TRACTOR FACTS

Projectiling on CARNAGE (2011)

2012-01-16T12:50:00.005-06:00

There's a point in Roman Polanski's Carnage where the veins in Jodie Foster's neck tighten up so much that the area above her shoulder-region resembles a clinching penis about to ejaculate. That sounds crude, for sure, but when you think of the tension wanting to be released, in both cases, it's right on the money. Kate Winslet's character is allowed to projectile vomit earlier in the film, and you get the sense that she receives at least some distance - if only brief - from the troubles that ail her, but poor Jodie Foster never gets such a privilege.

I'm not familiar with the play God of Carnage, nor will I ever be, nor do I think the actors really care about it that much... even if they give interviewers the impression that they do. Carnage, the movie, is two things: a post-script to Polanski's early career fascination with the psychological terrors that can exist within the walls of an apartment (Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, The Tenant), and an on-screen forum for a group of fairly talented actors to play a game of four square. Christolph Waltz snorts. Jodie Foster counters with a debilitating weep. Winslet comes stage left with a drunken hobble and a "faggot" blast. Then John C. Reilly stuns them all by getting racial with it.

Carnage is fun, and funny, and charging, but is it anything other than a long-form trending You Tube clip of the week with a little momentum behind it? Nah. Everyone involved has been a part of something much greater and more memorable (although, Jodie Foster's performance alone does stand out to me as one of her best). There's not even much wit to the material's eventual insight: that the brats on the playground and the rats in the gutter can take care of themselves just fine, it's the sophisticated upper-East Coast adults who are in trouble.

But, shoot, everyone needs to shallowly get their rocks off now and then, right?

ON DVD: BIG FAN

2010-01-14T10:46:00.008-06:00

If you listen to The Jim Rome Show (or any sports talk radio show, for that matter), you'll know that many of the callers are often mocked for being "pasty fat guys who live in their mother's basements and write their takes on pieces of paper before calling into the show". While that all-in-good-(sorta)fun jab may have some truth in it, it's also a simplistic sketch of somebody that most of us either know or can heartily relate to. And that somebody is the regionally specific "obsessive sports fan" guy.

To give you a piece of personal history, I literally cried in the middle of my parent's living room when the Astros fell apart and lost to the Mets in the 1986 NL Championship Series. Moving ahead to the period of 1989-1993, I used to barricade myself away in the bedroom to watch Houston Oilers football games, throwing mini-Nerf footballs and/or rolled up pairs of socks at the posters on my wall when that damn Run-and-Shoot offence would go 0 for 4 from the opponent's two yard line.

I hope I didn't lose anyone there... my point was to simply express, very briefly (trust me, I could fill a whole new blog with sport heartache stories) , how I feel I can relate to the level of emotional and pathological fandom that comes from following a team with your heart exposed. Of course, that kind of emotion came out of me when I was a "kid". Paul Aufiero, the hardcore NY Giants fan in Robert Siegel's Big Fan, on the other hand, is a schlubby 30-40 something parking lot attendant still living with his mother in a frozen-in-time Staten Island suburb.

Director Siegel and cinematographer Michael Simmonds don't let you forget about that either, shooting the Aufiero house in blown-out saturated colors that paint the already aged living room walls, bedroom floors, and kitchen tops in a nasty yellowish-brown puke hue that matches up nicely with the three day old shiner Paul received early in the film. The beat down viewers get for the entirety of Big Fan comes out of a total package.

Now, I don't - for a second - believe that Siegel nor Patton Oswalt (in the role of Paul) held any malicious intentions when they were laying out plans for a portrait of a guy I'm sure they've known their whole lives as well, but the end product sure doesn't reflect otherwise. Any attempt at dark humor gives way to a sloppy, tonally imbalanced, pencil thin character sketch. Perhaps Big Fan's most off-kilter and confusing scene is its last one, a behind-glass prison chat that recalls Pickpocket by way of American Gigilo. What at first seems like a moment of resolve for Paul, a poor guy that has taken it on an ever increasing level throughout the entire film, turns into kind of a don't-be-surprised-if-I-end-up-in-this-very-same-situation-next-year final shot. It's a bummer.

A friend of mine recently said, "I wish someone else would direct this premise". It's a good point to consider. Think of Big Fan in comparison to The Wrestler (which Siegel wrote), and you'll notice a vast difference in the handling of the subjects of both films. On paper, the sports obsessives aren't too far apart from the down-and-out pro wrestlers on the socially awkward scale, but Darren Aronofsky treated the tanned-hulking massives like real people. Siegel, on the other hand, turns Paul into a but of a cartoon, a hyper-exaggerated man child that masturbates under NFL bedsheets. We already kid about sports show callers living like slobs in their mom's basements. To make nothing but a movie version of that is really just a waste of time.

A RETURN? MAYBE...

2010-01-14T08:49:00.003-06:00

Hi... just wanted to say "Hi", and that through an e-mail from a friend and a recent discussion with another, I was burnt enough to write something today. Don't know if the fire is back, or if I just needed to get off a shot. We'll see.

Anyways, thanks to everyone who left comments and/or sent me e-mails inquiring about my "status". Thanks to Bill, Greg, Jason, Marilyn, Rick, Pat, Ed, and many others I am not thinking of right now.

Thanks thanks thanks. All of you are good people.

TOERIFC # 11 - MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (1985)

2009-11-23T07:53:00.000-06:00

It's lucky number 11 (totally the new "7") today as the TOERIFC debate/analysis of another cinematic work gets kicked around by the smartest film people on the internet.

If you care about Paul Schrader or his film Mishima : A Life in Four Chapters, there is only one place you need to be going for the rest of 2009, and that place is Crips and Mutes, the blog of film blogger Krauthammer.

Paul Schrader did much more than just right the script for Old Boyfriends, so go on over to Krauthammer's today and learn something. And bring your boyfriend.

2012

2009-11-16T22:22:00.001-06:00

Slinging arrows at Roland Emmerich is about as easy as propping up Michael Bay on an easel for some critical target practice. Having said that, let's get some universally accepted truisms out of the way: Roland Emmerich makes very dumb movies, and, in turn, is a very dumb artist. So, to call 2012 ethically disgusting would not be to necessarily indict co-writer/director Emmerich as a scabrous, agenda-driven sociopath who fantasizes about ethnic and social cleansing through mass population reduction. He's simply not that intellectually gifted (the man has a mural of Mao in his house without any clue as to how wicked that actually is). No, 2012 is simply Noah's Ark with the unfortunate boarding pass prerequisite that you be one of the world's few billionaires... or one of John Cusack's fictional offspring.

Near the end of what feels like a fourteen hour slog of a movie, U.S. Presidential aide Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt) exclaims, "Oh, for God sakes!" in reaction to some last minute do-gooderism. Though he plays a villain, you can't help but sympathize with the guy, for he's in a film where the moral centers - geologist Dr. Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the President's daughter (Thandie Newton) - pat each other on the butt for saving... five hundred extra billionaires. A few weeks later, after both of their fathers have suffered drowning deaths, Ejiofor and Newton are seen flirting and giggling about some future whoopie that will help kick start Human Race 2.0 by producing a baby of their own. Cut to Cusack, a tranny-looking Amanda Peet, and their kids out on the ship's deck sailing towards Africa (the only land mass still above water). Having already digested the horror of a billion corpses that are roting underneath, how does Emmerich bring a little human levity to this scene of cuddly characters? By dropping in a diaper joke, of course. Cue Adam Lambert song, roll credits.

Amazingly, critics seem to be giving 2012's ugliness a pass because they view it as a "popcorn spectacle", "formula done to perfection", and "a laugh riot". To be sure, it is none of those things, and you should stop reading any paid-per-word goofball who would go to print with such nonsense, but something that really sticks in my craw is how 2012 has come out of the critical gauntlet somewhat celebrated while Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has been regularly branded "one of the worst movies of the decade"? Look, both films are bad, but, damn, if I was forced to choose between Blu Ray copies of either, you can be sure I would be grasping at the hand which held Bay's monstrosity instead of Emmerich's.

Is it because critics take offense to T:ROTF's marketing of high-priced autos and high-thighed hos to an under PG-13 audience, but play pussy when Emmerich pops up with some of his phony eco-sensitivity? Or maybe it was the ghetto slang and gold toothed grins by two of T:ROTF's go-to comic relievers that rubbed the critics raw. Fine, but may I remind you that 2012 ends with a boat full of mainly super-rich white people sailing towards the continent of Africa. Neo-colonization fantasy anyone?? "Lighten up, man!". Trust me, I'm as light as they come, and I can get off on grandiose visual nonsense with the best of 'em, but if you're going to strap me in a seat for two and half hours, at least stimulate my senses. Heck, the animated "car chase" scene in G-Force was more magnanimous than one puff off of 2012. Even its most entertaining facet - the sub-plot of Woody Harrelson's militia-minded conspiracy rat - disappears way too soon.

It's understandable that a filmmaker would get all tickled-up and excited at the prospect of blowing up the world on film, but Emmerich simply takes this idea too seriously. What's worse, after deciding to go down that straight-lipped path, he plays the extinction of billions of humans completely wrong. No, I wouldn't expect any director to be able to bottle the genuine emotions of a plane full of people who are witnessing millions of their fellow citizens descend off the coast to their deaths, but could you at least try? I don't think I've experienced a more disturbing sequence this year than when plastic surgeon Gordon Silberman (Tom McCarthy) tries to guide a plane through a split-in-half building while people fall from all floors of torn cement and wiring. When out of the rubble, a punch line comes.

Psuedo-psychologists worry about the desensitizing effect of video game culture on our youth. I think they'd serve our society better if they checked up on the sensitivity of secluded millionaire filmmakers instead.

ON DVD: HOMICIDE (1991)

2009-11-05T23:14:00.005-06:00

It didn't dawn on me until the quietly dynamic "toy train shop" scene, but what David Mamet accomplishes with his recently-to-DVD film Homicide, is a bringing to screen of some of the truest instincts we human beings have in relation to our own ethnic identities. Although the shadow of race plays a part in almost every scene in Homicide, the film isn't interested in any divisive eye-poking like those cartoons made by the socially angry and ridiculous Paul Haggis. Without condemnation, what Mamet is expressing here is almost a scientific fascination with the way people will slide into the comforts of social, racial, or religious segmentation in order to find strength and power and purpose. Much like the famous mob scene in Fritz Lang's Fury, a majority of the people who play prejudices and sling slurs in David Mamet's Baltimore are decent people, they've just been seduced by the elixir of group think.

Joe Mantegna plays Bobby Gold, a homicide detective who is Jewish, but in - what seems like -that very strictly non-practicing way. By chance, he is assigned to the murder case of a white Jewish shop owner in a predominantly black part of the city. At first, Bobby treats the investigation like it's a bit of a chore. He has his sympathies for the loss of life, of course, but when the shop keeper's family lays forth the notion that politics and/or hate were motives in the killing, Bobby shrugs it off as quickly as he can roll his eyes and jerk his knee. But slowly, as that small specter of ethnic identity awakens inside him (simply by being near the customs, history, and elements of his heritage), Bobby lets it become the guiding force in his research. There is a burgeoning sense of cultural allegiance now driving the operational dirt digging. Emotion has trumped logic.

None of the transformations taking place in Bobby are, for a second, meant to imply that the fears and concerns of Homicide's Jewish characters are unwarranted. Not at all. Clearly, there are real forces of hatred and tension present in the city as witnessed in the backroom of the previously mentioned toy train shop (Mamet wonderfully contrasts shots of Mantegna reacting to the innocence of tiny toys with that of the rage in neo-Nazi flags and fliers) and in the off-handed comments of policemen and members of the community. However, the issue remains that Bobby has let the ideas of what he wants to find, how he wants to see it, and who he wants to blame create a tunnel vision in his brain. For a man who leads the life of a lonely homicide detective, a new sense of belonging and identifying must feel invigorating.

It is with this new sense-of-self burning inside of him that Bobby lets the word "nig*er" fly from his lips during a police raid. The slur comes out not because Bobby is a racist, but because his chest has been inflated by the gauntlet of cultural branding he just recently emerged from. His behavior is a sociological phenomenon, much in the same way a black council member calls Bobby a "ki*e" earlier in the film following a heated exchange over a racially sensitive matter. Is the council member a racist? Doubtful. He too is reacting in an emotional setting, with a hurried heartbeat, and a duty of cultural preservation on his mind. But what's brilliant about Homicide is the way it never plays these outbursts as signs of a greater hidden division. In fact, made in 1991, Homicide is a film made by a man who seems to have accepted the reality of a post-racial society. Mamet is simply interested in the natural wonders of tribal identification, something that will forever exist.

By the way, I've just skimmed the surface of what goes on in this film. Homicide begs repeated viewings. There's much to dissect here, and it sort of feels like David Mamet's masterpiece.

STREAM-OF-CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: SURROGATES

2009-11-02T23:05:00.003-06:00

[NOTE: This is where the blogger gives himself a strict 10 minutes to rattle off whatever about a movie he just saw that he doesn't feel deserves a thoughtful edited review but still feels the need to feed the animals anyway. Quality is of no concern.]

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I suppose me walking in three weeks after the fact, the fact being that everyone else has already weighed in on Surrogates, is a little cheap on my part. I don't particularly take pleasure in being the 47th person to stroll in and punch something sucky in the face. In fact, I'd rather be the one who gets the first punch in and then tell everyone else "hey, settle down, he's had enough". But hey, I need some space to fill, and I also went and saw Surrogates after work today, so what else to reach in and scrape off my brain than this new boring Bruce Willis movie. Don't get me wrong, i'm a fan of Bruce Willis movies (I will defend Hostage), I'm just saying that this latest one of his is beneath any other further qualification. Some guy directed it that has directed other things. I guess some other things that people like. But whatever, he's pretty shitty if you ask me. Maybe he directed Surrogates in a "method director" fashion. meaning, maybe he made himself into some zombie surrgogate droid blob while he directed this film. Maybe he directed from some futuristic lounge chair or la-z-boy like "The Lawnmower Man", or something. If Surrogates is a warning about our f'ed up future, then I'd rather squint through Dee Snider's Strangeland all over again. Really. What's the point of making a movie like this PG13? Really, all anyone wants to know about people who have their robot selves running around town being controlled by their brains back home is what happens when their robots climax during sex. Do they actually ejaculate or vibrate in their genitals when they orgasm, or does all that imprortant stuff happen back home in the depressing confines of some Idiocracy-type apartment. I don't know. Maybe I'm being too hard on Surrogates. I guess it was kind of neat to see Bruce Willis in glossy paint like he went through one of those pottery kilns that makes things shiny. I also felt bad that he loved his wife so much but she was so addicted to being a "surry" that he was lonely all the time. What was up with that taser thing that the surries got off on at the party? It made me think of tha that orb egg thing from Sleeper that gives all of the guests orgasms. Isn't that what the future really all comes down too? Who cares about war or the environment or population or food or the economy. All we really wnat to make sure about is that our sexual experiences don't get messed up. Cuz, really, when everything else in the world is totally gone and yoou don't even have a rough over your head, well, at least you can give yourself an orgasm. Do homeless people do that? I wonder. Maybe they are too depressed to get those hormones going. What am I talking about? This is depressing.

A SERIOUS MAN

2009-10-29T09:58:00.002-06:00

After those cross-cutting moments of dread that roll-up on father and son at the end of A Serious Man, the dialogue that lingered with me the most was that which was spookily spoken by Barry Corbin in No Country For Old Men: "You can't stop what's coming." I suppose that flavor of throwing-up-your-arms inevitability is something that could be attributed to the Cinema de Coen as a whole, but after so much preventative hand-wringing by A Serious Man's protagonist, physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), it really stung to see him get thumped on the nose right before the curtains closed. Sure, on the surface, A Serious Man is advocating a "stop and smell the roses" philosophy but, like the endearing goofball antics of Burn After Reading, that's just the lubricant to get the larger ideas inside of you.

So, what does it all mean? (The movie, that is.) A Serious Man is the Coen's headiest film to date, and I'm not just saying that because it's been rattling around my noggin for days. There are many interpretive avenues to travel down: there's the one that obsesses over the use of Surrealistic Pillow; the Jewish one; the one about logic & probability. But, for me, it seems that the domestic issues of family and marriage that exist in A Serious Man have never been so vivid in a film of the Coens since Raising Arizona. The Gopniks are a two kids/two car family with the makings of a clan that might just live in the same subdivision as Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper. Larry's son signed up for the Columbia record club, his daughter wants in the bathroom, and his wife wants a divorce. None of this is his fault, of course ("I didn't do anything", he repeats). But as Larry reprimands a Korean student of his by referencing the laws of action and consequence, we know that he's partly at fault for it all.

Thankfully, we're not back in the braindead Sam Mendes/Alan Ball suburban warfare territory here. No. As the Coens accentuated the close living quarters of H.I. and Edwina's trailer in Raising Arizona to reflect the good-Earth nature of those characters, so too here does the Gopniks's house reflect a protective nature that Larry steadfastly strives to provide. Sure, Larry can come off as a sheepish lion when he lets another man talk him out of his own house, or when he backs down from a neighbor who is planning to encroach onto his property, but Larry's motivations are his kids and his home. This is evident in the way he let's himself get pinballed around by his synagogue's three elusive rabbis for the endgame benefit of finding a pathway to stability for his family.

But the dark horse in this whole scenario is The Gopnik Family's relative, Uncle Arthur (bravely played by Richard Kind). Introduced to us early as a comedic foil - the reason Larry's daughter can't get in the bathroom is because Arthur is constantly inside, draining his sebaceous cyst - Arthur is, in many ways, at the heart of A Serious Man. In fact, he drives the climactic scene between him and Larry that takes place at an empty motel pool (drained, just like his cyst). Larry has been so consumed by the griping and gritting and grinding away of his own misfortunes, that he never took a breather to step back and gain perspective. Especially from the perspective of Arthur. Yes, Larry admires the fact that Arthur "never complains" but, in truth, Arthur is really a specimen that's at the the butt-end of life's most appealing physical qualities. He's hairy in gross places, flabby, has terrible posture, dumpy, and has an ugly face. Thus, he's an extreme outcast, envious of Larry's ability to create a family. But when Arthur confesses this to Larry point blank, it goes over his head. He's unawakened.

Of course, Larry may still be too distracted by the way his rival, Sy Abelman, has moved in on his wife. Like Arthur, Sy was not blessed with the most attractive of features, but he exudes a convincing spiritual confidence that makes up for it. Subconsciously, Larry admires him. It's not because Sy is able to catch the attention of his wife, so much, but that Sy is able to ride on such a calm wave of life. He walks and talks and maneuvers like he's figured it all out. Revealed in a dream, Sy is the ideal of "a serious man" in Larry's mind. Forget all that math and physics mumbo jumbo that Larry throws up on his classroom chalkboard like territorial gang graffiti, because Sy's already the owner to life's answers. He even slams Larry's head up against the chalkboard for good measure. Cuz, really, what's Schrodinger's cat gonna do for you once the doctor calls with bad news?

JIGSAW'S CULTURAL REVOLUTION

2009-10-21T00:30:00.000-06:00

Is it me, or does the Saw VI poster resemble that famous black & white portrait of Mao?

Eh... maybe it's just me...

Or... I know! It was that Etch-A-Sketch portrait of Mao that I was thinking of! (framed in RED dontchya know!!)

And then, of course...

CAMEROONED IN HOLLYWOOD

2009-10-20T00:21:00.001-06:00

According to one of those New York magazines with "New York" in the title, Rambo II writer James Cameron, said the following to Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set of True Lies:

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"Do you want Paul Verhoeven to finish this motherfucker?"

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Now, it's unclear whether Cameron said "motherfucker" in reference to the movie, True Lies, or if he was actually calling Schwarzenegger a "motherfucker".

If it's the former, then, yes please Mr. Cameron, I would very much like to rewind history and have Paul Verhoeven finish (or just start over) True Lies.

While you're at it, would you mind handing over the Avatar project as well? Cool. Now go out diving somewhere with your camera and leave us alone.

Bye.

TOERIFC # 10 : KISS ME, STUPID (1964)

2009-10-19T11:13:00.008-06:00

Celebrate the 10th anniversary of TOERIFC by clicking on over to Tom Sutpen's blog Illusions Travel By Streetcar, for a discussion of Billy Wilder's controversial Kiss Me, Stupid.

You knoooow, this TOERIFC thing we do is really like putting on a day long master's class in cinema for free. It's like your college film courses to the 9th power. So, if you want to learn about movies and don't have the tuition for NYU, or wherever, you really have no excuse, because we are offering it up for free. You're welcome.

(Above banner by Greg @ Cinema Styles)

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

2009-10-17T23:22:00.004-06:00

Not just for his short stature and elvish voice has Spike Jonze always been a filmmaker who deems it necessary to keep an artistic eye on that chamber of life that contains childhood, youth, and adolescence. Remember the look on that girl's face in the back of the car at the end of Wax's "California" video? How about those teenage bull riders in Jonze's short documentary Amarillo by Morning? There's also the touching posthumous video for Notorious B.I.G.'s "Sky's the Limit", the skater kids in Sonic Youth's "100%", the high school gymnastics competition of "Elektrobank", and the throwback letter sweaters in "Buddy Holly". Even Jonze's intermittent work with Jackass evinced an interest in a specific type of manchild that is still too devilish to grow up. So now, at a point in his career that seemed to be at its calmest, Spike Jonze resurfaces with his finest testament to date, a film that critic Kent Jones has described in the most perfect way as "childhood in motion".

At the midpoint of Where The Wild Things Are, there's a moment where average-kid-turned-imaginary-ruler Max (Max Records) sketches blueprints in the sand of an improbable kingdom that he and his monster friends will build and live in together. The unbridled imagination pouring out of Max's mouth as his hands try to keep time with his head during a tutorial for the beasts, made me think of what the production brainstorming sessions must have been like on the set of Being John Malkovich. Writing about a giant Emily Dickenson puppet, a portal into John Malkovich's head, and a 1/2 floor office with short ceilings, is much easier than actually pulling it off for the camera. But such is the ambition of Jonze, a cinematic wish granter whose own fantastic ideas stand responsible for churning out the total uniqueness of his art.

There is much to love about the bulk section of Where The Wild Things Are that takes place out of reality, on the island where Max and his subconscious "wild things" work things out, but of particular note should be the sequences with Max at home and at school that take place beforehand. Frankly, I can't recall a better on screen summation of rambunctious, rambling childhood than WTWTA's first fifteen minutes. Max builds an igloo, gets in a snowball fight, jumps on the bed, tackles his dog, cries tears down his cheeks, talks to a fence, builds a bedroom rocket ship over some bedroom lava, does "The Robot", picks at his mom's pantyhose, yells at his sister, and runs. Of course, all of this is given emotional heft due to the prudence and careful direction of Jonze. Watch the transition that is made from classroom to car when Max's teacher talks about the sun dying out. As his teacher's lecture trails off, the lingering words follow Max into the passenger seat of his mother's car and place a gaze of awestruck fixation on his face, a look that only comes from the fascination of a young discovering mind.

As soon as you can accept that the monsters or "wild things" represent the individual characteristics that make up the prepubescent milkshake that is Max, images of the kid with giant furry puppets start to emit a much grander significance. To watch Max speak up and out to the monsters as they surround him, or to see him leading a charge of all through the woods, is akin to a child's self-discovery of his or her own vulnerabilities and strengths. During a daytime nap, the monsters dogpile each other and form a mountain of mumbling, snoozing bellies, paws, and snouts over Max. Underneath this protective mound, Max huddles, bonding with the most independent and mature of the beasts, KW. The way KW stands apart from the group (she arrives late it greeting Max) as the most aware and accepting of Max's true nature, reveals her to be the stand-in for Max's real life mother.

Though not a theme which dominates on first glance, Max's coping with the separation of his mother and father, and, therefore, the lack of his father's attention in general, is revealed as Where The Wild Things Are's red, beating core. In an early scene, we see Max peering around the corner of the hallway onto his mom enjoying herself with a new boyfriend. Later, as he hides behind a branch, that same intimidated stare returns to Max's eyes as he watches KW and Carol fight over, what feels like, the rubble of old romance. But Max's anxieties, and Jonze's brilliant visual recreation of them, hit their peak in a scene where KW shelters Max from a raging Carol by hiding him in her stomach. The in utero allusions are clear, and it's quite striking to look at a knee-to-chest Max cocking an eye towards the muffled bickering outside between the two larger figures. If Max doesn't blame himself (his conception, his birth, his existence) for the absence of his father, then the possibility of it is definitely something he ponders.

But the loveliest set-up Jonze produces is the miniature stick & clay scenery that Carol shares with Max out in a private, solitary cave of his. The tinker toy landscape - a bite size model version of a monster utopia that Carol dreams about for he and his friends - recalls every child's toy train set, doll house, race car track, or playset that satisfies that under sixteen universal urge to live in a idealized alternate world where every possibility is controlled by you. When Max sticks his head through a hole in the middle of Carol's creation and catches an eye-level view of this matchstick wonderworld, it's the perfect embodiment of childhood imagination within its own physical limitations. I suppose you could say that the making of Where The Wild Things Are was exactly that for Spike Jonze, or, maybe there really is more than mere coincidence to the director's boyish features and voice after all.

STREAM-OF-CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: THE INVENTION OF LYING

2009-10-13T21:41:00.004-06:00

The above still promises so much more than the movie ever delivers.

[NOTE: This is where the blogger gives himself a strict 10 minutes to rattle off whatever about a movie he just saw that he doesn't feel deserves a thoughtful edited review but still feels the need to feed the animals anyway. Quality is of no concern.]

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I hate this movie. I hated this movie. How can I have end up hating something so much that contained so many people I liked? Maybe it was an elaborate prank for Ricky Gervais to come to the states and make a terrible movie here with a bunch of famous comedians the way a bunch of famous comedians took his great BBC show and made it into some crap sitcom on Thursday nights. But The Invention of Lying is so mean and smarmy and meeeeeh and nasty and terribly made that I think Gervais may have spent the last of any Hollywood capital that he had. Heck, he's good at directing half hour TV shows, but he's abysmal at making a feature length film. Another example of why the two forms differ quite a bit. So, what's this all about anyways? I ran into a buddy at teh gym that told me The Invention of Lying was "anti-religious", so I had that in my head as I went into the theater. Well, it definitely is. Maybe more accurately anti-Christian than religion as a whole. I mean, two Pizza Hut boxes are stand ins for the Ten Commandment tablets. And look, I'm a non-believer, a former Catholic that just doesn't buy it anymore, but I still don't care for snoots running around acting like they are smarter than the lads behind them just because that lad believes he's going to heaven. There's a way to be critical and comedic about religion and still be not such a prick. So, is The Invention of Lying arguing that our society would function better if we all indeed spoke our minds and never uttered a falsehood? Because, in the end, even though lying is bad and religion is lying and everyone else in the world except Ricky Gervais and his kid are dimwits, well, he still ends up as the king of the hill with the hot housewife making him supper in a mansion with tons of money. So, he gets his egotistical superiority and the babe with the toned calves. He even makes her serve him while she's about to burst with a baby. What a punk. But seriously, the sweetest moments this movie contains are based on the reality of bending the truth to either spare someone's feelings or prop them up. But, if as were led to believe in the end, that that's all bullshit, then what the fuck?!?! Is this then the most cyncical, misanthropic, spiteful film to ever hit the megaplexes?? Ricky Gervais... what the hell are you doing?? My guess is that the message is mixed and comes out with a bitter face because, well, comics are bitter, but also because this is a half idea that got the money to be made into a movie. It's really annoying too. The hole gag/hook of the film starts to grate about 10 minutes in and when Garner and Gervais are at a dinner table and the cute Martin Starr walks up and even HE is irritating, well, it's time to leave. Of course, I didn't leave, because I never leave. I don't give up.

REVANCHE

2009-10-11T22:31:00.006-06:00

There is old world rhyme and beauty in the way director Gotz Spielman gives his protagonist, Alex (Johannes Krisch), active transformation as we see him - in one of Revanche's final shots - gather up apples off the ground and place them in a basket. This action is contrasted by the multiple shots that precede it of Alex sawing and chopping wood for his grandfather. These dead trees move from pile to pile, shrinking in size and significance as their existence whittles down from logs to stumps to shards. But, in the end, it is the fruit of a tree that Alex is manually lifting up to eat and extend life. This kind of old school natural symbolism may wrinkle the noses of those who can't separate the fibers of morality fables from the flames of religious preaching, but that would simply reveal them to be pathetic movie viewers.

Revanche's slowly unraveling drama about humanity in the face of easy and accessible vengeance sitting on a tee, is powerful in the way it lingers with you for the remainder of the day. Blogger friend Daniel Getahun often writes of "taking it [a movie] home with you", a label that helps draw that line between emotional art and entertainment. It wouldn't be silly to compare the series of events - and the significance of them - which take place over Revanche's two hours to that of a flower bud blossoming wide. For a movie that announces itself (and a verbally dirty noun) in bold lettering and quickly moves to semi-degrading images in a brothel, one starts to worry that the rest of Revanche is going to dwell in the Euro-scuzz worlds of Lilya-4-Ever or Hardcore. But patience pays off as the sex house becomes nothing more than temporary residence for a film that eventually transcends all settings.

Sometimes watching a movie can assist you in quickly moving another movie that was hanging around in your subconscious limbo to its rightful resting place. This is what taking in Revanche did for me over my indecision about Lars Von Trier's Antichrist. Seen in the middle of a twenty-eight film viewing hurricane, I initially left the screening of Antichrist sure that I despised it, but unable to shake its lingering impact on me. Since both films tackle the emotions of resolution (albeit it very disparate ways), it was quite easy for me to leave the screening of Revanche knowing, for certain, that Antichrist is garbage. Provocative and well shot garbage, but garbage nonetheless. That's definitely not to imply that a vengeance film which travels down a separate path than Revanche does is worthless. Not at all. For instance, I find the anger in The Brave One and Dead Man's Shoes to be quite convincing as a nod towards something harrowing about humanity. Lars Von Trier, on the other, still needs to discover the "H" word before commenting on it.

Thematically, Revanche reminded me of Terry George's underrated Reservation Road, where the loss of a son happens at the hands of a hit-and-run fluke. While the journey that Joaquin Phoenix's character takes isn't handled with nearly as much grace as Alex's is in Revanche, there is ultimately an immense swallowing of wrath that propels both films towards profundity. Again, referring back to old-school structure, Revanche's visually poetic storytelling could be seen as a throwback to the man vs. man dilemmas expressed in early cinema. Like lyrics in a song, great dialogue can really enhance the glow of a film, but no verbiage can ever communicate more concretely than the richest of compositions. Take the shots of Alex and Robert (a policeman) separately staring at photographs of Tamara (Alex's girlfriend). Their compassion towards the subject in the photo originates from different places and arrives out of different circumstances, but the wealth of emotion between their eyelines/bodies and a piece of paper is something that only a well-guided camera could capture.

Finally, in one last lunge to laud this film, I wanted to voice my disagreement with reviewers who have been labeling Revanche a thriller. It's not that I dislike thrillers or even get ruffled over another's categorization of a film, it's simply that I see this movie as something larger than a genre piece. Generally, thrillers that dribble out information in order to make you feel like you're solving a puzzle, do so in order to give the viewer a secondary buzz to the actual experience of watching a film, but Revanche's reveals are in place for the evolution of the characters' resolve, not the audience's enjoyment. Yeah, it's a small quibble, but one I felt was worth getting out. Dissecting small details matter when you're discussing one of the year's best films.

ASS KISSING: "NO TIME, NO HOPE" - TIMES NEW VIKING

2009-10-08T23:11:00.001-06:00

This isn't a video I really care for, just a band I really love and wished more people loved them too.

Maybe it's because we're in an era where the well-produced/well-recorded album (Fleet Foxes, Veckatimest, Wolfgang Amadeaus Mozart, Bitte Orca) takes top critical billing, but, for whatever reason, with every passing year Times New Viking put out another album and none too many people ever seem interested.

Or, maybe I'm just a sucker for scuzz-rock trios that appreciate melody. Believe it or not, the below song is probably their most "produced" recording:

ON "old" DVD : FEAR X (2003)

2009-10-07T00:18:00.004-06:00

You can pass by a movie on the shelf in the video store a hundred times over, know that it's there, know its title, know its cover, but never once consider renting it as you go on to grab Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter, The Forgotten, Frogs, or Fright Night. Not only that, but you can have a preconceived dream about that innocent film. For example, I had the John Turturro movie Fear X pegged as some kind of indecent post-Se7en detective thriller. Maybe I also let the near vicinity of FearDotCom creep into my subconscious and add to the bad feelings. Or, maybe I didn't like the use of "X" in the title, a letter that left a bad taste in my mouth after people followed my generation around with it ad nauseam.

So in the weird way that things work themselves around to you, a week or so ago I caught a screening of the movie Bronson. Impressed by its beefy elegance (imagine Derek Jarman had he had an eye for violence), I searched out its maker and its maker's past work. I quickly realized I was late to the show. Turns out many people had long been impressed by the films of Nicolas Winding Refn, yet I'd never even heard his name prior to two weeks ago. And, what do you know... it turns out my notions concerning Fear X were all backwards. I suppose the movie does contain elements of a detective thriller, but it is much more of a tone poem rather than a linear narrative that satisfies with a final boxed-up conclusion. In fact, I view Fear X as some kind of small emotional powerhouse for our post-9/11 world.

Coming out in 2003, the undertones of paranoia and anxiety that carry Fear X's surface murder mystery story along, indirectly connect to feelings of aimless anger, obsession, frustration, and hopelessness that many Americans felt on and after that tragic day in 2001. John Turturro plays Harry Caine, a mall security guard whose pregnant wife gets murdered in some apparent criminal cross-fire. Lack of major evidence has left the case unsolved and the bad guy(s) is still roaming around. Harry uses his small-time surveillance skills and an newly empty house to start a crusade that may just as equally serve as a distraction to Harry's heart as it is a cause for justice. But as the digging progresses, the more the wormholes splinter off into every possible direction. Whether Harry ends up in a Kubrick-Resnais-Lynch bizarro world or right next door to the truth is up to each one of us.

Unlike mystery/thrillers that offer up a cliffhanger in place of a satisfying solution, Refn's game is to push you off the cliff into some sort of zero gravity space between conditioned expectations and hopeful logic. Fear X continues to communicate all the way through its credits, carrying you on to a final blank screen with an ominous Brian Eno score, while also inviting closer scrutiny with a blurry collage of cubed surveillance footage. As it so happens, the title to Nicholas Winding Refn's film isn't silly or off-putting at all. No, it's exactly on the mark for what this movie is, a beautiful depiction of an ugly and uncomfortable state that many of us enter into without knowledge of its origins or preparation for its power. How to bottle that and put a label on it, I have no idea if anyone can, but Refn's attempt at doing so is pretty damn admirable.

ZOMBIELAND

2009-10-05T22:12:00.001-06:00

For a film that starts strong with introductory bookworm narration by Jesse Eisenberg and a slo-mo gush & smash title sequence to the sounds of Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls", Zombieland becomes increasingly dull relentlessly fast. With a script as spare as a two-page outline, Zombieland's best moments appear to come from the impromptu performances and improvised dialogue of its fairly able cast. I generally adore Emma Stone, but her and Abigail Breslen essentially fill space here. The movie belongs to Eisenberg in the role of Columbus, a teeny nerd who continues to survive the zombie apocalypse by adhering to a strict list of rules. The fact that he wields a shotgun in tidy hoody, curly hair, and skinny pants gives Zombieland an aura of geek fantasy fulfillment to it. He's a virgin too.

Zombieland's globe-spanning poster and epic-sounding title hint at something much grander than this brief episode of four people who cross paths and make their way to California from Texas ultimately gives out. Sure, a movie with the words "zombie" and "land" in the title pretty much demands that you close down logic centers and open up a playful mind before taking a seat, but seeing a satellite's eye view of the world under a zombie plague would have been more big screen bonzai-rific than the measly four-pack of characters we were given. Yes, Zombieland's much buzzed-about cameo delivers, but a massive globe-trotting, ensemble zombie film would have been much more appetizing. Think Babel, but with zombies (also, pretend that Babel was good).

It's a bit disconcerting when a film that runs only eighty minutes long must rely on recycling its own devices and jokes. The way the block letter "rules", that Columbus abides by, pop up on screen in real time is cute, as is Tallahassee's Twinkie obsession, but much like the fervor that is established in Zombieland's opening and credit sequences, these tropes wear thin quickly. I suppose this could all be a set up for numerous sequels that will unravel a wider, more interesting landscape and story much in the way REC 2 did with the way overrated REC, but that kind of TV serial planning really irritates me. If your film demands a sequel, then great, but make each one substantial, please. If you're just gonna trickle out your thoughts and plot and art, then please stay planted in TV land.

While at Fantastic Fest, last week, I noticed a sobering amount of audience members who were easily pleased by films that offered a snack size handful of clever punches, but very little in overall breadth. I like unique gags and useful gimmicks as much as the next guy and gal, but I can't help but wonder if our cinema is becoming more and more dominated by movies of compiled whoo-hoo, hand clapping moments instead of films that are of an accomplished whole. Perhaps this is line with the way music fans are trending toward the song download instead of the album. Maybe this is why TV is so popular again too. I don't know, but if Zombieland expected to knock me down with what it brought on Saturday night, then dude better get back to the weight room.

FANTASTIC FEST : DAY 6 & 7

2009-10-01T08:37:00.005-06:00

Having to go back to my "real" life and my "real" job, starting to(yester)day, the amount of movies I could take in slowed down majorly. However sad that might have been, it probably arrived right on time considering that I had started to show signs of detachment from the world (is that healthcare bill still alive???).

******Kaifeck Murder (Esther Gronenborn)

I hate to say it cuz I wanted to like it, but watching Kaifeck Murder was like watching a screener that had snuck its way through the festival programming road blocks. Now, no programmer is perfect (see whoever green lit The Human Centipede), but this was a pretty easy one to weed out. Kaifeck Murder's plot becomes convoluted not out of complicated predicaments but out of "huh???". Or, maybe it was because it was German. For all you TOERIFC alums, Franken from Black Book has a cameo... well, not the character, the actor.

******

Under the Mountain (Jonathan King)

This was disappointing. For anyone who saw King's Peter Jackson-esque (when Peter Jackson was still interesting) Black Sheep, a few years back, Under the Mountain is the director's follow-up to that. It sounds nice on paper: King wanted to make a tame adventure/horror flick that his kids could watch while still retaining the make-up and effects elements that made Black Sheep much more enjoyable than it had any right being. But then came the hard part of actually transferring said game plan to the screen. It doesn't work. King seems to be over thinking his instincts here. To me, he comes off as a director that works better on the run, in transit, off the cuff, not somebody who plans things out too much.

******

The Bare Breasted Countess (Jess Franco)

This was a retrospective screening - Venus in Furs, Succubus, and Eugenie also played, with Franco in attendance - that offered a rare chance to see a Jess Franco film on the big screen. I find Franco's films to be lovely to observe but difficult to penetrate. That latter problem, I think, comes from his films either being constructively sloppy or immensely personal. For instance, I have no idea what was happening in Succubus, but I admired the hell out of its visual audacity. The Bare Breasted Countess is incoherent, but, strangely, after it works on you for an hour or so, it reveals itself to be a filmed personal obsession that Franco had with the film's actress, Lina Romay (they are now married).

The Bare Breasted Countess is essentially a sex film disguised as a vampire film that makes no sense. Further, it's really Franco going exploratory with his camera on his muse/obsession/love in four extended sex scenes and a couple of solo romps. I won't deny that it gets tedious (selfishly made art generally does), but it's also revealing and touching. Franco and Ronay did a Q&A afterwards, and Ronay summed up the palpable on screen connection between the two by saying, "He took me to the moon with this movie, and I'm still there." Awwww.

Lastly, it was very heart-warming to see a frail, wheelchair bound Franco thank the audience for honoring him and then saying, "I feel free here [at the festival]".

******
Kenny Begins (Carl Astrand & Mats Lindberg)

This was like watching a Saturday Morning Cartoon translated into a live action film... in Swedish. Don't get me wrong, Kenny Begins had its charm and its laughs, but in line with the "Saturday Morning" vibe, the film comes off like an overlong episode instead of a full-grown movie. Harmless and idiotic (I mean that in the positive), Kenny Begins details the, er, beginning of Kenny Starfighter's ascension to being a police captain on a planet far, far away. The subtext may not be intended, but seeing this story of a delusional, oddly-shaped fellow in a space uniform made me think that this film probably hit home with many of the festival's attendees.

FANTASTIC FEST : SHORTS

2009-09-30T00:59:00.003-06:00

With this being an evening of recovery, I thought I would share the short films I've enjoyed the most at Fantastic Fest thus far. Unfortunately - but understandably - not all of the films are available on You Tube. Where they aren't, I've posted a trailer.

Attack of the Robots from Nebula 5 (Chema Garcia Ibarra)

Next Floor (Denis de Villeneuve)

Danse Macabre (Pedro Pires)

FANTASTIC FEST : DAY 5

2009-09-29T01:07:00.010-06:00

Tired... disoriented... unaware of anything else that's been happening in the world over the past five days...

******

Cropsey (Barbara Brancaccio & Joshua Zeman)

An interesting enough piece of low-budget journalism that attempts to get at the truth of five or more missing children that became alleged murder victims around 25-30 years ago in Staten Island. Brancaccio and Zeman truly seem to be hunting for the facts and not out to exploit tragedy for "the sensational documentary"'s sake. Still, there's something wrong when a Geraldo Rivera piece - that is used within Cropsey for some frightening exposition (truly frightening... sickening even) - is more interesting that the doc that's enveloping it.

****** Mandrill (Ernesto Diaz Espinoza)

Ernesto Diaz Espinoza and his crew may be the most exciting new Latin American filmmakers going. In short time, they've - on modest budgets - made three well measured and breezy feel-good action hero flicks. After seeing their martial arts film, Kiltro, I knew it was only a matter of time before the studly Marko Zaror would cross over into Hollywood stardom. Well, that's already on its way as we were host to some early footage of the Mirageman remake (retitled The Defender, for some reason). I admit that Mandrill does go a little limp after a first half that's frontloaded with its brightest ideas, but seeing as how this was the first time they've screened the film for an audience, perhaps this version of Mandrill is still a work in progress. Highly enjoyable, nonetheless.

******

Metropia (Tarik Saleh)

OK. So, through no fault of Metropia, I kind of hit the five day wall at this point and slid down into my chair relying on only the arm rests to keep me from sliding to the ground in glorious full-fetal nap position. Luckily, later in the night, I caught a brief second wind, but Metropia suffered for my red eyes, I won't deny that. With that disclaimer, I still wasn't feeling this animated film. Europe in the near dystopian future where the corporations blah blah blah..., and the media blah blah blah..., and the brainwashing blah blah blah... . Not that those topics are unimportant, but Christ, give it a unique spin, please. The programmers played an old Brazil trailer beforehand as a good-natured and appropriate lead in, but little did they suspect that being reminded of Brazil right before seeing Metropia was only going to shine the light on the latter's flaws.

******

Stingray Sam (Cory McAbee)

Wow. What to say about Stingray Sam? I surely wasn't expecting this to be the funniest movie of Fantastic Fest before walking into it, but man oh man was it ever the most oddball-weirdo-nutball hilarious film I've seen in quite some time. Since the festival brings in people from across the globe, it's often telling to gauge audience responses based on geographic origin. I say that, because my perception is that Stingray Sam possesses a goofball humor to it that is distinctly American. Most of our European and Asian guests didn't seem to connect with it. Director, actor, writer, everyman, Cory McAbee talked about the political aspects of his work, and boy was it refreshing to hear an artist understand the difference between creating propaganda and letting politics influence your fictional art. I think this guy may be too smart for Hollywood to ever understand. A sad shame, because he's immensely talented... and a total freak!

****** REC 2 (Paco Plaza & Jaume Balaguero)

I wasn't too hot on REC, so I wasn't expecting to be too high on its sequel. While, mostly, that is true, I do think that REC 2 is a superior film to its predecessor. For one, the camera work is cleaner and single shots last for a much more extended and fluid period of time. Also, Paco Plaza & Jaume Balagueró's inspired idea to jump to a "helmet cam" periodically gives the film time to breath and gain some much needed punctuation that was lacking in the first. There's also a spiritual/possession element in the sequel that wasn't sound in the first. Because Plaza and Balaguero have matured as filmmakers, and because their original film has now been given space to stretch out its story (I would imagine a REC 3 is in the works...), the REC franchise has instantly become more interesting than I ever thought it could be. Props to Plaza and Balaguero for keeping their film under 90 minutes once again. Though the hands are much more steady this time around, there's only so much hand held one can stomach.

FANTASTIC FEST : DAY 4

2009-09-28T02:12:00.011-06:00

After a slow start, Fantastic Fest 2009 is shaping up to be the best one yet...

******

Buratino, Son of Pinocchio (Rasmus Merivoo)

Filled to the rim with inspiration, the sparkly Buratino, Son of Pinocchio ultimately has too many cross-wired problems to commit to the ambitions that it hints at in its first ten minutes. The intro - a baby hungry woman sings to the stars about wanting to be with child and gets her wish via a splinter that magically flies into her womb and sprouts a baby Buratino - is fun, wicked, and wise, but too quickly Buratino, Son of Pinocchio simply feels like a short film tacked on to a half done feature. Director Rasmus Merivoo discussed the difficulties in logistically pulling off an Estonian/Russian co-production, and, sadly, that is reflected on the screen. But props to Merivoo for standing by his efforts. His humility was refreshing. Merivoo knows he loves making movies, and he knows he didn't make a strong one here, but such is the process.

******
Down Terrace (Ben Wheatley)

If Fantastic Fest generally offers up films dealing in the physically extreme, Down Terrace was an alternative to that from the emotional department. Where, at first, it seems like a dark comedy out to debunk the myth of the sexy gangster lifestyle, Down Terrace turns on a dime and becomes something much more confrontational. A wave of shocking hard violence challenges the audience to question the laughter we were enjoying previously. Is this another winning British class conscious comedy, or the exploration of the sociopath gene being passed on from one generation to the next? Not sure yet, but I know this debut feature by Ben Wheatley engrossed me, and I expect it to be spilling out into some small run theaters very soon. Look for the performance of newcomer Robin Hill. He may be Britain's next big thing.

******
The House of the Devil (Ti West)

Ti West is a smart guy. From The Roost, to Trigger Man, and now with The House of the Devil, this young modern day jack-of-all-trades (he writes, directs, edits, shoots) just keeps getting better. The House of the Devil is so delicately constructed that it almost feels too beautiful to be a horror film. Save for perhaps the very end, and a little bit of its middle, The House of the Devil feels nearly note perfect. People have already been labeling this film as an homage to 1980's horror, but West nailed it in the Q & A when he rightly described The House of the Devil as a period horror film, not a retread. West now has an excellent handling of beats and a visual richness to go alongside his already economical craftiness. I'm so anxious to see what he does next.

******
District B13 : Ultimatum (Patrick Alessandrin)

If there's an on screen prologue to match the sentiments of current political and cultural situation, it is DB13:U's "A new government is in power, but nothing has changed". Looking like it will get a late 2009 release, District B13 : Ultimatum is the best remedy for wiping away the unpleasant memory that was District 9. Where District 9 was nihilistic, District B13 extracts hope from a dystopia (only four years in the future, mind you) that more naturally resembles our world than the limp-dicked allegory of District 9. How can you not swoon over a fight sequence that is based around the security of a rare Van Gogh painting... and where said painting is used as an acrobatic weapon? Or what about Alessandrin and Luc Besson's pacifying of lower-class racial tensions by bringing self-segregated groups for a unified goal? Sure, it all sounds a bit candy coated and idealistic, but in the realm of hero-led action cinema, it feels just right, right now.

FANTASTIC FEST : DAY 3

2009-09-27T02:42:00.013-06:00

Day 3 was a good day...

****** Fish Story (Yoshihiro Nakamura)

Until I could check the director's resume afterwards, I thought maybe I was watching another film by the director of Linda Linda Linda. Like that under appreciated film, Fish Story rides the wave of a catchy song for its entirety. It has to be a good song, because the fate of the world is resting on its shoulders. Sounds ludicrous, and it is, but in the way that many Japanese filmmakers are able to stretch the unimaginable and impossible into the heartfelt and triumphant, Fish Story will have you smiling (and maybe crying) as its encore takes into the credits.

******

Morphine (Aleksey Balabanov)

The director of the grim and brutal Cargo 200 returns with a creaky and stylized period film about Russian small village medicine, malpractice, and misappropriation. There is something interesting about the way Balabanov narrowly goes about dissecting the past of his country, but - like Cargo 200 - there is a cracked heaviosity to it that just rubs me raw. The last shot seems to be channeling the ticklish tough times of Sullivan's Travels... before our guy blows his head off. Meh.

******
Breathless (Ik-June Yang)

I initially thought this film was overlong, but then perhaps it needed to be so we could marinate with the character of gangster debt collector Sang-Hoon long enough to see his whole picture. Breathless is reminiscent of Kim Ki-Duk's Bad Guy, but with depth and a wider range of notes. Slow reveals give the audience a wider scope of characters that pretty much walk the same lines throughout. Since family drama is at the core of this emotional film, I suspect Hollywood may scoop this one up for a remake. Try to see this version before that happens.

****** Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn)

I wasn't expecting this. I'd read what Bronson was about, but watched no trailers. What I saw was a artful rendering of chiseled masculinity more in line with Derek Jarman than any kind of Guy Ritchie-ness. I was pretty much blown back. Refn has an intelligent eye and a playful palm for setting up scenery. Tom Hardy must have been a joy to photograph. Puffed-up Greek physique and all, the man delivers a performance from his toes to the skin of his head. I think I saw spit exit his mouth about twelve times during the film.

****** The Human Centipede (Tom Six)

After a solid day that consisted of three strong films, I made the mistake of choosing to see this piece of garbage. By far, The Human Centipede is the worst film I've seen all year. I have no idea why the programmers of Fantastic Fest decided to program this outside of the fact that it "pushes the envelope". Well, if you want your envelope pushed, you can always debase yourself at the easy click of a mouse. When I'm in the theater, I want to see a film. (Actually, I don't even want to say that this film pushed any envelopes... because that could be interpreted as a compliment, something that The Human Centipede should never receive by any fair-minded person). The worst student film ever conceived of is more watchable than this! Come back Macabre, all is forgiven. You are a masterpiece next to The Human Centipede, 2009's biggest piece of shit.

FANTASTIC FEST : DAY 2

2009-09-26T23:35:00.000-06:00

Apologies for the late "Day 2" update. I don't have an iPhone, I don't take my laptop with me, and I fell asleep as soon as I walked in the last night.

SIDE NOTE(S): a.) There are two really cool Japanese rocker chicks walking around this festival with their filmmaking Japanese boyfriends. b.) The Men Who Stare at Goats played as a secret screening last night (I didn't see it), and word is that it's absolutely dreadful.

******
Hard Revenge Milly & Hard Revenge Milly : Bloody Battle (Takanori Tsujimoto)

It's hard to say negative things about sweet Japanese men. The director of this double-feature was so cuddly and sweet, that ripping into his movie would make me feel like a pretty bad dude. It surely wouldn't make Mr. Tsujimoto feel bad because he'll never read this, but, still, the guy was kind enough to barbecue some beef for us onstage with a flamethrower, and you gotta like that. As for HRM & HRM:BB? The clever special effects (by Yoshi Nishimura, director of the gobsmack-splatter Tokyo Gore Police) just simply weren't enough to carry these poorly orchestrated films.

******

Antichirst (Lars Von Trier)

I admire this film,... but I might hate it even more. If that sounds contradictory, forgive me, because I haven't had time to seriously think on this yet ("festival brain" doesn't allow for much reflection). The usual Von Trier adjectives may be used to describe Antichrist : man-hating, woman-hating, misanthropic, pretentious, desperate. The thing is - as with many of LVT's movies - some people take those terms in the positive. You'll have to decide for yourself. I recommend everybody see it for the simple fact that it will make for fascinating blogger chatter on par with the post-Inglourious Basterds harvesting. Maybe by that time I will have a concrete opinion myself. Until then, prepare yourself by thinking about a scrapbook entitled "Gynocide", ejaculating something that's not semen, and a CGI fawn fetus.

******
Trick 'r Treat (Michael Dougherty)

This was fun. An anthology movie based upon what happens when people don't respect the spirit and festivities of Halloween. While Trick r Treat loses steam about halfway through, I'm glad I was able to watch it with a packed theater of reactors instead of on DVD. Plus, the director got in a jab at Rob Zombie in the post-screening Q & A. "I don't really need know that Michael Myers was beaten by his mom and wore Megadeth t-shirts as a child". Right on, my man.

******
Smash Cut (Lee Demarbe)

Apparently everyone hated this film except me. David Hess plays a hack director who decides that the only way to make his slasher films better is to use real body parts and blood. Not a very clever concept, but Demarbe makes it work ("Don't take this film seriously for one second", he said before the screening). Yes, the acting is rough, but it's because the movie calls for stilted cameos, not masterful performances. Full of movie references, politically incorrect jokes, smart sight gags (a blown bubble-gum bubble full of blood), and a radiant color design, Smash Cut is the most underrated film at Fantastic Fest, this far. I actually felt embarrassed for our town when then audience shrugged in front of Demarbe and David Hess in the post-screening Q & A..

FANTASTIC FEST : DAY 1

2009-09-25T01:52:00.010-06:00

I knew I would bring my camera and then not use it at all. That happens when you come of out of theaters, run to pee, say hi to friends, check your phone, then go back into a theater and forget what time of day (and/or what day) it is. I will use it tomorrow... I think.

******

Van Dieman's Land (Jonathan Auf Der Heide)

This slow-riding Australian import was a polite (if cannibalism can be "polite") way to ease into a week that often gets erratic. Bad boys from the UK are sent to a prisoner's work camp somewhere on the edge of the end of the world. Open water vistas bring to mind the endings of Apocalypse Now! and The Mosquito Coast. While Van Dieman's Land isn't great, the ambitions of it's creators are admirable. A Q&A afterwards revealed that the film was made "with zero money". Now, while that may just mean zero "private" funding, the footage and performances captured by this ragtag group of art school friends impresses.

******

Terribly Happy (Henrik Ruben Genz)

The more I sit with this movie, the more I like it. Terribly Happy pivots on the great faces of its actors. As much as the setting sweats small town Denmark, there is also an Americana eccentricity to it. Many of the characters are drawn like incidental reference points from famous international indie films, but that's more likely attributed to the fact that Genz wears his influences on his sleeves. While not a film that hits on all cylanders, Terribly Happy still darkly charms on its way to off-the-beaten-path redemption.

******

Macabre (The Mo Brothers)

YIKES! This was the first official clunker of the festival - through these eyes, at least. Total trash, this Indonesian splatter film aims to pay homage to sadist-horror - from gouge-happy 80's-90's American to the current wave of French brutality - but can't even pull of that easy trick because it's too caught up in it's web of tired tropes and genre cliches. Unlike 2007's Fantastic find Hell's Ground (a Pakistani splatter film), Macabre ignores the essence of its own culture while drawing out the horror. Oh, and a new born baby is not a good device for a horror film (nor do baby skulls make for good props).

******

Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli)

OK, OK. Yeah, yeah. This is the biggest, scariest film since ever... or something. I know. Or, so I'm told. Look, I don't think this film is terrible, and it does have some cold & creepy moments, but I just don't get it. "It" being why movie fans get so excited about stuff like this. Paranormal Activity is another found footage film that doesn't look good, but, as I argued with my buddy Bill the other day about The Blair Witch Project, I guess that's the point. It's also to the benefit of the filmmakers. Since Paranormal Activity is nothing but set ups for some greenlight frights, it's hard for me to see this film as nothing more than another well-marketed stunt of a film that I couldn't really ever care to look at again.

NOTE: This film could just as easily be called The Most Annoying Boyfriend Ever. If my boyfriend followed me around like that with a camera all the time, I would have welcomed demon possession myself.

FANTASTIC FEST STARTS TODAY

2009-09-24T23:16:00.000-06:00

I hope to bring as many updates, short reviews, and pictures (I'm packing my camera this year) as possible. And even though there is a film playing at the festival about an upskirt photographer, please don't expect me to deliver any type of material like that. You dirtbags.

Now, if you want some upshirt photos of some crusty, fat, nerd boys... then I may be able to give that to you.

I'm excited. More soon...

JENNIFER'S BODY

2009-09-21T21:45:00.009-06:00

I liked Jennifer's Body without hesitation, but it's been the greater cries of dissatisfaction - and, in some instances, anger - over the film that's compelled me to defend it.

Out of the gate, let me say that I don't think Diablo Cody is a great talent, nor did I think Juno was a great movie with a great screenplay hanging off its belt. So, perhaps it was that already present low regard for Cody - going into her first film post-Academy Award - that aided me in appreciating Jennifer's Body more than somebody who considered its writer to be a mix of J.D. Salinger and Kurt Cobain.

But that's unfair. To say Diablo Cody isn't a "great talent" doesn't mean that she's talentless. She ain't. Cody has an ear for the quirky-cutesy ("I can see your front butt" is both fun and cadence friendly), and while it's true that that can produce lines which are two years past their too clever expiration date (Jennifer telling a friend to "MoveOn.org already!" and a stale truth-in-Wikipedia reference), it's also the perfect type of verbiage to elevate a trashy horror flick. A crap film like Sorority Row might have been half-decent crap with lines like "Where's it at, Monistat?" or "I just bought Aquamarine on DVD. It's a about a girl who's half sushi. She must get f*cked in her blow hole".

You see, Diablo Cody isn't a good screenwriter, she's an adept scribbler of quips. Movie culture's lowered bar for what passes as good screenwriting, directing, acting, etc. has devolved to a point where many people don't know what good is anymore. If something feels "fresh", feels "new", or feels "cool", then it may very possibly pass quality tests on those superficial merits alone. Take The Blair Witch Project, for instance. Yep, it was fun, but ten years down the road it only makes sense to talk about it as an interesting stunt, not a film that invites studied, respectable second viewings. If you say "yes it does", then explain to me why its makers haven't produced anything substantial since?

Granted, some of my applause for Jennifer's Body ("cool, trashy fun") can come off as surface praise in itself, but I would argue that my appreciation is more concrete. Yes, Jennifer's Body, at its core, is an empty piece of work, but what Cody, director Karyn Kusama, and actors Amanda Seyfried, Megan Fox, and Adam Brody have done, is taken a regularly rusty sub-genre and greased it up a bit. Where Ellen Page's portrayal of a Cody-youth ached to be so genuine that it screamed "phony!", Megan Fox embraces the idea of high school caricature. If Page and Fox represent opposite ends of the young actress spectrum, then Cody needs to keep her pen flowing from the mouth of Fox. That snarky dialogue is nastier fun when it comes from the lips of a vamp, not the pout of a scamp.

Jennifer's Body's hidden advantage is that each of its main members know how to step up when another is slumping. Adam Brody's scene-stealing serves as suitable filler in moments that ordinarily would be dull. Karyn Kusama's ambitious bag of visual gags can confuse, but they also provide a rock n' roll rhythm. Amanda Seyfriend - with eyes that reveal an experience wiser than her age - gives more than the subject matters deserves and grounds the film with her professionalism. And yes, in the end, I give Diablo Cody the blue ribbon. No, I'm far from sold on her stature (which isn't her fault, mind you), but I think it could be interesting if she wrote Saw VII.

ON DVD: SUGAR

2009-09-17T08:25:00.003-06:00

You don't have to be from the Dominican Republic in order to detect a cloud of phoniness lingering over Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's "Welcome to America" fable Sugar, you just have to have lived outside of your bubble for a learned period of time. In viewing their contrived films, I suspect that both Boden and Fleck have yet to open themselves up to such an enriching experience.

The title character in the duo's follow-up to Half Nelson is a MLB minor-leaguer who originated from the Dominican developmental baseball leagues. What Boden and Fleck end up doing with Sugar (aka Miguel Santos), and his big league ballpark aspirations, is use him as a pawn in their cynical plan to squash the "American dream" ideal of the wide-eyed immigrant. However, what Sugar's patronizing let-me-tell-your-story-for-you approach ultimately ends up arguing in favor of is a segregated America. This isn't deliberate, mind you. Boden and Fleck aren't bigots. It's simply the end result of soft-headed white guilt filmmaking, a point-of-view that allegorizes Single-A baseball life with modern day slave labor and subtly portrays fly-over America as an unwelcoming region (yawn).

Sugar opens on the sunrise glow of a baseball field in the Dominican Republic. Moving to scenes within the home that Sugar shares with his mother, brother, and sister (who argue over watching American Idol vs. baseball... two multi-racial institutions that portray a post-racial America greater than Boden and Fleck would ever feign to), interiors and faces are lit with a rich and hopeful glow. Colors bounce off cement walls in the night streets like a well-photographed and hip Levi's commercial. That gets contrasted with the stale, old farm house of an elderly Iowan couple who temporarily house Sugar during his stint at the Bridgetown affiliate. In the Iowa climate, Sugar's hopeful aesthetic sheen is now gone. Check the way Boden and Fleck shoot Sugar at the dinner table with the couple and their extended family. The distance between Sugar and his hosts - sitting stiff in straight-back wooden chairs - is palpable and uncomfortable. When the old man addresses Sugar, it comes out in loud, drawn-out syllables as if he's communicating with a child. Oh yes, behind that camera, the condescension is dripping.

It is only when Sugar makes his way to New York, and houses up with a Puerto Rican couple, that he appears refreshed and once again "at home": lively, spirited, smiley. Here at the dinner table, Sugar and hosts are shot from tight angles and in close quarters, their body language giving off feelings of warmth and acceptance. The rich aroma from Sugar's Dominican home life has returned.

Had Boden and Fleck portrayed Sugar's new American experience as a mix of cultural clashes and awakenings from Iowa on into New York, then Sugar might have been relevant. Instead, the filmmakers erect convenient, prejudicial walls where they see fit. Sugar gets turned away or rejected at almost every corner in Iowa... often by corn-fed white males, of course. He catches angry looks in a night club, racial slurs from a batter, trepidation from some teens, grief from a coach, discipline from the elderly couple, mixed messages from a girl who rejects his kiss (she only wanted to get close to him so she could recruit him for Jesus). The only true companionship offered to Sugar, while in Bridgetown, comes from fellow ballplayer Brad Johnson, who is black. In Sugar's most cringe-worthy moment, Brad leans over to Sugar on the team bus and asks him if he's into hipster rock heroes TV On The Radio. Yeesh.

Right now, our world is ripe for thoughtful films about the immigrant experience. But Boden and Fleck come at this topic like a pair who have solely used ZNet commentary to equip their artistic affronts, not two open hearts with a genuine perspective to match Sugar's tone of realism. Pop that bubble, guys.

LORNA'S SILENCE

2009-09-15T21:54:00.006-06:00

I've often owned up to a feeling of open-mouthed confoundedness after watching a film by the Dardenne Bros. Not over whether I liked/disliked a particular film of theirs, or what to make of my emotional reaction to their many masterpieces (out of only five films), but over how in the hell they do what they do! Yes, this will be a gushing post.

There is a special scene in the Dardenne's Le Fils (The Son) where the father (played by Olivier Gourmet) spends a quiet moment in his son's empty room. Without dialogue or musical influence, a wave of story and character washes over you. It's like magic.

How does this happen? Well, the films of the Dardenne's are so meticulously crafted that each moment is essential to the next and then back on the moments that preceded it. A chain link of images lead to a point that, without fanfare, opens up a box of resolve. "Um, isn't that simply what storytelling through montage and editing is in general?". Yes, but this is more. The Dardenne's aren't just driving a string of events, they are - in small steps - working on our pre-judgments of the protagonist and our personal perceptions of the world around us to unveil universal human truths. Sounds major, right? Well, it is.

The journey that is taken in the Dardenne's latest film is alongside Lorna, an Albanian illegal immigrant working to settle-down in Belgium. Through an arranged marriage, then divorce, then second arranged marriage, Lorna aims to gain residency, citizenship, and a chunk of start-up money for a snack shop she dreams of opening with her boyfriend. Unlike in Rosetta or Le Fils where the camera is seemingly attached at the ankles and necks of the leads, the Dardenne's give Lorna (Arta Dobroshi, looking like a European Ellen Page) a wider frame to work within. The camera still lingers with our protagonist 24/7, but from more an "in the room" perspective than an over-the-shoulder spy cam.

Like an elegantly pitched baseball game or a carefully crafted pop song, great and beautiful things must end well, and Lorna's Silence's quick close was simply one of my favorite moments at the theater this year. With just a splash of music (the only one in the film) and a simple action, the Dardenne's emit a moment that's as spiritual as the ending to Bresson's A Man Escaped. It was all a means to an end. Everything that came before this moment was for this moment. Without this moment, I would not love Lorna's Silence.

So, I don't think I made much headwind in figuring out how the Dardenne's do what they do, or how they did what they did (again) in Lorna's Silence, but when you're in a whirlwind of awe, it's kind of hard to even see straight, y' know?

TOERIFC # 9: if... (1968)

2009-09-14T08:34:00.002-06:00

It's Piper's turn...

Yes, TOERIFC episode #9 is here. A discussion of Lindsay Anderson's open-ended if... is sure to rile up a feisty discussion (or twenty) over at Lazy Eye Theater.

A FEW THINGS...

2009-09-10T21:11:00.005-06:00

... about this poster:

1. After clicking on the above poster to make it appear larger on your screen, look at the heads of Paul Walker, Hayden Christensen, and T.I. and witness the worst photoshop America has ever seen.

2. Putting Chris Brown in your promo poster at all, right now, seems pretty questionable, but to have him make a "trigger finger" hand gesture at the same time just takes it to an ickier level.

3. I hope this movie is about a high-dollar gay prostitution house of predominant bottoms where Idris Elba is the pimp and the rest of the dudes are the hookers (ie "Takers"). [NOTE: House of Bottoms would make an interesting title for something.]

FUN FACT: The original title of this movie was Bone Deep.

4. Notice that Matt Dillon's name is the first listed, but that he isn't on the poster. He must've known that this is going straight-to-video.

EXTRACT

2009-09-08T21:36:00.005-06:00

More than just straight comedy, Mike Judge's Extract is a loving farce on the risk/reward system that drives the successful small business. Ultimately, independent extract factory owner Joel (Jason Bateman) gets through the tornado of trial lawyers, sexy con women, hairnet hysteria, and marital strain with a still thriving company on his hands. Okay, so perhaps that's not the typical week of your average shop around the corner, but a condensed lifetime - or even year or two - of those hair-greying travails is what Judge is offering up here. It's all anchored by the light unassuming goofiness of Jason Bateman, turning in a performance that's a little more human than his perpetually frustrated Michael Bloom in Arrested Development (surely Judge saw a fit when eyeing Bateman in that role).

Extract is also an appreciation of the communal bedrock foundation that a small business can provide, a characteristic that often goes unrepresented in the big dealings of Hollywood. Joel's drive to invent (as a kid, he wanted his grandma's cookies to taste better... so he damn well went out and did it!) and his passion to bring that to the marketplace, folds out into a benefit for many. Joel is not only a provider of product, he's a provider of stability for the employees who work for him. Yes, there may be a big cloud of "sigh" hanging over his head each time he peers out from that executive window onto the work floor and sees bickering and his bottom line backing-up, but it's a familial kind of irritation, one that comes with unconditional appreciation.

Alongside Extract's acknowledgment of a private enterprises' workplace responsibility and wider economic impact is Judge's recurring philosophy of individualism. As usual, this is offered up in comic form, be it Kristen Wiig's work-from-home coupon designer, Ben Affleck's bar owner, Mila Kunis' hustler, Javier Gutierrez's illegal immigrant, or - most oddly affecting - in Dustin Milligan's cuddly gigolo character who goes through Joel's ringer of being employed, fired, paid-off, called a whore, and then employed again. Of course, it will be near impossible for Judge to ever top that celebration of individualism on display in the "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta" montage from Office Space, but it's exactly that freedom loving walk-the-Earth euphoria that always makes his characters so appealing.

So, if Extract has been met with a shrug and a "eh" by both critics and audiences alike, it's because Mike Judge's individual and outsider status still shows all over his work like the face of a nice, easy going fella who still can't believe people care so much about what he does. Perhaps it's a matter of the Extract trailer not being representative of what the film actually is. It's not as broad as to concern itself with the character archs of Kristen Wiig or Mila Kunis. This is a one character movie. It could just as easily have been called Joel, as I suppose Office Space and Idiocracy could have equally been tagged Peter and Joe (or, Not Sure). However, there does continually seem to be an issue with the way Judge ends his films, as if he had so much fun getting to a place that he then doesn't know quite how to get out. It can feel unsatisfying.

But I tell ya what, in this era of bail outs, clunkers, and economic columnist warfare where back-and-forth bickering seems to have replaced any discussion of exit theory, Extract is a refreshing and accessible little movie about recovery in spite of troubled assets.

GAMER

2009-09-06T23:09:00.001-06:00

In the way that Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's Crank : High Voltage came out at the near end of April to prematurely nab the crown of kinetic action cinema from those dull Blockbuster Dogs of May (X-Men Origins : Wolverine, Star Trek, T4), so now too does their sci-fi film, Gamer, act as a sort of post-August sponge, soaking up all of the slobber left behind from the perplexing praise that was heaped upon its dreadful genre cousin District 9. The totality of Gamer doesn't hang out on the same plain of artistic anarchy where Crank : High Voltage lives (but, really, what does?), yet it still provides a serviceable mainstream platform for these two modern auteurs to tinker with their deliciously absurdist set pieces, compositions, and popping juxtapositions.

The degraded dystopian territory that Gamer's thin plot resides in isn't a novel one. In a "near future", technological advancement and convenience has locked much of functioning society indoors, minimizing human interaction and maximizing hedonistic impromptus. Global pop-culture's # 1 TV program is a survival realty show called Slayers, where death row inmates vie for second-chances at freedom in a kill-or-be-killed battlefield. The twist is that each inmate is handled by a behind-the-scenes real life gamer, playing the ultimate in first person shooter video games. Kable (Gerard Butler), the sub-genre's requisite good "bad guy" who's only in the predicament he's in because of BIG [fill in the blank], is three victories from release... and exposing the evil intentions of the man behind the curtain.

Even though Gamer's plot is shaky, its individual pieces provide some terrific stand-alone signatures. Michael C. Hall as the Stalin-meets-Bill Gates wunderkind tycoon Ken Castle, and Kyra Sedgwick as a TV talk show opportunist with just a smidgen of conscience, both clearly enjoy living within the costumed personas they've been handed. Hall, especially, chews up the scenery at any given chance, but it's for benefit of the film, filling in the space where broadness of story is lacking. Also fun is the freedom fighting group, Humanz, an activist bunch that envisions a future where gaming is rolled back to the days of joystick arcade standies and air hockey. Of course, their greater goal is to unplug society from Castle's wicked web, but the haunt that Neveldine & Taylor hole them up in is a hoot.

But just as with Crank and Crank : High Voltage, the unique pleasure of Neveldine & Taylor's films pour from their unchecked sense of vision. The idea (and pulling off of said idea!) to stage the final squaring-off between Kable and Castle on a seemingly free floating basketball court is post-modern cinematic nirvana. Also nutso bonkers - but in the most complementary meaning of those terms - is a fight sequence prior, where Castle's thugs line up in finger-snapping formation to attack Kable under the orders of Castle's acapella performance of Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin". Shot in darkness and shadow, the sequence initially eludes you by catching you off guard and off your wits. However, the image of Kable descending a staircase to enter a den of dancing henchmen is what continues to ride with me the most, and it's what makes me want to revisit Gamer sooner than later.

As Neveldine & Taylor started to exhibit in Crank : High Voltage, there is a Godard-ian color scheme injected into their most pop-tastic compositions. The splashy diagrams of Pierrot Le Fou channeled through the lensing and lighting of a slick Luc Besson action film would be my best way of describing Gamer's most luminous moments. Crank : High Voltage was grimier and, truthfully, played off of Godard's use of pop-imagery more than his late 60s richness of color, but the "Society" scenes in Gamer offers up Neveldine & Taylor a brand new landscape to open their Crayola palette of colors in. Bubblegum hyper-mimickry and raw exploitation will surely be charges leveled against the brightest moments of this film, but to do so would be to misjudge the hard-candy humor and almost surreal quality that's quickly becoming a trademark of the Neveldine/Taylor brand. Unfortunately, delayed respect can sometimes be a consequence of inventiveness.

GHANA IS THE NEW POLAND

2009-09-03T22:22:00.007-06:00

Maybe y'all have heard of these international movie art nuggets already, but I'm just seeing them for the very first time tonight courtesy of Worstpreviews.

The link will give you more info., but basically these are handpainted movie posters for "mobile theaters" that make their way around Ghana playing movies on VCRs in the backs of trucks. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Here are my two favorites:

I don't know if any of that stuff in the poster actually happens in Children of the Corn 3, but I know I am renting it now so I can find out!!!

I just like the design of this entire poster, but most of all I LOVE that the "O" in Terminator 2 is a HEART.

PAPER HEART

2009-09-02T08:10:00.003-06:00

Beyond being adorable, Nicholas Jasenovec and Charlyne Yi's Paper Heart is more appropriately an innocent expose on the fallacy of "truth discovery" in the age of the modern documentary. The questions that Yi (Paper Heart's guide and narrator) asks - Does love exist?, What is love?, Is the 'glow' of love physiological or mystical? - serve as the perfect opened-canned/nobody-could-ever-know ponderings for Jasenovec to craft his playful musings on non-fiction film around. But let's be clear, this isn't a cynical movie. From Paper Heart's wistful title to the care in which Yi gives her cardboard, cotton ball, and construction paper reenactments, we can gather that she is a young woman of knowing sensitivity.

Or, at least the character of "Charlene Yi" is. Paper Heart welcomes us to question everything. Who's to say that Michael Cera isn't simply channeling the college years of Paulie Bleeker instead of revealing the nakedness of his inner Canadian? And why should we trust Charlene when she says she's IMing Michael from her hotel room? But, most importantly, how can we possibly take the few handpicked & charming accounts of the couples Charlene interviews (from NYC to Oklahoma City to Amarillo and back to LA) as any kind of resolution to her larger philosophical questions of the heart? We can't. The real truth is that a hovering camera persuades more than it records, just as an editing bay cheats more that it condenses. What's so refreshing about Paper Heart, is that it's a "documentary" that finally acknowledges this.

In a scene where Charlene and Jasenovec are shooting BBs (which appear to be there in "sound" only) at some mounted beer cans in between couple interviews, Charlene expresses concern that the constant filming may be negatively affecting her relationship with Michael. It is here where the invasive 24/7 two-man camera crew that follows Charlene (and eventually Michael) around is revealed to be Paper Heart's central character. The concept of the camera's seductive power is much more subtle here than it is in, say, Diary of the Dead or Peeping Tom, but Jasenovec is still clearly overwhelmed enough that he fails to hear Charlene's pleas to lock picture. Even when Charlene warns him that she's gonna be sick, Jasenovec's desire to capture something true trumps his friend's direct warnings.

Fittingly, and appropriately, it is Jasenovec's eventual self-awareness that stands as the powerful climax in Paper Heart. His decision to pull-back the camera, and then to cut sound completely, is not only an acknowledgement that questions of love (and politics and culture) are better debated and addressed in intimate settings rather than under a light stand (the documentary's "heat lamp"), but a comment on our voyeuristic desires to intrude in on even the most personal of moments. Jasenovec's revelation is felt by all when, upon his decision to not force the camera into Michael's home, we catch a brief spot of emotional comforting between the couple from the mic still hanging on Charlene's sweater. Without the camera around, the change in tone and vulnerability in both Michael and Charlene's voices are recognizable, and it is here when the crew cuts sound.

Paper Heart's end of summer trickling-out release is the perfect anecdote to the now widely accepted failure and fraud of Sacha Baron Cohen's ambush freak-journalism. Notice especially how Yi treats her interviewees from coast-to-coast America. Whether it be via New York City or Lubbock, Yi emits a genuine respect and wide-eyed fascination with the eclectic cross-section of people. There is no red state/blue state bullshit pandering here... Bill Maher be damned. Paper Heart also remedies the romantic contrivances of Marc Webb's perplexedly popular (500) Days of Summer. After taking in Paper Heart's "Christmas Tree" song montage and its hand-holding supermarket hunting sequence, it should be clear which film is more in tune with the concept of the indie-pop romcom (see also the underrated Gigantic).

Now go order yourself a "BLT (minus the B, add P and C)" and spend some time with your own thoughts on love.

THE FINAL DESTINATION 3D & THE LINGERING OF THOSE 3D DEMONS

2009-08-29T23:26:00.012-06:00

Yes, it appears that I am still unconvinced that 3D will be the future of cinema. Perhaps "the 3D experience" will dominate the future of movie going - as in what generates box office traffic (and adds $3-$4 to each ticket price) - but as far as enhancing the art of cinematography... well, let's just say I'm super skeptical. But, admittedly, my skepticism comes from the view of a fan, not an artisan or technician, so, trust me, I am not coming at this with a pitchfork mentality nor picket sign in hand. I fully acknowledge that there are artists and pioneers working in the 3D arena who have one hundred more times the foresight and knowledge about this art form than I do.

That being said, my nervousness hit a bit of a higher peak this Friday when I saw the Avatar trailer in front of the film that provides half of the title for this post. And no, unlike what other movie fans have been expressing, it wasn't the content of the Avatar trailer that bothered me, it was the way that it looked... with those damned 3D glasses on! My eyes couldn't take in the whole image within the frame because they were naturally focused on the pronounced image that was lifted off the screen. That isn't cinematography, that's just theatrics. I've come to accept the of gimmick of 3D as it relates to animated kids films, horror flicks, and B-movies, but Avatar - to my knowledge - is the first sort of epic, "serious", not totally animated, feature film that is pushing the 3D aesthetic. What I'm saying, is that I don't really wanna see Scorcese's Sinatra or Spielberg's Lincoln in 3D in the years to come.

But until then... I will admit that the entertainment value of watching the latest Final Destination installment was indeed enhanced... by those damned 3D glasses! (And no, not just because there was some full-frontal 3D bouncing boobies. Not just because...)

The Final Destination franchise is a unique one in that its "sequels" are totally free of the tentacles and roots of the previous films. For the most part, each Final Destination movie is a stand alone clean slate production that - after resetting, for any newbies, the hook of the film - simply tries to one-up the inventive kills of the chapter that preceded it. Further, if you consider that FDs 1 & 3 were directed James Wong while FDs 2 & 4 were directed by David Ellis, then you pretty much have a head-to-head killfest competition taking place - every year or so - right in front of your eyes. One doesn't go into a Final Destination film for story (they're all the same... ending and all).

However, I feel the need to applaud the Final Destination series for containing a fear element that - to my knowledge - has otherwise gone untapped in the horror genre, and that is the fear of the freak accident. Maybe y'all don't worry and obsess like I do, but I often ponder the horrific chain of events that could happen if I don't pick up that piece of paper that I dropped on the way to my car. If I decide to not get out of my car and retrieve that sheet, a passerby might slip on it, knock over a can of gasoline sitting in the edge of the curb, which will then pour on over to the guys using a blowtorch next door, and ... KABLAMMO!!! I know, what are the odds? Yeah, well that's the kind of stuff that plagues my mind, not some tired, old bogeyman. So, think about what you might have just done the next time you spill a bit of beverage on the floor of your coffee shop as you leave.

The easiest way to review The Final Destination 3D (aka FD4) would be to simply list each death and rate it on a scale of cleverness. However, that may suck the fun out for the few of you who may actually go and see it. I will say that The Final Destination 3D held me less than the previous two, mainly because David Ellis blows his wad in the film's opening sequence and never fully returns to form. Frontloading your fright film with its most elaborate and slamming sequence is ok as long as you don't go limp for the remaining 70 minutes (btw... FD3D is only 82 minutes! That is pretty much the ideal goofball/slasher horror movie length. Cheers to Ellis for that.), and, sadly, that's almost what David Ellis does. In fact, at least one (and maybe two) of the kills is a retread from the first Final Destination. It's my feeling that David Ellis and screenwriter Eric Bress relied on the gimmick of 3D at the disservice of writing more inventive sequences.

Ahh... but as a local theater hear in town annually hosts a 100 Best Movie Kills compilation night, and as Spike TV's 1000 Ways to Die appears to be a success, and as children (of all ages) continue to play the game of "would you rather die by drowning or burning?", the macabre fascination over how, when, and where our personal demise will greet us seems like something that shall always remain. So, expect Final Destination 5 sometime in, or around, 2012. You can bet your life on it.

BREAKING! : HOLLYWOOD ACTOR SHOWS HUMILITY, SEEMS TO CARE ABOUT AUDIENCE!; ALSO: SOMEBODY'S DREADS ARE FALLING OUT!

2009-08-26T23:00:00.013-06:00

I admit to not knowing anything about Sam Worthington prior to Terminator : Salvation, and while I've had no reason to dislike the guy up to this point, I think he's instantly launched himself into the realm of actors I'd like to give a big hug to (without creeping them out).

Worthington recently said the below in response to beefs that fans/viewers expressed about T4:

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"I can nitpick with the best of them and go down the list of things I saw on IMDB where they found holes in it, and go, 'You are f*cking right,'" he said. "If there was a big 10-ton robot coming outside that gas station, surely we would f*cking hear it. And I missed that. So I'm going to be a bit better when I'm looking through my f*cking scripts. So it raises my game a bit, because now I feel like an idiot for not saying it to McG."

He added that he takes criticism very seriously and uses it to become a better actor. "I read what people say, because they're my audience," Worthington continued. "And if you don't know how you're coming across, in my opinion, I think you're cutting yourself off a bit."
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In other news, (probably) America's worst film director - it's a horse race between him, Kevin Smith, and Todd Phillips - has a new movie coming out this weekend... but he's totally stressing out!

The lead singer of White Zombie says:

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"I cannot relax and settle down. My brain is always racing with ideas. I can't calm down. I'm like that all that time." (LA Times)
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I'm guessing that the sound of all those "ideas" racing around in Zombie's head is of one note.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

2009-08-25T00:12:00.008-06:00

After watching Inglourious Basterds - with perhaps the most eclectic "packed house" I've ever been in (an odd mix of elderly women, "dudes", and professor types) - I was happy to have learned that the dim splatter trailer for Quentin Tarantino's sixth (or seventh) film was just a taunt. That "scalp-y" teaser that trickled out this past February hinted at an artfully shot body count concoction, a film that was more in line with the sadism of Nu French Horror than the tamer Robert Aldrich fare that Tarantino often referenced as a touchstone for Inglourious Basterds. Plus, after seeing a CNN news spot on the Inglourious premier replete with a tacked-on tracking shot of a scuzzed-up Melanie Laurent running through the French countryside, I shuddered at the creeping realization that Tarantino's latest would indeed be pulling from films like Martyrs and Fronteir(s) the way fifty years of Japanese cinema was borrowed from for Kill Bill. Ahhhhh... so how glad was I to realize that Inglourios Basterds was not what I had suspected.

But, as Harvey Kietel so directly puts it in Pulp Fiction, don't think that I'm about to start sucking Inglorious Basterds' dick just yet. In fact, I won't be reaching that pinnacle point of passion at all. While Inglorious undoubtedly contains sequences and moments that whole-heartily win my admiration, the totality of it is a nasty mess, the end-product of talented visualist and witty gag-ster who may now be officially sliding towards the valley of his career (stitch the second half of Death Proof onto Inglorious Basterds and you have the weakest 200 minutes of Tarantino's portfolio). If the films within the span of Resevoir Dogs - Death Proof were criticized or disliked for specific reasons, one could never accuse those previous works of Tarantino of being dull, sloppy, or ill-conceived. Yet, that's the gulping, swallowing truth here about Inglorious Basterds, a movie that plays out in five Chapters because, well, how else would QT have convinced us to sit through this disaster (see (500) Days of Summer for another recent film that used similar tactics of distraction).

"Chapter 5 : THE REVENGE OF THE GIANT FACE" is Inglourious Basterd's most intriguing and well-executed chunk, followed closely by the opening "Once Upon A Time..." salvo which ends with Christoph Waltz's segment-ending shout of "Au Revoir Sho-SHA-NA!", a line delivered with such instant-icon gusto that we are sure to hear it repeated often in the future as another of Tarantino's most quotable moments. But despite its victories, Inglourious' "GIANT FACE" portion still feels like that one epic song at the end of an otherwise uneven and disappointing album that you'd been anticipating. In fact, it wouldn't be surprising to me if Tarantino dreampt up this sequence first and built the rest of IB around it. The elegantly executed double-murder-in-the-projection-booth moment mixed in with the sheer lunacy of a projected poltergeist-like image of a woman shouting down a theater full of Nazis as they burn in flames ignited by the spark of old film stock is so supremely absurd enough to actually work.

As for the "BASTERDS" segment (Chapter 2)? Yawn. After Brad Pitt showed comedic range (again) last year with his performance in Burn After Reading, I at least expected an entertaining effort from him here. Instead, Pitt appeared to be three times over-playing a role that needed to be over-played, but not by that great of a length. Pitt's lower-jaw becomes his comedic crutch to lean on simply because nothing else seems to be churning behind those eyes of his. Much in the way Pitt's fidgeting and mannerisms in 12 Monkeys drove me, er..., bananas, his jutted-out jaw here in Inglourious really wore me out. Did Pitt just mail it in? Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I do think he sold us (and himself) way short.

But as performances go, Inglorious Basterds is truly owned by its little known foreign actors and actresses, specifically Melanie Laurent in the role of Shoshanna Dreyfus. Much of Laurent's screen time consists of quiet nods, glances, and emotional pull-backs in the form of subtle arm movements or protected posture, all of which is a welcome contrast to Tarantino's manic-ness. Also excellent is Daniel Bruhl in the role of Nazi folk-hero/film star Fredrick Zoller. Bruhl's intensely upturned smile and gentle eyes afford him the tools to pull off the bizarre character of the "aw shucks"-Nazi. Together, Laurent and Bruhl are what's worth taking from Inglourious Basterds.

Some of Tarantino's slip-in references are cute, especially his wink to Henri George-Clouzot's Le Corbeau, a confrontational and controversial film - of its time - if there ever was one. Sure, slapping the film's title onto the marquee of Shoshanna's theater plays out accurately in that a French theater would indeed be screening Le Corbeau in 1944, but within Inglourious it also serves as an extension of Shoshanna's character, a metaphorical middle finger raised to French collaborators, the apathetic, and occupying Nazis alike. But, on the flipside, Tarantino's invoking of Howard Hawks' humane Sergeant York in the same breath of a Joseph Goebble's propaganda film shows disrespect for Gary Cooper's performance in that film.

Finally, there is one lasting curiosity that has been lingering with me tonight: If people are fine with Tarantino playing wacky with a horrific historical event (ie "the hunting of Jews"), then I hope they will now lay off Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful, a film that is often trounced upon for playing sentimental with the same subject matter. For the record, neither film's historical reimaginings or liberty-takings bother me, I just find it curious that some people are much more offended by a sentimental paint job than one of hard-violence and goofball humor.

ON THE WATER

2009-08-23T23:25:00.004-06:00

I'll be back with a legitimate post sometime tomorrow, but, for tonight, here is a new video I'm liking for one of my favorite songs of last year:

NICOLAS CAJUN

2009-08-18T21:21:00.013-06:00

******UPDATED on 8/19******

I don't care what any of you Nic Cage haters say, I think it's totally logical to be primally pumped for the upcoming Herzog/Cage Abel Ferrara-angerin', risk-ily titled havin' Bad Lieutenant : Port of Call New Orleans.

I mean, check THESE out!:

If you squint hard enough at the above still, you can even trick yourself into thinking that it's Asia Argento instead of Fairuza Balk. That's what I do, at least.

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UPDATE

In a timely manner for this post, Abel Ferrara recently weighed in (again) on this film vs. his original:

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Speaking of YouTube: at one point, Ferrara announced, “We got a special attraction.” He motioned to the projectionist, and soon we were watching the trailer for Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, the project that famously provoked Ferrara to comment that he hoped Herzog and his production team “die in Hell.” Ferrara’s post-trailer comments were still bitter, but more restrained.

“Unfortunately, anyone involved in our film wasn’t invited for that film, but I was told I should be really happy that such great people are ripping off our ideas.” A voice in the crowd called out, “You didn’t see a dime off that?” Ferrara: “Well … I might have saw A DIME.” Another voice asked if Ferrara planned to see the remake when it comes out. He shook his head vigorously and gestured to the screen where the trailer had played. “That’s enough of that.”
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Abel Ferrara is one of my personal favorites, but I'm a fan of Herzog's as well, so I'm not gonna get into any who-said-he-when-where-to-whom-and-why bickering, I just find it kind of humorous. Plus, Ferrara and Herzog are two of the most quotable guys around. I would love to see them get into a war of words, even if it's all for show.

THE MERCHANT OF FOUR SEASONS (1971) - TOERIFIC EPISODE # 8

2009-08-17T07:00:00.003-06:00

Had I not known otherwise (or already read the DVD box), my post-viewing stab at the English translation of the title to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Handler der vier Jahreszeiten would have been "The Ugly Duckling"... sans that fable's happy ending. Although Fassbinder went with something much more subtle in the way of The Merchant of Four Seasons, I think Das Hassliche Entlein could have served as a fine backup.

Hans Epp (Hans Hirschmuller) is the pour misshapen fowl in this tale of a lower-middle class German street vendor who vies to instill pride in the eyes of his bourgeois family (Hans' middle class dreams clash with the ideals of his family line) and be a properly providing husband and father back home. But the slow reveal is that Hans' heart (literally and figuratively) can't bear the overtime that such a task demands.

Part of Hans' frustration - as an already greying adult - relates to his pent-up issue of being unable to let go of the need to garner his mother's approval. In her being the primary source of Hans' feelings of inadequacy and failure, Fassbinder introduces us to Mother Epp before any other character enters a single frame, and then lets her deliver perhaps the film's most damaging epithet: "Once a no-good, always a no-good". That brutal blast is delivered after Hans arrives at his mother house, full of pride after having finished a stint in the foreign legion (because Hans played the role of outsider in his childhood home, he now constantly seeks acceptance from anonymous groups: the military, the police force, a table of drunks).

Including two shorts, The Merchant of Four Seasons was the fifteenth film of Fassbinder's brief, but unbelievably prolific, career. Although I've only seen roughly half of the fourteen films that preceded it, The Merchant of Four Seasons feels like something of a flagpost in Fassbinder's oeuvre, setting aside some of the earlier theatre-based, experimental, and dark humor techniques and elements for a more settled-in, sympathetic character drama that quickly became a popular trademark of Fassbinder's as his career evolved. That's not to say that the aforementioned elements were absent from the twenty-nine (or so) films that followed. Not at all. In fact, there is a line of dry humor that runs alongside the dry melodramatic tone which permeates The Merchant of Four Seasons. Check out the moment when Hans' brother-in-law Kurt (Kurt Raab) pets the head of Hans' wife Irmgard (Irm Hermann) while she seeks consoling and protection from her violent husband.

The melodrama in Merchant comes out predominantly in two forms: the marriage between Irmgard & Hans, and Fassbinder's Christ allusions towards Hans. In both cases, the melodrama is delivered in scenes or sequences of ultra-dry passion, made all the dryer because Merchant contains no score whatsoever. The only music in the film comes via a recording of strummed guitar that Hans repeatedly plays on his miniature turntable.

Concerning the marriage of Irmgard & Hans, Irmgard stands as the pair's emotional rock. Though she strays from Hans sexually (as Hans does from her), it is clear that Irmgard's chief concern is in keeping her family intact and above the lines of poverty. Although Irmgard can exhibit moments of vulnerability - as when she struggles with her attractiveness after a customer hits on Hans - Fassbinder makes sure to portray her as the singular force who fights for Hans, even if her devotion is sometimes compromised by a bit of regret or sadness. One night, on a walk back home from the bar after being berated and assaulted by Hans, Irmgard is framed in front of a storefront window that's displaying a mannequin in a wedding dress. Such still life symbolism might incite eye-rolling were it crafted by lesser hands, but Fassbinder's playfully loaded image reinvents the sentiments of the 1950s films he fell in love with, where social issues and homespun emotions were dealt with in colorful and operatic fashions.

But in the case of Hans as Christ allusion (I've noticed that this seems to come up in quite a few TOERIFC films/discussions) I think Fassbinder overdoes it a bit. Visually, the symbolism is put forth in a clever and humorous manner - after Hans suffers his first heart attack in front of his family, Fassbinder shoots Hans on the floor, arms out in a t-shape like Christ on the cross while Mother Epp and Hans' sister Heide kneel beside him like "the two Mary's" - but ultimately this kind of imagery drowns itself in overabundance. I count at least three times when Hans is captured in frame with a cross and/or painting of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus that both hang in his room. And although I do believe that Fassbinder's parallels between Hans and Christ serve a purpose - Hans finally decides to sacrifice himself for his family (seeing his friend Harry as a better father and husband for Renate and Irmgard) in the way Jesus does for his followers - they are laid on a bit thick, and, for me, weren't convincing enough in their audacity.

Stylistically, I see The Merchant of Four Seasons as a film of Fassbinder's where his worthy ideas and emotions exceeded the visual representation of them. Fassbinder's oft-used - and in my mind, the superior cinematographer to the other oft-used Dietrich Lohmann, who shot Merchant - DP Michael Ballhaus wasn't on board here, and I think it shows. Compare the way Lohmann shoots interiors in Merchant to the way Ballhaus does, just one year later, in Fassbinder's masterpiece The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant. True, the stories aren't the same, and The Bitter Tears... carries a much more lavish tone, but in revisiting Merchant two or three times in the last week, I couldn't escape a feeling of flatness covering the otherwise provocative set-pieces.

Still, The Merchant of Four Seasons is a film that will forever be dear to me for the way it introduced Fassbinder's heart, his way of always expressing - as critic Geoff Andrew so perfectly describes it - "unsentimental sympathies" to characters of all stripes and walks of life. His was a type of filmmaking that put people above issues, and that's why I love him so much.

STREAM-OF-CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION - Pent-Up Anger Edition : DISTRICT 9

2009-08-16T22:17:00.005-06:00

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Tonight, as I was relaxing at a local record store, going through records and then buying them, I was calm, collected, and chill. But when I heard two clerks slobbering over the highly overrated and well let's just go ahead and say shitty new film District 9, I knew I had to come home and let some steam off. Tomorrow is a day when will be talking about a Rainer Werner Fassbinder film here at TRACTOR FACTS (btw... please show up and give me hits even if you don't leave comments) and because of that some of his quotes are feresh on my mind. One of them is something to the effect of "People praised and gave me awards for Katzlemacher not because they thought it was a good film but because they thought it was making a statement about immigrants. That wasn't my intention". And though the intentions of South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp are at least part definitely ppolitical, I think Fassbinder's comment about why people are praising this film so much (Best Picture??? WTF?!?!?) applies here. There is a lot of chatter of how this film is socially conscious. Utter crap. Yes, it WANTS to be, but give me a break, and then give me another one because I'm tired of hearing it. What, just because tehre are aliens in a camp in Johannesberg this film is automatically referencing apartheid in South Africa? Or, because of that same set up, people believe Blomkamp is making a commentary on immigration or oppression in general? And what do you have in teh film to back that up please?? What Blomkamp gives us is a treacle. At first we're told that the aliens are savages that derail trains for fun, kill humans without care, and have no concept of personal property so they raid and ravage nearby neighborhoods and villages. But THEN Blomkamp gives us a silly story and an alien named Christopher and his little cute son. It's as if the most sentimental garbage was just plopped on screen to convince people of this silly oppression is wrong storyline. Oppression is wrong, but you won't find a smart hammering out of that here. This is garbage. It's a video game for people who play video games but want to see a movie like the ones they play. Exploding head and blood splatters pop and splash just like some XBox game and the humor in this hits like the worst of Peter Jacksons early years. Go rent District B-13 instead. Seriously. The message that Blomkamp WANTS to achieve with his movie is fleshed out humanely and wisely and smartly in District B-13. It's a real move. District 9 is not. District 9 sucks and you all know it. Peace.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER

2009-08-13T08:32:00.001-06:00

Perhaps it's unfair to evaluate a film that revolves around and shuffles through the travails and pains of young-adult love just days after the passing of the one and only John Hughes, but that still doesn't shake my confidence in declaring (500) Days of Summer a movie utterly devoid of joy - bittersweet, or otherwise. Irregardless of the emotional aftershocks left lingering from that pop-cultural fissure last week, (500) Days of Summer unravels in rewinds and fast forwards like a heart-felt mix tape sequenced all wrong and out of order. High Fidelity this ain't. Indeed, there appears to be nothing but good intentions among the elements that make up this Zooey Deschanel-as-French-chanteuse vehicle, but are the maker's emotions mixed?

First time feature director Mark Webb kicks off his film with one of those "any similarities to living persons are purely coincidental" disclaimers, only then to turn around and name names in the form of an ex-girlfriend (with an added "fuck you" as punctuation). Sure, it's a joke, but one that instantly reveals the film's structural cracks and cross-wired sentiments as it hits the floor with a gigantic thud. If (500) Days of Summer ultimately wants to be about emotional resolve, release, and rebirth - as it clearly does - then why the negative mojo before we've even seen one single image? Pure nonsense. Personally, I chalk this up to the inexperience of a director who previously had only worked in the short-film form of music video, an arena where visions and archs are connected across much shorter distances.

In fact, that sensibility leaves its fingerprints all over (500) Days of Summer. Ideas are choppy, short-lived, brief, erratic. You'll get no disagreement from me that non-linear filmmaking can be compelling, but what Webb's up to here is a shell game, one that simply enacts the storytelling device of past-present-past time shifting in order to divert attention away from the filmmaking flaws. To lay out the happenings of (500) Days of Summer in sequential fashion would be to plainly reveal the film's vacuousness. Sequences such as the love-locked Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) sliding into a street musical performance after his first lay with Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and an ill-used narrator taking us through a slide show of "the effects of Summer" feel like shampoo commercial fodder, not cinema.

I think it's safe to say that each one of us has loved somebody that never loved us back. Because of that universally shared experience, the dilemmas that Tom and Summer face as friends and lovers is automatically relatable, but what Webb fails to capture through his lens and - more significantly - through the direction of his actors, is any tangible sign of lovesick infatuation. I can hum The Smiths' "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" to myself right now with those immortal lyrics "and in the darkened underpass/I thought 'oh god, my chance has come at last'/but then a strange fear hit me/and I just couldn't ask" crying off my tongue and be instantly transported to a place of boy/girl swirl, yet Webb chose to waste that epic tune on a silly meet-cute elevator scene. Funny that a guy who's worked on so many music videos has yet to grasp the powerful relationship between song and image.

It also doesn't help that Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have absolutely zero chemistry on screen. As the couple flits around an IKEA together during an early-in-the-relationship day date, Summer whispers to Tom, "this is fun". Really??? It didn't appear to be. You'd think that the # 1 female object of indie-pop desire would have, by now, figured out a constructive way of responding to a boys devoted emotions besides staring straight-forward with blank blue eyes. It's as if Deschanel has experienced a bit of that "Summer effect" herself, cutting career corners with fluttery charm, winking her way to superstardom.

Deschanel was once able to channel her porcelain features and droll persona into strong supporting comedic roles (see The Good Girl and Elf), but as a leading lady, she's simply out of her range. Yes, you're a cute one Zooey, but not near as radiant as an Anna Karina or Brigette Bardot, so you must learn how to act! And before his next feature-length undertaking, Marc Webb must learn how to direct. With such a universal topic, it must have been easy for him to cut corners as well, but if next time around I catch my man molesting the soul out of "I Know It's Over", we're gonna have some serious problems.

"G"-MOVIES AND THEIR BOOM BOOM BOOMS

2009-08-10T22:07:00.000-06:00

Two recent special-ops films - one about gerbils, one about Joes - use The Black-Eyed Peas' #1 mega-market smash hit, "Boom Boom Pow", in them. I'm not here to critique the song, just the usage of it in each film. In Disney's G-Force, the song makes sense. "Boom Boom Pow"'s now notorious back-rhythms drive along such silly animated action as two gerbils riding inside of an abandoned tire as it conspicuously rolls past a pack of curious dogs. In G.I. Joe : The Rise of Cobra, the song plays over the heavy steel-plated credits. Eww, gross. This doesn't even make sense. I mean, I get that there was a contract signed somewhere by somebody to somehow place this song within the film, but why not have it blasting out of Marlon Wayans' boombox while he's working out, or something? I would have much rather heard the phony Green Day playing a candy-ass cover of the old G.I. Joe theme song for chrissakes.

And yes, undoubtedly, G-Force is the smarter, wittier, flashier, brainier, and - most crucially - shorter of the two films. G-Force wins on all accounts. Director, and visual effects veteran, Hoyt Yeatman even makes it more believable that four little rodents could save the universe over the put-on that Sienna Miller could actually kick someone's ass, that Joseph Gordon Levitt is menacing, and that Rachel Nichols can act (her turn as "Scarlett" is the worst performance of the year, thus far. Imagine a hooker doing her best to pretend that she really has feelings for you, and then think of a charade 4 times less convincing... and then you're pretty close.). As a thirtysomething, I'll still take fart jokes and poop jokes from the mouths and butts of talking animals that a hologram of Dennis Quaid telling us slowly and bluntly that "know-ing ... is ... half ... the ... bat-tle". Sure, we may be dunces for seeing your film, Dennis, but we ain't retarded, ok?

"Knowing is half the battle". That's true, but so is pre-production. And who invited Brendan Fraser to this mess anyways? Seems like a nice guy, but why? Is it because he was in The Mummy? It better have been a director's favor because, he sure isn't cool enough for a cameo. And how about Snake Eyes (indisputably the coolest G.I. Joe ever) having chiseled out lips on his suit of armor? The lips don't move, and Snake Eyes doesn't talk, so why bother even having anything there beyond a smooth surface? It just looks creepy. It actually sexualizes Snake Eyes. I mean, if they gave him lips with fangs, or a slithering little tongue, or even a Billy Idol sneer, I would have been mildly ok with it. But no. Instead, Snake Eyes' perfect mouth just made me wanna kiss him. He looked like the sexiest gimp ever.

I was also almost destroyed by the way the origins of Destro were revealed. I know I sound like one of those shoe stomping fanboys who just can't get over the way they fantasize their false idols in the movies in their heads, but Destro was the coolest bad dude as a cartoon and action figure. In G.I. Joe : The Rise of Cobra, however, he's just kind of soggy and clammy. In fact, the Cobras in general look awful. Where's the BLUE??? I'm guessing the studio and producers saw the old-school Cobra Commander helmet as a little too "Nazi", while the Cobra Commander "hooded" look gave off too much of a Klansman/executioner vibe for our sensitive times. However, what they ended up with is just plain bizarre, a glowing metal concoction looking something like Rocky Dennis mixed with one of those vagina tools that David Cronenberg designed for Dead Ringers.

I will at least give Stephen Sommers the courtesy of putting a half asterisk next to my overwhelmingly negative feelings about his G.I. Joe : The Rise of Cobra, because I was admittedly coming off a two-hour workout and suffering a wicked left-eye sinus headache as I eased down into the theater seat. (Because of that half-asterisk, I will watch GIJ:TROC again when it comes out on video, but I refuse to see it again at theater... anytime soon). I even fell asleep in the film's final battle sequence, which seemed to last as long as four months worth of Catholic homilies slowly rolling off the good Father's tongue while Warren Moon was lining up on the Cleveland Brown's 1-yard line back home on TV. So, if you're Joe-nsing for some Real American Hero popcorn fun, go see G-Force instead. No, G-Force isn't a great film, but you won't feel cheated afterwards, and not feeling cheated is half the summer blockbuster experience.

AN UNDERAPPRECIATED MAN

2009-08-07T00:30:00.003-06:00

Because the name John Hughes is oftentimes chased by the phrase "80s teen movie", too many film historians have never given him the respect he is due. It's my belief that when those wheels of critical reexamination come rolling back around, John Hughes will finally get his honors.

I could write all night about the films of Hughes - especially the period of 1984-1987 - and how much they meant to me while I suffered acne and a crush on an unattainable cheerleader at the same time, but I'd rather just play a clip from Some Kind of Wonderful that showcases one of my all-time favorite characters of his: Watts.

I probably saw this scene for the first time when I was around 12, and I kept relating to it until I was about 21. John Hughes understood the feeling of being lovesick and young better than anyone else. This still feels special to me:

IT SHOULDN'T BE SURPRISING...

2009-08-05T23:16:00.019-06:00

... that Eli Roth's faux-trailer for his faux-movie within Inglourious Basterds is way terrible:

Shouldn't this trailer at least LOOK like and SOUND like it's from the 1940s if it's supposed to be for a faux-Nazi propaganda film from the 1940s?!?!

And what about this bizarre thing?:

Ehh... screw all that shit. Cleanse your palette with this, my favorite Elliott Smith song:

Ohh shoot... I just can't resist... I'm sorry...

FUNNY PEOPLE

2009-08-04T09:07:00.003-06:00

With Funny People, Judd Apatow aims to make an epic movie (in length, not scope) from the tossed around bit that most comedians are just sad sack and tear-tracked clowns that run incompatible not only with the opposite (or same) sex, but with long-term relationships in general. George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a comedian/movie star who's paid his dues, been paid in full, and is now coasting on cruise control, sexing any lady he'd like and rolling out his lifelong wit at the nudge of an elbow - or at the scent of $50,000 check. George's is a life lived spectacularly, but one that peaked too soon. Sure, in this economically pinched era that we're wading through, drawing sympathy for a character that has a gardener, maid, and personal chef is a tough task, but Sandler's golf hat loafing never trips into annoying self-loathing. George doesn't whine about his "I can't breathe" super stardom, he's just lonely as hell, and that's a universal discomfort that reaches across all socio-economic lines.

In the middle of a "coming out" montage of illness confessions to George's friends and family, and in a post-remission bar scene that celebrates the superstar's second chance, Apatow's camera drags over the faces of George's/Sandler's comedic peers. Norm McDonald, Dave Attell, George Wallace. These are all faces we're pop-consciously familiar with in some capacity based on our personal pockets of entertainment consumption, but to witness each performer out of his element, away from the settled-in sitcom sets and open-mic stages, is to see vulnerable men. Eyeing the thinning hair atop Paul Reiser's head and catching a glance at the deep wrinkles in Ray Romano's face is like noticing the early attachment of flab to a boxer's physique for the very first time. This pack of lifetime jokers represents a rare subgroup of entertainers: unattractive comedy scribes that found the yellow-brick loophole to screen fame but now stand dumbstruck that the camera's gone.

What Apatow's ambitiously taking on here is a deeper peer into the opposite end of David Seltzer's catch-a-break stand-up symposium Punch Line. If that film was about the bloody-knuckled climb up, Funny People is about the gingerly, gravel-sliding trip back down. It doesn't always work, as when Apatow steers the film into San Francisco so George can take a stab at undoing the damage he's done to his one true love (Leslie Mann). The whole sequence feels a mess, an overly extended mix of cutesiness, sentimental swings, and an over-the-backboard comedic shot from Eric Bana. Only Seth Rogen survives it.

We can play the game of wondering whether Apatow wrote this chunk simply for the benefit of inserting his wife (and daughters) into a sizable role in a sizable film, but I think more likely it's a case of poor judgement, a still fresh director making a forgivable mistake. Funny People feels like it wants to touch on too many bases, as if Apatow became overstimulated in his idea factory and ended up writing himself into a whole. The script yearns to be an elaborate one, but its author hasn't reached that level of sophistication yet. Funny People could've driven home its point without overturning so many stones. That game plan ends up presenting a twofold problem: the more characters that are revealed, the more storylines that are left flopping like unattended water hoses (I still feel uneasy about the way George's sister and parents were plopped onto the screen only to be forgotten by movie's end). Worse, these mishandled open storylines only distract from the central focus of George, Ira, and the ballad of the lonely comic.

All that critiquing, and I still think Funny People is impressive. I gotta admit, I never thought I'd think of Seth Rogen as anything more than a typecasted actor who could faithfully portray the sexist, pothead schlep (he was at least reliable at that), but after his dark turn earlier this year in Observe & Report, and more definitively here in Funny People as the steady, mellow, and oddly touching sideman to Sandler, I am new-born believer in the guy. In short, Rogen appears to be a much more intelligent actor than I had given him credit for. As Ira, the happenstance apprentice/assistant to George Simmons, Rogen's eyes are free of the gruff and smarmy cynicism that always unimpressed in shows/films like Freaks and Geeks, Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri, and The 40 Year Old Virgin. There is a pink-ish innocence to Rogen here in the way he calmly stands opposite his more aggressive counterparts. Don't let Ira's sheepishness fool you, he's the strongest character in the film.

Despite its inappropriate length, when Funny People ended I was left wanting more. I think that means I would like Apatow to return to this territory of "the funny people", to give me more of those entertainers at the bar who can give us a little of that much needed healthy distraction from our own troubles, but don't know who to turn too when they need a little of it for themselves.

STREAM-OF-CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: THE COLLECTOR

2009-08-02T21:12:00.004-06:00

[NOTE: This is where the blogger gives himself a strict 10 minutes to rattle off whatever about a movie he just saw that he doesn't feel deserves a thoughtful edited review but still feeds the need to feed the animals anyway. Quality is of no concern.]

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I went into The Collector thinking , "Hey, well, at least the limited theatrical release for this movie kinda signals the end of sadist-horror. Maybe The Collector is gonna be that horror sub-genre's swan song?" Then something odd happened. The first twenty minutes of the film were kind of good. It felt more like a Lodge Kerrigan psych-moody-indie horror than a splatter fest mixed with nasty sexuality of a RObert Mapplethorpe perspective. It was actually kind of ... nice. Oh, but what you can talk yourself into when the sound design of a film is well laid out and the projection is digital. I even let myself forgive the always irritating neo-horror credit sequence that has been the thing to do ever since Se7en and Mark Romanek's waaaaaaaaay overrated "Closer" video. You know... loud industrial music, loud industrial screams set against quick cuts (not even quick CUTS but like quick snippets) of medical tools, nails, blood, yellow skin, urine colored walls, mildew covered whatever. Yep, I even forgave that because as soon it as it was over The Collector went back into studiious mood horror. Oh, but yeah, that was just a tease. Soon the mildewy-ness and jaundice-ness take over the lighting and so does the sewing of mouths the emptying of bowels, the sexualizing of breasts and nailes and the licking of lips and the murdering of cats with acid and razorblades and the boxes with mooshy bodies in them and the stupid mask that the guy is wearing and the fish hooks in skin and the cutting if stomachs open so you can put bugs in them. It's all stupid, but what makes it horrible is that the directors shoot the film in a way that they want to one up their idiot French sadist buddies. It's artfully shot and well put together (in moments) but it's so bereft of substance than any positive technical things I can say about this movie really lose themselves). If you like the pre-production artwork drawings for Pascuel Laungier's idiotic Martyrs, you might like this movie. If you also get turned on by those drawings you will also probably like this movie. I like to think those type of people, also like listening to Einstürzende Neubauten. Well, they're on the soundtrack, so maybe I am onto something. I got no problem with people pleasing themselves in whatever sick sexual ways that they want, but to fuel that sexual energy in to a movie and call it "horror" is just silly. I did like the main actor though. Jeff "something". He was a good as a kind of hero in teh film, that, of course, in post-Saw fashion, doesn't escape. Tehre used to be a day when we were tired of the heroes and heroines always escaping the boogeyman in an horror film. Then things changed. I'm now tired of the bleak endings. I want happiness back. The Collector is like the opposite of The Last House on the Left remake which is actually far much better than people gave it credit for. In that film the family used their house to protect intruders. In The Collector, the intruder uses the house to slowly murder the owners. It's backwards and nasty. Also... I noticed that Bloody Disgusting and Shock Till You Drop were thanked in the credits. I kinda wondered how much those sites maybe were in the tank for crap movies like this. It's pretty clear now. I'm outta time...

"IN SPITE OF ALL THEIR EFFORTS, I DID IT THE WAY I WANTED"

2009-07-31T00:41:00.002-06:00

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, along with his wife and daughter, were arrested yesterday at a memorial service for Neda Soltan after attempting to lay flowers at the slain protester's grave site. (NOTE: Filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi - whose work I am unfamiliar with - was also arrested.)

According to reports from Iran's national news service IRNA (and more reliably, this blogger) both filmmakers and Panahi's wife and daughter have since been released.

ON "MUCH BELATED" DVD: 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER (1967)

2009-07-29T00:23:00.001-06:00

White watching Jean-Luc Godard's 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, I began to realize how much this transitional puzzle of a film satisfied the many intellectual gaps that, I feel, hinder the intentions of the modern documentary. Needled throughout 2 or 3 Things is a hushed and whispered narration/monologue from Godard himself ruminating on his favorite post-New Wave topics: economics, language, war, America, sex, and politics. In this diced up monologue - more an internal conversation than a soap box diatribe - Godard invites criticism not only from his viewers but from the narrowly drawn characters on screen. Godard's verbalized observations, quotes, repeated questions, and knee-bent philosophizing (of both the pop and collegiate kind) provoke thought in this open forum of fictional film, a blasting contrast to documenatries that simply cheerlead to the already devoted. The answer to the documentary's limitations lies in narrative film.

The "her" in 2 or 3 Things is Paris, circa 1966, a city still steeped in fashion and culture but stunted and stunned by a slowly progressing industrial landscape where stiff high-rise buildings house families and couples in tight spaces versus the lavish landscaped flats of Bardot and Piccoli's cozy life in Contempt. Cutbacks on state spending has forced Parisians to look for more work (what a concept!), which in turn has opened-up a Belle Du Jour-type job option for the movie's main MILF Juliette (Marina Vlady). But while decrying a government and marketplace he sees as discompassionate, Godard also spoofs his peer's (and his own) self-imposed problems, culminating in a wash of subtle, oddball humor that ranges from a meter man walking in on Helena Bielicic's bath time, to a john offering up cat food as payment to a pimp/babysitter for some "pussy", to a pair of pseudo-revolutionary buddies scanning classified conversations of LBJ in a room filled with materialism.

"Modest" may seem like an odd adjective to use in conjunction with the name Jean-Luc Godard, but the more I make my way through this great director's career, I truly think it's starting to fit. While Godard's self-confidence is unquestionably about as high as an filmmaker's has ever been, a careful examination of his work and interviews reveals a man so confident with himself that he can freely offer up where he is limited or when he is wrong. The title "2 or 3 Things I Know About Her" is an admission of limitation in itself. Godard, the narrator, unleashes his sometimes caustic, sometimes pensive feelings about Paris and its place in the world, all the while acknowledging that he really only "knows two or three things" about his beloved city. It's a naked, up front, and refreshing card for a political artist to play. Godard is by no means discounting any of his deep-in-the-gut feelings, but he's telling us he's not the authority either.

The style of 2 or 3 Things foreshadows the cinematic technique that Godard would eventually perfect in his under appreciated masterpiece Passion, where mixed-up juxtapositions of imagery and sound fold in on themselves to create a new language of film. Watching 2 or 3 Things today - an unbelievable forty-two years later - still presents a challenge, a jolt to our media consuming instincts that anticipate consonant ebbs and flows and cyclical storytelling. But it's a welcome jolt, a slap that comes with respect for you-the-viewer because Hollywood sure doesn't anymore. Sure, maybe it's too late some forty-two years later, but in just 87 minutes (you hear that Orphan? Eighty-friggin-seven minutes!!!) Godard reminds us of the significance in being an active viewer, and that - no matter what David Thomson says - a film can be just as rich and unfolding and layered as a great novel.

HEY LOOK...

2009-07-27T21:31:00.004-06:00

... another ridiculous and boring Jake Gyllehaal movie!!!

I mean, honestly, is there another actor out there as blank and monotonous** as this guy???

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**As with most mean things I say, I hope I'm ultimately wrong about J.H., because I'm really looking forward to Jim Sheridan's Brothers this winter (although I'm not too thrilled by its screenwriter).

ORPHAN

2009-07-26T22:17:00.000-06:00

By the end of Orphan, one can only hope that the talented Isabelle Fuhrman has a strong pre-teen head on her shoulders as well as some right-minded parents at home keeping this child actor sane. (Perhaps in between takes of her bashing & stabbing, the crew pumped her full of happy Jonas-imagery). At eleven, Fuhrman already shows the wise instincts of a traveled young-adult thespian, not to mention that she can do a hundred times more convincing Russian accent than Harrison Ford (see K-19 : The Widowmaker). But what a gauntlet this poor kid seemingly had to go through while filming Orphan. It's difficult enough imagining a young actress like Linda Blair channeling Satan through her pre-pubescent body, but at least she was aided with special effects, make-up, and the confines of nearly one location. Fuhrman's wickedness, however, comes from her face, her eyes, glaring as if she's projecting the evil thoughts of 1000 of the world's craziest bitches.

I'm no prude, nor am I one that's ever been convinced of the damage that a specific role can have on the psyche of a child (Jodie Foster seems to be a well-adjusted woman today), but I still can't help but worry about an eleven year-old actress that is asked to portray a psycho killer and to be a part of mildly sexual subplot. Though, to be fair, editing wise, the filmmakers did appear to do their best in keeping Fuhrman out of any full-on sexual situations. Maybe, now, in being an uncle to seven kids, I am just more sensitive to these protective issues, or maybe it's because Furhman also appeared in Hounddog (which I've yet to see), that highly controversial Dakota Fanning movie which caught heat for its sexualizing of young actresses. I just know that when I walked out of Orphan, I was hoping Isabelle Fuhrman was an older actress playing young. When I realized she wasn't, I was kind of disturbed.

As for the film, Orphan surprises with its first half of cleverly paced lead-ins, slick cinematography, and across the board strong acting (Vera Farmiga, especially, is fantastic; Mick LaSalle of the SF Chronicle accurately describes it as a "two-hour nervous breakdown"), but then buckles to generic genre boredom in its second. Orphan quickly moves past frustration and into nearly unbearable tedium with that age old everybody-in-the-audience-can-see-that-the-mom-is-telling -the-truth-about-that-crazy-kid-so-why-don't-the-father-and-psychiatrist!?!. When the doctor finally tells the mother that she needs to enter rehab for relapsing into alcoholism (when a trained professional could clearly tell that she hadn't), I wanted to reach into the screen and grab a wine bottle to smash over my own head.

"Awww... come on Fox, roll with the punches, suspend that disbelief!". Fair enough, and ordinarily I would have no problem with that, but, in Orphan, director Jaume Collett-"I did the House of Wax remake"-Serra couldn't decide whether he wanted us to sink into a seriously tense thriller or ride along with a B-movie goof of a film. Screenwriters David Johnson and Alex Mace certainly filled their script with enough gags for the latter, tossing in darkly-comic pranks such as Peter Sarsgaard's perpetual blue-ball problems, Fuhrman's so-bad-it's-funny Russian roulette spot, and - for the ultimate - a ridiculously ribald reveal of a climax that had me cackling out loud and not really minding, anymore, that the douche two rows in front of me kept texting some other douche or skank while he should be looking at the movie.

But as a I sit here and ponder the reasons why Orphan ultimately doesn't get a passing grade from me, the answer is actually oh so seems painfully clear ... once again. A film like Orphan shouldn't play on past the 82-minute mark, yet Collett-Serra pushes it to 101! Why??? The only answer I can offer up is self-indulgence. Had Orphan ended 20 minutes earlier than it does, I would have liked it. I would have been able to find forgiveness for a second-half that still would have fallen short in comparison to the frontloaded first, but it would have at least had a merciful tourniquet tied on to stop the bloodletting - and thus, life - of the film. Maybe one day we'll start seeing Director's Cuts that are actually "cuts", shorter versions that better compliment the original intentions of the creators than what the studios eventually rolled out.

STREAM-OF-CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION - straight-to-dvd edition: THE HORSEMEN

2009-07-23T01:13:00.002-06:00

Even the bootleggers on the Mex/Tex border are probably ashamed to carry this movie.

[NOTE: This is where the blogger gives himself a strict 10 minutes to rattle off whatever about a movie he just saw that he doesn't feel deserves a thoughtful edited review but still feeds the need to feed the animals anyway. Quality is of no concern.]
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I can't remember if this movie is called THE Horsemen, or just Horsemen. I don't know. Check your Netflix and I'll check mine after this. (The) Horsemen gives new meaning to straigh-to-video, or at least it might signify a new era in that little thing. Used to be kinda charming that straight to video thing. Some stars were born out of it. It was kind of fun. Now it's a sad graveyard. There's no question that this movie starring Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang, and the weirdo Frogger guy from Seinfeld and weirdo Fargo guy from Fargo, was meant to make it to the big screen. Michael Bay produced it after all. Funny thing is, the credits are mostly white on a mostly white background, so you get the feeling everyone involved really wanted their names to fade away on this one. No kidding on that. Rent this for the credit sequence and then send it back to Netflix. You will impress your mailman and Netflix person on how quick of a turnaround time you have on your rentals. They might think you are cool or at least unemployed and then you will at least make them think that they aren't in your shoes and that life isn't that bad because of that. But yeah, Michael Bay. I mean you can say what you want, but the guy has an ear for what will do well at the box office. What they hell happened here? Jonas Akerlund directs. I guess that's a Norweigan name or somewhere from one of those three penis countries. He used to direct videos for The Offspring or No Doubt or someone. Poor guy. And then Patrcik Fugit is in it too. "Almost Famous" is sadly very true. They little dude just can't get over that hump. He's running out of time too because that baby face is gonna lose it's elasticity scene and he's gonna look washed up at 29 like Edward Furlong did. Poor E.F. And Lou Taylor Pucci does his best not to look too androgynous in his terrible haircut and angelic face. The kid is good, but like Fugit, his agent must just suck. So in the last few minutes here... the movie is like Se7en meets The Cell, but shortened down to 90 minutes b/c it sucks more than both of those movies combined. There is a seedy underside that I'm sure the set designers put all of their strength into. There is a dude who is like that Jaqioun Phoenix character in 8MM and he talks about wacking off to Belladonna. That was my favorite part b/c I'm into Belladonna too. She's scary but I like scary girls. And the dude talks about "cock stretching". I'm proud to say that even with all the sick thoughts and curiousities I have, I have no idea what taht is, but maybe I will look it up on Google after this. At least Horsemen, THE gave me that. Dude, Dennis Quaid, you are DOA in this movie. BAd joke, but kind of a cool reference. You get it?

THE HURT LOCKER

2009-07-21T08:41:00.002-06:00

Without question, the Iraq War/War on Terror-era has been host to some of the worst wartime cinema in history. Just make a list: Syriana, The Kingdom, In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, the Bourne movies, United 93, A Mighty Heart, The Road to Guantanamo, Traitor... the list goes on. However, somewhere around two years ago, things started to change. We got a rush of average-to-good films (ie, improved and undeniably better than the aforementioned) that shifted focus away from the grandstanding Hollywood types who just wanted to show-off their smarts, to the actual impact that the war has on soldiers and their families. In short, the "Iraq War movie" got a personalized makeover. Among this new batch of films were Grace is Gone, The Lucky Ones, Home of the Brave, and Battle for Haditha.

Perhaps, as a blogger friend once offered up, the poor quality of these films - and, thus, the public's shrugged reaction to them - was all just a matter of poor artistic digestion. Meaning, it's possible that many of our modern-day war films were just prematurely made in the shadows of 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq, in a time where we all were still scrambling to get a foot hold on our own political feelings and beliefs. If the lawmakers in Washington took advantage of our unsettled natures, at the time, to make decisions and pass legislation, then so did our filmmakers push their agendas on us in films, that in hindsight, look a lot like propaganda. But it's my prediction that, since the dust has settled (relatively speaking), we shall begin to see more textured and thoughtful films about the experiences and trickle-down effects on Iraq War veterans and active duty soldiers. Of course, it's easy to make such a statement after seeing Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, not only the best Iraq War film to date, but one of the best war films, period.

Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal (who was embedded with a U.S. military bomb squad for a period of time) part the seas of loud politics and media noise that compromised so many of those early Iraq War films, and focus their lens & pen square on the soldiers of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. There is little talk of politics, foreign policy, or current events amongst the soldiers outside of the events that dominate their days of surviving. Bigelow's idea to play The Hurt Locker as a kind of thriller doesn't harm it at all. In fact, it enhances it. It would be disingenuous to try and replicate the experiences of ground combat and then ask the audience to empathize with it. Most of us can't. By narrowing the focus down to a single bomb squad, Bigelow still doesn't make the the tensions, fears, and victories that these three men experience relatable, but they do feel instantly identifiable.

A lot of the early hype surrounding The Hurt Locker singles-out the performance of Jeremy Renner. Well, believe the hype - I suspect the guy will be a shoo-in for Best Actor nominee - but don't discount the character work that both he and screenwriter Mark Boal fleshed-out together. In a way, Renner's Staff Sergeant is every part the typical Kathryn Bigelow cocksure male, but, in addition to that, he owns a kicked-back sensitivity that pushes the character beyond the awesome cartoonish-ness of, say, Bodhi in Point Break or Severin in Near Dark.

Our introduction to Renner's character is big-screen macho poetry. While listening to some heavy metal as Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie, also great... the two actors share on screen chemistry that rivals that of Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan from last year's Happy-Go-Lucky) approaches him for reassignment, Renner gets off a line about the trade-off of sunshine coming through the window versus mortar shells penetrating the roof. In many, many other hands, this scene would have flirted with the embarrassingly dramatic, but Bigelow's respectfully backed-off camera capturing Renner's posture and dialogue brings home a 2009 moment-to-remember.

If I have one beef with The Hurt Locker, it's in the quote that Kathryn Bigelow uses to open her film with. I don't recall it word-for-word, but the last part reads something to the effect of, "war is an addiction". It comes from socialist historian/field reporter Chris Hedges, who, in knowing his opinions on war, most likely penned the phrase in dramatically different terms than the sentiment that Bigelow expresses in her film. While Bigelow undoubtedly traces the addictive nature of combat, that adrenaline fix of "rolling the dice on life or death", she also portrays the soldiers as heroic (the tag line on The Hurt Locker's poster is "YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A HERO TO DO THIS JOB, BUT IT HELPS"). However, Hedges' reflections on war often speak of red-fanged warmongers and hawks getting pumped on carnage and power. That's not the kind of adrenaline Bigelow is tapping here, and the quote feels sorely misplaced.

Otherwise, 2009 is feeling mildly special to me in that it's marked the "return" of both Sam Raimi and Kathryn Bigelow, two old-time favorites who had disappeared - either entirely off the radar, or down the hole of lame film franchise - but now return, perhaps, stronger than ever.

TOERIFC # 7 : ZWARTBOEK aka BLACK BOOK (2006)

2009-07-20T09:07:00.007-06:00

Ahh... I can't believe it was only seven months ago when a group of bloggers got together and dreamed up the dream to have a place where film nerds could go, once a month, and discuss a movie in a raw, unrehearsed, uncensored round table discussion.

This month, that place is Ed Howard's Only The Cinema, where TOERIFC members will be discussing Paul Verhoeven's crazysexycool WWII film, Black Book. But you don't have to be a TOERIFC member to get involved. In fact, I don't think any of us hold actual memberships, it just feels important to say such things.

But seriously, we want more people getting in on the debating, agreeing, arguing. It's so fun and your presence will only make it funner.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

2009-07-16T22:55:00.005-06:00

No, that isn't me on the set of The Royal Tenenbaums you silly goof monster... it's a still from Wes Anderson's new movie!

...and here's another!:

BRUNO

2009-07-14T21:26:00.010-06:00

One of the oft-mentioned misconceptions about Borat was that it was a work of satirical art that rightfully exposed an underbelly of American bigotry. It didn't. Comedic hitman Sacha Baron Cohen simply cherry-picked pop culture's most acceptable and accessible targets and coaxed them into saying what he wanted them to. There are many moments in Bruno where you can sense Baron Cohen's eyes widening, as if he's lured his prey to the killspot where he wants 'em. "So, what your saying is _______" is the typical summary question Baron Cohen will level at one of his victims after a stream of quick answers to a barrage of quick questions. It's a brilliant way to pigeonhole and categorize the thoughts of a nervous, off-balanced interviewee and then, afterwards, to shape that person into any kind of negative character you desire. Sacha Baron Cohen would make for a great cable TV news pundit.

If you've tired of me bitching about Baron Cohen, I don't blame you a bit, but as long as he keeps turning his terrorist comedy into feature-length films, it is my Blog-given duty to fight that bastard until one of us dies. The thing is, Baron Cohen really comes out limping in Bruno: putting models on the spot about the difficulty of runway walking? Picking on two well-meaning blond women for not knowing where Darfur is?? Telling a gay-to-straight converter that he has good dick-sucking lips??? Yeesh. What's next? Bruno giving a blind person the wrong directions and then stepping back and snickering? I do admit to a kind of satisfaction, though, while watching Bruno, because it truly felt like watching a hack running out of juice. Even the lukewarm critical response to Bruno has been somewhat of a validation (albeit shallow), because - and don't let the face-saving apologists tell you otherwise - Borat and Bruno are the exact same movies. They both suck for the same reasons.

Though the recorded reactions of Bruno's subjects are manipulated in post-production in the same way that your standard reactionary documentary would do it, I'm still amazed at the amazement audiences and critics express when they witness somebody react outrageously to Baron Cohen's outrageousness. Seems pretty in line to me. Are we really supposed to flip out when Ron Paul - in the middle of his Presidential campaign, mind you - flips out after Bruno gets pant less and puts moves on the congressman? Should we seriously feign disbelief after an Alabama hunter can't believe he's been duped into thinking that the naked man forcing his way into his tent genuinely wanted to learn about outdoors-y stuff? Should we truly be frustrated with the swinger who gets frustrated at Bruno for interrupting his c*mshot?

One thing is certain, though, and that's that each one of those men were noticeably embarrassed and humiliated. Of course, the smoking gun in all of those scenarios (save the hunter... as far as I can remember), the "crime" that Baron Cohen intends to hang his justification of invasion on, is the usage of the "Q" word. What Baron Cohen really wants, what his treasure hunt through interview after interview entails, is to catch his subjects on camera using defamatory slang for gays. So, when Ron Paul and the swinger dude both say "queer", Baron Cohen gets his money shot. He's like a mobile paparazzi hiding behind freakish costumes and base makeup waiting for that ultimate upskirt.

"Paparazzi-comedy"... maybe that's the best way to describe Cohen's approach to humor. Whatever it is, it's no surprise that this type of crass entertainment can grab the #1 box-office slot in our TMZ-obsessed culture, it's just a shame that so many should-know-betters continue to praise it. Although, happily, that appears to be shifting. Screw Sacha Baron Cohen and that one-trick pony he rode in on.

PLAYING PING PONG WITH THE ETHICAL GRAVITY OF MOON

2009-07-12T21:18:00.006-06:00

Before I start, this post openly discusses the movie Moon, so if you're picky about knowing stuff before you see a movie, then you may not want to read further...

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Duncan Jones' Moon exists to confront us with the ethical question of "what is life?", or, rather, what deserves to have the same rights as we humans? Well, maybe Jones didn't intend for his film to have that issue front-and-center (and considering Moon's sloppiness, I'm pretty sure that he didn't) but with the solitary performance of Sam Rockwell (entertaining as always), it's hard not to walk out of the theater with any other pressing thoughts in your head. Because of this, Moon hangs out in the same Summer '09 moral arena as Nick Cassavettes' My Sister's Keeper and the upcoming District 9.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an astronaut with a three-year contract on the moon to observe and assist some weird doodad machines that send containers of Helium back to Earth as a post-Green revolution energy source. We quickly learn that the Sam Bell presently on base is simply a clone of the original Sam Bell, who, twelve years ago, went back home to his family. The question then lingers: to what do we owe the clone(s)?

Now, I'm no expert on cloning or clones, and because - at least to my knowledge (gulp!) - I've never encountered one in my lifetime, my frame of reference on the "humanity" of a cloned human is about as limited as it is to the rest of you. However, a clone of a human would still be a human... I think. You see, the clones in Moon have a three-year lifespan (hence the three-year "contract"), so when their time has elapsed, they loose their functions just like Vicky from Small Wonder did when stupid Jamie flip her switch off.

Of course, the human clones begin to physically fall apart (ie losing hair, elasticity in the skin, etc.), so the company painlessly disposes of them in some sort of zap chamber that misleads the clone into thinking they are being zapped back home. The last third of Moon attempts to yank at our humanity so we feel compassion for the cloned Sam(s). The thing is, I didn't feel anything. I knew the original embryo-to-adult Sam was back home with his family, so I saw the Sam(s) on the moon as nothing more than programmed blobs of tissue. I'm not suggesting that should be the proper real-word response, but it's how I felt. I've felt compassion for robots, animated fish, and inanimate objects in countless movies before, so I blame Duncan Jones for not taking me to that place with a being that looks as close to human as you can get.

I mentioned sloppiness earlier, and Moon really mucks up any chance at profundity on the issue of "the humanity of human clones" by directing its message toward one of corporate greed. (What about the question of whether cloning is ethical to begin with???). Jones' story reveals that the Helium mining company, Lunar Industries, uses clones on the moon as a matter of cost-cutting. But really?!?! How would it be cheaper to produce, manage, and store thousands of clones in the hull of a ship than to send one human up ever few years or so? I guess the cost of fuel for a trip from Earth-to-moon would be quite expensive, but I would imagine the creation of clones would be too. Further, if technology has progressed to the point which it has in Moon, then why do we even require a human up there at all? Couldn't a robot (like Gerty, the Kevin Spacey-voiced robot that keeps Sam company) do the exact same tasks?

Ultimately, Moon gets by on the performance of Rockwell (I didn't like the movie, but I've read some critics label Moon as "coma-inducingly boring", which I don't get at all), who carries the film because his director is still so extremely wet behind the ears. Yes, I'll be cynical and say that I don't think Duncan Jones would have made this film were his father not so famous and wealthy and influential. Hey... maybe as an experiment to further the human cloning debate, we should clone Duncan Jones and see if his pod person does a better job directing than he. If so, I might just jump aboard the pro-cloning side!

THE SPIRIT OF ED WOOD BLOG-A-THON: LARRY COHEN'S ORIGINAL GANGSTAS (1996)

2009-07-09T07:53:00.004-06:00

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This post is part of Cinema Styles' week long The Spirit of Ed Wood Blog-A-Thon.
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Combined, Larry Cohen has written over 200 teleplays and screenplays. Along with that, the ambitious, native New Yorker has directed 22 films. Of those 22, he wrote all but 4 of them. 1 of those 4 was Original Gangstas.

I adore Larry Cohen, but in order to do my surgical best in pinpointing what gives him that indomitable spirit (of Ed Wood) to keep going, despite the fact that he's barely - if at all -improved as a director since his debut in 1972, I felt I had to reflect on a film of his that he didn't write. You see, Larry Cohen's strength lies in his writing. In his writing, and in being an idea man, a story man. Arguably, Cohen's best pictures are the ones where his stories are fleshed out by the hands of another: Maniac Cop, Body Snatchers, Cellular, Phone Booth.

Or, one may even argue that Cohen's never been involved with the making of a good film ... PERIOD. I would disagree with that, but I'd also completely understand the sentiment. When I watch something like God Told Me To, I'm with the film (flaws and all) for about the first 30 minutes... but then, quickly, I'm kind of done with it. The same can be said about It's Alive, The Stuff, and Q : The Winged Serpent. Still, I'm always charmed enough to keep going back to the films of this overworked weirdo. In doing so, I've discovered good films that, to my surprise, are among his least celebrated : Special Effects, Perfect Strangers, and Original Gangstas.

Because Cohen's non-horror fare generally comes with a one-to-grow-on social message dressed-up in a clunk-ily acted, shot, and produced package, these "serious-minded" movies of his often feel like After School Special episodes for adults. Yet it's amazing how light-hearted a director's heavy-handed approach can become when you realize that one of his actors is wearing a really awful wig. All-in-all, though, none of that can discount Larry Cohen's earnestness. Many will laugh at the set-ups and line readings in Original Gangtas, but there's no denying the genuine concern he expresses for those inner city blues.

Original Gangstas missed out on the early nineties box office success of inner city hood films (no matter, it went to straight-to-video anyways), but its premise isn't too far removed from the well-known BoyzJuiceMenaceNewJack story lines. Kenny is a talented high-school basketball prospect on the verge of breaking free from the ghetto, but after he hustles some hoods in a one-on-one game (where the rim looks like it's only eight feet high), he goes down in a drive-by denouement. When an old shopkeeper snitches on the culprits, he goes down too... but not completely. He lives. And his son is Fred Williamson. And Fred Williamson's friend is Jim Brown. And Jim Brown used to be married to Pam Grier. And now they're all back in Gary, Indiana ready to kick-ass and clean-up the streets.

With a budget of just under five million, I'm guessing that half of that bank went to the movie's "big names" and the rest went to a dramatic fire sequence (pictured above). Because of that, there is a guerrilla-style feel to the makeshift sets and costumes look of Original Gangstas. Punches don't land anywhere near the face, scream match-up with lips worse that The Wilhelm Scream, and bullets don't leave holes around pools of strange-looking blood.

Cohen's ultimate message here is not unlike when our parents used to lecture us "more respectful days". Williamson and Brown's characters used to gang bang too, but at least they didn't kill people! In Original Gangstas' most unintentionally funny moment, the young gang leader looks up at Brown with an end-of-life clarity and waxes philosophical about how it is Brown and Williamson (the old-school that laid the path for the new-school) who have blood on their hands and who are partially responsible for Gary, Indiana's tough times by abandoning it. Without a beat, or even quick cut to Brown's face to show pause or contrition, Brown knifes the dude and he and Williamson walk off into the smoggy sunset.

This isn't calculated cynicism on Cohen's part, just the product of a four day shoot with actors and crew who don't improvise that well. It may be bad, but it's honest, and because of that it retains the spirit of movie-love until the very end of the end credits.

WHATEVER WORKS

2009-07-07T13:07:00.009-06:00

When Woody Allen serves up a double-shot of narcissism and nihilism in that coffee cup that Larry David drinks from in Whatever Works' opening scene, it is a back-breaking "ohhh sh*t..." moment; a heavy, defeated sigh following months of nervous hope that one of your favorites wouldn't go down the path of tired and trendy antipathy that was hinted at in early plot leaks and trailers. Had Allen spent the rest of the film filleting the exaggerated caricature of himself that Larry David portrays, or, had he turned Whatever Works into another of his late-period madcap, bittersweet, love-tinged comedies (among them, Small Time Crooks, Melinda & Melinda, and Scoop... all of which I regularly defend), then the writer/director's forty-third film might have had life. Instead, it's just plain bitter... and might be one of his worst.

Larry David plays Boris (a psychoanalyst of Woody's would tell us to look for deeper meaning in that character name, as in: "bore-us") a former self-appointed genius gone crotchety who precisely brings to mind that "lady with the shopping bag in the cafeteria screaming about Socialism" that Alvy Singer worries about turning into in Annie Hall. Oops!!... it's happened! In one of Whatever Works earlier moments, Boris' ex-wife leans back and tells him she can't take his "sophomoric tirades" about the world being a cesspool full of inchworms and cretins any longer. Sure, many former "Woody" characters have expressed a similar dissatisfaction with the world, but never with so arrogant a scowl as the surrogate Boris.

Actually, a "sophomoric tirade" might be the best way to describe the script for Whatever Works. Bashing gun-owners, pro-lifers, the religious, and right-wingers in general, has become so commonplace that I was shocked to hear so many audience members laugh at the limp jokes about the NRA (by my count, there were three of them). Woody was once funny about politics in something like Everbody Says I Love You when he poked fun at both the savior complex of limousine liberals and the way Lukas Haas' character became wrapped-up in the ideas of National Review because of a blood clot in his brain. But here, today, Allen simply comes off like an out-of-touch dolt.

Back in February, while embroiled in Natty R.'s We Can't Wait countdown, I expressed concern over Woody Allen taking on Southern characters in the comedic arena. Apparently my concern was well warranted, because Allen shows nothing less than full-on contempt for white people from the Deep South. What Allen/Boris posits in Whatever Works, is that Southerners are nothing but half-wits, mild vessels of potential who don't fully realize their true talents and identities until they've been embedded into the cultural and intellectual mecca that is New York City: Marietta's (Patricia Clarkson) life-chronicling photography in Mississippi quickly blossoms into serious artistry; Melodie's (Evan Rachel Wood) "abortion clinic" sense of fashion unravels and resurfaces as cute elegance; and John (Ed Begley Jr.), whose repressed gay urges have manifested into homophobia, ends up... well, duh!

For their part, both Clarkson and Wood do fine jobs circumventing Woody Allen's prejudice by turning in fine, human portrayals of Mississippians. Their performances are solid examples of a smart actor's conscience not getting corrupted by a nasty script. Clarkson grew up in Louisiana, and Wood in North Carolina, so the generosity and color they give to their characters isn't surprising. What also isn't surprising - the more I think about it - is the answer to what may be plaguing Allen, the filmmaker, right now. Like Boris, Allen seems more and more isolated from society, culture, and film than ever before. Yes, he recruited current "it" cinematographer Harris Savides to do the lensing, but as my wife rightly observed, Whatever Works lacks Savides' trademark glide. Worse, Allen's direction seems shiftless, uncaring, dare I say... senile.

I don't know what Allen is doing, where he's culling inspiration from, or if he himself is living by the "whatever works" pseudo-philosophy espoused by Boris. Whatever he's doing, it isn't working, because three out of Allen's last five films have been dreadful, and I don't think I can say that about any other period in his career.

DON'T FORGET...

2009-07-06T22:24:00.002-06:00

... about the The Spirit of Ed Wood Blog-A-Thon going on at Cinema Styles this week.

I will have a post up later in the week, but in the meantime, go enjoy everybody else's by clicking on the link above.

**Pictured banner made by Greg @ Cinema Styles.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

2009-07-04T00:30:00.004-06:00

MY SISTER'S KEEPER : EXPERIENCING THE EPIC WEEPIE

2009-06-30T22:54:00.005-06:00

The "weepie" has been around, but I don't ever recall a film being so carefully crafted around the deliberate idea of making the audience bawl more so than Nick Cassavettes' My Sister's Keeper. The director's new film is like a symphony of ebbing and flowing set pieces, each one crescendoing into a climax of quietude so the audience can communally wipe each other's cheeks and dab each other's eyes before the next wave. It's quite the experience.

I saw it in a theater that was maybe a third full. There was a peculiar amount of trios that kept coming in. Female trios. Why three, and not two or four? I'm not sure, but my best guess is that three makes the ideal number for a "weepie movie support system". That way, when the huddling and crying begins, nobody gets left out. I sat up front to avoid the chatter (it's been my experience that most in-movie commentary comes from the back), but no seat could separate me from the sniffling, and huffing, and churgling that filled-out the ambiance of the theater. I didn't mind. Like screams or laughter, it's part of the theater experience.

But a thought came to me while I sat there taking in the cancer-stricken imagery from the front and the sobbing from the back: Did many of these audience members come here with the intended purpose of having a good cry? Meaning, the way someone may go to a comedy film for a good laugh or to a horror film to feel tense and frightened, do some fans of weepies look forward to the experience of sob-letting? After all, there is a natural high that follows a good cry much in the way there is with a hearty chuckle or a visceral rush.

Though I've never seen it, I realize that Cassavettes' The Notebook is one of this decade's most celebrated weepies. Now, after seeing My Sister's Keeper, I'm (sort of) anxious to watch The Notebook so as to make comparisons between their craftsmanship. Because, don't kid yourself, My Sister's Keeper isn't a movie. It's a narrated slide show with a soundtrack of strummed ukulele and ballads that have the words "Home" and "You" in the title.

The centerpiece to this slide show is when the terminally ill Kate takes us through her scrapbook of memories and good-bye confessions: (paraphrasing) "To Dad, I'm sorry I took away the love of your life" ... "To Jesse, I'm sorry nobody noticed that you were dyslexic" ... "To Anna, I'm sorry I made them hurt you". From here, we're whisked into a doomed-from-the-beginning flashback sequence about Kate's boyfriend Taylor, a fellow cancer patient who she adored more than anything, and who passes away the night after they have sex for the first time. But the coup de grace, the ten-tissue-clincher, is the beach sequence, 'the Final Days of Kate' where all she wants is a last look at the beach, a last look at her brother and sister feeding the seagulls, a last embrace from her mother's arms... all to the tune of that "Feels Like Home" song (how did a Coldplay track not make it into this movie?!?!).

I refuse to believe that Nick Cassavettes' heart was in the wrong place (after all, he watched his father slowly fade away), I just think he's making movies by the book and not from the gut. I wouldn't even be surprised if My Sister's Keeper was test screened with "cry-o-meters" measuring the level of audible sorrow in the crowd. If somebody makes you laugh, the next time around, he or she will just want you to laugh harder. Similar must've been the dilemma for the man who made The Notebook. So, if success is measured by the amount of tears generated, perhaps Nick Cassavettes has succeeded, but he shouldn't kid himself... he didn't do so by making a movie.

THAT'S SO FUNNY...

2009-06-29T22:37:00.004-06:00

... I made that face when I saw the cast too!

I also made a face when I saw the trailer for Julie & Julia tonight, but it's totally a NSFW-face, so I'm unable to post it at this time.

CHERI

2009-06-28T17:04:00.008-06:00

I'm not sure if Michelle Pfieffer has had plastic surgery or not, but her face doesn't appear to wear it if she has. Because of that, Pfieffer is one of America's rare aged 50-and-older elegant leading ladies who has embraced her third stage of beauty with natural grace a la European lovelies Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Rampling, and Catherine Denueve. I'm not here to judge any actress that does go under the knife; the pressures of studios, agents, publicists, etc. on the modern top-billing female can demand that she retain her taut, tight, and trim features lest she wants to keep working in Hollywood. But Pfieffer's performance in Stephen Frears' Cheri is a case against "staying young", especially since the camera begs so much attention from her face.

Granted, Michelle Pfieffer is a well established life-thespian, and British veteran Stephen Frears works relatively free of the Hollywood handcuffs, but Cheri ends on a ten second close-up of Pfieffer's face that, while tragic in scene, is profound as a stand-alone frame, a naked image that confronts the audience with a feminine self-awareness not unlike the "I love you..." shot of Julianne Moore that closes-out Safe. Pfieffer's mouth & cheek lines and the noticeable sunken-in-ness around her eyes are almost shocking to see as we've been conditioned to expect that most our high-profile actresses will go out of their way to hide them.

It sounds as if I've making this whole "aging beauty" thing into a side issue of the film as a whole, but the fading away of youthful buoyancy is a central theme to Cheri. Michelle Pfieffer plays Lea, one of the most pronounced and pounced-upon prostitutes of the Belle Epoque era in pre-WWI France. Because this decadent era left the upper-crust so awash in disposable riches, even ladies working in the world's oldest profession could swing a high enough fee for their services. Though this work afforded them wealth in their retirement, we get the impression it was just as grueling and taxing as your more typical jobs would place on a twelve hour day hard-worker. In an opening salvo, Lea eases into her pampering cloud of a bed and moans to herself, "Is there anything more wonderful than a bed to yourself?". This may not be your traditional path to early retirement that the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad pushes, but you can't argue with the rewards.

But as with any demanding job, there are quality-of-life costs that may come with a career choice of leg spreading. One of those can be missing out on love, and another can be missing out on having children. Lea tries to reconcile both of those nagging birds with one stone by bagging the nineteen year-old Cheri, the privileged man-candy (yet of that very European androgynous variety) and son to one her prostitute friends Madame Peloux. Cheri was actually born "Fred", but was christened with that former rosy sounding nickname by Lea when he was still a child. In turn, Cheri branded Lea with the name "Nanoon", a nonsense word that nonetheless carries a maternal quality to it as in "Nana" or "Mema". It's more than a little off-putting when, on their first night of love-making, Cheri looks into Lea's eyes and whispers, "ohh Nanoon".

What's much more apparent and lingering in Cheri than, say, when David Fincher just passes-by it in Fight Club, is the social issue of men being raised by single women. No, Frears is not on any kind of probing or soap box mission here (his number one concern seems to be in telling and selling a story), but it's hard to ignore what is oh-so-out-in-the-open. When Cheri turns twenty-five, he is still being coddled and pampered by the woman he lives with. Lea pays for everything (even though Cheri has money), cleans-up after his messes, takes him shopping, and bathes him. All of this possibly relates back to Lea not having fulfilled her maternal instincts early in life, but it has coalesced into dependent man-child, a young fop of a lad with the moppy hair of a toddler. Again, there doesn't appear to be any intention of statement here from Frears, but rather just a bundle of behavioral complications that makes for an interesting character in Cheri.

In total, Cheri hasn't lingered with me as much as some of the little pieces that make it a complete whole, but that's not meant to be a dismissal. Like a trash novel or B-movie that doesn't hit on every point but still highlights moments more earnestly than some of its other well-respected peers, Cheri feels like it might have been an Oscar hopeful in its early stages of production, but let go of that ambition somewhere along the process. I think we (and it) are here, in the no-mans land award season of June, much better served because of that.

DIRECTED BY STAN WINSTON...

2009-06-25T23:04:00.001-06:00

THE ACADEMY AWARDS GETS A BOOB JOB

2009-06-24T21:57:00.008-06:00

So, unless you've been reading about that thing in Iran or that dude in South Carolina, you've probably heard by now that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided to go TOP 10 with their Best Picture noms.

My first thought was, "well, this means they can at least throw a bone to the The Dark Knight crybabies this year by nominating something like Star Trek." (If Star Trek actually wins Best Picture this year, I will quit blogging for-ev-er ... write it down!). It's sorta like when the NCAA pats a BYU or a Utah or a Boise St. on the head ever year and gives them a BCS game (yes, I know Utah beat Alabama last year, but Alabama sucked, so just settle down. And please don't bring up that overrated Boise St./OU game, ok?).

Anyway...

So yes, what opening up the Best Picture category ultimately does is satisfy the people who cry "wtf?!?" on nomination morning every year. Let's say that we hit rewind and made 2008 a 10 Best Picture nomination year. What would have been added? Probably: Revolutionary Road, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, The Dark Night, and Wall-E. Right? No so hard to guess, I guess.

But the drawbacks... ohhhh, the drawbacks. What will the drawbacks be? :

1. About 20-30 minutes of added Oscars showtime.

2. The continuing "legitimacy" of so-so to below-average to just plain bad filmmaking.

3. Our theaters loaded up with Best Picture noms from December to Early March (I especially feel for the people who live in smaller cities... can you imagine Frost/Nixon holding up traffic for four months in a six-screen town?!? Eeeek! That makes me shudder).

4. Harvey Weinstein-style lobbying like you've never seen before.

5. A Nick Cassavettes movie getting nominated.

6. More molesting of DVD box covers.

7. More pulling of the hair by Arbogast.

8. More eye-gouging self-important interviews on The Charlie Rose Show.

... and that's enough for now.

Have a nice evening.

YEAR ONE

2009-06-23T09:33:00.001-06:00

Last week, my buddy Fletch predicted that I would proclaim Year One to be a "seminal work". Well, as much as I'd love to prove my man to be a genius predictor, that just ain't gonna happen. The comedic proposal offered up in this Jack Black/Michael Cera reluctant cave-buddy movie isn't a terrible one: that even since the beginning of time, a man's ambitions and actions have been led along by the tips of their penises. Now, that's not a new social theory, and it can probably explain why Guy Ritchie did a remake of Swept Away, but it makes for an interesting stepping off point for some low-brow humor (literally). After all, when else should society forgive a group of males for acting like a bunch of Neanderthals???

Like most comedies without a weighty script (ie, a script written by three people), Year One must rely on a cavalcade of cameos to carry it through. Don't get me wrong, Michael Cera is quite fine and even gets in some of the film's most memorable ad libs (while pondering why one of the female "gatherers" seems to fancy only "hunters", he concludes, "she's must be a self-loathing gatherer"), but when you're leaning on Xander Berkely, Oliver Platt, and the untalented member of Tenacious D to get you through dry patches, you're just in a bad spot. Even the typically sure thing scene-stealers of David Cross and Paul Rudd are a bore here, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse really needs to let go of the McLovin thing already.

Fans of the Old Testament may get some kicks from the second half of the film where Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera) make their way to Sodom and Gomorrah after escaping a circumcision ritual at the hands of Isaac (Hank Azaria), and deep down sicko perverts - like me - shall be shocked to see the film makers get away with a rimming and fisting joke that surely must have gone over the heads of censors who ended up granting Year One that crucial PG-13 rating. And yes, because head screenwriter Harold Ramis is an old man, his attempts at new school crude humor come off as desperate and/or clueless. Meaning, his sodomy jokes and homo barbs are tired and more juvenile than even his Animal House beginnings.

While watching Year One unravel, I couldn't help but think back to that scene in Knocked-Up where Seth Rogen has some "advice coffee" with his movie dad Harold Ramis. I'm sure the comedy veteran is honored that a younger generation holds him in such high regard, but why does he then feel the need to pander to their crowd with an attempt at their humor? It's like seeing Morgan Freeman with an earring or Robert Redford at a Kings of Leon concert. Let's get back to that Paul Newman-school of aging gracefully fellas, ok? I mean, is it far-reaching to wonder whether Mr. Carradine passed away from his risky sexscapades because he couldn't accept the fact that he had a 73 year old body?? It's true, these examples fall in line with the premise of modern man still being led around by the tips of their penises, but I'd bet that even their caveman ancestors knew when it was time to let the younger dudes do most of the clubbing.

SUMMER HOURS

2009-06-21T23:40:00.004-06:00

Olivier Assayas is an odd auteur to watch. His writing/directing career during the Aughts has been one of two faces: the family drama & the corporate sex-crime thriller. Les Destinees, Clean, and Summer Hours are in the first camp, while Demonlover and Boarding Gate belong to the latter. I've yet to spend the mind time and brain energy deducing whether there is a thread that connects all five of these, but for certain, I feel I can proclaim Summer Hours as the greatest among them. Both a personal and a worldly film, Assayas uses a scenario of sibling circumstance in the aftermath of a passing parent to mourn the fading away of culture and of his home country (France) as a whole... or, in the end, does he?

Beginning with the flickering image of a French country estate on a hill, the camera cuts to a stream of children zig-zagging through the estate's shrubbery fast into some kind of makeshift treasure hunt. In 10 seconds, Summer Hours has amassed 40 years of familial history. This day is the birthday of Helene (Edith Scob), the mother of three children, and the grandmother to even more. A modern economy has spread Helene's children out around the globe: Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) is in New York, Jeremie (the handsome Jeremie Renier) is in Peking, and Frederic (Charles Berling) still resides in France. Each of the sibling's immediate families and professional responsibilities have shifted their attentions away from their childhood home and rural past. Helene does not resent her children for a relationship that's been reduced to an annual summer visit, but she is lonely, totally aware that her life has been lived.

With subtlety, Assayas surveys the gaps between the three generations of native Parisians in Summer Hours, gaps that, he argues, may be wider than what existed in previous French societies. But Assayas is no snob. He does not mock the pop-culture tastes of an Americanized youth, or the passing casual interests of tourists being guided through museums of French art history. Rather, Assayas is acknowledging change, accepting an oncoming future where France is no longer the harbinger of influence it once was (it is no coincidence that Adrienne works in the United States and Jeremie in China... the two biggest hubs of international business). When Frederic shows his son a valuable painting hanging in his mother's house, the teenager shrugs and explains, "It's from another era". And when Helene unveils her collection of antique tea sets for Adrienne, she disclaims, "I don't want to weigh you down with objects from another era."

The title, "Summer Hours", recalls the plaintive headings Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu gave to his later-day films that narrowed-in on the widening cultural shifts between generations in post-WWII Japan. Like Assayas does in Summer Hours, Ozu often expressed a sadness for traditions and cultural norms that were on their inevitable way out, but he never showed contempt for a fast-moving and quickly approaching future. However, acceptance does not demand letting go as Frederic, the oldest sibling, does his last-minute best to preserve pieces of the past for his children to cherish. Frederic fitfully obsesses over a decision to sell his mother's two Corot paintings (weighing yourself down with objects from another era indeed), but his regret is countered by the discovery that Helene often used her valuable art furniture pieces for their practicality... such as storage of cleaning products.

It is Summer Hours' magnificent final sequence that brings the movie's sentiments full circle and hints that Assayas' earlier conclusions (or rather, ours) may have been premature. Frederic's children decide to throw a party at their grandmother's house before it's officially sold away. The teenagers behave exactly as we'd expect them to: smoking, blaring loud pop music from iBooks, bouncing basketballs inside the house, slinging around plastic bags of beer and snack food. Sylvie, Frederic's daughter, goes to find her boyfriend by the pond. They take a walk and she shares a memory about her grandmother, a reflection from a point-of-view we've been shut out of up to this point. Sylvie ends her story with, "My grandmother's dead. Her house is gone." That directness is more profound than anything expressed by one of the adults, but it is also quickly swallowed as Sylvie and her boyfriend climb a brick wall and run into the woods like young lovers do. The "summer hours" are these, the times the younger generation are enjoying now, and not the forgotten ones once shared with Helene. Or, maybe it's a continuation of them.

TOERIFC # 6: SOMEONE TO LOVE (1987)

2009-06-17T09:15:00.005-06:00

It's the best time of the month... TOERIFC time!

As a collective of movie heads, we TOERIFCians have made it strong into our sixth all-day film discussion. The comments over at Flickhead's place are already into the eighties (as of 10:29 AM CST), so hurry on over and join in on the best discussion ever had on Henry Jaglom's 1987 film Someone to Love (aka Orson Welles' last on-screen performance).

Again... TOERIFC - Sixth Edition is going on at Flickhead's blog. BE THERE NOW!

THE HANGOVER

2009-06-16T09:49:00.001-06:00

By doing a convincing mimicry-job of the rushing and hazing behaviors of on-campus fraternity life in his faux-documentary Frat House, director Todd Phillips must have either spent time as a brother himself or admired the "Greek culture" from afar, because The Hangover continues his affinity for widescreen frat house humor. That's not a good thing. Low-brow comedy can be just fine, but as one of its splintered-off branches, frat house humor rarely is. This is forgettable walk-by comedy, and in the form of a motion picture it's a barely passable form of entertainment that you can fold your laundry to (i.e. an irrelevant TV projection that you can take your eyes off of for to 30-90 seconds without missing a beat).

An intoxicated state-of-mind often reacts positively to such banality as a tazer gun shot to the crotch or a used condom being tossed around the car like a hot potato, and because the American mind on leisure time is frequently of that type, it's no surprise that The Hangover has been such a R-rated boobs n' brews smash. Balls too! Yes, in what's becoming one of modern crude comedy's easiest stock gags, The Hangover doesn't forget to include the requisite full-on floppy cock n' balls moment. The fact that that flaccid sex organ is attached to a raging, naked Chinese kingpin who comes flying out of a trunk with a crowbar and commences to bust skulls, makes this moment The Hangover's pinnacle frat house peak. The scene has the sub-genre's essential elements: uncomfortable nudity, foreign people, and hard violence.

Todd Phillips dropped out of film school at an early age and it continues to show. His technique consists of pushing "record", a style not learned, but discovered when any one of us is handed a video camera for the first time. Sadly, a recorded stand-up routine on Comedy Central or HBO has more cinematic flourish in its efficient, economic approach than what you will find in a Todd Phillips' film. There's certainly nothing wrong with a film mainly consisting of stunts or set pieces rather than a compelling storyline, but The Hangover is just plain unfun to look at. It's directed with a cloud of laziness that I'd imagine comes off of those sets where actors talk about "how much fun" they had while filming.

Never one to portray too pleasant a view of the ladies, The Hangover is Todd Phillips at his most female unfriendly. Heather Graham is not quite the "stripper with a heart of gold" but something more along the lines of a "pole dancer who's sorta sweet"; the other two prominently featured actresses play stereotypical balls-in-a-vice-grip bitches. While Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann's argument over fantasy baseball lies in Knocked-Up had a twinge of "really?!" to it, at least that marital conflict reached for genuine male/female relationship rocky-ness. From watching Phillips' films, I'm convinced he's never felt a thing for a woman, instead being too pre-occupied with pleasing his bros instead of connecting with the hos (check the way Phillips preens for the camera in his cunnilingus cameo in an elevator... if that was intended to be an Aerosmith joke, the dude's more pathetic than I thought).

In a last ditch effort to say something positive here, I will concede that Zach Galifianakis does his creepy Tim & Eric best to make something interesting appear on screen, and that Ed Helms turns in another consistent performance as a sideman. But god, as soon as something complimentary comes out of my mouth, the remembrance of that idiotic wedding singer sequence comes to mind. Oh, how fresh the shtick is of seeing an ironic white-boy singing 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" to an old dancing couple. Yeesh. Perhaps the key to tolerating The Hangover is to strap on some comedic beer goggles before entering the theater. Like the accessories that've come with the recent 3D craze, maybe movie studios and theaters should consider investing in some.

STREAM-OF-CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION : LAND OF THE LOST

2009-06-14T21:22:00.004-06:00

[NOTE: This is where the blogger gives himself a strict 10 minutes to rattle off whatever about a movie he just saw that he doesn't feel deserves a thoughtful edited review but still feeds the need to feed the animals anyway. Quality is of no concern.]

---

My friend said "it wasn't as terrible as I thought." My wife said "it was worst than I expected. Land of the Lost sucked.". I agree with my friend on this one. And yes, wife, I did nod off a few times and probably snored, but I promise I didn't miss too much. Maybe a battle scene of some kind. Danny McBride is enough to give this film 2 stars, I think. Will Ferrell needs to be careful of whom he chooses to do movies with because his co-anchors end up making him look lesser. McBride outshines Ferrell. It's not even close. Then again, McBride usually steals the screen whenever he's on it. The only time I can think that he was humbled by anotehr actor was when Nick Nolte shared time with him in Tropic Thunder. I thought about the little guy from The Lonely Island and Hot Rod, Jorma Taccone, being all dressed up in that caveman costumer as Chaka. It had to have been incredibly uncomfortable and hot and sweaty with that make-up and hair suit. And I heard a guy on local radio bemoaning the fact that Land of the Lost - the movie - was too crude and disrepectful of the original. I don't know b/c I never watched the original. And, really, who cares. I mean, didn't Sid and Marty Croft used to sneak in pro-Timothy Leary messages into their shows back in the day anyways??? Is it really a big deal if the little monkey man squeezes boobs during the movie version of LOL? That's what cavemen do afterall. I mean, it's males at the basest levels, so what's the deal? I do wonder how groping can give you a PG-13 movie while cussing can move your film to an R. Very Odd. Running out of thoughts. Probably reflective of the ,movie. But really, it's not THAT bad. It's like a kids movie that tried to mix in your typical kid-friendly fart joke but went a little too far with boob talk and orgasm talk and vibrator talk. Guess that's too far, yeah. I don't blame parents for being miffed, but critics? What did they want exactly? Something honest? Something real? Will Ferrell's body is also still very weird looking when he takes his shirt off. I thought maybe he'd started working out since he got super famous, but no. That's ok.

ALMOST KINDA CREEPY...

2009-06-12T09:47:00.000-06:00

From Frank Borzage's Lazybones (1925) ...

...PHEW!!!

KEN LOACH'S BOYCOTT BULLHORN

2009-06-10T22:50:00.006-06:00

One thing about the decades long Israeli/Palestinian conflict that irritates me is when people think they've figured it out enough where they can stand solely with one side or the other in complete sympathy.

... and then they get cantankerous about it:

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“The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation and stay away.”
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English filmmaker Ken Loach said the above about the Edinburgh International Film Festival, who had received the equivalent of 300 pounds from the Israeli government for travel expenses on behalf of Israeli filmmaker Tali Shalom-Ezer. Her film, Surrogate, is to premier there. The EIFF has since given back the money.

First off, when Loach says "massacres and state terrorism in Gaza" I had to wonder if maybe he was referring to the self-imposed killings and oppression put upon the Gazans by Hamas. But, no, we know what he meant. And he can mean whatever he would like to, but why punish a single filmmaker for fierce disagreement you may have with her government???

As Shalom-Ezer points out:

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"A lot of people didn’t support Britain being part of the war in Iraq — does that mean British art should be subjected to a cultural boycott?”
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Exactly. If we want to go down the road of boycotting the art of private citizens because of the sins of their state government, then every film circulating around the world right now would be at risk.

She continues:

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“For me, I make films as art and my art does not deal with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Now I feel I am in a strange position because I am answering questions that are related to politics as if I am a representative of the Israeli state and I don’t want to be that.”
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For more on this story, click here.

THE BROTHERS BLOOM

2009-06-09T13:02:00.003-06:00

Up until Robbie Coltrane makes his Lynch-like entrance as "The Curator" or, as he's referred to in the trailer, "The Belgian", The Brothers Bloom is an off-kilter but on-cue comedy with clever lines and a seductive cinematic rhythm. Writer/director Rian Johnson front loads his second feature length film with enough cherry moments to make any director (new or old) envious of his bounding spring from the starting gates. Before the first twenty minutes are finished, either a choreographed gag between Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody), the easy glide of the I'm-so-bored-but-tough-and-still-sexy Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), or the Crayola variety personas of Penelope (Rachel Weisz), will have you cackling or grinning like a camel that just came upon its first ever whisky flask.

With Ricky Jay's introductory narration taking us through the wonder years of Stephen and Bloom, the brothers, it easy to look upon the two young actors in their out-of-time quirky costumes, thrifty tastes, and charcoal drawn gameplans and think of Wes Anderson. But Johnson's angle is one more directly drafted from the play book of Peter Bogdonavich, a complicated careerist torn between his own personal adoration of movies and a desire to carve out his own name. Johnson's gobbling-up and digesting of outside influences may not be visible from his sleeve, but the impression they've left is intrinsically felt in inside-joke asides such as Bloom saying to Bang Bang, "A '78 Cadillac?... that's a controversial choice". It - presumably -means nothing, but it tickles your fascination nonetheless.

The film's title is much more directly descriptive than first believed. When we learn that one of the brothers is named Stephen and that the other goes by Bloom, the title - and nom de guerre they are known by amongst their colleagues - feels truncated. However, the sweet con is on us because the title, at its heart, refers to the flowering relationship between two siblings, brought to symbolic on-screen maturity itself when we see Bloom plopped-down in a field of blossoms next to Penelope as she coaches him through a revelation he's just had about Stephen.

Johnson's Bloom script is a much more ambitious undertaking than the previously breezy and pleasing breakout indie-hit Brick. Brick was a fine film, but it sometimes considered itself too cute. Still, the transferring of staid paranoia from film-noir conventions to the inner circle hierarchy within high school walls (ie, a Teen Beat-type crime syndicate) was both a fresh take on teenage anxiety and a send-up of modern faux-noirs like Sea of Love and LA Confidential. But The Brothers Bloom is a shift forward. If not complete in his vision, Johnson is confident in the risks that he takes, abandoning total control and exhibiting a refreshing confidence in the four top-billed actors. The Brothers Bloom declines in potency as the second half of the film rides on, but it's a film that strongly showcases a rising talent.

Also rising - in my book, at least - is Adrien Brody. I wasn't a fan until The Darjeeling Limited (in which he gave one of 2007's best performances). In fact, he irritated the living Diet Coke out of me! Then came Cadillac Records (great again, as Leonard Chess) and now The Brothers Bloom. Like Darren Aronofsky, Brody is an artist I had once routinely badmouthed, but am now so intrigued by that I gladly eat my crow. So, what changed with Brody? Personally, I think he's embraced his face. Meaning, like Peter Lorre, Brody has recognized that his slightly cartoonish facial features are his most valuable asset. You can even see the actor freezing his slim body, at times, in order to redirect your attention to his mug.

Much in the way The Brothers Bloom, as a whole, redirects our attention away from yet another dreadful blockbuster summer. Along with Drag Me to Hell (though not nearly as masterful), these were two May movies worth seeing.

THE HACHI (OR, HACHIKO : A DOG'S STORY) POSTERS WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE

2009-06-06T23:58:00.005-06:00

First there was this poster, and now there is the above (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

For the second time, the poster designer lined up Joan Allen's name with the image of a canine. Also for the second time, is an embarrassing looking Richard Gere staring into the eyes of a bored-looking dog. But can you blame the dog? Gere's probably rambling on about Tibet and the dog is all, "whatever man, I just wanna lick my balls." (I used to mumble the same thing to myself during Catholic mass on Sundays).

And what's up with the The Polar Express green screen?? Are the Japanese that easy to please? (Never forget this ridiculous Hancock poster...). According to the poster, Hachi comes out on 2009.8, which must be Japanese for August. If I can pull it off, I'd like to liveblog a screening of this film.

Poor Joan Allen (somewhere, Diane Lane is going "phew...").

WHAT I'VE LEARNED SINCE I STARTED A BLOG ABOUT MOVIES.

2009-06-04T22:21:00.009-06:00

One the godfathers of film bloggery, Greg @ Cinema Styles, recently posted a list of what he's learned from his personal love of film and from his like-minded cinema obsessed cyber-buddies who don't necessarily agree on things most of the time (that's one way we learn, right?).

Greg tagged me, and here's my list:

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1. There is too much unpaid talent out there. Too many witty, wise, intelligent, and original voices that go unheard for a lot of reasons that can be discussed later (or in the comment section).

2. Film bloggers are much more civil than political bloggers (and in many cases, much more knowledgeable about politics).

3. I, Fox, have a huge blind spot when it comes to sci-fi films.

4. When you compose a post that you perceive to be absolutely brilliant, be prepared for nobody to care.

5. When you fart out a post that you perceive to be filler, be prepared for a comment tsunami.

6. Gay film bloggers really like Sigourney Weaver.

7. Straight "female" film bloggers really like classy looking actors.

8. Straight "male" film bloggers really like actors with boobs.

9. I don't know any lesbian bloggers (I don't think...).

10. A scanner would be a good thing to invest in.

11. HTML for Dummies might be a good book to invest in.

12. Despite his decline in judgment, Roger Ebert is almost universally loved and/or respected by film bloggers.

13. Angry anonymous commenters are pussies.

14. The best resources for pre-1970's horror are film bloggers.

15. Karl Malden has a lot of fans that he's probably unaware of.

16. Professional football is much more popular with film bloggers than I would have suspected.

17. Jeffrey Wells is an idiot.

18. Comedy has a fresh outlet in photoshopping.

19. Strong cases for the under appreciated acting talents of John Wayne.

20. Every blogger I know well (see sidebar links) - and some that I don't - has introduced me to a film, director, genre, or book that I was previously unaware of. Spreading appreciation around... it's a good thing.

TYSON

2009-06-03T00:33:00.000-06:00

If it's not fair to call Mike Tyson insane after watching him carry on for 90 minutes in James Toback's new portrait documentary of him, then "mentally unwell" should suffice. When the infamous ordeal with Desiree Washington comes to topic, the topic that landed Tyson in jail for three years, he swears that he never raped "that wench". However, without hesitation or any awareness of gross contradiction and fault, Tyson lets out this sentence: "I may have taken advantage of women in the past, but not that woman." It's a disturbing moment, but also a key one in that it shows how Toback does not intend to simply deliver a biased docu puff-piece on a publicly disclosed close friend of his.

But because this is a documentary, bias, or rather, manipulation of real life is inevitable. That doesn't mean that Tyson isn't fascinating to watch, especially in its fever dream sequences where the former heavyweight champ struggles to enunciate through free associations on women, love, childhood, and loss. Toback does his best to match the scatterbrain monologues of Tyson by split screening the hell out of the boxer's iconic face (his eyelids heavy as if they are about to close permanently from the weight of his life). It's as if Toback is trying to find a visual rhythm that can walk in step with the machinations inside Tyson's brain yet he keeps having to hit the reset button.

If Tyson had solely consisted of Mike Tyson's unedited and extended ramblings laid atop looping montages of his life and career, then Toback's film might have approached greatness, defying documentary convention and applying a fresh way to present non-fictional material. But, sadly, Toback bends to regular bio-doc storytelling, giving us the arch of Mike Tyson's life and the replayed highlights of his pay-per-view career so that we may attempt to "understand" this man. But that's an impossible request to make of an audience when all you have in tow is 90 minutes of tricked-up celluloid to state your case. Sure, go ahead and toss Tyson in as another useful tool for research into the troubled man's life, but a work of cinematic portraiture art this is not.

Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler does a finer job than Tyson of culling emotion and humanity from the behind-the-scenes life of muscle bound glamour and big man sports, a subculture that Mike Tyson was a part of for the majority of his life. In The Wrestler, seeing the fictional Randy "The Ram" Robinson play with the Nintendo version of himself was a profound moment of a broken man facing down his legacy of becoming nothing more than an 8-bit afterthought after living a life of hedonistic hero worship. (Indeed, that particular scene made me think of Mike Tyson's Punch Out and wonder if the real Tyson ever stared at that video game with fondness and regret the way Ram does.)

In Toback's narrative films, there is typically a surrogate male character that espouses the deeply flawed, imperfect philosophies and ideals that the director sees in himself. Because these men are fictional stand-ins (Jimmy in Fingers, Jack in The Pick-Up Artist, Blake in Two Girls and a Guy) there is greater freedom for Toback the artist to self-examine, yet still entertain, without coming off as a narcissist doing confessionals for the camera. Tyson shows that Toback is still obsessed with the hyper-sexualized flawed man inside (Mike Tyson could be his stand-in), but with that fourth-wall now being torn down, the director's artistic argument isn't as compelling.

FROM A BLOGGER WHO ONCE COMMENTED ON THE SAME MESSAGE BOARD AS ROGER EBERT (PLUS, MY NEW FAVORITE MOVIE TITLE!)

2009-06-01T21:44:00.012-06:00

My favorite marketing move, of late, by DVD distributors is to put "From the guys who brought you ______ ______ " on the box cover.

It's a shady tactic, but clever. I don't know how many people actually fall for it, but it's bound to have pushed enough product thus far because straight-to-DVD labels are really stretching out its prospects now.

Check out this beauty:

If you can't make out the blurb at the top of the poster (I like that it's above the title of the actual film), it says "From A Producer of The Devil's Rejects". That's right: "A" producer, meaning one, meaning of the twelve producers that worked on The Devil's Rejects, one of them also worked on Razortooth (which has seven producers itself).

Hell... I see opportunity here. A precedent has been set!:

"From a script girl who worked on The Notebook..."

"From the second assistant cameraman of The Firm..."

"From an actor* in The Bad News Bears**..."
(*extra in the bleachers)
(**the 2005 version)

So, if there is anybody out there who worked on The Dark Knight - in any capacity whatsoever! - please contact me so we can record something, anything, put your "name" on a poster, and sell some plastic cases on consignment in big retail stores. I bet we can at least break even.

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BONUS:

This might be my new favorite movie title (I can't believe it took somebody this long...):

DRAG ME TO HELL

2009-05-30T22:54:00.005-06:00

Drag Me to Hell drops in on our movie culture at the most important moment. First off, it almost single-handedly erases the depressing memory that was modern American horror during the Y2 aughts. (I challenge you to find a substantial foreign film market that made worse horror films, this decade, than Hollywood.) Secondarily, Sam Raimi's new masterwork now proves the once kicked-around theory of "acceptable mediocrity", that current tendency of film critics (in print and on blogs) to keep the ratings bar high while the general quality of films slid low.

Take Star Trek, for example. The movie is below-average at best, some mild entertainment for a day when your sports team is inactive and/or your mental faculties are as well. Yet not even the critics who rated the film the highest-of-the-high could muster enough convincing passionate prose in favor of it. Star Trek's raves rallied around the admittedly impressive abilities of media man JJ Abrams and the way he successfully revived and refashioned a movie franchise that was already crap to begin with; critics confused a good business sense with quality artistry. Star Trek lacked any movie magic.

But here struts in Drag Me to Hell, a film rim-full of wide lens wit, punctuated humor, rhythmic stunts, special effects wisdom, and a sound design that'll blow your ears back. All of this slaps up against the screen between two large title cards that'll close you in and then lock you out after 99 minutes. Raimi's visual ideas hose onto the audience as if he's been pinching them back for 14 years now (and some would say that that's very much been the case). The man is clearly having fun again. After wasting a near decade on three Spiderman films and a Katie Holmes nipple slip, I don't blame the guy.

Overshadowed by the G-rated Grand Guignol (that's a compliment) up on screen is Alison Lohman in the role of Christine Brown, an ambitious loan officer with eyes on an assistant manager position. Lohman's adorable lisp and behind-the-ear blond bangs suit the role of Christine perfectly as she rides the emotional fence of fighting for a promotion and, er, escaping the hooves of the Hades dwelling Lamia that seemingly wants to "swallow her soul". Lohman's presence is comfortable, physically understanding the sight gags and frights that Raimi lines up for her. From hunching over a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream to standing rain wet and chest strong in the grave of the woman who cursed her, Lohman is a non-stop joy to watch.

Of significant special mention should be the implementation of effects by Raimi. Using both CG and the authentic kind, Raimi's heady mix exhibits a lost art understanding of when the use of one or the other is appropriate. There is a tactile cinematic exuberance in seeing real-time goop and gadgets in real light, especially when the scene calls for the aggressively absurd. Seeing a gypsy arm in a prosthetic Alison Lohman head, a toothless gypsy mouth slurp on the chin of a real Alison Lohman head, or a wax-figure gypsy corpse flop on top of a real Alison Lohman body is as important as the most wizardly wicked camera shot.

The final test now lies in how American audiences end up responding to this film. Will Drag Me to Hell, as my wife predicts, be a slow-build box office success and a bleed over DVD smash, or will it simply satisfy geeks for a weekend and fizzle away. Critics responded correctly by almost universally acknowledging the greatness of Drag Me to Hell, but they undercut its arrival onto the scene by also universally laying down for something like Star Trek (as of now, both films are separated by only one point in their Metascores). Drag Me to Hell is an open-window opportunity for bloggers to grab those reins and correct the mistakes their grandpappy print counterparts keep making. Draw those lines!

SUMMER AT THE PARAMOUNT : AMERICAN MADNESS (1932)

2009-05-27T22:10:00.009-06:00

A summer at the Paramount is a pretty neat thing. You can see new prints of old films, ranging in class from Alien 3 to Lola Montes in the short course of three and half months. I don't take this for granted. I don't even mind the jacked-up ticket price this year because, like Greg and Marilyn, I'm lucky to live in a town with a strong sense of film preservation and history, a town where you're able to kick it like your grandparents did and catch Irene Dunne's merry mug projected up on a long n' tall screen. Here, we get the chance to look up at beauty's giant face instead of down at ground or eye level on an inferior TV screen.

The thing about old movies, old American made movies, is that they remind you of how new or country still is. Go ahead and thump Frank Capra for whatever you'd like to, but the man had a mind to keep his eye on the driving social issues of the day and to then turn them into simple, cheery entertainment. Take American Madness. Its human truths about an economically depressed 1932 are validated today as we face tough cash-flow issues ourselves. Eh, they're validated any time. When are we not concerned about finances? Granted, American Madness was made pre-FDIC, so scenes of a frantic public running full frenzy for the first free teller to withdrawal funds can come off a smidge goofy (though cinematically pleasing in overhead camera shots), but the sidewalk sentiment still rings true.

Walter Huston plays the "George Bailey" in this brief, 81-minute Capra pic. No, Thomas Dickson didn't sacrifice his hearing by saving a kid from an icy pond, but he's the banking equivalent of a good Samaritan, a jolly and generous branch manager too good to be true. So good, that he will lend out a loan without much collateral on the other end. (In this way, actually, Huston more closely resembles Jim Carrey's "Carl" from last year's Yes Man.) But don't you just know that Dickson's thrifty lending is gonna pay itself back when the proper time comes?

American Madness' quickly delivered, universal message works because it's on a infinite spin cycle of sorts. Capra's film is almost symmetrical, the ending reprising the beginning as events come to a comfortable close. But there is some darkness here. There is crime, and there is death, and there is a slightly uncharacteristic black humor to Capra's handling of it all.

In fact, the one scene that stood me up and stood out amongst the predictable idealistic pleasures was the darkest place I've even seen Capra go to (though I'm certainly not a well-versed Capra devotee). The sequence involves Huston, guilt, a gun, and a silhouette by the office drapes. I won't say more as for wanting to keep it special for anyone else who will see it, but the scene deserved a sad round of applause mid-film, for sure. Perhaps this moment was the result of American Madness being a pre-code film. Regardless, it felt otherworldly compared to my frame of reference for movies of this time, a sweet surprise that I probably wouldn't have experienced if not for the Paramount.

TERMINATOR SALVATION

2009-05-25T22:31:00.004-06:00

Terminator Salvation is a mess. It's a mess to look at, and it's a mess to try and make something sensible out of. "Sensible"? True, how crucial is rationality in a sci-fi tinged action movie franchise already four episodes deep anyway??? I never watched the old-timer TV program Charlie's Angels, but I still got a kick of out McG's Full Throttle sequel adaptation of it. Granted, I'm also not the best boy to be connecting dots from movie to movie, storyline to storyline. I've only seen the three previous T movies once apiece, and I would be knee-deep and hard-pressed in trying to tell you what happened in the third edition of them. Shoot, after just seeing the fourth, I can't even remember who Kyle Reese is or why he needs to be sent back to the future to save Sarah Connor (or if he even does... maybe I heard that incorrectly).

But there's something specific about the Terminator franchise that makes all of the films enjoyable regardless of the final cut quality in each. There is an endlessly enticing US vs. THEM motif that gets me pumped, and it gets me pumped because it is all-encompassing, a unifying call-to-arms: humans vs. machines. That is the type of simplistic battle line drawing that we can all get behind. There's no political parties, no social soap boxes, no petty pet peeve issues to picket for. You either fight, or you die (that kind of ideological clarity is refreshing... though not desirable in real life, mind you). The "fight" is to be taken to a global technocracy run amok in the name of Sky Net, some "thing" that wants to wipe the human race off the face of the Earth... for some reason. (Like I said, I don't keep track of these stories, so forgive me.)

Throughout Terminator Salvation, things happen: a rubbery, prototypical Arnold Schwarzenegger terminator model shows up; Christian Bale says "I'll be back"; McG sneaks in a stinky wink to Guns N' Roses T2-touting "You Could Be Mine" (rivaling the cringe-worthiness of "Sabotage" in Star Trek); Dirt, by Alice in Chains, is still in Sam Worthington's character's brother's Jeep when he hot wires it and "Rooster" is the song it is on (I kinda didn't mind this choice of song because at least it was war appropriate); Bryce Dallas Howard is still pretty, but thinking that wigs me out because I can see her dad in her face; one of the gate-keeping terminators wears a white headdress, and I wonder why it would even care to put one on in the first place; "how to kill a terminator" scenes are becoming as tedious as "how to kill a zombie" scenes; door is open for T5.

But there is also something culturally current about Terminator Salvation. All of the Terminators have had an "end of days" scenario looming over them, but this latest episode fully lives in the dystopian nightmare that the previous films only hinted at, a calculated nightmare brought upon humanity by a silent, intangible, global elite. Well, for news nerds like myself, many of you may know where I am headed here... that's right, Bilderberg/NWO/Jekyll Island. Just name your preferred powerful puppet-master poison and you'll be on the track. Those who follow the conspiracy theories attached to these big names will know that the elimination of 80-90% of the world's population is one of their "agenda items". Sky Net's mission statement probably says something similar.

Lest you think I'm stretching it here in my attempt to connect a modern and topically hot form of global paranoia to T4, well, check this out...

The Halcyon Company produced Terminator Salvation. THC is a newly formed, independent media venture that owns the rights to the Terminator franchise and who also plan on releasing a series of Philip K. Dick film adaptations (Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is currently in production). I'm no Philip K. Dick expert, but an "Orwellian future" is something I feel safe in saying the author drew upon in some of his work. The same can be said of the Terminator franchise. Interestingly, it was just reported a wee few days ago that The Halcyon Group purchased the rights to The True Story Of The Bilderberg Group, a book about... well, you know. Whether this will makes its way to screens as a documentary or a political-thriller starring Clive Owen, I don't know, but it makes for some fun brain candy when you're out of Twizzlers and there's still forty minutes of a mess of a movie left to stare at.

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE

2009-05-23T22:16:00.009-06:00

Steven Soderbergh follows up his 265 minute movie about a low-rent guerrilla with a 77 minute movie about a high-priced call girl. For that kind of mercy, the ambitious director/producer should be praised. More praise: The Girlfriend Experience isn't nearly as irritating as Bubble and ends up being a million times more watchable than The Good German (both stand among the worst films of the '00s). But Soderbergh's latest film is nothing more than a yawn, a barely risible slice-of-life expose of entrepreneurial prostitution in a post-Spitzer New York City. To be more specific, the exact time frame is late 2008, before the election, but after election fatigue has already set in and the dark clouds of TARP have covered the skies more quickly than the Patriot Act.

But Soderbergh doesn't use these fresh political and cultural touchstones as anything other than tools to paint the character traits of Chelsea (Sasha Grey)'s clientele. The bailout and the election cross the lips of Chelsea's johns before they touch her own, but to attach any deeper meaning to this chit-chatter would be foolish. The cross-cutting story lines of Soderbergh's Traffic made the drug wars entertaining, but it wasn't probing, nor are the investment and economic strategies lobbed around in The Girlfriend Experience. Luckily, Soderbergh knows this and doesn't linger (77 minutes, remember?). In fact, The Girlfriend Experience could be read as, if not accepting, then legitimizing the black-market sex industry. Steven Soderbergh, libertarian crusader? Pfft... nah.

The film's title doesn't refer to the temporary female companionship that Chelsea's socially and sexually dissatisfied customers purchase from her, but to the commitment she craves in an after hours living partner. She seems to have found that in Chris, a personal trainer who accepts Chelsea's offbeat profession, but that soon falls into jeopardy when Chelsea decides to go on a weekend trip with a client who matches up well with her beliefs in Personology ("it's NOT astrology!", she corrects her friend... um, ok). Chris doesn't approve of her overtime ("we agreed on no out-of-town jobs!"), but Chelsea lets her voodoo beliefs drive her decision making anyway. Soderbergh ends the film in a fashion that film-journo types might call "artistic", but I think he just didn't know how to end it.

When I first heard of Soderbergh casting the young (and veteran... sad how the Adult industry works) porn star Sasha Grey in a mainstream film, I was intrigued. This wasn't just a cameo for the perverts in the theater to wink at, no, this was a film that was going to revolve around a frequently fu*ked actress. But after seeing The Girlfriend Experience, I was scratching my head as to why Soderbergh felt he needed Grey. Sasha Grey is a beautiful woman: her porcelain jaw curls around her chin, up to a pair of perfect lips that lead to a nubile nose, while her eyes, like arrows, piercing and dark, are given complete power by the heavy and bold brows that hang above.

But Soderbergh and, er, "Peter Andrews", confoundedly ignore the character in Grey's mug. Outside of an often used over-the-seat close-up of Chelsea's face, Soderbergh routinely shoots her from a distance, from behind, and - in a extended climactic scene - fully hidden behind couch cushions. Further, none of the confidence and dominance that that Sasha Grey exudes in her porn performances is given a chance to play out here in a safer setting. My suspicion is that Grey could be a fine mainstream actress, but The Girlfriend Experience is not the place to test that hunch. Soderbergh constrains her, puts limits on her exuberance, and ultimately makes Sasha Grey out to be more of a doll and sex toy than in her adult films.

Based on its intentions, Soderbergh's film should be renamed "The Pornstar Experiment", because, frankly, the casual offhand casting of Sasha Grey comes off as mere exploitative stunt, more so than any DP scene she might have filmed.