The Beat That My Heart Skipped admittedly had me racking my brain for dim memories of the original (Fingers), and I never really got past reading the lead–who is astonishing–as a gallicized Keitel. But this film was gorgeous and engaging and always a beat off the conventional rhythms of any of the genres it riffs on: noir lowlife melodrama, Rafelson-ish/Tobacksian existential guy stuff, the destructive passions of the artist. Whatever its roots in that earlier film, it goes in its own direction.

Left of the Dial is also five blocks shy of interesting. It’s a documentary about the birth pangs of Air America, but it lacks any kind of narrative focus, instead Real-Worldishly cycling from clips of on-air personalities to back-office financial shenanigans to the occasional articulation of liberals-fighting-the-good-fight-against-conservative-media-domination blah blah. None of those narratives get explored in any depth, let alone synced together. I wanted more Marc Maron, a lot less of everyone else. But, hell, I hate talk radio, whether it’s Rush or Franken or whomever–if I want people yelling their opinions at me, I’ll hold another poker night and break out the Cointreau. Least that way I might walk away with five dollars in addition to the headache. Crap film. (But I have two other interesting-looking docs on deck: Kirby Dick’s Twist of Faith and Mark’s and now Chris’ recommended Mondovino.)

I also highly recommend the new Flaming Lips album–just put “It Overtakes Me” on constant rotation–and the novel _The Futurist_ by James Othmer, instead of watching basketball.

I was browsing through the Univeristy of Bouler Police records website, as i usually do on Saturday mornings, and saw that they are offering $50 to identify pot smokers, so they can be arrested and no doubt jailed until they are rehabilitated.

Well, I’ve identified this criminal mastermind to the proper authorities, and am now just waiting for my $50.
(more…)

This is one intense film. It is relentless and doesn’t let up until the very. last. moment. I was moved and angered but mostly impressed by the economy of the writing and filmmaking (United 93 makes Munich look like a baroque opera). The “villains” are presented as human (for the most part); you certainly feel their passion and their fear. The passengers lack character per se, but their growing desire to try to do something is palpable, admirable, heroic even (though, by the end, things do go a bit Lord of the Flies . . . puns not intended). The chaos on the ground (in Boston, New York, Newark, Cleveland and some military location) is both outrageous and completely understandable–forgiveable even. There are a couple of ideologically loaded moments (the hijackers in the airport walking past large, glossy, back-lit advertisements for various consumer products. The FAA and the military frustrated by their inability to locate the President to make a necessary leadership decision (the gossip that the Vice President over stepped his bounds by ordering planes shot down is not broached). The audience with whom I sat were visibly emotional and very, very quiet. If one was in any way close to this event, I just don’t know how they could sit through the film.

In RV, the downwardly spiraling career trajectories of Robin Williams and director Barry Sonnenfeld intertwine like the ropes of a tangled parachute, and all the helpless viewer can do is look on aghast as the whole abortive fiasco plummets toward Earth.
-John Patterson, LA Weekly

I think Mark commented on this doc once before, but I couldn’t find the entry. Smart, biting, engaging. Yet…. besides a new case history or two, a sometimes-unfamiliar set of talking heads (academic and corporate), and its useful condensation (and surrealization) of the history of the corporation, I didn’t feel like I really got pushed in new ways by this film. Maybe I’m–we’re?–not the audience for this documentary; I know I’d be very keen to teach the thing, as I think it would provoke and entertain equally well.

But my own engagement with its politics and history was lesser than with Richard Powers’ very fine novel Gain, which told a clearer, more incisive story because… well, it was a clearer story, I think. Or even Michael Moore’s The Big One, which makes many of the same points with more jokes, albeit less depth or breadth of information. I recommend it, but almost like I recommend eating 5 servings of fruit a day. Good for you, probably even as tasty as the pretzels that make up 46% of my daily caloric intake. Alas. (The dvd, it should be noted, does have some very nice extras.)