Not So Good in 2009.

In what will assuredly be the most prolific movie-watching year of my life, I managed to take in some 460 movies in 2009. I will, first and foremost, list the irritable disappointments that you can die happy knowing you didn’t sit through, or, you can choose to disregard and die equally as happy not knowing you didn’t see them. Such utter insults to my scopophilic desires will not be discussed in depths past the limits of which my patience allows. In no particular order of quality. Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist (2008) was certainly one of the more tedious and deplorable attempts at quirky teens companionship and climaxing in the strangest (read: awkward) almost sex-scenes ever. Awake didn’t even try to be anything more than formulaic Hollywood trash. If there is one film that, above all others, attempts to question the nature of life itself and succeeds only in making an incoherent and cheesy problem, What the Bleep Do We Know (2004) is it. Neil Jordan fails me with Jodie Foster’s commercial revenge film, The Brave One (2007). The Laramie Project (2002), while an important story, is entirely lost in its cinematic construction. Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry (1997) is largely considered a masterpiece but was unbearable and not much more. Aside from Sean Penn, I Am Sam (2001) was relatively ineffective and annoying. Godard’s The Rise and Fall of a Small Production Company (1986), which no one reading this will ever see, is in a league of its own. I gave Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) a second chance and it still gave me nothing. Wendy and Lucy (2008), while almost touching, was not that. Jimmy Stewart proved Harvey (1950) incapable of matching the intrigue of a giant bunny rabbit that a certain other film perfects. Woody Allen’s Scoop (2006) was a theatrical annoyance. Herzog’s disregard for the story made Rescue Dawn (2006) an unfortunate disappointment. Troma’s Orgazmo (1997) and The First Turn On (1983) need no explanation. The long awaited pairing of DeNiro and Pacino was thoroughly mistreated with Righteous Kill (2008). And John Waters’ Pink Flamingos (1972) can’t quite be considered disappointing with my low expectations in mind. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) and The Hangover (2009). Phoebe in Wonderland (2008) was just wholly uninteresting. Whip It (2009) was too immature and high school for my tastes. Paranormal Activity (2009) was for from scary and actually one of the most sedate “horror” movies of the year. And, of course, the grand and unsurprising finale, S. Darko (2009).

Good films are hard to come by and bad ones seem all too easy, yet this list seems pretty meager considering the quantity of films I viewed. That stated, and future posts about good movies in mind, 2009 was perhaps a very successful year.

Just a Thought...

I’m not going to pretend to write anything that hasn’t already been thoroughly discussed in relation to Frank Capra’s beloved 1946 film. However, that doesn’t prevent me from discussing my dismay with the film’s classic status and perennial favoritism. In light of recent educational advancements in my film studies I have come to realize the ever-present ideology embodied by some of our country’s favorite films. Like no other media, film manages to encapsulate the values and expectations of our society and wrap them up in a manageable and sought after commodity. In effect, it has become an efficient and self-serving mode of entertainment and education. This is especially evident in the climactic scenes of It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart and his family have their prayers answered and life restored when the town pulls together to smother their table in cash monies with blatant defiance, or ignorance, of the Rosebud Syndrome.

Undoubtedly, money has become our way of life both inside and outside of silver screen narratives. It would be naïve and perhaps irresponsible to think that one could survive without it. This 1946 movie, likely product of its time, makes no effort to suggest anything but this notion. Money makes us happy. We cannot survive without. If there is one thing that will elicit final satisfaction with one’s personal state of affairs then it is most certainly the acquisition of adequate funds. My dissatisfaction comes with the film’s solidified holiday residence. Every year the film finds its place on movie screens, reruns, in Christmas movie references, and is yearly tradition for classic film fans. Yet for me, only one other film buff who in no way considers my own opinion any more valid or worth listening, it sends the wrong message at the most vulnerable time of the year. If money equals happiness then by all means let this be the Christmas movie to end all Christmas movies. However, currency is far from evenly distributed about our country and is by no means indication of the spread of happiness.

While I don't by any stretch of the imagination consider this film to be in a class of its own in terms of ideological malfeasance, I do consider it to be one of the most blatant and relevant. It would be interesting to consider an ending that didn’t so triumphantly satisfy the audience, but who would want to see It’s a Horrible Life?

Up in the Air

Relationships are of utmost importance to director Jason Reitman. His 2005 Thank You for Smoking explored the connection between smoking and society. In 2007, Juno looked at the cultural and personal reactions to teen pregnancy. His newest film is very much about the individual and his place in society. Up in the Air follows a single and solitary man whose multitude of interactions are so voluminous that they prevent him from forming anything more than momentary connections with the passerby.

Reitman’s film is very much a product of the present. We are a society concerned with timeliness, order, efficiency, and being everywhere at once. The flashy and quickly changing tiles that introduce the film set the speed that much of it follows. Quick cuts and calculated actions point out the inherent rhythm of proficiency our society has developed. It is fast paced, all business, and designed for maximum profit. Blackberries, timetables, and credit cards represent the all-consuming technology that make functioning without it in today’s society practically impossible. And perhaps as the main characters realizes, it is all designed with itself in mind, not its users.

Interestingly, it is only when his world is threatened- through a new and more efficient technology- that the user clings ever closer to what he sees as human. As a man who fires others for a living, Bingham (Clooney) interacts with people at their weakest and most crucial point. For a short time he is connected with someone who needs him. For a short time he is doing what he truly believes will help. For a short time he is practically human. And for all the hundreds of hours he spends speaking other than face to face and all the millions of miles he has logged flying, it is the brief and practiced moments of life changing conversation where he is connected. When the longevity of this interaction is jeopardized, by what should be a more natural electronic mode, Bingham faces the same life threatening realization he has been delivering with satisfaction for years.

For what at times seems a dredging of our growing inhumanity is more consistently a reflective and probing exploration of the cultural state of affairs. We have become inferior to our lifestyles whose longevity supersedes our own in importance. At the same time the film is an ironic characterization of a man whose happiness is his occupation, an occupation surviving on cannibalism. Reitman’s film is as fast paced as the society that created it and perhaps as savage. Hopefully, it will be an eye-opening and insightful example of the many ways we could benefit from change.

3-D, CG, and the Future: Avatar

     James Cameron's Avatar came out Thursday night to gain 3.5 million dollars in 2000 theaters, and it could gain much more over the next few days. (Not enough to beat New Moon, though). I believe M has, in his article,  decently analyzed the movie's finer points about humanity and our longing for a fresh start, our fears about destroying something we need, and becoming the very power we so desire to keep at bay. The fresh start would be Pandora, as Jake quickly mentioned that earth is "no longer green" and Pandora is lush with flora and fauna. Our fears of destrying the forests of earth (our life source) and possibly somehow the concept of forgetting the past (destroying our history, since ancient trees hold stories to years past) can be observed in the destruction of the Family Tree and the other Brain-like forests of the world. And lastly, we fear that we ourselves will be the very creature to destroy the world we live in: Jake and Grace and Norm have become Na'vi and their human friends have come to destroy them.
     Having seen 2012, I can't help but compare the two CG experiences derived from both. Both tend to have the "Spectacle" appeal that Michael Allen and Stephen Prince talk about, for, as my father pointed out, "Everything seems to be really big." Unlike 2012 though, the use of humanoid CG characters put the most stress on the film to be accurate. Buildings and their destruction can be easily created compared to realistic humanoid figures strutting around. While both have their fair share of non-referent images (or close enough - we've never seen floating mountains, nor have we ever seen 3,450 square miles of land blow up), Avatar has more free range, while 2012 is forced to rely on physics as it's base in reality. As M said, though, none of the places, things, or activities are completely unknown to us. The large machines, the "horses" and the pterodactyl like Banshee and Toruk, are all objects and creatures we know, taken to a new height. Of course, we all know war, and we all know the joy of being able to run, and these things are taken to new levels in Avatar.

     The most interesting thing about my experience last night was the 3-D image, one I haven't seen since a 3-D movie in IMAX about dinosaurs. It took a little bit of getting used to, but after a while it became a natural part of the movie. Since the movie was actually filmed for the 3-D viewing experience, it tended to work better than movies that don't have the sophisticated technology to capture an image in the third dimension, as seen in the trailers. It's a unique feature to the moviegoing experience that will, supposedly, replace all films in the future.
     The thing about the 3-D is, though, that there tends to be less ability, on the audiences behalf, to choose the focal point of any particular shots. Generally, the film has a focus point: the object near the center of the depth of field, or the figure that appears to be on the movie screen itself. Since each shot has depth, things closer and further away, there is always something in the center of the depth, and that image usually remains on the flat of the movie screen. This allows the audience to know what they're supposed to look at, so that even then the entire depth is in focus, one can choose the most prominent point of interest based on it's location in depth.
     However, in my mind, this gives the audience less creative control over their experience at the film. A realist film would give the audience a great depth of field for them to choose where the wish to focus. Cameron's film may give a great depth of field, but it still chooses for us what we are supposed to look at. In fact, it's difficult to look at something that is not the main focus, because it tends to be blurry or fuzzy, even though it is in focus. For me, I found it difficult to watch sequences of close-up movement, because the 3-D tended to make things blurry, and it really proved true during the first sequence where avatar-Jake is chased by a giant creature.
     This "live-action" film is even less real than 2012, existing entirely in made-up environments, where even the people are often CG replicas. The 3-D didn't really appeal to me, because I would much rather be able to choose what I look at than have it chosen for me. As for movie as a whole (story and all), I'm still not entirely certain I am fond of it or despise it entirely. Perhaps it truly does nothing for me and is just another movie in the long list. As New York Times critic Manohla Dargis claims in his article "Mr. Cameron might like to play with high-tech gadgets, but he’s an old-fashioned filmmaker at heart, and he wants us to get as lost in his fictional paradise as Jake eventually does." We do tend to get caught up in the CG of the world, unable to fathom that it is all generated by a computer, even though we know it is all along.
     The movie is worth a watch, but perhaps not worth the 10.50 it costs to see it in 3-D.  (I also just wanted to mention that James Horner's score often brought Titanic to mind as I sat there watching Avatar.)

What is Avatar?

Absolutely nothing about James Cameron’s film desires to be ignored. And while for the moment nothing deserves to be, the film’s longevity will certainly be more attributable to its form. After more than a decade absence from the feature filmmaking world, Cameron makes his return, satisfied that the technology he relies on so heavily is ready to serve his purposes. Make no mistake, however, these purposes are well validated and to a certain degree quite worth waiting around for. The fact of the matter is that the movie will make a lot of money. It will also raise the bar as far as audience expectations. I will not claim it anywhere near flawless, my aversion to computer animation aside, but it is by no means anything but amazing.

For a film based so heavily in the future, it remains grounded in the present in every form. The machinery is not anything we have not already seen; bulldozers and helicopters on steroids. It is a story of good versus evil, one that we have seen repeated over and over. If anything, it is a film that returns to the most primal instincts of our species. In direct opposition to its existence, the film maintains a strict fascination and fear with the technology it displays. It flaunts the achieved abilities of our entertainment in form while prophesizing their invasive and destructive eventualities. I can only hope hard enough that the irresponsibility of the characters will be a jarring realization to those that watch them. With its conclusion, it seems to suggest that we too shall return to the earth, a place we so consistently and naively neglect.

I seem to forget that the movie just came out. In 2145 our species has traveled to Pandora, a lush and exotic planet with floating mountains and a chemical-electro life force connects all that inhabit it. The flora and fauna have a familiar originality, as if based on our known and realized by our unknown. If the creatures lack the prevalent extra set of legs or eyes, then they are undoubtedly bathed in a psychedelic skin. We never forget that the much sought after creation of something completely novel is inhibited by our ability to forget what we perceive. The hammerhead rhinos and dragon-roosters are indeed the brainchild of a desire to play God, a desire (as of now) only emulated digitally. Yet within this environment, itself no more spectacular than what is already around, there is also a desired specificity of life. The cornucopia of bioluminescence creates what we could only imagine the animation of neon lights to be. The weeping fiber optic trees and delicate flying jellyfish remind us of what we know and what we want to know. Nowhere else can we take control of powers that we do not have, flight, as usual, being the ultimate. Yet for all the wonderful and captivating beauty, all the visually intoxicating experiences that truly satiate our most sincere scopohilic desires, the film is but a film.

We are not on Pandora. And I, unlike others, did not forget that I was watching CGI. And good does not triumph over evil. And chances are, that when we do discover a truly majestic and beautiful world, we too will mine it for some pointlessly valuable resource despite what life we destroy in the process. It becomes most interesting that the life is us. On the surface they are much different; blue monkeys drawn from a human referent living in a world drawn from recognizable referents. The problem is we don't recognize that savage and brutal and natural species we used to be in the stark contrast of a savage and brutal and mechanized species we have become. Fueled by survival and powered by machines we have the capability, and the desire, to conquer all. Yet the one thing we cannot seem to conquer is ourselves.

Avatar is, in all senses, the experience it sets out to be. It even goes as far as to give us a story we can follow, one that points out the world it occupies. What it also seems to do, and believe I know the importance of suspension of disbelief that movies rely on, is ignore the world we already reside in. This is evident in the amped-up and super-charged robotics and organics that both native and foreign Pandora inhabitants represent. The film is epic in scope, both in and out of the story world. But what we need most from the film is its reflection of the animal we are, a realization of just what and where we are in the world. Maybe then we can truly think.

Weekend Retreat

     Hooray for weekends and their abundance of free time (for once). Spent the weekend watching movies and came across two disparate films. Vincent Ward's 1998 Academy Award winning film What Dreams May Come was a visual delight and an ideology suck up, whereas Wes Anderson's "simple, yet elegant" 2001 feature The Royal Tenenbaums falls more into a category E film, leaving the audience with an ambiguous feeling.
     What Dreams May Come is a story about family values and the afterworld. One family is broken by death, first that of the children, then that of the father, and it's up to the father to figure out how to get them back together in heaven. Heaven is uniquely crafted as the most beautiful thing we admire on earth, manifested for us in Heaven. Since Robin Williams' character Chris Nielsen was an admirer of art (specifically paintings) his heaven is a world made of paint. The film won its Oscar for best visual effects, and it makes sense why. Cuba Gooding Jr. was nominated for an Oscar in his role as Nielsen's spirit guide.

     Not surprisingly, though, the film plays heavily into the dominant ideology: a whole family (One father, mother, daughter and son unit) is the goal, the father is the person who needs to bring the family together, there is a heaven and we can all get to it, all the money in the world didn't buy Nielsen and his wife happiness after they lost their children. At the end of the movie, the ideology is nearly ruined when Chris suggests that he be reborn, but resolves that issue by saying he can make it back to heaven and everything will be the same... (sorry for the elusiveness there, I'm trying not to spoil it for you).

     On the other hand, The Royal Tenenbaums appears to be a movie about family, and how it's broken, but also how death can bring the family together. Royal Tenenbaum, the father of the misfit, broken family, wants what he can't have, and currently his wife is about to marry another man, and thus he wants her to be his again. Pretending that he's dying, Royal makes his way into his wife's life, and she calls her children who have spread far and wide, each having their own life problems, and they gather around dad as he dies... But he's not dying, and when the word gets out, things go a little haywire for him and everyone involved. It's up to good ol' family values to bring them all together.
     True to the style of Wes Anderson's Oeuvre, the film puts a lot of emphasis on moving shots, whip pans, and odd color pallet. Well-chosen music plays throughout the film, asking the audience to consider not only the visuals, the story, the rhythm, or the lyrics, but also the production of the songs. Although Michale Kamen (who scored What Dreams May Come) has created beatiful music that works for Ward's film, Anderson's music seems more appropriate, and less of an extra than a complement.

   The two films tend to share similar themes, but the box office reports that maybe Dreams is a bit too sappy, and something more lighthearted is necessary to portray the family of today. What Dreams May Come had a budget of 85 million dollars and earned a measly 55 million, whereas The Royal Tenenbaums only cost $21 million and made $52 million. Take your pick.

A Stab at Semiotics

In recent months, it has come to my attention that the theorizing of people about film occurs quite frequently. Thus, it will be my goal in this post to apply my own thoughts to an already developed theory (Semiotics) and its relationship to Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni's article "Cinema/Ideology/Criticism."
Semiotics is the study of signs. Signs relate to our world in every way when try to apply language to them. Since nothing in our lives goes without language, everything is related to signs. Signs are arbitrary connections to things that derive their meaning only through one's ability to think about them. A sign is a signifier (thing that means something else) that points to a signified (thing represented). There are three types of signs: Icons, indexes, and symbols. An icon shares a visual connection with the object or concept that it represents. Similar to desktop icons, there is an actual resemblance an icon has to its signified. Indexes are things that one can connect to a signified by a causal relationship. Take, for instance, smoke which is caused by fire. Upon seeing smoke, we immediately think fire, because there smoke is the effect caused by fire. Lastly, symbols are connected to their signified only through convention. Words are good examples of such a sign. There is no causal relationship, a dog does not cause the three letter D, O, and G to be formed, and the word itself doesn't look like the thing it represents.
Now. Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni's article "Cinema/Ideology/Criticism" explains that films all have signifiers and signifieds. The signifier is the form or style of a movie. The way look of the film is its form. If there is fast editing, as in Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), it's form is different from a film that uses minimal editing, such as Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade (1996). Or, if the film is gritty and gringy, such as Brad Anderson's The Machinist (2004), then it is different from a pretty clean film like Nick Cassavetes' The Notebook (2004). The signified is the content. The content of any film is always a political one, engaging in topics that have a message and a meaning that can be related to the politics of our society. The content can go along with the dominant American ideology such as Roland Emmerich's 2012 (2009), or it can be against it, as David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (2001) might be.
According to Comolli and Narboni, there are five total categories under which narrative films fall. Since all films are inherently political, all films have a content that either aligns with, or contradicts the dominant ideology. Meaning is directly conveyed in the content, changed easily by the alteration of political discourse. Yet, meaning is also changed by form, since form and content cannot be understood separately. Although meaning is laid out by content, it is altered (or enhanced) by form. Thus, form either follows convention and therefore portrays the content and meaning in a more ideological fashion, or contradicts convention, portraying the content in a radical way, altering the meaning.

Therefore content can be seen as the base upon which meaning is created. Content itself can be modifiable, and a modification will have a direct correlation to the meaning. Form, on the other hand, is built on top of content. Form does not have a direct correlation to meaning, because it is only a modifier. Form can enhance or change content to either support the meaning created by content, or alter it. The two attributes are inseparable. You cannot have content without some type of form to it, and you cannot have form without content.

Following

We could easily describe Nolan’s black and white debut feature as the epitome of student films. It has the street energy of the French New Wave, the youthful vigor and attitude of Aronofsky’s Pi, a $6,000 dollar budget, and is clearly made with an experimental innocence. And it should come as no surprise, given the popular names among his oeuvre, (i.e. all of them) that Nolan’s first film marks his arrival as a legitimate filmmaking force.

We don’t have to look too closely to find evidence of his first film in those that follow. The altered chronology of Memento found its introduction here. Acquisition of the Batman franchise seems natural with the films momentary visual reference. The psychological exploration and uncertainty of Insomnia, The Prestige, and perhaps Inception, are actually nothing new. Having seen the director’s entire body of work, and viewing his first film last, it only makes sense that the black and white introduction would in no way be a muted commencement.

A writer in London follows unsuspecting citizens, aroused by curiosity and maintained by obsession. Yet in a matter of no time, one of his subjects calls him out, introduces himself, and in a matter of minutes takes the young man on as partner in crime. The houses they burgle, inspired by Nolan’s own experience with invasion, are staked out, studied, and carefully chosen. But the young man’s inexperience, naivety, and relative insecurity make him the perfect victim for an experienced criminal. We could almost predict that the storyline turn inward on us, the thief being but a figment of the young man’s troubled and creative imagination. Fortunately, that is not the case. When the writer returns to the crime scenes, in attempt to evaluate the victims’ reactions, he is met with an interest that trumps his initial trials in following.

The 1998 film exhibits the energy inherent in it’s low budget production. And to it’s benefit, feels much more natural and invigorating than a multimillion-dollar attempt would be. The twisting and confined stairways, shoddy buildings, textured back-alleys, and lively streets are far more suited to the passive and observant eye than to the imposing and intrusive demands that come along with big productions. At the same time, the inexperience of the actors and the occasional uncertainty of the filmmaker are combated by the perceived experimentation, by the established sense of learning, and by the achieved verisimilitude of what might or might not be a far-fetched scenario. We can almost see the struggling filmmaker, working week by week for a year, in the worried yet learning eyes of the young man. Where he is learning his new craft of deviance, so is Nolan learning his craft of storytelling.

Following, despite its simple premise, or perhaps because of it, is nothing short of great. It is an easily enviable inauguration into the world of filmmaking by a director that has since earned his place. The film also proves that Nolan has the ability to manipulate and create the story, or more precisely his telling of it, regardless of how many dollars he has to do so. Inception will come out in July of next year, you will certainly hear more about it soon.

The Impact of No Impact

It is not now, nor has it ever been, our intention to ignore the presence and social/cinematic relevance of the documentary on this here Internet website. That being so, we wish to apologize for the lengthy duration of which the important film mode has been absent. In all seriousness, we pride ourselves in watching many a movie, be they shorts, independents, foreign, and of course the generic Hollywood garbage. So, without further adu, we can now officially claim documentary as part of our analytical ouvre, if you will. And you can expect more where that came from.

In what is presented as a revolutionary idea, one man in New York City attempts to live an entire year without making any environmental impact. The idea is as preposterous as his confidence that it can be done. So with what seems minimal motivation aside from the perfect gimmick for his next book, Colin Beaven sets out to phase into a zero impact calendar year. Now, it should be pointed out from the forefront that the possibility of completely eliminating one’s impact is nil. This is not to say we should not do as much as we can to be environmentally conscious, but that the idea of completely eliminating one’s presence is absurd. Anyway, Beaven questions himself from the outset as to whether the proposed experiment is even possible. And, of course, it is not possible to live a year without impact when halfway through you finally turn out the lights.

Beaven brings his family along for the adventure. His wife, a reality TV and clothing obsessed ideology consumer uses her one last splurge on a pair of $975 boots. It seems, not far into the experiment, that her sole occupation with agreeing to participate is to realize her fantasy of being a reality star, a role she seems to be rather comfortable in and natural at. Her cheating throughout the year consists of buying drinks and acquiring ice. I have little but praise for the family for consciously attempting to better those around them but acknowledge the naivety of their grandiose plans.

Regardless of intent, be they heightening books sales, warning the public, personal experimentation, etc., the Beaven’s notoriety will do little to influence those around them. The film calls attention to the vastly varied reactions to their condition. From the already environmentally conscious who see the couple as giving them a bad image to the website comments telling him to shove it, the public at the very least took notice. Yet far from sudden collective revelation, the society at large will sit idle, as they have always done, accustomed to big screen television, elevators, endless water, and their every demand at their fingertips. The film brings to attention, through Beaven’s realization, that the notion of living without impact is a direct assault on the way we expect to live. It is a direct assault on the lives of those that worry little about anyone but themselves.

Beaven himself seems not too distant from those that know nothing outside of city life. The idea that one could be connected to the earth was a foreign one. The realization the calendar year in fact comes from the natural cycles of the earth was pathetically surprising. He points out what seems to be a general aversion to life, a desire for the strict and formulaic, the rigid and structured way of doing things. He helps the audience realize, hopefully even the ignorant ones, that we have been bred and raised to need everything. Our economic system and way of life demands it. Our country requires it. Ironically, and unfortunately, our lives depend on it.

We cannot, even for a second, let ourselves think that this cannot be changed. Beaven points out midway through the film that community has seemed to dissolve. He notices the lack of accountability for those around us, a lifestyle that we have become accustomed to. The film, far from being a lesson in how to specifically help the environment, is instead a bold attention-caller to the need to see to those around you. This is precisely what Beaven does, at least in delivery. We could describe it as self-less, albeit not entirely so. Or rather, we could describe as educated, the opposite of ignorant, responsible. We could posit it to be the objective that every single person owes to every other person.

Now, we don’t need a morality lesson, and the film is not as preaching as my writing has identified it as. And Beaven is not too thorough in his zero impact attempts. Instead, the content the film encompasses and the weight of the issues it deals with is not to be overlooked. No Impact Man can be added to the lengthening list of films that everyone should see, not to entertain themselves, but to better their relationship with others.

Dismissed Beauty

     If you've heard of Darren Aronofsky, then you've probably seen one of his most well-regarded films, Requiem for a Dream (2000). No doubt a very powerful film, conveying instances of lost hope and failed lives, it holds a unique style that few other films accomplish (although many attempt to replicate). Having been born in 1969, Aronofsky's ouvre is composed mainly (as of 2009) of films he did before making it to "mainstream" filmmaking. Pi (1998), Aronofsky's first feature length film, is another of his unique style films, comparable to David Lynch's Eraserhead, that did rather well in the box office for a limited release and low budget.

     Aronofsky, after Requiem for a Dream, began working on a film he had hoped to make for years. His original script was presented to major companies who promised to help budget the film, and Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett were cast as the two leads for the film. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Pitt and Aronofsky had creative differences, leading to the demise of the film. Aronofsky rewrote the script, and planned out a cheaper budget, asking Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weiz to play the leads for a reduced rate.

     The Fountain finally made it to theaters in November 2006 a final budget of around $35 million. It was a flop. Domestically, The Fountain grossed $10 million. In the foreign box office, only $5 million. The film lost $20 million dollars. The blow hit Aronofsky hard: after all the work he'd put into making his film, the public didn't even receive it well. Perhaps it was because the film wasn't hyped up, perhaps it was because the two leads weren't Pitt and Blanchett, or perhaps it was because the plot was too confusing for the general audience.

SPOILER ALERT!----CONTENT BELOW LINE IS SPOILERIFIC!!----SPOILER ALERT!

     The story, broken into three interweaving sections, revolves around two characters, Tom and Izzy. Captain Thomas and Queen Isabel are fighting against the church to remain in power of Spain. When Thomas claims there is no hope left, but is willing to give his life for his country, Isabel tells him she knows the location of the Fountain of Youth. Seven centuries later, Izzy is dying of cancer, and there seems to be nothing Tom can do to help. Five centuries later, Tom is flying with a tree through outer space in a bubble, trying to save the tree's life.
     What I really love about the movie is the theme. The film focuses on one man's struggle to defeat mortality in order to spend eternity with the woman he loves. As Queen Isabel tells Thomas: Together We Shall Live Forever. Tom is so involved with saving his wife from death, that he ultimately forgets to spend time with her; time they could have spent enjoying life together. In the 21st Century portion of the film, Izzy writes a book called "The Fountain" in which she tells the story of the 16th Century Thomas and Izzy who search for the tree of life together.

    In my understanding of the film, the story unfolds like this: Since all of her book was based on Myan theories (in the movie), the whole concept is potentially true for Tom and Izzy. Thus, when Tom remembers that he had found a South American tree with unusual properties and uses it on a primate patient of his, he accidentally finds a way to live forever. Unfortunately, Izzy has already fallen victim to cancer and has passed away. She requested, mostly symbollically and metaphorically, that after she is buried, a tree be planted over her grave so that she can become part of the tree and live forever.
     Since Tom now has the cure for death and can live forever, the two lovers essentially live together forever: one as a tree, the other as a human. 26 centuries later, Isabella (as the tree) and Tom are flying through outerspace in a futuristic bubble of a ship, because Izzy also mentioned that when the dying star in the middle of a nebula explodes, it sends out it's particles everywhere and creates new life. Unfortunately, Izzy-tree is dying, and Tom has to make it to the nebula before it explodes and before the tree dies.

     To sum things up: the 16th Century story never actually happened, but rather it was all Izzy's story written down in her book, based on Mayan predictions. 21st Century Tom finds a cure for death too late, plants a tree on the top of Izzy's grave in hopes that she will live forever throught the tree's life. He lives with her for 5 centuries until the tree begins to die. He then flies with the tree to the nebula that the Mayans and Izzy call Xibalba, which is about to explode and create new life. Together, they lived forever. Tom's dependence on Izzy is apparent in his research (where without needing to research a cure for Izzy, he would have no purpose in life) and in his flight to Xibalba (where he literally depends on the tree for his nutrients, eating pieces to keep his life). Izzy's dependence on Tom is a bit more obvious, since her whole life is devoted to their love (in the book, and in the 21st century) and since Tom carries her tree-life to the nebula to try and save her again. Interestingly, Tom's character in Izzy's book, Captain Thomas, is the person who gives his life to become the tree's roots.

     In my mind, it's a beautiful story. Although it is, at times, very poorly constructed, being more confusing than enlightening, its end product is one of beauty. The interweaving of the two stories does two opposites: it creates a sense of unity and parallelism in the three separte centuries, and at the same time, it gives the wrong message. When I first watched the film, I understood the plot as being one man and woman (Thomas and Isabel) living through the centuries together. Having partaken of the tree of life, Thomas was able to live for 10 Centuries, the gods being kind enough to give him his love-life each time, but each time stealing her from him until he realized that she needed him as much as he needed her. But this couldn't have worked, since Isabel never ate of the tree of life. So the confusing plot threw me off for a while, until I re-watched the film and had a revelation. In this sense, the plot was poorly crafted.

     Still, I enjoy the simple aspects of the film: Toms blatent indifference toward the fact that he just figured out how to prolong life indefinitely due to the fact that he cares so much for his wife, is a very enchanting thought. I like the fact that Tom's future person still uses the parting gift Izzy left with him before she died, to put life rings on his arm (just like a tree, when cut down, has rings of the different stages of its life, Tom etched rings of tattoos on his arms to represent the different years he spent with his wife. (starting with the ring he etched into his finger when he lost his wedding ring, and she died)). It's a very poetic film, but many of its simple poetic phrases seem lost in the overacting, or are simply overbearing and therefore easily dismissed.

    Clint Mansell's amazing score really brings the movie to life. It's a very raw, primal sound, that replicates Captain Thomas' encounter with the Mayans and his journey to the tree of life. I especially enjoy the raw power of the "Death is the Road to Awe" track.

    The art director and the director of photography work well together. Beautifully composed shots, and beautiful, non-CG special effects (Peter Parks used macro photography to portray the nebula instead of computer generated images) create a very awesome visual candy for its audience. The film is really worth a watch if you're privy to love stories, but if you're not, it's probably a movie you're not going to care for. And if you are a love story addict, then the movie is worth a second watch if you didn't like it the first time.

Life Without Film

Imagine, if you will, for a fleeting and hesitant moment, that films as we know them never came into existence. Suppose that the pioneers that experimented in the earlier days of cinematic exploration had stopped, or never even started. What if, by chance, the Lumiere Brothers, Edison, and Augustin failed to come up with any motion capturing devices? What if the Phenakistoscope, the Zoetrope, the Cinématographe, or even the Electrical Tachyscope had never come to be? Where would that put us now? How would the human race have been affected by the absence of technology that, by today’s standards, is strictly archaic? Compared to the complexity and ability of today’s emerging technology the magic lantern is but a paper airplane. Yet regardless of current technology’s distancing from its predecessors, humans have relied on its presence in every form.

Our world is a visual onslaught from every direction, so much so that we often shut it out, not realizing all that we have experienced. At the same time, though, we intentionally seek out certain forms of stimulation. We want the experiences we are offered. We have come to expect their presence. We are accustomed to what they offer, what they can tell us, and what they can show us. Yet only rarely do we think about their saturation into who we are and how we operate. Only rarely do we realize that because of them we have unprecedented access to years passed. Our forefathers had less opportunity than we do, much the same as our followers who will know more about our selves than we do. Films are transcribing our history, or rather, we are transcribing our history into visually printed form, a record for the future.

So what would become of us without this ability? Would the written word, perhaps the artistic rendition, maybe even the photographic process should I wish to give ample freedom from the above scenario, be enough to capture the existence of our civilization? And with that thought, will the power of film, the recorded image, even be enough? Once we blow the planet to kingdom come, will the DVD’s that goes screaming through space be valid proof of our existence? Hardly.

Film is but one step that satisfies us for the time. Writing did it, painting did it, and photography did it. Film is doing it but even that is beginning to wane. We can no longer trust what we see, nor can we see all that we trust. We know that as long as we live on this planet that gravity will hold us to it. We do not, however, know that future generations will be privy to our actuality. Proof of our being does not last forever; VHS is a prime example. But we do know, whether consciously or not, that for the time being film is more than satisfactory. For the time being, film is a form of immortality. And that should we live in a world without film, we would likely be very, very lost. At least I would.

Swamp Diamonds

Its no small wonder how Roger Corman became such a long-lived filmmaker with a directorial debut like this, originally title Swamp Women. However, Corman boasts a very intimidating oeuvre as producer and is undoubtedly one of the more influential independent filmmakers. He mentored some of the biggest directors and movie brats working today and also made ridiculously low-budget films of his own.

Swamp Diamonds was made in 22 days, a length that reflects the relative lack of quality exhibited in nearly every frame of the film. And what better story than an undercover policewoman who goes into prison only to help three inmates breakout and navigate the Baton Rouge swamps looking for diamonds. Corman makes the unbearable only slightly less by having the quartet conveniently cut off their pants yielded effective jean shorts. That’s about all there is to say except for a tremendous alligator fighting scene and tree shoot-out, or rather spear-out. Corman ignores trivial matters such as temporal and spatial continuity, common sense, and entertainment in order to tell his story.

The boys of MST3K make the 1955 film only slightly less taxing and, as usual, are savvy to the imperfections, oddities, and conveniently cast Touch Connors. The film is now in the public domain so if you wish to remake, go ahead.

MST3K for Free.

My thanks go to an associate who turned me on to this website where one can find episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in abundance. The site inevitably links to others such as YouTube and Google and may chop up the episode into parts. However, beggars can’t choosers and no MST3K is certainly a lot worse.

Anyway, it’s not like we watch the show to watch the movies. The hosts of the show often pick unbearably ridiculous movies and only manage to save us some of the times. But those bore sessions are worth it when a gem of an episode comes along and sends the abdomen into convulsions from uncontrollable spasms of laughter.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

The trailer is funny, absurd, ridiculous, and supposedly true. The movie is very similar, but to the detriment of its longevity, it seems to stop there. It is certainly very relevant to consider the occasions when the military machine thrusts headlong, with taxpayer money in hand, into some new and expensive undertaking aimed at dominating world powers. This arrives at hyperbolic dimensions in the creation of Jedi warriors whose superior psychic abilities allow them to run through walls, disappear, and kill goats on sight. But after the consistent laughs and compounding absurdity we are left with little but questions about what and why. Not simply why these military acts were ever allowed or encouraged but what we are supposed to take away from their reenactments.

We cannot fully render their existence social commentary on the frivolity of war given the sparse placement of actual combat. We could start to ponder the notions of people supposedly out of place that find their calling where they least expect it. And we could certainly address, as mentioned before, the attempts at superiority by any means necessary on the part of our countries military. Yet even with these possibilities in hand the film feels empty on the larger scale. We get no message, we take it in stride, we laugh at the exaggeration but receive no warning. Certainly we could be left with the intent that any money spent on war is wasted, or any plan based psychically is ludicrous.

I will, however, commend the film for its subtle jab at current film posters by giving equal billing to both main actors and namesake goat. And of course, if you have not read the other article previously published, do so now. It has been out intent to respond to the same films as a combined post but as of yet such desires have failed to find fruition.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

My growing disappointment and frustrations with the slew of juvenile and intelligence-offending trailers were immediately diffused with the first frames of Anderson’s animation. The warm orange sky and simple childish staging of Mr. Fox next to a single tree was all at once amusing, captivating, and calming. And to the benefit of young and old alike, the entire film remains as such.

It should come to no surprise to those savvy to the films of auteur Wes Anderson, his ascribed quirkiness and fondness for a particular color palette remain intact. The little suits and details that exist in the Fox world could have come from the Tenenbaum’s house or from the director’s closet. However, the minutiae of set designs, miniature props, and detailed creations could hardly be contained with a closet of even the most successful director. The film’s visual exuberance and craftily ingenious construction return to an inspired and inspiring state of animation lost on the repetitive computer based child fare audiences yearn for. Aided by twelve frames per second rate, the film captures early animators attempts at fluid motion limited by the then current state of technology. The result is not some quaint attempt at nostalgia nor homage to the early days of film but rather a re-envisioned distancing from the kind of movie audiences are used to.

Praise to Anderson for making a children’s movie not aimed at kids. And praise for making an adult movie not too grown up to be inaccessible. The 87 minutes flow by in what seems like ten and the visual and narrative deliveries provide both complex and simple exposition. Any fears that this be throwaway kiddy fare should be instantly allayed if not simply given the man at helm. And any fears I had the Anderson was selling out and taking the easy road seem trivial and irrelevant.

Still, I cannot help but ask how one directs an animation. And while the concerns and mentions of such questions arising during the production exist, in the wake of the final product they are better left for another day. Fantastic Mr. Fox is full of standard Anderson comedics, detailed and intricate creations, and likable, relatable characters. The complex and carefully executed action readily ignores the rules of logic to great benefit and pays little attention to common sense. And while the rich visuals do wonders for the senses themselves, the fact that all the characters seem to find their place doesn’t leave the film on any sour note.

Lost on the Road

Months and months of anticipation have lead to the Thanksgiving weekend and the release of The Road. The big screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel from the director of The Proposition has been on my to-see list since its existence first came to my attention long ago. So imagine my supreme disappointment when no theatre anywhere close to me was showing it. For those not savvy to the name John Hillcoat, then certainly McCarthy would yield some interest given the deserved response to No Country for Old Men. This goes without mentioning Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, and Robert Duvall. What a disgrace to the state of cinema when the screens are crowded with 2012, Couples Retreat, Planet 51, and Twilight. What’s disappointing is that we are not talking about some independent arthouse film with limited audience but a $20-30 million dollar budgeted film with names, visuals, etc.

I don’t know who’s to blame, nor do I really care, I just wish that good movies came out and not bad ones. Add to this that over the weekend I hunted down a copy of the fantastic, flawless, under-appreciated and totally ignored Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Best Buy? Only on Blu-ray. Meijer? Negative. I guess I should not be surprised when hundreds of copies of trash line the shelves consuming much mismanaged space.

Enough complaining, but not really. The studios listen to what the audiences say and the only way they hear us is in sales. Paranormal Activity was demanded by popularity and made its way to wide release. If only we had such decisive voice on everything we saw.

Review: 2012

     There are many varying beliefs that the world will end catastrophically. The Mayans in particular believe that the end of the world starts with a cosmic alignment of the sun with the center of our Galaxy, which happens to be in December of the year 2012. The cosmic alignment will cause the sun to have wild solar flares which will emit neutrinos that will act like microwaves on the planet's inner core, heating up the center of the earth until the crust begins to melt and the tectonic plates shift and cause massive earthquakes and eventually tsunamis, wiping out the inhabitants of the world. The question is: how are we going to survive it?
    That is what Roland Emmerich's newest disaster movie 2012 bases its action on. Several families across the face of the earth must survive the ensuing earthquakes that split the earth and kill billions. Emmerich, a native German, has been making disaster movies for years. Independence Day (1996) was about aliens attempting to destroy the earth, Godzilla (1998) had a giant lizard destroy Manhattan, and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) saw the side effects of pollution cause massive global warming to the point of human destruction. Each movie bears its own set of cheesy families fighting for all of humanity.

The Tsunami pours over the mountains...

     According to Robin Wood and Christian Metz, these families are what the American public wants to see. John Cusack plays Jackson Curtis, a divorced writer still trying to save his family, both literally and in the sense of the ideological family. This ideological family is the two parents (of opposite sex) and two children, one son and one daughter. The family starts out broken, a divorce separates the parents and the children seem more privy to their new dad, Gordon (Thomas McCarthy) who dotes them with cell phones and attention. But, in the end, it is the ideological family that wins out, and the audience cheers when the mom and dad get back together again.

The Curtis family's first plane flies through two falling buildings.

 

     Another, not so prominently featured part of the American Dominant Ideology theory is the male dominance in the film. Of course, the scientists who discover that the world will end in three years are all males, and they bring the information to male politicians who see to it that they are saved. Also, when John Cusack's family is in an airplane flying to China with a family from Russia, Gordon (who is forced to pilot the massive cargo plane on just two flying lessons) comes to the cargo hold to ask the two men to come look at the issues they will be facing. In essence, it is the men who will protect and save the women, and who willingly give their lives to save their families.
     Robin Wood's Ideological film theory claims that the American public believes in the Rosebud syndrome (as from Citizen Kane, 1941). The Russian family flying with the Curtis family are billionaires, having payed billions to be saved. But clearly, money cannot buy you happiness. The Russian family seems broken, money having bought the father's new girlfriend, who isn't the brightest. The sons are two brats ready to cut down their American family counterparts.

Yellowstone explodes.

     Lastly, the ideological theory calls for a resolution of current pressing issues. Our current pressing issue is the ticking timeclock the Mayan calandar layed out for us. Only three years away, December of 2012 is an oddly pressing issue for many people today, and they're all wondering what we're going to do to survive it. 2012 offers that wildly outrageous solution for us. The billionaire Russian family has recently paid billions of dollars to get tickets onto an ark. The bigtime male politician to whom the scientists brought the information of the end of the world, have used the money from the tickets to build seven enormous arks (like from Noah's Ark in the bible) to store the people when the tsunamis come and flood the planet. Thus, only the rich can survive... but, being human is to care for each other, so they open the gates to the arks to let in all those who are in the vicinity, including the workers who helped build the ships.
     The movie cost $200 million to make, most of that money going to the immense amounts of CG (I swear that 85% of the film was CG). Although the film has already earned that money back and then-some (although 75% of its gross so far has been from foreign box offices), it really has nothing to offer its audience outside the satisfaction of the dominant ideology. The Movie was shot on a Panasonic HD camera, probably since most of it was going to be going through the computer to be CGed up, making the whole movie seem a lot more fake to me. HD cameras just aren't good enough yet for me to enjoy watching a 2 hour and 40 minute movie recorded in it.

Escaping from the ensuing disaster... a sight seen more than once.

     The movie really lasted too long, and there were so many cheesy moments I wanted to gag. I found myself throwing my hands up in the air at every syntagma (plot point), angry either with the poor CG (or at least its overuse) or with the poor design of the story, or with a decision the characters made, or with some outrageous moment, or something else, OR SOME OTHER STUPID THING! Really, there is no need to see this movie, unless you want to know just how much CG one can actually fit into a "Live Action" film... It gets me real excited for Avatar!

Review: The Men Who Star At Goats

If it wasn't funny enough to see Ewan McGregor deny any recognition of the word Jedi, George Clooney's performance as a dead serious real-life Jedi really got me laughing. Directed by Grant Heslov (who starred in Good Night, and Good Luck and Leatherheads) and written by Peter Straughan (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People), The Men Who Stare at Goats is a comedy about a secret military operation that honed the superpowers within select new army personnel. The real story, however, revolves around Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) as a journalist searching for a good story. After his wife leaves him for one of his co-workers, Wilton realizes his life isn't what it could be. He thus heads to Iraq to prove his manliness where he finds Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a name that came up earlier when he was interviewing a man about "remote viewing." Cassady claims to be heading into Iraq on a mission and Wilton comes along to find himself and a good story.
The film is uniquely crafted, jumping through time to tell important facts and stories that relate to the unfolding story of Bob Wilton. There were plenty of comical moments, and overall the story wasn't too shoddy. I did enjoy several moments where Cassady's powers were hinted at being real. Unfortunately, many of the comical moments relied heavily on the use of physical pain and physical comedy to achieve laughter. While it did manage to cause laughter in the audience around me, and often in me myslef, in my opinon, the movie shouldn't have relied so heavily on it. In general, the movie was no better than many of the ludicrous comedies coming out in recent years, relying on stupidity rather than wit to achieve its humorousness.
It is based on the book by Jon Ronson and had its wide released on November 6, 2009.

Upcoming Feature: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightening Thief

If it wasn't obvious from the fact that it shares the same director, and the fact that the name is very similar, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The lightening Thief appears to be, from first glance, a movie as similar to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as it can get. Christopher Columbus' style is emanating even in the trailer for his upcoming child's feature, also based on a book (by Rick Riordan).
The movie is based on the story of a boy who doesn't realize that he has the power of the Olympian gods of old, who have returned to help him fight those that would seek to kill him. The young boy must quickly learn the ways of the gods and find his place and his power to defeat the growing evil around him.
Sound somewhat familiar? I told you so...
Watch this trailer:

Notice anything interesting about the castle of the gods?


Starring Logan Lerman (3:10 to Yuma and Gamer), as well as Kevin McKidd, Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, and Sean Bean, the film is set to open in theaters February 12, 2010.

Imminent Death.

SLING BLADE SPOILER ALERT!
Though not explicitly stated at the beginning of the film as was the death of Lester Burnham in American Beauty, the death of Doyle in Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade is just as imminent. We are introduced to the character Karl, a mentally challenged man who murdered his mother and her lover with a Kaiser Blade (some people call it a Sling Blade) when he was a young boy. After many, many years of being locked up in a mental institution, he is released into the free world. Because of the abuse inflicted upon him by his father, Karl's issues with the free world arise when he meets Frank. Frank is a young boy whose father died when he was younger, leaving him and his mother to live life together. His mother sought out a new boyfriend, and unfortunately wound up in the hands of Doyle, an abusive drunkard who loves controlling people.
As Karl befriends young Frank, he learns of his troubles with Doyle. And as Frank learns of Karl's current situation (Frank is living in the back of a repair shop), a deep friendship forms between the two. Frank invites Karl to live with he and his mother, and this is when the audience knows that Karl will kill Doyle. The moment the audience actually meets Doyle, they see him for what he is: a man only concerned with himself, only with a family to make himself look better, seeking to control everything, and never relenting on degrading those around him. He is the abusive father figure in Karl's life once again.
Karl understands, even with his mental challenges, that killing is wrong. But why it is wrong remains elusive to him. The fact that he'd been locked up in a mental institution for forty years makes his understanding of the world very limited. And indeed, after all is said and done and Karl winds back up in the institution, he claims that the world was just "too big" for him.