Viewing Log #26: No, not caprice: it takes idle time. [12/21/09 - 12/27/09]

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Pride: pp.14-15

• A Serious Man [Coens, 2009] I just tweeted: "A SERIOUS MAN is so scary it hurts. Just about the most nihilistic film I've ever seen. Like NO COUNTRY times BURN AFTER READING to the nth." And I think it's kind of good? Don't quite know yet, but I do know that to toss it off as simply just nasty is to not reckon the nasty. In fact, I'd say that's exactly what they're predicting you'll do; what they might say is a "problem" at large. I don't think they're advocating a blind eye. The scary thing is that they might be advocating a bullet brunch. Or, that some lives aren't just quiet desperation: some lives are, in fact, pointless. Whether you eat the bullet is up to you, of course, but it's a debate you have to have every day. Luckily, or so it would appear, each of these guys has "somebody to love" and that makes them choose this world every morning. I walked out desperate for life. I should probably write some more about this one. Or, at the least, have a few good talks over a few good beers with a few good men I trust and love.
  
  
• Inglourious Basterds [Quentin Tarantino, 2009] # Wound up watching the digital copy in full. Looked good, but it was too easy to minimize while snacking.
  
• Black Book [Paul Verhoeven, 2006] # On a rainy and ugly day, I thought I'd see some real struggle and some real womanhood. [click here.]
  
  
• Inglourious Basterds [Quentin Tarantino, 2009] # Started it on my computer, then later in the day looked at the Blu Ray. Looked great, of course, but, as I tweeted, this movie demands celluloid's texture. Motes don't quite mote, and smoke won't quite curl, the same in digital's clarity.
  
• 2001 [Stanley Kubrick, 1968] # Works really well on Blu Ray; so alien, such a painting. I skipped around a lot and saw some beautiful things. "Jupiter And Beyond" is something wholly new, something Avatar can't touch (in any medium).
  
• North by Northwest [Alfred Hitchcock, 1959] # I dozed, but the Blu Ray's colors were out of control beautiful: all those greens popped so loud against all that grey.
  
• Le chant de styrène [Alain Resnais, 1958] # Off the Marienbad Blu Ray, watched without the soundtrack, which made it that much less representational and more just a bunch of color and movement plays.
  
  
• Black Book [Paul Verhoeven, 2006] Carice van Houten isn't only a pretty face, a total babe, but she's also a damn good (and game) actress. It's kind of crazy how good this movie is—and that I never heeded suggestions that I go see it in theatres—crazy in that way where you shock yourself at how much you love something. (The movie's pretty shocking, too, of course.) The holiday week forced me to break up the movie, which is a bummer, but it's so strong scene-to-scene—with almost every single interaction a bit of two-face; almost everything's about performance and/or artifice in some fashion or another—that it doesn't hurt the film too much to see it in pieces. It also helps that Verhoeven is such a pulpy goof who makes straight up entertaining movies. (Since I'm in a hierarchical mindset these daze as the decade winds down, I also want to say that 2006 was an especially strong year for this decade; and this movie's right up there on my list.)
  
  
• Taken [Pierre Morel, 2008] Plenty stupid. But the right kind of calories for dinner. Kinda makes me excited for this piece of junk. Funny that Zach threw up some notes the same day.
  
• The Girlfriend Experience [Steven Soderbergh, 2009] Tight little package. Sometimes funny, sometimes not, mostly a mirror for its often affectless actress and that wild time of October '08. Good lunchtime flick. My man GK kills his scene. Maybe better than I'm allowing it, honestly, in that it's got a mission and it nails it. (Cough.) I mean, it hammers her home (or not) in more ways than one, though it's also a tad one-note and defeatist.

—Get lit up already

Two Jacks. Or, No way, Jose!

by Claire Twisselman

Call me a grinchess: I don't care! Most of the people I love the most live for Halloween. I don't. Straight up. In fact, it's pretty basic: I hate it. Sure, I've had some fun times. But, seriously, as I've gotten older, rampant costuming and no-mystery ghoulish behavior makes me make a "that smells" face. And part of my scowl comes from everybody being an asshole, insisting on my participation. I don't dress up. Stop poking my ribs, jerks! Do you want me to wear nothing? To get drunk and make out with my best friend? No thanks. And I've worn fishnets. Hell, I've even made out with my best friend. But, you know what? The best thing about Halloween is the pumpkins—and the start of pumpkin pie season. So that's what I've done this year, and that's what I'll do tonight: make faces with a knife. Also, I'll watch The Shining on my uncle's ginormous television in his basement with the sound turned up way loud. Yup: I'll be avoiding the doorbell.

[Later I might whip my own cream for a slice of my aunt's perfect vegan pie. Click that image above for a similar recipe I found, looking for a picture since I left my camera in my friend's back seat last weekend.]

Convergence for your keening kith (10/28/09)

by Ryland Walker Knight

Losses roll, barrel, fall and float so
Species size up and history can hope.

Viewing Log #17: Burn off by now already [10/19/09 - 10/25/09]

by Ryland Walker Knight

—What's a womb? That's a home?

• The Informant! [Steven Soderbergh, 2009] Totally daft-deft stab at greed. Maybe the most ironic film of the decade? Easily the best thing Sodeyface has done since The Limey. But where most of the rest of S.S.'s career is about self-aware charisma, Matt Damon's Whitacre isn't charismatic so much as crazy, a perfect boob, caught inside his own tape loop confessional; it's still about acting, but this film is more about delusions than anything. I feel like I could go see it again tomorrow and the next day—and then the next day, too.
  
  
• Antichrist [Lars Von Trier, 2009] I watched the prologue, then struggled to stay awake for the next twenty minutes of Charlotte Gainsbourg jumping all over Willem Defoe. I'll have to get back to you on this one.
  
  
• 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup [Jacques Rivette, 2009] Damned flawless. Boy do I wish I'd seen this on film for the first time (you were right, DP), but I trust that pleasure, yet to be had, will come to pass a lot sooner than I expect. I will write more soon, maybe, after I finish some projects.
  
• Bright Star [Jane Campion, 2009] I'll have more to say later, in another space, but in this right here I'll say, hey, this is nice; and, for good measure—I'd say this if she was a stranger—Martha's recent piece at The Auteurs gets at this sweet thing but good. Further, it was great to see on a big screen, and mostly alone, as my reintroduction to cinema-going in a big city.
  
  
• Eyes Wide Shut [Stanley Kubrick, 1999] # Total fkng masterpiece. Very Rivette, it strikes me, now, with its hidden worlds and masks. Otherwise, very Kubrick, duh, with its fluid and (near) fish-eyed camera; with its dissolves; with its compassionate distrust of the human (and excoriation of male pride); with its color and compositional eye; with its musical arrangement; with its acetate wit; and with its quite "flawless" acting. Another rarity that deflates fantasies but keeps hope alive that marriage is a viable way of life in this world of temptation and commodity-fixation.

—Out to dry

Cosmic calls in on us, again.

by Ryland Walker Knight

I'd planned on letting that last widget post lapse past the page, but, well, this early AM I got excited about some more recommendations from my daily dials. The coding on the widget is a little wonky, but, still, I'm updating it. Here goes. Most immediate would be that I just finished watching Criterion's Renoir box set of films from the 1950s, Stage and Spectacle, and I cannot sing its praises enough. Not only are the films all delightful, and typically excellent, but spread across the three discs is the interview Jacques Rivette conducted with le maitre, called "Jean Renoir parle de son art," which has as many lessons about cinema (and art in general) as you'll get in a full semester of study. Essential viewing. Likewise, Bill Callahan's Woke on a Whaleheart has been getting a bunch of spins around these parts. I'm going to have to return my library copy of Infinite Jest this week and hope to pick up another copy at my next local, but you can certainly buy one because it's worth it; I'd just rather spend that $12 on some food right now. Or, I could put it towards a copy of that new Farber on Film behemoth (which Glenn wrote a few words about over here). Finally, in my haze yesterday, browsing around (somewhere, anywhere), I learned that the Blu Ray release of 2001: A Space Odyssey is currently being sold at a staggering discount, which is another disc I'd love to own along with the requisite player. Can't beat 70mm at the Castro, but it's better than standard def on a tube. Some day soon, we can hope!

— There's sap in the trees if you tap'm
10.06.09: Added five more things to give the lil box two pages of fun stuff. Quickly: (1) Nabokov: Novels 1955-1962: Lolita / Pnin / Pale Fire for the greatest 20th Century novelist's most recognizably seminal works; (2) That FatCat reissue of Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished + Danse Manitee for how those wacky Bmore guises got started; (3) The Cary Grant Box Set (Holiday / Only Angels Have Wings / The Talk of the Town / His Girl Friday / The Awful Truth) for the best Hollywood actor of all time in some of the best Hollywood pictures of all time; (4) A Christmas Tale for being the best picture of what I feel about families, and mine (with more words soon upon this DVD's release); and (5) the game of Scattergories for all the fun it's brought me through the years.

Kill your clock.

by Ryland Walker Knight

—We deal in reversals here; we battle for the light.
You've probably heard of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule by now. Likewise, you've probably seen the "quiz" Dennis put together this summer. Some people asked me whether I was going to answer these questions. I thought I wasn't going to, as these quizzes always take far too long, even though they can be fun, for a nut like me. But this evening, prompted further, I went ahead and killed time (procrastinated) with this bit of silly. Hope you dig it.

1) Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film. Barry Lyndon behind 2001, though that can reverse depending on what I've seen last.

2) Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil. You can probably guess that I'll say the digital trending: for the image, for history, for preservation (perhaps this is misguided), for expression, for democracy, for hifalutin theory, for grainy purple skylines.

3) Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)? Newman.

4) Best Film of 1949. Hmn, lots of goodies, including Ozu and Reed and Ophuls and Ford. I'm tempted to say Late Spring but, well, my heart and soul belong to Tati: Jour de fête.

5) Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) or Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore)? Guess I'll say Barrymore.

6) Has the hand-held shaky-cam directorial style become a visual cliché? Far too often, duh.

7) What was the first foreign-language film you ever saw? Maybe Yojimbo.

8) Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) or Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre)? Lorre all the way.

9) Favorite World War II drama (1950-1970). My favorite movie ever would qualify if you stretched that parenthetical to include 1998, but in that window, I'd wager Resnais's Hiroshima lament is pretty tough to beat.


10) Favorite animal movie star. If it isn't Balthazar or Babe or Baby, then it's got to be Mr. Smith.

11) Who or whatever is to blame, name an irresponsible moment in cinema. The film critic's ego. Or, most film criticism at that. (Although, the flip of that is that we all take this niche world too seriously, too.) The movies? Hell, they're a damned irresponsible lot the whole of them, which is why I love'm. It's nice to indulge this life.

12) Best Film of 1969. Andrei Rublev of course.

13) Name the last movie you saw theatrically, and also on DVD or Blu-ray. Theatrically, Harry Potter 6; DVD, A Matter of Life and Death; "otherwise", Duelle.

14) Second-favorite Robert Altman film. Probably The Long Goodbye behind that Western with Julie Christie.

15) What is your favorite independent outlet for reading about movies, either online or in print? I'm biased, like anybody, with too many friends online to choose from, so I'll draw straws and, arbitrarily, pick Andy Rector.

16) Who wins? Angela Mao or Meiko Kaji? (Thanks, Peter!) ...

17) Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) or Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly)? Tomei

18) Favorite movie that features a carnival setting or sequence. I almost want to ape Sean and say Sunrise—though the Hitchcock and the Minelli sure are spectacular—but what if I just said Speed Racer? Could that work?

19) Best use of high-definition video on the big screen to date. Tough to call, but my prejudices would point to Miami Vice of course.

20) Favorite movie that is equal parts genre film and a deconstruction or consideration of that same genre. Wait: isn't that every movie? Aren't the best ones just not even about that but, instead, synthesize the self-reflexive nature of the medium into their stories? Aren't you forced to ask that of every film? To get as Cavell as possible, I'll vote for The Awful Truth.

21) Best Film of 1979. Stalker over Alien though Manhattan still holds a special, sentimental spot.

22) Most realistic and/or sincere depiction of small-town life in the movies. I can't speak to any veracity, but I sure do love The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.

23) Best horror movie creature (non-giant division). Alien, duh.

24) Second-favorite Francis Ford Coppola film. The Conversation behind The Godfather.

25) Name a one-off movie that could have produced a franchise you would have wanted to see. I'm feeling the Master and Commander love, but what if Dennis Hopper had played Ripley for a decade?

26) Favorite sequence from a Brian De Palma film. The end of The Fury, easy.

27) Favorite moment in three-strip Technicolor. Pfffff. Um, Powell and Pressbuger.

28) Favorite Alan Smithee film. (Thanks, Peter!) ...

29) Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) or Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau)? Crash.

30) Best post-Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen film. Sweet and Lowdown.

31) Best Film of 1999. Beau Travail over Sicilia! by a finale.

32) Favorite movie tag line. "Family isn't a word, it's a sentence." [The Royal Tenenbaums]

33) Favorite B-movie western. Can't say I know many, to be honest, but if 40 Guns counts, count me in.

34) Overall, the author best served by movie adaptations of her or his work. There are several ways to answer this question. Arthur Symons solely for Desplechin's Esther Kahn, which may be the best movie of the 2000s (or close to).

35) Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) or Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard)? Oofda. Susan Vance.

36) Favorite musical cameo in a non-musical movie. When "Nighshift" comes on in 35 Rhums.

37) Bruno (the character, if you haven’t seen the movie, or the film, if you have): subversive satire or purveyor of stereotyping? Abstain

38) Five film folks, living or deceased, you would love to meet. (Thanks, Rick!) (1) Terrence Malick // (2) Cary Grant // (3) Irene Dunne // (4) Mathieu Amalric // (5) Preston Sturges

—This lady, too, I guess.

10 Personal Touchstones in American Cinema

by Ryland Walker Knight

[Originally posted at the curator corner, where you can read the full post.]

The Cure of Misanthropy: On Wall-E, Kubrick, and Mike White’s The Year of the Dog

by Daniel Coffeen

I just re-watched Wall-E with my five year old (it is the first, and only, film he’s seen in the theater). Let me tell you why I think it’s a dangerous film and why I wish Stanley Kubrick, or even Mike White, had directed it.

Wall-E opens on a bleak landscape, an apocalypse of waste. The only life on this planet seems to be a robot, the eponymous Wall-E, whose sole job is to gather and compact the trash. The films seems to proffer a certain damning critique of humanity: we’ve destroyed the earth with our mindless, heedless consumption. But Wall-E is an unabashed celebration of humanity. Wall-E roams the waste gathering stuff he loves—lighters, light bulbs, various tchotchkes. And he watches the same maudlin scene from the same maudlin film over and over. All he wants, it seems, is a wife. In other words, the spirit of humanity that Wall-E embodies and resurrects is the humanity of the late 20th century white, middle-class bourgeoisie.

He’s a fucking robot! And the only mode of love he can muster is the familiar, monogamous, bathetic bullshit? He’s a machine! He’s capable of offering an education, a training, that can get humans past their humanity. And yet to the bozos at Pixar, all he can do is reproduce the very humanity that created this apocalypse in the first place.

Wall-E proffers the all-too-human Christian critique of humanity—we have to fight our bad ways. The play of sympathy in this movie is disgusting and so familiar I had to punch myself in the face, Esther Kahn style, while watching it.

A Clockwork Orange, too, gives us a certain apocalyptic vision. But, of course, that film shifts our sympathies in such a dramatic way that we find ourselves rooting for the ultra-violent Alex—as the last bastion of true humanity! Now that is a damning critique of humanity. That is misanthropy. Imagine Kubrick making Wall-E. The egregious thing about the Pixar film is that it thinks it’s tipping its hat to 2001, to the image of HAL. But HAL is cool, calm, and brutal as only a machine can be. HAL is an invitation to think past the bathos of humanity.

But why misanthropy? Because if we are to overcome our destructive ways, if we’re to cure the virus we’ve evolved into, then we have to overcome our humanist training, our humanist tradition. We have to continue to evolve. We have to shed our humanist skin and become other to ourselves. Or avoid misanthropy all together—but then don’t give me the guise of critique when all you do is repeat the illness, embed it deeper into our blood stream. The reason I loathe Wall-E is that it pretends to give us a cure while spoon feeding us the same old sickness.

Thank goodness for Mike White’s Year of the Dog, a truly misanthropic film. Molly Shannon plays Peggy, a woman who comes to realize her disgust for humanity and her preference for animals. What makes this movie so powerful, so damning, is that Mike White never gives us a caricature of humanity. Peggy’s boss is pretty cool—but he is her boss and that is enough. Her friends are all fine human beings—but they are human beings and are hence saddled with their all-too-human concerns. These concerns are not petty; they’re just, well, human. Her brother and his family are not bad—but they are a human family and that, alone, is ugly.

Filming Peggy’s interaction with these people, White just puts the camera square on them so we share her viewpoint. These people are not bad: they’re not assholes, they’re not cruel or stupid. The only problem with them is they’re people!

And yet this is not a depressing, negative film. On the contrary, it is hopeful, joyous. There is a way out of humanity. We don’t have to choose the same old shit. We can shed the sickness of our humanity. Mike White, in his understated sleeper of a film, offers us a curing dose of misanthropy.

Obligatory 70mm Film Festival image for the evening

Believe. One, two, three, One, two three, One, two three....