31 December 2011

Viewing Journal: Week of 26-31 December

LEST YOU BE CONFUSED: Films in /brackets/ I had previously seen. The ratings are on a 100-point scale that merely signifies my personal and highly subjective degree of enthusiasm, and I use the entire damn scale, e.g. 65 is equivalent to 6.5/10, a mild thumbs-up. Anything 70+ I really liked, and 80+ is generally top ten for any given non-phenomenal year.


/Starship Troopers/ (1997, Paul Verhoeven): 65

MEDIC!!!! First half still brilliant, pushing po-faced satire to deliriously giddy heights; second half still comparatively tedious, with way too much mindless shoot-em-up. That the video-game aspect also has a satirical purpose doesn't make it any less enervating—if you've seen one giant CGI pincer-insect splattered into dozens of bright-orange pieces, you've seen 'em all, and here you almost literally will see 'em all. But it's also, I think, that the bugs work far better as a metaphor for the dehumanized enemy when you're seeing them only in brief glimpses via propaganda newsreels, rather than as an actual rampaging horde with no apparent culture or even tools. (It's not clear to me how they're managing to fling asteroids at Earth, since they seem to have the technological prowess of army ants.) You may find that overly literal, and maybe it is, but the movie is just so much richer and more pointed before the war proper breaks out, when Verhoeven simply plays Heinlein's jingoism straight and lets deliberately inappropriate casting and the thinking (left-leaning) viewer's natural revulsion do most of the work. Still not sure what to make of the gender politics, though (especially given that it's all invented; there are no female soldiers in the novel)—on the one hand, you have the co-ed shower and Carmen's decision to end her relationship with Rico in favor of career advancement, but on the other you have Dizzy choking out "At least...I got...to have you" as she dies, which is so pathetically retrograde that it has to be an intentional punchline. I for one would like to know more.



\The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu\ (2010, Andrei Ujică): 38

Essentially a three-hour avant-garde work organized around a structuring absence, which works fine for me in theory but again (I bailed at Toronto 2010) proves utterly stultifying in practice. Apparently others actually enjoy watching endless footage of Ceauşescu speaking for the public record, with all the mighty passion and charisma that state functionaries commonly exude, and/or never tire of looking past the margins of the frame to consider the deprivation and abuses we're not being shown. After about half an hour, though, isn't the point pretty firmly made? Can anyone make a solid case for why the film needed to be three hours long, but would suffer from being, say, eight hours long (assuming there's that much available footage)? Perhaps the most damning thing I can note is that I literally did not remember a single moment as I rewatched the first 40 minutes—that's how profoundly uninteresting political speeches and photo-ops almost invariably are. (Admittedly there are a few memorable interludes later on, notably the volleyball game and that insane stadium placard tribute in North Korea.) It's as if somebody were to make an epic documentary called Mississippi, 1964, entirely composed of mundane archival footage of white folks having picnics or watering their lawns or whatever, with not a single image of or even verbal reference to African-Americans for the entire three hours. Maybe you could appreciate the rhetorical force of the concept, but do you actually want to sit through it? I dunno, maybe some of you do.



/Nothing Sacred/ (1937, William A. Wellman): 77

Lacks the passionate wallop of the truly great screwballs, which have an undercurrent of genuine pain beneath the fast-talking breeziness. It does however bring the funny and the biting, playing for comedy more or less the same idea that Billy Wilder would make grotesque a decade and a half later in Ace in the Hole. Hecht's witty script speaks for itself, but Wellman, pace his reputation as something of a journeyman hack, contributes a beguiling (if somewhat mystifying) formal playfulness, repeatedly placing obstacles between his actors and the camera. Are we being chided for voyeurism, in keeping with the film's patent disgust at the public craning its collective neck to see Hazel bravely dying? I'm not sure there's a shot from the '30s more perverse than the one in which March and Lombard have a conversation with their heads entirely obscured by an enormous tree branch, or a first kiss less fetishized than Wally and Hazel's, witnessed only via their feet sticking out of a dockside crate. (The camera movement that dollies around the crate to view them lying together in shadow though the slats is aces as well.) Lombard was better playing less ingenuous types, but makes the utmost of her sock-in-the-jaw moment and her curt nods at the Eastern European doctors; March's slightly seedy mien puts an edge on Wally's sacrificial devotion. (Hecht's smartest move was to give him not even the slightest pang upon discovering Hazel's been shamming—a beat you'd think even the old-time moguls would've demanded.) Most of all, I'm still happy that there's a film from 1937 that includes the line "Oliver Stone is worse than radium poisoning!" Uncanny.



Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011, Rupert Wyatt): W/O

Um, I don't get it. This just seemed like standard-issue mediocre Hollywood blockbuster franchise reboot stuff. Right? Isn't it? Granted, I didn't make it to "Why cookie Rocket?" or indeed much of Serkis' performance, so I imagine there's something to admire further on. But after thrilling to Cruise actually scaling the Burj Khalifa, these blatantly insubstantial CGI apes leaping weightlessly around the frame just seemed tiresome—and retrograde, really. (I was equally bored by Jurassic Park, and that was almost 20 years ago now.) Also, with all due respect to Mr. Serkis, isn't putting him opposite a slumming James Franco setting the bar for emotional expressiveness kinda low?



/Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol/ (2011, Brad Bird): 69

Up nine points, from B- to a solid B. Third act seemed less of a letdown, for one thing—there's real Birdlike ingenuity in the parking-garage showdown (which of all the setpieces most resembles something you'd see in a Pixar movie, cf. the climaxes of both Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc.). More than that, though, I found myself unaccountably moved by the denouement, which had actively irritated me the first time to the point where it kinda soured me on the entire film. Theo "I can't be bothered anymore unless prodded" Panayides suggested a starteurist reading in which Cruise, repeatedly foiled by technological failures, ultimately "must go in as himself, leading through a process of emotional unmasking to the glimpse of human contact in the coda—the [SPOILER], briefly glimpsed from a distance—all the more affecting for being so minuscule (it's like Tom Cruise is saying 'This is the best I can do.')." Watching the final scene again with that last parenthetical in mind—and having also just revisited the first M:I, with its utter absence of any sexual tension between Cruise and Béart despite the whole plot being predicated on same—I suddenly got teary. Even the shaggier, I-ain't-old-yet haircut Cruise wears at the end became weirdly plangent. And then he vanishes into a cloud of steam. There's some self-awareness here, methinks. Best of the lot.



19 comments:

eugene n said...

This just seemed like standard-issue mediocre Hollywood blockbuster franchise reboot stuff. Right? Isn't it?

It is not, and in fact this month I noted that the difference between MI:4 and ROTPOTA is the difference between a good action film and a great one. While the latter may not have anything as vertiginously thrilling as the Burj Khalifa, it has a visual storytelling mojo that went unmatched this year, except maybe by Spielberg; I gather you didn't make it to the virtually silent prison escape sequence, which is ingenious and awesome. And then there's the great Golden Gate Bridge scene and the horse and etc. -- there's little point in elaborating since you didn't stick around.

It also has something else that MI:4 was utterly missing: a sense of stakes. I know you think trying to drum up emotional involvement in these stories is pointless, but I disagree, and I found Rise to be genuinely stirring.

md'a said...

I gather you didn't make it to the virtually silent prison escape sequence, which is ingenious and awesome. And then there's the great Golden Gate Bridge scene and the horse and etc. -- there's little point in elaborating since you didn't stick around.

Did these setpieces involve fake-looking CGI apes? If so, I doubt they'd impress me any more than did the earlier ape stuff.

eugene n said...

Don't agree re: "fake-looking," but yes. If that's inherently a sticking point, not sure why you bothered to begin with. Anyway, none of the action is overly concerned with the "holy shit" factor -- at least not in the Burj Khalifa sense -- which to me is a feature, not a bug.

md'a said...

Don't agree re: "fake-looking," but yes. If that's inherently a sticking point, not sure why you bothered to begin with.

I bothered because I had no particular reason to expect creatures with zero tangibility, who look and (especially) move as if they've been pasted onto the frame via computer. That certainly wasn't the case with, say, Gollum, for example. Evidently you don't see this, in which case I can only shrug.

Theo said...

Just for the record, it's possible to view NICOLAE CEAUSESCU differently, though I don't know if most of its fans (esp. American fans) would agree with me:

"Something great - and presumably intentional - happens here: appearing in every 'scene', getting older as he goes - more sclerotic, finally more frail and lost - Ceausescu becomes a hero, sympathetic in the way every protagonist in a Time-driven narrative is sympathetic, even though we know very well that the footage is propaganda (a performance) and leaves out the truth ... The film is cleverly done, never overplaying its hand - even when it cuts from Ceausescu visiting earthquake victims to his own mother's (unrelated) funeral, it's hard to say if the implication is that he only cares about his own family (not the people) or a more sympathetic reading, that a connection can be drawn and he's lost family just like them".

In other words, I found some complex presence in your "structuring absence". Which I guess is the difference between a 38 and a 70.

md'a said...

That interpretation fails my Falsifiability Test, as it suggests that any film composed of (mostly) chronological archival footage spanning many years of a public figure's life would automatically be poignant and hence excellent. And it's still all Concept—how the actual footage doesn't bore people is beyond me. But then I guess there's an audience for C-SPAN.

Wynyard said...

Was The Ruse eligible for the 2011 Black List, Mike?

How 'bout giving us blog on the scripting career in 2012 (as promised eons ago)? Is Ruse developing? Did Rubberface contort? That 2-TV-shows-in-1 idea still percolating? etc. There are few of us interested in the A game, you know?

Theo said...

That interpretation fails my Falsifiability Test, as it suggests that any film composed of (mostly) chronological archival footage spanning many years of a public figure's life would automatically be poignant and hence excellent.

Well, you need the added element of the public figure being a well-known monster - but yeah, I suppose it would work about as well with other such monsters. It's actually not a million miles from Jay Rosenblatt's HUMAN REMAINS (Mao, Stalin, Hitler), which has the additional advantage of only being 30 minutes long.

I also find the actual footage fascinating. Then again, I'm a politics junkie.

Mark Asch said...

"It's as if somebody were to make an epic documentary called 'MISSISSIPPI, 1964,' entirely composed of mundane archival footage of white folks having picnics or watering their lawns or whatever, with not a single image of or even verbal reference to African-Americans for the entire three hours."

This movie sounds awesome.

Victor Morton said...

"That interpretation fails my Falsifiability Test, as it suggests that any film composed of (mostly) chronological archival footage spanning many years of a public figure's life would automatically be poignant and hence excellent."

Not automatically, no ... but if a change in circumstances can be detected from the footage itself, and if the public figure is plainly living a related state of delusion, then yes.

Also poignancy isn't really the point IMHO. A lot of the scenes are, in themselves, really, really funny (North Korea, volleyball, the press conference) and/or really, really scary (the Party Congress ... Skandies Scene Plug!!!)

Victor Morton said...

Also here is my capsule on CEAUSESCU from Toronto

http://vjmorton.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/tiff-10-capsules-day-8/

Pete said...

It seems incomprehensible to me that you couldn't give Rise of the Planet of the Apes another 80 minutes, given the widespread praise it's received. (Along those same lines... Winnie the Pooh deserved more time as well.) I can understand bailing when the consensus is mixed or when there's something else compelling going on soon (i.e., at Cannes or Toronto). But when you're watching a Blu-ray on a lazy weekend, what's the harm in sticking with it a bit? Then even if your preconceptions are borne out, you can at least back your criticisms with actual knowledge rather than assumptions and suppositions. ;^)

FYI, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a 2011 film, not 2001. (Likely a typo, but worth correcting.)

md'a said...

But when you're watching a Blu-ray on a lazy weekend, what's the harm in sticking with it a bit?

No harm per se, but not much point, either. If a film has completely failed to capture my interest after 40 minutes, it's never going to. And while I'm interested enough in, say, Polanski to endure something as off-putting as Carnage, I feel no such allegiance to Rupert Wyatt. Believe me, there are always better things I can be doing with my time than sitting though a film I'm not enjoying, so unless there are extenuating factors (usually auteurist in nature), out it goes.

Vladimir said...

It's not clear to me how they're managing to fling asteroids at Earth

?! I doubt that the asteroid has anything to do with Afgh- uhm, Ira- uhm, bugs. The film's only assertion that is does comes from the yellowc- uhm, propaganda memo.

Victor Morton said...

... in a 1997 movie? #paranoid #orstupid #youpick

Vladimir said...

VJM: did you mean, perchance, to write "... in a 1948 book?"?

Correctly predicting the future is provenance of artists.

Steve C. said...

Re: The bug asteroids... If I remember correctly, there are bugs who've evolved to fire those asteroids out of their hindquarters. We see them briefly when Johnny Rico and company first land, no? (As to why they evolved that way... that's another debate.)

Also, I'm sure Dizzy's last words were meant as nasty Verhoeven prankishness. But then, I think that about pretty much everything he's ever put in front of a camera.

Steve C. said...

Also, with RISE, you basically missed the film turning into A PROPHET but with apes. Seeing as how you were just lukewarm on that anyway, I'll go ahead and say you missed not much.

md'a said...

Was The Ruse eligible for the 2011 Black List, Mike?

Every script ever written Is eligible. It's a question of how many people even see it. Mine hasn't been widely read. Generally speaking and with few exceptions, the scripts on the Black List are already fast-tracked to some degree, not worthy obscurities.

Re: The bug asteroids... If I remember correctly, there are bugs who've evolved to fire those asteroids out of their hindquarters.

There are definitely bugs with ass-cannons, but an asteroid capable of wiping out an entire city would be way, way bigger than the width of even a giant bug. Not to mention that the odds of it hitting a populated area would be close to nil (and don't tell me the bugs can somehow ass-aim).