Category: (by verdict)

One more …

I gotta give one great big shout for the fabulous (in all senses) Kamikaze Girls: the pop-culture-saturated story of an improbable friendship between Momoko (Kyoko Fukada), a young woman striving like Wilde toward a “rococo” way of being in frilly Lolita-inspired dresses, and Ichigo/Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya), a young woman striving to be a Wild One via a tough-grrl Yanki way of being.

The movie is a joy to watch, moving through flashbacks and fantasy sequences of exuberant playfulness, even presenting one sequence in cartoons (to keep “you kids” attentive, Momoko tells the camera). It’s one big sugary/drug-rush of a film, but not–for all that–simplistic or stupid; it avoids all the expected cliches (especially the seemingly-inevitable breakdown of female friendship into hetero courtship). And best of all it revels in the intelligence and agency of its protagonists–not suckered into prefab style but slyly finding in the trash of consumer culture means to make something of their own. But blah blah: it’s just a blast.

Clubland: Black Narcissus

So, many of us wanted to see a film at something closer to the same time, to get a collective discussion together. I chose Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Narcissus to start us off, and therefore I pitch at you a few, by-no-means-inclusive reactions and readings, intended merely as jumpstart: Continue reading Clubland: Black Narcissus

L’argent

I saw this French film, Le Souffle, about a delinquent teenage boy abandoned by his father and packed off by his mother to the countryside to live and work on his uncle’s farm. The film’s ability to conjure up the hormonally-induced fever dreams of adolescence (an uneasy mix of primitive violent impulses, rural ennui and sexual desire) is quite palpable and the black and white photography was nice to look at. Anyway, don’t go searching for the film as it is only available on a Region 2 disc, but I bring it up because some reviewers compared the film to the work of Robert Bresson (I’d probably argue Jean Cocteau seeing as the film drifts into surreal, often homoerotic territory but that’s another story). I had never seen a Bresson film and while picking up a novel at the library, I came across a DVD for Bresson’s, L’argent, which was released in 1983 and was Bresson’s final effort. I decided to check it out and see what all the fuss was about. I’m glad I did as this is a terrific yet brutal condemnation of human capriciousness. If you have seen any of Michael Haneke’s films—particularly 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance or Code Unknown—it will be self-evident that Haneke studied L’argent very closely. Continue reading L’argent

Crossing the Bridge: The Music of Istanbul – Akin

This doc was directed by Fatih Akin, who also directed the much-praised Head-On. (I have a borrowed copy of Head-On at home, but havent seen it yet.) Akin is a German national of Turkish descent, and the film is largely directed at a German audience. The narrator is Alexander Hacke of Einsturzende Neubauten, whose love of unusual music shows through, and he’s a scruffy presence that seems at home among the cig’-smokin Istanbul musicians.

In a well-paced 90 minutes, Akin discovers 15 musicians or groups, from drug addicted buskers to tuxedo wearing ballroom singers whose peak of popularity was 40 years ago. Continue reading Crossing the Bridge: The Music of Istanbul – Akin

prisoner: cell block H

even since i came to the US and met simon (the two things happened very near each other) i’ve been hearing about this allegedly fabulous australian tv show. it just about broke simon’s heart to leave england while the show was still running, and a week before he was due on his one-way flight to los angeles he runned himself ragged looking for a recording of the theme song all over london. only now do i realize how lucky i am that he didn’t find it.

i discovered that prisoner had been realeased on dvd (not the whole thing, just some choice episodes), so i bought it for him. i barely lasted through the first episode. does anyone know this show? can someone explain to me the allure of english tv? (this is australian, as i said, but whatever). the only bbc production i’ve ever liked is prime suspect, but the styles are so different, it’s as if british tv had learned a thing or two from its american counterpart in the decade that separates prisoner and prime suspect.

so i ask, what is it with the campiness and the cheesiness?

Gore

No, not another post on violence. I saw An Inconvenient Truth last evening, and it’s a pretty damn good documentary. Admittedly, I kind of enjoy well-spun, finely-crafted talking-head documentaries, and this is essentially one guy on a stage doing a very fine power-point/multi-media presentation. That said, with a generally-refined sense of how to “open” up the lecture, the lecture is smart, witty, engaging, challenging. I think it’s a helluva good introductory argument about global warming, but it’s also just a fine documentary about a subject by an expert.

Now, that expert happens to be an ex-Veep, famous for having been displaced from the Presidency. Continue reading Gore

Cars

Saw Cars last and I enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of Pixar, and I’ve been really delighted with animated features coming from Emeryville, CA, the past two decades. Since Pixar merged with Disney last May, I’ve been eager to see what would come of the deal, creatively. Knowing Disney’s tendency to moralize, to idealize the American family, and to smuggle in apologies for consumer culture, I was wondering if Cars would be able to sustain the brilliance of Monsters, Inc. and the edginess of The Incredibles.

The film starts off on a high-kinetic note: the rookie Lightning McQueen, played by Owen Wilson, is on the verge of winning the Piston Cup. Suddenly there’s a crash and massive pile up (this sequence reminded me of the brontosaurus avalanche in King Kong: visually overstimulating and a little irritating). Lightning manages to get through the wreckage and come out in front. Shrugging off his pit crew’s pleas for fresh tires, he builds a commanding lead coming into the final lap. But about a quarter lap to go, he blows a tire. Then another. The favorite and the veteren cars–Chick Hicks and The King, respectively–close in on the struggling rookie. It’s all Lightning can do to stay get a 3-way tie in the photo-finish, forcing a run-off in Los Angeles, California, that will determine the winner. Thankfully, the film slows down considerably from here on out. The emphasis shifts from fast-paced action and exposition to character development and design. There are some amazing shots of Lightning’s trek across the country. Continue reading Cars

Ken Russell – Fall of the Louse of Usher

I’ve wondered for a couple of days whether to write about this film. I’m fascinated by Russell mostly because it’s interesting to see what happens to a director that had a very specific artistic vision that falls way out of favor with the public and film financers.

Since leaving Hollywood, Russell has taken his strong interest in classical music and literature and erotica and managed to keep busy directing British and Candian TV specials and documentaries, including one I’m keen to see on the origins of British folk songs. But for a guy whose highly stylized features were in vogue for a number of years, (1969’s Women in Love to 1991’s Whore), I have to wonder if he’s content not to direct features any more.

So I was excited to find a copy of Russell’s take on all things Poe from a couple of years ago: The Fall of the Louse of Usher, written, directed, shot, and edited by the man, as well as playing one of the main roles. Continue reading Ken Russell – Fall of the Louse of Usher

Prairie Home

Depending on your appreciation of Keillor’s conflation of schmaltzy cornpone and dry, sly sting (which brings out, in the actors, ham on wry), either a dreamy afternoon in good company or a forceful lug-wrench to the soft area between your forehead and your ear. I fall in between: I am a sucker when Keillor stops singing and wanders around flatfooted, mumbling out yarns and sidestepping emotional reactions; I’m equally smitten with the extravagant “Midwestern” dramatics of Meryl Streep’s Johnson sister or the equally outsized snap of Lily Tomlin’s more bilious, bibulous Johnson sister. I also happily confess to loving John Reilly and Woody Harrelson shamelessly twanging and slanging away in the wings.

I’m less keen on the many false notes struck by the framing narratives (an odd misplaced wandering death angel, a vision more in keeping with Michael Landon than, say, Bergman; a dull plot about the end of the show, and a mean old capitalist from Texas, ably and acutely played by Tommy Lee Jones without one hint of whimsy but also lacking any hint of dramatic purpose); the waste of Kevin Kline and Maya Rudolph and a few other stray supporters, left drifting with the wisp of character and comic “bits”. And I almost always turn off the radio “Prairie” (if Kris will let me) whenever anyone starts singing; that ain’t my cup of joe, and it wears about as poorly when seen as when heard.
Continue reading Prairie Home

The Agronomist

Jonathan Demme’s documentary about Haitian journalist/activist Jean Dominique gets a quick recommendation from me. It doesn’t reinvent the form, nor is it the one film to see about Haiti’s political struggles over the last 40 years. But–kind of like the doc on William Eggleston–this film emerges from a personal relationship between filmmaker and subject; its talking head footage of Dominique was collected over a few years, during his periods of exile in NYC, and after Dominique’s assassination Demme spliced it together, fleshed out the history, caught up with some others.

What I very much appreciated about the film was that it didn’t stop to provide tons of explication–it demands that you either inform yourself or pay close attention, rather than giving you Haiti 101 on a plate. I also loved Dominique, garrulous and theatrical and impassioned–the film hews to his personality as a vehicle for conveying the storm of Haiti’s history, but never in that too-pat bio-doc format that collapses personal and national histories into one shared story. Instead, we are learning about Dominique… and necessarily, with this committed social activist, we engage with Haiti.
Continue reading The Agronomist