Devil in a Blue Dress

Carl Franklin, USA, 1995
2 out 4 stars

I always find it tiresome when a reviewer, or just someone with whom I’m having a conversation, starts off on how the book was so much better, and how the movie was bad because they changed things, and how dare they. When it comes to some recent franchises, I am strongly in favor of the plot alterations made by Peter Jackson and his screenwriting partners, and Alfonso Cuarón’s Harry Potter film is the best in part because it is the least slavishly faithful of the films that have been released so far.

Of course, the reason that I hold these opinions is because I believe Jackson and Cuarón each show better storytelling instincts than Tolkein or Rowling, or, if that’s too blasphemous for you, let’s just say that they know what works for cinema. So when I complain that Carl Franklin’s film seems to miss the point of Walter Mosley’s book in almost every way possible and is almost completely inferior, I hope that I’m merely recognizing that Franklin clearly falls short of Mosley. Even so, I have taught this book twice now and, in a month, will probably teach it for the third time, so I do wonder if I haven’t reached the point that so many others have, at which I am no longer receptive to an alternate version.

Suffice it to say that this is one of my least favorite noir films, perhaps because Denzel Washington’s character never really gets his hands dirty like the book’s protagonist, Easy Rawlins, does. The narration that he recites and the moral dilemmas he goes through just seem like going through the motions compared with the original. Indeed, although I like Washington, he is too unambiguous here. Don Cheadle, who plays an antihero of sorts, would have made a much better Easy. Considering that, even in 2004, Hotel Rwanda had to be made independently so that Cheadle instead of Washington, it’s safe to say that the studio system’s very narrow list of black stars considered “marketable” mandated casting here – to the detriment of the film. What’s perhaps harder to understand is why almost all the other characters seem miscast as well.

Most of the film just falls flat, in the end analysis. Franklin certainly missed the point of the book in many ways, which is not to say that the book is perfect; indeed, any adaptation would have to “fix” many awkward or confusing elements in it. Unfortunately, the fixes attempted here mostly just expose new holes.

Source: Sony VHS
2 June, 8:24 PM

Ali G Indahouse

Mark Mylod, UK / France / Germany, 2002
2.5 out of 4 stars

I was enjoying myself during the larger part of this movie’s running time, so I figured that I would give it a good rating. However, as I sat down to review it, I increasingly felt defeated by the film in my attempt to assess its quality, as if the idea of “quality” didn’t really apply to a film like this. It’s a lot easier when you’re just repelled by an often-disgusting, plotless film just as this, in which case you can dismiss it as dreck or whatever. I started to wonder if I even wanted to continue “reviewing” films here, considering that movie-watching is taking up less of my time lately, but some kind words from friends encouraged me to continue on, reviewing this film quite a while after the fact.

So, is this a good movie? No, although neither is it an awful film. Perhaps this is splitting hairs, but it’s possible to enjoy a movie even though it is not very good, although I will say that if the whole film had been funny, I probably would rate it higher. I think it starts off fairly strong, particularly in the south-central Los Angeles fantasy scene, and in the scenes in Ali G’s hometown of Staines. It starts to show the cracks around the time Ali makes it to Parliament, and, strangely, becomes less and less funny as it tries to put together a plot near the end. Everything is capped off with a protracted closing sequence that isn’t even remotely amusing.

You see, unlike Borat, here Sacha Baron Cohen is interacting with actors throughout, and there is not even an attempt to feign a “documentary” aesthetic. This frees sensitive souls such as myself from any need to feel sorry for the people he harasses, but it also robs the film of any pretensions of “outsider commentary” (and perhaps one could observe that said pretensions are exposed from the get-go by the reminder that Baron Cohen started his career by harassing his own countrymen). This just seems like the kind of movie a former cast member of Saturday Night Live would make, if slightly-more-inspired film than those efforts. And finally, Baron Cohen sure seems to put the truth to David Sedaris’ assertion that straight people spend too much time thinking about gay sex (I don’t even know if his “interest” is homophobic or not, it’s too weird to even be sure).

Source: Cinemax on demand
25 May, 9:17 PM

The Painted Veil

John Curran, China / USA, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

Those of you that are familiar with my kneejerk leftism will know that I’m no big fan of “white people in Asia” movies – I prefer to let the Asians speak for themselves, to put it bluntly. Nevertheless, this picture, aside from The Quiet American, is one of the better examples of this kind of film. The focus is on the spoiled socialite wife (Naomi Watts), and her microbiologist husband (Edward Norton), who find themselves acting out the ups and downs of all-but-arranged marriage against the backdrop first of Shanghai, then later of rural China, as Norton’s character tries to stem a cholera outbreak.

The perspective of the film is such that it does not try to instill the couple with an unrealistic level of insight regarding their complicity in 1920s Europeans imperialism. It does not shy away from pointing out these issues, but it also manages to avoid heavy-handedness. Ultimately, the movie really is about the trials of the couple themselves, and the actors both do a good job with some shifts and changes that might have seemed absurd if acted out by others. Finally, the cinematography is certainly nothing to sneer at.

Source: Warner DVD
19 May, 9:59 PM

Volver

Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 2006
2.5 out of 4 stars

Certainly, Almodóvar retains his interesting, bright visual style, although it doesn’t seem quite as distinctive overall. And he continues spotlighting the generational traumas and triumphs of women and whatnot. Yet despite all that, this film fell fall short of the only other one I’ve seen by him, All About My Mother. There is much here that should be involving, but I felt strangely uninvolved for the most part. Despite the serious issues at play, the plot is structured in a manner that felt either like a sitcom or a soap opera, I’m not quite sure which. It’s also all over the map; threads get dropped or deemphasized at will, leaving me unsure as to what I was really supposed to be paying attention to.

If I’ve been vague about what happens in this film so far, it’s because anything that is really important happens after a good 30 minutes is past, which is generally my vague cut-off point for giving away plot details (this rather conservative spoilerphobe policy is a direct response to all those TV and film trailers, not to mention TV listing and DVD box covers, that carelessly tell you everything that’s gonna happen). To give you some kind of hint, though, just let me tell you the apparent use of magical realism was one of the more interesting things about the film, and I felt more than a bit let down once I realized how this element was actually being put to use. That might just be my fault, and perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood for this film, but as it is, I did not enjoy it very much.

Source: Sony DVD
13 May, 9:27 PM

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

George Roy Hill, USA, 1969
3.5 out of 4 stars

My parents showed me this film on videotape when I was a teenager, and then, on DVD, I’ve seen it in a composition class and now again as a projectionist for a lower-division film class. Each time, it holds up as an effective, entertaining deconstruction of the Western ethos, even in an era in which deconstruction is a dime a dozen. To be honest, I don’t think I knew much at all about what was being deconstructed the first time I saw this film, as, much like the neo-noir of the 1970s, it all ends up being “the past” for today’s generation, or even mine, so some level of genre awareness is required to understand what is transpiring (for this class, it was provided by an episode of Bonanza that I was unable to sit through due to its, well, suckiness).

That said, this kind of awareness is not necessary in order to be entertained by the film, which was evidenced by the significant amount of laughter I heard from the undergrads throughout the screening. Of course, wisecracks are that eternal, postmodern form of humor that resontates throughout the ages, but the actors clearly have good chemistry and really sell the material. I do think some parts are more uneven than others, and perhaps we have ended up with a lot of bad formula films as a result, but this film overall reminds one of how the formula can work.

Source: Fox DVD
7 May, 5:09 PM

Spider-Man 3

Sam Raimi, USA, 2007
2.5 out of 4 stars

So rumor has it that this film, at $250 million, surpasses Cleopatra as the most expensive movie ever made (adjusted for inflation, obviously), and while this might be an obvious angle on the latest in the spider-franchise (and one should try one’s hardest not to judge the film on the basis of what is said in the entertainment press), I can’t help but feel like they could have saved about $100 million and made a better film in the process. The third film, at 140 minutes, manages to seem both over-crowded and overly languorous.

You see, certain scenes from the second film, such as the first skyscraper fight with Dr. Octopus, or the climactic train scene, still stick with me, even though I only saw it once. Yet although the special effects are plenty bombastic and impressive here, I don’t think I will remember anything very specific about this movie even a few months later.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I will remember Raimi’s really peculiar decision as to how to dramatize “evil Spidey.” My friend called him Emo-Spidey, whereas as the ridiculous montage of him strutting and prancing on the street continued, I was more inclined to view him as Metro-Spidey. No matter how you slice it, these scenes really take you out of the movie and into some truly bizarre, retro-musical pastiche, in which Maguire actually voices the words “dig on this” in a non-ironic manner. Huh?!?

There are other problems, mind you. The film is hyperviolent in the most disingenuous of ways; death only counts when the filmmakers want it to, to the extent that the same bomb exploding at the same range will produce entirely different results at different times. Emotionally, the film cheats as well, actually giving MJ a good reason to be mad at Pete early on, but then, about halfway through, drastically obscuring the issues at hand as if it is too distracted to really close the can of worms that it has opened.

You know, I did enjoy it, more or less. It’s just fortunate that I was expecting it to be a bit of a trainwreck thanks to what I have read. See it as long as you are expecting another installment in the cycle, but don’t go expecting any kind of culmination for the trilogy. The studio is already thinking about number four; let’s hope they learn to scale back for once.

Source: Sony 35mm print
5 May, 9 PM

Hot Fuzz

Edgar Wright, UK / France, 2007
3 out of 4 stars

If you’ve noticed the tagline “from the makers of Shaun of the Dead,” which in this case means not merely the producers but the same writers, stars, and director, then you know why I was looking forward to this film so much. In such an instance, the inevitable comparison must be made, and so I regretfully have to say that this movie is definitely not as good as their previous effort, which I rated at 4 stars, for whatever that’s worth.

That’s not to say that this isn’t a strong effort. In fact, it works on perhaps even more levels that Shaun did, although I don’t know if I’m saying that merely because I’m somewhat more familiar with the cop action genre and its clichés than I am with previous zombie horror films. Actually, I think it is fair to warn you that parts of this film are not entirely unlike a horror film, which is perhaps not that unusual for the genre.

Here, we have the meta aspect of the characters actually discussing other cop action films and comparing their own lives to it. This doesn’t merely take the shape of that lame “life isn’t a movie” type of false claim to realism that some self-referential films take, but neither is it the overly-knowing, braindead plotless “parody” of stuff like Epic Movie (which I admittedly have not seen) either.

The thing is, this is an intricately-crafted film that actually contains some good action and an interesting plot with a very chilling twist, one that I probably should have figured out early (oh sure I spotted the red herring, but I didn’t pay enough attention to most important bit of foreshadowing). The slash subtext (which seems to be rapidly becoming text) is hilarious and dead-on without being purile or homophobic, as one would expect in an American comedy. In fact, this relationship is probably the best part of the film. It just seems like, in the end, the film isn’t quite as funny as the other one, despite all that it has going for it. And although it doesn’t really bring the film down or anything, there are some peculiar ideological contradictions – it’s hard to be sure what the filmmakers are saying about the cops… perhaps nothing?

Source: Universal 35mm print
29 April, 4:30 PM

Good Night, and Good Luck

George Clooney, USA, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

A film like this raises inevitable difficulties when one sets out to evaluate it, and it is safe to say that these difficulties have been well covered by the criticism that has already been written regarding Clooney’s agit-prop resurrection of the newsman who, we are told, took down McCarthy and therefore left a lesson to us all, media people and common people alike, that we are clearly not living up to in the age of Bush II.

First, there is the question of whether this even really counts as a film. I would say yes, but just barely, and clearly filmmaking for its own sake was not key to Clooney’s agenda. It’s tempting then to ask what, exactly, this film is supposed to do. So-called intellectuals such as myself don’t really need to be educated on who McCarthy was. Perhaps I needed some education on Ed Murrow, the primary figure here, but amusingly, that has already been provided by the significant media coverage of the film. Of course, this coverage would not exist without the making of the film itself, and that leads me to conclude that the main reason that this is a motion picture is that, due to the medium, it therefore demands more attention than a book or, dare I say it, a television special, either of which might have been more appropriate for conveying this “lesson,” especially considering how much archival footage is used and how long the film spends showing us some of it.

Finally, then, we must consider how the “ignorant” would respond to such a film. I vaguely remember my roommate, who is not the brightest pulp in the package, being unsure as to what time period the damn thing took place in, but on the other hand, the undergraduate class that I watched most of it with (in my role as “projectionist”) seemed to get involved in the thing, cheering at some of Murrow’s more provocative lines.

And sure, I imagine we could have gotten the benefit of these choice tidbits from archival footage of Murrow’s show itself, but it goes back to the question of “would anyone have watched it in that case, even in a classroom?” I think the answer is no, and I have to admit that, for some reason, the film actually is pretty entertaining. It is a slight but also hard-hitting propaganda piece that has the benefit of being on the side of truth, more or less. So yeah, I recommend it, even if I’m somewhat bemused by it.

Source: Warner DVD
23 April, 6:37 PM

The Namesake

Mira Nair, India / USA, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

This is one of those movies where the progression of events is quite clear and linear, but the plot is nonetheless somewhat fluid, and not very defined. This partly results from the shifting focus from the couple that immigrates from Calcutta to New York, played by two Bollywood actors, to their American-born son, played by Kal Penn. If you've seen the trailer, you'll probably be surprised by this, as the advertising department has attempted to impose this very definite narrative on the film in which Penn's character is the sole POV and his identity crisis dilemma consumes the entire film. They do this by drawing almost all the trailer from one scene of the film, and by disrupting sequence the sequence in one key instance.

Suffice it to say, the actual movie is more interesting in that; we don't just see the son's journey towards understanding the parents and their "foreign" ways, rather we start with the parents, making us feel more understanding of their frustration with him. Overall, it's not a very didactic piece at all, and the son's identity crisis is a very subtle one. I think the performances were very effective and the film itself is rather well done, if perhaps still a bit familiar.

Source: Fox 35mm print
30 March, 1:10 PM

In America

Jim Sheridan, UK / Ireland, 2002
3 out of 4 stars

Maybe it's just because I went a while without watching any movies, but lately, I've been having a lot of trouble evaluating the films I've been seeing. This in particular is a strange animal, in that it constantly threatens gloom and doom but veers away from it towards something else, as the bad events are mostly in the past, gradually developed through furtive references.

In fact, it's had to get a handle on the rhythm of this story, in which an Irish family illegally immigrates into Manhattan. It seems to be some kind of memoir which may explain why the story doesn't unravel in a very "clean" manner, but there are nonetheless some pretty obvious cinematic conventions going on here, the most glaring of which is the Magical Black Man (a la The Green Mile et al), played here by Djimon Hounsou. Dismissing his plotline in such a way may seem harsh, but it's pretty accurate.

And yet... it is a crime for a story not to go the way you expect it to? This does seem like a fairly insightful character study, and the acting is good, especially from the children, believe it or not (although they do sorta look a bit too clean and happy, too much like they are about to go home to their suburban homes right after the scene wraps, which of course they are, I imagine). I can't really tell if the filmmakers are subverting expectations or just confused or deceitful about the story they want to tell, and I suspect I'm being too hard on a good film... so consider this somewhere in between 2.5 and 3 stars.

Source: Fox DVD
27 March, 8:35 PM

Primer

Shane Carruth, USA, 2004
2.5 out of 4 stars

Who's up for some indie, low budget realist scifi adventure? Okay, perhaps "adventure" might not be the right word for a rather low key film about a couple of tech workers who try to invent things in their garage until one day, they stumble upon a reality-bending device. I might well be being too easy on this one, simply because it was so difficult to understand what was happening that I ultimately decided that I shouldn't hold my lack of comprehension against it. It seems clever and sort of dark, but it also seems a bit like the Sundance version of any number of Star Trek episodes I could name. Like another film I've seen recently, it's also 77 minutes, and it seems pretty clear that it's not any longer than the filmmaker could afford to make. I think that it's somewhat possible that some of the missing pieces of information here are actually a result of running out of money, and instead are made into a virtue by creating a "mindbender," but maybe it really is just difficult to understand. I usually try to avoid reading any websites about a film until after I've written these, but in this case, I'm looking at some stuff that explains how this is all about science and how really no one gets it after the first viewing. I guess I am not much of a science guy or a repeat-viewing guy, so I am willing to consider that it might be a masterpiece after watching it 50 times, but there are other films to watch, after all.

Source: Warner DVD
25 March, 7:53 PM

The Science of Sleep

(La science des rêves)
Michel Gondry, France / Italy, 2006
3 out of 4 stars

The stock critical narrative regarding this film is that Michel Gondry's visuals are still entrancing, but without the help of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, with whom he collaborated on with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the visuals are just adrift and things are just meaningless, too indulgent. The trouble with reading reviews and criticism is that, if you don't have a strong feeling of your own about a film, it's fairly easy to go along with the established critical narrative, and in this case, I suppose I agree, but I would go so far as to agree with those who see this as a "bad" film.

It is quite amazing but nowhere near as amazing as his "other" film, because it is so directionless. The characers are just as "charming" but their relationship is very over-familiar, only dressed up with mass amounts of quirkiness. Luckily the quirk is quite engaging and all, so it's not just a rote film, but yeah, a story would help, I am afraid.

Source: Warner DVD
24 March, 8:05 PM

The Motel

Michael Kang, USA, 2005
2 out of 4 stars

This Asian American coming of age story is a bit unusual, but largely ordinary, in the way that many low-budget, self-consciously "indie" films strive to be. I usually don't mind it when a film is short, but this one seems to be only 77 minutes because the filmmakers simply don't have anything else to say. Everything seems to follow a pattern and the acting is a bit off, perhaps because the emotions are overly muted. I understand the value of understatement, but this is a film that wants to make some kind of statement, so it's a bit problematic in this case. It's a valiant effort, but just not that good.

Source: UMVD DVD
23 March, 9:28 PM

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

(Qian li zou dan qi)
Zhang Yimou, China / Hong Kong / Japan, 2005
4 out of 4 stars

An elderly Japanese man is trying to bridge an unexplainable gap that has developed between him and his son, when his daughter-in-law gives him a tape of that son’s trip to China to film a folk opera. Inspired by a promise the son makes to film a different piece next year, the old man travels to Yunnan province to do it himself, hoping that this gesture will mean something to his son.

Yes, in between the interesting but flawed House of Flying Daggers and the positively infuriating Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou actually made another “human” film hearkening back to his old days, but the introduction of the Japanese element makes this a different film, as we now have Ken Takakura, apparently a major film star, acting alongside the local non-actors that Zhang had become accustomed to using before he switched to wuxia. And of course, Takakura’s character and the Chinese villagers he meets don’t understand each other and interpreting services are not always easy to come by.

Simply put, this is one of the best quest-driven films I’ve seen in a while, and although I’ve liked Zhang’s earlier films, I think I liked this one even more because it has those quiet, reflective moments but uses them in service of a surprisingly-compelling story (whereas that description above might have given away the entire plot of some of his films, there are plenty more twists and turns in this one). The theme of communication, or lack thereof, is very successfully developed throughout; this man can’t talk to his son, he can’t talk to the Chinese, but somehow these folks find a way, more or less. It’s all very moving and surprisingly funny at times. I strongly recommend checking this out.

Source: Sony DVD
22 March, 12:02 PM

Zodiac

David Fincher, USA, 2007
3.5 out of 4 stars

Sometimes it helps to read the press. In my case, I probably would have avoided the film if I had been under the false impression that this film addresses the serial killer subject by engaging in some kind of creep-out gore-fest (whereas my friends, and the teenagers apparently being kept out be a heightened alter of ID checking, were indeed expecting such a thing apparently). And of course, Fincher does have a certain reputation thanks to Seven. But no, what we have here, and what I was prepared and made interested in for thanks to various pieces I read and heard, is a very talky procedural concerned with the role of the media in society, the nature of obsession, and other things that I find more interesting than the lurid wallowing in the bloody details; this is more the subject of the film itself than its actual modus operandi.

Another key here is the thoroughness of the film, and Fincher's desire that it be seen as fairly accurate. While I'm sure liberties were taken, there is a reason why Dirty Harry, a more fictionalized, contemporary version of this story, features prominently in one segment. There seems to be a real need for the filmmakers to tell a story that hews as close to the facts as possible, meaning that various laws of dramatic structure are clearly transgressed in order to give a more accurate, but still very compelling picture about how this case affected the lives of two men working at the San Francisco Chronicle and two SFPD officers. Admittedly, I am usually not all that fond of Law and Order and its spawn, but this film does take care to provide us with compelling characters and engaging dialogue. It is long, but it is worth checking out.

Source: Paramount 35mm print
4 March, 11:35 AM

My Sassy Girl

(Yeopgijeogin geunyeo)
Kwak Jae-young, South Korea, 2001
3 out of 4 stars

If you are a young Asian person or a young person with Asian friends, there’s a good chance that you have heard someone rave about this film, even though it is not readily available in stores here. I finally had a chance to watch it, and I found it charming, entertaining, and also a bit frustrating, mostly near the end.

What we have here is the purportedly blog-inspired story of a somewhat ineffectual dopey male college student and a drunk girl he meets on the subway. As they fall into some kind of weird relationship, she endlessly terrorizes him with her irrational demands and erratic behavior, but of course, is strangely irresistible as well. I am well aware that Korean film has a reputation for being melodramatic - and even if I wasn’t, some cleverly-integrated parody vignettes gently satirize this trend - and so it is almost with resignation that I anticipated the second half of the film, when things get a bit more serious, and complications ensue (as if “complications” weren’t already built in to the relationship!).

Without question, this is much more nuanced, engaging, and clever than any recent domestic romantic comedy that I can recall, and it will most likely be bled of these qualities when the remake comes around later this year, even if some of the more prolonged melodrama might possibly be excised without too much detriment. Ultimately, however, I think I am being too hard on the final portion of the movie. There are enough interesting developments to sustain interest throughout the second hour of the piece; it’s only really in the last twenty minutes or so (yes, this is a long film) that things started to get repetitive. I guess the point is that for the first hour, it was just a fun film to watch, but near the end, I started to feel more like it was more just a good film to watch with a girl. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

Source: Starmax DVD
27 February, 8:40 PM

Dark City

Alex Proyas, Australia / USA, 1998
4 out of 4 stars

I suppose it’s silly to try to talk about this film without giving away the twist, but I fondly recall being all but blown away by the multiple reveals that really brought the film together, so I can’t help but stick to my usual “no-spoiler” policy, even though I could see this time that the twists might be fairly obvious to many people. It’s true that there were a few films that drew upon similar ideas (although with much different styles) that came out not long after this one and met with much greater success (this was a critical and commercial failure), but that isn’t as surprising to me upon this viewing. This is, after all, more of a great vision than a perfectly-executed film.

What’s interesting is that, at the outset, the film seems to be some kind of neo-noir, but the opening shot and the narration clues you in that there is a mysterious sci-fi element, which becomes more apparent once you meet the villains. These villains, I have to say, do get lamer as the film goes along, although I think the giggles of the students I was watching the film with say more about their unwillingness to go along with the film than the film itself (the next-door drilling, and the failure of one of the speakers, didn’t really help). There is a lot to overlook; I felt like of the main cast, only William Hurt and Jennifer Connelly give really good performances. But nevermind that, as this is really about the art direction and the obvious, yet brilliantly conceived conceptual mind-trips. It struck me this time, as I’m sure it has others, that this is an especially interesting form of metacinema, making interesting comments on the act of filmmaking itself (and that doesn’t give as much away as you think it might). It’s definitely something that everyone should take a look at, although it probably isn’t for everyone.

Source: Warner DVD
22 February, 5:10 PM

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

John Cameron Mitchell, USA, 2001
3 out of 4 stars

By far, the best part of this flashback-driven road film (without the road) is the music, containing all the best tendencies of rock and the musical in any number of rousing numbers. The lyrical content, as you might expect considering that the singer character is a transgendered person whose operation didn’t really go that well, is quite explicit and shocking, but it’s done with the right balance of accessibility and shock value, to the point that I think almost anyone could get behind this music with the right level of open-mindedness (which I understand is a tall order for some folks).

I’m not entirely sure, however, about the actual film this music is contained it; I think it’s good but more of a vehicle for the music than particularly great in and of itself. For one thing, I am a bit irked at how musicians are apparently considered to be the only acceptable subject matter for musicals, indicating that the convention of people breaking into song for “no reason” is really truly consigned to the dustbin of cinema, despite Joss Whedon’s best efforts. In fact, there is really only one true “musical number” here in the traditional sense, and it’s no coincidence that it was my favorite sequence.

Otherwise, most of the movie consists of one-song performances carried out at various gigs in different locations of a thinly-veiled Applebee’s knockoff; this conceit is more pragmatic than anything, as the evil of the chain restaurant is that you could plausibly be in different regions of the country even though the setting changes only superficially. These performances are entertaining, if a bit MTV-style and not exactly all that filmic. The narrative that is conveyed through the aforementioned flashbacks is compelling and develops the character fairly well, but overall, the story itself becomes increasingly underserved at the end, eventually leading, most frustratingly, to a sort of Lord of the Rings multiple ending syndrome. While I usually approve of a 90 minute running time, I feel like storyline was slashed here in order to make room for the songs. If that was the tradeoff they had to make, they chose wisely, but I would have preferred a longer film that allowed both the story and the music some room to breathe, as I feel like important questions were answered in an overly oblique manner at the end.

Source: Warner DVD
15 February, 5:10 PM PM

Welcome to Dongmakgol

Park Kwang-hyun, South Korea, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

This is something of a high-concept drama, lighthearted at times, but one that takes its subject, the Korean War, very seriously of course. It involves soldiers from the North, the South, and even the US who end up separated from their colleagues and take refuge in the titular village, an inexplicably utopian settlement that has something of an Edenic quality to it, as the villagers don’t even understand what the guns do, leading of of the funniest standoff scenes I’ve ever seen. The filmmakers wisely avoid making these unsophisticated country folk the butt of any jokes, while similarly avoiding any heavy-handed, didactic speeches. Instead, there are some spectacular visual scenes, although I wasn’t always entirely sold on the style used in some of them, particularly the boar scene. The characters are a little thin, too, although this may not be entirely inadvertent.

I mentioned earlier that there is actually an American soldier in the town along with the soldiers from the two Koreas, and I can only figure that he is there for balance, because, overall, the Americans are portrayed with visual and musical queues that remind the viewer of the Empire from Star Wars. While I think it would be an exaggeration to say that this film is entirely a straightforward political allegory, it’s hard not to draw parallels with how many Koreans in the south today feel about America’s role in the division of the peninsula.

Source: KD DVD
14 February, 11:15 PM

Conversations with Other Women

Hans Canosa, UK / USA, 2005
3 out of 4 stars

I had never heard of this film until I saw it on a Blockbuster shelf, and having one last in-store rental from my free trial with the online service, I picked it up solely on the strength of the actors, Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter. I anticipated that the film would be exclusively focused on them, and that their performances would be very engaging, and I was right on both counts.

The two actors play wedding guests who meet and begin flirting. Two things stand out right away. The first is that the dialogue is sparking and quite clever, and the second is that everything is in split-screen. This is a difficult effect to describe; sometimes each actor occupies a different side of the screen, sometimes we get different angles, different moments in the scene (some of which appear to have not actually occurred), and even flashbacks, on occasion. It actually did take me a little while to get accustomed to this very singular stylistic choice, as sometimes it’s hard to know where to direct one’s attention! Furthermore, although as usual I don’t want to give anything away, you can’t take everything these characters say to each other at face value, at least not at the beginning.

Ultimately, I would say that the interplay between these characters is really entertaining and moving, and that the actors definitely sell it. I think the split-screen works, although it perhaps would have been better to just use it in part of the film, as there are moments in which it seems unnecessary. This is a good solid film; there just isn’t enough here for it to be a great one (and with less-talented actors, it might well have been a bad one).

Source: WEA DVD
8 February, 8:32 PM

Fong Sai Yuk

Corey Yuen, Hong Kong, 1993
3.5 out of 4 stars

Old kung fu films have a reputation in the US as being overly-corny, which is perhaps why all of the 21st century, internationally-targeted martial arts films are so deathly serious, perhaps overcompensating a bit with the gravity in order to pure associations with the perceived silliness of the older stuff. Meanwhile, most of Jet Li’s 1990s film output has been released in English-only, cut versions, with anything too “weird” or even worse, “foreign” being excised in order not to offend the aesthetic (?) sensibilities of the Western viewer.

With all that preamble, I guess the point is that I watched this early Jet Li film on the uncut, original language DVD (with less-than-perfect, but comprehensible English subtitles), and I really enjoyed it. I don’t want to indiscriminately label all films of this time period and genre as lost classics, because many of them are actually quite boring, others are indeed just too ridiculous, and still others are just hodgepodges, with no discernible unity to them. This film might seem to fall under the last category, as it starts with pure comedy and somewhat unexpectedly transitions to something a bit weightier (although not grim, by any means) about two-thirds of the way through. Although Jet Li had already played Wong Fei-hung and would soon get a little too stuck in his “goody goody” persona, at this point he is still willing to put on the happy go-lucky persona that I saw in Swordsman II, which I watched last year.

That said, Josephine Siao largely steals the show as the mother of Li’s titular character. Her manic energy and frantic delivery is always just one step shy of total overkill, but her performance is ultimately quite effective. What’s more, a surprising amount of pathos arises from a romantic plotline that, for fear of spoiling it, I won’t describe in detail here. Although much of the plot is rather slapstick, there is a certain element of Shakespearean comedy to the proceedings, perhaps paralleled by Chinese precedent as well. Finally, the fight scenes are quite good, not overly-dependent on special effects (as, surprisingly, some kung fu films of this time period are), but not too prosaic either, containing various interesting setpieces, such as one in which two characters fight while using the heads of the audience members as their platforms.

Source: Universe remastered DVD
7 February, 10:30 PM

The Queen

Stephen Frears, UK / France / Italy, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

I may have some Anglophile tendencies, but I tend to draw the line at the contemporary monarchy, which is why I had to be convinced by the recommendations of at least three friends that this was something that I should see (and not just another celebration of middlebrow mediocrity on the part of the Academy). It has also been implied, at least by one of my professors, that a woman of intelligence such as Helen Mirren is giving the supposedly dim Elizabeth II too much credit by playing her in the first place.

The truth is, I don’t know anything about the British monarch, and I suspect that I don’t know that much more about her after having seen this film. Perhaps in part due to an interview I read with the director, I didn’t feel, despite the television footage that is peppered throughout (these segments serve to give some context, and are crucial considering how much of the purported discontent was being conveyed through news media), that I was meant to take the depictions at face value. This is not a docudrama, as will probably be clear from the fact that most of the attention has been given to Mirren’s performance.

Instead, Mirren’s queen and Michael Sheen’s Prime Minister (I was told ahead of time that his performance was also quite good, and that person was right in saying so) portray real, living people with a fine level of verisimilitude and imitation, while also performing obvious and yet fascinating roles as emblems of different trends in modern British society. I do think that there are times at which this thread threatens to become too didactic, as I didn’t appreciate the queen and her aide explaining to each other what Blair’s politics were at the beginning (meaning that any viewer with some knowledge of the subject matter must have felt this way at some point in the film). But even though the conflict of values would seem to lend itself to broad strokes, the script and the actors combine to make it a surprisingly successful sort of parable. Finally, I have no investment in Princess Diana whatsoever, so it’s particularly impressive that I could be this involved in a film that is concerned entirely with events surrounding the aftermath of her death.

Source: Buena Vista 35mm print
3 February, 7:25 PM

Monster House

Gil Kenan, USA, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

Pixar may have faltered last year (okay, I didn't see Cars, but everything I've heard and seen points to an artistic, if not commercial, failure), but at least for 2006, there was an unexpectedly successful attempt to take their place in 3D animation domination with this film. It's very high concept, almost deceptively simple in its commitment to a very basic plot; two boys and a girl face down a house that doesn't so much "contain" monsters as it actually is the monster in and of itself. Around this core concept, the filmmakers manage to craft a surprisingly well-realized suburban fantasy world (this is, apparently, Anglo-American magical realism). The characters and the situations they find themselves range from funny to hilarious, and there was enough emotional involvement and genuine spook factor to keep me hooked throughout. This is definitely not one that is only for the kids, but it manages to be so in a way that doesn't make you wonder whether kids should actually be watching it (here I'm referring primarily to much of the DreamWorks product). I'm glad I happened to read some positive evaluations of this film online, because this is definitely something I wouldn't have given a chance without the right prodding. Believe me, it's much better than you might expect.

Source: Sony DVD
2 February, 11:26 PM

Orlando

Sally Potter, UK / Russia / France / Italy / Netherlands, 1992
3.5 out of 4 stars

I have only a passing familiarity with this particular slice of Anglo magical realism, so I kept feeling like the director had made more alterations to Woolf’s novel (or “biography”) than is probably the case. Such irrelevant questions aside, I thought that this was a great showcase for a quietly impressive performance by Tilda Swinton, who, at least at the outset, is a man, and who also seems to live for a very long time. This was the first time that I got to see her in a leading role (perhaps it is her only one?), and I was as impressed as I expected to be; she certainly has the right quality to pull of this very peculiar role, whereas I imagine few other actresses would. Although the quality of the film suggests that the movie was done on the cheap, the various pageantry and location shooting is rather well done, although this is not perhaps the most visually dynamic film I’ve ever seen. It’s actually a hard film to describe, seeing as how there is no logic, not even a clear emotional logic, to what happens, but in this sense, I think the film is faithful to the novel. What I’m saying is, I’m once again not really sure what this is about, but I found that it held my attention throughout and gave me some things to think about.

Source: Sony DVD
1 February, 9:24 PM

Idiocracy

Mike Judge, USA, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

The same studio that was responsible for dumping this film into all of 130 theaters last year, 20th Century Fox, just this last weekend opened Epic Movie, a film that has 0% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes and is unanimously described as a film that contains no actual jokes, merely a random sequence of reenactments of various blockbusters alongside depictions of bodily functions. Of course, this was last weekend’s #1 film. Unsurprisingly, some people on the Internet feel that Fox is engaged in some kind of conspiracy, preferring that we not see this comic (but also very angry) depiction of dystopic society in which, 500 years later, everyone has become terminally stupid due to natural selection no longer taking its course (“only stupid people are breeding,” as the song goes).

Rumors also circulate that this film has been butchered by the studio, and I couldn’t help but engage in guessing games while watching the film. For instance, did they really need that narration? Although it was often funny, it also felt, often enough, like it was really just explaining the obvious, although you could take that as some kind of perverse metacommentary. The film is also only 84 minutes, which made me wonder if the narration wasn’t covering up the gaps left by all the footage that had been hacked away (unless Mike Judge got his budget slashed and had to use narration to convey what he wasn’t able to film).

Indeed, there are ways in which the film seems cheap or hastily done, but there is still a spark of malicious genius to the whole thing, a sort of tremendous hate-letter to our modern society and its valorization of the idiotic; the cynic will claim that most of the things in the film are only slightly exaggerated. I don’t think I agree with Judge that people are getting dumber, and will only get dumber in the future. I think that the popular culture certainly is getting dumber, but I think that this is, for the most part, due to the media’s increasing willingness to pander to our more vapid and venal impulses, rather than attempt to pacify us as they did in the Father Knows Best days (what was so “smart” about that stuff, after all? I think, then, that our overall intelligence isn’t decreasing, it’s more that the visibility of the unintelligent is at an all time high, and whatever thrall the intelligent once had over those who are less so is at an all time low. I will say that the part that rang the truest for me was when the “average” hero is time and time again shot down for his apparent effeminacy, because that is how the future people read anything other than idiocy. I may not agree with Judge’s diagnosis (much less his reading of class and sex, which is questionable at best), but I agree that something is rotten, and I found his vision, powered by righteous anger, to be appropriately disturbing.

Source: Fox DVD
31 January, 10:32 PM

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