Hilarious

The last couple weeks

2009-02-03T01:54:00.000-08:00

I'm going too see The Wrestler tomorrow, but I don't see how Mickey Rourke can have a better comeback performance than Jean-Claude Van Damme in JCVD. It's an incredibly honest performance that doesn't shy away from the embarassing nature of the work he's been doing for the past ten years.

Speaking of great performances, Michael Shannon is finally getting recognition for an incredibly intense short role in Revolutionary Road. Shannon is the new master of the intense scary role after similar turns in Bug and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

There's something a little too simple about Ron Howard's films that makes me dislike most of them, and this is definitely on display in Frost/Nixon. I did love Frank Langella though.

The Reader is very solid and very professional, but doesn't make me feel much of anything at the end.

Savage Grace has a dreamlike quality that reminds me a lot of early Todd Haynes films like Poison and Safe. I love the way the ending makes you question a lot of the earlier scenes in the film as you wonder how reliable the narrator has been.

Not the revenge you thought you were getting

2009-01-16T23:20:00.000-08:00

After the first hour of Revanche I thought I could tell where everything was headed, but it undermined my expectations, leaving me awestruck by the honesty of its performances.

The Godfather minus all the bits that made you like The Godfather

2009-01-13T13:35:00.000-08:00

Gomorrah fails as drama because evil, especially systematic evil, is terribly undramatic.

Oh No! Tom Cruise

2009-01-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

Valkyrie is is a collection of many of my favorite character actors given far too little to do, oh and Tom Cruise is in it too.

Instead of the movie diary this year I am going to try to make one sentence reviews of everything I see in 2009. This idea will probably be abandoned as soon as I get bored of it.

#6 - Seven Samurai

2008-09-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

I crossed some sort of invisible line when I was 16. I had moved to a new town about two weeks before school started and didn't really know anyone, so I had to wait a little while before I really made new friends. High school was kind of a joke, so I had a ton of time after school to kill. I spent that first winter clearing out the local video store 3 tapes at a time. You know that person in your building that has too many cats and wears cat sweaters that you see lugging 50 pound bags of meow mix into the elevator. Well I was that person except, you know, movies instead of cats. Things turned around for me of course, even though I had shoulder length hair that flipped out like Judy Jetson, but the video store in town was always a comfortable place for me. And it was there, when I was feeling a little adventurous, that I picked up Seven Samurai. 3.5 hours long, in Japanese with English subtitles. I was skeptical. I just figured that movies made in different countries would be unintelligible, that there would be other barriers besides language. I was wrong. I was also lucky. I imagine if I had picked up Solaris I wouldn't have fallen in love with foreign films so quickly. Sometimes the right film comes to you at the right time.

This was the perfect gateway drug for sixteen year old Don Jacobson. I loved how it took its time to introduce me to the characters. I laughed my ass off at Kikuchiyo's introduction and the way he was slowly introduced into the group. I marveled at the way the action and the tension built once we finally came to the village the samurai were sent to protect. I was blown away.

The twenty-nine year old Don Jacobson is still blown away. Film classes and books have allowed me to further appreciate how carefully constructed it is, and how different it is from other Japanese features at the same time. How the action is all about precise camera movement and editing. At the same time it transports me back to being that sixteen year old in the basement, smiling and marveling at something he'd never seen before. From that day on, it was rare to see me leave the video store without some kind of foreign film under my arm. Many of them were as stupid as their American counterparts, but they laid the groundwork for my discovery of countless others, three of which are on this list.

I have a sixteen year old brother now. I think I'll bring Seven Samurai next time I see him.

R.I.P. DFW

2008-09-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine jokes occasionally that I only really like 5 novels. If that were really true, it would only be because Infinite Jest ruined my expectations forever. It taught me that I didn't need to fully understand a novel to engage with it. It challenged me to become smarter, it made me look up words and re-read sentences. I feel like to some degree the experience taught me how to read. His other novel, his short fiction, and his journalistic work are all similarly rewarding.

A great loss.

11/25/2008

2008-08-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

Also available in Blu-Ray
http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=453

Ugh I've been lazy about this blog, expect more soon.

Wave of Mutilation

2008-03-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

Richard Kelly may be cinema's first accidental genius. Donnie Darko is a genuinely mysterious film with some haunting visuals. It's brilliance lies in its mystery-- you can't really tell what's going on, but you're given just enough to put theories together. So what does Kelly do? He creates a director's cut that explains more, and ruins the pace and the mystery that made the film magical in the first place.

This prologue explains the main problem I have with Southland Tales. It's ambitious, inspired, and genuinely funny. The film quotes T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Philip K. Dick, but its main influence lies in metafiction, namely Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. References pile on top of each other, authors are misquoted, characters break into song and dance, the world is familiar and alien at the same time. But the difficulty with metafiction is that the audience is going to get lost, they're not going to catch all the references, and they're going to be confused and frustrated. This is unavoidable. An audience is only willing to go as far as it trusts that the author knows what's going on and is going to be able to pull it all together. Richard Kelly hasn't earned that trust from me, and he doesn't change that in this film.

So does Richard Kelly know what he's making when he makes a film? Are the parts that I love about Southland Tales merely accidents? Was Donnie Darko's success more a result of limited time and budget, and less the result of a confident new voice in cinema? Unfortunately, that's my suspicion.

That being said, there are a lot of things to like about Southland Tales. I think the decision to use actors with a lot of baggage is an inspired one, and I love The Rock as an anti-action hero. The addition of former SNL cast members makes the world feel a little off, a little alien. I admire the way the film refuses to explain too much. In a way it feels like Buckaroo Banzai-- like the second film in a trilogy where the first and the third were never made. It reminds me a lot of David Lynch, Ridley Scott, and Terry Gilliam. And it successfully creates a kind of Pynchonian world where Karl Marx or the Marx Brothers could be around the next corner.

This makes it even more disappointing when Kelly fails to bring it all together in a satisfying way. What passes for satire seems really facile, and every time the film tries to make a political point it falls flat. The ending disintegrates into an underwhelming mess of Christ figures. I think the biggest misstep is the lack of a theme tying it all together. Gravity's Rainbow has cold war paranoia, Infinite Jest has addiction, Southland Tales has no discernible theme and that's why it doesn't work as metafiction.

Still it's fun to watch, and I've spent two weeks unpacking it in my head after one viewing. That's more than most films give me, even it if may not be on purpose.

#7 - Bringing Up Baby

2008-03-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

If you think classic hollywood comedies are simple, you need to see Bringing Up Baby. The first time you see it you won't notice how complicated the whole thing is because it moves so fast. Jokes, pratfalls, and visual gags hit and combine and overlap and never let up, so much so that you're likely to miss a few because you laugh over them. This is the signature style of the comedies of director Howard Hawks. The secret ingredient that sets Bringing Up Baby apart from Hawks' other comedies is the combination of two of the most charismatic actors of all time, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Not only do they have chemistry and comedic timing to spare, they also sell every line, every fall and every joke. Their charisma brings likeability to two characters that could have been very tiresome otherwise.

Any kind of plot synopsis would give everything away and sound crazy anyway, so suffice it to say that there is a leopard named Baby, a dog named George, a missing intercostal clavicle from a brontosaurus, a trip to Connecticut, a drunk Irish gardener, and everybody ends up in jail at the end. Got it? It won't matter if you don't. What does matter is that you see it because I am convinced there isn't a funnier movie in existence.

If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

2008-02-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

Charlie Bartlett is really, really good. I was expecting a kind of precious faux-Rushmore, but instead I got something more like Ferris Bueller. I'm sure if I was in a more critical mood I'd find a bunch of faults with it, but a lot like Lars and the Real Girl it generated such a good feeling that I didn't really want to find things that didn't work in it. It's a little Hollywood, but it makes you feel good. Go see it, and hurry because it won't be in theaters long. Seriously, I'll go with you.

#8 - Viridiana

2008-02-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

A man holds a small, ornate cross in his hand, then slowly pulls it open, revealing the pocketknife it contains. A little girl plays with a crown of thorns, but it pricks her so she throws it in a fire. Anyone who loves seeing religious imagery being subverted can find a lot to like in Viridiana. But if it was only a collection of irreverent anti-religious images it wouldn't stand a chance of making this list. Bunuel made that film earlier in his career with L'age D'or. But L'age D'or is a film that's rotten on the surface, a slideshow of funny images that subvert religious icons. Viridiana is rotten to the core, subverting not only through the images, but through the story as well.

Viridiana is the story of a woman who is just about to take her vows to become a nun. Before she joins the convent for good she is ordered to pay one last visit to her patron, her uncle. During the visit her faith is shaken and she decides to stay at the farmhouse, choosing to take care of poor and crippled beggars from the nearby village. This being a Bunuel film, her plan backfires horribly. Her idealism is destroyed, and the film ends by suggesting that she hooks up with her worldly cousin. But a plot synopsis can't convey how deranged the journey is. The uncle dresses Viridiana up in his dead wife's wedding dress, and drugs her after she refuses to marry him. The beggars she tries desperately to help take terrible advantage of her and bicker with each other constantly. The beggars enter the farmhouse when she's away and destroy it, leading to the climax where Viridiana is attacked by the very people she tried to help. Finally she is not saved by heroism, faith or strength, but by the greed of one of the attackers who turns on the other. How could anyone maintain their faith after that ordeal?

And that's the terrible, wonderful question that the film ultimately asks. How can idealism exist at all in this world? It's conveyed best in my favorite scene. Viridiana's cousin notices a dog tied to a cart. He asks the man why the dog can't ride in the cart, and the man tells him the cart is for people to ride in. So the cousin buys the dog from the man. Sweet, right? But this is Bunuel so as the cart rolls away it passes another cart travelling in a different direction. And tied to that cart is another dog. It's this mastery of summing up an idea in an image that makes me love this film, and love Bunuel.

See also: Deranged foreign masterpieces- L'age d'or, Exterminating Angel, Week/End

It's Been a Pretty Good Week for Movies

2008-01-31T17:14:00.000-08:00

This was last night.

Show and Tell

2008-01-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

I really liked National Treasure because it made anybody with an eighth grade history education and a penchant for word puzzles feel like a genius [and feel like you could land Helen of Troy]. National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets takes it one step further, giving every piece of information three times so nobody gets lost. Don't believe me? Take our initial look at the J Edgar Hoover Building. We're shown the building, expertly framed so that the sign that says "J. Edgar Hoover Building" takes up the left side of the screen. Then, at the bottom, for the six people in the theater who didn't notice, a caption pops up reading [you guessed it] "J. Edgar Hoover Building". Cut to the inside, where Harvey Keitel and everyone else in the building wears clothing with FBI in huge letters! It's like the motto for this one was No Movie-Goer Left Behind. Did lots of people have trouble following the first one? I don't understand. The number of times everyone described what we were being shown was really distracting.

The good news is that if you have a blind friend that really wants to go to the movies, you can take them to National Treasure 2 and they'll follow it just fine.

Also I'm still looking for an archivist that looks like Diane Kruger.

#9 - Once Upon a Time in the West

2008-01-10T03:11:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time an Italian made the greatest western of all time. The thing that Once Upon a Time in the West understands better than any other western is that there's no need for realism in the genre. Instead it takes all the elements of the western and blends them all together into the ultimate combination. You get all the familiar archetypes: the loner seeking revenge, the crazy bandit with a heart of gold, the dangerous villain, and the woman who brings them all together. Claudia Cardinale even gets to be two western archetypes at the same time, being both a widow and a whore. [if only she could be a schoolteacher as well, she'd have everything covered!] Now put these characters in a fast-paced story where alliances change at every turn, and a double-cross is around every corner.

Next add music. Oh, the music! Ennio Morricone's music for Leone's films have become legendary for good reason. Even if you haven't seen a western you probably can hum the theme to The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Now, instead of making one great iconic theme he made four, one for each character, each one unforgettable. I think 'operatic' is used far to often to describe the relation between Leone's films and Morricone's music. In this film I think the most accurate comparison is to dance, in the relation between music and movement.

The other element that makes this western seem larger than anything you've seen before is the cinematography. Like Leone's other westerns extreme close-ups dominate. It makes these characters who are already larger than life seem like giants. The combination between these close-ups and the music are almost too much, like the film is bursting at the seams. But the thing Once Upon a Time in the West has that the earlier films do not is scale. The first time you hear Jill's theme the camera follows her into the train station and moves up over the roof and as the music swells you see this large bustling western town. It's one of my favorite moments in all of cinema, the perfect blend of image, movement, and music. Once Upon a Time in the West is full of moments like these, and that's why it made the list.

See also: My other fave westerns- The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, Fistful of Dollars, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Searchers, Rio Bravo, Deadwood, The Wild Bunch

#10 - Vernon, Florida

2008-01-05T01:19:00.000-08:00

I'm going to be going backwards through my top ten of all time, rewatching the films and giving a bit of detail about why I chose them. If you want to know what I've been watching lately I've added a movie diary list on the right hand side of the page. I hope to update it with all the films I see this year, but we'll see how well I stick to it.

I've set myself a hell of a task in describing Vernon, Florida, let alone explaining how a 55 minute collection of strange people in a small town talking into the camera is my favorite documentary of all time. Errol Morris wanted to make a documentary about Vernon because he got wind that people there were intentionally disfiguring themselves to collect insurance money. Unfortunately when he arrived he soon figured out that people aren't really comfortable recounting the details of how they defrauded insurance companies on film. Undeterred, he began to interview the locals and collected a group of strange interviews. The result is to me far more interesting than a documentary about insurance fraud. A turkey hunter tells us about his experiences on the hunt. A policeman tells the tale of how he was shot at one night. Three old men argue about the best way to shoot yourself with a shotgun. A couple shows off a mysterious jar of sand that they claim is expanding at an alarming rate. Faulkner couldn't make this stuff up.

Errol Morris is one of our most respected and acclaimed documentary filmmakers, and he is indisputably a master of the form. But an issue I have with him is the amount of control he imposes on his latest films. He always seems to find amazing stories, but he is obsessed currently with putting a subject in a room with his two-camera system [the interrotron] and having that person look you in the eye and tell you his/her story. And his most recent films are certainly powerful and entertaining, but I prefer the spontaneity of Vernon, Florida and his first film, Gates of Heaven. In Vernon we get to see these people in the context of the place where they live. There's a bit of the genius of Walker Evans' photography in this film. Evans realized that people will give you a great deal of information about themselves if you allow them to pose for a picture, and there's an element of that in the way we see these people 'performing' for the camera in the film.

There are also some lovely little contrasts in the film. My favorite consists of a pair of scenes where a man who is seemingly building his own church by hand tells a story of how God answers his prayers for very practical things, contrasted by the next scene where a pastor of a huge church gives a sermon about the amount of times Paul uses the word therefore in the book of Romans. It also has some absolutely gorgeous camerawork, capturing the strange beauty of a tiny town. The whole film seems like a beautiful, miraculous accident.

See also: My other favorite documentaries-- Anything else by Morris, The Sorrow and the Pity, The Last Waltz, Salesman, Gimme Shelter, Burden of Dreams, The Five Obstructions, Grizzly Man, Don't Look Back, and No Direction Home.

Because I promised

2008-01-01T12:22:00.000-08:00

1) Chungking Express
2) Magnolia
3) Chinatown
4) Solaris (1972)
5) Annie Hall
6) Seven Samurai
7) Bringing Up Baby
8) Viridiana
9) Once Upon a Time in the West
10) Vernon, Florida

Top 10 of 2007

2007-12-31T20:37:00.000-08:00

Wow, this was a lot more difficult than I expected. I flirted with the idea of doing a top 20 this year simply because there were so many very good films to choose from. The only real easy choices in the whole list are the top 2. Everything else has moved a lot in the last couple of days and would probably move again if I redid the list tomorrow. The two huge surprises this year are 1) everything's in english and 2) no documentaries made the list. That's genunely shocking, but rest assured it will be made up in the next post. Before we get started here are a few honorable mentions.

Films that I suspect would make the list had I actually seen them: I'm Not There, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Film that nobody liked that I probably will even though by all accounts it's awful but then again I didn't see it so who knows: Southland Tales

Films that I would have sworn 10 minutes after watching them that they would make the list but would probably make it in a different year and may increase in my estimation upon a second viewing: Darjeeling Limited, Control, Eastern Promises

OK here goes.

10) Bug – It was mismarketed as a horror film on it's release, but it is genuinely the scariest film of the year. It's a horror movie in the same way as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. If being in love is choosing to give up a part of yourself in order to see the world through someone else's eyes, what happens when the person you choose slowly goes off the rails? Michael Shannon is one of the creepiest actors I've ever seen, and it's amazing how much he dives into this strange character.

9) The Lookout – There's a lot going on in every Joseph Gordon-Levitt performance, and he helps elevate what could have been just another thriller into something a bit more substantial. It's well-crafted and hums along, but it makes the list for the performance. You can't take your eyes off of him.

8) The Bourne Ultimatum – I'm not one of those people who wants to turn this franchise into the new James Bond. I'll take three great films over 20 watered-down ones any day. I love the ways this film wraps up the series by reflecting shots from the first film. Oh and it's by far the best action film of the year, and would be just about any year. And he kicks a guys ass with a book.

7) Michael Clayton – An action movie with absolutely no action at all. It takes its cue from the great paranoid thrillers of the 1970s like Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View. Great performances by George Clooney, Tilda Swindon, and expecially Tom Wilkinson.

6) Juno – Orange Tic-Tacs, hamburger phones, and Mott the Hoople. “It's not like it was his idea.” Too bad the trailer gave away all the good Jason Bateman bits.

5) Once – I love the music and adore the ambiguous final shot. A “musical” where the music doesn't seem forced. Oh and they made it for like $75

4) Zodiac – The brilliant film this year that nobody seems to be talking about. it's probably because it came out so early in the year. The use of CGI to “build” 1970s San Francisco is seamless and adds a lot to my enjoyment of the film. To some degree it's the anti-Seven, focusing on procedures and frustrating loose ends instead of dead bodies.

3) Sweeney Todd – Blood, songs and pies. I really want to see this again.

2) No Country for Old Men – Every other film on the list moved around, but this was a solid number one until early on the 30th. In No Country the Coens finally toned down their ironic sense of humor and just told a great story. I've said it before, but the ending is perfect and finishes an unsettling film on a hopeful note.

1) There Will Be Blood – The single most anticipated film of the year for me delivered far beyond what I was expecting. It is difficult not to just write SEEITSEEITSEEITSEEITSEEIT! It's incredible the way Anderson tossed aside his usual bag of tricks [matching film to pop songs, show-offy camera movements] and created something totally new for him. He's my favorite American director, but I didn't believe he had this film in him. On one hand I don't want to overhype it, but on the other I don't thnk it's possible. I saw it at midnight, got out of the theater at 2:45, and instantly thought “How soon can I see it again?” There is no debate, Daniel Day-Lewis gives the performance of the year. His voice, his walk, the way his face scrunches up whenever God is mentioned, all perfect. The last scene builds and builds and gets crazier and crazier beyond anything you could have been anticipating, but I went with it. I am seriously wondering whether this or Magnolia is PTA's masterpiece.

I am finished

Happy New Year

Blood is Compulsory

2007-12-23T23:01:00.000-08:00

They're hardly divisible, sir—well, I can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can't do you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory—they're all blood, you see.

Yes, the Ballad of Sweeney Todd is missing, and Helena Bonham Carter isn't really a great singer, and occasionally the Lady Snowblood style afterial sprays are a bit much.

I'm here to tell you that it doesn't really matter. This is likely the best film version of Sweeney Todd we could have hoped for. It's incredibly intact: the excess, the striking pessimism, the comedy, it's all there.

I love films that openly laugh at our hopes for a happy ending for anyone. The way it mocks Ms. Lovett's delusional dreams of the sea, and the way the young lovers are given the most annoying songs add another layer of depth to the story. It's almost as if the film portrays Sweeney as the sanest character of all, a revenge machine who knows with absolute certainty what lies in wait for him after he achieves his goal.

This is not to say it's another Donny Downer movie. It's incredibly entertaining and funny. Ms. Lovett's song about the sea is maybe the biggest single laugh I've had at the movies all year [including Superbad, I know!] And Sacha Baron Cohen's Pirelli the barber is hilarious.

And then there's the red stuff. The blood. Geysers of it spray out of necks at an alarming rate. But I think it's the best example of Burton's craft coming to the forefront. His greatest skill as a director and a visualist is his knack for combining horror and comedy. I can think of no better example of this brilliant synthesis than the way he deals with the killings in the film. The first death is brutal. a savage beating, a blood soaked floor, and a sliced throat long after we think the job is done. But after that the film slides into a comic montage where the blood sprays ridiculously and the bodies crash down the chute with a comical crunch. Everyone relaxes and smiles. We can't help it. But we're being set up for the big finish. The deaths before the climactic scene with the judge are so quick they are almost an afterthought. But then the brutality returns with a vengeance [see what I did there?] and the film ends on a sudden, unsettling note that is very powerful.

Oh, and kudos to the first person who figures out the opening quote without googling.

Also Merry Christmas everybody.

Best film discoveries of 2007

2007-12-23T01:38:00.001-08:00

Ok I promised to write about a couple of films I saw for the first time this year that barely missed being included in my top ten of all time. Both films had barely been seen in America before being released this year by Criterion. I'm talking about The Spirit of the Beehive and Army of Shadows.

The Spirit of the Beehive is almost impossible to describe. The best way to describe it is the only film I've ever seen that captures what it is like to be a small chid with a strong imagination. It's about two sisters living in a small village during the Spanish Civil War. One day the movie Frankenstein is screened for the town. The film has a strong, unsettling effect on the youngest sister who believes the monster is real. She discovers a wounded soldier and cares for him in secret, and is eventually faced with the realization of death. But this is not really a film where plot takes center stage. It's hazy and dreamlike and lingers in small moments between the two children. It sets up a world where the characters are trapped in their insular home [the hexagonal amber windows reveal the home to be the titular beehive] until the young girl Ana breaks free and experiences the conflict that surrounds her country. The most apt comparison for this film would be Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone with young, imaginative children using the fantasy worlds they create to shield themseves from the wars surrounding them. But those films seem loud and show-offy in comparison to this small film that manages to make more out of less. It also seems like the kind of film that gets better each time you see it.

It's no real surprise that Army of Shadows made a number of critics' ten best lists upon its theatrical release last year. The film is undoubtedly a masterpiece. It may even be Melville's best. [though I probably prefer Le Samourai] The single word review would probably be tension. The single word that is not really a word review would probably be holyshitomgsomuchtension! It's based on a book about the French resisitance during World War 2, and shaped in part by Melville's own experiences working with various resistance groups. It mostly follows Phillipe Gerbier, a resistance chief and his 'adventures'. I put adventures in quotes because the film isn't really about fighting or heroism, but about the very difficult choices these people had to make when fighting the Nazis. Not to say it's boring in the slightest, but that all the action is based in reality and carries with it consequences that affect the characters in different ways. It's an amazing film that will probably only grow in stature as more people discover it.

That brings me to the main point I want to get to. What would have happened had these films not been largely unseen in America for 30+ years? And what other masterpieces from around the world have been undiscovered? How much would what we see as our film 'canon' change if more films like these were available? I'm not sure I know the answers to these questions, but I'd like to discover two films in the next year that are as good or better than these.

It's bigger than a baby's arm

2007-12-22T22:34:00.001-08:00

...but not much bigger. Ladies and gentlemen, I bought myself a Christmas present today.

Coming Attractions

2007-12-21T23:55:00.000-08:00

It was just announced at There Will Be Blood's website that there will be a preview screening in Seattle on December 29th at midnight. What a perfect birthday present! I've already bought two tickets and you should too. I was worried about making my top-ten list without TWBB on it in order to make my Jan 1 deadline. Now I don't have to worry.

I don't have a ton to say about Atonement. It was perfectly watchable and very, very pretty-- just like Wright's version of Pride and Prejudice. There's just isn't anything sublime about it, and the parts that are supposed to be the major show-offy setpieces fall on their face [I'm thinking in particular about a loooooong tracking shot in the Dunkirk section that seems to have no meaning at all. War is chaotic and ridiculous? Well no shit.] I tend to think comparing books to the films adapted from them is pretty tiresome, but I can't put my finger on why the ending of the film is so flat when McEwan's ending is the cornerstone of the whole book. I think it has something to do with the book ending on a questioning note, where the film wraps everything up in a nice shiny [if a bit melancholy] bow.

Ok, that's it for tonight. Buy your tickets kids. Paul Thomas Anderson is always worth it.

Tomorrow: Two films that I discovered this year that just missed the all-time top ten.

Oh, and Sweeney Todd.

Top tens

2007-12-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

I've been spending an inordinate amount of time lately browsing through top ten lists. I haven't really made a "Favorite movies of all time" list in at least five years. It's a fun exercise in a lot of ways, and it forces you to make choices. Do I try to make picks from the broad range of the history of cinema, or do I just pick the ten that have affected me the most? Can I really have 2 Wong Kar-Wai films in my top 10? How do you make a list like that with no Hitchcock... or Wilder... or Welles or Sturges or Von Trier? It's infuriating. So that's the task I've set out for myself this month, to wrap up the year with a top ten for 2007 and a top ten films of all time post. I wish I still had the old top ten to compare it with, but it was lost when I closed the video store. I'd be willing to bet that only 5 of the films from that list will be on the new one. We'll see.

Until then Senses of Cinema has a page where a bunch of different people have submitted their top tens. I've spent a lot of time there. And here's a link to Sight and Sound's ten best of 2007 lists.

Catching up

2007-12-08T20:52:00.000-08:00

Did you all miss me?

Gone Baby Gone has to be one of the best surprises I've had at the movies this year. I giggled-- I don't think anybody can help but to giggle at the Directed by Ben Affleck credit, but he really delivers in his first film. It drips with atmosphere and authenticity-- Affleck obviously knows Boston and wants to put a part of the city on screen that we haven't seen before. But this would be all for nothing if it wasn't for the story. About an hour in I was convinced the film was over and terribly disappointed. Then the story kept going and the second half of the film made me rethink everything I was feeling in the first half. Every time I felt like I had a grip on what was going to happen next, the story took another turn. It finally ended on an unexpected note that left me grasping for answers to the questions the film posed. The cast is great, especially Casey Affleck, who's having a hell of a year. Michelle Monaghan is really the only weak spot, but I think that's because she isn't given a whole lot to do. With Michael Clayton, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and now Gone Baby Gone 2007 is turning out to be an incredible year if you like mature thrillers.

It's difficult to talk about Margot at the Wedding after Gone Baby Gone, not because Margot is bad [SPOILER: it isn't] but because something feels missing from it. Margot is very funny in it's own absurd way, but it falls flat on its face when it reaches for drama. I didn't really feel it when anyone cried in the film, and they cry a lot. I felt at times like it was pointless to wallow in the lives of these dysfunctional people. I think the comedy bits make the film worth seeing, and Jack Black makes up for a lot, but it won't stick with you.

Current Obsessions

2007-11-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

-Manchester Orchestra - Wolves at Night, Vampire Weekend - Mansard Roof
-Battlestar Galactica: Razor [you mean I have to wait until April for new episodes?]
-Vernors Ginger Ale + vanilla ice cream
-Douglas Coupland's youtube videos promoting his new book [that I haven't read]
-sandwiches
-Rock Band + beer = Don doing his best Keith Moon impression
-Coveting an Eee Pc
-Cherry Coke Zero

What are y'all into that I should be checking out? [plz don't say Dragonforce]

Let's hear it for old people!

2007-11-27T00:44:00.000-08:00

Sidney Lumet is 83 years old. The last film he made that I love without reservations was made in 1975.* How the hell is Before the Devil Knows You're Dead watchable, let alone one of my favorite films of the year? BTDKYD is a classic heist-gone-wrong film where two brothers plan to rob their parents' jewelry store in order to solve their financial problems. The robbery takes place near the beginning of the film and we flash back to the motivations and decisions behind the 4 main characters' actions. All of this is pretty common for heist films, what is uncommon is how deep we get into these characters. In this film the characters are the story, rather than pawns for the plot. This heightens the stakes when we see things inevitably spiral out of control.

Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke, and Marissa Tomei [mostly topless for the first 1/3 of the film] are all fantastic, but this is definitely the Phillip Seymour Hoffman show. He looks almost amphibian, like a red-faced frog manipulating the events closing in on him. It's an amazing performance in that we can still relate to him and the decisions he makes, even though his character is so offensive. Also Michael Shannon [who was so fantastic in Bug] threatens to steal the movie in two short scenes. He manages to exude the calmness and control that truly dangerous people possess. The only real fault I have with the film is the jarring way the flashbacks are introduced, cutting back and forth between still frames, but it does get your attention. It's also a relentlessly bleak film, but I don't really have a problem with that. Now I have to track down some of Lumet's recent work to see if it matches the quality of this film.

*Many people would choose Network over Dog Day Afternoon, but I have problems with it. Also I haven't seen The Verdict yet

Then I woke up

2007-11-27T00:05:00.000-08:00

I just got back from watching No Country again. It was one of those times where I decide to go to the Grand 4 minutes before the film starts. Here's a bunch of stuff I loved, and some stuff I picked up on the second time around.

-Tommy Lee Jones' lines are incredible. "Age flattens a man," is probably my favorite.
-I love the way Moss carries his rifle at his hip like a soldier. It's a nice visual cue that tells us he's a veteran.
-"His name's Chigurh." "Sugar?"
-The scene with the mariachi band is hilarious. Just a classic Coen Brothers moment.
-The scene in the gas station is probably still my favorite in the film. It's just so menacing. It starts out just weird and a little funny, then he puts that crumpled up wrapper on the counter and the tension just ratchets up.
-"These fellas look like managerial types"
-When Moss returns the second time his feet are bleeding, he's holding an uzi and dressed in a bloody wife-beater and jeans. Did anyone else think of Die Hard? I mean, it's too similar to be unintentional, right?
-"Are you going to shoot me?" "It depends. Can you see me?"

I'm still floored by the way the ending plays with our expectations. It shifts the focus of the entire film onto a character that seems pretty minor up to that point. It was nice to watch without having to deal with the ways the story is intentionally [I think] confusing. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why Moss returns to the scene of the crime. I'm not 100% sure he knows what he's going to do when he gets there.

This was probably my second most anticipated film of the winter [behind only There Will Be Blood, holy crap that looks good] and it's nice to not be disappointed even after a second viewing.

Backlog #2 Existenz

2007-11-22T01:37:00.000-08:00

Hmm. How to review Existenz?

Don't watch Existenz because it sucks. The End.

I could spend a half hour writing about the symbolism and sexuality in this boring as shit movie, but I'm going to write about Blade Runner instead. I saw it again last week and realized that I hadn't written anything about why I liked the film, just how much I liked the experience. I've always thought the whole discussion of whether or not Deckard is a replicant is one of the least interesting discussions one could have after seeing it. I prefer to think of Deckard as human, because then the film boils down to being about a man who learns how to be a person through his interaction with robots. I love how fragile he is, how vulnerable, how in every interaction with the replicants he is close to death. I think that's the main point of the film, that everyone is close to death. Whether it's 4 years or 100 everyone has a finite lifespan. And choosing how to spend the time we have is what makes us who we are.

What else do I like? I love lots of tiny throwaway visuals:
-The way the camera speeds up when Deckard pulls his gun on Leon and Leon slaps it away
-The scene where Deckard sips from a shotglass and blood runs into the glass [much harder to spot on DVD]
-The way Edward James Olmos hits Deckard with his cane to get his attention

Hopefully my next backlog DVD will be better.

Yeah, I'm that guy

2007-11-22T01:03:00.000-08:00

...that actually likes the way No Country for Old Men ends. I can see the problems people are having with it, and it's kind of fun to imagine the ways the film could have ended that would be more satisfying to a mass audience. [I'll get to those once more people have seen it] But I can't imagine a traditional ending that doesn't make the film indistinguishable from your garden-variety thriller. This film deserves more than that. The way it ends ties up the theme of the whole movie beautifully. It's a film about the inevitability of death, always heading for us, unstoppable. But the last scene gives us a vision of hope that even in death we will not be alone. I feel I'm explaining this in a retarded manner, but it's because I don't want to give anything away. See it and maybe you'll understand.

The cinematography is beautiful, and I think the film as a whole does a great job of translating the uniqueness of Cormac McCarthy's writing to the screen. It's also more violent and less funny than I expected, but I think it was because I was expecting more Coen Brothers and less McCarthy. I think a huge sticking point for a lot of people is going to be those last 15 minutes or so. I would guess just from listening to people leaving that 80% of the crowd tonight hated the ending. That's going to be tough to overcome. I just know I'd like to see it again.

Backlog #1: Modern Romance

2007-11-16T00:49:00.001-08:00

Maybe my goal to get through my backlog before the new year was a little ambitious. I don't think I'm going to make it. I also got off to a horrible start. Modern Romance is an early Albert Brooks film, and I should have known better than to buy it without seeing it. See I always like about 35% of an Albert Brooks film. This one's basically about a guy who keeps breaking up and getting back together with the same woman. There are a couple of funny scenes, especially his 'date' with another woman the involves him driving 5 blocks, then turning around and driving her home. The bad news is that his character is generally unlikable. The really bad news is that the unlikable character dominates the movie. The really, really bad news is that the unlikable character that dominates the movie doesn't really do much that could be considered funny. The good news is that my family's video store gets a shiny, barely watched DVD for their shelves as soon as possible.

See it with an actual girl please

2007-11-16T00:24:00.000-08:00

What's happened to me? I'm used to finding the weak spots in films like Lars and the Real Girl and harping on them repeatedly. So why can't I this time? Am I getting soft in my old age?

OK the portrayal of mental illness in L&tRG is simplistic... and easy... like Robin Williams hugs Matt Damon and everything's ok easy. And the way the town rallys around Lars and his problem is more like the way we think a small town should be than how they actually are. So why am I so willing to give it a pass?

It's easy, and obvious, but it doesn't take shortcuts. It doesn't wink at you, or make fun of Lars, or any of a dozen other missteps it could have taken. I wasn't taken out of the film at any point by a scene that didn't make sense, or a performance that seemed over the top [two common mistakes in most romantic comedies]. And the whole thing is damned cute, funny, and above all enjoyable.

I obviously watch a lot of movies and I am at a point where I know what kinds of films I like. A good percentage of the films I like are beautiful and profound, but not enjoyable. And I'm fine with that. But I also get afraid. Afraid that I've grown so hard to please that I've lost the ability to watch a movie like I did when I was 15. To be entertained on a simple level. A film like L&tRG hits that part of me dead on, and it's a feeling that I miss.

"Too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?"

2007-11-09T00:25:00.000-08:00

I had a funny thought while watching Blade Runner last night at the Cinerama.

"I've never seen this movie before."

Now that's silly. I've seen Blade Runner at least half a dozen times. I even sat through an old VHS of the original version with a friend who swore that the voice-over enhanced the story [it doesn't]. But as silly as the thought might have been, it was also true in a way. I'd never seen Blade Runner like this. I'm not talking about sweeping changes in the story. This version is being marketed as "The Final Cut" but it's still largely the same. In fact I was surprised how few changes I could actually spot. The newness I was feeling was a result of the venue. I had never seen Blade Runner so big and so loud. Home theater systems are getting more and more advanced, but I'm convinced that nothing at home could recreate this experience. It's funny and a little sad that so few people have seen it this way. More than any other film I've seen this year [even Transformers] Blade Runner, a 25 year old movie, is the one that demands to be seen on the big screen.

I could probably write a great deal on Ridley Scott's skill at providing his audiences director's cuts that actually improve the films [see Kingdom of Heaven for the best example] but I still have American Gangster to see and the DCs of Legend and Gladiator in my backlog pile so I will save that for another day.

Feel it closing in

2007-11-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

To be entirely truthful Control could have been 2 hours of a black screen and Joy Division songs and I would have felt good about it. You see, Joy Division's music kills me. I think most people who say they like Joy Division say it the same way people say they like the Velvet Underground. They like how influential the music was on other bands who they like better. This is not the way I feel about them. The songs hypnotize me and make me want to go to sleep, while at the same time making me want to dance and fuck and scream. It makes me want to live and die at the same time.

Which leads me back to the film which is largely about Ian Curtis' contradiction-filled life. He's supremely confident that success is on its way, yet afraid of that same success. The stage for him is the place where he is most himself, yet at the same time it's the last place he wants to be. He feels his marriage is a mistake, but finds himself unable to leave it. He wants to live and die at the same time.

Oh and it's beautiful. And unexpectedly bright considering the darkness of it's subject. It's also terribly funny in places, especially anything featuring the band's manager. The music is fantastic of course, and it is woven into the storyline in unexpected ways. I love the way She's Lost Control starts out in the studio and transitions into a live show seamlessly, and the way Isolation focuses on Curtis in the studio, dampening the background and focusing on the vocal.

I saw Control at the Harvard Exit, a theater I hadn't been to in 5 years. It's still gorgeous, and I love the foreign movie posters on the walls. I need to go there more often. Hopefully the next film I see there will be just as good.

Too many new things!

2007-11-08T01:11:00.000-08:00

New apartment, new bed, new library card! I'm drowning in newness. Things are starting to come back to normal so I feel like I will resume a semi-regular blogging schedule soon. [lucky you!] I spent the last couple of nights in Seattle seeing films I really enjoyed in beautiful theaters. I feel like a very lucky guy. First I saw Control at the Harvard Exit. Then tonight I saw Blade Runner at the Cinerama. Both nights the film and the venue matched each other perfectly. I'll be posting my thoughts on each very soon. Also, I've vowed to get through my backlog of never-watched DVDs before the new year. There's about 40 of them in a box in the other room. I've had a few of these discs for more than 2 years. It's a little ridiculous. Anyway I plan on posting a little bit on each one.

Colorado at Boston-- 8:00 EST

2007-10-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again."

Sometimes I worry about baseball. I know that's a funny thing to say. I don't worry about the people making millions off the sport, or steroid use, or many of the other troublesome things surrounding the sport.

I worry about the children.

Namely the children on the east coast, home to the most famous and successful teams. I worry that a 6 year old Red Sox fan can't watch his heroes in the World Series tonight because the game starts too late. Or worse, that he has to go to bed in the 7th inning of a tie game and misses a 14 inning nailbiter that ends when his favorite player hits a home run. Those are the kind of games that can turn a casual baseball fan into a lifelong baseball fanatic.

Baseball is sacrificing a generation of baseball fans for ratings. Starting a World Series game at 8 eastern makes sense for a tv network. You get prime time on the east coast and catch people coming home from work in the west. But it doesn't make sense for a sport desperately trying to gain more fans. I'm not saying this is going to be the death of baseball, but I can see it becoming more of a niche sport.

So what's the answer? Saturday and Sunday. Move the weekend games to 5 or 6 eastern so everyone can watch. Kids at school will talk about the games on Monday. They'll wear hats and jerseys to class. And people will still watch at the earlier time because it's the fucking world series.

Don't believe me? I became a diehard baseball fan in 1992. I'd always liked the sport, but never really had a favorite team. That changed during the 1992 NLCS. See I irrationally liked the Atlanta Braves and hated the Pittsburgh Pirates. And during the series the Braves jumped out to a 3-1 lead but the Pirates came back to tie the series with two straight wins. So for the second year in a row the two teams would play in a game 7 to decide who got to go to the World Series. The Pirates led 2-0 in the bottom of the ninth when the Braves mounted a comeback, scoring on a double, an error and a sacrifice fly. But Brian Hunter popped out to short, making the second out. It was up to Francisco Cabrera, the last guy on the bench, some dude I've never heard of. Of course he singles to left, scoring Dave Justice from third and Sid Bream from second. I jumped up and down and shouted and scared my mother who thought I'd cut a finger off or something.

I was a baseball fan.

The time that game 7 started-- 8:30 PM. Is it plausible that another 13 year old in Michigan who kinda liked the Braves watched the first 6 innings before his well meaning mother put him to bed? Is it possible that that kid never really became a baseball fan because he missed that game? I think so. Tonight that 28 year old is probably going to watch CSI: Cleveland instead of the World Series. That makes me sad.

Who wants to go see obscure japanese cinema?

2007-10-18T00:55:00.000-07:00

I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure on which the reality of daily Japanese life obstinately supports itself.

-Shohei Imamura

Shohei Imamura Retrospective @ Northwest Film Forum

In a perfect world I'd go see A Man Vanishes, Black Rain, and The Eel. But my job probably will require me to work Friday and Saturday nights. Is anybody up to seeing Pigs and Battleships and/or Why Not? I promise you they won't be like anything else you've ever seen.

Elizabeth and the Boring Pirate

2007-10-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

OK guys, I promise this isn't going to turn into the blog where your friend Don bitches about movies all the time.

BUT.....

I watch a lot of movies. Less now than I used to, but I watch a lot. And the strange thing is that I have a really good memory about plots, lines, actors and actresses, etc. I can usually tell you if I liked or hated a film and why even years down the road. I saw Elizabeth in 1999 with my friend Michelle at the Lakewood 15. It was a late afternoon show. There was a scene with naked people in it. In the end Cate Blanchett was in white makeup and looked like a statue. It had that Joseph Fiennes guy I hate in it. That's all I remember. I don't know if I liked it. I don't remember the plot. I couldn't pick out any of the other actors and actresses in it. [even though looking at IMDB the cast is stacked with lesser known actors I love: Geoffrey Rush, Vincent Cassell, Christopher Eccleston, Emily Mortimer] It's just a complete blank.

I was thinking about this this evening before seeing Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Why was I here? Why was I strangely excited to see the sequel to a movie I'd completely forgotten?

Well, because I'm an idiot.

I don't hate E:TGA. I just don't care about it. It's pretty and empty. Cate Blanchett is amazing. I don't know when she took the crown from Julianne Moore as "Most compelling actress alive" [Hannibal, maybe?] but it takes a lot to make me not care about a movie she's front-and-center in. Clive Owen plays Sir Walter Raleigh, who apparently was the most boring pirate in history. I think Clive's probably at his best when he's playing distant, disaffected characters [see Children of Men or Croupier], but an adventurer like Raleigh couldn't have been this boring.

Some stuff happens. People ride horses, talk in hallways, dance, write letters, unlace bodices. Spain wants to take England over or something. A couple people are killed. Mary, Queen of the Scots of Scotland is executed. Raleigh knocks up some chick. Some ships start on fire. I yawn.

A friend of mine called about 2/3 of the way through the film. Normally I'd just wait until the end of the movie, but she was having a bad day so I got up to make sure she wasn't on a rooftop or something. But as I was talking I realized I didn't want to go back in. That's not the sign of me hating a film. Hating a movie is compelling to me because I try to decide where it went wrong, what bad decisions happened, or how I'd make it different. Instead of feeling that, I felt nothing. Which to me is the sign of a total failure.

"I feel like he could have been deader"

2007-10-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

So, I just got back from Into the Wild.

It's stupid.

Now I've never met Christopher McCandless, and fully acknowledge that this film could be a total misrepresentation of his life, but as it stands it's the chronicle of a horribly misguided existence. Let's see, young Chris graduates from college, gives his savings away, and heads off into the great unknown because [stop the presses] mommy and daddy didn't get along. So instead of facing his problems like the rest of us have to do, he sheds off all human relationships and runs away to Alaska. Not only that, he's annoying-- full of that stoned 2AM philosophy that only makes sense if you're stoned and it's 2AM. And he reads Tolstoy. Anyone who claims to love Tolstoy and says that the best way to live is to shed all human relationships does not understand what he is reading.

And the music. Every time I felt like I could maybe be having an emotional response to the story EDDIE VEDDER STARTS SOME HORRIBLE CHANTING AT A LOUD VOLUME THAT MAKES ME WANT TO BLOW MY BRAINS OUT.

Sorry.

The main problem for me is that he doesn't seem to love anyone. He abandons his sister and everyone he meets along the road. He has an effect on their lives, but they don't seem to have any effect on him. How am I supposed to care about someone who is so untouched by the people around him and the experiences he has? I mean say what you want about how idiotic Timothy Treadwell was, at least he loved something. Even if that something had him for dinner.

When we were standing in line we saw the people from the previous show exit the theater and some of them were crying. I doubt they were crying because this poor boy wasted his life. They probably wished they could be that close to nature or shed all their possessions or some other hippie shit. Anyone who wants to emulate this asshole can go die in Alaska whenever they want.

Just don't expect me to care when I see the movie.

By the way I have a blog now.

I won't be angry all the time I promise.

It has begun!

2007-10-15T11:45:00.000-07:00