The new documentary (Almost the Truth) is a wonder — I’ve seen a ton of Python doc material, read the oral history, read various histories of other sorts…. but this is bliss, full of anecdotes and footage that concisely reiterates yet also breaks new ground. Even with a bit too much Russell Brand, I fell in love.
Month: October 2009
Wild Things
In the critical din about Spike Jonze’ vision of Sendak’s glorious little book, count me one more small voice in the chorus of unqualified love and admiration. It is now a hat-trick: the three most affecting, technically intriguing, emotionally-complicated films I’ve seen this year have all been children’s films. (And I still await Wes Anderson’s stab at the genre, and it’s not counting Miyazaki’s very fine but thinner Ponyo.) I really want to see it again–this time without the two toddlers behind me chattering and cooing over various sequences and/or various snacks and/or other things that popped into their head when the film wandered off rumpus into reverie. But, at the moment, it feels like the best film I’ve seen. Continue reading Wild Things
Fall Television
I’m directing a musical. It’s kicking my ass. Forgive me if I watch a little television to unwind or, better yet, to displace the songs from Urinetown: The Musical which haunt me 24 hours a day. Haven’t watched a lot but there are three shows worth recommending. I know I will be the only one to commit to its April 15, 2009 deadline, but ABC’s “Flashforward” is entertaining if you dig post-9/11 anxiety narratives. Check out the cold opening from this past week’s episode (you’ll have to sit through a Disney commercial and about 35 seconds of “previously on” footage which I will ask you to ignore before the show’s clever mash-up of Bjork and cataclysm). Another show that has produced two top notch episodes and two decent eps is ABC’s half-hour sitcom “Modern Family.” The pilot is brilliant and worth your twenty-two minutes. And, finally, there is Fox’s “Glee,” which is fantastic (or maybe I’ve been watching too many teenagers sing and dance for the past three weeks). It’s definitely worth checking out.
Not Quite Hollywood
When I was a junior in college, I took a month-long January course on sociology and science fiction. Our prof–a nice guy, on a visiting gig–was striving mightily for a laidback, easygoing vibe, and we must have spent maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the actual class time watching movies. One day, to discuss the relationship between social deviance and Foucauldian discipline, we were scheduled to watch A Clockwork Orange. But in the pre-Netflix, pre-internet stone age, you were subject to the horrible whims of the local video store’s supply. (And this was in a small town an hour from the nearest metropolis, the only-large-in-relative-relation Watertown… so, one video store.) And the morning our prof went to get Kubrick’s film, it was out. So he scrambled about the store, and happened upon a film called Escape 2000. The back cover noted star Steve Railsback (of The Stunt Man fame), set up a plot where in the future prisons take in all social deviants–thieves, rapists, but also commies, homosexuals–for a bleak system of rehabilitation.
We started watching. The prisoners each morning had to come out and chant “We are social deviants” (or something similar), while a big bald mustachioed badass guard shadowboxed in front of them, trying to make them flinch, and if they did he kicked the shit out of them. The prisoners took lots of showers, the women in particular apparently concerned about their hygiene. Best of all, the prisoners’ “rehabilitation” involved rich people paying to hunt them. One of the rich hunters–a particularly lascivious sleazeball–hunted with a mutant. That’s right: his weapon was a large mutant, and the rich guy commanded his mutant, when the prey was cornered, to eat off their toes, and the like.
I have to say this again: a futuristic prison movie where the prisoners are hunted by rich people, one of whom uses mutants as weapons. Continue reading Not Quite Hollywood
And then they start in with the tricking and the treating and schmabel…
Halloween. Yup: time to sift through the seasonal flurry of straight-to-dvd horror, flip through some old favorites, fire up the scary, cue the gore, put on the mask. Yeah.
I gather Takashi Miike’s utterly, grimly compelling Audition has a sweet new two-disc release. And Raimi’s praised Drag Me To Hell will show up in a week or two, and demands some love. (I did indeed love it–a great deal of fun.) But on to the unfamiliar.
Continue reading And then they start in with the tricking and the treating and schmabel…
Zombieland
Not much to say, but just sheer, delirious fun. Clocking in at only 80 minutes, the movie is played entirely for laughs, with Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg playing off each other well. The zombie-killing action never gets old, culminating in a giddy finale in an old amusement park. And Bill Murray. What to say? He should have a cameo in every movie. Zombieland was made all the better by being preceded by a trailer for a ponderous, self-important vampire movie starring Ethan Hawke.
The Girlfriend Experience
Bearing some similarities to Bubble, this is one of those low budget fragments of a movie that Soderbergh makes in between the glossier Hollywood fare. Lasting only 75 minutes, Girlfriend examines a few days in the life of high end prostitute, played by real-life porn star, Sasha Grey. There is no sex and barely any nudity. Instead we see Chelsea (Grey’s name in this film) meeting and talking to clients, and meeting with an assortment of journalists, webmasters and suchlike who might be able to raise her profile and money potential. We also follow her boyfriend, Chris (Chris Santos), who works as a personal trainer. Most of the stories are unexplained and cut short. Chris is going on a comp-ed trip to Vegas with some male friends and the camera occasionally cuts to the men on a private jet discussing women. Chris leaves a package for Chelsea, but we don’t know what it contains. At some point Chelsea contemplates leaving Chris and becoming more serious with a client she has never met. But it is all pretty aimless. The cinematography is superb, all angles, reflections and middle distance shots. Almost everything about this movie made me think of Van Sant, especially its fragmentary, non-linear narrative, and generally aimless character. Continue reading The Girlfriend Experience
Capitalism: A Love Story
As usual, another Michael Moore movie appears accompanied by a bunch of mean-spirited reviews which claim to applaud the topic, while criticizing the method. Of course, the fact that only Moore is capable of making documentaries that anyone beyond the PBS crowd watches is deemed irrelevant. Moore actually wants to change the world instead of just interpreting it, which requires a different approach to documentary-making, but, hey, let’s poke fun at the shambling fat man.
Capitalism is Moore’s best film; it’s the film he has been working towards since Roger and Me. And while it doesn’t have the shock value of Fahrenheit 911 (which was the first mainstream challenge to the consensus on Iraq), it is superb, managing to be Continue reading Capitalism: A Love Story