A Case of American Neo-Realism

by Brandon Colvin

Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy marks the crest of a recent wave of profound minimalist filmmaking that has dominated the attention of critics in the past year. Along with Wendy and Lucy, films such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon, Lance Hammer’s Ballast, Jia Zhang-ke's Still Life, Ramin Bahrani’s Chop Shop and Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light have rightfully floated to the top of many best-of lists and seem to indicate the international maturation of a set of aesthetic and thematic principles rooted in the work of previous generations of iconoclastic cinematic masters. Combining strains of Bresson, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, and Italian neo-realism, these films depict their subjects with attuned subtlety and revealing simplicity, operating on a scale that some have decried as “too small,” but which imbues works like Wendy and Lucy with the capacity to dramatize the most minute motions as monumental movements.

The dynamics of Reichardt’s film, her third feature and second based on a story – “Train Choir” – by Jonathan Raymond, are textured with the nearly imperceptible and the frequently unnoticed – averted gazes, slight vocal shifts, altered body language – all of which become remarkably highlighted when viewed in the context of the film’s general stillness. Expanding like outward ripples, Wendy and Lucy’s humble moments of desperation, generosity, and defeat culminate in an overwhelming deluge of quiet, understated power crafted from the most apparently meager of means. Concerned, like its contemporaries, with accessing the transcendent via the concrete and the tactile, Wendy and Lucy evidences a philosophically materialist ethos, inherited from its cinematic predecessors, as it examines the visceral fragility of the economic, spiritual, and moral decrepitude surrounding its titular heroine, Wendy (Michelle Williams), and her dog, Lucy, as they struggle against frustrating immobility.


Broken down in a small Oregonian town on her way to Alaska – the supposed promised land of good wages, individualism, and ample work – Wendy and Lucy are forced to spend the night in Wendy’s malfunctioned auto. Startled awake by the concerned security guard (Wally Dalton) of the Walgreen’s whose lot they camp in, the short-cropped, barely-scraping-by Wendy and her likable retriever begin their cash-strapped attempt to get back on the road by pushing the vehicle (with the assistance of the amiable parking attendant) to a side street, where it sits as they wait and wait for the local auto repair shop to open. While stuck, the two head to the nearest grocery store for, what else, dog food.

Putting her pup before herself, Wendy is reminiscent of the protagonist of Italian neo-realist director Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D. (1952). De Sica’s affectionate pairing of Umberto (Carlo Battisti) and his dog, Flick, is plainly evoked in Wendy and Lucy, tying the film to De Sica’s in content, as well as directly linking Reichardt’s movie to its neo-realist influences. Lucy is Wendy’s only real friend or companion (as with Flick and Umberto) and their bond in a largely uncaring world gives the film heart. Perhaps more important is that this referential set-up aligns Reichardt’s effort with that of renowned screenwriter and conceptual father of neo-realism, Cesare Zavattini, who also wrote many of De Sica’s films, including another major influence on Wendy and Lucy: Bicycle Thieves (1948). Zavatinni craved simplicity and everyday humanity, even claiming that his ideal film would be 90 minutes of an ordinary man doing nothing; Reichardt seems to have taken up his banner, and to have mastered it.

Once Wendy ventures into the grocery store, ominously tying up Lucy outside, desperation and tragedy of Bicycle Thieves proportions throw the straightforward narrative into gear. Knowing she probably has to use most of her money to fix her car, Wendy indulges in shoplifting as a means of penny pinching and pooch pleasing – like Antonio in Bicycle Thieves, economic hardship forces Wendy into a moral conundrum in order to support her family: Lucy. For her transgression, she pays dearly. Once she is caught by an overzealous employee who catches her stealing at the grocery store, Wendy is carted off to jail for a few hours, trapped, locked away from Lucy. Upon her return to the store, with more money paid out to the jail on her release, Wendy finds that Lucy has disappeared, reportedly taken away by a white van. So begins Wendy’s quest for her lost pet, a parallel to Antonio’s frantic search for his stolen bicycle.


The difficulty of travel in Wendy’s circumstance lends added weight to every step along the way. Her car stuck, her funds depleted, and her ass in jail, Wendy is constantly coming up against impediments on her dual journey to find her dog and get to the physical manifestation of carte blanche in Alaska. Wendy’s struggle to avoid stalling in an environment seeking to trap her mirrors Reichardt’s minimalist technique by providing a context that is conducive to highlighting the slightest deviations from a basic stillness. Like her troubled progress in the face of stagnation, Wendy’s infrequent emotional outpourings contrast her usual stoicism, concentrating into each expression a depth and sincerity earned through rarity and minimalist juxtaposition (which is all the more wonderful as a result of Michelle Williams’ superb performance). The most stunning and affecting application of Wendy and Lucy’s pervasive dialectic between disruption and stillness is the way the contrast between the two is used to magnify the simplest acts of kindness into semi-miraculous instances of sympathy and understanding, instances that are vital, yet hard to come by, in Wendy’s situation.

The most endearing of Wendy and Lucy’s moments of wondrously empathetic humanity come from the aforementioned Walgreen’s security guard, who repeatedly goes out of his way to lend his services to Wendy and shows sincere support for her in her attempt to find lost Lucy. The security guard’s generosity and selflessness, however minor the may be, enable Wendy to climb out of her tragic rut, like a few extra breaths to a drowning victim. The small acts add up. When faced with her most crucial decision near the end of the film, Wendy seems to apply the sort of sympathy and selflessness exemplified by the benevolent security guard, leaving her in a position that is both bittersweet and ambiguous. Through its minimalist style and sparse narrative, Wendy and Lucy carries on the tradition of its neo-realist influences, portraying the incredibly intimate struggles of an individual with a subtle attentiveness that makes the struggle appear universal and ultimately transcendental. Perhaps more than anything, Reichardt’s film is about how even $7 and a few phone calls can save a soul; it really is the though that counts, no matter how small.
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A No Doubter

by Jacob Shoaf

The odds have been stacked in favor of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt from the beginning. In front of the camera, there’s Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams, while behind the scenes, Shanley snagged Roger Deakins as cinematographer, Howard Shore as composer, and Dylan Tichenor as editor. From all appearances, this is something of a cinematic dream team. And with few caveats, this dream team delivers a powerful product about faith and certainty.

Doubt is set in the Bronx in 1964 and tells the story of Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), a principal at a private Catholic school who clashes with Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a priest whom she accuses of having an inappropriate relationship with a student. This puts young Sister James (Amy Adams) in the crossfire as she tries to work the situation out and take sides as best as possible.


What the film really boils down to is the threat that Father Flynn poses to Sister Aloysius’ power at the school. Doubt does a great job establishing the dichotomy between Aloysius and Flynn. From the very introduction of the characters, it’s obvious that they’re diametrically opposed. They’re first seen at mass. Flynn is addressing the congregation in a brightly colored robe. He’s shown facing the camera as though we are a part of the crowd listening to him. The film then cuts to the back of Sister Aloysius’ habit. The black figure rises and walks down the aisle on the far left side of the sanctuary passing rambunctious children. Said children stop misbehaving when they become aware of the figure’s presence, either by a combination of their awareness and fear or from a smack to the back of the head by the figure. The differences are further shown at meals led by the two. The nuns eat in almost total silence. Aloysius speaks and the appropriate sister responds. This is immediately juxtaposed with a dinner held by Flynn with two other priests. They laugh loudly and converse openly, almost to the point of being considered boisterous.

Doubt seems to place its sympathy with Flynn. In the schoolyard, he walks among the students, joking around and laying down the law in a friendly manner. Aloysius watches from a window above. He is with the students while she watches in a detached manner. The camera assumes the POV of Aloysius to look down upon Flynn. This angle is later revisited when Flynn enters the church. The scene begins by the camera looking down on Flynn. He looks up and spots a stainglass window which features an open eye. We then return to the previous angle to watch Flynn watch the eye. Through the similarity of the angles, this ever-watching eye becomes associated with the Sister. And even if the character Flynn doesn’t get it (but he probably does), the eye is a reminder that Aloysius is intently watching Flynn.

Flynn vs. Aloysius isn’t just about power. It’s also about progression, the old against the new. Donald Miller (Joseph Foster), the young boy that Aloysius accuses Flynn of treating inappropriately, is the first student brought into the school by integration. Aloysius states that she was opposed to this (not due to racism per se, but just that it would upset the previously established order). She is also hesitant to include secular songs in the Christmas pageant (Flynn’s suggestion). She even prohibits the use of ball point pens in the school (guess who uses one…). So Aloysius’ anger at finding open windows in various rooms is something of interest. As the wind blows in, it seems to be opposing her will/order as well. And in the Catholic world of this film, what deity controls the wind? After lumping the wind in with these other things she opposes, it would seem that Aloysius is going against not only progression, but also God. That’s quite an odd position for a nun to take. This is more openly discussed towards the end of the film when Aloysius admits to Sister James that she lied about something (vaguely worded = spoiler free), but she writes it off by telling her(self) that sometimes you have to step away from God in order do His will.


But as good as the rest of the film is, a minor problem lies at the feet of Shanley. The man has won an Emmy, a Tony and a Pulitzer (both for writing Doubt: A Parable, the source for the film at hand), and even an Oscar (best screenplay in 1988 for Moonstruck). He’s written over twenty plays, but his only previous cinematic directorial effort was Joe Versus the Volcano. This lack of experience is palpable every time he turns the damned camera sideways to make a canted angle (aka-Dutch angle). It seems REALLY forced. He might as well come out from behind the camera and gleefully state, “Look! I’m building tension! Aren’t things tense now?” It comes across as if he doesn’t trust the material itself to build up the necessary tension, so he feels obligated to supplement it. These angles immediately draw attention to themselves and their purpose is so transparent that it’s insulting.

With the exception of a few overly theatrical moments, all of the leads were typically excellent, as was the minor role of Mrs. Miller (Donald’s mother) played by Viola Davis. Though her screentime is scant, just about every review lauds her above the leads. It’s feasible that she might receive a best supporting actress Oscar nomination (she’s already garnered a Golden Globe nom). Another actor to watch is Joseph Foster who plays Donald Miller. This is only his second film role, but his first was in Michael Cuesta’s Twelve and Holding. Maybe his agent has really good taste, but I’ll be interested to see if his next roles are in projects which are as good as the first two.

The subjects broached in Doubt are by no means trailblazing, but that doesn’t stop the film from being an entertaining, engrossing, and powerful viewing experience. Come February, Shanley might have to reorganize his Pulitzer, Emmys, and Tonys to make sure there’s enough room on the mantel for another Oscar or two.
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One Question, For All the Mumbai Marbles

by Brandon Colvin

Why is Slumdog Millionaire an overrated piece of middlebrow, pseudo-liberal, ultimately despicable crap?

A: It is politically irresponsible.
B: It is stylistically hollow.
C: It is dramatically tactless.
D: It is rife with mind-numbing clichés.

Before you answer, I would like to delve more thoroughly into each option. Sadly, I’ll have to do so without the use of serendipitously garnered information collected throughout my supposedly vibrant, allegedly life-affirming, and decidedly exotic adolescence amongst poverty, violence, and prostitution.

Ahem.

In lieu of such an uplifting circumstance, I’ll be using Roger Ebert’s review of Slumdog Millionaire (which slathers on praise in a manner indicative of much of the critical reception regarding the film) as a periodic springboard to rail against; though, if you’d like, you could read any of the myriad reviews by critics who seem to be consistently enamored with the type of multi-culti, artsy-posturing, issue-sidestepping drivel epitomized by Danny Boyle’s most recent misstep (see: Lou Lumenick, Joe Morgenstern, Ty Burr, Claudia Puig, etc.).

A: At one point in Slumdog Millionaire, protagonist Jamal Malik (played by Dev Patel, amongst others during various stages of youth) comments to a duped American couple, which he and his brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal, et al), have just hoodwinked into having their Mercedes jacked, “You wanted to see the real India. This is it,” prompting the American man to self-righteously proclaim, “Well, here’s a taste of the real America, son,” while comically thrusting a wad of cash into Jamal’s hand with condescending glee. The scene casts the Americans as being out of touch with the political and social realities of Jamal’s Mumbai environs – laughably naïve and imbued with an overabundance of suburbanite white guilt. Ironically, this is the exact reaction Slumdog presents to the very same problems.

Repeatedly, Slumdog confronts its audience with images of brutality in an effort to effectively articulate the deplorable conditions of what Ebert calls “the real India,” something that the film’s “universal appeal will present . . . to millions of moviegoers for the first time.” For starters, Jamal’s mother is murdered in an attack on their Muslim slum by Hindu extremists, Jamal and Salim become poverty stricken children living in a garbage dump with the pre-pubescent version of Jamal’s love interest, Latika (Freida Pinto, et al), are then rescued by a corrupt man who basically pimps out children as beggars (blinding some with acid to get more cash) and then later actually pimps out Latika. Of course, there are also the flashily-edited beatings and electrical torture from the police that Jamal endures when he is accused of cheating on the Indian version of the game show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” which lends the film its title and gimmicky premise (poor kid wins money because it’s his destiny, overcomes obstacles and gets girl through sheer willpower and cunning, as is related through a series of flashbacks to his rough-and-tumble childhood). Oh, and the gangs. Yeah, there are gangs too. Salim joins one and becomes a homicidal sonuvabitch before redeeming himself through self-sacrifice (duh). Okay, so we’ve got religious violence, poverty, orphans, homelessness, child abuse and mutilation, prostitution, gangs, and police corruption/brutality/they fucking electrocute him with no evidence whatsoever, and how does Slumdog Millionaire propose to solve, alleviate, confront, or even deal with any of these deep, deep social and political horrors? It doesn’t. At all. Jamal just gets 20,000 rupees and Latika’s hot ass, then they do a Bollywood-inspired dance that seems to wash away all of the harshness of the preceding two hours and cement the indestructibility of their romantic connection. The end. The film throws money and a girl at India’s problems, in the spirit of the ignorant American couple.

Is this the “real India” Ebert speaks of? One in which the apotheosis of heroism is Jamal, “who rises from rags to riches on the strength of his lively intelligence?” Sounds more like a Westernized fairy-tale of individualized capitalistic success. While Jamal gets rich, gets kissed, and boogies, the brutal India of the majority of the film is left behind – ignored, unresolved, and ultimately merely a manipulative tool of the filmmakers used to elicit the shock and horror that is the mark of the proverbial serious, Oscar-worthy film about foreign lands (think Last King of Scotland (2006), Babel (2006), Hotel Rwanda (2004), City of God (2002)). The only solution offered by Slumdog Millionaire is, “Hey, um, go on a game show” and be just like Jamal who “improvises his way up through the world and remembers everything he has learned” (Ebert), yadda yadda, good self-sufficient, crafty capitalists always win. And that’s it.


B: Aesthetically, Slumdog comes across as if Boyle, editor Chris Dickens, and usually brilliant cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle have done their damndest to design a film like a 17-year-old who just saw his/her first Wong Kar-Wai/Christopher Doyle movie. The major problem with this approach is that nobody but the tandem behind Chungking Express (1994) and Fallen Angels (1995) can make those films – everything else appears to be explicit imitation, visual trickery, and immature grasping for the semblance of a valuable style; Slumdog Millionaire is no exception.

Full of camera tricks, canted angles, extreme framings, slow-mo jitters, and slam-bang editing, Slumdog is nothing if not flashy. Ebert describes the film as having “dazzling cinematography, breathless editing, driving music and headlong momentum to explode with narrative force, stirring in a romance at the same time” and considering that I know he has seen Wong Kar-Wai films and understands what meaningful style is, I’m shocked by his lack of critical language. The film’s flamboyance seems to be an attempt to cover up the lack of any real formal inspiration behind Boyle’s choices. Rather than a visual interpretation of the bleary romanticism found at the core of Wong’s signature films, Boyle’s aesthetics exist for their own sake – whiz-banging just to demonstrate their own whiz-bangery. Slumdog’s visual construction is overt: the camera rests in unusual places just to highlight how unusual those places are for camera placement; the film’s extensive use of crosscutting is heavy-handed and a bit elementary, particularly the opening juxtaposition of Jamal’s torture and his appearance on the game show; at other times, the editing structure is more concerned with building to and accentuating a clever transition than actually establishing a narrative flow or tone. Boyle, Dickens, and Mantle miss the point in a major way throughout Slumdog, stringing together a series of would-be-novelties and attention-callers that seem to be chosen for their conspicuousness instead of their potential connection to the film’s thematic concerns or moral ambition (which are questionable in themselves). “But Brandon, isn’t it unrealistic to expect films to always achieve thematic-aesthetic synthesis?” Two things: if they are front-runners for almost every Best Picture award, no, it is not unrealistic, and there are many films released this year that actually do achieve it: Paranoid Park, Flight of the Red Balloon, Ballast, Synecdoche, New York, and Speed Racer, to name a few.


C: Ever felt the feeling of faux tension? It is powerfully underwhelming. Slumdog Millionaire exploits it to the max: the chase scenes all feel like foregone conclusions, the confrontations are all half-baked, sexuality is basically a non-factor, and the film’s various races against the clock are all protracted to the point of ludicrousness. Any sense of real drama or “headlong momentum” is completely sucked out of Slumdog by its unavoidable transparency. Everyone knows how every scene will conclude because everyone has watched every scene scores of times before. Ebert writes, “The film's surface is so dazzling that you hardly realize how traditional it is underneath.” Maybe it's just me, but I sure realized the fuck out of it. When Jamal encounters his various obstacles, it’s obvious that he will escape by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin. Repeatedly, the film toys with the fact that he might not, but it’s only a ruse, a method of stretching scenes beyond their limit, an attempt to spin a thriller out of a clunker. The apex of the film’s awkward striving for actual intensity comes during the final half hour when the stakes of Jamal’s game show appearance are upped (as if anyone in the theater actually thought he wouldn’t win the full 20,000 rupees or miss out on hooking-up with Latika).

During Slumdog’s supposed climax, Jamal uses his “Phone-A-Friend” lifeline on the last question, hoping to call Salim’s phone for the answer to a question about Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, an event that is hamfistedly foreshadowed in a scene taking place during the boys’ childhood. Frustratingly, Salim gives his phone (the only number Jamal knows) to Latika, knowing that Jamal will call her and get to speak with her – his reason for going on the show in the first place. Jamal does not know this. Latika does not know that she is Jamal’s lifeline. When she steps out of her vehicle to watch Jamal with a crowd of onlookers surrounding the television sets in an electronics store – having escaped with Salim’s help from Javed (Mahesh Manjrekar), her gangster boyfriend and Salim’s underworld boss – she leaves the phone in the car. Jamal calls. The phone rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, and rings, endlessly. Oh no, will Latika get to the phone in time? Of course, but only after the game show’s crooked host, Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor), says something to the effect of, “Looks like nobody’s going to answer. You’re on your own” and commands the call to be disconnected. Knowing the rules of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” it’s obvious from the film’s inception that the final question must be resolved by a “Phone-A-Friend” to Latika. From the time early in the film that The Three Musketeers is mentioned, it’s obvious that the final question will be about it. At the moment Salim gives Latika his phone, it’s obvious it will result in a near-disaster of misunderstanding and last-minute rescue. And, as soon as the phone rings, it’s obvious how this rescue will take place. The whole thing ends up being one giant, simplistic fill-in-the-blank, a predestined procedural with no sense of how to proceed tactfully – a statement true of the entirety of Slumdog Millionaire.


D: Sappy. Cheesy. Doughy. Tasteless. The culinary adjectives pile up when considering how indigestible Danny Boyle’s film is. It’s all either bitter tragedies or saccharine platitudes, both being dull and flat to the palate. If Slumdog handles anything in a way that is genuinely fresh or crisp or breathtaking, I sure as hell missed it. Everything in the film feels trite or typically exploitative: the lovesick hero making his picaresque way back to his immaculate damsel, the overzealous police officers who come to sympathy once they let the poor street urchin explain himself, the wayward brother falling into the wrong crowd only to repent via a single sacrificial act, the shocking violence used more for visceral jabs than anything resembling complex storytelling, the persevering orphan who sees the sunshine through the shit and never dips his toe into anything that might make him truly blameworthy, the heartless gangster chauvinist with business ambitions and pockets full of power. Trust me, there are more.

Slumdog’s conclusion is the narrative equivalent of a whipped cream dollop with a cherry on top – weightless, fluffy, and strikingly sugar sweet. Jamal not only gets the girl, manages to save his brother’s dignity, wins a fortune, unites an entire country, transcends class systems, and shows that money comes to those who don’t really want it (he’s in it for the chick, man); he also shakes his ass amidst a sizeable sea of bright-eyed, super-smiley would-be Bollywood extras. The film’s aforementioned coda, feeling like the parodic finale of the much better The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), induced me to laugh out loud – not out of joy or celebratory exuberance as in Judd Apatow’s comedy, but because I thought it had to be a joke. Can anyone really make something that ridiculous and get away with it? Can anyone really think that deserves an Oscar or even a mention among the year’s best films? In Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle has either made a miserable mess of sentiment and unearned optimism or the most straight-faced satire I have ever seen. I highly doubt the latter.

Oh yeah. I forgot the last option. This might make the question a little easier.

E: All of the above.

And if you saw that coming from a mile away, Slumdog Millionaire will make you feel like a damned clairvoyant.
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Short Films You Must See: "Une Catastrophe" (Jean Luc Godard, 2008)

Recently selected as Nathan Lee's #1 film (er, video) of 2008, Jean Luc Godard's minute-long festival trailer (entitled Une Catastrophe) for the 2008 Viennalle kicks it old school in terms of dialectical Russian montage, but it is nevertheless a striking and dashingly original short from JLG. I may not go as far as Nathan in terms of its greatness (it feels a little too much like the opening to Godard's vastly underappreciated Notre Musique to be a full fledged, unique masterpiece), but its definitely worth a (quick) watch nonetheless..



And a quick side note: sorry for the delay in posts. I have been away from the internet for about a week, but should be back full swing henceforth. Brandon breaks down (and takes down) early Oscar favorite Slumdog Millionaire, new contributor Chuck Williamson reviews Fear(s) in the Dark, and I tackle Clint Eastwood's 2008 would-be melodrama dyptych of Changeling and Gran Torino. Plenty of other happenings are sure to come along as well. Out 1 is ready to roll into the new year and we hope you all come along with us! Keep spreading the word! Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night!

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Reviews In Brief: "Death Race" (Paul WS Anderson, 2008)

Updating the 1975 Roger Corman cult film Death Race 2000 and building on the premonitions of Network and The Running Man, the new Death Race places the viewer in a strange predicament between unwanted involvement and blood thirsty consumerism. On the one hand, assuming you are actually in the multiplex, everyone becomes inherently involved in the morally and politically corrupt “watch until they drop” mentality that most self-conscious liberals (including, from the looks of other reviews, most professional film critics) distance themselves from. On the other hand, Death Race constructs itself not only as a film, but, oftentimes, as the actual online event where hits, and our pulses, go up as prisoners continue to die in increasingly violent ways. Problematic? Maybe. But you’ve got to wonder at some point, in the midst of this 90 minute action sequence, who the hell cares?

Jensen Ames, an ex-con framed for the murder of his wife, is sent to Terminal Island where the most popular sport on the planet takes place: a car race where inmates kill one another for victory, promised freedom if they can win four races. Ames, a former driver, begins piecing together the mystery when he is offered the chance to drive as the masked Frankenstein, who won three races prior to his death at the hands of Machine Gun Joe. The public doesn't know that Frankenstein is dead, and he keeps the pay-per-view ratings soaring for the evil people behind the prison. Death Race puts its chips all-in, lights the chips on fire, and taunts the audience to do the same. In a film with hysterically egregious PBR product placement, constant machine gun fire out of hummers, semis, and Mustangs equipped with flamethrowers, napalm, and rocket launchers, all there to increase the varying possibilities of destruction, not to mention that Joan Allen (!) is the evil henchwomen behind it all, its not so hard to do. The shit doesn’t just hit the fan in Death Race...it bitch slaps it.

by James Hansen


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Reviews In Brief: "The House Bunny" (Fred Wolf, 2008)

The first (and hopefully last) film ever rated PG-13 to focus on a Playboy bunny who moves into a sorority and sluts up some outsider (aka- smart) misfit (aka- ugly) wanna-be co-eds (who isn’t?), The House Bunny is likely the most ineptly edited, written, and directed comedy of this year. Far too long at a mere 97 minutes, The House Bunny is a funny premise, if naive and simple minded, that could easily work as a guilty pleasure, stupidly entertaining movie. Alas, the wealth of material for comedic fodder goes underutilized as it returns time and again to boobs, wet t-shirts, and disastrous makeover jokes. Gum in the hair, water-padded bras, and virgins, oh my! At least it shows for certain that young girls who are beautiful on the outside can be beautiful in the inside, as long as the advantage to short dresses and shit tons of make up can do.

Saving the film from the total bottom of the modern comedic barrel, narrowly avoiding the likes of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalow and The Man, are the performances by Anna Faris and Emma Stone (and the amusing cameo from Hef.) Faris is in the midst of a solid comedic career, typically playing The Clueless Blonde, by investing herself in her characters, no matter how simple they seem, most notably in last year’s underappreciated stoner comedy Smiley Face. Stone, the beautiful and talented young actress from Superbad, has a similar look to Lindsay Lohan, although much prettier and without the few hundred personal missteps. Stone hasn’t been in very many films yet (nor very many good ones) but her potential, at least in my view, is huge. Even in the midst of disastrously long scenes put together with very little inspiration (especially the terribly long 20 minute opening expositional scene with Shelley's storybook and her time spent at the Bunny Ranch) Faris and Stone stand out and keep The House Bunny (barely) watchable.

by James Hansen

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"Milk" Trailer

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A Tale of Two Halves

With cinematic (re)emergences this year from Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, and Claude Chabrol, you may look at your calendar and think it to be 1968 rather than 2008. Stranger yet is that each of the new films from these old new wavers is that they each revolve around sex (or the lack thereof) and sexual relationships. Rivette’s conspiratorial would-be love affair recalls his best work. Rohmer’s bittersweet film, while far from his best film, takes a period piece, as does Rivette’s, and evokes a thoroughly modern context. What is, then, most odd about Chabrol’s A Girl Cut In Two, the only of the three films to take place in modern day, is that it feels the most out of touch and outdated. While the film features the most taboo relationship in the three films, that of a S&M relationship between an old rich famous author and a peppy young weather girl, seemingly famous in her own right, Chabrol’s script fails to be comfortable with the subject it broaches. With A Girl Cut In Two, Chabrol, always obsessed with the hidden lives of the bourgeois, opens up this “dangerous” taboo for discussion, but, much like a character in the film, when the topic is spoken aloud, he simply leaves the room.


What makes this more disappointing is that A Girl Cut In Two is a very well acted for its entirety and a playfully smart thriller in its first half. Gabrielle (the always wonderful Ludivine Sagnier) is a local TV weather girl with increasing popularity and opportunities coming her way. These opportunities are popping up at her work as well as with encounters with famous author Charles Saint-Denis (Francois Berleand) and Paul Gaudens (Benoit Magimel), a young playboy with an unlimited amount of wealth due to an inheritance. The upper class bourgeois games for the control, and sexual use, of Gabrielle are what carry the bulk of the more successful first half of the film. Charles is sly and experienced, charming Gabrielle at a local book signing and inviting her to an auction where he buys he a rare copy of a classic S&M novel. Paul, insecure and unstable, practically begs for the chance to be in Gabrielle’s presence and attempts to woo her at all costs. The three lead performances feature great nuances which add depth and resonance to the film’s excellent first half and are enough to hold our interest in the sloppy, directionless second half.

A Girl Cut In Two never really delves into why Gabrielle chooses who she chooses at the points in the film when she sporadically changes her mind. While the audience can, to some extent, attempt to fill in the blank of Gabrielle’s reasoning, it becomes an increasingly frustrating experience, and not just because things start going poorly for the naive protagonist Gabrielle. Despite waiting for years for Charles to leave his wife in favor of her, Gabrielle’s decision making becomes more naive as her experience increases throughout the film. The narrative jumps forward in time at several points, yet the mindset of the lead character bends backwards rather than progressing. Maybe this is a psychological detriment that comes with being “cut in two”, as an unnecessarily blunt visual metaphor shows Gabrielle to be at the end of the film, yet it seems rather tactless that Chabrol’s script showcases the young female as increasingly inept in her decision making even as she should become smarter in recognizing her past mistakes, as she seems to do...just without the results.


Gabrielle is strongly influenced by the people (men and women) around her, and Sagnier allows enough space to make the character’s choices believable. However, when the film turns into a murder mystery in disastrous final act, excessive (and, to my mind, unimportant) backstory highlights how easily manipulated Gabrielle continues to be. Manipulating Gabrielle becomes so easy for everyone associated with her that it falls into being one-note and rather simple minded. Chabrol’s script continually falls back into one frame of mind without ever attempting to deal with the choices Gabrielle makes in shaping her own experiences.

Gabrielle is rightfully torn apart by the end of the film, but A Girl Cut In Two does very little to show why this happens. Rather than confronting the upheaval of the bourgeois in the face of taboo controversy, Chabrol falls back into the bourgeois ideology it appears to attack by being simple minded, non-confrontational, and typically masculine. Though the top notch performances keep the film interesting, A Girl Cut In Two undercuts its first half strengths with extreme second half weaknesses. Chabrol certainly shows the ability to remain at the top of his form, but his command needs to be stronger and more apt than his female protagonists for his films to be completely successful.

by James Hansen

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"Miracle at St. Anna" Trailer

Thoughts? Reactions? I tend to like Spike Lee, although I found Inside Man a bit too standard. This seems to be a pretty typical war movie, but I am pretty intrigued by it all the same.

PS- A DVD of the Week entry is on the way...sorry for the delay! It's a busy week...



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So Many Mirrors, Such Excessive Time

The second best movie this year revolving around people brutally committing suicide, Mirrors, directed by Alexandre Aja, is plenty crazy enough to stick with to the end though it rarely gives any dramatic reason to keep watching. At its best (which is not often enough), Mirrors strongly invokes Dario Argento’s wild supernatural spirit and, like Argento’s best films, is driven by its distinctive visuals. Although less impressive here than in his previous features, Aja is, without a doubt, a playful master of a classic horror style. Unfortunately, his scriptwriting (and, perhaps, his editor) fails to have the same flair. Mirrors contains all the elements necessary for a great horror story, but never really sets up a mystery for the audience to follow. Its characters have moments of revelation, but, other than a few good scares, the audience get none. That may sound a bit pointless in regards to a slick horror movie, but 110 minutes with too few thrills and no narrative drive is a really long time.


Transmuted from the Korean horror film Into The Mirrors (Sung-ho Kim, 2003), Mirrors stars Kiefer Sutherland as 24’s Jack Bauer, who has changed his name for the purposes of this movie to Ben Carson. After a traumatic incident at the NYPD (“I killed a man!”), Ben, separated from his wife and children, gets a new job as a night watchman at a decrepit, mostly burned down department store. Ben begins seeing gruesome images of people in the mirrors who quickly begin to endanger everyone that Ben knows, most importantly his family. ("Look at their picture! LOOK AT THEIR PICTURE!!!")

This is a pretty standard set up for what, more or less, is a pretty standard horror movie. Mirrors is practically screaming for some mirror-stage psychoanalytic content, but, other than one brief discussion, it never comes up. Rather, Aja and his excellent cinematographer Maxime Alexandre cram as many mirrors and reflections per square frame inch as possible. As visually stimulating as this is, Mirrors is overcrowded with those mirrors. The mirrors lose their horrific commodity when every table, door knob, floor, drop of water, clock face, glass cup, bottle, eyelid, store front, and, yes, mirror, is an access point for the spirits within the mirrors. Mirrors has to turn to choppy fast editing to rebuild the spooks it loses by making mirrors so normal. With more visual control and less showcasing of their talent, Aja and Alexandre could have better reflected the terror in Mirrors.


Used perhaps to offset these faults (or subversively add to them) is Keifer Sutherland’s performance. Sutherland’s overly aggressive acting certainly doesn’t help matters in building tension and creating a balance between high and low moments, something that is crucial to the horror genre. The uber-seriousness is hard to handle next to the relatively controlled emotions of everyone else in the film. Even its moments of extreme violence are no match for Sutherland’s confrontation with a nun late in the film. That said, Sutherland’s hyper-emotion gives Mirrors a sense of urgency and energy that the film lacks otherwise. As much as Sutherland’s charicature seems to be off balance with the rest of the film, it is hard to imagine Mirrors working at all without it.

Despite its many failings, when Mirrors works it really works well. Aja is still developing as a director and, even with the visual overkill, Mirrors is certainly better than most horror movies you will see this year (assuming you go to a few.) This is made remarkably clear in its totally perfunctory horror movie conclusion; the scene is so smart and brilliantly executed that you will swear you just watched a better movie than Mirrors ends up being.

by James Hansen

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Oh, It's Potent, Bro

The latest production from Judd Apatow and His Band of Hilarious Motherfuckers, Pineapple Express, is a willfully genre-bending work comprised of such disparate elements as pot(ty) humor, (b)romance, fleeting lyricism (seriously), and extremely violent bursts of over-the-top (though often realistic) action. Helmed by indie veteran/heir to the Throne of Malick, David Gordon Green, and shot by Green’s longtime cinematographer, Tim Orr, Pineapple Express is not only bold in its risky melding and wry lampooning of multiple genres, but it is also the most aesthetically memorable and technically outstanding of all the Apatow productions thus far. Green’s direction is certainly not the sole source of the film’s effectiveness though – far from it. The hysterical screenplay by Superbad writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg oozes vivacious freshness when read by the film’s two spectacular leads – Rogen and James Franco – who both give iconic performances, particularly in the case of Franco as the lovable drug dealer, Saul Silver, whose purchase and subsequent distribution of a rare strand of weed known as “Pineapple Express” creates a fattie-sized McGuffin that gets the film rolling (please tell me you caught that). In fact, the only real problems in Pineapple Express occur when Rogen and Franco are off-screen, during which time the absence of their energetic chemistry and propulsive charisma is definitely noticeable – even if you’re stoned.


Pineapple Express begins harmlessly enough. Dale Denton (Rogen), a 25-year-old process server, ganja lover, and talk-radio aficionado is introduced through a humorous montage as a reluctant asshole who puts forth effort to inject a certain amount of flavor and creativity (via costumes) into his otherwise bloodless job. Dale’s immaturity, a staple of Apatow characterization, is revealed by the fact that he dates an 18-year-old high school girl, Angie (Amber Heard), and relishes in the slackerdom afforded by his job, rounding him out as another loveable goofball in a long line of lovable, if not always respectable, goofballs. However, even Dale feels superior to Franco’s greasy-haired, rerun-watching pot pusher, who may in fact be the sweetest character crafted by Apatow and the gang. Seeking to make friends, Saul offers Dale exclusive access to the aforementioned “Pineapple Express” marijuana, urging him to stay awhile and toke a “cross joint” – the holy grail of getting high. All goes smoothly and sedately, until Dale unwittingly witnesses a murder, committed by local drug kingpin and object of Dale’s latest serving assignment, Ted Jones (Gary Cole), and his dirty cop accomplice, Carol (Rosie Perez). During his fit of homicide induced hysteria, Dale drops an easily traceable sample of Saul’s rare marijuana, enabling Ted Jones to eventually put out a hit on both protagonists and turning Dale and Saul into hyper-paranoid bros-on-the-run.

Needless to say, the film’s premise leaves room for some jarring genre mixing and Green and co. take full advantage of and relish in these opportunities. Not only does Pineapple Express ratchet up the quality of the standard stoner banter in drug films, it also incorporates a positive appraisal of what is certainly homosocial, if not homosexual, behavior, and embraces a style of action that accentuates both jolting realism and parodic extravagance. The film essentially has multiple cakes – and it eats all of them at the same time, contrary to the popular adage, and, without a doubt, contrary to many moviegoers’ expectations, including mine. The juxtaposition of pothead levity and brutal death is admittedly confusing for those accustomed to the unspoken, yet rigorous, limitations of conventional genre (that being most of us), particularly when mixed with more than a dash of man-on-man eroticism. Pineapple Express is one of the few films in which the gore is consistently cringe-cringeworthy, but which also has the chutzpa to indulge in straight-up slapstick, including one memorable incident involving a deadly Daewoo, manned by Red (Danny McBride), one of Saul’s fellow dealers whose allegiances flip flop on a dime and whose absolute dorkdom provides numerous laughs, not to mention plot complications.


Keenly, David Gordon Green is careful to alternate cinematographic and editing styles throughout Pineapple Express, in addition to alternating genres and tones. Green strikes a balance between his characteristic moments of poetic inspiration and the demands of Hollywood convention. The filmmaking style ranges from moments that could fit into Green’s George Washington (2000) or All the Real Girls (2003), including a scene in which Dale and Saul frolic through sun-drenched woods like young lovers and a brief series of stunning lyrical landscape shots that precede the film’s hilariously self-referential breakfast-time coda, to the brisk editing rhythms and playful zooms of the film’s numerous fight sequences and shoot-outs, which illustrate Green’s understanding of mainstream aesthetics in a way that brings to mind the work of Edgar Wright. Green’s unique perspective makes Pineapple Express a Hollywood film that exudes both outsider freshness and relaxed familiarity, establishing a precedent that may enable more indie auteurs to cross over into Apatow-like territory.

Even though Green’s guidance is stellar, the real hands that pack Pineapple Express together (yes, like a bowl) belong to Rogen and Franco. The two actors’ shenanigans are endlessly watchable and their magnetism is undeniable. Not only is Rogen’s ability to carry a film cemented, but Franco’s future in comedy is also illuminated by the laugh-out-loud camaraderie between Pineapple Express’s stars, particularly during their well-crafted dialogue scenes. When the two of them disappear from the frame for more than 3 seconds, however, the film reveals just how dependent its success is on the dynamic duo. When the drug war subplot (resulting from confusion over just who Dale and Saul are working for – which is actually nobody) is given too much attention, the script loses focus and much of its edge and the movie sags considerably, particularly during the explosive finale. Hopefully, Rogen and Franco will be teamed up more regularly, a la Ferrell and Reilly, and Green will continue cranking out more mainstream fare – I know I could definitely use a second hit.

by Brandon Colvin
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Reviews In Brief: "Frozen River" (Courtney Hunt, 2008)

Despite its relative predictability, Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Frozen River succeeds mainly because its simple is propelled by an extremely complex performance from its lead actress Melissa Leo. This well executed blend takes a standard, fairly forgettable film and turns it into something memorable. Destined to be labeled "this year's Amy Ryan", Leo, a veteran character actress with notable turns in 21 Grams (and, so I hear, on the TV show Homicide: Life on the Streets), gives an awards worthy performance (yes, that means you, Mr. Oscar). Using classic westerns as a reference, Leo's characters is brash and confrontational yet she still manages to bring supreme depth to a character who doesn't always hide her emotions or rather bigoted worldview.

Leo stars as Ray Eddy, a struggling mother in up-up-upstate New York who begins helping Lila (Misty Upham) smuggle illegal immigrants across the US/Canada border in an attempt to reunite her broken family. Writer and director Courtney Hunt, who originally wrote and directed Frozen River as a short film which successfully played at the New York Film Festival, never makes Frozen River explicitly political as could easily have been the case; instead she keeps the film firmly in the structure of classic filial melodrama. Though this more traditional route makes the film feel standard and predictable (let's be clear, though...this is no Lifetime movie), it creates a wealth of material for Hunt and Leo to create a deep, emotional complexity that keeps Frozen River fresh and worth watching.

by James Hansen

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Long Live Cinema!

Though Ken Jacobs’s Razzle Dazzle is being considered significant in the switch to digital filmmaking, a claim enhanced by the status of its iconic experimental director, its reliance on the medium of film to create a form of discourse within the “film versus digital” debate is what makes Razzle Dazzle a timely film (well...video) capsule of a shifting industry. Jacobs seems confident that digital mode has a firm future, but what makes Razzle Dazzle more resonant is how (and why) it dissects filmic images, specifically Thomas Edison’s 1903 short film Razzle Dazzle and still photographs from the same time period, with digital technology. Razzle Dazzle is, at once, highlighting the values of film and shifting how it is to be viewed and explored. Rather than abandon one medium for another, Jacobs incorporates distinct elements from both technologies only to confound and question the similarities and differences. By situating the two mediums in a form of dialogue, Jacobs cynically removes the negativity from this highly charged industrial debate and makes an assured case that, no matter the technology or desired aesthetic, cinema must continue.


In a body of work that constantly challenges what is presented in the cinematic image, Razzle Dazzle may do the most in furthering Jacobs’s “indeterminate cinema”: a type of cinema in which the viewer reflects and interprets what has been seen in order to create the experience for themselves. Razzle Dazzle extends this cinema across varying formats; in doing so, it attempts to establish a completely indeterminate experience. With the film flicker nonexistant in digital video, Jacobs uses (digital) 3-D effects to (re)create flicker, which bends and refracts the still images giving them a sense of movement and life. The faux-flicker manages to make a similarly dizzying visual effect as to what Jacobs achieved with the Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son. The use of digital flicker in Razzle Dazzle administers the flicker as part of the cinematic viewing experience and shows that it is not completely lost in the digital foray. The flicker itself creates a visual response. In some ways, Jacobs’s use of flicker reflects the brain responses to flicker explored in Tony Conrad’s The Flicker (1965). Word is that Conrad’s son is recreating The Flicker with digital technology; the pairing of Razzle Dazzle with a digital version of The Flicker would be a remarkable double feature.

Moreover, the political implications Jacobs introduces in the last bit of the film should not be completely unexpected. While it seems out of line with the specificity of the image, Jacobs turns the upkeep of cinema into an issue of political important. Using an interview with Thomas Edison as evidence, Jacobs uses this not just to advance his specific political beliefs (anyone who has seen his magnum opus Star Spangled to Death should know that everything is political in Jacobs’s world) but also reframing the film versus digital debate as one of political importance. However, it is shown to be critical only in that the images and the cinema must continue; Jacobs does little to posture one format over another. Even when he minimizes Edison’s film into a digital 3-D cube and, quite literally, blows the film to pieces, it is followed by a return to the film and the images that hold life, death, and everything in between within their frames. Instead of reading Razzle Dazzle as love letter to the death of film, it should instead be seen as an elegy to the critical importance of Cinema.

by James Hansen
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Bruce Wayne Is No Will Kane. But, The Joker Rocks.

The Dark Knight has one tremendous problem; a tight-jawed, muscular, suave, caped-crusading problem: it’s protagonist. That’s right, the glaring bat-signal-sized flub up in an otherwise astonishingly entertaining and thoroughly engrossing Batman movie is, in fact, effing Batman (Christian Bale). The latest installment in what is becoming a massively successful trilogy, quadrilogy, or other more curiously prefixed saga, depending on sustained revenue (check) and artistic continuity (check), has director Christopher Nolan orchestrating a 152 minute-long action-packed circus, full of visual bravado and complex characters (barring one black-masked exception), and centering on the wickedly carnivalesque chaos of Heath Ledger’s already legendary ring-leading performance as The Joker. However, Ledger’s show-stealing is certainly made more obvious when compared to the flat, uninspired performance of his on-screen nemesis, the usually dependable Christian Bale. In the epic sequel, scripted by Nolan, his brother Jonathan, and comic-to-movie veteran, David S. Goyer, the too tight-lipped, too cool, too distant namesake of the franchise seems to be merely a sideshow – not only when compared to the jaw-dropping lunacy of Ledger’s Joker, but also when juxtaposed with the half-dozen other characters who come off as more dynamic and more relatable than The Dark Knight’s shadowy (well, okay), brooding (hardly), slick (like an annoyingly-icy driveway) hero.


With an adequately propulsive plot that is kick-started by one of the most brilliantly edited and photographed heist sequences I have ever seen, The Dark Knight pushes through a heap of action. Having begun a massive clean up of Gotham City with his vigilante actions, Batman, the merry outlaw, completes a triumvirate of ethically-minded executors of justice which boasts the new hotshot district attorney, the “white knight” of Gotham, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and Batman’s staunch supporter, Lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman) of the Gotham police force. Together, the three attempt to take down the mob, in order to permanently disrupt the city’s crime circuit. After some success, including a heroic mass arrest, they run into a problem when the mob enlists (or does he enlist himself?) an anarchic criminal to protect their interests who calls himself The Joker and whose motives are so illogical and ambiguous as to puzzle even the brightest of criminological minds – well, except for Alfred (Michael Caine), who provides some sharp insights. The film follows the scarred, greasy, flamboyant, make-up-wearing villain as he weaves a web of destruction and rips apart the communal hope that rests upon the shoulders of Gotham’s bravest defenders, manipulating the good and the bad with his psychological games and explosive brutality and pushing the city to the edge of terror. With its urban frontier and its modern cowboys, The Dark Knight plays like a mash-up of Western-style order v. chaos social exploration, a la High Noon (1952) or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and post-9/11 political commentary on the nature and impact of terrorism, a la . . . well, most of those suck. Sadly, The Dark Knight’s Bruce Wayne is no Will Kane or Tom Doniphon, but, gladly, it does not suck.

As one of the few superheroes without any real superpowers, Bruce Wayne/Batman is typically treated with great humanity and emotional depth – more man than myth – or at least a man struggling with his own mythological status (one that he has created for himself, contrary to the archetypal supernaturally-endowed protector enslaved to his or her own powers). In Batman Begins (2005) and in many of the graphic novels and comics that informed The Dark Knight’s storyline: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986), Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), and Jeph Loeb’s Batman: The Long Halloween (1996), Batman is painted as having a certain amount of fragility and is framed as a very sympathetic character, always having something to lose, always feeling the full weight of free-will, always making some sort of sacrifice – one that hurts in a way which is visible and that displays a startling rawness not often found in superheroland.


Disappointingly, The Dark Knight is shy in unmasking Bruce Wayne’s surface-level badassery, leaving Bale with essentially one facial expression the whole damn movie – eyes focused, lips tight, sneer lurking, ready for action. The monotony of Bale’s performance restricts Batman to a few zingers and the almost-campy gruffness of his affected crime-fighting voice instead of embracing the psychological fireworks that should be tormenting our sort-of-winged defender. Emotional dynamism falls prey to punchy set pieces throughout the film, and as Bruce Wayne is repeatedly forced to sacrifice his personal life for public justice, his character becomes so selfless that he almost disappears completely, being quickly and effortlessly subsumed into his own moral flawlessness, losing the human difficulty and weakness that made him so unique and valuable in Nolan’s previous cinematic imagining. Even with the completely unsatisfactory handling of its hero, however, The Dark Knight remains a very good film – due mostly to the all-around excellence of the supporting performances of Eckhart, Oldman, Caine, Morgan Freeman (as Lucius Fox), and Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Rachel Dawes, shared love interest of both Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent) and its stunning technical proficiency. But the reason this film should be remembered, and will be remembered (it’s already #1 on the IMDb Top 250), is Heath Ledger’s swansong performance.

Comparisons to Brando and De Niro have been lovingly and enthusiastically showered upon Ledger in countless bittersweet reviews full of devastatingly poignant “what ifs” and “probably would’ves,” and while I think these analogies are justified by Ledger’s tour de force, I would like to contribute another analogous acting precursor – young Pacino. If anything, the manic charisma and immediacy of Ledger’s take on The Joker reminded me of the power exuded by Al Pacino’s performances in Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Serpico (1973) and, of course, The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974). Like Pacino in his heyday, Ledger gives The Dark Knight its vibrancy, its cohesion and its focus. Although he will undoubtedly be credited as a supporting actor, everyone and everything in the film follows Ledger’s Joker. From the infamously visceral pencil trick to the surprising humor that colors certain scenes with a twisted, totally Gotham hilarity, Ledger’s devotion to his role is evident in the carefully measured physicality and artfully crafted tone and timing of The Joker’s most disturbing moments. The performance and Ledger’s intense preparation for it will be romanticized and embellished as their reputation grows in stature, emphasizing the morbid influence of the external fact of Ledger’s passing, making The Joker’s reckless nihilism even more tragic, insightful, and ultimately unshakeable, highlighting the idea that the fate of Gotham’s “soul” is even grayer and murkier than its own dark streets and alleys, leaving the cityscape in a palpable shroud of gloom.

by Brandon Colvin
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The Cutest Indictment of Humanity You Will Ever See

After the lovable exploits of Remy the rat were immortalized by Pixar in their previous film Ratatouille, I thought they had scaled their tallest mountain. After watching their latest offering, WALL-E, it seems they’ve found a taller mountain and already reached the summit. Director Andrew Stanton humanizes the loveable loser-bot and manages to craft a wonderful love story-cum-message picture which will have viewers questioning society as it currently stands.

WALL-E (or Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class), which takes place 700 years in the future, is the story of a robot who spends his days making cubes from the trash that covers the barren earth. One day a spaceship lands and a new robot enters his life. EVE (or Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) arrives and WALL-E quickly goes from curious to enamored. To impress her, he shows her a plant that he found while rummaging among the earthen ruins. As her primary objective is to find plant life, she stashes the plant in a midsection storage cavity and goes into a coma-like state until a ship comes to retrieve her. As WALL-E has no intention of losing his new friend/love interest, he grabs on and rides the ship back to its “mothership”, The Axiom. There he discovers a colony of obese humans and the machines that make life easy for them. Through various mishaps and robotic saboteurs, WALL-E has to help EVE get the plant specimen to the captain, so the humans can initiate their return to earth.

While on the surface, this sounds like a fun children’s movie (and it is plenty of fun), it’s also Pixar’s preachiest film to date. The largest issue the film addresses is that of environmental concerns. In the future, society apparently litters like the dickens, hence the need for the WALL-E units. It is their objective to clean up the planet while all of humanity is aboard the Axiom. During the initial sequence where the film follows WALL-E during his day-to-day routine, earth is nothing but refuse and wasteland and the color scheme of the film reflects as much. Various shades of brown run rampant, but aside from the faded hues of Buy-N-Large Corporation (insert rimshot here) products or advertisements, there is no real color to speak of. When WALL-E happens upon the plant, the green almost reaches off the screen and slaps you with its vibrancy. Red is to Sin City as Green is to WALL-E. This dramatic visual change emphasizes the important role that the plant will play in the film before EVE is even introduced into the film.


The earlier Pixar feature Cars was too one-note in its message of corporations killing small businesses. While WALL-E takes this issue and goes even further with it, they don’t continually harp on it. In the film, the B-N-L corporation achieved global domination. This in itself is a harrowing thought as this says that not only is a hegemonic state possible, but one needn’t even be a country to achieve it. Another dire conclusion which can be drawn from this is that we as a nation are so enmeshed in consumerism, that we would allow a corporation to take over as our national form of representation. Any way you look at it, the situation is grim. And this bleak scenario is wordlessly raised in the first five minutes of the film.

In WALL-E, literally every human shown in the current era (live-action Fred Willard is excluded as his character was pre-recorded 700 years before the events of the film) is obese. The people all get around via mobile chair units which take them wherever their hearts desire aboard the Axiom. While riding, they don’t even have to interact with the people in their immediate vicinity because each chair comes complete with holographic projector screens which are directly in front of the face of the rider. The only thing that occasionally distracts the rider from their screens is the garishly intrusive advertisements that inundate the ship (think talking jumbo-tron billboards). This amalgamated commentary tells us that 1) people are obese due to a sedentary lifestyle which we seem to be doing nothing about, 2) the proliferation of electronic devices is detrimental to us (see point 1), and 3) consumerism consumes us. This is apparently Pixar’s less-than-subtle elbow to the ribs that we should perhaps look at how we are living (too bad we can’t feel it through our fat rolls…).


The film also presents the scenario that humanity has been dehumanized. WALL-E has apparently developed some sort of sentience which gives him a penchant for Rubik’s cubes and VHS copies of Hello, Dolly! (or in other words, a personality). He and EVE both display individual personalities. But once the “humans” are introduced, they are shown to be a uniform mass of obesity and consumerism with no discernable differences between one and another (with the exception of the captain whose duties preclude that he be differentiated, though only slightly). It’s a sad thought that the most human character shown in a film with plenty of people in it is a robot. The only way that the humans are re-humanized is when WALL-E interacts with them on a personal level. Usually, he clumsily runs into their hover chairs and, in a folksy apology, offers his hand and his name. There are three characters that WALL-E particularly interacts with that become re-humanized: two passengers (who end up saving a litter of children from doom) and the captain. The revelation of the captain’s re-humanization is particularly satisfactory for those viewers well-versed in film. As he confronts the ship’s Autopilot, Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra” begins to play in a nod to Kubrick’s glorious 2001: A Space Odyssey letting us know that the captain has officially achieved the status of “human.”

WALL-E is enjoyable on the level of a fun animated movie where robots talking with nasally electronic voices and get into all kinds of hijinks, shenanigans, tomfoolery, and other forms of misadventures. It’s also the story of the love that develops between WALL-E and EVE. And while a viewer can see it at that level and stop there if they so choose, they would be shutting themselves out of a wealth of social commentary that Pixar has taken the liberty to point out. This is Pixar getting up on their soapbox and telling the world to make some changes. I’m just amazed that they were able to make their rant to the country this much fun.

by Jacob Shoaf

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Reviews In Brief: "The Edge of Heaven" (Fatih Akin, 2008)

It is a rare occurrence for me to leave a movie theater and to immediately be ecstatically ready to return to the same film for a second viewing. This, however, is exactly the case for Fatih Akin’s latest film The Edge of Heaven. Methodically deliberate for every second of its draining 122 minutes, The Edge of Heaven refuses to rush its multi-layered, cross cultural narrative, which all builds to a contemplative final moment of rapturous beauty. Its subdued atmosphere and patient tone, similar to that of Akin's earlier feature Head-On (2005) is surprising for a film that sounds so elaborate, far reaching, and ambitious (as that has seemingly become a negative aspect) yet it is precisely this balance that makes The Edge of Heaven so powerfully effective.

Led by an array of rock solid performances, crisp direction, and an ingenious screenplay (which won the Best Screenplay award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival), Akin and his colleagues have crafted an subtly intense experience reflecting the difficult relationship between Turkey and Germany. Yet The Edge of Heaven reaches beyond this culturally specific target and has mass appeal to any individual or group that is waiting for their ship to come in. Without a doubt, The Edge of Heaven is one of the best film you will see this year.

by James Hansen


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Invisible Monsters

A couple of months ago, word started getting around about Martijn Hendriks’ project Give Us Today Our Daily Terror; a project which removed all of the the birds from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. There may be plenty of cynics in regard to Hendriks’ project, but if there will ever be a modern film that is some sort of equivalent Hendriks’ experimentation, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening is it. I don’t know anyone who is calling Shyamalan’s newest (and best) film experimental, yet its attempts to create a monster movie without a physical monster is as conceptual a concept as you will ever find in a Hollywood film. This drastic change from the Shyamalan norm comes as a welcome surprise, considering the utter debacle that was Lady in the Water. While most people continue to treat Shyamalan as a critical punching bag (admittedly, I have not been a fan of of any of his work since the mild accomplishments in the first half of Unbreakable) The Happening works to shift expectations and create a new mode of address that can lead to a form of success, not just for Shyamalan but for the human species as well. The Happening is completely bizarre, smart, and shockingly enjoyable from start to finish.


One of the main objections to The Happening has been its “awful” script and laughable dialogue. While I don’t find much of a debate on whether or not the comedy is purposeful (however if you want to debate that feel free), the better question to ask may be why this approach was taken. Although I am no auteurist, after the deadly (hysterical) seriousness of Lady in the Water and the backlash that created, Shyamalan clearly needed to go for a different effect and it is important to think about The Happening in that context. Led by the strong performance by Mark Wahlberg as Elliot Moore, a witty high school science teacher, The Happening uses character tropes to create comedy in the midst of chaos. Each problem that Elliot encounters, whether inside or outside of school, is solved as a scientific puzzle. When mass suicides begin in New York City near Central Park, the location becomes the key to Elliot in unlocking this scientific mystery. Meanwhile, his starry-eyed wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) dodges questions about a man named Joey, while Julian (John Leguizamo), a math teacher, confronts his problems with statistics and math riddles. Math gives Julian hope that his wife may not be affected by whatever is causing the suicides, whether it be terrorists or the environment itself.

These one-note characteristics are the kind of quirkiness that The Happening becomes invested in and helps the film not be overbearingly depressing. After seeing Suicide Club (2002), it should be fairly evident that mass suicides are not typically material for comedic fodder. The Happening, however, finds a comedic charm that builds suspense and carries the film through long sections where very little happens. Some goofy secondary characters, obsessed with hot dogs and lemon drinks, continue to control a bizarre atmosphere that can quickly transition from one mood to the next, or to be both at the same time. Its comedy, rooted in the markedly stilted dialogue, may make The Happening seem laughably bad but, in helping to subvert expectations, the dialogue is a major factor in creating the film’s strange aesthetic which is the key to its enjoyment and success.


Part of what makes The Happening so fascinating is its willingness to be completely aimless in a genre that is driven by the question “what will happen next.” The Happening removes the word next in this question, leaving the audience on a frustrating path to nowhere. Elliot, Alma, and other survivors move from town to town wondering if the disease will hit them. They work to comprehend how and why the attacks happen, although very little is understood. Just when it seems like Elliot has begun to figure something out, the storm of death stop as quickly as they started. Incorporating news footage and analysis of the carnage makes clear the parallels between the events and global warming, where nature is seeking revenge on those who have abused it, yet any sort of Big Question remains unasked, much less unanswered. In a genre so reliant on posing and answering questions for plot progression, The Happening continually defies these modes of address and simply lets its events happen. Although some sort of answer is unearthed and a cornball conclusion ties up events for Elliot and Alma, The Happening again makes a shift to the horror genre in its final moments. While this decision may get some chuckles for being typically mundane, the scene reaffirms the message and reconnects Shyamalan, at last, to a set of expectations. The Happening shows that these expectations can be toyed with, but never completely overcome.

The Happening is being met with some of the harshest criticism Shyamalan has ever received. Only Manohla Dargis’ New York Times review mentions the difficult position Shyamalan has place himself in as a “would-be auteur”, deeming the film “marked for failure even before it had a chance to fail- or succeed.” As off-kilter and strange as every element of the The Happening is, each step is taken to match the cynicism of a public that feeds on publicized failure. The purposeful comedy in The Happening is as assured as its quiet thrills and deliberately unsubtle message. Shyamalan’s previous works may have him set up for disaster (just as The Happening contends the people’s relationship with our planet has lent itself to the same result); however, in establishing a new mode of monster movie without the expected Shyamalan aesthetic (which may be leading to its mostly disastrous reviews), The Happening stands out as a bold success in both style and substance. Only by drastically playing with, changing, and challenging preconceived expectations, The Happening has taken a seemingly disastrous project (a monster movie without a physical monster) marked it for success.

by James Hansen

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