Remains of the Day

2046

Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 opens today in Asia. The traffic has slowed enough that you may have luck viewing the trailer at the European 2046 website. If not, at least you can gaze at photos of Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, and Faye Wong, some of the sirens in the movie.

More on Wong Kar-Wai's organic filmmaking style and his current rift with Christopher Doyle in this past Sunday's NYTimes Magazine article. I heard Christopher Doyle speak at the Seattle Film Festival earlier this year. He must have been on okay terms with Wong Kar-Wai then, as he showed footage he shot from 2046 and spoke fondly of Wong's maddening and "eastern" filmmaking technique.

Review: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

All that technology for Kerry Conran to play with, and yet he did so little with the toys I'd be most excited to play with, and that's Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie. No, most of the $70 million budget of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was spent on drawing the art deco backdrops, not in crafting the plot, which reminded me of Saturday morning cartoons I watched as a kid, or in writing smart dialogue.

Law, Paltrow, and Jolie come off as flat, both physically since they are clearly superimposed over blue-screen drawings and emotionally as they do what they can with harebrained sci-fi/fantasy dialogue. The movie reminds me of crazy stories I dreamed up and enacted with toy action figures when I was just a kid, and some of Conran's boyish enthusiasm for his childhood influences comes across in the fusion of the swashbuckling soundtrack, fantastical plot twists, and often grand landscapes. Ultimately, though, I outgrew my action figures and such shallow stories.

For all the time spent in illustrating this digital world, the movie feels strangely underpopulated. All the people besides those played by real people (the three leads, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Gambon, and a handful of scientists) are about as animated as video game characters, which is to say not very (Laurence Olivier makes a cameo, and in one nice bit of irony, we realize he's dead on multiple levels, not just in real life or because he's been digitally resurrected). It doesn't feel like there's anyone else in the movie, further lessening the importance of the main characters' mission to save the world. It's a planet that feels empty, and by the end of the movie so did I.

Wong Kar-Wai collection on DVD

Kino is releasing a Wong Kar-Wai 5 movie boxset. Though all these movies have been available on DVD already in one form or another, this box set features remastered versions of Fallen Angels and Happy Together. The other movies included are Chungking Express (on loan from Buena Vista), Days of Being Wild, and As Tears Go By. Good stuff.

On a lighter note, Will Ferrell earned a second volume in the SNL DVD series: Saturday Night Live - The Best of Will Ferrell - Volume 2. James bought it, of course, and we watched the whole thing after the season finale of Entourage on Sunday. If you combined the first and second volumes of The Best of Will Ferrell, you'd have one solid DVD. The second volume includes the bad doctor ("I'm sorry, your son is a witch"), Wake Up, Good Morning, and the abusive boss sketch with Pierce Brosnan, but it also includes a bunch of duds. Divided, the two volumes are rentals best used as chasers after a night of drinking.

In other news...

politics.slashdot.org - a limited edition flavor of Slashdot available through the 2004 election.

Roger Ebert's very own website, a work in progress, using most of the same material as his current Suntimes site.

Why are foreign language movie subtitles so bad? Is it similar to the reason television subtitles are so bad: the method of transcription? I always wondered how those court reporters typed so quickly. You'd think movie subtitlers would just work off of the shooting script, but perhaps not. All I know is that I rented the American release of Shaolin Soccer to show Eric, and we nearly wet ourselves at some of the English subtitles. They added a further level of absurdity to an already absurd comedy.

Good TMN interview with Alex Ross about the state of classical music. True, the future of classical music seems dire, but then again, every baby I know is transfixed by Baby Mozart. Alex Ross, the music critic for The New Yorker, also has his own weblog titled The Rest Is Noise.

You can’t knock Yo-Yo, though. You never know what he’s going to do next. He’s Yo-Yo.

Sony's new prosumer high-def camcorder

Sony finally unveiled their upcoming prosumer high-definition camcorder, the HDR-FX1. It's a mixed bag of good (3 CCDs with 16x9 pixels, manual controls, strong low-light performance, support by Apple and Adobe) and disappointing (no 24p and/or progressive scan).

Grayson, the movie

Grayson, a movie shot over one and a half years for just under $18K by a pair of film fanatics. Since it appears we won't get the big studio Superman/Batman movie, this excellent faux trailer lets us dream of what a DC Universe-encompassing comic book movie might be like. Worth the long download. [via Metafilter]

I forwarded this to James, who sent me the following e-mail, in which he poses a question and then, perhaps unintentionally, answers it:

"So this isn’t a real movie?

The woman who plays Catwoman is none other than Kimberly Page, wife of WWE star Diamond Dallas Page, the wielder of the deadly Diamond Cutter."

Ridiculous

James introduced me to Revenge of the Ninja tonight. It is quite possibly the most unintentionally hilarious movie ever. I'm not sure what's more ridiculous: the movie, or the rave reviews for the movie on Amazon.com, written by ninja aficionados, including several who claim to be ninjas. In one scene, the hero is assaulted by a group of thugs hanging out at a local playground. What's ridiculous is that the thugs are dressed up as the Village People. Believe me; that only scrapes the surface of the hilarity contained in this 80's flick. James and I cackled like hyenas, and only a sliver of credit for that should belong to the bag of Kasugai gummies we polished off.

In the pantheon of movies that are so awful they're good, Revenge of the Ninja has to rank in the top ten.

Speaking of ridiculous, though, click on the "Making Of" link on the official French site for the Thai martial arts movie Ong Bak. The trailer contains a concluding shot that's nearly obscene, but the Making Of clips are even more ludicrous. Lead actor Phanom Yeerum is reminiscent of a Thai Jackie Chan what with his acrobatic, look-ma-no-wires stunt moves. The movie's available on DVD from a variety of sources including eBay. Make sure to get a copy with English subtitles, though only if that matters to you; the dialogue isn't exactly Shakespearean.

and so on and so forth

Trailers for movies from some hip directors:

• Trailer for Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, starring Bill Murray and Owen Wilson. Can't say anything bad about a trailer that uses classic New Order (Temptation, I think)
• I Heart Huckabees is the new movie from David O. Russell. Russell is also finishing a documentary on the Iraqi War which will play prior to screenings of a rerelease of Russell's Three Kings this fall.

Sports nicknames that sound dirty, some vaguely, and some not: The Big Unit (Randy Johnson), The Thorpedo (Ian Thorpe), Horny (Jeff Hornacek), Mordecai "Three Fingers" Brown, Hammerin' Hank Aaron, The Splendid Splinter (Ted Williams), Walter "Big Train" Johnson, The Big Red Machine, Harvey's Wallbangers, Monsters of the Midway, The Italian Stallion (Rocky Balboa), The Chicoutimi Cucumber (Georges Vezina), and any nickname involving the word Rocket. Sexual euphemisms that won't catch on.

Qualia, Sony's new super high-end line of electronics, all identified simply by three digit codes. The minimalist (okay, empty and pretentious) website reminds me of the first Nissan Infiniti commercials which showed ocean water crashing on beaches, or fields of trees, but no cars.

Stuff to listen to on your new Qualia system: music from Iceland, much of it not available on CD in the US. However, you can order direct from Bad Taste.

A new study shows that one's inability to express a concept in language may limit one's ability to understand that concept. Is it a good or bad thing that most of us only learn a few dirty words in foreign languages?

The Magnet

Explanation of the visual effects behind the Nike Lance Armstrong commercial "The Magnet" (10.1MB Quicktime Movie).

I loved the commercial, and so, even if he's late to state it, did Eric Neel.

click click click

Jessica Alba can't escape being cast as a comic book fantasy. She'll play Nancy in Sin City. Hellllloooo, Nancy. She'll also play Invisible Girl in the Fantastic Four movie. Why would anyone want Alba to be invisible? Can we make her new boyfriend Derek "Overrated" Jeter invisible?

How to fold a t-shirt in two moves (.mpg), as seen in Esquire. Gives me the goosebumps.

Movie Ministry (as seen in Time magazine) - need to tie your sermon in to a movie in theaters now?

Dusty Baker calls Sammy Sosa sensitive for refusing to be moved out of the 3 spot in the batting order despite being in a horrendous slump. The truth hurts; Sosa is a sensitive prima donna.

Quicktime trailer for Fight Club, the videogame. Looks like you can choose to play Bitch Tits. With x-ray cam cut shots a la Romeo Must Die.

Martin Scorsese Collection coming on DVD. Richard Linklater's Slacker gets the Criterion Collection treatment, as does Battle of Algiers. The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog also arrived on DVD, just this week. Sweet.

Use the popular vote, not the electoral college to elect our president - Amen.

Great little article by Louis Menand on Michael Moore and the history of the documentary. Where and when did we get this notion that documentaries were supposed to be completely unbiased?

Confessions of a Questec operator

Review: Open Water
Out of sight, out of mind

PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Actors) would surely look askance on the treatment of Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis in Open Water. The directors tossed the two of them into shark-infested waters in the Bahamas along with dead tuna to attract the predators. Call it Stanislavsky for Dummies.

Moviemakers continue to obsess over making video look more like film, but for now, at least, the distinctive look of video serves as a useful visual cue. Open Water was shot with digital video camcorders, and this lends the movie the look and feel of realism (many a honeymooner will see the resemblance to their own crappy honeymoon video). The movie is also inspired by a true story of two scuba divers abandoned in the ocean, and all this conspires to produce the strong audience empathy that is central to the movie's chilling horror. The feeling, forever to be associated with the Blair Witch Project, is that of unearthing someone's private nightmare and realizing the personal terrors concealed by everyday life (the soundtrack is thankfully spare, except for occasional bursts of aboriginal music that distracted from the documentary feel).

The two lead actors play a generic yuppie couple stealing a quick scuba vacation in the midst of their fast-paced professional lives. Even as they pull out of the driveway, they're on their cell phones, tying up loose ends. Before we even have time to learn much about their respective personalities, they're underwater petting moray eels, and then an accounting error that would make Enron proud causes them to surface to a large expanse of empty ocean.

The audience never feels close to the characters in the way they might have if the story spent more time on character development, or even if the two parts had been played by more recognizable actors, but by movie's end, the shallow characterization didn't matter as much to me as it would in the usual movie. Open Water is about how quickly and how similarly we'd all devolve in the same situation, how being left behind by the world to serve as fish bait to packs of sharks strips us of our humanity and turns us literally into animals. As the hours tick by, the parade of emotions unfold in a familiar sequence: confusion, quick reanalysis of the situation (are we sure we surfaced in the right place?), attempts at humor (well, at least we have a good story to share at the office water cooler), disbelief, a gnawing terror as the sharks begin to circle, anger at the arbitrary cruelty of fate, blame (I wanted to go skiing instead!), and then a numbness as the two realize that they have been forgotten, that in this wide expanse of a world, a person might go days, even weeks, before he is missed.

The directors occasionally cut back to the mainland and show other vacationers reveling in tropic bars and clubs, daily life having continued without the couple in question. An even more claustrophobic depiction might have stayed solely with the couple from the time they were abandoned. It would make a fascinating alternative cut of the movie.

When I was on sabbatical in South America last year, I went on a several day W circuit through Torres del Paine. I did not realize that for three days I would not see another human being, the longest period of isolation from human contact in my entire life. On the third evening, I awoke in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom, but I could not find my flashlight. Without a single ray of moonlight, I was lost in the thickest darkness ever.

As I crawled and groped around my tent, primal horrors leaked out of my subconscious. What if I got lost and died out in the wintry wasteland? What if a pack of wild dogs hunted me down? What if I simply collapsed of illness and perished alone, like the young man in Into the Wild? How long would it take for the world to come searching for me? Was anyone in the world wondering where I was at that moment? Did anyone remember me, or was my connection to the rest of the world merely a matter of convenience and location?

More Seattle Essentials

• Cinerama - probably the finest theater I've ever seen a movie in. The bathrooms are almost fully automated. If you could wave a hand in front of the door to the men's bathroom and have it open, I don't think you'd need to touch a single thing in the bathroom. Well, except...oh never mind. We can simply agree that automated public bathrooms are a really good thing. Decent candy selection, and of course the sound system and video quality are awesome. The two downsides to Cinerama are that it's difficult to find affordable parking and the seats are in serious need of renovation. The seatback spring tension needs a dose of Viagra, or Levitra, or Cialis (hey, those TV commercials work! I remember all three brand names). If you are tall, you will have the seatback in front of you resting on your knees during the entire movie.
• Cedars - I wish I could remember who first recommended this Indian/Middle Eastern restaurant to me, because it's a place that gets passed down from one Seattlite to another, like an heirloom. Cedars is cheap, and the food is dreamy. A real tandor (clay oven) produces fabulous chicken tikka, naan, and paratha. Cedar's chicken tikka masala or malai kofta are canonical in my mind. If you haven't overdosed on sugar in the constantly refilled chai (service is snappy), owner Mohammed Bhatti nearly always sends a free dessert. In the seven years I've been in Seattle, Cedars has never been less than packed on weekends. That's staying power. My last meal there was with Rich and Christina and Eric and Christina, a fitting last supper since they are some of the devoted acolytes who I was happy to introduce to the restaurant.
• Summer weather - Seattle's summer climate is the nicest of any major city in the U.S. There, I said it. Not too hot, not too cool, and dry. Many days, the temperature outside is so neutral I don't feel anything at all, neither warm nor cool. There are no mosquitoes, and because Seattle is so far north, it's light out from 5 in the morning until 9:30 in the evening for a good few months.

Review: Before Sunset

Before Sunrise is one of my favorite romances, and Before Sunset is its unexpected real-time sequel (Before Sunrise came out 9 years ago, and Before Sunset is set 9 years after the events of that movie). The timing works; no makeup is needed to see that Jessie (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) have aged physically. They're still attractive, but Hawke sports patches of grey, and both of them are leaner, not so much ravaged by time but perhaps hardened. Or are have they been starved for something they once thought possible?

The plot consists of their reunion in Paris, nine years after that magical day they spent together in Vienna. They have much less time this time; Jessie's plane home to America leaves in an hour and a half. Fortunately, they spend it strolling through Paris, perhaps the most endearing pedestrian destination anywhere. Hawke and Delpy blur the lines between reality and performance by ignoring them. Hawke plays an author in the movie (as he was in real-life), and Delpy speaks of having spent time in NYC (she did, as a film school student at NYU). These characters have become as much theirs as Linklater's, and all three love Jessie and Celine in a way that no fan of the first move need fear the taint of a financially motivated sequel. Yet this is a sequel that risks even more than its predecessor, and that's a rarity.

As with most Richard Linklater movies, much of the movie consists of dialogue. Not just any dialogue. This kind of conversation sounds more genuine than the usual theatrical rhetoric and yet it dances from topic to topic with an emotional honesty and intellectual curiosity that holds our attention until we step back and see the brilliant tapestry that Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy have woven. Linklater fans love to hear his characters walk and talk. Neither Jessie nor Celine is as young and impulsive as they once were, and yet they find themselves grasping for something they hope isn't simply nostalgia for a day that sparked on physical attraction. We sense it isn't; their minds flirt on streams of dialogue. And if it their conversation is at times pretentious (as when they discuss the environment and other such current events), it's no more so than when we hear it from our more crusading friends. Without revealing any major plot points, we come to realize why they are so desperate to preserve this moment they have with each other.

The real-time feel of the movie works wonderfully, for the most part. We feel the urgency of Jessie's impending flight time because we sense it will end not only their encounter but the movie. That's why the ending is so perfect. When it arrives, unexpectedly, we feel that our two heroes have managed to stave off the tyranny of the clock and carve out a space in time for themselves. The final images as the screen fades to black are enough to hold us until what would be a welcome next chapter in a new type of franchise: the romantic walkie talkie.

Review: Spiderman 2

[Minor spoilers ahead in the form of some high-level plot synopses; no more than you could infer from the trailer, though]

Spiderman 2 is the type of exhilarating summer popcorn blockbuster that seemed like a momentous happening when I was a young boy. Maybe there is an age when I'll outgrow that, but I suspect that some of us will always enjoy a movie like this, and others never could. Thank goodness, too, because the first Spiderman was a letdown, and Peter Parker is the superhero for the geeks of the world. A science nerd, shy, clumsy around women, oppressed by bullies, who one day gains not only superpowers but also some mysterious magnetic charm over babes like Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson, one whose clever mind finds outlet in witty repartee while sparring with assorted villains with costumes and names as ridiculous as his own. [I stood in line for a long time next to some of these thirty-something geeks tonight, and while we share some common interests, I'm glad to say I dress better and shower more regularly]

Most superhero comic book writing is patently absurd and childish. Literature is no different. The best superhero stories give us heroes who have human emotions and problems. If you can empathize with the man behind the mask, your sense of fantastical uplift is that much greater when the hero is doing the superhuman. Peter Parker is the easiest of the major superheroes to empathize with. He's a teenager trying to make ends meet, in love with a girl, struggling to fit in socially, rather than a superhuman from another planet (which is why Christopher Reeve's vulnerability was pitch perfect for the Superman movies) or a billionaire (Bruce Wayne has two alter egos, his wealthy playboy side and his sadistic vigilante side; the lonely orphan is repressed out of existence. He'd make a great Freudian subject.). He wants to do good, but out of a sense of loyalty to family and friends. In the comic books, Mary Jane is the supportive wife who supports her husband in his career aspirations while seeking work of her own. They're urban DINKs.

The first half of the movie gives the characters and narrative some real heft, something the first movie lacked. Peter's double life as Spiderman is taking its toll on his schoolwork, love life, and freelance career as photographer and pizza delivery guy. In an interesting twist on the mythology, Peter's frame of mind is closely tied to his powers; where there's a will, there's a web.

What keeps the movie fun is that the screenwriters, director, and actor sprinkle the movie with audacious humor. In-jokes (listen for the theme song from the old cartoon and watch for the appearance of several characters from the Spiderman mythology), guest appearances (Elvis is alive!), one-liners, freeze frames (one particularly memorable one), and even a musical interlude set to Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. It's a level of confidence in the material that wasn't in the first movie (except for one moment when Willem Dafoe took off his shirt to climb onto a metal platform and uttered, "Ooh, that's cold!" when metal straps were placed over his chest), and it liberates the movie creator's joy and love for the material.

The movie has a refreshingly utopian view of Manhattan. Spiderman has to take an elevator in one scene in this sequel, and the way the other person in the elevator reacts to him is true to New York City; celebrities find the anonymity granted by others in Manhattan soothing. In another scene, as in the first Spiderman movie, Spidey receives assistance from his fellow New York City citizens against his foe.

Peter goes through one day that's so bad it achieves a comic-book feel, campy and iconic. Each depressing episode flashes one after the other like frames in a comic strip. It feels more like a comic book than some of Ang Lee's more explicit imitation of that art form, such as the split frames. Even certain camera angles, like an extreme upward shot of Tobey Maguire, his fists clenched, recall the visual dynamism of comic book panels.

Among many competing themes, it's primarily a love story. Tobey Maguire's Spiderman isn't as much of a smart-ass as the Parker of comic books. He's more sullen, mopey, and doe-eyed; a quiet romantic. It's an interpretation that flows from Maguire's minimalist acting style, and it strengthens the on-screen love affair. A wounded heart that yearns plays sweeter than a smart aleck who covets. Kirsten Dunst looks younger than the Mary Jane Watson in print, and that's a good thing. Dunst's MJ is a model, yes, but one with teenage crushes and insecurities of her own. She quiets her face, droops her eyelids, and hunches her shoulders when she's feeling doubt or sadness. This MJ is a creation all her own, and theirs is the Romeo and Juliet romance of pop fiction.

The superpowers and supervillains then serve as amplifiers to push the human problems in the movie up to life-or-death heights, like MSG in takeout Chinese food. Unrequited love is much grander when the girl you love is a model, plans to marry an astronaut, and finally needs you most when she's kidnapped by a mad scientist with four metallic arms.

In the one scene that feels hokey, if such a thing is possible in a superhero movie, Tobey Maguire converses with his dead Uncle Ben in a car floating in a sea of white nothingness. Were they in the Matrix? I thought perhaps Morpheus would show up to ask if Peter wanted the blue or red pill. It's a metaphor played too visually literal. But other than that, the screenplay has a clean, classic structure, one reason the trailer was a model of clarity.

The special effects are improved from the first movie, though the movement and look of Spiderman in the long shots when he's soaring through the city still lack weight and realism. In closeup and medium shots, when Tobey Maguire is in costume, or when he's being tossed against solid objects, the sound and textures and human-executed physical movements contribute to a sense of realism. Doc Ock's mechanical arms look and move like real metallic appendages when viewed up close. In contrast, the CGI Spiderman who swings from building to building moves too quickly. If the camera would just stay still for a second and lock the background in place, Spiderman would look more realistic, but perhaps that would also expose flaws in Spiderman's texture. The other problem in the long shots is the lighting. When he is swinging dozens of stories above the ground level through a pastel-colored CGI city, Spiderman's form seems immune to shadows, and that flattens his figure. No DP can light a scene that high in the air, but it's an area for improvement in visual effects.

Perhaps this will be the last movie I see at Cinerama. If so, it was a good movie to end with. I've seen all sorts of movies at Cinerama, from experimental movies to arthouse movies to grand epics like Lawrence of Arabia to SIFF entries, but what I'll remember it for are the big summer blockbusters, the Star Wars and LOTRs. I won't miss the now flaccid seats or the hours spent waiting in line alone, but I'll miss the arrival of friends just before being let in, the smell of butter popcorn just inside the entrance, the fully-automated bathrooms (if the doors could be opened by a wave of the hand, the only thing your hands would have to touch in the men's bathroom would be your own zipper), the massive screen, and the digital surround sound system, and the whooping and cheering and palpable energy of a fired-up opening night crowd. When the lights would go down, it felt like re-entering a womb, except one with an impeccable A/V system.

Farenheit 9/11 sets box office records for a documentary

Playing on only 868 screens and rated R, Farenheit 9/11 still won the weekend box office crown by pulling in $21.8 million and in the process became the top grossing documentary of all time.

It could have opened on more screens and tried to bank more business before the Spiderman 2 onslaught this weekend, but I suspect the movie will benefit from strong word-of-mouth.

I'd be surprised if Spiderman 2 doesn't shatter all the weekend box office records over the July 4 weekend. They cut an awesome set of trailers and commercials, and unlike Farenheit 9/11 Spidey will show up on a bazillion screens Wednesday.

In front of one of them I shall be.

Review: Farenheit 9/11

Those desperate to see George Bush defeated in the November elections must have hoped that Farenheit 9/11 would put a dent in his seemingly impervious polling numbers. In this polarized political environment, where Democrats and Republicans turn their backs on each other to whoop up their respective choirs, it would take a documentary nearly free of bias and charged rhetoric to kick-start any true dialogue.

Michael Moore is not that type of documentarian, nor does he profess to be. Moore can't resist any opportunity to ridicule his prey, to get in the cheap shot or the easy jab, or to project himself into the picture to push buttons when he should be behind the camera. And God bless him, all democracies need their populist rabblerousers, though in this year of all years I wish he could have resisted the urge. It would have strengthened the persuasiveness of his message, though how could Moore resist a target like Bush? Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine was senile and evoked a reflexive pity; Bush is dangerously smug in his convictions for someone who most believe to have the intellect of your typical fraternity president.

The first two-thirds of the movie are edited for maximum humor: Bush on vacation, Bush golfing, Bush clowning around. Moore shows Republican leaders being primped for television interviews and speeches, including Paul Wolfowitz licking a comb before running it through his hair. Is that to imply Republicans are vain? It's a weak jab, especially as Democratic politicians must go through the same process.

Other bits are hilarious. I've seen the last clip of Bush several times ("There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again." ), yet it never fails to delight. Moore edits clips together in sequences that put Bush and his staff in as foolish a light as possible, and the accompanying music is a hammer onto itself. Moore has never used music to better effect.

Many in the packed opening-night crowd I saw the movie with were whooping and hollering at various Bush gaffes and verbal slips. I admit to feeling a cathartic glee at jeering Bush with a partisan audience, as if Moore were providing a channel to release nearly four years of pent-up frustration and indignation. It's the same feeling as when I'm derisively cheering the error of a Cardinal with 40,000 fellow Cubs fans at Wrigley.

Which is to say it's just more of the same, and that may not be enough. Bush has been the object of scorn and the butt of jokes for years now, and yet he still polls either neck and neck or ahead of Kerry. It's a challenge. We love our gadflies to sting hard, and with defiance, and nobody does that like Moore. It feels so liberating to skewer the White House. But in these times, Moore may only further polarize the country.

Moore also can't stay behind the lines and leave good enough alone. He narrates most of the first half of the movie, and he appears in many of the clips. He also pulls several more of his patented first person stunts, like renting an ice cream truck to drive around the hill reading the Patriot Act over a loudspeaker because many of the Congressmen had failed to read it. He accosts other Senators and House Representatives on the street to ask if they'll enlist their own children to serve in the military in Iraq. Not only are these stunts childish, they border on unseemly self-promotion. At times, Moore is like the boor who expresses your own opinion in such a vulgar manner that you're somewhat embarrassed to have him on your side.

It's a shame, because when Moore lets his material speak for itself, he's very effective. The footage of George Bush reading to schoolchildren for a good seven minutes after the two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center are shockingly bizarre. A montage of House Representatives, mostly minorities, refusing to concur with the Supreme Court's decision to hand the 2000 election to Bush, standing to protest only to be silenced by none other than Al Gore, the head of the Senate at the time as the exiting Vice President. It's a passage that both maddens and saddens. Footage from Iraq shows innocent Iraqis killed and maimed by the war, very little of which was broadcast by the U.S. press, another group Moore turns a spotlight on for giving Bush and his cronies a free pass on too many issues. Not much of the material will be new to those who have listened to the liberal chorus these past three years, but stitched together one after the other, it's an eye-opening refresher as to how not just liberals but much of the world views our current government.

And about two-thirds of the way through the movie, a hero emerges. Lila Lipscomb gives the movie a moral gravity and heart that anyone, Republican or Democrat, can feel. Her grief over losing her son in the war in Iraq and her subsequent reversal in sentiment towards the war convey, in just a few short scenes, what those on the fence about Bush need to know. Her outrage emanates off the screen with an energy that silenced the audience in the theater.

There's meat in this movie, if you are willing to search for it beneath the excess of sauces and garnishes and sides. It's a movie that I hope has long legs and that I wish had more poise.

[Footnote: Farenheit 9/11 sold out all over Seattle, and I've never seen that for a documentary. It will clearly surpass Bowling for Columbine as top-grossing documentary of all-time, and it's per-theater averages this weekend will be through the roof. It's the type of energy I usually only feel with opening night crowds for action blockbusters like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. It's one movie whose coffers I have no problem contributing to.]

Review: Secret Window

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I immediately formed a theory in my head about who the John Turturro character was. Unfortunately, the movie bore me out.

Secret Window was adapted from a Stephen King short story, and it shows. The movie feels like a single conceit stretched out to feature movie length. The director and screenwriter stuff the story full of plot tissue to give it a chest, but its flimsy. Johnny Depp, as interesting as he is, has a difficult plot gimmick to act out, and even he can't help the movie to earn the ending.

Fahrenheit 9/11--sold out

A group of us were going to try and see Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight, but the two West side theaters showing the movie here in Seattle sold out all prime time showings yesterday. That's quite surprising for a documentary, a movie that isn't something like Lord of the Rings or Spiderman. Controversy is good business.

I wonder if it's selling out in more Republican regions of the country?

Review: Dodgeball

After seeing the awful trailer for Dodgeball, I had low expectations. They were met--in fact, the movie did the limbo and shimmied below my expectations. How could so many professional movie critics praise this? The movie tries so hard to be funny (at least to a twelve year old) that it creates its own idiotic characters and situations to lampoon. That's harmless enough, but the movie also contains a few mean-spirited, mildly offensive homophobic and racial jests; they're like flies on the dog dropping.

The lone redeeming moment in the movie comes when a sports star I'm a huge huge fan of shows up unexpectedly for a short cameo. He almost lends enough class to the entire enterprise to validate it, but by movie's end I was hoping the he had washed his hands on the way out.

BTW: adults playing dodgeball? Not cool. Not funny.

John Gaeta and Christopher Doyle

I attended a talk by John Gaeta at Microsoft today. Gaeta, as most everyone now knows, was the visual effects supervisor on the Matrix trilogy, and he's most well-known for bullet-time and virtual cinematography. After showing a montage of all the amazing visual effects clips from all three Matrix movies, Gaeta emerged in a patterned silk shirt, with hair and sunglasses straight out of Zoolander.

Gaeta attended NYU film school back when it had just opened its graduate program, and he lived in Greenwich Village. After working at several different companies after graduation, Gaeta got a job as a production assistant working for the legendary Douglas Trumbull in western Massachussetts, at a visual effects facility Trumbull built in an old textile mill. This was an experimental lab from which Trumbull developed technologies like Showscan (60 fps projection) and pioneered simulation rides (he built Back to the Future...The Ride). This sounded like a movie geek utopia. Employees rode mountain bikes to work and spent all day building robotics and camera systems.

It was at Gaeta's next job, at Mass Illusions, where he began experimenting with shooting and modeling physical objects, technology that would later become the basis of the backgrounds in bullet-time and virtual cinematography shots in The Matrix movies.

The moderator showed The Campanile movie, the now legendary short by some students at Berkeley that was the predecessor of bullet time. Download it--even now that bullet time is a movie staple, the short is still mind-blowing. Gaeta discussed many of the technical challenges that they had to overcome to render the visual effects the Wachowski brothers sought. Someone asked what the key chasms they had to cross, and he replied, "Everything Neo did." I won't delve into the detail, but it was interesting.

Some other interesting points from his talk: he was under a lot of pressure to turn Neo and Agent Smith into virtual humans in the second and third movies, a la Final Fantasy which was playing in theaters at the time. He resisted and instead turned to a technique he calls Universal Capture, using 5 high-def cameras to capture data of human actors making various facial expressions. He showed us a clip of Agent Smith rendered digitally using this technique, his face morphing from Hugo Weaving into Agent Smith, and the realism was staggering. He believes, and I agree, that this technique produces much more realistic facial movements.

When asked if virtual humans would ever render human actors superfluous, he said, "No." He used the example of the nuance that an actor like Anthony Hopkins brings to his various characters and the raw material that such an actor could bring to the screen as one reason why. He did note, however, that he once thought differently.

Someone asked what movies he admired, particularly for their visual effects. After a long silence, he confronted the elephant in the room and responded, with some reluctance, "I liked the last Lord of the Rings movie, mostly for the Gollum performance." He noted that it was a rare case of supreme animation, different from the facial capture they used for the Matrix movies. He then noted that he's bored by most visual-effects laden movies, preferring more subversive uses of technology as in the Charlie Kaufmann movies. He also cited Fight Club as a movie that was nearly subversive all the way through.

Someone asked why certain parts of the Burly Brawl looked more obviously artificial than others. Gaeta attributed it to clips where lighting wasn't baked into the DP's shots. For such shots, lighting had to be done later, and results with that had been mixed. For example, when Neo flies into the air like a helicopter, 3-point lighting hadn't been anticipated to be necessary some 30 feet in the air.

The only shot Gaeta liked in the first Spiderman was the last one, and he liked it a lot.

When asked how to avoid artificial-looking visual effects of people doing superhuman things, he recommended stylized camera speeds. Avoid 24fps special effects like the plague. If you go from slow-mo to high-speed, the shot is so stylized the audience can't process its artificiality. He cited one example from Hulk, when the Hulk is swinging a tank around. It's shown in 24fps, and while the Hulk looks realistic, the tank looks as if it has the consistency of a box of tissue paper. A wise tip.

Finally, Gaeta tossed out some thoughts on the future of entertainment and storytelling. He did believe in the primacy of a story crafted by a single storyteller, but thought it could be blended with more interactive stories. For example, you might have a story with several key, unchanging anchor plot points, but the story could be loaded up with expository bits that could be accessed by the viewer in any order. Each of those would still eventually take the viewer to the same basic points in the story, but the experience each time would be different. One example might be the ability to go back and watch a movie several times from the perspective of different characters.

_________________________________________

Not even close. Doyle cussed like a sailor, dropping f-bombs and sexual innuendos and gleeful cackles every other sentence. It makes sense; he once was a sailor. The interviewer, Rachel Bosky (sp?) from American Cinematographer, managed to mask her exasperation with a wry smile the whole time. Doyle was conscious of his behavior, noting, "Most cinematographers are not like this."

He showed a few montages of clips from his movies. One in particular was amusing, showing some unseen footage of Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung dancing very formally during the shoot of In The Mood for Love.

His is an organic movie-making process, a style he refers to as Eastern. He spoke of "finding the film": the image is there, it's the filmmaker's duty to find it as opposed to imposing or creating it. He opposed it to a more Western style, say that of Quentin Tarantino. Instead of removing the fourth wall for a shoot, he believed in appropriating a space. During In The Mood for Love, they shot in an actual apartment building and had to use mirrors to light in tight quarters. He believed that style was often how one responded to space.

"The East finds movies. The West buys them," he said. "Miramax, that is."

This philosophy of his was certainly influenced by his environment in Asia, and by his long-time collaborator Wong Kar Wai. For movies like In The Mood for Love or 2046, WKW shot without a script, just shooting tons of footage in search of that elusive moment (it's one reason movies like 2046 have taken so long to complete, and even at Cannes, it was rumored the final print was still in the editing room until the last minute). Doyle said that when he shoots with WKW, over 90% of the footage is just tossed out (he compared it to masturbating, or, as he said with a guffaw, "Goodbye my children!")

This is rare because in the West, film stock is one of the least expensive costs while in the East it's one of the chief costs. That means that in most shoots in the East, they could average at most 1.2 takes per shot. As a result, most scenes are rehearsed vigorously.

Doyle said Americans like to shoot with Kodak film stock because it more closely resembles a Norman Rockwell color scheme, the way American see the world. Fuji, in contrast, looked more like a Japanese woodcut.

Doyle was not formally trained. He had many friends who were making movies, and that's how he got his start. Over the years, he learned through trial by error. One of his first shoots was with 40 ASA Kodachrome (extremely slow film). The entire thing came out solid black.

Some other random tidbits:

• Doyle on 2046: "It's the sequel to In The Mood For Love. In ITMFL, they talk about it. In 2046, they just f***."


• Chungking Express took about 3 months to shoot, near where Doyle lived in Hong Kong


• Happy Together was shot almost entirely with one lightbulb.

Reviews: Destino, Les Triplettes de Belleville (aka The Triplets of Belleville), and Ping Pong

Some thoughts on 3 movies I saw long ago but never finished. I salvaged my thoughts because Ping Pong is a gem worth seeking out...

Destino, an entrancing short that played before Les Triplettes de Belleville, is a collaboration of two mad geniuses, Walt Disney and Salvador Dali. This is Dali's version of Fantasia, complete with all the most iconic of his images: melting clocks, human forms assembled from stone and empty space, vast desert plains. It's about as much hallucinatory visual tickling as one can experience without the use of recreational drugs (or so I hear).

Les Triplettes de Belleville is refined caricature. A young boy, raised by his grandmother to be a professional cyclist, is kidnapped by American gangsters during a stage of the Tour de France and forced to perform in gladiatoral cycling competitions in a city that is an obvious spoof of Manhattan. His grandmother rushes overseas to rescue him. As a cycling fan, I loved the send-ups of the young boy's cycling training and physique. He is all leg--two massive quads supported by chiseled calves. The animators knew to draw the calf muscles with the cleft which only well-trained cyclists achieve. It's a level of attention to detail both accurate and delightful. The depiction of the suffering during climbing stages of the Tour de France is pitch perfect.

The movie is limited by the lack of dialogue and by its loyalty to exaggeration. The characters are all limited in personality, and the movie doesn't aspire to be more than an entertaining caricature. I felt as if I was watching a caricaturist at a carnival drawing a picture of an odd-looking couple. Laughter as each of the prominent features took shape, and eventually boredom as the artist filled in the final details. No one hangs such pieces in their homes. Or do they?

Ping Pong (2002) also departs from hyper-realism in the service of characterization. The ping pong played is not realistic, but the styles of each of the players reflects their personalities. This Japanese movie follows the intertwined fates of two high school boys, Peco and Smile, as they navigate the world of competitive ping pong. As is the norm with sports movies, the world of sport is a metaphor for the world at large, and it's no coincidence that the two leads have opposing personalities that are reflected in their playing styles. Peco is brash, outgoing, demonstrative, and thus he plays an attacking style. Smile (I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translation of his name; it reminds me of the Mickey Mouse and Dumbo debacle from The Killer) is sullen, silent, and stoic. He plays a chopping, defensive style, taking all the energy away from his opponent's shots, waiting for mistakes instead of looking for openings to hit winners.

The movie is an adaptation of a popular manga by Matsumoto Taiyo, and the action sequences reflect its dynamic framing. Players leap into the air, whipping their paddles across the screen in a slow-motion blur, their faces frozen in fearsome grimaces, droplets of sweat scattering in all directions.

The movie is curiously touching. Yôsuke Kubozuka (Peco) and Arata (Smile) not only resemble the manga characters they play but also stay faithfully within the margins of their characters. This is not an acting vehicle, and neither actor tries to make it so. Director Fumihiko Sori translates the manga's understanding of the zen of ping-pong with great empathy. That's not an easy feat, especially for a sport played at such superhuman speeds. Baseball, with its measured pace, has been captured well on screen (the pauses in the game allow for actors to fire expressions at the camera and do what comes naturally to them, and the natural source of action allows for one-on-one confrontations between pitcher and batter), but few others. Even golf, one of the most zen-like of sports, hasn't played well in movies.

Ping pong has the advantage of allowing for direct confrontations and varied physical playing styles, and Sori takes advantage of both. Now the sport finally has a worthy silver screen representation.

Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Of the three Harry Potter movies thus far, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban possesses the strongest John Williams' soundtrack, the most expansive and spectacular visuals (that new castle is breathtaking), the darkest and most captivating cinematography (the grain of the film is beautiful), and the hottest Hermione yet. Wait, how old is she? Oops. Strike that last comment.

The adults are still mostly incompetent (perhaps that's part of the appeal of these stories to children?) and the child acting is occasionally terrible. If you were contemplating pulling a Jack Grubman by trading a favorable rating on AT&T to have Sanford Dumbledore put in a good word for your child at Hogwart's, I'd think twice. It's a wonder more kids aren't seriously injured or killed, the supervision at that school is so loose.

Those quibbles aside, Rowling processed through Filter > Alfonso Cuaron > 75% is a beautiful effect. Save that adjustment layer (I'm not nearly as certain about the Newell filter). Cuaron's building an another impressive oeuvre of movies about two guys and a girl.

I haven't read the book, but living in a Harry Potter world, it was simple enough to get an exhaustive debrief on every Potterthology reference I missed. Apparently, this is the least faithful of the three movies to date in transferring plot from page to screen. But then, that's what kids do when they reach their teens. They stop taking everything so literally, and the real fun begins.

Spartan indeed

The synopsis on the back sleeve of a bootleg DVD of Spartan, one which an unnamed friend of mine brought back for me from China:

Lsection tghe is a secret work, in the troops mileage undergo military servicing of year robust artistic skill is with the fortitude and resilience's personalityBecome the secret the work empress outstanding prove tghe score, and make him enjoy the colleague with the speak well ofing of superior section th accepted a new mission recently, with the workPreisdent daughter(1)that new hand the (virtuous gram) look for the disappearance together to pull the Newton.(gram is in theshell)Because of the matter passImportant, the president also send outed the own adviser(love virtuous ) helped to solve, like this, an is from tghe F.B.I.(FBI) with centralThe intelligence bureau( CIA) unites to constitute of solved the group to establish.At the same time, this rise the president daughter the disappearance the case, and quickly encountered to growed after launching to investigateGrow the , and become the complicacy to rise. a politician who maniuplate the government, he is apprently disappearance towards pull know aller than owner many ***s of ***

Review: Natural City

My first movie date of the 2004 Seattle Film Fest was Natural City, and for a punked out girl from the future, she was a real bore. A mess of a sci-fi movie set in 2080 A.D.

Agent R is an MP responsible for hunting down rogue cyborgs, but his heart is occupied with a female cyborg night club dancer who's about to expire. Meanwhile, one particular rogue cyborg is causing all sorts of problems from the police. Will Agent R get his head together in time to prevent a nefarious plot from unfolding?

South Korea's movie industry is booming in output, but recent entries I've seen like this movie and Tube resemble Frankenstinian collages of American movie cliches. The visuals in Natural City are sufficiently impressive, but Blade Runner came out in 1982, and this movie doesn't even match it. The movie needs some serious editing, and the screenplay is crippled by its failure to explain why R cares so much for a cyborg that has the personality of, well, a cyborg. Much of the rest of the plot is murky, leaving me and the rest of the audience tapping our toes until the next appearance of the spinning, jumping cyborg killers. It's not a compliment when the most compelling characters in a human drama are the robots.

I'd love to see South Korean cinema focus on telling stories from its own culture or milieu, stories inspired by its country and environment, such as Joint Security Area by my favorite South Korean director, Chan-Wook Park. His Old Boy won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

The more money Korea spends on its movies, the more unoriginal they turn out. Hey, that sounds like Hollywood.

Review: Bubba Ho-tep
Thank ya, thank ya very much

Bubba Ho-Tep is about a man in a nursing home who believes he's Elvis, battling a reincarnated Egyptian mummy who is sucking the life out of the King's fellow geriatrics. The Elvis impersonator (Or is he really The King? The movie lays out an amusing backstory) is played by Bruce Campbell, and his sidekick is another nursing home resident who believes he's JFK (Ossie Davis), dyed black and missing part of his brain that the government replaced with sand. It sounded like a movie that aspired from the start towards cult status, and that worried me. Cult movies shouldn't start life aspiring towards cult status.

But Don Coscarelli's adaptation of a Joe Lansdale short story is disarmingly amusing, with just enough funny lines of dialogue (delivered by Bruce Campbell with sincere Elvis feeling) and low-budget charm to overcome the occasional comic overreach. Its culinary analogue is the local taco stand: unpretentious but uninspiring, probably not all that good for you, spare in decor, but damn tasty while in the mouth.

Review: Shrek 2

I was in the minority in finding Shrek to be middling entertainment. The idea of spoofing fairy tales, giving them a modern makeover, replete with satire and irony, wasn't as original to me as it was to most.

Shrek 2 veers off the path of the fairy tale spoofs, which fall flat for me, and dabbles more in pop culture satire, which I enjoy. The movie plays like a longer, more child-safe episode of The Simpsons with more expensive and realistic animation. Though the humor doesn't cut quite as sharp as a Simpsons's episode,
Shrek 2 machine-guns jokes at the audience throughout, and enough of them hit their mark to leave me chuckling more often than not. The jokes that miss, like the dozens of commercial store and product name spoofs, don't get enough screen time to dampen the proceedings.

Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots, hell, Antonio Banderas as himself, was a caricature waiting to happen. In fact, SNL's Chris Kattan already did it, and Antonio spoofed himself in the Desperado sequels. Banderas can make a living off this niche alone.

The high-tech animation does little for me. That's not what's entertaining about Shrek. It looks expensive and detailed, to be sure, but we've long since passed the point where that's original or awe-inspiring, and in a satire it's not really even appropriate.

The Simpsons, any Pixar movie, Shrek, and even to some extent The Sopranos are entertainment franchises with legs because they are not really about what they are about. They are malleable vessels for transporting pop culture references and jokes in a sugar-coated, easy-to-swallow gel cap form. Times change, you just update the jokes and use the same containers. And, in the case of Shrek and the Pixar movies, the animated format means adults can bring their kids.

And that broad demographic appeal is box office gold. It's no accident Shrek and Fiona are colored green.

FOOTNOTE: You can watch the first 5 minutes of Shrek 2 online, a rarely used marketing tactic.

Seattle Film Fest recos

For once, I actually know quite a few of the movies screening at SIFF this year. Unfortunately, I'm out of town for most of the festival and had to give away nearly all of my tickets. It's killing me! SIFF lacks in movie star wattage (as compared to Cannes or Sundance), and it's not an acquisition hotbed that premieres a ton of movies (as compared to Sundance or Toronto). But SIFF makes up for it in sheer quantity. It's a movie lover's movie fest, and I'm smarting at missing most of what is likely my last SIFF.

If I were around for it this year, I'd either recommend or want to see the following:

• The Twilight Samurai - I have the DVD but haven't watched it yet. Early reviews are quite positive. A samurai movie for the more thoughtful crowd that can't stomach the bloody violence of Kitano's Zatoichi (see below).


• The Saddest Music in the World - already out in theaters in some cities, so those who only try to see movies they can't see in theaters soon (or ever) might want to pass on the latest strange creation from Guy Maddin.


• Doppelganger - by SIFF favorite Kiyoshi Kurosawa and starring Japan's Robert De Niro Koji Yakusho. One of my favorite SIFF movies ever was Kurosawa's Cure.


• The Corporation - A documentary about that selfish, ruthless entity known as the corporation.


• Open Water - Based on a true story, and every scuba diver's worst nightmare. A tour boat leaves two divers behind in the middle of the ocean, and soon the sharks and barracudas begin circling. To film the movie, the director threw two rookie actors into the ocean and used bait to attract real sharks to circle them. Talk about method acting.


• The Girl on the Bridge - I wanted to catch this back when it was in theaters and have meant to watch it on DVD. Patrice Leconte is the featured director this year, so here's another chance to see this black and white love story on the big screen. A knife-thrower (Daniel Auteuil) who needs a partner finds her in the form of despairing beauty (Vanessa Paradis) whom he rescues just before she throws herself off a bridge. Why can't I ever meet hot babes on the brink of suicide?


• Primer - Won a Grand Jury prize at Sundance, but the word of mouth on this has been that it's incomprehensible. Still, the premise, about some guys who invent a time-travel machine, and the fact that this is Shane Carruth's directorial debut, shot on 16mm, is enough for me to give it a chance.


• Donnie Darko (The Director's Cut) - Many of you have probably already seen this cult classic, but my guess is this Director's Cut may not make it to DVD, so catch it while you can. Great soundtrack.


• A Tale of Two Sisters - Korean horror flick. Creepy Flash website. Is there any doubt Asia is the new capital of horror movies?


• Natural City - I haven't been all that impressed with Korean sci-fi movies of the last several years, but for some reason I've been forgiving enough to always see the next one.


• Cinematography Master Class with Christopher Doyle - long-time collaborator of Wong Kar-Wai, Doyle's cinematography is legend. His work on Hero and In the Mood for Love is just a sample of his brilliance. I'm going to this event, and I am jazzed beyond belief.


• The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi - saw this on DVD. Didn't adore it since Kitano plays Zatoichi as almost completely devoid of humanity and humor, those aspects of his persona that made him such an interesting character in the past. Still, Kitano sees the character as I do, as patently absurd (a blind master swordsman, ronin, masseuse, master gambler all in one?!?) and finds a new and less reverent take on the character that is refreshing. Cartoonish violence: lots of digital blood spewing like geysers from wounds opened by Zatoichi's flashing sword.


• Infernal Affairs 1, 2, and 3 - Perhaps my favorite Hong Kong movie trilogy of all-time. Really, what other HK trilogy maintained its quality through all three chapters the way this one did? Excellent, though the back to back to back showings at Cinerama would rival the LOTR trilogy as a butt number. Still, that might be the best way to see them as the sheer number of characters and plot twists forced me to watch them each twice to remember all the characters and plot developments, especially as Andy Lau and Tony Leung's characters are played by other actors in the middle chapter. There's talk that Martin Scorsese wants to remake the trilogy with Leonardo Dicaprio, a serious endorsement in my book.


• Hero - I couldn't wait for this movie to come out back in2002: Zhang Yimou directing truly a Hall of Fame lineup (Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi). Perhaps my expectations were too high, and it underwhelmed me. But it's worth seeing on a big screen as some of the cinematography is gorgeous. I'm more excited about Yimou's next wuxia pic, House of Flying Daggers. starring Takeshi Kaneshire, Andy Lau, and hottie Zhang Ziyi.


• Before Sunrise/Before Sunset - The original is a classic, and the sequel arrives nine years later and is set, well, nine years after the original.


• Goodbye Dragon Inn - I enjoyed King Hu's original Dragon Inn and the remake, so it stands to reason I should see this homage. Ming Liang Tsai is one of the more interesting and cutting-edge directors working today. I don't always love his movies, but he's brave and daring.


• Riding Giants - Missed it at Sundance, will miss it at SIFF. Too bad, because who knows when Sony Classics will get around to putting it in theaters. This surfing documentary is by Stacey Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys) and stars insanely stoked surfers like Laird Hamilton.


• Garden State - Whoo-hoo, Natalie Portman is single again! If I were a first-time director, I'd definitely pull the "I'll star in the movie myself and cast some hottie to be my romantic interest." I missed this at Sundance, I'll miss it at SIFF. Someday I'll see it. Someday Natalie and I will be together.


• Undead - It's something of an annual tradition for me to attend the midnight horror movie showing at the Egyptian at SIFF. It might just be the most fun night of the fest, what with the rowdy fans screaming their lungs out until the wee hours of the morning in the acoustic nightmare that is the Egyptian. I don't even know what Undead is about (some Aussie zombie movie?) and I'd still see it just to be social. Bring that squeamish date you've been meaning to cuddle with.


• Criminal - Let's see what Soderbergh disciple and director of this movie Gregory Jacobs can whip up. I'm a sucker for con-game flicks.


• Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence - If I could see just one movie at SIFF this year, it would be this single screening at Cinerama.


• Sky Blue - Originally titled Wonderful Days, this movie set in the future combines miniatures, hand-drawn animation, and computer-generated animation. I know little about the story, but the visuals look gorgeous.

Review: Troy

[This review will contain spoilers for those of you uncultured swine who haven't read The Iliad]

He has some of the greatest teammates ever surrounding him. But the offense is not geared towards him, it stifles him, prevents him from displaying his true talents. How galling, for he is the greatest among the greatest. His coach wants him to play within the confines of the offense, to involve his teammates, but he will not listen to reason and charges headlong into battle alone, foolishly, yet no one can take their eyes off him as he soars into the air. His only downfall? A woman. Every generation has its Achilles, and ours is Kobe Bryant.

How to reimagine The Iliad for a modern audience? No need. Classic art emerges relevant to each generation, as it has again. Besides Kobe Bryant as Achilles (Brad Pitt) we have Shaquille O'Neal as Aias or Ajax, "give me the damn ball" Gary Payton as "give me the damn spear" Patroclus, "I just want to win a ring" Karl Malone as Odysseus, "why won't Kobe listen to me" Phil Jackson as "why won't Achilles obey my orders" Agamemnon (Brian Cox), Tim Duncan as noble Hector (Eric Bana). The Zen master should take his team to see Troy.

I revisited The Iliad to confirm my suspicions. Yes, indeed, long before Shaquille O'Neal was fouled by one brutish opposing player after another, Ajax suffered the same rude treatment during the Trojan War:

But Ajax could no longer hold his ground for the shower of darts that rained upon him; the will of Jove and the javelins of the Trojans were too much for him; the helmet that gleamed about his temples rang with the continuous clatter of the missiles that kept pouring on to it and on to the cheek-pieces that protected his face. Moreover his left shoulder was tired with having held his shield so long, yet for all this, let fly at him as they would, they could not make him give ground. He could hardly draw his breath, the sweat rained from every pore of his body, he had not a moment's respite, and on all sides he was beset by danger upon danger.

David Benioff does make a few other wise decisions. One is to shed the role of the gods in this version. A modern audience, especially the young girls in the theater to see Orlando Bloom and a buffed-out Brad Pitt would be unlikely to embrace Laurence Olivier as Zeus strolling about an Olympus shrouded in dry ice fog as in Clash of the Titans.

Another is to de-emphasize the role of the face that launched a thousand ships. No woman could live up to that title, and unknown Diane Kruger is given the thankless role here. That she plays Helen as a vapid, pretty face is besides the point, but she will still be vilified by critics for not living up to an impossible standard. Instead, Benioff places most of the blame for the war on a power-hungry Agamemnon, who many will compare to George Bush for launching a war under convenient pretenses. Agamemnon is played with scene-chewing glee by the always maniacal and triumphant Brian Cox.

Benioff and Petersen redirect most of the movie's attention to one of Western culture's original prima donnas, Achilles, a perfect hero for our age of preening sports stars. Brad Pitt is a good choice for Achilles. His chiseled face and muscular figure always having made him somewhat superhuman, and he does aloof and cocky very well. His Achilles reminds me that the trash-talking Larry Bird or Michael Jordan, bat-flipping Barry Bonds, Sharpie wielding Terrell Owens and cell-phone dialing Joe Horn, they all trace their lineage back to Achilles. We finally also learn the answer to how someone like Brad Pitt came into being: some Greek god bedded Julie Christie. It's the most credible explanation yet.

Forget about writing an original screenplay like Gladiator. Here we have an epic battle with a script already finished by Homer, perhaps of the greatest screenwriters of all time. It's the perfect setup, isn't it?

Unfortunately not. For one thing, the Greeks were nothing if not realists. Their gods were arrogant and flawed as much as the mortals in their myths, and all parties always received comeuppance for their hubris. The people in Greek myths always misstep in some way, and for the error of their ways were turned into trees, deer, insects, and then just when you thought they couldn't be punished enough they'd usually be hunted down or killed by their friends and family members, after which they might be served up as the main course at their child's birthday party. These are, after all, the people who invented Greek tragedy, perhaps the most perfect story archetype ever invented. Unfortunately, another democracy several thousands of years later converted to a new story type, that of the happy Hollywood ending in which the hero wins out, and The Iliad isn't that type of story.

Most of the truly sympathetic characters, and there are few in this drama, are supporting players. Who should the audience root for? Hector? Killed. King Priam? Ditto. Hector's wife, played by Saffron Burrows? She weeps for most of the movie, perhaps at the limited nature of her role in the script. The end of the movie arrives without a cathartic release for the audience, an artistic deficiency that will suppress repeat viewings and limit the movie's box office potential.

Also unfortunate is that the battle scenes, from buildup and pre-game inspirational speeches to the ground-shaking march of thousands of soldiers, to the initial bone-crunching, metal-crashing collision of armies, have all been done before. Wolfgang Petersen seems to acknowledge this and rather than fight it simply recycles old standards, like the old, crazy guy from Braveheart (James Cosmo) who plays a Trojan army leader of some sort here. Hey, it's a career, like being the LOOGY (lefty one out guy) out of the bullpen. You laugh, but that crazy old warrior isn't much older than John Franco. We have Boromir, err, Odysseus played by Sean Bean, and Legolas, here transformed into an effeminate Paris, played by Orlando Bloom, still wielding bow and arrow. We encounter the same camera shot that sweeps over the plains along the fault line where two armies collide, taken from Return of the King. It was a much more impressive effect before Peter Jackson and team showed it to us several times, before the days of Age of Empires when any teenage boy can generate the same effect on his home computer.

The battle scenes in Troy aren't always clearly framed. Early on, the Greeks storm the beaches of Troy. Rather, Achilles and his men the Myrmidons (I couldn't help but think of Ben Stiller in Zoolander whenever they said Myrmidon: "Mer-man! Mer-man!") storm the beach early, take one temple, and next thing we know Agamemnon is celebrating the great capture of the beach in his tent. Where were the defenses? Earlier we had seen a few Trojans placing long, pointy logs in the sand. Were some Greeks on foot, their line of sight hampered by the unwieldy tin helmets on their heads, supposed to dash unknowingly into one of these and spear themselves? It won't cause anyone to drop the invasion of Normandy down in the pantheon of beach assaults.

Even the hand-to-hand combat between armies is difficult to see, what with the tight framing, chaotic mess of bodies, and quick cuts. This is actually a problem with many American battle scenes. Certainly, such battles were probably a mess, but directors rely on this purposeful murkiness to mask poorly choreographed fight scenes and to suggest bloody carnage. Compare that with any martial art scene from a Hong Kong director and fight choreographer where every blow is framed beautifully for the audience.

Even when the camera focuses on one fight, it isn't always the right choice. During one battle, Hector meets Patroclus, disguised in Achilles's armor, in the midst of thousands of clashing warriors. As soon as they meet, everyone stops and forms a circle around them, as if surrounding two dueling break-dancers at a night club.

"Dance off! Dance off!"

"C'mon dude, go in the circle."

"No way man! That's Hector and Achilles! Their moves are too good! That stuff is tight. Check it out, Achilles is swinging his spear behind his back."

Somehow when the fight ends, Hector is able to call off the entire battle for the day. How does everyone else on the battlefield find out about the temporary peace? Text pages on the vibrating cell phones tucked under their leather battle skirts?

One positive is that Troy doesn't rely too heavily on digital effects, or at least those it does use are more seamless than in a movie like the latest Star Wars movies. However, Troy doesn't have one memorable signature or money shot of its own.

That is, of course, unless you count the several shots of a nude Brad Pitt reclining on furs. Achilles's fight with Hector is the one memorable fight in the movie, mostly because it's one on one. Pitt's Achilles is a modern day video game character, leaping into the air with the vertical of, well, Kobe Bryant. At one point I swear he executes a cross-over dribble and breaks Hector's ankles. Watching Pitt, I imagined myself holding an X-Box controller, hitting the B-button to execute one of Achilles' flying leaps, and then pressing the A and B buttons together to execute his flying death move in which he soars and pierces the all-important left upper shoulder of his foe.

Pitt looks good. That is also a problem, for he always looks too good, in every role he is in. It's the curse of the incredibly good looking, one I know firsthand. The problem is that it emphasizes some of the weaknesses in the script. For example, Pitt is shown falling for a Trojan priestess Briseis after one encounter, and then after one night of tossing around in the fur, he's so in love that he eventually dies for her. It's hardly believable, not least because it's impossible to imagine Pitt ever falling that deeply in love with anyone. Why fall in love when you look like that and can have any woman? Maybe Jennifer Aniston should've played Briseis. Then at least we'd have circumstantial evidence.

We're also to believe that Pitt returns to battle to avenge his cousin Patroclus's death at the hands of Hector. Our only insight into Achilles and Patroclus's relationship is one brief training battle with wooden swords where the two horse around. It's not enough to set up Achilles's murderous rage at his cousin's death, one which results in him dragging Hector's body around behind his chariot. The engines in Greek tragedies never leave any doubt as to their course; the endings always feel inevitable, unavoidable. Troy evokes no such certainty.

My final quibble with the movie is how poorly it sets up The Odyssey. The Odysseus of Troy is crafty, as to be expected, but also much too humble and mild-mannered. After all, this is the man who, having blinded and fooled the Cyclops and led his men to safety, can't resist getting in one last word. Sailing to freedom from the island where the blind Cyclops screams in fury, Odysseus cannot resist one last bit of trash talking.

"'Cyclops,' said I [Odysseus], 'you should have taken better measure of your man before eating up his comrades in your cave. You wretch, eat up your visitors in your own house? You might have known that your sin would find you out, and now Jove and the other gods have punished you.'

"He got more and more furious as he heard me, so he tore the top from off a high mountain, and flung it just in front of my ship so that it was within a little of hitting the end of the rudder. The sea quaked as the rock fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised carried us back towards the mainland, and forced us towards the shore. But I snatched up a long pole and kept the ship off, making signs to my men by nodding my head, that they must row for their lives, whereon they laid out with a will. When we had got twice as far as we were before, I was for jeering at the Cyclops again, but the men begged and prayed of me to hold my tongue.

"'Do not,' they exclaimed, 'be mad enough to provoke this savage creature further; he has thrown one rock at us already which drove us back again to the mainland, and we made sure it had been the death of us; if he had then heard any further sound of voices he would have pounded our heads and our ship's timbers into a jelly with the rugged rocks he would have heaved at us, for he can throw them a long way.'

"But I would not listen to them, and shouted out to him in my rage, 'Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Ulysses [Odysseus], son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca.'

The Odysseus shown in Troy shows not even the slightest inkling of such blooming arrogance. Maybe some of Achilles rubbed off? I credit Homer for realizing Odysseus needed a signature speech to feature in trailers and for the Oscar voters.

The Incredibles trailer

If you trailer it, the web will link to it. The Incredibles looks very funny. I suspect it will be the most challenging of their movies yet from a humor perspective because the characters are human rather than creatures or toys. Pixar has gotten a ton of mileage out of anthropomorphic jokes, and they won't be able to go to that well this time.

To some degree. The characters are still superheroes, or not normal humans, so they'll be able to capitalize on the "superheroes have mundane human problems" jokes also, e.g. the laundry joke in the trailer. A more solid formula for consistent quality than the usual sequel-itis Hollywood finds so reassuring.

2046

Someday, I will attend Cannes. This year would have been a good year since 2046, Wong Kar-Wai's next film, long-anticipated but always out of reach, finally opens to the world.

I love so many movies, but it's difficult to imagine myself jotting up a top twenty favorite movies list without Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express on it.

Old Boy and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence also walk the Cannes red carpet this year. Fortunately, Old Boy will arrive on DVD next week for those of us without a handhold on the cinematic upper crust.

Swallowtail Butterfly

My 50+ mile bike ride today left me tuckered out. I wasn't expecting to finish Swallowtail Butterfly when I popped it into the DVD player about three hours ago, but I had to at least make a dent in it since it was already long overdue back to Scarecrow.

What unfolded was like one of those scenes in the movies, where someone has been auditioning candidates for lead singer for his band all day and hasn't found anyone remotely suitable. As he's about to pack up, bored, discouraged, one last candidate bursts in the door looking disheveled, harried. He says auditions are closed, but she begs.

Just one song, mister, please.

Alright, fine, he says. You can sing while I pack up. He doesn't expect much.

He begins packing, not even looking her way. She composes herself, closes her eyes, takes a few deep breaths, and then opens her mouth to sing.

And suddenly he stops and looks up, in awe of the talent he's witnessing. He realizes he's found her.

That's how I felt watching Shunji Iwai's Swallowtail Butterfly. With every passing minute, more awed and delighted. A few times I burst out laughing, sitting there by myself in the basement. It woke me up and kept me riveted for over two hours, and the next thing I knew it was three in the morning.

Iwai's movies are difficult to describe. I recently watched All About Lily Chou-Chou, also brilliant, and haven't quite found the words to put it in perspective. Of the two, Swallowtail Butterfly has a more coherent narrative. Still, you can summarize the plot of Pulp Fiction, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or City of God, but it only goes so far in capturing the dazzle.

Swallowtail Butterfly follows the fates of several Yentowners, or immigrants who have come to Japan to try and make their fortunes. I'm not sure if the period in question is based on history, but it doesn't matter much. Most of these immigrants live in shantytowns around the edge of some Japanese city. One of these immigrants, a young girl, is left on her own after her mother dies. Her mother's fellow hookers grab her mother's money and dump the young girl off in another part of town where she's passed around from one prostitute to another until one, named Glico, takes pity on her and adopts her, dubbing her Ageha.

Glico is nicknamed the madonna of Yentown, beloved by many for her beauty, generous heart, and singing voice. She has a group of ragged friends who run a dilapidated auto repair shack outside town in the countryside.

One day, one of Glico's customers gets frisky with her and Ageha. Her friend and bodyguard, a former boxer, rushes in and rescues her, but in the process knocks the customer out the second story window onto the street below. The whole gang carries the body into the woods to dispose of it, but as they do so, they discover a mysterious cassette tape inside the man, behind his liver. The song on the tape? Frank Sinatra's "My Way." But that's not all that's on the tape.

From there, the plot explodes outward in a spiral, gathering together disparate plot threads and winding them together in a Chihuly-shaped story. As with movies like Pulp Fiction and Magnolia, odd coincidences provide surprising moments of both serendipity and misfortune.

Iwai has the gift of some of the Tarantino-Scorsese set to merge all types of music with moving pictures in seamless, resonant mixes. Real-life pop singer Chara, of an actual band named the Yentown band, plays Glico, and she's a revelation as an actor, flaunting her coy sexuality and voice to seduce all around her. The camera can't stop seeking her out. Hiroshi Mikami (as Fei Hong), Yosuke Eguchi (as Ryou Ryanki), and Mickey Curtis (as a friendly back street doctor and tattoo artist) also impress.

Iwai favors handheld shots with either natural or extremely artificial lighting. Much of the footage resembles video, and Iwai allows bright lights in otherwise dark environments to bloom across the screen as in an impressionist painting. It isn't empty stylistic preening--Iwai wants a loose, kinetic energy to govern his movies, and the handheld footage and excessive lighting effects reinforce that. The violence that does occur in his movies is of the cartoonish type in Tarantino's movies, evoking unlikely humor.

How do you catch this movie? If you're in Seattle, you can rent it from Scarecrow. I have to return it tomorrow. If you're elsewhere and don't have a video store like Scarecrow near you (that's just about everyone), you can rent it online from Nicheflix or purchase it from YesAsia. Perhaps Tarantino will use his powers to convince Miramax to distribute it here in the U.S. just as directors like he and Scorsese and Coppola have done with undiscovered foreign gems in years past.

An anime summer

There's no reason why there shouldn't be a Japanese Quicktime movie trailer page, but I never thought to even look until I stumbled onto it while searching for information about Steamboy.

Anyhow, I found the Steamboy trailer. Katsuhiro Ôtomo hasn't directed much of note since the anime classic Akira, so I'm looking forward to Steamboy.

A few anime legends are coming out with work this summer. Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is playing the Seattle Film Fest. I have a pair of tickets to see it there at Cinerama, but sadly it plays the same day as James and Angela's wedding. D'oh! Why do all good things cluster together?

Review: Step Into Liquid

Dana Brown's documentary Step Into Liquid is most riveting when the camera is below, on top of, inside, or behind the water following ridiculous surfgods like Laird Hamilton. It's not nearly as compelling when it turns the surfers into talking heads. Let's face it: Kelly Slater is a long way from Robert McNamara in The Fog of War. But then again, McNamara wouldn't look that good in a bikini.

When surfers speak of their sport, it always comes out as pseudo-mystical mumbo jumbo. But when a surfer disappears into the tube of a 60 foot wave and then emerges with just a second to spare as tons of water comes crashing down like the fingers of Neptune, and it's all captured on video by a camera at water level peering into the tube? Well, no talking is necessary to convey the stoke. And hell, they're already tan and good-looking and fit. If they were articulate as well, I'd probably kill myself. Thankfully, Dana Brown also depicts some surfers that don't look like Laird Hamilton, including a couple of yahoos from Wisconsin, the message being that surfing unites the world in a merry go round of love, connecting us to nature in the purest way.

Sorkin still working

Aaron Sorkin lives. He's writing and producing The Farnsworth Invention, a movie about the battle between Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin to claim credit for the invention of a little something called the television. Sorkin's pal Thomas Schlamme will co-produce and direct.

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing both Farnsworth and Zworykin will talk very quickly and argue while walking through long corridors.

Battle of Algiers coming to DVD

From the Criterion website:

Criterion’s upcoming release of Gillo Pontecorvo’s landmark 1965 film The Battle of Algiers will be a three DVD set. This special edition will include a new transfer supervised by cinematographer Marcello Gatti and a number of features created specifically for the Criterion release, including new interviews with writer/director Gillo Pontecorvo, producer/actor Saadi Yacef, actor Jean Martin, Marcello Gatti, composer Ennio Morricone, and historians Benjamin Stora and Alistair Horne. Also featured will be filmmakers speaking to the film's importance, including directors Steven Soderbergh, Julian Schnabel, and Spike Lee. Look for Criterion’s The Battle of Algiers this autumn.

These lists seem to be all the rage now. Read one magazine a week. Cook one new dish every week. I'm embarrassed to admit I watch something like one movie and read approximately one magazine every day.

Before Sunset

Review: Stuck On You

Everyone praised the Farrelly brothers for toning down their gross-out humor in this movie, but it tastes like fat-free ice cream to me. Please unleash the Brothers Grimm, er, Gross.

Someone actually saw Casshern

Someone actually saw Casshern, and they cried three times while viewing it (in a good way).

The first time I saw the trailer, I thought the movie, "What a weird ass movie." Now I've heard the plot explained, and I still think the same.

Review: The Return

After over eleven years, a father returns to his wife and two sons, Andrey and Vanya. He immediately takes his boys on a fishing trip, giving the boys the opportunity to meet the father figure they never had. The journey they take across the sparse Russian landscape is symbolic, of course, and the entire movie has a mythic feel, yet the performances by each actor create characters that feel specific and real. The long continuous shots and iconic framing of images such as the son's first view of their father asleep in bed bestows upon the movie the elusive and haunting quality of a Biblical fable rendered in human terms. The Russians have always found in their daily lives a spiritual significance foreign to those like myself who have grown up with a more secular worldview.

The movie is layered with mystery. On one level, his sons wonder why their father is taking them on this long fishing trip, and the intentions of his quest are hidden from the audience as well. At another level, Andrey and Vanya wonder why he left in the first place, why he returned, and whether he truly loves them. This is not a Hollywood movie, so the answers to each are not clear cut, though the ending is stunning.

I missed The Return at Sundance and was glad to catch it in its penultimate day on screen in Seattle. Recommended if it is available on a screen near you.

Footnote: Tragically, a few weeks after the movie wrapped filming, 15 year old actor Vladimir Garin, who plays Andrey, drowned while swimming across the lake where much of the movie was shot.

Invincible Pole Fighter

After hosting a Kill Bill movie fest this weekend, I had to go back and revisit the Shaw Brothers' Invincible Pole Fighter, starring Gordon Liu (who plays Johnny Mo in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and Pai Mei in Vol. 2). The movie is dated, without a doubt, but the fight choreography, especially in the last two fight scenes, is remarkably exciting. Gordon Liu was the man.

I had forgotten about the attack technique in which the Shaolin monks in the movie use their poles to forcibly remove the teeth of their opponents. Very strange and amusing.

Kill Bill, Vol. 2 flotsam

• The book that Esteban Vihaio (Michael Parks) is reading in the whorehouse is titled The Carrucan's [some word I can't remember] by Jasmine Yuen. I assume it's a reference to second assistant camera operator Jasmine Yuen Carrucan and not an actual book.
• I did a Google search for "black mamba gargantuan" to see if Elle (Daryl Hannah) really did find out about the black mamba from the Internet. Apparently she did, if slightly paraphrased. "Black mamba neurotoxic venom is one of nature's most efficient poisons, acting on the nervous system...the amounts delivered in a bite can be gargantuan: 100 to 400 milligrams, when 10 to 15 milligrams are fatal for a human being."
• Loved Daryl Hannah's pantsuit.
• Tarantino's voice dub for Pai Mei is his best acting job ever.

Jack

I watched Something's Gotta Give over the weekend. Not the most profound of movies, but it's nearly always a pleasure to watch Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton work, and the movie has its charms as a broad comedy.

Is it possible that Jack is underrated? When I watch his early work, such as Five Easy Pieces, I think it may be so. If I were to make a list of five people I'd like to spend a weekend hanging out with, Jack would have to be on the list.

I was about to return the movie to Netflix when I decided on a whim to glance at the Special Features menu. Turns out Jack did a commentary for the movie. I brought it up to my computer and turned that commentary on to listen to in the background while I wrote, and two hours later I'd watched the entire movie over again. Jack's commentary is really good. I don't often have the patience to listen to commentaries all the way through, but this was worth it, not just to hear Jack talk about the rocket in his pocket after Amanda Peet jumps off of him in one scene clothed in merely a bra and panties, but also to hear his commentary on comedic acting. He's an astute student of acting and film, and his self-assurance, generosity, and sense of humor shine through. It's clear why he's the most popular actor in Hollywood.

Little Sundancers all growed up

Maybe they can. If critics are to be believed, the programmers chose a great lineup, and I hope to return again next year and catch more movies.

Some of the Sundance babies making waves:

• The Return - Rave reviews; I'm going to see it this week. I missed a screening but Dave took my pass off my hands and gave it a thumbs up.


• Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring - The trailer is serenity.


• Super Size Me - winner of the Sundance Documentary award, this movie was shot by a guy who ate nothing but fast food from McDonalds for a month. Predictably, he gains a lot of weight and comments on the obesity epidemic in America. I'm interested in seeing it for the comedy. As a social gadfly, it's lacking. After all, what's surprising about the fact that he gained weight eating nothing but Big Macs? If there are Americans who still believe that fast food is healthy, they sure don't earn my sympathy.


• The Corporation - the other Sundance doc that buzzed. Based on the book The Corporation : The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, this documentary examines that strange entity we know as the corporation as a person, putting it through diagnostic tests used to assess human personalities. Not surprisingly, corporations are found "self-interested, amoral, callous and deceitful." Having worked at a corporation for nearly seven years, the results don't surprise me, but I do think this realization has profound implications for our analysis of topics like offshoring. Our laws treat corporations as humans, and in doing so we may have granted them too much power, perhaps pointing to a future long predicted by science fiction writers like Gibson and depicted in anime movies set in the future, when corporations and not governments run the world. But that's a topic for another day.

Review: The Ladykillers

Dave and I attended a screening of the Coen brothers remake of The Ladykillers earlier this week. I've not seen the original starring Alec Guinness though I've heard good things about it.

The original is described as a comedy of manners, and this remake retains that aspiration, but what surprised me is how unmannered most of the comedy was. The gang of robbers consists of a series of caricatures, most of which caused my eyes to roll. The most convincing performance might be by a painting of the late Mr. Munson. I'm still grasping for the subtle, offbeat humor of the early Coen brothers work, like Raising Arizona. Not that it's all bad. The whole is somewhat greater than the sum of the parts. Irma Hall and Tom Hanks capitalize on the occasional juicy line of dialogue from the Coen brothers, and when they do it's witty and wonderful.

But viewed as part of a creative continuum, this movie and their other recent genre efforts Intolerable Cruelty and The Man Who Wasn't There leave me pining for the 1984-1999 Coen brother vintages. They can cover these genres just fine, but their genius is most manifest in work that's uniquely their own. Even the sharpest knives can dull with age and misuse.

Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

"How happy is the blamelss Vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot: Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned."                                 Alexander Pope

I had that feeling tonight, about midway through a screening of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's some kind of brilliant! Charlie Kaufman proves yet again that he is the most creative lunatic of a screenwriter working today, and director Michel Gondry fulfills the promise he displayed in his music videos (which I love; you can catch them on this DVD from the very cool Director's Series) and his movie directorial debut Human Nature.

ESOTSM is the type of movie I'm ready to see again as soon as I walk out the theater. In this case, the second time through will be an attempt to detect all the clues I missed the first time around--it's a mind bender. It's also a clever comedy and a playful riff on the nature of love and memory. Gondry capitalizes on Kaufman's conceit that one can selectively erase memories to produce some of most humorous visual metaphors on film: as memories are erased, people and objects literally lose color and then fade away or disappear or crumble. Occasionally memories merge, leading to some visual juxtapositions that act as sight gags.

This is not the type of science fiction that stands up to heavy scrutiny, even if you are optimistic about the advances in neuroscience. The idea that one's memories can be selectively purged is merely the launching pad for a series of intriguing meditations. If all our worst memories of a former lover were erased, would we fall in love with that person again? Is attraction then fated and not merely the product of context and environment? If you knew how another person had successfully wooed a girl, could you borrow those strategies and also win her heart? Is forgetfulness truly bliss?

Only two minor quibbles. One is that Jim Carrey doesn't convey true heartbreak and longing in the same way that, say, John Cusack did in Say Anything. But he's by no means a weak link, the rest of the cast is uniformly strong, especially the gifted Kate Winslet. Secondly, I agree with Anthony Lane that the movie could have ended just a tad earlier, when it had just finished cycling back on itself like a Mobius strip.

Movies like this are expensive loves. First there's the movie ticket. Then I'll have to own the soundtrack. And the script. Of course, inevitably, I'll buy the DVD. I could have all memories of the movie erased from my mind, but I suspect I'd just end up stumbling in to see it again, and then I'd be sitting here writing to tell you, for the second time, that it's the first great movie of 2004.

P.S.: Michel Gondry also directed the video for Polyphonic Spree's "Light and Day/Reach for the Sun" from the ESOTSM soundtrack. Like the movie, it's bloody fun.

UPDATE: Look at all the 100's from the critics! Just one mediocre review thus far.

Mary Poppins, The Killer, and a Ferrari 360 Modena, oh my

I posted seven DVDs for sale on Amazon.com Marketplace last night, and by this evening four of them had sold already, and for decent prices, too. Selling most books doesn't seem worthwhile considering the heavy price competition online, but DVDs retain their value like BMWs, and old Disney or Criterion DVDs that are out of print? They appreciate like Ferraris. Never, never unwrap a DVD until the day you're ready to watch it. That's the equivalent of driving the car off of the lot; the value drops off a cliff and lands on a ledge about 30 feet (read: 10 dollars) down.

The key is to anticipate the next format change (HD DVD, perhaps?) and sell off my entire DVD collection six months prior.

Passion blooper reel

The Morning News took a moment out from the fervent debate around Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ to offer up the Passion blooper reel.

And I read it, and it was good.

Early reviews of The Passion

Early reviews of The Passion of the Christ are trickling in, and so far they're all over the map (what a surprise). American Sucker David Denby has been the harshest critic to date, while Roger Ebert gives it four stars and anoints it "the most violent film I have ever seen."

That 3-D, gold colored font used for the film title reminds me of the opening titling from The Lord of the Rings.

ROTK #2 all-time

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is now #2 all-time in worldwide box office behind the amazing anomaly that was Titanic which still nearly doubles it's closest competitor's worldwide gross. It appears that ROTK will be the second movie to crack the $1 billion mark. TTT is #5 all-time, and FOTR is #8. You can see how Peter Jackson can command a $20 million salary for King Kong.

The usual caveats apply: these figures don't adjust for inflated movie ticket prices, the increased number of screens around the world, etc., so the rankings are heavily weighted towards recent history.

UPDATE: Just saw in IMDb's studio briefing that ROTK broke the $1 billion mark this past weekend: "According to its distributor, New Line Cinema, the film's total stood at $1,005,380,412 through Sunday."

Sofia Coppola interview

I enjoyed this interview with Sofia Coppola, among others, about the making of Lost in Translation, now out on DVD.

Review: Spellbound

Definition, please.

A documentary released in 2002 (yes, that long ago). It follows eight children as they vie to be the last cute kid standing (i.e. the last cute kid to screw up) in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Can you use it in a sentence, please?

Spellbound is funny, charming, touching, and suspenseful, though all those words are wholly inadequate because they're too damn easy to spell.

Can you use it in another sentence, please?

As the pool of competitors in Spellbound is whittled down from nine million to one, our sympathy for the vast, eclectic people of this nation (all linked by this odd manifestation of the American Dream) grows in inverse proportion.

Okay, one last definition. Please.

Spellbound. How I felt as I watched this documentary. Spellbound.

S-P-E-L-L-B-O-U-N-D.

Golden Globes

It's too bad Salon doesn't blog about awards shows live. It would make watching said shows much more enjoyable. Salon's latest blog about the Golden Globes is pretty funny, but how does the author, who obsessed over all numberous actresses' flaunted, er, vaunted boobs, avoid making a pun on the word Golden Globes?

And just who is the Hollywood Foreign Press anyway, and how can you sign up?

Word

Most years, I pay not attention to dispatches from Sundance, but since I was there this year, I've been scanning the daily updates. This dispatch at McSweeney's, focused on the difficulty of getting off the wait list, the high school auditorium called Eccles, and the hierarchy of status at the Blender Magazine parties at Harry O's, is deadly accurate.

The one where she kills Bill

Teaser trailer for Kill Bill Vol. 2.

Review: The Company

A fictional movie, yet it feels like a documentary: its plot is held so lightly in the hand it seems to slip through one's hands like sand, yet by movie's end we have a panoramic understanding of life in Chicago's Joffrey Ballet. On the other hand, the movie's dialogue and editing make less of an attempt at assembling into a linear plot or tracing a discernible dramatic path than even the roughest of documentaries. The movie feels like a multi-layered composition, dozens of stories overlapping, criss-crossing, starting and ending mid-stream.

Most of the dancing is beautiful, filmed in a gauzy haze, and the sounds of the fabric and human bodies as they slide and bounce against the stage are a feast for the ears. Malcom McDowell is humorous as the upbeat company director who delegates and deflects with casual aplomb, and Neve Campbell is convincing as one of the star dancers dealing with the demands of being a world-class dancer. The most organic movie one will see in years; those who go to the theater to be man-handled may be disappointed.

About 200 Top Ten Lists

A compilation of roughly 200 movie critic top ten lists for 2003.

If you assign 10 points for a #1 ranking down to 1 point for a #10 ranking on each list, the top ten movies of the year by points were:
1. Lost in Translation (785 points)
2. LOTR: Return of the King (667.5)
3. Mystic River (565)
4. American Splendor (552)
5. Finding Nemo (490)
6. In America (321.5)
7. Capturing the Friedmans (305.5)
8. Master & Commander (292)
9. 21 Grams (250)
10. Kill Bill: Volume 1 (217)

Those with a massive printer could print out this entire table with every movie that received a point, discovering, in the process, that even Old School made a few top ten lists.

The worst of 2003, using the same criteria:
1. Gigli
2. Cat in the Hat
3. Bad Boys II
4. Dreamcatcher
5. From Justin to Kelly
6. Beyond Borders
7. Charlie's Angels 2
8. Life of David Gale
9. Daredevil
10. Boat Trip

The 2004 movies I'm excited about

The movies I'm eagerly awaiting in 2004, excerpted from my movies page:

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Mar 19): The premise: what if there was a medical procedure by which you could erase your most painful memories, like a relationship gone bad? With a script from Charlie Kaufmann, and starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Faux related website. Teaser trailer.


• If Not Now (Spring?): Sequel to the wonderful Before Sunrise which starred Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. In this sequel from Richard Linklater, those two characters meet again, nine years later, while Ethan Hawke's character Jesse is on a book tour in France.


• Kill Bill Vol. 2 (Feb 20): I will go out on a limb and predict that this is the one where she kills Bill.


• The Passion of the Christ (Feb 25): Mel Gibson's controversial take on the last twelve hours of Christ's life.


• Starsky and Hutch (Mar 5): It stars Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Snoop Doggy Dogg, which guarantees nothing other than my $9.00. Will either be glorious or gloriously bad.


• The Ladykillers (Mar 26): There will come a day when we forsake Coen brothers movies that star Tom Hanks and feature a soundtrack produced by T-Bone Burnett, but it is not this year. View the trailer. This is a remake of the The Ladykillers starring Alec Guiness.


• Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2 (Spring 2004 in Japan): Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell was one of the most influential and brilliant anime movies ever made.


• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Summer): Cool retro look.


• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Jun 4): I'm not a rabid fan of the books, the first two of which failed to excite me. But I'm intrigued by the selection of Alfonso Cuaron as director, and fans of the series tell me the books improve as they go. Cuaron as director is a bold and admirable choice.


• The Terminal (Jun 18): teams two unknowns named Spielberg and Hanks. And Catherine Zeta-Jones.


• Spiderman 2 (July 2): Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) wrote the screenplay so the story should be stronger, and hopefully they'll fix the goofy special effects this time around.


• King Arthur (July 2): Produced by Bruckheimer, helmed by Antoine Fuqua, so unlikely to be great. Odd romantic pairing of Clive Owen as King Arthur and Keira Knightley as Guinevere. However, it will be difficult to pass up an opportunity to gaze on Keira Knightley for a few hours to a Hans Zimmer score. View the trailer.


• Anchorman (Jul 9): Will Ferrell is Anchorman.


• The Village (Jul 30): M. Night Shyamalan's next movie. The trailer (available off the Flash-enabled site or here) seems to indicate another of his favored mystery plots. I'm always curious to see the surprise twist, but when I guess what's going to happen, as with Signs, it's not quite as fun.


• The Life Aquatic (Fall): Let's examine the talent involved. Wes Anderson, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Henry Selick...good Lord.


• The Incredibles (Nov 5): Pixar's next computer-animated tale. Let's draw a trend line based on all the past Pixar movies. Hmm. Apparently this movie should be really good.


• Alexander (Nov): Oliver Stone's take on the original Great One will beat Baz Luhrmann's to the big screen. Stars Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great and Angelina Jolie as his mom(?!).


• Ocean's Twelve (Dec 12): Soderbergh directs the followup to Ocean's Eleven, itself a wonderfully fun flick. This time, the heist(s) takes place in London, and Vincent Cassel joins the cast.


• The Aviator (Dec 17): Leonardo DiCaprio continues to tackle famous historical figures by playing Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese's next project.


• Izô: Kaosu mataha fujôri no kijin (Winter?): Takashi Miike directing Takeshi Kitano?! In. I think the title means "Sweet Ass-Kicking Samurai Movie."

Preliminary favorites of 2003

Of the movies I saw in 2003, which always seems to be fewer than I'd like but more than most people who aren't movie critics, my favorites were the following:

• Lost in Translation


• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King


• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World


• Mystic River


• Thirteen


• Finding Nemo


• Whale Rider


• American Splendor


• City of God


• The Italian Job


• Ping Pong


• So Close

• 28 Days


• Winged Migration


• Girl with a Pearl Earring


• The Last Samurai


• Kill Bill Vol. 1


• School of Rock


• Open Range


• Swimming Pool


• Pirates of the Caribbean


• 25th Hour


• Seabiscuit

• Old School by Tobias Wolff


• Moneyball by Michael Lewis


• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown


• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon


• Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins


• Blankets: An Illustrated Novel by Craig Thompson

REVIEW: The Cooler

The Cooler is based around a clever premise: casinos hire coolers, men who can change the luck of others just by being present, to cool off gamblers on lucky streaks. Bernie (William Macy) is the favorite cooler of old-school casino boss Shelly (Alec Baldwin in one of his trademark intense asshole roles that is always so much fun to watch). Shelly also once busted Bernie's kneecap with a baseball hat, one of the more telling symptoms of a love-hate relationship with one's employer.

The events that set the movie in motion: Shelly's partners apply some heat in the form of a consultant played by Ron Livingston who wants Shelly to go "Disneyland" with his casino, the Shangri-La. Meanwhile, Bernie gets lucky with cocktail waitress Natalie and falls in love, and suddenly the cooler's luck reverses which is good for Bernie, bad for business. And then Bernie's son shows up out of the blue looking for money for him and his floozy girlfriend.

The movie treats Las Vegas with a smirk. Bernie's cooling powers are used in the service of a whimsical tale centered around mythical Vegas archetypes, from the ruthless casino boss to the cocktail waitress/whore with a heart of gold to this new type called the cooler. It offers no searing insights into humanity, just a few simple lessons on luck, life, and love. But it has a whole lot of fun doing so. It's the type of lesson you learn when the blackjack beats your pair of face cards with a 6-4-2-7-2 draw: luck can be a cruel mistress, but the drinks are free, the buffets are cheap, and the neon lights are flashing, so we're having fun, right?

3 out of 4 stars.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

A new title for this movie (I thought it used to be World of Tomorrow), but the same cool retro look.

If I get my hands on the idiotic kid who was shining a red laser pointer at the screen during my second time through Return of the King, that kid won't live to see the world of tomorrow.

Review--The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Wow.

Bravo.

Spiderman 2 Trailer

Here.

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is one of my all-time favorites. I've never heard anyone say they dislike the movie. But I must admit I never stopped to think of it as a religious parable.

See, I knew it was a great movie all along.

Cap Codes

Ebert's latest Movie Answer Man includes a note from a moviegoer angered by the cap codes in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Ebert had addressed them before, but it was only while watching Master and Commander that I noticed the dots for the first time. They showed up repeatedly during the chase in the rain storm and were definitely distracting. For a minute or two, I tried to guess at what the dots were instead of following the chase.

At a preview screening of The Last Samurai in LA this weekend, a security guard spent the entire time scanning the audience with infrared binocs, checking, I presume, for recording devices. It's a shame, because as I was walking into the theater I was thinking that LA has so many impressive theaters (like the Bridge Cinema de Lux where Karen and I saw The Last Samurai), many more than Seattle does. The movie industry is moving towards the same antagonistic, distrustful relationship with its customers as the music industry. The type of customer who will watch a fuzzy, wallet-sized image of a movie on their desktop with lousy sound shouldn't worry movie studios.

And if the studios insist on making every moviegoing experience feel like a frisking, every theater feel like a police state, then can they at least stop forcing me to sit through those first person testimonial ads from respectcopyrights.org before every movie?

Bittersweet

The DVD for Lost in Translation is available for pre-order and ships Feb 3, 2004.

The Day After Tomorrow

It's from Roland Emmerich, the director of Independence Day and Godzilla and crap like that, so The Day After Tomorrow is unlikely to be cinema. But the trailer sure is a lot of fun.

Review: The Two Towers, Platinum Extended Edition DVD

Dan had folks over to watch the new extended edition of LOTR: The Two Towers on DVD Friday night. It was an ambitious undertaking for a Friday evening, after a long work week. We had to take an intermission at the disc change for pizza, and another break later for pie and ice cream just to avoid passing out.

The added footage explains the story with greater clarity and adds details that readers of the books will welcome. It gives the story the heft and pace of a quest or a long journey, more similar in feel to the novels, and it added some moments of levity which were needed in the extended version. At times, all of us would totter, eyelids growing heavy, like Frodo whenever the ring tightened its hold over him, but the movie was good enough to pull us through. Those who napped could feel like they had gotten a few hours of good sleep and awaken to find a few hours of movie still remaining: "Wait, you mean they still haven't started the Battle of Helm's Deep?!"

I'm ready now for The Return of the King. And, in a way, I feel a bit less anguish about not having tickets to the Trilogy airing on Dec. 16th. I've seen the first two so many times now that to sit through both of the extended editions again, back to back, might be so draining that it would detract from the ROTK viewing. Bring on da king.

[Footnote: my complaint to AMC about their Trilogy ticket sale fiasco didn't go on deaf ears, and I was given the opportunity to purchase a few tickets to the opening morning 11am showing of ROTK at Cinerama on Dec. 17 before they went on sale to the public. I decided that the 2:30am showing was just a bit too sadistic. Maybe I'm getting old.]

Evil, evil Cinerama

Cinerama was supposed to accept sales for the LOTR Trilogy on Dec. 16 through Movietickets.com from 10am this morning to 10am tomorrow morning. Then they'd open up for sales through the box office tomorrow.

Well, obviously it would sell out online, so I had all the proper web windows open, waited patiently until 10am, and then assaulted Movietickets.com, hitting the refresh button like a hamster getting electric jolts to the pleasure nerves in the brain.

Nothing. The site kept crapping out on me at various stages. On and off for an hour and a half, I pounded away. I finally called Movietickets.com and was told that they had shut down the entire AMC system to try and fix things. Try back later in the evening, they said. Fine. I called Cinerama, and the line was busy. It was starting to look like I'd have to trudge out to wait in line in the morning for tix. No problem, I'd done it before..

Until Cinerama decided to go against their posted ticket sales schedule and open the box office at 3pm in the afternoon. Today. Of course, tickets sold out instantly, and by the time I finally got through on the phone to Cinerama's box office I was transferred to some guy who works at the concession stand who could only offer a "Sorry dude."

After all the huge groups I've brought to Cinerama over the years (I brought 40 people to see The Two Towers last year on opening day), all the lavish praise I've heaped on that damn theater, to have them screw me like this...I feel like a cuckold. You cheating SOB.

Now, out of love for LOTR, I'll have to beg for someone to give me a ticket to the trilogy (this is me begging...help me). And if somehow I get one I'll still go.

But me and the Cinerama, we're through. No more convincing people to head there for movies which are much more easily seen elsewhere. No more organizing large group outings. Cinerama has wasted enough of my time and taken enough of my money. I'm kicking her out into the street and changing the locks.