The Filmcake

February 16th – February 21st

Tyson – A compelling documentary from James Toback. Iron Mike is certainly a fascinating subject. That he is a more interesting figure than I had previously figured is still not enough to overcome the revulsion that I still possess towards him. A certain amount of innocent kindness towards pet pigeons is not enough for me to forgive the viciousness of his biting attack on Evander Holyfield nor his probable assault(s) on women. He will still always be a monster in my eyes.

Bright Star – A tragically romantic period piece from Jane Campion about John Keats and Fanny Brawne. A film about a poet would seem to be either excessively sweet or tragic. You expect either soft-focus romanticism or camera-shaken tragedy. While there is still love and death in this film, it avoids some of the most overt poet biopic cliches by devoting more attention on Fanny Brawne instead of the poet Keats. Abbie Cornish is wonderful as Brawne. In Stop-Loss and in this one, I just can’t seem to keep my eyes off of her. I am in agreement with A.O. Scott that she may just be the new Kate Winslet. Paul Schneider (Parks & Recreation) was also excellent as Keats’ smarmy yet protective best friend, Charles Armitage Brown.

Contact – A personal sc-fi favorite. After a long stretch with an unviewable VHS copy, it has re-entered our movie library in the form of the Blu-ray edition. while Contact broaches the relationship between religion and science, I ultimately don’t think the movie has much definitive to say about the topic. It presents the ideas, which make the movie a stronger piece of sci-fi, but it doesn’t pretend to be making an argument either way. I suppose it does say something about the dangers of fanaticism–both the religious and secular varieties. But, ultimately, the ideas don’t add up to anything particularly coherent. At least, not particularly preachy. That is a good thing–the movie remains quite satisfying to me. I still very much enjoy it. I was struck this time–perhaps because of the Blu-ray version I was watching for the first time–by all of the special effects that Zemeckis employs in the movie. For the most part, the fx is used competently and serves the story even if it is a bit conspicuous.

Sunshine – The third installment in our Sci-Fi Horror Marathon and one I’ve seen many times. This one is perhaps a little more overt than Contact in its atheism. It is, after all, the religiously fanatical Pinbacker who tries to destroy not only the crew of Icarus 2 but also all of Earth based on delusions he interprets to be the voice of god. Thankfully, the physicist saves the day. Yay, science! On this particular viewing, I was struck by the soundtrack. I adore it. And, I’m not sure why I don’t own it. Except that I might feel the urgent need to save mankind while listening to it. So that might be kind of awkward.

Mine; Home; P-Star Rising — Two docs and a short from PBS Independent Lens. Mine told the story of dogs left behind as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The documentary focuses on three or so dogs who were left behind as the result of the storm and eventually adopted to new families, but whose owners attempt to reunite with their pets after landing on terra firma. The doc is nicely balanced, putting its sympathies first and foremost behind the dogs caught in the middle. That Mine examined the uncharted territory between Katrina and the rightful home for its canine victims gives it a unique perspective. But, I sort of felt that a lot of this had been covered in previous documentaries, especially Tom McPhee’s An American Opera from 2007. Nevertheless, I’ll always watch a doc about dogs (and likely shed a tear or two as well).

Home was an excellent six-minute short by Matt Faust that morphed home videos and photographs into a personal and poignant memory of a home destroyed by Katrina.

P-Star Rising was a doc that admittedly I wasn’t too keen on sitting through. It purported to tell the successes and failures in the career of a 9-year-old rapper. I imagined that both the documentary and the child rapper would be too precious to bear. Ooh, it’s a kid! Ooh, she raps!! Too cute!!! Commence. Rolling. Eyes.

But, I was quite surprised by the documentary that I watched. It turns out that the child rapper, Priscilla Diaz (stage name, P-Star), is genuinely talented and not annoyingly precocious at all. That this child also seems to be the most level-headed, mature, and intelligent member of her family is what makes this documentary so compelling. The more I began to dislike her father, who comes off as a man-child in demeanor, actions, and dress, the more I began to like P-Star.

A Serious Man – I figured I’d like this one. It is a Coen Brothers movie after all. But, I ended up REALLY, REALLY liking it. It was so dark, ultimately, that it actually sort of ended up being kind of life affirming. Instead of worrying about other people and what they think, you have to take care of yourself first. And instead of worrying why things did or did not happen to you, you ultimately have to accept the mystery. You can’t blame the bad things that happen to you on anything else, nor can you credit the good things that happen to you on anything else. Things are what they are. For me, without a belief in God (and the corresponding evil), this is an oddly comforting thought even if I know that death is my ultimate reward. My only religion is film.

It did remind me of the questions A.O. Scott posed in his review:

So a question put before the congregation by A Serious Man is whether it makes the case for atheism or looks at the world from a divine point of view. Are the Coens mocking God, playing God or taking his side in a rigged cosmic game? What’s the difference?

Life sucks, and then you die. At least we have movies. What more is there to know?

February 8th – February 15th

The Headless Woman - I was VERY impressed with this film from Argentinian Lucrecia Martel. That being said, I’ve only seen it the one time and this is certainly a movie that might benefit from multiple viewings. While not as gimmicky as Christopher Nolan’s Memento, like that one this film does place the viewer at a confusing vantage point.

After Veronica (Maria Onetto) hits something with her car, she wanders around the film in an amnesic daze. As Veronica regains control of her world, so does the viewer begin to fill in missing pieces. Who are these people? Family? Friends? Staff? What’s with her hair? The pool? Is there a cover-up? What did she hit with her car? Did she, in fact, hit anything at all? Director Martel brilliantly doles out details with enough cinematic restraint to temporarily satiate us but still keep us in a state of confusion. I have some idea as to what I’ve seen but remain both slightly perplexed and quite eager to revisit it again soon.

On top of the mystery of it all, the film is ultimately about class. Too often, we suffer a voluntary amnesia when it comes to looking at the socioeconomic divide straight on. It is a painful reminder of the stupid diversion that is much of big Hollywood. We must rely on foreign-language films (and rare/small US independent releases) to get anything approximating social commentary with regards to the issue of class–lest we are tempted to remain with the Hollywood trickeration that wants us to think about anything but.

February 1st – February 7th

An Education – Upon seeing the trailer for this one, I was pretty certain that I was going to really like the movie. It was right up my alley. Upon seeing it, I have to say that I liked it more than even I expected. I was a little afraid that the story would devolve into a tired tale of male fantasy. A cute girl interested in interesting things (with a school uniform to boot) who fulfills the every desire of the older man. Even 15 minutes into the film, I was worried about this. Thankfully, the story didn’t turn out that way. Carey Mulligan’s Jenny is very much her own woman. Sure, she makes mistakes along the way. She is both teenager and human after all. Mulligan is wonderful and surrounded by an excellent cast.

Pandorum - The first of six movies in a Sci-Fi Horror Marathon. This is a 2009 movie starring Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid. The movie’s title refers to a form of psychosis suffered as a result of space travel and suspended animation. Unfortunately, this psychological condition doesn’t figure much into the film, except perhaps to shoehorn in a “twist” ending. If you’re going to name the movie after this psychosis, it’s my opinion that it should figure into the plot quite prominently and create a sense of psychological horror. If you’re not going to go that route, then there needs to be more monsters and more action. The monsters and spaceship here were fine. Not $40 million budget fine, but serviceable. They were adequate to support a more gory plot. I’m not sure if this director could have even pulled that off though. Some of the visual cues in the few action scenes we get are a bit confusing. There was a problem with the audio on this…although it may have just been the Blu-ray disc and/or my player. As it was, the dialogue was not in sync and the audio levels seemed improperly mixed. The score and/or fx music often drowned out Foster’s whispered dialogue. Finally, there is Dennis Quaid. I’m not sure what I think of The Quaid. I can’t tell if he’s genuinely horrible or just never quite totally invested. In this movie, he seemed to be phoning it in. In fact, he could have quite literally been phoning it in here (since half his dialogue comes off-screen through Bower’s headset).

Moon - The second installment in the Sci-Fi Horror Marathon. Much, much, much better than Pandorum. And apparently it was made with 1/8th the budget of the former. Like Pandorum, and many recent sci-fi movies, the story is predicated on the destruction of Earth’s resources. In this case, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is sent to the moon to mine helium-3 for fuel. Just before reaching the end of his three-year stint on the moon, he crashes his rover which results in a series of interesting events. The succeeding events both allow Rockwell to shine as an actor in dual roles and explore free will and consciousness in a classic sci-fi sort of way.

While GERTY is an obvious homage to HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, my favorite reference was to 2001’s computer monitors. I’ve always appreciated the design of 2001’s computer monitors…with the three-letter codes projected onto a flat screen. It always seem to hold up to the test of time much better than other “futuristic” movies where the immediately dated monochromatic and text-only monitors were employed, usually only to rapidly scroll a bunch of gibberish. The design used in 2001, and copied here in Moon, goes for something different enough to seem plausibly futuristic. On a side note, Benedict Wong who appears here briefly will figure into the third installment of this marathon.

January 25th – January 31st

I Spit On Your Grave, Peeping Tom – A couple of films I sought out after reading Carol Clover’s Men, Women & Chainsaws book. The first is a rape-revenge movie from 1978 that Roger Ebert described as a “vile bag of garbage.” In his 1980 review, he also described it as “so sick, reprehensible and contemptible” that he couldn’t believe respectable theatres were even screening it. He also equates the rapes in the film with the revenge that is taken. That was thirty years ago and there is no indication that he has had the inclination to revisit the movie. While I wouldn’t call this movie feministic, it’s also not as vile as Ebert (of 1980, at least) would have you believe. Identification of the audience with the rapists and the revenge-taker are more complicated. At any rate, Camille Keaton’s Jennifer is certainly an antecedent for Tarantino’s women of late–the girls of Death Proof, Kill Bill’s Beatrix Kiddo, and even Shosanna in Inglourious Basterds.

Peeping Tom was another film rich in controversial history. After its release, the movie was panned so harshly that it essentially destroyed director Michael Powell’s career as a director in the UK. Thankfully, Martin Scorsese championed both the director and the film to give them both a second chance. Watching it now, the movie seems so obviously “important.” It says so much about voyeurism, scoptophilia (“the morbid urge to gaze”) and the cinematic gaze. This is what viewing (and making) movies is all about.

Gomorrah – A mafia movie that quotes Scarface but doesn’t bother to be just another rip-off of The Godfather and Goodfellas. It is a slice of the horror that The Comorra has wrought. But ultimately it is a critique of capitalism and of Western notions of power (and more tangentially of the American wars in the Middle East). Success (or wealth) isn’t a matter of intelligence, or of good conquering evil. It is a matter of who has the more powerful gun. And all of us who participate, who share in its riches, are complicit. There is no escape.

Fight Club – There’s a lot that could be said about this movie. I find it kind of maddening myself. It’s about one thing. And then it’s about another entirely different thing. While it says something, I’m not sure thatsomething is consistent. Or maybe that inconsistency is what the movie is trying to convey–our identification and authenticity are as confused and fragmented as The Narrator’s (Edward Norton) mind.

Objectified, Scenes From a Parish - A couple from PBS’s Independent Lens. I was a little disappointed with Objectified, Gary Hustwit’s follow-up to his excellent Helvetica doc. This one wasn’t nearly as enlightening or entertaining as that one. Scenes From a Parish was a bit of a surprise. It was roughly about a priest’s attempt to bridge the gap between two different groups of parishioners whilst trying to get a soup kitchen built. If it weren’t for the religion and parishioners, maybe church wouldn’t be so bad…

The Room - Ahhh, it never gets old. I just hope I manage to attend a midnight screening of it at some point. In the meantime, kindly put your comments in your pocket.

Blindness - Eck. This seemed like a movie that was trying way too hard to convey a message. But what that message was is unclear. It just seemed like the work of a naive, untalented hack with a dangerous streak of earnestness. As soon as the surgical scissors were introduced I wanted nothing more than to stab out my own eyes. I’m guessing it was trying to say something about humanity (or government) or something. But since the messages it was sending out were conflicting and confused, it didn’t actually end up saying much of anything.

A Boy and His Dog – Now this was a genuine surprise…and almost made up for the awfulness that was Blindness. Up until a couple weeks ago, I hadn’t really been aware of this movie. Manohla Dargis’s made reference to it in her review of The Book of Eli, calling it another “post-apocalyptic fairy tale.” Give me a dog and a post-apocalypse and I’m SO there. I immediately added it to my queue. And, then last week I saw where it was going to be shown in Los Angeles as part of a double feature with the documentary Waiting for Armageddon (which I am also very eager to see). Well, that just shot it straight to the top of my queue. And what a delight! And with a young Don Johnson. Wow. I could certainly see a remake of this–if only so the female character (Quilla) could be better constructed. Not that every old movie needs to be remade…

Big Fan - A decent little movie starring Patton Oswalt as a devoted New York Football Giants fan. It’s not a great movie, but it has some nice moments. One thing I realized is how similar geeks are to sports fans. It’s all just a matter of what you geek out over. You could easily replace comic book guy with sports talk radio guy and still be talking about essentially the same person.