A Blog-a-Thon to Remember

So the reputable Jeremy Richey over at Moon in the Gutter is hosting a blog-a-thon dedicated entirely to, depending on who you talk to, everyone favourite or least favourite contemporary auteur Paul Thomas Anderson. Being one of my favourite filmmakers I will, of course, be participating. So swing 'round Moon in the Gutter from September 13th to 19th and check out everyone's diverse take on this fascinating filmmaker.

The Expendables (3 out of 5)

There’s no excuse for The Expendables but then again, why should there have to be? This is a film that bathes in the excesses of its forefathers; a throwback to the 80s heyday of macho action heroes destroying everything in their sight in order to protect the girl/save the innocents/bring down the bad guy. You know the drill: no building left standing, no vehicle left uncharred, no faceless solider left standing, no piece of grass left unsinged. I can’t, in any sort of good conscience, recommend it; it’s too shallow, too broad, too cheap looking, not witty enough and, as a throwback, lacks the kind of personality that made its referents so special, but anyone who sees it will, I suspect, be getting their money’s worth.

Sylvester Stallone (who also directs and co-writes) stars as Barney Ross, the main badass in a team of ragtag elite fighters. They’re like the A-Team except, since they are all played by discernible action movie heroes of different varieties (Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren) Stallone doesn’t rely on providing generic types so much as simply coasts on the presence of his stacked line-up. That’s fair, it’s like trading in one superficiality for another but Stallone uses his team as a reason to coast: presence only goes so far if you don’t get to caring about the hero your tagging along with.

Thus the film coasts lightly on the surface, afraid to ever delve deeper into any emotional interest lest it get in the way of blowing stuff up. It’s never really explained how The Expendables know each other, who pays their bills, and just whether or not what they are doing is technically legal. In fact, the only time we ever do get a glance at anything genuinely human is when Mickey Rourke, as the old dog who mans the HQ, conveys a painful story from his past and runs away with the movie.

The mission, given to Stallone by a no-nonsense Bruce Willis, after being passed on by Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of the films true guilty pleasure scenes, is to travel to a remote Latin American country and rid it of, oh I don’t know, anyone who doesn’t look like a friend to the U.S.? Ruling over the country is an evil dictator who is secretly at the mercy of an evil American ex-agent played by Eric Roberts, who, as far as villains go, is basically a stock character who stands around with a menacing scowl because, you know, these things need villains. It’s never quite explained what Robert’s purpose is, why he holds command over the dictator or what he wants to achieve but hey, his number one heavy is played by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. You see how it works?

So the team visit the country, case it, meet a young beauty who is both a revolutionary and the general’s daughter, and narrowly escape after they are detected. But just to show those slimy South Americans they blow the hell out of their harbour via airplane machine guns. What they actually discover when there is a mystery to me, but whatever it is, it prompts them to return with some serious firepower and lay waste to everything in their sights, all in order to, I guess, save the girl while, along the way, just for flavour, one of them crosses over onto the other team’s side.

What more description of The Expendables does one need? A lot of things go boom, while little plot gets in the way. The film is funny but not nearly funny enough and, as was the case with Stallone’s Rambo, the violence, at times, is far too serious to be taken as entertainment. At other times, when CGI is employed the film looks cheap: the bloodshed reminiscent circa 1998 arcade violence.

And yet there is a certain sense of freewheeling fun on display here. One must nod in admiration at a film that is willing to pull out all the stops and not apologize for it for better or worse and the film, for the most part, features action that feels more or less authentic. As a throwback the film undershoots its target but as an excessive display of recognizable faces laying waste to everything in their path well, what more could you want?

Scott Pilgim Vs. The World (5 out of 5)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is awesome, which begs the questions, as raised by Stephanie Zacharek in her negative review of Inception, if that is enough? A better response may be: so what? In the grand scheme of film and culture and art does awesome really amount to anything but a two hour confectionery that, like lightening, strikes with swift brilliant force and then is gone? It’s maybe the very problem that gnaws at all classical minded film critics as they forge on into the future. I guess, if we are to rate Scott Pilgrim in a vacuum, sealed off from the last hundred, or even ten, years of film history, the answer is that yes indeed, it’s awesomeness is truly enough, or at least under the (maybe sad?) realization that if most, if not all, films are becoming no more than flashes of noise and colour than they might as well at least strive to be cute and hip and funny and hurdle images at the screen that are just a little unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. So, there you go.

The story revolves around Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) a geeky bass player from Toronto who has just hooked up with a 17 year old Asian girl, Knives Chau, who also doubles as Pilgrim’s number one fan. His band is called Sex Bah Bomb and they play local gigs hoping that there will be at least one non-band member in attendance that hopes they won’t suck.

Then Scott lays eyes on the Technicolor haired Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and its love at first sight. He constantly dreams about her, stalks her at parties, ignores Knives who is so infatuated that she hardly notices and orders packages on Amazon just to fill the waste basket when he finds out she’s the delivery girl.

Eventually, Ramona agrees to go out with Scott but he soon finds that there’s a catch. She moved to Toronto from the U.S. in order to escape her past and rediscover herself. As it turns out, she is running from seven evil exes who have all teamed together into one league in order to fight Scott Pilgrim to the death. This makes up most of the body of the film despite the fact that a fight to the death is a fight to the death and an evil ex is an evil ex and once you’ve seen two or three you’ve seen about as many as you probably will ever need to.

The story isn’t a whole lot more complex than that. What makes it interesting is that its director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) takes great, excessive pains in order to make this material actually feel like a video game or a graphic novel. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, like Speed Racer before it, is one of the few films that know how to use special effects for all they are worth, creating, not so much a film, as, for better or worse, an experience that completely immerses you in it’s spell. Scott Pilgrim is a lot of things. Boring it is not.

If there’s any problem, it’s that Wright does too good of a job. He spends so much time on visual details: the split screens, the accompanying words that go with sounds like the phone ringing or the door knocking, the video game aesthetics, the bright lights and so on, that he kind of forgets to do anything with the material going on underneath.

Thankfully Wright is in the company of good stars who manages to make the material funny and sweet and give it a bit of a human element that can at least propel it for two hours. Michael Cera does his typical loveable goofball routine, Winstead is perky and cute while still always being one of those girls who can never quite be trusted to still be there the next day, Kieran Culkin plays deadpan of Scott’s gay roommate and gets away with it and Anna Kendrick shows up for a few scenes of quirky, fast talking funny business.

But a film like this doesn’t exist as its parts. It’s a whole package that you either let in or reject outright. It’s so busy that it doesn’t have much time for character or plot, but what a lightshow it provides. In the end, Wright has a good eye for visual comedy and Cera is as endearing a presence as any but the film ultimately rises and falls on just how spectacular and inventive it can be. It is spectacular. It is inventive. It’s also like nothing you’ve probably ever seen. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

The Other Guys (1.5 out of 5)

There’s a moment in The Other Guys that is just about the funniest thing Will Ferrell has every done. It proves that Ferrell has all the ability to be a brilliant subtle character comic but none of the good sense to follow through with it. The Other Guys is instead a constant parade of stock Will Ferrellisms: breaking out into pimp talk, yelling nonsense like a madman, making forced pop culture references and, as is his speciality, conducting himself like a full grown moron with the subtlety of a jackhammer.

And yet there’s that one scene, denying us all the promise Will Ferrell has been denying us for years. It involves the star standing in the doorway of a ballet school. He’s just finished yelling something nonsensical. The dance instructor tells him to go away. He pauses, stares, turns and walks away with a strange and perfect mix of force and idiocy and for one moment so brief that you blink and you miss it, Will Ferrell has become an actual character.

Character is exactly what has been lacking form every Ferrell comedy since Talladega Nights. It’s not so much that we expect much from Ferrell and his director/collaborator Adam McKay anymore, as much as it is that they drag good people down with them. In this case it’s Mark Wahlberg who can be a very funny actor but here is given nothing to do but play off of Ferrell's doofus naif, which basically comes down to a lot of frustration, yelling, and telling his partner that he just doesn’t like him very much.

Gamble (Ferrell) and Hoitz (Wahlberg) are mismatched police partners to say the least. Gamble is tall, straight-laced, always dawns his oversized spectacles and would rather work a calculator than a drug bust. So clueless is this guy that when his co-workers convince him that it’s a regular office practice to fire your gun off into the ceiling he ends up being issued a wooden gun as a result.

Hoitz on the other hand is fiery and ready for action. He used to be a hotshot but got transferred and stuck with Gamble because of an incident that gets a chuckle the first time and then get’s beaten into the growd as it becomes one of the plots many frequent punch lines. After the two top cops (Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson) get taken off the job in one of the films few big laughs, Hoitz sees an opportunity and must convince a reluctant Gamble to get out from behind the desk and onto the streets.

There’s no point talking much about what kind of case Gamble and Hoitz stumble onto because the entire film is essentially a collection of set ups for Wahlberg to scream at Ferrell and Ferrell to say something stupid in response. Sometimes the exchanges manage to find something halfway amusing to run with, but more often than not they are just superfluous flashes of nothing in particular. Ferrell talks about his days as a pimp, his sexual escapades with his wife, how a school of tuna would defeat a lion who tried to capture them and you know how it goes.

None of this does anything to build into comedic characters or a some sort of clever plot. Instead it just sits on the screen, does noting, proves nothing, contributes nothing and then disappears only to be followed up by the same bit of business. The chief is played by Michael Keaton who, once, amusingly quotes a TLC song and then denies and then does it again and again and again. He also works a second job at Bed, Bath and Beyond where he gives a pep talk about the new shipment of rugs. Characters rarely ever run deeper than that.

None of this would matter if the punch lines were funny. However they aren’t. They aren’t even halfway towards clever. Part of the thing that made Talladega Nights work so well is that it had the clear idea that it wanted to be a parody and shot for that. The Other Guys has no such conviction. Instead of approaching this material with the keen eye of a spoofster, McKay and his crew trample forward with the laden hand of someone who can’t be bothered to think up a decent punch line, thinking that maybe half-hearted jokes will maybe get funnier with every time that they are repeated. It’s a shame, Will Ferrell is a talented guy and can be a compelling character actor. I just desperately pray that he will soon muster the sense enough to stop making Will Ferrell movies already!

A Step Forward in What Direction?

With the continuing advancement of technology those purists keep whining that human beings are getting lazier and lazier. Wall-E may have been a cute and magic cartoon but you could see the parallels on display there. Similarly, whether that assertion is correct or not, it seems that people who read film criticism are getting lazier too. I'll admit it, I'm one of them. Right now I'm reading a 700 page volume entitled American Film Criticism. It's a collection of the very best people who ever wrote about film putting their very best writing forward from the dawn of cinema right up to today. And so far, I've been reading every word of it. I've been reading every word of it for, oh I don't know, six months and I'm around Page 400. It's tough.

See, I'm now a part of a generation (although maybe once removed) in which film criticism is reduced to soundbites. I've indulged. Back in the day you picked up a newspaper because it had your favourite critic and you read everything they had to say because they wrote well and were generally more interesting than the movies they wrote about. Now personality is, (somewhat/mostly?) gone. Instead of reading full pieces by one or two favourite critics we read little snippets on Rotten Tomatoes or MetaCritic of every critic just to get a flavour. It has it's benefits. It is certainly nice to get a wide array of opinions instead of been burdened to just a select few and it is possible to read the entire review from RT if you come across something you like. It also helps those whose only goal in reading film criticism is to know if people generally like it or not in order to decide if it's worth seeing.

Now criticism has gotten even simpler: Why read through all the snippets when RT will summarize them all in a couple sentences for you. Although I am fully aware that they have provided 'Consensus" for some time, I've just recently been paying attention to it. Now I can log on to the main page, see the percentage rating beside the list of new releases on the left, roll my mouse over top the name and read quickly what the overall just of the reviews are about. All without leaving that one page.

Of course I could go on about how, as a writer, by favourite thing about reviews is not knowing what people think about the movies as much as reading great writing, but that's not the point and indeed it was a long build-up to get to my otherwise nothing point, which is that today I came across a perplexing Consensus on RT. It was for the new Jason Fiedberg/Aaron Seltzer (man it hurts to say) film Vampires Suck. I haven't seen it, but considering that I've sworn to never pay another cent to watch anything those two morons ever put their name on, my hopes aren't high. Right now it's sitting at 6% rating with 1 person out of 30 actually finding something to like. But now look at the Consensus: "Witlessly broad and utterly devoid of laughs, Vampires Suck represents a slight step forward for the Friedberg-Seltzer team."

What's going on here? If it's witlessly broad and devoid of laughs, what is it stepping forward from, killing Jews? Is it really saying, holy crap I can't believe one person actually liked this, that's the best yet or is it saying that this one feels less like getting murdered than just getting raped? Whatever it is it doesn't make sense. Can't we just call a dog a dog? I know a couple million people have read The Secret and want to look at the glass as being half full but really, a glass doesn't even factor into the equation when it comes to these filmmakers. I have no real point here other than to scratch my head and maybe laugh at myself for even being bothered to care.

But maybe there is something here. Armond White just told Slash Film that he thought Roger Ebert more or less ruined film criticism and, although I haven't listened to his reasoning, I assume it's because Ebert opened up criticism to a more mainstream audience. It made, so to speak, film geekery cool and stripped criticism of it's intelligence. I don't agree with that logic but in a sense, showed film loves that they could take criticism away from the intellectuals and give back to the moviegoers who could just as easily wage their own Siskel and Ebert style debates at home.

If that is true (and again, I don't think it is in the sense that it ruined film criticism) than what do we make of the whole of criticism being reduced to one sentence bites of information, especially when they seem widely implausible (based on this example of course, I can't qualify that statement with any other proof). Is this helpful? Is this criticism? Is that, ultimately, what we want?

Discuss.

One Minute Review: Black Dynamite (3.5 out of 5)

The problem with Black Dynamite is that it doesn't quite know whether it is a spoof or an homage and so it fails at both. How couldn't it? After all, as an homage it comes up short because what made Blaxpoltation so popular in the first place is that it had no point of reference other than itself. It didn't pay tribute to anything, wasn't inspired by anything and therefore played by it's own rules. As tribute, Black Dynamite has knowledge as it's enemy. It knows what Blaxplotation became, what it stood for, how it worked and so on. In this case, knowledge certainly isn't power. As a spoof it doesn't work because Blaxplotation was so off the wall that it, in many cases, played like it's own spoof. Black Dynamite is thus best when it is playing it perfectly straight because it combines the best of both spoof and tribute and manages to feel, in spite of itself, like an actual movie and can be quite funny. Here's a perfect example:



The film begins failing when it goes into full on Airplane style spoof mode in which it tries too hard and achieves too little. If nothing more though, Black Dynamite acts as an amusing reminder of why we should go back and rediscover all those bBaxplotion classics once again.

Mike's DVD Haul

This will be my last DVD Haul for a while. Sure I'll buy a DVD here and there but I don't expect to be going out and buying mass amounts of DVDs any time soon. I've got to save money and such. It ain't cheap living in Toronto you know. So anyway, I'm glad that people have been following along and like seeing what I'm picking up and I'm glad Travis came up with this idea over at The Movie Encyclopedia so that I could steal it from him. Although in his last post he put up a picture of his DVD shelf. Always two steps ahead I guess.

I don't know if anyone would buy this for Troll. It's kind of like a special freebie that you get for buying Troll 2, which, if you don't know (for shame) has become famous for being one of the worst movies ever made. So bad is Troll 2 in fact that it is, in a twisted sort of way, kind of a work of art. It's so naive in it's badness, trying so hard to be good that there is just no way it could have ever worked. From the horrible acting to the laughable costumes and special effects to the nonsensical dialogue, this movie is an absolute classic.

In the same vein as The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Last Tango in Paris, Louis Malle's Damage is an erotic tale that was praised for actually being about eroticism instead of just going for titillation. I haven't seen it but this is considered one of Malle's better American films.

If there's one thing I love the way I love movies it's stand-up comedy. One of those comedians I love is Patton Oswalt. Know for his work on sitcom King of Queens and the voice of Remy the rat in Ratatouille, Oswalt is considered to be part of the "Alternative" comedy movement (whatever that means) alongside David Cross and the routinely unfunny Brian Posehn. I haven't seen this set yet but have rarely ever found Oswalt unfunny.

More Louis Malle. Malle made three films, Murmur of the Heart, Lacombe, Lucien and Au Revior Les Enfants which were all coming of age tales about kids forced into growing up under unfortunate circumstances. These films are not as unhinged as Malle's French New Wave films but are very personal and introspective experiences nonetheless.

Sometimes when I see a film it reminds me of how good a previous film was and how I want to see that one again. Mission Impossible 3 made me go out and buy Mission Impossible 2, Fast and the Furious 3 made me go out and buy the first 2 and now Inception made me want to go back and get The Prestige, which essentially tells the same story and explores the same ideas but with more clarity and intelligence and less boom boom.

I've also got a copy of Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samurai on the way but it didn't get here in time to make the cut. Oh well, it's a great film anyway.

Come on Baby, Make it Hurt so Good

I love bad movies. Only a monster wouldn't. I'm not talking about those movies that make the year end lists or that critics dump on. Those aren't true bad movies. Those movies are bad for reasons that are, in a lot of cases, secondary to filmmaking. They are morally corrupt, they shine ignorant light on serious matters, they are vile, vulgar, racist, or, maybe worst of all, lazy. But those movies are bad because of us, not because of themselves. They put ugly emotions into us, make us witness unpleasant things and waste our time as if time isn't precious.

The truly bad films I am talking about are the ones that are naively so insomuch as that they are trying so desperately hard not to be. There's a purity to those kinds of movies that makes you want to watch them over and over again; an honesty that someone, at some point in time, though that what they were doing meant something. They aren't the movies that we rail against and forget about, they're the ones that live on because there's something in their awfulness that makes them kind of endearing. These are the films that live forever.

I write this because yesterday I discovered Tommy Wiseau's The Room, a $6 million train wreck that has been playing in theaters for four years and is so bad that people have started participating in the experience ala Rocky Horror Picture Show. I haven't seen it, but based on the clips that I have, I know I desperately need to.

Because, if nothing else, those films are a riot. They become, not films, but either communal or interactive experiences. Their making becomes myth, their best scenes become legend and the joy that they provide is everlasting. Although I've seen it about 15 times, I'll never tire of the boat accident at the beginning of Sleepaway Camp (which begins at around the four minute mark of this clip and ends with the man on land stealing one of the unintentionally funniest moments in all of horror movies).

There are other films like this. Showgirls is a modern example, The Room is another:



And what about Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, which is often considered the Citizen Kane of bad movies? The list goes on forever, ending in what is maybe the grandaddy of them all: Troll 2. Troll 2 is so bad that it even inspired its own documentary The Best Worst Movie. That title just about sums it all up:



Now think about that title: The Best Worst Movie. It implies that, just because Troll 2 is an awful film doesn't mean that it doesn't have just as much value, on some level, as one of the best best films. When something succeeds at being the best at something, even it is at being the worst, well that's worth something isn't it?

The point is then that it baffles me to see when critics review these films seriously. Recently, just a couple months ago Castor at Anomalous Material reviewed Troll 2 and gave it an F, leaving me to think: what's the point? I'm not trying to knock Castor, who is a great critic and runs a great blog. But really, to give a film that has become famous for how awful it is an F is like calling a special ed. kid a "retard." It doesn't achieve anything.

In a way, writing a negative review of any of these films is like reverse elitism (and I'm generalizing here, not referring to Castor in any way): I don't just watch the best movies, I can't be bothered with the worst. Even though the worst, in a lot of cases, may be just as good as the best. They're just good for different reasons.

Ultimately what I'm coming back to is a belief about film criticism that I have always held: if we wait for movies to raise to our level, we'll rarely ever find satisfaction. It's the job of the critic to adjust themselves accordingly; to meet the movie of it's level and not the other way around. To get mad at The Room, for example, for being bad is a display of critic thinking himself above his material, especially when the film in question has become famous for that very reason.

I'll always remember that final scene in Tim Burton's Ed Wood where Wood is in the theater, waiting for Plan 9 to debut. "This is it," he says with a smile, "This is the one I'll be remembered for." It's the most endearing and bittersweet scene Burton ever filmed. Not because of the irony, but because Wood was absolutely right. His name would go down in history just the same as his hero Orson Welles. Just not quite the way he was expecting.

So, what is your take on bad movies, do they have their worth, or should they just be forgotten?

The Celebrity Connection- Tommy Wiseau

If you haven't heard of Tommy Wiseau well, I hadn't either. I'd see the poster kicking around for his film The Room but had no idea what it was or that it was considered anything special. Then yesterday I had it brought to my attention that it was being hailed as one of the worst films ever made so I had to check it out and indeed, what I found was pretty awful. I mean, look:



It's bad enough that Wiseau's accent sounds almost exactly like Uwe Boll's but what's even more distracting is this:


Could Tommy Wiseau really be Christopher Walken in disguise? You decide.

Whoring Myself for All It's Worth

Last Friday, after Wild Celtic was nice enough to give me props in her interview with Only Good Movies I discovered a new, very good site. I was also jealous and wanted an interview of my very own since I'll do just about anything to get my name in print and alas, here it is.

Thanks to Shane Rivers for letting me be a part of his site. Be sure to check it out and also swing by his sister site A1 Movies Reviews which, ya know, has reviews.

Mike's DVD Haul

Well, it seemed some people liked it this week when I posted about the sweet DVDs that I had just recently gotten in the mail. So, because I was away this weekend where I picked up some more titles and because I have nothing better to do, I'm going to do it again.

Peter Greenaway is the kind of filmmaker that you admire without every really liking in most cases. He's made acclaimed films like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, but they are all very heavy endeavours that you wouldn't want to watch on a regular basis. I haven't seen 8 1/2 Women but it was cheap, so why not give it a try?

I'm not a Kurosawa lover the way say Univarn is, but there's no denying that Rashomon is one of the most important films ever made and did more to advance popular storytelling than any other film I can think of. It was one of the contenders for my list of The Best Movies That Made Going to the Movies Suck list (maybe it deserves an honorary entry) but no one wanted to write about it. Regardless, no film lover has not seen this movie.

Aki Kaurismaki is a strange, offbeat, deadpan filmmaker whose films have never really found an audience in North America. If there is one contemporary director who can compare to him it would be Jim Jarmusch, which, in a sense, doesn't do Kaurismaki justice because, if anything, Jarmusch just pays tribute to him as opposed to making the same kinds of films. Although the dry, deadpan comedic style has been copied countless times, especially in European films, Kaurismaki remains a true original and Man Without a Past is both heartwarming and hilarious in the truly oddest of ways.

As a collector I`ve gotten passed the point where I need the best, most up-to-date versions of everything I buy (with the exception of Criterion Collection movies, which are worth the extra coin). Therefore, because of both money and space concerns, I was happy to find four out of the five Dirty Harry movies all in one convenient, low-price case. I never thought these movies were quite good enough to own until I was reading David Gilmor`s The Film Club in which he talks about that infamous ``Are you feeling lucky`` scene, which made me want to see the movies again. The only downside is that this doesn`t contain The Dead Pool, which, contrary to popular opinion, I think is the best Dirty Harry movie besides the original.

I haven`t seen this but it got good reviews at the time, was only $1.99 and I really like Ben Stiller`s early movies like Your Friends and Neighbours when he actually acted as opposed to the annoying goofball persona he assumed for good after Zoolander and Meet the Parents (up until Greenberg that is)

Ah, what can you write in a few mild sentences to do justice to Pier Pablo Passolini when whole essays fail to do this man`s work justice. This is, after all, the artist, poet, filmmaker who unapologetically spun film around on its head, turned it inside out and back around again by questioning God, religion, politics, sexuality, everything he could get his hands on and then ultimately ended up murdered for being a homosexual, that is, if he didn`t just fake his death. Momma Roma came early in Passolini`s storied, fascinating and wildly enigmatic career when Italy was still in, or maybe just getting out, of the Italian Neo-Realism faze. It was Salo however, based on The Marquis de Sade`s 120 Days of Sodom which would forever cement Passolini as being one of history`s most shocking filmmakers. The movie is vile, disgusting, violent, and profane. It is, even by today's standards, one of the most shocking, unpleasant and unnerving films ever made. And it`s also, in the eyes of most, a masterpiece. I think it`s something that any mature, intelligent viewer should seek out. Just don`t say you weren`t warned.

Godard again. I don`t think this is a major Godard work, although when I watched it I wrongly selected it for casual viewing and no Godard movie is anything that should be considered causal, so I wasn`t prepared for it. I think this must be one of the last few movies of Godard`s that I wanted to own and one of the last few he made before he lost his mind and started making nearly unwatchable ``anti``-movies.

Links

Well, my three weeks of working at home are coming to an end and I'm taking off for the weekend and, on top of that, I don't do this on a frequent basis even though I keep telling myself to start doing so. The first step, I guess is admitting so let's hope this is the first step in getting these link posts up on a regular basis.

The impossibly named Meaghan at Wild Celtic had an interview with Only Good Movies in which she not only discussed her favourite movies but gave yours truly some props. Much appreciated. Check it out.

Blogging is a pain in Simon's ass.

Sebastian is wrapping up his Joseph Gordon Levitt blogathon over at Detailed Criticisms

Vancetastic thinks Rob Reiner's new movie Flipped will tank, which leaves me to think, did anyone but Vance know Rob Reiner had a new movie coming out?

Com Clift isn't feeling the poster for Yogi Bear.

Univarn celebrates his one year anniversary with the funniest picture I've seen since this picture:


Alex at Boycotting Trends joins the Movie Meme. Better late than never.

Not surprisingly, Jim Emerson writes yet another anit-Inception post which I can't be bothered to link to. First Avatar, now Inception. What will be the next big dead horse Emerson can beat?

Jude at All That Film writes about Cries and Whispers. People should write about Ingmar Bergman more. I should write about Ingmar Bergman more.

Kid in the Front Row did a blogathon about sequels/remakes/reboots last week. I was one of the only people for it. Go figure.

P.S. I changed the subheading of my site to something that I think reflects the overall critical drive of what I am trying to accomplish here. Enjoy.

One Minute Review: Whiteout (2.5 out of 5)

Whiteout is a perfectly serviceable thriller and that's exactly it's problem. It's as well made as its genre requires and acted to the same degree of competence but it's about as good as the last time you saw it, and the time before that, and the time before that, and nearly every time you've seen it for the last 20 years or so. Whiteout is strictly by-the-book: it does what it needs to and doesn't try a whole lot harder. The story is the same as every other trapped-in-a-desolate-location/mad-slasher-on-the-lose film there has ever been and the conventions pop up like clockwork. There is however one kind of ingenious sequence towards the end. The whiteouts are so bad at the Arctic post where Kate Beckinsale (the only woman who could make that hat sexy)

is stationed that to get around from building to building the crew need to attach carabiners to ropes that are tied up around the base, which leads to an exciting climatic chase outside between the killer and the good guys, who cannot see each other outside of six inches from their face. But even this is problematic as all of the characters, bundled up in their snow gear, all look more or less the same. That seems to be what everything about this film comes down to.

My Beef

I personally think that the most important section of any blog is the comments. The comments, after all, are the things that keep the piece alive. They give it a pulse by being inspired by it, challenging it, adding too it, whatever. They are what allows the piece to live on and grow after it's publication. Thus, I cherish every one of my commenters whether they are praising me, challenging me, testing me or calling me "gay" as one person did after my Eli Roth Sucks post on Suite101.

Another thing the comments do is make a blog feel more like an interactive community instead of just some writer talking down to their readers. How many times, when a new LAMB entry comes up, do people, in the information section, write that they don't want their blog to be an interactive community? I haven't seen one yet and I read just about all of them.

It therefore baffles me/frustrates me/makes me question the writer's intentions when I take the time to comment on a post and the writer never responds. I don't expect responses to little nothing comments like hey, good job, but 90% of the time I don't leave those kinds of comments. When I comment I like to think of something of some kind of depth to say. The writer, after all, has taken their time to write an intelligent, engaging piece, the least I can do is match him/her in the comments. I'm a horrible perfectionist so sometimes I'll point out an error in logic, a mix up in continuity, stuff like that. I'm not trying to be condescending, just being anal. Sometimes I will continue on with the point being made in the post, offer an alternate way of viewing things or maybe just full-out disagree, in a friendly, respectful way of course.

So when I go back to check if anyone has responded to my comments (face it, everyone does because if there is one thing a blogger loves more than comments it's responses to their comments on other blogs) I'd like to at least see that the effort I have taken to help create an interactive environment in said person's blog has been acknowledged.

Granted, no one is perfect. I've probably missed responding to some comments because I'll get them, need to think about what has been said and forget to come back. It happens, but I try my hardest to ensure that I have responded to every one's comment that requires response. That is, after all, why I choose the option to allow me to approve comments before posting them. Not because I want to censor them, but because I want to make sure I read every one.

I'm not, in this post, referring to any blog or blogger in particular and I feel blessed that most of the regular commenters here do in fact provide comments that are intelligent, well thought out and do keep the conversation going. Sure, not all of my posts lend themselves to comment, but you guys do your best. What I am ultimately saying is that, we should value our comment section above all else. It is, after all, our only way to connect with our readers on an intimate level. To be honest, I've stopped commenting and even, in some cases reading blogs written by bloggers who don't respond to their comments.

What do you think?

Movie Meme

I don't know how started the Movie Meme that is going around right now but it seems like Jess at Insight into Entertainment and Andrew at Encore are the main players at this time. Like Simon, who's idea I am stealing here, I don't have time to follow along and make posts every day for a month so I'm just going to do it all in one post and you can read it if you feel like it. So here goes,

Day 01 - Sequel that should not have been made

--Every Rocky movie after the second one. They all really lost touch with what made the original so special and became just a bunch of stock sports cliches.

Day 02 - Movie that you think more people should see

--Best of Youth- The best 6 hour movie I can think of.

Day 03 - Favorite Oscar-nominated movie from most recent ballot

--Up in the Air. It was a funny, touching movie that had a lot of truth in it, both from the human side and the corporate side. It especially rang true for me as a Human Resources graduate.

Day 04 - Movie that makes you laugh every time

--FUBAR. I don't know if it's a Canadian thing. I don't know if it's a growing up in a small town where there actually are a lot of people like this thing but damn this movie is funny no matter what mood I am in and I find new things that are hilarious every time.

Day 05 - Movie you loathe

--Fight Club (nihilistic garbage parading as satire), Boondock Saints (over stylized z-grade Tarantino wannabe), everything Eli Roth, everything Tyler Perry, this list goes on.

Day 06 - Movie that makes you cry every time

--The Polar Express. Poor little Billy, Christmas just doesn't work out for him.

Day 07 - Least favorite movie by a favorite actor or actress

--Christopher Walken, Kangaroo Jack, The Wedding Crashers or Click

Day 08 - Movie that should be required high school viewing

--Requiem for a Dream

Day 09 - Best scene ever

--The fountain scene in La Dolche Vita or the first 10 minutes of 8 1/2

Day 10 - A movie you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving

-- High School Musical 3. Deal with it.

Day 11 - A movie that disappointed you

--Inception, even though I gave it 5 stars.

Day 12 - Best soundtrack/background music in a scene

--Easy Rider, duh.

Day 13 - Favorite animated movie

--The Polar Express or Snow White

Day 14 - Favorite film in black and white

--La Dolce Vita

Day 15 - Best musical

--In general Rent; as a movie, Hairspray maybe.

Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure movie

--High School Musical 3 again.

Day 17 - Favorite series of related movies

--Too hard to pick. How about Dirty Harry?

Day 18 - Favorite title sequence

-Can't think of one right now.

Day 19 - Best movie cast

--Robert Altman's Short Cuts

Day 20 - Favorite kiss

--Clint Eastwood and Merly Streep in Bridges of Madison County

Day 21 - Favorite romantic couple

--John Cusack and Ione Skye, Say Anything

Day 22 - Favorite final scene/line

--Zampano on the beach in La Strada

Day 23 - Best explosion or action scene

The Obvious ones: Bullit or The French Connection. The not obvious: The motorbike chase in The Bourne Ultimatum

Day 24 - Quote you use most often

--The movies are so rarely great art that if we can't enjoy great trash there's no point in going- Pauline Kael.

Day 25 - A movie you plan on watching (old or new)

--High Plains Drifter might be next

Day 26 - Freakishly weird movie ending

--How about one of the most freakishly weird movies ever: Werner Herzog's Even Dwarfs Started Small

Day 27 - Best villain

--Gary Oldman in Leon, John Malkovich in In the Line of Fire, Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man 2, the Joker of course

Day 28 - Most over-hyped movie

--easily three of the most overrated movies are A Clockwork Orange, Reservoir Dogs and The Usual Suspects

Day 29 - Movie you have watched more than ten times

--Honestly, probably Space Jam

Day 30 - Saddest death scene

--Terms of Endearment, La Strada, The Green Mile, American History X

Day 31 - Scene that made you stand up and cheer

--This one:

The Celebrity Connection: Dolph Lundgren

Dolph Lungren may always be most famous for playing Ivan Drago, the most ridiculous character in the whole Rocky series (although I bet there's at least one out there who swears by I Come in Peace). As far as 80s action heroes (or villains) went, Lundgren was never a very engaging actor, if you could even call what he does acting. It's more like starring, menacing, towering, etc. Put it this way, it never took Lundgren's agent much imagination in deciding what kind of roles to find for him. Lundgren is one of the many action stars who will be featured in Sylvester Stallone's nearly here The Expendables (maybe Stallone will give him some dialogue this time?). It's hard to say if the movie will be any good but, as someone who grew up on 80s action, I'm certainly looking forward to it. On that note, check this out:

Could Chuck from Planet 51 just be Dolph Lundgren in disguise? You decide.

Dinner for Schmucks (4 out of 5)

Dinner for Schmucks is one of the very few funny comedies that I can think of that knows how to use caricature to its advantage. Come to think of it, caricature is the only possible way this film could work. From any other angle the material would be tasteless and offensive. As a portrait of caricatures running lose amongst their own it’s very funny, kind of sweet and even maybe a touch endearing as well. It’s still, as far as the dinner itself is concerned, a little in bad taste, but it remains a tasty meal.



The set-up for the film is borrowed from the 1998 French comedy The Dinner Game in which a sixth floor analyst, knowing there is a vacancy in the company, comes up with a brilliant idea to woo a hundred million dollar client their way. However the boss (Bruce Greenwood) wants to get to know Tim (Paul Rudd, playing the straight man) a little better before giving him the new office and invites him to the monthly company dinner.



The object of the dinner is for each employee to go out into the world and find someone of very “special” talents which, without the quotations, translates into stupid. Tim, by strange coincidence runs into Barry (Steve Carell) who is, among other things, a very “special” kind of guy. Barry is an IRS man who, in his spare time, combs the streets looking for dead mice that he can stuff and dress up and put into scenes that he can photograph and make models out of. When Tim meets him his latest Mousterpiece involves recreating The Last Supper down to the very last beard.



Not impressed is Tim’s girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak) who owns an art gallery and is working with the devilishly pretentious artist Kieran (Flight of the Concord’s Jemaine Clement) who explains to Tim his philosophies on the beauty of living with goats and would be considered a very "special" kind of guy where he not, ya know, famous.



Also amongst the collection of colour is Barry’s boss Therman (Zack Galifianakis) who believes that he can control people’s minds, reminding of what Socrates said about how orators can convince a group of people more about medicine than a doctor, assuming all of those people knew nothing of medicine to begin with.



If the plot sounds crass, well, in a way it is. But it works because Clement, Galifianakis and especially Carell play the characters not only high, but straight as well. It’s obvious that all of these men are exaggerations of comic types so, when it comes time to sit back, during the dinner and watch them be mocked, it is, not quite okay, but acceptable in a funny kind of way.

Mike's DVD Haul

I have the mind of a collector. When I start collecting something I don't operate in half measures. I must have the best. It started as a kid with stuffed animals, went from grade 8 into high school with CDs and now has become totally focused on DVDs. Maybe that's why Adaptation is one of my favourite movies and The Orchid Thief one of my favourite books: I understand John Laroche and his passion to go great lengths to collect rare, beautiful orchids. I will go into any store, no matter shape or size and browse through every corner of it in hopes of finding that one hidden treasure or that one great deal. I spend hours on websites, comparing prices, seeing where the best deals are and so on. And I must admit: my DVD collection is pretty sweet. It's only got around a thousand titles which, to an avid collector, may seem like not very many but if it lacks in quantity it makes up for ten times over in quality. So confidant in my DVD collection am I that I even wrote a post about it back before anyone was even reading.

So anyway, to come to my point, a while back Travis at The Movie Encyclopedia started doing regular posts on DVD Hauls. He'd go out, buy some DVDs, come back and share his booty with us. I loved it. It was pure vanity and offered really no use to anyone and yet, as a collector, I loved seeing what he was buying, admiring things I wanted, and questioning his taste on others. It was a lot of fun and even though he hasn't done one in a while, I hope to see them come back.

During the course of my one year of going back to school I didn't buy many DVDs. When I got a job, the first thing I wanted to do was blow some money and remember what it felt like to buy mass amounts of DVDs, of getting them home, unwrapping them, looking at the inserts, etc. So that's what I did. A lot of them I ordered from Barns and Noble whose annual Criterion Collection sale is a blessing. All of them, regardless of what outlet they came from are great, classic film from master directors and, because I'm vain too when it comes to my DVDs, I thought I'd share with you what I picked up over the last couple weeks.

Au Revior Les Enfants was Louis Malle's first French feature back after immigrating to America with mixed results. Many of his fellow Frenchmen never forgive him for leaving but this did not detract him from producing what is maybe his most personal film. More straightforward than his early French New Wave films, Enfants is apparently based on Malle`s own life in which a French schoolboy in occupied France accidentally gives up the identity of his Jewish friend and the pain he must live with as a result of that.

Spirits of the Dead is an anthology film based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe. It features three shorts: one by Louis Malle, one by Roger Vadim and one by (and this is the reason I own it) Ferderico Fellini. Other than that I haven`t seen it.

When thinking about great British filmmakers there are really only two names to consider (and, sorry to say, neither of them are Christopher Nolan). One is Ken Loach and the other is Mike Leigh. There are two varieties of Mike Leigh films: the predominantly comic and the predominately bleak (and I say predominately because none of them exist in one way or another without both elements). Naked is one of the bleakest. It also started the career of David Thewlis, now best know as Remus Lupin from the Harry Potter movies.

Jean-Pierre Melville is often considered the Godfather of the French New Wave because his Bob le Flambeur (remade in America as The Good Thief) more or less kick started the whole movement with it`s quick, cool, ultra-hip love of American crime films. Like early Godard and even maybe Tarantino, Mellville was the king of super cool genre films (although he also made other, powerful dramas like Army of Shadows) that were both exciting and funny. These films are any movie lover`s delight.

Jean-Luc Godard, love him or hate him, is the mad cinema anarchist that cannot be ignored. His Breathless was the most important film debut since Citizen Kane and helped to define an entire new generation of films while also breaking down conventions, creating new techniques and generally just changing the way we understood movies and pushing the limits of how they could be made. Of course Godard would later go off the tracks, making films so dense and complex that they are nearly unwatchable but one thing about Godard is he`s never boring. Neither Masculin Femanin or Tout va Bien are major Godard works but they are still highly interesting political statements like none anyone but Godard could make.

No DVD Haul is complete with some Ingmar Bergman and these three films were the last ones I needed to own everything Bergman has available in North America. I once said that no one should trust a critic who didn`t know that Last House on the Left was a remake of Bergman`s Virgin Spring, a masterpiece from Bergman`s early career before his later, more challenging works. The Magic Flute, an adaptation of Mozart`s opera is an interesting film because of how uncharacteristic it is for a Bergman film. Maybe his lightest, most joyous film, it`s a strange vanity project that doesn`t naturally fit anywhere in the progression of Bergman`s career but it is still a lovely rendering of a classic opera. I haven`t seen Autumn Sonata but it is characterized as being the one collaboration between fellow countrymen Ingmar Bergman and Hollywood bombshell Ingrid Bergman (no relation).

Grown Ups (2 out of 5)

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Grown Ups exact that there’s nothing particularly right with it either. It’s everything you’d expect from an Adam Sandler comedy: it’s got poo and pee and grown men acting like stupid children, talking about the things that most fascinate those who never quite manage to grow out of grade eight like boobies and tree ropes and shooting arrows into the sky and seeing who is the last to run for cover, etc. It’s all perfectly serviceable and inoffensive, but so what? Why be content on being stuck in middle ground? It’s amusing without every really being funny, nice without ever really being sweet and immature without every really being rambunctious. And then it ends. It's characters go on vacation and the movie goes right along with them.

The film stars all of Adam Sandler’s go to guys: David Spade, Chris Rock, Kevin James and Rob Schneider, who all, more or less, play variations of their go to character. They’re five high school buddies who go back for a weekend at the old cottage after the death of their beloved basketball coach.

Their week, unsurprisingly, will consist of them all sitting around, drinking beers, trading one-liner insults as if they’d been keeping them to themselves all these years and just couldn’t wait for the moment they would reunite for the chance to try them out. Every once in a while, they decide to get up and actually do something like a trip to the water park in which, first one, and then all of them realize that the dye they put in the water to detect pee, well it isn’t an old fairy tale.

Grown Ups does a lot of that. It’ll give you a joke that is kind of amusing and then repeat it again and again as is the case when Spade, while running, trips over a stump to land face first in doo-doo only to, moments later, have it put right back there when Sadler runs over his back. It’s like director Dennis Dugan and his boys need to either make sure they wring it for every laugh it can get or to make sure we understand just how funny they are being. And that’s ultimately the problem. All of these men, at any given moment, are acting as if they are really funny guys. The best comedy happens when it involves people who don’t know that comedy is happening to them. Every laugh in Grown Ups seems to come packaged with a wink to the camera.

Although Grown Ups is a pedestrian movie in which its stars can all play it safe and phone it in, Spade, although never mistaken for a great comedic talent, is particularly lazy playing the freewheeling Marcus who drinks too much, sleeps on the couch, beds anything that gives him a second look and is that crass, bloated moron that no one really likes, but you don’t have the heart to tell. Spade’s been playing that character his entire career and here essentially looks like a man who walked on set, delivered his lines once and went back to bed.

As for the rest of the cast: Rock is reduced to bad puns about his mother-in-law’s enormous bunions, Sandler does Sandler, while James, the most likable of the bunch manages to get off a few laughs here and there. Schnieder however, again not surprisingly, plays right into big caricature as the pretentious, toupee clad spiritualist husband of a much older woman and three daughters, only one of which, of course, is believable as his.

The story has a mild message about how Sandler, not too believable as a powerful Hollywood agent, is distressed that his kids are too lazy to do anything for themselves and spend all day playing violent video games, and wants them to get outside and discover the fun of nature that him and his buddies had when they were young.

The wives of the men are played by Salma Hayek, Maria Bello and Maya Rudolph who bring more star power to an already crowded story. In the end the movie is too bland, the characters all too nice, the comedy all too unsophisticated to really work. The guys seem to be having fun, and that helps, but in the end, the realization creeps in that the premise of five guys sitting around at a beautiful cottage, going over the past would be a lot more enjoyable to be doing instead of watching.

The Karate Kid (4.5 out of 5)

After 12 year old Dre (Jaden Smith) relocates from Detroit to China with his mother (Taraji P. Henson) after she is transferred, he meets a cute Asian schoolgirl who plays the violin. “You’re not doing it right,” her instructor tells her. “You have to play the pauses.” That’s valuable advice that just about every big Hollywood movie should take advantage of. It’s exactly what The Karate Kid does right. This is not, despite every opportunity to be, some slam bang action movie or some lazy remake but a grand family entertainment. It is funny and exciting and warm and heartfelt and beautiful and genuinely cares about its character on some fundamental human level. Most movies can’t be bothered and sleepwalk their way to formulaic conclusions. The Karate Kid is awake and alive.

In China Dre quickly falls out of favor with a group of young martial arts students who bully him, torment him and even beat him up. He hates China, wants to go home and, unfortunately for him, the kids all have the athletic capabilities of trained Hollywood stuntmen.

Then one day, when one of the kids is prepared to administer one kick too many to poor Dre’s ribs, he is saved by his building’s maintenance man Mr. Han (Jackie Chan). Dre is livid and wants to learn kung-fu in order to beat those kids into submission. No tells Han wisely, “Kung-fu is not to create wars, it is to make peace among enemies.” Knowing that, somewhere along the line, these kids have been taught an ugly, violent kung-fu, Han goes to speak with their teacher, an evil man who teaches his students to inflict pain to their opponents and fight without mercy. The bullying will stop, promises the teacher, if Dre fights his students one-to-one in the upcoming tournament. Thus, Mr. Han becomes Dre’s personal kung-fu teacher. His first lesson: hanging up his jacket. “Kung-fu is in everything we do,” explains Han. “It is life.”

What delicate insight The Karate Kid provides. Filmed in China, it’s a film that not only frolics in the beauty of the country, but respects and understands its traditions. The film misses every opportunity to romanticize kung-fu as an outlet for kids to beat each other into pulps and instead meditates on the power of kung-fu as, not a medium for violence, but a way of life that teaches honour, respect and discipline above all else. In an age where summer movies jump out of the gate with both guns blazing, it’s so refreshing to find one that takes it’s time, develops it’s characters and understands them and their ways and respects their culture.

Because of this, the film has, not only a calmness, but a fullness to it as well. Kids are so used to be battered over the head with non-stop computer generated images that it’s a godsend to see scenes like the ones where the camera spins around Dre and Han as they practice atop the Great Wall of China, taking a moment away from the fight just to admire the view. Or one of the film’s best scenes in which Dre and Han practice at night, their shadows cast against the wall after a big dramatic moment. It’s not just another Hollywood fight. It’s a healing process.

How powerful these lessons will be to both children and adults who yearn for the days when movies where about stories that meant something and characters we could care about and root for. It’s strange to call The Karate Kid a film in the classic tradition of grand Hollywood entertainment when it seems to be the least traditional film in a summer filled with flying tanks, stampeding bulls and cities folding in on themselves. As Han, like all old maintenance men who are experts are kung-fu surely must, uses Dre, The Karate Kid could be the first step in Hollywood learning to rediscover itself.

All of this is due in no small part to the actors. In Jaden Smith you get an actor who knows how to play a real, likable kid. Sure, you can see the smooth wit of his superstar father Will shining out from around the edges but this, like dad, is a genuinely talented kid. Smith is funny and smooth, not in a condescending way, but in a way that a cool but kind of insecure 12 year old kid would be. But like all kids that age, he’s not perfect and has a lesson or two he is yet to learn. That he learns it through his training is not cheaply sentimental but reflects a genuine growing process in which a kid, doesn’t quite become a man, but steps onto the road towards it.

Jackie Chan, slowing down in his age, has hung up his hat as an action movie hero and instead does a wonderful job of being old and wise, while never quite letting go of that boyish charm that made him a star in the first place. His Han is also not a perfect man and, despite his hard, ragged exterior, houses deep dramatic hurts that Chan is able to perfectly channel.

If the film takes on wrong step it is in the tournament itself in which kids fight like highly skilled Hollywood martial artists and not, you know, like kids. The big, supposed to be impressive moves, which are mostly aided by computer assistance, are the only unnatural thing in the entire movie and end up distracting for a moment from what is, otherwise a wonderful, endearing film.