Santa Tung
2007
New year's about to tick over, couldn't care less really. Seen a few films recently worth mentioning, starting with Ice Age 2. I finally got around to watching the original a couple of weeks back - it was simple, and I mean simple, but it worked. A lot better than Pixar's dull misfire Cars. But boy oh boy is Ice Age 2 a shitfest of Madagascar-proportions or what? After an ugly, muddled & completely pointless opening introducing a large array of entirely irrelevant "characters" (I spit on your boots) just so we get the point that lives will be in danger if/when the valley is flooded (premise), the film proceeds to superficially imitate good elements of its predecessor while lumbering along a "plotline" devoid of any of the elements that could threaten to actually make the damn thing compelling. The first hour was like all those pages of going up and down hills in Tolkein's brick The Lord Of The Rings. Then there were 10-15 minutes of genuinely interesting material when the flood threatened and I realised I gave more of a Ratatuoille's ass about the characters than they really deserved by that point, presumably just a hangover on my part from my association with their formerly likable selves from the first film. Then this crisis was diverted in perhaps the laziest resolution ever digitally animated (for the all-time record it's a showdown vs. Poseidon among others).
Backtrack: the premise of the film starts with the idea that the ice around the valley is the only thing blocking out the ocean which is this high outside:
This ice wall (above) is melting and will soon crumble. Yet when the wall breaks and flood "attacks", the wall then cracks in another part and... no, not more flooding - on the other side we find another valley for all the water to flood into! This means at some point the ocean must suddenly and against the laws of gravity jut-down like this:
However, a glowing recommendation for each of my two most recent viewings, United 93 and The Squid And The Whale. These are two of the best 2000s movies I've seen so it was a pleasure watching them back to back. Squid is a brilliantly written semi-autobiographical dramedy from Wes Anderson-collaborator Noah Baumbach. It's a genuinely genuine movie, one of 'em films that could have easily ended up as pretentious bullshit in the wrong hands, and in the process shows up a lot of pretentious bullshit films for what they really are. Now I'm not some snobby asshole who goes around labelling films left, right and centre as pretentious, that itself would, ironically, be a pretentious thing to do, I guess it's more that there's as obvious gulf between the craftmanship shown in something like this vs. something bland but artsy as a lot of low-budget "arthouse" dramas tend to be (you know the type, the ones that rely on the audience to invent subtlety and subtext that isn't really there), or vs. a more "Hollywood" Oscar-bait type film (the ones you see all the time; watching Squid was like listening to something like Snow Patrol for a few days - nice, pleasent, good and entirely enjoyable, you don't even consider what you're missing - then putting on Physical Graffiti: the alcoholic's moment of clarity). Just as Squid avoids what's almost become mandatory pretentiousness and even that forced kind of quirkiness affiliated with its "type" of movie (if I may be so bold) that only people like Anderson can pull off without making it feel like its there to make up for something lacking everywhere else in the film, United 93 avoids the trap of being manipulative, and that, my friend, shocked the shit out of me. It's realistic and very intense, a no holds barred shotgun-blast-from-inside-the-lense of a film that achieves tension and suspense despite, or perhaps feeding off, the fact that we know what happens. Truly stunning stuff. Oh and while Greengrass's DOP still appears to have Parkinson's, at least he got around to telling his scissor-happy editor to CALM THE FUCK DOWN.
Again With The Globes And The What-Not
I've mentioned before, surely, my criticism of the Golden Globes Musical/Comedy category for Best Picture, with films like Ray and Walk The Line - essentially dramas with splatterings of musical performances tucked away inside - making the cut on a technicality that undermines the whole purpose of the term "musical" in the award heading (the award was created to account for typical Hollywood musicals that were therefore pretty much "comedies" anyway or at the very least captured a less realistic more theatrical form of drama - the title just clarified something so that musicals had a definite place in awards consideration, alongside similar types of non-musical movies). These (*cough* formulaic Oscar-bait *cough*) dramas are therefore competing in the Picture and Acting stakes against entirely dissimilar films requiring entirely dissimilar skill sets - fine if its the Oscars which does that anyway in overall categories, but why bother making the distinction if you're then gonna let The Incredibles compete against Ray regardless?
Well my new annoyance is with the Foreign Language category. The lead-headed Oscars at least got this right: giving recognition to films produced outside of Hollywood which, due to cultural, filmic and language barriers, aren't likely to be embraced in the mainstream and may struggle to gain momentum in major categories against the big-budget campaigning by Hollywood studios looking to cash in on ticket or DVD sales boosts. The Globes this year included in their nominees Apocalypto, directed in true Hollywood style by Mel Gibson for Icon & Disney and funded by American money and which hit number one at the box office in its opening week on the back of strong marketing support and a mega-wide release, and Letters From IWO Jima, Clint Eastwood's other (than Flags Of Our Fathers) Hollywood World War II drama of 2006 that's in Japanese for authenticity (it's from their side of the Iwo Jima story) but is essentially Flags Of Our Fathers 2 and American. Tell me you see where the Hollywood Foreign Press missed the point there.
I Win
In a year when I found myself backing Snakes On A Plane and Borat months before supporting either became a fashionable internet craze, and predicted that despite a ludicrous premise Rocky Balboa would be good, Pan's Labyrinth, which I've been raving about since I first saw out of the corner of my eye an mindblowingly ultra-imaginative single frame printed in a copy of Empire some guy beside me was reading in Real Groovy back in June or July, is currently at 99% on Rotten Tomatoes after a gazillion reviews, proving once again that I have better judgement skills than most Jedi. And if not, then at least Helen Keller. And if not, then at least Rolling Stone's music reviewers.
EDIT: Need to proof-read for errors next time. Geesh.
New year's about to tick over, couldn't care less really. Seen a few films recently worth mentioning, starting with Ice Age 2. I finally got around to watching the original a couple of weeks back - it was simple, and I mean simple, but it worked. A lot better than Pixar's dull misfire Cars. But boy oh boy is Ice Age 2 a shitfest of Madagascar-proportions or what? After an ugly, muddled & completely pointless opening introducing a large array of entirely irrelevant "characters" (I spit on your boots) just so we get the point that lives will be in danger if/when the valley is flooded (premise), the film proceeds to superficially imitate good elements of its predecessor while lumbering along a "plotline" devoid of any of the elements that could threaten to actually make the damn thing compelling. The first hour was like all those pages of going up and down hills in Tolkein's brick The Lord Of The Rings. Then there were 10-15 minutes of genuinely interesting material when the flood threatened and I realised I gave more of a Ratatuoille's ass about the characters than they really deserved by that point, presumably just a hangover on my part from my association with their formerly likable selves from the first film. Then this crisis was diverted in perhaps the laziest resolution ever digitally animated (for the all-time record it's a showdown vs. Poseidon among others).
Backtrack: the premise of the film starts with the idea that the ice around the valley is the only thing blocking out the ocean which is this high outside:
This ice wall (above) is melting and will soon crumble. Yet when the wall breaks and flood "attacks", the wall then cracks in another part and... no, not more flooding - on the other side we find another valley for all the water to flood into! This means at some point the ocean must suddenly and against the laws of gravity jut-down like this:
However, a glowing recommendation for each of my two most recent viewings, United 93 and The Squid And The Whale. These are two of the best 2000s movies I've seen so it was a pleasure watching them back to back. Squid is a brilliantly written semi-autobiographical dramedy from Wes Anderson-collaborator Noah Baumbach. It's a genuinely genuine movie, one of 'em films that could have easily ended up as pretentious bullshit in the wrong hands, and in the process shows up a lot of pretentious bullshit films for what they really are. Now I'm not some snobby asshole who goes around labelling films left, right and centre as pretentious, that itself would, ironically, be a pretentious thing to do, I guess it's more that there's as obvious gulf between the craftmanship shown in something like this vs. something bland but artsy as a lot of low-budget "arthouse" dramas tend to be (you know the type, the ones that rely on the audience to invent subtlety and subtext that isn't really there), or vs. a more "Hollywood" Oscar-bait type film (the ones you see all the time; watching Squid was like listening to something like Snow Patrol for a few days - nice, pleasent, good and entirely enjoyable, you don't even consider what you're missing - then putting on Physical Graffiti: the alcoholic's moment of clarity). Just as Squid avoids what's almost become mandatory pretentiousness and even that forced kind of quirkiness affiliated with its "type" of movie (if I may be so bold) that only people like Anderson can pull off without making it feel like its there to make up for something lacking everywhere else in the film, United 93 avoids the trap of being manipulative, and that, my friend, shocked the shit out of me. It's realistic and very intense, a no holds barred shotgun-blast-from-inside-the-lense of a film that achieves tension and suspense despite, or perhaps feeding off, the fact that we know what happens. Truly stunning stuff. Oh and while Greengrass's DOP still appears to have Parkinson's, at least he got around to telling his scissor-happy editor to CALM THE FUCK DOWN.
Again With The Globes And The What-Not
I've mentioned before, surely, my criticism of the Golden Globes Musical/Comedy category for Best Picture, with films like Ray and Walk The Line - essentially dramas with splatterings of musical performances tucked away inside - making the cut on a technicality that undermines the whole purpose of the term "musical" in the award heading (the award was created to account for typical Hollywood musicals that were therefore pretty much "comedies" anyway or at the very least captured a less realistic more theatrical form of drama - the title just clarified something so that musicals had a definite place in awards consideration, alongside similar types of non-musical movies). These (*cough* formulaic Oscar-bait *cough*) dramas are therefore competing in the Picture and Acting stakes against entirely dissimilar films requiring entirely dissimilar skill sets - fine if its the Oscars which does that anyway in overall categories, but why bother making the distinction if you're then gonna let The Incredibles compete against Ray regardless?
Well my new annoyance is with the Foreign Language category. The lead-headed Oscars at least got this right: giving recognition to films produced outside of Hollywood which, due to cultural, filmic and language barriers, aren't likely to be embraced in the mainstream and may struggle to gain momentum in major categories against the big-budget campaigning by Hollywood studios looking to cash in on ticket or DVD sales boosts. The Globes this year included in their nominees Apocalypto, directed in true Hollywood style by Mel Gibson for Icon & Disney and funded by American money and which hit number one at the box office in its opening week on the back of strong marketing support and a mega-wide release, and Letters From IWO Jima, Clint Eastwood's other (than Flags Of Our Fathers) Hollywood World War II drama of 2006 that's in Japanese for authenticity (it's from their side of the Iwo Jima story) but is essentially Flags Of Our Fathers 2 and American. Tell me you see where the Hollywood Foreign Press missed the point there.
I Win
In a year when I found myself backing Snakes On A Plane and Borat months before supporting either became a fashionable internet craze, and predicted that despite a ludicrous premise Rocky Balboa would be good, Pan's Labyrinth, which I've been raving about since I first saw out of the corner of my eye an mindblowingly ultra-imaginative single frame printed in a copy of Empire some guy beside me was reading in Real Groovy back in June or July, is currently at 99% on Rotten Tomatoes after a gazillion reviews, proving once again that I have better judgement skills than most Jedi. And if not, then at least Helen Keller. And if not, then at least Rolling Stone's music reviewers.
EDIT: Need to proof-read for errors next time. Geesh.
posted by Steve @ 11:42 AM
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