Good ole Film Forum

Tears of the Black Tiger, directed by Wisit Sasanatieng is a Thai film that is shot using all the techniques and story elements of the classic American western. I gave it 2 stars. It's filled with attractive, colorful, images and campy elements that generate the occassional chuckle. It's not really my cup of tea but was interesting to see familiar images adapted and twisted in this way. Eh. Wasn't worth my 11 bucks.

Weekends are times for film

Kelly and I had a mini-marathon (oxymoron) this weekend. Besides watching Wet Hot American Summer, which I'd seen (and loved) before and will not be counting in my quest, we watched 3 movies.

Battle in Heaven, a Mexican film by Reygadas about a man who, with his wife, kidnaps a baby. The baby dies and he confides in a Generals daughter, whom he knows works as a whore in a brothel. This information leads to a bizarre psycho sexual dynamic between the man and the girl.

I enjoyed the film. It was a film that works on the intellect. I had little emotional involvement which, at face value is negative, but I feel that films can work to involve us in two primary ways. Emotionally and intellectually. This was decidedly in the later category.

With a measured, beautiful shooting style and a expert eye for composition, we are guided into Mexico City by one of the working class and the city seems like any city. The movie is shot in a manner that distances us from the people. The film is famous for having scenes of actual "hardcore" sex. The scenes are not titillating, however, and fit perfectly into the film. It is also good to see a film where the lead is not an attractive person. It added to the realism of a film that had little.

I gave it 4 stars, mainly due to how my mind goes back to it well after I watched it.



Next was Sherry Baby. Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as a former drug addict and mother, just released from prison and trying to find her way in the world, this was a 3 star film for me. Perhaps it will jump up to 4, where I initially thought I would rate it, as I think more about it.

Gyllenhaal gives an important and believable performance, anchoring the film. This film is what is right about independent film; stories that need to be told in a manner that doesn't insult the intelligence of it's audience. There is a sense that things are going to go wrong. This has the opposite effect of Battle in Heaven, making Sherry Baby one of the most emotional films I saw that was released in 2006.



Motel, an independent movie about a Chinese thirteen year old who lives with a cast of colorful (not really) characters that include a borderline fascist mother and a drunken, whore monger, Korean lodger. It was interesting at parts and funny at other parts. All told it wasn't that good of a film. The poster/dvd box was better than the film.

There are some parts that ring with the truth of adolescence and the pain that comes with being 13. However the film was uneven and felt more like a series of short films tied together with a thin premise. Performances were weak. Visually the cast was perfect but it didn't translate into a compelling story.

I give it two stars but it is very close to being 3. I looked at the movies that were similar to it and that I had rated 3 stars and Motel didn't measure up.

I feel it closing in...

Joy Division: Under Review, an interesting, albeit short, documentary on the life and times of the band and the albums, was a 3 star rating film for me.

While it was informative to me, as someone whose knowledge of Joy Division stems from a few conversations about them with some musician friends, and the movie 24 Hour Party People, the informed Joy Division fan will find it severely lacking in substance. Essentially a fist full of people, most of them rock critics, talking about the music and it's influence, overlayed with performance footage, songs, and a recording of Ian Curtis at one point, it begs for a more in depth treatment.

Perhaps there is no market for a documentary about Joy Division seeing as how this film had only been rated by 64 people on netflix, but I would like to see interviews with former members of the band, Tony Wilson, current bands, and Joy Division's contemporaries, all putting the band and Ian Curtis in context of the times. Maybe the film, 24 Hour Party People is enough, or maybe one of the films about New Order answers many of the questions I have. I'll get back to you on that.

This band blows me away. I forget how good and timeless they are.

Dogme indeed

Festen (aka. The Celebration), by Thomas Vinterberg is one of the most affecting movies I've seen in quite some time. So powerful, and dramatic, that I'm not sure why I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5.

It is for this reason, that Dogme 95 was an event that was noticed. The "stripping down" of film to it's most basic elements, restricting the language in the process, is a lesson any filmmaker could benefit from. Acting and story. What is more effective than that in capturing the audience's attention and involving them emotionally? Nothing.

The fact that it was shot with digital, normally a huge distraction for me as a viewer, doesn't detract in the least. The forced closeup that the digital camera thrusts upon the filmmaker is an asset to this film.

Without ranting about the state of films in the U.S., I would like to point out that this film would have been almost impossible to make in America. If it were made it wouldn't have received the theatrical release that Festen did. It's sad. This movie puts other like minded domestic dramas to shame and makes me remember why I wanted to be a filmmaker in the first place.

stealth documentary

While flipping through the channels on Sunday, I came across the opening credits to this film, which I was familiar with during it's theatrical run but hadn't seen. I had no desire to see this film either. I view spelling bees as silly at best and haven't watched more than 2 minutes of one on television. The film was Spellbound.

This film drew me in, sneaking up on me and, knife at throat, forcing me to be interested. How could I not root for these children as the study constantly looking for pre-teen fame and accolades. I cared about all of them and was invested in the actual national spelling bee, a feat I thought impossible.

The most surprising and my favorite element, was their economic backgrounds and how they played into each child's attitude towards the competition. Not overtly political and plainly exhibiting the facts of these children's lives, the film supports the "American Dream" more than any documentary I've seen.

The message; You can come to this country and work hard and you will succeed.

My only issues, and thus why this film gets 3 stars, is that it's fairly pedestrian in it's formal elements. It's like any TV show about the same subject. The directors do understand the drama and are skilled filmmakers. It's more of a stylistic distaste that I have.

Books; briefly

Within the past week I finished reading Heart of Darkness, by Conrad and I read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.
Heart of Darkenss was difficult for me to separate from Apocalypse Now. Knowing what I know about Apocalypse now and how it was adapted from Heart of Darkness, what parts were departures and the real similarities, colored my reading so much that one doesn't exist without the other.
Heart of Darkness was interesting, especially the story within a story device that Conrad uses. It was told with a great amount of economy and clarity. I would have liked for Kurtz, though mythic, to be more than the sketch I feel he was. Overall I'm glad I read it and wish it had been one of the books I was assigned to read in high school. I think it would have helped me, nearly as much as reading Hamlet did, to move past science fiction/fantasy as my primary reading choices.




The Road was a wonderful book. The ending moved me to tears. I had never read McCarthy, though I have wanted to read Blood Meredian for quite some time, and I hope this was a good representation of his writing. It was violent and tension filled, but not the least bit exploitive or sensational.
People should know that I have always had a love of dystopian or post-apocalyptic literature and this is another knotch on the belt.
I could probably write for days about this book. I haven't read a book this fast since The Sun Also Rises (which I read in one sitting) and I believe that should be recommendation enough.

A miss, then a hit.

Watched, with my beloved, The River's Edge last night. Staring Crispin Glover, Ioni Skye, and Keanu Reeves. This was not one of my favorites. While the premise was interesting, the execution was stiff, cliched, and filled with uneven performances.
The film is about the death of a girl and how a group of friends, especially Glover and Reeves, react to the killer admisson of guilt. That skeleton of a plot I find interesting but inserting the wooden performance of Reeves and the erradic, hyperactive performace of Glover leave an uneven film where I care about none of the characters. Denis Hopper, playing a paranoid drug dealer, has a realtionship with a blowup doll he names Ellen. Exactly! Why would this film, or any, need this relationship in it. It's distracting, ridiculous, and reeks of a director with no idea of what makes an audience interested.
I gave this two stars more out of the seed of ideas present than an sliver of entertainment I gleaned from the film.


Pickpocket, by Robert Bresson is a film I wanted to love before I watched it. I had heard, both in person and on the DVD by Criterion, Paul Schrader speak of the film and how it influenced him in his work. In particular Taxi Driver, my favorite film, owes much to Pickpocket. Knowing this, and having an affinity for the "existential loner" that is the lead of this film, created this want for Pickpocket to be an important film to me.

I liked the film, 4 stars, but Bresson tends to leave me a little cold. I've seen only this and Au Hasard Balthazar (and a scene from A Man Escaped in a college film course) but I find the flat performances take me out of the film. I imagine these films with understated modern performances and wonder if they would be better. The answer is probably not, because Bresson did everything, from framing to cutting, with purpose.

I was involved in the film, and found it more accessable than his other film. You could see an artist and an intellect behind the innerworkings.

I will not summarize the movie but I do recommend it to anyone with an interest in French cinema. Perhaps, like I mentioned in an earlier post about Opening Night, the film will stay with me and become more important. It does beg to be studied.

Big Weekend

Watched 4 movies this weekend.

The first was Hard Candy, which came out last year. I knew very little about this film going in. That it was about an underage girl meeting up with an older guy and that the "exploitation cinema experience" would ensue was the extent of my pre-watch knowledge. I wasn't far off from nailing the film's entire plot, however the degree of "exploitation" I was to encounter couldn't have been predicted.
I'll not spoil the film, as I will try not to do any time I write about a film, but there were some intense scenes. The film did an excellent job of pushing my button, and involving me in the story. Well done. Good performances, in spite of the extreme nature of the story. It's good to remind oneself that people are murdered or raped or assaulted all the time. That allows a film like this to remain relevant as the action stretches believability. Hard Candy, however, wasn't much more than a 3 star movie to me. I was involved, yes, but from the opening scene I hated the way it was shot. Everything was a CU or ECU. This was before the sense of claustrophobia would need to be present too. There were some moments early on, when we could get wider and "breath" as an audience but they were few and far between.
This was iPod film making. Made for the smallest screen possible. Does a filmmaker realize that these faces will be 30 feet high when projected? Do they realize that when a full shot is projected on the typical screen that we can see the facial expressions of your characters? This frustrates me beyond belief. Ingmar Bergman is famous for filming much of his characters in close-up, however there is an artistic intent there. A film that starts with an ECU of two characters talking in a coffee shop, before any real tension is even attempted by the filmmaker, reeks of laziness or unimaginative film making. It's a constant source of distraction for me.
In fairness, the style of shooting was less distracting later in the film when the tension was present and the pace increased. Like I mentioned before, I liked the film. I was involved. I give even more credit to the filmmaker for overcoming my distaste for his stylistic choices and the general sensationalism of the story to make me a participant in the film.



Then came The Queen, by Frears. It was a packed house at the Angelika, mid afternoon on Sunday, and we arrived late. That is a rare occurrence, but it happens to everyone once in awhile.
The Queen is about Queen Elizabeth's reaction to the death of Princess Diana. I remember Diana's death well. I found it puzzling that Americans were weeping at the death of a member of the royal family in another country. I was young at the time but it still perplexed me to this day. This film, with it's excellent performances by all, helped me to fill in the blanks and understand why her death affected people so. Helen Mirren, as the Queen, was the doppelganger of the real deal. Some of the scene's nearly moved me to tears.
I give credit to Kelly for pursuing this film and letting me tag along. I had little or no interest in seeing it but I'm so glad I did.
Let's say 4 stars.



Kelly and I came home and watched two more movies yesterday (Sunday 14, January). The first was Metropolitan, by Whit Stillman. I have seen The Last Days of Disco and parts of Barcelona, so I knew what I was getting into.
Anecdote: I worked with the producer and a coordinator of Whit Stillman's films and, while working with them, re watched The Last Days of Disco. I told the coordinator that I liked the film more than I remember and that I found it hilarious, some of the dialogue and the manner in which these people treated each other, was too fantastical to be anything more than comedy. She informed me that Whit Stillman did not make comedy's.
It may sound as if I will not like Metropolitan, but that is false. I enjoy the dialogue and Chris Eigeman's character and performance. The film is an entrance into a world I know nothing about. Perhaps most will have no interest in rich Manhattanites and debutante balls, but I find it as fascinating as Victorian society or the mafia underworld.
I'm also sad to say Whit, that I think the film is funny. I give it 3 stars but it could sway to 4 after I live with it for awhile. That is something that happens to me often. Opening Night, by Cassavetes, was the first time I finished watching a movie, didn't like it, couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks, and decided that it was a great film. Metropolitan has a chance.



Lastly we watched Kicking and Screaming, by Noah Baumbach. Loved it. Funny, smart, and speaking more to me, my life and my experience as a young(ish) man that feels directionless at times, than any film I can remember.
Performances and cast chemistry in particular, are the high points of the film. Parker Posey, Eric Stoltz, Josh Hamilton, Chris Eigeman (agian) all do an outstanding job. Carlos Jacobitt steals nearly all of his scenes.
The DVD, by Criterion, has many interesting and insightful extras. The fact that Noah Baumbach was 25 when he made this film makes me feel like a failure (which I am). It's an impressive debut and easy to see a direct line from Kicking and Screaming to The Squid and the Whale.
4 stars and little to complain about.

Quick one

So I've watched, recently, two quick and easy films. This will be a short post in preperation for watching Pickpocket later this evening before the basketball game I want to watch.

Lets call it 1 and 1/2 actually because one of them was Brown Bunny. I've already seen the movie but I watched the Japanese edition with commentary by Vincent Gallo. The commentary was almost better than the film itself. At least the dull moments of driving with the camera fixed on the passisng scenery was filled with Gallo's opinion of said footage and the occasional defensive comment. As a result of the commentary, which is targeted at the Japanese audience the DVD was manufactured for, the movie is entertaining throughout, instead of only the moments where something is actually happening.
My favorite was Gallo outing Kirsten Dunst and Winona Ryder as "jerks" for undisclosed difficulties with getting them to play a part in the film. Leave it to Gallo to make outing someone the highlight of a film that involves a non-pornographic actress fellating him.
Speaking of the infamous scene, one of my favorites in recent years even if the oral sex had been simulated and not "hardcore", this Japanese disc overlays a blur over the "offending" areas. Gallo echos the American audience in calling it "weird". I don't get it but I'm glad I got this movie with the commentary. It would not gain a star in the ratings (currently 3 stars for me) but it came pretty close.



Also watched An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder. It wasn't nearly as interesting or laugh out loud funny as it's predecessor but it does have a couple of laughs and some interesting facts that I didn't know. That his wife was in Playboy for one, was an interesting fact.
This movie isn't as interesting as some of the stuff on Mr. Smith's blog: My boring ass life.
I'll give it 2 stars, but would recommend it for a Kevin Smith fan.

A foriegn film and a documentary

I just watched two films today.

One was; "Tintin and I". It's a PBS P.O.V. program. It's about Herge, the cartoonist responsible for the "clear line style" that most European comics take as their major influence. Much like Kirby in the USA, Herge was read by everyone who wanted to be a cartoonist and seeing what european comics look like today, the influence is plain to see.

I enjoyed the film, though there were some stylistic flourishes, common in documetaries now with their fear that the information alone will not be enough to engross the audience. In spite of that, it was very informative. I wasn't aware of Herge's career in as much detail as the documentary provided. I would recommend it to anyone interested in cartooning or comics but without that interest the viability of the film lessens. Lets say 3 stars.



The other was; "The Passenger". A film by Michelangelo Antonioni. Some background... I've seen a few Antonioni pictures. L'Aventura, La Notte, Zabriske Point, and Red Desert. I like two of the four and hated Red Desert. I had to watch Red Desert for an editing class in college and write about it. I found this difficult. I was unable to get into the film. It was inaccessable and I didn't do the paper. I spoke with the professor, Ms. Mertens, about this, trying to crack the code as it were. To no avail... Zabriske Point I found equally inaccessable but it contained some interesting and potent imagrey.

As a result I am hesitant to watch Antonioni's films for fear that I will get one of the polarizing experiences I've had before.


The Passenger was no different. I liked it. Four stars on Netflix (I'm already tired and embarassed by the rating system I'm using... I'm stuck though). The tension was constant and some powerful observations on human nature and identity were hung onto and plot that drove the characters to the conclusion in an atypical, for Antonioni, manner. I remember the other films as being more gossamer in their structure. This one is more akin to L'Aventura, my favorite, and the performance of Jack Nicholson helps a great deal. Nicholson's career is littered with appearances in films that have great, or famous, directors. How smart is he? That's why he has so many Oscars in spite of his "hamming it up" during the later half of his career.

I recommend this film to anyone with a little patience. Give it a shot.

A plan set into motion...

Here we are at my oft-ignored blog. Nobody is reading this. Perhaps Kelly is but maybe not.
In the coming year, 2007, I want to write about the movies I see, the books and the comics that I read. My big plan is to watch 104 movies in 2007. I'm not at the 365 level, and never will be with my job (when I have one). I figure a baby step would be averaging two movies a week. I would like to have counted December 31st but I will not. (12/31/06 I watched 3 moives; "El Topo" [which I'd seen before but barley remembered], "Chldren of Men", and "Notes on a Scandal")

Last night, January 1st, I watched "Time of the Wolf" by Micheal Haneke. I liked it very much. I gave it a rating, based on the Netflix rating system which has taken over the movie rating world, of 4 stars. It contains many things that I like in both subject matter and execution. Without summarizing the entire movie, it's about a mother and her two children surviving after the apocalypse. That is a favorite subject of mine, since the "my favorite movie is Road Warrior" days. Not sensational, it was the quietest, most medetative, worlds end I've ever seen. Huppert sets the tone, performance wise, early in the film. Her face concealing the horror of her husband being shot in front of her. Even her vomiting was understated. Haneke is chasing Bresson at moments in this film but not veering too far into failed imitation, as I believe he did in "Cache". The extended shots of stillness or "nothing" are few and feel powerful in their depiction of the beauty of nature and landscape amid the suffering. The conclusion, which I will not spoil, wasn't oblique, as in some of Haneke's films. Overall the film felt like realist science fiction cinema and that's a compliment. ;-)

Interesting side note: I applied to work on the English version of Haneke's film Funny Games, directed by the man himself... I didn't get the job.

With any luck I will have at least 51 more of these and hopefully 104, one for each movie. They will vary in length.

Wish me luck... hello... is anyone there...