if Mel Brooks was anything like what he was cracked up to be. While there seem to be some lulls, Brooks overall succeeds at depicting outrageous racism, often without much humor to shield the audience or the protagonist from its blunt impact, and then succeeds in depicting an almost cartoonish comedic effort to squash it. It’s a “deconstruction” of the western in that it fills in the blanks, rather than, say, the thoughtless revisionism that leads to casting Will Smith as the lead in Wild, Wild West and hoping we’ll accept that no white character in the film notices.It is, then, interesting to see how positive and forceful the political message of this film is, considering that the most one gets out of Producers is that gays and Germans are allegedly funny. The film isn’t always a laugh-riot, but it earns our patience.

Source: Warner DVD
16 July, 9:36 PM

A Scanner Darkly

Richard Linklater, USA, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

So far, it’s the best movie I’ve seen that came out in 2006. Richard Linklater and his rotoscoping animation staff have greatly improved on the already impressive technique used in his earlier film, Waking Life, and the improvement is only helped by the use of actual characters this time around; there’s still not tons of plot, but it’s less of a patience-testing talkfest than the aforementioned film, which was nonetheless still fairly good.

Although it’s not particularly plot-driven, it’s still a narrative film (being as it is based on a Philip K. Dick novel), and so that means that we get to see this technique used toward “traditional” film towards the purpose of disrupting it. Some effects clearly need this medium to be accomplished effectively, but the nice thing about this medium is that the effects aren’t particularly different from the sight of a ashtray on the table, slightly wobbling in its color distribution. What this means is that every frame of the film is ultimately a joy to look at, which is a rare thing in film.

Surprisingly, the film is also quite hilarious, in addition to the expected morose darkness. Drug addiction is shown to be “funny” without the awful side of it somehow being erased with this depiction. This humor is mostly thanks to Robert Downey, Jr. although the other, more frequently maligned cast members hold their own fairly well. The twists and turns of who’s watching who and who’s responsible for what are politically and dramatically compelling.

Source: Warner 35mm print
11 July, 11 PM

An Inconvenient Truth

Davis Guggenheim, USA, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

At first, I figured that a movie based on a PowerPoint presentation didn’t really need to be seen on the big screen, but having finally succumbed to good buzz from friends and media, I found that I was mistaken after all. Surprisingly, the still photos Al Gore offers of the effects of global warming are quite effective – breathtaking and disturbing – on the big screen. There are, of course, some videos too, and even a few quite funny cartoons, but the director chooses to show all of these through Gore’s giant video screen, which means that we are, barring some autobiographical interludes in Tennessee and so on, firmly placed in the seats of Gore’s college audience. This seems like folly, but it is surprisingly effective.

Speaking of those autobiographical bits, Gore narrates some key turning points in his life, but I wish he had explained what epiphany transformed him from a guy that couldn’t carry a CSPAN session to a guy that can carry a major motion picture! I definitely want him for president now, almost in spite of myself. As for the science, I did learn a lot, and I thought he was most effective when he took shots at the characterization of global warming as “theory.” This movie is a force for good and its actually well mad and honest; it’s nice when these things come together for once.

Source: Paramount 35mm print
10 July, 6:57 PM

The Devil Wears Prada

David Frankel, USA, 2006
2.5 out of 4 stars

This is one of those movies that seems solid and entertaining, then starts to crumble a bit when you think about it afterwards; however, it still holds up for the most part, and the main purpose of a movie is to keep you interested while you’re watching, after all. The first problem is the title, which also implies that Meryl Streep is the main role, rather than protagonist Anne Hathaway who is, in fact, effectively plays an interesting character rather than just a sounding board for another virtuoso Streep performance (which isn’t to say that Streep isn’t good, either).

The main problems mostly lie in how Andy, Hathaway’s charcter, deals with her dilemma; should she stay true to herself or fall into the fashion world? This isn’t as lame as it sounds on paper, especially since they managed to convey some sense of the aforementioned fashion world’s glamour to someone like me who by default reviles every aspect of it. This, however, might mean that I sympathized more with her plight than someone who, say, never had any qualms about “fitting in” at all costs. However, the weakness of the detractors seems to sap this film’s moral clarity, as does its eventual mutation from a series of critiques of a whole industry to a mere interpersonal conflict; of course this is inevitable in Hollywood film, but the way this happens in this movie decidedly muddies up and changes the entire issue at hand. Of course, a film like this wants to have it both ways, but one hopes at the very least that when several characters describe a size 4 as “fat,” the filmmaker means to attack that perspective. A lack of clarity on this issue is a lot more unforgivable. All that said, I did find it to be compelling and well-played.

Source: Fox 35mm print
6 July, 7:00 PM

The Mission

(Cheung fo)
Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 1999
2 out of 4 stars

This film does have a reasonable amount of style, but ultimately, it’s not enough to make up for the baffling nature of most of the action, and more importantly, the utter lack of character development. Actually, the film does become fairly compelling in its final sequences, but ultimately this is too small a part of an already short film to make enough of a difference. The action is okay, impressive at times, but the acting is basically not there, even though I’ve at least seen Anthony Wong in other things and know that he can do better when he’s meant to. A bit of a disappointment, to be sure.

Source: Tai Seng DVD
5 July, 7:19 PM

Caché

Michael Haneke, France / Austria / Germany / Italy, 2005
3.5 out of 4 stars

This is a “family under siege” film in which the threat (or menace) increasingly seems insignificant compared to darkness in the protagonist’s own past. Georges’ darkness has political shades to it, but most interestingly, it’s always a little fuzzy just exactly what happened, and this lack of clarity continues into the “present day” of the film. I’m used to ambiguous endings and what not, but this film threw me off a bit in regards to how the director included ambiguity throughout what seemed to be a “realist” rather than impressionist film, and yet managed to do it without leaving the viewer merely irritated. My observations on this count were influenced, to some extent, by my viewing of the director interview found on the DVD.

Source: Sony DVD
3 July, 1:22 PM

Infernal Affairs II

(Mou gaan dou II)
Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, Hong Kong, 2003
3 out of 4 stars

What a tangled web a studio can weave when they realize they desperately need to make some money off of a sequel to a film that didn’t need one. That’s not to say that this is bad, but it would strike me as an ordinary film even if I hadn’t seen the extraordinary film that came before. This “sequel,” despite the number, is actually a prequel, but it doesn’t so much fill in the blanks as muddy up the waters; it’s often confusing, it’s not always clear if some of the new backstory really squares with the depictions we saw in the first one, and some of the more glaring questions are left unanswered (possibly for film number three). The young replacements the mole characters, previously played by Tony Leung and Andy Lau, are certainly not up to the task. Thankfully, the movie works because Anthony Wong and Eric Tsang reprise their roles as the respective cop and mob boss, and it is quite interesting to learn about a relationship between them that, from what I recall, was far from obvious before. I certainly wouldn’t recommend watching this before the first one, despite the chronology, but I imagine it is worth satisfying the likely thirst for more that you will most likely have after watching the previous film.

Source: Mega Star DVD
6 June, 3:15 PM

Crimson Gold

(Talaye sorkh)
Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2003
3.5 out of 4 stars

It’s positively amazing what you can sometimes get with non-professional actors, basically playing themselves, especially compared to the many times that real actors flub things entirely. This film follows the sad trajectory of a disaffected pizza delivery driver in Tehran, but while his journey is rooted in reality and presented, aside from the cuts from one scene to another, in something much like real time including all the boring waiting periods (and without the comforting style of similar scenes in Chinatown), the story itself is almost fantastical, probably in part because the people Hussein meets are, to no small degree, more symbolic than anything. The story is heartbreaking and the visuals held my interest without being flashy in the least. Most interestingly, director Jafar Panahi provides us with a removed, rational view of modern Iranian society even as he shows his considerable skill in unobtrusively guiding us along with one man’s unfortunate journey.

Source: Wellspring DVD
28 June, 9:11 PM

Superman Returns

Bryan Singer, Australia / USA, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

I thought that Richard Donner’s 1978 film, which I recently reviewed here, came from the right place, but was largely unsuccessful. You would think, then, that I wouldn’t get much out of a Superman franchise reboot that is nothing more than a rejuiced version of the Donner films, seeing as how I enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s pastiche of all the best Batman elements.

It is perhaps true that Bryan Singer’s choice of adaptation can be limiting in that he wasn't able or willing to drop anything that perhaps didn’t work ideally. Despite this, the film is an incredible, almost miraculous success. I’m really impressed with how well Singer does at creating good riff on something I didn't find that impressive, as I am with his general ability to sustain an un-ironic “earnest” tone without being overly corny (give or take a few minutes) or excessively anachronistic. The best example is Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor; he took Gene Hackman’s Luthor, which I was none too fond of, and made it work (with help from the script I presume). Certainly, there are problems; some scenes go on forever despite their lack of suspense (the filmmakers only get a pass on the “will Superman save them” thing for the first time), and the ending is abrupt in all the wrong ways. Finally, I’m not sure if this will convert you to the pro-Superman camp, but it will satisfy both casual and true believers.

Source: Warner 35mm print
28 June, 10 PM

Mulholland Dr.

David Lynch, USA / France, 2001
4 out of 4 stars

This film is usually Exhibit A in my argument that you don’t have to entirely understand a film in order to not just appreciate it, but to enjoy it as well. After I watched it in a French theater, my dad sent me a thorough e-mail explaining his interpretation of the film, and later, I saw various webpages backing him up. My viewing this time was colored by his interpretation, but discussing it with my friend (who has seen it 10 times already), she poked several holes into his reading. When I first saw it, though, I really had no idea what was going on and what the connections between the two sections were. I knew that the film started life as a television show and I figured that some of the discontinuity could be explained with this in mind, but that didn’t actually go too far within the context of the film. Mostly, I was captivated, both times, by the extreme surrealist approach which never started to alienate me as a viewer even on a visceral level (okay, maybe the last music scene). Strongly recommended, just don’t tax your brain too much if, like me, you meet with little success when you try to “figure it out.”

Source: Universal DVD
25 June, 6:22 PM

Paradise Now

Hany Abu-Assad, France / Germany / Netherlands / Israel, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

I expected this film to give me a good look at the experiences of two potential suicide bombers, and at Palestine in general, and it certainly did. However, it’s not exactly some kind of verité piece either. It’s very beautifully shot and contains some rather affecting moments. While the directing is largely unobtrusive, it’s not absent either. I did think that there were some aimless patches and that some of the motivation shifts weren’t quite clear, which is unfortunate considering that this film is almost entirely about motivations. However, the film succeeds because the director takes a clear eye at a very difficult and disturbing issue, and doesn’t choose to preach or condescend to the viewer. It’s meaningful, but unlike, say, Hotel Rwanda, it doesn’t just coast on its meaningfulness.

Source: Warner DVD
20 June, 10:56 PM

The Untouchables

Brian De Palma, USA, 1987
2.5 out of 4 stars

Perhaps I was just frustrated because this film brings up some ideological issues, but then turns out to be largely visual. Or perhaps I don’t respond well to the cloying nostalgic music and acting, even. There was certainly one really strong sequence, taking place in a train station in the final half-hour of the film that actually really bored me at first. I think perhaps that some of what Brian De Palma tried to do for suspense struck me as indicating lack of momentum. Certainly at the beginning of the scene, I found myself largely wondering what I was supposed to think was going on, and I’m not even sure if that was deliberate. It probably contributes to the thrill when the confrontation does ensue, but maybe there’s a smoother way to do that, especially when regarding the particularly lethargic.

Certainly, the colors are very rich, and there are some masterful shots, which all shows a good level of artistry. Maybe I just expect my action to be too fast, or maybe this is really more of the Disney version of cops vs. mafia, ambiguous morals and hardcore violence aside. Of course, Costner’s inevitable woodenness doesn’t help much.

Source: Paramount special edition DVD
19 June, 7:56 PM

Pride & Prejudice

Joe Wright, UK / France, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

Perversely enough, I started to become interested in seeing this film after I heard three of my friends railing against Keira Knightley when she was nominated for the Oscar. Indeed, Knightley is the weakest link in this version, not standing up too well to Jennifer Ehle (1995 BBC version) or even Aishwarya Rai (2004 “Bollywood” version). Thankfully, Matthew Mcfayden, while still no Colin Firth, does us the pleasure of not trying to be Firth, and certainly whups Martin Henderson’s ass (not much of a challenge, admittedly).

Overall, I quite enjoyed this rendition. What it lacks in thoroughness and in acting (compared to the BBC), it makes up for with production values, which are thankfully not put to use. The cinematography is quite beautiful, especially when regarding the English countryside where some key tableaus occur, and the dinginess of the Bennett home is keenly brought into view in a clearer fashion than I’ve seen in most Austen interpretations. Finally, Joe Wright has a strong style, with some signature, abrupt reaction shots and other little flourishes I’m not knowledgeable enough to name, and ultimately, this helps the film be a worthwhile contribution rather than a half-assed cash-in type of remake. Knightley, however, did bug me, especially in the opening part of the film, which made me feel that, despite her age, she might have been better cast as Lydia, someone she probably resembles more closely. Every time she crinkled her nose laughing, she seemed to convey a lack of depth that didn’t fit her character. I imagine marketability was, to put it lightly, the main reason for her inclusion.

Source: Universal DVD
6 June, 9:10 AM

Kings and Queen

(Rois et reine)
Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2004
3.5 out of 4 stars

It starts out with a woman describing her various marriages, then, after a bit, we meet a man right before he is condemned to a mental hospital. The connections and the backstory aren’t clear at the outset, but this is not at all frustrating in this film. Instead, I was captivated from the beginning. The dialogue is all top-notch, very literary but also grounded. The style of the film is quite remarkable; the two plots are expertly intertwined, and the director makes judicious use of a quick-cut technique in which he rapidly shows the viewer two, usually brief, takes of the same action or emotional reaction. The acting is very strong, and the characters are sympathetic but also, well, “complicated.” Finally, the story is very poignant and at times crushing, but it also contains a wealth of little charming moments and amusing quirks. I can’t really do justice to how good this movie is, though, so really, I can only say that I highly recommend it!

Source: Genius DVD
3 June, 8:25 PM

Lady Vengeance

(Chinjeolhan geumjassi)
Park Chan-wook, South Korea, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

This is yet another film that I started to lose faith in as it got nearer to the end, and I kept asking, “and then what?” I think that it suffered unfairly from comparisons to Park Chan-wook’s previous film, Oldboy, so I will probably need to watch it again when it comes out on DVD. I did really enjoy the main character, even though her very personality is hard to pin down thanks to the machinations of the plot. The other characters are interesting, but there are a lot of them, and it’s hard to tell who’s who after a while. In general, there are several confusing aspects of this film that made me feel as if I would need a full plot summary after watching it.

I do think that this film is saying something interesting and important about revenge, and that this is reflected in the somewhat-slow concluding portion of the film. The “message” does strike me as a tad bit obvious, but then there are a lot of different ways to react to the protagonist’s decisions near the end, so there does seem to be a worthwhile amount of ambiguity. I think the best parts of the film are the jail flashbacks and the adoption subplot. Once we get fully into the vengeance, the film becomes more contemplative, but somewhat less interesting.

Source: Tartan 35mm print
1 June, 7:18 PM

The Bourne Supremacy

Paul Greengrass, USA / Germany, 2004
3 out of 4 stars

It can be a little frustrating seeing a “spy plot” unravel to the point where you realize there wasn’t much of anything there at the center of it. It’s especially frustrating when the ending comes with 20 minutes to go, and you don’t even really feel the need to see what happens afterwards. Luckily, this film has a tremendous amount of visual style, and it’s almost surprising to me that this was enough to make me enjoy the film, as I’m not always a big fan of the “handheld camera” thing when it comes to action films. In this case, however, the jolting camera was an important part of the action and of the character, such as it was. I think ultimately, this is a very forced sequel that doesn’t justify its undoing of the last film’s ending (while also relying too much on the audience’s knowledge of its predecessor). Most of all, though, I think it’s a pretty clear case of a good director, Paul Greengrass, having been saddled with a half-assed script.

Source: Universal DVD
31 May, 11:10 PM