celluloidnotes

PICK OF THE WEEK:
Changeling
Dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich

Eastwood’s drama was a big hit at the fall film festivals, after the studio has now pumped a horde of money into advertising what they hope will be a serious Oscar contender comes it’s real challenge: convincing the public, yet again, that Eastwood is to be regularly taken seriously as a director…

Matador
Dir. Nina Gilden Seavey

Matador looks like an interesting film. While there has been little advertising or buzz about this film it appears to be a genuine and inventive film. If you’re fortunate enough to be in a market to see this, you’ll have to give some feedback.

Zak and Miri Make a Porno
dir. Kevin Smith
Starring: Seth Rogan, Elizabeth Banks

Kevin Smith has had a lot of free publicity on this film (shot in St. Cloud, MN) when the MPAA decided to ban the red band trailer of this film (which is no loner available on YouTube). The film looks like Smith back to his old form, prior to some shaky films in the last few years. I look forward to this, hopefully Smith does not disappoint again.

Halloween Horror This Week:
Since release day this week is on Halloween there are, as always, a good pile of cookie cutter horror films coming out (note that two films which may draw some extra attention in the horror genre this month have avoided this release day, as did Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake last year, this is not a classy day for horror film to come out). Anyhow, we’re skipping the descriptions on these, because they all fall into the saw “meh” category. Watch the trailers, then rent Rosemary’s Baby if you want to watch some horror films on Halloween.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley

Splinter

Last Week’s Top Ten:
1. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
2. Saw V
3. Max Payne
4. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
5. Pride & Glory
6. The Secret Life of Bees
7. W.
8. Eagle Eye
9. Body of Lies
10. Quarantine

I won’t delve too deep into this since it’s been beat to death elsewhere. But with widespread layoffs across the country for film critics and the growing market of blogs and online magazines focusing on film criticism it is clear there is a large shift taking place in the field of film criticism. Print criticism, the high paid old hat of the film critic world, may have taken a serious hit this week, pointing out what is often thought of as elitism and a removal from society in critics. Roger Ebert chose to review the first eight minutes of Tru Loved, at which point he decided to walk out of the theater. He has since gone and seen the whole film and rewritten the review (both are posted at the link) and printed an apology. But any other film critic in the country would be fired for such a move. He wrote in his apology, “In reviewing the first eight minutes, I was guilty of too much affection for my prose.”

What is somewhat noteworthy here is the reaction from other film critics, which shows a real fear of what could be taking place in the field. Los Angeles Times media columnist Patrick Goldstein said, “If there were ever an act that indelibly painted critics as elitist snobs, it would be America’s best-known critic reviewing a movie after only bothering to watch for eight minutes.” Orlando Sentinel critic Roger Moore wrote, “If we’re going to start writing reviews of movies we haven’t suffered all the way, or at least most of the way through, the way most people who shell out $10-12 do after they’ve spent the cash, we’re all doomed.” And Gary Susman sums up the fears write well when he said, “No other movie critic in America could have pulled off such a stunt without getting fired. I fear that, even though he corrected his mistake, he’s still set a bad example. At a time when film critics all over America are losing their jobs, it can’t be good for readers, editors, or filmmakers to think that when he did passes for professional, acceptable behavior among film critics and the outlets that publish their work, even for a moment.”

PICK OF THE WEEK
Synecdoche, New York
dir. Charlie Kaufman
Starring: Phillip Seymore Hoffman, Samantha Moore, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Jennifer Jason Leigh

The highly anticipated directorial debut from Charlie Kaufman finally hits theaters after a string of delays and a tough time finding a buyer for distribution on the festival circuit. You can only anticipate that it’s going to be fantastic. Maybe not, but my money is on an interesting film.

Fear(s) of the Dark (10/22)
dir. Blutch , Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard McGuire

An odd sounding “horror”ish film from a variety of visual artists, that could garner some cult attention and looks very interesting.

Stranded: I Have Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (10/22)
dir. Gonzalo Arijon

If the title doesn’t get caught in your mouth and you decide to hit up this film you likely won’t be disappointed. It’s an often told tale of survival and it is being documented in a documentary for the first, being told by the people who survived the crash.

Passengers
Directed by: Rodrigo Garcia
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Patrick Wilson

Two plane crash movies this weekend? Ok. This one looks like it might not be quite as good as the other. Looks like some sort of hodge podge of Pet Cemetery, Final Destination, Red Eye, The X-Files and slew of other crappy action films.

Saw V
Directed by: David Hackl
Starring: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor

If the relentless placements for this film on websites everywhere, and on every broadcast of a Tampa Bay Lightning game haven’t turned you off yet this might be an alright film. The series that brought gore-porn into the mainstream is back for another gruesome installment of Jigsaw tricks. Really, horror series tend to drag on a bit, but as far as lengthy horror series go, this one has kept me entertained.

Let The Right One In
Directed by: Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson

Ah, yes the week before Halloween, the yearly slew of bad horror films begins…or maybe it will be ok, who am I to judge? But I am, and I don’t expect much…

Pride & Glory
Dir. Gavin O’Connor
Starring: Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voigt

The director of Miracle tries to bring something a little bit more serious to the screen in this film about two cop brothers who try to solve a series of cop slayings in New York. Could it be one of them? Oh man, sounds like some Shymalan style twists coming up to me.

We’re going to go ahead and skip talking about High School Musical 3 and go straight to last week’s Top 10:

1. Max Payne
2. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
3. The Secret Life of Bees
4. W.
5. Eagle Eye
6. Body of Lies
7. Quarantine
8. Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist
9. Sex Drive
10. Nights in Rodanthe

Read the review here.

W. is finally getting it’s release today. Oliver Stone’s well timed biopic on the life of George W. Bush. The film is gaining a lot of buzz simply for not berating the President and sinking into parody, which was surely a difficult task. The reaction from critics seem to have been fairly predictable, not entirely sold, but praising Stone for a gutsy film that actually attempts to look at the character of the man. That’s great, but it’ll be far more interesting to see how the Joe Plumber-filmgoers react to this film, and whether there will be a strikingly partisan reaction to the film. Check out the review and go see the film.

After two poorly received films, Intolerable Cruelty & Ladykillers, the Coen Brothers came back with 2007’s winner of the Best Motion Picture at the Academy Awards, No Country for Old Men. Many heralded this as the return to form everyone was waiting for, a clever thriller, well written, casted, and performed. It toyed with genre conventions (a hallmark for the duo, no doubt) and was cinematically interesting (due in no small part to the cinematography of Roger Deakins).

The initial buzz for their recent Burn After Reading was all positive. It totes an impressive cast including Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, and Frances McDormand. It also returns to their more latent genre play, which was less present in No Country for Old Men. Yet Burn After Reading reveals a Coen Brothers who should not “return to form.” The genre play is beginning to feel forced and less insightful than it has in their classics like Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, or O’ Brother Where Art Thou?.

While Deakins would deny it, his cinematography has become an integral part of the look of a Coen Brothers film. Not since Barton Fink have the Coen Brothers worked without him behind the camera. Burn lacks the deep focus and outward glances of Deakin’s camera. While Emmanuel Lubezki is a brilliant cinematographer (Children of Men still stands as one of the greatest achievements in cinematography of recent years) he feels like the wrong man for the film. The tight frames and less than coy backward glances at the spy thriller genre are less engaging than Deakins more static images. Though, this is by no means the film’s greatest problem.

The film doesn’t function in part because of a script that goes nowhere, and proposes to be meta at the end as way out of the hole it has dug (which doesn’t work), and the performances are less than adequate for the huge cast it flaunts. While it would be easy to say there are possibly “too many cooks in the kitchen,” the real issue with the performances is that no one is authentic. All of the actors play themselves, or characters they are frequently cast as. The skin deep portrayals belie the power of a cast of today’s best actors and actresses. Albeit, this is an unfair criticism, to say that they could do better and not judge it at face value. If this were a film from a cast of unknowns, and helmed by a debut director, it may be judged differently, but I’m going to pull this move one more time before I’m done here.

Overall, the film is funny, it’s not a flop, George Clooney fighting the homemade dildo-machine is hysterical. But there is so little insight into the genre and into the process, as there usually is in Coen Brothers film; we’ve come to expect more from them. The film is a surface level comedy that lacks the ability to pull itself into the social commentary and genre parody it seems capable of. It instead falls closer to a film like Epic Movie or any of the films from that series, that don’t go beyond pure genre parody. Sure, this has a plot, but it doesn’t come together, and there attempt in the final frames to make sense of the film by allowing that it really doesn’t make sense doesn’t make any sense.

A new documentary being released on DVD through First Run Features may be one of the most unique shorter form documentaries available on DVD this fall. Proteus focuses on the life 19th century artist and scientist Ernst Haeckel. Haeckel, as a young man, was working through school towards becoming a scientist. Until doing research on coastal regions and he began pursuing a career in painting, as for the first time, he met a fertile community of artists. But soon afterwards his interest swung back towards the burgeoning study of the undersea world.In this period the mystery the undersea world held were viewed with the same sense of mysterious draw that many modern scientists and poets have towards space. It was an uncharted region, so close to our everyday living spaces. It’s potential seemed unlimited. It became a source of scientific intrigue, a muse for poets and painters, the catalyst of myth.Proteus explores this 19th century fascination with the mysteries of the deep sea through the eyes of the scientist. The film often falls into rut of routine and begins feeling someone like a PBS special on the deep sea. But what is working here is it’s ability to make a topic that is, without doubt, esoteric to the extreme, palatable for the film lover. The film is full of striking pictures and beauty. Composed entirely of photos and paintings from the 19th century the film is an engaging look back upon the mysteries of the century, how the artists and scientists came together in their fascination and determination to discover what was lurking in the hidden depths.Utilizing beautiful paintings, journal entries, poems such as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and other source material Proteus is a look back upon the mysteries of a different era, which helps to illuminate the ways in which we see the mysteries of our own. The ways the science and art come together in an insatiable way which is often lost upon it’s own era. Despite it’s sometimes glacial pacing, the film is an engaging study with an avant-garde approach to viewer experience. It’s cycle of internal narrative seem to beg that the viewer take this and look through the lens of their own time and see the parallels to learn more about the time in which we live in. Proteus is a rare film that feels a little slow when in progresses, but engages the viewer in an intellectual dialogue in a way that few films have the gumption to attempt.

A film by David Lebrun
Format: DVD 2008
Release Year : 2004
Running Time: 60 minutes
Color: Color
Language: English