Gunnin' for that #1 Spot

C

Directed by Adam Yauch

Beastie Boys MC and high school hoops phene Adam Yauch's basketball documentary "Gunnin' for that #1 Spot" follows a group of supremely talented blue chip prospects as they prepare to play a showcase game at New York's famed Rucker Park. The end result is a glossy yet empty film that skips over the bigger issues of high school recruiting in favor of a superficial look at the bright futures enjoyed by only the tiniest fraction of high school athletes.

Rucker Park's Elite 24 showcase game takes the nation's top 24 prep basketball players, regardless of class or age, and throws them onto the the center court at Rucker for an annual streetball game. Yauch focuses on eight players participating in the 2007 edition of the game, namely Michael Beasley, Jarryd Bayless, Kevin love, Kyle Singler, Lance Stephenson, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, and Donte Green. If those names sound familiar to you it's probably because most of these guys tore it up for one years in the NCAA and have already moved onto the greener pastures of the NBA where they are making millions as 20 year olds. Yauch gives some brief insight into the pasts of some of these players before showing us the run up to the Elite 24 game and the final battle on the blacktop of The Rucker.

"Gunnin'" is really nothing more than a glorified promotional spot for The Rucker and the athletes covered by Yauch. There is no real attempt to investigate some of the underlying issues with the recruiting process or some of the more unsavory elements of the high school showcase circuit. I don't think that every documentary on high school athletes needs to be an expose on the sociology of sport in the style of "Hoop Dreams" but there is really no reason to just crank out a vapid highlight reel with no underlying message to share with the audience. Yauch also casts his net too wide, focusing on eight players participating in the Elite 24 game, a number that is far too large to actually allow the viewer any serious insight into the situations of any of these kids. It is also worth noting that Yauch only focuses his film on guys who were basically bonafied blue chippers who were for the most part in the top 10 of their respective classes. Guys like Michael Beasley and Kevin Love were NBA ready during their senior years of high school so there isn't much suspense in wondering if they'll make it to the league or not. This obfuscates the fact that for every Michael Beasley there are thousands of other high school hoop stars who never make the league, a reality only quickly made reference to in Yauch's film.
I attended a CEGEP that had a very good basketball program and was friends with a number of the players. One of them went to a big shoe camp in his final year of CEGEP, meaning that he was considered to be one of the top 100 or so prospects in North America. When he got back I asked him how many of the guys who were at camp with him he though believed they would make the NBA. Without missing a beat he answer "All of them." To me, this is what is fascinating about the recruiting process. It's a system that fosters for the most part unrealistic dreams before chewing up and spitting out kids whose lives are for the most part constructed around and dedicated to basketball. Yauch's film doesn't focus on any of these kids but rather rolls out the red carpet for a bunch of guys who could have skipped college altogether and headed to the NBA if such an option was still available to them. There's no drama or insight in making a film about a bunch of kids whose ticket to the league is already punched. Maybe I was expecting too much from Yauch's film but the subject matter he covers is so rich with human interest that making a Sportscentre style highlight package of high schoolers dunking on each other completely fails to capitalize on the drama that's out there for the taking.
The fact that the Elite 24 game is not really that big of a deal, either in the prep hoops world por the real world, also makes Yauch's attempt to build it up into a monumental, life altering event for the kids appear a bit contrived. The fact of the matter is that although most of these guys probably enjoyed playing at The Rucker the game was probably nothing more than another event on a busy basketball calendar for most of these guys.

Overall was "Gunnin" leaves us with is an extremely quick glance at the highest rungs of prep hoops that is at times entertaining and always flashy but fails to mine the depths of what is essentially a fascinating slice of American culture.

The Firm

C

Directed by Sidney Pollack

Adaptations of John Grisham novels are dicey propositions and are more often then not destined for failure. Sidney Pollack's "The Firm," probably the best known and arguably the most successful film adaptation of a Grisham novel, is still not a very good movie at all which just goes to show how difficult it can be to adapt Grisham's legal thrillers.

"The Firm" opens with hotshot Harvard Law graduate Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise, not that bad in this one actually) doing on campus recruiting rounds. He is fawned over by the elite corporate law firms in New York City and Chicago but ultimately decides to take his skills to a small but extremely successful Memphis firm called Bendini, Lambert and Locke. Once at B, L & L, however, McDeere discovers that the firm may not simply be an unusually succesful legal enterprise operating in a relative backwater but rather a far more powerful and evil entity than he ever could have imagined.

Whether you're a fan of Grisham or not, there is no denying that the strength of his novels rests in his unparalleled ability to develop suspenseful yarns that hold readers hostage, unable to put their book down because they are convinced that a big revelation is awaiting them on the very next page. As such, the success of a Grisham adaptation depends largely on how well it can replicate the narrative thrust of hos novels. In this respect, "The Firm" fails horribly, moving at an unforgivably pedestrian speed throughout. The only thing anyone should expect from a Grisham novel is to feel wrapped up in the suspense he creates and the same should go for any film adaptation of his novels. "The Firms" failure to deliver any of the narrative suspense that Grisham built his career on is inexcusable.
The casting of Pollack's film is also something of a mystery and results in performances of wildly different calibers from its core cast. Gene Hackman appears to have been misled into believing that he was starring in a serious film, as he gives a performance that goes far beyond what Pollack's film actually required. Tom Cruise, I have to admit, is not bad as Mitch McDere. On the other hand, Jeanne Tripplehorn is dull and unconvincing as McDere's wife and Wilfred Brimley is horribly miscast as the firm's mustachioed hitman. Frankly, I don't think that Brimley has ever been well cast in any part aside from his stint as the Quaker Oats man.
Although "The Firm" ism't completely unenjoyable there's isn't much in it to recommend that hasn't been done better somewhere else. I also hold a secret grudge against Grisham for glamorigizing the legal profession and making it look like every run of the mill lawyer deals with international conspiracies, terrorism, multi-million dollar fraud, mobsters, etc. on a daily basis.

Café Lumière

C

Directed by Hou Hsiao Hsen

What went wrong here!?! The usually rock solid Hou Hsiao Hsen lays an egg in his homage to Ozu, a lumbering, aimless affair that tests the patience of the viewer to an uncomfortable degree. "Café Lumière" goes to show that just because a film looks like a sure thing on paper doesn't necessarily mean it will translate to anything memorable on film.

Yoko, a young women studying the life of Taiwanese composer Jiang Wen Ye, shocks her parents when she reveals that she is pregnant with the child of a man she does not intend to marry. Seeking some respite from the solitude she feels, Yoko befriends a local record store owner named Hajime (Tadanobu Asano) who quickly falls in love with her.

I'm not going to lie, folks--this is pretty much all that happens in the film. I'm sure a number of more learned viewers likely picked up on layers of symbolism and nuance that I, due to my unevolved grasp of the cinema, did not, but I must say that I'm almost completely convinced that there truly is nothing more going on in "Café Lumière" than what I just described. Depressing, I know.

Whereas many who watch "Café Lumière" will simply be unimpressed and maybe a bit annoyed at the time they wasted watching it, I was hugely disappointment for a few reasons. Firstly, this film had a number of elements going for it that outwardly would have suggested that I was in for a treat. A film directed by Hou as an homage to Ozu, starting Tadanobu Asano and featuring cinematography by the incomparable Lee Pin Bing should be a slam dunk. A slam dunk with AUTHORITY! Yet the sum of "Café Lumière's" parts far outshines the finished product, a meandering, boring, and emotionally vacuous snoozer that attempts to ape Ozu but mostly helps the viewer realize how much better Ozu himself would have probably done it if he were still alive. The main problem with "Café Lumière" is that Hou seems to mistake Ozu's meditative style as a greenlight to simply make a film where nothing happens as opposed to delighting in the nuance, small gestures, and unspoken words that made Ozu's films so gripping, even though sometimes nothing appeared to be happening in them. How Ozu's films continue to be classified as elelments in the "cinema of mundanity" is beyond me. Ozu's films may be quiet and appear to move at a slow pace but things are always happening in an Ozu film, even in his most light and anecdotal works. All of Ozu's films are indeed very plot driven which is more than I can say for Hou's film which doesn't seem to even contain a plot line, much less be driven by one.

The film is saved (at least for me) by the presence of long time Hou collaborator Lee Pin Bing as director of photography. Lee bathes the streets of Tokyo in a warm summer glow, making the sprawling urban behometh inviting and almost quaint. I only wish Lee would have been asked to use his amazing talents in service of a more worthy film.

Maxed Out

D-

Directed by James D. Scurlock

America's recent credit crisis has spawned a number of documentary films which investigate the roots of the American obsession with credit, the predatory practices of commercial banks, and what it all means to the American consumers. While some of these works have been intelligent, nuanced, and responsible in assigning blame to both major culprits in the debacle, namely commercial banks and the American public, others, such as James D. Scurlock's manipulative and unintelligent "Maxed Out" have decided that the best way to explain America's credit woes is by presenting the problem as Corporate America preying on the helpless public.

"Maxed Out" opens with the woefully overplayed 1950s black and white public service schtick where a guy named "Mr. Money" is explaining to two young clean cut teenagers the wise use of credit. We then cut to a number of interviews with debtridden individuals, their families and their friends. Scurlock's film focuses mostly on highlighting the predatory lending practicies of commericla banks to mostly credit unworthy, high risk individuals such as those with previous histories of bankruptcy, the unemployed and low income earners. Scurlock intersplices his film with interviews from one (count it!) business expert who explains the nefarious work of the big banks to destroy middle America. Scurlock somehow weaves in a strand about governmental spending and finds a way to use some Katrina footage and blame George W. Bush for a bunch of stuff. Original.

"Maxed Out" is bad in so many different ways, I feel like I need to lay it out in point form. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, Scurlock's film lacks a considerable amount of focus from the outset as it offers up a number of vignettes meant to show us ther personal side of debt but never really gives us a clear indication of where it's going. We eventually find out that the crux of Scurlock's film is that debt is, for the most part, the fault of commercial banks preying on poor consumers who need credit, a risible conclusion. "Maxed Out" also attempts to draw a number of links between governmental and personal finance, treating use to a montage of recent American presidents announcing deficit spending measures while a jangling score plays in the background. As both of my intelligent readers know, deficit spending by governments is in no way, shape, or form like personal "deficit spending" and is indeed part of most government's fiscal duties during economic slowdowns. The problem with American governmentla spending is that they never responded to their deficit spending by raising taxes during inflationary output gaps, not that they "spent money the didn't have" as "Maxed Out" puts it.

The biggest problem with "Maxed Out," however, isn't its sloppiness or its dubious grasp of basic economics but rather its refusal to admit that it took two to tango into America's massive debt problems. Of course predatory lending from commercial banks has played a large role in getting so many Americans, especially low income Americans, into crushing debt. The folly of commercial bank lending in the US was shown in its full, ghastly, array during the recent credit crisis and I would challenge anyone to argue that the lending practices of major American banks isn't mostly to blame for the American culture of debt. On the other hand, however, someone needed to have accepted these loans at ridiculous interest for there to actually be a problem and, as we all know, far too many Americans were more than willing to spend, spend, and spend some more on credit. "Maxed Out" gives little more than brief lip service to the personal responsibility of American consumers in taking on massive loads of debt, spending more of its time trying to convince the viewer that crushing personal debt is a weapon rich commercial banks use to to terrorize the American poor. As the child of parents who lived frugally and responsibly their entires lives to support their children, keep their debt low, and pay off their home mortgage early despite a relatively low income, I find this pretty insulting. "Maxed Out" features numerous interviews with individuals shouldering huge debt who defend themselves by saying that the banks were making easy credit available so they figured that if the money was there, they must be able to afford taking it. The onus is then put on the banks for making the credit available when in most likely should never have been offered. I certainly agree, as I said before, that the banks deserved to be savaged for their reckless lending, but Americans need to fess up to the fact that they love credit. One of the reasons American banks could afford to offer up so much credit at such ridiculous interest is because there has always been demand for it. Does anyone really think Citigroup could get away with offering credit at 29% interest to the Japanese or the Chinese? No way, and that isn't because East Asians are smarter than North Americans. It's because they don't want expensive credit. It's as simple as that.

Scurlock's attempts at emotional manipulation also deserve to be pointed out with a fair deal of contempt. He ends his documentary with the parents of two teens who had been crushed under a mountain of credit card debt explaining how their children,, crippled by hopelessness at repaying their loans, decided to take their lives instead. Coldplay's "Trouble" plays softly in the background as Scurlock zooms in on the teary eyes of one of the mothers.

"Maxed Out's" message is completely undone by its effort to frame the credit crisis as class warfare as opposed to a simple case of large scale consumer and lender recklessness, which it was. It further sinks itself by trying to draw parrallels between personal and governmental finances which will be immediately recognized as faully by anyone who has scored a "C" in Introductory Macroeconomics. This is documentary filmmaking at its worst: Manipulative, ignorant, uninformative, biased, and driven by a message that is purposefully innacurate.

La Sierra

A

Directed by Margarita Martinez and Scott Dalton

Scott Dalton and Margarita Martinez's gangland docu-drama "La Sierra" is one of the few films I've ever seen that has left me slack jawed for its entire duration. Dalton and Martinez's exposé of gang life in the insanely violent La Sierra neighborhood during the peak of Columbia's civil conflict of the late 1990's is an almost unbelievably up close and personal look at senseless, poverty fueled violence in one of South America's most dangerous areas.

Dalton and Martinez begin by introducing the viewer to three teenagers living in La Sierra. Edison, the leader of a paramillitary outfit in Medellin called the Bloque Metro, is 22 years old but has already fathered six children with six different girls, all of whom are under the age of 18. Jesus, one of Edison's soldiers in the Bloque Metro, accidentally blew off his left hand making a homemade grenade. He is also the father of a young child and a habitual drug user. Celia, a 15 year old girl with a baby of her own and a paramilitary boyfriend serving a jail sentence, is already the widow of a youngster who died in the civil violence. Dalton and Martinez follow the three as they attempt to navigate the shoppy waters of parenthood and, in the case of Jesus and Edison, not get killed.

"La Sierra" exposes the viewer to violence of a nature so senseless and heartbreaking it's hard to watch. Jesus and Edison, both little more than boys, walk around the barrio toting guns, shooting at their rivals and pontificating about the brevity of life and their likelihood of succumbing to a violent death. A shop owner at the beginning of the film summarizes the city's problems by saying that they are being ruled by "kids with guns." The question Dalton and Martinez's film raises, however, is why the kids of Medellin feel the need to engage in armed, pointless warfare and systematically wipe each other out. In their interviews with Edison and Jesus, Dalton and Martinez show that violence is mostly a way that disenfranchised, desperately poor youth can feel some form of accomplishment and power in a society that offers little hope for social mobility or comfort. Edison and Jesus both appear content to enjoy the fruits of their violent lifestyles in the present rather than actually living to see the future.
The danger Martinez and Dalton put themselves in to film "La Sierra" is nothing short of breathtaking. They tag along with Jesus and his fellow paras on a nighttime patrol only to be ambushed by a rival gang and sprayed with gunfire. Dalton keeps the camera rolling as he runs behind a building and hides in the bushes as bullets fly by. In another instance they crouch down behind a rundown building as Edison sprays a rival's home with automatic gunfire. Dalton and Martinez's fearlessness in capturing the violence and grittiness of their subject's lives makes "La Sierra" an emotionally gripping, heart wrenching work with a visceral emotional impact.

Children of Men

A

Directed by Alphonso Cuaron

Alphonso Cuaron's post apocalyptic thriller "Children of Men" is proof that major studio films with large budgets need not be either mindless and empty entertainment nor pseudo-intellectual pieces trying too hard to win an Oscar. "Children or Men's" blend of speculative history, big budget effects and solid acting make it one of the best studio effort I've seen in awhile (or at least since "The Dark Knight"...)

It is the year 2029 and the world's youngest human being, an 18 year old Argentine boy, has just been killed. Humans, unable to reproduce, have turned on one another, leading to the rapid collapse of most major world cities. Only London remains as a bastion of Western Civilization, resisting the coming extinction of the human race. All is not rosy in the UK, however, which has turned into a brutal police state that rigorously opposes immigration and controls its borders tightly. Theo (Clive Owen), a morose, jaded single man living in London is kidnapped by a terrorist organization helmed by called The Fishes who enlist his help to transport a young girl named Kee to the coast of England. Kee is no ordinary girl, however--she's the world's first pregnant woman in more than 18 years. Theo quickly realizes that the Fishes interest in Kee is anything but innocent and must find a way to protect the girl and her unborn child.

"Children of Men" is tremendous from first frame to last, compelling, thrilling, and tightly directed and realized. Cuaron's pacing is outstanding as he doesn't allow any significant lulls in the action but at the same time refrains from simply bombaring the screen with one chase scene after another. Cuaron, more than perhaps any other contemporary director, has always realized that his films, no matter how intellectually engaging he wants them to be, will always benefit from being entertaining and viewer friendly. He succeeds wonderfully in adapting Philp K. Dick's novel into a fast paced, exciting whole that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The last twenty minutes of "Children of Men" are jaw dropping, the product of inspired direction, a good script and mountains of cash.

As speculative history, the premise of "Children of Men" is interesting even if the reason for humanity's infertility is never fully explained. Realisitcally, the reasons behind the globe's mass infertilty are unimportant and serve more as a basis to launch into virtual, "what if" history. More than anything it appears as if the makers of "Children of Men" simply wanted to present a cinematic answer to Dick's original question in his novel, namely what the world would look like in the wake of some cataclysmic event. The future depicted in "Children of Men" seems pretty believable, a dystopia that is frightening to behold yet at the same time an undeniably familiar outgrowth of the world we currently live in. I usually hate dystopian films for the simple reason that the dystopian "future" they reveal , usually consting of a sci-fi world of urban, rendered in over the top CGI and ruled by an evil neo-fascist government, always seems fake and unbelievable. In "Children of Men" the future, although scary, looks pretty credible.
Overall, Cuaron's movie is an immensely engaging work based on a fascinating "what if" premise that is both intelligent and ridiculously entertaining, no small feat if I do say so myself.

Citizen Kane

A+

Directed by Orson Welles

Widely considered the best American movie ever made often cited as the best film of all time, Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" is a towering, almost larger than life film that looms gigantically over the landscape of cinema, casting a shadow over almost everything that came before and after it. Welles' film is an innovative gem that fully deserves its place as one of cinema's most venerated works.

After a large deposit of ore is discovered under his childhood home in Colorado, the young Charles Foster Kane is sent by his parents to be raised by Walter Parks Thatcher in Chicago. On his 25th birthday, Kane's family fortune is turned over to him in its entirety. Rather than continuing to build on the now diversified portfolio that is the Kane fortune, he rather decides to expend all his energies in building up a fledgling newspaper, The New York Daily Inquirer, into a national news powerhouse. The corrupting influence of greed and fortune soon contribute to making Hearts...uh, I mean Kane, into a power hungry, greedy recluse, hiding in the opulent confines of his palace, Xanadu.

I once heard a guy recall how he had gone to see "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" as a teen in 1981 and had left the theater speechless as the credits rolled, unable to fully understand what he had just seen. I imagine a similar, yet far more intense effect was felt by "Citizen Kane's" first audiences. When you consider what the movies being produced in the early 1940's looked like, Citizen Kane's arrival is akin to an F-16 screeching to a halt on a tarmac next to a bunch of biplanes readying to take off. Bad analogy, but you get my drift. Welles' film was so innovative and forward thinking that basically everything about it was new and, at the time of its release, still unheard of. Just in terms of cinematography, Welles and his director of photography Greg Toland developed a dizzying array of innovate camera effects and lens settings that did much to revolutionize the way films were shot. Even today, watching some of Welles' more famous "deep focus" shots (where characters and objects in the background are brought into focus at the same level as those in the foreground) is an eye popping experience. Welles and Toland's use of effects to tell Kane's story in an innovative and radical way is also amazing, especially knowing how much of "Citizen Kane" is actually a "special effect." As Roger Ebert states in his commentary to "Citizen Kane," most of the shots in Welles' film were special effects, so much so that special effects were probably used at a higher ratio in "Citizen Kane" than they were in "Star Wars." Astounding stuff, to say the least.

Despite being almost universally acclaimed, "Citizen Kane" has been attacked by a few adventurous critics for a perceived lack of emotional depth. Although some of these criticisms the work of attention starved blowhards like Ron Carney, the unquestionably awesome Ingmar Bergman once attacked "Citizen Kane" for what he saw was a vapid story devoid of any real emotional depth. I can't say I disagree with Bergman's criticism, at least to some extent. Although there are interesting questions raised in "Citizen Kane" about the potentially nefarious effects of power and the nature of possession and ownership (be it of a newspaper empire or a person, in Kane's case) I can't say that I've ever felt that "Citizen Kane" had anything that important to say and I can certainly see why a guy like Bergman, whose bread and butter was making films that almost demand moral introspection from their audience, might have taken offense and the praise showered upon Kane's film. Nevertheless, I think that Bergman and others who critize(d) "Kane" for its alleged shallowness are asking way too much from Welles' film. The fact of the matter is that no film, even those saddled with the "greatest ever" title, films such as Renoir's "Les Regles du Jeu" or Ozsu's "Tokyo Story" truly have it all. "Tokyo Story," for instance, was a landmark achievement in terms of depth and characterization but I would argue that technically it was nothing spectacularly different than the rest of Ozu's films (of course, many would disagree with this assessment, but I stick by it). The bottom line is that "Citizen Kane," despite maybe not having the emotional impact of "Wild Strawberries" or "Ikuru" or some other film that is supposed to make you reevaluate your life once you watch it, is considered great mostly for being such an innovative yet still accessible and engaging work. Welles didn't just roll out the effects and the snazy editing and dump it onto the laps of a quizzical audience. Rather, he made "Citizen Kane" into a work that had the ability to excite and engage audiences, as much still today as it did in 1941. The continued praise and reverence for "Citizen Kane" is due, more than anything else, to its remarkable timelesness.

The Ballad of Narayama

A

Directed by Shohei Imamura

One of Shohei Imamura's most critically acclaimed works, "The Ballad of Narayama" cast a decidedly Imamura-esque look at 19th century village life in rural Japan, not without some of his trademark (and at times tiresome) skewering of social mores. Imamura's excesses, however, are not enough to sink a film that is full of meaning, beautiful to look at and butressed by one of the strongest finales I've seen in a long, long time.

The elderly Orin lives with her three children and their various wives and children (who rotate regularly throughout the film). Traditionally in their village, the elderly are taken up mount Narayama byt their eldest son and deposited there to die once they have reached an age where they can no longer be of service to the community. Orin, although still in good health, wants to go out in her prime and thus spends the eyar arranging the affairs of her family before enlisting the help of her eldest son, Tetsuhei, to take her the the mountain.

"The Ballad of Narayama" is yet another Imamura film that places a central focus on revealing the underbelly of Japanese society, although unlike most of his other well known works which were aimed squarely at contemporary Japan, this one plumbs history to find some dirty laundry.
As I've said before, I find that Imamura's social critique can at times be nothing more than cheap potshots directed at traditional Japanese social norms just for the sake of skewering them. It's fascinating to consider that Imamura, who made a name for himself by exposing the underbelly of Japanese society, was once Yasujiro Ozu's assistant. Ozu's vision of Japanese society, though not completely positive, was nonetheless strongly influenced by a deep respect for traditonal values, a sharp contrast to Immaura's often derogatory handling of Japanese social customs. In "The Ballad of Narayama" Imamura shows 19th century village life in rural Japan not as a bastion of community solidarity and tight knit families but rather as a cut throat world dominated by distrust, scarce ressources and, to some extent, ignorance. His attempt to unveil the murkier side of this traditional rural setting certainly allows for a fair amount of drama but his portayal of village life is also a tad bit over the top.
Many of shortcomings of Imamura's film (I'm tempted to say all of them, actually) were blown into the foggy recesses of my mind by the film's denouement, which is one of the most unrelenting, intense, and brilliant scenes I've ever witnessed. Watching Tatsuhei struggle up the mountain with his mother strapped to his back felt like watching Jon Voigt scale the rocky outcroppings of the Cahulawassee River in "Deliverance," a struggle of brute strength and will against nature's elements. It's an arresting, excruciating scene, riveting yet full of meaning and metaphor.
My own interpretation of Imamura's film is that it is about manliness, or at least a version of manliness that is closer to Machiavelli's virtu, a sort of martial spirit that can successfully navigate life's choppy waters. Before anyone accuses me of highfallutin academic grandstanding, the reason I thought about virtu when watching "The Ballad of Narayama" is that Machiavelli's virtu is not simply reserved for men but women can also have virtu and in essence be more manly than men. In this manner, Orin is probably the 'manliest' individual in her village and certainly far more so than Tetsuhei who trudges up the mountain but in the end has difficulty letting his mother perish, even though she herself has embraced her fate. If anyone was turned off by my pseudo academic breakdown of the film, I'll understand.
Regardless of any highfallutin anaylsis, there is no denying that "The Ballad of Narayama" is grand cinema. Imamura was an infintely talented filmmaker, especially when he focused on asking bigger questions as opposed to simply reveling in the dirty details of the lives of his characters.

In the Mood for Love

A+

Directed by Wong Kar Wai

Biases be known, Wong Kar Wai's "In the Mood for Love" is one of my all-time favorite films. When I reveal this to friends who are familiar with the film, they are never completely shocked since "In the Mood for Love" has enjoyed a great deal of critical acclaim since its release in 2001, but seem puzzled simply because "In the Mood for Love" is relatively simple, "small" film which lacks the immediate, jaw dropping and often visceral effect one feels when watching films like "Citizen Kane" or "Seven Samurai" for the first time. Nevertheless, after rewatching it dozens of time, I firmly believe that "In the Mood for Love" is not only Wong Kar Wai's masterpiece but a near flawless work that will eventually be regarded as one of the landmark films of this era.

"In the Mood for Love" is the second part of Wong Kar Wai's "Hong Kong Trilogy," wedged between 1991's "Days of being Wild" and 2004's "2046." The film begins with Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li Zhen (Maggie Cheung) and their respective spouses renting rooms next to one another in an old Shanghainese couple's home in Hong Kong. Although Mr. Chow and Su Li Zhen's friendship is at first cordial but distant, they soon draw closer to each other as they both suspect that their respective spouses are cheating on them with each other, a sobbering realization that pushes Su Li Zhen and Mr. Chow further together as they both seek to escape their loneliness and disappointment.

I first saw "In the Mood for Love" in 2003, two years after it was first released in theaters. At the time my only experience with Wong Kar Wai's films was "Chungking Express" which I had thoroughly enjoyed (and have since come to see as one of his more important works) but didn't strike me as a classic that demanded that I watch the rest of Wong Kar Wai's oeuvre. "In the Mood for Love," however, is a totally different work than "Chungking Express" or any other Wong Kar Wai film for that matter. Whereas most of Wong's films are colorful, often vibrant odes to romance and loneliness that prominently feature characters wearing their hearts on their sleaves and communicating their desires via purple prose (which can be a good or bad thing depending on which Wong film you're talking about) "In the Mood for Love" is a hyper restrained affair where the feelings of the main characters are buried under layers of cultural stigma, misunderstanding, and unspoken doubts. Rather than stifling the romance, however, "In the Mood for Love" reaches a dizzying, intoxicating level of romanticism as Su Li Zhen and Chow Mo Wan's desires--desires which the viewer realizes will likely remain unspoken and almost surely remain unconsumated--bubble beneath the film's calm, moody surface. Describing the romantic tension created by Wong and his supremely talented leads has led to some seemingly hyperbolic (but in reality well warranted) descriptives, one of my favorites from Slant Magazine's Ed Gonzalez who described "In The Mood for Love" as "ravishing beyond mortal words." Indeed.

The emotional authenticity Wong draws out of his story would have likely been impossible had it not been for the presence of Leung and Cheung whose work here is nothing short of superb. The cinematography, helmed by the one of a kind Christopher Doyle, is sublime and the production design, itself an integral part of the film, adds invaluable layers of texture and depth to Wong's film. The end result is a perfect storm of inspired, focused direction, superior acting, and faultless production.

This will most likely go down as Wong kar Wai's masterwork and one of the decade's best and most essential films. Watch it, I beg of you!

Half Nelson

B+

Directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden

Ryan Fleck and Anne Boden's first film is something most first time directors could only dream of--critically acclaimed, award winning, and reasonably succesful at the box office. It's a surprising, thoughtful, and engrossing film that fully showcases the talents of its cast, most notably Ryan Gosling, as well as the bright futures of both Fleck and Boden.

Gosling, he of "The Notebook" fame, plays Dan Dunne, a young, idealistic history teacher at an inner city high school whose novel, engaging approach to teaching makes him a student favorite. Dunne has some skeletons in the closet, however, in the form of a nasty freebase habit. His illicit drug use is discovered by Drey, one of his young students, when she walks in on him smoking the old crack pipe in the ladies washroom after a basketball game. That, my friends, is not the way you want your drug habit to come out. Drey keeps quiet, however, and a bond forms between her and Dunne. At the same time, local drug dealer Frank, who we find out is partially responsible for the incarceration of Drey's older brother, attempts to cosy up to Drey and provide her with some guidance. Dunne, in an admittedly hypocritical move, attempts to steer Drey clear of the drug peddling Frank.

What sounds at first like a contrived indie is anything but. When I first glanced at the back of the "Half Nelson" DVD I scoffed at every aspect of the plot, from the crack smoking yet "brilliant" inner city history teacher to his efforts to keep a young student away from a dangerous drug dealer. The loudly advertised "Soundtrack by Broken Social Scene" only added to my skepticism. Boden and Fleck, however, have crafted something memorable and truly affecting with "Half Nelson" and their efforts at keeping the plot as unsentimental and believable as possible are apparent throughout the film. The relationship that is formed between Dunne and Drey is compelling and also seems natural, in a way, even though it was originally sparked by an admittedly dubious circumstance. Ryan Gosling received accolades en masse for his portrayal of Dunne and his work here certainly merits the praise. Gosling's portrays Dunne in a sympathetic way but nonetheless makes his slow and ongoing self destruction look authentic and unpleasant.

All is not perfect in "Half Nelson" however, and a few noticeable flaws are worth noting. The narrative strays at some points, most notably in its portrayal of Drey who is shown at times as being wily, strong willed and beyond the influence of both Dunne and Frank but at other times is shown as an impressionable, lawless youth desperately looking for a father figure. Drey's short lived stint as a drug runner for Frank is probably the most disappointing example of such puzzling behavior. I also find it doubtful that a guy who is freebasing during his free time can keep it together long enough to teach class five days a week and coach a basketball team in his spare time. Although Dunne does sort of lose it at the end, his admirable ability to function competently during the day and then freebase his way towards oblivion at night and on the weekend seems at best doubtful. Maybe I just don't know enough about narcotics and you can actually live a functional life while freebasing away large chunks of your salary but I get the sense that Dunne would have been in worse shape than he appears in "Half Nelson" is his drug use was as bad as Fleck and Boden want us to believe.
These few bad apples to not, however, ruin the whole batch and "Half Nelson" is an enjoyable and entertaining film that announces the emergence of two young and very talented new American voices in film. And Even the Broken Social Scene soundtrack works!

Be Kind Rewind

C+

Directed by Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry, erstwhile music video director and Charlie Kaufman collaborator, likely has more creative and unique ideas come to him in a few seconds than most people do their entire life. Indeed, a lack of creative vision is something that Gondry's films will probably never be accused of. Unfortunately for Gondry, making a good film is not simply a question of rolling out an endless stream of whacky ideas loosely tied together to form a mildly cohesive story which appears to have been the game plan with "Be Kind Rewind."

Rap star/television actor/film actor Mos Def stars as Mike, an employee in a small video rental store in beautiful Passaic, New Jersey. When his boss Elroy (Danny Glover) leaves for a few days and leaves Mike in charge horror strikes as Mike's friend Jerry (Jack Black), recently magnetized following a failed attempt to sabotage a nearby power plant, erases the entire contents of the store (they're still rocking the VHS, by the way). Facing the wrath of the store's handful of clients who want to watch such classics as "Rush Hour" and "Ghostbusters" but cannot due to Jerry's bungle, Mike and Jerry set out to make their own, home made versions of these cinema classics in hopes that their clients either wont know the difference or will be impressed enough to let it slide. The result is a process Jerry dubs "sweding," which consists of crude, homemade remakes starring himself, Jerry, and local dry cleaner Alma. The "Swedes" quickly become a hit and Mike' s store starts pumping out numerous more VHS hits for its new and adoring public.

Gondry's ability to come up with truly original concepts for his film's is undeniable and watching Mike and Jerry "swede" such classics as "Driving Miss Daisy" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a hilarious experience. However, beyond the "sweding," there really isn't too much here to recommend. None of the relationships in "Be Kind Rewind," from the father/son bond between Mike and Elroy to the best buddy relationship between Mike and Jerry or the budding romance between Mike and Alma, are given anything more than a cursory glance by Gondry who seems more interested in showing us how active an imagination he has. The result are frustratingly semi-three dimensional characters that lack little depth or development. "Be Kind Rewind" also suffers from a porous script and a sloppy denouement that not only lacks a satisfying resolution but also fails to capitalize on some of Gondry's most interesting concepts. Mos Def and Jack Black, although both good actors in their own right, don't make a very efective pairing either, Black's off the wall excitability mixing poorly with Mos Def's simple, quit incarnation of Mike.

There are some great moments in "Be Kind Rewind" but for a film like this, one that obviously wants to celebrate the importance of community and the creative process, to have such an obvious lack of soul is disappointing.

Late Marriage

A-

Directed by Dover Koshashvili

Dover Kashosvhilli's excellent "Late Marriage" cast a brief, almost anecdotal glance at an Israeli's parent's struggles to get their free spirited son to walk the traditional straight and narrow. The end result is a blistering, gut wrenching, yet strongly intelligent indictment of tradition run amok.

Zaza, a 31 year old bachelor finishing up his doctorate in philosophy, has yet to marry, something that fills his parents with equal parts horror and shame. In an effort to wed their son as soon as possible, Zaza's parents take him to see a number of brides to be. Zaza, however, is uninterested by his parent's efforts since he is at the same time living a sereptitious by passionate romance with Judith, a divorcée with a six year old child who is three years older than Zaza. When Zaza's parents get wind of his illicit romance they vow to take whatever measures are necessary to insure that their son does not marry Judith.

Although "Late Marriage" is classified as a comedy, the extent Zaza's parents go to break up his relationship with Judith are far from humorous. Rather, they are cringe inducing, maddening, insulting and degrading and ultimately heartbreaking. In one scene, Zaza's parents and their extended family trudge into Judith's apartment and loudly forbid her from seeing Zaza while at the same time criticizing her looks, her apartment, her financial means and even her child. At the end they all walk out haughtily, not even appearing to realize the cruelty of their actions. Zaza's parents obsession with respecting tradtion is indeed shown by Koshasvhili as so blinding and all consuming that it prevents them from realizing the damage of their actions.
Zaza's parents' effecort to steer him away from Judith leads up to "Late Marriage's" final scene, a riveting, tense, awkward and yet faultlessly believable moments in which Zaza's frustrations, having finally come to head, now explode in the most public of settings. Watching Zaza's act of subtle rebellion in the final act is gutwrenching and yet, in many ways, gratifying for the viewer who until that point probably felt like jumping into the TV screen and setting his self righteous parents straight.
The strength of "Late Marriage" is Koshashvili's ability to skewer traditions not simply because they exist--the way some of Shohei Immamura's lesser works do, for instance--but attack them because they are outdated, inhumane, and ultimately destructive. Koshasvili does not simply reject tradition without debate and his sympathy towards Zaza's parent's predicament is, to some extent at least, apparent. On the other hand, Koshasvilli is most sympathetic towards Zaza and Judith, and Judith's daughter since ultimately they are the ones that suffer, regardless of the intentions of Zaza's parents and extended family. Koshashvili also questions the motives of imposing tradition on younger generations. Are Zaza's parents truly looking out for their sons best interests or are they rather afraid of losing face in front of their family, friends, and community? Although Zaza's parents have no doutb convinced themselves that they are doing a great service to Zaza, Koshasvhili appears to discredit the notion that their actions were ever done purely out of love for their son.

Perfect Blue

B-

Directed by Satoshi Kon

Probably Satoshi Kon's most complicated and confusing picture (and that's saying alot) perfect Blue gets lost in its own complex, multilayed storyline but since it's a Satoshi Kon joint there is enough good that the bad gets (mostly) drowned out.

Mima, a marginally susccesful pop idol with her own mini-cult following, suddenly decides to leave her group, the boringly named CHAM, in order to try her hand at acting. Her first role, a secondary part in a TV drama, causes Mima some anxiety as she attempts to balance her good girl image with the more adult themed plot of the television show. Mima is also suffering from recurring and vivid delusions that quickly sap her ability to deliver on the set of her show. Things quickly go from bad to flat out dangerous as a crazed stalker from Mima's CHAM days begins picking off Mima's professional acquantainces, one by one.

Once again, my weak synopsis captures maybe 1/100th of the complexity of a Satoshi Kon movie. Needless to say, numerous plots run over and around one another in "Perfect Blue" and nothing is ever as it seems, leading to a dizzying, confusing experience that will no doubt confound all but the most attentive viewer. "Peferct Blue's" plot is like "Paprika" but with no thought given to the intellectual limitations of the audience, an endless maze of head scratching plot twists that culminate in a dumfounding, ludicrous third act that, in my case at least, came as a final sucker punch to an already exhauted viewer. Whereas "Millenium Actress" and "Paprika" had a semblance of coherence even though both films featured challenging and at times convoluted plots, "Perfect Blue" takes off and leaves everyone who can't follow along in the dust. In the end it's frustrating because Satoshi Kon, despite his huge talent not only as an animator but also as a storyteller, obviously didn't know where to rein in his story and the experience is consequently far less enjoyable, and also far less succesful, than if he had kept "Perfect Blue" a bit simpler.
Despite all this, "Perfect Blue" is still beautiful to look at, the animation bursting at the seams with color and detail. Satoshi Kon's films, even his frustratingly complex ones such as "Perfect Blue" are always faultless in their attention to detail and dedication to excellent artwork and "Perfect Blue" is once again a testament to the talent of Satoshi Kon and his team. Also despite its complexities, I must say that it is always an adventuresome and invigorating experience to try to keep pace with Satoshi Kon's films which often move at a merciless speed, almost daring the viewer to keep up. "Perfect Blue" is not one of Satoshi Kon's best works but it does contain much of what makes him such an exciting and essential animator.