Although, I'm now only two films short of having seen all of last year's Best Picture nominees before tomorrow's Academy Awards ceremony, it's rather lucky of me that my library was nice enough to send me a copy of Winter's Bone, today; this year's "indie-film-that-could" which has swept up a number of different festivals including the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. How admirable it is that this film has come so far to reach mainstream attention with the Oscars. While it's fairly ordinary storytelling, I sensed a quiet strength underneath it all, much like the performance conveyed by it's lead actress.
Based on a book by the same name, written a few years ago, Winter's Bone is about a poor Missouri family, living in the Ozarks, and cared for by 17 year-old Ree. When her drug-pushing father skips bail and disappears, Ree takes responsibility to go looking for him, lest she risk herself and her catatonic mother losing custody of Ree's younger siblings, due to her father putting up their assets as collateral. As Ree investigates into the matter further, she butts heads with the local townsfolk who seem bent on keeping Ree's father's disappearance a secret, and she seeks the protection and guidance of her uncle, Teardrop, to figure out what happened to him.
Independent films often have a knack for making incredible atmosphere, as a result of being a labor of love. Winter's Bone is no exception; this film is exudes the Ozarks through and through. The cinematography gives off beautiful vistas of the Missouri countryside, dotted with the gritty, destitute nature of Ree's neighborhood. The soundtrack is mostly folk music, but there's a wonderfully, melancholy score by Dickon Hinchliffe that reminds me of Gustavo Santaolalla's work in Brokeback Mountain.
And as for the performances, Jennifer Lawrence gives of a refreshingly mature, unforced, and natural portrayal of a headstrong teenager who is a victim of circumstance. She doesn't have many moments of high drama, but she lets Ree speak volumes through her subtle expressiveness. You don't need to know she's upset or angry just by seeing her go through the regular motions; the pain she often exudes is more restrained, more quiet, more internal. Although she may not win the big prize, she richly deserves her Oscar nomination. I'm well-aware her co-star, who plays her uncle is also up for Supporting Actor, and was also stellar, despite having a dearth of scenes.
As a neo-noir story, Winter's Bone is rather stylized, it demands a lot of focus towards the thick accents and the minimal editing. While there were some tense moments, I'd classify the film more as a drama or mystery, than a thriller. The ending may also leave some viewers questioned or unsatisfied by the outcome. Overall, while the story may not be as groundbreaking as others we've seen throughout last year, Winter's Bone manages to be entertaining, and providing enough dramatic weight without cloying for your attention.
Wolfenstein 3D is commonly known around gamer circles as the grandfather of all first-person shooters. I happened to be well-aware of it's existence in my youth when my cousins acquired the shareware version on their Mac, and repetitively got in trouble with my parents for playing it, due to it's ultra-violence. Nearly 20 years later, in 2011, Wolf 3D is pretty tame by today's standards, but it still happens to be a lot of fun. Since it recently resurfaced on the PlayStation Network around the same time that the similarly-themed Inglourious Basterds was released, I found a copy online, and through running a program called "DosBox", managed to get this sick puppy gunning on Windows 7!
You play an American WWII POW, who has been captured by the Wermacht and brought to the infamous stronghold Castle Wolfenstein, in Nazi Germany. The object is to escape by blasting your way through legions of guards, enforcers, and even Der Führer, Hitler, himself! Along the way, you'll find secret areas containing treasure that you can collect for points, and ultimately extra lives, as you find your way to the exit and onto the next level. The game takes place over six episodes, each dealing with an evil plot that your protagonist must overthrow, in order to stop the Nazis.
Wolf 3D has definitely aged, there's no doubt about it. I'm sure many modern gamers may balk at the lack of "hand-holding" that this game does, in contrast to more recent digital fare. But I happen to appreciate it's simplicity; it's a great cooldown game after a long, hard day of dealing with the masses at work. Oh, what a guilty pleasure it is just to come home and plow down evil Nazis with a chaingun for about an hour or so, while my inner-Jew cackles at the morbid irony. The maze-like configuration of the levels can be frustrating at times, but it's surprisingly a great little way to exercise my spatial memory. While I wish there could be a little more variety to the game, it's fun enough to appreciate in it's simplicity.
Normally, I'm not one to go leaping at the sight of a western on the movie shelf, but How the West Was Wonattracted me for one reason on the box: "Cinerama". What is Cinerama, you may ask? It was, in my opinion, the IMAX of it's day: Basically, take three cameras shooting perpendicularly at 45-degree angles and stitch the three shots together on a tri-paneled, curved, screen - the result was an immersive experience that, according to the documentary on the DVD that I watched, helped bring TV-fixated post-war Americans back into the movie theatres, and gave birth to "Widescreen". You can read more on Cinerama, here.
So when I got around to watching How the West Was Won, I wasn't sure what to anticipate, in terms of presentation. But when presented on my 50" 16x9 LCD, I got something like this:
Now THAT'S wide! I don't think I'd seen actual letterbox on my TV in nearly eight years since we got a widescreen TV. I can only imagine what the film looked like in it's Cinerama heydey...
But onto the film itself - this is more or less so an episodic odyssey of a number of different vignettes somehow tying into the film's namesake of how American colonists carved a name out for themselves in the American west. It's a slice of classic Americana, done in true Hollywood style, and (if I may stand on my soapbox) complete with typical disregard to Native Americans by reducing them to stereotyped "savage" women and children-killers (as if white people didn't do any worse?). The stories are nice, but they're rather featherweight, lacking any realistic dramatic weight. In fact, the whole movie feels more like one of those elaborate travelogue films you go see at Disneyland, only this one at least tries to make an attempt at legitimizing it's Cinerama gimmick by going the distance with production value.
Aside from the story and acting, the overall production is very much impressive. Since I've already harped on the cinematography, I will say there are some nice action pieces, and the attention to detail as well as the attempt to at least drive somewhat of a cohesive narrative through the imagery is admittedly admirable. How the West Was Won is really more of an entertaining museum piece in my eyes, but it's a nice, visually splendid take on how Hollywood once used to run the show with panache.
Perhaps it went by relatively unknown by my generation, but I Am Sam got some interesting attention when 2008's Tropic Thundercame out, on the topic of overly-melodramatic portrayals of individuals with mental handicaps. Curious about it's story, I checked it out and was pleased by the performances and overall charm exuded by the story. But not so much about some other things.
Sam Dawson is an barista at Starbucks, diagnosed with the intellectual capacity of a seven year-old, but is known for having a big heart and encyclopedic knowledge about The Beatles. He has somehow fathered a daughter with a woman who abandons her, immediatly after childbirth. Lucy Diamond Dawson grows into a healthy, intelligent child, but one who is unsure and insecure of the world around her, because of her parent's disability holding her confidence back. When Lucy is finally apprehended by Child Protection Services, Sam enlists the aid of icy lawyer Rita Harrison, who agrees to take his case pro bono as a step towards her own desire to be seen in a more charitable light. Rita teaches Sam the poise and strength required in a cruel society, Sam teaches Rita the value of love and family, both want to win back Lucy.
There are moments in I Am Sam that are truly touching, and it bothers me, because underneath some of the inexplicabilites of the film's logic, I sense there's a really good movie. For starters, there are a lot of holes in the backstory of Sean Penn's character; I felt incredibly questioned how Sam even happened to father a child. Given his intellectual capacity, Sam appears to be extraordinarily high functioning, but not at a level that appears realistic. How does he manage to hold down a job, an apartment, and adequately raise a child for six-to-seven years in his condition without some form of consistent assistance (and I'm not talking about Lucy's godmother, or Sam's equally handicapped friends)? These were areas of the film I felt were incredibly lacking in clarification, and bothered me throughout.
On the other hand, the care taken to realize other aspects of the film is phenomenal. Sean Penn is fantastic, engaging, and completely believable in his role. Same goes for Michelle Pfeiffer and Dakota Fanning, who plays his daughter. The cinematography and editing are also great, and really draw you into Sam's occasional states of confusion and overstimulation in a world he is still trying to understand, as much as his daughter is. While the film hits the right emotional notes, it's treatment of factual material seems like fantasy at best. I only wish the writers took some time to embellish on the grittier topics some more, so that the rest of us wondering about the origins of Sean Penn's character didn't feel left in the dust.
After coming off of a wonderful thought-provoking high from watching Apocalypse Now, I decided to check out a counterpart documentary shot on the set of the film by director Francis Ford Coppola's wife. The film is Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. Consisting of behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, audio recordings, and recollections narrated by Mrs. Coppola, this is a refreshingly different making-of documentary than the usual, back-patting, cinematic press-kits that are commonly seen on TV. Hearts of Darkness takes a view of life imitating art as Coppola's film begins to parallel his own struggle to even conceive it.
Beginning with Coppola and his production team travelling to the Philippines to shoot the film on location, mild disturbances occur when he is faced to re-cast Harvey Keitel with Martin Sheen as Willard, to dealing with Philippine army helecopter pilots abruptly abandoning the shoot in order to go fight local insurgencies. As the days drag on and shooting persists from initially scheduled three months to three years, more challenges begin to affect the troubled production from a typhoon destroying sets to an "uncooperative" Marlon Brando. It is even implied that the stress from these problems drove Coppola to attempting suicide.
Although not as revealing as I expected, with much of the documentary footage showing more work occuring rather than heated exchanges, Mrs. Coppola does give the audience a good idea through her candid narration (based on her production diary) of her viewpoint on what was going on. The film is also pretty short, for what I expect, nowadays out of a feature-length documentary, it's relatively ordinary nature reduces its status in this day and age as more of an elaborate DVD "extra-feature". Obviously, that is not the case, given the film's vintage. And yet, despite it's age, the information is incredibly valid. And chances are, you may not experience anything as brutally honest about the chaotic making-of this film than any other documentary. Hearts of Darkness, for what it's worth, is a commendable effort.
There are times where films have a magical ability to transcend mainstream attention, be culturally significant, and artistically superlative. Apocalypse Now is one of those films. Although I read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness a year after I had seen Apocalypse Now, in high school, the book only made the parallels more distinct and profound (I also wrote a pretty damn good essay comparing the two, to boot!). Apocalypse Now is an excellent adaptation that makes only minor changes from the narrative, and the main themes expressed in 19th century Belgian-colonized Congo translate beautifully to American-occupied Vietnam. It has taken awhile to grow on me, but I consider Apocalypse Now, one of my all-time favorite films.
Additionally, I had a rare opportunity to repurchase Apocalypse Now on Blu-ray, because Best Buy was having it on sale for 60% off, and I also had been itching to watch the film in glorious high-definition. I was happy to find that I not only got a plethora of new extras, but also, director Francis Ford Coppola's recut, extended version Apocalypse Now Redux. Redux adds 30 additional minutes of footage to the film, and boasts a terrific digital remastering that has been applied across both cuts. If you have access to a Blu-ray player in your home, I highly encourage you to watch or buy Apocalypse Now on this medium. The remastering job is fantastic, and is a quintessential example of how Blu-ray can make a film look and sound "like-it-was-shot-yesterday". If you need further information, check out this comparison site that I found.
Set in the early days of American involvement in the Vietnam War, during the 1960s, Captain Willard, intoxicated by the horrors of war is put on a special assignment: to "terminate, with extreme prejudice" the enigmatic Colonel Kurtz. Kurtz apparently went AWOL and the US Army gets wind that he was comitting crimes against humanity, somewhere in the Cambodian jungles. Along the way, Willard and his crew make several stops at army checkpoints, witnessing the effects of the war upon people and combatants. Paranoia and fear also set in, but none of this compares to what Willard and his crew find in Kurtz's compound...
As a film Apocalypse Now is an amazing achievement: Plagued by a troublesome shoot for three years (the shooting was documented by director Coppola's wife in an excellent film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, which I still need to check out), the film went on to win Best Picture at the Cannes Film Festival, according to various sources, and garnered 8 Academy Award nominations (losing Best Picture to the excellent, but incomparable Kramer vs. Kramer). Since I've discussed what I enjoy about the film's story at length, I'll discuss the style, which is incredible. Although the film is two-and-a-half hours long (and three for Redux), the editing and action have a great way of keeping your attention. The opening features a deep, electronically-processed bellowing of helecopter blades as they pass by the screen and drop napalm atop a jungle to the tune of The Doors's "The End". The film's atmosphere is rather grim and violent, but there's some light touches of humor here-and-there, and even from a USO show in one scene! Things really get scary once the crew reaches the Kurtz Compound; the score thumps monophonically and ominously like heartbeat as the crew approach the "heart" of the jungle, while being stared upon by Kurtz's white-paint-clad followers. The scenes that follow rival any horror film I've seen in recent years, and will ultimately leave you feeling drained and unnerved by the brilliance that has occured.
So how does Redux also compare? Well, despite being made with good intentions, I'm with the group that prefers the original cut. I have a love-hate-relationship with Redux, because the new scenes are very well-made, and expand some more upon the themes, but they are somewhat disruptive to the pace. Some of the scenes in question involve the crew stopping off at an encampment, where some Playboy bunnies from the USO tour happen to be. As they're having their "fun", their "innocence" is shattered when one of the troops carelessly knocks over a coffin containing a body; reminding them all of what war does to people. The other scene involves the crew stopping off at a French plantation, where the motives of colonization are raised and how the French expatriates perceive the war from their end. Willard smokes some opium with one of the women, and then they have sex. The next morning, it's back to hunting Kurtz. Again, while it's tricky for me, because the scenes complement the spirit of the film, wonderfully (especially the French woman Willard meets as the "white sepulchre", from the book). The film can really do without them, and as a whole, they feel out of place.
Whatever version you may be watching, Apocalypse Now is a masterpiece, and a work of art. The only thing that comes even reminiscently close to it, in my mind, and in recent years, is last year's Best Picture Academy Award-winner The Hurt Locker. With the idea that "war-is-hell", "war-is-a-drug", and that both films deal with a recent war at the time of their release, it shows how universal the themes of war remain in our consciousness and transcend eras. While they are both very different films, on the level of character study, I was surprised to have noticed these similarities. And yes, both left me feeling equally shaken about the horrors of war. But Apocalypse Now is a classic, and an epic. It will only become more appreciated and discussed as time goes by, and as a triumph in all aspects of cinema.
Ronin is a fairly obscure action flick from the 90s that is known for some punchy gunfights and car chases. I first became familiar with it when I saw an ad, way-back-when, of Robert De Niro taking a bazooka to a sedan on a country highway. If that wasn't awesome at eleven years old, then I don't know what was. The 'R' rating pretty much prevented me from seeing it, until thirteen years later. Yet, after being whetted on a diet of stronger action films of recent vintage, I was surprised that Ronin was actually more of a case of "looks-can-be-deceiving", and at the time, clever marketing campaign.
In France, an ex-IRA agent assembles a team of wayward spies and special agents from America and Europe to retreive an attractive metal briefcase from a group of shady Russians. The title Ronin comes from the Japanese word for a samurai who were orphaned by their master and mainly worked for money. This concept runs cleverly underneath the characterizations, and there's even some trademark deadpan humor to spare from co-screenwriter David Mamet (he apparently used a pseudonym in the credits, whatever).
In spite of the plentiful action that occurs in Ronin, I was surprised to notice while watching it that there's really not that much action that would traditionally qualify it for the genre, like say, Die Hard or Lethal Weapon. In fact, this comes off more as a heist/spy/thriller that has a few nice action pieces. The car chases are pretty good, but don't exactly hold a candle to James Bond. The cast is pretty good; De Niro and one of my favorite Francophone actors, Jean Reno, get a decent amount of screentime together. In fact, Ronin can be a little slow at times, with the possibility that some casual thrill-seekers may be left in the dust, due to the complex plot. I was just happy to have at least buried the hatchet by finally seeing it and being moderately entertained for two hours.
Oliver Stone is an immensely gifted filmmaker with a knack for culturally accurate storytelling and attention to detail that walks a fine line between esoteric and understandable. In the 80s, he was all over the place with politcally-charged films, Wall Street, while a thematic departure from his previous violent war-drama Platoon, offers an authentic insight into the glamorized excesses of yuppie 1980s culture and business warfare during the insider trading scandals that occured prior to the 1987 stock market crash.
Starting in 1985, Bud Fox is an enterprising stockbroker who miraculously manages to nab heavy-hitting corporate player Gordon Gekko. As he is drawn further into Gekko's world of style and shrewdness, Fox begins to realize the undercover work Gekko has him do in order to finalize buyouts may have illegal repercussions. His father, serving as the blue-collar voice of reason and honesty, and his trophy interior-decorator girlfriend also get caught within his newfound "greed-is-good" mentality. Fox finds himself at a crossroads whether to take the honest way out, or continue his jet-set lifestyle.
I first saw Wall Street when I was 11, and I hated it. Although it is rated 'R', I found it boring and self-indulgent. I guess my parents thought I'd be mature enough to understand the drama. Ten years later, a lot of the business lingo still flies over my head, but my tastes have evolved enough to appreciate the story, and the timelessness of the "greed-is-good" theme, in this day and age. Wall Street almost reminded me of a modern-day Great Gatsby; one of my favorite novels, not only because of how similar themes revolve around it, but because of the similar spiritual denoument the main characters ultimately face. With time, Wall Street will be regarded as one of those defining films of the decade it came out in.
The original True Grit; it really doesn't deserve such a monniker, since it's technically a predecessing adaptation of the current Coen Brothers' version that's been getting rave reviews and as of this writing, received ten Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Quite a feat, seeing that these honors have overshadowed the two earned by the 1969 version, including John Wayne's only win for Best Actor. How does this version of True Grit hold up?
In the late 1800s American Old West, fourteen year-old Mattie Ross' father is gunned down by a petty thug named Tom Chaney. Seeking vengence, Ross gains the services of federal marshall Rooster Cogburn and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf to track him down. After a series of leads, and trip-ups, Ross and Cogburn's relationship evolves from uneasy reluctance to mutual respect. The acting from the leads serves the film just fine. John Wayne is in top form, even though he's playing his typical All-American Hero-type, again. Jeff Bridges, I felt really captured the literary essence and gruffness of Rooster Cogburn, so to say one is better than the other is merely subjective. The same goes for Kim Darby as Mattie Ross; while she looks a little mature (and unusually boyish! She was 21 at the time of filming) for the part, her energy is more than adequate, and serves her role well. A lot of True Grit's artistic and aesthetic qualities are definitely products of their time, but not without charm.
While it's hard to resist comparison with the 2010 version, I honestly did attempt to view True Grit with fresh eyes. To be perfectly frank, like many film versions of novel adaptations, True Grit feels very "Hollywood", in the most general sense of the word - I'm talking a sweeping film score that crescendos with bright fanfare during the action scenes, theatrically-influenced performances, grand set locales, and a nice, but remarkably out-of-place pop song during the opening credits - Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, in fact, I appreciate True Grit's vintage feel. As an adaptation though, it is dated; whereas, the Coen Brothers' gave True Grit a more realistic edge with respect to the novel's roots. I haven't read the novel, so it wouldn't be right for me to judge either version on those merits, so I will only say I enjoyed both films for what they were, even if I felt the quality of the 2010 version was more refined and appropriately crafted.
If there's one thing the 1969 version really has going for it, other than John Wayne's unique rendition of Rooster Cogburn, it's the cinematography. I was really taken aback by the beautiful panoramas of the Colorado vistas and plains that the film featured. The 2010 version is up for Best Cinematography this year, but the photography is much different; more artistic and actor-centric. Again, it's really apples and oranges in my opinion for both films. I know there's people out there who will always remain loyal to The Duke, but I like and I appreciate the existance of both versions without wanting to change a thing in either one.
Splice is a modern-day retelling of Frankenstein with refreshingly contemporary sci-fi trimmings. Not a straight-up horror film, as the previews may suggest, this is more of a cautionary drama that has some thrilling moments. There's even a hint of eroticism that crossed my mind as extremely bizarre. How this movie made it's way into the mainstream, I have no idea. Apparently, it was made in Canada. Go figure, at least someone across the border has more creativity in the film industry these days than Hollywood does. Splice is a monster parable that is something we've probably already seen once before, but I appreciated it's mature and edgy nods to modern science.
Clive and Elsa are a couple, who work for a big pharmaceutical company as geneticists, specialize in splicing animal DNA to create new organisms. When the company denies the Elsa's request to experiment with human DNA, she performs the work on her own and incognito. The result is "Dren", a part-human, part-chimera-like-creature. Her other ancestry is never explicitly established, but she bears special traits across different species that figure interestingly into the plot. Clive frequently butts heads with Elsa over her protective, motherly care over Dren, whom he generally regards as a mistake that must be vanquished. But as Dren matures, she begins to have thoughts of her own.
While the plot is not too complex, it glosses over it's cliches and predictability with some interesting themes. In today's world of genetic testing and stem-cell research, this is an interesting parable that probably explores the case against experimentation in a very extreme manner. The acting is very good and I felt the characterizations were very well-thought out. The very ending did bother me, quite a bit though. Did the pharmaceutical company really manage to cover up the consequences of Dren? How did Elsa manage to convince the company of her ultimate goal when she was already lambasted by the executive board? I wished that they didn't gloss these things over, but I guess they just had to ignore these things in order to set everyone up for a sequel. Regardless, I enjoyed the film, it isn't perfect, but it did the trick for what I was in the mood for.
Last week, I picked up in Newsweek and Time stories about a controversial book written by Chinese-American law professor Amy Chua: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. What the book entails is a memoir from Chua of her childhood and subsequent parenting that stems from an age-old long tradition of raising children under alarmingly strict pretenses. But one wonders, is Tiger Mother a wake-up call to overly-permissive American parents? Or was the book's timing impeccable, due to our recent competition with China?
As an example of what "tiger mother" parenting entails (I will restrain from designating the parenting as "Chinese", since that would be biased) is described as such from Chua's Wall Street Journal article Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. According to Chua, her daugters were not allowed to:
- attend a sleepover
- have a playdate
- be in a school play
- complain about not being in a school play
- watch TV or play computer games
- choose their own extracurricular activities
- get any grade less than an A
- not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
- play any instrument other than the piano or violin
- not play the piano or violin
Shocking? Believe it or not, this style of parenting is unbelievably prevalent among many "Asian" cultures in the United States. I went to school in a very diverse neighborhood; the largest minority of students were of Asian descent in numerous ethnicities. I knew many students who confessed about their parents enforcing rules like these upon them; my cousin's Chinese-American ex-girlfriend, included. I was always perplexed by the strict nature of these parents; I grew up imposing the discipline on myself that these parents have been striving for, because my own parents taught me the value of self-worth and independence without penalizing me for failures or putting me under the gun to succede - these were treated as "life experiences". What concerns me is how do you prepare a child to accept failure when it occurs and "jump back on the horse"? Clearly, "tiger cubs" are being trained to be immune to failure, can such a thing really be possible?
In the more current interviews that I've read, Chua seems to have relaxed her parenting style a bit, she actually allows her daughters to go out more and even allowed her eldest to have a boyfriend. It's an interesting changeover from her condescension of American parents in what I see as hypocrisy and ethnic arrogance. I am in no position to give honest critique on parenting other than what I objectively see what other parents do; I have no kids of my own (yet) to actually dictate any sound advice. I don't see Chua as a bad person, and I think she's raised some fairly right-minded children. However, I do find her insights to be a little narrowminded.
I majored in psychology in college, one of the concepts I learned about was the "Nature vs. Nurture" debate: Does our environment shape who we are? Or is it how we are raised?" I strongly believe the former is a more influential aspect in our maturity as human beings into adults. Chua's concept of "tiger mothers" seems to undermine this idea, in my opinion. In a society where "tiger mothers" are training breed after breed of these überkids to pretty much rule the world, one wonders: where is the individuality that institutions like college and their admissions personnel are seeking? Where is the opportunity to actually learn and gain skills other than those prerequisite of "tiger mothers" outside of homework?
Given the economic competition the US is currently facing between China, of course some people may be alarmed at what the "tiger mother" parenting style may mean for future generations. I don't particularly see this as a huge concern because of my already-established position on ambition with individuality being key to personal success. Maybe Chua's style of parenting isn't particularly for everyone; I doubt all "tiger cubs" are really that predisposed to reaching success. Success comes from a variety of different factors; to prescribe it in the form of a laundry-list of parenting suggestions has questionable reliability.
Peace,
- Jon
EDIT (10:42 PM): I found a very interesting blog article from the perspective of an Asian-American that details why "tiger mother" parenting is imperfect and doesn't always correlate with success.
Hello friends! Sorry it's been awhile, but between work and training for my new promotion to Pharmacy Technician, real life has been catching up to me a lot faster than usual (and leaving me with less leisure time). So I'll be doing my best to catch up on my writing this week, now that I have a little bit more "me" time.
About a week ago, I watched this offering from Lars Von Trier and the Criterion Collection: Antichrist, and I will say, despite two scenes of disturbing footage, the film is probably the most disgusting thing I've ever seen since Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Antichrist is a harrowing tale about a bereaved couple who retreat to a getaway cabin in the woods after the accidental death of their son. What they begin to experience, aside from the wife's depression-induced hysterics, involve a series of unsettling visions that suggest the woods is haunted by some mysterious force that threatens to consume the unsuspecting couple in their wake.
Antichrist sounded interesting to me on paper, but the execution of it was not entirely to my liking. After a very provocative silent black-and-white opening with the son's death punctuated by graphic depictions of sexual intercourse, the film takes a slow, quiet course that's periodically interrupted by an argument, or a sex scene, and later on, disturbing acts of violence. It goes without saying, I was bored with the gaunt, nihilistic approach to drama. Charlotte Gainsbourg is just depressed and crazy throughout, and Willem Dafoe seems tired and stoic. For the film's first hour and thirty minutes, the only thing that kept my attention were the occasional vision, punctuated by dark, fantastical imagery.
But here's where things really hit the fan, by making me gag and sending my libido into an all-time low. The following description is rather graphic, so I'll let you highlight the rest. To save any of you from the trouble of enduring such disgusting scenes I'll just point out - there's a moment where Gainsbourg, enraged at her husband, takes a 2x4 to his testicles and masturbates him to the point where he ejaculates blood. She later on, severs her own clitoris with a pair of scissors at the apex of her madness. I swear, I am not making any of this up. For these scenes alone, the film has done really nothing to make an impression other than physically nauseate me with disturbing imagery. While I can't deny it's artistic qualities, the tepidness of the story and the violence are enough for me to deny a recommendation for Antichrist, unless you're into these kinds of works.
In the 1960s, Steve McQueen was pretty much Hollywood's "It Boy" as we knew it. Or at least, that's what I learned after watching the extra features on the DVD for Bullitt. His legendary status, along with a reputation for being a hard-boiled action/thriller are what drew me to this film. Although Bullitt surprised me with an intense opening, it's pretty dated in terms of its pacing. And while the editing and action scenes are great, they're even outshone by its more recent successors like The French Connection(surprisingly, the two share the same producer).
Bullitt is about a San Francisco cop tailing a crime boss who murders a witness under the cop's supervision. Owing his sense of duty to the fallen gentleman, Bullitt decides to tail the murderer down on his own terms. While the dialogue in the film is minimal, it manages to be a bit more interesting to me than even some of the action. I'd estimate that at least 40% of the film is a parade of Steve McQueen mugging the camera and some really awesome muscle cars from the 60s...some of which, sadly, get trashed. But hey, at least they weren't in short supply over 40 years ago. This practice isn't really a bad thing, but it is quite ephemeral for a film.
Even if I found these drawbacks to be pretty surprising, the film still manages to be somewhat entertaining. I wasn't bored by the film or disinterested by the story, I guess I just expected a little more than what I had originally been led up to believe. Well, I guess that's what you'd expect from hype in any circumstance. I suggest if any of those criteria interest you, then give Bullitt a spin, just don't expect it to necessarily hold up to your general conventional knowledge of what an action/thriller should be.
Ah, the "boxing movie", such a tired subgenre in the annals of sports films. From Rocky to Cinderella Man and countless other iterations that continue to popularize the genre, it's sad to say, but we've seen it all before - lowlife who depends only on his athletic talent, needs to win the girl, has a drug addiction, family hates him, blah, blah, blah. The boxing genre is probably about as formulaic as the romantic comedy, when it comes to thematic elements. Then comes The Fighter, and despite seven Oscar nominations (at the time of this writing) and strong buzz about the performances of Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, the title and sight of boxing gloves automatically set my expectations low. However, The Fighter surprisingly does a little something different, and dare I say - break the mold by being a boxing movie that's not even really about boxing.
Based on a true story, set in 1990s Lowell, Mass. Mickey Ward is an up-and-coming boxer who trains with his aloof, crackheaded brother Dickie, and is managed by his overconfidant, high-strung mother Alice. After losing a long-shot match to a guy 20-pounds heavier than him, Mickey begins considering taking his career's matters into his own hands and away from his family. With the help of his girlfriend and stepfather, his career shows promise. But his family has enough problems of their own - Dickie is forced to confront his drug addiction and jail-time, and his mother is forced to confront the rationality of her own son's athletic abilities. This is where I defend my stance on The Fighter being a "lesser" boxing movie - the last quarter is dominated almost entirely by boxing, complete with the end fight-hanging-on-a-limb-but-wins cliche. However, the fights feature some great editing, and the cinematography impeccably duplicates the style of intense, oversaturated '90s pay-per-view live broadcast. The majority of the movie is rather a fine character study, a family drama, and even a pseudo coming-of-age adult tale.
Now here's what will become my global concern for the film - for all the work done towards the aesthetics and story for the film, I felt that Wahlberg and Bale had the lion's share of characterization, in terms of the screenplay. This makes me wonder if the Academy is playing politics again with Best Supporting Actress front-runner Melissa Leo, and Amy Adams. Leo's main competition - True Grit's Hailee Stanfield, is in my opinion, a decent actress with a well-written role. On the other hand, I felt that Leo's character wasn't very well-written, and basically played a Massachussetts-Housewife-From-New-Jersey (I swear, if it weren't for the accents, all the women in this movie could have been straight-up "Jersey Girl" stereotypes) whose main purpose was to yell, curse, scream, and give Wahlberg's character some conflict. Leo as an actress, is however, her character's saving grace - she brings great nuance and authenticity to a role that I feel is otherwise beneath her ability. The competition is a bit puzzling, given either of the "big-candidate" actresses have qualities in their characters that the other does not. The same problem with Leo goes for Adams, who was great in Doubt and Julie & Julia, but here...well...she's basically playing a "b*tch"...albeit one with a strong moral compass. Why Adams has an Oscar nomination for her role is beyond me; politics at it's best, I presume, but she's a great actress and does her role more than enough justice.
For it's few faults, The Fighter still manages to be a worthy adversary among this year's Best Picture nominees. The acting is great, Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg included, who didn't receive my initial kudos, but appear here in top form. The directing is fantastic, and the editing serves the film for both the dramatic and action scenes. There may be a glut of boxing movies in America, and they probably won't go away anytime soon, but at least The Fighter manages to be something different, refreshing, and intriguing.
The romantic comedy - such a bland genre in this day and age that was only captured so effortlessly in a handful of movies that I could name off the top of my head. The Apartment, is perhaps one of those: A quirky screwball comedy that happens to have a love story. Billy Wilder was one of the luminaries of the genre at the time, and his Apartment happened to win the Academy Award for Best Picture the year it debuted. Needless to say, while dated as a film, it still holds up as a story.
Lemmon is a New York office worker who owns an apartment that he lends out to co-workers who use it to have their dalliances with mistresses. On one particular occasion, he falls for the mistress of his boss. He is now forced to choose between her and his career, with some stressing events to follow. The setup is nothing we haven't seen before, 50 years later, but at least Wilder doesn't treat his audience like idiots and gives his characters more fleshed out personalities to work with. A little dramatic weight is added here-and-there to keep things grounded in reality, but still manage to work some screwball comedy magic.
Where the film's few faults lie happen to be from the format of the story itself, sometimes the seemingly episodic nature of events can seem a little disjointed - a relic of how storytelling back then was done for films. It's something I still need to get used to, but perhaps I just expect too much realism from my film, these days. I still believe The Apartment holds up, though. I was surprised how many times Jack Lemmon's antics had me laughing, I'd recommend it just for his performance alone.
Boasting the longest, unbroken take in the history of cinema at it's running length of 96 minutes. Russian Ark is an etherial, dreamlike film that explores the history of the beautiful country it represents while in the mold of a fairy tale. While intriguing as a film, many casual moviegoers may be hard-pressed to consider the slow-pace of the film entertainment. Still, it may be of interest to aficionados of history and Russian culture.
From a fade-from-black, a filmmaker describes awakening from a type of accident and finding himself conscious in 18th century Russia, he encounters a gentleman who takes him on a journey through time in Russian history as he encounters various important figures and people in a reflection of the time period. There's a certain air of sophistication and spontaneity from the acting that one can appreciate from the lack of edits as though it were live theatre or television being presented in front of your very eyes. It's a simple story, but nothing that leads to any extraordinary heights.
I think ultimately what might turn off a lot of people towards the film is it's main selling point of a 96-minute take itself. What makes for an interesting filmmaking experiment is sadly it's Achilles Heel, and perhaps a lesson of the practicality of film editing in the first place. Many times, there are long, drawn-out sequences of walking or waiting for action to occur. It certainly pulls off the dreamlike quality the film was trying to achieve, but even with all the visual splendor, it's easy for your mind to wander when these long stretches of nothing happen. I was nonethelss fascinated by it as a work of art, I just don't know if I'll be particularly seeing it again anytime soon.
Another gem from the Criterion Collection that was endorsed heavily by director Quentin Tarantino finds it's way to the US again: from the whimsical mind of Wong Kar-Wai from Hong Kong. Chungking Express is a quirky romantic comedy with some mystery elements that's unlike anything you may be expecting from the genre. I certainly didn't, as I viewed this film too casually upon first glance and lost a lot of the film's meaning from my lack of engrossment. Upon second glance at the recommendation of a friend, I watched Express with a more discerning eye and found myself much more enlightened. Although, I still believe it's a film that cannot be taken lightly for its story.
Set in Hong Kong, 1994, Express weaves two stories of two different couples together with their own, unique personalities. The first act tells the tale of He Qiwu, a jilted cop with a penchant for canned pineapples bearing an expiration date of May 1st - the pending day he chooses to move on from his ex-love. He falls for a shady femme fatale who somehow re-ignites his fire, amidst her illicit dealings. "Act II" begins as He Qiwu brushes by Faye, a tomboyish snack bar attendant who falls for an unnamed cop (who is also going for the rebound). When the cop accidentally leaves his ex's set of keys to his apartment in Faye's possession, she makes an odd habit of breaking into his home and subtly improving his lifestyle. The hijinks that follow from these events are what make the heart of this film.
In an interview with Wong Kar-Wai on the DVD, he reveals his belief that his style is far more influenced by Eastern cinema than Western cinema, contrary to what he thinks many critics believe. I must've been greatly fooled, because watching Chungking Express, in spite of it's Asian setting and culture, something about the photography and script felt broadly European to me - the poetic dialogue, at times, bears shades of Truffaut. The camerawork has the enigmatic mood like that of Wim Wenders - I may sound crazy, but the stunning nature of these elements simply flooded me, involuntarily, with these memories. The editing is without a doubt Asian to the core - quick cuts and an almost improvised feel to much of the action. The film's style is definitely in a class of it's own.
Now, here's the tricky part: With such splendor, it often becomes a challenge to focus on the story. Hence why I'm convinced despite my botched first-viewing, that ChungkingExpress demands multiple viewings, if the story is too much to take in. This is not your average romatic comedy. Express conveys more in its images through the characters' inner feelings rather than through displayed emotions. Moreover, it's also rather cerebral. The dialogue and action need to be approached with an open mind, in order to reach those conclusions of rationalization that we the audience are always desperately seeking in our films. I will say though, I'm glad I gave Chungking Express another chance, and I was surprised at how much I missed from seeing it the first time around.
