Gateway Cinephiles

Film Diary: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

1989
Director: Steven Spielberg
Viewed: January 29, 2008
Format: DVD - Paramount (2003)

Film Diary: Wild at Heart

1990
Director: David Lynch
Viewed: January 30, 2008
Format: DVD - MGM (2004)

Film Diary: Gangs of New York

2002
Director: Martin Scorcese
Viewed: January 28, 2008
Format: DVD - Miramax (2003)

Film Diary: The Camden 28

2006
Director: Anthony Giacchino
Viewed: January 28, 2008
Format: DVD - First Run Features (2007)

Film Diary: The Queen

2006
Director: Stephen Frears
Viewed: January 27, 2008
Format: DVD - Miramax (2007)

Film Diary: Once

2007
Director: John Carney
Viewed: January 26, 2008
Format: iTunes Movie Rental

No review I could write would do this movie justice. It’s the equivalent of a singer-songwriter’s lyrics set to film. The music, written and performed by the movies two leads, Glen Hansard (The Commitments) and Markéta Irglová, is just fantastic. Guy is an Irish street musician who meets Girl, a Czech pianist. Girl encourages him to record his songs and the two develop an almost-romance while working on a demo CD.

Film Diary: 3:10 to Yuma

2007
Director: James Mangold
Viewed: January 25, 2008
Format: DVD - Lionsgate (2008)

Review: There Will Be Blood

2007
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Viewed: January 23, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

There Will Be Blood’s ambiguous, ominous title is a stroke of poetic genius. It sloshes around in your mind throughout the film’s two-and-a-half-hour running time, tainting the images and sounds with biblical vastness and the promise of ruin. I see the title as a succinct statement of the protagonist’s ethos, but many other readings are suggested, even demanded. The black magic in those words and the power of this film are undeniable. At different moments, different viewers will likely find themselves nodding in agreement with director Paul Thomas Anderson’s declaration: Oh yes, there will be blood.

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3-Minute Intro: Metropolis

Screened: January 22, 2008
Format: DVD - Madacy Entertainment (1998)
Selected By: Eric

Few filmmakers have had such a profound effect on the look of cinema as Fritz Lang, and that influence is almost wholly contained within the frame of his sprawling 1927 silent science fiction epic, Metropolis. At the time, it was the most expensive silent film ever created, and every Reichsmark is apparent in the film’s stunning production design. Initially released in Berlin, alternate versions of the film were screened in Europe and America in subsequent years, although these versions were edited and re-titled to the point of incoherence. Reception of the film was mixed, especially outside Germany, but in the eight decades since its release Metropolis has wielded a tectonic power over film history, and over science fiction in particular.

The screenplay, co-written with Lang’s then-wife Thea von Harbou, is a typical example of early twentieth-century fiction, combining dystopian speculative science fiction elements with leftist political commentary. The film features a stock of archetypical characters, whose roles and motivations vary depending on the version of the film: a power-hungry captain of industry, a charismatic oracle, an idealistic prodigal son, an obsessed scientist, and a robot that threatens society. What makes Metropolis an achievement is Lang’s uncompromising ambition to knead together the artistry of German Expressionism, an Art Deco-inspired visual design, and familiar science fiction conventions.

In contrast to his literary antecedents, Lang was less concerned with scientific plausibility and technical exposition than with conveying an evocative vision that served the story’s themes. With distinctly German gravitas, Metropolis tackles the frightening power of technology to oppress, segregate, and distract. (Although for years Lang actually regarded the finished film as too uplifting and sentimental!) It was Metropolis’ novel visual design, however, that would eventually reverberate through cinema. Although they are now familiar futurist landmarks, the film’s towering skyscrapers, monorails and airships, and nightmarish industrial underbelly had never been realized on such a scale. The laboratory of Doctor Rotwang in particular established the lasting look for mad scientist lairs in the pop culture imagination. For better or worse, Metropolis’ legacy has been a filmic language for science fiction. Lang’s passion and innovation have been matched by others in the genre, but his foundation he laid has never been overturned.

Film Diary: Live-In Maid (Cama Adentro)

2004
Director: Jorge Gaggero
Viewed: January 22, 2008
Format: DVD - Koch Lorber Films (2007)