Brand Upon The Brain (Maddin '06)

Yesterday I watched my first ever Guy Maddin film, Brand Upon The Brain. For those who don't know, Maddin is a Canadian director who has made a career out of modern "silent" film. I put silent in parenthesis because, while we can't hear the characters and title cards are used for dialogue, Isabella Rosallini provides some wonderful narration (when the film premiered, it was shown live and other narrators, including Maddin, Crispin Glover and Eli Wallach). The film opens with a fictionalized Maddin returning home to the island-orphanage his parents ran when he was a child in order to repaint it so his dieing mother can see it one last time. As he walks through it, he begins to have memories of the strange events of the past. Guy and his sister were raised by their overbearing mother, who has a Lucille and Buster Bluth-like relationship with her son, and their mad-scientist father, who is performing some sort of experiment on the orphans. These experiments leas to holes being drilled into the heads of the children, something which, naturally, alarms some of the adoptive parents. The concerns of these parents lead to the intervention of teen detectives Wendy and Chance Hale - a brother and sister better known as the "Light bulb Kids." Guy falls for Wendy, who he pines for for the rest of his life, and his sister falls for Chance, who is actually Wendy in disguise. This, of course, leads to lesbian sex. From here the plot spirals into classic horror/sci-fi madness, with a few laughs along the way. This film is brilliantly shot and fantastically edited, and while it is a difficult film, and may occasionally be a bit too indulgent for its own good, it is an undeniable masterpiece, and a film that everyone should get to experience.

Rating (out of 4 stars) ****

Also seen recently: Before Night Falls (Schnabel '00) Although it doesn't reach quite the same level of brilliance as last year's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, this is an excellent biopic of gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, featuring a stunning performance from one of my favorite actors, Javier Bardem. Rating: ****

Autumn Sonata (Bergman '78) Not Bergman's greatest film, but it would be a masterpiece for almost any other director. Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullman are great in this study of a mother-daughter relationship gone wrong. Rating: ****

Body of Lies and Rachel Getting Married

Ridley Scott has always been a bit uneven in his output. Bladerunner is one of the five greatest science fiction films of all time and Alien is a perfect exercise in horror, but nothing he released between Bladrunner and Gladiator really worked for me. Gladiator and Black Hawk Down were both really entertaining and well made, and Kingdom of Heaven became a near masterpiece in it's director's cut. That means, coming into Body Of Lies, I had enjoyed five of his sixteen films, not exactly a great proportion. Thankfully, Body Of Lies brought it to 6/17. This is certainly no masterpiece, but it is one of the best films about the war on terror, and the performances from DiCaprio, Crowe and Mark Strong are all wonderful. In fact, right now I'd say Crowe deserves a best supporting actor nomination. The script isn't great, and a romantic subplot does nothing but add unnecessary length to the film, but the performances and Scott's direction help overcome that in one of the year's more entertaining films.
Rating: ***

I have never thought much of Jonathan Demme as a director. Silence of the Lambs succeeded because the performances were great and the story was genuinely scary. Visually, the film was generally pedestrian with a few moments of true suspense, especially the final moments in the killers house. Outside of that, I've never been a huge fan of anything he's done, although I haven't seen any of his recent documentaries, and those documentaries certainly influenced the direction of this film. It is told in a series of long handheld takes (except for one seemingly misplaced underwater shot at the end) that give it a documentary feel. Aside from the visuals, this film has a wonderful screenplay that certainly deserves consideration come awards season. Few recent scripts have found as much success in the study of dysfunctional families. Still, despite all of that, this film belongs to one person and one person only: Anne Hathaway. She is the star of the film as Kym, sister to the titular Rachel (the wonderful Rosemarie Dewitt). As the movie opens, Kym is getting out of rehab for the weekend so that she can attend the wedding. Throughout the movie we slowly find out why she was there and why seeing her family is so difficult, culminating in a confession at her AA meeting that will break the heart of any viewer with a soul. Thankfully, as we see Rachel's tragedy, we also see the wedding and hear the music surrounding them. The families are happy, and you want them to remain that way. One of the film's strong points is the fact that, even though it is an interracial wedding, nobody mentions race. Maybe parts of our society have moved on to that point. I also mentioned the music because it is an extremely important part of this movie. There is no soundtrack, just music being constantly played in the background, and Rachel's fiance Sydney is played by TV On the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe.
There are moments that don't work, most notably an awkward competition between Sydney and the girls' father, but Hathaway's stunning performance (her best yet), the great supporting cast and Demme's deft direction keep it going towards a wonderful conclusion. This is one of the year's best films, and I hope the academy remembers it in January.
Rating: ****

I just watched a couple documentaries...

So the last twomovies I watched from Netflix were documentaries, and I figured I'd review both of them at once

The first of the three was Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, and it tells the legendary story of the troubled production surrounding Apocalypse Now, a film in my top five. This is a fascinating film, but it faces one big problem: it just isn't as interesting as Les Blanc's Burden of Dreams, about the production of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. They are unquestionably similar films, both following a crazed yet beloved director into the jungle to create the film that many consider his opus, all while facing increasingly absurd troubles, from governments, nature and actors, along the way. They key point that makes Burden better is Herzog. He is simply a more interesting person to listen to than Coppola (more on him later). Another minor flaw with Hearts of Darkness is in no way the film's own fault. There is a large section that talks about footage that never made it into the theatrical release, and it would have been fascinating to see this footage had it not been used a decade later in Apocalypse Now: Redux. Still, I don't want to be too critical of a good film. The interviews do succeed on their own, and the on-set footage is fantastic. Just see it before Burden.

Rating (out of 4 stars) ***

The second film was Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. Before I really get into it, I should probably point out that Herzog is my favorite living filmmaker, and that I consider him a personal hero, despite the fact that he may or may not be insane. This is the story of Timothy Treadwell, a city boy from Long Island who, after years of fighting addiction, visited Alaska and spent the next thirteen summers living amongst the Grizzly Bears. Despite the illegality of his actions, he was able to get close to the Bears and other creatures living in the area. At the end of his final year, he and his girlfriend were killed, becoming the first bear-related deaths in the history of the park, something that leads Herzog to believe that Treadwell had a death wish. The footage that Treadwell shot certainly supports that idea. He speaks to the Bears like family, and he routinely gets close enough to touch them. It's quite easy to understand why Herzog was so attracted to this story. He talks about Treadwell's cinematic technique, his need for perfection and he sees a bit of himself in the footage. Near the end of the film, after watching some of his stranger behavior, Herzog talks about how it reminds him of behavior on a film set, and here he is clearly referencing Klaus Kinski, his crazed friend, enemy and muse. The film's strongest moments are those that show the fundamental differences between Treadwell, an absolute idealist, and Herzog, the angry cynic. Most of the experts interviewed seem to agree that with Herzog in that Treadwell was probably wrong, but looking at his family and friends, you come to realize that at least his heart was in the right place. If nothing else, you have to admire Treadwell for surviving like that for thirteen years, and I agree with Roger Ebert who put it best by saying, "he deserves Werner Herzog."

Rating (out of 4 stars) ****

Best of the year, so far

OK, in celebration of me being an awful person and taking tomorrow's holiday off even though I am an atheist who will not actually be going to temple, here are my ten favorite films that have received an American release in 2008:
10. Tropic Thunder While this may not be the greatest Hollywood Satire, it is funny and Downey gives one of this year's most interesting performances. I feel like it would have been better if there had been a few less scenes of Tom Cruise dancing.
9. Hellboy 2 Better than it's predecessor in every single way, Hellboy 2 was lost in the Dark Knight shuffle, but it should be remembered for its humor and beautiful creature design
8. Forgetting Sarah Marshall I thought this was the Appatow crew's funniest effort since the 40 Year Old Virgin, and while Roeper's claims of it being one of the funniest films of all time were a bit much, it is one of the funniest films of the year
7. The Band's Visit This underseen Israeli gem is a perfect and true showcase of real life in my favorite country
6. Wall-E Wall-E is adorable, and while this may not be Pixar's best effort (although it is their best since The Incredibles), it certainly is their best looking
5. In Bruges Consistently funny ("You're a fucking inanimate object" is the best non-Joker line of the year) and much smarter than any hitmen movie since Pulp Fiction
4. Religulous See my prior review
3. Burn After Reading Showing that they haven't given up on their funny side, America's best filmmakers return with a hilarious spy comedy featuring one of the year's best casts
2. Snow Angels An emotionally draining look at small town life that never borders on manipulation. Sam Rockwell deserves a best actor nomination come Oscar time
1. The Dark Knight The Blockbuster to end all blockbusters. Every shot is beautiful, every performance great and every moment perfect

Appaloosa (Harris '08)

So, do you want your westerns to be contemplative, beautiful and well-acted? Rent last year's brilliant "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Do you like your westerns dull, ugly, unoriginal and mediocre in every possible way? Go waste $10 on "Appaloosa." This is one of the most disappointing films of the year. I had high hopes for another great modern western, maybe not along the same lines as "Assassination" or "The Proposition," but maybe something at least as fun as last year's "3:10 to Yuma." Instead I got this. The acting was the best part, and it rarely went beyond "pretty good." Ed Harris was his usual solid self, and Viggo Mortenson and Jeremy Irons were both great. Unfortunately, Renee Zellweger, as usual, drags the film down whenever she's on screen. Her romantic side story is the worst part of this film, but not all of that can be attributed to a bad screenplay, even though the screenplay is pretty bad. There are countless attempts at humor, but they all fail, as do most attempts at creating a connection between the two leads (Harris and Mortensen). There is some chemistry between the two, but all of that comes from the actor's abilities. The story itself is uninteresting and does little to separate itself from dozens of B-westerns that came before it. I appreciate the attempts to recall the great westerns of old, but they were better than this. One of the stranger things about this film is how ugly it is, but it isn't ugly in a good, gritty way like Leone's films, it's just ugly. The scenery is uninteresting and the camera angles are uninspired. Usually, I don't notice a film's score the first time I see it unless it is really good or really bad, and the score was the worst part of this movie. It sounds like an episode of Gunsmoke mixed with Walker Texas Ranger. Don't see this movie.
Rating (out of ****) *1/2

Religulous (Charles '08)

OK, time for my first actual review. Last night I went and saw "Religulous" the new documentary (mockumentary?) from Larry Charles ("Borat"), starring Bill Maher. I was worried going in because I sort of assumed that it would be Maher running around insulting religious people for 90 minutes, which I probably would have enjoyed, but there probably would not have been any substance. The first thing that any review must say is that this film is absolutely hilarious. It may be the funniest film of the year so far. Throughout the entire thing, Charles adds clips from old movies, stand-up routines and pop culture moments (of course Tom Cruise and his silly beliefs show up in these sections), and these moments add a lot more to the comic aspects of the film, and they are what makes this the funniest documentary since "Borat." Maher does not go into his interviews with the intent of simply insulting religious people, because he lets them insult themselves. One of the first segments of the film centers on him visiting a trucker's chapel and trying to talk to the people there. One leaves because he feels insulted, but the rest want to talk to Bill because they are not bad people, and Maher knows that, they are just confused and lost and looking for something to comfort them. There are some interviews that come off as Maher trying to be mean, but those are the interviews that center around the true fanatics (a Puerto Rican minister who claims to be the second coming, a southern minister who believes that Jesus meant for him to be extremely rich and an orthodox Jewish rabbi who believes that the state of Israel shouldn't exist). Even the visitors and (most of) the workers at an Orlando holy land theme park seem to simply be looking for something to hold onto. Two of my favorite interviews were a Vatican astronomer who acknowledges that the bible is a group of false stories that are simple there to teach morals and two ex-Mormons who spend their time insulting their former faith. While the film skewers all of the major western religions (plus Scientology) relatively equally, the last half hour is much more serious and devoted to Islam and the violence of modern Muslim extremists, and this is where the film's true message comes out. Religion may not be a bad thing conceptually, but as soon as man takes over, it becomes violent. The very serious conclusion has been criticised by some for being so different from the rest of the film, but it is important and Maher is correct. Unless we can begin to look at the world rationally, we will die, and religion will probably have something to do with it.

Final rating (out of four stars): ****

So I figure the best way to start this whole thing would be with a listing of my twenty-five favorite films (I was going to do write ups for all 25, but I'm lazy). I'm not going to give detailed write-ups yet, this is more of a "getting to know me" type of deal. I will be adding full reviews for many of these movies at a later date.
25. "Day for Night"
24. "Wild Strawberries"
23. "Amarcord"
22. "The Big Lebowski"
21. "Pan's Labyrinth"
20. "Taxi Driver"
19. "Closely watched Trains"
18. "Stroszek"
17. "Through a Glass Darkly"
16. "Children of Men"
15. "The Good The Bad and The Ugly"
14. "Persona"
13."Being John Malkovich"
12. "Pulp Fiction"
11. "2001 A Space Odyssey"
10. L'avventura (Antonioni '60) A huge part of why this film connected with me was because it seemed like the type of thing I would write. Obviously I couldn't write like this in terms of quality, just in the sense of the rambling narrative that seems to forget its original point when necessary, which is why this film is so interesting.
9. "8 1/2" (Fellini '63) 8 1/2 is the greatest movie ever made about the movies, but it is certainly not just about movies. This is a film about the creative process and trying to live your life in the difficult modern world. It also features a great performance from Marcello Mastroianni, who may be my favorite actor and one of the best supporting casts of all time.
8. "Rashomon" (Kurosawa '50) Kurosawa's take on the nature of truth succeeds on every visual level and features one of the greatest performances from Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa's greatest actor.
7. "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy (Jackson '01-'03) they were written and filmed as one film, so I'm going to count them as one. Simply, these were the movies that made me love movies, and I will always love them for that.
6. "The Godfather" (Coppola '72) This is one of the most beloved films of all time for a good reason. From the brilliant opening, hiding the shadiness of the whole operation behind the classic party sequences through Michael's tragic transformation at the end, this is a classic in every way, and no other crime film has ever reached this level.
5. "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" (Herzog '72) Do you like "Apocalypse Now?" If so, than this is the film for you. It's hard to find any modern film with a jungle setting that doesn't take some sort of visual cue from Herzog's masterpiece, which is highlighted by yet another brilliant performance from his muse/mortal enemy, Klaus Kinski.
4. "Apocalypse Now" (Coppola '79) Coppola's final great film is the war film to end all war films, which is odd, because it isn't really a war film at all. War may be the basic plot, but there is so much more, and that is why is is such an important work.
3. "Fanny and Alexander" (Bergman '82) Bergman's greatest work is best viewed in its five hour long television version, not the three hour theatrical one, but both are brilliant takes on love, faith and family.
2. "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (Kubrick '64)- Kubrick's true masterpiece is my favorite comedy, and it features what is probably the single greatest script of all time, challenged only by "Network."
1. "The Werckmeister Harmonies" (Tarr '00)- In my mind, this is the single most beautiful film ever made. The second the opening sequence (link) was over, I knew it would take this spot.