I feel now that I just must travel to Italy; and not just for the beautiful vistas, the earthy populace (in whose deeply sincere smiles I would probably melt), and roiling rrrrrr's of the native land. No, I would go searching for the Carati family - and I would leave dissapointed. Because no family in all of Italy (of even I wager, the world) could magic the enchantment cast by the central clan in Marco Tullio Giordana's spellbinding, epic, nearly flawless The Best of Youth. Weaving elements of character interaction via smartly written dialogue over hotly debated areas of sociopolitics has been done before (Crash) but nowhere have I seen it done more exquisitely than here. Characters don't just interact - they grow, blossom, stumble, fail, succeed, die, and above else, live. Dialogue isn't just tossed back in forth - it is spoken with all of the broiling emotions of reality (as well of all of its brains). And here the sociopolitics don't take a passive-agressive stance as eerily, persistently, "present" - they are are there, subtly, as an element of behavior and geography and not as a glaring excalamtion point of a screenwriter's "vision". Quite frankly, The Best of Youth views life through a lens all too often discarded by Hollywood - real life.
And yet to say that the main characters of the film, Matteo (Alessio Boni) and his younger brother Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio), are grudgingly "realistic" people - "people" like ourselves who gripe and complain all day - is too tell a grotesquely sadistic lie. Instead, the two brothers at the core of the film are articulate, wondrous human beings...and yet not without their flaws.
These flaws - Matteo is a hot-headed, righteous crusader while Nicola is an eternally benevolent humanitarian - are at times key to major plot points. The first of such points occurs as the essential start of the film. When Matteo rescues a patient, Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca), from a mental institution he unknowingly begins a short-lived quest that will forever instrinically weave itself into the moral character of he and his brother. To be blunt their quest to save Giorgia fails and its consequences are subtle, tragic things. Matteo, the sensitive academic searching for problems to fix, incurs a blow heavy enough to leave permanent, volatile, scars in his emotional armor, while Nicola sets himself up to become a figure of (occasionally tragic yet always endless) empathy. To say more of the plot would spoil it; suffice to say that on one summer's trip-turned-failed-adventure two Italians almost imperceptibly set themselves on the road of the rest of their lives.
But oh what lives! The remainder of Youth details their next 40 years - together and apart - as they experience personal epiphanies and national tragedy. Alone however they are not. Lovers, wives, children, parents, grand-children, friends, students, patients, and a few others all flit through or settle into the Carati family - a group of luminous individuals who together become a sublimely radiant whole. As such a cohesive family they, like all good families, talk...alot. The script, by Sandro Petraglia & Stefano Rulli, understands this with more intimacy, humor, compassion, bravado, heartache, understanding, and forgiveness than roughly 20 American films put together. The effect is such that each scene, be it short or effusively long, is not only directed by Giordana with mesmerizing skill but also constantly anchored in the divine words of its characters - who as such, being mediums of such believable speech, become characters no longer; they become real. Or such was my feeling as I neared the end of this massive, massively effecting saga.
And by massive, I do mean massive. As all reviews of The Best of Youth must invariably begin, the film is almost six hours long (yes, six). I have chosen however to reveal this at the end. To me it didn't matter how long the film was, quite the opposite; as the final stories of Nicola and Matteo played out on screen - against an ever changing tapestry of national, personal, and emotional elements - I wanted desparately almost to have it go on longer, the characters to continue talking and laughing, crying and reminiscing. Shocking isn't it? that a story spanning four decades, dozens of family members (and just as many great performances), a few key world events, maybe one or two choice devastations, and acres and acres of great dialogue could be this ravishing and amazing. But I don't lie - The Best of Youth is a film like no other. Find it and watch it, then call me in the morning.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: B
There is a curse and a blessing built-in to one's viewing experience of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when one has already raced through J.K. Rowling's book on which the movie is based. I was one such of these people and so suffered the fate of probably millions: that of watching the dense, vivid narrative of the book go through the process of a slash-and-burn adaptation. Director David Yates has been quoted as saying that they couldn't have possibly kept all the sub-plots and character interaction of Rowling's story arc (which in this chapter details the early stirrings of rebellion against Lord Voldemort's - played with ever more slithery grace by Ralph Fiennes - growing army) which is perfectly understandable - the book was after all more than 800 pages - and yet is this literary translation a triumph of down-sizing? Not quite. Though there are still many familiar delights to the movie series (Alan Rickman continually steals his every scene as venomous Professor Snape) and a few new ones (Imelda Staunton as coated-in-pink Professor Umbridge), this latest installment underwhelms with its leaner tale, skinnier character portraits and flashier, colder, magical duels.
When we first meet Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) he's a simmering stew of late-adolescent hormones and helplessness who feels as if, quite literally, life is passing him by. Not only that, but he also feels out-of-the-loop when it comes to battling the Dark Lord, a fact made all the worst by the nasty propaganda spread by a fearlessly fearful Minister of Magic (Robert Hardy) concerning Harry's mental state (FYI: most people are put-out by a determinded doom sayer, even when said sayer is right). All in all, our dear hero is having a pretty lousy summer...until he encounters a few choice dark creatures. The ensuing battle, and the events that follow, enfold Harry once again in the sumptuous, dark currents of J.K. Rowling's magical creation of a wizarding world.
You thought I meant in the movie? Well, I did...sort of. In the movie most of what I described above does in fact happen, but it rushes by in a visual whirlwind with an angry Mr. Potter as its powering force. Yet the wonder and magic of his battle (and subsequent trial) lasts only long enough to get your hopes up...then deflates. Every time I wanted to get on the movie's wavelength I was held back by the thought that for those who hadn't indulged in the literary form of Harry's adventures, this would all seem alittle confusing...or stupid...or grim...or boring. The script, by Michael Goldenberg, is funny and even quite entertaining but as a translation of the source material its far too reliant on previous knowledge; or worse, it just doesn't care.
I say all of this in a roundabout way of asking a question: if, as in the movie, Harry becomes progressively more withdrawn without a reason how are we to sympathize or relate? The answer: we remember exactly how he felt in the book! Ok, here's another riddle: how are we to react to the scene on film when Cho and Harry kiss if we hadn't seen a few sparks between them beforehand? The answer: we remember all their little flirty exchanges and cautious manueverings from the book! See a pattern? This isn't to say that Yates method of staging the film as more literal than mental, more "magical" than, you know, actually magical is overtly offensive or faulty. But the thought that the hefty emotions and rounded tales of the book had been cut and butchered for the meat at their center couldn't escape me; that no matter how many nifty British actors popped up to glaze the screen in a comic firestorm or in tasty sarcasm the fact of the matter still remains unchanged: this is one for the readers, longing to see their beloved characters and memorized bits of dialogue on screen, not for the moviegoers, excited at the thought of meeting and hearing all of this for the first time. The difference? Nostalgia or delight; fond remembrance or blazing wonder.
When we first meet Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) he's a simmering stew of late-adolescent hormones and helplessness who feels as if, quite literally, life is passing him by. Not only that, but he also feels out-of-the-loop when it comes to battling the Dark Lord, a fact made all the worst by the nasty propaganda spread by a fearlessly fearful Minister of Magic (Robert Hardy) concerning Harry's mental state (FYI: most people are put-out by a determinded doom sayer, even when said sayer is right). All in all, our dear hero is having a pretty lousy summer...until he encounters a few choice dark creatures. The ensuing battle, and the events that follow, enfold Harry once again in the sumptuous, dark currents of J.K. Rowling's magical creation of a wizarding world.
You thought I meant in the movie? Well, I did...sort of. In the movie most of what I described above does in fact happen, but it rushes by in a visual whirlwind with an angry Mr. Potter as its powering force. Yet the wonder and magic of his battle (and subsequent trial) lasts only long enough to get your hopes up...then deflates. Every time I wanted to get on the movie's wavelength I was held back by the thought that for those who hadn't indulged in the literary form of Harry's adventures, this would all seem alittle confusing...or stupid...or grim...or boring. The script, by Michael Goldenberg, is funny and even quite entertaining but as a translation of the source material its far too reliant on previous knowledge; or worse, it just doesn't care.
I say all of this in a roundabout way of asking a question: if, as in the movie, Harry becomes progressively more withdrawn without a reason how are we to sympathize or relate? The answer: we remember exactly how he felt in the book! Ok, here's another riddle: how are we to react to the scene on film when Cho and Harry kiss if we hadn't seen a few sparks between them beforehand? The answer: we remember all their little flirty exchanges and cautious manueverings from the book! See a pattern? This isn't to say that Yates method of staging the film as more literal than mental, more "magical" than, you know, actually magical is overtly offensive or faulty. But the thought that the hefty emotions and rounded tales of the book had been cut and butchered for the meat at their center couldn't escape me; that no matter how many nifty British actors popped up to glaze the screen in a comic firestorm or in tasty sarcasm the fact of the matter still remains unchanged: this is one for the readers, longing to see their beloved characters and memorized bits of dialogue on screen, not for the moviegoers, excited at the thought of meeting and hearing all of this for the first time. The difference? Nostalgia or delight; fond remembrance or blazing wonder.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Punch-Drunk Love: A-
When a film stars Adam Sandler as a repressed nut-job you except several things; you expect fat men who fart and burp (occasionally while smothering someone else); you expect senile old-women who like to curse and hit people with their canes; you expect the number of toilet jokes to skyrocket past 97 before you've even hit the half-way mark. What you don't expect, what I didn't expect, is for a film staring America's favorite idiot to be so tenderly alive. In the delicately beautiful tale of Barry Egan's (Adam Sandler) romance with Lena Leonard (Emily Watson) writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson finds as much thematically rich material here as in his 180-minute virtuoso opera Magnolia while also scaling down his camera from a cast of dozens to a cast of two. What he shows us, while his cameras are flying about in exuberant gestures around these two oddballs, refreshes and revitalizes the genre of romantic-comedy with enormous heart and inventiveness.
I'll start with Barry's character. He constantly wears an electric-blue suit. He's a nervous man who runs a business selling plungers. He has seven sisters. He is prone to explosions of rage. He has (presumably) never dated another woman, or even thought of her in romantic terms. He is an emotional and mental wreck. If this sounds like alot to swallow, or even wrap your head around, the film wastes no time in shrouding his character; the opening scene renders him as he is in the above paragraph with barely a spoken word. Still, as such a freak how are we supposed to be allowed to care for him? The answer lies in the nature of his psychosis - he's a wreck, but he's a uniquely 21st century wreck. The fact that he was mothered by seven sisters from birth may be at the root of his problems but living in the Now has exacerbated them into who he is when he and the audience first meet. Atleast he's lucky enough to be played by Adam Sandler, allowing him a modicum of immediate empathy from all the crazed Happy Gilmore fans out there.
Barry's also lucky, and un-, in a few other ways. First he has a chance meeting with a woman named Lena when she comes to get her car fixed at the mechanic next to his store. One thing leads to another and they end up dating. The most refreshing thing about his meeting her is how he is stripped of his mannerisms and let free; or rather, how is big discombobulated mess of a self finally finds a center in passion for a woman. There's a flip side though. When Barry and Lena start dating he's already being black-mailed by a phone sex operator and her pimp (Philip Seymour Hoffman). There's a touch of surreal black comedy in the set-up - Boy gets lonely, Boy calls Phone Sex Girl, Boy gets Stalked by Phone Sex Girl - and the film has sevral laughs at the contrast between a great love and a cheap one.
But Barry and Lena are definitely the great love. I can tell that by the way that Anderson's camera practically swoons over the two and how his music choices jump from the instrumental to the enrapturing everytime they meet. It's ok though that the puppy-dog romance is given such a treatment in Love. We want these characters to be happy. Emily Watson, with a delicious lilting British accent, is charmingly charming as saintly Lena and Sandler never once strays into over-acting; his Barry is as sweetly human around his girl as he isn't around anyone else. The genius of it all though, the great thing that the film pulls off here, is in making our hero-in-need-of-romance such a modern mess the whole formula of rom-com's is turned on its ear. Where once it was the search for perfection-meets-perfection (because, really, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan's beauty would have killed anyone else they fell for), in Punch-Drunk Love it becomes the search for like-meets-like; two people who happen to be alittle charming happen to fall alittle in love.
The final uber-trick Paul Thomas Anderson pulls out of his bag is in the visual styling. Now I won't make any excuses for the LSD-meets-disco interludes but I will happily exclaim the excellence of some of the director's finer points - such as Barry's suit, as a wail of depression, or Lena's dress, a jolt of passion. To me, this is the kind of film that David Lynch might have been accused of making, where the subversive currents of life manipulate a person more than the person manipulates the currents. The problem is that in Lynch's hands Punch-Drunk Love would have been stupefyingly inert, whereas crafted by Anderson everything - from the harmonium at the beginning to the scheme with the pudding throughout - makes sense. He turns imagination into the grand liberator of romance. Not only that, he sparks a vital presence in Adam Sandler that burns bright for his career.
I'll start with Barry's character. He constantly wears an electric-blue suit. He's a nervous man who runs a business selling plungers. He has seven sisters. He is prone to explosions of rage. He has (presumably) never dated another woman, or even thought of her in romantic terms. He is an emotional and mental wreck. If this sounds like alot to swallow, or even wrap your head around, the film wastes no time in shrouding his character; the opening scene renders him as he is in the above paragraph with barely a spoken word. Still, as such a freak how are we supposed to be allowed to care for him? The answer lies in the nature of his psychosis - he's a wreck, but he's a uniquely 21st century wreck. The fact that he was mothered by seven sisters from birth may be at the root of his problems but living in the Now has exacerbated them into who he is when he and the audience first meet. Atleast he's lucky enough to be played by Adam Sandler, allowing him a modicum of immediate empathy from all the crazed Happy Gilmore fans out there.
Barry's also lucky, and un-, in a few other ways. First he has a chance meeting with a woman named Lena when she comes to get her car fixed at the mechanic next to his store. One thing leads to another and they end up dating. The most refreshing thing about his meeting her is how he is stripped of his mannerisms and let free; or rather, how is big discombobulated mess of a self finally finds a center in passion for a woman. There's a flip side though. When Barry and Lena start dating he's already being black-mailed by a phone sex operator and her pimp (Philip Seymour Hoffman). There's a touch of surreal black comedy in the set-up - Boy gets lonely, Boy calls Phone Sex Girl, Boy gets Stalked by Phone Sex Girl - and the film has sevral laughs at the contrast between a great love and a cheap one.
But Barry and Lena are definitely the great love. I can tell that by the way that Anderson's camera practically swoons over the two and how his music choices jump from the instrumental to the enrapturing everytime they meet. It's ok though that the puppy-dog romance is given such a treatment in Love. We want these characters to be happy. Emily Watson, with a delicious lilting British accent, is charmingly charming as saintly Lena and Sandler never once strays into over-acting; his Barry is as sweetly human around his girl as he isn't around anyone else. The genius of it all though, the great thing that the film pulls off here, is in making our hero-in-need-of-romance such a modern mess the whole formula of rom-com's is turned on its ear. Where once it was the search for perfection-meets-perfection (because, really, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan's beauty would have killed anyone else they fell for), in Punch-Drunk Love it becomes the search for like-meets-like; two people who happen to be alittle charming happen to fall alittle in love.
The final uber-trick Paul Thomas Anderson pulls out of his bag is in the visual styling. Now I won't make any excuses for the LSD-meets-disco interludes but I will happily exclaim the excellence of some of the director's finer points - such as Barry's suit, as a wail of depression, or Lena's dress, a jolt of passion. To me, this is the kind of film that David Lynch might have been accused of making, where the subversive currents of life manipulate a person more than the person manipulates the currents. The problem is that in Lynch's hands Punch-Drunk Love would have been stupefyingly inert, whereas crafted by Anderson everything - from the harmonium at the beginning to the scheme with the pudding throughout - makes sense. He turns imagination into the grand liberator of romance. Not only that, he sparks a vital presence in Adam Sandler that burns bright for his career.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Hercules: B+
There's a shockingly good moment in Ron Clements and Jon Musker's Hercules that ranks right up there with when Dory first appeared in Finding Nemo in terms of crackling comic effect. The moment centers around Hades (James Woods) attempts to woo the future from the three Fates and the hilarious genius of the scene is tied directly into how much knowing, lovable sarcasm Woods laces his words with. As his flaming villain stalks around the room, reciting his "Grand Plan" for the three blind oracles (rendered with some visual gags that'll make you giggle) his wails of fury and desparation become strangely endearing; his mood swings stop being evil and start being "evil" and the uber-sly joke is that Hades is in on it with the audience. His desert-dry delivery carries a twinkle of malevolent glee missing from even most live-action baddies.
But if I found James Woods the most delicious scenery chewing villain on screen in some time, its not like I found the rest of Hercules trashy-camp (although, at moments, I was tempted to say so) - quite the opposite. If Hades is the perfect 21st century antagonist - funny, vicious, likeable and constantly the zippy entertainer (even if his act involves taking over the world) - then the movie surrounding him comes pretty close to immitating his style.
Hercules surounds the famed Greek myth-hero with air quotes, at once mocking and sentimentalizing his clumsy hunkiness, and watching "Herc" (Tate Donovan) trip his way through adolescence I found it quite difficult to resist the movie's point-of-view. Soon enough I was chuckling at the massive destruction he could cause with one small slip of his enormous strength while also going googly-eyed at the bombast inspiration of his singing (yes, yes - it's one of those Disney films). What Hercules is saying in essence is "we know he's a big STRONG man, but can't he also be a goofball with heart?". After watching the bite-sized 92 minutes of this playful fable I can answer easily, "yes, he can".
Another major point of applause comes from the staging of the story and in the way that co-writers/directors Clements & Musker keep curving the story. Though it focuses on Hercules' quest to reclaim his place on Olympus (he was slighted out his seat by a mortal-transformation potion delivered by Pain & Panic, two of Hades' minions) the real action unfolds on a few different layers, leaving the audience to which it is being seen thrilled on many different levels. There's the beautiful zap! of his many different deeds (the infamous Hydra fight is a hallmark of 3-D animation); there's the romance with the venomous, sexy Meg (Susan Egan); there's the underlying pull of identity and one's search for it (scored to a few FM-lite tracks that get your toes-tapping, if not your body-shaking). And the packaging of these elements, interwoven with ease by the veteran filmmakers behind Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, comes at you from the saucy gospel-group that narrates the whole thing. That's right, a gospel group - complete with fiery, delicious "Amen!" anthems.
The giddy ironies of Hercules spring straight from our media-saturated sensibilities and many of the jokes are written, and delivered, with pitch-perfect flair. What could have been a soggy story became a sprightly one. Still, the lasting contribution of this film is and will always be James Woods' terrificly entertaining performance. His cantankerous Anti-Christ is one evil dude, true, but as the best part of a pretty good movie he's also the film's soul: megalomania as done by a winking, sardonic ironist. Brilliant.
But if I found James Woods the most delicious scenery chewing villain on screen in some time, its not like I found the rest of Hercules trashy-camp (although, at moments, I was tempted to say so) - quite the opposite. If Hades is the perfect 21st century antagonist - funny, vicious, likeable and constantly the zippy entertainer (even if his act involves taking over the world) - then the movie surrounding him comes pretty close to immitating his style.
Hercules surounds the famed Greek myth-hero with air quotes, at once mocking and sentimentalizing his clumsy hunkiness, and watching "Herc" (Tate Donovan) trip his way through adolescence I found it quite difficult to resist the movie's point-of-view. Soon enough I was chuckling at the massive destruction he could cause with one small slip of his enormous strength while also going googly-eyed at the bombast inspiration of his singing (yes, yes - it's one of those Disney films). What Hercules is saying in essence is "we know he's a big STRONG man, but can't he also be a goofball with heart?". After watching the bite-sized 92 minutes of this playful fable I can answer easily, "yes, he can".
Another major point of applause comes from the staging of the story and in the way that co-writers/directors Clements & Musker keep curving the story. Though it focuses on Hercules' quest to reclaim his place on Olympus (he was slighted out his seat by a mortal-transformation potion delivered by Pain & Panic, two of Hades' minions) the real action unfolds on a few different layers, leaving the audience to which it is being seen thrilled on many different levels. There's the beautiful zap! of his many different deeds (the infamous Hydra fight is a hallmark of 3-D animation); there's the romance with the venomous, sexy Meg (Susan Egan); there's the underlying pull of identity and one's search for it (scored to a few FM-lite tracks that get your toes-tapping, if not your body-shaking). And the packaging of these elements, interwoven with ease by the veteran filmmakers behind Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, comes at you from the saucy gospel-group that narrates the whole thing. That's right, a gospel group - complete with fiery, delicious "Amen!" anthems.
The giddy ironies of Hercules spring straight from our media-saturated sensibilities and many of the jokes are written, and delivered, with pitch-perfect flair. What could have been a soggy story became a sprightly one. Still, the lasting contribution of this film is and will always be James Woods' terrificly entertaining performance. His cantankerous Anti-Christ is one evil dude, true, but as the best part of a pretty good movie he's also the film's soul: megalomania as done by a winking, sardonic ironist. Brilliant.
The Elephant Man: C+
It started with Mulholland Drive. I was hooked from the get-go by this surrealist noir that had moments of enthralling fetish poetry and yet the end result - something, I dare say, that is difficult to "spoil" - left me madly irritated. Next came The Elephant Man and in this faux-empathetic bio-pic of Joseph "John" Merrick, a man horribly afflicted with elephantitis, I suffered the same fate as before: I ended my viewing experience not where was desired (surely that must have been inspiration or hope) but where it wasn't (angered, mildly distraught). After a few moments pause everything finally clicked: David Lynch, with his hypno-dreamy visual style and penchant for shallow stereotypes in a one-note cruel joke world, really bothers me.
People have hailed him as a visionary since his career exploded with the late 80's sadomasochistic thriller Blue Velvet. From then on his dischordant films, celebrating everything from Southern-goth violent rebels to actresses suffering from seeming schizophrenia, have been called onto the stage as "best films of the year" and as the recipient of multiple Oscars. It doesn't do this critic one bit of good to see such things. True Lynch's skill as an ocular technician has some merit and he can coax true performances from his stars but there is an impervious, nagging refusal at the core of his movies that consistently leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth: every whim of a film - story, character, logic - are dictated by his "dream-like" fancies and the results range from the bizarrely watchable (the aforementioned Drive) to the cloyingly sentimental. The Elephant Man, his breakthrough film, lands squarely in the latter category.
The "Elephant Man" is infamous in history as a poor sufferer of a terrible fate. He was horribly disfigured from his back, covered in growths, to one of his arms, useless and floppy, to his head, shaped rather surprisingly, like a large malignant peanut. He was also a real person - Joseph Merrick. As a real person Merrick enjoyed the sympathies of Victorian England while also leading a dark second life as a freak-show attraction. In real life, Merrick eventually died at the young age of 27...a death now suspected as a suicide. Yet, besides enjoying pretty peoples' condolescenes, what did Merrick do with his life? This is a question supposedly answered with Lynch's film. It isn't. Lynch hardly even poses the question. Instead he re-hashes history with a few more dramatic liberties, the fictional Merrick (John Hurt) is victim to a toturous master (Freddie Jones) before being rescued by Dr. Treves (Anthony Hopkins), while skittering around a most pertinent question by posing one of his own: who cares?
The answer, I'm afraid, is probably no one. When The Elephant Man was first released, people went crazy - it won numerous awards. And watching it almost 30 years later it's easy to see why; the heart-string tugging story, of Merrick learning all the ways of society - from tea parties to model cathedral building - has inherent emotional overtones and Hurt's performance wins sympathy with incredible ease. Emotions are in fact manipulated so well that by the tragic end there isn't a dry eye left in the place. That is a problem though if as one is leaving the theater, or turning off the DVD player, all you can remember is "Gee, I can't believe he learned how to sip Earl Gray!". Shouldn't our hero deserve more to enlighten us as to his humanity than a tidy little box marked "Sympathetic Deformity" with which to put him in? Obviously David Lynch thought not and many agreed. I do not.
I argue instead, and as should be obvious, that the mark of any great film is the ability to build and exemplify the psychic confines of a character. All that the director does is continually deconstruct heart and humanity with great sadism, never leaving us with an honest-to-God shred of decency with which to cling to. The minute Merrick builds up self-confidence, have him kidnapped. The second he learns to be loved everywhere, have him die. These events play out with leaden literal-mindedness and overall, so too does the film. As "The Elephant Man" Joseph Merrick did great things - he learned how to speak for one, an act the film glosses over - and as the actors portraying and surrounding him, they do great things as well. But as a filmmaker David Lynch does one great big mediocre thing, he reduces an act of heroism into "heroism" - from a man overcoming great disease to a man who can socialize with the wealthy and shriveled.
People have hailed him as a visionary since his career exploded with the late 80's sadomasochistic thriller Blue Velvet. From then on his dischordant films, celebrating everything from Southern-goth violent rebels to actresses suffering from seeming schizophrenia, have been called onto the stage as "best films of the year" and as the recipient of multiple Oscars. It doesn't do this critic one bit of good to see such things. True Lynch's skill as an ocular technician has some merit and he can coax true performances from his stars but there is an impervious, nagging refusal at the core of his movies that consistently leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth: every whim of a film - story, character, logic - are dictated by his "dream-like" fancies and the results range from the bizarrely watchable (the aforementioned Drive) to the cloyingly sentimental. The Elephant Man, his breakthrough film, lands squarely in the latter category.
The "Elephant Man" is infamous in history as a poor sufferer of a terrible fate. He was horribly disfigured from his back, covered in growths, to one of his arms, useless and floppy, to his head, shaped rather surprisingly, like a large malignant peanut. He was also a real person - Joseph Merrick. As a real person Merrick enjoyed the sympathies of Victorian England while also leading a dark second life as a freak-show attraction. In real life, Merrick eventually died at the young age of 27...a death now suspected as a suicide. Yet, besides enjoying pretty peoples' condolescenes, what did Merrick do with his life? This is a question supposedly answered with Lynch's film. It isn't. Lynch hardly even poses the question. Instead he re-hashes history with a few more dramatic liberties, the fictional Merrick (John Hurt) is victim to a toturous master (Freddie Jones) before being rescued by Dr. Treves (Anthony Hopkins), while skittering around a most pertinent question by posing one of his own: who cares?
The answer, I'm afraid, is probably no one. When The Elephant Man was first released, people went crazy - it won numerous awards. And watching it almost 30 years later it's easy to see why; the heart-string tugging story, of Merrick learning all the ways of society - from tea parties to model cathedral building - has inherent emotional overtones and Hurt's performance wins sympathy with incredible ease. Emotions are in fact manipulated so well that by the tragic end there isn't a dry eye left in the place. That is a problem though if as one is leaving the theater, or turning off the DVD player, all you can remember is "Gee, I can't believe he learned how to sip Earl Gray!". Shouldn't our hero deserve more to enlighten us as to his humanity than a tidy little box marked "Sympathetic Deformity" with which to put him in? Obviously David Lynch thought not and many agreed. I do not.
I argue instead, and as should be obvious, that the mark of any great film is the ability to build and exemplify the psychic confines of a character. All that the director does is continually deconstruct heart and humanity with great sadism, never leaving us with an honest-to-God shred of decency with which to cling to. The minute Merrick builds up self-confidence, have him kidnapped. The second he learns to be loved everywhere, have him die. These events play out with leaden literal-mindedness and overall, so too does the film. As "The Elephant Man" Joseph Merrick did great things - he learned how to speak for one, an act the film glosses over - and as the actors portraying and surrounding him, they do great things as well. But as a filmmaker David Lynch does one great big mediocre thing, he reduces an act of heroism into "heroism" - from a man overcoming great disease to a man who can socialize with the wealthy and shriveled.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Rescue Dawn: A-
Imagine for one moment that all the artifice surrounding and implanted in films was gone. All of the CGI effects and the grotesquely distorted villians and the "breathtaking" romance - all of it gone. Oh and the pesky precocious animals, they're gone too. Imagine then that where once a plot may have turned on events spawned by writers' brains, they now blossom - guided by the hand of Fate (which fits nicely into our motif of real life, right?). Imagine still that there would no longer exist actors desparately mugging for the camera; instead, and with a rigor and passion to be admired, they became their characters and invited us to watch their imitations instead of their performances. Imagine all of this at once and guess what? We've just envisioned something pretty close to Werner Herzog's lean, atmospheric Rescue Dawn - the tale of an escaped, ordinary POW played by an extraordinary Christian Bale.
Bale is Dieter Dingler, a Navy pilot assigned to bomb Laos in the '60s who was shot down and taken prisoner. As a prisoner he meets a few zonked out cats, chief among them is Gene (Jeffrey Davies), and wastes no time in formulating his escape. It'd be spoiling nothing to say he manages to do so - along with Duane (Steve Zahn), a fellow POW - and everything to divulge their experiences outside the camp. See, writer-director Herzog works in a rich, elemental style, building characters and relationships with broad, almost silent strokes and as such the final third of the film - their escape - is riveting and ripples with sinewy visual and emotional muscles.
Not to say that the actors don't provide the film with enough flavor and soul as it is. Bale, an always versatile performer, here astounds with a quiet, earnest, rock-solid piece of work. His counterpoint is found in Zahn who plays out his emotionally weak character with a fragility and grace that took me by surprise (being as he is standard comic foil in such things as Daddy Daycare). And I could never forget Jeremy Davies as the dead-eyed zombie nutzo Gene. Davies speaks in a particular flavor of hippie drawl and his every utterance is hilarious in a poignant, absurd way...that is until he takes a dive off the deep end, at which point his mania become palpable and thrilling.
Rescue Dawn is directed with clever image layering (and, with dare I say, far more skill than Oliver Stone) and there's alot to like, and partake of, in the humid jungles of Herzog's Laos; from the skittering score (to reflect the mental shambles of desertion and desolation) to the sunken faces (to reflect the poor nutrition), the film has a unique beauty - though it helps that it was all shot on location. And though it grows hazy and stilted from time to time (the scenes of their imprisonment drag on a tad too long) the stripped-down power of Dawn will sink into you and be difficult to get out.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Extraordinary Machine: A
I'll be the first to admit it: I love Fiona Apple. From my first introduction to her music - the melancholy, wry and beautiful "Paper Bag" - I have been perpetually hooked by her voice, her instrumentation, and her superb (always self-written) lyrics words. But more than that, as an artist she is a continually evolving wonder; from the opening rage of "Sleep to Dream" to the quiet finale of "I Know" Fiona Apple has taken an old standard - torch music - and constantly re-shaped it.
I may have listened to Tidal, her debut album, and thought that I was hearing a strong musician if not an exactly sophisticated and organized one (although to any who have listened to "Shadowboxer" or "Criminal" on repeat, feel free to disagree) but I was entranced at this 18-year old's large amount of talent. Next came When The Pawn..., her dazzlingly disturbed sophmore album, which managed the hefty feat of taking everything right in her music and separating it from everything wrong; it is no small thing to say she managed, and no smaller thing still to say the result was such an experience - jagged, raw, sincere, witty, dark, tragic - that I may never forget it.
Needless to say that after these two albums I was quite devoted to the Cult of Apple and then, nothing. She dissapeared from the music scene for six years until, finally, re-emerging with 2005's Extraordinary Machine - an album so true to the definition of "extraordinary" that it's been in consistent rotation on my stereo for going on two years.
It isn't so much on her third effort that Ms. Apple changes up her core formula (her anger is still front and center) so much as she has the window dressing. But in that minor change - if by minor I mean a new producer, Mike Elizondo, which I do - there is so much to love. This isn't to state that I found her previous collaborator, Jon Brion, to be of any offense but I've listened to those leaked tracks of his from the original Machine and let me just say: the result was not nearly as shimmeringly joyful, caustic, and memorable as this. From the soaring heartbreak of "O' Sailor" to the defiantly whimsical "Waltz (Better Than Fine)" the music surrounding the singer compliments her with delicious ingenuity.
And yet the singer taking center-stage is as worthy of recognition as her musical fancies. Her voice - a stewing, sullen, rough, cloudy, pouty, angry and sarcastic mix - still retains the impact of her two earlier albums (say what you will of her music elsewhere, but this girl can sing) while managing to add a surprising layer: happiness. Indeed on songs varied as the "Waltz", "Window" and the titular track, our classy damsel-in-distress now sports a measure of joy to go along with her spiky wit.
And of wit there is much (as well as a few other notable, necessary emotions). She throws out one-liners (better that I break the window/than him or her or me/especially me!) and put downs (I opened my eyes/while you were kissing me once.../and you looked as sincere as dog) with the same level of admirable blase and her narratives practically ooze sardonic venom. Don't think she isn' without heart - no, Extraordinary Machine is as much of a heartfelt confession as it is a scaborous tale of uplift and defiance. It is a ironic little secret that Fiona Apple is as much of a wounded romantic as she is an undiscovered protege of Dorothy Parker but there it is. She piles on the emotions onto her latest CD until you think she may sink from all that emotional baggage...and then she stays afloat.
But then she has always been a walking paradox hasn't she? Then to me what makes her such a talent and an enduring performer is that she parades her paradoxes, her confusing mental conondrums, with far more bruising honesty, droll wordplay and densely inventive arrangements than other similar self-conscious singer-songwriters. The final product, you'll doubtless find, is nothing less than wonderful.
I may have listened to Tidal, her debut album, and thought that I was hearing a strong musician if not an exactly sophisticated and organized one (although to any who have listened to "Shadowboxer" or "Criminal" on repeat, feel free to disagree) but I was entranced at this 18-year old's large amount of talent. Next came When The Pawn..., her dazzlingly disturbed sophmore album, which managed the hefty feat of taking everything right in her music and separating it from everything wrong; it is no small thing to say she managed, and no smaller thing still to say the result was such an experience - jagged, raw, sincere, witty, dark, tragic - that I may never forget it.
Needless to say that after these two albums I was quite devoted to the Cult of Apple and then, nothing. She dissapeared from the music scene for six years until, finally, re-emerging with 2005's Extraordinary Machine - an album so true to the definition of "extraordinary" that it's been in consistent rotation on my stereo for going on two years.
It isn't so much on her third effort that Ms. Apple changes up her core formula (her anger is still front and center) so much as she has the window dressing. But in that minor change - if by minor I mean a new producer, Mike Elizondo, which I do - there is so much to love. This isn't to state that I found her previous collaborator, Jon Brion, to be of any offense but I've listened to those leaked tracks of his from the original Machine and let me just say: the result was not nearly as shimmeringly joyful, caustic, and memorable as this. From the soaring heartbreak of "O' Sailor" to the defiantly whimsical "Waltz (Better Than Fine)" the music surrounding the singer compliments her with delicious ingenuity.
And yet the singer taking center-stage is as worthy of recognition as her musical fancies. Her voice - a stewing, sullen, rough, cloudy, pouty, angry and sarcastic mix - still retains the impact of her two earlier albums (say what you will of her music elsewhere, but this girl can sing) while managing to add a surprising layer: happiness. Indeed on songs varied as the "Waltz", "Window" and the titular track, our classy damsel-in-distress now sports a measure of joy to go along with her spiky wit.
And of wit there is much (as well as a few other notable, necessary emotions). She throws out one-liners (better that I break the window/than him or her or me/especially me!) and put downs (I opened my eyes/while you were kissing me once.../and you looked as sincere as dog) with the same level of admirable blase and her narratives practically ooze sardonic venom. Don't think she isn' without heart - no, Extraordinary Machine is as much of a heartfelt confession as it is a scaborous tale of uplift and defiance. It is a ironic little secret that Fiona Apple is as much of a wounded romantic as she is an undiscovered protege of Dorothy Parker but there it is. She piles on the emotions onto her latest CD until you think she may sink from all that emotional baggage...and then she stays afloat.
But then she has always been a walking paradox hasn't she? Then to me what makes her such a talent and an enduring performer is that she parades her paradoxes, her confusing mental conondrums, with far more bruising honesty, droll wordplay and densely inventive arrangements than other similar self-conscious singer-songwriters. The final product, you'll doubtless find, is nothing less than wonderful.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Founding Brothers: A-
Let's begin with a silly question: who likes learning about the American Revolution? Anyone? Ok, let's get more specific: who likes the learning about the Founding Fathers, those sage like demigods who have evolved in the last 200 years to become eternal paragons of American sainthood? I think, and do correct me if I'm wrong, that most people feel sleepy when the topic of Revolutionary history is discussed. And let me just say that I feature myself proudly among these people. Or at least, I did before I read Joseph Ellis' transfixing, deliriously researched, and astutely grounded Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. In Ellis' study of seven key figures of that early time in our Republic's history - Hamilton, Madison, Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Burr - the quaint and continual deconstruction of myth to man takes place over such a luxuriated well-written timespan that by the end, never again will you see our first Presidents in the same (sacred, shiny) light.
Our author begins with a tidy little preface - it is a quiet beginning and in retrospect a rather mundane introdution to such a deeply learned, fascinating literary voice - to outline the themes his book will espouse and discover pulsing throughtout the veins of our Revolutionary heroes. In no uncertain terms he makes the rather obvious, yet bold, claim that history as viewed then wasn't history at all; that what seemed certain to us, looking as we are through the pane of glass that is the last 200+ years, seemed more foreboding and improvised to them.
Following up this historical analysis is the book itself, seperated out over six vignettes of American history. It is these vignettes, Ellis says, that will cement to us all the true scope of the Revolution back then. Which is to say, there was no scope - except perhaps in Thomas Jefferson's mind. Well let me say, in no uncertain terms, that the vast rogue's gallery of crusty figures Ellis summons for his book prove his point and even more: they cement to us Ellis' talent as a historian of calm style and cool wit who turns past memories of hot days in a classroom into an exciting journey of surprising human depth.
He begins with the Hamilton-Burr duel. To those that don't know, it was a fatal contest of honor that resulted in Hamilton's death. The incident itself actually shares large portions of its screen time with other aspects of the showdown: Hamilton & Burr's respective political careers, their verbal war that lead to the gun battle, and the history of American dueling as a whole. These may seem odd puzzle pieces to fit together but they somehow are - in a fit of elegant writing that ties them all together by the image of that five-second clash (Hamilton's planned mis, Burr's un-planned hit). As historical dissections go, "The Duel" has more depth in its simple investigation than large portions of school-issued textbooks (plus, its fun to read!). Furthermore its the perfect opening act as it only hints at the discoveries to come: Jefferson's relationship to John Adams (a roller-coaster of a friendship), Washington's relationship to the public (a scarily eloof one), and Madison & Hamilton's relationships to the political scene (these two men could give Karl Rove a run for his money when it comes to brilliantly orchaestrated surges of political power) in addition to a few others.
Ellis launches into each of these new tales with relish and yet not losing a single drop of his cool demeanor and style. He sets up facts and fictions with straightforward no-nosense and his eventual conclusions (eluded to in the preface) are some tasty delights. It would be difficult for any writer, fiction or non, to match the divine experience of reading the twelve-year letterathon between Jefferson and Adams, a correspondence that started first as a reconcilliation following the party wars of the '90s and then evolved into a rumination on all the two had accomplished with the fledgling country. Their words speak for themselves, and Ellis lets them for the most part, but when the author does intrude it is only in the most elegant and un-intrusive of ways: to say with calm flourish that his points had been proven and his case won; that these weren't gods that planned our bloody uprsing, they were men of great ability and great flaws who were in the end capable of great humanity.
Finally though it isn't his separate stories that are the point, though they are arguably some of the more highly entertaining I've read, or even the understated thesis. No, the final point I think resides in the simple, easy, razor sharp rendering of Ellis' work; he has alchemized some of our greatest high school woes and boredoms into a supreme biography; a work of potent significance because it has done the impossible: it has grounded the Gods.
Our author begins with a tidy little preface - it is a quiet beginning and in retrospect a rather mundane introdution to such a deeply learned, fascinating literary voice - to outline the themes his book will espouse and discover pulsing throughtout the veins of our Revolutionary heroes. In no uncertain terms he makes the rather obvious, yet bold, claim that history as viewed then wasn't history at all; that what seemed certain to us, looking as we are through the pane of glass that is the last 200+ years, seemed more foreboding and improvised to them.
Following up this historical analysis is the book itself, seperated out over six vignettes of American history. It is these vignettes, Ellis says, that will cement to us all the true scope of the Revolution back then. Which is to say, there was no scope - except perhaps in Thomas Jefferson's mind. Well let me say, in no uncertain terms, that the vast rogue's gallery of crusty figures Ellis summons for his book prove his point and even more: they cement to us Ellis' talent as a historian of calm style and cool wit who turns past memories of hot days in a classroom into an exciting journey of surprising human depth.
He begins with the Hamilton-Burr duel. To those that don't know, it was a fatal contest of honor that resulted in Hamilton's death. The incident itself actually shares large portions of its screen time with other aspects of the showdown: Hamilton & Burr's respective political careers, their verbal war that lead to the gun battle, and the history of American dueling as a whole. These may seem odd puzzle pieces to fit together but they somehow are - in a fit of elegant writing that ties them all together by the image of that five-second clash (Hamilton's planned mis, Burr's un-planned hit). As historical dissections go, "The Duel" has more depth in its simple investigation than large portions of school-issued textbooks (plus, its fun to read!). Furthermore its the perfect opening act as it only hints at the discoveries to come: Jefferson's relationship to John Adams (a roller-coaster of a friendship), Washington's relationship to the public (a scarily eloof one), and Madison & Hamilton's relationships to the political scene (these two men could give Karl Rove a run for his money when it comes to brilliantly orchaestrated surges of political power) in addition to a few others.
Ellis launches into each of these new tales with relish and yet not losing a single drop of his cool demeanor and style. He sets up facts and fictions with straightforward no-nosense and his eventual conclusions (eluded to in the preface) are some tasty delights. It would be difficult for any writer, fiction or non, to match the divine experience of reading the twelve-year letterathon between Jefferson and Adams, a correspondence that started first as a reconcilliation following the party wars of the '90s and then evolved into a rumination on all the two had accomplished with the fledgling country. Their words speak for themselves, and Ellis lets them for the most part, but when the author does intrude it is only in the most elegant and un-intrusive of ways: to say with calm flourish that his points had been proven and his case won; that these weren't gods that planned our bloody uprsing, they were men of great ability and great flaws who were in the end capable of great humanity.
Finally though it isn't his separate stories that are the point, though they are arguably some of the more highly entertaining I've read, or even the understated thesis. No, the final point I think resides in the simple, easy, razor sharp rendering of Ellis' work; he has alchemized some of our greatest high school woes and boredoms into a supreme biography; a work of potent significance because it has done the impossible: it has grounded the Gods.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Unforgiven: B+
Cowboys, they are the stuff of mythology the world over. The nomadic animal herders. The constantly shifting living conditions (and the tacitly implied slightly-off mental framework one would require to live with them). And of course, the ever present fact that cowboys became "cowboys" only when they were armed...and quite freely willing to disperse their arms through the air. Such is the historically accurate Westerner. But lest we forget, I am writing predominantly about the movie cowboys and the westerns about them - that elegant form of brute sun-baked noir that romanticized and villified all images of the American West for then and forever.
Such goals may not have been at the forefront of Clint Eastwood's mind and yet they emerge repeatedly when watching what he was created with his final Western, Unforgiven. The smoothly cragged, defiantly flawed and yet utterly beautiful vistas of his cinematic landscape evoke John Wayne with aching precision and his very figure - here starring as William Munny, a barely reformed father/gunslinger - brings with it a smokey flavor of authenticity and skill. As movies in general go, Unforgiven stands out as one of the more gorgeous and textured; each camera shot capturing more and more of the majestic West.
His story, written with respectable rough eloquence by David Webb Peoples, is as simple as they come in the Western genre - retired gunslinger leaves said retirement for that quintessential One Last Gig - and yet is tempered by pleasurable clever tweaks by Peoples.
This latter facet of the film is a bittersweet one though, seeing as how it only ever eludes as depth without ever truly delivering. For the majority of the film there may linger a sense of serious debate (how, exactly, does a murdering gunslinger cope with the murderous West?) but the dramatic, and cheaply set-up, climax destroys any notion of moral ambiguity. Eastwood is in essence, both as the director and star, teasing us with morality without ever daring himself to be teased as well. And this knowledge almost singularly holds Unforgiven back from being a great movie.
For all of Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, and Richard Harris' work as more wiley outcasts in Eastwood's pungently dangerous world, the true magnitude of the movie rests solely on our star's shoulders and the ugly truth is, those shoulders sag at crucial moments. I will never get over Munny's rapid transformation near the end as little more than a desparately needed plot device (to believe in it is to completely devalue any semblance of the movie's serious moral philosophies) and Eastwood's own talents as an actor need some serious work in terms of internalizing (Munny has only a spark of self-loathing when there should be a fire). And yet Unforgiven is boldly elegaic, surreally funny, and instantly engaging from opening paragraphy to final coda. If Clint felt he had but one Western left in him I'm happy it was this because this, more than most films of the genre, is what a Western should be.
Such goals may not have been at the forefront of Clint Eastwood's mind and yet they emerge repeatedly when watching what he was created with his final Western, Unforgiven. The smoothly cragged, defiantly flawed and yet utterly beautiful vistas of his cinematic landscape evoke John Wayne with aching precision and his very figure - here starring as William Munny, a barely reformed father/gunslinger - brings with it a smokey flavor of authenticity and skill. As movies in general go, Unforgiven stands out as one of the more gorgeous and textured; each camera shot capturing more and more of the majestic West.
His story, written with respectable rough eloquence by David Webb Peoples, is as simple as they come in the Western genre - retired gunslinger leaves said retirement for that quintessential One Last Gig - and yet is tempered by pleasurable clever tweaks by Peoples.
This latter facet of the film is a bittersweet one though, seeing as how it only ever eludes as depth without ever truly delivering. For the majority of the film there may linger a sense of serious debate (how, exactly, does a murdering gunslinger cope with the murderous West?) but the dramatic, and cheaply set-up, climax destroys any notion of moral ambiguity. Eastwood is in essence, both as the director and star, teasing us with morality without ever daring himself to be teased as well. And this knowledge almost singularly holds Unforgiven back from being a great movie.
For all of Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, and Richard Harris' work as more wiley outcasts in Eastwood's pungently dangerous world, the true magnitude of the movie rests solely on our star's shoulders and the ugly truth is, those shoulders sag at crucial moments. I will never get over Munny's rapid transformation near the end as little more than a desparately needed plot device (to believe in it is to completely devalue any semblance of the movie's serious moral philosophies) and Eastwood's own talents as an actor need some serious work in terms of internalizing (Munny has only a spark of self-loathing when there should be a fire). And yet Unforgiven is boldly elegaic, surreally funny, and instantly engaging from opening paragraphy to final coda. If Clint felt he had but one Western left in him I'm happy it was this because this, more than most films of the genre, is what a Western should be.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Ratatouille: A-
The work of Pixar Animation Studios is legendary. An obvious statement, to be sure, but one worth noting for its inherent strain of irony; after all, this is a studio founded not even 20 years ago, and above all else it specializes in animation - once thought the sole realm of Disney musical theater. Yet Pixar's work speaks for itself. Not only that, it tends to speak fluidly, humorously, sweetly, and with an unmatched level of glimmering philosophical grace. As for their animation? To say that the plasticized sheen of Toy Story, the elastic slapstick of The Incredibles, or the murky phosphorescence of Finding Nemo is beautiful seems almost an insult - Pixar's skill with animation is trascendant. It is then the studios' skill with these two elements that have combined to form such lasting legacies in cinema (or, at least, legacies for a growing child) and it is a bright day indeed when an acknowledged master of the Pixar Studios steps out again to do a new movie. That master is Brad Bird and his latest, Ratatouille, floats in a saucy-sweet bubble of its own romantic Parisian design.
Admittedly it would be tough to make a movie about a rat (wait...you didn't know?), so kudos are deserved for writer-director Bird for crafting a such a lithe delectable fable around such an unseemly creature. But, is Remy (Patton Oswalt) such a bad guy? The answer by the end of the film is a rousing No! (as expected, such response is a foregone conclusion when bent to the ways of Pixar). Yet the answer itself causes some problems; or rather, the question to which it is answering looms like an undignified, irritating third party - that of true movie protagonist. See, Remy is such a sweet-souled foodie (he's impulsively chained to his brilliant taste in food) that it takes little more than seconds to forget he's a rat...and little more than seconds after that to forget him almost entirely. Some of the blame lies with Oswalt, as his voice, in failing to give Remy even a hint of deadpan irony (as per Tom Hanks in Toy Story) or willful personality (a la Owen Wilson in Cars) while some fault lies with Bird's script in making our rodent friend all friendly, quirky surfaces with rarely a sharp, relatable edge. There is though, shockingly enough, a seductive logic to Remy's characterization: his image as a lovable mini-chef, a democratized spirit of "Everyone Can Cook!" incarnate, fits almost seamlessly into the overall picture of a lovable mini-Paris; a gaslight dream for the eyes, mind, and heart.
If you have noticed that it's taken me longer than usual to sum up the movie's adventures, there is a good enough reason: Remy's experiences in a French kitchen with Linguini (Lou Romano) and Colette (Janeane Garofalo) are best left to enjoy first-hand and for the first time since the decidedly fast-paced activities of a restaurant make for such unexpectedly engaging fare. The director's potent skill with fast-paced movement scenes allow most of Ratatouille to take on the air of a screwball truffle - a lovingly glazed skewer on French cuisine - that also manages to be interspersed with dozens (dozens!) of delicious visual gags and tricks. Indeed, most of the wit of the movie resides in Bird's playful optical style and for the bulk of Ratatouille that stays in the kitchen he comes close to reaching his previous high, the incredible The Incredibles.
For the inevitable parts of the movie that stray outside the cooking arena there are still satisfactory treats to savor - food critic Anton Ego (the indespensible Peter O'Toole) is a personal fave - but I couldn't help but notice that some critical elements fall alittle short; there are unavoidable fissures in Bird's sub-plots here that were missing from his previous work, namely Colette's character and Remy's dilemna of being who he is (how I wish for once that there exist a great movie about someone trying to be different than who they "are"...and no, I do not mean Transamerica).
It would be wantonly cruel though to lead anyone into believing that Ratatouille is not a delightful piece of cinema. Most of the attending audience (including me) will laugh, will cry, and will let their eyes grow big at the flat-out gorgeous invention that is the soft-hues daydream landscape of this animated Paris. Some people would be mostly correct in alledging that all of Pixar's work revolves around the search for (or incorrigible problem of) having an identity. But if one is likely too levy cries of banality in that then they will just as easily be denied by the simple fact of the sheer depth of vision, sheer ecstasy in creative, funny, emotional power that is each and every one of Pixar's films - Ratatouille included.
Admittedly it would be tough to make a movie about a rat (wait...you didn't know?), so kudos are deserved for writer-director Bird for crafting a such a lithe delectable fable around such an unseemly creature. But, is Remy (Patton Oswalt) such a bad guy? The answer by the end of the film is a rousing No! (as expected, such response is a foregone conclusion when bent to the ways of Pixar). Yet the answer itself causes some problems; or rather, the question to which it is answering looms like an undignified, irritating third party - that of true movie protagonist. See, Remy is such a sweet-souled foodie (he's impulsively chained to his brilliant taste in food) that it takes little more than seconds to forget he's a rat...and little more than seconds after that to forget him almost entirely. Some of the blame lies with Oswalt, as his voice, in failing to give Remy even a hint of deadpan irony (as per Tom Hanks in Toy Story) or willful personality (a la Owen Wilson in Cars) while some fault lies with Bird's script in making our rodent friend all friendly, quirky surfaces with rarely a sharp, relatable edge. There is though, shockingly enough, a seductive logic to Remy's characterization: his image as a lovable mini-chef, a democratized spirit of "Everyone Can Cook!" incarnate, fits almost seamlessly into the overall picture of a lovable mini-Paris; a gaslight dream for the eyes, mind, and heart.
If you have noticed that it's taken me longer than usual to sum up the movie's adventures, there is a good enough reason: Remy's experiences in a French kitchen with Linguini (Lou Romano) and Colette (Janeane Garofalo) are best left to enjoy first-hand and for the first time since the decidedly fast-paced activities of a restaurant make for such unexpectedly engaging fare. The director's potent skill with fast-paced movement scenes allow most of Ratatouille to take on the air of a screwball truffle - a lovingly glazed skewer on French cuisine - that also manages to be interspersed with dozens (dozens!) of delicious visual gags and tricks. Indeed, most of the wit of the movie resides in Bird's playful optical style and for the bulk of Ratatouille that stays in the kitchen he comes close to reaching his previous high, the incredible The Incredibles.
For the inevitable parts of the movie that stray outside the cooking arena there are still satisfactory treats to savor - food critic Anton Ego (the indespensible Peter O'Toole) is a personal fave - but I couldn't help but notice that some critical elements fall alittle short; there are unavoidable fissures in Bird's sub-plots here that were missing from his previous work, namely Colette's character and Remy's dilemna of being who he is (how I wish for once that there exist a great movie about someone trying to be different than who they "are"...and no, I do not mean Transamerica).
It would be wantonly cruel though to lead anyone into believing that Ratatouille is not a delightful piece of cinema. Most of the attending audience (including me) will laugh, will cry, and will let their eyes grow big at the flat-out gorgeous invention that is the soft-hues daydream landscape of this animated Paris. Some people would be mostly correct in alledging that all of Pixar's work revolves around the search for (or incorrigible problem of) having an identity. But if one is likely too levy cries of banality in that then they will just as easily be denied by the simple fact of the sheer depth of vision, sheer ecstasy in creative, funny, emotional power that is each and every one of Pixar's films - Ratatouille included.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Sicko: A
There are few words to describe how I felt after watching Sicko. I suppose "upset" or "depreseed" comes close but the unique blend of seething moralist outrage that documentarian Michael Moore conjures is almost beyond description. It left me feeling sick, tired, and above all, irate. In his devious, scathing expose Moore deconstructs the healthcare industry with something akin to mainstream brilliance; he blends his media footage into a cocktail that is just plain deadly...serious.
Sicko begins with the usual horror stories - in this case, a husband and wife driven into their childrens' basement due to bankruptcy-inducing medical bills - and it wastes no time in assembling them into a shape vaguely relating to the dark humor of Bowling for Columbine (Moore's only other great film) while losing none of the factoidal relevance of Fahrenheit 9/11. Not even 30 minutes in and Sicko has taken on the affecting portrait of a screwball attack on American medicine; something bitingly sad as well as surprisingly humorous. It is from these mildly tame roots that Moore springs forth on a wicked offensive - deconstructing medical myths at nearly every turn while managing to turn a self-refracting lens on himself and the American media in the process.
He explores the roots of the U.S. "HMO" (Nixon had a hand in it cerca 1971). He examines the ever-shifting, ever-conflicting, ever satirically absurd regulations for approval that said HMO's use (apparently you need to be somewhere between 5-6 feet and 130-170 pounds). He takes a look at the deadly denial claims that are an insurance company's bread & butter as well as a minor yet tragic side-glance into the people that make these denials. From these investigations he concludes, playing the part of the ever ignorant "American", that socialized medicine must be doing something right...and so he heads to find out.
His explorations into the universal health systems of 99.9% of the western world make up a vast majority of Sicko and yet what leaves you with a feeling of momentous disgust - at the industry, at the government, at the lobbyists - is Moore's persistent argument for change and discovery. What makes his latest film such a good one is that he melds his curiousity with his deft visual humor into something that elevates that argument into art.
The final segments of his documentary explore exactly what it means to suffer at the hands of America; to truly suffer, inexplicably and unexpectedly. His footage, of interviews and security camera tapes, is downright tear-jerking and something worthy of infinite respect, both for Moore as a filmmaker and for the people on whom he turned his camera. After all, who among us hasn't been scared silly by the specter of "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE"? Who among us hasn't simply shaken our heads at the plight of the un-insured millions and kept right on walking? In his incendiary, crafty, expansively compassion way Moore dares us to stop what we are doing and to see for once (in a mosaic of bold emotional power) the lies of the HMO's, the lies of the pundits and politicos, and finally, just to see the light (universal coverage) that we as a country have let lie dark (privatized insurance) for far too long.
Sicko begins with the usual horror stories - in this case, a husband and wife driven into their childrens' basement due to bankruptcy-inducing medical bills - and it wastes no time in assembling them into a shape vaguely relating to the dark humor of Bowling for Columbine (Moore's only other great film) while losing none of the factoidal relevance of Fahrenheit 9/11. Not even 30 minutes in and Sicko has taken on the affecting portrait of a screwball attack on American medicine; something bitingly sad as well as surprisingly humorous. It is from these mildly tame roots that Moore springs forth on a wicked offensive - deconstructing medical myths at nearly every turn while managing to turn a self-refracting lens on himself and the American media in the process.
He explores the roots of the U.S. "HMO" (Nixon had a hand in it cerca 1971). He examines the ever-shifting, ever-conflicting, ever satirically absurd regulations for approval that said HMO's use (apparently you need to be somewhere between 5-6 feet and 130-170 pounds). He takes a look at the deadly denial claims that are an insurance company's bread & butter as well as a minor yet tragic side-glance into the people that make these denials. From these investigations he concludes, playing the part of the ever ignorant "American", that socialized medicine must be doing something right...and so he heads to find out.
His explorations into the universal health systems of 99.9% of the western world make up a vast majority of Sicko and yet what leaves you with a feeling of momentous disgust - at the industry, at the government, at the lobbyists - is Moore's persistent argument for change and discovery. What makes his latest film such a good one is that he melds his curiousity with his deft visual humor into something that elevates that argument into art.
The final segments of his documentary explore exactly what it means to suffer at the hands of America; to truly suffer, inexplicably and unexpectedly. His footage, of interviews and security camera tapes, is downright tear-jerking and something worthy of infinite respect, both for Moore as a filmmaker and for the people on whom he turned his camera. After all, who among us hasn't been scared silly by the specter of "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE"? Who among us hasn't simply shaken our heads at the plight of the un-insured millions and kept right on walking? In his incendiary, crafty, expansively compassion way Moore dares us to stop what we are doing and to see for once (in a mosaic of bold emotional power) the lies of the HMO's, the lies of the pundits and politicos, and finally, just to see the light (universal coverage) that we as a country have let lie dark (privatized insurance) for far too long.
Fast Food Nation: B
It's a strange experience, watching an artistically gifted writer or director hobble themselves in search of higher art. I saw it in Sophia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides (some mistook her under-reaching for apathy) as well as in James Ivory's Howards End (although that could have just as easily been my spark of romanticism being smothered) and most recently in Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation. These three films are all solid, if mis-guided, efforts and almost all of them fail thematically and ultimately it ruins their lasting impact on an auidence. Just as I could never get behind the Lisbon daughters or Emma Thompson marrying Anthony Hopkins, I can't seem to fall for the starved souls of Linklater's latest project. Most of his common elements are present again - hyper-articulate characters, humanist perspectives, shout-worthy acting - but his intentions with the movie encounter a major roadblock over and over, and one that Linklater, always an absurdly talented filmmaker, refuses to remove - his film's theme.
This seems a simple problem from the outset; after all, Fast Food Nation is adapted from a non-fiction book by Eric Schlosser of the same name that delved into the slimy business of McDonald's and the like (plus Schlosser helped adapt his own material). And yet Linklater, inter-cutting the movie over three stories, doesn't so much grab hold of Schlosser's muck-racking reigns and run with them as he meanders, stopping to smell some roses occasionally and every once in awhile, giving a shout of eloquent indignation.
This is a grave error on his part, as the stories he instead leaves us with aren't all too compelling...or deep. The first - illegals working in a packaging plant - has grace notes of observant tragedy and a seriously powerful cast but lacks true dramatic arc while the second - a "Mickey's" exec (Greg Kinnear) is sent on assignment to see who let poop slip into the patties - ends far too abruptly for my tastes. And the third - a Linklater specialty of dead-end people philosophizing on daily life - though occasionally tough-minded and clever, seems more shallow than sublime.
It may seem at this point why it is I liked the film at all (as indeed I did). The answer has something to do with the actors at work - no true film conissuer can deny the swooning qualities of Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Catalina Sandina Moreno, Bruce Willis, and Luiz Guzman among others all working together - as well as with the eventual realization that Fast Food Nation may not be the most well-organized film (or the most poignant and well-shaped) but it evokes through its stories and plot-marker characters a bitter image of capitalist America that is hard to shake off. The sytematically depressing, as well as sadly logical, endings of his film are mere symptoms of his argument - here presented in step-by-step storytelling complete with the occasional tasty factiod and some groovy performances - that greed is not only overwhelming an industry, that of fast food, but the people involved with it.
I love most of Linklater's work; his dreamy-romantic verbal fireworks are just the thing I need after a long string of Ghost Rider's. But regardless of my status as a true devotee, I can't deny that there is a dour, grueling, confusing clash at the center of Nation that left me as much fascinated as it did frustrated.
This seems a simple problem from the outset; after all, Fast Food Nation is adapted from a non-fiction book by Eric Schlosser of the same name that delved into the slimy business of McDonald's and the like (plus Schlosser helped adapt his own material). And yet Linklater, inter-cutting the movie over three stories, doesn't so much grab hold of Schlosser's muck-racking reigns and run with them as he meanders, stopping to smell some roses occasionally and every once in awhile, giving a shout of eloquent indignation.
This is a grave error on his part, as the stories he instead leaves us with aren't all too compelling...or deep. The first - illegals working in a packaging plant - has grace notes of observant tragedy and a seriously powerful cast but lacks true dramatic arc while the second - a "Mickey's" exec (Greg Kinnear) is sent on assignment to see who let poop slip into the patties - ends far too abruptly for my tastes. And the third - a Linklater specialty of dead-end people philosophizing on daily life - though occasionally tough-minded and clever, seems more shallow than sublime.
It may seem at this point why it is I liked the film at all (as indeed I did). The answer has something to do with the actors at work - no true film conissuer can deny the swooning qualities of Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Catalina Sandina Moreno, Bruce Willis, and Luiz Guzman among others all working together - as well as with the eventual realization that Fast Food Nation may not be the most well-organized film (or the most poignant and well-shaped) but it evokes through its stories and plot-marker characters a bitter image of capitalist America that is hard to shake off. The sytematically depressing, as well as sadly logical, endings of his film are mere symptoms of his argument - here presented in step-by-step storytelling complete with the occasional tasty factiod and some groovy performances - that greed is not only overwhelming an industry, that of fast food, but the people involved with it.
I love most of Linklater's work; his dreamy-romantic verbal fireworks are just the thing I need after a long string of Ghost Rider's. But regardless of my status as a true devotee, I can't deny that there is a dour, grueling, confusing clash at the center of Nation that left me as much fascinated as it did frustrated.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Transformers: B-
Michael Bay's Transformers is, of his films, perhaps his greatest achievement; epic and yet scaled to maximum audience enjoyment, full of action scenes directed with virtuostic skill, and about 80% coherent (atleast up until the robots themselves make their grand entrances). As summer entertainment goes, Transformers doesn't dissapoint and yet as one of Bay's films it is a rousing success. It should be specified however that a good Bay film does not a great film make. If nothing else though, atleast you can marvel at Shia LaBeouf and wonder at where on Earth this talent appeared from.
The movie explodes in a military base at Qatar as strange metallic beings invade a compound manned by Sgt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson). It is a rip-roaring behemoth that starts shooting the place up but it is its smaller comrade - a sort of spidery-insectoid hybrid - that squeaks and squawks its way to a large chunk of personality. Before the robot starts his chaotic rampage, there are a few moments with Lennox and Epps in which to build up some character (a Spielbergian technique played off here with less mastery that Transformers' exec-producer would suggest). The overall plot-sequence then plays as follows: tranquil chatter/character build-up, sudden shocking apparition appearance, lengthy action sequence. The blessing and the curse of Transformers is that Bay himself is content to follow this pattern: rinse, wash, repeat...for 140 minutes.
And yet as blockbuster formulas go, this one is remarkably durable and shiny (heck, even original). Its characters may be recycled - the geeky smooth hero, the Siguorney Weaver knock-off vixen-heroine, the comic relief (usually in the form of a black man) - but they are scavenged from the best of the mediocre and the result is something that transcends its humble roots. Still, after more than two hours - and no matter with what skill the actors (or actor, Mr. LaBeouf) imbue their parts - these people remained simply characters on screen.
What a fun ride though that we are ushered through with them! Action blossoms with minimal effort and even more effortless, and beautiful, choreography. I wish that the same could be said for the robots causing such destruction, but sadly I found their kind almost irritatingly boring (and worse, cheesy). The strikingly enjoyable script, from Robert Orci & Alex Kurtzman, concocts an interesting story. It is worth noting again though that the story itself is as much a Frankensteinian creation as the characters within its pages.
You see, what it boiles down to folks goes alittle something like this: Michael Bay may not have reached any new magnificent highs in cinematic history, and Transformers is by no means a sublime sugary rush (contrary to what the people may have thought in my theater) but it is a solid experience, a film that holds few pretentions and delivers on all of mine; a nice cool glass of water to cleanse your palat after all those arrrghs and spiderwebs.
The movie explodes in a military base at Qatar as strange metallic beings invade a compound manned by Sgt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson). It is a rip-roaring behemoth that starts shooting the place up but it is its smaller comrade - a sort of spidery-insectoid hybrid - that squeaks and squawks its way to a large chunk of personality. Before the robot starts his chaotic rampage, there are a few moments with Lennox and Epps in which to build up some character (a Spielbergian technique played off here with less mastery that Transformers' exec-producer would suggest). The overall plot-sequence then plays as follows: tranquil chatter/character build-up, sudden shocking apparition appearance, lengthy action sequence. The blessing and the curse of Transformers is that Bay himself is content to follow this pattern: rinse, wash, repeat...for 140 minutes.
And yet as blockbuster formulas go, this one is remarkably durable and shiny (heck, even original). Its characters may be recycled - the geeky smooth hero, the Siguorney Weaver knock-off vixen-heroine, the comic relief (usually in the form of a black man) - but they are scavenged from the best of the mediocre and the result is something that transcends its humble roots. Still, after more than two hours - and no matter with what skill the actors (or actor, Mr. LaBeouf) imbue their parts - these people remained simply characters on screen.
What a fun ride though that we are ushered through with them! Action blossoms with minimal effort and even more effortless, and beautiful, choreography. I wish that the same could be said for the robots causing such destruction, but sadly I found their kind almost irritatingly boring (and worse, cheesy). The strikingly enjoyable script, from Robert Orci & Alex Kurtzman, concocts an interesting story. It is worth noting again though that the story itself is as much a Frankensteinian creation as the characters within its pages.
You see, what it boiles down to folks goes alittle something like this: Michael Bay may not have reached any new magnificent highs in cinematic history, and Transformers is by no means a sublime sugary rush (contrary to what the people may have thought in my theater) but it is a solid experience, a film that holds few pretentions and delivers on all of mine; a nice cool glass of water to cleanse your palat after all those arrrghs and spiderwebs.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Vera Drake: A
Words like bold, brilliant, and daring almost seem to extravagant for such an earthy production as Mike Leigh's wrenchingly humane Vera Drake. True, the story is of a woman who works as a back-alley abortionist but don't be misled into thinking Vera Drake is a speechifying after-school special, desparate to assail you with its topicality. No, instead the film is a quietly dignified picture; a project so well-made that, in its starkest of moments, it almost brought me to tears.
The titular heroine, a quaint little post-war British housewife, is played by Imelda Staunton in a whirlwind of emotion (at times, almost too emotional). And yet the "melodramatic" performance pays off in a big way. Soon after having had her secret outed by the police - and forced to tell her family - we watch as Vera, the smiling, perpetually humming, sunny person, quietly and quickly erodes. As a singular instance of acting it is breath-taking and yet functioning as yet another part of Leigh's film, it becomes more than that; it becomes genius. You see, Staunton's mild theatrics link together these two sides of Drake the audience desparately needs; the sinner and the saint become one and as the two are inexorably woven, so too are the movie's themes.
And of themes, there are many. Writer-director Leigh weaves a rich, sincere tapestry of British life. The dialects are there, in all their folky humor, as well as the other (more crucial) things. We watch Vera's children, Sid (Daniel Mays) and Ethel (Alex Kelly), live their lives - there is a touching sub-plot about Ethel's love life - and we also get the unexplainable joys of watching Phil Davis, as Vera's husband Stan, act. Tied in together with all of this is also one helluva strong dissection of abortion (albeit an argument that is subtle and nuanced). Leigh observes the ways in which a young woman could "help herself" in the early '50s, as well as how those less fortunate had to find others to "help them".
Our hero herself falls into a helper of the latter category but by the time her secret is fully revealed, more than half-way through the film, our understanding of her character and her entire family is such that our empathy, compassion, and understanding for them is nearly as boundless as Vera's for everyone else. I expect that the director, a social critic gifted with an equally large heart, wouldn't have it any other way.
The titular heroine, a quaint little post-war British housewife, is played by Imelda Staunton in a whirlwind of emotion (at times, almost too emotional). And yet the "melodramatic" performance pays off in a big way. Soon after having had her secret outed by the police - and forced to tell her family - we watch as Vera, the smiling, perpetually humming, sunny person, quietly and quickly erodes. As a singular instance of acting it is breath-taking and yet functioning as yet another part of Leigh's film, it becomes more than that; it becomes genius. You see, Staunton's mild theatrics link together these two sides of Drake the audience desparately needs; the sinner and the saint become one and as the two are inexorably woven, so too are the movie's themes.
And of themes, there are many. Writer-director Leigh weaves a rich, sincere tapestry of British life. The dialects are there, in all their folky humor, as well as the other (more crucial) things. We watch Vera's children, Sid (Daniel Mays) and Ethel (Alex Kelly), live their lives - there is a touching sub-plot about Ethel's love life - and we also get the unexplainable joys of watching Phil Davis, as Vera's husband Stan, act. Tied in together with all of this is also one helluva strong dissection of abortion (albeit an argument that is subtle and nuanced). Leigh observes the ways in which a young woman could "help herself" in the early '50s, as well as how those less fortunate had to find others to "help them".
Our hero herself falls into a helper of the latter category but by the time her secret is fully revealed, more than half-way through the film, our understanding of her character and her entire family is such that our empathy, compassion, and understanding for them is nearly as boundless as Vera's for everyone else. I expect that the director, a social critic gifted with an equally large heart, wouldn't have it any other way.
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