Be Kind Rewind

***

Written and Directed by Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry certainly has a unique visual style. The music-video director turned filmmaker uses an array of clever (and dare I say quirky) camera tricks that create realistic worlds in the spirit of the French New Wave filtered through Lynchian peculiarity. This style worked perfectly in Charlie Kaufman’s masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, depicting suburbia, memories, literally, in the brain, and the power of love in the same aesthetic. Perhaps the previous sentence epitomizes the problems with Gondry as well: Eternal Sunshine cannot be considered his movie. Gondry has yet to develop an intellectual or thematic framework (at least a mature or complex one) for his visionary moving picture shows. This holds true for his latest film Be Kind Rewind, a pleasant comedy in the truest sense. Gondry is playing with the camera and asking the audience to have as much fun watching the film as he did making it.

Jerry (Jack Black)—the resident eccentric of a New York suburb—lives in a junkyard and is convinced that the neighboring power plant is causing his headaches. His body is magnetized during a sabotage mission of said power plant, and wanders into the Be Kind Rewind video store run by his friend Mike (Mos Def, excellent). Mike is entrusted in the care of the store by his father figure and storeowner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), who is on vacation trying to figure out why his video store could possibly be failing financially in the world of DVDs. Mike lives only to make Mr. Fletcher proud and is obviously distraught when the magnetized Jerry erases all of the store’s videotapes. The pair goes on to direct, “write”, and star in dozens of homemade recreations of the deleted video tapes which become a neighborhood sensation.

Gondry has his most fun during Jerry and Mike’s creation of the films. The duo’s dependence on everyday items for props, sets, and characters allows Gondry to create terrific illusions with these items; a superb recreation of when Bowman jogs in the spaceship in 2001; the use of doormat with a bird’s eye view of a neighborhood depicted on it as a backdrop for the fight on top of a building in Rush Hour; or even the white and black people’s fingers (still attached) as keys on a keyboard. These gags are fun, but by themselves don’t do much or really attract the audience (except for the obviously high kids two rows up).

Where the film (surprisingly) works is in the honestly formulated characters. Mike and Mr. Fletcher share a slight lisp, which I thought was an obvious foreshadowing to a biological connection, but turns out to be Gondry just nudging us in that direction. Mos Def doesn’t simply make Mike a dimwit or fool, but someone who just doesn’t happen to be smart. The audience can relate to Mike’s normalcy in this otherwise abnormal environment, creating an emotional centre to the film. Jack Black plays Jerry like he does all of his characters…crazy, out of touch, charming, and hilarious, but like all of Black’s characters, it works brilliantly. Black brings tons of energy to every scene he’s in, but manages to not chew up the scenery, creating an impression of chaos and simultaneous joy. Mike and Jerry work best when both are in frame, for contrast and complement, accentuating the other’s personality.

When Be Kind Rewind ended I was not struck by its profoundness, thematic complexity, moral ambiguity, or astonishing filmmaking, because none of these qualities are in the film. I felt happy. Not the end-of-a-Spielberg-film-happy, where you don’t have to earn the happiness and are manipulated into feeling that way, but genuinely honestly happy. We don’t know if the Be Kind Rewind video store succeeds, or if Mike, Jerry, and Mr. Fletcher live happily ever after, but we have faith that they do. If Gondry’s lack of intellectual depth is not going to change, I can live with this optimism.

The Best Biopic/Best Film Moments of 2007

My contemporary argues that I'm Not There--certainly one of the best films of 2007--is the best biopic. I beg to differ.

Martin Scorsese's vastly underrated The Aviator and David Lean's classic Lawrence of Arabia are both better biopics than the admittedly awesome I'm Not There. What sets I'm Not There apart from other run-of-the-mill bullshit like Ray, Walk the Line, and Capote is exactly what stops it from being in the same league as The Aviator and Lawrence of Arabia. Haynes' goal seems to be to rip apart the conventions of the genre and build it back up again with six different actors representing different stages of Dylan's career, his personality, and his myth. This technique is far from a gimmick, allowing the viewer to understand Dylan as an impression rather than a single figure. However, both The Aviator and Lawrence of Arabia capture the impression of their subjects (largely due to, especially in the case of Lawrence of Arabia , perfect film craft) yet also allow the viewer to relate and simultaneously despise their subjects. In I'm Not There the emotional attachment a viewer makes to any number of the six representations of Dylan is made specifically to that characterized representation, not Dylan himself. Both Scorsese and Lean operate within the typical dramatic arc sans the bullshit Hollywood ending. In the last shot of The Aviator we see Howard Hughes falling back into his world of madness and despair, a far cry from Ray Charles awkwardly crying in the Georgia Capital, or even a shot of the real Dylan blasting his harmonica at the end of I'm Not There. Both Scorsese and Lean bring a much desired edge to their films that is simply not found in any other biopic.

I must say though, the sequence in I'm Not There where Jim James is in white face and singing Goin' to Acapulco is one of the single greatest film moments in 2007.

Top 8 Film Moments of 2007:

8. Death of the dog in I am Legend.
7. Call it.
6. The death of the mother in 28 Weeks Later.
5. Goin' to Acapulco in I'm Not There.
4. Opening credit poll dance in Planet Terror.
3. I. Drink. Your. Milkshake.
2. The funeral in The Darjeeling Limited.
1. Where did Anton Chigurh go? in No Country For Old Men.



EDIT! David's addendum to best moments of '07.
10. Viggo's fight in the bathhouse in Eastern Promises.
9. I've abandoned my boy!

Yahoo film list decends from mediocre to absurd.

A new list pumped out by Yahoo presents their 10 most historically inaccurate films.

Utterly rediculous. As I'm persuing through the mediocre assemblance of rather recent films and sparese justifications, I'm thinking: What makes one film more historically inaccurate than another? What are the criteria, and how are they proporitioned? Why is there nothing from before the 90s on this list? Perhaps a 13 year old penned this.

Then I reach the final entry. 2001. The mere thought that this film was at all considered from a historical paradigm confuses and enrages me. I fear I lack the writing skill to capture my honest reaction to it. It's inclusion made another bullshit list into a catastrophe of film criticism. Worse yet is Yahoo's lack to provide an author, or any point of contact for that matter.

Let's take a minute to catch our breath here, and move on.

Back to the front nine, larger questions come to mind, such as, how historically accurate does a film need to be? What are cinema's obligations to history, and history's to cinema? It's an interesting topic, but I think that ultimately, in the larger scheme of cinema, superficial.

I recently took a History class look at these questions and many more, and I concluded that historians will never be content with a historical film. There will always be overlooked details, events that never happened, or sequence, or scale. Anachronistic results from the best of intentions. As a historian, it can be annoying, but only if the film isn't very good. Most historical films are using a real story to find dramatic action, and nothing more. Rarely do filmmakers seek to educate an audience. Films teach us, at best, a decent set of trivia for Jeopardy, but never have they been considered (rightfully so) as substantial sources of knowledge. Fiction seeks reaction, not retention.

However, an address on the genre of biofilm: misguided. These 'true' life stories often boil complex figures down to 120 minute servings. Cinema concerning the 'real' should be turned to as an afterthought of research. Cinema should reward knowledge. The people most deserved of remembrance are often the hardest to compress into film. The greatest biopic: I'm Not There. It appreciates Bob Dylan, rewards those who have followed his life and work, makes no definitive summary, no attempt at a thesis on his person or effect. The filmmaker is surely a supreme authority of Dylan, but acts as if in a room with other such fans, not at a podium before a crown of befuddled dolts.

Who SHOULD be Nominated for an Oscar in 2008

Who I think should win will be italicized and in bold.

Best Picture:
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Darjeeling Limited
I'm Not There

Best Actor:
Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
Viggo Mortenson (Eastern Promises)
Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men)
Christian Bale (Rescue Dawn)
Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd)

Best Actress:
Julie Christie (Away From Her)
Nicole Kidman (Margot at the Wedding)
Ellen Page (Juno)
Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose)

Best Supporting Actor:
Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)
Casey Affleck (TAOJJBTCRF)
Tommy Lee Jones (No Country For Old Men)
Kurt Russell (Grindhouse)
Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood)

Best Supporting Actress:
Kelly Macdonald (No Country For Old Men)
Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)
Naomi Watts (Eastern Promises)
Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)
Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

Best Director:
The Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men)
Wes Anderson (The Darjeeling Limited)
Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)
Todd Haynes (I'm Not There)
David Fincher (Zodiac)

Best Original Screenplay:
The Darjeeling Limited
Superbad
Ratatouille
I'm Not There
Margot at the Wedding

Best Adapted Screenplay:
No Country For Old Men
There Will be Blood
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Zodiac

No Country For Old Men

****
Written and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

In 1996 Joel and Ethan Coen burst into the mainstream film scene with their
American masterpiece: Fargo. With iconic characters, dark humor, and an uplifting faith in the human spirit, Fargo allowed viewers to fall in love with its unique portrayal of humanity. The America that the Coen brothers so carefully satirized and embraced has undergone some severe changes. School shootings, 9/11, global warming, political division, and world wide unrest has shattered the optimism of the mid 90s and led to the growing pessimistic viewpoints as portrayed through modern film. Scorsese tells us that if we do the right thing, we will just get shot in the face. Cuaron suggests that the world is beyond fixing, we should just get on a boat and leave. No Country For Old Men, adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, is the Coen brother’s darkest (and best) movie. Though not quite echoing the masculinity of The Departed (what movie can?) or the idealism of Children of Men, No Country, through perfect craft, acting, and screenplay, demands that we take a closer look at humanity and our role in its complex scheme.

A drug deal has gone wrong, leaving several dead men, $2 million in heroin, and the funds to procure the product to bake in the hot Texas sun. Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam Vet who happens to stumble upon the carnage while hunting. He takes the cash, which triggers one of the greatest games of cat and mouse in recent film history. It’s greatness comes from a truly evil cat, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a bounty hunter who happens to be a “psychopathic killer” with a silenced shotgun, a high powered air gun (capable of shooting locks off doors), and fate on his side. Investigating the remains of the drug deal and the subsequent murders Chigurh tallies up, is the Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). As the bodies stack up Bell tries to distance himself from the case, growing ever more tired of the ugly half of humanity.

In a scene that is already famous and will undoubtedly become legendary, Chigurh is unsure about whether he should end the life of a gas station clerk. Chigurh asks, “ What’s the most you’ve ever lost in a coin toss?” He flips a coin and covers the side, asking the clerk to “Call it.” In a similar scene later in the movie, Chigurh tells a character, who is pleading for his/her life, “I got here the same way the coin did.” Bell, Moss, and Chigurh are similar characters, each strong willed, intelligent, and principled. What the Coen brothers suggest, is that a simple flip of a coin has chosen the path each will take. The entire film is a coin flip: heads vs. tails, dark vs. light, good vs. evil, strong vs. weak, and life vs. death. It is in the unconventional last act of the film where each character learns the result of their metaphorical coin toss.

What separates No Country thematically from Fargo, is not just a dramatic shift in worldview. Though there certainly must be factors outside of film that changed their view on humanity, the Coen brothers suggest that there was never a time where humanity was anything better than how it is portrayed in No Country. The epiphany reached by Sheriff Bell is not that humanity has gone to shit, but it had gone to shit long ago. This viewpoint, coupled with the fatalism of the last act, paint the Coen brother’s picture of humanity, suggesting the rising of the “dismal tide” is not a new one, and that, in fact, this is No Country for Old Men.

Michael Clayton

Directed by Tony Gilroy
*½

Evil corporations, shifty lawyers and luck are the three tenants of Michael Clayton, the new film from long-time writer, first-time director Tony Gilroy (man behind the pen of the Bourne films, The Devil’s Advocate, Proof of Life) who offers a fine example unique to the fall season, a (alleged) thriller about the backhanded, under-the-table, spy vs. spy, corporate intrigue that lacks a good amount of style, and any coherent substance. Boil it down to its true merit, and what surfaces is a procedural gone wrong. After big-time lawyer Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson, terrific) goes loony and strips down professing his love for farm girl Anna (Merritt Wever), one of many in a class-action lawsuit against big farm corp. UNorth, the law firm sends in mysterious Mr. Clayton (George Clooney, the usual grandeur) to save face. We find out that what drove Edens mad (er, off his meds) was his discovering that UNorth is up to no good. From then on it’s a race between Clayton to figure out what Edens knew and UNorth to make sure no one figures out what Edens knew. As for luck, well, Clayton would have met his end if it weren’t for getting impatient with Poker, or drawn to a scene of nature from a book Edens obsessed over after Clayton’s son recommended it to him in a conversation they had when Edens answered Clayton’s phone while he was out. Whew. How this conversation flourished I have no idea, clearly the kid doesn’t know not to talk to strangers (or how to appear at all important in this film, among countless subplots, the most useless was one involving Clayton’s brother Timmy, and their bad blood. The culmination of which is an emotional monologue with his son about not having to worry about growing up into a man like Timmy, although to become like Clayton may not be too good a choice either.)

I’m feeling redundant, and I beg anyone to describe the plot to me and not feel the same way. For its few moments of passionate discourse and genuine intrigue, there are tenfold as many dull discussions. As far as the film being a thriller, I never felt much tension. Two hitmen running around for UNorth’s tortured attorney (Tilda Swinton) never seem to bring much of a sense of danger, even as they ambush Edens in a hallway or plant a carbomb. The characters never know they’re in as much danger as Gilroy lets the audience know, a cheap effect in my book trying to tease the audience without getting brave and picking at the characters brains that makes it more akin to a horror film without the hair-raising violins.

Gilroy writes well enough, but his direction was certainly barebones and lacked anything too interesting until the third act (by far the best part of the film, but questionable as to worth sitting through the first two for). As he wraps it up, there’s promise in his style. The most poetic moment comes when Clayton is at his most fed-up, and vulnerable, choosing to abandon his papers and gold watch in a fire before running into the woods (liberation ala Into the Wild). My favorite visual comes at the very end, the last shot, which saves the typical ‘good guys win’ ending and leaves us with a sense of doubt about the people we’ve just watched for two hours. None of them are very good, in fact most are pretty terrible. The first thing that came to mind on the closing long take was the last shot of The Long Good Friday (to which I’d be surprised wasn’t an inspiration if not a source of emulation) where we see George Clooney dust off those old acting chops. Not to say his whole performance isn’t great, but it’s the usual Oscar run, complete with in-your-face-whilst-smirking diatribes on Shiva the God of Death and suave grace under pressure. It’s a less confusing Syriana with a beardless George that delivers on standard devices and eye-roll inducing allegories (in this case a children’s fantasy novel). Despite the lawyer-speak and restricted conversations, I fully understand how this film deceives most of the critical world into thinking it’s ripe for rewards with its pseudo intelligentsia appeal and well-delivered well-written speeches driving at the morality of the players involved (if only a bit more attention was paid to the writing of the plot). Besides Clooney and Wilkinson, the acting was on par with Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy circa 1998, in fact, I kept secretly hoping he would show up in the middle of it, just to relieve me from the tedium.

Into the Wild

Directed by Sean Penn
***1/2

See here: the story of super student Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) and his journey through America for two years, abandoning his identity in pursuit of capturing a dusty old handful of Manifest Destiny, willed by unmovable passion to reach Alaska and live off the land. Krakauer’s 1997 Into the Wild delivers an apt, journalistic approach to McCandless’ story. Sean Penn’s Into the Wild suffers from a bad case of telephone: by the time the story got told to him, and by the time he reprocessed it and was getting ready to regurgitate it cinematically, out came a lot of his idealistic self alongside the unique college grad-turned-hitchhiker. It’s an amazing true story, and the decision to fictionalize seems appropriate, a documentary would be a filmic reading of Into the Wild (What Rescue Dawn is to Little Dieter Needs to Fly comes to mind), complete with talking heads (read: bore). But before getting to the meat of what I found wrong with this ultimately beautiful film, a few miscues from Penn as director. First, an abundance of slow-mo makes initially breathtaking moments of an America forgotten and Chris’ wonder and rediscovery become less poignant to the brink of being dull and cliché, two words that completely capture my idea of the 360 shot. The enormity and awesomeness of the landscape certainly deserves a good looking over (which we get thanks to terrific cinematography) but the recurrence of this all-encompassing technique brought back nightmares of the dizzying camera work of Dreamgirls. Beyond these two visual nuisances, Penn shows a lot of patience behind the camera, as any proper actor turned director displays out of empathy for whoever happens to be in front of it.

Thematically, I’m still trying to parse the McCandless and the Penn. I’m not often inspired by movies (but to amateurishly attempt my own time to time), but walking out of Into the Wild I had an urge to conquer a fucking mountain, and quick. After cooling down, I decided I could put that adventure aside until at least the weekend, but I did pick up the book to help me decipher Penn’s retelling. Throughout the film, I had the distinct feeling that Penn was turning McCandless into something bigger than he was, cleverly omitting some of his weaker characteristics, opting to instead made a Christ like figure, full of wisdom, love, and (presumed, if not only from the extreme awkwardness with which his filmic depiction encounters sexuality) chastity. One of the more particularly interesting liberties taken with Krakauer’s book is his relationship with trailer town vixen Tracy, (Kristen Stewart) a heavy piece of the second act stretched out from a mere two paragraphs including a rousing, albeit exclusively cinematic, musical collaboration in place of offering herself to the young buck. We’re offered some rather blatant religious imagery too, including a ‘Jesus is Love’ monument atop an American Sinai and characters inquiring as to if he might happen to be Jesus. In fact the most subtle instance I noticed was a quick flash of his naked body floating down a river, arms spread in the usual Crucifixion mold, a necessary rebirth and cleansing after the killing of a Moose whose meat he fails to preserve properly, the felled game perished in futility. The way religion as a whole was addressed was a welcome turn, a unique glimpse into the idea of God without ever once mulling over the institution of religion, how very Martin Luther of Mr. Penn.

It’s easy to see why Penn was so captivated by McCandless’ story. Same goes for Krakauer. In fact, it would be surprising to not find a socially discontented male fed up with consumerist America who would fall in love with the superficial escapism of Into the Wild. What’s missing from the film is any commentary on what lies beyond that superficiality, the nihilism of his isolation and abandonment of society. We’re told he hates how people mistreat each other, but the solution offered is to abandon people, not treat people better. Penn comes across insecure as a screenwriter (although I wouldn’t be surprised if an offering for best adapted came his way). The only voice proclaiming McCandless’ head far too filled with Jack London and Tolstoy comes from Wayne Westerberg, (the quick-witted Vince Vaughn, hardly a figure to milk prudence from) the closest friend he made on his nomadic escapades. Ultimately, our writer-director decides to glorify the escapist aspect so as to indulge his political dissatisfaction of late, instead of thoroughly analyzing the motives and approach clairvoyant judgment upon McCandless as, perhaps, a merely misguided youth who finally works up the courage to run away from home after being away at college for four years. I don’t mean to suggest that’s who he was, even if I myself am trying to ride the youthful male tide of finding beauty in America and isolation, but Penn, however talented, is no Malick, and therefore can’t get away with merely a lyrical depiction of youth set to Eddie Vedder tunes.

The acting, from magnificent lead all the way to minor supporters (is that Zach Galifianakis as big game tipster Kevin? Yes, yes it is!) turn in lovely performances: the genius, stone-faced father (William Hurt), crushed mother (Marcia Gay Harden), knowledgeable, narrating sister (Jena Malone) aged hippy Rainey (Brian Dierker), his groovy lady/matriarch figure Jan Burres (Catherine Keener) and especially old-timer polar opposite fellow (Hal Holbrook) from which lessons are learned from and taught to in an amazingly non-cliché way, especially considering how that sentence came out.

I almost feel ashamed to say it, but this is, beyond extremely beautiful and well told, an inspirational movie. It won’t be one I forget any time soon, having stricken me on such a personal level, but no worries about my going feral, it just wouldn’t be hip to engage in such emulation.