Theatrical Film
Modern Times (1936) dir. Charles Chaplin viewed: 12/29/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 01/03/04 I really have seen a shamefully small amount of silent film, despite being moderately exposed to it as a child. And despite the fact that the only silent films that I have seen are all pretty much "classics" that utterly recommend seeing more and more. I even know someone who works on San Francisco's annual Silent Film Festival. I am ashamed and have every right to be. And actually, when I saw that Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times was playing at the Castro, I almost didn't put it on the schedule to see. Somehow it seems so obvious? Of course, the great irony is that I had never seen it and when hard pressed couldn't name a Chaplin film that I had seen in even not-so-recent memory. So, I shamed myself into it. And I'm glad. It was fantastic. Released in 1936, already several years into the age of the sound film, Modern Times is more or less a silent film. Chaplin uses voice over for voices that come from machinery or radio, some sound effects, and ultimately for a song that his character, "the little tramp", belts out at the end of the film. I don't know much about this film or enough specific Chaplin history to do justice to the subject here, but I understand that this film was originally going to be a "talkie", Chaplin's first, and for some reason, he ended up approaching sound in this particular way. Large parts of the film, all set in the factory, seem to reckon heavily of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), but with art design played for humor rather than wonderful art deco decadence. It shares some themes with Lang's film (I don't know that it was an influence, but am positing), the dehumanization of the industrial workplace, some proletarian revolt, and it's been so long since I have seen Metropolis that I won't try to push this further. The use of sound, particularly in the factory sequences, reinforces the notions of mechanization and dehumanization as well. Chaplin himself is amazingly funny. It's something to see, not to be read about. I also found Paulette Goddard, "a gamin" is what her character is known as, quite amazing, too. With her hair down and a simple dress on, Goddard looks very contemporary, and extremely beautiful. She is excellent throughout, but has a great introductory scene where she is hacking bananas off of a big banana bunch and throwing them to the poor children. When she is seen and chased, she makes a deft getaway and then stands, feet apart in triumph and eats a banana. Writing it here, sure it sounds stupid, but it's a compelling image that I would encourage any and everyone to see. Citizen Kane (1941) dir. Orson Welles viewed: 12/22/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 01/03/04 Citizen Kane is one of those 500-pound gorillas of cinema. It's not as daunting as much of the European avant-garde, after all, it was made in Hollywood during the height of the "Golden Age" and has great production and verve and entertainment value that probably most people could sit through with their grandmother. Actually, this time around, I was extra impressed with how entertaining it was, so I truly mean it. It's one of those films though, that I think most popular "critics", by whom I mean the ones that everyone reads in the papers and magazines and on television, who still shape popular opinion far more than they should, will put on their "Best Movies of All Time" list and most often will deem #1. It's like they are afraid to say that they actually liked Casablanca better. Or maybe they are so keen as to differentiate between what they like best and what is best. What is best anyways? When I first saw Citizen Kane, at the age of eighteen, on a video cassette, I was incredibly disappointed. This film that was supposed to be "The Best" was more or less a drama (albeit quite an epic one), which was not my favorite genre. I didn't get it. It's so culturally ingrained, this film, though, that the first place that I had ever heard of it was in Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts strip. A cultural reference from a period prior to the popularization of cultural references. Since going to film school and having read a few texts in my time, as well as aging and (hopefully) maturing along the way, I learned more about the film, its context, Orson Welles, all of the legacy of the film, the drama of the film's making, all of so much that is built up behind the film that does enhance its reception greatly. So, I see it now quite differently and seeing it on the big screen is also just so much more effective. And NEWSFLASH!!! It's a great movie!!! (What did you expect?) The other thing that I will mention here is how funny it was to see the film after all of The Simpsons reinterpretations that have been worked through. I have seen those Simpsons probably a dozen times in reruns since the last time I had seen Kane, and it was really funny to see how much of the film they use and reference, ecpecially in their Citizen Burns episode. Yes, this is a terribly insightful site. I Vitelloni (1953) dir. Federico Fellini viewed: 12/15/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 12/18/03 I've said it before, and I will say it again, largely because I tend to repeat myself ad nauseum, but despite having been a film studies student, there are a multitude of significant directors of whom I have seen little or nothing. Of Federico Fellini's films, I have seen one, The Clowns (1971), which was made for television, I believe and might cheapen it as an entry. I did see it in film class, though. For the Monday Night Movie Club, this is the kind of thing that gets us out to the theater, seeing the art cinema stuff and classics and whatnot. I Vitelloni, I don't think, is utterly typical Fellini, though I am obviously not one to be able to say that with absoulte self-assurance. It's an earlier film for Fellini, one that is less "fantastic" or "surreal", but is more a sort of naturalistic tale of a group of young Italian men and their carousing misadventures. Not a great summary there, but it gets the gist across. This film, I have read, insired Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973), which potentially adds something to it. Overall, I wasn't overly excited about the film, though it was mostly fairly pleasing throughout. There is interesting camerawork and engaging storylines, and certain scenes are particularly nice. Some of the party scenes have a fun aesthetic. And the post-carnival scenes, with the deserted streets and all of the giant clown heads in fountains and lying on the ground make for a strange, almost post-apocalyptic world. The Matrix Revolutions (2003) dir. Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski viewed: 11/23/03, Loews Theatre at the Metreon, SF, CA / diary entry: 11/24/03 These Matrix films are so condescendingly pompous in their arch-coolness, so much so that it really belies this facade of humanism and love that is so roundly posed as the soul of the films. The multiracial cast is utterly lacking in true personality, espousing virtues and "deep thoughts" and faux-philosophy while really only existing as trite caricatures, sketched out by their fashionable wardrobe and trite dialogue. The dialogue. It's really so bad at times, that it's laugh-out-loud funny. When one of the characters, who is supposed to be "a program" says something like, "Did you not know that programs can love too?", I knew, only minutes into this feature, that it would really give the second film a run for its money in terms of pure badness. I seriously think that these films will become cult classics more for their pretention than for their qualities. Or at least that they should be. That said, some of the action sequences were fairly fun...or at least dialogue-free...maybe that's why they seemed less obtrusively embarrising. Though the Wachowskis leave the door open for further installments with their ending, let's hope this is truly the last of this series. For whatever worth the original The Matrix (1999) still has, its impact has certainly been lessened by these films, proving that whatever mystery there was behind the initial film was simply hollow, empty nothingness. Early Spring (1956) dir. Yasujiro Ozu viewed: 11/18/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 12/05/03 When I saw that the Castro Theater was running a week's worth of Yasujiro Ozu double features, I felt compelled to go see as many as I could. In the end, all I could muster from my time was one evening, and then in the end, I could only sit through one 2 1/2 hour feature. A second one would have been fun, but my leisure time and endurance ain't what it used to be. I have only seen one Ozu film, Tokyo Story (1953), and then only on television. His films are not widely available on DVD, and so, this was a good opportunity to catch up on seeing some films from one of the big names in cinema. Ozu's films, for those of you who do not know, tended to be family dramas. In this case, the story was about a young couple who had lost a child who were in a malaise in their marriage; the husband, an office worker in Tokyo, has an affair. His films have a slowish pace and do not tend to be overly dramatic. There has been no violent conflict to highlight either of the two Ozu films that I have seen, so I don't know how this plays out in others of his films. His critical eye was on Japanese society and the family, which in post-war Japan has interesting parallels the the melodramas of Hollywood, to some extent. The melodramas of such directors as Minelli and Sirk, though really are much more lurid and overdone compared to the quiet pacing and unique perspective of Ozu's camera. Early Spring is elegant and simple in its presentation, but surprisingly good and engaging (I only say surprising in that describing Ozu's films, they either sound so "quiet" or contemplative that they don't sound all that exciting to see.) The film was excellent and made me wish very much that I had the time and ability to have sat through several more. The Backyard (2002) dir. Paul Hough viewed: 11/10/03, The Red Vic Movie House, SF, CA / diary entry: 11/18/03 Ah, the Monday Night Movie Club, always pursuing the highest qualities of the cinema. This week a highbrow documentary about people who more or less bleed for a living. This was a rather bloody affair,...which is not surprising. I can honestly say that all I had previously known of backyard wrestling came from commercials for video games that were based on it. What I didn't realize was that the level of "reality" in it was supposedly comparable to Professional Wrestling. The only thing is that these kids bleed a lot. Lots of real blood. Which got a little hard to watch at points. As far as documentaries go, this was hardly top notch. The film wasn't overly insightful and felt a little cobbled together. The film had a sense of voyueristic condescention about it. The whole thing is pretty white trash, and the audience we watched it with were laughing at a lot of the events and people, squirming occasionally. It was a pretty lowbrow thing, this film. That said, despite it all, I can recognize the level of boredom and creativity that stems from these rural and suburban worlds. These teenagers (which most of them were) are not utterly outside of a recognizable world. City of God (2002) dir. Kátia Lund, Fernando Meirelles viewed: 11/04/03, Embarcadero Center Cinema, SF, CA / diary entry: 11/18/03 A ambitious, sprawling epic of a film about the unbelievably tough lives of the youth in the slums of Rio. Violent and harsh, but speckled with aspects of melodrama, City of God certainly had its moments. At its best points, it sketched out the lives of its vast cast of characters, moving quickly through a period of 10-15 years through the 1970's into the early 1980's, telling numerous specific little stories in the grand sweep of the entire period. All in all, a good film. Intolerable Cruelty (2003) dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen viewed: 10/27/03, Loews Theatre at the Metreon, SF, CA / diary entry: 11/03/03 Intolerable Cruelty doesn't look or feel like a Coen brothers' film at first blush. The only point in the trailer in which you realize that it is their work is when their names appear on the screen as directors and co-writers. I must say that I don't know definitively the background behind the film, but from what I have gleaned the film was something that they either inherited or re-inherited and turned it out as something with less characteristic mark than any of their other films. By most standards, it's a decent mainstream romantic comedy that takes its strengths and character more from comedies of a more classic Hollywood, like Howard Hawks or Ernst Lubitsch. Which, for today's Hollywood, is a breath of less stale air, downright funny, and something so tasteful you could probably take your grandmother to see it. By Coen brothers standards, it's nothing too amazing. It lacks even their signiture camera style throughout most of it, and it has times when you could easily forget that it's their film at all. It is, however, a more successful attempt to capture this classic Hollywood style of comedy than The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) which attempted to recreate the mood even further by steeping it in the period of those films, the 1940's. George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones are actually a large portion of why this film works. They have that big screen appeal and charm that feels quite classic Hollywood. This is a good film, though not a great one. Still better no doubt than any like type of romantic comedy that will get produced in Hollywood this year or next. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) dir. Quentin Tarantino viewed: 10/13/03, Loews Theatre at the Metreon, SF, CA / diary entry: 10/20/03 In the San Francisco Chronicle (a terrible source for critical reviews but is the newspaper that I read regularly), critic Mick LaSalle totally lambasted Quentin Tarantino and Kill Bill: Vol. 1 for the violence of the film. My understanding is that this reaction, as extreme as it is (reported not only in the initial review, but in a follow-up article later the week that the film was released), is in tune with a number of other critics of the film. While I have mixed feelings about the way violence is portrayed in media (probably only more mixed as I now have a small child and begin to be more concerned with the world that he sees), I also have an affection for a number of types of action genres that are among the most violent in cinema. And if there is anything that this film is trying to do, it is trying to emulate and pay homage to a number of those films and their genres. I have to wonder how long has it been since these people, if at all, have seen some of the types of films to which Tarantino is referencing? I can only think that people who are reacting like this have spent too much time watching the latest (more typical) Miramax releases and mainstream "art house" films and have completely elided kung fu, the revenge film, and exploitation films from their worlds. I found Kill Bill to be pretty damn entertaining, sashaying between moments of almost campy comedy (the dialogue was sort of intentionally bad, I am guessing) to stunningly pleasureablely choreographed action set-pieces with lots of dismemberment and geysers of blood. Because the film was "chopped" in two, this being the first of two parts, it's hard to draw a lot of conclusions about this film and what it is really about. It's largely a visual spectacle, and it's also sincerely steeped in homage. The film opens with a Shaw Bros. logo, which is followed by retro placeholder intertitle that reeks of the 1970's. Tarantino doesn't isn't all too subtle with his referencing and tribute-paying. That aspect is seriously foregrounded in this film. There is a campy quality to the violence as well. Anytime that a limb or head is severed, blood spurts from the wound in a comical stream, spurting and spurting, a couple beats longer than seems logical. The bursts are quite similar and so numerous that it quickly feels absurd. The absurdity is intentional, as it is a part of the camp and humor of the genres that Tarantino plays with. What the film's attitude toward violence is I can't say. But from an initial viewing, I would suggest that it's almost like something from Monty Python, though it certainly veers toward drama to an extent. As pure spectacle and entertainment, I liked it. Lost in Translation (2003) dir. Sofia Coppola viewed: 10/06/03, Loews Theatre at the Metreon, SF, CA / diary entry: 10/21/03 Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, I thought, was excellent. Having seen her previous film, The Virgin Suicides (1999), I wasn't necessarily thinking that I would like this film so well. The Virgin Suicides seemed like it was reaching to capture a time and place and feeling, a vibe or something. To some extent, it succeeded at that. But it also had this unconvincing, uninvolving plot line about the titular event that just seemed ridiculous and pretentious to me. I remember loathing the film's denouement considerably. Lost in Translation has some similar airs about it. It creates a feeling of place and a recognizable feeling of dislocation. The story is an almost platonic love story, quite thin if described. What's amazing about it, though, is how well it communicates the sensations that its characters are supposed to be experiencing. It's also a vibe, an experience with a lot less narrative (comparatively), and it just plain works. It made me really want to go to Japan, despite the fact that the film depicts characters that are utterly lost and confused there, seeing it broadly and specifically as outsiders, amused but lonely, in a country very different from their homeland. In this sense, it reminded me vaguely of Wim Wenders' Tokyo-Ga (1985), which was a strange documentary that more or less documented Wenders' outsider's fascination with Tokyo. That's probably a pretty weird comparison, but it came to mind. Coppola's perspective is that of a visitor/tourist, who is trying to understand the culture, the people, and the place without a translator, without a guide. It's sort of an impossible situation. The perception is one of bemusement, but acknowledged as utterly incomplete and yet very personal. Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray are both excellent. This is probably my favorite new movie that I have seen in the theater this year. Any other oozing and praise that I could do for it will sound like a million other things that you would read elsewhere, so I will leave it at that. Dirty Pretty Things (2002) dir. Stephen Frears viewed: 09/29/03, Embarcadero Center Cinema, SF, CA / diary entry: 10/03/03 Stephen Frears is one of those known but not so well-known directors who actually has a pretty good filmography under his belt with films such as The Hit (1984), The Grifters (1990), and High Fidelity (2000). This film has had a pretty good buzz about it. Seemed like a good one to go see. It was an interesting idea, a thriller set in the London world of illegal immigrants, working multiple jobs to simply stay alive, subsist. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou star. Ejiofor is very good as the refugee doctor who drives a cab by day and works a hotel's reception desk by night. Tautou, who was so charming in Amélie (2001), plays a Turkish refugee with a strange accent. Though the film is pretty decent and well-intentioned with its sympathetic portrayal of the marginalized lives of illegal immigrants, it's also a little bit silly at times. As the story hits its emotional nadir depicting the sexual exploitation of Tautou's character, I found some of it strangely cliche and almost comical. Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) dir. Robert Rodriguez viewed: 09/15/03, AMC 1000 Van Ness, SF, CA / diary entry: 10/06/03 I was just reading an article about Robert Rodriguez and was thinking that he seemed like a cool guy; he has this admirable low-budget do-it-yourself mentality that he raises to near-mania. For Once Upon a Time in Mexico he acted as writer, producer, director, cinematographer, editor, score composer, as well as pitching in on special effects and production design. And from what I have read, he does a lot, if not most of it, from studios that he has built in his home. Considering that he made his breakthrough film El Mariachi (1992) for $7000, Rodriguez has stayed true to his low-budgetary roots. He brings a refreshingly economist approach to all his productions, while stuffing his poppy, action-packed stories with a almost campy sense of fun. His films rarely attempt any level of seriousness, vying instead for humor and explosions, keeping the pace going and not stopping to get bogged down. I had enjoyed Desperado (1995) when I had caught it in the theater on its initial release, so I was looking forward to this film. I can't really put my finger on what this film was lacking...but the film was much better when Johnny Depp was onscreen rather than when he wasn't (and I am not saying this in the tone of a smitten schoolgirl -- at least I don't think I am). Johnny Depp was a lot funnier and more interesting and made the scenes he was in more so, too. I guess it's just part of what was lacking in the film,...more humor? I don't know. The other thing that nagged at me was the weird sort of Mexican nationalism of the film. It wasn't so much that I took issue with it, but rather that it just seemed to lack grounding. I think that the parting image of Antonio Banderas marching toward the audience, trailing a huge Mexican flag was rather blunt, but I kept wondering...what is he supposed to represent? He is a hired vigilante who rescues the president from a bunch of drug dealers. It's a plot line out of CHiPS or something...hard to take seriously. And then Johnny Depp's character with his ambivalent (though largely amoral) representing the U.S. government (though he is so bizarre that one wonders if he is truly backed by them or is simply a rogue agent in the chaos that is this film's plot.) Maybe there is a serious subtext here after all. I don't know. The Shining (1980) dir. Stanley Kubrick viewed: 07/14/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 08/08/03 Seeing The Shining on the big screen was quite a treat, as I had only once before seen it, on a tiny little television in the UK probably about 10 years ago. The film is moody and extremely visual, building tension with its slow pace and dissonant music, the film builds and punctuates with powerful and striking images that have almost all gone on to having an iconic impact. In fact, seeing a film like this in an environment like The Castro Theater, with what was probably a crowd comprised largely of film enthusiasts, knowing what to expect at each turn, when the film builds to its infamous "Here's Johnny!" line, there is almost a sublime sensation of familiarity that permeates any sense of tension that the film could concoct. The steadicam work is still stunning. The interiors of the hotel are utterly mesmerizing. There is something hypnotic about the cinematography all the way around. The amazing shot of Jack Nicholson as he is swinging the axe, chopping at the door, really jars the viewer. The camera mimics his movement, swinging back and forth with him, and coming to rythmic, abrupt stops as it strikes the door. The film's images stay with you long after the film is over. I always remembered the flying camera shot over the car as it twisted up the heavily forrested road to the hotel. The funny thing is that I had forgotten some of the early part of the film, the little boy, Danny Lloyd, his little talking finger and the visit from the social worker. Actually, the little talking finger thing really edges on hilarity, perhaps one of the film's weaker elements. There are a couple other weird little things that seemed pretty crappy, too. When Jack goes up to the evil room and starts to make out with the naked woman from the tub, the mood is very creepy. But when it turns out that she is a rotting corpse, it seems really silly and she make-up looks poor and dated. Also, that weird throw-away image of the people in animal costume having some sort of sexual situation reminded me poorly of later less successful weirdness as comprised much of Kubrick's uneven final film Eyes Wide Shut (1999), attempting to be shocking and arresting, but merely feeling stagey and odd. After having watched the visceral and hyperkinetic 28 Days Later... (2002), it was interesting to see another horror film that approached its material from such a different angle, building slowly to powerful images, rather than creating ALL of its tension from mood. 28 Days Later... (2002) dir. Danny Boyle viewed: 07/12/03, Fremont Theaters, San Luis Obispo, CA / diary entry: 08/08/03 A really enjoyable "zombie" flick from England, 28 Days Later... is a fairly ruthless and exciting. I am a fan of the "zombie" subgenre of horror. It's one of those weird little subgenres that seems to lend itself to social commentary almost easily. Since 28 Days Later... isn't really a zombie film (rather more like a mad rabies film), perhaps it gets to step out of some of the genres conventions. Still, it's the apocalyptic, hell on Earth world that has a palpably "close enough" to reality that it hardly seems out of the realm of possibility. All of the death and mayhem arises from government-cultivated diseases that break out and turn people into crazed, bloodthirsty killers with faster than Ebola infections, and faster than the average zombie running ability. There is a ruthlessness that shows from the first, as a character who seems like a principal is quickly killed off by another of the principals. It's just enough to keep one from feeling as though they know where this film is going. End the end, the film isn't as ruthless as many of the classics of the zombie genre are. There is still some hope for the world (and maybe some room for a sequel). Apparantly, though, this was an ending that was added on after a test audience rejected the original, more pessimistic finale...so I have heard. Perhaps anytime is a good time for a good zombie film, but given the state of the world, the madness and chaos that feel like they loom all too close, and with the range of impending disease and such becoming all the more frightening, this film seems a true film of the present, a true sampling of genre film, indeed. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) dir. Sergio Leone viewed: 07/07/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 08/08/03 I was on vacation for a while and had hopes of catching up on my little diary entries. Now, much later, I am afraid that I am not going to do these films the sort of justice that I would have, having come right off from seeing them. This movie totally kicks ass! When the film ended, all of us in our party came out feeling like shouting "Fuck Yeah!" or something, so totally satisfying and exciting it was to see it on the big screen. I have to say that despite the fact that it seems like such a mainstream sort of choice to say this about, but I would definitely classify this film among perhaps my all-time top 10 favorite films. Eli Wallach is utterly fantastic, carrying the whole film on his grizzly, comic anti-hero's back. From the iconic music, to the campy inter-titles that announce the characters, to the climactic shoot-out in the amphitheater-like graveyard, this movie is hands-down awesome. The film's epic, picaresque narrative is set against a truly sweeping scope of a backdrop, the fallout and leftover doom from the end of the American Civil War, with maimed, lost soldiers wandering everywhere. It was only on reading about this film, just briefly before going to see it, that I realized that in essence it is a prequel to the other two films, most notably as when Clint Eastwood picks up the poncho near the end of the film that he so iconically wore in the first two. I think I had also been somewhat confused as the fact that Lee Van Cleef plays an altogether different character in this one, too. I think the first time I saw these, I didn't see them nearly so close together as this time, having seen them all in a couple of nights. I can't say enough about it...but I have, so I will stop. The Hulk (2003) dir. Ang Lee viewed: 06/28/03, Platinum Theaters, Dinuba, CA / diary entry: 07/01/03 When I used to live down in Reedley, CA (a small town in the San Joaquin Valley -- for those of you who do not know), we would have to drive to either Fresno or Visalia to go see a movie, which would amount to a 40 minute drive each way. A couple of years ago, the town of Selma (another small San Joaquin Valley town) opened a small, six-screen cinema, which made for a 20 minute drive and despite the rather mainstream and limited fare, saved the trouble of the long haul to the bigger towns when we visited the valley and wanted to see a film. Well, on the Wednesday before I got to Reedley this last week, the town of Dinuba (yet another small San Joaquin Valley town) opened its own six-screen movie theater, the Platinum Theaters, as they call it. They feature "stadium seating," which I guess is a plus over the Selma Theater, and though they show virtually the exact same mainstream fare, it's only a ten minute drive from Reedley. On Saturday afternoon, we visited the Platinum Theaters to see Ang Lee's The Hulk, the latest Marvel comic character to get the digitally animated big screen/live action treatment. The theater is located right in the downtown, which is pretty cool, but its parking lot was still pretty unfinished, making it look quite a bit like it was not yet opened. But it was. It had that "new theater smell," which I can't say that I have ever smelled before, but is full of semi-toxic artificial chemical aromas of acrylic fibers and fresh paint. The theater was none too crowded, which was nice. The movie. Ah, yes, the movie. Well, I didn't have such high expectations. This wasn't a film that I would have gone out of my way to see, but I felt like seeing something and my nephew was interested and there was this chance to see the film in this new theater...so that is how I ended up at it. Digital animation has given filmmakers the license to portray a lot more fantastic storylines and characters than were feasible in the past with more traditional special effects. The Hulk is a giant green dude, bulging repulsively with musceles beyond even the most grotesque bodybuilder on Earth, something presumably that in the past could only be rendered with the likes of Lou Ferrigno (the tv Hulk of the 1970's) or perhaps some animatronic creature. The problem for digital animation is to create believably something that is utterly unbelievable. And despite the distance that the technology has traveled, filmmakers often try to rely too heavily on the technology to render their story. This is not to say that some of the digital animation is not impressive or engrossing, but that its shortcomings are evident throughout, distancing the viewer and at worst, showing itself for what it is...which is not convincing. In the past, 2-D animation has been utilized in the manner, and the results were similarly stylized but not convincingly real. The heavily detailed attempted naturalism of the Hulk and other digitally animated special effects seems to clearly attempt to allow itself to "read" as truly three-dimensional and "real." Perhaps to younger viewers who have grown up with this animation style as a staple of the language of film, this technology "reads" better. Perhaps it is a personal prejudice on my part. The film's character and story development, which take up the first hour of the film and set the stage for the action, is handled more successfully, I thought, than last year's Spider-Man. That said, Spider-Man was more fun, for whatever reasons. Ang Lee tries to situate The Hulk in more emotional territory, and as much as one can with a very fantastic story, manages to do better than Sam Raimi did with his bad dialogue and hammy acting. The Hulk climaxes with an operatic finale which seemed pretty over-the-top to me and somewhat unsatisfying. The best action scene was the battle with the "hulk dogs," I thought. In the end, I wouldn't necessarily recommend anyone to see this film in the cinema, but it's not a total waste of time. If you take it for what it is...an expensive summer confection from Hollywood that is ultimately a cheap sort of thrill. The Matrix Reloaded (2003) dir. Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski viewed: 05/28/03, The Coronet Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 06/16/03 I've been really falling behind on this diary of late, and sadly, haven't even been really seeing all that many films. This is yet another entry that I would have been much better off having written a more closely to the time I had seen it. That said, the only thing that I think I would have articulated with more energy was my overall disappointment with this film. Perhaps what this sequel proves more than anything is that The Matrix (1999) by the Wachowski brothers was more pure design, style, and technology rather than storytelling and anything overly fascinating. This time around, the design and visual style are familiar (rather than flashily innovative), not only from the previous installment but from all the hundreds of films and commercials that have co-opted the original's more powerful visuals. The technology, as is so often the case with digital special effects, has become pedestrian rather than eye-popping, and perhaps even more criminal, the visuals look more and more like an expensive video game than a movie (though it could be noted that part of the media glut that accompanies the release of this film is a rather large spate of just that: video games). Perhaps the greatest innovation of the first Matrix film was the real integration of Hong Kong-style fight sequences, employing famed kung fu choreographer Yuen Wo Ping's artistry. In some ways, perhaps this is part of the ultimate legacy of the heyday of Hong Kong film, that style and character of its action sequences was finally truly co-opted by American film-making, not so surprisingly in a somewhat cutting-edge fantasy blockbuster. The newer film, which lacks the original verve of its predecessor, winds up being an amped-up version of the first film, but with a lot more silly narrative and pseudo-religious fervor (or is it pseudo? Is this film just pure Christian iconography?). Some of the backstory of The Matrix Reloaded truly verges on the level of badness found usually in the lesser Star Trek films. The most painful scene is the one in which Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus character preaches to the people of Zion about the Christ-like Neo and then tells them to dance! Which they do, in an interestingly filmed but largely campy orgyistic rave sequence. The Wachowskis seem to want to portray the earthy humanism of the downtrodden Zionist freedom fighters as they writhe to Trance-like disco. A fantasy about an idealized working class of the young and the hip? The other nadir that the film hit was the long explanatory speech that laid out the story in doublespeek mumbo jumbo while cross-cutting the bigger action sequences. Perhaps we should credit the Wachowskis with figuring out how to use Keanu Reeves fairly well...it seems that most of their direction for him would have been: "Just look cool." Reeves: "What's my motivation?" Wachowskis: "You ARE cool." Reeves: "Cool, then." Rivers and Tides (2001) dir. Thomas Riedelsheimer viewed: 05/26/03, The Red Vic Movie House, SF, CA / diary entry: 06/05/03 This is yet further testament to how behind I have fallen in my little film diary/journal thing. No time to catch up and so some pretty interesting films, like this one, will get short shrift, I am afraid. I had missed this film when it had been through town last year or whenever it came through. It sounded really interesting, focusing on the work of Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy, who creates his art installations out mostly in "nature", using only found objects, often even highly perishible ones to build his varying creations. Goldsworthy's personal words on the subject certainly attest to his passion for nature and his connections to the Earth. While this was a little new-agey in spoken form, the visual presentation of him creating his work and his work itself truly have a transcendent aspect of this sensibility, one that is very profound and at times even stunning. This film works well as a document to his process, especially since his work is largely ephemeral and constructed in such isolated spots that the experience is less one of exhibition and seemingly more personal. He documents his work with photography for historical and cataloguing reasons. One thing that I liked about his work (I was mostly unfamiliar with him before reading a review of this film about a year or so ago), was the way that it has a sort of organic feeling of inspiration, building things the way that people do with sticks and mud or stones, like daisy chains or other such things that people/kids do when they are out on the beach or in the woods. So, there is something very natural about the process and not just the materials and forms. Definitely worth seeing, if you are curious. We saw this film as part of the Monday Night Movie Club at the small Red Vic Theater in the Haight. It was Memorial Day Monday, at the end of a warm and pleasant three-day weekend, sun still out... Shockingly, there was a line almost around the block and the film was sold out! Only in SF (and more likely only at a theater as small as The Red Vic) could a documentary about an obscure artist would be a blockbuster. Une femme est une femme (1961) dir. Jean-Luc Godard viewed: 05/19/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 05/28/03 Really getting into a bad habit of falling too far behind for these entries. I saw this film over a week ago. It's not as fresh in my mind as it once was. Jean-Luc Godard's interpretation of the romantic comedy seems, on the surface, strangely "lite." The challenges and disjunctures to the narrative and the distancing effects that Godard uses to keep the viewer from getting caught up in the film as story are in heavy use. Music swells during certain scenes in over-the-top fashion, only to suddenly cut off in mid-note/emotion, replaced with soundtrack silence or street noises. A moment or two later, the music rushes back in, occasionally blotting out the dialogue. Godard uses visual disjunctures as well, the characters directly address the audience, bowing before enacting one scene. The big difference is that Godard seems to play a lot of the elements for laughs. And some of it is quite funny and charming. I really liked the way that the characters used the book titles from the shelves to silently insult one another while lying in bed. Ironically, this is perhaps one of the most truly narrative sequences in the film, in a sense, figuring the least disjunctive. The film's title A Woman is a Woman perhaps speaks to the real underlying subtext of the film. This has probably been analyzed to death elsewhere, so I apologize for the cheap goings-over. The beautiful Anna Karina, Godard's wife at the time this was filmed I believe, plays a stripper, caught in a love triangle, between her boyfriend/lover and his best friend. Karina's character, Angela, is obsessed with becoming pregnant and her desire for this conflicts with that of her boyfriend Émile and is essentially the source of the conflict. What the film is saying about a woman being a woman, I can't really say, but it does seem to seek to define that according to some stereotypically significant aspects being female, the ability to become pregnant/give birth and the ability to be sexually objectified. The film's attitude toward these things might be debatable... I found the film quite enjoyable. The radical nature of Godard's work seems both still very relavant and yet oddly quaint in a way. Some of the stylistic elements and characteristics of his work have been absorbed into the common language of film, though the bulk of what he attempts to do still remains clearly outside of film-work, totally housed within the avant-garde or underground cinemas. But there is this other side of the film as a document of a now historical Paris, of a dynamic period of film production that seems for lack of a better term, almost "quaint." I think that might sound horribly insulting, but it's not meant that way. Le Cercle rouge (1970) dir. Jean-Pierre Melville viewed: 05/12/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 05/15/03 I'd actually been to see Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967) at the Castro Theater a couple of years ago, another slick post-New Wave crime flick, full of detached cool and studied Noir homage. Le Cercle rouge cut from a very similar cloth, still very hip and slick, and apparantly very influential as well. The new print of Le Cercle rouge was brought about in some way by John Woo, who is an avowed fan of Melville's. The jewel heist that is the centerpiece of this film, which last (I am speculating) like 40 minutes almost, is handled without a single spoken word. In an amusing comment on this, the inspector comments, upon viewing the videotape of the crime, that the thieves are not much for words. That self-reflective comment could easily apply to the entire film, which for its length and slow pacing, is incredibly economical with diaglogue. Narrative plays out almost entirely by visual means, with small pieces of exposition. The film is quite amazing in this aspect, really. The characters are so cool and detached that when they meet their inevitable end, they do so with great fatalist inevitability. I liked the weird bar at which the characters often rendezvoused, where there was always a strange stage show of 6-7 women dressed in identical period/stereotypical costumes and wigs, dancing to a hep jazz ensemble like robots. They were largely the only females in the film. The world of the film was one clearly inhabited solely by males, for as little dialogue as the main characters spoke, I don't know if a single female voice uttered a word. There was one scene with an ex-girlfriend of Corey's, who remained almost completely on the periphory of the action, behind a closed door while the main action of the scene transpired. For the rest of the film, she was relegated to discarded photographs. I don't think that you need to be up on your feminist criticism to grasp the nature of this depiction. Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) dir. Justin Lin viewed: 04/21/03, AMC 1000 Van Ness, SF, CA / diary entry: 05/02/03 This is another one of those diary entries that would have been much better had I sat down to write it more shortly after having seen this film. However, time failed to permit, and thus I will cobble together what I can about this. Writer/director Justin Lin's film about Southern Californian Asian-American over-achievers has its moments and its qualities, some of which are located in revealing cliches and stereotypes about Asian-American teens from presumably an inside perspective. The film opens much like a typical popular teen film, with the sort of light humor and "poppy" tone that typifies the genre. What makes the film unusual is that all of the central characters are Asian-American, which ,as trite as it may sound to point out, seems significantly atypical. Lin depicts the innocuous world of suburban Southern California initially as a bland, neat, and characterless place, positioning the film's protagonists as very much a part of this world, yet slightly outside of the social structures as well. They are recognizable participants in school functions and society, but in a complacent, peripheral way. After realizing his placement on the high school basketball team is more of a nod to tokenism than as a result of his inherent value, Ben and his gang begin to recognize their "place" in-but-out of the social structures and begin to actively position themselves outside of the society that they had been so keen to succeed in. They step away from their perceived honor student lives by indulging in "bad boy" behavior, selling crib sheets and ultimately drugs and guns as well. Their tendency to "over-achieve" excellerates their shift toward illegal activities and things quickly get out of hand. When I first saw the movie, I thought that I preferred the opening half that focused on the characters and their world, rather than their delinquency. But now, a week or so later, it seems to make more sense to me. The kids of this film start out fulfilling their societal roles, somewhat blindly, and only decide to break from them (while still maintaining them) after realizing that their situation in their world is less than what they had thought it was. In that sense, it's a dark-ended coming-of-age film. The ending of the film suggests an accepted amorality which didn't jibe for me, probably because the character of Ben always seemed a little too bland and good-hearted to accept as consienceless. I don't know. The Man Without a Past (2002) dir. Aki Kaurismäki viewed: 04/18/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 04/23/03 I saw this film as what will probably be my only venture out to the San Francisco International Film Festival this year. I would love to have seen some more films but my schedule isn't working with the festival's schedule this year. It's a shame, because I would love to have gone to see more films, but that's the way it goes. The Man Without a Past is a sweet-natured, simple comedy, somewhat absurdist and intentionally off-beat. Shot almost entirely in Helsinki and largely down at the industrial waterfront of the city, Kaurismäki paints a picture of the world of the financially marginalized in Finland's capitol. It's not a "realistic" portrait, not one steeped in a naturalism or even a faux naturalism, but rather a portrait that teeters on the surreal, reckoning of the lighter side of David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch perhaps. I'd only seen one of Aki Kaurismäki's other films, Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989), but I get the impression that his narrative style might well be aligned with those directors more than not. The film follows the character of M, played by Markku Peltola, who develops amnesia after being severely beaten upon arriving in Helsinki. He builds a life among the slums of the city, living in a shipping container near the industrial waterfront. There is a gentle quirkiness to the people that he meets and the life that he develops, inflected with a sort of disgarded music soundtrack of obscure American rock and roll from the late 1950's to early 1960's (I am guessing at its period). The story is almost naïve-ist in its tone and content, evoking humor from small moments and strange juxtapositions. Kaurismäki's portrait of the people that live on the outskirts of the city of Helsinki and Finnish society in general shows them as good-hearted and decent, odd but kind. The film is sort of "softly" political, in that regard, though not confrontational at all. There is a great simplicity to it and an easy charm, perhaps there is a sense of naïveté in not just the film's tone but the film's construction. If so, it is one that is quite appealing. The Magnificent Seven (1960) dir. John Sturges viewed: 03/25/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 03/27/03 Well, I can scratch another cinema classic off of my list of films that I have never seen. And for The Magnificent Seven, I was able to scratch it off in style, seeing it on the big screen in a beautiful 70mm print, in its true glory. This is one of those movies that plays on television with great regularity, yet somehow I had never seen it. The musical score is iconic and utterly familiar, as are some of the film's images, though I know that I have never seen the film as much of it was fresh to my eyes. And here is a shocking confession: I have also never seen Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samuarai (1954), the film from which The Magnificent Seven was adapted, another peak in the cinema landscape. I have actually come close to seeing it, but have wanted to catch it on the big screen, too. Anyways, though these films are greatly known and respected, I hadn't seen them. I had seen A Bug's Life (1998), which also played off the same premise, however. Though with digitally animated insects. The film itself is pretty magnificent. It's an excellent popcorn Western from the tail end of the period of the classic Westerns from Hollywood. Highly slick and entertaining, with excellent performances by Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson, among many others. Brynner is particularly striking. With his sort of ambiguous ethnicity, inflected in his appearance and his accent, he is the embodiment of cool, sexy and somewhat exotic. This is a thought that ran through my head a lot during the film, that you could tell who the good guys were because they were so damn cool. Brynner would have to be their leader, handsomely dressed in all black, he is the coolest of the cool. However, it must be said that he seems preposterously unlikely a real world cowboy. If only the real wild west were to have contained such cool, stand-up guys. Or maybe it did? Who knows? Spider (2002) dir. David Cronenberg viewed: 03/17/03, Lumiere Theatre, SF, CA / diary entry: 03/24/03 David Cronenberg's new film Spider reminded me a good deal of another film that I had seen a couple of years back, Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy (1997), so much so, that I began to wonder if they were both adapted from the same author. This turned out not to be the case. The Butcher Boy was adapted from a novel of the same name written by Patrick McCabe, and Spider was adpated from a novel by Patrick McGrath. In both cases, the novels were adapted for the screen by the original authors, though Neil Jordan shared a screenwriting credit on his film. These items are more pure coincidence really. The parallels, if there really are any, are in the narrative's plot lines. (I will warn you that I am getting into spoiler territory here, so if you don't want to read the film's plot twists, turn back while you still can.) The films linked in my mind by depicting the interior world of two mentally ill boys who end up becmoing murderers as their psychoses dominate their personalities. In both movies, the world of the film is aligned very much with the mind of the protagonist, offering a something of a first-person perspective/interpretation while seeming initially as objective. Not explicitly "narrated" by the protagonists (there is no voice-over in either film, I believe), each film begins with a more naturalistic representation of the narrative, giving the viewer the impression that the world of the film is objective and believable. Eventually, though, the viewer is forced back to realize that the narratives have not been reliable, that at some point one is forced to recognize the delusional state of some of the content and that this confusion lies within the protangonists' understanding of reality. This break, arguably, shifts the narrative back into a more traditional third-person omniscient perspective, seeing more than what is viewable by the protagonist, knowing more than is possible for the protagonist to know. In Spider, the cracks in the believability of the narrative only start to show near the end, just before they are shattered in the climactic revelation at the end. It's almost classically Freudian. Dennis "Spider" Clegg views a duality in his mother's personality (depicted as almost a virgin/whore stereotype), which he envisions as an entirely different people. Only after succeeding in killing the "tart" does it become perfectly clear, to both "Spider" and the viewer, that both characters (each played by Miranda Richardson) are one and the same person. "Spider"'s split is not of his own personality, but with his comprehension of the personality of his mother. All in all, I thought that the film was pretty good, though a bit slow. I would definitely recommend Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy, though, which I thought was utterly amazing. Chicago (2002) dir. Rob Marshall viewed: 03/05/03, Loews Theatre at the Metreon, SF, CA / diary entry: 03/11/03 More fun than innovative or aesthetically pleasing, Chicago still struck me as reasonably high on entertainment, if not a particularly notable piece of "art." But what is "art" anyways, right? In this case, as in so many, it's a mostly matter of opinion. I wasn't familiar with the original musical Chicago. Though I have somewhat of an affinity for musicals on celluloid, I haven't seen much Theater and so am pretty uninformed about plays that have not been adapted for the screen. I understand, to some degree, that the handling of the musical numbers in the film version differ from the original stage productions in that they are envisioned as fantasies, and so staged outside of the narrative's "world" largely. This is not a new convention in the least, and my guess is that in some ways it's a way to perhaps make the pieces more "believeable" to a contemporary audience not as comfortable with the more typical traditions of musicals, like when suddenly an entire town bursts into a song and dance routine that magically they all know. Oddly, it's just that surreality that appeals to me about a good musical. I didn't care for the general execution of the musical numbers in this film for the most part. They had a very "stage-y" quality to them, departed from the context of the general storyline, like fantastical "asides," and very theatrical, almost like they were being performed on the Oscars stage. Largely, this was an overall aesthetic problem for me, and quite ironically, I thought that the songs themselves were very good. I also thought that the underlying story, with its eminent cynicism, and script itself were pretty good, too. As for the performances, Catherine Zeta-Jones was excellent, all the way around. Queen Latifah's one musical number was definitely the best single musical performance and she had some strong scenes, acting-wise. Renée Zellweger was okay, but seemed too skinny and waif-like a lot of the time. Richard Gere really shouldn't be singing and dancing any more than I should, which is to say...at all. My guess is that this film will top the Oscars this year, not because it is a great film (which it isn't), but because it is entertaining. And despite the fact that the story is essentially an aptly cynical saga about media culture and fame, its buoyant, upbeat musical numbers give the film an almost escapist, "feel-good" sensation (the film literally depicts escapist fantasies in its flashiest moments), which contrasts with the other films up for top film this year. It's been noted before that musicals were at their height of popularity during the Great Depression and WWII, and that it is easy to find such parallels in the current situation of our world. An interesting theory, though doubtful to imagine that the musical will ever regain its popularity as a form/genre in film, though it would be interesting to see. Russian Ark (2002) dir. Aleksandr Sokurov viewed: 03/03/03, Opera Plaza Cinemas, SF, CA / diary entry: 03/06/03 Russian Ark follows a surreal trip through time and the Hermitage museum in St. Petersberg, Russia, a dream-like meditation on Russia that documents the splendor of The Winter Palace. Narrated from a first-person perspective (the camera vantage tours the museum via steadicam), the tour also follows another displaced onlooker, the character of a 19th(?) century French marquis, played by Sergei Dontsov. The marquis critiques the museum and its objects, as well as the character of Russian culture. Numerous historical figures, spanning the four centuries of the museum's existence, roam the galleries as well. The narrator, who mumbles his broken thoughts, is never seen by the camera (the camera's steady strolling gaze represents his own view). He is also never seen by most of the other characters save the Marquis, who also has a fluctuating invisibility to the events and people they are witnessing. They stroll quite like ghosts through the museum, which is filled with numerous other resurrected figures of history. There is little explication, as the intended viewer is perhaps thought to have a better grasp on Russian history than I do. Though it does seem that Sokurov envisions The Hermitage as a vessel (read: ark) to carry Russian culture and history through the centuries. The film's notoriety arises from its technical achievement (the film was shot in one unedited, flowing 96-minute take), a conceit that is employed at times to striking effect. The opening sequence, trailing a group of 19th(?) century revelers as the make their way into the Hermitage through back passages and narrow stairways, has a dizzying, dreamy sensibility. And at it's best moments, the film feels much like an amusement park ride, one in which the viewer flows along a predestined track, drinking in all the spectacles but with no control over the event. That said, it is clearly not a "thrill" ride. More a stream-of-consciousness essay than typical film narrative, Russian Ark slides between fantasy and document. Unfortunately, for one member of my party who attended this film, the stream of consciousness was not maintained...and he slept through the bulk of the film, even snoring briefly. The film is challenging in this sense, truly, which is too bad because I found it very interesting on the whole and have found myself thinking of it considerably since seeing it. My son's Russian day care caregiver, who didn't like the film, told me that the translation was awful. I certainly felt that knowing more Russian/Soviet history would have helped considerably in comprehension, but I had to experience it with the faculties that I have, poor as they are. This lack of understanding probably added a lot to the induction of sleep for my companion and for me in the experience's overall surreality. Talk to Her (2002) dir. Pedro Almodóvar viewed: 02/28/03, Embarcadero Center Cinema, SF, CA / diary entry: 03/11/03 I thought that this film was excellent. I have been totally stymied on trying to write about it. There is a lot of interesting stuff in it, particularly the way that care and devotion easily transposes into creepy obsession. The relationship of two men and their comatose female objects of desire. The fantastic, surreal silent film section really stood out. Talk to Her is pure Almodóvar, in the more mature, art house-friendly, Oscar-friendly stage of his career, but arguably among his best work. Well worth seeing. The Hours (2002) dir. Stephen Daldry viewed: 02/22/03, Park Cinemas, Paso Robles, CA / diary entry: 02/24/03 Chick flick par excellence...or maybe Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood for intellectuals. I just wanted to make a few stupid jokes before really addressing this film, which is actually quite good. And while the preceding comments have a somewhat derrogatory flavor, they are not utterly inaccurate if one views them less subjectively. The Hours is essentially a literary melodrama, focused on three connected stories about three primary female leads. The film pivots around Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway, to which each of the storylines has some connection to, including the "main" story that features Woolf writing the novel. The literary thread also harkens back to the novel (by Michael Cunningham) from which this film was adapted (by noted playwright David Hare). Each sequence features depression, suicide, and a kiss between two women. And, in essence, these are the roots of some of the film's themes. Though the film doesn't explicitly explore the roots of Woolf's mental illness, there is a sense of repression tied to her confinement as well as an aspect of repression and depression regarding her feelings toward her sister whom she passionately kisses in a desperate, clandestine way. Not knowing enough history about Woolf, I can only go on what the film offers in terms of narrative here, and so, though there is implication of something more than traditionally sisterly love, it's never foregrounded and explained. One can easily imagine that an incestuous relationship could be a site of repressed feeling and potential sadness, though the film does not imply this as the sole impetus behind her general depression and ultimate suicide. There is a sense of evolution in the stories in this regard. In the storyline set in the 1950's Julianne Moore plays a woman not at all at ease with her life as a homemaker and mother. In a sudden, empathetic kiss to her family friend, a potential glimpse of the reality that she is repressing comes suddenly to light. Though her friend ignores the action as though it hadn't happened, it seems to spark some realization for Moore, and she is driven to suicidal thoughts. Moore's character ultimately overcomes her situation by running from it and starting anew. She survives, but presumably at some cost, alienating her children, friends, and family, but not dying. The viewer can only speculate on the life she is implied to have lived. The contemporary sequence, which features Meryl Streep as a possible embodiment of character of Mrs. Dalloway, shows a further evolution of similar themes. For Streep's character, the repression and sadness are embodied in the figure of the dying poet (played by Ed Harris), her one true love. Comparatively, her repression is almost inverted in that her long term open relationship is with a woman and her repressed longing and love is for a man. Streep's character, though tormented by her poet friend's long illness and depression, is ultimately never pushed to the brink of suicide. Comparatively, her problems are managed. I am not totally sure of what the film was intended to express entirely. It is interestingly structured and seems quite intelligently written. Nicole Kidman is excellent, as is Meryl Streep. I am sure that under further analysis, something coherent could be extrapolated, though I won't do that here. Quai des Orfèvres (1947) dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot viewed: 02/18/03, Castro Theater, SF, CA / diary entry: 02/24/03 I really don't take advantage of some of the real perks of living in San Francisco as much as I should. We have such fantastic repertory cinemas that play such cool and interesting movies that I should never have to find myself standing in some megaplex theater debating which of the latest Hollywood crap to see. It's a crying shame. And it's a shame that I feel this most poignently when I do actually make my way to the likes of the Red Vic, the Roxie, or jewel of the city's cinemas, the Castro Theater. Its well-noted beauty and excellent slate of films really should entice me more frequently. It makes me want to alter my viewing habits entirely. I hadn't actually heard of Quai des Orfèvres before reading about it in the paper last week when the film debuted at the Castro. It sounded cool, especially since I have liked director Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1955) and had also been interested in seeing his 1953 film The Wages of Fear. The paper described it roughly as a sort of French noir film, shot on location in Paris only shortly after the end of WWII. The world of the film is indeed shadowy and suspicious and is filmed with a polish not unlike its contemporary Hollywood B-fare of the time. Its style and look sort of accentuate the ribald and explicit nature of the language of the film, something one might expect in pre-code Hollywood perhaps, but certainly not in a post-war film. I don't know how much of a misnomer it is to dub this film as noir. It features an interesting, world-weary Inspector character, played by Louis Jouvet, back from his tour of duty in Africa with an adoptive son (which seems potentially quite metaphorical) and an colorful portrait of the operations of the the French police. There is a lot of interesting stuff here: the wonderful burlesque theater backdrop (with innumerable amusing background goings-on), the lesbian photographer/family friend (and her portrayal, which was both more explicit and sympathetic than one might expect from the time period), and the nighttime shots of the wet Paris streets, only a couple of years after the occupation (as noted by the SF Chronicle, as I mentioned above). The world of the film, which is replete with such interesting details, seems to address itself to the nature of post-war France through this tale of folks who are presumably not living on the right side of the tracks, so to speak. The bigger picture seems less concrete to me than many of the smaller details. It's one of those kind of things where I think that I will remember images and things from this film, down the road, while I might forget most aspects of the narrative itself. That is pure supposition on my part, of course. About Schmidt (2002) dir. Alexander Payne viewed: 02/01/03, Park Cinemas, Paso Robles, CA / diary entry: 02/04/03 Alexander Payne's depressing critique of American life that plays out in his new film About Schmidt is less purely absurdist and comical than in his 1999 feature, Election. Both films are set in the American "heartland," Omaha, Nebraska to be exact, and address themselves to an occasionally sympathetic, but otherwise striking criticism of the film's characters and the world that they inhabit. Whereas Election employed a broader humor, giving it a sense of satire, About Schmidt has a more muted tone, one that seems more obviously downbeat. Now I feel that I must preface this by saying that there may be some "generational" difference of interpretation on this; my step-mother found the movie hilarious, and recommended it strongly. And I think that finding the humor in it might make it seem less of a "downer". But at the same time, I think that Election had a really negative, sort of depressing side to it that was merely masked by its light humor, so maybe my read of the film may seem apt. Still, I want to throw that out there. (I don't want to give away too many plot details, but if you are afraid of me spoiling it for you, maybe you should read no further.) Schmidt, played by Jack Nicholson, upon retiring, comes to realize that the life that he built, his relationship with his wife and daughter, his job, his place in the community, his Republican values, are nothing more than a sham. His realizations isolate him from those with whom he wants to connect. The film's point of view is rather sympathetic to Schmidt's mindset, but there are moments of distancing him from the audience as well. For instance, his in-laws are cheesy and obnoxious, but well-meaning and not mean-spirited, yet he fails to warm to them. Perhaps someone who identified more closely with Schmidt's background would see them as detestable. Perhaps then, the film is actually criticizing Schmidt himself, his inability to cope with the changes and realizations in his life. At the end of the film, he states rather unequivocally that he is essentially just waiting to die, that the life that he has led has been utterly meaningless and will be totally eradicated in time. In the final scene he recieves a letter from an African orphan that he has been sponsoring, which encloses a simple drawing, which moves him to tears. This ending seems a bit open for reading: has he found some simplistic joy in having made some small positive action in the world or is it tragic that the only way that he can feel that way is through some artificial process, initiated via television, and completely removed from his daily reality? Schmidt's situation is only tragic from his own somewhat selfish standpoint. The reality in which he finds himself may be far from ideal to his perspective and certainly a letdown, considering his aspirations and life's work, but the sadness, in which the audience is meant to share to some extent, seems steeped in self-pity. I can easily imagine that someone might sympathize with him to a greater extent than I did, though I would be pressed to try and suggest the director's intent in this regard. The film does seem open for reading, which may be to its merit. I don't know. Catch Me If You Can (2002) dir. Steven Spielberg viewed: 01/18/03, Park Cinemas, Paso Robles, CA / diary entry: 01/23/03 Spielberg's biopic of Frank Abagnale, Jr.'s life as a con artist extrordinaire is poppy, entertaining Hollywood fare, quite enjoyable to be honest. The film reminded me somewhat of Ted Demme's Blow (2001), another biographical film set in a similar period, also following an idealized hero whose greatest achievements were outside of the law. The parallels are interesting in that both Blow's George Jung and Catch Me If You Can's Frank Abagnale, Jr.'s drives are inspired by the failures of their fathers as "legitimate" American small business owners. They both maintain strong emotional connections to their fathers throughout the periods of each characters' personal infamy, never being "judged" by them while being somehow ostracized by their mothers and by contemporary society at large. Both characters are also ultimately captured and jailed by the society which they have operated outside of, and for both films their "outsider" qualities (excelling in illegal activities) are celebrated largely and their ultimate incarceration is viewed sympathetically. In this sense, both films critique the mainstream American culture of the period as unhip, bland, and conformist and almost advocate the exploits of their protagonists. Demme portrayed Jung as almost a classic American capitalist, whose only major problem was that his industry was illegal. Spielberg portrays Frank Abagnale, Jr. as an opportunist who manages to subvert existing systems, in some ways showing what a sham that they are. Spielberg's critiques are not harsh, though, as he tries to humanize the representatives of the society to which Frank is opposed, namely in the figure of Carl Hanratty. Hanratty is as square as they come. As played by Tom Hanks, he almost resembles the Joe Friday character played by Dan Akyroyd in Dragnet (1987) (another Tom Hanks film), which lampooned the ultimate square Jack Webb. These cultural cross-connections may be tenuous, but they struck me. In many Hollywood films, the FBI agent is represented by bland, suited figures, often characterless or even "evil." Hanratty has these bland characteristics but is also shown as sympathetic by his side-story of his divorce. The world of the FBI, if seen mainly in their fluorescent-lit, box-like offices, represents the ultimate of conformity. It is ultimately to this world that Frank must submit himself, the ultimate punishment not being 10+ years of solitary confinement, but rather the loss of individuality and confinement within the social structure that he once made look so foolish. There is clearly a point in the film when Spielberg seems to indicate this pessimistic end for his outlaw hero. However, ultimately, Spielberg seems to indicate that his acceptance of this life is not such a bad thing. Frank successfully applies his criminal skills to his career as an fraud consultant, and as a results lives happily ever after. The film flirts with the endorsement of a relatively subversive message only to subvert itself and uphold the society that it would seem to wish to critique. Demme's Jung receives no such redemption and arguably never "learns his lesson." His last shot at redemption is upended and he is sent to prison to age and die, though the audience, I believe is meant to sympathize with this, not necessarily to agree 100% with society's justice. Derrida (2002) dir. Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering Kofman viewed: 01/13/03, Opera Plaza Cinemas, SF, CA / diary entry: 01/21/03 Having spent a semester of my life in a seminar on Jacques Derrida in graduate school in Cinema Studies, I felt some sense of obligation beyond my general interest to get out to see this documentary film about one of the most influential thinkers of our day. I would love to tell you that I have a good grasp on Derrida's major ideas and philosophical tenets...but I tend to find myself lost often in reading his writings and only somewhat more situated in the studies class and seminars. This film does manage to make Derrida more accessible, I think. It doesn't probe too deeply into any of his more challenging theories (or his theories' critics), which is probably part of why it felt more accessible. Derrida is charismatic and intensely sharp, and to see and hear the man himself in some more mundane domestic settings as well as speaking to students or interviewers manages to make him and his ideas more approachable. Derrida consistently questions the film process' ability to "document" him in actuality (an impossibility, he would say), noting frequently the artifice that attempts to show the "naturality" of a scene, for instance. The filmmakers followed Derrida for four years, over three continents, in the making of their film, which has a shoddy, almost non-professional charm (and the weaknesses that you would expect in such a production). The filmmakers sound like idiots at times asking him questions that he rephrases or deflects unless they are rephrased, but none worse than the BBC interviewer who asks him what he thinks about Seinfeld. The opening of the film focuses on Derrida's thoughts on biography, which the film utilizes as a constantly self-aware process that ekes out some interesting points, and ends with a section on the Derrida archive that was established at UC Irvine in the late 1990's, about which Derrida wrote considerably (and which the film quotes). The film attempts to "deconstruct" itself and its subject as much as possible, addressing these issues at the forefront as much as it can. For all its faults and shortcomings, I kind of wish that I had seen this film or something like it, even just a taped interview with Derrida, back when I studied his work. I think it offers some in-roads to him and his thought that could make the reading of his work more easy to immerse oneself in. Maybe this is even in tune with some of his notions of the oral over the written word? Maybe I just can't get my head around it. Either way, I enjoyed the Derrida though I thought it wasn't such a great film. |