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Franco has both looks and acting talent, but it's true he has not gotten any great roles. I am going to rent Freaks and Geeks and also James Dean to see how he is in those. People hated Sonny, but I found it had a certain weird charm. He has even directed h imself in two movies lately, but nothing seems to hit the big time.
Joseph Losey: La Truite/The Trout (1982) Netflix DVD.
Strange, I guess typical of Losey. Meandering plot including a trip to Japan and conflicts between two couples, one consisting of Jean-Pierre Cassel and Jeanne Moreau, the other of a young Isabelle Huppert and Jacques Spiesser The two couples meet at a bowling alley and the rest of the action insues, with occasional flashbacks. A key element is that Huppert's character grew up on a trout farm where she learned that men are rotters but can be maniuplated. Her husband, Spiesser, is a gay alcoholic whe engages in shady art deals. Cassel is a millionaire who is attracted to Huppert, but it's Cassel's partner, Daniel Olbrychski, who lures Huppert on a long trip to Japan. Uninvolving, with a meandering and seemingly pointless plot, but with beautiful mise-en-scène and good cast, including Roland Bertin and Alexis Smith .. Hard to care about any of them. Huppert carries herself with something of her later aplomb but it has little effect.
Finally got to see the Virgin Spring (1960), bringing my Bergman total up to about 19 or 20. The film was later remade by Wes Craven in the deliciously low budget flawed but loveable Last House on the Left. I admired the raw appeal of Craven's early film, but from many aspects Bergman's is the superior version. Bergman's film is shorter, to the point, and the first collaboration with Sven Nikvist, a monumental occasion in and of itself. That said the cinematography is absolutely perfect. The film itself suffers a little in it's simplicity and overly somber mood, but still a recommended Bergman, just not another masterpiece.
Aside from that I've just been watching Laurel and Hardy shorts, watched County Hospital yesterday which is now topping my list of films with the worst rear projection ever.
Try to remember: IT'S=IT+IS. ITS=POSSESSIVE.ITS SIMPLICITY. POSSESSIVE. P.s. What does "just not another masterpiece" mean, exactly? On second thought, never mind!Quote:
The film itself suffers a little in it's simplicity and overly somber mood, but still a recommended Bergman, just not another masterpiece.
Olivier Péray Breakin Out/Grosse bêtise (2001) Netflix DVD
Light made-for-TV French film about a 13-year-old who tries to break his mom out of prison. Much charm is added by Oassini Embarek (of A Tout de suite) as his best mate and Stéphane Caillard as his sister by adoption, who joins in the planning.
Man you are a grammar whore. Anyways, my comment about the Virgin Spring is that it is not among Bergman's very best. Some would argue it is a masterpiece and a milestone in his career. I'll admit that the Oscar that it won invariably helped his career along, I don't think that it was for a particularly strong film. Also considering it won that Oscar when La Dolce Vita and L'Avventura were out, but again the Oscars and foreign films have always been a joke. I had a similar overrated reaction to Cries and Whispers, where it was took itself a little too seriously.
Boondock Saints (1999) - William Duffy
This modern Dirty Harry story has become a bit of a cult film in the years since it's ignored release. Duffy wrote and directed the film and tries to keep things interesting. No crime seems to take place in it's proper time, but is always shown in flashback (at least until the end). It is an interesting strategy, and although Willem Dafoe can go a little over the top he's always endearing. Dafoe is one of the few actors that I actually look forward to seeing overact (except for Spider Man). He is great at being ridiculous, and I must say he's a better looking female than a male in this picture. The touch about making him gay was great, although still homophobic. That was just one of the likeable qualities of the film, plenty of humor. Even at fairly crucial moments, there was always a little humor to go around. The basic vigilante concept is nothing remotely new, but at least its handled in a somewhat fresh manner. I won't be surprised if this film gradually earns a more respected reputation.
Le Samourai (1967) - Jean Pierre Melleville
Thanks to a glorious new Criterion DVD, I have finally managed to see this film. It is a remarkably detached, cold French film, and probably the best (from what I've seen) of Mr. Melleville. Alain Delon is emotionless, and so is the rest of the cast. Hard to tell if it's an acting style, or if the French are as a nation just that emotionally removed from the world. The ending is leaving me somewhat perplexed, but that's a good thing. Endings that are open or ambiguous usually leave a greater impression, and I'm still trying to sort that one out. Great mood and pace however and certainly recommended.
Andrew Nicol: Lord of War (2005) Netflix DVD.
This portrait of a big time arms dealer of Ukrainian origin, Yuri Orlov, starring Nicolas Cage (whose performance holds your attention throughout), has many schlocky Hollylwood elements, such as Yuri's druggie brother Vitaly (Jared Leto) and his trophy wife (Bridget Moynahan), his many sexy conquests along the way to megawealth, his "friendship" with the dramatic president of Liberia (Eamonn Walker), and the ridiculously relentless and steely Interpol agent who pursues him (Ethan Hawke). All these are colorful exhibits rather then people. The slickness of the decor and cinematography impress pointlessly. Cage's narration is full of tendentious declarations, like "The problem with dating dream girls is that they have a tendency to become real." Or "I would tell you to go to hell, but I think you're already there." Some of the zingers fall flat or are just obvious, like "I sell to leftists, and I sell to rightists. I even sell to pacifists, but they're not the most regular customers," or "There are two types of tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want, the other is getting it. " There is more than enough of that, and you have to be pretty easily impressed to like it. The movie also sometimes revels in the evils it depicts. But it includes some significant home truths about world politics like the fact that the world's biggest arms dealers are the US, UK, France, Russia, and China, and they are also the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Some of the cynicism in this movie is pretty strong stuff. It certainly doesn't lull you.
Drowning by Numbers (1988) - Peter Greenaway
Mr. Greenaway is an oddity in the world of film. A man constantly accused of style over substance, with a predominant obsession with patterns, structure, and numbers. This film is arguably the most easy to spot pattern of his work. The film opens with a girl jump roping, counting the stars up until she hits 100. From then on numbers appear in order and you get a feeling by the time you reach the 40's that the film will end at the centennial. The games played, rules concocted seem like a perfect excuse for Greenaway to dabble in all things eccentric and ordered.
The film has a certain style, and one that is only partially similar to his other pictures. The acting is much more deadpan than usual, and the actors and particularly the actresses show little to know emotion. The film itself is set in a world that is not quite the present, but not quite the past, in a remote part of the country (what country who knows?) scarcely populated. It is it's own little world, and a delightful one at that. Always adding significance to names, Greenaway gives his three female leads the same name, and of course their differences in age help to shape the structure of the plot.
Everything is ordered here, and some of the particular numbers are hard to spot. Walls read them, animals carry numbers, and sometimes you have to look at license plates and other hard to see details. If I can get another look at the film I would like to write down exactly where every number is located, it would make for some interesting study for sure. Nothing is accidental in Greenaway's films. He is one of the most deliberate of filmmakers and every shot, and every actors placement, line, and emotion has a reason and contributes to some greater whole. It makes his films infinately rewarding and easily re-watchable. Drowning by Numbers is only the 4th film of his that I have had the pleasure to see, but as I've noticed his films seem to improve with each new one I see, making me overly excited to see many of his other films. This one however receives a solid A rating and will stand for now as my favorite amongst his films.
Grade A
Steven Soderbergh: Bubble (2005). Just released in Landmark and some other theaters, on DVD, and on HDNet for HDTV owners and subscribers.
Hou Hsiao Hsien, Café Lumiere (2003) Netflix.
A girl who is pregnant is visited by her parents and may not know who the father is. Her main friend works in a bookstore and records train sounds as a hobby. Did I mention this before? I saw it a week or so ago I guess, but it did not leave a very strong impression and I forgot to list it. It seems to me in retrospect that the resemblence to Ozu, whom this was commissioned by the producer as a sort of homage to, is superficial indeed. Ozu can make you cry. This left me blank. It's about people avoiding real contact with each other. That's not the same as being reserved. In fact it's extremely different. People who are shy and reserved may care very intensely. The impression is that these people just don't feel very much. If this is how things are now in Japan, too bad; but would Hou really know? He's Chinese. He has even admitted in interviews that culturally he was out of his depth. Despite very assured style, the deadpan story has no pulse. This is more a perversion of than homage to the great Ozu.
Nigel Cole, A Lot Like Love (2005) Store rental.
Two young people with uncertain futures (Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet) meet in an airport, have sex in the plane, and keep running into each other every few years under the wrong circumstances till seven years later, they finally both realize at the same moment that it's for keeps. Just a light romantic comedy, but Cole and his actors do a nice job with it, the two leads are both easy on the eyes, and their chemistry is good. You may come to this with misgivings or low expectations, but you are likely to leave feeling like the Times critic: '"A Lot Like Love" isn't half bad and every so often is pretty good, filled with real sentiment, worked-through performances and a story textured enough to sometimes feel a lot like life.' It's nice and pretty unusual nowadays when something so conventionally mainstream turns out to be very decent, entertaining, and in good taste. I may not remember this very well, but the memory that lingers is a pleasant one.
Kim Ki-duk, 3-Iron (2004). Store rental.
I'd been waiting to see this, and though the high concept was already a little too familiar from previous reports to cause much excitement by now, it was still original and certainly well worth a viewing. The odd, mute drifter lead (Hyun-kyoon Lee), breaks into houses just to putter around, do laundry, clean up, and fix broken appliances. He never takes anything, but he tries out clothes and sleeps in their bed. He seems rather effeminite, since his thing is housekeeping. Accordingly first the young actor, on whom the whole film depends, seems to be just a little pretty-boy type, but he proves to have exceptional mime and acrobatic skills and a sly quality that is intriguing. The wordless sequences highight the film's strong emphasis on photographic images, sound and picture, which are beautiful, chilly, and unique. An Arabic love song, played over and over, is haunting, if a bit cloying after a while. Director Kim Ki-duk may be just a bit too much in love with his own ideas and stylistic tics. I was not an admirerer of Kim Ki-duk's Spring, summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring, which seemed way too contrived and fanciful to me, and the same ultimately is rather true of this. There are even plot elements that remind one of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy, and I'm beginning to wonder if there is something wacky about the Korean imagination that I am never going to be tuned in to. Nice, very thought-provoking ending redeems the wandering last quarter section. I'd rate this higher than Spring, Summer, Fall...etc. but not put it in the prize category. Kim has originality and a strong visual sense. I don't find his fantasies quite convincing. Nonetheless the idea is distinctive enough to stick in one's mind.
Thanks Chris.
The finest writer here...
How's those San Fran death fogs?
Thank you, you're very kind. Death fogs are okay. It's just turned warm. Actually I live in the East Bay now where it's a little warmer anyway.
Alexandr Sokurov, Moloch (1999) Netflix DVD.
Part of a tetrology that includes the recent, amazing The Sun about Hirohito (2005, shown at the New York Film Festival but as yet without a US distributor), as well as Taurus (Telets, 2002) , about a mortally ill Lenin. (The fourth I think is not yet made.) All concern men of great power at decisive and tragic moments. Moloch concerns Hitler in 1942 in an eagle's nest castle in the Bavarian Alps, isolated, as in other portraits, among his cadres and Eva Braun, indulging in grumpy vegetarian dinners and tossing about weird racist remarks about other nationalities. This is acted by strong members of the theater of St. Petersburg, Elena Rufanova as Eva Barun, Leonid Mosgovoi as Hitler, Leonid Solol as Goebbels, Yelena Spirindonova as Frau Goebbels, Vladimir Bogdanov as Martin Bormann, whose lines are dubbed by German actors, and this is done well. The whole is bathed in a murky green-gray or verdigris fog -- saturated, someone has written, with a kind of patina characteristic of old Agfa films -- the fogginess typical also of Sokurov's style elsewhere, with (as in The Sun) a sumptuous feel in the mise-en-scène and amazing, evocative period realness to objects (photo books, ashtrays, serving dishes) which seem at once solid and delicate. Yes, this is remarkable filmmaking. But the film as a whole is yawn-inducing. Hitler spends most of his screen time moaning about his health. Ten minutes are devoted to Eva's wandering around naked without a word spoken. She is graceful and athletic; but why? Well, to evoke the boredom and idleness of the isolated concubine -- but is such length necessary?
Moloch is very different from, and rather disappointing in comparison to, The Sun's stunning, touching portrayal of Hirohito, which dwells also on trivial moments, but always in the cause of a sensitive exploration of character and situation. There is a hushed intimacy about The Sun that Moloch, though it has a few grand moments, never attempts. Hitler doesn't even really talk enough, and this brings us to the inevitable fact that at this date, 2006, Moloch is thoroughly overshadowed by the far more conventional, sometimes heavy-handed, but nonetheless richly detailed and accurate and breathlessly exciting recreation of the last days in the Bunker achieved recently by Oliver Hirschbiegel in his Downfall (Der Untergang, 2004), released in the US last year and containing Bruno Ganz's powerful performance as the Nazi dictator.
Vikram Jayanti, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (2003) Netflix DVD.
In 1997 Kasparov, considered the greatest chess player in history, played a high profile match against an IMB supercomputer called Deep Blue devised for the sole purpose of not only playing world class chess but beating the greatest of grand masters. The stakes were $700,000-$400,000, winner/loser. It can't be said that Deep Blue really beat Kasparov, who had beaten a simpler form of the computer several years earlier. What happened is that the second of the six games spooked Kasparov so much -- and he resigned, when later it was pointed out he might have achieved a draw -- that he never recovered psychologically, and by game six he was a psychological wreck, couldn't focus, and resigned, thereby losing the match.
Surely Jayanti has a good subject: the human brain against artificial intelligence, the triumph of steely mindless machinery over brilliant, volatile intellectual genius. The filmmaker spoils his documentary by intruding too much with portentous music, gimmicky images of antique dolls, and by too little questioning the accusations that Kasparov throws out against IBM. There's still interest here, and so much at stake that it may be understandable that some have called this the best film about chess ever. Nonetheless that seems a bit of a misnomer given that there is so little specifically about chess and its moves -- though there is valuable and relevant information about the psychological pressures of great matches and the statistical complexity of the game itself.
Kasparov's personality is lively and his English is excellent, and that helps counteract the gimmicky use of antique mechanical chess-playing dummies as a suggestive "echo" of the IMB mega-computer Deep Blue, the portentous music, some whispering voice-overs, and Jayanti's aforementioned refusal to challenge any claims Kasparov makes about the way things went.
Kasparov challenged Karpov in 1984-85 in a huge series of games, Armenian Jew against, as he saw it, the Soviet block, and for his overall performance he had established himself as "the greatest chess player in history." (If there are any challenges to that claim, as no doubt there are, the film doesn't go into them.) In 1997 IBM, seeking to improve its stolid image against the livelier profiles of Microsoft and Apple, staged a hugely promoted New York six-game match between World Champion Kasparov and a newly improved and enlarged Deep Blue. They had six boffins lined up before and after each game, the chess and programming experts who were Deep Blue's handlers. Was that good strategy, lining up six grinning Asian and caucasian nerds against one challenged Armenian Jew? Doubtful; and though at the end, IBM sternly directed its crew not to smile, that did little to offset its earlier displays of conspicuous nerdly smugness. IBM also maintained tight security around the implacement of the large computer, and refused ever to release printouts of its operations to Kasparov.; according to him, they promised to at the end, but never did.
What happened is this: in game one, Deep Blue played like a machine, and Kasparov won easily. He thought that would continue. But in game two, he attempted a trick with pawns -- the film never goes into any detail about the actual chess moves and offers little of concrete interest to chess enthusiasts, but something that would normally lead a computer astray, into immediate profiting. But the machine didn't fall for it, and instead embarked on a mysterious and very humanoid-seeming grand strategy that put Kasparov in a very bad position. He was stunned. He overreacted, resigning as mentioned though later he realized he could have extracted a draw from the situation. From game two on, the champion became lastingly paranoid. And throughout the rest of the match, he never got over it. He suspected that some grand masters were assisting in deciding the moves of Deep Blue against him; and there were plenty of grand masters around, presumably in the employ of IBM. It's generally agreed, according to the film, that even a merely fine chess player, not necessarily world class, working together with a computer, could beat anybody. And that would not have been fair, and wasn't what was agreed upon. However, the film never provides a shred of evidence that IBM cheated in this way. All that's clear is that a machine doesn't lose its cool, and a human chess player very often does. Great a player as he is, Kasparov isn't cool. Someone remarks that he would make a terrible poker player, and in fact when things (in his view) are not going well, it is written all over his face and conspicuous in his body language. Kasparov, and Jayanti with his style, suggest that IBM's manipulations connect with Eighties YUPPIE thinking and corporate, Enron-style greed. But there is no proof of this. All that is clear is that IBM and it boffins lacked finesse, but fared well: stock went up in value 15% after this event. Where Kasparov is now isn't made very clear, but it appears that he is still playing and winning, against humans, and in 2003 tied in a match against the latest computer chess master, Deep Blue Junior, in Israel, and he has met various challenges in recent years, been beaten, but still remains the greatest. You can review Kasparov's chess
history online at various sites. Kasparov is a great player. His full story has yet to be etched in celluloid.
Stephen Chow, Kung Fu Hustle (2005) Rental store DVD.
"From walking disaster to Kung Fu Master." The Axe Gang rules, even the slums, but Sing (Chow) comes in and finds some eccentric landlords who are king fu masters in disguise. This is both a parody and a homage to kung fu classics, which makes ample use of modern digitalization techniques to create hilarious visual puns and games. "Imagine a film in which Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny" says Ebert. Kevin B. Lee's review in the Chicago Reader will discuss the context of this movie in learned fashion for you, explaining how Chow puts ordinary everyday Chinese characters "back into a genre whose elements have degenerated into global cliche." I don't know that I appreciated all that, but I could see this would be huge fun for the intense kung fu fan, and I also could see the link Lee notes with Sergio Leone.
Arie Posen, The Chumscrubber (2005) Rental store DVD.
This satirical drama about suburbia talks about middle-class alienation and confusion, nihilistic kids, and stuff like that. A young high school loner named Dean Stiffle (Jamie Bell) has a dad (William Fitchtner) who exploits his kid's alienation to write psychological self-help books. His mom is Allison Janney of "The West Wing." Dean has now found his friend hanging, a suicide. He's approached first by Crystal (Camilla Belle), who likes him, then by a punk pseudo-macho friend of hers, Billy (Justin Chatwin), who hangs out with another kid, Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci, of Thumbsucker) to demand that Dean reclaim some drugs that were at the dead boy's house and that Billy says are his. They try to kidnap Dean's little brother Charlie (Rory Culkin) but they get the wrong Charlie, Charley Bratley (Thomas Curtis), whose mom designs all the new houses around and is so excited that she's about to marry the town's spacey new-age mayor (Ralph Fiennes) she doesn't even notice her kid is gone. The dead boy's kooky mom, who's laying guilt trips on everybody and preparing a memorial service that will compete with the mayor's wedding accoss the street, is played by Glenn Close.
The payoff comes at the end when, in a tearful speech, Jamie Bell tells Ms. Close that her son loved her, that he didn't off himself because of her but because he wanted to be a rock star and he wasn't musical.
This movie bombed in theaters and critics shredded it, but it offers some entertainment on DVD because a lot is going on. It wants to be American Beauty, River's Edge, and Donnie Darko all rolled up into one movie, and maybe Thumbsucker, since it has Pucci in it; people who hate this movie aren't likely to like Thumbsucker; if you liked Thumbsucker as I did, you may be willing to give this movie the benefit of the doubt; unfortunately, it leaves you flat. It fails in its aims to enter the Black Suburban Comedy sweepstakes because, despite an interesting cast, some of them (like Fiennes and Close) misused, it doesn't have a screenplay of enough depth or originality to be memorable. Maybe another flaw is that the director, a Canadian son of Russian emigrant parents, can't get a grip on the atmosphere.
The setting is reminiscent of the outrageous cult classic 1979 teen revolt movie, Jonathan Kaplan's Over the Edge, and you keep hoping the kids will set fire to their school or something the way the young Matt Dillon and his pals did, but they don't. You don't even see them in school, or envision them as a real force or sensibility. There's just a little teenage angst and a lot of adult confusion and blather. Still, this will keep you awake better than Moloch.
Jia Zhang-ke, Unknown Pleasures (2002) Rental store DVD
Jia Zhang-ke's movie is powerful and sad. It concerns what you might call two young semi-urban hicks with no future, both rail-thin, constantly smoking, one Bin Bin (Zhao Wei Wei), tall and sad-faced, the other, Xiao Ji (Wu Qiong), a smaller guy with a stylish haircut that covers a lot of his face. The former has a girlfriend, but he and she agree to separate while she goes through exams. Then she reproaches him for not asking how she did, but he protests that he's out of the loop so didn't know when she was done. His mother, a Falun Gong sympathizer, says he's useless and he offers to enter the army. But when he has a blood test, it shows he has hepatitis and he's ineligible for military service. The orderly warns him about contact with a girl because it's very contagious. It seems like his life is over.
Neither guy has a job and they have no money. Xiao Ji, the smaller, more rakish one, who is all bravado and no follow-through, practically stalks a girl named Qiao Qiao (Zhao Tao) who's an entertainer for a drink company and who has a petty gangster for a boyfriend. This older punk eventually has the kid roughed up at a disco for dancing with his girlfriend, and turns out to carry a gun. The girl at first rejects the boy, but then they go together and even sleep together.
After he learns he has hepatitis Bin Bin borrows money from a shyster and gives his girlfriend an expensive present in a very sad scene where he won't touch her and she leaves him sitting by himself inertly in a typically desolate train station.
Both the pals have dead-end lives. Sometimes the Chinese landscape, a vast rural-turning-into-urban wasteland under construction, reminds one of Italian neorealism and the poverty of postwar European cities and one may be reminded of Pasolini's 1961 first film about young toughs with nothing to do, Accattone, but these Chinese boys are more passive and inarticulate and lack the Italians' false bravado.
Bin Bin starts selling discs to make back the money he owes but that looks hopeless and Xiao Ji's motorbike is starting to break down. Finally they decide to rob a bank. Naturally such a demanding project undertaken by two individuals of such low energy and flair is a complete flop, and the tall boy is arrested while the punk-haired one flees on the bike, but he has to leave it by the side of a desolate highway and hitch a ride in a van.
Bin Bin, in jail, is forced to sing a song and he sings a hopeful song about working class people he sang with his girlfriend in front of the TV at a happier moment. The film ends here, with the voiceover of the boy and girlfriend singing over the final credits.
The ironically named Unknown Pleasures is an infinitely sad, unpredictable, seemingly aimless, but ultimately very meaningful and awesome movie that is at once primitive, real, and deeply touching. This is a great movie. It takes you somewhere you've never been before, somewhere painful and unforgettable. You can say this is a "depiction of the spiritual malaise afflicting Chinese youth as a result of global capitalism" as Howard Schumann has done, but that is to articulate the thing in a way that the participants in the story could not do. Rather, it is a couple of aimless lives awash in a changing modern China pretty near to the bottom of the social scale; but it is also a picture of lack of chutzpah, helplessness, failure to thrive. TV's, always on in some room, show events in and out of China, new construction, criminal prosecutions, a downed US plane, Beijing chosen for the Olympics, and there is talk of dollars and video games and even Pulp Fiction's opening scene, but all this is little more than a noisy distraction for the aimless boys. The young people in Hou's Millennium Mambo are rather different. They are all good looking hustlers, and they may go nowhere either but they're going to make some kind of splash and spend some money along the way. But while Hou's film seems on the outside looking in cluelessly, Jia enters to the core of his characters' grim shallow lives and etches them on our hearts forever. Jia creeps up on you slowly and then never lets you go. This is the most powerful film I've seen in a long while. Its contents seem trashy and junky, but turn out to be astonishingly vivid and rich visually and aurally, a mix, also, that you've never quite seen before and aren't going to forget even if you wanted to.