The Movies: Reviews by a Film Geek

Salutations readers, gawkers and passersby; I’m here to spell out a little piece of my mind and hopefully change the world in my own small way. Be forewarned however, the following may offend those among you with weak constitutions. Now that the disclaimer is taken care of I’d like to send out a letters to a pair of writer/directors in Hollywood, CA.

————————————————————————————————————

Dear Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer,

Good day to you both, I hope this letter finds you well. You are both becoming somewhat of an industry. You create films in a milieu that while not original you seem to have made your own. To date you have written and directed the following feature films:

Date Movie (2006)
Epic Movie (2007)
Meet the Spartans (2008 )
Disaster Movie (2008 )

You have also been credited writers on:

Spy Hard (1996)
Scary Movie (2000)
Scary Movie 2 (2001)
Scary Movie 3 (2003)
Scary Movie 4 (2006)

It is quiet a body of work. You seem to be quite busy (2 movies in 2008!). Jason, Aaron could you do me a favor?

STOP IT! You are actively ruining all that is good and holy in humanity. You two may actually be the closest thing to Satan that exists. In the grand scheme of terrible things there is:

The Holocaust
The Black Plague
You Two Hacks

Please take some time to think about your life and your careers and please, choke on each others’ dicks.

Sincerely,
Andrew
————————————————————————————————————

I feel a lot better now, except that it’s not really the film makers fault. I mean, they are responsible for creating atrocities that transcend common decency, but without you, the viewer, they wouldn’t be making this shit. Hollywood exists to milk you of your hard earned money (a commodity that you can’t waste on crap in this economic depression) and Hollywood will sell you whatever fetid crap it pours down its trough.
Do you want to save the world, save money and show Hollywood that you’re not a Dorito eating, cola sipping, cottage cheese brained comatose? Then stop supporting crap movies. What makes it worse is that you know that it is garbage, but you still rent it and buy tickets to see it. I don’t understand there are thousands of great films that sit on the shelves of TLA collecting dust, but You Don’t Mess With the Zohan flies off of shelves like free beer at an AA meeting.
Each week a bucket full of stale films is released on DVD and everyone lines up to rent them. If you’re lucky there is a glimmer of sunshine and a good movie sneaks its way into your possession. I know that you’re not going to give up your shit movie addiction. But at the very least could you do me a favor? When you are taking advantage of our 3 for 2 rental special, please make the free one a good movie. Please take our advice when we recommend a great flick to you. It may not be the genre you favor, it may not be color or have sound but trust us, we know what we’re doing. We’ve gone to school to learn about movies, we watch more flicks then you can imagine, we read film texts for fun. We study films, we love films (some of us so much that we tattoo it onto our bodies).
If for some strange reason you can’t take our word for it please check out the following websites for great film suggestions:

http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies10.aspx

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/the_complete_list.html

http://www.filmsite.org/momentsindx.html

http://www.filmsite.org/momentsindx200.html

http://www.filmsite.org/momentsindx300.html

Pick a good flick and I promise you will be rewarded. These films are so awesome that when you watch them, money pours from the sky, all ice cream becomes non fat and 100% good for you, super models will find you attractive, cats and dogs will get along in harmony and rainbows will dance in the sky. Trust me I’ve seen it all happen before.

Thanks for reading.

June 15, 1878 a man has rigged 12 still cameras along the Palo Alto racetrack in San Francisco. A bet has been made over the nature of a horse at full gallop. Photographer, Eadweard Muybridge (1830 – 1904) has been hired, by Leland Stanford the former Governor of California, to prove that a horse will leave contact with the ground when running at full speed. It took Muybridge six years of research to develop the technology that would spur the “instantaneous photography” movement. Jockey Abe Edgington led his horse down the track at a blazing speed, little did he know that he would be a part of some of the most famous and important photographs in the world. On that June day the theory of cinema was conceived.

Before Muybridge was approached by Stanford cameras were “balky… with wooden shutters and insensitive glass-plate negatives” (Olsen, 1). They required long exposure times, as a result the subject needed to remain still. Muybridge “modified the emulsions on the glass-plate negatives, making them more reactive to light”, he also replaced the wooden shutters with metal, electric-operated shutters (Olsen, 1).
Muybridge lined the racetrack with 12 of these modified cameras (each one 21 inches apart) and connected them to tripwires. As the horse ran by, it tripped the wires, which set off the camera it was connected to. Muybridge developed the plates on the spot and “produced a series of photographs showing the horse virtually stride by stride” (Olsen, 1). Indeed Muybridge proved that a horse, at full gallop, will have all four hooves off the ground

Muybridge’s importance to cinema is the idea of capturing an event as it happens. He captured movement in time. It is the idea of photographing how things move that proves important later. While Muybridge never thought to create a camera that could take multiple photographs in succession; that invention went to Hannibal Goodwin who “first used celluloid roll film as a basis for light-sensitive emulsions” (Cook, 4). It is the work of photographic pioneers such as Muybridge that allows people such as W.K.L. Dickinson, Thomas Edison, and Auguste and Louis Lumiere to develop the camera technology that will drive the creation of cinema; which evolves through Edwin S. Porter and Georges Melies to become modern cinema, but who were these pioneers of cinema who turned photography into cinematography?

Georges Melies (1861 – 1938) “was the son of a prosperous shoe manufacturer” (Barnouw 45). While being primed to take over the family business he was sent to London for a year of study. While there he stumbled upon, and became a “habitué of Egyptian Hall” (Barnouw 45) (the hall was a theater where magic acts regularly performed). Melies, falling in love with magic, sold his shares of the family business to his brothers and began pursuing life as a professional magician.

Georges and cinema crossed paths thanks to the Lumiere brothers. Melies “attended the first Cinematograph programs in 1895 he immediately recognized the vast illusionist possibilities of the ‘living pictures’” (Cook 13). He had been using Magic Lantern projections in his performances and he was eager to gain access to the Cinematograph.

Melies procured a camera and began experimenting with the new technology. He was about to discover the early principals that would allow him to create his own films. He was about to discover movie magic.

“In the fall of`1896, while he was filming a Parisian street scene, his camera jammed in the process of recording an omnibus as it emerged from a tunnel. When he got the machine working again, a funeral hearse had replaced the omnibus, so that in projection the omnibus seemed to change into a hearse. By this accident Melies came to recognize the possibilities for the manipulation of real time and real space inherent in the editing of exposed film. He discovered that film need not obey the laws of empirical reality” (Ezra 41).

Melies continued to experiment with the camera putting his magic background to use with the camera. He would soon become cinema’s first narrative artist (Cook 15). Melies based his narrative films on the stage play of the day, that is the camera was set upon the proscenium arch. While he kept the angle the same he was able to invent a slew of new techniques, such as: the fade-in, the fade-out, the lap dissolve and stop-motion photography.

In 1896 Melies moved into his own production studio, Star Film Company, housed in the Paris suburb of Montreuil. His studio was not unlike Edison’s Black Maria. It was essentially a box, but whereas Edison, had his walls painted black, Melies’ were made of glass (which brought in the necessary light).

It was in this studio in 1902 that Melies created modern cinema. After dozens of films, he began work on what I consider to be his masterpiece (and one of the most important films ever made).

La Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) eschewed in the modern era of filmmaking. By modern I mean: A film wholly created for the express purpose of being viewed in a theater. Melies had been experimenting with the narrative film form for some time, and it seemed he was creating new cinematic techniques on a daily basis. It was only when he began production on A Trip to the Moon did all of the pieces fall into place. It established the use of production design as a means of storytelling. It used special effects not as a gimmick, but as a way of pushing the story forward. The film created numerous camera techniques, some of which were invented on the set.

Melies based his screen story on the written work of Jules Vern. The film tells the story of a group of astronomers who, shoot themselves to the surface of the moon and have an encounter with the ‘Selenites’ who inhabit that celestial body. Melies took his script and filmed one of the most influential films of all time.

By crafting sets and costuming his actors Melies added a hitherto unseen aspect of filmmaking. This production design grounded the film in its reality. By wholly crafting of the world in which his characters inhabit, Melies created the world that his film would be shot. In doing so he changed the empirical reality of the world that we live in into the reality of the screen – lies at 24 frames a second (or in this case 16 frames a second).

Melies also uses special effects to tell his cinematic tale. His use of dissolves to change the frame from one scene to the next was revolutionary. He had used dissolves in previous films but he had never used them to transition from one location to the next. Melies also used editing as an effect. Consider the moments when the Astronomers hit the Selenites with their umbrellas. He cuts from the Selenite standing in the frame to the same frame minus the Selenite, adding a puff of smoke in its place. When played back this creates an “explosion” effect. The other incredibly significant effect is his dolly shot, or rather what looks like a dolly shot. When the Astronomers are shot to the moon the camera moves into the moons face. In any film today the camera would be pushed towards the subject. Melies did not think to do this. He went the backwards way and moved the subject to the camera. This was accomplished by setting the camera at the top of an incline and allowing the subject to roll down on a dolly. The film was then played in reverse to simulate the moon moving closer to the camera.

Such ideas were limiting Melies from breaking free from the stage mentality. I could not find any information on why Melies thought that his dolly technique was better than moving the lightweight camera. Other limiting factors were that Melies never once, in any of his 500 films, changed the camera angle. He seemed to worship the proscenium arch. The change in camera angle and the discovery of true editing would go to Edwin S. Porter but that is for another paper.

The birth of cinema ended with Melies. It was born from Muybridge and Edison, raised and nurtured by the Lumiere brothers and it was eschewed into adolescence by A Trip to the Moon. Other pioneers came shortly after, including D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein and Carl Laemmle, but it was cinema’s founding fathers who started the new communication revolution.

Oliver Stone’s JFK was intensely attacked by the mainstream press and critics for its view of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Oliver Stone states that he is “presenting a countermyth to the myth of the Warren Commission.” We must view the film as an artistic statement and as pointed out by Robert Kolker “the content of JFK is manufactured by its form.” What is the form saying about the film as an artistic statement and how is the film presented to the audience?

The content of the film is indeed manufactured. Stone presents to us his theory of the JFK assassination, based upon his own extensive research. But by making a film he as a director must make choices that will reflect those ideas. Like the Warren Commission he must chose what information goes where and how it is given. By making the film, the audience knows that Stone is biased.

The film opens with newsreel footage of Eisenhower’s farewell address where he warns of the growing “military industrial complex”. This opening does two things: first it sets up the use of newsreel footage, something that Stone uses throughout the film to ground his countermyth in reality; secondly Stone is giving us his thesis statement, the opening montage narrated by Martin Sheen is giving us all of the necessary background information that will be used by Jim Garrison and by Stone as a foundation for the countermyth.

Taking a closer look at the opening montage we can see that only part of the shots are actually newsreel footage. Stone is mixing recreations of the assassination with actors that is shot on film stock of the period so that he can give us angles that are not available in the stock footage. Stone is using the film form to present to us the information that is needed to support his thesis. By inserting new footage he is secretly turning our heads in his direction.

JFK is a marvel of editing; Stone and his editors, Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia, weave together dozens of plot strands. We are constantly being shown information that the characters do not have any knowledge of; one example that clearly stands out when Clay Shaw is being interrogated on Easter Sunday. Clay Shaw denies having met Willie O’Keefe but we cut to a scene of the two of them having dinner together. Another example is the scene in the restaurant where Garrison’s staff, meet to discuss the case. As an audience we watch as the picture of Oswald is constructed. As the conversation goes on, we hear about Oswald. Stone is showing us the building of a patsy.

In addition to creating images, Stone also creates characters to purse out information. The best example is that of Donald Sutherland’s “X”, a character who harkens back to Hal Holbrook as “Deep Throat” in All The President’s Men. “X” gives us the largest block of information yet. Here is Stone speaking directly to the audience; we are given a view of the assassination as a coup d’État set forth to protect the military industrial complex. The shots in this scene are idyllic showing Garrison and “X” sitting on a bench amid lush green grass with the Washington Monument towering behind them. These shots are intercut with stark black and white photography that matches with “X’s” narration. We see everything fall into place but Stone does something interesting. He gives the character, who represents his own voice, a very peculiar line of dialog. “X” tells Garrison “Don’t believe me. Do your own work, your own thinking,” here Stone is telling the audience to not believe the film but to go out and look at the information yourself.

Stone is also calling forth the idea that history only reflects what is written down. In tackling the Warren Commission’s view of the assassination, Stone is calling into question the validity of that truth. A title scroll follows the end of the film and in it the line “What is past is prologue” appears. Stone is commenting on the idea that history is merely a story.

What Oliver Stone has done is created a film that it about the JFK assassination but is also about the search for truth. I think that Stone has given us his view but also enough information and enough questions to make the audience think about the government’s role. Hopefully after viewing the film the audience will be spurred to look for themselves.

David O. Russell’s Three Kings (1999) tells the story of four American soldiers who attempt to steal Kuwaiti gold from Saddam Hussein shortly after the end of “Desert Storm”. It is an action film with a vicious amount of dark humor throughout but hidden underneath is a scathing attack on American foreign policy. O. Russell lulls the audience with large explosions and gunfire and when we least expect it he hits us with a political message.

The film has a washed out grainy feel to it and its camera moves, motivated by the action draw the viewer in. The camera is extremely quirky at times, we are shown a bullet entering a body and piercing through organs in one moment and the next it whip pans around to follow a gun fight. The overall style reminds me of a madcap Apocalypse Now mixed with a Buster Keaton short. This style does more then look cool, it motivates the story. We are lulled by the pretty action and the spectacle of the humor and situations that the film presents. In this state we let our guard down and allow the action to take hold, this is when we are given the films political messages, when we least expect them.

The film opens with a title card. “March 1991, the war just ended.” We see the desert as Troy Barlow steps into frame. In the distance an Iraqi soldier waves a white flag. “Are we shooting?” he asks, his fellow troops have a humorous exchange reminiscent of the “Who’s on first” gag. Troy shoots the soldier, fearing that he might be taking aim. When we see him next Troy is celebrating with his friend Conrad Vig and Chief Elgin and a tent full of soldiers. The men drink, dance and sing. A reporter enters and asks the men why they are celebrating; the men shout “we liberated Kuwait!” In the first few moments the film has given us a standard American soldier who proudly defends his country and saves a nation from invasion, or does he?

Next we are introduced to Major Archie Gates, we first see him having sex with a news reporter. They are interrupted when his commanding officer barges in asking him why he is not escorting Adriana Cruz, another reporter. He is ordered to show her around the base and answer her questions about the war. His superior officer tells him “You’re supposed to make her feel good about the stories we want.” Gate is a disillusioned character what bluntly states “I don’t know what we did here.” O. Russell masterfully gives us two opposing views of the army. We have Troy who believes he has done something good and Gates who is not sure of anything.
The plot escalates quickly when a map is found secreted away on a surrendering Iraqi soldier. The map leads to a hidden bunker where Saddam has hidden millions in Kuwaiti gold bullion. Archie Gates, Chief Elgin, Troy Barlow and Conrad Vig set out to steal the gold for themselves. O. Russell is giving us something more that just gold. The gold is the macguffin of the story but I argue that it is also a stand in for oil. If we look at the movie as a microcosm for the war, we can correlate the greed of our heroes to the greed of American for oil.

The heroes assault the bunker and come face to face with the current realities of the war. Since the cease-fire has been signed the Iraqi’s no longer fight the Americans but they turn their attentions to fighting the Shi’ites who do not support Saddam. Archie explains “Bush told these people to rise up against Saddam. They thought they’d have our support. They don’t. Now they’re getting slaughtered.” When they see a soldier execute an unarmed civilian the heroes break the cease-fire and liberate the Shi’ites. We are introduced to Amir Abdulah, leader of the shi’ite rebellion and husband to the murdered civilian.
The filmmakers use this turn of events to open the eyes of the soldiers, Troy specifically, to the truth of what is happening in the country. Earlier in the film Troy believes that the US liberated Kuwait, but here he begins to see the true devastation that the war has caused. When the truck that is carrying the gold crashes, Troy forgoes saving the gold and instead saves two small children from walking into a minefield; an event that leads to his capture.

The heroes end up in a cave, seeking refuge from CS Gas; they are one man down. It is here that the core political view of the film is unfurled. Amir tells Gates, and the audience “we try to get rid of Saddam and Bush leaves us twisting in the winds… we’re fighting Saddam and you’re stealing gold.” Amir gives us the Gulf War in a nutshell here. The Shi’ites were trying to overthrow Saddam and the U.S. did nothing, but when he invades Kuwait we get involved to protect our oil there. The U.S. did nothing to help the Shi’ites.
While Gates, Elgin and Vig are learning one side of the story; Troy learns another. He has been captured and is being tortured by Said, a Captain in Saddam’s army. Troy is surprised to learn how Said learned English; Said tells him that he was trained by the U.S. to fight Iran. Said says “You are here to save the Kuwaiti people… lots of people are in trouble in this world and you don’t fight no war for them.” Troy responds with a white house version of the war. He explains that the U.S. invaded Iraq to reset the stability of the region. Said counters, “this is your stability”, he then force feeds oil to Troy. O. Russell is brilliant in using different views of the war to give the audience a complete view. We are given a look at an American view, a Shi’ite view and an Iraqi view and we can see how each fills in the gaps that the other leaves out. He masterfully does all of this in the background so that as a member of the audience you don’t really notice it.

The film ends in a moment of dues ex machina that is reminiscent of the ending to the film Spartan (2004). In that film the media happens to be in the right place at the right time to get a scoop that could cripple the current political institution. Here Adriana Cruz is able to report on the attempt by Major Gates and crew, to lead the Shi’ites to the Iranian boarder where they can be free from persecution. When the U.S. forces swoop in and arrest our heroes it is a combination of media attention and outright bribery that saves the Shi’ites.

Three Kings is a madcap, mishmash of a film that keeps you on your toes while it sucker punches you with a scathing political message. It is a testament to writer/director David O. Russell who captures the horror and the humor of war as well as the bleakness of American foreign policy.

A faun towers over a little girl who holds onto her newborn baby brother. The faun holds an intricate dagger, promising that he only needs a drop of blood from the infant. The girl refuses to hand over her brother as the evil Captain in Franco’s army enters to reclaim the infant himself. The girl, Ofelia, is torn between the two worlds that she seemingly inhabits, that of fantasy and that of the abject horror of Franco’s Spain. Welcome to the film, Pan’s Labyrinth.

Guiillermo Del Toro wrote and directed this fantasy film, which acts as a sister film to his earlier, Devil’s Backbone. Pan’s Labyrinth tells the story of young Ofelia (played by the astonishing Ivana Baquero), whose pregnant mother, Carmen (portrayed by Ariadna Gil), has remarried Captain Vidal (the vicious Sergi Lopez). They are moved to an outpost in the woods. Ofelia, wants nothing to do with her step father. All she wants is to spend time with her books. Arriving at the camp, she is introduced to Mercedes, the head of the staff at the outpost. Ofelia explores her surroundings, discovering fairies that lead her to the titular labyrinth, where we are introduced to the faun, an impressive looking creature who is more gnarled and knotted wood than flesh and bone. The Faun proclaims Ofelia to be a long lost princess, but to prove it she must complete three tasks.

In speaking of the Faun it is an impossibility to mention Doug Jones, the man behind the mask. A native of Indiana, Jones spoke his lines phonetically, while performing inside the complex suit. His performance is as nuanced as any other in the film and that is a testament to the man. Jones also plays the terrifically terrifying Pale Man, who visage is as haunting as any previously put to film.

Pan’s Labyrinth is a visual wonder to behold. Everything about the film is immaculate and the depth that the film takes on is only helped by the art and set designs which incorporate elements of fantasy into the outpost. The film, which was shot by Guillermo Navarro (this is his fourth collaboration with Del Toro), shows subtlety in everything from camera movement to the lighting and the different styles between real and fantasy have enough commonality to be linked but are different enough to be believable.

Much has been said about the film’s handling of violence and from a cursory glance at the previews it’s hard to imagine that this isn’t a film for a child but, be warned. This film does not shy away from violence or gore. Captain Vidal crushes a peasants face with a wine bottle, without a shred of remorse, and it only gets worse from there. The creature designs are also grotesque, the faun is both hideous and beautiful and the evil Pale Man seems ripped completely out of a child’s worst nightmare.

The film follow the conventions of a fairy tale, using all of the plot devices to a masterful affect (I wonder is Del Toro is somehow related to the Brother’s Grimm). The use of threes in the film is important to note. The number three has long since been the most important number in fairy tales and here it is no exception. Let’s look at the number three in the film. There are three women (Ofelia, Carmen and Mercedes), there is Captain Vidal and his two Sergeants, Ofelia has 3 tasks to complete, There are 3 doors in the Pale Man’s room, Ofelia draws 3 doors in chalk. Also worth noting is the way the film starts, we open in the forest as Ofelia and Carmen are driving to the outpost. The car stop and Ofelia discovers the first hints of magic in the forest. The idea of a journey through the forest an into someplace magical is seen throughout literature (Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown springs immediately to mind).

The film has been constructed to support two views. One view involves the fantasy being as real as the Franco era Spain it is set in. The other view is the opposite, that the fantasy is all in Ofelia’s imaginative head. I think that the fantasy is real, but you may have a different take and that’s what makes the film spectacular. With each viewing the audience is given the chance to unravel the storytelling and figure out which view is right. This is the gift of a master filmmaker. Guillermo Del Toro has created a movie that you want to see over and over again, a film that challenges the viewer.

I cannot recommend this film highly enough. It is one of those films that will remain in your mind long after you have seen it. It is a film that delivers a visually stunning, utterly amazing fairy tale and in a world increasingly devoid of myth and fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Really.  I will.  Just wait and see.  Reviews of Blade Runner: The Final Cut, The Simpsons Movie and something weird/strange/horrid that I discovered.  trust me… in a few days all will slowly come back to normal.

Directed by Mike Leigh

Written by Mike Leigh

Starring: David Thewlis, Katrin Cartlidge, Lesley Sharpe

Mike Leigh’s Naked is an unflinching look into the human condition. Having just written that I hate myself, I feel so cliche. Let me start over. Mike Leigh’s Naked is a filthy, dirty, sarcastic, mean spirited, humorous, nicotine stained, arguably misogynistic, dark, gloomy, disheveled, intelligent film with a performance so good it ruins other movie performances by being so fucking amazing.