So the creative team behind "Up" went to Venezuela to see the location that inspires the movie's main character: a series of rock plateaus that rise out of the jungle, with the world's highest waterfall as an added bonus. I suppose there are worse ways to spend money when you're making a big-budget movie. The lush scenery did distract me until about halfway through the movie, when the similarities to the Road Runner cartoons hit me: you have a character that's obsessed with chasing a fast-running, non-flying, non-talking bird, through a strange landscape, employing complicated traps and things that never work...
But I liked the movie. It seems insulting to call it a cartoon (to the Academy it's an "Animated Feature"), with all that expensive hi-tech stuff being used to tell the story. And it may just be the best movie to win an Academy Award this year (Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Score). It's certainly the only one people (small people) will be watching a few years from now.
Someone knew what they were doing: a wrecking crew is seeking to evict the old man from his house. He argues with someone at the curb, the argument escalates, and he hits the man with his cane, drawing blood. The supervisor comes over to survey the scene and realizes that this is the excuse they need to get rid of the old fellow. As he stands there with his clipboard (old man POV from the house) he puts his hand on the fencepost. That's it. It's like Darth Vader saying "I have you now" before being blasted off course. It's completely understated and it's pure cinema.
How important are the Oscars? I need say nothing more than this: look at the list of Best Picture winners from 1927 to the present. I guarantee you'll see many unrecognisable titles. And it's not your fault: the list is filled with many earnest, well-intentioned movies that deserve to be forgotten.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Lenten film: The Flowers of St.Francis
A recent re-issue of three Roberto Rossellini DVD's prompted me to see "The Flowers of St. Francis" (1950). Federico Fellini co-wrote the screenplay.
I think I wanted to see if there would be any of that rough camerawork I remember from the "wartime" films, but there is none of that here. The movie is very low-budget, with simple camerawork and editing and mostly exterior shots, a kind of religious "Blair Witch."
The thing everyone talks about here is the performances of all the non-actors in the movie: he uses real Franciscans. (That's really low budget: hire people who've taken a vow of poverty.) They're great, to Rossellini's credit. He had a lot of experience working with non-actors throughout the 40's, so he was good at it. One Italian critic said, "Everyone in this movie is an idiot." So maybe you have to be a little sympathetic to the subject matter, but a little Fellini humor comes through in every scene.
I've counted about four or five movies about St. Francis. The most famous is "Brother Son, Sister Moon" (1972) by Franco Zefferelli. I even found one with Micky Rourke as St. Francis made in the 80's. I'm sure "Flowers of St. Francis" is the best, but I might seek out a few of the others.
Rossellini got a lot a grief during his life about inserting heavy-handed religious themes into his movies, while his personal life was messy: he fell in love with a married actress, Ingrid Bergman, who left her husband for the director. But since the subject of this movie is religious, his temperament is a good fit.
I think I wanted to see if there would be any of that rough camerawork I remember from the "wartime" films, but there is none of that here. The movie is very low-budget, with simple camerawork and editing and mostly exterior shots, a kind of religious "Blair Witch."
The thing everyone talks about here is the performances of all the non-actors in the movie: he uses real Franciscans. (That's really low budget: hire people who've taken a vow of poverty.) They're great, to Rossellini's credit. He had a lot of experience working with non-actors throughout the 40's, so he was good at it. One Italian critic said, "Everyone in this movie is an idiot." So maybe you have to be a little sympathetic to the subject matter, but a little Fellini humor comes through in every scene.
I've counted about four or five movies about St. Francis. The most famous is "Brother Son, Sister Moon" (1972) by Franco Zefferelli. I even found one with Micky Rourke as St. Francis made in the 80's. I'm sure "Flowers of St. Francis" is the best, but I might seek out a few of the others.
Rossellini got a lot a grief during his life about inserting heavy-handed religious themes into his movies, while his personal life was messy: he fell in love with a married actress, Ingrid Bergman, who left her husband for the director. But since the subject of this movie is religious, his temperament is a good fit.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Be Kind Rewind
I knew I'd have a problem with "Be Kind Rewind" (2008) by Michel Gondry because I had so many issues with his "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004). But I'm a sucker for concept movies and Jack Black always seems to try hard...
Well, the concept (the two video store clerks accidentally erase all the tapes - this is the 70's - then proceed to re-shoot the movies on demand) made me laugh out loud, but the movie did not. Jack Black really does try hard and I came away thinking that Mos Def simply had no talent as the straight man, but it's really the director's fault: he's French. And he should know that you cannot do verbal humor when you living with English as a second language.
However, here's the funny thing: to promote the movie the producer started a website where you could watch all the movies the two characters "made." These are known as "Sweded" films, because they cost more to rent, as if they'd been imported from Sweden - you can actually look this up on Wikipedia. Anyway, the producer's website is gone, but Youtube has picked up the "Sweded" concept, and the results are uneven (of course) but much funnier than the original movie- an irony that is, perhaps, not lost on New Line Cinema.
If you Google "youtube - bekindmovie channel" you'll find what I'm talking about. On the right press "see all" under "uploads" and "favorites." There are the Sweded movies (none more than 4 minutes) by Gondry himself and, better yet, movies that have been submitted to Youtube by ordinary citizens. I had time to watch the Sweded versions of Blade Runner and Kill Bill, and my favorite was Goldfinger. Very funny.
They reminded me of a certain short film, "Spiderman vs. Superman" starring Michael Costagliola.
Well, the concept (the two video store clerks accidentally erase all the tapes - this is the 70's - then proceed to re-shoot the movies on demand) made me laugh out loud, but the movie did not. Jack Black really does try hard and I came away thinking that Mos Def simply had no talent as the straight man, but it's really the director's fault: he's French. And he should know that you cannot do verbal humor when you living with English as a second language.
However, here's the funny thing: to promote the movie the producer started a website where you could watch all the movies the two characters "made." These are known as "Sweded" films, because they cost more to rent, as if they'd been imported from Sweden - you can actually look this up on Wikipedia. Anyway, the producer's website is gone, but Youtube has picked up the "Sweded" concept, and the results are uneven (of course) but much funnier than the original movie- an irony that is, perhaps, not lost on New Line Cinema.
If you Google "youtube - bekindmovie channel" you'll find what I'm talking about. On the right press "see all" under "uploads" and "favorites." There are the Sweded movies (none more than 4 minutes) by Gondry himself and, better yet, movies that have been submitted to Youtube by ordinary citizens. I had time to watch the Sweded versions of Blade Runner and Kill Bill, and my favorite was Goldfinger. Very funny.
They reminded me of a certain short film, "Spiderman vs. Superman" starring Michael Costagliola.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Avatar and the curse of originality
So Avatar is a re-telling of the Pocahontas-John Smith story except this time, the natives win.
Reviewers have groused that it bears a too-close resemblance to "Little Big Man" (1970) and "FernGully" (1992) "The magical inhabitants of a rain forest called FernGully fight to save their home that is threatened by logging and a polluting force of destruction..."
Just for fun, I'd like to like to add my own comparison, to "Battle of Algiers" (1966) by Gillo Pontecorvo where the lo-tech insurgents battle the intruding French occupying force. More precisely, the character of Colonel Quaritch in "Avatar" reminded me instantly of Colonel Mathieu in "Battle of Algiers." The two characters are very similar, right down to the well-fit camouflage fatigues they wear during briefings.
But movie critics need to be reminded of what all you Shakespeareans out there already know: originality takes second place to the tale-well-told. I guess we should call it the Homeric tradition of storytelling: where everyone in the audience knows the story already. They know how it's going to end and who lives and who dies, but it's the voice of the storyteller that they've come to hear. My Dad said the same thing a few weeks ago in a different way: that Giuseppe Verdi must have had a really big ego to write his opera "Macbeth" (1847). To think that he could top Shakespeare. But of course the story was just source material. The real work was making the music.
At the other end of the Great Hall of Storytelling is suspense. The "What happens next?" story; the story where "I can't stand it, the suspense is killing me." This is Alfred Hitchcock land. It's very hard to tell a suspenseful story, whether it's around a campfire or in a movie, because you've got to have your technique down just right, or you'll ruin everything.
The middle ground, just to be a little academic here, is occupied by the movie serial, where we don't know the story, but we know that the hero will not die, and we're still kept in suspense by the "cliff-hanger" elements of the story. You young guys know this as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" territory.
So where does this leave "Avatar"? Steve Martin sprayed all those little white floaty things like they were roaches at the Academy Awards last night. I think history will be as kind to "Avatar" as it is to "Titanic", whose special effects looked pretty impressive back in 1997.
Reviewers have groused that it bears a too-close resemblance to "Little Big Man" (1970) and "FernGully" (1992) "The magical inhabitants of a rain forest called FernGully fight to save their home that is threatened by logging and a polluting force of destruction..."
Just for fun, I'd like to like to add my own comparison, to "Battle of Algiers" (1966) by Gillo Pontecorvo where the lo-tech insurgents battle the intruding French occupying force. More precisely, the character of Colonel Quaritch in "Avatar" reminded me instantly of Colonel Mathieu in "Battle of Algiers." The two characters are very similar, right down to the well-fit camouflage fatigues they wear during briefings.
But movie critics need to be reminded of what all you Shakespeareans out there already know: originality takes second place to the tale-well-told. I guess we should call it the Homeric tradition of storytelling: where everyone in the audience knows the story already. They know how it's going to end and who lives and who dies, but it's the voice of the storyteller that they've come to hear. My Dad said the same thing a few weeks ago in a different way: that Giuseppe Verdi must have had a really big ego to write his opera "Macbeth" (1847). To think that he could top Shakespeare. But of course the story was just source material. The real work was making the music.
At the other end of the Great Hall of Storytelling is suspense. The "What happens next?" story; the story where "I can't stand it, the suspense is killing me." This is Alfred Hitchcock land. It's very hard to tell a suspenseful story, whether it's around a campfire or in a movie, because you've got to have your technique down just right, or you'll ruin everything.
The middle ground, just to be a little academic here, is occupied by the movie serial, where we don't know the story, but we know that the hero will not die, and we're still kept in suspense by the "cliff-hanger" elements of the story. You young guys know this as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" territory.
So where does this leave "Avatar"? Steve Martin sprayed all those little white floaty things like they were roaches at the Academy Awards last night. I think history will be as kind to "Avatar" as it is to "Titanic", whose special effects looked pretty impressive back in 1997.
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