300 Words About: Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench

Jazz just sounds cooler when it's backing a black and white scene, doesn't it? Gives it an organic, refreshing sound, almost a palpable texture. Jazz under neon blue lights and nightclub smoke makes for a great atmosphere, too, but that's sultry and mysterious and can be too confined by its own setting.

The reason I point this out is because Damien Chazelle's Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (which made waves at Tribeca in April but is still seeking financing for a theatrical release) gives jazz a shot in the arm that not only gets your toe tapping, but your spirit soaring. You're not seduced by the riffs so much as you're invigorated by them.

It's a verite-style romantic musical dramedy that defies categorization precisely because it fits so many descriptions: indie, docudrama, mumblecore, to name a few. At different times it reminded of new cinema (In Search of a Midnight Kiss and Medicine for Melancholy) and classic cinema (the dancing scene from Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders), and it won't work for everyone if only because it's so peculiarly surreal. But I think that's why I loved it, aside from the fact that it was shot on the Boston and Cambridge streets that hold a special nostalgia for me.

A Conversation with the Coens & a Look at Their First Decade (1984-1994)

Last night I had the once-in-a-lifetime luck to score a ticket to the 50th Regis Dialogue at the Walker Art Center, a 2 and 1/2 hour discussion between Elvis Mitchell and Joel and Ethan Coen. The conversation kicked off the second week of the Walker's current Coen Brothers retrospective, Joel & Ethan Coen: Raising Cain, and the the good news for those who couldn't get in last night is that the films of the Coens will still be shown in 35mm in the comfy Walker Cinema through October 17th. Click here for the remaining schedule, and note that the Burn After Reading screening is free. 

The brothers also attended the reception following the dialogue, but even as I was literally brushing shoulders with them I couldn't work up the nerve to ask them: in No Country for Old Men, where is Anton Chigurh at the Desert Sands? I did ask Elvis Mitchell but I think we were talking past each other. My question was about the night scene at the hotel where Chigurh is looking through the keyhole, not the day scene when Tommy Lee Jones first arrives and finds Josh Brolin. Elvis was convinced that Chigurh wasn't there, that it was an out of sequence scene. Well obviously, but that's not the scene I'm talking about. By the time I realized the misunderstanding, both Joel and Ethan had wandered away from us left the reception, leaving it a mystery forevermore. Wasting an easy 10 minutes standing right next to the Coens and not asking them a question, let alone that question, is something I'm going to be regretting for a long time. 

What would you have asked the Coens, given the opportunity? Everybody knows that they are among the most private personalities in Hollywood, and Elvis Mitchell deserves props for his attempt at getting them to open up about their childhood and influences. But the Coens are the Coens, and their inherent reluctance to talk makes interviewing them akin to pulling teeth; indeed, it looked like they'd rather have been at the dentist than on the stage. Pregnant pauses were filled by countless "yeah"s and "uh-huh"s, to the point that I was waiting for Mitchell to throw up his hands in defeat (he almost appeared ready to a couple times).

Despite all of this he was still able to squeeze out some interesting insights about their influences and childhood. Although it would have been nice to have a Minnesotan ask them about Minnesota, the truth is that a.) by now the Coens have been New Yorkers longer than they've been Minnesotans, so despite A Serious Man they're probably not as nostalgic for this place as most people think, and b.) Mitchell proved to be a brilliant analyst of their films, surprising even Joel and Ethan with his insights into their literary style and story patterns. Overall I still think it was a really interesting discussion, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't one of my most memorable film experiences. (Here's a longer recap by Tad Simons.)

Now while I still can't claim to be anything close to an expert on their films (I still need to see Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, and several others I've only seen once or twice), I'd like to remain true to my goal of writing something on each of their films before this retrospective ends. So here I'm offering some thoughts on the five films the brothers made in the first decade of their career. I hope to follow this with a second decade (1995-2005) and present day overview as well. Obviously I owe some thoughts to A Serious Man once I see that next weekend, since I've been howling about how good it will be for so long.


(Title screens via the Walker blog.)

Blood Simple (1984) 

As I mentioned last week, I saw Blood Simple for the first time only recently, but it made an immediate impression on my understanding of the rest of the Coen films, particularly No Country for Old Men. The desperate characters, the mind games, the desolate Texas landscape - in just one film they had already established a wholly unique style of storytelling (Ethan claimed the story was inspired by crimes of passion that were prevalent in Texas in the mid-80's). Everything is weaved together so seamlessly that you can't believe they were only in that this was their first feature (interesting trivia: Blood Simple premiered before its theatrical release at the Walker in 1984).

It's not nearly as polished as their other films, but of course they were working with a tiny budget and mostly amateur cast. It actually took me a while to recognize Frances McDormand as Frances McDormand, and I thought Dan Hedaya was enjoyably smug as well. All in all Blood Simple is just a flat-out solid debut, and the stylish scene transitions (the finger pointing, the bed falling) are worth rewinding and rewatching a few times.

Sound Unseen 2009: The 10th Anniversary Edition

Travelers on the journey that is the packed Fall 2009 Twin Cities film bonanza will arrive next week at a major landmark: the 10th Annual Sound Unseen Festival, one of the foremost "films-on-music" festival in the country. From Sept. 29 - Oct. 4, nearly two dozen documentaries and feature films will play at the Trylon microcinema and Oak Street Cinema (the latter once again showing its impressive resiliency this fall), and a few more will play at the Walker Art Center and Cedar Cultural Center.

In and around these screenings will be performances by local musical acts representing nearly every genre. Festival co-director Rick Hansen recently told me that he had hoped to get a handful of Sound Unseen alumni (including Atmosphere and Solid Gold) to come and perform for this 10th anniversary, but they're just plain too big now for these small venues. In other words, check out these bands now before you have to pay to see them at a sold-out First Ave. show in a couple years.

The one bit of a bad luck Sound Unseen might face this year is that it falls on the same weekend that A Serious Man opens locally. But on the other hand, that's only playing at the Uptown, so all of the hundreds of people out of luck at the sellouts will have to go elsewhere and see a different movie. 

Either way I'm including the full film schedule here, but I'd like to pick out a few of them to highlight. It's worth mentioning here at some point that last year's Sound Unseen hosted the local premieres of both War Child and Anvil! The Story of Anvil. 

I haven't seen any of the following but I have a couple on hand that I'm planning to watch; check back next week for reviews:

Short Cuts: "I'm Bloody Ibiza!"

About a Boy (2002). Directed by Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz; written by Peter Hedges, Chris Weitz, and Paul Weitz, based on the novel by Nick Hornby; starring Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, and Rachel Weisz.

Theater Seens: Jurassic Park

If my memory serves me correctly, Jurassic Park was the first movie I saw in a movie theater three times. I've done so with a few movies since (School of Rock being one of them), but I'd never done it before that summer of 1993. For a 12-year old boy it offered a veritable trifecta of awesomeness: 1.) child characters that I could relate to during the fun moments and feel braver and older than in the scary moments; 2.) John Williams' majestic score (just listen to that thing, chills from the first note of the prelude!) for which I would soon be learning to play exhilarating timpani rhythm in the percussion section of my middle school band, and 3.) action-packed adventure, complete with real, living dinosaurs.

It wasn't that the dinosaurs just looked real, it was that they were real, at least for a few moments in my mind. Reflecting back on this movie, I am convinced it was one of the three movies released in the 1990's that changed cinematic visual effects forever, the other two being James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgement Day and James Cameron's Titanic. (As I mentioned in the 2009 movie forecast, I'm hopeful that Cameron will once again deliver an unprecedented sight with Avatar; no, I will not watch a trailer.)

The visual effects in Jurassic Park were so awe-inspiring that they weren't even shown in the trailers - a strategy that studios would be wise to consider to help build word of mouth advertising these days. Interesting to consider, isn't it - a massive budget and not even a money shot to get people excited? In the teaser trailer you saw in late 1992, and in the theatrical trailer that whet your appetite prior to the film's June 1993 release, you didn't see a single dinosaur. Watch them below- just a glimpse of T-Rex's foot, a silhouette, snout and claw of a Velociraptor, the back of a Triceratops, and side view of the head of a Brontosaurus (or maybe it's a Brachiosaurus; my elementary school education is fading), but never a full-on dino shot. The theatrical version might have been the best trailer of the decade in that sense that it showed a lot of facial reactions, but no sense of what these characters were reacting to.

REVIEW: Forgiven (B)

Paul Fitzgerald's Forgiven explores a familiar story with a familiar lesson, but it stands apart from most character dramas because of the boldness with which it approaches some pretty thorny subjects: racism, American politics, murder, capital punishment, corruption, betrayal, redemption and, of course, forgiveness. In fact one of the film's weaknesses is a sense that perhaps it bit off more than it could chew, resulting in a narrative that plays like a television series condensed into 81 minutes. At the same time, however, this breadth of focus is also one of Forgiven's strengths because it illustrates how interconnected many of this social issues are.

After receiving a pardon from the Governor of North Carolina mere moments before his execution for a murder conviction, Ronald Bradler (Russell Hornsby) finds himself suddenly back in society, aimless, jobless, and very near to hopeless. He had maintained his innocence of the crime to the execution gurney, and now, angry about the years he lost on death row and the social stigma attached to his identity as a convicted felon, he's seeking retribution. His primary target is the former D.A. who prosecuted the case against him, Peter Miles (Paul Fitzgerald, who also wrote and directed the film). The timing couldn't be worse for Miles; he is in the home stretch of a U.S. Senate campaign and can't afford any skeletons in his closet aside from the drug and alcohol abuse he's already admitted.

The real seed of Bradler's frustration is the implicit role he felt his race played in the case - until he learns of known evidence that could have cleared him just weeks after the trial. When Miles denies any wrongdoing and brushes off Bradler's meeting requests by telling him to "move on" and "get on with your life", well let's just say things get out of hand quickly.

Forgiven arrives at a time in this country when accusations of racism and power are beginning to enter almost every national conversation. About education, about health care, about taxes, about unemployment and, most recently, about civility. I'm a little surprised prison populations and the justice system haven't received any attention in 2009, but if Forgiven hits the right chord it has the potential to be a catalyst. I don't think that's Fitzgerald's motive, however, so it's unfair to peg Forgiven as an "issue" movie, but rather one that attempts to test a viewer's sympathy for its characters as they stumble through a difficult situation - a situation that requires conditional forgiveness for unconditionally terrible crimes. Fitzgerald and Hornsby offer strong performances, but the acting in general is a bit uneven, with a few strained, emotional outbursts that unfortunately reminded me of the overacting in 21 Grams.

And while I ultimately found the ending to be a little more disturbing than it may have been designed to be, I think that caused Forgiven to linger for a few days, challenging me to consider the motives and justifications of its character's actions. I'm blessed not to have yet experienced a "wrong" in my life that would beg the question of forgiveness at this level (i.e., rape, murder, war crimes, imprisonment, etc.), but this movie in some way makes me consider how I would act under such circumstances. And in doing that - in asking challenging questions and not necessarily offering easy answers, Forgiven achieves its goal.

Grade:
Writing - 8
Acting - 7
Production - 8
Emotional Impact - 9
Music - 5
Social Significance - 5

Total: 42/50= 84% = B

Forgiven is currently available on Amazon's Video On Demand, and can also be added to your Netflix queue in advance of its DVD release.

TCBFF and Another Swing at Juno

Check out my capsule preview of the seventh annual Twin Cities Black Film Festival (TCBFF, doesn't exactly roll off the tongue) in tomorrow's Minneapolis Star Tribune. I'm not going to make it to any of the screenings, but I think The Wiz on Friday night and Harlem Mart 125: The American Dream on Sunday afternoon are a couple of the highlights. Too bad because I'd like to check out the Capri Theater. Nice locations for the festival parties, too - the Guthrie, the Favor Cafe and the Aloft Hotel.

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Also, on the occasion of the release of Jennifer's Body this weekend, I'd like to pose a question: what's worse - the new movie (and its RT rating), or the fact that Diablo Cody has an Academy Award for her writing? In case we've forgotten, this is the kind of dialogue between high-schoolers that made critics and audiences gush:

Leah: Yo Yo Yiggady Yo.
Juno MacGuff: I'm at suicide risk.
Leah: Juno?
Juno MacGuff: No, it's Morgan Freeman. Do you have any bones that need collecting?
Leah: Only the one in my pants...
Juno MacGuff: I'm pregnant.
Leah: What? Honest to blog?
Juno MacGuff: Yeah. Yeah, it's Bleekers.
Leah: It's probably just a food baby. Did you have a big lunch?
Juno MacGuff: No, this is not a food baby all right? I've taken like three pregnancy tests, and I'm forshizz up the spout.
Leah: How did you even generate enough pee for three pregnancy tests? That's amazing...
Juno MacGuff: I don't know, I drank like, ten tons of Sunny D... Anyway dude, I'm telling you I'm pregnant and you're acting shockingly cavalier.
Leah: Is this for real? Like, for real for real?
Juno MacGuff: Unfortunately, yes.
Leah: Oh my GOD. Oh shit! Phuket, Thailand!

Here are a few of the movies that lost to Juno for Best Original Screenplay:
Once
Lars and the Real Girl
I'm Not There
Across the Universe
In the Valley of Elah
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Knocked Up
Eastern Promises
Hot Fuzz
Ratatouille

Tragically, the Oscar win is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet.