Fall Film Festobonanza, Part 1: Olivier Assayas Regis Dialogue & Retrospective

Irma Vep, Summer Hours, and Carlos

What: Olivier Assayas Regis Dialogue & Retrospective

Where: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

When: October 1 - 31

I can't believe it's been a year since "Raising Cain", the Walker Art Center's retrospective and discussion featuring the Coen Brothers. This fall's series doesn't have quite the local flavor; just the opposite, in fact, and that's a great thing. Though I haven't seen most of Olivier Assayas' films, I know they span the entire globe, from Hong Kong to France to Vancouver to, most recently, Venezuela. Here is an excerpt from the Walker's press release:

Getafilm Gallimaufry: Animal Kingdom, Get Low, Let Me In or Leave Me Out, & Perfect Song #8

[This series includes scattered thoughts on various movie-related topics. I was looking for a word that started with the letter "g" that means collection or assortment, but lest you think I'm some elitist wordsmith, know that I'd never heard of "gallimaufry" and I don't even know how to say it, but it was the only other option the thesaurus provided aside from "goulash" (too foody) and "garbage" (no).]

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Animal Kingdom (A)

Aside from being among the best indie movies of the year, David Michôd's Animal Kingdom is also the Feel Bad Movie of the Year. It's not graphic, it's not lewd, and it's not even particularly violent, but you become so intimate with the cold, calculating, evil characters that you just want to shower immediately afterward. I haven't been this disgusted walking out of a film since Boy A, another excellent movie that not coincidentally deals with trust, regret, family, and crime.

Stories about criminal families are nothing new, but Animal Kingdom boasts such a crackerjack script and stellar cast that you don't even realize you've heard this story before (it helps that the actors are unfamiliar to American audiences). I was a big fan of the stylistic flourishes (understated use of slow motion, haunting music, etc.) and undercurrent of unpredictability, and well, I'll just say it: if Animal Kingdom were made by a veteran American director like Scorsese, it would be a shoo-in for a Best Picture nomination.

Painful Moments in Movie History #2: The Fireplace Scene

Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, 2002

Director: 

George Lucas

Writers: 

George Lucas, Jonathan Hales

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INTERIOR: NABOO LAKE RETREAT, LODGE, FIREPLACE ALCOVE - TWILIGHT

A fire blazes in the open hearth. PADMÉ and ANAKIN are sitting in front of it, gazing into the flames.

ANAKIN:
From the moment I met you, all those years ago, not a day has gone by when I haven't thought of you. And now that I'm with you again, I'm in agony. The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you- I can't breathe. I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating, hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me. What can I do? I will do anything that you ask...

Silence. The logs flame in the hearth. PADMÉ meets his eye, then looks away.

Up the Yangtze, With a Paddle

The Yu Family, 2007

I consider 2008 the best year of the last decade for documentary film. Consider Surfwise, Trouble the Water, Man on Wire, Young @ Heart, Nerakhoon (The Betrayal), and Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, along with the second tier of Encounters at the End of the World, Dear Zachary, American Teen, Blindsight, Waltz with Bashir, and Standard Operating Procedure.

Above all of these great films that year, however, I placed Up the Yangtze, Yung Chang's heartbreaking examination of the impact of the Three Gorges Dam on the lives of lower and middle class Chinese living along the banks of the Yangtze River. From my review: "Yung Chang masterfully weaves power, wealth, culture, humility, sacrifice, tradition, national pride, poverty, and environmental concerns into a rich tapestry worthy of the world's attention...The unique aspects of Chinese culture are on such brilliant display in Up the Yangtze that we Westerners will have difficulty understanding them with one viewing."

The film somehow eluded the attention of AMPAS (who award the Oscars), but it did win numerous other awards and received healthy praise from critics. It was also broadcast on PBS as part of its POV documentary series, and now, two years later, the POV blog has an encouraging update from Yung Chang about the main family profiled in the film. Some highlights are below:

The Guy With the Butterfly Tattoo

"See that butterfly? You think it's Danaus plexippus, but it's not - it's Pieris rapae!" 

"A butterfly?," my wife wondered aloud as we watched George Clooney's character, Jack, perform his daily calisthenics routine in his cozy flat tucked away in a small Italian village. She was referring to the tattoo on his upper back (although it would have made just as much sense on the small of his back, and been funnier), and while I also noticed the unexplained marking, I was busy trying to determine whether Jack traveled with a pull-up bar or if they are actually standard in century-old Italian dwellings.

Whatever we were focused on while watching Anton Corbijn's The American, it wasn't the plot - such as there is one. The potential for a simmering thriller exists (the film is based on Martin Booth's well-received 1990 novel, "A Very Private Gentleman"), but the on-screen translation is a cliché-ridden and ultimately inconsequential film. Much as it tries to transcend the genre, it still ends up a vanilla "One Last Job" movie where the bank robber/assassin/detective/soldier/criminal plods along as a tortured soul, haunted by a lost love, chased by inept enemies, unable to trust anyone and forced to accept his likely fate - to die either as a martyr or as a ghost. Generally these characters do a good deal of brooding and philosophizing to supporting characters about their life's path.

Problem is, Rowan Joffe's screenplay for The American calls for very little in the way of characters talking and very much in the way of George Clooney just looking depressed. He is the picture of melancholy, sipping espresso alone in cafes, nervously walking and driving with an eye over his shoulder and a hand on his gun, tossing and turning in bed, making safe, emotionless conversation with locals, rubbing his eyes in anguish, and so on. At some point I just had to wonder, "Was this the right guy for the job?".

REVIEW: Prince of Broadway (A)

Writer/director Sean Baker's exceptional first feature, Take Out, is the kind of film that engages your curiosity in a rather distracting way; you feel as if you're watching a lost home video or a guerrilla-style student film. Scenes are unpredictable not necessarily because of complex plot twists (the story could not be simpler), but because at any given moment something in the vicinity of the shooting location, perhaps a stray animal or a loud car, seems certain to interrupt filming.

Was there a proper set? Were these people even actors?  The answer was yes, and no, but if you focused on the production details you'd potentially miss the most important fact of all: Take Out is a brilliant illustration of "a day in the life", of the common experiences of fear, frustration, relief, longing, hope, and countless other emotions that we as humans individually experience but collectively share. (See that film.)

Baker's new film, Prince of Broadway (opening tomorrow in New York and Sep. 24 in L.A.), is a glossier product, longer and more confidently made than Take Out. The sound and cinematography are vastly improved, if not still bound by the limits of a tiny budget, and the blocking is more tightly staged. In short, it's a more professional film, but if Baker has applied more of a sheen to this new product he has lost nothing under the surface, where thoughtful lessons about love, parenting, marriage, and friendship are framed by the unlikeliest of set-ups.

Two or Three Things I Know About Blogging

As I tread onward into my fourth year of maintaining this blog, it's an appropriate time for reflection. To say that I've learned some things about film and particularly about blogging over the last three years would be an understatement so great as to make it a meaningless statement. I've absorbed so much I feel like I can't even remember what I knew or thought I knew about film three years ago.

And I haven't just learned about movies, and how they are made and why they are made and how people talk about them and why they are important, but also about the nature (and sometimes disturbing power) of blogging, about how to efficiently use the internet to find trustworthy information, about how to write HTML code, about the future of online media, about professionalism and respect, and about social networking (in the truest sense: developing real friendships with people thousands of miles away). But what overwhelms me more than what I've learned so far is just how much I still have yet to learn.