Eros

Eros is an anthology film featuring segments by Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michaelango Antonioni. I'll watch anything that Wong Kar-Wai makes, so I was eager to check this out, and the bonus of a short by Soderbergh made it even more enticing. However, the film varies widely in quality.

There's been all kinds of rumors lately about Wong Kar-Wai's next project, but one thing is clear, it's going to be in English, with American actors and shot in the United States. 2046 functioned as in many ways the ultimate Wong Kar-Wai film, taking elements from everything he'd done before and combining them in a story that touches on all his favorite themes. The end of that film seemed to signal the end of an era,and from here he's moving on to new stuff.

That's what makes Eros a bit weird, it's so entranced in the same emotional and physical space of In the Mood For Love/2046 that it feels almost superfluous watching it after seeing the two more extended treatment of the same themes. It's not that it's not a good film, it's just that it feels like Wong Kar-Wai on autopilot, there's no real innovations in the film.

That's how I felt for the first half hour or so. Chen Chang's Zhang is a fusion of Tony Leung's character in 2046 and Ziyi Zhang's in the same film. He's trapped by this one experience of passion, which holds him back, and at the same time the woman he loves so overtly rejects him by flaunting her other men when he's around. This was profoundly emotional territory in 2046, but here it feels like there's at once too much and too little story. The basic events are very simple, as in most Wong Kar-Wai films, but the beauty of most of his work is in the moments between the plot, the acute observations of everyday.

By fitting the whole story in 40 minutes, we lose the sense of these characters as fully developed people, and instead they exist more to move the story forward. Yet, at the same time, it's such a simple idea that I was hoping for some more layers or complexity. Even the style for most of the film was WKW on autopilot, using the same style as in ITMFL, obscuring characters behind objects, not allowing us to see their faces, and showing only one side of a relationship.

That's not to say there isn't some good stuff, the music is still fantastic, and some of the shots, most notably the long slow motion shot of Gong Li fixing her hair. That was a moment that only WKW can do, but most of the short moved too quickly to allow us to luxuriate in the moment.

However, in the end all the emotions come to the surface and we get some of the rawest emotional pain in any of WKW's work to date. The final scene with Zhang and Miss Hua is very powerful, the way that this expression of love becomes incredibly painful for both of them. Zhang running his hand over the dress, trying to breathe life into it is a perfect image, one that encapsulates everything that the film is about. He feels like he has made her into what she's become, he's been a part of life by making her clothes, but without her, it's just fabric.

I like the ambiguity of the ending, not telling us that Gong died, but leaving us to assume that this is indeed what happened. I think it's tough to make a 40 minute film work, because it falls in that void between feature and short. You need a lot of material, but at the same time, there's not enough time to really flesh things out, leading to an inevitable feeling of unfulfilment. It's a good film, but in terms of WKW's canon, it's never going to be anything more than a minor work.

Soderbergh's film is also a minor work, one that's jokey rather than painful. The opening dream sequence is beautifully shot, I love the blue color scheme and the way props from the dream crop up later in reality. Very cool stuff. The psychiatrist scene is funny, but the whole thing feels a bit lightweight, especially positioned after the really affecting finale of 'The Hand.'

The ending is a bit nonsensical, the way I interpreted things, it's that Robert Downey Jr. is struggling to compete with the inventors of the snooze alarm, and as a result, has a dream that he was the one to come up with it. The ending feels a bit goofy, but I do like that final shot, the repeated throwing of the airplane out the window.

But this film looks like a masterpiece compared to the finale, Antonioni's 'The Delicate Thread of Things.' I haven't seen any other Antonioni films, and though I still want to check some out, I'm hoping this film isn't representative of his work. I heard it was really bad, I heard people were walking out, but I thought, it's only 40 minutes, plus it's got a lot of nudity so how bad could it be? Very, very bad is the answer.

This movie is almost a parody of European art cinema, the characters have ambiguous, vaguely philosophical dialogue, a man wanders into a stranger's house and has sex with her, then two women run around naked on a beach. It's a good looking movie, but the narrative is really lacking. There's no character motivation and there's no sense that these characters exist in anything resembling the real world. It's like an art film set in the universe of a porn film, that's the only way to make sense of the behavior.

These are good looking women and the film is enjoyable on that level, but overwhelming that was the fact that there was no real reason for them to be doing anything. Maybe I missed something, but there didn't seem to be any themes, it was just a bunch of stuff that happened, and the final image seemed like it should be important, but there's no real significance from the story. It just doesn't work.

So, on the whole, this wasn't a particularly good film. I'm glad I saw it because the Wong Kar-Wai piece is strong, but they're all clearly minor works from otherwise excellent directors.

Real Sex in Cinema

A few days ago, I watched the movie 9 Songs, and then yesterday I watched Gaspar Noe's video for Placebo, both of which feature actual sex. So, watching these two raises some questions about where the line between art and pornography is, and more importantly, is there really any reason that you need actual sex in a film?

9 Songs isn't a porn, but it does seem constructed entirely around showing people actually having sex, and that's where it fails. I think there's definitely films that would benefit from the frank depiction of sex that this film has, but the problem with this movie is that it clearly with the idea, "Let's do a film with actual sex," and went from there. I'd guess that the basic conception of the film was to show how a relationship changes by showing us the ways that their sex changes over time. It's not a bad idea, but the film doesn't really work because we've got no context for their relationship and only a vague idea of who these people are as characters.

So, rather than feeling a greater sense of intimacy with the characters, the audience is put in a voyeuristic position. We don't know these people, so watching them go at it doesn't have much emotional significance. Plus, the band appearances felt disconnected from the rest of the movie. The film is definitely spectacle in the sense that you're there to watch some bands and some people have sex, there's no sense of real narrative progression.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad film. There's some strong parts, the increasing antagonism of the two characters, who seem to be unable to connect to each other and start to do all sorts of role play stuff rather than confront the reality of their relationship. The best scene in the movie is when Matt blindfolds Lisa. The image is striking, and there's a lot of subtext to what they're doing there, escaping into fantasy rather than being content in the reality of where they are at the moment.

So, this is a film that's more an experiment in the depiction of sex on screen than a real narrative. I think it would have been much more interesting to drop most of the band performances, and spend more time developing the characters. The film is only 70 minutes, so if you add another 20 minutes, you could get a better sense of the relationship as a whole. Then, the sex would feel less exploitative and more like we're just seeing every facet of these people's relationship.

In terms of depicting sex on screen, it's certainly true that there's a falseness in a lot of mainstream Hollywood movies. The not so subtle positioning to avoid showing any actual nudity can seem a bit contrived. However, I don't think the reaction to this needs to be actual sex. For one, that puts actors in a really awkward position. Where's the line between kissing someone for a role and actually having sex with them? In both cases, it's supposed to be meaningless, but where is the line drawn? What should you have to go through to serve a role? In this film, there's not that much gained through the shots of actual penetration, they don't add to the emotional reality of the scene, and ultimately that's what the point of the real sex is supposed to be, to make things feel more real.

If the sex was just one part of the plot, I might have had a different reaction. If these were more developed characters, there would probably be less sense of contrivance, but as it is, it's not that the film goes too far, it's just that it seems designed only to test the limits, rather than having the boundary breaking come out of a fundamentally engaging story.

I was reading an interview with Vincent Cassel where he talks about how Gaspar Noe originally approached him to do a film in which Cassel and his real life wife, Monica Bellucci would have sex on screen. But he didn't want to do this, and that's what led to the creation of Irreversible. Even once they started Irreversible, he was saying that if they wanted to "make it real" in the scene where they're in bed together, he'd be cool with that, but Cassel and Bellucci both said there was a line between the character and the real person, and they didn't want to cross that line in the film.

That's a film that I think finds a good balance in terms of depicting intimacy on screen. The two of them wander around their apartment naked, and the fact that they're so comfortable with each other tells you what you need to know about their relationship, you don't need them to actually have sex.

Yet, Noe clearly fancied the idea because in a video he did for Placebo he goes back to the real sex idea, it's basically two people wandering through an orgy. Now, in this case, there's no narrative, what makes this video different from porn?

I would argue that it's not in the narrative, it's the technique. Watching the film, what's being shown is almost incidental to the astounding camera movement. Noe's camera glides through space, capturing this environment in a great long take. Like a lot of stuff in Irreversible, it's astounding filmmaking, but for a lot of viewers, the brilliance of his technique is negated by his subject matter.

I like the video, but I could definitely see why someone would consider it pornographic and exploitative. Noe's someone who loves to shock, and this video is an example of that.

So, what's the conclusion. I feel like in general, you don't need to have actual sex in a film. For one, it can obscure the rest of the film in terms of media attention, as with what happened with 'The Brown Bunny,' but also because I feel like it's not needed. Actual shots of penetration don't really add anything, and as long as you have actors who are willing to go to an emotionally real place, you're good. Looking at Buffy, there's a show that had to deal with network television restrictions and still managed to portray sex in a really strong, interesting way. Buffy and Spike having sex in the falling house doesn't need nudity to convey its meaning. But there are other scenes that feel hamstrung by the need to keep any real nudity out of the scene.

It would be interesting to see the reaction to a mainstream film that features real sex, but I don't see it happening, and for the sake of actors involved, I'd say that's a good thing.

X-Men 255-265

Continuing the journey, this chunk of issues represents a nadir for Claremont, with even more aimless drifting than the first ten post Inferno issues. The thing that made Claremont's run from 94-225, and arguably through Inferno, is the constant sense of progress. There was no status quo, the team was always changing, and characters grew in interesting ways. This created the sense that anyone was expendable, and also meant that characters could undergo radical transformations, most notably Storm's journey from 166-225.

However, post Inferno, Claremont seems to have taken the idea that everything should change too far, and ended up with a comic that has virtually nothing in common with what he defined the X-Men as. I've got no problem with radical change, as long as the character core remains intact. So, I wouldn't mind if Wolverine and Storm retired and the comic followed their everyday life, because that would be a logical extension of the character arcs that he created, and is still true to the essence of the book, which is the relationships between the family of characters that developed over the course of the run.

Sending everyone through the siege perilous was a bold move that broke from the status quo, but unfortunately it's resulted in the book having no direction and no emotional center. This is an extension of the problem that began when Claremont shipped a lot of his best characters off to Excalibur, breaking up the family that defined the book. Here it gets worse because none of the X-Men are together, so it's a bunch of random episodes, with no real forward momentum.

The first arc in this chunk of issues is the bizarre Lady Mandarin storyline. After going through the Siege Perilous, Psylocke has been reborn as a ninja assassin. The storyline is primarily an excuse for Claremont to put Psylocke in the ninja leotard outfit and have her kill people, as well as put Wolverine through some more punishment. It's not a bad storyline, the ending works well, but on the whole, the plot development is a bit nonsensical.

Following this, we see a bit of Jubille, Wolverine and Psylocke travelling together, and there's some interesting territory to explore, but they only turn up in some of the issues, so the forward progress of their storyline is not too quick. Wolverine is one of the key characters in the book, and it really hurts to not have him in every issue.

The most successful storyline going on at this point follows Piotr, who has been reborn as an artist in New York City. This is a strong use of the Siege Perilous, one that makes emotional sense. Piotr is given everything he ever wanted, the slate is clean, and he doesn't have the painful memories of his time with the X-Men. This leaves his comrades wandering if they should reveal that he's living a lie or let him go on living the fantasy. It makes emotional sense for the character at this point.

The major goings on at this point is the Banshee and Forge storyline. These two are both established characters, but I don't think they can carry the book, like they're apparently meant to. Forge is interesting as a foil for Storm, and the whole reenacting of Vietnam thing feels played out. There's definite potential in the character, but if you keep having him do the same thing every time he appears, play out the same conflicts, it's not interesting to read. Similarly, Jean Grey doesn't really feel like a character in this book, she doesn't belong here, and that makes her appearances odd. It would make more sense to have Scott turn up and aid Banshee.

The other really weak storyline is Storm's regression to adolescence. This is nonsensical and makes no sense in terms of character development. I'm assuming they're leading up to a reenactment of the events of issue 117, where Professor X fights the Shadow King, with young Storm on hand, but I don't think that's worth going through this very long storyline that's going nowhere.

That's basically how the book feels at this point, a whole bunch of things are happening very slowly, and in 'cutting' between them, Claremont is basically elongating and repeating the same series of events. It feels like they're filling space before something big, but there doesn't seem to be any ultimate story destination that they would be leading to.

So, it's 14 issues to go until the end of the run, which includes X-Tinction Agenda. Hopefully things will pick up a bit, because I wouldn't want a lot of really good work to end on a weak note.

Making Films about "Real" Events

Yesterday I watched Schindler's List. It's one of those films that's essential viewing, and I hadn't seen it, so I rectified that omission in the film canon. I think it's a really good film, beautifully shot, the black and white photography is phenomenal and it's got a very strong emotional hook, particularly towards the end. However, I would hesitate to call it a great film because I think there's too much cultural baggage around it to assess it solely as a piece of art. In fact, it's almost impossible to make a film based around events that really happened.

Now, this is not a conventional viewpoint. Three of the films up for best picture this year are biopics designed to dramatize real events, and looking back in film history, many of the most respected and beloved films are based on the lives of real people. However, I don't think the vast majority of those films were truly great, successful works of art.

In the case of something like Schindler's List, the major thing that holds it back from greatness is the fact that it's more interested in making a point than being a great film. The film should have ended with the final black and white stuff, the closing sequence with the real people and the actors placing the rocks on Schindler's grave is too long, and kills the emotional high of the finale. When they send Schindler off in his car, that's the end of the movie right there, everything that was set out to be done is done, yet Spielberg sticks around, stating what you already knew. The film has already shown you that Schindler was an amazing guy, just closing on the line about how he planted a tree would have tied together the idea that there's this tree of survivors descending from him, you don't need the further explanatory titles.

Those titles and the color stone sequence don't make sense in terms of making a good film. It takes you out of the world that was created and rather than ending with the end of the story, it stops to show the reality of something we already knew. Side note, Spielberg just cannot end a film. Many of his films seem to peter out, to the point that the emotional buzz is killed. War of the Worlds is a great example of this, but Minority Report, Schindler's List, and to some extent Munich and A.I. all drag on after the emotional conclusion. A great ending can cover a lot of sins, particularly pacing issues, while a draggy ending magnifies those. So, when Schindler was driving away, I was really feeling the movie, but by the time that stone bit was going, I was starting to feel the 195 minutes.

But aside from specific issues with this movie, in general, I think it's folly to try to tell a story that really happened. The reason for this is that inevitably a real story ends up making the viewer more aware of the fictional constructions that film uses. There's a tendency to reduce real people to clear cut good and evil figures, as a way of fitting the film into a traditional narrative structure. And it's almost impossible to fit an entire life into a two hour film without sacrificing a lot of the complexities of that person. Ironically, fictional films are more likely to be like real life, because the real life stories that get turned into films are always extraordinary rather than ordinary.

The issue I have with Schindler and other Holocaust and genocide based films is that the cultural issues surrounding the subject matter make it nearly impossible to evaluate the film as an art object. I felt like Schindler was a very sadistic film, yet is calling the violence and treatment of people in the film cruel and excessive valid? It is designed to recreate actual events, but does this give the film a pass? Obviously it's condemning the violence it depicts, but why would this film receive cultural accolades while a movie like Irreversible is condemned as excessive? Both films use the graphic depiction of violence as a way of demonstrating how wrong these acts are. Why is it that Schindler's List is shown in classrooms and considered essential viewing, while Irreversible, a film that I would argue is more emotionally direct in its depiction of the destructive effects of violence, is maligned by many critics. In both cases, the depiction of violence is a fictional construction, and if you're saying that the violence in Schindler is justified because it really happened, the depiction of rape in Irreversible is certainly a lot more realistic than a menacing shadow and a cut away.

However, the answer to this conundrum is pretty obvious. Schindler's List can't really be called gratuitous because the events really happened. And therein lies the problem in evaluating the film, you can't evaluate the film as a narrative object, you can only examine how the real events are framed. So, saying I thought Schindler spending all his money to save them was implausible isn't a valid criticism because the response is: well, that's how it really happened. This makes it nearly impossible to have a legitimate discussion about the film from a narrative point of view. Certainly, you could talk about the way in which the events were framed to fit in to the movie world, but that requires a bunch of outside research that takes you further away from the film itself.

I feel that films like Schindler's List and another Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan, have a special place in the culture. They're "obligation films," you don't go because you think it's cool or will be fun, you go because you have to, it's your duty as a Jew, an American, a human, to see this film and in watching the film, give thanks to these great people who sacrificed of themselves in the past so that you can live now. This touches on one of the major problems I have with films about real life atrocities, you feel almost guilty about enjoying them. Schindler's List is a gorgeous movie, wonderfully shot, but can you really be like "That's a pimp shot" when it's of people being massacred and such? Irreversible runs into this to some extent, but there's not the cultural baggage, you can admire the look of the party without feeling like you're somehow enjoying the rape of this woman.

Yet, Holocaust films seem to function solely to put forth this "never forget" message, it's all somber, and any moments of humor or levity exist only in relation to the horror we know lies ahead. Yet, the film doesn't really earn this menace, it's using our existing cultural knowledge as a shortcut to create an emotional reaction. It's almost a genre piece, in the sense that we know the basic situation, and as a result, the filmmakers are free to dispense with traditional exposition and character creation. Bringing it back to Irreversible yet again, that's a film that is able to create a similar effect as those early moments of menace, but this time it's done through the inverted narrative structure. The film in someways draws on archetypal depictions of rape, yet at the same time skewers them, it plays around with the tenets of the revenge genre in a really interesting way. I feel like you couldn't do that with the Holocaust genre because the material is too touchy. You're not going to do a revisionist Holocaust film, designed to mess with traditional audience response, the response is predetermined, somber sadness and a respect for those who went through it.

Now, there are exceptions to the idea that you can't make a good film based on real events. The Insider is one of my favorite movies, and it's drawn directly from reality. I would say that this is the film Good Night and Good Luck wanted to be. Read interviews about Good Night and you'll hear about how it's designed to comment on today's political situation, and be an incendiary statement. However, watching the movie you get basically an emotionless dramatization of events, that again, is dependent on the viewer's dislike of McCarthy for any emotional impact that it does have. The characters are basically just people you see on screen, they're not particularly developed. And also the events of the film are so well known that you don't have strong dramatic tension while watching it.

What The Insider does is tell a story that is incendiary and does make an explicit comment on both journalism and corporate American in contemporary society. Good Night and Good Luck has the same problem that the Democrats had when going against Bush, it's all this winking criticism. It's preaching to the converted rather than explicitly addressing the issues at hand. The Insider converts you through its narrative arc, which is also riveting on its own terms. Was it ficitionalized? I don't know, but it's a movie, once you turn the camera on, it's all pretend. So, why not make a great movie first, a political statement second, and a true account third.

If Clooney wanted to make a statement about contemporary journalism, why would you go back fifty years? Why not tell the story of a reporter thrown in jail for refusing to reveal a source, or make something up, a worst case scenario of what The Patriot Act could do. That's more likely to change opinions than a couple of winking lines in a period film.

This isn't to say that films about the past can't comment on contemporary society. It's just that if that's your primary objective, to make a message movie about today's world, why not make the film about today's world. Jarhead is a film that's such a nothing object, precisely because it chose to do some winking commentary, but generally speaking stayed firmly in a first Gulf War mindset, when the second is far more interesting and contemporary. It's like if Casablanca was set in World War I, it wouldn't be as immediate and powerful a film. If you are going to use the past, don't do in a couple of alluding lines away. Assuming you read Brokeback Mountain as a call for increased Gay rights, that's a great example of hooking the audience emotionally rather than making an explicit point. Rather than say, gays should be able to marry, the film says, look how ridiculous it is that society forces these two people to live a sham rather than the life they want to. Look how much destruction that causes.

Now, I would draw the line between dramatizing a specific set of real events and setting a film in the past. Apocalypse Now is inextricably tied to its Vietnam setting, but it's not about the horrors of Vietnam, it's about the destruction of one man's psyche. Usually, a really strong emotional arc is more powerful than trying to make a bold message. You understand that war is awful because you've seen what it does to our main character, that's the message right there. In Schindler, the issues with the film arise from the fact that it loses focus on the character hooks and has all these random scenes of violence. That's because the film is trying to show the horrors of the holocaust in broad view, rather than just showing it to us through the experience of well developed characters. Other than Stern and Schindler, the people aren't defined enough to make us care for them outside of the historical context.

Ultimately, it's the same issue with adapting movies from a book. Why would you try to cram a pre-existing story into the restricting confines of a feature film? The best films are always the ones that are either specifically designed for the medium, like Magnolia, or films where the source material is completely claimed by the director to suit the needs of the film, as in the case of Blade Runner or Star 80. Star 80 is a good example of something that's essentially a biopic, but eschews the traditional rise and fall structure and instead dwells on the issues behind the rise and fall, a more personal focus for Fosse. Another great example of this is Fosse's All That Jazz, a film that is technically a biopic, but chooses the depict the person's mind rather than the events he lived. It makes you live as Fosse rather than show you who he was.

So, the basic point is, it's much better to do a thinly veiled interpretation of a person than a strict biopic, because that'll give you the opportunity to do whatever you want, without worrying about historical accuracy. If I was going to make a film about the Holocaust, I would not set it in Germany of the 1940s, but in an America ten years into the future, where conservative reactionaries manufactured a terrorist threat that led to the imprisonment of all Arabs. It would be drawing on the same basic emotions, but in a way that's more about drawing out contemporary prejudices than lamenting the losses of the past. Rather than "never forget" it would be "never again." And freed of the baggage of a strict depiction of reality, it'd be easier to develop themes and message as integral pieces of the narrative rather than as side pieces that contribute little to the film's main arc.

But, this whole argument is coming from a film perspective. I'm watching Schindler's List as a piece of fiction, whereas most viewers are probably more interested in seeing history depicted, and that's certainly Spielberg's main point with the film. I may have cracked on it a bit, but I did really enjoy the film. Liam Neeson is great, and the ending is very powerful on an emotional level. It just brought up a lot of issues I've got with the film world right now, and one of the primary ones is the idea that a work set in the past is somehow more valid than a comment on the present. If Gladiator was set in the present, it'd be a Charles Bronson movie, but set it in Rome and it's a best picture.

Writing About Film

Yesterday, I talked about how the simultaneous release pattern pioneered with Bubble could effect the way that the industry does business, and how people view films. So, the basic concept there was the idea that the simultaneous release could create an increased cultural dialogue around art films, because it would mean that anyone who wanted to see it would be able to see it when it came out.

The current film climate is currently entirely based around the opening weekend, a film opens and then fades, both in terms of box office and in terms of cultural prevalence. The vast majority of writing on a film occurs before it comes out, and this means that the writers of the article have to walk the line of talking about the film without spoiling the plot points. There are two primary types of articles on films right now, one is the behind the scenes piece, talking with the actors or director about the upcoming film and the process of making it. Then there's the review.

If you look on the internet, there's tons of film reviews, but I usually find it tough to find really meaningful, interesting writing on films. The reason for this is that most reviews are still targetted at whether or not you should see the film. This means that half of the review is spent going over plot stuff. As a reader, if I'm actually interested in seeing the film, I'm not going to read this part of the review, because I want to preserve the surprise of seeing the film for the first time. I don't need a summary of the plot, just a brief teaser of what happens is enough.

Before I see a film, I'll usually skim the reviews, to get the basic idea of whether it's positive or negative. Other than who the director is, the critical consesus is the primary thing that determines whether or not I see a film. I know a lot of people actively disdain the idea that you should follow the critics, but I think it's a good guideline. There's some films where I disagree with the critics, but most of the time, it's a good guideline for whether or not to check a film out. Of course, a personal reccomendation from someone whose taste I respect trumps the critics, but with new films, most of the time no one I know has seen the film.

So, as a person who hasn't seen the film, I'm really only interested in the person's opinion of the film, not in specific observations on scenes or directorial decisions. The reason for this is that I like to go in with as much of a blank slate as possible with a film. Usually all I want to know is that some people think this is a great movie.

But once I have seen the film, then I love to read discussion and analysis of it. The problem is that because almost all the writing on a film is in the "thumbs up, thumbs down" catergory, you wind up with people skirting around deep discussion of what occurs to avoid spoiling it for someone. And at this point, any summary of the plot is pretty much pointless. It's great to refer to specific scenes and plot details, but I don't need to know the basics.

I guess what I want is reviews that are more about analyzing the film than just giving an opinion. You can definitely intertwine the two, but I'm much more interested in watching people uncover layers and themes within the film, provide their interpretation, than just say it was good or bad. Now, obviously this is easier with some films than others. There are a ton of articles about Mulholland Drive, because it's a film that demands to be analyzed. The narrative content is so ambiguous, connecting the pieces is almost like a Rorshach test for the viewer.

However, it's not only "puzzle" films that can benefit from analysis of the kind given to Mulholland. I'm much more interested in articles targetted at people who've already seen the films and even if it is a review, it's much more effective to discuss the film assuming that your audience has already seen it.

When I write stuff for this site, I usually write the reviews assuming you've seen the film, hence there's always a lot of "spoilers." It differs from film to film, but usually, the more I like a film, the more I'm going to analyze it rather than just state an opinion. And a lot of times, the very act of writing about a film can reveal a lot of depth that I didn't realize was there. This happened with Star 80, a film that turned out to have a lot more layers than I would originally have thought, once I started digging through it.

So, writing an in depth analysis of the film is actually an important step in the critical evaluation process. If a film gets better the more you think about it, that's a sign that it really is a great film, whereas a film that dazzles, but has little to talk about might not be as strong.

Obviously there's certain films that don't really lend themselves to analysis, but are still great. However, on the whole, it's always going to more interesting to hear an in depth discussion of what worked and what didn't in a film than to just hear, "It's pretty good." Plus, as a writer, I'm much more interested in really engaging with the film than just letting you know if it's worth seeing.

Anyway, what the simultaneous release pattern could do is make it easier to have really in depth discussion of art films because it would let everyone see them. You can write an article that engages with a film like Revenge of the Sith a week after it comes out because it's so widely available that anyone who wants to see it can. And now, anyone who wanted to see Bubble can, so you can write a very deep article examining the film.

Ultimately, I think it's a lot more interesting to read about a film after you've seen it than to try to avoid the spoilers and discern an opinion before you've watched it. There's certainly validity to writing a traditional review, but I'd like to see some more people doing analysis rather than just giving an opinion.

The Bubble "Revolution"

The big news in film this week was the release of Steven Soderbergh's new film, Bubble, in the theater, on TV and on DVD at the same time. For some, this is a harbinger to the apocalypse, signalling the potential end of film viewing as we know it. If Revenge of the Sith, or even something like Fantastic Four, was released in this pattern, it's quite possible that we would be looking at a potnetial major seismic shift. However, Bubble isn't the sort of film that would be seen by a lot of people anyway, so it's not going to change the way the major studios do business.

For the major studio releases, there's really no incentive to get this direct DVD format going. They are still making a good chunk of money off of the theatrical release, and I would agree with people that with a small number of exceptional films, releasing the movie on DVD simultaneously would effectively kill the theatrical market. It's already hurting it with the reduced DVD window. I know in my case there's movies that in the VHS era I would have gone to see in a theater, however, now I wait a couple of months and I can buy a movie for what it would have cost to see it in the theater. This is particularly the case with arty movies that only get released in New York City, it's cheaper for me to buy the DVD when it comes out than pay the train and ticket.

I feel bad about not supporting smaller movies in the theater, because that does mean that a lot of really good movies end up not getting released here, however it's tough. First of all, a lot of the stuff I really want to see, I import. I saw 2046 in January 2005, it wasn't actually released here until August, and I've had Clean and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance for a while now, and neither of those have been released here. So, the really devoted foreign film audience, the people who would see these movies in the theater, are ahead of the studios. This means they need to adjust their release patterns and get these films out faster.

But, it's also pretty clear that with a few exceptions, most foreign films do very badly. I consider this a chicken and the egg thing. Martial arts movies have made money in the past, so the studios give them a bigger push and they end up making more money. I think Oldboy could have gone over as well as Hero, yet it was only released in a couple of theaters in the whole country. It's a film that's got a lot of cult acclaim, and with a proper release, I think it could have gotten at least a $20-$30 million gross.

But, what this reflects is the changing marketplace for art films. Because it's so difficult to see art films in the theater, the entire market has shifted towards the DVD. So, the grosses for even really acclaimed films, like 3-Iron, are laughable, and I'd imagine many more people have seen the film on DVD than did in the theater.

This change in film viewing is something that's been moving forward my entire life. I was born right as the VCR was becoming commonplace, and it's actually hard for me to imagine a world before the VCR. You can't expect the theatrical marketplace to be as vibrant as it was pre-VCR because back then, it was either see the film in the theater or never see it. Once it's gone, it's likely you'll never get a chance to see the movie again. So, if you were sick the week that Casablanca played at your local theater back in 1942, you would have missed it, and barring a revival, that's it. You've missed arguably the greatest film in existence at that point in time.

TV changes things in the 50s, but commercials change the experience, and even with the VCR, there's the pan and scan, only with DVD does the home experience become arguably superior to the theatrical. So, that leaves theaters with the advantage that they show the movie first.

This journey through history leads us to Friday and the simultaneous release of Bubble. This is something I'm very supportive of, and think is worthwhile, even it may hurt theatrical film viewing. The reason for that is the fact that the simultaneous release plan makes it possible for an art film to return to the status of cultural event. When a major studio films comes out, there's the buildup, articles on the making of it, ads and reviews, all centered around the film's opening weekend. So, by the time we get there, I'm really psyched to see the film. It's a part of the cultural dialogue for that weekend, and once you've seen it, you can be part of that cultural dialogue.

With artier movies that only get a limited release, you read the articles and revie, and then have to wait a month or so for the film to come out, such that by the time the film actually makes it to the theaters nearby, it feels like its moment has passed and the cultural dialogue has moved on. There's some exceptions, the big Oscar contenders continue to be culturally relevant, but with films that don't have that buzz, they just disappear from the cultural radar.

On the whole, we've been moving away from shared cultural events. People are tivoing TV shows, or just waiting for the DVD, rather than watching them as broadcast. In music, albums are leaking and being heard before they're "released." In movies, more people are seeing a film on DVD than in the theater, which means that there's no moment when a film is in the cultural spotlight, it's a gradual roll out.

I would argue that the Bubble release pattern, rather than expediting these trends, actually returns a film to a cultural event. As I mentioned before, the typical art film rollout means that you have to go through a lot of trouble to actually see these acclaimed films, and if you live outside of New York or LA, you're basically out of luck. So, what releasing things in the Bubble pattern does is make it possible for everyone to participate in the cultural dialogue surrounding the film. Rather than going to the theater with a bunch of friends, chip in $5 each and buy the DVD, or rent it. Then, it's possible for everyone who wants to to see the film at the same time, and participate in the cultural dialogue surrounding said film.

I'm not sure if this true or not, but I get the sense that back in the 70s, foreign and art films were much more culturally significant, and it's possible that this release pattern would bring back some of this love of artier films and perhaps even start a new Hollywood Renaissance.

Is something lost from this? Yes. As a filmmaker, I loved getting my stuff shown in a big cinema with a large audience, but at the same time, I'd rather have something on DVD for everyone to see than showing in one theater in Manhattan.

In the short term, I don't think Bubble is going to cause a major change. It's likely that the same audience that would seek out the film in the theater got the DVD. But if Soderbergh were to get some of his more famous friends involved in one of these simultaneous release films and make something as good as The Limey or Traffic, we could be looking at a major change. In the not too distant future, a studio is going to try this release plan with a major blockbuster, and I think it'll end up being successful.

Now, in the long term, will this be good for the art? I'im not sure, I don't want to see theatrical venues disappear, nor see them reduced to merely mainstream stuff. But if it's a choice between paying $25 to travel to New York City and see the film, or to get the DVD for that same price, I'd get the DVD.

In the followup to this article, I'm going to discuss the ways in which simultaneous release could improve the way we write about film, as well as have some pretentious discussion of my own goals with this site. So, prepare for that tomorrow.

Star 80

A few weeks ago, I saw Bob Fosse's autobiographical opus All That Jazz, and loved it. I watched the film again earlier this week and it prompted me to bump Star 80 and Lenny, his preceding and subsequent films up on the Netflix queue. And that led to me watching Star 80 earlier today, a film that goes to an even darker place than All That Jazz.

First, something that really annoyed me is the fact that this movie is only available in a pan and scan format. It appeared to be one of the first DVDs ever produced, the menu was just the Warner Bros. logo, and there were no special features whatsoever. I'm glad that the film got out early, but at least have the respect to put it on in the proper aspect ratio. So, hopefully we'll get a reissue of the film sometime soon.

So, the film chronicles the rise and fall of Dorothy Stratten, who goes from working in a Dairy Queen to posing for Playboy, and on to a career in film. Even though she's at the heart of all the events of the film, she remains an enigma. The most fully realized character is Paul Snider, the man who "discovers" her and goes on to manage her on her rise to the top. Paul is a motivated guy with a lot of drive, but little actual talent.

This film, regardless of its own merits, was clearly majorly influential. It uses a lot of documentary style interviews within the narrative, a device I hadn't seen in a film made before this, this was one year before Spinal Tap popularized the format. The film it struck me as most similar to is Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, a film that could function either as a parody of Star 80, with its swapping of flesh and blood protagonists for Barbie dolls, or a strong companion piece to the film. I would say companion piece because both films have a similar message about the pressures that a rapid ascent to fame place on a woman. Both films end tragically, and even though I found Superstar a more affecting film, I think Fosse lays the groundwork for the genre that Haynes builds on in the laterwork. If I had to guess, I would say that Haynes is a big Fosse fan, since his film Velvet Goldmine has a lot of stylistic similarities to All That Jazz, as well as similar themes as are present in all of Fosse's work.

Here, the documentary stuff isn't the primary driving force behind the narrative, it's more an exposition device. The opening credits give us snapshots of Stratten, along with soundbites, which are rendered forboding by the ominous music and intercutting of the black titles. The knowledge that the film is adapted from an article titled "Death of a Playmate" certainly doesn't make things seem any better. The effective thing about the opening is the way it sets up the public image of Stratten, someone who's bubbly, joking about what it means for her to pose, and seemingly control of her own image despite the way she's allowing herself to be molded into what Playboy thinks she should be.

The film is built on the assumption that the viewer is already familiar with Dorothy's story, and that gives even the good times at the opening of the film a menacing air. Snider is someone who seems utterly determined to make it to the top, but we don't see this as a good thing, he's someone who uses people as stepping stones, and when he meets Dorothy, she sees in her his best chance yet to make it big. Paul is the kind of person who needs to be in control of things, he needs to be the big man and leader, that's why it would have worked out better for him had he stayed in Vancouver. There, working a car show or running a wet t-shirt contest, he'd be the entrepreneurial genius, whereas once he gets to L.A., he finds himself humbled, no longer to give off the impression of being the big man, the leader in town.

The film is more concerned with portraying Paul's story than Dorothy's, thus there's little emphasis put on Dorothy's initial decision to pose. We never even see her making this decision, presumably Paul pushes her into it, and it's Paul, not Dorothy, who argues to her mother that it's a good thing to do. Dorothy is his in, and Paul plans to use her to get contacts and find a place in the business.

The basic irony of the film is the fact that Paul wanted to use Dorothy as the gateway into a life of power and luxury, it wasn't personal affection that drew him to her, it was her potential to be a star, however, in the end it's Dorothy who uses what Paul has, his connections and drive, to put her on the path to stardom. Rather than him using and discarding her, it's she who uses everything he has to offer and then moves on. Paul is all about being in control, and once Dorothy doesn't need him anymore, he finds himself completely without purpose in life. In the past, he was able to work hard because he believed that if he just kept pushing ahead, eventually he'd find success. However, as he tells Dorothy at the end of the film, he's not going to become a big director, any dream that he had is over.

So, the film is about the fallacy of the American dream, and both main characters tie into this. A central tenet of American philosophy is based around the protestant work ethic, the idea that if you keep working, you'll be rewarded. However, Paul's experience shows us someone who works as hard as he can and winds up nowhere. The most depressing scene for him is the "well hung" men show, where he goes to all this effort, seems to be very successful and winds up with little money. So, even the means he used to use to support himself aren't enough, he's become completely dependent on Dorothy.

The basic myth that both America and Hollywood propagate is the idea that if you work hard enough you can end up rich and famous. That's why in the 50s, the studios presented these stories of people being discovered at drug stores and soda shops. It's to humanize the stars and build up the myth of the movies, if you believe that you too could be up there one day, you'll continue to believe in the illusion they're selling.

So, Dorothy does achieve the dream of becoming a famous movie star. This is what she comments on in the movie's final line, saying the excitement she receives from being asked to give her autograph. In all these sound clips, she's saying what she's supposed to, the line that is designed to forward the agenda of Playboy or the studios. So, here she's bringing herself down to Earth, saying that being recognized by fans isn't just a thrill for them, it's a thrill for her. A number of times in the film she talks about how Playboy is looking for wholesome, "naive" girl next door types. The use of the world naive is likely not something the publicists would have wanted, because while it has no innate negative characteristics, it implies that the girls posing in the magazine are being used by people who are more aware of the world than they are. For the viewer, use of the word naive has a menacing connotation because it reinforces the idea that Dorothy has no control, that she gets used by various people and it's her naivete that will eventually lead to her death.

Despite the fact that in theory she's the film's main character, Dorothy remains something of a blank slate throughout. As I mentioned before, we never see her making the crucial decisions that determine her character's fate, it's always just something that's been made for her. As the film progresses she's molded by a series of men to match whatever job they have for her. So, Paul turns her from Dairy Queen waitress into sexy girl next door model. He pushes her on the next step of her journey, to the Playboy mansion, and once she gets there, she doesn't need him anymore. If she had just cut him off at that point it would have been cruel, but in the long run, it would have been better for her.

Under the guidance of Hugh Hefner, she becomes a Playmate, modifying her behavior to fit the image of what he wants her to be. This is evidenced in the scene where she's a waitress and picks up the glass the wrong way, so she redoes it, using the bunny drop. The conflict for her comes from the feelings that she has for Paul. Now, I'm not sure whether this is genuine love for him, or if it's a sense of obligation because he gave her a start. I would suspect it's more obligation, a view that would be reinforced by the final scene. More on that later.

Paul creates conflict for her with Hef because he views her as an in to this world. Hef is so fond of Dorothy that he'll put with him when she's around, however when he goes there without Dorothy, it quickly becomes apparent that he's not welcome and is only useful as an appendage to Dorothy. That breaks his self confidence because it's one of the first times he realizes that he's no longer in control, Dorothy has the access and the contacts, and even though he feels he has the talent, there's nothing he can do about it. This is evident in the scene where Paul and Dorothy talk after their first visit to the mansion. Paul is angry at her for not talking to the b-list actor, and even contemplates pimping her out to him as a way of getting an in.

This conflict comes to a fore in the scene where Dorothy tells Hef that she's going to go ahead and marry Paul, even though he doesn't want her to. This is one of the few moments in the film where Dorothy definitively asserts herself, it's a bluff that pays off because she still gets her spot in the magazine and gets to marry Paul. However, later, when she's doing interviews, she doesn't have the confidence she displayed there, and looks to the publicist to guide her on how to answer the press's questions.

Her association with Playboy leads to a film career and a relationship with Aram Nichols. Again we see someone who views Stratten as a blank slate on which to create his own fantasy woman. In their first meeting Aram just stares at her, apparently so wowed by her beauty that he casts her without a reading. He plans to turn her into a "real" actress, and she goes along with this, doing everything she can to help him facilitate this transformation, in the same way she did for the two previously influential men in her life.

Here, the problems in her relationship with Paul come to the fore. Now that she has a new male guardian and lover, she doesn't need him anymore, yet she is still tied to him and feels indebted to him. It's Aram who forces her to confront Paul about this, she's still unable to muster the courage to initiate divorce precedings on her own. So, even as she's trying to dismiss one authoratitive man in her life, she's doing it to please another.

This all culminates in the final sequence, where Dorothy goes to Paul seeking a divorce. I love the way the scene was staged in front of a giant picture of her, reinforcing the idea that to Paul, and all the men in her life, she's just an image, a fantasy, rather than a real person. We see those images of her so much that we gradually lose sight of whether there's a real person under there, and that's what the blank slate characterization of Dorothy reinforces, the idea that she was only a beautiful vessel that people would use to their own ends.

This scene shows us Paul behaving in the same way he was in the bathtub scene earlier, when she was first planning to go to New York, but this time Dorothy is aware that she has no need for him. Thus, he can't merely apologize to her and expect her to stay, he has to threaten her with a greater level of physical violence to keep her. By this point, his faith in the American Dream is broken, he knows that he'll never make it big, and Dorothy is his only chance to do anything with his life.

Dorothy offers him a very small amount of money, which he knowingly rejects. The basic question of the scene is whether Paul really does love her and want her to stay or whether an offer of more money would satisfy him. I would say that the money here was just an excuse to be angry at her, as we see in the detective scene, he's not really concerned with getting any evidence or suing her, he only wants her. He's aware that she has more value to him than any money because she has the connections and fame that can get him ahead.

I don't think either of them love each other. Paul is in love with her image, but has little concern for the real person beneath. Dorothy merely feels indebeted to him for what he did to her. She knows that without him she'd have never made it to L.A. He not only took the initial pictures, he instilled the confidence in her beauty that allowed her to proceed. When the downstairs scene breaks up, Dorothy is given the chance to leave, and instead chooses to go to Paul and stop him from killing himself.

Regardless of whether or not she would actually have pulled the trigger when she left, she's aware that leaving him would kill Paul, leave him with nothing. However, she still feels indebted to him, even after all this time. That's why after he attempts to rape her, she allows him to have sex with her. This is her attempt to finally pay the debt, give him what he wants one last time and then move on. That's why she goes along with it, not out of love for him, but because she feels like this last act will clear the slate and make it even between them, thus ending the relationship.

I get the sense Paul feels this way too, and that's why he kills her. He knows that if she walks out she'd never come back, and he'd be done. So, rather than letting someone else possess her, he kills her. The crucial thing here is the fact that we don't see her actual damaged face, we just see the blood on the poster of her. So, it's the destruction of the image that's more important than the destruction of the real person.

From here, Paul kills himself and we're left with the haunting image of their two dead bodies in the apartment. From an emotional point of view, I'm not sure about the decision to end on the clip of Dorothy talking about the autograph. It's clearly thematically appropriate, but I felt like some of the other clips would be a better capper on the action. However, the move from the real dead body to the immortally frozen, happy image is appropriate. Dorothy was a construction rather than a person, and when she wanted to reconstruct herself, she found that Paul was not willing to let her do this. He'd rather see her dead than serving someone else's dream.

I know Fosse is primarily known as a choreographer, but the man was a phenomenal film director. Both this and All That Jazz are emotionally apocalyptic portraits of both showbiz and America in turmoil. He's very inventive in terms of how he constructs and shoots his films, and his films are full of challenging, disturbing material. He definitely belongs in the pantheon of great American directors.

My Oscar Nominations - 2005

So, if I was the one choosing the Academy Awards, here's what they would be. Before I begin however, I want to say that Oldboy and 2046 were in last year's awards. If they were around this year, they'd be omnipresent, however, I'm not bringing them back. The time has passed. Also, some of these films weren't even released this year here, so they couldn't be in the real awards. It's just the stuff I saw that was either made in 2005 or released in the States in 2005.

And another side note, I didn't think this was the best year for film. In terms of visual media, by far the best accomplishment was Six Feet Under's last season. If that was eligible, it'd be dominating the acting catergories, and the final run of episodes was more satisfying than any feature I've seen this year.

Anyway, on to my nominations...

Best Actor
Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Mysterious Skin
Terence Howard – Hustle and Flow
Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain
Bill Murray – Broken Flowers
Michael Pitt – Last Days


These were all amazing performances because the actors completely inhabited the character. There was no sense of acting, it was like this is who they are. However, I would give the award to Heath Ledger because his character had the biggest emotional arc, and watching him was emotionally devestating.

Best Supporting Actor
Jake Gylenhal – Brokeback Mountain
Ludacris – Crash
Ian McDiarmid – Revenge of the Sith
Nick Nolte – Clean
Keanu Reeves - Thumbsucker

This catergory has a wide variety of actors. Ludacris was the best thing in Crash, really funny, shining above the film's clumsy preaching. McDiarmid went way over the top, leaving teeth marks in the scenery but always remaining true to the character. Reeves finally returned to the stoner character everyone wants to see him as. However, my choice here is Nick Nolte, who's so sympathetic as a grandfather who knows he has no real right to the boy he's raised as a son. He's a calm presence navigating a complex emotional landscape. This performance redeems him for the mug shot.

Best Actress
Maggie Cheung – Clean
Q’Orianka Kilcher – The New World
Ji-Min Kwak – Samaritan Girl
Yeong-ae Lee – Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Naomi Watts – King Kong

Comparing this bunch of actresses to the actors, it's pretty clear that American film isn't offering many good parts to women, and even though they're accused of misogyny, Korea's extreme directors are offering more challenging parts to women than just being "the girlfriend." However, the choice here is easy, Q'Orianka Kilcher creates the emotional anchor for The New World. Watching her over the course of this film is watching the course of America during its first few years of colonization. She goes through much and through it all we see a truth to the character. It's astonishing that she pulled off this performance, carried the entire film, at 14.

Best Supporting Actress
Maria Bello – A History of Violence
Maggie Gyllenhal – Happy Endings
Yeo-Reum Han – Samaritan Girl
Tilda Swinton - Thumbsucker
Michelle Williams – Brokeback Mountain

This was the toughest of the acting catergories to fill. There's a bunch of good performances here, but the one that stands out is Tilda Swinton. She gave three great, wildly varied performances this year, but Thumbsucker was her best. She wasn't the main character, but she was fully realized and the character could have easily carried an entire film.

Art Direction
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
Sin City
Sympathy for Lady Vengenace
The New World

These were all great looking movies, but I'm going to give the edge to Revenge of the Sith. There's such a variety of environments in the film, I admire the way they simultaneously contributed a lot of new stuff to the Star Wars world, while at the same time tying stuff together with the previous trilogy. Well done.

Cinematography
Domino
Mysterious Skin
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The New World
3-Iron

This one's easy, The New World was so well shot, both in terms of what was shown and how it was shown. It was a uniquely cinematic story, like nothing that's come before. Not to get nasty, but if you weren't able to appreciate the cinematography in that film, why are you even watching a movie, maybe you should stick to books.

Costume Design
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
Sin City
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Mixing it up a bit here, I'm going to give the award to Lady Vengeance. It's not the most dramatically inventive work, but in terms of defining character, it's absoultely critical. Her outfit is the character, and that's what good costume design does, sell the world to the audience.

Editing
Clean
Domino
Revenge of the Sith
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The New World

There were two movies this year that showed me a new way of storytelling through editing, one was The New World, which used its editing to give a hypnotic rhythm to its visuals, however the best editing was in Domino, which was the only film I've seen where the most exciting part of the movie is watching the editing and seeing how far they can push the medium. It pushes the film beyond narrative to the point that it's a near avant garde visual experience.

Foreign Language
Clean
3-Iron
Samaritan Girl
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The Bow


It's pretty clear here that this was the year for Kim Ki-Duk, dropping three of the five films here. Of these three, the best is 3-Iron, an achingly beautiful story of two people. Kim takes words out of the vocabulary and instead creates a film which uses visuals to maximize the emotional impact of events. It's great work and the final moments of this film are some of the most haunting I've seen.

Makeup
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
The New World

Sith grabs the award, if only for the stunning work on Anakin's scarred body after getting drenched in the volcano. It's disturbing stuff.

Song
“Hard Out Here for a Pimp” – Hustle and Flow
“Whoop that Trick” – Hustle and Flow
“Move Away and Shine” – Thumbsucker
“Down in the Light” – Clean
“Veruca Salt” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

A catchy bunch of tracks here, it is hard out here for a pimp, but I'm giving the award to Thumbsucker. The Polyphonic Spree are one of my favorite bands, and "Move Away" is one of their best songs. It's also really crucial to the film, providing the emotional conclusion.

Score
Brokeback Mountain
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
The New World
Thumbsucker

These are all fantatsic scores, but I'm giving the award to The New World, a film where the score was absoultely crucial to defining the film. It's not a strictly narrative movie, so the score has to do more than just support, it has to define the rhythm of the film, and it does so admirably. James Horner has done some decent work in the past, but this goes way beyond.

Visual Effects
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
King Kong
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
Sin City

Yoda in Sith was real. I know he's CG, but he feels like a real dude, and that's the best compliment to visual effects, that you could pull of so challenging a character and make it feel seamless and real. So, that earns the award.

Adapted Screenplay
A History of Violence
Brokeback Mountain
Mysterious Skin
Revenge of the Sith
Thumbsucker

Yes, nominating George Lucas for best screenplay is a bit weird, but I'm looking at the overall story construction, not the dialogue there. However, the award here goes to Greg Araki for Mysterious Skin. This was a really well written film, balancing two fully realized characters and a strong process of gradual revelation as it proceeded. Great stuff.

Original Screenplay
Broken Flowers
Clean
Samaritan Girl
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The New World

I'm giving this one to Chanwook Park for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Park builds a complex, sympathetic, yet disturbing central character, and there's a bunch of great twists throughout. This is a better written film than Oldboy, even though the movie on a whole doesn't quite match.

Director
Olivier Assays – Clean
George Lucas – Revenge of the Sith
Kim Ki-Duk – 3-Iron
Chanwook Park – Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Terence Malick – The New World

These were all films that worked because of very strong direction, unique films that used the medium in incredible ways, however, the best direction was Terence Malick's for The New World. In the film, Malick builds a world that's completely believable as the past, yet has an essential humanity that makes it feel contemporary. It's the rare period piece where you get the sense of real people living these events, and that's largely due to the wonderful performances from everyone in the cast. And beyond that, just visually, the film is astonishing. It's like nothing else I've ever seen.

Picture
Revenge of the Sith
3-Iron
The New World
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Clean

There was one film this year that took me on an incredible emotional journey and at the end left me feeling completely satisfied, even after waiting for the film for virtually my entire life, and that's Revenge of the Sith. It's not perfect, but it achieves so much, and is full of rich thematic development on a scale rarely seen in movies. It's incredible visuals used to create an emotional effect in a way that only film can do, and that's why it's my best picture of the year.

And just to tally everything up, here's the winners:

The New World - 4
Revenge of the Sith - 4
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - 2
Thumbsucker - 2
3-Iron - 1
Clean - 1
Domino - 1
Brokeback Mountain - 1
Mysterious Skin - 1

The Oscar Nominations

So, the Oscar nominations were announced today. I've seen the vast majority of films nominated, and it's not quite what I would have nominated. First off, it was probably wasn't going to happen, but 2046 should have got some nominations, at least for cinematography and production design, it's one of the best looking movies ever made. But, the thing about the awards is that it's more about the buzz than the actual quality of the film. That's why a film can be "hot" going into the awards, while some are cooling. So, you're not going to see out of nowhere nominations. But here's my thoughts.

Best Picture
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
CRASH
CAPOTE
MUNICH

The biggest surprise here is Munich getting the nod. I've seen everything except Capote and while they're all, to varying degrees, good movies, but other than Brokeback, they're not the best movies of the year. How Crash has stuck around boggles the mind, and I felt like Good Night and Good Luck was an utterly sterile, emoitonless experience, more a history lesson than an engaging emotional story. But, that's all moot because Brokeback will be picking up the award.

Actor in a Leading Role
Philip Seymour Hoffman, CAPOTE
Heath Ledger, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Terrence Howard, HUSTLE AND FLOW
David Strathairn, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
Joaquin Phoenix, WALK THE LINE

I'm glad to see Terence Howard get the nod here. That's the biggest surprise here, I'm hoping Heath picks up the award, but I haven't seen Capote, so I can't really evaluate. But Hoffman's certainly worthy of an Academy Award based on his previous work. I'd guess that Hoffman will end up getting the award.

Actress in a Leading Role
Felicity Huffman, TRANSAMERICA
Charlize Theron, NORTH COUNTRY
Reese Witherspoon, WALK THE LINE
Keira Knightley, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Judi Dench, MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS

I haven't actually seen any of these films. Both Mrs. Henderson and North Country seemed like pretty weak movies, but it's a good bunch of actresses. I think Reese will pick up the award.

Best Director
Steven Spielberg, MUNICH
Ang Lee, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
George Clooney, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
Paul Haggis, CRASH
Bennet Miller, CAPOTE

Of all the directors here, I'd actually like to see Spielberg pick this up, because that was the most adventurous movie in terms of the filmmaking. Brokeback was more a triumph of script and acting, it felt like Ang was just trying to stay out of the way, not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just Spielberg made some bolder choices. Clooney's another one where his direction was all about staying out of the way. However, I think Ang Lee can make some room for the Oscar on his shelf.

Actor in a Supporting Role
Paul Giamatti, CINDERELLA MAN
George Clooney, SYRIANA
Matt Dillon, CRASH
William Hurt, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Jake Gyllenhaal, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

To be honest, I barely remember William Hurt doing anything interesting. I haven't seen Syriana or Cinderella Man, so I'd say Jake definitely deserves the award. However, I'm thinking that Clooney will end up winning.

Actress in a Supporting Role
Rachel Weisz, THE CONSTANT GARDENER
Frances McDormand, NORTH COUNTRY
Michelle Williams, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Amy Adams, JUNEBUG
Catherine Keener, CAPOTE

I've only seen Gardener and Mountain and I thought Weisz was ok, but she's clearly someone who's caught momentum and is likely to win just because she's been pre-approved. Michelle Williams was great, but I'm not sure if her role was big enough for the award. Weisz will end up winning.

Best Original Screenplay
Woody Allen, MATCH POINT
George Clooney & Grant Heslov, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco, CRASH
Stephen Gaghan, SYRIANA
Noah Baumbach, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE

I haven't seen Squid or Syriana, so I'd probably give the award to Crash. I wasn't the film's biggest fan, but it was more ambitious and emotional than Match Point, which was a strong film, but wouldn't be in contention if it wasn't by Woody Allen. I think Crash will get this award as a consolation prize. This is usually the catergory where the exciting hipster indie film gets an award, but other than Squid, all these are pretty standard.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Dan Futterman, CAPOTE
Josh Olson, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Jeffrey Caine, THE CONSTANT GARDENER
Tony Kushner & Eric Roth, MUNICH
Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

I was really unimpressed by Gardener. Coming off the incredibly pop, riveting City of God, this felt utterly conventional. Brokeback should, and will, get the award.

Best Original Score
Alberto Iglesias, THE CONSTANT GARDENER
Dario Marianelli, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Gustavo Santaolalla, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
John Williams, MUNICH
John Williams, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

Brokeback is the only score out of these that really stood out to me, and it'll probably win.

Best Animated Film
WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT
THE CORPSE BRIDE
HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE

Despite being a huge Burton fan, I thought Corpse Bride was utterly uninspired. Wallace and Gromit will probably win.

Best Art Direction
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
KING KONG
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE

I haven't seen Geisha or Pride. Of the ones I saw, Good Night was the best. Kong had some really strong visuals, but it was let down by some awful greenscreen. This is where 2046 really needed to get nominated. I think Geisha will end up taking the award.

Best Cinematography
Rodrigo Prieto, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Robert Elswit, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Emmanuel Lubezki, THE NEW WORLD
Dion Beebe, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
Wally Pfister, BATMAN BEGINS

Batman Begins? Shouldn't David Fincher circa 1995 share the nomination? At least the Academy gave one nomination to The New World. That film is so well shot it towers over the other films here. Good Night and Brokeback are pretty, but the camera doesn't do anything that interesting. Begins on the other hand seems to think just shaking the camera on random stuff constitutes a well shot fight scene. New World deserves the award, but Good Night will probably get it.

Best Costume Design
MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
WALK THE LINE

I've only seen one film here, Charlie. I'm guess Geisha will get the award though.

Best Film Editing
CINDERELLA MAN
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
CRASH
MUNICH
WALK THE LINE

I always find it weird that the same movies nominated for best picture usually wind up in the technical catergory. Now, obviously good editing is a part of a great movie, but a bad movie can certainly have really strong editing. For example, the editing in Domino was pushing the medium in a new direction, so even though it wasn't well received, shouldn't that achievement be recognized. It's certainly more interesting editing than the conventional stuff in Gardener or Crash. I'm predicting Crash will win here.

Best Makeup
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
CINDERELLA MAN
STAR WARS, EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH

At least there's one nomination for Sith. I'm thinking Narnia will pick up the award.

Best Sound Editing
KING KONG
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
WAR OF THE WORLDS

This is a catergory I can't really evaluate, but War of the Worlds sounded pretty cool, though I think Kong will get the award.

Best Sound Mixing
WALK THE LINE
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
WAR OF THE WORLDS
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
KING KONG

Again, what constitutes sound mixing? I don't know, but I'd guess Kong will get the award.

Best Visual Effects
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
KING KONG
WAR OF THE WORLDS

Now, this catergory is a joke. Sith has some of the best visual effects ever in a movie, you believed in the digital characters, in fact you don't even consider them digital characters, as opposed to Narnia which was a bunch of kids interacting with cartoon beavers. I think Kong'll grab the award.

Best Original Song
"In the Deep" - CRASH, Music by Kathleen "Bird" York and Michael Becker; Lyric by Kathleen "Bird" York
"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" - HUSTLE & FLOW Music and Lyric by Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard
“Travelin’ Thru” — TRANSAMERICA, Music & Lyrics by: Dolly Parton

I'm really happy to see the nomination for "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." Will it be performed on the show? I hope so, if only for the awkwardness. Though I'd imagine the Transamerica song will win.

So, if you think that's a bunch of complaining, coming up next is what my nominations would be if I was the one choosing everything.

Thumbsucker

This is a film I've been wanting to see for a while, primarily because it has a soundtrack by The Polyphonic Spree, one of my favorite bands. Now that I've seen the movie, it's clear that that's only one of the good things this film has going for it. It's directed by first time director Mike Mills, who I know from the Air song that's named after him. It's a great song, and his direction lives up to the song.

Narratively, the film is a fairly standard high school teen angst dramedy. The main character's extistential angst about finding his purpose isn't something new, this doesn't necessarily mean it's not good, it's just that the film succeeds because it goes a bit beyond this. The title literally refers to Justin's continuing addiction to sucking his thumb, a hindrance now that he is seventeen years old. However, thematically, the title refers more to clinging to childhood, to the safety of the familiar. The main characters are trapped in their behavior patterns and are unable to grow up.

Justin is someone who's searching for an answer to his problems, a cure all that will resolve his issues and set him on the right path. So, over the course of the film he continually looks for quick fix answers to the issues that are plauging for him. When things go south with Rebecca at the beginning of the film, he blames it on his thumbsucking, and as a result looks to Barry for some answers. The hypnosis succeeds in getting rid of this problem, but he soon finds himself even more troubled, and finds another solution in the ADHD medication.

The film takes an interesting position on prescription drugs. The initial events surrounding them would suggest that they are a cure all, Justin is motivated and takes control of his life, rising to the top of the debate team, however, in taking the drugs he loses sight of the essential self that he is trying to seek. The drugs transform him into someone else and as time passes, he begins to realize that that indentity is a charade that he cannot maintain forever. Because they are a drug, the same as any illegal one, they will eventually affect the way he thinks and acts, so that the qualities that at first seemed desirable, the increased competitiveness and leadership drive, soon begin to hurt him in his interactions with people.

When he stops taking the drugs, Justin seems to slide off the path, and by the end he recognizes that ultimately he just has to stand up for himself, he can't be scared like he was at the beginning of the film. The drugs were a necessary step along his journey, but they weren't the ultimate destination.

The entire film is about this personal evolution, abandoning childhood and maturing into more fulfilled people. Justin's arc isn't the only one where this happens. His mother clearly has the same feelings of inadaquecy and self doubt. At the beginning of the film she looks to this fantasy figure, Matt Schram, as an escape from the monotony of her everyday life. Dissatisfied with the state of her marriage and family she seeks this fantasy escape into the glamourous world of a star.

As the film progresses, she sees that his life isn't particularly glamourous, he's got problems as well, she doesn't need him, it's ultimately he who needs her. I thought one of the best scenes in the film was the conversation between Matt and Justin, where Justin gets to see a new side of his mother. He always saw her as an authority figure, but through the conversation with Matt he understands that she's human too, she's scared and flawed, and when he insults her aspirations it really hurts.

Throughout the film there's a weird semi-incestuous vibe in the relationship between these two. It's most apparent in the scene where she's trying on dresses and is looking to Justin to see if she's hot enough to impress Matt. This puts him in a very weird position. When he tries to stop her from going with Matt, there's this sense that he's almost jealous that she would desire anything beyond what they have. This vibe is increased during the scenes that intercut Justin's sexual exploration with Rebecca with scenes of him and Audrey together, as well as Audrey wondering whether Justin has ever had sex.

This all ties in with the title and the essential theme of the film which is about Justin and Audrey separating so that they can both grow. Keanu talks about how the thumb is the substitute for the mother's breast, so Justin at first rejects the way he'd been brought up, goes off on his journey through drugs and at the end of the film returns to the love that she gave him.

So, it becomes a metaphor about creating your own identity. Justin has to throw off the ties to his childhood, try things on his own, find himself and then he can return to the family unit. As for Audrey, she too has to give up Justin, but she recognizes that it's what she has to do so that he can grow.

Barry himself sums up the theme of the film in the speech he gives at the end. The basic idea is that everyone's looking for a cure for their problems, but this very notion is a fantasy because we'll always have problems, rather than trying to become a perfect person, you just have to be comfortable with who you are. So, whereas once Justin was ashamed of his thumbsucking and saw it as a major hindrance, when he's on the plane, he's not shamed by himself, instead he gets over it and speaks to the girl next to him. So, don't try to be something you aren't, your flaws are a part of you. That seems to be the film's basic message.

The film had a lot of other strong stuff I didn't mention. The score was fantastic, though more underplayed than you would expect from the Spree. But it definitely fit with the tone of the film and I loved the final moments with "Move Away and Shine." I think this was Keanu's best performance in a long time, largely because he was playing the Keanu that everyone imagines him really being like, and it was nice to see Vince Vaughn outside of the persona that he's been using in every role for a while now.

The film was well shot, and though I think the dream sequences with the purple/pink stage were a bit cheesy, all the the rest worked well. I loved the way the narrative had a lot of episodic elements without compromising the strong throughline. Scenes that could have felt like tangents, such as the hotel room bit, worked because they were essential to the characters and were funny in their own right. I guess a lot of that is that each of the characters felt fully developed even if they didn't get much screentime. So, Mike could have been a stock disinterested dad, but you got a whole sense of history and emotion from him without knowing all the specifics. Though in that case the similarities to Unbreakable may have helped a bit. One of the little things I really liked was how Audrey mentioned that she didn't fall in love with him until he stopped playing, and he says that he stopped playing to be with her, yet neither of them could quite make the connection and convey these deep feelings they had for each other. Perhaps they will in the time following the film.

So, it's a really successful film that's thoroughly enjoyable, and also brings to the fore a lot of interesting issues. Over the course of Justin's journey, he tries to medicate a problem when it ultimately turns out there was no problem, it's just the difficulties that everyone faces. I think the most important thing to understanding the film is the line Justin reads out of the rehab book which is don't judge your interior based on everyone else's exterior. Everyone thinks they have it worse than they do, and you just need some perspective to move beyond that.

Review Revue - January 2006 (II)

I signed up for Netflix, which means I'll have a steady supply of new films coming in while I'm at school. This will allow me to catch up on some of the obscure and foreign stuff I wasn't able to get earlier. So, this post will have the first batch of those films, as well as a bunch of films I watched when I was still on break.

Spun - This was the first film I got from Netflix and it was not a good start, film wise or disc wise. I saw the censored version of the film, so I feel a bit uneasy about criticizing the film, since the impact was dulled by beeps and blurs, but from what I saw, it was pretty clear that this wasn't a particularly good movie. Jonas Ackerlund has done some good music videos, but here he stretches out his dirty, quick cut style to an entire film and it just doesn't work. I love a lot of quick cut excess movies, like Domino, but what that movie had that this lacks is a sense of fun. The whole film seems so dire, with nasty people going around doing pointless things.

I'm not saying that your characters need to be likable, but other than The Cook, there's no one here who's even interesting. They're all caricatures taken to excess and as a result, the whole film feels like it exists in a cartoon world. Most of the quick cut stylistic stuff was done better in Requiem for a Dream, and a lot of the film seemed designed solely to shock. There was no core humanity to the film, and that made it an empty viewing experience. That said, I did enjoy the Billy Corgan score and Mickey Rourke was excellent.



High Art - This was a movie I went in knowing virtually nothing about. I read that it featured Patricia Clarkson as a former Fassbinder actress and that was enough to get me interested. It's a really well done, engaging film that creates a wonderful sense of atmosphere. The most interesting place in the film is Lucy's apartment, where everything seems to move though a drug induced slow motion stupor. The lighting and acting draws you into what they're feeling, and over the course of the film, the viewer, like Syd, gets drawn into the world, starting as an outsider, but gradually becoming a part of their circle.

Clarkson is quite different from the other stuff I've seen her in, and I enjoyed the references to Fassbinder's stuff. Not to be prejudiced, but there's definitely a different feeling you get watching a film directed by a woman, particularly in terms of the way it defines relationships. Syd's boyfriend was just that, the boyfriend, he had very little depth in and of himself, a twist from the typical Hollywood way of doing things where it's the female character who's defined solely by her relation to a man. In this film, that definitely fit with the story, and I don't think you needed any more depth in that guy because he's meant to stand in for the safe, typical relationship she would expect to find.

The ending is a bit jarring and falls in with the typical art film cliche of having the main character die. I suppose that creates a more ambiguous ending, and removes the need to provide a concrete resolution for Syd and Lucy's relationship, but still, it felt like a bit of a copout. However, on the whole, it's a really strong film that I enjoyed watching, and definitely brings to the fore the fact that there's too few female directors working in film.



Lilja 4Ever - This film is shot in the handheld, jump cut, verite style that I've seen in a lot of recent films based around poor people in underdeveloped countries, most notably City of God. It's a style I really like, and in this film, it works really well. The film opens strong, with a really strong music track and a powerful image. I'm not usually a fan of the start at the end and jump back film structure, but it works here because the opening moment is so strong.

The film is a chronicle of Lilja's tragic fall through the dark corridors of human existence. The film is successful because it shows us what could be a really maudlin tale of woe in such a way that it's entertaining even as it's disturbing and tragic. The soundtrack is a constant pulse of club beats, befitting the false glamour that Lilja takes on when she goes out as a prostitute. Lilja goes through a litany of indignities, but things don't get really bad until the scenes in Sweden. The sense of claustrophobia and draining of life as is she gets further and further trapped in the life of a prostitute is devestating. The most powerful sequence is the montage of clients seen from her perspective.

The ending is very strong, I like the intrusion of fantasy imagery into the otherwise realistic, verite world of the film, in the real world, Lilja and Volodya could never find happiness, but it seems that in death, they're finally able to transcend their limitations and realize their full potential.



Malena - This was a film I really disliked, and even though I saw Miramax's cut version for US release, I don't think that would have changed my opinion. In film theory, there's discussion about the concept of the male gaze, the idea that the way the film is shot places the viewer in the role of a male observer. The idea that this is true of every film is ridiculous, but in the case of this film, it's inescapable, and the film is rather disturbing as a result. The basic premise of the film is that Renato lusts after Malena, a woman in his village, all while Italy is involved in World War II. I'd imagine there's some kind of allegorical statement about the corruption of Italy during the war, but the primary thread of the film is this kid's voyeuristic obsession with this woman.

The film reminds me of Fellini's stuff, in the way it shows these neighborhood kids ogling a beautiful woman, but at least he had some other stuff going on in his movies, and pointed out some of the flaws in this situation. Here, Renato's spying is basically condoned, and his love for her is positioned as purer than that of any of the real men she's with. So, the film starts out by creating this idealized vision of Malena, a woman in need of male protection, and then over the course of the movie gradually destroys, first turning her into a prositute, then having all the women in the village beat her in the middle of the square. And our hero after idolizing her the entire film just stands there and watches. He's pretty much a bastard, and that makes it difficult to care about what happens to him. As for Malena herself, she's a construction more than a character, a shallow male fantasy.

Monica Bellucci is someone I deeply respect after seeing her in Irreversible, that was a film that used her immeasurable beauty to serve the story, and enhance emotion. Here, it seems like Tornatore wanted to film her, so he created a story around which to do so. And the way the film is shot, it's pretty clear that he's still the same pervy kid he was back in the war years.

Match Point - Woody Allen is a filmmaker who's been in decline for most of my life, so I don't have the same high opinion of him that the previous generation had. Yet, stuff like Annie Hall and Manhattan is still great, and I'd heard that Match Point was a 'return to form.' It's actually more of a departure, it has very few of the traditional Woody Allen trademarks, and outside of the alphabetical order credits and scratchy record soundtrack, it'd be tough to tell it was his. However, that doesn't make it a great film. This is a movie that's got some really strong twists and emotional hooks, but ultimately takes too long to tell his story, such that by the time we get to the good part, it's tough to remain fully engaged.

I'm noticing that I've been saying that a lot lately, that a film is too long, and I don't think it's a reflection on a diminished attention span, rather it's films that move slowly without providing really strong visual or emotional moments. Because the filmmaking here is so conventional, everything is dependent on the actors and the writing, which puts you at something of a handicap. Wong Kar-Wai could shoot a trip to the grocery store and make it riveting and emotional, something most directors cannot do.

So, beyond those flaws, this is a nasty movie. I was aware of some of the twists, but the places it went in the end were very surprising and put the audience in a weird position. The main character in the film is a difficult guy to really like, yet he's surrounded by characters that we do like. So, no matter what he does, he's going to end up hurting someone. Seeing his wife and her family's affection for him, I didn't want him to screw up their lives by going off with Nola, yet at the same time I felt Nola's pain as Chris' hypocriscy. What happens in the end makes things easy for him, but it's a bit more troubling as an audience member, because it points to the fragile balance on which we live our lives. Chris has gotten away with a huge crime, and outside of his conscience, there's nothing that can incriminate him. So, he'll live a life with Chloe, but in some respect it will always be a lie.

It's a film that's way beyond all of Allen's recent work, and it's heartening to see someone branch out of his comfort zone. It's also another top notch performance from Scarlett Johanson, who's piling up an impressive list of credits despite being only twenty-one.

Broken Flowers

Back in the early and mid 1990s, the name Bill Murray did not garner respect. He definitely was considered a funny guy, but a funny guy on the decline. However, starting with Rushmore, Murray completely revitalized his career, to the point that now the presence of Bill Murray in a film is a near guarantee of quality. This is largely due to the creation of a new 'Bill Murray' character.

Now, star image is a very important thing in film, going back to the 1910s, but it's sort of faded away, and more importantly, it's generally considered to be at odds with 'real acting.' If method acting is all about completely becoming another person, star image is more about just being yourself, or at least the public perception of yourself. So, regardless of whether or not he's acting, in his recent films, Murray has created a very strong star image. The basic idea is that he's a guy who is extremely passive, so laid back that he almost disappears and most of the humor in the films with neo-Bill Murray comes from watching other characters struggle to penetrate the silent, ambiguous mindscape of our hero. 'Bill Murray' the character is generally despressed, at a point in his life where he struggles to care about anything, though over the course of the film he finds that perhaps there is something worth living for.

So, if Lost in Translation was 'Bill Murray' in Japan, and The Life Aquatic was 'Bill Murray' on a boat, Broken Flowers is Bill Murray on a quest for his kid. While the films may have a similar main character, I don't really mind because Bill Murray's acting in all of them is phenomenal. He does so little, yet always completely holds your attention. At the beginning of this film, there's nothing to really make you like the guy, but Murray makes him a captivating figure anyway. In the simple action of watching the Don Juan film, you can see Don contemplating his entire life.

I really liked the slow build of the film's beginning. You see this guy who has created a very comfortable, easy existence for himself, and claims that this is what he wants. Yet, when face with Winston's passion and fire for life, he allows himself to break away from the easy comforts and take a risk, to search for a deeper emotional connection beyond just material comforts.

So, he's off on his quest. Normally these quest type structures cause a movie to drag a bit. It's usually a bad sign when you see a movie that's set up more like a videogame, where you've got a set number of objectives to achieve, because it means that the entire film will just be variations on the same thing. However, Jarmusch makes each stop along Don's journey unique and interesting, each interaction revealing to Don a facet of his personality that he'd forgotten.

I liked seeing Frances Conroy outside of Six Feet Under. That segment was notable for some really great awkward moment comedy. Throughout the film there were these incredible silences, where you were just wishing someone would say something. And then Don's hinting around the issue of his son was good for some more laughs.

I don't really have too much to comment on the journey. It was all solid, funny stuff, but I think the film's real strength is in its final scenes. Up until those scenes, there was a more conventional film than the typical Jarmusch movie. All his stuff has a high level of ambiguity and frequently ends on a note of mystery. Most of the film was fairly straightforward, and while I've heard some people say that nothing happened in the film and it was slow, I thought it was constantly engaging, much more so than Stranger than Paradise or Dead Man.

Anyway, as the film progresses, Don begins to think that his son must be trying to get in touch with him, and as a result, he begins to think that anyone who's around twenty must be his son. The scene where he speaks with the kid, and tries to reach out to him is phenomenal, full of ambiguity and emotion. At this point, Don has become attached to having a kid, and despite the fact that Sherry's letter almost definitively proves that he never had a son in the first place, he's still searching for him. So, when he sees this kid, he decides that he must be his son, his desire overwhelming his logic. It's almost painful to watch Don reach out and then get rejected. He'd constructed this fantasy and is quickly brought down to reality. And at the end, Don has deluded himself, trying to construct an emotional bond to fill in for the fact that his life is ultimately empty.

The ending moments of the film were fantastic, and I'm glad that we were left not knowing exactly what happened. The letter was just a mcguffin, it forced Don to assess his life, and after symbolically reliving his past, he fails trying to create his future.

Even though I really liked the film, it did have something that always annoys me in a movie and that's when a character watches an old movie or cartoon that comments on the action in some way. I think the whole Don Juan comparison was made a few too many times at the beginning, but besides that, I don't think that many people watch old movies or cartoons. This crops up in a lot of films though, probably because old stuff is public domain and therefore is a lot easier to use.

But that doesn't obscure the fact that this was a really strong, funny and emotional movie. I think it's Jarmusch's best.