Summer Lovin

Like most guys I don’t live in the romcom genre much. There have been great ones because of their innovative scripts and performances:
“Moonstruck”, “The Philadelphia Story”, “When Harry Met Sally”, “Some Like it Hot”, “Groundhog Day”, “It Happened One Night” and of course the wonderfully contrived “Sleepless in Seattle”. “City Lights” may have been the genres’ great silent classic and proof that these films have been a staple of the film industry since its inception. After all movies are the perfect dates right? Yet the way Hollywood mass produces things, quality always wears thin and we have all been subjected to some outrageously bad romcoms. I don’t know why but “What Happens in Vegas” sticks in my mind but there are hundreds maybe thousands. (You hear that “Pretty Woman”?) Date movies or chick flicks have become the scourge of man’s existence.

Yet I still have a soft spot for “Annie Hall”. The fun way it dissected the relationship, its bits of absurdity and its unexpected conclusion. This was Woody Allens’ greatest moment, and as I’ve said on this blog before, it’s been a sad thing watching his films decline with each passing year. That classic came to my mind again as I watched “(500) Days of Summer”, the “Annie Hall” of Gen Y.

This generation so easily falls into a hipster pose but with this film we have none of the forced irony or ‘too cool for school” posing that makes older folks cranky. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom who wears old timey suits and ties rather than skinny jeans and a souvenir T-shirt. His love interest is Summer (Zooey Deschane) who also leans towards the classic, wearing vintage dresses. This is just one clever way that director Marc Webb (who also co wrote the script with Scott Neustadter) frames this story as timeless rather than as a bland modern romance. He also has filmed the story in older buildings, so although it’s set in LA which is so often cold and soulless on film, here it shows the character of a New York or Chicago backdrop.

Tom was an architecture student who now works as a greeting card writer. So, sure the movie doesn’t completely avoid being hokey. In fact his work attitude and rant at a meeting when he’s having love life troubles is a little overdone, but the movie is charming enough to forgive this. When Summer enters the workplace he is smitten and the countdown of the 500 days begins. The fun part is that since this is told from Tom’s point of view, the days are not in any order. Good days and bad days intermingle as we see their relationship without clear linearity. Opening narration even announces that “this is not a love story” so we watch the relationship knowing that it is short-term just like “Annie Hall”. I think in this day and age this makes the film more realistic and meaningful despite its flights of fancy. Zooey Deschanel is a bit cold but she does well in the role where she has to be a bit of a heavy. (Although I think Ellen Page would have rocked it) Her character is one who remains mysterious and is only revealed through Tom’s eyes, so she is always elusive and distant as crushes often are. Along the way we see two versions of a night (imagined versus actual) that I thought was brilliant. Tom even breaks out into song showing how we all live our lives and especially our romances through the filter of Hollywood expectations. In short this film is clever, well-performed, fun and defies hipster detachment with its sincerity. Isn’t that what romcoms are supposed to be? I also think the last line put a great bow on it. It’s like a brief romance itself, don’t over think it and you’ll have a lot of fun.

The 20 Best DVDs of 2009

As we finish up 2009, it's time again to look back at the DVD film releases of the past year and give thanks! Again, I am talking about new films on disk, most released theatrically in 2008 (unless noted as a 2009 release).There are many fine TV series and re-releases, but that's another blog. Happily we've reviewed many of these films already on this blog, so I've included the links. Most of these films I give four shakers to unless noted as the elusive fifth shaker.

With all the chaos in life, nothing beats getting lost in a good film. So here are my picks on the best twenty. I think any film lover on your list would appreciate any of these. (Why not do a gift basket and get them all? :)

Happy Holidays and Happy viewing! (When the January rental doldrums hit, I will offer up some additional good films of the past year)

1) Anvil: The Story of Anvil - Old Head bangers keep the dream alive into middle age. Review here.

2) The Cove (2009) - A dramatic doc on the battle to save dolphins from slaughter and captivity.

3) Days and Clouds – A successful Italian couple try to keep their marriage afloat and start over in a harsh economy. Review here.

4) Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about His Father – Began as a project to tell a son about his murdered father, director Kurt Kuenne successfully covers additional tragic twists in one of the most heart-wrenching films you'll ever see.

5) District 9 (2009) – A great sci-fi film on lost humanity that I think was totally overlooked this summer. Director Neill Blomkamp gives us an exciting story about aliens who become refugees in South Africa and how the corporation tasked with relocating them then seeks to exploit them for their weapons technology. 5 Shakers

6) Doubt - John Patrick Shanley's powerfully acted tale of the power struggle between a conservative nun and a progressive priest in a 1964 New York City parish. Our Reviews here. 5 Shakers

7) Eden - A simple but universal story of an Irish couple struggling with their ten-year marriage. Review here.

8) Frozen River - Another story of personal survival, Melissa Leo brings amazing truth and believability to her role of a mother struggling to keep her family afloat by any means possible. Jessi's Review here.

9) The Hangover (2009) - Todd Phillips directs a believable and likeable cast in a tale of the ultimate bachelor party gone bad in Las Vegas. Comedies about men who don't want to grow up are a Hollywood stable, but this one avoids the usual bathroom humor to deliver a fun and clever flick.

10) I've Loved You So Long – Another tale of family dynamics, this time two siblings who struggle to get reacquainted after a fifteen year absence. Kristin Scott Thomas is compelling as a shell-shocked woman who slowly reveals her secrets to her well-meaning but puzzled younger sister (Elsa Zylbertstein). Jessi's Review here.

11) Let the Right One In – An alternative vampire flick to the one which shall remain nameless. Original and creepy, the setting of a cold, dark, depressing Swedish town is spot on and the concept of a little girl vampire is spooky. Review here.

12) Milk – Director Gus Van Sant really captures the details and tone of the era in this timely biopic of Harvey Milk (Oscar winner Sean Penn) the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. A great supporting cast includes Josh Brolin who is brooding and intense as Dan White, a troubled fellow official on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who feels threatened enough to murder.

13) Revolutionary Road – Though I didn't notice the trend before this is my third pick to focus on a troubled marriage. Based on the novel by Richard Yates, Sam Mendes delivers a film not really about the homogenized suburbs but about the compromises of marriage and conformity. Very similar in time period and theme to "Mad Men", seeing April (Oscar winner Kate Winslet) framed behind a picture window like a caged bird is tragic. Review here.

14) Sin Nombre (2009) – A Honduran girl falls for a Central American gang banger on a train heading to the US border. Review here.

15) Slumdog Millionaire – Last years' big Oscar winner tells the fairy tale odyssey of an 18-year-old Mumbai "slumdog" (Dev Patel) attempting to find his lost love (Freida Pinto) by going on a TV game show. Director Danny Boyle directs this story with energy and heart and a breakout final song unexpectedly paying tribute to big Bollywood dance numbers. Jessi's review here.

16) Star Trek (2009) – J.J. Abrams reboots the franchise for new fans and old trekkers alike. A great finish to a decade of some outstanding sci-fi! 5 Shakers Review here.

17) Summer Hours - As an aging widow reunites her adult children and their families to their childhood home; she realizes her possessions and legacy will become devalued once she passes on. A subtle but powerful film on how the global economy is not only splintering families, but undermining cultures, creating a society does not value its’ own history.

18) Up (2009) – Pixar does it again with an amazingly touching film on never being too old to live out your dreams.

19) Waltz with Bashir – An "animated documentary" for adults as ex-soldiers revisit their fractured wartime memories. Review here.

20) The Wrestler – Mickey Rourke's amazing comeback film of a tortured middle-aged wrestler trying to come to terms with his life while staging a final bout. This is the wrestling picture Barton Fink should have written.

Demonic Ambitions

Fall is upon us and Halloween approaches! I rented the Blu-Ray of the original “Halloween” and several other scary flicks to get in the mood and will cap off the month seeing the original “Psycho” accompanied by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra- good times!

In ‘Audience of One ‘ director Mike Jacobs shows us something pretty scary- real-life religious fanaticism which is growing by leaps and bounds in this country. In uncertain times it’s comforting to have religion, however when it stops being a personal expression of spirituality and goes all cultish it is downright dangerous. Folks who believe that they are on a “mission from God” ala the “Blues Brothers” will have no problem causing all sorts of mayhem since anyone against them must be “the devil”. Working Jim Jones’ old hood, Pastor Richard Gazowsky is introduced to us as a charismatic leader who seems harmless at first as he preaches the word to his San Francisco congregation. We are told that he didn’t see his first film “The Lion King” until he was 40, but that God then told him to make a film (“Star Wars meets The Ten Commandments”) and lo the misadventures begin!

A delusional man pressing his family and parishioners to make a film that he says has 200 million in financing for is fascinating but also a little sad. Church collections don’t go to help the unfortunate but instead fund massive film expenses such as creating unnecessarily elaborate costumes. Volunteers are pressed into crew and talent positions putting in long workdays where safety precautions are non-existent. This is kind of like the doc “Burden of Dreams” about the madness of director Werner Herzog while making “Fitzcarraldo'” with the important exception that Herzog is a great filmmaker, Gazowksy is just a fool. Even late in the film as we see that his fiasco has no funding and he is forcing his studio landlord (the city of San Franciso) to sue him for his back rent, he attends a filmmakers trade show promising vendors that he is planning on buying their high end equipment. In short he has no conscience. Why should he? God talks directly to him. Kind of like “Bowfinger” meets “Jesus Camp”.

As I’ve said before here, I hate the cinema of sadism that passes as horror. Splatter and gore has hardcore followers but I can’t help to think that it’s just not a good thing to get such pleasure watching people get tortured and killed. It reminds me too much of how Rome fell with its residents using death as entertainment in the Coliseum (Though I did like “Gladiator” which makes me a bit of a hypocrite).

Sam Raimi on the other hand, gave us the “Evil Dead” trilogy back in the eighties and early nineties, films that mixed the spookiness of folklore with rollercoaster thrills shot like great slapstick ala “An American Werewolf in London”. These films were scary fun and became better as the budgets went up. Raimi went on to do a respectable indie, “A Simple Plan” before moving on up to the big budget “Spiderman” series. Obviously his brother and he had an old spooky script that they never made and Raimi decided to dust it off and give his fans a little bit of retro horror. I’m glad he did.

In “Drag Me to Hell” he shows his ability to take all of the scariness of that original haunted wooded cabin and bring it to a normal suburban home in Southern California transforming ordinary objects into instruments of fear: a stapler, a handkerchief, a coin, a button, a ruler even a piece of cake. Yes a piece of cake – did you ever eye up a delicious pastry when dieting? Raimi and the demons at his disposal know of these inner conflicts.

Our heroine, bank loan officer Christine (Alison Lohman), is a former obese farm girl from a broken home who wrestles these inner demons as she reinvents herself in LA. When her relationship and career seem troubled, the evil spirits channel her fear of eating; the arm of a demonic woman, a fly, embalming liquid, maggots and blood all make their way into her mouth at some point in this flick. It all begins with her fixation on an old gypsy womans’ dirty dentures that she observes as she is trying to decide whether to give her another extension on her home loan. Being exploited by her boss (David Paymer) as she vies for a promotion (he has her bring him and her rival food of course) she is forced into deciding to evict this old woman, Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), which sets off the action as she is then attacked, cursed and terrorized.

Raimi gives us plenty of shout-outs to the ‘Evil Dead’ films including using his trademark 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, a visual reference to the original poster art, cartoon violence in an old shed and Christine’s boyfriend (Justin Long, the Mac pitchman seen using Mac products) making a passing reference that he has a cabin in the woods. The film even opens with an 80’s era logo for Universal. A drawback is the flat acting by the young actors in the leads; old-timers Raver and Paymer fare much better. Lohman, Long and Dileep Rao (as the worlds' most knowledgeable spiritualist) all seem to play the film straight rather than give it the subtle twist of camp that it needed. Lohman especially seems more of a dullard than an ambitious and then horrified woman. A Bruce Campbell cameo also would have rocked it. This is nitpicky of course – this film as I witnessed makes men swear in disbelief and women scream in fright and that’s a lot of fun in the serious world of mass marketed torture porn. A definition of Irish blarney is when you can tell someone to go to hell and have them anticipate the trip. Raimi still has the charm.

Lose your Illusion

There have been many documentaries about the war in Iraq but Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss's “Full Battle Rattle” captures the motivation and policies of our military better than most. Ironically it was filmed in the US, in a mock Iraqi city in the Mojave Desert of California. The “city” is a battle training ground that seems to be a cross between a video game simulation and the town featured in “The Truman Show”. The make-believe hamlet is populated by Iraqi-Americans and other soldiers portraying the locals. There are meetings with the city council, confrontations at check points and even photo opportunities as building contracts and cash are handed out to buy good faith. Insurgents and assassinations also sneak in as programmed by the war game officials. A soldier and the man portraying the deputy mayor refer to their script as they discuss how to play a scene in one of the many surreal moments in this interesting film. When the same deputy mayor proudly shows video of his mock execution to his real family, his wife breaks into tears and we are reminded that this role playing is mirroring the real life violence effecting actual families. As the military personnel are shipped off after their training exercise you can really sense the anxiety as they leave a place where the dead were just actors or medical dummies to enter the very real chaos of war. I found this to be an interesting dissection of the logistics of modern war with the implied violence eerily foreshadowing the reality that awaits them.

In “Anvil! The Story of Anvil”, director Sacha Gervasi first introduces the Canadian rockers via old footage of the 1984 Japanese Super Rock Festival that they appeared at with The Scorpions, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and other top bands. Members of Metallica, Motorhead, Guns N Roses and others are seen telling of their influence. We then cut to 2007 Toronto to see the band members working middle-class jobs while still holding onto the dream of making it big. Lead guitar/singer “Lips” (Steve Kudlow) and his long suffering best friend/drummer, Robb Reiner are mellow but often prone to explosive arguments like an old married couple. This is one of the many parallels of this film with the famed mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap”: We see the band making its’ way to the stage saying “Hello Cleveland!’, the silly album covers, an audio knob going to “11”, the foreign road manager girlfriend, the series of humiliating gigs, Stonehenge and the redeeming call from Japan. Yet somehow this flick does not mock its subjects, in fact the optimism of “Lips” in the face of all odds is actually inspiring and touching. Their families are still trying to support them and you can’t help but to pull for (or head bang for) this group as well.

Steven Soderbergh follows his dense but unmoving “Che (Parts One & Two)” with a small film about a high-end escort in Manhattan just prior to the election of 2008. “The Girlfriend Experience” uses real-life porn star Sasha Grey to portray Chelsea, a call girl just trying to make it in the world of the wealthy. Captured in a series of high-end restaurants and stores we see what may be a collapsing gilded era as Chelsea acts as ‘the girlfriend” of several nervous movers and shakers, which mostly means listening to them talk about finances. Her live-in boyfriend is a personal trainer also trying to leverage his relationship with his rich clients to get ahead. Their parallel realities comment about the materialism and superficiality of life. Sex, looks and money is all important, but this soullessness is also the death of real love. The film even has a trip to Vegas in it, the ultimate metaphor for the illusions of wealth and the American dream of success. However, again Soderbergh just doesn’t pull it off. This is yet another arty film that moves slowly and seems plot less. To mix it up a bit, it is edited in a confusingly deliberate non-chronological order which is reminiscent of “Memento”. The biggest problem is the monosyllabic, boring performance by Grey in the lead. I suspect a high end call girl would be intelligent and an excellent conversationalist. Grey seems more like a bored teenager here and that’s a GF experience that no one would pay for.

Quick review: “Watchmen” a sadistic abomination, torture porn and fanboys still ruling Hollywood!

The American dream: Elusive, then hard to maintain

As the US seems more divided than ever lately, I recently saw three new DVDs that deal with our freedoms in their own personal way.

In “Sugar” (2008), Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s follow-up to their very good “Half Nelson” (2006), we are introduced to a Dominican baseball player whose whole town depends on him making the minor leagues in the US and then possibly the majors. The pressure to succeed and the fish-out-of-water culture clashes of his life are examined in a very low-key, naturalistic style: Far too low-key for my tastes. Whereas in “Half Nelson” we had the Oscar nominated performance of lead actor Ryan Gosling taking us into the shadowy world of teachers who abuse drugs, here we have a non-actor, Algenis Perez Soto playing the lead. The fact that he isn’t an actor does increase the realism but since in 90% of this film the camera is pointed at him, the story would have benefitted if we could have had more insight into his mind. He just seems to stare vacantly most of the time as things occur almost randomly around him. This trend of almost hyper-realism, where we find ourselves stuck into one unstructured scene after another seems a bit lazy and pretentious to me. In one long shot we see ‘Sugar’ walking through a blurry entertainment arcade finally arriving at the edge of a bowling alley where his American counterpart is enjoying a game surrounded by friends. I know I was supposed to sympathize with his isolation here but I was too bored by the length of the take of his walk. That’s just me- ADD boy! His character then makes a questionable decision halfway through the film that seems unlikely given all we’ve been shown. So although this film came with high praise and had some nice plays, it just failed to score with me.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is “Sin Nombre” (2008), which although shot with equal realism gives us memorable imagery, strong dramatic performances and a tight story. Filmmaker Cary Fukunaga wrote and directed this tale of a group of Central American immigrants making their way to the American border. Casper (Edgar Flores) is a Mexican gang member of the scarily tattooed ‘Mara Salvatrucha’, who needs to prove his worth. Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) is a young Honduran girl just trying to follow her family to a better life. Both end up hitching on top of a rural train that snakes its’ way north. Somehow these images capture the beauty and sacrifice of these people. One touching scene has the train passing under a large statue of Mother Mary as many pray for her blessing. As the gang pursues Casper, he tries to thwart the advances of Sayra to no avail. Like good and evil itself these two seem trapped with each other. I found this film similar in my mind to “The Warriors” another surreal adventure of a road trip to redemption.

“State of Play” (2009) is based on a popular BBC mini-series and I’m sure if I had seen this I would have hated this film. In fact, I expected not to like it since it seemed super-hokey, which it is to some degree. However, although not the best political thriller ever it does make its’ points, have strong performances and is nicely shot. Russell Crowe plays Cal McCaffrey a veteran reporter for the fictional Washington Globe (a stand in for the Post); Della (Rachel McAdams) is a newbie blogger for the paper which has just been acquired though a merger by a global corporate media group. Helen Mirren is the editor who must weigh the pressure to sell papers with the infotainment demands of a 24-hour news cycle rather than taking the time to get the story told correctly. Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), Cal’s old college roommate, is a congressman from Pennsylvania who oversees a committee investigating a defense contract corporation which eerily looks like Blackwater. The film opens with a series of killings that somehow link up to the death of a female Collins’ staffer who also was having an affair with him. Collin’s wife Anne (Robin Wright Penn) still pines for Cal in a ‘Casablanca’-like triangle that I found to be great old-timey Hollywood fun. The old-school vet reporter and newbie blogger team up to clear Collins’ name and get to the bottom of the killings in an attempt to bring the evil defense contractor out into the light while saving the paper from the pressures of its’ new owners.
There sure is a lot going on in this flick (since it is distilled from a mini-series) but it sucked me in and I enjoyed it! Director Kevin Macdonald (“Touching the Void”, “The Last King of Scotland”) really captures the surroundings from the messy newsroom, to the streets and eateries of DC, to the clean yet ominous halls of our government. He also gives some visual nods to “All the Presidents’ Men” with scenes at a creepy garage, the Watergate hotel, as well as extreme close-ups of copy being written, this time with a blinking cursor rather than the rifle-like cracks of typewriter strikes. Although it is flawed and a little too tidy in resolution, this film demonstrates how diligence is always needed to maintain our country’s morality in the face of a very complex, corrupt world. Sadly, this film also seemed like an epitaph for printed newspapers in a world overcome by the internet and bloggers (like me?).

A Shaky First Year!

Wow! As August comes to a close after flying by, a lot of great films hit which I would give four salt shakers to: Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, Trouble the Water, Tyson, The Class and Goodbye Solo. Normally I would choose one or two of these and tell you why to see them, but I didn’t want August to pass without acknowledging that this month marks the first anniversary of this blog!

Jessi and I worked together before she moved to New Mexico. I have seen so many friends come and go out of my little friendship fish bowl that I assumed we would e-mail once or twice a year before eventually losing touch. We are both frustrated creatives with the exception that Jessi works at it and I just repress it. Our e-mails would often turn to films we’d seen and we’d compare notes. As is obvious in this blog, some of the films she loved I hated and visa-versa. She then suggested this blog which I was dead against it since I see most blogs as self-indulgent and didn’t want to jump in that pool. However she convinced me to give it a try, nothing fancy just straightforward, concise reviews.

Last August, 'Salty Popcorn' began with Jessi’s post on 'Tsotsi'- I immediately countered thinking it was going to be the point-counterpoint deal, like the original Siskel & Ebert. We then both reviewed "The Savages" and "Surfwise", two great little indies and I put my best of all time list down. As we closed the most productive month ever, Jessi reviewed "Jumper" and I looked at "August" as we quickly realized it would never work for us to line up our viewing habits with the same films. We persevered somehow and this blog literally became my therapy.

Without going into detail we have both continued our struggle for meaningful work, again Jessi being more successful than I. I thought this blog would just die off since there were so many other places where folks could get opinions- but between Jessi and myself I feel we have added some original voice on the state of current home cinema. Even if we do have very light traffic, content is content.

I know one thing- as life gets me down - I do still find watching films to be my most favorite thing ever. This past year wasn't a banner year but through it all I have been able to watch many films I would never have had time for. Films inspire me and take me to a world as seen through someone else’s eyes. They touch and inform me- and remind me that the struggles of life are a common drama. I've seen artists who understand film as the 20th century art form and those who see it as a business churning out product. SP has allowed me the forum to yell at those who get it wrong and praise those who get it right. I’m still touched by heartfelt dramas and laugh loud at good comedies but unfortunately, more often than not, I feel like a hollow piece of crap has wasted my time and sucked out my soul. Yet that’s the point, I can suffer that turkey so you don’t have to. Even in my negative reviews I try to steer you to a similar film that got it right. So I thank you Jessi for nudging me into this. Happy Birthday ‘Salty Popcorn’! - Let’s keep the films popping and I’ll keep it shaking!

Your co-editor,

Tim

Past Lives

I like scary movies but not torture porn. For example I was spooked by “The Blair Witch Project” because it was so inventive for its’ budget and it went for the root of what scares us: “There’s something out there in the dark trying to get us!” I also enjoyed the original Japanese versions of “The Ring” and “The Grudge”. Yet American horror movies of today are a dime a dozen, full of soundtrack jolts and cheap scares. To confess a guilty pleasure, I do TiVo all of the paranormal stuff for easy entertainment. I especially love ridiculous shows like “Ghost Adventures” where Scooby Doo is recreated and ghost teams startle each other on night vision camera.

One ghostly documentary “A Haunting in Connecticut” was made in 2002 but still airs frequently. It was genuinely spooky following a family who move into a large house which is offered at a surprisingly cheap asking price so that their son, who suffers from cancer, can be closer to his treatment hospital. The house which is next to a cemetery is actually an old funeral home and the sick boy who sleeps in the basement discovers that this is where the mortician did his thing. Needless to say as someone whose childhood home was also nearby a cemetery, I found this show scary. The main ghost even wore those black contacts which on its own freaks me out. So hoping for the best I rented the Hollywood film version which was recently released on DVD. My worst fears were realized as even the credits were filled with the quick cuts and soundtrack blasts that earmark the worst horror films of today. Virginia Madsen and Elias Koteas are two actors who try to ground all the unnecessary CGI vainly. Lifetime movie vet, Martin Donovan is featured as always playing the well meaning dad. (Spoiler) When the house burns the end titles tell us it was rebuilt and stands there to this day. Well the house does stand because it was never burned and therefore never needed to be rebuilt. Since “based on a true story” means nothing to Hollywood versions of ghost stories they obviously feel no shame in rewriting history like this, kind of like Fox News. It’s a shame though since as I say the original story was spooky before they rewrote. See the original version if you can.

Past glory is also what haunts the title character of “The Great Buck Howard’ played by the great John Malkovich. The story here however is not Howard himself but that of his assistant played by Colin Hanks. Based on the real life experiences of a former assistant to “The Amazing Kreskin”, Howard is a mentalist who performs mind reading, hypnosis and the like before finishing up with a few cornball songs. His act is dated, his audience dwindling and Howard is constantly repeating stories of his salad days, especially his appearances on “The Tonight show with Johnny Carson”. (I do love it when Buck calls Leno Satan!) The film wants to be quaint old-fashioned fun but is actually kind of predictable and dull. Hanks is likable enough but doesn’t seem to have the charisma of his dad Tom to pull off this one-dimensional character. (Hanks Sr. appears here briefly playing, of course, his father) The Howard role seems custom made for Malkovich but yet it is too cartoony and underwritten. Involving has-beens do make for interesting stories (“Sunset Boulevard”, “Raging Bull”, “All about Eve”, “My Favorite Year”. “The Wrestler” etc) but here the magic just isn’t there.

In the film version of Dickens’ “Great Expectations” there are haunting scenes of the crazy Miss Havisham still in her wedding dress trapped in the past, living in her rotting mansion. In 1975 the Maysles brothers made a bizarre documentary about a mother and daughter living in similar conditions. Edith Bouvier Beale was nearly eighty and her daughter “Little Edie” was in her fifties at the time of filming, both living in the squalor of their rotting East Hampton mansion. Both women were obviously mentally ill with “Little Edie” being absolutely manic doing dances with her head constantly wrapped in a makeshift scarf. It was a sad film to watch and yet the subjects seemed perfectly happy in their little world, delusional as they were. Their home and the film was perfectly named “Grey Gardens”

This year HBO returned to these subjects making a dramatic film that attempts to fill in the blanks on the plight of these women. Also titled “Grey Gardens” the filmmakers do a great job at recreating scenes of the original doc between flashbacks of the characters affluent earlier years. Drew Barrymore who has made some bad films really shines here playing little Edie from her teenage years into her fifties. She totally nails this character and has a great time doing so. Jessica Lange playing the elder Edie also brings to life the desperation and increasing madness of her character. Both women, along with Ken Howard who plays Mr. Beale and Jeanne Tripplehorn as a shell-shocked Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (the womens’ famous cousin) have been nominated for well deserved Emmys. I think this film is best viewed after seeing the original documentary but in any case it is as haunting as the original. See it and then clean your home.

Love & War

As an audience member you really shouldn’t be too ahead of your characters or they come across as idiots. Just as in horror movies where it’s a constant battle of dumbness with folks going backwards into dark rooms, splitting up and of course assuming the maniac is dead and not kicking their weapon away or shooting them again. James Gray’s “Two Lovers” doesn’t have any murders- just the predictability. Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) is supposed to be a manically depressed, but often witty, regular-Joe. He has it half-down not seeming to be any fun in the least and almost “Sling Blade” slow. He also is just not believable as a middle-class Jewish boy (nor is Isabella Rossellini- yeah you heard me, as his mom.) Predictably Vinessa Shaw is the nice Jewish girl who would save him versus the fragile and exploitative shiksa played by Gwyneth Paltrow doing her best to sell the “New Yawk” accent. This film has received good reviews and I did find the camera work atmospheric and the mood appropriately downbeat. However the all star casting goes against it making it seem a little like an SNL skit- though if I could just transplant Adam Sandlers’ character in “Reign over Me” into Phoenix’s place we may have had the likeability we needed as we watch this dude stumble through his love life. Robin Williams also did a great job in a similarly toned, little known film “Seize the Day” twenty years earlier –so I think Phoenix’s performance was the problem. Then he went on Letterman in that prank deal- Oy Vey!

Having given thirty choices for best releases this year so far, I am happy to give my first recommendation for the second half of 09. “Waltz with Bashir” is an “animated documentary” about the 1982 Lebanon war as seen by the Israeli foot soldier. Director Ari Folman is the basis of the main character who has his own repressed memory of the war jarred after a friend tells him of a recurring nightmare which features the many dogs he killed during that war coming back to get him. The animation seems to be rotoscoping (painting over a filmed image), but supposedly it is not. Actors were filmed for reference only. I think the animation serves its’ purpose, adding to the unreality and dreamlike nature needed as various characters recount their war stories. It also captures the absurdity and odd juxtapositions of war (creepy dead horses, an attack in an orchard, apartment dwellers watching a firefight from their balconies) which I found to be reminiscent of “Apocalypse Now”. As our heroes’ memory is stimulated by his comrades’ tales we realize why he has blocked them in the first place. Perhaps this films’ compelling visual style will pull one teenager away from their war porn video games long enough to give the joy of killing a second thought.

Looking down on who we are

Whenever we see a good film – we are often pulled out of intense action with a visual God’s eye view- a long aerial shot that seems to put the intensity of the characters’ dilemmas into a wider perspective. Hitchcock in particular loved this technique. In the days of the silents of Eisenstein we would often have these wonderful visual montages later scored to beautiful music. The art of film seems purer when we see simple images and music. Great documentaries like Koyaanisqatsi. (And other films of Godfrey Reggio) take aerial and time lapse photography with music to a height when they are able to equate the activities of man to the production of hot dogs via simple visuals and editing.

Now to celebrate Earth Day we have “Home” a film released on DVD, in theaters and on the internet simultaneously this past earth day to provide a simple story. Master aerial photography by director Yann Arthus-Bertrand provides stunning visuals of earth as Glenn Close tells the story of our world which soon becomes a cautionary tale of exploitation and abuse.

I love to see things told in pure visuals and the great footage shot and scored tells the tale of our abuse of the earth in a far more impactful way then all the graphs of “An Inconvenient Truth” The God’s eye view makes this story stronger and more foreboding. A brilliant blend of science and art make for a great film for the mind and eye. The warnings hypnotic films like these continue to sound need to be addressed or our future is bleak.

The End of the Road- Cinema of the suburbs

“I don't want to live in a world without love or grief or beauty, I'd rather die.” - Becky in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956)

As World War II gave way to the Baby Boom and the housing experiment of Levittown gave birth to the suburbs, a whole new way of American life was created. The picturesque world of the perfect family in tidy homes was of course an ideal not quite the reality and post-war literature by authors like John Cheever were quick to point that out. Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” showed us that well-mannered mass murderers lurked among us in small town, Norman Rockwell America even before the war had finished and the suburbs were created.

Ah the burbs! Mass produced homes with conformity hanging in the air like the smell of fresh cut grass. Cautionary suburban stories continue to sprout like home gardens usually featuring the repressed individual trying to break out of the rigid norms of their family or community. If films are the dreams of a society, the suburban angst film certainly show how the American Dream can sometimes mask a nightmare. The stereotypes are obvious: strong: driven, domineering wives, obsessed with homemaking, absent or drunken husbands usually unhappy in their work, raising spoiled, superficial children against a backdrop of mid-brow culture, marital friction, adultery, divorce, drug abuse, and occasional mental illness. This has been great fodder for inspired scripts warning of the blandness of an increasingly homogenized American culture. The metaphoric suburbs are an ideal setting for tales that warn that the lives of those in those nicely manicured homes are somehow less authentic than their urban and rural counterparts. The dysfunction, boredom and banality of life in these communities are an easy target and almost a clichéd genre. Yet when done correctly they can continue to make us fear the disengagement that becomes more prevalent with each passing year and new technology.

The brilliant original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” had average small town folks transforming into unfeeling zombies right there in fifties perfect ‘Santa Mira’. “The Graduate” perfectly anticipated the youth movement of the sixties that rejected the homogenous suburban ‘successes’ of the postwar generation. (“I Love you, Alice B Tolklas!” then took it to the stoned extreme) By the seventies films like “The Stepford Wives”,“Over the Edge” (Matt Dillon’s film debut) and “Halloween” continued to warn that safety was just an illusion at the heart of the suburban myth. The conservative eighties delivered their punches with gently rebellious films such as “Ordinary People”, "A Nightmare on Elm Street", "Blue Velvet", “Desperately Seeking Susan”, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", "The Burbs, "Heathers" and even “The Breakfast Club”. The nineties exploded with further examinations including: "Clerks", “Safe”, “Dazed and Confused”,” Welcome to the Dollhouse”, “Suburbia”, “Pleasantville” and Mendes' own “American Beauty”. The past decade has continued the trend with: “Donnie Darko”, “Ghost World”, "Little Children", ‘Little Miss Sunshine” and "Towelhead" among others.

So flashback to the postwar fifties and first-time novelist Richard Yates who cast his nervous eye on the emerging lifestyle as he saw it unfolding when he wrote “Revolutionary Road” first published in 1961. The title itself spoke as a warning since there was nothing revolutionary about suburban life; in fact it seemed to be the very death of the adventurous life and individualism that America was famous for. So although we’ve all seen many of the films I’ve noted, not to mention a slew of Lifetime movies set in these quiet neighborhoods, “Revolutionary Road” still feels as fresh and pertinent as when it was first written since it was still original and of its’ time.In fact the conformity of the fifties looks even more stifling as we look back on it a half century later.

As I’ve said so many films do present this setting as a cliché, so I was half expecting not to like this film which I thought might be a bunch of overwrought Oscar- bait. Happily I was wrong. Being a real work of literature rather than a 50’s soap opera script, “Revolutionary Road” was a novel aspiring to deeper truths. Sam Mendes and his whole creative team have taken this to heart by delivering a film not really about the suburbs but about relationships and the compromises they create. We first meet the Wheelers as they meet at a party in Greenwich Village where fifties hipsters are seen toking weed. Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) seems to be buying into the Bohemian vibe by stating that he could care less about his job. April (Kate Winslet) is an aspiring actress and they immediately are attracted to each other. When we see them next she is in a shoddy community theater production of “Petrified Forest” and their argument in the car on the way home has her dreams dying before we have reached the opening credits. By the time they move to their suburban home on Revolutionary Road, in a Connecticut suburb of New York City, they have two children and Frank is working in the marketing department of a business machine company in the city, the same firm his father worked at. Their ideal dreams of their youth have not yet been packed away but they truly are both becoming just another suburban couple and they are neither happy nor communicating well.

As is obvious by now, I really identify with this genre being a suburban boy myself. My first job had me commuting into New York City (via Port Authority rather than Grand Central station as Frank does) and seeing those fifties businessmen in their matching suits and fedoras walking the walk stirred a feeling in me much like when we nod our head in recognition of George Romero’s zombies. No one wants to be predictable or conformist, but family life does mean making this sacrifice. Or does it? That is the main point of this film and it is wonderfully played.

Leo and Kate act their asses off and her Oscar for this was well earned. The supporting cast is also great; David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn are sympathetic and not caricatures as their less than supportive, bland suburban friends; Kathy Bates brings life to the role of Mrs. Givings, (how great is that name?) the annoying nosey neighbor, plus a great turn by Michael Shannon as her disturbed son who has had the strong impulse control of the place fried out of him by shock therapy treatment and therefore acts as the chorus of the Wheeler’s conscience. Sam Mendes nicely captures the claustrophobia and emotion of the piece and seeing April framed behind a picture window like a caged bird is tragic. I feel this should have beaten out ‘Slumdog’ for best film but perhaps we are still not ready to look inside our nice houses (or our souls) just quite yet. Turning a deaf ear is easier, much like how Mrs. Givings husband quietly turns off his hearing aid during her conformist rants.

January Release Doldrums: Reaching back again to 2007

With the weather so bad it’s the perfect time to catch a flick at home, but the releases this month just bite. As the Golden Globes and Oscars happily cherry-pick quality theatrical releases from the past year, the new DVDs are lame. Bad Horror flicks, grade-D college humor and the low-budget sci-fi make you wonder if all is lost in this great new year. I will try to help because public service is what I’m all about. Here are 30 more four shaker suggestions from the past year - one for each gray day since New Year's day. So pop that corn and salt it baby! Oh yeah!

1. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
2. Bill Maher: The Decider
3. Cloverfield
4. The Counterfeiters
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6. The Edge of Heaven
7. Encounters at the End of the World
8. Grace Is Gone
9. Hot Fuzz
10. I Am Legend
11. In Bruges (2008)
12. Iron Man (2008)
13. I Think I Love My Wife
14. In the Shadow of the Moon
15. John Adams (Series) (2008)
16. Knocked Up
17. Letters from Iwo Jima
18. Liberty Kid
19. The Lookout
20. Michael Clayton
21. Mr. Untouchable
22. The Orphanage
23. Paranoid Park
24. Sicko
25. Superbad
26. Taxi to the Dark Side
27. There Will Be Blood
28. The Wackness (2008)
29. The Wave (2008)
30. Young @ Heart

Four shaker roundup: The best DVDs of the year

I have no affiliation with SAG or any other organization for that matter, but much luck to Jessi as she frantically screens; I look forward to more verdicts.

Since it’s that time of year, I’ve rounded up my top 20. Of course a majority of these DVDs were released theatrically in 2007 (unless noted as a 2008 release); Like Jessi, I may have slipped a few theatrical releases in there -so sue us bitches!

You know, I saw a higher number of films this year than normal but it always amazes me how it seems constant that 75% of films made are just average or below, no matter how selective you are. Hopefully this list will help you weed out some bad ones:

1. American Gangster - Russell Crow and Denzel Washington have a lot of fun in a good old fashioned gangster flick.

2. The Dark Knight (2008) - I know Jessi heartily disagrees and it has its' bloated moments- but this was the best comic book film of the year, helped by the late Heath Ledger’s eerie Joker.

3. Eastern Promises - A knife fight in a sauna? Cool! Viggo Mortensen totally nails the Eastern European character in this great little mob film.

4. Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale - Ricky Gervais who gave us the original, succinct and far superior “The Office”, does it again by finishing his second series with a comic swipe at celebrity culture.

5. Frozen River (2008) - I second Jessi's opinion. Atmospheric and real, this look at poverty, human trafficking and cultural divide is an unbelievable indie with Melissa Leo really shining in the lead.

6. Kabluey - Previously reviewed on this blog. The funniest blue man since David Cross on "Arrested Development".

7. The King of Kong - Who knew a documentary on Donkey Kong competitors would be so compelling? The villain in this is unintentionally hilarious!

8. The Lives of Others – Humanity trumps conservative and oppressive bureaucracy in this timely German film on government vs. privacy.

9. No Country for Old Men - The sound design alone makes you want to see this film again. True the ending is unexpected and bizarre, but this film is a classic.

10. No End in Sight - This year gave us many fine documentaries on the Iraqi war, but this one is just a simple, straightforward presentation of facts as many high-level insiders openly condemn the action.

11. Persepolis - A rebellious Iranian girl comes of age in the political turmoil following the fall of the Shah. Amazing with original animation.

12. Ratatouille - The second of three animated films I’ve selected, is a great family film about a foodie vermin finding his inner chef. Brad Bird is a great storyteller.

13. The Savages – Previously reviewed on this blog. Yay dysfunction!

14. Starting Out in the Evening - Frank Langella rules as an old school intellect and author who’s become a recluse. Sort of a “Lost in Translation” for the literati.

15. Step Brothers (2008) - Will Ferrell’s best film to date and the best comedy of the year. John C. Reilly and he are man-boys who sleepwalk, fight and improvise the absurd fantastic!

16. Up the Yangtze. - Young employees on a tourist excursion boat face uncertain futures in a changing China. A unique documentary of the disruptive Three Gorges dam project as seen through their eyes.

17. The Visitor - Richard Jenkins who was the comic father in “Step Brothers”, shows his dramatic range playing a widowed, unpopular professor dealing with a crowded apartment and an empty life.

18. Waitress - Sweet as pie! A small film of dreams and the compromises of life. The tragic murder of the director and co-star Adrienne Shelly make it even more poignant.

19. WALL-E (2008) - A strange film since it is a Disney animation that would no doubt bore and depress children. If you believe in dystopia clap your hands!

20. Zodiac - I love true-life crime thrillers and this one just rocks! I am psyched that there will be a deluxe edition coming out. Plus it inspired Dirty Harry Callahan. See it punk!

(Oh- I didn't award any '5 shakers' except for "No Country.." this year and even that one's 'shakey')

"Outsourced" - Falling in Love with third world labor

I agree with Jessi and think this is a fun, laidback and quirky flick, however I withhold a 5th salt shaker and think that “Local Hero” was both similar and superior. Co-Writer/Director John Jeffcoat has great fun both with the clash of cultures and the fish out of water aspects of our lead character and the economic setup is timely and on target. This may, God forbid, be the first of a subgenre as the US continues to ship its jobs overseas for cheaper labor.

In "Outsourced" the cinematography is colorful and soundtrack has some great Indian music on it. My problem was that I thought the romantic angle suffered since it seemed a little too contrived and there was a lack of sexual chemistry between the leads. In fact our main character Todd (Josh Hamilton) goes from angry American to super manager to enamored lover without much change in his vacant expressions. This is a romcom man, step it up! The Indian workers also seemed a little bit too much like the comedic yet lovable African American servants as depicted in ‘Gone with the Wind’ and other older American films. Later as a xenophobic American caller leans that his product is now cheaper since it’s not made in the US, he seems pleased. So the politics of this flick are a little skewed to keep it breezy. Layoffs of call center workers occur without any negativity (most of them not even happening on camera), as social commentary takes a back seat to the humor of culture clash and romance. (“Is this wrong?” we all collectively ask)

To the filmakers credit, however, it points out the quandary we Americans face as we continue to buy cheaper products made in sweatshops in China. The bottom line is that politics aside; it’s a fun film with a lot of charm and wonderful sights and sounds while tiptoeing around very thorny issues. I also really identified with the mad quest for a real cheeseburger; a very funny scene. The US managers reminded me of the British military officers in films like “Lawrence of Arabia” as they move personnel like chess pieces while ignoring the fact that their empire is coming to an end. Asif Basra, as this films’ Gunga Din (wannabe manager instead of soldier) turns in a great performance.

Coincidentally, (and speaking of cheeseburgers) I saw another good film recently with an Indian flavor. “The Namesake” features Kal Penn (who played Kumar in the “Harold and Kumar” films) playing it straight as a self-centered yuppie who, like a lot of us, doesn’t really appreciate his heritage or the sacrifices of his parents. This film transcends the culture to tell a universal story and is very understated and touching. Irrfan Khan as the father is a standout as a decent man who defies movie stereotypes. It’s a bit rambling but still a heartfelt journey. Four Curry shakers again.

I feel like tandoori chicken now dammit!

(Disclosure: Tim has worked in call centers and had really high sales and short talk times)

“Kabluey” - An icon of anxious times

A dimwitted underachiever trapped in an absurd work assignment is sent out to humiliate himself for a business that never lived up to its potential. A military wife is trapped without benefits as her husbands’ duty in Iraq is extended yet again. A grocery store cashier takes Polaroids of suspected child kidnappers while an old man loves his thermos and a local Don Juan beds everyone possible. All these folks inhabit “Kabluey” a great little film where all the characters seem trapped and desperate. The desolate roads, unfinished office buildings, second rate grocery stores, seedy motels and soulless Mcmansions are perfectly captured as a setting for our main character, a hangdog shell shocked Salman (writer/director Scott Prendergast) who spends much of this flick in a giant blue padded suit with an oversized orb head. He is simply trying to pass out flyers to rent out the unused office space in a near abandoned corporate headquarters, dressed as its' generic brand icon.

A first rate cast and well tuned offbeat tone show just how an indie can get it right where so many have gone wrong. Sure ‘Kanbluey’ has its faults but how can you resist a film where a small child evilly vows to kill our hero and then actually attempts it. Terri Garr makes a hilarious extended cameo as an insane courier and Lisa Kudrow as the lonely wife does a good job with a tough role. Most importantly the utter anxiety and absurdity of our times seems to be captured from the war to the economy and the loneliness of trying to survive while doing what’s right. Our heroes are not brand cartoon characters - just ordinary folks finding their inner good. Prendergrast seems to have channeled Chaplin (or Buster Keaton) for these modern times.

"Surfwise" (2007): An Experiment in Family Living

Once again, I agree with Tim's brilliant observations on this film. I saw it recently and can’t get it out of my head. More accurately, I can’t quite get my head around IT. Then I remembered the Ancestral Pueblo people of Bandelier National Monument.

If you’ve never been, Bandelier National Monument is home to the cliff dwellings and city foundation remnants of this 10,000 year old civilization. In walking the trails, you can see the foundations of housing “developments” created by this industrious people. What struck me, at the time, was the small size of the living areas. Sharing would be an understatement in these times, when communities had to work closely together in order to survive.

10,000 years later, Dorian (“Doc”) Paskowitz has lived his life as a fascinating social experiment, not unlike the Ancestral Pueblo people. A brilliant doctor with a passion and talent for surfing, he lived with his wife and nine children (yes, nine) in a small (yes, small) RV and traveled from place to place around the southern US. While the Ancestral Pueblo people searched for water to drink, the Paskowitz family searched for water on which to surf.

Much like the ancient Ancestral Pueblo people, Doc Paskowtiz created an almost absurdly close (by today’s standards) family that did most everything together. As Westerners, it’s hard to imagine growing up without a television, a school, or any space to call your own. And how would you react to living in such tight quarters that you were in the same room as your parents while they had sex? These are the cringe-worthy moments in “Surfwise” when you get a knot of sorrow for the Paskowitz kids. But then again, though their formative years were not typical according to Western society standards, you can appreciate how natural and healthy they were. Yet, the children tell some stories of near abuse at the hands of their dictator-type father. More cringing.

One of the strongest messages to come from watching the story of Doc Paskowitz is his relentless commitment to health. An exercise fanatic who abhorred sugar, he dictated the absolute necessity of physical exercise, the power of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and “a little meat,” and the natural joy of sexual expression. It’s hard not to hear his words and feel anything other than admiration (though you can eliminate the meat, in my case).

Today, the children are all successful adults. I was amazed to discover that two of the Paskowitz boys were members of one of my very favorite (though short-lived) 90s bands, The Flys.

This documentary is so well done, it’s hard to have an opinion about anything other than it’s subject matter. From a purely technical, filmmaking perspective, it certainly rates a whole lotta salt. On another level, if this film doesn’t get you off your butt and into an exercise routine, nothing will.

"Surfwise" - When Life really is a Beach

What the hell do you know about surfing?

You're from god damned New Jersey. - Lieutenant Kilgore, Apocalypse Now

A crazed megalomaniac who curses himself for not stopping an execution which occurred when he was at the “height of my powers”; A man who wanted to breed his own master race using his strong will and strict diet and discipline along with an appointed lieutenant who acted as enforcer; A man who used these young warriors to forge a separate society, outside the trappings of the opulent capitalist one which he despised. Adolph Hitler? No- a devout yet potty-mouthed Jewish doctor turned surfer named Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz.

Leaving all the trappings of an ordinary life, ‘Doc’ and his wife raise nine children in a 24 foot camper, instead of sending them to school –they take them on series of surf adventures cross-country. How could a documentary about such a bizarre Jewish doctor who becomes surf Nazi mean anything to anyone? Because unlike so many loud meaningless films coming out these days, “Surfwise” actually questions the meaning of life and the direction of our society but in a way that is not preachy. Director Doug Pray carefully paddles us through various moods and emotions. As the children age and try to actually enter society we feel their frustrations. (With one strange scene featuring a son emotionally lip synching his own song about it) The end result is entertaining, smartly filmed and edited with a great soundtrack to boot. Life’s a wave, but how many swim out and try to grab it? Is that one surf metaphor too many dudes?

08.08 “The Savages” (2008) : A Grindie* Familial Encounter with Dementia

I have to agree with Tim’s take on “The Savages.” This is no graceful swan dive into Alzheimer’s, as in “Away From Her.” Instead, things are a grisly mess, as “Jon Savage” (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and “Wendy Savage” (Laura Linney) find themselves suddenly dealing with their estranged and now dementia-addled father. Philip Bosco (“Lenny Savage”) brings us every drop of bitterness and remorse, between increasingly rare lucid moments. Against the messy, noisy backdrop of their father’s demise, it’s the relationship between brother and sister that captured my heart the most.

What is it about Philip Seymour Hoffman? Why is everything I’ve ever seen him do so completely, magically, painfully, wonderfully true? Maybe, in that old fashioned, simplistic way of looking at what makes an actor great, because there is no Philip Seymour Hoffman evident in his work...only his characters. Each one as real as you and I. Seeing Laura Linney in yet another heavy drama makes me long for the days of her brilliant innocence in "Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City." Of course she’s very talented, but when the name preceeds the character...perhaps a change of some sort is due? Er....maybe I’ll just go rent “The Nanny Diaries.”
*gritty+indie=grindie