Author: mauer

Mondovino

Mondovio is a documentary about the state of the wine industry worldwide, that is funny, mean, a little sad, terribly shot, and excellently edited. It’s surprising in fact that something that so craftily reveals its story the way Mondovino does can suffer from such poor sound recording and camera-work. More amazing that despite the distractions of director Jonathan Nossiter seemingly trying to figure out how his camera’s zoom lens works while interviewing people, I can forgive him that because the rest of it is so well done and he tells the story so well.

The film starts off with an apparently simple story of some small independent vintners in France that successfully managed to fend off a buy-out from a huge American conglomerate. We also meet rather quickly, a rich, heavy, bearded, smoking wine consultant, on the phone non-stop in his car as he races from vineyard to vineyard tasting their wines and giving them all the exact same advice: “micro-oxygenate,” whatever that is.

So far, this is exactly what you’d expect in a documentary about the state of the wine industry worldwide, right? Of course. But for the next 2+ hours, Nossiter manages to almost constantly throw new wrinkles into his story. Continue reading Mondovino

Thank You for Smoking

Funny. Well-acted. Well-directed. Aaron Eckhart is not the angry, misogynistic asshole here that he did so incredibly well in The Company of Men. He’s a guy that wants to spend more time with his kid, and play the game that is his job really well.

It doesn’t matter to me if the people he works for are evil (or more blatantly cartoonishly evil than other companies that other people work for), or if he gets the conscience pangs that will make him renounce his past and work for cancer kids. He doesn’t, by the way. I don’t think I’m giving away much to say that this doesn’t turn into a sappy “I’ve Seen the Light!” kind of movie after 90 minutes black comedy.

But it’s not really even all that black to begin with – at least I don’t consider it to be. It’s even touching from time to time. Even when Nick (Eckhart) tries to pay off a dying cigarette spokesguy to stop badmouthing the industry, it manages to avoid the pitfalls on one side of sentimentality and on the other side of pure ruthlessness. Continue reading Thank You for Smoking

The Call of Cthuhlu (2005)

It’s always been a difficult thing to try to film an H.P. Lovecraft story. Stuart Green’s two, three, FOUR films aside, as they’ve got nothing to do with the dreary, humorless spirit of Lovecraft. (Green’s films are in fact funny and bright – the two things they shouldn’t be. And while I enjoyed his first two Lovecraft films, they do little more than exploit the author’s name)

There’s The Dunwich Horror (1970) starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee, and Lcuio Fulci tried to do a zombie version of a story in 1980, but all of this is crap really; there’s a couple dozen awful things out there made after Re-Animator planted the idea in cheap filmmaker’s heads – they throw in the word Cthuhlu and stick poor Lovecraft’s name on the cover… At least when Roger Corman ran roughshod over Edgar Allen Poe he left a batch of great Peter Lorre and Vincent Price moments (at the very least) in his wake.

Well, I came across a beautifully designed DVD cover at Jerry’s in Los Feliz a few weeks ago for The Call of Cthulhu and grabbed it. Jerry’s I might add, just might be the best video store for Lovecraft related films – even if they are mostly rotten. Continue reading The Call of Cthuhlu (2005)

Yacht Rock

I hadn’t watched anything over at Channel 101 in a while, not since House of Cosbys. I read yesterday that Bill Cosby is still trying to sue over this, and so I wandered over to the 101 website to see what they were up to.

I strongly – HIGHLY – recommend that you folks check out the show Yacht Rock. There are seven episodes up – I’ve watched 2 so far – and it’s really good. Particularly for fans of 70s music – Bruns, Reynolds. In a way, this reminded me of the feel of Z Channel – the yellow tinges of film being shot in 1978 Marina Del Rey. It’s very funny, it’s original, and if it gets too popular people are going to sue faster than Bill Cosby. It’s the back-story of a particular California music genre: Smooth, ocean-going, yet fightin’ too. After all, anything which features John Oates saying, “You’re a fucking loser,” to Peter Cetera has got to be eorth ten minutes of your time. http://www.channel101.com/shows/show.php?show_id=152

Young Adam / Nine Songs

I keep watching movies I find interesting then not writing about them. Then I forget the specific things I liked about them in the first place. These two films are hardly similar, but they do treat sex and nudity in a frank way, and I enjoyed both of them, though I’d hardly call either of them great.

M. Winterbottom cranks out the films. He’s directed five since the very enjoyable 24 Hour Party People , but this one had sex – AND bands, so it got my attention. Continue reading Young Adam / Nine Songs

Savages (1975)

I’d always looked at the DVD sitting there, especially with Michael O’Donoghue’s name on it. So odd. I mean, it’s a Merchant-Ivory film, co-written by O’Donoghue (!), that refers to the said Savages – on the DVD box yet, as “the Mud People.” So it’s intriguing if nothing else.

After the outcries of the indignities in King Kong and stuff about the Noble Natives, I thought this just might be the antidote. For those who don’t know, O’Donoghue was part of National Lampoon as its regulars morphed into SNL and SCTV. He was a main writer on SNL and sometimes performer (Wolverine, Steel Needles in the Eyes), but other than Scrooged, he had precious few screenplays to his credit. Continue reading Savages (1975)

Wholpin DVD

From the McSweeney’s people, who had already launched a rather good monthly magazine that used to be about books and writers called The Believer (It’s not so much about that anymore, and while still good, I no longer get it because I can read about politics, music and films in a dozen other places).

Their latest venture is a quarterly DVD, made up of “shorts.” People continue to make short films even with almost no outlet for them. One would have thought the web would have given more light to this kind of film, but other than the occasional re-cut trailer (Shining, Passion of the Christ) or a photoshopped scene of a jet landing on the 405, it hasn’t really been so. The other possible outlet for this stuff is straight to DVD which again has been tried by various DVD “magazines” with not too much success.

So enter Wholpin from McSweeney’s with an impressive bunch of names on the cover, and actually an impressive bunch of films as well. The variety between the films is impressive; there’s no attempt to create a “theme” thankfully, and the unexpectedness of what you’re getting in each new chapter is really a big part of the fun. Continue reading Wholpin DVD

Miyazaki films on TCM

Quick note to say that there’s one Thursday night left of Miyazaki films showing on TCM. They’re co-hosted by Pixar’s John Lassiter, who nearly single-handedly brought Miyazaki’s films to wide distribution in the U.S.

Saw Whisper of the Heart (non-magic, but cute), My Neighbor Totoro, which was excellent, and then ran out of tape on Porco Rosso; something I didn’t think I’d like, but now want to rent quickly. Still, my favorite is Spirited Away.

Of course there’s probably colonial subtext to it that I’ve missed and Arnab will now point out to me, ruining the film forever. Thanks in advance Arnab.

Country Boys / Channel Z

Anyone else catch the 6-hour Frontline doc Country Boys? Any thoughts? I missed the first night, caught most of the 2nd night. Depressing and really well done… Makes me remember growing up in Southern Illinois a little too closely again – as did Stevie.

PBS’ website is currently down, but I think they are using the web as a kind of dynamic “extras” feature to the program, with lots of different expanded topics. Good idea (as long as your website is working).

Also recently saw the first half of Channel Z – a documentary about an early cable channel in L.A. that ran good movies, including the restored Heaven’s Gate a few years after it came out. I was really enjoying it when the DVD i had of it crapped out (Dayna thinks it was b/c I kept using the rewind button to see who was fronting Black Flag…It was Ron Reyes I guess, not Keith Morris) But I’ll rent another copy and try again; I really liked what I saw of both of these films. More and more, I am impressed more by docs than by “scripted” films.