February 27, 2007 by kirkjobsluder.

I already commented on Zappa’s Baby Snakes but I just saw Comic Book, The Movie which brought this up in my mind again.

There is a genre of cinema which basically says, “here are my friends doing crazy things.” Which is great if you are a friend or fan of the director and know those crazy people. It’s not so great if you are not in on the joke. Mark Hamill plays a geeky comic shop owner and fanzine editor who tries to influence a film adaptation of his favorite character, Commander Courage. Some of the best parts of the Comic Book, The Movie involve Hugh Hefner, Kevin Smith, and Stan Lee giving deadpan commentary about a fictional WWII comic book artist. The protagonist’s dismay that Hollwood wants base the movie on 21st century jingoism rather than WWII jingoism makes for some interesting moments.

But large chunks of the film are filled with mugging cameos by animation voice talents and comic book writers. There is a quick inside joke of Hamill being snubbed by Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) which was completely incomprehensible to us without looking at the voice credits. Often the extended improvisations are more baffling than funny. After watching this on DVD I realized that I’m not quite geeky enough to really get it.

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February 18, 2007 by kirkjobsluder.

Lady in the Water

Laura loved it. I thought it fell somewhere in the middle as far as movies go. I didn’t think in was so bad as to justify the hate heaped on it. But it didn’t enchant me either.

Charade

This is on my list of movies that I have to see once a year. Audry Hepburn, Carey Grant, and an excellent supporting cast in a movie that combines great banter with a parody of Alfred Hitchcock.

Frank Zappa: Baby Snakes

“A movie about people who do stuff that is not normal.” I don’t usually do concert videos. Chunks of the film include surreal clay animation by artist Bruce Bickford. An even more surreal moment comes near the start when you see a tiny animated Zappa, standing on a film editing device watching Bickford’s animated films. Bickford’s art uses clay to morph figures from castles to faces and back again, and the interviews with Bickford and shots of Zappa conducting the soundtrack.

However, most of the film focuses on two back-to-back concerts in New York City which highlights Zappa’s diverse musical styles from satirical humor pieces, spoken-word performance art, complex instrumentals, backstage goofing around, and audience participation. At the height of the concert, he invites select members of the audience on-stage to reenact his feud with Warner Brothers, and engage in a dance competition to a composition with a constantly shifting meter.

While it’s all in good fun, it’s not for the easily offended. The movie left me longing for a bit more Bickford, and it drags at points in spite of Zappa’s incredible on-stage showmanship. If you are not already a fan of his music, you probably should skip this one.

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January 17, 2007 by kirkjobsluder.

I’ve not been watching too many movies lately, primarily because of lack of funds, but also a lack of interest in what’s been playing.

But, I needed to get out of the house, so Curse of the Golden Flower worked its way to the top of the heap. Curse can be called a melodrama or tragedy. It’s fairly obvious that like a good Shakespeare play, all but a few characters will die as a result of their own machinations and failings in a creative orgy of blood and schadenfreude. And throughout much of this movie, I was left wondering if I didn’t miss something in translation.

The film opens shortly before the annual Chrysanthemum festival celebrating the stability of the Imperial family. The Empress resentfully takes the medication mandated by her husband every two hours. Her stepson, Crown Prince Xiang resents the liberties she takes with him. Meanwhile, the Emperor challenges his warrior son Jie to a duel. The Emperor prophetically warns, “Do not attempt to take by force, what I do not offer to you.” Third son Cheng cheerfully interrupts quietly whispered plots.

The Imperial family are seething cauldrons of chaos in the midst of a vast human machine played by a literal cast of thousands. The film opens not on the main characters, but on dozens of female servants dressing with drill team precision led by supervisors marking time with percussive blows on a woodblock. Outside of the forbidden city, a slightly less organized but still disciplined group of soldiers rides to their destination. Four servants deliver the medicine that becomes a symbol for the conflict within the court. That conflict involves maintaining the orderly function of the court, ves the demands of justice.

The court and army of China exist to serve the whims of the Imperial family. But there is a sense that the family are also cogs in the machine. Unlike Marie Antoinette the movie offers no hint of impending revolution. The cataclysm triggered by the family involves thousands of solders, but is quickly cleaned up by thousands of servants in a scene that is even more ominous than the preceding violence.

Director Yimou Zhang’s trademark use of color deeply saturates the court in iridescent golds, reds, and purples, and then contrasts that with the greys of the outside world. The opulence of the Imperial apartments borders on gaudy, and the overal saturation of the film might turn some people off.

But as I said earlier, I wonder if I missed something in translation. To me, the scale of the film came at the expense of intimacy and empathy with the characters. The script telegraphs the “big reveal” so far in advance that it didn’t shock, and the reactions of key characters seemed unintentionally funny as a result. I found it a really beautiful film, a really stunning film, but not so much an emotionally effective film for me.

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December 11, 2006 by kirkjobsluder.

It seems that already Apocolypto has been drawing some attention for some of the same criticisms of portrayal that plagued Passion. Traci Arden, a Maya scholar attempts to critique the over-the-top violent portrayal of the Maya and the anachronism of Spanish missionaries showing up to save the day. In reality the Spanish invasion occurred more 300 years after the cities were abandoned. Arden argues that the pseudo-realism and use of Mayan dialect may lead people to believe its documentary claims, when it is just an ultra-violent action movie that attempts to attack modernism.

Arden argues that Gibson’s portrayal of the pre-Colombian Maya does injustice to the modern-day persecution of their descendants, and follows in a long string of cinematic justifications for “civilizing” the Americas through extreme portrayal of their savagery.

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