"France has given us two of the most charmingly original films of the year so far, both of them fond, modernist interpretations of the musical genre. First was Christophe Honore’s tale of young love in the city, Love Songs, and now Serge Bozon’s WWI battlefield fable, La France."
"If Basic Training documented an overly confident army (as characterized by one officer’s declaration, 'The United States Army has never lost a war,'), then Manoeuvre is documenting the aftermath of such brashness. Under Wiseman’s characteristic impartial direction, uncertainty and insecurity mar the illusion of an institution that typically presents itself as invulnerable, thus offering an unusually nuanced portrait of an institution all too often stereotyped as one-dimensional."
"A murderous attack on bourgeois conventionality, Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux represents the apex of the artist’s subversive humor. Chaplin’s films have always been anti-establishment, favoring marginal characters cast aside by society and left to fend for themselves."
"Even without the presence of a subjective voice-over narration, it’s difficult not to read the repeated shots of hand-to-hand combat with stuffed dummies in light of the ultimate goal of training: to fight in Vietnam. Wiseman’s insight isn’t at all an irony, but rather an incongruity between the controlled circumstances during training and the actual circumstances in which they will have to utilize their lessons."
Just posted a new song called "Than Burning" on MySpace from my upcoming EP, "Gets Hiccupy." The artwork (featured here) is by Mat Hinkel of Mat Design. I think he did a pretty awesome job. Check out his page and give him some applause! Anyway, check out the song, leave some comments, let me know if you want a copy of the album.
"Little Fugitive delicately blends documentary realism and candid-camera style photography with a sparse, unobtrusive narrative, the combination of which recalls equally the light touch of early cinema actualities and 1940s Italian Neorealism. Engel’s background with the Photo League, as well as Orkin’s newsreel training during WWII, give the film’s portrait of New York City, and particularly Coney Island, a staggering, nostalgia-inducing authenticity."
"The lovingly sullen atmosphere of the film never falls into misanthropy, partially because Plympton (and his audiences) find too much joy in laughing at the characters’ ornery behavior and the bizarre way the situations resolve themselves. The detour may be long and nightmarish, but at the end of Plympton’s journey there is redemption and hope, however—as Penelope Huston said of the endings of Preston Sturges’ films—always with a Cheshire cat’s grin."
As if to emphasize Sita’s relevancy for modern viewers, Paley interweaves into the narrative a contemporary story of a young woman whose boyfriend moves to India for work (just as Rama left to go hunting). Only instead of waiting behind, this woman packs her bags and moves to India of her own will. The ensuing domestic discontent becomes a counter-point to the original story, and offers a potential answer to the question of, “What does an ancient story like Sita’s have to do with today’s world?” Paley’s charming response confirms that the past can have quite a bit to say about the present.
The real highlight of Katyn is Krzysztof Penderecki’s magnificent score...which often works its discordant melodies just beneath the surface of the film, subtly affecting the mood and quietly amplifying the overall sense of horror. For all its embracing of dissonance, there is something unexpectedly reticent and shy about Penderecki’s score, which makes it all the more commendable and effective.
'The Caller thinks that by virtue of leaving certain plot elements and character motivations unexplained that it will become “mysterious." Instead, the film becomes a lame exercise in sub-par genre clichés, devoid of any sense of intrigue or suspense in either its story or characters.'
"A President to Remember seems to be the type of documentary that Primary was providing an antidote for. This new film is comprised largely of Kennedy’s telecast speeches, as well as footage from Drew’s four previous Kennedy films, strung together with narration from Alec Baldwin that negates any of the controversies and contentions about Kennedy’s presidency, reducing him to almost picture-book simplicity."
'Maddin’s narration (performed by Darcy Fehr, who previously performed as “Guy Maddin” in Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee) carries echoes of David Goodis’ noir lamentations, and while he speaks cynically about his hometown and its citizens, referring to them as “sleepwalkers,” he never forgets how closely linked to them he is (reinforced by the constant reminder to “stay awake” less he forget to get off the train and wake up back home in Winnipeg).'
On the way to her engagement party, a woman is dumped by her fiancé at a gas station. A mysterious man (who may or may not be either a serial killer or a bestseller’s ghostwriter) offers her a ride back to her parents’ house, and she asks him to pretend to be her fiancé for one night. Roman de Gare is undeniably cunning with a deft mix of mystery and romance (a Lelouch specialty), though the ending is ultimately more clever than satisfying.
"Toby Dammit appears in a new 35mm print whose restoration was overseen by its cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno. With its wide palette of vibrant hues that enhance the film’s delirious and seemingly never-ending tracking shots of leering faces and popping flashbulbs, the film has now been restored to its original hallucinatory glory."
"While at first the film’s amateur DV photography and iMovie-ish editing effects seem charmingly crude, there’s an extraordinary and admirable punk rock quality to them, as though van Peebles were giving the middle finger to every existing standard editing procedure. The editing is crucial to the film’s overarching iconoclasm and DIY-extreme aesthetic, and its technical limitations only seem to instigate even more innovations (the inserting of children sledding and a crowded-beach-shot-ala-Weegee into a sex montage is both breathtaking and scene-stealing)."
"What’s shocking about the conclusion of Captain Fracasse is its unbridled sobriety: coming after a fanciful series of swordfights in which no one actually dies, the stark reality of a single death is chilling...So much of Captain Fracasse can be written off as a fairy tale, which is why this execution scene is so powerful, because it is a moment when the fantastic façade of the fiction falls away to reveal a gritty reality: that actions have consequences, and while the rich are allowed to live a fairy tale existence, those less privileged do not always retain the authorship of their own destinies..."
'And in I Was Born, But…, the highlight of the set (and for my money, a masterpiece to surpass Tokyo Story), two young brothers, while trying to gain the respect of the neighborhood gang, struggle to understand why their father isn’t “important” in the grand scheme of things. The profound simplicity of the children’s disobedience (“Just because he spanked me doesn’t make him important”) and parents’ concern (“Will they lead the same sorry lives we have?”) are characteristic of Ozu’s sensibility, a universal blend of quotidian comedy and transcendental tragedy.'
The utter lack of character insight and depth could be interpreted as a weakness, but at the same time Street King’s bulldozer-like approach keeps it moving at a swift pace, something lacking in so many recent films. Its “surface-only” aesthetic also seems completely deliberate on the part of writer James Ellroy, whose career is steeped equally in contemporary cop lore and the urban mythology of post-WWII Hollywood (L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia). Essentially, the film feels like a pulpy late-40s noir made on the cheap...
