Notes from Underdog.

Paddle to the Sea and The Red Balloon: Childhood memories

(originally appeared on GreenCine Guru)

Rating (out of 5):

Paddle to the Sea: ***½
The Red Balloon: ****½

I have the vaguest of recollections of the Canadian short film Paddle to the Sea, from probably around

 

the time I was in elementary school in the late 70s, probably rolling my eyes at the start -- "what's this dumb movie about a carved Indian in a canoe?" -- until becoming, many years later as an adult, completely engaged and enraptured by the story. Then, it was probably a jittery, wobbly film print played on a dirty projector, the voice over narration skipping and the sound warbling; now, thanks to Criterion and Janus, Paddle to the Sea has been digitally remastered, likely looking as good as it ever has, even if a bit faded, and is as lovely as ever. The simple story follows a wood carving from its inception, created by a Native boy living in remote Canada, who sets the little figure - a man in a canoe - free above a river, with a request carved at the bottom to return the boat to the water if found. The film follows the progress of the little boat - called "Paddle" - from body of water to body of water, through the seasons, found by various people, set free again and again, making it through various hazards.

It's surprising how touching the simple film is, and there are little messages to be received by willing children, too, as Paddle sludges through mucky, polluted water near industrial plants, and as kids learn to respect the boat's wishes. But it is the marvelous photography, which combined with the film's overall documentary-like feel, that makes viewing it such a breathtaking experience.

The DVD doesn't come with any extras, alas, and one has to wonder why Criterion didn't release all three of the classic children's films - this, The Red Balloon, and The White Mane - together on one DVD, but they likely wanted to honor each of them with their own disc; at least they have priced them accordingly. Still, the film is a treasure, and it is good to see it on DVD.

Before I even knew there was a film called The Red Balloon, I knew of a little hardcover photostory called "The Red Balloon," that I was given when I was about five or six. This was before there was home video (the mid 1970s) so it wasn't that odd, I suppose, but fortunately, my father eventually procured a copy of the film, to show a class he was teaching, and finally, the concept of the book was soon forgotten. Either way, the images left an indelible impression.

The Red Balloon won a Best Short Film Oscar for Albert Lamorisse and -- even more astonishingly -- for writing the best original screenplay in 1956. Astonishing because the film has almost no dialogue. It's essentially a simply plotted fantasy with a realistic backdrop - the city of Paris - about a young boy and a balloon with a mind of its own.

It's interesting to read some of the critical reception given the film at the time of its release, almost all of it unilaterally positive, though, oddly, one reviewer in the Washington Post in a critique called it the "most seamless fusion of capitalism and Christianity ever put on film."

To a child's eye, the film seems an innocent parable, a call for escape by the end, but with no awareness of France's recent history of war and occupation, it seemed then more simply a tale of a boy my age and his magical balloon.

This was my first introduction to the City of Light, and I don't know if it's ever looked more beguiling, before or since. The photography is clearly among the best ever seen in a "children's film." And here in this new digitally remastered DVD from Criterion, it looks especially amazing, from the very first frame. Yes, the red pops off the screen, but the entire piece looks gorgeous. As with the other discs in this series, there are no extras to speak of but the film itself is childhood magic revisited.

Dirty Harry Collection: Deluxe Edition

(This review originally appeared on GreenCine Guru)

Dirty Harry Collector's Edition: The deluxe treatment to make your day

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5):
Dirty Harry ****
Magnum Force ***
The Enforcer **½
Sudden Impact ***
The Dead Pool **½

If you watch enough Dirty Harry movies consecutively -- say, all five of them, as I did this past week, in viewing the newly remastered Dirty Harry Deluxe Collector's Edition from Warner Brothers -- you either go mad, or you start to spot a number of interesting patterns. Such as:

Being assigned as Harry Callahan's partner is not that different than becoming the latest Spinal Tap drummer in movie mythology -- both positions are seriously bewitched and essentially doomed. This does not go unnoticed by the screenwriters; in even just the second film Magnum Force, Harry  (Clint Eastwood) makes his new partner nervous by alluding to this fact. 

Of course, most famously, the police captains over Harry are always demoting and transferring him, looking for any excuse to get rid of him because "he doesn't do things by the book," only to have to bring him back to Homicide because they're too myopic and/or incompetent to solve anything without him.

Each film of course has the requisite car chase(s), Scene Where Callahan Goes Too Far and Crashes Something to Save the Day, one dimensional depictions of fringe groups (students. hippies and radicals, and so on) -- even if the films sometimes then subvert those expectations.

Taken as a whole, the Dirty Harry series is a fascinating study of an American period that begins with the disillusionment and tumult felt in the early 70s and ends with "Morning in America" era Reagan (and some disillusionment beginning to be felt with that as well). Individually, the films are certainly a mixed bag, but even the lesser films in the series have a certain fascination about them. And each of these new discs offers up enough extras to make not only a die-hard fan happy, but film students and cultural historians, too. And each of these new DVD includes a host of supplemental features -- also of varying quality but with several new documentaries worth watching for any DirtyHarryologists out there or anyone seeking more background on the series.   (CONTINUES BELOW)

Freshly baked terror!

Posted without comment.

Movie Moms for Mother's Day.

Happy Mother's Day!
Erin Donovan presents us with some of the Best (and Worst) Movie Moms, organized by type. Have at it!

10 Sequels That Are Better Than the Original

In honor of the release of Harold and Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay, a sequel that may only be marginally superior to the first one in concept and laughs (and some critics are already divided on that point) what the heck, I bring you a sampling of follow-up films that very clearly improved on the originals.

In some cases, the originals have plenty of merit on their own, but for various reasons their makers felt all the more inspired for the subsequent go-round.

Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior: Not that the original Mad Max isn't pretty nifty, too, especially now that we have a non-badly dubbed version to enjoy on DVD, but the second one was more exciting, visionary and damned good storytelling. George Miller's post-apocalyptic Australia is brilliantly realized and the spectacularly brutal action set pieces make this one of my favorite action films of all time.

(Hah! Now you're hooked. Now you have to go to GreenCine to read the rest. Sorry.)

» continue reading "10 Sequels That Are Better Than the Original"

The multi-character indie movie

As I hear more directly about direct-to-video fare than perhaps the average Joe, either by advertisements I get in the mail or see in catalogs, or via DVD screeners themselves, I see more evidence of an interesting, if possibly useless, trend.

The ensemble dramedy. (Or more straight comedy or drama.)  These films - which I define as having more than two or three main characters - are marketed by the potential impact the cast as a whole might have on the susceptible public, as opposed to marketing one specific actor/actress. 

The box art will be eerily similar, no matter how different each film's plotting (or plodding): The entire cast, or most of it, will all be featured together on the box cover.

The marketing campaigns are similar, too, listing off each actor with their purportedly impressive previous credits included parenthetically to remind retailers and renters that This Person Has Done Something Of Worth Before Therefore This is Of Worth, Too.

The other thing that is usually - not 100% of the time but usually - similar is that they are not very good.

What went wrong, though, wasn't in the direction, necessarily, or the casting, or certainly not the marketing. What went wrong was right at the beginning, when the films were conceptualized as a screenplay.

For, you see, writing an ensemble film is hard, especially if you are not an experienced writer or director (I should know, I've tried and failed at a couple of these scripts myself, and am only different in that I knew that they were a mess before I pawned them off on anyone else; okay, I am sort of trying one again, but this time I've learned my lesson and am focusing it on two characters). This is not to say that ensemble films can't and don't work. Robert Altman pulled it off multiple times, for instance. But he's ROBERT ALTMAN. Richard Linklater pulled it off in Dazed and Confused (and of course Slacker, to an extent); not as well in the less-focused Fast Food Nation, however. There are many other fine examples. But the multi-character film requires a keen balancing act. A recent comedy that mostly pulled this off is Death at a Funeral, but its makers were pretty experienced with farce. Farce is generally very hard to pull of well. And then with the success of films like Crash, there were also a slew (or slough) of "provocative" multi-characters-overlapping dramas that tackled all the issues of our time.

When it's apparent that the comedy isn't that funny or the drama isn't that compelling, and the script shifts uneasily in tone, and is generally ill-focused as these scripts tend to be, then the distributors are left trying to focus after it's too late.

There are certainly some not-so-good ensemble films that do get a wide release, and some surprisingly decent ones that go straight to video (see The Big Bad Swim and The Big White for example); while the rules aren't absolute that are fairly hard and fast.

Here are some examples of recent multi-character films and their accompanying DVD box art (And I'm not even bothering with all the National Lampoon and American Pie frat boy comedies):

Even Money (Very good cast; tries to be Crash-lite):

Which reminds a little bit of - perhaps due to the presence of Forest Whitaker - the recent the air i breathe, which garned some better reviews, if no better luck in distribution.

Then there's the ensemble comedies, like the film-within-a-film comedy (add that subgenre to the "Please Don't" category) The Amateurs, with Jeff Bridges, Tim Blake Nelson and some other good performers. In which Bridges plays a filmmaker who tries to make a pornographic film and hilarity ensues. A direct to DVD release ensued, too.

In the awkwardly named, not-half-bad, Everybody But the Kitchen Sink Post 9/11 Dramedy category, there is this one:

Many multi-character farces have convoluted premised, leaving marketers to fall back on old devices. Namely, when in doubt, put a hot woman (even if it's misleading, as the woman is often not a big part of the film itself) front and center, and the ensemble of comical men in the background. Also, as there's no one clear star, all the names go above the title. Names like Scott Grimes and Jason London, certain to sell the film even if the babe and the monkey do not! 

There are also more publicized films that fit into this category. Is Jane Austen Book Club really any better than any of these other films mentioned above? No, not really, but it has the benefit of being based on a known book, with a popular idea, that led to a distribution deal. (Feast of Love would also fit into this realm.) But here you are, a multi-character, not particularly well-focused dramedy ready for mass consumption.

And, thanks in part to Tyler Perry Co., this phenomenon isn't restricted to only white films. Here we have an example of film that realizes it has no one marketable star, and isn't really sure what it is in general, so it just gives you... The Whole Cast.

Of course, if your film is basically an orgy, then it would make sense that you'd feature a number of people on the cover. I'm talking to you, Shortbus.

Blast of Silence

(Cross posted from GreenCine Guru)

Reviewer: You (as played by Craig Phillips)
Rating (out of 5): ***½ (film); **** (DVD).

The lost noir classic Blast of Silence starts off a bit dubiously, with enough voice over narration to give Robert McKee an aneurysm after ten minutes, and even with some tedious moments early on, but wait, that scalding and scolding, pulp-ish voice over is in the second person, and the increasingly sleazy, realistic atmosphere begins to take hold of you, until you're fairly well rapt. You dig that nightclub scene, the same kind of scene you remember from older noir, but here the beatnik singer's playing bongos, and as the editing gets quicker in pace, and the tension mounts, you can't stop watching. Add to that character actors you've probably never seen before, even if you know the type -- the fat, shady gun smuggler who tries to play all the angles, the one with the collection of pet rats, and the slimy two-timing mobster with a heart of granite. Then there's the dame from the past, she fills a longing in your lonely heart, so much so you can't keep your mitts off her and she boots you out. You've got to focus on the gig at hand, bumping off a mobster, whom you grow to loathe more and more with each day. Everyone's against you, and there's only one thing you can do - pick off anyone in your path.  You (as played by Allan Baron, director and co-screenwriter) ain't such a bad guy, but you've had some hard knocks in life.  That's just life in the Big Apple, circa 1962.

You know you're a part of something when it feels like both the last "real" noir, a kiss of death to that movement as we knew it, while also one of the first true neo-realist American independents.

That's Blast of Silence, and thanks to Criterion, you're back.

And, as always in a Criterion joint, this little baby comes with some special gifts, most special being an engaging 60 minute documentary, "Requiem for a Killer: The Making of Blast of Silence", which was put together from a 1990 German film on Baron the production. It's, well, a blast.

Sharkwater review: Shark fin soup and the misunderstood beauty and importance of sharks.

(Cross-posted on GreenCine's Guru review site.)

Sharkwater

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***

Rob Stewart's gorgeously shot, informative - and wistful - documentary Sharkwater is about that mysterious and fascinating, and, the film argues, the most misunderstood, of all sea animals. If the film sometimes gets a little choppy, the filmmaker's passion for the subject and the disturbing revelations to be gained from watching the film make it more than worthwhile.

The youthful Canadian underwater photographer and biologist Stewart, who quit his job to make this film, narrates and "stars," along with a host of sharks. Sharkwater begins with montage VO from old shark documentaries which include a hilariously misinformed bit of instruction from the Navy on scaring off sharks when in the water, followed by montage of media portrayals of shark attacks, adding to the fear factor. It "makes 'good television," says one frustrated shak researcher. But after initial, entertaining educational section of the film, it segues into a disturbing examination of how sharks are being illegally hunted - most often, and most cruelly, for their fins - as Stewart joins in with GreenPeace's Paul Watson, a fellow Canadian and one of the most passionate and renowned defender of marine life.

These prehistoric fish are hearty, we learn; they've managed to survive though five major mass extinctions. But they are faced with their greatest threat yet: man.

Killing off sharks, the top of fhe food chain in the ocean, can cause major upheaval in everything else below, a domino effect if you will. And the film's central pursuit, along with showing the abominable and illegal long line fishing practice, is about the cruel and utterly pointless desire for shark fins to make soup, which involves cutting off the fins and then tossing the animal back to bleed to death, all for a soup in which the fin adds no flavor. Sharks are thought by some Asian cultures to have a magical power to heal and thus the long history of the soup. This belief is misguided, too, of course, since as the film points out, sharks don't have magical healing powers, they get diseases like any animals. Stewart's only attempt to counterpoint is an interview with a shady shark fin merchant who defends his practice, but it's hard to find many rational arguments in favor of shark fin soup. And to anyone who thinks this film is one-sided, well, no one else is speaking for the sharks.

The film's overriding goal is to inform us of the misconceptions about sharks - - Stewart reminds us how sharks "are nothing like their reputation" a few too many times - alongside the pursuit of illegal fishermen, and while these two lines don't always twine perfectly, Sharkwater makes a pretty compelling, even eye-opening case for ecological protections butting heads with rampant corruption and environmental ignorance. How well you appreciate the film may have to do with how much you accept the surfer-ish Stewart's overtalky narration and front and center presence in the film. It's clear he is passionate about the subject, even if that passion sometimes leads the film to feeling ill-focused (with a few too many shots of him standing shirtless on camera). A tangential section about his undeniably harrowing experience during the film's making with "flesh-eating disease" takes us away from sharks, too, though he does make clear that the shark story is partially what keeps him going. But while the filmmaker could learn a few lessons on integrating the personal with the larger from Ross McElwee, by adding a personal touch to the film here I do think it also brings an emotional component to help make the case for changing our ways toward these incredibly misunderstood animals.

In addition to Stewart and his team's gorgeous cinematography, both above and below sea, Sharkwater also offers a nicely eclectic music score, much of which seems to have been borrowed from my CD collection. The DVD also features a "Beneath the Surface" featurette, worth a watch if you're interested in more on the film's shooting, and "Shark Defense," the amusing Naval training film.

Go to savingsharks.com for more.

I Am Legend: quickie review

(Cross-posted on GreenCine's Guru Review blog)

I Am Legend

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): *** ½

It was entirely a coincidence that I watched I Am Legend on the heels of having finally watched 28 Weeks Later only two days earlier - in addition also reading through Brian Vaughan's post-apocalypse "Y: Last Man Standing" graphic novel series in which a virus kills off every male on the planet save one. Still, it was impossible not to think of these - the vampiric infected hordes for the former and the possibilities of being the last man alive in the latter. And, as the only companion for Smith's Dr. Neville is his German Shepherd, also hard not to think in passing of A Boy and His Dog, the Harlan Ellison-penned sci-fi.  But of course, what comes to mind most while watching I Am Legend is its more direct predecessors. And before petering out in the final act, this third official adaption of Richard Matheson's 1954 book by the same name (the others being the fairly faithful The Last Man on Earth, with Vincent Price, and The Omega Man, with Charlton Heston - and no, he doesn't shout "Get your claws off me you damned dirty mutant!") is a better-than-expected reworking of that source material.

Director Francis Lawrence softens some of the sharp edges of the original but maintains the grim horror of the situation and the utter loneliness and despair felt by Neville. By setting the new version in NYC, rather than Matheson's Los Angeles it also (as with Cloverfield) can't help but invoke feelings of 9/11, but even more so it uses our memories and knowledge of New York as a fast-paced, densely packed and highly social metropolis to add to the eerie emptiness felt in the film's present. (Neville is so lonely that he talks to mannequins at a video store as if they were clerks and patrons.) And it's certainly easy to become worked up over the sight of lions rampaging down the streets of Manhattan.

In The Omega Man, the mutants were more coherent "The Family" rather than the more vampiric, primal darkseekers of I Am Legend. Here the infection is caused by a virus originally intended to cure cancer (a cure discovered by a doctor played by Emma Thompson, seen in a prologue), which Neville feels responsible for, biding his time desperately trying to develop a vaccine. With only the dog - and the mannequins - for company, this is Will Smith's one-man show and he pulls it off, giving one of his best performances; here he's less the smirky charmer of Men in Black and more the pained, half-mad man of Pursuit of Happyness, with less treacle. 

He carries it even as the film loses some of its nerve. {SPOILER WARNING} I found it a bit hard to understand Neville's final decision at the end; he was defending the cure he'd discovered by giving it to Anna, but it seems there could've been a way out of it that didn't involve blowing everything up. The script basically tones down the bitter irony of Matheson's original story, missing the point and hinging its resolution on action beats. It's too bad because everything that comes before it is quite sharply focused.

Note: As the studio only sent me the Widescreen edition of the film, which is perfectly adequate except I had to then seek out the Special Edition which includes the alternate ending. And, despite the fact that I usually have no problems with "downbeat" endings if they feel appropriate, I did prefer the alternate take, cathartically. The theatrical version just feels like a cop-out.

I Am Legend is three film genres for the price of one: Science Fiction, Action, and Horror, and while it's no classic in any one arena it remains edgy fun. It's certainly a better adaptation than Smith's I, Robot, which must have had Isaac Asimov suing from his grave.

Criterion's Thief of Bagdad: special goodies

On Criterion's upcoming Thief of Bagdad release, a two-disc set coming in late May, among the new goodies are two audio commentaries: one featuring renowned directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, and one with film and music historian Bruce Eder.

That's on top of the inclusion of The Lion Has Wings (1940), Alexander Korda's propaganda film for the English war effort, created when The Thief of Bagdad went into production hiatus.

Can't wait! That and the two Louis Malle films, The Lovers and The Fire Within, have me very excited about May.

Appleseed: Ex Machina -- DVD Review

(Cross-posted with GreenCine's Guru blog)

Rating (out of 5): **½ (higher for mecha die-hards)

Appleseed: Ex Machina is a follow-up to the popular first new Appleseed movie (there was a halfway decent 1988 cel-animated Appleseed as well), which was based on the characters created by Masamune Shirow in the manga of the same name.  If you haven't seen the first one, don't fret - a quick, expository narration covers all the basics at the beginning. For the most part Ex Machina's a slight improvement over the original, which also looked terrific and yet featured even clunkier dialogue and plotting.

Set in 2131 AD, the story centers around a female soldier named Deunan Knute, who survived the Third World War and now lives in the utopian city-nation of Olympus. Deunan is involved romantically with her partner Briareos, a veteran soldier who happens to be more cyborg than human at this point; both serve in E.S.W.A.T., an elite special forces unit working to protect Olympus, which is run by AI and by bioroids, genetically engineered humanoids. The main plot here has the two lover-fighters finding their partnership tested in a new way by the arrival of Tereus, an experimental bioroid. (Olympus, Tereus, Briareos...the whole film is hit or myth.) When random violence by groups of terrorist cyborgs begins to escalate during a global summit, it's up to the E.S.W.A.T. team -- Robo-cops wearing suits that look like Transformers -- to save themselves and, oh yes, the course of mankind.

The CGI-anime hybrid design gives us colorful, gorgeously realized backdrops and foregrounds mixed with stiffer character design, only a cut above those found in the average Thunderbirds episode.  While those two elements make for an awkward fusion, one can get used to it if things get rolling.  And the plot here, derivative as it sometimes is, does grab more than I'd expected. The enticing action shouldn't come as much of a surprise since John Woo was the producer and definitely had a hand in things. (One amusing in-joke for Woo fans happens right at the opening credits when his name appears just as a flock of birds scatter from a ruined church, surely a reference to one of his favorite visual metaphors.)

The spunky heroine Deunan is a winning enough lead, and Briareos has his charms, but most of the other characters are relatively indistinguishable. The Japanese audio track with subtitles had less in the way of eye-rolling dialogue than the English dub, but both offer their share of corniness. The voice actors for the latter are decent, however, even if a few too many of the male characters sound to all have come from the Nick Nolte School of Gruff Voice Acting. Star Trek: The Next Generation aficionados will sniff a bit of the Borg in the way the plot unfolds and in the villain's look and floating puzzle cube, but the climax is engaging enough.

Fans of mecha anime will particularly dig Appleseed Ex Machina, for the action and art design are way above average. Those who don't care for people in giant robot suits and a lot of explosions will probably have less interest, but it's worth a look as fast-paced action and eye candy.

By the way, the pulsing electronica music score here is by Cornelius, and while I'm a big fan of his work there were times when I found it rather intrusive. It screamed of "Buy this cool soundtrack!"

King of California.

(This review also appeared on GreenCine's Guru review blog)

Rating (out of 5): ***

Writer-director Michael Cahill's King of California is a "little film" with a solid script that came and went from theaters in the blink of an eye - not a big surprise, given the oddball plot. While no classic, it certainly deserves an audience on home video.

Michael Douglas plays Charlie, a wayward father and former jazz musician whose estranged, and much more together, teenage daughter Miranda (a most-appealing Evan Rachel Wood) picks him up upon his release from a mental hospital. She's been working at McDonald's instead of finishing high school because someone's got to bring home the McBacon. Her mother, his ex, a former hand model, ran off too. Charlie may have issues, but at least he cares. It doesn't take all that long for Douglas to present his character as a major league eccentric, but to his credit he doesn't overdo it (except for a few wild-eyed moments), and he quickly garners our sympathy for his obvious love of his daughter. The plot - centering on Charlie's obsessive belief that Spanish treasure is buried underneath the local Costco - requires some suspension of disbelief to be sure, and yet Cahill's on to something, too.

Cahill, a novelist turned filmmaker, smartly uses the Weeds-ish setting - Southern California tract house suburbia (namely, the Santa Clarita valley), full of pointless Spanish street names meant to cover up the area's subversive history - to satirize the sameness the rest of their fellow suburbanites display. With that location plus the juxtaposition of Spanish music and Charlie's obsessive quest, the film could even seem a strange cousin to Ivan Passer's Cutter's Way. In that film, also set in Southern California, John Heard's slightly whacked Vietnam vet gets Jeff Bridges to join him on his obsessive mission to prove a millionaire committed murder; here, Charlie's obsession - which Miranda gamely if reluctantly goes along with - is to find buried treasure, 17th Century Spanish doubloons, in the 'burbs. She reads the journals and books he shoves at her, about the Spanish missionary who may or may not have buried the treasure (Cahill even mixes things up a bit by using cut-out animation to tell the Spaniard story). There's just enough evidence that she begins to believe him, even as his quest teeters more and more on the criminal.

Wood's VO narration seems an unnecessary contrivance to explain backstory but the flashbacks to her eccentric, damaged childhood work well in quick bursts to explain their relationship. There are other moments that strain credulity, including Charlie's relationship with a local policewoman, but many surprising little touches add a layer to the film: the wild cat that pops into their kitchen one night to feast off dirty dishes; Charlie watching moths hover at a porch light while he plays the bass dreamily.

Douglas sports a Cervantes-ish mustache and beard; all he needs is a Conquistador's helmet, which he basically gives himself later in the film when he wears his sweatshirt's pointy hood atop his head -- then the look is complete. But his performance is superb. Charlie's obsession is painted humorously, as Miranda gamely trudges along with him, father and daughter. It's when the story slows the hunt down a bit that it becomes more touching, as Miranda makes Charlie realize what he's been missing. He slowly starts acting more like a "dad" to the precocious daughter.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending logically but found it rather touching. King of California is by no means a perfect film, but it deserved a better fate than being buried - like treasure. Sweet and bittersweet.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score

(This review originally appeared on GreenCine Guru DVD Reviews)

Bender's Big Score
Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***½

The show that Simpsons creator Matt Groening followed that huge hit with, Futurama didn't have the same ratings success but developed a large and loyal cult following, only to become yet another high quality comedy that Fox shifted around confusingly for four seasons, including in the too early time slot of 7pm Sunday, showing less patience than it did with the Simpsons, only to, as with Family Guy (which I'm much less of a fan of, but it certainly has a huge following), realize they blew it and brought a cult favorite back. Bender's Big Score is the first of what will be several new feature-length Futurama episodes.  And fans can breathe a sigh of relief: even if it stumbles about a few times -- blame it on writers rust after the four year layover (which the opening sequence cleverly references, along with a well-deserved, thinly-veiled smackback at Fox itself) -- in many ways it's as if they'd never left. Good news everyone: It has roughly the same amount of laughs as you'd find if you watched three solid episodes of the show back to back.

The film stars, yes, Bender the wise-ass robot, who becomes captive to a virus as part of a hostile takeover by scammer aliens (who look like shriveled moles, or something more phallic than that), who use spam to fool the Planet Express company's gullible employees. After gaining access to a secret code that allows them to travel through time -- Fry has the time travel secret with the power to destroy the universe written in binary code tattooed on his ass, and don't ask, just enjoy! -- the evil scammers use Bender to do their bidding, including the theft of all the valuable objects in human history. Time travel paradox gags have been used on the show before, and they come close here to one time travel paradox too many, but they find the right pace as the show goes along, using the main plot to cleverly launch a few side stories that all end up connecting at the end. This stretched out episode does have more than its fair share of butt and dick jokes, though admittedly many of them are genuinely funny. And that's always been one of the charms of Futurama: jokes that only PhDs in math could come up with (or even understand) mix with sight gags and crude humor for the sophomoronic in all of us.

There's the old Futurama standbys - disemboded heads in jars, Dr. Zoidberg losing his mind, and his shell, Professor Farnsworth going senile, Nibbler, Al Gore.  A silly story involving Fry and a Narwahl shows Futurama's softer side, while Leela experiences a blossoming romance with a medical assistant who seems suspciously like... no, I won't say it.  Many other favorite supporting characters appear, and not gratuitously (yes, ladies, Zapp Brannigan jumps in to try to save the day, with bedraggled Kip there as always to meet his {sigh} needs).

One underrated aspect of the show has always been the voice work done by some of the most gifted cartoon voice actors in Hollywood. Billy West, once best regarded for voicing Stimpy the cat on John Kricfalusi's Ren and Stimpy, shows his amazing versatility here as the 20th century every(pizza delivery)man and well-meaning idiot, as the lobsterish (with a Yiddish accent) Dr. Zoidberg, as dottering Professor Farnsworth, as the stubbornly moronic womanizing space captain Zapp, among many other characters. John DiMaggio as Bender and many of the show's raspier characterizations (Robot Santa, who also makes a cameo here, Mr. Panucci the Pizza Man, Elzar the Emeril-like chef, and so on); Phil LaMarr as the Jamaican bureaucrat (and limbo champion) Hermes, Katey Sagal as mono-eyed Leela, long-time voice talent Maurice LaMarche as Kif Kroker and others, and veteran cartoony voice genius Frank Welker as Nibbler, Leela's adorable alien pet with the voracious appetite and a secret identity. The film also offers up Sarah Silverman as Fry's ex-girlfriend and Mark Hamill, enjoying his renaissance as a cartoon actor. And Al Gore.

All in all, if Bender's Big Score isn't the very best of Futurama (and what could ever top the inspired genius that is the Slurm Factory episode?), it most certainly offers a welcome reminder of how sorely missed it was. Especially for those of us who were sick of watching the same episodes rerun on the Cartoon Network ad nauseum. And if you don't agree, well as Leela says here, "What are you, a whining machine?"

The DVD includes host of fine little extras, including a treat for math nerds, "Bite My Shiny Metal X," a lecture of sorts on the usages of math in the show over time, with help from the show's nerdy writers (secret languages decoded and Pi explained!). But even better a full episode of America's favorite brainwashing sitcom, "Everyone Loves Hypnotoad" - you'll want to fastforward through most of it, lest you become hypnotized, but there are some hilarious moments, a Seinfeld reference, a few ads and a special promotion, that make it worth sticking with.

Frederick Wiseman... on DVD!

Tipped from David Wallechinsky on Huffington Post:

"Most of Frederick Wiseman's films are not nearly as shocking as Titicut Follies, but they are fascinating. I urge anyone who is interested in documentaries or who is just interested in real life, rather than what passes for reality on television, to check out Mr. Wiseman's work. His films can now be purchased from Zipporah Films."

The DVDs are available for the education/institutional rates, but also at individual prices (though still a bit expensive.) But High School is worth the thirty some-odd bucks, trust me.

UPDATE! 12-13-07:  The bad news is that these are DVD-Rs; Wiseman presumably did them in-house. I have no problem with that; as he owns the rights to the films and is paying to reproduce them on DVD himself, he's got to earn a living. Still, I wish he'd gotten a licensing deal with a distributor who could have put more energy into restoring the prints and giving us a higher quality DVD for the price they're charging. But, again, I'd rather the money go to the filmmaker, and while they are DVD-Rs, they look better than I remember seeing them look ever before.

Cinema16 European Shorts DVD(s)

Rating (out of 5): **** 

(Also published on GreenCine Guru blog)

One of the few consistent DVD series devoted to short films from around the world, Cinema16's DVDs showcase everything the fascinating early works of some of the world's greatest directors to award-winning films from its most exciting new filmmakers, but the problem for those of us in the States is that their discs have previously been unavailable in region 1 format. This new two-disc collection focusing on European filmmakers changes that - it's actually region 0, or "all-region" but will play in US machines - and may be their best yet. Roy Andersson's WORLD OF GLORY, a contemporary classic, is certainly one of the most important films to come from Sweden in the past twenty years but only one of many highlights from this stellar collection by the UK-based Cinema16.

Andrea Arnold, the actress turned startlingly good filmmaker whose feature film Red Road gained her quite a bit of notoriety this past year, directed the short WASP included here, which merely won an Oscar for best short film in 2004. The story's basic: a poor single mother with four young children, wants to have a life, meet a bloke in a bar - her first date in years - while also keeping on eye on her kids (and keeping them hidden from him). Life is bloody hell, basically. But Arnold has such a keen visual eye and the performances are all so heartbreakingly real it scarcely matters. Watching the kids suffering from neglect is a bit hard, but again, Arnold's eye for detail - the insects that grab the kids' attention (and the titular bug making a frightening appearance in particular), their starvation causing them to pick up discarded food. It's stark but unforgettable stuff. Other highlights include: the extremely clever Austrian short COPY SHOP, which ingeniously uses a photocopying method as a sort of animation to tell the story of, yes, a photocopying clerk who copies himself ad infinitum (I saw this film previously at a film festival and hadn't forgotten it). It's almost too clever for its own good, but still quite remarkable; Run Wrake¹s animated RABBIT, a highly memorable morality tale about greed; GASMAN, by talented British director Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar), whom I wish was more prolific, won her her second prize at Cannes. DOODLEBUG, the short Christopher Nolan did before his feature debut Following, is a bit gimmicky and obvious, but interesting for fans of the director's work wanting to see a genesis for his subsequent features. As Nolan says in his commentary, it was the last film he'd made that was purposely technique driven, and in retrospect he finds that rather annoying. But the B&W short is still pretty captivating and darkly funny.

Quite a few of the shorts include director commentaries, too, which are all worth a listen. A collection this large and varied is bound to have a few klinkers - and yours may differ from mine - but overall it's a pretty remarkable collection, one of the finest shorts compendiums in years. It really is like a film school in a box. More detailed information about each film can be found on Cinema16's web site.

Urgh, a New List of DVDs We Need

I followed up my previous list of MIA DVDs with a new one on GreenCine (honestly, if I had the time, I could do one of these every week, or more).  Herewith is the beginning of the new list:

1. Urgh! A Music War: Likely another music rights-related issue, nor surprising given it's a compilation of performances from some of the best New Wave, Punk and ArtRock performers the 80s had to offer. I first saw this as an impressionable young teen on USA Network's "Up All Night" (remember those days?), as it featured some of my favorites (The Police, X, Oingo Boingo), while also introducing me to a few more "exotic" acts I'd never seen nor heard of (Klaus Nomi). This aired recently on VH-1 so maybe there's still hope for a DVD, but reading more about the rights issues in the film's Wikipedia entry gives much less hope. [Note: You can also see this one screened theatrically in San Francisco at the YBCA, on July 14th!]
2. The African Queen: I was searching around, trying to get some sense as to why Huston's popular romance/adventure classic  with Bogie and Hepburn going up river, has not found its way to an R1 DVD. Paramount seems to be stalling and stalling. On one hometheaterforum.com discussion, a representative popped in to say this, "The title is ours....there are reasons why certain titles aren't out already - rights issues...This film at the moment is a candidate for a full-blown restoration so y'all [are] just going to have to be patient." That was four years ago.

Read the rest of the list here >>

DVD Review: My Father, the Genius

 Rating (out of 5): *** 
We could create a subgenre of documentaries that are about the filmmaker's estranged, or strange, relationship with their artist father - Tell Them Who You Are, Mark Wexler's film about his father, famed cinematographer Haskell, not to mention the superior My Architect, come to mind - but Lucia Small's interesting, unsettling film My Father, the Genius,  winner of the documentary jury prize at 2002's Slamdance Film Festival, is even more personal than most.  What at first seems like a gentle salute to the man's undeniable talents and eccentricities gradually becomes something more interesting, and disturbing.
Read the rest here >>

Interview with Mike Nelson (MST3K/Rifftrax)

In the not too distant past (last Sunday A.D. No, I'm kidding) I had a most enjoyable chat with one Michael J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater fame. He's got a new project with Legend Films called Rifftrax, in which he and his pals Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett do commentaries (available via MP3s) on modern films - sometimes very big, famous films like Lord of the Rings and the Oscar-winning Road House, not to mention the hilarious Troll 2 . The commentaries are downloaded, played in tandem with the DVD, and voila! Laughter ensues. To their credit, they don't just pick on obvious targets (like Troll 2, and Island of Dr. Moreau); they also do Phantom Menace. Wait, that's an obvious target, too. But a big budgeted one! At any rate, it's a fun idea and the downloads are cheap, so I highly recommend it.

But enough about that. Here's my interview with Mike Nelson, on GreenCine >>

Marie Antoinette

Finally caught up with Marie Antoinette - the film by Sofia Coppola, that is - this weekend (it arrives on DVD tomorrow) and found it gorgeous, well-made, sometimes even surprisingly moving, if not always fully engaging.

If the anachronistic music - a mix of 80s new wave, music of my youth, and contemporary indie rock - alongside more appropriate music of the period struck me as a little distracting, it didn't bother to the level it did some, or, seemingly, the whole of France. Coppola may have been trying to be more upfront about the anachronistic approach given the other aspects of the film that are - the casting, especially. Still, she has the same tendency as a director that her friend Wes Anderson - whose work I often adore, but they both tend to rely a bit too much on the Montage With Music. I like to allow a filmmaker one of these per film, but no more than that.

The script could look something like this:

INT. VERSAILLES PALAIS - NIGHT/DAY

Here we skim through scenes of Marie partying with her friends to depict her decadent lifestyle and attempts to fulfill the emptiness of her personal life with fashion, food, friends and fabulousness. Music: Something from the 80s, say New Order or Siouxsie.

MARIE
OMG! I'm like totally the Queen!

Okay, that's a little snarky. I withdraw the last bit of dialogue, your honor.

And in fact, the film succeeds in what I think was its primary goal: to make Marie Antoinette sympathetic. It does this quite successfully (as well as also making us understand why she eventually became the symbolic target of fed up Revolutionary-minded French people.)

I was skeptical of the casting of Jason Schwartzman as King Louis XVI, and Dunst herself. But in the framework of the film, they each justify their presence here - Schwartzman is good at playing shy and awkward without overdoing it; Dunst is always appealing even if she isn't the kind of actress who can completely stretch herself, and here her dimpled mix of girlishness mixed with budding sexuality, even if still a little too distractingly American, works in her creation of the future Queen as the young, open minded, easily distractable girl that she was. Rip Torn is inspired casting as Louis XV, appropriately ribald, as befitting a King who kept a mistress in his later years. (She's played by Asia Argento, not a great actress but with a unique look and she has the right sort of empathetic - for lack of a better word - fuckedupness for that role.) Comedienne Molly Shannon has a small part as one of "Aunts," and she physically fits it - she has that "mean girl" smirkiness that befits a two-faced person. Danny Huston, one of my favorites, appears in a few scenes but makes an impact as Marie's brother, and, in perhaps the best casting of all, Steve Coogan plays Ambassador Mercy, Marie's one guiding link back to Austria.

There are many great scenes here, too; many of them in and around poor Marie's bed, as she suffers through the young Louis' sexual inadequacy (wasn't much in the way of sex ed. back then either) and eventually the births of her children, as well as several beautiful scenes at the opera.

That the look of the film - both in art direction, sumptious costume design and in Coppola's (with cinematographer Lance Acord, who also shot Lost in Translation as well as Spike Jonze's films) unerring eye for exquisitely framed shots - is faultless is less surprising, given how each of the director's previous films have looked. In fact it looks so authentic in capturing 18th century France that it again begs the question as to whether Coppola needed to push the envelope with the soundtrack.

The film's a visual treat and succeeds in making us both empathize with the historically (and seemingly unfairly) maligned Marie while putting her situation in the right historical context. If it's a bit choppy at times and if we're sometimes kept at a distance, it's not detrimental enough to the film's overall impact. Like the character herself, Marie Antoinette deserved a better reception.

The DVD: Includes an above average "making of" doc by Sofia's mom, Eleanor, that's worth a watch, and a slight if amusing (until it gets old) parody of MTV's Cribs with Schwarztman doing his Louis as gangsta showing off his palace. There will presumably be another edition on DVD that adds commentary by Coppola and company at some point, but not on this one.

Red Doors review

I reviewed this charming, if erratic independent dramedy that just arrived on DVD:

Red Doors review on Guru >>

Despite some amateurishness, I still liked it.

Idiocracy

Mike Judge's feature Idiocracy came and went from theaters in a blink - at least as quickly as his previous film Office Space, and we all know what fate eventually awaited that one on home video. It's now a cult favorite quoted frequently in cubicle-denigrated offices world wide. Idiocracy likely won't have quite the same degree of popularity in its second life, but it could have some sort of cult following.

Idiocracy tells the story of a man from the modern era (Luke Wilson) who, in a botched Army experiment ends up 500 years in the future, when, due to generations of heavy breeding from the dumber members of the populace, everyone is a lot of stupider. along with a hooker  (SNL's Maya Rudolph, beguiling in what could have been a cliched role) also part of the failed experiment, the generally average Wilson, unambitious in the modern era,  ends up in a world where he's smarter than anyone, despite his own occasional cluelessness.

While the plot is simple - Wilson wants to get back home, seeks a time machine, temporarily helps the President of the United States (a former pro wrestler with a James Brown meets Easy Rider persona, as played by Terry Crews) solve the drought crisis - and the mechanics of it lead to some predictability. But it's more than enough to give Judge and crew ample room to reflect upon and mock our current culture as much as its possible future path. A frightening, and frightfully funny, montage at the beginning explains the natural consequences of what happens when dolts overbreed and the intelligent underbreed. Judge is going for laughs here, too, and the film is full of slapstick humor. There are fart jokes - but hey, fart jokes can have a greater purpose. (A fart joke is a fart joke - some people will laugh, some people won't - but here it's more interested in the type of person who laughs at them over the joke itself.)The film is generally a hoot - with several laugh out loud moments. The one problem with its terrific premise is that we have to watch a film in which the majority of the characters behave like idiots, which, just as with Judge's Beavis and Butthead series, can quickly go from riotous to tedious. But he has something deeper in mind here. These idiots of the 26th century constantly denigrate (and a word like "denigrate" would get me in trouble there) anyone who appears smart in any way as a "fag" and are suspicious of things they don't understand. In a sense, Judge is fast-forwarding ahead from our current culture's fixation on the stupid, and the way intellectuals are often derided in the same way. And it took quite a bit of thought to come up with the script's hilarious lowest-common denominator s-language in the dialogue. Satire ain't easy, and is so rarely attempted these days that whatever the film's flaws one has to give Judge some props for trying - and mostly succeeding.

Parts of the film are certainly sloppy - and whether this is the result of the studio's interference, some unfinished editing, test screenings gone awry or just sloppiness on the makers' part, it's hard to be completely sure, though the evidence seems to be on the former: the voice over narration likely a late in the game addition (the guy's voice sounds like the narrator in Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run, don't know if it is, or just meant to sound like him); the editing's choppy; and some of the effects could certainly be better (though this is the kind of film that almost works better with cheap-ass FX). That latter point again is likely the cause of a non-committal studio.

 

On the cast: Dax Shepard plays his iimbecile lawyer character Frito (most of the characters have corporate sponsored names, another great running joke) with just the right amount of sweet stupidity that he quickly grows on you. Crews' (of Everybody Hates Chris) President Camacho is a memorable comic invention, a pop-culturally elected leader with more sexual charisma and verve than brains. But more of those than his cabinet, who were all elected by various coporate-sponsored contests; David Herman, "Michael Bolton" in Office Space, is a loopy Secretary of State. And Wilson is well-cast, deadpan and exasperated Everyman who could be any of us stuck in this hellish vision of the future.

While it's certainly not in the same league cinematically, Idiocracy, in fact, may be a more frightening depiction of what nightmares may come than Children of Men.

Giving Thanks: List of Formerly MIA DVDs

I did up a list o' 10 long missing in action titles that finally made it to DVD this year. Find it here >>

I keep thinking of more titles that belong on this list so I'll have to do another one, as well as another "Why aren't these on DVD?" list.

A Man Escaped

Been a bit swamped lately, but continuing my usual pattern of working on draft number umpteen at night while allowing the occasional break if it's to watch some relevant or inspiring film. Working down my checklist of WWII and POW films, I just watched Robert Bresson's classic A Man Escaped. If it has some elements typical to a Bresson film in the ways they can frustrate an audience unaccustomed to his style (or more accustomed to American filmmaking techniques) - with some seemingly crucial actions taking place off screen (a shooting, most famously) -the film is a master class in less is more, with suspense built at the most micro level.

 

A man named Fontaine is put in prison in France during the occupation, for serving with the resistance. His captors are Nazis and Vichy French, with most of the guards seen off screen, or in glimpses in the background, their commands barked at from a distance. His goal: to escape, of course. That is the simple set up, but Bresson beautifully crafts every scene, sequence, down to the minutest detail - and there is a sense of danger here that comes completely naturally.

As Francois Truffaut noted in his fine essay on the film, A Man Escaped is "one of those films which can be said not to contain a single useless shot or a scene that could be cut or shortened. It's the very opposite of those films that seem like a 'montage,' a collection of images."

When the story introduces the young prisoner Jost - who joins Fontaine in his cell and may or may not be a spy - everything comes together both for the protagonist and for the story's momentum.

While the script is certainly voice-over heavy - understandable given it's based on a real-life person's memoirs, and about a man who is essentially completely alone - at a time when I'm cutting almost all remnants of voice-over from my script, I found much inspiration in the economy of filmmaking and structure, in the simplification, the reduction of story to its essence. A classic that will stand the test of time.

Masters of Cinema wrote a lengthy piece about the film, and the DVD in particular, that goes into much more depth than I can here. See the film, then read. (The film could definitely stand a better transfer to disc, but the current one is more than adequate.)

Blazing Saddles: My contribution to the war effort

My girlfriend's brother is serving in the military and was sent over to Afghanistan to help with the fun task of diffusing land mines. She's been in touch with him every week via email and sending care packages - with dried foods and cleaning supplies making up the bulk of it - when she can. Since I know the men and women over there are both bored and homesick, and have access to a DVD player, it seemed the best thing I could contribute to the next box o' love would be a movie.

I'm donating my copy of Blazing Saddles. They need a laugh, or six, as they watch the movie around a campfire - near Kabul.

The Proposition

Now that it's arrived on DVD, I reviewed John Hillcoat's enthralling Aussie Western The Proposition on Guru (GreenCine Staff's DVD Review Blog).

Violent, so be forewarned if you're squeamish about such things, but exceedingly intelligent and well done.

Full review >>

I Chose My Own Adventure

I was given a review copy of the DVD Choose Your Own Adventure: The Abominable Snowman; hencewith, my thoughts: 

This new animated kids DVD not only calls to mind those goofy books we all read when we were kids, but is actually based on one of them -  by RA Montgomery.  Having a movie with the same concept using DVD technology is a no-brainer you wonder why there aren't more of these sorts of things.

The animation for Choose Your Own Adventure Abominable Snowman (that's the official full title) is not bad, but mostly Saturday morning cartoonish, colorful but flat and unrealistic (think Kim Possible) - although a few of the sequences feature nice background and more elaborate animation, as if they put more thought into certain sequences that carried more weight of the story.

But the voice talents are surprisingly above par, particularly William H Macy (who coproduced, apparently having a vested interest in the future of choose your own adventure-tainment) and Frank Muniz, with a brief appearance by Felicity Huffman's voice. (Fans of Futurama will also probably recognize the voice of Hermes, Phil LaMarr, here voicing the sherpa guide Pasang.) The storyline has kids joining their uncle (Macy) on an adventure (they choose it) to find the titular creature in Nepal, with the ultimate level of involvement somewhere between a cartoon and a video game.

I arrogantly thought I could figure out how to choose an adventure without needing the "training" (on how to use the remote) they offer before starting, which involves using the right or left arrows on your remote and *then* pressing "ok" (the step we missed - there, I saved you the training). Selecting a story choice sometimes cuts off a scene in the middle depending on when you chose it - makes you wonder if some of the "transition" scenes are just filler as the characters continue to argue their case for one side or another.

I also loaned this DVD to a mom and daughter team to get their thoughts; they found it mostly enjoyable, a little too short but kid friendly for a six year old. This adult found the humor mostly lame or corny (and an annoying Nepal monkey companion only serves to grate on an adult's nerves ). It is pretty short, even after you go through all the possible threads - there are 11 in all, a few of which are particularly quick dead ends (ahem), if you choose more "correctly" the story will continue in more rewarding fashion. Each revelation (variation) of who the Yeti is (are) ends up pretty cheesy, however.

Macy's character (and voice) isn't as central to the story as one may like, but again, it depends on which adventure you choose (I would have preferred Macy use his Jerry Lundegard from Fargo voice, but that's just me). Same deal with character development - you get more of a sense of characters if you go through each possible scenario, rather than some of the shorter ones; you'll definitely get more of the snowman in some storylines than in others.

Overall, while animation is only average, it's cute enough and the characters are likeable and the interactive angle is fun for kids - in fact, the DVD is perfect for those 6 and up to about 9 I'd say. Anyone older than that may be too cynical for the story and the humor - but a few of the scenarios could be appealing to older kids if they have the patience to make it through them all. (One sequence in a Tibetan temple is far more interesting than most of the others, for example.) Or, as the Grail Knight said in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, "Choose wisely."