The state of movie rental

With every new technological innovation comes the loss of something that once was ubiquitous--that is commonplace throughout. In the 1990's, computers began replacing the typewriters. Long before that, the automobile replaced the horse and buggy. These new movie rental systems, redbox and netflix, are wonderful (redbox not so much), because they give more people greater access to movies and greater access to movies is always good in my book.

However, with every good thing there is also bad. These rental kiosks and netflix accounts have replaced the American movie store. Now don't get me wrong--netflix is great. It gives me all the movies I want at a relatively reasonable monthly rate without making pay more for keeping a movie for longer. In fact, I have kept netflix movies for way longer than I could have ever done with movies from blockbuster or my local videostore. A netflix account is great for a true film afficinado who wants to rent movies by great directors such as Godard, Bergman, Welles, and Kurosawa and other movies both popular and art-house. Many of these movies would be difficult to find at blockbuster (lackluster) video store or some other local movie stores. They have a nearly unlimited supply of obscure movies including Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," a Nazi documentary that is said to be very good movie (and yes it's on my netflix). If Netflix were a restaurant, it would be a buffet style movie extravaganza.

Redbox, on the other hand, is like a cheap fast food restaurant--you weren't going to eat there, but you saw it and it's so close and you haven't eaten lunch or anything today. Likewise, much like a fast food meal, it leaves you feeling guilty and unsatisfied. It's cheap (a dollar per day). There's not much selection. And finally most of the movies aren't masterpieces--they're modern Hollywood movies that are good for one viewing. I'm generalizing of course, but these generalizations are mostly true. You don't go there to pick up Bergman's Trilogy of Faith--you would go there to pick up the latest blockbuster. I'm fine with that. If you are going to watch movies, it's important to be well versed in different types of movies.

Anyway, as I was saying, the movie stores are a loss for our country. First of all, they gave young teenagers an occupation over the summer. It's become harder to find opportunities for teenage summer jobs-- aside from theme parks, which are hiring foreigners. Video stores were always great resources for teen jobs, and these are now disappearing rapidly. Secondly, they provided customers with a human connection. The problem with technology is that you lose the personal. The person at the movie counter was not always the most intelligent or most responsive or even most enthusiastic, but at least they were human. Sometimes they would give you suggestions or ask you if you'd seen the movie before. They were little touches, but they were more than redbox or even netflix can do.

Thirdly, it made you go out of your way. In a movie store, you had to go out of your way to rent a movie. Although, this is a weakness of the system--it is also a strength. You had to go out of your way and purposefully make a selection. With netflix and redbox, renting movies is almost too easy. Too easy, he says? That's ridiculous. Well when you have a full selection all the time--you devalue your experience. You don't really look forward to the next movie because you hardly have to exert any effort.

I'm not looking to the past as something glorious, because it wasn't. Most movie rental people were pretty apathetic about their jobs and late fees were a big pain. I'm so glad that netflix has replaced movie store, because it is pretty much the ultimate movie store where you can get so many different types of movies from documentaries to arthouse to Hollywood to foreign movies. Plus I love the star rating system where people can rate the movies. However, I do think that movie stores did provide something important to communities which are now missing. Jobs, a human connection, the ability to look forward to a movie. Still, I am looking forward to the coming era of more netflix (and hopefully less redbox).


       

Woody Allen's back again in "Midnight in Paris"

Woody Allen is one of the most iconic directors to come of New York and with comedies like Bananas, Annie Hall, and Manhattan-- as well as more Bergman-esque dramas such as Interiors, he has endeared himself to both mainstream crowds and lovers of independent cinema. However, with his new crop of movies, he has been less than successful. Scoop, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Whatever Works, and Cassandra's Dream, have all received very mixed reviews. Woody Allen returns to the helm as the writer/director of Midnight in Paris. This movie gives Woody Allen a chance to redeem himself for his past uneven movies and to once again establish himself as the one of America's premiere writer-directors.

Midnight in Paris is about a family in Paris on business, including a young couple who about to get married. Gil (Owen Wilson), a dissatisfied screenwriter who is struggling to write a great literary novel and Inez (Rachel McAdams), his apathetic and more materialistic fiancé are in Paris with Inez's parents and a few of their friends who happen to be there at the same time as Gil and Inez are. Inez and a few of her friends demean Gil's attempts to write a great novel. She wants him to return to the Hollywood studios that he believes to be fake.

On a nightly walk through Paris Gil wanders around lost until he is picked up by a mysterious car, and from there he is transported back to 1920's Paris where he meets literary and artistic greats from Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) to Salvador Dali (Adrian Brody). Over the next several nights, he continues returning to the Paris of the past. Gil becomes further immersed in its collection of strange and diverse personalities.

 Eventually several of these writers, most notably Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), helps strengthen Gil's confidence in his novel and his life in general. Through his trips to the past, Owen Wilson's character learns, like The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway before him, that people spend too much time longing for "the golden past" that was never exactly there to begin with. Instead of dealing with the present, Gil has been looking back with nostalgia to a different era that was, in itself, imperfect.

The photography in Midnight in Paris is particularly enchanting with its use of warm, impressionistic colors and its mélange of beautiful shots of Paris. These shots appear on the outset with many quick postcard-like shots of modern day Paris, and they maintain the importance of the setting to the movie. Woody Allen's effective use of creating beautiful shots continues throughout the movie including a shot of Owen Wilson and Rachel McCadams kissing on a bridge where Monet used to paint. The shots are so well composed that they are like works of art themselves.  

Secondly, the photography is also effective in establishing the difference between a more "realistic" Paris of present day and a more ethereal Parisian past through the film's use of color scheme. This color scheme in realistic Paris is more muted while the one in imaginary Paris of the past is more vibrant and colorful.

The movie's rich mix of music from older French music to Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerld reaches out to the past and reinforces the movie's nostalgic and evocative themes. The accordion music in the beginning is somewhat cliched, but it does manage to evoke the classical Parisian feel.

Finally, the acting is excellent. I particularly liked Owen Wilson's portrayal of Gil--the romantic writer. Even though, you can tell, from the characteristic way the screenplay is written, he is a substitute for a Woody Allen-type character. Rachel McCadams, who is blonde in this movie, was also great as the self-absorbed fiance. This was a major departure from her past roles in which she has been the object of desire or the more sympathetic female lead (see Morning Glory, Wedding Crashers, The Notebook etc). Another person who is particularly worth noting is Michael Sheen's portrayal of the arrogant, pedantic Paul who is the self-proclaimed expert on everything from wine to art to literature to history. His over-the-top pomposity is one of the highlights of the movie.

Midnight in Paris is a funny, heartwarming tribute to Paris: past, present, and future. It celebrates the past of Hemingway and Fitzgerald while urging us to stay in the present and to look hopefully towards the future. Woody Allen's movie maintains that "We'll Always Have Paris" and his movie is an ode to this eternal city, which continues to be one of the world's foremost cultural centers.

Tree of Life Review

What do you get when you take two of the best American actors in Hollywood: Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, an offbeat director (Terence Malick) and a story about the death of a child in 1950s Texas combined with the allegory of the creation of the universe and the questioning of God and man's place in the universe? You've certainly got something grand in scale. This would be the best characterization of Terence Malick's truly epic contemplation of life in Tree of Life.

If you are looking for plot, then you have come to wrong movie. This surreal film is non-linear and fragmented in nature much like most people's memories, as well as the concept of time. It goes back and forth between middle aged Jack O'Brien, who is an architect (Sean Penn), and his remembrance of his childhood back in Texas. Throughout most of the film, you can see Sean Penn's character metaphorically searching for his brother who drowns at the tender age of 19 as the director shows shots of him walking up and down the beach. In the middle of the movie, there are images of the creation of the Universe combined with Jack's own whispered existential questions. Malick manages to bridge cosmic connections between these creation shots and  the intimate portrayal of the Texas family with the harsh, violent tempered father (Brad Pitt) and the passive, permissive mother (Jessica Chastain).

One of the best parts of the movie would definitely have to be the visuals. Tree of Life's camera work, comprised mostly of lyrical longer shots coupled with quick, jump cuts, is breathtaking.  The creation scenes, the dinosaur scenes, and all of the other visual displays, which weren't made with the use of CGI, creates a movie with the scale and scope of  Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Disney's Fantasia while the Midwestern home scenes display an haunting intimacy of a brooding family drama like Mystic River or Road to Perdition.

The sound work is also spectacular. The film's use of a classical score, much like the score in 2001: A Space Odyssey reinforces the film's grand visuals. Secondly, the voice-overs, which echo Jack O'Brien's philosophical questions about the universe, add to the creation of the cosmos scenes as these child's whispers in the human-less void establish man's own search for meaning and for God in a world and a chaotic universe, which existed before us and will exist without us. Without this voiceover work, we would have to bridge between the epic and the intimate.

Brad Pitt's portrayal of the violent tempered father is worth noting. Much like in Inglorious Basterds he proves to be quite adept at playing the cruel Southern man. However, he also textures his performance so that although he seems cruel he has a humanity that is also present. Jessica Chastain, who is seventeen years his junior, manages to temper his vinegar with her own unique sweetness. Her beauty and her jubilant youth helps us through the more difficult portions of the movie.

Overall, this is a movie well worth seeing. Although many people may find it exactly an easy movie to watch due to its non-linear and surreal nature, it is a movie that asks fundementally important questions and leaves the viewer to ask their own questions. It has an introspectiveness that is matched by few contemporary movies: mainstream or indie. It also left me feeling like I had just sat through a symphony instead of watching a movie. I would recomend this movie to people who love film and for people who are willing to ask themselves philsophical questions.      

Gatsby in 3D

   Aside from enjoying movies, occasionally I will read a book. I was an English major in college and so that's where that comes in. But anyway I was so excited when I found out that a new movie version of the Great Gatsby was being directed by Baz Luhrman. Wait a minute you ask, who's Baz Luhrman? If you were thinking shortstop for the New York Yankees you were dead wrong. If you were thinking dictator of the New World Order, well first of all there's no New World Order, secondly you are wrong.

     If you said Australian director of such films as Australia, Romeo+Juliet, Simply Ballroom, and Moulin Rouge, you would be right. So that guy who loves bright painfully bright colors is directing a movie that has about five gazillion (3 or 4) refrences to a bright green light sounds pretty good so far. He's beloved by all the usual demographics: women, Nicole Kidman, effminate gay men, just regular effeminate men, opera fans, squirrels, bull-fighters, second graders, and all those other people who just really love colorful things or who have ever wondered how it feels in the arms of some strong Australian dude (it feels pretty dreamy by the way).

    Now here's the rub: Baz said he was doing it in 3D. Yes you heard me--3D. One of the most beloved books of all time done in the same style as Piranha 3D and My Bloody Valentine. Now some of you are probably saying, "Hey Avatar looked pretty good." You would be correct, but that was because there were spaceships and weird Pteradactyl things. What could possibly be improved by adding 3D to Gatsby? A Rolls Royce that goes through the screen? A wicked long dance number that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie? Yeah I could definitely see these things in the Great Gatsby and especially Baz Luhrman's Gatsby, but the problem that you get is that you focus to heavily on the glitz.

      Yeah, it's no secret that Baz Luhrman loves glitz. It's comparable to saying that Michael Bay loves explosions or Quentin Tarrentino loves cheesy seventies movies or Martin Scorcese loves guidos or Jim Jarmusch loves hipsterism. Different directors have different styles and for all those who love the gritty realistic feel you have a Baz Luhrman who is about as opposite from gritty realistic as you can get. Gatsby is lyrical and there are a lot of colors, but I hope that Baz doesnt get carried away with himself. You also have to remember that there is a lot of pondering and I wonder if Baz ever considered that the 3D would distract people from the pondering, which is of course part of the point in the Great Gatsby.

      Of course, Baz is going to do what he wants. He's Australian and known for doing things that shock people like having a Romeo and Juliet with guns or jumping into a shark tank (okay he didnt do that, but some Australian  probably has). All I can do is hope he doesn't screw it up so badly that I vommit in the theater. At this point, I'll settle for one that's about as good as the 1974 adaptation with Robert Redford, which looked stunning but wasn't particularly that enchanting cinematically. Anyway, I sure wish that someone more like a David Fincher would take this off Baz's hands ( he did wonders with Fitzgerald's short story, Benjamin Button). But alas I guess I will have to sit through the Baz Luhrman  3D version. Oh well.

Modern Times Forever: Ten Long Days at the Movie Theater!

     I love movies. I'm doing a blog about them so I guess I should love movies. I'll even watch long movies that no one wants to watch because they're panzies about runtime and they think that 90 minutes should be enough to tell a story (it rarely is). The Godfather, Apocallypse Now, and Once Upon A Time in America are some of favorites and are known as long movies, but my friends they have nothing on Modern Times Forever.

    Modern Times Forever, clocking in at a whopping 240 hours( that's right hours), makes any director even Andy Warhol (Empire is eight hours) seem positively concise. This movie, which is light on plot and lighter characters, was shown in March in Helsinki, Finland (because March in Finland what else are you going to do? Am I right?). Anyway, it was displayed on the side of a building because very few people would (willingly) spend ten days watching a movie about: decaying buildings.

    It's an interesting premise that is depicting the decaying of buildings and what decay will do to modern Architecture. I guess you could call it an existentialist mind-fuck in 12 days and I respect the director for doing something so monumental, but I would like to ask him (even though I don't speak finnish) why the hell couldn't he have done it in a day or two days or even just eight painfully long hours. Then again, it was his decision and I will respect it and I respect him for making such a long movie, but I will tell you one thing, there is no way I could sit through this movie. No way in hell!

RIP Sidney Lumet

     I realize that this is old news to those of you who keep track of current celebrity deaths, but this should be of note to those of you who are not in the know. Several weeks ago on April 9th, Sidney Lumet, director of such classic films as Dog Day Afternoon, 12 Angry Men, and Network died due to complications with lymphoma. It is amazing how great that these films are even today in the age of digitization and special effects. Although, you can do a lot with great special effects, it certainly does not make a movie.

     Look at Star Wars: A New Hope. This movie has paltry effects by our standards and yet it capitivated audiences in the seventies and continues to capitivate them today, this is not because the special effects are great (they were pretty crappy), but the story and the characters drew us in. Like Star Wars the movies of Sidney Lumet captivated audiences because of their characters.

      In Dog Day Afternoon Al Pachino plays a bungling gay bankrobber. He is not effeminate or passive as  gay characters can sometimes be depicted, but instead portrayed honestly and forthrightly with all of the intracacies(the strengths and the flaws) that make great movie characters. This shows great dedication to Konstantin Stanislavski's ideal of realistic acting and not caricaturing a gay man which could have been and might have been done by a lesser director.

     One of my favorite parts of Dog Day Afternoon is the opening sequence which depicts different parts of 1970s New York City to the soundtrack of Elton John's "Amooreena" (also a great song). This extended sequence displays New York, documentarian style, in all of its beauty and ugliness without making apparent judgements before moving onto the action. This action pits the forces of authority vs. the forces of countercultralism. This is also shown in the great Serpico, which set the police department against the individualistic and corruption averse Officer Serpico(also played by Al Pachino). This shows a dedication to realism as well as an awareness of the need for social reform, seen over and over again in Lumet's great movies.

      Lumet, to me, will go down as one of the great American directors along with Orson Welles, Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, and various others who make up the cannon of American film and who have shown that there is a difference between making movies  and making movies. There are so many great and different Lumet films from the prescient Network to the mad cap Dog Day Afternoon as a movie lover and a fellow American I salute Lumet's fantastic and noble efforts for great social realism and for great storytelling.