Bloggish review blog

Who Likes Short Shorts?

indieabby88 — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:26:42 GMT

I've always found short films pretty eerie. There's something about them that just seems ever so slightly off to me. Perhaps it's the fact that I never know what it is I'm getting into when I watch them. Most short films I've seen come with no synopsis, only a title (if even that). This forces me to figure out what the film is about, and the puzzle creates an air of mystery.

There are plenty of eerie (and not-so-eerie) short films in "Shorts! Vol. 2" a collection of 17 short films that have one awards at various film festivals (there are three in the series). It would have been nice if I had known what form of award some of the films have won, since the quality is rather a hodge-podge. There are some great short documentaries, one or two sumptuously shot, beautifully ambiguous short films, some intriguing animation, but overall a lot of stuff that seems like kind of promising (but mostly mediocre) amateur and student work.

First the highlights of the collection: "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" is a pointed, bitingly funny short editorial documentary about abortion and a woman's right to choose. "Milton Rogovin: The Forgotten Ones" presents a touching portrait of photographer Milton Rogovin, who spent much of his career documenting the lives of the working-class and lower-class people in his Pennsylvania hometown. The longer, curiously entertaining "Coyote Beach" and the laid-back family dramedy "Family Tree" present interesting looks at relationships, both romantic and familial. And, for some reason, I can't get the super-duper-short "The Most Beautiful Man in the World" out of my head. It's 5:32, but beautifully and hauntingly shot.

Most of the clunkers come from the animation section. I'd seen "Dear Sweet Emma" and "The Firefly Man" previously, and hadn't really been that impressed the first time. Upon second viewing, my thoughts didn't change. I hate to sound like a snob, but I've been spoiled by so many great CGI films and shorts over the years that low-budget computer animation really doesn't do it for me, so I was nonplussed and a little annoyed by "Emma." "Firefly Man" was better, combining CGI effects and stop motion, but it left me feeling empty. "The Fine Art of Poisoning" was the most interesting of the animated films both visually and conceptually, but something about it just didn't seem genuine. Perhaps it just felt a little too "Hot Topic Goth" for my comfort.

I was most disappointed by "Space Off," which was touted by the DVD blurb as one of the most exciting films of the selection offered, but turned out to be pretty dull. The effects, I suppose, are to be commended for being pretty damn good despite what I assume was a low budget, but by the end, I was left thinking "so what?

"Shorts! Vol. 2" is a patchwork of movies, some great, some barely watchable, and some completely unwatchable. It's worth checking out for the good ones (I can't reccommend "Rogovin" enough), but you'd be much better off skipping most of the films and saving your time for a much more industrious use.

Robbin' Hood or Robin Hood?

indieabby88 — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:07:27 GMT

During this last year, I had the interesting experience of living in a house with two girls from Brazil. One of them had a fiancee still living there, and every week it seemed like she had some wild story about some close call that either she or her intended had experienced. She once told me that she wouldn't even think about going to the bakery two blocks from her house without getting into a car. It was just too dangerous to walk.

I've heard lots of stories from many different sources about the high rates of crime, especially kidnapping, in Brazil, but I never knew very much about it until I watched "Manda Bala," a fascinating and sharp documentary that looks at corruption and the criminal element in Brazil from many different angles.

"Manda Bala" starts out investigating a corrupt politician's failed program to help poor Brazilians in the north of the country, in a state called Para, which includes part of Brazil's Amazon region. It turns out that the politician, who has held every elected office in Brazil save that of the president, was using this employment program to embezzle money from the government. Director Jason Kohn examines some of the effects of the country's imbalance of wealth on the citizens of Para and also in Sao Paulo, a city famous for its' kidnappings. Kohn interviews victims, police officers and even a kidnapper and gives us a portrait that is creepy, troubling, and surprisingly neutral.

Two of the most interesting characters Kohn interviews are a plastic surgeon who does reconstructive surgery for kidnapping victims (the audience is treated to pretty visceral, but still really interesting footage of reconstructive ear surgery) and the kidnapper, who claims to have been born in a slum in Sao Paulo, and started stealing when he was nine.

The kidnapper, who also moonlights as a bank robber, seems to think of himself as some kind of Robin Hood character. The juxtaposition of a man who thinks very little about the many cops he kills and victims he maims while he still claims to have the best interests of his friends and family at heart was surprising and, oddly enough, a little heartwarming, too.

I do wish that Kohn had tied the political situation and the social issues of the film together more than he did. For most of the film, the corrupt politician's scandal and the stories of kidnappers and victims in Sao Paulo seem rather isolated, but Kohn manages to kind of tie the two together, although the connecting thread seems kind of weak. Otherwise, with its' nearly perfect cinematography, hip score (I want that soundtrack!) and enthralling subject matter, "Manda Bala" is 85 minutes well spent.

WTF, LOL?

indieabby88 — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:36:52 GMT

Well, it certainly took me long enough, but I finally got around to watching and reviewing "LOL," Joe Swanberg's movie about the effects of modern technology and relationships. I'd been hearing a lot about the Mumblecore genre, especially since the folks here at Spout have all but canonized Swanberg and his fellow Mumblecore artists as the patron saints of a new generation of filmmakers. I was curious to see how the movie lived up to all the hype. What I found was a movie that, while interesting, didn't really reveal its message until the last possible moment. In fact, up until the last fifteen minutes of the film, I was prepared to write off "LOL" as just another interesting but ultimately failed artistic experiment.

The movie is about a group of friends (Swanberg, Kevin Bewersdorf and C. Mason Wells) each going through some relationship issues that have something to do with their addiction to online porn.

These guys all seem perfectly normal and good otherwise, but when it comes to their relationships, the sexual disconnection seems to be a major stumbling block. Tim (Swanberg) has been unable to truly connect with his girlfriend Ada. Mike (Wells) is missing his long-distance girlfriend Greta (Greta Gerwig) and has her send him nude pictures of her, which she finds a little wrong, and he finds unsatisfactory. Alex (Bewersdorf) is obsessed with a girl who is the subject of several pornographic photos and videos on a web site.

While both Swanberg and Wells' storylines are good, Bewersdorf's predicament is the most heartbreaking. He is so wrapped up in a relationship that appears to be entirely one-way while cute young hipster Tessa pines after him to no avail.

Another neat aspect of the movie is the use of "Noisehead" videos between different scenes. Bewersdorf (who also wrote the film's soundtrack) is creating a project of his friends making random noises in front of his camera, and uses the clips to make unique songs. These videos are easily the most interesting part of the movie.

My biggest problem with "LOL" is the fact that it takes so long to get to the actual point. I didn't really feel like I was interested in the movie until the very end, when I looked down at my video counter and thought "Really? There's only three minutes left on this thing? But it was just getting good!" I think Swanberg could have benefitted by cutting off about half an hour of the film's beginning and adding more onto the end. As is, the plot just drops off, with Tessa driving, disappointed, back to Chicago and Alex wandering around St. Louis looking for the online girl of his dreams.

Depression=Sex (apparently)

indieabby88 — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:13:44 GMT

The message of Lou Ye's film "Summer Palace" seems to be this: depressed people have sex. A lot. There are three major characters in Ye's film that have some obvious issues, and all of them waste no time hopping into bed with each other in an attempt to escape their apparent (and unexplained) pain. The director manages to make this situation somewhat interesting during the first half of the movie, but the last half drags miserably to a conclusion that doesn't seem like a neat wrap-up of the events we've witnessed, but a confession that Ye is just as bored with the movie as the audience is, and he wanted it to be over as much as I did. It's pretty seldom that I come across a film that has me counting down the minutes until the end, but "Summer Palace" managed to do just that.

The story starts with Yu Hong, a girl from a small town in China who gets accepted to Beijing University just before the Tiananmen Square massacre. She makes friends with a girl, Li Ti, and through her meets Zhou Wei, a young man with whom Yu Hong begins a turbulent relationship. This is the interesting half of the film. Despite the fact that Yu Hong doesn't seem to feel much unless she's sleeping with someone, the culture surrounding her, Li Ti and Zhou Wei provides an interesting backdrop.

After the night of the Tiananmen Square incident (an event which I thought was sadly underplayed in the movie), Yu Hong decides to drop out of college and goes back home with an old boyfriend of hers. Li Ti and Zhou Wei, who have been sleeping together (imagine that) go to Berlin with the help of Li Ti's boyfriend who's studying there. We follow all the characters, through Li Ti and Zhou Wei's weird, seemingly one-sided affair (Li Ti is obsessed with Zhou Wei, Zhou Wei appears to be in it only for the sex) and Yu Hong's series of meaningless affairs and relationships. This part of the movie quickly descends into the doldrums. The "full boil" described by Manohla Dargis of the New York Times in a blurb on the DVD's cover quickly cools down to a state of near-stagnancy.

I think perhaps what would have saved "Summer Palace" from its dull and unfortunate fate is a bigger sense of politics. China in the late 80s was full of political unrest among the young, and the movie barely illustrates this point. In fact, the Tiananmen Square massacre is shown as little more than a bunch of excited kids getting beaten down by soldiers, and is an event that seems to have little to nothing to do with the film's main characters. The conflict that stems between them all seems to come from Yu Hong's need to be around Zhou Wei, and Zhou Wei's increasing confusion about what the hell is wrong with Yu Hong.

"Summer Palace" had the potential to be an interesting little movie, maybe some engaging cross between "To Live" and "The Dreamers" (if one can imagine such a thing) but unfortunately the movie takes the mind-numbingly mediocre middle ground and does nothing. It doesn't make any political statements, neither does it try to revolutionize through its love scenes."Summer Palace" has a promising start, but that's all. It is, essentially, a movie that goes nowhere, does nothing and really has nothing to say.

Movies 101-Leading Men

indieabby88 — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:34:21 GMT

I'll admit that I'm a real sucker for interview shows. I've been a fan of "Inside the Actor's Studio" for years, so I was really looking forward to Professor Richard Brown's series of interviews with (mostly) well-respected actors, and for the most part, this disc delivered. I got "Leading Men," which contained interviews with George Clooney, Josh Lucas (huh?), Daniel Day-Lewis and Dennis Quaid.

Clooney's interview provided a lot of interesting information about his background. I thought his description of his childhood and his idealistic journalist father really explained a lot about the kind of public figure the actor is today, and why he's taken on so many of the recent projects he has, like Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck. While he still seemed pretty self-important, Clooney's view that his stardom has everything to do with luck and ability, and less to do with arrogance was a great point of view to hear. It seems as though Clooney is very grateful that he's gotten to where he is today, and realizes that without the occurence of certain events, he might still be doing dozens of failed television pilots.

Josh Lucas' appearance was very hard for me to understand. I know he's been working for a number of years now, but as far as I can tell, he hasn't done anything that noteworthy. Whenever I've seen Lucas in a film, it's a supporting (or barely noticeable) role in a good movie like "American Psycho" or "A Beautiful Mind," or a bigger role in a terrible movie (see "Sweet Home Alabama"). I'm not sure what made Lucas think he was entitled to seem like a "serious actor" when talking with Brown, but all he succeeded in doing was making himself seem more puffed-up than he has any right to be. I thought this one was a definite miss in the series.

Day-Lewis, on the other hand, was the interview I'd anticipated the most, and the one that I felt had the most in-depth disucssion of the actual craft of acting. Method actors have always fascinated me, and Day-Lewis is really the method actor's method actor. This is the guy who, on the set of "In the Name of the Father" spent the night being screwed around with in a jail cell and interrogated by British Special Branch officers for several hours just to better understand his character. That's some hard core devotion right there.

Dennis Quaid's interview was by far the most enjoyable. It was clear the crowd got a big kick out of seeing him talk to Brown, and Quaid, in turn, seemed genuinely pleased at the audience's enthusiasm. His answers seemed very straightforward and honest, and he came off as a very nice, genuine sort of guy. I get the feeling that Quaid is the kind of guy all the other guys want to have a drink with. His body of work hasn't been consistently great (there'll always be "Dragonheart," after all), but Quaid was so charming and willing to talk that I ended up not caring.

"Ten Canoes" Surprisingly Entertaining

indieabby88 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:05:02 GMT

I don't think I could have been more surprised by "Ten Canoes." I was actually rather disappointed when I recieved it in the mail, thinking "surely they could have sent me something more interesting than this." But then I made myself sit down and watch the thing...and I liked it! I was hooked right from the introduction, and narrator David Gulipilil's friendly, throaty laugh. I think I could probably listen to him tell stories all day, and not get bored. Gulipilil is really what makes this movie. His simple, amiable narration adds a lot of warmth and spirit to the story. Without him, this movie probably would have lived up to my earlier expectations of a dull anthropological drama.

Director Rolf de Heer keeps the storytelling vibe going with unexpected humor and little narrative touches, like the closeups used to introduce each character. The Aboriginal people of Raminginin also seemed like they really enjoyed getting in on the action. Each character has interesting little quirks. They seem like exactly the sort of characters you'd find in any fable or fairy tale. The movie contains many of these archetypes that I found really interesting in their universal appeal. There's almost a magical quality about it.

However, the way the story is told made it seem longer than it needed to be. DeHeer uses a story-within-a-story format that I didn't really think was necessary, and didn't seem to go anywhere. It would have been just as effective to dive right into the main action, rather than with a false start.

All in all, "Ten Canoes" is really worth checking out, especially for those folks interested in cultural anthropology. It has a strange warmth and humor about it that draws the viewer in and makes them innately (and inexplicably) interested in the action and the characters. Probably the most fascinating thing about the movie is its ability to make its characters transcend cultural differences by introducing them as classic archetypal figures. If ever a movie were a study in unity and common threads, "Ten Canoes" is it.

Africa, Unite!

indieabby88 — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:49:34 GMT

I'll admit I was skeptical about "Africa Unite." I didn't think I would find the film very interesting, since I'm not a huge fan of reggae, nor do I understand rastafarianism. But I was pleasantly surprised by Stephanie Black's documentary about a huge concert and African unity conference in celebration of Bob Marley's 60th birthday. While the film serves mostly as rasta propaganda, there are parts of it that I found touching, inspiring and on the whole very informative about the subject matter.

One of the threads the documentary follows is the story of a 70-year-old Rasta from Jamaica, whose community raises the money for him to attend the conference/concert in Ethiopia. For this man, who has spent 50 years in the Rasta faith, this trip is the opportunity of a lifetime. It tugs a little at the heartstrings to see the man so impressed, excited and inspired by the message of African unity preached at the conference, and by his visits to sites such as Emperor Haile Selassie's Cathedral.

Another point I found particularly interesting was the in-depth description of Rastafarianism, and the Rastas' worship of Selassie, who ruled over Ethiopia from World War II through part of the 1960s. Selassie's message of personal freedom and inner resolve still resonates in the Ethiopians today, as well as people like Marley, who furthered the cause of an Africa without borders and separate governments. While I don't really advocate the worship of one particular human being, I do find Selassie to be an inspirational character, and the documentary does a good job of explaining why.

I was a little disappointed, however, that there wasn't more concert footage from the film. I feel like "Africa Unite" might have been a more effective film if it had been almost exclusively a concert movie, interspersed with information about Marley, Selassie, Rastafarianism and the conference. As it is, the majority of "Africa Unite" is footage from round table discussions and conference attendees. While some of these vignettes are interesting, they don't add together to make an interesting film. It serves more as a long, narrationless news report.

I couldn't see renting or buying this film, even if I was a big Bob Marley fan. It's not quite a concert film, not quite an interesting documentary. It's something of a mashup, and never quite coheres. While I did find "Africa Unite" informative and inspirational, I also found it lacking in several areas.

Oscar Nominations: My Thoughts

indieabby88 — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:46:19 GMT

Well, I just checked out the list of movies nominated for Academy Awards, and my feelings on the films nominated are a bit mixed. On the plus side, this will be the first year that I've seen a lot of the films nominated. I'm just about overjoyed that "Juno" and "There Will Be Blood" were nominated for Best Picture, since both are amazing movies. Johnny Depp got nominated for "Sweeney Todd," a movie which picked up a few other good nominations. I personally think the other movies in the Best Costume category don't stand a chance.

I'm also excited about "Persepolis" getting nominated for best animated film (I've not seen the movie, but I loved the graphic novel series), and "Once" being nominated for best original song. If "Falling Slowly" wins, it will be the best thing to happen to Glen Hansard since The Frames started recording. I would love nothing more than to see this rocket him and the band to the fame they so deserve. Hansard and the band have been working hard for years putting out great music, and they're only now getting more mainstream attention.

One of the major disappointments, though, was seeing "King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" not get a nomination for best documentary. I feel like the Academy almost exclusively recognizes docs about serious subjects, and while I realize it's important to call attention to stuff like the Iraq War or health insurance in America, I also think good documentaries are about more than super important subjects. Good documentaries are just as much about the importance of storytelling. "King of Kong" is an amazing example of documentary storytelling at work. Even after watching the great "Juno" and mind-blowingly-awesome "There Will Be Blood," "King of Kong" remains my top favorite movie of the 2007, simply because I was floored that the people depicted in the film were real. Stories on that level of entertainment don't come by very often, and the filmmakers behind "King of Kong" were lucky enough to catch the extraordinarly odd story of Steve Wiebe at just the right moment. I really feel like that deserves some recognition, and I don't get why the major Hollywood awards systems don't feel the same way.

Disturbing and Sadistic

indieabby88 — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 18:38:55 GMT

It was hard for me to watch "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things." I don't usually take well to films about child abuse (for obvious reasons), but I was willing to give this one a shot. I shouldn't have.

Asia Argento's directorial effort is based on the "autobiographical" novel by J.T. LeRoy, who is in fact not a real person, but a character devised by writer Laura Albert. It's the story of Jeremiah, a little boy taken from his foster home to live with his completely drug-addled and unfit mother, Sarah (Argento). After going through several boyfriends and one husband, who rapes Jeremiah after Sarah scarpers, the boy is left in the care of his strict Christian grandparents (Peter Fonda and Ornella Muti). After three years living and preaching under their creepy but more stable care, Sarah takes Jeremiah back and pulls him with her on her fast journey to rock bottom.

First of all, I have a hard time figuring out why any social worker would think Sarah was capable of caring for a child, seeing as how she's obviously gone off the deep end from the very beginning of the film. Secondly, I can't figure out why Sarah would want to have her son around, since he's obviously nothing but a burden to her. It's possible she wants the boy because he's the one person who truly loves her, but towards the end of the film, Sarah says that Jeremiah has caused her no end of trouble, and that she got along better on her own. The whole premise and logic of the film seems deeply flawed to me, not to mention Argento's one-sided, stereotypical and almost cartoonish representation of Christianity.

There are parts of the film that are well-shot and interesting, and it seems clear from the soundtrack (Sonic Youth, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Subhumans) and the oddball cameo roles (Peter Fonda, Winona Ryder and Marilyn Manson to name a few) that Argento is trying to make some kind of cheeky, badass punk rock film. But it's hard to consider the artistic value of a project when the subject matter is so disturbing. Meth labs and neglected children do not a masterpiece make.

I watch movies for two reasons, reasons I suspect are universal: entertainment and artistic merit. "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" is certainly not entertaining, and it hasn't got enough style to be considered a work of art. At the very least, this film could have served as a slap in the face, a cold stab of cruel realities we often ignore, like abuse and drug addiction, if J.T. LeRoy had been a real person. The fact that the story the film is based on was part of a major literary hoax takes away almost all its credibility. So instead I found myself subjected to one domestic horror after another, not in the service of telling someone's life story, but simply an exercize in sadistic, poorly realized fiction.

"Out of Balance" and On Point

indieabby88 — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:58:31 GMT

In the years since "An Inconvenient Truth" came out, it seems like low-budget independently produced documentaries on global warming are a dime a dozen. I should know. I've been watching a lot of them. One of my most recent viewings was a two-hour, poorly produced, poorly researched debacle called "What a Way to Go" that all but turned me off of the $2 Films for Action screenings at Liberty Hall here in Lawrence.

That being said, I was wary when I got "Out of Balance" in the mail. And although I think Tom Jackson's expose doc on the effects of Exxon Mobil and global warming lacks, ironically enough, a balance of opinion, it's clear that Jackson has done his homework. The people he interviews are actual experts, people who have spent time studying global warming, not just someone with an opinion who's written a self-published book.

In fact, "Out of Balance" not only brings to mind Al Gore's now famous documentary, but also the documentary "The Corporation," a film which I think is to corporate America and capitalist economics what "An Inconvenient Truth" is to global warming. And while one may argue that after these two all-encompassing documentaries, a film can't really come up with any new information, I say that "Out of Balance" still has a pretty interesting perspective to offer. I discovered things about Exxon Mobil, particularly about the cleanup of the Valdez oil spill and Exxon's influence over Bush's environmental policy that, while not exactly surprising, were pieces of information I had not previously known.

My one beef with the film is, as I said before, its lack of a balance of opinion. It would have been interesting if Jackson had attempted (or shown attempts) to interview members of Exxon, or at the very least someone with a dissenting opinion. Even though films like "The Corporation" suffer from a similar lack of convincing devil's advocates, at least Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott's film did have people who argued on the side of executives and corporate America. I would be very interested in hearing about global warming from the other side of the corporate office tower.