The Filmcake

January 20th – January 25th

The Wrestler – Luckily, we got to the theater early to catch this one. The early Saturday matinee was sold out. That’s something I don’t normally run into. But it was the only screen in the metro showing the film. And besides a babbling baby adding it’s own soundtrack, the cozy little theater was a nice experience. (Note: Simply taking your baby into the little walkway that leads out to the exit is not the same as leaving the theater. We can still hear your friggin’ baby cry. But now with a lovely echo.) Still, The Wrestler was better than I had expected. I’ve loved all off Aronofsky’s output to date, but I was a little tepid going into this one. But I wasn’t disappointed. The script wasn’t stellar. But Marisa Tomei’s performance was nice, and Mickey Rourke’s was absolutely amazing. And certainly the director gets a lot of the credit for corralling Rourke into the performance of his life.

Rachel Getting Married – I absolutely loved this one, and despite a theater experience that was even worse than a whining infant. In a mostly empty screening, two pairs of adults (middle-aged couples, mind you) talked throughout the movie. Not whispered. Talked. If you need to have a movie like this explained to you in the theater, then you have real problems. Somehow, though, I managed to twirl this social frustration into a dimension of the film. Just as some of the characters on screen were annoying and narcissistic, testing the limits of others, so were these fellow film patrons. It sort of made me sympathize with the onscreen frustration in a very real way that wouldn’t have occurred if I were watching the movie in my living room.

I loved that this movie begged you to make judgments of the characters knowing full well that you lacked the necessary information to make such judgments. My feelings toward the characters–Kim, Rachel, and their dad, especially–shifted during the movie and have been going back and forth ever since. One thing I’m certain of is that the wedding environment–with its circus tent of multicultural creativity–was marvelous.

Encounters at the End of the World – Beautiful shots of Antarctica above and below the ice. But also a nice portrait of the people who inhabit the camp. I consider myself a loner, but too long in that kind of desolation and I’d be following the penguin into the mountains.

Revolutionary Road – I really, really liked the story. That may be a nice way of saying that I might prefer the book to the film. And the movie wasn’t bad. Michael Shannon was great. And I always adore Kate Winslet. It’s just that a couple of the conversations between Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) as well as the ending of the film seem like they might work better on the page of a novel than they did on the screen.

January 12th – January 19th

Happy Go-Lucky – From what I’d heard, this one was either a love it or hate it type of movie, especially in respect to Sally Hawkins’ character Poppy. I was pretty sure I was going to hate it andher. But, I ended up liking it all quite a bit. For one, it passes the Bechdel rule with flying colors. There’s even a Dykes to Watch Out Forbook somewhat prominently displayed in the bookstore scene. A movie like this makes me realize how male-centric most good films tend to be.  And while Poppy’s cheery personality is not mine, I appreciate that she doesn’t have to follow normal conventions in order to be happy. She makes her own happiness. And Hawkins and Eddie Marsan are both a joy to watch.

The Red Balloon – After catching The Flight of the Red Balloonlast week, I finally was able to see its inspiration. It’s hard to say anything bad about a movie featuring a young boy and a red balloon. It was full of hope and optimism to be sure. And it brought a smile to my face. But balloons (or Barack) don’t change the fact that the world can be a cruel place.

Burn After Reading- I certainly enjoy a John Malkovich performance. I still can’t decide if I love his acting or absolutely hate it. Nevertheless, I most always enjoy it. On the whole, I was lukewarm about this movie. I enjoyed the spy movie conventions that were sprinkled about. There were funny enough parts here and there. And I appreciate the reference to bungled intelligence. But it wasn’t either ambitious enough or funny enough for it to take its place along side Coen Brothers classics like Arizona, Lebowski, or NCFOM.

Miller’s Crossing- I can’t say I loved this one either. It seemed like a solid gangster movie. But I don’t know my noir well enough to see where this fits among the classics or what sort of homage it aspires to. Certainly after watching this movie, but also after watching You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Storyon PBS a few months back, I really need to find room on my queue for some Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. And, Dashiel Hammett’s been on my reading list for some time too. While the Coen Brothers can leave me cold on occasion, they do often lead me to expand my Netflix queue and/or reading list with interesting stuff. I still need to get to Blood Simple.

January 5th – January 11th

The Dark Knight- I watched this one again from the Digital Copy that was included with the Blu-ray disc. It’s the first movie I’ve bought that included this separate feature that makes transferring to your iPod a painless procedure. It is certainly quite a transition to watch scenes meant for IMAX on a 2″ screen. I certainly don’t envision watching many movies this way. It’s serviceable enough for a movie you’ve seen a half-dozen times and can afford to miss a great deal of scale. And it might be a worthwhile time-killer for a dialogue-heavy throwaway comedy or something. But an iPod screen is anything but cinematic. There’s nothing big about it whatsoever. I certainly will not be watching any movies for the first time in this format (in the foreseeable future anyhow).

Ballast – See previous post.

Iron Man- I really liked the first two-thirds of this one. The evolution of Tony Stark/Iron Man was a joy to watch. Robert Downey Jr of late has continued to amaze. Prison escapes are ready-made for thrilling cinema. And the spoils of the crazy rich and the gadgets they can create (or ordered created) are like visual candy. Whether it be Batman or Iron Man, I could watch the money spending and gadgetry all day. But the last third of this initial installment of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man seemed like just that. It seemed to be more concerned with setting up a sequel than maintaining a story. The secondary characters (Stane, Potts, Rhodes) got short shrift. Not knowing any back story nor which of these secondary characters might play larger roles in the future, the last third seemed a bit empty to me. Maybe this is the best Favreau can do with the material. After all, what pleases the initiated and what pleases the uninitiated are not going to be the same. I can accept that. With that, I’m willing to wait for the next installment and give it a go. This one was likeable enough.

Flight of the Red Balloon- It seems entirely pointless for me to say much about this film after only one viewing. I feel like there was so much to absorb in this film…if not for my own mental saturation. I need my own personal David Bordwell to walk me through the film. At the very least, I need to familiarize myself with Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (which I’ve never seen but is now at the top of my Netflix queue) before I say a word.

Sometimes, when a man’s alone, all you got is your dogs, and they mean the world to me.

–Mickey Rourke, thanking his dogs, upon accepting the Golden Globe for his performance in The Wrestler

While I’m certain I’ve never experienced the hard times that Rourke has endured over the past couple of decades, I know exactly what he is talking about. From my younger days to the present, a dog has often comforted me in my toughest of times. My dogs absolutely mean the world to me.

I don’t know if it’s a canine cinema zeitgeist. Or if it marks some sociological shift away from community (and even family) towards this new kind of nuclear family. Or, more likely, I’m simply noticing what I want to notice. But it does seem that dogs have played an increasingly poignant role in film. They are not just a child’s slobbering companion any more.

Mike White’s Year of the Dog, from 2007, may have gotten things started for me. It was a sympathetic portrayal of a woman who loves dogs. A comedy to be sure, but a film that ultimately understood the seriousness underlying the bond that can exist between dog and human.

In 2008, dogs seem to be all over the place. Jim Emerson even runs down a list of 2008 Dogs of the Year including dogs from Let the Right One In, A Christmas Tale, In Bruges, Wendy and Lucy, Gran Torino, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Perhaps even Emerson’s own loss of his Frances has caused me to focus more on the role dogs can play in our lives.

Just this past weekend, I saw Lance Hammer’s Ballast. Previous to seeing the film, this brief shot from the trailer literally took my breath away:

JimMyron Ross as James

In a few seconds, with no dialogue, a complete set of emotions were conveyed. I was in love with this movie from this one shot alone. A boy, alone, and a dog that provides some measure of comfort and hope amidst an otherwise miserable world. After seeing the complete film, I’m so very in love with it. It more than lived up to my expectations.

I was prepared to see something that simply looked beautiful. Some of the discussion I’d absorbed seem to imply that the film was quite fragmentary and abstract. I thought it would simply be a feast for the eyes. But there was a narrative throughout that more than adequately connected these poetic images. Sure there was minimal dialogue and the story unfolded with some leisure. But it all worked brilliantly. Hammer captured the isolation of the place (the Mississippi Delta) as well as the loneliness and vulnerability of the three leads. Cinematographer Lol Crawley and the non-professional cast deserve a huge amount of credit for creating something so honest, heartbreaking, and beautiful.

The film is up for 6 IFC Spirit Awards. It deserves each one.

I love lists. I know as soon as they’re written they’ve lost any utility they may have fleetingly possessed. And I know they’re always inevitably incomplete. But they’re still kinda fun to come up with. So here’s my Top 10 Movies of 2008 (so far). I’ve still got a bunch more to watch. I plan on coming up with a more finalized list (along with Oscar predictions) sometime before the Oscar ceremony. That’ll give me time to see a few more contenders.

Dwight’s Top 10 Movies of 2008
1. A Christmas Tale
2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
3. Wall-E
4. Man on Wire
5. Paranoid Park
6. The Dark Knight
7. Son of Rambow
8. Chop Shop
9. Milk
10. Trouble the Water

Still haven’t seen: Wendy and Lucy, Ballast, Happy Go-Lucky, Let the Right One In, Synechdoche, NY, My Winnipeg, Waltz With Bashir, Flight of the Red Balloon, Doubt, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire.

Even though this blog is primarily focused on movies, I can’t resist including my music lists. While I did a piss-poor job at listening to music in ’08 (and came to it late at that), I did manage to come up with lists for my best albums and songs of the year.

Dwight’s Top 10 Albums of 2008
1. She & Him – Volume One
2. Fleet Foxes – s/t
3. Frightened Rabbit — The Midnight Organ Fight
4. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Jolie Holland – The Living and the Dead
6. TV on the Radio – Dear Science
7. Conor Oberst — s/t
8. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
9. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
10. (3-way tie) Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers — The Confiscation EP, The Decemberists — Always the Bridesmaid Singles, The Mountain Goats — Satanic Messiah EP

Dwight’s Top 10 Songs of 2008
1. “Mexico City/Corrido Por Buddy/Palmyra” – Jolie Holland (OK, it’s 3 songs. But it’s what I consider to be the best 13 minutes of music in ’08.)
2. “Valerie Plame” — The Decemberists
3. “Sentimental Heart” – She & Him
4. “I Will Possess Your Heart” – Death Cab for Cutie
5. “Skinny Love” — Bon Iver
6. “See Fernando” — Jenny Lewis
7. “We Call Upon The Author” — Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
8. “White Winter Hymnal” – Fleet Foxes
9. “Dancing Choose” – TV on the Radio
10. “Head Rolls Off” — Frightened Rabbit

December 29th – January 4th

Standard Operating Procedure – Count me in as a fan of Errol Morris. After finally seeing The Thin Blue Lineseveral months ago and now this one, I really like what he brings to the documentary. He can really bring you into the story–through things like the re-enactments and the Interrotron–in a way that is sometimes more akin to dramatic film than documentary film. While the scandal itself is disgusting, the story surrounding the actual Abu Ghraib photos was certainly more than fascinating.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- I could have really, really liked this movie. It could have been a film that I would want to watch over and over. It was almost a fantastic tale. But, Mr. Fincher and/or Mr. Roth had to go and put in the unnecessary mother and daughter hospital bed revelation subplot (during Hurricane Katrina no less). It just didn’t add much to Benjamin’s fantastical tale and took away so much more. I don’t really care about Caroline…and I don’t even care that much about Daisy. Cut out those “present day” parts and I probably would have really liked the movie.