Nine one-liners for December/January Movies

Days of Heaven - Malick takes a simple tragedy and undermines the story in favor of outstanding atmosphere through silence and a non-beginning non-ending series of innumerable shots.

Brokeback Mountain - Huzzah for enriching our definitions of human relationships and when people are walking out of the theater you know that shit is tight.

Forty Year Old Virgin - I think half this movie is improvised - by sleeper comics who do it better than any.

Melinda and Melinda - Will Farrell as Woody Allen is friggin' hilarious, but I start to wonder if Woody is contantly asking all his male actors to get a little woodier with it.

The Return - Incredible performances with haunting moments, but the pacing was a little sluggish.

Match Point - Not bad, but Woody often drags in non-comedies, and this is not exception, especially when he can't get away from the countless and mundane bourgeioise

Happy Endings - The "smart" movie of the 2000's: eschewed plot and the characters are supposed to have enough depth to carry us along for over an hour and a half ie. the inverse of Harry Potter "films."

Fitzcarraldo - Epic, hilarious, and somehow feeling like it's all teetering on disaster - I'm sensing a theme in Herzog.

King Kong - Stupider and stupider the more I think about it, but Andy Sirkus' death still burns my eyes and the scenes of Kong sliding on ice and killing stuff are almost redeeming - make me an editor!

...and Treadwell is gone...

I can't imagine how it could be beaten at the Oscars. As with Capturng the Friedmans, Werner Herzog's documentary relies heavily on the footage shot by the film's subject, and one thread of the film is that its subject becomes Timothy Treadwell the filmmaker, and eschews Treadwell the grizzly guardian/martyr. An interesting one, but only one of the documentary's several ideas that Herzog compelling develops. But the one I've found to be the biggest wealth of continually analyzable moments is the theme of love and disconnect. To add a few humble if not paltry remarks to Herzog's reading:

Treadwell, in several places, refers to his problems with women, but never specifies what exactly those problems are. Herzog does not comment directly on this, but he leaves us several clues, intentionally or not. Exhibit 1. The narrative builds towards an argument that Treadwell's "work" was a personal retreat from civilized life, which he feared. In contrast to what he may have viewed as a chaotic and unkind world (Treadwell makes understandably athiestic comments), the Grizzly "sanctuary" is some kind of immaculate realm where things make sense, and where Treadwell literally speaks to God at one point. Exhibit 2. Herzog shows us three women who had very close, if not intimate, relationships with Treadwell. Clearly, all the evidence points to the fact that these ladies were totally in love with him. One even stood by him to her own death.

And my still subconsciously sexist mind thought "Oh! So it wasn't the women who were the problem." Even though Timothy himself makes as much seem the case, I inferred that the real problem was that somewhere along the way Treadwell lost the ability to make any meaningful connection with other human beings, let alone a romantic partner. Thus his problems with women stemmed from his own inability to love. Meanwhile he professes his love for bears and foxes to an almost psychotic degree. It certainly would fit with Herzog's own conclusion. And if this supposition is right, it enriches our understanding of what then almost looks like Treadwell's ideal form of suicide. The ultimate martyrdom for the grizzlies is to turn oneself into food and thereby one hopes, extend their life. In any case, it makes even more sense to me that Anne would have hated and feared the bears.

So that's one thought, but I think there are several areas where the audience can draw new insights, something rarer for documentaries. That's what puts Grizzly Man in the category of greatness.

The Chronic WHAT?! ...cles of Narnia

Bottom line/s on Narnia.

It is not as bad as most (of my) people say it is. People expecting the next LOTR are deluded.

I could watch talking animals for fucking hours.

The book wasn't that good anyway.

And check this!

The Second Most Important Trilogy of the 1980s pt. I

So with my fifty dollar gift card to Barnes and Nobles(s) I got for Christmas I went straight to the DVDs and settled on a severely underrated box set. The Karate Kid Quadrilogy (K to the eighth). These movies are mildly remarkable for several reasons. Most importantly, unlike most eighties flicks centering on underdog adolescents - or adolescents period - it manages to hold up two decades or so later. For anyone who has indulged their nostalgia and mined the video rental store (or the 'Flix) for various remembered gems from the eighties, chances are they've been let down repeatedly. Not so with this movie, so 1. Karate Kid I (and arguably II) is improbably a solid movie by twenty-first century standards.

Without going into much explanation, the following further remarks:

2. Daniel-san gets his ass KICKED a lot. And I mean A LOT...just pummulled. The resilience of this guy through three films that all take place within 365 days is mesmerizing - yet not unrealistic - in a way that is difficult to describe.

3. The movie has subtle, albeit undeveloped, sentiments of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism. As I type that I realize that that is a huge stretch, so let me qualify that by saying not really. The first movie is anti-rich, but there's nothing special about that I know. In KKII however I am interested in the constant reminders of the US military presence in Okinawa, and its disruption of the "town that time forgot." Also notable is Sato's emergence as a neo-feudal capitalist overlord who in part represents a permeation of gloabalization, eg. selling off parts of an ancient castle and eliminating the ancient economic and cultural glue of the town - the small time fishing and cannery industry. Etcetera etcetera. My already weak argument falls the hell apart with the ending when Sato becomes the reahbilitated philanthropist.

4. Quotability. As juvenile as that is, any line from Johnny and his punks, Mr. Miyagi, Sato and others = instant laughs.

This time around I also noticed the theme of fatherhood throughout both films. Some of that is obvious, but the parallels between Johnny's relationship with his sensei and Daniel's with his are not - at least they weren't to me. The theme continues in KKII when Miyagi loses his own father. Sato's nephew and Daniel proceed to get caught up in the complex feud between their respective father figures.

Unfortunately I think this theme breaks down when we get to the third film. We'll see.