A note is struck in Synecdoche, New York—perhaps the one that commences Jon Brion and Deanna Storey's smoky-'n'-sad after-hours ballad "Little Person," which closes writer/director Charlie Kaufman's latest dive into the gaping, unforgiving maw of existence. The tone, always in a morose minor key, remains unvaried for a good two hours until Brion and Storey grant the proceedings (over a blessed fade-to-white) some retrospective resonance. Not to say that the previous 120 minutes of poseur artistry (begetting 4 minutes of genuine invention) is improved so much as given a finish (an elating flourish) it doesn't deserve. Para-referencing Herzog's Stroszek, the music does the heavy lifting though the headless chickens dance.
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To read the rest of the review at UnderGroundOnline (UGO), click here.
The House Next Door
Archive: October, 2008
Synecdoche, New York
by Keith Uhlich on October 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 pm in Film
Lost in Adaptation: Max Payne
by John Lichman on October 23rd, 2008 at 9:00 am in Film
By John Lichman
[Max Payne opened nationwide last Friday.]
We're introduced to Max Payne (Mark "Talks to Animals" Wahlberg) through disjointed jump-cuts, as he's gasping for air in a frozen river and grumbling,"I don't believe in life. I believe in pain. I believe in death." Somewhere in the first 120-seconds, screenwriter Beau Thorne manages to completely and utterly deviate from a video game script by Sam Lake that followed traditional noir and graphic novel formats so completely (in structure and as storyboard) that to deviate from it seems insane. Continue Reading »
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
by Vadim Rizov on October 23rd, 2008 at 3:00 am in Film
I have a distinct, horrified memory of a girl in one of my screenwriting classes freshman year nearly breaking into tears, trying to communicate to our teacher what it was she wanted to make; his proscriptive beats and arcs just weren't doing it for her. She wanted to create something real, small, and true, something that showed how people really were; something, she concluded in near-hysteria, like Garden State. Zach Braff's sincere blast of post-fame anomie—sincerely emotive, twee and stupid—was the first salvo in an increasingly deliberate wave of films that led the Sundance movie from amorphous arthouse genre into the multiplexes; the demographic had been pinned down, finally. Continue Reading »
Links for the Day (October 23rd, 2008)
by Keith Uhlich on October 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm in Links for the Day
1. "Block the Vote": By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast for Rolling Stone.
["Suppressing the vote has long been a cornerstone of the GOP's electoral strategy. Shortly before the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Paul Weyrich—a principal architect of today's Republican Party—scolded evangelicals who believed in democracy. "Many of our Christians have what I call the 'goo goo' syndrome—good government," said Weyrich, who co-founded Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell. "They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.""] Continue Reading »
Dante In The Andes: Stranded
by Lauren Wissot on October 22nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm in Film
[Stranded opens today at Manhattan's Film Forum. Click here for screening information.]
I never saw Frank Marshall's Alive, the 1993 Ethan Hawke vehicle based on Piers Paul Read's bestseller about the Uruguayan rugby team that endured a nine-circles-of-hell experience that began in October 1972 when their plane crashed on an Andean glacier en route to a match in Chile, and ended 72 days later with the rescue of 16 of the 45 passengers, all of them emerging with incredible tales of fatal avalanches and last-resort cannibalism. The script is by one of my favorite writers, John Patrick Shanley, but unless the director is Werner Herzog, I tend to be highly skeptical of Hollywoodized "based-on-a-true-story"/"man-against-sadistic-nature" tales (Sean Penn's endlessly tedious Into The Wild made me feel like I was trapped in the Alaskan wilderness for two hours plus, awaiting rescue by an intrepid editor). Which is why it's a breath of fresh mountain air to see director Gonzalo Arijón, a childhood friend of many of the survivors, along with his cinematographers Pablo Hernán Zubizarreta and César Charlone (Fernando Meirelles' DP—who as fate would have it was supposed to be on that very flight but missed it!) lightly and patiently treading the same territory in Stranded: I've Come From A Plane That Crashed On The Mountains. Continue Reading »
New York Film Festival 2008: I'm Gonna Explode, Tulpan, Let It Rain, It's Hard Being Loved By Jerks, and Tokyo Sonata
by Vadim Rizov on October 22nd, 2008 at 6:00 am in Festivals, Film
As noted in every single NYFF dispatch, Gerardo Naranjo's I'm Gonna Explode is Pierrot Le Fou for Mexican emo teens, which means it's not nearly as intellectually cogent or insightful as its inspiration. The flaw is by design; either you think this kind of thing is fun and worth doing or you don't, but you can't argue that Naranjo has let his film get away from him. His specialty is a kind of ludicrously heightened melodrama, in which acts of extreme violence and unpleasantness become almost cheerful because of his verve and energy. E.g.: 2006's Drama/Mex opened with the world's funniest rape sequence. Girl to man: "Can you put on a condom?" Man: "Are you kidding? I'm raping you." Naranjo comes from a self-reported rough background, and his ability to have fun in the midst of what would normally be extremely unpleasant is his greatest asset. Continue Reading »
Links for the Day (October 22nd, 2008)
by Keith Uhlich on October 21st, 2008 at 9:01 pm in Links for the Day
1. "Could Synecdoche, New York Be the Worst Movie Ever? Yes!": Sexy Rexy and the Attack of The Monster Kimchi, The Sequel. (Hattip: Andrew Grant, who is currently leading the retaliatory mob to the Observer gates.)
["So let's cut straight to the eye of Katrina."] Continue Reading »
Working Moms: Who Does She Think She Is?
by Lauren Wissot on October 21st, 2008 at 1:50 pm in Film
[Who Does She Think She Is? is now playing at Angelika Film Center in Manhattan. Click here for screening information.]
I'll admit, as a person lacking in any parental instinct whatsoever, that I thought twice before agreeing to review Pamela Tanner Boll's Who Does She Think She Is?, a documentary that asks "Is it possible to be both a mother and an artist?" I'm about as interested in creative mommies as I am in quantum physics, yet that's exactly why I decided to give it a look. If Boll, the co-executive producer of Born Into Brothels, can inspire and enlighten an artist who says a silent prayer of "Thank heaven that's not me!" every time I see a mother pushing a stroller, then she's succeeded in crafting a film that reaches beyond its limited theme. That she does so both with humility and driven inquisitiveness is an added bonus. Continue Reading »
Links for the Day (October 21st, 2008)
by Keith Uhlich on October 20th, 2008 at 9:01 pm in Links for the Day
1. "Rudy Ray Moore dies at 81; comedian and filmmaker influenced rap and hip-hop": Obit from the L.A. Times. See also our Clips of the Day, and share other links and thoughts below.
["When it came to his own sense of his accomplishments, Moore was never burdened by immodesty. "These guys Steve Harvey and Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac claim they're the Kings of Comedy," Moore told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2003. "They may be funny, but they ain't no kings. That title is reserved for Rudy Ray Moore and Redd Foxx.""] Continue Reading »
Building a Better Bomb: The Alternatives to Suspense
by Peet Gelderblom on October 19th, 2008 at 10:00 pm in Film
[Editor's Note: The House Next Door is proud to reissue a series of articles developed at 24LiesASecond, a now-defunct platform for provocative criticism with an underdog bite. The essay below was first published on 01/07/2005, under the editorial guidance of James M. Moran.]
It's always a bad idea to argue with the Master. Any sensible person will tell you so. On the subject of cinema, there is probably nothing more foolish and outright uncool than to question Alfred Hitchcock. You don't question Hitchcock; you shut up, listen and learn. The man didn't just revolutionize the medium, he wrote the official Book of Rules. Every filmmaker since, especially those with dread on the repertoire, builds on the foundations Hitchcock left behind. Steven Spielberg, Alejandro Amenábar, M. Night Shyamalan, Hideo Nakata: they all owe the one who is commonly referred to as the Greatest Director of All Time.
Like I said: it's always a bad idea to argue with the Master.
Wish me luck... Continue Reading »
Links for the Day (October 20th, 2008)
by Keith Uhlich on October 19th, 2008 at 9:01 pm in Links for the Day
1. Came across the above interview (extensive) with Raúl Ruiz at Film Studies For Free. Check it, and the site, out.
["The very enterprising and generous Department of Film and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen began its 'Director's Cut' series of public interviews last year, and is now set to launch this year's series, including conversations with Hans Petter Moland, Pawel Pawlikowski, and Jane Treays."] Continue Reading »
The Black Elephant in the Room
by Sal Cinquemani on October 19th, 2008 at 5:28 pm in Politics
Until a few weeks ago, the elephant in the room during this year's presidential election wasn't red—it was black. Barack Obama's background has been dissected ad nauseam, but no one seemed to want to talk about how his race could affect the polls on November 4th. The Bradley Effect, the discrepancy between the number of white voters who say they're going to vote for a black candidate and the number of white voters who actually do, is historically about 3%, which just so happens to be the net percentage disparity between many of Obama's exit poll numbers and his official tallies during the Democratic primary earlier this year. In a close race, 3% can mean the difference between two vastly different worldviews, but Obama will likely overcome that statistic with scores of first-time voters—many of whom haven't been counted in national polls because they're not considered "likely voters" or because they don't have a landline telephone. And the endorsement of former Secretary of State Colin Powell this morning will likely shore up support for Obama among moderates and independents who may have had some trouble picturing a black man in such a powerful government position.
Obama's concern, then, should not be bashful or latent racism, but overt racism. Employing the same tactics that George W. Bush and Karl Rove successfully used against him in 2000, John McCain and his surrogates have taken to planting the seeds of fear into the American people by attempting to paint Obama as un-American, a foreigner, an "other." It would be a faux pas to call attention to his blackness, so they're doing the next best thing: likening him to a Muslim terrorist. The problem is, the closest thing they could find was a domestic terrorist from 40 years ago—and a white, middle-aged one at that. Continue Reading »
Links for the Day (October 19th, 2008)
by Keith Uhlich on October 19th, 2008 at 6:00 am in Links for the Day
1. "Not My Financial Crisis—I've Got Literally Nothing to Lose": Great piece by Alexander Zaitchik at AlterNet, with extensive comments.
["Like most people I know in their 20s and 30s, it takes a stretch of the imagination to understand that I have a stake in the national economy. In terms of day-to-day life, my only ties to large financial institutions are a Bank of America checking account, a single low-limit high-fee Visa card, and a Kilimanjaro of student debt, which I have come to accept as something I will die with, not from, like a benign but grapefruit-size tumor or peaceable parasite dwelling in my large intestine. When people use scary terms like "unchartered territory" and "total meltdown," my first thought is, "Would an economic cataclysm wipe out my student debt? If so, then let's press reset and start the whole damn thing over! Burn it clean!""] Continue Reading »
The Whole Ball Game: W.
by Kevin B. Lee on October 18th, 2008 at 2:24 pm in Film
By Kevin B. Lee
This review was written as an epilogue to "Oliver Stone: The Official Story," a series of articles and video essays on Stone's films commissioned by Moving Image Source, the online magazine of the Museum of the Moving Image. The series includes considerations of Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Nixon and Alexander.
W. continues the trajectory of Oliver Stone's political biographies toward examining (and often identifying with) protagonists firmly situated in the seat of power. But as with Nixon, Stone portrays George W. Bush less as a driver than a prisoner of his own destiny. Like all of the protagonists explored in this series, the younger President Bush struggles for self-determination against a social system where family and nation both coddle and control him. And as with Nixon and Alexander the Great, the exorcizing of his personal demons leaves the world utterly changed.
It is a questionable prospect to largely attribute the motivations of a president's career, and especially the complex series of events leading to the Iraq war, to a man's lifelong rivalry with his father, as Stone dares to do in W. Nonetheless, this thesis is consistent with Stone's career-long obsession with the psychological traumas inflicted by fathers and other patriarchal figures (the military, the government) on their children. It's fascinating to watch Josh Brolin's portrayal of W. in his youth, as crippled emotionally as Ron Kovic was physically in Born on the Fourth of July, and as desperate in his search for redemption. Young Dubya is barely able to articulate his ambitions without recoiling in fear of his father's disapproval. Bailed out by the elder Bush from one mishap after another on a pre-paved road to success while plying himself with booze as his only means of self-expression, W. is a man effectively castrated by the American Dream. It is only when he casts himself as a born-again public servant (declaring that he answers to an even greater Father than his own) that he finds sufficient ego fulfillment to challenge the legacy that has long haunted him. Some viewers may find little use for this Freudian apologia of the Bush persona in understanding the many domestic and global crises that emerged during his administration (in the film even Bush complains about "all this psychobabble about me in the media"). But if W. makes for a compelling account of the failure of America on a psychic level, it's because Stone has spent his career perfecting this narrative.
To read the rest of the W review, click here and scroll down.
Empire of the Son: Alexander
by Kevin B. Lee on October 18th, 2008 at 1:24 pm in Film
By Kevin B. Lee
This is the fourth and final installment in "Oliver Stone: The Official Story," a series of articles and video essays on Stone's films commissioned by Moving Image Source, the online magazine of the Museum of the Moving Image. The series includes considerations of Born on the Fourth of July, JFK and Nixon.
Looking at Oliver Stone's filmography, one can trace a gradual shift—away from the struggles of those dispossessed by authority (like Ron Kovic and Jim Garrison) and toward those who have held the seat of power, like Richard Nixon and Alexander the Great. And if Nixon is about how one man tried and failed to impose his will upon history, Alexander is also a story of a failure. But in the words of Ptolemy, "His failure towered over other men's successes." Using Ptolemy's dictation of his memoirs as a framing device, the narration is tinged with Ptolemy's impending mortality, his yearning to revisit the promise of his generation in its glorious youth, and his desire to commemorate the past in a glow of mythic grandeur. After so many attempts to cast aspersions on the mythmaking machine, Alexander is about examining a myth that truly inspires.
Like in Born on the Fourth of July, we see a boy raised in a culture steeped heavily in myth. Alexander's estranged mother and father invoke mythical origins. They hold the myths over Alexander's head, vying for custody over his mind and programming him to aspire to greatness. The movie suggests that Alexander's ambition to conquer and unify the world stems from a sublimated desire to reconcile the conflict between his Macedonian father and barbarian mother, which he re-enacts by taking a Bactrian princess as his queen.
To read the rest of the article, or to watch Kevin B. Lee's video essay on Alexander, click here.
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