Big Fan and the Power of Belief.

Belief is a powerful thing.

Whether our proverbial eggs lay in a basket of religion, or love, or politics, everyone (probably) has something that they conceive to be ‘bigger than one’s self.’ In “Big Fan”, we enter the church of sports.

Paul Aufiero, played masterfully by comedian Patton Oswalt, is the “Big Fan” whose life revolves around two things: The New York Giants and sports-talk radio. Director Robert Siegel has placed Aufiero in a world that doesn’t understand him: His family doesn’t understand how a nearly-40 year old man would be content to work as a parking attendant, and to live with his mother. As the audience, we also exist to reinforce these feelings. However, Aufiero’s character is a careful trick on the audience; we are, at times, led to believe that he is a ne’er-do-well dimwit, though he reveals himself to be more perceptive and insightful than the rest of his family. His revulsion at the rest of his family for celebrating his philandering, ambulance-chaser brother shows a bit of depth to Paul’s character.

Paul clearly just wants to be left alone to enjoy the Giants, either from his friend’s couch, or the Meadowlands parking lot during game-time. But trouble finds him, as a chance encounter with his favorite player at a Manhattan strip club leads to a violent altercation, and a hospital stay for Aufiero. When Paul wakes up, battered and bruised, he finds himself embroiled in a front-page controversy involving the suspension of his favorite player. His family comes to his aid, and expects that Paul would seize this opportunity to better his life and seize upon an all but certain multi-million lawsuit, but he has no interest.

Without spoiling the third act, I’ll say this: “Big Fan” and the trials and tribulations of Paul Aufiero are fascinating. At times, I was baffled by Paul and also felt like I understood him. We all have things in life that are bigger than ourselves, and we all make choices in life that people will disagree with. Hollywood has been making movies for years about the protagonist’s destruction to protect something he or she loves, but I sense that people may not see the same thing in “Big Fan.” I suspect most would write this off as the tale of a sad man whose priorities are out of whack with what our society wants for him. And I think Paul Aufiero would be OK with that… just don’t bother him on Sundays.

(A)

Public Enemas

When Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese is working on a film, people talk about it. In conversation, or print, their name is part of the story. Whether or not I happen to be a fan of their work, I can recognize the merit behind this type of special treatment. Joss Whedon might be a great example of someone who may not deserve it, but I’m aware that he has legions of fans who dote on his every frame. I can even tolerate this sort of thing for Robert Rodriguez, who hasn’t made a great movie in a long time (or… maybe ever), though maybe he did earn it from “El Mariachi” which broke some serious ground, way back when.

But there is a Director whose projects get this first-class treatment, and I cannot figure out why. His name is Michael Mann.

When I first heard of Michael Mann, the press was rolling out the A-List treatment for him and his latest film, “Ali.” Reading articles about the film, you sensed that the press seemed to think Mann’s direction of the film was almost as important as the eponymous subject. And the movie, which we’ll discuss in a bit, was bloated, flat and too long.

What did this guy do to deserve any sort of ‘above the title’ recognition? I’ll borrow a Festivus tradition and begin the airing of the grievances:

1.) Ali - Despite a pretty terrific performance from Will Smith, the movie fell flat, like all Michael Mann movies. It just plodded along and couldn’t muster up any sparks of its own. In other words, the film did a fine job of siphoning the energy of the larger than life events from Ali’s life, but the other scenes, dialogue, the moments of Ali’s life that needed some life breathed into it (or, I don’t know, direction!)…. Nada. Mind you, we’re talking about the most electrifying sports figure of the 20th century and Mann couldn’t even get the lights on.

I will also never understand the casting of Jon Voight as Howard Cosell. Cosell was a caricature of himself, begging to be reprised by someone who at least vaguely resembled the man, or at least had a whiff of the nuances of the character. Casting Jon Voight as Howard Cosell is a bit like casting someone like Horatio Saenz to play Jon Voight.

2.) Miami Vice - Now, I’m probably the a**hole for even going to see this, but that’s neither here nor there. If you like grainy, low-lit, ‘verite-esque’ wobbly, herky-jerky camera work, then: a) You probably celebrate Mann’s entire career, and b) You might even be watching Miami Vice as I type this. From the little I can remember (and couldn’t permanently scrub from my memory), the movie also had no pulse, no serious plot, and horrific casting of Farrell and Foxx. I actually wondered at the time if Mann cast this movie by Q-Scores. And yet, I remember this being a big deal when it came out. Like, people were actually excited about this, and partially because of Michael Mann.

3.) Collateral - Here, at least, Mann scratched some potential. The first half was intriguing: Jamie Foxx as a cabdriver with Tom Cruise as a mysterious character, driving around the neon-lit, shadowy streets of Los Angeles. Of all his films, Mann’s grainy low-lit, etc. etc., actually works here! I didn’t hate this movie, but it’s also pretty forgettable. And still doesn’t explain why Mann’s name is even mentioned on projects.

4.) Heat - I wish I could talk about this movie, but I haven’t seen it. Which, in my experience, enrages some people. People love this movie. So maybe I’m missing it and Mann’s entire existence is predicated by Heat. You can let me know. But let’s say that “Heat” is the greatest movie ever made, I would still be bewildered by this (c/o Wikipedia): “Total Film ranked Mann #28 on their 100 The Greatest Directors Ever and Sight and Sound ranked him #5 on their list of the 10 Best Directors of the Last 25 Years,Entertainment Weekly ranked Mann #8 on their 25 Greatest Active Film Directors list.”

NOW, let’s talk about Public Enemies: An abject failure of film making, in every single facet of the ‘game.’ I’ve really never seen such a mess on film. Why anyone would make a stylish, period piece about the Great Depression and gangsters and fall back on herky-jerky camera movements and low-lit shots that betray the era is beyond me. This isn’t even like Baz Luhrman’s “Romeo and Juliet”, which had a purpose and a role for these stylistic choices. Mann will throw in your usual fixed camera shots, and “West Wing” style walk/talk scenes, and then, for no real reason, give you a grainy shot of Johnny Depp in a car, or a slow push on the side ornament of a car… for no reason. It all adds up to a director with no feel for the movie he was creating.

The acting was really poor, and we’re not talking about B-List players, either. Christian Bale delivers a totally wooden and mumble-mouthed performance as the lead FBI agent, and Marion Cotillard, while not a poor performance, per se, turns in an accent so bizarre you might wonder if she was trying to cross Chicago with the Czech Republic.

Similar to “Ali”, this movie took some pretty compelling events and blew the opportunity entirely. Unlike Mann’s usual sin, this movie wasn’t exactly flat. It was too much of a trainwreck to be flat. The movie jumps from scene to scene, and brings characters in and out of the story, with no real purpose or exposition that ties the proceedings together. Mann never takes the time to introduce the characters to the audience, and we never learn anything about anyone. The story is incoherent, and as opposed to movies with a purpose for confusing the audience, I would call this “Confusion by Ineptitude.” The controversial creation of the FBI, along with Hoover’s oversized ego, Dillinger’s “Robin Hood”-esque existence are all footnotes to scenes of extremely boring bank robberies and prison breaks. Should bank robberies ever be boring?

On the technical front, this movie is really bad.  I’m not an audiophile, but this movie’s audio mix was atrocious. I’ve actually never seen a movie where it was this obvious that the dialogue was looped in afterwards; I’m talking about moments when it seemed like mid-sentence, the actor’s microphone got louder.

So here’s my bottom line: I don’t know why people think Michael Mann’s career is worth celebrating, but I’m clearly in the minority. Perhaps he’s a charismatic individual whose personality and charm yields sweetheart treatment from the Hollywood press. I cannot conjure up any other explanation.

(F)

Next stop, 2010.

Not having seen anything worth reviewing since my last post, I wasn’t sure how to bridge the gap between that and my next review. I did, briefly, consider a list of the Top 10 Movies of 2009, however, quickly decided that was a terrible idea.

Mainly, because, among my hopes for a new decade is the swift dismissal of Top 10 Lists. Ten is an arbitrary number and I can’t understand why we let David Letterman decide that there can only be ten acceptable or superior items of any sort!

And what’s the point of ranking movies? Doesn’t the box office do that? After all, it is an entirely democratic and meritocratic system. Reviewers who rank movies are dictators… but maybe the box office is too socialist? If we transpose this system to economics or the free-market, you would end up with the iPod as the biggest smash hit of all time, with syndicated columnists playing up the unnoticed and brilliant virtues of the Zune. (Which is how you end up with “Titantic” as the highest grossing movie of all time, yet “Citizen Kane” atop the list of critics everywhere.)

Okay, I’ve derailed - because this wasn’t the point. To bridge this gap, I am reposting, courtesy of The Daily Beast (www.thedailybeast.com), a seven-part, 70 minute, ‘take-down’ of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace as “delivered by an elderly schizophrenic who talks like a cross between Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers and The Silence of the Lambs’ Buffalo Bill.”

But, not exactly. The narrator isn’t one of those poorly lit nerds talking into a webcam, rather a clever creation by the creator of this YouTube series who happens to be an independent filmmaker. And, (as I step on my preachy Klosterman soapbox), maybe this is the best way to not only bridge posts, but to send us into the next decade. What can better sum up the end of this decade than the popularity of a 70-minute YouTube video, reviewing a movie that nobody liked, told through the eyes of a schizophrenic felon.

Happy New Year everyone!

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-28/making-an-enemy-of-george-lucas/full/

Cool World (Not a Review)

Though this may seem like a plug, it’s really just a long-winded segue to the point:

DIRECTV currently does not offer EpixHD, the new premium movie channel from MGM/Lionsgate/Paramount, which is a shame. They also only have one HBO HD channel, and nothing on-demand… but that’s beside the point. EpixHD just launched and is pretty much only available on Verizon FIOS.

My favorite thing about EpixHD is that with a subscription to the TV channel, you can also watch any of their movies on the EpixHD website, which I enjoy browsing and watching with the occasional free “invite code” they hand out. You can also invite friends to watch a movie with you and chat in real time. Really cool stuff.

ANYWAY, they’ve got a great catalog of movies and they know how to market them. Since you’re dealing with the entire library of movies from those three studios, you’ve got some stinkers. Probably a ton of stinkers. Which is why they have a “So Bad It’s Good” section, which speaks to my heart and allowed me to revisit a movie from the past.

“Cool World.”

I never saw this movie, but I wanted to. I remember seeing the trailer a bunch of times on the old “E!” network that actually was devoted to movies. I even remember quoting some article about the movie to my mom, as an 11 year old in 1992, that it was “like Roger Rabbit on acid.” I had no idea what that meant back then… and it may be why I never ended up seeing it. But, have a look - the preview is a terrific early 90’s throwback, and… I dunno, it looks intriguing still, doesn’t it?

“Ali… with an… you know, one of the million of characters in the Chinese language.”

We can probably do this all day.

“You’re from the Hills! I’m from Changzhou!!”

If this doesn’t make any sense yet, it’s probably because you were blissfully unaware of “The Karate Kid” remake currently barreling through production for a Summer 2010 release. (That, and you probably don’t know why I’m mashing up of lines from the Karate Kid script with references to China. Hang in there.)  

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you already understand my affection for this movie. However, I’ll add a few words for the unaware: This movie is a classic. It has all the right ingredients for a great movie, and while the Karate Kid is entirely a product of its era, nothing about it feels dated, or out of place in 2009. The most noticeable artifact from the 80’s is the movie’s soundtrack, and it is very 80’s. But the dated songs still work, probably because some of them have become legendary in their own right (“You’re the Best”), but mostly because the score of the movie from Bill Conti is, dare I say, beautiful and timeless. (*For my money, if you are making a sports movie, call Bill Conti.) I’m not going to sit here and critique the acting, cinematography, or any other high-brow film devices because that’s not what this movie is about. What more can you say about a movie that will make a person drop everything they’re doing at the sight of it, and still be at the edge of their seat during the last half hour… for the 100th, 200th time.

Like my friends, I have mixed feelings about the upcoming remake. Daniel LaRusso and the San Fernando Valley have been replaced by Will Smith’s son and… China. We also have Jackie Chan taking the role of Miyagi. And today, they released their first trailer. Have a look, and we’ll proceed:

A few quick thoughts:

Of all the emotions I was expecting, I did not expect to feel sad. But that’s what this trailer did. It simultanously reminded me of my own mortality and the rise of China’s influence in the world. Thanks Will Smith. Thanks a whole lot. I do wonder  whether or not this will create a new media “Cold War” with China (which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world). I don’t think the film industry has fully recovered from losing the Russians in ‘89. If Rocky IV ended the Cold War, will this Karate Kid remake start a new one?! 

My own neuroses notwithstanding, the scale of this movie is certainly impressive. You’re getting what looks like a much larger enemy dojo, a real intense looking tournament at the end, and, guaranteed, some great fighting. Training on the Great Wall of China probably, visually, trumps the beaches of Los Angeles. But this still doesn’t quite sit well with me. Can I deal with seeing someone named Miyagi (that isn’t Pat Morita) instructing a kid repeatedly (and furiously) to take his jacket off and put it back on? Folks, the line is “Wax on, wax off”, don’t forget it.

I think I’m decidedly against this. I’ve seen garish displays of affection for children before, but I don’t think anything can top Will and Jada (both producers) trashing a Hollywood classic to create a vehicle for their son. How dare they go and take a great movie and revise it with a giant budget, a classic Chinese actor, and an exotic location?!

Unfortunately, I’m taking this all too personally. It doesn’t matter who we are, 99.9% of us can’t stand in the way of “progress.” Whether it’s an old diner, radio station or entire city block - change happens. And I’ll be reduced to the old man ranting to the younger generations about “the old and better Karate Kid”, as they watch the visually superior, big-budget Wal-Mart of a remake.

And worst of all, it will probably end up being a pretty good movie. Sniff.

Downfall

[Author’s prologue: As anyone who knows my fiance will attest, she loves “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” She can quote the movie in her sleep. When it seemed like AMC ditched their entire December schedule in favor of repeating this movie on a loop, it was as though her prayers had been answered. And I was pretty damn sure that we’d end up watching it last night.

So you can probably imagine her surprise when, during this Yuletide season of mirth and merriment, I suggested we watch a two and a half hour movie about the last days of Hitler’s bunker. Her excitement was ratcheted up even further when she realized that it was a German movie… and subtitled. But she was a damn good sport and took the plunge with me. Don’t be surprised if my next review is something decidedly more saccharine.]

“Downfall,” or “Der Untergang”, is a film that chronicles the last days of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich as they contemplate and begin to deal with the end of World War II. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, the movie unfolds slowly and methodically as, one by one, Hitler’s last chances for victory or survival are done away with. Bruno Ganz’s Hitler swings between moments of insanity-fueled delusion (proclaiming to his generals that he has dozens of armies just waiting to taken down the Russians) and acceptance (where we see him consulting a doctor on how precisely he can take his own life). 

Though the acting was superb, it was hard not to laugh during scenes of a mustachioed Ganz coming totally unglued; screaming for executions and retribution while under siege in his bunker (It was a great performance). Throw in an unbelievably creepy portrayal of Joseph Goebbels (by Ulrich Matthes) and wide-eyed, eager-to-die groupie Eva Braun (Juliane Kohler), and you have a pretty compelling cast of characters.

As a film, it’s a very heavy watch. With it’s washed out coloring, slow and deliberate (and tight) camera shots, it deftly creates the mood and emotion of being trapped in a bunker. We also experience the schizophrenic psyche of the fading Reich, from Eva Braun and her wild parties ‘neath falling bombs, to Goebbel’s choir of children singing patriotic songs about the Fatherland, as the Russians trample the German army.

Most fascinating is the delicate treatment of the people themselves; depicting “humanity” in the most inhuman of people. I suspect this was a very important and controversial film for German audiences; reconciling themselves with their past, in a very personal way. I cannot be totally certain, but would suspect that todays’ Germans are probably most familiar with American depictions of the Nazi party, as one-dimensional monsters worthy of death. So, how do the Germans relate to the demons of their past?

The filmmaker lays the characters bare, allowing us to see them as people and not just characters from the history pages. Though this is an approach that, likely, could be criticized as flattering, it isn’t. That last dimension adds an extra element of horror to the proceedings, and probably answered a question that beguiles Germans: “Who are these people?” I assume holding up a mirror to these monsters of history, and allowing new generations of Germans to see these men and women as real people and, yes, humanizing them, is probably more chilling than you would expect.

(B-)

But Dave… what does it all mean?

Before I go on with my inaugural second review, I probably have to explain the name of this blog.

Back in the days of Windward High School, I took a great film class taught by a man named Kiloh Fairchild. Kiloh showed us some great films and some “great” films that were, as Sammy likes to say, movie-medicine. And sometimes this medicine didn’t go down as Kiloh would have liked. I’ll never forget the sight of our enraged teacher walking back into the classroom, having left us to take an quick conversation with a fellow teacher, finding Todd Fasen with his guilty finger on the fast-forward button, attempting to speed up what was slow-death-by-Birth of a Nation.

I digress. Kiloh taught us about film, filmmakers, and bits and pieces of filmmaker knowledge, including MOS.

MOS is script short-hand for indicating a scene shot in silence. Using broken-English/German, as it essentially stands for the phrase, “Mit Out Sound,” presumably (and “according” to Wikipedia) once uttered or shouted by either Ernst Lubitsch or Fritz Lang. And in 9th/10th grade, we endlessly shouted the phrase in a heavily accented German accent to our hearts content.

Thus, I find it an apropriate title to this blog. And a great segue to our fir— second, review which happens to be a German movie! Prost!

Don’t mind the dust…

Hello readers, or errant passers-by,

It’s been a long time since I did any sort of blogging on the internet, and it’s not exactly a mystery why. I’ve come to despise the useless fiddle-faddle that clogs the arteries of the internet superhighway, and unless I had something of (self)-import to proclaim, I just wasn’t sure there was any point in using precious bits and bytes to let strangers and acquaintances know what I’d had for dinner… or what I’d wish to have for dinner. (*And when you reach the bottom of this page that is full of errant Twitter messages, I kindly ask you to forgive the hypocritical malfeasance.)

Having said that, (with apologies to Jerry Seinfeld), here is why I’m back: I realize that I really enjoy talking about movies. But more than that, I like really diving into them and ‘giving them the business.’ Probably a bit too much for IM conversations with people who are too polite to ask me to stop yammering, and a bit too verbose for Facebook status updates. In this forum, I can ‘yammer’ to my heart’s content, and give people the option of whether or not they’d like to read/participate/destroy.

So, please enjoy my first review below from a few months below. It was a movie that inspired me to write, though I had no clue that, months later, I’d want to keep doing this. If you have any suggestions or questions, let me know.

I also should mention/thank Sammy Wasson for a bit of inspiration here. I always enjoy discussing movies with him, and have really enjoyed his blog. If you want to read someone who actually knows what he’s talking about, click here: http://talkingpictures.tumblr.com/

Otherwise, I hereby declare this e-space a place to talk about movies.

Best,

-Daver

“Whatever Works”: It Doesn’t Work Anymore

Stop me if you’ve heard this one - Love triangle, star-crossed lovers, talk of high-brow art / photography, neurotic sarcasm balanced by 1950’s nostalgia? You probably didn’t need to lift an envelope to your head and channel Carnac to think of Woody Allen. Doing his best impression of someone doing an impression of his work, Woody returns to New York for his latest film “Whatever Works.” And, you almost wonder if the joke is in the name itself - “Whatever Works”, in other words, love triangles, neurosis; New York has worked for Woody, so why not have another go?
 
This is the gist of “Whatever Works”: Larry David plays an insane person who can’t open his mouth without spewing something hate-filled about something. By chance he meets Melody, a southern belle who happens to show up at his doorstep in Chinatown, and after begging her way into his apartment, is too dumb to realize that she’s in the wrong place. She soaks up his vitriolic misanthropy like a sponge and mid-way through the movie becomes something like Sarah Palin trying to channel Neitsczhe with a southern accent. She falls in love with him, and for reasons totally unexplained and made improbable by the first half of the movie, they wed. Then her mother shows up, also a cartoon character from the South clutching her Bible, and drinking bourbon, who is horrified by Melody’s new bohemian existence. Her father later shows up, and both parents quickly undergo transformations that are simultaneously predictable yet without any sort of real substance. By the end of the picture, everybody is happy - and it’s not that Woody doesn’t explain how everyone ends up happy, it’s only that there’s no glue or narrative to explain how any of it really happened.
 
Two points I’d like to borrow from other reviews, paraphrasing: 1) “Woody has never felt more out of place in New York than in this movie.” Walking out of the movie with a friend, he remarked how much he appreciates Woody’s romance of New York and seeing it in his films. And while that is 150% true of “Manhattan,” or “Annie Hall,” this movie felt like it was shot by a tourist. Grant’s Tomb, the Statue of Liberty and Chinatown are not the ubiqutous tree-lined blocks of the Upper East Side, or the bubble-domed Tennis courts, or even Central Park. Woody’s wonderful odes to Manhattan from decades past were love notes to the city, and an insider’s look at a frenetic and magical island. “Whatever Works” is claustrophobic, and confined to shots of landmarks with a lone mention of a building or street (Beekman Place?) probably too esoteric for most New Yorkers today.
 
2) This movie was written in the ’70s and concieved for Zero Mostel. I’ve only seen Mostel in the original “Producers” film, and only half of that film at that, and still it makes total sense. Boris Yellnikoff is a character written for Mostel, a larger than life man who could emobdy the psychotic intellectual blowhard that Larry David failed to animate. And I have nothing against David; he told Woody that he was making a mistake by casting someone who can’t act. But Mostel could have given this character a piece of humanity, or substance.
 
The problem here is that you can’t fake substance. Woody’s characters from his earlier pictures had depth, and their conversations about high-brow intellectual artists, or deep-seeded neurosis didn’t fall flat or feel out of place because he was able to convince the audience that they were real enough. But nothing felt real about this movie- not even the backdrop of New York, and certainly not the one-note supporting players woven together to no real end. Worse yet was Woody’s choice to have Boris address the audience at various points in the film; it’s done for no real reason, feels completely out of place within the context of a wholly conventional film, and is another sign that Woody has gotten lazy.
 
Another friend of mine remarked that “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” was pleasant enough even it was lazy film making. I didn’t necessarily agree, however, I would submit that even if one felt Woody had gotten lazy with “Vicky”, it was a simple enough story to pull off with a half effort. “Whatever Works” would require much more heavy lifting - these characters require nuance, context and life. What we’re given are 5 notes played over and over again for an hour, and when the notes change, we have no idea why. The effect on the audience is the same: a giant headache.

This is not a rebel song. This is Sunday Bloody Sunday.