Whenever I read Film Comment magazine, as I’m doing now, I feel particularly stupid. First it is unlikely that I will see the new retrospective of whatever at Lincoln Center, and second, I rarely know the celebrated Turkish, Georgian or Finnish directors who apparently have been turning out masterpiece after masterpiece during the last decade, while I struggle to catch up with the episodes of Futurama that I’ve missed. This experience leads to melancholy thoughts regarding “film culture” and “netflix:” what happened to seeing films “publically”–now it is only consistently possible in New York City and in some rare other locations (say San Francisco/Berkely where they have a major Film Archive or Minneapolis which has the Walker Art Center) to see a movie in a well-designed theater or even to see a movie in a theater at all. do people really wish to stay at home so goddamm much? on one hand, the bizarre corporate cineplex where I have to sit through a fucking half hour of TV commercials now (and then, like a bad freshman essay, they summarize what you’ve just seen–“we’ve taken a sneak peak at the big screen update of “Green Acres” and talked with its star Colin Farrell…) and on the other, the stupefaction of “home” where you can safely piss yourself while you slog through all 13 hours of Berlin Alexanderplatz. as peggy lee whispered to me during an amorous embrace, “baby, is that all there is?” To which I replied, “when the boundaries of public and private life are muddled, public life becomes the unsatisfactory adjunct of a private life that is nevertheless misshapen by “public” but inaccessible forces.” She slapped me and left with that cheap Sinatra-fake Jack Jones. I retaliated by copping a feel of Connie Francis, who had passed out over her most recent Gin Rickey.
oscar predictions?
we’ve barely watched any of the nominees in the major categories, but if “ray” is nominated for best picture it must mean it is a bad year. i’m currently going with “million dollar baby” as best picture and scorcese finally getting his best director. i think foxx will get best actor, thereby really pissing off both tom cruise and will smith. for best actress i think there will be an upset and the woman from the new mike leigh will win (and thereby assure herself a lifetime of roles in very un-mike leigh’ish quaint english movies made for the american arthouse circuit). the category that confuses me is best documentary feature as it appears, going entirely off of titles of nominees, that no holocaust or civil rights themed docs have been nominated (though i suppose “the story of the weeping camel” may yet turn out to be one or the other)–are we witnessing a paradigm shift in the academy’s approach to documentary award-giving?
but these are my current picks–as oscar night approaches i will doubtless fine-tune them before once again crushing all opponents in various online and offline pools.
watched but as yet unblogged
in reverse order of viewing:
1. “the business of fancydancing”–promoted this one after mike’s endorsement. we liked it a lot (maybe sunhee will post her thoughts as well). some of the acting was a little amateurish (a lot of first-time actors apparently) but the lead was great, as was the writing generally. structurally very interesting as well–it felt like what it was: a film based on poems rather than stories or a novel. i also liked how it avoided resolutions, not only of seymour and aristotle’s relationship, but also of the question of seymour’s relationship to the rez (in his life and his art).
Early-morning thread
Okay, instead of prepping class, as I should, a hello–this board has been a bit arid, of late.
But I haven’t seen much. “Ray” is in my queue, but dropped precipitously after Arnab and John chewed it up and spat it out. I watched “The Girl Next Door,” which was not as funny as I’d expected (wearing my “good-reason-for-watching” hat) nor as titillating (wearing my “reason-for-watching-that-will-get-me-in-Dutch” hat). Actually, I watched it to see Timothy Olyphant, because I am so fond of “Deadwood” that I’ll watch almost anything any of that grand cast ends up doing between seasons. And Olyphant was pretty good, even in a dull film.
I’m hanging on to “Stevie” and “Maria Full of Grace” for when I have time and inclination to see these darker things. Meanwhile, Kris and I watch “Freaks and Geeks” together. I like it, but…. three episodes in, I’m not stunned into worshipful muttering. Is that heresy? Amy?
Here’s a challenge–what’s strange in your netflix queue? Those things that will be cool but will take forever to move up, what with all the films about things blowing up that could precede. Me: Dr. Akagi, Mule Skinner Blues, Goin’ South, Tunes of Glory, 9 Souls, Touchez Pas Au Grisbi, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, The Yakuza Papers, Madigan.
ray
we watched this last night. i found it to be curiously uninvolving. the parts that worked best were the musical performances (with ray charles singing). the rest was mostly trite psychologizing, shuffling around questions of history, and the occasional quincy jones sighting (which i think was supposed to stand in for charles’ relationship with 50s/60s jazz). and apparently there is nothing to say about ray charles after the 60s. there’s been a lot of talk about foxx’s performance; it is mostly a series of very good ray charles impressions mixed in with some scenes of very good acting–but i thought the impressions distracted (though the big-time critics disagree). too bad belushi died before getting to do a joe cocker biopic.
since this has been nominated for a best picture oscar i am forced to rate it “overrated”.
They cut me, man, they cut me
So I had this operation yesterday. Operation’s a fancy word for it–in and out of the clinic in thirty minutes. But I had to lie around the house all day with ice on my scrotum, so I watched a movies.
Recommended, all:
“Songs from the Second Floor”–not really sure how to describe this, and the critics’ quotes on the box are terribly confused (“Short Cuts meets Night of the Living Dead” is one inept [and lousy] attempt). It’s an absurdist existential comedy of despair, by a Swede. The film is gloriously composed–each shot a fixed-cam tableau, the lighting and sky usually artificial. (In contrast to Sky Captain . . . actually I’ll put this in a comment there.) I laughed, I was intrigued, and my scrotum wasn’t hurting while I watched.
sky captain and the world of tomorrow
watched this last night. the first 20 minutes are just dazzling. it captures the feel of a comic book much better than any movie in its genre, even if on a small’ish tv it probably doesn’t look as good as it did in the theaters. however, the story and so forth aren’t very much better than another recent installment in this genre, “the league of extraordinary gentlemen”, though this is wittier. giovanni ribisi, who i like a lot, does a serviceable supporting turn but the appeal of angelina jolie and gwyneth paltrow continues to baffle me. and is there nobody other than jolie who can play englishwomen in action films?
technical stuff: on the one hand we have something like “terminator 3” in which computer generated monsters and machines interact with the world of humans; in this we have humans being digitized and inserted into a world of computer generated machines, animals and sets. both kinds cost many, many millions to make (i believe this was $70 million)–but neither is as much fun as “raiders of the lost ark”. i thought i had a point when i started that last sentence but i see it might resemble one of roger ebert’s so i’m just going to back away from it.
fucking netflix
nikki noted in a comment on “shaun of the dead” that the fact that they got it off netflix while it remains on “very long wait” status for me must mean they’re better than me. possibly, but what it definitely means is that you don’t rent very many dvd’s from netflix in a month. if you rent too many movies from netflix you will run into service issues. i’ve noticed of late that more movies i want remain longer on “very long wait” or “long wait” status. and very often movies get shipped the day after they receive the previous movie from me, even though my top choices are “available now”. i wrote to netflix customer service about this and this is their response (the more annoying bits are in bold):
Central Station
Arnab mentioned this film in one of his most recent comments. I saw it recently, and it’s terrific. I especailly like the pilgrimage scene. It made me want to write a letter to Jesus. I think I’m the only one in this group who has not seen “The Motorcycle Diaries,” but I want to see it now more than ever. By the way, does everyone know that Salles studied film at USC?
Recently
“Troy”. This snuck into my house, disguised as a film by Wolfgang Peterson with Brian Cox and Peter O’Toole in it. I lasted a few minutes longer than I did when I tried to watch “Braveheart.”
If “snuck” is the past tense of “sneak,” do I actually “feak” in the present tense?
TV shows: “Firefly” finally made me understand why people are impressed with Joss Whedon. And tonight I’ve been rewatching episodes of “The Upright Citizens Brigade,” which made me want to shove pennies up my ass. Again.
“In Good Company” was a fine exemplum of the contradictory embodiment of ideology in popular film. Even as they satirize “synergy,” the characters drink absurdly large cans of Diet Pepsi; the critique of globalization and the conglomeration of industry stems from a nostalgia for the good old days when old white guys shook hands in back rooms. And Topher Grace is a hottie. He reminds me of John Bruns, if John were taller and more anorexic.