Since Matthew Yglesias praised The White Ribbon, I thought I’d throw in my two cents. I had no idea this film even existed until my childhood friend Dan, who’s an American expat in Germany, sent me the trailer and told me I had to see it. It’s playing at the Harvard Exit in Seattle, so I caught it Monday night with my friend Laura.

So did I love it? When I began writing this post, I thought that “love” was a strong word. So were “hate,” “like,” and “comprehend.” But the more I think about this movie, the more I appreciate it.

The White Ribbon is an eerie black-and-white by acclaimed German director Michael Haneke. On the eve of World War I, a series of sabotages and beatings put the residents of a small German town on edge. The town doctor is hospitalized when his horse collapses over an invisible tripwire. A peasant worker dies when she falls through the rotting floorboards of an old mill. Everyone is aghast when the sadist’s next victims are children: the son of the landed baron who runs the town is hung from rafters and lashed, while the mentally disabled son of the doctor’s neighbor/lover is tied to a tree in the forest and nearly blinded. The grown and the defenseless, the rich and the poor – no one is safe from the misfortune sweeping the village.

Read more…

Uncategorized cinema, film, michael haneke, movies, the white ribbon

I meant to watch Sideways years ago. Somewhere between “I only drink after 5pm” and “Jack & Coke makes a great mouthwash,” it fell off my to-do list. The movie appealed to me for three reasons:

1. I love Paul Giamatti;
2. I love Alexander Payne (director of Election); and
3. I loved wine.

While I preferred hard liquor for getting drunk, I loved wine for camouflage. Wine carries with it a snobbery that provides perfect cover for an alcoholic. I don’t have a problem, goddammit – I’m a connoisseur. A connoisseur constantly seeking samples. Even before I admitted I had a problem, I had a niggling feeling deep in my bowels that all my talk of tannins and the aftertaste of apple and pear was fancy-speak for “refill.” After all, I measured my wine consumption by the box.

Fast forward to 2010, five months into Round 2 of sobriety. I put Sideways on my Netflix queue. I may avoid wine, but hell, I still love Paul Giamatti. I adored his turn as Harvey Pekar in American Splendor, a role which earned him much critical acclaim, but did little for his commercial appeal. Sideways is the flick that put this talented actor on the map. I can see why. Giamatti’s Miles is the kind of guy you can’t decide if you want to hug or run over with a Hummer. He’s smart, amiable, a touch arrogant, beset by rejection, and prone to self-loathing. With his marriage long dead, his closest friendship is his old college roommate Jack, a Lothario who measures wine by its chugability.(Yes, that’s a word. Look it up in a few years, once the dictionaries catch up to me.)

Sideways is a tour de force of drunkenness, adultery, hope, despondency, and love. It’s a great film – but one that is, at times, a bitch to watch sober. The movie revolves around Miles and Jack’s trip through California’s wine country before Jack, an expiring actor, marries into money. The scenery is lush, rolling acres of green, of plump grapes nearly bursting on the vine. Along the way, Miles the struggling writer puts the full force of his talent behind explaining to Jack the deep mysteries of wine: how to judge color, pick up the bouquet, and separate the complexities as you swish the initial sip around in your mouth. Miles doesn’t simply like wine, or even love wine. Miles has a romance with wine. Lacking any significant connections to other human beings, it’s become his significant other – his exhilarating partner when things go well, and his lonely refuge when life turns sour.

Since Miles’ life is a package of Sour Patch Kids, he spends a good portion of the film either stumbling around drunk, or dragging a hangover around like a lead weight. Which I enjoyed watching. Okay, “enjoyed” is too sadistic. What I mean is that watching drunk people can be a boon to my sobriety. A few years ago, I hung out with friends of friends for the 4th of July. At the time I hadn’t had a drop to drink in over a year. Seeing everyone at the party get progressively wasted made it easier to steer clear of temptation. When your friend is telling you how much he loves you in sentences where every second word is so slurred that it’s unintelligible, you wonder, “Whatever made me think this was fun?”

But that’s not sustainable. It becomes sobriety through schadenfreude. For that reason, I don’t think I’ll ever give Sideways a second viewing. It feels too much like watching home movies of your ex-girlfriend with a box of Kleenex and a half-gallon of ice cream nestled in your lap. I’ll get my next Giamatti fixes from Cold Souls and Shoot ‘Em Up instead.

And no, you can’t talk me out of Shoot ‘Em Up. It’s Giamatti with access to high-caliber weapons. How can that be anything less than brilliant??

Uncategorized alcoholism, cinema, film, movies, sideways, sobriety

Later this year, a foul injustice will be inflicted on the American movie-viewing public when Did You Hear About The Morgans? is released to DVD. Note to anybody with a TV: Do. Not. Go. There. If you rent this movie out of anything other than intellectual morbidity, you are dead to me.

“Come on, Jay,” I hear you saying. Well, I don’t really, but I’m pretending that’s what you’re saying because it’s a handy rhetorical device. “I can tell by watching the previews that this stinks.” Yes, but bad movies happen to good people. Your date says that she’s in the mood for a light-hearted romcom. You see an ad for this schlock and think to yourself, “Sarah Jessica Parker’s not bad. And Hugh Grant used to have talent. How shitty can it be?”

That’s how my girlfriend and I ended up in a theater watching this insult. We left by the half-hour mark. I won’t recount the plot, because it’s moronic – and irrelevant.  There wasn’t a single inspired moment in the first 30 minutes. The pace was turgid, as though everyone on screen was doing their taxes in their heads. Bad writing (and it was bad) is painful. Bad writing married to mad acting is a horror show fit for Alex’s propped-open eyelids.

And because I can’t exaggerate what a dereliction of your duties as a sentient being watching this would be, let me add that I can often spy something defensible in the most heinous crap. I couldn’t stand Confessions of a Shopaholic after the first 20 minutes either, but I can allow how some might spin it as “cutesy” and entertaining. Did You Hear About The Morgans? is indefensible. If you like this film, you have no taste. It’s that simple.

I pity whoever is forced to work as a link in the chain gang that will bring this film to retail shelves. People who market cigarettes to children will have a clearer conscience.

Uncategorized cinema, dvd, film, hugh grant, movies, netflix, sarah jessica parker

[Reprinted from April 7th, 2007.]

As you know, I love digging into “guy articles” in major magazines that are so heteronormative they could turn a gay man straight. Being a guy who’s admittedly somewhat to the right of 0 on the Kinsey Scale, I often read these write-ups and wonder what cultural anthropologists will think in 100 years of the modern Western straight man’s need to pluck out his chest hairs while drinking from a vat of industrial acid as a means of demonstrating to the nubile objects of his affection just how gay he really isn’t.

The latest salvo in the Guy Wars comes courtesy of John Kass in the Chicago Tribune, who wants his readers to tell him what movies are good “guy cry” movies – i.e., movies that “men” can, without shame, admit caused them to bawl like babies. All of the standard hetero rules are in full effect. Action films! Gangster flicks! Casino Royale (but NOT because Daniel Craig is hot or anything like that)! And if a guy loves a chick flick, it just means he wants to dig into your pants!

(Tip to guys: women aren’t stupid. 90% of them know that most men are being less than sincere when they insist that Steel Magnolias falls within their Top 10 List.)

To be fair, Kass does pick a couple of good examples. Like Kass, I wept at the end of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King when Aragorn tells Frodo and the others that they bow to no one, and the entire assembly of the kingdom bows to them instead. But Field of Dreams? Nope, sorry, never seen it. I don’t give a shit if I’d weep like a baby at the scene Kass describes, either. Field of Dreams is about sports. And it stars Kevin Costner. Really, do I need any more incentive not to watch it?

But I have to admit that Kass’s question is challenging. I had some trouble coming up with a full list of movies that left an indelible tear-stained memory in my cerebral cortex. Being the soldier I am, though, I persevered. Here are the ones that sprung out at me (WARNING: spoiler potential if you haven’t seen the films):

1. Hotel Rwanda. ANY decent human being should find themselves tearing up at the end of this film. Besides being one of Don Cheadle’s finest performances, it’s a powerful re-telling of how hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina evolved into an unwitting hero at the start of the Hutu Uprising. For most of the film, Rusesabagina bravely holds it together in order to keep the lives of hundreds of Tutsis safe while he negotiates their safe passage out of his hotel. But after being told by a Hutu commander to take a road back to the hotel that turns out to be littered with bodies, he crumbles; he locks himself inside of a room, and lets all of the misery and anguish flow out of him. But the most heart-wrenching scene for me occurs a little later, when he returns to find Hutu soldiers in the hotel. Earlier, he had instructed his wife to take the children up to the roof and jump to their deaths should the soldiers storm the Hotel des Mille Collines. Any family man’s heart should tear open when he discovers, along with Rusesabagina, that his spouse doesn’t take orders very well.

2. The Iron Giant. I usually hesitate to use the word “morality,” as it’s often deployed by prudes and scolds. But there’s no other way to describe Iron Giant: it’s a profoundly moral film, in the best sense of that word. The Giant is a government robot designed as a weapon. He has only one purpose – to kill. But then he meets a boy named Hogarth, who tries to convince him that he can choose not to be a weapon; he can choose to be a hero instead, like Superman. And when an accidental nuclear weapon discharge threatens Hogarth’s town, that’s exactly who the Giant chooses to be. I still cried while watching this movie even after I found out that Vin Diesel is the voice of the Giant. How’s that for powerful?

3. Life is Beautiful. Yes, the movie is overwraught. Yes, parts drag. Yes, Roberto Benigni is a total dork (and America would never have sex with him). Don’t care. I still cry my ass off when the credits roll. I saw it shortly after my first son was born, which might explain why it resonated so strongly with me; this may be one of the most touching father/son films ever made.

4. E.T. This should be a no-brainer. Women, if you date a guy, make sure to watch E.T. with him within the first four weeks; any man who doesn’t cry when E.T. tells Elliot to “be good” is a motherfucking sociopath.

5. Ghost. Yeah, it’s a chick flick. It’s also a love story about an emotionally tied-up man (i.e., half of the men in our culture) who struggles for one final chance to tell his beloved what he should have been telling her all along. Again, if a man doesn’t at least tear up a bit when the gate of Heaven opens up and the couple are reunited for one final goodbye, he may well be storing a few miscellaneous body parts in his deep freezer.

6. Y Tu Mama Tambien. Come on, regular readers: you knew I was gonna throw this one in there. (I might have included Brokeback Mountain too, except that I haven’t seen the damn thing yet. Yes, I do suck that much, thanks for asking.) Alfonso Cuaron’s wonderful film about two male friends who are tested by a mutual love for a dying woman didn’t really turn on the waterworks for me so much as it suffused me with a tremendous sadness. By the end, you’re left wondering – in a philosophical sense – who really died and who really lived.

7. Schindler’s List. Last one. This is the second film I have listed about the Holocaust, and the third related to a mass human tragedy. If I could only pick one of these films as a man-cry film, though, it would be this one. The “I could have saved more” scene between Neeson and Kingsley is a masterpiece, with the entire rest of the film serving as a slow build-up to the emotional release of this man (Schindler) torturing himself because he could “only” save 1100 lives. Go ahead. Don’t cry. I DARE you.

8. A Few Good Men. God help me, I love this cheeseball film. And yes, I cry every time Lance Cpl. Dawson turns to Lt. Caffey, salutes, and says, “There’s an officer on deck.” Damn you, Aaron Sorkin. Damn you for making me love such melodramatic schlock.

That’s my take. Guys: what movies make YOU cry? Woman: What movies move your husbands to tears (even if they use that “must have got something in my eye” bullshit after the credits roll)?

Uncategorized cinema, film, john kass, men, movies

Or at least photos of them. But can the eugenics program to weed them out of the populace be far behind? Sure, it starts with photos – but it rarely ends there.

“First they came for the less-endowed ones, and I didn’t complain…”

Ms. Naughty (forewarning: even more NSFW than my site, which is banned by corporate firewalls the world over) reports that the Classification Board of Australia is banning all kinds of lurid-ness from Oz cinema and magazines. First, they axed female ejaculation on the grounds that it was an urban legend. Now, astute observers have witnessed the Board banning nude shots of actresses who are deemed “too flat-chested.” As far as anyone can tell, the crackdown is intended to dissuade Australian scuzzballs from fantasizing that any woman with itty bitties is under the age of consent.

Ms. Naughty sums up the stupid:

Shall we put such hysteria aside and look at what this ruling is saying to Australian women? Basically, it’s classing a certain normal female body type as obscene. It’s declaring all flat chests to be automatically juvenile, something that should not be viewed by anyone because of a fear that it will stir up “base instincts” in certain people.

Which is, at its root, the rape defense. “Sure, I raped her – but she was askin’ for it. I couldn’t help myself.” Once again, men’s lust isn’t something they ought to control, but something women ought to avoid inciting. Ye Gods. Why doesn’t Australia just mandate the burqua and be done with it?

(H/T Lindy West @ The Stranger, who managed to work “Itty Bitty Titty Committee” into her post title. Well played, Ms. West. Well played indeed.)

Uncategorized australia, film, nudity

I could barely endure Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones.

It’s not that the subject drove me away. On the contrary, I couldn’t put the book down. Alice Sebold crafted a work of anguished beauty about Susie Salmon, a young girl whose murder both fractures and unites her family. With taut yet lyrical language, she paints everyone’s struggle over the remainder of the decade to let go of one another – the family of their beloved daughter and sister, and Susie, a soul dwelling in her personal Heaven, of the life that she’ll never finish living. At every step Sebold leads the reader down unanticipated roads, avoiding melodrama and pat resolutions.

Jackson, by contrast, seemed intent on filming the story that Sebold was brave enough not to write. The wretched script hits every sour note of dialogue that I can imagine Sebold red-penning out of her drafts. It compresses the book’s long journey into the span of a single year, demoting critical characters and draining those who remain of any blood. Lindsey Salmon’s love of her big sister, strained by growing up under the shadow of her tombstone? Gone. Buckley Salmon’s fractured boyhood with his broken father and absent mother? Gone. The endurance of Jack and Abigail Salmon’s devotion in the face of murder, loss, flight, and betrayal? Gutted. The endearing friendship of Ray Singh and Ruth Connors? Hollowed out. In place of Sebold’s story is a Hollywood heart-tugger that sacrifices depth for ease, and meaning for coincidence.

The movie ought to have been called (The Lovely Bones) / 2. If not for the final minutes, you could accuse the producers of having read only half the book.

Some of this was inevitable. The Lovely Bones is too rich for all of its emotional content to survive the translation to screen. Still, I’m disappointed. A book that beautiful deserved a better film.

Uncategorized alice sebold, books, film, movies, the lovely bones

There’s nothing cool about being a zombie. Being a vampire? Hell yes. What’s not to like? Vampires are Super-Mega-Emo-Goth. Death and virtual indestructibility give them a self-confidence the rest of us would kill for. Vamps swagger, smirk, and generally don’t give a fuck. If you’re turned, you’re golden; just avoid pointy sticks and sunshine (which will either burn you to a cinder or make you sparkle like the Hope Diamond, depending on your sources), and you’ve got a ticket to feed. People will beg you to suck ‘em dry just for the bragging rights.

Zombies, by contrast, are pure nightmare material. The bottom of the undead barrel. Zombies are clumsy, dumb, and disgusting. If you get bit, you’re looking at a non-life of gushing blood, wearing crappy clothes, and coveting thy neighbor’s tasty kidneys. Worst of all, there’s no such thing as “My Zombie Sex Life.” The Walking Dead don’t get the cute but whiny teen love interest. No woman swoons at the prospect of a Zombie Boyfriend. (In their defense, it’s hard to make love to someone you’ve half-eaten. They can’t help it, the poor bastards.)

And yet somehow, zombies are pop-culture phenoms. Part of the credit goes to Michael Jackson, who used a 12-minute hit single and a couple of dances moves to give Zombiekind some much-needed street cred. To this day, Halloween and “Thriller” re-creations are the only times it’s socially acceptable to Get Your Zombie On.

But it’s at the movies that we’ve learned the best thing about zombies: they’re FUN! They’re fun to watch, fun to flee, and, most notably, fun to kill. Zombies are a ventilator for human aggression. Why be a zombie, when it’s much more entertaining to find one and treat its head and body as a batting tee? It’s such fun that, if America were ever overrun by a “Rage virus,” I can’t imagine we’d eradicate it; we’d want to keep a few small colonies going in the name of stress management.

Zombies-as-bloodsport is the fountainhead of most zombie humor, and Zombieland is a fine addition to that pantheon. When I saw the trailer, my first thought was, “But I’ve already seen Shaun of The Dead.” And, honestly, there’s not much here in terms of plot that differs from Shaun, 28 Days Later, or any other genre flick. The plot is an afterthought. I kept watching because it was hilarious and visually delightful.

The main character, Columbus, is a former World of Warcraft shut-in and inveterate coward who’s compiled a list of rules for surviving in Zombieland. (In the film’s best visual conceit, the Rules appear on-screen as interactive set pieces as he enacts them.) After weeks of people-free wandering, Columbus meets Tallahassee – who insists they call each other by the names of their hometowns, lest they bond. The pair later happen upon two sisters, Wichita and Little Rock, who are heading toward California. Columbus fall for Wichita, Little Rock learns to fend for herself, Tallahassee confronts his painful past, yada yada.

It’s boilerplate. But well-executed boilerplate. With the possible exception of Abigail Breslin, the cast represents. Zombieland was the first time since The People v. Larry Flynt that I’ve enjoyed watching Woody Harrelson on the big screen. Most importantly, the film was funny from start to finish. That’s no small feat these days. Given the number of Hollywood comedies that don’t even rise to the level of  “embarrassed chuckles,” a film that keeps me laughing from start to finish will get my money every time.

Sure, plenty of zombies “die.” The zombies are props, not people. Only one zombie-character manages to sneak in to the main credits – and he gets less than two minutes screen time before coming to a carnival demise. As in Shaun of The Dead, their kind exists, not in and for themselves, but as catalysts for human growth, so that when all is said and done the living can look back and say, “Yes, civilization was destroyed…but I really grew as a person.”

If zombies can’t help a well-meaning geek get laid and find his life’s purpose…well, what good are they for?

Uncategorized cinema, film, movies, shaun of the dead, zombieland, zombies

I have no idea if this film will be in your area soon. (It ends its run at Seattle’s Varsity Theater tonight.) At the very least, it ought to hit DVD in short order. It’s a whip-smart good time of a film; outside of Wallace and Gromit, it’s the most fun I’ve had at a movie all year. (Yes, more fun than Corpse Bride. Please, don’t get me started…)

The film centers on Momoko and Ichiko – a Lolita girlie-girl obsessed with the Rococo period and a “Yankee” biker-chick with more in common than either is willing to admit. The two are thrust together after Momoko and her father are forced to move in with Momoko’s grandmother in the rural town of Shimotsuma. Momoko sells some of her father’s fake Versace goods through a magazine ad to raise money for frilly clothes, and Ichiko cruises by in her tricked-out scooter to snag a jacket for a special occasion. (Best line of the film: “Who cares if it’s fake? It’s still Versace!”) Thus ensues a strange dynamic between the two teens – a dynamic that generally consists of Ichiko head-butting Momoko and dragging her across Hell’s half-acre against her will.

Momoko, a militant loner, is so dispirited at the thought of having a “friend” that she cheerily buys Ichiko a cabbage, telling her it’s her new bosom buddy. But it’s no good: tough-girl Ichiko develops a strange obsession with this girl whose fashion sense is stuck in 18th century France, and will barely let her out of her sight.

After the two raise an improbable sum of money playing pachinko, Ichiko compels Momoko into a quest to find a legendary biker-gang embroiderer in Tokyo’s Daikanyama neighborhood, who can tailor Ichiko’s biker jacket with a goodbye message for her retiring gang leader. When their search fails miserably, Momoko – a talented embroiderer in her own right – stays up day and night doing the job herself. But even Momoko’s excellent work isn’t enough to save Ichiko from a falling-out with the remaining gang members, leading to a “challenge” that puts her life in danger. Improbably, it’s up to Momoko to save the mate she never wanted, bringing the tale to a close in a flurry of broken hearts, shattered illusions…and a friendship so strong that it defies death.

The subjects are strange and intriguing, the plot offbeat, the dialogue sharp as a tack, and the acting full of life and humor. Kyoko Fukuda (The Ring 2) and Anna Tsuchiya are irresistable as Momoko and Ichiko. It’s movies like this that make you realize life’s too short – and money too scarce – to waste on bland Hollywood crap.

Uncategorized cinema, film, japan, movie

Sex is a wonderful, beautiful thing. It doesn’t matter how you prefer it: as a committed monogamous couple or as a loving polyamorous flirt; in twos or threes, foursomes or moresomes; on a train, in the rain, in a car, on a boat (just leave the goat behind). But sex can also be misused – used dishonestly, or with violence. And in this capacity, it can inflate egos, boil tempers, and break souls in twain.

Sex, in short, can be one of the most powerful mediums of artistic expression. Sometimes, it can be the only effective medium in which to bottle human joy or pathos. You could paint stories in sex the way some people use words and watercolors. That’s obviously where Atom Egoyan’s head was when he filmed a steamy threesome among Rachel Blanchard, Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth for his new film Where the Truth Lies.

For a while, all was good. Until he submitted his work to the Motion Picture Association of American for a rating.

They did not like it, Sam I Am.

The MPAA has slapped Truth with an NC-17 rating. NC-17 was originally intended to provide a waypoint before porn after the porn industry co-opted X – movies like Showgirls, Scarface, and Henry and June that weren’t X-rated , yet still drenched in adult content. But exhibitors have treated it just like X, meaning most theaters won’t touch NC-17 with a 10-foot dancing pole. No matter how widely ThinkFilm distributes Truth, many of you won’t even be able to see it until it releases on DVD.

Like most directors concerned with earning a return for his investors, Egoyan tried to be accomodating as possible with the MPAA. Which is understandable: when someone’s footing the multi-million dollar bill for your film, you want to give them something back for their troubles. But the director insisted that he couldn’t cut the controversial menage a trois, as it was filmed with one camera in a single take and was essential to the story line. So the NC-17 is here to stay, and Truth is doomed to die at the box office, its artistic merit be damned.

I’ll be seeing this film – but not for the fucking. Not that there’s anything wrong with fucking. Egoyan is one of my favorite writer/directors. Not because he’s tittilating, but because he always chooses sexually-charged story lines that point to something greater than themselves. Exotica is a flawed yet beautiful flick about a man’s friendship with a young stripper with whom he shares a scarring tragedy. The Sweet Hereafter, based on Russell Banks’ book, documents a town’s struggle to cope with the deaths of dozens of kids in a school bus accident, focusing most closely on a teen survivor who’s in a disturbing relationship with an older man.

Both films have sexual overtones, either implicit or explicit. And in both films, sex is not at all what it seems.

Not that any of this matters a whit to the MPAA, who’s more concerned with keeping American cinema cock- and pussy-free than judging something on its artistic worth. As usual, the modern-day puritans are more concerned with protecting my children from something I wouldn’t have let them see anyway than giving me the choice to watch a “controversial” film by one of the world’s best directors.

If there were ever a film that demanded simultaneous release on DVD, it’s Truth. Unfortunately, while the production company has shown the courage to say “fuck the MPAA” and release the flick with its sin rating, it doesn’t appear to have the balls to stick it to the theater exhibitors. Damn shame.

Truth premieres in LA and New York in mid-October, and goes into limited release October 21st. Hopefully, I’ll be able to sneak an early peek thanks to my movie critic wife. Remember, it’s now up to us – the artsy, smut-loving, reality-based community – to shell out our $9 and tell the MPAA where they can cram it.

Uncategorized atom egoyan, censorship, film, movies, mpaa, sex, where the truth lies