Month: April 2005

The Sleeper Curve

Television makes you smarter! I knew all those hours invested in LOST and 24 and The Sopranos were worthwhile (though Reynolds will want to smack Steven Johnson for not mentioning his faves Deadwood and The Wire). I say more TV shows that traffic in a “thick network of affiliations.” For the uninitiated click here (you may need to register but I’m assuming you already are).

Dolls/Primer

Two quick takes on two films recently watched (in the midst of tons of work, though, I have seen not much at all):

“Dolls” — didn’t do it for me. I love the look of Takeshi Kitano’s films–the strange tableaux he uses for his composition–and the oblique rhythms they rely upon for character development and editing. But after a wonderful opening, where a troupe performs a traditional ‘puppet’ show about failed love, the film enacts three separate versions of those archetypal plots, none of which escaped a dull portentousness. Or, rather, what I liked in the 5 minutes of the puppet show I disliked in another ‘medium’ over 30-45 minutes; I don’t think the film translated well, and that may be a flaw shifting from the elaborate artifice of the dolls to ‘real’ people, or it might be an American watching a Japanese genre that he didn’t quite get.

(That said, it is intriguing to think about all of Kitano’s films as reworkings or translations of traditional Japanese genres, particularly in light of “Zatoichi,” which I found to be lovely and funny and surprising in its reimagination of hoary old samurai tropes. “Kikujiro,” too, has all these interesting intertitles with paintings and crafts that may be more culturally-resonant than this viewer could make out.)
Continue reading Dolls/Primer

Birth

When I first watched this film in the cinema, I admired the Kubrickian grandeur of Harris Savides’ cinematography and Kevin Thompson’s production design, and I found the dramatic narrative to be compelling if, at times, farfetched. In the end, I drove away from the cineplex ambivalent about its merits and confused by the filmmakers’ unwillingness to provide “proper” narrative closure. In an earlier post on this blog I even suggested Birth to contain moments best defined as ludicrous. But I popped the DVD in the other night and found myself even more glued to the screen—more compelled to watch the actions unfold without the need to define them. I found myself held captive by the taut, sexually menacing and ominous atmosphere (shades of Pinter?). Perhaps I was too caught up in solving the film’s many mysteries the first time around. Continue reading Birth

the incredibles

watched last night. doubtless some threshold in animation has been crossed but after the “sin city” backlash i am hesitant to praise technical innovation and cartoony violence (even if it is cool when the dad rams two hover-craft with men in them together, causing them to explode, in front of his adoring kids). the underlying premise seems to be to attack the cult of mediocrity/self-esteem pandemic in the u.s: the superheroes have to pretend not to have powers and not show that they are really special, because now everyone is special (which, one of them grumbles, means “no one is”). the problem with the film is that it hasn’t really thought this through in the social context it is placing its characters in: the everyday. the superheroes have done nothing to earn their powers, which are entirely physical. against these lucky freaks is a young man who is spurned by the naturally powerful and responds by applying his brain and becoming a technological whiz. the jocks vs. the nerd–but it turns out we’re supposed to root for the jocks. perhaps it is my long conditioning as a nerd that makes this a problem for me

star wars

so, in preparation for the upcoming instalment of in the “star wars” saga i’ve been re-viewing all its predecessors. i have come to the conclusion that it is only nostalgia that makes us think that the original trilogy was very much better than “the phantom menace” or “attack of the clones”. yes, “the empire strikes back” is better than the others but only in the way that stepping on a dog turd is better than falling into a giant vat of cow feces. all of them have lame stories, all of them have excruciatingly crap acting–though a special place must be given to “the return of the jedi”, which must be up there on the “bad acting in a high-profile movie” scale; an edited montage of harrison ford’s performance, in particular, should be placed in a time capsule.

i am forced to agree with roger ebert in his review of “the phantom menace”, where he notes that the only thing any of these movies have going for them is visual effects and imagination and that in that sense there is no difference between “the phantom menace” and anything in the first trilogy (though he does note in his review of “clones” that the dialog in that movie is particularly bad and drags everything else down). nevertheless, i’ll be in line on the first day to see the final piece of tedious shit in this series.

upgrade

all,

partly to combat the growing “comment spam” problem i will be upgrading the version of wordpress our blog runs on (i just deleted about 50 ads for cialis etc.). the look of the site and some functionality may therefore suddenly change–if this happens and you have trouble just email me. no content will (hopefully) be lost.

arnab

Napoleon Dynamite (again)

Hey all…I want to return to the topic of Napoleon Dynamite for a moment. The College is sponsoring a free screening of the film this Wednesday night. On Thursday night, Aaron Ruell (Kip) and Efren Ramirez (Pedro) will appear at our Sotille Theater to speak, present assorted clips, and do a Q&A. The students who organized this event asked me to moderate. I’d like to use this blog as a sounding board of sorts–see if you all think I’m heading in a good direction.

Continue reading Napoleon Dynamite (again)

Elephant

Gus Van Sant – Well, he does have a style of his own, though it got watered down in Good Will Hunting and – I’m not even sure what he’s made since then…

But against what I’d have thought, that “detactched youth” look works well here: Random teens getting through their day at school, interacting or terribly lonely, with long, long takes, sometimes of the same scene from different points of view. The only difference in this day is that two of the teens have made a plan to blow up the school and shoot as many students as they can. Continue reading Elephant