Alex Kies vs. Cinema

Funny People

2009-08-02T16:55:00.001-07:00

Funny People. Written and Directed by Judd Apatow. Starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, and Leslie Mann. Music by Jason Schwartzman and Michael Andrews. Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski.

Want a ridiculous Ben Lyons platitude? W/R/T Apatow's Funny People: See it.

Want a ridiculously cliched film-critic mashup comparison? How about "Funny People is the film Ingmar Bergman would have made had he been inclined to make a film about stand-up comedians."

Want a rabid Apatow-apologist review? Here we go:

I think Funny People is not a comedy. It has people telling jokes, sure, but the film puts those jokes in a context that shows you where they come from. Essentially, Apatow knowingly saps any and all jokes in the film of their humor. I'll explain. If you are telling someone a story that you think is funny and they are not responding, the worst thing that you can do is explain why it is funny to you. That's kind of what Apatow's doing. He's showing you some sad, lonely people mining their own lives for humor. There's a scene where Adam Sandler is singing a song to his audience about his mortality, and he says something to the effect of: "Never visit my grave, fuck all of you." And they laugh. But you know why he's saying it and I could not laugh (though some obviously inebriated audience members at the screening I attended did).

All performances are good at the very least. Sandler is great, but not as good as he was in Punch-Drunk Love. Rogen was great, but not quite as good as he was in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, or Knocked Up. The performance that knocked my socks off was Eric Bana, the Incredible Hulk himself. He has to deliver a horrible monolouge at one point about karma, but he pulls it off. And that's the sign of a great actor. He plays his role so straight it almost takes my breath away.

A sign of an Apatow movie is a glut of supporting characters that don't quite earn their screentime, see the roommates in Knocked Up. But Rogen's roommates in this film, played by Jason Schwartzman and Jonah Hill, pull their weight. They aren't given an inordinate amount of screentime in the name of funniness. They serve the plot, as that kind of character should.

Overall, I really liked this film, and though it might get overly sentimental in the latter third, it really holds up. B+

Rose Schwietz is...

2009-07-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

the best girlfriend ever and I love her very much!

Milk

2009-07-29T18:49:00.002-07:00

I did not see "Milk" in theaters. I don't know why... I had a weird falling-out with theater-going while that was in wide release. But thank God for Netflix.

Let's make no bones about it: this is Sean Penn's greatest performance. I really like Dead Man Walking, but Penn is a bit brooding for my taste in that film. And not only is Sean Penn beyond reproach in this film, but the supporting cast is as well. Diego Luna, James Franco (who at this point can do no wrong in my eyes), Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, et al. Awesome, just awesome.

Can I further praise Gus Van Sant's direction? A deft little turn for him. He toned down the effective atmospherics from Paranoid Park and Elephant to simply tell this story the way it happened.

Which brings me to the highest praise I can give this film: It pulls no punches. Harvey Milk was a consumate politician. We see him logrolling, backstabbing, etc. The most telling scene is after a momentous vote against Gay Rights, Milk has one of his inner circle incite the residents of the Castro District to riot, so that conveniently he can appear and become Harvey Milk, the Peacemaker.

Really, a great film all around, among the best political biopics around. A-

Visioneers

2009-07-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

Visioneers (2008). Directed by Jared Drake. Written by Brandon Drake. With Zach Galifianakis, Judy Greer, and James LeGros. Music by Tim DeLaughter. Cinematography by Dino Parks.

I came across this movie thanks to the “Filmspotting” Podcast’s 265th Episode listing the Top 5 performances of the year. The guest critic, Ain’t It Cool New’s Capone AKA Steve Prokopy listed Zach Galifianakis’ performance in a small film called Visoneers as an honorable mention. Now, I was a fan of Zach Galifianakis’ work in the Comedians of Comedy and his solo DVD Live at the Purple Onion. And I knew he had starred in the ubiquitous R-rated Comedy of the summer The Hangover. But I had never heard of Visioneers. So I went to Netflix, queued it, and watched it this morning. And I was flabbergasted.

If I had I to quantify this film by describing it as an amalgam of other films, this is a mumblecore re-make of Brazil. As a self-respecting amateur film critic, I would normally be loath to do that, but I’m OK because that’s the best way I can describe this film. Visioneers and Brazil have similar plots and structures:

There is a competent but unfulfilled employee of an omnipresent corporation (Jonathan Pryce in Brazil and Galifianakis in Visioneers) who is living a suffocatingly monotonous life, and feels that he won’t be able to go on. Both of these protagonists goaded into an enlightened lifestyle by a combination of dreams, a mysterious woman who may or may not exist, and a Christ-figure (Robert De Niro in Brazil and James LeGros in Visioneers). Beyond that, there is little in common between the two films.

The main difference is the Drake Bros.’ style. It’s muted, very deliberately paced. Little camera movement, a lot of shot-reverse shot direction. The film spends a lot of time establishing and then following George’s day-to-day existence, putting the audience right in the tension George is feeling. This style brings across the quiet hopelessness of Galifianakis’ character. In Brazil, Gilliam’s faux-operatic style conveys the Quixotic hopefulness of his protagonist. That is what makes Visioneers an original film. It shows a similar story from a different perspective, a different place emotionally.

In Visioneers, George Washington Winsterhammerman, a third-level Visioneer (what that means is not explicitly defined) for Jeffers Corp., the “and friendliest and most profitable corporation in the history of all mankind.” People who are literally exploding surround George. They are exploding, presumably, due to cooped up ambition that must physically extradite itself from the body due to societal constrictions. George exhibits early symptoms of exploding, dreams (in which he is George Washington rallying the troops the evening prior to the Crossing of the Delaware), and a lack of sex drive towards his wife (Judy Greer). His brother arrives after quitting the Jeffers Corp., and garners a large following by pole-vaulting in George’s backyard. Charisma, a mysterious woman on the phone who has taken a personal interest in George disappears. And all the while, more and more people explode.

Galifianakis, whose comedy is quite verbose, has next to no lines in the film. He drifts from situation to situation silently. His performance conveys a long history of sadness and unfulfillment. And Judy Greer is hilarious as a wife obsessed with a self-help book.

And Tim DeLaughter’s score is great. The theme’s tone changes contextually from heartbreaking to rousing. Which is everything a musical score should be.

I give it a B+. It is too slow in the middle, otherwise it’d be an A film all the way.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

2009-07-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). Directed by Sam Peckinpah; written by Rudy Wurlitzer. With James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, and Bob Dylan. Music by Bob Dylan. Cinematography by John Coquillon.

Before the review, two caveats:

I watched the "2005 Special Edition" (i.e. Disc 1 from the 2-Disc Special Edition), which is 7 minutes shorter than the "1988 Turner Preview Edition" (i.e. Disc 2).
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I watched the movie in two hour-long segments.

First off, along with Alien and Being John Malkovich, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid goes down as one of the most aptly titled films of all time. This film is completely dependent upon the relationship between the lawman Pat Garrett (Coburn at his gravely best), and his scofflaw prey Billy the Kid (the decent Kris Kristofferson). Which is very strange, because the pair have three scenes together. Chronologically in those scenes:

They are seperated by a wall during a shoot-out when they shout at each other.
They comiserate over the zealousness of one of Garrett's contemporaries in a jailhouse card game.
They don't speak to each other.

Everything we need to know about the chemistry between those two is set up in the second scene. This is to the credit of the actors, becasue they convey a mutual history quite well. The success of the story hinges upon the audience realizing that in the Old West, the line between criminal and law enforcer comes close to disapperaing. Garrett and the Kid (at least in the history of the film) formerly rode together as outlaws. After a falling out, Garrett becomes a sherriff as an act of self-preservation, whereas the Kid continues robbing and raising all sorts of hell. Once the Kid escapes Garrett's keep, Garrett is hired to follow Billy across the state and find him for a sizable sum. The film feels a lot like a TV show, following a very episodic structure, what we're seeing is vignettes of Billy the Kid as fugitive, and Garrett as stoic, reluctant lawman.

We meet a lot (perhaps too many) of supporting characters. And many of them are interesting and well-acted, but few of them do anything to further the story. This film is focused on character. Which is fine, I love movies like Annie Hall, but we don't see these characters very much.

This is a Peckinpah film. And the word that comes up a lot in discussion of Peckinpah is "sexism". Which -at least in this film- is inaccurate. Women are objectified, but the characters objectifying them are not seen as good characters. Garrett visits hookers he doesn't know, whereas any lovemaking Billy the Kid does is with people who he knows and has relationships with.

Which brings us to what would concern me were I Mama Peckinpah: the romanticization of the outlaw. We never see Billy the Kid commit a crime other than in self-defense. We see Pat Garrett commit all sorts of immoral activities. When the Kid escapes from jail the town helps him. When Pat Garrett upholds the law, small children throw stones at him. I should point out that this is Peckinpah's M.O., and as such I didn't have too many qualms about it. All of this dubious moralizing is to further the point I alluded to earlier: the line between being a criminal and upholding the wall is wafer thin. Characters flip-flop allegiances, most notably Jack Elam as Alamosa Bill who Garrett deputizes purely because he was standing there.

I should also mention Dylan's score, which isn't so much a score as a collection of songs that are played over extended establishing shots throughout the film. The album (which I owned prior to seeing the film) works better as an album than it does a soundtrack, though I should mention that "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is used to a particularly heartbreaking effect in a sequence involving Slim Pickens. Furthermore, Dylan's performance is given third billing, but he really is only in a few scenes, and is given very little to do. He's good given the limitations of the role, but it rarely transcends novelty.

Overall, I give the film B-.

Thank you.

The Hurt Locker

2009-07-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, I've just returned from my maiden viewing of The Hurt Locker.

If you're short on time, my overall view of the movie is: "Oh, my God. A masterpiece."

Anyway, the more verbose version of my thoughts follows:

I am a contrarian above all else, so when I heard the first shot on would grip me and not let go, I was skeptical. The Director, Kathryn Bigelow brought us Point Break, K-19: The Widowmaker, and Near Dark (which I was underwhelmed by) after all. That said, I can also admit when I am wrong. And I was wrong to have doubted this film.

The Hurt Locker had me by the balls from the first frame. It kicked my ass, pulled no punches, and inspired me that movies can in fact be this good. As I limped home from the screening at the Grandview Theater in St. Paul, I was amazed at how much I wanted to discuss the events of the film with the characters. And that, I think, is a good jumping off point to talk about the performances. The names everyone have been hearing are Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie, and rightfully so. But Guy Pearce, Ralph Finnes, and David Morse all give memorable "one-sceners". That is, they give performances that involve you in their stories, regardless of their limited screen time. I sincerely hope that Renner and Mackie get Oscar Nods at the very least. They are amazing, with a completely convincing chemistry that carries the film.

I saw this film opening day at the Grandview, with only a handful of other people. There were two other young men there, who obviously glazed over during the opening epigram - and whooped and hollered during the action sequences (I should note also that to the film's credit, I was so engrossed I could ignore them). The other viewers were elderly people (it was a Friday, after all), and an old woman left during a particularly gruesome scene mid-way through. I'm not spoiling anything by admiting that this film pulls no punches in the gore department, without being ostentatious.

Speaking of ostentation, Michael Mann's greatest shortcoming in Public Enemies was the ostentation. Simply put, there's a heavy artiface in Public Enemies, the digital medium. You could tell that the film was handheld, unfortunately. I respect Mann for going big instead of going home. However, it feels clunky and forced in that film. Kathryn Bigelow can chalk herself up next to David Lynch and Steven Spielberg as filmmakers who can utilize the digital camera without being obtrusive and taking viewers out of the movie. The handheld sequences in The Hurt Locker don't FEEL like handheld sequences. They completely achieve what handheld sequences are meant to do: take you into the action.

I must also say that this film is head and shoulders above other war films, especially Iraq War films, for its utter lack of political commentary. I can credit the screenwriter Mark Boal with this, because he was with these men in real life. He knew that men in that situation would not sermonize about the politics, and if they did, they would be reviled. There is sermonizing in a key scene that doesn't quite fit, but it's sermonizing about one of the character's failings. You never hear the word "Bush". This film is a barebones, down-to-earth portrayal of how men function in war.

In Adaptation, the Robert McKee character says, "Wow 'em in the end, and you've got a hit." This is true of the last 10 minutes of The Hurt Locker. You see how and why a character did everything he did. And though his motivations seem grotesque in a way, they are understandable, and identifiable.

So, RUN - don't walk - to see The Hurt Locker right now. I give it an A-