Frank's video recommendation of the week

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY

2008-07-22T16:51:00.002-04:00

This week’s movie:

No one eats poop in this movie!

I find that a good indicator of the quality of a comedy is whether or not anyone ends up eating poop. In a lesser comedy, one that’s not intrinsically very funny, the film-maker will try everything in the Porky’s / American Pie / National Lampoon bag-o-tricks - even if it doesn’t fit - to try to get you to laugh. It often works because they know it will stimulate a little dangley bit on the underside of the brain that causes you to find amusement in the stupidest things - it’s a cheap shot - they don’t even have to work for it. You’ll probably laugh because you can’t help it, but you’ll immediately regret having done so - it’s not really funny when you think about it, and it gets old very fast. It’s an old trick. The old vaudevillians were always trained that when the audience wasn’t responding - do a pratfall - they have to laugh, they can’t help it. What can I say, humans laugh at stupid stuff. Why else would people tune in to television every week to watch home movies of people falling down, or getting hit in the nads with a soccer ball, or getting a pie in the face? This week’s movie, WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY, is funny from the opening scene to the very last fade-to-black. You’ll laugh, guaranteed, but those laughs will have been earned the hard way - with clever dialog and sincere adherence to the story’s premise and material.

The film is a parody of music biopics like the Johnny Cash bio, Walk the Line, and the Ray Charles bio, Ray. These films are the obvious target material for parody, but it also includes references to Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. I’m sure you may recognize others. But this isn’t like the Wayan’s Brothers Scary Movie kind of parody or even like the Abrahams and Zucker Airplane or Naked Gun parodies. It doesn’t use topical references and slapstick to solicit laughs. It doesn’t have to. It is true to it’s source material in that it works entirely within the context of the story, in the correct time-line. For example, it doesn’t make references to Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton during the part of the story that takes place in the 60’s. They could have - and they could have gotten big laughs by doing that. The problem with that is that ten years from now, nobody will remember Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton and so the humor will have been lost. I suppose that you could also argue that in ten years, nobody will remember ‘Walk the Line’ or the other films that are being parodied here - but that’s okay, the movie works just as well on it’s own.

Judd Apatow and Co. have been very prolific lately with hits like The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Knocked Up, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. WALK HARD is as funny as these others, but it’s a different kind of comedy. For one thing, it’s not as crude as those (this is a lie) and there’s also not much profanity (another lie), and it doesn’t have as many “adult” situations (big lie), it also doesn’t depict excessive drug use (big lie), and never once strays into the realm of bad taste (a whopper!). Okay, it’s lewd and raunchy and politically incorrect - but so what! this is an adult comedy, not intended for children. Adult comedy should not be dumbed down to please the censors or conservative “family values” groups. There are no family values in this movie - just funny bits. You can’t be afraid to laugh here - just go for it. You’ll still respect yourself in the morning.

DEWEY COX (lot’s of obvious fun made with the name) is a fictional character, but he might as well be real. He’s familiar enough to be Johnny Cash or Ray Charles (I know Ray is black - work with me here) or Bob Dylan or any other veteran of a VH1 “Behind the Music” special. It’s funny, not so much because of the jokes, but because of the familiarity. We recognize all of the traits because we’ve seen then before - we’ve grown up with them. They may be exaggerated in this film, but that just serves to underscore them more effectively. As a plus, all new songs were written for the film and are performed by the actors themselves, and you know what? They ain’t bad.

I keep saying that this movie is funny - but just how funny is it? Let me see if I can come up with some analogous levels of funny.

This may seem a bit cliche, but if I said it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys, that’s saying a lot. I mean - think about it. Imagine a real barrel full of actual monkeys - how funny would that be! Let’s just downplay, for the moment, the fact that chimps eat their young. They could marmosets or macaques or how about howler monkeys - yes, a barrel of howler monkeys! Now, that’s what I call ‘funny’.
I’m reminded of rotifers. Rotifers are a class of microscopic aquatic invertebrates. Despite their small size, they are the undisputed comedians of the undersea world. There’s an old rotifer joke that goes, “There are three rotifers in a row on the edge of a barnacle. The rotifer on the left spins its tentacles clockwise, drawing passing food into itself. The rotifer on the right spins its tentacles counter-clockwise. The rotifer in the middle can’t spin its tentacle either clockwise or counter-clockwise without entangling them with one of its neighbors. Instead, it repositions itself upside down and eats the barnacle. The left and right rotifers stare at their now bloated comrade and one comments - That’s what happens when you don’t exercise.” …………………………………………………………….Trust me. If you were a rotifer, you’d be rolling on the floor laughing right about now.
Let’s consider a funny scenario. You are carrying a large pane of glass when you slip on a banana peel. Just at that moment, the participants of a high speed car chase intersect with you. You hit the ground and throw out your back. The cars shatter the glass showering you with pointy shards. The tires of the car grind them into your flesh. A bystander screams and accidentally overturns a produce cart, causing the fresh-cut lemons to roll in your direction, squirting fresh lemon juice into your wounds. Finally, a policeman comes up to you and hands you a citation with a heavy fine for 1) littering (broken glass), and 2) loitering. ………………………………………..okay - so maybe it wouldn’t seem that funny to you…………..
If funny was a candy bar, The Jerk would be a Hershey bar with almonds. National Lampoon’s Animal House would be a Kit Kat bar. Clerks would be a Cadbury Egg (obscenely sweet). The dark comedy, American Psycho, is a Dove Extra Dark Chocolate bar. Stanley Kubrick’s, Dr. Strangelove, would be an exquisite Godiva Assortment. Any movie with Larry, the Cable Guy (I think he eats poop in most of his movies) would be practical joke chocolate - you know, the kind that looks like chocolate but is really a powerful laxative. In this context, this week’s film, WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY, is a Jaguar. I know it’s a car, but as much as I like chocolate, a Jaguar is still better than any candy bar.
What is the funniest animal? Some say kittens or puppies because they make you laugh but that’s incorrect. The subtle difference is that kittens and puppies are cute, not funny. Another misconception is the Hyena, because “they’re so funny that they make themselves laugh”. The truth is, it’s not so much a laugh as a sneer. They think so highly of themselves that they constantly laughing smugly at the inferiority of others. They’re not at all funny and you just want to slap that stupid grin off their face. Dogs - you ask? No! Dogs eat poop, which means they’re trying way too hard and can’t think of anything funnier. Is it monkeys - no! Monkeys are only funny in a large group, as in “a barrel of monkeys”. A solitary monkey is rather sad and just a tad creepy. No, the funniest animals are the lemurs - heh heh, those guys……….
What is the funniest country? Of course, one’s first impulse is to say “Turkey”, an unfortunate name. I mean, how can you take a country with a name like Turkey seriously? Or what about Greece (another unfortunate name)? ……and the really odd coincidence is that they’re right next to one another on the map. You would think that that would be a pretty funny part of the world, but no! Funny names do not funny countries, make. The funniest country is Madagascar. Why? Lemurs - heh heh, those guys…………………
Oh, and by the way, when did clowns transition from funny into disturbing? When I was a kid, clowns were funny, period! Then slowly, over the years, they seem to be regarded more as creepy evil killers of children than the clowns I remember. I’m guilty of it too - but I don’t remember how it happened. Was it the film, Killer Klowns from Outer Space?, or was it Ronald McDonald, lackey of the evil corporate multinational mega-company, who alway struck me as someone who would eat small children if he had his way?
What’s the funniest movies ever made? I suppose that’s an unfair question since everybody has a different sense of humor. But let’s suppose you think of your vote for the five funniest movies of all time. Leave a comment below and tell me what they are. Here are mine, today - if you ask me tomorrow, this list may be slightly different. In no particular order: Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Airplane; Clerks; This is Spinal Tap; Young Frankenstein; and South Park - Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Yes! Yes! I know that’s six! So sue me! SO what’s your five (or six)?
SO, I almost forgot the point of #8. WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is not on that list. It’s not one of the five (or six) funniest movies of all time - but it is the funniest movies I’ve seen so far this year - and I’ve seen quite a few.
Finally, what’s the funniest category from above? Is it candy bars, or countries or animals or movies - or is it something else? Who cares? Funny is funny. Although it’s in short supply in a lot of the world, humans need comedy, we need to laugh. If we didn’t occasionally laugh ourselves silly or piss our pants and fall on the floor (heavy drinking produces the same result but is not a viable substitute), we would be sad and angry all the time until our innate urge to kill someone overcame our innate urge to just say f*** it.

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY. Don’t pass up this really funny film - it may save someone’s life.

Enjoy

WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY

CALLING FOR WORDS

2008-06-29T22:46:00.001-04:00

I’ve realized that the reason I can’t think of anything to write anymore is that I’ve run out of words. Or worse yet, I’ve overused the ones I had - There’s only so many times you can call a movie “quirky and funny” or say that the film maker “got it right” or that this is “the best movie of the year” - and get away with it. So, I’m in search for new words, but since the internet is one big world community, I’m asking you, the readers, to send me some new and interesting and “quirky” words that I can use in my next video recommendation. Simply click on the “Comments” link, at the bottom of this post, to leave your suggestions.

“….my computer has run out of t’s”

2008-06-23T00:22:00.001-04:00

I suppose this happens to everybody at one time or another.

For reasons which i can’t explain, I seem to be in some kind of writing funk. I can’t seem to come up with a single word to write ………….well - except these. I think if I can get through this next article (coming soon), I’ll be OK. So, be patient and I’ll get back into the swing of it in another week or so. In the meantime, feel free to browse through the FranksFilms archive at past recommendations - good movies all around.

WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY

2008-05-17T19:44:00.002-04:00

This week’s movie:

I cried at the end of Old Yeller.

Of course I was only six, but still …… so what? I also teared up a bit for Grave of the Fireflies, and Love Story, and Ghost, and My Girl, and Bambi, and Pandora’s Box, and The Bridge to Terabithia, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. You know …….the usual tear-jerkers. The point is, I consider myself relatively normal. My black sense of humor non-withstanding, I usually react to films the same way that most people do. So - when I say that I found this week’s movie, about an afterlife populated by people who have committed suicide, rather sweet and endearing, it’s not because I have a warped sensibility (I do, but that’s not why), it’s because the movie really is sweet and endearing.

Now, before you say, “Oh God! Not another one of these oddball freaky FranksFilms-esque movies! Why can’t you review ‘normal’ films like Made of Honor or What Happens in Vegas?” The truth is, I see a lot of movies like those and some of them are pretty good - but there’s nothing new or different or unusual about them. I know exactly what to expect, and I get it - they’re predictable, they’re pure entertainment, audience satisfying, seat filling ticket selling commodities but they won’t raise any new issues or make you think uncomfortable thoughts or make you look at the usual in an unusual way. Whereas, the films that I feature here typically have an unusual hook or do something exceptionally difficult or take chances that have a great payoff. WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY does all these things.

A young man, Zia, commits suicide (guess how) when he becomes disconsolate after his girlfriend dumps him. Now you might think, there’s no excuse for that, suicide solves nothing, nobody is worth killing yourself over …..to which i say, you haven’t seen his girlfriend - she pretty hot. The irony is, his is relegated to an afterlife two or three notches more depressing than the one he left behind. He is assigned a depressing job, lives in a depressing apartment with a roommate he hates. He considers committing suicide again but, who knows, he might end up in a worse place - I mean, where do you go if you’ve committed suicide from the suicide afterlife? I mean really, it boggles the mind.

Zia does make friends. Eugene, a failed Russian rocker, killed himself on stage during a show. They pick up girls together and compare suicide stories. Eugene lives with his family. Yes, his entire family committed suicide - not all at once. They are happy (somewhat) but it’s not easy to be happy here. You can’t smile, there are no stars in the sky, the landscape is bleak, nothing works right, there are no good jobs and no good apartments - what do you want? You’re dead - make the best of it.

All this so far is just a set up for the story. From a chance meeting, Zia is given a piece of information that sets him off on a journey - a quest of sorts - almost impossible, given the circumstances - but as he tells Eugene, “Do you have anything better to do?” He needs Eugene. Eugene has a car - a depressing one - the kind each of us has had at one time or another. Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker, Mikal, who is on a quest of her own. She is looking for the PIC (People In Charge) because, she claims, she is there by mistake and would they please send her someplace nicer. They meet up with, and stay for a while at a small commune led by Tom Waits, and find a camp belonging to a suicide cult who, it seems, have been transported there en masse. They’re still up to their old tricks, so maybe we will find out what happens if you kill yourself in the suicide afterlife after all.

We never really find out why all the suicides end up here. Perhaps they’re given this opportunity to work things out in a way they weren’t able to in life. Maybe they’re forced to find happiness in a placed devoid of it. Maybe, if they find it, it’ll no longer be so damn depressing. Funny things is, although the landscape is stark and the circumstances are depressing - the movie isn’t. The movie is funny, and sweet, and happy and whimsical. In a bleak existence, miracles can (and must) still happen. Performing one seems to be a rite of passage - and one can still find friendship and purpose and even love.

The clever story and dialog contain lots of satire and social commentary. In the novel, “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, One of the characters (a demon from hell) drives an antique car and points out a fundamental, if unwritten, law of nature that - “…any cassette left in a car for more than a fortnight turns into ‘Best of Queen’” In WRISTCUTTERS: ….., Eugene’s car points out another well know rule - any object that falls under the front seat, disappears from the known universe and is never seen again.

And finally, as the title implies, this is a love story - simple true and unpretentious, without gimmick (well …….except that it takes place in the suicide afterlife) - characters find love the way real people do (well …….that is, except that it takes place in the suicide afterlife). It is a universal story (except ……well, you know…..).

I know that suicide is a serious subject and that we shouldn’t make light of it - but the film never makes light of the suicides. It just proposes the concept that your life is unfinished and maybe there are still things you need to do. Besides, war is a serious subject and we still have films like Mash and Catch-22. Also, killing is very very serious, and yet Live Free or Die Hard is still a fun time at the movies, as is The Matrix and the Indiana Jones films and the James Bond films. So I don’t want to hear another word about it.

In the film What Dreams May Come, Robin Williams kids are killed in a car accident. He and his wife are beyond grief, but at least they have each other. A short time later, he is also killed in a car accident and goes to heaven (the real heaven). The mother, on the other hand can no longer cope with the grief and being alone and so - kills herself. She doesn’t go to heaven - not even a suicide’s version of it. Instead, she is sent to hell (yes! hell). It hardly seems fair. WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY, although it has a lot of suicides, is far less depressing - it’s much fair-er.

“Oh, Frank - I don’t know. This sounds really strange and bizarre. I don’t know if I would like this.” Yes - that’s the point. Films that are different are also original - and you might like a type of movie you haven’t seen before. But you won’t know until you try it. Of course, if you don’t like to try anything new, you could watch Sleepless in Seattle over and over and over and over …..

Over the years and thousands of movies, I’ve made some observations about romantic comedies. For instance: The plot to 80% of all romantic comedies: Boy and girl meet, they like one another, they fall in love, things are going great but one of them has a dark secret that the other can never find out, the other finds out, they break up, the one with the secret tries and tries to get the other one back, they get the other one back in the end, love conquers all. The plot to nearly all of the other 20% of romantic comedies. Boy and girl meet, they hate one another, they constantly fight and argue, during one particularly harsh shouting match - one reaches out and kisses the other, they realize that they actually love each other, love conquers all. I think that this genre needs new material to revive it - so I’m proposing 10 different and unique romantic plot lines for possible future films. I’m throwing them out there - fell free to use them as you wish.

A single woman lives on a houseboat on Puget sound. Every time she falls asleep, she dreams of a romance with a single man from the East Coast, who dreams of her when he’s asleep. Time zones notwithstanding, they carry on a hot and heavy courtship every night. It’s called “Sleeping in Seattle”.
A man with multiple personalities discovers that two of his selves have fallen in love and plan to get married - but a forth personality wants to put an end to this by stealing himself away from himself.
A man with ten wives has an affair with a woman with ten husbands. Much of the movie involves trying to figure out exactly how many adulteries were committed.
Everybody loves robots, but the truth is that most robots don’t get along with other robots. Two robots buck tradition by moving in together into a small 1 bedroom above a flower shop. The flower shop lady can’t understand why suddenly she always hears clanging metal. Perhaps she needs to get those pipes fixed - yeah, the pipes, that’s it.
Two comatose patients suddenly become aware of each other when their telemetry monitor wires accidentally get crossed. He admires the occasional dips in her EEG’s alpha waves. She is turned on by the cute way his EKG spikes between the Q’s and the R’s every time he “sees’ her. The hospital staff get confused when her EKG suddenly develops a second fainter faster heartbeat.
Co-joined male Siamese twins fall helplessly in love with co-joined female Siamese twins. The courtship runs into a roadblock because they can’t seem to get any ‘alone time’. After coming up with what they consider to be the ideal solution, an 18 hour operation by a team of surgeons separates the two sets of twins - then they reattached the male/female couples together. In a surprise twist, the couples, upon waking, are aghast when they find that they have been mistakingly attached to the wrong mate.
A beer-guzzling hockey-loving man and an opera-going martini woman truly despise one another. Unfortunately, because they have spent most of their lives watching romantic comedies, they realized that they must eventually fall in love. In a bold move, they decide to get married to bypass the whole ‘falling in love’ progression and move straight to boredom.
The His and Hers towels have been getting rather ‘cozy’ lately. Hers likes His casual, somewhat disheveled unfolded look, and His likes the feel of the fabric softener Hers has been washed in. It’s hard to ignore the other since they’re always hung side by side. One day, Hers leaves for a few minutes and comes back totally drenched. His is consumed with jealousy, and would like to storm off, but is fated to always hang next to Hers. The outcome is a bit predictable, I’ll admit, but with such likable attractive characters, this is one hell of a thrill ride.
An anthropomorphic animated tale, the kind that Disney is so good at. Mandy’s biological clock is ticking. She’s a praying mantis who is down on love, but throughout the story, her heart softens a bit by the advances of Jerry, a charismatic wise-cracking male mantis. Finally, she can resist no longer and allows herself to fall madly in love with him. In the climatic ending, Mandy and Jerry share one long intense passionate kiss ……,before she bites Jerry’s head off. Love conquers all.
Bill declares to the world, “I love chocolate cake!” His friends tease him, “Well, if you love it so much, why don’t you marry it!” - And so he does. On their 50th anniversary, he tells her, “You’re as fresh as the day you were baked.” It’s all the sugar, she tells him.

WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY - you’ll love this story.
Enjoy.

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watch the trailer

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

2008-04-29T07:09:00.003-04:00

This week’s movie:

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

When I think about it, I realize that it could have all gone terribly wrong!

I never doubt the power of a film to reestablish faith in my fellow human beings ……especially those human beings in the film. Film people are so fascinating. When they’re well written, they lead fascinating lives, they experience perfect fascinating romances, they have exciting and fascinating adventures, and - and this is very important - always say just the right things - fascinating. They have problems - they resolve problems. They have conflicts - they resolve conflicts. They sometimes die, but you can always restart the DVD …….and there they are again! The Kinks’ song says, “I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show.” Maybe they were onto something.

BUT ………when a film is NOT well written or directed or produced, it could easily all go terribly wrong.

I live in small town USA. It’s not really that small. It’s not small enough for everybody to know everybody else - but it IS small enough for a lot of people to know a lot of other people, plus there are little sub-communities of families and neighbors who are very close-knit. But I can only imagine an entire town, even a small one, pulling together the way people do in this week’s film, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL.

Now here’s where this review can all go terribly wrong. If I tell you the premise of this movie, and I don’t do it carefully, you will never ever want to see this film - or worse, you can wait to see it, having a certain expectation of it, and be totally disappointed. I’ll probably get this wrong, and I may have to do this more than once, but here goes. Lars, an emotionally disturbed introvert, buys a life-like sex doll so he won’t be so alone …….and his family and small town friends are shocked …………and ……….dang! This is all going terribly wrong. Let me try this again.

Lars …….(so far, so good) ….has issues. He doesn’t say much, he doesn’t go out, and he doesn’t like to be touched. He has many many emotional issues. He now lives in the garage behind the house where his brother and his brother’s wife live. He is incapable of having a normal relation with anybody, even though the young woman at work is clearly interested in him. One day, a co-worker shows him a site for realistic love dolls - and so, he orders one - Bianca. He invents a back-story for her (I don’t know, maybe they each come with one). Since he can’t connect with real people, he decides to get himself a fake one.

When he shows up at his brothers for dinner, he insists that she be treated like a real girl, and so she gets her own place setting. He speaks to her and speaks for her. She’s been in an accident and is confined to a wheelchair. Also, she’s very religious and it wouldn’t be right for her to sleep under the same roof as him, and would it be OK for her to room in the big house with his brother’s family? They take him to see a psychologist who tells them that Lars is just working through some issues, and maybe the best thing would be if everyone just accommodate Lars and go along with it. Reluctantly, they agree and soon the whole town is going along with it.

Now, here’s where the film could have all gone terribly wrong.

In a lesser movie, lewd raunchy sexual jokes would have been made about the various purposes to which ‘real dolls’ are traditionally used. The brother would have stopped in at Bianca’s room for a nightly quickie because he, in flash of self-awareness, discovers that he is doll-curious. There would have been a scene where Lars is lifting Bianca from the wheelchair and is caught off-balanced. He fumbles and somehow she ends upside down and her dress falls down, leaving Lars with a face full of anatomical correctness - just as a pair of old ladies happen to walk by to be conveniently shocked. Or worse, they would animate Bianca whenever Lars was alone with her so that she could give him advice ……and only by making love to her can he truly be cured (I’ve actually seen this movie). Or worse than that - she’s magic, or possessed and causes evil things to happen in town and actually kills to satisfy her doll blood lust. As the death toll mounts, Lars must find a way to save the day - and himself ……and cure himself in the process (come to think of it, I’ve seen this movie too). And, if that isn’t enough to get a laugh, someone, somewhere in the movie, somehow would manage to end up eating poop (sadly …….I’ve seen this one too).

But none of these things actually happen in this film.

Let me make this perfectly clear - nobody in this film ever has sex with the doll. If you were hoping for that, then this movie is not for you. In addition, you’ll never see it naked. The movie isn’t about that. This movie IS about two things. The first is how everybody in town quickly adapts to the situation and accepts Lars’ new girlfriend into their community. I suppose they think it’s interesting or fun (it’s fun to play with dolls), or maybe they just get into the spirit of the thing. Soon, Bianca is the most popular girl in town. The girls take her for ladies’ night out, they do each others hair, girl talk - that sort of thing. Soon, she’s everywhere - working here - volunteering there - going to parties - sometimes she brings Lars.

The other arc of the story has to do with Lars. With Bianca, Lars suddenly begins to interact with other people. He gets invited out, sometimes to parties, sometimes just out - and he goes! He also starts working out his issues, with the help of his sessions with Dagmar, his doctor (psychologist), and with Bianca. During their many walks out in the woods, he starts to open up. In many ways, this entire film is about Lars’ journey of self-recovery.

Lars is not an easy character to get right. The entire success or failure of this film hinges on being able to portray his character without overacting or appearing ignorant or pathetic. Lars is none of these things. He’s smart - smart enough to know he has problems and needs help. He smart enough to know that people realize that Bianca is not real but in his way, asks them to go along for his sake, and he’s smart enough to know when he doesn’t need Bianca any more. The film has a great cast - everybody is perfect for their roles (Patricia Clarkson, who plays the doctor, is one of my favorite actresses, and she doesn’t disappoint here), but it would have all fallen flat if it wasn’t for Ryan Gosling who plays Lars. I haven’t seen every one of his movies, but I’ve seen some, and he’s been outstanding in every one. In particular, his virtuoso performance in Half Nelson earned him a well deserved Oscar nomination.

In other words, it doesn’t all go terribly wrong. Not like some other movies I could mention.

Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace. How it all went terribly wrong. The original Star Wars invented a new formula and was fresh and different and exciting. The recent series tried to use the same formula, and so now it just seams old and stale and boring. How to fix it. New formula - plus lose Jar Jar.
City of Angels. How it all went terribly wrong. This was supposed to be an English language remake of the very excellent Wings of Desire (one of my favorites) but they either didn’t watch the original movie, or didn’t understand the original movie, or didn’t even know there was an original movie, or ….they just purposely wanted to make an awful movie. How to fix it. Watch the original movie, dammit! Call Wim Wenders on the phone to explain it to you.
The Number 23. How it all went terribly wrong. This is supposed to be a thriller - it would help if it was thrilling. How to fix it. Add some scary bits, suspense, action, intrigue. When all else fails, get someone to eat poop.
Snakes on a Plane. How it all went terribly wrong. Catchy title, but premise is just too outlandish. Even Samuel L Jackson’s ‘m…..f…… snakes’ line cannot redeem it. How to fix it. Go the other way. Make it more outlandish. Make it bizarre! No - make it freakishly bizarre! At least then you’d remember it.
Lady in the Water. How it all went terribly wrong. M. Night Shyamalan’s last film could have - should have been great. Instead, it was just OK. The plot was too complicated for this kind of film, it doesn’t have a pervading motif, it tries to be more than one kind of movie. How to fix it. Rewrite rewrite rewrite!
The Hulk. How it all went terribly wrong. Ang Lee’s Hulk - not the excellent TV show Hulk. The best think about the Hulk in the TV show (and in the comics) is not the Hulk part - It’s the Bruce Banner human part, and how he deals with the fact that he’s the Hulk and doesn’t want to be. The Hulk is not all that interesting. He smashes things, and says “Hulk smash!” and then smashes the crap out of lots of other things, then lumbers or jumps off. There’s only so much smashing you can take before you want to smash something yourself. How to fix it. Make Hulk smart! Then - he could muse about things, for example - he could ponder the significance of the army tank, comment on it phallic representation, espouse on man’s technological superiority in the creation of such a construct while, at the same time, regretting the use to which it is put - a seemingly paradoxical superposition of constructive and destructive influences - oh, the folly of humanity ………..all this just before he smashes it to tiny bits.
In the Cut. The Meg Ryan sex movie. How it all went terribly wrong. This is not how you want to see Meg Ryan. Meg is sweet and funny. You want to see her in a romantic comedy with Tom Hanks, all cute and smiley. You don’t want to she her nude on a bed with her hands busy between her legs. It’s too shocking. It’s like seeing your own grandmother naked. It’s like seeing Minnie Mouse naked. How to fix it. Replace Meg Ryan with someone you’re comfortable seeing naked, someone you would expect to see naked. Maybe Jenna Jameson.
Battlefield Earth. How it all went terribly wrong. First of all, somebody put film in the camera. Then the scripts were delivered on time. The actors showed up. They were able to reserve a studio. Yes, a whole series of events occurred in just the right sequence to allow this movie to be made. How to fix it. Go back to step one and prevent the film from entering the camera.
P.S. I Love You. How it all went terribly wrong. This film was miserably miscast. Some people should not should not should not play romantic comedies. How to fix it. Modern romantic comedies have upped the ante. Perhaps a realistic, anatomically correct sex doll would help.
Mr. Woodcock. How it all went terribly wrong. In a comedy, it’s essential that you have at least one likable character instead of monochrome, one-dimensional archetypes (I have never used the word ‘archetypes’ ever in my life). The amazing thing is that the film-makers watch the dailies and say, “Yes!! That’s a keeper!” …..and mean it! How to fix it. This would work better as a drama or as a very dark comedy - plus, somebody has to die!!!!!! ….maybe everybody - yes, everybody!!!! MWAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA.

If you think I’m getting a bit carried away by a movie whose story is based on a life-like sex doll, then I’m not the only one. FIlm critic, Roger Ebert writes,

Only after the movie is over do you realize what a balancing act it was, what risks it took, what rewards it contains.

You can read his entire review here. Joe Morganstern of the Wall Street Joural writes,

It’s nothing less than a miracle that the director, Craig Gillespie, and the writer, Nancy Oliver, have been able to make such an endearing, intelligent and tender comedy from a premise that, in other hands, might sustain a five-minute sketch on TV.

And Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of ‘Spirituality and Practice’ write

One of the best films of the year about the love, kindness, and hospitality of a Christian community for a lost and lonely soul.

On the tomatometer, it’s praised by 81% of the critics, but by 91% of regular viewers (like you and me). Common Sense Media rates LARS a PAUSE:15+, meaning that it’s age appropriate, on average, for age 15 and above, but know your kid - if your kid is highly sensitive, then maybe that age should be push higher, if your kid is pretty savvy, then maybe that age could be push much lower.

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
It could have all gone terribly wrong - but it didn’t.

Enjoy

BLACK BOOK

2008-04-18T23:11:00.002-04:00

This week’s movie:

BLACK BOOK

World War Two was not my fault! Honest!

They tell me my ancestors came from Germany - maybe three generations before me. That’s way before WW2, isn’t it? That’s even before WW1 (which, by the way, was also not my fault). But I still have the German name and when I give it, in certain circles, some people still say, “That’s German, isn’t it? The Nazis started WW2 you know.” To which I have to remind them - my name may be German but I am not. Besides, I wasn’t in Germany during the war, and I was pretty young - too young to fight. To which they’d ask, “Really? How old were you?”, and I’d say, “Approximately ……….oh - about minus ten.”

The Holocaust notwithstanding, Germans sometimes get a bad rap for the war. I know plenty of Germans and some of them - a few of them - one or two ……..er, three …….. half a dozen at least - are pretty decent people. Now, I’ll admit that these are not war-era Germans - these are ‘far removed from the war’-era Germans. Still …….. I imagine that, even during WW2, there were good Nazis as well as bad, evil Nazis. I know people who will hate me for saying this stuff, but it’s true. In fact, it’s true for virtually every ethnic group you can imagine.

Having said all that, it’s still pretty hard not to villainize Nazis in WW2 related movies. It’s pretty cut and dry in films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Blues Brothers, just to name a few. Now, movies where you don’t have a clear cut bad guy tend to make you think. Quite often this is good. But films where you do have a definite villain to oppose tend to be more pure entertainment - such as the movies mentioned above - and such as this week’s movie BLACK BOOK.

BLACK BOOK is not a great film, in the same sense that a Stephen King novel is not great literature. Oh course that doesn’t stop it from spending 5 months on the best-seller list and it doesn’t stop it from being one hell of a thrill ride.

The story is not very original. I’m sure everybody’s had this happen to them. Rachel is a young Dutch woman who has the misfortune of living in Nazi occupied Netherlands during WW2 and who also has the misfortune of living in Nazi occupied Netherlands while, at the same time, being a Jew. She and her family are sheltered by a non-Jewish couple (no, her name is NOT Anne Frank!). When an opportunity comes along to escape, they take it - transport is arranged by boat - but they are double-crossed (cue the strings - Da Da Daaaaaaaaah!) which, I’ll just say this, is also not my fault. Rachel joins up with the underground and goes undercover to find out who is responsible. By chance, she encounters a German commander and becomes his mistress (cue the strings again - Da Da Daaaaaaaaaah!). It is a position that allows her great freedom of movement and access to information - and who’s going to question her? It sounds straightforward but it’s not. There are countless twists and turns before the end. What’s really happening? Who was really behind the double-cross? Who will get out alive? Can love conquer all? Where’s Waldo?

Rachel is played by the incomparable Carice van Houten. You’ve probably never hear of her but I suspect that will change now. She has had a number of smaller roles up to now, but here she has a chance to show off all her talents. I say this in the ‘male’ sense. She is very very talented. Müntze, the German officer, is played by Sebastian Koch who was terrific in The Lives of Others, one of my favorite films from last year. Will Rachel find what she’s looking for? Will she take out her revenge on Müntze or will he turn out to be a rather decent egg?

This film has a wide appeal because it’s possible to enjoy it on more than one level. If you are a normal movie-watcher, you will enjoy the suspense and the drama and the political intrigue and the mystery. You will appreciate the quick witted dialog, and the cat and mouse word play.. You will also enjoy the sudden and unexpected plot twists (Uh-oh! What’s she going to do now?????). If you enjoy movies more on a simpler level, well there is shootin’ and a fightin’ and a lovin’ and the nakedness - yes, the nakedness. But, if instead, you have higher standards in films, and demand things like character development, subtlety, and realism - I guess BLACK BOOK will just have to become a guilty pleasure. If you don’t enjoy this film, that’s not my fault either - I just make recommendations.

I know it sounds like I’m being defensive, but I get blamed for a lot of things that I didn’t have anything to do with. So …..let me get this straight once and for all time. Here are the things that are not my fault. To be fair, I will also list things that were my fault - just so that I’m not being too one-sided.

Not my fault: The Great Flood. No, I really have no way of making it rain and flood the Earth, and I wouldn’t if I could, no matter what some people may think. My fault: Flooding in my basement. I should have gotten it fixed a long time ago, but didn’t.
Not my fault: Extinction of the dinosaurs. As much as I would like to take credit for the event that paved the way for us mammals (at least those of us that are mammals), it had nothing at all to do with me. My fault: Extinction of ants and cutworms on my front lawn. That chemical stuff I put on my lawn kills everything. My apologies if you are an ant or cutworm aficionado.
Not my fault: Destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. I’ve never even been there. I’m betting it was someone who took out a book, and tried to read it and said, “It’s all Greek to me!” My fault: That funny smell in the refrigerator. I was supposed to toss that egg salad way in the back – but it was way in the back and I completely forgot about it.
Not my fault: The presidency of George W Bush. I didn’t want to make a political statement or anything – but I often get blamed for this for some reason. But, get this, I didn’t even vote for him – so back off. My fault: Proliferation of dandelion weeds in my entire neighborhood. I’m the only one who doesn’t de-weed his lawn, and my weeds propagate all the way to the end of the street. The way I figure it, weeds are green – so little on my lawn is – and they’re hardy, and require no watering, or care. Sounds to me like Darwin’s choice.
Not my fault: The Rise of the Machines. In the Terminator films (and the Matrix films for that matter), machines take over the world. Fans who are really into this are looking for a scapegoat. “Frank, don’t you make robots?” My fault: That thing that’s hanging from the ceiling in my upstairs hall. It was starting to come off so I thought if I pull it down, I could fix it and put it back up securely. But it would only come down halfway – I can’t pull it off nor can I get it back up. So now, it just sits there, half hanging down.
Not my fault: Global Warming. This is a huge issue. It involves vast amounts of greenhouse gases, most industrialized nations, power plants, industrial smoke stacks, and two or three SUV’s. I don’t think I can take the rap for all that. My fault: Global Warming. I drive a car, I waste electricity, I consume more than I should, and I don’t make enough of a fuss to stop myself and everybody else from doing the same.
Not my fault: The Titanic. When they interviewed the survivors afterwards, many of then claim they saw me on board, drilling holes in the hull, and opening the floodgates (floodgates were later considered to be a bad idea for a ship). This is just preposterous! I mean, who brings a drill on an ocean cruise? My fault: I reproduced the movie still (above) without the expressed written permission of Sony Pictures Classics or their representatives.
Not my fault: The Bomb. When I tell people I majored in Physics, they often respond, “You people invented the Bomb! We could all die at any time because you guys built the Bomb!” I usually just apologize but really, it wasn’t me. My fault: Da Bomb! Yo, yo, check it out, suckka! Like, this sh**’s da bomb!
Not my fault: Those low-waist tight jeans that make your midriff bulge out and hang over the belt. Who the hell thought that would be a good look? My fault: My midriff that bulges out and hangs over my belt - even though I’m not wearing a pair of those jeans.
Not my fault: AIDS. People think it was me, but I know for a fact, that a female Macaque monkey, named Clara, was behind it all. All scientists know this but, curiously, nobody’s talking. My fault: World hunger. Yep, that was me. Sorry – my bad.

In Dutch, English, German, and Hebrew with subtitles. Common Sense Media gives BLACK BOOK a PAUSE:17+ rating saying, “Intense mature WWII drama taps into base human instinct.”

So what’s the deal with the ‘black book’? Sorry, I’m giving nothing away. You’ll just have to tune in to find out. Take out BLACK BOOK from your local library or any other video or DVD source this week.

Enjoy.

KUKUSHKA (THE CUCKOO)

2008-04-04T01:24:00.003-04:00

This week’s movie:

KUKUSHKA (THE CUCKOO)

The Tower of Babel was a cruel joke ……………….funny though.

Here’s a question for you. If everybody in the world spoke the same language, would we fight less …..or more? I’ve been to other countries. Places where I neither understand nor speak the language - where I don’t know what anybody is saying, and where nobody knows what I’m saying. And yet - I’m still here. Contrary to what many people believe, one can survive this experience.

Have you ever watched a foreign language film with the subtitles OFF - and wonder what they were talking about? I do this sometimes. Some languages sound so exotic (Asian languages especially. You would think maybe French - but in French films, I’m too busy watching the lips move to care watch they’re saying - and besides, I know just enough French to get really confused) ………so, what was I saying? Oh yeah - some languages sound so exotic, that I pretend that they’re saying, perhaps, one of the following, but am often wrong

What I imagined: “You want to know who I am? I am… I am the Invincible Sword Goddess, armed with the Green Destiny that knows no equal! Be you Li or Southern Crane, bow your head and ask for mercy! I am the dragon from the desert! Who comes from nowhere and leaves no trace! Today I fly over Eu-Mei. Tomorrow… I topple Mount Wudan!” ——-What was actually said: “I left my car’s lights on. Does anybody have battery cables?”
What I imagined: “Your laugh is a sudden silvery wave. Your smile spreads like a butterfly.” ——- What was actually said: “You have a little …….er ………mustard on your face ………no, lower - there you got it.”
What I imagined: “To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.” ——-What was actually said: “Get the butter”
What I imagined: “Rosebud.” ——-What was actually said: “No, seriously, get the butter.”
What I imagined: “My momma always said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’” ——- What was actually said: “Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”
What I imagined: “There’s only one proper way for a professional soldier to die: the last bullet of the last battle of the last war.” ——- What was actually said: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.”
What I imagined: “The way your dad looked at it, this watch was your birthright. He’d be damned if any slopes gonna put their greasy yellow hands on his boy’s birthright, so he hid it, in the one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the watch to you.” ——- What was actually said: “The way your dad looked at it, this watch was your birthright. He’d be damned if any slopes gonna put their greasy yellow hands on his boy’s birthright, so he hid it, in the one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the watch to you.” …………… sometimes, I get it right!
What I imagined: “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” ——- What was actually said: “If I remember her appetite, I don’t think we have enough gin in this joint.
What I imagined: “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” ——- What was actually said: “Frickin’ fava beans - I hate those things!”
What I imagined: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” ——- What was actually said: “Yes, you must give us all a good spanking.”

It’s very difficult not to misinterpret what you don’t understand. Thus you have the main premise of this week’s video recommendation, THE CUCKOO. The story revolves around three characters in Northern Europe near the end of Second World War. The first is Ivan, a captain in the Soviet Army. He has been arrested by the Russian secret police an is being transported back for disciplinary action when their vehicle is bombed. Ivan is the only survivor, though unconscious. He is found by Anni, a Lapp woman whose reindeer farm is nearby. She drags him back to nurse him to health. Anni’s husband left for the war four years earlier and never returned. She hasn’t seen a man since.

Meanwhile ……. Veiko, a Finnish soldier, has lost his will to fight. At that time Finland allied themselves with Germany until 1944 when they said, enough is enough. The Germans punish him in two ways. They dress him in a Natzi uniform (they were smart enough to understand that everybody hated the Natzis) , and then they chain him to a large rock, and then leave him for dead, as eventually Russians will come along and shoot him - or he’d shoot himself - or he’d starve to death. Instead, after a time, he escapes the chains and stumbles onto Anni’s reindeer farm.

I know it sounds like I’m giving you the whole story but really, I’m just setting up the premise. The story isn’t about everything I’ve mentioned so far, it’s about what happens down on Anni’s farm - by the lake. You have three people - from three different countries - speaking three different languages - and no one can understand what the other two are saying. Complicate this with the fact that the Russian thinks the Finn is really a German (because of the uniform), his sworn enemy. The Finn wants nothing at all to do with fighting and considers the Russian to be an ally against the Germans. And Anni, the Lapp woman, ……….hasn’t seen a man in four years.

Things get interesting.

There are many funny moments, as when they have a three way conversation, each one talking about a completely different subject. There are many tense moments when the men, whose instincts have been honed by many years of fighting war, clash with misunderstanding. There are also many heartwarming moments when the men, whose instincts have been honed by a lifetime of trying to impress women, decide that sometimes it’s more important to make your host happy than it is to kill your enemy. They don’t understand each other’s language - but sometimes that’s not necessary - there are other ways to get your message across. Anni’s a woman, and she knows how to make men understand.

KUKUSHKA (translation: THE CUCKOO) takes place during World War Two, but it’s not about the war. It transcends the war to illuminate the beauty that is the human spirit, and raises questions. If you consider men who are wartime enemies and then take away the war, are they still enemies? If the saving angel of Anni wasn’t there to keep them in line, would they try so hard to come to understand one another? And …..If everybody in the world spoke the same language, would we fight less …..or more?

THE CUCKOO was the darling of the independent film festival circuit in 2002, when it was released. I don’t know about the rest of the movie-going world, but here in the US, it passed virtually unnoticed. I didn’t even pick up on it from my usual sources of such information. It was a discovery made late at night, on a weekend, in my neighborhood video store - when the shelves are nearly empty. I saw it, idly picked it up, read the back cover, and was sold (besides, I could not leave empty handed!). I am constantly amazed that great, thoughtful, smart, refreshing, and entertaining films like this seems to pass unnoticed by 98% of the population and yet movies like College Road Trip (tomatometer: 6%) is, as of this writing, enjoying its 4th week at my local cinema. Maybe that’s why I never go out to the movies anymore.

THE CUCKOO scores a 91% on the tomatometer.

Common Sense Media, who judges age appropriateness for movies, doesn’t have a rating for this film (seems they’ve never heard of it either), but if were I were to hazard a guess, I would give it an ON:13+ (recommended for anyone 13 years or older - maybe 11 or 12 if they’re pretty savvy).

THE CUCKOO is a feel good movie with a positive, heartwarming, and life-affirming message. Do yourself a favor and give up and hour and a half of mind-numbing soul-robbing “reality-based” television, and watch this film instead - just for one night.

You may have to look in more than one place for it - but it’s certainly worth the effort.

Enjoy.

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES

2008-03-19T00:59:00.002-04:00

This week’s movie:

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES

I’m writing this recommendation because I’m a firm believer in symmetry.

During my many years of studying Physics, I’ve developed a deep appreciation of symmetry in nature - of balance. I don’t believe much in God – but if I did, Physics would be his playbook, his Bible. Physics describes the rules that God himself follows right down to the atomic level. You want to know how he created the universe? Physics tells you. It describes the basic building blocks that form every rule and law of nature from the microscopic to the cosmological. For every particle there is an antiparticle. For every equation there is a symmetric (or antisymmetric) equation that link different phenomena. Balance is key. You eat a balanced diet for good physical health. You balance work and play for good mental health. For every action there is a reaction. For each heads there is a tails with equal probability. The only reason we tolerate evil is because we know there is also good to balance it. Wax on ………wax off.

What all this got to do with this week’s video recommendation? Nothing - except………..

A couple weeks ago I recommended the film Across the Universe. It was an upbeat movie, celebrating the joy of love and music and being alive. It was meant to make you feel good about yourself and say, “Life is great. All is right with the world! Koo-koo K’choo!”

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES is the other side of the coin. It’s the anti-particle of a feel good movie. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a feel-bad movie - it just probably won’t pat you on the back of the hand and say ‘there there’ and make you feel good - and you’re not likely to say “All is right with the world.” by the time it’s over - because sometimes it’s not.

First, you may notice from the photo that it’s an animated film. “Oh! So it’s like, what? …..a cartoon?” Yes……..it is like what - a cartoon, but not like any you’ve ever seen. It is, without a doubt, one of the most emotionally devastating films, animated or otherwise, ever made. Film critic, Roger Ebert, in his review writes, ” Grave of the Fireflies is an emotional experience so powerful that it forces a rethinking of animation.” You can read his entire review here. Animation expert, Ernest Rister, compares it’s emotional impact to Schindler’s List (which was made some five years later), and wrote, “It is the most profoundly human animated film I’ve ever seen.”, and I imagine he’s seen quite a few.

The story is an adaptation of the novel “A Grave of Fireflies”, by Akiyuki Nosaka, and is based on his own experiences: A teenage boy and his very young sister find themselves orphaned and homeless near the end of World War II, when their town of Kobe, Japan is firebombed. Their subsequent tragic struggle for survival makes up the bulk of the film. I don’t think I’m giving anything away because the ending is shown in the very first scene – the rest is told in flashback. What follows is the most honest and realistic and heartbreaking story you’re ever likely to see. It’s not cute, or whimsical, or overly dramatic, or gimmicky – relief doesn’t magically arrive at the last minute – because, in real life, it rarely does.

The film was animated by Isao Takahata, who with longtime friend and collaborator, Hayao Miyazaki, founded Studio Ghibli of Japan. Miyazaki is responsible for many of the very best in animated features, such as My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away from FranksFilms past recommendations. Whereas Miyazaki deals in fancy and imagination, Takahata, instead, goes for the emotional punch in the gut.

“Geeeez, Frank. This sounds really depressing. Why would I want to watch such a downer of a movie and feel depressed all day?”

Because.

Because most of the time it’s not depressing at all. Because between the beginning where you find that the main characters have died, and the end where the main characters die, there are many moments of joy and beauty. Because there are moments of play and of many little victories. In fact, much of the film is funny and heartwarming. Even though you know the fate that awaits them, you want it not to be true, and I think this is largely what gives it such incredible poignancy – you try not to think that they will eventually die. And because of balance. You can’t subsist totally on a diet of romantic comedies, or teenage comedies, or action adventure ….comedies. Balance says you must also see films like ‘Schindler’s List’, and GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES.

This is widely considered an anti-war movie. However, the message isn’t rammed down your throat. No one person or side is held up as responsible or maybe everybody is. War is no stroll through the fun house – unless that fun house is in an abandoned haunted theme park in a Stephen King novel. This is one very intense, emotional, joyous, sad, powerful, and beautiful film. I challenge any breathing, feeling person not to be moved by it. Is it a tear-jerker? Hell yes! So what? Don’t be such a baby!

Don’t be fooled by the fact that it’s an animated movie. This is a serious film, depicting serious events. The fact that its semi-autographical makes it all the more compelling. If you’re looking for a movie to share with your small children, this might not be the one. There is no profanity, or adult situations (I don’t consider war to be an adult situation. War affects children no differently than adults.), but children have a deep-running sense of injustice, and the eventual fate of the main characters may haunt them for a long time to come (it may haunt you too, for that matter). However, it is an important enough film to be a ‘must see’ for teenagers and older. If you do watch with younger kids, watch it with them to talk them through it.

Now, if you’re teetering on the edge of deciding whether or not to see this film, I direct you to 10 different film critics – each with their own reactions. Feel free to follow the links to their reviews.

Roger Ebert: Ebert’s my ‘go to’ reviewer when I’m looking for insight into what makes a film good. He speaks at length on GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES – watch the video here.
FranksFilms: Me. I’m my own ‘go to’ guy when I’m trying to decide whether or not I like a film. I liked GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES even though it made me feel sad. Refresh this page to read my review.
Gene Siskel: I know he’s dead but, through the magic of the internet, he can speak to us from the grave …………………………………………of the fireflies. You probably saw that coming.
John A. Nesbit: Reviewer for Old School Reviews. Cried like a baby for the entire second half.
Jürgen Fauth: Reviewer for ‘about.com’. Like it so much that decided maybe anime not so bad after all. Decided back after seeing Pokemon, the Movie.
6. New York Times: Gave such a great review that people went in droves. The next day marked the Great Facial Tissue Shortage of 1988.
bdod5489: I have no idea who this is. But had trouble typing his review because keyboard kept getting salty wet.
Tasha Robinson: Reviewer for the A.V.Club. Didn’t want to like it because it risked looking like an anime nerd – but couldn’t help herself. But, damnit! She ain’t watching no DragonballZ!
Jon Turner: Reviewer on the Studio Ghibli website. He may be more than a little biased – what do you think?
Aaron V.F. PICAR: I don’t know who this guy is – but he has a great website dedicated to using GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES as a classroom teaching tool. If you are considering watching it with your children, this site provides guides and topics for discussion.

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES is a serious film that seriously deserves serious consideration. I’m serious here!

Seriously enjoy this film.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

2008-02-29T22:22:00.005-05:00

This week’s movie:

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

There are two kinds of people in the world….

People are always saying this – about all sorts of things. But if you think about it, it’s the most absurd generality – that is, it’s true about almost everything. Examples may include: “There are two kinds of people in the world ………”

…those that put people into two categories, and those that don’t.”
…those that like to carve dinosaurs out of baked potatoes, and those that don’t”
…those with ears shaped like bake potatoes that are then cut in half then baked some more – maybe with a little pat of butter, and those with ears shape like potatoes that haven’t been baked at all.”
…those who like to keep a baked potato on a string around their neck, and those that prefer to keep their baked potato ……..er ……….elsewhere.”

…and I haven’t even begun to explore the myriad possibilities of other types of baked vegetables. However, the saying only really has any meaning when it is used to make a distinction between group groups of people that are approximately equal in number – like I’m about to do.

There are two groups of people in the world – those that “get” this week’s film, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, and those that don’t.

This does not imply anything bad about the people who don’t, although I’m pretty sure before I’m done I’ll end up saying insulting about those idiots – but I won't because it’s not really true. This is a really polarizing film. That is, the people who get it believe this movie is a brilliant and artistic celebration of everything we remember about the 1960’s, set to the music of The Beatles, joyous and uplifting ………..while those that don’t get it believe this film is just a pretentious bit of rubbish which blasphemes the music of The Beatles. There seems to be very little middle ground. Just to illustrate the point, the film scores 50% on the tomatometer. Click on the link to go to the tomatometer site and look at the reviews. All the reviews seem to cluster at one extreme or the other.

Now, obviously, I’m on the positive end. That is, I get it – otherwise I wouldn’t be recommending it here. The question is, which side are you on? What type of person are you? Will you love or hate this movie? I’ll try to give you enough information to decide whether you should risk watching it. You might say, why think about it at all? Why not just watch the movie and decide for myself? Because if you hate it – you will hate it so much that you’ll realize that you are capable of more hate than you ever thought possible and it will be a frightening revelation, the likes which no human should face, especially without a baked potato.

…..besides, you may never trust my judgment again.

So I am listing various reasons why you may either hate or love this film. Some of these are exactly the points that critics use to justify their assessments.

Do you like musicals? Some people hate them – I mean – hate them a lot! Hate them - like an Old Navy commercial. I, on the other hand, like musicals (not Old Navy commercials). ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is a musical.
“It’s just a string of music videos….” This is somewhat true. However, I think it’s appropriate that the story is told through music video-like sequences considering that it was The Beatles that pretty much invented the music video. At some point in their career, they stopped making public appearances. But they were still making records that had to be promoted and so they had to make some sort of appearance. So, they would be scheduled to “appear” on some TV show or another - but instead of performing live on the show, they would send along a film that they made of themselves doing crazy things while their new song played in the background ………in other words - a music video. The concept has since, er….., caught on. So, in the context of this movie, music videos are more of an homage or a nostalgic device than a gimmick.
It doesn’t have a conventional straightforward narrative. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, although it does tell a story (the main characters’ journey through the 60’s), was intended instead to be an artistic showpiece for Beatles-era social and political comment. It’s not even intended to be a particularly accurate one - like an impressionist’s rendition of a decade, imparting ideas but blurring many of the details. The narrative, though not the main focus of the film, is not particularly hard to follow. It’s also not that important.
“It’s contrived. It seems fake, unrealistic!” (See #2 & #3 above) The film is intended to provide an impression of a decade as seen though the (sometimes psychedelic) lens of Beatles songs. All of the characters have names from the songs. There’s the main character, Jude; his best friend, Max, who looks honest enough but, who knows, he could have killed someone with a silver hammer; Max’s sister, and Jude’s love interest, Lucy; they rent a room from Sadie (and yes, she is indeed sexy) who is a Janis Joplin-like singer; a black Hendrix-esque guitarist named Jo-Jo; Prudence who likes girls but is afraid to admit it (although it’s painfully obvious to everyone around her) until she meets lovely Rita (who might be a meter maid - the film doesn’t get into that); and a host of others. There are lots of song references and many of these are tied into cultural references of that era. Like art, this is the paint used to make the picture. The film’s palette is made up of songs and images rather than plot elements.
“Why should I watch a bunch of actors sing Beatles songs? I’d rather just see The Beatles sing their own songs!” ………….yes. Good luck with that.
“The Beatles are turning in their graves ……..the dead ones, that is.” Actually, the remaining members (plus Yoko) viewed a screening of the film before its release and gave their approval.
“It’s no better than that awful movie, “Sgt. Peper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - you know, the Peter Frampton / BeeGees thingy from the 70’s.” Dude ……are you kidding me? Go back and watch that again ……..if you dare ……….and make that statement again ………if you dare!
“No plot.” People really harp on that “no plot” thing. It does have a plot: Jude, a British lad from Liverpool, comes to the states to search for his dad. He meets and befriends Max, and then his sister, Lucy, and falls in love. They go to the city and rent a room from Sadie, and meet Prudence (who comes in through the bathroom window) and Jo-Jo, the guitar player. Jo-Jo and Sadie hook up and form a band, Max gets drafted and goes to Nam, they ride on the Magic Bus and drink electric Kool-aid. The whole thing culminates with a rooftop public concert (just like The Beatles). Not a lot of plot, I agree - not as much plot as, for example, Family Plot, or The Plot Against Harry, or Plot 9 From Outer Space - but the plot is not as important here as being entertained.
DNA: An NOH attaches to one side of an amino acid about two-thirds the way down the 11th chromosome. As a consequence, the images and sound from ACROSS THE UNIVERSE are directed to the right hemisphere of the brain where it stimulates the artistic centers, releasing copious amounts of dopamine, causing you to smile and tap your toes and say - everything is right with the world, and - what a great movie this is! However - if the NOH strand attaches to the opposite side (about a 50-50 chance) of the amino acid about two-thirds down the length of the 11th chromosome, the information stream is directed instead to the left hemisphere of the brain where the logic centers look at it and say - what the %^$# is this &*%!? - this is a load of rubbish! - where’s my baked potato?
What side of the DNA is your NOH on? I don’t know if there’s a way to predict it. I’m not sure what the outward signs would be - but I’m prepared to conduct a scientific survey. Answering the following questions will give me a means to probe into your psyche at the NOH level: 1. Home fries or hash browns? 2. Do you take butter or sour cream with your baked potato? 3. Do you prefer baked Russets or Yukon golds? 4. Do you ever get the urge to pop a Mr. Potato-head into the microwave? 5. Eat the skin - or not? …………….if you answered “fruit bat” to any of these questions, you ………..well, you may not have understood the questions……

Julie Taymor directs. Before directing movies, she was an art director and choreographer, having spent a lot of time on Broadway. Her films have a unique visual quality from Frida to the film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus (a FranksFilms recommendation).

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE has a number of cameo appearances such as Joe Cocker, Bono, Eddie Izzard, Selma Hyjak (as the Bang-Bang-Shoot-Shoot nurse - all five of them in fact), and others.

Enjoy ACROSS THE UNIVERSE with a baked potato

………..or popcorn is good too.

FranksFilms and the Oscars

2008-02-25T06:09:00.004-05:00

No - I didn’t attend the Oscars this year - but I did watch them on TV. I’ve always been mildly interested in them, but this year is different. This is the first year in living memory that I’ve actually seen most of the nominated films - and ………can actually voice an opinion about them. So while I sit here and watch the broadcast with the laptop on my ……..well, lap - I can tell you when they made the right decision, and when they get it completely wrong - as usual.

First: The fashions. Whenever I watch the red carpet thingy before the show, I always think the same thought. The men all look the same (a tux is a tux - it’s black! That’s it!), but it seems that the women all strive, with every fiber of their being, to set themselves apart from everyone else, usually by wearing the most garish, outlandish, outfit imaginable. It’s unlikely that any gown worn tonight will ever - can ever - be worn again, without evoking degrees of ridicule. Then again, maybe that’s the point.

Predictions: Forget it! If I’m right, I let you know. If I’m wrong, I’ll just rant about what idiots the academy is.

The Awards:

Costume Designer: ? Does anyone ever pay attention to this one? Elizabeth, the Golden Age??? Are they crazy? This film can’t possibly win for costume desi… - Oh wait - yeah, OK.

Animated Feature: Ratatouille. Was there really any other choice? …..besides that ……..and that one?

Make-up: This, I assume is the stuff they put on your face - and not what they do after a fight. La vie en rose. OK, I did see it and yes, she did wear a lot of makeup. They made a beautiful actress look plain and old. Yay!

Visual Effects: It better be something cool - it better be something cool - something cool oh please oh please oh please oh - The Golden Compass? Oh crap! I didn’t see it. If you did, tell me - was it better than Pirates of the Carribean?

Art direction: What do these people do? Sweeney Todd. OK, I get it. They make everything look right.

Best Supporting Actor: There’s only one possible winner - and ……………………….YESSSSS! Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men - a bad ass - with a stupid haircut. The world does make sense.

Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton - long overdue - and she was great - but I really didn’t see that coming. My money was of Cate Blanchett. The voting must have been very close.

Adapted Screenplay (based on existing material): Fingers crossed …………YES. The Coen Brothers‘ No Country for Old Men. I am so smart.

Sound Editing & Mixing: I normally would care a whit about this, but I’ve recently been exposed to the sound editing process for film - it’s hard. The Bourne Ultimatum - Sure! Why not?

Best Actress: If Julie Christie doesn’t win, I’m never watching this show again. OK, maybe Marion Cotillard was good too in La Vie en Rose, but the Academy obviously didn’t see Julie Christie in Away From Her.

Foriegn Language Film: Who cares? I didn’t see any of the nominated films. The problem is that these movie don’t show here, and I won’t get a chance to see them until they come out on DVD and I can’t rent them. The Couterfeitters - As good a choice as any.

Best Song: This category always ticks me off because they all suck ………..except this year’s winner, “Falling Slowly” from Once, one of the single most uplifting moments in film this past year.

Cinematography: There Will be Blood which did a great job at capturing the desolate landscape of early America. My money would have been for Atonement, for the landing beach scene, but what do I know? I just saw all the nominated films ………well, half of them anyway.

Musical Score: Atonement. No, is wasn’t a musical - but it did have music. And what memorable music it was. You may remember such numbers as “Watching From the Window”, “Walking Through the Woods”, “Typing in My Diary”, and of course “Running Next to the Jeep”. I’m whistling that one right now.

Best Documentary: Taxi To The Dark Side - about torture. I knew that would win, torture is just so trendy these days.

Original Sceenplay: I kinda hope Diablo Cody wins for Juno. Her story is as great and dramatic and storybookish as her screenplay. ……..and yes - the ex-stripper wins. Now go out and see this movie!

Best Actor: There’s only one possible winner here - Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood was the most powerful crazy and psychotic portrayal of a obsessive crazy-person this year. If you haven’t seen this film, rent it when it’s released on DVD.

Best Director: Joel & Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men, probably their best film since Fargo. These guys make the greatest movies of all time. If you’re a fan, you know what I mean. Check out their catalog of films here and hold a Coen Brothers festival in your own home.

Best Movie: I have my fingers crossed ………. YES - No Country For Old Men. It honestly was the best movie - and that’s saying a lot considering that all of the nominated movies were outstanding.

That’s it! At this point I could go into a long drawn out rant about all the great films that weren’t nominated, but it’s late and I’m going to bed. Now you can do what I usually do after the Oscars, fill out your “movies to rent” list, or add to your NetFlix queue. You really can’t go wrong with any of the winners (or even the nominees). Of course, that list should already be somewhat lengthy from my own recommendations from the FranksFilms site.

Good Night.

PANDORA'S BOX

2008-02-18T23:02:00.002-05:00

This week’s movie:
PANDORA’S BOX

I have a copy of Steven Jay Schneider’s book, “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”.

Every once in a while I flip through it when I’m looking for a movie recommendation. I cross off the films I’ve already seen - one, to not repeat films that I already saw, and - two, to see how much longer I’ve got to live (assuming that the title implies that when I complete the list, I can safely - and finally - die). I’ve resisted renting PANDORA’S BOX for some time because I have somewhat an aversion to old silent movies. It was the very early days of film making and I feel they hadn’t quite got it right yet - they hadn’t quite figured out what to do with this new medium. The plots were flimsy, the acting was melodramatic - it’s as if they’d figured that the audience were so wowed by moving pictures that all you needed to do was put a picture up on the screen, and what happened up there didn’t much matter. Also, it’s rare to find a copy of a movie that’s still in watchable condition, having not aged gracefully over the past 80 or so years. But, as I’ve found in the past, there are exceptions to this rule.

PANDORA’S BOX, released in 1929, is that exception.

The Criterion Collection, which re-releases both early and modern classic films, does a pretty good job of restoring older movies. The DVD version currently available is bright and smooth and has several available audio soundtracks (you can chose among at least two symphonic scores, a jazz score, a kind of honky-tonk thing, piano accompaniment (likely close to what was actually presented in theaters that originally showed this film). The film now has a sort of modern look. If you follow the IMDB link above, you notice that the page has a German title. It’s a German film. “OMG Frank, not another foreign movie!” Yes it was made in Germany, but does that matter if it’s a silent film?

Now, I could say that first of all, this movie is an important view for anyone seriously interested in the history of film. I could also say that the movie is one of the first good examples of early German neo-realism – I wouldn’t say that – but I could – if I knew what that meant. I could even say that you should see it because it’s on Steven Jay Schneider’s “1001 Movies…”book. But, when you get right down to it, the reason that you absolutely must see this film, and you will absolutely love this film can be expressed in one single word – Louise Brooks. OK, so I guess that’s two words.

In Neil Gaiman’s novel “American Gods”, one character declares Louise Brooks to be “…the greatest American actress of all time”. I could argue against this – but not convincingly. She is, without a doubt, one of the most influential actresses of all time. The look she popularized in PANDORA’S BOX defined the term “flapper girl”. Her signature short bob haircut has come in and out of fashion every decade or so that she always, even in an 80 year old film, looks modern – not like an “old movie actress”. PANDORA’S BOX looks like it might have been made 10 years ago, not 80 …………..except for that silent film thing.

Louise Brooks is probably the greatest cultural influence that you may never have heard of. Liza Minnelli’s character in the film Cabaret is modeled after Louise Brooks, as is Melanie Griffith’s character in the film Something Wild, named Lulu – after Brooks’ character in PANDORA’S BOX. She was the inspiration for the comic strip Dixie Dugan, as well as Guido Crepax’s erotic comic Valentina. Other influences include Cyd Sharisse, Madonna, Dr. Who (the character, Romana, is based on Brooks), rock bands, and a number of present day fashion models.

Louise Brooks certainly has an appeal that can’t be denied. There is a smoldering sensuality about her that’s very subtle, and yet ultimately powerful. There really is no modern day equivalent of her. In PANDORA’S BOX, she plays Lulu, an innocent and free-spirited girl who lives under the auspices of men who fall for her. They can’t help themselves – she ……I don’t know …..does something with her eyes, I think – and they become insane with desire. She lets them, of course. She’s not a manipulator; there is no malice in her. When they tell her they love her, and she returns it – she means it. I’m not sure what it is about her – I think it’s maybe something she does with her eyes, but she exudes innocence. She may be a prostitute, but she’s an innocent one.

The story follows her downward spiral after an unfortunate incident in which a boyfriend, totally destroyed by jealousy for her, kills himself. There is a entourage of men who try to protect her – but they just want her too – kind of like There’s Something About Mary. I suppose this film could be called “There’s Something About Lulu – I Don’t Know ……Maybe It’s Something She Does With Her Eyes ……Or Something”.

So I’m giving silent films another chance, as should you. I do like some of them, and maybe I’ll discover more. But for your benefit, here is a list of my top 10 favorite silent movies in no particular order.

PANDORA’S BOX - of course I’m going to list this one - I mean, it’s got Louise Brooks in it - I mean ……. I don’t know ……I mean I think she does something with her eyes …….or something…….
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - One of the very first psychological thrillers creates an eerie ambiance that was well ahead of its time.
Modern Times - Charlie Chaplin’s last “Little Tramp” movie is not really silent, but the main characters act as if it were. Genius level funny.
Play Time - Jacques Tati’s masterpiece is visual and physical comedy on a grand scale. Not really a silent movie but, like “Modern Times”, it’s in the spirit of a silent movie.
L’Iceberg - Again, not technically a silent movie, but it might as well be. Very funny film with a lot of visual-based comedy. I think comedy is the only genre that can get away with that these days.
Silent Movie - The Mel Brooks comedy. It IS a silent movie - sort of by definition.
2001: A Space Odyssey - Other than HAL, the computer, I don’t remember any dialog - do you?
The Number 23 - The Jim Carey Psycho-thriller. I know it’s technically not a silent movie ………but I watched it once with the sound off and ………………better.
The Wizard of Oz – I did the Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon thing with the sound off. I didn’t work for me – but I did like the Pink Floyd music …..so there was that …….
Evita – Not a silent movie …….but it ought to be!

PANDORA’S BOX scores 91% on the tomatometer.

Open it and enjoy.

view video

THE HOST

2008-02-01T22:26:00.002-05:00

This week’s movie:

THE HOST

Ode to the monster movie:

I just saw an outstanding monster movie the other day called Cloverfield. It wasn’t like Frankenstein or Godzilla or any of the others I can remember from my childhood, and it will very likely change the nature of monster movies to come - a new benchmark - and when it comes out on video in a few months, I’ll have more to say about it then. But in the meantime, it reminded me of another great monster film I’d seen recently - this week’s movie, THE HOST.

I was really young when I saw my first “monster attacks the city” movie. It was Godzilla and I was about 8 years old. It was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. And even though the logic side of my brain told me that it was just make-believe, I would still, for years since, always keep check on the horizon when I was outdoors – because you never know when a prehistoric creature in a rubber suit, created by atomic radiation, might decide to rampage through my town and my parents would probably have to buy a new car and thus wouldn’t be able to afford a new bicycle for yours truly – then I’d be stuck running beside my friends, trying like hell to keep up, thus getting so tired that I’d fall asleep early and thus wouldn’t be able to stay up late enough to watch the monster movies, shown on TV late at night. …………….could happen.

I can’t say for sure why some of us are drawn to such movies. Maybe we have that sort of morbid curiosity that is fascinated by large scale destruction. Maybe we identify with the creature – “I want to knock down big buildings!” Maybe it’s the same compulsion that made you want to knock down your little brother’s tower of building blocks as you walk by – just because.

Years ago I watched a movie on TV (It may have been a “made for TV” movie) called Monstroid. During the opening credits they flashed the claim “Based on actual events.” You might think, “So what? Lots of films are based on true stories.” True enough – but this one was about a giant dinosaur that rises from the sea and terrorizes a coastal fishing village. Funny that I never read about that in the paper ………oh wait – maybe I did read about that once in the Weekly World News between the article about how Satan is a space alien and the latest exploits of the Bat Boy. Lately though, I’ve been disappointed with monster movies. For me, Godzilla was the biggest and baddest of them all. The second-rate copies that came after just didn’t cut it – like Mothra, and Gamera, and King Kong (please ignore, for the moment, that fact that King Kong was actually made some 20 years or so before Godzilla – I’m trying to make a point here.), but I watched them and loved them just the same. The problem is that I’ve grown up and they hadn’t. I hadn’t, until now found a film that was as thrilling and scary ……….and fun as the early classics to a young boy ……….as I said, until now. THE HOST is such a film. It has the right combination of scary monster, thrilling action, political satire, stress releasing comedy, mayhem, and uplifting heroics as they did when I was a boy. Finally, the monster movie has grown up.

This film has often been described as “Godzilla vs. Little Miss Sunshine”. This is true to an extent. It’s not as much about the monster as it is about the Park family. Three generations of the Park family live together in a trailer on the banks of the Han River in Seoul, South Korea (yes – it’s Korean – but the subtitles are easy to read and if you don’t want to read those, my copy of the DVD had an English-dubbed soundtrack – but gobs are lost in the translation – I recommend you brave through the subtitles ………….unless you’re Korean that is). They are a profoundly dysfunctional family but manage to pull together and support one another when the chips are down. In that way, it is similar to Little Miss Sunshine. The monster isn’t humongous, like Godzilla. It can’t knock down buildings and terrorize entire populations at the same time – but it is rather creepy nevertheless, and it can certainly terrorize a few dozen people at the same time at any rate.

THE HOST is funny without being a comedy. It’s scary without being gross and turning your stomach. It’s dramatic without being soppy. It’s a political satire without preaching, and it’s action packed without seeming unrealistic (except that there’s this monster). I’m hoping that this will spur a renewal of interest in making monster movies. I think it may already have started (reference again to the new film “Cloverfield”). I know that if I ever get the chance to make a film, I have lots of monster ideas – but I know that will never happen. So …..here are my monster movie ideas that will probably never see the light of day.

VORAX: Destroyer of Worlds! – Vorax, the most fearsome creature in the Andromeda Galaxy, travels throughout the galaxy destroying and devouring planets. When he is sucked through a wormhole and reappears in our own solar system, he sets his sights on the Earth. Our doom seems certain, causing panic worldwide – until it is discovered that, due to a miscalculation in scale, Vorax is actually half an inch tall.
TERROR FROM THE DEEP – In the future, the ocean is pristine. A century of human efforts have paid off and the ocean is once again clean. A monstrous sea creature, fed up with humans cleaning up his domain, rises up and attacks New York. He lumbers down street after street cleaning up the litter and the trash and the garbage, leaving sparkly clean streets in its wake – and bellowing “How do you like it? How do you like it?!!!!” Street cleaners and garbage collectors are suddenly out of work, tipping the already teetering unemployment scales into instability. The economy crashes sending the country into a deep depression. Mayhem, destruction, oh the terror, oh the terror…………from the deep.
SLUMMO: The Rude Clown!!! – A giant clown-like creature attacks the city making rude gestures and dropping its pants-like garment. Citizens are disgusted and evacuate the city in droves, but SLUMMO has his giant squirting flower-like object waiting for them.
PLANETRON: The Careful – Planetron, a giant prehistoric sea serpent, rises up to attack Tokyo – but he doesn’t do it all at once. The 300 ft. tall creature first does a walk-through, taking copious notes and occasionally taking out a huge tape measure to check building heights and widths etc. He’ll use this data to plan his attack at a later time so that he’ll know which buildings he is able to knock down for maximum terrifying effect.
The Return of PLANETRON – PLANETRON attacks Tokyo with maximum terrifying effect.
KLAXON: The Annoying – Klaxon, a giant space alien, is not very powerful, so it can’t really cause any actual damage itself, and it can’t really harm anyone ……directly – BUT – it’s really really loud and annoying. So much so that eventually the city sustains damage and mayhem as the military knocks down buildings in an effort to chase Klaxon away. Thousands are killed in the stampede to “get the hell out of Dodge”, much of it due to lack of communication as most people have their ears stuffed with cotton, or stones, or small animals – basically anything they can manage to shove in there just to shut Klaxon the hell up.
THE BEING OF UNKNOWN HORRORS - An earthquake opens a fissure releasing a giant creature. The populace is horrified but it doesn’t know why.
THE NO-NONSENSE BEAST – A humongous monster attacks an unsuspecting city. It stomps cars, knocks down buildings, gobbles up people by the boatload. It withstands every weapon the army and scientists throw at it. That’s it! The no-nonsense beast. What’s the hook, you ask? An all-orangutan cast.
THE MONSTER WHO WAS AFRAID OF OTHER MONSTERS – A large horrible creature, named TELEPHONOPHOBIA, rises from the deep. It attacks only small towns and suburbs. Why? It heard that loads of monsters were attacking the big cities like New York, Tokyo, London – and he owes most of them money. Thus he eschews the obvious target cities and turns up in places like Schenectady, Newport News, and Peoria – the “big monster in a little pond” philosophy.
THE MONSTER WHO DIDN’T SHOW UP – A 500 ft prehistoric sea serpent completely fails to rise from the sea, doesn’t bother to knock down buildings, totally neglects to terrorize innocent citizens, and generally blows off the chance to rampage through Manhattan – much to the chagrin of city officials who ordered the city to be evacuated and the military to be on hand for just such an occasion – and are now looking pretty foolish – and have sent their aides to look for “a Godzilla costume and a camcorder – and step on it if you don’t mind”. Oh the horror …….the horror.

THE HOST scores a 94% on the tomatometer.

Play host to THE HOST this week and

Enjoy.

PARIS JE T'AIME

2008-01-15T23:10:00.001-05:00

This week’s movie:
PARIS JE T’AIME

I love this type of project!

It’s difficult not to like at least some of this movie. Composed of 18 short films, averaging 8 minutes each, it’s like a collection of picture postcards from your trip to Paris. Each film is written and directed by a different team of film-makers, and shot in a different section of the city.

These aren’t hacks either. The 18 teams represent some of the best film-making talent from around the world. This includes the likes of

And actors too! Some actors even American audiences may recognizable:

…..and many others.

This movie is like your favorite book of short stories or poems – an anthology. Each one conveys a complete thought – short and concise. The stories may be thought of as independent snapshots of Paris, but they may also intersect in unexpected ways. The overall theme is to show some aspect of love with the city as a backdrop. Each takes place in a different neighborhood. Some are in English, some are in French, some are in Spanish, others are in various other languages, and at least one is in Mime (yes – those mimes!). You can’t go wrong here. If there’s a particular segment that you don’t like, not to worry. It’ll be over and on to the next one in just a few minutes. And if there’s a particular segment that you like so much that you want more – well then – it’s good to want, isn’t it?

If it all sounds too confusing – it’s not. The transition between segments is well delineated with titles. Besides, the film-making styles are so different, the transitions would be well defined even without the titles. The segments also span well defined film genres. Some are dramatic, some are funny, others are romantic, still others are mysterious – or thrilling – or scary – or whimsical. I really think there’s a high probability of finding something you like here.

So now you’re maybe considering renting this film, you may be asking yourself, “With all those film-makers and all that talent, why haven’t I ever heard of this movie?” The answer to that is sadly, someone in an office has decided that you shouldn’t hear about this movie. The truth is that this film was immensely popular in most of the rest of the world - but here in the US, these things are decided by accountants. These are people who predict what you will pay money to go see and weigh that against the cost of advertising. If they don’t advertise, people won’t know to go see it and the guy who own the multiplex cinema in your town isn’t going to show it. This film was released to very few independent theaters, usually only in large cities. The guy who decided that you wouldn’t like PARIS JE T’AIME doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Look at what’s playing at your local cineplex right now. PARIS JE T’AIME is a better film than nearly everything you might find there. Now I wouldn’t suggest that good movie don’t play in your town - some do - but very many of the best films, the most interesting films, never make there. They’ve been excluded by committee. Luckily, PARIS JE T’AIME is now available on video and you can watch it at home.

If you think I’m being cynical, as an exercise, I took a survey of the movies playing at the multiplex in my town. It has 10 screens so it just fits into my top 10 list. These are the movies that accountants have decided that you would like better than PARIS JE T’AIME. In comparison, PARIS JE T’AIME scores an 84% on the tomatometer.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (tomatometer: 3% - not a typo, that’s three percent) “Another lame copy of every crappy sword-and-sorcery epic ever made. ……badly written and edited.”
First Sunday (tomatometer: 16%) A pair of bumbling petty criminals ………. “A cringe-inducing, cinematic tribute to the Golden Age of Minstrelsy!”
One Missed Call (2008) (tomatometer: zero%) An English language remake of a bad Asian horror flick of the same name. “As annoying as a busy signal.”
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (tomatometer: 74%) A cutesy family film that kids will love – but not much here for adults.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (tomatometer: 33%) Like National Treasure I, but not as good – and that’s saying a lot. “This just might be the silliest movie ever to feature three Academy Award winners.”
P.S. I Love You (tomatometer: 21%) Romantic comedy ……at least in theory. “This is a movie that will leave you stunned and stupefied from beginning to end, if you don’t head for the exits first.” “A low point in the tear-stained history of sappy, shallow chick drivel.”
Charlie Wilson’s War (tomatometer: 82%) True-ish story of the CIA covert war in Afghanistan. I haven’t seen it yet – but you can’t go wrong with Tom Hanks.
Alvin and the Chipmunks (tomatometer: 24%) This is too easy. “Arguably the most irritating novelty act in record history gets a CGI-updating…and the result is pretty annoying itself.”
I Am Legend (tomatometer: 67%) “Good performance by Will Smith, but it’s basically a rehash of 28 Days Later.”
The Bucket List (tomatometer: 40%) Two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die. “…….further proof that even our most critically lauded thespians are eminently capable of churning out garbage.”

You know what I think? I think we should hire some new accountants.

PARIS JE T’AIME
Enjoy.

BEST OF 2007

2008-01-05T18:55:00.000-05:00

****** Best of 2007 ******

This is the third year for my “Best Of” year-end review. It’s been a pretty good year for films – a good crop this year. Counting them up, I saw a total of 180 films in 2007. There’s usually more – I must be slacking off. A lot of people ask me where I get the time to watch so many movies. It’s easy, really. All you need to do is replace watching crap on TV with movies. There’s lots of good stuff on DVD and ON-DEMAND and even on VHS if you’re still living in the 80’s.

Like I said, it was a good year for movies and it was difficult to choose between the best – but I’ll make a stab at it. If I wait until a week from now and think about it some more, my list might be a little different. So here goes.

FISRT: the disclaimers.

These are not necessarily movies that came out in 2007; they are just movies that I saw in 2007.
I am not saying that these are the absolute best movies; they are just ones that I liked the best.
If you see a movie here that I didn’t feature on my site, it’s probably in my “waiting to be recommended” list.
I haven’t seen every movie - so if I don’t mention your favorite movie in this list, it probably just means that I haven’t seen it yet……………………………. or that I hated it!.
I realize that every other critic does a TOP-10 list, but really, 5 is hard enough, so I quit at 5. Plus some special prizes - just like in Cannes (I’ve never actually been to Cannes, but I’d like to. People, please send money so that I can afford to go to Cannes this year.).
For the most part, I’m avoiding the wide release movies. Everybody already knows about these. So, if you loved Pirates of the Caribbean, and wonder why it’s not on my list – that’s why.
The order of the films is not very significant. The “goodness” level of all these movies is very close. The movies below were ranked by awarding “Frank Points” to each one. After the rating process, The Frank Points were tallied up and the films placed in the proper order. The criteria for which Frank Points are awarded, is confidential and is only known to Frank - sorry.
That’s it!

SECOND: the movies.

CHILDREN OF MEN: (English) The world is slowly dying from despair when women everywhere can no longer bear children. Hope arrives in the form of a young woman who is about to give birth to the first child in more than 18 years. Fast paced and suspenseful storytelling will keep you on the edge of your seat. This film has a lot to say about the nature of the human psyche, while at the same time, entertaining you.
ONCE: (English) Totally emotionally satisfying love story about the magic of making music. It’s sweet, has a great soundtrack and was the audience favorite at the Sundance Film Festival last year. It didn’t get the promotion it deserved and didn’t play in the multiplexes, but now out on video, is enjoying a word of mouth campaign.
THE LIVES OF OTHERS: (German) Tense, gripping Cold War drama about an East German surveillance expert who slowly realizes he’s spying on a loyal popular writer for all the wrong reasons. Both men are called to question their ideals. Won the Oscar for best foreign language film.
PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER: (English) Gorgeously filmed story of a man born (Paris: 17-18 century) with a highly acute sense of smell , but with no scent of his own creates the greatest perfumes in France. The story takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent.
PAN’S LABYRINTH: (Spanish) During WWII, a young girl escapes the brutality of fascist Spain by escaping into an eerie fantasy world. The contrasts and parallels between that world and real one form the basis of the film. Very violent but also beautiful and fascinating. Won the Oscar for art direction.

THIRD: The extras.

TIED FOR 6^th PLACE: (no particular order)
LA BELLE NOISEUSE: (French) Enthralling story about what it takes to capture the soul of a person on canvas.

PARIS JE T’AIME: (French & English) A collection of 5-10 minute short films, about the city of Paris and love. Each film is by a different film-maker, and with different actors, and takes place in a different neighborhood of the city. Fun to watch.

BLACK BOOK: (Dutch & German) There were several WWII movies this year, but none were as much fun nor as exciting as this guilty pleasure. As a plus: it’s a true story.

LITTLE CHILDREN: (English) Well written and acted drama about married couples whose lives intersect on the playgrounds and streets of their small town in unexpected ways.

HALF NELSON: (English) Acting tour-de-force about a good young teacher in an inner city school who is addicted to drugs.

VOLVER: (Spanish) After her death, a woman returns to her home town to resolve the difficulties with her daughters she couldn’t during life. Great performance by Penelope Cruz.

FUNNIEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR:
BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN: Offensive and funny. Often you can’t watch but again, you can’t look away.

Runner up: HOT FUZZ: The guys that brought you Shaun of the Dead are at it again. They are cops in a small town trying to uncover a cover up.

FAMILY MOVIE OF THE YEAR
RATATOUILLE: It seems these days that Pixar can do no wrong. Yet, even among their hits, this one’s a home run. A rat in Paris, dreams of becoming a chef.

Runner up: HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE: A young girl, cursed by a witch and turned into an old crone, finds refuge in Howl’s castle, which, by the way, walks around on four legs. Another masterpiece from Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki.

DARK MOVIE OF THE YEAR
TIDELAND: Holy crap! This movie is so dark (and I’m not referring to the lighting) that you often actually fear for the young actress playing the lead role. It’s a great movie, but definitely not for everyone.

Runner up: CRASH (1996): Not the 2004 Oscar winner! This is the 1996 David Cronenberg film about a group of people who seek sensual fulfillment through crashing their automobiles. I did say this was the “dark” category.

SCI-FI/FANTASY MOVIE OF THE YEAR
THE HOST: (Korean) A good old-fashioned monster movie like you thought they didn’t make any more. The slickest, coolest, funnest creature feature in many a year.

Runner up: 28 DAYS LATER I know practically everybody has seen this film, but I didn’t get around to it until this past year. This somewhat different take on the zombie genre has spawn many a copycat, including I Am Legend (now in theaters).

STRANGEST DAMN MOVIE OF THE YEAR
INLAND EMPIRE: Strange in the conventional sense, but business as usual in the David Lynch sense. An actress (Laura Dern) takes a wrong turn and is drawn into a nightmarish Dystopian world.

Runner up: WEEK END: (French) A couple take a weekend drive into the countryside and into the twilight zone of endless traffic jams and pile-ups in this off-beat surreal comedy.

OVER-THE-TOP MOVIE OF THE YEAR;
PLANET TERROR: This movie is just jam-packed chock full of goofy insane action. There isn’t a single frame not filled with something outrageous to look at.

Runner up: ATTACK THE GAS STATION: (Korean) Slick action comedy about a group of bored street youths who rob a gas station. The next night, because they’re bored and can’t think of anything else to do, they decide to rob it again. This one’s a classic.

DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR
THE UP DOCUMENTARIES: Perhaps the greatest social experiment ever captured on film. A group of 7 year old schoolchildren are interviewed about a wide range of personal and social issues. Every 7 years the same group is re-interviewed. The progression of views and of the stages of life are spotlighted.

Runner up: INCIDENT AT LOCH NESS: Is it a mockumentary? It’s not clear even after viewing. This film chronicles film-maker and documentarian, Werner Herzog, who travels to Scotland to film a documentary about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster. Tongue-in-cheek humor abounds.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR
THE NUMBER 23: I really really wanted to like this movie. It wasn’t the worst film of the year, I just expected much more. Silly me.

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR:
GRAY MATTERS: You’ve probably never heard of this movie. That’s okay! I saw it and it looked like just the sort fun romantic comedy I was looking for. It was truly wretched. Too bad – I really like Heather Graham.

ONCE

2007-12-31T13:03:00.001-05:00

This week’s movie:

ONCE

Perfect!

It has occurred to me that, of late, my recommendations have been getting – shall we say – wordy. That is, long. I sometimes have a tendency, when I can’t think of what to write, to start off in an arbitrary direction (like now) and approach it from another angle. It also occurs to me that a lot of you don’t have time to waste and so, are not reading my post. I understand – you mainly want just enough information to decide whether or not this is a film you want to watch. So, I’ve decided to get this part over right at the beginning and let you go with your day – and for anyone that wants to stay, I tell you WHY you should watch this film.

VERDICT: Yes! You should definitely see this film! You will love it! You will adore it! It will make you feel all warm inside and make you want to call your best friend that you haven’t seen high school. Go out and rent it or buy it today! It’s one of the best movies of the year (2007 not 2008)!

Of course, if I didn’t think you should see it, I wouldn’t be writing about it here – after all, this is not a movie “review” site, it’s a movie “recommendation” site. You should see this film because it does four things really well.

Many of you may not know this about me, but I’m a part-time musician. I’ve been one for a long time. There was a time, back in college when I was seriously considering going full-time and making a go at it. I chickened out – it’s tough trying to make a living playing music and I opted for the easier route. I have a very house in New Hampshire. I suspect that if I had chosen to make my living playing music, I would instead be living in a refrigerator box behind Wal-Mart.

I had exposure to music at a fairly early age, thanks to music lessons that my parents gave me, and although I never really took to the accordion, I used it as a gateway drug to more serious instruments like the guitar, piano, organ, etc – and I have been playing music ever since. Why? Because once you do it, like a drug, you get addicted to it – you want more, I know this first hand. I also know that there are times, when you get people together to play music, whether you’re playing for yourselves or in a performance, when magic happens! It may happen for just a second or for a whole performance and it might not happen often – but it does happen. It’s when everything comes together in an unexpected way – where the result is greater that the sum of its parts and it’s like falling and you want to capture that feeling and bottle it – but you can’t. You want it again and again and so you keep playing. Every musician knows what I’m talking about – that’s why you do it. It’s not for the money – there are easier ways to make more money!

The first thing this movie, ONCE, does is a better job than any film I’ve ever seen at recreating that exact moment when the magic happens. It’s not easy to do, but they were able to do it because the actors portraying the musicians performing the music – are the actual musicians who wrote, performed, and recorded the music. The magic isn’t recreated for the film, it filmed while happening. The two main characters, we never know their names (they’re know just as “guy” and “girl” in the credits), are played by Glen Hansard (guitarist/singer for the Irish band “The Frames”), and Markéta Irglová (a Czech composer and musician). They’ve recently recorded an album of music together titled “The Swell Season” – 5 of these songs are featured in the movie.

The second thing this movie does very well is capture that exact moment when two people fall in love – every scary, exciting, heart-breaking moment of it. We see it happening before our eyes and we want to screw ourselves right into this picture and give somebody a nudge or something – for truly, no two people were made for each other more than these two. Alas, things are never that easy. Besides being a film about the making of music, it is one of the most romantic movies of the year.

The third thing this movie does really well is to show the process of creating music. This is not an overly dramatized version of the process. We see how they teach each other the songs, bargain a rate for studio time, recruit other musicians for a band… You never doubt for a second that real music is made in exactly this way – it is.

The fourth thing this movie very well is dispel the idea that good movies require huge budgets, recognizable faces, and months of shooting. This is where Hollywood generally goes wrong. You’ve got nothing if you don’t start with a great story. Filmed in 17 days for less than $150-thousand, this movie took my breath away. This film was obviously a labor of love and not of money – still I hope the film makes a go-jillion dollars for their efforts. It hasn’t yet – so far it has netted less than $10 million – still pretty good for the original investment. Now if I can get all of you to rent or buy it …….

Here are 10 more reasons to see ONCE:

This movie made me want to call up me mates from my original band (some whom I haven’t seen in years) and get together for another go.
Your jaded heart, covered from life with scar tissue, will feel new and vulnerable once again.
It’ll make you want to be a better person. It sounds funny but it’s true – perhaps for no other reason than to deserve the kind of chance at a life story that these characters have.
Real love expressed through music. It’s not a new concept – but where has it been lately?
It’s a musical. If you hate musicals – it’s not that kind of musical. It’s a musical in the sense that it features musicians playing music under circumstances where they normally would. That is, people don’t spontaneously break out into song and dance in the middle of the street with an orchestra in the background. This is closer to The Commitments (BTW: Glen Hansard was also in The Commitments), but really, this is a new kind of musical – one I hope to see more of.
They say only love can break your heart – love and this movie!
After seeing this film you’ll want to make contact, touch somebody. Perhaps you’ll call up some old friends and meet in a bar somewhere and talk about the old days when life seemed simpler and the future held so much promise, and maybe you’ll play some tunes on the jukebox and have some frosty ones, and maybe soon the old days won’t seem so far away, and maybe the future really isn’t immovable, like you thought, and maybe, just maybe, you realize that anything is possible and that you’ve got another shot at it after all.
Never underestimate the power of a great song to reach inside of you and ……..well, do just about anything. The right song, at the right time, with the right people – it’s a powerfully emotional experience. No wonder so many people are talking about this film.
Why do I seem to be pulling out all the stops to get you to see this movie? I really liked the film. It has universal appeal and I think you will like it too.
Markéta Irglová – she had me at “hello”.

Age Appropriateness: A lot of people tell me that they have children and can only watch movies appropriate for the whole family. I understand this and so will start to include, in this section, what you need to make that evaluation.

For some god-unknown reason, the MPAA has rated this film R (for language). This is the sort of thing that convinces me that they’re “a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.” If I find out that the R rating has prevented any teenager from seeing this film, I will make it my personal vendetta to hunt them down and make them pay.

There is a somewhat better service called Common Sense Media that takes into account both positive and negative aspects of the film and weighs this against the “kind” of child you have. They’ve rated this film ON 13+. This means that it is highly recommended for children 13 and older, maybe appropriate for younger children depending on …… The only negative aspect comes from the matter-of-fact use of profanity – not a lot of it, just natural for the environment )it is after all a realistic depiction of a place and time) – so if your child can deal with that, any age could be appropriate.

ONCE scores a 98% on the tomatometer. Obviously, one critic was in a bad mood that day. Many many film critics love love this movie. You can read Roger Ebert’s review here. You can read Michael Phillip’s review here.

ONCE is not enough.

Enjoy.

PARIS, TEXAS

2007-12-22T02:10:00.001-05:00

This week’s movie:

PARIS , TEXAS

The tall man walked out of the desert.

When I was in junior high school, I wrote a short story that began with this sentence. When I wrote it, I thought it was pretty deep. The man later goes on to rob banks but I thought the opening was pretty good. Years later, in a college writing course, I wrote a short story that began with …..

A solitary robed figure emerged from the desert….

I thought the opening line was so good, that I wanted another shot at it. This time the man has amnesia. He can’t remember who he is, or why he was in the desert, and he robs only one bank. I’ve been thinking lately that I might try writing it again. Maybe this time, the man robs a bank THEN escapes INTO the desert. He wanders about for years – lost – until the statute of limitations runs out, then …….

Bearded and tattered, the solitary man emerges from the dessert.

There’s something compelling about this concept. It’s not just me. A few years back, reminiscing with an old high school friend, I brought up this story that I wrote. He told me about a story he wrote that started out almost exactly the same way. A year or so ago, talking to a friend about this film I just saw, PARIS, TEXAS. He hadn’t seen it but told me about a short story he’d written in which a man staggers out of the Sahara Desert and falls dead. The people in the village who find him try to fit clues together to figure out what happened to him. Why is this idea so universally compelling?

Because after he comes out of the desert, anything can happen. As an opening line, it ranks up there with “It was a dark and stormy night.” It sets an atmosphere but gives away absolutely nothing about what’s coming next. It says, a man has spent some considerable time in the desert, undergoing great hardship, with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company. It’s not a new concept. Virtually every religious system has some story about a prophet, who wanders the desert seeking enlightenment. The process goes something like this: wander the desert; let starvation, dehydration, and sun stroke ravage you until you are near death and begin to hallucinate; wait for a very good vision, then get the hell out of Dodge. If you survive- you get to be a prophet. If you die – well ……probably not. Literally speaking, you can go anywhere from here – the possibilities are endless. No wonder religion has gotten so much mileage from this story.

So, if I ever decide to rehash the old opening line, here are some possible follow-up storylines.

1. Man walks out of a desert and into a Starbucks. He orders a grande Latte decaf and a scone, then walks back into the desert – disgusted by the rampart commercialism rife in the civilized world. He prefers the desolation of the wilderness – even though you can’t get a good scone worth a damn.

2. Man walks out of a desert and into a wading pool – drowns.

3. Man walks into the desert - unites legions of Bedouin tribes in attempt to overthrow British occupation. In a huge climatic battle, he ….what? ……Lawrence of what?

4. Man walks out of a desert and into a wading pool – drowns – walks back into the desert – unites legions of zombie Bedouin tribes in attempt to overthrow British occupation.

5. A young man walks across the desert accompanied by two droids. They’re in search of the legendary Jedi warrior, Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi in order to learn the ways of The Force. He needs the old man’s help to avenge the death of his father, but little does he know that …..what? What do you mean, “Star Wars”? OK, maybe a bit – not entirely per se, but maybe it resembles it just a little.

6. A young man walks out of the desert, accompanied by two droids, and into a Starbucks to get a double Moccachino and a scone. He needs to find and acquire the services of a starship pilot and his wookie, but little does he know ………..oh shut up!

7. A man walks across the desert to find the tomb of the Pharaoh. He finds it but accidentally unleashes a curse that animates the Pharaoh’s mummy. The solitary figure of a mummy emerges from the desert and into a Starbucks for a chai tea and a scone. “Damn good scone!” he thinks.

8. A man walks out of a Starbucks and into the desert. After a few days of no water and no scones, he says, “Bugger all this.”

9. A man walks out of the desert and into a Piggly Wiggly. He buys up their entire stock of sun-block and heads back. “Damn! This is one big beach!”

10. A man walks into the desert. After nearly a week, he is near death and he thinks, “Why do I have to always walk? Walk Walk Walk! What? I don’t rate a camel at least. A camel would be nice. I could eat a camel.” Just then he stumbles upon united tribes of zombie Bedouins. He begs them for water and a scone to eat – but they say, “We don’t have any scones. What do we look like? Starbucks?”. When he says, “Bugger all this!”, they fall upon him, mistaking him for an occupying British oppressor.

Director, Wim Wenders, is widely regarded as one of the greats. There’s an entire unit devoted to his work in most film schools. This is pretty remarkable if you consider that his entire reputation is based on essentially two feature films. Oh, he’s made lots of films – but really, only two of them were worth a damn (I’m not counting some of his recent documentaries on music, including the very excellent Buena Vista Social Club.). One of the two is Wings of Desire, highly recommended by this site. The other is this week’s movie PARIS, TEXAS. Both of these films exist on a plane that sits well above 98% of all other films. I’ve already discussed Wings of Desire in a previous article, thus I’ll focus my comments on this week’s movie. So, what is it about?

The solitary figure emerges from the desert.

We see him wandering the Mojave Desert. We see his gulp his last few drops of water. He stumbles into a truck stop/diner and collapses. He’s treated but they can’t do much for him – he’s not talking. They find a phone number on him – it’s his brother – who flies out to pick him up. His bother hasn’t seen or heard from in four years. Has he been wandering the desert for four years? His sneakers look like it. We don’t know – we don’t know anything at all about him. We don’t know WHY he’s been wandering the desert, or where he’s been, or why he’s wearing a necktie. All we know is that something terrible happen four years ago and it’s been troubling him all that time. Whatever it was, caused him to disappear, his wife to leave their (then) 4 year old son with the brother and then the mother disappeared.

His brother brings him back home where he is reunited with his son. Little by little, he begins to open up and we start to see clues about what might have happened. The genius of this film is that you unravel the mystery a little at a time. The man (his name is Travis), at first you think that he’s a little slow – maybe he was out in the desert just a little too long – but he’s not. He’s thinking – he has a lot on his mind. The final scene where he tracks down and confronts his wife – and the rest of the story is revealed is perhaps the most dramatic heart-rendering and masterly filmed scene in the history of cinema.

The film doesn’t judge Travis. It doesn’t decide if he’s a good or bad man, or if the decisions he makes are correct. It just says “the story is what it is and - you decide”. Someone people in this story will get a raw deal, others may get a second chance, and still others may get some peace. What more could you want in a film? (I’m sorry – but no one gets shot in this film, and nothing blows up.)

Wim Wenders has had a long love affair with American roots music. The film’s soundtrack is by Ry Cooder, whose haunting slide guitar background perfectly describes the desolate backdrop of the American Southwest better than words, more accurate than words.

Advisory: None. There’s nothing particularly offensive in this film. There’s no sex or violence. However, because of the slow but deliberate pace of the movie, small children (or impatient adults) will soon lose interest.

So – go out and rent this movie. It scores a 100% on the tomatometer. It scores 100% because they’re no allowed to rate higher. This film makes Steven Jay Schneider’s book, “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”. In fact, it makes most film critics’ “must see” list. And, if you need more affirmation, you can read film critic, Roger Ebert’s, review here.

PARIS, TEXAS – It’s so good, that if it weren’t already in English, they’d make an English language remake of it.

Enjoy.

view trailer

L'ICEBERG

2007-12-07T00:37:00.000-05:00

Movie of the week:

L’ICEBERG

I thought I’d give you all a break this week.

I know I’ve been featuring “borderline” movies lately. I’m sure you know what I mean. The kind of movie recommendations that threaten to alienate all my readers by saying “you should watch this movie ……. because I liked it ….. even though most people I know didn’t …….” Movies which you need to have just the right disposition or that particularly black sense of humor to enjoy. That may be true but if you do have those qualities, these is some great movies! So, I thought I’d give you all a break this week by recommending a film that anyone can enjoy without any effort.

OK Frank, what’s the catch? Does it have a subliminal psychotic undercurrent? Does everybody get eaten by hedgehogs at the end? Does everybody talk backwards so that all of the dialog at the beginning of the film corresponds to the scenes at the end and vice versa? I can see by the title that it’s about an iceberg but I don’t …………wait a minute! There’s a “L’” in front! It’s French, isn’t it?!

HA!! You’re wrong! It’s Belgian, not French…….although the language is indeed French. However there’s almost no dialog at all. Now I know when you view the trailer below, there’s all sorts of dialog, but ……………..well what the hell else are they suppose to put in a trailer? The trailer contains nearly all the dialog in the film. Also, even if you don’t bother reading the subtitles on the very few lines that do come up, you wouldn’t miss anything because the dialog is superfluous. In this sense, it’s very akin to films like Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times or the films of Jacques Tati like Play Time or M. Hulot’s Holiday. Those are older films and I was convinced they just didn’t make comedies like that anymore, but fortunately I was wrong.

First of all, it’s funny. Every scene is a setup for a visual gag that, although you may see it coming, is hilarious none-the-less. Although the setups may not be as elaborate as Play Time (that would be hard to do at any rate), they’re enough to make you laugh …..all the way through, and for the right reasons. The physical and visual comedy here has a firm footing in the circus. Film-makers writers and actors, Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel did indeed pay their dues in performance and the circus. This is where you need to be able to tell a story without words. This is their first feature film and they stuck to the very basic principles to tell a very simple story. This is a smart strategy because it ages well. Verbal jokes eventually get dated eventually, but slapstick clowning is eternal.

The story? Why it’s the simplest story in the world, one that has happened to all of us at one time or another. Fiona, middle-aged wife and mother, is the manager at a fast food restaurant. One night, as she’s closing shop, she’s accidentally locked overnight in a walk-in freezer. By the time they find her in the morning, she’s a Popsicle but otherwise physically OK. However her whole outlook on life changes. First, she comes to realize that neither her husband nor her children noticed that she was gone. Second, she acquires a fixation on all things cold – especially an iceberg. She has visions of an iceberg which she obsesses over in much the same way that Richard Dreyfuss obsessed over the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She even makes a living iceberg sculpture with her bed sheets. When an opportunity presents itself, she’s off on a quest. Hilarity ensues. ……and face it. The best comedies are indeed the ones in which hilarity ensues.

L’ICEBERG is a simple story, simply told. It’s beautiful …….it’s funny ……….it’s art. What’s more, it’s a film that the whole family can enjoy together. With so little dialog, this could be an easy way to introduce your friends and family to the fascinating world of foreign language movies.

“But, Frank ……you’ve said again and again that this movie is funny. How do we know it really is funny? After all, you thought Little Otik was funny.” Well ……..it was! Watch it for yourself and tell me I’m wrong. “Maybe, Frank, you could compare it to some classical comedies?” OK, I’m not at all sure what ‘classical’ comedies are – so I’ll compare them to the top 10 comedies as listed by the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). So here are 10 ways L’ICEBERG is like or unlike other top IMDB comedies.

Dr. Strangelove: L’ICEBERG does NOT have Peter Sellers playing multiple roles and it doesn’t blow up the world at the end (Damn! I just gave the ending away!).
Amelie: Amelie is set against the backdrop of Paris, the City of Light. L’ICEBERG is set against ……….er ………. ocean? But both feature a female lead character.
Safety Last!: Oh my god! I just realized – I’ve never seen this movie. Excuse me while I go and give a quick watch. ………………………………… thanks for waiting. Just as I thought - not as funny. (wait! Which one is not as funny?)
Juno: This doesn’t belong on this list!!!???? It hasn’t even been released to the theaters yet.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail: No fair! No film is funnier than Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But never-the-less, L’ICEBERG is still damn funny!
Hababam sinifi sinifta kaldi: ????????????????????????? What the hell?
Modern Times: L’ICEBERG is a lot like Modern Times ………except for the futuristic machinery ………and the political commentary ……………and Charlie Chaplin …………………. and all that no icebergs.
Singin’ in the Rain: L’ICEBERG is not a musical. For many of you, this is a great advantage. However, L’ICEBERG has an inner song that Fiona hears. The mating song of icebergs! If you listen carefully on a still night, you can hear them sing. “Crack …..crack …….melt …….melt”
Kind Hearts and Coronets: Personally, I didn’t find this movie all that funny. A bit funny, yes – but not top 10 level funny! L’ICEBERG, on the other hand, is definitely top 25 funny – maybe even top 17 funny.
Forrest Gump: What the …..? Who the f#*k made up this list!!!!

OK, I get it. These are the best comedies, the best films that ARE also comedies. That’s not the same as the funniest comedies. L’ICEBERG, on the other hand, is among the funniest comedies. It has an innocence that’s refreshing. It almost makes you want to go to Belgium.

Enjoy L’ICEBERG. Crack, crack, melt, melt.

PI

2007-11-27T23:58:00.001-05:00

Movie of the week:
PI

God is not an exact science …….

I have friends who tell me I’m going to hell for some of the things I say. I tell them that if God can’t take a joke, then he’s not worth the belief. This generally doesn’t change their mind concerning my demise. The following quote was recently brought to my attention. It’s from the Old Testament of the Bible: Kings I, chapter 7, verse 23. God gives Solomon instructions on how to build portions of his palace.

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

Apparently, according to God, PI equals 3 (30 cubits divided by 10 cubits). Not 3.142-something-something-and so on. Just 3. Some fundamentalist Christians that I know claim that of course this is correct. The number 3 is significant in Christian theology – it’s the number of the Trinity. Our imperfect mathematics cannot supplant the word of God in the bible, therefore PI = 3. Maybe circles were smaller back in biblical days. What these people don’t seem to realize, is that there are certain things – common sense things – that everybody throughout history understood, and thus never thought it needed to be written down. Things such as: you know - the International Bureau of Standards and Measures hasn’t been invented yet, and so not all cubits are created equal – so – when I say 10 cubits by 30 cubits, that’s a ±10 percent tolerance!

I’ve spent a number of years studying chaos theory which, ironically enough, is not about randomness but is about finding order and patterns in nature. The idea that there is an elementary fundamental pattern which can used to explain all other patterns and statistical phenomena from weather patterns, to the shape of coastlines, to the rise and fall of the stock market, and to the behavior of large populations. If such a fundamental pattern does exist, then it can be expressed as a finite pattern of numbers.

In this week’s movie, PI, Max, a mathematical genius, is searching for such a number. I say he’s a “mathematical” genius, as opposed to your ordinary run-of-the-mill know-it-all, because that’s about all he knows. Virtually all of his working brain volume is devoted to finding the mathematical answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything. Near the beginning of the film, a small neighborhood girl quizzes Max by giving him huge numbers to multiply together – which she verifies with a calculator. He always has the answer before she can key in the numbers.

The problem is, with all of his available brain resources working on the chaos problem, that doesn’t leave anything left over for some of the other important things – like dreaming and thinking about stuff and taking care of himself and so on. To make matters worse, the answer always seems to be out of reach and so he has to delve deeper into untapped parts of his brain …………..where the “crazy” is. He has become paranoid and psychotic and throws back pills (of some sort), literally by the handfuls, just to cope. The film becomes a race against time. Can he find the answer before his minds snaps – or is it already too late.

He has a special computer, which he built himself to devote to this task, which he tweaks and works the bugs out (literally). Then there’s a new wrinkle, posterity isn’t the only one who might be interested in the secret of the universe. It seems there’s a group of ……..people who might be interested in what the stock market might be doing, say ….next week. They offer Max a deal. They have a secret classified government super- computer processor thingy that they’ll loan to him. What the hell? He could use a little extra help - free up a few extra brain cells and all that. So what if they expect results? Other groups are also after him to fulfill their own agendas.

Thing is, what he and everybody else doesn’t understand is – if you do manage to unlock the secret and know the key to the universe, it’s very difficult to un-know it again.

This was director, Darren Aronofsky’s first feature film. He has since gone on to make Requiem for a Dream (PI has a very similar visceral feel to the cinematography), and most recently, The Fountain. He didn’t have a lot of money and he had no reputation to promote so he had to employ some of the tricks that many first-time film-makers do.

He saved some money by shooting on grainy 16mm black & white, using a hand-held camera. Sounds dreadful, but actually lends the right kind of surreal atmosphere to this film.
His mom catered the film shoots. What this means is that she packed sandwiches and hot soup in thermoses for the handful of people on the shoot.
He couldn’t afford to hire police to keep the crowds back. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem.
He also couldn’t afford filming permits. Friends were posted on street corners to watch out for cops, so that they could pick up and make a quick get-away should the law show up.
He raised money. He went to everybody he knew and asked to borrow $100. When that got used up, he made the rounds again, showing them what their money bought so far. The whole shebang totaled around $60,000. The film won big at Sundance and at a number of smaller festivals. As a result, he sold the film to Artisan for $1 million. Each contributor got back 150% of their investment.
Most of the props and set decorations were literally hot-glued together. The smell, because of the lights, kept making people sick. So – it wasn’t just good acting…..
The scene with the brain promised to be costly. So, they had to steal a real brain from the experimental biology lab in a jar labeled “genius” – forcing the experiment to continue by using the “abnormal” brain – with absolutely no foreseeable negative consequences.
I actually rented this DVD about four times before I ended up buying it. Now if everybody did that – think of all the money they’d make – and of all the money you’d spend.
Words used to describe this film include: kinetic; visceral; thrilling; obsession; bizarre; intelligent; brilliant; philosophical; stylish; sureal; and innovative. 50 cent words – the lot of them. They could have used 10 cent words (like “cool”, or “neat”, or nickel words like “good”) and saved a bit of money, but as you can see, they splurged on the important things.
Coming soon! A: Avogadro’s Number! ……..about a man racing against the clock to determine the number of molecules in a mole – after that, a full-sized rat!

PI is one of Steven Jay Schneider’s “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.” …….and no, seeing this film will NOT make you die any sooner.

Enjoy some PI (not = 3) – even if you don’t like math.

BUG(2006)

2007-11-14T07:33:00.000-05:00

This week’s movie:

BUG (2006)

Film makers have some nerve these days.

If you’re going to make a film called “BUG”, you should at least have the decency to make it about a government lab near an isolated rural community. The refuse from a secret experiment infects some cockroaches (movie rule #154: always use cockroaches for maximum “bug” effect), making them both super intelligent and super aggressive (plus they reproduce quickly – so they’re also super ……what? horny). They get out and head for toward town. Here’s where you can take time to introduce the main characters and give a little back-story. Cliff is a stranger in town. He's just passing through, really – but he has a secret he’s not telling. Trevor, the sheriff, years ago had a relationship with Sally, the woman who owns the diner. Sally’s been widowed for four years now but has a teenage daughter who is dating (sort of) the smart kid at school – even though the football jock keeps hitting on her. Then, of course, there’s Professor Evans who, by coincidence, is an entomologist (he studies bugs). He will eventually find a way to destroy the bugs, but will be horribly killed before he can tell anybody. There’s the mayor who will refuse to contact the authorities or admit that there’s anything wrong. Then there are the Gladwells (Molly and Dan) who run their farm out on RFD 122, but don’t get too attached to them – they’re the first ones to get killed.

When livestock starts to disappear, the sheriff starts to investigate (it’s a slow week). When the Gladwells don’t show up in town for a week, the sheriff and the stranger go out to pay a visit and find only skeletons – and not funny ones, like in The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, just dead ones. Now the town is up in arms. They want the sheriff to find out who killed Molly and Dan ………..and then ate them. Was it the stranger? It must be ………because he’s a stranger!
Soon the bugs are everywhere, killing (and eating) everybody. Just for a change, there’s this one guy that they don’t eat entirely. The bugs bore into the back of his head and eat his entire insides – so that there’s just skin and bones left – and full of thousands of bugs. The bugs move in such a way so that it looks like the man is walking. He “walks” into town and people say, “Hey! Isn’t that old Fred from the garage? Hey Fred! How’s it going?” But Fred can’t talk – the bugs can only make him say, “SSKKKKKRRRRRREEEEEEEEE!” And they’ll say, “Huh, what’s wrong with him?” “Must have a cold. I hear there’s a bug going around.” Oh course, the entire movie is just a premise to build up to this one-liner. Before the end of the movie, Trevor and Sally will hook up again for old time sake – “I’ve never stopped loving you….”, - and the stranger’s secret will be revealed – and everybody at the government lab will get gobbled up by bugs – and the smart kid from high school will figure out how to kill the queen bug, who by this time has grown to be four stories tall and living in the old abandoned mine.

Make it about a scientist who mixes bug DNA with his own in order to cure his cancer. The cancer goes away ………….but ……..slowly – little by little – by imperceptible degrees ……..he turns into a giant cockroach. At first it’s just a nuisance – he eats holes in people’s cereal boxes and such, and scampers like hell when the lights come on – but the situation goes downhill pretty quick. As a side effect, it makes him super intelligent – but also, unfortunately, super aggressive – and, really unfortunately for his victims, super horny. The authorities come to kill him with torches and pitchforks and boric acid and some guns too (they’re not stupid). However, his fiancée pleads for his life and they let him live. However, he can no longer trust himself not to kill anymore so he commits suicide by rigging up a twenty-foot boot on a large piston. After a long dramatic soliloquy, he presses the button that sends the boot crashing down on him with a loud crrrrrrrunnnnchh! The end ……….or is it? Did anybody think about what happened to the cockroach that got a little of his human DNA?

These are the only two logically possible plots for a movie called “Bug”. However, neither of the two films that I know of, with that name resembles anything described above. One, we’ll call BUG (2002) – one of FranksFilms recommended movies – is a dramady that starts with a small boy stepping on a bug and triggers a cause-and-effect series of events that have nothing to do with bugs (well, there may be a bit about bugs – but not much bugs). If you haven’t seen this movie yet – do it! Now!

Then there is this week’s movie, we’ll refer to it as BUG (2006), which may or may not feature a lot of bugs – I’m not giving anything away (you’ll have to watch it for yourselves) – nevertheless doesn’t resemble either plot, described above, in the least. It does start with a mysterious stranger, which we immediately can tell should be avoided, but for some reason, no one else does. He is troubled – a mysterious troubled stranger, the worst kind – with an equally mysterious past. What is this mysterious past? Will we find out before the end? By the end of the movie, you won’t even remember the question. The movie sets up a little tension right from the beginning. As the film progresses, the tension gathers little tension buddies until you have a tension crowd and then finally a tension mob. Mob behavior isn’t pretty. It kicks butt and takes no prisoners.

Ashley Judd is terrific as a lonely woman who is so grateful to make a connection and fall in love with a “nice” man that she is willing to follow him anywhere – even to crazyville. Things get interesting when his paranoid tendencies start to surface. For Ashley, it’s indeed an Oscar worthy performance, but don’t expect to see any nominations for her – it’s too risky a performance and the Academy doesn’t often reward such risks. I will say this – it is the role of a lifetime, although I’m sure many won’t agree with me. It even features Harry Connick Jr. as the ex-husband, and he doesn’t even sing!

This is what’s known as a polarizing film. I am not referring, by the way, to the 3D IMAX technology, what I mean is that everyone who sees this film either really loves the movie OR really really hates it - no middle ground. About half the people “get it” and the other half don’t. This applies to critics as well – the tomatometer scores around 50% (actually 58%). Interestingly enough, they either love it or hate for exactly the same reasons. The question is, will you love it or hate it. I couldn’t say, what side do you tend to fall in “love or hate” situations? Don’t know? Maybe you need some more info to help you decide.

1. Based on a very successful stage play of the same name. By successful, I mean in Chicago and New York – I’m not quite sure it played anywhere else. It has a stage play feel to it – that is, most of the action takes place in one room (sets are expensive for an off-Broadway production).

2. If you get squeamish at the sight of swarms of creepy bugs – don’t worry. It’s not that kind of movie. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of other creepy things going on – there are – in spades!

3. People who hate this movie really hate Ashley Judd’s freaky intense over-the-top performance in the main character role as her descent into insanity quickens. People who love this movie really love it – like me.

4. It was directed by William Friedkin and many think this is his best movie since The Exorcist. Of course some people think that’s not saying much. Friedkin won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes this year. I have absolutely NO idea what that is.

5. It’s different. Normally, it would be a swarm of super aggressive cockroaches that terrorize the main characters. Here, its aphids – too small to see.

6. There’s some nudity and some sex – not with the bugs – with actual people.

7. There is a kind of urgent panic-driven freaky logic that pervades the last third of the movie that, looking back, seems absurd but that made perfect sense at the time.

8. Obsession is dangerous. It’s not the bugs that provide the scares here, that provide the danger – it’s the paranoid obsessions of its main characters.

9. Quite independent of the rest of the film, you will either love or hate the ending. I hated it at first, but the more I thought about it, I realized that when you, for example, head down a road marked “Post Office this way”, don’t be surprised to find a post office down there.

10. It is a frantic and intense psychological thriller that races headlong toward its inevitable ending. Not gory at all, but smart and visceral and terrifying.

It doesn’t feature swarms of cockroaches wearing human skins as disguises, but BUG(2006) is a rarity in today’s horror film landscape – a truly scary intelligent movie ………..with a naked Ashley Judd.

Enjoy.

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW

2007-11-08T17:02:00.000-05:00

This week’s movie:

I think I’d like to vacation in Pleasantville this winter.

Why not? I hear it’s pleasant there. “Everything’s pleasant in Pleasantville.” They make sure of it. It has to beat New England winter at any rate. I go there occasionally and think about all the changes I could make with my modern-day coolness. It’s an escapist thing, I know, but everybody’s got their own way of dealing. I have a whole list of escapes – movies are good for this sort of thing. Sometimes, in my action hero fantasy, I’m Bond, James Bond – mostly just the Sean Connery Bond but occasionally, of late, I’m the new Daniel Craig Bond (not just because of Eva Green – OK, mostly because of Eva Green).

Sometimes I’m Brad Pitt. Sometimes I’m married to Angelina and run around with George Clooney and play the coolest characters in filmdom. And it’s not just because of Angelina (OK, mostly because of Angelina), it’s mainly about being the “Pitt” – oozing Bradishness – being the man. It’s the kind of charisma that causes women to swoon, and many men to reevaluate their heterosexuality looking for a possible loophole. It works for a little while but soon wears off. I know, for example that there is no such person as Brad Pitt – he exists only as pixels on my TV screen. Think about it – have YOU ever seen him in person?? Hmmmm?? Of course not - nobody has. The problem is that he has the best life, the best luck, great things happen to him, and he always knows exactly the right thing to say at all times. I can’t possibly relate to this for long.

A person that I once recommended Pleasantville to, told me that he didn’t like it because it was too “fantastic” – he likes movies that are more realistic. Not everybody buys in to the escapist possibilities of film - or - maybe he was on to something. Can realistic films be escapist? If you can make this work, it would be effective for much longer. Why? Because you have to place yourself into a movie for it to work. It’s much easier if the movie looks more like real life – and it’s much more natural if the movie looks a lot like your life. This week’s film YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is populated with mostly unfamiliar faces. The characters don’t look like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie or Sean Connery. The main character looks like me, and another looks like you and the rest looks like everybody else we know. They’re not suave, they don’t have exciting adventures, and they don’t know the right things to say.

Miranda July, who plays the lead character, wrote and directed the movie – it’s her first feature film. She gets all the important things right. The film follows a small group of characters as they try to make connections with each other while dealing with life. Does that sound familiar? It should – we all do it every day. Do you want to know the plot? That’s it!

The MPAA (those chicken sh*t bastards!) have rated this film R for “disturbing sexual content involving children”. They obviously didn’t see the same movie I did. They also didn’t see the same movie most people did, as it won the “Very Young Critics Award” in 2005. There really are times, in real life, when children come across things they shouldn’t, but the power of this film is that it doesn’t sensationalize it. Miranda July doesn’t venture into taboo territory. She may take you to a cliff and point to taboo off in the distance and say, “I could take you there – if I wanted to – but I won’t. If this was a Todd Solondz film, he would take you there and leave you without a ride home – but I won’t. I don’t have to.” She handles these instances in exactly the right way. Absolutely no one I’ve shown the movie has found this disturbing. Hollywood would have turned this into a tabloid circus instead of a normal part of life. However, if you think this is going to bother you – don’t see this movie!

YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW won big honors at Cannes and Sundance in 2005. It was a critics’ favorite. I won’t tell you more about the plot – or the characters – but you can get that info from the IMDB site. If you need more, you can read film critic Roger Ebert’s review here (don’t worry about spoilers – there’s no actual plot to give away) – he liked it a lot. Let me tell you why I like the movie.

1. It has one of the all-time funniest lines in movie-dom, involving a chat room. I could tell what it is because it’s probably almost as funny taken out of context …….but I won’t.

2. I’ve seen a lot of movies lately that venture off into taboo-land. It seems that many film-makers today feel that they need to spark controversy in order to draw attention to their movie. This week’s film doesn’t have to. It has the confidence to let its storytelling and its characters draw attention to the movie. Granted that is hasn’t gotten a lot of attention outside of critics circles, but that’s not the film’s fault. It was not deemed a moneymaker, and thus it was ignored by the studios.

3. I would rather be John Hawkes and have Miranda July fall in love with me in this movie, than be Brad Pitt and have Angelina Jolie fall in love with me in Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Fewer bullets, for one thing.

4. It’s a feel-good movie with an uplifting ending and which promotes positive social values …….if you like that sort of thing. It makes you feel good – in a feel-good sort of way.

5. It has some of the most simple and yet most powerful and memorable scenes of any movie, period. Perhaps the most memorable is one in which two of the main characters walk down the sidewalk to the end of the block – yes, it’s THAT simple.

6. The characters are less like Hollywood stereotypes and more like real people you know than the majority of films you’re likely to see. I can easily identify with one of the characters (I won’t tell you which one), and I knew exactly how he was going to act – not because of any stereotypes or movie-logic rules, but because that’s what real people would do.

7. There are no contrived plot twists. On the other hand, it’s also not just a collection of random scenes. There is a quiet arc to the film that gets resolved in the final reel. Tension ….tension ….tension – and then release. Maybe there is sex in it after all.

8. The title bugs the crap out of people who are bothered by incorrect grammar. The film producers actually had enough confidence in the power of this film to risk alienating this important demographic.

9. Miranda July’s character in the film (Christine) is based very closely on herself. She is just like that in real life, cute as a button (a cute button).

10. Read Roger Ebert’s review here. “Frank. Why do you always link to Roger Ebert’s review site?” Roger Ebert is perhaps the most respected film critic in the business (He won the Pulitzer Prize). He has befriended and interviewed many many film-makers over the years, and usually has a unique perspective that many other people wouldn’t. So there! (besides, I keep hoping someday he’ll pay me)

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW …..

will enjoy this movie.

view trailer

GRINDHOUSE

2007-11-02T22:20:00.000-04:00

This week’s cheesy double feature:

DEATH PROOF

PLANET TERROR

Perfect memory rarely is.

The problem with memory is that the world is too full of detail. And as marvelous as the human brain is, it has a finite capacity. So, to conserve resources, it decides what is worth remembering - the rest is discarded. You know this is true - how many times, while driving, have you suddenly realized that you can’t account for the past twenty minutes? Were you not paying attention? Of course you were, but nothing happened of any importance, so why waste brain bytes? You usually do store a certain amount of detail – but with time, keeping it needs to be weighed against cleaning up the clutter and making space for new memories.

People my age remember the sixties as though it were the Golden Age. They remember the great music and the revolution (everything was a revolution in the 60’s), the Cultural Revolution, the political revolution, the sexual revolution, the civil rights revolution, and the lesser known squid revolution (people started eating more squid for some reason). They remember the excitement of big things happening and especially the music. Ask anybody around at that time and they’ll tell you the same thing, “The music was the best, and things - man, things really seemed to matter. Not like today.” Was it really that great?

No.

But the emery cloth of time sands down the structure of memory until you get a little polished marble that represents just the thing you’ve decided was important to remember, the essential concept. Details like The Cold War, the filth, the bad drugs, the gender gap, the generation gap, the bad music, clashes with the police over civil rights and the war, the “real” war in Viet Nam – these are just sawdust that end up on the workshop floor. Does that mean memory becomes less perfect with time? No, just the opposite. Memory becomes more perfect with time because it becomes more focused ……polished ……..shinier.

I remember a lot of the grind house movies from the 60’s and 70’s (we didn’t use the term “grindhouse” back then). They were just quick and cheap movies that would come out every week (more so in the summer – drive-in theater season) and was just an excuse to go to the movies. They were always sensational with lots of sleaze and shooting and stuff exploding and scantily clad women. I’m sure there was more to it, but those are the kind of details that now lie on the workshop floor.

When the film GRINDHOUSE showed in theaters last summer, it was as a double feature, quite common in the grind house days - two movies, one directed by Robert Rodriguez and the other by Quentin Tarantino. They have now been released as two separate movies on video. While they are not like the cheap grind house movies from back in the day, they are, in essence, the marble that is the polished memory of those films. All the essential elements are there. Shooting, fast cars, a mad killer, scantily clad women, stuff blowing up, monsters. Face it, anything that doesn’t survive the sandpaper of time isn’t worth showing anyway. They’ve just filled up the leftover space with more of the good stuff.

They obviously did their homework by re-watching a lot of old films. They’ve reproduced this experience by making their films look “old”. I’m not sure why – certainly they didn’t look old when the films were new. They’ve added scratches, color gone awry, and in one movie, even a missing reel of film. Each of the directors brought their strong points to their film. Tarantino’s strength is in dialog. In DEATH PROOF, his characters have great revolving conversations with hip dialog. A huge cinephile, he throws in lots of inside movie references – how many can you get? Don’t get them all? Check out the trivia page at the IMDB site. There is an amazing chase scene at the end with incredible stunts. Tarantino made the brilliant decision to hire the stuntwoman, Zoë Bell, as a member of the cast. Zoë Bell plays herself as a stuntwoman – BTW she did all the stunts for Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill movies. DEATH PROOF is the “cooler” of the two films.

Robert Rodriguez uses his talents to pack a movie with wall-to-wall over-the-top absurd action. In PLANET TERROR, his retro-futuristic vision of horror, there is so much shooting and zombies and stuff blowing up and blood and guts and scantily clad women, that there’s virtually no time for much of anything else – which is OK because why would you want anything else? It’s very very violent – but absurdly so – so much so that it’s actually pretty funny – much like the Itchy & Scratchy cartoons from The Simpsons. PLANET TERROR defies logic. When you watch it, if you try to apply physical logic to anything happening on screen, you will certainly lose your grip on reality and may go completely mad. Not even movie logic can be applied here, not even grind house logic works – only Rodriguez logic exists. I think this is what helps viewers deal with the totally bizarre images on the screen.

PLANET TERROR is the “fun-er” of the two movies. It’s just jam-packed with impossible images and funny dialog. This is the movie that has the missing reel of film. The resulting abrupt disconnect provides one of the best sight gags in the movie. On other memorable sight gag occurs during a romantic interlude and involves a wooden table leg (don’t go there – not what you’re thinking!). I think that the enduring legacy of this film will be the still photo shown above. To me, there is no greater iconic image in the history of cinema than that of Rose McGowan standing in profile, wearing a tube-top and sporting a machine-gun leg. Then again, that’s just me.

To recap. Here’s the top 10 reasons why I liked the two GRINDHOUSE movies: DEATH PROOF and PLANET TERROR.

Rose McGowan standing in profile, wearing a tube-top and sporting a machine-gun leg.
You don’t have to watch both together, as a double feature. With the magic of two separate movies on two separate DVD’s, you can watch them in ay order and at any time you want.
It performs a vital public service by promoting the importance of the seat belt law.
Fergie’s in it, and Bruce Willis too – although not at the same time.
It features the best barbecue in Texas. That’s got to be good, doesn’t it?
Bruce Willis says he shot Osama and I believe him. So, the troops can come home now, right?
Did I mention Rose McGowan standing in profile, wearing a tube-top and sporting a machine-gun leg?
If you remove any restrictions that you have to follow some kind of logic, all new possibilities open up for you. For example, the same gun that chips some splinters out of a door jamb in one instance can knock down a brick wall in a fiery blast a moment later. Another example: Rose McGowan can shoot her leg-gun (how does she pull the trigger? - No, no! Mustn’t use logic! Logic, bad.). She can do this while standing on one leg and blow a door out with the blast ………without any apparent recoil.
DEATH PROOF: Fast cars ……..faster women ………and Kurt Russell.
If you can actually “death proof” a car, why doesn’t everybody have one. Then everybody can “bumper-car” their way to work in the morning. Oh wait – they do that anyway.

As a double feature, GRINDHOUSE makes the IMDB top 250 at #149, between The Princess Bride and Brief Encounter.

DEATH PROOF
PLANET TERROR
Double feature or one-at-a-time – it’s all good.
Enjoy.

view Death Proof trailer

view Planet Terror trailer

MOVIES FOR HALLOWEEN

2007-10-29T23:51:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of the Halloween season, you may be in the mood for for a scary movie or two this week. Although not entirely necessary - somehow watching Lassie while dressed as a ghoul and eating peeled grapes done up to look like eyeballs, just doesn’t cut it. So here’s a quick post to make a few recommendations. I apologize, in advance, if i neglect to list your favorite scary movie.

FIRST - the criteria:

I don’t want to be grossed out - I want to be scared.
I don’t go in for the new generation of “torture porn”. I don’t want to be disturbed - I want to be scared.
I don’t mind being just slightly grossed out or somewhat disturbed if I’m also a little scared.
You know what wouldn’t be so bad? - if there’s a little comedy relief in there somewhere - as long as it doesn’t interfere with me being scared.
If a movie isn’t going to scare me, it should, at least, spook me.
Startling me - doesn’t count!
If a movie could be funny AND creepy - at the same time - now THAT would be something.
In the future, there should be a technology that makes all the characters in the movie look like you and your friends. Think of the possibilities. (Do I have to spell it out?)
#8 has absolutely nothing to do with the criteria for choosing scary movies for Halloween.
I don’t want to be blatantly obvious by recommending the film Halloween for Halloween.

SECOND - the movies:

The Changeling: Perhaps the scariest and eeriest ghost movie ever. You never see the ghost, just boatloads of creepy atmosphere.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra: Strictly for laughs, it’s reminiscent of an earlier time where you might have been scared of a movie like this.

Shaun of the Dead: If you’re going to have zombies - you might as well make them amusing. This relate to somewhat to criteria #4.

Little Otik: Scary AND disturbing AND funny all at the same time! How about that.

Audition: Horror film directors like Rob Zombie, Wes Craven, John Landis, and others, all agree - Audition is one bad-ass movie - maybe a little too creepy.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Great spooky and creepy movie from the silent film era. Don’t be put off by silent movies enough to miss this one.

May: Creepy creepy creepy - funny funny funny - creepy - disturbing - funny.

Bubba Ho-Tep: Elvis and JFK team up to battle an evil Egyptian mummy. Need I say more?

Three Extremes: A collection of three 40 min. stories from three different Asian horror masters. These guys know how to push the right buttons on the creepy meter.

Army of Darkness: Ash, from the Evil Dead movies, is transported to the 1300’s to fight the army of the dead. It has perhaps the most quotable of all horror movies - then again, it’s not really a “horror” movie.

Grindhouse: Death Proof /Planet Terror: More on these two movies in a future post.

Scream: Hip dialog with lots of inside references. A must for horror movie buffs.

And, of course, you can’t go wrong with the classics:

Psycho: The granddaddy of all scary movies stands the test of time. If you’ve never seen this film, do it now - preferably not alone.

The Shining: Gothic horror as only Stanley Kubrick can do it. Based on a novel by Stephen King.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: The 1978 version of this film is effectively creepy and has one of the all-time greatest endings.

The Thing: More of a psychological thriller than a horror movie - but it is scary - and so makes this list.

PLAY TIME

2007-10-27T01:21:00.001-04:00

This week’s movie:
PLAYTIME

A comedy of epic proportions!

The people who put up the money to make movies generally only amass a huge budget for action movies, or war epics, or star-studded thrillers, or science fiction, or FX extravaganzas. They generally don’t throw big bucks at comedies. That’s why French film-maker and actor Jacques Tati put up his own money to make Playtime exactly the way he wanted it. The result is probably the greatest biggest most ambitious most thought provoking ……..and funniest comedy of all time. But let me explain a little, because everybody has a different idea of what’s funny.

This is not the crude Porky’s – American Pie – the girl gets her top ripped off and then some poor schmo ends up eating poop - kind of funny. It’s also not the witty Tracey & Hepburn or sophisticated Some Like it Hot kind of funny. It’s not even the kind of dialog-driven intellectual give and take between two people where they talk about a variety of topics and the comedy arises from the juxtaposition of both mundane and absurd content, all with an underlying theme stretching the arc of the film and which is either resolved – or at least better understood by the end – such as in the similar (sarcasm) films Clerks and My Dinner With Andre.

Most comedies derive their laughs from dialog. Shoot out those one-liners, two-liners – certainly not more than three-liners. Some of it is situation comedy where they set up a thing where the characters misinterpret something and go through the movie completely clueless – hilarity ensues. In PLAY TIME, there’s practically no dialog, it isn’t necessary. Instead, the comedy (as well as other things – awe, social observation, etc.) is physical – or at least, visual. This put PLAY TIME on the same footing as say Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (a FranksFilms favorite), or the films of Buster Keaton. Jacques Tati was indeed the Charlie Chaplin of his day – but PLAY TIME is in no way, a silent film. For one thing, it was released in 1967. Secondly, it far surpasses most movies in sheer visual scope. There are only a small handful of films that transcend the visual medium, that transcends its own genre to deliver a film-maker’s artistic vision – this is one of them.

“But Frank, why should I see it? It sounds pretentious! What if I don’t like it?”

No guarantees, but here are a few things to consider.

Cinephiles (film nuts, like me) will tell you that the only way to really see this film is on the big screen in the theatre (Cinephiles always use the “..re” spelling in stead of the “.er” spelling as in theater. That’s how you know they’re Cinephiles.) That’s because there aren’t a lot of close-ups. Most, if not all, of the camera work is in long shots, back from the main action, with lots of stuff going on on the screen – and you need a big screen to get it all in. While this is true in principle, I do believe that it’s no longer playing in the theatres (or theaters for that matter). However, with the proliferation of large screen plasma and LCD televisions, it’s not bad. I, myself, recently watched it on my 28 year old – nowhere near being flat screened – tiny CRT television, and enjoyed it just fine.
The film was recently restored and released on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection. They did an excellent job revitalizing the color and sound track. Pass up the older VHS version and look for the DVD.
Being an older movie, local video rental stores may not carry it (mine doesn’t). You may find it at your local library (I did). If not, the most on-line sources carry it.
Don’t confuse this with the 1994 film, also called Play Time. You may see more than you bargained for.
Like Chaplin’s “Modern Times”, it portrays people trying to navigate a modern technological world.
The film takes place in Paris – but this is not the real Paris. Tati constructed a replica of Paris on his movie set at huge cost. It is the essence of Paris – actually of any large modern city. In this way, he was able to eliminate the clutter of a real city, and show only those elements necessary for the film (there has never been a cleaner or nicer Paris anywhere). Today, he would have used CGI. In 1967, it had to be built from scratch.
There is no equivalent to Jacques Tati today. PLAY TIME was his masterpiece, but it’s not like ordinary films. It has no plot, it has no dialog to speak of, there’s no real narrative. If you start watching this film expecting conventional movie story elements, you may be disappointed. But if you keep an open mind, you won’t soon forget it.
If you want to get a better feel for Tati comedy, try some of his other films like Mon oncle, or M. Hulot’s Holiday. Like PLAY TIME they also feature Tati’s alter ego Monsieur Hulot.
Scores a 100% on the tomatometer. Not 99% - 100% ! Read some of the critical reviews there.
You can read film critic, Roger Ebert’s review of PLAYTIME here.
As always, Jacques Tati’s films are suitable for the whole family. Even the dog.

You deserve a little PLAY TIME

Enjoy.

CITY OF GOD

2007-10-16T20:14:00.001-04:00

Movie of the week:

CITY OF GOD

There are neighborhoods in every city where the tour buses don’t go.

I recently came across the following two descriptions of Rio de Janeiro.

“Rio de Janeiro is one of the most beautiful and spectacular cities on the planet. Even the well-traveled individuals will love what the city has to offer. One of the best ways to appreciate the setting is by going up Sugar Loaf Mountain (Pao de Acucar), where you’ll get a fantastic 360 degree view of Rio ……. Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer), elected one of the “New 7 Wonders of the World”. ………. the natural harbour is surrounded by lush, high mountains that meet the sea in the world-famous beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema.”

Then, this one.

“Rio is one of the most violent cities in the world. As of 2007 the homicide rate of the greater metropolitan area stands at nearly 80 victims per week, with the majority of victims falling to homicide, assault, stray bullets or narcoterrorism. In 2001 the murder rate in Rio was 45 for every 100 thousand people and between 1978 and 2000, 49,900 people were killed in Rio. The numbers are comparable with war conflict zones like Baghdad and Kabul. “

It’s tough to comprehend that they’re talking about the same place - but they are. Rio is like that. There are areas (such as downtown and along the waterfront) that are everything the travelogues promise ……..the playground for the rich and famous and the beautiful people. The rest of it is pretty much a hell-hole. A lot of big cities are like this, (e.g. South Chicago, East L.A., Mexico City, and we won’t even talk about Calcutta). The story from this week’s movie, CITY OF GOD, takes place in the not-so-nice part of Rio. “City of God” isn’t an attempt at sarcasm, it’s actually the nickname for that part of the city (like “The Big Apple” or “The Windy City”) – it was probably a nice place once.

Buscape and Lil’Ze grew up together in the same slum of Rio. They each find their own way to survive. Lil’Ze works his way up in the gangs (“works”, in this usage, is a politer way to say “brutalize”), it’s that or get killed. In Rio, you’re either a criminal or a victim. Buscape has only three goals in life, 1. don’t get killed, 2. become a photographer, and 3. become a photographer without getting killed. The story is told from his point of view. It is his real-life story and his photographs on which the movie is based. I suppose I just gave away that he realizes all three of his goals, but there’s no surprise there – you know this from the beginning.

There is a lot of violence in this film. The truly frightening thing is how extremely young children are exposed to and drawn into the violence on a daily basis. I know I’m probably making this sound like a perfectly dreadful film, but it’s not. It’s a terrific film. It’s not entirely without bright spots and without redemption and without hope. It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s exciting, it’s inspiring, it just runs the gamut. Since it’s a true story, it doesn’t have to follow Hollywood plot formulas – good guys can lose – bad guys can win – people needn’t necessarily be saved at the last possible moment – million-to-one shots probably won’t pay off – but they just might. So I will leave you with some last thoughts to convince you to see this film.

1. Ranks #18 in the IMDB top 250, between The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Usual Suspects. So it’s good, right?

2. Score 92% on the tomatometer.

3. Featured in Steven Jay Schneider’s book, “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”. You don’t get into heaven unless you’ve seen this film.

4. I talked to someone who recently visited Rio de Janeiro and asked her if it’s as bad as it’s portrayed in the film. She replied, “Worse”

5. It’s in Portuguese with subtitles in various languages – not really a reason to see the film, I understand, but at the same time, not a reason to not see it. Besides, the subtitles ARE in English and they’re a pretty yellow color and usually show up at just the time somebody is talking on the screen.

6. It’s a true story. I know that you can’t always go by that, because I once watched a movie called “Monstroid”, about a giant sea serpent that rises from the ocean to terrorize a small fishing village. In the opening credits, they actually claim that “….this story is based on actual events.” But in CITY OF GOD, it actually is true, not made-up Hollywood true. Not true-ish!

7. The movie was filmed on location in the City of God. This was extraordinarily dangerous mostly because of the shootings and robberies and such.

8. Many of the actors were locals from the neighborhood. They know the street language and local customs. Some of the locals were the real people or were related to the real people portrayed in the film. It all adds a degree of “realness” that shows through the film.

9. I’m not making up #6. They really did claim that it was based on actual events. But as far as this movie goes, you can real film critic, Roger Ebert’s review here.

10. As I said in the beginning, CITY OF GOD is a part of town where the tour buses don’t go ……but maybe they should. It would probably go something like this: “Ladies and gentlemen. My name is ……, and I’ll be your guide today for the Inner City Bus Tour. I’ll ask you to please fasten your seat belts, as we may need to take corners at full speed in case of emergency. I must also remind everyone to please keep your arms inside the bus. The bullet-proof glass will not protect any part of you that is not behind it. Please pardon the bumpy ride in this neighborhood, as there are many bodies in the street. Now if you look to your left, you’ll see the ElDiego Courthouse, and one of the oldest buildings in Brazil. Built in 1725, it is an excellent example of classic Iberian architecture brought by the Portuguese to the new world. The sculptures of Christ surrounded by angels were added early in the 1900’s, in the great modernization that made the city what it is today. Unfortunately, the building was fire-bombed last week which is why you’re now looking at a pile of rubble. Now if you would direct your attention to the front of the bus, we have a special treat for you. An actual crime lord has just boarded the bus. This is El Condo and two of his men. He has generously agreed to answer any questions you may have about the neighborhood. You must concede that this degree of authenticity cannot be found on any competing tour program. Now if you would kindly prepare your money and other valuables, the men will relieve you of them. Just another example of the personal service we provide here at Inner City Bus Tours. We do hope that you visit us again the next time you’re in town. And to those of you who do not survive the tour, we look forward to serving you in the next life. Have a nice day…

Visit the CITY OF GOD soon (on video, not for real)

Enjoy.

AWAY FROM HER

2007-10-01T06:29:00.000-04:00

This week’s movie:

AWAY FROM HER

I first remember seeing Julie Christie in François Truffaut’s excellent film, Fahrenheit 451. It came out about the same time as Doctor Zhivago, where most people remember her as Lara, but I didn’t see that film until much later. I’ll always remember her most in that dual role as the bureaucrat’s dutiful wife, and as the idealistic revolutionary. I was young and impressionable, and at twelve years old, I absolutely fell in love with her. And if, in the intervening years, I’ve forgotten why - I’ve only to watch this week’s movie, AWAY FROM HER, to be reminded.

If you’ve heard anything about this film, you’ll be tempted to say, “Isn’t that the movie where Julie Christie gets Alzheimer’s?” Well, yes, you’d be right - but that’s like saying, “Star Wars? Didn’t that have a spaceship in it?” These kind of statements are inadequate to describe what the movie is about. So what is it about? Julie Christie comes down with Alzheimer’s, and worse yet, she quite aware of what’s going down.

Let me try to do a little better. I have an aunt that was recently widowed. She and my uncle were married for almost 60 years. Like any marriage, it had its ups and downs, but they were both totally devoted to each other. They were inseparable. One never went anywhere without the other. They were two halves of one whole. It was a storybook relationship - and I’m sure that someday, someone will write a story about it. They were happy! But when he died, half of her was gone. She didn’t know what to do with herself - she didn’t know HOW to be alone. So now she’s wasting away, her mind retreating into herself and waiting to die. That’s how she deals with her loss. Everybody deals with loss a little differently.

In AWAY FROM HER, Julie Christie comes down with Alzheimer’s. It’s not sudden and she has time to make certain decisions while she’s still herself. Her husband of 40+ years is the one who has to deal with the loss. This is a remarkable film, and it’s remarkable for one reason. The treatment of the actions of this couple is true and realistic. It’s not dumbed down for a mass audience. It’s not a manipulative tear-jerker, and yet it’s powerfully emotion-evoking. That, and it’s adult.

Okay, two things - make this remarkable. Its realistic depiction of a tragic situation, and that it is adult. By that I mean that the main characters are aging. While the majority of movies today feature young gorgeous beautiful actors mainly because they’re great to look at - and if you don’t have a great story or great acting - then at least something ought to be great, this story doesn’t need that because it has a great story with great acting (although Julie Christie is still gorgeous - old - but gorgeous). So for those two reasons, this film is remarkable. That, and the fact that this is a directorial debut from Sarah Polley.

Okay, so that would be three things. Young Canadian actress, Sarah Polley, is best known for playing interesting roles in movies you’ve probably never heard of, such as Last Night, eXistenZ, The Sweet Hereafter, The Weight of Water, and The Secret Life of Words. Every actor wants to direct but most find they’re not very good at it. This is quite an impressive achievement for such a young actress. The real achievement though, is that someone that young can understand what it’s like to be old. Should you care about this? Not necessarily - but it’ll be interesting to see what she does next.

To recap, the three remarkable things about this film are: It’s realistic, it’s adult, and it’s Sarah Polley’s directorial debut. Oh – and also the performances. Okay, four! Four things make this a remarkable film. The performances by each of the main characters are all Oscar-worthy. Not because they’re dramatic – not because they’re NOT dramatic, but because they’re not unnecessarily dramatic. It’s so easy, given the subject matter to turn this into the “Hallmark Channel Alzheimer’s Show”, where a tragedy occurs, everybody cries, everybody cries some more, and then everybody cries one more time, then due to the overwhelming courage of the main character, everyone perseveres - lights come up - not a dry eye in the house. That is the definition of one-dimensional story-telling. AWAY FROM HER peels back layer after layer, as the movie progresses, you discover more and more details about the marriage, and how that affects the way both of the main character deal with the affliction. There may be some tears shed along the way, no doubt, but all eyes should be dry by the end.

Here is a list of the top ten things I hope to forget if I ever come down with Alzheimer’s.

The 5th grade. Yes, I have my reasons - I don’t want to get into it.
The 6th grade. Ditto.
How to drive. If I never have to drive again, I wouldn’t complain.
Everybody’s birthday. I’m just not good at shopping, and I need a good excuse.
I would like to forget that I saw Memento, and Pleasantville, and some of my other favorite movies. That way, I can enjoy watching them again for the first time.
I would like to forget that I saw Supernova and Battlefield Earth and some other of my least favorite movies - except that I would probably end up watching them again.
The guitar chords to all the songs that I hate but people are always wanting me to play. The problem with that however, is that I may also forget that I hate them and have to learn them all over again.
I forgot what I was going to write for #8.
To pay taxes - and have a good excuse for it.
Fahgettaboutit!

Get AWAY FROM HER (you cad!)

and Enjoy.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS

2007-09-24T22:51:00.001-04:00

Movie of the week:

THE LIVES OF OTHERS

The biggest problem with being all-knowing - is that you know everything.

In the years between WWII and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the government of East Germany (GDR) maintained total control of the populace. They did this by - well, by knowing everything. If anybody, anywhere, at any time, spoke - or even thought - an anti-government sentiment, they were taken aside and given a good talking to …………….while hanging upside down ……..with their nethers attached to an electric prod …………and their head submerged in water. They knew everything because the secret police, the Stasi, spied on everybody. Not only did they have a workforce of more than 100,000 agents, but they also recruited your friends, co-workers, and neighbors to inform on you. And by “recruit” I mean they made them an offer they couldn’t refuse (in the Godfather sense).

Many many man-hours were spent watching and listening to often quite ordinary people, and with celebrated German efficiency, wrote it all down. Apparently, you can now go to where the records are kept and read your own file. I think this could potentially be a good thing for two reasons. First, let’s suppose that you can’t remember where you put that doily-shrouded pink tea cozy your Aunt Fredda gave you last Christmas, and she’s coming to visit on Friday. Go to the Records Library and look up the surveillance records on you and you realize, “That’s right. I used it to clean the floor under the tub and it was thrown out - on March 21, 1982 at 9:47 PM.” You look in the file box, “…and here it is!” The second good point is that it contains the makings of very many fascinating stories.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS revolves around its two (ok, maybe three) main characters in East Berlin around 1984. The first is Wiesler, the surveillance specialist. Wiesler is very good at what he does. He gives lectures and trains the younger agents on the finer points of eavesdropping, wiretapping, and especially interrogating and extracting confessions. He is naturally suspicious of just about everyone.

The other main character is Georg, the writer. Writers are natural suspects for everything from subversion to subterfuge, plus they get all the girls and nobody likes them. Wiesler especially suspects him, and when he is ordered to “find something” on him, he jumps at the chance. A lot of the remainder of the film is him eavesdropping on Georg’s apartment where he lives with his fiancé, Christa (she not quite as idealistic as Georg). Both men are loyal to the government. They each, in their own way, embrace the ideals of the GDR, while ignoring some of the unpleasant realities – it can all work if we all give it half a chance. How long will it be before each of them can no-long ignore how their ideals are being challenged. Wiesler, unable to find any evidence of un-GDR activity, can’t comprehend the possibility that his superiors had reasons other than the state’s well-being for getting rid of Georg. Both men, during the course of the story, will have to make tough decisions.

This is one hell of a riveting suspenseful outstanding film. You realize that the fate of a handful of people lies in the decisions made by one man – you really don’t know which way it’s going to go. It is intelligent, well-written, and well-acted. Yes, it’s in German and you’ll have to read subtitles – but so what? If you let that bother you, you’re going to miss a lot of great movies. I don’t want to give too many details, so I’ll just leave you with my top ten reasons to watch this film.

Top 10 Reasons to Watch THE LIVES OF OTHERS

1. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this last go around.

2. The DVD was recalled in Germany because of comments made by the director on the commentary track about the role of real-life politicians in the secret police. Not really a reason to watch it, but I thought it was interesting just the same.

3. Scored a 93% on the tomatometer.

4. Makes the IMDB top 250, at #66 between Metropolis and Aliens.

5. The world in which this story takes place is one that most of us have only seen in movies, or read in books, or heard tell about in barrooms, or overheard hushed whispers down dark alleyways. It’s one that couldn’t possibly be real – yet it was. There isn’t a false note through the entire film. Stuff like this really happened quite often.

6. There is an interesting – and quite satisfying and unexpected twist at the end. I like those.

7. This is one of the most intensely suspenseful films I saw this year, but it’s not an action movie. It builds suspense and danger without car chases, guns being fired, or stuff blowing up.

8. It’s funny, but I’ve watched other films that take place in the same period of history, and in East Germany, but they were in English, and for some reason, it just didn’t seem right. This movie is right as rain! ………….so they say – whatever that means.

9. This happens more and more lately. I was sitting in an airport waiting for a flight, and a man sitting two seats away was talking on his cell phone to, I can only guess, was his girlfriend. For some inexplicable reason, he assumed no one could hear him – everybody with 20ft could hear him just fine. And not only that – some of us could hear her as well. It’s amazing the intimate things people will say to each other when they think no one is listening! We all looked at each other wagging our eyebrows (wink wink, nudge nudge) while the talkers were completely oblivious.

10. It has a positive uplifting life-affirming ending that’ll make feel all giggly inside. You’ll mentally look back to the start of the film and think, “How’d we end up here?”

Take a peek at THE LIVES OF OTHERS, you’ll feel better about yours.

Enjoy.

PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER

2007-09-12T10:27:00.000-04:00

This week's movie:
PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER

I’ve decided that I don’t read enough books.

This week’s movie, PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER, is the big screen adaptation of the highly acclaimed bestselling novel by Patrick Suskind. It has been translated from the original German into English and various other languages. It was long thought unfilmable as a movie because it’s about the sense of smell - which is difficult to convey in a visual medium like film. But I guess they were wrong!

This isn’t the first time they were wrong about this. Other “unfilmable” movies include Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Naked Lunch, A Scanner Darkly, The Lord of the Rings, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, and American Psycho. You’d think that by now, they’d stop saying things like that. (……….personally, I think they may have been partially right about the first two, but then again, I didn’t read the books - as I said, I don’t read enough books.)

Personally, I don’t know what they were thinking about. What makes a film unfilmable. In this case, they thought that film, since it’s a visual medium, would be inadequate to portray a story about the olfactory sense. What I say is, how is the book, also a visual medium, intrinsically better at it. Maybe it just is, I wouldn’t know. Maybe I’ll get a better idea of these things once I get around to reading more books.

The story takes place in Paris, about 300 years ago (don’t worry, it’s in English, not French - sheeeeesh!). Our hero (”hero” in the same sense that Dracula was the hero of his own movie), Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, was born unceremoniously, in the middle of the fish market and discarded along with the fish guts and heads. Fortunately (or unfortunately for some) he survives. Why am I being so harsh on him? It is, as the title implies, the story of a murderer. Grenouille, it seems, has perhaps the most highly developed sense of smell ever. Though he was born in the smelliest spot on earth, he hasn’t learned (yet) the difference between “good” smells and “bad” smells. But he does learn quick.

Once he has discovered good smells (he has met a woman), he seeks a way to preserve the smell - and so he goes to work for a perfumer, comically played by Dustin Hoffman (his Italian accent is so outrageous, you can’t keep from laughing).

Grenouille, we shall say, was not brought up in a wholesome environment, and the result is someone who is entirely without social graces - or morals. He’s not evil or wicked. Goodness or wickedness never even enters the picture. He does what he does and without regard to the consequences. It’s a classical case of anti-social behavior. He is totally obsessed with smells and anything he does to create new scents is A-OK with him (I’m not giving anything away here - look at the title for goodness sake!).

He’s been compared to the character, Tom Ripley, in The Talented Mr. Ripley, but I don’t think so. Ripley was calculating, he knew what he was doing. Grenouille doesn’t, he just does stuff without regard - he’s more like the Owen Wilson character in The Minus Man, except that he’s not as pleasant. Although he’s an unlikable character, we still root for him. This is not unusual. It’s the same reason we rooted for Hannibal Lecter to escape at the end of Silence of the Lambs, and we rooted for the Minus Man, and for The Joker in Batman, and for Mrs. Tingle. We respect interesting characters and want them to come back for the sequel.

The film is twisted and macabre, it’s funny and frightening, it’s dark balanced with just the right amount of comic relief, and it’s always fascinating. It’s narrated by John Hurt (fast becoming my favorite narrator), who, by the way, reads lots of books. It takes chances and is NOT politically correct. The film has wanted to be made, apparently, for some time. Several high priced directors, who it seems, also read books, have been trying, without success, to get the movie right from the author. These include Ridley Scott, Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Milos Forman, and Stanley Kubrick (I would’ve loved to see the Kubrick version). Actual director, Tom Tykwer, is no slouch. He made one of my past recommendations Run, Lola, Run.

So, I’ll be reading more now. I think I should start with books that were made into some of my favorite films. I’ve listed my proposed reading list below.

Animal Farm - Reader’s Digest abridged version.
War and Peace - Cliff Notes
Sin City - The graphic novel
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - liner notes for the audiobook.
Spider-man - any one issue, not the whole series of course!
The Lord of the Rings - inside dust jacket.
MulHolland Dr. - collection of film reviews.
Catch 22 - condensed minutes of the Boston Book Club discussions.
Amelie - the English subtitles.
Tristram Shandy - In keeping with the spirit of the film, I’ll start reading it and then never finish.

C’Mon. If I actually “read” all those books, when would I had enough time to watch more movies??

PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER
It smells good - it is good.
Enjoy.

TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY

2007-08-28T23:38:00.000-04:00

This week’s movie:
TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY

I can’t help it - but sometimes I just think about everything that’s wrong with the world.

In an effort to keep this review to a reasonable length, I’m limit myself to one thing - ghost stories. Ghost movies are inherently funny and not at all scary like they’re suppose to be. You might not notice it unless you actually think about it. If the movie isn’t scaring the beejesus out of me, my mind starts to wander and think about - logic. I start to ask too many questions, and then the movie is doomed. Ghosts just can’t stand up to logic. Try it yourself sometime - when you’re watching a ghost movie, see if one or more of the following questions don’t come to mind.

Why is this ghost back? It wants revenge. Why? It’s dead. What does it care anymore?
Why is this ghost back? Maybe it doesn’t know it’s dead. If it doesn’t know it’s dead, why doesn’t invite you in, sit down to eat dinner with you, strike up a conversation, catch some TV - you know - the things it used to do when it was still alive?
Why is this ghost scary? It’s a ghost, dammit! It’s a spirit with no body. It has no effect on the physical world. It can’t harm you!
If it has no physical presence, how come we can see it?
It appears only at certain times. What does it do in between hauntings? What does it do when you’re not home? Crossword puzzle maybe? Do ghosts get bored?
If you have more than one ghost in the same house, do they scare each other? This thought actually kept me awake one night.
Living people have ghost hunters and exorcists they can call to rid a house of spirits. Is there an equivalent in the ghost world? Do resident ghosts call - I don’t know - maybe a poltergeist, to rid a house of the living? They did in Beetlejuice, a nearly perfect ghost story.
Why doesn’t the “They’re just as scared of you as you are of them” logic apply to ghosts? I never saw a ghost movie in which a ghost shrieked in terror and put up both hands so that its fingers make a cross, when the living walk into the room.
A thought just occurred to me concerning ghost logic. Are ghosts afraid of vampires? I think someone has missed a great script opportunity for a movie in which ghosts come back to haunt the vampires that killed them. For pure realism, they can get real ghosts to play the ghosts (what else have they got to do between hauntings?). But, don’t use real vampires to play vampires (because they’ll only work at night).
The greatest bit of illogic that I come across - is that ghosts always seem to be mad, or sullen - in a bad mood. They never smile, they never tell jokes - didn’t any of them have a sense of humor when they were alive? Can’t they realize that although they’ve died, they’re somehow still around? Aren’t they glad to discover that there’s an afterlife after all? Can’t they see the inherent humor in their situation? Sheeeeeeesh, lighten up why don’t you.

The biggest problem with the vast majority of ghost movies is that they take themselves way too seriously. They’re way too dramatic. They try to be scary - they’re not scary and so you start to wonder about some of the questions from above. This week’s movie, TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY - avoids the usual pitfalls by not being a serious, or a scary, ghost movie. In fact, if not for the ghost, it wouldn’t be a ghost story at all. By being more about the relationship between a husband and wife, and less of all that mucking around rapping on walls and peeking around the corner and saying, “boo!”, you’re too busy seeing something new, so that the above questions don’t come up.

Nina and Jamie were happily married and were on their way to living happily ever after. Then Jamie dies (Oh, cut it out - I’m not giving anything away. We’ve been talking about ghosts for goodness sake!). Nina goes into deep depression. She is totally lonely and heartbroken. Just when she thinks she can’t go on - Jamie comes back. Not one of those wraith-like ghosts, but a real live (well - maybe not live) in the flesh ghost. She can touch him, embrace him, kiss him, get busy with him. He’s warm and still has a sense of humor. He knows he’s dead and he’s returned simply because she wanted him to.

Life is wonderful again.

But on Monday morning, she needs to go back to work. He’ll stay at home and “haunt or something”. When she gets home everything is OK, but during the day, he gets bored. So one day he starts inviting friends over - dead ones. Hence the improbable line, “I can’t believe I have a bunch of dead people watching videos in my living room.” There are no vampires in this movie, but otherwise, it provides answers to most of the questions from above.

The film is considered a romantic comedy - a ghost romantic comedy. I would say that it’s just about halfway between the outrageousness of Beetlejuice and the sappiness of Ghost. It’s smarter (more cerebral), is more real (as much as you can be with ghosts), and has more heart than either of those films. In the end, the conclusion is satisfying and leaves you with a warm fuzzy. The day after, you’ll be recommending this film to your friends.

SO, rent TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY this week.

Enjoy.

INLAND EMPIRE

2007-08-22T22:22:00.000-04:00

Movie of the week:
INLAND EMPIRE

I like to put ground pepper on my food.

When the plate is put in front of me, I instinctively reach for the pepper grinder, or for the grated cheese - whatever is appropriate - whatever is handy - whether it needs it or not. Some chefs get insulted when you do this. They’ll claim that they’ve already added it, that it’s been seasoned to perfection and shouldn’t need anything else.

I don’t get insulted when I’m the chef or the server. I want people to put their own touch on the dish. To me, the dish is not complete when it is served. To me, the final step in the preparation of the dish should be, must be done by the person who is going to eat it. The very act of adding the pepper makes me part of the process of creating the dish. At the restaurant, when the waiter comes around with the pepper grinder, I want to snatch it out of his hand and grind it myself - that’s MY job! A good chef will understand that - a chef who’s not all full of himself, that is.

David Lynch, director of INLAND EMPIRE, is like a good chef who’s not all full of himself. He doesn’t serve you up a perfect dish that’s been seasoned to perfection and doesn’t need anything added. In fact, the film isn’t complete and doesn’t achieve perfection until you, the viewer, add the final bits to it. INLAND EMPIRE takes this idea steps further. You are given characters and plot elements - and it’s not immediately clear how they go together or what they mean. You have to pretty much work at fitting the pieces of the film together.

I like to think of this film like a photo mosaic. You’ve seen them. It’s a photograph - but as you look closer, you see that it’s made up of lots of smaller photographs. These smaller discreet photos are completely independent from one another, but they somehow magically blend together, as you step back away from it. INLAND EMPIRE is like that. Lynch gives you discreet plot and character fragments. While you’re watching the movie, something will happen and you might say, “What the hell was that?!!” Then something else will happen and you’ll probably say, “W-W-What?!!! What’s that got to do with what I just saw?!”. Then something really arbitrary will happen and you’ll say, “Well, that was pretty arbitrary.” And then something really strange will happen and you’ll want to say, “I think it’s interesting that Lynch parallels the labyrinthine back stage movie set as a corridor that connects seemingly disconnect realities. This obvious symbol of a woman in mortal danger runs the breadth of his earlier films, and in a way, it is a reference to the twists and turns in one’s mind. Too many wrong turns and you could be lost forever. He has obviously read the works of D.R. Stickgold.” You would like to say all that, but all you manage is, “Fffffffffft…….”

BUT - when you step back from it all, in time that is, you start to see the composite image. Some time later (a couple weeks, maybe a few years, who knows?), when you think about this film, you won’t think of individual scenes or plots. You’ll remember the emotional feel of the story. You’ll remember the intensity and the edge. You remember the overall arc of the narrative. You’ll see the face pop out of the mosaic, and not the individual component pieces. This movie is NOT for instant gratification. It won’t reveal any of it’s mysteries. It won’t tie up the loose ends for you at the end. This is something to take with you, and mull on it later.

This is a much more complex tale than, say, Mulholland Dr. which required only a shift in your frame of reference to understand what’s happening ………..whatever that means. INLAND EMPIRE requires you to put the pieces together and take your own meaning away. Everybody will have a different movie-watching experience. It’s up to you to add the final touch - the interpretation. I’ll be happy to tell you mine ………………..after I’ve had a chance to mull it over for a couple years or so.

The movie has a great cast: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Harry Dean Stanton, Diane Ladd (Laura Dern’s real-life mother), Julia Ormond, and even William H. Macy and Mary Steenburgen (yes - that’s Back to the Future III Mary Steenburgen) and Nastassja Kinski and even Naomi Watts as a rabbit (don’t ask). Laura Dern is the star of the film. In a career-making performance that not many could pull off she plays the girl(s) in trouble. And since Lynch likes to experiment with multiple realities per character, ……..that’s a lot of trouble.

Warnings: For those of you who have never seen a David lynch movie in all its freaky goodness, and are considering watching this with your kids - don’t - unless your kids are really old, or have been really naughty. There’s just a tiny flash of nudity and no graphic sex - also there’s not a lot of violence, but there is a lot of profanity (not Blue Velvet level of profanity, but plenty just the same), and many of the scenes may be disturbing ( or maybe they’re “disquieting” - yeah! that’s it). So, now you’re thinking, “Why even watch it at all?” So here are my

10 Top Reasons to Watch INLAND EMPIRE

As unlike any other movie as you’ll ever get.
Everyone at work is going to be watching it. At the water cooler, you’ll want to talk about the latest bugs in the Vista operating system, but everyone else will want to talk about INLAND EMPIRE.
There’s to be a debate this winter about your favorite David Lynch film. You have to see them before you can discuss them.
You’ll overhear someone say, “It’s all in the beans - and I’m full of beans.” You’ll want to be IN on the joke.
There may be some Oscar buzz for Laura Dern’s role(s). See what the buzz is about.
It’s three hours long. You get your money’s worth on the rental.
Don’t let #6 put you off. “Dancing With the Stars” is 4 hours. OK, so maybe “Dancing With the Stars” is only an hour - but certainly feels like 4 hours.
Finally! Learn what the word “Dystopian” means. As in, “An actress takes a wrong turn and is drawn into a nightmarish Dystopian world.” Don’t you hate when that happens?
You know how in many movies, you’re watching and then you suddenly know how its going to end. You see the inevitable coming - very predictable. Don’t you hate when that happens? I guarantee that won’t happen here.
“Fffffffffft…….”

Enjoy INLAND EMPIRE with a loved one (but not your kids - unless, as I said, they’re old or bad).

view trailers

THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVERA

2007-08-15T22:00:00.000-04:00

Sci-Fi Geek Movie of the Week:
THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA

Full of insane goofy sci-fi goodness.

When I was a little kid, one of my greatest joys was staying up late at night. I would stay up later than my parents (on the weekends, of course) an watch the late night movies on TV. These consisted mostly of B-grade science fiction and monster movies. My 10 year old imagination readily sucked up features like The Forbidden Planet, Dracula, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and Plan 9 From Outer Space.

They weren’t necessarily great movies, but they were simple - and had the prerequisite elements for an exciting time. Aliens, monsters, vampires, commies, atom bombs, etc. And of course, there was at least one scientist who would figure out how to kill them all. The scientist was always the hero of the story (exactly the opposite is true in today’s films), and maybe because of that, I always wanted to be a scientist ………………….and do science.

THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA (TLSOC) is not just a parody of these films. It doesn’t make fun of them. It’s more of a tribute. It pulls together all the basic elements into one movie. Filmed in skeletorama, it revels in its Ed Woodian goodness with humor and a little wink to the audience. The actors never break character and treat the material with the schloky reverence it deserves. It was one of the funniest movies I saw that year (2001). The makers of this film have abandoned the “less is more” concept in favor of the “more is more” philosophy. More villains, more monsters, more aliens, more animal-turned-humans, more cheesy broccoli props and hand-drawn special effects - and throw in an Amish terrarium for good measure. The best part though, is the dialog. Although much smarter than original Z-grade movies, it capture the essentials while stripping out all the unnecessary stuff. I dare anyone to watch this without getting a wicked case of the giggles.

The story? I don’t think I could possibly explain the plot of this story. The story is unimportant. The character elements are what’s important. There’s a radioactive meteor (all 50’s sci-fi involved a radioactive something-or-other), an element called Atmospherium that does - well, I don’t know what it does - a monster, an animal woman (?), a good scientist, an evil scientist, aliens, horrible mutilations, cows, and of course - a skeleton. The skeleton is, of course, the star and the funniest character, with his eye-bolt on top of his skull and wires to hold him up, he’s literally a scream.

Although TLSOC received virtually no press or promotion, it was proclaimed by the IFC as one of the top five independent features of the year. It has since enjoyed a wide word-of-mouth popularity, and several fan web site have popped up along the way. Check out this one, and of course, the one you’re now reading.

Top 10 favorite quotes from THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA

Even when I was a child, I was hated by skeletons!
I’ve seen a bear do things, well… even things that even a bear wouldn’t do.
Aliens? Us? Is this one of your Earth jokes?
Betty, you know what this meteor could mean to science. It could mean actual advances in the field of science.
I sleep now.
I’m a scientist, I don’t believe in anything.
We take our horrible mutilations seriously around these parts.
t’s okay bossy I’m here now. There, there bossy, there, there. No, no! You’re not Bossy! You’re not Bossy!
Sorry, sometimes my wife forgets that she is not an alien from outer space.
Well, I suppose if I had wanted a safe life, I wouldn’t have married a man who studies rocks.

You will enjoy THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA. The skeleton commands it!

ORLANDO

2007-08-12T23:00:00.000-04:00

This week's movie:
ORLANDO

I like this movie - a lot - and I’m not sure why.

I saw it years ago when it first came out (1992). That was right around the time when I first started to appreciate the vast untapped resource of “movies nobody has ever heard of”. I wasn’t expecting it to be good because ………well, because I’d never heard of it, and for goodness sake, if I’d never heard of it - how good could it be?

It was damn good.

When I was done, I watched it again.

It was unlike the “ordinary” films that I was used to. Who’d of thought that I could be moved by a film that wasn’t a tearjerker or didn’t have a plot or really wasn’t about anything. But a film doesn’t have to have plot to be interesting, and a film doesn’t have to manipulative to be moving, and a film doesn’t have to tell jokes to be funny. I like this movie but I can’t put my finger on why.

The story is about the amazing life adventures of Orlando, a wealthy gentleman dandy in England during the Elizabethan era. During a party, having charmed Queen Elizabeth I, she commands Orlando to remain young forever.

So he does.

What follows, are episodes of his life over the next 400 years, first as a man, then later as a woman. About halfway through the story, Orlando wakes up as a woman. No big deal is made about it (”Same person. No difference at all… just a different sex.”) She’s lived for nearly 400 years, but because this is England, people pretend not to notice.

Orlando (both the man and woman) is convincingly portrayed by the fabulous and visually striking Tilda Swinton. She imbues her character with just the right amount of dignity, desperation, and humor. When she occasionally winks to the audience or gives an aside, it allows yourself to become his/her companion as we keep her company throughout his/her long life.

The film is based on the novel (of the same name) by Virginia Woolf. People often refer to this as a “chick flick” because it seems to favor the female Orlando. I don’t agree. Although Orlando does seem to be happier and more fulfilled at the end of the movie, I don’t think it’s because, as many claim, he’s become a woman. I think it’s more because she’s had 400 years to get it right.

If you think that this movie’s not for you, or you’re not interested in seeing it, fear not! I have provided a list of potential excuses below for your convenience (we at FranksFilms are always thinking of our readers’ well being).

It’s based on literature? Sorry, I’ve swore off literature since high school.
Virginia Woolf? Wait! Didn’t she write that book “Mrs. Dalloway? Christ, it took me forever to get through that!
It can’t possibly be any good. I’ve never heard of it.
I’ll wait for the remake starring Angelina Jolie.
Tilda Swinton? Wait wasn’t she in that Chronicles or Narnia movie? Christ, it took me forever to get through that!
I never watch movies. I don’t even own a television set. I only read books - and only books that I’ve heard of - and only books that have never been made into a movie.
I have small children and can only watch movies that are appropriate for kids.
I won’t watch British films. I only watch movies that were made right here in the U S of A ……………………like Star Wars.
My husband/wife will only watch movies about sports. And I don’t think polo or cricket count.
FranksFilms? Wait! Didn’t you once recommend The Saddest Music in the World? Christ, it took me forever to get through that!

ORLANDO, oh yeah. Now I remember why I liked this movie.

Because it’s good.
Enjoy.

FITZCARRALDO

2007-07-29T22:12:00.000-04:00

Movie of the week:
FITZCARRALDO

That idea is so crazy, it just might work.

When I first started writing about these movies, there were literally just three people on my distribution list. It was easy. They were personal friends of mine, and I could target the sort of films I knew they might like - that I knew would appeal to them. Now, there are so many of you, that is almost impossible. Hence my common qualification, "this movie is not for everybody" or, "you need to have a certain sense of humor to enjoy this film" or, "most of you will HATE this movie".

Now, I think I've finally found a movie that will appeal to almost everyone! You won't need to be jaded against the Hollywood junk machine. You won't need to be desperate for something that's so different that no one in his right mind would otherwise watch. You won't need to suspend disbelief at any time. Everyone will love this movie. You just have to be willing to read subtitles.....

OK, so maybe it doesn't appeal to everyone.

Director, Werner Herzog made two films based in the Amazon jungle of South America. The first, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, was about a conquistador, played by Klaus Kinski, who broke rank and led his men on a search for the legendary El Dorado - and instead found madness. In FITZCARRALDO, also played by Klaus Kinski, a very determined man follows his dream.

The story: Klaus Kinski plays Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - 'Fitzcarraldo', a man who ekes out a meager living making ice in the Peruvian jungle of the early 1900’s. Fitz has one love in his life – opera. His dream is to build an opera house there in the jungle - but it costs money, more money that can be had making and selling ice. The only known way to make that kind of money is (no – not cocaine, this is early 1900’s) to harvest the indigenous rubber trees from the jungle. Sounds easy enough, but the only unclaimed rubber trees are located up a section of the river that is not navigable by boat. But nobody is going to tell Fitzy what he can’t do.

The result is an adventure on an epic scale. Fitzcarraldo is a very likeable character because he truly believes in what he is doing. It’s the same reason that we like Don Quixote. He’s crazy – but in a good and interesting way. In the same way, we like Fitzcarraldo because he doesn’t let anything deter his quest – like physics.

Here’s some interesting FITZCARRALDO tidbits.

There are no special effects in this film. What the characters did in the movie, the actors actually did. No miniatures were used. The ship was moved with a hand winch just as you see it. When the ship encounters the rapids, the ship encounters actual rapids (six actors and crewmembers were injured during that scene).
Klaus Kinski and director Werner Herzog independently plotted each other’s murder during the shooting. What the hell, it’s the Amazon jungle – who’s going to know?
This actor and director made several films together. Their friendship and intense hatred for each other is legendary in the film industry and is chronicled in the documentary Klaus Kinski: My Best Fiend (not misspelled).
Actual native Peruvians were used in the jungle scenes. They came to Herzog at the end of shooting to thank him for hiring them and for his friendship and generosity. As a token of friendship, they offered to kill Kinski for him. He told them he’d think about it.
Kinski, who was notorious for being difficult to work with, continuously threatened to walk off the set. Legend has it that Herzog held a gun to his head and threatened to fire unless he finished the film.
At the beginning of filming, the movie starred Jason Robards as Fitz, and also featured Mick Jagger. When Jason got ill (it was a jungle after all), Kinski came in. This was good because Robards would be playing a madman, while Kinski was just playing himself. I don’t know what happened to Mick.
For that matter, what ever happened to Mick? Does he do anything these days? He better be doing something – he’s got a lot of alimony to pay.
This film makes Steven Jay Schneider’s book, “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”. In fact, it makes most film critics’ “must see” list.
This is one of film critic Roger Ebert’s favorite films. You can read his review here.
Opera – schmopera. If he wanted it that bad, why didn’t he just move to where the opera was?????

I know I recommend a lot of really funky films – especially lately, but all kidding aside, this is one hell of a movie. If you make the effort to read the subtitles (or learn German), you’ll be treated to an unforgettable cinematic experience. Besides, there’s nothing good on TV tonight – so what the hell?

FITZCARRALDO
Enjoy