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Friday, March 27th, 2009

The Bigger Picture: The Big Three, Part One

by Arend Anton

shitfuckpisscrapIf you read this column last week, you might think from reading the headline that I’ve decided to only discuss the economic situation. In truth, I’m not referencing the “big three” U.S. automakers, but rather what I consider to be the “big three” taboos in American cinema and our love/hate relationship with them.  This week’s column is part one of a three-part series.

The first involves dialogue, namely the use of profane language. Before one criticizes the modern age for its use of profanity, one must consider that such coarse language has always existed. Perhaps I am too young to judge whether or not today’s culture is more profane than that of previous generations, but I do know by studying history that vulgar expressions have always existed within art. If one disagrees, he ought to read the works of Shakespeare or Chaucer.

Time seems to dull the impact of even the most shocking works of art. Often, the language seems to seep into our consciousness. Consider the “Quarter pounder with cheese” conversation from Pulp Fiction. That particular scene is so famous that often people who haven’t seen the movie are at least familiar with it. It is a scene laced with the very same profanity that appears in the rest of the film, but one barely considers the coarseness of the language because the overall inanity of the conversation entertains.

There is, however, an unfortunately negative side to profanity in film scripts. Auteurs such as Tarantino have spawned mimicry. I have a general rule about scripts, in which the dialogue must drive the plot forward. Tarantino, in the earlier part of his career, managed to break this rule fairly successfully. I might argue that he has started to become a parody of himself, if a film like Death Proof is any evidence. The dialogue in that film was not only asinine, it was boring and poorly paced.

Some might argue that there was indeed a time when movies employed a cleaner style of language. This is undeniable, though if one considers the overall spectrum of art in human civilization, it probably only exists as a tiny blip. However, often one must take a closer look at cinema’s “Golden Age” to see that things aren’t quite as they seem. Quite often, things are referred to in a more creative manner. (more…)

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Thursday, March 26th, 2009

DVD News: The Future of Movies Past

by Bob Cashill

Last week, Lance Berry brought word of a death in the DVD rental market. Today, I write of a renaissance in the sales market, at least for “catalog” buyers like me.

Since its introduction in 1997, the major studios have used the DVD format to shore up their bottom lines. The cash cow, which mooed to the tune of $14.4 billion in sales in 2007, is yielding thinner milk these days; revenues are expected to fall to $12.8 billion this year, according to statistics published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. What’s responsible for the drop?

Me. Back in the day, I couldn’t buy the damn things fast enough. I had three cabinets custom-built to hold them all and have filled them, and I’ve pretty much filled all the nooks and crannies within the cabinets too. (A man needs a special place to house The Bloody Pit of Horror and Dracula vs. Frankenstein.) But my buying has tapered off. I’m meh on Blu-Ray; I’ve seen it, it’s pretty, it pretty much offers the same hits I’ve purchased and repurchased (and repurchased again) in every prior format, and I’m pretty sure it’s the end of the line before everything goes online, which means I can dismantle the cabinets and sell their contents as movie-themed coasters to pay for our baby’s college education. Oh, yes, our little girl — she’s another big-ticket item to outgo our income on.

Leave it to Warner Bros. to figure out a way to welcome me back into the fold. It was the first studio to really capitalize on the format — the first five titles I bought were all WB — and anyone who enjoys movies older than about 2004 owes a tip of the hat to its senior vice president of theatrical catalog marketing, George Feltenstein. Under his direction the studio has done a fantastic job putting out full-to-bursting collections focused on stars (Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum, etc.), themes (its “Cult Camp Classics” line), and even playwrights (a Tennessee Williams box set, from 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire to 1964’s The Night of the Iguana, is a favorite). I’m eager to dip into its third “pre-Code” set, which concentrates on the envelope-pushing career of director William Wellman before content standards were imposed (1933’s Wild Boys of the Road is an unsung Depression-era classic). But over the past year, even WB, whose trailblazing inspired other studios to open their doors, seemed sluggish and unresponsive. I can understand their beating the marketing drum for new and improved 70th anniversary editions of Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz this year, but there is more to movie life than Scarlett and Dorothy. “Frankly, my dear …” (more…)

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Sunday, March 15th, 2009

DVD Review: “Quantum of Solace”

by Jeff Giles

Quantum of Solace (2009, MGM/Fox)
purchase this film from Amazon: DVD | Blu-ray

Reboots and remakes have been all the rage in Hollywood for several years now — name a venerable film franchise, and chances are it’s either already been taken back to the beginning or a reboot is already in the works. Just the word “reboot” has become enough to provoke a Pavlovian eye-rolling response among movie lovers, and although that’s easy to understand — nobody, least of all Rob Zombie, needed to turn the counter back to zero on the Halloween franchise — it’s sometimes the smartest decision a producer can make.

Consider, for instance, the Bond movies: Never as smart, sexy, or entertaining as they were supposed to be, the 007 films had descended into bloated self-parody by the end of the Brosnan era. Although they always made money, they were expensive, predictable, and not very good — something highlighted by sleeker, leaner modern spy flicks, like the Bourne series. MGM’s decision to reboot Bond was greeted skeptically — as was casting Daniel Craig in the iconic title role — but both moves were vindicated with 2006’s Casino Royale, a bloody wonder of a film that tore away Bond’s lifeless smirk and gave the trademark wit and glamour of the series something real to hang its tux on.

Having given fans their first blonde Bond, the producers opted to break another tradition with Quantum of Solace, adding the series’ first direct sequel to the franchise. Every other Bond movie stands on its own, but Solace picks up moments after Royale left off. This means, of course, that Solace will be more enjoyable for those who have seen Royale — which kind of sucks, really, but it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Solace was a better film.

You learn everything you need to know about Quantum of Solace in its first 15 minutes: The film kicks off with a typically badass action sequence, perhaps the most spine-rattling opener in the entire franchise. Director Marc Forster does a fine job of balancing between old-fashioned Hollywood style and the trendy quick-cut hand-cam aesthetic popular with more recent, Bourne-influenced action flicks, getting the audience to feel the impact of a high-speed chase over a crowded Italian highway without the aid of Dramamine. It is, in a word, awesome — and it segues directly into “Another Way to Die,” the stupid theme song performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys. That’s the 22nd Bond movie in a nutshell: Equal parts streamlined action and total hooey, it staggers between globetrotting derring-do and clumsy exposition, bogged down by a plot that manages to be both annoyingly convoluted and paper-thin. It’s the type of movie that’ll leave you befuddled if you turn away for more than two minutes — between all the double-crosses and knotty dialogue, if you really want to understand what’s going on, you almost need to take notes. (more…)

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Friday, March 6th, 2009

No Concessions: What I Learned from “The Class” (and the panel)

by Bob Cashill

noconcessionsOn Tuesday, I read that I’m about to be extinct.

I got the word from a chart published on Movie City News, which showed that there were 122 working film critics in the U.S…scratch that, 117, as the chart was revised. It’s been revised again, slightly upwards, and is a “work in progress”–but the progression can only be downwards. With print publications going the way of the covered wagon and online venues that actually pay snapping the purses shut, it wouldn’t surprise me if the number dipped below 100 by year’s end. Hell, by July. There’s no bailout or stimulus package on the way, or earmarks for film criticism, either.

I’ve written movie reviews since grade school (first critique: The Return of the Pink Panther, 1974) but I’ve never come close to the making the grade on this chart. The most I’ve ever earned from film writing (mostly profiles and trend pieces, not reviews) was in the four figures, and I’ll be lucky to see that again. It must be said, of course, that salaries for fully employed film critics who don’t have their own TV shows have never exactly been stratospheric. Whether you’re on or off this chart, you’re always doing this for love, from the bottom of your heart–and your savings account.

Coming across this chart is like finding a hit list. I want to shout, “John Beifuss, look out! Run, Rick Bentley, run!” But, like Burt Lancaster in The Killers, they realize the inevitable is coming. I don’t know them, or their writing, but they represent parts of the country that will no longer have a local voice to help separate the good, the bad, and the ugly in movies if they get the axe. And that is a shame. (My hometown paper, The Morristown, New Jersey Daily Record, has an AP autodrone, completely disconnected from the market, as its critic.) I don’t know what the high-water mark for film critics was in this country, but the business of movie criticism is dying a slow death, not unlike the unplugged HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. John, Rick, and the rest of the shakily employed brethren must think “Daisy…Daissyyy…Daiiiisssyyyy” as they show up for another uncertain day in the office, the last of their tribe.

All of this was on my mind today as I headed down to Rider University in NJ yesterday to participate in a film criticism panel moderated by my colleague at Cineaste magazine, Cindy Lucia. Another of the Cineaste elite, Richard Porton, and Kevin Lally, who has been at the helm of The Film Journal for 25 years now, joined me. The panel was something of an offshoot of a gripping Critical Symposium the magazine published last year on the state of the art, “Film Criticism in the Age of the Internet.” I’m in there, keeping on pennilessly in print and online. But anyone who writes about film, and who cares about the medium, has to be concerned about the loss of important individual and regional gatekeepers, who are being swallowed up as surely as Marion Crane’s car in Norman Bates’ swamp in Psycho. (more…)

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Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

DVD Review: “Ironweed”

by Bob Cashill

Siskel and Ebert went two thumbs up on Ironweed in 1987, but most other reviewers joined audiences and went thumbs down, way down, on this adaptation of William Kennedy’s 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner, which is only now making its DVD debut. I decided to take a second look to see if it had improved with age. No dice.

It’s an honorable failure—but, still, a failure. In this it’s not unlike Blindness, which I previously reviewed on the site. Both are taken from contemporary literary classics, and both are directed, as it happens, by South Americans abroad: Ironweed was Argentine Hector Babenco’s followup to Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), for which he was an Academy Award nominee. Lust for Oscar gold was no doubt a factor in both productions, and Ironweed, at least, came close, as its two stars, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, were nominated. I suspect the actors, who became friends on the set of Heartburn the previous year, put their feet up at the Shrine Civic Auditorium and had a good time, confident that they had done their best but knowing they hadn’t a chance at winning given the movie’s tepid reception.

For them, it was a riches-to-rags story, removed from the posh Manhattan of the Mike Nichols comedy-drama to the doleful Depression-era Albany of Ironweed, where they’re alcoholic tramps. Kennedy’s capital-set novels, which include Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game and Very Old Bones, are terrific reads, but if there was ever a movie in Ironweed, Kennedy, who adapted, didn’t find it. (There was a movie, a good one, in another of his upstate novels, the gangster portrait Legs, which may have gotten him his only other screenwriting credit to date, The Cotton Club.)

The synopsis supplied by the DVD distributor, Lionsgate, pretty much hangs a “Keep Away” sign over the production. “Francis Phelan (Nicholson), a drunken former baseball player is running away from life and the painful, guilty memories that haunt him. Helen Archer (Streep) is Francis’ longtime girlfriend and partner in drink. Together they lament the misery of life and ponder their tragic pasts, hoping to find a way to free themselves from their troubled lives. Told in a series of drunken flashbacks, Ironweed is a dark portrait of Depression-era hopelessness and a searing character-driven drama.” Ponderings of miserable lives, dark portraits, drunken flashbacks…and did I mention it’s 143 minutes long? Tumbleweeds were blowing in theaters stuck with Ironweed. (more…)

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Friday, February 20th, 2009

The Bigger Picture: You’ve Got That Look

by Arend Anton

mrnannyRecently, I went to a local Mexican food establishment to pick up dinner with a friend.  This restaurant has a TV mounted to the wall, which is usually tuned to the Mexican Futbol team’s latest heartbreaking defeat, despite being two-goal favorites.  This time, however, it was the classic movie-redub hour, and the classic movie was Mr. Nanny, starring Hulk Hogan.  Being the film geeks that we are, we decided to discuss the dated look of the film by today’s standards.  Meanwhile, one of the vatos next to us commented on how “this is a funny movie” to his friend, making us look like total goobers.

It might seem petty to discuss cinematic questions over the Univision Pelicula de Sabado, especially if said movie starred Hulk Hogan’s gleaming pectorals and bleached blonde mullet.  However, using Zen philosophies, one could justify this as discussing the movie based on what it is not.  Regardless, it did raise an interesting idea.  Watch any movie from your childhood and try to make the argument that it doesn’t look like it is from a certain era.

In fact, this is one of the most crucial arguments behind the philosophy of The Bigger Picture:  A film’s potential for greatness is often related to its ability to cast aside the constraints of its time.  This is not to say that a movie can embody the spirit of an era and not attain greatness in the long run.  One example of a film like this is The Graduate — that movie had an absolutely huge cultural impact, and may not have been such a hit in today’s climate.  However, films such as this one have a certain timeless quality to them that is difficult to define.

Yet, for all its strength to avoid aging, The Graduate still appears old from a purely visual standpoint.  Mr. Nanny looks old now, though for a lot of us the 1990s were a formative decade.  To start with, both of these movies were set in their own time period.  The costumes and sets are all decorated using the styles of the time in which they were made.  Hulk Hogan’s hairstyle is one that you would only have seen in a movie from 1993 (thank the Lord).  Cars are especially important set dressing.  You could have a modern building behind old cars and still fool audiences into believing the film is set in a non-contemporary time period. (more…)

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Monday, February 16th, 2009

DVD Review: “Inside Moves”

by Scott Malchus

512b5ioyesl_sl500_aa240_A young man named Roary enters a high rise building and takes the elevator to the top floor. Walking through the halls with the confidence of someone who belongs there, he seems to escape notice. In an empty conference room, he opens a window and, in a long, silent moment filled with dread and and almost grace, Roary leaps. His body smashes into a parked car and he’s rushed to the hospital. So begins Inside Moves, the 1980 film directed by Richard Donner (The Omen, Superman, Lethal Weapon) that is now finally finding a home on DVD.

John Savage stars as Roary, whom, we learn through the opening credit sequence, damaged one of his legs permanently in the fall. Upon his hospital release, Roary takes up residence in a cheap hotel. Depressed and bored, he goes out for a drink and wanders into Max’s, a dive bar that caters to society’s outcasts, including Stinky (Bert Remsen), who is blind, Blue Lew (Bill Henderson), who is confined to a wheelchair, and Wings (Academy Award winner Harold Russell), who wears prosthetic arms. These three men spend their days drinking the swill Max gives them, playing cards and sharing stories. There’s a lot of laughter and voices raised, but all in fun. The guys immediately take Roary in as the stray he is and become his family. When Roary reveals he’s crippled in one leg because of his failed suicide attempt,, Stinky rubs the back of his head to comfort him. It’s the first of many moments when the movie grabs your emotions and makes you look past the Hollywood conventions of Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin’s screenplay.

The most significant person Roary meets in the bar is Jerry, the young, lanky bartender who has dreams of becoming a pro basketball player. Only problem is, Jerry has a bum knee that needs an operation. Jerry is also in a dead-end relationship with a heroin addict who prostitutes herself for smack. Any money he tries to save to get that operation ends up going to support his girlfriend because he thinks he can save her. Jerry is wrong. A very young David Morse plays this role. You may recognize him from St. Elsewhere, The Green Mile, or the countless number of recent movies in which he’s cast as the heavy (like Donner’s recent 16 Blocks). Roary and Jerry become fast friends and after a chance pickup game against a pro player named Alvin Martin (Harold Sylvester), they are convinced that Jerry could go all the way someday.  (more…)

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Friday, February 13th, 2009

The Bigger Picture: Earnest Goes to the Movies

by Arend Anton

300_49943I recently had the pleasure of watching Darren Aronofsky’s film The Wrestler.  This was after I wrote my Oscar tirade, though the experience I had in that film has only added to my furor.  An often overlooked quality in film is the ability to be earnest, but it is so rarely accomplished.

There is a fine line to be walked between sincerity and pompousness.  Too often, filmmakers want to make you cry, rather than actually accomplishing it.  It is difficult not to be moved by a child’s tears, but once the youngster gets a taste of your sympathy he will exploit your kindness.  Hollywood often follows the “boy who cried wolf” method during the awards season, as if the only time audiences are allowed to cry is between December and February (not a bad strategy, as this is a stressful time of year).

In The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke plays a washed up pro wrestler who is still clinging to the glory of his past.  If you replace the words “pro wrestler” with “actor,” you will be describing Rourke’s own career.  This leads to an incredibly genuine performance, and I actually walked away from the theater with an appreciation for professional wrestling that I didn’t have before.

Aronofsky himself probably realized the need to make a stripped-down film after receiving criticism that his previous films were pretentious.  Pi and Requiem for a Dream are pretty good movies, but I probably wouldn’t want to watch them more than once.  There wouldn’t be a need for a second viewing anyway, as every film student I have ever met has expounded on their brilliance.  The Fountain is a film I like very much for its ambition and beauty, but I can understand why someone would criticize it.

If you watch The Wrestler with a critical eye, you can see from the very beginning that you are watching the work of a filmmaker who consciously tried to rely less on his technique and more on his instincts.  For the first time in an Aronofsky film, the direction isn’t noticed and the actors are able to shine through.  There is one scene that I would even point out as the anti-Aronofsky, in which Rourke’s character finally lets go of “The Ram” for a moment and embraces a new life working the deli counter at a grocery store.  This scene is so expertly choreographed between director and actor, and we see Rourke use his charm by giving nicknames to his customers.  The camera, however, only reveals the customer after the christening so that we may chuckle at the appropriate handle. (more…)

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Thursday, February 12th, 2009

DVD Review: “My Name Is Bruce”

by Lance Berry

Cover of "My Name Is Bruce"I have to admit, I’ve always been more a fan of B-movie living legend Bruce Campbell’s personality than I have any of his films. Like most celebrities, there are conflicting stories of whether Bruce is a duke or a douche, but from every interview I’ve ever seen or read concerning him, he seems to be a very down-to-earth guy who’s well aware of his place in the universe, and which in turn makes him appear to be a more affable guy than most…and in the long run, makes watching those few films I’ve seen him in(the big ones like the Evil Dead trilogy, and the seldom-seen like Terminal Invasion) easier to enjoy.

I love any actor who’s willing to poke fun at themselves and deflate their perceived image whenever possible, and in his newest flick, My Name Is Bruce, Campbell pokes long and hard, and does a whole lot of deflating. Playing a sleazy version of himself–jackass on set, living in a beat-up trailer and drinking Shemp Whiskey out of his dog Sam’nRob’s (one of the many homages within the film to friends, associates and others during his long and storied career) bowl–this Campbell is at the lowest point in his life, making a sequel to CaveAlien, the crappiest film in his crappy career. About to fire his agent (Ted Raimi, brother of Evil Dead and Spider-Man director Sam), Bruce is lulled into a false hope that his agent has bigger and better things in store for him when he’s told a big “surprise” awaits him on his birthday. Shortly thereafter, Bruce is approached by Jeff (Taylor Sharpe), a teenager who tries to convince him to come to the small town of Gold Lick, which is being menaced by a vengeful Chinese demon/warrior god named Guan-di (played by James Peck, and based on the actual legendary Chinese warrior/deity Guan Yu). When Bruce refuses, Jeff abducts him.

Finally let out of Jeff’s car trunk, Bruce is at first ready to sue the townsfolk, until he catches a glimpse of Jeff’s hottie mom, Kelly (Grace Thorsen). Thinking this whole Guan-di thing might be a more upscale flick set up by his agent (and very much wanting to get into Kelly’s pants), Bruce decides to play along…little knowing the menace of Guan-di is very real, and that the townsfolk–identifying him a bit too closely with his kick-ass Evil Dead character Ash–expect him to face down the warrior deity and save their town.

My Name Is Bruce proudly displays its B-movie pedigree on its sleeve–the blatant fake background behind cars when they drive, the obvious dummies attempting to pass for beheaded corpses, the fact that teenagers seeking sexual congress in graveyards are distinct wrongdoers who must be punished–and is more of a fun ride for it. In some ways, it has no choice: shot for a budget of just $1.5 million, and having its widest release in only four theaters (thus amassing not even $200,000 as of this writing), the guerilla-style nature which Campbell as director (he also produced the film) was forced to employ would do Ed Wood proud…and believe me, in this case that’s actually a compliment. (more…)

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Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

DVD Review: “Max Payne”

by Lance Berry

Cover of "Max Payne [Blu-ray]"
For the benefit of those who haven’t seen Max Payne yet, but are considering renting the DVD, I’m going to spoil as much of it as possible for you. Why? Because this is a film that shouldn’t be seen under any circumstances, even if you’re dragged off an airplane under the Presidential Directive of Rendition, and are placed in a dark room where CIA operatives intend to show it to you in order to forcefully extract information.

Forewarned is forearmed.

In the movie, based on the immensely popular 2001 videogame, Mark Wahlberg (The Departed, The Happening) stars as the titular character, a detective whose wife and infant son were brutally murdered by three home intruders, one of whom managed to escape and was never found. Despondent over the loss of his family and that the final assailant was never brought to justice, Max now works the Cold Case division of the NYPD, and in his spare time hunts down clues as to who the final killer might be.

Three years have passed since the murders, and one night Max tricks three punks into trying to rob him in a subway men’s room, and instead takes two of them down–riding one for clues while the third escapes into the darkness of the subway tracks. As the last punk flees, he is suddenly accosted by what appear to be winged demons (or possibly angels), before he meets his end as a train slams into him on its way to its final destination (ba-dum-bump!)

Max then heads to a club to gain more helpful info from the stoolie who led him to the subway punks. While there, he meets up with Russian hottie Natasha Sax (Olga Kurylenko) and her sister Mona (Mila Kunis). The girls enter into a heated debate before Max brings Natasha home to gain intel on a series of odd wing-shaped tattoos he spotted on one of the subway thugs, and which Natasha has as well. When Natasha unintentionally insults Max’s dead wife, he kicks her out of his place. Shortly afterward, Mona is murdered–seemingly by the selfsame demons from earlier, and Max soon becomes the prime suspect. Caring more about solving his wife’s murder than clearing his name soon plunges Max into a race to find the real killers, and eventually forces him to team up with Mona–head of a Russian mob family–before Max can be brought in by Lt. Jim Bravura (Chris “Ludicris” Bridges), another detective investigating both Natasha’s murder and that of Max’s old partner, in which Max is now also a suspect. (more…)

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