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