Author: jeff

Palindromes

OK, here’s a truly dangerous work of indie filmmaking. I have very fond memories of Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse, but I absolutely hated Happiness and was mostly indifferent to Storytelling. Palindromes, however, is a wholly original, viscerally discomforting film which incisively interrogates our cultural obsession with childhood and innocence, family and individuality, self and other, normals and deviants, faith and hypocrisy, the grotesque and the sublime. It comes at the pro-life/pro-choice debate from such a skewed angle, but, in the end, I think it to be a deeply human film and worth the effort.

Childstar

I was very curious to see this film about a twelve-year-old American superstar who goes AWOL on the set of an absurdly over-the-top action flick being shot in Toronto (the boy plays the incorrigible son of the US President who must save America after his father is captured by terrorists), but it’s fairly derivative. I’m thinking Don McKellar hoped to make a satiric, cinematic indictment of a culture obsessed with erotic innocence (think Paddy Chayefsky filtered through James Kincaid), but such plans are tricky. How can you capture such a subject without falling pray to the very impulses you hope to critique? Indeed, though Taylor Brandon Burns is a petulant, spoiled brat—spurned on by a mother always looking for a bigger paycheck—what he really wants to be is a normal boy (what that exactly means is up for grabs). I guess the film never felt dangerous enough. Sure, the kid is an ugly American who—chastely—loses his virginity to a quasi-prostitute (on the set in a replica of the Oval Office), but McKellar and co-writer Michael Goldbach offer up little more than a pastiche of coming-of-age clichés masquerading as a character. And McKellar’s character—a former film studies professor now indie filmmaker who drives the rich and famous to work to put food on the table—is also problematic. Is he the voice of reason/father figure Taylor’s been looking for or is he simply looking for a star to hitch himself to (or does he just want to fuck Taylor’s mom)? Anyway . . . Dave Foley is a lot of fun. Kincaid acolytes will be sad to learn there are no bottoms on display, but there is a running joke concerning a Hollywood rumor involving goldfish and the boy’s ass, so I guess that will suffice.

The Constant Gardener

This is a first rate film, directed with assurance and maturity by Fernando Meirelles. Reynolds has mentioned before how I felt great ambivalence about City of God. It was a dazzling piece of filmmaking but it seemed to me that Meirelles foregrounded his skills as a director over the provocative material; the results being a film that makes a commodity spectacle out of poverty and crime. There is some of that in The Constant Gardener, but I still feel as if the filmmakers work very diligently to not get in the way of the story (even if the generic designs of Le Carre’s conspiracy thriller drag things down in its final act). I look forward to our discussion. This is a film worth talking and arguing about.

More Quick Takes

I watched Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior the other night and enjoyed it. Tony Jaa seems to defy gravity and the big set pieces were well constructed and entertaining, and, I think, there was little use of wires to manufacture the illusion (though I may be proved wrong). One chase scene through the Bangkok streets was excellently orchestrated and a Tuk-Tuk chase scene was a lot of fun. Pure genre flick–nothing necessarily original–and though it lacks the audacious high style of Kung Fu Hustle, I would argue this modest tale of rural values overcoming urban corruption has a lot more heart. Continue reading More Quick Takes

Last Days

Brilliant. Better than Elephant. A poetic mediation on celebrity, consumerism, nature, industry, purity, creativity, loneliness, youth, beautiful boys, disaffection, Mormons and death by misadventure. And Ricky Jay is in it. And so is Kim Gordon. There is no narrative, so to speak, and what little there is circles in and around itself. The soundscapes, as in Elephant, are multi-layered and complexly expressionistic. The cinematography is less showy than in Elephant, but I’d watch anything Harris Savides shoots (for a couple of minutes he simply shoots a television playing a Boys to Men video and its riveting). Worth the drive and much better than watching a bunch of people kick the ass out of a larger bunch of people (no matter how much style may be on display) for an hour and a half.

Broken Flowers

Nothing revelatory here. Jarmusch’s trademark minimalism without the visual flair his previous collaborator, Robby Muller (with an umlaut), brought to Dead Man, Ghost Dog, Down By Law and Mystery Train (as well as Until the End of the World, Barfly, Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark) . Then again Flowers‘s cinematographer, Frederick Elmes, shot Blue Velvet, The Hulk and Kinsey so the production team must have been working on a low, low budget as the film just doesn’t look good (perhaps it was the Landmark Cinema I visited). It has also been lauded about that Jarmusch wrote the screenplay in two weeks, but to me the film feels underdeveloped and tossed together (straining for poignancy without really achieving anything). Bill Murray has certainly been riding a fine wave over the last couple of years and he has lovely moments in this film, but if he keeps stripping away the artifice from the craft of screen acting he’s going to altogether disappear from view (perhaps that’s his plan). Broken Flowers, however, does come to life whenever a woman enters the frame. And what women: Jessica Lange, Sharon Stone, Francis Conroy, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy and Chloe Sevigny (who deserves special mention as she accomplishes the most with her character in the least amount of screen time). Not bad but nothing to drive out of your way to see.

2005 Thus Far

Thinking about the best films of 2005 (released domestically thus far) and I’m stymied by the sheer mediocrity of most everything I’ve seen. I can think of one film I hope will be on my list at the end of the year: Howl’s Moving Castle. After that I can only come up with four lesser films to fill out the list: Millions, Crash, Mysterious Skin, and The Cinderella Man. How about you? Continue reading 2005 Thus Far

Crash

OK, this ain’t naturalism–any “three degrees of separation” ensemble drama set in the vast wastelands of Los Angeles has to be a total fantasy, right? Crash‘s politics are of the knee-jerk variety but the performances are strong, the editing clean and the sentimental moments few and far-between and well earned (absolutely needed given the film’s bleak outlook on humanity). It was worth six bucks, but I don’t think you’d be missing anything if you waited for the DVD. That being said, I was moved by the film. Haggis offers up a gut-punching script which keeps picking at scabs only to reveal deeper wounds, and such polemics make for a viscerally emotional ride. In the end Crash is a B+ movie with a fine cast (in particular, Terrence Howard, Ryan Phillipe and Matt Dillon) who are guided by a no-nonsense directing style that works. I’d rather America be watching more films like this than those in which Tom Cruise or Nicholas Cage save the world.