Persepolis Review

The film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was simultaneously one of the worst movies of all time, and one of the best things that ever happened to the comic book medium. A horrible bastardization of a revered modern classic miniseries by Alan Moore, it required nearly every review of the film to mention that it wasn't as good as the comic book it was based on.

And gradually, people realized that this implies comics can be... good. And since they're essentially storyboards for movies that don't exist yet already, maybe using them as a blueprint for a film is a good idea- witness the $700 million combined gross of 300 and Sin City, two movies that look exactly like the Frank Miller comic they adapt. Hmmmm...


Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis was another text ripe for the film treatment, and it's wonderful to see that it has followed suit and been transcribed nearly unchanged. The story of a young girl's experiences in war-torn Iran, and later Eastern Europe, it is at once whimsical and profound- the simple, black and white animation is as straightforward as the narrative.

There are no embellishments on lessons that should be learned, and no social responsibility is preached beyond the conclusions you draw natural from stories of oppressive regimes. In the film, Marjane goes through depressions and revolts of character, but never strays into self-pity of righteousness- it's just a tale of living a life, one tougher than most.

There's a bit of fun with American culture seeping in to Iran by subterfuge, as men in parks sell Bee Gees tapes from their coat pockets to our rebellious protagonist. And the film's lightest moment comes when Marjane decides to shuck off her despair by rocking out to "Eye of the Tiger."

It's a great story, and a great film that doesn't try to get in the way. For all the technical mastery and hours of work that went into Ratatouille, Persepolis might steal the Best Animated Feature trophy by simply (gasp!) looking like a comic.

When to See it: Before it Leaves Theatres

Leftover thoughts:

• When I was a kid, a bad day was stubbing my toe, not having my house destroyed by Iraqi bombs. Makes you think.
• Great cameo by God in this film. Good to see the big guy getting some work.
• One lesson obvious from the story of the Islamic Revolution is the whole "who watches the watchmen" thing when the revolutionaries turn out to be just as bad as the overthrown. This is why I'm not sure why there are so many Che Guevara T-shirts on college campuses- but that's a whole nother post.

Best Animated Short Roundup

FYI to my fellow Milwaukee residents: The Times Cinema will once again be hosting the Academy Award nominated short films.

Unfortunately, the Live Action program starts on Friday, Feb. 23rd, and runs for a week. So they don't show the Animated shorts until March 1st, which is obviously after the awards ceremony.

But of Course, that's why we have YouTube. Four out of the five films are up in their entirety, so I here will link to them (some are in multiple parts, so embedding would be a little ridiculous), and post my reviews and thoughts.

I Met The Walrus -Trailer
link

This looks very cool in design, and originality is often a key factor. Last year The Danish Poet (Part I, Part II) was clearly the easiest film to animate, but far and away the best story of the five nominees and it won. I Met the Walrus is a 2D sort of animation show, set word by word to an interview with John Lennon conducted by a renegade 14 year-old in 1969. It is only five minutes long, though I have little clue if that counts against it. Josh Raskin, the director, has no previous awards pedigree either.

Peter And The Wolf
Part I Part II Part III

Excellently done in claymation, if a little slow developing. Suzie Templeton, a BAFTA winner for her short film Dog in 2002, adds a few subtle touches to the edges of the classical music piece (what's with the kid throwing Peter in a dumpster?), but it doesn't really set itself apart.

Even Pigeons Go To Heaven
link

A funny, wacky piece, in lieu of any Pixar shorts this year (wasn't there one attached to the Ratatouille DVD? What happened there?). A con-man priest tries to sell an old man a machine that will transport him to heaven in an eight minute entry that curiously never mentions pigeons. Director Samuel Tourneux is also a newcomer to the awards circuit.

Madame Tutli-Putli
Part I Part II

Our third claymation entry, and a weird one. A slow developing, silent piece about a woman who boards a train, and has progressively creepier things start happening to her. It has grating violin music, and tries a little too hard to be avante garde for me. It's kind of like if a David Lynch film were shortened to seventeen minutes, but still managed to be as slow-paced as it was to begin with.

My Love
Part I Part II Part III

I actually remember watching the Oscars in 2000, and seeing a short clip of Aleksandr Petrov's The Old Man and The Sea (Part I, Part II), and dropping my jaw in amazement for a second before saying "that has to win." And it did. His next film, eight years later, looks just as amazing as it tells a story of a young man confused about love. Or something- the subtitles on this copy are pretty wonky, and I'm relatively sure they're missing a lot of important lines, but the visual experience of this one is worth it. So much work went into this hand-painted film that it seems impossible to beat.

Thoughts on the Live Action Shorts right before the Oscars, if I have the time in the two days beforehand to see them. I'm still flying blind on Documentary Shorts, though- damn them.

The Netflix Diaries: The Devil's Backbone

Ah well- you have all the intentions of posting regularly, but then things like life and the stomach flu get in the way. A flurry of posts for you this Monday, our regular readers (or Czechoslovakians googling Marketa Irglova. She's like Elvis over there, apparently.)

Anyway, I finally caught up with Guillermo Del Toro's film El Espinazo Del Diablo, The Devil's Backbone, on DVD, and I could see why he would describe it a the "spiritual predecessor" to last year's acclaimed Pan's Labyrinth.

Both are about orphaned children during the Spanish civil war, dealing with evil, greasy haired bad guys and supernatural forces. In Backbone, it's a child's ghost instead of an entire fantasy world, and the film as a whole is much less expansive than its "sequel"- the story is more or less self-contained in the orphanage that a young boy is sent to when his father dies, with the war lingering sadly at the fringes, instead of the much more intertwined plot of Labyrinth.

It's been described as a horror film (or at least it showed up on those Bravo "Scariest moment" countdowns that seem stupid but you end up watching the whole hour somehow), but it's not a jump out of your seat sort of experience. It's a ghost story with a purpose, and artistic merit- I guess I mean that it's a good story that happens to have a ghost in it, which is something that only seems to exist in other countries. In America, ghost stories are merely thinly plotted star vehicles where people slowly approach something creepy with creepy music playing before... BOO!

Another thing unique about both of Del Toro's historical fantasies is that he isn't afraid to show how unrelentingly cruel the world, and adults can be- there's no children's movie gloss to these stories just because the protagonists happen to be children. It makes me wish he'd have directed The Golden Compass.

Ah, well. At least we have The Hobbit to look forward to now. It should be interesting to see how he manages the more child friendly tone of that book with the dark currents of Jackson's trilogy.

Cloverfield Review

J.J. Abrams latest cinematic endeavor resulted in the visceral Cloverfield. The film is about five young professionals in Manhattan throwing a going away party. However, the angst and excitement of the evening are soon interrupted when a massive creature descends upon New York, destroying everything in its path.

Many have called Cloverfield “The Blair Witch that Ate Manhattan.” While that is funny, it does not do the movie justice. Cloverfield is much more than a monster movie shot in the camcorder way that The Blair Witch Project was constructed.

Drew Goodard’s script is actually a mish-mash of genres. When Abrams pitched the idea of Cloverfield to Paramount he described it as, “A Cameron Crow movie meets The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla.” This is definitively more apt than “The Blair Witch that Ate Manhattan,” and it should not turn moviegoers away.

Matt Reeves’ visual style taps into people’s post-9/11 fears as landmarks are destroyed, the United States Marines canvas the street detaining people, and dust envelops people trying to run away from the chaos. Is this a shameless ploy on Reeves and Abrams’ behalf? I would say that it is not as they try to recreate in the most visceral of ways what a monster attack on New York would be like.

The acting in the film is done by a cast of unknowns who spend most of their time running for their lives and screaming, “NO!” or “OH MY GOD!” Perhaps it is for the best that this was a cast of unknowns because if it had been Will Smith and Reese Witherspoon running around, people would say that they were not doing a decent job. I feel the relative anonymity of these young professionals makes the docudrama nature of this production more enthralling because I did not go into the movie with any expectations regarding their skill.

Finally, the monster itself. Do you see it? Yes. Is it scary? Legitimately so. Are the special effects well done, or does it go into the I Am Legend territory of ridiculousness? The special effects – and sound effects for that matter – are quite well done. Cloverfield cost $25 million to produce and I imagine that the bulk of that money was spent in post-production.

Overall, the product that is put upon the screen in quite good. I would recommend seeing it in theatres because this movie is dependent upon the scope of the frame and the dazzling sound effects that pours in through the speakers.
When to See It: Before It Leaves Theatres

Rambo Review

I saw Rocky Balboa last year and was pleasantly surprised by what Sylvester Stallone delivered. Stallone crafted a film that was more about aging and wanting to be a part of the limelight again than it was about a boxing match. Critics and audiences lauded the film, resulting in an unforeseen success for Stallone. In turn, Stallone and Lions Gate Film decided that it would be a good idea to roll out Rambo, hoping to catch the same lightning in a bottle.

While it lacks the heart that Rocky Balboa possessed, Rambo certainly makes up for it with its brutality.

Stallone returns in the titular role, but a much older and wiser mercenary. Rambo has now secluded himself in the Myanmar countryside (NOTE: Stallone does not seem to realize that the country is now called Myanmar and not Burma anymore), where he handles poisonous snakes and shuttles people up and down the river with his longboat.

A group of missionaries comes to Rambo’s paradise and asks him to transport them “upriver.” Initially reluctant, Rambo does move them up the river so they may offer relief to survivors of a sixty-year-old civil war. However, two weeks pass when another man comes to Rambo and informs him that the missionaries have been taken hostage.

In turn, Rambo strikes back into action for what Stallone calls “Beyond Rangoon, but with rocket launchers.”

The exposition of the Rambo going through his daily routine and the missionaries seeking him out takes a plodding forty minutes. Once the action does get going though it is relentless in both its pace and demeanor.

Gang rapes, decapitations, bludgeonings, machine gunnings, machetings, cross bowings, neck snappings, and blow uppings all occur in the last hour of the film that would make Quentin Tarantino say, “Wow, that’s violent.” One analyst counted 220+ deaths in that film hour – which equivocates to 2.59 deaths per minute in the movie.

This violence does work though because it does show how jaded Rambo is. It does question the morality of its violence, even if it is in a fuzzy, illogical, schmaltzy manner.

All-in-all, it is nice to have an old fashioned action film that does not truly want to delve too much into the character’s psyche. In the end, Rambo is just more concerned with blowing things up and showing a spectacular fireball.

However, that really is a good thing.

When to See It: On DVD

An Open Letter to Landmark Cinemas

Dear Landmark,

First of all, let me say I really appreciate what you bring to Milwaukee. Without your two locations, we'd all be stuck waiting for the release of any independent or limited release movies worth a damn.

That being said, what the hell, Landmark? I distinctly remember seeing, in the lobby of your very own, nationally respected Oriental Theatre, a poster for Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a reportedly outstanding film that just earned four Oscar nominations.

Later, I noticed that the posters had a date of "February 1st" attached to them- it was a little longer than I wanted to wait for a film I was so excited about, but I understand you have locations all over the country, and you can't get every print to everybody at once.

But now, after all this, I see you're not getting said film this Friday, nor are you getting the highly regarded Persepolis on Friday at all. What gives?

I notice that Diving Bell is playing at both of your locations in Chicago- you couldn't send one of those prints up the Interstate? I know our market here is small, but don't make me promises you can't keep.

Will you have it soon? Can I trust you when you say you will? Will I finally get to the theatre, only to be shown Alvin and the Chipmunks instead?

Stop shattering my hopes, Landmark. I want to make this relationship work again.

- Duncan

(mini-open letter to Marcus Cinemas:

You guys didn't promise me anything, but do you really need a print of Diving Bell in both Green Bay and Appelton, WI, without providing one for the state's biggest city? Just saying.)

Links for Tuesday

A slow starting week for the blog here- apologies.

What's been happening? Well, Ethan and Joel Coen won the Director's Guild award, making NCFOM's Best Picture chances just that much higher. It also won the ensemble SAG award (and then apparently Josh Brolin forgot that Tommy Lee Jones was much more important than he was and hogged the mic), and honestly we should just stop wondering now.

Also winning SAGs- Daniel Day Lewis, Julie Christie, Javier Bardem, and Ruby Dee. One of these things is not like the others...

The song "Falling Slowly" from Once, as I anticipated, is now in danger of having it's Oscar nomination revoked because it may not have been written for the film (duh!). I'm not saying forget the rules, I'm just saying get it right the first time, Academy. My take- they should revoke it (because if it beat 'original' songs it would seem unfair), but replace it with...another song from Once! "If You Want Me" was the only other song on the shortlist, but since that list was apparently also a piece of crap they could also go with "Fallen From the Sky," "Once," or "The Hill." (Or this!).

Meet the Spartans rules the Box Office, because we as a people are mentally incompetent. I would have been fine with Rambo, I really would have.

New Line finally settled with Peter Jackson awhile ago, so he's going to exec produce a 'Hobbit' movie (and another, blatantly unecessary LoTR film. Let's not get carried into nineties-era Lucas terriority here, people). So who's going to direct said film that wouldn't be a big step down from Jackson? Maybe... Guillermo Del Toro?

Speaking of which, beyond sequels like LoTR and The Dark Knight, I try not to scan crazy far ahead into movie news, because who wants to wait forever when they're excited about something? But get this- there's a 2009 movie called Public Enemies, about FBI agent Melvin Purvis tracking down John Dillinger.

Sounds cool enough already. But there are also three details that make it completely awesome, and I will list them in order of their excitement factor:

1. Michael Mann is directing it (Heat, Collateral, The Insider, The Last of the Mohicans)
2. Who will play Dillinger? Johnny Depp, that's who.
3. Oh, and the FBI Agent? Christian fucking Bale! Christian Bale is so awesome these days that a couple of months ago I had a conversation with Dave that went something like this...

Dave: There's making a fourth Terminator movie...
Me: Ugh.
Dave: It's directed by McG...
Me: Ugh.
Dave: and Christian Bale might be in it.
Me: Sold.

Crash, will now be a tv series. Yeah, there's really no need for that. The Onion's headline says it all. I felt, immediately after seeing that film, that it was pretty good, but why is it a modern masterpiece all of a sudden? Now I hate it to the point of revulsion, like a pretty good pop song that I can't go to any public restroom without hearing twice. The only good thing that has ever resulted from Crash is this list at McSweeney's internet tendency.

The WGA has agreed to provide the Grammy's with lame banter and uneccessary introductory monologues. Where's the waiver for The Oscars, already? Does anyone give a Belgian weasel about the Grammy's anymore? No!

My problems with the Grammy's: First of all, there's about eight billion different, gratiuitous, and hard to distinguish on the best of days categories. Second, in the major categories, all that ever gets nominated is what's all over the radio and at the top of Billboard charts anyway- I'm not saying it's not good music, but come on- we all know that popularity is not the basis for artistic merit.

This would be like if The Oscars nominated Spiderman 3 and At World's End and Transformers for everything, simply because they sold the most tickets.