Of Gods and Men

Deb 4 Me 4

Another monastery movie… This came highly recommended and I just can’t get enough of monks on screen. It’s a great title, anything that begins with Of is automatically interesting. This is a docudrama of events that took place in Algeria in the 1990s. It is in French and subtitled in English; I’m always amazed how similar the two languages are. I actually knew nothing about the movie; but it was rated PG so I figured I couldn’t go wrong (wrong).

Again my problem isn’t so much with the movie as the rating system. How many murder mutilations are kids invited to see before a movie is rated R? I really didn’t expect to see any and I found my eyes being diverted not only from the certain scenes, but actually avoiding reading the subtitles when describing atrocities that happen off screen. Whatta wuss.

The movie was really hard for me to rate. Parts were brilliant, sucking me in and keeping me there until another scene, which sent me off to distraction. There was a huge transition from pastoral to grinding tension, which was done quite well. Eventually the tension took over, on purpose, and you just follow along like a puppy.

If an average movie is 5, I guess I liked it a bit less. I do not recommend you see it.

Bill Cunningham New York

Deb 10 Me 10

We see a lot of movies at South Coast Village in Santa Ana. Frequently the owner of the theater comes out before the movie and welcomes you, offers some trivia and introduces the film. Very cool. He tells us that this film is playing in New York where the lines to get in are around the block. He’s surprised there are only a few of us were here to see Bill Cunningham New York on opening night.

I’d never heard of Bill Cunningham. Bill is an odd, sort of eccentric old guy who has been doing what he loves since the 1940s. Today he is still going strong and shows no signs of slowing down.

Early in his life he was captivated by fashion and began documenting fashion in the streets. Stuff people wear. Weird stuff that people wear. Funny stuff, strange, new or unusual stuff. He takes really good snapshots of everyday people whose attire is a step above the rest, and these are assembled into a popular weekly feature in the New York Times.

Late in life we find the real fashion people, the runway folks, they love his work too. He is an embraceable character who does his work with dignity, humor and extreme dedication, a real throwback to a time of personal integrity. He’s pretty boss.

This is a straightforward documentary and the subject is fully aware that he is the subject, allowing for some neat little interactions. It is well done; sound, lighting, camera placement and creative editing make for a delightful movie. I can’t say enough good things about this little gem.

I Am

Deb 10 Me 10

Here’s a cool little movie whose topic has been in recent conversations around the house. It’s a film by Tom Shadyak, a guy famous for making movies I’d never see like the Nutty Professor and Bruce Almighty. He’s obviously good at what he does, it’s just something outside my range of interest. The film opens with a brief look at his career and the reason for deviating from his accepted genre and making this movie. He poses the question “What’s wrong with the world today and how do we fix it?” to a pretty distinguished panel including Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky and various writers and scientists.

Eventually the question finds a deeper root and the topic sort of shifts to the many ways we are connected to everything around us.

This is when it gets familiar and fun for me. The idea of everything being connected in deep but unseen ways is not new, but I find that people who take acid and alchemists seem to have the most conviction in its apparent truth. I didn’t know most of the experts in the film, but they were clearly identified and their credits given. And I’m not sure about some of the science they quoted, but it didn’t matter since I already agreed with their conclusions and didn’t need to have it clouded with facts.

I thought it was a pretty happening flick, the product of having a bijillion dollars so you can have guys like Tutu spout their smiling opinions and I’ll watch it again, might even get a (heaven forbid) DVD of it.

True Grit

Deb 7 Me 4

Here’s another piece of garbage. Maybe that’s a little harsh. The stars did a fine job, the beginning was more reminiscent of The Sting than True Grit, and that’s not all bad; at least it was a remake of something. I'll tell you what pissed me off, and its really not the fault of the movie, but it was rated PG. They hang people, shoot people, some point-blank after torturing and dismembering them, some from a distance. The King's Speech got rated R because they use the "F" word. What are we telling young people? I have a very low tolerance for this industry, probably the main reason I try to patronize films made outside the system. This is just pornography.

The Company Men

Deb 6 Me 2

So I went to see a mainstream movie. Good looking cast doing their job well in a predicable excuse for a story. Two hours I'll never get back.

Blue Valentine

Deb 9 Me 3 (+)

This is all my fault. I read the synopsis and it said skin, language, blah blah blah and a beating. So I love the skin part and hate the beating part. But I’m thinking a little skin might override the beating so I reluctantly go see the movie. The first twenty minutes or so I’m ready to leave. From the first scene I’m thinking is this person gonna get beat up, that person, will they be the beater or the beaten? I’m totally fixating on the pending pounding that someone is going to get or give and I’m not really watching the movie, just anticipating the thrashing. So the stuff that’s going on may or may not have been worth watching, I don’t know, I’m just waiting for the beating. Eventually there is a pugilistic exercise, but I’m thinking, “that’s pretty light, there must be a beating coming up soon”. So the rest of the film I’m still distracted thinking the real beating is yet to come. So I never really saw the movie. Sitting right there for 114 minutes and didn’t see much of anything. There was skin, but I gotta tell you, I’ve seldom seen such joyless skin in a movie.

I have a feeling this was a pretty good movie, not a light-hearted romp through these people’s relationship, but probably heartfelt. I’m not sure why they felt they had to have a beating in the movie. It wasn’t a huge plot point and didn’t really offer any more insight to the player’s motivations. I’m glad the synopsis mentioned there was a beating, it’s my fault that I couldn’t look past that one element and see the rest of the movie. So I think it sucked, but it probably didn’t.

Somewhere

Deb 2 Me 6

Okay, let’s look at Sophia’s track record. The Virgin Suicides was pretty good. I went to see Lost in Translation but ended up in the first row so the film got lost in the pixilation and I really didn’t see a thing. But Bill Murray was in it so I’ll say it was good. Then came the Marie Antionette film; the most boring coffee table book of a movie I have ever seen. So this one comes along and I figure it’s a shot at redemption… not sure she hit the target here.

The key to the movie was subtle. The main guy drives a Ferrari 360 with paddle shift. The paddle shift transmission is a very aggressive high-performance feature that most everyone sees as one of the car’s main virtues. It also has an automatic mode, for passively cruising around town. This guy drives the entire movie in the automatic mode. And that is an effective allegory for the entire movie.

She uses the old Jim Jarmusch technique of letting a scene play out for longer than what feels natural and it works well in the scenes with the Ferrari, but nowhere else. Where Jarmusch used this tool effectively, she only made film longer. As it is, it’s only a tick over an hour and a half, could easily fit in a half hour TV slot.

But one of the themes was drudgery, the inert time between glamorous assignments, and the viewer felt the boredom. It was driven home, not in a Ferrari, but in scene after scene of wealthy good looking people being drug from one place to another, then vacantly waiting for the next thing to happen to the star. Nice looking people who are about as deep as a birdbath with little shot at redemption. I kinda liked it.