Sex Is Comedy

Catherine Breillat, France / Portugal, 2002
4 out of 4 stars

I wasn’t surprised to read a comment by the director to the effect that she made this film as an antidote to all those “making of” DVD featurettes, as that certainly struck me. I also found myself comparing this film to Lost in La Mancha; the difference between the two films is, quite obviously, the difference between reality and scripted television. At some point, you have to show people acting in order to just keep them from posing. Here, we get incredible insight into filmmaking, and specifically, into filming sex scenes, which, save for the History of Violence DVD, don’t generally show up in the “behind the scenes” special features.

Well, I do confess I have a penchant for “meta,” but I found this film to be very accessible and entertaining, and not even in a labored, self-consciously clever way, which is certainly a bit of what you expect in a film about filmmaking. It is very “French” in that there are a great deal of outlandish, yet occasionally compelling theories about how filmmaking (and even sexuality) “works,” but since the director doesn’t quite play herself (using an avatar instead), we’re left with a lot of choices (since I’m pretty sure she’s constantly contradicting herself). Apparently Catherine Breillat specializes in hard-to-watch films, but I’d definitely say this one doesn’t qualify. I really enjoyed the dialogue, the balance between the cinematic and the natural, the relationships between the director character and her assistant and actor, and so on. Highly recommended.

Source: Swank 35mm print
30 May, 7:30 PM

The Da Vinci Code

Ron Howard, USA, 2006
2 out of 4 stars

Although there were protesters for this film in my local theater during its opening weekend, I have also read that some evangelicals are hoping to use it to lure ‘em in and then give them what they consider to be the real story. While watching this film, I realized what a brilliant strategy this is, because, while The Passion of the Christ literally preaches to the choir, this film appears subversive but really buttresses the church’s appeal, because the biggest threat to faith today is not radical reinterpretations, but profound indifference, something you find in greater supply in London and Paris, the settings for the film, than you do here, actually.

The interpretation presented here, which I won’t “spoil” even though the media already did so for me, certainly has its attractions. I wouldn’t mind if it were true, and so I can see why many want it to be true The filmmakers also want to imply that revealing this interpretation would change faith, while hedging their bets a bit in how they present this, but by this they just show that they don’t understand faith, which has not that much to do with kooky historical riddles.

It doesn’t help that said riddles hold far too much resemblance to the kind of deliberately-outlandish puzzle solving found in the Adam West Batman, in which connections and conclusions are drawn out of thin air. I’d just as soon intellectuals were ignored by mainstream film, rather than be portrayed in such a bogus fashion.

Other problems here include the tendency to spent several scenes getting us nowhere and then give us half of the entire mystery in a big monologue, Tom Hanks’ astonishing, mind-numbing flatness, the incoherence of the present-day conspiracies and betrayals, and so on. Come on, this is your blockbuster? You might as well just go to church.

Source: Sony 35mm print
27 May, 8:45 PM

X-Men: The Last Stand

Brett Ratner, USA, 2006
1.5 out of 4 stars

I talk a lot about how my expectations really color my enjoyment of a film, but it’s especially aggravating when I’m still disappointed even after I’ve lowered my expectations. While I’m aware that the previous two films weren’t exactly masterpieces, I especially enjoyed how X2 built on the sometimes-perfunctory setup of its predecessor to fully immerse the viewer in the X-universe.

This movie pretends to be a sequel to X2, but ultimately, this film builds on the bones of what came before, rather than on the solid, already established foundation. Characters are dismissed with perfunctory waves of the hand, or “revealed” to have always been the exact opposite of everything we were told before, specifically in the case of Jean Grey. The treatment of Jean invokes the worst excesses of comic books (namely, retroactive continuity or the “retcon,”) while losing whatever emotional pathos was involved in the source material.

Most egregious, however, is the finale. The X-Men rush into defend something without really explaining why it’s important, and their goals and the stakes they are playing for constantly shift. While you never quite get to the point where the story doesn’t make sense, it’s safe to say that the motivations never make sense, if only because there are no motivations; basically, everything happens for no reason. There are certainly some good action scenes, but overall it’s hard to enjoy this even as mindless action because moronic director Brett Ratner gets so bogged down in the process of pissing on all the plotlines and characters that he inherited from Bryan Singer’s vastly superior work.

Source: Fox 35mm print
26 May, 11 PM

The Panama Deception

Barbara Trent, USA, 1992
3 out of 4 stars

I tend to forget that we even invaded Panama (such is my luxury as an American), so this film was interesting not only for reminding me, but for also showing how horrifically ridiculous and overkill (literally) the whole thing was, and worse, how unjustified. The narrator describes Panama as practice for the first Gulf War, but the parallels are obviously very strong with the Gulf War that occurred after this film was made, complete with a clueless, kneejerk-patriotic media that didn’t even have the lame 9/11 excuse for failing to see through government rhetoric. It is made clear that the government’s control of what media sees was actually a new thing since Vietnam, but of course, they fail to complain about it directly to us when they are denied access (as they were during the initial bombardment).

The story is largely told through footage of the aftermath (disturbing, to say the least) and a certain amount of talking heads. Most of the “experts” seem fairly level-headed, although I think they would’ve improved their credibility by not including the allegation that the US military was testing space-age laser weapons against the Panamanian people (it’s already a massacre, it doesn’t need to be an X-Files massacre). The composition of the film itself does leave something to be desired; the director uses the cheesiest freeze-frame and wipe effects, puts a lame “TV frame” around US media footage, and dubs rather than subtitles most of the Spanish speech. This film, then, is basically good because of what it tells us and the fact that it makes us look at what happened, giving us less room to brush it off. If, say, you already knew everything about the Panama invasion, the film would hold little value for you.

Source: Rhino VHS
25 May, 12:44 PM

Kung Fu Hustle

(Kung fu)
Stephen Chow, Hong Kong / China, 2004
4 out of 4 stars

I wasn’t sure at first, but as I kept going I decided that this film does indeed deserve my very unofficial “best of 2005” title (the 2004 date above is the original Hong Kong release). This film does indeed start slow, like Shaolin Soccer, but not quite as bad, because it’s not so much that the beginning isn’t funny or interesting, as that you don’t know where the hell the plot is trying to go. While the tension I felt near the end of the film was largely eliminated by my knowledge of how the battles would go, I still had to relearn the need to not get hung up by “the plot.”

If anything, I was a little testier with it because this time out, I wasn’t just overwhelmed with glee at the fact that I was actually seeing a Stephen Chow movie in theaters. That said, in retrospect it's clear that the confused plot is part of the humor; the best example being the “epiphany” at the end. I do have to admit that part of this film’s attraction, though, is that someone (Sony Pictures) finally gave Chow a lot of money, so we don’t have any of those dubious attempts at computer graphics seen in Soccer. The movie is quite beautiful, and not just in an “overlook the visual flaws” type of way, either. I would love to say I could recommend this movie to everyone, but a lot of you would probably think I was on crack if you saw it yourself.

Source: Sony DVD
23 May, 11:09 PM

Since Otar Left

(Depuis qu'Otar est parti)
Julie Bertucelli, France / Belgium, 2003
3 out of 4 stars

This film presents a somewhat clichéd plot about concealing something from a family member for her own good, set off by the fact that it takes place in a little-known country, Georgia, is shot with emotional and artistic honesty, and contains a striking performance by a 95-year-old woman! And although I could see the beginning of the “deception” plot coming, there was at least one twist near the end that I did not anticipate, although I wasn’t entirely blown away by it either. The final twist was a lot easier to anticipate, but then, I think that was deliberate. Definitely an interesting depiction of the other side of the disaporic experience, specifically, those who are “left” behind. Not entirely exceptional, but certainly worthwhile.

Source: Zeitgeist 35mm print
23 May, 7:30 PM

Water

Deepa Mehta, Canada / India, 2005
Three stars

This is an often beautiful, sometimes elliptical but mostly somewhat-conventional film about the unsettling ways in which widows – including children – were treated in India, at least in the 1930s (the ending title card leaves it ambiguous as to how much of these practices continue today). Probably the strangest aspect of it was how the film started by focusing on the young child, then switched over to a love story bit that seemed always Disney-esque, and the film shifts focus once again even after that. Although it’s not as if these elements are unrelated, the film isn’t really set up as a multiple-perspective affair, which makes it all somewhat jarring. Overall I liked it, but I was not really blow away either, and I imagine that had the subject matter been slighter and more familiar, I would have been harder on it.

Source: Fox 35mm print
21 May, 7 PM

Mission: Impossible III

J.J. Abrams, USA, 2006
2.5 out of 4 stars

What a funny film. For one thing, when you’ve got Ving Rhames asking Tom Cruise, “so did you sleep with your little sister,” one can’t help but like the filmmakers are playing some weird games with the whole Cruise/Holmes unpleasantness (for the record, Cruise never answers the question). There are a whole host of problems with this film, most of which revolve around the notion that Cruise is primarily motivated by these two women whom we hardly ever see on screen, and in the case of the more clearly romantic relationship, what we do see inspires little more than a feeling that it’d be better if we got back to the action.

And yet… maybe the “motivation” bit worked as well as it was supposed to, because after some long stretches of boredom in the first half, I found myself a bit more caught up the closer we got to the end. I don’t really know if that was because of the story, or just because the setpieces were more exciting. What I did find fascinating was that someone thought you could actually wring some suspense from “will Tom Cruise be successfully resuscitated?” I mean, seriously guys? Of course, one can always hope to be proved wrong!

Source: Paramount 35mm print
19 May, 8 PM

The Intruder

(L'intrus)
Claire Denis, France, 2004
2.5 out of 4 stars

Well shucks, I tried to like it, and at least I succeeded in not hating it and in getting something out of it (whereas several walked out of the theater during this “festival” screening). That said, filmmaker Claire Denis clearly wasn’t willing to meet me halfway. This film is clearly inaccessible by design. Not only do you not quite know what things mean, you don’t even know why things are happening or even what is happening. In fact, you’re not even sure what thematic ballpark we’re supposed to be in. Entire sequences and characters are introduced with no rhyme or reason. And while there are plenty of films I’ve seen lately that have similar obstacles to enjoyment, there is often enough beauty or artfulness that those concerns don’t ruin the experience. Denis, however, prefers to assail the viewer with images that fail to even appeal to the viewer in any aesthetically comprehensible manner. I’m not saying it’s crap. I’m just saying it’s not for me, or for most people, and that there’s nothing wrong with that.

Source: Wellspring 35mm print
9 May, 7:43 PM

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

(Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom)
Kim Ki-duk, South Korea / Germany, 2003
3.5 out of 4 stars

A very beautiful film (especially in the first “spring” segment), clearly loaded with entrancing but elusive Buddhist imagery. As in his subsequent film, 3-Iron, Kim Ki-duk makes very effective use of silence (not always, but for the larger portion of the film), without leading to snores. Compared to the many films I’ve lately been describing as “good, but I didn’t get it,” I generally preferred the segments that I did get here. Even though it is about a very particular set of religious and cultural practices (and who knows if it’s portrayed accurately), I found most of the film to be accessible, which was why it was a bit tiresome when the climax, such as it was, was a largely unexplained hike up a hill. Actually, I suppose it wasn’t that hard to figure out, but it just seemed to lack an impetus, which you couldn’t say for the rest of the film. Overall, however, a strong effort, a movie that has a point but is also very serene, in a good way.

Source: Sony DVD
8 May, 9:16 PM

Ice Age: The Meltdown

Carlos Saldanha, USA, 2006
1 out of 4 stars

At least it wasn’t bad to the point that I was angry I had paid money for it, and if anything, it means that I can now bash non-Pixar CG animated output without admitting that I haven’t seen much of it. In fact, it was interesting to see what the formula for these megablockbusters is nowadays.

Of course there’s celebrities, but some of them are so D-list that you wonder what the possible advantage of hiring them over actual voice actors really is. There’s an attempt at wry humor, but it strikes one as ultimately revealing the failure of the writers to be as clever as they think they are. Sure there are some inspired bits, like the little critter chasing the acorn, but even that bit wears out by the end, and they tend to have no real connection to the rest of the film.

The worst of it is, the animals here are just ugly! When I see something like this, I just think back to The Lion King and wonder how we managed to go so far backwards in terms of representing animated fauna. The plot is nonexistent; there’s supposed to be some impending whatever, but mostly it’s just a backdrop for some drawn-out, seen-it-all-before romance. It’s really odd that this is what passes for entertainment, family or otherwise, nowadays.

Source: Fox 35mm print
7 May, 2:50 PM

Carnage

(Carnages)
Delphine Gleize, France / Spain / Belgium, 2002
3.5 out of 4 stars

It takes some good skill at filmmaking to show a transition between a bullfight and a large Labrador jumping onto the couch, and not make it seem gimmicky in the slightest. Indeed, this film is all about somewhat inexplicable juxtapositions, as well as a peculiar conceit that I wish hadn’t been spoiled for me by the summary I read somewhere (also, the director didn’t seem to follow through on it, for some reason).

To put it simplistically, there is too much going on here, as opposed to the other kind of art film in which there is not enough going on. The threads that connect the different narratives are often slight, but, while confusing here and there, are largely involving. Once again, I find myself not sure what the overall point was, or even sure if there was supposed to be one. Certainly an engaging film experience… and on the big screen, too!

Source: Wellspring 35mm print
2 May, 7:35 PM