I’m off on a vacation with the lovely wife for the next week, so posting will be non-existent. My review of Humpday will hopefully be up soon after I get back. In the meantime, watch some good films, folks.
Moon
2009 (UK)
Director: Duncan Jones
Viewed: July 25, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print
Feature science fiction cinema is looking a tad moribund these days. One can count on a single hand the milestones of the past five years, and one of those would be a children’s cartoon: Children of Men, A Scanner Darkly, and WALL•E. (The Host and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow might warrant nods if one were feeling generous.) It would seem that quality “hard” science fiction—i.e. narrative fiction that explores political, social, or ethical conundrums within a futurist or speculative setting—is becoming a rarer and rarer beast. Thank goodness, then, for the appearance of Duncan Jones’ Moon, a film that is so smartly constructed, so effortlessly engrossing, and so thought-provoking, that it feels like a monsoon after a long drought. Jones and riveting lead Sam Rockwell have created a sterling example of what science fiction can achieve at its most disciplined, empathetic, and imaginative. Moon seems destined to be a topic for countless late-night discussions—not about what happened during the film, necessarily, but about the implications of those events and about the unpleasant choices that a comparable future might someday demand of us.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2009 (UK / USA)
Director: David Yates
Viewed: July 22, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print
It seems safe to say at this late date that pining for a rigorously faithful adaptation of a Harry Potter novel is an exercise in fanboy/fangirl futility. Devotees of the Potter series–and I count myself among that ubiquitous club–are inevitably better off appreciating each new cinematic incarnation as a freestanding indulgence of a dense and often daring fantasy aesthetic. More substantively, and with varying success, each Potter film has attempted to evoke a distinctive tone and set of themes, an endeavor that has always been constrained by the fact that each film is but a small segment in an epic saga. The visual excitement that Alfonso Cuarón brought to Prisoner of Azkaban has not yet been matched, and for a time it seemed as though Mike Newell’s adept juggling of Goblet of Fire’s pubescent terrors–physical, emotional, sexual, and existential–would also prove to be a high point. Fortunately for the series’s long-term relevancy, director David Yates has bested all his predecessors save Cuarón with the thrilling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and that includes himself. Although Yates rose to the occasion in delivering a satisfactory Order of the Phoenix two years ago, the result was in some ways disappointing. Phoenix often seemed a hodgepodge of scenes that lacked both cohesion and dramatic propulsion, with the notable exception of the terrifying climactic battle in the Department of Mysteries. As a storyteller, Yates exhibits a significant evolution with Prince, evincing a clear understanding for the source material’s most affecting narrative arcs: Malfoy’s torment, Slughorn’s shame, and the overdue germination of love between Ron and Hermione. At the same time, the director demonstrates a deft handling of mood, alternately evoking giddy joy and chilling horror without subjecting his audience to whiplash. In other words, Half-Blood Prince does fantasy adventure exactly as it should be done.
2003 (France)
Director: Alexandre Aja
Viewed: July 21, 2009
Format: DVD - Lions Gate (2005)
1976 (USA)
Director: John Cassvetes
Viewed: July 19, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print
2009 (USA)
Director: Larry Charles
Viewed: July 15, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print
It was inevitable that Brüno would prove to be less radical than the utterly pitiless Borat, the prior “ambush comedy” collaboration between director Larry Charles and the fearless Sacha Baron Cohen. Unfortunately, it’s also less funny. Brüno, a ludicrously flamboyant Austrian fashionista who dreams of American celebrity, is simply not as fun to goggle at as Cohen’s clueless Kazakh, perhaps because Borat’s aspirations were simpler and his ego less gargantuan. Never mind his Teutonic origins; Brüno is portrayed as the apotheosis of American narcissism, shamelessness, and fame-addled stupidity. The film slumps when Charles relies excessively on scripted story or tired “Gays Are Gross” humor, and, on balance, its provocative subtext is less amusing than Cohen’s exceedingly game jackassery. The biggest laughs are coaxed from absurdities like Brüno sneaking naked into a redneck’s tent at 3 a.m. (because a bear ate his clothes, you see), or jumping out a window in terror to escape a dominatrix. While Cohen’s characters, Brüno included, aren’t exactly brilliant creations, they do shuffle on the bleeding edge of comedy, juggling a plethora of pop culture’s most uncomfortable traits. Even if Cohen fumbles half the time, it’s still a worthwhile show.
Public Enemies
2009 (USA)
Director: Michael Mann
Viewed: July 3, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print
Public Enemies seems like the sort of film that was made for Michael Mann. Tackling the story of John Dillinger’s final months, Mann enters terrain with which he is intimately familiar. In Dillinger, he rediscovers his reliable archetypal protagonist: a man with a disciplined code of behavior, a code tested by allies and rivals and by the sheer capricious character of life. Like any period American epic worth its salt, Public Enemies examines the national soul from a variety of angles, pitting conflicting impulses against one another and commenting on contemporary agonies with a cunning reserve. Mann’s captivating style is as welcome as ever, even if it is unfortunately hidden by the murk of digital video. Despite this questionable choice, Public Enemies is peppered with stunning cinematic moments, matings of color, sound, and motion that linger long after the context has vanished. It’s a shame that the surrounding film is unexpectedly rote, a collection of lively sequences that lack the narrative thrust or consistency in tone that might have made for an outstanding criminal fable. It’s a gratifying and expressive film, to be sure, but Public Enemies doesn’t even aim for the psychological and social complexity of other late Mann works.
1953 (Japan)
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Viewed: July 14, 2009
Format: DVD - Criterion (2003)
1970 (France)
Director: François Truffaut
Viewed: June 26, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print
2008 (USA)
Director: Robert Kenner
Viewed: June 24, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print
If you’ve already devoured Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation or Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, you won’t learn much in Robert Kenner’s provocative documentary, Food, Inc., that you didn’t already know. That might have something to do with Schlosser’s producer credit, or the fact that both authors appear in and provide narration for the film. Kenner, in his theatrical feature debut, works within the comfortable confines of Alex Gibney’s style, presenting Big Issues in a breezy, ever-so-caustic package that preaches to the choir and looks damn slick while doing so. Fortunately, Food, Inc. refrains from indulgent stunts and cheap shots, preferring to lay out its case against industrial agriculture firmly, relentlessly, and with a warm, affirmative tone. Like any polemicist worth his salt, Kenner knows that a film like Food, Inc. won’t convert his natural antagonists, but it may shift the perspective of viewers who weren’t aware of the costs of modern agribusiness. Accordingly, the film’s most enduring aspect is its human element: the mother who lost a son to E. coli poisoning, the seed cleaner financially ruined by Monsanto, and the ebullient organic farmer who emerges as a captivating advocate for a better way of eating.
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