Change Your Image
F. Poole
Reviews
Undertow (2004)
Narrative Shy DGG Takes a Chance
Comparisons to Terrence Malick, though always some-what appropriate, are now legitimized by Undertow. In this instance Malick is actually credited as a producer on the film (purportedly because he penned the original story idea). This makes sense, in any case, as Green, though more prolific, has reached a point where it is time for him to do his Badlands. Undertow certainly could be it. Here Green branches out (almost literally as the film progresses) toward structure and plot, from his typically brilliant and narrative-shy style of direction.
The acting is as incredible as ever. It sounds cruel, but I never thought Dermot Mulroney could be so great (particularly after About Schmidt). Josh Lucas is also totally incredible. Make-up and hair on this one deserve chops for these two guys. Also, as could probably be expected, David Gordon Green proves that he is one of the best actors of younger talent out there.
Tim Orr's cinematography, here in collaboration with Richard A. Wright's production design, only seems to grow better with time. His ability to capture the beautiful natural light in each location, particularly interiors early in the film, is outstanding. Perhaps by virtue of editing by Zene Baker and Steven Gonzales, even out of focus shots appear intentional and appropriate in the aesthetic environment of the picture. The only issue as far as image is concerned is that, due to the digital intermediate (or just my imagination on only one viewing), there seemed to be a graininess or noisiness to certain shots.
If there's anything to legitimately complain about on this one, it's that at certain points the typical Philip Glass score seems dramatically inappropriate to the themes of the movie or the actions taking place. I'm sure he hates the comparison but, during some parts of his composition I was half imagining shots from other films where Glass's score was perfect: a classic Ron Fricke time-lapse shot of New York City as cars fly through the streets, in Koyaanisqatsi, or Julianne Moore lying on a hotel bed waiting to die as the room fills with water, in The Hours.
Overall, this is an excellent picture and will hopefully mark a transition to something new with DGG.
Spider-Man (2002)
Derivative Super Heroics
Before I start citing better super-hero movies (there are several), I would just like to say that while I found this film to be highly derivative of its counterparts (as well as of other genres), I must say that I was totally impressed that the entire audience applauded when the picture ended. Of course, this was an afternoon matinee on a Saturday so seven tenths of the audience was under the age of ten which means that most people there were not old enough to remember how good Batman was (let alone Superman).
On only his third attempt to sell out, and even following a Kevin Costner vehicle, Sam Raimi has finally hit his crowd pleaser. Hell, if Ron Howard can go from Grinch to Oscar in just two pictures then just about anything you can imagine should be possible.
I'm going to keep this simple. I didn't hate this movie. At times I found myself enjoying it, thinking that things could be much worse. In fact, for all of its shortcomings (which follow) I must confess that the filmmakers did a fine job of establishing a mood and aesthetic for this super-hero movie that is all-together much brighter than most other super-hero movies. But after the picture let out, I couldn't think of one thing that I really liked about the film.
So what's wrong? A lot of the acting was bad though. Raimi's charm as a character director seemed absent save for Bruce Campbell's wrestling emcee. To any Raimi fan, this would come as no surprise. Dunst, who was brilliant in Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, was flat and managed to salvage nothing of an already terrible (and empty-headed) female character, Mary Jane. (Rachel True's Mary Jane was superior in the 1998's pot comedy, Half-Baked.) Tobey McGuire, and Willem Defoe are capable of much, much more. I shouldn't need to cite references here. Semi-newcomer James Franco's performance was probably the least disappointing of the lot, though his character was likely the weakest.
(WARNING *** SOME MINOR SPOILING AHEAD ****)
Several narrative elements seem to be drawing on and owing their success to other better movies with similar ideas. For example, Peter Parkers metamorphosis process may remind some viewers of David Cronenberg's most commercial picture, The Fly. In another sequence, Franco comes home to the sound of his father screaming upstairs in their cavernous home; a moment reminiscent of Kubrick's film, The Shining, when Wendy hears Jack screaming in the main hall.
(NO MORE SPOILING)
Then there's Elfman's score. Boy howdy! It was probably the most derivative element of the entire film! It sounded pretty much like EVERY OTHER Danny Elfman score, except for the ones where he rips off John Williams, like Good Will Hunting.
Lastly, there was simply too much CG. Hollywood action movies seem to have degraded to an intellectual level that sinks beneath 3-D light shows and firework ceremonies. The cynics will feel that this has always been true...but I contend that the richness of characters, performance, and story lines in Superman and Batman will forever be far superior to the CG smoke and mirrors that make attractions like Spider-man earn $41 million dollars on their respective opening weekends.
Enough said on Spider-man. Decide for yourselves...and before you take issue with my point of view on this piece, watch Superman.
Yatsuhaka-mura (1996)
Mostly Entertaining but not up to Ichikawa's Standards
It's so hard to find any of Kon Ichikawa's later films in this country that I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from watching The 8 Tomb Village, should the opportunity arise. Nevertheless I felt that it was sub-par for a director like Ichikawa whose mastery of the medium deserves a great deal more notice than it has received.
The Walt Disney influence definitely comes through in The 8 Tomb Village (as it does in Dora-Heita) and dominates the picture's aesthetic, particularly the mood. It also did not seem to be as sophisticated or complex as some of his other films like Enjo, Kagi, or even Watashi wa Ni-sei. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but since there is a twenty-five year gap in my familiarity with Ichikawa (from Tokyo Olympiad 'til now) perhaps there is something I'm missing. Also, I'm not sure that the transfer I saw (a dub of a Japanese DVD) was the greatest possible quality.
Nevertheless, Ichikawa's characters are typically quirky and a pleasure to watch as they inhabit their peculiar little world. A must for Ichikawa fans, but definitely not a place to start for those that are unfamiliar with this unknown (in the West) master.
We Were Soldiers (2002)
We Were Country-Loving Fascists
Without getting into too many more details than necessary, it should be said that this movie was sexist, racist, badly cast, poorly photographed, and so terribly scored it hurts. To make matters worse, the dialogue was generally didactic, uncreative, and therefore unbelievable.
**WARNING: Some spoilers ahead**
The overbearing Catholicism didn't help either; particularly when referring to the enemy as "heathens" in one of Gibson's many moments of prayer in this feature.
None of the women's roles in this film had any substance or character. This does not separate them from the men, but it is particularly important to note because the film never spends enough time with them to develop their characters in the first place. It is as if the film is only hopelessly seeking to reach a wider audience than its competitor, Scott's Black Hawk Down, by recognizing that good Christian soldiers have good Christian wives at home, who weep when they die. Furthermore, that one such wife would mistakenly assume that a sign for "whites only", at a local laundromat, was referring to the type of laundry allowed is simply embarrassing. (This may have been an attempt by Wallace to set his film in its specific time period as music from the early sixties was completely absent from the movie. Either way: embarrassing.)
Racial issues, as with the women's roles, are so poorly dealt with in this film that it is unclear as to why the topic surfaces at all. Wallace's attempt to seem "multi-cultural" by having Gibson directly address the very mixed-racial nature of his unit (this is what I meant by didactic) is completely undermined by the lack of non-white actors in any of the leading roles. These other ethnicities only surface to be mutilated by typically exploitative Hollywood war violence, later in the picture.
It is conceivable that Wallace and Gibson were simply unable to get any talented non-white actors interested in their project, particularly because the rest of their casting decisions are unlikely choices for a war movie. Both Chris Klein and Greg Kinnear appear out of their respective elements here. This, in all fairness, may have been the intention of the filmmakers as both roles present an over-exaggerated contrast to that of Sam Elliot's roll as a hard-nosed and frequently amusing rip-off of Lee Marvin. For Lee Marvin fans, unfortunately, Elliot's presence only serves as a reminder that the world of cinema has seen so many superior, though less graphic, war movies before this.
In fact, possibly the film's greatest inferiority with respect to its most recent counterparts is its often uninspiringly composed and poorly lit cinematography. Two or three shots (I'm not sure which) that stand out as particularly amateur are one master shot of an evening dinner/dance (possibly the only scene in which the soldiers, other than Gibson and Klein, actually interact with their wives) that is just so poorly lit that even the American flag (center frame) looks weak and tired. The other shot (or shots) takes place as Gibson and the other soldiers are waiting for the bus. In one shot, unreasonably bright practicals light the soldiers and in (possibly) another they shed light on three very large radio antennas, for no apparent reason. That is, unless Wallace was trying, in an extremely amateur fashion, to emphasize the solid (and extremely phallic) nature of the US soldier that is prepared for war.
As the skilled combination of sight and sound lie at the heart of great cinema, it can be said that the quality of the cinematography may have been bearable had the musical score not been so gut-wrenchingly awful. One moment they're building suspense by ripping off Hans Zimmer's virtuoso score from a better war film, Mallick's The Thin Red Line, the next moment (as well as three more times through out the picture) they're using a completely inappropriate Scottish (?) ballad that is totally distracting from the scenes it accompanies. This ballad was probably meant to remind us that Wallace and Gibson once teamed up to make a film that was actually pretty good.
As much as I was truly nauseated by this picture I must concede that the rest of the audience, as well as the majority of reviewers on IMDB, seems to have been sincerely touched by its efforts. I will probably never truly understand why. However, one positive thing that I can say with regard to this picture is that it seems now that Mel Gibson may be only one or two contrived epics away from topping Kevin Costner's brilliantly (and I do mean brilliantly) cliched epic, The Postman. If this be his goal, I wish Mr. Gibson the best of luck.
Series 7: The Contenders (2001)
A nearly flawless indictment of a current trend in Television Aesthetics
While it's not clear for how long these so-called "reality" television shows will persist in mainstream programming (and therefore not clear for how long this movie will be so completely relevant), Series 7 is, nevertheless, an awesome examination of said programming.
Never have I seen a television aesthetic (of any kind) so faithfully recreated as in this piece. Everything is there: from commercial break-type announcements, last-week-on messages, musical cues, and interviews with contestants. Most of the time the coverage was even believable (which is to say, it seems at most times that the footage really came from a videographer following around a contestant). The ending is also a great of commentary, but should not spoil it.
Possibly the only failing for Series 7 is its under-examination (if not complete disregard) of the overtly sexually exploitative nature of many of the currently popular reality television shows. The irony here is that the director had actually pitched Series 7 as a television show (for broadcast, but still staged) and decided to seek independent funding for the feature because the network executives wanted more sex and less violence. It's hard to understand exactly why he found violence (with respect to the mass media) to be the topic most appropriate for criticism. Or, rather, it's hard to understand why he would deal exclusively with a critique of violence.
Series 7 is definitely one of the most interesting (post modern) pieces of "cinema" (in quotes as this it was meant for the small screen) released this year. A must see.
- F. Poole
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick's Transcendent Gift of Cinema
There is no doubt about it.
If ever there was a film that, in all of its theatrical exhibition awesomeness, could put to rest the cine-old argument over theatrical screening versus video screening, this is IT. Where narrative structure and dialogue are never lost on the small screen, the aesthetics of sight and sound that imbue the viewer in the transcendent experience that all cinema has the potential to be, are lost in that environment. Those who may have endured (or attempted to endure) this opus in the inferior format that found themselves doubting the integrity of the film or the validity of its supporters can bare no argument that can hold any water until they have witnessed it in the theatre. Moreover, even those supporters of the picture that have viewed it approvingly on their television monitors have short changed themselves and the filmmaker to have given praise without this experience. You can not know, or claim to know, 2001 until you have seen it there. This is the truth of great cinema.
Traffic (2000)
Badly cast, over-stylized, patently false, right-wing propaganda
Steven Soderbergh's latest film, Traffic, is little more than over-stylized right-wing propaganda that pretends to offer a reasonably clear-minded over-view of the problem of the "war on drugs." Nancy Reagan would be proud of this film. Never have the media-hyped fears of the white patriarchy been so well captured on the screen. (WARNING: SEMI-SPOILER APPROACHING) For example the film fallaciously implies that the only place a rich, young, white girl can find drugs is in a poor, African-American neighborhood. With people-of-color only drug dealers and a visual aesthetic that renders Mexico as a burning hell-hole, the film also offers a distinctly racist point of view. This film is sexist too. Feminist film-theorist Laura Mulvey would have a field day with how this film offers the young white girl as the primary victim and reason for fighting the war on drugs. Furthermore, the performances are only partially believable with the exception of Benicio Del Toro who is truly amazing. His performance is the film's ONLY redeeming quality. He should be offered an Oscar.