8/4/02
I just returned from a screening of AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER at the Writers guild. Despite the early (11:AM) Sunday screening, it was well attended and well enjoyed by the audience. The opening sequence was very funny as well as filmically entertaining. The rest of it was mostly amusing. I know the reviewers found a lot of fault with the bodily function vulgarities, but I think we need more penis humor in films.
And, most importantly to me, while GOLDMEMBER may have been Austintacious, it was never pretentious.
7/19/02
I have screened and enjoyed GOSFORD PARK four times. First in a movie theater with good projection on the Big Screen.. I was unaccompanied for this viewing which, as you may remember is my preferred mode of watching movies. At least for the first time.
Then I rented the DVD and watched it on the small big screen at home with Julie. Since I already knew the plot, of course, I was not concerned with the distraction of a couch companion and could even get an additional kick out of watching her enjoy the flick.
The beauty of DVD is that some movies come through almost as well as in the theater, and GP is one of those movies. Its content is a very detailed and precise but presented with a constantly moving camera in a manner that suggests a lack of focus, yet every movement of every character depicted is actually very significant.
But where this DVD really pays off is in the commentaries. I re-watched GP a third time over the commentary of screenwriter Julien Fellows, and then a fourth time with the commentary of Director Robert Altman and Production Designer son Stephen Altman. Julie, by the way, also viewed these along with me and we enoyed commenting ourselves upon the information and revelations the filmmakers shared with us.
Fellows concentrates his commentary not on the script, per se, but on the history and background of the people and era, and on the research and personal experience that informed the content of his script.
The Altmans, on the other hand, speak mostly of the filmmaking process, basically letting the entertainment effect and quality of the film speak for itself. Like many fathers and sons, they occasionally quibbled and squabbled over what had happened on the set regarding a given scene, but their candor lets you realize how very much creative leeway even a great director gives to his cast and crew: along with the writers, full collaborators all.
The American Beauty DVD was brought to my attention by Peter as having some very good commentaries on the disc. I have put in a lot of years in the movie business as student, writer, actor, producer, director, teacher and what have you; and I can recommend the American Beauty DVD commentaries as about as good an education in the art and craft of filmmaking as you are likely to find. Forget about Ebert and Roeper and trash your Sid Fields. Rent or buy some some good DVDs if you want some real understanding of filmmaking.
Another DVD treat: DIE HARD. It's a 2-disk deal with lots of bells and whistles. Outside of an excellent print of the movie itself, it boasts two major commentary tracks. On one, the director and production designer do a voice over description of the film as it unreels with a muted soundtrack. The other commentary is offered on sub titles under the letterbox frame with full sound and contains pertinent observations by several of actors and crew members of the production. Between these two commentaries, much of the real nature of filmmaking is revealed.
1/2/02
I guess that a hip filmgoer is one who wouldn't bother catching up with FAST AND FURIOUS, newly out on DVD, much less liking it. Okay, so I'm not hip, but FAF is Fast and Fun. The plot is pretty simplistic and familiar, but it doesn't try to be any more than a good excuse to bring cute guys and gals and sharp cars together in a harmless rush of adrenaline and testosterone. There are some excellent road scenes--definitely reminiscent of and borrowed from MAD MAX--and the big one near the end had this couch potato jerking in such kinetic response that I almost broke my glasses and spilled my Bud.
What set me up right away was the fresh look at the Los Angeles cityscape; virtually no familiar and cliche signature shots from the movie book of what L.A. is supposed to look like. It shows much more of the L.A. that I like to prowl around, on foot and rubber, that is always more revealed and revealing with new navigation. Director Rob Cohen and his art director do not take L.A. for granted. Of course, they paint a few buildings and illuminate them with some clever lighting to help sustain their comic book approach to the material, the final result of which is film that is an energizing gonad check--with sweetness.
4/14/02
I do not like driving into West L.A; the worst traffic this side of Boston. But I found myself outside of Cinefile Video and went in to get out of the noonday sun. Right there was a MULHOLLAND DR. onthe DVD shelf. I checked it out and headed for the 405. The South was my ramp, but it was a five-day rental so I took the North. I knew some people who lived on Mulholland Dr. and I ramped off. It was a dark and starless night as I eased around the tight curves above the carpet of lights stretching out over Topanga. Bright lights almost blinded me and forced me to stop in the road. There had been a crash: one car turned over and another perched dangerously over the edge. There were people all over the place. Cameras and police and gawkers. One guy looked especially miserable and I asked him what happened. He told me he was the producer and the director had just staged this scene but didn't know what came next; the writer had been working on spec and just got hired by Disney for the big bucks and had flown off to Cuba to celebrate. I told the producer that I was a writer and would be glad to help out. He ordered chicken kreplach soup for two and we had great sex. My scenes enabled the picture to be completed and go on to lose over $30,000,000 domestic alone. On the beach at Cannes, topless actresses and my mother physically fought each other to pose with me for the news media. Unfortunately, my copy of MULHOLLAND DR. was due before midnight and I never did get to see it.
Alright already, so I really did screen the Mulholland Dr. DVD. Does a lie always begin where the truth ends? Still, I am not going to review Mulholland Dr., but I am going to recommend it. Actually MD can't really be reviewed, though many have tried, none have conquered. What MD can be is discussed, and that is something I look forward to doing with others who have seen it. I will say that David Lynch is a writing and directing master of the film medium. No one can more mesmerize an audience than he. I don't know if he has the technical controls of some of the other good and great filmmakers, but he has all the story and cinematic tools needed to control the minds and hearts and emotions of his audiences.
You don't have to like David Lynch, but you have to love him. There is an early shot of a naïve movie starlet wannabee as she arrives at LAX and I turned and said to Julie, "Don't you just love David Lynch?" "No," she said, and went to bed. Well. I don't think Lynch much cares if we love him or like him as long as we provide him with the wherewithal to continue doing whatever it is he does on screen. Then there is Naomi Watts: a dangerously gifted actress. Her performance in MD is a Masters Class in the art and craft of film acting. It is probably the Best Performance on film by an American (orAustralian) Actress in the Sound Era. All the acting is excellent in MD. And the photography, music and technical elements perfectly serve the emotional text and subtext that grip the viewer. Worth the price of the DVD alone is the Silencio sequence (shades of Mario and the Magician) and the compelling vocal performance of Rebekah Del Rio.
Absent from this DVD is the usual director-writer-actor commentary that often accompanies the feature film. I don't mind that so much, but I do miss the usual line up of chapter selections. It would be interesting to re-order the scenes and transfer them onto tape in adifferent sequence. But maybe that's just what Lynch wanted to keep us from doing. And last, but not least, Naomi Watts is a dangerously gifted actress because a true artist is always dangerous: leading onlookers down uncharted pathways of experience and revelation.
5/6/02
I spent 17 minutes on CHANGING LANES. What a waste. A dreary, water-logged slog through a hyperbolized urban dreamscape. The set-up is gratuitous, unimaginative and clumsy. From what I saw, the plot is just another false urban myth of the type I get in my E-mail every week or so; pointless, predictable and paranoiac.
But if you want to screen a satisfying urban myth, also featuring Samuel L. Jackson, rent FRESH. If you haven't heard much about it --and it is a few years old -- good, because the less expectations you have of it the more open you are likely to be to its unique qualities and surprises. This is an extremely violent film. There are no pulled punches in depicting the violence of contemporary Black life in the projects and in the streets. But there is exceptional artistry in the story construction, direction and performances. And the violence is as cathartic as Aristotle could have ever asked. As the film unfolds, you find yourself thinking Luis Bunuel? DashiellHammet? B.Traven? And maybe, most of all, Little Black Sambo? Don'tscoff. LBS is a great moral fable based on the will and courage of a little black boy who outsmarts and overcomes a group of fierce and destructive lions. Like Sambo, Fresh (given name Michael) is a survivor. But FRESH is no lightweight little amusement and the cost to Fresh, a true warrior-hero is enormous. We feel and share his hurts and his losses and regret these costs of his emerging manhood.
So where does Bunuel come in? There are significant touch points between the ghetto/poverty barrio settings of Fresh and Los Olvidados, and the youthful villains, heroes and fools so poignantly depicted in both films. Where FRESH goes, no other movie has gone since Bunuel'sgreat 1950 masterpiece.
Dashiell Hammett? Young Fresh is a youthful descendant of the GLASS KEY's Ned Beaumont and the Continental Op of RED HARVEST (and it's two foreign film adaptations; YOJIMBO and FISTFULL OF DOLLARS).
B. Traven? FRESH depicts much the same struggle against oppressive authority and exploitation that Traven does in DEATH SHIP and MARCH TO THE MONTERIA. And his heroes must also pay a great price in order to prevail against vicious exploiters, predators and a cruel environment. Curiouly, I just happened to catch FRESH on cable the same night I walked out on CHANGING LANES. What a refreshing development that was.
5/11/02
NINE QUEENS looks to be a current art house film favorite so I suppose it is worth a word or two of comment. It is a watchable little thing, a passable time killer but not amounting to very much. It is not much more than an Argentinian rip-off of David Mamet in his grifter mode. The game is pretty obviously played with the viewer, whose task is to guess who is conning whom. The con, however, when finally revealed, is one that was easy to spot as it unfolded, yet is totally preposterous in the anticipated behavior that is required of the mark for it to be successful. Oops! I've just let the cat out of the bag. Now you know everything. Or do you? If you paid attention to the lessons of two earlier con game items I posted here recently, you should be ahead of the movie. The rules of the con game are rigid and classic and have only one standard requirement for success: the greed of the mark. I will say that writer-director Fabian Bielinsky was more than fair in hipping his audience to what was really happening but I doubt that you, any more than I, caught his first, most obvious and most oft repeated clue as to what was really going on. At least I now know it. And so do you. Or do you?
6/22/02
Most people I know like to go to the movies with a companion or more. I have done that often enough myself, usually with a girlfriend or wife and occasionally while on a double date. But I still don't understand the compulsion to share the movie-going experience with another. My favorite way to watch a movie is by myself, whether alone in a theater or at home. I, personally, cannot fully perceive, experience or enjoy a movie if I am distracted by the company of others. I have to be in my own cocoon in order to really get with and into the movie. I have had the occasional seat partner who needed to be in his/her own cocoon so that we didn't impinge on each other, but that was a rare experience that now seems well in the past. Watching a movie is an experience of perception and emotion, neither of which can have free rein when restricted by the communication needs and attentions of a screening partner. Two of my favorite examples can be cited. Back in 1951, I took a date to see THE AFRICAN QUEEN. Ienjoyed my date very much that night, but not the movie. But a few months later, by myself in another city, something drew me to a solo viewing of the same movie. I was blown away by it that day, and on many days thereafter. I am happy that I eventually came to recognize and enjoy a great motion picture. On another afternoon, in 1967, though I was not a Lee Marvin fan, I wandered into a matinee screening of POINT BLANK. By myself in thattheater, I watched in awe as subtle and extraordinary elements of filmmaking were used to turn a fairly ordinary crime plot into a visceral and compelling action melodrama combining myth, magic and surrealism in a 91 minute masters class on filmmaking. I am inclined to think that had I been in that theater with a companion, I would have surely missed the complex and discrete details that make POINT BLANK the unique film it is. I do like to talk about movies with those who have seen the same ones, but not until I have seen the film on my own. And I definitely don't want to think about what I think about the movie while I am still watching the movie. It does seem to me that most people today who are eager to discuss a film are really more interested in discussing themselves in relation to the movie than in the movie itself. To those persons, I would advise that having an opinion about a movie is not what makes you a special person. Nor does having bad taste in movies make you a lesser person. Unless you are a filmmaker yourself, you will have to find your identity elsewhere.
7/15/02
From everything I've ever heard about him, Steven Spielberg is an honorable and pleasant man. He seems to be a good family man, a good American, a good Jew and a good liberal Democrat. Especially the kind of liberal Democrat that only millionaires can afford to be these days. And I, for one, applaud him for all that. But one thing Spielberg is not is a good filmmaker. Oh, I know he has a certain small talent with the camera and with mindless little stories about extra-terrestials visiting earth, but he has never demonstrated a whit of cinematic artistry on the level that really moves an audience in awe of anything except his superficial energy at playing with movie equipment.
MINORITY REPORT is the current example of his empty-headed approach to non-sensical story telling and human behavior revealed through really silly and unacceptable pseudo-futuristic special FX. Otherwise, this childish exercise can be summed up in a word; flatulence. Not that I don't enjoy a good fart now and then, but only my own.
7/28/02
THE ROAD TO PERDITION is merely a road of pernicious pretension. What a monstrous, bloated hollow piece of fakery masquerading as art. And that's just star Tom Hanks, who displays as much charm and talent in this role as a wet army blanket. Usually something much else on film, I think Hanks has been hanging around too much with Steven Spielberg. I have sat through some bad movies this season, but because of its self-congratulatory pretentiousness, Perdition (Dig that title? It refers to a non-existent town with one house nestled among trees on a wide empty shore facing an open sea where Hanks might have once been Cast Away) takes top honors as the worst of the lot. This tedious road movie has more plot holes than New Jersey has potholes. I don't even want to think enough about it to comment any further.
12/19/02
I finally caught up with BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. As with other Michael Moore docs, it is wonderful entertainment. In addition, however, BFC just might be the most important documentation of the emotional state of America today. Moore presents himself on film as abig, clumsy oaf who doesn't seem to know much more about anything than we do. And that is probably the case. But his peripatetic ramblings and fumblings do provoke questions and concerns while they also provoke icons like Dick Clark and Charlton Heston. I have read that Heston comes off badly under Moore's camera eye. I don't agree. He does come off as a sad old actor who has found a latter day audience by preach-performing at NRA events. The lastshot of him making a shadowy retreat into his mansion looks like that dim shot of Bigfoot scampering from the photographer. Dick Clark is another matter. What a pompous fatuous, hollow example of success in America.Violence in America is the subject of the film and Moore goes about asking Americans why we commit so much of it. The exploitation of fear for reasons of greed seems to provide an answer for many. Itis certainly a factor. But will we ever really have an answer unti lafter the either the problem, or America has disappeared and we can benefit from the hindsight of history?
