Your numbers are not legion, but your response has been appreciated. I will resume writing for you, and not just mumbling to myself. In fact I will be grateful to have an ongoing outlet for my own voice, now that I’m embarking on a project to compile and edit a book of essays by Tom Krens, director of the Guggenheim and friend of mine since freshman days at Williams forty years ago.
I’ve just posted my filmlog for April, much of which was devoted to films ranked high in the Village Voice critics’ poll of 2005. Soon I will post my response to the poll as a whole, and thereafter resume posting film by film, striving for concise completeness instead of simply recording my opinion. But I confess I’m unlikely to proceed with technical refinements to this website that I have long contemplated. Yet I hope my film commentaries offer some service, and that you will bookmark this site and return periodically.
Thank you for your attention and your responses. Further comment is welcome: ssatullo@clarkart.edu
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Filmlog for April
4-4-06: 2046. *6+* (2005, dvd, n.) Wong Kar-Wei is definitely something; I’m just not sure what. His latest is a quasi-sequel to In the Mood for Love, and my admiration remains distant. This critical darling (#2 in Village Voice critics’ poll for best of 2005) is lushly designed and shot, heavy with atmosphere, light on coherence. Tony Leung is excellent as ladies’ man pulp writer, and the ladies -- oh my! -- are the likes of Ziya Zhang and Gong Li, so the film is easy to watch if hard to make sense of. (MC-78.)
4-9-06: Gunner Palace. *6* (2005, dvd, n.) Not as coherent as Occupation: Dreamland, but nearly as essential in coming to terms with just what American troops are being asked to do in Iraq. This film follows an artillery unit bivouacked in the half-wrecked palace of one of Saddam’s sons and going out on raids and patrol in Baghdad; it’s more exclusively from the perspective of the Americans than the other doc, but still it puts you there, where we so clearly should not be. (MC-70.)
4-10-06: Head-On (Gegen die Wand.) *7* (2004, Sund/T, n.) L’amour fou among Turkish emigres in Hamburg, Germany. Just like the lead actress, Sibell Kekilli, this film from young director Fatih Akin makes you ponder whether it is just interesting-looking or profoundly beautiful. Adrift between worlds, two attempted suicides meet cute in a mental institution. She latches onto him (Birol Unel) as the Turkish husband who will placate her traditional Islamic family, and in a platonic marriage of convenience allow her to continue her pursuit of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll. Of course they fall in love, but nothing else about this film is pat or predictable. Its a sympathetic glimpse into strange but familiar lives, recommended if you’re willing to take the journey. (MC-78.)
4-11-06: Neil Young: Heart of Gold. *8* (2006, Images, n.) Shows what a concert film can be. Not just a record of a performance, but a visual narrative in its own right. Jonathan Demme already has Stop Making Sense under his belt, but this rivals Marty Scorsese and The Band’s Last Waltz for best rock film ever. I didn’t go in as a big Neil Young fan, though inevitably he is part of the soundtrack of my life, but he definitely made the sale with me, premiering his “Prairie Wind” album at the Ryman in Nashville, and then going on to reprise some of his more famous hits. Backed by his wife and Emmylou Harris, and a gang of old buddies, as well as horn and string and gospel choir sections, Neil Young gets across his straightforward but incantatory lyrics in an intimate and impassioned manner, with the camera perfectly framing his storytelling and preacherman ballads. Soul-stirring and completely satisfying. (MC-85.)
4-15-06: Paradise Now. *6* (2005, dvd, n.) While it is certainly worthwhile to get an even-handed Palestinian view from the West Bank, the mixture of elements in Hany Abu-Assad’s film do not quite cohere. There are some fascinating documentary street scenes, but more than anything this is a fairly glossy ticking-bomb thriller. Will they or won’t they? Two lifelong friends are selected for a suicide bombing mission; they are not wild-eyed religious fanatics but young men interested in women, hookah-smoking, and Arab pop music. One grew up in a refugee camp and feels the need to erase the family stain of his father’s collaboration with the Israelis. The other values the posthumous celebrity the mission may bring him, though his farewell videotape is comically bungled. But they both have plenty of room for second thoughts, and debates with a pretty young women on what options they have for responding to the continuous humiliation of occupation. Everything hangs in the balance till the very last frame, but ultimately we don’t come out understanding any more than we did going in. (MC-71.)
4-17-06: Kings and Queen. *6+* (2005, dvd, n.) I am partly won over by critical acclaim, partly by the appeal of the actors, and partly by director Arnaud Desplechin’s hommage to Truffaut in his dvd interview with Kent Jones, but watching this film was not for me the joy it is for many cinephiles. Its idiosyncracies did not speak to my own. Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric lead a large and largely convincing cast, who seem believable even amidst the gaps and twists of the story. She’s a gallery owner, but is she at the mercy of, or merciless toward, men? He’s a musician tossed into the loony bin, but is he crazy or not? Once they were married, or at least together -- one dumped the other, but which? At any rate, she now wants him to adopt her son by a previous “husband” -- who may have killed himself, or she him? -- so she can marry a sugar daddy. Does her doe-eyed demeanor betoken fragile strength or carnivorous deceit? Are we to sympathize or recoil in horror? Laugh or cry? Truffaut or Hitchcock? The only truthful answer is all of the above. (MC-84.)
4-20-06: Code 46. *6-* (2004, dvd, n.) Filling out the prolific Michael Winterbottom filmography, this sci-fi romance about genetics is not as good as Andrew Nicoll’s Gattaca, but does conjure a plausible future out of contemporary Shanghai, Dubai, and India, well-suited to his on-the-fly filmmaking. Tim Robbins is palpably uncomfortable with such a guerrilla shoot, though Samantha Morton does get with the program. There is little chemistry between them, however, in this quasi-Oedipal drama. Code 46 is a regulation prohibiting incest in a world where cloning and in vitro reproduction are common. Turns out the woman he falls for is genetically identical to his mother. There’s “eternal sunshine” memory erasure, “empathy” viruses, and other futuristic apparatus, but the central love story does not grip. (MC-57.)
Last Days. *5* (2005, dvd, n.) You have to give Gus Van Sant credit for sticking to his guns. He’s definitely a filmmaker who follows through on his conception, whether inspired (Drugstore Cowboy, To Die For) or cuckoo (shot-by-shot remake of Psycho.) This follow-up to Elephant, his dreamy evocation of Columbine, quasi-documents in long shots and long takes the last days of Kurt Cobain in a decaying lakeside mansion. If you cared about Nirvana (and personally I couldn’t identify “Smells Like Teen Spirit” if you played the whole song for me), maybe you could fill in the state of mind of the protagonist as he drifts through slow and pointless scenes, albeit with a certain drugged loveliness to the cinematography and Michael Pitt’s performance. I note that Manohla Dargis of the NYTimes called this film “indisputably great” and it ranked #10 in Village Voice critics’ poll for 2005 -- but me, I hit the fast forward button to keep from falling asleep. (MC-67.)
4-23-06: Tropical Malady. *NR* (2004, dvd, n.) Here’s another film that defines my taste as not very highbrow, upper middlebrow at best. Thai filmmaker Apitchatpong Weerasethakul (who wisely goes by the name of Joe) takes us on a meandering path through fields, forests, and city streets, whose strangeness and beauty keep us watching through the slow and enigmatic twists of the tale. At first it seems like a rather sweet gay romance between a soldier and a country boy, who engage our interest; we want to see how their love goes. But then the film breaks, and the two actors reappear, the soldier the same but on patrol alone at night in the forest, and the boy become the wandering naked spirit of a tiger. The soldier stalks, sights, and finally confronts the tiger/boy. This may be a film that needs the immersive effect of watching on the big screen; the night scenes in the forest seem pretty on a tv, but may be overpoweringly magical on the big screen. There is bound to be some metaphoric payoff between the two halves, but the film was paced too slow for me to keep paying attention. I’d hit FF and then not be sure what speed the film was showing at, since the framing was so static. (MC-78.)
4-26-06: Trees Lounge. *6+* (1996, Sund/T, n.) As an actor, Steve Buscemi always infuses his characters with authenticity, humor, and pathos, and here he does the same as writer and director as well, in an apparently autobiographical story of life in a working-class dead-end town on Long Island, centered on the nondescript concrete-block bar of the title. He gathers a lot of friends and familiar (or not-so, or soon-to-be) faces to people the little community he depicts, from Chloe Sevigny to Samuel L Jackson. There’s no story as such, just a series of incidents that gradually fill in a group portrait. Nothing is underlined, but a picture emerges nonetheless. If you liked the book, The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer, you would like this film -- or vice versa. Both setting and sensibility are similar.
4-28-06: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. *6+* (2004, dvd, n.) Frankly I’ve been a bit wearied by my steady diet of good-for-you critical favorites, and craved a bit of junk food. As such, this was quite a tasty combo of gross-out humor and stoner comedy, with a special sauce of multiculty flavors. Danny Leiner is crude but effective in his direction of the appealing Korean-India duo of John Cho and Kal Penn, entry level financial analyst and reluctant med school applicant respectively, hardcore tokers both. An attack of the munchies sends them on a nightlong quest through the wilds of New Jersey. Of its kind, this buddy pic is about as good as it gets. (MC-63.)
Working that same vein, I took a look at the first disk of the only season of Undeclared, Judd Apatow’s follow up to the similarly beloved-but-cancelled TV series, Freaks & Geeks. I’ll definitely watch the rest. Though it is a half-hour sitcom rather than the latter’s hourlong multi-layered dramedy, it does advance a similar group of characters (and actors) from high school to the first year of college. This is shameless TV you can enjoy without shame.
While on the subject of highly watchable TV, let me give a big thumbs up to three HBO series I am currently enjoying immensely: the current seasons of The Sopranos and Big Love, and catching up with the second season of Deadwood, in anticipation of the third coming soon. With these and Bleak House and The Best of Youth, my favorite viewing these days is long-form, novelistic series.
4-29-06: Cafe Lumiere. *6* (2004, dvd, n.) Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien offers this as a centenary tribute to Japanese director Yasijuro Ozu. There are recognizable elements of Ozu in this story of a young woman (played in low-key naturalistic style by Japanese pop idol Yo Hitoto) separating from her parents; maintaining distance from her closest friend, a bookseller with a passion for trains and a knowledge of Maurice Sendak; and refusing even to consider marrying the unseen boy in Taiwan who has gotten her pregnant. There are many transfixing shots of Tokyo trains, but it’s the interior shots that seem to refuse intimacy, that keep us fixed for prolonged periods at an awkward angle, unable to get close to the characters or even see their faces. There’s a slow tempo one has to adjust to in Ozu, but there’s also a directness, which is frustratingly absent in this film. It took me three tries to make it through.
4-9-06: Gunner Palace. *6* (2005, dvd, n.) Not as coherent as Occupation: Dreamland, but nearly as essential in coming to terms with just what American troops are being asked to do in Iraq. This film follows an artillery unit bivouacked in the half-wrecked palace of one of Saddam’s sons and going out on raids and patrol in Baghdad; it’s more exclusively from the perspective of the Americans than the other doc, but still it puts you there, where we so clearly should not be. (MC-70.)
4-10-06: Head-On (Gegen die Wand.) *7* (2004, Sund/T, n.) L’amour fou among Turkish emigres in Hamburg, Germany. Just like the lead actress, Sibell Kekilli, this film from young director Fatih Akin makes you ponder whether it is just interesting-looking or profoundly beautiful. Adrift between worlds, two attempted suicides meet cute in a mental institution. She latches onto him (Birol Unel) as the Turkish husband who will placate her traditional Islamic family, and in a platonic marriage of convenience allow her to continue her pursuit of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll. Of course they fall in love, but nothing else about this film is pat or predictable. Its a sympathetic glimpse into strange but familiar lives, recommended if you’re willing to take the journey. (MC-78.)
4-11-06: Neil Young: Heart of Gold. *8* (2006, Images, n.) Shows what a concert film can be. Not just a record of a performance, but a visual narrative in its own right. Jonathan Demme already has Stop Making Sense under his belt, but this rivals Marty Scorsese and The Band’s Last Waltz for best rock film ever. I didn’t go in as a big Neil Young fan, though inevitably he is part of the soundtrack of my life, but he definitely made the sale with me, premiering his “Prairie Wind” album at the Ryman in Nashville, and then going on to reprise some of his more famous hits. Backed by his wife and Emmylou Harris, and a gang of old buddies, as well as horn and string and gospel choir sections, Neil Young gets across his straightforward but incantatory lyrics in an intimate and impassioned manner, with the camera perfectly framing his storytelling and preacherman ballads. Soul-stirring and completely satisfying. (MC-85.)
4-15-06: Paradise Now. *6* (2005, dvd, n.) While it is certainly worthwhile to get an even-handed Palestinian view from the West Bank, the mixture of elements in Hany Abu-Assad’s film do not quite cohere. There are some fascinating documentary street scenes, but more than anything this is a fairly glossy ticking-bomb thriller. Will they or won’t they? Two lifelong friends are selected for a suicide bombing mission; they are not wild-eyed religious fanatics but young men interested in women, hookah-smoking, and Arab pop music. One grew up in a refugee camp and feels the need to erase the family stain of his father’s collaboration with the Israelis. The other values the posthumous celebrity the mission may bring him, though his farewell videotape is comically bungled. But they both have plenty of room for second thoughts, and debates with a pretty young women on what options they have for responding to the continuous humiliation of occupation. Everything hangs in the balance till the very last frame, but ultimately we don’t come out understanding any more than we did going in. (MC-71.)
4-17-06: Kings and Queen. *6+* (2005, dvd, n.) I am partly won over by critical acclaim, partly by the appeal of the actors, and partly by director Arnaud Desplechin’s hommage to Truffaut in his dvd interview with Kent Jones, but watching this film was not for me the joy it is for many cinephiles. Its idiosyncracies did not speak to my own. Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric lead a large and largely convincing cast, who seem believable even amidst the gaps and twists of the story. She’s a gallery owner, but is she at the mercy of, or merciless toward, men? He’s a musician tossed into the loony bin, but is he crazy or not? Once they were married, or at least together -- one dumped the other, but which? At any rate, she now wants him to adopt her son by a previous “husband” -- who may have killed himself, or she him? -- so she can marry a sugar daddy. Does her doe-eyed demeanor betoken fragile strength or carnivorous deceit? Are we to sympathize or recoil in horror? Laugh or cry? Truffaut or Hitchcock? The only truthful answer is all of the above. (MC-84.)
4-20-06: Code 46. *6-* (2004, dvd, n.) Filling out the prolific Michael Winterbottom filmography, this sci-fi romance about genetics is not as good as Andrew Nicoll’s Gattaca, but does conjure a plausible future out of contemporary Shanghai, Dubai, and India, well-suited to his on-the-fly filmmaking. Tim Robbins is palpably uncomfortable with such a guerrilla shoot, though Samantha Morton does get with the program. There is little chemistry between them, however, in this quasi-Oedipal drama. Code 46 is a regulation prohibiting incest in a world where cloning and in vitro reproduction are common. Turns out the woman he falls for is genetically identical to his mother. There’s “eternal sunshine” memory erasure, “empathy” viruses, and other futuristic apparatus, but the central love story does not grip. (MC-57.)
Last Days. *5* (2005, dvd, n.) You have to give Gus Van Sant credit for sticking to his guns. He’s definitely a filmmaker who follows through on his conception, whether inspired (Drugstore Cowboy, To Die For) or cuckoo (shot-by-shot remake of Psycho.) This follow-up to Elephant, his dreamy evocation of Columbine, quasi-documents in long shots and long takes the last days of Kurt Cobain in a decaying lakeside mansion. If you cared about Nirvana (and personally I couldn’t identify “Smells Like Teen Spirit” if you played the whole song for me), maybe you could fill in the state of mind of the protagonist as he drifts through slow and pointless scenes, albeit with a certain drugged loveliness to the cinematography and Michael Pitt’s performance. I note that Manohla Dargis of the NYTimes called this film “indisputably great” and it ranked #10 in Village Voice critics’ poll for 2005 -- but me, I hit the fast forward button to keep from falling asleep. (MC-67.)
4-23-06: Tropical Malady. *NR* (2004, dvd, n.) Here’s another film that defines my taste as not very highbrow, upper middlebrow at best. Thai filmmaker Apitchatpong Weerasethakul (who wisely goes by the name of Joe) takes us on a meandering path through fields, forests, and city streets, whose strangeness and beauty keep us watching through the slow and enigmatic twists of the tale. At first it seems like a rather sweet gay romance between a soldier and a country boy, who engage our interest; we want to see how their love goes. But then the film breaks, and the two actors reappear, the soldier the same but on patrol alone at night in the forest, and the boy become the wandering naked spirit of a tiger. The soldier stalks, sights, and finally confronts the tiger/boy. This may be a film that needs the immersive effect of watching on the big screen; the night scenes in the forest seem pretty on a tv, but may be overpoweringly magical on the big screen. There is bound to be some metaphoric payoff between the two halves, but the film was paced too slow for me to keep paying attention. I’d hit FF and then not be sure what speed the film was showing at, since the framing was so static. (MC-78.)
4-26-06: Trees Lounge. *6+* (1996, Sund/T, n.) As an actor, Steve Buscemi always infuses his characters with authenticity, humor, and pathos, and here he does the same as writer and director as well, in an apparently autobiographical story of life in a working-class dead-end town on Long Island, centered on the nondescript concrete-block bar of the title. He gathers a lot of friends and familiar (or not-so, or soon-to-be) faces to people the little community he depicts, from Chloe Sevigny to Samuel L Jackson. There’s no story as such, just a series of incidents that gradually fill in a group portrait. Nothing is underlined, but a picture emerges nonetheless. If you liked the book, The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer, you would like this film -- or vice versa. Both setting and sensibility are similar.
4-28-06: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. *6+* (2004, dvd, n.) Frankly I’ve been a bit wearied by my steady diet of good-for-you critical favorites, and craved a bit of junk food. As such, this was quite a tasty combo of gross-out humor and stoner comedy, with a special sauce of multiculty flavors. Danny Leiner is crude but effective in his direction of the appealing Korean-India duo of John Cho and Kal Penn, entry level financial analyst and reluctant med school applicant respectively, hardcore tokers both. An attack of the munchies sends them on a nightlong quest through the wilds of New Jersey. Of its kind, this buddy pic is about as good as it gets. (MC-63.)
Working that same vein, I took a look at the first disk of the only season of Undeclared, Judd Apatow’s follow up to the similarly beloved-but-cancelled TV series, Freaks & Geeks. I’ll definitely watch the rest. Though it is a half-hour sitcom rather than the latter’s hourlong multi-layered dramedy, it does advance a similar group of characters (and actors) from high school to the first year of college. This is shameless TV you can enjoy without shame.
While on the subject of highly watchable TV, let me give a big thumbs up to three HBO series I am currently enjoying immensely: the current seasons of The Sopranos and Big Love, and catching up with the second season of Deadwood, in anticipation of the third coming soon. With these and Bleak House and The Best of Youth, my favorite viewing these days is long-form, novelistic series.
4-29-06: Cafe Lumiere. *6* (2004, dvd, n.) Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien offers this as a centenary tribute to Japanese director Yasijuro Ozu. There are recognizable elements of Ozu in this story of a young woman (played in low-key naturalistic style by Japanese pop idol Yo Hitoto) separating from her parents; maintaining distance from her closest friend, a bookseller with a passion for trains and a knowledge of Maurice Sendak; and refusing even to consider marrying the unseen boy in Taiwan who has gotten her pregnant. There are many transfixing shots of Tokyo trains, but it’s the interior shots that seem to refuse intimacy, that keep us fixed for prolonged periods at an awkward angle, unable to get close to the characters or even see their faces. There’s a slow tempo one has to adjust to in Ozu, but there’s also a directness, which is frustratingly absent in this film. It took me three tries to make it through.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Dearest Reader
Perhaps you don’t exist. To judge by the response to my Tinkerbelle plea, no one reads this blog (or almost no one.) And if no one is reading it, I have to ask myself if there is any sense to my writing it.
Let me be less metaphoric -- I will resume Cinema Salon (and endeavor to enhance the service) when some number of people (at first I thought twenty, but the gratification of getting just one response makes me sure I could live with less) have identified themselves as readers by sending an email to: ssatullo@clarkart.edu. One word of confirmation (e.g. “Yes.”) is all that’s required, though comments and suggestions would be most welcome. Think of it as signing up for a free subscription to a film reviewing service. Rest assured that you won’t be signing up for more spam.
There’s no reason not to post my personal filmlog periodically, even if I am merely talking to myself, but if I get the sense that there is an actual readership for my observations on film, then I will endeavor to make Cinema Salon more reader-friendly.
Your humble scribe,
Steve
Let me be less metaphoric -- I will resume Cinema Salon (and endeavor to enhance the service) when some number of people (at first I thought twenty, but the gratification of getting just one response makes me sure I could live with less) have identified themselves as readers by sending an email to: ssatullo@clarkart.edu. One word of confirmation (e.g. “Yes.”) is all that’s required, though comments and suggestions would be most welcome. Think of it as signing up for a free subscription to a film reviewing service. Rest assured that you won’t be signing up for more spam.
There’s no reason not to post my personal filmlog periodically, even if I am merely talking to myself, but if I get the sense that there is an actual readership for my observations on film, then I will endeavor to make Cinema Salon more reader-friendly.
Your humble scribe,
Steve
Filmlog for March
Even without much response elicited by my appeal to readers, I will keep posting my filmlog, out of which this blog developed. It will be more a memoir to myself, rather than an attempt to tell you in capsule all you need to know about whether to see a film or not. (BTW, MC-score represents numerical consensus from metacritic.com) Here’s a sample:
3-7-06 Way We Laughed. *7-* (1998, dvd, n.) Gianni Amelio’s film does not have the amplitude or the warmth of The Best of Youth, but it covers some of the same ground. Two Sicilian brothers out of their element in Turin from 1958-64, caught ellipitically on six separate days within that span. Close-mouthed, they keep secrets from each other and from us. They -- and the film -- fail to connect despite deep connection. To appreciate this film, you need to forego traditional narrative satisfactions and resolutions. Everything happens in the gaps and under the surface. The surface, however, is quite handsome. (MC-63.)
3-9-06 Bamboozled. *6* (2000, dvd@cai, r.) As usual with Spike Lee -- too much. Almost all his films would be better 20-30 minutes shorter. The implicit history of the minstrel show and Negro caricature in popular culture is novel and multi-layered. But the satire is uncertain of tone, and when the bullets start to fly the movie goes off the rails. (MC-50.)
3-10-06 Oliver Twist. *6+* (2005, dvd, n.) Stately rather than Dickensian, Roman Polanski’s mounting of the familiar story is neither funny nor pathetic enough. Beautifully designed and shot, but emotionally inert. None of the characters pop off the screen. (MC-65.)
3-13-06 The World. *6+* (2004, dvd, n.) Jia Zhangke’s film has garnered international praise for the young Chinese director, but I found it slow and meandering, albeit full of interesting observation. Set in a Beijing theme park that recreates world sites in dwarf size -- Pyramids, Acropolis, St. Peter’s, London Bridge, Eiffel Tower, Manhattan skyline complete with Trade Towers, etc. etc. -- the film follows a group of provincials who have come to the big city to work as performers (and sometimes prostitutes), security guards, and construction labor. But far from being free and cosmopolitan, they are more trapped and isolated than in the countryside. This is a multifaceted look, incorporating wacky flights of animated fantasy, into the largely unknown world of modern mainland China, both insulated and globalized. The long-shot, long-take aesthetic probably requires a large screen to immerse oneself. More interesting to think about afterwards than to watch. (MC-81.)
3-15-06 Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story. *8+* (2006, Images, n.) After the misfire provocation of 9 Songs, Michael Winterbottom is back on form as one of my favorite younger directors. Wild and woolly, yet seamless in its rapidfire ricochet through time and levels of reality -- depicted, acted, “real” -- this remains an adaptation of both the spirit and the letter of the book, while also being a classic movie about the making of a movie, plus a backstage reality tv sit-com. Will bear repeat viewing on dvd, with subtitles a help to catch off-hand dialogue of overlapping British accents. Steve Coogan is great, as usual, but the whole cast of familiar and unfamiliar faces works beautifully together. (MC-80.)
3-17-06 My House in Umbria. *6-* (2003, HBO/T, n.) This HBO adaptation of a William Trevor novella was pleasant enough, what with the Italian locations and Maggie Smith’s performance in the central role, but skippable unless you’re a big fan of one or the other.
3-18-06 The Real Dirt on Farmer John. *7+* (2005, B-10, n.) Well put-together documentary on maverick Midwestern farmer who finally saves the family farm through Community Supported Agriculture. An obsessively filmed life leads to an effective film biography, which offers a cultural as well as a personal portrait, helps answer the question, “Whatever happened to the Sixties?” Post-film talk with folk from two Berkshire CSAs and responsive full-house audience at MassMoCA made this an excellent community event.
3-20-06 Occupation: Dreamland. *6+* (2005, Sund/T, n.) This intimate documentary from Ian Olds and Garrett Scott follows a squad of 82nd Airborne, as they try to subdue Fallujah in early 2004. It gives you a real “you are there” feeling, even if you don’t want to be there. Fleshes out just what the word “occupation” means. Demonstrates implicitly that the only way to support our troops is to bring them home.
3-21-06 Cache (Hidden.) *8* (2005, Images, n.) Puts the viewer through Hitchcockian paces, but not at Hitchcock’s pace. Very European, very intellectual, with long, long shots that force you to think about what you are looking at. And if you like your psychological thrillers tied up at the end, forget about it. The last lingering shot of the film is a touchstone: for some it offers the final piece of the puzzle and the picture clicks into place; some cannot even see the action taking place in a distant crowd; me, I saw it but couldn’t figure what it meant. Like much in this film, you are not meant to “get it,” in the sense of having certain knowledge or an easy explanation. Michael Haneke’s frequent gruesomeness is pared down to a single instant of shocking violence, though terror permeates all. Daniel Auteuil and Juliet Binoche are a perfect Parisian bobo couple -- he has a popular book show on public tv and she works for a publisher -- but their complacent, slightly paunchy existence is disrupted by receipt of mysterious videotapes that reveal they are under constant surveillance. The stress fissures their relationship and reveals faultlines buried beneath the surface and in the past. Despite some very slow stretches, the film is riveting, and offers lots to think about. I’d put it in a category with The Vanishing and With a Friend Like Harry, highbrow gothic from the EU. (MC-83.)
3-23-06 The Son’s Room. *8+* (2001, dvd@cai, r.) Nanni Moretti directs and stars as a psychoanalyst who experiences a family tragedy. Chastely heartbreaking, this film stands up well on second viewing. Overwhelmingly sad, it is still understated and funny withal, precisely observed and psychologically acute. (MC-73.)
Reconstruction. *6* (2003, Sund/T, n.) A decent Danish mindtwister from Christoffer Boe, this is an overtly constructed and deconstructed romance about a man who loses his way between two women, played by the same striking actress (Maria Bonnevie.) Stylish -- with neon colors, deep shadows, intense two-shots with lots of swirling smoke -- this film has its Dogme elements, but is most reminiscent of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love. (MC-60.)
3-24-06 The 40-Year-Old Virgin. *7* (2005, dvd, n.) Manages to mix raunchy humor with a sweet spirit and some genuine wit, under the hand of Freaks & Geeks (see it on dvd!!!) alum Judd Apatow. Steve Carrell is surprisingly good as the title character, and Catherine Keener is reliably engaging as the “hot grandma” he falls for. The gang of guys is fun too, and even the women are a bit more than caricatures. Way, way better in every respect than The Wedding Crashers in the adult comedy category, though not the “Best Picture” candidate some made it out to be.
3-25-06 A History of Violence. *6* (2005, dvd, n.) Not as bad as with Munich, but I had with this film the same refusal to suspend disbelief. Despite the surface plausibility and filmmaking skill on view, I kept seeing this as the comic book it originally was. Viggo Mortenson infuses the film with some humanity, and frankly, Maria Bello can dress up in a cheerleader costume for me anytime. Ed Harris is excellent as usual, especially in the best, scariest scene in the movie, when the hitman takes an avuncular interest in the little girl at the mall. No guns, no bloodshed, just palpable terror. William Hurt has a few minutes of fun as the mob boss, brother to Viggo, who has escaped his feral Philly past into small-town Indiana rectitude. And right there, let me note the sort of detail that threw me right out of this film -- I can assure you that there is no roadsign in the Indianapolis vicinity that says “Philadelphia: 680 miles.” David Cronenberg is famously explicit with his gore, the violence meant to be antidote but actually more anodyne. He may make it genuinely ugly, but he’s still making it entertainment. And I’m not buying it. Despite it’s #1 rank in Village Voice critics’ poll best of 2005. (MC-81.)
3-26-06 Through the Fire. *7-* (2006, ESPN/T, n.) Though not nearly as deep or as broad, Jonathan Hock’s documentary plays as a worthy sequel to Hoop Dreams. What is lost in the whole family and community context is made up in hardcore game action, as we follow Coney Island schoolboy phenom Sebastian Telfair through his senior year, in pursuit of a third straight NYC championship and in a quandary over whether to go to Louisville or enter the NBA draft. An Isaiah-sized guard who slices through defenses like a hot knife through butter, Sebastian has the telegenic smile and carefully-groomed demeanor to make himself a marketable commodity, which along with his undeniable hoop skill gets him on the cover of SI, and a shoe contract that negates his college prospects and puts him at the mercy of the draft. The film hardly questions the system or ethos of professional sports, but within its limits offers an honest portrayal of one of those mythic escapes from the projects that fuel the dreams of so many. (MC-64.)
3-28-06 The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. *6* (2005, dvd, n.) This pleasant, if light as a feather, documentary, well-shot by Judy Irving, focuses on a San Franciscan flock of birds and the long-haired fellow who feeds and observes them. The birdman opposite Alcatraz, as it were. The film goes on some amusing and appealing flights of ornithological fantasy, but the parrots are not quite as anthropomorphized as the penguins on their march. On the other hand, there’s not much of a story line, just Mark Bittner’s observations, visual and verbal. The cute ending is a bit of a cheat, coming out of the blue. A better film would have foreshadowed it. (MC-80.)
3-29-06 The Shape of Things. *5* (2003, dvd, n.) Like Closer, this is another four-hander making the transition from stage to screen, only to be seen through, revealed as hollow. Neil LaBute adapts his own play, and the actors follow. Something with Rachel Weisz, Paul Rudd, and Gretchen Mol should have been better, but this story is contrived and shallow and the final switcheroo painful, but not in the way intended. (MC-59.)
3-30-06 Why We Fight. *7* (2006, Images, n.) I can hardly call this a convincing documentary because I was convinced going in. But unlike Michael Moore, Eugene Jarecki assembles his case judiciously, allowing alternate voices their say, even while montage and music make his points. Let Richard Perle be condemned out of his own mouth, rather than ridiculing Paul Wolfowitz because he puts his comb in his mouth. Somewhat scattershot in its argument, the film is well-grounded in President Eisenhower’s farewell speech, warning against the power of the “military-industrial complex.” This from a 5-star general and Republican president! With a tip of the cap to Frank Capra’s WWII documentary series of the same name, this film interweaves graphic and archival history, contemporary reporting (a military trade show in particular), and interview testimony from participants and commentators. I have to agree with its premise that we are in the business of war because war is good business. That is almost as good an explanation as oil, or maybe the same explanation, for why we are in Iraq. (MC-68.)
3-31-06 The Beat My Heart Skipped. *6+* (2005, dvd, n.) Jacques Audiard is apparently a coming French director, critically acclaimed, but this noirish remake of Fingers is his most commercial feature yet, and certainly the first I’ve seen. I will look further, but this one did not grab me. Highly watchable, but not something in which I would invest belief or emotion. Romain Duris follows his father’s trade of thuggish real estate transactions, but longs to follow his dead mother as a concert pianist. There’s a succession of alluring young women, a taxonomy of feminine appeal, but as usual, when the everyday low-grade violence turns to cinematic splatter, I begin to tune out. (MC-75.)
3-7-06 Way We Laughed. *7-* (1998, dvd, n.) Gianni Amelio’s film does not have the amplitude or the warmth of The Best of Youth, but it covers some of the same ground. Two Sicilian brothers out of their element in Turin from 1958-64, caught ellipitically on six separate days within that span. Close-mouthed, they keep secrets from each other and from us. They -- and the film -- fail to connect despite deep connection. To appreciate this film, you need to forego traditional narrative satisfactions and resolutions. Everything happens in the gaps and under the surface. The surface, however, is quite handsome. (MC-63.)
3-9-06 Bamboozled. *6* (2000, dvd@cai, r.) As usual with Spike Lee -- too much. Almost all his films would be better 20-30 minutes shorter. The implicit history of the minstrel show and Negro caricature in popular culture is novel and multi-layered. But the satire is uncertain of tone, and when the bullets start to fly the movie goes off the rails. (MC-50.)
3-10-06 Oliver Twist. *6+* (2005, dvd, n.) Stately rather than Dickensian, Roman Polanski’s mounting of the familiar story is neither funny nor pathetic enough. Beautifully designed and shot, but emotionally inert. None of the characters pop off the screen. (MC-65.)
3-13-06 The World. *6+* (2004, dvd, n.) Jia Zhangke’s film has garnered international praise for the young Chinese director, but I found it slow and meandering, albeit full of interesting observation. Set in a Beijing theme park that recreates world sites in dwarf size -- Pyramids, Acropolis, St. Peter’s, London Bridge, Eiffel Tower, Manhattan skyline complete with Trade Towers, etc. etc. -- the film follows a group of provincials who have come to the big city to work as performers (and sometimes prostitutes), security guards, and construction labor. But far from being free and cosmopolitan, they are more trapped and isolated than in the countryside. This is a multifaceted look, incorporating wacky flights of animated fantasy, into the largely unknown world of modern mainland China, both insulated and globalized. The long-shot, long-take aesthetic probably requires a large screen to immerse oneself. More interesting to think about afterwards than to watch. (MC-81.)
3-15-06 Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story. *8+* (2006, Images, n.) After the misfire provocation of 9 Songs, Michael Winterbottom is back on form as one of my favorite younger directors. Wild and woolly, yet seamless in its rapidfire ricochet through time and levels of reality -- depicted, acted, “real” -- this remains an adaptation of both the spirit and the letter of the book, while also being a classic movie about the making of a movie, plus a backstage reality tv sit-com. Will bear repeat viewing on dvd, with subtitles a help to catch off-hand dialogue of overlapping British accents. Steve Coogan is great, as usual, but the whole cast of familiar and unfamiliar faces works beautifully together. (MC-80.)
3-17-06 My House in Umbria. *6-* (2003, HBO/T, n.) This HBO adaptation of a William Trevor novella was pleasant enough, what with the Italian locations and Maggie Smith’s performance in the central role, but skippable unless you’re a big fan of one or the other.
3-18-06 The Real Dirt on Farmer John. *7+* (2005, B-10, n.) Well put-together documentary on maverick Midwestern farmer who finally saves the family farm through Community Supported Agriculture. An obsessively filmed life leads to an effective film biography, which offers a cultural as well as a personal portrait, helps answer the question, “Whatever happened to the Sixties?” Post-film talk with folk from two Berkshire CSAs and responsive full-house audience at MassMoCA made this an excellent community event.
3-20-06 Occupation: Dreamland. *6+* (2005, Sund/T, n.) This intimate documentary from Ian Olds and Garrett Scott follows a squad of 82nd Airborne, as they try to subdue Fallujah in early 2004. It gives you a real “you are there” feeling, even if you don’t want to be there. Fleshes out just what the word “occupation” means. Demonstrates implicitly that the only way to support our troops is to bring them home.
3-21-06 Cache (Hidden.) *8* (2005, Images, n.) Puts the viewer through Hitchcockian paces, but not at Hitchcock’s pace. Very European, very intellectual, with long, long shots that force you to think about what you are looking at. And if you like your psychological thrillers tied up at the end, forget about it. The last lingering shot of the film is a touchstone: for some it offers the final piece of the puzzle and the picture clicks into place; some cannot even see the action taking place in a distant crowd; me, I saw it but couldn’t figure what it meant. Like much in this film, you are not meant to “get it,” in the sense of having certain knowledge or an easy explanation. Michael Haneke’s frequent gruesomeness is pared down to a single instant of shocking violence, though terror permeates all. Daniel Auteuil and Juliet Binoche are a perfect Parisian bobo couple -- he has a popular book show on public tv and she works for a publisher -- but their complacent, slightly paunchy existence is disrupted by receipt of mysterious videotapes that reveal they are under constant surveillance. The stress fissures their relationship and reveals faultlines buried beneath the surface and in the past. Despite some very slow stretches, the film is riveting, and offers lots to think about. I’d put it in a category with The Vanishing and With a Friend Like Harry, highbrow gothic from the EU. (MC-83.)
3-23-06 The Son’s Room. *8+* (2001, dvd@cai, r.) Nanni Moretti directs and stars as a psychoanalyst who experiences a family tragedy. Chastely heartbreaking, this film stands up well on second viewing. Overwhelmingly sad, it is still understated and funny withal, precisely observed and psychologically acute. (MC-73.)
Reconstruction. *6* (2003, Sund/T, n.) A decent Danish mindtwister from Christoffer Boe, this is an overtly constructed and deconstructed romance about a man who loses his way between two women, played by the same striking actress (Maria Bonnevie.) Stylish -- with neon colors, deep shadows, intense two-shots with lots of swirling smoke -- this film has its Dogme elements, but is most reminiscent of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love. (MC-60.)
3-24-06 The 40-Year-Old Virgin. *7* (2005, dvd, n.) Manages to mix raunchy humor with a sweet spirit and some genuine wit, under the hand of Freaks & Geeks (see it on dvd!!!) alum Judd Apatow. Steve Carrell is surprisingly good as the title character, and Catherine Keener is reliably engaging as the “hot grandma” he falls for. The gang of guys is fun too, and even the women are a bit more than caricatures. Way, way better in every respect than The Wedding Crashers in the adult comedy category, though not the “Best Picture” candidate some made it out to be.
3-25-06 A History of Violence. *6* (2005, dvd, n.) Not as bad as with Munich, but I had with this film the same refusal to suspend disbelief. Despite the surface plausibility and filmmaking skill on view, I kept seeing this as the comic book it originally was. Viggo Mortenson infuses the film with some humanity, and frankly, Maria Bello can dress up in a cheerleader costume for me anytime. Ed Harris is excellent as usual, especially in the best, scariest scene in the movie, when the hitman takes an avuncular interest in the little girl at the mall. No guns, no bloodshed, just palpable terror. William Hurt has a few minutes of fun as the mob boss, brother to Viggo, who has escaped his feral Philly past into small-town Indiana rectitude. And right there, let me note the sort of detail that threw me right out of this film -- I can assure you that there is no roadsign in the Indianapolis vicinity that says “Philadelphia: 680 miles.” David Cronenberg is famously explicit with his gore, the violence meant to be antidote but actually more anodyne. He may make it genuinely ugly, but he’s still making it entertainment. And I’m not buying it. Despite it’s #1 rank in Village Voice critics’ poll best of 2005. (MC-81.)
3-26-06 Through the Fire. *7-* (2006, ESPN/T, n.) Though not nearly as deep or as broad, Jonathan Hock’s documentary plays as a worthy sequel to Hoop Dreams. What is lost in the whole family and community context is made up in hardcore game action, as we follow Coney Island schoolboy phenom Sebastian Telfair through his senior year, in pursuit of a third straight NYC championship and in a quandary over whether to go to Louisville or enter the NBA draft. An Isaiah-sized guard who slices through defenses like a hot knife through butter, Sebastian has the telegenic smile and carefully-groomed demeanor to make himself a marketable commodity, which along with his undeniable hoop skill gets him on the cover of SI, and a shoe contract that negates his college prospects and puts him at the mercy of the draft. The film hardly questions the system or ethos of professional sports, but within its limits offers an honest portrayal of one of those mythic escapes from the projects that fuel the dreams of so many. (MC-64.)
3-28-06 The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. *6* (2005, dvd, n.) This pleasant, if light as a feather, documentary, well-shot by Judy Irving, focuses on a San Franciscan flock of birds and the long-haired fellow who feeds and observes them. The birdman opposite Alcatraz, as it were. The film goes on some amusing and appealing flights of ornithological fantasy, but the parrots are not quite as anthropomorphized as the penguins on their march. On the other hand, there’s not much of a story line, just Mark Bittner’s observations, visual and verbal. The cute ending is a bit of a cheat, coming out of the blue. A better film would have foreshadowed it. (MC-80.)
3-29-06 The Shape of Things. *5* (2003, dvd, n.) Like Closer, this is another four-hander making the transition from stage to screen, only to be seen through, revealed as hollow. Neil LaBute adapts his own play, and the actors follow. Something with Rachel Weisz, Paul Rudd, and Gretchen Mol should have been better, but this story is contrived and shallow and the final switcheroo painful, but not in the way intended. (MC-59.)
3-30-06 Why We Fight. *7* (2006, Images, n.) I can hardly call this a convincing documentary because I was convinced going in. But unlike Michael Moore, Eugene Jarecki assembles his case judiciously, allowing alternate voices their say, even while montage and music make his points. Let Richard Perle be condemned out of his own mouth, rather than ridiculing Paul Wolfowitz because he puts his comb in his mouth. Somewhat scattershot in its argument, the film is well-grounded in President Eisenhower’s farewell speech, warning against the power of the “military-industrial complex.” This from a 5-star general and Republican president! With a tip of the cap to Frank Capra’s WWII documentary series of the same name, this film interweaves graphic and archival history, contemporary reporting (a military trade show in particular), and interview testimony from participants and commentators. I have to agree with its premise that we are in the business of war because war is good business. That is almost as good an explanation as oil, or maybe the same explanation, for why we are in Iraq. (MC-68.)
3-31-06 The Beat My Heart Skipped. *6+* (2005, dvd, n.) Jacques Audiard is apparently a coming French director, critically acclaimed, but this noirish remake of Fingers is his most commercial feature yet, and certainly the first I’ve seen. I will look further, but this one did not grab me. Highly watchable, but not something in which I would invest belief or emotion. Romain Duris follows his father’s trade of thuggish real estate transactions, but longs to follow his dead mother as a concert pianist. There’s a succession of alluring young women, a taxonomy of feminine appeal, but as usual, when the everyday low-grade violence turns to cinematic splatter, I begin to tune out. (MC-75.)
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