Racing Like a Pro

Robin and Marian (1976, Lester) ***

2010-01-10T01:14:00.000-08:00

Begins perilously close to Monty Python territory, then gradually deepens into a romance reminiscent of PETULIA (Lester's masterpiece and among the greatest films ever made). In Lester's eyes Robin Hood (Sean Connery) is still a scamp, despite nearing retirement, but the concern becomes what Robin's roguishness and humor are masking: memories of a life committed to slaughter, the Crusades, horrific atrocities, young women and children being disemboweled. He tussles with Marian (Audrey Hepburn) over God and their decades-long separation, but really, in a different world, they would have been perfect together (a PETULIA motif). The landscape Lester conjures is less accommodating. Sherwood Forest is a place where Hepburn can break your heart with the sight of her gently aged face and the prospect of death is often more appealing than love.
[Viewed 1/7/10 on 35mm]

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989, Jim Sheridan) *1/2

2010-01-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

A suspiciously easy film to watch, Daniel Day-Lewis's famed performance is a technical tour de force that smacks more of mimicry than artistry. Of course, I've never seen any indication that Sheridan possesses much of the latter. He always seems scared of prolonging audience discomfort -- an ironic fear given his tough choices in subject matter -- and seizes every opportunity here to undercut pain and menace with wit. This is paint-by-numbers biopic as Oscar-winning crowd-pleaser.
[Viewed 1/9/10 on 35mm]

In the Shadow of the Moon (2007, Sington) ***1/2

2007-09-22T01:29:00.000-07:00

The film's disconcerting implication is that America has never emerged from this shadow, we've never capitalized on our moon landing's promise nor equaled (let alone surpassed) the wondrous -- if ultimately empty -- achievement. Beneath In the Shadow of the Moon's celebratory surface is a bittersweet document of a bygone era's promise -- "a time when America made bold moves" under the guidance of visionaries like JFK -- and the brutal period (sprinkled with triumph) that emerged a few years later. Sington never harps on this angle -- he's too classy, though not clueless -- but it's there in the Apollo astronauts' offhand remarks, like when one implies America has now lost its sense of kinship with the rest of the world that was engendered by the landing.

Sington alternates mesmeric archival footage (a spaceship's many violent interactions with its environments, all-encompassing plumes of smoke and dust and fire, take on an abstract expressionism) with a handful of interviews (restricted to the astronauts; notably absent is reclusive Neil Armstrong). Their recollections are vivid, and the insights formed in their brief abandonment of terrestrial life (e.g. about a celestial power existing beyond religion, about humanity's molecular kinship with the universe, about Earth's fragility, its insignificance, the glorious respite it provides from an inhospitable galaxy) are often profound. The astronauts inspire via their humility and pragmatism and sheer exploratory accomplishment, but there's no escaping the moon landing as a short-lived balm for a country that was mired in assassinations, war, corrupt politicians, and race riots. A big, expensive, uplifting distraction. An entertainment.

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 10

2007-09-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

SMILEY FACE (Gregg Araki) ***
Probably the best stoner comedy since The Big Lebowski. Anna Farris now has my vote for female performance of the year, a fearless, uproarious turn that finds the discursive joy in pot like no one on screen since, well, Jeff Bridges. Farris is in almost every frame -- often alone and in close-up -- alternating between overt lunacy and subtly hilarious facial gestures, all the while maintaining a peerless comic timing. She can be childlike or seductive, overwhelmed or tart and assertive. Araki has fun with his picaresque story, reflecting a stoner's wobbly stream-of-consciousness with intertitles, omniscient narration, rewinds, and fantasy sequences. Smiley Face might be somewhat slight overall -- despite an intriguing undercurrent that swings between Marxist respect for the common worker and pity for their sober conformity, without dismissing Faris's irresponsibleness -- but that seems like a non-issue considering I already want to watch it again.

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD (Sidney Lumet) ***1/2
XXY (Lucía Puenzo) 1/2
IT'S A FREE WORLD... (Ken Loach) ****
LOU REED'S BERLIN (Julian Schnabel) **

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 9

2007-09-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

CORROBOREE (Ben Hackworth) * [Digital projection]
A GIRL CUT IN TWO (Claude Chabrol) no stars
SON OF RAMBOW (Garth Jennings) *

WEIRDSVILLE (Allan Moyle) *
I've never had much patience for the brand of obnoxious humor exhibited here, i.e. exhausting pileups of preposterousness -- devil-worshiping serial killers get into fights with dwarf armies clad in medieval garb, while tiresome druggies trip over dumb, obvious one-liners. But Moyle makes good use of music (those ethereal street-gliding sequences seem to capture heroin's languid high), his energy bursts can be infectious, and his central duo -- Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman -- have a decent screwball rapport. Maybe on a better day my rating would be a bit more charitable, though not giving Taryn Manning nearly enough screentime makes me feel especially ungenerous.

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 8

2007-09-14T03:56:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

BATTLE FOR HADITHA (Nick Broomfield) ** [Digital projection]
ANGEL (François Ozon) *1/2

YOU, THE LIVING (Roy Andersson) ****
Ashamed to admit I haven't seen Songs from the Second Floor, so Andersson's piercing worldview -- conveyed here, as (I'm told) before, in a series of absurdist (and hilarious) tableaux -- proved a revelation for me. Andersson utilizes long, static takes, his compositions masterful in their compression and reach. Corporate culture, romantic longing, broken courtships, social engagements, the justice system, and retirement, are among the many topics Andersson can slice open with a single shot, his razer-sharp framings packed to the brim with gags and insights. Every image looks sickly and ghostly, and the characters don't fare much better. But underneath these wry vignettes is a surprisingly positive sense of resignation, the idea that life's (often tragic) arbitrariness -- its constant flux -- is exactly what makes us unable to give up on it entirely: as grim as life gets, you never know when your luck might improve. This is a deeply despairing film that never stops chuckling in the face of gloom.

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 7

2007-09-12T17:29:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

CASSANDRA'S DREAM (Woody Allen) *1/2
Few have spent more time and energy than me defending Allen's post-millennial comedies. But whereas I find their (undeniably) sloppy plotting and lazy scene constructions endearing more than inept, I can't stomach Allen applying the same techniques to his more serious and ostensibly substantial recent films (i.e. Cassandra's Dream, Match Point and even Melinda and Melinda to an extent). Allen jogs across very familiar territory here, wondering -- just like he did in Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point -- whether humanity can accept murder as a solution to maintaining (or enhancing) social status, and if so, what is the moral price (are the "eyes of God" watching?). Regrettably this question is treated with much greater ambivalence and care in both of Cassandra Dream's predecessors. Regardless of whether I agree with his conclusions, Allen's certainty here comes across as lack of thought, although his now alarmingly casual treatment of death (see also: Scoop) -- reeking of acceptance rather than fear (see: many Woody Allen films before 2000, especially Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters) -- feels earned in some cases, and better formed. The only way to appreciate Cassandra's Dream is as a pitch black comedy of manners, but I'm far from convinced Allen intended e.g. the ridiculous (and pivotal) Tom Wilkinson scenes to be funny rather than tortured. Philip Glass's propulsive score, with its intimations of operatic tragedy (the Greek variety is referenced by Allen as well), doesn't help sell the humor argument either.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (Werner Herzog) ****1/2
[Digital projection]

MARRIED LIFE (Ira Sachs) **
Now this is definitely a comedy of manners (and like Cassandra's Dream, about an ordinary man grappling with murder), albeit another pat and ungainly one that never quite finds its tone -- ultra-literary, portentous narration and suffering is at odds with the deadpan wit, while the focus shifts do nothing but disorientate (major characters disappear for half the film). But reliable acting, nice pacing, and an elegant period style (both behind and in front of the camera), make the film go down smoothly.

THE DEVIL'S CHAIR (Adam Mason) 1/2
[Digital projection]
Probably not the best idea to follow your opening set piece (featuring a blond so fucking hot I didn't want to see her get killed off so fast) with almost an hour of tedious, circular, nonsensical talking. Unfortunately nothing improves even when the blood starts spilling. Favorite moment: A random voiceover suddenly insults the acting and screenwriting, as if the director thinks telling us he knows how badly his film sucks is going to make the experience any more tolerable. Your complicity only makes it worse, dude.

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 6

2007-09-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11

SILENT LIGHT (Carlos Reygadas) *1/2
A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS (Wayne Wang) **
PARANOID PARK (Gus Van Sant) *1/2
SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO (Takashi Miike) *1/2

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 5

2007-09-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen) *****

BATTLE IN SEATTLE (Stuart Townsend) **1/2
Another promising debut -- mostly for its kineticism and roiling texture -- but Townsend's sprawling canvas quickly conquers him, overflowing with so many one-note characters that you'll forget someone is in the film by the time they resurface twenty minutes later. Prologue and epilogue are incredibly didactic, and the film is an overall celebration of the WTO protesters, but Townsend admirably doesn't let them off the hook altogether (they're at least partially responsible for a lot of collateral damage -- government officials are not painted as villains, just out of their league -- and there's an underlying defeatist streak to all the protesters' actions). Bonus points for scoring numerous sequences with an instrumental loop of The National's "Fake Empire."

REDACTED (Brian De Palma) *1/2 [Digital projection]
CHOP SHOP (Ramin Bahrani) ****
STUCK (Stuart Gordon) ****

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 4

2007-09-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

EASTERN PROMISES (David Cronenberg) *1/2
Another notable filmmaker wrestles with very stupid material, but not even Cronenberg -- and a few tepid attempts at bringing his body preoccupation into the mix (tattoos, fingers, and the ways people bleed and decay, all make conspicuous appearances) -- can lend this trashy pseudo-noir much credibility. It doesn't help that the Russian Mafia ranks among my least favorite movie targets, or that the single greatest actress in cinema right now (Naomi Watts, excellent here as always) is inexplicably relegated to the sidelines.

LOVE SONGS (Christophe Honoré) *
If you're going to make a musical, it'd help if the songs weren't awful, or at least well photographed. And if you're going to make a bad musical, it'd help if you didn't invite explicit comparisons to Demy (the structure -- right down to the intertitles -- are swiped directly from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). And if you're going to make a bad musical that unwisely invites explicit comparisons to Demy, it'd help if the non-musical portions weren't even more insipid than the music (extremely serious plot turns don't mesh with the music's frothiness). Beautiful opening mood of Paris and Ludivine at dusk, though.

THE GIRL IN THE PARK (David Auburn) **1/2
Promising debut, with an attention to character detail and a commitment to tragic implications that most filmmakers either shy away from or treat too literally. But it's so frustrating to find that even writers as talented as playwright Auburn (he deservedly won the Pulitzer for Proof) can't help but pile up contrivances when they shift their efforts to cinema. Kate Bosworth is the standout, helping over the plot humps and finally delivering on the enormous potential I commented on after Blue Crush and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!. I knew she glows and never condescends, but here she also probes wounds and exposes the makings of a major screen comedienne.

BILL (Bernie Goldmann, Melisa Wallack) *
[Digital projection]
Painfully broad comedy of the Park City variety (large bellies poking into frame, same penis size gag repeated ad nauseum, kindly gay brother who is ordered to stop being so gay, men modeling women's underwear, addiction to Snickers bars, etc.) Not a good TIFF for Eckhart, miscast here as a complete loser.

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 3

2007-09-09T02:21:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT (Amir Bar-Lev) **1/2
Could have been something special in the hands of a talented documentarian -- maybe a look at the elusive nature of art; does it really matter if Marla is a fraud? -- but Bar-Lev is a stooge who stumbled upon a fascinating story and was content to sit on his good fortune. The responsibility of putting this story into context -- i.e. the talking head interviews -- is monopolized by two insufferable dolts (the reporter who broke Marla's story and the gallery owner who first sold her work) spouting platitudes so inane they sound (badly) scripted. Bar Lev's meager stabs at self-analysis -- e.g. the weak scene in which he shoots himself wondering if he's being unfair to his subjects (answer: no, he always lets them off too easy) and the more intriguing scene where he demurely confesses to Marla's parents he might not believe them, then lets them off too easy -- add a transparent coating of reflexivity. But this layer is useless since there's no sense Bar-Lev's presence has altered Marla's narrative in any appreciable way (Marla's parents claim she can't paint well when outsiders' cameras are around, but it's irrelevant since she also doesn't seem to paint well when the cameras are completely hidden).

All these problems aside, when Bar-Lev allows his candid, fly-on-the-wall footage of the Olmstead family to speak for itself (a significant chunk of the film) -- haunting sequences of an angelic four-year-old (an important artist, a marionette, or both) circled by media vultures, opportunists and questionable parents -- My Kid Could Paint That feels rich and unknowable. These are the sorts of images one might have shot in JonBenet Ramsey's house over a decade ago.

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (Fatih Akin) **1/2
JUNO (Jason Reitman) **

NOTHING IS PRIVATE (Alan Ball) 1/2
[Digital projection]
An unmitigated disaster on every level and flabbergasting in its misjudgment. Ball's pretensions are risible to the extreme (the last time I laughed so hard in a movie theater was Borat). His handling of racial conflict makes Crash look somewhat sensible by comparison; his exploration of burgeoning sexuality, mangling of tones, and pointless obsession with shock value, come off even worse.

GEORGE A. ROMERO'S DIARY OF THE DEAD (George A. Romero) ***

2007 Toronto International Film Festival: Day 1 & Day 2

2007-09-08T04:01:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING (Andrew Wagner) *1/2
Couldn't even remember how much I'd liked Wagner's first film -- quasi-documentary The Talent Given Us (answer: **) -- and his follow-up, a flavorless foray into narrative filmmaking, is sure to vanish from mind's eye just as fast. Yet another InDigEnt production where the poverty extends well past budget and into the creative contributions of almost all involved; Wagner's inept integration of a Lili Taylor-based subplot -- straight out of a sitcom -- is particularly embarrassing. Between this and The Return of Jezebel James' pilot, the question must be posed: When did Lauren Ambrose morph into such a bad actress?

THE MOTHER OF TEARS (Dario Argento) *1/2
A shame to see such an invigoratingly flamboyant sensibility wasted on such a relentlessly idiotic script. The camera ogling Asia's ripe sexiness and characters being disemboweled, then strangled with their innards, only get you so far. (Though hilarious Gregorian chants of "Murder!" overwhelming the soundtrack at random do get you a little farther still.)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

THE BRAVE ONE (Neil Jordan) *
A shame to see Philippe Rousselot's sumptuous evocation of New York City wasted on such a relentlessly idiotic script. There's a trace that Jordan is conflicted about bloodlust, but it's buried beneath atrocious plotting and characters behaving completely out of turn. If directors like Mike Figgis and Jordan are going to enter the studio gates, can't they at least choose halfway decent material? Those vaults are deep.

FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON (Hou Hsiao-hsien) *
The freedom of youth (you get to play video games and watch red balloons drift around town) squares off against the messy realities of adulthood (you have to haggle endlessly to make tenants pay their rent). I liked watching the titular balloon's elegiac flight. I grew weary of watching Juliette Binoche haggle endlessly. Could've been a short.

CAPTAIN MIKE ACROSS AMERICA (Michael Moore) *1/2
[Digital projection]
On one hand, a self-portrait so revoltingly hagiographic it'd make Vincent Gallo blush. On the other, an admittance -- albeit nearly tacit -- that Moore's heroic quest to knock George W. Bush out of office (the "Slacker Uprising Tour") was a catastrophic failure. But Moore is way too egotistical to explore how troubling his ostensible crowd-pleaser is: If all the youthful energy, optimism and goodwill on screen here couldn't bring America to its senses, what ever can?

THE VISITOR (Tom McCarthy) **
A modest, schematic pleasure until it progressively pisses away most of its credit. Leaves no doubt that superb character actor Richard Jenkins -- front and center in The Visitor's every frame -- can hold a film in his quietly desperate throes, but the alliance between character study and pro-immigration screed grows uneasy as it becomes clear McCarthy has nothing of note to say about the latter and -- past a point -- no fresh ideas on how to deepen the former.

Those quiet eyes become you: Patrick Daughters photographs Feist

2007-04-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

With most of last generation's music video luminaries (Fincher, Jonze, Gondry, Romanek and Glazer) having successfully segued into features, who is left to pick up the mantle? I don't pretend to follow this medium very closely, but Jonathan Daughters -- the young helmer behind excellent videos for artists including Beck, Bright Eyes, The Shins and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- is capable, at his best, of work that can stand up to the benchmarks set by his predecessors.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in his remarkable collaborations with Feist. After honing his style with an effervescent video for "Mushaboom" (the standout track off Feist's 2005 album Let It Die), Daughters recently unveiled two new pieces -- "1234" and "My Moon My Man," both from Feist's upcoming album The Reminder -- that re-imagine the music video as magical musical, communal celebrations of body and movement, color and shadow. Daughters's filmmaking -- sweeping, elaborately choreographed takes unfolding in one location -- is gently rhapsodic, elevating Feist's aching ruminations on teenage hopes and naked hearts. The camera's distance from Feist is constantly in flux, as if it's struggling to keep up with her playful prowl. Sometimes it seems scared -- or at least intimidated -- by her lyrics' intimacy, other times excited by her lithe sexuality. Feist is a natural performer, who -- unlike many musicians -- takes pleasure in being watched by a lens. Daughters is entranced, and so are we.

Forty Guns (1957, Samuel Fuller) **

2007-04-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

Fuller is nearly peerless in his volcanic filling of the CinemaScope frame, but shouldn't a former journalist's scripts be more organized? This heavily sexualized frontier is loaded with double entendres, clever more than erotic (the leads don't spark together), adding up to historical curiosity rather than Freudian classic. Time Out Film Guide calls Forty Guns the "essence of American action cinema," and in its favoring of sharply visualized incident over lucidity or analysis, it did help -- for better and worse -- clear the path to a genre mired in shorthand.

Disturbia (2007, D.J. Caruso) **

2007-04-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

Ironic title for a serviceable teen empowerment flick that is far more interested in assuaging than agitating. But if Caruso and his rote story beats don't make much effort to reveal -- as countless other films already have -- the seedy underbelly of suburban America, they expose something fresher: an adolescent technoculture chained to its devices by a force more omnipotent than any electronic house arrest anklet (canceling an Xbox Live account or swiping an iPod -- "That's 60 gigs of my life!" -- are notable acts of retribution; reading a book is treated as a divine act by an ethereal creature). Disturbia shows overly stimulated imaginations run amok. When most of protagonist Kale's (overemphatic Shia LaBeouf, channeling a bursting teen energy) gadgets are stripped from him (video games, TV, iTunes, car), he cannily uses whatever remains (cell phone, camcorder, monitor) to craft a high-tech game of Clue, like an addict always jonzing for his next fix.

1/4life, 1.1: Pilot (2005 [unaired], Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick) ****

2007-04-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

The best pilot I've seen in years -- the genesis of a generational questioning -- was denied a series order. Two of the most acclaimed and seasoned figures in modern television couldn't get ABC (i.e. its green-lighters who blatantly ignored the commercial value of quality) to put their ambitious ensemble piece on the air. 1/4life -- with its overlapping conversations, fleeting glances and romantic pyramids -- captures the messy haze of post-collegiate existence with Reality TV's energy (much of the episode unfolds in a single house), but none of its glibness or plasticity. As a friend wrote me, watching 1/4life's pilot today felt like "total exhilaration mixed with crushing sadness," the thrill of seeing master showrunners at the height of their craft tempered by the knowledge their infant was unaccountably slaughtered. This is great art and an even greater tragedy.

Mirage (1965, Edward Dmytryk) ***

2007-04-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

The New York Times' original review places writer Peter Stone's name in its headline (!), never even mentioning Dmytryk once throughout the entire piece. Easy to see why: Mirage, like its younger, frothier brother Charade (1963; also written by Stone), classily weds a sly wit to big, violent mystery and surprisingly few writers in cinema have repeatedly pulled off this feat (Hitchcock's John Michael Hayes and the Coen Bros. are the only others who come to mind; Shane Black, for all his strengths, lacks the elegance) -- it's a highly distinctive stamp. In the years between Charade and Mirage, Stone seems to have grown more cynical, trading radiant romance for a confused country darkened by the Atomic Age's shadow and JFK's assassination. Gregory Peck wounds the film with his stiffness (and he already gave essentially the same performance two decades earlier in Spellbound), but Stone interrogating our worst capitalist impulses and Dmytryk's cryptically jagged editing (which paved the way for Point Blank's fractured rhythms to inaugurate a new era in American film) more than compensate.