2004 Foreign, Alternative and Independent Films

Since an existing discussion thread on this has gone tit for tat the last few days and deviates from the actual film itself, I’m posting my comments here.

Super Size Me

A nice and refreshing change from A Terrible Movie Summer: Are the SFX people running the asylum? Director Morgan Spurlock advocates personal responsibility when it comes to proper nutrition and fast food eating and to some degree social responsibility on companies (i.e. McDonald's) that profit from these types of food.

Spurlock goes on an experiment and uses humor to prove a point or two. He goes a step further and analyzes the current state of school lunch menus in today’s schools. While the findings of his experiment are not earth shattering or new, this cautionary tale serves a lot of food for thought especially to its target group or irresponsible individuals who often ignore the dangers of constant fast food consumption.

Spurlock’s style is far from being manipulative and one-sided. And while it may be subjective at times, his chemistry panel results isn’t and goes a long way to proving his points rather than just a simple weight gain or lip service in the process.

~Edwin

Thanks Edwin. I’m planning on seeing it this weekend—but not so I can validly contribute to the other thread. I'm always surprised at the expectations and standards to which documentaries are held by viewers who (likely) have not watched very many.

After all, if the filmmaker had no passion for his subject, it would never get made—there is probably more money in street performing, than in making documentaries.

Lew, I'll be interested in what you think of the film. This thread seems to be on life support recently with previous contributors no longer posting.

The message of Super Size Me is all too common. But its message is worth repeating and highlighted because, for some reason, it doesn't seem to be coming across and the problem it tries to address is getting worse.

~Edwin

Every week I think that I’m going to post in this thread next week.

Ok Edwin, next week I’ll post a review or at least a comment.

Brook where are you?

And its a shame, while I never post reviews or thoughts in this thread (and the previous ones) I always read it because in my area the Indie and Art-House films rarely see a run in the cinema but at least most of the titles become available to rent on DVD at the local store. This thread helps to pick up on some titles I surely would have missed.

Do you ever drive up for some of the Sydney Film Festival, Nick?

It is very worthwhile.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring

Kim Ki Duk’s Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring works on its own terms – contemplative, meditative, beautiful and thoughtful as much as its tone and pace are deliberate. This is the type of film that is to be enjoyed with no distractions for its images and symbolism might quickly escape you.

The film examines the life of a young protégé and a Buddhist monk. The seasons are a metaphor for each stage in a man’s cycle of life. Most of the action takes place at a Buddhist monastery floating on a raft set in the Jusan Pond in North Kyungsang Province in Korea. It relies on its natural surroundings for its beauty and visual artistry. Each segment also features an animal for its thematic motif.


Director Kim Ki Duk as the adult monk during the “Winter” segment.

This human drama of innocence, love, sexual awakening, atonement, redemption, renewal and rebirth, in its most minimalist terms, feeds the senses as well as the mind – a rare achievement in today’s films.

~Edwin

Kaena: The Prophecy - (but I really like the pretty)

I'd like to see Pixar or PDI commit to doing a full-out sci-fi action movie, just to see what someone with real movie storytelling skills can do with the genre. It seems like a medium where someone with imagination could create something incredible, and France's Kaena has four-star promise with its absolutely gorgeous opening shot of a spaceship ripping itself apart. After that, though, the movie gradually crumbles, as the visuals are forced to carry a weak plot.

Now, I'm not one to sniff and say that great special effects aren't worth anything without a good story (or, even more myopically, without good characterization). There are distinct pleasures to be found in just looking at this movie, from that opening sequence to the monsters that chase the main character to the dizzying image of a tree grown so tall that you're weightless above a certain point. But co-writer/director Chris Delaporte doesn't know how to pace them over ninety minutes; much of the cool stuff is bunched up on the ends, with the middle left to drag with a bunch of exposition and the overuse of a too-chatty character voiced (in the English dub) by Greg Proops.

A lot of Kaena's problems are shared by Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The animators often don't seem to trust themselves to show strong emotion without it looking hammy, so everyone seems restrained, even when they should be screaming or passionate. It also inserts a bunch of annoying mysticism into a science-fictional setting. Why does Kaena (voiced by Kirsten Dunst) have some sort of connection to the sphere (or "Vecanoï") at the base of Axis which the native Selenites wish to destroy and the sole survivor of the spaceship wishes to retrieve? No reason, she just does. Sure, those of us who like our science fiction and mystical fantasy kept distinct are probably a minority, but it weakens the title character here - in essence, Kaena is special because she's special.

Kaena is a fun character, though. She's the independent and adventurous teenager in her village, who explores Axis (the tree which is these characters' entire world) and draws the creatures she finds while most of the villagers harvest sap to be offered by the tyrannical High Priest to the gods. The adults are annoyed by her but the kids love her, as does a childhood friend. She's sexy, but in an innocent way; the tiny outfit she wears in the film's first half indicates a tropical environment more than any sort of naughtiness (and, hey, it's not like any of the guys are wearing shirts, either). It's enough to make one wish she was more of an active hero than a "chosen one", because it's a lot more fun to watch her figure things out than be told things.

(Of course, the costume whe's put in for the movie's last act is kind of fetish-like, and when a 700-year-old alien says he wishes he could merge with her rather than a member of his own species... Well, that's nasty.)

But golly, can this movie be pretty. Though it overdoes making one group of creatures shiny and liquid to the point where the eye can't quite hold on to them, it also offers up a steady stream of great pictures. Giant marauding creatures, worms in prosthetic suits, a tree so tangled it often looks like neurons, that beautiful, doomed spaceship, flight... Kaena has neat concepts and striking depictions of same. When this finally gets combined with people who can string them together to form an adventure movie the way John Lasseter can with a comedy, well, boy, that'll be something incredible.

Unfortunately no, I was talking about it with a mate a couple of weeks ago but he can't get time off work on the weekends and I don't like hanging around Sydney by myself. I think it it actually starts on Friday. It would have been good to at least get to a screening of Coffee and Cigarettes. They are screening Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring which Edwin just reviewed a couple of posts up and now looks like a film to look out for.

Somehow this thread has completely slipped past my radar the past couple years. If I'd realized about this thread I'd have not posted a new thread for my Saved! review but simply have posted it here, here's a link:

Saved! review

I also saw Robot Stories earlier this year ( out of four)

The anthology aspect of the film, was, I felt a strong choice that allows for complex but thematically linked ideas about how technology affects human relationships to be explored. Each story is just the right length and very well done. The weakest, I think is the story of the android, if only because I could barely remember it when writing just now.

In the first story, a young professional couple gets put on the government short list to be granted a birth waiver (taking place in a population control era), but first they must prove their parental capabilities by caring for a cute robot surrogate baby. The attentive father is swiftly taken away by emergency business leaving the care of the robot child in the care of his wife. A brief opening scene shows us she has poor experiences of parenting. And it shows, her failures are evident and immediate and she's completely oblivious to them. However a parallel closing scene offers a sense of possible hope and growth.

In the second story, a new model android is brought to work at an office and perform menial coding on an ancient computer. Work he easily accomplishes but everyone excludes him through their own fear or a corporate inspired directive. He finds solace only in looking to the next building to see another, female android. I dunno I didn't like this one quite as much and of all the stories it felt hte most preachy and clearly allegorical to racism (though sci-fi has classicly been a venue to confront displaced racism via speciesism).

The third story is my favorite, it's not really scifi and is the most low key of them all. It's about how a mother and daughter are brought together by their son/brother's comatose state following an accident. The mother finds an obsession with some of her boys old robot toys in an attempt to try to understand his childhood and identity--and what that means about her.

The fourth story is about a sculptor whose wife has passed on but been preserved in a digital file. He's slowly dieing and is considering breaking the law by not having himself preserved online. His struggle to live and die the way he wants has a lot of potential power, but I think this story falters for the same reason the second story failed for me.

The writer director Greg Pak is again reaching past his excellent and strong understandings of the little communities we create and how those define us to try for a more overt universal theme and broader issues. I think the film could have been better served had those two films had a little more a smaller focus to let the bigger themes play in the subtext of the filim instead of trying to encapsulate them into a short film.

Overall it's a very strong film and I look forward to rewatching it with many family and friends, I wish more sci-fi were being made like this (Eternal Sunshine was one such film and just blew me away), because this kind of sci fi in film is one hell of a lot more daring than the traditional interpretation sci-fi gets.



Adam

Edwin's review of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring is spot on.

The story and ending are nothing new (and, indeed, everything you need to know about both are summarized in the title), but they are presented so well with so little in terms of dialogue, and so much in terms of scenery and symbolism. This is far and away one of the most visually beautiful films I have seen in quite some time.

Control Room

Jehan Noujaim's documentary on the Al Jazeera network and its coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom goes wider today. The Landmark Theater chain will be playing it at most of their locales, if not this weekend then in the near future. Several other chains should have it as well.

With all the attention focused on the polemical Fahrenheit 9/11, this more traditional documentary has received a lot less attention. That's both good and bad: Fewer people will have heard of it, but those who do see it can enter the theater with less baggage. (Given the subject matter, a complete lack of baggage is probably impossible.)

Noujaim co-directed Startup.com, and Control Room has the same fly-on-the-wall style. The filmmakers stand back and let the subjects talk, and since the subjects are either journalists or people who deal with journalists, they need no help in expressing themselves. Whether discussing their views of the U.S., debating the decision to air footage of casualties or of captured U.S. personnel, or mourning the loss of a colleague who was killed when a U.S. bomb hit the Al Jazeera office in Baghdad (whether deliberately or not remains open to debate), the staff and management of Al Jazeera come across as articulate and thoughtful people, passionately committed to reporting events as accurately as possible. They seem like any other group of serious journalists (in one startling moment, a senior producer named Sadir Khader says that he would happily take a job at Fox News) -- which makes it all the more jarring when they see things so differently from the customary U.S. view.

The film spends about equal time at the headquarters of Al Jazeera in Qatar and at nearby "CentCom", where the U.S. military set up its press operations. The interviewees include U.S. journalists as well as those that work for Al Jazeera, and the film also spends considerable time with U.S. military press liaison Lt. Josh Rushing, who is one of the most fascinating people in the film. In one extraordinary sequence, Lt. Rushing reflects on the difference in his reaction seeing footage of American casualties (which disturb him deeply) and Iraqi civilian casualties (which do not). Then with refreshing candor, he turns around and asks himself whether the same difference might apply to those who watch Al Jazeera, but in reverse.

This is not a documentary that's trying to change anyone's mind. It aspires to no more than putting a human face on an organization that most Westerners (and I include myself) know only as the preferred outlet for al Qaeda's video- and audiotapes. On that score the film succeeds brilliantly. And at the very least, it should leave you pondering (as Lt. Rushing does) about the complex interplay between national perspective and news reporting.

M.

Baadasssss! - ¼

I'm not sure how you make this film without it disappearing up its own rear end. That Mario Van Peebles somehow manages to do so is a testament to his skill.

That's not just a cute lead, either. Mario Van Peebles plays his father Melvin Van Peebles, in a movie about the making of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song - in which he played his father's character as a child. So, when the Melvin character states, in voiceover, that this was the first time young Mario had called him "dad", it's natural to wonder whose memory this is (to further muddy matters, Mario co-wrote the screenplay based upon Melvin's book). When the focus is on Melvin as a man and as a parent, the fact that this is a story about a father and son told by the son from the father's point of view can jolt one out of the film's world.

When the movie focuses on Melvin Van Peebles, Filmmaker, it's a good, self-contained story. Van Peebles has just been offered a three-picture deal with Columbia, but knows that he'll be their token negro, asked to make the kind of comedies that offend him, portraying blacks and other minorities as clowns. Instead, he decides to go it alone, making the kind of uncompromised movie he wants to see. He's smart enough to know that he can't just make some small, arty flick; he has to aim for entertainment. In order to make budget (no way he can afford a union crew), he recruits family, friends, and people from the porn industry. When his financing falls through, he winds up using his own money, making every decision more and more dangerous.

Baadasssss! shows how, in the early 1970s, before Cassevetes, way before Tarantino, how truly independent (and thus frightening) "independent film" really was. Melvin thought of himself a sort of revolutionary, a quaint-sounding idea when viewed from the twenty-first century, but fitting with the culture of the time and, in the end, somewhat true. Sweet Sweetback didn't change the world as a whole, but its success made the movie industry aware that there was a huge potential audience for movies targeted to the black audience.

One thing that makes Baadasssss! interesting is that while often a story about an artist driven to create focuses on an obsession with the end result. And while Mario does recreate scenes and how the movie was made, the actual movie Melvin makes is clearly less important than how he creates it, with a racially diverse crew and his full control. Melvin becomes something of a monster at times, taking perhaps too much upon himself and neither trusting nor forgiving the people he hired to help him make the movie. The audience is left to wonder whether Melvin was a jerk, was in the right, was pushed too hard by the strain, or whether perhaps some combination of these was true but his uglier qualities were needed to get the job done. We can't know, since we've only got one way it happened and one way it turned out.

The cast is, to a member, great. Mario gives a performance that would be fascinating even without his connection to the role, and for the most part manages to avoid both hero worship and resentment. Joy Bryant is entertaining but sincere as Priscilla, Melvin's girl Friday; Ossie Davis is still on top of his game as Melvin's father. David Allen Grier gives the best performance I can remember from him as Clyde Houston, the assistant director and production manager for Sweet Sweetback who was ecstatic to get out of doing porn. Saul Rubinek is good as the Agent who really isn't sure how to handle Melvin's decision to walk away from the studios. Khleo Thomas and Penny Bae Bridges have the job of portraying Melvin's children Mario and Megan, and serve as the movie's anchor.

Baadasssss! is a good movie about the madness that went into creating an independent film before independent film became cool. I'm pretty sure my feelings on it would be less complicated if it had been made by someone other than Mario Van Peebles, but just as with how Melvin made his movie, there's no way to tell how necessary that is.

Twilight Samurai - ½

There is, of course, a double meaning to this film's English title. First, that it's a story about the samurai as their way of life comes to the end (or as a specific one grows older), like last year's The Last Samurai. Within Yoji Yamada's excellent movie, however, it is used as a derisive nickname for Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada), who unlike the other samurai of the castle, hurries home before dark to be with his daughters and elderly mother.

During the early going, it's easy to think that Twilight Samurai might become a comedy or satire of some sort. It maps almost too well to twenty-first century life - though Iguchi has the title of samurai, he's a rather low-level one. He spends his days not as a warrior, but as a clerk, doing counts on the castle's stores and making sure that the books are even. He struggles to keep up with his family responsibilities, working a sort of second job building insect cages to make ends meet, and he could even be said to have a mortgage. He encourages his daughter to study Confucius (even though his uncle, the head of the family, disdains the idea of women being too educated) because book learning will teach her how to think, which will always be useful, even if sewing seems more practical now. His life falls into a familiar pattern, but he doesn't much mind - he's not ambitious, and nothing makes him happier than spending time with his daughters, ten-year-old Kayana and five-year-old Ito. Then, in an almost sitcom-like plot turn, Tomoe (Rie Miyazawa), the newly-divorced younger sister of his good friend Iinuma, returns to town.

Part of what makes this such an enjoyable movie, though, is that we can identify with Iguchi, even though he comes from a very different time and culture (I imagine that's somewhat the case for audiences in modern Japan, as well). That way, we're more aware of his frame of mind when the unfamiliar parts of his life - whether they be the complications of arranged marriages or the parts of his job that involve him using his sword - take center stage.

Yamada has a likable cast; Iguchi and Tomoe are a couple worth rooting for, and the young actresses playing Kayana and Ito are adorable. Aside from the bloody swordplay and the discussions of the politics that make it necessary, this could almost be a PG or PG-13 family movie. That said, what action this movie features is rather intense, including a couple shots of gushing blood; there's also recurring images of starved bodies washing up on the shore of the local river. It's labeled "Action/Drama/Family" on the IMDB, but it's definitely a case of knowing your family.

Twilight Samurai isn't a particularly challenging movie, but it is intelligent and well-constructed. It's a mature movie that nevertheless generates warm fuzzies, and now that I have had a chance to see it, I'd say it was a fitting nomination for Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars, and that its near-sweep of Japan's Academy Awards doesn't surprise me.

The more I contemplate The Saddest Music In The World, the more I convince myself that it isn't a case of style over substance, but style as substance. The preposterous story takes a back seat to the characters, settings, and visuals that push it along, much like a circus; it's not so much the story, but the execution of the story, that makes this a special film, albeit one that (as a whole) is executed unlike anything you've seen before.

In a nutshell, Depression-era Winnipeg is the World Capital of Sorrow, and is home to beer baroness Lady Port-Huntly, who decides to hold an international contest to determine the saddest music in the world, thereby putting both sadness and beer (which go hand-in-hand) in the public eye when Prohibition ends in the States. The film progresses from here, part comedy, part musical, shot in grainy, blooming black and white that evokes the time period in which the story is set. However pretentious the premise might sound, it's presented with a remarkable seriousness throughout the abounding silliness.

If you focus on the story and take it at face value, you'll be disappointed. If you focus on the world created by the film that brings you the story, you'll be captivated, as I was.

The more I contemplate The Saddest Music In The World, the more I convince myself that it isn't a case of style over substance, but style as substance. The preposterous story takes a back seat to the characters, settings, and visuals that push it along, much like a circus; it's not so much the story, but the execution of the story, that makes this a special film, albeit one that (as a whole) is executed unlike anything you've seen before.

In a nutshell, Depression-era Winnipeg is the World Capital of Sorrow, and is home to beer baroness Lady Port-Huntly, who decides to hold an international contest to determine the saddest music in the world, thereby putting both sadness and beer (which go hand-in-hand) in the public eye when Prohibition ends in the States. The film progresses from here, part comedy, part musical, shot in grainy, blooming black and white that evokes the time period in which the story is set. However pretentious the premise might sound, it's presented with a remarkable seriousness throughout the abounding silliness.

If you focus on the story and take it at face value, you'll be disappointed. If you focus on the world created by the film that brings you the story, you'll be captivated, as I was.

Okay, back from the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and saw a good amount of exceptionally strong documentaries this year. Here's a quick round-up, in order of preference:

Born into Brothels (Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman) - Will most likely make my Top 10 for 2004, a great humanitarian story about a photojournalist (Briski) who came to photograph the women of Calcutta's Red Light District and instead, became an advocate for their children (who are denied an education because of their parents' profession).

Persons of Interest (Alison Maclean and Tobias Perse) - Will also likely end up on my Top 10 list, this one is a series of poignant, and often heart-breaking testimonies by Muslim and Arabic surnamed people who were detained (from months to over a year) without trial (and some without official charges) immediately after 9/11 by the government as a "person of interest". Very provocative issues raised.

The Corporation (Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott) - Good candidate for Top 10 as well, this one is information-saturated with examples of gross corporate transgressions perpetrated to people, countries, and the environment in the name of profit. Also raises very provocative issues.

Deadline (Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson) - Another well done documentary on the issue of capital punishment, this one centers on outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan's decision to review all the death penalty cases shortly before his term expired.

The Kite (Randa Chahal-Sabbag) - This one is a very well done feature film with the immediacy of a documentary. The story revolves around a beautiful young Lebanese woman living near the Israel/Lebanon border who has to cross the buffer zone in order to marry a man she was promised to as a child. Things become complicated when an Israeli border guard becomes smitten with her.

Juvies (Leslie Neale) - A very strong and compelling film on the processing of juveniles through the juvenile correction system, the film is refreshingly quite objective in its portrayal of both the victims and the perpetrators.

What the Eye Doesn't See (Francisco J. Lombardi) - This feature film was a 'mixed' for me. On the one hand, it's beautifully shot and does a great job in conveying the pervasiveness of corruption under Fujimori's presidency in Peru through a series of interconnected characters. On the other hand, some of the characters seem superfluous and irrelevant and has the effect of slowing down or even breaking the tension of the film.

Saints and Sinners (Abigail Honor and Yan Vizinberg) - Unfortunately, there's nothing interesting about this film, which seems to just tangentially touch on issues of gay rights and religion in favor of showing very mundane wedding preparations (one of the "crisis" involved how to add two more tables to the banquet hall). In the end, it just seemed like a wasted opportunity to really say something important.

Thanks for the brief reviews, Pascal. I have not seen any, but the first two were already on my list and you have given me some others that are either now on my ‘must-see’ list or close to it.

Incidentally, speaking of Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring and Australia , has anyone seen Kim's latest film Samaritan Girl in Australia (or anywhere else)? I actually prefer Samaritan Girl to Spring, Summer... and my friend Michelle Carey (Senses of Cinema editor) had told me that she saw the film in Melbourne a few days ago, so I figured it must be playing in that general location.

The film is less formalist and visually impressive than Spring, Summer..., but I like the story much better. Both films deal with themes of redemption and atonement, but I find Samaritan Girl's narrative to be more suspenseful and straightforward, while Spring, Summer... is more elliptical. Both are very fine films though.

I have both of those Kim Ki-duk films on dvd and i must say i was a tad dissapointed with Samaritan Girl .Not because it's a lesser movie than his previous works but it seems to me there was a real effort to tone it down for a mainstream audience.All the dark ideas from the earlier movies are still there but the camera pans away from showing it onscreen alot of the time.Not to say there still isn't powerful scenes there but compared to say The Isle and Birdcage Inn the punches have clearly been pulled.So is that a bad thing to sacrifice your art to make it more marketable?To me it is but if it helps you to pay the bills and get a bigger international profile then i guess you can't blame someone for that.The actress's where both great by the way

Control Room -

There's no shortage of interesting topics to explore in Control Room. The issue of relations between the media and the military during wartime is always worth examining, and the idea of Al Jazeera is worth a look itself. The Middle East has a reputation for restrictive governments, and a television news station that covers the region without being accountable to any nation is a new idea. And, unlike director Jehane Noujaim's previous film (the annoying Startup.com), Control Room is filled with interesting people doing interesting things.

A scene toward the end encapsulates what makes Control Room so interesting. It's a conversation between United States Marine Corps media liaison Josh Rushing and Al-Jazeera journalist Hassan Ibrahim. Both have shown themselves to be intelligent, articulate men with apparent internal contradictions. Rushing's job is to handle the media, to basically keep information from getting out. He is, however, candid in his segments about how his differing reactions to Al-Jazeera pictures of dead Iraqis and dead Americans. Ibrahim, once with the BBC, often can't keep the disgust out of his voice when describing what America is doing, but also professes to believe in the American people and constitution to put a stop to it. Their discussion on the perception of how Americans see events in Iraq as seperate from the Israel-Palestine situation while the Arab world sees it as the same, and why, is good commentary and in some small way hopeful in how it shows people in a war zone talking and thinking about problems.

As a "fly on the wall" documentary, Control Room is pretty good. As they are covering the media coverage of a major event, the filmmakers are able to use a fair amount of outside footage, be it Al-Jazeera or CNN, without feeling like it's being padded or trying to cover holes - the footage itself is relevent. The talking-head sequences seem relatively unrehearsed. You probably won't learn much about the nuts and bolts of journalism by watching Control Room, but it does a very good job of delivering the big picture.

Which is good. The ideas and ideals of this movie are worth checking out, as are the people espousing them.

(A three-sentences-long version that may be considered to include something political is on the movie blog)

Control Room -

There's no shortage of interesting topics to explore in Control Room. The issue of relations between the media and the military during wartime is always worth examining, and the idea of Al Jazeera is worth a look itself. The Middle East has a reputation for restrictive governments, and a television news station that covers the region without being accountable to any nation is a new idea. And, unlike director Jehane Noujaim's previous film (the annoying Startup.com), Control Room is filled with interesting people doing interesting things.

A scene toward the end encapsulates what makes Control Room so interesting. It's a conversation between United States Marine Corps media liaison Josh Rushing and Al-Jazeera journalist Hassan Ibrahim. Both have shown themselves to be intelligent, articulate men with apparent internal contradictions. Rushing's job is to handle the media, to basically keep information from getting out. He is, however, candid in his segments about how his differing reactions to Al-Jazeera pictures of dead Iraqis and dead Americans. Ibrahim, once with the BBC, often can't keep the disgust out of his voice when describing what America is doing, but also professes to believe in the American people and constitution to put a stop to it. Their discussion on the perception of how Americans see events in Iraq as seperate from the Israel-Palestine situation while the Arab world sees it as the same, and why, is good commentary and in some small way hopeful in how it shows people in a war zone talking and thinking about problems.

As a "fly on the wall" documentary, Control Room is pretty good. As they are covering the media coverage of a major event, the filmmakers are able to use a fair amount of outside footage, be it Al-Jazeera or CNN, without feeling like it's being padded or trying to cover holes - the footage itself is relevent. The talking-head sequences seem relatively unrehearsed. You probably won't learn much about the nuts and bolts of journalism by watching Control Room, but it does a very good job of delivering the big picture.

Which is good. The ideas and ideals of this movie are worth checking out, as are the people espousing them.

(A three-sentences-long version that may be considered to include something political is on the movie blog)

Facing Windows - ½

The preview Sony Pictures Classics cut for Facing Windows isn't quite deceptive - after all, unlike the advertising for many foreign films released in the United States, it's up front about the non-English dialogue - but it does tend to emphasize different things than the film. This is not really a "food movie", though there are a few cooking scenes. Also, it neglects to show that the woman apparently being prodded to talk to the cute guy in the next building is a married mother of two.

Giovanna (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) is not a pastry chef; she works in a chicken-processing plant while her husband Filippo currently works the night shift in a garage (he gets fired a lot). She does sell pies to a local pub for a little extra money, and all of it leaves her feeling overburdened. The last thing she needs is for her husband to bring in some confused octogenarian (Massimo Girotti) who doesn't even remember his own name. And though the audience will immediately recognize that he must have something to do with the film's opening segment, which takes place in 1943 Rome, what happened in the intervening 60 years is a mystery. Giovanna doesn't exactly turn amateur sleuth to solve the mystery, but along with Lorenzo, that attractive neighbor she's been nursing a crush on, she begins to find out pieces.

Where Facing Windows excels is in showing how the pieces are locked inside the mind of the old man (who tells Giovanna's daughter his name is "Simone"), but can't be accessed in any reliable fashion. The scenes meant to show his point of view are fragmentary, with a wandering camera and an intermingling of elements of the past and present. There's some digital trickery, but it is very low-key. Co-writer/director Ferzan Ozpetek and cinematographer Gianfilippo Corticelli really do some impressive work here, not just in those scenes, but in a slow and beautiful fade from black at the end of the opening credits, or the way they use reflections in mirrors and windows to connect Giovanna and Lorenzo when they're in their kitchens, either talking to each other on the phone or (earlier) when Giovanna is yearning for something outside her stressful life. There's an obvious (but nifty) digital effect used to show the transition between 1943 and 2003. And, yes, some of the cooking scenes do have a sensual zing to them.

But the cooking is not, somewhat unusually, evocative of raw passion. Girotti has a great line about how wonderful it must be to take love born of passion and transform it to keep it alive. Indeed, when we see that kind of passion, it comes off as a little bit creepy. Simone's lessons in the kitchen are also more about getting things exactly right than about boldness.

One thing I greatly enjoyed about Facing Windows is that it did not force parallels between Giovanna's and Simone's stories. They share a skill, and there are similar points to be made about potential and regret, but that's about it. There's also no obvious, tortured triangle thing going on. The film does not rest on interpreting the smallest gestures, but it avoids histrionics. It also make good use of the mystery of Simone both to drive Giovanna's story and as a puzzle which engages the audience (although we do seem to solve it much more quicklly than the characters).

I liked Facing Windows quite a bit - truth be told, I enjoyed it more than I probably would have the movie about a young woman urged to be daring in both cooking and love that I was expecting.

I just wanted wanted to put in a big thumbs up for Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's Last Life in the Universe which has now displaced Jacques Rivette's The Story of Marie and Julien as my top pick so far this year. It has the whimsical goofiness of Ratanaruang's earlier films, but also has the muted romanticism of a Wong Kar Wai film. It's essentially the story of a suicidal Japanese expatriate living in Thailand whose fate becomes entwined with a bar hostess/escort and her irresponsible, pot smoking sister after she sees him contemplating suicide on a bridge. Very well done film, with a cameo by Takashi Miike as the yakuza boss.

Control Room -

Control Room is a wonderful documentary, and I'm not quite sure what to say. I suppose like so many others I just assumed Al Jazeerea was a Islamic-fundamentalist run, untrustworthy propaganda machine for the Muslim world to vent against America. That's the impression I had of Al Jazeerea before I started hearing about Control Room. I probably never heard those accusations all together or so explicitly, but that's the almost subconscious impression of them I've gotten over the years. Nevertheless there were many doubts in my mind going into the film (mainly because of the coverage I've read about it) and I can safely say they have been wiped out.

What I liked best about Control Room is that it's not judgemental of Al Jazeerea, the US, Iraq or any others. We get to hear people on every side vent their opinions, sometimes with compelling eloquence sometimes in exhausted frustration but always with complete candor. And even better is when they actually debate each other's positions.

I was most taken with the presence of Capt. John Rushing. It's easy to see why he's a military liason to the press, you can tell in his face and eyes when he's telling the truth and that he earnestly believes in what he's talking about. Likewise you can see the frustration and annoyance at being forced to lie or not not reveal the whole truth to journalists--he's not very good at covering up, but he's very good at conveying the rationale of the military party line because he believes it. However even by the end of the film you can already see the war wearing on him, his ideals having been stretched and shaken, he's evaluated and changed--I think--and is not so gung ho and accepting as he once was.

Rushing is but one example, the two key Al Jazeerea representatives featured were equally compelling. Their passion for the truth, democracy, and freedom is astonishing; and to see them crushed by the airstrike is heartbreaking and frankly made me ashamed of my country. That's the other thing, the film doesn't try to attack the military/White House official line. They show evidence when it's obvious, like the Bridge over the Tigris, but for the most part they give the administrations double speak enough rope to hang itself in our minds. When you hear the crass and careful statements (both written and spoken) from our administration--with political sleeze practically oozing off the words--we don't need to try ridiculous or extensive counter evidence, what's the point when the honesty and humanity of the people actually in the middle east, whose lives are on the lines, speaks far more eloquently than any elaborate and aggrandizing counter argument ala michael moore could.

And ultimately the film asks you to think about the issues, decide for yourself. It doesn't insult pro- or anti-war positions and it leaves it up to you to consider this new perspective and allow that to affect or not affect your opinions. A fine film, one of the best I"ve seen this year.

Adam

Excellent reviews on Control Room Michael and Adam. There is little I can add, but there is one point of interest—I read or heard somewhere (but don’t remember where—possibly NPR) that Lt. Rushing had been ordered by his Marine Corps superiors to not discuss the movie with journalists.

Now I may be misremembering, but this does seem to be consistent with the control being exercised over information given to the public by the military pertaining to matters in the Middle East.

I'm not sure if i have mentioned it before but any film lovers should be trying to get there hands on a copy of Park Chan-Wook's "Oldboy" ASAP.I have had my copy for about 3 weeks now and watched it 6 times already.I am blown away even more with each viewing of this flat out masterpiece.For those that don't know it won the grand jury prize at this years Cannes film festival and many think it would have got the golden palm if not for the anti Iraq war sentiment.
Personally i think it's the most exciting filmaking i have seen in at least a decade.Everything about it is brilliant from story construction,camerawork,soundtrack,cgi effects.Not to mention the fact that Choi Min-Sik gives the most amazing performance that i could only compare to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull/Taxi Driver .
Think i'm exaggerating aye?Well check it out for yourself and see.It is a very dark movie so sensitive viewers may find it to full on but if your ready for high impact cinema then prepare yourself for one hell of a ride.
The thought of another American remake of this Asian classic is almost unthinkable so movie lovers would be well advised to get the original and not the pirated copy.

De-Lovely -

This is playing in very limited release right now, so I thought this thread would be best, because I don't know how wide this will go.

I'm the tinniest bit torn on this review. For the most part this is a wonderful, delirious, moving masterpiece--the device used to take us into Cole Porter's life is wonderful and I loved, "OF COURSE! it's the opening number," which made everything clear; it's clever fun and Kaufman-esque. Unfortunately this device is also my biggest annoyance with the film. It's used most often in the beginning and gradually recedes, unfortunately I think it was slightly overused, however it pays off during the transition to the third act, so they couldn't have eliminated it completely. I think what most bothered me about these occasional interruptions was Cole's--and his director's commentary and questions--on the event. Excuse me, but you DON'T need to hold our hand for 90% of the stuff they discuss. I think the use of this device could have been much more effective if they had held back. We don't really need to hear Cole and his director in most of these moments, especially that big key one, Kevin Kline's acting is so good that these could have played a lot better silently, with Cole reflecting, savoriing, and regretting.

Kevin Kline, in my opinion, gives a performance I think very well may endure come oscar time. And if this film plays right, and has a long run in LA New York, I think it's a very strong, distinct possibility. I also see noms for costumes and makeup as well--phenomenally good work. This is the first movie this year since Eternal Sunshine that I think will be a strong contender come oscar time (I'm hoping Gibson keeps PotC out of competition). His exuberance in Cole's young self is infectious to behold, but at the same time I think we may lose a little bit of understanding his complicated passions because we like him so much. I've yet to decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

I didn't even know Ashley Judd was in the film, all I saw, all I remember is Linda. Acting so good I didn't ever notice she was acting and forgot she was someone else. But since she doesn't get to show off the way Kevin Kline does I don't expect the Academy to acknowledge her gifts or this performance.

Personnally I wouldn't have recognized any of the cameos if they'd not been hyped in trailers. Alanis Morrisette has a flair for performing I thought was amazing. But the really magical numbers are the ones that focus on the triumvirate of Cole, Linda, and his work. The way the Kiss Me Kate number plays out was breathtaking and moving--I don't remember the number from seeing the film, but I remember it in this film.

Life's been one big circus and now we're on the high-wire

That's the way I think of this film as a whole, it manages an incredible balance, teetering on the very fine line between greatness and spectacular failure, but never really falling into either. The film takes one big risk, but it's just uncertain enough in trusting the audience to keep that intangible endurance of a classic out of it's grasp.

Still it's a bright highlight of the year, in my opinion.

Adam

I'm curious to see De Lovely. The NY critics (the ones I saw anyway) have greeted it with absolutely vicious reviews. On the other hand Ebert gives it 3.5 stars. I can't remember the last film to so polarize opinions.

Ted

OK, if we're going to stick De-Lovely here...

De-Lovely - ¾

Cole Porter is a difficult subject for a biography. He has no humble beginning, he is so touched by genius that one cannot watch him struggle to create his art, and he was often a first-class jerk to the person who loved him most. He is, however, a fabulous subject for a musical, as he comes complete with wit, charm, a true love, wonderful settings, and dozens of fantastic songs.

Mostly, the film realizes this, and even comments on it. De-Lovely opens with a sort of angel played by Johnathan Pryce calling on Porter (Kevin Kline) to show him a musical based on his life. There's a great deal of wit in these scenes between Kline (in better-than-usual old-age makeup) and Pryce, as they make little comments about the form - how times have changed and the composer is no longer in charge, or how, when Porter says it's too early for another song, "Gabe" says that if he could say what he means as well as he could sing it, they wouldn't use one. This framing device also works to give a modern audience used to a more literal style of filmmaking a bit of a buffer zone: No, these people didn't really burst into song in the middle of their lives; we're watching people watch a sort of play, and they're singing in the play.

As an aside, it's somewhat unfortunate that the straight-ahead musical seems to be something of a lost art. Chicago presented its musical numbers as dream sequences; De-Lovely goes it one better and makes the whole movie a dream sequence of sorts. Of recent movies, Moulin Rouge comes the closest to the classic style, where the audience understood that this wasn't strictly literal (well, that and The Happiness of the Katakuris). I don't know whether this is a failure of filmmakers, the audience, or just that between us we're out of practice and need to re-establish this meme.

During the "up" periods, De-Lovely is great fun. There are beautiful sets, toe-tapping performances of Porter's songs, and a nice chemistry between Kline and Ashley Judd as his wife and muse, Linda Lee. She is realistic about what their marriage is; she makes a comment that Cole probably likes men more than she does (her abusive first marriage probably contributing to that). There's clear affection between the two, but also a sadness on her part - she doesn't expect him to share her bed, but she wants to come first.

That's a source of frustration for the movie - Cole never seems to learn that, until a horse-riding accident leaves him crippled. That's a symptom of a greater problem - the film never shows Porter as having much of a heart until his old age, as he learns Linda's health may be worse than his, or as he watches his life played out on the stage. He and Linda are obviously idle rich through the film's first half, and there's never much impetus for Porter to become more than a talented amateur. The elderly Porter smiles about all the fun he had, but there's never much but fun as a motivation. And when the accident makes playing the piano and writing music become hard work, it's difficult to see why Kline's Cole Porter would push on; there's nothing but "have fun now" to his character.

The performances are decent. Aside from the musical "guests", Kline, Judd, and Pryce are the only stars, which is fine - this is about the Porters, and we don't need anyone distracting from Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd. Judd is quite good as Linda, looking fabulous in her period dress and occasionally showing what might have finally pushed Porter to success. She walks a very careful line, making Linda a strong personality but not a "power behind the throne" type. Pryce gives just what is needed as the "host", and manages well in his musical number.

Kevin Kline... Oh, man, Kevin Kline would have perfect for this ten or fifteen years ago. I'm not a big fan of musicals as a genre, but it is a crying shame that their almost complete absence from film during Kline's career has deprived us of possibly many great performances. Kline's voice is still passable, and he's still fairly spry, but he is possibly too old to play Porter as a young man. It's not quite intrusive, but it's not quite right, either. He and Ashley Judd don't quite look believable together until they've both had their hair dyed gray and started putting on the prosthetic cosmetics.

There's plenty to like about De-Lovely. The music is great, as are Kline and Judd. Kline and director Irwin Winkler somehow manage to make Porter a sympathetic character toward the end, despite giving him a lot of "spoiled, selfish rich guy" baggage. It's a near thing, though, and I have my suspicions that a good deal of the audience will look at the latter half of the movie as Porter getting what he deserves.