The Claim

Michael Winterbottom, UK / Canada / France, 2000
3.5 out of 4 stars

It’s an interesting feeling when almost everything in the plot suggests that some awful collision is about to take place at the expense of the main characters, but the result, instead, is always something more nuanced, if not, ultimately, less catastrophic. I was quite impressed with this unique “western,” in which a railroad engineer and his crew come to a town called Kingdom Come in order to determine the course of the railroad and, it’s understood, the fate of the town itself. Arriving at the same time is a woman and her adult daughter, both of whom lead to a revelation, in flashback, as to the somewhat dubious origins of this town, and of course, everyone’s plot line intersects as well.

It’s interesting to see what a filmmaker like Winterbottom, concerned mostly with films that contain some measure of “reality,” does with a mid-level epic such as this one. Although he uses actors rather than real people, and works in a historical period rather than in the “now” of most of his other films, I think there is definitely some sense that he is trying to capture a historical turning point (through microcosm) by showing us the low-key interactions and almost mundane incidents that make up these kinds of shifts, entirely eschewing the melodrama and tragic elements that often are assumed to be necessary components of anything remotely epic or historical. This is not to say that he has made a boring film, or a film that tries the viewer’s patience in a self-consciously “arty” fashion. Rather, he seeks to overturn those assumptions I mentioned at the beginning, making everything a bit more immediate and, by consequence, more engaging. If I have any complaints, it’s that the plot is actually somewhat hard to follow at times, partially because you have to connect the dots to a certain extent.

Source: MGM DVD
28 January, 10:36 PM

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

(Moartea domnului Lazarescu)
Cristi Puiu, Romania, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

Spending two and a half hours a man slow decaying towards a fate preordained by the title itself is the kind of film experience that critics rave about (it was on many top 10 lists) and audiences shun (the American box office was a whopping $80,301). As for myself, well, I often lean towards the critics in cases like these. I think they may have overpraised the film a bit, but I also think that this film is exactly what it is supposed to be.

The length is certainly excessive (even some of its strongest proponents have said so), and yet the lackadaisical pacing is key in the director’s attempt to convey the maddening delays and demurrals of the Romanian medical system – at least as depicted here. The characters are thinly sketched, but this is also necessary; Lazarescu needs to be enough of everyman that the pathos can come from the events (or lack therof) alone. While I wasn’t exactly rapt with attention, I was invested enough with Lazarescu’s plight that, even though I knew what would happen, I felt hopeful when he seemed to come across someone willing to do something for him. The point is, this is not an unrelenting film in which people are all bad, which is what you might expect from the premise and from the execution. Instead, it shows a world in which pettiness and decency are mixed, often in the same people. It might try the patience of some folks, and it’s not the masterpiece that some critics claim it to be, but it is a good, solid, and unusual film.

Source: Genius DVD
27 January, 7:03 PM

Pan’s Labyrinth

(El Laberinto del Fauno)
Guillermo del Toro, Mexico / Spain / USA, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

This is an extremely well-realized, gripping vision of fairies in fascist Spain, which sounds like some kind of ridiculous high concept project, and in a way, it is quite ridiculous, but del Toro manages to make it work for him. He has very effectively created a sense of terror without resorting to cheap tricks. Although the Faun that the heroine encounters is very big on rules, these rules seem arbitrary at best, and overall I was never quite sure what would happen to whom, which means that everything seems more crucial and more tense. Finally, the picture is shot in a way that is grim but not unrelenting or lifeless. I found the ending, actually, to be the most unsettling thing about the picture, largely for the unanswerable questions it brings up. I wouldn’t call it a perfect film, but at the same time, there are no significant flaws for me to pick on. It is definitely a triumph.

Source: New Line 35mm print
26 January, 6:45 PM

Kill Zone

(Sha po long)
Yip Wai Sun, Hong Kong / Macau, 2005
2 out of 4 stars

So what happens when you mix the martial arts genre (more recently associated, at least by Western audiences, with the period piece) and the cop genre? At least in this film, the result seems to be some kind of reconstituted slasher film, and I have to admit that I have never been one to get behind the slasher genre. It’s one thing to have some gore in the battle scenes, but some of these characters aren’t even capable of putting up enough of a fight, meaning that many of the “action” scenes are nothing more than slaughters.

In fact, the fighting is quite good in this film, although it is nothing groundbreaking. Although the filmmaking isn’t incompetent, there’s not all that much else to celebrate I about it, and the acting is particularly laughable at times (strong emotions come out of nowhere and then disappear again). My usual complaint in these kind of films is that I am just waiting through the bad acting for the good action, but in this case, I guess I also have to complain about the general nihilism that is the inevitable consequence of veering too far into slasher territory. It seems like the filmmakers wanted to have some kind of weight behind the whole thing, but really, this is an insubstantial picture with a underlying morality that is muddled at best.

Source: Genius DVD
25 January, 10:53 PM

Gabrielle

Patrice Chéreau, France / Germany / Italy, 2005
4 out of 4 stars

This is, in essence, a chamber drama that basically sustains a very narrow focus on an unexpected marital crisis for 90 minutes, and yet it is much more filmic and more alive than such an accurate description would suggest. There are certainly some surprising, successful flourishes employed to tell this story, such as the unusual use of monochrome and title cards. Furthermore, the classical music score is expertly done and quite disturbing, especially when it (apparently) doesn’t at all match with what we’re seeing on screen. Finally, the camera work is very vibrant when needed, and when otherwise, it conveys very well the moroseness of the situation.

All that said, of course a film that is mostly about two people imploding needs some good performances, and these are certainly provided by Pascal Greggory and Isabelle Huppert, the one manic and strangely engaging, the other hiding something with a series of elliptical looks and remarks. I do imagine this film is not for everyone, but for me, it was one of the better films that had its American release (such as it was) in 2006.

Source: Genius DVD
22 January, 11:55 PM

Letters from Iwo Jima

Clint Eastwood, USA, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

To some extent, the most remarkable thing about this film is that it was made by an American director and an American studio, and that it is actually on wide release in American theaters, and as such, I can’t help but wonder if the film would seem more ordinary to me if it was a Japanese film. In an industry that makes Memoirs of a Geisha to satisfy our “curiosity” about Japan and usually makes war films that recycle our old propaganda with only slightly updated sensibilities, it is quite impressive that this film even exists, because the perspective of the “Other” is something that we need to see a lot more of in American film.

Putting aside all that baggage, if possible, I can safely say that this is a very solid, well-acted, and emotionally compelling humanist drama about the lives of soldiers whom we all know to be doomed. Quite a bit of the film, actually the stronger part of it, is concerned with the buildup and character development, and this definitely makes the battle scenes a lot more effective when they finally come. Even then, the focus is on how the soldiers interact and reconcile conflicting instincts, giving some quality insight into what has always been portrayed, in American film and schools, as entirely incomprehensible behavior.

Of course, it’s not entirely a perfect film. It probably should be mentioned that any hint of Japanese imperialism is entirely left out. Of course, the reality of soldiers forced to defend an imperialist order really shouldn’t impair our identification with these folks, but I don’t think Eastwood was ready to think about our own modern imperial projects in that way. Finally, the script does imply that some of the more sympathetic characters perhaps derive some of their humanity from the time they spent in the US, which does remind you that this is indeed an American film.

Source: Warner 35mm print
20 January, 6:40 PM

The Fountain

Darren Aronofsky, USA, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

It would be hard for me to spoil this movie for you, seeing as how I had a very minimal understanding of how the three parts of the film (past, present, and… future? I’m not sure) connect to each other. Visually, it’s an astonishing piece, and it’s also very emotionally compelling, which is a nice thing in such an admittedly esoteric film. The relationship between Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz is quite affecting, helping to make this a very human film in the midst of all the weirdness and mindtrips.

Unfortunately, my viewing experience was also very far from ideal, which makes it even harder for me to evaluate the film. The bargain theater has given us trouble in the past, such as when Talladega Nights was out of focus (for the entire film) or when the sound went out a couple of times during Babel, but this was definitely the worst they’ve done yet, because they somehow managed to present us with a viewable area about 1/8 of the way down from what we were supposed to be seeing. This meant that we saw boom mikes during some dialogue scenes and large black rectangles during some visual effects scenes, and that during close-ups, the actors’ mouths were never visible. The problem was not resolved even after two different trips to complain, and it took me quite a while to stop obsessing about it and just enjoy the film as much as possible. I strongly suspect I will enjoy this film even more when I watch it on DVD, as I will, you know, actually get to see the shots the director wanted me to see!

Source: Warner 35mm print
19 January, 9:30 PM

Miami Vice

Michael Mann, USA / Germany, 2006
1 out of 4 stars

I was intrigued when this film started showing up on all kinds of top 10 lists, but my reaction to this film’s inexplicable year-end celebration is summed up by a talkback comment, regrettably one I can’t find a link for, that read something to the effect of, “Oh, I didn’t realize that the reason I was bored out of my mind is it was supposed to be an art film.” Michael Mann has certainly done good work in the past, but giving him any credit for this piece of nonsense is certainly as good a case of the auteur theory run amuck as I can think of. The alternative theory would be that if there’s no joy in it, it must be “good” for you. But what use is there for a film that has no joy, no beauty, no energy, and no anything.

This is just an all-around dreary, listless affair, with ugly digital cinematography (it worked in Mann’s Collateral but it sure doesn’t work here), tacky dialogue (even if it is deliberately so, it’s just a trial to listen to), an aimless, unengaging story, a near-total lack of action… even the music is bad! The cast is either poor (puppy-dog sleazeball Collin Ferrell), misused (Gong Li, who just looks lost), or perhaps some of both (Jamie Foxx, who I think was more interesting before he somehow achieved instant stardom. The worst of it is that there is hardly any action in the film, and when you finally get a shootout, it is deliberately muddled and scattershot. Maybe there was a point here, but it was all I could do to not just turn off the DVD player at the one-hour mark. Avoid at all costs, no matter what the critics say!

Source: Universal DVD
17 January, 11:15 PM

Curse of the Golden Flower

(Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia)
Zhang Yimou, China / Hong Kong, 2006
2 out of 4 stars

Nothing short of maddening, this film certainly indicates that Zhang Yimou’s prolonged detour into the field of martial-arts extravaganza is a case of diminishing returns (but more on whether that tag really fits this film later). While Hero was a masterpiece, House of Flying Daggers as problematic at best. This film is just crazy, baroque overkill, and while I did get involved enough in it to be intensely annoyed by what happens at the end, perhaps because of the work that Gong Li does or perhaps just because she gets such a raw deal, I was never really engaged in a meaningful way by the action.

Undeniably, the sets are extravagant in a way I haven’t often seen on screen. I don’t know whether it’s at all accurate, but Zhang’s depiction of the Tang dynasty is a veritable orgy of color, really bright and gaudy color, and the costumes are very ornate and flashy as well. While this all lends to the general “overkill” feel in the long run, it probably also keeps the film from being any less engaging than it already is.

See, the problem is that this is not really a wuxia film like the ones I mentioned at the beginning, although the only reason it’s even being distributed (and given a wide release) in the US is that people like myself will assume that it is one based on the director’s past work. It takes quite a while to get to any real fight scenes, which actually makes them seem more random and ridiculous when they do finally occur. This, in fact, is a period drama, and while the period is more fully realized than in Hero or Daggers, the drama is decidedly weaker, which is a bad sign, obviously. Zhang aims for tragedy, but he comes up with an absurdist trainwreck instead. I’m still interested to see what the director does next, but I do hope it’s something that’s a bit more grounded, as this was a major disappointment (although I did have my suspicions going into it).

Source: Sony 35mm print
14 January, 7:15 PM

L’Enfant

Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Belgium / France, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

The film opens with a young woman carrying a very little baby, but this is misleading – we end up spending much more time with the emotionally-stunted father of the child as he embarks upon a series of very ill-considered choices, none of which I will mention here as you could basically spoil the entire story in a few lines (I find myself generally avoiding even the Netflix or Blockbuster disc sleeves as they tend to give you plot points from halfway through the film, so I try to do what readers I have the courtesy of facilitating an unspoiled viewing of a film if they choose to watch it).

Although this is the typical French understated drama, in which characters don’t say a lot, especially not what they feel, my comments above are misleading, in that the Dardenne brothers, at least in this film, use this style to tell an actual story, rather than just a mood piece or a character study. While the latter two possibilities wouldn’t necessarily make a bad film, it was nice to see some storytelling nonetheless, and the plot is indeed fairly compelling.

So overall, I enjoyed this film, but I didn’t think it quite lived up to its potential, although I’m not exactly sure what could have been done differently. While I won’t describe the ending, I will say that it was at that point, as it often is for me, that I realized that I hadn’t quite been emotionally involved in the piece. I watched what was seemingly a very moving moment with near-total detachment. Maybe that was what the Dardennes wanted from me, but even if this is the case, it doesn’t change my assessment; this is a compelling movie worth watching, but it’s, I hate to say it, sometimes hard to tell what the point is.

Source: Sony DVD
14 January, 12:30 AM

The Road to Guantánamo

Michael Winterbottom & Mat Whitecross, UK, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

Michael Winterbottom, as any article you read about him will tell you, is a man of many filmic styles, but one that he seems to keep coming back to, albeit in varying shapes and forms, is the docudrama. While his earlier film In This World used nonprofessionals reacting naturally to more-or-less fictional occurrences, this film uses actors to depict the true story of a handful of young British South Asian men who, while visiting Pakistan for a wedding, make an extremely ill-advised detour into Afghanistan right when the Americans start bombing it.

As you can guess from the title, these guys eventually end up in Cuba, where we are treated to a series of harrowing mistreatments and abuses of power that, let’s just say, made me even less proud to be an American than I already was. The docudrama style is effective here because the depictions of prisoner abuse stand on their own, without any need for manipulative music or embellishment of psychological detail. This isn’t to say that I value “realism” in film for its own sake, but in cases such as these, some form of it is probably the best way to get the point across. The decision to include interview segments is an interesting one, but it ultimately prevents this from becoming some kind of inscrutable art-film by allowing us some idea of what the prisoners were thinking.

It must be said that the entire film does not take place in prison camps, and the lead-up to this portion of the film is a quite captivating sort of travelogue, as these guys place themselves in the belly of the beast in a misguided effort to make some kind of difference. The film does a good job at conveying their shifting cultural identities, making their fate all the more compelling.

Source: Sony DVD
12 January, 11:55 PM

West Side Story

Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise, USA, 1961
4 out of 4 stars

I saw this film in my capacity as a “projectionist” (actually, I just put in the tape or the DVD) for an undergraduate class, and many of the people there couldn’t help but laugh, even though the professor asked them to look past the cheesiness that admittedly is present in the film. But much as this film is now a touchstone for its now laughably tame portrayal of gang violence, it is actually quite far from the cheesefest that its reputation suggests.

There are certainly weaknesses, such as the sometimes-uncomfortable minstrelsy of two of the three actors portraying the principle Puerto Rican characters (silly accents, mostly, especially in the singing), and the just plan weakness of the white male lead. In fact, I think the best parts of the movie don’t even include the main couple, which makes it amazing that the film works at all.

It does, however, work quite well. I found the dance to be quite exciting and dynamically filmed, and I appreciated how, minstrelsy aside, the depiction of the struggles of the immigrants and the racial prejudices puts the treatment of the same issues in most modern films to shame. The cops, after all, openly state their preference for the white gang (although there are occasional reminders that these kids are “merely” first-generation Americans, and shouldn’t take too much for granted). The fact that the white kids still fight shows that the generational gap is just as importance for them, but it also makes them more complicit in the tragedy that ensues because they don’t really need to fight, at least not as much.

Source: Warner widescreen VHS
11 January, 5:10 PM

Clean

Olivier Assayas, France / UK / Canada, 2004
3.5 out of 4 stars

When a musical legend self-destructs, we have a bad habit of blaming his decline on his wife or partner, as if he had no agency in bringing about his own end. This film is about such a wife, played by Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung (speaking mostly English and French here), and what she has to do when she finds herself all on her own. I found her character very sympathetic, perhaps because I am always resistant to those blame-the-woman narratives in the first place, but I think Assayas and Cheung do a good job at crafting a character who you can root for even though she obviously is a little bit complicit in some things, especially when it comes to drugs.

The main weakness of the film is that the plotting is a bit haphazard at times, which is somewhat problematic because it’s a largely plot-driven film. Although much of the film is spent depicting some rather difficult times for the protagonist, I felt that the overall tone was surprisingly optimistic, but I don’t know if I was just filling in the blanks the way I wanted to in order to see it as a story of redemption (rather than the opposite). That, however, may be the point; if so, it only enriches the film when two kinds of spectators could validly take something entirely different from the same film.

Source: UMVD DVD
6 January, 1:07 PM

Children of Men

Alfonso Cuarón, UK / USA / Japan, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

So far, this dystopian, apocalyptic tale is easily the best film of 2006. It consists largely of extremely long takes, and while this might sound a bit gimmicky, it’s a very effective and engrossing stylistic choice, and it makes for some absolutely astonishing cinematography. Much as in V for Vendetta, we once again find ourselves in a Britain that has remained stable – but at what cost – in the midst of a world that is apparently in turmoil, due to an unexplained epidemic of infertility. In the case of this film, we know that the outside turmoil is not mere propaganda, thanks to the sight of the many refugees desperately trying to get in or stay in the UK, most of whom end up in camps. Obviously, this a very openly political film, and so of course, Clive Owen’s character presents us with an apparently apolitical hero who is drawn back into action on a course that he doesn’t quite understand, until of course it’s too late for him to step away from it.

Much as he did in his Harry Potter film, Cuarón very effectively sets his atmosphere, conveying quite clearly, even before we see the refugee camps, that “survival” has had a high psychological cost for the British people. While it’s unlikely that we ever have to worry about not enough babies being born, the film nonetheless takes a very compelling look at how far the state could go in response to such a conundrum, and yet, it doesn’t come across as preachy at all; this is in many ways a very good action film, and very accessible despite its many layers.

Source: Universal 35mm print
5 January, 7:10 PM

Once Upon a Time in America

Sergio Leone, Italy / USA, 1984
2 out of 4 stars

This would-be epic about Prohibition-era Jewish (!) gangsters caught my attention at first, as the contemplative tone, elliptical style and in medias res opening suggested that there were many interesting layers to be peeled through in this 229 minute (!!) film. In fact, I did like the stretch of the film concerning the protagonist's miscreant childhood, for the most part. But by about halfway through, the promise of the opening just seems like smoke and mirrors. Leone’s film is overall quite empty at heart, and even if he did film more than 10 hours of footage, there really doesn’t seem to be enough story, characters, or interest here to justify the time spent. I guess I can see what Leone was getting at, I just don’t think I would buy into it in any form. Admittedly, I do have some trouble being objective about a film that trivializes rape in such a horrendous manner, but I don’t really feel that I am in error in making that value judgment either.

Source: Warner DVD
3 January, 6:31 PM

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America

Kevin Willmott, USA, 2004
3 of 4 stars

This mockumentary, formed out of fake commercials and reenactments as well as decontextualized photos and video, purports to show the viewer how America would have developed if the South had won the war and established the Confederate government over the entire nation. The point of this is that, through various ingeniously repositioned quotes and rearranged or reversed historical occurrences, the director is able to show us how our own society has developed into a slightly cleaned-up, more polite version of this slave society dystopia, rather than something completely opposite from it as we would like to think. What turns out to be shocking is not how alien this scenario is, but instead, how easily various real aspects of American history fit into this alternate trajectory.

I do think that without a basic knowledge of American history (and I don’t claim any more than that), some of these parallels might be lost on the viewer. That is perhaps the main weakness of the piece, which is that it requires a certain amount of knowledge and saavy in order to draw the needed connections, and that those who lack one or both may feel confident in rejecting the content of the film as a mere “what if” flight of fancy. There is some text at the end that attempts to ground us in real history, but while admittedly informative, it comes off as heavy-handed.

It also must be said that the film is not of consistent quality, which is perhaps due to Willmott’s grand ambitions and his low budget. For instance, some period pieces, especially the 1946 film, don’t evoke their periods very well, and we could have used a greater variety of fake talking heads (the ones we have are sometimes a bit too didactic or obvious). Finally, Willmott seems to lose control of his alternate history near the end, as some threads are never resolved properly, such as the fate of Nazi Germany, and this really undermines the effectiveness of the film.

Nonetheless, the message is worthwhile and compelling, and above all, the film is darkly humorous… that is meant in the sense of “black comedy,” but I can’t help but be self-conscious about these kind of expressions after watching this film! The point is, I laughed with horror throughout, and this seems to indicate that Willmott at least captured the right tone, even if he faltered at times in the execution.

Source: Genius DVD
1 January, 8:58 PM

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