Review: Milk

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Genre: Drama (Biopic)

To raise a mainstream filmic biography of the first openly gay political officer in the United States - an officer assassinated in the course of his duty no less - one must of course recognize and not sublimate the high degree of advocacy the project intrinsically invokes. Forgoing that degree and having the film be otherwise clearly denies the strong history of not only, what the figure himself stood for, but also what the martyrdom of the man has since achieved (in terms of memorials, networks, social supports, and civic and legal change). Mr. van Sant, at the helm of this thus hybrid production, no, makes no games about evenly depicting its civil rights' bent, as the film, which begins as a testament of the man, concludes as a testament to him; however, nor does Gus adequately distill the vigor of his, advocate's, passions from the fidelity to the events of Harvey Milk's life, a distillation that would have found a happy balance between biography and advocacy and would have created stronger structure and direction to the narrative, which does capably tell its story but fails to enthrall as it could have in that telling.
Truth be told, this incomplete distillation is probably more the screenwriter's, Mr. Black's, failing than Mr. van Sant's; but as always, the director must bear full responsibilty for his project. And, while Gus brilliantly guided his actors through their journeys of investigation, exploration, and invocation, he sorely lacked the ability (this time) to patch the frays in his story and consistently ensure well lit, well framed scenes. His director of photography, Harris Savides, who has worked with him on many of his recent projects, has a reflectingly mottled history. While Mr. Savides tends to eke at least a few great shots out of every film he cinematographs, it seems as though those shots had been more accidents than intentional instances of brilliance, set sporadically among seas of shady lighting, clear obstructions, and jags of incongruous color(s). While Elephant (2003) stands out as his most significant work (in my opinion), that 2003 film still marks only a decency of cinematographing, of which Milk deserved far more. As it is now, the main weight on the film, pulling it down from where it could have been, is this slack in the shooting.
Otherwise, however, the film stands tall. It was well-edited, well-appointed, and very well-acted: Mr. Penn, Mr. Brolin, Mr. Hirsche, and Ms. Pill all beautifully dove into their respective characters (and looked surprisingly like those real figures to boot!). Furthermore, it succeeded marvellously in effectuating the gravity of its message/advocacy-born argument, and one of Mr. Savides' redeeming shots was serendipitously then, when it was most needed, during the culmination of the film's both external and internal ambition: the candelit vigil for the assassinated major and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
So, while - sure - like most other films, Milk could have used a greater strength of presence in a few of its aspects (and a greater laxity of presence in a few of its others), it was and is far and away one of the most potent and most skillfully created films this year.

Grade: A solid B+.

Sondre Lerche Is Great

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The Norwegian artist, Sondre Lerche, about whom I posted way back here, closes out the year with this post on his personal blog which even-handedly praises Beyoncé and Vampire Weekend for their respective musical prowesses this year. Read it here.

Announcement: The National Board of Review Awards

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The National Board of Review, which has a history of awarding those films that should have really won the "more prestigious" awards (e. g., the Oscars), released its list of award-winners this year yesterday, touting Slumdog Millionaire, John Brolin, and Anne Hathaway among others. While for my part their awards have been my chance to huzzah the actors, directors, and films to whom and to which I am partial, as they (i. e., the Board) tend to complement my own devoted merits; this year they and I have some key incongruities - ahem, Wall•E (see here) and Gran Torino, which - though I have to see it - seems to be no more than more Clint-Eastwood blather, the likes of which have been the strident Million Dollar Baby (2007), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), and The Bridges of Madison County (1995). Still miracles remain to be seen.

I should be able to report on the merits and demerits devoted to Milk, Frost/Nixon, and Slumdog Millionaire after this weekend.

The full list of award-winners, via the National Board of Review's individual website, are here:

Awards for 2008:

Best Film
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Top Ten Films
(In alphabetical order) BURN AFTER READING, CHANGELING, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, THE DARK KNIGHT, DEFIANCE, FROST/NIXON, GRAN TORINO, MILK, WALL-E, THE WRESTLER

Best Foreign Language Film
MONGOL

Top Five Foreign Films
(In alphabetical order) THE EDGE OF HEAVEN, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, ROMAN DE GARE, A SECRET, WALTZ WITH BASHIR

Best Documentary
MAN ON WIRE

Top Five Documentaries
(In alphabetical order) AMERICAN TEEN, THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON), DEAR ZACHARY, ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED

Top Independent Films
(In alphabetical order) FROZEN RIVER, IN BRUGES, IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS, MR. FOE, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, SNOW ANGELS, SON OF RAMBOW, WENDY AND LUCY, VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, THE VISITOR

Best Actor
CLINT EASTWOOD, Gran Torino

Best Actress
ANNE HATHAWAY, Rachel Getting Married

Best Supporting Actor
JOSH BROLIN, Milk

Best Supporting Actress
PENELOPE CRUZ, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Ensemble Cast
DOUBT

Breakthrough Performance by an Actor
DEV PATEL, Slumdog Millionaire

Breakthrough Performance by an Actress
VIOLA DAVIS, Doubt

Best Director
DAVID FINCHER, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Directorial Debut
COURTNEY HUNT, Frozen River

Best Adapted Screenplay
SIMON BEAUFOY, Slumdog Millionaire and ERIC ROTH, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Spotlight Award
MELISSA LEO, Frozen River and RICHARD JENKINS, The Visitor

Best Original Screenplay
NICK SCHENK, Gran Torino

Best Animated Feature
WALL-E

William K. Everson Award For Film History
MOLLY HASKELL and ANDREW SARRIS

The BVLGARI Award for NBR Freedom of Expression
TRUMBO

Announcement: A New Short from Aardman (and the Annie Awards' Nominees' Announcement)

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Aardman Animations, Ltd.; the studio behind the brilliant Wallace & Gromit (W&G), clay-mated series; is set to release a new short film to that series, entitled Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death, later this month on BBC One. A long-time admirer of the series as well as of the other films by the studio (e. g., Creature Comforts), I am extremely excited about this unanticipated release just on the horizon, though I am as yet uncertain whether the broadcast will be aired for my viewing here, in the U. S., as it will in the U. K. While I figure that issue out, check out the Aardman website for the film here.

On a related note (and by way of my discovering the existence of the upcoming W&G short), the nominees for this year's Annie Awards, dedicated to celebrating the best in a year's animation, were announced today. Other than for me the existence of the new Aardman short, the flagging of Pixar's Wall-E in the nominations, behind both the less critically celebrated Bolt and Kung-Fu Panda, was (I suppose) an unanticipated surprise for many people - though the part of me that pretty much derided those people for practically soiling their pants over that only mediocre Pixar release wasn't as much surprised by the flagging as it was gleefully preserved. On that note, let's see what happens.

Review (A Letter to Baz Luhrmann): Australia

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Genre: Drama (Historical/Romance)

O, Baz! What have you done?! What an epic, what a charge, what an embarrassment!

Dear Baz,
It saddens me ever so greatly, to see you put out such an indelicate new work, especially when your preceding films have been so increasingly polished. As I sat there in the theater taking it all in, I couldn't help but wonder, what happened to your sense of balance? What to your eye for editing? What to your mind for argument?? It is in response to these pressing questions of mine, that I feel compelled to be typing this address to you now, in hope that you will heed my comments, learn from your mistakes, and not ruin Wicked for its expected filmic debut in 2010.

While Australia certainly had its (small) set of redeeming features, I found the majority of the film to, not only be exceedingly contrived, but to moreover be confused about its contrivance: While the sets had a certain stylized beauty and the costumes a similarly editorialized flair, the rest of the film seemed to be no more than a daytime soap opera on a grand scale, a melodramatic throwback to the films of (for example) David Lean but a throwback that seemed to cyclically forget and then remember again from where exactly it owes it sways. At opening a (to my eye) extremely conscious reproduction of the heavy-handed, romance-driven, and baseless sweeping scenes of those films of old, Australia was quick to slip away from such smart hyperboles of its origins and to thus slide into comfort and almost into seriousness in its overworked surroundings. That you seemed to genuinely want your audience to care during a significant portion of the film for its protagonists, instead of to merely nostalgically adore them as concise epithets of historical romance, is a surefire sign of the significant misgivings you must have had about the directions the work would eventually take. Such an unbalanced perspective on your product is not only imprudent but also irresponsible, and I must say it left Ms. Kidman, your gifted leading actress, more than a bit aflutter between the quite beautiful exaggerated huffs of metaconscious melodrama and the treacly swoons of "damsel-alia" and self-serious, true drama. Either take it or leave it, Baz: You can't do melodrama half of the way...
...especially when your editors are apparently incompetent. Sure, each of them has a previous Oscar nomination for his work, but each should have his stripped away for this travesty. Sloppy storyline compositions, excessive inclusions, and just endless, sagging second and third acts caked up more bluff than I could well tolerate. More than once did I shift in my seat, gaze lazily around the theater, and seek out the other bored film-goers for a brief moment of weary commiseration; and even once for such an act isn't good in my estimation. Please, clean it up, Baz; of it all, this, editing, was the most disappointing point of your latest work.
...the most disappointing, not only because such feckless editing stood out as weary-making itself but also because it saddled the film with the dubious quality of artifice, superfice, and pandering: that is, almost total lack of argument. While the film was introduced by a meaty premise of racial segregation and related prejudices manifesting as the tragic displacements of the members of the "stolen generations" in Darwin, Australia, it quickly jams into itself almost masochistically the most contrived and typical storybook romance of the stock independent damsel and the stock rugged poet, a marriage of unequals that plays more unstably than a seesaw. Instead of trying to build something interesting out of this situation, the film chooses instead to focus on Danielle-Steele-esque shots of Mr. Jackman's body, hollow reproductions of the sentiments behind the romance in Out of Africa (1985), and unfavorable relegations of the aboriginal/racial plights to the background as much as possible, so much so that the few moments in which they actually do take the spotlight are completley dominated by almost head-bangingly stereotypical sights and images. Again, though, this may all have been excusable with some handier editing and a wit that appeared to be always knowledgeable of what it was putting out there - but such tightness in the work was patchy at best. O, Baz, Baz, Baz...how did this ever mettle your approval?
I don't think I can go on much more here. All I have left is: if you intended on creating a really great C-level movie, congratulations! But let's try to keep aspirations higher next time.

Sincerely, your forgiving fan,
R.

Grade: C+, unfortunate results of a once noble effort.

Addendum to Photography: Laura Wilson

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Browsing the layout of the renovated Criterion website, I came across these two beautiful posts on Bottle Rocket (1996) that just synched perfectly with the little tidbit I found about Luke and Owen's mother, Laura Wilson: One a tribute toward the film by Martin Scorcese and the other a tribute to it by James L. Brooks, the two beautifully complement the behind-the-scenes photography about which I posted earlier - even with a great behind-the-scenes photo of their own (above) - but then one expects such great accompanying extras from Criterion. Enjoy them both here and here.

P. S. The above photo is now my desktop's wallpaper.

NY Times' Critics' Picks

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I just noticed the current Critics' Picks on the Times' website - see right - and I can't help but say, "What a great line-up!"/"I'm glad these films are getting good press."

(Go, Harvard!)

Photography: Laura Wilson

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Coming on the heels of today's Criterion release of Bottle Rocket (1996) is this interesting little tidbit about the film's stars' mother via GreenCine Daily: Apparently Luke and Owen's mom, Laura, is a photographer who has documented her sons' adventures in film-making (along with documenting all the usually suspected characters in their circle - see photo above). Though her website fails to feature a significant plurality of her work, the images that are there are interesting enough (to warrant this post). See them all at that website, here.

Preview: Nine

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Looking ahead at the year in film, 2009, we find this interesting-looking adaptation of the famous Broadway musical Nine due in theaters. Featuring an amazing-looking ensemble that includes the likes of women from Dame Judi Dench and Sophia Loren to Penelope Cruz and Fergie, the film appears to be a great hit for next year's season. For now though, via the folks at AwardsDaily.com, enjoy this preview photograph of the women seven of nine.

Commentary: Milk

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TrailerAddict.com has posted a series of brief interviews conducted with the cast and crew of the upcoming and highly anticipated Milk onto its website, here. Below I've embedded my favorite of the bunch, Josh Brolin's chat about the story and the importance of the film to him.