ONE FROM THE HEART – francis coppola – 3.9 / 10

This is by no means a good film. However, having seen it I wouldn’t hesitate to offer Francis Coppola (as he’s billed here) just about anything else to direct. It’s clear from the first frames of the film that there is someone with real talent behind this film. Almost every scene’s master shot is a winding, circuitous tour de force. And once the couple at the heart of the film splits up, there are glorious transitions between their now separate lives that simultaneously show how close they still are and how distant they've become.

Additionally, the way the sets and tone of the film are constructed create a comprehensive magical realist world unlike anything I’ve seen before. Lights change color and fade away during shots. People burst into song in the middle of the street and everyone joins in. Everything is just magical.

But that bit about bursting into song hints at the film’s major problem, namely that it’s a more or less a musical and I mostly hate musicals. That’s especially true if most of the songs are sung by Tom Waits, a musician I simply cannot stand. Some people find some sort of magic in his gravelly voice but all I hear are nails on a chalkboard.

The music stuff isn’t the only problem with the film, however. The events of the film (a break up and subsequent (completely predictable) reconciliation) are not believable in the least. True, the whole world of the film is unbelievable but the idea that a woman would break up with her boyfriend then, on the same day, meet a guy (who lies to her with the very first words he utters) and go to bed with him and then agree to go to Bora Bora with him the following morning is ludicrous. There’s also the moment where the girl tries to make her boyfriend jealous by saying she wanted to sleep with his ridiculously ugly best friend. And then the guy meets a girl who sees that he’s still in love with his girlfriend but decides to sleep with him anyway.

The reason this stuff ruins the film is because magical realism needs to be grounded in character reality in order to be effective. Take something like Punch-Drunk Love as an example. The only way the more ridiculous elements can work is if they're offset by the realistic interactions between the people involved. This film doesn’t do that and suffers because of it. Overall, though, the film is a showcase for Coppola’s nascent talent. And I guess some other people noticed too because he got to direct The Godfather not too long after this.

THE OUTSIDERS – francis ford coppola – 6.9 / 10

Quite possibly the gayest film ever made, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders concerns the extraordinarily close relationship between a bunch of kids known as greasers who have no parents to speak of. They sleep in the same beds (even spooning!) talking about their hopes for the future and how pretty the sunsets are. They care deeply about each other and do so openly in a way that would never fly these days.

In the documentaries that accompany the film on the DVD release (which is entitled “The Complete Novel” for some reason), everyone talks about how much time and effort the actors put into the process and how great Coppola was in facilitating their performances. From the auditions where all the kids hung out in one room and swapped parts with each other to the weeks they spent taping the scenes from the movie on video before they started filming, everyone is in agreement that this was the most fun, safe and nurturing environment. The thing is, though, that everyone’s performance is laughable. I guess twenty-five years ago people bought the idea that badass kids from the wrong side of the tracks would run around doing cartwheels and back flips and crying at the drop of a hat but that shit don’t fly these days. It’s ridiculous, homoerotic and plain silly.

But I was also thinking as I watched it about the mythologization of juvenile delinquent behavior. How would we feel about this film and book if it were about a bunch of black gangsters?

BUFFALO ’66 – vincent gallo – 4.9 / 10

Vincent Gallo is one charismatic dude. At least, I think he is. I’m not really sure. Everyone seems to treat him as if he is (in his own films anyway) so maybe it’s true. Myself, I don’t see it. I just think he’s a dick. He’s more compelling than your average dick but a dick nonetheless.

Let me briefly recap the film for you: Gallo’s character gets out of prison, kidnaps a girl, forces her to come with him to his parents’ house and pretend she’s his fiancé then abandons her at a hotel while he goes off to kill the place kicker for the Buffalo Bills that cost him a bunch of money ten years ago. Even though he doesn’t end up killing the guy, is there anything in that synopsis that would make you think this was a good and decent person?

And that’s not even taking into account his behavior during all this. He is at best recalcitrant and at worst outright belligerent to his parents and to the girl he kidnapped who, for some reason unbeknownst to me, likes this guy. She likes him even though he kidnapped her and treats her like dirt. To me that doesn’t say something about her character, it says something about how Gallo sees himself. Namely that everyone loves him no matter how he behaves towards them.

This film, while it has some interesting camera angles and compelling asides (not to mention a downright thrilling climax), ends up being little more than one man’s extended love letter to himself. It takes a bold, brave artist to put himself in his own film. It takes a fearless artist to make the character he plays in the film unsympathetic and unlikable. And it takes a borderline delusional one to have everyone therein love him. And that, my friends, is Vincent Gallo of Bufflao '66, brave, fearless and delusional.

CLICK – frank coraci – 1.0 / 10

Leave it to Adam Sandler and his band of merry men to take what could have been an interesting concept and turn it into an excuse to make dick and fart jokes (literally dick and fart jokes and more than a few sex jokes as well). By making this into as broad a comedy as possible, they turn Click into nothing more than another high concept comedy in which the world contorts itself around in increasing unbelievable ways at the inconvenience of countless other people just so some privileged white guy (usually an architect) can learn to appreciate his life (that is already far better than 99 percent of the rest of the people on the planet). Huzzah.

It’s the same plot that we’ve seen in Sandler’s own Spanglish as well as Bruce Almighty and the recent Breaking and Entering. I guess it’s easier to just make a film like countless others (especially if it’s a proven money maker) but it sucks when they take what could have been a good concept for a serious minded movie and run it straight into the ground.

The most egregious error the filmmakers indulge in here is in making the universal remote ruin Michael’s life in a completely nonsensical and ridiculous way. They have to have things go wrong, of course, since this is that sort of film, but the way they do it is just silly. It involves the remote learning Michael’s “preferences” and then fast forwarding through every future occurrence of something he’s fast forwarded through once (fights with his wife and showers, for instance). Eventually he’s skipping so much of his life that he’s very near the end of it.

The problem with all that, besides the obvious fact that remotes don’t learn preferences and that, even if they did, there would have to be some sort of override control, is that it makes the device the scapegoat. Sure it’s reflecting Michael’s initial choices but after that he’s fighting the remote the whole time. Thus, when Michael is given a second chance at the end of the film (in that tired cop out to end all cop outs: it was all a dream), he really hadn’t changed all that much. Rather than learning to appreciate the little things in life, it’s far more believable that he would just have learned to distrust creepy men with strange haircuts who talk like Christopher Walken.

Add to this nonsense the fact that Michael is, for some reason, a huge dick to a neighbor’s kid (named O’Doyle in a reference to Sandler’s earlier and much funnier though no less puerile Billy Madison) and you get a very disturbing portrait of the man Sandler is playing here. This despite the fact that he’s certainly become aware of his critics’ descriptions of his man-child characters as monsters (witness his attempt to rehab his image in Spanglish and Reign Over Me). He and his band of cohorts are just not smart enough to realize that making Michael a “family man” does not absolve him of his sins. That’s far too subtle a concept to grasp for these Neanderthals. And as long as the filmgoing public at large doesn’t catch on anytime soon, I guess we’ll be stuck with an endless parade of these grinning assholes like Michael. Once again, huzzah.

DIRTY DANCING – emile ardolino – 4.3 / 10

I was halfway into this movie before I figured out that it was set in the 1950s (and really, I’m still not entirely sure). So poorly is the past recreated in the film that I just thought Patrick Swayze’s dance instructor was driving an old car because he wanted to be like James Dean. Though how a guy in tights with a penchant for twirling could think himself James Dean, I don’t know.

Anyway, the plot of the film revolves around the two-- possibly three-- week vacation a rich Jewish family from New York takes in the Catskills. It’s interesting to watch from the modern perspective where the idea of a rich successful doctor taking the better part of a month off to hang out and learn to dance and golf in the mountains is laughable. It’s like summer camp for grown-ups. Indeed, the resort in which the film is set and the archetypal characters that populate the film remind me so much of the same era’s slasher flicks that I half expected someone to get violently assaulted. The aesthetics are so similar, in fact, that I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the film was directed by a slasher film veteran. (Alas, it wasn’t.)

Don’t get me wrong, the film is bad. It’s just bad in a more interesting way than most other bad films. For instance, although it’s central love plot is never in much doubt, the obstacles that are thrown up between Swayze’s character and Jennifer Grey’s are a lot more interesting and serious than the contrived nonsense of something like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or The Wedding Planner.

I also find it curious that this sort of straightforward romantic movie is hardly ever seen anymore. Considering the runaway success of this film and the minor classic status it's attained over the years (and that women still make up fifty percent of the filmgoing public), it seems strange that the only place you can find romance these days is in a romantic comedy or absolute dreck like The Holiday or Something’s Gotta Give. Or it could just be that I’m watching this film from a far enough remove that I can’t quite poke as many holes in it as I might otherwise.

SIXTEEN CANDLES – john hughes – 3.3 / 10

I was reading an article in Time the other day that was talking about the aging Baby Boomer population. It mentioned in passing that Generations X and Y are, if anything, prematurely nostalgic which, in my experience, is absolutely true. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself except for the fact that they (or is it we?) are nostalgic for racist, misogynist crap like Sixteen Candles.

It’s bad enough that the whole plot of the film revolves around a young girl’s desire to be wanted by a man but the Long Duck Dong subplot is so abhorrent as to be unforgivable. The only thing the film has going for it is that it’s one of those so bad it’s good movies. Even the most blockheaded lunk notices the rampant racism that finds Dong’s every appearance accompanied by a gong on the soundtrack. And with the racism so obvious, you can’t help but be tickled by it, though, it should be said that you’re laughing not at the film but at the idea that someone would think this was funny. I mean, how did they ever get away with that? I guess you laugh because there’s just no other response to something this ridiculous.

DOMINO – tony scott – 2.4 / 10

What must it be like on the set of Tony Scott film? The behind the scenes documentary on the DVD release of this film indicates that Scott routinely has five or six cameras shooting at any given time. But the logistics of that must be a total nightmare. How do the actors know where to look? How does the DP light for six cameras? Are all the operators told to just shake the shit out of their cameras and zoom in and out at random intervals? And the editor, christ, he must want to shoot himself in the head.

The thing is, even if the film turned out to be good (which Domino really really isn’t), could Scott realistically take credit for its artistic success? I mean, there’s no way he’s sitting on set watching six monitors so there’s no way he’s even seeing all the footage he’s getting. (Dailies must be a fun little surprise for him.) Of course, he guides the overall artistic vision for the film but it seems overly generous to think of him as an auteur despite the fact that his films have a very unique and distinctive look.

I guess what I’m saying is that with so much chaos swirling around and so many cameras shooting on so many different film stocks with so much crazy movement and quick cutting, what could possibly be the artistic thought behind the film? The only thing effectively conveyed by all this nonsense is a feeling of sensory overload and that things are moving very quickly. But that’s really all.

GRINDHOUSE: PLANET TERROR – robert rodriguez – 3 / 10 DEATH PROOF – quentin tarantino – 7.0 / 10

The first thing I want to talk about, to get that out of the way, is the fake trailers that play before and between the two films that comprise Grindhouse. I guess the idea for the trailers makes sense on a superficial level. And without thinking about it very much, I was excited to see them. But as they unspooled in front of me, I began to realize just how terrible an idea they were. The problem is that they serve no purpose. A trailer is supposed to get the viewer excited to see the film advertised (since they are, after all, advertisements) but since everyone watching this film knows that these trailers advertise nonexistent films, no one is going to want to see the film. Obviously the directors making these trailers were aware of that, so instead of making a trailer that would get people excited about a nonexistent film, they went for humor instead. But if the fake trailers are funny they are not fulfilling the role of trailers and thus become a new thing altogether. In other words, the fake trailers are pretty much a failure as trailers and are thus just short films that comment archly on trailers which, to me, is not very interesting.

A similar problem afflicts Robert Rodriguez’s half of the double feature, Planet Terror. Though he does a much better job of mimicking the experience of seeing a cheap movie in a cheap theater in the 1970s than Tarantino does, there’s a disconnect here between the aesthetic of the film and the substance. Sure it looks like it was shot on 16mm film and had been through the wringer a thousand times (there are hairs and burns and all manner of scratches flickering across the screen) but at the same time there’s so much that is clearly computer generated in the film that the whole thing shakes out as the very definition of disingenuous. To have the film look like it was a legitimate grindhouse picture but then to have clearly spent millions to make it that way makes the film almost impossible to like.

The very first scene, for instance, is of Rose McGowan’s Cherry Darling stripping (or go-go dancing which is, apparently, different). This scene infuriates for a number of reasons. First, McGowan remains clothed throughout. Now I’m not looking to be prurient or to see McGowan naked (really, I’m not that interested) but to make all this hay about the fact that this is a throwback to the boobs and blood splatter pictures of the 70's and then not show any boobs just makes no sense. (Couple this scene with a moment later in the film in which a sex scene “burns up” and the film jumps ahead ten minutes and you get a pretty clear picture of just how Puritanical and un-grindhouse Rodriguez is when it comes to sex). Second, anyone who has seen any commercials or trailers for the film has seen the moment wherein McGowan receives a prosthetic leg machine gun. But in that first go-go dancing scene, she clearly has both her legs intact. So, right from the get go it’s clear that there’s going to be an awful lot of CG work in the film to make it look like she only has one leg. (If this had been a real grindhouse picture, Cherry would have been played by a woman with one leg who would have had a pretty bad prosthesis the whole first half of the movie.) Thus it’s clear from pretty much the first minute of the film that Rodriguez is going to be faithful only to the superficial aspects of a grindhouse picture and not at all to the spirit of the thing. It’s no surprise then that he completely fails to absorb the audience into his nonsensical, meandering zombie picture.

Tarantino on the other hand, clearly set out to be more loyal to the spirit of the grindhouse than to the aesthetics of it (though he does a pretty decent job in that regard as well). Rather than try to make a film that looked like it was being shown in a cheap theater in the 1970s, Tarantino made a film to which the modern audience would respond the same way he did as a kid in that 1970s theater. Basically he chose the much harder path and got a lot closer to success than Rodriguez.

His half of the double feature, Death Proof, concerns a serial killer named Stuntman Mike (played wonderfully by Kurt Russell) who uses his invincible car to kill helpless women. The film is basically two terrific action set pieces separated by two extended conversations between groups of female friends. Though the lack of action for the first forty minutes of the film strikes me as not quite representative of the grindhouse aesthetic, when the action does come, it is fantastic and brutal and damn entertaining. It is also noticeably free of CG work and uses only techniques that would have been available to a filmmaker in the 1970s. Thus, even though from all appearances Tarantino approached his half of the film with a completely different goal than Rodriguez (to be inspired by rather than just imitate the exploitation films of the 1970s), he actually gets a lot closer to making a believable grindhouse flick.

Still, the lengthy dialogue scenes in the film continue the worrying trend Tarantino’s been on since he and Roger Avary parted ways after Pulp Fiction. Whereas he used to be content to have only a scene or two be entirely about his free associative pop culture ramblings (with the other scenes having this mixed in, of course, but not being the exclusive purpose of the scenes), he’s now making films that, anytime anyone opens their mouth, all that’s coming out is ephemera. Take away every last bit of dialogue from Death Proof, for instance, and you don’t lose much of the pleasure of watching the film. Indeed, it's probably increased since you don’t have to wait forty minutes in between action scenes.

I’m not saying that these long rambling conversations are boring because they aren’t. They just aren’t about anything. They exist outside of and apart from the rest of the film and are completely unconnected to the violence that surrounds them. Maybe that’s the point, but the whole enterprise has the same sort of feeling as when, in the end of the second volume of Kill Bill, the whole picture grinds to halt so Bill can talk about Superman for a while. What I’m saying, I guess, is that Tarantino’s banal insights into pop culture and relationships, etc. are just not interesting enough for their own sake. They need to be tied into a larger narrative or it becomes just Tarantino showing off his encyclopedic knowledge of the ephemera of modern life. And while that might have been interesting enough to sustain my interest in his work for a while, I’m starting to grow weary of it. And judging by other reviews of this film, I might not be the only one.

That’s the thing, really. Tarantino makes Tarantino films. He is not capable of doing anything else. Even when he assigns himself the task of mimicking another style of filmmaking, he can’t help but pour his own sensibility into the film and turn it into something uniquely his own. Indeed, he is of that rare breed of filmmakers who present a sui generis aesthetic to the world. The problem is that even though his aesthetic and worldview are completely unique and unlike anything anyone else is doing, there’s no escaping the fact that it is still more of the same in film after film. And I, for one, find the bloom to be off this particular rose. What was lively and intoxicating five films ago is now becoming commonplace and predictable. It’s almost as if Tarantino’s become a genre unto himself. There are worse things, I guess, than being completely unique in the same way film after film. But I had expected more from the video store wunderkind and patron saint of film geeks.

BLOOD DIAMOND – edward zwick – 3.9 / 10

In Blood Diamond, Edward Zwick, director of such previous white guilt epics as Glory and The Last Samurai, sends yet another white person into a foreign land to learn something about himself. The white person in question this time is Leonardo DiCaprio (in a truly outstanding, possibly career best performance and easily the best thing about the film) as Danny Archer, a former mercenary turned diamond smuggler. The tempest into which he is sent is the Sierra Leonean civil war of the late 1990s. And the lesson he has to learn, surprise surprise, is to appreciate life in all its bounteous splendor. The only question is how many dark skinned people are going to have to die before Danny figures that out.

I don’t want to be so cynical as to assume that Americans, particularly white middle-class ones, won’t watch a film with a mostly black (or foreign) cast. But I gotta think that even if it wasn’t Zwick’s idea from the start, somewhere along the line in the development of this very expensive film, someone would have made him put some white people in it just to make sure they showed up in the theaters. I don’t know whether Zwick was coaxed into making this concession (exhibits A and B: Glory and The Last Samurai, seem to indicate otherwise) but I understand it. It makes a certain awful kind of business sense. And when you get right down to it, that could even be forgiven if Blood Diamond had turned out to be compelling and interesting. But it isn’t.

It’s not compelling because, despite having an obvious message (diamonds reach our wedding fingers on the broken backs and spilled blood of the world’s exploited indigenous peoples) Zwick and Co. aren’t quite sure how to sell it. Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly, woefully out of her depth), a reporter who’s ventured into Africa to uncover the “truth” about the diamond trade, is obviously the filmmakers’ avatar for their belated activism. She’s the lone voice crying in the wilderness about the exploitation of the people and the ignorance of the selfish uncaring Americans back home. But a few scenes after making that speech, she’s snapping pictures of war ravaged bodies and grief stricken faces to publish in her magazine. How is that any less exploitative than what the diamond smugglers are doing? At least Danny has no pretenses about just what it is he’s doing there at the asshole end of the world.

It’s exactly that sense of conflicted purpose and misplaced anger that so muddies the film. And just when the politics become so convoluted that the whole thing is threatening to collapse under its own self-serious weight, gunfire erupts and something explodes. The camera shakes and blood and dirt splatter the lens as bullets rip through the air. But this, unfortunately, is the other major problem with Blood Diamond; namely that Zwick and Co. want the film to be a big bad piece of slam bang entertainment as well as a political message movie. So mixed in with all the hand wringing about the evils of the diamond trade are car chases and shoot outs in the streets as Danny and Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou, also fantastic and deserving of that Supporting Actor Oscar nod) travel the country in search of Solomon’s captive family and eventually to the hiding place of a rare pink diamond. But the big action setpieces and the complicated geopolitical maneuvering are never a perfect fit. The action seems to come out of nowhere and to exist for no other reason than that twenty minutes had passed without something exploding. It’s violence for violence’s sake is what I’m saying and it contradicts the whole point of Maddy’s (read: the filmmakers’) meandering speechifying that violence with no point is about as horrible a thing as people can do to each other.

All of that is not to say that there isn’t the occasional compelling moment in the film. The handful of scenes concerning Solomon’s captive son Dia, for instance, hint at the film that might have been. Kidnapped by the Revolutionary United Front (R.U.F.), Dia is brainwashed into thinking his parents are dead and then drugged into a stupor until he becomes an unthinking instrument of death. This being a big budget Hollywood spectacular and all, there is little doubt that Dia will eventually be reunited with his father and once again become the future of his country. But along the way, and almost in spite of itself, his becomes the most powerful story in Blood Diamond. His journey from untapped promise to wasted potential and back is the hoped for resolution to the mess that is most of war torn Africa. And thus Dia becomes something of a metaphor for the entire continent. Within him is the promise of a different future, but also the danger of endlessly repeating the mistakes of the past, an idea that is made all the more poignant by the fact that even today child armies continue to roam the jungles of Africa.

As the film draws to a close near the two and a half hour mark, the images of Dia killing innocent, helpless villagers are the only ones that linger, especially considering the somewhat self-defeating titles that close the film by describing the “Kimberley Process” that has, since the time in which the film takes place, supposedly ended the sale of conflict diamonds. Maybe that was tacked on as a sop to the diamond industry. Maybe it’s there to guard against potential lawsuits. Or maybe it’s there because it’s true. Whatever the reason, the contradictory note on which the movie ends is fitting for a film that never really figures out what it wants to say.

And maybe that’s how it should be. Because it’s a tricky quagmire, Africa is, and the filmmakers do not escape it unscathed. However, they do at least seem to be aware of the hopelessness of their plight. “This is Africa” (or just “T.I.A”) is an oft-repeated phrase throughout the film; the idea being that there is no explanation, no logic and no rules to explain what’s going on over there. I applaud their attempt to try to say something about Africa and to try to shine a light on a too-often dim part of the world. But good intentions are not nearly enough, especially when the finished product is so inconsistent, on the one hand bending over backwards to be self-congratulatory and on the other completely misunderstanding what it was actually saying.

300 - zack snyder - 5.5 / 10

For all its digital fire and brimstone and the lip service it pays to the Spartan warrior ethic and code of honorable death, it’s a damn shame that at its core 300 turns out to be so staunchly conservative and puritanical, its warrior heroes dying with cries for their wives and children on their lips. And what’s truly baffling here is that that stuff isn’t in the graphic novel upon which this film is based (neither is the ridiculous legislative maneuvering going on back in Sparta but that’s another matter I’ll get to later) and it certainly isn’t historically accurate. Now I’m no advocate of being a slave to the written source or even to history. But when changes are made recklessly and wantonly, all you get is a very conflicted message.

BLACK SNAKE MOAN – craig brewer – 5.5 / 10

Although it may be faint praise to say it, Black Snake Moan is better than I thought it was going to be. Considering it was written and directed by Craig Brewer (the man behind the pretty weak and borderline racist Hustle & Flow) and concerns a nymphomaniac being chained to a radiator by a dude named Lazarus (who, gasp, comes back to “life” over the course of the film), you’d think it would be pretty much the silliest film ever. But it isn’t, I swear.

I say that even though Brewer and everyone involved in this film did no research whatsoever about nymphomania. Not that I did either but I highly doubt that nymphomania manifests itself as an unscratchable itch that prompts those suffering from it to tear off their clothing and tackle the nearest male (as Christina Ricci does in this film). And I say that even though Ricci wears $200 Citizens of Humanity cut-offs but can’t afford to buy herself dinner.

What’s good about the film is that it so completely believes in its lunatic concept that, for a while (at least until an overmatched Justin Timberlake enters the picture), the audience is caught up in it. It gets the down home, good ol’ boy feel of the Deep South just right and its early characterizations are dead on. This carries the film across the somewhat ludicrous idea that someone could cure another of their “wickedness” by chaining them to a radiator. You just kind of go with it.

The problem comes after the “wickedness” has been cured and Ricci’s boyfriend (played by the aforementioned Mr. Timberlake) returns from Iraq, or more accurately, the boot camp he was kicked out of for the anxiety he gets when confronted with loud noises. Never minding the fact that it’s pretty unlikely that a person would get debilitating anxiety from loud noises and then want to enlist in the Army, the last thing the film needs is another person with some deep-seated mental hurdle to clear. It already has Samuel L. Jackson’s scarred and wounded Lazarus and Ricci’s crazed nymphomaniac.

So, in the third act of the film, we’ve now got that to deal with. And quite frankly, JT is not up to the job. Yes, his role is weak and a lot of what he’s called on to do is silly, but so is what Ricci and Jackson are asked to do and the audience buys into their roles. Timberlake just isn’t able to make us buy into his affliction the way the film needs us to.

I don’t want to lay the blame for this film’s failures at the feet of Justin Timberlake; it’s not his film to carry after all. And maybe the failure of the third act isn’t his fault at all. Maybe there’s just no way a ridiculous film like this could end up satisfactorily. But whatever the reason, the simple fact is that the whole film collapses like a house of cards in its last half hour. It has a completely unearned uplifting ending in which every character is happily paired off with another as if, no matter the damage and pain you cause, if you repent you’ll find happiness. It’s a very Christian message and a bizarrely conservative one coming from a film that toys with hardcore sexual depravity and the darkest anxiety.

THE NEW WORLD – terrence malick – 5.5 / 10

Terrence Malick is the definition of an auteur. He is also exhibit number one in why the auteur theory is not the be all and end all of film criticism. For though each of his films is clearly and distinctly his own, they all more or less fail in exactly the same ways. It doesn’t matter if the film is about soldiers in World War II or criminals in the 1950s Midwest or John Smith and Pocahontas, every Malick film is going to be exactly the same: lots of shots of nature and sun-dappled trees and grass as the characters look longingly at each other and speak in breathlessly whispered voiceover on the soundtrack.

The New World is more of the same from Malick. However, that being said, it is probably the most entertaining of his films. Despite it’s dreadfully slow pace (another Malick trademark) it doesn't go on and on without end or direction (like The Thin Red Line). It has a clear narrative with lives at stake and as such has some compelling moments of action and drama. And the story it tells, though well known, is nonetheless interesting.

Moreover, it is undeniable that Malick has a keen visual sense. There are plenty of breathtaking shots in this film. And he does a good job of conveying the wonder with which the Englishmen see the New World and, similarly, with which Pocahontas sees England. Both worlds are so lush and vibrant as to be like paradise.

But none of that takes away from the fact that, like all other Terrence Malick movies before it, The New World is dreadfully boring for long stretches. True there are moments of action and moments in which the plot is developing quickly. But those are clearly not the moments that Malick is interested in. No, he’d rather spend twenty minutes with Pocahontas and John Smith cavorting in the fields as the sun sets behind them and their voices speak about ridiculously pretentious nonsense in hushed voiceover. And that’s all well and good but it’s boring as hell. And those voiceovers, Christ, a grown man writes that nonsense and grown men are supposed to be entertained by it? I’d have been embarrassed to have written that in high school. And if someone had chanced to come upon it, I think I would have died of shame. To put it out there for all the world to see is just ridiculous, borderline laughable.

I’m really curious to know what this film looked like when it was in script form. I wonder how many pages it was. And I wonder if it made any sense. I can’t even tell what happened at the end of the film. Does Pocahontas die? Or does she return to the New World with John Smith? I can’t tell.

In the end, I guess the film is as good as your tolerance for meandering though good-looking asides about the romance of the world and the romance between two people. If you like this kind of stuff, The New World is for you. If you don’t, steer well clear.

HALF NELSON – ryan fleck – 6.7 / 10

Indie film did not start out as a genre but it has certainly become one. Of course, not every indie film fits into this genre but enough do that when you go to the indie section of Blockbuster, you know what you can expect to find. Let’s run down the list: a generic indie film is slowly paced, character driven and almost exclusively shot with handheld cameras. It’s usually well acted, dingy looking and shot mostly with available light and in extreme close-up. The editing style is hyperactive (which would seem to run counter to the slow pace of the rest of the film) and calls attention to itself, often employing jump cuts or radical changes in time or location from one shot to the next. There are a few random asides about topical issues (usually liberal in viewpoint) and often casual drug use and sex. And the end, when it comes, will be signaled not so much by something happening but instead by a slight change in viewpoint or tone.

That the above list is pretty much the blueprint for Half Nelson would probably lead you to believe that the film is crap. But it’s actually not half bad. Just like you occasionally run across a good slasher film that's generic through and through but still manages to be entertaining, so too is it possible to run across a generic indie film that's still enjoyable. And this is that film.

Credit for that goes almost entirely to the writing. Anything good or interesting or entertaining about this film is due to the writing and what the terrific actors do with the words they're given. Much has been made of Ryan Gosling’s performance and rightly so but it’s not quite the tour de force I anticipated it to be. Instead his performance is subtle and interesting and very entertaining. For that matter, so is the performance of Sharreka Epps as the girl that eventually saves the Gosling’s screwed up teacher.

And it’s that facet of the story, the redemption of the teacher, that is by far the least satisfying aspect of the film. I guess going in I figured that if someone wanted to make this story, this tale of addiction, they would have had some history of using if not abusing drugs. I mean, the film is about addiction, why make it if you didn’t have some history with drugs? I figured that maybe, for once, there’d be a film that dealt with drug use in a realistic way. And for a while that’s what we’re given here. The first hour, in fact, is pretty much just the story of a high functioning drug addict and what his daily life is like.

But it’s when things start to fall apart and Gosling's Dan starts to unravel (as he must in this sort of story) that the film goes off the rails in terms of its depiction of drug use. Pretty soon Dan is cursing at the thirteen-year-old girl who tried to befriend him and trying to rape his sort of girlfriend and skipping out on work to get high all day in a motel room. I understand that this sort of thing “has” to happen to give the film dramatic heft. But I can’t believe that someone who had any real experience with drug use would ever write this. It’s just patently false. Doing drugs does not change who you are or how you behave. Someone that’s done drugs would know this. And thus the third act of the film is more or less a failure and a cop out. But oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

CHILDREN OF MEN - alfonso cuaron - 9.3 / 10

The level of filmmaking talent on display in Children of Men is absolutely breathtaking. Not since Road to Perdition has there been a film this well directed. In fact, even if you hadn’t a clue what a director does on a movie, you couldn’t fail to be impressed by the direction in this film.

The writing, unfortunately, is another matter. It’s not bad by any means, it’s just not as extraordinary as the direction. The plot concerns the possible salvation of the human race in the form of the first pregnant woman the world has seen for eighteen years. It falls to Theo (Clive Owen) to get Kee (the archetypally named pregnant woman) to the Human Project and thereby redeem himself so that he can die happy.

Theo’s transformation from apathetic former revolutionary to a good soldier in the liberal fight is, quite clearly, meant to comment on our own society’s current apathetic stance towards the world’s ills. Talk to most people about global warming or the looming global oil crisis or Social Security or Medicare, etc. and you’ll likely find their opinion mirrors Theo’s. Something along the lines of, “Yeah, it’s a tragedy but what can you do?”

Of course, being the hero of a multi-million dollar blockbuster entertainment, Theo will get that question answered in spectacular fashion. He finds purpose and fulfillment and then dies (because, for some reason, serious movies are not allowed to have their protagonists become fulfilled and content (see: American Beauty)). The larger point Cuaron is trying to make, I suppose, is that we all have the potential, like Theo, to rediscover our desire and motivation to change the world and we’d better start doing it or our world might end up looking a lot like the 2027 of this film.

And when you get right down to it, that’s a pretty decent message for a film to have. It’s not revolutionary, of course, but at least it’s a coherent philosophy that’s meant to make the world a better place. And it’s carried off pretty well here without calling undo attention to itself. The same, however, cannot be said of the filmmaking technique itself. It is quite revolutionary and goes far out of its way to call attention to itself. But that’s just fine by me because it’s just so damn brilliant as to be undeniable.

The film is opened by one of the best first shots in the history of cinema. It may not quite rise to the level of Touch of Evil's famous opening tracking shot but it gets very very close. The shot is a technical tour de force (involving moving from indoors to out, over counters and through doors and ending with a violent explosion). But more than that, it thematically encapsulates the whole of the film without anyone (other than the talking heads on the television screens) uttering a word.

It shows the audience Theo, the only person in the coffee shop crowd not interested in what the TV newscasters are saying (i.e. Theo is different and stands apart from everyone else in this world). The crowd itself is composed almost entirely of white faces (which subtly references the film’s other major theme of the mistreatment of illegal aliens). And when Theo steps outside and the shop explodes, it does so in the most unexpected, and therefore violent, way imaginable. (Unfortunately the trailer has ruined the shock value of this for almost everyone, myself included.)

The unexpected nature of the violence is important for several reasons. Firstly, a violent explosion is perhaps the very last thing a person who has just bought a cup of coffee is thinking about, just as the idea that women could suddenly stop having babies is probably the very last doomsday scenario anybody is thinking about. But like the explosion, the lack of childbirth would, of course, be devastating. Secondly, the suddenness (and seeming randomness) of the violence presages the sudden, random and awful violence that will recur throughout the rest of the film (including some of the most visceral and downright shocking violence ever seen on screen). Most human beings' experience of violence is, for the most part, random. We seldom get involved in shootouts or knife fights or huge street brawls. The violence in most of our lives is more mundane, like a car crash or a stumble that results in a fall down a flight of stairs. That sort of violence is the only way most of us will ever experience real trauma. And it is that sense of shock and suddenness that is often lost in the average film. Not so Children of Men. It gets it absolutely, perfectly, breathtakingly right.

And that is to say nothing of the profound impact of the moments that occur after the birth of the child (which, not accidentally, is born on a makeshift bed in a rundown building when no other place could be found (not unlike a certain Savior)). Near the end of the film, Theo, Kee and the newborn infant find themselves in the middle of a shooting war between Her Majesty’s army and the refugee guerillas. Frightened by the sound of gunfire, the baby begins to cry. And all who hear the cries fall silent and lower their weapons. The whole war stops to listen to the cry of a baby because, in this context, the infant is hope incarnate. But then, as soon as the baby’s cries are out of earshot, one of the refugees opens fire once more. So hopeless have they become that hope is only real when they can actually see and hear it. It’s a clear message to the world of 2007 where it is so easy to become disillusioned with the idea of actual change. If we don’t work at it, Cuaron is saying, then hope is already gone. And this is the one moment in the film that really brings that home.

SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE – park chan wook – 8.1 / 10

Korean director Park Chan Wook has quietly become one of my favorite directors. Between his vengeance trilogy and Joint Security Area, he’s shown himself to be a very compelling filmmaker. And while Sympathy for Lady Vengeance isn’t quite as good a film as Oldboy, it still packs a pretty big wallop and manages to say things about the relatively limited topic of vengeance that Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance had not already said.

Lady Vengeance (as it’s known in the West) really boils down to one metaphor that’s repeated in various forms (tofu, snow, cake, skin, etc.), the point being that to be clean, to be pure and white is the goal of the vengeance seeker. The hope is that the act of taking revenge will allow the person to move past that event, to allow them to make their life about something else from that point onward, that vengeance, once taken, will wipe their life clean.

But embedded in the symbols used to convey this idea is the knowledge that such a starting over is all but impossible. The white tofu, for instance, is the traditional gift received by a person getting out of prison. Although it’s supposed to represent a clean slate, it's also plain and simple and boring. Thus, to accept the new, clean life that the tofu represents is to accept that life will be plain and boring. This sort of double meaning is true of all the white symbols in the film. For instance, snow, besides being cleansing and blanketing, can also be treacherous; all skin has blemishes, etc.

This is an incredibly dense metaphor because, at its heart, Park sees vengeance as the impossible search for redemption. The yearning for redemption is valuable and honorable but to hope to find it in revenge is, as Park has said, quite stupid. And at the end of this film, for the first time in the trilogy, the main character comes to understand the futility and stupidity of vengeance and thus, quite rightly, plants her face in the white cake.

The film shows events from two separate times in Lady Vengeance's (Gaem-Ja’s) life. In one she's in prison for crimes she did not commit. And in the other, she's seeking revenge against the men who put her in prison. In each of these situations Gaem-Ja is a very different person. In prison she's kind-hearted and loving. After prison she's cold and calculating. It’s hard to know which of these two personalities is closer to the real Gaem-Ja but it seems probable that both are facets of the same person and co-exist to some extent at all times. Thus, the question must be asked, if prison is the worst place a person can spend thirteen years (or at least one of the worst places) how can Gaem-Ja be a better person in prison than out? Is it the thirst for vengeance that makes her so cold and removed? Or is it simply that this is who Geam-Ja thinks she needs to become to carry out her mission?

Whatever the answer, the point Park seems to be making is that lusting for revenge turns a person into a monster only because it makes the person complicit in becoming that monster. Prison, of course, can do this as well but only if the person allows it. Vengeance, because it's a personal choice, will always turn a person into a monster if it's carried to its natural conclusion.

After Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, Park Chan Wook was accused of glorifying revenge, of romanticizing it as a way for a person to take back control of his life. He has long denied that revenge is ever justified but nonetheless its power over a grieving person is very great. With Lady Vengeance, he has finally made a revenge film in which no one can possibly mistake his intentions. By having his protagonist turn the actual act of vengeance over to a group of similarly wronged individuals, he shows just how empty revenge really is. By not having Gaem-Ja, the protagonist, the person the audience has been rooting for the whole film, take the final revenge, he makes his point very clear. Robbed of a character for whom they feel sympathy, the audience can only view the vengeance for what it is, the empty act of ruined people who, far from starting over fresh, will be forever changed for the worse.

BROTHER – takeshi kitano – 6.8 / 10

Mostly about the peculiar Japanese practice of dying with honor, Beat Takeshi’s only (barely) American film is alternately fascinating and frustrating. In fact, it’s almost fascinating in spite of its inscrutability. In the film’s second to last scene (but the last one featuring Takeshi’s Aniki), a roadside diner owner tells Aniki that the Japanese are just so damn inscrutable. And, since this film is about the differences between American and Japanese culture, and is therefore somewhat inscrutable to this American, that’s a particularly apt thing to hear right before Aniki buys it.

There’s also the possibility that this film is a World War II allegory. Considering that the western theater of that war is the only large scale interaction America and Japan have ever had, it’s no surprise that both cultures should have wildly incorrect views about the other. When Americans think of the yakuza, they think about the heinous and terrible traditions (depicted in the film at hand) and the wanton violence they seem to mete out at every turn. Similarly, it would appear, from watching this film, that the Japanese think of our mafia in mostly the same way. Each criminal organization is thought of by the other culture as being ruthless, extraordinarily violent and basically institutionally insane.

The parallels with World War II are self-evident. For instance, is there an American alive that can understand why in the holy hell a grown man would fly an airplane into a destroyer or building or whatever as the kamikaze Japanese pilots of WWII did so often? Is there any Japanese person who can understand how a grown man can disgrace himself in public then carry on as if he had done nothing shameful? Add to this the fact that the propaganda machines of war were cranking out lies as fast as they could. The Japanese people were told that the Americans, when they invaded, wouldn’t stop until ever last person on the island was dead. From an American point of view this is absurd. But then, of course, we did kill millions of their citizens, innocent people mostly, in a single afternoon.

Thus, in Brother, we have the Japanese yakuza in America going up against the mafia only to find that not only are they outmatched but they're all marked for death. And as this plays out over the last twenty minutes of the film, it certainly seems awfully similar to how the Japanese must have felt at the end of World War II.

The real question, though, is what point does all this serve? Why go to the trouble to create this allegory in the first place since it doesn’t lend itself to a particularly realistic story? The answer just might be that by showing a culture how other peoples of the world see it, it might be hoped that that culture will learn something about the image it conveys to the world.

THE DESCENT – neil marshall – 8.8 / 10

Given that Neil Marshall’s first film, Dog Soldiers, concerned a group of military men trying to survive the night and that this film, his second, concerns a group of militant (though not military) women trying to reach daylight, it’s pretty clear going in that something’s afoot besides cheap genre thrills. And sure enough there’s quite a lot bubbling beneath The Descent’s genuinely terrifying broken bones and gnashing teeth.

But that’ll have to wait for a moment because the visceral experience of those broken bones is about as intense and horrifying as has ever been realized on film. Starting long before the first creepy crawler rears his albino gargoyle visage, the tension in the film is built around all manner of things real and imagined. Marshall, you see, is plainly in love with the conventions of the horror film and there’s not a one that he doesn’t reference in The Descent. For instance, there are at least two dream sequences that only reveal themselves as illusions after the scary thing leaps out of the dark (or comes around the corner). And such is Marshall’s talent that he manages to reinvigorate these normally quite obvious and completely cliché moments to such an extent that he almost makes you forget that they are cliché. Further on into the film we find the drunken mirth making in the cabin in the woods the night before the unfortunate events that comprise the film proper. Then we have the rebirth of the audience avatar (or Girl Who Lives or whatever you want to call her (Sarah in this case)) as a warrior. And so on and so forth. The point is that Marshall is so in love with the conventions of his chosen genre that the sheer joy he takes in referencing them is evident in how fresh and vibrant they are made to feel.

That vibrant life is also what ultimately makes The Descent so horrifying. The reason that the clichés of the horror genre exist is the same reason that stereotypes exist, namely that they have some basis in fact (even if that fact remains long buried in the past). Once upon a time what has now become horror film cliché actually scared people and Marshall has elevated and reinvigorated these clichés to the point that he is more or less working with all the techniques the cinema has ever come up with on how to scare the crap out of people. And further, without the clichés and hokey characterizations and lame death scenes of most horror films, there is no respite, no reprieve, no letting up. This film has its foot on the accelerator and the scares just keep coming faster and faster and the tension builds higher and higher until you’re either forced to look away just to prove that it is indeed a film or you succumb completely and fully immerse yourself in this horrible environment. Needless the say, either outcome is a testament to the virtuosity with which it has been created. There’s no other horror film that I’ve ever seen as perfectly tuned to maximum fright as this one. While that doesn’t make it Citizen Kane, it certainly speaks volumes about the talent at work and is no less a testament to the power of film.

And of course, outside of being terrifically frightening, The Descent also has a hell of a lot to say about the power of women and their role in modern society. Take, for instance, the fact that the film concerns six women squeezing themselves through dark, wet tunnels and sloshing around in viscous pools of liquid trying to find a way out into the light all while dodging the attacks of skulking men seeking to penetrate their flesh. In that context the film can almost be read as a struggle for reproductive freedom. The women have shunned men and thus must earn the right, through trials that mirror the act of giving birth, to sever the ties that link reproduction to men. In short, they choose to reproduce on their own terms (invitro fertilization, artificial insemination) but in so doing they take on the role of warrior (a traditionally male role) to protect their child and to defend their right to do so.

But what then to make of the fact that our hero’s rebirth as a warrior is facilitated by an attack from the lone female amongst the creepy crawlers? If this is truly a battle for control of gender identity and reproductive freedom then why is the most important battle (thematically, not as concerns the plot) between our hero and another female? Perhaps this is a canny nod to the fact that women are oftentimes (maybe most of the time) most responsible for keeping each other from reaching their objectives.

The events at the end of the film seem to bear out this line of reasoning. As Sarah and the only other surviving female, Juno, near the end of their journey back to the light (and a final rebirth) they come face to face with each other, weapons at the ready, after having just vanquished a batch of the crawlers. Earlier Sarah had learned that the true reason Juno was unable to stay by her side in the hospital after the car crash that killed Sarah’s husband and child was because Juno was sleeping with Sarah’s husband. Now, face to face, armed with pointed blades and drenched in various fluids, Sarah faces the choice of whether to help or attack her friend. That she chooses to attack speaks volumes about just how strong the impulse to restrain other females is. Even at the point of death and after having survived a similar encounter with a scorned female crawler, Sarah chooses vengeance.

Perhaps it’s only fitting that this should be the hero’s final decisive act. It’s Marshall’s last and most groundbreaking reinvention of archetype. The final scare in a horror film is almost always a cheat (think of the final shot of Carrie, for instance, a film not coincidentally referenced more than once here) that is meant to scare the audience but seems almost unfair to the hero who has survived so much. It’s just a cheap cop out to goose the audience one more time. But for Marshall the final scare is less a jump-out-of-your-seat scare and more a psychological wound inflicted on the audience. With that last audacious act, Sarah casts aside the audience sympathy and turns herself into the villain. We’ve rooted for this woman for an hour and half only to find our trust has been misplaced.

In some ways this is equally as cheap as a final out-of-nowhere jump-scare. But it’s certainly different and inventive and creepy as fuck because it strikes at the audience not at a character. And it’s the last in a string of clever deceptions and subversions perpetrated by the writer / director. As such it’s a doozy and as terrifically terrifying in its own way as anything that came before. I cannot wait to see what this guy does next.

MANDERLAY – lars von trier – 7.5 / 10

For the second part of his America trilogy, Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier has taken for his subject slavery and the subsequent assimilation of black people into mainstream American society. Since race is such a touchy subject in this country and since we are already so skeptical of Europeans and their attitudes (especially when it comes to sex and violence) it’s easy to understand why almost every professional reviewer has gotten up on their high horse to denounce the very idea of this film. They treat the idea of a European making a film about the American racial problem as if it were sacrilegious and therefore can’t bring themselves to give the film the fair look it deserves.

As far as I’m concerned, outsiders often have the best insight into our culture. Look at artists like the Taiwan-born Ang Lee whose The Ice Storm is as piercing a portrayal of middles class 1970s ennui as has ever been made by an American. Or look at the Italian Sergio Leone whose Once Upon a Time in America is as succinct a summation of the American experience in the early twentieth century as the homegrown Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy. That foreigners would have a keen insight into the vagaries of American culture should not be seen as insulting nor should it even be seen as surprising. Our culture permeates the world. In the days leading up to this most recent Gulf War there were pictures of young Iraqis wearing Batman t-shirts on the cover of the New York Times. Our culture is everywhere, so much so that we no longer can claim ownership of it. And if artists from other countries that are inundated with our culture want to comment on it and poke holes in it, we would be better served to accept their art with an open mind and critique it on its merits not simply on whether it has the right to exist in the first place.

So let’s get down to it then. Von Trier’s idea of the black experience in America over the last two hundred years is basically that black people in America were so scarred by the experience of slavery that they chose a sort of self-imposed slavery after they were set “free” and further that this second form of slavery is the more disturbing and harmful because it is self-imposed. Like the former slaves at the Manderlay plantation, many modern black Americans still live in the South. And those that have moved out of their ancestral homes have largely congregated in predominantly black communities in the urban North and West. Additionally, amongst these black communities (especially those in an urban setting) anything that looks like achievement in the white world is shunned (sometimes this is construed as school success sometimes it is construed as working a low-paying job, etc.). And finally the only areas of achievement that many of these black people respect are music and sports, the same areas in which slaves used to entertain themselves. So, if this is really the case, it sure does look like black Americans have chosen to continue to live as if they were slaves and that Von Trier is right.

The problem, however, is that this idea of black people, while it may be the pervasive depiction of them in our popular culture, is not really the experience of most black Americans. In truth, the experience of most black Americans is pretty similar to that of white Americans of similar economic status. And it is really this economic status that determines what kind a life a person living in America will have not the color of their skin.

It’s not surprising though that Von Trier got it wrong. It is, rather, pretty easy to see how he could think black people have ghetto-ized themselves post-slavery if he only had our popular culture to go on. But Von Trier is smarter than that. And I can’t believe his research would be entirely limited to viewing popular culture. So perhaps he is making the point that this is how we have presented the black American experience to the world. Maybe he’s just holding up a mirror so that we might see. Maybe he’s trying to start a discussion about race in America so that we might take a hard look at how we present it to the rest of the world; a world that we seem to be trying to remake in our image.

Or maybe he’s not even really talking about race in America. Maybe this whole slavery thing is a smokescreen. If we take Grace as a metaphor for George W. Bush, the slaves as metaphorical Iraqis and the gangsters as a metaphorical United States military, a rather interesting idea begins to emerge. Does Grace not force independence on the slaves in the same way Bush imposed “freedom” on the Iraqi citizens after the fall of Sadam Hussein? Aren’t the Iraqis rebelling against their newfound freedom and seeking refuge in chaos and sectarianism in the same way the freed slaves of Manderlay do? This metaphor is so perfectly apt that I can’t help but think this might have been Von Trier’s true allegorical meaning.

With this new reading in mind, much more interesting ideas begin to present themselves. When the slaves are freed their entire way of life is destroyed. Left with no infrastructure, they meander around the grounds doing nothing much and, to Grace’s great displeasure, making nothing of themselves. So Grace takes it on herself to impose democratic law at the point of a rifle in the exact same way that Bush has done in Iraq. But what she finds is that there is no one around any longer with the ability to run the plantation. The old way may have been corrupt but the oppressed slaves were not calling for their freedom. They did not want to take control of the plantation for themselves. And because they did not, once their freedom is given to them they have no incentive to make a new system in place of the old one. And it comes as no surprise that without an infrastructure everything at Manderlay collapses. There is no food to eat. The crops are mostly destroyed. Tensions rise until two people are dead.

As Grace observes this happening she can’t figure out why the freed slaves are allowing their world to crumble. And she makes the same mistake that George W. Bush made in Iraq. You cannot give people their freedom and expect them to do anything with it. They must take it for themselves. For only when they truly desire freedom can they possibly use it to their benefit. No people in history have ever had a successful revolution from without. This is true at the moment in Iraq and it is true at Manderlay.

Further, and this is where the Bush criticism is sharpest, once the slaves are freed, Grace takes it on herself to teach them about democracy and the American system of government. President Bush has said many times that he thinks bringing democracy to the world is the way to heal all the world’s ills. And this is not an uncommon view in America. It stems from our evangelical nature. We think the rest of the world is going to hell and we want to help them if we can. In Manderlay, Grace watches all her efforts to teach voting and representative government be misrepresented and used to promote ends she doesn’t support. But faced with the choice of whether to kill an innocent woman or reject her precious democracy, she chooses murder. She compromises her moral code in order to uphold her governmental aims. And in that moment the audience realizes (and maybe she does too) that imposing a system of living on a people can never work no matter how well intentioned. Grace’s imposition of democracy on the slaves is no better than Mam’s imposition of slavery on them. It is just another system forced on them at the point of a gun or a blade, and it can never work. This is the lesson George Bush is learning in Iraq.

And so the second part of Von Trier’s America trilogy turns out to not really be about the black experience in America as advertised. Rather it is a clever condemnation of the American or maybe more accurately the Bushian idea that we know what’s best for the world. Manderlay says that one group of people can never make another group of people do what they want without everything turning to shit. Change comes from within. This is something anyone who’s ever been an addict knows. This is something anyone who’s ever tried to get a loved one to change knows. It is something those in power should never forget. Grace should have known better. And George Bush should have known better. Let’s just hope that his time in office comes to an end before his anger escalates like Grace at the end of the film and her whipping of Timothy turns into Bush’s nuking of the whole Middle East.

BAND A PART – jean luc godard – 5.5 /10

If this is Godard at his most brilliant and breathtaking as everyone claims, then I think it’s safe to say that I simply don’t understand what the big deal is. Admittedly there are some nifty shots and some memorable moments scattered throughout the film (the famous minute of silence and run through the Louvre among them) but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s mostly boring, predictable and peopled by agonizingly ignorant characters who are dogged by a hopelessly pretentious narrator.

See, these three dolts are in love with popular culture of all stripes (but mostly movies) and imagine themselves as the heroes in their own film or pulp novel. When they dance in a café they hear a jazzy score playing in their heads (which is absent when pretentious narrator man is speaking his banalities). When they decide to sit for a full minute in complete silence, the whole world goes silent around them as if they are the only people in existence. And when they decide to steal money from Odile’s house, they imagine themselves to be some kind of gangsters.

The thing is, since Godard is quoting heavily from and referencing at every turn various other films and novels, he’s no different from his characters. And while that might otherwise be charming, in this case that makes him sort of an idiot. But at the same time he realizes his obsession with pop culture makes him a romantic fool and accepts that it is so. This however, does not excuse his relentlessly pretentious narration. But in this context I can’t see the narration as anything other than a joke and a not very funny one at that.

So yet again, when the film is over we’re left with the eternal question of “art” films, namely did the artistic, symbolic and metaphorical aspirations of the film outweigh the pure entertainment value and if so is the film still worth seeing and talking about. In Band a Part it’s unquestionable that the artistic concerns of Godard far overshadow the entertainment concerns so the key question is whether these symbolic and artistic elements make the film worthwhile. It’s half-century reputation as one of the classics of French cinema would seem to indicate that the answer is yes. And I agree that the film is pretty watchable despite it’s lack of an interesting plot. But I cannot agree that the film is worth adding to the canon. It’s worth a look but there are far better films that manage to make as many references as this one but in a way that doesn’t become the complete focus of the film. After all, anyone can string together a bunch of references and call it a masterpiece but not too many people can hide those references in a film that has being entertaining as it’s primary objective. In both Band a Part and Breathless, Godard constantly references American films, television shows and novels that are hugely entertaining as well as being full of symbolic meaning. If he really wanted to pay proper tribute to these works of art he shouldn’t have simply strung together a bunch of references to them and called it a film. He should have made a film that references them but does what he admires about those works as well or better. Maybe it’s me forcing my desire for what these films should be, but it’s hard to be Orson Welles or Jack London and pretty damned easy to name a character after him and call it a day.

THE FOG – rupert wainwright – 0.2 / 10

The Fog is that special kind of stupid movie in which a character. when driving through the fog, says, “I can’t see anything” then immediately runs into another car. In other words, it’s completely and quite stupidly obvious. Worse than that, everything in this film that has been changed from the original has been made tremendously worse.

Now the original film was never a classic work of cinema but it is an important piece of the horror canon. Admittedly, however, the effects in the film are very dated with its ghosts looking less like scary apparitions and more like gay pride paraders looking for Bleecker Street. So maybe it was due for a remake. But the things that made the original interesting were things like the fact that Stevie, the unmarried mother and lighthouse DJ, has to take on the role of father / protector when her family is threatened, or that a major character is just a hitchhiker who happened to be passing through on the fateful night. This is some interesting shit that, of course, was changed in the remake.

I guess in our modern PG-13 horror film age, the people behind these films don’t want the teenyboppers they’re pitching them to to be encouraged to do immoral things like hitchhike and engage in premarital sex even though that aspect of the original film can be read as a cautionary tale against doing just that. I suppose the people behind this film think that’s too complex an argument for a horror film to make. Better just make the hitchhiker the ex-girlfriend of the guy picking her up. That way when they fall into bed the audience will know that premarital sex is only okay if you’re in love.

THE WIRE: SEASON ONE – david simon – 9.5 / 10

Discussing individual episodes of The Wire as self-contained stories is as useless as talking about individual chapters of a novel as if they were separate stories. Thus, although The Wire is absolutely brilliant, it’s possible to view it as a complete failure as a television show since it is nearly impossible to enjoy in one-hour segments one night a week. But viewed on DVD, when the chapters (episodes) can be seen at any pace the viewer chooses, The Wire becomes something altogether different. It becomes one thirteen-hour masterpiece the likes of which I had previously thought television incapable of producing.

The first season of The Wire is an astonishingly assured piece of work. Every scene and plot development, every interaction is so convincing in its realism (credit here goes to the outstanding performances as well as the skilled writing and directing) that the story sweeps the viewer up in a way that almost no show before it has ever done. It’s so immersive that it almost defeats criticism altogether. And more than that, this is one television show in which, like in an auteurist work of cinema, every camera angle and word of dialogue means something and is rich in subtext. Unlike every other television show that values plot above all else, The Wire takes the time to set its scenes in places of symbolic importance and has its characters talk about things that obliquely reference the main themes being developed over the course of the season.

Take for instance the scenes in which Detectives Bunk Moreland and Jimmy McNulty drink near the train tracks. In the western genre the coming of the railroad to the unspoiled western prairie meant the death of the outlaw way of life and the coming of the industrial revolution. The railroad is destined to bring order and lawfulness to an uncivilized land (or at least a different, more refined sense of corruption). The appearance of a railroad quite literally means that the people here are at a crossroads and it hints that how they deal with this impending change is how they will be defined as people. In the same way, when McNulty is drinking at the train tracks he finds himself on the edge of a precipice, at a crossroads (usually, of course, it’s his own self-destructive nature that’s brought him to this point but nonetheless, here he is). Thus McNulty is like a western lawman, defined by the way in which he handles himself during the current crisis.

Additionally, the subplot involving Omar stealing from the Barksdales has distinct echoes of the western outlaw. It’s shot in a way that evokes the classic John Ford and Sergio Leone westerns. Couple that with the railroad and the overriding theme of the season starts to emerge, i.e. the coming revolution. Nobody is naïve enough to believe that the impending changes actually herald any real progress. But they will be changes nonetheless and whether the characters evolve and change with the world around them will primarily determine whether they continue to be a part of the police force (in McNulty’s case) or continue to live (in Omar’s case). Both are faced with the defining crisis of their careers or lives and must face it on their own like the gunslingers who meet in the street at noon to enact the climactic duel.

Obviously this idea of the police and drug dealers as heroic duelists is a bit overblown and melodramatic. And David Simon and his writing staff know this. But to the characters, to McNulty and Omar, this 'game' of theirs really does feel like the stuff of legend. They are the gods in their own myths. And if the viewer is to be fully integrated into this world, they must live it as the characters live it, complete with the unsustainable belief that what they're doing actually means something, that the revolution is coming and that it will change things. The reality that everyone involved knows deep down in the backs of their minds (and which is occasionally spoken aloud but never listened to) is that nothing can change the game as long as the rules remain the same (i.e. drugs remain illegal). But such thoughts would make it impossible to play the game and are therefore ignored or suppressed with alcohol or other controlled substances.

Thus it comes as an even greater blow when, at the end of the season, Lt. Daniels’s detail is denied a decisive victory over the Barksdales by the bureaucratic incompetence and careerism of the police force. And initially on first viewing this development left such a bad taste in my mouth that it tainted my enjoyment of the whole season. I knew that in reality this was the most likely outcome. I knew also that even if the detail was completely successful then other drug dealing crews would swoop in to take the Barksdales’ place. But so firmly was I invested in this titanic struggle between McNulty and Avon that I couldn’t bear that it ended in a draw.

It’s now become clear to me, however, that this is the true genius of The Wire. Its characters may believe that they are gods fighting a mythological war, and we the viewers might ourselves get so caught up in the story that we believe it too, but the reality that stands just outside these self-deluded people never forgets. And just when it seems that these mighty warriors have bent reality to their will, they have the rug pulled out from under them and they (and we) realize just how small and unimportant what they’ve invested themselves in really is.

This is, quite understandably, a crushing blow. And not one a television viewer is used to receiving. Thus the season, on first viewing, came off as disappointing. But I’ve come to realize just how much more valuable it is to hew closely to reality when the temptation to make it all end well must have been so overwhelming. The people behind this show must have been far more in love with their characters than I ever could be. And if they had the nerve to still remain true to how this would really be in the actual Baltimore, how then can I complain? Besides, having something end satisfactorily and having it end the way I want it to are not mutually exclusive options. It doesn’t have to all work out in order for the audience to be satisfied. Just like in every other aspect of the show, you can’t view the ending like you would that of any other show. It demands more from you and gives you much much more in return. And it somehow manages to get better each time you watch it.

LADY IN THE WATER – m. night shyamalan – 0.9 / 10

Quite possibly the dumbest, most self-satisfied film ever made. Don’t believe me? Let me just recount the plot for you: The superintendent of a Philadelphia area apartment building (Cleveland Heep, played by Paul Giammati), who is hiding a deep dark secret (this is Shyamalan remember), finds a water nymph in the complex’s pool. This nymph, called a narf for some reason, is meant to find a person (called the vessel) who, upon seeing her, will be inspired to do something great. That done, the narf can then mount a giant eagle (called the Great Eaglon) and return to her home, the Blue World. Trying to prevent her return is a wolf-like monster with grass for fur called a scrunt. There are certain nights during which the scrunt cannot attack the narf because the super evil tartutic (three monkey-like creatures made of wood who all share the one name of tartutic) will punish them. But, since this particular narf is the madame narf (an important narf who’s return to the Blue World will herald great change), the scrunt is willing to risk the wrath of the tartutic to attack the narf as she awaits the Great Eaglon. Thus the narf must enlist the help of certain humans who have been blessed with certain abilities and have felt compelled to reside in a place near the narf, in this case, in the apartment complex. Of course, the people don’t know they have these gifts so Cleveland must seek them all out. And there are a lot. There’s the “symbolist” (any similarity to Robert Langdon’s fictional occupation is purely coincidental I’m sure), the healer, the interpreter, the guardian and a group of people called the guild. Finally, with these ten or so people surrounding her, the narf has her rendezvous with the big eagle.

Seriously, that is the simplest and quickest summary of the plot of this film possible. It’s so convoluted and ridiculous that almost all of the film is spent conveying the plot. Two thirds of the dialogue is simply exposition. And the characters responsible for this exposition are two horribly stereotypical Korean women who once heard this tale as a fable back in Korea (never mind that the names “scrunt”, “ narf”, and “tartutic” sound not the least bit Korean).

Watching the film and hearing the slowly unraveling complications of the narf’s return to the Blue World, you get the distinct impression that Shyamalan is making this up as he goes. Each new development or obstacle is more unlikely and nonsensical than the last. And, perhaps most damningly, not one person in the entire film behaves like a real human being.
For example, upon finding this naked girl in the pool and hearing her tale, Cleveland doesn’t for even a moment think she’s a nut with serious mental issues. And when he begins to tell more and more of the residents of the apartment complex about her, none of these people think the whole thing’s just some crazy yarn and call the men in white coats. I guess it makes sense that the people who are unknowingly gifted (the healer, the guardian, the guild, etc.) might believe the story but plenty of non-magical people hear it too and not one person is an unbeliever. Further, the plan these people concoct to get the narf to safety is just about the most convoluted and silly strategy possible (it involves a big party and a band). It is said early on in the film that the scrunt cannot attack the narf when she is in the water. The pool is like fifty feet from the building. Why not just toss her in the pool and wait for the stupid eagle?

Okay, so the plot is ridiculously stupid and the mythology of this Blue World is inane to the point of being insulting but that is not what makes this film so smug and self-satisfied. No, that comes when you see what character Shyamalan has chosen to play and which character he has chosen to punish with the film’s lone act of violence. Remember that one person whom the narf was to influence? That’s the role Shyamalan’s chosen for himself. And the narf’s influence compels him to write a book that will not only change the world, it also causes him to be murdered, martyred for his art. As for the character that is on the receiving end of the film’s only violence, that character’s a film critic (named, for some reason, after Manny Farber, a champion of B movies and unknown auteurs).

These two taken together clearly indicate the absurd depths of Shyamalan’s messiah complex. He sees himself as the lone voice of truth and beauty in the world, his constant critical drubbing a sort of near-religious persecution. He is perhaps the only artist capable of bringing light and beauty into the world and as such must constantly fight against those (critics) who attempt to shroud that light and silence his voice. Therefore, in his mind, attacking his films becomes an attack on beauty and truth not a simple discussion of the relative merits of his films. And thus, as each successive film becomes more and more ridiculous with less and less people willing and able to defend it, Shyamalan increasingly sees himself as more and more the true artist. Eventually he’ll be making films for an audience of one and still firmly believing that he’s going to change the world. You simply cannot get more smug and self-satisfied than that.

I think I go to Shyamalan’s films to pick them apart, to dissect them and poke holes in the nonsensical plot machinations and lack of any believable reality. But, if I were to be totally honest, I also go to Shyamalan’s films because, despite the increasing amount of ludicrousness, there’s always a moment or two in which Shyamalan’s wonderful way with images wins out and the film becomes, for just a moment, everything its creator thinks it is. These moments of pure cinema magic (the baby monitor sequence in Signs or the conversation on the train in Unbreakable or the murder in The Village) are worth the two hours of nonsense that surrounds them if only because they allow the viewer to hold out hope that one day Shyamalan will make a whole film that fulfills the promise of these few scenes. Unfortunately The Lady in the Water is not that film. And worse, there are no such magical moments in it at all. I don’t know what this bodes for Shyamalan’s future but if his visual skills are going the way of his writing skills (i.e. straight up his ass) there will very soon cease to be any reason to see or talk about Shyamalan’s films. And maybe that’ll be a relief. Shyamalan can see himself as becoming completely like Christ (persecuted to the point of (career) death) and we, the movie-going public, will be spared his nonsensical self-aggrandizing mythology. I, for one, am starting to think I won’t miss him. And judging by the lackluster box office returns, it looks like I might not be the only one.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST – gore verbinski - 4.8 / 10

Midway through the second hour of the way-too-long two and a half hour Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, three men, all battling each other for some mystical trinket or other, find themselves atop the wheel of a river mill that has become detached from its moorings and is rolling through the forest. Initially this little bit of whimsy is perfectly appropriate for a jokey action-adventure film. The stout-hearted Will Turner (again played by the ridiculously awful Orlando Bloom) is all grimace and gritted teeth as he balances precariously atop the rolling wheel of destruction battling the sometimes good sometimes evil (former) Commodore Norrington. The outlandish and ridiculous Captain Jack Sparrow (again played by the best thing about the film, otherwise known as Johnny Depp) ambles, in that inimitable way of his, along the bottom of the wheel hoping to swipe the trinket while the others are busy hacking and slashing away at each other. It’s all good ol’ silly fun. But it just keeps going on and on and on. And just when you think it must finally be over, the wheel rolls off a cliff and the whole thing lurches back to life one more time.

This, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the entire film. It’s fun and enjoyably goofy for while, then it gets bogged down in its torpid plot machinations and arcane mysticism, then when you think it’s pulled itself out of its own ass, the whole thing goes completely off the rails and you’re left staring at your watch and wondering what else is going on in the world. Pirates 2 isn’t a bad film, really, it’s just a mediocre one that doesn’t know when to quit.

The biggest error the filmmakers commit is making Jack Sparrow the hero and central focus of the film. I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense considering what’s transpired between the first and second films (Johnny Depp’s Oscar nomination, the world’s belated realization that Orlando Bloom is an incompetent ass (see: Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown)). But just because Johnny Depp’s the better actor and Jack Sparrow’s the more interesting character doesn’t mean that what the audience wants to see is more more more of Captain Jack. And even if that is what the audience says it wants, that doesn’t mean you should give it to them. Will’s the hero and Jack’s the sidekick, deal with it.

Making this second film into The Captain Jack Story turns the whole affair into an overly complicated and conflicted mess. The filmmakers are forced to twist and turn and contort the plot until it breaks under the enormous strain. They try to give Jack the proper hero’s treatment (and a proper hero’s quest) by making him the center of everyone’s attention. He has a heroic and seemingly impossible task (finding the key that unlocks the chest that contain the still-beating heart of Davy Jones (don’t ask)). He has a mortal enemy (the aforementioned Davy Jones). He has a mighty beast to slay (the Kraken, an octopus-like creature capable of destroying ships). And, as is indicated in the film’s final moments, he will have a journey to Hell and back. In fact, the filmmakers are so in love with Jack Sparrow that they think everyone else, including Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), should be too. So they have her wandering around after him the whole film with stars in her eyes, a development that is just silly to the point of distraction. Obviously the world of Pirates of the Caribbean is not meant to substitute for historical reality but there’s no way the Elizabeth Swanns of any reality would possibly mate with the Jack Sparrows. And it’s insulting for the filmmakers to have even considered it let alone make it the central emotional conflict of the film.

There are times when a film all but demands a sequel (Indiana Jones, Star Wars, etc.). And then there are times when a sequel is demanded of material that doesn’t warrant it. Unfortunately Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest falls into the latter category. And even more unfortunately, the filmmakers, rather than come up with something altogether new and exciting when faced with the challenge of making two sequels, decided to follow the patented route to sequel failure, namely making everything they think worked about the first film twice as big and ignore everything else. This is why Jack Sparrow is the center of the film. And it’s why there are two action setpieces with giant contraptions rolling down hills. And it’s why there’s another ship full of otherworldly miscreants. And it’s also why the film’s no good.

SUPERMAN RETURNS – bryan singer – 5.0 / 10

There’s a lot to love about Bryan Singer’s cinematic reimagining of the Superman mythos for the modern (read: computer-generated) era, unfortunately none of it is the plot or the narrative. But let’s start with what’s done right. Give Singer all the credit here because everything that’s done well is all in the direction (although you can knock him for the story stuff too cause he’s got a story by credit up there in the same unimpressive electric blue graphics as in the first film).

In fact, the directorial flourishes are really the only things to love in this version of Superman. During one scene, wherein Superman catches the Daily Planet’s globe logo on his back, Singer frames the shot to mimic the famous statue of Atlas. At a couple points in the film Superman is compared to a god (with a positive connotation when Jimmy Olsen says it and a negative one when it’s Luthor doing the talking). And he’s depicted as a messiah in no less than three different shots. And then, of course, he dies and rises again just like a certain other Messiah.

All that god-making effectively conveys just how isolating and lonely it is to be the world’s most powerful being. There’s really no way to get close to anyone and to really feel a “human” connection. You can never tell if the person (read: Lois) wants to be around you because they like you or because they are impressed by you. Further, as Spider-Man found out at the end of Sam Raimi’s first Spidey film, allowing someone to get close to you is a good way to get that person killed. And if you go ahead and let them get close to you anyway, you’re taking on a huge responsibility that you probably can’t fulfill. It’s lonely and isolating being God and Singer’s Superman understands this and really feels the weight of it, which is pretty heady stuff for a superhero flick.

Unfortunately it’s really the only aspect of the movie that seems to have been given much thought because the rest of it makes very little sense. Let’s start with the inconsistency of Superman’s powers. In the film’s one dynamic action setpiece (which comes about thirty minutes in, a crucial pacing error), wherein Superman saves a seemingly doomed 747 (with Lois aboard, natch), he seems to have quite a struggle keeping the couple thousand ton machine off the thousands of spectators in the baseball stadium below. Then, later, when Lois is once again within moments of death, Superman struggles mightily with the larger half of a destroyed yacht as he raises it out of the water. But then, a little while later, he has no problem lifting a piece of rock the size of Rhode Island out of the water and into space, despite the fact that said piece of rock is composed of Kryptonite which had only a short while before rendered Superman human enough for Lex Luthor to stab him in the side (and that’s leaving aside the fact that it’s pretty unlikely that this hunk of rock would remain in one piece with all its weight concentrated in one spot).

I’m not trying to arbitrarily poke holes in the film here. I know it’s a comic book film based on a superhero who was created nearly seventy years ago for a much less demanding audience. But that’s exactly the point. Superman and his ridiculous powers defy all rational explanation. To even attempt to enjoy anything Superman related, a viewer has to suspend a large amount of disbelief. That being the case, the last thing a Superman story needs is anything that doesn’t adhere to the internal logic of the story. The audience is already overburdened with logic defying powers and situations, asking them to accept a story that doesn’t even make sense within this already contrived world is just asking too much.

And it’s not just the superhero stuff that defies all logic and reason. Lois Lane, intrepid (and in this film Pulitzer Prize winning) reporter for the Daily Planet, is played by Kate Bosworth. Twenty-three year old Kate Bosworth. But she has a five-year-old kid (who, of course, turns out to be the spawn of Superman. It’s unclear whether they used condoms in their ridiculous tryst in the Fortress of Solitude in Superman II but I doubt simple latex could have held back the big guy’s little soldiers anyway). This means that she’s become a world-renowned reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper at the ripe old age of twenty-three all while raising the spawn of Superman. Unlikely doesn’t begin to cover it.

But it doesn’t stop there. Lois has a fiancé (Richard White, played by James Marsden who’s making quite a career for himself being the awkward third leg of a love triangle) who believes the cute little supertyke is his. So, unless the half-Kryptonian kid’s gestation period is longer than nine months, the continuity of the whole thing had to go something like this: Superman impregnates Lois and, having finally gotten the one thing he’s been wanting for all of the first two films, promptly leaves the planet for five years. Lois, having just slept with the most perfect being on Earth and terrifically upset by his sudden departure, hops straight into bed with this Richard guy. And I mean straight into bed, within a week or two or else this subterfuge wouldn’t hold up. I know Metropolis is populated by a bunch of morons who can’t see that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person but this is just basic math. Oh, and by the way, they don’t hand out Pulitzers for one op-ed piece, a series maybe but not a single article.

And then there’s the hokey and ridiculous plot that finds the best action setpiece occurring half an hour in and the end basically an episode of ER without the drama (You think Superman’s gonna die? Yeah, sure.) wherein doctors try to stick needles in Supes and defibrillate his heart. Leaving aside the fact that there are undoubtedly biological differences between Kryptonians and humans, it’s just astounding that a medical crisis is the climax of the film. Who the hell, when plunking down their ten bucks to see Superman Returning, thought they’d get this nonsense as the climax to a film about the most powerful superhero of them all? I’m all for subverting audience expectations but if they want candy you can’t give them a fucking banana and think they’ll be satisfied.

I guess maybe there’s something to be said for showing the universe’s most powerful being reduced to just another sad victim in a paper gown (How did they get that costume off him anyway? And where did they put it?). It’s a brave move at the very least as it surely contradicts almost everyone in the audience’s preconceived ideas about the character. And in and of itself it’s not a bad moment. But this is the climax of the film, the climax of Superman Returns. He returns to spend a few days in a hospital bed and then go fly around in the sun for a bit? That’s it? Really?

Superman Returns isn’t a bad film, it’s maybe even better than mediocre but I can’t believe that’s all there is to it. Maybe it’s the fault of expectations raised too high. Maybe it’s the fault of misleading advertising. But as the credits rolled, all I could think was “That’s it? That’s Superman’s big comeback?” If this is as powerful and Super as the Man of Steel can be, he really doesn’t deserve the tent-pole treatment he’s been given.