2003 Foreign, Alternative and Independent Films

No doubt true Michael--but I'd still recommend a wee dram.

Waugh! I wanna see a sneak peek of The Cooler!

As Michael predicted -

The Cooler

I highly, highly recommend "The Cooler". Featuring a dual storyline, the primary portion is William H. Macy's "Cooler" character, a man with such bad luck that it rubs off on anyone he gets near, making him a perfect casino employee. But he has a hollow, nothing life of disappointment and mistakes. In meeting a cocktail waitress played by Maria Bello, he finds hope for something better. The other part of the story is about the battle between the new family theme Vegas (represented by Ron Livingston of Office Space fame) and the old school gangster Las Vegas rep'd by casino owner Alec Baldwin.

It's very much like an early 70's movie, believably brutal violence, explicit, but tender and fun adult sex (rather than glossy skinemax/MTV style), jazz/Sinatraesque type score/soundtrack. This is Alec Baldwin at his best, he has riotous high quality tough guy dialogue to work with and multiple brutally violent scenes (a couple walked out of the theater during one of them). Very well made in all respects. Also very funny at times, with lots of casino type humor that us gamblers especially appreciate. The performances by Bill Macy and Maria Bello are outstanding. Their romance is pulled off beautifully, you really believe the characters are in love.

The casino featured in the film is called the Shangri-La and there are multiple references to Lost Horizon, the casino as Baldwin's own version of paradise, that has now become endangered by progress and has driven Baldwin to a de-humanizing obsession in order to protect it. One of my favorites of the year.

But a giant disappointment that Glenfiddich was nowhere to be seen. When I went to a Tanqueray-sponsored Down With Love preview earlier in the year, it was all you can drink with mountains of appetizers. (and it takes alcohol to get through DWL)

Where is The Cooler going to play in the Atlanta area?

Babi Leto (Autumn Spring)

Vladimír Michálek’s film is about an elder person who refuses to accept the inevitable and just wants to continue living by playing pranks and harmless scams on others while his wife and others are busy planning for their death. It is a funny and oftentimes warm and honest look at elders who are in this crucial stage of their lives.

It won the equivalent of the Oscars in Czech Republic in three acting categories (Actor, Actress and Supporting Actor) and Best Screenplay.

Ironically, while the film champions the celebration of life, lead Vlastimil Brodsky (age 81) tragically took his own shortly after the film was released.

~Edwin

I've seen its trailer at the Madstone in Sandy Springs, so it should be coming there soon.

They also advertise a Cooler Contest at the Midtown Arts theater, but I believe I saw in Sunday's paper that it will initially open at Tara. It will probably run at Tara for 2-3 weeks and then move to Madstone which 21 Grams and In America probably will do as well.

KUKUSHKA

I guess this Russian anti-war film by Aleksandr Rogozhkin just failed to resonate with me. For most of its running time I was wondering with the three characters who constantly talk to each other in three different languages while at the same time unable to understand each other, why sign and body language were used so little as a form of communication. I guess practicality and common sense is out of the question in this part of the world or else, there wouldn't be a movie.

~Edwin

21 GRAMS

I can certainly see why Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu chose to tell the story of three characters who meet by chance in a non-chronological fragmentary manner because to do so otherwise would have required a lot more set up and running time. In its current form, while audiences are given a glimpse of what ultimately takes place, the reasons are then explored through a series of flashbacks. What is important to note is that Inarritu uses this narrative style to present why certain character motivations and actions take place rather than how it happens.

However, as it is, much of each story’s emotional content is lost, at least on this viewer. Since, for the most part, we already know the fate of each character ahead of time, we become more concerned about putting the pieces together and focusing more on the reasons behind each outcome. Here, the characters demand our attention rather than them grabbing a hold of us and gripping us with their emotional plight.

On both fronts, we become a distant observer rather than engaged as a viewer. In this case, Christopher Nolan’s Memento, which started the recent wave of non-linear storytelling, is far more effective in getting its audience into a higher plane of involvement.

Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro all give top-notch performances. But in the end, 21 Grams is more of a sensory experience rather than an emotional one.

~Edwin

Monster

A disappointment. Charlize Theron's transformation into executed murderer Aileen Wuornos is a stunning achievement, but it's marooned in a film with little sense of how to tell a story. By the time we meet Aileen, she's already a deeply disturbed, hopelessly damaged soul from a lifetime of mistreatment and years of work as a prostitute. The action of the film, such as it is, consists of Aileen's halting efforts to form some sort of human bond with Selby Wall (an unusually subdued Christina Ricci) and her killing of several johns, most of whom are presented as either miscreants or losers. In a hint of what the film might have been, the final murder we witness is of a decent man who merely offered Aileen a ride, but ends up dead anyway because Aileen is so used to the ritual of exploitation that she naturally assumes that's how everyone will behave. Theron's portrayal of the emotions that wrack Aileen as she realizes that she's about to kill someone entirely innocent is brilliant, but it's one of the few moments where the script truly supports the performance, and it comes far too late in the film to accomplish much of anything.

The "monster" of the title is a reference to a giant ferris wheel that Aileen rode as a child. It's a mark of the script's laziness that, even when Aileen and Selby take a ride on a ferris wheel, the image doesn't connect with much of anything; it's plays as just another random incident.

M.

Edwin, my thoughts exactly on 21 Grams.

There's a documentary coming out about the real life Aileen from Monster I think. Saw a trailer for it before 21 Grams.

Yes, Brook, a lot of these supposedly award contenders are just ending up short for a lot of people including myself. Oh, well...

The 2004 thread will be started this weekend as soon as Jason and I can get our act together.

Michael, it might be wise to keep this thread open for another month or so before archiving it until people can get caught up with some of the 2003 platform released films. Thanks.

~Edwin

The 2002 thread stayed open until mid-January 2003. We can follow the same timetable with this one.

M.

...And the index is current

The Cooler - ¼

In his "Ringworld" novels, science-fiction author Larry Niven posited the character of Teela Brown, who was born and bred to be lucky. Her ancestors had won the right to conceive in a lottery going back three generations, and she'd never been less than fortunate, never having so much as stubbed her toe. Like Gladstone Gander in Walt Disney's Duck comics, she was lucky as a condition of her being. Niven claimed that she had the ultimate psi power - author control.

There is a great deal of appeal to a writer in the idea that luck is a function of some universal force as opposed to what it really is - chance. Once you allow luck to be something quantifiable, and indeed predictable in a definite, as opposed to probability-based, way, you can cease worrying about whether or not people will believe in how your characters are affected by outside actions. Their luck becomes a part of their environment.

It's tricky, though. Intacto, for instance, built a framework of rules and methods by which this "luck" worked, but never put the idea to terribly interesting use. The Cooler, on the other hand, asks the audience to take its title character's bad luck as a given, but never makes this fantasy element really fit into its gritty millieu.

William H. Macy's Bernie Lootz is unlucky, and he plays his role in Vegas by making those around him unlucky, in the service of his casino-boss "friend" Shelly (Alec Baldwin). When a pretty waitress (Maria Bello) takes an interest in him, his luck changes with his attitude, and Shelly attempts to return things to normal via extreme measures.

But the whole idea's pretty silly, isn't it? The movie presents Bernie's bad luck as a key to keeping the casino in business, but the idea that casinos actually depend on luck is childish. Casinos operate and thrive because they understand probability better than their customers. Shelly himself is a silly caricature, a superstitious thug who romanticizes thuggery. His downfall is not only inevitable, but given the time-frame of the movie, long overdue.

Now, Baldwin, Bello, and Macy all give decent performances - there's not really a bad bit of character acting to be found; even Ron Livingston's astounding un-charisma is well-utilized (and Estella Warren apparently can act as opposed to just looking good). But they're all in service of such silly ideas as to make The Cooler a well-acted goofy movie.

---

And now it has to be updated again. :b

The Fog of War

Errol Morris's documentary about the life and times of Robert McNamara doesn't contain any startling revelations and won't settle any debates about the historical events with which McNamara is most closely associated. But it does let you spend a concentrated 90 minutes in the company of someone who is marvellously thoughtful and articulate, and who just happened to be there for some of the most important occurrences in 20th century American history. (His earliest memory is of the celebration of the ending of what was then known as "The Great War". McNamara was two years old.)

More or less in order, the documentary covers McNamara's personal history, his involvement in World War II, the Cuban missile crisis, the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, and the Vietnam War (during most of which McNamara was Secretary of Defense and a constant target of the anti-war movement). But Morris's editing jumps back and forth in time, and the organizing principle of the documentary is eleven "rules" extracted from McNamara's reflections on his life and times. I can't even begin to remember the "rules", and frankly I think they're just a conceit. None of them struck me as especially new or insightful, except in the context of the specific recitation by McNamara out of which each one arises.

I've always admired the way Errol Morris reminds his audience that a documentary is a constructed, artificial creation, even when it's largely derived from an interview. The Fog of War uses numerous jumpcuts, which Morris makes no attempt to hide, as a way of constantly reminding you that the McNamara you're seeing on screen is one who has been, at least to some degree, created by the filmmaker.

The film may well be a litmus test for the political attitudes of the viewer. I came away with a strong sense that McNamara, now in his mid-80s, knows that he made many mistakes in his conduct of various war activities but that he does not seriously regret them. The title refers to the impossibility of seeing clearly in a situation which, by its very nature, does not permit an open field of vision. And yet I couldn't escape the impression that McNamara has reconciled himself to the fact that someone has to make those decisions, and he did as a good a job as anyone could have.

Morris has been criticized for not pressing McNamara hard enough in his questioning. I think it's a silly criticism. McNamara is far too smart, and has had far too long to reflect, to be pinned down by anyone. There are points where he simply says he doesn't want to discuss a particular subject, and you can tell by the way he says it that nothing on earth could budge him. What Morris got was simply what McNamara was willing to show, and even when it's unsatisfying, it's fascinating

M.

This is the documentary that I’m most interested in seeing this year, Michael. Have you read In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam? In this mea cupla, if one can use the term. Perhaps you are correct in your litmus test, test, but the quote from the book I remember best is, “We were wrong, terribly wrong … we owe it to future generations to explain why.”

I’m really going to be interested to compare this film to that book.

Obviously McNamara has reflected thoughtfully and deeply on this subject and has already spoken for the record. I’d agree that there is no real point in (now) trying to trip him up. Though I may feel differently after I’ve seen the documentary.

No, Lew, I haven't read the book. It's worth noting that Vietnam is the subject on which McNamara most firmly closes the door -- perhaps because he feels he's already said his piece in print.

Perhaps I overstated it by saying that McNamara seems not to "regret" his mistakes. But whatever regrets he may have, he's obviously reached some inner accord with himself. You remember that little smirk he used to get during interviews (Morris includes a few choice examples from archival footage)? He still gets it. Like he knows something the rest of us don't.

M.

IN AMERICA

I really don’t have anything more to add than what has already been said. I liked the film mostly for its performances. There are moments that are good but it lacked some elements to just make it great. Overall, a very worthwhile viewing albeit a very middle of the road undertaking.

~Edwin

Monster

I also found the channelling of serial killer Aileen Wuornos by Charlize Theron to be spot on in a very impressive performance (where she not only transforms her body/face, but also her mannerisms and speech pattern to inhabit the character without pulling any punches), but the story lacked narrative urgency, and just bops along as "a day in the life of Aileen Wuornos" type of film, but keeps the viewer 2 steps removed from getting really involved in either of the main 2 characters (Wuornos and Selby). Even when you see how the murders go down, the impact of the events don't really resonate or horrify, perhaps it's because the screenplay does its darnedest to make Wuornos's action more forgiveable and sympathetic than they truly deserve.

I give the film 2.75 stars or a grade of B-.

I give Charlize's portrayal 4 stars or a grade of A.