Recently watched

I thought the documentary (Street Fight) on Newark’s 2002 mayoral race was pretty engaging, largely because its ‘star,’ the rising political bigwig Cory Booker, is as smart and self-effacing and … well, grounded as you’d want a politician to be. I caution: the narrative of the documentary never digs deep into party politics, represents but doesn’t really interrogate or historicize or even explicate the racial tensions which emerged between the two black democrats vying for the job. It shows a collision of corruption, race, poverty, class, politics, and urban realities, but it doesn’t really do much more than make a good showing of such problems. That said, it’s a decent film. And as a complement to the Carcetti/Royce race on The Wire, it was even more compelling to this viewer.
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The Prestige

An enormously-pleasurable melodrama about duelling magicians, told in a manner that while fractured into a complex time (and mindfuck) structure is never less than coherent and compelling. I’m a sucker for the lore and legend surrounding the heyday of magic (and I’d note that Ricky Jay, a real expert on those subjects, turns up too briefly onstage)–it was a cutthroat business, as interesting for the backstage infighting as for the strange ‘exoticism’ and confidence tricks of the shows. The movie captures that feel very well, even though zeroed in on the story of two rivals. Every actor is quite wonderful, particularly David Bowie in a small turn as Nikola Tesla. Much hay is made about the ‘twist,’ but I wasn’t terribly surprised–and the energies of the plot do not hinge entirely or even too much on that surprise. (As with magic, the “Prestige” may be the showy flash at the end, but the pleasures are all in the getting there. Which brings me back to my theories on narrative, but you all know them, so insert here.)

And I’ll forego further conversation so as not to ‘wreck’ anyone’s surprise. But at some future date I’d love to talk about this. And how the best films of this year have been/are crowd-pleasers–from Lee’s Inside Man to Scorsese’s Departed. Screw the serious?

Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee

Guy Maddin’s been talked about on the blog here , and michael at least had talked about getting some of his movies over Netflix, which hopefully he has. This one was made the same year as his amputee beer baron with glass legs (and Kids in the Hall) epic Saddest Music in the World. It only recently came out on DVD.

I believe that most of it was part of an art installation Maddin did where parts of the ten chapters were viewed by individuals looking through peepholes. Here, each chapter is silent, black and white, about 6 minutes long, and with a jittery editing that makes it feel like you’re hand-cranking the film along backwards and forwards to re-watch little bits over and over again

It involves hockey, abortion clinics/hair salons/brothels, murderous hand transplants, wax museums, ghosts, the Soviet Union, male and female nudity and a kind of tribute to Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks that really I don’t think anyone expected to see. Continue reading Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee

The Departed

During the first hour or so the film is all about the cut as Scorsese and Schoonmaker juggle a lot of heavy exposition, three complex central characters and three integral secondary characters. There are plenty of pleasures to be had–it is a return to form–and the way we move from scene to scene and character to character is handled with the kind of craft we expect from Scorsese (the intricate temporal and spatial shifts seem effortless and Scorsese uses pop and rock songs, once again, to hold everything together). Still, something was missing; the film felt a bit rushed and I wasn’t as invested as I thought I would be. And then Scorsese slows the train down a bit, tightening his focus and racheting up the suspence as the “cat and mouse” narrative kicks in. There is a set piece I won’t spoil by describing, but it is a blistering, anxiety inducing, white hot sequence in which the dramatic action takes its inevitable turn for the worse. For the next 75 minutes, the film is an unrelentless yet highly entertaining masterclass in cinematic, edge of the seat, tension. The acting is excellent; DiCaprio, in particular, is a marvel and Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg accomplish a lot in very small bursts of energy. Jack does his best, but I think a scene or two explaining a turn to oddball behavior ended up on the cutting room floor. Still, it was a damn fun, ugly, brutal, bloody ride. I probably need to see it again.

Two Films

Down in the Valley is a strangely ethereal, contemporary western (deconstructed yes, but not overtly so) which centers on a tender/tragic love affair between Harlan (Edward Norton), a drifter pushing thirty, and a seventeen-year-old girl, October (Evan Rachel Wood), who picks him up one afternoon and takes him to the ocean. They fall in love. Dad (David Morse) gets in the way. Tobe’s diffident younger brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin) believes Harlan to be a kindred spirit; he’s the avuncular ideal Lonnie’s father can never be. Conflicts arise. Harlan’s desire to forge a new family unit by pushing dad aside sets into a motion a series of events where things go uncomfortably awry. I’ll leave it at that. It’s a great film. Continue reading Two Films

Sunset Studio 60 Something

Terrible title.

Pretty good show though. I have a hard time imagining that I will care for these people and admire them in the way I cared for and admired the characters of The West Wing.

And it’s easy to make that assumption b/c so much of the WW cast is duplicated here. As an example, Matthew Perry’s guest stint on West Wing as the chief clerk (or something) for a hospitalized, dying Supreme Court Justice was great. He won an Emmy for it, I think. It had some gravity and walked a nice balance between something we can all relate to – someone dying we care for – and something most of us will never relate to – preserving massive political power for as long as possible. How can something like that be carried off in the setting of a sketch comedy show?
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Mars Attacks!

Is this the perfect movie? I just watched it for the umpteenth time with my kids. Almost every scene is a delight, with Nicholson’s performance — alternating between world weary cynicism and noble statesmanship — anchoring the middle of the movie. Wonderful small parts by Martin Short, Jim Brown and Natalie Portman, and of course Tom Jones tearing up a Vegas cabaret and then the hills above Lake Tahoe with song. Lukas Haas’s speech at the end of the movie is a masterpiece of comedy that almost makes me want to live in a teepee. This is a filmmaker really having fun so that every time you watch the movie you catch another little detail. I just noticed the aliens carrying off appliances from the stores they destroy.

TBS seems to have decided to remember September 11th with alien invasion and monster movies. Not a bad choice.

Sketches Of Gehry

I don’t want to be particularly snarky about this one, though director and interviewer Sydney Pollack makes a rather tempting target. I like architecture and Gehry’s buildings can be staggering. LA’s Disney Music Hall is. Seattle’s EMP Museum isn’t. Billbao’s Guggenheim almost certainly is, though I’ve not seen it in person. Continue reading Sketches Of Gehry

Little Miss Sunshine / Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure

There are many things that depress me, and a good number of them feature prominently in Little Miss Sunshine.

Suicide attempts, people involved with self-actualization programs, bankruptcy, beauty pageants, watching helplessly as major embarassments roll slowly and unavoidably towards you…

Car troubles, depression, desperation, forced family activities, not talking, crushed teenage dreams, and 31 flavors of failure. I’m really not sure why anyone would call this a comedy, though I laughed enough times. And I can’t really fault any particular part of this film; it’s quite good in all respects from writing and acting down to the colors and composition of shots. I guess I had just expected it to be funnier, and when I read somewhere that it was a little overwhelming in its cynicism, I didn’t really expect that it would actually bother me. Continue reading Little Miss Sunshine / Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure

the devil wears prada

i’ve been wanting to write about this for a bit, because i liked it a lot, but i wasn’t sure what to say. this is a film i educatedly suspect none of you has seen, but it’s the summer film i’ve easily liked best so far. this is not saying much, but i actually think this is quite good. the story is a neat rags-to-reaches fable, with plain girl who becomes beautiful, evil step-mother (meryl streep in superb form), prince charming, fake prince charming, evil step-sister who turns out to be all right after all, and evil twins. Continue reading the devil wears prada