VIFF Recap 2012

I got in 7 flicks during the media screenings:

Love In Medina

We Were Children

Little Trips 2 (shorts program)

The D Train

Double Shift

Dunas

Good Karma $1

Home

Never a Shade of Gray

No Where No One

Punched

The Return

Voice Over

Persistence of Vision

The Unlikely Girl

When The Night

Day 1

The first day, I got in Last Friday before my shift, and snatched a section from these 2 documentaries:

Far From Afghanistan

The Flat

After that, went for a Frankenweenie promo

Day 2

Twilight Portrait - great scene where she fucking pierces the hypocrisies of her husband and friends at her birthday party

The Comedy - bleak and hilarious.  kinda deep.

part of Werewolf Boy - sweet and silly

The World Before Her  - feministic!

Day 3

5 movies + 1 short + 1 cartoon = fully entertained. Stellar flicks from around the world: Cuba -Una Noche, HK - McDull: The Pork of Music, Korea - The Blood Seller, Indonesia - Postcards From The Zoo, Spain - As Luck Would Have It, France - Rust and Bone, and New Zealand - Two Little Boys.

 Postcards From The Zoo, dreamy languid, slowwww, the animals were superb, but the footage wasn't as crisp as I thought it would be.  

Una Noche, anti Castro but compelling none the less.  

 McDull: The Pork of Music, sweet and cute and funny, nice message on the importance of music

 The Blood Seller, vampire story that you could see coming

 As Luck Would Have it - funny pointed stick in the face of greed and media fame

 Rust and Bone, I could see this being remade and having a simpler happy ending, not that the ending wasn't happy, just that it was a little too unhollywood happy.

 Two Little Boys, great soundtrack, dude is a sociopath!  It was funny.  He reminded me of Russell Crowe and Brendan Fraser looking, Kenny Powers.

Day 4

The Minister - "Politics is the wound that never heals."

Antiviral - "Celebrity is a consensual hallucination" 

Berberian Sound Stage - "This is not a horror film, it's a Santini film!" 

The Flat - "They want to believe in the one good German." 

Off White Lies - I don't have a good quote from this one, except maybe the sweet scene with the Supertramp song lyrics - give a little bit...but I really enjoyed it. Reminded me of Paper Moon some, and of my father. The father character and my dad were the same kind of affable bullshitter. :)

Day 5

end of Raising Resistance

beginning of Key of Life

First hour or so of Design of Death

Paradise: Love

Day 6

Tabu

first half of Street Dogs of South Central

Nameless Gangster

In Search of Haydn

Bad Weather

Day 7

The Compass is Carried By The Dead Man

Lore

Teen Tales

Zug

Yardbird

No Intoxicants Required

Bad Moon Rising

Cluck

Encounters

Sesame Theory

Skull Punch

Thirst

The Twitch

UFO

Seven Psychopaths - promo

The Hunt

Day 8

Twilight Portrait

metaphorical? woman gets raped and then she's trying to controvert the typical rape revenge plot by having her abruptly abort that process and switching gears to seduce her rapist.  Why does she keep telling him he she loves him?? Is she love in the face of evil?  Essential nurturing womanhood vs brutal male violence?  I thought the Russian cop was hot with his manly gravel voice.  Sexy perpetrator!

Best scene was still the birthday party meltdown

she lays bare the hypocrisies and lies that allow her and her friends to exploit and fuck each other over without too many problems.  

Life and Death (shorts program)

  Unmanned - military drone drama

  Crescendo  no abortion = Ludwig Van Beethoven

Francine

women gets out of jail and becomes a crazy cat lady

she lets people do what they want to her, but she doesn't really connect with them

it's like she can't relate.  It's why she loves animals so much.

Leo does a good job.  Sad story.  Does it treat mental illness with compassion or exploit it?  Not really sure.

Liverpool - missed the beginning and the end, but I enjoyed the plot and romance too.  Sweet funny flick. good soundtrack, esp Liverpool by Renee Martin?

Dom - really great macho manliness.  James Coburn looking Russian gangster goes back to rural homestead for Grandfather's 90 birthday, also to hideout from some hit men.  Things get bloody.  

Angel's Share - whiskey provides a future for a Ken Loach character, a trackie?  Tracksuit wearing thug who wants to turn his life around - his gf is preggars, but there's problems.  I spent most of the movie baffled by the accents, but it was easy enough to follow what was going on.  Missed some jokes though.

Design of Death - watched the beginning for the 3rd time!  Saw the whole thing finally.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Weird and visually wonderful.  Reminds me of Visitor Q crossed with the Jeunet Bros. Nie's face totally made me smile when he did, such lovely crinkly eyes!

Somebody Up There Likes Me was the surprise hit of the night.  It's very deadpan humorous, and it silly, but it left me with good feels.  Plus I really liked the soundtrack.  It has a cover of The Car's Double Life, sung by Bob Schneider backed by Quiet Company.  

Day 9

Everybody In Our Family - missed the beginning, but I think that just set up the circumstances of the flick - divorced dad on his way to pick up his daughter for a beach vacation.  It was funny, and it got crazy, but I liked it.  It got ugly and unbelievable too, but I give it license to be unrealistic in order to tell a story.  The actor reminded me of the guy who played The Minister.  Bigger and more virile looking though.

Occupy Love watched about 20 minutes of this.  It's good.  Bolivia has a pluralistic society.  "I want to live well, not better."

Monkey King 3D  - Fun.  I think it was great. But now,  I'd really like to see HIndu gods stories in cartoons.  

Liar's Autobiography - Graham Chapman died when he was 48 of throat cancer, this flick is animated in a variety of styles and was narrated by Chapman, culled from tapes he made a few years before he died.  

Armour - Micheal Haneke does it again.  Great movie about an old couple dealing with the aftermath of an accident.  Dignity is something that can be difficult to maintain as you age.

Ape - a not so great firebug comedian and his low key low rent lifestyle.  Mildly amusing.  I chuckled quite a bit.  The main guy reminds me of the younger brother who cut off his toe in Weeds.

Alternative Anime: The Next Generation

Soldier School - I liked the style - looks like a kid make it sometimes, very naive drawings.  Sorta boring though

Red Colored Bridge - super psychedelic and crazy colourful.  Escheresque at times.

Deep in Reflection - I was bored by this one

Hide and Seek 0 this one was boring too.  Looked nice though

Abbau - a bunch of formulas and such = boring sciencey animations of equations and atoms etc.

The Hunter and The Skeleton - by far my fav. Totally cool style, like a Hindu god's stuff, or Katamari  good story too.  The demon/skeleton was mesmerizing and terrifying too.

Noodle Fish - 2nd love.  Much better use of noodles than just eating them. or making macaroni pictures.

Day 10 

Laurence Anyways - 1/2 hour or so of Laurence coming out as trans at work, and subsequently getting fired.

Grabbers  - holy hella fun!

Consuming Spirits - walked out in part 4 after the mom died.  Reminded me of Twin Peaks.  grotesque animation.

I, Anna - great thriller.  She's guilty of the woman crimes - being old, unmarried and mental.  She kills a kid too.  AND murders, but as one woman commented, she doesn't commit these crimes out of malice, they weren't of her own volition.  Joe noticed that she was distracted with the child when she was asking her ex husband to include her in his weekend with their daughter and granddaughter.  I asked about the music, director said he sent the music to Richard Hawley through a mutual friend and he was sympathetic to the story because his mum had an incident with an odd beau where he'd had to escort the man off the mom's property.  

Late Quartet.  good stuff, kinda white people problems, but still very enjoyable.

end of 237 - fun film theory!!!

Day 11

Camera Shy - end - really funny.  So much better than Ape.

Our Children - end - too sad.  About a woman who kills her kids.  She's struggling with too much responsibility, post partum, 4 little babies and no sympathy.  

Kinshasa Kids - snippet.  Cute kids, lovely musics, crazy poverty

Reality - beginning.  BORING wedding shit.  I couldn't bring myself to watch it.  

Anyday Now - beginning  TRITE!!!  Cummings makes a great drag queen but the dialogue was just so melodramatic bullshit.

Day 12

Leviathan - various parts - very pretty, cinematic artsy shots.  One guy said it's a deconstructed horror film

Museum Hours - various parts -  again pretty, funny, but I missed the beginning so I couldn't follow the dynamics of the narrative aspect.  The observations of the museum guard and the docent were interesting and amusing too.

Shine of Day - didn't see enough to formulate an opinion, looked interesting though - German circus performer!

City Lens, the bits I saw looked cool.

Berberian Sound Studio - the beginning I missed!  I didn't miss much at all, it doesn't establish anything about the main character! It shows the credits for the giallo he's been brought in to work on and moves right on to his observing the watermelon foley work and getting a slice of it shoved in his face.

Come As You Are - missed the beginning to get the Berberian beginning, but I could follow evertyibg.  It was funny. and sweet and even the bit I didn't like, when the two boys were bullying the chubby bus driver, that aspect was addressed and they treated her with dignity after.  Sweet movie!

Day 13

Occupy Love - my fav film of the fest.  Offers hope in desperate times.

Incident in New Baghdad - Wikileaks Collateral Damage short - very well done short on PTSD and how the military uses and exploits soldiers, ultimately sacrificing their mental health.

No Job For  A Woman - doc on women war reporters.  Ernest Hemingway was a fucking douche.  His wife was a correspondent for Collier's and he was pissed that her job kept her away, so he told Collier's he'd write for them.  They could only accredit one writer, so the wife was booted.  She had to take a freighter boat back home, and it took 27 days. or 7 weeks - a long ass time, while Papa too the press plane.  ASSHOLE.  She got hired by another paper and when she got to the hotel, he was shacked up with another woman already.  I skipped out on the end for a loser flick.

Night Across The Street - holy hella pretentious.  Dude is unstuck in time and all the characters are in his mind or some such nonsense.  Absurd magic realism.  I didn't like it, though it was well made and well acted, it just felt so masturbatory and self-satisfied.

We're Not Broke - US company's don't want to pay taxes.  One note documentary, kinda boring.

Facing Animals - first 15 minutes.  SAD and depressing how cruel we are to the animals we eat.

Rebellion - Kanaki?  Uprising in new Caledonia gets put down.  Negotiator is not allowed to do his job because elections mean the politicians, and the army are exploiting the situation for political gain.  Great speech by the leader of the Kanaki? people Alphonse.  It illustrates the principles of neo liberalism, colonialism and injustice.  It's also a great action flick.

Day 14

Come As You Are - beginning I missed

Room 237 Beginning I missed, and the rest again

promo The Sessions

Beyond the Hills - religion and superstition, poverty, queer hatred, mental illness kills a girl in Romania

Reincarnated

Reincarnated (2012) directed by Andy Capper

Snoop Dogg's documentary Reincarnated is all about his journey from poor ghetto kid to superstar rapper but it primarily focuses on his further travels on to Jamaica where he finds redemption with reggae and Rastafarianism.  It's especially entertaining if you're a fan of Snoop or have an interest in the roots of reggae, but it's the redemptive elements of the flick that will have a universal appeal.

It starts with him going off to Jamaica and gives the back story on why he goes there. It details his road to success and continues on to show the construction of his new identity and his latest album too.


Once he lands in Jamaica he hooks up with some Rasta dudes and takes a trip into the Blue Moutains for a tour and a cultural introduction to their rituals. Later on he visits the infamous birthplace of reggae and rocksteady music, Trench Town, a poor but culturally dynamic neighbourhood in Kingston and mingles with the folk there.  He ends up jamming with musicians there too.  Snoop was all, come with me,  I got a studio down the road, everything we need to get going, but they were all woah dude, check yourself, we got our own studio here - don't be dissing us on our turf."  One man was especially skeptical and confrontational with Snoop, but Snoop charmed the disagreeable local with some  California bud as a peace offering.  Then after a big smoking session, they all made some music together in the little DIY studio.  Snoop was praising them, gave props to their abilities and asked them to collaborate with him on his album.

I really liked this part because Snoop was going there with the expectation that he'd be supplying them with the means to make music, and that they were impoverished and deprived. While that may be true on the grander wealth scale, these men were not without means, and especially not musically.  He couldn't buy them; Snoop's wealth and fame didn't have much sway with them.  He had to earn their respect, and this encounter of mutuality and give and take, is definitely something the usually deferred to powerfully rich and famous, don't tend to experience.

I dunno if the Trench Town folk ended up working on Snoop's album,  but he did get Bunny Wailer on side at least for the movie.  There is a ton of great behind the scenes music making, demonstrating the creative process and nuts and bolts negations too. That and mucho sessions of greens smokings,  naturally ;)  It was great when Bunny got real with Snoop: before he'd sit in and lend his talent to Snoop's project,  Bunny had a serious conversation about whether or not Snoop was changing up his musical style for the right reasons or if he was just wanting to exploit reggae and the Marley/Wailers reputation for commercial gain.  Bunny did sing for the film and for Snoop, but I'm wondering if Bunny's voice will make one of the tracks on Reincarnated as he's since condemned Snoop's appropriation of Rastafarianism and reggae music.  I can understand that some, since Snoop is going in as an outlander and carrying away reggae, saying it's his now.  He's also been quoted as saying he's the reincarnation of Bob Marley, though I think that's taken out of context some.  Still sounds crazy egotistical though.

In fact, as entertaining and educational the musical elements were, I thought the film was best when it touched on real issues like how poor people are in Jamaica.  When they went to Trench Town, it was explained how while weed is freely used as a sacrament, and it's a vital cash crop that sustains the poor, it's still illegal. In 2010, the extradition of a drug dealer named Christopher Dudas Coke was a contentious story.  He was situated in one of poorest neighbourhoods in Kingston and his arrest was considered a devastating blow for some of the people of his community, since Dudas was known as a Robin Hood redeemer, who redistributed drug profits back into the community.  Apparently he was known for paying for the local children's schooling and such.

Another great part is when Snoop visits The Alpha Boys school, which is famous for providing musical training for some of Jamaica's most important musicians.

He checks in on a practice session/music class and this was one of the more charming parts of the film, as the boys were so so stoked to be performing for him.  When Snoop sits in on their jam and starts in on singing their praises?  Those kids were just beaming.

Really sweet too, was the collaboration he does with his daughters, No Guns Allowed, a song about how he's choosing love and time with his daughter instead of the violence associated with money making gangster rap. He explains more in this interview.

Another good scene was with another relative?  She might not be related, but she wrote a song after Snoop and his cousin find out one of their cousins died.  She's inspired after seeing an ashtray filled to the brim - she says people deal with grief in various ways and that night Snoop and his cousin smoked a lot and puffed to the sky.  This reminded me of the ritual of pouring out liquor for a lost loved one, and she used a phrase I can't recall describing that smoking in commemoration and contemplation of a death - light up the sky or summat.

Anyhow, It's a very positive film.

And in case you're wondering, it does touch on his life of crime, He doesn't duck that aspect of his past.  The most interesting parts are in the beginning of his career with the court footagage of when he's shown getting out of a murder rap.  The details of the crime aren't explained, but 3 people were involved in the killing of Philip Woldermarian. Mckinley Lee, Snoop's bodyguard allegedly shot him while Snoop and Woldermarian were arguing in Snoop's car.  There was another man in the backseat, but he wasn't charged.  Superstar lawyer for the accused, Johnny Cochrane defended Snoop and Lee.  Read more about it here.

Creepiest was when he describes how Suge Knight was talking about the night he and Tupac were shot.  The way Suge described things, Tupac was more concerned about Suge's head wound when it was Tupac who had the critical injuries - 4 bullets found him and they were fatal wounds.  Snoop only realized how dire things were for Tupac when he got to the hospital and it was grim faces all around.  I guess Tupac and him were close. Snoop said Tupac taught him how to wear Italian suits and live large in a way he wouldn't have appreciated without Tupac's influence.  Snoop had a lot of regret for how things were messed up between them at the time of Tupac's death and how that was never resolved.  He said they had a beef over minor stuff, but Tupac was dead before it could get patched.  He seemed sad too, about the fact that when Suge was arrested, Snoop was refused entry to see him in jail. He credits that with his being pushed out of LA, as Death Row records ended up being taken over by others, and Snoop wasn't important to them anymore.  He ended up moving South and putting out 3 albums with Master P.  Snoop said this set him on his course for even bigger success with Dr Dre in 2001 with The Chronic.

They played "Still Dre" when talking about this period, and please check out the wikipedia page on the song because the interpretation/synopsis there is hilariously deadpan.

Another interesting disclosure bit,  was when he talked about the period when he was a pimp.  He said when he was growing up the ghetto superstars, the only successful role models in the hood, were the pimps and drug dealers, so of course he wanted to do that.  Apparently his job paid $80 a week, but he could make $1500 a night doing crime.  Not a very difficult choice, really eh?  He stopped when he realized it was disrespectful to the women in his life to profit that way, but he said it was a learning experience.  He had 3 actual girls, who he called predatory and they recruited about 100 "virtual" girls to work the streets for him.  He joked about how he was a loveable pimp.

I don't know when he got out of pimping, but he sure had fun with the image in the video he did with 50 Cent.

Snoop said he got out of crime by following in the footsteps of the rappers who came before him, didn't really detail that process or who he modeled himself after, or maybe he did and I just missed that.

The film had some comic relief through his cousin, Daz.  He was pretty amusing, reminded me of Ricky from Trailer Park Boys... always be smoking.  ;) When they trek up to the Blue Mountains to harvest some weed, he's so jazzed to be there, and laughs saying,  "Who could believe I'd be rolling a blunt in the jungle?"  He almost falls down the mountain, and then gets totally winded climbing around.  I doubt there's a scene in there were he isn't high.  He's educational too when he demonstrates how to bake a blunt so it smokes evenly,  all while baked on that good Jamaican ganja.

Bunny Wailer was pretty great too.  He's a wee little man but he's got an outsized regal spiritual presence, and the pipe he's constantly carrying is so appropriately made out of a carrot.

The best part for me, aside from the behind the scenes music makings, would be the Rastafarian elements, especially the ceremony where Snoop gets his Rastafarian baptism.  I dunno if that's what the ceremony was actually, but he was given the name Berhane, which means light, and he really was glowing.  After the naming ceremony, when asked how he felt, he had one word to say, "Love." It truly seemed to be a spiritual awakening for him. I don't know much about the religion other than it involves smoking weed and that it has roots in Christianity. I've also heard people diss the religion, sawing that Rastafarianism is simply a justification to smoke weed.  They actually do smoke a lot of weed all the time, but they do it with a reverence and it's done in religious ritual context.  Like any religion, there are ceremonial ritualistic and dogmatic elements, but I noticed how the principles of honouring love, respect, and positivity, are also very evident.

You can totally hear that in Reggae music too, it's all about the power of love and community connectedness.

Of course this is a rebranding of Snoop and I could go the cynical route and criticize his transformation from Gangster Rapper to Jah Love Rapper, but I think he's sincere. He was very forthcoming and spoke about his criminal past and the exploitive values he used to have, and how he's no longer about that.  I choose to believe that he is genuine about this change of heart and that he's more about promoting positivity in his music and not simply out to change his image to make a buck.

I really enjoyed the doc.  And I'm glad Snoop found his Iron like Lion in Zion.  I liked too when he said he's 40 years old now! He's wise...wiser....bud wiser.  Oh Snoop, you so punny.

A Glimpse Inside The Mind of Charles Swan III

directed by Roman Coppola (2012)

As usual, I didn't watch any trailers, and avoided reading about this movie before watching.  I wish I had read up on the director though, then I could have asked him about what it was like to work on his dad's Dracula film - he was responsible for some of the special effects there.  It's seriously one of my fav movies ever - at least the opening sequence is amongst the best beginnings of any film I've ever seen.  Yeah the rest can bite me some, but that beginning? Mmhhmm...  I've watched it hundreds of times, and I don't ever get sick of the baroque, romantic, excess.  It's so f'n great.

Now about Charlie Sheen: The Movie - I mean, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan. :P I have to say I was disappointed.  It had sooooo much going for it: great actors, great music, great style and feel, with an ambiguously weird setting.  It's supposed to take place in 70's LA.... kind of?  But I sure wasn't sure that was the era.  It could have been an affectation of Swan to have retro shit around his place, and drive old cars, I mean, 70's style IS pretty styley ya know?  Eccentric folk tend to wear crazy shit anyhow, and Hollywood is full of them types too.

I guess what disappointed me most about the movie is that because it's an independent film, it carries on it's shoulders the fate of other independent films.  When one indie triumphs or fails, it reflects that failure or glory, back at the films that follow, in terms of shrinking or expanding the pool of resources willing to invest in independent films.  When the host of the Q&A commented that, yeah, it was getting bad reviews, and asked Coppola how he personally dealt with that,  he said he didn't mind if people didn't like the movie, but it bugged him that a poor response would affect his ability to garner funding for future projects.

I had a few thoughts on Roman Coppola, and the life of 2nd generation film folk, after seeing the movie, and hearing Coppola share anecdotes on his career, and early life on his father's film sets.  One tidbit?  He cast Charlie Sheen because he had a connection with him from when they were kids together on the set of Apocalypse Now.

I've been to a few Q&As where the children of famous directors speak about their work, and it's inevitable that some questions relate to that relationship.  Think about that eh? How annoying would it be to be doing your thing while being constantly pitted against your parent?  How would that shape you?  It's inevitable that we are affected by our parents, and it makes sense to follow in the footsteps of a parent too, as the apparatus for success is so much more there, if a parent is willing to educate you on how they went about attaining success.  Of course, some parents aren't prone to that, and are actually threatened by the idea of their children's success, but most aren't mental that way, and they'll actively mentor their kids to succeed in whatever way they can. It's simply good parenting to aid in equipping your kids for the world by blazing the trail, and sharing with them the tricks of your trade.

I went to a lecture by Gabor Mate before the movie, and that had a deleterious affect on how I viewed the film.  A few things rankled: that the male characters and especially Charlie Sheen/Swan related in objectifying ways to the women in their lives, wasn't all that amusing.  But the fact that the character didn't grow, and that he was completely absorbed in trivial and selfish ego concerns, was just fucking boring.  He was like the Bill Murray character in Groundhog Day before he has comes to the realization that being a selfish fuck doesn't make him happy.

I wanted to ask about the casting and if he had the actors in mind while writing, but the host of the evening took care of that question. And a few more besides by the time she turned it over to the audience.  He thought up the characters before he cast the film.  He knew he'd drive that particular car - a old Cadillac with  a bacon and eggs decal on the side. Charles Swan heads up an advertising firm, so he's very concerned with image and design.  More of the bullshit ephemera we feed our egos with, but whatever, because I really did enjoy that aspect of the film - there's lots of cool retro imagery.

The absolute best thing about the film, aside from the joy of going to a theatre where I can eat popcorn AND drink beer without sneaking some in, was that I was introduced to an artist that I fucking LOVE. Liam Hayes does the soundtrack and even has a cameo near the end.  I'd never heard of this guy before but looking him up, that's not so strange.  He's not very well known, except he's big in Japan - really.  He was working so hard and long on his 2nd album that his label dropped him - he spent $100,000 of his own money producing it, then it languished for a bit until a Japanese label picked it up.  He's kinda mysterious.  In my research, various articles muse on how exactly he's financed his career.  Who's your benefactor, man?  Perhaps he's second generation wealthy too.  I dunno, but I sure like him.  He really reminds me of Harry Nilsson, and Ben Folds Five some too.  Very seventies sound to him.

Charles Spencer Anderson?  Coppola mentioned that he'd made Charles Swan work in advertising because he'd become interested in the imagery of the 70's and called him Charles Swan to recognize the achievements of Charles ????  I think he meant Charles Spencer Anderson, but I could be misremembering.  In any case Anderson is responsible for a lot of cool and iconic imagery.

Another interesting thing, Coppola used his own place as Charles Swan's, he swung around the skype camera to give us a looksee.  Behind the scenes magics. :)  Some women in the audience wanted to know if the bathtub scene was done in his house but I wasn't sure why they cared - do they love Charlie Sheen, or was it that they were drooling on the director?  Probably more they were grooving on the fame.

Oh yeah, before I asked my question about why the character didn't grow in the film, I was gonna ask about why he had a cowboys and Indians thing going on the flick.  Someone else asked after my question, before I could, and I guess he just thought it was cool looking and fit with the 70's thing since Westerns were popular then.  Whatever for cultural appropriation eh?

And the reason he didn't grow? Coppola said that it didn't feel right, that the character had a life of his own and "he wouldn't do that." My actual question related to a couple scenes bookending the film, where he throws a bag of his girlfriend's shoes off a cliff and the bag gets stuck in a tree.  At the end he goes to get the bag and you think oh, he's learned some empathy and he's gonna give back her stuff, but NO! He rescues the shoes from the tree so he can really give them the heave ho into the canyon and a big fuck you to his ex and the same time. Selfish petty action from a selfish petty man no?  I guess you could say he was ditching baggage, literally.  But meh.  I didn't like that. So yeah, this movie served with complimentary eye rolls.

The Master

I really liked this one.  I expected a very different movie though.  I thought it was going to be about the formation of the Church of Scientology, detailing the scummy scammy cynical elements of the origins of the organization, and for sure it's got those aspects but more in a passing way than the straight up docudrama history lesson I anticipated.  I was captivated by what all went down - it's really a story of Phoenix's elemental man vs Hoffman's cerebral controlling man with Hoffman trying to own, tame, control, and dominate, with his bullshit religious dogma and psychobabble.  The methods might be suspect but the struggle and passion and belief are real as fuck.

Joaquin Phoenix plays a sailor, a drunken sailor, lost not so much at sea, but lost nonetheless.  He can't find his place, he's always wandering and running from himself, running from one drunken debacle to the next.  He's impulsive and wild, full of an angry passion and seems to yearn for meaning and love, but at the same time is afraid of both.  

Philip Seymour Hoffman is the guru, the man at the apex of his fledgling cult - modeled on Scientology, but here called The Cause.  He hides from everyone his true motives and I'm not even sure what he wanted aside from power.  I kept wondering whether he really believed the fantastical garbage he was forcing down the throat of his followers, but I'm pretty sure he was just using their search for meaning, and plugging their holes with his ideas to feed his ego.  I felt sorry for his duped followers eh?

I was really reminded of my father watching this.  He wasn't old enough for this to be his era, but his sensibilitiy and resemblance  to both men would be obvious to all who knew him.  He was a drunk and a smart man both.  Hoffman looked like him complexion wise and he was more similar to him in intellect, but his soul was more Joaquin's.  A sad man, a man who felt adrift and unmoored often, yet still stupidly prideful and arrogant at his part in the making of his own misery too, and so continued to hoe that row of unyeilding dirt.  Ain't gonna harvest nothing from there but sweat and pain.  

Dichotomy and despair, it's served up raw with a side of bitter sweet cynicism in this tale of thwarted love.

Django, Les Mis, and Unchaining the N Word.

So we ended up seeing Django Unchained after all, and then Les Miserables after that.  Joe and I both cried at the end of Les Mis.  He said it was the best ending of a film that he's seen this year.  I agree it was a moving moment, but the film was super long and really dragged in spots.  I think in total it only had 3 good songs in there, those songs were really good though, can you say verklempt?  At first I was all pissed off at the shaky cam and quick cut edits, but I let that go.  Also I wasn't all that impressed with the singing, except for Amanda Seyfried and the guy who played Cosette's love interest, also the daughter of the innkeepers had a nice voice.   But especially Russell Crowe was lamo - I think better voices should have been cast.  I liked Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter in their buffoonish lowlife roles - they provided the comic relief to an altogether dismal and ernest affair.

Django was lots more fun.  I think what I liked best about it was how authentically 70's exploitation spaghetti western it looked and felt.  The songs sounded 70's, well they actually used 70's songs so I guess that makes sense.  In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Tarantino's inspiration for having Jamie Fox's character be called Django was because he wanted to use the theme song.

I liked the rap stuff too and the editing was sweet. There were a lot of these quick zoom reaction moments that were just great.  Like that viral gopher.

Christoph Walz is awesome in it.  I kept thinking, Tarantino really scored when he found him for Inglorious Basterds.  He's just got this super styley panache.  It's the way he talks, the distinctive cadence and precise phrasing, and how he grins and does this big eyed hand twirly oh you kinda shit just before he does something outrageous.  He's the best part of the film.  I'm pretty sure Tarantino wrote the film around him.  Yeah, yeah, it stars Jamie Foxx, and it's a slave revengesploitation, but it's such a white man's film, an apologist view of racism, that glories in racist violence too, and that the German guy is the one who frees the slave?  Well what's that if not an attempt at healing some karma and attempting cultural reparations?  Dr King!!! Schultz?  I bet QT was all giggling on that and I bet lots of black folk hate that it's such a white folk flick, but  I'm not bothered by that much.  I enjoyed it, and even though I thought it was a tasteless film to make, I think it's great that slavery is the subject, because slavery and racial intolerance and yadayada social justice human rights issues are so important to spark dialogue on.  It's got gross bits of ultra violence and the slaves are mostly weak and Jamie Foxx is the superman exceptional black man, but whatever, I don't wanna get all analytical on the flick.  It's an adventure time story and I think everyone involved had a good time making it.  I had a good time watching it.  Thumbs up.

Back to the racist stuff though...I'm reminded of this song

I was trying to figure out who did it yesterday, and I found out it's from Gangsta Rap: The Glockumentary (2007), dir Coke Williams.  I haven't seen it, but I want to.  It sounds a lot like CB4 (1993),  the Chris Rock/Tamra Davis thang, except this faux behind the scenes mockumentary is more recent.  I listened to some of the songs and they're pretty funny.  Anyhow, I think it's an important distinction that cultural commentary that could be seen as racist and mocking, that it's better if it comes from a cultural insider.  At least that cuts down on the knee jerk that's RACIST!! reactions some.  I dunno.  There's a whole lotta drama attached to the word nigger and nigga, the n word!!! Like you should't use it if you aren't black, or that it's verboten because it's an especially hateful word. I don't really buy that.  Kike is a hateful word, so are a lot of words.  Slurs are powerful, but making them taboo like that with different levels of acceptability of usage around race, while it makes sense,  it also seems silly.  I know I'm trying to simplify something complicated, but I would like it if life WERE simpler in terms of words NOT being especially imbued with power to hurt.  Let's not get rude about crudeness eh?

I wrote this about a week ago and I thought I might write more on the flicks, but I'm fine with this as it is.  I just want to get back in the habit of writing about the movies I see again.

The Apparition

written and directed by Todd Lincoln (2012)

Horror films have a fairly low threshold to reach in terms of being entertaining.  All they need a premise that puts people in danger and this premise doesn't even have to make much sense as long as the characters are threatened somehow. This flick has that basic apparatus in place and provides serviceable scares, but it's not great by any means.  Spoilers follow...

It starts off with grainy 70's film stock of a seance, then whoosh,  you're in modern times watching some college kids, while they set up an experiment recreating the seance of the 70's.  The leader of the ill advised paranormal ghost hunt is Patrick, played by Tom Felton, aka Draco Malfoy, so you know he's not going to be able to handle what happens eh?  Anyhow, they're trying to contact the same 70's seance entity to PROVE that ghosts are really real.  He's a super spooky looking dude who isn't give a backstory, so I don't even remember his name.   I dunno why they'd want to contact such an evil looking bastard.  I know you can't judge a book by it's cover, but c'mon dude looks straight up EVIL.  Of course, it goes off the rails wrong, and one of them, not Draco, gets sucked into blackness.

Next you're getting acquainted with a couple in some desert city, Arizona or Nevada, maybe it's California, but it doesn't really matter where.  All that matters it's a big ole suburb that Kelly and Ben have just moved into, and it's basically full of empty houses - they have ONE neighbour.  Aside from the product placement purpose of the Costco shopping scenes,  why are all these shots of the Kristen Stewartish girl, (Ashley Greene), and her boyfriend, (Sebastian Stan), doing their just moved in, need to do some nesting chores, taking up so much screen time?  In a good film, stuff like this is character development.  Scenes that show them doing everyday people things, establish the protagonists and clue you into caring about them.  This is an important step, because you need to care about the film folk, otherwise seeing them getting threatened isn't nearly as spooky.  Make connection with audience.  Check...barely.  Now on to the spooks!

The progression of the haunting was slooow and the entity has random abilities.  First it's moving stuff around, opening doors and then it manifests as mold.  Ooooo gross! Mold!  That stuff really is deadly, ya know.  Also the entity manages to kill the neighbour's  dog.  The dog just keels over so it wasn't gross, just sad.  I thought it was mean to kill off a dog, but I guess it made the ghostie seem more threatening.

Actually the worst part of the movie is that the boyfriend Ben KNOWS something bad is happening, but he hides this from his girlfriend.  I was confused actually, because I didn't realize that the boyfriend was the camera guy from the experiment.  I thought it just switched to a random couple with no connection to the opening scenes, because you NEVER saw the boyfriend/camera man's face in the video footage of the seance recreation experiment.

Kinda cheap, but horror is rife with the cheap tricks.  Whatever works eh?  In any case, Ben is a shitty fucking boyfriend.  He saw that girl get sucked into blackness, and you know what?  That was his girlfriend!  OMG what a douchey guy.  He eventually gets found out and tries to explain his douchey behaviour, saying he thought if she didn't know about the experiment, she'd be safe.  Whatever guy, and what a load of paternalistic crap too.

Actually none of the haunting stuff makes any sense, nor the ghostbustery stuff that is supposed to create the monster, or let the entity come through or whatever the bullshit story was.  There was no logic to it.  I think it was likely written backwards -  dude thought of some spooky scenes he could shoot and strung them together with the story attached awkwardly with lots of metaphorical duct tape.

The movie is gonna appeal to teenagers and they probably won't even mind that it's a dumb flick that makes no sense, because they likely haven't experienced many good horror films.  Unfortunately this one does nothing to change that situation either.

Safety Not Guaranteed

directed by Colin Trevorrow (2012)

A movie based on a meme?  I had my doubts but it's actually a good indie flick with a couple great character arcs, with some real tension to the story brought about by you wondering if there's a time machine or not.   It's sweet and funny and poignant and romantic and it's got good morals too.  It has some crazy bashing at the beginning, but on the whole it redeems itself with the idea of respecting people and being honest about who you are, the value of relationships, etc etc. I really enjoyed it.

It's produced by the Duplass brothers, (Jeff Who Lives At Home)  and stars Mark Duplass as the man with the plan, the ad,  and the time machine? There lies the mystery.  Also there's Jake M. Johnson as a an assholey magazine writer? editor? on a road trip out of Seattle supposedly to check out the story behind the classified, but really he sees it as a vacay opportunity to look up an ex while exploiting his interns - Aubrey Plaza and Karan Soni.  The interactions between Duplass and Plaza are where the heart of the story lies, also much of the humour.  Plaza is especially good with the deadpan cynicism, but the movie is ultimately about abandoning the comfort of cynicism.  I'd suggest you don't watch the trailer unless you enjoy having the majority of the plot points spoiled.   Or watch it if you like knowing the shape and colour of a flick beforehand, but personally I think that creates a less satisfying movie experience.

Here's a song from it I really liked - it doesn't wreck the story.

This trailer gives some background to the development of the flick, more than it telegraphs the story.

And this is the trailer where you it's pretty much whoomp there it is, we've connected most all the dots for you already.

Smash

I like this show.  I watched a few episodes of Glee before I got bored with the high school format.  I found it hard to care about the shenanigan trajectories of high school musical kids and their teachers.  I have to admit that the asshole gym teacher was pretty hilarious though,

Anyhow, this musical number filled tv show about the development of a new Broadway show based on Marilyn Monroe, so far has got me hooked.  It's well done, with a slew of good actors, and it's interesting seeing the work that does into getting a show off the ground.  I'll be back for at least the next episode.

---

I think I made it through to the 4th episode before I lost interest, but that was more to do with me lacking the patience to watch it every week.  I think it's a rewarding show that's great for on demand or boxset watching.  The drama and intrigue between the different characters is engaging, and the musical numbers I saw were decent too.

Underworld Awakening

directed by Måns Mårlind, Björn Stein (2012)

About the only thing I really was engaged by in this movie was picking out the Vancouver backdrops.  The evil lab?  That's SFU.

If only the rest of the movie was near as interesting as puzzling out where it could have been shot.  I didn't give a fuck about anyone in this.  The lead vampire? hunter?  I haven't seen the preceding 3 flicks, so I didn't know what was all led up to this one.  They explained the back story in the beginning, something about vampires battling werewolves until one guy became both, a hybrid vamp-lycan, and the lady vampire (Kate Beckinsale), who kills werewolves, fell in love with him and started killing bad traitorous vampires instead of just sticking it to the wolfman.  blah blah blah.  It still didn't make a whole lotta sense.  All I got was that somewhere in there was supposed justification for her to hunt down a bunch of folk she needs to kill: wolf people, regular people, vampire people.  She kills 'em all.  And really grossly, explicitly too.  Like hardcore head shots and dropping people out of windows after they've begged for their lives too.  NO MERCY! I know I'm supposed to be rooting for her badassery, but I didn't like her and if she'd died I wouldn't have cared.  I would have felt good actually, like yeah you deserved that you mercenary bitch.  What makes you think you have the right to kill all these folk?  They are trying to kill you? An eye for an eye?  More like pop allll their eyeballs for trying to pop yours.

That's what's really fucked about this movie.  It's stupid to kill people. Whatever, this is magic silliness. right? There are no vampires, or werewolves, but there are video games and it's fun killing mindless others in video games, smashing sprites to oblivion, but does this inhumanity towards humanesque monstrosities translate into a lack of respect for humanity generally?  Intuitively, I'd say yes.  Yeah killing is the prime directive in many video games and action movies, and sure you aren't seeing "real" people being brutalized and murdered.  But you are seeing violence and you're supposed to be enjoying it, and isn't there something fucked up about that?  Why am I supposed to think it's okay for one class of people to be destroyed?  Why do you want me to root for their complete annihilation?  Why does feeding bloodthirsty instincts feel so dirty and backward?  I dunno that these questions are reasonable to ask of a cash grab action horror smackdown, but so what, they are still good questions.  Bottom line is I felt bored and often disgusted by the excess of violence and pandering to baser instincts that ran rampant all throughout this flick.

Journey 2: Mysterious Island

directed by Brad Peyton (2012)

This was fambly night at the theatre.  Promos are usually packed and this one was no different; there were children everywhere, babies even.  At one point, a baby started to cry, and then when another one picked up the whimper, I was a bit worried there would be a chain reaction with the whole theatre erupting with bawling kids, but their moms got them quieted down quickly.

I was sitting next to one guy who was by himself and I don't think he was used to being around kids.  A boy was sitting next to him, maybe 8 or 9, and the kid was going in and out to the lobby for snacks or to the bathroom or whatever, just bouncing around like young kids do.  He did this back and forth business about 3 times politely excusing himself by the guy, and by the 4th time, old dude was getting huffy and breathing loudly with exasperation.  Jeez man, this is a G-rated promo, whaddya expect?

The movie was ok. It lacked tension, but the 3D special effects were really good, and there were some comical bits with Luis Guzmán, the helicopter dad - not that he was a father who hovered around his daughter, (in this case Vanessa Hudgens),  he's a for real helicopter pilot.  I liked his character best.  He was funny and silly,  and seemed to be having the most fun.  Michael Caine was pretty great too, but he usually is.  The Rock?   meh, he did his usual stoic, I'm a manly man, yet I have a marshmallow heart too.

It's so not a taxing or complicated flick, but it looks really good, and if you can channel your inner 10 year old, you'll have a really good time getting caught up in the improbable adventure.  Even though it's kinda boring for grownups, kids will love it. 

And maybe they'll be inspired to read the books by Jules Verne.  I really, really, liked them when I was a kid.  They're awesome oldtimey SF fun.

Also, while searching for an image for Jules Verne books, I discovered this collaborative mural project.  Some gorgeous gorgeous murals to be seen at that link - one of them at Jules Verne Elementary. :)

Redtails

directed by  Anthony Hemingway (2012)

George Lucas does Star Wars X-Wing dogfights in the original old school style going to the origin story of it all with the WWII Flying Aces or whatever the pilot dudes were called BITD.  It's about a company of black pilots, the Tuskagee Airmen, at least that's the angle for the making of this particular flick, so there's racism and patriotism and all that other WWII propaganda hoohaa brouhaha going on in this.

I caught the last half of it, got to see the dogfights and that was fine with me.  I missed most of the bonding and training, all the establishing of the stereotyped characters, the hero and the reckless rebel, the stoic Sargent, and all the baby faced boys toughening into REAL MEN TM.  I also missed most of the overcoming the honky ofay opposition to an all black pilot battalion.  I bet it was tedious, because the part I did see had enough corny dialogue to carry me through a few shitty movies.  It does have Terrence Howard going for it though. I saw him once in real life and he's so pretty I wouldn't have minded his character development scenes much at all.  There's a whole bunch of pretty men in this actually, but I only recognised a couple.  Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character with his jaunty cocked cap, reminded me of Hogan, from Hogan's Heroes.  Andre Royo, Bubbles from the Wire plays a mechanic and there were some white people I recognised too, like Byran Cranston from Breaking Bad.

It's a pretty crappy flick, about par for a propaganda war glamourising production in its plot, but it's got really shitty dialogue and the pacing is off. About the best thing going for it, is it's set in the only good war, with NAZI Germany enemy combatants to ruthlessly blow up and destroy.  That, and the pretty mens and planes.  Plus it's a black story so the racism issues are important, it's just a shame it's not done very well.  There was another movie made in 1995 based on the same story, called The Tuskagee Airmen, but I haven't seen it.  It's on youtube though.  Lawrence Fishburne?  John Lithgow?  Even has Cuba Gooding Jr. again.  Looks better than this one Holmes.

There's one thing I don't get about war movies.  How can you make such a terrible thing into something noble?  I mean really, war means killing ACTUAL people, destroying fathers and brothers and mothers and daughters and babies! and that's not even considering all the material destruction, like homes and roads and shops and offices and bridges and schools, museums libraries factories etc etc.  All that doesn't even count, because the enemy is less than and smashing them is the job.   What they want? What their grievances are? None of that even matters, because they are the dehumanised other.  It's ridiculous.