Three players with 20+ points, 18 assists for Steve Nash, a total team score of 112 points and they still couldn't top the Wolves, because Kevin Garnett dropped a bomb on the Phoenix Suns. 44 points from him and a decent night from everybody else was enough to come back for the win, as The Big Ticket choked the life out of the Suns in the last few minutes. This is the first time I've seen them since Randy Wittman took over as head coach, and while I can't really detect any substantial effect of the Wittman philosophy, but I'll take a win over a very good team as a good sign. (Tonight's loss ties Phoenix with Dallas at 36-9, good for best record in the league.)
I did wonder about some other Timberwolves news I heard before going to the game, that the deadline had passed on a trade exception. Last year, as part of the Celtics trade that shipped out Wally Szczerbiak, the Wolves got a $4.2m trade exception, which you would think would have gone to help facilitate a deal to trim our guard-heavy roster and bring in another big man. Instead they just let it go along with all the draft picks we've traded away, so it looks like this year's roster will be next year's roster as well. So our only hope is that Wittman shows some previously unheralded genius and coaches up a .500 team into a playoff contender. Or the front office is planning to trade Garnett to the Clippers in the summer and burn down the building on their way out of town.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Arsenal 2-1 Manchester United
I just finally got around to watching this game, but it was worth the wait. A great, fast-paced game between two quality teams banging away at each other's goals, something I don't often see with all the Chelsea vs East Piddlington Chip Shop games that Fox likes to show now that Chelsea are the big money team. Seriously, since Abramovich/Mourinho took over Chelsea, the two biggest achievements in English football have been Arsenal's undefeated season and Liverpool's European Cup win, and the most thrilling story is Ferguson coaching up United into a contender when they looked likely to collapse under Glazer's belt-tightening regime. So why is boring-ass Chelsea on TV all the time again?
In this game Wayne Rooney ironically broke a goal-scoring drought when Ferguson played him out on the wing to take the pressure off of him. A cross was flicked by Kolo Toure in the Arsenal box, but the central defense and Lehmann were all drawn to the near post cross. On the backside of the play Gael Clichy, watching the ball, let Rooney stray from him and when the flick from Toure went to the far post Rooney had the space to head it down onto the goal line, and Lehmann couldn't get to that in time.
Arsenal had taken a lot of weak or off-target shots, and really weren't turning their numerous attacks into solid scoring opportunities, and it looked like United were going to control the game after Rooney's score, until the last ten minutes. In the 83rd minute Henry sent a cross to the far post and Robin van Persie, somehow extended a toe past his defender to knock it into the roof of the net past a diving Van der Sar's hand. In injury time with less than a minute left, a cross from Eboue to a strangely open Henry let him put in a rare header for the win.
A great comeback in an exciting game, and a couple of nice goals to do it. And Cristiano Ronaldo is still a cheating prick.
Rooney '53
Van Persie '83
Henry '90
In this game Wayne Rooney ironically broke a goal-scoring drought when Ferguson played him out on the wing to take the pressure off of him. A cross was flicked by Kolo Toure in the Arsenal box, but the central defense and Lehmann were all drawn to the near post cross. On the backside of the play Gael Clichy, watching the ball, let Rooney stray from him and when the flick from Toure went to the far post Rooney had the space to head it down onto the goal line, and Lehmann couldn't get to that in time.
Arsenal had taken a lot of weak or off-target shots, and really weren't turning their numerous attacks into solid scoring opportunities, and it looked like United were going to control the game after Rooney's score, until the last ten minutes. In the 83rd minute Henry sent a cross to the far post and Robin van Persie, somehow extended a toe past his defender to knock it into the roof of the net past a diving Van der Sar's hand. In injury time with less than a minute left, a cross from Eboue to a strangely open Henry let him put in a rare header for the win.
A great comeback in an exciting game, and a couple of nice goals to do it. And Cristiano Ronaldo is still a cheating prick.
Rooney '53
Van Persie '83
Henry '90
Saturday, January 27, 2007
African Doubleheader
Last Wednesday I caught Blood Diamond and The Last King of Scotland, and in retrospect I should have gone down to the West Bank for an African meal in between, instead of sushi, had I realized I was going for that much African tragedy in one night. The most engrossing, intense theatre experience I ever had was a performance of Macbeth set in West Africa, complete with fright wigs and machetes, and these films certainly tied into the same violent spectacle.
Blood Diamond is a pretty straightforward, some say cliche, story of a father (Djimon Honsou) kidnapped and sent to Sierra Leone's diamond mines, who finds an enormous pink diamond and uses it as leverage to find his family, with the help of a cute but manipulative smuggler (Leonardo Di Caprio) and the earnest reporter in an open necked shirt (Jennifer Connelly) who falls for him. The problems of the film that numerous reviews will comment on come from trying to set a high moral tone and make an important film about the exploitation of Africa's minerals, and the feeling that such a traditional story told in a high-minded way has a certain inevitability to its plot, as everyone must either get their just rewards or punishment, or if they're a crooked smuggler with a heart of gold, achieve salvation. However, even if it's not told in an innovative way, that story is at least told well.
So while some rolled their eyes a little bit, for me what's good about Blood Diamond far overshadows its limitations. And it does achieve its moral objective (using Jennifer Connelly as a Mary Sue), which is to put a real sense of the horror of conflict diamonds to a wider audience of diamond consumers in wealthier countries. I suspect that if this movie, which is set in 1998, had come out a few years ago in support of the Kimberley Process and not after it, or while Sierra Leone and the antics of certain mercenary groups were still fresh topics, its message would have been received as more relevant than preachy. It doesn't help that last year's Oscars featured Hollywood patting itself on the back for championing yesterday's social issues, and Blood Diamond sadly gets caught in that, making me wonder if this screenplay wasn't buried in some exec's drawer for a few years. On the other hand, diamonds aren't the only mineral supporting armed conflict in Africa so maybe the failure is the film's inabilty to suggest that it's about more than Sierra Leone.
It is also a great look at Africa (I should qualify that by admitting I've got no particular knowledge of West Africa, so I can't speak to how accurate a depiction it is). It's still a step closer than we usually get, since early on the film spends a fair bit of time following Danny Archer (Di Caprio) through Freetown. This may be just my own perception, but Western filmmakers don't spend a lot of time in Urban Africa, or looking at industries like mining and energy. Given the probable importance of the Niger delta to an energy-hungry world, it's odd that pastoral peoples like the Samburu and Masai get more screen time, and it's why a film like Tsotsi seemed so startling for depicting side by side shanty town gangsters and a modern train station and gated homes.
One of the criticisms of Blood Diamond has been that it's told from a white person's perspective, but given its political ambitions, that's where it needed to be. The two perspectives on Africa are the cynical native-born mercenary smuggler and the ignorant in her idealism American journalist, but there is some awareness of this within the film. In a film about exploitation, these two are particularly suited as guides. Archer is all about exploitation with only some sense of fair trade to act as a moral compass, but the idealistic journalist is not actually the moral barometer of the film, since she has to acknowledge her own role in shaping what Africa is to the world: a victim, passively exploited without any consciousness of its own agency. The stories of victimized Africans make thiem into such a flat image of tragedy, with faceless tormentors rather than actual people who live in the same world as her readers; they are separated more by the level of reality they reside, than by geography. The moral barometer is Djimon Honsou as Soloman Vandy, who has an actual purposeful life populated by real people and not images, and both white people nevertheless reduce him to a couple of photograph captions and his only possession, the diamond.
There's a subplot ignored in all of the reviews I've read as well, and that is the graphic, brainwashing violence of the RUF. From chopping off hands in a symbolic act to protest democracy to their mining operations, they are clearly the primary antagonist. The element that's interesting about them is the subplot with Vandy's son Dia being recruited as a child soldier, and the transformation required to survive that ordeal, the rites of forced violence and drugs, and creation of a violent new persona, in Dia's case renaming himself "See Me No More". This effect of creating armies of violent children, remaining very much emotionally children but with the capability for violence of the most hardened men, is a truly frightening phenomenon that exists far beyond Africa. The only mention of it, or the violence and intimidation in failed states, in any review I read was to suggest that the film was too violent, as if the solution was to ignore the message about Western consumption supporting violence and instead continue to turn our heads. Democracy and violence, making sure children pick up a gun rather than go to school, sounds like issues we find ourselves embroiled in outside of Africa.
Now that I've written god knows how much about it, what I really enjoyed most about this movie had nothing to do with message or politics, or all the analysis I can muster up. I just really loved watching these actors prance through a lush African setting. I've been a big Leonardo Di Caprio admirer since before he did Titanic, and just listening to him talk in this movie was a treat. His Zimbabwe accent and the Krio he uses in Sierra Leone along with the melodic charm of his character made it a captivating performance, and I found myself thinking of some of his casual expressions after the film. Archer's conversations with pretty much anyone in the film were shiny in Leo's Zimbabwe banter. Djimon Honsou as always brings such a dominant presence to the screen his every movement held my attention. And for the first time in a long time, Jennifer Connelly looked like she'd been enjoying good food and fresh air, because she looked quite good.
The characters may seem a little thin, a little cliche, but I do think the film redeems some of that by presenting over the course of the film by grounding enough of Danny Archer's cynicism in the details of his past that he becomes something other than a stock character, and Archer's amusement at the earnestness of Djimon Honsou's Solomon Vandy reminds us that Vandy is an unusual man. The sharpness of his insights into Connelly's Maddy Bowen tear the veneer of the earnest do-good reporter she is playing enough to suggest a deeper human character underneath,. This is perhaps the whole point of the film, that these images, these characters from this tale of Sierra Leone were not fully formed into their roles, something made them this way just as the real conflict didn't spring out of the red earth fully formed and impenetrable to outside forces. It isn't enough to throw up our hands and say there will always be Danny Archers and Colonel Coetzees and Captain Poisons, because as the film shows briefly with Dia's indoctrination and Danny's history as a soldier, these people and their country were formed, and perhaps can be reformed.
The other Africa film I saw was The Last King of Scotland, the story of the rise and fall of Idi Amin in Uganda from the perspective of his personal physician, a very different experience. Nicholas Garrigan travels from Scotland to Uganda on a lark, and by a chance meeting becomes the president's doctor and by the murderous whims of the mercurial Amin becomes the dictator's closest advisor.
What's so fascinating about this is that we only see Amin through Garrigan's eyes, although the benefit of history gives us a certain cynical insight that Garrigan lacks, allowing to see more of what Garrigan's enthusiasm and Amin's charm glosses over. The youthful Garrigan basks almost entirely in the charm of Amin, and in the promise of an independent African state led by a man of Amin's stature. Garrigan is further pushed towards Amin by his Brittish peers' distrust of Amin, which he assumes is the racist cynicism of the former empire that can't stand to see a black nation rise. It takes Garrigan far too long to see the stituation he has gotten himself into, and he does not see the dangers in his carefree Ugandan odyssey until long after the point of no return. In the end each notes about the other that there is something childlike in the way they view the world, believing it cannot hurt them no matter how far they push.
The reason to see this film is Forest Whitaker. He plays Amin with the perfect mix of charm and terror, and I couldn't help but grin and (and sometimes shudder) watching every scene he was in. I've always had a soft spot for Forest Whitaker since Good Morning, Vietnam but now I want to rewatch that movie because I can't believe it was the same guy. Apparently he also had some trouble abandoning the persona of the Ugandan dictator after spending months immersing himself in all things Idi Amin preparing for the role, and couldn't shake the accent for a long time, so if he doesn't get an Oscar for this, he may hang Leonardo Di Caprio by his skin backstage.
James McAvoy puts in a great performance as Nicholas Garrigan, bubbling with this infectious enthusiasm that enticed me to see Amin through his eyes. Some of Garrigan's story is a little thin, but McAvoy helps a lot with the energy he brings to it. And it's nice to know Gillian Anderson is alive and well and still has an agent (I also liked her contribution to last year's A Cock and Bull Story).
Seriously a great evening, two great films and some great octopus in between. And don't get excited, PJ, I said a cock and BULL story, and it's an adaptation of an 18th century postmodern novel, not Peter North's latest oeuvre.
Blood Diamond is a pretty straightforward, some say cliche, story of a father (Djimon Honsou) kidnapped and sent to Sierra Leone's diamond mines, who finds an enormous pink diamond and uses it as leverage to find his family, with the help of a cute but manipulative smuggler (Leonardo Di Caprio) and the earnest reporter in an open necked shirt (Jennifer Connelly) who falls for him. The problems of the film that numerous reviews will comment on come from trying to set a high moral tone and make an important film about the exploitation of Africa's minerals, and the feeling that such a traditional story told in a high-minded way has a certain inevitability to its plot, as everyone must either get their just rewards or punishment, or if they're a crooked smuggler with a heart of gold, achieve salvation. However, even if it's not told in an innovative way, that story is at least told well.
So while some rolled their eyes a little bit, for me what's good about Blood Diamond far overshadows its limitations. And it does achieve its moral objective (using Jennifer Connelly as a Mary Sue), which is to put a real sense of the horror of conflict diamonds to a wider audience of diamond consumers in wealthier countries. I suspect that if this movie, which is set in 1998, had come out a few years ago in support of the Kimberley Process and not after it, or while Sierra Leone and the antics of certain mercenary groups were still fresh topics, its message would have been received as more relevant than preachy. It doesn't help that last year's Oscars featured Hollywood patting itself on the back for championing yesterday's social issues, and Blood Diamond sadly gets caught in that, making me wonder if this screenplay wasn't buried in some exec's drawer for a few years. On the other hand, diamonds aren't the only mineral supporting armed conflict in Africa so maybe the failure is the film's inabilty to suggest that it's about more than Sierra Leone.
It is also a great look at Africa (I should qualify that by admitting I've got no particular knowledge of West Africa, so I can't speak to how accurate a depiction it is). It's still a step closer than we usually get, since early on the film spends a fair bit of time following Danny Archer (Di Caprio) through Freetown. This may be just my own perception, but Western filmmakers don't spend a lot of time in Urban Africa, or looking at industries like mining and energy. Given the probable importance of the Niger delta to an energy-hungry world, it's odd that pastoral peoples like the Samburu and Masai get more screen time, and it's why a film like Tsotsi seemed so startling for depicting side by side shanty town gangsters and a modern train station and gated homes.
One of the criticisms of Blood Diamond has been that it's told from a white person's perspective, but given its political ambitions, that's where it needed to be. The two perspectives on Africa are the cynical native-born mercenary smuggler and the ignorant in her idealism American journalist, but there is some awareness of this within the film. In a film about exploitation, these two are particularly suited as guides. Archer is all about exploitation with only some sense of fair trade to act as a moral compass, but the idealistic journalist is not actually the moral barometer of the film, since she has to acknowledge her own role in shaping what Africa is to the world: a victim, passively exploited without any consciousness of its own agency. The stories of victimized Africans make thiem into such a flat image of tragedy, with faceless tormentors rather than actual people who live in the same world as her readers; they are separated more by the level of reality they reside, than by geography. The moral barometer is Djimon Honsou as Soloman Vandy, who has an actual purposeful life populated by real people and not images, and both white people nevertheless reduce him to a couple of photograph captions and his only possession, the diamond.
There's a subplot ignored in all of the reviews I've read as well, and that is the graphic, brainwashing violence of the RUF. From chopping off hands in a symbolic act to protest democracy to their mining operations, they are clearly the primary antagonist. The element that's interesting about them is the subplot with Vandy's son Dia being recruited as a child soldier, and the transformation required to survive that ordeal, the rites of forced violence and drugs, and creation of a violent new persona, in Dia's case renaming himself "See Me No More". This effect of creating armies of violent children, remaining very much emotionally children but with the capability for violence of the most hardened men, is a truly frightening phenomenon that exists far beyond Africa. The only mention of it, or the violence and intimidation in failed states, in any review I read was to suggest that the film was too violent, as if the solution was to ignore the message about Western consumption supporting violence and instead continue to turn our heads. Democracy and violence, making sure children pick up a gun rather than go to school, sounds like issues we find ourselves embroiled in outside of Africa.
Now that I've written god knows how much about it, what I really enjoyed most about this movie had nothing to do with message or politics, or all the analysis I can muster up. I just really loved watching these actors prance through a lush African setting. I've been a big Leonardo Di Caprio admirer since before he did Titanic, and just listening to him talk in this movie was a treat. His Zimbabwe accent and the Krio he uses in Sierra Leone along with the melodic charm of his character made it a captivating performance, and I found myself thinking of some of his casual expressions after the film. Archer's conversations with pretty much anyone in the film were shiny in Leo's Zimbabwe banter. Djimon Honsou as always brings such a dominant presence to the screen his every movement held my attention. And for the first time in a long time, Jennifer Connelly looked like she'd been enjoying good food and fresh air, because she looked quite good.
The characters may seem a little thin, a little cliche, but I do think the film redeems some of that by presenting over the course of the film by grounding enough of Danny Archer's cynicism in the details of his past that he becomes something other than a stock character, and Archer's amusement at the earnestness of Djimon Honsou's Solomon Vandy reminds us that Vandy is an unusual man. The sharpness of his insights into Connelly's Maddy Bowen tear the veneer of the earnest do-good reporter she is playing enough to suggest a deeper human character underneath,. This is perhaps the whole point of the film, that these images, these characters from this tale of Sierra Leone were not fully formed into their roles, something made them this way just as the real conflict didn't spring out of the red earth fully formed and impenetrable to outside forces. It isn't enough to throw up our hands and say there will always be Danny Archers and Colonel Coetzees and Captain Poisons, because as the film shows briefly with Dia's indoctrination and Danny's history as a soldier, these people and their country were formed, and perhaps can be reformed.
The other Africa film I saw was The Last King of Scotland, the story of the rise and fall of Idi Amin in Uganda from the perspective of his personal physician, a very different experience. Nicholas Garrigan travels from Scotland to Uganda on a lark, and by a chance meeting becomes the president's doctor and by the murderous whims of the mercurial Amin becomes the dictator's closest advisor.
What's so fascinating about this is that we only see Amin through Garrigan's eyes, although the benefit of history gives us a certain cynical insight that Garrigan lacks, allowing to see more of what Garrigan's enthusiasm and Amin's charm glosses over. The youthful Garrigan basks almost entirely in the charm of Amin, and in the promise of an independent African state led by a man of Amin's stature. Garrigan is further pushed towards Amin by his Brittish peers' distrust of Amin, which he assumes is the racist cynicism of the former empire that can't stand to see a black nation rise. It takes Garrigan far too long to see the stituation he has gotten himself into, and he does not see the dangers in his carefree Ugandan odyssey until long after the point of no return. In the end each notes about the other that there is something childlike in the way they view the world, believing it cannot hurt them no matter how far they push.
The reason to see this film is Forest Whitaker. He plays Amin with the perfect mix of charm and terror, and I couldn't help but grin and (and sometimes shudder) watching every scene he was in. I've always had a soft spot for Forest Whitaker since Good Morning, Vietnam but now I want to rewatch that movie because I can't believe it was the same guy. Apparently he also had some trouble abandoning the persona of the Ugandan dictator after spending months immersing himself in all things Idi Amin preparing for the role, and couldn't shake the accent for a long time, so if he doesn't get an Oscar for this, he may hang Leonardo Di Caprio by his skin backstage.
James McAvoy puts in a great performance as Nicholas Garrigan, bubbling with this infectious enthusiasm that enticed me to see Amin through his eyes. Some of Garrigan's story is a little thin, but McAvoy helps a lot with the energy he brings to it. And it's nice to know Gillian Anderson is alive and well and still has an agent (I also liked her contribution to last year's A Cock and Bull Story).
Seriously a great evening, two great films and some great octopus in between. And don't get excited, PJ, I said a cock and BULL story, and it's an adaptation of an 18th century postmodern novel, not Peter North's latest oeuvre.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
2007 Oscar Nominations
I haven't seen many Oscar contenders this year, but I was pleasantly surprised to find I'd seen seven Oscar nominees and only six Razzie nominees. Usually those numbers are reversed, given the number of awful movies I see. I did find a couple things amiss in this year's nominees, such as Marky Mark getting the only acting nomination for The Depahted, and the total lack of Razzie nominations for the steaming pile of... well, for 16 Blocks. I also see that once again the technical awards form the Oscar-Razzie overlap: Poseidon is up for an award from both organizations. This is why the technical awards get no respect on Oscar night, because they bring in the riff-raff. Seriously, when Click is up for an Oscar, and Steven Seagal as a losing nominee came back to present the next year, that just brings down the level of the whole event.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Pistons 104 - 98 Timberwolves
I only caught the end of the first overtime, and found the Wolves play in the final seconds so mystifying that I didn't bother watching the second overtime. With 13 seconds left in a tie game, Mike James took a couple bumps dribbling down the sideline, looked like he'd lost the ball and stepped out of bounds, but somehow came up with an improbable three point shot to put the Wolves up by 3. It was a pretty impressive feat of athleticism to come up with that. So then following a time-out, the Wolves left Rasheed Wallace wide open at the top of the arc to take the tying shot. He missed, but the Wolves lost the rebound to Rip Hamilton, who made a lay-up. The Pistons then fouled and Randy Foye's free throws made it a three point game again. So they leave Billups alone at the top of the arc on the inbound pass, and he ties the game. Supposedly Wallace and Billups both came off of screens to get these shots, but two back-to-back set three point pieces coming up with barely contested shots is pretty disheartening.
KG had already been tossed from the game for scuffling with Antonio McDyess, a player the Wolves were rumored to be looking at in trade talks, so I guess he won't be coming here. KG will face a league suspension, and he won't be the only player the Wolves go without. Ricky Davis decided after being pulled in the 3rd quarter disappeared to the locker room, and when coaxed back out, refused to play again, in a 2-OT game with the team's best player ejected. Seriously, big changes are needed, trade Garnett and get a new GM who believes in draft picks, and a coach who can start developing a new team. Rather than stay mired in mediocrity for the rest of a great player's career, I'd rather they just spread around gasoline and burn the place down. It's seriously not even fun anymore.
KG had already been tossed from the game for scuffling with Antonio McDyess, a player the Wolves were rumored to be looking at in trade talks, so I guess he won't be coming here. KG will face a league suspension, and he won't be the only player the Wolves go without. Ricky Davis decided after being pulled in the 3rd quarter disappeared to the locker room, and when coaxed back out, refused to play again, in a 2-OT game with the team's best player ejected. Seriously, big changes are needed, trade Garnett and get a new GM who believes in draft picks, and a coach who can start developing a new team. Rather than stay mired in mediocrity for the rest of a great player's career, I'd rather they just spread around gasoline and burn the place down. It's seriously not even fun anymore.
Addenda on movies
With Arthur et les Minimoys out in theatres, Wired did a story about the pop culture legacy of Luc Besson. It runs through a few of the actors and character archetypes he brought to our attention in his ten films (or really the ones that got released or remade in America). This makes a nice addition to my previous homage to Luc Besson.
I revisited my comments on Casino Royale from when it came out, and I realized multiple viewings did change my view of the film, especially the final third. Knowing what is really going on in Vesper's head, and why she's conflicted and alternates between warm and prickly, really made the romance between Bond and Vesper flow a lot better, and seem less of a typical Hollywood "Now that our lips have brushed I must have your babies" instantaneous romance. It really was a great film, and it definitely held up in the three times I saw it in five days Thanksgiving weekend.
I also finally caught the ridiculous, three and half hour extended using every available bit of footage cut of Apocalypse Now that Francis Ford Coppola released a couple years ago as Apocalypse Now Redux. It is a fantastic film, and most of the additional footage blends in very smoothly. The extended surfing mania of Robert Duvall is hilarious, and well worth checking out, especially Martin Sheen stealing his surfboard for spite... Charlie don't surf!
One thing that was jarring was the chronology felt different. I felt like the original edit had this progression where the farther they go up river, the psychology and mood of the whole group becomes increasingly neurotic, as they get deeper into the same darkness that swallowed up C0lonel Kurtz. Lance seemed like the yardstick as he starts putting on face paint and dropping acid in a combat zone, but in this edit he seems to descend into lunacy a long time before they get near Kurtz. The change in the timeline also changes the implied reason for Willard to complete his mission. The original edit implies that when Kurtz brings him Chef's head, Willard resolves any remaining ambivalence about Kurtz and kills him, which is continuous with his order to Chef to call in an air strike. The extended stay in the camp in the extended edit introduces new motivation, that Kurtz himself knows this is coming to an end. This is a fascinating symmetry with Duvall's Colonel Kilgore, who has the same anxiety that the war may end: both men see that it will end without accomplishment, and there will be a void left in both of them they can't fill.
There's only one segment that feels out of place, the French plantation, which may introduce some interesting material for the film, but comes so late that it seemed out of place with the mood I expected from that section of the film, based on seeing the original edit; it's too jarring to see Capt Willard sit down to a dining room table that far upriver. This may be something that requires more viewings and a fresh perspective, tying it back to the meal at the beginning of the film. Also surprising was that in this longer cut, there's still very little about the man sent before Willard, Capt Colby. There's something to the idea that Kurtz may have broken and converted Colby but eventually just releases Willard, showing the fight going out of Kurtz, so I would have expected a bit more of Colby beyond the initial look Willard gets of him. I still say it's a great movie, and an appropriate one to re-release in this way when America's fighting two more land wars in Asia. Three and a half hours but worth every minute.
I revisited my comments on Casino Royale from when it came out, and I realized multiple viewings did change my view of the film, especially the final third. Knowing what is really going on in Vesper's head, and why she's conflicted and alternates between warm and prickly, really made the romance between Bond and Vesper flow a lot better, and seem less of a typical Hollywood "Now that our lips have brushed I must have your babies" instantaneous romance. It really was a great film, and it definitely held up in the three times I saw it in five days Thanksgiving weekend.
I also finally caught the ridiculous, three and half hour extended using every available bit of footage cut of Apocalypse Now that Francis Ford Coppola released a couple years ago as Apocalypse Now Redux. It is a fantastic film, and most of the additional footage blends in very smoothly. The extended surfing mania of Robert Duvall is hilarious, and well worth checking out, especially Martin Sheen stealing his surfboard for spite... Charlie don't surf!
One thing that was jarring was the chronology felt different. I felt like the original edit had this progression where the farther they go up river, the psychology and mood of the whole group becomes increasingly neurotic, as they get deeper into the same darkness that swallowed up C0lonel Kurtz. Lance seemed like the yardstick as he starts putting on face paint and dropping acid in a combat zone, but in this edit he seems to descend into lunacy a long time before they get near Kurtz. The change in the timeline also changes the implied reason for Willard to complete his mission. The original edit implies that when Kurtz brings him Chef's head, Willard resolves any remaining ambivalence about Kurtz and kills him, which is continuous with his order to Chef to call in an air strike. The extended stay in the camp in the extended edit introduces new motivation, that Kurtz himself knows this is coming to an end. This is a fascinating symmetry with Duvall's Colonel Kilgore, who has the same anxiety that the war may end: both men see that it will end without accomplishment, and there will be a void left in both of them they can't fill.
There's only one segment that feels out of place, the French plantation, which may introduce some interesting material for the film, but comes so late that it seemed out of place with the mood I expected from that section of the film, based on seeing the original edit; it's too jarring to see Capt Willard sit down to a dining room table that far upriver. This may be something that requires more viewings and a fresh perspective, tying it back to the meal at the beginning of the film. Also surprising was that in this longer cut, there's still very little about the man sent before Willard, Capt Colby. There's something to the idea that Kurtz may have broken and converted Colby but eventually just releases Willard, showing the fight going out of Kurtz, so I would have expected a bit more of Colby beyond the initial look Willard gets of him. I still say it's a great movie, and an appropriate one to re-release in this way when America's fighting two more land wars in Asia. Three and a half hours but worth every minute.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Holy #$*& is Superman Returns boring
There's just not even anything to say about it. After an hour and 15 minutes, there's been abo15 minutes of plot and character introduction... that's not hyperbole, I seriously think somebody could edit the first hour and a half down to 15-20 minutes, ditching the endless flying through space opening credits, and trimming the endless fawning over a bubbling model train set.
Actually there are some things to say. For one thing, when the model train set-up is being destroyed by the bubbling crystal from Krypton, I wondered who has a model train set where the miniature model people emit human screams if they get knocked over? I think that was supposed to be a bit more subliminal, but it's still stupid. Richard Branson makes yet another aviation cameo as the shuttle flight engineer, when he really would have been more useful as a flight attendant telling Lois Lane to put her seat belt on so she wouldn't have been thrown around the cabin during the crash. She survives that with no bruises or broken bones, but then faints from the sight of Superman, which really makes me wonder, when did fainting come back in style for ladies? Are corsets a fashion necessity for Metropolis women?
Really, what kills Superman though is the floating. The old Superman used to land and walk around in an authoritative way, where the current boyish Superman gives off a different vibe. Christopher Reeves played the character as Superman, and had the man of steel play at being Clark Kent, showing some amusement at how people perceived him because underneath he was all strength and confidence. Brandon Routh is playing Clark Kent all the time, and he's resentful of how nobody can see his Superman persona. When he plays at being Superman, he's trying so hard he seems that much more like a little boy in a Superman costume, imagining himself as something important, and powerful. And then he cements it by floating around everywhere. Superman flying with the fist out in front of him: strong and majestic, and he makes the flying seem like a forceful, challenging mode of transport only Superman could do by taking the running start, and by landing, which respects the power of flight in the imagination of the audience. Clark Kent in tights daintily floating down from the ledge is just channeling Peter Pan.
With two and a half hours and a plot that I can summarize in... well, Superman goes to Krypton so Lex Luthor steals a crystal from the Fortress of Solitude and a Kryptonite shard, and uses them to make a new Kryptonite continent, so Superman flies in and throws it into space. In all the time allotted for that, you'd think there could be one character driven story to tell, but at the end of Superman Returns, nobody has changed in any way due to their experiences, other than Superman now knows he has a Super-rugrat (with asthma). All it really accomplishes is to show why children outgrow Superman: there's nothing for him to do that's beyond a five year old's attention span.
Actually there are some things to say. For one thing, when the model train set-up is being destroyed by the bubbling crystal from Krypton, I wondered who has a model train set where the miniature model people emit human screams if they get knocked over? I think that was supposed to be a bit more subliminal, but it's still stupid. Richard Branson makes yet another aviation cameo as the shuttle flight engineer, when he really would have been more useful as a flight attendant telling Lois Lane to put her seat belt on so she wouldn't have been thrown around the cabin during the crash. She survives that with no bruises or broken bones, but then faints from the sight of Superman, which really makes me wonder, when did fainting come back in style for ladies? Are corsets a fashion necessity for Metropolis women?
Really, what kills Superman though is the floating. The old Superman used to land and walk around in an authoritative way, where the current boyish Superman gives off a different vibe. Christopher Reeves played the character as Superman, and had the man of steel play at being Clark Kent, showing some amusement at how people perceived him because underneath he was all strength and confidence. Brandon Routh is playing Clark Kent all the time, and he's resentful of how nobody can see his Superman persona. When he plays at being Superman, he's trying so hard he seems that much more like a little boy in a Superman costume, imagining himself as something important, and powerful. And then he cements it by floating around everywhere. Superman flying with the fist out in front of him: strong and majestic, and he makes the flying seem like a forceful, challenging mode of transport only Superman could do by taking the running start, and by landing, which respects the power of flight in the imagination of the audience. Clark Kent in tights daintily floating down from the ledge is just channeling Peter Pan.
With two and a half hours and a plot that I can summarize in... well, Superman goes to Krypton so Lex Luthor steals a crystal from the Fortress of Solitude and a Kryptonite shard, and uses them to make a new Kryptonite continent, so Superman flies in and throws it into space. In all the time allotted for that, you'd think there could be one character driven story to tell, but at the end of Superman Returns, nobody has changed in any way due to their experiences, other than Superman now knows he has a Super-rugrat (with asthma). All it really accomplishes is to show why children outgrow Superman: there's nothing for him to do that's beyond a five year old's attention span.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
"God will forgive them. He'll forgive them, and allow them into heaven. I can't live with that."
That's the opening narration of Dead Man's Shoes, and I have no idea why this movie is so amazing, but it is. Paddy Considine, who wrote the screenplay, stars as this soldier named Richard whose retarded brother Anthony is tormented by thugs in their hometown. It's not clear what he's been doing in the army, but it's clear Richard has become an extremely dangerous man since leaving town... describing him, one of these thugs says "The man who left isn't the one who came back," and alludes to his having been a commando. He's right, because Richard has come back to town only to hunt down his brother's tormentors one by one. It's like Get Carter with Grizzly Adams, and it's brilliant.
What's so gripping is the realness of this film, especially Paddy Considine as Richard, who seems like such a genuine, real person but gets this murderous look flashing over his eyes, sliding mercurially from warmth to rage in an instant. He's a sympathetic hero, very likable, and it's hard not to root for him, but he's also a genuinely frightening character. This film manages to be both so stark and horrifying in its depiction of what amounts to a series of violent crimes, but also strangely funny. This is what the realistic feel of the grainy film, shaky cam without autofocus style of film-making was intended for, filming Paddy Considine right up close where every drop of rain on his coat and his hair is in perfect, sharp focus. The victimization of his brother is all shot in black and white, super-8 film like some awful home movie, the vivid image everyone touched by it has keeps replaying in their head.
When Richard first makes contact with one of his targets, while it's still unclear what he has in mind, he appears at the doorway to an apartment building in a gas mask, pounding on the glass and gesturing for his target to come out. I don't know what's so scary about that, but there is something terrifying in this inhuman face Richard chooses to put on. His drugged out mark goes running back up the stairs screaming about an elephant with great, staring eyes outside the door, not really sure what he saw in the shocked moment before he ran. When asked about his first round of psychological warfare, he makes it clear in about two sentences that this will not end until people are dead.
There's some brilliant lines in the drug-addled tough guy rambling of the local gangsters Richard is stalking, and in the absolutely chilling things he says to them. When one of them waking from a drugged stupor gets off the couch he passed out on, and sees a blurry Richard standing in the room with him, he asks, "Are you the Devil?" Richard's response, with a shy grin and no bravado, is "You wish I fucking was, mate."
There is more to this than a grimly executed revenge story, because there's more to it than Richard initially tells us. He's a fascinating character, in a film that's so perfectly executed it really mysteriously rises way above the genre flick I thought it would be. I still don't really have a grasp on how this is so good, but my first thought when the credits rolled was just wow.
I never would have heard of it either, had it not been nominated for Best British Film at the '05 British Academy Awards. Paddy Considine seems to be showing up in more and more quality stuff, like the excon who's found Jesus in My Summer of Love, devoted to being a man of peace, building a cross to overlook the valley and starting his own church, but still capable of snapping and choking the life out of a teenage girl without warning. Seriously, if you were at a dinner with this guy, based on the characters he plays I'd love to sit next to him but also give him plastic utensils: fascinating but scary as hell.
"I told him not to mention the elephant."
What's so gripping is the realness of this film, especially Paddy Considine as Richard, who seems like such a genuine, real person but gets this murderous look flashing over his eyes, sliding mercurially from warmth to rage in an instant. He's a sympathetic hero, very likable, and it's hard not to root for him, but he's also a genuinely frightening character. This film manages to be both so stark and horrifying in its depiction of what amounts to a series of violent crimes, but also strangely funny. This is what the realistic feel of the grainy film, shaky cam without autofocus style of film-making was intended for, filming Paddy Considine right up close where every drop of rain on his coat and his hair is in perfect, sharp focus. The victimization of his brother is all shot in black and white, super-8 film like some awful home movie, the vivid image everyone touched by it has keeps replaying in their head.
When Richard first makes contact with one of his targets, while it's still unclear what he has in mind, he appears at the doorway to an apartment building in a gas mask, pounding on the glass and gesturing for his target to come out. I don't know what's so scary about that, but there is something terrifying in this inhuman face Richard chooses to put on. His drugged out mark goes running back up the stairs screaming about an elephant with great, staring eyes outside the door, not really sure what he saw in the shocked moment before he ran. When asked about his first round of psychological warfare, he makes it clear in about two sentences that this will not end until people are dead.
There's some brilliant lines in the drug-addled tough guy rambling of the local gangsters Richard is stalking, and in the absolutely chilling things he says to them. When one of them waking from a drugged stupor gets off the couch he passed out on, and sees a blurry Richard standing in the room with him, he asks, "Are you the Devil?" Richard's response, with a shy grin and no bravado, is "You wish I fucking was, mate."
There is more to this than a grimly executed revenge story, because there's more to it than Richard initially tells us. He's a fascinating character, in a film that's so perfectly executed it really mysteriously rises way above the genre flick I thought it would be. I still don't really have a grasp on how this is so good, but my first thought when the credits rolled was just wow.
I never would have heard of it either, had it not been nominated for Best British Film at the '05 British Academy Awards. Paddy Considine seems to be showing up in more and more quality stuff, like the excon who's found Jesus in My Summer of Love, devoted to being a man of peace, building a cross to overlook the valley and starting his own church, but still capable of snapping and choking the life out of a teenage girl without warning. Seriously, if you were at a dinner with this guy, based on the characters he plays I'd love to sit next to him but also give him plastic utensils: fascinating but scary as hell.
"I told him not to mention the elephant."
Friday, January 12, 2007
Becks going down, to... La La Land
Something 'bout those little pills unreal the thrills they yield until they kill a million brain cells...
Yes, it's true, the Beckham Rule has indeed been invoked... by this I mean MLS's new salary cap exemption for a single franchise player who can be paid whatever the club wishes, without regard to the $2.3m salary cap. Recently introduced, the rule was intended to facilitate bringing to MLS international media darlings whose presence and financial demands might skew the competitive and financial balance of the league's franchises, but would like the tide, raise the profile of the whole enterprise enough to be in the best interests of both New York and Salt Lake City. It was nicknamed the Beckham Rule because the eponymous footballer was the obvious target: a huge English-language media figure who's clearly lost a step, married to a has-been pop singer, both of whom are hungry for a new market.
I'm not knocking Beckham, I think it's possible he's made a very ambitious, and also very brave choice, if he's coming here with the idea of being the face of the new era of American soccer. Even after the New York Cosmos, the World Cup, and ten years of MLS, there's still room to be the guy who brought football to the colonies, and the media savvy of the Beckhams will serve them well. Beckham was long regarded as the key player to selling European football in Asia, and if he wants to market himself in America, this is the only way to do it. I do think it took some self-awareness and some guts to sign a 5-year deal with MLS, for a big name to acknowledge that his time with the English national team and in the big show in Europe is done, that he'll never lead England to a trophy (not after the momentum shift once Aaron Lennon came on for him in the World Cup). Admittedly, the gigantic sack of cash he's getting probably helps too, upwards of $250m over five years in salary, endorsements, and a share of club profits, assuming things work out.
Beckham also has the advantage of a distinct ability, which is obvious to even casual fans: his crosses and free kicks. Given enough space to work, Beckham's precision passing for England this summer was still something to see, and in MLS, he's more likely to be able to create that space and to play with the high work-rate he used to. Beckham's assists are something that can make mainstream media highlights, which MLS doesn't do a whole lot now. Previously, it seemed the trickle of European players heading to MLS had dried up, after too many of them didn't make the cut. The last one I think I paid any attention to was when the Grim Reaper left Arsenal for the Colorado Rapids, but made it like a week before he ran back to France, so it's nice to see somebody who's still interested in playing come over, and hopefully set a high standard in the wake of a few more of the league's current stars finding their way over to Europe.
I don't know how this will turn out, if Posh & Becks will be loved or ridiculed by America, if he'll really shine or just phone it in, or be hacked to death every time he touches the ball, if this will raise the profile of the LA Galaxy or MLS at all. I will watch him play, though, and I usually pay pay a lot more attention to women's basketball than I do MLS. At least nobody will tell me the score of an LA Galaxy game when I tivo it.
Continuing my Beckham-related thoughts later, one factor I didn't consider is who is he going to play against? This league had a rivalry for about a week when DC United were the cream of MLS and the Chicago Fire beat them in the final, but I've never heard much else. The geographic separation of all the franchises really hurts. There was some talk of Beckham urging some other aging Galacticos like Luis Figo to come over and spark up MLS, and if Becks is the first of a series of former stars, it would be huge in giving a face to every team. There are plenty of players who take off for one more year in the sun in Qatar or Saudi Arabia, with the salary cap exemption, New York and San Francisco should be able to compete with Dubai. Kansas City and Dallas maybe not so much.
Yes, it's true, the Beckham Rule has indeed been invoked... by this I mean MLS's new salary cap exemption for a single franchise player who can be paid whatever the club wishes, without regard to the $2.3m salary cap. Recently introduced, the rule was intended to facilitate bringing to MLS international media darlings whose presence and financial demands might skew the competitive and financial balance of the league's franchises, but would like the tide, raise the profile of the whole enterprise enough to be in the best interests of both New York and Salt Lake City. It was nicknamed the Beckham Rule because the eponymous footballer was the obvious target: a huge English-language media figure who's clearly lost a step, married to a has-been pop singer, both of whom are hungry for a new market.
I'm not knocking Beckham, I think it's possible he's made a very ambitious, and also very brave choice, if he's coming here with the idea of being the face of the new era of American soccer. Even after the New York Cosmos, the World Cup, and ten years of MLS, there's still room to be the guy who brought football to the colonies, and the media savvy of the Beckhams will serve them well. Beckham was long regarded as the key player to selling European football in Asia, and if he wants to market himself in America, this is the only way to do it. I do think it took some self-awareness and some guts to sign a 5-year deal with MLS, for a big name to acknowledge that his time with the English national team and in the big show in Europe is done, that he'll never lead England to a trophy (not after the momentum shift once Aaron Lennon came on for him in the World Cup). Admittedly, the gigantic sack of cash he's getting probably helps too, upwards of $250m over five years in salary, endorsements, and a share of club profits, assuming things work out.
Beckham also has the advantage of a distinct ability, which is obvious to even casual fans: his crosses and free kicks. Given enough space to work, Beckham's precision passing for England this summer was still something to see, and in MLS, he's more likely to be able to create that space and to play with the high work-rate he used to. Beckham's assists are something that can make mainstream media highlights, which MLS doesn't do a whole lot now. Previously, it seemed the trickle of European players heading to MLS had dried up, after too many of them didn't make the cut. The last one I think I paid any attention to was when the Grim Reaper left Arsenal for the Colorado Rapids, but made it like a week before he ran back to France, so it's nice to see somebody who's still interested in playing come over, and hopefully set a high standard in the wake of a few more of the league's current stars finding their way over to Europe.
I don't know how this will turn out, if Posh & Becks will be loved or ridiculed by America, if he'll really shine or just phone it in, or be hacked to death every time he touches the ball, if this will raise the profile of the LA Galaxy or MLS at all. I will watch him play, though, and I usually pay pay a lot more attention to women's basketball than I do MLS. At least nobody will tell me the score of an LA Galaxy game when I tivo it.
Continuing my Beckham-related thoughts later, one factor I didn't consider is who is he going to play against? This league had a rivalry for about a week when DC United were the cream of MLS and the Chicago Fire beat them in the final, but I've never heard much else. The geographic separation of all the franchises really hurts. There was some talk of Beckham urging some other aging Galacticos like Luis Figo to come over and spark up MLS, and if Becks is the first of a series of former stars, it would be huge in giving a face to every team. There are plenty of players who take off for one more year in the sun in Qatar or Saudi Arabia, with the salary cap exemption, New York and San Francisco should be able to compete with Dubai. Kansas City and Dallas maybe not so much.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Joyeux Noel, and the dangerous subversiveness of Christmas
It's quite a thing, this film about small acts of kindness, and that fraternal spirit in all human beings that lets us recognize each other despite differences in language or skin color... well some of us anyways. It's about the Christmas spirit, and the way all that for one night and one day, we can all stop caring about the problems of this world and care more about each other. For a little while. Maybe because of that, there was an overwhelming feeling of sadness for me watching this film, knowing what had to happen when Christmas was over.
Joyeux Noel is a story inspired by the events in Europe on December 24th, 1914, when all up and down the western front, soldiers of all nationalities came up out of their trenches to share Christmas together. The story some of the survivors told was of singing Silent Night and hearing across no man's land other soldiers singing Silent Night, or Douce Nuit, or Stille Nacht, and realizing they had far more in common than what separated them. They were all young men far from their loved ones, likely to die in the mud without seeing home again, whose individual lives didn't amount to much beyond moving a border a few yards back and forth. So they took a break from killing each other and played football in the snow between the trenches, until it was time to go back. Soldiers exchanged letters for family in occupied territory, showed each other pictures of their children, made plans to see each other again after the war, and wished each other well.
The film focuses on the subversive effect of that kind of contact between people, when all these soldiers gathered together singing Christian songs, in need of both physical and spiritual. German, French, and Scottish, they all gather together for a mass said by a Scottish minister. The mass is said in Latin, appealing to one of the connections between these men, a spiritual authority that operates independent of the authority of governments, that no longer belongs to any single language, or culture, or people. The subversive effect of Christians acting like Christians, forgiving and loving their neighbors, is not lost on the powers that be, that have to present their own version of doctrine and reframe genocide as holy work against an inhuman horde. As one commander says in the aftermath, you can't execute 200 men, recognizing that if the entire mass of soldiers dying on the front lines were to stop hating the enemy, there would instantly be no war for the generals to direct and with which to inspire the public.
This is what's so sad about Joyeux Noel, is knowing that the truce didn't continue, that those who weren't on the front line on Christmas Eve did restore order, and that most of the men who took a risk and climbed out of their trench were buried somewhere on that same field. The final image of the film is heartbreaking, German soldiers shut up in a box car being sent off to the Russian Front where they will have a fresh set of strangers to kill, far from the friends they made on Christmas Eve. As the train leaves, they hum the song the Scottish soldiers taught them, "I'm Dreaming of Home". There is a powerful image, Germans in a box car (with their Jewish lieutenant), being sent off to die in a bloodbath that killed an entire generation of men, making the point that this genocide was no more noble than any other.
I was also struck by the opening, with children in three countries reciting wartime rhetoric in a classroom like a book report. There's something very curious about how we sometimes only recognize the grotesqueness in our public discourse from our children, when it's wrong for them to repeat what the views of their elders. Jon Stewart has exploited this to great effect with the children reading transcripts of political pundits arguing on TV, undressing everything the way only children can, where there is no excuse of hyperbole or point of view, and we must decide if we believe these things to be true, before passing them on as fact.
It is an uplifting film, even in its sadness, for reminding us of what kind of people we should like to be at Christmas, if we can't do it the rest of the year. It was made by French filmmakers last year, and it's nice to see despite the animosity towards the French over the war in Iraq some of them found it in their hearts to tell a story about soldiers far from home, when so many American and British soldiers are spending Christmas in hellish conditions. God bless them all and keep them safe.
Joyeux Noel is a story inspired by the events in Europe on December 24th, 1914, when all up and down the western front, soldiers of all nationalities came up out of their trenches to share Christmas together. The story some of the survivors told was of singing Silent Night and hearing across no man's land other soldiers singing Silent Night, or Douce Nuit, or Stille Nacht, and realizing they had far more in common than what separated them. They were all young men far from their loved ones, likely to die in the mud without seeing home again, whose individual lives didn't amount to much beyond moving a border a few yards back and forth. So they took a break from killing each other and played football in the snow between the trenches, until it was time to go back. Soldiers exchanged letters for family in occupied territory, showed each other pictures of their children, made plans to see each other again after the war, and wished each other well.
The film focuses on the subversive effect of that kind of contact between people, when all these soldiers gathered together singing Christian songs, in need of both physical and spiritual. German, French, and Scottish, they all gather together for a mass said by a Scottish minister. The mass is said in Latin, appealing to one of the connections between these men, a spiritual authority that operates independent of the authority of governments, that no longer belongs to any single language, or culture, or people. The subversive effect of Christians acting like Christians, forgiving and loving their neighbors, is not lost on the powers that be, that have to present their own version of doctrine and reframe genocide as holy work against an inhuman horde. As one commander says in the aftermath, you can't execute 200 men, recognizing that if the entire mass of soldiers dying on the front lines were to stop hating the enemy, there would instantly be no war for the generals to direct and with which to inspire the public.
This is what's so sad about Joyeux Noel, is knowing that the truce didn't continue, that those who weren't on the front line on Christmas Eve did restore order, and that most of the men who took a risk and climbed out of their trench were buried somewhere on that same field. The final image of the film is heartbreaking, German soldiers shut up in a box car being sent off to the Russian Front where they will have a fresh set of strangers to kill, far from the friends they made on Christmas Eve. As the train leaves, they hum the song the Scottish soldiers taught them, "I'm Dreaming of Home". There is a powerful image, Germans in a box car (with their Jewish lieutenant), being sent off to die in a bloodbath that killed an entire generation of men, making the point that this genocide was no more noble than any other.
I was also struck by the opening, with children in three countries reciting wartime rhetoric in a classroom like a book report. There's something very curious about how we sometimes only recognize the grotesqueness in our public discourse from our children, when it's wrong for them to repeat what the views of their elders. Jon Stewart has exploited this to great effect with the children reading transcripts of political pundits arguing on TV, undressing everything the way only children can, where there is no excuse of hyperbole or point of view, and we must decide if we believe these things to be true, before passing them on as fact.
It is an uplifting film, even in its sadness, for reminding us of what kind of people we should like to be at Christmas, if we can't do it the rest of the year. It was made by French filmmakers last year, and it's nice to see despite the animosity towards the French over the war in Iraq some of them found it in their hearts to tell a story about soldiers far from home, when so many American and British soldiers are spending Christmas in hellish conditions. God bless them all and keep them safe.
Snakes on a Plane
After all the anticipation, that was certainly disappointing. The promise of Snakes on a Plane was that it was making an earnest commitment to an incredibly stupid premise, embodied in the minimalist title. From what I read, Samuel L. Jackson signed on to make a bad movie without the self-consciousness of parody, but the suits got a hold of it, hence the astroturf promotional campaign and the flaw of the final product: it's too good. SoaP ends up taking what's been done before, and done better, and just throws it up on the screen with really cartoonish CGI snakes, and this would be fine, except that it plays it safe and doesn't include the two ingredients that make schlock into cult films: risible incompetence and excess.
Everything is a little too polished, all the details of the plot ironed out, except for the one thing that needed to look good, the fake snakes. I didn't need an explanation for how they got the snakes to attack everybody, or to have the mechanism for their release established. We laugh at cheap-ass horror movies that strain our suspense of disbelief, like if we'd been asked to believe somebody piled venomous snakes into an overhead bin. All the characters are carefully introduced and fleshed out as real people over the course of a long introduction, which is kind of the antithesis of what I watched this movie for. The cast seems to know it too, as they all sleepwalk through the film. I expected horror and exploitation, not bland drama with snakes... this was more like an episode of MacGyver, where you know all the characters with names have to make it to the end (and they all do).
The other thing that was missing was excess, just gratuitous nudity, death, sex, horror, and nudity. There's a brief section when the snakes first emerge that starts to fulfill this, but then the whole thing settles down for a long denouement in which everybody's more or less safe up in first class. And the video game freak cheerfully saves the day by landing a 747. Samuel Jackson's big signature line feels forced, no doubt because it had to be included in re-shoots after it became a huge running joke on the internet... the fans knew he should be running around yelling like a crazy man, but the film only begrudgingly gave us two seconds of it. There are early nods to the sex and violence this type of film is supposed to be about, the mile high clubbers and the guy taking a piss who all get attacked in the bathroom, but really only nameless minor characters who appear for those two minutes. All the beautiful people stay buttoned down, and are filmed in a very restrained way as they maintain a chaste distance in their polite conversations, lest they say something provocative and appear too flirtatious. What's sad is when the big rap star starts his routine chatting up the rich white girl, or the flight attendant loosens her top button to go chat up the FBI surfer witness, we all know not a single one of the four of them's going to get any satisfaction out of it.
It started out with some promise, but this film is just so conservative, never daring to even let the characters enjoy themselves, much less the audience. It's Neocon America, You can kill all the throw-away characters you want, as long as the good guys win and the good girls don't have any fun.
Everything is a little too polished, all the details of the plot ironed out, except for the one thing that needed to look good, the fake snakes. I didn't need an explanation for how they got the snakes to attack everybody, or to have the mechanism for their release established. We laugh at cheap-ass horror movies that strain our suspense of disbelief, like if we'd been asked to believe somebody piled venomous snakes into an overhead bin. All the characters are carefully introduced and fleshed out as real people over the course of a long introduction, which is kind of the antithesis of what I watched this movie for. The cast seems to know it too, as they all sleepwalk through the film. I expected horror and exploitation, not bland drama with snakes... this was more like an episode of MacGyver, where you know all the characters with names have to make it to the end (and they all do).
The other thing that was missing was excess, just gratuitous nudity, death, sex, horror, and nudity. There's a brief section when the snakes first emerge that starts to fulfill this, but then the whole thing settles down for a long denouement in which everybody's more or less safe up in first class. And the video game freak cheerfully saves the day by landing a 747. Samuel Jackson's big signature line feels forced, no doubt because it had to be included in re-shoots after it became a huge running joke on the internet... the fans knew he should be running around yelling like a crazy man, but the film only begrudgingly gave us two seconds of it. There are early nods to the sex and violence this type of film is supposed to be about, the mile high clubbers and the guy taking a piss who all get attacked in the bathroom, but really only nameless minor characters who appear for those two minutes. All the beautiful people stay buttoned down, and are filmed in a very restrained way as they maintain a chaste distance in their polite conversations, lest they say something provocative and appear too flirtatious. What's sad is when the big rap star starts his routine chatting up the rich white girl, or the flight attendant loosens her top button to go chat up the FBI surfer witness, we all know not a single one of the four of them's going to get any satisfaction out of it.
It started out with some promise, but this film is just so conservative, never daring to even let the characters enjoy themselves, much less the audience. It's Neocon America, You can kill all the throw-away characters you want, as long as the good guys win and the good girls don't have any fun.
Monday, January 01, 2007
The Films of Luc Besson
Apparently in his native France Luc Besson is referred to as an American director for making what come across as very Spielburgesque commercial films. Which makes it even funnier when they get chopped up or remade by American producers, like it's some sort of taunt to French critics: "You think that's American? WE'LL show you American!" Anyways, he has declared he will likely not direct any more films after Arthur et les Minimoys, his tenth, although he has written several others (including District B13). So since nobody asked, here's a look at his ten films, most of which I haven't seen.
1. Le Dernier Combat (1983)
This is one I've never gotten around to seeing, starring Jean Reno as a scarred survivor of a crumbling post-apocalyptic world in which humans have lost the ability to speak. It's a cheaply made, black and white, stark image of that world, expanding on an even cheaper black and white short film, which started the trend for Besson of casting Jean Reno in every movie he made for the next 12 years.
2. Subway (1985)
I love Subway, although I cannot explain why. Christophe Lambert, who was the mysterious Scotsman with an intermittent French accent in Highlander, gets to create another mysterious, unnervingly strange character here in Fred. This film is full of another Besson smirk, English names that sound ridiculous in French: this film's characters include Fred (Fhhhhred), Big Bill (Beeg Beeyill), and Batman et Robin (Botmon and Rhhhoa-Been). Fred is a strange character who crashes a high class party in a tuxedo and impulsively cracks a safe, then escapes into the Paris Metro where he hides out with the strange subculture that lives underground, including the Florist, the Drummer, and a roller-skating purse snatcher (The Roller), all pursued by the underground crime-fighting duo of Parisian cops nicknamed Batman and Robin, as well as the smitten wife of the man whose safe Fred has cracked. There's a non-conformist charm in all of these characters, who lie and steal and lurk in the tunnels underneath a thriving city.
3. The Big Blue
I don't care what anybody says, this is one of my favorite movies of all time, and at one time was my best trick to prove my romantic heart to vulnerable, cerebral girls. (Not that I was trying, it just seemed to happen that way... I've been assured I'm only non-maliciously manipulative.) This is based on the true story of Jacques Mayoll and Enzo Molinari, the first two free divers to go below 100 meters, at a time when conventional wisdom was that a diver's lungs would collapse under that pressure, and such a dive would be suicide without diving equipment. The rivalry between childhood friends Mayoll and Molinari that drove them so far below the surface, as well as Mayoll's uncanny affinity for dolphins and incompatibility with normal human relationships, made this an incredibly captivating film for me. As a friend put it, anybody who can make a movie about holding your breath interesting has some talent. The Big Blue has a noticeably happier American edit, which Besson apparently hated but I actually really enjoy, while the director's cut adds an hour that changes the entire meaning of a lot of the film, making it a lot deeper and more sorrowful, but incredibly moving. Seriously, you people who keep accusing me of not watching enough romantic films because I don't watch a lot of Drew Barrymore romcoms, watch this movie and then shut up.
4. Nikita
Also known for commercial reasons related to its release date as La Femme Nikita, this is possibly my favorite spy movie of all time. The absolutely bad-ass Nikita, excruciatingly sexy, impulsive, and incredibly dangerous, sets the standard for the Sydney Bristows of the world. She begins the story as a drug addict sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in a poorly conceived robbery attempt, forcibly recruited to work for the French government as an assassin. What I love about Nikita is usually a woman in a spy film has to be some boring, unquestionable paragon, and Nikita is instead a person capable of the most horrific violence that the state found unfit to continue to live. She's not a hooker with a heart of gold either, and her traumatic emotional state prevents her from making normal emotional connections to other human beings, or from dropping right into a normal cover life. The gritty, need-to-know existence of a spy, her violent past, and the difficulty of opening up to somebody who loves her enough to suffer her strange behavior all combines into an impossible situation. This is all tied up in a wild ride full of gun battles, betrayal, emergency corpse disposal, and a brief but memorable appearance by Jean Reno as Victor, the Cleaner.
5. Leon
Like Nikita, this film got its title changed for an American release, to The Professional. This breaks up the symmetry between the two films, which are both about assassins. Inspired by Jean Reno's cameo as the cleaner in Nikita, this is a movie about what the ghostly, inhumanly efficient hit man does when he's off the clock. In the case of Leon, he goes home and drinks a big glass of milk before going to bed. Leon has no purpose, no real life, beyond the people who exploit his remarkable ability to kill, and no passion besides slipping off to showings of old black and white movies. When his neighbor's entire family is brutally murdered by a insane Mozart afficionado and drug lord played with considerable relish by Gary Oldman, Leon allows his neighbor's 12-year old daughter Mathilda sanctuary in his apartment (Nathalie Portman in her first and best acting job). The bond between Leon and Mathilda grows as she teaches him what she knows, how to read, and he teaches her about the world of contract killings. Nikita and Leon are a great pair of films, fascinating and resonant in their characters, but great rides because of the ridiculous and fun Luc Besson action movie style.
6. The 5th Element
This is definitely a movie where I don't care what the rest of you all say, I love every frame of it. The futuristic New York with such own flamboyant and alien sense of style is great all by itself, an even more vertical Manhattan where Bruce Willis can order sushi from a guy on a blimp who pulls up to his window. The speculation on the evolution of fashion is amusing, showcased in Jean-Paul Gaultier's personal design of several hundred costumes for extras. Chris Tucker is perfect as the MTV VJ of the future, with several hundred years to become more ridiculous and self-absorbed, and this is also the film that began my infatuation with Mila Jovovich. Often I see comic-book movies that take the unique visual artistry of the comic and squash it into something much more drab and mundane that looks like any other movie, and this is in a way what they all should have been aiming for, a movie where everybody looks like they just stepped off the page
in bright colors and impossible outfits, especially Gary Oldman as a fantastically evil comic book villain. I thought Eric Serra's score for this film and Nikita were his best, especially the alien opera that no human singer could reproduce.
7. The Messenger
Er, I guess they can't all be perfect. I did like Mila Jovovich as Joan of Arc, if for no other reason than Jeanne's possibly schizophrenic, possibly divine dialogues with a phantasmal Dustin Hoffman. Appearing to Jeanne as amongst other things Jesus and the Devil, he questions her divine inspiration, and offers mundane explanations for every sign she receives from God. That element was at least interesting.
8-10. Angel-A, Arthur et les Minimoys, Atlantis
I have not seen these, so I'm going to be a complete fanboy and assume they're all great films. So there.
1. Le Dernier Combat (1983)
This is one I've never gotten around to seeing, starring Jean Reno as a scarred survivor of a crumbling post-apocalyptic world in which humans have lost the ability to speak. It's a cheaply made, black and white, stark image of that world, expanding on an even cheaper black and white short film, which started the trend for Besson of casting Jean Reno in every movie he made for the next 12 years.
2. Subway (1985)
I love Subway, although I cannot explain why. Christophe Lambert, who was the mysterious Scotsman with an intermittent French accent in Highlander, gets to create another mysterious, unnervingly strange character here in Fred. This film is full of another Besson smirk, English names that sound ridiculous in French: this film's characters include Fred (Fhhhhred), Big Bill (Beeg Beeyill), and Batman et Robin (Botmon and Rhhhoa-Been). Fred is a strange character who crashes a high class party in a tuxedo and impulsively cracks a safe, then escapes into the Paris Metro where he hides out with the strange subculture that lives underground, including the Florist, the Drummer, and a roller-skating purse snatcher (The Roller), all pursued by the underground crime-fighting duo of Parisian cops nicknamed Batman and Robin, as well as the smitten wife of the man whose safe Fred has cracked. There's a non-conformist charm in all of these characters, who lie and steal and lurk in the tunnels underneath a thriving city.
3. The Big Blue
I don't care what anybody says, this is one of my favorite movies of all time, and at one time was my best trick to prove my romantic heart to vulnerable, cerebral girls. (Not that I was trying, it just seemed to happen that way... I've been assured I'm only non-maliciously manipulative.) This is based on the true story of Jacques Mayoll and Enzo Molinari, the first two free divers to go below 100 meters, at a time when conventional wisdom was that a diver's lungs would collapse under that pressure, and such a dive would be suicide without diving equipment. The rivalry between childhood friends Mayoll and Molinari that drove them so far below the surface, as well as Mayoll's uncanny affinity for dolphins and incompatibility with normal human relationships, made this an incredibly captivating film for me. As a friend put it, anybody who can make a movie about holding your breath interesting has some talent. The Big Blue has a noticeably happier American edit, which Besson apparently hated but I actually really enjoy, while the director's cut adds an hour that changes the entire meaning of a lot of the film, making it a lot deeper and more sorrowful, but incredibly moving. Seriously, you people who keep accusing me of not watching enough romantic films because I don't watch a lot of Drew Barrymore romcoms, watch this movie and then shut up.
4. Nikita
Also known for commercial reasons related to its release date as La Femme Nikita, this is possibly my favorite spy movie of all time. The absolutely bad-ass Nikita, excruciatingly sexy, impulsive, and incredibly dangerous, sets the standard for the Sydney Bristows of the world. She begins the story as a drug addict sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in a poorly conceived robbery attempt, forcibly recruited to work for the French government as an assassin. What I love about Nikita is usually a woman in a spy film has to be some boring, unquestionable paragon, and Nikita is instead a person capable of the most horrific violence that the state found unfit to continue to live. She's not a hooker with a heart of gold either, and her traumatic emotional state prevents her from making normal emotional connections to other human beings, or from dropping right into a normal cover life. The gritty, need-to-know existence of a spy, her violent past, and the difficulty of opening up to somebody who loves her enough to suffer her strange behavior all combines into an impossible situation. This is all tied up in a wild ride full of gun battles, betrayal, emergency corpse disposal, and a brief but memorable appearance by Jean Reno as Victor, the Cleaner.
5. Leon
Like Nikita, this film got its title changed for an American release, to The Professional. This breaks up the symmetry between the two films, which are both about assassins. Inspired by Jean Reno's cameo as the cleaner in Nikita, this is a movie about what the ghostly, inhumanly efficient hit man does when he's off the clock. In the case of Leon, he goes home and drinks a big glass of milk before going to bed. Leon has no purpose, no real life, beyond the people who exploit his remarkable ability to kill, and no passion besides slipping off to showings of old black and white movies. When his neighbor's entire family is brutally murdered by a insane Mozart afficionado and drug lord played with considerable relish by Gary Oldman, Leon allows his neighbor's 12-year old daughter Mathilda sanctuary in his apartment (Nathalie Portman in her first and best acting job). The bond between Leon and Mathilda grows as she teaches him what she knows, how to read, and he teaches her about the world of contract killings. Nikita and Leon are a great pair of films, fascinating and resonant in their characters, but great rides because of the ridiculous and fun Luc Besson action movie style.
6. The 5th Element
This is definitely a movie where I don't care what the rest of you all say, I love every frame of it. The futuristic New York with such own flamboyant and alien sense of style is great all by itself, an even more vertical Manhattan where Bruce Willis can order sushi from a guy on a blimp who pulls up to his window. The speculation on the evolution of fashion is amusing, showcased in Jean-Paul Gaultier's personal design of several hundred costumes for extras. Chris Tucker is perfect as the MTV VJ of the future, with several hundred years to become more ridiculous and self-absorbed, and this is also the film that began my infatuation with Mila Jovovich. Often I see comic-book movies that take the unique visual artistry of the comic and squash it into something much more drab and mundane that looks like any other movie, and this is in a way what they all should have been aiming for, a movie where everybody looks like they just stepped off the page
in bright colors and impossible outfits, especially Gary Oldman as a fantastically evil comic book villain. I thought Eric Serra's score for this film and Nikita were his best, especially the alien opera that no human singer could reproduce.
7. The Messenger
Er, I guess they can't all be perfect. I did like Mila Jovovich as Joan of Arc, if for no other reason than Jeanne's possibly schizophrenic, possibly divine dialogues with a phantasmal Dustin Hoffman. Appearing to Jeanne as amongst other things Jesus and the Devil, he questions her divine inspiration, and offers mundane explanations for every sign she receives from God. That element was at least interesting.
8-10. Angel-A, Arthur et les Minimoys, Atlantis
I have not seen these, so I'm going to be a complete fanboy and assume they're all great films. So there.
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