Director: Michael Rappaport
Subject: A Tribe Called Quest
Last fall during TIFF I saw the world premiere of Pearl Jam Twenty. I like, but don't love Pearl Jam, which made me one of the biggest PJ haters at the screening. The crowd's energy created a fun movie-going experience and Cameron Crowe got lots of great footage, but it was largely a piece of fan service and didn't try to ask any tough questions. After watching Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest I know how the rest of that PJ 20 audience felt. The Low End Theory is in my all-time top 5 hip-hop albums*, Midnight Marauders is close behind. I can remember listening to Vivrant Thing throughout the 8th grade, before I even knew ATCQ existed and I once traveled to El Segundo just so I could leave my wallet there. This is all to say, that there was about a 0% chance I would dislike this movie, so my rating is split: 4 stars for fans of the band and 3 stars for non-fans.
After watching PJ-20 I described it as a hagiopic and to Michael Rappaport's credit BRL has actual conflict and a strong narrative that isn't "look at how awesome we are". ATCQ was formed while all of the principals were still in high school, despite their youth they became one of the most innovative hip hop bands of all time. While their legacy prevails, their last classic album was released when many similarly aged MCs (I hesistate in calling them their peers) were just getting started. Their third album Midnight Marauders was released before Reasonable Doubt, Ready to Die, Illmatic, Do You Want More?!!!??! and many other seminal east coast 90s hip hop albums. BRL has interviews with Pharrell Williams and ?uestlove who treat ATCQ with such reverence that they sound like The Rolling Stones talking about Muddy Waters, eventhough they were born 3 years and 1 year apart, respectively.
The heart of the documentary comes from the relationship between Q-Tip and Phife Dawg. Q-Tip is a musical prodigy, who in one of the films most captivating sequences shows how he bit the drums from Lonnie Smith's Spinning Wheel for Can I Kick It? Q-Tip is someone who will remeber the bass-line from a song he listened to 5 years ago and manage to reincorporate into a new song. Phife Dawg is a funny, affable diabetic-sidekick, who resembles every short yappy sidekick in every movie ever. I would love to grab a beer, smoke a joint or talk to him about sports, but his irresponsibility would become frusturating. Rapparort smartly frames the documentary around the relationship between the two, who were best friends as kids and became the front men of ATCQ for more than a decade. Q-Tip is a perfectionist who has spent many nights working by himself in the studio and became the breakout star of the group. Phife Dawg resents the acclaim Q-Tip has received, while Q-Tip pities Phife's lack of discipline. They are still friends, but as friends grow up they start to value different things and grow apart. BRL is a fascinating oral history of a seminal hip hop band, a touching story about two best friends growing apart and a must-watch for any hip-hop fan.
*For fun in no order
Illmatic
Supreme Clientele
The Low End Theory
Chronic 2001
Hell Hath No Fury
Friday, March 9, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Meek's Cutoff - 2010 - 4 Stars
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Cast: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano
It's hard to write about plotless movies, without feeling like you are spoiling the whole movie, if you mention a kernel of the narrative like "two men named Gerry get lost while hiking" it feels like you told them the whole story. If you say "nothing happens" the viewer is prepared for nothing to happen. Meek's Cutoff isn't Koyaanisqatsi, but for the sake of not giving away too much, all I will say about the plot is that it follows a group of settlers on the Oregon Trail looking for water.
My knowledge of The Oregon Trail stops at the video game, so I can't speak with authority about Meek's Cutoff's verisimilitude, but it does feel real. I have always been fascinated with the minutia of history, but most of the details in historical fiction are reductive and touristy, "oh look at that grog of mead, how quaint". Meek's Cutoff presents a brutal, stunning portrait of how tough it must have been to be an early settler travelling on the Oregon Trail. The premise of needing to find water creates urgency, but is also a nice historical detail, people needed to carry around weeks worth of water in covered wagons, when travelling undeveloped land. Most of the film's verisimilitude comes from showing the daily monotony of these settlers and while watching longshots of pioneers walking next to covered wagons seems boring, the cinematography is awe-inspiring.
For full disclosure, I received an important phone call halfway through the movie and the opinion expressed below might be a function of my fragmented viewing. The first half of the movie is a hypnotic look at the day to day life for these people travelling along The Oregon Trail it was as beautiful meditative experience that reminded me of the best parts of 2001 or Tree of Life. The second half wasn't nearly as strong, Michelle Williams anachronistic character was too empowered for a 19th century women and that caused me to doubt the characterization of others in the film. I think the blustery xenophobia shown by Bruce Greenwood's Stephen Meek was on point, but next to Williams he felt like a strawman created by Reichardt. The above makes it seem like the second half of the movie is bad, it's not. The second half has two excellent set pieces, the cinematography and period detail remain excellent and the ending is something that will and should prompt lots of discussion.
Stray thoughts
-I remember reading an interview with a Deadwood cast member, who was asked to describe the set, he responded with one word "mud", I suspect the cast of Meek's Cutoff would respond with one word "dust"
Cast: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano
It's hard to write about plotless movies, without feeling like you are spoiling the whole movie, if you mention a kernel of the narrative like "two men named Gerry get lost while hiking" it feels like you told them the whole story. If you say "nothing happens" the viewer is prepared for nothing to happen. Meek's Cutoff isn't Koyaanisqatsi, but for the sake of not giving away too much, all I will say about the plot is that it follows a group of settlers on the Oregon Trail looking for water.
My knowledge of The Oregon Trail stops at the video game, so I can't speak with authority about Meek's Cutoff's verisimilitude, but it does feel real. I have always been fascinated with the minutia of history, but most of the details in historical fiction are reductive and touristy, "oh look at that grog of mead, how quaint". Meek's Cutoff presents a brutal, stunning portrait of how tough it must have been to be an early settler travelling on the Oregon Trail. The premise of needing to find water creates urgency, but is also a nice historical detail, people needed to carry around weeks worth of water in covered wagons, when travelling undeveloped land. Most of the film's verisimilitude comes from showing the daily monotony of these settlers and while watching longshots of pioneers walking next to covered wagons seems boring, the cinematography is awe-inspiring.
For full disclosure, I received an important phone call halfway through the movie and the opinion expressed below might be a function of my fragmented viewing. The first half of the movie is a hypnotic look at the day to day life for these people travelling along The Oregon Trail it was as beautiful meditative experience that reminded me of the best parts of 2001 or Tree of Life. The second half wasn't nearly as strong, Michelle Williams anachronistic character was too empowered for a 19th century women and that caused me to doubt the characterization of others in the film. I think the blustery xenophobia shown by Bruce Greenwood's Stephen Meek was on point, but next to Williams he felt like a strawman created by Reichardt. The above makes it seem like the second half of the movie is bad, it's not. The second half has two excellent set pieces, the cinematography and period detail remain excellent and the ending is something that will and should prompt lots of discussion.
Stray thoughts
-I remember reading an interview with a Deadwood cast member, who was asked to describe the set, he responded with one word "mud", I suspect the cast of Meek's Cutoff would respond with one word "dust"
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans - 2009 - 3 3/4 Stars
Director: Werner Herzog
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Xzibit, Val Kilmer
My rating system is hardly set in stone, but this is my general criteria.
5 Stars - A perfect movie that is original or high concept
4 1/2 stars - A movie with minor flaws in conception or execution
4 stars - A movie that does what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.
3 1/2 stars - A movie that does some of what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.
I am not going to proceed past 3 1/2 stars since the above is just a setup so I can explain why I gave BL: PC-NO a quarter star. I haven't seen Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, but I have seen enough clips of it on youtube to understand the premise, he is a Lieutenant and he is Bad. My limited understanding of the original, my familiarity with Herzog/Kinski movies and my borderline expertise in the works of Nic Cage made me excited for this movie as soon as I saw a trailer for it. That was before I knew the movie would include Val Kilmer, Michael Shannon, Xzibit and other character actors who successfully counter balance or ratchet up Cage's insanity throughout the movie. If you want to see Nic Cage doing degenerate things that include taking a bump of cocaine while driving a 13 year old murder witness to a casino in Biloxi in the same movie you see Herzog pontificating via iguana cam this movie is for you.
BL: PC-NO other strength is a really strong sense of place. Most movies are set in LA or NYC or LA trying to be another city or some other city trying to be NYC. It is very nice that BL:PC-NO is actually shot in post-Katrina New Orleans. Herzog constantly reminds of us that via shots of the perpetually grey, rundown New Orleans skyline. He also uses the devastation to New Orleans thematically to parallel Cage's characters downward spiral and to showcase the general desperation motivating all of the characters. It also helps explain how Cage can get away with stealing so much contraband from police evidence without any of the higher ups noticing.
For a movie that stars a wired Nic Cage who is constantly dialed up to 11, Herzog still finds time to do a lot of pontificating that doesn't quite work, unless you are familiar enough with his work to find his half-baked existential philosophy charming, which I do. So this is a movie that "that does some of what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.", but also a movie that "does exactly what I hoped it would, but has some flaws" allowing me to put it safely in 3.75 star territory, at least i don't need to design a 3/4 full star graphic.
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Xzibit, Val Kilmer
My rating system is hardly set in stone, but this is my general criteria.
5 Stars - A perfect movie that is original or high concept
4 1/2 stars - A movie with minor flaws in conception or execution
4 stars - A movie that does what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.
3 1/2 stars - A movie that does some of what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.
I am not going to proceed past 3 1/2 stars since the above is just a setup so I can explain why I gave BL: PC-NO a quarter star. I haven't seen Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, but I have seen enough clips of it on youtube to understand the premise, he is a Lieutenant and he is Bad. My limited understanding of the original, my familiarity with Herzog/Kinski movies and my borderline expertise in the works of Nic Cage made me excited for this movie as soon as I saw a trailer for it. That was before I knew the movie would include Val Kilmer, Michael Shannon, Xzibit and other character actors who successfully counter balance or ratchet up Cage's insanity throughout the movie. If you want to see Nic Cage doing degenerate things that include taking a bump of cocaine while driving a 13 year old murder witness to a casino in Biloxi in the same movie you see Herzog pontificating via iguana cam this movie is for you.
BL: PC-NO other strength is a really strong sense of place. Most movies are set in LA or NYC or LA trying to be another city or some other city trying to be NYC. It is very nice that BL:PC-NO is actually shot in post-Katrina New Orleans. Herzog constantly reminds of us that via shots of the perpetually grey, rundown New Orleans skyline. He also uses the devastation to New Orleans thematically to parallel Cage's characters downward spiral and to showcase the general desperation motivating all of the characters. It also helps explain how Cage can get away with stealing so much contraband from police evidence without any of the higher ups noticing.
For a movie that stars a wired Nic Cage who is constantly dialed up to 11, Herzog still finds time to do a lot of pontificating that doesn't quite work, unless you are familiar enough with his work to find his half-baked existential philosophy charming, which I do. So this is a movie that "that does some of what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.", but also a movie that "does exactly what I hoped it would, but has some flaws" allowing me to put it safely in 3.75 star territory, at least i don't need to design a 3/4 full star graphic.
Caché - 2005 - 4 Stars
Director: Michael Haneke
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche.
Even if he directed English language features Michael Haneke would never be the most accessible or popular director, but Caché has such a strong premise that it could be (and probably already has been) turned into an mediocre popular found footage horror series, fortunately Haneke puts his own stamp on a strong premise to create an exceptional exercise in suspense. Caché is about a upper-class intellectual french couple (Auteuil and Binoche) who receive an anonymous videotape at their house. They put the cassette in their combination DVD/VCR player and see a still shot of the exterior of their house during an non-specific day in their life. We don't know who is mailing the tapes, what they want or even if they are dangerous, though every thriller ever made has trained us to be afraid of this unnamed messenger ... I realize this sounds a lot like Lost Highway, but any similarities one might see cease to exist by the 10 minute mark.
Binoche and Auteuil are worried about their potential stalker, especially because Auteuil is a minor celebrity, he hosts a public tv show that discusses literature; apparently those exist in France. Binoche's character, Ann Laurent (A Haneke trope not a Lost Highway allusion) occasionally feels like an audience surrogate as she tries to glean information from her husband, but she manages to credibly portray concern for her husband, curiosity about their situation and fear that her husband is lying to her, that we buy her line of questioning. Most thrillers require characters to be stupid out of narrative convenience; one of Caché's triumphs is that even as Binoche and Auteuil act relatively rationally they make limited progress and receive no catharsis. In typical horror movies we know to be scared because the hot girl went into a dark room by herself. In Caché there are no obvious contrivances and our leads tend to act intelligently in such a high stress situation. One would think acting intelligently would lead them out of this situation, but the characters and the audience do not get the catharsis they expect. The stalker feels malevolent and omnipresent, which creates a sense of perpetual dread. Haneke wisely avoids conventional cues that precede horrific events and rarely has more than 3 people in a scene, making us believe a fatal event could happen at any time.
Though surveillance cameras can be invasive, they have a bizarre integrity to them. No one is editing the footage, no one is even moving the camera, the frame has strict borders and it captures everything within them. There is no room for the truth to hide on a surveillance camera. Even basic tasks like fast-forwarding or rewinding show a different reality than what is presented in raw surveillance footage. There is a scene where Auteiul is in the editing room and even his low-budget show can cut out part of another panelist's arguments if they feel it will make a better finished product. A filmmaker could give the audience all the answers his film's world, but they choose how much information they dole out. Caché creates a false sense of integrity through surveillance cameras, we believe what we see in the rigid shots through the film, but Haneke is behind the curtain and he is in complete control.
Spoilers below
I'm pretty spoiler-phobic, so I barely touched on the plot beyond outlining the premise. This movie is also an allegory about how the French treated Algerians, but I can't really touch on that without explaining a lot of the plot/ talking about the last shot of the film. If anyone is actually reading this blog and wants to discuss that in the comments, feel free to comment.
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche.
Even if he directed English language features Michael Haneke would never be the most accessible or popular director, but Caché has such a strong premise that it could be (and probably already has been) turned into an mediocre popular found footage horror series, fortunately Haneke puts his own stamp on a strong premise to create an exceptional exercise in suspense. Caché is about a upper-class intellectual french couple (Auteuil and Binoche) who receive an anonymous videotape at their house. They put the cassette in their combination DVD/VCR player and see a still shot of the exterior of their house during an non-specific day in their life. We don't know who is mailing the tapes, what they want or even if they are dangerous, though every thriller ever made has trained us to be afraid of this unnamed messenger ... I realize this sounds a lot like Lost Highway, but any similarities one might see cease to exist by the 10 minute mark.
Binoche and Auteuil are worried about their potential stalker, especially because Auteuil is a minor celebrity, he hosts a public tv show that discusses literature; apparently those exist in France. Binoche's character, Ann Laurent (A Haneke trope not a Lost Highway allusion) occasionally feels like an audience surrogate as she tries to glean information from her husband, but she manages to credibly portray concern for her husband, curiosity about their situation and fear that her husband is lying to her, that we buy her line of questioning. Most thrillers require characters to be stupid out of narrative convenience; one of Caché's triumphs is that even as Binoche and Auteuil act relatively rationally they make limited progress and receive no catharsis. In typical horror movies we know to be scared because the hot girl went into a dark room by herself. In Caché there are no obvious contrivances and our leads tend to act intelligently in such a high stress situation. One would think acting intelligently would lead them out of this situation, but the characters and the audience do not get the catharsis they expect. The stalker feels malevolent and omnipresent, which creates a sense of perpetual dread. Haneke wisely avoids conventional cues that precede horrific events and rarely has more than 3 people in a scene, making us believe a fatal event could happen at any time.
Though surveillance cameras can be invasive, they have a bizarre integrity to them. No one is editing the footage, no one is even moving the camera, the frame has strict borders and it captures everything within them. There is no room for the truth to hide on a surveillance camera. Even basic tasks like fast-forwarding or rewinding show a different reality than what is presented in raw surveillance footage. There is a scene where Auteiul is in the editing room and even his low-budget show can cut out part of another panelist's arguments if they feel it will make a better finished product. A filmmaker could give the audience all the answers his film's world, but they choose how much information they dole out. Caché creates a false sense of integrity through surveillance cameras, we believe what we see in the rigid shots through the film, but Haneke is behind the curtain and he is in complete control.
Spoilers below
I'm pretty spoiler-phobic, so I barely touched on the plot beyond outlining the premise. This movie is also an allegory about how the French treated Algerians, but I can't really touch on that without explaining a lot of the plot/ talking about the last shot of the film. If anyone is actually reading this blog and wants to discuss that in the comments, feel free to comment.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Midnight in Paris - 2011 - 3 Stars
Cast: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Michael Fassbender
Director: Woody Allen
Midnight in Paris, the latest Woody Allen film, is about a Hollywood-screenwriter and Allen-surrogate played by Owen Wilson who has grand literary ambitions, but can't put them on paper. Wilson does a nice job of making the Allen-surrogate his own and provides his own unique gentile charm that is nice change of pace from the typical Woody characters. Like all late period Allen-surrogates Wilson has a gorgeous, shrew of a fiance, played by Rachel McAdams. McAdams is such a warm screen presence that she almost makes the character undetestable, but falls just short. Wilson travels around contemporary Paris with a rotating cast of his fiance, her parents and a pompous intellectual played perfectly by Michael Sheen. While some of the performances make this section of the film affable, the dialogue is very heavy handed, especially in a painful scene where Wilson brings up his father-in-law's support of the Tea Party.
One night while walking around Paris the clock strikes midnight and Wilson is transported into the 1920s where he is free to hobnob with Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Luis Bunuel among others. Allen wisely avoids trying to explain any of the logistics behind the conceit; the film is a fantasy and creating strict rules would weigh down the film. If the fantasy above is one you have had before, you will love this movie, if not, you will still be mildly entertained. Once Wilson arrives in Paris, there are few surprises, he meets his heroes, gets to make 85 jokes where the punchline is predicated in historical irony and lives out the fantasy of being in "a golden era". The movie's climax is a "minor insight", so anyone expecting more than a trifle will be disappointed.
There is a scene in American Masters: Woody Allen where we see Woody rummaging through loose sheets of yellow legal pad on his bed, each piece of paper has a comedic premise like, "A man inherits all the magic tricks of a great magician". One quickly realizes that even a prolific worker like Woody will generate a lot more premises than actual movies. Woody ends this scene by saying "I'll spend an hour thinking of that and it'll go no place and i'll go onto the next one." Midnight in Paris is a charming daydream, but a minor movie; maybe Woody should have grabbed the next piece of paper from the pile.
Monday, February 27, 2012
California Split - 1974 - 4 1/2 Stars
Actors: George Segal and Elliot Gould
Director: Robert Altman
"Gambling is a disease, but it's the only disease where you can win lots of money!" - Norm Macdonald
There is a myth that people will like art about subjects they are experts about. I read a lot of Moneyball reviews that said "I loved it and I am not even a baseball fan!". For me those reviews missed the point because I disliked Moneyball and I am a baseball fan. My criticisms of the movie read like Bart Simpson's commentary on Aaahhh! Wilderness!, "The guys who wrote this show don't know squat. Itchy should have tied Scratchy's tongue with a taut-line hitch, not a sheet bend."
As someone who has spent a lot of time gambling and has had every gambling movie ever recommended to me; I tend to find gambling movies infuriating and as my expectations erode my pedantry remains fierce as ever. I decided to withhold my cynicism for California Split because of Altman's pedigree and fortunately my high expectations were met. The Hustler is the best movie about gambling I have seen, but California Split is the best gambling movie I have seen. The Hustler is about being cursed with a talent that forces you to live in a repugnant world; it didn't need to be about a gambler. California Split embraces the culture of gambling and gives a frank, non-judgmental portrayal of it that I haven't seen before.
Altman's films tend to deal with fringe characters; he casts non-traditional heroes and his overlapping dialogue makes the audience aware our heroes aren't the only people in the world. California Split uses both these techniques to great effect. George Segal and Elliot Gould are run of the mill recreational gambling addicts, sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but regardless they are at the casino/fights/track on payday. They leave the grandstands as soon a race is finished, why stand around when you can get fresh bets in? I am so used to seeing Gould and Segal play elderly Jewish buffoons that I forgot how cool they once were; Gould's charm carries most of the film, which has a loose episodic structure, a wise choice that illustrates that most of the events of the film are run of the mill for our leads.
The loose structure allows Altman to show that gambling can actually be fun and gives the movie a lived in feel that accurately shows that when you live in a gambling culture any event, like a fight in the crowd during a boxing match, can bet bet on and every action from "Hit me!" to "I hope this gets her to sleep with me" is viewed as a gamble. Gambling is not the most tragic vice, but it is the most melancholy. Unlike other vices gambling is scalable; it's much easier to bet 10 times up as much, than smoke/drink/snort 10 times as much. Gambling's scalablity always creates a twinge of regret; even when one wins they wish they bet more or quit at their peak. California Split's strength is presenting gambling's melancholy insatiability in a film that make it seem so damn fun.
NB: I almost gave this 5 stars, but didn't want to kick off my blog with two 5 star reviews. I think California Split is a 4 star movie, but it deals with one of my favorite subjects in such a strong way that it's a 5 star movie for me. I decided to split the difference and give it 4 1/2. I hope Zombie Robert Altman will forgive me.
Certified Copy - 2010 - 5 Stars
Actors: Juliette Binoche, William Shimell
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Spoilers Below - This is a movie that's plot is so light that it's almost impossible to talk about the movie without having seen it. Anyone reading this should trust me and see the movie immediately, it's on Netflix WI in Canada.
Certified Copy opens with William Shimell's character lecturing about his book, Certified Copy, which discusses replication and authenticity in art. Why is a counterfeit less valuable than an original? What is the difference between being inspired by someone and copying someone? These sorts of questions are constantly asked in visual art in exhibits like Sherrie Levine's "After Walker Evans". Personally I find those pieces of visual art to be smart-alecky and cold. At points Certified Copy feels like it might just be a formalist exercise, which can be intolerable over the course of a full length feature: once you understand the filmmaker's thesis you don't want to watch any more of the movie.
Fortunately CC is such a well executed film that it doesn't feel clever even though it is. This is my first Kiarostami film and he is an excellent technician, each shot is purposeful and showcases the themes of the movie, especially an early shot where the streets of Tuscany are reflected through the windshield of a car driven by Binoche. CC is so successful because the performances by Binoche and Shimell, the latter an opera singer who has never acted before brings the regal iciness one would expect from a British baritone, are so strong that you need to be made of stone to not emote during the film. As the film ends I thought to myself they are just people projected on a screen, why do you care what happens to them? Exactly.
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