Like Anna Karina's Sweater

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 8

It's fairly late into the film that this very odd scene with Bernie Casey and an uncredited Claudia Jennings pops up in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth, and on its own it resembles a European perfume ad, but regular quiz entrant Antony S. from the UK suggests that the scene that follows (which finds a clothed Casey and Jennings tucking their children into bed) crystallizes one of the film's many themes. I'll allow him to explain in the comments, should he be so inclined.  I've never been able to make peace with the film, though I've seen it dozens of times over the years. As much as there is to admire about it, it doesn't reach the heights of Roeg's following three films, Bad Timing, Eureka, and Insignificance -- the peak of his post-Don't Look Now career in my opinion, though admittedly I haven't seen his silent short, The Sound of Claudia Schiffer, which on title alone sounds like a masterpiece. Of course the big story coming at the end of the holiday weekend was the news that Sydney Pollack had died. In recent years I've thought of him more as an actor than as a director, and let's be honest -- his post 80s directorial outings have been less than compelling. Yet his presence as an actor never failed to impress, and I only wish his short (and unexpected) stint on The Sopranos as a doctor/murderer had been his final role. Sadly, that distinction went to Made of Honor. This week: As Tom Servo would no doubt put it, "Say!" Who's the limber actress, once referred to as "box office poison", and in which film do we find her in such a position? Name the actress and the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

What I learned from Iron Man

A pretty, Ivy League educated, socially (and politically) conscious Vanity Fair reporter will, in a matter of minutes, toss aside her personal ideology (to say nothing of her professional ethics) and jump into bed with an alpha-male war profiteer who first questions her intelligence, and then follows up with a sleazy pickup line. I went for the big, dumb fun. Instead I got two hours of unbridled sexism as only Hollywood can do. I've no one to blame but myself.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 7

Though best known for his work in the 80s as a producer with his cousin Yoram Globus (everything from Cassavetes' Love Streams to Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo), Menahem Golan is also the director of over forty films. A few, including Over the Brooklyn Bridge and Hanna's War are actually fairly decent; others less so. For example, who can forget Over the Top, the film that exposed the hard truth about the world of professional arm wrestling? Yet far worse than that Stallone disaster is The Apple, a 1980 Israeli-German-Canadian production of a quasi sci-fi musical with heavy religious overtones that contains some of the worst singing and dancing ever to have been committed to celluloid. Then again, there isn't a singer alive or dead who could do anything with Coby Recht's positively lifeless tunes. Why Golan chose to cast his musical with actors who can't sing (including Vladek Sheybal) and dancers who can't dance remains a mystery, but its level of awfulness is such that you can't help but admire it, or at least stare in slack-jawed wonder. In fact, it's too good not to share. Though it was hard to choose just one scene, here's the reggae-tinged How to Be a Master. Enjoy:

This week: Sometimes you get so lonely... A film as strange as The Apple, but much, much better (and then some.) It's a rather inconsequential scene, perhaps the film's most gratuitous, out of place moment, but fascinating nonetheless. Name it. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Brains Not Required (Or: Whither Subtlety?)

"I want the audience to work. I ask them to see the film from the beginning and devote their full attention to it, treating it with the same respect they would give a painting, a symphony or any other work of art. I treat them with the same respect by inviting them to search for their own meanings instead of insulting their intelligence with obvious explanations." -- Michelangelo Antonioni Today it's a considered a masterpiece, but back in 1961, when film critics still mattered (or at least had the power to make or break a film), there were few who had kind words for L'Avventura. The above quote from the late Italian auteur was prompted by the negative, occasionally hostile reviews of his film. Reviews such as Bosley Crowther’s in the Times, who said, "Frankly, we do not gather what Signor Antonioni is trying to prove. . . .This business of being deliberately and even boastfully obscure in art not only is ostentatious but it also leads one to suspect the artist is not clear in his own mind and lacks self-discipline." The film's poor showing at the box office during its initial New York run can be attributed, in part, to Crowther's pan. (It wasn’t until a 1962 re-issue that the film found critical and commercial success.) Crowther's repetitive moaning about not getting it and his unwillingness to give the film the level of attention that Antonioni desired seems a bit surprising today, or naive at the very least, particularly from a critic of his standing. Today all but the shabbiest of critics are unafraid to confront the "obscure", and you're more likely to find passionate defenses of a challenging work rather than flippant dismissals such as Crowther's. Yet how often are today's critics (and filmgoers for that matter) given the opportunity to use their noggins once the lights go down? Are filmmakers living up to their half of the bargain, treating us with respect as expressed in the second half of Antonioni's statement? Less and less, I'm afraid. What's even more disconcerting is that spoon-fed meaning is finding its way into areas of cinema that were once refuges for those interested in something other than the bottom line. Hollywood has never been known as a factory of subtlety, and those working within the system understand the populist requirements dictated by those that hold the purse strings -- the axiom that capitalism perverts art is all too true. One goes to a Hollywood movie for the concept, and we're happy to bathe in the eye candy, the star power, and the extravagant budgets that could feed a small nation. Was a time that we could (for the most part) rely on independent and foreign films to provide us with an alternative to all that. These were works that were often mature and introspective -- films that made us think, or at least required us to actively engage with it, as opposed to passively being engulfed by the spectacle. Yet of late I find that few films require any sort of active engagement. Directors are happy to show us how clever/sensitive/witty they are, but they leave us with nothing to discuss, let alone think about. As small films made outside of the studio system, they needn't succumb to the lowest common denominator, but do nonetheless. I'm growing weary of independent and/or foreign films that are as compelling as a made-for-TV drama, that rely on heavy-handed symbolism while hammering their message into us. Films that tackle political/social issues, or moral struggles, and reduce them to childlike simplicity, with poorly written characters that exist purely as functions of the plot. More often than not these films are all about the third-act "big moment", which rarely comes as a surprise as the filmmaker has been dropping less-than-subtle hints throughout. With their meaning wrapped up and dispensed in a neat, foolproof package, these films not only discourage and resist discussion/analysis/interpretation, they're barely pleasurable even as divertissements. Two titles that immediately spring to mind are Thomas McCarthy's The Visitor, and Philippe Claudel's Il y a longtemps que je t'aime. McCarthy's film, a recent release, is a post 9/11 tale infused with liberal guilt and painted in the broadest possible strokes that can summed up thusly: a beautiful Syrian man and an even more beautiful Senegalese woman teach a cantankerous widower the true meaning of Christmas The Patriot Act. Critics were mostly upbeat about the film, though more words were spent on star Richard Jenkins' performance than on the film itself.* While it's pointless to argue against one's subjective response to the film, its solipsism, overtly didactic narrative, and simplistic approach to a complex subject is strictly res ipsa loquitur. What's left then to discuss? Claudel's Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, which was in competition at this year's Berlinale is a French film via the Lifetime Movie Network. Kristin Scott Thomas (performing entirely in French) plays a mother recently released from prison after serving time for murdering her son. Her married-with-children sister takes her in, and while we sit and wait for the reveal in which we learn of the circumstances behind the murder, Claudel, in every scene, finds an opportunity to beat us over the head with some sort of blatant symbolic reference to the parent-child bond. Much like The Visitor, critics focused not on the drama or the character study (there was little of either), but primarily on Thomas' performance, which many described as "brave", simply due to the fact that she wears little or no makeup throughout the film. What I fail to understand is why both McCarthy and Claudel felt the need to toss subtlety aside when making their films. Is it from a lack of faith in the audience, a limitation of their abilities as artists, or rather a desire to increase their chances at commercial viability? Regardless, it's both troubling and frustrating that smaller films such as these -- which continue to appear on the festival circuit -- would rather acquiesce to the safety of mediocrity than strive to properly explore or elevate the medium. While not everybody can (or should!) aim to reinvent cinema, there should be a greater effort from filmmakers, producers, and festival programmers to take chances on works that require more brainpower than it takes to simply sit and stare at the screen. The countless words spent on films such as There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, and I'm Not There are proof enough that you don't need to force-feed us to hold our attention. *The 'meh' review, a tendency I've noticed in many critics of late, is, in my opinion, somewhat dangerous. Critics are giving self-professed mediocre films a pass by finding something worthwhile to say about them, while failing to give equal weight to the film's flaws. I address this issue in an upcoming post that certainly won't win me any popularity points.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 6

Last week's still life with Speak & Spell, which of course came from E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, generated some interesting recollections about the film. Like me, many of you haven't seen it in years, and there's a shared hesitancy in revisiting it. The film got to me back in '82, but now I'm afraid I've grown too cynical to care about a precocious youngster and a stranded alien. Maybe I'm wrong. The Elvis Costello connection is that actor Robert MacNaughton sings a few bars of Accidents Will Happen. The best incorrect guess went as follows: Regarding Declan MacManus, I have no idea what the connection is, except perhaps: He is not Neil Diamond and did not write and sing an insipid song about the film. Sounds like someone needs to turn on their heartlight. This week: unquestionably one of the worst films ever made. This is not an opinion, but rather a hard, cold fact. Name this so-bad-it's-good travesty. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

An appropriately gray Thursday

The gray skies over New York City today, combined with a far worse than usual bout of seasonal allergies left me feeling sluggish to say the least, and finding both the strength and motivation to get any work done was next to impossible. Then word came out about critic, blogger, and personal friend Glenn Kenny getting axed from Premiere, and all hopes of accomplishing anything ceased. I guess in the current climate it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, but honestly I didn't see this one coming, and I suspect Glenn didn't either. I'll be curious to hear parent company Hachette Filipacchi's rationale for terminating Glenn, and I sincerely hope this means the end of Premiere in the US, for to continue the site without him would be both insulting and pointless. I'm no stranger to the brash tactics of multi-national corporations and their policies of downsizing, and I can sympathize with what Glenn must be feeling today. With his years of experience (not to mention his remarkable breadth of knowledge), it hopefully won't be long before he finds himself in a new position. I can't help but wonder if Armond White is basking in a self-satisfied smugness, especially after his mean-spirited (and insane) rant from a couple of weeks ago where he gleefully spoke of Premiere's demise. I'm gonna go wander the streets. With any luck it'll start pouring.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 5

"Beside it every movie since Zéro de Conduite and Modern Times is so much child's play." Just one of the many eyebrow raising lines from James Agee's epic review of Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux that took three consecutive issues of The Nation to run in its entirety. While Agee's piece is one of the strongest defenses of the film, a closer reading reveals certain contradictory statements throughout. (Statements I'm too lazy to dig up right now, but the entire review can be found in the must-own collection, Agee on Film.) That's William Frawley and Martha Raye in Chaplin's masterwork -- two actors who, in the 60s and 70s, could be found all over the tiny screen. Frawley of course will forever remain in syndication as Lucy and Desi's cranky neighbor, while Martha Raye ("The Big Mouth") would pop up everywhere from The Bugaloos, McMillan & Wife, and personal favorite, Alice. The two appeared together on screen three times -- in 1937's Double or Nothing, 1940's The Farmer's Daughter, and finally Monsieur Verdoux in 1947. This week: I don't think I've ever met anybody who hasn't seen this film. Name the film, and for a bonus point, tell me how Elvis Costello is connected to it. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Tribeca 2008: The Good, The Bad, and The Couscous

Though it's still very much in search (and need) of an identity, this year's edition of the Tribeca Film Festival is the first one that hasn't left me with a case of agita. Is this a sign of a newly improved festival, or is it simply that I've finally learned how to filter out the noise and distractions while finding the needles hidden within the haystack of self-promotion and corporate ubiquity? Logistically, there was a vast improvement over past years, which had the press office centrally located to nothing, and screenings held in all corners of the city. Having everything within a few block radius in Greenwich Village made it much easier to dash out a screening, get some work done in the press lounge, and then quickly partake of corporate-sponsored snacks and booze in the beyond-surreal Target filmmakers lounge that left you feeling as if you had stepped into a living advert or twisted performance art piece. But what of the films? Of the seventeen titles I caught at the fest, eight ranged from meh to great, which is a respectable average for any festival. However, of the bad films, many were of the how-the-hell-did-this-wind-up-in-any-festival quality. That's not something I've experienced in Berlin, where the films I've walked out on are merely typical second-rate festival fodder. At Tribeca, the disparity is shocking. The reduction in the number of titles this year has no doubt helped the situation, but more needs to be done to remove the quantity over quality mode in which the festival functions. Though films such as War, Inc., The Auteur, and Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchyfooted Mutha might have some redeeming qualities (well, excepting War, Inc. which might be one of the most embarrassingly awful films ever made), they have no place in a festival that is hoping to attain a position equal to those held in other major cities of the world. Some argue that they are striving to avoid the (perceived) elitism of the New York Film Festival, but I don't buy that. It is possible to program a 100+ title festival without the inclusion of absolute rubbish – that is, if you let go of the mandate of having n world premieres. I'd much rather see Rotterdam, Berlin, or SXSW titles that have little chance of finding distribution than an insulting, unfunny, Hilary Duff vehicle. On the plus side, there were some truly wonderful films to be found, and whereas most years I walk away with (maybe) one great experience, there were several unexpected surprises this year, including a few that may end up among the best of the year. There's not much I can say about Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg or James Marsh's Man on Wire that hasn't been said elsewhere, but both exceeded my expectations. I've always been a fan of Maddin's films, but in recent years his aesthetic has overshadowed the content, and more often than not I've walked away feeling cold. That's not the case with My Winnipeg, where Maddin, no stranger to autobiographical flourishes, creates something entirely new with this "docufantasia" about the city he calls home. Seamlessly blending fact and fiction with footage both found and fabricated, it's his most personal work to date, and also his funniest. Though I was only eight years old when Philippe Petit performed his illegal walk between the Twin Towers, it was an event that friends and I discussed non-stop for days afterwards. Man on Wire, which unfolds with all the suspense of a heist film, lovingly recalls a New York City that is no longer – a more innocent time when the punishment for committing a criminal act such as Petit's was little more than a slap on the wrist. Though the film (wisely) avoids any mention of 9/11, it's almost impossible to watch Petit and his crew plan their WTC adventure without drawing a parallel to another group for whom the allure of the towers was the antithesis of Petit's. Yet as good as those two films were, the real find of the festival was Abdel Kechiche's nearly-perfect The Secret of the Grain. The latest film from the Tunisian-born auteur (whose  L'Esquive was one of the best films of 2003), The Secret of the Grain is a nothing short of cinematic poetry – a tribute to the director's father and a eulogy to the North African working-class of southern France. Slimane, a sixty-something shipyard worker with an ex-wife and several grown children, struggles to survive the changing economic landscape, where long-term immigrant workers are being replaced by inexperienced newcomers who work for a fraction of the price. Not content to spend the rest of his days living off his measly pension, he decides to take the great leap into entrepreneurship (There Will Be Couscous), though he must fight a system that by design is working against him. At over two-and-a-half hours, Kechiche's drama is an incredible slow burn that takes over an hour for any semblance of a plot to appear. Yet during that time we are deeply immersed into the world of Slimane and his family through a series of lengthy vérité sequences that introduce us to the myriad of characters in Slimane's life. Kechiche loves language and the power of the spoken word (a theme of L'Esquive) and the epic dinner sequence, which has family members discussing everything from the price of diapers to the marital indiscretion of one of the sons, is reminiscent of Cassavetes – not only structurally, but in its unyielding, infinite humanism.  Though on the surface the film becomes a question of whether or not Slimane will triumph over adversity, it does so with resorting to cheap theatrics or melodrama. It remains lodged somewhere between documentary and neo-realism, and its various digressions into social critique, political commentary etc. are more significant than its plot progressions. An extremely balanced work, Kechiche doesn't romanticize the bonds of the community, nor does he allow the film to get lost in a naive optimism.  I'm intentionally being vague about the plot, for I feel it's best to walk in knowing as little as possible. At the same time, I feel I need a second viewing before being able to discuss it in greater detail. However, I can state, without any hesitation, that the final half-hour contains one of the sexiest, most erotic sequences I've ever seen on film. And it's not even a sex scene. There isn't time at the moment to write about other highlights of the fest, though I'm hoping to find some in order to shower praise on three other wonderful discoveries: Somers Town, Guest of Cindy Sherman, and the odd but unforgettable Milky Way Liberation Front.