Lost In Translation

Three Days Of The Condor

I  recently saw Steven Soderbergh’s film Out of Sight and while in the trunk of the car George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez talk about movies and refer to Three Days of the Condor and the relationship between Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. I remember seeing it, but I couldn’t remember it well. So I decided to revisit it and it was a charming thriller with a great supporting cast with the likes of Max Von Sydow and John Houseman.  It depicts the gritty 70s NYC well. I can’t help but wonder if there is more homage than the reference in the trunk-the end has a freeze frame-Out of Sight opens with a freeze frame. Soderbergh mentions that the bedroom scene was modeled on a scene from a Nicolas Roeg film, but I can see traces of love scene from this film there as well. I think this belongs with the other great NYC 70s classics like Dog Day Afternoon, The French Connection, Serpico, The Marathon Man, etc.

Out of Sight

I’ve been a fan of Stephen Soderbergh for many years now. But I was inspired to get a copy of his comeback hit based on Elmore Leonard’s novel, Out of Sight. I mainly got it for the extra features, which includes a dialogue with Soderbergh and Scott Frank, who adapted the screenplay. I think their conversation could be a seminar on film making as they explained the process for the script changes and directorial decisions for a majority of scenes. Some of their changes were very effectively, especially the flashbacks, which apparently weren’t in the book, and as Soderbergh points out one of the main scenes isn’t as effective at the beginning of the book, because we’re not invested in the character yet. It also has a great cast with George Clooney (Their first time collaboration), Jennifer Lopez, Steve Zahn, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Dennis Farina, etc…It’s difficult what to call this film. Is it a heist film? A romance? A comedy? It has elements of all of these and more. I thought the soundtrack was really effective as well. Soderbergh usually makes all the right decisions in terms of lighting, cinematography and pacing through editing. All in all a really entertaining and well-executed film that brought Sodenbergh and company a lot of well deserved clout and accolades.

Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters

I recently bought and watched the Criterion Collection edition of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters directed by Paul Schrader. You may remember Schrader as the screenplay writer of Taxi Driver and director of American Gigolo and Cat People. This package has a new, restored high-definition digital transfer of the director’s cut with new audio commentary from Schrader and producer Alan Poul. The second disk has video interviews with cinematographer John Bailey, producers Tom Luddy and Mataichiro Yamamoto, composer Phillip Glass, and production designer Eiko Ishioka. In addition, new video interviews with Mishima biographer John Nathan and friend Donald Richie. Other features include: an audio interview with Chieko Schrader, a video interview featuring Mishima talking about writing, and The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima, a 55 minute BBC documentary. There’s a booklet that has a new essay by critic Kevin Jackson, a piece on the film’s censorship in Japan and photographs of Ishioka’s sets-which are pretty spectacular. It is a fascinating story of how the production got made and the struggles they had to make the film in Japanese with an almost all Japanese crew and American director. And the film is a triumph and the score by Glass has become a sort of classic and some of it was used in The Truman Show as well. The film is a complex intermingling of Mishima’s biography, his last day where he committed seppuku, and adaptations of his fiction: The Golden Pavilion, Runaway Horses, and Kyoko’s House (which has yet to be translated into English). Add to this: sublime production values, impressive cinematography, evocative acting, and a memorable musical score and you have an art house classic.

New Cult Canon: Trust

I used to be a big Hal Hartley (does he still make films?) fan and I think it was The Unbelievable Truth that got me interested in his films. But Trust was one of my favorites and it gets the AV Club treatment here:

What happened to Hal Hartley?

Back in the early ’90s, Hartley was the epitome of cool in the indie world, doubling down on the deadpan minimalism of Jim Jarmusch while asserting his own unmistakable cadences. Key films like The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Simple Men, Amateur, and the hour-long “Surviving Desire”—all produced within a fertile five or six-year period—established Hartley as something like the voice of his generation, or at least a voice for college-age Gen X-ers who appreciated his balance of brittle wit, Godardian deconstruction, and occasional moments of genuine feeling and insight into matters of the heart. At the time, it was inconceivable that the arguments over his work—or the legions of passionate Hartley devotees, for that matter—would ever go away. But his staying power has undeniably diminished as his career has crept further and further toward the margins. To give but one example: 1990’s Trust, perhaps his signature film and easily among his best, isn’t even available on DVD in America. And that’s no longer true of, say, Howard The Duck. (It can be watched, however, as an instant viewing selection on Netflix.)

 

Ashes of American Flags

It seems I’m old enough to indulge in nostalgia-something I resisted when I was younger. I think it is always there, but I refused to look back when there’s so much to look forward to. But after seeing Wilco’s new concert video, Ashes of American Flags, it makes me realize that I have yet to see one of my most personally revered bands live. I think that they may have played festivals in Japan but I don’t think they’ve toured here. I may be wrong, but I also remember missing the “Being There” tour when they came to Seattle because I didn’t have anyone to go with. I should have went alone. Anyway, the video is a close second to having been there, but I resolve to see them if they ever set foot in Japan again. Wilco is one of my all time favorite bands. And I have respected Jeff Tweedy since he was in Uncle Tupelo. I couldn’t help but sing along with my favorites like “Via Chicago” and “A Shot In The Arm” and marvel at the show where they had a horns section that fleshed out their live sound. I need to witness it myself. 

The New Cult Canon: Brick

It seems that  Brick is one of those films that you either love or hate-I would fall into the "love" but not passionately, more along the lines of "like" it like a brother:

In lesser hands, this could have happened to Brick, Rian Johnson’s risky attempt to bring the hard-boiled language and plotting of post-war detective fiction to a contemporary high-school setting. The obvious pitfall would be the embarrassing spectacle of junior Humphrey Bogarts and Veronica Lakes acting like grown-ups; noir relies on a measure of world-weary cynicism, and even a generation as naturally sarcastic as the younger set might have trouble suggesting that seen-it-all wisdom—or smoking a cigarette properly, for that matter. The other, related pitfall is taking the gimmick too far and letting the movie-movie artifice overwhelm any authentic emotions or original ideas; go too heavy with the homage, and you’ve got a smart-alecky curiosity, not a movie. 

Johnson threads the needle a hundred different ways, but before getting into all the little things he gets right, here’s how the concept pays off: The common denominator between crime fiction and high school is a mood of heightened emotion obscured by a thin veneer of cool. There’s never a time in a person’s life where they feel things more intensely than in high school, nor is there a time when they labor as hard to keep those feelings under wraps. By evoking the stylized, rat-a-tat dialogue of vintage Dashiell Hammett detective novels—with words like “yeggs” (guys), “heel” (walk away), “jake” (drugs), “shamus” (detective), et al.—Johnson finds a new way to suggest teenagers’ capacity for couching their real problems in language. He also raises the stakes: Crime fiction deals with matters of life and death, and if that isn’t literally true of adolescence, it certainly feels that way to those on the inside. So by introducing a dead body into the equation, Johnson provides an incident that justifies that level of intensity.  

Frost/Nixon

Films that are based on plays need to walk a fine line between cinematic success and theatric exposition recorded on film. David Mamet’s extraordinary Glen Gary Glenn Ross is an example of a successful play adaptation, and on a smaller scale I think the same can be said of the adaptation of Peter Morgan’s play Frost/Nixon.  It isn’t really the story of Nixon, but of the little know underdog British reporter who landed one of the most sought after interviews of all-time, the first with Nixon after his resignation. There’s plenty of drama as Frost tries to gain respectability and line up sponsors to pay the outrageous fee.  Frank Langella avoided caricature in his nuanced turn at Nixon. I thought relatively unknown Michael Sheen was charming and smarmy as you suspect Frost was. I think Rebecca Hall is an up-and-comer; she was one of the best things about the over-rated VickyChristinaBarcelona. I was pulled in by the historical content and the drama of the situation, Sheen had to make his character sympathetic and I think he succeeded. Great supporting cast as well with Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon, and several more.

New Cult Canon: The Big Lewbowski

I just recently got the 10th anniversary edition of The Big Lebowski on DVD and it is a true classic, a skillfully written ensemble piece that is completely original and entertaining. The AV Club gives it its proper treatment as a cult classic:

That said, who doesn’t love The Dude? And who’s to say he isn’t a hero anyway? Inspired by Raymond Chandler detective novels—and the hazy L.A. vibe of Robert Altman’s brilliant Chandler adaptation The Long Goodbye—the Coens have created a character not far removed from Elliott Gould’s Marlowe in the Altman movie, a laid-back gumshoe dragged reluctantly into a case his conscience (and curiosity) quietly implores him to solve. Just as Marlowe would much rather hang out with his cat and the commune of free-spirited (read: frequently topless) hippie women next door, The Dude would like nothing more than the peace of a hot bath, a doob, and the soothing sounds of bellowing whales piped through his Walkman headphones. But the funniest running joke of The Big Lebowski is that someone is always there to drop the proverbial ferret in the water: The laziest man in Los Angeles County, the ultimate in live-and-let-live hippie pacifism, is constantly being pushed out of his shell. 

It all starts with the carpet-pissers. And that’s another brilliant thing about the shaggy-dog plotting of The Big Lebowski: By and large, the incidents that drive the story along are, in The Stranger’s words, “stupefying” in their absurd triviality. (The Coens pulled the same trick off again—to much more sweeping effect—with last year’s underrated Burn After Reading, which whips up a maelstrom of intrigue over an item of absolutely no value whatsoever.) Had the carpet-pissing goons not mistaken The Dude for the other Jeffrey Lebowski—the wealthy, wheelchair-bound businessman whose trophy wife (in the parlance of our times) owes money all over town—there’s no movie here. That rug “really tied the room together,” and The Dude’s quest to replace it leads him to get mixed up with a phony kidnapping scheme, a band of nihilists, tittering avant-garde artists, a pornographer, the fascist Malibu police chief, Saddam Hussein (as a bowling-alley clerk), and one Larry Sellers, a hollow-eyed young D-student who may have run off with $1 million in ransom money. 

The Dude’s sidekick throughout his adventures is John Goodman’s Walter Sobchak, a short-tempered, well-armed Vietnam vet (and practicing Jewish convert) who tends to view everythingthrough the prism of his war experience, no matter how slight or tangentially related. After watching his buddies “die face-down in the muck,” Walter feels entitled to a world that’s just and orderly, even if his idea of what that world might look like is completely absurd, distorted, and overblown. When a competitor steps over the line, out comes the handgun. (“This is not ’Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.”) When a waitress asks him to pipe down a little at a diner, he lectures her on the concept of “prior restraint.” And though he claims to have “dabbled in pacifism,” his hair-trigger aggression thoroughly violates The Dude’s peacenik philosophy, feeding into a hilarious dynamic of mutual exasperation. Still, they aren’t the opposites they appear to be. Both are outsiders, both are men out of time, and both are deeply suspicious of The Man. The Dude acts embarrassed when, late in the film, Walter drags Lebowski out of his wheelchair to prove he’s faking his disability, but there’s probably a side of him that suspects his friend may be on to something. Their oddball chemistry sparks one unforgettable exchange after another, including this scene, where they and their bowling teammate Donny (Steve Buscemi, as amusingly meek and unassertive as he was brash and talky in the Coens’ previous film, Fargo) discuss the rug-pissing incident: 

Golden Week Films

I was somewhat interested in seeing Gran Torino after re-watching the excellent Unforgiven recently. I think elements of the film were interesting, but hose thing were mostly glossed over. It would have been more interesting if they had spent more time talking about the role of the Hmong in Vietnam and how they have or haven’t integrated into American society-instead it was colorful insults of bigoted working class Americans. I felt it was overrated but it’s the kind of thing that major wards academies like. Can Eastwood effectively play the tough guy anymore? Perhaps miscast. 

Elegy is an adaptation of a Philip Roth novel, The Dying Animal. I haven’t read it but it seems that he has written his last 10 books on sex, old age, and death. So as Woody Allen makes the same film over and over again-Roth writes the same book over and over. Kinsley is great and Penelope Cruz pulls off the student look in a beautifully filmed movie laden with stereotypes. It is beautiful but depressing.

Tell No One is a French adaptation of an American crime novel by Harlan Coben. It is a fascinating film directed by Guillaume Canet. It calls to mind several great European thrillers-at first the inexplicable video footage of his dead wife calls to mind Peter Handke’s brilliant Cache, and the bucolic European landscapes in contemporary European films seem to suggest dread and certain death: the aerial shots of the cars driving through the forests remind me of Handke’s Funny Games and the serial killer film The Vanishing. But it is a mystery film that keeps the viewer guessing and watching. I also liked how the doctor played by the mesmerizing François Cluzet turns to his gangster client Bruno to hide him and help him find out who is trying to set him up. At this point we leave gentile civilized Paris of elites and visit the ghetto of the marginalized former colonies of France-the mean streets of Paris. I was engaged throughout the well-paced film. It is a first class thriller.

Revisiting Revenge

I recently re-watched a couple of great revenge films from the 90s. The first was The Limey (1999) directed by Steven Soderbergh and the second was Unforgiven (1992) by Clint Eastwood. I was inspired to get the DVD of The Limey because it was said to have an interesting DVD commentary and it was; Soderbergh defends his choices for the film with the screenwriter Lem Dobbs second-guessing him. I was struck by the experimental fragmentation of the story and dialogue that took place and made it sort of arty-instead of a standard revenge thriller-I didn’t remember that about the film. Terrance Stamp is great as “the limey” on a mission. Also, it has a great soundtrack and lots of Luis Guzman-always a good thing.  I wanted to see Unforgiven again because a Japanese colleague of mine said he was writing a paper about it. I couldn’t remember the story well, but the strongest impressions I had was that it was a revisionist western and that Gene Hackman was really good as the cruel sheriff. The revenge sequence happens very late in the film near the end, but there was plenty of entertainment in Eastwood’s conversations with Morgan Freeman and the kid. I was reading about it and saw that Hackman beat out Pacino in Glengarry Glenn Ross for Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but Pacino got one for his “Hoo-ha-ing” in Scent of A Woman the next year.