Film is Truth 24 Times a Second

Here is an interesting article from IFC.com, the Top 10 Directors Overshadowed by Their Collaborators.

I just read a review of The Bucket List from Roger Ebert (yes, on occasion I read his articles), and it was toned with great disdain and loathing. Rightfully so. There was one specific part of the article that caught my attention though:

“Edward and Carter fly off on their odyssey, during which the only realistic detail is the interior of Edward’s private jet. Other locations are created, all too obviously, by special effects; the boys in front of the Pyramids look about as convincing as Abbott and Costello wearing pith helmets in front of a painted backdrop.”

This is one time that I feel Ebert actually said something necessary to address - green screen/CG sucks. While I certainly enjoy the idea of CG (TRON is still amazing), it’s execution and use has been drawn out to this near godlike ability to somehow make your movie better. “Just throw some CG in there, (you can do that right?) and make, I dunno like, stuff happen.” I haven’t seen The Bucket List (and I never will), but I imagine some level of intrinsic credibility would have been established had Rob Reiner flown around the world to shoot on location, instead of green screening Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson into their artificial surroundings. It’s a crutch that doesn’t carry weight, and your not fooling anyone in the audience, so why use it all?

Many other movies have been painfully detracted from thanks to this notion that green screen/CG is the way of the future. The latest Star Wars trilogy is the prime example. Wooden acting, a serious lack of any realistic threats or danger to the characters (something essential in any action flick) and it completely destroys any illusion of a world similar to our own, thus distancing our relationship to the entire movie (I still love ‘em, but that’s beside the point).

CG is its own worst enemy most of the time. I think it can be used correctly (Jurassic Park still looks better than most CG today, although that was when our minds were young and impressionable), and while yes, we are still growing and learning how to use it best, there are some things that you should just bite the bullet on.

The latest Indiana Jones is hopefully a case in point - sure you could not film on location, save a couple mill or so, but the real Indy would never stand for that, and so the entire crew has tempted fate to give them malaria as they suffer the humidity of South America, all for the sake of an honest attempt to make a “worthwhile” movie.

Until the day comes when CG is seamlessly perfect, let’s lay off of using it as the main machine and not just the tool it was meant as, eh Hollywood?

New Releases:

• Amongst White Clouds
• Go West (2005)
• The Invasion
• King of California
• The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
• Mr. Untouchable
• The Nines
• Right at Your Door
• Rocket Science
• Sand and Sorrow
• Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows
• The Yacoubian Building

New Releases (TV Series):

• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Season 5
• Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 6
• Damages: Season 1

New Arrivals:

• El Cid
• Miss Julie (1951/Criterion)

The circle is finally complete.  From the ominous trailer, to the excruciatingly long wait for it to finally come to Bellingham, There Will Be Blood has finally been witnessed firsthand.  Weeks (if not months) of critical acclaim and anxious anticipation were finally put to the test today, Saturday January 26th, 11:45 AM.  And I have no hesitation to say it is the best film I have seen this year (err…last year??).

I wouldn’t say I am an overt fan of PTA (that’s Paul Thomas Anderson’s gangsta name yo), but I can say he is a technically talented director.  His past films have always been pretty good, but I probably won’t watch them again anytime soon.  Here, however, we see PTA evolving, and finding success in telling a story that takes place a century ago. He’s moved beyond Aimee Mann and Jon Brion, and I say for the better (Jonny Greenwood’s score was great too, very welcome).

The cast, though sparse, is perfect, with DDL (yet another “street” moniker, this time for Daniel Day Lewis) delivering one of the more memorable cinematic characters in recent memory.  DDL lures us in, selling himself to the audience just as he sells his shtick to landowners to get to his oil.  I began the film enjoying his presence, almost admiring his bold yet strangely acceptable sleaze, and by the end, I felt betrayed and disgusted that I ever gave him a moment of room for amusement.  Paul Dano also created a tremendously creepy presence, and I will admit the stewing rivalry between the two characters was something I could have watched for hours; a battle for alpha dominance in the middle of nowhere, their interplay was priceless. 

In regards to the Oscar race, I doubt that it will win despite being the better film.  No real reason, perhaps mostly influenced by the latency of its arrival to Bellingham (not that I am bitter) and my vantage point from this alienated realm of the cinematic world being any indication of it’s popularity outside this bubble. 

It’s strange actually that There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men come out in the same year and both have such high acclaim.  The two are actually quite similar; gorgeous sweeping landscapes, dispicable villainy abound, a beautiful ugliness.  But once the credits appeared at the end of TWBB, I realized I was never bored with the film as I had been with some parts of NCfOM. The film took me places I wanted it to go, avoided the traps and pitfalls it could have so easily fallen into, and presented itself as a story that was so adequately fulfilling, it just felt completely right.

Go see it now at the Sehome theatre (before it might migrate to the Bellis Fair, or heaven forbid, the Sunset theatres).

In case you haven’t yet watched them all, here are “Quotes from Godzilla’s Own DVD Commentaries.”

So recently I’ve really been getting into the films of director Jane Campion. I think she is one of the most (only?) interesting and complex feminist (or female or feminine…are these words inseparable? I don’t know, I too am working to answer this question) directors that’s working today. Her films are provocative, yet deeply thoughtful and heartfelt. I am astounded by the heroine characters in her movies, who give testament to what it means to be a woman in the world confronting seemingly less harmful, but rather quite formidable obstacles then her men characters and what that means I have yet to see The Portrait of a Lady, and The Piano, but the other ones that we have, that I just saw are An Angel at my Table, Holy Smoke, and In the Cut.

Friday at Sehome! Be there! (And be sure to complain as much as humanly possible to the ushers/employees who have absolutely no authority or weight in regards to picking up this or any other movie. They’ll really love you for it!)

Disappointing story — Ledger was one of those actors that had, for me, developed from an afterthought into someone to look forward to.
NYT link.

Best Picture

• Atonement
• Juno
• Michael Clayton
• No Country for Old Men
• There Will Be Blood

Best Director

• Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Jason Reitman, Juno
• Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
• Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
• Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Best Actor

• George Clooney in Michael Clayton
• Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
• Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah
• Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

Best Actress

• Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age
• Julie Christie in Away from Her
• Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose
• Laura Linney in The Savages
• Ellen Page in Juno

Best Supporting Actor

• Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
• Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
• Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War
• Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild
• Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actress

• Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There
• Ruby Dee in American Gangster
• Saoirse Ronan in Atonement
• Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone
• Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton

See the entire list here!

New Releases:

• The Game Plan
• The Hunting Party
• I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA
• Moliere
• Persuasion (2007)
• She Likes Girls 2
• Sigur Ros: Heima

New Releases (TV Series):

• Torchwood: Season 1

New Arrivals:

• Animals are Beautiful People
• Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda/Criterion)
• Doctor Dolittle (1967)
• Hello Dolly!
• I Live in Fear (Postwar Kurosawa/Eclipse)
• The Idiot (Postwar Kurosawa/Eclipse)
• The Kingdom: Series 2
• La Pointe Courte (Agnes Varda/Criterion)
• Le Bonheur (Agnes Varda/Criterion)
• The Naked Prey (Criterion)
• No Regrets for Our Youth (Postwar Kurosawa/Eclipse)
• Nosferatu (1922) (Ultimate Edition)
• One Wonderful Sunday (Postwar Kurosawa/Eclipse)
• Scandal  (Postwar Kurosawa/Eclipse)
• This Sporting Life (Criterion)
• Vagabond (Agnes Varda/Criterion)
• Working Girl