Hasta La Victoria Siempre

Though reaction from Cannes was extremely mixed there is one film that I am looking forward to above all other possible Oscar® contenders -

I love Stephen Soderbergh, love Benicio Del Toro, love the fact that it's in spanish, love the audacity of length and yes - I love the politics too.

There is a lot of ambiguity on this film. As far as I can tell there is still no US distributor though the film will be showing at the New York Film Festival. It's also unclear whether it will be one movie or two and if any of it will be eligible for an Oscar® come January. Anywho, thanks to youtube I at least have a muddy trailer to watch:

Even if this movie doesn't succeed on every level I think it will still be one hell of a film with one hell of a performance.

The Wrath of Kahn

Since it's early days, people have died trying to produce cinema. There are so many ways a production can go wrong. Technicians can be electrocuted, stunt men can be crushed and actors can be accidentally shot. Usually when a movie kills, it is only one or two people. In the case of the 1956 epic “The Conqueror” 91 were killed.

Produced by Howard Hughes and directed by Dick Powell, “The Conqueror” tells the story of Genghis Kahn…played by John Wayne. Shooting on this movie required a fair amount of desert exteriors. These were shot in St. George Utah, directly downwind from the Upshot-Knothole nuclear tests in Nevada. I think you can see where this is going.

Of the 220 people on the cast and crew 91 of them were eventually diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life and roughly half of them died as a result. One Utah based professor, Dr. Robert Pendleton, describes this as a pandemic due to the large amount of infection among such a relatively small sample size.

Was this God attempting to show us folly of our mad nuclear obsession? Was it the spirit of Genghis Kahn showing his displeasure in being portrayed by an actor in yellow face? Or maybe it was just a big ol’ pile of dumb luck. Though the first two would make for pretty awesome movies – I think it was the latter.

No Fun

I just got done watching “Pierrot Le Fou” and it reminded me of why I love early Godard: The pure, saturated colors, the way the camera moves and doesn’t move, the immensely diverse film references, his use of music, the social and political commentary, the alienating devices and non sequitur after non sequitur. As disparate as all these elements of his cinema may seem they are united by one crucial element – fun.

Early Godard was FUN. No matter how dark things got there was always fun. Even when Belmondo is being tortured in “Pierrot Le Fou”, rather than give up the desired information he simply remarks, “Ploom ploom tra-la-la”.

I’ve watched some contemporary Godard and while it is brilliant, beautiful and socio-politically relevant, it’s not fun. Like Mark Twain before him, Godard has devolved from a fine and funny satirist, to a borderline misanthrope. I guess you can only stare into the void for so long.

Ploom Ploom Tra-La-La

Happy Hunting

Hunting has grown far too easy. There is no fun in it anymore. What used to take a decent fifteen minutes can now be done in less than five. I’m not talking about hunting deer or something of the like. Who knows how long that takes? What I’m talking about is something decidedly less manly yet equally pointless. The prey I’m loaded for is information, in all of its various forms.

I have been an obsessive for as long as I can remember. As a child I’d hear some interesting tidbit about comics or animals or whatever and I’d instantly become a guided missile. My obsessive nature would suddenly activate some long dormant primordial hunting urges and I would seek out whatever I could find on the subject. Seeing as this was the late 80s/early 90s my resources were limited. My resources were peers, parents, teachers and the library. Sometimes it would take a month plus to satisfy an itch but eventually it would get scratched.

As I grew older things got much easier thanks to the holy trinity of internet, car and job. I could now seek anything out, get to it and purchase it. It didn’t matter that the British series "Spaced" was not given a Reigon 1 release until this summer. A quick Internet search, followed by a short drive to Amoeba and it was mine. My iPod overfloweth and my DVD collection sits at over 900.

Pretty much anything can be tracked down if you know where to go, and often it doesn’t cost anything. Everything finds its way out. Nude photos of a young Joan Crawford? Got ‘em. Video of director David O. Russell going berserk on the set of I ♥ Huckabees? Got that. Photos AND video of torture at Abu Ghraib prison? I know a guy who knows a guy...

Nothing is unattainable. Like it or not, the instant something exists in a reproducible form it becomes the property of the world. Human beings have an insatiable thirst for culture both high and low. If a film student wants to see "Battle Royale", they will find a way. The same goes for some horny guy wanting to see Vanessa Hudgens’ bush, he too will find a way. Probably the only thing the world at large will never see is Jerry Lewis' "The Day the Clown Cried".

Within five minutes of reading about UK label Fabric rejecting an album-length-mix by the hot French DJ duo Justice I had it (download time included). The same goes for photos of Jayne Mansfield with the dark lord himself Anton Lavey. A quick google search can find most anything. If that doesn’t work there are countless specialty sites you can cruise. Music blogs, gossip blogs, movie news sites, youtube, etc. all hold the potential of satisfying your fix.

Hell I even named my whole blog after an obscure live Velvet Underground song I was able to track down. You can find it here: http://sendmedeadflowers.com/music/youngman.mp3

It’s almost too easy. But will that stop me? Hell no. I love the hunt too much.

Woody Scarlett Co-Dependent

Early in Woody Allen’s latest film “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” a bohemian painter invites a young tourist back to his room to make love. She agrees on one condition – he has to seduce her. This exchange very well sums up my relationship with the film itself.

Let me state up front that I am a HUGE Woody Allen fan. He ranks as one of my top three favorite directors (Kubrick and Scorsese complete the trio). I will defend many of his dismissed works like “Anything Else” and “Celebrity”, but I also acknowledge that he is capable of making sub-par films. “Hollywood Ending” and “Curse of the Jade Scorpion” I’m looking your way.

At the start of any new Woody Allen film I usually find myself buying into the negative hype. For much of the first act of “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” I was in hypercritical mode.

‘What’s with the “Jules et Jim” narration?’
‘That actor has no clue what they’re talking about.’
‘Are there really people like this anywhere in the universe?’

In spite of all of this, I found myself gradually falling under the film’s spell.

What really did it for me was Allen’s use of visuals. If you are a fan of the way he moves or doesn’t move his camera then this film will not disappoint. Javier Aguirresarobe’s photography is gorgeous and the wordless scenes of gallivanting around Spain are alive with an energy I cannot recall in any past Allen films. By the time Act 1 comes to an end with a series of dissolves and some beautifully employed slow motion, I was seduced.

The acting isn’t too bad either. Dialogue in a Woody Allen film can be tricky. Some people win Oscars® by reciting it correctly while others drown in a sea of references and rhythms they do not comprehend.

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem both give astounding performances, but for me the best is Rebecca Hall as the eponymous Vicky. Her performance is completely lacking in dramatic fireworks yet she is able to make you care for this conflicted woman. She is capable of doing so much with very little. Pauses, stutters and extra syllables make a world of difference. On the flipside we have Ms. Scarlett Johansson who doesn’t do much of anything with the part of Cristina. But that’s OK. Scarlett is important to the film in another way.

A lot of noise has been made in the press over the past few years about the collaboration between Allen and Johansson. Many pieces have made comparisons to Woody’s working relationship with Diane Keaton. In many ways I find this to be a bad comparison, but there is also one BIG way in which it is very apt.

Woody Allen’s films all take place in a chaotic/existentialist universe where luck and chance reign supreme. In “Match Point” it is pure luck that keeps Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ character from being caught. In the somewhat maligned “Melinda and Melinda” the inciting incident is the chance arrival of an unexpected dinner guest. Another aspect of this universe is how his characters tend to meet, grow together/take from each other and then go their separate ways. The best example of this is “Annie Hall”.

When she first meets Alvy, Annie is very inhibited and self-conscious. She does not feel secure with herself as a singer/photographer and sees Alvy as intellectually superior to her. As the film progresses this gradually changes. By the end of their relationship she has no problem expressing her thoughts and feelings. She is also able to embrace her own talent. The dissolution of their relationship is inevitable. Annie is a new person and no longer needs Alvy. (1)

Aside from “Manhattan Murder Mystery” in the early 90s, Woody and Keaton have not worked together in nearly three decades. Like Annie and Alvy they needed each other for a while but after a point they had to part ways. They no longer needed each other creatively. I feel this will soon become the case with Woody and Scarlett - if it has not happened already.

Though Scarlett already had a strong reputation in Hollywood prior to her work with Allen, it can be argued that appearing in “Match Point” sealed the deal. She is here to stay. Woody benefited in that her presence has inserted some very palpable sexuality into his work. Allen’s films have always dealt with sex but in a rather clinical way. With the rainy field scene in “Match Point” and all of the couplings in “Vicky Cristina…” things get downright steamy.

In “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” Johansson plays a girl trying to find herself in Spain. Through a relationship with two chaotic artists she is able to find her own voice. By the end of the film she realizes that she no longer needs the artists and leaves to strike out on her own. Perhaps this film is a sign that the Allen/Johansson collaboration has come to an end. It’s time go out on new adventures. Alone.

Though by no means a perfect film, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" has something for everyone: beautiful visuals, fine acting and a fascinating exploration of co-dependent relationships. It is not to be missed.

(1) Schwartz, Richard A., Woody, From Antz to Zelig: A Reference Guide to the Woody Allen's Creative Work, 1964-1998. Greenwood Press. 2000.

Woody wrote a rather funny faux on-set diary. Check it out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/movies/24alle.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

All That Jazz

Picking music for a film is a very delicate process. Film music has done through so many different phases over the years. It has evolved from simple piano accompaniment for silent films to soaring orchestral pieces and pop music collages. The right choice can make an average film into something more and the wrong choice can make a great film a chore to sit through. Though I am a big fan of properly used source music, my favorite scores tend to be jazz scores.

Whether performed by a large ensemble or by a single musician, Jazz has the ability to stir a wide range of emotions. It is incredibly diverse and workable music. It can be loud and bombastic for an action sting or it can be barely perceptible for a scene of deep introspection. However it is used, jazz can give most any film a real pulse.

Sadly not many filmmakers today are taking the jazz route. The only two that leap immediately to mind are Woody Allen and Spike Lee. Allen uses songs from his personal record library and Lee employs scores composed by skilled trumpeter Terrence Blanchard. Though both of these filmmakers have at times made period pieces, the bulk of their output is contemporary. Jazz does not have to be exclusively for period films.

Perhaps the days of jazz in film has simply passed. Hollywood is a notoriously fickle industry. But who knows? Perhaps the pendulum could swing back the other way. I can tell you one thing though: If I ever get the chance to make a film, you can bet your ass there will be some jazz in there.

Here are some of my favorite jazz scores:

“She Hate Me” by Terrence Blanchard
“Taxi Driver” by Bernard Herrmann
“Ascenseur pour l'échafaud” by Miles Davis
“Alfie” by Sonny Rollins
“Blow Up” by Herbie Hancock
“Anatomy Of A Murder” by Duke Ellington
“The Pawn Broker” by Quincy Jones
“The Man With The Golden Arm” by Elmer Bernstein

“Touch Of Evil” by Henry Mancini

The Cinema of Benjamin Edward Stiller

Supposedly Charlie Chaplin once said something to the effect of:

“If a man slips and falls in a wide shot it’s comedy, yet if that same man slips and falls in a close-up then it is drama.”

As oversimplified as that is, this little maxim has been held as gospel ever since. Sure it's possible to shoot comedy in other ways. It just isn’t done very often due to how difficult it is to make it work. Pick any three comedies made over the last 70 years and the odds are fairly good that all three will be shot wide and brightly lit. Ben Stiller’s latest film “Tropic Thunder” is not that type of comedy.

Ben Stiller is not a bad director. His debut feature “Reality Bites” is very watchable and well put together. It, along with the dark comedy classic “The Cable Guy” firmly establishes Stiller’s ability to craft a comedy with some poignancy. He can also do comedy that’s just plain absurd and broad like “Zoolander”. On “Tropic Thunder” he is attempting to have his cake and eat it too. The results are decidedly mixed.

When one first hears the premise of “Tropic Thunder” the first films that come to mind are biting satires like “The Player” and “Wag the Dog”, and when the film opens that is very much the case. A mock ad and a series of three faux trailers mercilessly rip on thug culture consumerism, over-sequelized action films, flatulence based comedies and Oscar® bating art pics. Had the film been able to keep up this ruthless energy we might be looking at the best comedy of the summer. Unfortunately that is not the case – though it’s still pretty funny.

At a fairly rapid pace the film flips from one type of comedy to another. There are gore jokes, race jokes, industry/inside jokes, celebrity jokes, absurdist jokes, film reference jokes, meta jokes, etc. Now the jokes in and of themselves are for the most part funny. The problem is their juxtaposition with one another.

The transitions from one type of comedy to the next are so rapid and unexpected that they end up disorienting the audience and preventing them from enjoying the joke. You are suddenly reminded that ‘oh yeah it’s that type of comedy too.’ Many of the jokes become funnier on the ride home.

This is really unfortunate because many of the jokes are extremely hilarious and cutting. Let us please not forget the jaw-droppingly awesome performance of Robert Downey Jr. as the ultimate method actor. His line about not dropping character until he does the DVD commentary is worth the price of admission alone. And maybe that’s where Mr. Stiller's opus will truly be able to flourish and be appreciated – with the aid of a pause and chapter skip button.

Cursed

Regardless of who started this whole mess - Vladimir Putin scares the shit out of me.

Isn’t this how World War III starts?

And you all thought it’d start in the Middle East.

I know I’m probably overreacting but I haven’t been this nervous about the state of our world since the lead up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Supposedly there is an ancient Chinese curse that says:

“May you live in interesting times.”

I find our current times pretty interesting.

Sterotypes Rock!

About a month ago I went on a “Love & Rockets” spree reading anything by Los Bros Hernandez I could get my hands on. While making my way through Jaime’s stories about “Las Locas” Maggie and Hopey I came across an epically long story entitled “Wig-Wam Bam”. The title is a reference to a song which bonded two characters when they were younger and it’s by the band Sweet (often referred to as “The Sweet” on early albums). Most people know them as the band behind “Ballroom Blitz”.

After finishing the story I decided to give the song a listen. It’s really catchy with its fuzzy glam guitars and all. The perfect song to rock out to in 1977 (or 2008 if you’re a geek like me). Anyhow, I never really paid attention to the lyrics until recently, and boy are they kind of racist.

Now I’m not talking Johnny Reb ‘get a rope’ racist, but a touch offensive nonetheless. The song is about Native American’s getting it on. Check out this youtube clip and the guitarist's fashion choice:



The bleeding heart liberal in me is a little offended. The rocker side of me just plain loves the song. And the part of me that loves to be inappropriate is insanely giddy over this song.

With a final score of 2 against 1 this song is officially declared –

AWESOME!

PS:

On a much more somber note I would like to mark the passing of two insanely talented individuals.

Isaac Hayes & Bernie Mac

You will both be greatly missed.

Mahalo

Action Transvestite

This past Thursday I saw Eddie Izzard live for the third time. On the drive home I found myself attempting something I have tried many times before – to catagorize Eddie Izzard. It’s rather hard to do. He’s a transvestite comedian but it’s not a gimmick like Dame Edna or something. He’s just a comedian who happens to be a transvestite. His material is smart but he does it in the broadest way possible. He is both verbal and physical. He swears but is never obscene. He doesn’t have catch phrases but there are ideas and themes that he returns to often. His act feels free form, yet he is able to invoke callbacks so effortlessly that they seem as though they were planned. Eddie Izzard is a walking contradiction and I love him for it. A category unto himself.

Two Great Tastes

For roughly the last decade cineastes have been obsessed with American films of the 1970s. It began more or less with Peter Biskind’s “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” book and continued on with the work of Spike Jonse, Wes Anderson, et al. This worship is completely deserved seeing as many films of the period were of such a fine quality but, where do we go from here? You can only strip-mine a decade for so long before you have to leave it for dead and move on. After seeing “Pineapple Express” it has become apparent that the 1980s is the new target.

For some this might sound like a scary prospect. Most film historians take the elitist view that the 1980s was a barren wasteland, save for the films of the Coen Brothers, Jim Jarmuch and the Davids Lynch and Cronenberg. Films like “The Breakfast Club”, “The Blues Brothers” and “Back to the Future” hold no appeal with these critics. But thanks to respected filmmakers like David Gordon Green tackling a film of this nature, we might soon be able to appreciate those films without feelings of guilt.

“Pineappple Express” is the off love child of two under appreciated genres – the stoner comedy and the action comedy. It’s equal parts Riggs/Murtaugh and Cheech/Chong (with a little Rosencrantz/Guildenstern thrown in for good measure). It’s kind of a genre relay race.

When the film begins it is very much a stoner flick (complete with a prologue on how ‘the man’ has suppressed the wonders of pot). Bong jokes, munchie jokes and elaborate smoke tricks reign supreme. Even the film’s editing has a nice “just keep truckin’” flow. All of this changes with a blood splattered window that signals the start of Act 2. The baton has now been passed to a Shane Black action and wisecracks extravaganza.

For pretty much the rest of the film, we follow our stoner odd couple as their trip turns increasingly less mellow. Bong hits are exchanged for bullet hits and it all unfolds with pot logic. Any and all paranoid theories put forth by our inebriated protagonists turns out to be gospel truth. Though it’s not really accurate to call them protagonists since they spend most of the film merely coping and adjusting to the situations they are thrown into.

This film IS the conversation a couple of pot-heads would have after watching an 80s action film. So much so in fact, that the film ends with our main characters at a diner, discussing the movie they were just in as if it were one they had watched.

Don't get me wrong, the film does have flaws. The violence quickly grows from shocking to funny to numbing and some scenes go on for too long, but when it works - it works. It is also really nice to see talented people try their hand at such a fun form.

This film likely won’t bring about the desired sea change and give 80s ‘Pop Corn Picks’ their day in the sun. In fact it will most likely result in a bunch of shitty imitations directed by Brett Ratner. But then again, do we really need the intelligista’s approval to appreciate something we know to be fun? Isn’t it enough to just know in your heart how awesome something is? And after all – KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE.

Can Ya Dig It?

Have trouble waking up in the morning?

Here's my tip:

Wake up to this...

It's the most baadassss way to start your day.

Makes you feel like you're about begin a day of crime solving on the hardcore streets of whatever suburb you're living in.

The TV Plan

The democratization of digital cinema is merely half of a revolution. Everyone is so hyped up on the fact that anyone can make a movie for practically no money that they become shortsighted to the other possibilities. The next logical step is television.

Since the 1946 film and television have been at odds with each other. This is primarily due to the arrogance of the film industry. For over 50 years these two mediums have come to exist as islands unto themselves. TV does its thing while the movies do their thing and never the twain shall meet…or so we thought.

It seems that today people are hipping to the fact that film and TV are not as different as we thought. The traditional three-camera sitcom has given way to an abundance of high quality single-camera shows like “The Sopranos”, “Freaks and Geeks” and “Veronica Mars.” It has come to the point where a laugh track is just as anachronistic to a TV program as a musical number is to a film.

In spite of all of this there are essentially no independently produced television programs out there. Film schools are filled to the brim with people trying to express themselves with digital cameras and laptop computers yet almost none of them even consider TV as a possible outlet for their passion. Thanks to technology it is now just as easy to make a TV program, as it is to make a movie. It is with that in mind that I propose the formation of a collective for the purpose of creating independently produced television programming.

Variations On A Theme

Film history is filled with famous pairings of actors and directors

-Martin Scorsese & Robert De Niro
-Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune
-Kevin Smith & Ben Affleck
-David Cronenberg & David Cronenberg
Now I know what you're thinking:

'David Cronenberg isn't an actor!'

Very true but, I cannot help but find a resemblance between he and all of his leading men. Like a serial killer - he has a type. And like Liberace he prefers boys who look like him. Maybe it's just me.

Will the real David Cronenberg please stand up?

Lost Landmarks & Hack Critics

Yet another great Southern California institution is going the way of the Dodo Bird. Acres of Books, the decades old store beloved by Ray Bradbury and myself (amongst others) is going out of business. If you have the time, swing by the old girl and bid her adieu. To help you to better go through the stages of grief, everything in the store is on sale so get while the getting is good.

On Monday I went and picked up some film books (surprise surprise). One of them, “Who The Devil Made It?” by Peter Bogdanovich was a particularly fortunate find seeing as it is out of print. The book consists of a series of interviews Bogdanovich conducted with some of the greatest filmmakers of all time back when they still roamed the earth.

It is utterly baffling to think that there was a time when greats like Allan Dwan, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, et al were not heralded as great artists. In his introduction, Bogdanovich writes of a time that I have often read about but never lived through - a time when film criticism actually mattered.

As much as I disagree with the auteur theory, I respect those who founded it and cradled it through its infancy. They did it out of love. They took it upon themselves to bring praise and attention to filmmakers they felt were worthy of adulation.

Seeing something written by Pete Hammond referred to as film criticism makes me sick. It’s akin to calling child pornography, “performance art”. Pick any shitty movie in the past five years and you’ll see praise from him quoted on the poster. What happened to the days of militancy in film criticism? When is the last time someone posted an industry shaking book of film criticism like Pauline Kael’s “Raising Kane” or Andrew Sarris’ “The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968”? Why don’t people seem to care any more?

Where is Jonas Mekas when you need him?