Max's Review...

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I've been using Blogger (Google) to post movie reviews for nearly a year. I've decided to try out WordPress.com, because its layout is generally more intuitive, backups are much easier to handle, and it provides some other benefits that Google simply doesn't have. Thank you for visiting my blog, and I'll see you at the new site!

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Best,
Max

Short Cuts #1

I've been pretty distracted over the last month, what with winter break and my first week of school. This is my first attempt to play catch up, with several brief reviews of some films that I've seen this week.


“Sans Soleil” (1982) is a challenging, though highly rewarding, film: it's a mish-mash of ideas about modern culture, set predominantly in Tokyo, and conceived around a narrated series of letters, by the director Chris Marker. The film is hard to fit into one category, because it's an essay and a documentary that also ventures into the avant-garde. Its images are fascinating: they range from the beautiful (a dog lying on a beach) to the graphic (a giraffe getting shot three times: in the haunch, in the neck, and finally in the head), to the ostensibly banal activities of residents in Tokyo. Tied to Marker's brilliant narrative, the images become something even more powerful: they represent a mere approximation of Marker's memories. But this self-organization of what goes on in one's life is something that we also engage in, because reality, as “Sans Soleil” helps us to realize, is just a collection of sketches in our minds. Marker says that there is a “degree of truth in banality.” And while we struggle to understand our place in our own world, Marker is kind enough to offer us an exceptional view into his own. (First viewed on 1/22/09, in 35mm projection at the PFA.)


“Nanook of the North” (1922) is an early documentary, by Robert Flaherty, about the life of an Eskimo... with a really long name that Flaherty simplified to "Nanook." I've seen it twice, and both times I've fallen asleep for long stretches because it's so boring; and because it treats its subjects as, literally, "happy-go-lucky" and "simple" people. (Second viewing on 1/20/09, on a DVD in class.)


“The Broadway Melody” (1929) was MGM's first musical; critics at the time considered it one of the best early sound films, considering the technical limitations that filmmakers endured during the transition from silent cinema to sound. (The difficulties in making a sound film were mocked twenty-something years later in MGM's “Singin' in the Rain”). It won the Oscar for Best Picture, but, really, this film is terrible. The story is unambitious and stupid - it centers on two annoying women who try to get into show business. The dialogue is very stilted, there's essentially no camerawork, and the action is shot from far away because cameras had to be kept in cumbersome soundproof boxes. Plus, there's a very nasty depiction of an extremely stereotypical gay man, who serves as the theater's tailor. It made me feel so angry – I now have some idea how black people - or typically stereotyped members of any race, religion, and/or sex, for that matter - must feel when they see how they've been depicted in early films. (First viewed on 1/20/09, on a DVD in class.)

Doubt

"Doubt"
John Patrick Shanley, 2008

“Doubt” is the film adaptation of a play about a priest who is accused by a Catholic school's principal of sexually abusing a student. In the film, the priest is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, the severe principal by Meryl Streep, and a nun, given the unfortunate and dull role of a pawn between the two contesting powers, by Amy Adams. The problems with “Doubt” arise from its translation from a play to the screen – or, rather, the lack of much of a translation. The film is set up as a series of arguments between two to three characters within a single setting; this technique works well on-stage, but not in a film. The interactions are interesting initially, at least, but not after an hour of hearing the same issues ad nauseam: Streep's nun repeatedly states that she suspects the priest is “doing something” with the boy, but this action is never explicitly stated; the act is instead relegated to excessive implication.

At its best, “Doubt” presents us with an interesting conflict between two mindsets: one that wants to be more receptive of changes in secular society, as represented by the priest, and one that fiercely defends the status quo, as represented by the principal. Streep plays her character to the extreme, so much so that she nearly transcends the movie – her principal comes across as more of a spectacled specter than a real person. Much, or perhaps most, of her hatred for the priest stems from his “unorthodox” practices, which include being protective of the school's only black student, who is, as it turns out, also the student he is accused of abusing. Most important, then, is the way that the film presents the priest's culpability. From what I have heard, the play leaves the priest's culpability to our imagination – in other words, it leaves us doubtful of his actual culpability. The filmmakers, however, are less keen on the power of ambiguity. There is a telling shot of Hoffman's priest bashfully glancing upwards at a cross, which obviously paints him as guilty – Hoffman does his best, but he's never given a chance.

5.5/10

First Viewed: 12/17/08, in 35 mm projection - IMDb

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
David Fincher, 2008

Why are filmmakers so obsessed with exposing our vulnerability and temporality? This year, we have seen at least two serious attempts at exploring these hefty concerns. The first is Charlie Kaufman's “Synecdoche, New York,” which centers on a brilliant artist who tries to overcome artistic and personal impediments. The second is David Fincher's latest film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” The latter is about a man named Benjamin (Brad Pitt), who is born in New Orleans, at the culmination of World War One, in 1918, as an old man who ages backwards.

It's a wonderful, intricately made film, though it's so precisely constructed that its characters are left somewhat emotionally sterile. But I think that this is Fincher's point - that people are subject to circumstances that lie beyond their control. Much of Benjamin's journey consists of simply running into interesting people, many of whom are full of regret, and seeing what cards they have been dealt – and how they deal with their circumstances. He befriends a bored, middle-aged woman named Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), who attempted to swim across the English Channel, only to find that the current was so strong that she had to give up on her dream within two miles of France's shore. In one beautifully engineered sequence, Fincher illustrates how Benjamin's love interest, Daisy (Cate Blanchett), who was a dancer, could have continued her successful career had the taxi that ended up hitting her driven by five minutes earlier, or had the driver stopped for coffee; and so on. Thus we get the fascinating, if somewhat sobering, notion that people are defined largely by their experiences, rather than necessarily being fascinating in themselves.

Like “Zodiac” (2007), “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” feels a bit too long. But Fincher has a keen sense of visuals and of pacing that helps to keep his nearly three hour movie interesting. The film has a curious self-reflexive quality: there is a visual motif involving a clock running backwards, while Benjamin's life moves ahead, and a running gag involving an old man that tells a story about how he was struck repeatedly by lightning (we see grainy, degraded clips that depict these events). Paolo Cherchi Usai, in his book The Death of Cinema, describes film itself as a temporal thing, and as much a subject to time as the characters it chronicles. But if one's life and the medium on which it is recorded – be it film, or the diary on which Benjamin's story is chronicled – is subject to deterioration, and, ultimately, destruction, the most that we can hope to expect is that that the experience itself is memorable. Fortunately for us, it certainly is in Benjamin's case.

Given the sheer amount of detail and characters that Fincher chronicles in Benjamin's unusual journey, it is surprising how poorly he approaches a couple of essential elements in his film. The framing narrative, which takes place in a hospital, with Daisy on her deathbed and her daughter reading Benjamin's journal, feels awkward; and whenever Fincher cuts to it, it takes us out of Benjamin's narrative. And then there's his approach to the prospect of Benjamin, now an old man – in a young man's body – having a child with Daisy. Benjamin feels that he wouldn't be a good father because he would basically be a kid while his child grew up; but he fails to mention how he's matured and developed during his sixty-or-so years of life – he ends up leaving Daisy anyway. It feels like a bit of a cop-out. But as we find out by the end of the film, Benjamin, like the other fascinating people that he befriends, holds similar long-lasting regrets about this very decision, which, admittedly, lies largely outside of his control.

8/10

First Viewed: 12/25/08, in 35 mm projection - IMDb

Interview with the Vampire

"Interview with the Vampire"
Neil Jordan, 1994

“Interview with the Vampire,” which is based on a novel by Anne Rice, has a very simple and predictable narrative, which is kind of strange considering its bizarre subject matter. Brad Pitt plays a vampire who gives an account of his centuries-long life to a reporter (Christian Slater). Pitt used to be a plantation owner from New Orleans, but after the deaths of his wife and daughter, he spent his days gambling away his money, because he didn't care about life anymore. This is where a Parisian vampire, played by an unintentionally hilarious and over-the-top Tom Cruise, enters – and it is only when Pitt becomes a vampire that he finally appreciates the life of a normal person.

A character's new-found appreciation for life is a potentially interesting theme, but since we don't really know much about Pitt's past and how his life really became different once he turned into a vampire, this essential part of the movie doesn't resonate with us. We instead turn to other aspects of the film, most of which turn out to be inadequate. The set design, the makeup, and many of the visuals are excellent. Everything else, including the acting, the story, and the silly ending, in particular – not so much.

5/10

First Viewed: 12/24/08, on Blu-ray Disc - IMDb

The Get-Together

The Get-Together

We pass through dim stretches of freeway, on average four lanes across, before reaching our destination. Except that it takes several passes down a cul-de-sac before we actually find the right house. They all look the same, and it doesn't help that it's dark – and that my dad, who's driving, punched in the wrong address on Google Maps. But he decides to park in front of the one home with its lights on and with people going in and with a large, inviting sign that says “Happy Hanukah!” As it turns out, he guesses correctly.

I find get-togethers to be awkward affairs, particularly when they involve older people who I don't know. There's a crush of them by the food in the kitchen. They know my parents and my brother and sister, but not me. But I look like my dad, and I'm as tall and lanky as my younger brother, both of whom this crowd is familiar with, so I'm not without company. I engage in some conversations, which go pretty well until I mention that I'm a Film Studies major. This usually elicits two responses: one, the person pretends that this is a good thing – “how interesting” – and moves on, unless, on the rare occasion, they talk about their favorite film and explain why it worked for them; or two, the person asks me what I'm going to do with such a major. In other words, how am I not going to starve after I finish college? I give them the three half-baked options I'm currently considering – applying to law school, getting involved with films (in cinematography or post-production), or teaching. The person flashes a grin and says something, like, Well, I didn't know what I was going to do when I was in college either. And then, with nothing left to say, both people have to move on. But for some reason, neither person can look the other in the eye and say, “I have nothing left to say to you.” What ends up happening is the other person and I smile at each other for a while, or one of us says that we have to grab food, or we just drift our separate ways.

I start piling food from the buffet onto my plate, until my mom comes over to warn me that it's not being served yet, though it's already, technically, being served by me. Well, that makes me sound like a jerk. But I usually am when I'm hungry. People begin lining up at the buffet, and I get in line. A tall man cuts in front of me, and I tell him that I was in line before him. He deflects my direct statement with a very dry one – “You'll remember me as the prick who cut in front of you” – that only somewhat obscures what he really thinks I am, and cuts behind me.

I actually knew a few of the people there before tonight's get-together. There's Hannah, who was in our synagogue's then-makeshift teen choir with me. She's in the middle of wrapping up college applications, which she finds exhausting, and she hopes to get into Carnegie Mellon. She still goes to religious school, in large part because she loves our cantor, who I never got all that close to for some reason; maybe it's because I sensed that she didn't really like me, even though I enjoyed singing in the choir. I can't really say. There's Samara, a blond-haired girl who was also in the choir with me, and who's also finishing up her applications. There's Penny, the daughter of a member on our synagogue's board of directors, who keeps her hair cut short and has an unusually sweet smile. She's tired of the shallow, arrogant and sheltered people at her private school, and she wants to get out of California. She's a member of her school's GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance). We have a very stimulating conversation.

I lean against the wall, eating chocolate cake with a fork in one hand and cradling my empty plastic cup between an armpit as I listen to some members of the choir sing “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” a highly amusing song by Tom Lehrer. Finally, we leave the house and walk to our car. It's hard to see. There are only two streetlamps to light the way.