Film: Somewhere
Director: Sofia Coppola
Country: USA
Sofia Coppola first received mainstream recognition as a director for her 2003 film Lost In Translation. Her new film Somewhere covers a lot of the same ground as Lost In Translation. Alienation, cultural misunderstanding in a foreign country, emotional detachment from one's career. Some of the scenes in Italy seem taken directly from Lost In Translation, except with Italian culture instead of Japanese culture. The main character is another famous actor being pulled around by the demands of his career. His daughter's mother leaves for unspecified reasons for an indefinite amount of time, leaving their daughter with him. His daughter hardly knows him, because his acting career takes him away most of the time. Unlike Lost In Translation however, Somewhere doesn't have the comedy themes or the sentimental payoff that gave it mainstream appeal. The film is very slow paced, with a lot of long shots of the main character disinterestedly inhabiting his life. There's a long scene where he's watching pole dancers, a long scene where he's sitting still having a mold of his head made, presumeably for props in a movie he's making. People who look to movies mostly for entertainment will probably find the film incredibly boring.
Now, a film can be boring and still be a good film. My theory is that the more boring a film is, the better the artistic payoff has to be for the film to be good. There are some nice subtle points made by the film. At the beginning of the film the main character breaks his arm. When he's with his daughter, you see him watching her figureskate, sitting by the side of the pool while she swims, watching her play Guitar Hero with his buddy. Then later when he gets the cast off, he's taking part in the same activities, playing ping pong, swimming in the pool with her. The subtle point made by his juxtopposition is that, he can only relate to his daughter through physical participation in her activities. There is no real emotional bond except through the ritual of playing. There's an eerie similarity between the scene where he's watching pole dancers and the scene where he's watching his daughter figure skate. Without the ability to interact with her, just as he's a spectator to the strippers' sexiness, he's just a spectator to his daughter's daughter-ness. There is artistic and emotional payoff, but it's not strong enough payoff to justify the slow pacing and lack of entertainment value of the film.
Style: 3
Substance: 8
Overall: 6
Accessibility: 5
I know I haven't been doing many music reviews. It's easier to write about films than music. I've been meaning to write up Robyn - Body Talk and Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be but haven't gotten around to it.
I'm going to make sure to write up White Denim's internet release Last Day Of Summer just because it was so poorly promoted, it got almost no attention at all.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
The Fighter
Film: The Fighter
Director: David O Russell
Country: USA
There isn't a lot to be said about the plot of The Fighter. It's a boxing movie. A young boxer wants a title shot. He has setbacks, he has family problems, then he overcomes them and gets his title shot. It's a very performance driven movie. Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale give great performances as Micky Ward and his older brother Dickey, his trainer and a crack addict who used to be a famous boxer. The main tension in the film is between his family, who want him to stay with his mother and his manager and his brother as his trainer, and his girlfriend who wants him to accept an outside contract. When his brother goes to jail the decision becomes easier and he accepts the outside contract with a professional trainer. Then later when he gets his shot at the championship, his brother gets out of jail. Micky promised his girlfriend and his new trainer that he wouldn't work with Dickey anymore, but he wants to both keep his new staff and bring Dickey back on.
The main emotional theme of the film, as with many boxing movies, his pride. Micky wants to prove he can win, that he can provide for his daughter, and be 'The pride of Lowell'. When Dickey goes to jail, HBO airs a special about crack addiction with him as the star. Micky's daughter's mother makes sure his daughter sees the special to show her "Who Dick really is, and who he really is". People in his life want to cast him as a criminal and a bum, and his only way to escape that role is to succeed at boxing.
The fights themselves are also executed very well, though the way they're narrated, perhaps strategically oversimplified. (All we're really told is 'If he hits the head, and then the body, he will win'.)
It's all very well acted, very well directed, very well written. The only plot problem is that it has pretty much the same story as other boxing movies. If that's not something you mind, you will love the film.
Style: 5
Substance: 8
Overall: 7
Director: David O Russell
Country: USA
There isn't a lot to be said about the plot of The Fighter. It's a boxing movie. A young boxer wants a title shot. He has setbacks, he has family problems, then he overcomes them and gets his title shot. It's a very performance driven movie. Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale give great performances as Micky Ward and his older brother Dickey, his trainer and a crack addict who used to be a famous boxer. The main tension in the film is between his family, who want him to stay with his mother and his manager and his brother as his trainer, and his girlfriend who wants him to accept an outside contract. When his brother goes to jail the decision becomes easier and he accepts the outside contract with a professional trainer. Then later when he gets his shot at the championship, his brother gets out of jail. Micky promised his girlfriend and his new trainer that he wouldn't work with Dickey anymore, but he wants to both keep his new staff and bring Dickey back on.
The main emotional theme of the film, as with many boxing movies, his pride. Micky wants to prove he can win, that he can provide for his daughter, and be 'The pride of Lowell'. When Dickey goes to jail, HBO airs a special about crack addiction with him as the star. Micky's daughter's mother makes sure his daughter sees the special to show her "Who Dick really is, and who he really is". People in his life want to cast him as a criminal and a bum, and his only way to escape that role is to succeed at boxing.
The fights themselves are also executed very well, though the way they're narrated, perhaps strategically oversimplified. (All we're really told is 'If he hits the head, and then the body, he will win'.)
It's all very well acted, very well directed, very well written. The only plot problem is that it has pretty much the same story as other boxing movies. If that's not something you mind, you will love the film.
Style: 5
Substance: 8
Overall: 7
Saturday, December 18, 2010
The King's Speech
Film: The King's Speech
Director: Tom Hooper
Country: UK
The story of the film is very simple. Prince Albert, son of the King of England, has a severe stutter. In his position as Prince and as Duke of York, he has to do lots of public speaking. He has to overcome his stutter, and the traditional methods aren't working. His wife finds him an unconventional speech therapist known for 'Controversial' methods, who insists during the sessions they see each other as equals, because he says it's essential to his technique. Later on when his father dies, and his brother abdicates so he can marry a women who's been divorced, he becomes King. At this point, the Nazis invade Poland and England declares war on Germany. The nation is looking to him to reassure them and lead them through this conflict, so he has to overcome his stutter.
Speaking as a person who stutters, the depiction of stuttering is very accurate. No problems there. The problem with the film is that the approach is very generic and formulaic. The whole story is choreographed from the moment you meet the speech therapist. He talks to the Prince like an equal, insists on calling him 'Berty', and you know right away that Albert is going to gradually accept this as his speech gradually improves. They milk the class irony angle a whole lot, at one point with the psychiatrist charmingly sitting on an ancient throne, and replying to Albert's objections with 'It's just a chair'. But other than those scenes that charmingly make light of royalty, nothing seems very specific to Albert and his particular situation. You could take eighty percent of the script and make it about anybody with a stuttering problem just by filling in the blanks differently. Replace the scenes where he's working on his stuttering with some other semi-psychological problem, and the only other script changes you'd need to make would be to replace the stuttering references. It's like they took a template 'Overcoming adversity' script and mad-libbed it to be about Prince Albert's stuttering problem.
Also, maybe I took issue with this because I'm American as opposed to British, but I feel like they inflated the importance of the post-Victorian British royal family. About an hour and a half into the film Albert, then 'King Charles VI', comments that he's a king that doesn't have any actual political power. Except for that one moment of the film, you'd think it took place in the Tudor era and that the king was head of government. They then heavily implied that the psychological health of the entire nation was tied directly to the king's ability to speak properly. Maybe I just don't understand because I'm not British, but it felt like they did that to artificially add weight to the drama.
Colin Firth's performace as Prince Albert was very good, and the rest of the cast filled their roles well enough. The script was very efficient and workmanlike, entertaining with no serious flaws. The King's Speech, overall, is a very competent film, and though it strictly adheres to the 'Overcoming adversity' formula, it does so very well. It's a pleasant, smart film I'd recommend to people who liked films such as An Education and Slumdog Millionaire, but not to people who like blockbuster films, or to people who like more eclectic art films.
Style: 4
Substance: 6
Overall: 5
Accessibility: 8
Director: Tom Hooper
Country: UK
The story of the film is very simple. Prince Albert, son of the King of England, has a severe stutter. In his position as Prince and as Duke of York, he has to do lots of public speaking. He has to overcome his stutter, and the traditional methods aren't working. His wife finds him an unconventional speech therapist known for 'Controversial' methods, who insists during the sessions they see each other as equals, because he says it's essential to his technique. Later on when his father dies, and his brother abdicates so he can marry a women who's been divorced, he becomes King. At this point, the Nazis invade Poland and England declares war on Germany. The nation is looking to him to reassure them and lead them through this conflict, so he has to overcome his stutter.
Speaking as a person who stutters, the depiction of stuttering is very accurate. No problems there. The problem with the film is that the approach is very generic and formulaic. The whole story is choreographed from the moment you meet the speech therapist. He talks to the Prince like an equal, insists on calling him 'Berty', and you know right away that Albert is going to gradually accept this as his speech gradually improves. They milk the class irony angle a whole lot, at one point with the psychiatrist charmingly sitting on an ancient throne, and replying to Albert's objections with 'It's just a chair'. But other than those scenes that charmingly make light of royalty, nothing seems very specific to Albert and his particular situation. You could take eighty percent of the script and make it about anybody with a stuttering problem just by filling in the blanks differently. Replace the scenes where he's working on his stuttering with some other semi-psychological problem, and the only other script changes you'd need to make would be to replace the stuttering references. It's like they took a template 'Overcoming adversity' script and mad-libbed it to be about Prince Albert's stuttering problem.
Also, maybe I took issue with this because I'm American as opposed to British, but I feel like they inflated the importance of the post-Victorian British royal family. About an hour and a half into the film Albert, then 'King Charles VI', comments that he's a king that doesn't have any actual political power. Except for that one moment of the film, you'd think it took place in the Tudor era and that the king was head of government. They then heavily implied that the psychological health of the entire nation was tied directly to the king's ability to speak properly. Maybe I just don't understand because I'm not British, but it felt like they did that to artificially add weight to the drama.
Colin Firth's performace as Prince Albert was very good, and the rest of the cast filled their roles well enough. The script was very efficient and workmanlike, entertaining with no serious flaws. The King's Speech, overall, is a very competent film, and though it strictly adheres to the 'Overcoming adversity' formula, it does so very well. It's a pleasant, smart film I'd recommend to people who liked films such as An Education and Slumdog Millionaire, but not to people who like blockbuster films, or to people who like more eclectic art films.
Style: 4
Substance: 6
Overall: 5
Accessibility: 8
Monday, December 6, 2010
Black Swan
Film: Black Swan
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Country: USA
Aronofsky's new picture has been one of the most hyped films of the year. After his hip indie-nerd films Pi and Requiem For A Dream it's impossible for Aronofsky to escape hype, and with Black Swan, he seems to be making a deliberate attempt to top himself. The main idea of the film is that an edgy ballet troupe is showing a re-imagining of Swan Lake, and need to find a dancer who can play both the 'White swan' character and the 'Black swan' character. The main character Nina, played by Natalie Portman, is an uptight perfectionist who is perfect for the white swan character, but lacks the looseness, spontaneity, and seductiveness to play the black swan. There's another dancer, played by Mila Kunis, who is the embodiment of the black swan. After Nina is cast in the ballet, she stumbles trying to master the black swan character, and becomes afraid the other girl is trying to steal her part.
Superficially the concept seems like a risk with a hip audience, but it's really not. The film contains a laundry list of 'Things found in hip movies'. Hallucinations, sexual aggression as freedom (The leader of the troupe sleeps with the dancers and instructs Nina to masturbate to get herself in the 'black swan' mindset), an overbearing mother who wants to keep her innocent, a lesbian scene, identity confusion. With Aronofsky's hip audience, all his creative decisions are very safe. The style is also, at times, derivative of classic arthouse. The psychological themes are ripped from Bergman, and the portrayal of Nina's delusions comes straight from Polanski's 'Repulsion'.
What makes Black Swan a good film is the performance of Natalie Portman. She carries all aspects of her very complex character with intensity and manages to separate out and portray all her different psychological states. The production value of the film is also very high: It's very well shot and well edited. The movie was made so well, I'm willing to forgive all the arthouse cliches it jams down your throat and call it a good movie.
Style: 9
Substance: 4
Overall: 7.5
Accessibility: 6
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Country: USA
Aronofsky's new picture has been one of the most hyped films of the year. After his hip indie-nerd films Pi and Requiem For A Dream it's impossible for Aronofsky to escape hype, and with Black Swan, he seems to be making a deliberate attempt to top himself. The main idea of the film is that an edgy ballet troupe is showing a re-imagining of Swan Lake, and need to find a dancer who can play both the 'White swan' character and the 'Black swan' character. The main character Nina, played by Natalie Portman, is an uptight perfectionist who is perfect for the white swan character, but lacks the looseness, spontaneity, and seductiveness to play the black swan. There's another dancer, played by Mila Kunis, who is the embodiment of the black swan. After Nina is cast in the ballet, she stumbles trying to master the black swan character, and becomes afraid the other girl is trying to steal her part.
Superficially the concept seems like a risk with a hip audience, but it's really not. The film contains a laundry list of 'Things found in hip movies'. Hallucinations, sexual aggression as freedom (The leader of the troupe sleeps with the dancers and instructs Nina to masturbate to get herself in the 'black swan' mindset), an overbearing mother who wants to keep her innocent, a lesbian scene, identity confusion. With Aronofsky's hip audience, all his creative decisions are very safe. The style is also, at times, derivative of classic arthouse. The psychological themes are ripped from Bergman, and the portrayal of Nina's delusions comes straight from Polanski's 'Repulsion'.
What makes Black Swan a good film is the performance of Natalie Portman. She carries all aspects of her very complex character with intensity and manages to separate out and portray all her different psychological states. The production value of the film is also very high: It's very well shot and well edited. The movie was made so well, I'm willing to forgive all the arthouse cliches it jams down your throat and call it a good movie.
Style: 9
Substance: 4
Overall: 7.5
Accessibility: 6
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye West's new album is both one of the better albums of the year, and one of the most overhyped albums of all time. It's amazing what kind of superlatives critics are throwing at this album. It's 5 star rating from Rolling Stone was rather predictable, but it's getting lots of perfect ratings from publications that don't give out a lot of them. And most of the reviews that accompany these perfect ratings barely mention the actual music. They talk for paragraphs about the lyrics, and barely mention the music, but I find the lyrics to be a weakness of the album. Kanye talks about himself -- a lot. This is nothing not to be expected from Mr. West, of course. But they talk about his self-obsession like it's edgy, revolutionary, and brilliant. I find it tedious and self-indulgent. The strength of the album is the least discussed aspect of the album: The music.
Kanye's greatest strength, to me, has always been his ability to mix and match samples. It's obvious the amount of hard work and polish he put into his backing music. His wordplay has also improved dramatically since the last album of his I heard, which is Graduation. In previous efforts he's relied a lot on recognizable samples from other groups. He's broken away from his tendency, mostly using complex layerings of cherry-picked atmospheric loops. My favorite song on the album, 'Power', which I consider one of the best singles of the year, has one of the most invigorating loops I've ever heard in a rap song. That and other singles on the album grab your attention, stick in your brain, and tread that line of being polished without seeming labored. The only time the album loses steam is toward the end with 'Blame Game'. The song itself is a little weak, and it's followed by an egotistical skit voiced by Chris Rock in which a woman credits Kanye for giving her sexual training. This overly long back and forth derails the pacing of the album established by the mostly strong first ten tracks.
I consider 2010 to be the best year for new releases possibly since 1991, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a good addition to a great year. But it'll be a shame if it is remembered as the standout of the year over such gems as The Archandroid by Janelle Monae, or Big Boi's superior rap album.
Technical skill: 10
Songwriting: 5
Overall: 9
Kanye's greatest strength, to me, has always been his ability to mix and match samples. It's obvious the amount of hard work and polish he put into his backing music. His wordplay has also improved dramatically since the last album of his I heard, which is Graduation. In previous efforts he's relied a lot on recognizable samples from other groups. He's broken away from his tendency, mostly using complex layerings of cherry-picked atmospheric loops. My favorite song on the album, 'Power', which I consider one of the best singles of the year, has one of the most invigorating loops I've ever heard in a rap song. That and other singles on the album grab your attention, stick in your brain, and tread that line of being polished without seeming labored. The only time the album loses steam is toward the end with 'Blame Game'. The song itself is a little weak, and it's followed by an egotistical skit voiced by Chris Rock in which a woman credits Kanye for giving her sexual training. This overly long back and forth derails the pacing of the album established by the mostly strong first ten tracks.
I consider 2010 to be the best year for new releases possibly since 1991, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a good addition to a great year. But it'll be a shame if it is remembered as the standout of the year over such gems as The Archandroid by Janelle Monae, or Big Boi's superior rap album.
Technical skill: 10
Songwriting: 5
Overall: 9
Saturday, November 27, 2010
White Material
Film: White Material
Director: Claire Denis
Country: France
Claire Denis is a french woman who spent much of her childhood in coastal Africa in periods of racial conflict. White Material revisits Africa, following a French woman who runs a coffee plantation in an unnamed African country. At the beginning of the film, the french army is pulling out, and pleading with her from a helicopter to leave for her safety. She doesn't want to leave because, she says, the coffee crop is only a week away from being ripe. Later on it's subtly revealed that her real reason for not wanting to leave is that she just doesn't want to lose a place she considers home. But, all her African workers are leaving for their own safety. In this African country there's a civil war going on, lead by demagogues calling for the expulsion of 'White material', which is a phrase they use in general to describe imported wealth. She still tries to hire more workers and finish her crop in the face of obvious pending danger.
The only white characters in the movie are the main character and her family. Her son has been raised on this plantation and has become lazy and inept. We often see one white woman standing out on a bus full of black Africans. We also get the contrast of the luxurious mansion within the plantation against the more naturalistic settings of the rest of the film. She considers this African country her home, but she's isolated by her race and resented for her wealth. Her son, with no peers, has been born into this hostility. When he's attacked and robbed by kids who came onto the plantation through a hole in the fence, he goes wild and runs off looking for violence.
The film highlights the tension between the European world and the colonized third world, and their feeling of anger and helplessness against foreign wealth. As the film moves toward it's self-prophecized conclusion, and the violence gets closer to her as she runs out of funds to protect herself, we see that the main character knows she's in danger, but feels like nothing can happen to her on the land she considers her home. A lot of films that take place in third world countries are white guilt oriented or have very primitive portrayals of the locals. White Material doesn't have either of these issues. Both the white plantation owners and the black villagers and workers come off as being caught in the middle of a violent conflict they can't control, just trying to look after their own safety and welfare.
One complaint I have about the particular version of the film being shown in American theaters is they used all white subtitles, which are often hard to read against light backgrounds.
Style: 8
Substance: 9
Overall: 8
Accessibility: 4
Director: Claire Denis
Country: France
Claire Denis is a french woman who spent much of her childhood in coastal Africa in periods of racial conflict. White Material revisits Africa, following a French woman who runs a coffee plantation in an unnamed African country. At the beginning of the film, the french army is pulling out, and pleading with her from a helicopter to leave for her safety. She doesn't want to leave because, she says, the coffee crop is only a week away from being ripe. Later on it's subtly revealed that her real reason for not wanting to leave is that she just doesn't want to lose a place she considers home. But, all her African workers are leaving for their own safety. In this African country there's a civil war going on, lead by demagogues calling for the expulsion of 'White material', which is a phrase they use in general to describe imported wealth. She still tries to hire more workers and finish her crop in the face of obvious pending danger.
The only white characters in the movie are the main character and her family. Her son has been raised on this plantation and has become lazy and inept. We often see one white woman standing out on a bus full of black Africans. We also get the contrast of the luxurious mansion within the plantation against the more naturalistic settings of the rest of the film. She considers this African country her home, but she's isolated by her race and resented for her wealth. Her son, with no peers, has been born into this hostility. When he's attacked and robbed by kids who came onto the plantation through a hole in the fence, he goes wild and runs off looking for violence.
The film highlights the tension between the European world and the colonized third world, and their feeling of anger and helplessness against foreign wealth. As the film moves toward it's self-prophecized conclusion, and the violence gets closer to her as she runs out of funds to protect herself, we see that the main character knows she's in danger, but feels like nothing can happen to her on the land she considers her home. A lot of films that take place in third world countries are white guilt oriented or have very primitive portrayals of the locals. White Material doesn't have either of these issues. Both the white plantation owners and the black villagers and workers come off as being caught in the middle of a violent conflict they can't control, just trying to look after their own safety and welfare.
One complaint I have about the particular version of the film being shown in American theaters is they used all white subtitles, which are often hard to read against light backgrounds.
Style: 8
Substance: 9
Overall: 8
Accessibility: 4
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Great new music and films, popular or obscure
A lot of sites that talk about new music and new films go in one of two directions. Either they only cover what's popular and mainstream and act like if it's not well known it doesn't exist, or they're hipster sites that trash everything popular and mainstream and insult your intelligence if you don't like every weird niche title hat comes out. With this blog I want to talk about new music and new films in a way that's neutral to popularity. I'll be equally fair to popular titles and niche titles.
I'll rate on a scale of one to ten on the following criteria:
For films:
Style: How good is the camerawork, the cinematography, the story structure, etc?
Substance: How good is the main plot, the characters, and the acting?
Overall: My overall impression of the film.
Accessibility: How accessible is the film? This scale should be considered independent to the quality of the film, and should be read as an indication of whether the movie is your sort of thing. Mainstream films like Toy Story 3 will get very high accessibility scores, and weird nichey 'form before content' films like Enter The Void will get very low accessibility scores.
For music:
Technical skill: How good are they at playing their instruments?
Songwriting: How good are the melody and the lyrics?
Overall: My overall impression of the album.
Accessibility: Same as for films.
I'll try to write something about most of the new albums I get and most of the new films I see, but I'll also mention older films and albums that I see for the first time if they really stand out to me.
I'll get started over the weekend with the film White Material and Kanye West's new album.
First, to give you an impression of whether my opinion has anything to do with yours, here's my top ten albums and films of 2010 so far:
Films:
1. A Prophet
2. Winter's Bone
3. Toy Story 3
4. I Am Love
5. Enter The Void
6. Last Train Home
7. Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
8. Kick-Ass
9. Please Give
10. Machete
Albums:
1. Janelle Monae - The Archandroid
2. The National - High Violet
3. Anais Mitchell - Hadestown
4. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
5. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
6. Big Boi - Sir Luscious Left Foot
7. Shining - Blackjazz
8. Lindstrom & Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool
9. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part Two
10. Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
I'll rate on a scale of one to ten on the following criteria:
For films:
Style: How good is the camerawork, the cinematography, the story structure, etc?
Substance: How good is the main plot, the characters, and the acting?
Overall: My overall impression of the film.
Accessibility: How accessible is the film? This scale should be considered independent to the quality of the film, and should be read as an indication of whether the movie is your sort of thing. Mainstream films like Toy Story 3 will get very high accessibility scores, and weird nichey 'form before content' films like Enter The Void will get very low accessibility scores.
For music:
Technical skill: How good are they at playing their instruments?
Songwriting: How good are the melody and the lyrics?
Overall: My overall impression of the album.
Accessibility: Same as for films.
I'll try to write something about most of the new albums I get and most of the new films I see, but I'll also mention older films and albums that I see for the first time if they really stand out to me.
I'll get started over the weekend with the film White Material and Kanye West's new album.
First, to give you an impression of whether my opinion has anything to do with yours, here's my top ten albums and films of 2010 so far:
Films:
1. A Prophet
2. Winter's Bone
3. Toy Story 3
4. I Am Love
5. Enter The Void
6. Last Train Home
7. Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
8. Kick-Ass
9. Please Give
10. Machete
Albums:
1. Janelle Monae - The Archandroid
2. The National - High Violet
3. Anais Mitchell - Hadestown
4. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
5. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
6. Big Boi - Sir Luscious Left Foot
7. Shining - Blackjazz
8. Lindstrom & Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool
9. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part Two
10. Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
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