Cache (Hidden)

Cache (Michael Haneke, 2006) [8]
I’m pretty unfamiliar with Haneke’s work, but from what I hear, this is supposed to be his most accessible film to date. It’s a nicely constructed thriller with some taut moments but it doesn’t have anything that really pushes the boundaries of the genre. What Haneke does do is create his suspense in creative ways. For me, there was nothing that put me more on edge than the opening scene, where it looks like nothing is happening and the viewer can’t tell what exactly is going on. Things get a little bogged down when political and racial history are thrown in, but Haneke is smart in that he doesn’t let it take over the film. It’s mostly the means to an end if that makes any sense. I’m not quite sure why I liked this so much considering the main characters are Euro Yuppies who are wracked by guilt, which doesn’t sound that appealing to my tastes. However, it all comes together to make an interesting film. Definitely a contender for best of 2006.

The World

The World (Zhang Ke Jia, 2005) [6]
I really don’t have much to say of any consequence about this film. It kind of just went through me and when it was over, that was that. There’s no doubt that there’s something in the visuals here that is appealing but the narrative encased in this visual world is so shallow for me that I’m grasping for anything to define what it is I just saw. Zhang is clearly interested in what China has become and what it will be, in terms of its economic development and the effect it has on the people. I can’t think of any better place that could be a microcosm of this than World Park, a world based both on capitalism and globalization. What Zhang seems to be saying is that people and their relationships still exist in this ever expanding global power, but it feels to me that the two main characters’ relationship is dwarfed by the big societal ideas that are being presented. The film may look good, but it seems to be an empty shell, and whatever was inside it leaked out just before I got to it. And I still can’t figure out why there are animated segments in the film. They don’t look bad, but it’s still jarring.

Concert Calendar

Not much too report in regards to film reviews. My work schedule hasn't allowed for time to watch anything. Summer means concerts however. I'm off to Scranton for Phil Lesh & Friends with Trey and Mike with the Duo tonight. I got seats five rows from the stage so it should be great. Phil & Friends were really on at Bonnaroo but I didn't get to see the SuperJam which was Trey, Mike, the Duo with a special appearance by Phil. My friend and I went over to see who was in the SuperJam but it was already 12:30 and they hadn't started yet. We were exhausted and left and must have missed the start by about five minutes. Anyway, tonight will make up for it. As for next week, Little Feat returns to the glorious Magic City Music Hall in Johnson City, NY. I went when they came last year and was suprisingly impressed, considering I thought Little Feat without Lowell George would pretty much stink. They proved me wrong, and I hope they do the same next tuesday. And Magic City better have their AC working this time.

Syriana

Syriana (Stephen Gaghan, 2005) [6]
Really just Traffic except oil has replaced drugs. Gaghan, while he may be a credible screenwriter, doesn’t do much as a director. The aesthetic style of this film is so close to Soderbergh’s style in Traffic that it borders on ripping that film off. The story is so complex and interwoven that even the characters in the film don’t have a complete picture of what is going on, let alone the viewer. That’s part of the point of the script, but still, trying to decipher the details of the story becomes the main focus of the film. I can say that it took me out of focusing on the visual aspects of the film. It ends up being a film where the story overtakes the film; by film I mean all the story and visual aspects that define film. The script does make some solid political points, and truly has some depth of knowledge about the situation in the Middle East, so it redeems itself for that. But there’s nothing striking in anything here that makes me think that one of the best films of 2005.

Palindromes

Palindromes (Todd Solondz, 2005) [2]
I can’t really give a much better review than here, which states everything that I feel about this film. Solondz is a mean-spirited filmmaker that uses cheap provocation and tries to disguise it as intelligent discourse. The entire essence of the storyline here is beyond my comprehension. What exactly is he trying to say; obviously it’s nothing that important because I can’t figure it out. Just some cheap shots at how shitty suburbia is (again) and picking on Jesus freaks (way too easy). Plus, the way multiple actors are used here makes it a gimmick, unlike in That Obscure Object of Desire, in which it has a real important and innovative purpose. That Solondz continues to get any credit as a filmmaker of substance boggles my mind.

Monthly Listening Post - June 2006

I haven't really discovered anything much this month, as I was pre-occupied with Bonnaroo. I do have two retrospectives to recommend however:

The Replacements - Don't You Know Who I Think I Was: The Best of the Replacements
Gram Parsons - The Complete Reprise Sessions

Like I said, Bonnaroo was fantastic. As soon I get my film developed (I don't have a digital camera) I'll post some of the pictures I took. In the meantime, here are my top 5 performances of the weekend:

1) My Morning Jacket - they laid it down late night in front of the biggest tent crowd I've ever seen in my 4 years at Bonnaroo.
2) Bright Eyes - Connor Oberst made me a convert with a great set highlighted by a surprise appearance by Gillian Welch and David Rawlins.
3) Radiohead - I was never that big of a fan before, but with 29 songs, they certainly didn't disappoint.
4) Gomez - one of my most anticipated sets of the weekend. Solid, but was surprised at the lack of a big crowd (there was a lot going on at the same time) and no 'Get Myself Arrested'.
5) Marah - this was Thursday night, so a lot of people didn't catch them. I've wanted to see this band for a long, long time, and all I wish was that they could have played more than an hour. Great cover of 'Baba O'Reilly', Dave and Serge jumping into the audience during 'The Dishwasher's Dream', and Beatle Bob doing the intro. Couldn't ask for a better start to what was a fantastic weekend.

The Fog of War

The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003) [7]
While The Fog of War doesn’t stray too far from the standard documentary style that Morris utilizes in his films, he does have a couple of sophisticated montage segments that really show a side that can sometimes be missing in his films. What this film lacks a lot of the time is a dynamic quality that really engages the viewer. McNamara as a subject is really hit or miss; of course he isn’t going to go into that much depth about his horrendous Vietnam policy. But he and Morris know that is the crux of this film and it takes way too long to get the point. When McNamara does delve into that disaster, it almost redeems the film. I just he was willing to really analyze himself and the decision he made. Apply your little lessons.

Elizabethtown

Elizabethtown (Cameron Crowe, 2005) [3]
A major disappointment doesn’t come anywhere close describing how I feel about this film. I absolutely loved Almost Famous and this, Crowe’s follow-up, takes all the goodwill that picture built up in me and throws into a big stinking pile of rotten cheese. Crowe’s films have always existed somewhere between solid emotional relevance and total cheesiness, but this film is 100% limburger. Man, I was grinding my teeth anytime that Orlando Bloom opened his mouth. His character is a vapid, self-satisfied do-gooder that just pops his way in and out of scenes with nothing redeeming about him. And don’t get me started on the Kirsten Dunst character, another one of these peppy, living-life-to-the-fullest androids that teaches the dour male character that there is something in life worth living for. Give me break, please. The only time the film catches is when the Bloom characters shuts up and lets his family take over. Too much time is spent on having these two talk on cell phones, as if the cell phone has brought enlightenment to society, now that we can talk for ever and ever and ever… (A film should NEVER feature a fifteen minute sequence with characters talking on phones. End of discussion). Crowe is usually a master of handling a soundtrack but it really lands on target only a small number of times throughout the film, and he relies way too much on it at the end to give it its emotion. That’s what the images should be doing, but that was abandoned a long time before. From the way I’ve been writing it sounds like I absolutely hated this film, but I really don’t. I just expected a lot better.

One Day In September

One Day In September [/] (Kevin MacDonald, 1999) [7]
I had seen this a couple of years ago, but being that I liked Munich so much, I figured it was time to revisit it. I really don’t have that much to say about it except it’s a solidly made film. Through the talking head sequences, one is almost astonished how blundering and incapable the Germans were in handling the hostage situation. The lack of any coordination is at a level almost beyond comprehension. MacDonald uses the archival footage in a different way than standard docs. It looks like he manipulates the athletic action shots a little to give a little more visual spark that grabs the attention more. He also does a good of job of creating a more somber mood when talking directly about the hostage situation. Nothing much comes out of the sole living terrorist involved, but then again, what’s to be expected? I remember this won Best Documentary without being shown in theatres, and I was pissed that it won over Buena Vista Social Club. Looking back, however, I feel that this is the better film of the two.

Content Update

I just got back from Bonnaroo, which was fantastic. I'm still attempting to get caught up with reviews of what I saw before I left, so hopefully I'll get something up within the next couple of days. Not that anyone really cares because no one visits this site which means no one is reading this.

The Essential Collection - Ken Burns' The Civil War

I don't really know why but I've always been interested in history and the Civil War in particular. I remember when this debuted on PBS in 1990 it was a big deal, but I was only in third or fourth grade and never really paid attention to the whole thing. I got it the DVD set a couple of years ago and all I can say is that this the greatest historical documentary film ever made. Ever. Ken Burns' style of filmmaking has been mocked and parodied over the years but it works exceptionally well here, mostly out of necessity. When all the historical documents are letters, and photographs, it's going to be hard to create something that can capture a viewer's attention, especially for 20 hours. But Burns does that mostly becuase he goes outside of the standard textbook history of the war, giving idiosycracies of the conflict. He has his two soldiers and their private ruminations to ground the film, while giving all the important figures and battles their due. There is just enough of the talking head shots, but the ones featuring Shelby Foote, while sometimes being anecdotal, give a temporary relief from all the seriousness. All in all, Burns made a film that can be seen as entertainment first instead of being a redundant history lesson. It's also nice to remember a time when a historical and/or political documentary didn't have to resort to partisan hackery.

Winter Passing

Winter Passing (Adam Rapp, 2006) [7]
This is the film Garden State should and could have been. It’s funny and offbeat at times, but it seems to have a real purpose behind it, unlike Zach Braff’s film. It’s the same type of story: a child is returning home after the death of a parent, to come into conflict with a father that doesn’t quite understand her. While I don’t fully buy into that whole storyline, it works in this film solely by Zooey Deschanel’s performance. With her porcelain skin, somewhat shaggy black hair, and her wide-eyed blue stare, there’s a way her physical presence really stands out in a film. Her performance has a kind of post-ironic bend to it; she always has a way of giving her lines in a somewhat flat way that sounds disinterested but is in fact the opposite. Perhaps my overabundance of praise on Deschanel clouds my overall vision of the film, but I really don’t think so. Rapp’s visual style, with quite a bit of handheld work and scenes that look muddy and bleak give the film its attitude. It’s a quiet, reserved film, dark at times, with a main character that almost exists in a cloud. As I said before, Deschanel carries the film, but there are some other strong performances. Who knew Will Ferrell could actually be funny by restraining himself? The only problems I have are that the Ed Harris character is underdeveloped and the ending gets a little too sentimental for my tastes. But this is an actor’s film, and all the actors understand their roles in the film, which makes it work.

Two For the Money

Two For the Money (D.J. Caruso, 2005) [4]
For the last couple of years, Al Pacino has become known more for his overblown performances than the serious acting chops he showed in the 1970s. He’s pretty much played into the parody of Al Pacino that can be seen on sketch shows, and this film does nothing to discredit it. Pacino hams his way through every scene, that his manic performance towers above all else in the film. That’s good because it gives this scattershot film something to cling to. On one hand, it’s about the business of sports gambling and the effects that has on people, but it also wants to be about family and the bonds created through men in the Walter (Pacino) and John Anthony (McConaughey) characters. If the film had focused more on the business of gambling and exactly how Walter’s business is run, it would have been a much more interesting film. The film’s best moments come out of here, whether it’s Jeremy Piven’s performance as a jealous son figure or the near satire that comes when Walter and his handicappers are taping their show. This is the one time that Pacino’s overacting plays perfectly into the character of the film. But all the other characters fall flat in comparison to him throughout the rest of the film, which makes this less than effective.

The Grifters

The Grifters (Stephen Frears, 1990) [7]
Neo-noir is, for me, something that’s pretty hard to define because it doesn’t have any concrete characteristics to define it the way film noir did. This film is probably the closest thing I’ve seen to being considered the template for neo-noir, not so much for visuals but just from the film’s atmosphere. The characters here are two-bit chiselers trying to find a way out of their seedy, crime-ridden lives. The three main characters here are prototypical noir characters, but they also have a bleaker undercurrent to them than most noir protagonists. That could be because they were the creation of Jim Thompson, who always creates dark stories. What complicates this film is the issue of family and relationships. It’s never easy to tell what the true relationships between all three characters are. Is what we are seeing really how the characters feel about each other? I can never be exactly sure and that’s my only problem with the film. It’s very often that I admonish praise on a score, but Elmer Bernstein’s here is a perfect film noir score. The end is 100% noir, with the characters realizing the need for survival trumps all.

Broken Flowers

Broken Flowers (Jim Jarmusch, 2005) [7]
This was the first film by Jarmusch that I have seen and his minimalist style is certainly on display here. I have to say I really like it, especially when it focuses on the Bill Murray character’s interaction with the women in his past, especially when it involves dinner. As the Hack has pointed out, the film has a sense of upstate New York regionalism to it, as the shots of Don driving look very similar to what surrounds me here in Binghamton. The film uses these settings in a way that creates a world where there is a lack of action and that certainly could describe upstate. The character of Don is interesting to me, but I also have some issues with him. Murray plays him with just the right amount of resignation in regards to his Don Juan past, but I have a hard time pinpointing his motivations for his journey. It feels like the Jeffrey Wright is pushing him to do this in order to let his character exist in the story as a detective type. I think it is a film that visual style trumps story, which puts the actual film in a sort of middle ground that I can’t make up my mind if I like it more than I do.

F For Fake

F For Fake (Orson Welles, 1976) [5]
This is a rambling, shabby documentary which was the last finished film released by Welles. I begrudgingly recommend it because it does what Welles says it’s going to do; play with the notion of what is real and what is fiction. What starts as a straight-forward doc on a notorious art forger morphs itself into a meditation on the nature of creating hoaxes and fiction, which is essentially what filmmaking is all about. What really intrigues me about the film is Welles’s domineering presence in the film. He overshadows the two characters that he meant to chronicle. This could have been extremely pretentious, but it comes across as engaging. The film itself has no center, as it ambles from thought to thought, with Welles giving just enough information to keep it together for the most part. The end goes off on an extreme tangent about Picasso and some women, but it makes sense when you realize the ground rules that Welles laid down at the start of the film (I won’t give away the secret). It’s not close to the best work of Orson Welles, but it certainly has its interesting moments.

On another note, occasionally, I will revise some of the grades of films that I've given. I felt I was a little too generous with a couple. Me and You and Everyone We Know went from 9 to 8 and 2046 is now a 9.

Munich

Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005) [10]
With the exception of Schindler’s List, I haven’t been that big of a fan of Spielberg’s work. I respect that he has considerable skills in the craft of filmmaking, but I always find his films sterile and overblown. Munich is almost the exact opposite, a film that has tangible emotions but crafted in a way that makes it entertaining in typical Spielberg fashion. This is a film that has a moral ambiguity and doesn’t take a specific political side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but still creates empathy for the Israeli operatives. The one point where they are foiled by supposed CIA agents in an assassination attempt actually had me mad at the Americans. While this sympathy with the main characters could be a determent, I think it works in advantage for the film. The audience progresses as the characters do: at first gung-ho in their tasks, but as events progress, everything they’ve been doing gets questioned. I feel Spielberg is trying very hard not to take sides, and he is questioning the endless cycle of revenge and violence that has ensnared the debate. He does it tactfully, and even though the film is fairly simple in political terms, it’s still effective in the overall scheme. I was also really impressed with the filmmaking, as Spielberg adopts a more European, 1970’s visual style with all the handheld camera work and use of the zoom lens. Like Schindler’s List, Munich goes beyond the standard entertainment that Spielberg films usually give. When he does that, he makes films that I really like. The best film of 2005.

Monthy Listening Post - May 2006

This past weekend was my college graduation - sort of (I have one more class to take in the fall but Binghamton University let me walk in the ceremony) so I've been a little busy of late. I did see Munich over the weekend, and while never a big Spielberg fan, it's one of his best and on my top of 2005 list. A review will be posted in the next couple of days.

May's listening post is a little late this month. Since I'm heading to Bonnaroo next month and I don't think I'll have another listening post post until after I get back, this month is a collection of some of my favorite past performances that I've seen as well as some acts I'm going to catch this year:

1) Gomez - How We Operate
2) Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
3) The Black Crowes - Live at Bonnaroo 2005
4) My Morning Jacket - Live at Bonnaroo 2004
5) Drive-By Truckers - Live at Bonnaroo 2005

The New World

The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005) [8]
The films of Terrence Malick are the reason that I became a film buff. I saw The Thin Red Line and it was a eureka moment for me. Days of Heaven is one of my top three favorite films. From all this you might think I have a bias towards any new Malick film. I certainly like this a lot but I was a little disappointed in the film overall. The first thirty minutes are utterly fantastic, the visual majesty just stupendous. My issue comes with about the final third of the film, with John Smith gone, and John Rolfe in. I’m not saying Colin Farrell is a great actor but he has a presence that is much more in tune with the film than Christian Bale as Rolfe. It feels to me that this section removes itself too far away from the meditative presence of the natural world that was so predominant in the first half. It kind of redeems itself with a nice juxtaposition of imagery at the end of Pocahontas, but I still feel the strongest moments exist with her with Smith in the new world. All in all, I still admire the film just for the staggering beauty of the cinematography, which drew me into Malick’s films in the first place.

Milk Was a Bad Choice

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Adam McKay, 2004) [5]
I’ve seen pieces of this but have never sat down and seen the entire film. That may work to its’ disadvantage, seeing that this is a film of funny moments that doesn’t quite make a very good film. The plot really isn’t that important, it’s just a way to let the jokes out. Will Ferrell’s performance has its really hilarious moments but at other times it feels he’s trying too hard to come with an out-of-left-field joke or response. It feels like a lot of this was improvised, which means a lot of it is hit and miss. Still, its funny moments are a lot better than most comedies being released today. And it has possibly the most absurd, hilarious line I’ve ever heard in a movie.