So I spent most of the day at a baby shower. Where I got good and drunk at the behest of the mother-to-be. Since she couldn't drink, I promised to drink enough for both of us.
So what could be better after a drunken baby shower than to go see a movie about an 8 months pregnant woman whose unborn child is telling her to kill? And kill she does. Hilarious black comedy, and Alice Lowe (SIGHTSEERS) does a fantastic job writing, directing, and starring in this. Woman power!
Running Time: 88 minutes
My Total Minutes: 428,054
Showing posts with label roxie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label roxie. Show all posts
Friday, June 2, 2017
Jason watches RADIO DREAMS
A fun little flick that played recently at the Roxie. Set in a Farsi-language radio station and starring Mohsen Namjoo and his glorious head of hair (as a fellow big haired guy, I'm impressed.) He plays the station’s program manager, Hamid. And he deals with all sorts of difficult talent, bills, and an owner who wants to take the station away from him. But he's got his dream, and his plan. A triumphant live musical broadcast of Metallica (Lars Ulrich cameos) and Kabul Dreams--Afghanistan's first rock band (who are a real band and are featured in the film.) A fun movie, with probably more social relevance than my drunk ass could appreciate at the time.
Yeah, of course I was drunk, I was coming from a baby shower.
Running Time: 93 minutes
My Total Minutes: 427,966
Yeah, of course I was drunk, I was coming from a baby shower.
Running Time: 93 minutes
My Total Minutes: 427,966
Friday, August 22, 2014
Jason watches HAPPY CHRISTMAS
Indie cinema luminary and longtime Roxie/Indiefest favorite Joe Swanberg has a new film out. And it's a sweet, loving story of siblings, love, family, and growing up. Joe plays Jeff, an independent filmmaker (if he's not careful, he might get typecast) with a lovely writer wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey) and a young son Jude (played by Joe's real-life son Jude.) When his sister Jenny (Anna Kendrick) breaks up with her boyfriend, she moves in temporarily, at least long enough to spend the holidays with them. But she's also kind of a drunken fuck-up party girl who puts a bit of strain on Joe and Kelly's quiet family life. Swanberg's movies are often not so much about story as about creating some sort of emotional truth to his scenes. And he's definitely got that here, not just emotional truth but emotional maturity which is very nice (not that I didn't like his more gonzo early films, but it's just cool to see this guy consistently mature as both a filmmaker and human being.)
And afterwards, we had a brief Q&A with Joe via Skype, and then next door to the bar for a fond farewell to Mike Keegan at the Roxie (Keegan will still be a vital part of the SF Cinema scene, just not as a member of the Roxie staff.)
Running Time: 88 minutes
My Total Minutes: 368,742
And afterwards, we had a brief Q&A with Joe via Skype, and then next door to the bar for a fond farewell to Mike Keegan at the Roxie (Keegan will still be a vital part of the SF Cinema scene, just not as a member of the Roxie staff.)
Running Time: 88 minutes
My Total Minutes: 368,742
Jason watches THE DANCE OF REALITY
Ah...Alejandro Jodorowsky, being his Jodorowskiest. Making it a whole family affair, he casts his own son as his overbearing, Stalin-worshiping father (and his other sons as an Anarchist and a Theosophist.) He creates a surreal auto-biography full of allegory, religion, politics, vivid visuals, pornography, child abuse, and dick jokes. Jodorowsky has often said he tries to achieve through cinema what most people achieve through recreational drugs. I think he has succeeded here, but it might also be a movie that only appeals to die-hard Jodorowsky fans.
Running Time: 130 minutes
My Total Minutes: 368,398
Running Time: 130 minutes
My Total Minutes: 368,398
Jason watches LIFE ITSELF
Watching Roger Ebert's life...and death...unfold on screen is really pretty interesting. I have to admit I never really dug his taste in movies. But I always admired his passion for film. And the behind-the-scenes look at some of the very real friction between him and Siskel was pretty interesting (and for all their arguments, they turned out to be great friends.) And his embrace of new media--blogging and tweeting not just about movies but about...well, life itself was really great. I think I really found new appreciation for him as a writer reading his blog (especially as a blogger myself...but if he was top-tier blogger I would be something like a...fifth tier blogger.) And he will always be my go-to example of the democratizing effect of social media. I was at a film festival, seeing something like my 3rd movie in a 5 movie day, when I checked Twitter on my phone between films and learned--from Roger Ebert--that the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) had been passed. That's pretty cool. And so is this film.
Running Time: 120 minutes
My Total Minutes: 368,268
Running Time: 120 minutes
My Total Minutes: 368,268
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Jason goes to Holehead the Roxie and watches IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY?
So I meant to make it to Holehead for the 7:00 screening of ON AIR. But I had to work a little late, and the Balboa Theater is way up in the hinterlands of the Outer Richmond. If it was still at the Roxie like in previous years, I would be there in plenty of time, but by the time I got on BART it was clear I wouldn't make it there before 7:30 at the absolute earliest (if I didn't have to wait for a bus at all.) So...I just stopped at 16th and Mission and caught...whatever was playing at the Roxie.
IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY? is an animated conversation between director Michel Gondry and linguist/intellectual/activist/one of the most influential men in the world Noam Chomsky. And when I say it's animated, it's both lively and presented as animation. In fact, in the introductory remarks, said over animated footage of him animating the movie, Gondry explains how all movies purporting to show the philosophy and ideas of a person is actually a lie. The director necessarily has to edit it down to a watchable size, and in doing so the director chooses what to keep, what to throw out, and how to arrange everything. Therefore the movie becomes the director's philosophy, not the subjects. Seeing no way to overcome that, Gondry instead uses animation to emphasize this, to show the unmistakable hand of the director. Also, it makes it a lot more fun to watch than a talking head.
By the Way, in the same way this review is not Gondry's vision, nor Chomsky's. I've done my best to accurately reflect the film (from memory, after one viewing) but I choose the words and what points to emphasize. As much as I'm trying to tell you about Chomsky, or Gondry, I know (and you should to) that I will end up telling you more about myself.
Chomsky himself is a fascinating man and one of the preeminent thinkers on the subject of thinking. I love his explanation of Galileo's great philosophical leap--to be puzzled by what seems simple and obvious (e.g., the Aristotelian view that rocks fall and steam rises because it is finding it's natural place.) And he claims our understanding of linguistics is still at the Aristotelian stage and needs to find the capacity to be puzzled by things that seem simple. For example, what's a dog? Gondry starts by musing how he saw pictures of dogs (or tigers, or any number of exotic animals) before he saw one in real life, and it's interesting how he can know a creature is a dog the first time he sees it in real life. But Chomsky counters this, and explains that what you think of when you think 'dog' is not the physical form. It's something physicists can't measure (yet...as a physicist I have to be stubborn and insist someday we'll be able to do anything.) It's "psychic continuity"--whatever trait a being (or even object) maintains whether or not it changes its physical form. If a spell was cast on a dog and turned it into a camel, then the spell was reversed and it returned to its dog form, a child can tell you it was the same being all along. Similarly if I take a branch from a tree and use it to grow a new tree, it has the same DNA as the original tree. But even if it grows to the same shape it's not the same tree. For that matter (and this part isn't in the movie, it's something I thought about during this discussion) I don't know if I have any molecule in my body that has been there since birth. Yet my "me-ness" has persisted uninterrupted quite well, thank you. Here's the kicker--as far as we can tell, other animals don't think that way. For them if a dog turned into a camel, that's a different animal. Humans are the only ones who think in terms of psychic continuity, as far as we know.
Anyway, the conversation continues, it becomes self-referential as Gondry starts talking about wanting to finish the movie so Chomsky can see it, and commenting on the rough cuts. This poor blog couldn't possibly cover it all, but it's a fascinating conversation that occasionally made my head spin but always kept my interest.
Running Time: 88 minutes
My Total Minutes: 344,304
IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY? is an animated conversation between director Michel Gondry and linguist/intellectual/activist/one of the most influential men in the world Noam Chomsky. And when I say it's animated, it's both lively and presented as animation. In fact, in the introductory remarks, said over animated footage of him animating the movie, Gondry explains how all movies purporting to show the philosophy and ideas of a person is actually a lie. The director necessarily has to edit it down to a watchable size, and in doing so the director chooses what to keep, what to throw out, and how to arrange everything. Therefore the movie becomes the director's philosophy, not the subjects. Seeing no way to overcome that, Gondry instead uses animation to emphasize this, to show the unmistakable hand of the director. Also, it makes it a lot more fun to watch than a talking head.
By the Way, in the same way this review is not Gondry's vision, nor Chomsky's. I've done my best to accurately reflect the film (from memory, after one viewing) but I choose the words and what points to emphasize. As much as I'm trying to tell you about Chomsky, or Gondry, I know (and you should to) that I will end up telling you more about myself.
Chomsky himself is a fascinating man and one of the preeminent thinkers on the subject of thinking. I love his explanation of Galileo's great philosophical leap--to be puzzled by what seems simple and obvious (e.g., the Aristotelian view that rocks fall and steam rises because it is finding it's natural place.) And he claims our understanding of linguistics is still at the Aristotelian stage and needs to find the capacity to be puzzled by things that seem simple. For example, what's a dog? Gondry starts by musing how he saw pictures of dogs (or tigers, or any number of exotic animals) before he saw one in real life, and it's interesting how he can know a creature is a dog the first time he sees it in real life. But Chomsky counters this, and explains that what you think of when you think 'dog' is not the physical form. It's something physicists can't measure (yet...as a physicist I have to be stubborn and insist someday we'll be able to do anything.) It's "psychic continuity"--whatever trait a being (or even object) maintains whether or not it changes its physical form. If a spell was cast on a dog and turned it into a camel, then the spell was reversed and it returned to its dog form, a child can tell you it was the same being all along. Similarly if I take a branch from a tree and use it to grow a new tree, it has the same DNA as the original tree. But even if it grows to the same shape it's not the same tree. For that matter (and this part isn't in the movie, it's something I thought about during this discussion) I don't know if I have any molecule in my body that has been there since birth. Yet my "me-ness" has persisted uninterrupted quite well, thank you. Here's the kicker--as far as we can tell, other animals don't think that way. For them if a dog turned into a camel, that's a different animal. Humans are the only ones who think in terms of psychic continuity, as far as we know.
Anyway, the conversation continues, it becomes self-referential as Gondry starts talking about wanting to finish the movie so Chomsky can see it, and commenting on the rough cuts. This poor blog couldn't possibly cover it all, but it's a fascinating conversation that occasionally made my head spin but always kept my interest.
Running Time: 88 minutes
My Total Minutes: 344,304
Friday, October 18, 2013
Jason watches ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW
This movie made quite a bit of news recently as 'The movie that was shot without permission, guerrilla-style, in Disneyworld' (to a lesser extent, it's also the movie that takes a bit of a conspiracy-theory swipe at Siemens, as the sponsor of Spaceship Earth in EPCOT.) Then as it rolled out, it became the target of a bit of backlash, as reviewers started lodging a few complaints, most notably:
These all--except maybe the last one--are valid to a greater or lesser extent. Yes, it's not particularly breaking news to point out that fake castles are fake. But you know what else is shallow, artificial, and uninteresting? Writing an entire article about how critiquing shallow artifice is uninteresting.
Yes (double yes!) that following the young French girls is super-creepy. But then again, well-crafted creepiness is rarely boring. Perhaps seeing this as a simple critique of shallow artifice is missing the point. Is it perhaps critiquing the ever-younger sexualization of girls (didn't Miley Cyrus start out as a Disney star?) Is it perhaps taking the idea of Disney as a 'place where dreams come true' to it's logical (and creepy) extreme? Is the Happiest Place on Earth in a stranger's snatch?
The movie is weird, I haven't gotten to the least of it. And at times it's clearly weird for the fun of it. But I don't think it's just that. I suspect there's more.
I suspect I (and most reviewers) can't get a solid handle on it. But just because I don't know entirely what it's about doesn't mean it doesn't know.
It's worth a look. Possibly worth several looks. But I can't guarantee you'll like all of what you see.
Running Time: 90 minutes
My Total Minutes: 339,092
- It's not particularly incisive to note that Disney is full of shallow artifice, and so are the families that visit there.
- It's super creepy to have the father (Roy Abramsohn) lusting after two underage French girls the whole movie.
- The movie is just weird for the sake of being weird.
- The movie just doesn't know what it's about.
These all--except maybe the last one--are valid to a greater or lesser extent. Yes, it's not particularly breaking news to point out that fake castles are fake. But you know what else is shallow, artificial, and uninteresting? Writing an entire article about how critiquing shallow artifice is uninteresting.
Yes (double yes!) that following the young French girls is super-creepy. But then again, well-crafted creepiness is rarely boring. Perhaps seeing this as a simple critique of shallow artifice is missing the point. Is it perhaps critiquing the ever-younger sexualization of girls (didn't Miley Cyrus start out as a Disney star?) Is it perhaps taking the idea of Disney as a 'place where dreams come true' to it's logical (and creepy) extreme? Is the Happiest Place on Earth in a stranger's snatch?
The movie is weird, I haven't gotten to the least of it. And at times it's clearly weird for the fun of it. But I don't think it's just that. I suspect there's more.
I suspect I (and most reviewers) can't get a solid handle on it. But just because I don't know entirely what it's about doesn't mean it doesn't know.
It's worth a look. Possibly worth several looks. But I can't guarantee you'll like all of what you see.
Running Time: 90 minutes
My Total Minutes: 339,092
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Jason watches FOX AND HIS FRIENDS
The Roxie is currently running a program of Fassbinder films, and then the program continues at the YBCA. This is the only one I've made it out to so far, and I don't know if I'll make any of the others. In any case, it's a powerful emotional story of a hard-luck gay carnival worker (um,...that is he's a gay man who works in a carnival, the carnival itself isn't gay...at least no gayer than your typical carnival) played by Fassbinder himself. He loses his job in the opening scenes (as his act is broken up by the police) and he has to run a scam just to get 10 measly marks. Which he promptly uses to play the lottery. In the next seen, we see him hob-nobbing with rich folk, as he has just won half a million marks. So he runs with a new crowd, takes a new lover, and...still doesn't fit in. On the one hand, money can't buy class. On the other hand, his new friends are a bunch of elitist pricks who are just sponging off his money until they bleed him dry. Nasty work, but brilliantly executed and pretty powerful.
Plus I like the idea that the Fox News show Fox and Friends is secretly an homage to this classic of queer cinema. I don't like it enough to actually watch Fox and Friends, but still...
I saw this at the end of a day that started with INTOLERANCE and THE WICKER MAN at the Castro. That was an interesting progression. INTOLERANCE is a strongly religious, Christian film, showcasing the inhumanity of man and presenting love--particularly the love of Jesus Christ--as the answer. THE WICKER MAN is a profoundly anti-religious film, declaring God to be dead and touting pagan worship and sexuality (after all, the naked pagan ladies are what first drew me to the WICKER MAN.) And then FOX AND HIS FRIENDS starts off with (gay) sex, showcases a lot of it, and ultimately is a bitter showcase of inhumanity. Nicely closed circle, don't you think?
Running Time: 123 minutes
My Total Minutes: 338,462
Plus I like the idea that the Fox News show Fox and Friends is secretly an homage to this classic of queer cinema. I don't like it enough to actually watch Fox and Friends, but still...
I saw this at the end of a day that started with INTOLERANCE and THE WICKER MAN at the Castro. That was an interesting progression. INTOLERANCE is a strongly religious, Christian film, showcasing the inhumanity of man and presenting love--particularly the love of Jesus Christ--as the answer. THE WICKER MAN is a profoundly anti-religious film, declaring God to be dead and touting pagan worship and sexuality (after all, the naked pagan ladies are what first drew me to the WICKER MAN.) And then FOX AND HIS FRIENDS starts off with (gay) sex, showcases a lot of it, and ultimately is a bitter showcase of inhumanity. Nicely closed circle, don't you think?
Running Time: 123 minutes
My Total Minutes: 338,462
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Jason takes a Midnites for Maniacs theatre crawl and goes Back to Skool
Catching up on my blogging, almost a week late.
Anyway, Midnites 4 Maniacs has introduced a new wrinkle, the "Theatre Crawl"--seeing multiple movies in multiple theatres (like a bar crawl, but with movies instead of drinking...and with drinking if you stop in any of the many convenience stores and smuggle in some alcohol.)
Anyway, last Friday was Back to Skool night, and we started at the Castro.
CAN'T HARDLY WAIT (1998): A movie that looked uninteresting to me when it came out (and I had just graduated college.) But now from my vantage point 15 years later...I understand why it didn't interest me. I was not a social person in high school. Nor did I want to be. The idea of going to an end-of-school party (even with a ridiculous revenge plot) just wouldn't appeal to me. I came out of my shell somewhat in college, but I don't think I've really become "me" until the last few years, and I'm probably still a work in progress who likes to be alone quite a lot of the time.
But wait, this is supposed to be a review of the movie, not a review of me. Yeah, it's actually pretty funny, for what it is. And you get to see a young Seth Green being absolutely ridiculous. Mostly I liked the irony in the title: CAN'T HARDLY WAIT is about a bunch of young people who waited until the last possible minute to do what they've been dreaming about for years. The thing is, most everyone who likes this movie likes it because there's a character they relate to. They can all say, "I was (or am) just like that character who ______!" But me...the closest I can say is "I was just like the character who never appeared on screen because he didn't give a crap about the party (no one told him about it anyway) and he stayed home and read a book." Consider me Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Film.
RULES OF ATTRACTION (2002): Now this was a revelation. Again, I didn't pay much attention when it came out. All I remember was it starred teen heartthrob James Van Der Beek at the height of his "Dawson's Creek" fame, and that one version of the poster stirred up some controversy (note: I want that poster now!)
Van Der Beek did not make this movie to capitalize on his pretty-boy fame, he made it to subvert it and not get typecast as Dawson. And he's an extremely unlikable character--drinking, doing drugs, dealing drugs, screwing, screwing over his friends, etc. Not that anyone else is that sympathetic, either. Nor are the filmmakers or anyone involved at all sympathetic. Perhaps the biggest trolling insult you could give director Roger Avary is to say, "I really, really enjoyed RULES OF ATTRACTION." This is not a movie to be enjoyed. It's a movie to appreciate, to marvel at, even to be blown away by; but if you enjoy it you're one sick freak. You open with a rape scene. You go back in time. You meet your gaggle of shallow, privileged college students. The fuck. They fuck around. They try to fall in love. They fail. They try to make money to pay off their drug dealer. They fail. There's a suicide so beautifully, obsessively, fetishistic-ally shot that you forget for a minute she's hardly a character in the movie. And now you're about halfway through. No more, too many spoilers already. And so much it's hard to keep it all in my head. I need to watch it again. I really, really enjoyed it.
Also, how about a double feature of RULES OF ATTRACTION and GLITTERATI (the feature-length version of the rapid-edit "European trip" sequence in the movie)...if it ever gets released? (Please, please, please!)
Then we walked down to the Roxie for the midnight screening of...
TERRORVISION (1986): What...the...fuck? A satellite dish (remember those, when people had gigantic satellite dishes to get all this TV without paying monthly bills for cable service?) accidentally pulls an alien creature into our world. Or...into whatever weird world of swingers this takes place in. Cheesy special effects, ridiculous plot, survivalist grandpa, the kid no one believes, and a late-night TV horror hostess with cleavage that doesn't end. Oh yeah, and Beef from PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and Laslo from REAL GENIUS (or, if you prefer, Gerrit Graham and John Gries.) Then it gets weird.
Total Running Time: 293 minutes
My Total Minutes: 337,636
Anyway, Midnites 4 Maniacs has introduced a new wrinkle, the "Theatre Crawl"--seeing multiple movies in multiple theatres (like a bar crawl, but with movies instead of drinking...and with drinking if you stop in any of the many convenience stores and smuggle in some alcohol.)
Anyway, last Friday was Back to Skool night, and we started at the Castro.
CAN'T HARDLY WAIT (1998): A movie that looked uninteresting to me when it came out (and I had just graduated college.) But now from my vantage point 15 years later...I understand why it didn't interest me. I was not a social person in high school. Nor did I want to be. The idea of going to an end-of-school party (even with a ridiculous revenge plot) just wouldn't appeal to me. I came out of my shell somewhat in college, but I don't think I've really become "me" until the last few years, and I'm probably still a work in progress who likes to be alone quite a lot of the time.
But wait, this is supposed to be a review of the movie, not a review of me. Yeah, it's actually pretty funny, for what it is. And you get to see a young Seth Green being absolutely ridiculous. Mostly I liked the irony in the title: CAN'T HARDLY WAIT is about a bunch of young people who waited until the last possible minute to do what they've been dreaming about for years. The thing is, most everyone who likes this movie likes it because there's a character they relate to. They can all say, "I was (or am) just like that character who ______!" But me...the closest I can say is "I was just like the character who never appeared on screen because he didn't give a crap about the party (no one told him about it anyway) and he stayed home and read a book." Consider me Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Film.
RULES OF ATTRACTION (2002): Now this was a revelation. Again, I didn't pay much attention when it came out. All I remember was it starred teen heartthrob James Van Der Beek at the height of his "Dawson's Creek" fame, and that one version of the poster stirred up some controversy (note: I want that poster now!)
Van Der Beek did not make this movie to capitalize on his pretty-boy fame, he made it to subvert it and not get typecast as Dawson. And he's an extremely unlikable character--drinking, doing drugs, dealing drugs, screwing, screwing over his friends, etc. Not that anyone else is that sympathetic, either. Nor are the filmmakers or anyone involved at all sympathetic. Perhaps the biggest trolling insult you could give director Roger Avary is to say, "I really, really enjoyed RULES OF ATTRACTION." This is not a movie to be enjoyed. It's a movie to appreciate, to marvel at, even to be blown away by; but if you enjoy it you're one sick freak. You open with a rape scene. You go back in time. You meet your gaggle of shallow, privileged college students. The fuck. They fuck around. They try to fall in love. They fail. They try to make money to pay off their drug dealer. They fail. There's a suicide so beautifully, obsessively, fetishistic-ally shot that you forget for a minute she's hardly a character in the movie. And now you're about halfway through. No more, too many spoilers already. And so much it's hard to keep it all in my head. I need to watch it again. I really, really enjoyed it.
Also, how about a double feature of RULES OF ATTRACTION and GLITTERATI (the feature-length version of the rapid-edit "European trip" sequence in the movie)...if it ever gets released? (Please, please, please!)
Then we walked down to the Roxie for the midnight screening of...
TERRORVISION (1986): What...the...fuck? A satellite dish (remember those, when people had gigantic satellite dishes to get all this TV without paying monthly bills for cable service?) accidentally pulls an alien creature into our world. Or...into whatever weird world of swingers this takes place in. Cheesy special effects, ridiculous plot, survivalist grandpa, the kid no one believes, and a late-night TV horror hostess with cleavage that doesn't end. Oh yeah, and Beef from PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and Laslo from REAL GENIUS (or, if you prefer, Gerrit Graham and John Gries.) Then it gets weird.
Total Running Time: 293 minutes
My Total Minutes: 337,636
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Jason watches THE CANYONS
Early in Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis' anti-Hollywood Hollywood tale, Christian (James Deen...yeah, the porn star James Deen) looks directly into the camera and asks, "Are you for real?" Ostensibly he's talking to the actor who was just cast in the movie he's producing, and who is celebrating that casting with a double-date dinner out. See, this actor has the temerity to want to talk about the movie and his role rather than just play on his cell phone. But he might as well be directing this question right at the audience. This is a paradox of a movie, almost an anti-movie. It's a movie about how nobody makes or watches movies anymore. Christian produces movies because he has the money to do so (no word on where he gets the money) and he can use it as a vehicle for his sick psycho-sexual games with his girlfriend Tara (Lindsey Lohan.) But it's okay that he doesn't even try to make good movies, because nobody watches them anymore. The landscape is riddled with shuttered movie theaters, and everyone is just looking at their cell phones, anyway. There's a love triangle (or more sides, maybe a love quadrilateral...and come to think of it, there's not really much love, it's more like a sex quadrilateral) plot, backstabbing, cheating, deceit, and eventually murder (oops, SPOILER!) But I was more interested in the post-cinema hellscape.
It's either apropos or a shame that most people--if they watch it at all--will watch it at home on video on demand. And most people will watch it just to see Lindsay Lohan's tits or James Deen's cock (whatever's your preference.) And most of those people will be bored and say it's not worth it. And it isn't...if that's what you're looking for you can find Lohan's tits and/or Deen's cock on your smartphone.
But if you want to appreciate things like the genre shift near the end, or the use of colors (red and green feature heavily,) or the humor, or the detachment (the Canyons could be a setting, or it could be the gulf of true intimacy between any two people in the film,) or anything else that makes this a compelling piece of art...well, I think you need to see this in a theater. This is a movie directed by a master filmmaker and written by a master writer who had to beg, scrape, sacrifice, and compromise to get it on screen. You can tell it's written by people who love the art of cinema but hate the business of it, and they leave that all on screen. I don't know who the right audience is for this film, but I have a feeling if it finds that audience the reaction will be fear, depression, and admiration.
Running Time: 99 minutes
My Total Minutes: 337,043
It's either apropos or a shame that most people--if they watch it at all--will watch it at home on video on demand. And most people will watch it just to see Lindsay Lohan's tits or James Deen's cock (whatever's your preference.) And most of those people will be bored and say it's not worth it. And it isn't...if that's what you're looking for you can find Lohan's tits and/or Deen's cock on your smartphone.
But if you want to appreciate things like the genre shift near the end, or the use of colors (red and green feature heavily,) or the humor, or the detachment (the Canyons could be a setting, or it could be the gulf of true intimacy between any two people in the film,) or anything else that makes this a compelling piece of art...well, I think you need to see this in a theater. This is a movie directed by a master filmmaker and written by a master writer who had to beg, scrape, sacrifice, and compromise to get it on screen. You can tell it's written by people who love the art of cinema but hate the business of it, and they leave that all on screen. I don't know who the right audience is for this film, but I have a feeling if it finds that audience the reaction will be fear, depression, and admiration.
Running Time: 99 minutes
My Total Minutes: 337,043
Monday, May 20, 2013
Jason goes to the Roxie for an Arch Oboler double feature
I've only made it to one night of the Roxie's current Film Noir series: I Wake Up Dreaming 2013. I've just been tired and/or busy elsewhere. But I was up there for a little Arch Oboler weirdness. A few years ago I saw his movie THE TWONKY and so I was interested in seeing more.
BEWITCHED (1945): Definitely a product of its time, and comes off as more than a little cheesy today. Joan Ellis is a good girl, and is celebrating her engagement. But she hears voices. In particular, the voice of a woman named Karen. Karen is a distinct and separate personality from Joan, but the voice is coming from inside her own head. And Karen torments Joan to the point of committing murder. While Joan sits on death row, Dr. Bergson desperately has to try to convince the governor that it's possible for two personalities--two actual, different people--to live in the same body! Yeah, split personality plots are cliche nowadays, but I guess in 1945 it was an unusual enough concept that it had to be explained to an incredulous audience.
FIVE (1951): One of the earliest (possibly the earliest?) movie to explore a post-nuclear apocalypse world. The Five of the title refer to the last five survivors (at least, the last five in that part of California). It opens on a woman walking down the street. She's pregnant and survived the fallout because she was in an x-ray room at the time (um...that's not exactly safe for a pregnant woman, but I guess it was in the 50s.) She's rescued by a poet living in a house in the mountains. In due time, two more people show up in a car--a black man and a banker who was saved because he was in the vault at the time. They begin to make a life, but as her pregnancy starts showing the old banker is starting to show signs of radiation poisoning. They take him to the beach, where they find the fifth survivor. He survived because he was climbing Mt. Everest at the time (or so he says.) He's certainly proud of his survivalist skills and physical prowess. He's just not too thrilled that one of his fellow survivors is black. Lots of tension, fighting, danger. It's not so much plot-driven as character driven, and at that it's pretty engrossing.
Much like BEWITCHED, Oboler is treading on ground that will later be tread to the point of cliche. But while BEWITCHED has become cheesy and naive over time, FIVE shines with the freshness of the dawn of nuclear paranoia.
Total Running Time: 155 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,095
BEWITCHED (1945): Definitely a product of its time, and comes off as more than a little cheesy today. Joan Ellis is a good girl, and is celebrating her engagement. But she hears voices. In particular, the voice of a woman named Karen. Karen is a distinct and separate personality from Joan, but the voice is coming from inside her own head. And Karen torments Joan to the point of committing murder. While Joan sits on death row, Dr. Bergson desperately has to try to convince the governor that it's possible for two personalities--two actual, different people--to live in the same body! Yeah, split personality plots are cliche nowadays, but I guess in 1945 it was an unusual enough concept that it had to be explained to an incredulous audience.
FIVE (1951): One of the earliest (possibly the earliest?) movie to explore a post-nuclear apocalypse world. The Five of the title refer to the last five survivors (at least, the last five in that part of California). It opens on a woman walking down the street. She's pregnant and survived the fallout because she was in an x-ray room at the time (um...that's not exactly safe for a pregnant woman, but I guess it was in the 50s.) She's rescued by a poet living in a house in the mountains. In due time, two more people show up in a car--a black man and a banker who was saved because he was in the vault at the time. They begin to make a life, but as her pregnancy starts showing the old banker is starting to show signs of radiation poisoning. They take him to the beach, where they find the fifth survivor. He survived because he was climbing Mt. Everest at the time (or so he says.) He's certainly proud of his survivalist skills and physical prowess. He's just not too thrilled that one of his fellow survivors is black. Lots of tension, fighting, danger. It's not so much plot-driven as character driven, and at that it's pretty engrossing.
Much like BEWITCHED, Oboler is treading on ground that will later be tread to the point of cliche. But while BEWITCHED has become cheesy and naive over time, FIVE shines with the freshness of the dawn of nuclear paranoia.
Total Running Time: 155 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,095
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Jason watches ROOM 237
Stanley Kubrick was legendary for being absolutely meticulous with everything in his films. And so things that might be random or tiny, nearly imperceptible goofs in anyone else's films are imbued with secret meanings in his films. And in no film has that been taken to such a degree as THE SHINING (1980). Where everyone else sees a pantry that just happens to include a can of Calumet baking powder, a few viewers (well, one in particular) might see significance in the Indian head logo and the fact that "calumet" means "peace pipe." And so you can read messages into whether the logo is seen head on or obliquely (spoiler alert: THE SHINING is actually about the genocide of the Native Americans by the European settlers.) Or you can read it as a metaphor for the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Or you can see it as an exploration of the entirety of human history--even the philosophical concept of living with the past (which really only "exists" in the minds of people in the presence--maybe even only in your own mind.) Or it's a coded confession that Kubrick faked the Apollo 11 footage, using 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY as a test run of the techniques he eventually used (this theorist stresses that he actually believes we meant to the moon, he just believes the footage we all saw was faked.) Or maybe Jack Torrance is a secret homosexual who has been sexually molesting his son (there's allegedly a scene where he's reading a copy of Playgirl which has an article about incest in it.) One thing that's certain, the architecture of the Overlook Hotel is physically impossible (although this movie doesn't get into how that was discovered by attempting to build a custom video game level based on it.)
But enough about THE SHINING. This is actually about ROOM 237, a movie about THE SHINING, and specifically all the various theories about its hidden meanings. He has many people talking about their theories, but this isn't a talking heads movie. In fact, none of the theorists/analysts/investigators/students of the film (call them what you will) are ever seen on screen. Their names are flashed once when you first hear their voices, which makes it a little difficult to keep track of who's who just based on their voices. But what you see on screen is all clips (sometimes modified) from other movies, including nearly all of Kubrick's films. And they've all (well, except for maybe the ones from THE SHINING itself) been repurposed to change their original meaning. So when in the opening scenes Tom Cruise is outside a theater (I think from a scene in EYES WIDE SHUT, I haven't committed that movie to memory) the scene becomes a reference to our first reviewers experience of watching THE SHINING for the first time. And this goes on throughout the entire film. In fact, director Rodney Ascher has created a movie entirely out of clips taken out of context in order to change their meaning. I love that! And I love that I can't tell if he's doing that to emphasize the theme of hidden meanings, or to mock it! Maybe both--some theories aren't worth more than a scoff (for my money, I can't see Kubrick's face in a cloud in the opening credits, and the experiment of playing it overlaid forwards and backwards to see what lines up just illustrates how much Kubrick framed his characters in the center of the screen) but some really make you stop and think--maybe it is about the Native Americans...or about the Nazis...or about countless atrocities in human history.
In the end, I'm convinced THE SHINING is pretty much a Rorschach test. You see in it want you want to see. So for my money, I'm a fan of the theory that Kubrick is doing many things, but most of all kind of fucking with us. There are definitely odd, morbid visual jokes in there (the car that's a few feet away from hitting everyone as they cross the parking lot disappears in the opposite-angle shot.) I don't believe Kubrick faked the moon landing footage because...I believe our astronauts went to the moon and brought a camera there. But I also know that moon landing conspiracy theories were around in the mid 1970s, well before he made THE SHINING. So why not fuck with the conspiracy theorists and plant a fake, coded "confession" in an completely unrelated film. That's what I would do if I were genius enough to make a movie anywhere near as good as THE SHINING. But then, that's just me.
ROOM 237 plays at the Roxie for at least one more week, and there will be a one-night-only double feature of ROOM 237 and THE SHINING at the New Parkway on May 10th.
Running Time: 102 minutes
My Total Minutes: 324,286
But enough about THE SHINING. This is actually about ROOM 237, a movie about THE SHINING, and specifically all the various theories about its hidden meanings. He has many people talking about their theories, but this isn't a talking heads movie. In fact, none of the theorists/analysts/investigators/students of the film (call them what you will) are ever seen on screen. Their names are flashed once when you first hear their voices, which makes it a little difficult to keep track of who's who just based on their voices. But what you see on screen is all clips (sometimes modified) from other movies, including nearly all of Kubrick's films. And they've all (well, except for maybe the ones from THE SHINING itself) been repurposed to change their original meaning. So when in the opening scenes Tom Cruise is outside a theater (I think from a scene in EYES WIDE SHUT, I haven't committed that movie to memory) the scene becomes a reference to our first reviewers experience of watching THE SHINING for the first time. And this goes on throughout the entire film. In fact, director Rodney Ascher has created a movie entirely out of clips taken out of context in order to change their meaning. I love that! And I love that I can't tell if he's doing that to emphasize the theme of hidden meanings, or to mock it! Maybe both--some theories aren't worth more than a scoff (for my money, I can't see Kubrick's face in a cloud in the opening credits, and the experiment of playing it overlaid forwards and backwards to see what lines up just illustrates how much Kubrick framed his characters in the center of the screen) but some really make you stop and think--maybe it is about the Native Americans...or about the Nazis...or about countless atrocities in human history.
In the end, I'm convinced THE SHINING is pretty much a Rorschach test. You see in it want you want to see. So for my money, I'm a fan of the theory that Kubrick is doing many things, but most of all kind of fucking with us. There are definitely odd, morbid visual jokes in there (the car that's a few feet away from hitting everyone as they cross the parking lot disappears in the opposite-angle shot.) I don't believe Kubrick faked the moon landing footage because...I believe our astronauts went to the moon and brought a camera there. But I also know that moon landing conspiracy theories were around in the mid 1970s, well before he made THE SHINING. So why not fuck with the conspiracy theorists and plant a fake, coded "confession" in an completely unrelated film. That's what I would do if I were genius enough to make a movie anywhere near as good as THE SHINING. But then, that's just me.
ROOM 237 plays at the Roxie for at least one more week, and there will be a one-night-only double feature of ROOM 237 and THE SHINING at the New Parkway on May 10th.
Running Time: 102 minutes
My Total Minutes: 324,286
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Jason watches UPSTREAM COLOR
Well, that was odd and unsettling. And it's been a week since I've seen it so my memory is a little fuzzy. But there are drugs, distilled from worms in the soil of flowers that have turned blue. And a woman gets drugged and kidnapped with it. But it's all part of a huge confusing cycle.
This movie attempts to be willfully confusing by daring us to fall for the illusion of linear time and space, then frustrating your expectations and ultimately puncturing the illusion. If you see the truth that all time, all space, and all people (maybe even all living creatures) are one and the same (or alternate holographic manifestations of the common meta-reality), then it makes sense. But it's that tension that comes from puncturing linear space, time, and individuality that makes UPSTREAM COLOR so fascinating and unsettling, whether or not it really amounts to anything in the end. To answer that question, I'm afraid I'm going to have to see it again.
Running Time: 96 minutes
My Total Minutes: 323,686
This movie attempts to be willfully confusing by daring us to fall for the illusion of linear time and space, then frustrating your expectations and ultimately puncturing the illusion. If you see the truth that all time, all space, and all people (maybe even all living creatures) are one and the same (or alternate holographic manifestations of the common meta-reality), then it makes sense. But it's that tension that comes from puncturing linear space, time, and individuality that makes UPSTREAM COLOR so fascinating and unsettling, whether or not it really amounts to anything in the end. To answer that question, I'm afraid I'm going to have to see it again.
Running Time: 96 minutes
My Total Minutes: 323,686
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Jason watches a full day of Joe Swanberg films
Well, I only made it to one day of the big Joe Swanberg weekend at the Roxie. Friday I was simply too tired, I couldn't drag myself up to the Roxie again. And Sunday, I was drinking way too much champagne at the Roxie's Oscar party and then snoring through most of ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER at Bad Movie Night. But Saturday I went all out for a Swanberg-fest (although I skipped out on the last movie because I had to catch BART home.)
First up was LOL, which I had actually seen at Indiefest back in 2007. Let's see what I said then...
Next up was ALEXANDER THE LAST. Jess Weixler stars as Alex, a young, newly-married actress. While her musician husband is on tour she is in rehearsals for a new play (directed by Jane Adams from ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY, who was there to talk about the film alongside Swanberg.) It's a pretty steamy, sexual play and she clearly has...chemistry with her co-star (Barlow Jacobs.) And since he's from out of town, she offers to let him stay at her place. Where he eventually starts having an affair with her sister. Awkward feelings of attraction, guilt, and even jealousy ensue, in an exploration of the complicated love lives of creative people and their responsibility to the audience. In the Q&A afterwards, Swanberg talked about how, having made several films dealing frankly and awkwardly with sexuality, he worries about whether he has any responsibility to his actors--i.e., to not ruin their personal lives--or if his only responsibility is to the audience--i.e., to create the best movie possible. Jane Adams, for her part, was adamant that the only responsibility is to the audience. And, as the audience, (and someone who considers himself very self-centered) I really, really want to agree with that. But...(and this is hard for me to say) my 72 minutes of entertainment is not worth destroying other people's lives (I guess I'd actually be pretty bad at being a megalomaniacal despot.) So I would say that the responsibility to the audience extends to a responsibility to let the audience believe that no actors were actually harmed in the making of your movie--preferably by not actually harming your actors.
By the way, I just remembered that ALEXANDER THE LAST was dedicated to Joe's wife, Kris Swanberg. Kris is more commonly a male name...same with Alex. I only now picked up on this, because sometimes I'm really slow.
Next was a double feature of the thematically paired UNCLE KENT and ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY, which I saw and wrote about just a week ago at Indiefest, so I won't bother writing much more about that, but will instead focus on UNCLE KENT. The movie stars Kent Osborne as a children's show writer. And a quick look at his IMDb page shows that this is kinda autobiographical (it also revealed that he starred in HOW TO CHEAT, which I saw at Cinequest last year. I knew he looked familiar for more than his part in ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY.) He is unmarried, smokes pot, and goes on Chat Roulette frequently (I don't know--and don't exactly want to know--how autobiographical that is. Although I can confirm from the Q&A that the "dick tricks" scene is based on real life.) He invites his online friend Kate to stay with him while she's in town for a conference. Clearly there's quite a bit of attraction there, although she has a boyfriend back home. But they're adventurous, fun-loving people so they go online and find a girl who's up for a three-way. Or really, she's up for a lesbian experience, in typical Swanbergian awkwardness, Kent ends up being kind of left out. But it's probably for the best, as he has his life path and settling into a committed relationship (at least with her) probably wouldn't fit into that. And that's one of the biggest thematic links between this movie and ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY--the idea of a protagonist who has reached a point in his/her life that is well past the age when most of your friends have settled down and started families but that's just not your life. There's a bit of melancholy (the scenes of Kent looking at pictures of himself playing with friends' children gets to me, particularly as someone with a lot of beautiful nieces whom I adore) but also the realization that any potential mate has to be someone amazing enough that you'd be willing to alter the pretty-good life you've built for yourself.
And then I ended the night with some bawdy comedy with AUTOEROTIC, co-directed by Adam Wingard (POP SKULL, A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE.) Four loosely connected vignettes in the sex lives of Chicagoans. First there's the typical guy who is obsessed with his penis being too small. So he takes way too many enlargement pills and they actually work--with frightening and hilarious results. Then there's the frustrated woman who can't stop masturbating (Kate Lynn Shell) and tries some experiments with asphyxiation. If only she had communicated better with her boyfriend (Joe Swanberg), he'd be happy to choke her. Then there's the pregnant wife (Kris Swanberg) who can't orgasm with her husband, but does with her best (female) friend (while he surreptitiously watches and records it on his cell phone.) And finally, Adam Wingard stars as a guy who obsesses over his ex, frequently masturbating to the videos they made together. She has moved no, and wants him to delete those videos. He agrees to, but only in exchange for making a mold of her pussy, resulting in the best hilariously awful fake vagina ever.
And that was how I ended my night. Sick and hilarious. I didn't stick around for THE ZONE or a special unannounced screening of Joe's latest, PRIVACY SETTINGS. Not that I didn't want to, I just had to catch the BART home.
Total Running Time: 369 minutes
My Total Minutes: 317,281
First up was LOL, which I had actually seen at Indiefest back in 2007. Let's see what I said then...
Then it was back to the Victoria for "LOL", by Joe Swanberg ("Kissing on the Mouth" from last year's Indiefest). Joe's out in front of a new wave of filmmakers based on real, contemporary, naturalistic acting (often improvised by non-actors). It's more slice-of-life than slice-of-cake, to use the old Hitchcock line, and it has taken me a bit of effort to warm up to it, but now I totally dig it and "LOL" is a great use of the technique for humor. It follows three couples, specifically from the male perspective. One is in a traditional relationship (Swanberg himself) but he cares (or pretends to care) more about his computer than his girlfriend. One is in a long-distance relationship, but treats his girlfriend like crap-even complaining when she sends him sexy photos of herself that they're not dirty enough to turn him on. And the third is in an imaginary relationship with an internet porn star, and takes his imaginary band (he actually makes some pretty cool music from footage of people making random noises with their faces) on an imaginary tour just to try and visit her in St. Louis. Basically, it's about communication technology and how stupid, selfish guys are using it to destroy rather than further their own communication skills. One of the most brilliant scenes is with Joe and his friend (the one in the long-distance relationship) sitting on the couch next to each other IM'ing each other about Joe's girlfriend, who's sitting right in front of them. Brilliant and hilarious, it had me LOLing (that's Laughing Out Loud for those of you not up on the lingo)Wow, I hope my writing has improved since then. But really, that does sum up the film pretty well. And feeling obligated to explain that LOL means Laughing Out Loud...that's kind of a time warp. And that's really the interesting thing about watching this movie now. Back in 2007, it was pretty extreme satire about how technology that is supposed to keep us connected actually separates us. Now...that satire is real life (well, except that all cell phones connect to the Internet now. Calling someone on your cell phone and asking them to check your e-mail for you is pretty much obsolete now.)
Next up was ALEXANDER THE LAST. Jess Weixler stars as Alex, a young, newly-married actress. While her musician husband is on tour she is in rehearsals for a new play (directed by Jane Adams from ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY, who was there to talk about the film alongside Swanberg.) It's a pretty steamy, sexual play and she clearly has...chemistry with her co-star (Barlow Jacobs.) And since he's from out of town, she offers to let him stay at her place. Where he eventually starts having an affair with her sister. Awkward feelings of attraction, guilt, and even jealousy ensue, in an exploration of the complicated love lives of creative people and their responsibility to the audience. In the Q&A afterwards, Swanberg talked about how, having made several films dealing frankly and awkwardly with sexuality, he worries about whether he has any responsibility to his actors--i.e., to not ruin their personal lives--or if his only responsibility is to the audience--i.e., to create the best movie possible. Jane Adams, for her part, was adamant that the only responsibility is to the audience. And, as the audience, (and someone who considers himself very self-centered) I really, really want to agree with that. But...(and this is hard for me to say) my 72 minutes of entertainment is not worth destroying other people's lives (I guess I'd actually be pretty bad at being a megalomaniacal despot.) So I would say that the responsibility to the audience extends to a responsibility to let the audience believe that no actors were actually harmed in the making of your movie--preferably by not actually harming your actors.
By the way, I just remembered that ALEXANDER THE LAST was dedicated to Joe's wife, Kris Swanberg. Kris is more commonly a male name...same with Alex. I only now picked up on this, because sometimes I'm really slow.
Next was a double feature of the thematically paired UNCLE KENT and ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY, which I saw and wrote about just a week ago at Indiefest, so I won't bother writing much more about that, but will instead focus on UNCLE KENT. The movie stars Kent Osborne as a children's show writer. And a quick look at his IMDb page shows that this is kinda autobiographical (it also revealed that he starred in HOW TO CHEAT, which I saw at Cinequest last year. I knew he looked familiar for more than his part in ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY.) He is unmarried, smokes pot, and goes on Chat Roulette frequently (I don't know--and don't exactly want to know--how autobiographical that is. Although I can confirm from the Q&A that the "dick tricks" scene is based on real life.) He invites his online friend Kate to stay with him while she's in town for a conference. Clearly there's quite a bit of attraction there, although she has a boyfriend back home. But they're adventurous, fun-loving people so they go online and find a girl who's up for a three-way. Or really, she's up for a lesbian experience, in typical Swanbergian awkwardness, Kent ends up being kind of left out. But it's probably for the best, as he has his life path and settling into a committed relationship (at least with her) probably wouldn't fit into that. And that's one of the biggest thematic links between this movie and ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY--the idea of a protagonist who has reached a point in his/her life that is well past the age when most of your friends have settled down and started families but that's just not your life. There's a bit of melancholy (the scenes of Kent looking at pictures of himself playing with friends' children gets to me, particularly as someone with a lot of beautiful nieces whom I adore) but also the realization that any potential mate has to be someone amazing enough that you'd be willing to alter the pretty-good life you've built for yourself.
And then I ended the night with some bawdy comedy with AUTOEROTIC, co-directed by Adam Wingard (POP SKULL, A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE.) Four loosely connected vignettes in the sex lives of Chicagoans. First there's the typical guy who is obsessed with his penis being too small. So he takes way too many enlargement pills and they actually work--with frightening and hilarious results. Then there's the frustrated woman who can't stop masturbating (Kate Lynn Shell) and tries some experiments with asphyxiation. If only she had communicated better with her boyfriend (Joe Swanberg), he'd be happy to choke her. Then there's the pregnant wife (Kris Swanberg) who can't orgasm with her husband, but does with her best (female) friend (while he surreptitiously watches and records it on his cell phone.) And finally, Adam Wingard stars as a guy who obsesses over his ex, frequently masturbating to the videos they made together. She has moved no, and wants him to delete those videos. He agrees to, but only in exchange for making a mold of her pussy, resulting in the best hilariously awful fake vagina ever.
And that was how I ended my night. Sick and hilarious. I didn't stick around for THE ZONE or a special unannounced screening of Joe's latest, PRIVACY SETTINGS. Not that I didn't want to, I just had to catch the BART home.
Total Running Time: 369 minutes
My Total Minutes: 317,281
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Jason watches IMPOLEX
That was an enjoyable little piece of weirdness.
I liked THE COLOR WHEEL when I saw it at Indiefest last year. In fact, I liked it enough to see it a second time when it returned to the Roxie (warning, that second link gets really spoiler-y.) So, of course, I was excited to see director Alex Ross Perry's first feature, IMPOLEX, at it's one-night-only special screening at the Roxie. Me and...a handful of fellow true cinephiles. I don't think there was anyone there that night who I hadn't seen at multiple film festivals in San Francisco over the years. Even if I didn't know everyone by name, I knew pretty much all of them by sight.
Perry has a unique style of understated, deadpan absurdism. In THE COLOR WHEEL it was muted enough that some people I talked to at Indiefest didn't actually think it was a comedy. In IMPOLEX, it's a little more obvious, as you have Tyrone (Riley O'Bryan) wandering through some unspecific forest lugging around one V2 rocket and looking for another one. And he meets a lot of strange people from his past, and a talking octopus. I'm not sure it's "about" anything other than the absurdity of the situation. Maybe it's about finding your soulmate--if you're a rocket. Yeah, that's what I'll go with. It's a rocket-meets-rocket rom-com.
Running Time: 73 minutes
My Total Minutes: 310,468
I liked THE COLOR WHEEL when I saw it at Indiefest last year. In fact, I liked it enough to see it a second time when it returned to the Roxie (warning, that second link gets really spoiler-y.) So, of course, I was excited to see director Alex Ross Perry's first feature, IMPOLEX, at it's one-night-only special screening at the Roxie. Me and...a handful of fellow true cinephiles. I don't think there was anyone there that night who I hadn't seen at multiple film festivals in San Francisco over the years. Even if I didn't know everyone by name, I knew pretty much all of them by sight.
Perry has a unique style of understated, deadpan absurdism. In THE COLOR WHEEL it was muted enough that some people I talked to at Indiefest didn't actually think it was a comedy. In IMPOLEX, it's a little more obvious, as you have Tyrone (Riley O'Bryan) wandering through some unspecific forest lugging around one V2 rocket and looking for another one. And he meets a lot of strange people from his past, and a talking octopus. I'm not sure it's "about" anything other than the absurdity of the situation. Maybe it's about finding your soulmate--if you're a rocket. Yeah, that's what I'll go with. It's a rocket-meets-rocket rom-com.
Running Time: 73 minutes
My Total Minutes: 310,468
Monday, January 14, 2013
Jason watches TCHOUPITOULAS
There's at least a 50% probability I've spelled that right. Just don't ask me to pronounce it.
Okay, I'm about a week behind in updating my blog. My new job is taking up quite a bit of time. I actually saw this last Tuesday (although it's still playing until January 17th at the Roxie.)
This is an odd little movie. Billed as "A real world, real deal analogue to BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD" it's...not quite that. It's faux-verite kinda-documentary story of 3 young brothers from the town of Algiers, right across the river from New Orleans. They take the ferry across to New Orleans and have a night of adventure, seeing all the colorful characters. They miss the last ferry back home, play around in an abandoned steamboat, and...well, that's about it. It's part travelogue, part coming-of-age story, and all done in a cinema-verite style.
But it's not verite. Although it's presented as taking place over one night, it was actually shot over a period of 9 months. And if you read the user reviews on IMDb, it's not a particularly accurate portrayal of New Orleans (starting with a curfew for teenagers in New Orleans, meaning they would've been picked up by the police.) I don't personally know anything about that. I've been to New Orleans once, back when I was in college, for a little Mardi Gras debauchery. But I can't help but remember Werner Herzog's words (paraphrased, to the best of my memory): 'All movies are a lie! All movies are the truth! It's what you bring to it that matters! And if you can't see that, you're an imbecile!'
Unfortunately, I just couldn't find much of anything to bring to this (or that it brought to me.) I was pretty much just bored.
Running Time: 80 minutes
My Total Minutes: 310,396
Okay, I'm about a week behind in updating my blog. My new job is taking up quite a bit of time. I actually saw this last Tuesday (although it's still playing until January 17th at the Roxie.)
This is an odd little movie. Billed as "A real world, real deal analogue to BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD" it's...not quite that. It's faux-verite kinda-documentary story of 3 young brothers from the town of Algiers, right across the river from New Orleans. They take the ferry across to New Orleans and have a night of adventure, seeing all the colorful characters. They miss the last ferry back home, play around in an abandoned steamboat, and...well, that's about it. It's part travelogue, part coming-of-age story, and all done in a cinema-verite style.
But it's not verite. Although it's presented as taking place over one night, it was actually shot over a period of 9 months. And if you read the user reviews on IMDb, it's not a particularly accurate portrayal of New Orleans (starting with a curfew for teenagers in New Orleans, meaning they would've been picked up by the police.) I don't personally know anything about that. I've been to New Orleans once, back when I was in college, for a little Mardi Gras debauchery. But I can't help but remember Werner Herzog's words (paraphrased, to the best of my memory): 'All movies are a lie! All movies are the truth! It's what you bring to it that matters! And if you can't see that, you're an imbecile!'
Unfortunately, I just couldn't find much of anything to bring to this (or that it brought to me.) I was pretty much just bored.
Running Time: 80 minutes
My Total Minutes: 310,396
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Jason goes to the Roxie and watches THE COMEDY
It bears repeating, there is still time to donate to the Roxie's Kickstarter campaign. I know they've already reached their goal, but anything extra is...well, extra. And as any film fan in San Francisco knows, our single-screen art house theaters need all the help they can get. R.I.P., Bridge.
So I saw a second movie at the Roxie last night (Tuesday,) and it was as different as night and day from THE HOUSE I LIVE IN (inspiring a rather odd tweet.) It's the story of a 30-something hipster Swanson (Tim Heidecker) and his small group of friends (most notably Eric Wareheim, Tim's partner in "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!") Swanson is set to inherit his father's estate, which is large enough to make it apparent that he's a trust fund hipster who has never really worked a day in his life. I assume so are all his friends. When he does decide to work (which seems more of a curiosity than a necessity) he doesn't even know what typical dish-washing wages are. Instead he and his friends hang out, drink (and spit) beer, and make bizarre jokes to try to make each other laugh (like riffing on how clean hobos' dicks are because they all go to Wall Street at 5:01 where all the investment bankers just can't wait to suck them off.) But they don't laugh--they're hipsters so they're way too cool to laugh. The audience last night laughed quite a bit, but the characters didn't. And that awkward dynamic is what the movie is all about. People who are too cool to laugh trying to make each other laugh. And how far that practiced indifference can go. What's surprising is how well it seems to work for him. I would never have believed you could get a girl naked by talking about how Hitler had some good ideas...and horrible flatulence (I almost said "bad gas," but that could be taken the wrong way.)
Running Time: 90 minutes
My Total Minutes: 308,070
So I saw a second movie at the Roxie last night (Tuesday,) and it was as different as night and day from THE HOUSE I LIVE IN (inspiring a rather odd tweet.) It's the story of a 30-something hipster Swanson (Tim Heidecker) and his small group of friends (most notably Eric Wareheim, Tim's partner in "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!") Swanson is set to inherit his father's estate, which is large enough to make it apparent that he's a trust fund hipster who has never really worked a day in his life. I assume so are all his friends. When he does decide to work (which seems more of a curiosity than a necessity) he doesn't even know what typical dish-washing wages are. Instead he and his friends hang out, drink (and spit) beer, and make bizarre jokes to try to make each other laugh (like riffing on how clean hobos' dicks are because they all go to Wall Street at 5:01 where all the investment bankers just can't wait to suck them off.) But they don't laugh--they're hipsters so they're way too cool to laugh. The audience last night laughed quite a bit, but the characters didn't. And that awkward dynamic is what the movie is all about. People who are too cool to laugh trying to make each other laugh. And how far that practiced indifference can go. What's surprising is how well it seems to work for him. I would never have believed you could get a girl naked by talking about how Hitler had some good ideas...and horrible flatulence (I almost said "bad gas," but that could be taken the wrong way.)
Running Time: 90 minutes
My Total Minutes: 308,070
Jason goes to the Roxie and watches THE HOUSE I LIVE IN
A reminder, there is still time to donate to the Roxie's Kickstarter campaign. I know they've already reached their goal, but anything extra is...well, extra. And as any film fan in San Francisco knows, our single-screen art house theaters need all the help they can get. R.I.P., Bridge.
Anyway, on to the movie, THE HOUSE I LIVE IN is a powerful documentary about the effects of the War on Drugs. Especially powerful are the stories of the men charged with fighting the war. The narcotics officers who are no longer rewarded for good police work but are rewarded for the easy work of routine drug busts. Or the judge who sees the inequity of harsh drug sentences (e.g., 100 times harsher punishments for crack vs. powdered cocaine) but whose hands are tied by mandatory minimum sentence laws. It's a particularly chilling statement to hear a judge--a man whose entire calling in life is to dispense justice--talk about going home knowing he was forced in his job to dispense injustice (BTW, for all the fury over 'legislating from the bench' why are there so few complaints about 'adjudicating from the legislature?' Checks and balances are supposed to go both ways.)
And that's not even getting into the common people's lives that are affected--people who need medical treatment, not incarceration. What's so powerful there is not that drugs have such a strong pull on them or that they made bad choices. It's that so often given their living situations and employment prospects, drugs (doing them or selling them) was a completely rational, sensible choice. The doctor in the film has a great metaphor. People do drugs to escape the misery of life. Attacking drugs instead of treating the underlying misery makes as little sense as suppressing the cough associated with pneumonia. So often the "tough on drugs" policies just make life more miserable in those communities, creating conditions where dealing drugs is the only viable economy and doing drugs is the only viable means of (temporary) escape.
It's also full of interesting historical perspective. You may know that Nixon coined the term "War on Drugs" but I didn't know that under Nixon spending was 2/3 treatment and 1/3 law enforcement (privately he knew treating it as a health matter was more effective, publicly he knew "tough on crime" wins more votes than "fair on crime," "sensible on crime," or even "effective on crime.") Going back even further, many drugs used to be legal. We all know Coca Cola got its name because it contained cocaine. Hemp was a major textile crop (Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag on hemp, etc.) And opium was commonly used and sold in toothache drops for children. But California outlawed opium in the 1800's. And why? Well, there was a major influx of Chinese immigrants--hard workers building the railroads for low pay. They couldn't exactly criminalize being Chinese, so they looked at what vices were more prevalent in the Chinese community compared to the white community...and opium is outlawed. Similar with cocaine and blacks (particularly blacks of the post-slavery migration to industrial northern factory jobs.) And marijuana--that's illegal to keep the Mexicans down. There's a fascinating documentary that could be made just on that history.
But ultimately, what makes it work as a movie are the personal stories, including director Eugene Jarecki's good friend Nannie Jeter (his former nanny, although they never called her a nanny, they just called her...Nannie, because that's her name.)
Running Time: 108 minutes
My Total Minutes: 307,980
Anyway, on to the movie, THE HOUSE I LIVE IN is a powerful documentary about the effects of the War on Drugs. Especially powerful are the stories of the men charged with fighting the war. The narcotics officers who are no longer rewarded for good police work but are rewarded for the easy work of routine drug busts. Or the judge who sees the inequity of harsh drug sentences (e.g., 100 times harsher punishments for crack vs. powdered cocaine) but whose hands are tied by mandatory minimum sentence laws. It's a particularly chilling statement to hear a judge--a man whose entire calling in life is to dispense justice--talk about going home knowing he was forced in his job to dispense injustice (BTW, for all the fury over 'legislating from the bench' why are there so few complaints about 'adjudicating from the legislature?' Checks and balances are supposed to go both ways.)
And that's not even getting into the common people's lives that are affected--people who need medical treatment, not incarceration. What's so powerful there is not that drugs have such a strong pull on them or that they made bad choices. It's that so often given their living situations and employment prospects, drugs (doing them or selling them) was a completely rational, sensible choice. The doctor in the film has a great metaphor. People do drugs to escape the misery of life. Attacking drugs instead of treating the underlying misery makes as little sense as suppressing the cough associated with pneumonia. So often the "tough on drugs" policies just make life more miserable in those communities, creating conditions where dealing drugs is the only viable economy and doing drugs is the only viable means of (temporary) escape.
It's also full of interesting historical perspective. You may know that Nixon coined the term "War on Drugs" but I didn't know that under Nixon spending was 2/3 treatment and 1/3 law enforcement (privately he knew treating it as a health matter was more effective, publicly he knew "tough on crime" wins more votes than "fair on crime," "sensible on crime," or even "effective on crime.") Going back even further, many drugs used to be legal. We all know Coca Cola got its name because it contained cocaine. Hemp was a major textile crop (Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag on hemp, etc.) And opium was commonly used and sold in toothache drops for children. But California outlawed opium in the 1800's. And why? Well, there was a major influx of Chinese immigrants--hard workers building the railroads for low pay. They couldn't exactly criminalize being Chinese, so they looked at what vices were more prevalent in the Chinese community compared to the white community...and opium is outlawed. Similar with cocaine and blacks (particularly blacks of the post-slavery migration to industrial northern factory jobs.) And marijuana--that's illegal to keep the Mexicans down. There's a fascinating documentary that could be made just on that history.
But ultimately, what makes it work as a movie are the personal stories, including director Eugene Jarecki's good friend Nannie Jeter (his former nanny, although they never called her a nanny, they just called her...Nannie, because that's her name.)
Running Time: 108 minutes
My Total Minutes: 307,980
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Jason goes to Not Necessarily Noir III--SUGAR HILL and GANJA & HESS
Wow, I've fallen behind a bit. I'll have to do this kind of quickly. Last Tuesday I was up at the Roxie for my final screenings of Not Necessarily Noir III (they played more on Wednesday, but I wasn't there.) Here we go.
SUGAR HILL (1974): A club owner is brutally beaten to death by some thugs, just for refusing to sell his club to them. But his girlfriend, Diana "Sugar" Hill vows revenge. And she knows just how to do it, with the help of an old voodoo priestess. She enlists the Haitian lord of the dead, Baron Samedi (played by a wonderfully creepy, gold-toothed Don Pedro Colley) to systematically kill all of the thugs and eventually the crime boss behind it all. There's some dramatic complication when the cop in charge of investigating the murders happens to be Sugar's ex (and possibly future) boyfriend. But the fun of the movie is really in the cleverly concocted revenge murders and especially in the depictions of the zombies. Super creepy, covered in cobwebs (even when they just came out of the swamp) and with silver orbs covering their eyes. Simply the best zombies this side of George Romero.
GANJA & HESS (1973): Now this was a real oddity, and I'm not sure how to react to it. Archaeologist Dr. Hess (Duane Jones) is stabbed by his assistant with an ancient knife. His assistant then commits suicide. Dr. Hess recovers, but due to the "germs" on the knife he is afflicted with a disease that causes a hunger for human blood. Returning home, he meets with his ex-assistant's wife, Ganja. And they start having an affair. But eventually she will have to learn about Hess and about what happened to her husband.
Okay, that's what happens, but it doesn't describe the movie at all. What describes it better is "drug-fueled hallucination." It's just a strange, strange, strange movie.
Total Running Time: 201 minutes
My Total Minutes: 302,082
SUGAR HILL (1974): A club owner is brutally beaten to death by some thugs, just for refusing to sell his club to them. But his girlfriend, Diana "Sugar" Hill vows revenge. And she knows just how to do it, with the help of an old voodoo priestess. She enlists the Haitian lord of the dead, Baron Samedi (played by a wonderfully creepy, gold-toothed Don Pedro Colley) to systematically kill all of the thugs and eventually the crime boss behind it all. There's some dramatic complication when the cop in charge of investigating the murders happens to be Sugar's ex (and possibly future) boyfriend. But the fun of the movie is really in the cleverly concocted revenge murders and especially in the depictions of the zombies. Super creepy, covered in cobwebs (even when they just came out of the swamp) and with silver orbs covering their eyes. Simply the best zombies this side of George Romero.
GANJA & HESS (1973): Now this was a real oddity, and I'm not sure how to react to it. Archaeologist Dr. Hess (Duane Jones) is stabbed by his assistant with an ancient knife. His assistant then commits suicide. Dr. Hess recovers, but due to the "germs" on the knife he is afflicted with a disease that causes a hunger for human blood. Returning home, he meets with his ex-assistant's wife, Ganja. And they start having an affair. But eventually she will have to learn about Hess and about what happened to her husband.
Okay, that's what happens, but it doesn't describe the movie at all. What describes it better is "drug-fueled hallucination." It's just a strange, strange, strange movie.
Total Running Time: 201 minutes
My Total Minutes: 302,082
Monday, October 29, 2012
Jason goes to the Roxie for Not Necessarily Noir III--SOMETHING WILD and KISS KISS BANG BANG
I haven't made it to as much of Not Necessarily Noir III as I intended, but I did make it to this double feature on Saturday. And, of course, it was great.
SOMETHING WILD I had seen before, but not in about 10 years. A funny, sexy, and ultimately pretty violent romp. "Closet rebel" Jeff Daniels is seduced by Melanie Griffith and taken on a road trip that turns from crazy to strangely quaintly romantic. And it was already a pretty wild ride when Ray Liotta shows up at his crazy psychotic best (with those psychotic eyes!) And, despite some snide comments when the film broke for just a minute, I think the drawn out ending is perfect.
But what interested me the most was Melanie Griffith's character. Before I had seen it and sympathized with Jeff Daniels--how would I react if I was drawn into this crazy world by some hot seductress. But this time I noticed her character arc more. When we first see her, she's reading a biography of Frida Kahlo. She's also dressed in a Louise Brooks wig and calls herself Lulu. Later she's reading book on Winnie Mandela. I'm sure there are other references I missed, but she's absolutely obsessed with strong women. She desperately wants to be one, and despite some mistakes in her past she effectively is one (or pretends to be one. The facade falls at times.) That's why [SPOILER ALERT] when Jeff Daniels rescues her from Ray Liotta she's so angry. She tries to make it about how he lied to her about being married (not that way--she thought he was married but his wife had recently left him.) But really she's upset because being rescued by a man violates he 'I'm a strong, independent woman' fantasy. [END SPOILER.]
Then the second movie was KISS KISS BANG BANG, which I had never seen. It's sort of the perfect pairing with SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS out now. They're both highly meta Hollywood satires in the guise of an action flick. Robert Downey Jr. plays a New York thief Harry Lockhart, who accidentally runs into an audition and nails it. So he's brought out to Hollywood where he's told to take lessons in playing a private eye from "Gay" Perry (Val Kilmer.) But their mundane stakeout turns into something big, Harry runs into his old childhood crush Harmony and tells her he's a private eye. Two cases turn out connected, wacky violence occurs, Harry loses a finger, etc. It's actually pretty funny, if you're a fan of meta-humor. I know a lot of people tire easily of that stuff, and I can understand that. But I still like it.
Total Running Time: 216 minutes
My Total Minutes: 301,588
SOMETHING WILD I had seen before, but not in about 10 years. A funny, sexy, and ultimately pretty violent romp. "Closet rebel" Jeff Daniels is seduced by Melanie Griffith and taken on a road trip that turns from crazy to strangely quaintly romantic. And it was already a pretty wild ride when Ray Liotta shows up at his crazy psychotic best (with those psychotic eyes!) And, despite some snide comments when the film broke for just a minute, I think the drawn out ending is perfect.
But what interested me the most was Melanie Griffith's character. Before I had seen it and sympathized with Jeff Daniels--how would I react if I was drawn into this crazy world by some hot seductress. But this time I noticed her character arc more. When we first see her, she's reading a biography of Frida Kahlo. She's also dressed in a Louise Brooks wig and calls herself Lulu. Later she's reading book on Winnie Mandela. I'm sure there are other references I missed, but she's absolutely obsessed with strong women. She desperately wants to be one, and despite some mistakes in her past she effectively is one (or pretends to be one. The facade falls at times.) That's why [SPOILER ALERT] when Jeff Daniels rescues her from Ray Liotta she's so angry. She tries to make it about how he lied to her about being married (not that way--she thought he was married but his wife had recently left him.) But really she's upset because being rescued by a man violates he 'I'm a strong, independent woman' fantasy. [END SPOILER.]
Then the second movie was KISS KISS BANG BANG, which I had never seen. It's sort of the perfect pairing with SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS out now. They're both highly meta Hollywood satires in the guise of an action flick. Robert Downey Jr. plays a New York thief Harry Lockhart, who accidentally runs into an audition and nails it. So he's brought out to Hollywood where he's told to take lessons in playing a private eye from "Gay" Perry (Val Kilmer.) But their mundane stakeout turns into something big, Harry runs into his old childhood crush Harmony and tells her he's a private eye. Two cases turn out connected, wacky violence occurs, Harry loses a finger, etc. It's actually pretty funny, if you're a fan of meta-humor. I know a lot of people tire easily of that stuff, and I can understand that. But I still like it.
Total Running Time: 216 minutes
My Total Minutes: 301,588
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