Define hoedown.

Last year, an exhibit on marine life at a local museum featured placards informing kids that many of the featured species are nearly extinct; a co-worker's nine-year-old daughter has panic attacks over global warming. It's growing difficult to educate our children about the importance of caring for our enviroment without terrifying them into apathy; one of the many triumphs of WALL-E is how it speaks directly to a child's anxieties about the future, neither patronizing nor indoctrinating its young viewers. A cartoon of surprising sadness and thematic heft, WALL-E is remarkable in the way it gently suggests that the solution to our problems lies in our capacity to love one another. Effortlessly connecting its sweet love story with universal human concerns, WALL-E is, along with movies like AI, Solaris and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, another of this decade's sci-fi masterpieces concerned with finding love in a world transforming before our eyes.

Another of WALL-E's astonishments is the way that it makes Hello Dolly! not only palatable but moving; a jolly number from the musical introduces us to an Earth 700 years in the future that has become an abandoned, trash-strewn wasteland. As humans have abandoned the planet to reside, fat and compacent, in an enormous shopping center, a small robot named WALL-E remains alone, his days spent compacting trash while his nights are devoted to showtunes, bubble wrap and other prized artifacts. It's impossible not to be moved as the little guy makes his way across vast expanses of scorched earth littered with towering trash heaps and plagued by dust storms, all the while whistling a tune. The animators have created a frighteningly believable future that would be the stuff of horror movies were it not for the geniuine, guileless optimism that seems to be an intrinsic part of Pixar's philosophy. When WALL-E's centuries-long isolation is broken by the sudden arrival of search robot EVE - her egg-shape signaling the return of femininity and, more specifically, fertility - his attempts at romance, which remind of Chaplin's Little Tramp in both their hilarity and poignant persistance, suggest that the key to our future lies in holding hands. It's a cute idea, but as WALL-E's thematic implications sink in, it's also surprisingly powerful.

Structured like the Kubrick movies it pays homage to, WALL-E also expands to include sly satire as the robots travel to the spaceship. Writer/director Andrew Staunton gets a lot of laughs in at our complacency and rabid consumerism, as humanity has become a flock of portly, immobile proles. It's unsparing stuff for a kid's movie, stopping short of misanthropy by arguing that most people simply need a little wake-up call. And WALL-E is just that - as Pauline Kael once said about Nashville, it loves us too much to patronize us. In the moral awakening of the ship's captain (Jeff Garlin) lies a powerful reminder of the obvious - Earth is awesome, and worth taking care of. And while I shudder to think of all the Humvee-driving parents who dismissed any questions their kids might have had after the movie, I still love the idea that the seeds of change have been planted in their heads.

But even if you're not a tree-hugging hippy, WALL-E is still worth your time. Staunton and his team of animators balance near-wordless physical comedy worthy of Keaton with a breathtaking vision of the future worthy of Kubrick or early Ridley Scott. WALL-E astounds in moments both grand (WALL-E reaching out to touch phosphorescent blue space debris) and mundane (the robots' shared fascination with the flame from a cigarette lighter). And at the film's heart is a man-made protagonist that, through his selflessness, compassion and bravery, personifies all that is great in us. Sound designer Ben Burtt, who gives WALL-E his voice, did the same for E.T. - like Spielberg's masterpiece, WALL-E finds just the right note of hope at a time when it is most needed. Were it simply funny and brilliantly animated, WALL-E would be another in a string of great Pixar movies; add in its rich ideas and its giant heart, and you have a movie that deserves to be a perennial classic.

Play the Game (7/3/08)

A review of Celine and Julie Go Boating is coming soon - thanks, Paul, for the excuse to visit Pleasant Street Video.

Title Card #66

Because she's got a GREAT ASS!

While volumes have been written about the look of Michael Mann's films, his dialogue is less frequently talked about: compact and economical, Mann's writing is perfectly matched to his images. When Detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) tells his his estranged wife Justine (Diane Venora) that "You were right - all I am is what I'm after," the character's essence is captured in ten words. In Mann's world, identity and function are the same - the director defines his characters, as they define themselves, by what they do. This was never truer than with Heat, an epic cops-and-robbers story that has been permanently enshrined as a Maxim-endorsed all-time-classic Guy Movie, a label that doesn't begin to capture its narrative and aesthetic pleasures. Heat is slick, stylish and loaded with guns and fast cars, to be sure, but what's truly remarkable is its fusion of character and action - it's an "action movie" in a way that louder, dumber, less skillfully crafted movies only claim to be.

With its sprawling narrative revolving around Hanna's pursuit of master thief Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and his crew, Heat takes the well-worn notion of cops and criminals representing two sides of the same coin and makes it feel new. Stripped of the iconic (often fetishistic) trappings of the genre, permanently clad in charcoal suits chosen to avoid drawing attention to themselves, opposed in what they're after but the same in their single-minded pursuit of their goals, even as their work makes normal human relationships an impossibility. Together they reside in the shades of dark that make up Mann's palette - the director doesn't turn their relationship into a baroque showdown as Scorsese does in The Departed, his interests focused more on the details of their process. Mann's visual approach is a lesson in how to fuse style and substance, with each camera setup, no matter how bold, is dictated by the performances; there isn't a single false move or a moment that exists solely for the sake of being cool. The scenes following Hanna have a constant motion that mirror his (and Pacino's) restlessness, but De Niro's carefully composed scenes have the actor's focused stillness - rarely have medium shots carried such a kinetic charge. And in the famous diner scene between the two actors, Mann smartly gets out of the way - the coiled intensity that both actors bring to the table as they quietly discuss their mutually assured destruction gives the scene all the fireworks it needs.

The relationship between the leads, however, is just the focus of a story that widens its scope to their intersecting worlds. Mann's structural approach owes more to Robert Altman than John Woo, as characters that would typically exist solely as plot devices are given depth and shape. A supporting character like ex-con Donald Breenan (Dennis Haysbert) is given scenes that allow us to understand him before his role in the plot is defined; this approach used to frustrate me, but now I admire its formal audacity. It's the sort of film that, every time you watch it, you find yourself focusing on different characters; this time, I was mesmerized by Diane Venora as Justine, at once sympathetic and alienated from her husband, and Val Kilmer and Ashley Judd, excellent as a fucked-up, destructive and completely in love couple. Where most cops' wives in these films exist only to worry and complain that the protagonist is never home, Diane Venora is given the space to create a woman who both understands her husband and has needs beyond the restrictions of the plot. Eady, McCauley's girlfriend and the cause of his character's biggest mistake, is the only character in Heat that I don't believe, though this isn't due to the writing as much as it is to Amy Brenneman's bland performance - every time I watch it, I think of how much more interesting the role might have been were it played by Julianne Moore or Gwyneth Paltrow, for instance. But this is a quibble in a film full of great performances, where even peripheral characters like Bud Cort's racist restaurant manager, Tom Noonan's cryptic techie and Natalie Portman as Hanna's emotionally unstable stepdaughter (a role crucial to the film's meaning) are given room to breathe and become something fascinating. The incredible tension that Heat has been praised for goes beyond its louder scenes; it's as palpable in the film's quietest moments, in the distances between people who maintain such a distance because, as Hanna explains, "It keeps my edge."

When that tension does explode, Mann's gifts as an action director have never been more fully realized. The climactic shootout between cops and robbers has a stunning immediacy where other directors would have too many setups and too many cuts in the interest of seeming cool to 13-year-olds. Heat is awesome, but it's also remarkably mature and disciplined; the film's violence is in total service to the story, making us realize just how gratuitious most onscreen bloodletting can be. The centerpiece of the film is clearly its final confrontation, which I will not spell out at in case you haven't seen it, because it's the sort of moment that deserves to be discovered. In this scene, Mann demonstrates an understanding of spatial relations that reminds of Kurosawa - it is the realization of the preceding three hours, sharpened to a fine point and ending in a moment, set to Moby's stirring "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters," that is pure catharsis. When we go to an action movie, we expect to be blown out of our skull, and too often we settle for cheap shots. So it's refreshing to revisit a film committed to illuminating meaning in chaos; Mann's films challenge me to raise my expectations, and the older I get, the stronger and more rewarding they are.

The web of destiny carries your blood and soul back to the genesis of my lifeform.

The following is my contribution to this month's Film Club at Final Girl.

A friend of mine summed up the basic appearance of Lifeforce when he fondly recalled Mathilda May's performance as a naked space vampire as the source of one of his first erections. The first time I saw Lifeforce, around six or seven years old, I was too young to be anything but confused by the camera's constant focus on May's breasts. I knew what sex was, and had a vague idea that adults enjoyed it, but its appeal as anything except a reproductive act was beyond me. Watching Lifeforce at two in the morning on cable (I was an elementary school insomniac), I was vaguely aware that I was seeing something I shouldn't, but I couldn't understand why the movie was more about doing it than space or vampires. The tension between my friend's and my own reactions suggests that Lifeforce, with its uneasy combination of kid-friendly special effects and monsters and near-constant nudity, as a horror movie for adolescent boys faced with the growing suspicion that their penises are about to get them into trouble. As a horror movie, Lifeforce can't compete with the wealth of genre classics (including Day of the Dead, Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead and Fright Night) that opened in 1985. But as porn for Fangoria-reading 13-year-olds, it's pretty great.



Adapted from Colin Wilson's novel Space Vampires, the film opens with a space shuttle mission investigating Halley's comet and discovering an alien spacecraft in the comet's cone. Members of the shuttle's crew, including Col. Tom Carlson (Steve Railsback), are sent in to investigate the craft; its interiors are unmistakably vaginal, so, naturally, the astronauts discover ominous caverns, giant bats and, most curiously, three human-looking aliens in a state of hibernation. By the time the shuttle returns to earth, everyone onboard has died except for Carlson and the humanoids, who use their physical perfection and powers of mind control to seduce humans and drain them of their life force. The aliens turn everyone in their wake into zombies who must either consume the energy of others or suffer a sudden, explosive death. On a pure entertainment level, it's a great concept, allowing for lots of exploding bodies, fantastic optical effects and random kinkiness. But screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby also cannily exploit the story's subtext; it's fun to watch May use her sex appeal to destroy astronauts, scientists, soldiers and other boyish archetypes, and I'd be surprised if they weren't intentionally playing to their young male audience's anxieities (O'Bannon, after all, wrote for Heavy Metal). One of the funniest moments in Lifeforce is when Col. Crane (Peter Firth) is asked if his encounter with the space girl was sexual in nature and he responds, fearfully, "Yes - overwhelmingly so."



Unfortunately, Lifeforce never finds the right tongue-in-cheek tone that O'Bannon or his Dark Star collaborator John Carpenter might have brought to the film. Tobe Hooper's direction is aimless and, by the film's apocalyptic end, chaotic - the movie's style is far too heavyhanded to work on the B-movie level that a movie originally titled Space Vampires demands to be taken at. If Hooper is to be believed, the pressure of his producers at Cannon Films is to be blamed, as they saw Lifeforce as a chance to break out with an effects-packed summer tentpole. And while the film looks marvellous (courtesy of Star Wars' John Dykstra), the scale of it is oppressive; it's bloated and overlong, and too preoccupied with its fireworks to remember why its funny. As kitsch Lifeforce is a blast, but it could have been a classic had everyone involved remembered to breathe. In Hooper's defense, he did achieve a darkly comic sensibility the next year with Invaders From Mars and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 that would have worked perfectly here; sadly, after all three films flopped, he was prematurely sent to direct-to-video hell.



It's a shame, because even though Lifeforce doesn't really work, it's stranger and more interesting than 90% of the big-budget attempts at riding the coattails of Star Wars and Alien. Where else are you going to see Patrick Stewart kiss Steve Railsback, or Mr. Deltoid from A Clockwork Orange explode? Lifeforce is what friend and Samurai Dreams contributor James fondly refers to as a "buds 'n' suds movie," one best enjoyed with a few beers and friends sharp enough to laugh at the movie's fear of teen horniness. When Lifeforce reaches its totally 80's (i.e., coked-out), seizure-inducing wet dream of an ending, it triumphs as an affirmation of the cosmic-scale creative and destructive force of the boner. I don't really have a way to wrap this up; I just hope that last sentence ends up on a DVD case.

Title Card #65

I put a bird in my hair.

I was having a drink with my friends Kate and Chris before going to see Sex and the City. When Chris referred to Kristin Davis' character Charlotte as "the hottest," I went into a tired, frustrated rant about why Charlotte and "bagging the virgin" fantasies are boring. Kate interrupted me, asking, "Is Miranda your favorite?" And she was right - I think Miranda's swell, and I'm not quite sure how she guessed this or what it says about me. Sex and the City's primary appeal is as a Rorschach test and a conversation starter; most of the time when people are talking about the show, they end up relating it to their own relationship issues. Though the show was often clunky, its four characters validated the concerns of many women (and a few men secure enough to admit it), and as a believer in the therapuic potential of pop culture, I admired it. So it's a shame that the Sex and the City movie completely misses what makes the show so popular; on the subjects of sex, marriage, parenthood and single life, it's remarkably tone-deaf. And this is not just the biased response of a dude for whom the movie wasn't intended; Kate, who couldn't wait to see it, left disappointed and slightly angry.

The movie reunites us to the show's protagonists in the midst of their thematically complimentary dramas, with Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) engaged and then jilted by corpulent ass Mr. Big (Chris Noth); Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Steve's (David Eigenberg) marriage threatened by infidelity; Charlotte finally pregnant; and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) in L.A. and torn between her relationship and her horniness (not a crime). Enough fodder for a few 30-minute episodes of the show, yet at two and a half hours, Sex and the City feels both bloated and rushed, so busy to get from one dick gag or fashion montage to the next that it completely forgets what made these characters relatable in the first place. Charlotte's fear of losing her baby, for instance, would have been the subject of an entire episode, but instead it's quickly dismissed. No time for character development, after all, when you have to make room for poo jokes, humping dogs and a calculated, patronizing supporting turn by Jennifer Hudson as Carrie's new assistant Louise, who announces that the main thing in life is love, a point writer/director Michael Patrick King drives home with a close-up of Louise's ghetto-fabulous "LOVE" key chain. The whole thing is so bland and ill-conceived that it almost seems to be making fun of its own audience, pelting us with ridiculous costumes and a fleeting shot of a large penis while taunting, "Are you not entertained?"

Maybe King missed what made the show work, or maybe it just doesn't play on the big screen; either way, it's obvious how uninvolved the leads are. The women just don't have the same chemistry anymore; I don't want to guess at off-screen reasons for this, but it gives the movie an unintended sad subtext, like these ladies should have parted ways a while ago but nobody wants to be the one to say it. Davis has turned Charlotte into a crazy lady and a cautionary tale for young women who think they can cruise on cuteness forever, but then, I always hated Charlotte. This pains me as someone who has repeatedly defended Sarah Jessica Parker's looks and talent, but her performance is bound to be almost as big a camp classic as Joan Crawford's in Mommy Dearest. Acutely, self-consciously aware she's the lead in a movie a lot of people are going to see, Parker plays Carrie's generic post-breakup plotline like she's in an Ingmar Bergman film, weeping and staring tragically into the distance for most of the movie; I kept waiting for one of her friends to slap her, but it never happened. The movie's hostility is reserved for Samantha - judging by her treatment here, shipped off to L.A. and given little to do except tolerate repeated jabs at her age and weight, I think it's safe to say that everyone involved hates Kim Cattrall. Samantha's as watered-down as the rest of the movie; how much closer to the show's edginess would the movie be if the gang sparked a joint, or engaged in serious discussion about some very specific sexual practice? Take those moments out, and any semblance of wit or insight, and you're left with ladies in silly dresses. With this in mind, I fail to see why it's the movie's critics, and not the movie itself, being labelled as sexist.

However, yes, I do love Miranda, or more accurately, Cynthia Nixon. I love that in every one of her scenes, you can tell that she knows just how bad this movie is and she wants it to end as badly as you do. I love that, when her costars are all self-important about doing sex scenes in a movie called Sex and the City, she has a surprisingly graphic love scene with Eigenberg; her confidence in the face of ageism is admirable, and - sorry, Chris - she really is the hottest. And I love that she takes her stupid subplot and, next to Parker's overemoting, finds real emotion underneath the surface. There's a moment between Steve and Miranda towards the end that moved me a little bit and managed, on the strength of the performances, to evoke the bittersweet romantic appeal of New York. Sadly, the rest is poo poo, boner and stupid shoes.

Stan Winston (1942-2008)

I feel like a part of my childhood died today. For anyone whose early infatuation with the movies was stoked by his fantastic creations, the death of Stan Winston represents the passing of a giant in special effects. Winston's makeup and visual effects work over the course of more than 30 years, in both practical and CGI, gave us some of the most iconic creatures and moments in cinema. Below are just a few of his most memorable achievements, each an example of Winston's seemingly magical ability to transform a filmmaker's wildest flights of imagination into a breathtaking reality.

Title Card #64

Hear me, believe me and fear me!

My first and only act of theft, at the age of four, was shoplifting the novelization of Rambo III from the local Osco Drug (I was caught immediately and cried many guilty tears). I'm not sure why I so urgently needed the book, or why exactly I idoloized John Rambo at such a young age. I was never much into G.I. Joe or other war toys; I think I valued Rambo as a mythic, larger-than-life figure like other preschool heroes Conan, He-Man and Lion-O. It'd be easy to write off the Rambo series as strictly for kids who are oblivious to the films' politics - at once fascist and extreme libertarian - and how the Teutonic awesomeness of Stallone's monosyllabic god of war serves to silence all debate about Vietnam and its aftermath more nuanced than "They wouldn't let us win!" But while Rambo, the roughest, goriest and loudest entry in the series, is as politically nuanced as a Toby Keith anthem, it shares with its predecessors an earnestness that keeps it from being truly offensive. Whether it's reasonable to describe a movie featuring several dozen exploding heads as "earnest," I'll leave up to you.

Concerned (like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) with the fate of a distinctly '80s icon who has outlived his time, Rambo finds the titular character (Sylvester Stallone) living a solitary existence as a snake wrangler in Thailand. In the two decades since Rambo III, Rambo has become even more pissed-off and withdrawn (his first line is "fuck off"), but after a group of missionaries asks him to take them upriver to Myanmar, he's naturally forced back into action. Stallone has said while promoting Rambo that he hopes the movie will bring attention to the atrocities in Burma, and the graphic documentary footage that opens Rambo makes for a surprisingly sobering reintroduction to the character. At the same time, Myanmar is one of the few morally black-and-white conflicts Stallone could have deposited the character into; he doesn't completely exploit this fact, but Rambo is certainly driven by a nostalgia for the righteous kill. In simplifying a real-life war zone, Stallone's script feels like it was scrawled in red marker by a hyperactive, antisocial thirteen-year-old; bad guys threaten not just to violate an attractive female missionary (Julie Benz) but to "rape her fifty times," and the head baddie warns that "I will feed you your own intestines!" Pop icons can carry powerful political subtext, of course, but when treated this literally it's as effective as Spider-Man crying at ground zero.

Luckily, Stallone's newfound social awareness has also motivated him to reach new levels of absurd, gratuitous blood and guts. In one interview, Stallone explained that Rambo's over-the-top violence was necessary to match the realism of Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down; I don't know if he believes his film is as serious-minded as those (Jonathan Rosenbaum might prefer it to the others), but it's interesting to see how his aim of realism has actually pushed Rambo closer to the grindhouse than its predecessors. With its rough, shaky-cam images of exploding bodies, severed limbs and disfigured corpses, Rambo is less like any war movie I've seen than a straightforward splatter movie. And the increasingly hulking, monolithic Stallone reminds more of an '80s slasher icon than the greased, permed model of Regan-endorsed homoeroticism we've seen before. He's a product, like the rest of Rambo, of an aging action star's id, and the unapologetic bloodlust on display has seemingly liberated Stallone; this is the crudest Rambo movie, but while First Blood is the only one I could call "good" with a straight face, Rambo is by far the most fun.

Another hint at Rambo's appeal to kids can be found in Son of Rambow, Garth Jennings' ode to his own VHS-era youth. In Rambow, set in early-'80s England, a pirated copy of First Blood inspires young Will (Bill Milner) and Lee (Will Poulter) to create their own action epic. Jennings nails the kids' apolitical attraction to the character; for Lee, the movie is simply one he can imitate to win a filmmaking contest, while Will, a small, awkward kid raised in a sheltered religious community, finds in Rambo a figure through which he can vicariously express his repressed pre-adolescent rage. Jennings lovingly recreates this early era of DIY filmmaking, and his nostalgia is infectious. Rambow's story is a bit thin, perhaps, but the heartfelt depiction of the central friendship, and its urging of its young audience to tell (or retell) the stories that matter to them, won me over. So if you have a kid who becomes fascinated with the Rambo cover art in the same way I was with that awesome EMI video box for First Blood Part II, rent them this instead - it's just as fun, with none of the nightmares.

The Trim Bin #70

- Cartoonist, landlord and friend Howard Cruse reports in his blog on the social event of 2008: Luna's first birthday party.

- An unnamed writer at Master of Sopranos (via The House Next Door) presents a comprehensive, very persuasive argument for why, as the author writes, "Tony's death is the only ending that makes sense."

- J.J.'s appreciation of Liza Minelli at As Little As Possible makes me feel a bit better about that disappointed look Jess gave me once when she walked in on me watching Liza with a Z.

- Lauren Wissot writes about the sadomasochistic scene between Lula and Bobby Peru at Wild at Heart. I'd always read the scene as a rape, but Wissot's made me reconsider it as an even darker and thornier version of the "baby wants to fuck" scene in Blue Velvet.

- Last night I stumbled upon a clip from Trent Harris' The Beaver Trilogy, one of the last great underground movies that, due to rights issues, has remained truly underground (though, according to the comments here, you can buy a copy from Harris through his website). If you don't know what The Beaver Trilogy is, I'm not going to say any more, except that you should watch this scene - tell me this isn't a movie you need to see:

Title Card #63

You are stupid and will never understand anything.

I must admit that, until Cinevistarascope reader Vodalus requested that I review Lancelot du Lac, I'd been putting off delving deeper into the films of Robert Bresson. The first Bresson film I'd seen, Diary of a Country Priest, left me admiring it on a purely intellectual level but strangely indifferent to its dry style and dour, monotonous story - as Michael Haneke would say, it just wasn't a film I needed. It's never fun to be dismissive, particularly when you're up against fifty-plus years of praise, so I decided that Bresson and I should take a break. But while the style of Lancelot du Lac, Bresson's minimalist version of the Arthurian legend, is nearly identical, the contrast between subject and method is fascinating. Bresson's deliberately austere approach to the film does to the Knights of the Round Table what his American contemporaries Sam Peckinpah and Robert Altman did to the western, stripping away any cinematic mythologizing in favor of a stunning emotional directness.

Focusing on Lancelot's (Luc Simon) affair with Guinevere (Laura Duke Condomnias) and the effect it has on the kingdom, Bresson's film is completely absent any of the sharp visual iconography of Excalibur or the machismo of King Arthur. We're first introduced to the knights, as with Polanski's Macbeth, in the wake of a battle - there is no heroism or glory underscoring the scene, just blood and silence. Bresson avoids imposing a familiar dramatic arc on his narrative, finding a reality in the characters as they're liberated from the weight of their mythologies. We only see Arthur (Vladimir Antolek-Oresek) as the distant, unknowable authority figure that Lancelot would see him as. What drives the film, and seemingly interests Bresson most, is the connection between Lancelot and Guinevere. As both characters idelize their relationship in dialogue, Bresson's probing camera finds instead a barely restrained need; this is the first Arthurian movie I've seen that uses the affair not for melodrama but as an archetypal model of desire. While Bresson famously directed his actors to downplay any emotion, this restraint gives the affair a stronger charge than a roll in the hay would have. Like Lancelot in his story, Bresson is perhaps expressing his own desire in the lingering shots of his lead actress' body, just as quickly cutting away and denying himself. This tension gives Lancelot du Lac a powerful erotic charge, albeit of a particularly masochistic sort.

The emphasis on physicality extends to every aspect of the film's design. The clanking of the knights' armor is always audible on the soundtrack, a constant reminder of the cumbersome nature of their own symbols. And Bresson repeatedly lingers on places, like the backs of the knights' legs, where they are vulnerable - we are never able to escape their mortality through the promise of immortality given by storytelling, and this draws us more strongly to their humanity. Honor is an arbitrary concept the knights live by in order to give a sense of meaning to their existence; for Bresson, this is pure theatricality, particularly in an extended sequence revolving around a joust. Repeating the same shot sequence multiple times - ominous fanfare, the knights' legs astride a horse, semi-interested spectators as something happens offscree, hints of an aftermath - while denying us the payoff of "action," Bresson makes our need for a violent resolution obvious through its absent. We're being indicted for our own passivity, and I might resent that if it weren't for the sequence's elegance.

Bresson's approach is nothing if not rigorous - the film's 80-minute running time limits the narrative's scope to this brief moment in the Arthurian myth before it is interrupted by death. The final moments mirror the film's opening, the two scenes serving as grim bookends to the film. I was reminded of the final title card of Barry Lyndon; as in that film, death serves as a great equalizer. Like all great minimalist artists, Bresson uses the spaces between moments that would normally be filled with his dreaded "theatricality" to argue for their relative meaninglessness. It's bracing stuff, but even if doesn't reflect one's own understanding of life, Lancelot du Lac challenges the viewer to see things as they are. I can't wait to see what else Bresson has to say.

Play the Game (5/5/08)

I like Ike.

It's always hilarious when the sequel to a blockbuster announces its elevated self-importance - think of the final scene of Back to the Future replayed at the start of Part II with newfound gravitas (complete with a swooping crane shot), or pretentious, "November Rain"-esque opening images of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Interestingly, the Indiana Jones sequels have gone in the opposite direction, from the brilliantly out-of-left-field musical number that opens Temple of Doom, to the Hardy Boys-style mini-adventure in Last Crusade, and finally to the opening shot of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a brilliantly corny dissolve from the 70's/80's Paramount logo to a literal molehill. What others read as contempt for the audience I just took as a joke, one that finds Indy's creators admitting what you are about to see is fogyish, square and (at a time when biggest and loudest seemingly equals best) relatively small. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is about and a product of the tension between the old and new, nostalgia and modern sensibilities, a filmmaker's past and present, analog and digital. In attempting to straddle 1981 and the present, number four is an old man of a movie - cranky, a little bloated around the middle, and chock full of wisdom. And, for what it's worth, it had me smiling from beginning to end.

By setting the story in the '50s, with Commies and Drapes replacing wartime intrigue, Spielberg and Lucas don't shy away from the 19-year gap between movies. The shift in time periods is more than an opportunity for Lucas to wax nostalgic about the American Graffiti days; the transition is immediately and delibarely jarring, as we're reintroduced to to a Dr. Jones who is increasingly mystified not by any artifact but by the passage of time. The movie's high point arrives early on, as Indy's wildly improbable escape from a nuclear test site culminates in a stunning, already-iconic image, the sequence illustrating Indy's two greatest adversarities - modernity and domesticity. Indy must confront the latter when his search for the interdimensional artifact leads him to discover the son (Shia LaBeouf) he didn't know he had and the woman (Karen Allen) he'd run away from. What's surprising about Spielberg's return to father-son territory is that it doesn't feel remotely heavy here - it appears that Spielberg is finally done with some of these issues, and is comfortable enough to poke some fun at himself. It seems Spielberg, who for all the "Peter Pan" criticisms has pushed himself towards maturity more than any of his detractors, is ready to inherit the elder statesman hat. And he wears it well - this is Spielberg's most Fordian (John, not Harrison) of movies, a large-scale entertainment with an adult's sense of perspective.

It's clear that, as with Last Crusade, Spielberg's interest is more in the familial dynamic than with the artifact in question, and it's here that Crystal Skull falters a bit. In a way, I preferred that the focus wasn't so much on the shiny object (the materialism of such a plot device was sort of taken for granted in Reagan's America), but David Koepp's script does fail to tie the object to the film's themes in the same way that its predecessors did. The presence of aliens makes sense both chronologically and as a nod to some of Spielberg's best work, but it still feels sort of unconnected to the rest of the movie, although Cate Blanchett's pageboy-sporting villian was the best since Belloq (also, as with I'm Not There, strangely attractive). At the same time, I didn't mind that it was sort of meandering - I liked the margins, like John Hurt's cartoonishly mad Professor Oxley and the sharp banter between Indy and Marion Ravenwood (their reunion is pitch-perfect, and Karen Allen is clearly having a blast). There are a few things that don't work - Ray Winstone is wasted in a lame role, and the monkeys are a little too much for me - but they never feel pandering or overcalculated in the way that other series revivals can (no Bantha doo-doo here). An ant attack scene that left me wanting to see real creepy-crawlies aside, the movie isn't overrun by CGI, and the action is as smart as ever. These are films defined by motion, and while Indy takes a little more time getting from A to B than he used to, Michael Bays and Jon Turteltaubs of the world would do well to pay attention - this is how you film frenetic action and keep it coherent.

While most of the buzz around Crystal Skull has revolved around the question of how a 65-year-old Ford would do as Indy (good as ever, you damn whippersnappers!), the more interesting question for me was how Spielberg would return to pure escapism after two decades where even his popcorn films have a newfound social awareness and aesthetic complexity. The resulting movie is one that eagerly tries to give the audience what it wants but is perpetually looking forward - it's a lark, but one of surprising thematic heft. It's not Raiders of the Lost Ark - few movies will ever thrill me the way that seeing Raiders on a huge screen at Loews Boston Common did - and it's not going to please anyone, particularly those primed to dismiss anything Spielberg does. Still, when the release of Crystal Skull, as any new Spielberg movie does, got people talking again about Willie Scott and "Kick the Can" and the last 15 minutes of A.I., I got to thinking about how funny it is that even his detractors remember scenes and moments in such detail so many years later.

Title Card #62

Terrible what passes for a ninja these days.

Some of my best memories of childhood are the marathon sessions I spent playing Super Mario Kart in battle mode with my friend Garrison for six-plus hours at a time. Around 3am, fueled by Pepsi and Doritos and with Black Sabbath blowing out our eardrums, Garr and I would reach a state of geek transcendance - almost completely wordless, the clicking noises of our thumbs tapping the controls forming their own conversation as our connection to game became kinesthetic. So when I defend Speed Racer as a kids' movie, I don't mean that as a dismissal - the Wachowski brothers have created a tactile, candy-colored world seemingly taken straight from the unconscious of a Pixie-Stix-addled 9-year-old who could kick my ass on the PS3. Until Dennis and Paul both recommended it I'd been actively avoiding the film, assuming that the Wachowskis would approach the video game aesthetic with the same suffocating self-importance that killed the Matrix sequels. So it was a welcome surprise that the brothers have rediscovered their sense of playfulness, crafting a movie both visually nifty and winningly sincere - finally, a movie for the indoor kids.

A cartoon-within-the-movie serves as a basic primer for those unfamiliar with the anime aesthetic that Speed Racer translates into live-action; the world inhabited by the titular driver and his family is deliberatly flat and two-dimensional, its color palette limited to the 16-crayon box. What looked grating in the trailer is surprisingly good eye candy in the feature, the kaledoscopic racing sequences are the Wachowskis' most successful attempt at the hyperreal since the first Matrix. While my own preference is for the tangible cartoon worlds of Robert Altman's Popeye or Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, Speed Racer shares with those films an admirable fidelity to its own delibarately silly internal logic (aided immensely by another infectiously zippy Michael Giacchino score). The movie must average fifty edits a minute, but the Wachowskis never sacrifice coherence as far too many action filmmakers happily do - the primary aim here is momentum, and though the result is occasionally wearisome, it's also thrilling in its peculiar way.

Speed Racer is particularly notable in how well the flesh-and-blood performers are integrated into the computer-generated world. While otherwise talented actors working with digital sets often end up looking vaguely confused, the performances here find the right tone - tongue-in-cheek but not condescending, exaggerated but not obnoxious. Emile Hirsch smartly plays Speed Racer as a stoic, wide-eyed youngster single-mindedly obsessed, like Ricky Bobby, with going fast. Standouts in the rest of the cast include John Goodman as Pops, who smartly lets his mustache do the acting; Matthew Fox as the mysterious Racer X, who between this and Lost makes me wonder what makes him so great at playing complete dicks; and Christina Ricci, cute as a button as Speed's devoted girlfriend Trixie. And mention must be made of Paulie Litt as Speed's chubby, sugar-fuelled little brother Spritle, a character that could have easily made the film unwatchably obnoxious had the Wachowskis not found such a likable kid - Litt, who looks like a young Peter Boyle, is clearly just having fun being in a movie, and his enthusiasm is infectious.

And fun is the key reason to see a Speed Racer movie - despite its surprisingly subversive anti-capitalist message and sophisticated narrative structure, this is essentially a movie for 6-year-olds. So it's refreshing to see that the Wachowskis have rediscovered their ability to entertain on a grand scale; I wouldn't be surprised if, once kids discover this on video, it means as much to them as The Goonies or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory do to people who saw them at precisely the right age. A confession: last year I had the chance to audition for Speed but opted not to, not only because the idea of me as Speed Racer is completely ridiculous but because, from the script pages they gave me for the casting call, I thought the film would be a dull, leaden failure. It turns out the Wachowskis knew exactly what they were doing; Speed Racer isn't a perfect movie by any means, but once people catch up to it, it's going to defy a lot of expectations.

Your reality is already half video hallucination.

Another season, and another pop quiz arrives over at SLIFR. This one comes from media prophet Professor Brian O'Blivion - I don't know what kinda of information Prof. O'Blivion is gathering from my preferences of character actors, but I imagine he'll be sending me a tape soon enough.

1) Best transition from movies to TV (actor, actress, producer/director, movie/show)

Definitely David Lynch (see #9)

2) Living film director you most missing seeing on the cultural landscape regularly

Nicolas Roeg. His films from Performance to Bad Timing are as good a run as as any filmmaker's ever had, and I'd like to think he has another movie up to that level in him.

3) Eugene Pallette or Charles Coburn

Eugene Pallette

4) Fill in the blank: “I pray that no one ever turns _____________ into a movie.”

Dance Dance Revolution

5) Jane Greer or Veronica Lake

Veronica Lake, no contest.

6) What was the last movie you saw in a theater? On DVD? And why?

In a theater, Indy 4, because it's freaking Indiana Jones. On DVD, I'm Not There, because some friends hadn't seen it (and it gets better every time I see it).

7) Name an actor you think should be a star

Bruno S.

8) Foxy Brown or Coffy

I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't seen either. I guess I need to catch up on blaxploitation.

9) Favorite TV show still without its own DVD box set

On the Air

10) Jack Elam or Neville Brand

Jack Elam

11) What movies would top your list of movies you need to revisit, for whatever reason?

I can't wait for the new Criterion DVD of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.

12) Zodiac or All the President’s Men

Zodiac, but both are great.

13) Using our best reviewer-speak, what is an “important” film comedy? And what is to you the most important film comedy of the last 35 years?

An "important" film comedy does what an "important" drama does - reveal an emotional truth - from a different angle. Waiting for Guffman is a perfect comedy because, in poking fun at the earnest, frequently awful community theatre experience, it underlines the absurdity of the pretensions and insecurities most of us share.

14) Describe the ideal environment for watching a movie.

As Max Cherry would say, as long as it starts soon and looks good, I'm all set.

15) Michelle Williams or Eva Mendes

Michelle Williams

16) What’s the worst movie title of all time?

"ffolkes"

17) Best movie about teaching and/or learning

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Not really, though. Rushmore.

18) Dracula (1931) or Horror of Dracula (1958)

Horror of Dracula

19) Why do you blog? Or if you don’t, why do you read blogs? (Thanks, Girish)

I started blogging about movies because I suspected my single-mindedness was starting to tire my friends out. I was hoping to connect with a few like-minded people, and was pleasantly surprised to develop a small base of readers. I'm greatful for anyone who stops by Cinevistaramascope and leaves a comment, so I write now to keep the conversation going.

20) Most memorable/disturbing death scene

Carrie White's mom moaning and writhing in a state of religious/sexual ecstasy post-impalement.

21) Jason Robards or Robert Shaw

Both are great, but only one was Quint.

22) A good candidate for Most Blasphemous Movie Ever

I saw a '70s porno once that featured Jesus receiving oral pleasure while walking across water.

23) Rio Bravo or Red River

Rio Bravo

24) Werner Herzog is remaking Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage—that’s reality. Try to outdo reality by concocting a match-up of director and title for a really strange imaginary remake.

Tony Scott's Barry Lyndon

25) Bulle Ogier or Charlotte Rampling

My friend was watching the Academy Awards with his then-girlfriend when she observed, "Helen Mirren is really sexy for her age." To which he corrected, "Helen Mirren is sexy, period." That's how I feel about Charlotte Rampling.

26) In the Realm of the Senses— yes or no?

I'll give it a pass, but it was sort of a letdown.

27) Name a movie you think of as your own (Thanks, Jim!)

Whenever anyone dismisses E.T. as creepy, sentimental or manipulative, I get irrationally protective.

28) Winged Migration or Microcosmos

Microcosmos

29) Your favorite football game featured in a movie

Son of Flubber

30) Wendy Hiller or Deborah Kerr

Wendy Hiller

31) Dirtiest secret you have that is related to the movies

My screenplay.

32) Name a favorite film and describe how it is illuminated and enriched by another favorite film.
My appreciation of Popeye deepened when I realized it's essentially McCabe and Mrs. Miller for kids.

33) It’s a Gift or Horsefeathers

It's a Gift

34) Your best story about seeing a movie at a drive-in

I saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit at a drive-in in Maine while my family was on vacation. My dad fell asleep halfway through, so my mom decided to let him sleep and find her way back to our room. We were nearly at the Canadian border before she realized she must have made a wrong turn somewhere.

35) Victor Mature or Tyrone Power

Victor Mature

36) What does film criticism mean to you? Where do you think it’s headed?

I don't know where it's headed, but I do think the recent turbulence in the profession is the result of film criticism moving away from monologue and towards discussion. I know that my aforementioned small group of readers motivates me to examine my ideas with greater clarity and consideration. If anything's going to keep film criticism going, it's the need to resist experiencing art in a vacuum. Either way, I'll keep writing as long as people keep reading.

Title Card #61

Yes. Questions.

"I saw a segment of Douglas Trumbull's special effects for Blade Runner on the KNBC-TV news. I recognized it immediately. It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly." - Philip K. Dick

The thing that struck me most deeply about Blade Runner upon seeing it for the first time on the big screen is its profound sense of loneliness. The theatrical experience, part of the Berkshire International Film Festival, made it clearer than ever why Ridley Scott's masterpiece couldn't hack it as a summer blockbuster; its a film that requires its audience to stay tuned in to its muted, melancholy emotional frequency, its astounding visual effects meant to provoke introspection rather than thrills. Its silences, shadows and ambiguities are as challenging as they've ever been - even with its monumental reputation, I could hear much of the audence shifting impatiently in their seats - and yet it's the film's uncompromising fidelity to its bleak, enigmatic core that explains its enduring relevance. When I say that Blade Runner on the big screen is an isolating experience, I mean it in the best way.

Much of Blade Runner's success can be attributed to Douglas Trumbull, whose job it was to transform artist Syd Mead's mind-blowing visions of Los Angeles circa 2019 into a believable, lived-in reality. Trumbull's effects are the most lyrical of his contemporaries' work - he's responsible for the balletic scenes of space travel in 2001 and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (his effects are easily the best part of the latter film), the mindbending finale of Kubrick's film (the slipstream idea being Trumbull's, and one that Kubrick originally scoffed at) and the religious experience that is the finale of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While those films had a sleek, elegant futuristic design, Blade Runner required Trumbull to realize Mead's and writer Philip K. Dick's concept of a future defined by collision, decay and entropy. There was also the challenge of breaking new ground in visual effects; as Trumbull put it, "If a filmmaker wants something that's never been done before, it's my job to figure out how to do it."

Though Trumbull's presentation before the screening would be mostly familiar for anyone who's read Future Noir or seen Dangerous Days or any of the multiple making-ofs and retrospectives devoted to the film, it was a thrill to hear him talk about the painstaking process of combining intricately detailed models, paintings, and front-projected images to create a possible future. New to me was the fact that Blade Runner benefited heavily from advances in effects photography and lighting models from Close Encounters, and the bursts of flame that open the film were leftover from a planned apocalyptic ending of Zabriskie Point, which Trmbull was fired from when Antonioni became frustrated with the process and decided to blow up a house instead. Trumbull also praised Ridley Scott for having the strongest understanding of visual effects of any director he'd worked with, which coming from a guy who's worked with Kubrick and Spielberg is no small compliment. Blade Runner is one of the best examples of film as a collaborative art - as Trumbull talked over stills of the modelmaking and photography process, it was clear what a staggering accomplishment it is to keep a team of craftsmen and technicians focused on an extremely specific concept, and how the work of every person responsible for brass etchings or painting tiny cityscape panels is comptely astonishing.

The film was projected digitally, and while it took a while for the purist in me to adjust to its uncanny lack of imperfections ("More human than human," indeed), it was a thrill to see the film in such a pristine condition. While I'm reluctant to attempt a full-blown review so soon after Walter Chaw's comprehensive article (excellent except for the tedious stab at Spielberg), I will say that Blade Runner is a movie that absolutely has to be seen on the big screen to be appreciated. I'd always loved the film, but on video and DVD it's a somewhat remote experience, one that is intellectually and aesthetically edifying yet always seemed emotionally detached. What a surprise to find that this couldn't be further from the truth - seen on the proper scale, Blade Runner reveals itself to be an emotionally devastating experience. With the massive industrial decay of L.A. 2019 towering over me, I began to really feel the despair that the film's humans and replicants feel - the movie only seems detached because the characters are so totally cut off from feeling. Pithy to say that we're all replicants, yet in Blade Runner, this does feel like something of a revalation. Fascinating to realize how often Scott eschews narrative logic for a different kind of visual understanding - it makes no sense, for example, for Pris to step away from Deckard for a gymnastics routine, allowing herself to get shot, yet somehow the moment feels right. It's also astonishing in the way it upturns our expectations, with a villain who earns our sympathies over the ineffectual hero (Rutger Hauer's performance is really one for the ages) and a love scene that, even as Vangelis' score implies sensuality, actually carries far kinker implications. Blade Runner is, above all else, about death - our denial of it and, finally, the beauty of accepting one's mortality - so, yeah, it never stood a chance against a Spielberg movie that gives us the resurrection Scott denies us (though E.T. is a masterpiece in its own way - it's the Tao and all that). Honestly, though, if I were given a choice between a hit and a movie people are still talking about and arguing over 25 years later, it'd be no choice at all.

The Q&A after the movie was disappointingly predictable, the audience sprinkled with the sort of pseudo-cinephiles whose questions reek of smug entitlement. One person asked bluntly what Trumbull's been doing for the past 25 years with no apparent knowledge of his decades-long work on interactive multimedia experiences or virtual sets (I was relieved when he clarified that his concept is more Sin City than Beowulf). Another waved her hand and called Trumbull's name urgently, only to ask, with a superior grin, why, at one point, a rooftop is dry when it had been raining. Trumbull's reply was simply, "I don't know. It's a movie. Next question." It was a shame to have a living legend in the room and not even begin to touch on his various other achievements, including the two features he directed, Silent Running and Brainstorm, both examples of sci-fi driven by ideas rather than bells and whistles. Still, it was an honor to hear Trumbull talk about his work, and a welcome reminder (as is Blade Runner) of cinema's myriad possibilities.

KALI MA!

The following is my contribution to Cerebral Mastication's Indiana Jones Blog-a-Thon.

Ask the average person what makes the Indiana Jones movies so awesome and they'll probably tell you it's the action, the special effects, the humor, Harrison Ford, the hat and the whip and so on and so forth. One thing people don't talk about as much, but is just as crucial to Indy's enduring appeal: horrifying violence.

While one of the main charms in the Indy movies is their view of the world as a place where wondrous, even magical things are waiting to be discovered - Dr. Jones deserves a world of credit for making archaeology look cool and sexy - it's also a world of unknown horrors waiting to snare unsuspecting adventurers. From the surprisingly (in retrospect) somber opening moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy's adventures are defined less by the MacGuffins he pursues than by the always-escalating death traps he manages to evade even as mere mortals like Alfred Molina's greedy Sapito/Satipo/Saripo are punished for their haste and hubris with arrows through the head (and not in a goofy, Steve Martin way). If Raiders is an escapist masterpiece, its largely because Spielberg and Lucas are constantly raising the stakes in an often literal sense. Raiders realizes our most nightmarish fears (the shot of a boaconstrictor slithering out of a desiccated corpse's mouth still gives me the willies) even as it thrills and delights us; it's this undercurrent of darkness, the tension between fear and awe, that gives Spielberg's pop fantasies resonance. This is nowhere more evident than in Raiders' climax, an orgasmic display of melting flesh and exploding heads brought to us courtesy of a pissed-off Old Testament God - while it's every bit as graphic as a similar scene in the same year's Scanners, Cronenberg's film is perceived as more disturbing for its emphasis on bodily horror. In Raiders the gore is morally justifiable (as it's generally agreed that Nazis should explode), so it's considered fun for the whole family and becomes, along with Jaws, a child's introduction to the red, red kroovy.

Still, Raiders is as harmless as a Flash Gordon serial compared to its borderline-nihilistic prequel. Appreciating the much-maligned Temple of Doom has a lot to do with the age at which one first saw it; where an adult might see a cynical, gratuitous exercise in sadism, my four-year-old self could only see the coolest haunted house ever. The highlight, of course, was the infamous heart-ripping scene that triggered so much parental ire - I knew I was seeing something terribly wrong, something I wasn't supposed to see, but in a PG movie (my four-year-old brain considered the ratings system to be God's Law). I was grossed-out yet I was exhilarated by the scene's visceral impact, and I wasn't the only one. I've often wondered if the outcry over Temple of Doom's darkness and the subsequent creation of the PG-13 rating was the result of kids being frightened or parents' startled, Tom Atkins-in-Creepshow realization that their kids were actually enjoying this demented crap.

Last Crusade is relatively tame, except for the awesome moment when Grail-seeker Donovan chooses poorly and rapidly ages and disintegrates in glorious stop-motion, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull looks like it will follow in its predecessor's gentler vein. And that's understandable; times have changed, and parents have become more precious about what their kids are "exposed" to - I remember being completely baffled by the oft-repeated question of whether Jurassic Park was appropriate for kids, because I had seen, survived and loved movies like Alien, The Shining and Halloween before I could tie my shoes. And while that admittedly seems a bit strange to me now that I'm a parent (don't call DSS yet), I don't want Luna and TBD to be total sissies either. I look forward to a day five or six years from now, after enduring Shrek 5, when I teach the kids about how violence can be fun.

Title Card #60

The Trim Bin #69

- Werner Herzog is directing a remake of Bad Lieutenant starring Nicolas Cage. Does. Not. Compute.

- Speaking of Herzog: in what would be the oddest film news any week that didn't also bring the announcement of a Herzog-directed Bad Lieutenant remake, David Lynch will be exec-producing (through his production company, Absurda) My Son, My Son, a "horror-tinged drama" to be directed, on DV and guerilla style, by Herzog. Absurda will also be behind Alejandro Jodorowsky's long-awaited return to directing, King Shot, starring Nick Nolte, Asia Argento, Marilyn Manson and Udo Kier. Though a frame of film has yet to be shot, this is clearly a frontrunner for the Academy Award for "Best Movie Ever Made."

- Welcome to all the new readers here from the More Than This: The Original Source For Everything Jim and Pam message board! While I imagine most of you are primarily interested in what I have to say about John Krasinski, I hope some of you decide to hang around for a while. In exchange, this blog will feature 20% more Krasinski-related content. And to answer the speculation: yes, when I said he was a goofy-looking guy, I meant it in a good way.

- I missed Blade Runner: The Final Cut when it played at the Brattle last year because apparently that's not an appopriate way for a baby to share her first Christmas with mom and dad. But it's playing at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington this Sunday as part of the Berkshire International Film Festival, and it was worth the wait, as the screening will be followed by a Q&A with Berkshire resident Douglas Trumbull. When I was an 8-year-old, guys like Trumbull, Phil Tippett and Dennis Muren were like rock stars to me, and the physical reality of their accomplisments remains more awe-inspiring to me than even the most impressive CGI. I can't wait for Sunday, and I'll try to ask Trumbull why he made Edgar Wright cry.

- Dennis Cozzalio's epic defense of Speed Racer has to count as some kind of masterpiece of film criticism, because it has actually gotten me interested in seeing a movie I'd completely dismissed even before its collective critical panning. I don't know if I'll side with Dennis or the majority, but if there's anything in the film as cool as this I'll be happy:

Mayonaise is sick.

The narration of Paranoid Park, a letter written by 16-year-old skater Alex (Gabe Nevins) attempting to understand his involvement in the accidental death of a security guard - has a halting, awkward quality, as Alex confesses that he's not a very good creative writer. Nevins, like most of the cast, is an acting neophyte cast through MySpace, yet Paranoid Park is more than a Warholian stunt. Alex's tentative voice is at the core of Gus Van Sant's film, filtered as it is through a haze of adolescent confusion. While Paranoid Park has many stylistic similarities to Van Sant's recent death trilogy, it also represents a bracing departure for the filmmaker. While the earlier films share a rigid sense of composition and a detached, almost clinical perspective, Paranoid Park finds Van Sant once again inhabiting the delicate uncertainties of his protagonist's world.

While a violent death is at the center of the film, Paranoid Park bypasses thriller conventions in favor of a quiet close-up of one teen's discassociation from his own reality. Alex is an average kid - he eats at Subway, hangs out at the mall, borrows his mom's car on the weekend and hopes he'll be a good enough skater to hang out at the titular skatepark. His parents are divorcing, but this fact doesn't seem to be affecting him as much as they assume; he's not particularly happy or unhappy, seemingly unable to relate to his own life not in a pathological sense but in a way consistent with his age. Van Sant is at his best when dealing with essentially passive protagonists, and his subjective approach places Paranoid Park closer to his masterpiece My Own Private Idaho than any of his other films. Aided immensely by Christopher Doyle's fragile images and the nervous, echoey soundscapes designed by Leslie Shatz, Van Sant's newfound affinity for narrative inertia finds its clearest focus yet in portraying the moment just before adulthood when everything remains indefinite.

While Paranoid Park is, in this sense, a coming-of-age story (and it is adapted from a novel by popular young-adult lit writer Blake Nelson), it avoids both the nostalgia and writerly compartmentalizing of teenage emotion typical of the genre. A well-meaning cop (Daniel Liu) attempting to learn more about the "skateboarding community" is met with confused snickers by a classroom of potential witnesses for whom concepts like community are completely alien (Van Sant defies this kind of categorizing with the soundtrack, which has room for both Elliot Smith and Nino Rota). While Alex frequents Paranoid Park, he doesn't think he's good enough to skate there - his detachment is not just a form of rebellion, it's a detachment from even desirable experience. When Alex loses his virginity, the moment is kept out of focus; we never know how Alex feels about his girlfriend because he doesn't know. The familiar begins to take on an air of unreality, and it is with this in mind that the central death scene comes into focus. The scene has been repeatedly described as a metaphor first homosexual experience, but there isn't much to support this reading other than the knowledge of Van Sant's sexual orientation; more importantly, it's the first real moment in Alex's life, one that he not only cannot ignore but is partly responsible for. The gory aftermath of Alex's accident has a painterly quality, remarkably still, as it will remain in his memory - a jarring first step into adulthood.

It's interesting to note that some reviews of the film refer to this central moment as an accident while others call it murder. Van Sant avoids moralizing in one way or the other, instead choosing understanding. This has always been true of his films, but here he achieves an emotional directness that suggests new, exciting possibilities. In moments like the one where Alex, after fleeing the scene of the crime, hangs his head in the shower, water droplets rolling off his face as a cacaphony of birds overwhelms the soundtrack, have a simple sort of cinematic purity. It's clear in Paranoid Park that Van Sant has achieved something he's been working towards for years - this is pure film, a collage of small visual gestures that are at once contemporary and timeless, capturing something as ephemeral as the sight of skateboarders suspended in midair, frozen, as if they'll never return to earth.

Title Card #59

Farlanders: 15 Observations

1. Maggie Gyllenhaal is pretty.

2. Farlanders, the new Sam Mendes-directed, Dave Eggers-scripted movie I did background work on this Tuesday, was the first "indie division" movie I've worked on, and it really did represent the best of both work. While the smaller crew made for a few more mistakes than usual, it also meant more setups - there was time to do fourteen or fifteen takes of an extended tracking shot in the morning. And yet Farlanders, which will be released by Focus, is a pseudo-indie with a multi-million-dollar budget, which meant there was still plenty of room for perks like -

3. - the food. Baked salmon, pasta, rice, mixed vegetables and pie. I always appreciate it when us non-SAG folks get the same menu as SAG extras. Of course, we have to wait until they've been served, but it still makes me feel less like livestock.

4. The scenes being filmed were set on a college campus, with the Taft School, a $40000-a-year prep academy, subbing for a university in Wisconsin. Between this and 21, I've gotten a big kick out of returning to the kinds of places I couldn't get accepted to and doing exactly the kind of work I wanted to do anyway. Any hint of petty working-class resentment is strictly intentional - maybe I voted for the wrong candidate?

5. The aforementioned tracking shot followed Gyllenhaal, her onscreen kids and leads John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph mid-conversation as they pass by a student protest against the CIA and military recruiters (I was a bit vague on the details). I was given a t-shirt that read "COLLEGE - NOT COMBAT," a sign that read the same, and told to silently mime protesting. Shades of The Exorcist, but on a much smaller scale. Loved the idea of twentysomething actors pretending to be socially conscious, when most were just looking for a check between commercial residuals.

6. Chatted with a few extras from New York (most were bused in from the city) when were placed in the far background for depth. As soon as I mentioned I was from rural Mass, we couldn't help compare notes on our respective life choices. The condensed version: they get steady work, I get trees. I'm always torn over whether I should have gone straight to New York after college - the opportunities are there, but it takes a superhuman resolve to keep afloat, and my hat's off to anyone (including my friend Kate) who can hack it.

7. That Connecticut was subbing for Wisconsin, as Boston recently did for Paris in The Pink Panther 2, is encouraging; it means that New England isn't just used for location-specific shooting anymore, and has actually become a viable choice for studios. The new Hollywood? Not yet, but definitely the new Vancouver!

8. After three big-budget star-driven movies in a row (including the upcoming Revolutionary Road, partly shot in Connecticut), Sam Mendes seemed to be relishing the opportunity to work on a smaller scale. There wasn't an once of pretension about the guy - he listened intently to his crew's suggestions, maintained a very low-key, enthusiastic presence, and a willingness to try new things (filming was stopped at one point to accomodate the actors' ideas on tweaking the dialogue and blocking). He even gave the extras some direction, er, directly, which is something that's usually left to the assistant directors - again, the benefits of a smaller-scale show.

9. My co-workers at the day job got kick out of it when I told them Maggie Gyllenhaal was in the movie. A while back, some shitwit made a feeble attempt at hurting my feelings by anonymously placing a note declaring my sexual orientation in my boss' mailbox. As this isn't a secret and I haven't particularly struggled with it since the 11th grade, I just found this laughably lame, as did my boss and most of my co-workers. I responded by pinning pictures of Maggie and Jake above my desk, so the anonymous jerk would have be confronted by scary, scary bisexuality every time he or she asked me a question. So for them, this was a symbolic victory, and the subsequent goodwill meant a lot to me.

10. John Krasinski is one goofy-looking guy. This is encouraging.

11. I wanted to tell Maya Rudolph what a genius her husband is, but I then I figured that, having made a baby with P.T, she's already aware of this.

12. Best overheard conversation of the day: a stoned, conventionally "hot" extra talking with two other stoned extras about how, for some reason, she's been directed to make out with other women on multiple gigs. "I had to - acting is about total commitment."

13. The afternoon was spent doing inserts - walking multiple times along the same path without any of the leads present for shots that probably won't make it into the movie. It's here that my total commitment came in; I thought about where my character had been, and where he was going, and at what pace he should be going there. I can confidently say that I walked very well, but I was a little confused about why we were still referred to as "background" - if there are no actors in the frame, aren't we foreground?

14. I must be getting old; while it was fun and educational as always to be on a set, some of the best parts of the day were when I was in holding between shots. I streched out on a hill overlooking Watertown, closed my eyes and took in the sun on what was a perfect May afternoon. I'm working as hard at my dreams as I ever have, but I'm finding it more important than ever to remember stop and dwell in those dreams sometimes.

15. Maggie likes Diet Coke.

I don't want to do nothin' neither.

The War Game is disturbing in a way that only a story told with uncompromising logic can be. This is precisely what made Peter Watkins' pseudo-documentary, which was banned by the BBC (under pressure from the government, according to Watkins) only to be released theatrically to awards and heated debate, so controversial. The film's depiction of a hypothetical nuclear attack simply shows us what is already apparent - that such an attack would have devastating consequences almost beyond our comprehension - with precision and honesty, and these qualities alone proved threatening to a media institution committed to downplaying or ignoring obvious truths of the nuclear race. Watkins' film reminds that sometimes all one needs to do to create an uproar is state the obvious, which The War Game does with horrifying clarity.

The film is roughly divided into to parts - the first a depiction of the preparation for nuclear attack from the Soviet Union following a pre-emptive strike by NATO, the second dramatizing the potential aftermath of a nuclear blast in Kent. With a detached sense of irony, Watkins juxtaposes images of residents calmly preparing for attack - evacuating their homes, stockpiling supplies (one subject matter-of-factly shows us the shotgun he fully intends to use if necessary) and piling sandbags - against the total chaos of the film's deliberately heavyhanded second half. The graphic images of charred skin and dismembered bodies are shocking for their time, but completely justifiable; Watkins' approach is confrontational, using pure image as an inarguable response to the justifications of nuclear war he intercuts with the mounting carnage and despair. These interview scenes, with both actors performing pro-war arguments taken from real-life government and clergy figures as well as the misinformed opinions of citizens interviewed on the street, are shot with a flat aesthetic faithful to the talking-head approach of journalism that Watkins is challenging. When cut against the shaky, fragmented post-attack scenes, they create a powerful statement on the media's ability to create the illusion of security in the face of total chaos.

It's worth noting how the mainstream media has repurposed precisely the kind of shock effects that are so radical here for precisely the opposite purpose - one cannot watch cable-news coverage of the cyclone in Myanmar, for instance, without being bludgeoned with images of dead children. If the media of the 1960's aimed to pacify and distract the public, it now aims to shock us into apathy; as Watkins' uses shocking images to provoke reflection and debate, the co-opting of his aesthetic without any representational distance to silence us is infuriating. Perhaps this is why the most disturbing aspect of The War Game to this contemporary viewer is the omnipresent narration, calmly listing off names and numbers and figures against images of pure horror as if any truth could be found in statistics, reminding us repeatedly of what could be and might be and has been, the dryly informative approach only increasing our anxiety. If The War Game couldn't have been more prescient when it was made, it remains relevant for its deeper, more enduring horror - the constant barrage of information in the absence of real truth.

Title Card #58

Top 5: Concert Movies

Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light was clearly a lark for the director, a chance to capture a band that has so deeply influenced his films in concert, and it shines with the infectious enthusiasm of a true fan. It's a lot of fun if you like the Rolling Stones (who, even in their sixties, rock harder than most mainstream acts less than half their age), perfectly shot by a superteam of cinematographers and set in an intimate venue that smartly sidesteps most of the off-putting bloat of a contemporary Stones tour (suspiciously young, photogenic audience aside). If the critical response has been a bit muted, it's largely because Scorsese and the Stones are competing against their own definitive contributions to the concert movie genre, the best of which are listed below.

1. The Last Waltz Scorsese's film of The Band's 1976 farewell concert is indelible not only for its impressive roster of guest performances but also as a portrait of the end of an era. In the moments between the unapologetic hedonism and rebellion of the previous years and the self-serving materialism of the decade to come, Scorsese's film plays like the end of a decade-long party - the performers look tired, but there's still the music, and the effect is unforgettably bittersweet.

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2. Woodstock An movie with the proper scale and length for its subject. If The Last Waltz is a eulogy than Woodstock is an orgy - of music, drugs, mud and out-of-control idealism. Overstuffed, overblown and a total blast; they say if you can remember the 60's you weren't there, so it's a good thing someone thought to bring a camera along.

3. Ziggy Startdust and the Spiders From Mars Bowie's early-70's sci-fi kabuki theatrics as seen through a grainy, handheld point of view. The result is a stunning collision of the deliberate contrivances of glam and director D.A. Pennebaker's verite aesthetic: immediate and wondefully strange.

4. Gimme Shelter The concert movie as horror film, the Maysles' document of the ill-fated Altamont concert is an unflinching record of the violent implosion of the peace-and-love generation.

5. Stop Making Sense From the awesome opening performance of "Psycho Killer," Jonathan Demme finds the perfect stripped-down aesthetic to capture the Talking Heads' hyper-conceptual brand of art rock. It's Woodstock for eggheads - when we showed this at Images last year, both old-school Talking Heads fans and those of us who were babies when this was released were dancing in the aisles.

Play the Game (5/1/08)