La Vie de Bohème

Saw La Vie de Bohème. A film about a trio of artists (a writer, a painter, and a musician) and their struggle to survive. The film has scenes of real poignancy softened by scenes of comic chicanery. The film opens with the writer cagily putting his typewriter out the window so that it would not be seized by his landlord in lieu of rent. The painter is making an absurdly self-aggrandizing self-portrait of himself parting the red sea. The musician's latest composition is so avant-garde that it requires a police-siren as an instrument. The pathos in the film is derived mostly from their struggle to keep their long-suffering girlfriends. Part of me began primly moralizing partway through (why should we smile at the self-serving machinations of these bums?) but I was won over by their genuine passion for art and they completely redeemed themselves by the end.

Decalogue I

Saw Decalogue I a few days ago. It's the first of a ten-part series where each part deal with one of the ten commandments. Since I'm treating each 'episode' as a film I'm reviewing them separately. Alright, to business.

This first episode was the 'I am the lord your god' episode and therefore featured some hubris of man being humbled by forces beyond his control. The humbled protagonist is a computer-wiz/linguistics expert who I at first understood to symbolize Science as a whole (which understanding I believe now to be mercifully mistaken.) His sister is a religious woman with no other role than to be religious. I found it interesting that the two were not played as being in opposition to each other. They peacefully disagree about spiritual matters, but neither of them let this aspect of their lives dominate their relationship.

The film is shot in a chilly, distant way. Opportunities for cheap sentiment are wisely missed. There were also some images that were genius, such as the frozen holy-water at the end and the 'crying' painting of Mary. I thought it was fascinating. A strong start to the series.

Revenge of the Ninja

Saw Revenge of the Ninja. It was no better than what you'd expect. The word 'juvenile' kept running through my head as I watched it. The movie is juvenile in a lot of ways. During one fight between a little boy and a grown man the boy uses the phrase "Look, it's Superman" to distract the fully grown, adult man. There is a woman who functions mostly as a lingerie/wet-shirt model, the most Native-American henchman in the world, and a bad guy who gutturally cackles periodically throughout the climactic showdown. A fetishistic level of attention is given over to the props and toys of ninjas (all the little plastic-looking throwing stars, all the little knives and ropes and whatnot.) One fight actually takes place on a playground. Eventually I began to suspect that this level of childishness was intentional and that perhaps this movie was camp, intending its own mockery. If so, bravo film-makers. There is so much that is gloriously absurd about this film.

Hilariously, this film is banned in Norway.

Executive Koala

Saw Executive Koala (Thanks, Nina!) I thought the movie was delightful. The conceit is that there is a koala who is an executive and his (human) wife goes missing. The police investigate and accuse him of killing his own wife. This is not animated and only a few other characters are animals at all. The plot pretty much sums up the whole feel of the movie especially in terms of whether you'd like it or not. If the above sounds too silly, then this movie is not for you. If the above sounds intriguing and interesting, then check this movie out. It has unabashedly fake fight scenes, with rubber dolls as stunt-doubles. It's the sort of movie where musical dream sequences don't even really advance the plot, they're just sort of there. I found the movie utterly, delightfully bonkers but then I'm a sucker for spectacle.

Femme Fatale

Saw Femme Fatale. It was interesting. It had that swiss-watch quality I like where everything is so clever and sharp that it could just cut itself. However it also had a thick layer of smart-sleaze that Tarantino does so well and that makes me so uncomfortable. This is Brian De Palma though, not Tarantino, so he's a bit more showy and blatant about his cleverness. Ultimately the cleverness upstages any mental meat the film might have. What do I care about fate and predestination when omg that totally ties into what that other guy said earlier!! A smart film but not too smart.

The central femme who is fatale is delightful though. She starts out as one of those sympathetic characters who shouldn't be sympathetic. As the film wears on she becomes at first delightfully evil and then just evilly evil. It was at this point I began to wonder where all this vitriol for attractive women came from and began trying to think of cute ways to say 'misogynist.' But then (sweet redemption,) she is a good bad girl again! So I concede, my emotions were well manipulated. Good show De Palma. I was entertained, but begrudgingly so. So, as I often say in these cases, you win this time, De Palma. You win this time.

The Man Without a Past

Saw The Man Without a Past. It was about an amnesiac building a new life. His previous life & memory is recovered and dealt with. It was one of those indie films that seem to exist only to argue for the fundamental decentness of human nature. No one is really evil in any way in this film. There is a hilarious landlord who at first seems a cruel loan-shark but turns out to be a sort of self-mocking paper tiger (his man-eating attack dog stares in blank boredom at shouts of 'attack!') A bank robber is only robbing the bank so he can pay his employees etc. There is almost always some incongruous music (a salvation army volunteer returns to her bunk to listen to some cheesy rock-a-billy music, the protagonist eats his soup in his new home while listening to soul, he is beaten up by youths to the sound of classical music on a radio.) which is interesting. Unfortunately though none of this is exactly entertaining. It's different and therefore novel and I found it's assertions re the kindness of strangers refreshing, but all in all a bit too milquetoast for me. There is some passion, but it is mostly bloodless voyeurism.

A Man Escaped

Saw A Man Escaped. It was a fairly straight-forward story of a man escaping from jail. I'm probably reading into this movie too much, but I was struck by his arguments with a suicidal fellow inmate about the necessity of struggle. Even if you fail, your struggle is an inspiration to others and gives your life meaning. Taken in an existential way, this becomes the universal search for meaning in a meaningless land, but looked at from this angle, the movie takes on an almost nihilistic tinge (is it really alright to murder in the name of 'meaning?')

A perhaps more fruitful angle to look at this film with is to consider how purposefully non-action-packed it is. Much of the story is told via over-the-shoulder shots of the prisoner industriously braiding rope or sharpening a spoon. Months of inaction are narrated away. Insecurities and worries become almost as caging as the walls and doors themselves (again, symbolizing a struggle for meaning perhaps.) An interesting movie with clearly more going on under the surface than I have the equipment to unpack.

Edit: According to imdb, the ropes and hooks used in the movie are the real ropes and hooks used by the guy whose story this is. That's pretty awesome.

Bigger Stronger Faster

Saw Bigger Stronger Faster. It was a sort of scatter-shot documentary about steroid use in America. The director convincingly argues that the American culture of celebrating success above all is the systemic cause of steroid usage and further argues that we are hypocritically punishing athletes for the very practices that are required of them to win. The film is shot in a Michael Moore, super-personal style. TV footage is used in a way I would describe as addling. This style of documentary is terribly convincing, but also terribly manipulative. Who can fail to be convinced by his overwhelming montages, his sad music, his very own face and voice? In my ivory tower, I prefer the talking-head type documentaries.

The most compelling counter-arguments against steroids that he has in the film come from his mother who argues not against steroids themselves, but against their causes. She doesn't care that steroid abuse is semi-illegal, she only cares that her sons don't feel successful. The director himself misses her point when she says to him that the bible can solve every problem. He counters that the bible can't make him look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but of course the philosophy promulgated by the bible can help him to no longer want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I believe this to be an intentional omission, because the conclusion he reaches dovetails nicely with this outlook. I can't be sure though because he seems more interested in pointing fingers and wallowing in disillusionment than providing answers. Though the pointing and wallowing make for an excellent documentary, so I can't complain.

Tangential fact about me: I actually take steroids daily. Nasal steroids. I am a nerd.

Crocodile Dundee

Saw Crocodile Dundee (Thanks, Kim!) It was alright. The protagonist is a kind of holy idiot / noble savage, ironically innocent and bereft of survival skills and yet able to survive and flourish because the universe is especially kind to only him. Due to his charmed life I wanted to kind of cruelly root for his failure, but the character himself is charming in a way and I couldn't muster up the energy to be anything more than mildly entertained. I didn't dislike this film, but I didn't really dig it either. Too dumb for good comedy and too glib for romance, the movie itself is a kind of reflection of its protagonist. Charming but unsophisticated. Perhaps that's the best way to put it.

I was wondering as I watched the film how it would deal with the girl's emotions as she clearly falls in love with someone who isn't her fiance? Would she be wracked with guilt and depressed or care-free and therefore careless? How would her family react? I wondered how the black chauffeur would react when he realized Dundee wasn't calling him a 'tribal' ironically? What if Dundee was shot in the leg one day? What if the hotel objects to him charmingly sticking knives into the wall? Would Dundee ever get in serious trouble for grabbing a transsexual's genitals?

All of these potential traps are dealt with by not being dealt with. The woman's emotions happen entirely off-screen. The family is never again mentioned. The chauffeur is already good friends with Dundee after one scene. Dundee lives a charmed life and the hotel loves him and, this being the 80's, transsexuals are not yet people.

Again, I find it not bad but uninteresting.

Alien 3

Saw Alien 3. It was a lot better than I was expecting. I keep anticipating a fall-off into camp from this series but it's always pretty solid. I liked this one a lot more than Aliens. This one had strange high-voiced murderers and a healthy dose of the corporate paranoia we all know and love from this series. I love all the hard-SF trappings of it. It really feels like there's a world we're looking into. The series is pretty well ended though. I don't see what they'll do for Alien 4.

Edit: Apparently both fans and even the director hated this movie. Well I liked it. They hate the very sense of futility I enjoyed about it. So I win.

Die Hard 5

Saw Die Hard 5. I think by this point John McClain has realized he's an action star and therefore does whatever the hell he wants, serene in the knowledge that he's unkillable. The beginning of the movie is a long car-chase/Mercedes commercial, the middle of the movie is like a really long promo video for some Black-Ops-like video game and then we have a short and utterly tacked-on and stupid ending about learning to love his son or something. Who cares really? The whole point of this movie is to see things blow things up against a cyan background. And orange explosions set against dark-blue backdrops are dutifully delivered in spades. We the audience are congratulated on being American by sneering Russians who seem to talk about America and Americans a lot to each other in English. Our mindless passivity is congratulated by a hero so anti-intellectual that he sneers at the audacity of constructing a 'plan.' Our sense of justice is perverted into a grim desire for revenge. Et cetera. Ugh.

I'm really glad my adventure in Die Hard-land is over. This series is just really not meant for someone like me.

Umberto D.

Saw Umberto D. It was a sad little story about a retired man who is struggling to pay his land-lord in the ultra-hostile Italy of the neo-realists. This movie was the first in a while to frustrate me with its genuine lack of closure. I don't want to give away the ending, but the climactic, unresolved question (I feel) is whether this man will be alright or not. We hope the best for him, but he ultimately has less stability than ever and nowhere to go. The most compelling insight I was able to glean was that a person can be stronger if something is depending on them. Sometimes to make people strong, they must be forced to be strong.

The movie isn't as miserable as, say, The Bicycle Thief (to say nothing of the likes of Dancer in the Dark) but it's certainly grim and has an oppressive atmosphere. The visit to the dog-pound is particularly worrying.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Saw Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. I openly admit to nostalgia-goggling this pretty hard, but this movie was awesome. The ultra-art-deco buildings, the darkness, the histrionics and absurd, grotesque posturing. It was sheer awesomeness. Good show, Bruce Timm.

I was a bit confused that it's heavily implied the Joker is killed in the end. The freakin' Joker? No way.

The Interrupters

Saw The Interrupters (Thanks, Nina!) It was very gritty and sad. I kept retreating into super-intellectualizing everything to avoid the enormous sadness of a few good people struggling against an entrenched cycle of violence. It's not all sadness though. They struggle with some good success (an 80% success rate is quoted somewhere.) Ameena Mathews in particular is an absolute delight to watch. She obviously cares so deeply and is a tigress when she needs to be. I love her. The kids they deal with though are heartbreaking. It takes months of work and then they save one kid. Cue montage of stuffed-animal roadside monuments to teenage victims of gang-violence. Tough going.

Good, tough movie.

Dancer In The Dark

Saw Dancer In The Dark. It was unrelentingly, unreasonably sad. Bjork plays a poor woman betrayed and hurt by her family, friends, self, by her dreams, by her idols, everything. The only glimmers of hope exist to make the despair yet darker. Even the musical numbers have a ghastly quality due to the no-fi Dogme 95 aesthetic. Instead of a pleasant escape, they serve only as a fun-house grotesquery of the pain in the story. The only genuine hope comes just before the ending which is at best grim.

Huge emotional reaction. Never again.

Die Hard 4

Saw Die Hard 4. It was the story of a grizzled barbarian and a young mage who team up to defeat an evil mage and his minions. Like the other Die Hards, it's kind of a romp. Of course the computer stuff is nonsense but hey, it's Hollywood. They only have poor bewildered english majors to write the scripts. One of the biggest flaws was misjudging how insanely pedantic computer-folk are. Warlok (or was it Morlok? They sound too similar.) should have begun armchair lawyering as soon as he found out McClane was a cop. What cares he for The Fate of America when he has points to score off some pig? A certain type of nerd completely lives for this crap. Bah. Wasted opportunity.

There was some kind of worrying stuff about recent politics thrown in "it took FEMA 5 days to gt water to the superdome." (as they're being hacked) "The FAA says all flights are grounded." These references to 9/11 and Katrina are jarring and don't feel like they belong in a light-hearted watch-McClane-kill-everyone movie. But I suppose it was 2007, so what can you do?

Very very goofy, but entertaining I guess, if you're into that.

Edit: I really, REALLY liked the montage of president clips being threatening. I've always wondered if such a thing would work.

The Red Shoes

Saw The Red Shoes. It was a film about making an opera. (A lot of behind-the-scenes films seem to be high on critics' lists.) It was also full the of the spectacle of an opera, even at one point become an orgiastic fantasia, an awesome collage of images and sound. It is also full of the histrionics of opera. Some of the characters are ludicrous. The plot of the opera-within-the-film relates heavily to the plot of the film itself (of course) and deals with a woman destroyed by having her desires ironically fulfilled more fully than she'd intended. This leads the aforementioned hysteria, with grotesque gesticulations and gaping rictuses. Needless to say, I loved it. Quite a good movie, though also quite silly at parts.

The Karate Kid (1984)

Saw The Karate Kid. It was the stirring tale of a 12 year old who took on a troupe of 30 year old nazis to prove that violence solves everything. It's a fun movie, but the fun-ness is completely overshadowed by the gobs and gobs of ridiculousness it contains. I guess I shouldn't be so mean. It is intended for kids and does come from that most ridiculous of decades, the '80s. So, okay. Not a terrible movie, but I wish I'd seen it with friends to mock it.

Do the closing credits music really say "Standing alone, Willem DaFoe?

The Hangover

Saw The Hangover (Thanks, Kim!) It was hilarious. I had let this film pass me by when it came out because this movie (as it turns out) is a great example of something that seems likely to hit all of my cringe-buttons. I was very worried during the first few scenes that this would be a bro-fest of the worst kind, congratulating the audience for not being different and for hating women. Thankfully these themes failed to materialize and it turned out to be a very lighthearted screwball, inviting us only to laugh at the escalating confusion of our heroes and their apparent drunk shenanigans. Hooray for comedy today.

Training Day

Saw Training Day. A lot of movies are about wish fulfillment. Mobster/gangster movies often feed us the promise that by being smart we can become respected and feared, that we can become strong. Police movies peddle the dream that by merely being virtuous we are already strong. These two flatting viewpoints are excellently played against each other in this movie by the jackal-grinning Denzel Washington and the overgrown kid Ethan Hawke. Ultimately the movie comes down on one side about a half-hour to the end but until that point, it's almost perfect ambiguous which way it'll come out. Awesome. I wound up liking the film a lot more that I thought I would. I assumed the film would be a lot of macho posturing and frowns. There's a bit of that, but only enough to pass a cursory inspection. Not your average gangster or police movie.

I did think the closing lines, though cute, were stupid. Oh well.

Bonus barely-related trivia:

• This blog suddenly saw a whole mess of traffic from Russia that came from an obfuscated link source. Yeah, no.

Reservoir Dogs

Saw Reservoir Dogs. It was very blood-and-guts grim. These people show affection by insulting each other. My usual gripes with action movies apply here: the morality is simplistic, the atmosphere and characters are threatening but we're supposed to kinda want to be all the characters. And despite my better nature and despite most of my personality, it pretty much completely works. They're cool, what more can you say? They're terrible people and they make it look good. The slight-of-hand required to pull this off is elegant and a wonderful thing to behold. Even when I could tell that I was supposed to be filled with dread as the soundtrack became a growly hum and the camera went all hand-held, I was filled with dread just the same. I always feel this post-film sense of disgust with Tarantino movies, as though I'd woken up next to someone reprehensible. I imagine Tarantino would be smug if he knew. But despite all my malaise, I still enjoyed the ride and I don't think I want to stop enjoying his rides, even if it's a shitty wake-up. You win again Tarantino, you bastard.