ilikepuppies Reviews

Fly Me to the Moon 3D (2007)

All It Needed Was Suzanne Summers

[5/10 · 7 September 2008]

I saw this about two weeks ago in the theater and dismissed it as pedestrian in all but one area. The 3-D, I thought was done in a new way (to this inexperienced viewer). A way that convinced me, in fact that after many decades in existence already, the technology was hitting a breakthrough moment and had a huge future yet ahead of it. My theory was then, and is now that this film started as an excuse to showcase an innovation in 3D animation. Probably made by computer specialists with little to no experience with narrative creativity.

No, these guys instead specialize in spatial creativity. And I gotta say that the experience in the world of this film stuck with me. It has changed me in a minor way. The way I think spatially has been permanently altered just so much.

Here's the deal. I've seen 3D just a few times, but to my experience, it had always been gimmicky. Fun, but gimmicky because the only trick anyone seemed to know was the push-objects-into-our-faces thing, which is merely a carnival ride, a novelty.

But this! Somebody here is using a much more profound approach. Instead of being merely prodded at, the viewers here have an entire world built around them architecturally. A strong feeling of occupying the same space as the characters is created. Movies are all about engagement, the deeper the engagement, the more we like them. This film demonstrates how 3D alone can engage.

There's a big future for the product highlighted in this advertisement.

A Few Good Men (1992)

Cruise Control

[4/10 · 7 September 2008]

Tom Cruise is an interesting case. He has built a veritable empire as an actor while somehow rarely even attempting anything resembling real acting. Instead, his approach is more of a sort of anti-acting. What I mean is that he does everything he can to divert attention away from his apparent lack of acting skills. This film is a perfect study.

Try this. Watch this one while paying attention to Cruise and try to find a single line delivered where he doesn't occupy himself physically. You'll find an almost pathological pattern of wild poses and physical activity that he employs during his dialogue. He disguises his ineptitude with a combination of exaggerated gestures and poses, if not while more completely engaged in the physical, such as the two(!) scenes in which his delivery includes shagging baseballs.

With the exception of "Eyes Wide Shut" (Kubrick worked a miracle), nuance and subtlety are non-existent to his career. When faced with a real acting challenge (such as professing heartfelt love for his wife) he opts for the misdirection move of jumping up to the chair to yelp out his uncontainable joy.

It's the perfect gesture-ized acting style for a tele-evangelist, which happens to be Tom's side job.

Anyways, after suffering through this for about 1/4 of the film, Nicholson appears to make a fool of Tom by putting on a clinic of nuance. I've noticed a few recent films like this where a bad actor was cast alongside real talent, and the result is never a good one.

By this point in his career Tom can play only one character, and any producer wishing to hire him knows exactly what he is getting. Check out "Magnolia" for a rare apt use of Cruise's antics.

But don't look for it here. Instead, watch this film with the sound off, then try not to laugh out loud. The mute button serves to remove the distractive plot, to isolate his portfolio of outrageous gestures.

Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)

Kitchen Looks Good, but There's Garbage in the Fridge

[2/10 · 26 July 2008]

I'm now on a mission to solve a riddle posed by this experience.

Consider: This film is exactly what it criticizes. The makers of this are uncaring corporate thugs, bent on bastardizing a pre-existing product into a more modern saleable product. Now ponder that this film is about just that; it's a story of the same kind of thuggery, and delivers the message that it's wrong. This criticizes formulism while clinging firmly to its own formulas (gas jokes and physical gags for the 8-year olds, subversive references to "nuts" for their parents, et al).

So how does this happen? I have two theories.

The first is that there were some unhappy folks involved in the actual creative decisionmaking taking stabs at their corporate decisionmaking counterparts, who are most likely oblivious. This is the theory I would prefer to believe, as it would involve some deliciously subversive haranguing of financiers and management. That I like.

But maybe more likely is the idea that the higher-ups are actually in on the joke. That's much more troubling because it would imply that it was an engineered contradiction. In other words, studios know that they are serving us garbage, but are carefully and subliminally concealing it as such. After all, one who criticizes an idea implies that he can be trusted to not employ that idea.

I take a special interest in what these businesses are shoveling at my kids. This kind of formula film is damaging, downright demeaning to any person of any age. Yet children are too inexperienced to recognize it as such, so it's good advice for parents to ride along with their kids through these experiences and help them navigate through these obstacles.

Teach them that real art isn't born at a boardroom demographics meeting. Please.

Knocked Up (2007)

Exposed Stitching

[2/10 · 7 June 2008]

The only value in this project is that it is such an obvious lesson in how advanced the study of demographics really has become.

The two largest groups film-makers (at least studio-subservient film-makers) aim for are men, and women. It's a risky and delicate practice to try to appeal to both within the same film, and there are various approaches to doing so, and the most common is to find some common ground between the sexes and exploit it. For instance, Spielberg's wild success came from appealing to the child in each viewer, a common ground shared across gender lines.

This is different, in what seems a modern fashion, revealing its highly-engineered skeleton. Here there is no common ground. Instead these guys have attempted to merge two genres: the romantic drama (for the ladies,) and the stoner comedy (men enjoy a good laugh at themselves, you see.) To pull this off, a delicate interweaving of elements is required to tie the two genres together seamlessly, a requisite which fails here. Th result is jarring in that the two characters (from different genres) seem wholly incompatible. It's just too unrealistic.

I personally thought the chick-flick half was done more competently. Great comedy is born of pain, but when that pain is emphasized the comedy saddens. And this is sad comedy to begin with.

I also disliked "Superbad" but feel it's a notch better than this one, given the fact that it doesn't make this same mistake of taking itself seriously.

Kicking & Screaming (2005)

Pele Rolls in his Grave.

[3/10 · 12 February 2008]

Among businessmen who design films as moneymaking ventures, there is growing interest in generational demographics. That is, the idea of tuning the product so that it appeals to children and their parents at the same time. If this trick is pulled off, ticket sales will theoretically double. See any Dreamworks Animation feature as a perfect example. You'll see a careful mix of childhood entertainment with just the right amount of nostalgia for the parents mixed in (usually in the vapid form of 70s and 80s pop culture).

The specific formula in this case is the middle-aged man who resolves relationship problems with his crotchety father by reverting to his own childhood immaturity. The old grouch is redeemed and simultaneously the main character learns how not to become the same grouchy father himself. This ostensibly appeals to two demographics at once: Middle-aged fathers and kids alike who can revel in the fantasy of having a harmonious relationship with their fathers.

This provides very thin scaffolding on which something interesting must be overlain for the film to carry any merit whatsoever. Not the case here, unfortunately.

Incidentally, Will Ferrell has honed this character of bratty childish adult, becoming a sought-after performer fit for just this formula. See 'Elf,' for a good example. It's basically the same film as 'Kicking,' the difference being that it was decorated like a tree for the holiday season. Oh, and it's actually slightly funny.

Superbad (2007)

Something Like 8%....

[3/10 · 12 February 2008]

How does one evaluate the intentionally bad? This project is along the same lines as the student who gives a speech about how NOT to give a speech, thus securing inevitable success.

There is a nested story within this which mirrors the film proper. It involves a child with an overwhelming impulse to sketch one phallus after the next, an impulse the character shares with the film-makers themselves. Each scene in this movie can be seen as another gratuitously vulgar sketch drawn by an immature child. A vomiting cop. A menstrual stain. A teenager's erection. And on and on.

I imagine this was the impetus for this project, to create a truly superbad film, and it could have worked somewhat, had it actually been funny. Or clever in any way. Besides, the vision has been bent by market forces, a quaint moral being obviously tacked on by the monetary powers that be. Lenders, after all do have their own formulas to attend to. It's simple risk management.

I didn't get that whole funk music connection, either. Guess it's just one false detail on a fake ID.

Suddenly It's Spring (1944)

Whitewashed History.

[7/10 · 18 January 2008]

Whenever I stumble across a collection of DVDs priced at $1 a piece, I'm interested. It's not because of the frugal nature inherent in the peasant culture I come from. It's due to the fact that these things are usually fraught with the real grit of pop culture which time (and market forces) inevitably scrubs out. In other words, our inaccurate view of the past through rose-colored glasses can be penetrated by viewing these things.

Here's a great example that I found buried toward the end of a $1 DVD titled, "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur." Actually, everything on this DVD is a good instance, each cartoon short including something which many today would find politically objectionable. Mostly involving race or unsavory attitudes about WWII, during WWII.

It's easy to see how these discount collections come to be. Some startup production company (in this case 'Digiview Productions') has bought the rights to some shorts which Warner Brothers (and others) have ostensibly deemed financially obsolete. Most likely for pennies. Then they package them as a normal Looney Toones collection.

It doesn't take long in viewing these to see that they are from the bottom of the barrel. One is taken aback by the inclusion of a stuttering "yes-massah" black child character in a Warner short. It does offend.

But the tradeoff is worth it. This is the stuff which disappears from history, leaving us an incomplete picture of our own culture, circa the time period. If you see these, your idea of race relations in 1944 will be jarred, in a valuable way.

That aside, I found one of these shorts particularly interesting, one entitled, "Suddenly it's Spring," which is part Wizaard of Oz, part Betty Boop. Oz because it follows the same template of a child resolving a real-life problem through a dream journey. Here the ill child dreams that her doll embarks on a magical quest to save her life, and wakes up miraculously cured. And Betty Boop because of the dark under-worldish racially-tinged cosmology.

But again, included is a character, a lazy old black man, who is depicted in all his stereotypical glory. There is no demographic for this stuff nowadays, aside from the culturally curious, and as a result the company which released this had to market it dishonestly, giving no hint of the DVD's real contents.

If we cared about history we would show one of these alongside every "What's Opera, Doc?" or "Duck Amuck." Shame. On so many levels.

Death Proof (2007)

"Scary tends to impress."

[6/10 · 30 December 2007]

It's perplexing to me that Tarantino gets so much respect as a writer, considering that so much of his writing is done on the fly. In fact, this film was largely written as it was being filmed. He starts with an excuse to make a film and his ambition makes it happen, while his vast film vocabulary fills in all the blanks. And like all his films, the result is a movie drenched in Tarantino's personal nostalgia, a nostalgia which he seems to think important enough to repeatedly push on our culture for some reason. Here, that excuse is the desire to film the "greatest car chase ever, dude!" The rest of the film is dressing.

I consider Tarantino an arbiter of the hip-hop aesthetic, transplanted into film. I'm talking about sampling, and the fine line which exists between the art of sampling clips from other songs and simple plagiarism. Quentin's use of "samples," that is, bits from other films is comparable. At times it seems he's not so much creating as he is simply re-sequencing, referencing his own DVD collection. In order to pull this off, you have to be one hell of an interesting person (with one hell of an interesting DVD collection), which he unfortunately is not.

But wait...

The reality is that in spite of all this criticism, Death Proof is actually my favorite of Quentin's films so far, and the reason is the adventurous spirit in which he attacks that chase sequence, the centerpiece of the movie, remember. It's a spatial ride, and the best bit of film-making to come from him to date.

All the technical aspects of this of course get a free pass, because well, the worse the better, right? So it's easy to ignore it all, although a few in the crew had interesting tasks, especially the actors. Is it more difficult for a makeup department to create a realistic scar or a poor one which is supposed to look like a failed attempt?

Maybe it will someday dawn on Tarantino that film can be important. If ever, he just may become important himself. He's a good storyteller, but real films, powerful ones are about storyshowing, not mere telling.

Ratatouille (2007)

A Gourmet Peasant Dish.

[9/10 · 11 August 2007]

What do you do if you find yourself in the wrong skin? If you find yourself in an environment so plebeian to your own exceptional senses and skills that you'd rather leave for a new world?

Evidently the answer is that you make a movie about it. And the story continues that you leave for a more sophisticated place where you will take on the best in your craft, and succeed. Further, you will find your success by pulling puppet strings, or "animating." And on.

The parallel nature of filmmaker's story/main character's story is no accident. Pixar pulls this multi-level trick in every film they make.

As for all the other aspects of this film? Craftsmanlike.

(I saw an animated character animate a character of his own just twice before, in Curious George, and first in 'Duck Amuck,' which is brilliant.)

Rescue Dawn (2006)

Cold Pizza

[6/10 · 11 August 2007]

Upon browsing through the Herzog catalog one constant is most obvious. That is that he likes to relay the craziest stories he comes across, it seems to be the fulcrum around which everything else undulates. That would be nothing to hang a hat on if not for the style in which he does it: In telling these fantastical tales he employs the same near-insanity as displayed within the story. In other words, he'll find a mad subject to document, perhaps a man who refuses to evacuate away from an erupting volcano, then in doing so, he will engage in the same madness, such as traveling towards said danger to make his movie.

His film, 'Little Dieter,' is no different. It's a "true" story of near-made-up proportions in which we get to travel inside the damaged psyche of our subject. We suffer right along side him, an experience as close to sharing in the torture as possible.

Fast forward to 'Rescue Dawn,' which is a retelling of 'Dieter,' almost scene-for-scene (and which borrows actual footage). The difference is that while the earlier film is a participatory experience, 'Rescue' is more a mere voyeur piece. Instead of immediate engagement it is more remote. We are manipulated by more conventional means, such as dramatic score, editing, overacted despair.

Of course this is Herzog we are talking about, and thankfully that means aside from this complaint, it's going to still be worth the visit. And the moments of brilliance do pervade. The sweeping shot across the bridge. The treatment of the jungle (which Herzog seems to have made a life-long study). The camera (us viewers) through the bushes. The wonderfully textural sets, the best of which is framed by that serpentine fence. The camera's escape right along with the prisoners.

And that plane crash is horrifying.

The grain of the film they chose is a nice match to the archival stock footage used in the lush opening. That settles us in to our own preconceived idea of what the Vietnam War looked like in '65. It's a sort of mini-shortcut, less effort will have to be made in getting the viewer to accept the cosmology.

But the main idea is to experiment with a story, to taste the same story told two different ways. Like leftovers. How do you dramatize a tale which already seems exaggerated in the documentary?

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Yang.

[7/10 · 4 August 2007]

What novel paths filmmakers are traveling down, on their journeys to advance the medium. After 100 years, we are still working out the wrinkles in defining what movies are in the first place. For one thing, it's obvious at this point that they aren't merely 90-minute one-time events. What we used to consider a movie in these terms is today quite possibly just a small part of the big picture, the series or franchise. 'Fellowship of the Ring' isn't as much a movie as it is a part of a trilogy.

This film (and it's counterpart 'Flags') combine to instantiate a new (to me) form. That is, a two-piece 5 hour film, each half a narrative yin/yang reflection of the other, and both tell basically the same tale, which is about the propaganda war waged by any government against its own people.

It reads as un-Hollywood as any major film I've seen in years in the depiction of good and evil as myths. Remember, the Hollywood machine has relied on the lazy notions of clear-cut conflict between good and evil for many decades.

This easily bests Tarantino's similarly-structured, yet simple episodic 'Kill Bill' of a couple years prior.

Apocalypto (2006)

"Give Me Back My Son!!!"

[3/10 · 9 June 2007]

I'd like to say up front that I came to this having very minimal opinion of Mel as a filmmaker, or an actor for that matter. The former because I had only seen one of his offerings long ago ("Braveheart") and the latter because his acting creates no impression, whether good or bad.

As the film began for this impartial viewer, I immediately realized that this is not going to be coming from a particularly intelligent source, judging by the vacuous opening quote shown in script: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." -W. Durant The use of this quote also hints that the war-popularization machine is cranking.

So in the first few moments I was taken from no expectations to low expectations.

On to the body of the film, where it is obvious within the first few shots that Mel is simply emulating the greats (or at least the ones he considers great.) In our very first shot, he enters us into this world Malick-style, that of sweeping through nature's inherent peace. Then on to Kubrick's "2001," with the shot of the bone flying through the air (and again later with the eclipse.) Then he reminds us how graphic was the climactic slaughter scene in "Apocalypse Now." (Hence, "Apocalypto.") And on.

I must just say something about that scene. See, the problem is that Mel actually thinks that he can capture the power which Coppola harnessed by simply replacing an ox (?) with a pig. Not so, evidently.

Gibson goes on to quote others throughout. Kurosawa, Herzog, even Stallone. But none as much as Costner, as the film settles in firmly to Dances With Wolves mode. In fact Gibson and Costner are very similar in that neither has any real vision but are steadfast in their quest for Academy Awards above all else. I predict a couple "Waterworld" style bombs for Mel in the near future.

So here are the Gibson Formal Rules for Attempted Oscar Glory:*

-Subtitles are an absolute must, for at least a portion of the film.

-Nudity, check.

-"Realistic" brutality is good for at least a few nominations.

-Must include the emotional trigger of family dishonor at the hands of an enemy people.

-It's very important to overlay a story of personal struggle on top of a larger clash, one of historic proportions.

So as we can see, Mel finally reveals that his favorite filmmaker is actually himself, as we have all the hallmarks of a Gibson movie intact. In fact he is still also in love with his own 80s action persona, as the film deteriorates into a straight-up eye-roller, in the form of the cliché of that era. You know, every one of those 80s action flicks simply had to finally include a showdown between alpha-tough-guys, a la Arnie, Sly and Chuck. And Mel.

The editing is particularly bad, especially during the cat chase sequence which lasted far too long and was poorly paced. The slow-motion used in said fight scene was terribly hackneyed. Melodrama galore.

Hard for this viewer to believe there was no controversy surrounding this film, given the well-publicized exposure of his anti-Semitic rants. Could have been spun.

*Even with limited exposure to Mel I know these rules because they are relentlessly marketed at the public in the promotions of all his films.

Shrek the Third (2007)

You Can Dress Up an Ogre All You Want, But....

[5/10 · 28 May 2007]

Interesting, this. With this series, Dreamworks has somehow built a seemingly unstoppable franchise on a foundation of unoriginality. In fact nearly every element of these is a reference to some other film. Instead of writing a joke, these guys simply refer us to another joke we remember from some other movie. We don't laugh, we re-laugh.

The mainstream movie business seems to be leaning this way. Entire films are being shot as I type this based on nothing more than fond remembrances. Thin nostalgia. It's actually shrewd business tactic at its best. The idea is to double your demographic: Target kids AND their parents. Whatever was a fad for you when you were 7 years old is sure to re-emerge when your kids are that age. It's also the opposite of what say, Pixar does, which is to actually engage the viewer on a deep level. To take our imaginations somewhere instead of just our memories.

Until this. Well, sort of. This is the first offering by Dreamworks Animation Studios that I know of that at least tries. That it fails is beside the point. They should be applauded for effort.

It's their first attempt at clever construction, and here's the idea: The story here is told on 3 levels simultaneously. The first (and most annoying) is our collective experience in movie-land. Second is the movie proper, the irrelevant tale of an ogre and a future king. Third is the staging of a play, which is actually based on the other two levels.

If the first two levels are mild celebrations on movies themselves, the important third is a lavish ticker-tape parade, and was the missing element in the first two Shreks. Ultimately though, I'm not sure it's possible to pull this off when you're constantly dragging your audience's intelligence down with all those toilet jokes. Maybe next time they'll lower their poop-joke quota.

Wonder if Dreamworks has a future king in their midst.

Casino Royale (2006)

Poker Face.

[4/10 · 27 May 2007]

Two quick points to make here.

First, that opening chase. It's a staple of the series to begin the film with a speedy pursuit. Forget Bond films. This is one of the most exciting of its kind in any movie I have ever seen. The best exploitation of space. And the clever abandonment of gadgetry in favor of the human body only. (Is there a more clever gadget, anyways?)

Second. Poker has inherently cinematic possibilities that have never been mined in any film I have seen. The game is many things, but is primarily an acting competition. Who's the most convincing? So there's room for all sorts of experiment in acting, yet films I have seen featuring poker all seem to rely on the "poker face" instead. It's anti-acting instead of the potentially thrilling possibility of meta-acting. Bummer.

Not that Craig could have approached pulling it off, anyways.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

How to Control the Act of Controlling Control.

[10/10 · 19 May 2007]

Reading other reviewers' comments on this film is particularly interesting. They typically sense importance without fully understanding why, and rarely are they able to successfully illustrate why they find it so enjoyable.

So let me start by attempting just that myself.

To me, this is about control. Mankind is under the control of some extraterrestrial beings (or Gods) while struggling for control over each other. It's the same story told twice: We are given the technology to enslave each other, once by innovation of crude weaponry (bone), the other by advanced (supercomputer).

The tip-off scene is the one in which our technological leaders hold a press conference to decide what to tell the rest of the species, how best to control them. It's not Hal who's fighting for mastery over the crew. Hal is merely a surrogate for said leaders, who are responsible for programming Hal to do everything he does. No, there is no computer malfunction here. Hal is programmed to eradicate the human pawns in the event that they begin to learn the truth. So there is no "man vs. computer" theme, but more accurately, "man vs. man-with-computer." A huge clue: Considering that the ape who touched the monolith is the one who gained innovation, note which character touches the one on the moon.

Also consider: Dave has been enslaved to the point where his very conscience is ultimately manipulated. As soon as he defeats Hal, those with authority over him move to plan B, and the very manner in which he experiences life is wildly altered.

Kubrick also chose to start another discussion about control on another level, that of the film's control over us, and that's the root of most people's confusion with this experience. And that's the deal with the ambiguous ending. With a clear ending and concrete answers, there is nothing to discuss.

The stylistic choice to romanticize space as the new nature is a further experiment in manipulation, that of the film-maker over the viewer. Check out the music. It's a symphony about the beauty of earthly nature. I know he has succeeded because the film feels even more important than what I can explain.

I'll leave all talk about the technical aspects of this movie to other reviewers. Typically if one is discussing this primarily in that context, he/she is missing the point completely. But even the most clueless has been controlled to feel that this film is profound. And that's profound.

Everyone should see this. Multiple times.

Toy Story (1995)

They Don't Call it "Playing" for Nothing.

[9/10 · 19 May 2007]

The opening scene says it all. Film-making begins in early childhood, as children use their toys to create little scenes (or movies if you will). The word "play" when used to describe such activity indeed derived from the movies of another era, plays. Or perhaps the other way around. Either way, the point of this film is to show that creating a film and playing with toys are virtually the same thing.

So the film is basically about itself. A play about playing. This is exactly the type of multi-layered construction that I believe subconsciously challenges and nurtures our kids' minds. Teaching a child (or adult!) to think on more than one level at a time is simply a gift.

It should also be applauded that it's all substance and no fluff. Other animation teams have inundated their films with meaningless pop culture gags, camp, and nostalgic irony. Not to mention an abundance of toilet humor. Music by the great Randy Newman instead of the Village People.

None of the mindless pandering to adults here, either, yet we are included in the fun by being subtly reminded of our own play days. Barrel of Monkeys. Potato Heads. In fact there is a strong undercurrent theme here as the classic cowboy toy is threatened by the flashy new space man who is obviously being pushed on kids via a relentless marketing campaign. We 30-somethings must root for Woody. It's Wal-mart vs. our favorite mom-n-pop corner store.

These Pixar guys are brilliant, and I believe they will be revered someday as perhaps the most important influence in all of filmdom during the turn of this century's period. There is no more sure thing than a Pixar offering. Always compelling, engaging, intelligent and abstract. And this one is the best.

Betty Boop for President (1932)

Why?

[2/10 · 29 April 2007]

This is attempted suicide. Whoever owned the rights to the old Boop shorts when this was made clearly had no idea what they had in their hands. The cavalier treatment of these masterpieces in this "film" is a downright tragedy.

The idea (for some reason) was to make a story about Betty running for president. So they (for some reason) took a collection of 70 year old cartoon shorts and strung them together in discontinuous fashion. Then an attempt was made (for some reason) to overlay a brand new script over the original footage.

The result is the absolute mutilation of a treasure trove of visual (and conceptual) cinema.

I can't begin to wonder why any person thought this was a good idea, or better yet how this idea even occurred to anyone.

Embarrassingly, I purchased this (for some reason).

The Richard Pryor Show (1977)

My Donkey Don't Like to be Called "Ass."

[29 April 2007]

The kind of deliciously subversive art we see here can only be spawned from oppression. That's true especially of comedy. This is the work of some highly intelligent and creative folks, of course especially Pryor himself, who provides that most important ingredient.

A few months ago I watched "Live and Smokin'" which was a stand-up performance by Pryor from a few years earlier than this. It was taped in a time before his huge success and featured him in a relatively small club. He was obviously high. As he trotted out one joke after another, a picture emerged of a gentle and intelligent soul who has seen and lived through every social hardship imaginable. The tone was vulgar (as always), but extremely thoughtful. It's an overtly pain-filled performance that will change you if you see it. The audience reaction was awkward, at best.

So, having learned about him, I came to this. It's an entirely different ball game having to satisfy so many others' visions (director, producers, network et. al) but it's still Pryor's painful life experiences that seep through all the cracks.

He had come a long way between the two products, from merely letting his pain spill over to cleverly constructing a series of cultural statements out of it. It in fact comes off as a desperate attempt to save an American black culture that he saw as dying, or more accurately, being swallowed up. Featured are actual performances in swing dance, jazz and African (communal!) dance, and soul. The comedy bits are actually outnumbered by said performances and some "serious" short films. All this in the face of more popular black culture of the time. Blacksploitation aside.

Pryor also evidently had a soft spot for the similarly oppressed gay culture, presumably from his upbringing in a whorehouse, where he surely became acquainted with all forms of burdened life. He here gave a platform for performers straight from the gay clubs. Why don't similarly beaten-down minorities relate to each other like this more often? Odd.

The best comedy is that which causes two reactions. First the laughter. Then when the laughter dies down, the reflexion and examination of why it was so funny. Most often you will realize that you were made to laugh at something that is not funny at all. In fact the opposite. The legacy of intelligent comedians who do this include Bruce, Carlin and more recently Rock. But Pryor outshines them all. He knows more about pain.

This show would never be allowed on a major network today.

Added: The last skit on the last disc (3) is absolutely priceless. It features Pryor being confronted by leaders of the black community. They demand that he use his show as a platform for their cause, pump him up into a mad frenzy and they all storm toward the stage, ushering him to his performance. Pryor then staggers on stage and performs a perfectly mousy version of "There's No Business Like Show Business." This one moment alone was worth the whole 6 hours.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005)

Unedited Rough Draft.

[3/10 · 22 April 2007]

The aspirations of these sorts of "documentaries of persuasion" are such that they always aim low, in cinematic terms. This film occupies a small corner of the world of limitless film possibilities.

That aside, this is surprisingly juvenile, both in argument and skill of delivery. One can plainly see the outline, as if reading a junior high schooler's term paper. Trouble is, it's almost as if the lazy student never refined the paper past that stage.

They started with a thesis: "Wal-Mart is bad." The next step would have been to brainstorm possible instances that could illustrate this thesis. Wal-Mart exploits its employees. They are politically corrupt. They are environmentally irresponsible. They give nothing back to communities. They kill small business. They aggressively squash union activity. And so on.

Step three: research each of these and select which bring relevant and interesting details to the table. But this student apparently thought that every negative bit they could dig up would compel, ignoring the fact that most of these incriminations are far from unique to just Wal-Mart. Many many corporations overwork their staffs, for instance.

There is an obvious vendetta at play that clouded the judgment of the film-maker. He didn't care about making a good film as much as doing damage to a corporation he has evident hate for. It's not as much a movie as an attack.

One interesting thing, though, and that is the repeated use of actual Wal-Mart ads. The point is that these are fictions and are meant to paint a picture that favors their agenda. But what this does is juxtapose Wal-mart's "movie" with Greenwald's. Both are fictions.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Bunk Rock.

[5/10 · 15 April 2007]

Will Ferrell's comedic stance is centered around exposing all the uncomfortable little flaws inherent in existing as a human being. All those embarrassing characteristics we all would rather not mention about ourselves are trotted out one after another. That said, a comedic noir seems a perfect fit for him, since noir usually features a helpless main character being toyed with by a higher power of some sort.

So far so good.

The task these film-makers set out to achieve was to take the noir form and extend the narrative in a new direction. One in which our hapless victim actually takes control half-ways through, becoming the God who is doing the capricious toying.

You see, I prefer to believe that it is actually Harold who is the author of this tale, writing about an author who is writing about him (who at one point is writing about her writing about him writing about her!). With help from an actual writing instructor, he is even depicted explicitly writing the very narration that he himself hears. Indeed it is Harold in control of the film at the end, and it is he who changes the outcome.

It's a clever experiment with writing itself and is in fact a movie about its own screenplay. This idea of art about itself is really becoming a part of the very fabric of our culture. It's tricky business, but as demonstrated here, film-makers are finding ways to solve the various problems associated with bringing these notions to the everyday film-goer.

But. What spoils this for me was the purposeless use of music. There seems to be a growing trend in which film-makers selfishly indulge in choosing songs based simply on their own personal tastes in music, regardless of relevance to the film. (Tarantino comes to mind.) This desire to refer to one's own record collection is quite an annoyance, and basically states, "Look how great is my taste in music!" Simply put, punk rock (and specifically British punk rock) has no place here. Consider that the song Harold sings to his love interest is one that that particular character would never know at all, much less by heart. It is an esoteric genre piece which typically attracts an opposite personality type to that of Harold, an ultra-square IRS number-head.

Borat (2006)

Some Guy from Out of Town.

[8/10 · 15 April 2007]

Sure this is funny. Hilarious. But underneath that overwhelming layer lie two others that are actually more interesting and in fact highly intelligent.

Cohen has mastered the skill of almost forcing his subjects into brutally honest reactions to his antics. Normally, people will only offer as much of their own prejudices as they deem will be acceptable, given whatever situation they happen to be in at the time. But what he has learned to do is to create context in which ANYTHING is indeed acceptable, thus freeing his subjects' opinions from their formerly oppressed state. That, along with putting them on the spot with extreme unpredictability enables him to draw out their opinions in a stream-of-consciousness manner.

The other (and most interesting) layer is that of uniquely ambiguous narrative. Is this a Kazahkstani documentary? A "making-of" the documentary? A feature film about the "making of?" A video travel journal?

Truth is, it's bits and pieces of all of these and more, complete with stock-footage, pseudo-stock footage, etc. I feel that this narrative mish-mash lends an air of reality which results in an extremely engaging experience. And that's the trick that makes it so side-splitting. Footage of a comedian accidentally destroying valuables in an antique shop can be enjoyed in multiple contexts:

---Fully-staged movie scene in which all players are acting their parts

---"Candid Camera" style prank in which a put-on is staged and some actors are used while others are unknowing

---Caught-on-tape incident in which an authentic accident is recorded

We get the humor of these levels simultaneously, and it overwhelms.

I'd like another example of a film in which almost every "character" was played by an "actor" who was actually oblivious to his own role. Pretty unique stuff here. It's enthralling to watch someone step outside their own movie and into someone else's, especially someone this foreign to them.

The template for this was surely Henson's "Muppet Movie," another landmark in narrative ambiguity (and another road movie). See the two back to back.

The Black Dahlia (2006)

Question marks, period.

[7/10 · 14 April 2007]

As always, DePalma delivers in a number of key areas. Use of music, tone, pacing and not least his deft employment of motion. It has long been a trademark of his artistry.

Others may view this as a confusing story and proclaim it unwatchable. Well, that's kind of the point. It's at heart a film mystery that ends up being just that: a mystery. The plot is fluid and indeed confusing-- about a city (Hollywood) that is equally perplexing. If we each live in our own movie, those who abide in Hollywood most likely live in a mystery movie. Everyone in show business is some form of liar....a creator of fictions, in fact in many cases a professional deceiver.

So what we have here is a mysterious film about a real life mystery, the two worlds overlapping continuously. Our detectives gain clues to their puzzle from our film (which is their real lives), from OUR real lives (based on real events) and from what is the world of film, to them. Three levels of abstraction for them (and us) to draw from.

How common it has become to sit in a theater and leer at another audience on the screen as they leer back at us! This overlapping of audiences (worlds) is the basis of this exploration, and also the root of confusion.

Lynch engaged in this same experiment with his "Mulholland Drive." Same notion of Hollywood as character, same (and even more intense!) confusion, same mystery, same conflation of dimensions. What makes this better, though is DePalma's exquisite camera. Here we actually get to MOVE from one level of reality to the next.

By the way, the true story this is based on remains a mystery itself, even to this day. So the ambiguity in the film is quite apt.

Reign Over Me (2007)

Shadow of the Shadow of the Colossus.

[4/10 · 9 April 2007]

These filmmakers took so many shortcuts that I left the theater with more questions than you can shake a stick at:

-Does simply involving 9/11 in the back-story really expose the viewer's emotional nerves, leading to a more engaging tearjerker?

-Are (1) nervous fidgeting and (2) lack of eye contact all an actor really needs to portray any neuroses at all?

-Are people really that attached to their Ipods so much that they expect to see the Ipod display that accompanies each soundtrack offering?

-If the music video montage is really an engaging experience, why was it abandoned long ago by it's main pusher (MTV)?

-Is "broken heart" a viable diagnosis for any psychological condition, at least cinematically speaking?

-Did the casting agent not know that placing a mediocre actor (Sandler) across from a fine one (Chaedle) exposes the lesser's lack of ability?

-Is the showing of a movie audience enjoying themselves supposed to trick us (as movie audience) into joining them in their enjoyment?

-What scenes could have possibly been left on the cutting room floor that would have transformed the truly disturbed fellatio fetishist into a reasonable love-interest?

This last question hints at the film's worst failure, that of the terrible editing. Then again, it's not so much that the editor did a poor job. It's more that the task was one hell of a mountain to climb for any editor. What a jumbled mess of discontinuity.

They simply tried to do too many things here, being forced into a variety of shortcuts as a result.

One last question: Does the video game really pass as a non-laughable metaphor for our main character fighting his personal demons?

Discuss.

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Meet John Lasseter.

[5/10 · 5 April 2007]

This film is about Disney's very future.

A while back I wrote comments for Disney's first post-Pixar film, "Chicken Little." My thoughts at the time were that Disney was at surrender stage, and that they had inserted explicit commentary to that fact in the film itself.

Disney and Pixar have since reconciled, and the first fruits of the patched-up partnership are obvious here, complete with the same type of self-referential embedded commentary as in "Chicken." When the two companies parted ways, Disney was lost. As helpless as an infant left on an orphanage's front step. So this story goes, of an abandoned child. An extremely gifted and inventive wreck of a child in search of guidance and nurture.

Disney went back to the drawing board here. The first task: get back that magic they once possessed, monopolized even. So our hero seeks to invent a machine to help him obtain forgotten memories. (Highlighted by an old Mickey short which ran before the film began.)

The bulk of the film is an exploration into what the future may hold, and an admittance is made that said future is wholly dependent on family (Pixar).

Think I'm reading too much into this? Check out how the movie is bookended: At the beginning Disney unveils its brand new (and very impressive) logo. The end is a direct quote from Walt Disney himself about the future of Disney and the importance of moving forward.

United 93 (2006)

Pointless.

[2/10 · 1 May 2006]

Films exist on various levels and serve different purposes. My favorites are commonly ones which exist on a visual/cinematic stratum. This film does not abide in that category. Another impetus for creating a film might be to deliver some sort of message or political stance. These are lesser experiences, but still can carry some weight if the message is particularly profound or artfully delivered. This group is where 'United 93' should belong. Should.

At this writing, it's been nearly 5 years since 9/11, an event which altered the course of human progress. That said, I think it's inexcusable that the producers of this film had absolutely nothing to say about it that wasn't immediately obvious in the days following the attacks. All we have here is a sterile real-time account of events that we all know by now. The only point seems to be that it was dramatic and horrifying for those involved. And?

The truth is that this movie actually resides in the most pointless of all classes. That is, the kind that is strictly a business venture. So until you hear that all profits are being given to victims' families or the like, avoid this mess. Or pay for tickets to a different film and sneak into this, if you must see it.