Tuesday, November 25, 2008

JEFF GOLDBLUM HAS TAUGHT THEM NOTHING


Brave new world, people! According to an article in today's Slate, there are scientists working on mapping the genome of the woolly mammoth in the hopes of someday resurrecting the pre-historic animal using elephant DNA.

My God, have none of these people seen "Jurassic Park"? It's nothing if not a cautionary tale about what happens when scientific hubris is matched against the chaotic forces of evolution (Hint: when Samuel L. Jackson is devoured, it means hubris is losing.) As the great Dr. Ian Malcolm, as played with schlimiel bravado by Jeff Goldblum, says, "The lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here, uh... staggers me." Turn back, fair scientists, before your children are forced to flee vicious velociraptors, with nothing but Sam Neill to protect them!

The story goes on to say that the next logical step would be to resurrect the neanderthals, to, um, learn about them. (?) Of, course this is met with trepidation from both the religious community, and the more squeamish members of the science community. Where will it end? Will we test on neanderthals and use them in experiments? Do we consider them humans? These are all important ethical and philosophical questions. But my fears about this great leap into unknown territories of generative science have less to do with moral quandaries and more to do with my worry that these guys all just got stoned and watched "Encino Man" too many times.

No one, no matter how well-intentioned, should ever take cues from Pauly Shore. It is tempting the fates, my friends.

Monday, November 24, 2008

I'm all man (or at least 70 percent)


The Gender Analyzer is 70% sure that I am a man.

Quoteth the A.I. program (that I like to think looks like Haley Joel Osment):

We think http://www.emoviemaven.blogspot.com is written by a man (70%).

In the words of Joe Biden, let me say that again:

I, your Movie Maven, with the blog outlined in pink, who has a photo of Jean Seberg as her handle, who's name is Movie Maven, is apparently a man.

What. The. Fuck.

Perhaps this gross miscalculation in the program's brain just means that the tone of my writing is strong and self-assured. Bad-ass. Perhaps it thinks I'm a man because of my penchant for filthy language, love of Quentin Tarantino movies and discussions of the best films that have shit blowing up for no reason.

Obviously, the A.I. is a filthy sexist.

I demand attention be paid to this grossly discriminatory internet meme! I call for the banning of all interweb robots that think I'm a dude just because I don't like Julia Roberts!

For shame, obviously flawed text classifier- for shame!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

HISTORY! VICTORY! RACIAL TRANSCENDENCE! THIS CLUSTERFUCK IS OVER!!!

I do not like to sully the sanctity of this blog with political discourse. For one thing, it's not the specialty I've assigned it; for another, I didn't want a bunch of crazies posting misspelled caps-lock eloquence about that 'BAMA HAlF BREED MUSLIN!!!1!!

But in celebration, I will bend this rule today only to say this. When my grandchildren ask me about the night a black man first became president, I will have this touching story to tell them:

"Well, kids, grandma was getting snackered on Magner's and vodka tonics, while screaming at Keith Olbermann and refreshing fivethirtyeight.com every ten seconds. Then, after they announced that he won, I joined my friends outside to stumble down Huntington Ave., high-fiving strangers in cars and shouting 'WOOOO!!' every time it got too quiet."

Yes, indeed, it was a dignified moment in America.

Nothing can sour my mood today, not even the sobering news that gay marriage was banned in California. Today is a day for America. Obama is not the messiah, but he is a grand message to the world:

We are not as hideously stupid as you think.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Bad-ass Soundtrack of the Week

I've reached the point of exhaustion, peaches. On average, there are seven film openings per week this fall, and, frankly, only about 1/4 of those are actually watchable. When I saw a preview of Saw V directly after watching Made of Honor on HBO, where it will play continuously for the next six months, I just about gave up on life altogether. I'm going to see Rachel Getting Married this weekend, and hopefully Jonathan Demme's supposed return to form will help me out of my cinematic slump.

But, for today, I'm not going to talk about movies. I'm going to talk about music in movies. (Yes, I know, I'm a renaissance woman.) Some of my favorite albums are actually soundtracks, cohesive artistic endeavors in their own right. I've decided that to open up my world beyond the classic film review (and in a desperate attempt to blog regularly) I am instituting a weekly column about notable soundtracks, and why you should listen to them.

Here are the rules I shall obey by: No musicals. No biopics about musicians. No concert films. Yes, this means I will be skipping some terrific music. But the point is that I will be highlighting soundtracks that are not the main focus of their respective film, yet become inextricably linked with them all the same. Also, I'll try not to highlight soundtracks that everyone and their mother already knows. This means no long speeches over the brilliance of John Williams' Jaws theme. It is brilliant, but you've heard it before.

I'm going to begin this week with Quentin Tarantino, perhaps the Zen master of the compiled soundtrack. Can any film buff listen to Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" and not think of the twist contest scene from Pulp Fiction? Or hear Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle" without remembering Michael Madsen cutting off a cop's ear in Reservoir Dogs? Tarantino's soundtracks are key ingredients in his film making, and an ideal method of conveying the retro-hip pastiche he does so well.

Perhaps Tarantino's most unsung project is Death Proof, his stunning homage to the fast-car exploitation films of the 1970s, and one-half of the highly underrated Grindhouse program.The film is nothing less than the heterosexual male id in cinematic form: a purposefully grainy montage of squealing wheels, flaming rubber, blood, sex, and plenty of T&A. Yet Death Proof is most charming for the way it seems to gain retribution the (hundreds?) of actresses during the 70s who reached their untimely cinematic end lying in a bloody pool along Highway 1. I'm not giving anything away when I say that you haven't really lived until you've seen Kurt Russell roundhouse kicked in the face by a girl.

Like the film, the Death Proof soundtrack is a compilation of possibly the best road music in the world. Rhythmic guitar and horns pump through all the tracks, starting with Jack Nitzsche's title score "The Last Race". "Race" pulsates ever so slightly, the beat matching the fetching twitch of DJ Jungle Julia's ass (seen in close-up in the first scene, of course). Smith's "Baby, It's You" and T. Rex's hilarious and bewildering "Jeepster" exemplify the rhythm and blues tones of the soundtracks first half, before delving into the more rock-oriented second half, with Willy Deville's "It's So Easy," and "Hold Tight," by the fascinating Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mich and Tich. The feisty final track "Chick Habit" rounds out the line-up.

But perhaps my very favorite track is the Coasters' "Down in Mexico," played during the too-sexy-for-theaters lap dance scene. "Down in Mexico" is an ode to slumming, in which lead vocalist Carl Gardner's silken voice wraps around your hips and refuses to let go. True to the R&B stylings of the 1950s, the song is pure as the driven snow- except, it isn't. The sex is all between the lines- there's something about the lyrics describing a Mexican chick dancing with three fishnets tied around her waist that makes you feel vaguely dirty. Even if your not watching Vanessa Ferlito grind into Russell while you're listening to it.

So now it's your turn chickens- let me know what soundtracks I should feature here and why.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Hot Blogger Alert

Hello, all, miss me? My life is consumed with the profession that actually pays me for a living so I haven't been able to post. No excuse, I know, but it's hard work keeping myself in the lifestyle to which I'm accustomed.

Anywho, I'm just checking in to alert you to an excellent blog, written by a good friend of mine and contemporary in the art of entertainment reporting. The title, Entertainment Writers are Journalists Too is a rallying cry for all the cultured intellectuals, who, yes, like to talk about Miley Cyrus.

Friday, August 08, 2008

Smiley Face

Directed by: Gregg Araki
Written by: Dylan Haggerty
Starring: Anna Faris, Danny Masterson, Adam Brody, Roscoe Lee Browne

I'll be seeing "Pineapple Express" this weekend, though mixed reviews fill me with trepidation about relinquishing my precious $10. But I'm too intrigued to see a stoner/action flick to not take the risk.

I am a connoisseur of the stoner flick, ever since I was a freshman in college, spending evenings in my buddy's apartment "chillaxing" in her inflatable chair and watching "Half Baked." After deciding to see "Express" this weekend, I was inspired to watch "Smiley Face," a movie that was completely ignored when it came out, but which I had heard about from several people as the best stoner movie action around.

A homage of true pot cinema, it is the story of Jane F., who gets really baked off of her roommates cupcakes, and then must travel to a hemp festival to convince her dealer not to take her furniture cause she hasn't paid for her drugs, because she spent all her money on this really awesome sleep number bed, which is the one thing she really doesn't want her dealer to take, and she also has to pay the power bill, and buy enough pot to remake the pot cupcakes that her roommate made so he doesn't know she ate them.

So, basically, the story is a story your buddy would tell you if she was high and you were chillaxing on her inflatable chair, Supertramp playing gently in the background.

The film is a glorious meandering through Los Angeles, a place that in itself looks like a bad trip. Faris is wonderful precisely because she doesn't at all seem concerned with seeming either pretty or likeable. Her hair looks like it hasn't been washed in a few days; her eyes are perpetually bloodshot and her movements are slow and deliberate without ever seeming graceful. Her inner monologue is a masterpiece of stoner logic; in one delightful scene she decides that owning a picture of President Garfield to display her love of lasagna would be "totally meta."

When you actually think through what happens in "Smiley Face" you don't come up with much. But that's actually a good thing. Weed is special in that it makes every movement of your body seem like a momentous, arduous task, so it makes sense that taking a bus across town to Venice Beach could be construed as an epic rivaling "The Odyssey."

Faris leads, or rather is followed by, a sparkling supporting cast, including ur-straight man John Krasinski, post-"OC" Adam Brody as a pot dealer with hilarious rasta dreds, and Roscoe Lee Brown as both the narrator and existential muser within Jane's toked-out soul.

The most fascinating part of "Smiley Face" is really the paradox of portraying marijuana in film. It's hardly a social commentary on drug use: pot is demonstrated as a funny, and primarily harmless drug that just makes people stupid for a little while. When Jane asks if not paying back her dealer Steve will get her killed, Steve scoffs. "Oh, come on Jane, I deal weed. I'm not gonna break your kneecaps. At the most I'll, I dunno, take your furniture or something."

But there is something to be said for how pot also can make you extremely unlikeable once you've had too much. No one likes the lazy, self-involved idiot who borrows your money and doesn't pay the power bill cause she spent it all on weed. So we don't mind when Jane gets her comeuppance for her escapades at the end of that sun-drenched day in Los Angeles. Though we do hope that maybe she'll replace her furniture with inflatable chairs.

Black Snake Moan


Written and Directed by: Craig Brewer
Starring: Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson, Justin Timberlake

If I had to describe "Black Snake Moan" in one word, the only one that seems remotely fitting is "writhing." The Southern Gothic fable about a wild girl and the God-fearing bluesman who tries to cure her of her wicked ways is a tale that, for the first half at least, moves forward like the titular snake, slithering and undulating in ways you didn't know could appear in nature.

When we first see Rae (Ricci), she's making love to her boyfriend (Timberlake) for the last time before he joins the army. It's a lovely intimate moment, but the second he drives away, she falls to the ground, clawing and moaning like an alley cat in heat. The cicadas in the background swell in time with her wailing, and oh, she just can't help herself, she needs it, she's gotta have it now. She goes on to a party where she takes all manner of hillbilly meds, fucks a guy on a football field and ends up beaten on the side of the road in just her confederate t-shirt and dirty white panties within the first 20 minutes of the film.

Watching Rae self-destruct is both terrifying and fabulously fun to watch. Ricci and Craig Brewer, who wrote and directed the film, understand the special paradox of melodrama: it's so serious it becomes absurd, and its absurdity becomes an somewhat accurate portrayal of truth. Rae embodies sin and inequity, but in actuality she's a victim, and the message is beautifully buried underneath all the dirt and sweat. What follows is a deliciously surreal turn when Jackson's Lazarus finds Rae, takes her home and chains her to a radiator in order to "heal" her. The most remarkable thing about this turn of events is that Brewer miraculously manages to avoid the obvious icky racial issues surrounding the image of a large black man keeping a white girl chained up in his house. The only shame is that about halfway through the film, the reason for Rae's affliction is neatly "explained." After this, the film begins to take itself too seriously, which is a little disappointing.

But, oh, this cast. Samuel L. Jackson is fabulous as Lazarus. Jackson does his own singing and guitar-picking, and his voice is a striking mix of longing, hate and sheer sexual virility. I have a theory that if you simply put Samuel L. Jackson into the frame, the mise en scene immediately becomes 45 percent more bad-ass, and this film goes a long way to prove it.

I think Justin Timberlake is a little overrated as an actor (people seem to fall over themselves when they realize he can actually deliver a line) but there is a delicacy to his performance here as Rae's cuckolded boyfriend Ronnie which I wasn't expecting. He surrounds his character with the thinnest veneer of machismo, which, when stripped away, reveals a hot ball of pain and insecurity. It could have been a throwaway character, but Timberlake manages to hold his own nicely with Ricci and Jackson.

The last good part of "Black Snake Moan," is set in a honky-tonk, with Jackson singing a raging version of Stack-o-Lee and Ricci whirling in a trance-like (and entirely sober) state. Yes, Jackson's singing her pain, he's singing the wickedness out of her, and in that moment you can practically wipe the Louisiana humidity off your foreheads and smell the warm spilled beer cooking on the bar. Jackson's role may be to lead Rae back to God, but Brewer never lets us forget that this is a movie about humanity.

Photo courtesy of Collider.

Monday, August 04, 2008

The Dark Knight

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal

My God, it's such a mess. The plot is packed to the gills. There are nameless characters that flow in and out, spouting pertinent dialogue, and then dissolving away with no explanation. It has the look of a film that was obviously carved up from a much longer movie like a Thanksgiving turkey. It jerks in fits and starts, allows the audience no way to stop and catch their breath. There are plot and continuity holes that you could drive a truck through. And the themes (Duality! Moral ambiguity! Patriot Act! Patriot Act!) are dropped sometimes with an audible thud.

Here's what I think happened. Nolan had the same problem Peter Jackson did with "King Kong." He was given all the money, all the people, and all the time in the universe to work with. The world was his oyster. He could do no wrong. He was denied nothing. Everything was brilliant, was stunning, was perfect.

And it went to his head. He lost control, created a monster. He became drunk with power, and every little idea that popped into his head was given to him (i.e.: 'Hey, I know! Let's do illegal wiretapping! With sonar!'). He was a mad scientist, not remembering from his "Memento" days that sparing is usually better, that if you want a film to brood on the moral ambivalence of human kind, it needs to whisper sometimes, not bellow.

Oh but ladies and gentlemen, what could I do? I loved it. I kept thinking about it on the way home, the next day when I was swimming in Walden Pond, and the day after that, as I was doing my laundry. I don't know why it kept coming back to me, with its weak dialogue and bizarre plot twists. It is a beautiful film, with it's gorgeous sweeping camera strokes and real stunts (Nolan hates working with CGI). The moment when an 18-wheeler is flipped end over end is executed both gracefully and casually, like a whale jumping out of the water. And even though the shot of Christian Bale as Batman standing atop a tower in the dead of night is expected and obligatory, it is still arresting.

Primarily though, the film is salvaged, and even wrestled into something vaguely coherent, by its spectacular cast. Christian Bale is an even better Batman than his last go-round, and a thousand times better as Bruce Wayne. In the first film he had a tendency to stiffen his dialogue, thinking that a haunted nature could be expressed by simply excising one's personality. He learned his lesson, and in "Knight" Bale says forty different things simply with a turn of his head, or the merest clench of his (admittedly yummy) jaw. Katie Holmes has been forbidden from spreading her crazy within 500 yards of a Batman set, and as such has been replaced by the luminous Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes. Gyllenhaal manages to imbue her damsel in distress a brain and a soul. Nolan never quite gives her her due in this blue-toned boys club, but at least she manages to hold her own.

But why do I prattle on about Bale and Gyllenhaal. We know who you really want to talk about.

It would have given me that surge of malicious glee only critics can feel to say that Heath Ledger's performance was over-hyped. There's something about the populist love of a person that makes the elitist in me want to run over that love like road kill. And it's impossible to ignore the fact that perhaps his performance would not be considered as Oscar-worthy had he not died an awful, pointless death.

But the stunning, improbable truth is that I didn't remember Ledger the man at all as I was watching him on screen. Such was the power, the absolute engrossment of his performance. His Joker is like something out of a Coen brothers film: there's a move involving a pencil that is both horrifying and outrageously funny in much the same way as Steve Buscemi's wood chipper scene in "Fargo." His movements are lurching and twitchy; he hunches his shoulders and leans slightly to one side, his tongue slithers out of his head, and yet it never feels overdone. His characterization is so wonderful you want him on the screen every moment; when he leaves you can't wait for him to appear again. And though the plot might be convoluted and even absurd, you couldn't care less as long as he's there in his frosting makeup and carved grin. You don't even remember it's Ledger until the movie's over, and you realize that this particular Joker is no more. There will be no sequels for Heath Ledger's Joker. And I don't envy the man who might replace him.

There is lots of tongue-wagging about "The Dark Knight," and the records it will break, the cinematic value it will have in the future, the filmic culture it will inspire. I'm not sure it'll ever beat "Gone with the Wind" or "Titanic" either in terms of box office numbers or place within the film canon. But, flawed as it is, it has filled me with hope. The mainstream film industry has been lagging, putting out an absurd amount of schlocky films every week and filtering them in and out of theaters like water. Cheap Wal-Mart pieces that you forget about five minutes after seeing it. The idea of movie-going as a true communal experience, something that you share again and again has really been lost within the last few years. Perhaps "Dark Knight" won't make as much money as "Titanic." But if it's allowed people to regain just a little bit of the wonder we used to feel going to the movies, then it has truly accomplished something great.

Photo found on Lee Side Story

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A Brief Interlude

An excellent quote from intrepid reporter Sara K. Smith of Wonkette fame:
Reporters are a lot like common housecats: they laze around until they see some shiny thing, which they toy with for two minutes before going back to vomiting and sleeping on your clean laundry. (Bloggers are a lot like common bums, who cut straight to the vomiting and laundry-soiling.)

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

All the World's a Stage, and Men and Women, Merely Character Actors

Just saw a delightful version of "As You Like It" last weekend. It was the play chosen this summer for free Shakespeare on the Common, which was recently saved from certain doom by popular demand, after sponsor Citibank had considered making drastic cuts to the play's run. A tragic move it would have been on their part, as this was some of the best Shakespeare I've ever seen, free or otherwise, and a true jewel of the Boston arts and culture scene.

The Boston Globe review of "As You Like It" is here, and for the most part I concur with all statements therein. It was a sprightly show, with a balletic Larry Coen as Touchstone the clown, an excellent recitation of the "All the world's a stage" speech by Fred Sullivan, Jr. as Jacques, and Marin Ireland as Rosalind, who managed to be adorable without making me want to hurl into my pic-a-nic basket.

But the true delightful surprise was in the young Buck who played Orlando, a gentleman named Frederick Weller. I kept thinking as I watched him that he looked terribly familiar. Then I realized he reminded me of Mary McCormack's partner Marshall in the new USA show "In Plain Sight." The same gangly, yet muscular features, the same languid voice. It was uncanny.

Well, actually, it wasn't uncanny. It was the same guy.

If you haven't seen "In Plain Sight" you should give it a shot. The dialogue's not terrific, but both McCormack and Weller more than make up for it with tight, intelligent performances (they ain't so bad to look at either). It's also nice to see a show where the female protagonist isn't constantly talking about shoes.

And, if you're in the Boston area this weekend, definitely make a trip to Boston Common to see Weller, et. al. cavort in one of the Bard's most playful plays.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Perhaps it was my glorious missive on German expressionism way back when...

I finally stopped being a dumb-ass and put a site-meter on the blog.

It is my new obsession.

Turns out there are a few people I don't know who actually look at the thing. Not many, but, you know, it's still better than my previous assumption that the only people who read my blog were my parents. I've only been doing a count since establishing the site meter (two years of page views lost, oh, the horror!) but there are more people finding me than I had thought.

Makes a girl feel good, is all I'm sayin'.

Also, apparently 2.5 percent of my readers speak German. Which is probably one dude in Berlin who googled "Philip Seymour Hoffman" and clicked on me accidentally. But just in case:

Tagfreund! Wilkommen zum Film-kenner!

Monday, June 09, 2008

Oh, Brave New World!

This post was supposed to be about my experience watching Tarsem's (of "The Cell") new film "The Fall," which is supposed to be a flawed, if visually stunning feature. But I became grievously ill last Saturday and, alas, was unable to go. Hopefully I can see it this week before it leaves theaters, and will be able to comment this weekend.

So, instead, for those of you who may be in the New York City area, there's a documentary about camp visionary Derek Jarman playing, starting today at the Museum of Modern Art (you may know Jarman from the quote under the title of this blog.) "Derek" features highlights of Jarman's work mingled with reflections by one of his former actresses, the luminous Tilda Swinton. Jarman was an indie film revolutionary until his death from AIDS in 1994. I grew to know and love him after watching his gay camp version of "The Tempest," which features dancing sailors and Elisabeth Welch singing "Stormy Weather" at Miranda's wedding. It is spectacular, to say the least, and a beautiful reverie on the discovery of new worlds. Stephen Holden most astutely described the experience of watching a Jarman film in his review in the New York Times.
As excerpts from Mr. Jarman’s films whiz by, a common element is a sense of the actors playing games of dress-up after rummaging through a trunk in the attic.
Also of note: as soon as the blasted Netflix has deemed it appropriate to send me my effing DVD, I will be commenting on Season One of "The X-Files" in preparation for the film coming out next month. Hurrah for post-Cold War paranoia! Hurrah for young adorable David Duchovny!

Iron Man

Directed by: Jon Favreau

Written by: Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges

Whilst I was away at the OH Bureau I did manage to get my monthly prescription of Bad-ass from "Iron Man," not once, but twice within about two weeks. The film about Marvel Comics' weapons monger-turned-superhero is hardly perfect, but it's got panache and a devoted sense of death-metal infused spectacle that feels less like a movie and more like you've just sped down Highway 1 in a muscle car. In other words, it's an awesome dude movie.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a heartless businessman who surrounds himself with babes, toys and everything else that an endless amount of money can buy. But then he gets captured by a vague Arab-based terrorist organization, meets a nice doctor who teaches him what's really important in life, and escapes by building the first Iron Man suit out of metal scraps that he finds in a cave. He then becomes a crusader, destroying the weapons he made that have fallen into the wrong hands. He's flanked by his dedicated assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and military man Lt. Rhodes (Terrence Howard), and must grapple with his former partner with the kick-ass villain name of Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges).

This is a film that doesn't really hold up to repeat viewings. The first time I saw it, I was blown away by the spectacular action sequences, the excellent soundtrack, and Downey's intense, frenetic performance. It's the giddy sense of being blown down that highway with an engine humming under your body. But with a second viewing the seams start to show. I was continually irked by the film's vaguely sexist tone (at one point, Stark's being asked important questions by a Vanity Fair reporter; the next scene is of her fucking him) and it's weird romantic affection for capitalist excess. The plot began to feel lurching and cumbersome after a while; I found myself checking my watch. And there was the overwhelming sense that despite the vague themes of wealth and power and a man's place in the world, the film ultimately rings hollow. There's not much in "Iron Man" beneath the slick veneer of cool gadgetry and awesome stunts.

To it's credit, though, the movie did manage to capture something about America's ambiguous role as crusader for justice. At one point, Stark's suit is able to pick out civilians from terrorists in a besieged village. His guns shoot all the terrorists, leaving the civilians standing looking stunned in the carnage. Both times I saw this, a smattering of applause broke out in the theater. It was the one moment where something like a soul emerged from the movie. It was a recognition that our deepest wish as a nation is that we could have the ability to pick out friend from foe.

There is also some sharp writing in the script, made all the more vibrant and witty with Downey at the helm. Downey's madcap, interrupting delivery is perfect for the role. His Tony Stark is not a brooding, melancholy soul a la "Batman"; he's in many ways a riotous teenager, with more money than sense and a subconscious that's all id. One of my favorite extraneous moments is when he consults with Pepper on whether to buy a Jackson Pollock.

Tony: Is it a good example of his Spring collection?

Pepper: Actually 'Springs' is the neighborhood
in East Hampton where he worked, not 'Spring' the season-
it's a fair example. I think it's overpriced.

Tony: I need it. Buy it and store it.

Comparatively, when Stark decides to become a hero, he takes a different tack than any other super hero I've seen on screen. He gradually grows to understand that his business has been corrupted, that the weapons he made to protect his nation's soldiers have been used against them, and that his beloved business partner has been plotting against him. During these scenes of illumination, the look on his face is not righteous indignation, or stoic resolve, as it would be for any other budding super hero. It's far more elemental than that; again, more id.

Tony Stark is simply pissed off.

Photo courtesy of gizmodo.com

The Strangers

Directed by: Bryan Bertino
Written by: Bryan Bertino
Starring: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman

It's been a long time since I've screamed in a theater. I've always found that the recent glut of torture porn films never really frightened me so much as simply grossed me out. I thought "Saw" was a brilliant concept that was poorly executed, and that "The Hills Have Eyes" was simply silly. I felt the same way about those inbred hicks as I feel about the prospect of putting my hands on raw meat. It's a little icky, but hardly something to get worked up over.

In terms of contemporary horror I'm more a disciple of the Japanese school of thought; that is, that there is nothing as terrifying as the moment before you see the monster. It's the calm before the storm, not the storm itself, that sends chills up your spine.

"The Strangers" could perhaps then be described as an amalgam of the American and Japanese philosophy of terror. Writer/Director Bryan Bertino took a very American plot line- the home invasion/middle class fear of rural America/slasher motif- and manipulated it, so that instead of feeling shocked, one feels a relentless sense of dread. Bertino understands the importance of silence, of anticipation. He knows that there is nothing he could put up on the screen that can compete with our own deep-seated fears. Instead of attacking the audience with gore and noise, he simply gives us a visual, and lets our natural fears do the work for us.

Let me give you an example, based on the audience I was with. When one of the masked intruders that terrorizes Kristen McKay and James Hoyt (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) first appears in the frame, there is no music. There is no clang of arrival. We, the audience, see Kristen looking out the window, and the masked man appears behind her. We don't even notice him at first, so intent are we on our Liv's lovely features. Then, unanimously, we the audience spot him, our stomachs sink, and we all emit a soft scream. He says nothing, and disappears into the shadows a moment later, but the horror of his presence lingers in the ensuing silence.

The three faceless people who torment our young lovers are most menacing in the fact that they appear to have no motive for their crimes. Their tempers are calm and unflappable. They are not madmen wielding chainsaws. And the only one we hear speak, known in the credits as "Dollface" (Gemma Ward), has a soft, girlish voice that still kind of creeps me out when I think about it.

There's only one major disappointment in the film, which is the last five minutes or so. It involves two Christian boys on bikes and an end shocker that looks like it was tacked on after the producers held a focus group. Note to everyone making a horror film: focus group-approved endings are lame. Always. There's really no other way to say it. For those who haven't seen it yet, just trust me: walk out of the theater when the pick up truck drives away. You'll feel far more satisfied.

Photo courtesy of firstshowing.net

Friday, June 06, 2008

Housekeeping

Well I've returned from the Ohio Bureau of Maven, Inc., fairly intact and well-rested for the daily slog of work. Boston seems to have celebrated my return by dropping its temperatures to the 50s and raining all day.

Oh- and go Celtics.

Anywho, I've decided to keep the new bad-ass layout and will continue to tinker about with the HTML as necessary. Also, I've been weeding the blogroll, removing dead sites and such, and I've added a few for your perusal. The first is The Comics Curmudgeon, where a wonderful man named Josh comments on the daily comics. Never have I more appreciated "Apartment 3G" and the infamous Margot "Finger Quotin'" Magee. Also, my good IRL friend Hillary has recently joined the blogosphere with The Vanguard and I, a missive on life, love, libation and trying to get her Ph.D. in the U.K. She's on my blogroll- won't she be on yours?

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Bros before Hos

It's a week of brothers apparently. I am off to the Toledo, OH bureau of Maven, Inc. today, as my little brother (not so little anymore- he's taller than I am, and his sense of sarcasm is twice the size of mine) is graduating from high school. I've alerted him that this milestone of adulthood is highly inconvenient for me, as there are several delicious events coming up, including Cake at Boston's Earthfest, and John Williams directing the Boston Pops. But family duties trump all, and so I will be reporting from the mid-west for the next two weeks.

Perhaps most unfortunately, I will be missing the Brattle Theater's celebration of film makers the Coen brothers, called "A Gathering of Coens." It started May 16, and continues until Wednesday, with "Raising Arizona," "The Big Lebowski," "Barton Fink," and "Miller's Crossing." I know everyone and their mother loves "Lebowski," but see if you can stretch out a bit and watch Miller's Crossing if you haven't already. It's stupendous.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Les Chansons d'Amour (Love Songs)

Directed by: Christophe Honore
Written by: Christophe Honore
Starring: Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme

The Boston Gay and Lesbian Film Festival was a couple weeks ago, and unfortunately I had to work through most of it (stupid rent). I cannot accurately describe the depths of my despair at having to miss Turkish/Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek's latest feature "Saturno Contro (Saturn in Opposition)." If you have no idea who I'm talking about, go rent "La Finestra di Fronte (The Window in Front)" right now.

I was, however, able to make the screening of "Love Songs," a quirky little French musical about a struggling young couple who decide to engage in a threesome. It's a film that has a lot of charm, but unfortunately not much in the way of coherence or narrative organization. The plot is a bit clumsy, moving forward in fits and starts instead of smoothly transitioning. The music may have a big part to play in this; the tunes are generic French pop-fueled compositions, and they seem to appear out of nowhere, jolting the viewer out of the narrative. And, though this is not the film's fault, there is nothing more awkward than having to translate a musical number into subtitles. A genuinely touching line in French becomes something like "Let it (your saliva) trickle like sweet venom down my throat." Such lyrical faux pas does nothing for the rhythm of a piece, as it simply makes the viewer stop and desperately try to register the absurdity of the phrase.

The jaunty, frothy first third of the film is tripped up by a senseless death that causes the parties in the threesome to reevaluate themselves in an absurdist reality that can be both cold and filled with congeniality. The boyfriend, Ismael, begins being stalked by both his girlfriend's sister Jeanne, and a local Breton boy. Alice, the "trois" in this menage a trois, is shunted to the side in the aftermath and must become the ruler of her own happiness. Despite the loose threads of the narrative, or perhaps even because of them, this second portion of the film is moving and delicate, and this frailness becomes almost charming.
This is a film that in the end is saved by moments of quirkiness and charm, though the work as a whole is such a muddle. In one moment, Jeanne enters Ismael's apartment to find him in bed with another woman, whom she assumes in Alice. When she discovers it isn't, she does not respond, but simply lights up another cigarette, sucks it down and stares bleakly into space. It's a throwaway moment, but it's witty and indelibly French.
Photo courtesy of Indiewire.com, via Takepart.com.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Wristcutters: A Love Story

Director: Doran Dukic
Writer: Doran Dukic, based on the short story "Kneller's Happy Campers," by Etgar Keret
Starring: Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Tom Waits, Leslie Bibb

Normally, films that deal with teenage depression and death are laden with well-intentioned "messages," generally directed to parents rather than to the teens themselves. The story is usually told with de-saturated color and a grimness of purpose that, well, just depresses you. Most think this is an appropriate reaction, but I have long held the theory that within drama there are sad films and then there are depressing films. The first is genuine encapsulation of human emotion. The second is merely manipulation of the viewer.

What a delicious surprise, then, that "Wristcutters," about a boy who commits suicide after breaking up with his girlfriend, is at heart a gently funny road movie. The boy, Zia (Patrick Fugit) commits suicide by the title's method at the beginning of the film, and enters an otherworldly way station for people who have "offed" themselves. He establishes that the universe he's inhabiting isn't terrible or hellish, just kind of depressing. "It's fitting that this place is exactly like life," he says in a voice over, "only a little bit worse." Zia has a job at a pizza place, and hangs out in a dingy bar after work, trying to guess how the other patrons killed themselves. But when he learns that his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) also committed suicide a month after he did, he goes to find her at the edges of the world beyond the city where he lives.

Along for the ride is his Eastern European rocker friend Eugene (Shea Whigham) who electrocuted himself with his own guitar. They take Eugene's car, which has a black hole underneath the front seat they keep dropping things into, and listen to Eugene's music as they travel "East-ish" into a barren wasteland that has the curious look of a Dali painting set in the Nevada desert. They pick up a hitchhiker (Shannyn Sossamon) who says she was put there by mistake and is looking for the people in charge of this humid purgatory to send her home.

Perhaps the strangest thing about "Wristcutters" is that you tend to forget it's about suicide. In spite of the title, the film doesn't dwell on the violence of Zia's beginning act, but rather on his determination that his life can still have meaning, even after it's ostensibly over. It is a sad movie, but it never depresses. Eugene's entire family killed themselves, in various ways and for various reasons. But the horror of their deaths is nonexistent; they all live together in this world and love and support each other, just as they did in life. The point, of course, is that the worst thing that can happen to you is not death, but loneliness.

The three travelers end up in a community run by a man named Kneller (the inimitable Tom Waits,) a place where lost souls somehow end up, and maybe perform some miracles in the process. These scenes where the characters rest and recharge for the road ahead are the most lovingly rendered in the film, and Waits steals the movie as a weary, battle-scarred hippie assisting people with their salvation.

The film is hardly perfect. The ending especially looked a bit sloppily done, the rhythm was sped up too abruptly and the climax was improperly explained (though it did feature a cameo by Will Arnett, and who can say no to that?) The last 20 minutes were filled with action and rushed exposition; it almost looked like it came from a different film from the lovely, delicate nature of the previous hour. And without giving too much away, I felt like the denouement was a bit of cop-out in terms of resolution. But a less than perfect ending is a small price to pay for Ducik's overall vision, which is moving and sad- but not depressing.

(Photo courtesy of Autonymous Films, via The New York Times)

The Swan Song of Dissent

This reporter is much dismayed after recently reading about Warner Bros.' decision to give the ol' heave-ho to both Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, two semi-independent speciality arms of the corporation. Anne Thompson of Variety delivered the bad news May 8:

"The Draconian studio is shutting down not one specialty arm but two, both Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, with the notion that New Line Cinema can handle whatever specialty needs the studio has. New Line chief Toby Emmerich will be given something to do going forward."

Warner Bros. recently absorbed New Line Cinema after "The Golden Compass" became a financial disaster and left the studio unable to remain independent. The vague idea is that New Line can take over where Warner Independent and Picturehouse left off. I've always had fond feelings for New Line (they did produce and distribute the live-action versions of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," which basically defined my childhood) but judging their production line-up on imdb.com, they don't exactly have the adventurous spirit that defined the two now-defunct companies. For example, Picturehouse has an illustrious recent past, with "Pan's Labyrinth," "La Vie En Rose," "A Prairie Home Companion," and "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story." Warner Independent has "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Everything is Illuminated," and "We Don't Live Here Anymore" under its belt. It's true that New Line has a few sort-of indie hits with "Be Kind, Rewind," and "Love in the Time of Cholera." Recently, though, it's been working with dreck like "Semi-Pro," "Mr. Woodcock," "Rush Hour 3," and, God help us, "The Butterfly Effect 2."

The studios will be able to finish work on several films slated for release this year, including Picturehouse' "Mongol" and Warner Independent's "Towelhead." According to Variety, the executives are meeting over the next few weeks to discuss the status of other projects at various stages of production and distribution.

Warner Bros. is staying mum about where exactly they want to take New Line and claims this does not mean they are stepping back from working with riskier, independent films, according to President and COO Alan Horn in Variety:

"After much painstaking analysis, this was a difficult decision to make, but it reflects the reality of a changing marketplace and our need to prudently run our businesses with increased efficiencies. We’re confident that the spirit of independent film making and the opportunity to find and give a voice to new talent will continue to have a presence at Warner Bros.”

Oh Alan, my friend, how I would like to believe you. But, alas, my innate elitism says that New Line, now that it's completely under your thrall, will become a cabal of corporate whores with no sense of artistry. Warner Independent and Picturehouse at least had a small voice of vision and imagination within the robotic drone of the "tentpole" films and focus group-approved family fare. Think about a world with no "Pan's Labyrinth." Now think about a world without "Mr. Woodcock." Which world would you like to live in?

Monday, May 12, 2008

Indiana Jones and the Awesomeness of the Melting Nazi

My beloved Lance Mannion posted yesterday on watching the three "Indiana Jones" movies in preparation for the stupidly-titled latest film coming out this summer. He specifically mentioned that the melting Nazis in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" were a bad decision, taking away from the spirit and life of the series. Thus quoteth Lance of the Mannion:

"Great movie with such a disappointing and ill-conceived ending, so far removed from the tone and spirit of all that had gone before, that I'm sure the original audiences would have walked out of the cineplexes befuddled and depressed if John Williams' rousing march hadn't come back on over the end credits and carried us all back to the moment when the whip snaps the gun away from the treacherous guide and Harrison Ford's scarred and scowling face looms out of the shadows and the adventure started all over again in our imaginations."

I respectfully disagree.

I also recently watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on the teevee yesterday. And I love the melting Nazis! The melting Nazis are one of the main things people remember. When you meet someone who doesn't know the films that well and you say "I saw 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' last night," they always reply with "Is that the one with the melting Nazis?" When I was a kid, and my mother brought "Raiders of the Lost Ark" home from the library where she worked, do you know what I was waiting for? The melting freakin' Nazis!

I do agree with Lance that the ridiculous inclusion of the quasi-mystical elements of the film are somewhat randomly included, and pretty darn cheesy. I think it's best when it's a little cheesy. It's best with a little bit of randomness. And however stupid you think the magical Ark is, you have to admit, the sheer visual impact of the melting Nazis is bonafied bad-ass. Not to mention the righteous triumph that Spielberg must have felt in defeating Nazis with a lost artifact that signifies God's covenant with the Israelites. The defeat of the cartoon villain had to occur in a way that was gruesome, ironic and particularly cartoonish. The Ark was an obvious choice.

Also, I agree with Mannion that convincing Karen Allen to come back as Marion Ravenwood was the best decision Lucas and Spielberg ever made. Marion is everything a heroine should be: for God's sake, the first time we see her, she's drinking a Nepalese sherpa under the table. After her, "Temple of Doom's" Willie Scott might as well have been played by Paris Hilton.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Me Likey the Neon

I was bored today, so I decided to dabble a bit in the art of Blogger template. I went a little mad, as you can see. I wanted to keep the dark background, which I think works for this milieu, and I used the neon pink and white to demonstrate some sort of art-deco, old-timey movie house, city at night, feeling... thingy.

Ok. I know nothing about design. But I rather like it. Any of you web design moguls out there have any thoughts? Any tips for further renovations? Do you like it? Does it give you seizures? Let me know!

Monday, May 05, 2008

In other culture news

Your Movie Maven is happy girl this week. I do not have school for eight months, since come July I will be swallowed into the maw of a full-time six-month internship at the arts section of a certain newspaper. I plan to take on a personality akin to Jennifer Jason Leigh in "The Hudsucker Proxy;" so from now I'm "a fast-talkin' career gal that thinks she's one of the boys." Now if only I could find a guy named Smitty...

In other news, the fact that I don't have classes means one thing for me: I get to read for fun. So I went to the library in Copley Square last weekend- America's first large municipal library, doncha know. I came out smelling a little worse for wear, but I had a re-usable tote bag full of delightful goodies to attend to my imagination whilst I'm at my current, soul-sucking telemarketing job.

My first recommendation: Henry James' "The Portrait of a Lady." Specifically, the Oxford World's Classics edition. It's tidily enclosed in a small blue cover, perfect for train travel. And it has a nifty introduction by John Updike. I've read it before several times, but I swoon over James' perfect phrases like "dusky pestiferous tracts," and observations like "'If all good people were hidden away in convents, how would the world get on?'" Poor, wonderful, foolish Isabel Archer is my ultimate female character, whom James most exquisitely (and unfairly) dooms, even after it appears that she's won. The ending will frustrate you, but in a way that miraculously still seems complete.

And for those who will ask, yes, I am still reviewing movies. What is the Movie Maven without her cinematic delights? Expect my review of "Iron Man" (God help me) this weekend.

Play It Again, Sam

The New York Times has an excellent article compiling five filmmakers' favorite summer films. Especially of note is director Larry Charles' hilarious piece about choosing John Waters' "Female Trouble" for a first date, and director Tamara Jenkins' discussion of the first time she saw "Last Tango in Paris."

Even those who aren't movie buffs know the wonderful experience of seeing a good movie in the dog-days of summer. One's life can be changed, sitting in the unnatural cool of a darkened theater, goose bumps raising the hairs on your bare arms. Afterward you burst out into the night, the hot air hitting your body like a wave, your mind spinning. It's the weekend, and you don't have work the next day- there's nothing to distract you. You aren't thinking of chores or your job or homework. You feel elemental, like something inside of you has been re-arranged. And you always, always remember the ending.

My favorite summer movie I saw not in the theater, but in a barn about an hour outside of Sacramento, California. I was 14 and I had gone to California for six weeks to spend time with my relatives who live throughout the state. It was a momentous trip for many reasons- my first plane ride, the longest stretch of time I'd ever spent without my parents, the first time I ever saw the ocean. I lived for most of the time in a cabin that stood outside a renovated barn owned by my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Cameron. The barn sat on Carolyn's in-laws' farm, populated by cows, horses, an organic garden and a peach orchard. They didn't have cable- didn't even have a television inside the house- but out in the old stable that functioned as a garage they had an itchy old couch and a TV with a VCR.

It was there I watched "Casablanca" for the first time.

Carolyn and I put her kids to bed, and then sneaked out to the garage. We covered ourselves in a blanket, and scarfed popcorn as the emaciated barn cat curled up next to us. We were far from civilization on that unusually chilly night, and there was nothing to distract us from the Rick and Ilsa and their beautiful, sad, soft-focus love. I was 14 and completely entranced; it was a film of action, of suspense, of surprising humor and grim determination for justice. I trembled when Rick's customers drowned out the Nazis' vulgar singing with a rendition of "La Marseillaise." I almost cheered when Louis Renault threw the empty bottle of Vichy wine into the trash. And I was old enough to perceive the rumbling undercurrent of pure sex that flows through the film like a natural spring beneath the earth. No talks about it, but you know it's there, a hidden pool of energy waiting to burst through the surface.
It was the perfect time for me to discover "Casablanca" that gorgeous night, during the summer when I really first began to discover myself. There are so many movies that I don't remember with any clarity, so many I've forgotten I've even seen. But that experience of sitting with my wonderful aunt on a smelly couch in a dark barn, basking in the glow of the Cinemascope, is as sharp as if it happened yesterday. And that ending, that final shot, is etched into my brain: Rick and Louis, not walking off into the sunset, but simply being enveloped by the mist at the Casablanca airport. They're uncertain of their fate, but confident in their resolve. Not a bad ending for an uncertain 14-year-old girl to see.

Friday, May 02, 2008

A Thought to Ponder While Watching "Lost"

I have finished with questioning the writers on "Lost." They're either madmen, geniuses, frauds or some fascinating combination of the three. They will take us where they take us, and I'm willing to let them take the reigns.

But I have one last question for them, completely unrelated to the psychology, metaphysics, philosophy or the stupid polar bears of the show:

Why, oh why, oh WHY do they think that we care at all about the future of Jack and Kate? Because we don't care. We really, really don't.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Funny Girls

In addition to endless comic book reenactments and stoner comedies, this summer also brings about the release of "Sex and the City: The Movie," a film much anticipated among the Y-chromosome-challenged and sassy gay boyfriend set.

I've always had a very troubled relationship with "Sex and the City": The HBO Television show. Every so often the show would discuss in the most beautiful, and wickedly funny terms, the issues about being a single woman. One of my favorite discussion was centered around SSB (Secret Single Behavior). I almost gasped in recognition when Charlotte- the innocent brunette with the wide set fish eyes- discussed how she loves to inspect her pores for half an hour before bed, and bemoaned the fact that she couldn't do it now that she's married. And when Samantha- the slutty one- got breast cancer, I was actually quite touched by her steely, yet vulnerable performance. "I just don't want to lose my tits," she declares. "Because they're fabulous." Never had the complex relationship between a woman and her anatomy been so perfectly illustrated in one line.

Most of the time, though, I wanted to kill everyone on the show except Miranda (the snappy redheaded one). As a single girl who lives in a major city (albeit younger than the Fab Four, and a student) I can tell you that we spend a lot less time sipping martinis at noon and chatting on the phone in our Ferragamo shoes and a lot more time...umm...working. Usually two jobs, to pay the rent and grocery bills living as a single girl in said city. I get to sip a martini usually once a month... and it's usually been mixed not by a hot male bartender armed with Grey Goose, but rather by my good friend Zohar. In my apartment. With leftover Smirnoff I found stuffed in the back of my freezer behind a box of chicken nuggets.

Also I know this has been said before, but it deserves mentioning again: I can understand how Miranda, a lawyer, can afford her lifestyle. And Samantha, who's an advertising exec. And even fish-eyed, useless Charlotte appears to own some sort of art gallery. But Carrie can afford $500 shoes and an apartment on the Upper East Side? As a columnist? For a newspaper??? She doesn't even write for the Times- it's some sort of New York Post clone she works for. In Real Life, Carrie would have been downsized long ago to keep up with the rising cost of newsprint.

Besides this fundamental issue of verisimilitude, I was also just annoyed with Carrie's endless monologues, meant to be her column. I hated her terrible puns and obvious double entendres, and the show's pretension that this is really witty stuff that you should feel privileged to be hearing. They were lame, she's a terrible writer, and the paper should downsize her, if only to spare us her idiotic ramblings about "Poor me, I can't find a man, but I've got wildly overpriced shoes, so it's ok."

But Movie Maven, you ask, what on earth should we look to for an accurate account of the single woman in the city?

For that, my friends, simply look to "30 Rock."

The show about a show, based on one woman's experiences working on a show, is quickly becoming my favorite show on television. It's got some of the sharpest writing around, and though Alec Baldwin gets most of the props, I would argue that the flawless cast gels in perfect harmony to highlight each other's attributes. But the main reason I watch is for Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon, a 30-something single girl.

Liz Lemon is the woman Candace Bushnell forgot.

Fey's Lemon could be pretty much any single girl, in any major city. She has an apartment that's nice, but not glamorous. She has a job that she enjoys, but it's hard and takes up a lot of her time.
She eats candy for breakfast, partially because she doesn't have time, but partially because she secretly enjoys it. She eats dinner standing in the kitchen while watching reality shows on her portable TV. She dresses like a normal woman going to work every day. She's a good person, a liberal and a feminist, but she can be shallow, spineless and manipulative to get what she wants. Last episode, upon being offered Baldwin's Jack Donneghy's lucrative position, she slaps him across the face, then promptly strides into the writer's room and announces "Suck it monkeys, I'm going corporate!"

Basically she's every woman I know. Including myself.

Lemon also has an oafish ex-boyfriend who affectionately calls her "Dummy," and whom she's in constant danger of going back to. One of her co-workers, played by Jane Krakowski, likens the schlub to the cheese doodles Lemon's eating: "You know they're bad for you, but you eat them because it's easier than cooking." This is truer than any other "lesson" on relationships that Sex and the City ever tried to demonstrate.

The true story of single women is that sometimes we are tempted to settle for the cheese doodle, because it's easier than working for something better.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Now is the summer of our discontent

It is pretty obvious to those that follow film that the seasons of the year in America formulate the pattern of films that arise throughout the year. Let's take a look at the four seasons (gauged from mid-Atlantic/ Mid-West weather patterns that I am generally most used to):

Fall
The season:
-beginning of the U.S. academic calendar
- a period of change and melancholy decline
The films:
- beginning of the "academic" or Oscar film calendar, i.e. flawlessly produced films with big stars and an un-nuanced attempt at social consciousness
- a period of social change documentaries and melancholy ruminations on the postmodern American landscape.
Winter
The season:
- Brings The Holidays (basically Christmas), joy, goodwill, sparkling candles, and sleek, art deco Christmas gifts from Pottery Barn...
- Which are followed by three months of cold wet slush that depresses everyone and gives us all the flu.
The films:
- The sense of joy pervades early early on as a melange of Indiewoods and better major studio films pervade late November and December. This occurs all the way up until the Oscar nominations are decided and announced. Then it devolves into a malignant stew of substandard rom-coms and spoofs made by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

Spring
The season:
- A time of renewal, fresh faced optimism, baby animals
The films:
- Fresher comedies, with more off-beat casts and plot lines, that sometimes don't make me want to take a nosedive off the Tobin Bridge.
But of course, these seasons are just vague playthings to studios, when compared with:

Summer
The season:
-Extreme weather: tornadoes, hurricanes, summer electrical storms, generally followed by days of endless, mind-crushing waves of heat.
The films:
- EXTREME, usually about superheros, or shit blowing up, or snakes on planes.
- Studios generally put more money than sense into these films, as they know that more people are willing to pay upwards of $10 to sit in an air conditioned theater for two hours.

And so now we are approaching the summer season- the studios are working their magic, coming up with the perfect panel-tested, focus-group approved convergence of romance, action, comic book inspiration, and blowed up shit to make this summer ROCK. Below are ten of what I in my limited education believe will probably be the biggest films this summer, as well as my thoughts after viewing the trailers.

The Big-Ass Films of Summer (in chronological order of release date)
1. Iron Man (May 2)
First thoughts: I love Robert Downy, Jr. And Gwyneth Paltrow. I just don't understand what either of them are doing in this movie. Why is Downey trying to be that guy?
2. Speed Racer (May 9)
First thoughts: Based on the work of legendary anime creator Tatsuo Yoshida. I'm really more excited about this movie than anyone ever should be, but I don't care. The Wachowski brothers wrote and directed it, and it stars Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci. It's going to be badass.
3. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (May 16)
First thoughts: Prince Caspian looks pretty hot. And the haunting shot of the magical train pulling up at the Strand Tube station looks vividly realized. But I fear the film as a whole may be as disappointing as the first one was.
4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May 22)
First thoughts: Harrison Ford has not aged well, and his costume appears to not quite fit as it used to. Did they forget to re-measure for his added girth, or are they making a statement by having Indiana look like a man drowning in a mid-life crisis? Then again, they've got Shia LeBeouf as his son/assistant/whatever and Cate Blanchett as the evil Nazi/Communist/whatever. So I'll be happy.
5. The Happening (June 13)
First thoughts: I have always felt that M. Night Shymalan was one of the most critically maligned directors of the past 15 years or so. I thought The Village was beautifully filmed, and Lady in the Water, while exceedingly flawed, had wonderful, gentle performances and contained some images I still think about in odd moments. The fact that I have a wild girly-crush on him is incidental. His new film is about an environmental catastrophe- a subset of the horror/thriller genre that might have some legs on it. The last generations had Communists and Terrorists. We have Global Warming.
6. The Incredible Hulk (June 13)
First thoughts: Why, Edward Norton, WHY???!?? Oh, God, don't do it- you think it'll be good for your career, but look at that poor bastard Eric Bana- don't do it Edward!!!
7. The Dark Knight (July 18)
First thoughts: I have been looking forward to this movie since the first viral trailer appeared on the Web almost eight months ago. Everyone else is all worried about the fact that it's Heath Ledger's last performance, but I think that Christopher Nolan's melancholy tone will remind us of the tragic loss without losing track of the film.
8. Step Brothers (July 25)
First thoughts: I hope it's better than Walk Hard. I really, really hope it's better than that stupid basketball movie Will Farrell was in.
9. The X-Files: I Want to Believe (July 25)
First thoughts: "I want to believe" that this film will actually happen, but they've teased us before. But now they have legitimate release date, so I'm hopeful. Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and... Xhibit? Um...whatever.
10. Pineapple Express (August 8)
First thoughts: Judd Apatow is flirting with action/comedy territory. Movie Maven is intrigued but wary of any filmmaker who believes his own hype, as she believes Apatow probably does. But it's Seth Rogan and James Franco, so what's a girl to do?

Friday, March 07, 2008

No Spring Break in Austin For Me

As an aspiring film critic (and aspiring expense account holder) it has been a dream of mine to be able to make all the film festival rounds: Cannes, Toronto, Park City, Utah. And what I think is perhaps the friendliest (though one of the most under reported) gathering of film and culture minds: the South by Southwest Film and Music Festival in Austin, Tex., which runs from today through March 16.

Festival officials will also be holding SXSW's 2nd "Interactive Festival," celebrating new media technology; I'm pretty sure they added that just to make it more painful for me to be in Boston.

Alas, I am yet only a student who writes film reviews and news out of the goodness of my heart and the sheer size of my ego, and am not able to go. If you'd like to follow the show, Salon's Andrew O'Hehir definitely gives a good rendition of the happenings.

Photo via Flickr...this is the hilarity that ensues when I google "child and sad"




Tuesday, March 04, 2008

The Other Boleyn Girl

Politics, court intrigue and brocade. There is little more a film needs to either be a juicily good medieval, political and psycho-sexual exploration ("Richard III," "The Lion in Winter,") or a hysterically bad costume drama ("Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Marie Antoinette,") Mining material from King Henry VIII's reign and personal life similarly almost never steers you wrong, and once you include Philippa Gregory, the mistress of vaguely erotic historical fiction, what you should have is the atomic bomb of either guilty pleasures or legitimate cinema.

Which is precisely why "The Other Boleyn Girl" is so terribly disappointing. It's not nearly good enough to be considered a legitimate film in its own right, nor is it bad enough to become a cult classic or even immediate guilty pleasure. It's sense of self-importance is not charming or silly, but simply off-putting, and forgettable.

The story follows a fictionalized account of Henry VIII's (Eric Bana) prolonged affair with Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johansson), sister to future queen Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman). It had a promising trailer, with hilarious nuggets of dialogue such as "We're sisters- and therefore born to be rivals," and "He came out besotted!" It was adapted from Gregory's novel of the same name by Peter Morgan. Morgan boasts a good resume, with "The Last King of Scotland," "The Queen" and HBO's "Longford" under his belt, but I got the feeling that he didn't quite know what to do with "Boleyn Girl." The dialogue is too meandering, and generally relegated to advancing the plot rather than reflecting on what's happening. Henry switches from Mary to Anne and back several times; the audience is supposed to feel the drama every time, but the triangle becomes monotonous after a while.

Gregory, while perhaps not a purveyor of great literature, has a firm grasp of the genre she writes in. The text has an excellent balance of fact and creative extrapolation, and the tone has a sense of what issues within the book should be taken seriously and what should not. The movie was for some reason unable to take the same approach- it seemed too queasy for a good exploration of the serious bits, and too egotistical to poke any fun at the genre. The supposed incest between Anne and her brother George (Jim Sturgess), for example, was handled very badly. It comes out of nowhere, is resolved too quickly and has a weird mix of delicacy and grotesqueness that does nothing but demonstrate that the producers were not happy with having an incest theme in a high-budget commercial film.

Portman, Johansson, and Bana all acquitted themselves nicely with the material they were given, though none of them stood out as especially grand. The only actor with any meat to her performance was Kristen Scott Thomas as the Boleyn girls' long-suffering mother. Thomas manages to lasso a performance that could have easily been swept away in all the tulle and commands the screen whenever she appears. When she is there, she is the only one you look at. David Morrissey is also splendid as the scheming Duke of Norfolk who pimps out the Boleyn girls.

Bana was fine as Henry. But I wonder if it would not be braver to cast, say, Vincent D'Onofrio as Henry, or James Gandolfini. Or Philip Seymour Hoffman. A larger man, with a sense of girth and majesty would make far more sense than (admittedly smoking hot) Eric Bana. Casting Bana opposite Portman and Johansson also shies away from the fact that the Boleyn girls were 14 and 15 when they were sent to the king, who was approaching his late 30s. Director Justin Chadwick seems to want to show all the soft-focus sexiness of Henry's personal life, but none of the yuckiness.

To create a believable sense of noble life during King Henry's reign it is imperative to first lose any sense of modern culture. The one thing that continually irritated me while reading Gregory's book, and while watching the film was how indignant the Boleyn girls were about their situation. There's a constant stream of feminist critique within the dialogue, and unforgivable lines like "The world's not changed that much yet. Men still rule." It ignores the fact that women were not indignant about their situation in life. They did not complain, nor rebel against their male oppressors. The ones that did, first of all, were burned or hanged as witches. But for most, they were raised to believe that this was their lot in life- this was the proper way things were done. Being pimped out to the king after your married was a great idea. The idea that this was wrong or exploitative would not have occurred to most of them. Wouldn't it be more horrific to simply show how women were basically owned by their fathers until they were sold to be owned by their husbands, rather than telling everyone in toothless, contrived dialogue? Would that not make it even more remarkable that it was not the longed-for male heir that succeeded Henry after his death, but Anne's daughter, Elizabeth? Chadwick seems content to simply have the Boleyn girls make furious shouts to the wind about the indignity of their place in society- something I doubt the real Anne Boleyn would ever have done.

Photo courtesy of Shakefire.com.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Do you hear the static...

on this blog? Many apologies for the lack of programming of late. As usual, I have simply gathered too much on to my plate, and now am busily engaged in choking it all down, bit by gristly bit, until I either finish it all or vomit the myriad responsibilities into the nearest trash can (how do you like that for a bit of nifty metaphorical footwork. And such visuals!)

Anywho, after this week I'll be back at it. Lorda mercy I can't wait until the semester's over.

Friday, February 01, 2008

"Take That, Simon Cowell!"

Josh Levin is officially my hero of the week, for his stunning rip on the woe-begotten state of parodic film, as exemplified by the atrocious-looking "Meet the Spartans."
This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Atonement

In this day and age, one becomes a connoisseur of adapted screenplays. The good. The bad. The updated Shakespeare teen comedy. The Harry Potters. They are money in the bank for the production companies, and delicious fodder for book lovers, who wail against the cheapening of great literature, rending their clothes and gnashing their teeth.

Out of this distracted melee comes "Atonement", the adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel of the same name. It would be criminal to discuss the plot in any detail in you haven't read the book. Set in the mid-1930s, the first half of the film takes place during one fateful day, when fanciful young writer Briony (Saorise Ronan) witnesses an altercation between her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and their gardener Robbie (James McAvoy). She terribly mistakes the situation, and her mistake becomes an event that shapes all their lives. The second half of the film finds them all in very different circumstances, during the British retreat from France. It's a truly brilliant book, and director Joe Wright, who helmed the recent adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice", shows again his agility for capturing not just the plot and characters of a novel, but also it's essence.

Wright does magical things with natural light, turning a precocious 12-year-old into something out of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and generally transforming the English countryside into something simultaneously idyllic and unsettling. As the ethereal Briony skips through the sparkling woods around her house, and her sister basks in a bathing suit in the dappled sunlight, you know it won't be long before something truly awful happens. The music is nothing less than perfect; the pounding keys of a typewriter mingle with the conventional violins and piano, and the beat that results is steady and maddening in a way. It's the audio embodiment of these characters marching blindly into disaster.

Parts of the second half of the film are problematic. The depiction of the hellish conditions at the Bray Dunes in Dunkirk is spectacular in the conventional way, but one does feel a strange sense of disappointment looking back on it. It misses the slightly otherworldly quality of the first half of the film, though this can still be observed in other scenes, particularly in the hospital where the older Briony works. In many ways it looks like every other mass scene of carnage, with digitized soldiers and little actual substance. Some of the most harrowing pieces of McEwan's novel are his descriptions of the Bray Dunes, and though Wright has the noise and chaos of the physical place, it lacks McEwan's subtle examinations of the soldiers' inner chaos.

Where Wright and his performers succeed most is in the restraint of the performances. Knightley is exceptional, playing a wealthy young woman with all the education in the world, but, as her social status dictates, with absolutely nothing to do. McAvoy, while not as mature an actor, is still able to command the screen (and he doesn't look so bad either). But perhaps most risky of all, Wright doesn't make you look at them all the time. Briony, both as a child and in her older manifestation, is what you look at. Her character is the most provocative; she can lead your sympathies one minute, and draw ire the next. Ronan has been nominated for an Oscar for her performance as 12-year-old Briony, and indeed she seems to exude an intensity and depth far beyond her years.

The film is not as "good" as the novel, perhaps. But this of course makes the assumption that a story can work the same way, effectively, in every medium available. It is appropriate that an adaptation is sometimes referred to as a "translation." There are always things that are lost in translation. Wright, I think, understands this concept. It is the mood, the tone, and the heart of a story that is important. Bring these things to the film, and the plot will follow.

(File Photo Courtesy of the New York Post)

Couple-a News Flashes

Well, unfortunately, my dears, the work that I have left to do has surpassed me by a considerable amount, so I've not a lot of time this week for brilliant strokes of criticism genius. Later on in the week, I'll be expertly reporting on Atonement, which I finally got to see last weekend, but for now, I'll leave you with just a few tidbits:

1. Check out the Oscar Noms

Oh, yes, they're out, and the nominees look as boring as ever. Pretty much everything that's to be expected- though Ratatouille up for best original screenplay is an interesting little diamond of originality.

2. Heath Ledger

I've gotten three text messages, two phone calls, and several emails about the untimely and unbelievable death of one of the most promising actors of my generation. No doubt E! will be spewing all the awful unnecessary details: the autopsy reports, the tearful interviews with people who barely knew him, the "what went wrong" scenarios. I will simply say that he was a beautiful and talented man. He was a wonderful artist who had a great career ahead of him. My thoughts and sympathies go out to his family and friends.

Monday, January 14, 2008

PBS Likes to Cash In as Much as the Next Guy


Jane Austen.

Sigh.

I love Jane Austen. I loved her before she was cool, too. I loved her best when I was a bookish teenager, whose heart fluttered at the notes of passionate longing and stolen glances scattered in Austen's novels. I loved her characters- those magnificent women, clever and witty and sometimes plain, who peopled the upper-middle class lodgings of her genteel English settings. And the men. Gentlemen, cads, fiends, scholars, attractive but conniving cousins- these were my kind of heartthrobs. Forget J.T.T and Brad Pitt. I was a Darcy kind of chick.

The recent rash of Austen adaptations, pseudo-adaptations and references have had me simultaneously enthralled and a little perturbed. Though I will always be a Colin Firth woman, the Keira Knightly adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was a gorgeous revelation of a movie. It was lavish and brilliantly cast, and had a cinematic color palette like a nineteenth century oil painting. And I'm sorry, but I stand by Clueless, a vague interpretation of Emma. I thought it was funny when I was eleven, and I think it's funny now. I was, unfortunately, vastly disappointed with Becoming Jane last year, which seemed to have the notion that only way Austen could have written about love was to have experienced it herself. There is absolutely no factual evidence of any love of Austen's life, save for a few mentions in her diary of a flirtation or two. But since then everyone and their mother has been leaping on the Austen bandwagon- buying their I Heart Mr. Darcy t-shirts and their "An Elizabeth in a Darcy-less world" book bags.

Philistines.

There is a lot of speculation as to why Austen has been graced with so many adaptations of her novels and her life (the only one who appears to have had more is good old Bill Shakespeare.) But PBS, doesn't seem to mind, as long as it rakes in the donation dollars from Viewers Like You. Last Sunday, PBS will air six adaptations of Austen's novels, as well as a biopic Jane Austen Regrets about all these proposals she was supposed to have turned down.

Yesterday was the airing of a 90-minute adaptation of Persuasion.

It wasn't that great.

There's only so many scenes we can have with Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliott, writing in her diary and then looking up at the camera pensively. How much pining can one audience endure? The film unfortunately falls into the genre of the interminable Masterpiece Theater drawing-room drama, with little substance (or provocative dialogue) to back up the gorgeous shots of the English countryside.

I have greater hopes for some of the other films, many of which have been written and/or directed by British adaptation guru Andrew Davies, who directed both the quintessential Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth, as well as a version of Charles Dickens' Bleak House that haunts me to this very day. They'll be airing every Sunday from January 20 to April 6, with a two-week break for the beloved PBS telethon.