November 2013 -- Letterboxd Capsules

The Abyss (James Cameron, 1989) [letterboxd capsule]
I can think of several ways the movie could be more satisfying, but the truth is, after the death/resurrection/emotional climax, Cameron had nowhere else to go except into the pit. The theatrical version cuts his hokeyness a bit (thankfully), but it would never satisfy so long as he was committed to bringing us into direct contact with the aliens one last time. He forces them to become a contrived plot point rather than a mysterious texture.

Thankfully, there's lots of sturdy suspense and memorable setpieces leading up to that moment so the film still works for me overall.

Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) [letterboxd capsule]
There is a raw, relentless physicality to this that makes the film particularly intense.  The death of Vazquez has always resonated with me in a strange way.  The pain in her voice when she cries out "oh no" after being paralyzed by an acid burn on her leg....it's more than just imminent death, it is the deep sting of failure.

Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone, 1999) [letterboxd capsule]
Stone's overwrought professional football movie is very entertaining (I've seen the film several times even though I don't think it's that great) but it thinks it is way more insightful and observant than it truly is.  Add to that Stone getting a little carried away with his collage style editing and some frustratingly thin characterizations.  I think Jerry Maguire played the changing-face-of-pro-sports-in-the-90's card way better, though it is fun to watch Al Pacino scream at Cameron Diaz.

September 2013 -- Letterboxd Capsules

Panic Room (David Fincher, 2002) [letterboxd capsule]
Fincher is still feeling his way through the merging of digital flourish within a narrative/suspense framework.  There is plenty of tension/release ratcheting action, but in service of what exactly?  An allegory for how hard it is to apartment hunt in NYC?  Fincher finds some right notes for the isolation and dread of the city and Forest Whitaker is always worth watching.  Not wholly satisfying but plenty entertaining.

The Running Man (Paul Michael Glaser, 1987) [letterboxd capsule]
Everything a sardonic 80's sci-fi satire should be, complete with main character accents that hint at future globalization within the framework of entertainment fascism.  The best aspects of Bartel's Death Race 2000 (1975) and Klein's Mr. Freedom (1969) are distilled into a deeply entertaining mixture headlined by golden era Schwarzenegger and peppered by Jesse Ventura's mustache.  "Mr. Reynolds, I am your court-appointed theatrical agent," has to be one of the best guffaw-inducing lines I've stumbled across from this era.

A Metaphor: King Kong (2005)

Peter Jackson's metaphor for what it's like making movies for a mass audience.  Expectations/demands.

2002 Cii Movie Awards

This list and awards compiled March 16, 2013

                      For the criteria of choosing the awards, click here.

Top 10 Films of 2002

1. Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov)
2. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
3. Adaptation. (Spike Jonze)
4. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson)
5. Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese)
6. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Sam Jones)
7. 25th Hour (Spike Lee)
8. Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma)
9. 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle)
10. Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasenthakul)

Honorable Mentions: Voice of Hope (Maciej J. Drygas), K-19: The Widowmaker (Kathryn Bigelow), Sunshine State (John Sayles), Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes)

Best Actor

* Nicolas Cage – Adaptation.

Daniel Day-Lewis – Gangs of New York

Edward Norton – 25^th Hour

Sam Rockwell – Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Adam Sandler – Punch-Drunk Love

Best Actress

Kate Dollenmayer – Funny Ha Ha

Nicole Kidman – The Hours

* Diane Lane – Unfaithful

Julianne Moore – Far From Heaven

Catherine Zeta-Jones – Chicago

Best Supporting Actor

Cedric the Entertainer – Barbershop

Chris Cooper – Adaptation.

Vincent D’Onofrio – The Salton Sea

Barry Pepper – 25^th Hour

* Andy Serkis – Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Phillip Seymour Hoffman – Punch-Drunk Love

Best Supporting Actress

Toni Collette – About a Boy

Edie Falco – Sunshine State

* Julianne Moore – The Hours

Samantha Morton – Minority Report

Meryl Streep – Adaptation.

Emma Watson – Punch-Drunk Love

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson – Punch-Drunk Love

Kathryn Bigelow – K-19: The Widowmaker

Brian De Palma – Femme Fatale

* Spike Jonze – Adaptation.

Aleksandr Sokurov – Russian Ark

Best Screenplay

* Adaptation. (Charlie Kaufman & Donald Kaufman)

Catch Me If You Can (Jeff Nathanson)

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair & Peter Jackson)

Minority Report (Scott Frank & Jon Cohen)

Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Best Cinematography

Far From Heaven (Edward Lachman)

Femme Fatale (Thierry Arbogast)

Punch-Drunk Love (Robert Elswit)

Road to Perdition (Conrad L. Hall)

* Russian Ark (Tillman Büttner)

Best Editing

28 Days Later (Chris Gill)

Adaptation. (Eric Zumbrunnen)

Femme Fatale (Bill Pankow)

* I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Erin Nordstrom)

Minority Report (Michael Kahn)

Best Film Score

Far From Heaven (Elmer Bernstiein)

* Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Howard Shore)

Punch-Drunk Love (Jon Brion)

Best Production Design

Catch Me If You Can

CQ

Devdas

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

* Minority Report

Best Ensemble Cast Performance

25^th Hour

About a Boy

* Gangs of New York

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Road to Perdition

2002 Films Seen (63 features as of 03.16.2013)

8 Mile (Curtis Hanson, 2002)

13 Conversations About One Thing (Jill Sprecher, 2002)

25^th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)

28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)

About a Boy (Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz, 2002)

About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2002)

Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)

Analyze That (Harold Ramis, 2002)

Austin Powers in Goldmember (Jay Roach, 2002)

Auto Focus (Paul Schrader, 2002)

Barbershop (Tim Story, 2002)

Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2002)

The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman, 2002)

Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)

Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg, 2002)

Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002)

City of God (Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund, 2002)

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney, 2002)

The Count of Monte Cristo (Kevin Reynolds, 2002)

Death to Smoochy (Danny DeVito, 2002)

Devdas (Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 2002)

Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori, 2002)

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Callie Khouri, 2002)

Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)

Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002)

Full Frontal (Steven Soderbergh, 2002)

Funny Ha Ha (Andrew Bujalski, 2002)

Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002)

The Good Girl (Miguel Arteta, 2002)

The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002)

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Sam Jones, 2002)

Ice Age (Chris Wedge & Carlos Saldanha, 2002)

Igby Goes Down (Burr Steers, 2002)

Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002)

K-19: The Widowmaker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2002)

The Kid Stays in the Picture (Nanette Burstein & Brett Morgan, 2002)

Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (Bill Corcoran, 2002)

Lifeline (Victor Erice, 2002) [10 minute short]

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson, 2002)

Maid in Manhattan (Wayne Wang, 2002)

Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002)

Mr. Deeds (Steven Brill, 2002)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 2002)

One Hour Photo (Mark Romanek, 2002)

Phone Booth (Joel Schumacher, 2002)

The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)

Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)

Red Dragon (Brett Ratner, 2002)

Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes, 2002)

The Rules of Attraction (Roger Avary, 2002)

Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2002)

The Salton Sea (D.J. Caruso, 2002)

Signs (M. Night Shyamalan, 2002)

Solaris (Steven Soderbergh, 2002)

Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002)

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002)

The Sum of All Fears (Phil Alden Robinson, 2002)

Sunshine State (John Sayles, 2002)

Sweet Home Alabama (Andy Tennant, 2002)

Time Changer (Rich Christiano, 2002)

Two Weeks Notice (Marc Lawrence, 2002)

Unfaithful (Adrienne Lyne, 2002)

Voice of Hope (Maciej J. Drygas, 2002)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
I remember back in early 2002.  I read some blog or film site that I can't find now.  The guy listed A.I. as his pick for top film of 2001 and said (paraphrasing): "A.I. is a film that will be understood as a great achievement years down the road.  Right now the expectation of Spielberg doing Kubrick (or Kubrick doing Spielberg doing Kubrick) is too fresh and the best way to approach the film will be to embrace what it is not reject what it isn't (it isn't the last Stanley Kubrick movie)."  I didn't love A.I. at the time, but that idea stuck with me and I have waited it out to see if critical consensus would change to make A.I. one of the canonical films from 2001.  It seems to have happened.  It has risen in my estimation too.

There are many difficulties in coming to A.I.  The first is that the film is about a robot.  The second is the film deals with themes of alienation, loneliness, mortality, eternity and the unattainable.  The third is the film is dark and counter to what the average moviegoer may expect of a Spielberg movie (this is not E.T. with a robot).  Fourth: the film is deeply sad.  But the film is also a showcase of what Spielberg does well and I think is an essential text for arguing the merits of Steven Spielberg as an auteur.  I want to look at one scene.  Actually, the tail end of one scene.  Four sequential images.

David (Haley Joel Osment) is an advanced humanoid robot placed in the care of the Swintons while their biological son, Martin, is placed in suspended animation awaiting a cure to his rare disease.  After a cure is found and Martin is returned to his parents, Martin becomes jealous of David, who is programmed to love his human owners.  One night, Martin convinces David to cut off a lock of his mother's hair.  The parents awake to David holding scissors and are outraged and frightened.  

The next day is Martin's birthday party. The father questions the safety of having David in the household, while the mother is more honest about what truly happened.  While the children are playing, David comes up to Martin and tries to give him a gift.  Martin's friends step in and start subtly harassing David, eventually stabbing his arm with a knife to see if they can activate David's self-protection program.  Immediately threatened, David shields himself behind Martin and clings to him in fear as he steps away from the threatening boys and falls into the pool.  His weight carries Martin down with him, who can't escape David's grip.  Parents jump in to free Martin from the grip of David, who is left at the bottom as they rush Martin to the surface to resuscitate him.  

A seemingly frozen David now embraces nothing as the camera dollies in on a frontal shot of his face, ending on an extreme close up.  Blank stare.  

We are left in suspense while Martin is resuscitated.  But the point-of-view remains with David, underwater.  In addition to the suspense of Martin's outcome, we are left with an ambiguous David, a mechanical being, submerged in water.  We saw what happened when he ate food earlier (resulting in a trip to the lab so the technicians could clean out his insides).  Has he malfunctioned?  Is he conscious?  His arms extended, as if awaiting rescue.  But no one comes back for him.  It seems cruel even if he is an artificial being, and it is this lack of sentimentality that the humans feel for David that can be alienating as a viewer.  It creates an internal conflict between emotional connection (connecting to David's face and responses) and intellectual understanding (knowing that David is programed to look and respond realistically).

This would have been Kieslowski's favorite shot in the film. 

This is where Spielberg sets himself apart from many lesser filmmakers, who would be tempted to add weight to the resuscitation by taking us outside the pool, either to Martin's face or to the face of the mother.  Instead, Spielberg keeps us underwater, not simply because it is more suspenseful (showing Martin's face would suggest his forthcoming resuscitation), but also because it retains the point-of-view of David.  The audience must remain with David, feeling his distance and experiencing the scene as an outsider.  In practical terms, it doesn't matter if Martin lives or dies.  

David has now solidified his fate as the outsider and his life at the Swinton home is over.  The shot reminds me of Kieslowski's use of close-ups in Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993) to express isolation, a distancing effect rather than deepening emotional connection.  The distance is more than aesthetic as this also reaffirms the essential difference between Martin and David: life.  A real boy is mortal.  Mortality is humanity.

The visual distortion mirrors David's inability to understand the adult's response.  He does not understand what has happened nor the weight of it.  

Before the audience is allowed to connect with Martin's resuscitation, we cut to this distorted close-up of the adults lifting Martin and carrying him away.  The suspense of Martin's outcome is relieved, but we now see the adults as David sees them.  Our emotional interest is in David and therefore Martin's outcome loosens the noose around David's neck a touch.  If Martin died David would not be left untouched.  He would have been badgered and most likely beaten.  Though it would not hurt him, he would respond as if it did, and we would respond as if it did too.  David acts only according to his programming.  Hinted at beneath this, on a deeper level not dealt with until the final scene of A.I., perhaps the parents are acting according to their programming.  And what of the audience?

This distorted close-up also shows us the weight of mortality and the distance created by David's immortality.  No one stops to look back into the pool.  No one jumps in for him.

The mortals have gone.  Water engulfs the immortal one, as if still in the womb, awaiting a birth that will never happen.  

The camera pulls straight up from above the water, now freed from the claustrophobic close-ups but revealing the chilling reality of isolation.  David's one friend, a mechanical bear toy, walks up the water's edge but cannot help him.  David is alone.  

We see in the next scene that David's circuits are fine, but the emotional damage wrought on the Swintons has taken its toll.

2001 Cii Movie Awards

This list and awards compiled March 8, 2013

                      For the criteria of choosing the awards, click here.

Top 10 Films of 2001

1. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson)
2. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
3. Ali (Michael Mann)
4. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
5. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg)
6. Domestic Violence (Frederick Wiseman)
7. What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang)
8. Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis)
9. Electric Dragon 80.000 V (Sogo Ishii)
10. Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott)

Honorable Mentions: In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai), Gosford Park (Robert Altman), Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón), The Man Who Wasn't There (Joel Coen)

Best Actor
* Gene Hackman – The Royal Tenenbaums

Jack Nicholson – The Pledge

Will Smith – Ali

Billy Bob Thorton – The Man Who Wasn’t There

Tom Wilkinson – In the Bedroom

Best Actress

Halle Berry – Monster’s Ball

Maggie Cheung – In the Mood for Love

Catherine Keener – Lovely & Amazing

Audrey Tautou – Amélie

* Naomi Watts – Mulholland Drive

Best Supporting Actor

* Jim Broadbent – Moulin Rouge!

Steve Buscemi – Ghost World

Jude Law – A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Ian McKellen – Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Tony Shalhoub – The Man Who Wasn’t There

Ben Stiller – The Royal Tenenbaums

Best Supporting Actress

Jennifer Connelly – A Beautiful Mind

Cameron Diaz – Vanilla Sky

* Illeana Douglas – Ghost World

Frances O’Connor – A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Gwyneth Paltrow – The Royal Tenebaums

Maribel Verdú – Y Tu Mamá También

Best Director

Robert Altman – Gosford Park

Claire Denis – Trouble Every Day

* Peter Jackson – Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

David Lynch – Mulholland Drive

Steven Spielberg - A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Best Screenplay

Electric Dragon, 80.000V (Sogo Ishii)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Frances Walsh, Phillipa Boyens & Peter Jackson)

Memento (Christopher Nolan & Jonathan Nolan)

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)

* The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson)

Best Cinematography

* Ali (Emmanuel Lubezski)

Electric Dragon, 80.000V (Kasamatsu Norimichi)

In the Mood for Love (Christopher Doyle & Mark Li Ping-bin)

LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring (Andrew Lesnie)

Mulholland Drive (Peter Deming)

Best Editing

Ali (William Goldberg, Lynzee Klingman & Stephen E. Rivkin)

Black Hawk Down (Pietro Scalia)

Memento (Dody Dorn)

* Mulholland Drive (Mary Sweeney)

Trouble Every Day (Nelly Quettier)

Best Film Score

* Amélie (Yann Tiersen)

In the Mood for Love (Mike Glalasso & Shigeru Umebayashi)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Howard Shore)

Mulholland Drive (Angelo Badalamenti)

Best Production Design

* A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Amélie

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

The Man Who Wasn’t There

The Royal Tenebaums

Best Ensemble Cast Performance

Gosford Park

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Memento

The Pledge

* The Royal Tenenbaums



2001 Films Seen (49 features as of 03.08.2013)

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
Ali (Michael Mann, 2001)

Amélie (Jean-Pierre Juenet, 2001)

American Pie 2 (J.B. Rogers, 2001)

Baby Boy (John Singleton, 2001)

Bandits (Barry Levinson, 2001)

A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard, 2001)

Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott, 2001)

Blow (Ted Demme, 2001)

Bridget Jones’ Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001)

Domestic Violence (Frederick Wiseman, 2001)

Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)

Electric Dragon 80.000 V (Sogo Ishii, 2001)

Frailty (Bill Paxton, 2001)

Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)

Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)

Hannibal (Ridley Scott, 2001)

Hearts in Atlantis (Scott Hicks, 2001)

Heist (David Mamet, 2001)

Hell House (George Ratliff, 2001)

I Am Sam (Jessie Nelson, 2001)

In the Bedroom (Todd Field, 2001)

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2001)

Iris (Richard Eyre, 2001)

Jurassic Park III (Joe Johnston, 2001)

Life as a House (Irwin Winkler, 2001)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)

Lovely & Amazing (Nicole Holofcener, 2001)

The Majestic (Frank Darabont, 2001)

The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel Coen, 2001)

Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2001)

Monsters, Inc. (Pete Docter, David Silverman & Lee Unkrich, 2001)

Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

Monster’s Ball (Marc Forster, 2001)

The Others (Alejandro Amenábar, 2001)

The Pledge (Sean Penn, 2001)

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)

Schlock!  The Secret History of American Movies (Ray Greene, 2001)

The Score (Frank Oz, 2001)

Scotland, PA (Billy Morrissette, 2001)

Shrek (Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson, 2001)

Swordfish (Dominic Sena, 2001)

Training Day (Antoine Fuqua, 2001)

Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)

Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001)

Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001)

What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang, 2001)

Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)