Le Samouraï - Jean-Pierre Melville - (1967)

Date watched: 6/22/11

Film:  Le Samouraï

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

This was good contrast to have for the previous night.  This film was slowly paced, about assassination and ambiguous in the start. However, as opposed to Amores Perros, this film actually paid you for your time of watching.

I am still be-stung from my previous "thriller".  I paid so much attention to Amores Perros, I invested a ton of emotional capital into the characters of that film, with little return.

My viewing time is part of my life.  If I chose to offer this time as seed to be sown by a film, I expect a decent harvest.  Amores Perros ran my silo dry thrice and paid me back once.  Le Samouraï took my seed and paid me back in kind, but made me appreciate the seed more.

Carp, that sounds pretentious.  Ok, to normalize my thoughts; Amores Perros steals a ton of your time and pays you off like you bought a time share.  This film robs you of a decent chunk of time, but gives it back to you, apologizes at the police station and makes you appreciate what you have more.

I could see the influence this film had on modern crime flicks.  Oddly I could not see John Woo's The Killer in this.

The reason I picked this film is that I was editing Wikipedia, came across the article on The Killer (one of my faves) and saw Woo cited this as an inspiration.  I saw many modern classics in this film.  I saw Le Femme Nikita, I saw Jim Jarmusch.  Hell, I even saw The Bourne Identity.  But no Killer, no ballet...

This film laid a lot of ground, but never really soared.  It's like Band Of Outsiders, but not goofy.  I know it breaks ground, I really want to love it.  However, it just never speaks to me.  I love movies like this, but this drew me in slowly ...it still gave me a great payoff.

There was a cool ending, it was right out of Irezumi ichidai (when Suzuki went color!), big payoff for a non-memorable film.  Mind you, this was a great ending and I actually...


... ... ...


I must stop finding YouTube clips of these films as I type.  Irezumi ichidai is so amazing.  Second only to Pistol Opera for a Japanese film.  Now this French movie seems like drek, and no fault of its own.

Ok... Clearing my mind, trying to forget Seijun Suzuki... It's so hard.  

Its like writing in the school paper about the drama club's version of Hamlet, being reminded of Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead.  Trying to explain how your version is good without Tom Stoppard laughing in the back of your mind.

This is what's killing me.  I am trying to watch new movies, but movies like this are driving me to watching films I love instead.

Summing up (cause I am in Suzuki-mode).  Good film, nowhere near as good as The Killer, but good.

Favorite bit: How they had Evian water in France in the 60's.

You must watch (Seijun Suzuki):

• Pistol Opera (Watch this, watch this, watch this! I know this blog is about films I haven't seen, but this is one of my top-3 favorites.  Film as art.)
• Tattooed Life
• Branded To Kill

Amores Perros - Alejandro González Iñárritu - (2000)

Date watched: 6/22/11

Film:  Amores Perros

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

 

Oh lord.  How can I dislike this movie without being lame.

Screw it.  This movie was not great, in fact it barely borderlined on good.  It was certainly not entertaining.  And it is REALLY long.

I don't read anything about a film I haven't seen before I watch it (if it can be helped).  I had no idea of the international acclaim this movie received.

Why?  Honestly, this film is a Mexican knock-off of Babel crossed with Snatch.  It's 180 minutes spread over three acts. and the first two, truly, truly don't matter at all.  The entire film feels like an anthology. It has one student film, one pedestrian art-house film and a final, longer film that was written and filmed by a competent, but pedestrian, crew.

As I said, I read critical reviews of this film after viewing it.  It's odd, my notes seem to illuminate a similar theme to the film-writing public, just entirely opposite.  The majority of viewers seem to see the dogs in this film as representative of the loyal, noble parts of humans.

This is not a film about how dogs have the best parts of humans, this is a film about how humans have the worst parts of dogs.  This film is misogynistic in a way I have not seen in a long while.  Every man in this film (perhaps besides except for Emilio Echevarría, he is the one real strength), is a caricature of how men are no less than animals, sniffing after the mate, killing brothers to reproduce.  If you took this film as a final verdict of human kind at the rapture, we'll all be medium-well and whining about our day to other hell-bound spirits.

This is one of the most negative interpretations of the human condition I have seen on film.  It is not honest, it has an agenda.  This movie is about as true to life as a P.E.T.A. film on the manufacturing of bacon.  I am hard-pressed to find a more pessimistic film on people. 

So people kill dogs, kill brothers and randomly kill strangers due to navel-examining while fleeing other dogs trying to kill them as well.  There are far better films on what it is to be mortal.  My favorite film takes the concept, sharpens it and thrusts it back (unwelcome) into your soul.  Amores Perros simply throws up it's arms, tries to (and fails to) present some form of synchronicity, but leaves you with a ham-fisted and sloppy mess.

There were two shining points in this movie.  Emilio Echevarría was really, really good.  He actually drew me back into the movie the last thirty minutes.  This man should be a star outside of his native land.  He made me buy every line he was given and I cared more about him for the first two hours of this film than the protagonists I was having shoved in my face and being told to love like a new father with a wallet full of child snapshots.

Also, the gal who played the wrecked supermodel was wasted on this movie.

Rating: 4.3/10

Favorite bit: How no animals were harmed during the making of this film... but they totally were.

Reminded me of:

• Magnolia (minus the actual intertwining of characters)
• Snatch (minus the humor and fun)
• Babel (minus the acting, story, filming...)
  

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - Stephen Sommers - (2009)

Date watched: 6/21/11

Film:  G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Director: Stephen Sommers

To begin with, I apologize for this choice of film.  

I was planning on reviewing Le Samouraï, but I have had a really crappy day and did not feel I could take my personal misgivings towards everything and separate them from my opinion of the movie. So I picked something stupid.

Stupid fun bears a role in cinema.  Almost everything I was raised upon has no seating in the roles I have come to appreciate in my years as a filmgoer.  I am not saying that this movie is 'good' stupid fun, but it is harmless stupid fun.

One of the first defenses I had for this film is that its intended audience was children.  This begged the question, "Why the boobs in skin-tight leotards then?"  I thought back to what it was like to be 10-12 years old and playing with dolls action figures at this time.  They were generously proportioned.  Did you read comics at this time?  Even something intended for 80's "tweens" like New Mutants?  The females had gigantic naughty bits, but the comic was still intended for the pre-, post- and neo-pubescents.  The pre-adulterating of action and zeitgeist is nothing new.

This is not a good movie.  But it is harmless.  Sure it makes an appeal to the original G.I. Joe generation.  The lines, "Kung Fu grip"; "Knowing Is Half The Battle"; and "Real American Hero" should have copyright symbols flash on screen when spoken.

Yet this movie still highlights the problem with modern action-cinema.  I could blame The Matrix... that is an easy wagon to hop on.  If Vanishing Point had been made after The Matrix, the final scene would have Kowalski plowing into the bulldozer with the film switching to super-slo-mo and a fireball playing out over a minute of viewing.  But really, The Matrix isn't at fault.  The albatross truly hangs about the neck of Spielberg.

When Spielberg made Jaws he (albeit) unintentionally put technical extravaganza before the telling of a story. American film was experiencing a Renaissance at this point, we were approaching world cinema.  And then the first "summer blockbuster" was released to the world.  Things changed from there.  Film became a seasonal event, studios planned entertainment as a civil servant would plan a Saint Patrick's Day parade.

I love Jaws.  I have seen it (no joke, it was a challenge) over 200 times.  I have seen Jaws in a swimming pool with 60 others and while flying over an Atlantic thunderstorm. It is one of my favorite movies.

The train of thought is being derailed here.  G.I Joe... Garbage? Yes... Harmful? No...  Wrong?

That is more difficult to decide than a 1 out of 10 rating...

Rating: 3.3/10

Favorite bit:  The "cameo" by Brandon Fraser.

Reminds me of:

• Megaforce 
• Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn 
• Krull

Anamorph - Henry Miller (2007)

Date watched: 6/20/11

Film: Anamorph

Director: Henry Miller

I love Willem Dafoe. So starting with that, this film was a huge disappointment. My strongest recent memory of this actor is in Antichrist.  He was brilliant, but restrained in that film.  It brought to mind the scene where Gregory Peck cried in On The Beach (The only video I can find is with crappy music...watch this movie).  Holding back being human, trying hard to play the role set by his career.

I was looking forward to seeing more recent Defoe.  This, I think, was the low point of his current career.  This is when he goes from playing his face set in stone, to him putting his soul out there.  You have to wait for his next film though, he still has a touch of Green Goblin in this one.

To begin with, his haircut... What the hell?  The obvious aside, the writer seems to think he is far more clever than us.  This film is an insult to the intelligent filmgoer.  You are presented with three or four main characters, tossed a cup or two of foreshadowing.  You are asked to let it sink in and wait...

And wait... AND wait...

Were there positives?  Yes, of course. Defoe (even with the bowl haircut) blows the hell out of the lines given him.  Seriously, most of the budget must have been spent on getting him to sign on.  His casting in this role was swatting a fly with a Buick.

The ASC was obsessed with throwing his weight around.  Positives: The murder scenes were shot beautifully.  Negatives: The SOB takes you out of the movie every flashback to show he knows how to shoot a directional lens flare.

The script is straight from Donald Kaufman after attending a seminar on screenwriting.  The film is basted with foreshadowing, but none of it pays off. There are telegraphed twists, antique dealers that know every detail of the case.  It really gets ridiculous.  There is one point where the lead detective "analyses" a scene by using a victim's blood to paint a picture... for a LONG time... in front of two dozen of the NYPD.  I started to give up then.

And the end... the end... This is the finest adaptation I have seen of a human hand extending it's middle finger and thrusting it forcefully into the bridge of your nose and laughing that I have seen in a long while.  All I can say is that I shouted a reciprocal response to the screen as the credits rolled.

Rating: 5.4/10 (+2 Defoe vs. crappy crime flicks)

Reminds me of (vaguely): 

• Momento
• Falling Down
• Eye Of The Beholder

Keane - Lodge Kerrigan - (2004)

Date watched: 6/19/11
Film: Keane
Director: Lodge Kerrigan

At first I felt this was going to be a pretentious take on a child abduction story.  The director was truly in love with Damian Lewis.  Lewis' face occupies the majority of the frame in each shot, I wanted to lean around him to see what was going on nearby.  All the shots are taken with a single hand-held camera, close and unsteady.  I felt I was being subjected to another devote of the 24-esque Shaky Cam.

However after watching for a bit this film offered a new perspective.  I first thought something was odd when I noticed that Keane, a distraught father obsessed with an abducted daughter, was searching for his kid by showing a battered, wrinkled, black-and-white newspaper clipping.  I discounted this as a failing of the production.  Wouldn't a father have a sharp color photograph of his child to show passersby? 

This wound up being the first small indication of a depth in this film that I may have been discounting due to a personal stigma towards the style of cinematography.  After a few minutes I was paying less attention to the story being told by the actions, and becoming more and more fascinated with Lewis' potrayal of Keane.  

The reason that the camera never leaves Lewis' face is that the film is not documenting a father searching for his lost daughter, rather it is about the staggering solitude that someone with a mental disability must experience in the modern world.

Keane is not right in the head.  The character is one of the best representations of what it must feel like to be a person with serious mental problems abandoned in a today's cities.  Keane cashing his disability check shows that he's been diagnosed, but tossed aside.  His practicing his life story in his hotel room further reinforces the idea that this is a man scrambling to keep some kind of touch with reality.  I haven't seen a portrayal of schizophrenia as convincing as this since watching Ralph Fiennes in Spider.  After a while I felt annoyed when the camera would leave Keane.  It seemed an unwelcome bit of tempo to be torn away from him, like an unwanted commercial break on television.

I absolutely love the use of purely situational music.  The only music in this movie is that which is being heard by the characters.  Incidental music (as Lynne Ramsay has said) is used far too often as an emotional crutch, to supply feeling in a scene where the director fails to achieve it with the story, cinematography or acting.  There is one scene in this film with Keane yelling at a bartender to raise the volume on a jukebox that shows how well music can play a narrative role in a film, rather than simply the empathetic caulk most directors splatter it around as.  The bit with Keane in the bar brought to mind the final scene in Morvern Callar, where Morvern is walking in a club, but listening to music given to her by her dead boyfriend in order to purge herself of guilt and move on.  Keane isn't quite as successful in this endeavor.

It's not a perfect film by any means. Whereas at the end of Spider we understand how Fiennes' has reached the point he is at, we are given little background on Keane. By the third act you have little sympathy for Keane, and rather want to punch him dead in the face.  Seriously.

The film also seems to be hampered a bit by the point at which we enter Keane's life.  As a contrast, take the French film L´Emploi Du Temps (I actually linked the whole film as it's easier to find on YouTube than the crappy American trailer).  Here we follow the collapse of a normal man.  We follow step-by-step, little-slip by little-slip as he descends from being a normal family man to the mental mess he transforms into.  In Keane, we are only given the final result.  This seems a bit of a disservice to Lewis' textured interpretation of the character.  If we had been given a little of the insight that Lewis had as to Keane's back-story we might appreciate his portrayal more.  As it stands it's still a fantastic performance, just viewed behind a fog of artistic ambiguity.

And I know I'm rambling on this one, but I wanted to say one word about Abigail Breslin.  Her greatest talent was not caring that cameras were rolling.  In Signs and this film she comes across as natural and sincere, not through any artifice or particular genius on her part, but more not caring she was being watched.  It a shame this was not cultivated and she is now delegated to movie spinoffs of Hasbro toys.

Rating: 7.3/10

Favorite bit: When Kira's mother says, "You didn't have to wash the dishes".  The look on her face spoke volumes.

Reminds me of:

• Spider
• L'Emploi du temps (Time Out)
• Suspension

ชัตเตอร์ กดติดวิญญาณ (Shutter) - Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom - 2004

Date watched: 6/18/11
Film: ชัตเตอร์ กดติดวิญญาณ (Shutter)
Directors: Banjong Pisanthanakun 
                 Parkpoom Wongpoom

This is a Japanese Korean Chinese Thai ghost story following the exploits of the ghost with long, wet, black hair who stands with her arms and head hung limp and who's major manifestation power is showing up accompanied by loud stings of music in an attempt to make you jump (seriously, why don't they just have someone yell "BOO!" loudly into a mic and save us the effort).  

At this point I am convinced that all these movies, Ringu, The Eye, The Grudge; all of these are actually a serial following this one ghost from exploit to exploit.  She's actually a franchise, the Jason Bourne of the ghost world as it were. Not to knock any of those films, I enjoyed the first two at least.  This film however feels like a Mockbuster of these flicks à la Metal Man.

No serious ghost film should bring to mind the Marx Brothers, but I found myself thinking of Groucho more than a few times in this one.  Seriously, some parts (the ghost on the hood of a car, the "big reveal" with the Polaroid at the end) had me flat-out laughing.  They were cut straight from Evil Dead 2, albeit unintentionally.

I understand there may be a cultural difference that makes it difficult for me to appreciate what this film was trying for, but I still find it hard to accept that finding a years-dead body in someone's attic is something you calmly talk about with them over tea (yes, that happens). There's one bit where the main character actually asks the ghost for toilet paper in a public bathroom stall.  Again, this is not a comedy.

I had high hopes looking at online reviews of this film.  I love world cinema and I want to appreciate Thai films as well.  But for now I think the best I have seen out of Thailand is a baby elephant being thrown through a plate glass window.  Here's wishing the next one I see restores my faith in what they have to offer.

A friend wanted me to add ratings.  Also, I'm only going to link videos and pics in these ramblings.  Wikipedia links are drowning the good stuff.

Rating: π/10

Favorite bit: I love the fact that public restrooms in Thailand have ashtrays on top of the toilet paper holders.

Reminds me of (or made me pine for):

• The Host
• The Asphyx
• The Ring (and yes, I think the American one was better)

Le Roman de Renard (The Tale of the Fox) - Wladyslaw Starewicz (1937)

Date watched: 6/15/11
Film: Le Roman de Renard (The Tale Of The Fox) 
Director: Ladislas Starevich

I started with this film because I wanted to begin with something light.  This was a film made between 1929 and 1930 by French animator Ladislas Starevich.  It's a collection of French fairy tales in the vein of the original Grimm's Fairy Tales.  All and all, quite dark stuff.  Still good fun.

From the start you can see Starevich's influence on both Ray Harryhausen, Willis O'Brien and, more recently, Henry Selick.  Selick seems more his spiritual successor, while Harryhausen and O'Brien seem more of a technical proteges.  This seemed odd as Harryhausen and O'Brien would be considered more contemporary with this film's creator.

All the fine touches in the animation in this film; the depth of field, the motion blurring, the expression of the puppets - these all show a desire to make true cinema, rather than just exhibit an affluence of technical repertoire.  If you look at O'Brien's King Kong, or Harryhausen's Voyage of Sinbad, the animated characters feel like automata. Yet in this movie the characters are full of life and expressive in ways many modern CGI films cannot hope to achieve.

Also, the film is in public domain.  You can watch it on YouTube here.

Reminds me of:

• The Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari