Author: reynolds

After Life (2003… I think)

This flick was mentioned some time ago–but I just saw it, and at the least thought I’d throw up another nod. The scenario is a post-death fantasy where the recently-departed are asked to pick a single memory which they will inhabit (or something–we’re never really sure) from thereon out. What I liked especially was the rigorous sidestepping of whimsy or fantasy; the afterlife is a very solid place, the workers there follow a specific bureaucracy, and–nicest touch–the memory chosen is then reconstructed on film, a material re-enactment which the workers undertake very concretely (location scouting, sound effects, etc.).

Memory, Kincaid (aka Marco) will be glad to hear, is examined with both compassion and a shrewd dispassion. Everyone is making up what they need, and part of the bureaucrats’ job is to get people to recognize how they’re shaping, reshaping, fabulating a past…. But fabulation is not explicitly challenged or mocked–the “real” (material) re-enactment is itself explicitly a construction, but one consciously chosen and shaped…

Smart, engaging, very recommended.

Spielberg

War of the Worlds was 2/3 of a great movie. For the first hour, hour and fifteen minutes, the film creates a pervasive sense of dread and hopelessness, the gee-whiz special effects always coincident with aw-shit discomfort. By that I mean the razzle-dazzle of the special effects, or even more the precision of Spielberg’s direction, never outweighs a sense of fear, of terror–of awe. That is exactly what an alien invasion film ought to do; there is a sense of inconsequentiality to the choices the characters make, a sense of hopelessness, of the inefficacy of the individual against much larger forces (bug-eyed monsters here, awe-inspiring aliens in Close Encounters, history in Schindler or Private Ryan).

But that version of Spielberg’s humanism–compassion for the small and helpless (which is why he’s so damn good with the child’s point of view)–unfortunately runs up against his other, more conventional rah-rah version of humanism, where can-do spirit and gumption make things work, by jiminy. And War gets stuck when it tries to graft the two together. Continue reading Spielberg

Last Life in the Universe (2003)

Thai film–well, Thai director, ultrahip Japanese star (and cameo from Takashi Miike), played out in English, Thai, and Japanese. Shot beautifully by Christopher Doyle, which made me half-expect another Wong Kar Wai knock-off, but director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang has his own absurdist approach to narrative and imagery despite some nods toward WKW’s obsessions. Like so many films of the last few years (or narrative, always?), the movie plays around with issues of life & death, coincidence and meaning, romance, violence. Japanese expat protagonist Kenji (Asano Tadanobu) seeks to off himself at the beginning of the film–but, he takes pains to note, not for reasons most people commit suicide, although he never names the explicit reasons. Instead he gets mixed up with a local woman Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) and… well, there’s a couple murders, an accident, a jealous boyfriend, Yakuza. But things never heat up, never boil over into plottedness.

Instead, the film seems willfully even derisively dismissive of explicit reasons. “Big” things occur offscreen, out of frame, or just out of the narrative; there’s a sly humor to the displacement of expectations, replacing our focus on the subtle interplay of the two lead characters. And they’re a joy to watch. The film’s enthralling.

Denis Leary on tv

Has anyone seen “Rescue Me”? We talked tv some time ago, and no one ever mentioned this — his show about firefighters. We caught an episode last night, and … it’s good. I had been a fan of his short-lived “The Job,” where he played the same character but as a cop, and that show too is often superb, ‘though pitched more directly as a comedy. “Rescue” seems (from one episode) to have a broader set of objectives, pushing dark comedy but also some of the bleaker portrayals of working-class men destroying themselves which Leary tackled in the film “Monument Ave” some time back.

I ordered it from Netflix, but I’m curious if others have any opinions.

The Taste of Others

This is easily the best film I’ve seen in some time. A French comedy–and lo these many years I’d assumed that beast to be mythical–about tastes aesthetic and romantic. Every character displays some worldview or some kind of love which collides with some other character’s, and the film is a dry sometimes cruelly blunt evocation of how we don’t understand one another. But it also studiously avoids taking sides–almost no character is simply mocked for bad taste.

In my favorite scene, a crass businessman is trying to woo an actress he’s fallen for, sitting in a crowd of her artsy friends, telling crude jokes which all involve shit or vomit. He completely misses their scorn, so rapt in his infatuation…. And although the actor never betrays the crassness of the character, never seeks our sympathies by softening his character’s faults or making him more likable, there is such compassion for his desire, such appreciation for his appreciation.

I also loved the speed of the film–scenes of 2 minutes, or less, and crosscutting between a host of characters. It feels like a farce in form, but plays much more subtly as a character study.

Highly recommended.

Summer

Batman Begins:
Unlike Mauer, who practices his anti-blockbuster sneer in front of a mirror every May, in preparation for quick scornful dismissals in every conversation he has all Summer, I actually continue to dream the dream of the grand great Hollywood extravaganza. I get suckered in every year, or, rather than suckered, I willingly suspend my scorn thinking–well, at least one of these previews has to portend something marvelous. And, of course, like Saturday morning cartoons and burritos at Taco Bell, the preview hype and expectation is almost always better than real life.

This film isn’t the holy grail. It is, though, what a blockbuster ought to be, could be: generally exciting, often surprisingly moving, smartly executed. Fun.
Continue reading Summer

Make Mauer Giggle Like a School Girl

Inspired by the uninspiring “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”–
What’s the meanest funny comedy ever made? And/or the funniest mean comedy?

A short list, off the top of my head:
Happiness
Little Murders
Where’s Poppa?
Prizzi’s Honor
Unfaithfully Yours
Shoah
After Hours; King of Comedy; Goodfellas
Smile — and The Candidate? A shout-out to Michael Ritchie, in his heyday
Being There

Okay, one of those is a gag. A special honorable mention for W.C. Fields. I can’t say all of his films really hold up as mean/funny narrative, but he’s perhaps the model protagonist. In “It’s a Gift” (I think it was “It’s a Gift”) he made me laugh as hard as I’ve ever laughed at a film just by turning to a co-worker and muttering “I hate you.” No punchline, no set-up, no shtick–just “I hate you.” Now that’s comedy.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Not bad. Not good. Too long. At least occasionally witty and reasonably well-edited and shot. But too often assumes that lots and lots of shooting equals rip-roaring fun. (There’s one fine fight sequence between the two ridiculously-sculpted stars that’s kind of fun–at least compared to Cinderella Man, but then the film ends with a bloated half-hour gun battle, and if you’re not John Woo and Chow-Yun Fat and Tony Leung, don’t bother.)

Can say this: made me want to see Fight Club and Made again. Jolie’s never been in a good movie, has she? She’s got pluck, though–hang in there, kid! The pictures are a tough business!

The Machinist

I’m going to jump-start Mauer–I want to hear what he has to say about this flick.

My own thoughts: certainly it’s recommended. If for no other reason, to see Christian Bale, who couples the stunt starvation with some interesting performance choices. Sure, he’s got the sunken, haunted look down pat, but I was even more surprised by the strange smarmy falsity of his interactions with a waitress who might (or might not) be a romantic interest… it was an odd and off-putting bit of swagger, that seemed way out of keeping with the character–but, like much of the movie, made sense as it went on. (And it reminded me of Nicolas Cage, of lore–the Vampire’s Kiss Cage whose weirdness amplified a film’s potential surreality.) But the flick is also well-structured, well-shot, and always pretty gripping. (Even if not all that surprising, and not as spooky or disruptive as Brad Anderson’s last sort-of-ghost-story, Session 9.)
Continue reading The Machinist