On "Doomsday" and Broader Themes

The first half of Neil Marshall's "Doomsday" is so fun and so full of creative homages that I almost forgive its second half. Almost. Clearly inspired and dedicated to the camp greatness of John Carpenter and George Miller, Marshall manages to plunder the best of their work in a genre-smashing event that begins like "Escape From New York", plays out like a more technically savvy "Resident Evil" and then falls flat into "Mad Max" territory without blinking. As the heavily armed government agent leading a team into the virus infected 'hot zone' of Scotland to find a cure, Rhona Mitra definitely takes the prize from Milla Jovovich as kick ass babe of the year. It's interesting how the film works backwards. We start out with armored vehicles, laser scoped automatic weapons, then degrade back to homemade machetes and rusted tools when the "marauders" arrive- which are only extensions of the wacked out heavy metalers in Carpenters "Ghosts Of Mars"- and finally end up in spear and arrow territory. Honestly, one could nitpick "Doomsday" apart, but Marshall has such an appreciation for genre (horror and now post-punk apocalypto) that its almost infectious.

But then things took a turn for the worse. My problem is not with "Doomsday" as a whole, but the nauseous way in which its increasingly complex action set pieces are filmed. Things happen in such wham-bam fashion, that I literally became dizzy trying to follow the action. It's as if Marshall felt unable to logically film an action sequence (or any action for that matter), over compensated by filming from three different angles, then scrambled the images together in an MTV state of aggression. We're given a simple action in one scene as a man approaches our heroin (Mitra) and raise his axe towards her. She dodges his advances and hits him in the stomach, running away. This seemingly straight forward action is piece together in 6 different angles, each one lasting a second or less. This drove me nuts. I'm sure Michael Bay has a rule about using any shots for more than one second, but director Marshall must have even less patience. I can take all the be headings and flesh eating virus moments in "Doomsday", but it's the savagery of the artistry that's truly disturbing.


So where did this begin... this action as splintered images? Slate writer Dennis Lim recently wrote a piece on cinema fist fights that charts the stylistic differences from the late 50's to today's treatment concerning this very manly way of settling things. While I would expect that aesthetic and stylistic choices would be vastly different, have we also lost something in the process? The first slide examined by Lim takes place in the 1958 western "The Big Country" in which two men are placed in the foreground as they duke it out. The last few slides look at films such as "Batman Begins" and "The Bourne Ultimatum"... films in which all semblance of logistics and space are imploded on each other in a series of quick edits and handheld cameras. While I'm a huge fan of both films (and believe that the editing of Greengrass is just a few steps away from incomprehensible, yet he still manages to give us enough info to follow the logic course of events), I can certainly see where the action sequence has officially gone hyper-real. Marshall's "Doomsday" is a shining example. The exception to the rule in Lim's piece is Park Chan Wook's "Oldboy", in which we're treated to a 3 minute single lateral pan as our protagonist fights his way down a corridor full of approaching enemies with only a hammer. Some classical examples haven't been totally lost, I guess.

So is this all a sign of oncoming old age on my part? Am I losing touch with the technologically advanced youth weaned on electronics from inception? I mean, hell, I've got an Ipod and I love YouTube.... doesn't that count for something? But when a film like "Doomsday" squanders so much of its energy on ill-conceived and executed action sequences, what do we have to rely on for the future? Will the scenes get even shorter and diced up into surreal oblivion? It's a frustrating topic. Even the films I'm willing to accept ("The Dark Knight") feature some basic ineptitude when it comes to an action scene. If the genuine auteurs like Christopher Nolan can't get it right, we're in serious trouble.

Top 5- The Dark City

August has officially been dubbed "Film Noir" month, and there's no shortage of writings about this genre around the blog-o-sphere. Probably the most famous will be taking place at Movie Zeal wherein they'll write about one noir a day. How's that for dedication?

And if American film noir doesn't float your boat and you live close to New York, then the esteemed Film Forum theater will be displaying 38 "French Crime Wave" films in their five week series. Yes, that's me drooling just a bit. I've seen 25 of the films, but damn it'd be awesome to see them on the big screen.

So, pretty much all I can contribute is a short top 5 list of my favorites. I'll keep it confined to American films, or else Jean Pierre Melville would probably come in with all five. Also, pre-1975 because... well because I can and that post 1975 list is something altogether different.

1. Chinatown (1974)- I've said it before, but the script by Robert Towne and direction of Roman Polanski in "Chinatown" result in a perfect film. I only say that about two films- this one and Hitchcock's "Vertigo". And beyond that, its a noir without the slightest sense of chic or self reflexiveness. Superb on every level.

2. The Killers (1946)- Robert Siodmak's noir starring Burt Lancaster and Edmond O' Brien is the textbook of noir. Shadow compositions, a narrative that works backwards, tense and stuffy camerawork that makes every bit of sweat seep through the screen- if you really wanna know what "noir" embodies, this is it.

3. Out of the Past (1947)- Jacques Tourneur's film is yet another example of the straight characteristics of the genre, but this time with a much more stringent attention to finance. Tourneur was always a B movie auteur, and "Out of the Past" continues his minimalist streak without shirking any of the genre's best details. Robert Mitchum is the schmo this time, reminiscing about how he got to a certain point. Of course, there's a femme fatale who helped. This is a striking work whose mood of corruption is suffocating.

4. Kansas City Confidential (1952)- Yes, I could very easily put another classic heist film on this list- "The Killing" of course or certainly "The Asphalt Jungle"- but I've only seen Phil Karlson's "Kansas City Confidential" once several years ago on TCM and its a film that stuck with me. Maybe it was the documentary style of its aesthetic which seemed groundbreaking for a film in 1952, or the way the film methodically deconstructs the robbery of an armored car, but either way, "Kansas City Confidential" is a highly underrated masterpiece of the genre.

5. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)- A noir with real balls... Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly" is popular now for all the wrong reasons (*cough Tarantinoandhisrippedoffbriefcaseidea *cough), but its still a nasty, nihilistic, paranoid noir.

(apologies for such a cut and dry post, but Blogger is not allowing me to upload photos right now.)

Small Tribute to Michael Nyman

I really appreciate the sounds of film composer Michael Nyman. With the vagaries of You Tube, I can share this enthusiasm with sound and image.

His early work served as the musical underscore to the sometimes lyrical, often maddening images of the films of Peter Greenaway. It's one of the few things I truly enjoy about Greenaway's films. Below, "A Zed and Two Noughts".



Nyman's breakthrough compositions came in 1993 with the Jane Campion film, "The Piano". While being a commercial high note for Nyman, the soundtrack fails to move me like other pieces of his work.

It's hard to seperate my admiration for Michael Winterbottom's film, "Wonderland" and the sublime score of Michael Nyman. They both compliment each other so well, but without that longing score from Nyman, I don't see the film having quite as much impact. From "Wonderland", below is the theme for the character named Nadia (Gina McKee).



And finally, the showstopper- Nyman's finale theme for "Gattaca". Wow, I wish more people would discover this film. Even though my belief that director Andrew Niccol was the next Stanley Kubrick has been left in lingo ("Lord of War" and "Simone"??.. anyone...anyone), "Gattaca" is one brilliant debut wrapped up in one lush score. Enjoy but beware of spoilers.

Quiet Apocalypse: Kurosawa's "Pulse"

This post is part of the Kiyoshi Kurosawa Blog-a-thon being hosted at The Evening Class

In Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Pulse" (Kairo), the end of the world comes in hushed tones. The inhabitants of Tokyo begin to slowly absorb into the fabrics of everyday life- literally. It begins with a florist's assistant and then spreads to a group of technologically inclined college students. Messages begin to surface in weird video images on computers which causes the viewer to slowly go insane, taping off their residences with red tape and then morphing into wet stains on their walls. Is what they're seeing on the website the images of their dead friends? A portal to some other world? Or is it simply their imagination and a chance for a filmmaker like Kurosawa to broaden his thematic outlook on the modern world? Whichever way one looks at it, "Pulse" is one seriously scary piece of work.

Released in 2001, "Pulse" fits in nicely with the rest of Kurosawa's moody work. I've said it before, but for whatever reason, Asian filmmakers like Kurosawa, The Pang Brothers, Hideo Nakata and Takashi Shimizu understand that the recesses of the frame, the dark edges of the image and background shadows can be just as terrifying as any horror film aesthetic. Kurosawa is probably the unspoken master of this. For an entire investment in mood, check out his latest film, "Retribution", which seems to be shot entirely with natural sunlight and one bulb per room. And even though "Pulse" is another Asian metaphor on technology taking over society (on the heels of Takashi Miike's pretty damn good "One Missed Call"), Kurosawa makes us believe in it. The desperation and impending dread hovers over each and every second of "Pulse". I'm not too afraid of nuclear weapons wiping us off the map, but I could easily see the world degenerating into a chaotic hell hole if some super virus infected modern technology and rendered us helpless. "Pulse" plays on that fear and ends on a truly harrowing visage of planes going down in flames, a woman jumping to her death (in a remarkable well staged and tricky single shot") and a woman (Harue Karasawa) stumbling around the mayhem searching for a way out. The apocalypse had never felt so scary.

Filmed in 2001 but not released in the United States until 2005, "Kairo" was pilfered and turned into a nearly unwatchable Hollywood remake in 2006. Though some of the images were transferred faithfully- including the one with a "crab woman" walking towards the camera which, in either version, is one of the more disturbing images I've ever seen- gone is the fragile sense of dread. The Hollywood version amped up the ghosts and swept out the energy. The attention was turned from the darkness of the frame to the overtness of the "jumps". With Kurosawa, his films seep into your consciousness and rattle around for days. "Pulse" is but one great example of this.

The common visual structure of "Pulse" notwithstanding, it's also a film that demands your attention. With an array of characters, the narrative refuses to focus on one person. The man or woman that we're watching one minute very well could end up a stain on the wall in the next scene. Besides being a strong indicator that Kurosawa is interested in the mass psyche as it pertain to this unknown phenomenon causing mass suicide, this storytelling device adds great tension. Anything goes. But, anyone familiar with Kurosawa's films knows that the unexpected should be expected. In both "Cure" (the first Kurosawa I film saw on Sundance channel in 1998 one year after release) and "Retribution" (2007) an unknown force triggers ordinary people to kill without warning. With the introduction to each new character, we're never sure if we can relax and put our trust in this person or if they've already been possessed by this growing evil. In "Pulse", the students affected by one's suicide exponentially impact the others. Who'll be next? Who will go home and have their computer automatically turned on and see the image of a shadowy bedroom? For some, this unwillingness to identify with a strong character can be maddening. For Kurosawa, it's yet another methodical way of dealing with the non-descriptive nature of the evolving landscape.

Last year, I included "Pulse" on my list of 15 scariest Movies of all time. It's that good. Over time, it has only gotten better. With each new Kurosawa film, he continues to dazzle and mesmerize. The logic is a little fuzzy sometimes and I wonder if he doesn't get totally lost in mood sometimes (thinking of "Retribution, which I need to see again), but its the promise of seeing something nerve-shattering that brings me back to Kurosawa as the leading figure in modern Japanese cinema. "Pulse" has been regarded as a genre attempt by Kurosawa. If this is the type of minor genre attempt he continues to make, then I'm very afraid for the horror genre itself. His 'minor' efforts reveal more purpose, more visual brilliance and more damning statements about us as a society than any 'major' work by true auteurs.

A Good Couple Weeks At the Movies

Hancock

Relegated now to the status of that 'other' superhero movie, Peter Berg's "Hancock" is nonetheless a bold interpretation of this type of film- which means I bought wholeheartedly into the "twist" of the film and loved how it dared to step into some pretty mythical and even romantic aspects of the genre never before explored. I've been a fan of Berg since his incredibly well-tuned "Friday Night Lights", one of the absolute best football movies ever made and a pretty damn good exploration of small town Texas life as well. He has a way of melding music and image that transcends the genre sometimes, and with "Hancock", there's no exception (the score from John Powell). Berg also has a way of creating memorable images, as if his camera is constantly revolving and recording the action around him where gentle moments of human interaction are discovered. Think of the whisper between Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner in "The Kingdom" (a smart film that deserved more notice last year) or the fatherly tug on the helmet to a disillusioned son walking off the field in "Friday Night Lights". Berg is just as attentive in "Hancock", giving us glimpses of the scarred human beneath the superhero mantra. As the alcoholic protagonist who causes more damage than good, Will Smith ably inhabits his role. Though the first half plods along routinely, settling the desire for mainstream entertainment through unoriginal quips of dialogue and one head-ramming sequence which involves the ass of another man, Berg and screenwriters Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan toss a curve ball that elevates the film into something more about halfway through. That's when it really hooked me. Essentially high priced summer fare, "Hancock" also hits high notes of genuine loneliness and sacrifice. Both Will Smith and Charlize Theron add immense depth to their roles and "Hancock" deserves to stand out from the rest of the summer shuffle for that alone.


Shotgun Stories

Jeff Nichols' "Shotgun Stories" is a remarkable assured debut film that had me spellbound right from its textured opening images of Arkansas crop fields at sunset. With David Gordon Green serving as producer, Nichols maintains a good majority of the Southern ennui and rag-tag awkwardness of Green's previous films, but "Shotgun Stories" is a much darker tale. You can feel the portentousness from the very beginning and it never lets up. Starring Michael Shannon (who'll forever be ingrained in my memory as the creepy guy from "Bug") leads a relatively unknown cast in this violent family drama. After the death of their father, Shannon and his two brothers show up to the funeral and effectively spit on the casket as its being lowered into the ground. There are hints and visual cues of a tormented past between the brothers and their now dead father. Rightly so, this action offends the four brothers of the dead father's new family- the one he created and loved after "finding God" and sobering up. Hence begins a struggle between both families as the hatred seethes and the violence mounts. Nichols handles everything in modulation. Through strong editing and a stunning visual look, "Shotgun Stories" infuses the numerous confrontations between the brothers as something almost biblical. But while it's the startling violence (mostly off-screen) that registers while watching, the overall lasting reverberation of the film is its fair and balanced representation of both sides. There are no clear cut villains here and the motives for either side (both in action and peace-keeping missions) are examined with clear eyes. "Shotgun Stories" is smart, bracing independent film making.

The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" could easily earn that high praise of "best...superhero...movie...ever." I won't go that far, but it is a stunning example of the intelligent progression of Nolan's Batman franchise. I loved "Batman Begins" enough to rank it number 15 on my favs of 2005, and I can easily see "The Dark Knight" ranking twice as high when '08 rolls to an end. This is not only a good entry into the caped crusader chronicles but its a terrific crime film, echoing the vibrancy of Michael Mann with its opening heist and sweeping helicopter pans through urban downtown and refusing to let off the accelerator as Batman and The Joker use Gotham as one giant sprawling playground of excess (both good and bad). There are some moments in this film that are so good (the quiet cut to the Joker hanging his head out of the backseat window of a police car and smiling gently or the slow tracking shots that snake around people, highlighted by genuinely unnerving drone music) they beg for second viewings. And while its hard to avoid hefting praise on Heath Ledger as the Joker, his performance is more than a stunt. His voice inflections and reaction shots are composed of perfect timing. Every time he's on-screen, you could feel the audience tense up in my showing. I've never quite experienced anything like that before. That's the mark of true screen greatness.

The Wackness

Initially drawn to "The Wackness" for its sense of nostalgia since the film takes place in 1994 and charts the tumultuous summer after graduating high school for one Luke (Josh Peck) and I myself graduated just one year later, it didn't take long for me to realize I had nothing in common with this film. Our soon-to-be college student is a pot smoker/dealer (strike 1 for me), living in the dog-eat-dog urban environment of New York City (strike 2), who listens to rap music (strike 3) and befriends his equally drug addled psychiatrist Dr. Squires played by Ben Kingsley (strike whatever). About the only strands of familiarity came in Luke's persistent search for having sex with girls.. pretty much the main focus for most high school guys, no? Having said all that negative, there is something to like in Jonathan Levin's "The Wackness" and that comes in the somewhat sensitive relationships formed between Peck and Kingsley (who gives a terrific performance and whose energy sweeps across the screen every time he's on) and the projections of his lust onto the daughter of Dr Squires played by Olivia Thirlby. The film comes to life intermittently, but Peck's constant mutterings of "waddup, yo" or "that's dope" only serve as alienating factors in a performance that's not that great to begin with. To believe in a film, one has to believe in the main character, and as Luke, Peck simply resembles a blank slate in which I checked out long before the resolution of his messy, fumbling summer comes about. I could have easily taken a film about the miserably complacent lives of Kingsley, his disaffected wife (Famke Jansen) and daughter (Thirlby) much more readily than the central focus of "The Wackness". And whether it was intentional or not, but the cinematography by Petra Korner, full of washed out browns and golds, becomes annoying in its relentless search to capture the halcyon days of '94 New York. I've never been there, but it seems to suck the life right out of the city.

Paranoid Park

Speaking of 'ennui', Gus Van Sant's "Paranoid Park" is another trek through teen anomie, this time in the guise of Portland, Oregon's skateboard culture and the (maybe?) murder of a security guard. Starring unknown faces and shot by master cinematographer Christopher Doyle, "Paranoid Park" is full of splendid visual moments and muted emotions as Alex (Gabe Nevins) tells his first-person story in non-linear fashion, scribbling down what happened to him in a notebook. Van Sant is faithful to the confused state of this teenager mind as his film jumps around in sync with Alex's struggle to articulate past events and how he may have been responsible for murder. Van Sant is a filmmaker I admire more than appreciate. His trilogy of films, including "Gerry", "Last Days" and "Elephant" take a remarkably European art film aesthetic (long tracking shots, strong attention to sound and lyrical movement) and apply it to the wasteland of suburban young adults in America. "Paranoid Park" is definitely the best of these films, but it still resonates as a cold, detached experiment. The best moments, though, are the opening ones as a fuzzy handheld camera documents in home movie fashion the snaking paths of several skateboarders in the concrete underpass known as Paranoid Park. With this seemingly innocuous event, Van Sant seems closer than ever in capturing the free-spirited milieu of suburban America. A nice effort.

70's Bonanza- The Hospital

By 1970, screenwriter/novelist/playwright Paddy Chayefsky had reached the pinnacle of cinematic heights. With one Academy award behind him already (for "Marty" in 1955)and two more to follow in the 70's, Chayefsky had just as much power as a director or producer. Like screenwriting peer Robert Towne a few years later, his pen turned paper into gold. And this position of power was mandated with the release of "The Hospital" one year later in '71 . Not only did Chayefsky get another Oscar for this work, but he got top billing upon release. There's the title, followed with "by Paddy Chayefsky" and then a quick directing title for Arthur Hiller. It must be nice at the top.

But, I'm not complaining. "The Hospital" is one great script. Like "Network" which would be written later in his career, Chayefsky tackles an institution (the medical profession) and turns it inside out, reveling in its bureaucratic uglies, taking sardonic swipes at its individuals and essentially bracketing the whole profession as one huge three ring circus without a ringleader. And in the midst of the neglect and mounting confusion of its merry-go-round cast over one long night in their New York hospital, there stands George C. Scott as Dr. Bock... a depressed, burned out live wire who is just as royally condemned as the homeless man left in the corner to die. Chayefsky certainly has an affinity for that 'off the reservation' maverick. He crafted an Oscar winning role for Peter Finch years later in "Network" as the demented TV broadcaster who turns into a cult leader for the disenfranchised and psychotic, and Scott's performance as Dr. Bock is basically the foundation for this type of professional defect. Held to a much lower key than Finch, Scott still burns fiercely, and when it comes time to deliver a long, rambling monologue about the state of the medical field, his own failures as a father and his impotency, Scott owns the scene. Many have tried to imitate Chayefsky's verbose brilliance, but no one comes close. When his characters deliver a monologue, you feel it in your bones.


Chayefsky's treatise on the horrors of hospitals isn't the only one. Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu's "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" from 2006 is an equally damning representation. But Chayefsky got there first, and not only does "The Hospital" induce cringing as a lady from accounting calls out insurance numbers while someone dies on a gurney behind her, but it also creates great laughs in the way his characters stroll around in a state of eternal confusion. There's a casual disregard for death and mistakes. When one patient (who may be a doctor from the hospital) ends up dead in the hospital bed of a missing patient, it takes a full 2-3 minutes before one nurse convinces the other to come see what's wrong. It's to the credit of Chayefsky (and we should mention, I guess, director Arthur Hiller who keeps the whole thing fresh and paced) that he manages to wring great ironic humor out of assembly line human waste.

"The Hospital" isn't all gloom and doom. Without spoiling much, George C. Scott's Dr. Bock isn't a casualty in the engulfing morass. Chayefsky's script cares too much for him, throwing him a rekindled sexual appetite in the form of a beautiful visitor to the hospital played by Diane Rigg. And just when things seem darkest and the impending forces of the outside world descend in the form of urban protests from low-income tenants of a housing project destroyed by the hospital's plans for expansion, Scott turns a responsible corner and becomes the film's moral compass. While it's not Chayefsky's most fully believable character arc, Scott delivers his intentions with such determination, that's it hard to not root for him. Like "Network", Chayefsky's intentions are broad strokes against an empirical setting. Not only does he create vivid characters virtually swallowed up by their surroundings, but every now and then one of them gets out alive. In the hospital of this 1971 film, that's all the more fantastic.

Blogathon Note and Links

Over at Cinexcellence, they're asking for participation in the 'Unseen Blogathon'. The idea is that you check out a DVD on a whim. This can be one you buy at the store, rent online or steal from your girlfriend's roommate as one commenter stated.... but it's gotta be one that you wouldn't normally watch. For me that means no police procedural films or 70's exploitation. I guess that leaves a Meryl Streep comedy or something? Once you watch the film, a review is necessary. This could be interesting. It goes on through late August so have fun.

Also, its not a blogathon, but one helluva brave idea- and yet another example of the interactive and fun community of blogging. Caitlin at 1416 and Counting opened up her comment section and asked for suggestions of films. She would then Netflix them, watch every one of the suggestions and review them. Of course, I had to throw out two Michael Winterbottom films, "Wonderland" and "The Claim". She's a trooper alright, fearlessly accepting each suggestion and duly shooting them into her queue. That crazy bastard Piper already suggested "Meet the Feebles". What's the matter Piper, you couldn't wait for "Salo" to be released! But it's all in good fun. If only I were more inclined, I'd try something fun like that, but you know.. I'm a miserable curmudgeon.

And finally, the LAMB association continues to grow. Nice job, Fletch!

What's In the Netflix Queue #18

Some weeks are busier than others. This was one of those weeks. Next 10 flicks in the 'ol inbox:

1. Porcile- Still working my way through Pasolini. It's been a mixed bag. I hated and could barely make it through his "The Hawks and the Sparrows" in which we spend 90 minutes as two vagrants walk and converse with a talking raven about communism, religion and the poor. Yet I liked his debut feature, "Accatone" which can be seen as the influence for alot of Scorsese's work, including stealing the opening theme for his 1995 film "Casino". We'll see about "Porcile".
2. Badge of Honor (2 discs)- Three hour documentary about the history of the Los Angeles police department from the 1800's to today. I have to admit, since visiting L.A. a month ago, I've been fascinated by its history and lore.
3. Monsieur Hire- Patrice Leconte's French thriller that I think was just released on video. It made quite a few critics list back in the late 80's. Not sure why it took so long to get a DVD release.
4. Oh Woe Is Me- Godard film from 2007. A good majority of Godard's late work is pretty insufferable. But, as my 2nd or 3rd favorite director working today, I'll give any film of his a shot. This one is described as: "God takes over the body of Simon Donnadieu (Gérard Depardieu) in order to make love to his beautiful wife, Rachel (Laurence Masliah). When publisher Abraham Klimt (Bernard Verley) hears about this astounding occurrence, he travels to the couple's Swiss town to see whether it's true. French director Jean-Luc Godard's meditation on God's relationship with man is replete with stunning images of the European countryside and nature.
5. Who'll Stop the Rain-70's bonanza rolls on. Karel Reisz's drug smuggling thriller stars Nick Nolte. Never heard of this one.
6. Oedipus Rex- Last Pasolini film I need to see (that is until "Salo" gets its big Criterion release in August) and the oeuvre inspection will be complete.
7. Eyes of Laura Mars- Late 70's thriller starring Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones about a fashion photographer who learns she can see the murders of a serial killer through the lens of her camera. It can't be as bad as "Shutter" can it?
8. The Notorious Concubines- Third and final film of director Koji Wakamatsu's that is available on video. I expect more weird, perverse stuff.
9. The Lovers- A whole slate of previously unreleased Louis Malle films recently made it to DVD. No better time than the present to catch up. I hold a special place in my heart for his debut, "Elevator to the Gallows" that was the first French New Wave film I can remember watching.
10. The Eagle Has Landed- John Sturges is the man. Anybody who directs "The Great Escape" is pretty damn good in my book. This was his last film in 1976, a World War 2 tale about an elite group of paratroopers landing behind German lines. Sturges is long over due for one of those New York Film Forum retrospectives.

There Goes My Hero

Forget what I wrote a few months back about this guy:




My new hero is this guy:


(Josh Hamilton, taken last weekend after batting practice)

Taking Stock of '08 (So Far)

Fifty-four films into 2008 for me personally, there have been some surprises. While the list of not-so-great films grows longer ("Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, "Wanted", "Diary of the Dead", "Drillbit Taylor", "Be Kind Rewind" rounding out the very bottom) I have seen 6 really good films. Whether these chosen ones survive the onslaught of the Fall season remains to be seen, but something tells me they probably will. With a mixture of auteur sensibility, these half dozen films represent originality, strong acting, compelling narratives and good old fashioned entertainment done with pizazz.

In alphabetical order:

The Bank Job


Roger Donaldson's thrilling genre piece showcases a mannered attention to detail (1970's London), a well constructed heist, and just enough tension to make "The Bank Job" great retro-fun. The cast is also smartly assembled and there's nary a gun fired until the very finale. Up until that point, the film keeps the dialogue firing on all cylinders and relying on good old fashioned suspense and character evolution to make you care about what's happening.

Boarding Gate


Olivier Assayas' international thriller keeps Asia Argento sharply in the sights of every scene as she dodges killers and manipulative ex-boyfriends at every turn. Filmed in Assayas' characteristic style of handheld cinematography and nervy jump cuts, he continues to take the thriller/espionage picture and smash it into a thousand pieces. The reasons for virtually every bad guy in this film are left on the editing room floor, and we're given a woman on the run against... something. Hints of corporate skulduggery, drug dealings and murder are left unfounded. "Boarding Gate" is the ultimate abstract thriller- with Assayas' "demonlover" a close second.

Inside


Finally, a French horror film in a long line of them that scores. Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, imagine a film that suspends the dingy nightmarish blood spewing of "Taxi Driver" in its closing moments and you have a small idea how unsettling "Inside" is for most of its 100 minute running time. Except this time, the target of the maniacal killer is a pregnant woman home alone on Christmas Eve. This film will shock, upset, and make you cringe with its relentlessness. But besides that, it looks terrific and Maurey and Bustillo certainly understand how to frame a film for ultimate effect.

My Blueberry Nights


This is basically a road movie as only Wong Kar Wai could make... full of speed up landscapes, fluorescent subway trains and life observed from the outside looking in through glass windows. Like German filmmaker Wim Wenders, Wong Kar Wai's 'outsider' views about America don't always translate, but the time warp that envelops "My Blueberry Nights" is transfixing. From New York to the open vistas of Las Vegas, Nora Jones gets to be the anchor for a series of loners and addicts as she travels across country. David Straithern, as an alcoholic going through a divorce to Rachel Weisz, deserves a supporting actor nomination for his work. This is one beautiful film, both in emotions and look.

Summer Palace


Lou Ye's sprawling yet intimate look at 4 college students from the 60's to the 80's tracks along with the rest of his career in which he spans the years for emotional complexity and cultural significance. A knockout of a film.

The Visitor


It's so nice to see great supporting actor Jenkins wrestle with a starring role. After turning in strong performances in a host of films like "North Country" (in which he deserved a supporting actor nom that year) and "The Man Who Wasn't There", he does it again here but on the LEAD actor scale, embodying Walter with nuance and a less-is-more attitude that cuts right through the screen. I wasn't a fan of McCarthy's previous film, "The Station Agent", which felt quirky and forced, but with "The Visitor", he's created a film full of life, redemption and subtle human interaction.

What's On My Mind... In Links

Still reeling from Josh Hamilton's walk-off 2 run shot over the Angels tonight, something has been nagging me that I've been meaning to pound out for several weeks now. Yes, there is an East coast bias (sorry to all the Red Sox fans I know read this blog!) Over the past few weeks, every game on ESPN and every Sportscenter highlight have involved Boston vs. Yankees, Yankees vs. Twins, Red Sox vs. Rays, and Sunday night the Mets vs god knows who. Please, break up the monotony and give us some heartland folks something to sink our teeth into. I'll be watching the Rangers anyway, but it'd be nice to flip over and see the occasional White Sox game or watch Arizona fall flat on their faces and lead the division with a .500 record.

And now, there's this inane story about Jason Giambi's freakin' moustache that has owned ESPN TV and radio for the past day. I had to turn off the radio last night after hearing Jason Smith on all-night radio spend 2 hours on this subject. Ridiculous. Anyway, yes, the bias does exist.

As a fan of Coast To Coast AM radio, I found this story somewhat compelling. Legendary occultist Aleister Crowley as a British spy?

With Tiger Woods done for the year, you could hear the collective sigh of relief when PGA tour phenom Anthony Kim won his second tourney last weekend in Washington DC. In between some terrific sporting events (baseball and Wimbeldon which really sucked me in), I flipped over to watch Kim's pretty flawless Sunday round, dropping approach shots within 10 feet and making some critical putts. With Tiger out, the tour needs someone like this to pump some fresh energy into the events.

And in the spirit of Weepingsam and his The Listening Ear blog, below is a bonus YouTube clip! From the Gutter Twins (Greg Dulli and ex Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan).

Cinema Weirdo: Ecstacy of the Angels

When Cinemascope published an article last issue discussing the work of Japanese New Wave director Koji Wakamatsu, I knew I had to track down a few copies of his work. After seeing one of the (only) two films available on DVD, entitled "Ecstasy of the Angels", I'm flabbergasted and unsure if I really want to venture further. Filmed in 1972, "Ecstasy of the Angels" is definitely an acquired taste and prime candidate for any cult film junkie's list of weird and extreme.

Filmed in black and white with splashes of color thrown in for good measure (and indiscriminate reasons it appears), "Ecstasy of the Angels" follows a small group of Japanese revolutionaries who deal with in-fighting, power struggles and the daily grind of having to plant 'time bombs' all over the city, including police stations and crowded nightlife spots. But, I make this sound much more exciting than it really is. Like Godard's "La Chinoise", Koji is more interested in documenting the crazy ideas of his young warriors with dialogue rather than action. There is a flurry of activity towards the end of the film- captured in extremely jerky hand held camera work that follows a succession of bomb detonations around the city- but a majority of "Ecstasy of the Angels" takes place in the cramped, stuffy apartments of the revolutionaries as they spout mantra-like sayings and fight over the cache of stolen military munitions like three year olds. To make things even more avant garde, Koji supplies all his characters with names like Monday, Friday.... while the various factions of the militant group who struggle for power are known as seasons in the year. The 'October group' initially stole these weapons from a US army base (which opens the film with a rather well staged and believable break-in), but their reluctance to use them causes the 'February group' to show up, beat the 'October' leader, rape his girlfriend and take the weapons. If nothing else, Koji does a great job of fleshing out his revolutionaries as childish, inane and pretty clueless about reason, calculation or common sense.

But, wait... there's more to "Ecstasy of the Angels" than its political dissidence. Among the various double crosses and split factions, there's plenty of sex. Clearly deriving part of the film's stance from the pinku genre that Koji worked in for several decades, it belies a universe where sex and politics are inexplicably linked. Major decisions are made during the throes of passion. Nonsequitur comments such as "a park bench!" and "smash... smash them all!" are thrown out during foreplay to... I really have no idea. It does add a great dimension of weirdness and humor to the whole affair. If the film doesn't succeed as agitprop, then it may have a great shelf life as a comedy.

Wakamatsu has made close to 100 films since 1963. The next film I've slated to see is called "Go, Go Second Time Virgin" from 1969. It sounds just as genre-bending as "Ecstasy of the Angels": After being raped in an unknown rooftop, nineteen year-old girl Poppo meets a mysterious boy, and both share their sexual traumas and fears, with fatal consequences. Last year, Koji released a film called "United Red Army" that creeped into several critics top ten lists and has been written about recently by J Hoberman at the Village Voice. Koji is seemingly still interested in the disastrous and chaotic consequences of Japanese revolutionaries as this latest film (clocking in at 3 hours) follows a faction of the Red Army from infant stages to their death in a ski lodge. "Ecstacy of the Angels" seems to be his warm-up for this later effort. It is interesting to see a man of his age still spotlighting a cause he obviously supports, but if "Ecstacy of the Angels" is meant to convert anyone to his side of the line, then it fails miserably. If you're curious, check this one out.

Short Cuts

Mongol

Sergei Bodrov's "Mongol" created Internet hype late last year when fan boys at Aint It Cool News were privileged a showing at their annual Butt-Numb-A-Thon. The film went onto garner a Foreign Film Academy award nomination and generously released here in the summer for Hollywood action spectacle counter-programming. It's a smart move, coupled with the fact that Bodrov's first film in an expected series about Ghengis Khan is pretty damn good in all the right ways. Following the rise of Khan (Tadanobu Asano) from childhood to mongol warrior (with slave and prisoner roles in between) and ending with the promise of large-scale battles in the next episode as Khan rises to great leader, "Mongol" is sharply directed. While there's no really huge set piece, the battles are filmed in logical, easy interpretive methods with the right amount of blood letting. Filmed on remote locations in China and Kazakhstan, the vistas and snow capped mountains compliment the fundamental scope of the film. But the real surprise is that emotions are just as visceral as the action. A good majority of "Mongol" traces Khan's initial relationships in life with his chosen bride Borte (Khulan Chuluun) and blood brother Jamukha (Honglei Sun), which makes his later escapades all the more meaningful. The fan boys were right. "Mongol" is exceptional storytelling and I look forward to the continuation of Bodrov's vision.

The Incredible Hulk

I think I'm one of the few who really liked Ang Lee's "less-is-more" rendering of "Hulk" a few years back. While there are some similar contemplative moments within Louis Letterier's fast and furious sequel- or spin off or re-visualisation... whatever this new film claims to be- Hulk smashes and he smashes some more. It should please as a summer blockbuster. Until the ending, which devolves into a giant CGI cartoon where Edward Norton's Hulk battles Tim Roth's mutated self, "The Incredible Hulk" sustains a highly entertaining pace. Letterier is adept at staging some nice action set pieces (especially the chase through a Brazilian slum early in the film) but it's the final battle, drawn out with weightless looking special effects against a cartoon backdrop of New York city, that seems to jump the shark. I understand the need for big, climactic finales in my summer blockbusters, but this one feels excessively fake and meaningless. That being said, everything till that point in the movie (including Norton's performance and his palpable connection with Liv Tyler) are crisp and enjoyable.

Wanted

Another comic book adaptation- but this time with much fewer legions of fans than Hulk I'm guessing- Timur Bekmambetov's "Wanted" is a high-adrenaline shoot em up that failed to move me on any level. From the smug, detestable voice over (at which one point lead character James McAvoy says something like "I used to be a nobody.... like you"- well well how's that for friendly audience interaction from a screenwriter who apparently feels so much better than the rest of the world?) to the over-the-top action set pieces, "Wanted" is a loud, abrasive experience. Lost amid video game aesthetics and music-video montages of bullets flying and bodies flailing, "Wanted" never really connects with anything except the desire to "wow". That wouldn't be all bad if its attempts at humor and character development were more than bottom feeder theatrics. Amazingly, this film even makes Angelina Jolie look boring.

Joy Division

Grant Gee's "Joy Division" is a more commercial documentary approach towards a trend-setting, cultish rock band than his early 90's peek-on-tour with Radiohead called "Meeting People Is Easy", but the results are just as appealing. Gee obviously has a sharp eye for melding image and music as both films represent the bands as the masters of their era, yet "Joy Division", obviously, reflects a sharper reverential attitude since lead singer Ian Curtis' young farewell has been duly noted. Full of talking head interviews with the usual crowds (band mates, ex-girlfriend, Tony Wilson, album producers), Gee also occasionally breaks out of the mold with some startling inter textual asides- such as when he flashes a black and white photo image of a 70's club or loft, then cuts to a modern 35MM view of the same space with the playful footnote "things that are no longer there", complete with footnote number and all. In other (almost subliminal) moments, Gee flashes a word on the screen as someone off-screen speaks this word... and it's just these ultra-modern moments that make "Joy Division" feel like a prescient subject even though that subject mostly mattered 20 years ago. It doesn't matter whether one sees this documentary before Anton Corjbin's fictional telling of the band in "Control". Both efforts are blessed with having the special intellect and fragile personality of Ian Curtis and a band whose music are forceful enough to carry either film on their own.

TV Alert- Rescue Me

I've been meaning to write something about "Rescue Me" season 4 for awhile now, and this You Tube clip provides the right amount of motivation. Quickly rising to the ranks as one of my very favorite all time TV comedies (right behind "Arrested Development"), Denis Leary's incarnation of NY firefighter Tommy Gavin is sheer genius. While season 4 takes the laugh meter down just a bit compared to the previous 3 seasons, it still remains a solid mixture of quick hitting comedy and tense drama. The noticeable extension of the show and its growth in season 4 comes, unexpectedly, from it's attention to technical flurries of brilliance. In one episode, the team of firefighters is stumbling through a nondescript office building, carrying on their usual casual conversations, avoiding smoke and fire, getting lost in the corridors and finally helping a woman give birth... all of this handled in one stunning 6 minute long take that feels like something out of Cuaron's "Children Of Men". OK, maybe its not quit that spectacular, but it's still a ballsy move for a 42 minute television episode.

Then you've got the closing musical numbers that typically provides the exit. I'm not sure when or where musical epilogues began ("Sopranos" maybe??) but "Rescue Me" constantly marries the perfect song with a great moment on-screen. In the clip added below, the images coincide with The Twilight Singers "The Lure Would Prove Too Much", frontman "Greg Dulli's" now defunct band. Leary was so impressed with the band's 2006 release, "Powder Burns", that he's included two seperate songs on the show's soundtrack. "Powder Burns" is a hell of an album. If you like what you see, I urge you to start with Leary's "The Job" from 2000-2001, a short-lived series produced by Leary and creative partner Peter Tolan. Working in the same vein as "Rescue Me" but with lead characters as cops, the faces of that series make an impressionable parade through "Rescue Me". Three cheers for FX.

The War Isn't Over: Early Films of Resnais

In 1966, French director Alain Resnais released "The War Is Over", a title that could very well represent the ending of one chapter in his cinematic life and the beginning of another. Up until that point, Resnais was the purveyor of difficult French cinema that dealt explicitly with memory... and especially how the minds of his various men and women relate to the affects of World War 2 and The Algerian War, respectively. Yet Resnais' modus operandi was not to tackle the lingering effects of violence and war directly, but reflect the casual horror through his character's memory and their spatial displacement. With the exception of his debut film, the documentary "Night and Fog" which faced the genocide of the Holocaust head-on (and deserves a post of its own), Resnais' fiction efforts traced the lives of people going on after the war. In "Hiroshima, mon amour", a French actress visiting Hiroshima for a film initiates a one night stand with a local Japanese man, and while some of their time is spent with amour, most of it's spent remembering war atrocities. In "Muriel", even though the setting is Boulogne some ten years after the Algerian war has ended, a mother and her step-son are dealing with the traumatic impact of that war in diametrically opposed ways. And while "Last Year At Marienbad" shuttles the war altogether, it's still a watershed movie of images that continually challenges and confuses, as if it were pieced together by an Alzheimer's patient. Certain directors latch onto a theme and deconstruct this idea into dizzying proportions through the years. With Resnais, he worked out a lot of memory demons in just 5 years.

It's tough to be a "fan" of Resnais. From his own lips (on an interview added to the Criterion collection of "Hiroshima, mon amour") he derides the 'auteur' label and calls himself a filmmaker. Whether this is part of his coolly detached intellectual nouvelle vague image or the truth is suspect. If anything, one can only really "appreciate" his early films for breaking new ground in the way they smash linear storytelling and provide viewers with a stuttering succession of challenging images, deep-seated regret and a melding of time (past and present) that can never be trusted. The first film that tackled these themes, "Hiroshima, mon amour" starts out like any other fair-weather French love fest, then turns cold as its female lead, Elle (Emannuelle Riva) slowly breaks away from her Japanase lover (Eiji Okeda) and becomes swallowed up in her own tragic past. Unable to forget her war-time love affair with a German soldier, her presence in the shambled, bomb splattered Hiroshima city makes things even more unbearable. The visual consequences of the war are everywhere, and Resnais spends the first 25 minutes of "Hiroshima, mon amour" thoroughly presenting the viewer with images of deformed children, disfigured adults and radiation fallout. Memory and the past continually usurp the present, creating a suffocating atmosphere in an equally taxing environment.



In "Muriel", the war is still over, but its main characters are constantly trapped by the procession of loss and violence that singed their lives during two seperate periods of strife. A mother (Delphine Seyrig) impulsively writes to her lover (Jean-Pierre Keiren) and asks him to join her in Boulogne. He brings his now girlfriend along (much younger Martine Vatel) and oscillates between old memories with Seyrig and the pressing modern relationship of the younger woman. Likewise dealing with the trauma of war, the woman's son (Jean-Baptiste Thierre) has recently returned home from fighting in Algeria. Stiffling his experiences away in shoddy notebooks and an 8MM tape of friends during the war, we soon learn that, during the war, he was part of the torture and murder of a young girl known only as Muriel. Constantly pulling away from reality and the affections of a local girl in town (plus the man's younger girlfriend), the stepson is one of Resnais' most outward example of repressed rage. A time bomb waiting to go off, Thierre manages to encapsulate a performance that is haunting and touching. Interspersed among "Muriel's" somewhat commercial narrative, Resnais evokes odd jump cuts in conversation. Just when the characters begin to have dialogue that makes sense, he jumps to the end of the conversation and we see the older couple sitting in silence, unsure of the exact words but acutely aware of their body language. It can't be good. It's this stylistic muting of moods and ideas that Resnais works into every film. Infuriating for some, granted, but it makes for cinema that forces one to pay attention and constantly re-assess everything that happens. Just like his characters, Resnais places us in a distinct, shifting mindset that causes us to suspect the past and greet the future with timid acceptance. If anything, "Muriel" could be seen as an alternate universe sequel to "Hiroshima, mon amour". Perhaps the dead German soldier in Elle's life did live, and he shows up as the despondent war-time lover of the mother in "Muriel". Inexplicably linked by memory, anything is certainly possible in that imaginative state of mind.

Andrew Sarris wrote about "Hiroshima, mon amour": "when I first saw the movie in New York in 1960, its themes of loss and memory struck home with me because I was still mourning my dead brother. Now, more than a quarter of a century later, watching it on videocassette, I must confess that it is not quite as stylistically startling nor emotionally explosive as it was back in the early sixties. But it remains a landmark of world cinema in many ways". My own re-visiting of "Hiroshima, mon amour" as well as my initial viewing of "Muriel" exact some of the same sentiments. I can appreciate the filmic language established by Resnais in his early films, but there's an intellect that's hard to grasp. It's always difficult to make sense of his subliminal cutting, yet we want to feel its 'kinda revolutionary'. It's hip to like Resnais even when his films leave us cold. But what does translate through his challenging oeuvre is the inescapable attention to loss, regret and the mind's refusal to give up the past. That is certainly something we can all relate to, not matter how much we love or hate Resnais.

70's Bonanza- The Mackintosh Man

I've been watching a lot of Paul Newman lately. And we're not talking "The Sting" or "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (although those are fine films in their own right), but hidden gems like "Pocket Money" , "Fort Apache, The Bronx" and "The Drowning Pool"- films that still highlight the boyish good looks of Newman with a little gray hair thrown in for maturity. The best thing about Neman's 70's and early 80's work is his sense of haggard charm, as if every role he takes is a silhouette of a previous life. He knows the detectives and hustlers so well, there's hidden fun in his portrayals. There had always been a little dash of irony in Newman's performances, but the 70's seem to play up this charm a little more. None moreso than in 1975 when he teamed up with director John Huston to film "The Mackintosh Man". Nestled in between 70's work for hire such as "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean", acting gigs in "Chinatown", and his pitch for Academic seriousness with "The Man Who Would Be King", "The Mackintosh Man" is a straight-forward, brash effort that zigs and zags in various directions before settling into the mode of old fashioned thriller. Part prison film, part spy caper... it also features one hell of an exciting car chase through the most unlikely and exotic of places- the coastal cliffs of Ireland, complete with rock walls and all.

Part of the joy of "The Mackintosh Man" is not knowing where the film will take you- which is why I'll even shy away from a plot description. For the first 45 minutes, it plays everything close to the vest and refuses to identify the central role of Newman. Is he good guy or bad guy? What exactly is anyone's motive? Why is he trying to break out of prison? And while we're thinking through the possible options, there's Newman.... blue eyes and wry smile speaking volumes that we should just trust him and watch. Unencumbered by flashy direction (which has never really been the modus operandi of Huston as a filmmaker), "The Mackintosh Man" is not recognized as staple 70's cinema, but it quielty exemplifies the workmanlike charm of so many of its underrated counterparts. But don't let me undersell this thing. When the action does kick in and the motives of everyone involved becomes clear, it continually impresses through its mild mannered calculations and Huston's control of character decision. And while the ending does poise an interesting spin on things, its a finale that certainly falls in line with Newman's easy-going persona. Common sense over guns is always a good choice.

Things I Learned In Los Angeles

I feel infinitely smarter now having been exposed to the following:

1. I seemed to have picked the hottest days in the last 1000 years to visit L.A. as everyone I met told me, "wow, it's not usually like this. This is the hottest it's ever been." Hell, I could've felt that in Dallas.

2. The coolest thing about Dodger Stadium- the reflective logo that lights up after dark on the top tier behind home plate:



3. I snapped a quick photo of Joe Torre walking back to the dugout after a pitching change (as promised to my father, a HUGE Yankees fan). If this has been his last game as a coach or something, I think this would have been one helluva iconic image:



4. While billboards in Dallas are busy talking about houses for sale or the campaign to eliminate teen pregnancy (this is still the Bible belt, remember), L.A. billboards are busy pimping cool things as below:



5. The best food on Sunset can be found at Mel's Diner (pictured below, but didn't come out like I wanted it to). Burgers on sourdough bread, fries, milkshakes... and the place where Lucas filmed "American Graffiti" as the walls are adorned with black and white photos of the shoot.



Runner up food joint: Tarantino's Pizzeria in downtown Pasadena

6. The view from Mulholland Drive overlooking the city is simply breathtaking. The friends I was visiting had never been up there before, but they got just as much pleasure out of the scenery as I did:



And another from Mulholland:



7. While I first thought this may be a movie being filmed on the 405, the realization quickly set in that it was just another example of why California traffic is so bad. An RV had caught on fire.



8. The coolest thing about Beverly Hills? Seeing the police station and thinking of Eddie Murphy trying to enter at the front gate with the automatic option box and his expression of 'what the fuck?':



9. Palm trees do make the scenery look nicer:



And another:





10. The airlines only hand out these neat little luggage tickets to instill a sense of comfort in us passengers. The real fact is, they don't mean a thing when presented to the LAX baggage claim office because your luggage was lost in transit. They seemed pretty shocked I would even present this as evidence that my luggage should, indeed, be in L.A. with me. Instead, I filled out paperwork and went to the Dodger game in 95 degree weather in my jeans and long sleeve shirt. My luggage showed up 2 days later. My friend's advice: always fly into Burbank. I now know why.



11. The movies always make downtown L.A. appear.... bigger. It's not so big. It did make me want to go back and re-watch "Heat", though.



12. Careers begin.... and end... here.

DVD Shout Out- The Girl In the Cafe

Director David Yates is now a heavy Hollywood commodity (as the man responsible for bringing the previous Harry Potter movie as well as it's next two sequels to the screen), but over the past decade or so he's been quietly making a name for himself via the small screen in Britain. I recently wrote about his masterpiece, "State of Play", a few months back. The sheer intelligence and economic visual style of that series piqued my interest in this filmmaker. In 2005, he took a script from renowned writer Richard Curtis and directed a small made for television film called "The Girl In the Cafe". A May-December romance with intensely political leanings, this 93 minute movie is just as devastating as his previous 6 hour mini-series and cemented in my mind the talent that lies within Yates.

Lawrence (Bill Nighy) is an isolated loner who works for the Chancellor of England as a financial advisor. During a quick coffee break in a cafe across the street from his office, he meets pretty (yet equally isolated) Gina (Kelly MacDonald) and they strike up a conversation since her booth is the only empty seat in the place. Coffee turns into lunch two weeks later and the dinner the next night. Lawrence eventually asks Gina to accompany him to the G8 summit in Iceland later that month and she obliges him. A relationship builds slowly and quietly between the two of them, but does Gina have ulterior motives?

Nighy and MacDonald (who worked so well off each other in "State Of Play") imbue their characters with grace and sensitivity. From the opening scenes, Nighy does a remarkable job of drawing out the odd tendencies in his personality. Here is a man so accepting of his solitude that we see him side stepping people in the hallway so they can walk by him as if he isn't there. Another scene punctuates his invisibility by the way he sits in his seat doodling when his peers enter the conference room and sit around him... barely noticing him as they pass papers in front of him. MacDonald, on the other hand, presents herself as a fragile beauty, escaping from something (what? we don't know until the very end) and idling her time away in this coffee shop. The idea of her obliging Lawrence her company doesn't feel that far off. And while, sometimes, the May-December romance can seem forced or inaccessible, Nighy and MacDonald hit every note perfectly as they etch out the understated emotions and motives of its complicated love story. Like "Before Sunset" or "Lost In Translation", this is a simple film that revels in two people talking, growing close to one another, and learning to accept someone when the surroundings are far removed from the comforts of home. Seek this one out.

Sports Spectacular

Even though the month of June is typically unbearably hot here in Texas, I love it for its array of sports. The Rangers are playing solid ball right now (scratching their way to .500, popping a game over, then under, then back over) and the ride has been fun. Not to mention, Josh Hamilton is becoming a modern day folk hero in these parts, rookie David Murphy is earning ALOT more jerseys at the ballpark and Michael Young/Ian Kinsler and hot tempered Milton Bradley are all adding their two cents to the Rangers offensive strikes. It's really fun to watch this team come together after a horrible April. Boston Red Sox, here we come! Or maybe I should direct that towards the Chicago Cubs who look like the real deal right now. But none of that matters if the Angels don't slow down, either.

And from baseball, we switch to the US Open at Torrey Pines... a course yielding unique first day results (Steelerman? Hicks? In the words of "Tin Cup", who are these guys?) As a lover and player of golf, nothing is more exciting than watching the world's best players stumble and scramble and hack their way out of 7 inch rough. Makes me feel a little better when I stumble and scramble and hack my way around a golf course. And all of this in Primetime for the first time in years. It's going to be a great weekend. I hear there's something big happening in the NBA as well, but since I despise the sport, I'm hoping the Celtics close the door over the next 2 games so we can all move on and be relieved of having to hear Stepehn A. Smith each night on Sportscenter.

So, I'll be driving home to spend Father's Day with the family. Expect light posts around here the next couple of weeks. I'll be traveling to Los Angeles for the first time next week as well to spend 3 days with friends and soak up Hollywood. Dodgers game Friday night, sight seeing the other days. Lots of pictures should follow.

Thoughts On M. Night

All the advertisements for M. Night Shyamalan's latest, "The Happening", have been playing up the fact that it's his "first R rated movie". When the crux of your marketing campaign is singling out the fact that a reasonable portion of your regular summer movie-going audience (13-16) can't get into this thing, it sorta loses its luster no? Compounded with the idea of no screenings for critics yet, and that could be strike two. Perhaps 20th Century Fox and Shyamalan have crafted such a genuinely exciting film (complete with awe-inducing twist ending) that early word-of-mouth would ruin its chances of opening weekend buzz. Doubtful. But, as pessimistic as all this sounds, I am looking forward to "The Happening" just because it's the first film in two solid weeks I kinda care about- yep, no "Don't Mess With the Zohan" for me.

I suppose one could call me an inverted Shyamalan fan. My least liked films from the auteur seem to be the most revered by other film fans- "Signs" and "Unbreakable"- while my two favorite- "The Village" and "Lady In the Water"- always bring forth bile and disgust from so many people who felt cheated or disappointed. This, of course, is exempting his mainstream Hollywood calling card "The Sixth Sense", a film that exists as a near perfect exercise in modern Hitchcock-ian reflexivity, camera placement, timing and subliminal scares tied to a well rendered denouement. This was simply a film that came along at the right time and place, delivering the goods all around- and for better or for worse, a film that proved the atmosphere was ripe for twist endings... and financially plausible. It kept the audiences growing exponentially. "You've got to see how this thing ends". And in that sense, Shyamalan's career has been broken into two distinct sections- pre and post '99. Some directors would love to have this kind of dichotomy.

The largest criticism leveled against him after his success with "The Sixth Sense" was that he'd become egotistical and bloated in his self-important thrillers (as if thrillers can't be saying something while attempting to scare your socks off). He didn't play by the rules, but more importantly, his success allowed him the luxury of not playing by the rules. While "Signs" and "Unbreakable" certainly have their cult followings in science fiction and comic book realms respectively, I think Shyamalan's real triumphs have come in the form of his last two 'failures'. First, "The Village". Not only was this an engaging theater experience where the audience listened and gasped at every small scurry at the edge of the frame, but it's also where Shyamalan attempted to add his contributions and politicize the horror genre with an underlying theme. While it seems "The Village" was largely maligned because of the audience's unwillingness to accept a conclusion that's not attributed to anything other worldly or ghostly, I found its final 'twist' to be just as devastating and even more terrifying that anything conjured by boogie men. "The Village" stands as a greatly satisfying yet futile examination of our culture's mounting hysteria towards anything "different". The fact that it's wrapped up in a pseudo horror flick didn't help its cause. The people who might enjoy such an allegorical romp stayed away and the people who expected a good old fashioned scare ala "The Sixth Sense" showed up in droves and left wondering what the hell they'd just seen. The movie business is so fickle.

The outcries against "Lady In the Water" were just as loud... if not deafening. While there were semblances of his horror film aesthetic left, "Lady In the Water" seemed to be where Shyamalan had finally been given way too much creative control. Veering wildly in mood, tone and underhanded insults (at professional film critics no less), it's a film that deserves to be re-watched in a different frame of mind. Again, Shyamalan's past efforts probably influenced how the audience reacted against "Lady In the Water", and it certainly wasn't viewed as the light hearted modern fairy tale I took away from it... even though the film's subtitle references it! I overlooked a lot of the film's shortcomings due to Paul Giamatti's honest performance, Bryce Howard's penetrating innocence, and the film's overall ambition to say something quite epic in small gestures. And the scene where Giamatti's emotions finally come pouring out as the seven sisters put their hands on him is a shining example of just how good Shyamalan can be with framing, timing and the ability to draw something fundamental out of his actors. It deserves a second chance.

Back to "The Happening". I was talking to buddy and movie lover Chris from his Trashcan Odorous blog and he wondered about the ability of Mark Wahlburg to carry the film. I agree. His reading of the line about "there are forces in the universe that can't be explained" in that Wahlburg-Dirk Diggler lisp do come off as cringe-worthy. But, to some degree I trust in him as an actor (and Zooey Deschanel as an actress even more) and I also trust in Shyamalan to create a genuinely creepy and apocalyptic atmosphere that could push this film over the top as his return to form- although I really don't think he's lost it yet. "The Happening" could be that perfect melding of total creative control and story that once generated so much anticipation about his upcoming films. That's been lost the last few years. And with films like "Get Smart", "The Love Guru" and The Matri.... uhh "Wanted" on the horizon, I'm dying for some creativity from somewhere.

DVD Shout Out- Boarding Gate

Olivier Assayas' "Boarding Gate" can be seen as a direct companion to his 2002 film, "demonlover". Both films are thrillers in the loosest sense, situating a sultry and headstrong female lead smack dab in the middle of a multi-national, multi-continent series of shoot-outs, drugging and double and triple crosses. This time, the responsibility lies with actress Asia Argento. Broken into two parts, "Boarding Gate's" first half pits Argento and former pimp/lover/boss Michael Madsen against each other in a war of psycho-sexual wordplay and sadomasochistic foreplay first in his office, then later at his home. The second half finds Argento landing in China and abruptly being held hostage and then attacked by a series of baddies (led by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon!) as she attempts to reconnect with new boyfriend and international businessman Lester (Carl Ng).There's no higher schizophrenic shift than in this film. While there are hints of the international intrigue to come in the first half through a brief longueur depicting Argento's business of drug importing, the second half dispenses with explanation and becomes an abstract espionage thriller as Argento is propelled through a foreign city, over and down its rooftops and having to carefully choose who she believes are her friends and who has used her. All of this is captured with Assayas now trademark visual style- loose, handheld cameras that seem to be searching for something within the frame, deep near focus shots that keep everything around the periphery fuzzy, and sharp jump cuts that continually force the viewer to reassess his or her understanding of time and place. The locations are the similar as well. In his early films, Assayas was comfortable with the interior browns and greens of personal home life. With "demonlover", "Clean", and now "Boarding Gate", the milieu is clear exterior shots, hotel rooms, glass office buildings that threaten to pummel the sense with their reflectivity, nightclubs and karaoke bars... even the 20 minute stretch that takes place in Madsen's home between he and Argento is a huge modern structure that seems to have been built entirely with glass. Needless to say, Assayas chosen locations seem to amplify the fragile existence and tepid industry status of his lead women.

As stated above, don't go into "Boarding Gate" expecting a tidy, routine thriller. Yes, there are gunfights, druggings and hitmen, but Assayas has ripped the logical connections of the espionage thriller to shreds. We're never exactly given the meaning of the relationship between Madsen and Argento. We're never told why Argento becomes the hunted, although I think the re-introduction of a small character at the very end of the film represents some satisfaction of explanation. And, we're never given the fleshed out reasons for why one character helps Argento in China. The motivation seems to be, simply, corporate greed and a complete removal of embedded morals. Full of amorphous killing machines, nothing seems quite as terrifying as the moment when, after being trapped in a warehouse in China, one man quietly hands a gun to a shirtless tattooed man and instructs him in Chinese to 'finish her off'. Without a word or emotion, the shirtless man takes the gun and sulks into the room where Argento is being held. No better example of moral emptiness can be found, and "Boarding Gate" wallows in it. "Boarding Gate" is less about the rules of corporate espionage and more about the journey of one woman caught in the web of globalization. Just like "demonlover" and its representation of a world mangled in cyber greed and corruption, Assayas is searching for the place for a confused and exploited woman to call her own. As the finale suggests, Argento will probably go on being exploited and confused in this dog-eat-dog environment, a message just as dark and nihilistic as the final image of Connie Nielsen in "demonlover" morphing into a cyber sex toy. No rest for the weary.

What's In the Netflix Queue #17

It's been a busy week and blogging has, sadly, taken a backseat. We're hoping to change that now. Next 10 titles in my queue:

1. Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die- With the release of several Pasolini films to DVD, I'll be catching up with his work. This documentary, released in 1981 six years after Pasolini's murder, is as good as anywhere to start.
2. Don't Look In the Basement- What list of mine would be complete without a crummy exploitation horror film? This one, directed by 'Z lister' SF Brownrigg (of several "Don't Look..." films in the 70's) deals with inmates of an insane asylum taking control. Worth a look.
3. Lights In the Dusk- Latest film from Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki. I've never really been of fan of Kaurismaki's deadpan, sarcastic comedies and this one has been referred to as the Kaurismaki film for introducing oneself to his work.
4. Muriel- Recently released Alain Resnais film. Netflix describes it as "A war veteran and his widowed stepmother struggle to come to terms with the past in Alain Resnais's drama about the persistence of memory. The story follows ex-soldier Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée), who relives a horrible atrocity he committed during the war, and his stepmother, Helene (Delphine Seyrig), who can't let go of her former lover (Jean-Pierre Kérien). Nita Klein, Claude Sainval and Laurence Badie also star." From his mid 60's work after international acclaim from films such as "Night and Fog", "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" and "Last Year At Marienbad".
5. Accatone- Pasolini's debut film.
6. The Swimming Pool- Flick starring Alain Delon from the 70's recently released in a five pack series of his harder to find efforts.
7. Lost In La Mancha- Documentary about the colossal failure of Terry Gilliam to bring to the screen a story of Don Quixote.
8. And Soon the Darkness- I know nothing about this film except the Netflix description: "Two British girls on a bicycling vacation in France quarrel and separate. Jane, feels guilty about leaving and decides to return to the infamous stretch of road where she left her friend. She finds her friend is missing and, as time passes and there is no trace of her, Jane imagines the worst. Atmospheric, suspenseful, and shocking. A gripping thriller." It was recommended based on my high ratings for "thrillers" and the people reviews on the site are pretty glowing.
9. Anzio- Edward Dymytryk's late 60's war film starring Robert Mitchum about an Allied attack in Italy. It could be total crap, but my experience with these off-the-radar war films of the 60's has been impressive.
10. Violent City- I think I've seen this long hidden Bronson film. Aint It Cool News raved about it, and while they rave about everything, I'm a sucker for any Bronson flick.

Trailers I Love

With the release of Olivier Assayas' "Boarding Gate" on DVD Tuesday, here's a quick look back at his previous film, "Clean". Released in 2006, it stars the beyond beautiful Maggie Cheung as a music producer scratching her way out of addiction to maintain a relationship with her son. Filmed in typically observant handheld style by Assayas, "Clean" defies character expectations in just about every way. Assayas has become my favorite international film director, and this one deserves a rental if you haven't seen it.