Cosmopoetica

I’d heard of The Man Who Laughs many times, starting with my one and only film history class, but never had an opportunity to watch it. What a film! Made at the tail end of the silent film era (the film is, in fact, not truly silent, though there is no synchronized dialogue) and one of the last examples of the German Expressionist film movement that was to shape horror films for decades to come, The Man Who Laughs is a rich film.

The plot is surprisingly complex, but to synopsize: Conrad Veidt plays Gwynplaine, a nobleman’s son, who is disfigured—by order of King James– as a child by a sadistic surgeon as part of a punishment for Gwynplaine’s father (also played by Veidt, incidentally), who is then put to death. Gwynplaine is left alone when his captors flee the country and discovers a blind baby still alive in her mother’s arms. He rescues the baby (Dea, portrayed by Mary Philbin) and they are both saved, and raised, by a travelling philosopher and vaudeville show producer. Gwynplaine doesn’t know he is heir to a fortune and a peer of England and a former court jester, who now serves Josiana (Olga Baclanova), the Duchess who now has Gwynplaine’s rightful property, is determined to see that he never gets it. Gwynplaine, for his part, has fallen in love with Dea—who can’t see his disfigured smile and loves him solely for who he is.

Conrad Veidt is simply amazing. Not only does he convey complex emotions without the use of his voice, but he does so while wearing a face deforming device that shape his mouth into a permanent rictus and horrific dentures that basically immobilize the lower half of his face. Surely Batman appropriated this (or Victor Hugo’s original story)…

In one of the most stunning scenes in the movie, Josiana (who doesn’t yet know that Gwynplaine is not just a nobleman, but owner of the property and fortune she is enjoying, attempts to seduce Gwynplaine. Though Gwynplaine loves Dea, he is sorely tempted (and who wouldn’t be, Josiana positively drips with haughty, contemptuous sexuality and I was surprised at the relative raciness of a few scenes)… until she, too, laughs at him and he flees, in search of Dea. The amazing part of this scene is that Gwynplaine is clearly fleeing in his head well before he can flee Josiana’s bedchambers, but he is torn between the physical attraction and his growing psychological repulsion.

Another unforgettable moment occurs when Gwynplaine—who is an honest, humble and almost fatally weak man—finally takes a stand at his induction into the House of Lords, buffeted by laughter and confusion by the rest of the Peers, who think he is laughing at the Queen (and at them) when he refuses the Queen’s order to marry Josiana. “The King made me a man,” Gwynplaine shouts, “The Queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!”

The sets and lighting deserve notice here as well. I don’t have enough experience to know whether they were exceptional in the genre, but they were certainly exceptional for me as a viewer.

For people like me, who don’t watch many silent movies, the mannerisms of the actors can come off as overacting and mugging… but 20 minutes or so into the film, intrigued by the sets and the fine performances that were already becoming obvious—and the classic beauty and beast setup—all that was forgotten and I was simply engrossed.

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[photo by jazzlawyer]

I love going to the movies as much now as when I was a kid. For me, as wound up in childhood memories as it is, the big screen experience can’t be duplicated at home for any amount of money.

But the punishment I get for living in essentially a one-horse town is that there is only one local theater with 16 screens (I remember all too well  when there were only two screens) filled with the most mainstream releases. Fortunately I rarely have time to go and NetFlix remains my cinematic close companion. So I shouldn’t be surprised that, confronted with enough time to actually go to a movie, there’s hardly anything worth watching. Choices include:

• 10,000 BC (wooly mammoths, pyramids, and saber-tooth tigers as large as carnivorous dinosaurs? I don’t think so)
• Semi-Pro (Will Ferrell playing a lovable but ridiculous character? Never seen that before)
• The Eye (Jessica Alba as a musician is more believable than her turn as a scientist, but if I’m going to watch her “acting” she better be shaking it like she was in that Honey movie)
• Fool’s Gold (I’d rather cut off and eat my own legs than sit through a romantic comedy right now)
• Witless Protection (can’t that “comedian” who keeps saying “git ‘er done” just have the heart-attack he’s so clearly destined for already?)

The only promising title seems to be The Bank Job (getting good reviews… plus I’ll watch anything with Saffron Burrows in it). Maybe I’ll just go watch Juno again.

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I avoided this one as long as I could courtesy of my instinctive aversion to hype, but Chocolat turned out to be a much better film than I expected. Juliette Binoche is (as always) radiant, and Johnny Depp– a potentially great actor hamstrung by his own fame– gives a fine, understated performance. Predictable in its outlines, the film is better than it should be thanks to strong supporting performances by Judy Dench, Alfred Molina and even Carrie Moss– in possibly her least wooden performance ever– among others. There’s a bit of Amelie style magic and wimsy at work here, though ultimately this film is on a different, lower plane than that masterpiece.

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Despite being a fan of many of Bruce Willis’ performance, I’d never seen any of his Die Hard movies until watching this “DVD-TV” production of the first in the series– a film released the year I graduated from high school! DVD-TV is AMCs cinematic version of pop-up video– the film is shown in wide format while information about the production, trivia, and commentary from people involved in making it is displayed underneath. The commentary was a bit heavy on the Shakespeare references (director John Tiernan was apparently inspired by some of Shakespeare’s plays), but otherwise captivating, revealing much about the sets and artistic production, the choice of actors, the novel that informed the script, and the changes that were explicitly made to prevent it from being a film about terrorism…

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Eric Bana stars as Chopper, a renowned Australian criminal I’d never heard of before. Chopper is by turns charming and brutal, but Bana’s performance gives the character a depth that sets Chopper apart from others in the same vein. Chopper doesn’t take pleasure in his rage nor is he coldly detached… if anything he is surprised by his own actions. People simultaneously fear and are attracted to Chopper and he seems to realize that whatever he is, he is different from other peoplem by virtue of charisma and cruelty. Chopper uses this difference to great advantage, becoming an unreformed celebrity in the process. Bana is riveting, the accent and dialect nearly incomprehensible.

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I’m not sure why this film disappeared without a trace… Edward Norton and Naomi Watts give Oscar-caliber performances of tremendous subtlety. Most of the action in this movie happens beneath the surface– Watts’ ennui leading to a more unwise-than-usual affair, Norton’s simmering anger at her and at himself for having loved her at all, and a rare, realistic look at how these emotions play out amidst the spectacle of cholera ridden, pre-revolution (just) China. Powerful and beautiful, with an ending that betrays how different our standards have become when it comes to closure in film vs literature.

Incidentally, Toby Jones– star of the Capote film I have yet to see– steals most of the scenes he appears in…

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Thanks to a reference by Reginald Shepherd I discovered Robert Philen’s blog. Why is his name so familiar to me? Anyway, a lot of fun reading to be had there (before I go on, a nod toward his entertaining and oh-so-true post on why punk rock is so boring). I recommend checking out his favorite books (parts one and two) and films (parts one and two) of 2007. Great capsule reviews/notes that are personal, direct, and don’t claim to place every piece in a grand universal aesthetic schema).

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• One Line Review: Watch it for the acting, but don’t expect a lot of narrative satisfaction.

• Lineage: All the President’s Men meets Law and Order and a serial killer of the realistic (aka decidedly not Hannibal Lecter) variety.

• Zodiac has pretty much everything going for it except for one critical thing (I can’t imagine this is a spoiler, but stop reading if you are really paranoid): the fact that the real-life crime under the microscope has never been solved.

• Mark Ruffalo! One of my favorite actors. Hard to believe this character is the same person that inspired the classic Steve McQueen film Bullitt. The chemistry with Anthony Edwards is good, but the cop-side belongs to Ruffalo.

• Gack! All the mind-numbing details of the realistic procedural– on the crime-solving side anyway. I suspect things really aren’t that much better today, though I had to laugh at the discombobulation when they try to figure out who has a “telefax” machine to relay some crucial information.

• The last thing the killer says to the woman he picks up– she is holding her infant in her lap– will haunt me in my dreams.

• Robert Downey Jr. can play this kind of part in his sleep and yet he still manages to bring the role to life. Downey has some fine work to his name, but oh! what could have been.

• I am growing weary of the wide-eyed innocent Jake Gyllenhaal. I prefer the Donnie Darko Jake.

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• One Line Review: I wasn’t expecting much and that’s pretty much what I got. Don’t bother unless you get high first. Real high.
• Lineage: King of the Hill (the cartoon) + Sleeper + the worst of Mad TV
• There are hundreds of funny moments, ideas, and gags in this film– almost none put to good use.
• Maya Rudolph has her moments in SNL… but an actress she is not.
• This is no Office Space. This isn’t even a Beavis and Butthead.

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• One line review: it ain’t Unforgiven but it’s good. Rent it.
• Lineage: In an experiment, the scientific spirits of Unforgiven and High Noon clone the original 3:10 to Yuma.
• Russell Crowe just annoys me for some reason. He’s really a great actor, but it take me 1/3 or more of the film to really get past the fact that it’s ol-fat-face in the role. The night-stabbing is what flips me.
• And Christian Bale– I will probably never get past the image of him swaddled in bloody visqueen in _American Psycho_, but he does a good job with a character that just isn’t quite as sympathetic as he is intended to be… see last point.
• Charlie Prince has crazy man-love for Ben Wade… if I wasn’t sure at the halfway point, I was sure by the end.
• Pretty much every single part in this film from large to small is done really well. Peter Fonda and Alan Tudyk get gold stars.
• I don’t think Ben Wqade or Dan Evans actually know why they end up doing what they do. But I enjoyed the consistency (and there is a logic to even the apparent reversals of character) right down to Ben Wade whistling for his horse at the very end.
• I’ve never seen the original, but I’m adding it to my NetFlix queue ASAP. Not because this movie is that great, but because my curiosity is piqued about how the characterization of the main characters is handled– there’s something very “modern Western” about the Ben Wade, Dan Evans, Charlie Prince trio.

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The opening credits animation sequence is freakin’ cool.

Ellen Page (who really impressed me last year in Hard Candy) is phenomenal in this role.

The single real flaw in the movie is that the first 10 minutes or so of dialogue are overwritten, leaving the characters no room to breathe (I like Rainn Wilson in general, but his lines here are the perfect example)… but there is a single moment when it all turns around: after telling her parents she is pregnant her father remarks that he didn’t think she was the kind of girl who would make that mistake and Juno looks at him for a second then says “I don’t know what kind of girl I am.” It’s a fantastic moment with Page’s complete mastery of facial expression and emotion, tone– I was floored. It’s not that the dialogue subsequently becomes more “accurate”– it’s that the humanity of the characters is so firmly in place that the evocation of this unique world that partially intersects our own is complete.

I can anticipate the complaints this film will get: the dialogue isn’t “real”, there is no reflection on women’s rights, Juno is too adult/smart/witty/etc… they are all wrong.

There are so many moving and funny moments in this film– it provokes deep emotion and high hilarity without being gaudy or obvious.

The soundtrack is like the best box of chocolates– a constant supply of treats, some different, some the same, all good. Anchored by Kimya Dawson songs, here a a few others that remain stuck in my mind: Mott the Hoople’s (was it originally David Bowie’s?) “All the Young Dudes” and The Moldy Peaches (Kimya Dawson’s band) “Anyone Else But You” and Cat Power and Belle & Sebastian…

Olivia Thirlby, who plays Juno’s best friend, should break out big after this movie. Michael Cera, Juno’s friend/boyfriend/sperm donor needs to break out of this character, which is pretty much an extension of his role in Arrested Development, but boy is he good at it.

I sure was happy to see Allison Janney again, and again she kicks a**. I miss the early days of The West Wing. These are not your normal teen comedy parents.

It’s a strange year when the two best movies I’ve seen are: Juno and No Country for Old Men.

Lineage: Love-child of Clerks and Heathers who spent a lot of time watching films like Little Miss Sunshine…

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With a plot summary like this (and Tim Roth), how can I resist?

The film opens in Bucharest in 1938, where Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), a linguistics professor in his 70s, is planning to take his own life for reasons that will become (sort of) clear later. Before he can take the poison that he’s procured for the occasion, he’s struck by lightning and nearly burnt to a crisp. As he recovers in the hospital, tended by a kind doctor (Bruno Ganz), something inexplicable happens: His grey hair turns reddish again, his wrinkles begin to smooth, his teeth fall out en masse only to be replaced by new ones. He’s getting younger.

Along with his lost youth, Dominic has gained a döppelganger, a second Tim Roth who pops up in mirrors to advise him on the pursuit of his life’s goal: to discover the origin of all human language. With his brain supercharged by the lightning bolt, Dominic masters Chinese and Sanskrit in a snap, and is eventually—I love this detail—forced to invent a new language to express the complexity of his thoughts, which he records in an audio diary.

Of course, 1938 is a tough time to be, in Dominic’s words, “a strange superman of the future.” Soon he finds himself pursued by Nazi scientist Josef Rudolf (André M. Hennicke), who wants to experiment on his radically transformed body. Despite the best efforts of a sexy Nazi spy (that swastika embroidered on her garter belt should have been a tip-off), Dominic manages to escape to Switzerland, where he waits out the war while continuing his research.

Hiking up a mountain path some years after the war, Dominic thinks he sees the lost (and now long-dead) love of his youth, Laura, in the form of a woman named Veronica (both roles are played by German-Romanian actress Alexandra Maria Lara). But just moments after meeting Dominic on a mountain road, Veronica is struck by lightning, too, and winds up in a cave babbling in Sanskrit. Italian scholars are flown in—it’s not clear at whose expense—to confirm that Veronica is either possessed by, or the reincarnation of, a seventh-century Indian woman named Rupini.

As Veronica/Laura/Rupini proceeds to regress through the history of human language, babbling first in Egyptian, then Sumerian, then something like proto-caveman, Dominic gets ever closer to deciphering the Ur-language that will complete his life’s work. But will it be at the expense of his true love’s life?

[Read the rest of Dana Stevens' review in Slate]

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At least, not being able to speak, I am spared the need to explain why every film is “overlooked,” or why I wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

I already think Roger Ebert is unfairly dismissed by cinema snobs– he is more insightful than many give him credit for, despite his popularity– but my respect for the man just went through the roof. Inspiring…

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Written by: Brian Nelson
Directed by: David Slade
Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh^*

After three weeks of Instant Messenger chatting, 14 year old Hayley (Ellen Page) agrees to meet 32 year old Jeff (Patrick Wilson) face-to-face for the first time. She is smart and engaging beyond her years, but very clearly underage. He is a photographer who is a little too knowledgeable about the music she listens to and the authors she is reading and– despite his simultaneous protestations and flirtations– they end up at his hillside home/studio drinking screwdrivers and talking about his career photographing young (mostly underage) models.

Before long he will find himself wishing he had taken her advice to never accept a drink one didn’t mix themselves… and in a brief, blurry moment we see Hayley dancing on his couch in a skirt and bra before the movie changes into something else completely. You see, Hayley has an agenda of her own and it’s the kind of plan that years before she was born put the “fatal” in the title of the film Fatal Attraction.
(more…)

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Written by: Richard Russo and Robert Benton
Directed by: Harold Ramis
Starring: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Platt, Mike Starr, Randy Quaid

I’m not sure how I’d define the genre of “dark comedy” other than with the reassurance that I know it when I see it. The Ice Harvest is a dark comedy. I know because I laughed at things that involved (often gruesome) violence and comedic moments involving conversations with a hit-man who’s stuffed in a trunk on his way to being dumped in a lake, discussion as to whether the trunk will fit in a good old American car or a Mercedes, and random shots fired into and out of said trunk.
(more…)

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Written by: Kevin Smith
Directed by: Kevin Smith
Starring: Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith

In Clerks II, Randal has once again left a cigarette burning in a Quick Stop trash can, this time resulting in the complete destruction of the place. Dante and Randal find themselves working at Mooby’s, a western-themed McDonald’s clone where Randal seems perfectly happy torturing Elias (Trevor Fehrman), an obsessively geeky co-worker, and still ranting about the state of the universe while Dante is serving out his last days before leaving for Florida. Jay and Silent Bob have relocated to the restaurant wall and resumed their business. Most of the conversations and scenes revolve around Clerks ViewAskewniverse style topics like Lord of the Rings vs Star Wars, bestiality, reclaiming the term “Porch Monkey” as a friendly term, and the ethics of ass-to-mouth.

But there’s been more than just a change of scenery– there’s some question of whether the center here can hold. (more…)

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Written by: Milo Addica and James Marsh
Directed by: James Marsh
Starring: William Hurt, Gael Garcia Bernal, Paul Dano, Pell James

Elvis (Gael Garcia Bernal) has just completed a tour overseas in the Navy and sets out to locate his father David (William Hurt), now a born-again Christian and successful minister in Corpus Christi. His father makes clear that he has moved on and that he doesn’t want to reveal his past or disturb his new family, though maybe they could get together at some point the future to “talk.” Elvis pursues and begins a secret affair with David’s daughter Malerie (Pell James), who has no idea Elvis is her half-brother. When David’s son Paul (Paul Dano) disappears, Elvis moves into his house– into XPaul’s room, in fact– continuing his relationship with Malerie while David and his wife Twyla (Laura Harring), who knows the secret, begin to accept him as their son.

The King is a deeply disturbing film. (more…)

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Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench,
Giancarlo Giannini, Sebastian Foucan

I have to admit that I loved this new vision of 007– the character and the film franchise– from the odd opening graphics and the (apparently) much-maligned Chris Cornell theme to the long-awaited final words.

Campbell’s direction throws no punches. Opening with a gritty, grainy black and white sequence where a relatively inexperienced Bond has to make his second kill in order to earn his “Double O” status, we are immediately treated to Bond as not just a real human being, but one who is disconcertingly real and paradoxical. When asked about how his first target died he remarks drily “not well,” but the flashback scenes to the brutal, hand-to-hand struggle illustrate just how serious he is.

Daniel Craig is an entirely convincing Bond, his performance bringing to life an intricate interplay between the agent who is still learning how the world works and the mythical character we have come to expect.
(more…)

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http://www.slate.com/id/2145157/

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Julianne Moore plays Brenda, who walks through a low-income housing development in a daze, her hands badly cut and bleeding, to the hospital. She’s almost incoherent, possibly stoned, but she tells Detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) that she was carjacked. Council suspects she’s hiding something and finally gets her to reveal that her son was asleep in the backseat and is missing.

At this point, Council– and the entire movie– break down. Council nearly has a panic attack, flailing his long limbs around, alternately berating Brenda, gasping for breath from his asthme, and generally desperately overacting. I know from the book that Council can see a terrible story beginning to unfold: a white woman carjacked and her child stolen by a black man in Armstrong, an area of projects where tensions with its predominantly white neighbors are already high. Unfortunately, watching the movie leaves us to think that the cool-talking Detective Council has simply never dealt with a serious crime before.

To make things worse, Brenda’s brother is a detective from the neighboring district. Soon, he and the entire white police squad have put Armstrong in virtual lockdown, despite it not being their jurisdiction and in the face of offering no help in the investigastion of the murders of three black children in the past three years. Meanwhile Council– flaunting pretty much every procedure imaginable– squires Brenda around town: back to the crime scene, to her apartment, to a friend’s apartment. He realizes there is more to this story and is desperate to uncover the truth before full-scale rioting breaks out. So desperate that he even decides to cooperate with a group of women who help search for missing children, lead by the marvelous Edie Falco. This triangle will ultimately reveal a truth that no one wants to accept.

Freedomland is a basket of loose ends and contradictions. Brenda’s brother seems intent on revenge, but nothing really seems to come of it, even when the truth comes out. Julianne Moore puts on a marvelous performance, but in service of a completely unbelievable and incomprehensible character. Samuel L. Jackson is– well– Samuel L. Jackson, but in a character that has neither the depth, nor the heights of cool, that his style demands. Only Edie Falco emerges from this job unscathed, her long scene with Julianne Moore one of the few examples of genuine emotion and sense. Othewise, the story simply unfolds, with seemingly disconnected events, until it ends… with a meandering coda that helps no one.

I should note that I didn’t find the book much better than the movie. Where the movie is missing too much to really build any dramatic intensity, the book is incredibly overwritten, killing the drama in wholly different way…

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