I always have trouble summarizing movies that rely entirely on suspense without spoiling anything. If I were to go beyond, say, the first ten minutes, I would reveal major plot points. So I'll say this: The Maltese Falcon is perhaps the first example of film noir. Its story begins when a client comes to see private eye Sam Spade about the man her sister has run off with. But Sam quickly finds himself tangled up in something much larger - the dark world of assassins and international crime.
I was expecting to have to suspend disbelief whenever The Maltese Falcon showed its age, but ended up doing nothing of the sort. After 69 years, this movie is still completely fresh (if you can brush aside the era's characteristic misogyny, though this one does make a few strides in a positive direction) and kept me on the edge of my seat all the way through. There is a perfect balance of information known to the viewer and cards in the hands of the characters. Bogart's Spade isn't necessarily a likable man, more of the antihero, but you don't even need to like him, because the intrigue is sufficiently intriguing that you'll hope he figures everything out just so we can get all the answers.
The cinematography is subtle and exquisite, and the acting is right on target. The characters are absolutely archetypes, but I found myself loving that they were archetypes, that the cast embodied these stock characters through and through and infused them with life and energy. The screenplay is well-paced, comical just when the audience needs relief, and intelligent enough at times that it left me with plenty to think about after it was over.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
#13 - Crossing the Bridge
When Einstürzende Neubauten's Alex Hacke first traveled to Istanbul and heard its sound, he knew he couldn't stay away forever. Along with director Fatih Akın, Hacke makes his return, traveling around the city and its surrounding towns with recording equipment, delving deep into the rich world of Turkish music, young and old, rich and poor, rap and rock and folk dances. From a teenage gypsy band to an 82-year-old singer and everywhere in between, Hacke and Akın let us hear the voice of the city.
From the very beginning of Crossing the Bridge, we are thrust immediately into the teeming world of Istanbul. This film is in your face, it is loud and raucous and doesn't apologize. We travel with Hacke and Akın on a boat across the Bosporus, into a tiny recording studio in the basement of a tattoo parlor, and into Istanbul's slums and minority neighborhoods. The first thing we are faced with is sensory overload. Sound that reverberates in one's rib cage. A dizzying panoply of sights. Akın shows incredible skill both when focusing on tiny details - the lettering on a set list, the strings of a dulcimer - and sweeping cityscapes. But Crossing the Bridge is also, at times, tender. It's about the love the artists of Istanbul have for what they do, their song and dance and culture. Akın's take is that Turkish music is all about heritage, and we see this very clearly when footage of rock gods like Erkin Koray is interspersed with young musicians talking about how the music of their childhood inspired them.
I think what really sells Crossing the Bridge for me is that for Hacke, it's also a labor of love. Rather than be the observer, rather than be the explorer documenting an unfamiliar and exotic culture, Hacke immerses himself in the music. He plays his bass with the bands. He shares his love of the music with them, and they with him. And in doing that, Hacke lets us interact too, brings us in, makes us all insiders for a little while. As Sertab Erener sings in a Turkish-infused Madonna cover as the credits roll, "music makes the people come together" - the message of unity and shared culture isn't trite or cloying but makes sense, because on screen we are seeing everyone brought together by music. I walked out of the theater feeling electrified, and hoping someday I could visit (or come back to?) Istanbul myself and experience these sounds anew.
From the very beginning of Crossing the Bridge, we are thrust immediately into the teeming world of Istanbul. This film is in your face, it is loud and raucous and doesn't apologize. We travel with Hacke and Akın on a boat across the Bosporus, into a tiny recording studio in the basement of a tattoo parlor, and into Istanbul's slums and minority neighborhoods. The first thing we are faced with is sensory overload. Sound that reverberates in one's rib cage. A dizzying panoply of sights. Akın shows incredible skill both when focusing on tiny details - the lettering on a set list, the strings of a dulcimer - and sweeping cityscapes. But Crossing the Bridge is also, at times, tender. It's about the love the artists of Istanbul have for what they do, their song and dance and culture. Akın's take is that Turkish music is all about heritage, and we see this very clearly when footage of rock gods like Erkin Koray is interspersed with young musicians talking about how the music of their childhood inspired them.
I think what really sells Crossing the Bridge for me is that for Hacke, it's also a labor of love. Rather than be the observer, rather than be the explorer documenting an unfamiliar and exotic culture, Hacke immerses himself in the music. He plays his bass with the bands. He shares his love of the music with them, and they with him. And in doing that, Hacke lets us interact too, brings us in, makes us all insiders for a little while. As Sertab Erener sings in a Turkish-infused Madonna cover as the credits roll, "music makes the people come together" - the message of unity and shared culture isn't trite or cloying but makes sense, because on screen we are seeing everyone brought together by music. I walked out of the theater feeling electrified, and hoping someday I could visit (or come back to?) Istanbul myself and experience these sounds anew.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
#12 - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
So Dr. Parnassus has a gambling problem. He just can't seem to stop making deals with the devil. First he won himself eternal life, then true love. Except in order to achieve the latter, he had to make a bargain: the devil would get the doctor's daughter on her sixteenth birthday. As the lovely young Valentina rapidly approaches that age, it seems like all hope is lost until a stranger stumbles upon Parnassus and his traveling show, a stranger with many secrets - and plans that may save Valentina after all.
Visually, this movie is a psychedelic trip. The gimmick is that Parnassus, once he goes into a trance, can send people into a world of their own imagination, and as you might surmise, no matter how dull a person may seem, his or her imagination is generally a rich and dazzling place. Also a very, very weird place. Amidst all this phantasmagoria, there are madcap adventures aplenty and possibly also some philosophical questions about the nature of destiny and choice and the power of stories. Possibly.
I say possibly because most of the time I was trying to figure out what was even going on. There are a lot of interesting threads here, but director Terry Gilliam seems to have opted for handing us the work of tying the ends together and choosing to focus - at the expense of, you know, plot and characterization - on imagery. The film's focus is confused, giving us no obvious lens or point of view through which to see the events. We're instead left watching a group of insiders, people who always know exactly or near exactly what is going on and are not telling us. They are dressed in beautiful glitzy clothing and they draw us briefly into their imaginary world with expert performances and promises of magic. And they take us somewhere, just not all the way there.
Visually, this movie is a psychedelic trip. The gimmick is that Parnassus, once he goes into a trance, can send people into a world of their own imagination, and as you might surmise, no matter how dull a person may seem, his or her imagination is generally a rich and dazzling place. Also a very, very weird place. Amidst all this phantasmagoria, there are madcap adventures aplenty and possibly also some philosophical questions about the nature of destiny and choice and the power of stories. Possibly.
I say possibly because most of the time I was trying to figure out what was even going on. There are a lot of interesting threads here, but director Terry Gilliam seems to have opted for handing us the work of tying the ends together and choosing to focus - at the expense of, you know, plot and characterization - on imagery. The film's focus is confused, giving us no obvious lens or point of view through which to see the events. We're instead left watching a group of insiders, people who always know exactly or near exactly what is going on and are not telling us. They are dressed in beautiful glitzy clothing and they draw us briefly into their imaginary world with expert performances and promises of magic. And they take us somewhere, just not all the way there.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
#11 - An Education
Jenny is an exceptionally bright schoolgirl in Cold War England. With her love of long novels, French records, and the Pre-Raphaelites, she feels as though no one understands her - until David comes into her life. A man in his thirties, David loves the arts and society and offers Jenny a chance to discover the parts of the world she always expected were out there. But things are not always what they seem, and nothing comes for free.
An Education is a somewhat formulaic film. I've seen this story before - young woman has to choose between intellectual passions and romantic ones - and of course David is just the sort of rebellious choice of men that would appeal to a young girl in a society that abhors rebellion. I think An Education goes a bit further than other movies have into the implications of its events - it asks some questions and purposely doesn't give answers about the role of women in society and the attitudes and ideals of British culture (which have probably changed since the 1960s but probably not entirely, because I see the echoes of a lot of these questions in my own, American, culture).
There isn't a lot of chemistry between Jenny and David - but I really want to give An Education the benefit of the doubt here. The attraction between them is not personal, it's not about who they are as individuals and more about what they represent to each other. However, I think if he had just been a tiny bit more physically attractive, I would have felt more involved in the relationship. I had issues with most of the other characters too; in a lot of cases, they were stereotypes or at least archetypes. The magical moments in this movie - and it does have its magical moments - occur when they step out of their thickly drawn boundaries and reveal unexpected sides to their personality. Which didn't happen quite often enough.
An Education is a somewhat formulaic film. I've seen this story before - young woman has to choose between intellectual passions and romantic ones - and of course David is just the sort of rebellious choice of men that would appeal to a young girl in a society that abhors rebellion. I think An Education goes a bit further than other movies have into the implications of its events - it asks some questions and purposely doesn't give answers about the role of women in society and the attitudes and ideals of British culture (which have probably changed since the 1960s but probably not entirely, because I see the echoes of a lot of these questions in my own, American, culture).
There isn't a lot of chemistry between Jenny and David - but I really want to give An Education the benefit of the doubt here. The attraction between them is not personal, it's not about who they are as individuals and more about what they represent to each other. However, I think if he had just been a tiny bit more physically attractive, I would have felt more involved in the relationship. I had issues with most of the other characters too; in a lot of cases, they were stereotypes or at least archetypes. The magical moments in this movie - and it does have its magical moments - occur when they step out of their thickly drawn boundaries and reveal unexpected sides to their personality. Which didn't happen quite often enough.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
#10 - The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club tells the story of an unlikely group of five high school students, brought together by the fact that they are all to spend a Saturday in detention. The teacher in charge expects them to sit still at their desks and write papers - not likely.
(I can't do an entire paragraph for the plot. That is the whole plot.)
The movie starts off with a bit of physical comedy and then descends into a series of non-sequiturs. Director John Hughes seems to want to take us into the minds of the kids who we think we know inside and out: the popular girl, the jock, the nerd, the ne'er-do-well, the weird kid who doesn't talk to anyone. Unfortunately what we find there is emptiness.
I think the largest criticism I've leveled so far - that the sequence of events is haphazard and nonsensical - could also be said about Empire Records, a movie I really liked. But the difference between Empire Records and The Breakfast Club is that in the latter, the characters don't care about anything. Or want to be anything. It's suggested in the end that they care about at least each other, which certainly surprised me after they spent the entire eight hours of their confinement bullying and intimidating each other. In fact, (and I'll be deliberately vague to avoid spoiling anything) a 'romance' emerges after a male character basically sexually harasses a female character until she breaks. Gotta love it. I found nothing to sympathize with in any of these five miserable people, and I think that while the actors did the best work they could manage, they didn't have a lot to work with.
(I can't do an entire paragraph for the plot. That is the whole plot.)
The movie starts off with a bit of physical comedy and then descends into a series of non-sequiturs. Director John Hughes seems to want to take us into the minds of the kids who we think we know inside and out: the popular girl, the jock, the nerd, the ne'er-do-well, the weird kid who doesn't talk to anyone. Unfortunately what we find there is emptiness.
I think the largest criticism I've leveled so far - that the sequence of events is haphazard and nonsensical - could also be said about Empire Records, a movie I really liked. But the difference between Empire Records and The Breakfast Club is that in the latter, the characters don't care about anything. Or want to be anything. It's suggested in the end that they care about at least each other, which certainly surprised me after they spent the entire eight hours of their confinement bullying and intimidating each other. In fact, (and I'll be deliberately vague to avoid spoiling anything) a 'romance' emerges after a male character basically sexually harasses a female character until she breaks. Gotta love it. I found nothing to sympathize with in any of these five miserable people, and I think that while the actors did the best work they could manage, they didn't have a lot to work with.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
#9 - Sherlock Holmes
Guy Ritchie's vision of the world of Sherlock Holmes is perhaps a bit different from what you're accustomed to. In this seedy Victorian London, Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law) are not just brainy professionals, they are also action heroes, fighting with fists, pistols, and even swords to solve the mystery of how cult leader Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) could come back from the grave - and they must do it before he uses his powers to take over all of London. At the same time, Ritchie explores the complex dynamics of the relationship between the doctor and the detective, and the women in their lives.
Like Holmes's detective method, the key to Sherlock Holmes is in paying attention to the details. The intricacy of the sets, which will take you into some of the most gorgeous rooms imaginable. The soundtrack, featuring some fiddling that almost made me want to jump out of my seat and dance - I walked out of the theater humming the theme. The little moments of brilliant acting between Downey and Law where facial expressions communicate everything (yes, anyone looking out for slash potential will be thoroughly pleased).
This was my second viewing of this movie (I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, aren't I?) and I loved it no less upon re-evaluation. No, it's not an intellectual thriller, it's just a ridiculously fun movie, with tight corsets, secret societies, almost-but-not-quite-gratuitously drawn out action sequences, and a bit of French dialogue here and there. Though I'm not the best authority - I loved the stories when I was a kid but haven't read them in a while - my Arthur Conan Doyle-aficionado roommate confirms my suspicion that Ritchie has the characters down perfectly. Even if I were to be charitable, I wouldn't say that this reads like a classic Holmes story: the scope is greatly expanded and the film emphasizes wit and a bit of situational humor. So if that's what you're expecting, this is probably not the best choice of film. If you want a movie that is slightly violent, tastefully sexy, suspenseful but not scary, and definitely not taking itself too seriously to delight in its own extravagance - then, best choice - yes!
Like Holmes's detective method, the key to Sherlock Holmes is in paying attention to the details. The intricacy of the sets, which will take you into some of the most gorgeous rooms imaginable. The soundtrack, featuring some fiddling that almost made me want to jump out of my seat and dance - I walked out of the theater humming the theme. The little moments of brilliant acting between Downey and Law where facial expressions communicate everything (yes, anyone looking out for slash potential will be thoroughly pleased).
This was my second viewing of this movie (I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, aren't I?) and I loved it no less upon re-evaluation. No, it's not an intellectual thriller, it's just a ridiculously fun movie, with tight corsets, secret societies, almost-but-not-quite-gratuitously drawn out action sequences, and a bit of French dialogue here and there. Though I'm not the best authority - I loved the stories when I was a kid but haven't read them in a while - my Arthur Conan Doyle-aficionado roommate confirms my suspicion that Ritchie has the characters down perfectly. Even if I were to be charitable, I wouldn't say that this reads like a classic Holmes story: the scope is greatly expanded and the film emphasizes wit and a bit of situational humor. So if that's what you're expecting, this is probably not the best choice of film. If you want a movie that is slightly violent, tastefully sexy, suspenseful but not scary, and definitely not taking itself too seriously to delight in its own extravagance - then, best choice - yes!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
#8 - Ferris Bueller's Day Off
High school senior Ferris Bueller knows he's pushing it by his 9th "sick day" absence from school, so he's determined to make this one last. With his best friend Cameron and his girlfriend Sloane he takes a whirlwind tour of the best things about Chicago, meanwhile trying to escape the clutches of his suspicious principal and vengeful older sister Jeanie.
I was poised to hate Ferris Bueller. At the beginning I saw things from Jeanie's perspective. Why should somebody get to break the rules without consequences? And moreover, why should this be the film's protagonist? Do we want to get inside this person's head? Well, yes. The real message behind this film is laid out heavily and directly, as Ferris breaks the fourth wall to tell us not to let life pass us by. This isn't really about the benefits of skipping school and breaking rules. It's about the dangers of not letting yourself be happy and enjoy the great things about the world. Everyone who goes along with Ferris has the best day of their life, and director John Hughes lets us join in the fun.
The acting in this movie is something you could take or leave, except for Jeffrey Jones's fantastic performance as the neurotic principal Ed Rooney. The sets and costumes are nothing special but if I weren't already in love with this city I certainly would be now. The best things are the script and Hughes's knack for little moments of absurdity amongst what is mostly straightforward comedy. Scenes to look out for: the series of phone calls that gets Sloane out of school - Cameron discovers Seurat at the Art Institute - Jeanie in the police department.
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