Lucid Screening - A Film Blog

I Am Legend

2008-06-26T01:55:17Z

Where did all the awesome go?

I Am Legend’s big budget and history should have been a glaring sign that Hollywood was about to blow another one and a half plus hours of sure-fire awesomeness. Instead, Legend's exciting potential drowned out the obvious warning signs that there was about to be a serious lack of awesome. Ultimately the film came off as confused. There were some cool scenes and some decent ideas, but it never reached that level of awesome it strived for. It could not find a genre. It could not find a message. It could not find a steady pace. And, its star still cannot seem tofind his niche. Legend stumbles over everything from its story to its script to its star to its big budget.

I should have seen this coming. To make Legend, Hollywood dumped big bags of cash into a remake of a couple of old films both based on an even older novel. The trailer really made New York City look eerily decrepit and empty. Will Smith seemed poised to follow up the happy surprise of I Robot with that rare, well-executed action film he is capable of making. But, in the end, too-much money going toward a remake of a remake of a remake of a novel should always be a red flag for not enough heart and way too little awesome.

Do I blame Legend for its inability to genuinely excite and offer something innovative and awesome to its genre? Not at all. I should blame myself for having such high expectations. But my hope that the next film I see will be better than the last is what makes the art of filmmaking so great. When made with love and passion and care, a good film can be an amazing experience. The incredible feeling a great movie can inspire is what keeps me watching. But it is this same trait that disappoints me when they fall short. When I see an action or sci-fi movie, I cannot wait for my heart to start pounding and my palms to start sweating. I cannot wait for unimaginable futuristic scenarios to thrill and horrify me. These are some of the things I could not wait for Legend to bring me, but they never came.

Perhaps it was foolish to expect so much awesome out of Legend in the first place. There is no real reason why this big-budget action/ sci-fi movie should have been an exception to the lackadaisical Hollywood status-quo. The same old plot holes and a familiar lack of connection with the film’s only character left me scratching my head and wondering where all those hundreds of millions of dollars went. (It could not have possibly been the incredibly fake looking infected rats, deer, lions, explosions and, most disappointingly, the infected.)

Note to Hollywood: A film can be miss cast and still be awesome. A film can be poorly directed and be awesome. A film can be unrealistic and still be super awesome. The only things a film hoping to be awesome cannot be are boring and un-awesome. This seems simple enough, but the minds behind I am Legend were apparently unable to figure it out. Good try guys. I’ll be there to watch, and complain about, your next phoned-in effort. See you next time.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-06-21T06:29:34Z

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Objectively speaking, I don't mind CGI. Honestly I don't. I've seen it used incredibly skillfully such as in the Pixar movies and incorporated with live-action so seamlessly that it becomes an integral part, like in Sin City or Sky Captain. Unfortunately, CGI can sometimes be so in-your-face and downright obnoxious that it becomes like an annoying extra character that you wish would just go away. The ultimate embodiment of this phenomenon is Jar Jar Binks. I'm sure George Lucas had the best intentions for Jar Jar. He's amiable and family-friendly, but unfortunately for all involved he was also little more than an annoying distraction. He's a prime example of how CGI is more beautiful as the background and the ambiance than it is as the attraction. I start out with this rant because Steven Spielberg and, yes, George Lucas have crafted just a wonderfully entertaining and exciting movie in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but they go and tarnish the effort with increasingly distracting CGI setpieces and ridiculous props.

This new Indiana Jones starts out with the same smile-inducing, manic action, thrilling stunts and improbable, deus-ex-machina escapes as the other films. Dr. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford, still at it) is still a college professor during the week and international tomb raider in his private time. It's the 1950s and the Nazis are no longer viable enemies. This time it's the Russians and they coerce Indiana Jones into helping find an artifact that will provide them with great power...or knowledge...or treasure or mind control or...it was sort of unclear and to be perfectly honest it's not terribly important. The wonderful thing about Indiana Jones movies is that the plot is semi-believable as a starting point, but the movies are mostly about wild chase scenes and people dying in strange and inventive ways. This movie does not disappoint in that front, for the most part.

Still, while this movie is by no means the worst in the series (I would argue that Temple of Doom is one of the worst movies I have ever seen), it is very apparent that it is nowhere near as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark and I believe that the reason is the overuse of CGI. CGI really doesn't do much for suspension of disbelief which is, of course, essential in films like these. There's a chase scene in Raiders where Indiana Jones tracks down Nazis who have stole the Ark of the Covenant and proceeds to steal it back form them. He climbs all over their trucks and slides under one, managing to be dragged from it for a good distance. This scene continues to impress me because Harrison Ford (as legend has it) actually performed that stunt and broke a couple ribs in the process. There is a similar chase scene in Crystal Skull that is almost as exciting, but watching Shia LaBeouf swing from CGI vines in a fake CGI jungle, knowing that he just did it in a room with a green screen in Hollywood, really robs something from the experience. The thought takes you out of the movie just long enough for the moment to be dulled. You want to admire cinematography but you know that it only exists on an expensive computer somewhere. The whole movie is full of moments like that from the first scene to the unabashedly ridiculous climax.

Skillful human performances, like in the aforementioned Sin City, are needed to make CGI setpieces really work. Crystal Skull presents us with sort of a mixed bag. To my great surprise, Shia LaBeouf was actually a wonderful addition to the series and he was a joy to watch in every scene he was in. And Cate Blanchett's character was also a lot of fun as, basically, an evil bitch. It's a kind of a role that is deceptively difficult to play and she pulls it off well. That's the good news. The bad news lies in the efforts put forth by series veterans. Karen Allen was a tremendous disappointment. She reprises her role from Raiders of the Lost Ark as Marion Ravenwood, Dr. Jones' love interest. She was always the strongest and most entertaining female character in the series and it was disappointing how out of place she seemed in this film. She just never seemed to have the chemistry with Harrison Ford that they had 27 years ago. I guess it could be expected but it was sure disappointing. And Harrison Ford himself looked like he could barely hide a bemused smile half the time, like "I'm really doing this again?" Yes, Harrison, you are and horrifyingly it's still the best thing you've done in over a decade.

But people don't see movies like this for acting. They go to be entertained by thrilling chases and death-defying chases. And if that's what you're looking for, you probably won't be disappointed. However, the Indiana Jones movies always strived to be more than eye candy. And if you're craving something more than eye candy, you will leave this film still hungry. Starved as a matter of fact.

Rufus' Netflix Pick O'The Week

2008-06-16T16:53:29Z

The Calamari Wrestler
JAPAN (dir. Minoru Kawasaki, 2004)

Insane. I mean Japan has some crazy films, Miike comes to mind, but this is a film about a man who is reincarnated as a giant squid whose dream in life is pro wrestling. Everyone thought he was dead and his girlfriend is now with his rival, but he’s back and ready to take on all comers to defend his title. What about that makes the greatest concept ever? Show your work.

This movie has everything you want. Over-the-top Japanese B-Movie acting? Check. Training in Pakistan? Check. Squid vs. Human beat downs? Check. Squid vs. Other Sea creatures? Check. Squid love? Check (Hold up you perverts, Tentacle Porn this is not.) Lots of heart and an insanely fun time? Check. In all this is like watching Kaiju Big Battel but in movie form. It follows the same path as most sports films, but its about a giant squid and once he starts beating humans other sea creatures come out to try to take his belt. It is exactly as insane as it sounds.

So add it to your queue, grab some sake and dried squid, and cheer on this crazy cephalopod. My favorite line: “Joint locks don’t work on an invertebrate. He’s too slippery.”

Clerks

2008-06-02T04:45:38Z

Low budget, lowbrow laughter

Clerks is a silly but real feeling film that speaks its mind and attempts to offend at every opportunity. The same honesty that may offend some also makes for a refreshing, though still blatantly immature, comedy. Though poorly acted, Clerks is hilarious and surprisingly heartwarming. Writer and director Kevin Smith’s debut effort cleverly manages to connect to its audience emotionally while remaining outlandishly perverse.

Smith’s small New Jersey town of foul-mouthed losers is presided over by Dante Hicks and Randall graves; corner and video store clerks who have only a dim understanding of adulthood and the responsibilities that come with it. The film follows Dante through a day, successfully depicting the boring daily realities we all hate as entertaining life lessons. By the end of the day Mr. Hicks and Mr. Graves learn that while it may be fun to float through life, the world surely has more to offer them (apparently this lesson was forgotten by the time they reappeared in Clerks II).

Dante’s life sucks and it is the people around him that provide opportunities for the audience to learn and laugh. Dante’s friends and acquaintances transform his bleak existence into something attractive through their loveable, subtly rebellious natures. Now-famous Jay and Silent Bob are the most notable of many characters who help make Dante’s misery hilarious. The two slackers sing, dance and peddle pot all day long, somehow out-slacking even Dante and Randall. Jay and Bob do very little else until the end of Dante’s day when Silent Bob defies his moniker and dispenses insightful advice, but their presence is priceless.

Clerks finds much of its humor and energy in the contempt the two customer service representatives harbor the customers they are paid to help. Dante despises the customers he serves but is, with one notable exception, kind and polite, but Randall’s disdain takes horrifying forms. Randall’s inability to quell his disgust causes him to, amongst other things, spit water on one man in the Quickstop and order multiple, obscenely named porn videos in front of a mother and young child at the video store.

Jay and Silent Bob’s antics combined with Dante and Randall’s irresponsibility create a dirty and immature environment, but Smith has a sly way of presenting one film to his audience, while slipping an entirely different film right under their noses. Clerks is packed with perverse humor, adolescent idiot-philosophy, and careless behavior, but it also has an undercurrent of adult situations and a strong romantic element that blends nicely.

Clerks somehow walks a weird line between a lame, sappy, romantic comedy that the film’s fans would hate and the appealing, raunchy, immature cuss-fest that they love. Randall’s wild antics and Jay and Silent Bob’s unique brand of comedy strangely compliment Dante’s quest for love and happiness.

Dante, ugly but charming in a doofy way, is torn between his current girlfriend, and his ex-girlfriend Caitlin, who is coming back to town and seems to still have feelings for him, even if only southerly in nature. Dante finds out part way through his day, and his excitement of seeing her again, that Caitlin is engaged. He still manages to get her to go on a date with him, as he faces confused feelings for his girlfriend.

Naturally, Dante’s date with Caitlin is ruined when she mistakenly has sex with a dead man. But that is the beauty of Clerks; it can be a little bit touching and sappy without feeling any less cool or rebellious because it is still cussing, offending and shirking responsibility the entire time. In true looser fashion, Clerks turns sucking at life into an art form. Not many can master this art but Smith, Dante, Randall, Jay and Bob come damn close.

Iron Man

2008-05-22T02:42:35Z

It is sort of uncanny how the best superhero movies are almost always direct sequels to loud, awkward, clunky ones. X:2 – X-Men United, Spiderman 2, and Superman 2 and 3 of the best (if not the three very best) movies I have ever seen in this genre and they all follow this formula. It is uncanny, yes, but not all-together surprising. Their prequels lack what they have in spades: chemistry. It can be tons of fun to watch a special-effects driven extravaganza, those films don’t really stay with you, nor do they hold up particularly well later on. The chemistry between the actors on the screen is what makes superhero movies memorable and that chemistry is simply too difficult to perfect in the first film of a franchise. So much energy and screen-time must be devoted to the hero’s origins and insecurities and angst and surprise over his newfound powers that there really isn’t much space for them to have relationships with anyone else we could possibly care about. Sequels have an inherent advantage in that the relationships have already been established and more time can be spent on the nuances rather than the setup.

This is precisely the reason why Iron Man took me completely by surprise. I knew beforehand that the likelihood of this film producing multiple sequels was highly likely (indeed, the director, Jon Favreau, has already imagined an Iron Man trilogy and Robert Downey, Jr. has agreed to take part) and I wasn’t really expecting much from it besides a loud action movie I’d quickly forget until its much-better sequel came out. To the contrary, Iron Man already sets the bar very high. The pacing was exactly right, the characters were relatively well-drawn and it was never boring for a second.

This kind of movie lives and dies with the performance of its lead actor. Christian Bale breathed incredible emotion into Batman, a role that George Clooney had killed with a phoned-in performance. Christopher Reeve’s gentle charm made his Superman movies a joy to watch while Brandon Routh’s awkward, uneven Superman performance was almost unwatchable. So the pressure lies squarely on the shoulders of Robert Downey, Jr. in Iron Man. He doesn’t fail or ring false at any point. He is the embodiment of charisma from the second he appears on screen until his final gesture of defiance at the end. He holds your attention in a classic, Cary Grant sort of way. Self-assured even when he’s doubting himself, determined even when he has no reason to be, handsome even when at his least attractive. He carries this film with such talent and charm that I found myself smiling just at his presence toward the middle of the film. I had no idea Downey had such effortless charisma but I have no doubt that he was the absolute perfect actor for this lead role. The supporting cast doesn’t fail either. I’m becoming more and more convinced that Jeff Bridges is among the absolute most talented actors in Hollywood. He just never appears unnatural. In Iron Man he plays the always-smiling, obviously-sleazy business partner of Robert Downey’s Tony Stark and does so with great flair. Gwenyth Paltrow…well, honestly I’ve never been a huge fan but I’d actually go so far as to say that this is her best performance in 10 years. As Stark’s assistant and confidante, she skillfully plays a character who always walks a fine line between being strong and vulnerable. She’s essentially the sidekick but not one who’s willing to sit back and play second fiddle.

The most enjoyable part of this movie, though, is not the individual performances but the dynamics between the characters. Iron Man exhibited some of the best on-screen chemistry of perhaps any superhero movie ever made. Nothing ever seemed awkward or merely perfunctory. The interactions felt true and meaningful. Most memorable were the scenes featuring Bridges and Downey. There is always a very mild resentment underneath the surface between them but it’s hard to decipher how deep it runs and how serious it is and it’s very interesting to witness two skilled actors playing that little nuance so well. However, the most impressive interactions are between Downey and his high-tech computer interface. I don’t know why he would program his computers to sass him so much or even to have so much personality but I was convinced of the perfection of Downey’s casting by these scenes. How do you act with a non-living robot or inanimate object or disembodied voice and make it seem genuine? I don’t want to spoil too much about these scenes because they are the most entertaining of the movie, but they are pulled off so flawlessly that I felt the need to applaud.

I almost dread the idea of a sequel to Iron Man. I feel like they really did such a great job this time around that there’s nowhere for the franchise to go but down. Almost certainly, successive movies will quickly become derivative. The actors will be on cruise control, the director too self-assured. It happened to all 3 of the franchises I mentioned before and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens here. So I encourage people to go out and enjoy Iron Man now, while its legacy is still intact.

Gentle Breeze in the Village

2008-05-17T05:26:26Z

A nice, calm breeze

Gentle Breeze in the Village (Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2007) takes place in a small town – the kind of town where there’s one of each utility service for everything: a grocery shop, a convenient store, a post office, and yes, a school. Eigth grader Soyo, the eldest one of them all, is mother hen to six children at work (they attend the same combined primary and junior high school), as well as play. The dynamics change once the new kid arrives in town: Hiromi, an attractive kid from Tokyo, has settled in the village, following the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. Soyo, at first, mistakens Hiromi’s street smarts as arrogance. In due’s time, the two mend patches and eventually take a liking to one another – with their puppy love match affirmed after a damsels-in-distress incident (Soyo trips and sprains her ankle on the train tracks, only to have Hiromi rescue her in the nick of time).

***

I'm sure anyone with a low tolerance for schmaltz would approach Gentle Breeze with some measure of caution. But take the synopsis, I just paraphrased, with a grain of salt. Because if anything, Gentle Breeze is exemplary of how fine execution can overcome any possible shortcoming. Having seen my share of coming-of-age clunkers –the Taiwanese film Eternal Summer (Leste Chen, 2006) comes to mind, Gentle Breeze somehow manages to sidestep such mistakes.

Much credit should be given to director Nobuhiro Yamashita (Linda Linda Linda), who renders the kids innocent but not dumb; extracts sweetness from slice of life moments, only to infuse it with some off-kilter dead-pan (consider the scene in which Soyo allows Hiromi to kiss her, with one key stipulation in mind: the exchange of her crummy grey hoodie for his blue fleece jacket). Much like Linda Linda Linda (2005), Gentle Breeze zeros in on the journey, and not the destination. We follow Soyo from her final year at junior high to her eventual transition to high school in another town. In the Yamashitan universe, it's the moments and experiences that really count; milestones, meanwhile, remain on the periphery.

***

Perhaps the most endearing aspect about Gentle Breeze is its reflexive innocence. Some may perceive the film as naïve – as one critic did, but to this viewer, our perspective seems skewered through the eyes of an adult, rather than a child. Although the content is wholesome and kid-friendly, there are timid suggestions, here and there, that the affairs of the adult world are less cordial. Rumor has it that the deceased woman, whose shrine rests on the bridge, was despondent over unpaid debts. There is unresolved sexual tension between Soyo’s dad and Hiromi’s mom. And whispers galore over Hiromi’s broken one-parent household (his dad left his mom for another woman).

Although lighter in mood, shades of nostalgia in Yamashits's film recall Stand By Me (Rob Reiner, 1986), another wistful look at the grand (mis)adventures we allow ourselves to experience during childhood and the stories, we tell afterwards. Except in this story, written by two women (Gentle Breeze is based upon a popular comic strip by Fusako Kuramochi and adapted on screen by Aya Watanabe), expect a tale of sisterhood, rather than brotherhood. For in this rut of pigtails, skirts, and knee-high stockings, passive aggressive spats (one incident involved a urinary infection, no less), as opposed to confrontational fights, prevail on the playground.

As with all things nostalgic, however, loss – or at least the anticipation of loss – enters the picture. Such a sentiment, echoed by Soyo herself, accompanies the film through its passage of time. In an inspired animated sequence, taken place on Soyo’s senior class trip to Tokyo, distorted cut-out figures of tall skyscrapers, landmarks, and trains twirl around Soyo’s oversized profile. The city, a concrete metaphor for all things frenetic and fragmented, has left Soyo overwhelmed and homesick.

***

Part of me wants to deem this film inconsequential – indeed, the film’s leisure pace and anti-climactic plot lives up to the film’s suggestive title. But such a temptation is, ultimately, downplayed when I think about the extended implications behind such a dismissal. Is ambitious storytelling, then, by mere association a virtue? I beg to differ. I saw the complex but ultimately overwrought The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin, 2007) on the same day as Gentle Breeze, and the memories I have of the latter film are far kinder than the former. Not since last year's domestic release of The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii, 2004) have I experienced this much joy and pleasure from the movies.

Charlie Kaufman and his "Merry Band of Pranksters"

2008-05-14T09:29:56Z

It was only a matter of time.

A quick Google blog search informed me of Charlie Kaufman's Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists, and Dreamers, a book highlighting Kaufman, his contemporaries (Payne, Jonze, two Andersons, et al.), and their idiosyncratic sensibilities.

The book, subtitled, An Excursion Into the American New Wave, is expected to be released this Thursday in the UK. Americans, across the pond, however will have to wait a bit longer - Merry Band of Pranksters hits the streets in September.

Is Armond White gonna be pissed, or what? That was the book he was born to write, after all.

Updated 5/17:

The author, Derek Hill, wrote on his blog:

My hope is that it will appeal to film lovers of all stripes, from those with a more scholarly bent to the pop-culture subgeniuses to the novices who don’t know their Godard from their Gondry.

Mister Lonely

2008-05-07T19:23:34Z

Escape to Neverland

Paul McCartney famously awoke from a dream with the melody of what would become “Yesterday” running through his head. Luckily for us, he had the foresight to modify the lyrics from his dream: “Scrambled eggs/Oh, you’ve got such lovely legs.” Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely is so inundated with the imagery of the subconscious that he seems to have written and shot it as he dreamed. Its style and movement has all the qualities of the kinds of dreams which remain with us for years: powerful, absurd, beautiful, disturbing, and often hard to understand.

The film follows a Michael Jackson impersonator, played by Diego Luna, from Paris to a remote castle in the Scottish Highlands, where he follows a faux–Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) to live in a commune for impersonators: her husband, Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant) and young daughter, Shirley Temple, along with the Pope, Madonna, the Queen of England, Little Red Riding Hood, Sammy Davis Jr., Abe Lincoln, Buckwheat, the Three Stooges, and James Dean. The misty medieval setting would be haunting no matter who was living there; add this cast of characters, and each scene is like a Surrealist painting. We may be able to imagine a Michael Jackson impersonator dancing, as Luna does in the first scene, for tourists in the Place de la Bastille, but only our subconscious would place Madonna, in a full “Blonde Ambition” bodice and knee-high rubber boots, slugging through a sheep pasture. Much of Mister Lonely is composed of slice-of-life-at-the-castle vignettes, any of which could be a recap of a dream over breakfast the next morning: Madonna hides her face in James Dean’s sweater as the Three Stooges shoot a herd of infected sheep in the pasture. Abe Lincoln takes Michael Jackson into town on the back of his moped. A sobbing Pope is scrubbed clean by Buckwheat in a tub in the middle of a field. Even the most mundane scenes are magical and frightening, since their vocabulary is one we’re each familiar with on such a personal, usually hidden, level.

There is a loose plot at the castle: Michael, played by Luna with irresistible innocence, loves Marilyn. Morton does almost too much justic to Marilyn Monroe; the impenetrable fact is that she’s a better actress than Monroe ever was. An intelligence seeps out from behind her breathy, giggling Marilyn impression, and a profound sadness. Denis Lavant, as Marilyn’s jealous husband Charlie Chaplin, provides the threat of violence which reminds us that this is still a Harmony Korine movie, despite its drastically uncharacteristic subject matter. Kids, which he wrote, and Gummo, which he wrote and directed, are deeply entrenched in everyday life; Korine is the poster boy for the nitty-gritty, hard to watch, peering-in-at-the-underbelly-of-America genre of independent film that makes Mister Lonely seem like Fassbinder trying his hand at a romantic comedy. You can take the man out of the dingy alleys, apparently, but— well, we never entirely buy Marilyn’s chirpy proclamation that their commune is a place where everyone loves and accepts one another. As the characters’ costumes hide their true identities (we are never told anyone’s real name), so do their idyllic surroundings hide something dangerous beneath the surface. Often when we wake, not knowing whether the dream we just had was good or bad, just strange, it’s the dark moments that ultimately stay with us.

Mister Lonely is not just a dream; it’s a dream sequence. Interspersed with the story of the commune is the story of missionaries in an unnamed South American country— three or four nuns and a priest, played by Werner Herzog— who drop food from planes over impoverished villages. After a nun falls out of the plane and lands safely on the ground, the story becomes the story of her miracle. It’s hard to know what connection Korine wants us to draw between the movie's two halves, only that he wants us to draw one. For this viewer, the strongest connection was the dreamlike quality of this story, like the first one. Korine seems to have an uncanny ability to tap into the language of the unconscious, the way events unfold and the causality that’s implied in dreams, the gaps in logic our mind allows itself. The story of the nuns should be told, like another breakfast table play-by-play, in ellipses: “We were somewhere in South America… Werner Herzog was the priest (Werner Herzog!)… one of the nuns fell, for what seemed like years, and landed unscathed.”

The film ends with the conclusion of the nun’s story, a harsh slap in the face which could only be seen as the act of waking up. Michael’s ending is equally jarring, and seems millions of miles away from the castle and the people there. It will be interesting to see where Korine goes from here— maybe Mister Lonely, a fascinating if flawed departure from his territory, was just a reverie before he returns to the drudgery of the everyday.

Tran's I Come With The Rain Promo

2008-05-06T19:39:36Z

New language, new genre for the director of 'Cylo'

Last month, there was speculation that the latest feature film from Vietnamese French director Tran Anh Hung (Scent of the Green Papaya, Cylo), I Come With The Rain, would premiere at Cannes this May. Turns out the rumors were unfounded, and fans of Tran will just have to wait longer for any substantial buzz.

In the meantime, here's a 5-minute promo that has been swirling around the Internet for a couple of weeks. Chances are, you'll be as shocked as I am, of Tran's change of pace. Let's just say, any stylistic or thematic comparisons to Wong Kar-Wai shall cease after one glimpse at this trailer.

Lars and the Real Girl

2008-04-30T07:50:28Z

I hesitated and procrastinated about seeing Lars and the Real Girl for a very long time. The premise sounded utterly cringeworthy. A comedy about a man who orders a Real Doll (a life-size, anatomically-correct, silicone, mannequin sex-toy), falls in love with her and expects everyone he knows to treat her like a normal human being? It just sounds like a Tom Green prank or a Saturday Night Live sketch that would air at the end of the show. In fact, I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see a movie exactly like that get widely released in this day and age.

Lars and the Real Girl is nothing like that. In fact, it's barely even a comedy. There are many, many funny parts but this movie is far too touching and sad at times to be labelled a comedy. Yes, it's very unusual to see a grown man treat a doll like a real human being, but the movie derives almost no humor explicitly from this odd situation. It's thankfully too mature, smart and purposeful for that. Instead, the humor comes from the colorful people in Lars' life and from what their reactions to Lars says about them. In fact, there are so many safe cliches this movie could have resorted to using. I kept expecting them to show up, only to be pleasantly surprised in the end.

Ryan Gosling, as Lars, had to walk a very fine line in this performance. He somehow finds the right pitch in a very complex role. One might expect this character to be very sad or very angry or too naive or just plain impossible to read. Perhaps he could have played Lars like Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love and gotten away with it. But Gosling is a little more nuanced. It's clear that he's troubled mentally, but he doesn't try too hard to sell it or play a caricature. It's more challenging than it seems and I can think of almost no one who could have pulled it off this well.

While Gosling is great, the heart of the movie and, really, what makes us really care about this film is the supporting cast. Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer play Gus and Karin, Lars' older brother and sister-in-law who obviously care about Lars a great deal, but can't seem to communicate that to him. Karin is very welcoming by nature and one of the first to accept Lars' "girlfriend," but Gus doesn't know what to make of it. He has some unresolved feelings of guilt from events in their childhood, but I won't spoil because his maturation as the film plays also creates a satisfying payoff. Patricia Clarkson also has a key role as Dagmar, a therapist who gets to know Lars and his girlfriend. She is a very intense character and her conversations with Lars in this movie are the most interesting parts because of what they reveal to each other and the things that don't explicitly say. Patricia Clarkson has been the most underrated actress in Hollywood for a decade now and it's because she can play such understated roles so well.

There's a great scene toward the end of the film. Lars and Gus are having a heart-to-heart, in a way but both are quite awkward. Lars by nature and Gus by virtue of the unusual situation. Neither are great finding the words for their thoughts. Lars wants to know how Gus knew when he was an adult. Gus' opinion is that you grow up when "you decide to do right. Not just what's right for you but what's right for everybody even when it hurts...it sounds like it's easy and for some reason it's not." I keep thinking how true that idea rings. In many ways, this is the thesis of the movie. It's about growing up, even though you're already an adult. Figuring out what's right even though everything is complex and difficult. Lars is not the only one in the film who has to learn this. Most people I know still have to learn this.

Kissing Jessica Stein

2008-04-28T09:51:08Z

Not straight enough

For a film classified under the LBGT genre, Kissing Jessica Stein (Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, 2001) is as straight as a door knob. But lest, you consider the aforementioned comment as a backhanded-Brokeback Mountain critique of sorts, here’s the kicker – it’s a flat-out compliment. My sole – and very pronounced – complaint, as you shall read in a moment, is that Kissing Jessica Stein isn't straight enough.

The central conceit of the film – a young hetero woman, frustrated by the lack of good male suitors, tries out women for a change – isn’t so much shameless provocation, as it is a pointed reflection of today’s mores. In an era more tolerant of sexual ambiguity, young women are given the chance to role-play in alternative sexual roles that would’ve not been offered to their mothers.

That Kissing Jessica Stein, unlike so many other romantic comedy these days, bothers to explore this zeitgeist head-on, may explain why this rom com has since cultivated a strong cult following among twentysomething young women not unlike myself.
.
As someone who understands this zeitegeist too well, Kissing Jessica Stein is, nonetheless, a frustrating, uneven experience that feels like the crushing denouement of a vagina block: it’s smart and honest and invigorating – but only to a certain point. For a film that initially gushed of estrogen (credit the sparkling dialogue to two of the film's straight stars, Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen, who adapted the script from an earlier stage collaboration), its promise was, ultimately, undermined by strong ties to rom-com conventions.

***

In Kissing Jessica Stein, the satiric conceit is actualized by guts and happenstance. In the beginning of the film, a “Woman Seeking Woman” ad catches the eye of the epononymous character – mousy copy editor Jessica Stein – one day at work. And in spite of some personal misgivings, she dials those digits, nerves-be-damned.

Jessica and her date meet conventionally enough, at a café in a splendidly silly kind of way, that would tickle a playwright pink with its comedy of errors observations. Within a moment’s glance, Jessica shrieks in honorable good-Jewish-girl fashion, and hails for a cab. The jilted date – a young art gallery assistant named Helen – runs after Jessica with a pair of stilettos in tow. But after some mutual effort and time (and consoling on Helen’s behalf), Jessica and Helen begin to find common ground during girl talk, as they empathetically acknowledge one another’s superficial – but shared – interests such as yoga, fashion, and oh, yes, lipstick.

Jessica and Helen’s courtship is rife with awkwardness. You know it’s going well for Jessica and Helen – and you’re happy for them and all. But something’s missing in their interaction. It’s not so much a date, as it is a female bonding session. It’s those funny, indispensable observations that made the first half-hour of Kissing Jessica Stein so unforgettable. You don’t have to be a girl to be in on the joke, but it sure helps.

***

For a film so witty and thoughtful about the gender divide, it pains me to say that what follows the first act is nothing short of banal. Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen, along with their onscreen alter-egos, tread to familiar territory once the fuzzy honeymoon period ends. It's no longer about Jessica and Helen's characters. It's now about their families and friends whom they await for official approval (as if Jessica's lesbianism has been officiated).

The film’s Annie-Hall-ized second act – think Jewish neuroses but with lesbians! – has inspired readings that have taken on a life of its own. Rick Groen of Toronto’s The Globe and Mail had this to say about the film: “Men may be gay by nature, but women are lesbians by choice – such is the implied message of Kissing Jessica Stein.” Roger Ebert, echoing Groen’s interpretation, prefaced his review with a “murky-waters” acknowledgement: the argument that construes homosexuality as a lifestyle choice is politically incorrect in gay circles.

It was only a matter of time before some gay writers joined the fray, and criticized Kissing Jessica Stein for a supposed espousal. In a piece entitled, “Jessica Stein and Samantha Jones: The Attack of the Temporary Lesbians”, Tom Dolby of the online magazine, The Simon, claims, among other things, that the idea of temporary lesbianism isn’t far off from the Falwellian scheme of things.

No offense to Groen, Ebert, and Dolby, but I do not opine such readings. Kissing Jessica Stein isn't a film about confused lesbians. It's a film about confused straight women. That Westfeldt and Juergensen resort to Annie Hall speaks volumes about their compromising vision. The writing team duo have dropped provocative ruminations for overdone formulas – and to dire consequences.

***

The film ends on a very confused note, more loyal to the first act than the second one. After all those strives made, towards domestication, Helen dumps Jessica. As Helen so bluntly puts it, they’ve become more like roommates than lovers.

While posting “roommate-wanted” flyers at a local bookstore, Jessica bumps into an old boyfriend – the charming dickwad that is Josh. Now a writer and in pursuit of the passion he had previously abandoned after college, Josh is all sweats, stubble, and all-nighters – a moth to Jessica’s flame. We see them exchanging numbers, and having what appears to be, that recognizable glint in their eyes. Jessica and Helen, in the meantime, still see each other every now and then – but now, as friends, conversing in their usual girl talk.

Kissing Jessica Stein could’ve been an exploration about the dilemmas of the modern women and the sick joke that is heterosexuality. It could’ve ended with a biting twist: Jessica’s realization that she’s in love with the enemy – you know, the same breed of boy-men who, as Jessica and Helen agreed, have nothing funny or smart to say at dinner time, ogle at the lesbian fantasy because, well, it’s “double sexy”, and just seem to exist in a different plateau from the female species, period.

In other words, the film could’ve been controversially Breillatian, but instead, settled for the tried-and-true stylings of Woody Allen. But none of that matters now. It’s too little, too late. Kissing Jessica Stein is an entertaining, little film. But it could’ve been more – a conversation starter that extends beyond pop cultural footnotes.

Cloverfield

2008-04-17T00:13:17Z

Panic, confusion and rampaging, murderous creatures

So often, people critique a movie by stating that it employs “style over substance,” as if this piece of information is enough to entirely dismiss a film’s merits. Obviously, movies that lack good characterization and logical storytelling are highly unlikely to become classics but there are certain cases where the details of the story have to take a backseat to the style in which the story is told. Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield is a prime example of this. In fact, it may be one of the only films I’ve seen where this approach was absolutely necessary.

If you missed the marketing blitz and the viral web tie-ins, Cloverfield is essentially a first-person monster movie. New York City is attacked by a very large creature of unknown origin and design. We only see and hear events through a few characters’ eyes and ears. No one in the movie ever really objectively examines the situation like we’d see in an Independence Day or a Godzilla. Instead it only focuses on 4 people desperately trying to survive the attack and the warzone that NYC has become and find a way to rescue one of their friends. That’s pretty much it. The plot was deliberately kept unclear before the release, I assume, because it’s really just that simple. Of course, the obvious comparison for many people is between this and The Blair Witch Project. They aren’t really that similar. The main difference is that, in Cloverfield, things actually happen. And they don’t stop happening.

Cloverfield was produced by J.J. Abrams, perhaps best known for his creation and direction of the TV series’ Lost and Alias. The viewers of those programs are quite clear that Abrams deals more heavily in mystery than exposition. Questions are more interesting than answers for him, perhaps. For many, this style of storytelling is gimmicky and even infuriating. In fact, if this describes you, there is no way on earth you will see Cloverfield and enjoy it. This is not a film with a neat or even clear resolution. In much of Abrams’ work, that is simply not the point. Instead, a riskier gambit is utilized. His work puts all of its faith his characters are so likeable, or at least intriguing, that you will remain engaged in whatever situation they find themselves in. While that may be a successful strategy for his television shows, this strategy is precisely what makes Cloverfield a polarizing film.

There are many who strongly disliked this film mainly and explicitly because they just didn’t give a shit about anyone on the screen at any time. And that’s fair enough. As I mentioned before, the actual characterizations are pretty weak. We only get a snapshot of the main characters before disaster strikes. The first 15 minutes or so of the movie take place at a party where the only real conflict is a messy, awkward romantic entanglement. The litmus test for whether one is engaged in this movie is if you even care about the pre-horror socializing. If not, the rest of the movie is just a tedious exercise in shaky camera work and an exhausting journey with 4 people you can’t stand. I personally believe this movie succeeds because I found the characters endearing. Endearing and funny and complicated and infuriating and basically like everyone I know. The creators of this film get away with only lightly sketching their characters because they’re so plebeian and ordinary, the viewers can easily project their own experiences onto them.

Of course, there’s not all that much time for that because panic, confusion and rampaging, murderous creatures take over the film at about the 15 minute mark and essentially continue, non-stop, for the rest of it. This is why, stylistically, the moviemakers made the right decision. The mood of the film is stressed panic. Not just uncertainty, but panic. Things happen onscreen very quickly and there is simply no time to stop and explain or to gawk at others’ misfortunes. If there were more exposition, it would only have served to distract. It would have taken us “out of the moment,” which is certainly highly counterproductive to a movie like this. And despite clarity being sacrificed, there is no logical explanation for a lot of events in the movie anyway. Any explanation of the presence of a 100 foot lizard rampaging through New York would be patently ridiculous anyway. Once you rid yourself of the notion that these details are relevant, the experience of the film becomes more enjoyable. If enjoyable is the right word. Maybe “exhilarating” is better. Honestly, I didn’t feel great after seeing it. It’s not a pleasant film, but its non-stop adherence to its established mood is astonishing and laudable. This is certainly a niche film. I can’t imagine the filmmakers had aspirations of making an all-time classic. It is certainly no clinic in how to write a screenplay. Instead, to their credit, they have produced a successful experiment in pacing, mood, style and strategic special effects. If you can bring yourself to care, you’ll enjoy it.

Hawaii International Film Festival 11th Annual Spring Showcase

2008-04-17T00:02:56Z

See you at the movies!

In addition to its annual film festival in the fall, of which, I attended - hence the reviews of Owl and the Sparrow, Still Life, and Tuya's Wedding - the Hawaii International Film Festival features two smaller festivals year-round: the one-week Spring Showcase in April and the three-day Korean film festival - also known as "K-fest" - in August.

As an art-house fare deprived cinephile, since her move back to Honolulu, it is my pleasure to announce that the aforementioned Spring Showcase is just around the corner.

The event, which runs from April 18-24, offers 26 films from 10 countries. Among the notable, "buzzworthy" offerings on the slate: Richard (Moulin Rouge) Roxburgh's directorial debut, Romulus My Father, an Australian immigrant saga, starring homegrown native Eric Bana, Helen Hunt's own stab behind the lens, the romantic-dramedy, Then She Found Me, and maverick filmmaker John Sayles' latest, Honeydrippers, set in Jim Crow-era Alabama.

On my own to-see list: the Fatih Akin follow-up to Head-On, The Edge of Heaven, Japanese director Nobuhiro Yamashita's A Gentle Breeze in the Village - reportedly as charming and heartfelt as his previous feature, the HIFF favorite Linda Linda Linda, and Mister Foe, another dark exploration of sex by the same director of Young Adam (rising Scottish talent, David Mackenzie).

As was the case with the HIFF fall film programming, look for reviews of these Spring Showcase films to appear on Lucid Screening in the coming weeks.

By the way, any Honoluluians remotely interested in attending the Spring Showcase can click here for more box office info.

Seven Days

2008-04-10T14:25:55Z

7 Days = 125 Minutes = Zzz

Seven Days (Won Shin-yeon, 2007) faces the problem most Korean thrillers (really with the exception of the masterful Memories of Murder) face, its not thrilling. Not to say the concept isn't interesting: Ji-yeon (Kim Yun-jin best known to Western viewers as Sun from Lost) is a high-powered attorney who has a high success rate in difficult cases. She has a seven-year old daughter who she rarely sees and is apparently a single mother, so in keeping with the grand Korean tradition of punishing wayward women, you know something bad is going to happen. Well it does. The girl is kidnapped and soon she receives a phone call with one of the more outlandish ransom demands yet put to celluloid: Ji-yeon has a week (hence the title) to prove a convicted murderer not guilty or her daughter will be killed.

To be fair to this film, Ji-yeon is not really punished because she is a single mother or negligent. She is shown to be loving and tender with her daughter despite her busy professional life. The concept is one that could be stupidly entertaining, and I can see why Hollywood snapped up the remake rights in its bid to redo all things Asian while its own creative output remains stagnant. The film falls flat though. The cinematography was handheld, shaky and close-up and derivative of every single thriller that's come out of Korea (again with the exception of Memories of Murder) which itself is a copy of the MTV hyper stylized visuals of American films. The obligatory chase through the alleyways of Seoul scene is annoyingly tinted blue although thankfully they held off on the rain until the very end (you know so they could be original). Even the sound design was flawed, although it could've been the DVD. In some scenes, characters who are in the same room sound like they are speaking their lines from a faulty speaker in the Mariana Trench.

Kim Yun-jin seems to overuse her “what is going on here” and “holy crap what a twist” face that she has perfected from her Lost role. Although to be fair the only film I've ever actually enjoyed with her in it is Shiri and even that wasn't that great. She is definitely not Korea's best actress. All of the actors seem to be phoning in their performances in order to get a paycheck. The fact that this was a trouble shoot seems pretty obvious. The original director was fired over creative differences and it originally starred Kim Sun-ah who left the production soon after the director. The script is a by-the-numbers thriller, including an unnecessary and telegraphed twist at the end that seems to be thrown in in a desperate attempt to make something surprising. Well consider that attempt failed.

The victims presented are uninteresting and are killed essentially because they are drug addicts and outsiders. Angel dust is a hell of a drug. It is always interesting to me when Korean actors portray drug use, with no real basis in reality [Ed. Note: Drugs are REALLY illegal in South Korea], it always ends up looking like they just had a lobotomy or electro-shock therapy intermixed with severe psychotic episodes. There is also a rather convoluted and ridiculous plot involving corruption and cooperation between people with political aspirations and gangsters (shock!). This has been done better and more in-depth in other, far better films. In all this was an inept film that has little to recommend unless you are a huge Kim Yun-jin fan or a Hollywood executive desperate to mine anything for an idea.

Sex & Death 101

2008-04-08T04:53:21Z

Screwed

Where to begin with a movie as bad as Sex and Death 101? The flat, painful dialogue? A cast of unlikeable characters? The rampant offensive portrayals of women, or the smirking, condescending attempts to excuse its own misogyny? The fact that, as someone who doesn't normally consider herself a feminist, I've already used the words "misogyny," "offensive," and "portrayals of women" in the first paragraph alone?

The film begins when slick businessman Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) receives a mysterious email containing a list of names: every woman he’s ever slept with, and ever will sleep with. Almost immediately, he dumps his fiancée (don’t worry— like so many women in the film, she’s cold and superficial) and gets to work. After noticing that the first name on the future list is a nude model, Roderick explains his decision in a speech illustrative of the film’s sparkling wit: "Pardon my fucking French, but we’re talking about a fucking centerfold here. Fucking a fucking centerfold, if you will, and believe me, I will." What follows is essentially an extended sex montage, or, more accurately, a breasts montage.

In the non-sex scenes, director Daniel Waters phones it in with plots like this one: at the centerfold's mansion, Roderick finds her room and has sex with her, only to discover the next morning that since the lights were out, he accidentally got the wrong room and shtupped her grandmother instead. If that sounds familiar, it's because your suspicions are correct: it is, in fact, the punchline of one of the oldest Borscht belt dirty jokes of all time. Toward the end of the film, at a point when we’re just getting to that locker-room-anecdote excuse for a comedic setup, Roderick has a bike accident in the woods and is found by a busload of Catholic school girls, who decide that since he’s incapacitated, this is their collective chance to lose their virginity, so they take turns mounting his prostrate body as he lies there on his back. I’m not making this up.

Waters's premise is embarrassingly clear: a woman who's a "sure thing" is the only woman worth pursuing. See the scene in which Roderick bumps into an attractive woman, asks for her name, verifies that it’s not on his list, then promptly shoves her aside. See the turmoil caused when Roderick falls in love with Miranda (Leslie Bibb), whose role as "smart woman" is clear only from the fact that she's actually given lines beyond a barstool come-on. Miranda doesn’t appear on Roderick's list, which is so not fair that, after she dies, he seriously contemplates bedding her corpse. Waters should go back to protagonist school if he thinks a guy who, after careful consideration, zips up his pants and walks away from a dead body still wins our sympathy.

As if this plot weren't troubling enough, a lady–serial killer enters the mix. Played by Winona Ryder, "Death Nell" seduces men, then puts them into comas, supposedly exacting revenge on the male race for continued rape and abuse. Thanks? The fact that a murderer provides the only voice remotely resembling a woman's perspective is telling, as is the story she tells of a husband who raped her every night, which is treated lightly, almost comedically: we see Ryder in a flashback montage, hobbling and stumbling like a cartoon character, dressed in an array of fairytale gowns that her fetishistic husband forces to wear. When it comes to bringing a subject like rape into his movies, it seems that Waters has yet to learn the lesson most of us heard from our parents when we were children: "The fact that you’re not taking this seriously tells me that you’re not ready to talk about it."

This is the first time Waters has worked with Ryder since his 1989 film Heathers, a teen cult favorite which starred Ryder as an outcast disgusted with high school politics who goes on a killing spree with her boyfriend, played by Christian Slater. It’s tempting to see her role as Death Nell as a reprisal of that independent spirit of taking matters into one’s own hands, but Sex and Death 101 is a distinct, enormous step backwards. Using a killer as a symbol of strong femininity strikes me as the same sentiment as the old racist who insists he’s not intolerant because he thinks African-Americans make excellent musicians and ball players. Waters shouldn’t expect a gift basket from the feminist community: in the end, like Roderick, he saw the opportunity to get women naked, and he went to town.