donqt Reviews

Burn After Reading (2008)

Mileage

[7/10 · 13 September 2008]

It's interesting that the Coens chose this film after the barnburner that was Old Country. To catch the trickle down crowd with a piece that makes fun of the very part of the crowd that trickles down - that's real courage.

Burn After Reading condescends, but meta-textually. And Brad Pitt is a big give-away that this is exactly what the Coens are doing. He's amusing enough to keep the non-Coen audience entertained, but hollow enough to obviate the underlying theme. You just got mocked, average America. But the Coen take on average America cuts a wide-swath - it even includes us, the Princeton (equivalent) educated who think that we're artists because we like a good film but what do we ever really do - write a few pages of memoir as cliché (see our user comments) and wander around with a drink in our hands (how many movies have you watched this week?).

Nice. Don't get me wrong - I think that it's great. The Coens have successfully skewered, and they've gotten away with it. That the mise-en-scene that they created depends on our participation shows how masterly they are at their craft.

Snow Angels (I) (2007)

Nice, DGG.

[7/10 · 12 April 2008]

A fine effort from the maturing DGG. It's strange to see him working with "name" actors - and maybe a bit sad. On the other hand, it's great that the actors want to work with him.

KB did a find job of acting, but I'm not sure that she was the best person for the part. She's a little too pretty, maybe. And, dare I say it, she doesn't class down that well (even compared to Nicole Kidman). It hurts me to to say that.

The walk in the woods is a nice reference to the short that DGG found (see George Washington - DVD for more) as a film student.

And Nicky Katt. There should be some sort of alert. To all who enter here, beware Nicky Katt resides. I don't trust that guy.

Class-wise, I think that it's important to look at all of DGG's movies before making any conclusions about his feelings about the blue collar. George Washington had a surfeit of promise. This movie is well made, but it's not living up to the original potential.

Incident at Loch Ness (2004)

Werner Herzog Documentary

[6/10 · 11 June 2004]

Zak Penn produces a Werner Herzog Documentary set in Loch Ness. The difference between Truth and Fact are examined within the framework of an inquiry into the mythic monster.

It's like an extended "Fishing with John" episode. Or a compendium of several episodes.

The first half of this film is hilarious. Really. But it helps to be familiar with A. Herzog's films, B. Herzog's history, and C. the ironies of film-making in general.

The Loss of Sexual Innocence (1998)

the loss of memory

[10/10 · 18 July 2003]

The LoSI may have been my favourite movie from 1999. To help set the scene for that comment, my favourite movie from 1998 may have been The Thin Red Line. It seems that movies that I love generally split the audience into two groups. Those that lose interest or are disgusted, and those that find these manifestations of the possibilities offered by film making exciting.

I enjoy films that are told through cliche as much as the next person. High production values, non-innovative camera work, predictable characterizations (even within complex plot lines) are fun. But I also like to see the breadth of cinema challenged. Occasionally, films are able to appeal to both the audiences that want familiar story telling methods, and those that want to be challenged. It's great when that happens, but both the LoSI and the TRL have failed to do this for a significant portion of the audience (blue vs red America?).

Some of the best parts of LoSI have to do with capturing moments that distill those things that we share. For example, the fumbling teenage living room scene hit some parts of the give and take of early sexual experience perfectly. A frustrated car ride captures family dyamics, and the everyday moments of getting along/by better than any other film I've seen. A distant viewing of domesticity (including putting a child to bed and love making over chopped vegetables) through a window precisely underscore more cliches of everyday living that are cliches because they happen to us. Perhaps because these scenes don't inform a simple story narrative, they fail to hold the interest of those looking for escape FROM life (again, as everyday lived). But I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for a celebration of identity, and those things that create it, and I am willing to work my way through what is, I think, essentially a character piece.

This movie does, I think, a very good job of giving us, in two hours, a short examination of the develpment of one character's sexuality. How that development is a loss of sexual innocence, and how this loss ties in to larger ideas in our society (adam and eve), is something that I have both an academic (reflective) and an aesthetic (less relfective) interest in. As such, this movie appeals to me.

It won't appeal to everyone. I think that a good way to judge whether you should see this movie or not is if you _LOVED_ Saving Private Ryan and _HATED_ The Thin Red Line. If so, do NOT see this movie. If you liked both, or liked only the thin red line, you'll probably be more interested in watch LoSI.

The audience probably splits similarly in regards to the Figgis Filmography. Much of his early (mass market) work appeals to the first set (but not exclusively). His later work, the second (exclusively).

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

A- (Action Minus Soul)

[3/10 · 3 July 2003]

As a movie seen only for Action: finely entertaining. As a film based on some kind of story: hardly entertaining.

It's always good when a sequel can stand alone as a story, but T3 would fail (miserably) to do so. T3 is more of an extended ending to T2, as no effort is made to really set the scene in this movie. Instead, T3 relies on its previous incarnations for any understanding of what is happening or why.

As almost everything is recycled, and the only surprise is

the not exceptionally optimistic end, the Who Cares factor

kills the terminators deader than they already are.

So hey, the cars go boom boom nicely. The robots menace. Claire Danes looks less interesting than she would in a 30 second commercial.

See it because the action is decent. But don't go expecting to come out of it excited about the possibility of T4, cause the new improved terminator has no soul.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

Class struggle as violence (the sound and the fury?)

[7/10 · 17 June 2002]

There are two reasons to watch Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. The violence and the sound. Or rather, the sound and the violence.

The main character's lack of one sense drives the film, both form and function wise. Occasionally, we lose one of the two ways in which we interact with the film (sound, sight). The loss of one sense adds value to the other. It makes the normally assumed other seem all the more there. Unlike most Hollywood takes on this particular sense absence, we get a bit of a glimpse into what the absence means to the character, and not just what it means to us looking at the character as third person. What results are some very nice moments that are film using itself as a medium to one of its potentials.

This movie is well titled (english translation), but why won't become obvious until the last third of the film. The violence is a bit overwhelming, especially given the tone of the initial third. We start off thinking that maybe all planned actions will go as they should, without harm, and without significant consequence, that implied violence might only exist beyond the threshold of common sense. As plans slowly unravel, and as tragedy exerts its sometimes tender hold, we see an escalation of blood with few limits in depiction.

Mr. Park (and here I'm paraphrasing a translator's take) has stated that the violence in this film is less bloody, and less realistic (?) than that found in horror movies, or movies of other persuasion (action?). What he says is true, but in those movies we are distanced from the events via a somewhat thick veil of disbelief. Unlikely characters and unlikely events combine for a combustion that makes it easy for to be distant from the gore. While the characters in this film might be unlikely, they are drawn with the kind of SYMPATHY that allows their environs to seem more plausible (or possible). Mr. Park also stressed the elements of class struggle, although my familiarity with South Korean culture leaves me uncertain of all their applications. There certainly is a sense of have vs. have-not in the film, and this seems to reveal itself most significantly near the end.

The story may be told somewhat elliptically, so English (only) audiences beware, especially if you require the tried and true formulas that Hollywood so often provides.

Bang Bang You're Dead (2002)

fast times at ridgemont high for 2002

[8/10 · 17 June 2002]

What Fast Times was to the 80s, Bang Bang may be to 2002. Entirely different films tone-wise, these two titles may, nevertheless, present each decade's primary concerns revealingly.

Bang, Bang, You're Dead gets its title from a play of the same name. That play examines the conscience of a fictional high school boy who went on a killing rampage not dissimilar to the fairly recent all to real ones.

Bang, Bang, the movie provides us with a reason to believe that the play is a necessary one. Trevor, the main character, seems to be (to have been) on the brink of the kind of meltdown that could lead to columbine type violence. We encounter Trevor in the middle of his story, as the previous year saw him in trouble for a threat of violence. As a result of this outburst, Trevor is looked upon with suspicion by almost all of the other members of his community. Instead of receiving support from those tasked with being concerned about his welfare, he instead is objectified into a certain kind of _character_ whose options are limited.

Mr. Cavanagh gives us a fine performance of what is more or less his TV character, Ed, thrust into the well-meaning and perhaps wiser than the rest of the community, theatre teacher who believes in Trevor's fitness for high school. Despite the outrage of the community, he wants to cast Trevor as the lead character in the play Bang Bang, You're Dead. Unfortunately, the folks in the town only know the basic elements of the play, as is indicated by their systematic failure to correctly recite the title.

A study of the tenuous connections that hold a community together, and how those connections can lead to tension that pushes the breaking point, Bang, Bang shows us that we are not always as free from responsibility of our outcasts as we might suppose.

Where the film "Bully" gave us a fairly unsympathetic case of teenage power dynamics and the explosive results, Bang Bang takes an intensive (and realistic) look into the conditioning done within high school halls. In the present mood of paranoia about the threats from outside of US culture, it's important for us to see that even in what might seem to be the most protected of our inner sanctums, we may force some elements of ourselves into an almost violent desperation. That this could occur to a middle class white male in a most similarly raced and classed environment, hopefully gives us pause when we think about the marginalization we force on those further from the so-called center.

Igby Goes Down (2002)

the last days of "innocence"

[8/10 · 17 June 2002]

I associate Burr Steers with Whit Stillman because of his appearance in Stillman's last film. I was not, therefore, surprised by the style, tone, or content found in Igby. There's a similar take on wit, a coolness of character, and a not unfamiliar somewhat decadent but empty (though full of people) urban landscape.

Sarandon, Goldblum, Danes, Phillippe, and Pullman are all delightful in the ways that they are often delightful. We get something a bit new (but not less shallow than other supporting characters that they've played) from Goldblum and maybe Sarandon. D, P and P are the same old, but old pleasures are often good pleasures.

Culkin, meanwhile, hits his stride with his (marginally more optimistic) take on a Holden Caulfield-esque character. Where Home Alone allowed Culkin's brother one note to hit again and again, Culkin here, in a in the cusp of adulthood, is allowed the two or three notes that are appropriate. And hit them well he does.

I'm not sure how well this film will play in Peoria, or anywhere else outside of the urban centers. There's a prep school feel to it all (as if it assumes that you too, have a certain kind of education) that is more exclusive than, say, Wes Anderson's films. Anderson, perhaps, wants to introduce the general public into the lives of his characters with equal access. Steers, it seems, assumes that you already understand. Of course, this sort of thing appeals to me, just as Stillman's Metropoliton appealed to me. If you dislike that sort of thing, however, you may find yourself at odds with this film.

The Way We Laughed (1998)

the way families are

[7/10 · 17 June 2002]

The Way We Laughed works best as a study of familial obligation. The assumptions that "Blood" result in, the mendacity that can occur only within the structure of brotherly (sisterly/fatherly, etc.) expectation, and the assumption (or non-assumption) of responsibilities that either lie in the character, or despite the character. There's some good stuff about class urban/mainland prejudice included in the film, and some comments about the nature of intelligence. All told via a narrative structure that I find particularly pleasing. By skipping from year to year, we see growth and change, but there's a certain amount of work that we need to do to fill in the intervening spaces. This film makes that work worth it, although near the end I found myself wondering how long it would go on.