Impressionistic...elliptical...oracular...profound. Terrence Malik's newest cosmological drama, "The Tree of Life," has been given many adjectives, and the respective acclaimed director of "Days of Heaven," "Bad Lands," and the "New World," who has remained notably reclusive throughout his years, took home an award for it at the Cannes Film Festival.
However, the real question that remains is: can the fast-paced, HD-obsessed culture of today stomach this silver screen rendition of Malick's inner consciousness, an ethereal and evanescent, memory-filled one at that? If you enjoy BBC's Planet Earth, Stephen Hawking specials on the "Big Bang," or films with the religious, metaphysical aura of an Ingmar Bergman picture, then the answer is yes. Otherwise, see it at your own risk.
Undoubtedly, "Tree of Life" is a visual wonder, filled with breathtaking views of all kinds: celestial stars and supernovas, the alignment of planets, eruptions of fiery lava, bubbling pools of gaseous water, the first traces of unicellular life, microscopic larvae, dinosaurs, breaking waves, subterranean fissures, pristine canyons, mountain ranges, beaches, pock-marked landscapes, and waterfalls, triassic riverbeds, amoebas, primordial hammerheads and jellyfish, dappled sunlight that filters through canopies of verdurous tree leaves, rolling meadows, spiraling cathedrals, labyrinth-filled energy plants, and the list goes on. Malick tries to illustrate the grand schema of everything, linking human beings and their place and struggle in the universe with that of every other form of life, and he definitely deserves kudos for that-- as does he for his lush, dreamlike montage of fleeting childhood memories (boys climbing trees, playing baseball, swimming in the river, etc.). However, it's ultimately the lack of thoroughly concretized characters and settings (as well as the film's occasionally choppy editing) that prevents this movie from reaching its full potential.
The story follows Jack O'Brian (Sean Penn), a ruminative lost soul in the postmodern world, who, like many of us, pines for the innocence of his youth. Still grief-stricken by the loss of his brother, who died at 19, Jack flashes back to his own "Garden of Eden": the early pre-Eisenhower days of the 1950s when he and his two brothers, R.L. and Steve, were growing up in Waco, Texas. His loving, but authoritative father (Brad Pitt) was a factory owner, his soft-hearted and nurturing mother (Jessica Chastain) was a typical, Baby Boom-era housewife, and he and brothers were just normal kids: adventurous, naive, and carefree. However, as the years passed and Jack began to witness the harsh realities of the world, the blissfulness of his childhood slowly began to disappear.
The basic message of the film that Malick is trying to deliver with poetic sentimentality is that the world is divided into two categories: "grace" and "nature." Grace is loving, unselfish, and divine, and nature is, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, "nasty, brutish, and short." Adhering to conventional western views, Malick represents Mrs. O'Brian as the quintessential model of grace and Mr. O'Brian as a more complicated model of nature. The former tells her boys that "unless you love, your life will pass you by." The latter tells his boys that "it takes fierce will to get ahead in this world," and if you want to get ahead in this world, "you can't be too good." Although Mr. O'Brian, an avid church organist on the side, is certainly sympathetic in his role as the industrious, perseverant father who forgoes his artistic passions to feed his family, the movie never really fully explores his character, and the same is the case with Jack and Mrs. O'Brian.
"Tree of Life," which utilizes whispery, disembodied voice-overs (channeling the deep and reflective inner thoughts of the characters), swiveling and swirling, angular views, and a mixture of shots-- some extremely close-up and others extraordinarily expansive (such as when we view the birth of the universe, e.g.), is a beautiful arrangement of Malick's personal thoughts and memories, but there's little cohesion to them. As an experimental film, it's great for small theaters and gallery IMAX studios. For the traditional audience, though, it simply hasn't reached its full growth. That being said, I give it a 6.5/10.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Other Fresh Picks
Selecting 10 favorite films of mine was a very hard task. There were some I knew had to be on the list, but then there were a few that I almost ended up flipping a coin over. Here are some of the other films that didn't make the list but were nevertheless spectacular
1) Amores Perros (2000); Directed by Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu; Mexico
2) Cries and Whispers (1972); Directed by Ingmar Bergman; Sweden
3) A Clockwork Orange (1971); Directed by Stanley Kubrick; Britain
4) A Few Good Men (1992); Directed by Rob Reiner; U.S.
5) Godfather Part II (1974); Directed by Francis Ford Coppola; U.S.
6) Black Swan (2010); Directed by Daron Aronovsky; U.S.
7) Rules of the Game (1939); Directed by Jean Renoir; France
8) Paths of Glory (1957); Directed by Stanley Kubrick; Britain
9) Midnight Express (1978); Directed by Alan J. Parker; U.S.
10) The Rope (1948); Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; U.S.
11) Scarface (1983); Directed by Brian De Palma; U.S.
12) Saving Private Ryan (1998); Directed by Steven Spielberg; U.S.
13) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007); Directed by Sidney Lumet; U.S.
14) Dog Day Afternoon (1975); Directed by Sidney Lumet; U.S.
15) Last of the Mohicans (1992); Directed by Michael Mann; U.S.
16) Strangers On A Train (1951); Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; U.S.
17) Speed (1994); Directed by Jan de Bont; U.S.
18) The Philadelphia Story (1940); Directed by George Cuckro; U.S.
19) Some Like It Hot (1959); Directed by Billy Wilder; U.S.
20) Casablanca (1942); Directed by Michael Curtiz; U.S.
21) Vertigo (1958); Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; U.S.
22) Psycho (1960); Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; U.S.
23) The Graduate (1967); Directed by Mike Nichols; U.S.
24) The Virgin Spring (1960); Directed by Ingmar Bergman; Sweden
25) The Seventh Seal (1957); Directed by Ingmar Bergman; Sweden
10 Favorite Films of Mine; Review/Critique Ten
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER 10: Orange County (2002)
It may come as a shock, but my own personal experience of applying to college (during my senior year of high school) was actually not that bad. I'm not sure why that was, but for others, though, "bad" would be an understatement, and there are a number of reasons for that. For some people, it was the low SAT scores or the onslaught of rejection letters. For others, though, there were, of course, those infamously sluggish guidance counselors who unintentionally made the process all the more agonizing. However, while I'm sure the latter was, still is, and will continue to be extraordinarily frustrating and exacerbating for many people in real life, in the movie world, i.e. Jake Kasdan's Orange County (2002), the latter is downright hilarious.
The movie, which takes place in Orange County, California, is the story of Shaun Brumder (Colin Hanks), an overachieving high school student and aspiring writer with his heart set on attending Stanford the fall after his graduation. When not hanging out with his air-headed surfer buddies, Lonny (Bret Harrison), Arlo (Kyle Howard), and Chad (R.J. Knoll), or getting intimate with his girlfriend, Ashley (Schuyler Fisk), Shaun is either busy reading books or writing college essays. Thus, it comes as no surprise when Shaun's guidance counselor, Charlotte Cobb (Lily Tomlin), tells him that he is a "shoo-in" wherever he applies. However, things suddenly go awry when Cobb accidentally mails the wrong transcript and Shaun, thus, isn't accepted into Stanford. Of course, it doesn't help that everyone in Shaun's family has idiosyncratic issues: his brother, Lance (Jack Black) is a drug-abusing couch potato who lies around in his underwear all day, his mother, Cindy (Catherine O'Hara), is an alcoholic, his step-father, Bob (George Murdock) is incapacitated, and his biological father, Bud (John Lithgow), doesn't support his aspirations to be a writer. Nevertheless, with the exhausted help of his family and friends, Shaun does what he can to fix the mistake Cobb made and hopefully be admitted into Stanford.
Why is this film one of my top ten favorites? Is the reason because it's a touching, powerful work of thought-provoking, cinematic art? No...the reason is because it's exactly what it intends to be: lighthearted and funny! There are not many comedies nowadays that actually make me laugh (Sweeney Todd, Kick-Ass, and Tropic Thunder being the few exceptions), and for those that do, it's not the uncontrollable, gust-busting and tear-shedding type of laughter that we all seek that I succumb to. To be blunt, the reason why is that most comedies are either horrendously lazy & obnoxious (i.e. The Hangover) or are filled with uncomfortably contrived jokes that don't fit inside an otherwise dark and dramatic story. Oftentimes I'm left completely baffled, wondering to myself why more films can't be as fun, frivolous and silly as Airplane (1980), Naked Gun (1988), Austin Powers (1997), Meet The Parents (2000), or any of the Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Marx Brothers films. Thus, when films like Orange County come along and pleasantly surprise me I give them unmitigated appraisal.
So what is it about Orange County that makes it such a hilarious film? The answer to that question can found by answering another question: What is it about any comedy, joke, or humorous situation, story, or person that makes us laugh? Some would say that we laugh when we're trying to cover up own our feelings of sadness or pain. Of course there are plenty of instances when that is simply not the case. My feeling is that we usually laugh when there is a sense of irony or incongruity to something: e.g. a macho man in a dress and high heels, a dog in a polo shirt and sunglasses sitting at the steering wheel of a car, or the tragic demise of a great leader who slips on a banana peel and falls a towering one foot to his death. Another reason why we laugh, according to many, is that it makes us feel better about ourselves to snicker at those whom we consider to be "inferior." Mean-spirited? Yes...very much so, and oftentimes to a frightening degree. However, there are many characters that no one has or would ever have a problem ridiculing: Homer Simpson, George Costanza, and Happy Gilmore, just to name a few, and in Orange County, that type of humor is exactly what we get.
Orange County caters to the common stereotype that people from rich, coastal communities are stupid and superficial, and a number of moments in the film brilliantly exemplify that. During one scene, one of the "air-headed" surfers rides a mountainous wave during a hurricane, and the last words he casually utters before meeting his maker are: "Dude, this is extreme!" During another scene, an English teacher idiotically rattles off a number of films that (according to him) were inspired by Shakespearean plays, including Gladiator, Waterworld, and Chocolat. There is a scene when the Dean of Admissions at Stanford accidentally ingests ecstasy, and another in which a person gets high and "accidentally" sets a building on fire. Cobb, the ditzy guidance counselor, is always worth a belly laugh or two, as are Shaun's family members. In fact, the goofiest sequence in the movie occurs when Shaun tries to put on a good impression for the president of Stanford and his wife. When they arrive at his house (much to his horrified chagrin), Shaun tries desperately hard to make sure his mother, brother, and stepfather remain quiet and don't embarrass him. Of course, this doesn't go as planned, and Shaun watches in shock and dismay as his mother puts on a lively, drunken performance, his brother (in his underwear), after performing a cartwheel over his bed, interrupts Shaun's meeting to ask where his drug-related urine sample is, and his stepfather starts banging on the windows.
Delivering sharp, well-executed jokes and hilarious performances, Orange County is an example of comedy at its best.
10 Favorite Films of Mine; Review/Critique Nine
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER 9: The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
I'm sure as kids, most of us hated being told to "go to our rooms" or to sit in "time-out." However, as we all know, in the adult world, those types of punishments stand pale in comparison to what happens to you if you break the law. Commit or be convicted of a felony, and you'll find yourself in a more mammoth room, commonly known as prison, with a new, extraordinarily more aggressive form of time-out. Usually, most people are so petrified by the horror stories of lockdowns, disgusting food, and sodomy that they will do anything they can NOT to end up in the "slammer." However, the frightening truth, as I'm sure we all know, is that sometimes wrongfully-accused innocent people end up in prison as well, and Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is a poignant, fictional example of that.
Based on the novella, Rita Hayworth Visits Shawshank Prison, by Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption is the story of Andy DuFresne (Tim Robbins), a successful banker who is wrongfully accused of murdering his adulterous wife and her lover (based on strong circumstantial evidence) and is then subsequently given two life sentences to serve at Shawshank Prison-- run by the mean and authoritative Warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton)-- after being found guilty. The clever and mathematically inclined Andy, who enjoys classical music, literature, and geology, initially struggles with life in prison. For the first few years, Bogs (Mark Rolston) and a gang of inmates known as "The Sisters" sexually assault him, the guards treat him harshly, and he is viewed as being shy and weak. However, after befriending Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), an older inmate who's known for skillfully obtaining illegal contraband, helping the Captain of the Guards Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown) with his taxes in exchange for more library space and free beers for the prisoners while they work outside, and having Bogs and his men beaten and vacated from the penitentiary, Andy's luck starts to change. In addition to Red obtaining a rock hammer (to build a collection of small chessmen) and posters of Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, and Raquel Welch for him, Andy becomes a popular individual and helping-hand around the institution. He begins assisting librarian Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore), aids the guards with their spring taxes, and brings a spirit of life into the prison that had not existed there before him. However, when Norton forces Andy into solitary confinement on several occasions, exploits him for money laundering purposes, and ignores the testimony of a younger prisoner, Tommy Williams (Gil Bellows), who has proof of Andy's innocence, Andy begins to ruminate about hope, freedom, and his current predicament. Will he or Red ever really be able to escape this place?
This film has many strengths. In terms of its acting, both Robbins and Freeman give superbly realistic and sympathetic performances. However, the real excellency of this film is its story. Poignant, unpredictable, and inspiring, The Shawshank Redemption captures not only what it's like to be literally incarcerated, but also spiritually incarcerated as well. Andy DuFresne represents the imperfect, yet perseverant everyday human being. Unfortunately, as this movie suggests, reality can be extraordinarily cruel and unfair, consuming and/or destroying what it wants when it wants it at its own will. Such is the case with Andy, who, after being wrongfully accused and given a life sentence, spends his first few years in prison getting beaten, raped, and verbally assaulted. However, there are several other moving themes imbued in this film that oppose the idea that nature is solely brutal and ugly; namely, the themes of hope and friendship. For instance, Andy is not physically the most powerful person at Shawshank Prison, yet his quick thinking and resourcefulness, intelligence, and affability allow him to tolerably endure the plight that he's in. By that same token, Red survives the predicament he's in because his skill of obtaining illegal contraband allows the other inmates to lead more bearable lives in prison.
One idea that The Shawshank Redemption seems to cater to is an idea that I'm sure we're all familiar with: "Misery loves company." However, I don't believe that this movie is directly suggesting that misery loves company, but rather that it accepts it. That being said, sometimes company, if it's powerful enough, can reduce or even destroy misery, but what misery ultimately loves (or at least desires) is hope, and there is one scene in this movie that evocatively represents that. Put in charge of the warden's office and provided with the opera The Marriage of Figaro, Andy locks the door and plays the record on Norton's public address system for all of the prisoners in the yard to hear. He is put in solitary confinement for a month, and when he gets out, the other inmates ask him how he stayed sane for so long. Andy replies that during confinement, the sound of Mozart's music playing in his head was something he knew the guards couldn't take away from him. This segues into a conversation about hope, and Red tells Andy to avoid thinking about it since it's a "dangerous thing" that'll "drive a man insane." In real life, I'm sure we all, at one point or another, could agree with Red. For instance, when we consider the topic of human mortality, an inevitability we are all cursedly aware of, we sincerely hope that there is something better on the "other side" (be it reincarnation or a blissful afterlife, etc.), but, ultimately, we don't know, and sometimes it really does drive some of us insane. However, that is not to say it should. Aristotle believed that death was either a "ceasing to exist" or "the soul's transmigration" to a different state of being, and if that puts your worries to rest, then so should the adage "Hope is a good thing, and no good thing ever dies" that Andy posits through voice-over later in the film.
SPOILER ALERT: The following paragraph gives away important plot information. If you've not seen this movie and wish to see it, refrain from reading further. Otherwise, read on at your own risk.
The other scene that gloriously represents the issue of hope is one in which a character escapes from prison. During this sequence, we learn that the escapee has burrowed a hole through one of the prison cell walls and broken into a sewage drainpipe with a rock, using the booms and crackles of an incidental, nighttime thunderstorm to wash out the noise. What's particularly compelling about this scene, though, is its visual symbolism. To reach freedom, the escapee crawls through five hundred yards of excrement into a nearby stream. Exiting the drain, he stands with his shirt off and his arms in the air, reveling exaltedly in the deluge of rainfall, and the message of the story at this moment in the film is crystal clear to any viewer who is watching it: the greatest rewards sometimes require us to suffer tremendously. Of course, this shouldn't sound like a new concept to anyone, and throughout history, many anguished people have adhered to this philosophy, including Jesus Christ, the Egyptian Jews, and the African-American slaves. While I do not personally believe that true solace can only be reached through agonizing persistence, it is uplifting to see the issue explored so beautifully in film.
Gracefully well written, well acted, and emotionally pulsating, The Shawshank Redemption is a treasurable tale that exemplifies the triumphant nature of the human spirit. There is a scene in which Andy remarks that you can either "get busy living, or get busy dying," and if the following line struck an inspirational chord with you as it did with me, then you should "get busy" watching this truly captive-ating film.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
10 Favorite Films of Mine; Review/Critique Eight
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER EIGHT: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
You find yourself transported through time, and 19th century London is where you arrive. You walk through the bustling streets of the city, gazing at all of the carriages, top hats, and textile mills. As you stop for a moment and gently rub your face, though, something catches your eye: a red-and-white-striped pole. It's a barbershop, and this piques your interest because you're in desperate need of a shave. However, if this establishment happens to be on Fleet Street, avoid it at all costs. Alleged homicide and cannibalism have been reported to have occurred there. Of course, you're in no real danger, for what I just described is really the fictitious, hilariously morbid subject matter of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007).
You find yourself transported through time, and 19th century London is where you arrive. You walk through the bustling streets of the city, gazing at all of the carriages, top hats, and textile mills. As you stop for a moment and gently rub your face, though, something catches your eye: a red-and-white-striped pole. It's a barbershop, and this piques your interest because you're in desperate need of a shave. However, if this establishment happens to be on Fleet Street, avoid it at all costs. Alleged homicide and cannibalism have been reported to have occurred there. Of course, you're in no real danger, for what I just described is really the fictitious, hilariously morbid subject matter of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007).
Based on the similarly-titled Broadway sensation of the 1970s-- which was in turn inspired by the 1848 short story, A String of Pearls-- with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the tale of a young barber, Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp), who returns home to 19th century London after fifteen years of wrongful imprisonment by Turpin (Alan Rickman), a corrupt and salacious judge who had Barker banished to Australia so he could steal his beautiful wife, Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelley), and daughter, Johanna. Returning home with the help of a young sailor, Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), Barker is a changed man--but not for the better. With a new ghostly complexion, the black and white hairdo of a skunk, heavy-bagged eyes, and a trusted razor blade in hand, Barker, now known as "Sweeney Todd," seeks vengeance upon Turpin and his groveling associate, Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall). In doing so, he returns to his barbershop, which is located above a bakery belonging to Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), and baits Turpin into getting a shave so he can slit his throat. However, when his initial attempt fails, Todd hatches a sinister (but ingenious) plan to help Mrs. Lovett's struggling business while cathartically dealing with his own feelings of vengeance, anger, and mistrust. Todd will slit the throats of his clientele and the bodies will be secretly used as a food source for Mrs. Lovett's pies. Meanwhile, a number of other complications occur. A former employee of his, Adolfo Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), blackmails Todd, a young orphan boy, Toby Ragg (Edward Sanders), moves in with Mrs. Lovett, and Anthony, unbeknownst to Todd, becomes infatuated with the now-teenaged Johanna (Jayne Wisener), who is still under the guardianship of Turpin. As Todd continues to devise ways of luring Turpin back into his shop, various unforeseen obstacles and startling revelations throw off his ultimate, vengeance-driven goal.
If what you've read above leads you to believe that this movie is just some miserable, gruesome horror-drama that pays homage to Soylent Green (1973) and Oliver (1968) while sternly addressing the morbid themes of human vengeance, anger, and violence, you are mistaken. The beauty--and lighthearted fun--of Sweeney Todd is that even though it's extraordinarily bloody, it's a gleefully campy black comedy with catchy, well-written musical numbers and rich visual imagery. Burton, who's known for casting Bonham Carter (his wife) and Depp in most of his movies and directing spooky, ghoulish stories with imaginative and expressive cinematography, brings his A-game here. From the very beginning of the movie, we are given the image of what we've come to expect of 19th century London, a filthy and corrupt metropolis blanketed under clouds of industrial smoke. The streets are dark and lonely, the air is coal-filled and dirty, and everything from the narrow and soot-covered cobblestone roads to the towering and chimney-topped, stone buildings have a drab, ashen appearance them. Despite the look of this crime and prostitution-filled, Dickensian world, though, the copious amount of blood and gore that Todd sheds from his victims is a joyful bright red that flows, splatters, oozes, and squirts freely. A guiltily enjoyable visual feast for the bloodlust-hungry viewer’s eyes, it is not the only appealing aspect of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
In addition, Depp and Bonham Carter are hilarious and entertaining to watch, and a strong Vaudevillian chemistry--represented by several outstanding scenes in the film--exists between the two of them as well. During one musical number, "The Worst Pies In London," the striped-outfit-wearing Mrs. Lovett, dough-roller in hand, elbow-greases her way through several gross-looking, bug-filled pies while spiritedly singing about the economic hardships of Victoria-era London. As she does so, though, Todd keeps attempting to but can't get a single word in. One trademark feature of Burton's films is that he often contrasts bleak, pallid images of the present with luminous, rosy flashbacks and fantasy sequences, and during another musical number in Sweeney Todd, "By The Sea," that technique is used to great comical effect. While Lovett imagines an idyllic life with Todd and Toby down by the ocean, the sun is shining radiantly, the seawater is bright blue, and the grass is as lush and as verdurous as it will ever be, and yet Lovett and Todd are still dressed in their sooty Gothic outfits. Moreover, while Mrs. Lovett smiles as she daydreams, Todd has a snarling expression on his face-- an expression he maintains firmly throughout the film. This blaring dichotomy between the two characters is best exemplified by one scene in which Todd and Lovett sing "My Friends." Entranced, Todd gazes into his razor blades with a sense of reverent appraisal and gratitude. The brilliant light and burnished silver of the blades reflect a perverted, gleeful expression on Todd's face (the only gleeful expression we get from Todd in the entire movie). It is the look of a remorseless serial killer getting his twisted fix, narrowing in on it, and blocking out everything else from his line of vision. That "everything else" includes Mrs. Lovett-- whose unfocused reflection appears in the silver blades as well. While she is infatuated with him and is overtly expressing it, he is completely oblivious to her, infatuated only with the beautiful weapons in his hands.
Sweeney Todd is gory, gruesome, and violent. If you absolutely hate blood and gore, avoid this picture. It's not for you. However, if you can stand blood and are a fan of stylistic, campy films that combine beautiful musical numbers with lavish cinematography, brilliantly charismatic performances, and irreverently hilarious black comedy, then Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is definitely a film worth viewing.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
10 Favorite Films of Mine; Review/Critique Seven
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER SEVEN: The Matrix (1999)
Sometimes I wonder how quickly our society would collapse if all of the computer technology we created were to one day suddenly fail. It seems like a silly notion, but given how extraordinarily dependent we are on the seemingly infinite number of zero-and-one arrangements, microchips, and algorithms that constitute most of our utilitarian lives, I think it is safe to say that we are "slaves to a machine." While many people may be skeptical about the particular issue that I just articulated, though, the Wachowski brothers (Andy and Lana) brilliantly explore it in their science-fiction/action-adventure cult classic, The Matrix (1999).
The film, deeply embedded in ancient philosophical inquiry and religious symbolism, is the story of Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves), later given the alias "Neo," a listless office worker by day and computer hacker by night who is troubled by cryptic messages that continually reappear on his computer screen. Consistently uncertain about his state of consciousness, Thomas/Neo soon realizes that he is being pursued by three sinister, impersonal men who all wear neatly-pressed coat-and-tie outfits, sunglasses, and earplugs. Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), the leader of these men, wants Neo to work for him and capture Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), a supposed "terrorist" who, along with Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and a ragtag group of other disparate individuals, wants Neo--whom they consider the "One"-- to join them in their fight against the "Matrix" (the subject of the messages that have been plaguing Neo's computer). Unplugged and released from a gooey, gelatin-filled pod, Neo is brought aboard Morpheus' ship, the Nebuchadnezzar, introduced to other crew members, including Trinity, Cypher (Joe Pantoliano), Apoc (Julian Arahanga), Dozer (Anthony Ray Parker), Tank (Marcus Chong), Mouse (Matt Doran), and Switch (Belinda McClory), and taught by Morpheus the various truths of the "Matrix." Morpheus explains that it is actually the year 2199 (instead of 1999), computers took over the world at the dawn of the 21st century, and that, in addition to growing human beings and using them for battery fuel, the Matrix has attempted to placate every person by plugging them into a virtual cyber world in which everything seems sensually real. Although Neo is initially frightened and skeptical, he soon must come to terms with reality and, under the guidance of Morpheus, Trinity, and the "Oracle" (Gloria Foster), a sentient computer program that resides in the Matrix and feeds "freed" humans foresight and wisdom, determine whether or not he's the "One" who will lead human beings to freedom.
Immediately, this movie probably brings to mind several powerful ideas that have permeated Western thought: 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes' revolutionary discovery, "Cogito Ergo Sum" ("I Think, Therefore I Am"), which can now be found emblazoned across any billboard or coffee mug, and the system of rationalism (or the belief that our senses may be deceiving us and that our minds are the only things we can trust) that it is based on, Plato's Allegory of the Cave, the "brain in the vat" theory, Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland, and the biblical story of Jesus Christ. However, The Matrix, which closely resembles other films that have also dealt with the theme of false realities and/or artificial intelligence (including, but not limited to: Blade Runner, Logan's Run, The Island, and Inception), addresses other philosophical ideas as well. In Meditations, Descartes, who averred that his test for knowledge would be done when what he knew he knew with "clarity and distinction," posed several other skeptical claims: his dreams could be copies of something real, whether or not he's dreaming, he is certain about simple, mathematical truths, God could be deceiving him about simple mathematical truths, and an evil demon/genius (instead of God) could be intentionally screwing with his senses. In regards to the latter, The Matrix (as it is monitored and protected by Smith and other Agents) is the "evil demon/genius" sent to destroy anyone who becomes aware of it. Similarly, what we might not know about Plato's Allegory of the Cave is that it doesn't simply detail that someone who climbs out of the darkness and into the bright light of the sun will be saved. It also details that when the person who climbs out of the cave climbs back into it and warns others, that person will be laughed at, met with disbelief, and then murdered. If this sounds familiar, it should. Any time you've ever heard the story of a martyred saint (Joan of Arc, for instance) or a person who felt uneasy when they saw a "crazy" homeless man with a sandwich board over his chest that read "The End Is Near," you were probably hearing a representation of that portion of Plato's Allegory, and in The Matrix, there is one moment that alludes to it as well. While training Neo to "free his mind" and defy certain laws of physics (i.e. leap across skyscrapers and avoid moving bullets), Morpheus explains that most human beings aren't capable of being "unplugged" because they've been part of the Matrix for too long and could never be convinced that anything outside of it exists. Moreover, there is even one character who trades in his freedom for the ignorant bliss of the Matrix.
What The Matrix is probably best known for, though (besides its philosophy and religious symbolism), is its revolutionary new style of action film choreography and cinematography. Paying homage explicitly and implicitly to Hong Kong martial arts pics, spaghetti westerns, and Japanese Anime films, The Matrix takes science-fiction explosions, gunfire, and hand-to-hand combat to a whole new level. What's introduced in The Matrix is "bullet-time" action. In other words, the camera can slow down and speed up, freeze, zoom in on and spin around certain characters, and it can even follow the path of a moving bullet in full focus. While this technique has been copycatted in many movies (including 300, Watchmen, Wanted, and V For Vendetta) since The Matrix, The Matrix was the one that set the standard for such impressive choreography and cinematography, and several scenes represent that. During one sequence (which, unfortunately, inspired the infamous Columbine shootings that occurred in April of 1999), Neo and Trinity storm a heavily-guarded building while dressed in trench coats. Stopped by an officer at a metal detector station and asked to "remove all metallic items," the two reveal their weapons and then, within a matter of moments, tear the entire columnated lobby into shreds. Considered by many to be the greatest action scene in film history, it is without a doubt one of the most remarkably well-executed works of choreography I've ever scene. The visual technique of "time-slicing," which allows the viewer to explore the progression of gunfire and the destruction of the scenery in slow-motion (while the camera appears to orbit around at normal speed), is utilized perfectly, and by the time Neo and Trinity are finished emptying out the lobby, they walk away cool and collected, like nothing ever happened. A few other important, visually-striking sequences worth noting include one in which a character bends backwards as bullets gracefully zip past him and another in which that same character leaps above a train (which is about to hit him) just in time.
Why is The Matrix such a praise-worthy film? Because incites us to confront the issue of technological advancement and artificial intelligence? Possibly. More so, however, The Matrix is a praiseworthy film because it not only broaches the most profound, philosophical questions in human history, but it also does so with a stylistic, revolutionarily-choreographed BANG! If Plato and Rene Descartes could, I'm sure they would immediately leave their acropolis and fireplace (respectively), unplug themselves, join the Nebuchadnezzar, and "free their minds."
Friday, June 24, 2011
10 Favorite Films of Mine; Review/Critique Six
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER SIX: American Beauty (1999)
I have a fun question for all of you readers out there: if you could live anywhere in the world, what type of place would you choose to live in? I know that some of you would choose the stimulating atmosphere of a concrete jungle (e.g. New York City, Chicago, or Hong Kong), while others would prefer something on the other end of the spectrum, like the quiet solitude of a rural countryside. Then, of course, there would always be that third group of people who enjoy what's couched between the rustic and the metropolitan: suburban, small-town America. In fact, I'm sure most people would prefer to live in the suburbs, given how greatly they've been romanticized. Despite the classic allure of the "white-picket fence,” though, suburbs are not always perfect worlds of cleanliness, conformity, and puritanical family values, and Sam Mendes' witty and facetious black comedy, American Beauty (1999), attests to that.
American Beauty, which pays homage to films such as Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), and Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's timeless novel, Lolita (1962), is the typical story of love, self-discovery, and family-togetherness...except for one thing: it's not. The movie, which opens with camcorder footage of a young teen half-heartedly asking her boyfriend to kill her father, follows the life of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) and his friends and family. Lester, who narrates the film from beyond the grave, is a 40some magazine-writer in the throes of a mid-life crisis. His marriage is stale and dispassionate, his realtor wife, Carolyn (Annette Benning), is a frigid perfectionist, his daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), is a typical disillusioned and insecure teenager whom he can barely speak with, and his unfulfilling job is run by sharply-dressed, calculating efficiency experts. However, Lester's dormant passion for living is suddenly reawakened when he lays eyes on Jane's girlfriend, Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari), a glowing, blonde-haired vixen. Enraptured by her nubile looks, Lester becomes a much more carefree, defiant, and outspoken individual. He quits his job, blackmails his boss, buys and begins smoking pot with his next-door neighbor, Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), a resolutely individualistic 18-year old who dresses in all black and captures the hidden beauties of the world with his camcorder, purchases a Firebird without his wife's permission, and starts lifting weights in his garage so that he can impress Angela (whom he frequently fantasizes about). However, his aberrancy doesn't go unnoticed or unchecked, and as his wife and daughter begin to disapprove of his newfound persona, Ricky's authoritative and homophobic, marine colonel father, Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) begins to suspect that his son is gay, and Carolyn begins an illicit relationship with Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher), the real-estate "king" whom she idolizes, things start spiraling out of control more and more quickly until an eventual act of violence occurs.
What’s very peculiar about American Beauty is that the title of the film nearly contradicts the subject matter of the actual story, except it doesn’t. The sheer brilliance, originality, and poignancy of the film is that it challenges our dogmatic, pre-conceived notions of beauty while illustrating the complexity of the concept. During one famous scene of the film, Ricky shows Jane a video of a plastic bag (in front of a brick wall) that gracefully floats in the wind. While Ricky sentimentally describes the experience he had taping the bag, the wistfulness in his voice grows, and we realize soon enough that we aren't just seeing another mixed-up, drug-dealing teenager with a camera. We're seeing a human soul-- paralyzed by the extraordinary aesthetic power of what many consider to be frivolous and insignificant-- bearing its true self upon the world. What American Beauty seems to suggest is that the transcendental pulchritude of the world isn’t simply found in breathtaking landscapes or celestial vistas. It’s also found in the seemingly innocuous particulars of everyday life: the tiny blades of grass that grow in our front yards, the droplets of rain the patter on our windows, or the plastic bags that blow in the wind. That being said, American Beauty remains entertainingly fresh by also not condemning our standard, culturally influenced views of beauty either, and several scenes attest to that as well. During one scene, Lester--completely transfixed-- fantasizes that he is inside a gymnasium all by himself watching Angela, in her cheerleading outfit, seductively tease him (before she opens her zippered coat and a profusion of red rose petals float towards us), and during another one, similar to the first one, Lester fantasizes about Angela-- covered in a sea of rose petals--lying naked on his bedroom ceiling. The film also benefits greatly from its superb acting, especially on the part of Kevin Spacey, who delivers a stirring, yet at the same time, playfully charismatic performance, and its cinematography. The contrast between luminous views of suburbia and all of its neatly manicured lawns and tree-lined streets, grainy, black-and-white camcorder footage, and ethereal dream sequences (in which abundances of red rose petals inundate the scenery) is a wondrous feast for the eyes.
However, the story is what primarily attributes to the excellency of this film and the sharp writing and piquant black humor add to its panache. American Beauty weaves in the themes love, family, friendship, homosexuality, drug use, and death while primarily driving home the message that the sterile appearance and monolithic homogeny of small-town America cannot alleviate the agitations of the human spirit. No better example of this can be given than a scene in which Lester wakes up languidly and, from beyond the grave, narrates that “this is my life” and that “I’m dead already.” Later, Carolyn exhibits a similar display of spiritual despair when she fails to sell a house. After all the prospective buyers leave, Carolyn, alone in the respective home, shuts the curtains and begins sobbing heavily. She slaps herself several times, attempting to regain her composure, and what’s clear is that Carolyn’s frustration isn’t driven by a desire to escape the ennui of everyday life. Instead, her frustration is driven by a desire to reach a sublime, quixotic state of flawlessness, perfection, and success. When the desires and frustrations of Lester and Carolyn (respectively) clash, though, we are given a startling vicious, yet penetratingly hilarious, vision of marriage, family life, middle-age malaise, and all of the turmoil that accompanies it, and one particular scene attests to that as well. In one scene, Lester and Carolyn get in a huge argument in front of Jane at the dinner table. However, this isn't your traditional argument where people scream at each other until hoarse. This is the type of argument where Lester and Carolyn are boxers in a ring or soldiers on a battlefield, volleying catapult projections at one another. In many ways, Lester and Carolyn are very similar to George and Martha from Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and the stylistic way in which they exchange venomous insults--broken up several times by Lester importuning someone to "pass [him] the asparagus"-- is what adds to the funny, yet unsettling atmosphere of the scene.
A hauntingly beautiful, well-acted, and crisply-written story with a range of moods—from acidic and morose to playful and sad, American Beauty is definitely worth a “closer” look.
Monday, June 20, 2011
10 Favorite Films of Mine; Review/Critique Five
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER FIVE: A Place In The Sun (1951)
A few days ago, a college professor of mine posited these two questions: "Is there a middle class in the United States? If so, what is the middle class?" Most students responded that the middle class consists of anyone who isn't exceedingly wealthy or wretchedly poor. While some may say nowadays that the notion of classes in general has become an egalitarian (perhaps even non-existent) concept, in the recent past social stratification was an extraordinarily important, and often times crushing, inflammatory concept. Of course, it isn't an issue unique to the United States. As far back as civilizations go, there have always been divisions between the "haves" and "have-nots," and socialists Karl Marx and Frederich Engels articulated that in their benchmark 1848 work, The Communist Manifesto. Accordingly: in the days of of ancient Greece and Rome, there were masters & slaves and patricians & plebeians (respectively). In the middle ages, there were lords/aristocrats & serfs, and following the French Revolution of 1789, there were what Marx labeled the bougeois and proletariat (middle and working class, respectively). Marx, who predicted that this type of dialectic (conflict-driven) materialism would eventually bring about a revolution by the "working class" that would result in a communal society without private property, didn't foresee the chafing attitudes about society and life that his work would elicit in people. The merciless, cutthroat pursuit of wealth, comfort, and success is not without a dark side, and some people have even been corrupted into forfeiting for lives and morals just for a shot at the "American Dream," a theme compassionately portrayed in George Steven's 1951 romantic crime drama, A Place In The Sun.
Based on Theodore Dreiser's 1925 novel, An American Tragedy, which influenced the similarly-titled stage and film adaptation by Paul Kearney and Joseph von Sternberg in 1926 and 1931 (all mediums, names, and years respectively addressed), A Place In The Sun was inspired by the true story of Grace Brown, a poor female factory worker in 1906 New England who drowned in a lake and was considered an alleged homicide victim. In this particular story, Montgomery Cliff plays George Eastman, the humble and complacent nephew of a rich factory owner. Despite his relationship to "Mr. Eastman" (as he addresses him), George is treated unfairly, excluded from his uncle's social circle and given the most inferior job at his factory. However, George doesn't complain, only wishing to impress his uncle and eventually scale his way up the social ladder. Things get complicated, though, when George becomes romantically involved not only with Alice "Al" Trip (Shelley Winters), a poor female factory worker who labors alongside him, but also Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), a wealthy "society girl." When Alice becomes pregnant, George, who enjoys a lavish and intoxicating, carefree lifestyle with Angela and her family at their lakeside home, faces an excruciatingly inescapable dilemma: abandon Alice, a poor and expecting mother, for a life his kin never let him experience, or stay with Alice and live a life of inevitable poverty.
I will admit: this wasn't a film I was absolutely in love with at first (or watched over and over again like some of my other favorites). It was a film I appreciated for its subject matter, which, like many other films of the 1950s (including Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" [1955] and George Stevens's later adaptation from literature, "Giant" [1957]), dealt with rigid social lines and class tension. However, when the film picked up pace and George realized the predicament that he was in, the story sank into me like razor sharp fangs. The acting by Cliff, Winters, and Taylor is superb, and the complexities of their respective characters can be viscerally experienced in every second and every frame of the film. During one nighttime party scene, a close-up, softly-lit view of George and Angela melting into each other's arms while slowly rocking back and forth on the dance floor gives us an immediate sense of George's struggle. He's been an obedient and optimistic, hardworking man his entire life. However, that is not to say he enjoys being that way. Like many people would probably agree, toiling endlessly in a factory for little pay and a life in the shadows is not usually a glorious experience. Being in the arms and heart of the beautiful and wealthy Angela must therefore be a huge breath of fresh air for George. We as an audience, who have most likely experienced proverbially similar, Sisyphean moments of suffocation and relief, can definitely empathize with him.
SPOILER ALERT: although it is not my intention, the following two paragraphs may give away important plot information. If you haven't seen the movie and wish to see it, avoid reading further. If you have seen it or aren't concerned about reading possibly important plot information, read on at your own risk.
Similarly, in another scene that highlights the painfully believable performances of the main characters (this time Cliff and Winters), George and Alice slowly paddle their way across a shimmeringly silver, moonlit lake. George, who'd been originally planning on quietly murdering Alice via drowning her in the lake, is having second thoughts. As Alice obliviously confesses her plans for the future, we see the look on George's face. It is a heavy expression of disappointment and internal human anguish. Although he's teetering on the brink of complete spiritual relinquishment, George, who slouches forward and barely skims the water with his oar blades, remains stoic, perseverant, and penitent. It's like watching a gambling addict trying to remain dignified after losing his life savings to one roll of the die or one nose of the winning horse. George, facing the music, looks up at Alice, and just as she begins to perceive the wavering emotions he's having and the predicament he's experiencing, an accident occurs!
The final strength of this film is its writing (courtesy of Dreiser, Harry Brown, and Michael Wilson). For instance, George, whose shrewdness has been clouded by an overwhelming sense of nervousness, checks out a boat on the lake, gives the keeper a false name, and then, sensing that the man doesn't buy his story (or name for that matter), suspiciously asks him if anyone else is on the lake (even though it's nighttime and clearly no one is). This incident, plus an earlier one in which a bus driver witnesses George and Alice arguing loudly (as well as a later one in which, after the lake accident, George, shaken and disoriented, washes ashore and startles a group of campers), help foreshadow George's inadvertent downfall and eventual legal condemnation. Another example of the superb writing is represented by a scene in which Alice tells George that the Eastman's "are in a different boat than you and I," a brilliant use of foreshadowing.
A powerful, well-acted, and influential film that broached many uneasy topics of the time, A Place In The Sun deserves its place there as well.
A few days ago, a college professor of mine posited these two questions: "Is there a middle class in the United States? If so, what is the middle class?" Most students responded that the middle class consists of anyone who isn't exceedingly wealthy or wretchedly poor. While some may say nowadays that the notion of classes in general has become an egalitarian (perhaps even non-existent) concept, in the recent past social stratification was an extraordinarily important, and often times crushing, inflammatory concept. Of course, it isn't an issue unique to the United States. As far back as civilizations go, there have always been divisions between the "haves" and "have-nots," and socialists Karl Marx and Frederich Engels articulated that in their benchmark 1848 work, The Communist Manifesto. Accordingly: in the days of of ancient Greece and Rome, there were masters & slaves and patricians & plebeians (respectively). In the middle ages, there were lords/aristocrats & serfs, and following the French Revolution of 1789, there were what Marx labeled the bougeois and proletariat (middle and working class, respectively). Marx, who predicted that this type of dialectic (conflict-driven) materialism would eventually bring about a revolution by the "working class" that would result in a communal society without private property, didn't foresee the chafing attitudes about society and life that his work would elicit in people. The merciless, cutthroat pursuit of wealth, comfort, and success is not without a dark side, and some people have even been corrupted into forfeiting for lives and morals just for a shot at the "American Dream," a theme compassionately portrayed in George Steven's 1951 romantic crime drama, A Place In The Sun.
Based on Theodore Dreiser's 1925 novel, An American Tragedy, which influenced the similarly-titled stage and film adaptation by Paul Kearney and Joseph von Sternberg in 1926 and 1931 (all mediums, names, and years respectively addressed), A Place In The Sun was inspired by the true story of Grace Brown, a poor female factory worker in 1906 New England who drowned in a lake and was considered an alleged homicide victim. In this particular story, Montgomery Cliff plays George Eastman, the humble and complacent nephew of a rich factory owner. Despite his relationship to "Mr. Eastman" (as he addresses him), George is treated unfairly, excluded from his uncle's social circle and given the most inferior job at his factory. However, George doesn't complain, only wishing to impress his uncle and eventually scale his way up the social ladder. Things get complicated, though, when George becomes romantically involved not only with Alice "Al" Trip (Shelley Winters), a poor female factory worker who labors alongside him, but also Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), a wealthy "society girl." When Alice becomes pregnant, George, who enjoys a lavish and intoxicating, carefree lifestyle with Angela and her family at their lakeside home, faces an excruciatingly inescapable dilemma: abandon Alice, a poor and expecting mother, for a life his kin never let him experience, or stay with Alice and live a life of inevitable poverty.
I will admit: this wasn't a film I was absolutely in love with at first (or watched over and over again like some of my other favorites). It was a film I appreciated for its subject matter, which, like many other films of the 1950s (including Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" [1955] and George Stevens's later adaptation from literature, "Giant" [1957]), dealt with rigid social lines and class tension. However, when the film picked up pace and George realized the predicament that he was in, the story sank into me like razor sharp fangs. The acting by Cliff, Winters, and Taylor is superb, and the complexities of their respective characters can be viscerally experienced in every second and every frame of the film. During one nighttime party scene, a close-up, softly-lit view of George and Angela melting into each other's arms while slowly rocking back and forth on the dance floor gives us an immediate sense of George's struggle. He's been an obedient and optimistic, hardworking man his entire life. However, that is not to say he enjoys being that way. Like many people would probably agree, toiling endlessly in a factory for little pay and a life in the shadows is not usually a glorious experience. Being in the arms and heart of the beautiful and wealthy Angela must therefore be a huge breath of fresh air for George. We as an audience, who have most likely experienced proverbially similar, Sisyphean moments of suffocation and relief, can definitely empathize with him.
SPOILER ALERT: although it is not my intention, the following two paragraphs may give away important plot information. If you haven't seen the movie and wish to see it, avoid reading further. If you have seen it or aren't concerned about reading possibly important plot information, read on at your own risk.
Similarly, in another scene that highlights the painfully believable performances of the main characters (this time Cliff and Winters), George and Alice slowly paddle their way across a shimmeringly silver, moonlit lake. George, who'd been originally planning on quietly murdering Alice via drowning her in the lake, is having second thoughts. As Alice obliviously confesses her plans for the future, we see the look on George's face. It is a heavy expression of disappointment and internal human anguish. Although he's teetering on the brink of complete spiritual relinquishment, George, who slouches forward and barely skims the water with his oar blades, remains stoic, perseverant, and penitent. It's like watching a gambling addict trying to remain dignified after losing his life savings to one roll of the die or one nose of the winning horse. George, facing the music, looks up at Alice, and just as she begins to perceive the wavering emotions he's having and the predicament he's experiencing, an accident occurs!
The final strength of this film is its writing (courtesy of Dreiser, Harry Brown, and Michael Wilson). For instance, George, whose shrewdness has been clouded by an overwhelming sense of nervousness, checks out a boat on the lake, gives the keeper a false name, and then, sensing that the man doesn't buy his story (or name for that matter), suspiciously asks him if anyone else is on the lake (even though it's nighttime and clearly no one is). This incident, plus an earlier one in which a bus driver witnesses George and Alice arguing loudly (as well as a later one in which, after the lake accident, George, shaken and disoriented, washes ashore and startles a group of campers), help foreshadow George's inadvertent downfall and eventual legal condemnation. Another example of the superb writing is represented by a scene in which Alice tells George that the Eastman's "are in a different boat than you and I," a brilliant use of foreshadowing.
A powerful, well-acted, and influential film that broached many uneasy topics of the time, A Place In The Sun deserves its place there as well.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
10 Favorite Films of Mine; Review/Critique Four
FILM NUMBER FOUR: Pulp Fiction (1994)
Ever since the birth of storytelling, cultures have always tried to dictate what English, theater, film, and art professors label a story's "form and content." In fact, during the ancient fifth century B.C. in Athens, Greece, Aristotle, in his iconic work, Poetics, explicitly and inflexibly detailed a number of different instructions for creating a well-told story (in the only way he knew how)-- among many other things: the three-part structure, the gravity and catharsis of tragedy, and the absolute taboo it was to show a flawless hero remaining a flawless hero, a villain remaining a villain, and/or a villain changing into a hero. From Aristotle's time onward, every Western country and culture, from the Franks and the Visigoths in the medieval world to the United States in the 21st century, haven't swayed far from his example. However, there also have been those who have. For anyone who's ever been acquainted with the works of Luis Buñuel, Jean-Paul Sartre, or Eugene Ionesco, it can undoubtedly be concluded that stories need not be conventional in order to sell an audience. Similarly, in terms of their structures, they need not be linear. Some start in the middle and and then jump to the beginning or end, others start at the end and move in reverse, some take place entirely within a flashback, some even parallel two different events or present a single event from multiple perspectives, etc., etc. In the case of Quentin Tarantino's brilliant gangster drama/comedy, Pulp Fiction (1994), the story unfolds in a non-linear, fragmented, chapter-oriented way.
Known for his wild and prolific taste in music and movies (and the abundant use of and allusions to both throughout his series of films), his remorseless taste for gruesome, campy violence, and his ensemble casts, Tarantino, whose film before Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs (1992), was his debut work, has risen to the top tiers of Hollywood throughout the past 19 years. His archive of eccentric, self-referential action/crime movies, from the Kill Bill series to Inglorious Basterds, have outlandishly amused audiences. However, all of the creative glory he's achieved over those years is due mainly to Pulp Fiction, his watershed, tour-de-force masterpiece.
Pulp Fiction, which engages the audience with flippant and snappy, hip dialogue, is the story of three stories. Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) are suave, tuxedo-wearing assassins sent to retrieve the briefcase (the cryptically-conceiled contents of which emit an enrapturing golden glow) that belongs to as Los Angeles crime lord, Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). While Vincent is dealing with the jitters of taking out Marcellus' wife, Mia (Uma Thurman), for the evening (upon Marcellus' request) and Jules is obsessively dealing with a religious wake-up call, two other stories unfold. One concerns Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a brash, hot-headed boxer--paid to take a dive in a match--who's devoted towards the protection of a special golden watch, and the other concerns two foul-mouthed, cockney-accented bandits, Ringo (Tim Roth), A.K.A. "Pumpkin," and Yolanda (Amanda Plummer), A.K.A. "Honey Boney," fixed on sticking up a diner. The cast also includes a number of other prominent actors, including (but not limited to) Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Rosanna Arquette, and Quentin Tarantino himself, and their characters are just as unique and memorable as the main ones.
The movie, which has remained a ubiquitous source for pop culture references, parodies, and college-campus poster sales since its release seventeen years ago, is revered mostly for its lively, imaginative dialogue and meta-cinematic allusions. Most people probably have heard dozens of friends or acquaintances reference the infamous "breakfast" scene, in which Jules discusses hamburgers and the metric system, and then recites the a passage-- Ezekiel 25:17-- from the Bible before executing a man. Likewise, an earlier scene, in which Jules and Vincent casually banter about the frivolous differences between European and American fast-food restaurants, has become a memorable moment in cinematic history and American pop culture.
However, the film is also known for its plethora of witty, subtle allusions to films of any and all genres (especially Western, Martial-Arts, and Classic Hollywood). The opening sequence, in which Pumpkin and Honey Bunny devise a scheme to rob patrons directly, pays homage to Edward S. Porter's 1903 short, The Great Train Robbery. In another scene, Vincent blows Mia a kiss a la Jimmy Stewart's character--George Bailey--in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life (1946), and, in reference to Alfred Hitchcock's famous horror film, Psycho (1960), there is one scene in the movie when two characters--one walking along a crosswalk and the other driving up to it--exchange incredulous looks (before the latter slams into the former with his car). The list of homages goes on and on, and if you have ever heard of Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront (1954), Mike Nichols' The Graduate (1967), or Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver (1976), you can rest assured those films probably inspired or were referenced in Pulp Fiction as well. In addition to cinematic allusions, Tarantino also makes great use of an eclectic soundtrack, including such diverse hits as Dick Dale and the Del Tones' "Misirlou" (which memorably begins the opening credits of the film), Al Green's "Let's Stay Together," and Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon."
One of the final strengths of Pulp Fiction is its use of absorbingly off-color humor. During one sequence of the movie, a woman who experiences a heroin overdose is in quick need of an adrenaline shot. Although she could almost die (and the panic-striken date of this woman is frighteningly aware of that) when he finally rushes her--not to an emergency room--but a friend's home, everyone is clueless, scrambling around the cluttered home looking for a syringe like it's a lost set of car keys, and then casually arguing about how many times you need to "stab" the victim in the chest to revive her. During another sequence, two characters accidentally blow off a guy's head, and hilariousness ensues as they must find a way to clean the blood and gore out of the vehicle in time.
Pulp Fiction, an inventive, original, and superbly entertaining hit, deserves its place in the ranks of great American works of art. Although it is more stylized and less tame and conventional than the traditional works of Hollywood, it still conforms to the genius of that particular industry.
Ever since the birth of storytelling, cultures have always tried to dictate what English, theater, film, and art professors label a story's "form and content." In fact, during the ancient fifth century B.C. in Athens, Greece, Aristotle, in his iconic work, Poetics, explicitly and inflexibly detailed a number of different instructions for creating a well-told story (in the only way he knew how)-- among many other things: the three-part structure, the gravity and catharsis of tragedy, and the absolute taboo it was to show a flawless hero remaining a flawless hero, a villain remaining a villain, and/or a villain changing into a hero. From Aristotle's time onward, every Western country and culture, from the Franks and the Visigoths in the medieval world to the United States in the 21st century, haven't swayed far from his example. However, there also have been those who have. For anyone who's ever been acquainted with the works of Luis Buñuel, Jean-Paul Sartre, or Eugene Ionesco, it can undoubtedly be concluded that stories need not be conventional in order to sell an audience. Similarly, in terms of their structures, they need not be linear. Some start in the middle and and then jump to the beginning or end, others start at the end and move in reverse, some take place entirely within a flashback, some even parallel two different events or present a single event from multiple perspectives, etc., etc. In the case of Quentin Tarantino's brilliant gangster drama/comedy, Pulp Fiction (1994), the story unfolds in a non-linear, fragmented, chapter-oriented way.
Known for his wild and prolific taste in music and movies (and the abundant use of and allusions to both throughout his series of films), his remorseless taste for gruesome, campy violence, and his ensemble casts, Tarantino, whose film before Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs (1992), was his debut work, has risen to the top tiers of Hollywood throughout the past 19 years. His archive of eccentric, self-referential action/crime movies, from the Kill Bill series to Inglorious Basterds, have outlandishly amused audiences. However, all of the creative glory he's achieved over those years is due mainly to Pulp Fiction, his watershed, tour-de-force masterpiece.
Pulp Fiction, which engages the audience with flippant and snappy, hip dialogue, is the story of three stories. Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) are suave, tuxedo-wearing assassins sent to retrieve the briefcase (the cryptically-conceiled contents of which emit an enrapturing golden glow) that belongs to as Los Angeles crime lord, Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). While Vincent is dealing with the jitters of taking out Marcellus' wife, Mia (Uma Thurman), for the evening (upon Marcellus' request) and Jules is obsessively dealing with a religious wake-up call, two other stories unfold. One concerns Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a brash, hot-headed boxer--paid to take a dive in a match--who's devoted towards the protection of a special golden watch, and the other concerns two foul-mouthed, cockney-accented bandits, Ringo (Tim Roth), A.K.A. "Pumpkin," and Yolanda (Amanda Plummer), A.K.A. "Honey Boney," fixed on sticking up a diner. The cast also includes a number of other prominent actors, including (but not limited to) Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Rosanna Arquette, and Quentin Tarantino himself, and their characters are just as unique and memorable as the main ones.
The movie, which has remained a ubiquitous source for pop culture references, parodies, and college-campus poster sales since its release seventeen years ago, is revered mostly for its lively, imaginative dialogue and meta-cinematic allusions. Most people probably have heard dozens of friends or acquaintances reference the infamous "breakfast" scene, in which Jules discusses hamburgers and the metric system, and then recites the a passage-- Ezekiel 25:17-- from the Bible before executing a man. Likewise, an earlier scene, in which Jules and Vincent casually banter about the frivolous differences between European and American fast-food restaurants, has become a memorable moment in cinematic history and American pop culture.
However, the film is also known for its plethora of witty, subtle allusions to films of any and all genres (especially Western, Martial-Arts, and Classic Hollywood). The opening sequence, in which Pumpkin and Honey Bunny devise a scheme to rob patrons directly, pays homage to Edward S. Porter's 1903 short, The Great Train Robbery. In another scene, Vincent blows Mia a kiss a la Jimmy Stewart's character--George Bailey--in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life (1946), and, in reference to Alfred Hitchcock's famous horror film, Psycho (1960), there is one scene in the movie when two characters--one walking along a crosswalk and the other driving up to it--exchange incredulous looks (before the latter slams into the former with his car). The list of homages goes on and on, and if you have ever heard of Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront (1954), Mike Nichols' The Graduate (1967), or Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver (1976), you can rest assured those films probably inspired or were referenced in Pulp Fiction as well. In addition to cinematic allusions, Tarantino also makes great use of an eclectic soundtrack, including such diverse hits as Dick Dale and the Del Tones' "Misirlou" (which memorably begins the opening credits of the film), Al Green's "Let's Stay Together," and Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon."
One of the final strengths of Pulp Fiction is its use of absorbingly off-color humor. During one sequence of the movie, a woman who experiences a heroin overdose is in quick need of an adrenaline shot. Although she could almost die (and the panic-striken date of this woman is frighteningly aware of that) when he finally rushes her--not to an emergency room--but a friend's home, everyone is clueless, scrambling around the cluttered home looking for a syringe like it's a lost set of car keys, and then casually arguing about how many times you need to "stab" the victim in the chest to revive her. During another sequence, two characters accidentally blow off a guy's head, and hilariousness ensues as they must find a way to clean the blood and gore out of the vehicle in time.
Pulp Fiction, an inventive, original, and superbly entertaining hit, deserves its place in the ranks of great American works of art. Although it is more stylized and less tame and conventional than the traditional works of Hollywood, it still conforms to the genius of that particular industry.
Friday, June 17, 2011
10 Favorite Films of Mine; Review/Critique Three
FILM NUMBER THREE: Kick-Ass (2010)
I was never a really a fan of superheroes and comic books. I enjoyed the cinematography and choreography of and raw performances in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight, but other than those few blockbusters, something about the capes, kryptonite, and colossal villains just didn't do it for me. That was of course until I saw Kick-Ass (2010), a wild and extravagant, irreverently violent and profane send-up of superhero movies, TV shows, and comic books.
In Kick-Ass, based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romito Jr., a young, ordinary and unnoticed high school student, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), decides one day out of boredom-fueled altruistic desires to become a real-life superhero. Throwing on a green, yellow-striped wet suit and mask, grabbing two batons, and giving himself the alias "Kick-Ass," he hits the streets, hoping to take down small time thugs and criminals. However, his plans get complicated when he becomes unintentionally mixed up with a professionally-trained father-daughter duo-- Damon McCready (Nicholas Cage) and 11-year old Mindy McCready (Chloe Grace Moretz)-- who moonlight as Big Daddy and Hit-Girl (respectively). Big Daddy, who dresses in all black (almost identical to the dark knight himself), and Hit-Girl, who dons an all purple suit and paige wig, are after Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), a lucrative Italian mob boss who once had Damon (an ex-cop) framed & imprisoned and his wife indirectly murdered. Not only that, but Frank's 17-year old son, Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), further complicates matters when he poses as "Red Mist," a sports-car-driving, fake crime fighter with a frizzled wig and a crimson leather suit, and becomes associated with Kick-Ass. Soon Dave finds himself in over his head and his boyhood fantasy suddenly spinning out of control into a brutally violent nightmare.
The reason why I praise this movie so highly doesn't so much have to do with its theme of superheroes as it does with the reason why such figures have been admired throughout human history. In the olden day it wasn't Batman, Superman, or Iron Man that excited people. Theseus, Perseus, Herakles, Jason, Odysseus, and Achilles dominated Ancient Aegean literature; Lancelot and Perceval did likewise for the chivalrous, Celtic world of the Dark Ages.Today, the tradition continues, and so the transhistorical question remains: why do people idolize such characters? Obviously, the reason should come as no surprise: those who passively exist from day to day, eking out a living in a quietly desperate job while cowering under the oppressive weight of bills, bosses, and rocky relationships, want to escape. They want to see a fully-realized, consummate version of themselves; not just in swashbuckling, gun-toting, gravity-defying action figures (like Zorro, Jason Bourne, James Bond, and Jack Sparrow, just to name a few), but also in plain, everyday individuals... the people that have the strength to make the right or useful decision at the right moment in time. Kick-Ass, flagrantly self-deprecating and self-referential, not only caters to the motif of the fantastical, romantic allure of larger-than-life heros, but also the darker and more dangerous side of real-life super-heroism; i.e. what would really happen if an average person with no proper skills or coordination threw on a cape, donned a mask, and went out into the street to fight crime This is not a new theme as well, and some many may regard Kick-Ass as simply an updated version of Miguel Cervante's 16th century novel, Don Quixote (just replace the delusional, iron-clad knight with a delusional teenage "superhero"). Also, while this has not been the first film to satirize the superhero/comic book genre and present ordinary, untrained individuals as vigilantes ("Mystery Men" did so in 1999, "Special" did so in 2006, and "Defendor" did so in 2009), Kick-Ass is the one that has done so with the greatest amount of entertainingly over-the-top, unpredictable eccentricity. The exciting and amusingly lurid beauty of Kick-Ass can be found in the colorful acting of all of the major characters (especially Chloe Grace Moretz and Nicholas Cage), John Murphy's unique, lively score, filled with taut and suspenseful, electrifyingly dramatic and sensational, propulsive and dynamic, invigorating, awe-inspiring, and even, at times, doleful pieces, and the bright and saturated, pop-art-style cinematography (intended to mirror the campy look of a comic strip panel). A nod to director Matthew Vaughn, who mixes the gritty appeal of "Layer Cake" with the fantastical style of "Stardust," is also well-deserved.
Moreover, Kick-Ass also benefits superbly from its share of zanily comedic moments. The movie opens with a fully-outfited "superhero" on top of a skyscraper, spreading his mechanical wings and leaping off. Instead of swooping into the air and impressing the group of bedazzled, onlooking spectators, though, he simply crashes into a taxi cab below. Additionally, the irony of Nicholas Cage's character training his pink-and-purple loving, Polly Pocket-sized tween-aged daughter to fight, kill, cuss like a sailor, and take bullets to the chest (while wearing a protective vest) contribute to irreverently humorous moments as well. While many people may (understandably) scorn the above and view it as being exploitive or tasteless, Vaughn is very careful never to portray Mindy/Hit-Girl in a manipulative, abusive, or sexualized manner (any more than Jodie Foster's character in "Taxi Driver" or Natalie Portman's character in "The Professional"). However, Kick-Ass isn't simply a lighthearted, goofy spoof, and while many movies and TV shows (such as Airplane, Naked Gun, and Seinfeld) benefit from breezy, idiosyncratic humor, Kick-Ass moves to the beat of a different drum. It flexibly and gracefully combines, blends, and shifts back and forth between moments of hysterical comedy, adrenaline-pumping action, and even earnest, tearjerking tragedy, and several scenes demonstrate that.
SPOILER ALERT: the next two paragraphs give away important plot information. If you haven't seen this movie and wish to see it, refrain from reading further. Otherwise, read on at your own risk.
During a live, torture/execution scene, a city of viewers (in front of their TV sets and computers) watch in shock and disgust as the two respective captives-- each chained to a chair next to one another-- are brutally victimized by batons, baseball bats, and "knuckle-dusters," are doused in kerosine, and then are almost burnt to a crisp. The scene, uncannily reminiscent to the ear-cutting sequence in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, may certainly make many people wince. While it is more stylized and less squeamishly realistic than...oh, let's say the fingernail-pulling scene in the 2005 film Syriana (in which, coincidentally, Mark Strong administers the torture), though, it is still difficult to watch. However, the particular brilliance of this scene, besides the haunting score and seamless, fast-paced editing, is the way in which, much like the viewers in the movie itself, we watch in disgust and awe as well. While the goons gleefully lay into their victims and address the unseen viewers (who are most likely comic-book-loving children) in a humorously patronizing and cautionary, yet disturbingly casual way (making such remarks as "Kerosine...the silent killer," and "[flicking a lighter] This, for all you cavemen out there, is fire."), one of the character squirms, pleads for his life, and fatalistically (through voice-over) narrates to us, the villain laughs at their predicament, and we sit there in a state of frozen curiosity, guiltily unable to pull our eyes away. It's a rudely truthful yet creatively momentous reflection on a society deeply engulfed and infatuated with seemingly harmless, glamorously-portrayed violence. However, Vaughn is not simply delivering the conventional grade-school message that "violence is bad" and TV shows/movies desensitize us to it (as what might have been the case when linking the 1999 Columbine shootings with the infamous, "trench coat" lobby scene in The Matrix). Rather, he's depicting how cushy, 21st century technology-- especially television and YouTube--isolates us from the true unbearableness of violence.
The other scene that stands out in Kick-Ass is the one that immediately follows the above scene. As the goons spark up a lighter and the onlooking viewers prepare to watch their beloved captives experience a horrendously slow, excruciatingly incendiary death, a bullet rips through the executioner's skull. It is the type of viscerally cathartic moment that caters to our human desire for justice and our western storytelling desire to see good guys be saved. As the lights in the torturers' warehouse explode into a fountain of sparks of glass shards and the onlookers TV/web viewers react with complete catatonic shock, the room turns pitch black and falls into a state of thunderous silence. Suddenly, the scene erupts into an explosively loud, scintillating firefight . A fusillade of rapid gunfire illuminates the room like sparklers in the night sky, and--through the first person perspective of night-vision goggles--Hit Girl scurries about the room, skillfully snuffing out every goon she can with a pistol and a dagger. The background score then immediately switches from an aggressive and galvanizing tone to a dramatic, heavy, and melodious one. With one flick of the lighter, Big Daddy erupts into flames, and it becomes a race against the clock to save him. Flawless edited, the sequence that follows is filled with the best use of strobe-lighting since Titanic (1997), the best acting by Nicholas Cage since Leaving Las Vegas (1995), and the most realistic portrayal of painfully resilient and sacrificial parental love since the stampede scene in the animated film The Lion King (1994).
Irreverent, crass, campy, and extraordinarily violent and profane, Kick-Ass is not for the diffident viewer. However, it's a gem of comedy, action, and tragedy that lets its viewers indulge in the glamor of superheroes, crime-fighters, and vigilantes just as often as it cautions us against ever wanting to become one. Outlandish, creative, and original, Kick-Ass does just that.
I was never a really a fan of superheroes and comic books. I enjoyed the cinematography and choreography of and raw performances in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight, but other than those few blockbusters, something about the capes, kryptonite, and colossal villains just didn't do it for me. That was of course until I saw Kick-Ass (2010), a wild and extravagant, irreverently violent and profane send-up of superhero movies, TV shows, and comic books.
In Kick-Ass, based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romito Jr., a young, ordinary and unnoticed high school student, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), decides one day out of boredom-fueled altruistic desires to become a real-life superhero. Throwing on a green, yellow-striped wet suit and mask, grabbing two batons, and giving himself the alias "Kick-Ass," he hits the streets, hoping to take down small time thugs and criminals. However, his plans get complicated when he becomes unintentionally mixed up with a professionally-trained father-daughter duo-- Damon McCready (Nicholas Cage) and 11-year old Mindy McCready (Chloe Grace Moretz)-- who moonlight as Big Daddy and Hit-Girl (respectively). Big Daddy, who dresses in all black (almost identical to the dark knight himself), and Hit-Girl, who dons an all purple suit and paige wig, are after Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), a lucrative Italian mob boss who once had Damon (an ex-cop) framed & imprisoned and his wife indirectly murdered. Not only that, but Frank's 17-year old son, Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), further complicates matters when he poses as "Red Mist," a sports-car-driving, fake crime fighter with a frizzled wig and a crimson leather suit, and becomes associated with Kick-Ass. Soon Dave finds himself in over his head and his boyhood fantasy suddenly spinning out of control into a brutally violent nightmare.
The reason why I praise this movie so highly doesn't so much have to do with its theme of superheroes as it does with the reason why such figures have been admired throughout human history. In the olden day it wasn't Batman, Superman, or Iron Man that excited people. Theseus, Perseus, Herakles, Jason, Odysseus, and Achilles dominated Ancient Aegean literature; Lancelot and Perceval did likewise for the chivalrous, Celtic world of the Dark Ages.Today, the tradition continues, and so the transhistorical question remains: why do people idolize such characters? Obviously, the reason should come as no surprise: those who passively exist from day to day, eking out a living in a quietly desperate job while cowering under the oppressive weight of bills, bosses, and rocky relationships, want to escape. They want to see a fully-realized, consummate version of themselves; not just in swashbuckling, gun-toting, gravity-defying action figures (like Zorro, Jason Bourne, James Bond, and Jack Sparrow, just to name a few), but also in plain, everyday individuals... the people that have the strength to make the right or useful decision at the right moment in time. Kick-Ass, flagrantly self-deprecating and self-referential, not only caters to the motif of the fantastical, romantic allure of larger-than-life heros, but also the darker and more dangerous side of real-life super-heroism; i.e. what would really happen if an average person with no proper skills or coordination threw on a cape, donned a mask, and went out into the street to fight crime This is not a new theme as well, and some many may regard Kick-Ass as simply an updated version of Miguel Cervante's 16th century novel, Don Quixote (just replace the delusional, iron-clad knight with a delusional teenage "superhero"). Also, while this has not been the first film to satirize the superhero/comic book genre and present ordinary, untrained individuals as vigilantes ("Mystery Men" did so in 1999, "Special" did so in 2006, and "Defendor" did so in 2009), Kick-Ass is the one that has done so with the greatest amount of entertainingly over-the-top, unpredictable eccentricity. The exciting and amusingly lurid beauty of Kick-Ass can be found in the colorful acting of all of the major characters (especially Chloe Grace Moretz and Nicholas Cage), John Murphy's unique, lively score, filled with taut and suspenseful, electrifyingly dramatic and sensational, propulsive and dynamic, invigorating, awe-inspiring, and even, at times, doleful pieces, and the bright and saturated, pop-art-style cinematography (intended to mirror the campy look of a comic strip panel). A nod to director Matthew Vaughn, who mixes the gritty appeal of "Layer Cake" with the fantastical style of "Stardust," is also well-deserved.
Moreover, Kick-Ass also benefits superbly from its share of zanily comedic moments. The movie opens with a fully-outfited "superhero" on top of a skyscraper, spreading his mechanical wings and leaping off. Instead of swooping into the air and impressing the group of bedazzled, onlooking spectators, though, he simply crashes into a taxi cab below. Additionally, the irony of Nicholas Cage's character training his pink-and-purple loving, Polly Pocket-sized tween-aged daughter to fight, kill, cuss like a sailor, and take bullets to the chest (while wearing a protective vest) contribute to irreverently humorous moments as well. While many people may (understandably) scorn the above and view it as being exploitive or tasteless, Vaughn is very careful never to portray Mindy/Hit-Girl in a manipulative, abusive, or sexualized manner (any more than Jodie Foster's character in "Taxi Driver" or Natalie Portman's character in "The Professional"). However, Kick-Ass isn't simply a lighthearted, goofy spoof, and while many movies and TV shows (such as Airplane, Naked Gun, and Seinfeld) benefit from breezy, idiosyncratic humor, Kick-Ass moves to the beat of a different drum. It flexibly and gracefully combines, blends, and shifts back and forth between moments of hysterical comedy, adrenaline-pumping action, and even earnest, tearjerking tragedy, and several scenes demonstrate that.
SPOILER ALERT: the next two paragraphs give away important plot information. If you haven't seen this movie and wish to see it, refrain from reading further. Otherwise, read on at your own risk.
During a live, torture/execution scene, a city of viewers (in front of their TV sets and computers) watch in shock and disgust as the two respective captives-- each chained to a chair next to one another-- are brutally victimized by batons, baseball bats, and "knuckle-dusters," are doused in kerosine, and then are almost burnt to a crisp. The scene, uncannily reminiscent to the ear-cutting sequence in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, may certainly make many people wince. While it is more stylized and less squeamishly realistic than...oh, let's say the fingernail-pulling scene in the 2005 film Syriana (in which, coincidentally, Mark Strong administers the torture), though, it is still difficult to watch. However, the particular brilliance of this scene, besides the haunting score and seamless, fast-paced editing, is the way in which, much like the viewers in the movie itself, we watch in disgust and awe as well. While the goons gleefully lay into their victims and address the unseen viewers (who are most likely comic-book-loving children) in a humorously patronizing and cautionary, yet disturbingly casual way (making such remarks as "Kerosine...the silent killer," and "[flicking a lighter] This, for all you cavemen out there, is fire."), one of the character squirms, pleads for his life, and fatalistically (through voice-over) narrates to us, the villain laughs at their predicament, and we sit there in a state of frozen curiosity, guiltily unable to pull our eyes away. It's a rudely truthful yet creatively momentous reflection on a society deeply engulfed and infatuated with seemingly harmless, glamorously-portrayed violence. However, Vaughn is not simply delivering the conventional grade-school message that "violence is bad" and TV shows/movies desensitize us to it (as what might have been the case when linking the 1999 Columbine shootings with the infamous, "trench coat" lobby scene in The Matrix). Rather, he's depicting how cushy, 21st century technology-- especially television and YouTube--isolates us from the true unbearableness of violence.
The other scene that stands out in Kick-Ass is the one that immediately follows the above scene. As the goons spark up a lighter and the onlooking viewers prepare to watch their beloved captives experience a horrendously slow, excruciatingly incendiary death, a bullet rips through the executioner's skull. It is the type of viscerally cathartic moment that caters to our human desire for justice and our western storytelling desire to see good guys be saved. As the lights in the torturers' warehouse explode into a fountain of sparks of glass shards and the onlookers TV/web viewers react with complete catatonic shock, the room turns pitch black and falls into a state of thunderous silence. Suddenly, the scene erupts into an explosively loud, scintillating firefight . A fusillade of rapid gunfire illuminates the room like sparklers in the night sky, and--through the first person perspective of night-vision goggles--Hit Girl scurries about the room, skillfully snuffing out every goon she can with a pistol and a dagger. The background score then immediately switches from an aggressive and galvanizing tone to a dramatic, heavy, and melodious one. With one flick of the lighter, Big Daddy erupts into flames, and it becomes a race against the clock to save him. Flawless edited, the sequence that follows is filled with the best use of strobe-lighting since Titanic (1997), the best acting by Nicholas Cage since Leaving Las Vegas (1995), and the most realistic portrayal of painfully resilient and sacrificial parental love since the stampede scene in the animated film The Lion King (1994).
Irreverent, crass, campy, and extraordinarily violent and profane, Kick-Ass is not for the diffident viewer. However, it's a gem of comedy, action, and tragedy that lets its viewers indulge in the glamor of superheroes, crime-fighters, and vigilantes just as often as it cautions us against ever wanting to become one. Outlandish, creative, and original, Kick-Ass does just that.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
10 Favorite Movies Of Mine; Review/Critique Two
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER TWO: 21 Grams (2003)
Life is a random series of events. Whether you agree with that statement or not, there's no denying that joy and tragedy affect everyone, oftentimes serendipitously. While most events leave little impact, others are of such magnitude that they can build or shatter a person entirely, a concept beautifully explored in Mexican film director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's dark, cerebral drama, 21 Grams (2003).
Iñárritu, who, alongside screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, has broached many heavy, broad human themes in his films throughout the past decade, including animal cruelty in Amores Perros (2000), miscommunication in Babel (2006), and familial desperation in Biutiful (2011), brings his A-game to work in 21 Grams. 21 Grams, which, like his first and third film, revolves around the lives of three people affected by a tragic, violent (automobile) accident, is no different, and like the other films, primarily deals with mortality and how it can interconnect disparate people. However, the beauty of Iñárritu's work lies not only in the way that it gracefully weaves in a number of other powerful themes and topics (including, but not limited to: love, grief, guilt, hope, anger, vengeance, regret, forgiveness, redemption, abortion, organ donation, religion, and attempted suicide), but also in the way that it does so under the veil of an evocatively non-linear storyline that emphasizes the true nature of human thought and experience.
21 Grams (the title of which is derived and inspired by a 1907 scientific experiment in which Dr. Duncan MacDougall theorized that the immortal human soul exists because of a small loss in body weight at the exact moment of one's death) follows the irresolute lives of three different people: Paul Rivers (Sean Penn), a terminally-ill, unhappily-married mathematics professor in need of a heart transplant, Christine Peck (Naomi Watts) a happily-married, suburban housewife, mother, and recovering drug addict, and Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro) a spiritual ex-con who, along with the help of his wife and two small children, has also recovered from drug abuse and alcoholism. When tragedy strikes in the form of a freak hit-and-run car accident, all three of their lives are changed in ways they could never have imagined and their fates become intertwined.
The movie benefits from many strengths. The acting on the parts of the three main stars, as well as supporting moments from Melissa Leo, is superb, the cinematography, mixing in cold and grainy, drably-filtered scenes with warm, fluorescent ones and picturesque visuals of balmy, raspberry-colored morning skies, flocks of birds, and deserted swimming pools, by Rodrigo Prieto is quietly stunning, and Gustavo Santaolalla's otherworldly score tugs at your heart strings. In terms of the story itself, not only does the non-linear structure, in which we frequently and unpredictably jump back and forth between clips that we would chronologically say occur in the "beginning," "middle," and "end" of the film, challenge our perceptions of conventional storytelling (especially in cinema), but it also gives us a painfully real, yet strangely beautiful and lyrical sense of reality. All of us, at some point in our lives, have probably been affected by some completely unexpected, tragic loss, have been immersed in guilt, or have been otherwise burdened by some harrowing emotional experience. Similarly, there are certain nuances to human behaviors and emotions that we may not want to comfortably admit we possess. For instance, many of us believe that in a time of crisis, we would immediately act in a way that is morally just and compassionate (e.g., if we saw a child in the middle of the road we'd instinctually run out, save them, and if need be, sacrifice ourselves). However, while that is ultimately our hope, many times people cannot predict how they'll act in a moment of emergency. Iñárritu, keenly aware of that, approaches the concept in a fresh and captivating way, and one particular scene attests to that.
{{SPOILER ALERT: Although I'm only attempting to highlight the beautiful and spiritually powerful moments of this film, in doing so, I may incidentally give away important plot information (however, it's not my intention to do so). If you've not seen the movie yet and wish to see it, refrain from reading the following two paragraphs. Otherwise, read on at your own risk.}}
One of the characters, tormented by guilt, lays immobile inside his pallid jail cell, languid and unable (or unwilling) to eat. His once warm and sanguine, spiritual appetite has disappeared, and now all he can think about is how he's been betrayed by the One he trusted most. Visited by his close, right-hand mentor and reverend--who advises and then unpleasantly importunes him to be faithful, regain his trust once again, and ask for forgiveness--he angrily protests that he has no reason to ask for forgiveness. God, whom he trusted most, abandoned him in his ultimate time of need and left him with no strength to salvage the accidental wrong he committed. Later on, in a tender moment of complete resignation, this character defaces a tattoo on his arm--which reads "Jesus Loves"--with a knife. Iñárritu, who's deeply religious himself, based this character on the biblical figure of Judas whom he was taught about as a child, and challenges what he sees as a deeply-seated paradox. If, according to the Bible, Judas truly had free will, then why was it predetermined that he'd betray Christ and hang himself? This question of free will vs. determinism is the paramount question that, along with Del Toro's riveting performance, drives the passion and intensity of the scene.
Another powerful concept dealt with in this film that parallels guilt is grief and the incapacitating effect it can have on those who are helplessly swept up in it. In another scene of this movie, Iñárritu poignantly attests to that concept as well. Accompanied by a stirringly solemn accordion piece, a character visits the diner that her family ate at hours before the accident occurred, as well as the street where the accident itself occurred. Following that, we jump forward in time to the private lair of this person's home. Now we aren't seeing a person whose emotions are restrained because of the public world around her. Now we are seeing a human soul in its ultimately private and vulnerably true state. Curled up on her bed, sobbing her eyes out, this character can't help but compulsively listen over and over again to the last phone message her family left her before dying. It's a resonant scene for anyone who has ever been through and/or has seen someone in the throes of sadness.
The movie may initially seem confusing (due to its unorthodox, fragmented story-structure), but as the story progresses, the lives of the three main characters slowly coalesce, and various facts and incidents that we may not have understood are gradually elucidated, we realize that 21 Grams is a true cinematic work of art. By the "end" of the film, it leaves its viewers in a misty-eyed, profound state of astonishment. It is a movie well worth its weight.
Life is a random series of events. Whether you agree with that statement or not, there's no denying that joy and tragedy affect everyone, oftentimes serendipitously. While most events leave little impact, others are of such magnitude that they can build or shatter a person entirely, a concept beautifully explored in Mexican film director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's dark, cerebral drama, 21 Grams (2003).
Iñárritu, who, alongside screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, has broached many heavy, broad human themes in his films throughout the past decade, including animal cruelty in Amores Perros (2000), miscommunication in Babel (2006), and familial desperation in Biutiful (2011), brings his A-game to work in 21 Grams. 21 Grams, which, like his first and third film, revolves around the lives of three people affected by a tragic, violent (automobile) accident, is no different, and like the other films, primarily deals with mortality and how it can interconnect disparate people. However, the beauty of Iñárritu's work lies not only in the way that it gracefully weaves in a number of other powerful themes and topics (including, but not limited to: love, grief, guilt, hope, anger, vengeance, regret, forgiveness, redemption, abortion, organ donation, religion, and attempted suicide), but also in the way that it does so under the veil of an evocatively non-linear storyline that emphasizes the true nature of human thought and experience.
21 Grams (the title of which is derived and inspired by a 1907 scientific experiment in which Dr. Duncan MacDougall theorized that the immortal human soul exists because of a small loss in body weight at the exact moment of one's death) follows the irresolute lives of three different people: Paul Rivers (Sean Penn), a terminally-ill, unhappily-married mathematics professor in need of a heart transplant, Christine Peck (Naomi Watts) a happily-married, suburban housewife, mother, and recovering drug addict, and Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro) a spiritual ex-con who, along with the help of his wife and two small children, has also recovered from drug abuse and alcoholism. When tragedy strikes in the form of a freak hit-and-run car accident, all three of their lives are changed in ways they could never have imagined and their fates become intertwined.
The movie benefits from many strengths. The acting on the parts of the three main stars, as well as supporting moments from Melissa Leo, is superb, the cinematography, mixing in cold and grainy, drably-filtered scenes with warm, fluorescent ones and picturesque visuals of balmy, raspberry-colored morning skies, flocks of birds, and deserted swimming pools, by Rodrigo Prieto is quietly stunning, and Gustavo Santaolalla's otherworldly score tugs at your heart strings. In terms of the story itself, not only does the non-linear structure, in which we frequently and unpredictably jump back and forth between clips that we would chronologically say occur in the "beginning," "middle," and "end" of the film, challenge our perceptions of conventional storytelling (especially in cinema), but it also gives us a painfully real, yet strangely beautiful and lyrical sense of reality. All of us, at some point in our lives, have probably been affected by some completely unexpected, tragic loss, have been immersed in guilt, or have been otherwise burdened by some harrowing emotional experience. Similarly, there are certain nuances to human behaviors and emotions that we may not want to comfortably admit we possess. For instance, many of us believe that in a time of crisis, we would immediately act in a way that is morally just and compassionate (e.g., if we saw a child in the middle of the road we'd instinctually run out, save them, and if need be, sacrifice ourselves). However, while that is ultimately our hope, many times people cannot predict how they'll act in a moment of emergency. Iñárritu, keenly aware of that, approaches the concept in a fresh and captivating way, and one particular scene attests to that.
{{SPOILER ALERT: Although I'm only attempting to highlight the beautiful and spiritually powerful moments of this film, in doing so, I may incidentally give away important plot information (however, it's not my intention to do so). If you've not seen the movie yet and wish to see it, refrain from reading the following two paragraphs. Otherwise, read on at your own risk.}}
One of the characters, tormented by guilt, lays immobile inside his pallid jail cell, languid and unable (or unwilling) to eat. His once warm and sanguine, spiritual appetite has disappeared, and now all he can think about is how he's been betrayed by the One he trusted most. Visited by his close, right-hand mentor and reverend--who advises and then unpleasantly importunes him to be faithful, regain his trust once again, and ask for forgiveness--he angrily protests that he has no reason to ask for forgiveness. God, whom he trusted most, abandoned him in his ultimate time of need and left him with no strength to salvage the accidental wrong he committed. Later on, in a tender moment of complete resignation, this character defaces a tattoo on his arm--which reads "Jesus Loves"--with a knife. Iñárritu, who's deeply religious himself, based this character on the biblical figure of Judas whom he was taught about as a child, and challenges what he sees as a deeply-seated paradox. If, according to the Bible, Judas truly had free will, then why was it predetermined that he'd betray Christ and hang himself? This question of free will vs. determinism is the paramount question that, along with Del Toro's riveting performance, drives the passion and intensity of the scene.
Another powerful concept dealt with in this film that parallels guilt is grief and the incapacitating effect it can have on those who are helplessly swept up in it. In another scene of this movie, Iñárritu poignantly attests to that concept as well. Accompanied by a stirringly solemn accordion piece, a character visits the diner that her family ate at hours before the accident occurred, as well as the street where the accident itself occurred. Following that, we jump forward in time to the private lair of this person's home. Now we aren't seeing a person whose emotions are restrained because of the public world around her. Now we are seeing a human soul in its ultimately private and vulnerably true state. Curled up on her bed, sobbing her eyes out, this character can't help but compulsively listen over and over again to the last phone message her family left her before dying. It's a resonant scene for anyone who has ever been through and/or has seen someone in the throes of sadness.
The movie may initially seem confusing (due to its unorthodox, fragmented story-structure), but as the story progresses, the lives of the three main characters slowly coalesce, and various facts and incidents that we may not have understood are gradually elucidated, we realize that 21 Grams is a true cinematic work of art. By the "end" of the film, it leaves its viewers in a misty-eyed, profound state of astonishment. It is a movie well worth its weight.
Monday, June 13, 2011
10 Favorite Movies Of Mine; Review/Critique One
In the following series of blogs, I will critically review (and for lack of better words, analyze) 10 favorite films of mine and go into detail as to why they're great works of art and storytelling.
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER ONE: Apocalypse Now (1979)
FAVORITE FILM NUMBER ONE: Apocalypse Now (1979)
Nowadays, I occasionally find myself reflecting on the short-winded, yet insidiously influential maxims I was taught as a kid; you know, the type of expressions that are supposed to build and strengthen a person's character: "Life's not fair," "No pain, no gain," "Not all glitter is gold," just to name a few. What I've discovered in the process, though, is that many of them attempt to justify unpleasant experiences. That being understood, while many unpleasant experiences (such as illness, heartbreak, and inclement weather) are naturally (and for the most part) unavoidable (and thus are in need of something to justify them as a defense mechanism of sorts), others only give the illusion that they are unavoidable. One of the greatest examples of such is war...an institution of destructive human behavior and aggression that is so often labeled an inevitable cycle of life. However, many historical figures, thinkers and artists throughout the ages have challenged that notion, and one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces that has ever represented that opposition is Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 war-flick, Apocalypse Now.
Written by John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola, the film is inspired by Joseph Conrad's 1898 novella, Heart of Darkness, a story about an English tradesman sent down the African Congo River to investigate a seemingly insane ivory trader, Kurtz. Transplanting the time and setting of the story to the Vietnamese conflict during the late 1960s/early 1970s, Apocalypse Now closely parallels the respective novella. Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen of "Badlands" and "The West Wing") is a young army captain who's been given the assignment of traveling down the (fictional) Nung River in search of a murderous and allegedly insane, renegade America colonel, Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando of "On The Waterfront" and "The Godfather"), whom he is ordered to assassinate. Along the way, Willard encounters a number of strange people and abhorrent situations that illustrate not only the "horrors of war," but also the complexity of the human soul and the nature of brutality.
The primary strengths of this film rely on the visually-arresting cinematography, soundtrack, and acting. However, it's the nature of Apocalypse Now's message that gives the film its mystical allure. Although many well-written, visually-grabbing, superbly-acted war films, such as Lewis Milestone's All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) and Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986), have earned significant prestige by radically representing the gruesomeness of war, Coppola does so in a more balanced, unbiased manner, allowing the striking visuals of carnage, flames, caves, darkness, and fog to speak for the viewers. The authenticity of his story can also be closely and uncannily identified with the hellish production of the film itself (riddled with a number of "Murphy's Law" incidents, including but not limited to heart attacks, typhoons, budgetary constraints, and Marlon Brando himself). In the end, what we are left with a number of ambiguous, open-ended questions that all people can relate to: why do humans engage in war? What does it mean to go insane or become barbaric and uncivilized? What effects can battle have on a soldier?
The opening scene of the movie, in which, after fading in from black to a simple backdrop of palm trees against a plain grey sky, colored wafts of smoke appear, helicopters intermittently float by, and a sudden emergence of orangish-glowing, Napalm-induced fire consumes a forest and reduces it to ashes, is a paradigmatic representation of the psychology of war-- both in terms of what drives people to it and what effects it has on those involved. Superimposed over the initial image, our view of Willard--a faded, dissipated look on his face--as he lays in his hotel room bed, idly smoking a cigarette, lets us know that war has irreparably warped his mind and soul. Further accentuating that is the hypnotic whooshing of helicopter and ceiling fan blades (accompanied by The Doors' haunting and atmospheric musical piece, "The End"), perpetually whirling about in circles. What Coppola seems to suggest here is that war burrows its way into those who partake in it, and is a seemingly never-ending cycle of existence.
Coppola also attacks the paradoxes of war, specifically highlighting the absurdity that an army would rationally calculate and strategize their attacks and set up "rules of engagement," but then resort to aggressive and monstrous, blood-lust-driven savagery when actually immersed in the heat of battle. His famous and beautifully-edited, 10-minute long helicopter attack sequence is a quintessential example of that. The helicopters emerging from the horizon of the bright, blue early-morning sky-- accompanied by a diegetic version of Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries that accentuates the sequence's direct allusions to Norse mythology and Viking longboat attacks of the medieval past--balances our perceptions of war. The soldiers fly in with the adrenaline, testosterone-filled rush of a little boy in front of his video game set, a Hollywood cowboy or a brawny star quarterback, relishing in the heart-pumping, exhilerating joy of explosions, gunfire, and death. However, when they land and one G.I.'s leg is severed by an explosion, the gruesome reality starts sinking in. Similarly, the people that Lieutenant Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall of "The Godfather" and "Tender Mercies"), a gung-ho surfer and Wagner aficionado, orders the assault on are supposedly Viet-Cong, but whether or not the U.S. helicopter fleet acted justly or barbarically is intentionally never made clear. As Kilgore fearlessly strolls along the beach, completely unaffected by the explosions going off around him, his iconic quote "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" demonstrates, similar to Willard, just how psychologically damaged he has become by war.
The rest of the film (jam-packed with classic references of everything from Dante's Divine Comedy and Homer's Odyssey to Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita and Aeneas' Golden Bough), in which Willard and his crew mates make their way up the river and slowly descend into madness, further highlights the eminence of Apocalypse Now, neatly balancing direct episodes from Heart of Darkness--which stress the brutality of 19th century European imperialism--with scenes that stress the brutality of war. What we're left with is a purposely inexplicable, yet highly evocative story that transcends all times and cultures. Man, in the words of Kurtz, "crawls along the blade of a straight razor," always walking that thin line between love, hate, civility, savagery, sanity, and madness. But don't let the morose tagline "the horror...the horror" fool you. This film is a strange yet "beautiful...beautiful" work that must be seen by every person at some point in their life. "(The) End" of story!
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