Cinema Viewfinder

I'm Back

2009-07-13T09:53:00.002-04:00

Whew. What a week. My absence was not intentional, I assure you.

First, my youngest son, was sick. Since I'm the one who stays home, I had to care for the poor little guy. As he got better, I caught what he had, and that laid me up for the remainder of the week.

So now I'm back. In the coming days you should see some reviews for current films like Moon and The Kreutzer Sonata, a special drive-in double feature edition of Seventies Cinema Revival spotlighting The Last House on the Left (1972), Vanishing Point (1971), and some special stuff, like my contribution for the year 2003 at Counting Down the Zeroes/Film for the Soul, and the way overdue next installment of my Pasolini Retrospective, Mamma Roma (1962). Of course, there are other surprises. I just can't tell you about them yet because they haven't been finalized.

Thanks for your continued support, and I hope to have something up later today or tomorrow morning.

P.S. Can anyone guess what movie the screen capture is from? This one's easy.

UPDATED: A Random Email thread on the Current State of Cinema

2009-07-06T15:02:00.001-04:00

From: Lissette Decos
To: Tony Dayoub
Sent: Friday, July 3, 2009 8:52:21 AM
Subject: isn't this interesting?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/business/media/02moneyball.html?_r=1&ref=movies

From: Tony Dayoub
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:28:11 -0700 (PDT)
To: Lissette Decos
Subject: Re: isn't this interesting?

I'm glad you sent me the article, because I had wondered why it went into turnaround. Similar thing happened to Chris Pine's next film, his first star vehicle, Unstoppable, which was to costar Denzel Washington and be directed by Tony Scott.

For an up-and-coming actor it must be frustrating, since that is what they work toward. Star Trek was a concept piece with an ensemble cast, but it helped him break out. Meanwhile Scott's latest with Washington, The Taking of Pelham 123 has been a failure. In essence, each of these films has proven that Unstoppable (and Moneyball) were risky propositions.

Pelham failed to attract an audience because arguably Travolta and Washington (expensive stars), and Scott (expensive director) have fallen out of favor with moviegoers. Star Trek put its money upon the screen, paying the actors relatively little to boost the visual effects and the concept, helping usher in its success, and making it less dependent on who the stars are (all unknowns). So studios are rethinking whether it pays to have celebrity driven (whether behind or in front of the camera) vehicles instead of concept-fueled pictures.

Not exactly as good news as it sounds either. You would think this would make them look for new and fascinating stories. Instead, those are deemed risky for not being well-known and smaller, leading to expensive blockbusters that can be pre-sold based on their reputations, i.e. Transformer [sic]: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Those are ironically viewed as the least risky crapshoots, because even if they suck, fanboys will buy them up on DVD and Blu-ray for their extended cuts, etc.

Tony Dayoub
Cinema Viewfinder

UPDATE: Here's a link to another article on this subject appearing in BusinessWeek.

Movie Review: Away We Go

2009-07-03T16:49:00.001-04:00

by Lissette Decos

In Away We Go, John Krasinksi (The Office) and a restrained—and pregnant—Maya Rudolph(Saturday Night Live) play Burt and Verona, a very much in love couple who set off in search of a new home for their growing family.

These two can wander freely because they are, like most thirtysomethings nowadays, unmarried and still don’t have a baby. And like most thirtysomethings nowadays they have too many options and find it difficult making decisions (this may just be me). So away they go with the flow to check out some random cities where they happen to know someone until they find the one that feels right.

These characters have the kind of relationship you want. Ok, the kind I want. They know each other so well that when they are together it’s like they are in on their own secret. They are cool and calm and say smart things to each other and nothing phases them. Well, except having a baby. So they are stumped, and try to pick up what they can from the families they meet along the way.

There’s angry/drunk families; adoptive families a la Brangelina; and the ultimate so-Earth-friendly-it’s-hazardous family whose mom is played by Maggie Gyllenhaal in an excellent performance. Much better than The Dark Knight. And Stranger than Fiction. Combined.

Maya doesn’t do any of her usual SNL slapstick, and maybe that’s why it felt strange to hear her normal voice. It felt like she was forcing a foreign accent. Like Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love. This film is also a stretch—though a clearly comfortable one—for director Sam Mendes, who breaks his usual character with this sweet, light, and innocent comedy.

At the heart of the loving couple in this film is another loving couple. The script was written by real-life literary “it” couple Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) and Vendela Vida. These two are successful novelists who got the idea for this film when they were pregnant with their first child and entered the whole new world of crazy strangers giving you parenting advice.

Which leads me to one of my many frustrations. Should talented people be allowed to collaborate let alone marry? Should talented people in one field be allowed to enter and conquer another? Should the laws of monopoly prevent these things?

Ugh.

But I will give them this, they have created the most intimate pregnancy test scene of all time. At least that I have seen. So far. In a movie.

That moment is only plausible because this is one intimate couple. So close that I would dare say their search for a new home is somewhat in vain, because this couple is always at home when they are together (Yes, cheesy, so what? Back off, I need a date with John Krasinski!).

And because you’ve read this far, I’ll give you my too analytical (and definitely wrong) theory about the film: it’s all about going back into the womb—let’s face it—our first home.

Karl Malden

2009-07-03T08:29:00.000-04:00

This is a brief acknowledgement of Karl Malden's death on Wednesday since I am not as familiar with the man as I wish I was. Early in my life, he made a personal impact on me as Detective Lt. Mike Stone on TV's The Streets of San Francisco (1972-77), where he exhibited some wonderful chemistry with a young Michael Douglas. And of course he was even better known to my generation for his stint in the 80s as a pitchman for American Express ("Don't leave home without them"). But later, it was through my discovery of his wonderful supporting performances in films as varied as A Streetcar Named Desire(1951), On the Waterfront(1954), and Patton (1970), that he truly reached a measure of eminence.

His ability to mix a working-class everyman quality with a certain level of dignity made him a character actor with a pliability that one rarely finds in today's performers.

He died on July 1st at the age of 97.

Recommended Films - A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, Baby Doll, One-Eyed Jacks, Birdman of Alcatraz, Gypsy, How the West Was Won, The Cincinnati Kid, Billion Dollar Brain, Patton

Movie Review: Public Enemies (2009)

2009-07-01T16:43:00.000-04:00

[This is a contribution to Michael Mann Week currently running at Radiator Heaven from June 28th to July 4th.]

Michael Mann's newest film, Public Enemies, confirms what many of us who follow him have long suspected about the director. He is deliberately focused on his larger body of work and how each of his films fits in with the others. Unlike many of cinema's modern auteurs, who seem to move from project to project based on whims or moods—and how deeply a script they happen on strikes their fancy—Mann seems intent on refining the same theme he has been addressing since Thief (1981), and perhaps even earlier.

Public Enemies covers the last year of bank robber John Dillinger's life. Dillinger (Johnny Depp) represents an old world, Robin-Hood-style thief who adheres to a certain code. As he tells fellow crook Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi), he respects the public, for it is amongst them that he must hide. He tells one bank customer to put his money away as he robs his bank, declaring that he is there for the bank's money, not the his. But society is evolving, and Dillinger's sentimentality is becoming a liability in this new world. Psychopaths like Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) are giving bank robbers a bad name. And nobler thieves like Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum) are falling to the new generation of law enforcement, G-men like Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale).

Like Thief's Frank (James Caan), and Neil (Robert De Niro) in Heat (1995), Dillinger is a bandit who must weigh the importance of his personal relationships against the life of crime that defines him. As Mann has matured his perspective on this subject has evolved from rebellion to resignation. Frank's philosophy on personal attachments—to never keep any that you can't walk away from should you be in imminent danger—is one that the young Mann believes in, and approaches rather admiringly at the conclusion of Thief, when Frank is able to robotically detach from his new wife, child, home, and businesses, to confront Leo (Robert Prosky), the gang boss who holds the paper on Frank's life. However, an older Mann seems to view things differently by the time he directs Heat. In that film, Neil tells the same story, "A guy told me one time, 'Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.'" But when it comes time to put it into practice, Neil finds that he can't just walk away from his obligations. At great personal risk to himself, he decides to go after someone who betrayed him, even when faced with the knowledge that he will most certainly walk right into the hands of his pursuer. Mann's thinking on this has changed even further in the 14 years since Heat's release.

Their is a certain doom that hangs over Public Enemies, a sense of predestination that lingers over the character of Dillinger. Though Dante Spinotti shoots in some of the grittiest high-definition clarity yet for a Mann film, the film has a lyrical quality that adds to this—best demonstrated in the scene where Dillinger walks into the Chicago Police Department's Dillinger squad room. Here the room is hauntingly vacant—the cops all out in force looking for their quarry—save for the photographs of Dillinger's associates, all stamped DECEASED, lining the bulletin boards throughout the room. Red (Jason Clarke) warns Dillinger that their time is up, moments before he is shot. As he lays dying, he advises Dillinger to let him go, let his girlfriend Billie (Marion Cotillard) go, let everything go and run—like Frank and Neil were also advised to do in Mann's earlier films. Yet Dillinger doesn't even entertain the notion, demonstrating the more mature Mann's new outlook that breaking off personal ties is not nearly as easy as Frank made it look in Thief. In fact, to move so dispassionately through life may ultimately prove to be one's undoing, as implied through the character of Dillinger's opposite, Melvin Purvis.

Like in Heat, where Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) served as both antagonist and doppelganger to Neil, Bale's Purvis mirrors Dillinger. They meet face to face but once in the film, where Dillinger assures Purvis with no small amount of swagger that he has become more inured to the loss of his comrades than Purvis will ever be to the loss of his officers in the line of duty. Bale's expression when he turns his back to Depp reveals that, for Purvis, this is quite true. His single-mindedness in the pursuit of Dillinger recalls that of Mike Torello (Dennis Farina) in pursuit of gang boss Ray Luca (Anthony Denison) in Mann's Crime Story (1986-88). But unlike with Torello or Hanna, Mann implies that Purvis—a strong and disciplined officer—is only human in his inability to walk away from the pain. The title card at the end of Public Enemies sadly reveals that Purvis died by his own hand in 1960.

Michael Mann's Public Enemies is a summation of a filmography that has often explored the noble man's ability/inability to dissociate from his personal attachments when threatened. So it is perhaps fitting that Mann bookends the movie with closeups of two notable character actors that have contributed to his oeuvre, James Russo (Miami Vice, Crime Story) and Stephen Lang (Manhunter, Crime Story). Russo plays Walter Dietrich, a man that in many ways "created" Dillinger, tutoring him on how to attain success as a bank robber. And Lang portrays Charles Winstead, the old Texas lawman who killed Dillinger with a shot through the face. Both play honorable men, yet in different circumstances, whose time of sentiment, nobility, and personal codes of honor are quickly coming to an end. And Mann's Public Enemies asserts that our society is diminished by their extinction.

Back from Vacation with a New Poll

2009-06-30T16:36:00.012-04:00

Yeah, it's been a bit sporadic around here because I was on vacation. But a lot happened while I was gone.

First, let me acknowledge the passing of two of my childhood icons, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Neither was known for any contributions to cinema, per se. But their influence on pop culture in general, and me in particular, was unavoidable.

Secondly, a bit of a change for Oscar watchers. In a move that seems aimed to increase interest in the Academy Awards (don't think it will, as the Academy isn't even holding cinephiles' attention too well these days), the Academy has decided to increase the nominees in its Best Picture category from five to ten for this year. Let me know what you think in the poll on the left while I try to get my bearings before putting up a proper post.

Interview: Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore on Virtuality - Part 2

2009-06-26T06:11:00.001-04:00

In Part 1 of this interview, Ronald D. Moore described how Virtuality (an unsold pilot airing at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX) differs from the show that was his claim to fame, Battlestar Galactica. Today he goes further, expanding on some of the details that set Virtuality apart from other well-known science fiction series. In terms of how Virtuality's virtual reality and reality show aspects comes into play, Moore wondered, "What would NASA or the space confederation do at that point to keep them from going crazy? They’d probably have a really advanced virtual reality program to help them while away the hours, and there’s interaction between those two worlds.

"Somewhere in those discussions we started talking about when they would be broadcasting pieces back to earth, obviously, like astronauts do today, and hey, what if they made a reality show out of that? Then it all kind of started to come together. You had these three layers of storytelling going on in the show where you had what was happening in the real world on the ship, what was happening in the virtual space, and then what was the reality show that was seen back on earth. Were the needs of the reality show starting to impact what was happening on the spacecraft? Were people being manipulated in order to make better drama for the reality show? The astronauts themselves would start to wonder about, 'Are they telling us the truth about what’s happening back on earth, or is that something to just get us to be upset for the cameras?' It did sort of become this really interesting sort of psychological crucible that they would all be put in."

Concerning the similarities to Caprica's virtual reality subplot, Moore says, "They do have different purposes and different sorts of constructs to them. They both involve putting a set of goggles on your face, so they’re similar in sort of that perspective. In Caprica it’s really much more akin to the Internet where you go out and the virtual spaces are practically infinite and they intersect with one another. On Caprica you can go from the V-Club where we establish in the pilot is sort of a hacked world and then, presumably, there are Worlds of Warcraft type of worlds, etc., etc. It’s all sort of interconnected into their version of the Internet.

"In Virtuality we’re looking at something much more discrete, much smaller, much more of a gaming type of environment where an astronaut has a specific virtual reality module that they go into and play whatever game or have whatever experience they want, but there is no expectation that you can cross from one module to another."

Moore also gave an intriguing taste of what one could expect in Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, a movie that reframes the events of the defunct series through the Cylons' perspective. "I think there are definitely surprises. It’s really a piece for people who love the show. If you love the show you’re probably going to be really intrigued by The Plan, because it’s going to have all of these little bread crumbs and throw away lines and indicators and suggestions from other episodes. You’ve seen the show. You’ve watched the finale. You know how the story ends. Okay, here’s like an additional slant on some things that you didn’t know about."

But Moore really hopes his fans tune into FOX tonight to try Virtuality. "It certainly does not resolve itself in two hours. I mean it sets up for a [series], so it’s got some pretty heavy things that go down in it and kind of leaves you going, 'Whoa! Where is that going?' by the end of it."

Virtuality airs tonight at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

Interview: Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore on Virtuality - Part 1

2009-06-24T18:30:00.002-04:00

Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the late, great Battlestar Galactica, is an ambitious man. In addition to two Galactica follow-ups—TV movie The Plan (which airs this fall), and prequel series Caprica (airing in 2010)—Moore is hoping the new science fiction pilot he co-created, Virtuality (airing Friday, June 26th, at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX), will prove popular enough with viewers to go to series. Virtuality follows Earth’s first starship, the Phaeton, and its crew of 12 astronauts who embark on a 10-year journey critical to the survival of life on Earth. They have reached the point of no return where the crew must commit to traveling to a distant solar system millions of miles away. If they commit, they cannot turn back. Tensions are heightened even further as surveillance cameras capture their every move for The Edge of Never, a reality series back on Earth.

To give the crew a vital recreational outlet on the long journey, the ship has been equipped with revolutionary virtual reality modules. Each crew member can assume avatar-like identities—from a war hero to a rock star to secret lovers—as they explore self-created worlds in the ultra-life-like simulators. These are their psychological lifelines, and each module’s unique setting was chosen by the crew member before departing Earth.

But there is a bug in the system. As crew members go in and out of reality, they realize that a virus has entered their private world. Is someone on the crew responsible? When the intruder crosses a violent and disturbing line, Commander Frank Pike (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) makes a difficult decision to shut down the modules. But before he can, a tragic event threatens the mission. Is it an accident or a crime? Real or virtual?

I spoke to Moore about Virtuality, asking him how the idea for sci-fi thriller came up. "It was an unusual situation in that [executive producers] Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun had wanted to have a sit down—a general meeting with me—and then separately they wanted to have a sit down meeting with Michael Taylor, who was one of the writers on Battlestar. So I sat down with Lloyd and Gail, and in that conversation Lloyd had this idea of, 'I would like to do a show about the first long-range mission to Mars.' We kind of talked about that a little bit in just a get-to-know-you meeting, and kind of expanded on the idea of what a long-range mission would be.

"They had a similar meeting with Mike Taylor. The same kind of topic came up. He sparked to it from sort of a different angle, and then Michael and I started talking about it separately. Then the three of us started talking, and it all kind of became this sort of 'Here’s a show.' Then we just took it to FOX. We went into FOX and pitched it to [entertainment president] Kevin Reilly and his team—and they really liked it—and it kind of went from there."

When asked how it differs from Galactica, Moore says, "It’s a much less serious situation than Battlestar was dealing with. Battlestar was literally a post-apocalyptic show where the future of humanity rode on their every decision, and death was stalking them continuously. So it’s not set up in the same way. The crew aboard Phaeton signed up for what just seemed like a very straight-ahead mission of exploration and they were chosen with that in mind. They were also chosen to participate in this sort of reality show that’s being broadcast back to Earth.

"So there was a conscious attempt on the part of the people who put the crew together to sort of have an interesting mix of people. There are debates within the crew themselves who was chosen just for sort of their demographic content and who was legitimately supposed to be there. Now, you’ve got a group of 12 people stuck in a metal tube going in a straight line for a decade or so, and that’s going to just sort of produce a lot of tensions and frictions and manipulations and sort of cross problems between the characters. It has a stronger element of fun and suspense, and sort of interesting plot terms in terms of what characters will do with one another than did Battlestar. Battlestar was very driven by the internal pressures of the huge weight that was on all of their shoulders from the beginning of the miniseries."

In Part 2 of the interview (which will be posted on Friday), Moore will discuss some of the more unique aspects of Virtuality that set it apart from other science fiction series, and give us a taste of what to expect from Battlestar Galactica: The Plan.

Virtuality airs Friday, June 26th, at 8-10 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

Solitary Man: A Lineage of Loners from A Fistful of Dollars to The Limits of Control

2009-06-22T06:01:00.002-04:00

The Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé) in Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control is a representation of the way Europeans have characterized American cinematic heroes, like the cowboy or the gangster, for decades. And Jarmusch recognizes this, paying homage to some of his antecedents, iconic male leads in movies authored by notable European directors. But like Steven Soderbergh did in The Limey (1999), Jarmusch delivers the representation of such a figure in a way that emphasizes his otherness—an American archetype as played by a foreigner. This dissonance allows Jarmusch to comment on the artifice of cinema and its iconography in ways reflective of its history.

***

Though Jarmusch has implied that Point Blank's Walker (Lee Marvin) is a progenitor of the Lone Man, let's begin further back, looking at Clint Eastwood's Joe from A Fistful of Dollars (1964). In Sergio Leone's western, he mythologizes the setting, dislocating the American cowboy, Joe, to a dreamscape that resembles the Old West in order to explore the iconography of the western. "Existentialism" is derived from the Latin word existere, which means "to stand out," and Eastwood's Joe certainly fulfills the existentialist archetype. The movie was shot on location in Almería, Spain, its yellow landscapes at odds with the ruddy panoramas of America's Old West. Eastwood is the lone American in the cast—an outsider in what is a uniquely American genre—surrounded by international actors playing the supporting parts.

***
Jarmusch also chooses Spain as the backdrop for the Lone Man's mission, which starts in sleekly modern Madrid, transitions to old world Seville, and finally ends up, as well, in Almería. Globalism and free trade being the modus operandi of the moment, the American is no longer an outsider in the context of a foreign land. The only way for the Lone Man to stand out is to cast a person distinct in manner and color (De Bankolé is a native of the Ivory Coast), allowing Jarmusch to examine the cinematic American "type" by inverting our expectations. By simply dressing the character up in specific clothing—a sharkskin suit that convinces one group of kids in the film that the Lone Man must be an American gangster—Jarmusch is able to use the garments as signifiers of a specific film persona.

***
There is something distinctly portentous about seeing a foreigner dressed as a gangster. In another nod to dream logic, the Lone Man only ever changes his outfit when he changes locales. Each of his three suits is designed for maximum aesthetic harmony, color-coded to enhance Christopher Doyle's cinematography at any given location. This recalls John Boorman's color design for Point Blank (1967), in which its central characters always dress in colors complementary to the surrounding setting.

***
But outside of the transitions from one locale to the next, the Lone Man doesn't ever seem to change his outfit: He sleeps in it, practices his meditative tai-chi in it—all without so much as a wrinkle or drop of sweat. Dollars' Joe similarly inhabits his outfit. The ubiquitous nature of Joe's attire is playfully underlined when a bartender asks, "Tell me, is that the way you go to bed every night?"

***
At each locale—as the Lone Man's temporary dwellings suggest, and with the exception of an empty handbag he carries with him—his suit is his only possession. This austerity calls to mind Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967), where Alain Delon's Jef Costello, always wearing the same American gangster's fedora and raincoat, lives in an apartment vacant of any personal possessions but for a birdcage and some furniture. This superficial harmony between the blank character and stark setting—where the protagonist at once blends in by virtue of the void they both share, yet still stands in sharp relief to the barren location—further emphasizes the alien nature of the hero. As Jonathan Rosenbaum observes in a recent essay on Jarmusch's film:

"... American gangsterism is a style that seems designed for export. In Point Blank, directed by an Englishman, the terrain is supposedly Los Angeles, but Lee Marvin might as well be trekking across Mars; and in Le Samouraï, directed by a Frenchman—another obvious source for The Limits of Control—the terrain is supposedly Paris, but Alain Delon might as well be holing up somewhere in Tokyo."

***
As in each of the movies discussed here, the setting of The Limits of Control serves as a dreamscape in which the Lone Man operates. And like Walker in Point Blank who sleepwalks determinedly through the minefield of his past to get to the top man of the Organization that stole his money, the Lone Man seems to progress determinedly from one meeting to the next, the meetings becoming the substance of the film more than his objective. As Kent Jones writes in "Death by Poetry" (Film Comment, May/June 2009):

"The sojourns from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Madrid to Seville to Almería, the secretly appointed meetings with a series of shadowy but finally beguiling figures, the wonderfully dry peregrinations and contemplative interludes, are in all probability acts of imagination."

***
The repetitive nature of the Lone Man's encounters with some rather eccentric characters—in which each meeting begins with the question, "Usted no habla español, verdad?", followed by variations on the same conversation regarding life and its ineffable connections with art, science, etc.—is a comment on the repetitive nature of cinema where the viewer passively participates in a dream life, just as the Lone Man seems to passively acquire information from his own extended dream that will allow him to complete his mission. Indeed, it is the Blonde (Tilda Swinton) who confirms the Lone Man/filmgoer analogy most explicitly when she extols the pleasures of film appreciation. In this discussion, she foreshadows her own mysterious kidnapping by implying a comparison between her platinum-locked look to Rita Hayworth's in The Lady From Shanghai (1947) and making mention of that character's ultimate demise.

***
In the DVD audio commentary for The Limey, Steven Soderbergh and Lem Dobbs deny any facile influence that Point Blank may have had on their film. But there is undoubtedly an affinity between the two movies. Both feature working-class, one-named protagonists, their stories viewed through the prism of the mind's eye. (In The Limey, it is Terence Stamp's Wilson, journeying to Los Angeles on a single-minded mission against a representative of capitalism.) The Limits of Control also reveals the Lone Man's enemy to be a capitalist, who the film credits list simply as American (Bill Murray). Soderbergh chooses to make Wilson an outsider the same way Jarmusch does…by making him a foreigner. So it is curious that while this hero type, the American loner, appeals to both Jarmusch and Soderbergh, two American artists, they cannot bring themselves to cast an American actor in the role. Instead, they reimagine the respective characters in each film to be non-natives and cast the villains as capitalist Americans—therefore, enemies of art. In this context, the Lone Man is a distillation of cinema's archetypal American existential protagonist. By reflecting other such characters that came before him, Jarmusch suggests the malleability of cinema as the times change, illustrating how our sensibilities, the characters we identify with, and the way we relate to them may shift despite the synonymity of cinema's established iconography.

This post first appeared at The House Next Door on 6/14/09.

"Anoche yo tuve un sueño..." - My Favorite Movie Setting

2009-06-19T07:29:00.004-04:00

I've been tagged again, by Fletch over at Blog Cabins (who, by the way, should really consider responding to the Dancing Image's Reading the Movies meme I tagged him with, since it has managed to make it all the way to the New Yorker). This tag is one that I think most cinephiles have considered many times since, after all, cinema is a realm that encourages escapism.

Originating at Daniel Getahun's Getafilm, here are the rules:

1. Think of a place (real or fictional) and time (past, present, future) portrayed in a movie (or a few) that you would love to visit.
2. List the setting, period, applicable movie, and year of the applicable movie's release (for reference).
3. Explain why, however you'd like (bullet points, list, essay form, screenshots, etc.). If this is a time and place that you have intimate knowledge of, feel free to describe what was done well and what wasn't done well in portraying it.
4. If possible, list and provide links to any related movies, websites, books, and/or articles that relate to your choice(s).
5. Modify Rules #1-4 to your liking. And come up with a better name for this meme.
6. Link back to this Getafilm post in your post, please.
7.) Tag at least five others to participate (Since I'm joining this party kind of late—I'm on vacation at the moment—anyone who reads this can consider themselves tagged)!

Place/Setting: Havana, Cuba
Year/Period: Late 1950s
As Seen In: The Godfather Part II (1974)

Why: Growing up in and around Little Havana always made me hyperconscious that, unlike others of ethnic descent, I could not visit my parents' homeland for political reasons. And even if I was successful in getting government approval to visit family still in Cuba, all indications are that the island is a pale shadow of its former self, which hit the peak of its popularity with foreign visitors in the late fifties.

Though shot in the Dominican Republic, The Godfather Part II creates a reasonable facsimile of Havana just before the fall in a fleeting chapter of the crime saga. One gets a sense of a city on the edge... of danger, change, rebirth. One is also exposed to the easy temptations that permeated the city, with its nightclub and gambling scene providing the exciting backdrop.

Best Aspects of Havana: Old-World architecture; lush tropical scenery; fantastic Afro-Cuban art, dance and music; heightened sexuality.

Worst Aspects of Havana: Extreme stratification of the economic classes; rampant corruption; paranoia; grim poverty outside in the rural areas.

Further Reading/Viewing:
Our Man in Havana (1959)
I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba) (1964)
Cuba (1979)
Havana (1990)
The Mambo Kings (1992)
Before Night Falls (2000)
The Lost City (2005)
Che (2008)

The Year 2002: Counting Down the Zeroes - Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes)

2009-06-17T06:53:00.002-04:00

There was a time when Sam Mendes seemed like he was at the vanguard of young directors. His first film, American Beauty (1999), struck a very resonant fin de siècle chord at the time of its release. But with subsequent releases like Jarhead (2005), Revolutionary Road (2008), and as some early reviews indicate, Away We Go (2009), it has become apparent that while Mendes has a nose for talent, he doesn't seem to have much to say. This strangely superficial quality that he disguises fairly well in his selection of material to bring to the screen doesn't seem to affect his second film (perhaps because it is the only genre piece in his oeuvre), Road to Perdition. Maybe its because the film, based on a graphic novel, treads some familiar ground. The neo-noir follows some well-established gangster drama tropes, like "blood is thicker than water", "it's only business", and "honor amongst thieves." Fusing these cliches to a family psychodrama contrasting the relationship between button man Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) and his eponymous son (Tyler Hoechlin), to the one between his surrogate father, mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman, in his last onscreen film performance) and his envious son, Connor (Daniel Craig), may freshen up the proceedings somewhat. However, thanks to the film's powerful performances, a moving score by Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption), and the gorgeous cinematography, the movie still holds up in a way that most of Mendes later work doesn't.

Here, I've chosen to focus on the wonderful imagery by the late, great Conrad Hall (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). This was his last film, and won him the last of three Academy Awards for Best Cinematography. And for my money, this poetic film succeeds mostly on the basis of its beautiful and evocative images.

This post was first published at Film for the Soul for its continuing series on the best movies of the 2000s, Counting Down the Zeroes, on 6/15/09.

Blu-ray Review: The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet) (1957)

2009-06-15T08:02:00.000-04:00

One of the best films ever made, The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet), gets a rewarding bit of sprucing up for Criterion's new Blu-ray edition. This movie must have been a shock of the first order to audiences expecting a follow-up to Ingmar Bergman's previous film, Smiles of a Summer Night (1955). That romantic comedy was all the rage at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956. But what an about-face Bergman decided to do when he followed it with this highly theatrical and symbolic look at man's relationship with God and death.

Set in medieval times, the movie follows Antonious Block (Max von Sydow), a disillusioned knight on his journey home from the Crusades. His travelling companion and squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand), tries to leaven their weary spirits with gallows humor. But only the knight is aware of another shadowy figure making the journey with them... Death (Bengt Ekerot). Though Block has felt the spectre of Death throughout his trip home, it is only when confronted with the shadowy figure on a beach that he decides to challenge him to a game of chess, hoping to forestall his demise long enough to seek a better understanding of God and the afterlife in the interim.

This central image drives Bergman's weighty philosophical examination of the metaphysical, as he admits in one of the most interesting special features ever to be included on a disc, Marie Nyreröd's documentary Bergman Island (2004). It is a fascinating three-part exercise that has the director candidly examining his work and his life (near the time of his death in 2007) from his home in the island of Fårö. The doc is substantial and significant enough that the film curators at Criterion decided to release it separately on DVD for those who do not get The Seventh Seal on Blu-ray. Still, you are really missing out if you don't take advantage of having the two on the same Blu-ray disc.

Gunnar Fischer's cinematography for The Seventh Seal is the prime beneficiary of the Blu-ray's enhancements. Compare this version of Seal to its original release on Criterion back in 1999. As I keep reiterating on this site, there is no film with which one can appreciate the value of Blu-ray the best as a cinema classic like Seal. The richness of the black-and-white deep-focus photography—as in the sharp detailing of a bird's-eye shot of the coastal rocks through which Block and Jöns pass on their way home—is a revelation to viewers who've only seen the murkier versions of this shadowy film. Now, instead of one big blotchy black, there are gradations of grey within the shadows.

For those who've never seen this classic of world cinema, Criterion's Blu-ray of The Seventh Seal is the way to do it. Don't confuse its grim, heavy subject with its running time, either. This movie is light on its feet, and with a 97-minute running time, moves pretty damn fast through some deep thoughts on humanity relative to its own extinction—which considering the world economic crisis, and North Korea's recent aggressive posturing, still manages to be relevant today.

The Seventh Seal is available on Criterion Blu-ray and standard DVD tomorrow.

Bergman Island is available on standard DVD tomorrow.

Movie Review: Up

2009-06-09T11:12:00.001-04:00

Up is perhaps the first Pixar movie I can think of that is specifically aimed at a general audience rather than child viewers. Sure, the other films have a broad appeal. But none of them seem especially geared towards adults as much as this one. Its storyline focuses on love, commitment, loss, and renewal... adult subjects that will certainly go over the heads of young ones.

Ed Asner voices Carl, a crotchety old man who, as we learn in Up's prologue, wasn't always this way. Like in last year's Wall·E, this sequence is almost completely devoid of dialogue, and recounts the story of Carl's lifelong romance with Ellie, an audacious girl who fanned Carl's smaller spark for adventure into a grand flame. Their dream was to search for a long missing hero, Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), who had disappeared in South America. But like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Their meager savings end up redistributed towards more urgent needs, and dreams get put on hold. And one day, Ellie is gone. Carl is alone, holding onto everything he owns, his house a mausoleum erected in Ellie's memory.

Enter Russell (Jordan Nagai), a Wilderness Explorer (Pixar's version of a Boy Scout). The last badge he has left to earn is the one for assisting the elderly. Russell's timing brings him into Carl's life at the moment he embarks on an harebrained exploit to South America, flying in his house, which is held aloft by hundreds of helium balloons.

It's an evocative image, dredging up childhood dreams of magical journeys for any adult. And the movie pays it off unpredictably, as Carl and Russell end up forming a nuclear family of sorts with an exotic bird named Kevin as the mother, and a talking dog named Dug filling the role of family pet quite hilariously.

But most impressive is the natural way the filmmakers forge the bond between Carl and Russell through each character's personal loss, Russell's being the distancing from his own father after his parents' divorce. These may seem like common points of identification nowadays. But any longtime Disney film fan can tell you that divorce is usually a taboo subject in their animated films.

Adult or child, Up has a lot to offer anyone seeking a gentle reminder that life's adventures begin when and where one isn't looking.

David Carradine

2009-06-04T19:04:00.000-04:00

David Carradine belonged to an acting dynasty that, if not necessarily legendary, was familiar and well regarded by film buffs. His father, creepy character actor John Carradine (The Grapes of Wrath), and brothers, Keith (Nashville) and Robert (Revenge of the Nerds), all made notable contributions to the world of film... as did David. But perhaps because of his willingness to be in just about any class of movie, he was always better known as a TV icon for his role as Kwai Chang Caine in the martial arts/western mashup, Kung Fu (1972-75).

Despite Carradine's roles in movies directed by such greats as Robert Altman (The Long Goodbye), Hal Ashby (Bound for Glory), Ingmar Bergman (The Serpent's Egg), and Martin Scorsese (Boxcar Bertha), he was often known more for his genre work.

I wish I could say I was well versed in Carradine's work, but like many, I knew him from his B movies. My favorite role of his was in Paul Bartel's underrated Death Race 2000 (1975), as Frankenstein, the reigning champion of the Transcontinental Road Race - a race where you get points for hitting pedestrians - in a future dystopic America. Here, he interacts with the up-and-coming, young Sylvester Stallone as "Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo, and cult hags Mary Woronov and Roberta Collins.

Quentin Tarantino did a lot to revive Carradine's moribund career in the 21st century by casting him as the titular Bill in the two volume Kill Bill (2003-4). Most young'uns may know him from that, but to Tarantino and the rest of my generation... well, one need only listen to this exchange in Pulp Fiction (1994) to find acknowledgement of what Carradine's most famous role was:

Jules: I'll just walk the earth.
Vincent: What'cha mean walk the earth?
Jules: You know, walk the earth, meet people... get into adventures. Like Caine from Kung Fu.

Whether it was martial arts, like Circle of Iron (1978), where he played a role meant for Bruce Lee before his untimely death (the irony being that his role in Kung Fu is oft-rumored to have been created for Lee); westerns, like Walter Hill's The Long Riders (1980) (cool gimmick where all of the Carradines, the Guests, the Keach brothers, and the Quaids all play members of the James-Younger gang); or science fiction, like the satirical Death Race 2000, Carradine would always play it straight. Sometimes this helped sell the movie, even though often, the twinkle in his eyes behind that poker face let you know he was in on the joke.

He was found dead today at the age of 72.

Recommended Films - Boxcar Bertha, Death Race 2000, Bound for Glory, The Serpent's Egg, Circle of Iron, The Long Riders, Kill Bill, Vols. 1 and 2,

Writings on Cinema

2009-05-31T16:17:00.005-04:00

I've always meant to talk about this, and thanks to MovieMan0283, of The Dancing Image, now I get my chance. In discussing books that have influenced his exploration of cinema, he tagged me to do the same, saying:

In his fairly regular comments on this and other blogs, Tony utilizes a strong sense of history and a passion for context in discussing a given film. I'm curious as to where this information came from; and for whatever reason, I have trouble guessing his favorite books (except, of course, for Guide for the Film Fanatic, which he explicitly mentioned earlier today when responding to my Great Movies post...).

I post this quote because it speaks to the way I look at all film. If one looks at cinema as art, whether its a crappy flick like Drop Dead Fred (1991) or a shining instance of world cinema like The Conformist (1970), then one must never forget to look at it in context. Art does not exist in a vacuum, and so, neither does cinema. A cinematic work is an expression influenced by the forces extant at the time of its creation. It is always a reaction to the current politics, economy, cinematic movements, or artist's biographical circumstances. Often times, this reaction does not reveal itself to the film's creators. It can even evolve with the passage of time. Hindsight has definitely changed the regard for many a film, and still continues to do so. But it is a rich area for those of us who "read" films to mine.

So in perusing the documents that I've chosen - because they have held the greatest sway over the way I look at movies - consider that all of these have something to offer in the way of contextualizing cinema.

Guide for the Film Fanatic by Danny Peary (1986) - This is the book that never leaves my side. Better known for his Cult Movies book series, Peary is into sports writing now (he is a writer-researcher for The Tim McCarver Show), but I just found some recent film-related posts by him at Brink. Film Fanatic has a bit of a cult following around the intertubes, and with good reason. Peary's concise reviews are illuminating in a scholarly way while excising the pretentious language that readers often get mired in when reading a journal. His often quirky takes on well-dissected classics may sound eccentric at first, but he is usually able to back up his claims with some persuasive points. Here's his take on Taxi Driver (1976):

Film is a reworking of John Ford's The Searchers, with De Niro assuming John Wayne's Ethan Edwards role. Again we have a war veteran, a social misfit, an outcast, who is obsessed with rescuing a young girl (after failing to rescue a young woman) from her long-haired lover - although she is happy where she is - in order to purify his own soul (on the pretext of purifying the girl's soul). Like Ethan, he was on the non-victorious side in what he believes was a war of liberation. That's why they are so fanatical about liberating young girls from foreign camps.

And his humor can be devastatingly acute, evident in his very positive - yet mildly sarcastic - review for The Terminator (1984):

Still, the film has appeal to the soldier-of-fortune crowd and guys who like to crush beer cans on their head. They consider the Terminator their (fascist) hero, enjoy the spectacular gunplay, and are aware that the film is punctuated by pain.

Peary's best quality is to treat all films democratically. Be they the cult films he specializes in (Pink Flamingos), porn flicks (Deep Throat), or canonical cinema (Citizen Kane), all merit a slot in his book - which covers over 1600 titles.

Film Comment (1990-2000) - Though I still pick up the occasional copy (the latest one has a great piece on Jarmusch's The Limits of Control by Kent Jones), the high point in this journal's lifetime is the 10 years in which Richard T. Jameson was the editor. Published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the issue pictured above (July-August 1991) is a great example of the quantity of greatness one could find in each square inch of this seminal magazine. Here's a short rundown of some of the stories found in this issue's pages: An analysis of Delusion (1991) by Donald Lyons; a tribute to Billy Wilder by Andrew Sarris; an exploration of Graham Greene by David Thomson; a Brando appreciation by Richard Schickel; Nestor Almendros on Sergei Eisenstein; Scanners' Jim Emerson on Hanna Schygulla. And I only randomly picked this issue up from my basement.

Under Jameson's watch, the magazine's annual roundup of the best films and notable performances (as put forth by numerous critics polled) was frequently upstaged by "Moments Out of Time," a roundup of the best cinematic moments of the previous year, by Jameson and Kathleen Murphy (both now contribute to Parallax View) which they now publish over at MSN Movies.

The 100 Best Films to Rent You've Never Heard Of by David N. Meyer (1997) - Well, the title may be a bit of an overstatement if you are a serious film buff. The style in which the book is presented, in which each film is sub-categorized by attitude and mood, is a little too EW for me (Meyer, in fact, did write for Entertainment Weekly). But the films recommended in this book are spot-on in terms of their cult appeal. From foreign classics like Godard's Contempt (1963) to American neo-noir like Mann's Thief (1981), his choices run the gamut of cinematic genres. And he focuses on details others miss, as when he discusses the latter film, "Caan's thief is as American as can be: He distrusts language, derives his identity from his work, and has a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Rushmore."

Currently Meyer posts film reviews at The Brooklyn Rail.

Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman (1983) - Academy Award-winning screenwriter Goldman describes how one should approach screenplays:

I write screenplays to be read.

So does Jo Jo, The Dog Face Boy, obviously. What I mean is that, from the very beginning, I've tried to make my screenplays reading experiences, much like a book or play.

So I don't mess around much with intricate camera instructions. (At least i don't think I do. I talked to a star once who said, "You goddam screenwriters - putting in all that camera crap - trying to direct the picture is all you're doing. I hate all that camera crap. Just put down the words, I'll do the rest." I later had occasion to read a screenplay this star had done. It was so full of "camera crap" you could throw up.)

Goldman's sage advice, dishy anecdotes, and practical writing instruction merge to form a helluva read. And makes you long for the days when screenwriters were actually conversant with the English language rather than just spitting out reconstituted scenes from films they have watched.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind (1998) - Did I say Goldman was dishy? Biskind, a former executive editor at Premiere and former editor in chief of American Film, offers more gossip in one page than Goldman does over the course of his entire book. Some may have a problem with this, but I find it relevant to establishing the evolving mores of the time while covering the close camaraderie of the film school generation:

Brian [De Palma] brought his friends over, and others came as well. On any given
weekend, [Actress Jennifer] Salt found herself cooking for De Palma, [Steven] Spielberg, [Peter] Boyle, [screenwriter Jacob] Brackman, John Milius, Richard Dreyfuss, director Walter Hill, Bruce Dern, writer David Ward, and so on. Even [Bob] Rafelson occasionally came to the beach. They grilled steaks, ate spaghetti, tossed salads. Recalls Salt, "I was always thinking, Should it be chili and the three-bean salad and the cheesecake, or should we barbecue chicken - Oh, Steven doesn't like it when I cut up zucchini in the salad, Marty [Scorsese] likes the chili - that was where I was at. I cooked for these boys, gave lots of parties, made them take drugs and take their pants off and get down." Adds [Margot] Kidder, "The reality was that we always got the drugs and we always got the food and we basically served our guys, the whole time putting down the notion that we as women would do that. There was a real contradiction in what we perceived ourselves to be doing and what in fact we were doing."

Enlightening and gripping, Easy Riders brings the seventies American film movement into focus by revealing how the changing times left their mark on the new Hollywood.

Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris (2008) - In the age of "New Media," where trained journalists are losing ground to many of my fellow bloggers - some of who are quick to print unsubstantiated rumors - EW writer Mark Harris' book stands as a paean to the rewards of good research. His meticulously footnoted volume looks at the beginning of the New Hollywood through the prism of the Best Picture-nominated films of 1967, the year in which many say the release of Bonnie and Clyde launched "the seventies" if not literally, then in spirit.

Here, Harris sets the record straight on Pauline Kael's "discovery" of the film:

Kael's statement that "the whole point of Bonnie and Clyde is to rub our noses in it, to make us pay our dues for laughing," her understanding that "we don't take our stories straight anymore - Bonnie and Clyde is the first film demonstration that the put-on can be used for the purposes of art," and her awareness of the "eager, nervous imbalance" in which the movie intended to hold its audience all seemed uncannily in synch with the intentions of Robert Benton and David Newman. It was no accident. Though she didn't disclose it in the piece, she had taken the screenwriters out to lunch before writing her essay and gotten an earful of their motives, their admiration for the French New Wave, and their storytelling strategy. Her remark that "though one cannot say of Bonnie and Clyde to what degree it shows the work of Newman and Benton... there are ways of making guesses" was deeply disingenuous but very much in line with her pooh-poohing of "the new notion that direction is everything." Unsurprisingly, she made it clear that she didn't see the movie as Arthur Penn's accomplishment, although she praised him for the staging and editing of the dance-of-death sequence, which she called "a horror that seems to go on for eternity, and yet... doesn't last a second beyond what it should."

Pictures at a Revolution is a great book to read before you move on to Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.

Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch (2006) - Here we get a glimpse into the artistic mind, from a film director whose very impenetrability seems to be part of his allure. Through his exploration of transcendental meditation, and the effects it has had on his own creativity, Lynch reveals tidbits of interest to any of his longtime admirers. On his first film:

Eraserhead is my most spiritual movie. No one understands when I say that, but it is.

Eraserhead was growing in a certain way, and I didn't know what it meant. I was looking for a key to unlock what these sequences were saying. Of course, I understood some of it; but I didn't know the thing that just pulled it all together. And it was a struggle. So I got out my Bible and I started reading. And one day, I read a sentence. And I closed the Bible, because that was it; that was it. And then I saw the thing as a whole. And it fulfilled this vision for me, 100 percent.

I don't think I'll ever say what that sentence was.

Well the guy has to preserve some of his mystery. But who knew the Bible had ANY influence on Eraserhead. A quick read, this seeming trifle ends up being deeper than it looks.

Anyone can join in with their own lists, either on their own sites or the comments section. Please link to myself and The Dancing Image if you follow up with a list at your own site. I would like to tag the following folks:

Campaspe the Self-Styled Siren who, in all honesty, I'm most excited about if only to find out where she gets so many of her wonderful Old Hollywood anecdotes from.

Ed Howard at Only the Cinema. Ed is a prolific writer, and I'm willing to bet, an avid reader.

Fletch at Blog Cabins, because I can never predict what his reaction to a movie will be. Sometimes it's right in line with mine. Other times he is on the opposite side of the spectrum.

Jon Lanthier at The Lanthier Powerstrip, whose eclectic tastes and articulate form of expressing himself always lures this writer to his site.

T.S. at Screen Savour, a silent movie and Hitchcock devotee that has an astute sense of what goes into great cinema, regardless of genre or era.

Movie Review: Drag Me to Hell

2009-05-27T11:26:00.002-04:00

With Drag Me to Hell, director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) returns to the humor-laced horror subgenre he mined so successfully in his Evil Dead trilogy. Inventive in its staging and photography (credit in part goes to frequent Lynch collaborator, Peter Deming), the movie is clever. But, for better or worse, some of the cheeky humor seems quaint in today's post-"torture porn" era. And though I felt like I was sometimes the only spectator in on the joke, it didn't make me feel smarter as much as it made me feel older and out of step.

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a loan officer, recently transplanted to the West coast, and insecure about her past as a small-town, overweight farm girl. You get the sense that she'll do anything to repress her origins. She has a boyfriend, Clay (Justin Long), who comes from money; she dismisses her cravings for ice cream by pretending she's lactose intolerant; and she's even willing to help her bank evict frail, old Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) from her house to get the promotion she desperately pursues. But Mrs. Ganush, a powerful gypsy witch, places a curse on her. For three days, Christine will be tormented by a goat-demon, the Lamia, before she is ultimately dragged into hell, for all eternity.

Raimi and cinematographer Deming collaborated before, on Evil Dead II and Darkman. Like those movies, there's a gag-inflected aesthetic to most of the staging and shot designs. And the jokes are successful. When Christine retreats into her bedroom, as the spirit of the Lamia creeps up the steps, there is a cut to a p.o.v. shot of the locked door from her vantage point in the room. As the long shadow of the Lamia stretches into the room slowly through the crack of light underneath the door, one can't help but chuckle at the poster hanging next to the entrance - of a cat dangling by its paws -captioned, "Hang on, baby."

But the humor has an innocent, juvenile nature to it, that seems immature in today's era of horror commingled with gore and sexuality. When Mrs. Ganush attacks Christine in a tool shed, the speedy cuts of the old lady sticking her arm elbow deep into Christine's mouth are more Bugs Bunny than phallic. Evocative of Ash's fight against his demon-possessed hand in Evil Dead II, the camera rapidly gives us the Rube Goldberg-like geography depicting the placement of a hanging anvil, as Christine quickly cuts the rope with an ice skate she finds in the shed, squashing the old gypsy like Wile E. Coyote.

Yeah, I get Raimi's brand of comic scares. I've been a casual fan of his for most of his career. But even though Drag Me to Hell's clever frights are a lot more ingenious than much of what you see in horror today, and the film has a phenomenal finale, I was left somewhat sad. For once, I feel like a good filmmaker has pulled out all the stops to impress me, but I've simply outgrown his sensibility.

Drag Me to Hell opens in theaters nationwide this Friday.

The Year 2001: Counting Down the Zeroes - Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)

2009-05-25T08:23:00.000-04:00

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive began life as a TV pilot for ABC, the same network which aired Twin Peaks - Lynch's greatest mainstream success. It would be interesting to see how each show would fare in today's television landscape, one where serialized shows like Lost have succeeded, in part because ratings expectations are much lower and cable's serials lead the pack in competing for viewers' attention. In any case, the TV network was not ready for a mysterious drama set in Los Angeles where the central MacGuffin was two women's search for one's forgotten identity. So Lynch did something similar to what he did for the European theatrical release of the Twin Peaks pilot. He fashioned a lengthy ending, tying up the open-ended plotline, and got the rights to release the film theatrically.

Naomi Watts plays Betty, a stereotypical Midwestern woman who moves to Hollywood to become an actress. Naive and overeager, she is determined to prove herself in the corrupt industry town. Meanwhile, a woman receives a head injury in a car accident on Mulholland Drive. Dazed, she finds her way into the apartment that Betty is moving into.

Betty runs across the enigmatic accident victim in her very own shower, a woman struggling to remember her identity who starts calling herself Rita (Laura Elena Harring) after spotting a poster of Gilda in Betty's apartment.

Subplots and seemingly unrelated characters intrude on the central plot. No doubt these were to be coherent subplots on the prospective TV series. One such storyline involves rising movie director, Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux), whose luck turns for the worse after being threatened by two heavies seeking to cast one Camilla Rhodes (Melissa George) as the star of his next picture. These plots would have continued and tied in to the main story had Mulholland Drive gone to series. Instead, Lynch uses them to fold the movie in on itself, tying Camilla and Adam to Rita in the film's climax, bringing up questions of identity and reality versus surreality, themes that recur often within Lynch's work, but are distilled here to their purest form.

One can almost see the invisible line that Lynch draws at the point where Mulholland Drive departs from its relatively conventional TV origins to the surreal realm in which he frequently wanders. It is about an hour and a half in when the movie metamorphoses from a neo-noir Nancy Drew to a haunting exploration of the obsessive ardor Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts again) feels for Camilla Rhodes (Laura Elena Harring again).

Diane awakes into a nightmare of a life, as if the first part of the film was a desperate dream formed by her fragile mind to put things right in her sad existence. Whereas Betty and Rita make love after bonding over the mystery of Rita's identity, Camilla rebuffs Diane, choosing director Adam instead. The promise Betty displayed as an actress in the first part has evaporated, with Adam giving the lead role in his film to Camilla rather than Diane.

Identities transmute into new ones. The real merges with the surreal in the most necessary way yet for a Lynch film. The director even finds moments to comment on the part he plays as a master of ceremonies in these proceedings, as evoked by the stage magician that helps usher in the tonal shift at the point of departure in the film.

Consciously or not, Lynch refers to other works of his including those that have yet to be: once, when he enlists Rebekah Del Rio to sing her version of Orbison's "Crying" (Blue Velvet's iconic scene where Dean Stockwell mimes to Orbison's "In Dreams"); once again, when the electrical surges of the magic show help to transmogrify Betty into Diane (Lost Highway, Twin Peaks); and finally, when the actress' descent into madness foreshadows the insanity of Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) in Inland Empire (2006).

Mulholland Drive is the apotheosis of Lynch's filmography, transcending its humble TV beginnings to become one of the best films of the decade.

This post was first published at Film for the Soul for its continuing series on the best movies of the 2000s, Counting Down the Zeroes, on 5/17/09.

Movie Review: Valentino: The Last Emperor

2009-05-22T15:00:00.001-04:00

Valentino: The Last Emperor is a love letter of a sort to Valentino Garavani, the iconic Italian fashion designer. Unfortunately, due to our recessionary times, the type of opulence that the film celebrates - in fact, it seems to be endorsed as a lost quality in the world of haute couture - now feels quaint and anachronistic. And I'm not certain director Matt Tyrnauer, a Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair, was entirely conscious of the irony.

The film follows the declining fortunes of Valentino, as his business falls prey to, not only the designer's own taste for excess, but also the rise of corporatism in the 21st century. Valentino exists in a world of dreams and affluence, insulated from harsher realities by his partner, both in business and in life, Giancarlo Giammetti. Giammetti handles the day-to-day aspects of running Valentino's fashion empire, stubbornly refusing to give in to Valentino's petty fits of rage or his capricious whims. But even Giammetti's toughness seems naive when seen in relief to the soulless corporation that eventually takes over the Valentino Fashion Group.

Tyrnauer presents Valentino as a man whose ambitions seems to be sufficient to justify his excesses and disregard for the realities of business. But I came away with far less respect for him than for his partner Giammetti. While Valentino had already sent his first fashion house into decline when he met him, Giammetti was instrumental in turning the business around and marketing the fashion brand to the world. To see Valentino treat the man who saved his business and orchestrated some of its past successes with such disdain throughout the documentary, almost bordering on psychological abuse, doesn't exactly endear the diminutive designer to this writer.

I can't criticize Valentino: The Last Emperor on the level of entertainment. It definitely is a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the art of fashion designing - laced with a bit of gossip - that's somewhat enticing. However, it fails in elevating Valentino, harming his image more than putting a shine on it... which is fine. But I'm not convinced that this was Tyrnauer's intention.

Valentino: The Last Emperor is in limited release. Opening today at the UA Tara Cinemas-Atlanta, 2345 Cheshire Bridge Road N.E., Atlanta, GA 30324, director Matt Tyrnauer will be on hand to answer questions after tonight's 7:15 and 10:15 p.m. shows, and after all shows tomorrow, Saturday, May 23rd.

Movie Review: Terminator Salvation

2009-05-19T08:35:00.006-04:00

With Terminator Salvation, director McG almost makes you forget that he was ever known for the two Charlie's Angels misfires. He reignites what was once THE flagship sci-fi action franchise, and brings it into the 21st century, with a relentless juggernaut of a flick that evokes the same feelings The Road Warrior did so long ago. And just like in that movie, the one to watch is an Australian actor, Sam Worthington.

He plays Marcus Wright, a death-row inmate executed in 2003, only to wake up in a Terminator hive in 2018. Finding everything a bit topsy-turvy after a nuclear war decimated most of the world, he soon finds two spunky young resistance fighters fighting cyborgs in post-apocalyptic L.A. One of them, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) is destined to play a major role one day as seen in the first Terminator (where he was portrayed by Michael Biehn). The three journey towards friendlier territory in search of a legendary prophet, resistance leader John Connor (Christian Bale). But when Reese and his fellow fighter are imprisoned in a Terminator fortress, Wright must enlist Connor's help to break Reese out - something, as it turns out, Connor's very existence depends on as well.

The Terminator series has always been a mash-up of sorts, a pastiche of all of the sci-fi stories and low-budget effects technology that influenced writer-director James Cameron (Titanic). So it's no surprise that a lot of this film steals from a number of sources. There are little nods to each of the three previous films, including the notable reuse of L.A.'s Griffith Observatory (where Arnold's Terminator first beamed into our time). Chase scenes in apocalyptic landscapes come directly from the Mad Max films. Snake-like robots with red eyes swishing furiously underwater are right out of The Matrix series. And the action setpieces in the Terminator hive are quotes of similar sequences in both the Alien and Resident Evil series. But it's what McG does with these lifts that makes the movie so special. With each scene of the film, he ratchets up the tension, and the stakes, for the heroes.

Much of the attraction to this film was the anticipation in seeing Christian Bale play John Connor, a performance that should finally allow us to believe that Connor is the messianic savior the films claim he is. And on this count, Bale succeeds. The intensity and compassion he gives Connor outshines the qualities that similarly animate his portrayal of the Batman.

However, the true heart of the film (literally you'll see) is Sam Worthington. Reminiscent of the young babier-faced Mel Gibson (a look which may have been deliberately cultivated by the Mad Max costuming), Worthington is the prime mover of the film's events. And it is through sheer charisma, not the paper-thin backstory of his Marcus character, that Worthington manages to engage us throughout the film to the near exclusion of the always dependable Bale.

Can a blockbuster of this kind be so exciting that you wish they DON'T do a sequel? Where Star Trek seems to re-set the table, with the promise of future movies in the series providing the feast, Terminator Salvation completely satisfies one's appetite in this outing. And all of the credit should rest on the shoulder of McG and the film's lead.

Sam Worthington, you're a star.

Terminator Salvation opens in theaters nationwide this Thursday.

Seventies Cinema Revival: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

2009-05-19T00:40:00.001-04:00

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is out on DVD today in a wonderfully restored digital transfer by the Criterion Collection. The story of Eddie "Fingers" (Robert Mitchum), a gun-runner for the Irish mob facing another stretch of jail time in late middle age, is based on a popular novel of the same name, by George V. Higgins, a former Assistant District Attorney. Rumored to be a roman à clef describing some of the Boston area mobsters he encountered as an ADA, Higgins' tale captures the furtiveness and paranoia that many convicts live with on a daily basis. With morally ambiguous characters in an equally shady milieu; deceptively naturalistic photography that is still elegantly composed; and the conflux of different generations of actors unique to the era of its release, the movie represents all that I love best about seventies cinema.

A crew led by Eddie's friend, Scalise (Alex Rocco), is knocking off banks using guns Eddie purchases from upstart gun dealer, Jackie Brown (Steven Keats). But Eddie's distracted by an upcoming sentencing for a crime he committed based on the recommendation of another associate, Dillon (Peter Boyle). As Eddie tries to string a young cop, Dave Foley (Richard Jordan), along with information - hoping to get the cop to speak up for him in court - he spirals down a path that will ultimately box him into a corner.

Director Peter Yates (Bullitt) and cinematographer Victor J. Kemper seems to be utilizing the natural light when shooting most of the movie, grounding the film in a "true crime" sort of aesthetic. But this film is a noir if I've ever seen one. With Eddie desperately running out of time as the sentencing approaches, look at the shot above and how it is framed. Eddie is flanked by bars on one side, and the autumn landscape on the other, both reminders of the dilemma he faces. Cop Foley may be in the same shot, but he is separated from Eddie by the clear line of demarcation where the bars meet the wall behind him, demonstrating Foley's detached attitude towards Eddie's predicament.

Jordan's Foley is just as seedy as the snitches he often deals with. Jordan (Logan's Run) was a dynamic young actor able to hold his own with screen heavyweight Mitchum. They would soon work together again in Sydney Pollack's The Yakuza (1974). But the casting of these actors, along with Boyle and Rocco, highlight the flashpoint that was the seventies, a moment in time when one could have talented new up-and-comers like Jordan paired with veterans like Mitchum, with stalwart character actors backing them up.

Rocco had already famously appeared in another seventies film that benefited from the same approach to casting. In The Godfather (1972), he played the part of Moe Greene alongside a cast of rising thespians, led by Al Pacino, which competed with veterans, like Marlon Brando and Sterling Hayden, for the audience's attention. The conflicting acting styles, the younger generation's Method versus the older generation's classic stagecraft, with the character actors at their most naturalistic, created a verisimilitude that was characteristic of seventies American cinema.

Coyle's conclusion displays a certain symmetry that is rarely attempted in today's films. As Eddie tries to run a shell game on the cop, playing confidential informant only insofar that it gets him a get out of jail free card, he has no guilt over making his competition, gun dealer Jackie Brown, the fall guy in the situation. Little does Eddie know that another of Foley's far more experienced informants has the same in mind for him.

Star Trek Podcast, Part 2

2009-05-17T13:37:00.001-04:00

This post concludes my Star Trek coverage. It's part 2 of the podcast that has proven to be extremely popular with many of you.

For those who didn't hear part 1, I was a guest on the Monster Sci Fi Show podcast. My host, Monster, brings his fanboy perspective. His co-host, Mr. Gene, brought the business angle into the mix. So I served as counterpoint, bringing the Trek purist's viewpoint.

After the podcast, I've included links to the rest of the Star Trek coverage.

I hope you enjoy the podcast, which you can listen to here:

More Star Trek coverage:

First Look: J.J. Abrams' Star Trek

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek - Speculation on What to Expect

Star Trek Week Begins

Blu-ray Review: Star Trek: The Original Series - Season 1 (1966-67)

Movie Review: Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek Podcast, Part 1

Movie Review: Angels & Demons

2009-05-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

I'm beginning to think Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon) should stick to adapting non-fiction. Then he can avoid taking the blame for the types of contrivances and general absurdity so prevalent in Angels & Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code (2006). Or he can at least try harder to sell the viewers the preposterous mechanics that move this thriller. If it weren't for Howard's talent for directing actors, and his fascination with capturing the nuances of Catholic ritual, the movie would be completely without merit. But in this respect, the film manages to avoid some of the less realistic nonsense that pervaded his earlier Dan Brown adaptation.

The film starts intriguingly enough, with Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) recruited by the Vatican police to help fight a threat from the Illuminati against the Vatican. The secret society's timing is particularly dangerous because this attack coincides with the papal conclave convened after the mysterious death of the pope. Langdon's skill in translating symbols will come in handy as he tries to solve the riddles that will lead him to a canister containing a rather unusual weapon of mass destruction, antimatter.

Yes, that's right. Who would have thought that antimatter would be the MacGuffin in this summer thriller instead of Star Trek? While much lip service is paid to the science vs. religion aspect of the plot, recent reports that the Vatican find little to object to in Angels & Demons are a good indication that this film is only a superficial exploration of the subject. Say what you will about The Da Vinci Code, but at least that movie's controversial assertion that Christ was the patriarch of a whole line of descendants had some bite. Angels & Demons starts and ends with a bit of science fiction hokum, and it's not a strong bit at that.

If anything is diverting in the first two-thirds of the film, it is Howard's look at the intricacies of Vatican culture. From the rituals associated with the papal conclave to the hierarchy among the Vatican security forces, a good deal of time is spent devoted to what almost amounts to a sociological examination of a subculture often ignored by American cinema.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Tom Hanks is comfortable with this brainier riff on Indiana Jones. Ewan McGregor displays a clean-scrubbed boyish charm that seldom finds its way into his other roles (Big Fish being the only exception that comes to mind). Howard is an actor's director, after all. Notice the natural way he gives even minor parts like Chartrand (Thure Lindhardt) - one of the Swiss Guard - their due, endowing them with distinct personalities in a modicum of time. Meanwhile, crap like X-Men Origins: Wolverine can't even make its main character three-dimensional.

But the film falls apart in the third act. Like the first film in this franchise, it suffers from multiple climaxes. That is a particular pet peeve of mine, and always a signal of insecure screenwriters. It is like they feel they must keep building on the ending trying to top each preceding scene with a more suspenseful scene after. Except when the climax involves a priest flying a helicopter, the utter absurdity of such an act means that anything that follows is pure contrivance.

Angels & Demons opens in theaters nationwide this Friday.

Star Trek Podcast, Part 1

2009-05-13T09:08:00.002-04:00

So, due to my, some would say obsessive (I'd just call it unusual... or embarrassing), depth of knowledge on the subject of Star Trek I've been making the rounds on the intertubes. If you frequent some of the same blogs I do, then you've probably seen my name in the comments sections.

But the sheer geeky fun of being a guest on the Monster Sci Fi Show podcast has been unmatched. My host, Monster, brings his fanboy perspective. His co-host, Mr. Gene, brought the business angle into the mix. So I served as counterpoint, bringing the Trek purist's viewpoint.

Do I love this film? Yes, indeed I do. But I still find a lot to nitpick, as you'll soon hear...

More Star Trek coverage:

First Look: J.J. Abrams' Star Trek

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek - Speculation on What to Expect

Star Trek Week Begins

Blu-ray Review: Star Trek: The Original Series - Season 1 (1966-67)

Movie Review: Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek Podcast, Part 2

I only watch Green Porno

2009-05-11T14:00:00.000-04:00

By Lissette Decos

By Green Porno, I don’t mean the kind of porno that donates its mattresses and left over lumber to Habitat for Humanity after filming is done. I’m referring to the short films on the Sundance Channel, directed by the lovely, graceful and godly Isabella Rossellini doing ungodly, ungraceful things like dry-humping a praying mantis. In each short film, Isabella dresses up like insects and then very visually acts out how they reproduce. The look of the sets is purposely low-tech, with hand-made backgrounds in which you are allowed to see the strings that make things move. The films all begin with Isabella looking directly at the camera and saying something like “If I were a bumblebee…” or “If I were a common house fly.” My favorite intro, and also, possibly my new motto: “If I were a firefly I would light up my ass at night, and look for a mate.”

In the eight short films that make up the first season, Isabella does (literally) a common house fly, a bumblebee, dragonfly, earth worm, firefly, spider and a snail. As a snail, Isabella twists herself into a shell... her anus ending up right above her face. The whole time, I'm wondering, "What in the world is Isabella Rossellini doing dressed like a snail? And, oh my God, now her snail poop is coming out of her snail anus, and falling on her GORGEOUS, DELICATE, ANGELIC, ISABELLA FACE!!!"

The only thing crazier than watching insects “get busy” via large papier-mâché penises and vaginas by way of puppetry is watching ISABELLA ROSSELLINI dressed like these animals getting busy with other animals. In an interview, Isabella says that she is finally doing what she has wanted to do ever since she was a little girl. She says she has always dreamt of making short films, and also of making films about animals. Somehow, I doubt that this is what little Isabella had in mind... even growing up in Italy. And that’s because this isn’t just about insects having sex, it’s how they have kinky sex. Who knew? And who knew these stories were so tragic - the bumblebee loses his penis during sex, and then bleeds to death - or so funny? The praying mantis get his head eaten by the female during sex which, of course, does not deter his progress.

Now, there’s a new season of Green Porno. This time Isabella takes kinky animal sex under the sea. Aesthetically, the six new short films are still hand-crafty beautiful, and they are still super-educational (FYI, whales have a six-foot-long penis).

So apparently there are many ways to tell an animal’s story, and not all of them require the narration of James Earl Jones. For example, if you are Disney and you're making Earth you spend big bucks waiting for weeks in the freezing cold with high-tech equipment - in the hopes that what you believed was a polar bear den would indeed be that - praying that a mama would arise from hibernation with her new cubs. Or in the case of Green Porno you can put on an arts and crafts party and create some wacked-out shit. Don’t get me wrong... Earth is gorgeous, with its aerials of beautiful creatures as they migrate over thousands of miles, and blah, blah, blah... where’s the KINKY ANIMAL SEX!?

Surprisingly, both Earth and Green Porno do connect you to these creatures, and help you see the importance of your role in their preservation. They just use completely different techniques. Earth makes you feel guilty. I wanted to beat myself up for being born; flying in planes; driving so much; making the ice melt; and now, the poor polar bear is struggling and starving because of me. I’m so sorry polar bear! I wish you could fit in my New York apartment. I really do. I would care for you, polar bear, and I would share my iced lattes with you.

Green Porno doesn’t make you feel sad for these creatures. Heck, in these films they are getting more action than you. earth was meant for the big screen, while Green Porno was meant for the smallest, i.e. the third screen: your computer, your iPhone. On that tiny screen, Isabella takes on one creature at a time, tells their story, and in doing that, she brings them up to our size. Actually, to her size. Isabella-size.

It's Cool to Be a Trekkie Again!

2009-05-11T11:35:00.003-04:00

Okay, well Bill's smile above notwithstanding, not really, since it was never "cool" to begin with. But at least I can take my command insignia T-shirt out of the closet after a surprisingly successful opening weekend. I think Star Trek has the legs that Wolverine has already proven to lack. Anyway, Cinema Viewfinder is all Trekked out even if I'm not... and you're not, as this week's articles attracted the most readers this site has ever gotten in the U.S. I still owe you a Star Trek review from the fanboy perspective, which I'll be bringing you in the coming days. This will be in a format that is a first for the site, a 2-part podcast in which I participated along with hosts Monster and Mr. Gene of the Monster Scifi Show Blog. However, with the exception of that last gasp of fanboy geekiness, Cinema Viewfinder is going back to the same eclectic mix of films it has always featured. More on our upcoming features after the jump.

Want movie reviews? I have some on the latest films, coming your way including, Angels & Demons, Drag Me to Hell, Little Ashes, Terminator Salvation, and Valentino: The Last Emperor. Also, I've got some nice home video releases I'll be tacking a look at, like The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Last House on the Left, and Vanishing Point, which will all be discussed in new installments of my regular feature, Seventies Cinema Revival. The next installment of my Pasolini retrospective will cover Mamma Roma, and you should see that next week. And finally, for all of you David Lynch fans, I'll be looking at Mulholland Drive as part of Film for the Soul's ongoing analysis of the best movies of the 2000s in Counting Down the Zeroes.

Anything else you want to see here? Drop me a line, and tell me about it.

Come back this evening for Lissette Decos' take on Isabella Rossellini's short film series, Green Porno.