Film Decade List #22: Talk to Her (2002)

Talk to Her (Pedro Almodovar, Spain, 2002)

Almodovar has become known with the way that he handles female characters in his film but Talk to Her is almost in reverse as in it focuses on male characters and their interactions in similar circumstances. Marco (Dario Grandinetti) is a writer whose matador girlfriend ends up in a coma. Benigno (Javier Camara) is a male nurse looking after a patient who has been in a coma for a while. The two men bond over their similar circumstances and the ability to care for those women in their lives that are helpless. While that is a fairly simple review, Almodovar throws many more themes and surreal experiences that give the film so much more meaning. One one level, it's about these men coming to terms with tragic circumstances but there's a deeper underlying darkness to it, especially in Benigno's relationship. He has no real ties to the woman he's looking after other than being her nurse but he wraps himself so tightly in her life, there's a feeling of uneasiness about his relationship. That foreboding notion shows itself by the end, where the sympathy earned by Benigno in his actions earlier in the film comes crashing down in a jarring end. That Marco comes to Benigno after attempting to find an explanation shows a lot about the bond the two created earlier in the film. Talk to Her really is a fairly simple film in its execution but Almodovar creates a complete film universe with a caring storyline. He never quite loses his more surreal tendencies, as a silent vignette bawdily shows, but there's no denying how emotionally powerful the film is, despite how poorly I've described it. That Benigno, who does something truly unforgivable, and yet, you feel just as sorry for him as you feel outrage, is a testament to how strong a story Almodovar has wound. Talk to Her has been one of the films over the past few years that has always stayed with me as being a near perfectly constructed film, not just in story and characters but in emotion.

The Essential Collection: Z

Z (Costa-Gravas, France/Algeria, 1969)

In retrospect, a lot has been made of the Academy Awards for 1969 when Midnight Cowboy took Best Picture and Z took Best Foreign Film, mostly because the Academy seemed to grow a pair of balls that it rarely has shown in the years since. Aside from its political tone, there is nothing in Z that couldn't be found in a well-made thriller to come out of Hollywood in the 70s. That's more than likely the reason that it was met with an embrace in America. It's a taut, economical film that speeds along on its narrative and takes subject matter that is obscure and inflammatory and makes great entertainment out of it.

Based on real-life events surrounding the assassination of a leftist Greek political leader, the film follows the attack on the Doctor (Yves Montand) and the subsequent investigation by a dogged investigator (Jean-Louis Trintignant) as he step by step uncovers a police and government role and cover-up in the "accident." Costa-Gravas bring so many elements and characters together, from those directly involved, to journalists, regular people, and government bureaucrats, that it would be easy for the film to devolve in a confounding web of different accounts and stories. It's really to his credit that he's able to take in all the surrounding stories and characters and still keep the kinetic pace of the central storyline. Because of that pace, the film has much more in common with Hollywood films than what people would think of a foreign films. It's incredibly easy to get caught up in this film without having to do much analytical work. That sounds a little like a backhanded compliment but there's something to be said about making a well-structured film that can keep up for two hours plus. It offsets the political tone of the film a bit, which is strongly anti-totalitarian, and while on one side of a fence, never feels oppressive. Z basically makes the viewer have no other options but to sympathize with the leftists, just out of the notions of justice and basic decency. And for that, which seems a bit radical now, is what made Z a fairly big film for its time.

Music Decade List #21: Nicolai Dunger - Soul Rush (2002)

A while back, Allmusic used to have a feature on their homepage that would flip through their album picks for a certain period of time. The cover art on Soul Rush is what was initially intriguing about it, because I had never heard of Nicolai Dunger before. So I clicked to find out more and the first sentence of the review mentions Van Morrison and Astral Weeks. From that, there was no doubt that I was going to like this album. The Van Morrison comparisons are exactly correct as the similarities not just to Astral Weeks but also albums like Moondance and Saint Dominic's Preview are all over this. Dunger mixes in so many various elements, from jazz and country elements to more outright Morrison impressions like 'Something New.' Dunger's vocals have the same timbre as Morrison especially when he handles bluesier, more emotive material like the title track or 'Ballad of a Relationship.' But it's 'Doctor Zhivago's Train' that is the cornerstone of the album, throwing jazz drums and horns, a bluesy vocal and almost inscrutable lyrics into a mixture that was practically stunning. It was amazing to hear something like this come out of an act that even something of a cult act in his native Sweden. Dunger hasn't made quite as an impressionable album since, even though his American profile has been raised by working with Will Oldham and members of Mercury Rev on those albums. The blue eyed soul, blues and country combination that made Soul Rush so impressive should be enough for more people to take notice of Nicolai Dunger.

Film Decade List #23: Syndromes and a Century

Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand, 2007)

What makes a film like Sydromes and a Century great is almost impossible to explain to someone who hasn't seen it. It's a quiet yet vibrant film, full of immensely picturesque images but with a story that never follows a conventional narrative. The film is essentially the same story in two parts, with one focusing on a rural hospital setting and the second in a modern yet not real bustling metropolis. To really get the film, the focus has to be on the characters' interactions, to absorb all the small moments of the film and never look for any greater meaning. Reflecting upon this now, it becomes more clear that the relationship of the characters to the two worlds of the film is the most important aspect of it. There's not much greater meaning beyond the simple moments of sly humor and awkward interaction. Weerasethakul handles the scenes with a dream like delicacy, weaving his camera as easily through the lush rural landscape as he does the sterile lab environment of the city. I really don't know of anything better that I could say that would explain it any better. It's definitely not going to be for everyone but if you look beyond simple straightforward narrative, there's a lot to enjoy about Syndromes and a Century.

The Girlfriend Experience

The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderbergh, 2009) [5]

It's been Soderbergh's career to follow up big box office pictures like the Oceans series with these more "experimental", low budget films. Focusing on an upper-class escort (Adult film star Sasha Grey) and her interactions with her New York clientele, The Girlfriend Experience definitely takes more chances visually and structurally than Soderbergh's popcorn fare. Grey's character is more than an escort; she's a representation of the title, someone who these men can feel more attachment and share candid feelings, more than just a sex worker. Most of these interactions are dealing with the economic meltdown and the 2008 Presidential election, as the men run on about how each of them is being fucked by the poor economy. It's at these moments that the film turns as its not really so much about a high-class hooker. Soderbergh uses Chelsea as a vehicle to get in and examine the upper class of New York and the film becomes a reflection of a certain culture at a certain time. Even Chelsea's boyfriend, a personal trainer, gets caught with some Wall Street douchebags as they take the company Gulfstream to Las Vegas, where they get a suite at the ultimate starfucker casino, The Palms. Chelsea also takes the time to namedrop what designer shoes, dress, and have lunch at Craftsteak. It's this interaction of the film and its characters with a certain element of society that I find most interesting. I never find Chelsea or Grey herself to be that interesting. There are scenes where Chelsea is being interviewed by a journalist who wants to get to the "real" Chelsea. Grey, like her character, throws the wall up at the right time, to a predictable result. The viewer is left with questions unanswered even though we really don't need to have them either. Chelsea falls for a client but brief glimpses are all that are seen until it's called off. That sequence is sort of a general analysis of the film; that there is never much going on beyond the surface of the film, that nothing ever really goes beyond the experience and not the real thing.

Music Decade List #22: Marah - If You Didn't Laugh,...You'd Cry (2005)

Marah's two previous albums before this one were hampered by not enough stanout tracks and a glossy production that never seemed to fit the band's more freewheeling tendencies. If You Didn't Laugh,...You'd Cry is a return to a more loose, live sound and it is a fantastic Marah album. Sporting the group's strongest lineup, the album consistently strong, full of maybe the best group of songs the group committed to one album. The strongest point of the album is the variety of songs the album has, from the raucous opener, 'The Closer', to more introspective numbers like 'So What If We're Outta Tune (With the Rest of the World)' to Dylanesque numbers like 'The Dishwasher's Dream.' Dave Bielanko lyrics have always revolved around street life and the assorted people that occupy his worldview and songs like 'Poor People' or the great 'Walt Whitman Bridge' show a more introspective side of songwriting not really seen on Marah's previous albums. Even though the album manages to throw every kind of sound and influence you can conjure up listening to Marah (The Replacements, Springsteen, Dylan), it works because it all sounds infused with an energy that had been missing on something like 20,000 Streets. People looking for something other than energetic, roots based rock & roll may be disappointed in If You Didn't Laugh,...You'd Cry but for Marah fans like myself, it was a big welcome back to the band that exploded out of Kids In Philly (more on that one later).

Film Decade List #24: 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (Christian Mungiu, Romania, 2008)

The abortion issue grabs much of the attention of 4M,3w&2D but I've always felt the main issue was living in the crumbling last days of the oppressive Ceausescu regime. Everything in the film is dirty, grimy, crumbling, not pleasant in general. Reflecting again upon the film, it's this overbearingly bleak setting that allows the other actions in the film to take place. The focus of the plot is on two women, Gabita, who needs an abortion, and Otila, her roommate who becomes involved in her helping her find one. What makes the film work is Mungiu knowing how to handle the material without being sensationalistic (to a point) and how to craft tension. Like the setting the two characters are living in, there is a climate of constant surveillance and paranoia hovering over Gabita and Otila, from them checking into the hotel to Otila getting back to check on Gabita after a family dinner. It's Mungiu's tactful pacing and manipulation of tension, even when there isn't much of it in reality, that draw the viewer in more than the social drama present in the plot. If the film wasn't so well-crafted, it would allow for the more dubious moments of logic to expose and hamper the film. Mungiu also creates a lot of sympathy in Gabit and Otila, even through their torrent of bad decisions. The only caveat is that the way they are portrayed leaves the door open for a bit of a feminist argument and how the two aren't strong women. While it could be a problem, the fact that it hasn't been brought up much and that world around is a partial explanation of their actions, it never hampers the film in my mind. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days showed that strong social drama can come from all places, except Hollywood.

Music Decade List #23: BrightBlack - Ala.cali.tucky (2004)

Before Brightblack Morning Light became the group they are thought of now, they tossed out Ala.cali.tucky in 2004 to not nearly the recognition their last two albums have gotten. It's seem odd to me because the sound of Ala.cali.tucky is much more preferable to me than the more electro-funk/soul type sound they have now, which is still pretty good. This is still slow. languid, hazy music but there is more of a roots music base for the music here, with pedal steel, slide guitar and hammond organ in place of the Fender Rhodes and saxes that have graced Brightblack's other albums. It's a record that comes from the same place as their debut or Motion to Rejoin but by using different instruments and influences, it creates a record that has a more "Southern" feel to it, whether that's correct or not. Nathan Shineywater and Rachael Hughes's harmonies are sublime, especially on tracks like 'True Bright Blossom' or 'Old Letters'. The languid pedal steel on 'Own Time Woodland Song' fits BrightBlack's slowpoke pace so much it's astounding to me the group didn't stay on this course. Every song is steeped in the same pace but it's that dedication to not speeding up the music, to let the songs linger, that is the most appealing aspect of the album. It feels as if the album could double as a soundtrack for a film like Paris, Texas or Old Joy. Listening to Ala.cali.tucky, I get the picture of a cinematic western America, the deserts, vistas, and canyons that exists but certainly not in the context of the cinema of people like Malick or Wenders. I haven't encountered much music that I feel has the right timbre to recall a certain place or idea. Perhaps that is why this album made this list.

Film Decade List #25: Whale Rider

Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2003, New Zealand)

Whale Rider was really a film that I had no expectations for going in and like most people who have seen it, got swept into it. It's a deceptively simple coming of age story, of a girl named Pai (remarkably played by Keisha Castle-Hughes), dealing with pleasing her grandfather in patriarchal Maori society. The film revolves around Pai attempting to get her grandfather's approval not just in general but also with the possibility of becoming chief of the tribe, something that no woman has been allowed to do. The film really hinges on the performance of Castle-Hughes and she succeeds magnificently, giving Pai the right amount of maturity but with moments of youthful insolence. Caro has a keen eye for extracting the right emotions out of scenes and while nothing in Whale Rider is visually or that thematically daring, it never has to be. The film rides so much on its characters and their performances that it takes a fairly cold-hearted person not to be affected by the film. That Caro takes material fairly unfamiliar to most outside of Maori culture or New Zealand and that relates it to a young girl's struggle growing up is a testament to how universal some film themes are and when they're done well, how enjoyable they are to watch.

Hannah Takes the Stairs/Nights and Weekends

Hannah Takes the Stairs (Joe Swanberg, 2007) [3]/Nights and Weekends (Joe Swanberg, 2008) [5]

Whether you want to call it mumblecore or not, there's a lot of elements that bug me about these films. I also happen to see some useful aspects of them, nor do I think they are a boil on the ass of cinema, as some cineastes have essentially said. I recommended the only Swanberg feature I had seen up to this point, Kissing On the Mouth, and after seeing these two film back to back, I may have to take that back. First, there are numerous reasons in regards to aesthetics that I find these films almost unbearable. Secondly, the films end up being so wound up in their own characters' inner workings, that every element surrounding them is non-existent in representation to the film. Both these films play so much as personal stories, not for the audience but more for Swanberg and the crew surrounding them, that can't but come off as self-indulgent. But as someone who has a bit of a soft spot for pretension and as of the relatively same age as the filmmakers, I can see in moments of what mumblecore can accomplish.

Hannah Takes the Stairs simply isn't that good. Shot on DV, which I absolutely hate, the film has no aesthetic sense. Swanberg's style has been focused much on his complete lack of style, as the camera jolts and wanders with no real focus other to be a fly on the wall. The problem for me is that it comes off as so completely amateurish but also with idea that the film is intentionally trying to be that way. I'll take a hermetically closed-off stylist like Wes Anderson or Kubrick to this any day of the week. The story isn't much better, as it focuses on Hannah (Greta Gerwig) and he mutters and stammers her way through a love triangles with two of her co-workers, played by Andrew Bujalski and Kent Osborne. Hannah is so wrapped up in Hannah that what she does at work, or what her relationship is with Matt or Paul, that it manages to offer no insight into her while allowing her to babble about anything is fairly amazing. Couple that with the lack of a visual eye and you get a meandering, banal film.

Nights and Weekends is a little more tolerable because Swanberg has found at least a little cinematic style here. The DV looks a little better and the inclusion of shadows and light make it more striking when the moments arises, the last scene of the film coming to mind. Focusing on the long distance relationship of James (Swanberg) and Mattie (Gerwig) as they try to make it work, drift apart and come together one last time, Nights and Weekends suffers from many of the same problems as the film above. The characters are so wrapped up in their own neurotic dialogue that we get no picture of anything deeper in their personalities. On one level, it can be considered extremely pretentious but there's something in me that finds it appealing in theory. It's just that the execution never lives up to how I picture it to be. There's something about Nights and Weekends that I find more appealing than Hannah, mostly because it's focus is on one relationship. And when Swanberg and Gerwig get some ideas right, like the awkward sexuality of James and Mattie's relationship, I think mumblecore might have something important to say...if it could get it's head out its ass for a full ninety minutes.

Music Decade List #24: Howlin' Rain - S/T (2006)

In my best of, '06 edition, I described Howlin' Rain as a more menacing Grateful Dead. Full of psychedelic intensity one minute, and churning country rock the next, there's a lot of early Dead weaving itself through this album. Howlin' Rain was a side project for Comets on Fire front man Ethan Miller, but Howlin' Rain is preferable to me than anything in the Comets catalogue, mostly because Miller reigns in the fury of the Comets sound and focuses her more on a more laid-back vibe. There's certainly plenty of weirdness here however, as the breakdown in the middle of 'Calling Lightning with a Scythe' can attest to. It's that dual nature of the album, that it has some great guitar and vocal pyrotechnics by Miller but never looses the notion that there are some well-crafted songs here. 'Roll on the Rusted Days' has a Stonsey shuffle, sax outro and all. 'The Hanging Heart' and 'The Firing of the Midnight Rain' get closest to Live/Dead era Dead with their odd flourishes. It's 'Calling Lightning with a Scythe' that sums up almost everything about the album: good melody, psychedelic guitars, banjos, and Miller's vocal howl. It's a song definitely encompassing a lot of Classic Rock tropes and still coming out as something exciting and new sounding. Howlin' Rain clearly shows its Classic Rock influence throughout, and why should that be a bad thing? In an age where music blogs trying to find the next innovative new band, it's sure re-assuring to hear some freewheeling rock & roll back.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore, 2009) [6]

While I agree with a lot of what Moore is saying, he never gets all these ideas together to make a fine-tuned film. The film is too scattershot, with no real firm philosophy other than showing the ills of capitalism. It jumps to so many circumstances and ideas, from stories of specific people to Wall Street, that it suffers from a lack of focus of just what Moore is trying to say. On one level, the film is saying that true democracy is the cure for capitalism but isn't that the same system that has allowed capitalism to corrupt it? Moore calls for action but other than a call to action, he never gets specific. The most interesting parts of Moore's work, his attention-grabbing antics, fall flat for the most. Obviously, Moore wants to explain a corrupt system but he's ended up with a film preaching to the choir.

Also, there is the whole 'Michael Moore is a hypocrite' argument that comes out of this. Because Moore is making a film about how bad capitalism is while it has made him a millionaire, that on the surface makes him seem like a hypocrite. I will defend him to the extent that he's just working in the system that's been established. I do happen to think there is a big difference between someone who has become wealthy as an entertainer than as someone operating a corporation or lawyer or whatnot. Moore has become wealthy because people have chosen to see his films or read his books. He's not exploiting workers, or taking their jobs away, or profiting off of other's peoples' misery, tragedies, etc. So really Moore's film is attacking a form of corporate capitalism that has made him wealthy, almost in despite of itself. At least give Moore some credit for using his high-profile position to address some economic issues that more people should be paying attention to.

Introduction to the Music Decade List and #25: Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days

Without the Internet, there is a almost certain probability that this list would have never materialized, or been much different than the actual product. 2000 was the heyday of Napster and led to the file-sharing revolution of the last decade. The Internet allowed someone like myself access and knowledge to artists that I would have never known of living in a place like Binghamton. There are not too many people in this town who know much about music and if there are some that do, I don't know them. It's really only because of what Napster brought as well as blogs like Stereogum and An Aquarium Drunkard that I've been able to get into so many different artists. At the start of this decade, my tastes ran almost exclusively towards classic rock and Jamband acts. My interest in both has severely diminished over the past decade and I consider myself a much more knowledgeable listener. But that doesn't mean that I'm any more of an authority over someone who has more of a interest in hip-hop or metal, two genres I have never had any interest in. So, this list isn't meant to be some hipness barometer like Pitchfork would put together, nor is it meant to be any definitive documentation of the decade. These are just the 25 records that are my favorite of the last ten years. Ten years from now, this list could completely be different; right now, it's just what I think right now.



#25) Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)

The release of Our Endless Numbered Days happened around the same time Sam Beam went from a little-known but respected artist to the top of the indie mountain all because of a song that isn't even on this album. Zach Braff's Garden State may have come out after this album but most people, like myself, only happened to pay more attention to Iron & Wine because of "Such Great Heights." I may have had The Creek Drank the Cradle before this album but I can't remember exactly. What puts Our Endless Numbered Days ahead of that album for me is that is Beam's first professional and cleaner yet just as intimate sounding album. While some may find the lo-fi, home recordings of his debut, the cleaner, fuller sound of Our Endless Numbered Days does so much more to enhance the material. The addition of additional instruments and vocal tracking makes Beam's songs much more full and appealing while never losing the intensity and introspective nature of his debut. The collection of songs on the album from top to bottom is the strongest in Beam's catalog. Most of the songs still have a plaintive quality to them but with the addition of bluesy shuffle on songs like "Free Until They Cut Me Down" and "Teeth in the Grass." But it's still the intimate nature of the more somber songs that are the album's strongest moments, whether it's the simple guitar and vocals of "Sunset Soon Forgotten" or the bit more elaborate but spectacular "Sodom, South Georgia." Our Endless Numbered Days has been the Iron & Wine album that has captured my attention the most over the past decade While Beam has expanded his sound to include ambient and African-influenced sounds, it's still the mostly straightforward folk music of this album that appeals to me the most.

Last Listening Post of 2009

This will be the last listening post before I post my favorite albums of 2009. This aside from the top 25 list of the last decade which I swear I will start soon.

The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You
Built to Spill - There Is No Enemy
Alberta Cross - Broken Side of Time
The Black Crowes - Before the Frost....Until the Freeze
The Cave Singers - Welcome Joy

The lack of reviews and something new

With myself really bearing down to apply to graduate school, expect about as few new reviews as there have been lately. Since I was just recently thinking about this being the end of the decade, a new idea struck. I will be adding a new feature that will countdown my favorite films and albums of the decade. Since music is such a subjective enterprise and calling some list the best makes it sound like you have some authoritative position on the subject, albums will be categorized as favorites. Since I think that I have a fairly good understanding and education in film, the film category will be the 25 best films of the decade. Each category will have 25 entries and they will be posted as individual posts, whenever I get around to it, hopefully finishing by the end of the year. Here are the criteria for each:

Music
-I've posted a best of list the last three years but the order of those lists will have no bearing on this list
-The number one factor in the list is continued listenability, basically if the album still gets a good number of plays years later
-Albums of original material only; no re-releases or live releases

Film
-Films are included based on their commercial U.S. release date. If that film had no release date, I will take IMDB or Netflix at their word.
-Experimental works won't be included. I just haven't seen enough over the past three years to even make a separate list.

Jeanne Dielman

Jeanne Deilman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975) [10]

Long known for being extremely hard to see and extremely long, Jeanne Dielman is nothing short of a minimalist masterpiece. Derided by some as being 'watch Jeanne Dielman cook", it's the film's rigid structure that makes it work perfectly. That the film documents the often monotonous daily routine of the title character is a central theme of the feminist ideas that Akerman is addressing throughout the film. Jeanne (Delphine Seyrig) is a widowed mother living in Brussels, caring for her son and doing her daily chores while also serving men as a prostitute out of her apartment. As I said before, much of the film is static observation as Jeanne goes through her daily chores, from shopping to making dinner, to addressing her Johns, all in a highly structured manner. Akerman is addressing the stereotypical role of women in society, especially the idea that women should stay home and be caretakers. The genius of Seyrig's performance as Jeanne is that she goes through all these actions with a vaguely emotionless, detached presence. She becomes a prostitute for extra money but also for some excitement, which is another stereotype that Akerman brings up. That none of what Jeanne does is fulfilling is obvious but she keeps up her routine because she has nothing else to fill up her day. By the end of the film, fissures have started to show and there's a fantastic sequence of Jeanne quietly sitting alone in her apartment, her daily routine completely broken down and her left to contemplate. The only real scene of action takes place at the end, a desperate woman in need to get out of a desperate situation. What Jeanne Dielman and Akerman do so well is to use the structure of the film to critique women's' roles in society by showing and never really telling. It's obvious some will never get passed the "boring" nature of this. For someone like myself, who has waited years to see this, it was well worth it.

Some more quick reviews

Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994/2008) [6]
A visually stunning film, but I never found it as engrossing as something like In the Mood for Love. The plot is a bit too obtuse and the subject matter never quite intrigued me. It does look nice though.

Made in U.S.A. (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966) [6]
Influenced by American film noir and pop culture, the film is really a strange hybrid of its influence. Anna Karina plays a woman investigating her boyfriend's murder but gets entangled in a mess of more murders and some other things, I think. Existing somewhere between Pierrot le Fou and Weekend it has neither the frantic scroll of the former or the revolutionary deconstructionism of the latter.

I Love You, Man (John Hamburg, 2009) [3]
A step below Apatow-like picture about a guy with no guy friends (Paul Rudd) out to find by the time he gets married. In what is essentially the same template as a romantic comedy, he finds an off-kilter man-child (Jason Segel) who almost sabotages the whole proceedings. Of course, all ends up well. The ideas and characters here are nothing that haven't been seen in any number of recent comedies. It's only Rudd's character at times that pulls the film from a complete piece of nonsense.

The Ice Storm (Ange Lee, 1997) [6]
A well-crafted film that suffers a little bit too much from important meaning syndrome. Focusing on a disintegrating family in Connecticut over Thanksgiving weekend, Lee is adept at conveying the whirlwind of emotions going on, especially the adolescent sexuality that is the strength of Rick Moody's novel. At the end, the film becomes too much of a 'serious indie' that it becomes stuffed with emotional moments that drag the film down a bit.

Adventureland

Adventureland (Greg Mottola, 2009) [7]

Adventureland is a sweet, thoughtful film about early twenty somethings dealing with that strange middle ground between being thrust into the real world and still being able to hang out all summer and smoke pot. It's about characters who are somewhat misfits, who can talk about 80s college rock and Russian literature while working in a horrible amusement park job. It's about living in the mid 80s and yet it rarely uses its nostalgia for cheap laughs or exploitation. In short, it's just about everything that most Hollywood films of its kind are not: smart, thoughtful, and tethered to some semblance of reality.

James (played with the right mix of intellectual awkwardness by Jesse Eisenburg) is a recent college graduate getting ready to head to grad school. His family's financial situation forces him to take a thankless job working at a second-rate amusement park, manning the less than honorable games booths. It's in this lost summer that he falls for Em (Kristen Stewart), another games employee who is involved in a complicate relationship with her family as well as a clandestine affair with the park's married maintenance man (Ryan Reynolds). Both Eisenburg and Stewart are superb in understated roles; they're not flashy performances, but they're rooted in a truthfulness for characters their age. Things get moving, they get complicated, they fall apart but none of it feels forced or in authentic. Mottola, who never makes the characters over dramatic archetypes, cares enough about them to make them actual humans, which many movies about people this age completely ignore.

Every performance in Adventureland makes sense, from the purely comedic supporting roles of Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig to the more nuanced and fleshed out performances of Reynolds and Martin Starr as James's nebbishy, Russian literature loving co-worker. Reynolds' character especially, though not always prominent, is an interesting figure. As a musician who's supposedly played with Lou Reed, he's an epitome of cool to the kids working at the park. As the film progresses, his actions show him to be someone completely else to the world outside Adventureland, which James begins to recognize. It's the more colorful characters surrounding the two main ones that add to the film while never taking away from the central relationship story. These characters aren't cheap 80s stereotypes and they're not there for cheap laughs. There are definite 80s "guys" and there are characters used for laughs but they're all treated with some sense of thoughtfulness for their use. It's a credit to Mottola's smart writing that everything feels integral to the story at large.

The only issue I have with the film is its use of kindred spirit characters. James occupies a world that's on the surface appears very anti-intellectual and soul-deadening but ends up finding people like himself in Em and Joel. Granted, Pittsburgh, where the film is set is a bit bigger than where I live, but its seems a little too convenient that characters like this exist for James to connect to. I happen to work in a soul-deadening job in a depressing city and I have never met anyone in my job who could tell me who Dostoevsky or the Velvet Underground where. While I recognize and sympathize with these characters, I do feel a sense of jealousy for James in that you would be able to find someone like Em at a place like Adventureland. But after all, it's still only a film.

The Essential Collection - Woodstock

Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music (Michael Wadleigh, 1970) [10]

There is no doubt in my mind that without Woodstock the film, Woodstock the event would not have nearly the cultural cache it has enjoyed over the last forty years. Really, without the film, Woodstock would have probably been an afterthought of the hippie culture, a music festival where a lot of kids showed up, it rained, and almost everything else went wrong, from the throngs of people closing down roads, to not enough food, to bands going on at crazy times. It's a testament to Wadleigh's film that Woodstock and Woodstock are documents of a defining time in a culture that was essential to understanding America in the latter half of the 20th century. It's come to signify something a lot more than just a concert, just what is up for discussion, but there's no doubt that it's the power of cinema that made it so.

Woodstock is the greatest concert documentary ever made but for reasons other than its performances. Wadleigh clearly understood that something greater than a music festival was happening that weekend and he made sure to capture just as much of the surroundings and the people as the performers. There are some good to great performances in the film, Sly & the Family Stone, Santana, Ten Years After, and Joe Cocker among others. But there were nearly as many flat performances as good ones, due to bands often going on closer to daylight than midnight (even though there's a endearing interest in me for Jefferson Airplane's set at daybreak). The performance sequences are helped by the split screen format that Wadleigh adapted for much of the film. It works by allowing the film to cram as many different angles and as much action in the screen space as possible but it also helps intensify the performances. The edits and crowd shots during the Santana performance are practically flawless. It was a style that became imitated and adapted for many music documentaries that followed.

It can be argued that what Woodstock captured other than the music became the more important aspect of the film. What the film did that the press coverage really didn't do was cast a non-cynical eye on what exactly occurred. Clearly the film looks upon the young people with a sympathetic eye, and wants to capture just how peaceful and together the crowd was. What the film help emphasize and contribute to history was that Woodstock was something other than just a festival. Over the years the film has cemented the legacy of Woodstock and all its stands for in the cultural lexicon: how it was the high water mark for the counterculture and how that culture showed it can operate in less than stellar circumstances and operate the way they wanted. I feel some of this is just self-righteous Boomer nostalgia but there's no denying that a lot of shit went less perfect that weekend and how now, everybody that was there looks back with rose-colored glasses. That is more a testament to what the film achieved than what the event achieved because it cemented what Woodstock meant to the culture at large rather than just those who were there.

My favorite moment in the film is when a boy and a girl who hitchhiked to the festival are being interviewed. They're not even at the festival yet so the actual Woodstock experience means nothing here. What the interviewer asks are a series of broader questions that end with essentially, why did you come here? The guy answers that he, like many others, were looking for something. For what, he's not exactly sure but what he does know is that by coming here, maybe it would bring the answer, as was the case for many others. A scene like that shows the power that the music of that time had on the culture. That Woodstock and its acts was a representation of the mainstream youth culture of the late 60s is almost astounding to someone of my generation. I've been to Bonnaroo many times, which is the largest festival in this country but still essentially a niche festival. I guarantee two-thirds of the acts on a Bonnaroo bill would be unheard of by 8 out 10 people, even in my own age-group (18-34). There is no mainstream or unifying youth culture anymore. The Internet, while great in getting musical acts exposed, has fractured the music industry so much that something along the lines of Woodstock could never happen again. The meat head rape extravaganza of Woodstock '99 proved that. What may be Woodstock's greatest testament is that its belongs to an entire generation and not just an enlightened few.

Gigantic

Gigantic (Matt Aselton, 2009) [7]

I've made my preferences known on these so-called quirky indie comedies. I don't particularly care for them. So why do I like this one? I really don't have a great answer other than there are a handful of moments in this film I really did like. I didn't find it nearly as cloying cute and quirky as something like (500) Days of Summer. By no means is this a great film in terms of how its crafted and how its story is executed. It feels to me that Aselton has an emotional timbre in his writing and his directing that connect with me. All the pieces of Gigantic don't quite meld together perfectly but there's just something on a personal movie going experience that I identify with in the characters and Aselton as writer/director.

As for the story, Paul Dano plays Brian, a morose mattress salesman trying to adopt a child from China. One day the daughter of a man who bought a mattress from him comes in (Zooey Deschanel). She falls asleep in the store and that leads to a relationship and a series of events you could label quirky if you wish. The story goes back and forth from being not being entirely believable to being too constructed to create something between the characters. That Dano and Deschanel are so likable and effective in their characterizations that keep the flaws in the story from being too obvious. Deschanel once again plays the same type of character she always seems to play but then again, she's the reason why I'm watching these films. She plays Harriet not as just a perpetually quirky girl but someone with some real conflicts. There is a underlying melancholy and directionless in Harriet as there is in Brian and these two characters together seem to be the answer for each other. Deschanel also sells the character by bringing sly elements of sexiness to the role, such as casually asking Brian if he would like to have sex with her in a doctor's waiting room or the way she takes her earrings off and lets them clang to a pool deck (a really great moment by the way). As for Brian, perhaps the reason I can identify is that the character is a little too close to myself, other than the wanting to adopt a kid part. Dano is an actor I've never had any particular interest in but he has the perfect look and temperament for the role. Brian is a lonely guy with a dead-end career looking for some sort of connection. I guess if you happen to see something in a character like that, the film will appeal to you.

The film's best moments are between these two. The quirk factor comes in from supporting perform aces by John Goodman and Ed Asner among others. And then there's the Zach Galifinakis character, as a homeless man threatening and attacking Brian, taking everything out into left field for a couple of sequences. What to make of it? I was completely perplexed by it at first but after reading some other reviews, it's become pretty clear (I don't want to give any spoilers so I won't reveal it here). The series of encounters never really explain itself in the film and that could be a major reason why it could be seen as the film biggest flaw. The average filmgoer has been expected to have everything that they see on the screen explained in full for them. It is alright to have some ambiguity and let the audience figure it out. Aselton isn't required to tell you everything and there's something to be said in my book for the way he handles the story, leaving a lot of ends open. It creates the feeling that a lot of Gigantic was just a brief glimpse of two characters at a certain point.

I've made this point before that saying that there are certain elements that can override flaws in a film. One I've never really brought up is how an emotional reaction to a film can make something that may not be seen as very good to others important to you. There's only been a handful of films that have an emotional timbre that really makes an impression to me, Lost & Delirious and Night & the City being the two best examples. Gigantic is just going to be a film that I will get a lot more than other critics or viewers.

Monthly Listening Post - August 2009

I should really stop calling this the monthly listening post since I can't quite seem to keep it updated on a monthly basis. Since it has been so long, this month's list will be the five latest albums I've picked up.

Bowerbirds - Upper Air
Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane
Diane Birch - Bible Belt
Roadside Graves - My Son's Home (available only as mp3 download)
Jefferson Airplane - The Woodstock Experience (2 disc set that contains Volunteers, as well as their entire Woodstock set.)

Lengthy, rambling reviews coming up for Gigantic as well as Woodstock, a week or so after I intended to post it.

(500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009) [6]

It's a testament to how shitty the romantic comedy genre is that a film that does anything out of convention gets big accolades. (500) Days of Summer certainly isn't a standard rom-com but it still has a lot of elements of that genre running through. Quirky characters, a non-linear structure, or a dance sequence to Hall & Oates isn't going to make it otherwise. One of the problems I have when trying to wrap up my thoughts on a film like this is how much I dislike film like these. Not dislike from being a romantic comedy but being another "off-beat" Fox Searchlight film that are supposedly indies but are just mainstream fare with something different. With the exception of the second half of Juno, I find these films to be nothing exciting, challenging, or interesting.

The one saving grace of (500) Days of Summer are the performances of its two leads: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Their characters and the situations around them are rooted in much of the cliches that make up the romantic comedy genre, but each give off enough likability that they let it pass. Gordon-Levitt especially, as the mopey dope who believes in true love, knows when to be subtle and reign in moments that easily could have been too much. Deschanel's performance is good mostly because she's been playing a variation of the same character in almost every other film she's in. And there are plenty of moments between the two that are cringe-worthy for someone like myself who doesn't like a lot of this stuff. Yet, through Webb's consistent handling of the characters and the material, there's just enough serious understanding and examination of relationships and what love means that make me not dislike it. Unlike most films of its sort, it tries to address the audience in an intelligent way about its story and characters. And for that, it deserves some credit.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (Rawson Marshall Thurber, 2008) [5]

I don't feel this is nearly as bad as some of the reviews out there but I may be a bit biased because I am such a fan of Chabon's writing. The main problem here is that the film has sucked almost all the lyrical flow of the novel out and what's left is a fairly standard coming of age film. It's a testament to Chabon that he took such a hackneyed story and made something truly interesting out of it. Thurber is handcuffed by his medium and his own over-earnest portrayal of the material. Art, played blandly by Jon Forster, is a character that instead of seeing the film through his experiences, mostly is acted upon by everyone around him. It ends up creating a character that practically sucks everything interesting and enjoyable out of the film. Peter Sarsgaard's performance helps keeps much of it afloat as much as a supporting character can. It's only at the end, with some scenes between Art and Jane (Sienna Miller doing nothing much up to this point) that finally get some of Chabon's themes effectively done.

I admittedly had dreadful expectations for this seeing that The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is one of my favorite novels and Thurber's only previous film was Dodgeball. He came into the film knowing the material and really tried to make a great film from a great book. That the film is so wrapped up in its a sense of overwrought obedience to the novel, it takes away much of the power of the written word. It creates a feeling that this film was the best anyone could have done with the material.

Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film 1947-1986

Treasures IV: American Avant Garde Film 1947-1986) (Various Filmmakers)

All be told, this was a pretty underwhelming collection. Being a retrospective, there's going to be a wide range of filmmakers and styles present here, from the more abstract expressionist New York experimental film to less serious West Coast film to things that can't be categorized. There's a lot of big names here: Brakhage, Jacobs, Warhol, Baillie, Cornell, Land, Frampton, and Shartis. The problem with the collection as a whole may be that by trying to be an all-encompassins showcase, there's never any thematic continuity to the work. It's a little difficult to move from the abstract animations of Robert Breer to something along the lines of Warhol or Land. I believe to really understand experimental film, you've got to see more than one film of a filmmaker or have an in-depth discussion of that work. Watching these by yourself in your home leaves no where to turn to really figure out what's behind these works. Besides that, on a personal level, I find a lot of what's on these discs not all to great. The standout films on this collection were (nostalgia) by Hollis Frampton (which I've seen many times before), I, An Actress by George Kuchar, and Go! Go! Go! by Marie Menken. The Brakhage and Jacobs are films I'd hadn't seen but found them not quite my favorite of their works. Other filmmakers such as Owen Land, Bruce Baillie, Standish Lawder also have some interesting selections here but I would like to see more of their work to get a little better understanding. Even with all its flaws, the collection has to be commended for at least getting experimental work out on DVD and hopefully to more people.

Zabriskie Point

Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970) [6]

In my opinion, not quite top notch Antonioni and certainly not an accurate portrayal of the counterculture. It's hard to try to portray what Zabriskie Point actually is other than a curiosity. The film's strongest scenes are its critique of American consumer capitalism. These are exceptional scenes on a more formal level. If I could base my opinion on just those elements alone, it would be a near exceptional film. It's when Antonioni attempts to tie in the counterculture movement, the film becomes ineffective. The two main characters are certainly Antonioni characters, yet they are out of place in the movement they're supposed to embody. It all ends up creating a final film that has its moments but has no real connection to the audience it was meant to find. Time has rendered some of the initial negativity to the film mute. The point could be made now that the film was never meant the type of counterculture youth film like Easy Rider. It's valid in regards to Antonioni and his work but there's no denying that it's examining a group of people that he really doesn't know them the way he might think. It still feels too out of touch with the actual reality of the times.

Backlog Update

There will be some new reviews coming shortly.

A collection of one sentence reviews

I've got a little backlog of films going on. Instead of laboring through reviews of each, I've decided to give just a few thoughts on each of them.

Momma's Man (Azazel Jacobs, 2008) [7]
A man at mid-life crisis decides to skirt all responsibilities and move back home. It's certainly more interesting when your parents are avant-garde luminaries like Ken Jacobs. Still, the younger Jacobs has some nice moments when dealing with how being a child never really leaves us at all.

Wilco: Ashes of American Flags (Brendan Canty, 2008) [6]
The live performances show a unit operating at peak potential. Beyond being a serviceable concert film, there's little intrigue or anything of interest.

Hollywoodland (Allen Coulter, 2006) [5]
A good noir story about the possibilities of the death of George Reeves gets bogged down with a similar story involving a down on his luck P.I. (Adrien Brody). The most interesting elements of the film revolve not so much in the characters' stories but in the subtle examinations of how classic Hollywood worked.

Fillmore: The Last Days (I can't remember, 1972) [6]
A clear knock-off in style from Woodstock, the performances by the likes of the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and a band called Lamb are good. The negative is that it's basically a puff piece for Bill Graham and his ego. Graham is a great guy in terms of building a musical empire but there's always been something about the guy that I've never really liked.

On Not Going to Bonnaroo and the Redemptive Qualities of the Hold Steady

This past weekend I was supposed to be at Bonnaroo. I had a ticket, had a flight booked and had all my stuff ready to go. Then I looked at the weather for the weekend and had a massive anxiety attack. The threat of being stuck in just a tent with the threat of severe thunderstorms did me in. So, in a nutshell, instead of enjoying the relatively nice weekend in Tennessee, I threw away a couple of hundred dollars over basically nothing.

The whole weekend wasn't lost however, as the Hold Steady came to Ithaca last night. One of the only regrets I had about going to Bonnaroo was that I was going to miss this show. I'm kind of glad things worked out the way they did because seeing the Hold Steady in a small, intimate venue is one of the great concert experiences I've ever had. This is a band that is meant to be seen in a cramped, sweaty space with as many people as possible crammed into the place. Simply put, it was a great show. Both times I have seem them, there's no lack of enthusiasm in what The Hold Steady does and it clearly rubs off on the audience. It was rowdy, there was a lot of beer, a lot of fist pumping, a lot of singing along: all what a great rock & roll show should do. While the Hold Steady may not be the most popular band out there, I'm hard pressed to find a band that has such a intense, die hard following among the people that really care about them. They're a band with no real middle ground, either you really love them or you don't care for them. And from I saw in Ithaca, just about everybody there was there because they really love the music and not just there because a somewhat well-known band was in town.

There are certain groups or bands that make you believe that rock & roll means something more than just simple entertainment. For me, The Hold Steady is band that is all in and believe in what they do, that maybe rock & roll can save your soul. I want to thank them for making my weekend.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher, 2008) [7]

I have no real reason to like this film but ultimately, I do. It's a visually exceptional piece of work, proving that David Fincher is a fantastic technical director. The pristine cinematography and seamless, lifelike special effects give the film a visual flair that is impressive. I have found that while Fincher' films are stylistically accomplished, they still manage to come off sterile and a little cold. It works in something like Zodiac, where a stringent mathematical obsession is a main theme of the film. In TCCoBB, story definitely lags behind visuals. A lot of comparisons to Benjamin's story have been made to Forrest Gump and they're true. The screenplay deals a lot with the generalities of life and death, living and loving, without anything really exceptional or interesting to say about them. Benjamin Button(Brad Pitt) was born an old man, he ages backwardly, he meets Daisy (Cate Blanchett), they drift apart and meet again over the years, time drags on, and they both die: that's about the entire story. There's nothing really meaningful to get out of Benjamin's experiences or his relationship with Daisy. He, Gumplike, weaves in and out of situations in life, and the viewer is expected to believe all of his highly implausible life experiences as uplifting and life-affirming. It's a way of extracting emotions at the benefit of any actual real character or story development.

The question is, if why can I see through the film's glaring holes, why do I still like it? A lot of this has to do with Fincher's visual mastery. There are so many finely crafted moments, from the little lightning vignettes down to the way New Orleans streets look, that make the world surrounding these characters so vibrant and believable despite what the characters make you believe. The other main attribute to the film are the performances. I may not like how they're drawn but the charisma in the performances of Pitt, Blanchett, and especially Taraji P. Henson as Benjamin's mother sucker me in. Pitt really achieves something more than I expected as he gives Benjamin a melancholy that permeates his flashy adventures. He is a much better actor than what I had given him credit for. I may not agree on the meaning of the story but the performance of those characters makes up for it. After all, I have many of the same issues with Forrest Gump, yet it still sucks me in and I enjoy watching it. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button works on me for the same inexplicable reasons.

Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008) [5]

I really don't like horror movies. You've got to something extra ordinary to get me to really get over this. Let the Right One In almost does this in regards to atmosphere but ends up failing in the plot department. Alfredson blends genres here, a vampire film that could also be about pubescent outcasts with enough gore to give the people who frequent Dark Horizons a kick. Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is a lonely 12 year old, bullied at school and a fractious home life in dismal early 80s Sweden. He meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), another social outcast with a good reason for her isolation, she's a vampire. The two actually a fairly good job in their performances and their relationship story is fairly well done. The problem here comes from the other genre playing against Oskar and Eli's relationship. The horror/vampire aspect of the story falls into a such a standard (or absurd depending how you look at it) plotline that it really kills the film for me. It's a shame because the film is much more an examination of how terrible being a kid can be. But for me, the gore and the vampire angle don't mean much. The film could have been just as good if Eli was a regular girl and not a vampire. Alfredson does a good job in the first half of the film injecting it with a dark moodiness that exploits the white, expressionless landscape Oskar inhabits. The second half of the film moves away from those visual strengths and more into a standard narrative that wrecks the atmospheric flourishes that made the film seem somewhat promising. Let the Right One In may a nice horror film but I am someone who wouldn't really care if that was the case.

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard, 2008) [5]

Having just read Rick Perlstein's sprawling yet engrossing Nixonland, it's really hard to garner any sympathy for Richard Nixon. So, seeing a film that paints a conflicting, humanizing picture of Nixon is not going to work for me. Frost/Nixon more problems than just it's portrayal of Richard Nixon. It hamstrung by Ron Howard's pedestrian direction and a story that add no more insight than history has already told. The film attempts to dramatize the events that led to the David Frost/Richard Nixon to a point that almost makes them ridiculous. Frost is portrayed a lightweight celebrity that also has to somehow overcome all this adversity just to get the interviews. Then, in the only way he becomes serious about it is when Nixon yanks him around for entire first interview session. It's all meant to create drama and tension to the big payoff, when Frost gets some sort of mild apology out of Nixon for his role in Watergate. It all may have been interesting but the way its framed and the way Howard film it give it nothing more than the feel of the standard Hollywood prestige picture. This bleeds into the phone conversation sequence between the two men in between interviews. A lot of the emotion in the scene seems honest, as one of the key points of Perlstein's book was Nixon's constant inferiority/hatred towards those he deemed more fortunate or privileged than him. The problem with it filmically is that it is too much of a plot manipulation piece, a scene there just to give Frost an opportunity to find an opening in Nixon. As a examination of Nixon's character it fits but it's too stagy for a film. Aside from that scene, Frank Langella's performance is the only aspect that I could mildly recommend out of this film. And there hasn't been a more overrated director maybe in history than Ron Howard. If you want maudlin portrayals of history, he's your guy.

Wendy and Lucy

Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008) [8]

Once again, Reichardt has created another insightful, minimalist neo-realist film full of subtle moments that tell a lot more than they show. Instead of the male bonding metapyshics of Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy is on the surface a simpler tale of a woman and her dog. Michelle Williams plays Wendy, a young woman on her way to a cannery job in Alaska on a shoestring budget, travelling only with her dog Lucy. While in Oregon, a series of events occur to her that push her to her breaking point: getting arrested for shoplifting, having her car break down, and losing her dog. Williams handles all this is in a supremely subtle yet affecting way. The increasing complications of her predicament seem to put her in a state of a near breakdown but Williams plays Wendy with a inward stoicism that won't allow her. It creates a performance that allows the viewer to empathize while never being emotionally manipulative. This is especially true of the ending, which is emotional but never pulls emotional strings the way a Hollywood film would have. It's the strength of Williams's performance as well as the film's simple yet effective scenes that make this a profound film.

Some reviews have brought up the sociopolicial commentary of the film and just who Wendy is. The only questionable point I have with the film is this. Much is never told of who exactly Wendy is and why she is going to Alaska. On the surface, it appears that Wendy is a drifter, attempting to scrape by on her way to a better job, sleeping in her car with her dog and getting every penny out of her meager funds. The film has an undercurrent of showing a different side of America, of people at the bottom end of the economic ladder. The film is full of moments with other characters barely scraping by, especially the moments with Wendy and the security guard (Walter Dalton), a guy doing a thankless job because it's all he can get. And yet there are points of Wendy's character that don't fit this paradigm. From her wardrobe to her meticulous planning to the phone conversation with her family back home, there's this idea within me that makes Wendy a dropout more than a drifter. More than being stuck on the bottom rung of the ladder, Wendy seems to have placed herself there by choice. I'm not sure if that's completely clear, but it creates this conflict of authenticity in her character. I guess the point would be does this hamstring the film? When all's said and done, not that much. Wendy and Lucy's strengths far outnumber one somewhat minor point of contention.

They Were What I Thought They Were

Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008) [3]/ The Reader (Stephen Daldrey, 2008) [4]

It's been a while since I've posted anything any reviews, mostly on the account of my trip to Las Vegas. My feelings on both of these are about the same: I had an inkling before viewing them that I wasn't going to care for them much and I was pretty much correct.

I don't get all the hype surrounding Slumdog Millionaire. I don't care for Boyle's directing style, so strike one. As for the story, it is a series of contrivances that are in complete service to the game show element of the plot. Jamal's backstory is there for no other reason to be able to use the story of a slum kid overcoming his past for success. The film has no real insight or critique of poverty in India. The film is shot and seen through a postcard, touristy prism of India. For me, there seems to be a disconnect from the portrayal of Jamal's impoverished upbringing and the fairy-tale nature of the story. The film has the disguise of a social drama but it never really wants to dwell on the bad stuff. And that the film falls back into its pre-destined, feel good ending, bread and butter for a mainstream American audience, completely turns me off.

The Reader isn't that much better as it takes its important issues and smooths the edges out for the audience. The problem here is that the film is about a lot of issues: the Holocaust, sexuality, German guilt, power are mentioned but never really examined that deeply. There is the issue of believability, not in the story, but in the characters, who never create any empathy with the audience. They're fairly wooden performances actually, even for stoic German characters. Daldry keeps the chronology moving on a consistent basis but in doing so, he ends up sweeping moments away that could have benefited from closer examination. The film would have worked much better as a deeper examination of German guilt. The film tries to be too many films for too many people to have an effective impact. That, and it really ended up being a boring film.

A Few Words About Scrubs

As I've said before, I don't watch much t.v. but one of the shows I've never missed is Scrubs, which had its possible series finale last night. During its first season, I accidentally stumbled into the show and it has become my favorite program over its last eight seasons. The show was completely mistreated by NBC with changing days, time slots, or take off the schedule altogether. Thankfully, ABC stepped in for this season and with constant play in syndication or Comedy Central, it earned a respectful finale.

No matter how much I like the show, it's been obvious over the past two or three seasons that the show is struggling to stay consistent. First it fell into the standard sitcom traps of babies and marriage, one of the main reasons why I hate most sitcoms. Plots also got to ridiculous or fantastical (the season finale from season 7) or characters that really made no sense (Hooch) or ones that I simply hated (Lloyd the delivery guy). The first part of this season saw a return to past strengths, blending smarter jokes and the pathos of everyday reality in a hospital, what endeared me to the show in the first place. The past few episodes, aside of Neil Flynn's riffs as the Janitor (he has been unbelievable), it seemed the right time to end the show.

Last night's finale was what I've come to expect out of latter-day Scrubs: some good janitor moments and jokes but overall underwhelming as a whole (and a great song selection, "Book of Love", a Magnetic Fields cover by Peter Gabriel). The end treads into sentimental remembrances and bringing back old characters, traditional television finale territory. And yet the actors and creator Bill Lawrence don't make it feel schmaltzy even though it followed all the standard Scrubs cues. It was a finale that never really finalized that much. These characters will still be moving on in their lives. The show just happens to be stopping in a certain point in the timeline. There were no weddings, no twists, no more new babies, no feeling of clear resolution. Now some of this leaves the door open to the show coming back next year in a modified form, something ABC hasn't ruled out. But I think it's best to allow Scrubs to go out now, to keep it in my mind a show that was well worth my time.

Happy-Go-Lucky

Happy Go Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2008) [5]

I guess there are two ways to look at Happy Go Lucky. One would be to look at the film and its main character, Poppy, as a refreshing breath of cheerful optimism in a world overrun with dour, depressing news. The other way, in which I see the film, is that Poppy is such a grating character that it overrides any other feelings I have about the film. Her constant jabbering and bubbly persona aren't quite my favorite qualities in people or characters. My unlike for her hangs over everything that it's all that remains after the film is over. It's a bit of a shame because Sally Hawkins really does a great job, and her character is a nuanced character, not just a one-dimensional chatterbox that my earlier statements make it sound like. The other issue that plagues the film is Leigh rigs the film to create a conflict of characters. As Poppy is cheerful and talkative, Scott the driving instructor is dark, conspiratorial, and prone to fits of range. He role as a right-wing fanatical nut job who misunderstands the entirety of his relationship with Poppy is the crux of the film. I find it too highly contrived and constructed to meet the purpose it does. Again, it's a shame because there are plenty of moments where Leigh takes his time to examine these characters' lives. It those quieter moments, in that they don't revolve around Poppy and Scott's conversations, that work best. They just aren't enough to make the film any more tolerable for me.

Listening Post - April 2009

This will kind of serve as an updated listening post/live music review section of the month. Some interesting new releases so let's get them out of the way:

The Felice Brothers - Yonder is the Clock
Bonnie Prince Billy - Beware
Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels
Gomez - A New Tide
Woods - Songs of Shame

Even with the demise of Binghamton's only major music venue, The Magic City Music Hall, there has still been a surprising amount of good shows in the vicinity in the past few months. One of the highlights of the past month was the Gomez/Josh Ritter show in Ithaca. This may be biased since I'm a big Josh Ritter fan, but his set was one of the most enjoyable live music experiences I've had in a while. The show was switched to a smaller venue in Ithaca, The Haunt, and all I can say is thank you Upstate New York for the lack of general interest. All that resulted was an enthusiastic crowd in an intimate venue that made the night. Gomez, while formidable, really lacked in punch compared to the enthusiastic Ritter. Here's hoping Josh makes a stop in Ithaca or someplace nearby sometime soon.

The next week or so brings a slew of interesting shows to the area back to back to back. April 20 has Neko Case in Ithaca, the 21st has the Felice Brothers in Ithaca, and the 22nd has the Dead bringing it to Wilkes-Barre. Probably won't be heading to Ithaca but early word and listening on the Dead tour shows some promise. More on that later...

Pineapple Express

Pineapple Express (David Gordon Green, 2008) [4]

If this was just a little bit tongue in cheek in regards to its action sequences, I might be able to get behind it. Instead, what starts out as a fairly funny film tuns into a big, violent, pointless mess that wouldn't seem out of place in something produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Clearly, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are using the spectacular action feature as their basis but adding nothing more than having pothead protagonists. If there was some bite behind their structure, something that Trey Parker & Matt Stone do so well, it would actually be a good film instead of some funny moments in a forgettable waste. This is not to say this is a total waste however. The two strongest elements of the film are David Gordon Green's direction, which has some sly allusions to B-movie production and James Franco's performance. Franco plays a character with nuance and vulnerability, a drug dealer who loves his bubbe and wants to be a civil engineer. Rogen's character, on the other hand, is just another in the long line of loud man-children with type A personalities that I've had enough of in Apatow productions. I mean, there are laughs with these two in straightforward pot humor (look how high these morons are) but I almost feel ashamed that I would actually laugh at some of these antics. When the film moves towards its cataclysmic orgy of violence at the end, it would be hard to believe this was actually a comedy at some point. Considering who was involved, Pineapple Express comes as a disappointment. But after looking back, there isn't much here that makes me think I was going to like it very much in the first place.

Role Models

Role Models (David Wain, 2008) [7]
Despite its predictable story structure and ending, Role Models more than makes up for its deficiencies in laughs. And as I've said many times before in regards to comedies, all I really am asking for is to laugh, so this film more than meets my expectations. Yet, there is something about Role Models that goes a little deeper in that it really seems to care about its characters and not just using their idiosyncrasies to get laughs. The film has more than its share of crude, juvenile moments but in the end, it's never using its story or its characters for cheap laughs at their expense. In a film world where comedy is all to eager to have us laugh at losers or misanthropes at the expense of them being actually characters, it's nice to see a film actually think. Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott play two energy drink salesmen who are required to mentor some unusual kids as a result of Rudd's character having a meltdown. It's not so much Scott's character or his little person, a hilarious yet somewhat hollow Bobb'e Thompson as an obscenely foulmouthed child. It is Rudd as a coldly cynical adult whose dreams have been shattered and Christopher Mintz-Plasse as a totally insular geek that make the film worth its while. Rudd's character is actually tethered to reality, as someone who realizes what a shit hole life can be while Scott, playing the same exact character he almost always manges to play, the horny party boy, is uses as a counterpoint. But it is Rudd as Danny that actually gives the laughs some sting, as being in a dead end in a job and relationship isn't something that might not be that fun personally. The crux of the film is Mintz-Plasse as Augie, a loner lost in the fantasy world that plays a key role in the film. Never once do I think that the film uses Augie or this world for cheap laughs but instead actually takes the time to know about and care about a character such as this. It makes the film enjoyable instead of having cringe-worthy moments. Points shouldn't be taken away because the film follows such a predictable structure but it is surprising for someone like David Wain to make such a film seeing how Wet Hot American Summer was so all over. It may be all worth it.