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Ann Arbor Film Festival 2009: The Animated Forest

2009-03-27T21:40:00.001-07:00

Kate and I just got back from "The Animated Forest" -- the animated shorts in competition at the A2 film festival. It was a lot of fun. I'll just jot down a few thoughts, going from my favorite film on... down...

Chainsaw (Dennis Tupicoff 2007): I thought this was really excellent. The narrative is cleverly put together, and the animation suits the subject matter quite well. It's all rotoscoped, but the result is heavily stylized -- strong lines and flat patches of color. There are a few clips of archive footage which are patched in, and I feel are completely unnecessary, but this is minor criticism. What these folks have done really well is take from live footage they shot the things that they want -- movement, shadows, etc., left out the things they don't, and used it to shape their own vision.

Friluftsliv (Outdoor Life) (Håkan Wennström 2008): Admittedly, this suffers from Swedish Film Disorder. I think that I saw 10 or 12 people leave at the end for the specific purpose of committing suicide. On the other hand, the textures that the animator builds up are pretty amazing, and the philosophical voiceover is interesting enough to be forgiven.

I Live In The Woods (Max Winston 2008): This is an interesting counterpoint to "Outdoor Life." While it definitely falls into the "crude humor" genre of animation, the movement conveys real energy. This was definitely the funniest film of the bunch.

Father (Sebastian Danta 2008): I liked the story, but I don't know that the animation added much.

Retouches (Georges Schwizgebel 2008): I'm getting a bit tired of Schwizgebel. He does what he does very well, and very consistently. Every year or two you can be sure that you'll get an 8-10 minute film concerto, light on narrative structure, but with a few clever transitions. He's done that this year too. I wish he'd try a bit harder to do something else.

Trepan Hole (Andy Cahill 2008): This was a bit awkward, since the director was sitting right behind us. There were a few good moments, but I think there was a reach/grasp mismatch. I'm sympathetic to this kind of mildly abstract animation, where the characters are bizarre clay tube things. That's fine. But I think those kind of characters pair naturally with a simpler narrative -- in 6 or 7 minutes, one doesn't have time to tell us what the clay tube things are like, why they do what they do, what happens to them when they're sucked into a giant clay anus, etc. I suspect that the film makes sense to the director, but I can't say it made sense to me.

Kanizsa Hill (Evelyn Lee 2008): There were a few good still shots that would make great paintins, prints, or whatever. I don't think that any of the animation was interesting. And the voiceover was an unwelcome throwback to the pretentious bullshit of film festivals of yesteryear.

The Heart Of Amos Klein (Michal & Uri Kranot 2008): Generic animation and a heavy-handed metaphor. Goody!

Permutation (Viktoriya Gruzdyn & Katerina Friday 2008): The objects animated were pretty interesting here, but I'm not sure what, if anything, the director was trying to convey.

Battery Acid (Dean Denell & Daniel Olson 2008): Nothing much to add here.

El Miedo (Fear) (Jimena Sarno & Ms. Bea 2008): I last went to the A2 film festival in 2003. I had the privilege of sitting through 1.5-2 hours of poorly assembled video "art", usually constructed around a pompous script being read in somebody's best "I AM MAKING A SERIOUS FOR THE ART" voice. I came back this year because the rumor was that the festival was, well, good now. Watching this film was like being in 2003. I actively dislike it.

THE IDIOT STINKS (Helder K. Sun 2008): This film stinks.

Gladiator (2000)

2008-04-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

K: I didn't see this film when it first came out (at the time, I was living in Grinnell, IA, which has one movie theater...sometimes) but the Michigan screened it as part of their great directors series. You all have probably already seen it (and I have to get back to work), so I will keep this brief.

1) It was really good to see it on the big screen. Unfortunately, I don't think that it would be nearly as powerful on a small screen.

2) Russel Crowe is really good. Maybe not oscar good...but I understand it was a slow year (once again...no movie theater in 2000). He did very well with the really gung-ho, let-loose parts of the film, but I thought that he did a particularly good job with some of the more subtle scenes, where he is concealing thoughts, containing anger, or making transitions.

3) Given the genre, the director and cinematographer did some fairly innovative things--the battle scenes were especially good.

4) Unfortunately for me, the exact things that made the movie good also made it difficult to watch. It is a fairly intense experience, and left me fairly worn out.

5) This is embarrassing, but I...um...cried. A lot. This is somewhat unusual for me, but I couldn't help it. It was moving. I was doing ok until the last time he walks through the field. I just lost it. Something about going home to those you love really hits me hard.

On the whole, it was definitely worth seeing. I would even say worth the Oscars it won. Certainly not on par with No Country for Old Men, but WAY better than Titanic.

Post Oscar....um...post.

2008-02-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

I had intended to do some kind of wrap up at the end of the night last night, but it turns out that 2 straight hours of blogging does a number on your back--at least if you adopt the kind of vulture-on-carrion pose I use when typing while sitting on the floor. Ross termed it "discomblogulation". Yes indeed. This is the kind of humor I enjoy on a daily basis. Jealous? I thought so.

You may have noticed that the quality of my posts deteriorated significantly as the evening wore on. My overuse of the double dash became almost criminal. I freaking love the double dash. Since almost all of the films I wrote about were worth seeing, the lower than usual quality of these posts makes me somewhat sad. However, none of the posts were as bad as I thought they would be, and as the sticky note above my desk tells me every day--done is better than perfect! (there's that double dash again). Besides, there is something honest about an unedited blog post. Among other things, you get to see how piss-poor my writing has become after 4 years in graduate school.

And now the summery of the evening, broken into lazy, I-need-to-get-back-to-work bullet points:
--We didn't mention anything about the red carpet. This is because 1)Ross and I are not exactly the people you would turn to for thoughtful fashion commentary and 2) Regis Philbin is a train wreck. A very very orange train wreck. Maybe if we all agree to ignore him, he'll go away.
--Ross and I saw all of the animated short film nominees. Since most of America didn't join us, they will just have to take our word for it. Peter and the Wolf was a bizarre choice.
--Tilde Swinton clearly never thought that she would be up on stage. I have no idea what happened with best supporting actress. I didn't see most of the best actress films, so I can't really comment on that. But Cate Blanchett should have won.
--Once won for best original song. Good thing, because otherwise I would have turned off the tv.
--The rest of the awards went as expected (read: the right way).
--Overall, it was more entertaining than usual. John Stewart had some good material to work with, the montages were relevant and interesting (I even stopped typing to watch). I especially enjoyed the montages of previous best actor/actress and best picture awards.

Whew...back to work. Maybe Ross will take over the next couple of posts. He's always funnier than I am.

Live Blog...

2008-02-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

R: OK, maybe there's some small stuff to think over. I'm kind of surprised that Andre Wajda didn't win for Katyn, if only because these are sometimes "lifetime achievement" awards, and I hear he's a good candidate for one of those. Also, it was nice that Marketa Irglova got to say her bit. An original sentiment, I know.

***

R: Well, why fool around with the small stuff. Here comes best picture... Well, that was well-deserved.

***

K: Daniel Day Lewis won best actor. No surprise there. His earrings are so crazy. Listening to him talk, his performance in There Will be Blood is all the more amazing.

***

K: Oh thank god. The song from Once won the best original song.

***

K: This song from Once is so lovely. I'll be so disappointed if it doesn't win.

***

K: Whoh. Marian Cotillard. Another woman who clearly didn't expect to win. I really wanted to see Ma Vie En Rose before--now I want to see it even more.

***

Best Actress is coming up. We're both bracing ourselves for disappointment.

Of course, as in most of the categories this year, there are really too many good options.

***

K: How exactly do they choose the best sound editing person anyway? And how is that different than sound mixing?

***

K: Ooo...another bad earing on the sound editing winner. It looks like some kind of fishing lure.

***

K: Well between the short animated films and best supporting actress, I'm pretty unhappy so far. At least John Stewart is pretty funny tonight.

***

R: Now I'm even more unhappy, because I think I figured out why Cate Blanchett didn't win supporting actress, and it must be because Ellen Page isn't going to win best actress. Fuckity fuck fuck.

***

K: Holy Crap. Even Tilde Swinton was surprised. She was clearly not expecting to win. And I'm not usually one to be snarky about clothing, but her dress is so weird. She is wearing a sack.

Tilde Sinton?! Really?!
Cate Blanchett was so good in I'm Not There. This is a crime.

***

R: Tilde Swinton? OK, clearly Hollwood read this, and decided to not give the awards where they were deserved this year. Either that, or there's been a big drop in the price of hard drugs.

***

K: Cate Blanchett is so freaking good. It's unfair. Her Dylan performance is legendary.

***

K: I can't believe that our THIRD choice animated film won.

***

R: Here's live animated short. Peter and the Wolf? Seriously? Whatever.

***

K: Oh wait. I forgot about Once. Why are we listening to all of this crap when Once could have easily been nominated three or four times? It was only nominated for one song, but if there is any justice in the world, it should win.

***

K: The songs are really bad this year. Were there only 5 songs TOTAL this year?

***

R: Wait a minute -- did Transformers not just win best Visual Effects? Seriously? They were beat by "the bear from 1999?"

***

R: Here comes best animated feature -- we're not particularly well qualified to comment on this, since we didn't see Ratatouille (which just won). We did see Persepolis, which was good, but not "has to win" good. Our full post on this will go up later tonight.

***

R: We're going to update this from the top, and "liveblog" the Oscars. Can you handle it? I can't.

We're still in the red carpet phase, and what have we noticed? Both Harrison Ford and Daniel Day Lewis have earrings. It's almost forgivable for Daniel Day Lewis, who seems generally silly. But for Harrison Ford, I have a heartfelt plea:

Harrison Ford, you are the living, breathing embodiment of masculinity. Lose the fucking earring.

***

The Coen Brothers

2008-02-24T20:41:00.000-08:00

The Coen Brothers have made so many good films. How can the same two people make Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, and No Country For Old Men? How can they make one film that depends so much on music (Oh Brother) and a few years later, one that depends so much on silence (No Country)? So good.

No Country for Old Men is the best film the Coen Brothers have made. Which, as you might guess by the above statements, is saying a lot. I can't do justice to it right now, so I'll just leave it this: they totally deserve both the best picture and the best director awards. I'm so stoked that it ALMOST makes up for the short animated film, best actress, and best supporting actress awards.

Heath Ledger

2008-02-24T20:07:00.000-08:00

K: The retrospective of people who have died made me really sad--mostly because it reminded me of Heath Ledger's death. I feel kind of stupid for feeling sad. I mean--he is an actor. But still, it makes me sad. Maybe I would feel differently if he weren't such a fantastic actor...if he had died in a car accident, rather than killing himself. Nobody should have to feel like that is the better way to go. Cinema is poorer for his loss.

Michael Clayton (2007)

2008-02-24T19:51:00.000-08:00

This is supposedly a movie about a morally ambiguous lawyer who gets caught up in a mess of lies and conspiracy. In reality, it is a movie about a morally un-ambiguous lawyer who gets caught up in a mess of lies and conspiracy.

It isn't that George Clooney is bad in this movie. It's just that there is no doubt that he will do the right thing in the end. George Clooney is clearly capable of portraying a nuanced character--he proved that in Oh Brother Where art Thou? I don't know why he fails to make his character in this film more three dimensional--he fails to be anything more than the stereotypical lawyer-turned-goodguy.

That said, it is a pretty good thriller. There is an extended wraparound flashback that encompasses most of the film. It succeeds where most such extended flashbacks fail, in that you are anything but bored when it overlaps. The pacing of the film is really excellent. And although the wrap up on the plot is fairly predictable, the VERY end is nicely extended.

As I mentioned earlier, Tom Wilkinson is fantastic in this film. He disappears into the character, and lends it the nuance that Clooney's character lacks.

Tilda Swinton won the best supporting actress, but she's basically a non-entity. I'm still bitter.

It is worth seeing as what it is--a decent thriller. It is not worthy of the fawning attention that the critics have heaped on it since it was nominated for all those Oscars.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

2008-02-24T18:54:00.000-08:00

This film is supposed to be based on Oil! (I'm putting this parenthetical in because frankly, I don't know how to deal with the punctuation problem in this title). However, I can't imagine Upton Sinclair writing something with such a morally ambiguous bad guy. So I think that the resemblance is probably faint. Anyway...

Ross will make some kind of lame argument about how he was distracted because of the similarity between the voice Daniel Day Lewis uses in this film and the voice that Will Ferrell uses in the Anchorman. However, I did not have that problem, so I will ignore that. Daniel Day Lewis is pretty awesome in this film. He maintains an incredible level of intensity throughout.

The writing in this film is, for the most part, very good. The tone is excellent. Visually, they really capture the dry, dusty West Texas desert (although the Cohen Brothers do the same thing better in Oh Brother). Paul Dano does such a fantastic job with the preacher that its hard to tell just how crazy his character is.

The problem with this movie is not anything it contains. Rather, it is what it doesn't contain...namely, about 15 years during which Daniel Day Lewis's character makes his big personal transition from father-trying-to-love-a-damaged-son, to father-stabbing-his-son-in-the-heart. Why, as a director, would you do that? Especially when you have an actor like Daniel Day Lewis who could probably pull off that kind of transition...oh...I don't know...ONSCREEN.

If I were feeling little more generous, I might be able to make an argument that it was intensional. Maybe the transition was unnecessary, because it was inevitable. When he took his son back, Day Lewis's character was going against his nature. Perhaps his failure to make that transition was so inevitable, that it didn't need to be shown. Perhaps. Or perhaps it was just lazy. Hard to tell.

Anyway, it is worth seeing because it is visually so striking, and Daniel Day Lewis is so great. Just ignore the ending (or walk out 15 minutes before) and you'll be fine.

Duck Season (Temporada de patos) (2004)

2008-02-24T18:27:00.000-08:00

We saw this movie last night. It was really fantastic. It's one of those films that you can't really summarize without making it sound like an after school special. Two kids are left alone on a lazy Sunday afternoon. A neighbor comes over to bake a cake. The boys order a pizza and try to avoid paying the deliveryman by telling him that he took more than 30 minutes.

The characters unfold slowly and reluctantly over the course of the film. There is a surreal, dreamlike quality that inhabits lazy sunday afternoons when you are a kid--a quality that is sadly lacking in my sundays as an adult.

Visually, this film is really striking. I would be overjoyed to have any of the frames of this film as a photograph on my wall--the exterior shots are off-balance and industrial. Oh...words fail.

This is one that really has to be seen to be understood. You should see it.

Best Supporting Actor

2008-02-24T18:18:00.000-08:00

So Javier Bardem totally deserves the best supporting actor win for No Country for Old Men. But as they were going over the nominees, I was struck by how INCREDIBLY good the nominees are this year. In almost everything. Among the supporting actor nominees, I was fond of Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) in particular. And I've heard that Philip Seymour Hoffman and Casey Affleck were also amazing.

Anyway, Javier Bardem was unbelievable. The scene they played was easily the best--one that I'd almost forgotten about. But that is another post...

Persepolis (2008)

2008-02-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

Persepolis just lost for the best animated feature. I didn't see the film that won (Ratatouille) so I'll have to blog about Persepolis instead.

I'm a huge fan of Marjane Sarapi's books--both the Persepolis duo and her others. However, I was skeptical at how it would translate into an animated film. Despite often being clumped together under the same subculture, Animation and Comics are two extremely different media. Both benefit from a rich visual vocabulary. However, while the great strength of animation is the range of dynamic motion, the strength of comics is the stillness that invites the reader to add her own motion and sense of time.

You can probably see where this is going. Many of the best features of the book come through in the film--the story is just as engaging and the graphical style is just as dramatic. However, the best scenes in the film are those that are 100% still. Is isn't that the motion is bad (though Ross might disagree), it just doesn't stand out as a strength of the film. In contrast, the comic book uses the strengths of comics beautifully.

Still, you should see it. For that matter, you should read it as well. If for no other reason, it will expose you to how graphic novels can be used to enhance storytelling.

In Bruges (2008)

2008-02-24T17:05:00.000-08:00

We saw this movie on Friday at the Michigan, and it was a real shocker. The preview (which we saw approximately 63 times at the Michigan) made it look like a rollicking good time full of wisecracking hit men and dwarves. And it is. But it is also good. Really really good.

The tone of the film is much darker than the previews indicate, but there is a strong thread of humor throughout. The humor often fails to interface with the story (it is surprisingly light-hearted, considering the darkness of the subject), but that disconnect lends a surreal dream-like quality to the whole thing.

All of the performances are fantastic. The characters are obviously well-written, and the performances are nuanced enough to bring out the texture. Collin Farrell is really really good in an extremely difficult role. His eyebrows might deserve a credit all their own. I thought that Brendon Gleeson's character was going to be a generic sidekick, but he is almost more central to the film than Farrell's. Ralph Fines is a surprisingly three dimensional villain.

The ambiguous ending has become such movie cannon that it is almost a cliche all its own. However, this movie stands out, because despite having an ambiguous ending--the movie still ends.

Overall, it was a fantastic film. The tone of the film benefits from the big screen, but it isn't manditory.

Oscar Blog-o-fest, 2008: The predictions

2008-02-24T16:46:00.000-08:00

K: Tonight is the Oscars, and we don't blog nearly enough. So in a two-birds-one-stone move, I'm planning to post as much as humanly possible during the Oscars. Let's see how many posts I can manage.

This year, we've seen many of the Oscar nominees, including all of the best picture nominees. We've seen Juno, Michael Clayton, There will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Atonement (Ross only), Persepolis, Elizabeth the Golden Age, The Savages, and I'm not There.

My humble predictions:

Best Picture:
should win: No Country for Old Men--because it is simply awesome
might win instead: Atonement--never underestimate the power of a period film

Best Actor:
should win: Daniel Day Lewis (There Will be Blood)
will win: Daniel Day Lewis--he really has this tied up

Best Actress
should win: Ellen Page (Juno)--because she really carries the film
probably will win instead: Julie Christie (Away from Her)--semi-retired actress comes out for one last huzzah

Best Supporting Actor
should win: Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)--because he is SO great
long shot: Casey Affleck (The assassination of Jesse James...)--he was supposed to be awesome in this, but I can't imagine that Javier Bardem won't win

Best Supporting Actress
should win: Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)--she is really amazingly good in this (though really, she always is)
might win instead: Saoirse Ronan (Atonement)--though I would be surprised

Best Director
should win: The Cohen Brothers -- they've had too many great movies not to
might win: PT Anderson

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (2007)

2008-02-20T07:56:00.001-08:00

R: We went to see the "Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts" at the Michigan last night. I can't say that the circumstances of the screening were as auspicious as they were last year -- the quality of the video projected was noticeably less, and none of the "runners-up" were screened -- but I think the films were, on the whole better. In fact, there was only one that I disliked!

Even Pigeons Go to Heaven

A French effort headed up by Samuel Tourneux, this was the only 3D/CG entry this year. I have to admit that I was impressed by the quality of the animation -- I'm not a big fan of CG, but I think this was an improvement over last year. In fact, I'd say that the animation was good enough that I can go right on to complaining about the film, which I, fully aware of the irony, will call "soulless." At the end, we've seen that the protagonist is a fool, the antagonist is a fool, and so... the viewer must be the clever one? Ah, but the viewer just sat through Even Pigeons Go to Heaven, so actually he can't be the clever one.

My Love

This is the fifth film from Russian director Alexander Petrov, who I think it's fair to call the leading animator of his generation. His previous efforts include

The Cow (1989, based on a story by Platonov)
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1992, based on a story by Dostoevsky)
The Mermaid (1996, my personal favorite)
The Old Man and the Sea (1999, finally got him an Oscar)
(YouTube quality is particularly inappropriate for these films, since much of the painterly aspect of the films gets blurred out -- if you're in A2 and would like to see these in better resolution, let me know)

I wouldn't be blogging if I weren't occasionally snarky, so let's get that out of the way. The NYTreview of My Love makes about almost as many mistakes as specific claims about the film. Like his previous films, My Love is executed in Petrov's "oil paint on glass" style, not in pastel. The story is based on a novel by Ivan Shmelev, A Love Story, which is centered on a boy who has read Turgenev's First Love.

Visually, the films is as striking as Petrov's earlier efforts. The still frames could be paintings of the Russian countryside, and the "montage" sequences blur, twist, and morph from image to image -- anything but a cut. As you might guess, this was the film I was most excited about seeing -- I'd actually resisted the various temptations of the InterTubes, so that I could see it on an appropriate scale. There are other animators who paint on glass (google Caroline Leaf and Georges Schwizgebel), but Petrov is more of a realist, has a greater love of detail, and doesn't shrink down as well. Thematically, Petrov draws from the village vocabulary of The Cow and The Mermaid, while making greater use of (slightly) surreal digressions that reminded me, a bit, of Dream of a Ridiculous Man.

Although I quite enjoyed it, I can't say that this was my favorite film this year (though it's an easy second). It's the "talkiest" of the entries, and this is certainly a weakness. Animators in general, and Petrov in particular, have the entire world of visual expression open to them -- it's a bit disappointing when they rely on extensive dialogue to make their point. It would be easy to call the story sentimental, though I think the ending does much to redeem the film. The pace is relaxed, though I haven't made up my mind as to whether I would call it loose. Like all of Petrov's films it's a major accomplishment, but after such a long wait, I had hoped for more.

Madame Tutli-Putli

This film was absolutely amazing. It was some of the most stunning puppet animation that I have ever seen, and it has to win the Oscar. As it turns out, there was a lot of digital compositing to put everything together -- I have no idea how else one could animate a puppet running through such tight corridors. Also, as Kate pointed out, they added human eyes to the puppets, as describer here. As with CG, I'm not a big fan of live elements in animation, but the effect here simply must be seen.

More importantly, these technical advances are used to great creative effect. I'm not sure I can summarize the plot of the film -- some manner of nightmare is the best I can do. I want very much to see it again, to "figure it out," but to let it sink in, more like Tale of Tales than Memento. The only other thing to add is that this is the first professional film that the directors, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, have made. Wow.

I Met the Walrus
(Sorry -- couldn't find this one on YouTube)

I think this film is interesting because it draws so heavily on the vocabulary of Flash animation, even if it wasn't actually done in Flash. Which I suspect it wasn't, since it has considerably more polish, I like seeing some of those idioms taken to a higher level. The gist is that the producer interviewed John Lennon when he (the producer) was about 14 -- that interview forms the soundtrack, and the animation basically riffs on the dialogue. Looking at the website, it sounds like this interview was a life-changing experience for the interviewer -- I can't say that comes through in the animation. Still, it's fun.

Peter and the Wolf

One of my professors at VGIK was fond of dividing up the world of animation into various national schools. This works surprisingly well, but, I think Peter and the Wolf would piss her off, as it's a British-Norwegian-Polish co-production. To make things better, it appears to be set in Russia, presumably because they're animating Prokofiev. The thing that stands out about this is, IMHO, the expressive quality of the animation. The goose, crow, and cat come alive, and this is what sets good animation apart from good artistic design.

The catch is that animators are kind of like actors, and just like one actor doesn't play all of the parts in a movie (even Peter Sellers doesn't play all of them), I don't think the same person animated all of the characters in this film. I wasn't as impressed with the wolf or the human characters as I was with the characters I listed above. It also didn't look like the fast movements (the cat darting, the wolf pouncing) were done well.

This leaves me a bit puzzled, because this film one the "Cristal" and the audience award at Annecy this year -- not an audience I would expect to be forgiving of uneven animation.

My Kid Could Paint That (2007)

2008-01-18T21:46:00.001-08:00

R: There have been a lot of noteworthy movies in the last semester. Among all of the sturm und drang, there's a good chance that you didn't hear about “My Kid Could Paint That.” The gist is that a girl from Binghamton, aged 3 or 4, became a hot thing in the Binghamton art world. Well, not just in the Binghamton art world -- she popped up in the New York Times, and on 60 Minutes.

The film comes in two parts. As you might guess, the first half is the rise of Marla Olmstead, the painting wunderkind. In one of the few bits of illuminating commentary in the movie, the journalist from the local newspaper who originally broke the story points out that the story went on too long to just be a human-interest piece, and had to “turn.” And that's the second half of the movie -- the media turning on Marla and her family, and a series of accusations that Marla's dad (also a painter) is actually producing the paintings. Or finishing them. Or something.

As the movie drags on, the filmmaker becomes more and more prominent. As I recall, he started filming the family before the story “turned,” and as it becomes more interesting I'd say it gets away from him. The family trusts him long after he's stopped trusting them; much navel gazing follows. In the end, I think the project was too big for him.

Clearly, I didn't like this movie. I'm writing about it because it provoked as much conversation as any that we saw this semester. There are the obvious (and clumsily handled) questions about what it can mean for abstract art to be “good” if it can be produced by a toddler. Like the director, I'll leave that aside and focus on the issue of doubt.

Let's go back to the accusation that Marla isn't actually doing the painting. This is not an unreasonable accusation -- her paintings are, indeed, more finished than one would expect from a small child. They are remarkable for the same reason that they are suspect. Indeed, “suspect” is probably a better word than “accusation,” because I don't recall anybody making a damning case against her having done the painting. So how can one dispel those suspicions? The method that 60 Minutes settles on (and the director, in a moment of inspiration, decides to... continue...) is to try to video tape an entire painting, from start to finish. The problem, not a surprising one, is that Marla reacts to the camera. She's shy, and doesn't produce anything “for the camera” that looks as good as the paintings produced without the camera. There's a lot of hemming and hawing about this, and in the end the Olmsteads are not able to satisfy “the public”, or at least the director.

The problem is that I don't think this is a test that Marla could pass. As I mentioned above, she's shy and four, and I'm skeptical of the notion that any artists(even one that was grown-up and an attention whore) would be the same in front of a camera as they are working alone. And so as outsiders we're in an awkward position: a question has been raised (”did she paint them!?”) that we, as outsiders are unable to answer. And as social animals, we jump to the default conclusion -- she's cheating!

I'm more familiar with this feeling than I'd like to be. Each term, I run a program that sifts through 800 undergraduate lab reports looking for plagiarism. I then have to sift through the results and see which cases look like cheating, and which look like coincidences. Once I get into the “find the cheaters!” mode, everything starts to look suspicious, and it can be very hard to step back and admit that some of the ambiguous cases are, well, ambiguous -- and not worth pursuing. “It's unclear” is not a satisfying answer, but it's sometimes the correct answer.

MIA

2008-01-18T20:34:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been a busy couple of months. Kate and I are both looking hard at the looming job market, so we've been watching fewer movies, and as you've noticed, not blogging. A few movies from the past semester stood out not only as good, but as interesting to discuss, so we'll post on those as we can. Maybe not full posts, but bloglets at least. Kind of like this one.

Eastern Promises (2007)

2007-09-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

There is a new member of the Pantheon of Terrible Movies, and his name is Eastern Promises. After poking around a bit, I was surprised to see that not very many people have realized this -- currently, it's got 89% on the tomato-o-meter.

First, let me make an obvious point: If a director centered a film on a grotesque caricature of African Americans, and went so far as to cast only white people and have them act in blackface, he'd be publicly eviscerated. He wouldn't be allowed near a camera again, ever. I have no idea why it's acceptable to do the same damn thing with Russians. If you don't find it offensive, surely you (like me) find it boring. In a similar vein, if you're going to fill your movie with Russian characters, you should hire some actual Russians. There's a whole country full of them, and many of them can act. It may surprise you, but they do a pretty good Russian accent!

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Ross, it's a movie! I'm looking for over-the-top exoticism! And I don't speak Russian, so they don't sound silly to me." Let me point out, then, that the movie fails on its own terms. I guarantee that, within a half hour of the movie starting, you will know exactly how it will finish. I guarantee this. Not only will you have worked out the basic plot points, you will have figured out how the characters will "develop." The only things that will surprise you for the remainder of the movie are the bizarre decisions made by poor Naomi Watts, with which David Cronenberg clumsily advances the plot. It's as if they realized halfway through shooting the movie that they hadn't really come up for a reason for the Russian mafia to care about a nurse, and decided to have her throw herself at them until they reacted. Awesome.

We could ask whether Viggo Mortenson's character is interesting. I'd say "kind of." He made an admirable attempt to learn some Russian, and developed a surprising command of the Russian smirk. This isn't to say he's convincing, only that he's more convincing than most of the other actors. I think that the interesting part of the movie is supposed to be his struggle to walk the line between good and evil. I have to say, not much struggle is apparent. He only kills "bad guys." When put into a morally ambiguous situation, he always makes the "right" decision. He doesn't seem to have any regrets, really, and this makes him kind of boring.

If you want to watch a good movie about an undercover cop with a funny accent, watch The Departed. The only reason to see Eastern Promises is If you want to see Viggo Mortenson naked and bloody in a sauna.

Angel-a (2005)

2007-09-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

K: This is the type of film that I find very difficult to describe, plot-wise. It is a French film about a good man who needs saving--mostly from himself. In a fit of pique at the world, he makes a show of killing himself by jumping off a bridge into the Seine. Whether he would actually do it or not is anyone's guess, because before he can decide one way or the other, he sees a tall blond woman jump into the water. He jumps in to save her, and is in turn saved from having to make good on his suicide threat. The series of events that follow change him in a way that is difficult to describe without sounding corny. "He learns to love other people by loving himself" sounds pretty after-to-school-special, but trust me, it's awesome.

It is done in black-and-white and I honestly don't think that it could have been done in color. It is a bit shocking to see high-grade special effects done in black and white and the result is quite haunting.

The lead actor is phenomenal. He plays an extremely difficult role, and he nails it. His transformation is dramatic, but also completely believable. I'm going to look for more of his work.

The lead actress seemed a bit forced I couldn't tell if a native speaker would find her more stilted or less. Anyway, one could probably argue that the distance in her voice added an otherworldly quality to her character. If you wanted to be all hoity-toity about it.

I would highly recommend seeing this film on the big screen. There is something about it that reminds me of 1930s expressionist film--a genre that is best seen BIG.

The Simpsons (2007)

2007-09-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

K: Usually, bad previews are kind of an early warning system for sucky movies--especially in big, multiplex theaters like Quality 16. So although we'd heard great things about the Simpsons movie (good enough to make us actually go to a theater other than the Michigan), we were pretty nervous by the end of the coming features. The worst was for this movie about a guy who gets laid a lot because every woman he sleeps with finds her true love immediately afterwards.

Yeah. I think I'll skip that one.

Fortunately, the badness of the previews only reflected the badness of the summer film season (Fred Claus, anyone?) rather than the quality of the feature presentation.

There were several times that I thought I might die from the laughing. Oh the pain.

But the Simpsons are funny, so that's not really impressive in itself. What *is* impressive is that they managed to do just enough with their wide screen format and R-rating to make me feel like it was worth paying for (this didn't show at the Michigan, so we had to pay to see it), without screwing up the things that make the Simpsons so successful on tv.

But the most amazing part of the movie hit us as we were driving home afterwards--the income freshman class has never known a world without the Simpsons. Crazy man.

No End in Sight (2007)

2007-09-06T19:07:00.002-07:00

R: After the debacle that was the first twenty minutes of The Ten, we decided to go immediately from The State to The Michigan, to see No End in Sight. It's not bad, though it's not fantastic either. Most of the movie is a broad overview of the Iraq war, and it's not a bad one. They've interviewed a lot of the right intellectual types (George Packer, Samantha Powers, Nir Rosen), and a pretty good collection of people from the first part of the occupation (the Jay Garner part). If you're not willing to spend more than two hours trying to understand the events of the last four years -- and let's be honest, we're all busy people -- this is a good place to start. Not as good as at least some of the books on the subject*, but better than trying to keep track of things by following the news.

The director seemed to have a hard time deciding what the focus of the movie would be, though, and focus is pretty important in a two hour movie on a very complicated subject. After awhile, they decide to spend some time on the decision to disband the Iraqi army, and do a pretty good job going back and forth between people from the Garner team and the one member of the Bremer team who was willing to be interviewed. It's a pretty good segment. There's also an interview with a young marine which is pretty compelling, and a pretty strange "home movie" put together by a private contractor.

On the whole, I don't feel like they did much with the medium. I feel like there are lots of things that they could show -- life in Baghdad would be a good place to start -- rather than the telling that they stuck with. On the other hand, I have a hard time figuring out what other medium would have been appropriate for this kind of broad overview. It wouldn't have worked as a magazine article, and I don't know that it would have worked on TV. In that sense, then, maybe it was the right medium. I'm not sure.

K: I pretty much agree. One point that I would make is that some of the footage of Iraqis and their reactions are pretty compelling. It was actually surprisingly moving to see the footage with the original sound. The footage was the kind of thing that you might see behind a talking head on the news--but without the sound, it feels much more removed. I would say that it's worth seeing.

*If you're curious, check out "The Assassin's Gate".

The Ten (2007)

2007-09-06T19:07:00.001-07:00

R: As it turns out, this film is terrible. There's really nothing to explain -- it's supposed to be funny, and it's not. The level of the humor is, I think, high school. Not as in "aimed at high school students," as in "written by high school students." Actually, I can only confirm that the first 2/10 of the movie is awful. We left after that. God bless the Gold Card -- we'd have been pretty angry if we'd paid to see the movie.

More importantly, my longstanding love for the film reviews in The Onion is gone forever. Did they like this movie? No, they loved it. Was it some new hack who wrote the review? No, it's Nathan Rabin, who bears the title of "head writer". Ok. Maybe the best skits are at the end? No, some of his favorites are at the beginning. The ones we saw. Sooooo... yeah.

Paprika (2006)

2007-08-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

R: If you haven't heard, membership at The Michigan just got much better, since it now includes access to The State. We'd been waiting to exercise this new privilege, and decided to go this week to see Paprika.

This is a film about a machine the lets researchers see and interact with patients' dreams. As you might expect, this machine is stolen, and things go terribly wrong. Dreams become hallucinations, and the researchers have to both save dreamland, and separate it from reality once again.

In case you hadn't guessed, this is anime, and if you know me you know that, as a rule, I don't like anime. The basic problem is that I take animation seriously as an art form -- the art of movement. While most anime has striking images, the movement itself, the stuff between the frames, tends to be poor. We could argue about its origins in manga, or whatever, but it's had, what, 30 years to grow up? For the most part, it hasn't. Instead, it's a cheap way to make a movie that would otherwise have a big special effects budget. Woo hoo.

I liked Paprika, though. The animation isn't good, but it is mediocre, which is to say that it doesn't often get in the way. I found the images more striking than most -- certainly interesting enough to justify the animation. While I still wish more attention had been paid to how the various crazy things morphed into one another, I think Satoshi Kon captured enough of dream logic that he needed animation, and that's pretty cool.

I think there have been complaints that the characters are kind of flat. It's an understandable criticism, since the characters don't really develop in the traditional way. They develop through their dreams, or maybe the interactions of their dreams, which is also pretty cool. It would be nice if they were convincing as people too, but I think I can let it slide. After all, the characters in my dreams tend toward the archetypal too.

So, in the end, I'd encourage you to see it. In fact, I think it looks pretty good on the big screen, and it's playing at the State at least until the end of the week!

K: Ross is about 4 skizillion times more qualified to comment on this movie than I am, so I'll just say that I also enjoyed it very much. It reminded me of Brazil, in that it managed to capture many elements of dreams that otherwise get overlooked. Definitely worth seeing on the big screen, despite the mediocre animation.

The Italian

2007-08-03T11:28:00.001-07:00

R: We don't get many Russian movies at the Michigan, so I had high hopes for this one. It wasn't bad, but it's not fantastic either.

Adoption is a sensitive issue in Russia. They've got negative population growth to begin with, and there's something about Westerners buying the babies that you do have that, well, you can understand why it might be a sensitive issue. For that reason, I find the somewhat unflattering depiction of foreigners forgivable. It's one of many standard tropes that appear -- the two girls in the orphanage are, literally, a virgin in a mother's role and a whore -- and so I wouldn't say that there's anything particularly original about the movie. There are, however, some pretty visceral scenes, and I have to admit: russian kids are cute.

K: I felt like this movie was pretty conflicted--you're supposed to admire the boy for turning down an easy life with adoptive parents in a foreign country in favor of staying in his homeland and taking the chance finding his birth mother. But although I (kind of) admired his plucky, Disney-esque perseverance in the face of extreme odds, I kept hoping that he would just give up and go be happy in Italy with people who would love him. The orphanage (and Russia in general) comes off as dirty, corrupt, and ill-run...not to mention the fact that he is searching for an end that is uncertain in the extreme.

On a more superficial level, the whole thing was a little too Incredible Journey for me: boy goes on a journey and meets a wacky cast of characters who help (or thwart) him along the way. All he needed was a talking animal sidekick (a wise-cracking cat, maybe?) and he'd be ready to go.

That said, I know that there's a huge subtext to this movie that may be more subtle (as in many Disney epics, the subtext is more of a supertext) to someone with more context than I have...say...Ross.

Sicko (2007)

2007-07-30T20:09:00.000-07:00

K: In case you've been living in a box for the past month or so, I'll start by saying that Sicko is the latest Michael Moore movie. I haven't seen ALL of Michael Moore's movies, but I can say that this is the best one that I've seen since Bowling for Columbine.

Most of the criticism of this movie revolves around the typical Michael Moore over-the-top moments (a bit near the end arouses particular ire...I won't describe the scene since everyone should have the joy of seeing it for the first time.)

However, I find simple complaints that it is propaganda pretty unsatisfying. You don't really watch a Michael Moore movie for the fair and balanced perspective, any more than you watch videos produced by big oil to get the real scoop on drilling rights. Propaganda itself isn't necessarily a bad thing--indeed, it can be a helpful tool. The key is that the propaganda has to be supporting something larger--an idea that merits a one-sided view. Fahrenheit 911 wasn't bad simply because it was propaganda...it was bad because it wasn't anything else.

Sicko is different, because while Moore spends a lot of screen time taking digs at the American medical industry, he is ultimately probing at something deeper. It is the same thing that he was getting at in Bowling for Columbine. Namely--why do we, as a people and as a country, care so little about each other? More specifically, why do we care so little about those people who most need care? Because this is propaganda, the question is asked in terms of comparisons--why aren't we more like the British, the French, the Canadians?--but in the end, the comparisons are almost moot. We require a level of self-sufficiency in this country that defies all reason, and that deserves a serious self-examination.

But despite the heavy questions that he's dealing with, and the terrible, life-or-death stories that are being told, the rhetoric in Sicko is lighter--less bitter--than either the 911 movie or (if I recall) Bowling for Columbine. The whole thing comes off as almost...hopeful. Maybe it's just that when compared with problems of government ineptitude, economic change, and epidemic violence, reforming the health care industry doesn't seem like such a difficult problem any more.

R: In a similar vein, I think the point of the movie was to make a bit more concrete the idea of a society where health care just isn't a constant concern. The debate over government health care is often reduced to one of cost, and I think Moore's point is that there's another benefit to centralization, and that's not having to base, well, many of the decisions in your life around insurance. It's a tricky thing to quantify, but I think it's pretty obvious that it matters.

Daywatch (2006)

2007-07-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

R: This is a pretty good movie. It's not going to change your life, but it's better than most of the action movies out there. Unfortunately, if you don't speak Russian, you're not going to know this, because our friends at Fox have significantly changed the script. And they've done it all through the magic of subtitles.

The thing that sets this apart from, I dunno, Blade, is that the tone is a bit more philosophical. Again, it's not Bergman, but it's quite thoughtful, if not brilliant. The problem that Daywatch (and Nightwatch before it) have is that they're complicated. Major plot points might be revealed in an aside, and those plot points can be pretty weird. My guess is that Russian audiences are willing to work a little harder to follow these things, though I can't be sure. Fox has Americanized the movie by converting all of those musings on light and dark into clunky plot exposition. Working from memory, there are a lot of changes like:

"Zavulon: Yegor, we've chosen the Dark because it lets us hide our
inadequacies -- you can hide them with hate, or lust, or whatever you
please. There's nothing more human than these inadequacies."

becomes

"Zavulon: Yegor, don't forget, you're a Great Dark Other. If you meet the
Great Light Other, it will be the apocalypse!"

If I find a fansub somewhere that's more accurate, I'll mention it here.

Once (2007)

2007-07-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

R: I think that what I like most about this movie is that it's content to leave much of its story untold. It would have been easy, in focusing on the two principal characters, to either push all of the other characters out of the movie entirely or give them quaint side stories. Instead, I think they revealed just enough of the various folks who drift through to suggest that they had lives off-screen, even if they didn't happen to be the lives that we're interested in. It gives the whole thing a sense of groundedness, which, uh, I'll just say that musicals tend to lack. IMHO.

Of course, I have to talk about the thing I like most because, in case you haven't heard, it's fantastic. It's still at the State! Go see it!

A quick side note -- I'm related to a large number of people who more or less look like Glen Hansard. He could have showed up at my Great Aunt's jubilee and passed as one of my dad's cousins.

K: Just a quick note:
First of all, Ross stole the man's nose. Seriously.
More importantly, this is a beautiful, unexpected movie with lovely music. So see it already!

The post-Oscar lull ("Namesake" and "The Host")

2007-06-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

Ross here -- I'm in Boulder right now, at a physics summer school. I'm giving a talk on Thursday, which means that tonight I'm finally going to make time to update the blog. Yes, it's long overdue.

As your'e probably aware, there's a post-Oscar lull in the film world. Clearly, if you even hope that your film will be "considered", you don't want it to be a full year old when it's time to hand out statues, so that lends a particular flavor to the movies available in the last few months. Did I say "few"? That's one of the flavors. Kate and I have also been up to our ears in grad school, so our movie viewing has been less vigorous than usual.

Anyway, "The Namesake" is one of the few films that we managed to see. It's better than the generic identidrama that the trailers make it out to be. Rather, it's a biopic covering two generations of an immigrant family. In order to do this in a timely fashion, the film shows snippets widely separated in time. Since I've got physics on the brain more than usual right now, I'll say that the film has two phases, and that the order parameter is "who stars in the movie."

In the first phase, the lead actors are Irfan Khan and Tabu, who are both incredible to watch. In this part of the movie we're as likely to get a snippet of daily life as we are to see a Major Life Event. Importantly, the actors are both strong enough to give the sense that the characters exist off the screen as well as on, and I felt like the snippets were giving me a glimpse of their "whole lives." It's a hard thing to do, and they should be commended.

In the second phase, the guy from "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" is the star. Frankly, he's dull. At this point, the movie becomes a highlight reel. Since the lead actor has a hard time conveying the internal life of his character, it's hard to believe that the character exists off the screen, and at this point the movie basically falls apart.

In the end, it's worth seeing, but you should probably wait for the DVD. As great as it is to watch the grown-up actors, their junior partner is eminently skippable. How does this tie in to this post's theme, "post-Oscar lull"? Well, it ran for many, many weeks at the Michigan. The only recent films that I remember having similar runs are "March of the Penguins" and "Brokeback Mountain." Both of those are much better films than this was, and the only reason that I can think of that it would run this long is that there was nothing to take its place.

"The Host", on the other hand, is out of the Oscar running for two reasons: it is a foreign film (ok, there's a category, but it's tough, right?), and it's terrible. Of course, I say this as a round-eyed-devil, so you probably shouldn't take me too seriously. This film cannot claim to be shot in an interesting way, have a vaguely novel premise, or even have an interesting monster. On top of this, it's pretty blatantly racist. In a roundabout way, this is the film's only real merit -- it provides an interesting testing ground for our views of racism. Will we tolerate racism if it comes from an exotic source? Will we even recognize it if the victims are white Americans? And how does the "Imus rule" (it's only racist if it's not funny) apply if the humor might have been lost in translation?

Of course, this ties into the post-Oscar lull in an obvious way -- why was it run at all?

-R

Jesus Camp (2006)

2007-03-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

K: This is an oscar-nominated documentary that we just got around to seeing on DVD. Some friends lent it to us, with the warning that it was pretty good "except for the radio talk show guy." I'd say that that's a pretty fair assessment.

This documentary follows some evangelical kids and their families to an evangelical summer camp. There are some pretty creepy segments in this movie. Early in the movie, the children speak in tongues and shake on the floor. Their children's pastor instructs them on how to approach their friends about being saved ("find a time when they are vulnerable"). Multiple times, the kids are told that they are the soldiers of Christianity and that they should be willing to give up their lives for Jesus because that is what the little Muslim children are willing to do for their god (you can almost hear the lower-case "g").

Throughout, the kids are surprisingly articulate. One gives a rousing sermon to his peers, complete with bible-shaking gestures. His rhetoric is surprisingly advanced, especially considering that he and his peers are still young enough to scare each other with ghost stories. In addition to being articulate, the kids are also incredibly consistent. There is never a flicker of doubt, or an off-message statement. At first blush, their faith seems refreshing...pure...almost seductive.

In fact, their faith is too perfect. Their cheerful statements about the evils of Brittany Spears and Harry Potter have a hollow feel, as if they were coming out of the mouth of someone very far away. You get the impression that they have repeated these same words hundreds of times. No wonder they sound so articulate.

The result is a group of kids who sound thoughtful, without actually being thoughtful. A perfect example of this kind of comes partway through the film. The mother of one of the particularly articulate children (actually, the same one who gave the sermon I mentioned above) is in the middle of home schooling her kid. The topic of the day is evolution and creationism . He nods vigorously as she gives him a series of vague explanations of why creationism is more reasonable than evolution--none of which have any actual informational content. She repeatedly says "Its the only thing that explains all the questions", without any indication of what "the questions" might be. And this is the kid with the impressive rhetoric later in the film.

The film does set up a strange pseudo-conflict between the preachers at the camp and a liberal Christian talk show host. Strange, because there's no clear reason that he appears in the film. He's not particularly articulate and aside from a brief interchange between him and children's preacher over the telephone, he doesn't directly interact with the other principle players. On the whole, he wasn't really needed.

All in all, I thought that it was a good film to see. Throughout the film, the adults talk about how important it is to get to children early. They claim that the leaders of Islam are training their children young, and so they must do so as well. Ironically, I learned the same lesson from them--I will train my children to think for themselves from a young age. Otherwise, the Evangelicals might get them.

In summery: The film is well worthwhile, but will be just as shocking on video.

Oscar Nominated Shorts -- Animated (2007)

2007-02-25T19:26:00.000-08:00

R: This year is the first time (at least that we've noticed) that The Michigan has done special screenings of the various short films that have been nominated for Oscars. This means that I get to watch new animation twice in the span of a couple weeks. Sweet. The "Short Animation" category is one of the ones that I think still has some integrity, since there's so little money at stake. Of course, this also means that I get upset when the films are bad. Without further adieu...

THE NOMINEES!

Lifted: I thought this was pretty clever, fun, and such. It's unsurprising that Pixar put it together.

The Danish Poet: I would describe this film as "cozy." It's wonderful. And unusual, in that the narration may be the best part. While I don't believe that it was the best animated film made this year, it was certainly the best nominated, and Kate and I were both thrilled that it won.

The Little Match Girl: Note that the category is not entirely clean. If Disney makes a short, for example, they seem to get nominated, no questions ask. Some films are merely bad. There are lots of ways that animation can be bad -- the characters can be flat, the animation can be generic, the story can be dull, etc. This is all of that and more -- this film is actually obscene. They have not only applied the "Disney Magic" (which seems to involve using a team of about 100 "animators" to produce 10 minutes of film), they pulled the teeth out of the story. What bastards.

Maestro: Kind of cute. I'll notice that the nomination of a Hungarian makes the Oscars officially more "international" than the third round of the Animation Show.

No Time for Nuts: No, the rat-thing doesn't get the nut.

AND THE NON-MINEES!

One Rat Short: The animation in this is, technically, absolutely stunning, though I thought the story fell kind of flat.

The Passenger: Yawn.

Guide Dog: Double yawn.

Wraith of Cobble Hill: Yaw- wait, this one is pretty good. The main character, a young hooligan, comes across quite clearly, and is an interesting fellow. This is a student film, and it shows in a few places. There were several things that I think were supposed to be clear to the viewer, basic geographic things, that didn't come across, or at least weren't clear when they were supposed to be. All the same, it had some emotional depth, which is nice. The thing that bugged me about this was that while I'd say it's very promising, it didn't seem developed enough to belong on the short list for the freaking Oscar. Who picks the short list anyway?

A Gentleman's Duel: Wow. I might have thought this was funny when I was 11. Or 10. Maybe. But probably not. What garbage!

FINAL THOUGHTS!

Lets try to make sense of this, then. Disney gets a spot, Pixar gets a spot, that other big CG studio will cough something up -- oh, and the NFB gets to submit something. Monkeys will then put together a list of other short films, chosen at random (soon, they'll be replaced by YouTube). One of those is chosen, again basically at random (don't try to tell me that Maestro is better than The Wraith of Cobble Hill), and the Academy then votes -- that last round of voting is the one that is more or less reasonable. Not perfect, but I think it's one of the few categories where watching the nominees is an easier way to figure out who will win than following the buzz. Or the money.

Sweet Land (2007)

2007-02-23T10:51:00.000-08:00

Let us hope we are preceeded in this world
by a love story.

R: The review of this in The Onion made me think that this would be, you know, subversive. Maybe I misread the review, but this really isn't the point. The film is sweet, without being overly so, and I'd say it's fairly conservative. It's certainly interested in the immigrant experience, and returns more than once to anti-German prejudice during WWI (not coincidentally, the director's name is "Ali Selim"), but it's basically a love story, and a good one.

It's based on a short-story, which comes across quite clearly. The different stories take place at three different times, and there are not just characters missing in those various times, there are whole generations that never appear. So while I love the things that are in the film, there were times when I missed the things that weren't.

One final observation: Lars (Tim Guinee) has apparently stolen his jaw and, heck, most of his face from Nathan Fillion, best known as Mal from Firefly. But it's not him! At least, that's what the internet tells me.

If you get the chance, I think this one is worth actually seeing.

K: Not being from the middle of the country, Ross missed the other wonderful thing about this movie--the scenery. This movie was beautiful in a big-sky, sea-of-land, prairie-newly-converted-to-farmland kind of way. And on the big screen, it will warm the heart of anyone who has ever loved a very rural place in the middle of the country. There is a love of land and home and family that pervades this movie, and feels like home to me.

Otherwise, Ross hit it on the head. This movie is sweet without being saccharine and nonlinear in an interesting, non-gimmicky way. It certainly makes me wish that I had been preceded by such a love story.

Summery: Worth seeing on the big screen, if only for the scenery.

The Animation Show 3 (2006?)

2007-02-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

R: As many of you know, I'm antsy for animation. I actually spent a year in Russia studying animation criticism (insofar as that field exists), and, since my graduate student lifestyle doesn't permit pilgrimages to Annecy, The Animation Show is one of the highlights of my year. Now that you know what a long-winded post you're in for, let's look at this year's selections.

Rabbit: I thought this was an intersesting way to open the show. My initial reaction was "cute, if only they'd bothered to animate it." In the end, I have to agree that the reference to the moving arms and legs that might appear in childrens books complimented the feel of the film. Not my favorite, but I can at least respect it.

City Paradise: A major problem in modern animation is that the computer makes it easy to (a) generate complicated images and (b) move them in very crude ways. The thing that the computer cannot do is, well, animate -- the intricate process by which actual movements are created, and coalesce into a performance, well, it takes a lot of hard work. And talent. While this film contains some mildly interesting images, the animation is terrible. Now, we could argue about whether this in some sense constitutes a new kind of video art which isn't animation, but has its own merit -- but then we'd have to admit that, taken on its own terms, this film just isn't effective. Oh well.

Everything Will be OK: This, I have to say, is a marked improvement over Don Hertzfeldt's contribution last year. One of the things that animation can do convincingly is present a character's view of the world. I think this is a fantastically difficult thing to do with live-action film, at least to do convincingly. The closest a live film comes to doing this, that I can think of, is Tarkovsky with Mirror, but the result there is notoriously obscure. In animation in general (and in this film in particular), the result is much more transparent. Hertzfeldt is able to deftly switch back and forth between the more objective presentation of the narrator and Bill's subjective experience, and the transitions are darn near seamless. Whether the film deserves all of the lavish praise its received is a separate question -- I'd say no, but it's definitely one of the best films they're showing this year.

Collision: My initial reaction to this was "wow, it'd be way better as a web page." Abstract animation is a huge world of possibilities, and this explores... pretty much none of them. Boo. A quick perusal of Hattler's webpage reveals liberal use of the word "visuals," which is a word more appropriate to anime fan-boys than artists. Double boo.

Nine: This, at least, was well-animated. I felt that it was missing something, though. I had long arguments with my professors in Russia about whether a film had to have an "idea." My feeling was that this was a crude, reductionist way to look at a work of art. Their feeling was that a work of art without a, well, without a point, was empty. Guess who convinced whom. While the animator here created effectively created both a world and individual characters within it, I think it had the emotional depth of Jurassic Park, from which I believe it stole several shots. It's too bad. On the other hand, Don Hertzfeldt got his start with (admittedly) brilliant gags, and look how he turned out.

No Room for Gerold: Now this, I loved. Not much to say besides that.

Davey and Son of Goliath: My first reaction to this was that it was actually produced by the guy who does "Moral Orel," but I was wrong -- it just looks like it. Let me back up for a second. I like Adult Swim. But one shouldn't confuse the shows produced for Adult Swim with animation. They're more like, well, like comic books. There was a time when animation felt very short, both because the typical film was 10 minutes long, and because things tended to happen more "suddenly" then they did in live action. I think that action movies and commercials have sort of reversed this -- the 10 minute films of way back when would feel very slow today, precisely because they consist of shots that are long enough that you can see something move. But I digress. I thought this was neither clever nor well-animated. I give it a double "boo."

Guide Dog: Conventional wisdom has it that Bill Plympton is totally the best thing ever. The truth is that Your Face is pretty good, and it's all downhill from there. You can take much of my rant about shots that are 0.7 seconds long where nothing moves and insert it here. Though I'll admit that the dog is kind of cute.

Eaux Forte: Absolutely gorgeous. This is one that I want to rewatch, since I don't think I got it all the first time. On the other hand, that suggests that there's something to get, doesn't it?

Versus: Freakin' hilarious. This is one of the most enjoyable pieces in the program -- shame that there aren't any details about it in the program. Consider this evidence that I do like funny animation!

Overtime: This was, I think, my favorite film in the show. Roughly, a puppeteer (~Jim Henson) dies and his puppets (which all look the same, and look like stripped-down versions of Kermit) take over his house. And, well, his body, ala Weekend at Bernie's. So this works on a fairly obvious level -- puppet and puppeteer are reversed, and a good time is had by all. The film is more than clever, though, it also has some depth. These puppets were both created and controlled by their puppet master, and they convey the mix of affection and anger toward him that one might expect. In short, they act, as the characters do in really good animation.

Dreams and Desires: I really enjoy watching Joanna Quinn draw -- the style here is rather different than that in When the Day Breaks, which was in the previous Animation Show, but it's still recognizably her. It's not really fair to compare this to When the Day Breaks, which stands on its own, whereas this is (I think) properly part of a series of shorts, but I'd be remiss if I didn't take this chance to at least plug it, since it's absolutely brilliant. Dreams and Desires is good too.

Game Over: I thought this was a nice way to end the show -- not profound, but certainly a lot of fun.

My Masters of Comedy List

2007-02-16T07:11:00.000-08:00

K: In a previous post, I complained about the Masters of Comedy series, which seemed more like the MASTER of Comedy (Woody Allen) and friends. So here's my list (I marked the ones that are retained from the Michigan's series with a star)...

--The Bird Cage (the original)
--Arsenic and Old Lace
--Adam's Rib
--Sleeper*
--Monty Python and the Holy Grail
--Blazing Saddles*
--Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
--Annie Hall*
--Being There*
--Brazil
--Overboard
--Art School Confidential
--The City of Lost Children
--The Big Lebowski

There are several things to note about the above list. First, no director is represented more than twice...and then only if there are two very different films. Secondly, my list is all over the map, comedy-wise. Admittedly, it's a little short on stupid comedy and a little long on the surreal, but I did say that it was my list, so there you go.

Any comments? Additions? Deletions?

Sabrina (1954) and Thoughts on Digital Projection

2007-02-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

R: The Michigan definitely treats us right. Free chocolate? Check. Free champagne (pardon, "sparkling wine")? Check. Classic film? Check. If you haven't seen Sabrina, check it out.

What you'll see will probably be a DVD. And, unfortunately, it will look as good as what I saw. Because we had a digital screening last night. Kate called it, I protested, "surely they wouldn't! Not in the main theater!" And, as usual, she was right. The title credits came up, the whites were blown out, the edges of the letters were jagged, and there was plenty of digital noise in the background. The light tones were particularly blown out in this transfer, which was a problem throughout the film and particularly hurt several scenes.

Now, I'm no enemy of the digital revolution. Those who know me well know that I've spent an embarassing amount of time arching various bits of animation from VHS to digital formats, and take great pleasure in the various tricks one can use to get rid of the deficiencies of tape. I'll even stand for digital projection of films that were shot on digital -- it's a cheap way to do things, and films like Crossing the Bridge wouldn't get made any other way.

But Sabrina wasn't shot on digital, it was shot on glorious film, and we're far, far away from digital projection being an adequate substitute for film. This is one of the reasons we go to The Michigan -- to see something that we can't see curled up at home. We can tell the difference, and I hope the folks making decisions at the theater can tell the difference too.

The V's: Volver (2006) and Venus (2006)

2007-02-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

R: Right now there are two "V" movies running at the Michigan, Volver and Venus. They're both good, which is nice, since we had a bit of a drought for the last month or so.

Volver is a film by Spanish director PEDRO!, also known as ALMODOVAR!. All of the publicity around his films has this tenor, suggesting that he is, among other things, a folk hero, a powerful lover of women, and perhaps a fascist, in whom all the hopes and dreams of Spain, nay, humanity, are bound. In case you can't tell, I'm tired of hearing about ALMODOVAR!.

All the same, I enjoyed the film. I feel like it moves pretty effectively between several genres over the course of the film. Without spoiling anything, I found the principal transition eerily smooth. I'd like to make a much sharper statement about what's good about it -- bright colors! great performances! -- but mostly I enjoyed this intertwining of styles.

K: I also liked this film a lot. I was expecting to find it irritating, since the poster screams PENELOPE CRUZ! IN THIS MOVIE! ISN'T SHE GORGEOUS? DID WE MENTION IT STARS PENELOPE CRUZ?!

But actually, it was great. The whole film is kind of surreal--in the traditional sense that is. Dreams have the amazing tendency to make extraordinary events seem completely reasonable. This movie does the same thing--it had a way of making the most unreasonable transition seem completely normal. Penelope Cruz is great and the rest of the cast is even better. I will note that they are also fantastically ordinary-looking compared to Cruz and Yohana Cobo (who plays the daughter). But rather than being distracting, the contrast is just...surreal.

My feeling is that this film is worth seeing on the big screen--both because it is striking visually, and because the dark theater seems to add to the ambiance.

R: Venus was also quite enjoyable. Or perhaps I should say "respectable." This is a film that could easily have become too sweet, too nice, with the heart of gold completely overshadowing the dirty old man. Peter O'Toole remains interesting till the end, sweet and sympathetic, but not overly so.

K: I couldn't have said it better. Old men in movies are often sweet, harmless, and more than a little off their rocker. O'Toole is sweet, but he is sharp and certainly not harmless. The role has great dignity and shows that people don't stop being themselves just because they get old.

R: If you're only going to see one "V" movie, we recommend Volver, but only because Venus will look just fine on DVD.

Notes on a Scandal (the first half hour) (2006)

2007-01-23T16:38:00.000-08:00

R: Kate and I have noticed that there exists an entire genre of films, "bad movies for people who aren't supposed to like bad movies." We've also noticed that such movies tend to get an artificial "art house" bump in their rotten tomatoes ratings. "Notes on a Scandal" is 87%"fresh." You can guess what we think of it.

Yes, Judy Dench is a good actress. Yes, Cate Blanchett is hot. Yes, they both have British accents. This does not a movie make! The characters are flat, the story is uncompelling, and Philip Glass's score is ridiculous. You object: "But Ross, it was nominated for four Oscars? These include best screenplay and best score?" Honestly, I don't know. What I do know is that the clever narrative device in this film is... Judy Dench reads a voiceover taken from... her diary! I know that during the opening credits the staccato cello music starts -- and doesn't stop. I present this as incontrovertible evidence that I am right, and the Academy is wrong.

I'm posting a link here to a spoiler for the movie -- a complete synopsis that will confirm for you that, despite claims to the contrary, there are no plot twists. I hope that, after reading it, any lingering curiosity you might have had about the movie will be satisfied.

K: I agree. I thought that Judy Dench was pretty good, but this movie gives new meaning to the term "plot driven". Except that the plot isn't that interesting.

AWOL: Yeah, we know

2007-01-12T13:37:00.000-08:00

R: It's true that we were "too busy" for much of the last six months to write anything. This does not mean that we were to busy to watch anything, so we thought we'd assemble here a list of movies we liked, or found noteworthy.

We grouped the new(ish) movies we've seen by prominence, rather than try to order them by quality. So, we have:

Less Prominent:

Crossing the Bridge

K: This is a documentary about music in Istanbul, hosted by the drummer from Einstuerzende Neubauten. The offerings range from traditional string music and folksongs to modern rock, punk, and rap. This film was great (well worth watching, if you can find it). I can honestly say (without sarcasm) that my eyes have been opened to the wonders of Turkish rap.

R: Yes, this is ridiculously good. There are a few too many shots of the world-weary german musician, in hoodie and dark glasses, staring out of the back of a cab, but the music more than makes up for it. The Turkish rapper is "Ceza," I think.

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

K: This is the second movie we saw in the "Chinese films that with sympathetic Japanese characters series" (Fearless was the first, though not at the Michigan). What I remember about it was that it managed to be sweet without being smarmy and philosophical without being hackneyed.

R: I... I really liked this. The principle acting challenge in this is that the father has to somehow close this distance between himself and his son -- even though the son is off camera and out of contact for the whole film. Oh, and the father doesn't really like to talk. He pulls it off, though. I also think the film exquisitely captures both the allure of a foreign country, the disillusionment that usually comes with being there, and the final appreciation of it on its own terms.

Old Joy

K: Great movie. I think about it when I need to remember to live in the moment. It made me cry. A major blow was struck to my view of humanity when I heard multiple people grumbling about it as we left. Rent it. See it!

R: I'm inclined to say that it was the best movie we saw this year. I'm biased, of course -- it's set in Oregon (though not my part of Oregon), they go camping, etc. But, again, it's well acted, and it rings true. I can't say much else about it. As for our fellow theater-goers, who didn't care for it, I might point out that they were all, well, old. I think that this might be one of those "generation" movies. It's hard to pin down why -- I'm tempted to say that our generation makes and breaks the ties of friendship more often than most, just because we move around so much, but Kate pointed out that "growing apart" is as universal a theme as you could find.

More Prominent:

Little Miss Sunshine

R: Boo-yah!

K: Yay! I love this movie and it's hilarious. If you are one of the 15 people who hasn't seen it yet, see it now!

An Inconvenient Truth

R: Yes, it stars Al Gore, and co-stars his laptop. Yes, it's a movie version of... his slide-show. On the other hand, it's a clear and correct presentation of current climate science, and a sober discussion of its implications for, you know, people. I was lukewarm about this when I saw it, but I find myself recommending it to more and more people, not because it's great cinema, but because it's the fastest way to start learning about (IMHO) the most important issue of the day.

Science of Sleep

K: I liked this movie a lot (much more than Ross did, I think). It is visually very interesting (as you probably could guess from the trailers). The story gets a little sicky-sweet in places, but I'm pretty forgiving. The animation is pretty cool.

R: Hey, I liked it. Good, certainly, but my expectations were very high.

For Your Consideration

K: I'm not fond of Christopher Guess's movies, and I wasn't particularly fond of this one. What can I say? Not my brand of vodka.

R: Oh, come on! "Chillaxin'?" I did feel at a couple of points like I was drowning -- when the stream of LA talk went on for too long, I felt like screaming "AUGH! Somebody make sense! Please!" This was probably the point, but I wasn't looking for social commentary because, frankly, I don't care about LA. Make with the funny!

The Queen

K: This was great. I was surprised I liked it, since I'm not really a fan of movies about royals (Looking for Richard excepted). Helen Mirren deserves all of the accolades she's gotten for this film. Although Princess Diana is nominally the driving force behind the plot, the more important bits are about personal and cultural change. Remarkably good.

R: This was really good. Great? I dunno. I'm surprised by all of the attention it's received, which I think speaks more to the generally poor crop of Oscar candidates this year than the exceptional quality of this film. Oh well.

In addition to new(ish) movies, there were several series of films

Summer Classics:

Definitely not as good as they were in 2005, but there were still basically two highlights:
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Lawrence of Arabia

R: Lawrence of Arabia? On freaking 70mm film? Yeah, you want some. Treasure of the Sierra Madre was also pretty great.

K: I saw neither of these (I was in Santa Fe) but I am definitely pro-LofA. (I thought that we watched more of the summer series, but I suppose part of the series is in the last monster post)

25 Films from Sundance:
R: I attended most of the films at the beginning of the series, and concluded that "Sundance" was actually a word form some ancient dialect that meant "hot man-on-man action." There were, however, several exceptional films that I hadn't seen before. Note that even of the good ones, 3/5 fall into the HMoMA category:

Dog Day Afternoon

K: I didn't see this at the Michigan, but I do own it on dvd. I remember it as being good, though I haven't watched it in years.

Gods and Monsters

R: I was just stunned by this. In a good way.

Blood Simple

K: The Coen Brothers' first film (I think). Creepy in an old psychological thriller kind of way. Creepy like Psycho is creepy. Creepy in a way that makes you shudder at random moments for a week afterward. Really good creepy.

R: At the end, I was ashamed that I had not seen it earlier.

Chinatown

K: I loved this movie--classic film noir with Jack Nicholson. One thing to notice about this movie--film noir scripts usually take place at night, but the only part of Chinatown that doesn't take place in broad daylight is the climax of the movie. It's pretty amazing.

Paris is Burning

K: I had never heard of this movie, but it was really really worthwhile.

R: If you're like me, you instantly write off documentaries that promise to help you "feel the pain" of the Socially Outcast Group of the Week. I mean, hopefully you're not like me, but I wouldn't blame you if you were. Anyway, I still liked this, liked it alot, even.

Masters of Comedy Series:

R: This was part of a class at UM, and we watched their screenings at The Michigan pretty religiously. There was a lot of Woody Allen, most of which I didn't like. However, Annie Hall and Manhattan, I liked. Also fascinating was Being There, which I'd be tempted to call "obscure," even though it won some large number of Oscars. It shouldn't be. See it.

K: I am a Woody Allen nut, but in a 12 film "Masters of Comedy Series," there should not be 5 Woody Allen films. I can think of about 10 films that were not included in this series that should have been (I think I see a post on that topic coming). Anyway, I also love Annie Hall and Manhattan. Leaving aside whether they should dominate the Masters of Comedy series, if you haven't seen these two films, you have to see them. Right now. In widescreen, please.

The series also included Sleeper--an early WA film that I am really really fond of (though not everybody is). It features a ragtime soundtrack with Woody Allen himself on the clarinet. This film borrows heavily from silent comedy, and although it slows down quite a bit later on, the beginning is pure gold.

The other WA films in the series were someplace in the forgettable to terrible part of the spectrum, so I'll skip over those.

There were also 3 Mel Brooks films in the series (meaning that over half were from two directors!) I'm not a Mel Brooks fan, but I love love love Blazing Saddles and was happy to see it on the big screen. It is a surprising film all around. I actually think that some of the humor is too edgy to be included in a modern comedy ("where the white women at?")--something that I find quite sad. I can take or leave the rest of Mel Brooks' filmography, so I'll leave it at that.

I had never heard of Being There before it showed up in this series--I have no idea why, since Peter Sellers won an academy award for his performance in it. It easily made my top ten all-time list the first time I watched it. Peter Sellers is incredible, the storyline builds slowly and is almost unbearably dark. The whole thing could have fallen flat at any time, but it continues to build through to the end, which caps off the movie better than I could have imagined. A clear favorite so far this year. See it.

The Painted Veil (2006)

2007-01-11T11:37:00.000-08:00

R: Those of you who know me, know that The Onion is one of the few film review sites that I trust. I agree with much of what they say about this film -- it is gorgeous, well-acted... and a little bit off. I have three things to add/emphasize:

1. The thing that is "off" about the film is the sense of time. At one point, the lady lead says "we've been here for a month," when I would have guessed that they been in Plaguesville for a couple of days. Another cue (this time "two months") caught Kate thinking that they'd been in the town longer. I don't think this was intentional, since it's not used to particularly good effect. I'd go further and say that scuplting time is what [live-action] filmmakers do, and that this director didn't seem particularly good at it.

2. Toby Jones is awesome.

3. Ed Norton was pretty good too. This is too bad for the leading lady, Miss Whatserface, who wasn't bad, but wasn't fantastic either -- definitely less interesting than the other two principals. Since the film is done mostly from her point of view, this is problematic.

All in all, I'd say rent it. Unless, of course, you're a sucker for the Misty Mountains of China (TM), in which case you've already seen it.

K: I also thought that this movie was pretty great. The two main characters were very subtle and changed over the course of the film in a very intuitive and lovely way. Toby Jones steals the show very easily, despite being the only character who doesn't experience a change in his view of the world. I would agree that although China is breathtakingly beautiful and all, you can probably watch this on DVD--just make sure you watch it widescreen.

Brief Update

2006-06-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

It's been a hectic month or so, so without further adieu...

Tristram Shandy
R: I was the only one who got to see this. I loved it. I believe that it displaces many, many years worth of "movies about movies." Adaptation, for example, just went from being kind of crappy to being obsolete. See this.

The Promise
R: I didn't think that this was entirely terrible. Some of the special effects are pretty unconvincing, and the story is some flavor of unimpressive -- to labor over what kind of unimpressive it is would be a waste of time. I'm willing to cut some slack on both of these because it's clearly a fairy tale, and I think such things should be judged on their own terms. but even on it's on terms, the movie is pretty uninspiring.

K: I was even less inspired. Usually martial arts movies suffer from too much plot and too little martial arts. But this one didn't have enough martial arts to justify the poor plot.

Art School Confidential
R: Fan-freaking-tastic. The portrayal of the art world almost exactly matches my preconceptions of it, so I couldn't be happier. As a nice corollary, it's hilarious.

K: The best part was the portrayal of his fellow art school students. There's a scene with an aquarium full of orange ping pong balls that is crazy funny. And it is pretty astute about what makes an artist great.

The Purple Rose of Cairo
R: Kind of fun. Not Woody's best. A little heavy-handed.

K: I enjoyed this one, especially the end. Good meta-comment on film.

Water
R: I'm going to describe this as Pretty Woman, but in India. And with a sad ending. And Ghandi. Beautiful photography, but the rest of the movie doesn't always live up to it. Interestingly, one doesn't come away with a strong sense of place -- one of the usual redeeming qualities of "Bad Movies for People Who Aren't Supposed to Like Bad Movies." I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

K: Yeah, I was out of town for the rest of these. Sounds like a good thing.

Poison
R: Craptacular. At least the 30 minutes I saw of it was. I assume that it played some important historical role in the development of queer cinema. Which might excuse some things, but doesn't explain why it would be part of the "Sundance Series." This certainly supported my general feeling on "Queer Cinema," which is that it is composed of bad movies that cannot be labeled as such because they also contain guys kissing.

Hidden (Cache) - 2004

2006-03-15T18:51:00.000-08:00

R: Wow. WOW. There's a simple equation that guides me in choosing films to watch:

(psychological thriller) x (allegory on decolonization) = (utter wankery)

Here, that equation fails. It's a little surprising, but it manages to be both of the things on the LHS, and not the thing on the RHS. Impressive.

A little synopsis: a fat happy French family starts getting anonymous video tapes containing footage of their house. This is more than a little creepy, and as you might hope, things start to get weird. The surrealism settles in slowly, which is a blessing. Or maybe it's not surrealism -- the director decided not to include the dialogue in the last scene, which renders the whole movie quite the puzzle. I'd be happy to argue with you about it after you've seen it :)

Night Watch/Nochnoi Dozor (2004)

2006-03-15T18:44:00.000-08:00

R: If you're reading this, chances are I've already raved about this one to you. Yes, it's an action/horror movie, and you've seen a few of those. What sets this one apart? Well, this one's hip-deep in moral ambiguity. There is, dare I say, a point, well beyond "special effects are supercool" (though they are). So I like it for that reason.

Oh, also -- it's Russian.

The World's Fastest Indian (2005?)

2006-03-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

Good clean fun. Not particularly important, but fun. And better than most "based on a true story" movies. Now, it's not clear how close this stays to the true story, though I'd believe it's closer than most.

A fluff movie for people who are not supposed to like fluff movies

Forbidden Planet (1956)

2006-02-17T20:07:00.000-08:00

K: I saw this movie a while back with my folks, but it was worth a post. This was a surprisingly enjoyable 50's sci-fi film. The plot was pleasently rich, actually. Also, the conception of what the future would be like was pretty funny, and alone worth the price of admission (well, ok, it was free...but the price of my parents' admission). The communicators were attached to their belts by a retractable wire. The robot lead (Robbie--my dad owns an original tin toy of him) probably weighed 6 tons and had a top speed of about half a mile an hour. The space ship's communicator was some kind of crystal contraption, and they had some kind of contraption that looked like a star trek transporter, but didn't transport...or...well...do anything at all. The sole special effects were Robbie the robot (not so much special effect as guy in a suit), the ray guns (animated dots, streaming out of the end of the ray gun, held nonchalantly by the supposedly terrified spacement) and a gigantic monster, who was inconguously animated against the background. Not sure how I feel about that one.

The plot is really engaging for a sci fi flick of the time...with a surprising tinge of introspection. Highly recommended for anyone with even a passing interest in sci fi flicks.

Ushpizin (2004)

2006-02-17T19:40:00.000-08:00

r: This is billed as the first movie made by the ultra-orthodox community in Israel. Have you read the "Brokeback Mountain" post? Do you remember a reference to an "Ultra-Orthodox Israeli" movie? This is that movie.

It's not unenjoyable. Instead of an utterly disposable comedy, we have a not-entirely-disposable comedy that provides some insight into an unfamiliar culture. That's worth something. And, like I said, it's fun. Transparent, preachy, but fun.

k: I really enjoyed this movie--mostly because it was entirely unexpected. It was funny! Like, funnier than average. And whereas I knew nothing about Orthodox Jewish communities before, I know next to nothing now. There were also several beautiful scenes between the husband and wife. In short--I expected something overly heavy, and I got something pleasently funny.

*To anybody who's seen the film, and knows some Yiddish: My impression, based on my limited command of German, was that the greedy, money hoarding Jews (the ones who fit every awful stereotype I've ever seen) spoke Yiddish (there were a number of words I recognized), while the Truly Holy Jews spoke Hebrew (not a word of wish I understood -- it's a guess). Eh?

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

2006-02-17T19:26:00.000-08:00

R: Yeah, we saw it. Yeah, it's excellent -- 'Capote' and '3 Iron' were the only comparable things we saw this year. And yes, it will win lots of Oscars. And yes, it will be for the wrong reasons.

K: I cried harder during this movie than I've ever cried in any movie before. But...um...in a good way. Yeah, anyway, you don't need us to tell you to see this movie. Unless, of course, you've been locked in a box.

R: I read an interesting review of this that claimed that, contrary to all those other reviews, it was not true that "it didn't matter that they were two men." That, in fact, the whole point of the movie was the phenomenon of the closet -- that Ennis, at least, loathed himself because of who he was, not because society disapproved of what he wanted. And of course, there's merit to this. I mean, there are some fantastically unsubtle shots of, you know, the closet. And of course the poitn of makinga movie is that everything you put in matters, so of course it would be a different movie if they weren't two gay cowboys. In Wyoming. Etc etc. And I love the movie, so I'm glad that it is what it is.

But there is a part of all those other reviews that I agree with, and it's this: we see alot of movies at the Michigan that are basically bad movies. Or merely competent movies, but no better than what gets shown at the Quality 16. Except that they deal with an unfamiliar culture, or they play with gender roles, or whatever. And there's value in this -- we do go to see them -- but most of these movies can safely be filed under some specialty heading. "Lesbian Asian Movie." "Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Movie." Etc. And, unless they're essentially free, or you're interested in that particular specialty heading, there's no need to see these particular movies. We call them "bad movies for people who aren't supposed to like bad movies." "Brokeback Mountain," on the other hand, is legitimately good, which makes the story interesting to a wide audience, and the story itself is relevant to a wide audience. I have a hard time really connecting with the need to bone your fellow shepherd. I do have a deep-seated fear that my best days are behind me, that I'm "beating back ceaselessly into the past." I think this film is good first, and gay second, and that's why I would encourage anybody who hasn't yet to see it.

Roman Holiday (1953)

2006-02-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

r: This, I think is the best movie that I've ever seen -- that includes a princess.

k: Oh com'on. How about "The Princess Bride"? Oh yeah. I forgot. You never SAW the Princess Bride. Cretin.

r: Yes I have, and Kate had to ask me how to spell "cretin." I can't recite it LINE BY LINE. Anyway, The Michigan decided to screen this for Valentine's Day -- Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, she's a princess incognito, he's a sleazy journalist. Mopeds are ridden, guitars are smashed, love blossoms. In Rome!

You might see the date, hear the 'princess' word, and think that this will be the most cheesy, horrifically dated romantic comedy that one could come up with. You would be wrong. We learn about Audrey Hepburn's world right away -- a shot of her dancing with an uninterested (gay?) aristocrat, and another scene where she complains to her attendant about having to sleep in a nightgown -- "some people don't wear anything at all!

k: Thing is, except for the occassional war reference (and of course, the well-written dialogue and engaging plot) you would think that it had been made recently. The humor is smart, and the two leads are entirely believable as a couple. The ending is particularly satisfying--neither schmaltzy nor overly heavy-handed, it is a nice closer.

r: Also, Audrey Hepburn is totally hot.

k: Gregory Peck too. But actually, the photographer guy was more my type. Mmm...facial hair.

r: Indeed. It's light entertainment solidly done. While the film itself doesn't have a terribly complicated "message," I found myself surprised at how risque it was. Was this really made in 1953? Was this really contemperaneous with all of those awful sci-fi movies? And 'Leave it to Beaver'? One of the main characters is a lovable pornographer! As often happens, I find myself seized with a curiosity that, due to laziness, I will never satisfy.

k: All I know is, my curiosity about lovable pornographers never goes unsatisfied...

Jesus is Magic (2005)

2005-12-15T07:19:00.000-08:00

R:
I liked this alot. For those of you who saw "The Aristocrats," you know that Sarah Silverman is basically the only person who was able to make the joke shocking, at least by modern standards. So she's foul. For "The Aristocrats" the Michigan put a warning up on the door, indicating that some viewers might find it offensive. I believe the sign for "Jesus is Magic" indicated that "many viewers" would find it offensive. Awesome.

The humor is... I don't want to say "subtle," but there isn't a clear stream of jokes.

K: In fact, she didn't have that self-aware stage presence that many comics have, where they constantly wink at the audience--no no, it's just a joke, you see? And that made it really effective.

All I can say is, "I don't care whether you think I'm racisist, I just want you to think I'm thin."

R: As for whether you should see it or not... This should have been a special on Comedy Central. It's not, because it's too offensive, not because of any cinematic quality. See the DVD.

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

2005-12-14T06:38:00.000-08:00

R-
I mostly enjoyed this. I wouldn't call it essential viewing, but it's a reasonably agreeable way to pass the time. "What's this?" you ask. "Don't you utterly despise Jane Austen?" I offer three reasons that I enjoyed the movie:

1. It is funny (intentionally). No, seriously, it is. And not just incidentally funny, but I might go so far as to say there's more of this than of the heavy breathing stuff, which is nice.

2. It is funny (unintentionally). It is rife with (presumably accidental) wildly inappropriate citations of other movies. In order: (1) the idyllic scenes of "rural life" are straight out of Hobbitton (even the mud is clean), (2) there is a scene on the cliffs somewhere that I think is the same landscape that was used in one of the LotR movies, the first or second one -- I expected a legion of Orukai mounted on giant wolf things to stampede over the horizon, and (3) when Mr. Darcy comes all slo-mo out of the fog, I fully expected a Matrix-style action scene. Of course, there wasn't one, but it would have been awesome.

3. I kind of get it. Mostly thanks to an NYRB article. I won't pretend to be really excited about Jane Austen now, but I can what might be interesting in it.

K--I also enjoyed this, mostly for the same reasons. It was unself-conciously funny. It managed to be relevant without losing the period feel (I could imagine someone's little sister acting just like Mr Darcy's. They even the managed to make the dancing seem really fun, rather than the stiff interpretation of the period that I've seen before.) And Donald Sutherland is the man. Seriously.

That said, I've never read the book, and I'm not an avid Jane Austin fan, so I can't really comment on whether it does the book justice. Some fans (I know you're out there) would disagree. Violently. Hopefully, some of them will comment.

Memento (2000)

2005-12-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

(Ross)
OK, so I'm the last person in the world to see this movie. I'll offer a few observations, and be brief about it.

This is a very good movie. I didn't really enjoy it. The insulin scene is, I think, the most horrifying thing that I've seen since "The Princess and the Warrior," and I found the whole idea of being trapped in the present to be very unsettling. I'm impressed that they made an engaging movie out of a "twist" that could have turned out to be, well, trite. Formally innovative, etc. And I'm glad I saw it. But I don't know that I'll be watching it again.

Blue Velvet (1986)

2005-11-17T07:48:00.000-08:00

In short: If you don't enjoy David Lynch, you won't enjoy "Blue Velvet." If you do, see it (assuming you haven't already).

Kate: Um. Yeah. Ross assured me that this was a classic that many consider to be the ultimate in David Lynch, so I stayed through the whole thing. Otherwise, I think I would have left halfway through. I was bored--and not in a Thumbsucker, gee-I-wonder-when-the-dentist-will-come-back kinda way, but in a gee-I-wonder-if-someone-with-an-exposed-brain-could-actually-stand-up-like-that kinda way.

So I get that it is supposed to make me uncomfortable. And I get that it is supposed to be making fun of movie conventions and dialogue. But the result isn't deep, it's just boring. Other films have done it better, and continue to do it better (the film I saw with Ross in chicago comes to mind, though the name escapes me [Aesthenic Syndrome]). David Lynch somehow managed to make a statement about film and simultaneously MAKE ME NOT CARE. Congrats.

Ross: Indeed, I expected to leave this movie having soiled myself in pure cinematic ecstasy several times, and this didn't happen. I didn't think the movie was pointless, though. I think Lynch was trying to give his spin on both the traditional coming of age story and dark Freudian stuff about the subconscious, which was that (1) coming of age includes developing a dark, scary subconscious, and (2) that the subconscious, while dark and scary, is also kind of ridiculous. And I think he does this pretty effectively -- many parts of the movie are genuinely funny, which I wasn't expecting. This interpretation might be a bit of a stretch, so if anybody reading this objects, I'd be interested in your comments.

I would not say that this is Lynch's strongest film. I don't think that it's any deeper/darker/more disturbing than, say, "Mulholland Drive," and I think the latter film is also much more engaging. This is important. I accept that a David Lynch film is going to be an intricate philosophical puzzle, but, since I'm lazy, I'm more likely to try to work through that puzzle if I get really sucked into it. And again, if anybody can explain to me why "Blue Velvet" is a better film than "Mulholland Drive," I'd like to hear it.

Mirrormask (2005)

2005-11-17T07:46:00.000-08:00

In short: Don't bother. (Unless you're a Gaiman freak, in which case you'll see it regardless of what we say)

Kate: I'm leaving this one to Ross, who gets talkative when he's pissed off. Besides, he's the animation freak. Just know that I didn't think that it was quite as bad as he did. Not worth going to the theater, mind you--but maybe if you were bedridden and had watched every other movie in the house...

Ross: The most positive thing I can say is that I didn't absolutely hate the last third of it, and if one had to choose only one third of their movie to not be abominable, the last one is a good choice. Kate has speculated that the reason the last part is watchable (even kind of enjoyable) is that it's paced correctly, plain and simple. This could well be the case, I'm not sure. As a coming of age story (and many of you know that, in general, I dont' like these), I think it's not bad -- as a story, even if the movie is bad. I feel like this could have been a movie, but it definitely didn't turn out that way. And with that in mind, a collection of objections:

1. The animation isn't very good. It was done on the cheap, and it shows. It's not surprising; I heard that the budget was like $4 million, and that's just not enough to do a feature film that's mostly animated. Sorry.

2. I don't care about mirror land, at least not until the last third of the movie. The director spends a lot of time trying to "establish the world," which is something I hear bantered about a bit with regards to fantasy, sci-fi, etc. I think it's crap. "Defining the world" is analogous to telling, not showing, and is better done in fan fiction than in a movie.

3. "Look, we're on a quest!" I feel like a lot of the time in the movie is spent establishing that we're following one of those classical plots, and that somebody (my imaginary interlocutor) will object that there are really only six stories, so it's okay if the director slavishly followed one of them. And I will respond (to the imaginary interlocutor) that the job of a director (author, etc.) is to embellish those plots until they seem alive and new.

So finally, we come to the thing that I think went wrong with this movie. A film needs a director. The director not only has to understand all of the steps in the filmmaking process (writing, design, acting, photographic composition, editing), they have to understand something called dramaturgy. This, at least, is the approach to things that is taught at VGIK, and I think it's a good approach. If a director doesn't understand how to dynamically unfold a plot, well, they're finished.
And David McKean is finished. I hope that, if there is a next time, he and Neil Gaiman respect that and hire a director who knows what they're doing.

Brazil (1985)--director's cut

2005-11-17T07:37:00.000-08:00

In short: If you haven't already seen this, then get your butt in gear. But be sure to rent the director's cut.

Kate:
I was looking at Rotton Tomatoes to find out when this film was released, and I noticed that it has a 97% approval rating. With good reason, since it's FREAKIN' GREAT. I liked this film the first time I saw it, and I liked it even more the second time. Funny, creepy, downright frightening. I've only seen the director's cut--the original theater release is thought to be inferior by nearly everybody. If pricing is any guide , the director's cut is around 4 times better than the theatrical release (the director's cut sells for upwards of 80 dollars online). Seeing it in the theater was great.

Ross:
So, everybody knows that this is an excellent film. Two things struck me when I watched it this time, both related to the fact that the last time I saw this movie, it was (1) before 9/11 and (2) probably on VHS. If you're like me, you think of the 80's as basically taking place in "VHS Color," which is to say crappy color, just like you think of the 50's as taking place in black and white (at least before seeing "Capote"). The print was a nice one, and so it wasn't in VHS Color. In fact, there were very few indications that this was made in the 80's -- the love interest looks a bit dated, but otherwise the movie holds up quite nicely.

In other ways, it's eerily prescient. I'd forgotten that the whole motivation for the Big Oppressive Government was Fighting the Terrorists. With that in mind, there were lots of moments that struck a chord that, four or five years ago, they would not have struck. So watch it again, if you haven't watched it recently.

Capote (2005)

2005-11-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

In brief: See this one on the big screen. Not only is it really good (the only new film we've seen that competes with 3 Iron), it's shot very nicely and benefits from being on film.

Kate:

It is hard to say exactly what I liked so much about this film. But I think that most of it boils down to Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Truman Capote. I honestly didn't know anything about Capote before seeing this film (afterwards, I learned that he was the author of Breakfast at Tiffany's, a book that I have never read), but Hoffman's character was so engaging that I really don't care whether or not it was accurate. Perhaps the greatest of Hoffman's achievements is the delicate way in which he presents Capote's transformation (or lack thereof) throughout the film.

As the film progresses, our opinions about Capote slowly shift. At the start, he comes off as pleasantly eccentric and charismatic, albeit somewhat self-obsessed. We might even think him compassionate--he offers very personal stories to put the people he interviews more at ease and offers to find a better lawyer for the two men accused of murdering a Nebraska family. But as the story rolls along, our opinions of the man gradually shift. In the end, we see him as what he is--not charismatic, but glib, uttterly self-absorbed, and, above all, manipulative in the extreme.

But what makes this amazing story-telling (and perhaps what makes this film so good) is that Capote doesn't really change. You can look back at the beginning of the movie and see that all of those character traits--the ones that you though were new--were actually always there. You are left in the same position as Capote's friend, Harper Lee (played by Catherine Keener) who becomes disillusioned with Capote after the circumstances serve to highlight the things that were there all along. In other words, the director manages to change our perceptions of Capote, without actually changing Capote himself.

The same thing happens, in a less dramatic way, to the accused murderer, and our shift in perspective takes a few sharp turns along the way. As we learn more about the two of them, we first see them as just another pair of criminals, then as individuals with something to offer the world, then as savages, and finally some nuanced combination of the above. The last perspective is clearly the most accurate, and it is the one we are left with.

This shift in perceptions takes two things: an extraordinary level of acting talent, and an extraordinary directing talent. Apparently, this film benefited from both. Hoffman's treatment of Capote is so fantastically good that you forget that there is an actor there at all. Clifton Collins Jr, who plays Perry, was also very convincing--though it is difficult to compare him with Hoffman. The director's work was equally good. The pacing was spot-on, the cinematography and editing was great (I honestly had a hard time remembering if it was shot in black and white or color) and the story was wonderfully end-loaded. When the climax of the film finally arrives, you realize that while it was highly anticipated--and terribly violent--it was not really all that important. In treating the climax so delicately, the director seems to be emphasizing that the story is not what is important, but rather the characters.

Ross:

Though Kate and I both really like this film, I think we disagree about some very basic things. The film is, to speak in very general terms, a study of how Capote was broken. It's true that this is a subtle process. If I were feeling adventurous, I'd say that the point of the film is that understanding things (say our personal failings) doesn't always enable us to change them.

While watching this movie I was reminded of an essay that I read awhile back. I don't remember it very well -- I think it was by Christopher Hitchens, but I can't find it now -- about the moral imagination. The idea was that one of the things that made novels useful (and not mental cheesecake) was that they could make moral problems that we hadn't encountered immediate, real, and maybe teach us something in the process. The director is very sympathetic to Capote, at least in the beginning, and that makes some of his later decisions much more painful.

Of course, the director does everything else right. The cleanliness that suffuses the film and numerous displays of restraint on the part of the director mark this as a really mature film. But this is not what distinguishes this film from all the other technically "correct," clever films that play at the Michigan. And I think that's all I have to say about that.

Nosferatu (1922)

2005-10-31T11:16:00.000-08:00

R: Around Halloween every year, the Michigan Theater does a screening of Nosferatu, with organ accompaniment (of course). This is my second time going, and my first time staying awake all the way through. As I recall, the screening last year was fairly late at night.

The film has several interesting technical moments, as one might expect from a very early horror movie. There's some crude stop-motion animation (what struck me as very crude, but on reflection I can't come up with an earlier example of any kind, so there's some leeway), several scenes shot in "fast motion" (fear Count Orlock's super-stage-coach!), and a few scenes where they used the film negative instead of a positive. The last one is an interesting effect, especially considering that a real night-time shot would have been out of the question.

I have to say that the film felt slow. Having seen Caligari recently, I don't think that the 80 year gap between filming and me is the whole explanation. There are several places where the intertitles explain the action on screen, rather than adding something to it. In no case are they at all subtle, and a lot of them were a bit over the top. In addition to this, the director spent a lot of time getting from one place to another -- in fact, that's most of the movie. Hutter goes to Count Orlock's castle (wait wait wait), Hutter and Orlock interact with each other (not bad), Orlock travels by boat to where he's going (travel travel, some dead sailors), Hutter travels too (wait wait wait wait), Orlock is defeated. Orlock doesn't have a lot of chances to establish himself as a Scary Dude, since he has so few scenes with other people.

Kate:

In Brief: Worth seeing at the Michigan next year, if only for the organ playing.

Last night, Ross and I went to the annual Halloween showing of the 1922 silent film, Nosferatu. This is the first full-length treatment of the Dracula story, though the director, FW Murnau, altered some things to avoid copyright issues. As a result, this vampire is not exactly the familiar Dracula character. Instead of a bat, his animal form is a rat, and he makes his victims sick with the plague instead of turning them into more vampires. However, it shouldn't be surprising that changing the villain's name and animal of choice didn't save the director from a lawsuit. Murnau lost the suit and was ordered to destroy all prints of the film. Obviously, some of them survived, including one print found in a Romanian insane asylum!

On the whole, I thought that this film was entertaining, but not particularly outstanding. The story is engaging, and it has its technical moments, but it *is* a popular horror movie--the 1920's equivalent of Creature from the Black Lagoon--so you should expect a good story--not a cinematic marvel. Also, it may be the modern eye, but this film just isn't that scary. Count Orlock (the vampire) is very eerie-looking--he seems to be all arms and legs and fingers--and some of his scenes are genuinely frightening, but I was never on the edge of my seat (and that's saying something--I'm particularly susceptible to horror films). Part of this may have been that the whole film has the appearance of daylight. We saw this film last year too, and I was totally confused--the count would say "it's nearly midnight" while standing IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. In retrospect, I realized that it must be because of the difficulty of filming in dark conditions. Near the end of the last showing, I figured out that the blue-tinted scenes were supposed to be darken scenes, and the brown-tinted ones were supposed to be in the light. With that information, this viewing was less confusing. But the brightly-lit scenes lack the claustrophobic feeling that you associate with the dark, and are thus much less effective.

The plot was also very thin in places. Our hero visits the castle of count Orlock, is initially entirely unconcerned about his surroundings, despite his host looking like something out of a Tim Burton film. Suddenly, he becomes scared out of his wits after reading a book about vampires and presumably making the connection to Orlock. How the information in the book helps him draw any kind of conclusion is unclear, since it mostly contains broad statements about blood. He escapes from the castle through a window (despite there being no indication that he is imprisoned in any way) and races home to rescue his love from the demon, who he has already sold the house across from his. Once he gets there, he apparently becomes convinced that the book caused him to hallucinate, and warns his wife not to read it (I would have thrown it out, personally, but I guess the plot must go on). Of course she reads it. They also move back into the same house--despite the vampire living across the way and the wife being convinced that he is watching her. Throughout, we have comic relief from our hero's boss, who is apparently Orlock's disciple, despite never being in the same place as orlock, or interacting with him in any way. He also gets put in an insane asylum right before Orlock arrives, but there is no explanation why. Hmmm...

Also, the acting was on the whole pretty bad. Acting in silent films is certainly more exaggerated than we are used to, but the melodrama was way over the top. The leading man was really bad--he seemed to have two settings: maniacal laughter and melodramatic horror. There two most convincing performances in the production were count orlock (who is, as I said earlier, very well-played) and orlock's disciple, the house agent. Since the house agent is a comic character who never actually interacts with Orlock, this leaves many weak actors reacting to Orlock.

Then there are some things that are just objectively funny--how can you not laugh at orlock carrying a giant coffin under his arm?

However, despite all of that, I would still recommend seeing it, if you have the chance. There were a couple of moments that stood out as being particularly worthwhile. There is a scene where the shadow of the vampire's long thing fingers closes over the heroine's heart that is really fantastic. There are several scenes where the action is sped up--a spirit horseman riding through the night, Orlock moving coffins onto a cart, and coffins moving themselves around. The entire scene on the boat is frightening--maybe because it actually achieves the claustrophobic feeling that the rest of the film lacks.

Also working in its favor, at the Michigan the film was accompanied by live organ music, played by the Michigan's staff organist, on the in-house organ*. As always, the organist was fantastic, and after 3 minutes, I forgot that the performance was live. He constructed the score by writing a theme for each character and then elaborating on the theme throughout the film. In this case, he took the themes from folk music native to eastern europe.

Finally, it was interesting in part because it gave you an idea what a popular silent film might have been. Like a 1920's independence Day--it is interesting from a purely sociological context.

*For those who don't know, the Michigan is one of 40 movie houses in the nation that has retained its organ. The organ was one of the things that motivated a small group of people to save the theater from destruction in the 70s. The organ is massive, and fills the walls of the theater.

Five Months - One Post

2005-10-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

Because of the ~5 month gap between when we joined the theater and when we started this blog, we're going to run through what we saw so far this summer. We're reconstructing this from flyers, so some of the months might be wrong.

It's funny -- students have to see 30 movies to make the membership pay off. It looks like we've already managed that. In July, we saw nearly three a week! October has been slow, because the semester started and graduate school sucks. The first parenthetical is Ross, the second is Kate. If there is only one, it is generally Ross, because he got there first.

June
Goldfinger (Yeah, baby)(The source of 90% of James Bond cliches)

Mad Hot Ballroom (Dancing Kids are cute -- but what might be cuter?)

Mondovino (Incoherent AND irrelevant -- we almost walked out of this one)

Dr. Strangelove (Fantabulous)(One of my favorite films)

Eros (Interesting, but not essential. We both liked Wong Kar Wai's best)(More than that, I felt the three parts declined in quality: one, two, three)

Travellers and Magicians(The story is very simple, but the camera/digital work very effectively make the mythical parts feel like a separate world. We both liked this one; it definitely benefits from the big screen.) (The acting was great. Now I want to visit Bhutan)

July
Turtles Can Fly (Absolutely gut-wrenching)(The writeup indicated that it was the first film to come out of occupied Iraq, so we expected it to be sad. What we didn't expect was children disarming mines--in some cases, with their teeth, because they had lost their arms. One of the better movies we saw)

3-Iron (Watch it. Now. No really, drop everything and rent it. The director captures time so effectively that we were comparing him to Tarkovsky. That, of course, is just about the highest praise I can give) (I felt this was hands down the best current film we saw)

Saving Face (Fun! Not terrible deep/clever, but more so than most romantic comedies.) (I liked this one much better than Ross did--it examines issues of culture very deftly.)

March of the Penguins (What's cuter than a baby penguin? A WHOLE PILE of baby penguins. We grew to hate this film, but only because it played so long at the Michigan that lots of other films -- like Grizzly Man -- never opened there.) (The audience was also composed of small children and old folks who apparently hadn't been to a movie for 20 years. Managed to make a nature documentary 1)interesting 2)genuinely sad 3) sexy)

Apres Vous (Kate liked it ok, I walked out. Read a cursory description, and you'll probably know whether you like it or not.) (On the whole, not worth your time unless you're really into french romantic comedies).

Murderball (As cool as it looks, though if you're paying to see it, it's probably worth waiting for DVD)

Creature from the Black Lagoon (in 3-D!) (yup.)

The Godfather (Ohhhh...)

The Godfather, ptII (Double Ohhhh...)

The Wizard of Oz (Neat. Kate couldn't go and I [Ross] ended up leaving maybe an hour in. But the new print is really nice.)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly(70mm. Nuff said.) (The audience was mostly 14 year old boys, but I absolutely adore this movie, and it was gorgeous on the big screen. A fantasitically well-paced film. A must-see for everyone, even those who think they don't like westerns)

August
Broken Flowers (Pretty good. I didn't like the ending, for reasons that don't fit in parentheses very well.) (I liked the ending, also for reasons that don't fit in parentheses)

The Beautiful Country (Not paced incredibly well, but some of the scenes are pretty amazing.) (The lead actor is fantastic.)

2001: A Space Odyssey (70mm! The Starchild is HUGE)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) (Very cool -- especially because they opened it with the original Looney Tune that accompanied it. Does anybody know if this was originally in color?)

Double Indemnity (Not bad -- maybe noir fans have more to say about it?)

A Night at the Opera (Also accompanied by a Looney Tune -- "What's Opera Doc?")

September
The Aristocrats (Surprisingly coherent.) (Ross really liked it, but Kate thought it got kind of old after a while. Highlights were Whoopie Goldberg, Steven Wright, and the guy from Full House)

Psycho(R. hadn't seen it before. Yes, indeed, it is a classic.) (It is surprisingly scary, concidering that you don't actually see all that much violence. I'd take this over a gore-fest any day. I jumped at least twice)

The Animation Show (x2--someone loves animation. I'll give you two guesses)
(yes he does! And Ross firmly believes that anybody who gets the chance should see it!)

Junebug (Ross liked this ALOT. The leading man is really flat, but everything else was great.) (The highlight of the whole thing was the crazy artist)

2046 (I have a theory about this being an elaborate reply to the New Criticism, in addition to being really good (post a comment if you want elaboration). I think it's a rare example of a movie without a lot of exterior shots that is still much better on the big screen) (This was really visually striking. I think that I need to see it again)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (The staff organist wrote a new score the night before, and it was amazing. Have we mentioned that The Michigan is awesome?) (The Michigan is one of 40 theaters in the nation with its origninal organ, and the only one to employ a staff organist. The score was so seemless, I forgot it was there. The film was also fantastic, although it would probably suffer terribly without the organ.)

October
Wild Strawberries(Indeed, it is a classic) (I had not seen it, and I thought that it was one of the best films I'd seen all year. It struck a deep deep chord. Perfect pacing. Those clever swedes...)

Thumbsucker(One word...ballsucker. We hated this about as much as we hated Mondovino, though we didn't walk out since we were always waiting for another scene with Keanu. Others have pointed out that alot of the acting was pretty good, and the cinematography was at times interesting -- R. maintains that this just shows how incompetent the director is.) (Ditto. I should never find myself bored in a movie, yet there were several times when I was bored for upwards of 10 minutes at a time! And I should never be in the position of wanting Keanu Reeves to come back on the screen. The main three actors were very good, which only served to highlight the badness of the rest.)

Hey there

2005-10-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

This June, Kate and I were concidering whether to get a membership to the Michigan Theater. We were excited about the movies, but the prospect of free popcorn was what really pushed us over the edge. We've been watching almost everything that plays there since. Our friend Brooks recommended that we keep a "blog" with our thoughts on what we see. So we're going to do that. At the very least, for each movie we see we'll decide whether you should (1) go see it in the theater, (2) wait for the DVD, or (3) avoid it at all costs.

ross and kate