Film is Truth 24 Times a Second

I have been watching a fair amount of documentaries lately. For some bizarre reason, most of them center around the south, from Vernon, Florida (which was absolutely frustrating and awe-inspiring), to Small Town Gay Bar (sad but also kind of uplifting) to possibly the best doc I have seen in a while, Harlan County, USA.

It’s a simple enough story really, a coal mining town goes on strike while wanting to unionize and get better working contracts for their labor. It’s amazing to me that coal miners even do what they do, it’s high risk and low pay, and frankly, they still barely make it. The film traces the county strike from month 1 to month 13. In between, we witness political responses to the strikes, violent assaults on the workers by hired thugs, death threats, and ultimately murder.

I found it interesting to watch this in the midst of the Hollywood strike, which is laughable in comparison. These workers are hoping not to just “get by” as they are essentially labor fodder in the a brutal work system, slaving and killing themselves to make more money for the inhuman coal/oil companies while not seeing their own lives improve. It’s both touching and infuriating, and ultimately frightening. I can only wonder what happened to Harlan County after the events in the documentary, but the doc itself stands as a blatant record of how far we’ve come from the middle ages; not very far at all.

Another doc that I just watched, Helvetica, is totally meant for anyone with an appreciation for graphic design or typography. Helvetica explores both the nature of this popular font that shares its name, but also tries to help the viewer understand the power of design and use of typography in design, which is all around us. I was astonished to find how often Helvetica is used in popular design. The film was both informative and really well-made; just an overall great documentary. I highly recommend this one to anyone who wants to learn more about design, regardless if you already have some design experience or not (it shouldn’t be too over your head), it’s totally worth seeing!

Blog’s been a bit slow lately… neglected, the poor thing, so many readers left with bated breath for something, anything… so here’s a review I pulled from one of the store’s email newsletters from earlier this year. Get all excited and lose your mind and stuff:

I don’t believe Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep captures the essence of dreaming as well as the best surrealist films, but it does convey a convincing sense of disorder and weird synchronicities in the guise of a charming (albeit ultimately painful) romantic comedy.

Gondry’s previous films (Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - both scripted by Charlie Kaufman) teetered on the brink of delirium and madness, but here he more or less throws his main character (Gael Garcia Bernal - what a dreamboat, *sigh*) headfirst into a Freudian soup of fractured families, questionable motivations, workplace frustrations and unfulfilled longings. Bernal’s protagonist escapes from this misery into his dreams, which begin to overflow the boundaries of slumber and imagination, coloring his daily life with plastic, childlike designs and creations: water made of cellophane, mechanical horses, one-second-time-machines, etc. Gondry’s trademark visual inventiveness has never been more vivid and intuitive (nor more deeply felt and profound) than it is here.

To be perfectly honest I was not an admirer of Gondry’s previous work (including his many music videos) nor of Bernal’s acting (which seemed to consist entirely of puffing up his lips and squinting - wow, sexy!) so I was pleasantly surprised how affecting I found this film, and how taken I was with Bernal’s performance. The film manages to be both melancholy and funny, and frightening and beautiful at the same time.

New Releases:

• As Smart As They Are: The Author Project
• Boys Life 6
• First Snow
• Futurama: Bender’s Big Score
• Go Go G-Boys
• Helvetica
• Hot Rod
• I Know Who Killed Me
• Mr. Bean’s Holiday
• The Namesake
• Paprika
• Vitus
• Waitress

New Releases (TV Series):

• Gilmore Girls: Season 7

New Arrivals:

• Bluebeard
• Coming Home
• The Freethinker
• Killer of Sheep
• Outland
• The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
• Spice World

Only 12 of Stanley Kubrick’s 13 feature-length films have ever been available to the general public. He considered his first film, 1953’s Fear and Desire a learning experience (”student level”) and made every attempt throughout his life to suppress the film. Bootleg tapes and discs were releatively easy to come by, but now the movie is available on YouTube for those who would like to see The-Greatest-Filmmaker-Of-All-Time in his nascent form. The clips are in extraordinarily lousy shape, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers, etc.

Begin here:

Fear and Desire

***

Additionally, Kubrick’s three early documentary shorts can also be eyeballed at that site:

Day of the Fight (1951)

Flying Padre (1951)

The Seafarers (1953)

aghewwha?….I don’t know how else to respond.

Apparently Tim Burton has signed a deal with Disney to do a 3-D version of Alice in Wonderland aaand Frankenweenie. This leads me to not only ask the obvious (why God why?!) but question just how far he has fallen. As an adamant fan of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Mars Attacks!, Burton’s last string of movies (Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) have left a lot to be desired, and at this point, he’s really showing the world that he might have just given up altogether. It’s sad when someone who once had a pretty original take on films and tried to make them interesting and fresh falls so far. Is it the money? Is it just luck that got you this far? Yes, it will most likely be a hit, but where does it end man?

So Tim Burton, if you ever read this, stop. Just stop. Stop adapting movies that are already fine as they are, and try to create something for yourself. Stainboy was pretty funny. There you go, start there. At this point, Sarah Weedwackerfeet would be a better idea than what you got going now. Just please do not make these new movies…for our sake and your own!

New Releases:

• Almost Brothers
• Angel-A
• Border Cafe
• Facing Death: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• Ghosts Of Cite Soleil
• Hairspray
• In Between Days
• Innocence
• Live Free or Die Hard
• Man Of My Life
• Manufactured Landscapes
• Negativland: Our Favorite Things
• Out Of Balance
• Pixar Short Films Vol. 1
• Rescue Dawn
• Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party
  
• These Foolish Things
• Trantasia

New Releases (TV Series):

• Little Britain Abroad
• The Universe: Season 1

New Arrivals:

• Feed
• I’m From Hollywood
• The Lady Vanishes (Criterion)
• Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains the Same (Deluxe Edition)
• Lisbon Story
• Max Mon Amour
• Monsieur Hire
• My Favorite Year
• Sawdust And Tinsel (Criterion)
• The Vicar Of Dibley: Season 1

This is England takes place in the early ’80s, just after 12-year-old Shaun has lost his father in the Falklands War. Lost, lonely and deperately in need of a father figure, he soon latches on to Woody, a fun-loving skinhead, and his group of friends.

This is all well and good — even Shaun’s mother, while horrified with Shaun’s new haircut, doesn’t really mind his new pals — but soon Woody is supplanted by Combo, fresh out of prison, sporting a nasty streak, and with bad companions and worse ideas in tow: soon, Shaun is attending National Front meetings.

Basically, it’s About a Boy, but with the Hugh Grant character replaced with Russell Crowe from Romper Stomper.

It’s not all grim — there are a lot of really sweet bits — Shaun’s relationships with his his mom, with Woody, with some of the other skins.  But it’s heartbreaking watching Shaun cling ferociously to Combo, while around him, everyone else’s illusions about everyone else are dropped to the floor and broken, one by one.

Directed by Shane Meadows (and apparently based on his own childhood) — he’s done other good stuff, often dealing with young folks in grimy, seedy conditions — but this is the best thing he’s done, by a wide margin, and one of the best films I’ve seen this year.

New Releases:

• Amazing Grace
• Glue
• I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
• La Vie en Rose
• Ocean’s Thirteen
• Paris, Je T’Aime
• Shrek the Third
• This is England

New Releases (TV Series):

• Black Books: Series 3

New Arrivals:

• Abbott and Costello: Funniest Routines Vol. 1
• Berlin Alexanderplatz (Criterion)
• Bloodhounds of Broadway (Marquee Musicals Collection)
• Doctor Who: Season 1
• Doctor Who: Season 2
• The Girl Next Door (Marquee Musicals Collection)
• Help! (The Beatles)
• Victor/Victoria
• With a Song in My Heart (Marquee Musicals Collection)

Here are a couple films related to or adapting the work of JG Ballard, whose superb novels Empire of the Sun and Crash have been made into pretty good films by, respectively, Steven Spielberg and David Cronenberg.

The first, J.G. Ballard - Shanghai Jim, is a 1991 BBC documentary about the author and his remarkable life.

The second is a 1971 interpretation of his daring novel, Crash. The short (and much discussion regarding it and its source novel) can be seen here. Incidentally, the film features Gabrielle Drake, who was the star of Gerry (Thunderbirds) Anderson’s science-fiction series UFO and was, also, the sister of Nick Drake.

Have any of us really ever left a movie at the theatre?

MY GOD! I can only wonder after reading EW’s latest list of 27 Movies Readers Walked Out On. Who are these people?! It’s not just that they walked out on these films (which are all amazing in their own right) but that they went and saw them in theatres expecting something else in the first place. Of course, these are only individual opinions on certain films (the fact that Crash and Eyes Wide Shut are amongst 300, The Covenant and Pokemon the Movie shows you the range of tastes), I don’t take much stock in that, but c’mon folks, you can’t go see something like Captivity and expect to be happy with your decision! You go see a movie that you know is nothing by eye candy or something that is simply devoid of any heart and soul, you deserve to lose your $8.50 or $20 or whatever they are charging these days! So here’s the deal folks, you either make that commitment and knuckle down through it, or you wait for the DVD and get it at your local video store. Another suggestion, get some word of mouth about a film before you go and see something iffy, it might just save you an hour or two.

Did I just promote the death of cinema, or help convince readers to rent from Film is Truth instead? (rentmoviesrentmoviesrentmovies…REEEENT!!!)

Okay, okay, enough of my problems with the casual moviegoer, I actually wanted to find out if anyone has ever walked out on a movie before. I do admit the only time that I had to walk out on a movie was House of 1,000 Corpses, not by my own admission of defeat, but the person I went with had to get out, and thus so did I (a blessing in disguise, thanks Anna). I almost had to leave Me And You And Everyone We Know as one of my friends began to uncontrollably vomit during the showing, but luckily, he took one for the team, waited the rest of the movie out in a bathroom stall, and got an ice cream later for his pains.

Well? Anyone else…?