Ten recent reviews

Chichi Ariki (dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1942)

A father and son (mother deceased from before the movie starts) move around over a period of 20 years, with father trying to make a good life for his son but limiting their personal relationship in the process by making choices that keep them apart and unable to form familial bonds. It's really that simple, but as always with Ozu the beauty is in the details - the stunning framing and cinematography choices, the superb acting (Chishu Ryu especially, but also Shûji Sano as the older son), the dialogue that cuts right through the melodrama that drenches 98% of films and gets to the heart of human interaction. Really a beautiful thing by someone I'm starting to think may end up as my all-time favorite director. Well, top 3 anyway.

Hulk (dir. Ang Lee, 2003)

Another Ang Lee exploration of a love that's not just unrequited, but can never happen. He's all about tragic romance like that. But also like most Lee films, there's a conflict between parents and children - a disconnect really, that keeps them apart, ultimately resulting in conflicts when they're forced by circumstance to confront each other. Do I like it as much as Crouching Tiger? As much as The Ice Storm? Brokeback Mountain? No, not quite, but it's right in there with his basic thematic material and a solidly made film to boot (especially love those very comic-y transitions between scenes contained in comic book frames, better even than Lucas's use of classic adventure serial wipes in Star Wars). Those going in because their favorite catchphrase from their comic book days was "Hulk Smash!" are sure to be disappointed. Those looking for a way for an artist like Ang Lee to insert his ideas into the Marvel Universe will find a lot worth seeing.

The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008)

And speaking of adult adaptations of comic book material... Like Hulk this one also takes comic book situations that can be read as absurd or totally unreal and then invests the intelligence in saying "OK, but what if this really happened to you?" and showing the results on screen. What would a flashy comic villain like the Joker be like in the real world? What happens when people get menaced by costumed villains? - they die. They get shot, blown up, etc. And Nolan, like a lot of people making comic movies these days, wants to know how that would impact on real people in the real world. This may be the best comic book movie yet in terms of placing things in a real-world situation, even while retaining a comic-booky feel - how, for example, could The Joker possibly have planted all the bombs in the hospital? But those questions don't come into play when you're watching because it's not the point of the film - once that does happen, what are the choices people will be forced to make as a consequence? And ultimately that's what the film is about from beginning to end. In the first scene there are fake Batmen all around, trying to thwart a drug deal. It's the first step in suggesting that until average citizens feel empowered to take on crime on their own, there will be a need for vigilante justice like The Batman represents. That's the central thrust of the film and Bruce Wayne's dilemma throughout - can the person whose genesis as Batman in Batman Begins find it in himself to give it up? The movie doesn't really make him answer it - it lets him off the hook, I think - but it's the point of the final scenes that could've been edited out for brevity's sake, but would have disrupted the logic of the central idea running through the film. I think it's the right length myself, and right on the money. For what it's worth, I think the political allegory people are drawing from the film right now doesn't hold a lot of water, except that like any film it reflects its time and thus the idea of terrorist action and public response to it are in the air.

Powaqqatsi (dir. Godfrey Reggio, 1988)

A little more pointed than its predecessor and much more focused on people rather than spaces, buildings, and whatnot - though not so much that it actually endorses a strict point of view or course of action, mind you. But it's probably the equal of the first film overall. And musically Philip Glass steps it up a notch, warming up a little from the austerity of Koyaanisqatsi. Altogether it's a worthy sequel, if that's even the right word, taking the ideas of the first film and running with them, showing a real warmth and feel for the people it's portraying on screen, never losing touch with the beauty of either the filmmaking or the subjects in front of the camera. A great one.

Time of the Wolf (dir. Michael Haneke, 2003)

Haneke is quickly moving up the ranks of contemporary filmmakers whose work I love. This one's probably his least harsh film that I've seen, despite some very brutal moments (like the startling first scene of the film), mainly because the severity is undercut by the humanism on display here. In a post-apocalyptic world, what kind of society would emerge? In this particular unspecified post-apocalpyse, we first find something almost exactly like our current world - the people with the weapons and the supplies control the fate of everyone around them, until a different group of people with different ideas of how to do things move in. It's pretty basic as a film idea, but pretty powerful in how it plays out. Onward to Code: Unknown.

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (dir. John Ford, 1949)

My least favorite of the cavalry trilogy. I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Mr. John Wayne that the film should've ended before its final coda, with him checking his watch and saying he'd been a civilian for two minutes. Much more ambiguous about his future, much more intriguing if you ask me. But it is Hollywood, and wrapping things in bows is the specialty of the studio system, and Ford knew how to navigate the studios to get what he wanted. So the ending could've been less mushy, but overall the film provides a really great look at a man about to retire and what to do with his life after giving up what he's invested decades doing. I don't find the story as compelling as Fort Apache or the interpersonal relations as interesting as Rio Grande, but it's still a fine film in the Ford catalog, well worth seeing.

Now, Voyager (dir. Irving Rapper, 1942)

Bette Davis turns in a great performance, yes, but my main memory of the film is how absolutely horrid Gladys Cooper is as her mother (I mean, she's great, not horrid, but the character is horrid). I love the basic trajectory of the Davis character, though the transformation from ugly duckling into Cinderella is awfully quick and complete. But still you're rooting for her, want her to not fall back into old patterns, to fall under her mother's thumb once again. The pivotal scene where she finally stands up to mom is pretty much the best thing here, certainly more affecting for me than the perfunctory romances - one of which is (amusingly) severed with a "thank you" and a handshake, the other more profound but doomed from the start. Anyway, a fine model of a strong woman's drama from the classic Hollywood period.


Once (dir. John Carney, 2006)

I'll say this - it's charming. It's hard not to like these two musicians and hard also not to see that the music they end up making together is so much the focus of this story that hardly anything else matters. Romantic angle is underplayed and good - it's not what makes the film go, though chemistry between the two is necessary to make things work. I'm glad that when they went for the montage of things coming together in the studio I didn't feel like fast-forwarding. A movie about making music that's worth seeing, unlike... well, most of them. Is it great? No, but again, it's charming.

WR: Mysteries of the Organism (dir. Dusan Makavejev, 1971)

Wacko stuff, drawing explicit lines between Freud's sexuality studies and Marx's political studies via Wilhelm Reich, about whom I know nothing aside from the perfunctory "documentary" this film offers in its first portion. But overall, the film seems to be saying (over and over) that the sexual revolution equals a political revolution, which apparently upset Reich's admirers enough to have them denounce the film. Still - interesting viewing if not exactly the revolutionary critique I had hoped, with the recurring thread of the revolutionary rhetoric interspersed with real and simulated sex, Stalin, the pseudo-documentary and other stuff to make sure it's not too linear, too programmatic. The overall effect is exhilarating, but still I found myself looking for a little more cohesion.

Rio Grande (dir. John Ford, 1950)

Ford's final Calvary trilogy film might actually run the deepest, even if I prefer Fort Apache. I love the sharply drawn family relationships here and action is kept pretty minimal in favor of the personal stuff - which I'm also usually in favor of. Ensemble is great yet again, and if more time is spent on manly camaraderie than on heavy plotting, I'm down with it - the film gives a great sense of what it at least could have been like in the situation given. Only a conflict between the son and the father who hadn't seen him in 15 years feels like it's missing from the film to me.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it...

So, Mr. A-train assigned me a choice of three films - Thriller! A Cruel Picture, Series 7: The Contenders and Ang Lee's Hulk. I mention Ang Lee and not the other directors for a reason, but I'll get to that. I decided to watch all three and decide which one I wanted to review and decided the best thing is to do them all together in ascending order of interest (and quality).


Let's start with Thriller! A Cruel Picture. This film is cheap and exploitative but it's just not as good or enjoyable as I want from my cheap exploitation. I saw the "rated" cut without the notorious penetrative sex scenes but I don't think they would've added anything to the film but some titillation. It's a fairly standard issue revenge picture, with the trauma our heroine endures quite extreme - rape at a young age rendering her mute, then she's kidnapped, forcibly addicted to drugs, forced into prostitution, and ties with her family are severed without her knowledge. And if any cinematic heft were given to the proceedings I might have thought more of the film, might have cared one way or the other about whether she killed off her tormentors. But over and over the implausibility of the film, the concern for making sure you get to see gunfire, cars racing, and Scandinavian kung fu action without bothering with things like character development all get in the way of simply letting the plot progress. And sordid penetration scenes would only have hindered the telling, if you ask me. Anyway, it never builds a head of steam. "One Eye"'s muteness - not just her inability to speak, but her downright refusal to communicate in any form whatsoever with either characters or audience - puts a barrier between the viewer and the character in a way that the similarly brutal and nasty I Spit On your Grave, for example, does not. A shame, because as exploitative fare, this has all the earmarks of a winner.

Next up is Series 7: The Contenders, a film that let me down in a similar way. It's smarter filmmaking by far than Thriller! but no more successful at putting across something more than just what you see on screen. The film opens by giving us a recap of a program we're about to watch in which six contestants have to kill each other on the show. Last one alive wins. No prize is mentioned, except the occasional reference to "The prize? Your life!"; no rationale is mentioned as to why anyone except the suicidal central male character would want to participate. Are the contestants forced to play as punishment? Do they win anything except a return to the show? Some explanation is necessary, but none is forthcoming from the actual text of the film - you're left to make up your own mind about the reasons and the consequences of things. The predominant idea in readings of the film seems to be that this is a critique of society's love affair with reality TV. But there's not any contextualization of the show that might lend itself to that. There's no narration explaining how the show came about, who might be on it, anything like that that might give a clue as to why we're watching it - even commercial breaks would've given a welcome context (think Robocop here and how those commercials helped set the tone of the world they existed in). Instead we just watch the show, without even the benefit of having seen previous series to let us root for Dawn. Director Minahan has the look and feel down, but not the point. If he's really trying to offer a critique, an ironic look at these shows, he'd do better to understand what some people get out of them or why people choose to appear on them. Any season of Survivor offers more intereting human interactions than this film. It's a shame, because he does give the viewer enough to suggest that he could've gone into interesting areas: about mass media, about the right-to-die, about homophobia, even about abortion, all of which are brought up (or at least insinuated) within the film and then dropped cold. This film let me down in a way that Thriller! didn't because I expected nothing of the sort from that film. This one hints that it might be saying something but doesn't take it to a point where you actually get to see what it might be saying. Instead you're left watching a reality show, and not a terribly interesting one at that.

Which brings us to Ang Lee's Hulk, by far the best of the films A-Train asked me to peruse. Is it Lee's finest film? No, not by a long shot, but it's still another exploration of some of the themes that interest him. He's drawn over and over to the tragic love story and this one's no exception. Think of how often he sets up a relationship based on unrequited passion that can never be fully embraced: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, Lust, Caution - it's even a sideline in The Ice Storm with the swinging couples that aren't happy in their own marriages but won't leave them for the other partners they're interested in. Here Eric Bana's Bruce Banner buries his passions deep for fear that they might turn him into the Hulk. Even before he's actually become the Hulk the fear is there preventing him from any passionate display, and this is the fact that Ang Lee keys in on and explores throughout the film. It's almost like he's showing the flipside of what the surrealists called l'amour fou - where they wanted to explore their unbound desires and passions through their art, Lee has made a career of exploring what happens (always tragic) when you refuse to let that passion out. Coupled with this is the generational conflict (or rather, generational disconnect) that's also common to his films. Father and son clash here (quite literally at the end), with Nick Nolte's nice turn as the father claiming to do what he feels is best for his child at the expense of the child's own thoughts, feelings, and development, a claim shown up as purely selfish from early on in the film. Meanwhile there's the parallel story with Jennifer Connelly and Sam Elliott drawing out a similar parent-child relationship fraught with mistrust and anger rooted in the past, though it's given a possibly heathly outcome. Lee has explored these idea more fruitfully in other films, but I still enjoy Hulk quite a bit. He uses comic book styled transitions masterfully, he's worked from a palette of appropriately comic-booky colors and design (mise-en-scene if you prefer), taken characters with recognizable issues and conflicts and put them into the larger-than life world of the comic book, the same way he planted similarly believable characters into the fantastic world of flying kung-fu or the romantic melodrama of a pair of cowboys. The only real problem with Hulk, I think, is that where Lee can be sublime, this one's louder, brigher, more in-your-face (though hardly as bombastic as it easily could've been, or as some fans might have wanted it to be). The effect might be off-putting to some, but to me it's just another facet of the continuing saga of Lee's tragic romances.

my blueberry blogging

Rachel Weisz waits breathlessly for Dex's latest reviews.

My Blueberry Nights (2007) - I hear two questions frontloaded onto any discussion of Wong Kar-Wai's American debut: one typically goes, "Is Norah Jones as bad as I've heard?" and the other is, "How does it look?" referring to Kar-Wai's divorce from longtime cinematographer, Christopher Doyle; answering these questions, and these two questions only, ostensibly lead the questioner to some kind of final judgment on the long-awaited film. Misplaced, and not so fair, but understandable nonetheless: Wong Kar-Wai - the beatnik auteur who directed the Hong Kong New Wave cult faves Chungking Express (1994), In the Mood For Love (2000), and 2046 (2004) - is held in pretty high regard by movie buffs. But Jones - whose character for all intents and purposes could just be called "The Ingenue" - does just fine, and cinematographer Darius Khondji's (Delicatessen (1991), The Beach (2001), The Ninth Gate (1999), Panic Room (2002) camera nuzzles up to the cast just like the lens should in a Wong Kar-Wai movie.

Instead, the flaws come by way of the script. Not the story - much like Jack Kerouac did, lovingly writing and rewriting the same book-length story a number of times, Wong Kar-Wai has carefully directed the same movie two, even three times (indeed, there's a lot here that one can see was lifted right out of Chungking Express), and the same lonely, longing archetypes pop up again and again in nearly all of his pics, even the martial arts one - but the script. The little moments and spaces of humanity and gentle revelation that adorn Wong Kar-Wai's HK films and make them such unique viewing experiences are hardly found at all in My Blueberry Nights. Kar-Wai's America seems fabricated, a little artificial, and with the exception of Jude Law's scenes, we get Method 101.

This is not to say My Blueberry Nights is a bad film - indeed, it was exactly what I needed when I saw it. But it's average, at best, and with this kind of cast and coming from this director, it's a disappointment.

Youth Without Youth (2007) - Francis Ford Coppola is not a director anymore, but the guy who directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. He's also a guy who takes interesting ideas and fucks them up - Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and now Youth Without Youth: a scintillating movie to look at that is about absolutely nothing and somehow feels like it was made 75 years ago. It made me sort of sad, frankly. Coppola was probably the first director I fell in love with, but it looks as though movies have passed him by. The only thing I got out of this was wondering what someone like Takashi Miike or Danny Boyle would have done with the material.

Lust, Caution (Se, jie) (2007) - Ang Lee's latest film is the often-brilliant story of a student and budding actress (Wei Tang) who, in a fit of patriotic fervor and blind, youthful exuberance, joins a start-up cell of resisters to the Japanese occupation of China during World War II. Tang's group plans to start small and prove their worth to the larger resistance movement, so they go about befriending the shallow, sad wife (Joan Chen) of a local collaborator (the always-marvelous Tony Leung), whom they hope to trap and assassinate; plans change, though, when the tightly-wound Leung begins to plot an affair with Tang.

Wei Tang and Tony Leung are absolutely fantastic, and the love scenes between the two leads have a delirious, uncomfortable intimacy - indeed, the story is a reflection on the roles people gladly throw themselves into, even in the midst of wartime, as well as the complexity hiding beneath those outward performances. Lee shows again that in many ways, he's become the kind of director the aforementioned Francis Ford Coppola was always supposed to be: a master storyteller who can move skillfully from genre to genre.

Joaquin's 10 Greatest Narrative Films of the 21st Century (so far, of course)

1. Talk to Her (2002) - I can never decide if All About My Mother or this film is my favorite Almodóvar. One thing is certain by a small margin: Talk to Her is his masterpiece, Spain’s enfant terrible at his most subtle, graceful and mysterious. He can take a rape, make its intentions come from love and deliver it to an audience so earnestly that we never question whether or not the criminal is a good person. We are convinced he is nothing short of an angel. That’s bold. That’s dangerous. That’s masterful storytelling. Almodóvar has an effortless control over this film that remains unmatched in his work, an auteur who listens to the organic heart of a story and then follows with his direction. His confidence and consistency make him the greatest European filmmaker of today.

2. Punch-Drunk Love (2002) - Paul Thomas Anderson exalted Philip Baker Hall in Hard Eight, made us pay attention to Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights and in Magnolia gave Tom Cruise the rare chance to personify the misogyny his franchise perpetuates. Now the comedic mogul Adam Sandler plays the loner, misfit angry man he always has, yet this time it’s heartbreaking. The harmonic forces of a blonde woman persistent to get a date, a peculiar small piano, a trail of pudding leading to Hawaii and brilliantly functional cinematography collide to save Barry Egan from himself. Equal parts Adam Sandler romantic comedy, New Wave and Warner Bros cartoon, Punch-Drunk Love is a breath of fresh air in our cynic-ruled climate. Simply put, it makes me believe in true love again.

3. In the Mood for Love (2000) - The language of this film defies time. I’m convinced if one were to watch every shot in reverse order (or any, for that matter), it would remain the same film and may perhaps even improve. It’s all about its tenor, that aching, bittersweet yearning for someone you have enough love and respect for to leave alone... or perhaps not. Do Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan consummate their affair? Wong Kar-Wai keeps this mystery preserved, creating an ageless, amorous, microcosmic enigma that easily earns its place among the greatest love stories ever told. So far and for good reason, In the Mood for Love is the only 21st century film to make the coveted “gold list” in Paul Schrader’s monumental effort to establish a true film canon.

4. Brokeback Mountain (2005) - Finally, the gays have their Gone With the Wind, their Titanic, and their place in the Hollywood conscience. Ang Lee’s approach to a closeted gay cowboy love story is stubbornly classical and abides by all the rules. This is precisely what makes Brokeback Mountain unique. For better or for worse, all the conventions and platitudes of heterosexual romance movies can now belong to Queer Cinema. This is exactly what we needed: an established, popular director to make a movie that grabs the attention of the masses and proves to them any form of love is valid and more in common with their own than they are lead to believe. It’s a miracle how good this film really is and how well it was received.

5. Dogville (2003) – Lars von Trier takes down the U.S. in a single blow with the first installment of his America trilogy. Dogville is long overdue karma, a scathing indictment of our small town mentality and exploitative disregard for the immigrant. Stripping away all the aesthetic fluff of narrative film shows what really matters is performance, which become all the more revelatory in their isolation from one another. This film is a sickening and engrossing Brechtian science experiment, similar to observing scared lab rats negotiate their way through a maze. Von Trier solely and justifiably bases this nightmarish vision on the imperialist media we are so hell bent on spreading worldwide. A foreign POV on the hypocritical myths we champion proves both refreshing and humiliating.

6. Children of Men (2006) – Kubrick’s 2001 and this film are the only science fiction movies that truly terrify me. Alfonso Cuarón gets the future right in Children of Men better than most filmmakers. Devoid of the genre clichés of flying cars, elaborate cityscapes and electronic gadgets galore, the future is accurately portrayed as our crumbling present day world suffocated by LCD and plasma screens advertising a government endorsed suicide. The ceasing of human reproduction often feels like the only fictional element of the film. All the violence, panic and desperation running rampant throughout possess a Direct Cinema quality most documentary filmmakers can only dream of. Cuarón’s vision of a rapidly disintegrating world in chaos is a plausible prophecy I can buy.

7. Far From Heaven (2002) - Todd Haynes’s tribute to Douglas Sirk is so faithful it hurts. Every detail is just right, from the blood-orange, Connecticut autumn leaves down to the aqua trim tablecloths. Watching Far From Heaven is a visual feast, a lesson in how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. And in true Hollywood melodrama fashion, the film is borderline psychotic. I’m madly in love with the Sirk aesthetic for all its garishly masked melancholy, its emotional alliance with Earth’s seasons and its heroines caught between a rock and a hard place. Melodrama is a tricky business, understandably shunned as misleading and banal. But when done right as in this film, I can only afterwards sigh and wonder when and where my Rock Hudson or Dennis Haysbert will find me.

8. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) – A stickler for details, Anderson is something of a nerdy alchemist obsessed with concocting the perfect grandiose vision only equal to the sum of its boundlessly diverse parts. The Royal Tenenbaums is a children’s storybook come to life, full of pretentious and wondrous archetypes who persist in staying locked in their failed dreams, crippled by their own shortcomings. At the end of the opening prologue, a young Richie Tenenbaum sets his hawk Mordecai free to the crescendo of “Hey Jude,” sending out an SOS for help from his family’s sinking battleship of squandered potential. How curious, classic and medieval a bird in flight over a New York skyline can become. For me, this is the most touching moment in Wes Anderson’s oeuvre.

9. The Incredibles (2004) - When Brad Bird and Pixar get together, I surrender to the so-called CGI revolution. I care about the Parr family. I understand their battle for and against familial conformity. I too want to be the greatest superhero dad in the world. All this from synthetic layers of shading, morphing and rendering? You bet. Most CGI cartoons stay afloat with gag after gag of endless pop-cultural references while Brad Bird’s visions strive for a real connection with our humanity. The likes of Shrek and Beowulf miss the mark entirely. The Incredibles is a prime example of how the instrument can only serve the artist, in this case the sharpest animation studio reaching its full potential in the hands of a master cartoon storyteller. CGI never felt so good.

10. Half Nelson (2006) – The setup is pure Disney: white, middle class basketball coach serves as guiding light to inner-city junior high students. The end result, however, is anything but. More naturally than most films, Half Nelson captures what it means to be stuck. All characters are imbued with an equivalent sense of anguish, the role of guru in constant flux between a coach with a drug habit, the drug dealer who indirectly feeds his problem and the at-risk adolescent girl they both want to save. This film balances the playing field within narrative territory typically forged for easy didacticism, forcing us to empathize with equally beaten citizens. Pious authority has no place here, only an unpretentious, surprising look at people reckoning how to break the hold their circumstances have them in.