Favorites From 2011

It seems like every New Year's I find myself reflecting on the more grueling aspects of the past twelve months and looking forward with a cautious hope that the next twelve will take a sharp upturn.  This proves more about my disposition than the events of the average year, but even in the midst of everything as it was happening I was aware that by and large, 2011 has been a particularly crappy year for me and most of the people I know.  There have been some good things, of course, and my classes and education have been a large part of that.  Even as much as I will be more than happy to see the end of this particular year, there's a part of me that remembers all the past years I've said the same thing (including the end of 2010) only to have the following year be worse than the previous one in pretty monumental ways.  Still, nothing lasts forever, including the disappointments, embarrassments, failures and personal tragedies, so one of these years my oath to have a better year will finally come to fruition.  That's the thing about this holiday; it's all about optimism and hoping that the big wheel you're on will swing around again and give you a break from the mire you've been working so hard to slog through.  So here's hoping that 2012 turns out to be a little kinder than its predecessor was.  Or if nothing else, that it'll still give us some great moments in the midst of it all.

In the meantime, I'd like to close out this year remembering my favorite movies and shows from the past go around the sun.  Not necessarily the best or most innovative things, just my favorites, for whatever reason.

Rambling Post On Film Criticism

Hello out there in internetland, sorry it's been so long. I'm currently in finals week of my last quarter of college (for now), and it's been one nutty ride this year. I have not, as you may have noticed, gotten to the many blog posts I have promised so far, but seeing as how I'll have a lot of free time on my hands soon, I'll probably get to them... eventually.

For the time being, however, I have added massive quantities of links to the right side of this page, which should help fill your time until I can muster the brainpower to write a coherent article.

I also want to comment on something that seems to be a topic of interest amongst certain circles at the moment, and that is the nature and public perception of film criticism. Some very smart people have written some very interesting things in the past several days and I thought I'd pass some of them along. Feel more than free to offer opinions and comments, I love hearing from people, even if they disagree with me as long as it's civil and in the spirit of debate-- something that gets touched on in some of these.

Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune I think my have started this current debate

Hulk gives his thoughts in a very articulate and intelligent piece

Mark Harrison at Den Of Geek also offers some food for thought

*New* Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott at the New York Times offer a perspective on what they call "slow film" and the subjectiveness of "boring" (Thanks to Hulk for the recommendation.)

There are more out there but these are the three I came across that I found the most thought-provoking. Honestly, I have my own ideas on the topic, and this is something that surfaces now and again as I navigate both the practice of studying film and the social ramifications of being a "movie snob" to people who don't. Let me give you an overview of why I really hate that term, and it isn't just because I hear it in application to myself or to people I happen to agree with, or even to people I may not agree with but whose viewpoint I find interesting. It's because it's a cheap way to invalidate someone else's opinion without having to engage with their actual argument.

Let me tell you a secret that a lot of people don't seem to understand about film: there are very few "right" answers. There seems to be this idea that there's some kernel of absolute "Truth" at the center of anything and that if you whittle it down far enough you'll eventually discover the definitive answer. The problem with this is film is art, and like all art, its meaning and value are totally subjective to the one viewing it. Likewise, are the opinions of those reviewing/critiquing it. For me personally, a good film reviewer is not the person with whom I agree the most often, it's the one who actually thinks about the film and then writes about it in such a way that makes me think about it. There have been numerous films I have watched for a class or on my own that I initially disliked or was confused by, but after reading a thoughtful review or an academic article or even just discussing it with someone else, I learned to appreciate certain aspects of it that I never would have otherwise. They may be things I ultimately disagree with, or they may not be enough to get me to enjoy the film, but I absolutely appreciate having insight into it. That's basically what studying criticism allows you to do: not to arrive at the "right" answer as to whether a movie is objectively good or bad, but to aid in the ability to understand why someone enjoys a film or doesn't.

Another secret: my taste in movies has stayed exactly the same since I started learning about film. There have been a few here and there that I now see in a new light, but by and large, I enjoy the same things I did before and dislike the same things. The only significant change in my discussion of the topic is my ability to articulate why I feel the way I do about a given film. That's it. Well, that and the confidence to actually express my opinion instead of trying to convince myself I like a film when I don't just because I can't figure out why, or I feel obligated to because everyone else likes it. I used to waste a lot of energy trying to justify things in films that I didn't like because I felt I should, for some bizarre reason, and let me tell you, it is such a relief to quit doing that. No, if anything has changed in regards to my movie collection, it's simply the scope. Learning the mechanics of how movies work hasn't "taken the magic out of it," as I hear some people argue, it's actually increased my appreciation for it. The movies I loved before, I enjoy watching even more now than I did when I first saw them because I understand them on a deeper level. I love watching movies. I really love watching good movies, but in all honesty there are so few films out there that I consider worthless; there's usually something I find worthwhile in almost any of them, even if I dislike the end result overall.

But at the end of the day, it's all just opinion. That's all a critic has to offer: the same thing everyone else has, only with better articulated reasons and hopefully some interesting insights. Studying film doesn't teach anyone how to figure out the "right" answer, it helps inform the understanding of why a given person feels the way they do about it. That's it. It doesn't mean you have to agree with it, but hopefully it might make you think a little deeper about why you feel the way you do. Who knows, it might even make you appreciate it more than you might have otherwise, or even interest you in a film you might not have given a chance before. I think one of the greatest things I'm taking away from my film education is the really great movies I've been exposed to that I would never have heard of otherwise. Ultimately, what this blog is doing isn't just providing a platform for my opinions and ideas, but it's a space for me to share these movies with other people.

That Sentimental Feeling

So it's Valentine's Day, a holiday I used to hold in the highest contempt for all the trendy reasons-- 'I don't need a special day to remind me about love', 'it's just a commercialized holiday designed to get people to spend money they don't need to', 'conventional romance is stupid and I'm so much better than that', yadda yadda. While I don't really celebrate it, I have gotten over my contempt for it and don't see anything wrong with people wanting to appreciate their significant others any day they choose. (And really, it's not like it's hard to find commercialized holidays of any sort these days, not just this one.)

However, having said all that, I do still hold most romantic comedies in pretty high disdain. Not because I think it makes me cool or smart, but because I find them to be insulting to my intelligence (and often even my gender) and I simply don't enjoy watching them. I especially hate the version of "romance" they present as anything even remotely approaching healthy or charming, and would run screaming in terror from most of the lead characters should I ever manage to meet one in reality. These people are not healthy, and I resent the idea that I'm supposed to root for them to get together with the other screwed up person and make sociopathic babies. Very often this gets me branded as a non-romantic, and if the examples in movies like How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days or The Proposal are considered real romance, then that's fine with me. But that's not to say that I've never enjoyed an onscreen couple, there are many that I find charming for a number of reasons. So if anyone's looking for something maybe a little off the beaten track to snuggle up with their special someone with, you might give one of these a glance.

Stranger Than Fiction
This charming, genre-defying movie is one that works on just about every level for me, from the tone to the performances, to the quirky plot and its trust in the audience to get the jokes without flashing neon signs. One of my favorite aspects of it is the relationship between mildly OCD IRS agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrel in a surprisingly restrained and nuanced performance) and Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the sleeve-tattooed "anarchist" baker whom he's auditing. On paper they might be your standard romantic couple trope of the people who start out hating each other but then inexplicably fall in love, but on screen, something much more interesting happens. They're charming people. Ana is understandably upset with Harold when he shows up to audit her and makes no effort to hide her anger, and Harold promptly sticks his foot very far down his mouth, and then stares at her breasts in the process. Instead of being played for big laughs, it's a humiliating awkward scene that feels more true than if it were trying to be funny. I have to say that I love the casting choices, too-- neither Ferrell nor Gyllenhaal are what would be considered conventionally attractive on the scale that most romantic comedy stars are, and that's part of what makes them so endearing. In her first appearance, Anna is less than ingratiating since she's yelling at Harold, and yet you can tell he's completely taken with her anyway. If this were Kate Hudson, not only would she be less intimidating but Harold's attraction would feel more shallow and superficial. Gyllenhaal not only isn't afraid to be abrasive, sardonic, and even unpleasant at times, she still manages to be likable, understandable, and very much a person who knows who she is and what she wants and who isn't required to change that for the movie to work. She and Harold don't spend the whole movie hating each other, or trying to trick the other one into dating them, or avoiding their feelings, and it's really refreshing to watch their relationship take its natural course.

A tip: Mix up some chocolate chip cookie dough and keep it in the fridge until after the movie. You will want a warm, gooey cookie straight from the oven like crazy by the end of this.

3-Iron (Bin Jip)
This movie took me really off-guard the first time I saw it. Based on the title, I was expecting some sort of golf movie, and while the sport does play a part in the film, it's not at all what I was expecting. The story is about a young man who breaks into people's houses while they're away, but instead of stealing their things, he repairs broken appliances and does their laundry in exchange for eating their food and using their homes. There's not explanation as to why he does this, he's a college graduate who rides a nice motorcycle and seems by all other accounts to be pretty normal. One day he breaks into a really upscale place, not knowing that the wife of the man who owns it is still inside. Clearly abused and battered, she watches him go about his normal routine of doing laundry, cooking, and repairing her bathroom scale, and never calls the cops or tries to escape. When her husband comes home, they fight again and she leaves with the younger man to accompany him on his routine of living in other people's homes while they're away. What follows is probably one of the sweetest, most tender and mutually respectful relationships I've ever seen on screen. It's all done without a word exchanged between the two, leaving one wondering how necessary words really are in understanding who someone is. For anyone not familiar with Buddhism, it might be a bit confusing at the end, but the whole movie is basically a Buddhist parable. It's a gentle, loving look at how people are capable of relating to each other in ways we don't often consider, and a reminder of how our actions influence the lives of those around us. "Haunting" is probably the best word I've heard to describe it.

When Harry Met Sally
I saw Norah Ephron in an interview once stating that she thought the ending to this movie (which she wrote, in case you didn't know) was unrealistic, and I'd agree, but there's something that's still so much fun about watching these two idiosyncratic people go through different phases of their lives, become friends, and eventually lovers. He's neurotic, cynical, and reads the endings of books before everything else in case he dies before finishing the book, whereas she is optimistic, confident, and likes to order food in very specific, exacting terms. They're both flawed and quirky but not unpleasant and you don't feel guilty rooting for them to them to get over themselves enough to get together. Even though it was made in the late 1980s it still holds up and I found it to be a genuinely entertaining movie when I watched it with my mom a few months back.

Amelie
Movies don't get much quirkier than this, or more evocative of the little pleasures in life that we often don't notice, like the feeling of sticking your hand in a basket of dried beans, or eating fresh raspberries off your fingers. The title character is odd, to say the least, and she lives a somewhat reclusive life in her little Paris apartment. There is a romance of sorts with a man she sees in the train station one day, but really, this movie is more of a romance with life and its oddities, tiny pleasures, and unnoticed opportunities.

The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret)
Not a romance as much as a sweet moment between two people who cannot be together due to life circumstances just as much as who they each are. It doesn't focus on the idea of 'what might have been' or lament the missing of an opportunity, but instead quietly revels in the beauty of the connection that was briefly made. It's a wonderfully sweet movie, full of hope and idealism for two cultures that despise each other so fiercely in reality. It's not a realistic movie in that sense, but it is an optimistic one. Sasson Gabai and Ronit Elkabetz give wonderful performances as two lonely people who happen to share one evening in each other's company, then each go on their way to wherever they were going.

Chungking Express
The first time I saw this, I described it as the Chinese version of Amelie, and there are some similarities, but really, they are their own unique movies. This one actually has two stories, both involving lovelorn policemen meeting someone new. The first cop meets a woman who, unbeknownst to him, happens to be involved in a drug smuggling syndicate and is on the run after a job goes bad. The second cop just got dumped by a flight attendant and catches the attention of a young woman working at the fast food place he frequents. This is the story that's Amelie-esque (even though this movie came out before Amelie), in that this young woman takes it upon herself to interfere with the cop's life in unusual ways, doing little things to break him out of his routine and help him move on from his past relationship. It's also really interesting in how it plays with time and makes you aware of the timing of things, and how sometimes when a moment passes us by, it's not always a bad thing or a good thing. Sometimes things just are what they are and it doesn't mean they have more or less value in life.

Moonstruck
Yeah, yeah, I know, but I can't help it, I love watching this movie. I love the overblown emotion and the goofy characters and the food, food, food, and the sheer operatic nature of it all. It's just fun, and the cynical view of life, death, and love is so funny because they managed to not overdo it. Everyone's theatrical and overblown, but somehow it all works. Cher's classic "snap out of it!" line still kills me every time.

Post-Holiday Post

Well, another year and another decade have come and gone. I thought about trying to come up with some sort of nostalgic look back across one of them before 2010 came, but there were so many other blogs out there that said all I'd have to say and more. I don't have a good grasp of my walk through this decade anyway, it's like trying to remember every move you made in the middle of a drunken, off-the-cuff dance-- you know you were doing things, and maybe a few of them stand out, but in retrospect it was just this chaotic mess that somehow got you to where you are now. The best you can do is look back at it and be amazed at how far you managed to come.

So many people have done great retrospectives (check some of those links at the right hand of the page for a few), that I feel I don't have anything to add to them. So instead, on the first day of the new year, I'm going to look ahead to what I'm looking forward to. I have no idea what's coming down the pipe for me this year, but I do have expectations in a general sense.

1) Things will change. Change is constant and inevitable, and much as I dislike it at times, I don't think it's a good or bad thing in and of itself. It is what it is, and I'm the one who makes meaning out of it. The best way to get through it is not to fight it, but adapt to it.

2) I will be exposed to new ideas. These ideas are likely not new in the general sense so much as they are new to me. Or maybe they will be very old ideas that I've forgotten, or will see in a new way. Some I will like, some I will not. But they're all a valuable part in my learning to grow beyond the state I'm in now.

3) I will look back on the ideas I had and the things I've said now with a slight sense of embarrassment. At least I hope I will. If I've got everything figured out now, I've got some very boring decades ahead of me. I just hope I remember that even then, I won't have it all figured out either, and I hope that I'll have learned to be a little kinder to my younger self than I am now.

4) I will watch a lot of movies. Hopefully I will like some of them. I really hope that I love at least a few of them.

5) I hope that I will continue to meet people who challenge me, who inspire me, and who connect with me in some way. I also hope I can hang on to the people who put up with my quirks, my ego, and my insecurities. I feel like I'm in a very different place than I ever have been in my life, and in some ways it's exhilarating, and in other ways it's lonely.

And so this post has some relevance to the topic of this blog (and I feel less like a sappy blowhard), here are some trailers for movies I'm looking forward to, for various reasons.







The Wolfman







Alice in Wonderland





And just for the sake of perspective, here are trailers for some of my favorite movies from the past year.

















Inglourious Basterds





Up



Where the Wild Things Are





Some of those trailers are better at describing the movie than others, but still. That's a mighty fine lineup for one year.

Inside Each One of Us Is...

First off, I want to say to anyone who plans on seeing this movie to toss out any expectations you might have before doing so. Going to watch this while having ideas about what to expect will not prove fulfilling, and this movie really deserves the chance to be experienced for what it is, not what people think it should be. I can guarantee you that it will probably not be what most people are expecting, but that doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, it's probably one of the best movies I've seen in a while, and certainly one of the most ambitious.

That makes it sound complicated, and on one hand it is, but mostly it's not. It's just made in a way that makes us think in ways we're not used to. This isn't a movie that champions the story, the important parts aren't what's said or what's done, it's what's felt. I really believe this is movie you have to experience emotionally, not intellectually, because it's ultimately about emotions that aren't fully comprehended but are nonetheless present. In some ways, it's difficult to experience because these emotions are present in just about everyone, but they're not always pleasant. It's a movie about childhood and what it's like to be a kid going through life transitions, and every kid has gone through them. Not in the same ways, but the feelings are probably pretty universal, and that's what makes it hard to watch at times.

It's not a feel-good movie the way we expect children's movies to be, it's more honest. I didn't find it depressing the way many people did, nor did I find it cathartic or uplifting. It's difficult to describe my response to it because I'm honestly not sure what I feel aside from respect for everyone involved in making it. It's a challenging movie, but it's not hard to understand when you stop trying to figure it out and just experience it.
The performances are fantastic. The kid playing Max, Max Records, never once seems like he's acting to me. This is a really challenging role for anyone, but particularly a kid because it's all internal. There are no Shakespearean soliloquies about what's going on with him, he doesn't try to explain it to anyone because he himself doesn't know what's going on inside him. But there are things going on, very specific things, that have to be projected for the audience to understand, and he does it phenomenally. The Things, too, are wonderful. The voice actors are all brilliant, especially James Gandolfini as Carol-- he's probably one of the most complex parts of the film aside from Max himself, and he just owns it.

But it's not even those performances, the actors inside the Thing suits never hit a wrong note with their body language, and the CGI expressions for their faces are some of the best animated acting I've seen done. There's so much subtlety in those faces, so many little things that hit emotional points with the audience in the brief flash they're onscreen. It's something you only notice in hindsight because I didn't notice it at all when I was watching it. That's how I know something is really done well. There was one part at the end with no words spoken, but to do so would have marred the emotional impact it had on me. It was probably the closest thing to an emotional climax the movie has, and it was beautiful because no one had to explain it.
I could try and talk about the film some more, but it's hard to do when you're trying to explain something like a feeling to a person who hasn't experienced it. (The film itself even does this a few times in the way that children explain things when they don't have the words.) So to the people interested in it, go see it, but leave your expectations and fuzzy childhood memories at the door. Leave all your baggage outside the theater, stop trying to make sense out of it, and just let the film be what it is. Doesn't mean you have to like it, and some people won't, even if they "get" it. But just try to take the film on its own terms and realize it's not the sort of film you're probably used to seeing-- it's trying something new. That alone makes it worth seeing in my book, regardless of how successful it is in the end.

Need to start saving my pennies for popcorn

After browsing through Moviebox (it's been a while, I'm really behind on my trailers), and seeing some things I didn't know were coming out (Percy Jackson? could be fun, I love mythology, especially Greek, but Chris Columbus hasn't wowed me in a while, so we'll see), there are a few in particular that I will definitely be parking my butt in a theater for.

The Men Who Stare at Goats, starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey. Those are four of my favorite actors working today, there is no way I'm not going to a movie with all of them in it, especially if the movie is a comedy about psychic military experiments that is evidently based on a real story.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, written and directed by Terry Gilliam, starring Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer (and I think I saw Tom Waits, too, score!). This is one of those movies that I'd see no matter who was in it because it just looks incredible visually. But beyond really great visual effects, it looks... well, imaginative. I love imagination in my awesome-looking special effects.

The Lovely Bones, directed by Peter Jackson, starring Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci, and a bunch of other people I'm too lazy to look up. This is one of Stacy's favorite books, so I was curious when I saw the trailer (at Julie and Julia, of all things) at how faithful this looked to the original story. She said it seemed pretty close, and I must admit that I'm very intregued this got green-lit and that it seems to have a decent budget to boot. I will be seeing it.

Whip It, written and directed by Drew Barrymore, starring Ellen Page, Drew Barrymore, Zoe Bell, Juliette Lewis, and Jimmy Fallon. This just looks fun as hell, and I am in full support of Zoe Bell getting more facetime in movies.

Just hope they use their powers for good

So who else has seen a movie and felt completely mislead by the trailer you'd seen for it beforehand? I'm sometimes amazed, even now, of just how important movie trailers are to get right, and easy they are to manipulate. Seriously, it's so easy to make a mediocre movie look fun or a good movie look boring, to say nothing of how easy it is to even switch the genre. In cooking, it's said 'the first bite is with the eye', meaning the appearance of the food can set up a person's expectation for the taste, and for me, the trailer is that same idea for the film. It takes a lot of skill to make a good trailer that offers enough to inform the viewer of what the plot is without giving away too much of the good stuff, and keeping it all under three minutes.

I was just reminded of this in part because of the trailers I'd been seeing for Jennifer's Body and then reading about what the writer and director have been saying about it, along with other people either anticipating it or who have seen it. And I was reminded again today about it because of browsing through my Youtube favorites and seeing how many fake movie trailers I had in there. There are some really well-made ones there, and probably still more I don't know about. I figured I'd share some of my favorites, since all my other blog posts are half-finished and I'm still moving. (Sorry for the links instead of imbedded videos, I just got a laptop and for some reason can't figure out how to copy the entire imbed code.)

The Shining as a romantic comedy.
Mary Poppins as a horror movie.
A Goofy Movie if it had been directed by David Lynch.
Titanic 2, featuring footage and dialogue from possibly every movie ever made.