Tropic Thunder *
Ben Stiller, 2008
US
@ Regal Meridian

See also: IMDb

Vivre Sa Vie ***
Jean-Luc Godard, 1962
France
@ SIFF Cinema

The full-frame clip of The Passion of Jeanne d'Arc has to be one of the longest insertions in cinema. Appropriate given how much time we spend looking at Anna Karina's face. And she gets killed by a bunch of men at the end more or less for trying to make her own way in the world.

See also: IMDb | TCMDb

The Rocker *
Peter Cattaneo, 2008
US
@ Regal Meridian

Charming and well-executed. What's really surprising is how infrequently anything gets overplayed. The three kids, for example, are all soft-spoken, and Jeff Garlin's father figure spends most of his screen time silently admiring his "rock star" brother-in-law. The confrontations are all basically polite, and the love interests tame. This is really admirable given that teenage fans of High School Musical and Hannah Montana (featuring some of the most outrageous overacting on televison) are probably at least one target demographic here.

I've been waiting for Jason Sudeikis to do something great onscreen for a little while now, particularly after his terrific stint on 30 Rock, and he doesn't disappoint. To be honest, Rainn Wilson might be the weakest link here. I think the supporting cast is all ready to play off of him, but he just doesn't provide enough charisma, particularly noticeable early on. Jack Black would be the obvious surrogate, given School of Rock, but there are probably others as well.

Two Ohio-specific notes: Wilson's character manages to mispronounce "Akron" fairly early in the movie, and he also waxes nostalgic about seeing metal bands at the Q back in his heyday (the mid-80's), but that arena didn't begin construction (as Gund Arena) until the early 1990's. Then again, the film was shot in Toronto, so regional specificity is something of a moot point anyway.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Vicky Cristina Barcelona *
Woody Allen, 2008
Spain/US
@ Guild 45th

Beautiful use of natural light. Everyone looks uncannily beautiful all the time. I find something ghostly about Allen's shooting style, at least in the recent films I've seen. Every time I try to articulate it more fully, though, I can't quite. Something about the way he follows the actors with his camera, kind of like how Altman's floating zoom makes the viewer feel like a spirit haunting the world of the movie. It has to do with the way he handles extras as well, though, because somehow the main action of the movie always feels detached from the surroundings, as if the city he's shooting in doesn't really exist.

The interweaving, dysfunctional relationships are trademark stuff, but somehow they don't feel consequential like they did for me in Hannah and Her Sisters or Crimes and Misdemeanors. And because of the rapid pace due to the copious voiceover narration, or really voiceover exposition, the movie feels long even under 100 minutes. Maybe it's just that this comes up against the existential dread and relatively tight plotting of Match Point and Cassandra's Dream. (I missed Scoop.)

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Medium Cool **
Haskell Wexler, 1969
US
@ Northwest Film Forum

Radical. Mentions Contempt directly and mimics Godard a bit here and there. Compare/contrast the images of the dirty kids swarming the news vehicle and the hippie/cop battle.

See also: IMDb | Roger Ebert review

Being There ***
Hal Ashby, 1979
US
@ Northwest Film Forum

Nice to come back at the end to the only Hal Ashby film I'd seen previously. Certainly the social critique is constant throughout his seventies work, as well as a kind of indirect critique of the rich. Other than The Landlord, he rarely lampoons them directly, but rather suggest subtly ways in which those with money tend either not to deserve or not to understand exactly what their wealth means, most perfectly typified by the scene in Bound for Glory when Woody leaves the rich woman's house after letting her know how he feels about her contribution to society. He also loves an empty-headed protagonist.

From IMDb: "Shirley MacLaine's masturbation scene was shot seventeen times."

The misguided attempt at interpreting the final scene by geeks on the internet (see Wikipedia, for example) reminds me of reactions after watching Mulholland Drive in college. I fail to understand what real reward there is in trying to piece together a puzzling plot that may have had holes at the time of shooting or never even existed in a coherent form, or trying to read further and further into the actions of the characters in order to understand... what exactly? The secret of life is not to be found in such a place, and insisting on closure from a film seems not only unfair, but foolish when there's so much beauty and humor to be appreciated outside of that insane detective work and so little to gain from it.

Note: I later found this quote from Manny Farber in a blog post by Girish.

I don't see how or why anyone should be expected to get the meaning of an event in a movie or a painting. That's a place where criticism goes wrong: it keeps trying for a complete solution. I think the point of criticism is to build up the mystery. And the point is to find movies which have a lot of puzzle in them.

See also: IMDb | Girish's 10 Reasons Why He Likes Manny Farber

Masculine Feminine ***
Jean-Luc Godard, 1966
France
@ SIFF Cinema

I think maybe I just like Shia LaBeouf because perhaps excepting the curly hair he looks so much like Jean-Pierre Leaud, and how nice when I'm watching a slightly dull Hollywood film (or reruns on the Disney channel) to be reminded of Stolen Kisses, Last Tango in Paris, La Chinoise, or this.

Hard to tell at times if the backward sexual politics are satirical or unintentionally funny. Highpoints: the graffiti scenes, Paul's "record," and certainly his race to the projection room to complain about an incorrect aspect ratio at the movie theater.

The more Godard I watch the less confusing any one of the films becomes. Because you can more easily identify the quirks, making connections between films, and his bag of tricks all cohere into something resembling a comprehensible style, engaging rather than imposing or just weird.

See also: IMDb

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach *
Jean-Marie Straub/Danièle Huillet, 1968
Germany
@ home on DVD

Would certainly benefit from a theatrical screening. The long, static takes and low resolution of the DVD made for a less than enthralling viewing experience.

The musicmaking and ornamentation both of the churches and the costumes were precisely enthralling, though.

It'd be interesting to see a more contemporary musical biopic done in this fashion.

See also: IMDb

Pineapple Express ***
David Gordon Green, 2008
US
@ Pacific Place

Fantastic. Basically everything I'd hoped for, and a lot more as well. I think this is kind of how I wanted the violence in Reservoir Dogs to feel, whereas I was just repulsed by the ear mutilation in that movie. I guess this kind of fits with some of the cop bits in Superbad, and the action feels like a natural extension of the cinematic world we're in from the beginning. This also does exactly what I'd hoped Hot Fuzz would do, but that movie was satisfied with being clever rather than terrific. Pretty sure you could lop off the opening segment with absolutely no ill effects.

It seems certain that there are a whole lot more tossed off references to action films and others than IMDb's "Movie Connections" page currently lists, particularly with the Asian gang members near the end.

And there's the romp in the woods, which is notable both for the beautiful location and the goofy counterpoint to all the gunshots, bodyblows, and explosions to come after.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Ed Howard review

Hot Rod
Akiva Schaffer, 2007
US
@ home on DVD

I got to thinking about a movie starring Bill Hader in a semi-serious role, probably a pretty low-budget Sundance-type thing. He seems to always play the voice of reason (here, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) whilst also generating some laughs, but frequently a little too good for his role. Then again, pretty much everyone is too good for their roles here. This kind of felt like the SNL crowd does Napoleon Dynamite which in some cases kind of worked, but there were too few wildly original bits.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Right Brain Cinema

When Meg visited we briefly touched on the necessity of discerning and differentiating the visual language of film from the word-bound language of the novel or the poem. We agreed that you probably experience and judge the art differently once you've acclimated yourself to its essential features and values.

Momus points out the same thing on a more basic level:

If comedy [and word-based art in general] makes a concerted rush for the verbal-logical left brain, visual art heads for our primitive, intuitive right brain, a place of pictures, desires, reflexes and instincts.

Bound for Glory **
Hal Ashby, 1976
US
@ Northwest Film Forum

This was almost certainly the worst projection I've ever witnessed at NW Film Forum. The fact that this seems outrageous merely goes to show that generally the projection is very good, especially for a non-profit cinematheque.

I made a few possibly useful connections during the film. Last December I was appalled by Ann Powers' suggestion that there is a connection between a supposed decrease in political activism and the omnipresent iPod. Then tonight as I was stirred by Hal Ashby and David Carradine's depiction of Woody Guthrie's powerful humanitarian urges in the face of oppression both soft and very hard, I recalled a poster in the MVS house featuring Woody Guthrie's statement on songwriting. (It starts "I hate a song that makes...") and my initial reaction to it, which was that it sounds kind of manipulative and pandering. Against the backdrop of this film, though, it sounds fiercely determined and utterly admirable.

Of course I was reminded of David Foster Wallace's essay, "E Unibus Pluram," which you can probably find somewhere online but I can't right now. Generally it's about how television and the pop culture associated with it has made us all into irony-loving cynics who refuse to appear to be surprised at anything. Mostly he's trying to figure out a way to move forward in a culture that won't accept anything new, because that would require genuine intention and effort, which doesn't sound appropriate any longer. Parts of it are outdated, and it's true in some senses, not in others, but on the whole I think it shows precisely why I can't understand what Woody Guthrie is saying on that poster, that he's speaking in a mode that now sounds outlandish for a popular musician. The question is whether forthright exploration of important social issues is simply impossible via that route, or if perhaps there are other, more subtle but semantically accurate ways of broaching the same topics.

So, if you or someone you know figures out a way to couch advocacy of communitarian/socialist/humanist values in generationally and culturally appropriate terminology, let me know. I'm guessing that might be more useful than telling people not to listen to their iPods.

See also: IMDb

Cinephilia vs. Cinemania

From David Bordwell's hilariously apt post "Games cinephiles play":

Most obviously, both the cinephile and the cinemaniac show symptoms of compulsiveness. Each one makes lists, checks off titles seen, plans a day of moviegoing with care. When visiting a new city, s/he first scans the cultural scene for what’s playing. Both types of film lover are strict—no pan-and-scan, no colorization, no dodgy projection. Either type might have a weblog or a diary or just patient friends. If s/he has friends.

...

The cinemaniac has a favorite seat, even if it’s way off to the side. To secure it, the cinemaniac shows up early and tries to be first in line. Your average cinephile isn’t so picky about where to sit, and so may slip in at the last minute.

The Dark Knight **
Christopher Nolan, 2008
US
@ Pacific Place

While there is nothing wrong with a 155-minute film (or a 455-minute film, for that matter), every one ought to be as long as it needs to be, and thus length seems a valid criticism here. Perhaps what both causes some people to complain about the runtime and others to shout "torture porn!" is the single fact that without a traditional narrative arc and conclusion the film seems to run well past what the logical conclusion of the most of what we discover in the first hour or so, into another story entirely. Thus every hostage scene in that second half feels gratuitous, but largely because the film feels distended in general. I eagerly await David Bordwell or Kristin Thompson's commentary on the dramatic structure, if one is forthcoming.

What disturbs me about this movie, or perhaps just leaves me cold, are the implications of the fact that the Joker is the only interesting thing here. He's brilliant, creative, and disarming, but we're supposed to root for the guy with high-tech firepower and no emotional range. That, rather than the bodycount or Sisyphean nature of Batman's crimefighting, seems to me the truly dark message communicated to the audience. Not that this calls to mind any direct political or social parallels, but it does strike me as unpleasant and maybe oddly Puritanical. It seems to me that dark and dull are easily confused when lots of explosions are occurring at the same time.

As the film is so long with relatively little important dialogue, I had a lot of time to ponder the interest in superheroes in general. They seem most vital when we have detached from society. That is, when we can't or won't solve our problems on a human scale by being humane to those around us, maybe we fantasize about superhuman figures or weaponry to patrol the streets and keep us safe. Backward, and kind of sad. Contrast this with the western, in which the hero was frequently the man imposing law and order (perhaps for the first time) on a frontier community. The superhero, on the other hand, supersedes the law and social conventions by instituting his own vigilante justice. Sort of like marshall law vs. martial law.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Hammer to Nail

Step Brothers *
Adam McKay, 2008
US
@ Pacific Place

Eh. There was plenty to laugh at, but generally the situations were funnier than the execution. The idea of 40-year-olds getting bullied by kids is hilarious, but out of proportion to what we actually experience. In Talladega Nights, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly were funny, and then Sacha Baron Cohen stepped in to set things off. Here there's no third party who's nearly as funny.

So obviously I don't have much problem with critics who don't find the film as funny as it could be. I do think it's a bit weird to take exception to the obscenity, though. As with In Search of a Midnight Kiss (and Kevin Smith's movies), those tend to be the most reliable bits. Is it a generational thing?

It also doesn't seem very germane to this or any one comedy in particular to lament the lack of complex female characters. Take a look at this list of highest-grossing American comedies. They're almost entirely centered around males with serious and/or sexy (ie not terribly interesting) female foils. Not much different for most successful romantic comedies that come to mind, either. (And serious movies are frequently no better at respecting their actresses.) I understand the need to repeat complaints that have not been addressed for several decades now, but it also strikes me as a bit tiresome at this point. Eventually it's got to be time for a change of strategy for feminist critics or simply any segment of the population who gets tired of seeing the same guys starring in comedies all the time. Perhaps advocacy of the few Hollywood films that do feature excellent female leads, or foreign and/or older movies that could be remade. Just pointing out that a particular movie doesn't feature complex females doesn't seem to be doing anyone any good.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic