So, I've had a couple conversations recently about films that had such striking and memorable opening moments that the rest of the film couldn't measure up, even if it was good. Here are a few examples, then you can tell me about your nominations in the comments.
28 Weeks Later: This sequel is a decent suspense film, though not as rich as the original, 28 Days Later. (Apparently 28 Months Later is planned.) But the first 10 minutes or so are absolutely riveting. You probably need to have seen the original to fully understand the intensity of these moments. But this is absolutely perfect suspense/action filmmaking, where each second matters, every decision is hurried yet vital, and death is all around you. Would you be able to choose life over all the things you thought mattered to you? Could you outrun bloody death at your heels? If only the inventiveness and intensity could have been sustained through the whole film.
Dawn of the Dead (remake, 2004): I am an aficionado of zombie films. I love the George A. Romero originals, in all their pretentious and overly symbolic glory. This remake by Zack Snyder is solid throughout, and definitely delivers the thrills and chills one expects of such a film. But, again, the opening is so brilliant, and so thrilling, that the rest can't help but pale a bit in comparison. Watching the world transform from what Sarah Polley's character (and we) know into something more horrific than her worst nightmares in just moments is utterly harrowing and a great example of what cinema can accomplish. Enjoy!
Saving Private Ryan: No, I don't mean the absolutely atrocious, dreadful framing device of Old Guy at Cemetery. (I'll probably post someday on what an awful thing that framing device is, just to purge myself of the bitterness of it. It fails on nearly every level.) I mean, of course, the 20 minutes of D-Day. Stylized, yet somehow more real than real. I felt myself ducking in the theatre, almost expecting the bullets to find me. Never have I been more grateful to be spared the firsthand horror of war. Sadly, the rest of the film, though solid, rarely rises to this level, with the possible exception of the whisper-filled knife-struggle near the end. (You know which one I mean. I still can't forget it.) And, do yourself a favor and just skip watching the Old Guy at Cemetery crapola at the beginning and the end. Ay carumba.
Casino Royale (new version, 2006): You know where I'm going with this one, so I'll keep it short. But you agree with me right? I mean, that first chase scene, with Daniel Craig's version of Bond chasing the free running dude through the construction site? Cinematic brilliance. Suspenseful, balletic, beautiful, hair-raising, and filmed with utter clarity. How many action scenes can you say that about these post-Michael-Bay days? The rest is fun, but the film never matches the nitrous-oxide high of that first chase scene.
If I was really cool, I'd have tried to figure out a way to make the opening of this post awesome, while the rest of it was just okay. Pretend I did that.
So, what are your nominations?
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
No Country For Old Men (spoiler free)
This pitiless, impeccably crafted film is indeed the hoped-for return to form for the Coen Brothers. Every performance is spot-on, from the terrifying Javier Bardem on down through to the usually annoying Woody Harrelson. The suspense is nearly unbearable for considerable stretches of the film, and the plot is beautifully sketched without being labored. The Coens (and Cormac McCarthy's novel before them) trust the viewers to keep up. As always, Roger Deakins' photography is brilliant and beautiful. All in all, this is a masterpiece.
And I rarely say such a thing, but I think in this case I wish I hadn't already read the book. As harrowingly good a read as it was, I wish I could have experienced the suspense of the film without the outlines of the plot so well know to me.
Much has been made about the violence in the film, and there is violence, to be sure. But two points should be made about the violence. First, yes, some violence is shown on screen, and it isn't easy to watch, but many of the violent moments (upon reflection) are implied rather than made explicit. (Of course, this discretion only heightens the horror.) Second, each act of violence is full of horror and disgust. This is violence that is portrayed with full awareness of what is lost when a person dies, no matter how high or low, rich or poor that person is. This is, of course, an indictment of most Hollywood films, especially action films which generally are much, much more violent that No Country For Old Men, but clothe that violence in post-killing jokes or by disguising those marked for death as shallow cardboard cutouts or videogame shooting gallery targets.
I'll save further thoughts until I've seen it again. Which will apparently be sometime in the next few hours.
-----------------------------
Update: Okay, so it really is rather violent and bloody. The fact that some of the acts of violence are handled with discretion doesn't remove the fact that some are very explicit. So, be warned. (I stand by my comments about the gravity with which the violence is handled.)
And I rarely say such a thing, but I think in this case I wish I hadn't already read the book. As harrowingly good a read as it was, I wish I could have experienced the suspense of the film without the outlines of the plot so well know to me.
Much has been made about the violence in the film, and there is violence, to be sure. But two points should be made about the violence. First, yes, some violence is shown on screen, and it isn't easy to watch, but many of the violent moments (upon reflection) are implied rather than made explicit. (Of course, this discretion only heightens the horror.) Second, each act of violence is full of horror and disgust. This is violence that is portrayed with full awareness of what is lost when a person dies, no matter how high or low, rich or poor that person is. This is, of course, an indictment of most Hollywood films, especially action films which generally are much, much more violent that No Country For Old Men, but clothe that violence in post-killing jokes or by disguising those marked for death as shallow cardboard cutouts or videogame shooting gallery targets.
I'll save further thoughts until I've seen it again. Which will apparently be sometime in the next few hours.
-----------------------------
Update: Okay, so it really is rather violent and bloody. The fact that some of the acts of violence are handled with discretion doesn't remove the fact that some are very explicit. So, be warned. (I stand by my comments about the gravity with which the violence is handled.)
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The 9th Rule of Fight Club is...
Never talk about how the film loses some steam in the last third.
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
And, I mean, come on, when your film loses steam despite the fact that you have your protagonist shoot himself in the mouth just before he (or at the very least his psychic-split alter ego) blows up like five or six skyscrapers full of financial records.
So, yeah, some third (or is it fifth?) act problems there, but that said the film holds up pretty well. And frankly those visuals of the skyscrapers falling are even a bit more chilling than they used to be, for obvious reasons.
It seems to me the film is still a visceral experience, that it does a good job of calling into question certain priorities/assumptions that we (Americans) have/make about what really matters.
This strikes me as a religious film. (Big shock, right, after I turned Good/Bad/Ugly into a Catholic film?) Fight club itself spreads like a cult, of course, and there are certainly some messianic overtones to Tyler Durden along the way (especially when he's letting himself get beaten to a pulp, arms outstretched, buying their meeting space with his blood). No shock there, right, we're in the western tradition, of course there will be Christ figures rearing their heads. But what came through to me more clearly this time was the fact that many of the critiques of materialism resonate really well with the teachings of Jesus, and also the Judaic principle of jubilee. (If I get too theological on you, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. I'm not trying to convert anyone here.) Jubilee, of course, is an idea resurrected (ha) by Bono and others in the last few years as a catchphrase for Third World debt forgiveness. Historically (Old Testamentally) it was the idea that every 50 years (or was it 49 -- oh, even the scholars aren't sure) all the indentured servants got set free, all the land got thrown back to the original owners or their heirs (or something like that). So Durden's really trying to bring about a jubilee in his quest to destroy credit. Back to zero. This twins nicely with his desire to set men free from their work at "jobs they hate to buy things they don't need". There's a lot of the ascetic tradition tossed in there, too, of course, with the body being punished to help purify the soul. Anyway, what do you think? Are Fincher and Palahniuk presenting some God-free version of religion? What would their Ten Commandments look like?
Now that I think of it, damage to the body to purify the soul is naturally extended to damage to the (monetary infrastructure of) the country to purify the country's soul. I think this is an interesting idea. External stresses can bring out the best or worst in nations. Sadly, the last 150 years haven't been too great at getting the best to come out (with a few exceptions, of course).
So is Fight Club just some incoherent pseudo-Marxist critique of capitalism, or is it more subtle than that? (I'm really asking. I can't quite decide.) Is it popular as a brief stopping place along the way to acquiescing to the bourgeois assumptions of our age, a nice little last rebellious pose for adolescents of whatever age (and I should perhaps still include myself, home-ownership notwithstanding) before slouching off to drudgery and Ikea-addiction? I was half-joking about it being the Catcher in the Rye of the '90s and '00s, but it actually functions in a similar way, it seems to me, railing against the phonies and jerks who just can't see as clearly as the protagonist can.
And how are we to feel at the end of Fight Club? Is it defeat that Tyler is killed/banished? Or has he won now that the buildings are falling? The first time I saw the film I was horrified by the falling buildings. This time it felt like hope. Don't we need a Jubilee?
Am I a monster?
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
And, I mean, come on, when your film loses steam despite the fact that you have your protagonist shoot himself in the mouth just before he (or at the very least his psychic-split alter ego) blows up like five or six skyscrapers full of financial records.
So, yeah, some third (or is it fifth?) act problems there, but that said the film holds up pretty well. And frankly those visuals of the skyscrapers falling are even a bit more chilling than they used to be, for obvious reasons.
It seems to me the film is still a visceral experience, that it does a good job of calling into question certain priorities/assumptions that we (Americans) have/make about what really matters.
This strikes me as a religious film. (Big shock, right, after I turned Good/Bad/Ugly into a Catholic film?) Fight club itself spreads like a cult, of course, and there are certainly some messianic overtones to Tyler Durden along the way (especially when he's letting himself get beaten to a pulp, arms outstretched, buying their meeting space with his blood). No shock there, right, we're in the western tradition, of course there will be Christ figures rearing their heads. But what came through to me more clearly this time was the fact that many of the critiques of materialism resonate really well with the teachings of Jesus, and also the Judaic principle of jubilee. (If I get too theological on you, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. I'm not trying to convert anyone here.) Jubilee, of course, is an idea resurrected (ha) by Bono and others in the last few years as a catchphrase for Third World debt forgiveness. Historically (Old Testamentally) it was the idea that every 50 years (or was it 49 -- oh, even the scholars aren't sure) all the indentured servants got set free, all the land got thrown back to the original owners or their heirs (or something like that). So Durden's really trying to bring about a jubilee in his quest to destroy credit. Back to zero. This twins nicely with his desire to set men free from their work at "jobs they hate to buy things they don't need". There's a lot of the ascetic tradition tossed in there, too, of course, with the body being punished to help purify the soul. Anyway, what do you think? Are Fincher and Palahniuk presenting some God-free version of religion? What would their Ten Commandments look like?
Now that I think of it, damage to the body to purify the soul is naturally extended to damage to the (monetary infrastructure of) the country to purify the country's soul. I think this is an interesting idea. External stresses can bring out the best or worst in nations. Sadly, the last 150 years haven't been too great at getting the best to come out (with a few exceptions, of course).
So is Fight Club just some incoherent pseudo-Marxist critique of capitalism, or is it more subtle than that? (I'm really asking. I can't quite decide.) Is it popular as a brief stopping place along the way to acquiescing to the bourgeois assumptions of our age, a nice little last rebellious pose for adolescents of whatever age (and I should perhaps still include myself, home-ownership notwithstanding) before slouching off to drudgery and Ikea-addiction? I was half-joking about it being the Catcher in the Rye of the '90s and '00s, but it actually functions in a similar way, it seems to me, railing against the phonies and jerks who just can't see as clearly as the protagonist can.
And how are we to feel at the end of Fight Club? Is it defeat that Tyler is killed/banished? Or has he won now that the buildings are falling? The first time I saw the film I was horrified by the falling buildings. This time it felt like hope. Don't we need a Jubilee?
Am I a monster?
Monday, November 5, 2007
Other Jarmusch Thoughts
I'm no Jim Jarmusch expert, but I thought I'd blurb a little on the movies of his I have seen:
Broken Flowers: Another deadpan Bill Murray performance, this could be a nice double-feature viewing with Rushmore. Bill's character finds out he may have a son and so he delves back into his romantic past, trying to determine with whom he planted his seed. It's a little more narrative-driven than some of Jarmusch's other work, but still has a lot to like. Quirky characters galore.
Dead Man: This might be my favorite movie ever that I didn't really like. But don't get me wrong, I love it. If I hadn't overloaded TNFN with westerns early on we would have watched this by now, but it's not just a western, it's an aggressively static and episodic western, filled with poetry and brutality. Johnny Depp is a traveler named William Blake who moves ever westward with violence and death swirling around and through him. This is most definitely a post-western or neo-western, or something, and it's haunted by a nightmarish (and appropriate) Neil Young guitar soundtrack. We'll probably see this one sometime in the winter, but feel free to watch it now, because you'll have a weird reaction to it the first time, followed by a slowly building irresistible desire to see it again. The film also stars Lance Henriksen (Bishop from Aliens, etc.), Robert Mitchum, Gabriel Byrne, and a host of other familiar faces, very few of which are around long at all, except Depp. I want to go watch it right now...
Down By Law: This is probably a great place to start with Jarmusch. It captures his deadpan humor and the strange ways he lets scenes just sit there. It is in black and white, and if you're a Tom Waits fan like me it's a hoot to watch young lean Tom rasp and ramble his way through a tale of the south and prison and swamps and the journey. Filled with surprising and offbeat moments, you'll remember this one.
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai: Forest Whitaker is an almost silent killer with a code. I remember liking this film, but remember few details. I've since seen Melville's Le Samourai (great film) which Jarmusch was supposedly riffing off for this film, so I'm looking forward to the next time I see this one.
Stranger Than Paradise: This one's interesting, too, and is often mentioned as "where it all started". I saw it after Down By Law and felt like it hit some of the same notes (but in a much less colorful milieu -- which is strange to say about a black and white film), but not as well. Definitely worth seeing, but, well, I guess I just liked DBL better.
Anyone else have thoughts on Jarmusch?
Broken Flowers: Another deadpan Bill Murray performance, this could be a nice double-feature viewing with Rushmore. Bill's character finds out he may have a son and so he delves back into his romantic past, trying to determine with whom he planted his seed. It's a little more narrative-driven than some of Jarmusch's other work, but still has a lot to like. Quirky characters galore.
Dead Man: This might be my favorite movie ever that I didn't really like. But don't get me wrong, I love it. If I hadn't overloaded TNFN with westerns early on we would have watched this by now, but it's not just a western, it's an aggressively static and episodic western, filled with poetry and brutality. Johnny Depp is a traveler named William Blake who moves ever westward with violence and death swirling around and through him. This is most definitely a post-western or neo-western, or something, and it's haunted by a nightmarish (and appropriate) Neil Young guitar soundtrack. We'll probably see this one sometime in the winter, but feel free to watch it now, because you'll have a weird reaction to it the first time, followed by a slowly building irresistible desire to see it again. The film also stars Lance Henriksen (Bishop from Aliens, etc.), Robert Mitchum, Gabriel Byrne, and a host of other familiar faces, very few of which are around long at all, except Depp. I want to go watch it right now...
Down By Law: This is probably a great place to start with Jarmusch. It captures his deadpan humor and the strange ways he lets scenes just sit there. It is in black and white, and if you're a Tom Waits fan like me it's a hoot to watch young lean Tom rasp and ramble his way through a tale of the south and prison and swamps and the journey. Filled with surprising and offbeat moments, you'll remember this one.
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai: Forest Whitaker is an almost silent killer with a code. I remember liking this film, but remember few details. I've since seen Melville's Le Samourai (great film) which Jarmusch was supposedly riffing off for this film, so I'm looking forward to the next time I see this one.
Stranger Than Paradise: This one's interesting, too, and is often mentioned as "where it all started". I saw it after Down By Law and felt like it hit some of the same notes (but in a much less colorful milieu -- which is strange to say about a black and white film), but not as well. Definitely worth seeing, but, well, I guess I just liked DBL better.
Anyone else have thoughts on Jarmusch?
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