The Projectionists

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

My Score: B

Allow me to state the obvious.  If you are in the mood for high art, find another movie.  If you are in the mood for billowing sails, clashing swords, and a certain handsome drunkard/pirate, Dead Man's Chest is the movie for you.

In retrospect, I am struck by my own inability to summarize the plot of this film.  That's because logic was clearly in scant supply during the writing of the script.  But, given that this is an action/comedy/adventure flick, that didn't get in the way of my having a great time.  The special effects were just about the best I've ever seen, the people were good-looking, and the mood was playful--in short, most everything that made the first in the series so likable was also found here, in abundance. 

I'm also happy to report a couple of outstanding performances by character actors.  Bill Nighy as Davy Jones managed to invest the role with a skill and distinctiveness that raises the bar for voice work.  Naomie Harris as Creole swamp witch-doctress Tia Dalma plays the sinister, sexy, funny character character with relish and a sing-song Jamaican accent.

But back to that scanty logic.  The script leaves something to be desired: the virtue of simplicity. Having paid to see this film implies that one is willing to be swept away by it.  That's fine, and it's what Dead Man's Chest is designed to do.  It's hard to enjoy the escape completely if you spend much time bewildered by plot twists, however, especially ones that still don't upon further reflection.  Silly, brainless fun should stay brainless. 

Theresa

P.S.  Johnny Depp, the other day I saw the face of Captain Jack Sparrow on a Burger King poster.  Fie!  Fie!
P.P.S.  Stereotyping of cannibal natives is not ok, even if it is in a brainless action film that no one takes seriously. 

Osama

My score:  I couldn't give this movie a score.  I was too busy weeping.

Osama, the first film completed in Afghanistan after the American invasion, reminds us of what reading Dickens must have been like in the Victorian era.   Currently, Oliver Twist's plea of "May I have some more?" seems melodramatic, perhaps ridiculously so.  But Oliver's travails in a workshouse, or his treatment at the hands of the evil Fagin, had the bitterness of authenticity to Londoners in the nineteenth century.  Along these lines, Osama concentrates on the horrible lives of Afghanis under the Taliban, and every little bit of cruelty on display makes you squirm because you know it's true. 

The story concentrates on an unnamed girl, the daughter and graddaughter of widows.  Since the Taliban purposely makes the free movement of single women nigh-impossible, the family will starve unless the girl can pass for a boy and find employment.   She does, going as "Osama," petrified at every turn by the tragedy that will surely--and does--ensue. 

If you're the sort of sadist who enjoys scenes of terrified children being hung down wells as a form of punishment (while they cry for their mothers), or who finds the abuse of power amusing, and thinks that implied rape makes for good entertainment, then by all means, watch and enjoy.  If you like non-preachy, nicely photographed films about important current events, like I do, then you, too, should watch it.  But don't do watch it alone, before bed, like I did.  Unless you enjoy insomnia as well as cinema...

Theresa

An Inconvenient Truth

My Score: B

An Inconvenient Truth is a film featuring former VP Al Gore and his slide show that he developed to teach people the facts about global climate change.  In the wrong hands, this would be a pretty dry topic, but Gore, contrary to the seemingly widespread belief that he possesses a robotic personality, puts together an interesting and compelling presentation about an incredibly importatnt topic.

As a documentary film about global climate change, there are some weaknesses to Truth, mainly having to do with  the fact that the film is so deeply rooted in a slide show.  But the film isn't entirely about the climate, it is also about a man recounting his education about the subject, and his experiences in trying to educate others and effect policy changes while he was a member of the US Senate.  It is a film about both climate change and Gore's experiences.

Most of the content of the film is educational, presenting the scientific evidence indicating that 1) Earth is in the process of undergoing massive climate change, and 2) that we (humans, particularly Americans) are the cause of it.  The scientific community has been in concensus on these topics for several years now, but because of the misinformation campaigns by oil companies and the current Bush administration, and lazy journalists, the perception is that there is significant debate about whether or not we're the cause of the recent warming of the globe.  This film tries to help remedy that situation. 

In the end, though, it seems hard to be optimistic about Earth's environmental  prospects in the short term.  Global climate change is largely not on the public's radar, and it will take a lot more than this film to change that.

-Steve
6:30 PM

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

Yume
My Score: C

Brief synopsis: Dreams is a series of eight vignettes  meditating on death.  The vignettes start off affecting only a handful of people, but become increasingly apocalyptic.

I first saw Dreams in college, in the theatre, and I really enjoyed it.  I recently re-watched it on DVD, and my impressions of the film are drastically different.  The first time I watched it, I was impressed with its beauty,  even in the latter dream sequences.  I remebered the second vignette, The Peach Orchard, very well, even seven or eight years later. 

The second time around though, the film seemed overly didactic.  The first two or three vignettes are beautiful, and avoid coming off as seeming preachy, but the rest of the film becomes increasingly blunt with its warnings and teachings.  The worst offenders in this regard are the sixth and seventh dreams, Mt. Fuji in Red and The Weeping Demon, which warn of the dangers of nuclear power.  To his credit, Kurosawa does present an alternate vision of a kinder, gentler world in his final dream, rather than just criticize, but it, too, contributes to the oppresive didacticism of the film with its sentimentality.

The film is probably worth watching on the strength of the first two and the fifth vignettes (in the fifth, Martin Scorcese plays Vincent Van Gogh, and delivers some fantastic lines),   but the rest of the film is overdone.  Don't feel bad about taking a bathroom break in the middle.

-Steve
5:49 PM

Netflix

A random interesting tidbit about Netflix: there is a maximum number of films you can enqueue.  How do I know?  I hit it.  How big is it?  500 films.

2nd Netflix tidbit: they're suing Blockbuster over patent infringement.  As much as I absolutely loathe Blockbuster and would love to see them go bankrupt, I'm a man of principle, and view this as yet another reason why this country needs an absolute, complete and total overhaul of its patent system.   I suppose the overhaul can wait until Blockbuster pays some obscene amount, though.

-Steve
1:53 AM

A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange

My Score: B

The other day I wanted to viddy a real horrowshow film full of ultraviolence and the old in-out, and A Clockwork Orange fit the bill perfectly.

The film follows the travails of Alex, played by a very young Malcolm McDowell.  The film starts off telling the story of his ultraviolent exploits with his droogs, whom eventually betray him to the police, and Alex gets sent to prison, where he is "treated" with an inhumane conditioning experiment that makes him physically ill when exposed to anything violent.  A side effect is that he is also aversely conditioned to the 9th Symphony by the great Ludwig Van.

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess.  I read the novel several years ago, and really enjoyed it.  Burgess does wonderful things with language.  There's a bit of a discrepency between the novel and the film though: the novel has 21 chapters, and in the last one Alex discovers that a life based on ultraviolence is a rather hollow and meaningless existance.  Apparently this chapter was left out of the original American edition, which is what Kubrick used for the basis of this film, so the film ends with the rather ominous lines "oh, I was cured alright," portending Alex's inevitble return to kratchiking. 

When watching the film again, most recently, I was struck by how choreographed the numerous scenes of violence were.  Kubrick turned beatings into ballet.  Also, Kubrick has a fine ear, and was able to pair familiar music with unnerving images very successfully.  In 2001, of course, he famously used the Blue Danube waltz and Also Sprach Zarathustra.  In A Clockwork Orange he used Singin' In The Rain to turn a violent rape scene into a song-and-dance performance.

In the end, A Clockwork Orange is a brilliant display of audio-visual techniques, less spectacular but no less audacious than 2001, but not nearly as moving as, say, Paths of Glory, Kubrick's wonderful war film from 1957.

-Steve
12:17 AM

Iron-Jawed Angels

My Grade: A-

A little American history lesson (or review, as the case may be): Feminism in America is often described as having three "waves."  The Third Wave is the one we are currently rumored to be experiencing.  The Second Wave was the outpouring of feminist feeling in the 1960s and '70s.  The First Wave encompasses many of the pioneers of the movement, including such figures as Susan B. Anthony, but it is often used specifically to refer to the push for women's suffrage in the early part of the twentieth century.  Women won the right to vote in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was added to the Constitution. 

Thank you for your patience.  Now we can get on to the movie-making.  Iron-Jawed Angels is a 2004 HBO movie about the First Wave.  Aren't you glad now that you just did your homework?   Women's history is a frequently overlooked or disrespected part of the country's heritage, which is part of the reason this movie is very pleasing.  But man and woman cannot live by intellect alone, so it's lucky for us all that the true story of the movement is a ripping good yarn, too.   During the 1910s, group of young activist, led by Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and inspired by radical suffragists in Great Britain, wanted to push--hard--for a vote on a suffrage amendment to the Constitution in Congress.   After various bickering and betrayals within the movement, Paul and her friends form their own (very vocal) splinter group.

With a flair for the dramatic, and occasionally the melodramatic, the women set about getting the attention of the national press.  They stage a parade that upstages newly-elected Woodrow Wilson's arrival in D.C.  and ends in a riot.  They stage a daily picket in front of the White House, using quotes about democracy from Wilson himself on banners that make him look like a hypocrite.  They even continue picketing after the beginning of WWI, and get hauled off to jail for their trouble.  Finally, when Alice Paul pickets with a banner addressing the president as "Kaiser Wilson," she is imprisoned as well, whereupon she and her compatriots promptly go on a hunger strike.   They are force-fed, a process accomplished by strapping a prisoner to a chair and shoving a tube down her nose or throat (side-effects include bleeding and constant vomiting).  The resulting negative publicity, along with political pressure from powerful feminists, force Wilson to release the women from jail and to throw his support behind suffrage.   

Eventually, though,  suffrage is still had to be ratified on a state-by-state basis--the 36th and final state being Tennessee, where at the last minute an anti-suffrage state politician  gets a telegram from his mother demanding that he vote for the law.   He casts the tie-breaking vote.  The entire story is a perfect illustration of the fact that history is often dramatic enough to make a damn good movie, without the embroidering that Hollywood so loves.

And it's the embroidery in Iron-Jawed Angels that has forced me to give it an A-, not an A+.  Director Katja von Garnier's use of modern pop music (I suppose to "modernize" the story) is distracting to the point of annoyance.  Her portrayal of the politics leading up to the amendment is satisfyingly accurate and even-handed, and even though it glosses over the movement's denial of its African-American activists and the involvement of lesbian women, just broaching these topics is a major step forward.  But do we, for example, need a scene of Alice Paul masturbating in the tub?  It doesn't do much for the plot except lead it in a insulting direction, given that the political story is fascinating enough on its own.  Why must stories about brave women always throw in a little romance and/or sexual tension?  It's like a biopic of Frederich Douglass showing him masturbating behind a barn.   Which is more significant: the right to vote, or a little self-frigging in your off time?

P.S.  Kudos to Frances O'Connor for her charismatic, funny, and convincing portrayal of Alice Paul's co-leader in the National Women's Party, Lucy Burns.  Angelica Huston as Carrie Chapman Catt deserves mention as well. 
P.P.S.  We're sorely in need of a sequel.  The story of the dissolution of the First Wave in the wake of the 19th Amendment is not quite so uplifting, but still needs to be told.

Brokeback Mountain

My Score:  B+ / A-

I saw Brokeback Mountain a week or two ago.  I enjoyed it a lot, but I feel the media have been giving it way more attention than it deserves if considered solely on its artistic merits.  Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a very good film.  But after seeing it I can't help but feel that if authentic homosexual relationships were portrayed more often that this film would not be getting as much press as it is. 

All of that being said, you, dear reader, really ought to go out to see it in the theatre for the following reasons: 1) Sweeping landscape shots are always better on the big screen.  2)  There are very few films portraying gay relationships in a loving way.  3)  It's a solid film, despite the hyperbolae.

-Steve
12:29 AM

North Country

My Score: B

Someone really ought to stop rewarding Charlize Theron for making herself look ugly. 

Now, I am just as adamant as the next feminist about the need for acceptance and representation of all women, of all types, on the silver screen.  I ardently admire Theron for the professional bravery she demonstrated in her physical transformation for Monster.  I also applaud her for making the first significant contribution by a woman to the long tradition of extreme transformations in the name of drama, De Niro's in Raging Bull being the most famous.  However, that being said, it's important to remember that being willing to look ugly does not translate to top-notch acting.  Nor does it, as North Country proves, translate into a good movie.

North Country tells the compelling underdog tale of plain-Jane Josey Aimes, a young mother who, fleeing an abusive husband, moves back home to the mining country of Northern Minnesota.  Despite numerous warnings from her mine worker friend Glory (Frances McDormand), Aimes signs on at the same mine at which her father works.  The male miners feel that women don't belong in a mine, and begin an escalating campaign of harassment, ranging from unpleasant comments to practical jokes to obscene graffiti on the walls of the women's locker room (chosen medium: human feces).  The virulence of their hatred would be difficult to believe were the film not based on a true story.  Aimes braves the anger of her union, alienation from other female co-workers, and public humiliation at her trial to bring suit against the company that owns the mine.

North Country is a solid film, hence the solid B.  In particular, its portrayal of dingy working-class interiors, father-daughter conflict, and banter among the female workers ring true.  Chris Menges, the film's cinematographer, skillfully uses the bleakly majestic landscape of the Mesabi Iron Range and strangely graceful footage of mine operations to two ends--to underscore how lonely Aimes's fight is, and to demonstrate graphically the mighty odds that she's up against.  And in fact I felt very sympathetic to the film until North Country drowned in its own melodrama.  Astonishing past events are revealed by her hard-nosed lawyer (Woody Harrelson) in aggressive cross-examination of a primary villain.  (These events absolve Theron's character of any responsibility for the premarital pregnancy that initially lent her character complexity, leaving her with a saintly glow.)  Glory, though crippled by the final stages of Lou Gehrig's disease, makes a dramatic appearance as Aimes's savior at the trial.  Also during the trial, the main character's rebellious teenage son runs away (paving the way for an inevitable and  saccharine detente), and her mother (a sadly underutilized Cissy Spacek) leaves her father over his lack of support for his daughter.  Those weeks she was in the courtroom were hell for Josey Aimes, and hell for me, the formerly sympathetic audience-goer, too.   

Theron does a very credible job, but there's no escaping a script that goes rapidly downhill.  There's Oscar buzz for her role as Josey Aimes.  I agree that her award for Monster was well-deserved, but she shouldn't coast on that wave of ugliness into another (this time undeserved) statuette.

Theresa

The Manhattan Short Film Festival

The Manhattan Short Film Festival
or
Just How Inflential is David Lynch?

Overall Grade: B-

About 2 weeks ago I saw the Manhattan Short Film Festival at the Senator Theatre here in Baltimore.  It was sponsored in part by Stella Artois and H&M Denim.  Stella Artois provided free beer (that's free as in beer) to all comers, which was great, I must admit.  H&M Denim provided a painfully aweful short-but-long musical "Romeo & Juliet" commercial to kick off the second half of the fest after the intermission.  It deservingly brought boos from just about the entire audience.  What the fuck were they thinking?

On to the films: the 12 finalists were screened, and they were of mixed quality.  Of course the production values on all of the films were very high, but the content of some left a lot to be desired.  Some were very original, but a couple borrowed heavily from David Lynch.  All were very well acted.

I'll just describe the highlights.

The opening film was A Black and White World, which opens as an old black and white silent film.  It pokes fun at a couple of the more obvious silent film conventions (e.g. a character talking a lot, and then having only one line of dialogue printed on the screen afterwards) but the progesses to more interesting material- the main character comes unfixed from his celluloid existence, and wanders into other films, discovering color and sound, and then returns to his original world bringing those new discoveries with him.  It was a neat idea, and very well done.

When I was in high school David Lynch's Lost Highway came out, and although I didn't watch the film until after I finished college, I did buy the soundtrack when it came out.  Really, it's a very good soundtrack, and I got to know it quite well.  It was surreal watching the film and hearing the music presented in the exact order of the soundtrack.  Why do I bring this up?  Because the third short film, Crickets, from Israel, "borrowed" every last bit of sound effects and music used from the Lost Highway soundtrack.  The film concerns a young man whose parents are killed in a suicide bombing attack.  The only way in which he can deal with his pain is by starting to bet on future attacks- when and where they will occur and how many people will be killed.  It's a very compelling idea, and I must say the music and sound effects work very well, except for the fact that every time some sound played, I thought about Lost Highway, and was drawn away from this film. 

The other film that borrowed from David Lynch, though in a different way, was The Lump, which was indebted to Eraserhead in its aesthetic and monster "baby" motif. 

The Ten Steps was the sixth and last film before the intermission, and it was a cliched horror film.  The director's stated intent, actually, was to create an incredibly cliched horror film.  ("They're cliches and cliches are great.")  The end result is not something that is scary, but rather very humorous.  The whole thing has an over-the-top feel to it, and most of the audience just ended up laughing through most of it.

The first film after intermission, The Instructional Guide to Dating, was an animated brilliant parody of '50s-style instructional videos.  It was very funny and cynical, (it included instructions on how to have an affair, for instance) and one of my two favorites at the festival.

My other favorite was the last film, Everything Goes, which starred the only actor that I was familiar with in the whole festival.  (Weaving played Elrond in the Lord of the Rings series.)  It was a humorous piece about a fellow whose significant other has just left and he wants to make a clean break of it by having a large yard sale where everything goes.  He empties the house and sets up his living room outside.  Before long a young couple shows up to shop and they stay there all day, chatting, and then in the evening, drinking and dancing.  The young fellow doesn't dance, however, so Weaving dances with the woman.  The romantic tension is just right, and the film ends beautifully as well, in my humble opinion, with her staring at the ceiling the following night and her sense of dissatisfaction with the relationship is palpable.

-Steve
11:23 PM