May 2010: 15 Mini Reviews
May 13, 2010
The last fifteen films I've seen.
Vivre sa vie ('62): Godard tones it down considerably following the manic musical aggressiveness of "A Woman is a Woman" and comes out with possibly his most accessible film, starring the ravishingly beautiful Anna Karina in a star turn as a 21-year-old dreamer who falls back on prostitution when nothing else presents itself. Directed by Godard as a series of vignettes, with alternating use of long takes and sporadic jump cuts (including the famous machine gun cuts in the cafe), the film doesn't so much make a portrait in full of a Parisian youth in search of life and love, but a sketch of philosophical quandary in the face of moral nothingness. It's bleak, as is much of Godard's early work, but it flows with a marked amount of creativity, and Karina is never less than fascinating. Criterion's new Blu-ray features a sparkling print, numerous interviews, new and old, a commentary track, and plenty of essays on the importance of the film to Godard's early canon and to the New Wave as it moved into it's third year.
House of Flying Daggers ('04): Good looking cast, including Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhang Ziyi, and a swirling assault of wire-work and CGI help distinguish Zhang Yimou's tragic love story set near the end of the Tang Dynasty. Kaneshiro and Andy Lau are provincial officers who hatch a plan to track down the secretive anti-government House of the Flying Daggers; by escorting blind Ziyi back to the sect undercover, they hope to find the secret headquarters of the rebels, but falling in love with the beautiful Ziyi is an easy, and dangerous hindrance. Yimou uses warm colors (light blue, green, white) to contrast the dark red of the blood when the daggers start flying, just like he did in "Hero", his previous color coded action epic, but unlike "Hero's" dense "Rashomon"- like plot, this turns out to be a simple love triangle between the three leads, with a few double-crosses to heighten the melodrama, and it's all visually arresting.
Iron Man 2 ('10): Blockbuster sequel is heavy on explosions and slick technology, but there is enough comic relief to make the most comic-book weary film-goer enjoy the ride. This time through Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is enjoying the fame his coming out as Iron Man has brought him, though his suit is slowly poisoning his body, and people are crawling out from the wood-works, including Russian enemy Mickey Rourke, to replicate the suit and take him down. Frankly, the technology at times is simply dizzying, whether it be Stark literally discovering a new element from an old design by his father, or Sam Rockwell unleashing Army battle droids on an unsuspecting convention audience, it's just frantic geek eye candy, as is Scarlett Johansson as an undercover agent for Sam Jackson (she gets a pass, simply for being Scarlett Johansson). But when you get down to it, this franchise has legs because of Downey, who is charming, rakish, sexy, and deftly funny as Stark, and though the Iron Man is mostly CGI, you believe it's Downey doing the stunts, and that's a true star turn.
Public Enemies ('09): This gritty Michael Mann gangster saga gets better with multiple viewings, especially once you get over the frantic hand-held cameras and start to notice the brilliance of the performances and the amazing Depression Era setting, which is realistic to a fault. The title nods in multiple directions; to the public feud between bank robber John Dillinger and FBI Deputy Melvin Purvis (perfectly cast Christian Bale), which plays out on rag sheets throughout the country during the Depression, to the newly formed list of America's Most Wanted, in which Dillinger is Public Enemy Number One, and finally to the classic 1931 Warner Brothers gangster film "The Public Enemy", with Jimmy Cagney in his star turn as Tom Powers, a very Dillinger-esque gunman, for which Mann is indebted, but only thematically, for Wild Bill Wellman didn't have the tools for such visual aggressiveness. The cast is uniformly good, Depp and Bale especially in the two crucial roles, but in more than just a girlfriend role, beautiful Marion Cotillard portrays the innocence and reckless danger of idolizing a charming, brash madman.
The Ladykillers ('55): Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers are but two of the heist men trying to con sweet old Katie Johnson into doing their bidding in this dark comedy from Ealing Studios and master director Alexander Mackendrick. Guinness may be funnier in “Kind Hearts and Coronets”, but he had eight roles there, here he has just one, as the crazy mastermind whose best laid plans lead to headaches when the poor old widow learns of the heist, prompting a hilariously dark second half that finds the criminals frantically wondering if it's okay for them to bump off the old lady; clue, it definitely isn't. Studio Canal's Blu-ray has a spectacular new print, a commentary track by film expert Philip Kemp, a doc on Ealing Studios, and various interviews with film-makers who knew and worked with Mackendrick near the end of his directing career, who most attest that this, along with the American classic "The Sweet Smell of Success", is the zenith of his small but impressive canon.
Chungking Express ('94): Wong Kar Wai's blast of kinetic energy catapulted him into the top ranks of world filmmakers, thanks in no small part to his symbiotic relationship with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who shoots Wong's Hong Kong Chungking Mansion like a dizzy melting pot of diversity, neon, and loneliness, where communication and connection are fleeting. In the first story, young broken-hearted cop Takeshi Kaneshiro bumps into drug smuggler Brigitte Lin (in a memorable blonde wig) and almost connect, while in story B, the richer and more romantic, counter girl Faye Wong falls for street cop Tony Leung, breaking into his apartment and subtly making her influence known while he's at lunch, in a chance that maybe psychological and minor physical change will lead him to love. What Wong is suggesting is that in a metropolis of millions, where the person serving your food or making your clothes doesn't speak your same language, emotional connection happens as much by chance as it does by exhausting search, and what we're left with is two possibilities in which none of the four participants quite knows how to take the next step towards happiness. In his follow up, "Fallen Angels", there isn't much room for any kind of happiness, in the same Hong Kong milieu, but at least here there's still a dream, echoed constantly, and memorably, by "California Dreamin'", Faye Wong's endlessly catchy theme song.
Fantastic Mr. Fox ('09): Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of a classic Roald Dahl is so strange that multiple viewings do it justice, especially on Blu-ray, where you can pause and marvel at the tremendous detail Anderson puts into every frame. Filled with pop songs, lateral moving camera shots, and the sincere/ironic acting we come to expect from a Wes Anderson film, but Anderson hasn't had this much heart since "Bottle Rocket", and you can tell the format, being in total control of every frame with painstaking precision detail, has opened up his artistic craftsmanship.
Tombstone ('93): Entertaining but hackneyed version of the Wyatt Earp/O.K. Corral story, with Kurt Russell sporting a terrific mustache as the famous lawman who comes to Tombstone with his brothers to make his fortune, but finds nothing but trouble in the form of a riotous gang called The Cowboys. Something about Russell doesn't quite fit with Earp, maybe it's the poor dialogue spilling out of his mouth, or maybe it's just stiff line readings, but he's no match for other Earp's in film history, like Henry Fonda or Kevin Costner, and he's certainly no match for Val Kilmer, who kills it as Earp's friend and dying gambler Doc Holliday; he's the best thing about the movie.
Ride with the Devil ('99): Good job by Criterion finding and releasing this nearly forgotten Civil War epic from Ang Lee, an unconventional look at the Guerrilla war on the Kansas/Missouri border between the Southern Bushwhackers and the unsuspecting Union army. Tobey Maguire and Skeet Ulrich are best friends who join the Bushwhackers at the start of the war, joined by a roster of familiar, talented actors in Jeffrey Wright, Simon Baker, James Caviezel, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in a breakthrough performance as a psychopathic killer. Lee tempers the bloody battle scenes with quiet stretches of characterization, including a sort of love triangle with precious Southern beauty Jewel (in a decent acting debut), and dabbles in touchy race relations in the Jeffrey Wright character, a free slave who fights with his white friends for the South, but for the shifts in tone and pacing problems, this is ultimately one of the better Civil War films of the modern era, and it's themes of friendship and societal misunderstanding would lead Lee, six years later, to "Brokeback Mountain".
The Killer ('89): John Woo's gloriously over-the-top gun melodrama all but revolutionized action film-making when it was seen in the west in the late 80's, but with it's explosions, romantic music, slo-mo death scenes, incomprehensible violence, and unabashedly melodramatic characterizations, it's business as usual for Hong Kong. Chow Yun Fat and Danny Lee play cat and mouse as a contract hit man and the obsessed detective out to get him, but beautiful blind singer Sally Yeh softens their hearts, and an odd friendship plays out against a storm of gangster guns looking to erase Fat from the scene. Woo loves the idea of perfect, everlasting friendship and brotherhood transcending hit contracts and gangster blood oaths, and there are relationships of that kind all over the plot, but the thrill of the film remains in the laughably violent gun play, which is treated in balletic fashion. On the Blu-ray interview Woo suggests a kinship with Melville, Scorsese, and Peckinpah, and I'd say on some level, a more sympathetic, romantic Seijun Suzuki.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ('09): Having just read the book I was a bit distracted comparing the ways the film subtly changed or shifted plot details to fit the long, twisty story into 150 minutes, but the changes aren't too upsetting to the book's fans that the film can't stand as a faithful adaptation. I feel the film will play better for people who haven't read the book, since most of it's intrigue comes with the revelation of a serial killer, and knowing that info going in ruins most of the suspense, but the filmmaking, while grim and ultra violent at times, is sturdy, and star Noomi Rapace makes a good Lisbeth Salander with her cyber punk style and emotionally distant characterization.
Summer Hours ('09): Talky and familiar nostalgia piece from acclaimed French director Olivier Assayas, about three grown siblings who return home to discuss the division of their family estate after the sudden passing of their mother. What's unique about this particular estranged-siblings-return-home saga is the preciousness of the mother's estate, which features valuable art works and paintings from a long deceased uncle of the impressionist style, and what is to be done, or valued more, family nostalgia, art preservation, or making a quick mint and moving on. Assayas is fond of lingering long takes and complicated moving camera shots, which give the talented actors plenty of room with difficult emotions which are never overstated or obvious; the film may be about death, but it's also about preserving memory, celebrating the past, and celebrating artistic beauty, and though it may be understated, it's quite moving, and lingers well past the end.
Fallen Angels ('95): The second of Wong Kar Wai's breakout 90's trilogy of jumbled urban life refracted through a hazy neon lens of post-modernism, following "Chungking Express" with a similar two-story arc about a hitman in love with his unseen partner, and a young mute man eager to please his customers, with other people's businesses. Wai and famed DP Christopher Doyle keep the visuals constantly dizzying, utilizing neon lights, and an endless array of distorting lenses, long takes, and close-ups, to achieve a feeling of restlessness, and the way the story (pieced together on set without a script) bounces between seemingly unrelated A-plots, the symbolism of impossible love and wanderlust in a grim urban world is perfectly realized. And even if you can't follow the story, or are bothered by Doyle's precious art cinematography, there are still the actors, and stars like Michelle Reis and Takeshi Kaneshiro are stunningly beautiful.
Ride Lonesome ('59): Budd Boetticher's cool, studied mise-en-scene, with flat Cinemascope images and precision editing, was never more evident than in this wisp of a western, with Randolph Scott as a bounty hunter who uses his prey as bait to satisfy a deep vengeance that has been burning for years.
The Princess and the Frog ('09): John Lasseter went back to the right guys to kick start the Disney 2-D animation department again; having already defined the triumphant New Wave of classics in the 90's with "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin", Ron Clements and John Musker know what works, and this instantly entertaining comedy musical set in Jazz Age New Orleans works like gangbusters. Wonderful Randy Newman songs and beautiful animation highlight a twist on the classic Frog Prince fairy-tale, as the cursed Prince, a victim of a voodoo charleton, kisses the wrong girl, a waitress dressed like a princess, and instead of human resurrection, the girl becomes a frog, leading to a song-filled journey through a Louisiana bayou to seek a cure from a swamp shaman. Clements and Musker follow closely to the narrative formula of their classics, and even evoke such earlier films as "The Jungle Book" and "Cinderella" to add their princess to the roster of memorable Disney female leads, but as always it's the supporting players that provide the most laughs, including a trumpet playing, jazz loving crock, and a wonderful romantic lightning bug (Jim Cummings) who helps the team through the swamp with his illuminated clan. The New Orleans setting and culture provides a colorful backdrop to the story, while Randy Newman and a talented cast provide the excellent soundtrack; a triumphant return to 2-D animation by all means.