Messages from the Ether

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (4/5)

[ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]

Late in the movie our two protagonists, partners Batou and Togusa from an elite security force, case the inventively decorated mansion of a criminal hacker who's the main suspect for a recent stream of homicidal androids. As they walk down a hallway bordered on one side by tall, stained-glass windows, human silhouettes within the windows cast shadows against the opposite wall. The shadowed hands reach for doorknobs or various objects on shelves. This short scene is iconic for much of the movie's intent: intentionality can easily be simulated, and observers can be tricked into perceiving nonexistent consciousness.

Along with somewhat slow philosophical discussions, Innocence contains vibrant scenes of violence, moments of dramatic tension, and elaborately rendered tableaux that stand as unique expressions in cinematic art. Within the framework of police procedural, we're immersed in examples of how human society has detached from nature by replicating a false environment. The movie examines the extent to which we will be able to extend such an environment in the future. Similarly, rituals and ceremonies are depicted as reimaginings of that ideal we are attempting to attain.

The mix of action and contemplation, more believable and more subtle than from The Matrix, is well-balanced, and as with the first GitS the cinematography is outstanding.

Lars and the Real Girl (4/5)

[ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]

I was very lukewarm about seeing this. The reviews I had seen were good enough, but the premise sounded to preciously quirky to produce anything more than a diversion on cable some weekend afternoon. The movie is about a lonely guy in a small town who orders a Real Girl (aka Realdoll) and then proceeds to show her off as his fiance, all the while getting in conversations with her and signing her up for social events.

It's easy to make the sad-sack loner too pitiful, but I think that Ryan Gosling pulls it off with oddity more human than put on. His character and those of his brother and sister-in-law only slowly reveal a history you can sense from the beginning but aren't immediately privy to. Gosling's desperate attempts to just be left alone paired with his sister-in-law's increasing attempts to not allow him an out is a more central and satisfying dynamic in the picture. The other is Patricial Clarkson's deft role as GP/psychiatrist. She showed calm acceptance but also pushed him when he needed it.

The only issue I had with the film is its extreme gentleness in how small towns treat their eccentrics. There was one Absolute Disapproval (based on religion), but no kids mocking him in the street, no real morality outcry, no eww-it's-a-sex-doll. I felt the dramatic tension waiting for those events, but the absence made the movie--if I dare say this about a movie about a man engaged to a doll--less realistic. Still, it was a sweet, emotive story in the same spectrum as Eternal Sunshine.

GitS. Prepare to die.

Live-action Ghost in the Shell. From Dreamworks. In 3-D. Gah. Expect Hanna Montana as Kusanagi and The Rock as Batou with the Tachikomas sounding even more kawaii than they do in the TV series.

Bruce Campbell reviews movies

Sort of. More accurately, he types up blistering NSFW rants on movie-type subjects over at Rotten Tomatoes. Current content is justifiably abrasive insults hurled at Tyler Perry (not abrasive enough, actually) and equally justifiable lusting after Zooey Deschanel. Seems to be ~once a week.

Indy.gif

The Indiana Jones trilogy as animated gifs [ via Filmwad > Geekstir ]:

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark
2. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
3. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Watch

One year from today [ via FilmWad ].

Sweeney Todd (4/5)

[ IMDB ] [ Rotten Tomatoes ] [ Wikipedia ]

I went reluctantly last night because the wife wanted to catch it before it faded to DVD. After the first song (an overture from Depp and his young companion as they sail in to London), I was completely engaged. The music was outstanding. Melodies developed in unexpected ways, lyrics rolled with imperfect rhymes, harmonies were at times surprisingly dissonant and pregnant with Prokofiev, ABA repeats varied their themes to show the character development. Sondheim is king.

As amazing as the music was the metaphor. There was so much potential in the relationship of the barber (a man-in-the-iron-mask darkly rewritten), the emotionally damaged pie-maker who finds in him a stability of sorts, and the adopted street-urchin (the barber having killed his seedy boss). That triangle seemed to me a shorthand for every family dynamic. And the plight of the barber's teen daughter was grim grim and very Charles Dickens. I had a few minor issues with the denoument but overall outstanding. Go rent it!

Alive in Joburg

Cool independent video posted in a scathing review of Cloverfield. I disagree with the review, but loved the video:

~6 minutes of mock-documentary about a very odd alien invasion...

Cloverfield (4/5)

Yes.

Extras

Just started watching the 2nd season of Extras last night (Orlando Bloom, David Bowie). Amazing. The scenes with Gervais and Ashley Jensen are funny and charming and painful. Their relationship from the first season, and to a great degree the pathos of the last episode, is added to even when she's only providing a dull-witted stare into space (on par with Seinfeld's Puddy). The bleak purgatory of Gervais's The Office is relocated and somewhat softened with less hateful characters. Again, it is reminiscent of the lovable misanthropy of Seinfeld yet with a stronger commentary on human nature.

The repetition of guest stars suffering from Shallowhollywooditis works, but you have to be in the know. That is: I'm not familiar with some of the lesser-known actors who appear, and so their exasperating flaws don't resonate as much as those of Kate Winslet or Patrick Stewart. Still, it's the leads that win the day. Brilliant.

Auto Focus (3/5), Permanent Midnight (3/5)

Auto Focus [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]. Permanent Midnight [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ].

Two NetFlix flix that have been sitting around for months because we didn't want to be depressed but I would have been equally depressed if we returned them without watching them.

Our queue is seldom ordered, and these two just happened to come up at the same time, being perfectly paired if you want to feel low afterwards. Both are buoyed by strong leads in unflattering roles and both leads' downfalls are difficult to watch. Add to that the fact that both scripts kept me engaged for similar reasons: they provided a view into the quirky life of a successful-ish television star (Bob Crane) and a successful-ish television writer (Jerry Stahl). Auto Focus was more successful overall as a movie. Ben Stiller was too over-the-top at times, and I never believed that his wife would have stayed with him. The over-the-top was part of the style (it had a rushing, second-half-of-Goodfellas feel through much of it) but just seemed to fall apart at times. And the Sheherazade aspect of the first two thirds seemed clumsy in how the story was being told compared to the story being told.

Time to cleanse the palate with some Collected Three Stooges Volume 1.

Michel Gondry videos

• Bjork, "Bachelorette" - This is what hooked me on Gondry. The vivid depiction of a mediated life whose only content is the mediation. Told in ~five-and-a-half minutes.

• Cibo Matto, "Sugar Water" - "Bachelorette" was dazzling in its structural recursion and slight social commentary. "Sugar Water" presents a similar structural coup in a split-screen crab canon. Instead of looking forced or overly technical, it is thoroughly enjoyable. Like one of the YouTube commenters, I have to admit that I don't fully understand how Gondry pulled it off. Stunning.

• Less stunning, but still notable for his theatrical staging, is Radiohead's "Knives Out". Simple and creative is Gary Jules' "Mad World".

I Am Legend (4/5)

This was a more subtle piece than I'd expected from Will Smith [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]. The whole of the movie--scenes with screaming, 28-days-later, speed-freak mutants aside--has the same quiet bleakness of No Country for Old Men. The soundtrack invades infrequently. There is no greatness to the story as a whole, but small points, left unspoken but paralleled across disparate scenes, were far above what cheaper post-apocalyptic flicks might offer (think Resident Evil, et al.).

The film advances on two fronts, with interspersed scenes: post-infection with Will Smith possibly the only uninfected person on Earth and searching for a cure; and pre-infection revealing the cause and the crisis. The first act is lonely but somewhat lighthearted with Smith's dog stealing many scenes. The second act moves into more serious territory and more action: Smith's lonliness is almost to the point of insanity just as he encounters other survivors. The resolution is uninteresting and yet the details and the storytelling of the whole are what resonate.

Of minor social interest: Omega Man came out (along with several similar films) at a time of environmental crisis. In it, humankind's altering of self via medicine threatens their destruction. In Soylent Green, the threat comes from the altering of their environment via overpoplulation. In Planet of the Apes, from inappropriate dominion over the animal kingdom. Each was in response to actual problems and took those to an absurd conclusion. These exaggerated conclusions help us define, through art, our anguish from real-world stresses. I had commented previously how predictive art is more warning--drawing a straight line instead of a curve--than prediction. I'm not sure if movies like I Am Legend and Children of Men fit that for today.

No Country for Old Men (5/5)

A perfect Coen brothers' film [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]. The acting excelled for all involved; the dialog--couplets of quips--was incisive and comic; the characters were iconic without becoming flat. Even after seeing what was done in Fargo I had expected a nihilistic dreariness, but ended up being more engaged than oppressed throughout the fleet 2-hour running time. The dialog's the thing, and although I would otherwise have characterized it as classic Coen dialog, Lisa informed me that, having read The Road, it was classic Cormack McCarthy.

Some have bristled at the oddities of the ending, so prepare to be on one side or the other of that debate. Even if certain style quirks distract you, expect to be engrossed in this bleak yet sharp modern western.

4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (1/5)

Somewhat painful crap [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]. Hoping for a minor distraction, this flick ended up being little more than a made-for-TV or even straight-to-video affair. We watched it on a lazy weekend afternoon, IIRC, and it was just barely up to the task. Who knows, maybe I needed to see the first one to appreciate it.

The Golden Compass (4/5)

Went Friday night at Atlantic Station and thoroughly enjoyed it [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]. Good turnout too; it's fun to see a movie on opening night in a packed room (as long as I get a good seat) and with an appreciative crowd.

I had only heard of the books over the last year reading random comments on geek sites. Apparently, it's what the younger geek grows up with (for me, it was the Dune trilogy). Their love of the books made me curious. The only other bits I had heard were from an email that a co-worker at this hypothetical company received. It was from a manager in a different group, addressed to their subordinates, and accidentally cced to my co-worker. In it was what I'm sure was boiler-plate fire and brimstone from some Catholic League rep. Inappropriateness in the workplace aside, it was somewhat funny.

At around 30 minutes into the movie, when Lyra escapes from Marisa Coulter, I was completely invested in the characters. The young actress who plays Lyra, Dakota Blue Richards, was outstanding as a precocious child that was not "acty" or annoying. There was little of Daniel Craig, but his role will continue in (hopefully) subsequent movies. Nicole Kidman was Eee-Vil. The other standout was Lyra's CGI daemon, Pantalaimon. CGI has come a long way from Lucas' horrific He Who Shall Not Be Named, and Pan was absolutely wonderful. Finally, I was impressed with the look of the film. The cinematography had a glossy brightness to it that could be contrasted (not unfavorably) to LotR's more earthy tones.

The Christian outrage with the film comes from author Pullman's notorious my books are about killing god quote. Boycotts were called on primarily by Dobson's evangelical Focus on the Family and the Donahue's Catholic League. Other religious groups have specifically supported the movie. And, to emphasize a point from the author, his books are about organized religion as a whole and not any specific religion.

From this set up, I went into the movie looking for metaphor. After a few distractions I decided that movie-as-puzzle is not as enjoyable as movie-as-story. The metaphors would wait till the end, and that allowed me space to enjoy the characters and story. The story is as much about the abuses of organized religion as it is about the abuses of any fascist government. Children are taught to limit their beliefs and ignore reality by being indoctrinated early on with religious/nationalist dogma (think Soviet media control or American nationalism). The poor and disaffected are targeted with the most aggressive tactics because they are the people the least likely to be defended (think European Jews or any of the African genocides). A good metaphor can attack multiple targets.

How can I dismiss Christian outrage with this film but accept my own criticism of The Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto, and 300? Granted, 300 is the only one I've seen, but I don't go in for the you-have-to-see-it-to-understand argument. If a movie presents itself as historically accurate and botches facts, those are easily debatable without attending a screening. All three of those movies were criticized by historians familiar with the times in question, in an attempt to address the directors' posturing of accuracy, and were shown to contain not insubstantial errors. That was my primary complaint. My secondary complaint was that these errors were introduced to produce cheap effect. Finally, at least for 300, after seeing the film I was baffled why a shallow spectacle was being praised as one of the most meaningful films people have seen (this from comments people had made to me). How to explain what was nothing more than a visually stunning Jason and the Argonauts being instead taken as the apotheosis of socio-political philosophy? And of two people I know who saw 300, the first sentence of praise from them, emphasizing its importance in their appreciation of the film, contained the statement "and it's a true story." In that there was a battle, yes. But when the details are so infelicitously manhandled, the story's historical bragging rights should be considerably diminished. The creators boasted of historic fidelity, failed on major points, and then fans declared that such criticism was nitpicking. "It's just a movie" was the most common retort, I believe. You can't have it both ways.

Anime

A little while back I started getting on an anime kick thanks to Robert introducing me to Ghost in the Shell when we went to see Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence in the theater. Then, I watched the first film on Netflix streaming and thoroughly enjoyed it. Netflix also has the first season of the TV series Stand Alone Complex. I soon purchased the first movie, the first season, and the second season. Photos of the wacky tchotchki that came with each DVD will be posted as soon as I get the final volume. Right now 3 tachikomas are guarding my desk at work. Word is that the DVD of the second movie is crap, so I'm holding off on that.

The next step is, of course, to find other anime that I like. I'm warming up to Cowboy Bebop on TiVo. Clips I've seen from the movie look awesome. I also watched Mezzo DSA on Netflix streaming. Cute/sexy teen chick fighting bad guys with goofy dialog in between. The overall mood of the series is a more hip Scooby Doo but with about the same level of maturity. I was shocked to find out that the source movie, Mezzo Forte, is said to be quite more mature. Extreme violence and hardcore sex. Fight scenes look good in the trailer. So, naturally, I purchased it and the director's other ultra-violent anime flick Kite. Should be interesting. These were probably some of the source material Tarantino was referencing in Kill Bill. The rest of the anime on Netflix streaming looks weak, or rather, it looks like what you think anime would look like. Absurd/cute/mecha.

Host backstory

Remember those opening scenes in The Host where the ridiculously caricatured and evil Americans poured expired formaldehyde down a drain (can that stuff even expire?!?) and ultimately spawned the giant lizard/monster? Well, apparently it was based on an actual event. Filmwad's recent list of movie monsters pointed me to an article at Asia Times telling the story of the McFarland incident where:

In February of 2000, civilian mortician Albert McFarland, employed by the US Forces in Korea (USFK), ordered his staff to dispose of about 120 liters of embalming fluid down a drain in the mortuary at the US Army base at Yongsan in the center of Seoul.

Brick (4/5)

This is a concept-piece that could have gone really wrong [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]. I liked it more than I should have possibly because it didn't go wrong and in fact had some really keen turns within it. The story is noir but told with teens in basically believable roles. As with noir, the characters quirks are ratcheted up quite a bit, but their source rings true. The hero, Brendan, is a moody ex-dealer who's lost his girlfriend to the life. She now dates one of the seedier dropouts and in a moment of peril calls Brendan for help, but quickly recants. He knows something's up, finds her body in the sewer, and soon goes on a tear to take down the underworld he was once a part of.

The language is pure 40s gumshow with terms more familiar ("bulls" for cops), terms I'd only heard once before ("yeggs" for burglers), and many that just flew by uninterpretably around bloody mouths or sobbing. At times, the characters did slip into unsuccessful characature, but more often the hard-boiled life would be parodied with scenes of triangularly folded notes slipped into lockers or a mother doting over a crime boss pow wow with country juice glasses. The humor softened the flawed earnestness, and the story had the twists and red herrings to keep you guessing up to the end. I have the feeling I'm going to like it more-and-more as time goes on.

Stardust (4/5)

I wasn't really sure what to expect, and so I was very pleasantly surprised with this [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ]. Village boy born of unusual circumstances pines after local hottie/bitch. Goes on quest for a fallen star to charm said hottie and ends up finding Claire Danes--sassier than your average fallen star or your average Claire Danes role for that matter. Nefarious forces are also converging on her, and so Our Hero must grow into his role as protector. There was a perfect mix of fantasy, action, humor, and romance. Afterwards, I wanted to compare it to the fun fantasy of Terry Gilliam, but now realize it is really a direct descendent of The Princess Bride [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ] twenty years later, even though I was not as enchanted by The Princess Bride as the rest of the world was. Nice ensemble appearances by Ricky Gervais (much better than the comercial clips suggest) and Robert De Niro. The 2+ hour running time flew by.

Sunday movies

Lisa bought Carnival of Souls (3/5) at a truck stop on her way to Asheville a week or so ago. Woman survives a car crash in a river and subsequently feels detached from society. Interspersed are visions she has of creepy zombie-type characters spying on her. For all of the bad dialog and bad acting, this had a nice moody feel to it. I particularly liked the scene in the department store where the camera goes blurry for a second and then Mary looks around to try to understand what happened. There was more unease than horror.

Finally watched Eraserhead (3/5). "Finally" meaning for as long as I've liked David Lynch I should have seen it years ago, and for as long as the DVD from Netflix was gathering dust I should have seen it weeks ago. If I had never heard of the movie, I could've thought that it was a recent work of his. Same characters, same static shots, same non-humorous humor. The ending was perfect. Both it and Carnival were oddly similar in their images and mood (although the Lynch was, obviously, done with greater technical skill).

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (0/5)

We saw this in the theater and recently re-watched it on TV (noting the painful swear/pussy dubs). I would have maybe given it a 1/5 when I first saw it. Now, with time to reflect and watch it anew, I can say with confidence that it holds no value whatsoever. Even for fanboys of Kevin Smith. It is--unfortunately--painfully valueless. I don't say it often, but please avoid.

Sonata for Viola (3/5)

First of all: Shostakovich is the shit motherfuckers, and I'll stab anyone in the face who doesn't agree.

As for the documentary [ IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes ], it was exemplary at times and yet somewhat too abstract (formalist?!?) for what I wanted. The archival footage was both phenomenal in its clarity and impact (Bernstein's version of the ... 7th ... IIRC) and suspicious in its splicing (a video of a speech had mute talking and canned applause?). I wanted a second, special edition DVD with all of the source material. Alas.

It was more symphonic music than chamber, I prefer his chamber and solo works, and yet it quickly won me over. His story was told with care. There was no plodding on about the Stalin brouhaha and neither too much about his being a tool of the party. But also, the ambiguity we understand--while scholars of both sides argue--was somewhat elided. What's the appropriate way to handle such a subject?

There are clips of him playing piano (I knew about his skill but never really knew. wow.) and hugging Bernstein in the above concert (not what you're thinking, he was married three times). Shots of his grave, hospital room (phone number 140-94-06), at Prokofiev's funeral, signing manuscripts, et al. were phenomenal to see for me. I'm not sure what impact they have on those unfamiliar but again, face stabbing is threatened. Worth the effort for who he is and for the rare footage you might otherwise not get to see. I'm obviously biased, but it might even win you over with his music.

The Fog of War (4/5)

Watched The Fog of War [ IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes ] the other night. It's about one of the highest-ranking officials of the Department of Defense who later became president of the World Bank and who served during one of the worst wars in American history but (wait for it) recognized many of the colossal mistakes that he had made during that war. To be fair, McNamara reveals himself in a much more ambivalent light than to say that he was mea culpa-ing, but a little self-examination goes a long etc. His confessions/remembrances are mixed with pride of accomplishment, grave regret, and pragmatic deflection. This movie is an historical document.

The reviewers' obsession with the camera viewpoint (McNamara looks directly at you) didn't hit me while watching. Perhaps a subtlety of affect that I couldn't discern. The Glass soundtrack was--and this is odd--too distracting as Glass. His music has possibly become iconic and no longer capable of resting in the background even though I thought his piano pieces for The Hours were outstanding and appropriate. The coda of the film was artful and daring and precise in capturing the ambiguities told throughout.

W/r/t Iraq: we are so fucked.

Man Bites Dog

I watched this film yearsandyears ago and was recently reminded of it. The lone comment on IMDB sums it up: I really wonder what happened to those who made this. They should have been stars by now. ... Genius doesn't come along often. Do yourself a favour and watch this. It's an ultraviolent and absurd view of media voyeurism that doesn't fall into the trap of sensationalism (yeah, I know, that's what everyone says). Matt Zoller Seitz's essay from the Criterion release is a good read.

Movies

The Lives of Others (5/5) at Landmark on Sat. It takes an easy target--the tragedy of state surveillance in socialist East Germany in 1984--and pulls out a finely structured and poignant drama. The emotional impact lasts until, unbelievably, the very last minute of an unusually paced final act. Really, this film needs to win some sort of award.

After I found out that I was foolish enough to order Arrebato from 5 Minutes to Live even though it was in "Spanish with no English subtitles" and not in "Spanish with English subtitles"--making me question my command of reading English anyway--we watched Figures in a Landscape (3/5). A nicely abstract flick that examines the idea of man as primarily a malignant atagonist to society. Robert Shaw and a young, doughy Malcolm McDowell are Mac and Ansell: fugitives fleeing in the titled landscape from a helicopter of great menace and (eventually) military troops. Their characters are bristly at first and eventually become almost sympathetic. It has the dry, dramatic minimalism of Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 and the existential barrenness of The Naked Prey.

I slipped a mickey in her MacGuffin

Behold! My new 3-volume, 15-disc set of film noir:

I went crazy one night and ordered all three on the cheap from Amazon. Some I've heard of (The Asphalt Jungle) most otherwise (Gun Crazy aka Deadly Is the Female). And the covers are outstanding.

Top 10 films

For no particular reason. I've just been praising several films recently, saying they're in my top ten, yet not fully sure what my top ten actually are. Let's see:

1. Zerkalo (The Mirror) - The first Tarkovsky I'd ever seen, and so it sticks with me. It has a similar theme of Persona--examination of self--yet with a completely different and more autobiographical approach. Sadly, not available on DVD, and I've no VCR to play my VHS tape.
2. Persona - Bergman at his experimental best. Its split-in-the-middle structure reminds me of several David Lynch films.
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Sweet without being Hallmark.
4. Cure - A moody murder mystery that kinda falls apart under its own confusion at the end, but ultimately a unique vision. One of the less kooky expressions of East Asian mysticism.
5. The Saddest Music in the World - This has the same astonishing dream-logic as Ishiguro's novel The Unconsoled, and yet the story (and the images) make the going less frustrating.
6. Lost Highway - This choice is a little cliched, but still. The experimentally slow first half (like the famous driving scene in Solaris) is workable only with its cinema-saturated second half.
7. Solyaris - The other Tarkovsky film. Holds up nicely today even for a 1972 sci-fi flick. The remake wasn't as bad as people's avoidance of it warranted, it just didn't have the thoughtfulness of the first and so got punished for its differences. The images in this Tarkovsky aren't nearly as beautiful as those in The Mirror, but they still have a solid emotional feel.
8. Irréversible - I really hesitate with this one because it's a film that I cannot recommend, may never watch again, and yet still love it and its message. Similar to Eternal Sunshine, yet very different (if that helps in any way).
9. À bout de souffle (Breathless) and Pierrot le fou - The obligatory cheat. I haven't seen enough Godard, but what I have I loved. In fact, I'm tempted to give up this item in the list to all of French New Wave, but I suspect it's a style that could go bad quickly. Still, the improvisatory livliness is fun.
10. Criminali della galassia, I (Wild, Wild Planet) - The only camp movie on the list. What can I say? I'm a sucker for its unbridled 1965 wackiness.

I tried to avoid as many "classic" top tens as I could and even excluded some films that I would give a 5/5 to but that weren't as memorable to me. Classic blog stuff! Nice and self-absorbed. Now let's see how long I go without changing my mind...

Art lie

I'd previously read about some of the historical indiscretions in 300 the graphic novel and 300 the movie, but this article contains a more complete explanation. The most notable elisions:

• Sparta, like other Greek states, was a slave state--those few free Spartans lived off of the hard work of the many slaves
• The elite did not go through the difficult training that the slaves did--greatness did not result from social Darwinism
• The political leaders where part of a check-and-balance to the kings--they were not decadents leeching from the brave soldiers
• Spartan men paired with boys--Athens was not unique in this, and in fact Sparta was much more characterized by it
• Many other Greeks fought at Thermopylae--unlike in the movie, they were equal to the Spartans

Most of this you remember from history class, but the article points out the philosophical deceit in the changes made in 300.

No mention is made in 300 of the fact that at the same time a vastly outnumbered fleet led by Athenians was holding off the Persians in the straits adjacent to Thermopylae, or that Athenians would soon save all of Greece by destroying the Persian fleet at Salamis. This would wreck 300's vision, in which Greek ideals are selectively embodied in their only worthy champions, the Spartans.

This movie, like Apocalypto or Passion of the Christ, seems in a special vein of rewriting of history that is not new. An artistic interpretation is a delicate balance between volumes of historical research and an iconic shorthand needed to summarize it. At what point can we criticize that shorthand for its representation of history? Do artists get a free pass to be praised for selective accuracies in their research and praised for expressive interpretation in their art, even when their interpretation defies fact?

Recent movies

Borrowed The Departed from a co-worker. Very strong but definitely not the monument that some critics are making it out to be. Great dialog and very Donnie Brasco. The ending was kindof a mess but well-paced.

Finally watched South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Oddly, it was on TV and--if Comedy Central is to be believed--completely unedited. I'm not sure how they'd say uncle fucker that many times if it were edited. Very funny with only maybe 20% dragging (The Mole's scenes were bla). The ending with Kenny was sweet even with the topless 36D angels. Trey Parker did some good work with the music, especially the chorus/medley near the climax and Satan's song "Up There."

Saw a "sneak preview" of the Korean monster flick The Host. Outstanding. The comedy overlaps with tragedy and at times you don't know how to respond. The CGI monster looked plenty scarey and had an uncomfortably vagina dentata oris. Quick reference to Gojira at the end (how could they not?) and a beautiful/moody final scene. The characters were wonderful with a greater depth than you'd expect with the amount of slapstick in the movie. I wish it would get wide release to ward off the threat of Hollywoodremakititis.

Purchased The Animation Show (Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt's collection from their animation festivals of 2005 and 2006) from Amazon. We went to see the ones in 2005 and we just missed the 2007 one the beginning of last month IIRC. Many good moments and high quality packaging. Hertzfeldt's "The Meaning of Life" is almost transcendent.

New David Lynch tonight

Inland Empire at Lefont tonight at 6. The original Mothra tomorrow nite at 10.

Idiocracy (3/5)

[ IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes ]

Equal to Office Space and equally uneven. Lisa and I walked out of this movie helplessly mocking others' and our own gaffes and idiocy. Suddenly the world looked--too much--like the hilariously stupid world of 2505 thought up by Mike Judge.

There were only around 20 people in the theater which is I guess understandable from the absolute absence of marketing and even some ridiculous title change. As the reviewer from AICN said of the studio's handling: now that I've seen it, I know for a fact that FOX is fucking retarded. Many of the events in the film feel not so much 500 years away but more like they're only a few years off, so the marketing snub is simply Fox devouring its children. Several of the uneven moments felt oddly like we were watching the TV edit. I'm not sure whether to fault Judge or Fox, but considering how Fox has mishandled every aspect of the film they're the likely candidate.

Overall it was light-weight, but there were many good laughs.

Idiocracy

AKA Untitled Mike Judge Comedy, opens at Atlantic Station, Regal, and Phipps tonight. Read The Esquire article on how Fox studios f'ed him over on this one.

The Descent (4/5)

After our failed plans to see The Descent (recommended by noneotherthan Bobafred and Mingaling) last Friday, we decided to go last night. It was a predictable setup but with enough variation to become one of the better genre flicks. A group of friends go off into the wilderness, one has had a traumatic experience and so is the unreliable observer, non-supernatural problems occur, weird freak-out shit begins, friends die one-by-one. The odd variations really really made this movie though. The first notable twist was that all of the friends are female. This choice allowed the movie to completely abandon the sexual dynamics you usually get, and the writer mostly avoided overly cliched female group roles. Mostly. I also liked the amount of time spent in the caves anticipating the trouble. I've never gone spelunking, but I'm pretty sure now--weird monsters or no--that I don't want to.

I loved what I think were two movie references within the movie. First was the lead's Martin Sheen Apocalypse Now impersonation as she guardedly emerged from a pool of blood. Then, was her blood-drenched Carrie pose and another Carrie moment later when she thrusted her hands out of the ground. Overall, her transformation in the film--and everything that's suggested in the final scene--was the most satisfying. I think my only complaint is that some of the fight scenes were (just a little) too choppy.

Movie weekend

Going to Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9 at Landmark this Friday (should be similar to Irritant #4 and Here Child, Finish Your Nothing). I caught his complete Cremaster series several years ago there and a year prior saw the Cremaster installations at the Guggenheim. Both were very gooey.

Sunday is The Other Side via The Atlanta Film Festival. A gripping tale of a man who returns from hell to solve his own murder and redeem himself as Terminator-like bounty hunters chase him down. Filmed in Atlanta! (Not the hell part, the returned-from part.)

And this is sortof tempting: An Inconveniant Truth is at Tara this weekend--as anyone who's on the MoveOn mailing list knows. That may be a Saturday matinee thing if we're not movied out. It's going to be too science-lite for my tastes, but it's for a good cause. And that liberal media we all know and love has dubbed it 89% worth seeing.

Where was I?

Last Friday: neighborhood Cinco de Mayo party OTP at Tedra and Bill's with some other ITP friends. Lisa came in second in the limbo contest (on Cinco de Mayo?!?) to the less top-heavy Shelby. I should have escaped with a giant, eight-foot-tall inflatable cactus sticking out my sun roof but can see now that it might have brought undo attention on the drive home from unwanted persons.

Saturday was the Kentucky Derby party at Mary and Andrew's. Last year, Scott took home the purse; this year, LC and I raked it in. I can't speak for her, but I spent my winnings on My Pretty Pony collectibles.

Tuesday, we went to see Sophie Scholl at Landmark. Simple and moving. I compare it in emotional impact to The Constant Gardener but less artfully filmed. Her arrest occurs relatively quickly, after a few scenes familiarizing us with the main characters and the society they live in, and is followed by a series of interrogations that make up the bulk of the film. The interrogations become a battle of philosophies between her and an investigator who is impassioned yet ultimately reluctant to sentence an intelligent and sincere young lady. Nazis are an easy target, but this film is more about an inspiring act of bravery. You'll be in tears for the last 30 minutes.

Thursday we had a new HVAC unit installed in our condo. Our old one, though only 9 years old, was installed poorly and died an untimely death. After an estimate of $4100 from CoolRay we got a second estimate of $6500, and the choice was simple. The installation took all day, but I got to go up on the roof for the first time. What a view! Although we pay approximately $1,000,000-a-month in association dues, they say it's too expensive to build a deck up there. Jackasses. Anyway, we now have a fancy new digital thermostat that keeps us below the 80-85 we've become accustomed to.

That night was The Fantasticks at Shakespeare Tavern for Alicia's b-day. I knew very little about the show except that the sheet music was ever present in the music room in high school. Because of that, I expected a silly little musical but was very very pleasantly corrected. The play is smart and the theater's directing keeps your attention. The female lead knocks everyone else off stage with her resonant coloratura flourishes--with such skill in a relatively small theater, one viewing will make you realize what jackasses those American Idol contestants are. Social criticism aside, this was such an enjoyable show I've been recommending it to anyone. It's playing through June 25th.

We got home that night--after seeing Alicia's playful new dog Jesco and having a few drinks at Milltown Arms--and drunkenly watched the season finale to The Office. We usually don't delete drunk viewings of shows, just-in-case, but that rule was forgotten and now we're downloading it for $1.99 from iTunes. Anyone know how to de-encrypt iTunes videos?

Friday was the ASO and a wonderful and varied program of Borodin (Overture to Prince Igor, clip), Berg (Violin Concerto, with Cecylia Arzewski, clip), Schubert (Symphony #8), and Liszt (Les Preludes, clip). We hadn't been in quite a while and this was a perfect evening to return. After that, we had a drink that the hip-yet-accessible Table 1280 right next door. Dinner reservations were at 11 at South City Kitchen down the street on Crescent. Too. Much. Food. So. Good.

Sophie Scholl and The Hours

Going to Sophie Scholl [ IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes ] tonight at Landmark. It's getting very good reviews. (see my first post back in June 2004 about the White Rose student resistance in Nazi Germany).

Last night was The Hours (3/5) [ IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes ]. The melodrama was cranked up a little high--I'm not sure how many depressed people you can fit into one movie, but this has gotta be a record of some sort. Although it had (1) an unsatisfied 50s housewife, (2) an unsatisfied modern-day working woman, and (3) two tortured poets, the telling of the story and the characters involved were engaging enough to bypass the bathetic. The theme of the stories throughout asked the dual questions: how much suffering would you endure to make others happy, and how much suffering would you make others endure to allow yourself to remain happy? Ultimately, we can never know the depth of suffering that another person feels, so the decision must always be based on asymmetric knowledge. I suppose that a high number of depressed characters is required to convey such a message.

Nacho Cerda

Just impluse-bought a three-movie set by director Nacho Cerda from Poker Industries: Aftermath, Genesis, and The Awakening (somewhat explicit image). Aftermath sounds like an extreme gore-fest. The other two promise to be more imaginative films. Genesis is about a man whose sculpture of his dead wife begins transforming into flesh as he changes into clay. The Awakening presents the story of a student who falls asleep in class and wakes up with everyone and everything around him frozen in time. Should be weird. And with a 15% off coupon!

I've ordered from Poker Industries before, but can't really recommend them: their check-out is un-encrypted! Can you believe that shit? I took the chance this time, but they really need to clean up their act.

Seven Sherlock Holmes movies

After getting pointed to a Sherlock Holmes blog by the singularly perceptive A. C. Douglas, I dug through and found a reference to public domain torrents where you can download eight Holmes movies. Not being the most keen-eyed fan, I found seven grouped together and ordered them before noticing the eighth. Free to torrent, if you have the time, but almost as free to purchase on DVD: $1 each with a minimum of five movies. They come in AVI format and the quality is not great, but they appear watchable.

How do these fit in the canon? Well, they're set in the 1930s/1940s, so they present sort of an alternate-reality canon. Below are the movies in film order, with the story name (taken from the chronological table in the back of Volume I of Klinger's edition) and dates of their occurrence (in Holmes' life) in brackets. Four are from Conan Doyle's material, three are original screenplays also available on the cheap at Amazon.

• The Sign of Four (1932), The Sign of Four [1888]
• A Study in Scarlet (1933), A Study in Scarlet [1881]
• Silver Blaze aka "Murder at the Baskervilles" - USA (1937), "Silver Blaze" [1888]
• Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943), "The Dancing Men" [1898]
• The Woman in Green (1945)
• Dressed to Kill (1946)
• Terror by Night (1946)

CSA (3/5), Tristram Shandy (4/5)

Saw these as a double-feature on Sunday. They have similar non-narrative conceits but each has a unique and uniquely creative approach. CSA is a fake documentary about the United States, and the world, as it would be if the Confederacy had won the Civil War. Tristram is a blend of a making-of movie and of the movie itself, which is based on a book that I am told is just as confusing and complex. At ~90 minutes each, they made for an ideal pairing.

CSA is seldom overly-serious and has many inappropriately hilarious segments. By then end, you're shocked at just how closely those inappropriate segments are to a reality that is only a few decades past. Although it's hard to seriously consider that slavery could still exist in the 21st century no matter the path of history, with lynchings occuring up to the mid 19th century in an America where slavery was ended, CSA seems not so off-kilter. After the movie, I felt that the joke just didn't hold up, even for only 90 minutes, but I've keep thinking about it and enjoying it more. There was much to appreciate and some really very funny comments. Most unprintable here. The several footnotes at the end were invaluable.

Tristram had many subtle comedic turns and yet surprisingly displayed a very honest and human portrait of the main character, played deftly by Steve Coogan. It switches between being a movie adaptation of the book and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie. Coogan, with equal flair from his co-star Rob Brydon, comes across as both neurotically self-absorbed and sardonically self-confident. The frustrating stagnation of any progress in either the movie being made or the story being told is some sort of Sartean hell they're all in, yet one that is not so bleak and contains more slapstick than anguish. Very sweet and with many worthwhile moments.

Both movies should be re-watched.

V for Vendetta (4/5)

Got some tickets to a preview at Landmark from a busy LC. Thanks!

This held together better than the original graphic novel. All of the coincidences and seeming coincidences were there, along with some of the strongest writing--marked with V's theatrical speech--and most striking images--V's silhouette against the prison in flames, or Evey's rebirth in the rooftop rain. Even with the changes and rearranged scenes, Alan Moore's key narrative ideas were all there and even improved upon with some well-placed humor that added to the entertainment without interrupting the drama. The Wachowski brothers have redeemed themselves, albeit with another's writing. Good enough, and very entertaining.

Is it a comment on America? It's clearly Moore's own story, unmolested by overt commentary, which tells of a fascist state in England but that could exist anywhere. In it, the government invades citizens' privacy under the guise of protection from enemies, tortures those it feels are a threat, forgives its moral sidesteps by wearing a mantle of religious righteousness, and fabricates imaginary threats in order to keep its citizens afraid and complicit in their abuse. It also has a populace whose majority believes they are being lied to [no link available]. It's not hard to see how some would want to cry foul.

Paparazzi

Another observation from La Dolce Vita: paparazzi are everywhere and are almost unchanged from how we see them today. Flocking and unscrupulous, yet a necessary evil to fill US and People with those glossy images. Cinema is a great source, even in its fiction, of cultural knowledge. Fellini used the paparazzi as a metaphor for a detached life--living through observation--but their existence is not likely to be wholly made-up. It reminds me of the lowbrow newsmen in His Girl Friday. As we despair in what was presumably lost from the All the President's Men reporters of the 70s (though not of Anchorman) to our current wanks, we forget about the yellow journalists of Citizen Kane.

La Dolce Vita (5/5)

Not much to say that hasn't already been said. This was a gorgeous and gorgeously pessimistic film that fit nicely into its almost three hour running time. It shows the downfall of a journalist who mixes with the wealthy and shares in their decadence and directionlessness. The very final shot provides a nice and hopeful balance to the immediately preceeding scene of the lead hitting rock bottom. Very beautiful throughout. Mastroianni is stunning as the lead.

Almost as much has been said about the actress Anita Ekberg, playing an American movie star, as about La Dolce Vita. A wealth of images are available (some in the buff or in the almost buff) to illustrate what a force of nature she was, however, the most striking image remains from the scene of her and Mastroianni in the Trevi Fountain.

There are many groovy 50s tunes to enjoy, heavy on organ and bass. The most striking music was from Nino Rota's score: a short chorale-type piece that first appears when Marcello and Maddalena are parked in her car and meet the prostitutes.

The Edukators (3/5)

Good. A little long but with some satisfying moments and an approapriately un-preachy ending. Aaaaand, the main protagonist (1) carried a messenger bag, (2) drove a VW, and (3) used the All-powerful Newton! Someone to be respected. The three main characters "terrorize" the wealthy by breaking in and impishly re-arranging their furniture in unlikely stacks, leaving only the message "Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" (your days of plenty are numbered). Something goes wrong (of course) but not terribly wrong. The story is generally well-paced, but maybe 20 minutes could have been cut from the 2:07 running time.

Two movies, two dinners

Watched The 40 Year Old Virgin [ IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes ] a couple of nights ago (4/5). A few flat moments but otherwise very funny, and it was the first DVD with outtakes that were worth watching. The four leads worked well together. Then, Friday, we watched the really stunning Lord of War [ IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes ] with Nicolas Cage (4/5). A dark, satirical view of the corruptions of super-powers, similar to The Constant Gardener or (as I can only assume) Syriana but with an absurdist distancing instead of the others' gritty, expose style.

Friday night was dinner at home with possibly the most perfect filet mignon that we've ever cooked. The secret (via recommendations from my bro') is to grill them first and then finish cooking them in the oven. Paired with a Spanish rioja. Su-poib! Then on Saturday, we went to Rathbun's for our seventh anniversary dinner. Our first experience there. Stand out dishes were their Lamb Scaloppine appetizer (wow) and Lisa had a taco stuffed with lobster. Nice. Then, a very short couple of drinks at the new bar The Spotted Dog just down the street from us on North in the old fire station. It was packed and will probably stay that way.

Aeon Flux (2/5)

Held with considerable distain by most critics (making Rotten Tomatoes Worst Flix of 2005), this movie really isn't that bad but it's got some problems and could have easily been much better.

Extreme

I was describing (trying-to-describe) extreme cinema to a coworker the other day, and he commented something about there being a diminishing return with such envelope-pushing styles. We were on another subject entirely so I didn't pursue what he meant, but it reminded me of the scene that Peter Jackson recreated from the original King Kong. The scene had been cut from the 1933 version because it would be too frightening to the audience. Giant stop motion spiders were too frightening. Do we really consider that the ideal level of shocking imagery--not too prurient and not too gory--or does that even go too far? We could revert further back to the Gothic novels of the 1700s and 1800s or further to the grim Byzantine crucifixions. As stark and emotionally skillful as Irreversible and Requiem for a Dream are, can their presence be considered a value judgement against graphic expression?

Movie roundup

Movies from the last couple of weeks:

• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes) - Clever, quick black comedy about a petty thief (Robert Downey Jr.) who gets mistaken as an indie actor and pairs up with a Hollywood private eye (Val Kilmer) to sleuth several murders. Downey veers sloppilly from wit to idiot, both equally entertaining, while Kilmer is the well-dressed Felix Unger who can barely tolerate his accidental partner. (4/5)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes) - Many good moments and not too long. Dark and violent and definitely PG-13 with much of the darkness psychological. Lisa felt, and I agree, that the ending just sort of dropped off with no well-expressed denoument; the characters simply stated their minds and the credits rolled. Unsatisfying after the previous 2-1/2 hours of conflict. (3/5)
• Fever Pitch (IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes) - Well-cast and well-written romantic comedy. Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon are sweet and real and avoid most of the romantic comedy cliches here. Good writing from the Farrelly brothers who can often inject pathos in unlikely situations. (3/5)
• Layer Cake (IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes) - A Guy Ritchie-styled film (no, not Castaway...) with classy drug dealer Daniel Craig always one step behind the Big Bosses but still out-smarting them, if only barely. Nice twists and nice characters but another unfortunately flawed ending. Overall edgy and entertaining. (4/5)

Good Night, and Good Luck. (5/5)

Nuanced and well-constructed. The story centers around the point in time when Edward R. Murrow and his team guardedly began reporting on the hypocricy of McCarthy's investigations. I was ready for a simple story (McCarthy = Evil) but was delighted to see how, in a way, director George Clooney made the 50s the main character. There's much to appreciate here.

Years ago, a co-worker tried with bluster to convince me that McCarthy was a true patriot who performed a noble service to this country. I appreciate a good Devil's Advocate, but this was ridiculous and scarey because he was serious. This was several years before 9/11, so I thought the guy was just presenting a fringe, kook-pot position that could never surface again in the mainstream. Oh well. One important point that should be considered: in the 50s it was the politicians that were in control of the fear-mongering and persecution. Today, to a large extent, it's the fringe media and their terrifyingly numerous following. Where McCarthy once declared anyone who contradicted the president as anti-American, today it's personalities like Ann Coulter who do the same.

The movie is not as extremely political as my comments here. However, I'm the target audience of such a subject, so the distasteful parallels resonate. Don't let that keep you away from a truly skillful piece of cinema and more proof (along with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) of Clooney's surprising artistry.

FreakyLinks

Through a series of recovery-induced cogitations on TV shows, I remembered a series of a few years back called FreakyLinks (The Blair Witch Project was on today, as was a movie called They. I think the creators of BWP were involved in FL, and one of the actors in They was the main character in FL. Kinda freaky, huh?). FreakyLinks had the feel of the original The Night Stalker that early X-Files had, but without the unfortunate over-seriousness. I miss FreakyLinks, but it appears that it'll never be on DVD. TV.com has descriptions of all 13 episodes.

In my Googling for FL, I found a site called FreakyLinks which contains various forms of weirdness (hosted in WS, which I learned a while back is Western Samoa). Containing an image of a lime green skull with a swastika on its forehead, it declares itself as your portal to disturbing sites on the net. They have a considerable amount of questionable content, but I went right for their Video Mayhem section. Ooooh. I'm drooling for some of these bad, bad movies (unfortunately only on tape). Lots of extreme violence, gore, hardcore sex, and general bad taste to a degree that believe me you cannot imagine. Highly recommended even if you only go there to read the movie descriptions. It reminds me of a similar site I found when I was on sabbatical called 5 Minutes to Live. They have DVDs.

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (5/5)

Wonderful. This movie had me in tears laughing during the madcap ending, and I'm still smiling about many of the scenes today, however I don't want to spoil anything by describing any of the bad puns (with Gromit rolling his eyes throughout) and sight gags. Classic Nick Park. In the theater (Phipps) with Lisa and I were one person a few rows up and a parent + children a few rows back--all of us snickering. Even the security guard who snuck in at the end was cracking up. There were enough details to warrent a second viewing (just looking at the IMDB information brough up gags that I missed).

Just really, really, very fun and sweet.

Review: Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (4/5)

This film could've had a much longer release that one week. The plot, varied characters, and camera work are enjoyable and fresh even 50 years later.

Two OK creepy movies

First was a few days back on TiVo. I had gotten hooked on part of Below a couple of weeks ago but didn't have time to finish it, so I had TiVo get a repeat broadcast. Co-written by Darren Aronofsky, who directed Pi and Requiem for a Dream, Below is about an American submarine in World War II whose crew picks up a handful of survivors of a downed British ship. Both the crew and the survivors seem to be hiding something as they suffer ill-fated and supernatural accidents throughout the film. It has more mood than scares, but the mood was engaging with the surviving characters struggling to understand what's happening to them. Two effective scenes. First, when one of the crew presents a very plausible theory that they're all already dead and the noises outside the submarine are divers attempting to retrieve their bodies. Second, when one member glances at a mirror and his reflected image is almost imperceptibly delayed in its response.

I'm not sure though that submarines were ever that large inside. Sure, everyone has to duck through doorways and such, but there seemed to be an abundance of rooms and levels.

Second films was John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness last night (keeping me up until 3). I only caught the last half, but it completely hooked me. A giant container of evil!! is found in a church and physics students and a priest attempt to discover its origins and contents. Moments of science v. religion matched with creepy possession. Some good Carpenter gross-out scenes, and very nice dream transmissions from the future (I know, cool!), but I'm not sure that it delivers as much as it could have. Lost opportunities include gangs of possessed people gathered outside the church that could have been more menacing, and the hacky use of the person wandering into a darkened room.

"Wow" trivia for the movie: the transmissions from the future are sampled on DJ Shadow's Endtroducing... album:

This is not a dream, not a dream
We are using your brain's electrical system as a receiver
We are unable to transmit through your conscious neural interference
You are receiving this broadcast as a dream
We are transmitting from the year 1-9-...

Almost the only source I could find was here.

Malle

Elevator to the Gallows starting September 23rd for a week run at Landmark. Coolcoolcool. The Miles Davis soundtrack is moody and rambling: too sparse on its own yet a perfect fit for new wave noir.

Hey, lover...

Get out of the house, you shut-in!

OK, so Lisa and I went to the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema (with Lady Crumpet, Scott, and Brian) to see Man with the Screaming Brain introduced by the man with the screaming brain, Bruce Campbell.

OSV

Anthony Lane bitching about Yoda's technique of wisdom-through-fractured-grammar:

Break me a fucking give.

Historical art

Recently, I've been struggling over the question of historical accuracy in Kingdom of Heaven [IMDB] with regard to aesthetic license. From what I've been reading, Ridley Scott has elided many religious issues from the movie in order to emphasize political and social themes. A historian, specializing in the fourth crusade, defended this shift in focus on NPR by pointing out that art throughout history has always transformed historical events to fit the taste of the day. That seems like a good point, but are artists always allowed the play the entertainment card when their accuracy is criticized?

There have been several recent films based on historical events: Alexander [IMDB], Pearl Harbor [IMDB], Troy [IMDB], etc., and many more before those, each with varying levels of fidelity to the source.

In a recent article from the Skeptical Inquirer, Massimo Polidoro (whose writing I had previously read concerning The Priory of Scion) highlights some of his investigations into the Kennedy assassination. He points out some of the flaws in Oliver Stone's movie JFK, flaws that were compelling to the author before his research but that now seem contrived. To write his book, Polidoro did not take advantage of any information that was unavailable to Stone, he merely examined the existing information more critically.

You can't really blame Oliver Stone for making mistakes: he put his theories out there to be either accepted or disproved. Fair enough. This is similar-but-different to the artistic license taken in other historical dramas. At what point is the art abusing its subject? Is it ever? Pearl Harbor was a movie with issues similar to Kingdom of Heaven (and another movie I haven't seen). It apparently ignored it's main subject to focus on secondary stories. Again, artistic license, but aren't critics justified in their complaints? Isn't there an amount of attention deficit going on with the director to make a movie about the crusades that ignores religion? And what would be more relevant to the interests of our current society than a historical examination of the relationship between Christians and Muslims?

I don't know, maybe I should just blame those damn liberals in Hollywood.

Review: Sin City (4/5)

Review: Rebirth of a Nation

I felt like I was at the East Side Lounge: listening to DJ music and watching art film collage. Even though "stylish" is not a just criticism of art, I'm struggling to find intent or meaning in DJ Spooky's [Wikipedia] Rebirth of a Nation beyond its style. And with a format as strenuous to the viewer as it was, there should be more of an intellectual or emotional payoff.

DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation

We're thinking about going to Woodruff Arts Center to see DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation on Friday. I read about it in Film Comment last September and am surprised to see it here. What a cosmopolitan city we live in!

Review: In the Realms of the Unreal (3/5)

Review: BASEketball (0/5)

TiVoed a bunch of movies recently. This was a groaning waste of time, but I dutifully sat through the whole thing. The story is: professional sports has degrated into such a commodified mess so these average Joes create a new, unsullied sport that becomes an instant hit. Tedius scenes of their team winning, then losing, then winning ... oh, whatever, I have no idea what the drama's supposed to be. The comic scenes were alternately boring and gross. Usually boring. And Trey Parker and Matt Stone had little comic range. Please avoid.

Review: Wet Hot American Summer (2/5)

This was an incredibly uneven comedy with some hilarious scenes, but it completely falls apart at the end. And in some places in the middle. And the beginning. But for a weekend afternoon flick, you could do worse. The skits that don't degrade into bad SNL territory (if one could find good SNL territory) have a surprising mania about them.

The gag is that this is a teen summer camp movie making fun of teen summer camp movies. In one scene, a counselor gives a rousing speech to the plucky softball team suggesting that they suffer through their inabilities throughout the game and come up with a rule-breaking, wacky play in the last few seconds. After one of the kids suggests that the plan sounds a little hackneyed, everyone agrees and they decide to forfeit the game. End scene. This approach works with great effect at times and goes horribly stupid at others. Spoofing an already lighthearted genre leave little room for error.

Review: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (3/5)

I looked at my watch a little as the movie worked through. the. glacial. pacing., it had problems with inelegant dialog at times, and there were a some noir cliches that could have been cleaned up. But with all of these flaws I still enjoyed I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. We watched this over the weekend, and I've kept thinking about it the few days since then.

This film has become increasingly compelling to me as I realize how much misdirected action there was and how much was left unresolved. Characters lashed out at the nearest object, causing others to suffer through no fault of their own. As with much modern noir, this film is nihilistic, but it's got its own style and pacing of nihilism. Not for everyone but just satisfying enough if you're in the mood.

Review: The Animation Show 2005 (4/5)

The Animation Show 2005 is a collection of 12 short, animated features. This is the second collection presented by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt. Although the range of styles represented in these would be enough to make this a notable film, the quality and originality in some of the pieces were captivating. It had only a few weak moments. The Web site has details on each. My favorites, alphabetically:

• The Meaning of Life - The final work and a perfect ending. Very funny stick-people with unexpected experimentation and range at the end. Almost like 2001 [IMDB] in its breadth.
• The Man With No Shadow - Stunning colors and painted technique. Probably worth several viewings to fully understand the fable.
• Pan With Us - Drawings photographed in different, live scenes give the impression of animation (a la a flip-book) co-existing in the real world. Difficult to describe, but not nearly as difficult as it must have been to create.
• Ward 13 - Lo-fi claymation of an accident victim who wakes up in an evil hospital. Slapstic monsters and chase scenes ensue. An equal achievement to the Wallace and Grommet toy train chase in The Wrong Trousers [IMDB].
• When the Day Breaks - Anthropomorphic animals as city-dwellers in moody charcoal and pastel animation. Very thoughtful.

I can't say enough about the depth of a few of these pieces. Read the details for each on the Web site to get a sense of the technical achievements. Go see it to experience the results.

Media thesaurus

Long, long ago I discovered musicplasma and since have been using it to find bands-who-are-like-other-bands. Recently, they morphed into liveplasma and have integrated movies, actors, and directors in their engine. I haven't researched it, but I suspect that they leverage existing databases (IMDB, Amazon) and build their graphs from that data.

Weird cinema

Oh why, oh why am I unemployed and poor? Now I can't buy up dozens of these amazing and horrible movies from 5minutestolive.com. Browsing through the stacks, I cannot believe that some of these films exist and can be purchased!

The Homegrown section has such classics as J.C. (a Jesus/biker movie ... billed as the Jesus/biker movie), The Rats are Coming - The Werewolves are Here (that about says it all), and Young Playthings (a bizarro Swedish porn film). Or, checkout the International section for the many Turkish scene-by-scene ripoffs of Hollywood films (Star Wars, Exorcist, etc.). Along with, ofcourse, Gimme Gimme Octopus.

I swear I'm going to buy up all of these films and open a theater some day.

Shakespeare in Love

This movie, and Stoppard's other Shakespearean homage Rosencranz and Gildenstern are Dead [IMDB], just amazes me. The quality of writing, first of all, surpasses that of most other "romantic comedies" that are produced--even the secondary characters, of whom there are many, are realized with an individuality that let's-face-it most blockbusters don't attain. On top of that, the references to the works of Shakespeare, to that era, and to our current society are masterful. I would almost complain about the over-indulgence of modernity, in the form of feminism and the concept of artistic integrity, in these films. However, those indulgences tie the essence of the two eras together and make the differences relevant. They are a virtuoso commentary on our own age, from someone well-versed in a previous age.

Philosophically, I love the final scene of Shakespeare in Love. In the context of a fiction of Shakespeare writing a fiction, Stoppard has his fictionalized characters (one historical and one completely fabricated) compose a fanciful story based on their star-crossed love. That fanciful story is influenced by what the (fabricated) character (Gwyneth P