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Filmbrain Goes Green...

...Cine, that is. For the next two weeks, I'll be filing my New York Film Festival reports over at the Mecca of film blogs, David Hudson's GreenCine Daily, alongside David D'Arcy and Michael Sicinski. Longer pieces, afterthoughts, further discussions, and films I simply don't have the time to get to during the festival's run will appear here. My first post, a review of the tonight's festival opener The Queen can be found here.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 9, Week 12

Hands down -- no question -- last week's quiz was my personal favorite from all nine rounds. The range of answers submitted was astounding, and many of you made serious efforts to work out what it was. The single most popular guess was "something by Godard", which is understandable. Yet with all the recent love being spread through the blogosphere for Brian DePalma (in anticipation of The Black Dahlia), I sort of expected a greater showing from the film bloggers. Then again, Greetings isn't the most popular of DePalma's early films -- most people actually prefer its sequel, Hi, Mom. Seeing Greetings again after all these years convinced me what a brilliant film it is. This is DePalma in full-on Godard mode, and the film shares much of the silly male camaraderie found in Bande à Part and Masculin, Féminin. Though I've not been able to track it down on DVD in any store, Netflix has it for rent. See it -- if only to get the bad taste of The Black Dahlia out of your mouth. Well, we're at the final week of Round 9, and I'm putting this quiz together in a somewhat frazzled state after having attended eight New York Film Festival screenings in the past two days. Was Bamako the one with Michel Piccoli in a dress trying to attend a soccer match in Iran? They're all blending together. My coverage begins later this week. I didn't leave myself much time to prepare this quiz, so it's nowhere as devilishly difficult as I would have liked it to be. This week: the face is recognizable enough, but is the film? Let your sinister senses guide you to the answer. Be sure to check back next week for the list of winners! Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Forgotten Gems of the 60s: Bye Bye Braverman

By the mid 1960s, Sidney Lumet had already established himself as a director of hard-hitting social dramas (12 Angry Men, The Pawnbroker, Fail-Safe), but had never really tried his hand at comedy. 1968's Bye Bye Braverman, a critical and commercial flop, changed all that. A rare film that eluded me for years (it never even found its way to VHS), I was admittedly head-over-heels when I located a Telecine DVD copy on the grey market. Based on Wallace Markfield's cynical novel To an Early Grave, Bye Bye Braverman is one of the most New York City-specific films I've come across — where Manhattan neighborhoods are used to draw subtle distinctions between four nearly identical characters, and where a working knowledge of Brooklyn is virtually a requirement to fully appreciate the film. It also happens to be the most Jewish of New York comedies, to the extent that it makes Woody Allen look like a sheygets. As the film opens, we learn that the titular Braverman has died at the untimely age of forty-one. In the course of a single day, his four oldest friends will meet and embark on an exodus to Brooklyn to attend his funeral. Braverman and his four comrades are all left-leaning intellectuals, though each is slightly past his prime: there's PR man Morroe Rieff (George Siegel), whose first reaction on hearing the news is that Braverman owed him money, East Village poet Barnet Weinstein (Jack Warden), critic and professor of pop-culture Holly Levine (Sorrell Booke), whose latest course is "From Little Nemo to Lil' Abner", and diehard socialist Felix Ottensteen (Joseph Wiseman), who (among other things) lectures on Philip Roth to the Hadassah ladies. Rounding out the cast is Zohra Lampert as Morroe's Stalin-obsessed wife, Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development, pictured above) as Braverman's neurotic widow Inez, and Godfrey Cambridge as a taxi driver who just happens to be a converted Jew. Though intellectuals to the core, you wouldn't guess it by outward appearances — these four are schlubs, though loveable. Holly, who Morroe describes as looking like an avant-garde Yul Brynner, is the self-satisfied boaster of the gang ("my piece on John Ford has been twice anthologized!"), yet he's more George Costanza than George S. Kaufman. (Hard to believe this same actor would go on to play Boss Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard.) He's also the only one with a car, and it's in his cherry red VW Beetle that the four will become a lost tribe of sorts as they unsuccessfully navigate their way through Brooklyn in search of Braverman's funeral. Lumet's travelogue through New York's most populous borough is perhaps a bit self-indulgent, and many might feel the endless shots of brownstones, bodegas, Hasidim, churches, temples and Flatbush Avenue landmarks last longer than necessary, but they serve as a bit of a breather between longer set pieces, including a wonderful philosophical exchange with a cab driver (Godfrey Cambridge) they accidentally collide with. Jokes about death, a staple in Jewish comedy (cf. Woody Allen, Philip Roth), appear throughout the film — the men compare dying young to walking out on a Hitchcock movie in the middle, and Siegel has several waking fantasies about how insignificant his own death will be. A lengthy monologue set amongst a sea of headstones in a non-descript Brooklyn cemetery belongs on any list of great cinematic moments, and the writing brilliantly captures the zeitgeist of the era. The film also pokes fun at reformed Judaism, particularly in the funeral scene with comedian Alan King as a rabbi delivering an epic sermon that says absolutely nothing. He's the embodiment of the type of rabbi that Lenny Bruce called "so reform they're ashamed of being Jewish". More a meditation on friendship and death than a traditional comic escapade, Herb Sargent's screenplay is sharp and uncompromising, with dialog that files fast and furious. Made on a shoestring budget, Lumet's direction does seem less assured than usual — as if he doesn't know what to do with camera during the longer segments — though it in no way diminishes the film's strengths. With an abundance of nostalgia-inducing Manhattan and Brooklyn location scenes, Bye Bye Braverman is a truly unique comedy that you don't have to be a New Yorker to love (but it couldn't hurt.)

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 9, Week 11

Last week's quiz was a bit of a gimmie, was it not? Only a scant few fell for the Tarkovsky/bleak diversion -- the rest of you had no problem spotting Gene Hackman as the blind man who never gets to make espresso in Mel Brooks' comedy classic, Young Frankenstein. Super duper! Well, the New York Film Festival press screenings began yesterday, which means I'll be taking in about thirty films over the next couple of weeks, and I couldn't be happier. If things are a bit quiet around here for a while, you'll know why. However, extensive coverage is guaranteed -- if not here then elsewhere. (Quick preview -- saw Marie Antoinette yesterday. Not one, not two, but three Bow Wow Wow songs on the soundtrack. Need I say more?) Last week's cakewalk was a bit of a breather before the final two quizzes of this round, which will be markedly more difficult. This week -- hmmm...which director would include Truffaut's book on Hitch? There are at least half-a-dozen bloggers on the list to the right that should get this with little difficulty. Yes Girish, that includes you. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Of Fascists and Fairies

There's a part of me that wanted to get a jump on the blurb whores by tossing out the following poster-friendly pullquote — "Not only is Pan's Labyrinth positively a-maze-ing, it's downright Pan-tastic!" But then I thought....maybe not. With Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro positions himself somewhere between the art-house and the multiplex by offering up a dark, allegorical fairytale that should appeal to fans of the Mexican helmer's FX-laden output (Hellboy) as well as those who prefer his smaller, less commercial fare. Like 2001's The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth is once again set at the end of the Spanish Civil War, though this time it's more Grand Guignol than gothic ghost story. Working within a traditional fairytale construct, the film tells of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl who moves with her pregnant mother to an old mill in the forest that has been converted into a military outpost by Captain Vidal (Sergi López), Ofelia's new wicked (and how!) step-father. A fascist obsessed with punctuality (a cracked pocket watch his closest companion), Vidal has been charged with ferreting out resistance fighters hidden in the woods. With her mother bedridden, and forced to fend for herself, Ofelia finds herself drawn into a mysterious world by a somewhat sinister satyr who convinces her that her rightful place is among the fairies in the underground — a magical surrogate to the political underground Vidal is busy dismantling with his thugs. The film alternates between the real world and that of mazes and monsters, though both contain their own brand of terrors — be it a sadistic fascist or horrifying child-eating ogre. Ofelia's journey into the underworld isn't one of escapism, for her trials and torments are even more frightening than those in the real world. Yet whereas a certain ambiguity between good and evil exists in Pan's realm, there's no question about the true evil of fascism. Del Toro never belabors the point, yet this idea is at the crux of the film. Not since Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence has a film forged the perfect marriage of sound and vision. The sound design in Pan's Labyrinth is unforgettable, and creates an endless sense of foreboding — everything from the clik-clak of a giant flying insect to the whispers and hums of the underworld — all enhanced by Javier Navarrete's haunting score. There are some genuinely frightening moments, and one particularly violent scene that would bring a smile to Gaspar Noé's face. This is not a film for the kiddies. Sadly, the film might have difficulty finding an audience. Art house crowds might find its fantastical nature off-putting, while the multiplex crowd might choose to steer clear of subtitles. It's a shame in both cases, for Pan's Labyrinth is a perfect, wholly remarkable film — an uncompromising, emotionally moving adult fairytale that reminds us that the scariest monsters are the human kind. Be sure not to miss one of the great cinematic pleasures of 2006.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 9, Week 10

Though it may seem blasphemous to some, it's my firm belief that Jim Sharman's Shock Treatment is superior to its quasi-prequel, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sure, it lacks that participatory nature, and Jessica Harper and Cliff De Young's Brad and Janet Majors don't quite equate to Susan Sarandon and Barry Botswick's, but Richard O'Brien's songs are stronger, catchier, and wittier than a simple jump to the left and a step to the right. That's Little Nell Campbell as Nurse Ansalong singing to Brad, while Janet and Bert Schnick (Dame Edna Everage himself) boogie in the background. O'Brien's spoof on media and small-town America is messy in some places, owing to a last-minute decision to shoot the entire film on a UK soundstage due to a SAG strike here in the States, but it still holds up remarkably well after all these years. The recently released DVD looks great, and the film remains, without question, one of the most entertaining of the 80s. Don't miss it. This week -- what is this? Some sort of Tarkovsky movie? Name this dreary black and white film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

The Poet of Night

One of the greatest thrills for a cinephile (or at least this cinephile) is "discovering" the films of a heretofore unheard of master. Such is the case with Lee Man-hee, the prodigious South Korean director who churned out fifty features in a fourteen-year career that ended with his untimely death at the age of 45. A director who worked in nearly every genre, his films are rarely lighthearted affairs, and his protagonists tend to run the gamut from the downtrodden to the derelict, disabled, deformed, or otherwise doomed. A 2005 retrospective of his films at the Pusan International Film Festival was aptly titled, Lee Man Hee: Poet of Night. Though I only managed to catch two of the four Lee films programmed at this year's New York Korean Film Festival, both The Water Mill (1966) and A Road to Return (1967) left no question about Lee's position as a major figure in Korea's film history, and a director whose work deserves far greater recognition in the West. Sadly, many of his films are in terrible condition, and his greatest film (1966's Late Autumn) has all but vanished — not a single print or negative is known to exist. From the opening moments of The Water Mill, it's evident that Lee both understands and embraces every facet of the art of film. The medium is truly the message, and his films rely on the continual (and clever) interplay of son et image as primary tools for his storytelling, rather than traditional narrative devices. Shot in widescreen black and white, The Water Mill is a doomed-from-the-start tale of a dimwitted vagabond who falls for (and is ultimately cuckolded by) a village beauty. Erotically charged yet viciously cruel, it's a wonderful introduction to Lee's style, both thematically and aesthetically. Opening on a barren landscape, we soon see Bang-won (our vagrant anti-hero) enter the frame. Cut to a stream, with a single sock flowing down it. Bang-won bends over to drink from the stream and the sock floats right into his arms. He enters a village in the midst of some sort of shamanic ritual, rife with percussion instruments and people dancing around in demon masks. The sounds from the festival are barely audible under the unnaturally loud buzzing of insects that dominates the soundtrack, yet after a few minutes we are suddenly blasted with the cacophony of the ritual. Bang-won comes across an elderly woman who explains that this is an exorcism, and goes on to tell him the legend of the girl killed at the water mill. The woman who will act as the catalyst for Bang-won's undoing approaches and complains of a missing sock. We then see the giant wheel of the mill, motionless even though water continually pours onto the blades. It's an outstanding opening sequence, with a staggering amount to process — the camera work, the editing, the sound, the blocking — a tremendous effort for a few short minutes, though every detail is significant, as we will see in the next ninety minutes. Lee's exaggerated use of sound makes for a nice balance with his economical use of dialog. In one memorable scene, Bang-won is chopping wood, while his love interest is lying in the tall grass writhing orgasmically; the syncopated rhythm of axe striking wood the only sound heard. Lee supplements the limited dialog with visuals that serve as substitutes. This is best exemplified in a few unintentional moments — approximately ten minutes of the soundtrack have been lost, and we see just how much Lee conveys visually, particularly in the film's disturbingly violent climax. Like The Water Mill, A Road to Return (one of eleven films Lee directed in 1967) also deals with jealousy and infidelity, though this time the setting is modern-day Seoul. Quite experimental for a simple domestic drama, A Road to Return tells the story of a married author, paralysed in the Korean War, who is writing a serial novel for a newspaper about a paralysed author and his wife. Readers find the selfless, faithful wife a bit bland and unrealistic, and the editor suggests that her character should have an affair. This eerily mirrors the real world, which finds the author's wife falling for a young journalist she meets when delivering the latest chapter. Will life imitate art, or vice versa? Once again, the use of sound in the film is quite powerful. A chilling sequence early in the film finds the author in full military garb, seated in his wheelchair, describing to his wife the battle that resulted in his paralysis. His story is drowned out by a patriotic song (diegetic) and sounds of the war (non-diegetic) — it's a remarkable scene that places us in the wife's position, where we get to experience the tension, desperation, and helplessness she's suffering through. There are visual cues in the film that, while compositionally interesting, are less than subtle — a low angle shot of the wife, contemplating adultery, with a church looming over her shoulder. There is a certain crudeness (for lack of a better word) to Lee's filmmaking, especially when compared to other Asian filmmakers of the era. Thematically, A Road to Return reads like it could be a Naruse film, yet Lee's approach couldn't be more different. There's an overwhelming sense of sympathy (and perhaps even a hint of self-identification) towards his characters, particularly those with the greatest flaws. Both films contain lead characters fighting a losing battle with their masculinity, though this is something Lee seems to embrace, rather than distance himself from. Lee's films may not be as aesthetically "pleasing" as his fellow East Asian peers, but that makes him no less a master. His films are a bit rough around the edges — everything from high-contrast lighting to occasional slapdash production values (due in part, no doubt, to Lee's aggressive production schedule) — but this in no way serves as a detraction. Lee Man-hee can best be viewed as South Korea's Sam Fuller — both directors possess a dark nature that traverses multiple genres, and their films share a gritty aesthetic the lies just outside the mainstream.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 9, Week 9

First off, sorry for the lack of posts in the past week. Filmbrain decided to take an unannounced end of summer break to prepare for what will no doubt be an extremely busy autumn. Other than an early screening of Pan's Labyrinth (more on that in a few days), the waning days of August were spent sleeping and watching episodes of Lost on DVD (the latter being a phenomenally pointless waste of time). The alt-text clue from last week's quiz led many of you to timorously submit Shampoo as your guess — and you were right! Hal Ashby's 1975 sexy social satire (with its magnificent Robert Towne screenplay) holds up remarkably well — that is, minus the hairstyles. As for the two actors pictured, that's veteran character actor Tony Bill on the left and producer George Justin on the right (his only other acting role was as Barney the barber in Chinatown.) Truth be told — I had to enlist the help of a pro to ID Justin. Thanks, Glenn. This week — scene from the madhouse? Name this minor masterpiece. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!