Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

(Kaze no tani no Naushika)
Miyazaki Hayao, Japan, 1984
3 out of 4 stars

I think my opinion of this film was jinxed due to a very brief, somewhat dismissive review that I scanned shortly before reading this, but perhaps I would have inevitably regarded this as something of a dry run for, or rough draft of, Miyazaki’s later masterpiece, Princess Mononoke. In fact, it’s easy to summarize the plotline so that it sounds exactly the same: diabolical empires hubristically reignite ancient ecological problems in the face of dire warnings from wiser characters (alright, perhaps slightly different).

One thing this film does have going for it is the main character, Nausicaä, who is I suppose the first of Miyazaki’s strong female heroes (so common his work and so rare in other works). Miyazaki strikes a good balance with his depiction of her character, although the peoples’ obsessive devotion to their princess is a bit unnerving and is never suitably interrogated (although we get some brief glimpses into the strain it puts on Nausicaä herself).

It might seem strange to focus on the political aspects of the film, but as previously mentioned, a critique of militarism and an advocacy of ecology are key elements throughout. Perhaps Minyazaki ultimately takes the Dickens route in this film, suggesting that we just need better leaders in order to minimize the problems we’ve encountered so far; I think that the views expressed in Mononoke do suggest some sort of philosophical development, in that case.

Concerning the plot and the overall structure, Nausicaä ultimately comes off as too complex and too simple at the same time. Each sequence in the film seems to introduce yet another piece of mythology or another plot by an abruptly introduced nation, inspiring both excitement and confusion in the viewer; yet when the film ends, we feel as if everything was resolved relatively easily despite all the complications (and we wonder if, were we to think about the plot more carefully, if everything that had been brought up truly was resolved). The simplicy also derives from the relatively narrow focus on the one principle character (as I said, everything revolves around her). To return to the comparison one last time, Mononoke seems to reverse this phenomenon by providing us with a story that seems both richer and more streamlined.

All that said, this is certainly a beautiful, imaginative and worthwhile film. If you haven’t seen Miyazaki’s later works, there might even be something to be said for watching this first!

Source: Buena Vista DVD
29 Jul, 10:17 PM

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Chris Carter, USA, 2008
1.5 out of 4 stars

I knew it wasn't going to be that good, but I just wanted to see Mulder and Scully again. Having seen it, I realize that this is what I get for making fun of all those people who unthinkingly ran out to see Harrison Ford crack the whip for one last time. Hopefully I've learned my lesson, and next time something comes out that interests me purely as a nostalgia piece, I'll wait for the rental!

The first problem is that Mulder and Scully aren't anywhere near as fun or as interesting as they should be. This is, frankly, inexcusable. David Duchovny tries his best and his character is written to be as appealing as possible, but he just looks old and worn out for most of the film. Gillian Anderson, meanwhile, has aged quite well, but Chris Carter heinously saddles her with a newfound commitment to hospital work, which leads her to deliver lines more suitable to the tiresome "nagging wife" stock character that we see in so many movies about any form of heroism. Scully may even be justified, in the "real world," in voicing these sentiments, but in a film like this, the viewer just feels resentful towards her for being a stick-in-the-mud... and later, resentful at Carter for doing that to his once-great female hero character. In fact, there are other things in the film that struck me as misogynist, not to mention aspects of xenophobia and homophobia. It made me wonder if this was always in the show, or if Carter has just gotten worse, politically speaking.

As for the plot, it's uninteresting, and without question insufficiently paranormal. As you have no doubt heard, the film is in line, structurally speaking, with the "monster of the week" format the show engaged in roughly more than half of the time (as opposed to the "mythology" episodes that advanced the conspiracy plot), but the phrase is misleading in this case, as the villains are shockingly mundane. There is also a possibly psychic, child-molesting ex-priest, but I'm sure that this wouldn't have been enough paranormality to fuel an episode of the show.

To sum up, I really don't know what Carter (or anyone who worked with him) was thinking, as there's nothing here that even has the potential to be good. Forget waiting for the rental on this one; I should have just rented some of the best episodes of the show from Netflix!

Source: Fox 35mm print
25 Jul, 5:40 PM

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Wofgang Reitherman & John Lounsbery, USA, 1977
3.5 out of 4 stars

First, some background information. Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree was released as a half-hour theatrical short (aired before some forgotten film) in 1966. It was followed by And the Blustery Day in 1968, with And Tigger Too! released in 1974. Apparently a bit short on material in 1977, Disney packaged all three together in this feature presentation, which features very minor new transitions, and a surprisingly moving ending sequence. The latter was, however, somewhat undermined by the eventual release of And a Day for Eeyore in 1983, which is included as a bonus feature on the DVD.

As a child, I had the latter two shorts on videotape, and I occasionally had access to the first two, but I’d never seen the feature version until now. If the same could be said for you, I would say that the aforementioned ending is alone worth renting this version. If on the other hand you’ve simply never seen the adventures of (sometimes) British youngster Christopher Robin and his menagerie of talking stuffed animals, you should certainly remedy that now.

There’s no question that this series of eminently British children’s tales has been Disneyfied and Americanized to a certain extent; it’s more that, in the context of other Disneyfications, the treatment that Pooh-bear underwent seems comparatively minor. I would say about half of the songs are good, and the others are inoffensive, and the comedic attempts, slapstick and all are surprisingly effective even for a jaded graduate student such as myself.

Of course it would not surprise you to learn that the “film” is very episodic, and not just because it wasn’t originally a feature; each short comprises roughly two stories usually connected only by vague, thematic concerns, and this feeling of disunity is perhaps the only weakness of the Pooh tales, which probably would be better viewed separately when it comes right down to it. What makes this work at all is the use of the Narrator character, through which the filmmakers introduce a degree of ‘meta” that is still fresh and surprising even when, 21 years later, we live in an age increasingly familiar with such fictional self-referentiality. The Narrator manipulates the book and firmly locates the characters within its confines. It’s one of my fondest memories of the Pooh cartoons, alongside the nostalgic pleasure of Pooh himself, once more.

Source: Buena Vista DVD
20 Jun, 9:08 PM

Hellboy

Guillermo del Toro, USA, 2004
2.5 out of 4 stars

I decided to watch del Toro’s first adaptation of Mike Mignola’s comic book almost entirely because, probably owing to the success of Pan’s Labyrinth, he had been able to release another one. I figured that, if possible, I should try to avoid seeing the sequel first, and I would also try to see if I’d really be interested in paying $5-$10 for it. Well, I’ve read a few of the early issues of Mignola’s series, focused around a demon raised by humans who work for the government, along with his other paranormal colleagues, and I like the idea although I’ve never been blown away enough by it to seek out the whole series. One thing you notice in del Toro’s version is that there is basically no attempt to emulate the shadowy, impressionistic quality of Mignola’s art (perhaps this just wasn’t possible). Hellboy himself is after all bright red, and there was no willingness to alter his appearance into something more film-friendly or shadow-friendly (as they did in, say, the X-Men films, with the black uniforms replacing the bright costumes of the comics). Fidelity seems to be the bywords here, and it seems to have unfortunately been a limiting factor in the film’s success. The scenes added back in for the director’s cut may well have been worthwhile, but the augmentation probably should have been accompanied by some reduction.

Another hindrance seems to have been a disregard for pacing and an unwillingness to excise or trim languid, less-than-engrossing scenes. The “Nazi mysticism” opening is actually quite interesting, albeit campy, but the film starts to stumble as soon as del Toro moves us to the present day, and continues to kind of amble along after that. The fight scenes, when we get to them, are fun to watch and involving, but hindered here by the lack of variety, as Hellboy fights the exact same monster on at least three different locations.

Hellboy himself, as played by Ron Perlman, has a strong if overly laconic presence. Doug Jones complements him well as Abe Sapien, but most of the time Perlman is playing against his neophyte handler, John Meyers. Rupert Evans plays the ultimately pointless, but unduly-emphasized role of the would-be audience identification character with almost no spine or wit, and not that much intelligence either. I’m not sure if the studio forced del Toro to include a “regular guy” figure (for the first part of the film, he almost seems to be the main character!) but even if they did, they still could have done better than this (and there is at least one more interesting “regular guy” character present here). I should also mention that the archvillain, Rasputin (yes, that Rasputin) gets more and more ridiculous as his scenes get longer and you have to actually listen to him.

All that said, this very imperfect attempt made me want to see del Toro take another shot at doing it right this time, particularly in light, of course, of Pan’s Labyrinth. I am heartened by reports I have read indicating that there are many more monsters in the sequel, as I am by indications on IMDB that Evans is not returning (and in fact seems not to have made it in Hollywood at all). I do suspect, though, that seeing this film first may not actually have been necessary, as I’m sure the sequel was made with full knowledge that the original was not a great success.

Source: Sony director's cut DVD
18 Jul, 12:00 PM

The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan, USA, 2008
4 out of 4 stars

Let me just say that I’m glad we got to have Iron Man, and to a lesser degree, Hancock before we got this film, so we could have some optimistic superhero films to gently lead us into easily the grimmest summer blockbuster I can recall in the last several years. I imagine this feeling is only heightened if you spend the film ruminating upon the tragic end of Heath Ledger, an actor who did indeed seem to be improving more and more with every film. In fact, I barely thought about Ledger’s fate or even Ledger himself while watching, which in and of itself I take as a testament to the spectacular job that he did here.

I disagree strongly with the friends I saw it with, who felt that Ledger’s performance was the only standout element of the picture. It is true that Ledger outshines Christian Bale here, but that only stands out as much as it does because Batman Begins focused more on the backstory and development of Bruce Wayne than almost any other Batman screen adaptation that I can recall. Christopher Nolan, however, continues to eschew the traditional focus on the villain’s origin. Instead, we get an amazing, unrelenting confrontation between Batman and The Joker, which builds organically out of another, much more benign rivalry between Batman/Bruce and Harvey Dent, played excellently by Aaron Eckhart. Depending on your level of Bat-expertise, you may or may not know what awaits Harvey, but either way, they are some surprises in store.

Overall, the environment of Gotham City is fully fleshed out (a detour to Hong Kong is interesting but perhaps extraneous), but most importantly, the film has a very foreboding, almost oppressive atmosphere, especially in the second half, although even in the first half, there’s hardly anything like humor or romance to distract the viewer. In this case, the strategy works: The Dark Knight is the most focused, artistically coherent superhero film that I can recall seeing. Although Nolan eventually throws a crumb to mainstream sensibilities near the end (it isn’t quite pandering, as it works more-or-less organically), overall he avoids the something-for-everything approach to blockbusters that so often makes them feel more like a two-hour theme park tour than a wholly-realized motion picture. I don’t really want to spoil anything for you, so you should just go check this out… and you should probably also watch something really goofy the next day!

Source: Warner 35mm print
18 Jul, 12:00 PM

Hancock

Peter Berg, USA, 2008
3 out of 4 stars

It's not that the second half of the film is bad, it's just that it is not as good as the first half, and that it probably would have been better as a second film; the two halves just don't fit together. This is especially interesting hot on the heels of Wall-E another film with a two-part structure that seemingly holds an even greater break between the halves but nonetheless manages to hold them together much more effectively.

The first half concerns what you saw in the preview; Will Smith as Hancock, a misbehaving, alcoholic superhero, correctly perceived by the media as a negligent destroyer of property. I can't recall seeing Smith as a full-on bum, and it's interesting as it provides some variety for him from his appealing-but-familiar "cocky" persona; he seems to capture the right-level of self-loathing. He is however outdone to some degree by Jason Bateman, who unlike Smith is fully operating within his Arrested Development persona, that hilariously-cheesy but genuinely well-meaning regular guy who tries his hardest to bring stability and respectability to a spectacular screw-up. Bateman's PR agent comes up with a plan to rehabilitate Hancock's image, and the scenes between the two of them are terrific; I found myself laughing at almost every silly thing that Bateman says.

The thing is that we seem to have already reached a resolution (albeit an imperfect one) when the entire plot shifts with a "twist," and while the reveal doesn't immediately imply that the plot will suffer, the relegation of Bateman to the sidelines goes along with an increasingly jarring shift in subject matter. It's not that there weren't hints that something was up, it's just that they were more fun as hints.

The "wayward superhero" concept seems much less "new and shocking" to a comic book fan as it might viewers familiar with the cinematic adaptions of Marvel and DC series, but it is still fun to see it on the big screen. The second half is, even with its somewhat-daring overreach, actually more familiar for the cinema. It's not quite a success on 's own terms, but it's an interesting concoction.

Source: Sony 35mm print
8 Jul, 1:45 PM

Wall-E

Andrew Stanton, USA, 2008
4 out of 4 stars

It's not perfect, I have to admit. At times, I found the title character to be just a little too pathetic, and some of his behavior is frankly disturbing if you look at it a certain way, even if the director clearly tries to spin it in a later scene. I enjoyed the ending, but I'm not sure if it's justified by the film. Although it's endearing enough, one has to scratch one's head just a little bit at the imposition of entirely recognizable and familiar heterosexuality (or any sexuality, I suppose) onto robots. And I'm not sure if the two disparate halves of the film are wedded together in the most effective manner.

With that out of the way, let me make it clear that I absolutely loved this film. The message (critiquing consumerism) is delivered in a way that would be positively shocking in any film, and I believe is not significantly undermined when you "consider the source" (this actually just makes it more shocking my view). While I recognize that there is pandering going on (the ending), overall I am really impressed with how much the filmmakers decided to challenge the viewers, yet if the kid in the row behind me is any indication, effectively reach them at the same time.

There are also any number of scenes of incredible wonder, visual magnificence, and subtle humor. There are mistakes and there are conditional mistakes, but overall this is a film that reaches high and succeeds most of the time.

Source: Disney 35mm print
6 Jul, 7:20 PM

Vantage Point

Pete Travis, USA, 2008
2 out of 4 stars

After some perfunctory exposition, the president is assassinated, while introducing an anti-terror conference in Spain! Then a building is blow up! And yet, soon, we are asking, why should we care?

More precisely, we're asking what exactly we're supposed to care about, or even how. In fact, I think the spectacular terribleness of the incident was one of the only things that kept my interest in the first place.

Having shown us this tragedy, the film rewinds back to show it (and some preliminary goings-on) from another perspective, and does so again two or three more times until finally reaching a conclusion. Of course there is some repetition, although this is kept to a minimum, it still wore on my patience to see much of any material repeated in what is only a 90 minute film.

So we soon come to the problem of what character to focus on, and the answer seems to be none of them (although this answer seems to change again in the ending scene). Although many have commendable qualities (in one case, to an improbable and annoying degree), the film mostly seems to be about displaying a certain imagined cleverness as far as the "how'd it happen?" question goes. If anything, this just served to alienate me from the film. As usual, it didn't help that the most potentially interesting "twist" was spoiled in the trailers, which I saw a few months ago.

Politically, Vantage Point is all over the place, and not even in a particularly interesting manner. On the one hand, the president, when we finally meet him, seems to be some kind of liberal fantasy, showing an restraint in military matters that only the deluded could truly expect from, say, a President Obama. On the other hand, the filmmakers seem to enjoy showing the degradation of a reporter who intentionally bucks the corporate line on air and rails against censorship to her boss; what's strange is they seem to be agreeing with her at that point, so did they just fail to realize that it would seem as if they were delivering her her comeuppance afterward? It's quite hard to say.

As usual, the ending is also quite objectionable, as you don't realize until the film has concluded that the goalposts, so to speak, have been shifted in a way that raises uncomfortable questions about our nation's priorities (in contrast, once again, to the more internationalist ideology that the film sporadically promotes).

Source: United uncut pan-and-scan airplane video
30 Jun, 1:20 PM

Kung Fu Panda

Mark Osborne & John Stevenson, USA, 2008
3 out of 4 stars

The title, as well as the studio (DreamWorks) was enough to tell me that this was a must-avoid, but an invitation from friends led me to notice a surprisingly-high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so I went ahead and checked it out. The first thing that hit me, not having seen any trailers in advance, was that this film is clearly operating on a entirely different visual level from almost all previous DreamWorks efforts (if you can call them that). Colors are lush, movement is dynamic and kinetic, and backgrounds are beautiful and detailed (character designs are less impressive, perhaps, but still solid). I might even venture the slightly blasphemous opinion that Kung Fu Panda is prettier than some Pixar films!

Of course, when it comes to plot, this falls behind probably all Pixar films, but it's still surprisingly workable, if a bit rambling and, let's say, uncluttered. Although the film has its usual voice actor roster overcrowded with stars (many of them almost unrecognizable due to their marginal personalities and small roles), the film is dominated by Jack Black, who plays Po with minimal crudeness (there were for instance far less fart jokes, perhaps almost none, it's hard to recall, then you would expect for a character primarily known for his size and propensity to eat). Po is very clearly a fanboy, seemingly unsuited for a destiny as a fighter, but nonetheless intimately familiar with their history, and while this is a familiar cartoon plot, it was nonetheless endearingly done by Black. The other interesting character choice is Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of Shifu, Po's reluctant, diminutive master; as far as I can tell, his vocal performance is a pastiche of the English dubbing voices used on kung fu films of the 70s.

If anything, I was tempted to overvalue this picture while watching it, but in the end it is not at all transcendent, just a surprisingly solid example of pop, mainstream filmmaking with a lot of appeal and a minimum of idiocy or nastiness. It should also be added that despite being an American film about China, there is almost nothing offensive in the picture (although I'm sure you could get some mileage out of looking at which characters actually read as "Chinese" and which don't).

Source: Paramount 35mm print
7 Jun, 3:40 PM

Children of Men

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

Luckily, this film is just as strong on a repeat viewing, although I suppose it didn’t hurt that I had forgotten many of the major plot points (this is the upside to not watching your favorite films too often). One thing that really struck me was how directly Cuarón chose to visually quote from the Abu Gharib photos when the heroes enter the detention center. Of course, the parallel would have been obvious in any case. I tried to point this out to my students, but of course they didn’t even know what Abu Gharib was! I suppose they were around 13 years old at the time, but I still find that unacceptable. It makes me wonder if there is any real need for the pervasive propagandizing that this film portrays; even when the press openly and extensively reports on a heinous offense, the average person still remains blissfully ignorant of it.

The other interesting element is that Cuarón is combining the “terrorist detention” crisis with the “illegal immigration” crisis. Perhaps I’m being naïve to even view them as separate “issues,” but in any case, I do find the conflation of the two problems (and by problem, of course, I am referring to how the West and particularly the US has dealt with things) somewhat illuminating, as if Cuarón is sketching out for us the whole continuum of heinous treatment of the other, and perhaps reminding those of us who may be only, or more, concerned with one problem than the other, that these things can bleed into each other after a while.

Source: Universal DVD
30 May, 2:28 PM

A Mighty Heart

Michael Winterbottom, USA / UK, 2007
3.5 out of 4 stars

I was a bit surprised by some of the less-than-charitable reviews that I saw of this film after watching it, but upon further reflection, I think that the disparity of opinions can be readily explained by its somewhat-divided nature.

On the one hand, we have scenes of Marianne Pearl (Angelina Jolie) working alongside people from various agencies to find her husband, Danny, who has been kidnapped (and if you read the news, you know how this ends, but the film doesn’t inform you at the beginning if you aren’t already aware of it). Jolie pulls off a fairly competent attempt at mimicry, made a bit politically dubious in that they seem to have darkened her face ever so slightly in order to make her look more like the French-Afro-Cuban Mrs. Pearl (I also felt that, in her biggest “acting” moment near the end, Jolie embarrassed herself a bit, although I am not sure whose fault that is or if my reaction is even fair). I found Archie Panjabi and Irfan Khan to be particularly likeable, the former as a colleague and roommate (who unfortunately, due in part to the somewhat-elliptical storyline, comes off as an assistant at first), the latter as the main Pakistani investigator.

As I later learned, all these scenes involving Jolie in the Pearl house were actually shot in India for security reasons, and many of the actors playing Pakistani characters, such as Khan, are from Bollywood (Panjabi is British). And while these scenes are fairly strong, some of the most interesting stuff happens in the scenes that were actually shot in Pakistan, where the actual investigation gets underway (leaving behind the ostensible main character for large periods of time, more and more as the film continues) Because there is a bit more of a story in the conventional sense, the film was able to keep my attention a little more thoroughly than Michael Winterbottom’s earlier films that used this as a setting, namely In This World and, to a lesser extent, The Road to Guantánamo.

I only watched the first minute of the DVD’s “making of” featurette, but I was interested by Winterbottom’s explanation that he found something in Pearl’s memoir (by the same name) that resonated with his own experiences in Pakistan, making those earlier films. What he didn’t say, I imagine, was that by making use of the cachet from both the star system and the cult of the “true story” (not that this isn’t an important true story), he could try to convey what he’s seen about this area to the mainstream audience who has missed his previous work. He does so with some of the best filmmaking I’ve seen from him, using very short scenes and abrupt, yet seamless transitions in order to get plenty of information and sensation across without indulging himself or boring the viewer. I don’t know if this film is actually better than his other “political” films or if I am still just mainstream enough that I need something conventional to latch on to, but I do think that it’s an effective combination, if a little uneven when you really think about it.

Source: Paramount DVD
29 May, 9:11 PM

Raise the Red Lantern

(Da hong deng long gao gao gua)
Zhang Yimou, China / Hong Kong / Taiwan, 1991
3.5 out of 4 stars

I have become an admirer of Zhang Yimou's work (you may be noticing a pattern here, as I seem to be drifting towards some kind of partial adherence to the "auteur theory"), starting with his most successful film (at least here), Hero, and I frequently saw this film mentioned in reviews of his later work. Up until last year, however, there was no decent DVD version, meaning that I saw his less-well-regarded but more recent films first.

Having finally made it back to this one, widely regarded as a classic, I almost felt as if I had failed some kind of test, because while I certainly liked it, I think I got more out of films like Not One Less or Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, both of with are more in the neo-realist mode with the usual cast of nonactors.

This one has some of the same sense of languidness, as it follows Songlian (Gong Li) character through four seasons as the fourth wife of a polygamous nobleman in 1920s China. At least for me, it was hard to be sure of the time period until I looked it up afterwards (perhaps this would not be the case for a Chinese audience). The palace, if it can be called that, is expansive but decaying, and the outside world is never shown after Songlian arrives. This creates a very striking feeling of isolation, as you might imagine.

On top of that, the family has its own elaborate customs which seem explicitly concocted with the aim of heightening the already-inevitable tension and conflict between the four wives. Althoug she is the heroine, Songlian certainly doesn't take the high road, as she tries her best to play the game and win advantage for herself. While she seems to have an advantage due to her youth and beauty, we soon start to wonder if her late introduction is too much of a disadvantage. The maneuvering that go on are subtly depicted, and Gong does a good job of depicting the anguish that exists just below the surface of her crumbling, icy facade (to mix some metaphors). Certainly not a fun time, and the very end seems slightly half-baked or at least forced, but interesting, undoubtedly.

Source: Fox DVD
28 May, 7:38 PM

Helvetica

Gary Hustwit, UK, 2007
2 out of 4 stars

On certain occasions, I can be somewhat susceptible to persuasion when someone makes an off-the-wall film recommendation, particularly in the classroom for some reason, and this is a perfect example of it; a feature documentary on a font, for gosh sakes, that a guest lecturer in my “history of the book” seminar enthusiastically recommended.

I actually respect it as a valiant effort, but of course it turns out to be largely boring to someone who doesn’t already care about fonts or design. Helvetica consists of two kinds of scenes; talking-head interviews with designers and typographers, and series of brief shots of Helevtica use, mostly in various street signs. I’m slightly more interested in fonts than most people, and I was surprised to realize, for instance, how many major logos are all in this same font, which honestly in its large street-style is almost unrecognizable from its computer version. I found the London sequence to have some particularly interesting visual touches, but overall these sequences are quite repetitive.

As for the interviews, I felt that relatively few of the people with whom the director spoke with were either interesting or insightful (much less both). The young designers come off as pompous art-school twits with almost nothing to say, while the experts who tried to explain its historical origins nearly bored me into a stupor. A few people make some interesting points about Helvetica’s cultural and economic significance, and at times I almost felt like the film was worth it. Overall, it’s not; this could have been an interesting article but for the unconverted it cannot be an interesting film.

Source: Red Envelope DVD
19 May, 9:05 PM

Iron Man

Jon Favreau, USA, 2008
3.5 out of 4 stars

When the script and the actors suck, a superhero action movie, with minimal action and maximum buildup and exposition can be one of the most painful things to suffer through. The best recent example of this is the excreable Fantastic Four, which doesn't even feature a battle sequence until the last 15 minutes of the film, rather spending most of its running time as the lifeless cast blandly ruminates over powers that only took them a minute to obtain. Thankfully, Iron Man is more in the vein of Batman Begins, another film in which a man with no inherent superpowers accumulates both the skills and the experiences necessary to ultimately inhabit his role as superhero.

Yet although I've given them the same rating, I should be clear that Batman Begins was definitely a deeper, more complex and more thought-out film. Iron Man would probably be significantly worse without the presence of Robert Downey, Jr., who seems to be gradually making up for last time, even as he cleverly trades off of his own unfortunate public persona in his role as the dissolute-but-brilliant Tony Stark. Unlike Bruce Wayne, Tony is not traumatized, he's just in a stage of arrested development that has prevented him from considering the consequences of his actions as a weapons designer/merchant. It takes an origin story centered in Afghanistan to reorient his thinking and kick off some gradual, but worthwhile, character development.

Interestingly, the original Iron Man was born of the Vietnam War, and that story's attitude towards said war was much less complicated, to put it lightly. The comics have already updated both the setting and the politics, so I'm not sure how this stacks up to more recent incarnations (I only really started recognizing Marvel injokes during the very last scene), but I think Jon Favreau's film walks a fine line regarding the depiction of terrorists and ultimately succeeds in avoiding the main pitfalls. Overall the attitude is one of sophistication, although some things are nonetheless overlooked out of necessity.

As for the action, well, as I said there's not exactly tons of action in this film, but the story and acting are such good quality that the action feels even more earned. Watching Iron Man fly around is in itself exciting, which is somewhat surprising considering that "you'll believe a man can fly" was the original superhero movie tagline, even before I was born. Above all, it did leave me looking forward to the sequel (and I wouldn't mind if there was a bit more action that time).

By the way, if you go see it, make sure to stay until after the credits.

Source: Paramount 35mm print
16 May, 8:00 PM

Solaris

Stephen Soderbergh, USA, 2002
3 out of 4 stars

Something, not quite explained, is going wrong at the end (or at least it feels like it) of space, but despite the somewhat-goofy spacesuits, the significance of the events is much more focused on the interpersonal. Sent to investigate this phenomena (even the message apparently doesn't mean what it seems to mean), Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) is soon visited by someone who could not actually be there, specifically his wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone). Flashbacks ensue (not for the last time, either) in which we get a surprising level of detail about their relationship, from beginning to end.

All this unfolds at a fairly deliberate pace, despite the short running time, and it can be quite captivating at times; there is a certain visual appeal to the shot composition (really starting to wish I had the language to describe this stuff better) and the performances are often compelling. Overall, though, I couldn't quite get involved enough in the thing, even though I felt like I cared about the characters, and was at least interested in what was going on without being too removed from it. The spaceship sets don't look particularly good on a mid-sized television (I'm gonna assume that they look much better on a movie screen), which is a bit of a problem considering how long we end up staring at them when not that much is going on. The ending is interesting, but I wish I knew what it meant, although I suspect that I'm being needlessly obtuse here (it was probably the best part of the film). I consider this a good film, overall, but I'm not sure that I would recommend it; it's just too hard to get a handle on.

Source: Fox DVD
9 May, 8:56 PM

Sólo con tu pareja

Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico, 1991
4 out of 4 stars

I have been working my way through Cuarón's filmography ever since, believe it or not, I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and I was just as pleased with this film, his feature debut, as I had been with his others. It's basically an absurdist sex comedy, at times solidly in the realm of farce, while other times it verges into even stranger or darker territory. Despite the more limited resources and the seemingly less-conducive subject matter, the film looks great and has the same sense of visual inventiveness that one sees in his later films

The protagonist is the usual lothario type, who we meet in the process of fooling around with both his boss and the nurse that works for his amiable neighbor, a good bourgeois doctor who is content to live vicariously through tales of his sexual exploits (although even this leads to problems for both characters on more than one occasion). We also learn that the hero is not particularly concerned about protection, which also becomes an issue.

I definitely wouldn't try to claim that the film is entirely original; it seems fresh enough to me, but some aspects of the story are more familiar than others. What I like is that there is nonetheless a good balance of optimism and cynicism which allows the viewer to forgive some of the lapses. More importantly, the film just gets more and more hilarious, particularly the darker it gets. It's definitely worth looking into.

Source: Image DVD
3 May, 9:57 PM

No End in Sight

Charles Ferguson, USA, 2007
3 out of 4 stars

I was slowly making my way through "Bush's War", a two-part "episode" of PBS Frontline, when I got the notification that this movie would be the next to arrive in my mailbox. The redundancy seemed unfortunate, but I ultimately became so consumed with what I learned in "Bush's War" that I found myself interested in seeing and learning more, so I went ahead and watched the film. The result of all of this is that I found myself in a better position to actually judge No End in Sight on its merits as a work, rather than giving it a knee-jerk four-star rating due chiefly to the shock of what I learned from it.

Instead, I found this documentary to be a solid piece of work, but perhaps a bit undeserving of its de facto status as the flagship Iraq War documentary. Part of this is indeed because Frontline has in fact, it turns out, been doing shows on this stuff for years; "Bush's War" was something of a synthesis of earlier shows, with the focus to some extent being on the decision-making process that led us to war, whereas No End in Sight is more interested in the colossal mistakes made in the beginning of the occupation (there is apparently a Frontline on this subject as well, and director Charles Ferguson even uses a clip from it at one point!). Being that it is PBS, it is also pretty neutral on the face of it; of course, the facts line up to present a picture so damning that there is no real need to lay it on with any extraneous, overt ideological critique.

Ferguson, of course, is not a public television journalist, so he has no need to strive for objectivity; even so, he seems to have sensed that the facts speak for themselves (not something I always believe, mind you, but clearly the case here). The question is, really, whether he has made any use of film as a medium. There seems to be a very small amount of original footage (although who knows how original), but it's mostly a talking-head piece. This is compelling enough, as much of the things we learn are quite shocking, and not all of it was covered at least in the particular Frontline that I saw. The downside to Ferguson's approach and his status is that he is able to get only one unrepentant proponent of the Bush policies. With this guy, he sets up a very theatrical, indirect "confrontation" with one of his key witnesses; the narrator makes a point of informing us that these two men were interviewed again in order to reconcile contradictions between their testimonies. Although contrived, it's also satisfying in that you always wish that these things were actually "resolved" more thoroughly, and the confrontational aspect of it is something that Frontline largely eschews.

Overall, though, this is best suited for television; I really can't imagine watching it in a movie theater (although the occasional use of split screen did render some footage hard to focus on for someone with a modest-sized television). For film, I think I would be more interested in one of the docs that actually focuses on original, on-the-spot footage. Ferguson does augment the work of the PBS journalists, but he ultimately comes off as a little redundant. All that said, you're more likely to want to see this film then you are to watch three hours of "Bush's War" on streaming video, so on that basis alone I recommend it; this is stuff you need to know, and you will be better off, albeit angrier, for having seen it.

Source: Red Envelope DVD
29 April, 9:41 PM

One Nite in Mongkok

(Wong gok hak yau)
Derek Yee, Hong Kong, 2004
3.5 out of 4 stars

They tell you from the beginning, if you're paying attention, that this movie is about fate. Although many of the Hong Kong films dealing with cops and gangsters emphacize some form of honor or heroism, this picture very quickly sets the stage for a tale that is grittier not in the sense that it depicts unpleasant events (although there is that too), but in that it does not provide us with these comforting lenses through which to observe the action.

For one thing, it takes quite a while for the protaganist, a young man from the mainland hired to kill a gang boss, to even appear in the picture. Although his story ultimately drives the film, albeit with frequent cutaways to the police and their attempt to avert a gang war, the fact that he doens't show up until events lead to his introduction seems to show that, even though our focus is on him, he is only a part of larger events. In fact his introduction is surprising, as before we meet him the film seems heading towards more of an ensemble approach, but Daniel Wu turns in a good performance as the often-conflicted, somewhat naive and moralistic would-be killer. His costar, Cecilia Cheung, does overplay her more cliched "prostitute with a heart of gold" role (although it may just be overwritten as well), but their relationship, strange as it is, is nonetheless appealing, as they are both in Hong Kong due to similarly dire conditions in their home villages, bringing in an important social critique to the film (not something I've seen in many Hong Kong cop films).

I enjoyed this film quite a bit, in part because it is extremeley foreboding, particularly the closer you get to the end, but is not unrelenting. Rather than whip you up into some exaggerated frenzy of dread, One Nite in Mongkok (pity about the idiotic spelling in the English title) is more about the banality of coincidence (or fate, I guess) and the compromises that all the characters have made with varying degrees of deliberateness. This makes for a film that is both more interesting and more challenging than most.

Finally, although I lack the filmic vocabulary to go into detail, the film is shot with a good degree of energy and artistry. While ultimately it falls under the umbrella of mainstream film, there does seem to have been an artsy inclination on the part of the filmmakers, and in this case I'd say their ambition was well-realized.

Source: Tai Seng DVD
21 April, 8:45 PM

Modern Times

Charlie Chaplin, USA, 1936
3 out of 4 stars

Honestly, I am tempted to give the first two sequences 4 stars and the rest of the film 2 stars; as it is, I split the difference and ended up with the good-but-not-great 3 star rating.

This is actually my first Chaplin film, and as I am not a film student (but rather a "projectionist," in which capacity I saw this film), it will most likely be my last. I didn't find the conventions of the "silent" (with occasional speech near the beginning and sound effects throughout) film too difficult to get a hold of, and for the most part the humor was not incomprehensible.

If anything, the bar was perhaps set too high by the first sequence, in which Chaplin's "Little Tramp" desperately tries to make his way through a day at the factory, becoming increasingly unhinged with results that myself and most of the undergraduates found absolutely hillarious. No surpise that an English professor would assign this, as Chaplin demonstrates the "alienation of labor" concept far better than Karl Marx or any of his followers could hope to!

There are flickers of brilliance throghout (the first jail sequence is pretty solid), but the film increasingly becomes repetetive (near the end the Tramp ends up in yet another factory, even mirroring many of the earlier gags albeit in a different context. It seems that Chaplin was regrettably unable to maintain the high level of both social commentary and humor that he shows at the beginning.

Source: Warner DVD
15 April, 7:10 PM

The Host

(Gwoemul)
Bong Joon-ho, South Korea, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

This Korean mega-blockbuster came to my attention during its small but respectable American run thanks to major critical Internet hype, to the point that I watched it despite my general antipathy to "monster movies," and in this case the hype was mostly justified. The random attacks on the people of Seoul by a large mutant fish-creature serve as a very interesting vehicle for biting social commentary on Korean society (surprisingly easy to grasp despite my general ignorance about said society), and more importantly, a critique on the US' paternalistic, borderline-malevolent (at least here) relationship with the Republic of Korea.

Political themes are not that rare to horror films, I understand (not so much from watching them as from reading reviews), and the perspective on America is not unfamiliar to me from the handful of American films I've seen, dealing both with the early 21st century and the mid 20th century. Nonetheless, The Host, like all the best blockbusters (increasingly an oxymoron, at least domestically) is a terrific genre mishmash of satire, melodrama and suspense. The fact that certain scenes, such as a notably excessive display of grieving by the family around which the film revolves, leave the viewer unsure as to whether they are meant as melodrama or satire (or both) only increases the impact and appeal of the film.

The plot itself is aimless in a good way, as the twists and turns effectively convey the sense of frustration with the South Korean and American governmental and military response to the monster, as well as the struggle of the average (perhaps even below-average), regular family to fight both the monster and the monstrously uncaring systems they are at the mercy of. There are definitely flaws; the main female character is woefully undeveloped particularly in comparison to her male counterparts, and there was one glaring aspect of the film that I found to be extremely problematic (but cannot reveal for fear of spoilers), but overall this is a surprisingly effective piece. And for those who care, there is thankfully not too much gore (the most extreme scene is probably the one where the monster belches out an improbably large heap of bones).

Source: Magnolia DVD
14 April, 9:52 PM