C'est Non Un Blog

——Waking Life——

(B+)

This is a good film that could have been great had the plotting of the film been a little tighter. At first glance that sentence doesn’t really make much sense, since as a movie about dreaming the film automatically qualifies for the condition of not needing to be tightly scripted. And I’m not saying that it needs to have a A to B to C type plot, but what it could use is a little more focus on what it is that the film is trying to portray. Half of the film is extremely interesting discourse on what it is to dream, what it means to dream, what we do in dreams, how to lucid dream, how to tell you are dreaming, etc. etc.; and yet the other half of the film diverges on a whole surplus of other existential philosophy that either A) has little to do with dreaming, B) sounds like the ramblings of college students buried in books with little sleep, or C) is so incomprehensible that it quickly becomes boring. What I would have liked to have seen is more interaction from the main character with his dream. Too often he just sits back and listens to whomever talk about whatever, without offering any input of own. While this feeds into the whole idea that this is a dream, i.e. we have to sit back and accept whatever just like he has to in his dream, it makes for a few boring moments where we wait impatiently for the next person to start talking. Even after the main character starts to lucid dream he still interacts little with everything around him. Instead of doing something, he asks a question where he earlier would have remained silent.

There is though lots of great discussions of dreaming and what it means (and, much to my delight, some discussion of death and dreaming) even if you have to sit through a few stinkers to get there. Also, there is the one thing I haven’t mentioned, the amazing animation created by drawing over the actors filmed in live action. At times the animation can look extremely realistic, and yet at other times appear to be quite abstract, and the backgrounds are never still, creating the allusion of dreaming through a world that is familiar and yet with something quite off to it. The animation is stunning, and for that alone the film is worth at least one viewing. Whether repeat viewings are in order, however, really has to how interested you are on the philosophy concerning dreaming and what it is we think is real.

——To Kill a Mockingbird——

(A)

This is one of the few sentimental, little guy standing up for what’s right films where I felt that not a single “moment” felt forced or was manipulated to coerce the audience into feeling more than what was the actual substance of the scene. Gregory Peck creates an impossibly good Good Guy, and we believe it because he truly becomes that character. He isn’t two dimensional either, since all of the material and emotion is there for him to turn into a more traditional character, and yet you can see in the film his conscious decision to do the right thing if not for himself, than for the example for his children.

The scene where he is spit on I think is one of the most powerful scenes put to film where “nothing” actually happens. There is this moment after he is spit on where you can just feel this electric tension in the air, and you expect Peck to finally flip out and hit this man (especially since this happens just after he told the wife of his client that her husband was shot to death). In any other film Peck would have decked him, and you can just tell that Peck WANTS to hit him, and yet he simply takes out his handkerchief and wipes the saliva away. The power of the scene comes from the inter-cutting of the reactions of the two men. The man who spit on him expects Peck to swing back. He’s asking for a fight. And yet as the time goes on and nothing happens you can see the other man trembling in anticipation. We can now see that the real coward isn’t Peck for turning the other cheek, who stands tall and proud in a non-violent state of defiance, but the other man who seems to shrink in front of him.

All of Peck’s power comes from the fact that we know that he can fight back. In the excellent scene where he has to kill the rabid dog, we find out that Peck is the best shot in town, and that even though he condones violence and refuses to carry a gun (or let his son have one) in every other scene in the movie, we know that if push came to shove he could use a gun, and use it well. He’s not afraid to shoot the dog like the other man because he knows its necessary. Likewise he decides to avoid violence throughout the rest of the film because he knows that it is NOT necessary. He shows more strength in not throwing a single punch than any number of other muscle-bound action-heroes. That’s why I appreciate the fact that the AFI named Atticus Finch American Films greatest hero over everyone else. Even in defeat he shows us to stand tall and stick with doing the right thing.

——Antwone Fisher——

(B-)

This film was interesting, and yet very, very boring. The progress of the film was back breakingly slow, the dialog was said usually in whispers or hushed tones, and by the end I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. The structure of the film started to feel a little contrived to me halfway in (especially after figuring out that the therapy sessions usually lasted no more than five minutes at a time. Denzel must be the greatest shrink ever, because Antwone would tell him, like, one little chunk of his childhood at a time and then Denzel would tell him he could go home. Don’t you usually stay the whole hour?) Denzel’s direction was just simply OK, and Antwone (the real one) needs to learn a little bit about pacing because I was dying between the seemingly eternity between key pieces of information. His story was interesting, but it was made bad just by holding out on me so long. Also the barely there subplot with Denzel with his wife either needed to be fleshed out more or taken out all together. The first few scenes you can’t even tell why they are in the picture. All and all I probably wouldn’t recommend this to anyone unless it was really their cup of tea.

——Solaris——

(A-)

I really liked this, and probably would have rated it higher if I actually had any idea what the hell happened in it. Steven Soderbergh makes some of his greatest use of color here, and the cinematography is really great. I really loved the soundtrack too; the strings, the bells, and the subtle techno beat just sounded really great together and added greatly to the mood of the film. George Clooney, who I usually don’t like, actually gave a performance in this film that I enjoyed and felt like it had some depth to it. I found it to be a very enjoyable science fiction film, thankfully taking me back to a time when science fiction movies were actually about something, although it would help if I actually knew what the message at the end of this film was. The movie was also unusually short. I would have expected at least a two-hour movie, or even a three hour one with the slow pace that this film had, but no, it was only about ninety minutes. I’m probably one of the few out there who wished it were longer, as I wanted to dig deeper into the meaning of Solaris and of the relationship between Clooney and his dead wife.

Here are my questions: Is Solaris God, or some sort of recently born god made of pure energy? Does Chris die and go to Heaven with his wife, or does he join Solaris and live with her forever in a construct universe? What’s the deal with the guy who killed the other him? Did he kill his visitor or was he the visitor like he claimed? What does that whole section with him even mean? What does the ending even mean?

——Through a Glass Darkly——

(A)

This 1961 Ingmar Bergman film is quite an amazing and beautiful film, shot perfectly with rich black and white compositions shot with natural lighting and using excellent use of depth of field. In it a small family is vacationing on a remote island. Karin, the main character, is a woman suffering from a mental disease that is slowly destroying her mind and making her crazy. In her fits she tries to find god in an empty room in the house where the decorative wallpaper is rotting and pealing off the walls, very easily standing in as a metaphor for her slowly unraveling mind. Her husband is there taking care of her, while her father, an emotionally distant hack writer, is writing about her mental decay in his diary in order to use it for his next book. His pillaging of ideas from his family is tearing him up inside, which is why he is constantly absent from the family on vacation in other countries, and he can bearly live with himself for what he is now doing with Karin. He’s become a monster feeding off the histories of other in order to sustain his writing career. Last in the family is the brother of Karin who is at the confused teenager stage of life who starts to develop an odd incest-like relationship with his sister when she starts to lose it, becoming much more sensual. The family’s relationship begins to disintegrate like Karin’s psyche, which is probing for god to open a door in the wall of the empty room so that she can join him. But when she does see the door open, all that is behind it is a spider, which causes her to flip out and they end up sending her to a mental institution. The film is a search for god and his intangible presence, and is done quite well. It has the intimacy of a stage performance, and yet the visual brilliance of a master at the top of his craft. The cinematography is wonderful, and Criterion has gone above and beyond the call of duty to bring us such a beautiful print.

——Rambo: First Blood Part II——

(C+)

This film is probably the most unintentionally hilarious film ever made. There is this scene where out of nowhere Rambo falls in love with this Vietnamese girl he just met (although she’s really Hawaiian, and this was really filmed in Mexico not Vietnam, and most of the cast looks either Mexican or Filipino, but who notices things like that, right?) they kiss (really, like in the middle of nowhere Stallone decides there needs to be a love story) and immediately afterwards she gets shot like twenty times. Now he’s cradling her in his arms while she says her last (unintentionally hilarious) words. It’s hilarious. What would make it more hilarious? Maybe if he when she died he looked up into the sky and screamed “NOOOOOOO!”? (Well actually, according to the documentary there was such a scene in the film, which they cut after test audiences couldn’t stop laughing after watching it.) This film is so all over the place that it only gets funnier and funnier as you go along. The Vietnamese look like World War II Japanese half the time (God knows why) the Russians (yes there are Russians, and lots of them) fly around in Army surplus Bell helicopters, and the US Army takes its orders from a bureaucrat and a computer. Rambo must blow up every house in Vietnam, it’s crazy. The best scene has to be the one where he has the standoff with the Vietnamese officer. The officer has two guns, Rambo has just a bow. The officer unloads about a hundred rounds at Rambo, but not a since one hits. Meanwhile Rambo takes like two hours to string up his bow, while this guy just unloads everything he’s got on him. Finally Rambo shoots a rocket tipped arrow at the officer and he blows up into a million pieces. That sort of stuff is just priceless. Rambo can materialize out of the forest and kill your ass, so look out. Also, with such lines as: “Sir, do we get to win this time?” and his teary eyed speech “I want what they want: for our country to love us as much as we love it, that’s what I want,” how could you not love this pro-POW American fighting soldier, anti-just about everyone else film?

I just remembered, I had two weird dreams last night.

In the first I was climbing/walking down a mountain with Mike Marlin. He was ahead of me and stepped down this rock formation. I tried doing it in a little jump and ended up with me flying off the edge (by some sort of weird dream/space walk logic). So I go falling off of the mountain, in slow motion mind you, and as I get to the ground I roll reflexively, knowing I’m going to be really hurt. Next thing I know I’m looking at my own cracked spine. Let’s just say that’s when I woke up at three in the morning.

The other dream I somehow realized that I had Jesus powers. All I had to do was will something and then say it and it would be true. Like “Make her clothes fall off” and then they come off. Only I had to say it in Latin. God knows why. That was an interesting dream.

Is this not the coolest movie title ever?

Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine

Awesome! I’d see that.

Also, more proof that I’m scary obsessive.

—-2003
Movies Seen: 204
New Movies Seen: 120
Movies Seen in the Theater: 33

—-August 2003
Movies Seen: 47
New Movies Seen: 33
Movies Seen in the Theater: 4

As you can see about a quarter of all the movies I’ve seen this year and of all of the new movies I’ve seen were in August alone. That’s pretty crazy. I’d like to get my movies seen in the theater average up, but so far it is about one film a week which is decent enough. Why are the numbers so big for August though (especially since the total of new movies I saw in June and July combined was only 14)? Well, the last three weekends I’ve gone to Blockbuster and gotten 5+ movies each time. That doesn’t hurt. Also, because of graduation money and my birthday I’ve gotten a whole crap load of new movies I’ve never seen before in the mail. I doubt I’ll get numbers as good as these for a while, but hey, you never know. In three days I’ve seen four movies, three new. And hopefully once I get my license I’ll be going out to the theater a lot more often.

Just in case there are any of you who don’t already do so, check out this blog: http://www.defectiveyeti.com/ It is frequently hilarious.

——Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers——

(A)

OK, let’s get the bad out of the way to start. This movie does have middle children syndrome. The first half-hour or so seems to stutter step forward like a car with engine troubles. Sam’s speech tying together the three plot threads is a little much (I much prefer the “What about Sam the Brave?” conversation that ends the film). There is not really enough character development in this one (because they are saving it for the end). And the special effects for the Gandalf/Balrog fight at the beginning are a little cheesy.

But these are all minor quibbles. Let’s face it, this film kicks ass! Helm’s Deep is amazing. The Ent’s storming Isengard is still one of the coolest, most surreal things I’ve ever seen. And who can forget Gollum? I’m still blown away at how realistic he looks, and how utterly fantastic his performance is. There seems to be a million different facial expressions trapped inside of him, all of them dynamically expressive without once bordering on becoming cartoonish. Gollum is the real heart of this film I think. His split personality struggle between wanting to be good again and wanting the ring has to be one of the most tragic stories put to the big screen last year. What a great film.

I’ve pretty much said all of that before though. So I’ll end with a few questions: At the beginning of the film there are only about 40 or so riders of Rohan. And yet there are thousands with Gandalf when they show up to save Helm’s Deep at the end. Where were all of the other riders? At one point Aragorn rides a ladder down into the mass of Orcs. How the hell did he get himself out of that mess? Before the Riders show up to save Helm’s Deep it looks like there are only about a dozen or so men left alive to defend the woman and children below. Is that right? Is everyone else dead? If so, is like the entire male elf population wiped out or what? And how does elf breeding work if you are immortal? Do you have like a million kids or what? Is there birth control? There would have to be, or else the world would be overrun with elves, right? And most importantly, is there any reason why Gimli has to take every orc out by nailing him in the balls with his axe? I’m just wondering.

——The Doors——

(B)

Watching this film is like getting a little too drunk or high: it starts out feeling great, you start grooving out to everything around you, but eventually you realize that you are really fucked up and you can’t get out of it. I’m not sure if this could be made into a better film; Jim Morrison is just way too fucked up. This film is all about his self-destructive behavior, which is interesting to see where it came from, but not so much to see where he ended up. Also, for a movie called “The Doors” the rest of the band had practically no standing in the film. They all just kind of stood around and watched while Morrison pissed his life away. Now maybe that is how it all really happened, but I have a hard time believing no one was just a little bit pissed off with his insane behavior. Their reaction here always seems to be to roll their eyes and walk away. Still, the soundtrack is amazing (of course) and the directing quite good. I’m starting to forgive Oliver Stone for his football movie, even if this film isn’t really one of his better ones. I think that’s really the script’s fault though. There is nowhere for it to go, and no one really seems to grow. “The End” sequence was really great though. I quite liked that, although it did signal the beginning of the madness for the film.

——The Good Girl——

(B-)

Although this is a very watchable film with plenty of great performances throughout, I didn’t really find anything about the script particularly exciting. It felt kind of like the product of a good script writing seminar: few flaws other than the fact that it isn’t particularly interesting. Jennifer Aniston’s character was pretty good, but it was really hard to see why she was really attracted to Jake Gyllenhaal’s whiny child-like character. (I don’t really understand where all of his buzz is coming from. For some reason he’s getting more attention than his much more talented sister Maggie, whom I love.) I mean, if anything he showed less maturity than her husband, a loser pothead. The only possible explanation I can find is that the ladies seem to find him to be hot, and he hated his life as much as she hated hers. Since he’s so un-likable (at least I think so) it wasn’t very surprising to see that she did in fact go back to her husband to have whomever’s baby. Unfortunately the good girl doesn’t exactly make for a good movie.

——Cape Fear (1991)——

(D-)

What the hell were they thinking? This film only furthers my belief that outside of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, Martin Scorcese isn’t a very good filmmaker. I mean what was this? Not only is this already a remake of a movie, but it is made to feel as if Alfred Hitchcock had come out to direct one more film. Martin has a firm grasp on all of Hitch’s best techniques; too bad he has no idea how to translate them into a good film. I mean is this movie suppose to be a joke, because that’s the only way I can see this film as a success? It so borders on self-parody that I have no trouble seeing why it has been spoofed so well by The Simpsons and Seinfeld. (The only thing that made me happy the whole time watching this movie was “Jerry, Hello!” and thoughts of Sideshow Bob stepping on 14 rakes. Honestly, that Sideshow Bob episode is a million times better than this hunk of shit.)

Let’s see: You have the almost always overused Bernard Herrman score. The Vertigo manipulation of color and the negative. Nick Nolte is your Gregory Peck of Jimmy Stewart. Jessica Lange has her Janiet Leigh haircut and is stalked by an Anthony Perkins Robert De Niro (who at one point is even dressed up like “mother”). Everyone seems miscast. There are all of the Hitchcock camera techniques like quick zooms and flowing cameras, all used for seemingly no purpose. Marty is trying to make his own Psycho, and fails miserably. The dialog is horrible. The story lame. The ending is overly over the top. The, like, ten minute long sequence in the theater was almost unwatchable. I was this close to just not watching the rest of it, it was so bad and insulting to watch.

There was one reason I didn’t give this an F. The photography is unusually crisp and beautiful. The trick shots, although they don’t work for the film as a whole, on their own are quite amazing. If Scorcese could have put a little more of himself into this picture and a lot less Hitchcock, this might have actually been a good movie. But as it is it is God-awful. I recommend this to no one. Scorcese should be ashamed of himself.

Besides watching lots of movies and writing about them I also went down in the basement yesterday and found my freshman year film textbook, The History of Narrative Film by David A. Cook, and I’ve been reading all the chapters we didn’t cover in class. It’s good stuff and I’m really into it, and hopefully I’ll be getting something really great out of it, other than an even larger list of DVDs I have to buy. Truffaut, Goddard, Fellini, Antonioni, Dreyer, Bunuel and Bergman are just the tip of the iceburg of directors I want to know better. I’m immersing myself in cinema, and hopefully a little of that will wear off on me.

Also, I got the first Twilight Zone box set from someone for my birthday. I just started checking it out today. They arranged it real odd: The episodes aren’t arrange chronologically or by theme, just a random sorting. The first episode on the first disk is especially an odd choice. In it a drunk store Santa wishes for a happy Christmas and ends up becoming a real Chris Cringle. Why that is the first episode is anyone’s guess, although the only reason I can think of is that people watching the marathons probably do so around the holiday season, making this a logical place to start.

Anyway, I’ve never seen a single Twilight Zone episode, so this is a real delight for me. I just started the second disk and I can’t wait to get a little further into it. I’ll let you know what I think of it when I’ve got more to work with.

——Nicolas Nickleby——

(B+)

Like a cute puppy that you say you can’t take home because you don’t have the money or the space or the time to take care of it, Nicolas Nickleby will so charm the pants off of you that you will take it home with you no matter what the excuses are that you come up with in your mind. There is nothing particularly spectacular about the film–the direction is merely good, the script competent if nothing special–and yet its overall message will just get under your skin to make you think the film is better than it really is. In reality the script feels a little rushed (it should when trying to adapt an 800 page Dickens novel into just over two hours) and the wraps itself up a little too easily and cleanly. The Christian moralist ending, familiar to anyone who’s seen or read A Christmas Carol, almost seems forced with only the bare bones of circumstances to support it. However, it is the actors that really end up holding the weight of the film up, and it is they that make you think more fondly on the film than perhaps a cast not as irresistible as this one. The actor that plays Nicolas is so good that you want to believe he can make everything work out because he is just so damn likable. The Billy Eliot boy throws so much energy into the role of a crippled boy that Nicolas saves that what should have been an annoying role turns into something extremely sympathetic. The evil uncle is also flawlessly played, as well just about all of the supporting roles and the beautiful Anne Hathaway, who makes you believe that you could make anything right if put in the same circumstances. Overall this isn’t a bad film, just an average one, but the energy of the cast and the message of the film make you come out of it finding it much more agreeable than you probably should.

——Bowling for Columbine——

(A)

I found this Michael Moore documentary incredibly interesting and captivating. I was amazed at how easily he could slip between making fun of something to being extremely serious about something else, sometimes in the same breath. Some of the images really got to me: the shot of the second plane flying into World Trade Center especially got to me after almost two years, proving September 11th will probably be a day I never get over. What I got out of the film (since Moore doesn’t really answer his question of why are there more gun deaths in the United States than anywhere else, he just throws out several suggestions to the audience) is that the reason we are so gun crazy is because we as a whole are a nation of cowards who use false machismo to cover up are deep felt insecurities. I mean, what really are we afraid of? We live in the greatest country in the world, and yet we are afraid of everything. Not only do we not trust the world around us, but also we don’t even trust each other. We were born a country of Puritans who thought everything that felt good was Evil, and everything that hurt you was Evil, and therefore you have to be afraid of everything, because you don’t really know what could be Evil in this world. Instead of trying to unite the country our Presidents make us as afraid of forces from the outside as from the inside, thus building a capitalist economy of fear. Forget real issues like health care and unemployment, why not tackle media violence? Just about every other free country has the same exposure to violence that we do, but they don’t shoot each other. I think the best part of the documentary came from the interview from Matt Stone and then later the cartoon on the history of America. It hit on two key issues: Kids are afraid to go to school everyday and no one cares, and America has run from one issue to be afraid of to the next, always hiding behind their guns. I think to really end gun violence we have to teach America to not be afraid all of the time. Why is it that violent crimes have been dropping about 10-20% a year and yet coverage of violent crimes has been going up 600% a year? What is the news media trying to do to us? Bastards. And I’d definitely watch a show called Corporate Cops. I don’t think there could be anything funnier than watching a cop chase a guy in a $1,000 suit with a taser.

——Seabiscuit——

(B-)

This movie really pissed me off. It took a great story and Hollywood cheesed it up to the point of distracting you from what really mattered: the horse. The fact that this is probably considered the “Summer Oscar movie” annoys me to no end, because if this is nominated for an Oscar I’m going to lose all faith in the Academy.

Seabiscuit gives the viewer entirely too much back-story. Some of it, like Red and Seabiscuit’s histories are really interesting and help further explain what motivates them. Other things, like the owner’s history, are kind of interesting but to a point really don’t have much to actually do with Seabiscuit. Way too much time is spent with character’s back-story before we actually get to what we came to see. And then there is the Ken Burns-esq documentary bullshit that I don’t think has any place in this film. It is cheesy and cheap and simply put, it annoys the hell out of me. I like the idea that Seabiscuit lifted the spirits of a down on itself nation, but we already get that from the actual film. Do we really need to be then TOLD how important Seabiscuit was? Show it, don’t tell it, you dicks.

If I were making this movie I probably would have started in Mexico. The owner has just lost his wife and child, but we don’t need to see it. Knowing about it works just as well. Lengthen this section a little bit (because I really enjoyed this section) and then move straight on to Seabiscuit, because really he was my favorite part of the film (and my reason for even being there). That horse is damn charming; it’s like watching an up-and-coming actor act in his first big role. The horse racing was really exciting. Please don’t cut to old photographs when the race starts. I wanted to fucking throw my shoe at the screen when they did that. Just focus on the damn horse. He can carry the movie. Dipshits. Seabiscuit is a fun movie, if a deeply flawed one. Worth checking out if you are a horse fan, but otherwise I’d stay away.

——Casino——

(B)

I really, really liked the first say third of this film. It was entertaining, very well shot, and it kept moving you along through the world of the casino without giving you a break. Then something happened. The story started. And it wasn’t really that great. It was like Raging Bull and Goodfellas again, only not as good. Joe Pesci was the exact same character he always plays. Robert Deniro had a character that was pretty dull. And you just wanted to slap Sharon Stone. I had no sympathy for any of the characters, and after about an hour and a half, two hours of this movie that at almost three hours is already too long, I just stopped caring. I find I really don’t like true crime stories because they are fun up to a point, and then they just fall off the face of the planet. I had the same problem with Blow, Serpico, Goodfellas, and to a smaller extent Donnie Brasco. These films build up and build up and then their endings just sort of fizzle out at the end. It drives me crazy. I really wanted to like Casino (at one point I really DID like Casino) but the story just got dull, doing the same old song and dance for me again. Other than some cool shots and a great soundtrack I can’t really see much to recommend about this film unless you are someone who’s never seen a gangster movie before.

Did you know that they now have a Lego set where you can do ALL of the following:

—You can land on the landing pad of cloud city after being accosted in the air by the cloud cars (sold separately) only to be ignored by Lando at first who later comes and acts like a dick;

—You can go to dinner only to have Darth Vader there waiting for you;

—You can freeze Han in carbinite;

—AND you can have Luke fight Vader in the room where all the shit flies at him, then go out on the platform where you can chop off his Lego hand and tell him Vader is his Lego father!

All this in one just one set. That’s just bitchin’.

I wish I still played with Legos.