short film reviews, criticism, and occasional musing.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006, UK)

If you’re at all interested in psychoanalytic film theory, Hitchcock, Lynch, or the manic philosophical stylings of Slavoj Zizek, I highly recommend The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema. For two and a half hours, Zizek talks about some of the most famous Freudian-loaded sequences and setpieces in film history – the opening of Blue Velvet, Vertigo’s transformation of Judy into Madeline, Hackman listening in on The Conversation, the original stomach-pop from Alien – but with a cinematic twist. Instead of lecturing from a podium or book-lined office, Zizek appears as if he’s present on the sets of these particular films. Placing the commenter into the space of the films he's describing is both entertaining and a reflection of one of Zizek’s larger themes – how fantasies are projected onto the blank space of the cinema screen.

There’s some great stuff here. One of my favorites was the use of Hitchcock’s horror films (in particular The Birds and Psycho) to exemplify the rupture of reality that occurs when the desired object appears on the plane. The use of Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx to embody, respectively, the Superego, Ego, and Id is both hilarious and surprisingly apt. A lot of the Hitchcock analysis is pretty straightforward, but the Lynchian world is a bit more complex – I loved the idea of the father embodying phallus (rather than merely projecting phallus) in the hyper-masculine figures of Frank (Blue Velvet), Bobby Peru (Wild at Heart), and Mr. Eddy (Lost Highway). There’s also a great explication of the shifts between reality and fantasy in the structures of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. In this case, it’s fun* to take Zizek’s idea of the unattainable female libidinal subjectivity and apply it to Inland Empire (a film he doesn’t cover) – what if the whole of Empire is merely Dern’s character fantasizing an entire series of alternate realities during the sexual act? Or her male partner’s attempt to gain access to her subjectivity?

It may have been Jonathan Rosenbaum in the Chicago Reader who noted that The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema will most likely never get a theatrical release, nor make it onto DVD anytime soon, due to costly and time-consuming legal issues in securing rights to all of the 40+ movies that Zizek concentrates on (similar problems must surely be dogging Los Angeles Plays Itself). So, if this sounds like your thing, try to find it on the festival circuit. Otherwise, Zizek’s Looking Awry and Enjoy Your Symptom! both cover similar material, though they aren’t nearly as much fun.**

* Yes, I’m perfectly aware that I have an odd idea of “fun.”

** Ditto.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

The Namesake (2006, USA/Indian)

While enjoying his American girlfriend’s summer home in upstate New York, Gogol Ganguli (Kal Penn) says to her, “This place is amazing. My parents never felt the need to get this far away from things.” Perhaps more than any other single line in Mira Nair’s The Namesake, this statement sums up the generational gap between Gogol and his parents. What he and his sister fail to understand is that America is the furthest of far, half a world away from the India where his mother and father grew up.

Nair’s adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s book is better than I’d hoped it would be. Despite needing to excise nearly half of the source material in order to make a coherent two-hour film, Nair deftly dips in and out of the lives of the Gangulis, first focusing on Gogol’s mother, Ashima (an excellent Tabu) as she enters into an arranged marriage with Ashoke (Irfan Khan) and travels to New York City to live all alone with her husband. As Gogol grows up, the focus shifts to his experiences as an American of Indian decent. The power of this story lies in this shift between generations – we first see Ashima’s vision of America, and then her cultural heritage is reflected back through Gogol’s rebelliousness.

The Namesake is certainly intended for American audiences – it lacks some of the hybridity of visual style that some of her previous work, such as Monsoon Wedding, Kama Sutra, and Vanity Fair, possessed, and the narrative is more of a straightforward family drama. However, the text is rich enough to embody hybridity in another way. Lahiri’s story is a good embodiment of the continual Indian tension between the past and the present, and there is perhaps no better director to film it than Nair, whose entire career can be said to rest on playing out this tension in different scenarios. Some of her usual problems arise here – the elder Indian generation is occasionally played for laughs, the socio-economic status of the family is firmly upper-middle class, and Nair continues to use visual cues that sexualize some female characters in uncomfortable ways (Moushumi’s character suffers the most by the cuts made from book to screen). All this aside, The Namesake is generally a very good film, an absorbing meditation on living between two very different cultures.

Summer's Coming!

(AKA - I watched an hour of movie trailers so that you don't have to.)

Live Free or Die Hard – Some people can do without Die Hard with a Vengeance. I don’t happen to be one of them, but that’s beside the point. The fourth installment has disaster written all over it – an annoying young sidekick (why are they letting Mac Guy do movies?), a right wing wet dream of a terrorism plot, twelve years since the last installment, and that fucking awful title to boot. And it’s directed by a guy who’s done nothing but Underworld movies? Uh-oh.

Sunshine – Despite a plot that gives every indication of being The Core – In Outer Space!, I’m excited to see what Danny Boyle will do with a big SF budget and the ultimate hot young cast of the summer.

Transformers – The effects are bound to be cool, but . . . why is this being made? Does the world really need Michael Bay’s live-action vision of a 1980’s cartoon about shape-shifting robots? Wait. I think the real question is, does the world really need Michael Bay? The last thing he directed that was even remotely watchable was The Rock, and without the kitsch factor of the animation format, the Autobot/Decepticon vendetta is going to be laughable at best. But I'm sure things will blow up real good.

Spider-Man 3 – What’s to say? It’s probably going to be pretty good, just like the first two, and make a boatload of money, just like the first two. I am glad that Topher Grace has joined the cast, though. Honestly, that’s all I’ve got. Moving along . . .

Evan Almighty – I confess that I still haven’t seen Bruce Almighty, as both Jim Carrey and high-concept studio comedies give me hives. I love Steve Carell, but do I want to see an hour and a half of Steve Carell hitting himself with a hammer and screaming at people? Meh.

Knocked Up - Everyone’s praising this as the second coming of comedy. I see no immediate reason to doubt, but I can’t feel myself getting terribly excited about it, either. Then again, I was a late convert to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, so perhaps I’m just not the target audience. Or maybe it's just that Katherine Heigl bugs.

Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix – I’ll admit, even though none of the movies have been as much fun as the books, I’m still such a silly fangirl. Broom flights in mid-London! Eee!

Ocean’s 13 – Al Pacino? Are you fucking kidding me?

Black Sheep – I’m kind of speechless right now. I . . . wow. I’m so excited. Murderous genetically mutated sheep? And . . . zombies? I love New Zealand.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer – Amid the bounty of summer sequels, I think this is the one that the least number of people were asking for. I’ll admit that the first movie was somewhat enjoyable, and it’s always nice to see Michael Chiklis (even when you can’t really see Michael Chiklis), but they had better be strategic about their release date, because I can’t see a single reason why someone would choose to see this over any of the other summer action blockbusters. They can’t even bank on the Chris Evans factor, since he’s in Sunshine, too. Then again, I’m probably forgetting about all of the people who enjoy seeing Jessica Alba in lycra. But can you forge an entire demographic from them?

The Simpsons Movie – I still can’t quite believe that this was finally made. It’s going to make an ungodly amount of money. All I hope is that it’s funny, and that I don’t have to see it amid an audience of screaming children. And that there's a lot of Moe.

Talk To Me – I’m so glad that Chiwetel Ejiofor is crossing over from the British indie scene, even if it’s still terribly embarrassing when I try to tell people how awesome he is, since I still can’t pronounce his name. In any case, I know nothing about the background story, but Don Cheadle looks fantastic, so I’m there.

Mr. Brooks - Who the hell said that it was okay for Kevin Costner to start making movies again? When William Hurt is the most prestigious name attached to a project (Dane Cook? Seriously?), and his character is actually just a figment of someone's imagination, then there are a couple of Hollywood producers who need to go into high-concept 12-step right away.

There’s no Pirates trailer up yet, but do we really need one? It’s going to be nearly three hours long, have approximately a dozen plot threads fighting for dominance, give Johnny Depp another opportunity to mince around like a deranged git, and I am going to bring a big bottle of rum to the theater and enjoy every damn minute of it.

Hollywoodland (2006, USA)

I’ll somewhat reluctantly join the critics who praised Ben Affleck in Hollywoodland. Perhaps it’s that he understands the psyche of the fading star? For whatever reason, he’s good as George Reeves, the first television Superman, whose career floundered after the series was canceled and who subsequently committed suicide in 1959.

Unfortunately, the film flounders when it strays from Reeves’ life and focuses on the detective (Adrien Brody) looking to prove that the actor’s death was murder. Brody’s storyline just isn’t compelling, and the concentration on his family problems is entirely superfluous. Reeves’ story ends up being weighed down by this framework and the interwoven flashback sequences used to link past and present – just as it’s gaining momentum, we’re thrown back to the loser gumshoe and the movie comes to a standstill.

On an unrelated note, it’s rare to see a movie set in Los Angeles – particularly period-era Los Angeles – that feels so undefined by its setting. Director Alan Coulter chooses to set the bulk of his scenes in homes, apartment buildings, and other private settings, completely avoiding the customary establishing shots of famous Hollywood locations. It’s actually quite refreshing, and keeps the focus trained on the characters – it’s just unfortunate that half the story doesn’t warrant it.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Harsh Times (2005, USA)

I finally found something that Christian Bale can’t do – play a homey from South Central L.A. Despite his intimidating physical presence (as in other films, like American Psycho and Batman Begins, there’s a tautness to his strength that makes you believe he’s liable to go off the rails at any time), it’s Bale’s carriage and voice that gives him away. It’s not that he’s too British for this role, it’s that he’s too classy. He’s just unbelievable as a lower-class white boy from the inner city.

Perhaps it’s not entirely Bale’s fault – the character is pretty badly written to begin with. Is Jim Davis a sociopath? Merely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? A combination of the two? It’s never made clear exactly what makes him so dangerous, and consequently, it’s hard to understand exactly what the movie is trying to say. As a Ranger in the Iraqi War, Bale’s character was an efficient killing machine, but back in the real world, he can’t seem to find a place to put all of this aggression. However, it’s also hinted that Davis may always have been a little psycho, and that the Army merely gave him the tools to bring out his more violent tendencies.

Perhaps all this could serve as the meat of a better film (something along the lines of, say, The Deer Hunter), but first-time director David Ayer doesn’t know how to build a structure around his story, and the entire movie feels flimsy, meandering towards a transparently ugly conclusion without giving the audience anything in the process. As for Bale, this was certainly an interesting risk for him to take at this point in his career, but he may have finally found one boundary for his otherwise impressive talents.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

The Host (2006, South Korean)

The Host is rad. It’s rare that I anticipate a film for quite so long and have it live up to my (often inflated) expectations. A tongue-in-cheek monster movie that builds on the legacy of both Hollywood and Asian horror, The Host hits the ground running – after a few quick backdrop scenes, the action is kicked off when the youngest member of a ridiculously dysfunctional Seoul family is kidnapped by the titular beastie, forcing her relatives to put their differences aside and band together in search of her.

As with many good horror films, The Host has a political subtext – in this case, the American military is responsible for not only the monster, but also for most of the hype and hysteria surrounding its rampage (“Agent Yellow” . . . think about it). Not that the South Korean bureaucracy fares much better – both the local medical and military forces are depicted as willing stooges, forcing the central characters to do all the hard work on their own (a classic cliché that is brought into clear relief in a hilarious exchange between the hero and one of the Americans).

But all of this is secondary to the easy pleasures of the chase – the special effects are excellent (the monster is particularly cool), and the film is consistently both funny and scary. There’s nothing particularly inventive about the plot or story (except, perhaps for the one-two punch that the monster packs, an ingenious way for to encompass recent fears about SARS and bird flu), but writer-director Bong Joon-hoo knows exactly what he’s doing, ensuring that even the most obvious horror staples (unique and necessary talent, not dead yet, etc.) remain lively. I’m crossing my fingers that Hollywood keeps its remake-happy hands off this one.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Marie Antoinette (2006, Japan/France/USA)

A friend called when I was about a half hour into Marie Antoinette – she asked what I thought, and I replied, “I think I kind of like it.” About an hour later, I wasn’t so sure – the film has its charms, but they stretch thin before long. After a while, the conceit of a contemporized costume drama – the music and modern speech both work well – gets a bit old without anything underneath to prop it up.

Sofia Coppola is obviously obsessed with idle girls, and while she may have found her perfect subject in Marie Antoinette, the story doesn’t provide the drama to sustain a full feature, and the character of the queen is impervious to deep investigation. This Marie is almost all surface, and while Kirsten Dunst does a good job with what she’s given, there’s little desire here to probe into the psychology of the queen. We see her reactions to things more than anything else – loneliness and alienation upon arriving at Versailles, distress over the state of her unconsummated marriage, excitement and silliness with the development of her party girl lifestyle – but for what? Is Marie really no deeper than what we see before us, as she’s led from afar by her Austrian family and up close by the desires of the French court? If so, what exactly is the point of the film, other than to paint a pretty picture and to ask us to sympathize with a character that has been so often reviled in history? If that was truly Coppola’s aim, it seems a trifling matter, given the lavish time and energy spent on Marie Antoinette. But as the film is little more than a series of trifling matters (except for that whole revolution thing near the end), perhaps this is actually quite appropriate.

Zodiac (2007, USA)

Though David Fincher’s Zodiac covers similar ground as many of his previous films – murder, psychosis, obsession – it’s somewhat more human. This is the closest thing to a character piece that the director has made, but it lacks the suspenseful bent of earlier films such as Se7en and Panic Room. In part, this may be because Fincher's new film is based on real events and people surrounding the 1970’s investigation into Northern California’s famed Zodiac Killer. Since the Zodiac was never captured, there’s little fodder here for the tight cat-and-mouse sequences that Fincher is so good at (even early in his career, as in Alien 3). Instead, the film takes a more episodic approach, following the detectives and reporters who were at the center of the Zodiac hunt, and only occasionally dipping into recreations of the Zodiac’s crimes.

Part of the problem inherent in making movie like this one (or The Black Dahlia, or Summer of Sam), is that in most cases, the events of and around the murders are so well-known that little is left to the filmmaker but to set the camera in the right places. The Zodiac mystery is particularly troublesome for a filmmaker not only because the killer was never found (the catharsis of the catch is denied), but because event stretched out over the course of a decade. Thus, the film stretches out, too – though it’s not quite three hours long, its episodic nature (complete with consistent, detail-oriented title cards) makes it feel terribly drawn out. It’s as if Fincher didn’t want to leave anything out – there are even two full-screen text panels before the final credits roll.

With a little judicious editing, Zodiac could have been a much more compelling film. As is, it’s interesting to see a director of such technical proficiency branch out a bit, and Fincher captures good performances from his male-heavy cast, particularly Mark Ruffalo. (Though he doesn’t work with women often, I think two the most sucessful performances in Fincher films have come from Jodie Foster and Sigourney Weaver.) But if the film is supposed to be suspenseful or frightening, it fails on both counts, and it lacks both the tightness of a true procedural drama or the substance of a character ensemble. In short, Zodiac isn’t quite sure what kind of film it’s supposed to be.

The Departed (2006, USA)

Perhaps it’s not entirely fair to compare one film so ruthlessly to another, but that was the risk Martin Scorsese ran when he remade Infernal Affairs as The Departed. In the end, they’re quite different films – where Affairs is lean and mean, a slick Hollywood-inspired Hong Kong thriller, The Departed seeks to go a bit deeper. Characters and backstory are added, and the film delves more deeply into themes of family and identity. Unfortunately, this expansion isn’t necessarily an improvement, as the structure of the original film creaks under the added weight.

Much of the fun of Affairs is its relentlessness, part of which can be found in the near-indistinguishable nature of protagonists. As the dual rats, Andy Lau and Tony Leung could probably have switched roles without losing a beat. Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio don’t have this advantage – Scorsese clearly favors one of the other, and thus never quite gets the balance right. It doesn’t help that the film occasionally pulls away from both in order to concentrate on secondary characters, particularly Jack Nicholson (chewing scenery like there’s no tomorrow) as flamboyant crime boss Frank Costello.

Scorsese also shifts the weight of certain key scenes – for example, the showdown between Costello and Damon’s rat cop – and greatly changes the ending. Both alterations further push the grey areas from Affairs into more defined black-and-white territory. It would be wrong to call Affairs subtle, but the final shot of The Departed practically hits you over the head with an anvil. This is hardly Scorsese’s best work - while it was nice to see him finally get an Oscar, perhaps it should be thought of as a lifetime achievement award.