Darron Aronofsky talks to the Times about his "mind, body, and spirit" trilogy, his intentions for the upcoming The Wrestler in relation to that set of his earlier three films, and his process of developing a visual language for that upcoming film, all in a narrated photographic slide-show that may be viewed here.
16 December 2008
Slideshow: The Wrestler
15 December 2008
Article: Bottle Rocket
“Bottle Rocket” is being released both in a standard-definition version and in Blu-ray, part of the first batch of Criterion titles in the new high-definition format. This is a moment that videophiles have been waiting for, and the new discs don’t disappoint.
As I seem to have been chronicling the various articles of note concerning both Criterion's new Blu-ray series and its Bottle Rocket (1996) release, here is another to add to the set, an article from the Times about both débuts, the most charming snippet of which is replicated here, below:
Clip: Doubt
There's a great little clip and interview from the Times' David Carr about Doubt in which director David Shanley does a great, brief, comic Meryl Streep giving praise for her co-star, Viola Davis, while on set filming a prominent scene in the upcoming film. Check the clip out here.
Article: Revolutionary Road (and Gran Torino)
If you so desire, here's another small article from the Times, this time about the ever curmudgeonly Mr. Eastwood and his completely socially haphazard movie-making/style. Read it if you must, but (ugh) please, don't go see Gran Torino: It's a total joke. Changeling was a total fluke of serendipitious quality; Gran Torino is a trainwreck of stereotypical Eastwood blather, as much stale cracker as crack stalwartism. Singing, Clint; are you joking me? I'm only asking because - well - I was laughing. If you had to ask, for the record, Grade: D-.
14 December 2008
Review: Slumdog Millionaire
Genre: Drama
An atypical entry from Fox Searchlight, which for the past three years has thrown in films grounded so heavily in Americana - albeit offbeat Americana, but Americana all the same - in Sideways (2005), in Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and in Juno (2007); Slumdog Millionaire sets up shop in far-away India. However, unlike how one may expect for this egregious fit into the Searchlight frame, the film does not throw away all the rules or do anything else boisterously out of sync for the sake of idiosyncratic frippery than be in India; it instead clings almost rigidly to the successful formula of its studio's precedents (i. e., youth, vibrancy, delight, wonder, culture, and fantasy) and, beyond its studio, to the tracks of its ontological precedents (i. e., mystery, tragedy, love, and a quest), a historic quality that, yes, makes the film elementally constrained within insouciant-eclectic-amazing proportions, yet a quality that also makes it, when one set of precedents is mated to the other, not necessarily a boring wonder-quest to follow. While the protagonist, the hero (i. e., the downtrodden yet unswervingly enamored Jamal), passes through a series of trials to let his inner light prevail in the end, much as has done and can do any respectable hero of like ilk, directors Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan were wise enough to see that the specific details germane only to Jamal's quest were by far enough to set him apart with panache and due diligence from the rest of his like-ilked set and to let well enough alone, by choosing to embellish none other than the sights and sounds around Jamal for dazzling effect, novelty, and glory.
True then, Slumdog Millionaire is one exultant film, its story a tested one; one repeated hundereds and even thousands of times in many forms and flavors, languages and cultures; one of rags-to-riches and of rewards-for-the-good; one inspirational and devotional; one young and energetic and full of the familiar dragons and wildebeasts, familiar yet peculiar - for the film arrives in such a way that it eschews all those traditional ladens that would have otherwise burdened it down as no more than a colorful translation of a story everyone already knows, especially those native Indians out there: a way by which its elements and its forces, its principles and its morals, its dragons and its blades, describe in detail the face of not an ordinary man who obtains the stars through sheer uncompromising aspiring, but rather of a country far from ordinary as it pulses as star itself, as a nexus of its bloody past, its graphic present, and its uncertain future: In short, (the film is fully) an intelligent portrait of India. Blending in every aspect of its presentation religion, art, culture, social dynamics; growth, loss, technology, celebrity; fealty, ordinariness, ambition; lust, love; virtue, vice; humanity and all its relativism to its Western counterpart all then, now, and in the future; the film succeeds, not because of its story itself, but because of what its story invokes. Some scenes rush past, others linger; lights stipple and then blaze before going out; women dance, men butt heads; clothes are gritty, air stale; tourists are easy; punishment is hard; the struggle, the struggle - and, o, the capturing of it all on film! It is ambitious, yes, but it is well too.
So well is it, in fact, that, other than a wont for greater fire in its actors, the one and only complaint I levy against Slumdog Millionaire is the fact that it came as if content to remain as just a portrait - an ecstatic portrait, a great portrait, yes, but a portrait all the same; a skin-deep replication of something apparent and otherwise tangible in life, but forever only skin-deep and flat: incapable, in other words, of ever meaning anything. The film's final message, a sort of Ereberotic bookend on the parade, while it may say a great deal about the status of modern India in belief and in individualism v. collectivism (& theism), failed to give anything more profound to the canon than such a stark anthropological, theological, sociocultural thesis about the country. There was no bang, no application, no grand theoretical probing; the ending just was - period; and for me such rigid and unwavering determinism reeks too much of autopilot and slavery to be respectably placed. In short, I was disappointed that the filmmakers, while documenting India in this roundabout way, weren't forward enough to question it, to ask why and wherefore and implicate choice and change. I felt such questions were there, somewhere in the text, but too timidly, too cloudily voiced and absolutely not firmed up enough.
Still, however, despite these misgivings about meaning, the film remained a solid work, and let it be said, M. I. A.'s vocal adulations were a particularly enjoyable side benefit.
Grade: A-/B+, a grand spectacle indeed.
12 December 2008
Announcement: Hugh Jackman
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) today has announced that their "out of circle" host for this year's upcoming Oscar ceremony will be none other than Australian, Oprah-crowd--heartthrob Hugh Jackman. While some have no doubt seen this choice of host as yet another cheap ploy by AMPAS for its televised ceremony to draw back the viewers whom it has steadily lost over the past several years - and no doubt it is, at least in small part, one such ploy - I however applaud the choice and recall Mr. Jackman's incredibly diverse, wonderfully entertaining, and saucily classy talents as those which enables this magnificent performance, for which he holds a Tony award, as Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2004):
P. S. AMPAS has also announced that the following are the films in contention (long-list) for the Visual Effects award:
“Australia”
“The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”
“Cloverfield”
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“The Day the Earth Stood Still”
“Hancock”
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army”
“The Incredible Hulk”
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
“Iron Man”
“Journey to the Center of the Earth”
“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”
“Quantum of Solace”
“The Spiderwick Chronicles”
Featurette: Doubt
The Times has just posted this interesting behind-the-scenes featurette about the newly released Doubt, starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The featurette, "Translating Doubt" narrated by writer and director John Patrick Shanley, discusses the man's choices in recasting the tale for the screen and in choosing an active color palette, still true in shape, for the backgrounds of the story's origins, in order to effectuate the kind of popping of people as observed in post-Renaissance Dutch still-lives - a keenly intriguing concept for all that it carries with it. Let's hope the film runs with that idea.
Review: Frost/Nixon
Genre: Drama (Historical Fiction)
One of the much "buzzed about" films this season, Ron Howard's Frost / Nixon fails to truly engage the line it so brazenly and shockingly sets forth in the solemnity of its trailers: "I'm saying that, when the President does it, it's not illegal," a line which surely becomes the entire reason for the film's existence in the first place. While it is true that, like all Ron Howard films, Frost / Nixon is a charming story, full of well-acted vigor and emotion and with a dash of sardonic flair, it is no more than those things, no more than just an actor's piece, a play in the most basic sense of the word; and for that characterization, considering how much potential and how strong a background the film before viewing held, I cannot commend its merits any more than meagrely. Tight sets that fail to move or open up organically under a lack of stricter direction, boxy shots that undermine the expansiveness and the context of the narrative, and flabby introductory writing that attempts to belie a fumbling into action for the film as a whole all only further dampen any appraisal. However, Mr. Langella, as advertised, does give a wonderful performance of Richard M. Nixon, despite the stricture of his filmic bounds; a performance therefore like that of an aged lion, prowling and snarling and raving within his barred cage. Mr. Sheen seems generally disoriented, but then that is not entirely out of the bounds of his character - and in a year with so few good leading performances by men, his resultantly is one of the best (so far). And the screenplay, despite those opening scenes of awkward establishment, rolls around to becoming interesting and dense within proximity of the lion, though, as I've already stated, it fails to ever truly and properly address the implications of its most potent line to the greater context of the film - I guess, one can't win them all. Still, despite its lackings, the film ties up relatively neatly, under the jesting hand of Mr. Howard, who wisely let the film breathe a bit with humor, lest it become too tightly cramped. Too bad he wasn't crafty enough this time, to let loose a little further: Secret Honor (1984) anyone?
Grade: B.
Review: Låt den Rätte Komma In (Let the Right One In)
Who knew a character study (of the dichotomy of savagery from nobility) and metaphysical study (of what is right), manifested as a vampiric love-story between children in Norway, could be so intensely provocative?
Låt den Rätte Komma In succeeds where other films do not, in this world of precise improbability, because of the intensely honest way it not only portrays its elements but also conveys that sincerity. Wide open shots, clean color palettes, and clear unembellished dialogue prevent the nuances of the story from being lost in contrived complexities (e. g., grafts pigeon-holing the work in the 'thriller' genre), complexities that would only have clotted the film's steady, undiluted flow and distracted the viewer from its point: the lingering question about what is right done in the name of a friend and what is right done in general and, furthermore, whether those two notions be principally compatible. As the film quite correctly fails to reach an absolute resolution to any of these questions yet at the same time manages to craft a tender and devoted emotional story, it is a wonderful surprise success.
Grade: A-
Review: Were the World Mine
Genre: Musical (Fairy Tale - not a pun, though the film used it to be)
While it's evident that in my head I had a series of speculations about where this film would take the nature and potential of its intriguing, if a bit cliché-veering, subject matter (as seen here, in my post about its then due release), it's also evident by the film itself that the director did not have such a series - or, if he did, he sorely lacked the ability to effectively communicate it to his audience - for Were the World Mine languishes in a territory somewhere between contrived movie-musical (i. e., the good) and horrific niche burlesque (i. e., the bad) - and with extremes like those, there isn't really much more one can say. Director and writer, Tom Gustafson, essentially just let one of the most intriguing of the novel Shakespeare-concept movies (the most banal of which have been the neverending C-level teenage dramas) slip through his fingers with no more than a rough pat one may give to the back of an acquaintance, whose name you've clearly forgotten as one runs into him on the street; a pat that seems to say, "Wow, you're awesome - so great to see you!" but really is saying, "Wow, I know this guy? Really? Huh." - for he essentially in the entire course of his film puts no prongs into the meat of the issue of the politics of affection and only awkwardly eschews truly plot-damaging interjections and hypotheses that sporadically arise (both in the mind of the viewer and in the minds of the characters on screen [e. g., 'What if that character had looked at someone else?']) with the equivalent grace of a swerving car. The only true moments of redemption the film experiences, amidst a folly of stereotypically confined choreography, stale lighting, and just a dragging paper-clip-cohesion quality of threading and editing, are some - only some - of the musical numbers written expressly for the story, though, frequently submerged under the brack of the aforementioned, they hardly can be appreciated without immediate there-for-all dismissal based on those brackish grounds. Though they may uncannily find a rivulet into some melodic confluence (a journey of inspiration which the film feebly tries to recreate) with the poetic rhythms of Shakespeare's play, such songs, Mr. Gustafson, that ride on an open attitude about sexuality are hardly helped by stock characterizations and feeble plays to your likely demographic as those which you put forth in your work. Stay away from such panderings! And stay away from predictability for that matter, unless you actively seek to explore the greater dynamics in the story you profess (as I have suggested and as you evidently have not)! Without so staying away, your story is otherwise old, tired, and boring; and Scent of a Woman (1992) and Clueless (1995) lay you down flat. And, above all, don't think that this criticism reflects the (obvious) monetary constraints of your production, for with better actors, a more diverse wardrobe, and keener special effects, I doubt you could have done any better than you have qualitatively. Eh, I let it go. I guess, it's just disappointing for me to see fresh lemons become a lemon, instead of lemonade.
Grade: C-, fails to even look like it's trying and achieves only when in song, reiterating another's words. Stephen Holden, what did you see in this one?
P. S. Mr. Holden, I've just read your review of this film and I do think you're being far too lenient in your appraisal of it: a film with charms, yes, one to which I'll even grant you a bit of that movie-musical error-obliviating magic (for the plot-based objections raised for equally plausible and message-affecting variant realities), but full absolution for the rest of it smacks too much of that "love-in-idleness" for unbiased contemplation. How strongly did that camera-directed bower flower at the end affect you?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
