I'm not inquiring about the possibility of talking cars on the market in a couple of years, but that's cool, too. Nor the miraculous possible reprieve of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. What's truly implausible is the notion that Pride & Prejudice -- that new one that sports the hideous tagline "Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the only person you can't be without" -- can be any good. Could it be? I'm a pretty big fan of Austen's novels, and I'm not immune to the charms of Austen adaptations. And I even (embarrassingly) succumbed to the banal pleasures of Bridget Jones's Diary (feel free to ridicule me in the comments section below; I've heard all before, even from the girlfriend).
Austen credentials now firmly established, I've got to say the trailer of this latest version of Pride had me gagging. Obligatory Judi Dench role? Check. Stock footage of the English countryside? Check. Close-ups of a wooden British hunk glowering for no reason in particular? Check. The lovely but utterly vapid Keira Knightly as an Austen heroine? I'd sooner watch Orlando Bloom thow a pillow on his back and exclaim "a kingdom for a horse!" Look, I'm not looking for drumming raccoons and homeopathic frogs in this picture, but I just don't see any way that this movie could be good.
But today, after two weeks of belittling this movie, I scanned MetaCritic only to discover, to my astonishment, that it's one of the most acclaimed films this year. Even the estimable David Edelstein, who had mocked the ad campaign in his column, gave this film serious props, exhorting his readers to not "judge a filmmaker by the vulgarity of his distributor's marketing." Can it be?
Friday, November 11, 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Election post-mortem
Finally, California voters did something right and torched all the initiatives on the ballot, but not before the state wasted $ 50 million taxpayer dollars to administer this retarded election. To top it off, various political groups spent upwards of $250 million mounting dishonest campaigns to try to confuse voters, certainly not the productive use of money.
These campaigns are very clever. On Monday, I finally examined the heaping pile of campaign flyers I've received over the last couple of weeks. A couple jumped out at me. In one, a "Democratic Voter's Guide", a beaming Angelides (the state treasurer and gubernatorial hopeful) urged me to vote down the Arnold initiatives. But at the bottom was this: VOTE YES on 78 and NO on 79, with a message directing me to the Yes on 78 website. Very strange, since that endorsement directly contradicted the positions stated on the official California Democratic Party voter's guide, which I had read just a few minutes earlier. 78 is a Big Pharma bill designed to counterfeit and pre-empt Prop 79, a consumer group-supported measure that aimed to reduce drug prices and cut into drug company profits. Prop 78 supporters produced another flyer called "COPS support 78" which showed a group called COPS ("a group that supports the interests of sheriffs and law enforcement officers" according to the flyer) that tells you to vote yes on 78 and no on 79. On the face of the flyer are a bunch of other quotes from labor unions slamming the Arnold initiatives. Most voters won't catch this, but the flyer basically uses a front group that makes it appear as if the Yes on 78 campaign is allied with the unions. Undoubtedly Big Pharma targeted those flyers to reliably Democratic voters like myself, hoping to bamboozle them into taking their deceptive "voters guide" into the voting booth. On a scale of dirty politics, this probably ranks only a 3 or a 4, but it's the first time such tricks were directed at me.
What does the election debacle portend for Arnold? Michael Hiltzik, blogging for the LA Times, thinks Arnold will call it quits, since his ego won't be able to take an electoral drubbing in 2006. I agree with everything Hiltzik says about Arnold's pathetic governing skills, but I'm not so sure Arnold sees defeat in 2006. Arnold's probable opponent will be either Angelides and Westly, a couple of colorless technocrats no more formidable than the unfortunate Cruz Bustamante. If Arnold can move to the center and start triangulating, he may still recover. An Arnold that's wedded to the winger GOP agenda will not prevail in California. A "Arnold: beholden to special interests, and a typical Bush Republican" campaign will crush him. However, a chastened and centrist Arnold, projecting a pragmatic image and showing that he's not in the pocket of the Chamber of Commerce and anti-tax zealots, may yet look good next to the charisma-challenged Democrat. And if he does win, he'll have the sorry state Democratic party to thank for its collection of Gray Davis clones (they work their way up the state party machinery and win statewide offices by virtue of having the (D) next to their names). Gavin Newsome and Antonio Villaraigosa, a Blue State turns its lonely eyes to you.
And please, Warren, don't do it. Don't turn California into a bigger joke than it already is.
The national picture finds the GOP in deep trouble, as every pundit has noted. While I've learned not to ever misunderstimate the GOP machine or read too much into off-year elections, this New Donkey post, on the lessons of the Tim Kaine win in Virginia, makes me pretty optimistic. The race illustrates that GOP dirty tricks and demogoguery don't always work, even in a fairly red state (now trending purple). The Dems are still not favored to recapture even one chamber of Congress, as only a blue tsunami will wash away the advantages of gerrymandered districts in the House and the 6 seat GOPer majority in the Senate. But the disasterous GOP policies are now impossible to ignore. Bush is damaged goods and Republican scandals will continue to dribble out daily. Scooter's trial. Darth Veep's bottomless evil. Weekly Abramoff nuggets. Tom DeLay drowning in his cesspool of corruption. The Iraq Group's intelligence deceptions. Continuing revelations on officially sanctioned torture. Etc.
And that's just background noise.
In the foreground will be the continuing "catostrophic success" of the Iraq occupation, high gas prices, the deflating of the real estate market, stagnant wages, a ballooning budget deficit, and Bush's bald incompetence. The GOP will try to change the topic, but Bush's tax reform panel's suggestions are not politically viable, and we've got no troops left to attack other countries. They've run out of ideas, and most likely will be left to doing what they do best, repeating the old canard of GGG (guns, god and gays), and the usual warmongering and taxmongering.
It's easy to knock the Democrats. I bitch about their feckless ways all the time. But under the wily and fearless Harry Reid, they seem to be finally finding their stride and just in time for 2006. Run culturally conservative types like Tim Kaine in red states and competent liberals like Corzine in blue states. Tie Bush like an anvil around GOOPer necks. Come up with some actual positions and stick to 'em. Don't back away just because something didn't test well in a focus group. Take a gun to a knife fight instead of the reverse. For more, please view Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive. Pay special close attention to the ending.
These campaigns are very clever. On Monday, I finally examined the heaping pile of campaign flyers I've received over the last couple of weeks. A couple jumped out at me. In one, a "Democratic Voter's Guide", a beaming Angelides (the state treasurer and gubernatorial hopeful) urged me to vote down the Arnold initiatives. But at the bottom was this: VOTE YES on 78 and NO on 79, with a message directing me to the Yes on 78 website. Very strange, since that endorsement directly contradicted the positions stated on the official California Democratic Party voter's guide, which I had read just a few minutes earlier. 78 is a Big Pharma bill designed to counterfeit and pre-empt Prop 79, a consumer group-supported measure that aimed to reduce drug prices and cut into drug company profits. Prop 78 supporters produced another flyer called "COPS support 78" which showed a group called COPS ("a group that supports the interests of sheriffs and law enforcement officers" according to the flyer) that tells you to vote yes on 78 and no on 79. On the face of the flyer are a bunch of other quotes from labor unions slamming the Arnold initiatives. Most voters won't catch this, but the flyer basically uses a front group that makes it appear as if the Yes on 78 campaign is allied with the unions. Undoubtedly Big Pharma targeted those flyers to reliably Democratic voters like myself, hoping to bamboozle them into taking their deceptive "voters guide" into the voting booth. On a scale of dirty politics, this probably ranks only a 3 or a 4, but it's the first time such tricks were directed at me.
What does the election debacle portend for Arnold? Michael Hiltzik, blogging for the LA Times, thinks Arnold will call it quits, since his ego won't be able to take an electoral drubbing in 2006. I agree with everything Hiltzik says about Arnold's pathetic governing skills, but I'm not so sure Arnold sees defeat in 2006. Arnold's probable opponent will be either Angelides and Westly, a couple of colorless technocrats no more formidable than the unfortunate Cruz Bustamante. If Arnold can move to the center and start triangulating, he may still recover. An Arnold that's wedded to the winger GOP agenda will not prevail in California. A "Arnold: beholden to special interests, and a typical Bush Republican" campaign will crush him. However, a chastened and centrist Arnold, projecting a pragmatic image and showing that he's not in the pocket of the Chamber of Commerce and anti-tax zealots, may yet look good next to the charisma-challenged Democrat. And if he does win, he'll have the sorry state Democratic party to thank for its collection of Gray Davis clones (they work their way up the state party machinery and win statewide offices by virtue of having the (D) next to their names). Gavin Newsome and Antonio Villaraigosa, a Blue State turns its lonely eyes to you.
And please, Warren, don't do it. Don't turn California into a bigger joke than it already is.
The national picture finds the GOP in deep trouble, as every pundit has noted. While I've learned not to ever misunderstimate the GOP machine or read too much into off-year elections, this New Donkey post, on the lessons of the Tim Kaine win in Virginia, makes me pretty optimistic. The race illustrates that GOP dirty tricks and demogoguery don't always work, even in a fairly red state (now trending purple). The Dems are still not favored to recapture even one chamber of Congress, as only a blue tsunami will wash away the advantages of gerrymandered districts in the House and the 6 seat GOPer majority in the Senate. But the disasterous GOP policies are now impossible to ignore. Bush is damaged goods and Republican scandals will continue to dribble out daily. Scooter's trial. Darth Veep's bottomless evil. Weekly Abramoff nuggets. Tom DeLay drowning in his cesspool of corruption. The Iraq Group's intelligence deceptions. Continuing revelations on officially sanctioned torture. Etc.
And that's just background noise.
In the foreground will be the continuing "catostrophic success" of the Iraq occupation, high gas prices, the deflating of the real estate market, stagnant wages, a ballooning budget deficit, and Bush's bald incompetence. The GOP will try to change the topic, but Bush's tax reform panel's suggestions are not politically viable, and we've got no troops left to attack other countries. They've run out of ideas, and most likely will be left to doing what they do best, repeating the old canard of GGG (guns, god and gays), and the usual warmongering and taxmongering.
It's easy to knock the Democrats. I bitch about their feckless ways all the time. But under the wily and fearless Harry Reid, they seem to be finally finding their stride and just in time for 2006. Run culturally conservative types like Tim Kaine in red states and competent liberals like Corzine in blue states. Tie Bush like an anvil around GOOPer necks. Come up with some actual positions and stick to 'em. Don't back away just because something didn't test well in a focus group. Take a gun to a knife fight instead of the reverse. For more, please view Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive. Pay special close attention to the ending.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
This Blog's Official Ballot Endorsements (free of charge)
Because the world would be a much better place if everyone voted exactly like me.
California Initiatives
73 - Abortion parental notification. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
74 - Weaken teacher tenure. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
75 - Fuck the Unions Act. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials or the courts.
76 - Spending Cap. No. Because budgetary decisions should be made by the legislature and governor.
77 - Redistricting. Yes. Because the only issues voters should get to vote on directly are process questions -- term limits, redistricting, campaign finance, etc. -- that should not be decided by elected officials due to conflicts of interest. Prop 77 is pretty poorly drafted, but besides public financing of campaigns, few acts would improve the political system more effectively than to take district-drawing out of the hands of political hacks. Competitive districts would make legislators care about their constituents again. Prop. 77 is flawed, but it's still much better than what we have now. Gerrymandering sucks -- whether Dems have the edge or not. On the "not" front, see also Ohio Issue 4.
78- Pharma-subsidies. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
79- Low cost drugs. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
80-Electricity re-regulation. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
Also, it's not on the official ballot, but if you happen upon Prop 1000 - No More Initiatives Will Ever Be on the Ballot Ever Again Ever, VOTE YES!
If I were to live in Virginia I'd vote for Tom Kaine for Governor, if only because some lefty crybabies went way too far. If I were to live in Jersey....who am I kidding, I'd never step foot in Jersey! [rimshot] New York, I guess the RINO Bloomberg isn't so bad. Everyone else is voting for him, and who wants to swing with a loser?
California Initiatives
73 - Abortion parental notification. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
74 - Weaken teacher tenure. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
75 - Fuck the Unions Act. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials or the courts.
76 - Spending Cap. No. Because budgetary decisions should be made by the legislature and governor.
77 - Redistricting. Yes. Because the only issues voters should get to vote on directly are process questions -- term limits, redistricting, campaign finance, etc. -- that should not be decided by elected officials due to conflicts of interest. Prop 77 is pretty poorly drafted, but besides public financing of campaigns, few acts would improve the political system more effectively than to take district-drawing out of the hands of political hacks. Competitive districts would make legislators care about their constituents again. Prop. 77 is flawed, but it's still much better than what we have now. Gerrymandering sucks -- whether Dems have the edge or not. On the "not" front, see also Ohio Issue 4.
78- Pharma-subsidies. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
79- Low cost drugs. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
80-Electricity re-regulation. No. Because the decision should be made by elected officials.
Also, it's not on the official ballot, but if you happen upon Prop 1000 - No More Initiatives Will Ever Be on the Ballot Ever Again Ever, VOTE YES!
If I were to live in Virginia I'd vote for Tom Kaine for Governor, if only because some lefty crybabies went way too far. If I were to live in Jersey....who am I kidding, I'd never step foot in Jersey! [rimshot]
Village Voice/New Times merger
The long-gestating merger between the two major alternative weekly conglomerates have finally gone through. What does it mean for devoted fans of lefty weekly rags? And for their staff, some of whom are friends and readers of this blog? The unpredictable Marc Cooper provides this informative and convincing analysis of what's at stake. His take is firmly rooted in reality -- in the actual conditions of the business.
With the emergence of digital information technology, many industries are struggling. Newspaper circulation have been in decline. Cooper alludes to the detrimental effect that Craig's List had on the alt-weeklies. Just as some lament of the distribution crisis facing super-hifalutin art cinema, others lament the inhospitable conditions facing traditional journalism.
We are all attached to certain institutions. My ex-girlfriend used to worry that I'd kill myself diving into a BART track for a discarded NY Times. That's how much I love newspapers. But things change. Like the travel agent racket, various long-standing industries and institutions will continue to change or die. Digital technology has enhanced the ease of consuming information and art while simultaneously diminishing the consumer's patience for long, rigorous works. The changes in the print media reflect overall changes in information consumption. The trade-off yields a net benefit, I think, but the cost of technological change should be acknowledged.
With the emergence of digital information technology, many industries are struggling. Newspaper circulation have been in decline. Cooper alludes to the detrimental effect that Craig's List had on the alt-weeklies. Just as some lament of the distribution crisis facing super-hifalutin art cinema, others lament the inhospitable conditions facing traditional journalism.
We are all attached to certain institutions. My ex-girlfriend used to worry that I'd kill myself diving into a BART track for a discarded NY Times. That's how much I love newspapers. But things change. Like the travel agent racket, various long-standing industries and institutions will continue to change or die. Digital technology has enhanced the ease of consuming information and art while simultaneously diminishing the consumer's patience for long, rigorous works. The changes in the print media reflect overall changes in information consumption. The trade-off yields a net benefit, I think, but the cost of technological change should be acknowledged.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
A response to a reader's request.
A correspondent kindly requested that I provide some thoughts on movies I have seen recently. Though I have not seen many movies in the last three weeks, I will comply with this request and do my best to address the movies seen and unblogged over the last month, along with one unseen movie.
The Squid and the Whale (Baumbach) A-/B+
This movie is excellent in many ways, all of which have been better articulated elsewhere, and falters only on occasion, which has also been otherwise noted. The reviewers are right that the performances are uniformly wonderful and the observations sharp and devastating. Other positive observations made by certain reviewers are also largely correct, at least the portions with which I agree. Also, Jonathan Lethem, Baumbach didn't read your fucking book and doesn't give a shit about your shared experiences. Get over it.
Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones (Lucas) C+
Most viewers have dismissed this movie as one of the series' worst, and it's a sentiment I mostly share, for most of the reasons that this sentiment is widely shared by most viewers. I do think the designs of different planets were cool, perhaps surpassing the ingenuity of other, also quite interesting elements of the production design, which were unsurprisingly excellent. Also, I was interested enough to check up on a couple of Star Wars related items on Wikipedia, only to discover the frightening depths of Star Wars nerditude. (Boba Fett's clone origin is "canonical"; his escape from the clutches of the Sarlaac "apocryphal." Yes, just like the Bible.)
Mirrormask (McKean) B-
Gaiman geeks who know The Sandman inside out instantly recognize his inimitable sensibility, as I do. It is also easy to identify the murky ethereal collage effects as the visual style of McKean, who aims to capture privileged moments stationed between dimensions. Or something. (I made the last part up.) As for the movie, the story stumbles in ways that Gaiman stories sometimes stumble, in the manner described by various Gaimanologists over the years, and the flickering lighting scheme and out-of-focus effects might have permanently damaged my retina, as McKean's out-of-focus visuals tend to do. Mirrormask is good in expected ways and not-so-good in expected and unexpected ways -- a true mixed blessing.
Le Amiche (Antonioni, 1955) A-
I have various reasons for my high regard for this early Antonioni, most of which I cannot divulge in the short space allotted. But rest assured perfectly good reasons exist to support this grade, backed by insight and careful attention devoted to this movie's acting, directing, lighting, camera movement, and script. Le Amiche's themes, both stated and unstated, seem to me especially poignant, and the execution well-nigh flawless. Overall, I agree with those who have called this an underrated gem.
Zabriskie Point (Antonioni, 1970) A-
This movie is excellent, which thereby directly contradicts all assertions of its non-excellence, of which there are many and all of which are of course wrong-headed and borne of a Philistine's sensibility. Those possessed of an adventurous and cosmopolitian appetite will undoubtedly be nourished by the experimental prowess of this director, the vision of which is exhibited in many bravura sequences that should be studied in semester-long film courses. I would describe said bravura sequences and the sublime spatial configurations that make up each image's composition with more specificity, but numerous Antonioni scholars have made the same points elsewhere, exerpts of which may be found on the internet, if the search words are wisely chosen. I recommend the Web search engine Google for the purpose of conducting an article search.
Thumbsucker (Mills) N/A
Mike Mills has the reputation as a good director, and this film has received fairly decent notices from cineastes much more esteemed than myself. Nevertheless, I hereby declare that I would rather do sake shots off the bare pudgy torso of three inebriated Young Republicans than subject myself to two hours of petulant whining from overprivileged white people looking to be passed off as the brave primal scream of a tortured "emo."
The Squid and the Whale (Baumbach) A-/B+
This movie is excellent in many ways, all of which have been better articulated elsewhere, and falters only on occasion, which has also been otherwise noted. The reviewers are right that the performances are uniformly wonderful and the observations sharp and devastating. Other positive observations made by certain reviewers are also largely correct, at least the portions with which I agree. Also, Jonathan Lethem, Baumbach didn't read your fucking book and doesn't give a shit about your shared experiences. Get over it.
Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones (Lucas) C+
Most viewers have dismissed this movie as one of the series' worst, and it's a sentiment I mostly share, for most of the reasons that this sentiment is widely shared by most viewers. I do think the designs of different planets were cool, perhaps surpassing the ingenuity of other, also quite interesting elements of the production design, which were unsurprisingly excellent. Also, I was interested enough to check up on a couple of Star Wars related items on Wikipedia, only to discover the frightening depths of Star Wars nerditude. (Boba Fett's clone origin is "canonical"; his escape from the clutches of the Sarlaac "apocryphal." Yes, just like the Bible.)
Mirrormask (McKean) B-
Gaiman geeks who know The Sandman inside out instantly recognize his inimitable sensibility, as I do. It is also easy to identify the murky ethereal collage effects as the visual style of McKean, who aims to capture privileged moments stationed between dimensions. Or something. (I made the last part up.) As for the movie, the story stumbles in ways that Gaiman stories sometimes stumble, in the manner described by various Gaimanologists over the years, and the flickering lighting scheme and out-of-focus effects might have permanently damaged my retina, as McKean's out-of-focus visuals tend to do. Mirrormask is good in expected ways and not-so-good in expected and unexpected ways -- a true mixed blessing.
Le Amiche (Antonioni, 1955) A-
I have various reasons for my high regard for this early Antonioni, most of which I cannot divulge in the short space allotted. But rest assured perfectly good reasons exist to support this grade, backed by insight and careful attention devoted to this movie's acting, directing, lighting, camera movement, and script. Le Amiche's themes, both stated and unstated, seem to me especially poignant, and the execution well-nigh flawless. Overall, I agree with those who have called this an underrated gem.
Zabriskie Point (Antonioni, 1970) A-
This movie is excellent, which thereby directly contradicts all assertions of its non-excellence, of which there are many and all of which are of course wrong-headed and borne of a Philistine's sensibility. Those possessed of an adventurous and cosmopolitian appetite will undoubtedly be nourished by the experimental prowess of this director, the vision of which is exhibited in many bravura sequences that should be studied in semester-long film courses. I would describe said bravura sequences and the sublime spatial configurations that make up each image's composition with more specificity, but numerous Antonioni scholars have made the same points elsewhere, exerpts of which may be found on the internet, if the search words are wisely chosen. I recommend the Web search engine Google for the purpose of conducting an article search.
Thumbsucker (Mills) N/A
Mike Mills has the reputation as a good director, and this film has received fairly decent notices from cineastes much more esteemed than myself. Nevertheless, I hereby declare that I would rather do sake shots off the bare pudgy torso of three inebriated Young Republicans than subject myself to two hours of petulant whining from overprivileged white people looking to be passed off as the brave primal scream of a tortured "emo."
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Fall Sneaks
With my beloved Red Sox shredded by the Pale Hose, what's to look forward to except the possibility of Karl Rove being frog-marched to the federal pen?
Oh, yes, cinema. We've got movies to keep us warm during those long, hard California winters. As baseball winds down, Hollywood will begin their seasonal rollout of prestigious heavy-hitters for those of us who were too busy trolling the movie nerd sites every 20 minutes living life instead of TIFFing. A diet heavy on buttery, middlebrow Oscarbait won’t sate the rarefied palate of folks who are deep into international auteur cinema, but this year balance can be achieved by regular visits to the cinematheque. An awesome retrospective season awaits. Seriously, take a look at the following screenings coming to La La Land (ranked in preferential order).
01. Mikio Naruse (from Nov. 1 to Dec. 2 @ UCLA Film Archive).
Reasons for excitement: Now, if I were one of those sorry nerds who draws up lists with titles like “Most Anticipated Director Retrospectives”, that hypothetical list I'd draw up may very well have a Mikio Naruse retro sitting right smack at #1. And why not? Of the great Japanese masters, Naruse’s cinema is the most modern and unsentimental, featuring extraordinary work from three of the finest actresses the medium has ever known: Hideko Takamine, Kinuyo Tanaka, and Setsuko Hara. But what makes this series a schedule-your-life-around-it kind of event is that, unlike his peers, Naruse’s oeuvre, both major and minor, are for all practical purposes impossible to view. He's probably the most significant director in world cinema whose films are almost entirely unavailable on video (Late Chryanthemum and When a Woman Ascends the Staircase are the only ones on tape I'm aware of; no DVDs at all, at least none with English subs). The long overdue traveling Naruse retrospective rolls into town next month -- I believe only the second Naruse series in the last twenty-five years -- giving me the chance to finally catch Wife, Be Like a Rose, Yearning, Scattered Clouds, Lightning, and other elusive would-be masterworks. Easily the cinematic event of the year for me.
02. The Passenger (opens Nov. 10 @ The Nuart).
Reasons for excitement: A just-concluded Antonioni retrospective has opened my eyes to the man's staggering visual ingenuity. Yes, Zabriskie Point shows a director acquainted with Boudrillard perhaps fondly but not too well, but oh what images! Antonioni has a peerless eye for framing architectural space, and for creating the perfect shot that encloses Modern Alienated Man in the cold metal and glass monoliths of mid-century Modernism. After surveying Antonioni, I was struck by how many of Wong Kar-wai's compositions in his 60s Hong Kong films were close approximations of the Italian masters', where iconic actors are framed and blocked facing different directions -- a perfect visual representation of alienated characters incapable of honest communication with one another. (Wong also shares Antonioni's fixation with shooting close-ups of the back of heads.) Antonioni and Godard are probably the two greatest living filmmakers, and The Passenger is the culmination of Antonioni’s modernist phase, for many the summit of his career. This one also features Jack Nicholson at the height of his combustible powers, though post-L'avventura Antonioni is not known for eliciting powerhouse performances, to put it mildly (Monica Vitti's chic somnambulance is a far cry from the wrenching performances you find in early Antonionis like Le Amiche and Il Grido). Put it together and you have a movie resting confidently on my list of the ten movies I most want to see. That is, if I were to devise such a list. Which I would never do, of course, not being remotely that geeky.
03. Hidden (Caché) (Opens Dec. 23)
Reasons for excitement: The best pound-for-pound boxer in the world is a title invented by boxing purists to recognize a pugilist, no matter what the weight class, who best combines all the skills of the sweet science into one package. If such a category exists in filmmaking, the Austrian perfectionist Michael Haneke would have to be on any purist’s shortlist. A filmmaker of impeccable control, Haneke parcels each bit of information so carefully that not one speckle on the frame is a mistake. It's a cinema where not one strand of hair is out of place. Combine that cinematic mastery with a provocateur's personality and the mind of a logician, and you have one of the few working filmmakers who can leave you trembling for hours (Funny Games) and keep you thinking for days (Code Unknown). His icy films are often too arid, determined, and anti-sensual for my taste, but it's obvious he's one of the most formidable film directors currently working. Hidden, the most acclaimed film at Cannes this year, may finally bring him the recognition he deserves. And frankly, if there's a filmmaker with the intellectual rigor and temperament to take an accurate temperature of the West's existential state, post-9/11, it's Haneke.
04. Brokeback Mountain (Opens Dec. 9)
Reasons for excitement: A gay cowboy movie starring Jake “skid row Tobey” Gyllenhaal will send few pulses racing. But when said gay cowboy movie is compared to The Age of Innocence, In the Mood for Love and Far From Heaven…well, you might as well tell me that Winona Ryder, Maggie Cheung and Julianne Moore are presently squeezed under my sheets, nude and awaiting my tender ministrations. Ah, yes…wait, where were we again? Oh, right. Perhaps an orgy isn’t an appropriate metaphor to express my enthusiasm for this particular movie, but let's just say I'm extremely pumped for this Ang Lee adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's...gay cowboy story.
05. The New World (Opens Dec. 25)
Reason for excitement: Reportedly Malick's "revisionist" (which really isn't so, in the sense that mainstream historians now tend to acknowledge the European savagery during the Age of Exploration) take on Pocahantas and John Smith, I'm guessing we'll be treated to lots of pretty pictures of indiginous people frolicking in paradise lost. Which is fine. I dug Tabu, too. More importantly, Colin Farrell, please do not show your bare butt more than three times in this picture. Your consideration is much appreciated.
06. Heroic Grace II: (from Nov. 17 to Dec. 11 @ UCLA Film Archive).
Reasons for excitement: More goodies from one of the great projects of the last five years, Celestial Pictures' remasters of the Shaw Brothers library. This sequel to the wildly successful Heroic Grace series aims to solidify the reps of baroque wuxia stylist Chu Yuan, aka Chor Yuen (Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan) and kung fu purist Lau Kar-leung, aka Liu Chia-liang (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin), two accomplished genre specialists who should by all rights be as respected as Maria Bava and Walter Hill. As it happens, I've caught a number of their films earlier this year, and this series will help round out my perspective. Perhaps a long-planned Lau/Chu post will finally get off the ground after this series. The one unmissable picture here is King Hu's The Valiant Ones, one of Hu's two hard-to-catch acclaimed pictures from the 70s (the other being The Fate of Lee Khan).
07. The Squid and the Whale (Opens Oct. 14)
Reasons for excitement: Dr. Akagi fights Old Boy to the death? Not quite, but it's nice to see Noah Baumbach rebound the last couple of years, first with The Life Aquatic, the wacky collab with Wes Anderson, and apparently now with this highly lauded autobiographical pic. The urbane wit of 90s indie stalwarts Baumbach and Whit Stillman have been sorely lacking in the age of Garden State, and so his return is a relief for sore ears. The trailer, like all Indiewood pics, sucks the big hairy ass, but I have it on good authority that the movie is more than just another quirky family therapy movie. Heck, I'm just happy Baumbach didn't need to cast freakin' Eric Stoltz to get a project off the ground this time.
08. Jacques Rivette (from Oct. 1 to Oct. 28 @ UCLA Film Archive).
Reasons for excitement: David Thomson called Rivette the greatest director of the last thirty five years, and Celine and Julie Go Boating the most significant film since Citizen Kane. Personally, I'd call Rivette Murder on the Assbone. And unfortunately, the taxing Rivette opuses I'm actually very eager to view, L'Amour fou, Out 1: Spectre, Le Pont du nord, Gang of Four, and Joan the Maid, are all missing from this series (as well as Rivette's awesome La Belle noiseuse), which explains why this series is placed so low. Last week, I had the chance to see the quite conventional (but surprisingly good) The Nun, and perhaps will hit this retro one more time, for a second dose of Up/Down/Fragile. But that's all. Hopefully the next Rivette series will be more comprehensive.
09. Match Point (Opens Dec. 25)
Reasons for excitement: A Woody comeback! Where have I heard that one before? In so far as his latest features the unbeatable combo of Scarlett Johansson and tennis (can we have a Maria Sharapova cameo please?), it could be the next Shadows & Fog for all I care. But it'd be nice if the Woodman would turn out an un-excruciating movie for a change. The Cannes consensus is that Match Point is Woody's best since maybe Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even perpetual Cannes crank D'Angelo is on board. And if D'Angelo can be trusted on anything, it's the oeuvre of Woody Allen (now underrated by those "serious" J-Ro Kool-Aid-drinking cineastes -- you humorless wankers, how do you dis Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall and Manhattan?).
10. Aeon Flux (Opens Dec 2)
Q. You're not serious about this?
A. I'm dead serious.
Q. Dude, how much you wanna bet you're not even gonna watch this thing?
A. Maybe not, but Charlize looks hot and the trailer kicks ass. And do you remember those Aeon Flux segments on MTV's "Liquid Television" back in the early Nineties? So kewl!
Q. Oh dear. You do remember that noogie you delivered to "fanboys" as you slammed Sin City?
A. So what's your point?
11. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Opens Oct 21)
Reasons for excitement: Honestly, I don't know why this movie is this high. I mean, Tango & Cash was okay, but now we're supposed to be pumped about the writer of that movie's directorial debut? I guess everyone says it's good, and it's always a treat to see Robert Downey, Jr., so I'll go along like the sheep I am. Oooops! I just realized it wasn't Tango & Cash but The Last Boy Scout that Shane Black worked on! Sorry!
12. The Most Typical Avant-Garde and the Joseph Cornell series. Listed here to show I AM HARDCORE!!! It's actually a goal of mine to work through the a-g canon, and we've got some goodies here. Also, the silent horror series should be pretty awesome -- I'm hoping to finally catch the Lon Cheney Phantom, though regrettably not the Epstein House of Usher.
Nope: Memoirs of a Geisha, Rent, Elizabethtown
Proceed with Caution: The treacherous minefield of the Thinkpic -- All the King’s Men, Munich, Syriana, Jarhead.
On the fence: King Kong (the effects look great, but do we need to see this story again?), The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (read the book as a kid, not sold on the film version); Chicken Little (supposedly a good non-Pixar cgi-pic!), and the Louis Malle retrospective (I've seen most of his acclaimed works; his minor films appear eminently missable).
Special mention: National Lampoon’s Barely Legal. Description from Yahoo! movies: "Three high school sophomores try to make a porno movie in their basement while their parents are away at work." Res ipsa loquitur.
Fest Films
01. Three Times. All of HHH's greatest hits rolled into one, and it looks amazing.
02. A Tale of Cinema. Hong Sang-soo is my dawg.
03. Gabrielle. Chereau's breakthrough film?
04. Princess Raccoon. Seijun Suzuki's raccoon romp is likely the only picture I'll be seeing at the pathetic AFI Fest.
05. The Wayward Cloud. Tsai goes Irreversible. Which sounds awesome in theory; unfortunately, it seems to wow only the folks who evince a weakness for shocking feel-bad denouements.
06. Regular Lovers. I do not expect to be able to see this movie until ten years from now.
07. Tideland. It can't be that bad, can it?
08. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. Because watching some poor Romanian schlub drown in his own urine is my idea of a good time. Or not. The love it/hate it film of the festival circuit this year.
Oh, yes, cinema. We've got movies to keep us warm during those long, hard California winters. As baseball winds down, Hollywood will begin their seasonal rollout of prestigious heavy-hitters for those of us who were too busy
01. Mikio Naruse (from Nov. 1 to Dec. 2 @ UCLA Film Archive).
Reasons for excitement: Now, if I were one of those sorry nerds who draws up lists with titles like “Most Anticipated Director Retrospectives”, that hypothetical list I'd draw up may very well have a Mikio Naruse retro sitting right smack at #1. And why not? Of the great Japanese masters, Naruse’s cinema is the most modern and unsentimental, featuring extraordinary work from three of the finest actresses the medium has ever known: Hideko Takamine, Kinuyo Tanaka, and Setsuko Hara. But what makes this series a schedule-your-life-around-it kind of event is that, unlike his peers, Naruse’s oeuvre, both major and minor, are for all practical purposes impossible to view. He's probably the most significant director in world cinema whose films are almost entirely unavailable on video (Late Chryanthemum and When a Woman Ascends the Staircase are the only ones on tape I'm aware of; no DVDs at all, at least none with English subs). The long overdue traveling Naruse retrospective rolls into town next month -- I believe only the second Naruse series in the last twenty-five years -- giving me the chance to finally catch Wife, Be Like a Rose, Yearning, Scattered Clouds, Lightning, and other elusive would-be masterworks. Easily the cinematic event of the year for me.
02. The Passenger (opens Nov. 10 @ The Nuart).
Reasons for excitement: A just-concluded Antonioni retrospective has opened my eyes to the man's staggering visual ingenuity. Yes, Zabriskie Point shows a director acquainted with Boudrillard perhaps fondly but not too well, but oh what images! Antonioni has a peerless eye for framing architectural space, and for creating the perfect shot that encloses Modern Alienated Man in the cold metal and glass monoliths of mid-century Modernism. After surveying Antonioni, I was struck by how many of Wong Kar-wai's compositions in his 60s Hong Kong films were close approximations of the Italian masters', where iconic actors are framed and blocked facing different directions -- a perfect visual representation of alienated characters incapable of honest communication with one another. (Wong also shares Antonioni's fixation with shooting close-ups of the back of heads.) Antonioni and Godard are probably the two greatest living filmmakers, and The Passenger is the culmination of Antonioni’s modernist phase, for many the summit of his career. This one also features Jack Nicholson at the height of his combustible powers, though post-L'avventura Antonioni is not known for eliciting powerhouse performances, to put it mildly (Monica Vitti's chic somnambulance is a far cry from the wrenching performances you find in early Antonionis like Le Amiche and Il Grido). Put it together and you have a movie resting confidently on my list of the ten movies I most want to see. That is, if I were to devise such a list. Which I would never do, of course, not being remotely that geeky.
03. Hidden (Caché) (Opens Dec. 23)
Reasons for excitement: The best pound-for-pound boxer in the world is a title invented by boxing purists to recognize a pugilist, no matter what the weight class, who best combines all the skills of the sweet science into one package. If such a category exists in filmmaking, the Austrian perfectionist Michael Haneke would have to be on any purist’s shortlist. A filmmaker of impeccable control, Haneke parcels each bit of information so carefully that not one speckle on the frame is a mistake. It's a cinema where not one strand of hair is out of place. Combine that cinematic mastery with a provocateur's personality and the mind of a logician, and you have one of the few working filmmakers who can leave you trembling for hours (Funny Games) and keep you thinking for days (Code Unknown). His icy films are often too arid, determined, and anti-sensual for my taste, but it's obvious he's one of the most formidable film directors currently working. Hidden, the most acclaimed film at Cannes this year, may finally bring him the recognition he deserves. And frankly, if there's a filmmaker with the intellectual rigor and temperament to take an accurate temperature of the West's existential state, post-9/11, it's Haneke.
04. Brokeback Mountain (Opens Dec. 9)
Reasons for excitement: A gay cowboy movie starring Jake “skid row Tobey” Gyllenhaal will send few pulses racing. But when said gay cowboy movie is compared to The Age of Innocence, In the Mood for Love and Far From Heaven…well, you might as well tell me that Winona Ryder, Maggie Cheung and Julianne Moore are presently squeezed under my sheets, nude and awaiting my tender ministrations. Ah, yes…wait, where were we again? Oh, right. Perhaps an orgy isn’t an appropriate metaphor to express my enthusiasm for this particular movie, but let's just say I'm extremely pumped for this Ang Lee adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's...gay cowboy story.
05. The New World (Opens Dec. 25)
Reason for excitement: Reportedly Malick's "revisionist" (which really isn't so, in the sense that mainstream historians now tend to acknowledge the European savagery during the Age of Exploration) take on Pocahantas and John Smith, I'm guessing we'll be treated to lots of pretty pictures of indiginous people frolicking in paradise lost. Which is fine. I dug Tabu, too. More importantly, Colin Farrell, please do not show your bare butt more than three times in this picture. Your consideration is much appreciated.
06. Heroic Grace II: (from Nov. 17 to Dec. 11 @ UCLA Film Archive).
Reasons for excitement: More goodies from one of the great projects of the last five years, Celestial Pictures' remasters of the Shaw Brothers library. This sequel to the wildly successful Heroic Grace series aims to solidify the reps of baroque wuxia stylist Chu Yuan, aka Chor Yuen (Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan) and kung fu purist Lau Kar-leung, aka Liu Chia-liang (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin), two accomplished genre specialists who should by all rights be as respected as Maria Bava and Walter Hill. As it happens, I've caught a number of their films earlier this year, and this series will help round out my perspective. Perhaps a long-planned Lau/Chu post will finally get off the ground after this series. The one unmissable picture here is King Hu's The Valiant Ones, one of Hu's two hard-to-catch acclaimed pictures from the 70s (the other being The Fate of Lee Khan).
07. The Squid and the Whale (Opens Oct. 14)
Reasons for excitement: Dr. Akagi fights Old Boy to the death? Not quite, but it's nice to see Noah Baumbach rebound the last couple of years, first with The Life Aquatic, the wacky collab with Wes Anderson, and apparently now with this highly lauded autobiographical pic. The urbane wit of 90s indie stalwarts Baumbach and Whit Stillman have been sorely lacking in the age of Garden State, and so his return is a relief for sore ears. The trailer, like all Indiewood pics, sucks the big hairy ass, but I have it on good authority that the movie is more than just another quirky family therapy movie. Heck, I'm just happy Baumbach didn't need to cast freakin' Eric Stoltz to get a project off the ground this time.
08. Jacques Rivette (from Oct. 1 to Oct. 28 @ UCLA Film Archive).
Reasons for excitement: David Thomson called Rivette the greatest director of the last thirty five years, and Celine and Julie Go Boating the most significant film since Citizen Kane. Personally, I'd call Rivette Murder on the Assbone. And unfortunately, the taxing Rivette opuses I'm actually very eager to view, L'Amour fou, Out 1: Spectre, Le Pont du nord, Gang of Four, and Joan the Maid, are all missing from this series (as well as Rivette's awesome La Belle noiseuse), which explains why this series is placed so low. Last week, I had the chance to see the quite conventional (but surprisingly good) The Nun, and perhaps will hit this retro one more time, for a second dose of Up/Down/Fragile. But that's all. Hopefully the next Rivette series will be more comprehensive.09. Match Point (Opens Dec. 25)
Reasons for excitement: A Woody comeback! Where have I heard that one before? In so far as his latest features the unbeatable combo of Scarlett Johansson and tennis (can we have a Maria Sharapova cameo please?), it could be the next Shadows & Fog for all I care. But it'd be nice if the Woodman would turn out an un-excruciating movie for a change. The Cannes consensus is that Match Point is Woody's best since maybe Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even perpetual Cannes crank D'Angelo is on board. And if D'Angelo can be trusted on anything, it's the oeuvre of Woody Allen (now underrated by those "serious" J-Ro Kool-Aid-drinking cineastes -- you humorless wankers, how do you dis Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall and Manhattan?).
10. Aeon Flux (Opens Dec 2)
Q. You're not serious about this?
A. I'm dead serious.
Q. Dude, how much you wanna bet you're not even gonna watch this thing?
A. Maybe not, but Charlize looks hot and the trailer kicks ass. And do you remember those Aeon Flux segments on MTV's "Liquid Television" back in the early Nineties? So kewl!
Q. Oh dear. You do remember that noogie you delivered to "fanboys" as you slammed Sin City?
A. So what's your point?
11. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Opens Oct 21)
Reasons for excitement: Honestly, I don't know why this movie is this high. I mean, Tango & Cash was okay, but now we're supposed to be pumped about the writer of that movie's directorial debut? I guess everyone says it's good, and it's always a treat to see Robert Downey, Jr., so I'll go along like the sheep I am. Oooops! I just realized it wasn't Tango & Cash but The Last Boy Scout that Shane Black worked on! Sorry!
12. The Most Typical Avant-Garde and the Joseph Cornell series. Listed here to show I AM HARDCORE!!! It's actually a goal of mine to work through the a-g canon, and we've got some goodies here. Also, the silent horror series should be pretty awesome -- I'm hoping to finally catch the Lon Cheney Phantom, though regrettably not the Epstein House of Usher.
Nope: Memoirs of a Geisha, Rent, Elizabethtown
Proceed with Caution: The treacherous minefield of the Thinkpic -- All the King’s Men, Munich, Syriana, Jarhead.
On the fence: King Kong (the effects look great, but do we need to see this story again?), The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (read the book as a kid, not sold on the film version); Chicken Little (supposedly a good non-Pixar cgi-pic!), and the Louis Malle retrospective (I've seen most of his acclaimed works; his minor films appear eminently missable).
Special mention: National Lampoon’s Barely Legal. Description from Yahoo! movies: "Three high school sophomores try to make a porno movie in their basement while their parents are away at work." Res ipsa loquitur.
Fest Films
01. Three Times. All of HHH's greatest hits rolled into one, and it looks amazing.
02. A Tale of Cinema. Hong Sang-soo is my dawg.
03. Gabrielle. Chereau's breakthrough film?
04. Princess Raccoon. Seijun Suzuki's raccoon romp is likely the only picture I'll be seeing at the pathetic AFI Fest.
05. The Wayward Cloud. Tsai goes Irreversible. Which sounds awesome in theory; unfortunately, it seems to wow only the folks who evince a weakness for shocking feel-bad denouements.
06. Regular Lovers. I do not expect to be able to see this movie until ten years from now.
07. Tideland. It can't be that bad, can it?
08. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. Because watching some poor Romanian schlub drown in his own urine is my idea of a good time. Or not. The love it/hate it film of the festival circuit this year.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Gov, you are so cool!!!!
You know, I was initially skeptical about clicking on the link to this Harriet Miers parody blog being passed around the blogosphere, since parody blogs tend to be funnier in theory than in practice. But after reading this story, that anonymous parodist now looks like a genius.
And the blog really is pretty damn funny!!!
And the blog really is pretty damn funny!!!
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