Friday, May 26, 2006

Coffee and cigarettes

A collection of shorts shot over a long period of time, Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and cigarettes explores how different people interact in any social situation where, well, coffee and cigarettes are the centerpiece of the table.
It's terribly uneven, as it might be expected; sometimes the acting is atrocious, some of the dialogs feel forced (all risks of heavy improvisation), and by the middle of the movie one's tempted to fast forward a chapter or two. But most of the shorts are at least worth watching, and all but a couple ring uncomfortably true. There are at least half a dozen absolutely brilliant segments to be found.

The way uncomfortable situations are portrayed is excellent- both funny and chilling; Iggy Pop and Tom Waits meet up, expecting to find common ground in the fact that they're both rock icons (they don't, sort of); Two friends find there might be a bit more distance than they suspected between them in the excellent "No Problem"; Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina, in possibly the best short, overturn each other's expectations. Kate Blanchett plays herself and her cousin, in which recriminations are half-uttered and go unresolved in a very realistic way. There are also some fun, silly bits- the White Stripes test a Tesla coil, Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni exchange a dentist appointment, and two members of the Wu-Tang Clan run into Bill Murray disguised as a waiter. By last third of the film, patterns have begun to emerge; snatches of conversation are repeated, and concepts are rehashed. There's no revelation, no eureka moment, but by the time two weary old men try to stretch out a smoke break and one of them begins finding something important in idle conversation, the emotional impact is deep and undeniable.
Far from flawless, Coffee and Cigarettes is still an extremely rewarding movie from one of the better directors out there.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Gozu

If there's one thing you can count on Takashi Miike to do, it's to provide truly bizarre filmmaking. He's outdone himself with Gozu, though.

After increasingly erratic behavior (which includes a hilarious attack on a Pomeranian dog, whom he insists is really a yakuza-eating pooch), Yakuza goon Ozaki proves to be too much of a liability for his organization. The boss orders Minami, another goon who happens to be best friends with Ozaki, to take him to the city of Nagoya to be disposed of. After some comic mishaps along the way, Ozaki is accidentally killed and his body goes missing; Thus poor minami is left to search the city of Nagoya, which looks like a mixture between an abandoned strip mall and a giant truckstop (with a scrapyard thrown in to add some color). Things get weirder from there; from hyper-lactating inn keepers to soup ladles stuck in unlikely places to shitting ghosts (I kid you not... That scene is one of the funniest I've seen in ages), the bizarre factor just increases until the final, unforgettable twenty minutes or so- which are a prime example of both Miike's fondness for stretching an uncomfortable scene to almost unbearable extremes and his knack for nailing shots that are impressive both in concept and execution.

There is a lot of David Lynch in the plot, and a bit more of David Cronemberg at his most carnal (although neither of them have ever been even remotely as weird or explicit as this). The pacing is a bit slack here and there, and while a theme gradually emerges, it never even remotely makes sense. Which is just as good, as it doesn't really need to (and I suppose it was never intended to, either). Overlong at more than two hours, it's still thought provoking, engaging and a damn hoot as well.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Blade Trinity

 Note from future me:
 Welp, another one to the bin. I still think Blade 3 fucking reeks, but man did I ever get angry about stuff back then. I'd leave it up if the jokes were funny as well as tasteless, but... they aren't.

 Here's the final paragraph, only to show that I was ahead of the curve in hating David Goyer (who still sucks):

...At some point during this drivel, the Final Solution is revealed- turns out, it’s a Coma rip-off: racks and racks of human vegetables, from whom blood is harvested instead of organs. How is this a Final Solution? And how the fuck does this relate to Dracula? Well, your guess is as good as mine. And here’s my guess: it doesn’t, because David Goyer holds our intelligence in such contempt that he didn’t even bother writing a half-assed plot. I mean, for fuck’s sake! People often ask me why I get so worked up over shitty movies, but let me ask you this: this motherfucking bastard is shitting on us and laughing all the while, and all I'm supposed to do is open my mouth?
I would immediately join any religion that promised swift and painful death to these talentless hacks. And Goyer, you’re way fucking up in the list.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

V for Vendetta

That the Wachowski brothers have a strong political stance was clear from the Matrix- before it degenerated into cheap religious parable, there was a lot of mileage to be had from the deceptively shallow Gnostic premise.
But who would think they'd make a movie out of it? Ably transposing Alan Moore's classic outraged indictment of the tendencies of Thatcher's Britain to the current geopolitical climate, the film mostly follows young Evey (Natalie Portman) as she discovers just to what extent her society is fucked up. Helping her in that endeavor is a mysterious stranger wearing a Guy Fawkes mask who wages a personal war against the totalitarian government; Poor Evey is inexorably drawn into this gentleman's (known as V, whose voice is played with gusto by Hugo Weaving) conflict
Whether you'll like this movie or not first and foremost will hinge on whether you stand on either side of the republican/liberal divide. Make no mistake about it, this film is an outright attack on some of the conservative tendencies that have been gripping the US under Bush's regime. It works as a story, but the movie unsubtly, and rather heavy-handedly, pushes them to the fore at every possible opportunity. They're valid points, but earnestness doesn't always mesh with good storytelling.

So, does it work? well, surprisingly enough, it does. It helps that it's not an action flick, but rather a calm exploration of its themes, with emphasis on the characters' stories as V's war escalates and shakes the dystopia's foundations. The characters are mostly very likeable (especially Stephen Fry and Stephen Rea, both a pleasure to watch acting). And the central mysteries- Just who this guy V is, and how did things get to where they are- are compelling, if a bit underwhelming.
But... (there's always one of those, isn't there?) remember when I said it was heavy handed? Well, heavy handed it is. The film portrays V as using anarchist methods (and indeed does not implicitly approve or disapprove of them), but portrays him more as an enraged liberal. In fact, it idealizes him to a fault, while it demonizes everything and anything related to the bad guys. Couldn't some shades of grey be added in there? As always, audiences can't be trusted on to draw their own conclusions. There is no subtlety, and points are often hammered home when inference or an unbiased presentation of the facts would have been far more effective.
Not that V doesn't do morally reprehensible things during the movie, but the film's sympathies are too clearly with him; He never once shows a shred of weakness, not one negative trait. No real humanity... Until one unfortunate late scene where one of the worst cliches the movie could have comitted is gleefully perpetrated.

In fact, the movie promptly goes to hell as the final scenes start. Starting with its only extended action sequence (fun!) it promptly begins to smash everything it had carefully built up in the previous two hours. Taking a sharp turn towards the metaphorical, whereas the rest of the movie was very gritty and even had some nods to realism (Hollywood realism, at least), any complexity is dispelled; the resolution is facile and feels extremely cheap. Everything culminates in an unmasking scene that is idiotically juvenile, its cheap symbolism almost demagogic.
It'll please fourteen-year-olds in the audience to no end, I'm sure- but anyone else will probably find themselves feeling either disappointed... or insulted. A shame, to be sure; But the Wachowskies seem to have a penchant for ruining movies with supremely shitty endings.

The Legend of Zorro

What a godawful piece of shit. It's aimed straight at the kiddies, but even hating the little snotrags as much as I do I'd find myself incapable of inflicting this horrendous crap on them. If my uncommon attack of scruples doesn't scare you off, consider this: At one point, Zorro's little offspring uses the series' trademark kung-fu, swashbuckly style of gymnastics to put a dastardly professor in his place.
I'm still recovering from that one. At least the rugrat's acting is on the same level as the acting of Banderas and Zeta-Jones (and Rufus Sewell, who's been slumming since Dark City). Hmm, wait, that isn't a complement. At all. Ok, at least he doesn't look like he's had a botox overdose.

Not even trace amounts of originality, sense of fun, or any sort of effort can be found here. To call it derivative would be an insult to the original movie, which at the very least at least managed to be entertaining and witty.
I don't intend to go into the plot (lucky you), but let me rag on a bit to scare off anyone still willing to inflict this shit upon himself. Or rather, vent for a bit. There are several slapstick scenes that are completely out of place, inserting jarring visual gags (that fall completely flat) and aren't even followed up. Check it out, the horse is drinking! And now it's smoking! Best of all is the only moment where the movie winks knowingly at the adults enduring this crap for the children's sake- a scene where a recently divorced, drunken Banderas hammily asserts that "no one leaves his tequila worm dangling". Only in this movie that could pass off as a sly, witty double entendré.