Archive for the 'Movie Reviews' Category

City Lights

Published by scott August 7th, 2006 in Movie Reviews. 0 Comments

City Lights, a 1931 Charlie Chaplin silent film, is pretty boring. Some of the visual and slapstick gags are amusing, but they are drawn out way past the funny point. By this point in Chaplain’s career, he was focusing more on character development, and though you get to know the various characters fairly well, their interactions are simplistic, and the ending falls flat.

I don’t like my opinion of City Lights. Part of me says I should cut the movie some slack, because it’s a silent film. Or maybe I should look at in context, with the other films of that era, and judge it against those works. It could be that I’m just ruined by modern attention-grabbing techniques and am incapable of slowing down to appreciate a fine work from a simpler era. Maybe I’m getting old, and my mind is closing.

Or maybe I’m just more honest with myself these days.

This film is a cautionary lesson in technological progress. It was made in 1931, four years after the technology for movies with audio tracks (”talkies”) became available. While watching City Lights, it is painfully obvious that sound is missing (there is, of course, a musical score that punctuates some of the events in the film, but watching the actors’ lips move with no accompanying voice is creepy). When the original silent films were made, it was simply a technological issue. It wasn’t feasible to record and play back the audio in sync with the film, so the filmmakers did the best they could, and made silent films. They didn’t let the lack of sound stop them.

But Chaplin made a lot of silent films. So many, in fact, that he stopped seeing the lack of sound as a problem, and started seeing it as a necessity. Once the technological limitation was lifted, he could not embrace it, and instead saw it as a threat to his way of working, and as a threat to every film he had ever made.

This is a problem that we all face throughout our lives. When we’re young and haven’t yet learned the limits of ourselves or the world around us, we look at things and wonder why they aren’t the way we would like them to be. As we get older, we run in to those limits, and we learn that things are the way they are for a reason. We accept those limitations, and we adapt to them. We may make great advances by pushing hard against these limitations.

Then one day, we wake up, and those limitations are gone. Every great push against those limitations now looks ridiculous. Where there once was a brick wall, there is now a wide open field that stretches for as far as the eye can see. We look down at the patch of ground where we once were proud to have struggled to move that brick wall an inch, and see that someone else has effortlessly moved the wall hundreds of miles while we were resting. Our once-acclaimed lifelong achievements have been reduced to a silly, historical curiosity.

When this happens, when the brick wall disappears, we look to the horizon and we see these innovators disappearing into the mist, charging ahead into lands that to us were once a dream, but that we now consider to be forbidden. Those charging ahead look to us like trespassers, and we try to convince ourselves that they are foolish, that they will fall off the edge of the flat earth, leaving us to move ahead inch by inch again as we have always done.

Soon, however, the reports come back that these adventurers who have removed our wall are continuing to make progress, and are in fact accelerating, and we think back to our younger years and realize that these innovators are living our dream. We look down again at our life’s work in anguish. What is the point of taking another step? One step would take us farther than we ever imagined, but as the rest of the world accelerates thousands of miles away from us, we relegate ourselves to being washed up, retired, finished.

Of course, these days, changes like this happen all the time. They happen quickly, but it takes us all a while to see their importance. By the time we look to the horizon, it feels like we have been left behind. Fortunately, the new horizon is never as far away as it looks. Once we take that first step, we find ourselves on the tail of those innovators, and with our experience and insight, we find that keeping pace and pulling ahead again is really not so hard. Soon we look back over our shoulders and see many others standing where that wall used to be, looking to us, and cheering us on.

And the moment we step past that wall and start charging toward the horizon, it’s fun all over again.

Disney/Pixar’s Cars - A 2 Year Old’s Movie Review

Published by scott June 19th, 2006 in Movie Reviews. 2 Comments

At some point, a fold-out flyer advertising Cars fell out of our newspaper. My wife and I showed it to our kids, wondering if they might like the movie. At first they weren’t interested - they are more in to trains (as in Thomas) than cars right now. But then they both noticed that the cars had faces. “Do the cars talk?” they wanted to know. Yes, they talk. “Yippeeeeee!”

So for Father’s Day afternoon, we went to see it. It’s rated “G” and looks like a kid’s movie. I probably should have researched the film a bit more to make sure it was appropriate for 2 and 4 year olds, since I know it wasn’t made for that age group. But I didn’t. It’s not like Cars turned into a naked gladiator movie half way through, but neither is it perfect for little tikes wanting to see cute talking cars. I was disappointed with characters and some of the scenes in Cars, and also disappointed with the trailers that preceeded the movie.

We got to the theater early and as we were watching the movie trivia slideshow, I jokingly whispered to my wife, “hey, I’ll bet Cars has at least one ‘I’ve got gas’ joke.” So it really was no surprise that there was, in fact, this exact joke in the movie. There was also the “I’d give my left two lugnuts to go out with her” line that wasn’t really funny enough to justify a nuts joke in a kid’s movie. To Pixar’s credit, the made-for-8-year-old fart-and-crotch-punch jokes were few and not really overdone, they were just subtle chuckles on the side for those who cared to chuckle at them.

The animation in the movie was great - I really enjoyed watching the first race in the movie. The combination of almost-photorealistic scenery with very keenly animated cars was really exciting to see. Lighting McQueen zipping from lane to lane was a treat to watch. Now that the movie was really getting going, after having sat through all of the not-so-great trailers (more about those below), I breathed a sigh of relief that my 2 year old son might actually be able to enjoy watching these cars that talk having a fun adventure.

Movies need conflict, and in a character driven movie like this, the writers unfortunately always seem to decide that the conflict has to come from every character in the movie being a bit of a jerk in some sort of simplified, predictable way, as if the writer was thinking, “yeah, kids can be jerks sometimes, let’s make each character a selfish, childish jerk and then let them fight about everything like jerky kids always do.” So, in the first race, Chick Hicks, a car who is clearly meant to be the biggest jerk, starts ramming cars and making them crash. Oh no. The cute little talking cars are crashing and dying. Where is this going.

Oh no. The cute little talking cars are crashing and dying.

Sure enough, Chick pulls to the front, does a PIT maneuver on a few cars and causes a huge smash-up. Smoke, cars smashing into walls, cute cuddly cars upside down, crunched and in pain. Good grief. My kids weren’t enjoying it, but neither were they crying. They were just kind of in shock, probably thinking something along the lines of “oh my goodness, I had no idea that this sort of devestating multi-car pileup was possible. What is going to happen to all of those cute cars that just got smashed to bits?”

A few minutes after the car crash, I decided that maybe it was ok, perhaps things would take a turn for the better and we’d get more cute talking cars time. But just then, Lighting McQueen starts having a kind of bizarre, disjointed daydream about what it would be like to be sponsored by Dinoco. The daydream makes a reference to War of the Worlds (a movie that I wouldn’t take my two year old to see) and shows gigantic spark plugs with long, spider-like legs walking over a city, shooting gigantic spark blasts into the city and blowing everything up. Where did this come from? It was a surprise. We went from massive car-wreck pileup to alien creatures destroying major cities in just a few minutes. Oh good, here comes a missile-packed military helicopter, piloted by McQueen. The scene ends with explosions and destruction all around.

Again, I am not complaining that Cars contains these scenes, just letting you know that they might not be great for the little ones. I have no doubt that 8 year olds love the exploding and the blowing up of things and probably have no problem with it. But it was all fresh new stuff for my kiddos.

McQueen gets lost and ends up in Radiator Springs, a former boom-town on Route 66 that is waiting for those glory days of automotive history to return. The story does turn a bit more cute here, and there are ample opportunities for the Pixar animators to show off just how far they have come. There are some beautiful scenes of the desert, the town itself is a lovingly detailed ghost town that looks like it would be fascinating to roam around in, and there are some amusing Pixar style hidden treats, like the tire tracks in the sky in place of jet contrails.

But then one of the first characters we meet in Radiator Springs, Fillmore, is stoned. We don’t actually see him dipping into his stash during the film, but it’s pretty clear that either his “organic fuel” has a bit of the wacky blended in, or that Fillmore is permanently damaged from his previous drug adventures. This isn’t just speculation on my part. Sarge, the army jeep, suggests both of these things during his various beratements of Fillmore. This wasn’t bothersome at all to my kids, since they completely didn’t get it, and it was likely meant as a wink to some of the parents, but this isn’t like an old Warner Brother’s or Jay Ward clever-aside-for-those-who-know, it was at best a way to open up a conversation with the kids on the potential dangers and pitfalls of drug abuse. Good fun.

My kids are becoming good judges of character. They didn’t like the cars.

By the time McQueen was headed for his next race, my kids were turned off. They didn’t like the cars. I am happy for this. My kids are becoming good judges of character.

We left, walked home in the sunshine, and enjoyed the rest of Father’s Day swinging on a swing set.

Two more things. First, the level of quality of scenery and animation that Pixar has achieved is incredible. The things that used to be almost impossible (or at least way too computation-intensive) in computer animation are now everywhere in Cars. In many scenes, such as an overview of a highway leading to a major city, it just plain looks real. I chuckled to myself at a scene of Mack the Truck rolling down the highway at night - the only thing that didn’t look completely realistic in the scene was the fact that the truck had eyes where the windshield would normally be.

This marks the turning point where the computer animation goes from being a “wow” factor to simply a tool that makes these movies possible. It was inevitable, but it’s a bit sad. I remember going to see Jurassic Park just for the computer animation. Now it’s a given. For the animators, programmers, and all of the other wizards that make these amazing things possible, this must be a bit hard to take. From here on out, the story is not going to be about how amazing it is that these movies are possible, it will just be about the movie itself. The scenes and animation in Cars are still breathtaking, but they are also expected. The quality of the visuals is so good that you don’t notice it at all.

The second final point is, as promised, a note about the trailers preceding the movie. One of them was a football movie that showed endless scenese of football players smashing into each other. When the screen is huge and the sound is loud, this can be a bit intimidating to little kids. Most of the trailers, however, were advertising animated fart-and-crotch-punch movies starring characters that were evil jerks. This was saddening because I really like animated movies, and I wish that there were some that didn’t have to sink to fourth grade humor. Again, I know that the people making the movies think that this is what their audience wants, and they probably don’t think I’m their audience, but if you’re listening, please make me a movie that would entertain me and my kids with a story that is really interesting and humor that is really funny. I know that Iron Giant scared a lot of you studios into believing that we won’t go see anything without mild violence and crude humor. Watching cute furry animals get hurt can be entertaining, and listening to and talking about bodily functions can be funny, but I would like a movie without those two things now and then.

What underscored all of this was that, for all of the effort put in to Cars, the one thing my kids (and probably many of the kids) took away from that afternoon in the theater was one line from the trailer for “The Ant Bully.” In the trailer, a queen ant makes a tender, gentle promise to a child and says “cross my heart”, making a cross motion across her abdomen. The human kid, whom the writers cast as yet another generic, obnoxious, foul-mouthed-in-that-g-rated-way kid, responds to the queen ant by saying “It’s cross my heart, not cross my butt.”

So that is the hilarious line of the day in my household. According to my wife, my kids have been saying “cross my heart, not cross my butt” all day, and collapsing in laughter. I clearly understand the attraction of putting lines like this in kids movies (it worked on my kids). I’m sure when I was 2 I would have also thought that line was hilarious. But given the effort and painstaking care that it takes to create the visuals for an animated feature like Cars or The Ant Bully, I think it would be a good investment to put that same amount of effort and care into the writing as well.

Cars - Disney Pixar - 2006

Great visuals, so-so story, unlikeable characters, and not recommended for 2 and 4 year olds.

Un Chien Andalou

Published by scott June 10th, 2006 in Movie Reviews. 3 Comments

Un Chien Andalou - 1929 - Directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali

This is a film that I assume most film and arts students know very well. It’s the kind of film you would see projected in a small college screening room because you heard it was important, and then a film you would watch every chance you got thereafter to see if there was some meaning in there somewhere. It is a surrealist film, so by definition there is no meaning - the filmmakers worked hard to make sure that there was no logic, story, or sense to the movie. The first time through it is completely confusing, but it gets better the more times you watch it, perhaps because you get used to the idea that you need not expend any energy trying to make sense of it at all.

It’s the kind of film you need some sort of motivation to see. Perhaps it’s the historical significance, the intriguing imagery, or the novelty of a film that was made when there were no rules or expectations in filmmaking. Perhaps the directors, surrealist director Luis Buñuel and surrealist painter Salvador Dali, are the motivation - I mean, aren’t you just a little bit curious what these guys would come up with for their first film? For me, I had to see it just because it seemed to be one of those things that should be experienced during life here on earth.

I came across this film via completely convoluted route. I am a fan of the Pixies, and in one of their songs, Black Francis repeatedly shouts that he is “Un Chien Andalusia”. So one day while this song was playing at Red Mercury Headquarters, I googled the phrase, wondering just what the hell a Chien Andalusia was. The search turned up an interview where Black Francis mentions having watched Un Chien Andalou. He decided to write a song about it. “Un Chien Andalou” didn’t sound good enough in the song, so he just changed it to “Chien Andalusia.”

Of course, this wasn’t the answer I was looking for - that the catchy phrase I had been shouting along with all this time was pretty much meaningless - but then again it is appropriate given the senselessness of the film.

The DVD version of the movie is put together by Transflux Films and was released at the end of 2004. The film was originally silent, and Buñuel would play phonographs behind the screen to provide a bit of a soundtrack. The DVD includes music that was specified by Buñuel. The music doesn’t completely fit with what’s happening, because the music wasn’t written for the film. At first this seems cheesy and low-budget, but after a while it kind of makes sense, relative to the rest of the film - that is, it makes no sense, but then that’s the point.

The film itself is surprisingly short at 17 minutes. Thus, if you have an evening to watch the film, you can watch it multiple times easily. There is a scene or two in the movie that is still shocking even today. The lyrics in the Pixies song that introduced me to the movie include the line “slicing up eyeballs” - and the opening scene of Un Chien Andalou delivers. There are strange ideas, intriguing images, and quite a bit of humor packed into the 17 minutes.

Perhaps the best part of the Transflux DVD is the two-part interview with Buñuel’s son, Juan-Luis. He talks about his father’s life, the surrealists, Dali and Buñuel’s friends and some of the things that they did for fun. There’s a great story of them having a female friend dress up like a prostitute and get on a trolly, then one of the two of them would get on at the next stop dressed as a priest and start molesting her, then another one of them dressed as a cop would hop on and intervene… all as a bit of public performance art to shock the people who happened to be riding the trolley. There’s also a great story about an incident at Charlie Chaplain’s holiday dinner, the kind of thing that would make anyone kick Buñuel out of their house (which is what Chaplain did). It’s also fascinating to hear about the first projection of the film, attended by Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and whatever other prominent artists happened to be in France at the time. It’s little facts like this that give the film its enduring mystique in certain circles.

Juan-Luis talks about some of the scenes in the movie, how they were done, and best of all, he discusses the symbolism in the movie - rather, that there is none! It makes the movie so much more enjoyable and amusing to know that the surrealist approach to this movie was to avoid any symbolism or meaning at all. Juan-Luis gives a very believable description of the symbolism that has been attributed to one of the scenes in the film, and then lets us all breath a sigh of relief as he tells us that it’s all wrong, the lack of symbolism is baked into the cake.

That lets me off the hook as well, as I don’t need to make any sense of it. The imagery in the movie is intriguing and interesting. The story behind the men is probably even more interesting. Juan-Luis talking about his dad, and then talking about what would shock moviegoers today, is fascinating, entertaining, and funny.

On the DVD, you can watch the film with a voice-over by surrealist expert Stephen Barber. For most of the voice-over, he spares us any analysis of the symbolism of the images (again, there is none), but at some point he runs out of things to talk about and starts to discuss the deep importance of sex and death in the imagery. Yes, there is some sexiness and some death, but there are also ants crawling out of a hand and a man dragging pianos draped with dead donkeys. Barber does have a handful of interesting things to say, but it might have been better if he had been interviewed instead of made to do a voice-over running commentary.

It is a historically significant film, it’s got some enduring imagery that is fun to watch, it’s a great example of art for art’s sake, and hey, it’s only 17 minutes long. You never know when you’ll find yourself at a cocktail party surrounded by film students, and with a small investment of time, you’ll be able to say, yeah, I’ve seen Un Chien Andalou!

Available via Netflix and anywhere totally obscure DVDs are sold.

About

You are currently browsing the Red Mercury Labs weblog archives for the Movie Reviews category.

Longer entries are truncated. Click the headline of an entry to read it in its entirety.

Latest

RSS

Archives

Categories