The Filmcake

I don’t know how to say it any better than that. I grew up periodically catching him up in the balcony with Siskel and then later with Roeper. And for quite a while now I’ve been regularly keeping up with his weekly movie reviews.

Just this week, I finished reading Ebert’s The Great Movies. It’s basically a collection of 100 of his Great Movie columns. It entertains. Ebert is a great writer. It informs. It could work as an introduction to film. But, most importantly to me, it inspires. His love for the movies he writes about is so contagious. Upon completing each column, I found myself full of an excitement about each of the films. And my love for movies in general was stronger than ever. In fact, I credit him with reigniting my desire to do something more with this blog and with writing about movies.

And Ebert’s relatively recent foray into blogging has really been quite special. He writes about more than just movies, hitting on topics of nostalgia, religion, evolution, among others. Sure these are topics droned on ad infinitum throughout the blogosphere, but in Ebert’s hands they become something worth taking time to read, absorb, and share.

His post from a couple of days ago regarding facing death brought tears to my eyes.  It wasn’t sad. It was honest. And it spoke to me in a way that little else does. It’s absolutely beautiful. And I think I’ll be returning to it periodically in the future for comfort. In a way, Ebert’s blog post acts as a companion piece to Julian Barnes’ book about death, Nothing to Be Frightened Of (which I’d also highly recommend).

And it seems I’m not the only one enamored with Mr. Ebert of late. In the Huff Post yesterday, the director Rod Lurie wrote about what it means to be a “real man”:

I’ll tell you this — you can look at all the masculine toughies you want — the Ben Roethlisbergers, the Russell Crowes, the David Petraeuses — but if you want to look at what a man should be — persevering, honest, a person who manifests his intellect into action — you need look no further than Roger Ebert.

I think Roger Ebert is my personal hero. I love that guy.

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I finally made it through American Movie Critics–the anthology edited by Phillip Lopate. It seemed to be a great compilation and historical review of American film criticism. I was struck by the thoughtfulness of criticism even back when film was just emerging. For some reason, that was a revelation to me. Sometimes criticism (and film, for that matter) seems so ephemeral, so “of the day”. I sort of assumed that there was a time that movies were just movies. Sheer entertainment, nothing more. But the tradition goes back to the beginning. It heartens me to know that people have always been thinking critically about movies.

The other pleasant surprise was the discussion of those movies which aren’t exactly considered high art. From Manny Farber’s “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art” to Pauline Kael’s “Trash, Art, and the Movies” to J. Hoberman’s “Bad Movies,” they all instilled in me a wider appreciation of what movies are and can be. One of my faults is putting too much emphasis on the quest for high art in film while neglecting what is great about not-so-great movies.

On a related note, in a recent interview in the AV club, Bruce Campbell described what makes a movie a cult classic:

…one that has been fully embraced by an alternative audience, not the popular audience. There are two different audiences. One is a very specific sci-fi lover or a horror lover. The difference between my fans and Tom Cruise’s fans is that no one is tattooing Risky Business on their back. Yet I’ve seen the poster for Army Of Darkness on a guy’s back—his whole back. It was beautiful.

I still think tattooing the Army of Darkness poster onto your back is really creepy and kinda sad, but I certainly take his point. I once briefly considered getting a tattoo of Alfred Hitchcock’s silhouette.

Anyways…I’ll certainly be returning to the Lopate book in the future, especially to those three pieces mentioned above. The book also inspires me to begin writing better about movies. While I’ve been writing my short Week In Review blurbs for the movies I see, the quality of analysis and writing is well short of my desired intentions. To this point, it has been mostly thoughtless. Hopefully in the near future I can begin to take my writing more seriously and start writing thoughtful stuff in the form of proper reviews, academic articles, or critical essays.

I just need to carve out some time and energy to do it. And if it’s something I really want to do, it shouldn’t be so hard to find the extra time and energy for it.

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’ve finally made it through the numerous articles in PopMatters’ celebration of the 40th anniversary of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. The 30 pieces delve into the horror classic from a delightful bounty of perspectives. My favorites include “The Trouble with Harry” by Peter Hutchings and “Why Can’t We Just Eat Brains and be Happy?” by Chris Deis. Certainly worth the read for lovers of the undead.

In a comment to a previous post, Sarah mentioned the Bechdel Test. I, like a lot of people, just learned of this test recently while listening to NPR. A movie is said to pass the test if:

1. There are two or more female characters,
2. They talk to each other,
3. About something other than a man.

The test sprung out of a 1985 Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip by Alison Bechdel.  According to Bechdel, the rule should instead be called Ripley’s Rule in honor of Sigourney Weaver’s role in Alien.

Obviously the rule is just a shorthand. It doesn’t aim to completely dismiss all those movies that fail its test. But it does point at the bigger issue of Hollywood seemingly being most interested in male gazing over all other POVs. While I don’t think you can use the rule to condemn a particular movie, I do think it can be used to point out the misogyny of cinema more broadly.

I’ll certainly keep the rule in mind, at least in the short term, to see which movies I watch pass the test and which of them fail. I’ll let you know what I find…

Evan Derrick offers up excellent advice on 10 Ways To Become a Better Film Critic. The first thing I got from his post was that I needed to immediately add a book to my reading list–American Movie Critics: From Silents Until Now edited by Phillip Lopate. The other thing that really struck me was the suggestion: “3. Develop an Appreciation For All the Arts.” I particularly like this Nathan Lee quote he pulled from RottenTomatoes.com:

I’m reading all the time, but I can learn more about the movies I’m seeing this week from reading a great 19th century novel than I can from whatever XYZ critic has to say this week about whatever. I think another problem with movie writing is that it’s insular, especially Internet writing. It’s so narrow and insular and just about movies, and I think to be a really good writer and film critic you need a range. You need to know what’s going on in painting, you need to know what’s going on in music, you need to read books, and get laid, and go to restaurants, you know what I mean? A lot of movie writing is very impassioned but it’s very limited, very narrow. And I think good critics can put movies into a larger cultural and social perspective.

This sort of reminded me of the scene in Manhattan (which I just watched for the first time last night) where Isaac (Woody Allen) is sitting on the couch naming off all of the things he thinks make life worthwhile:

Groucho Marx, to name one thing… uh… um… and Willie Mays… and um… the 2nd movement of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony… and um… Louis Armstrong, recording of ‘Potato Head Blues’… um… Swedish movies, naturally… Sentimental Education by Flaubert… uh… Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra… um… those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne… uh… the crabs at Sam Wo’s… uh… Tracy’s face….

Sharing Woody Allen’s view of a godless universe, I think these things are incredibly important. These things (my list would be different of course) make the universe beautiful. They are things bigger than one’s self to which we must submit in awe. In a way, they’re all we have. And I wholeheartedly agree that this sort of multi-dimensional passion not only allows you to better describe the world you see (as a film critic) but also to just have eyes that are more open.

For some time, I’ve put thought into the movies I watch as well as thought into their selection. I know this sounds obvious. But after working at a video store in my college days, I know that many people put thought into neither. More recently, I’ve been putting this sort of thought into what I read. I’ve always been a reader, but over the years I started reading less and less. I’d read newspapers regularly but I sort of stopped reading other stuff. In the last couple of years, I have not only reignited my reading habit but taken it even further (reading better and more diversely…I still have a long way to go). And, I have to say that I’m still surprised when I read something so wonderful. I feel so lucky. Then a couple of months ago I saw The Impressionists exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth. For the first time, art wasn’t just something I should appreciate. It was something that I loved. It was as if I’d learned a new language and could decipher things that before were only gibberish. The world seems so much more beautiful than it did just a few years ago.

I say all of this because I do think movies and life are better seen through eyes which have read great American fiction and seen Cezanne’s apples. And to think I have only begun and yet have so little time…

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Finished up Eric Lax’s Conversations with Woody Allen. Then, watched Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Manhattan (1979).

Both Hannah and Manhattan show a progression from Annie Hall and Interiors. They’re both more “dramatic” than Annie Hall while still retaining its sense of humor. And yet neither is so dour as Interiors.

Hannah, like Interiors, centers on three sisters and the world that surrounds them. Allen’s Mickey provides comic relief as he deals with his hypochondria and an existential crisis. The film does perhaps have a too happy ending. But, I don’t think it takes much away from the rest of the film. It’s not characteristic so I’ll go along with it.

What I like about Woody Allen is that he both praises and tears down the intellectual mindset. But unlike the McCain-Palin Republican establishment he doesn’t reduce it to pithy slogans of intellectual hatred. Allen is more genuinely concerned with authenticity. It’s not enough to know a lot, or know more than somebody else, it’s really about how you use that knowledge, how you feel it. He talks about the strength and resiliency of the heart over the brain.

Keaton’s Mary Wilkie in Manhattan sort of represents that dichotomy. At first, her intellectual prowess just sort of annoys Woody’s Isaac. Then as he gets to know her he begins to really fall in love with her. Loyalty gets in the way and Isaac must give up Mary and time gets in the way and he must give up Tracy (or just let her go).

The Tracy-Isaac relationship was a little creepy to be sure. But, it still felt authentic and a little bit sweet. While I may squirm a little , I can’t really argue with it. There are too many screwed up relationships out there to seriously criticize one on the basis of age difference.

I loved the scene where Isaac, Mary, Michael Murphy’s Yale, and Mariel Hemingway’s Tracy are walking down the street and Mary starts ripping on all the stuff that Allen likes (Mahler, Scott Fitzgerald, etc.). Then she can’t figure out why he likes Bergman whose view is so “Scandinavian” and “bleak” when the stuff he writes is so funny. Very meta.

In Lax’s Conversations, Woody says:

To the average person, my films might seem, for want of a better word, arty. And to people who know art, they don’t. So it’s a strange limbo I’ve lived in with my movies. They’ve been–I didn’t know what to say. Not commercial and not art and yet some accidentally are enjoyable and even profitable.

This sort of sums up how I see movies and even film criticism. Just watching those movies which academia deems to be excellent or just watching those with the highest grosses is highly limiting. Cinema is about challenging yourself andenjoying yourself. You need your Apatows and your Antonionis.

I’m in the midst of a bit of a Woody Allen kick. It started a couple of weeks ago after watching Annie Hall (1977) on television. I’d seen it a couple of years earlier and loved it even more on this second viewing. The Marshall McLuhan scene is enough to hook me. I can’t imagine a comedy film today being brave or confident or stupid enough to reference McLuhan. Or for that matter, convincing someone of his stature to even appear in the film. Maybe I’m wrong.

A week or so later, I watched Interiors (1978) for the first time. This was such a change of pace. I hadn’t thought he’d done such somber films until much more recently. I liked it quite a bit, but I wasn’t sure if it was just because it was so different from what I expected out of a Woody Allen film or indeed if it could stand on its own. Needless to say, seeing such two different Allen films made we want to learn more. I went to the library and checked out a couple of books and a couple of Allen DVDs.

One of those DVDs I checked out was Bananas (1971). Talk about taking a U-turn after Interiors. This one is pure slapstick. It’s a gag-a-second without much of a plot. But still quite funny.

After Bananas, I read The Films of Woody Allenby Sam Girgus. I found the book to be quite enjoyable even if it can be a bit academic. While I knew what diegesis meant from Film Art, I had to run to Google to figure out histoire. It’s got to be French-y for it to be real film criticism. Anyways, it was interesting to read Girgus’ take on Woody in regards to psychoanalysis, his Woody Allen character/persona, and feminism. Of course, the perceptions of all three of these aspects can be fundamentally altered by the tabloid coverage of Allen’s personal life (which, admittedly, I only know roughly and care about even less).

Now I’m in the middle of Conversation with Woody Allenby Eric Lax. It’s a book of interviews spanning from 1971 thru 2007 that revolves around Woody’s moviemaking process. It’s neither a definitive biography nor an exhaustive study of the films. But, it is still an engaging read for an amateur film student like myself.

Reading through the book, I’m drawn towards the side of Allen that makes him private or even anti-social. I can certainly relate. Okay, maybe he’s not anti-social. As Woody says in the book: “I’m not anti-social; I’m just not social.”

I’m also drawn towards the “literary” side of Allen. I don’t relate in that regard so much as I kind of aspire. And of course I’m intrigued by the balance between that and say the Knicks. It’s pretentious without being pretentious in a way. It’s sneakers and a tweed jacket. Then, of course, given my own lack of religious belief, I’m extremely interested in his thoughts concerning a godless universe and how they play out in his films (which was also my initial reason for checking out some of Bergman’s films).

From a February 2006 conversation, Woody talks with Lax about the themes of Match Point. He mentions a Catholic priest who wrote about the movie but assumed wrongly “if, as I say, life is meaningless and chaos and random, then anything goes and nothing has any meaning and one action is as good as the next.” Instead Woody doesn’t think everything is hopeless in such a world:

If you acknowledge the awful truth of human existence and choose to be a decent human being in the face of it rather than lie to yourself that there’s going to be some heavenly reward or some punishment, it seems to me more noble.

He talks about how a priest-philosopher from St. John’s University described the film as “the most atheistic film ever made.” The absence of God is not trivial, in fact it really does matter:

To me it’s a damn shame that the universe doesn’t have any God or meaning, and yet only when you can accept that can you then go on to lead what these people call a Christian life–that is, a decent, moral life. You can only lead it if you acknowledge what you’re up against to begin with and shuck off all the fairy tales that lead you to make choices in life that you’re making not really for moral reasons but for taking down a big score in the afterlife.

I haven’t seen Match Point since it came out on DVD, but I’m going to have to check it out again sometime soon. I’ve still got Hannah & Her Sisters at home to watch. And, then Manhattan, Sleeper, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex…are at the top of my Netflix queue.

More to come.

An interesting commentary written by Sarah (originally posted at Two-Headed Blog):

I had no immediate plans to go out and see the Sex and the City movie, but after reading Roger Ebert’s review, I now feel compelled to – if only to try and rebut some of his points. I need to know how much of his review is warranted criticism of a flawed movie, and how much is simply an adherence to dated gender stereotypes.

Something about the way this movie has been discussed in the media has created a little blip on my Sexism Radar. The level of smarminess and near-hostility that’s been directed towards the movie so far surprises me. Look at how Ebert begins his review:

I am not the person to review this movie. Perhaps you will enjoy a review from someone who disqualifies himself at the outset, doesn’t much like most of the characters and is bored by their bubble-brained conversations.

Okay, that’s fine. There have certainly been plenty of movies in which I couldn’t stand the characters. (I’m thinking of The Darjeeling Limited at the moment, although there have been many others.) But where Ebert felt the need to make such a disclaimer at the beginning of his review, one of the two male hosts of Filmspotting (one of my favorite podcasts) has been trying to get out of seeing the movie entirely. I think this might be the first time I’ve heard of a film reviewer try to get out of seeing a particular movie. Why this one? I’m sure there have been many other, much worse, movies. But, at least the Filmspotting dudes are bringing in a female film critic for a little “female perspective” on the movie.

Wait – there are female film critics?

As far as the Ebert review is concerned, I agree with his criticisms of glorified materialism. That was very much present in the Sex and the City series. And some of the over-the-top, gross-out gags he described – one character literally craps her pants, another has a compulsively masturbating dog – seem like they’d be more appropriate in a movie aimed at the traditional target audience of male teenagers. All of that is fair criticism that I very well might agree with after seeing the movie myself. But it are comments like these that catch my eye:

The most human character is Louise (Jennifer Hudson), who is still in her 20s and hasn’t learned to be a jaded consumerist caricature. She still believes in True Love, is hired as Carrie’s assistant and pays her own salary on the first day by telling her about a NetFlix of designer labels (I guess after you wear the shoes, you send them back). Louise is warm and vulnerable and womanly, which does not describe any of the others.

To me, this sounds like Ebert is suggesting that to be appropriately “womanly,” one must be warm, vulnerable and devoted to the idea of “True Love.” Really, Ebert, really? The worst of it, though, is reserved for Carrie Bradshaw’s longtime love interest, “Mr. Big,” who’s described as “unreal,” “passive” and “kinda slow:”

As played by Chris Noth, he’s so unreal, he verges on the surreal. He’s handsome in the Rock Hudson and Victor Mature tradition, and has a low, preternaturally calm voice that delivers stock reassurances and banal cliches right on time. He’s so … passive. He stands there (or lies there) as if consciously posing as the Ideal Lover. But he’s … kinda slow. Square. Colorless. Notice how, when an old friend shouts rude things about him at an important dinner, he hardly seems to hear them, or to know he’s having dinner.

To me, “passive” is pretty much in the same adjective group as “vulnerable.” Is Ebert criticizing one of the main male characters for being what the women of Sex and the City are not? And would a more “manly” response at the described dinner party have been to stand up and deliver a punishing blow to the insulter’s jawbone? This part, most of all, really got me: “He stands there (or lies there) as if consciously posing as the Ideal Lover.” Substitute “she” for “he” and you have a sentence that aptly describes the typical female role in the typical male-oriented film.

There are plenty of things one could reasonably criticize about Sex and the City. As I said, it can be a little materialistic for my taste – although some secret little part of me always did kind of lust over Carrie’s Manolos and Jimmy Choos. I also think the series went on a season or two too long. But it was (and I think this is what many male critics don’t get) one of the few shows that portrayed women as strong, assertive, independent people. Perhaps even more, it portrayed female friendships as interesting and worthy of attention. We’ve been inundated over the decades with portrayals of male relationships (there are even entire genres devoted to male bonding – westerns and war movies). So why the hostility towards a television series, and subsequent movie, that does the same for female friendship?

Actually, another one of my criticisms of the series is that in the end, it still (quite predictably) boiled down to love, marriage and children for most of the main characters. I don’t think it did quite as much as it could have to buck some of those gender stereotypes. With that being said, in a world where there seem to be fewer and fewer interesting roles for women in mainstream film and television, Sex and the City has been much appreciated. And I, for one, am looking forward to the movie. Even if I have to go by myself to see it.

Green Porno. It just doesn’t get better than this. Isabella Rossellini made eight short films that demonstrate the sex lives of various backyard creatures. They’re gross, hilarious, and just plain awesome.

Sarah and I caught Rossellini on Letterman last week where she talked about making these short films and screened the Praying Mantis video. Besides the Mantis film, be sure and check out Snail and Fly.

(Cross-posted on Two-Headed Blog)