DILLWEED
Monday, March 29, 2004
Dive! Dive! Dillweed is going down. Blogging only on movies seems to have created an unintended contract with a friend or two. So I'm moving to the standard format where hopefully I'm not expected to get all Eberty when I mention a movie. Merry Christmas.
Monday, March 22, 2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004, 280) Cries and Whisper (Ingmar Bergman, 1972, 170) Simple Men (Hal Hartley, 1992, 250)
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Spartan (David Mamet, 2004, 190) Love Me If You Dare (Yann Samuell, 2004, 150) Luck (Peter Wellington, 2004, 190) Starsky and Hutch (Todd Phillips, 2004, 100) It seems that this weekend everything's coming up neuroses. First, David Mamet once again visits his paranoiac vision on the local art-plex in the form of Spartan, another of his serpentine heist pics, this time dressed up in an GI Joe action outfit. The breakdown: Super Special Ops Marine and modern day Samurai Val Kilmer navigates his way through dastardly slave-trading Arabs and even more dastardly White House advisers to rescue the President's daughter. The wandering warrior story usually seems to go one of two ways-- the warrior's strict adherence to his code allows him to expose the system that's trying to corrupt that code, or more cynically (70's style), the warrior is crushed by the system but he's still got that code, goddammit. Interestingly (to me), Spartan doesn't go either way but pulls the classic enlightenment move by having the Samurai compromise the code in exchange for more human qualities, but then again Mamet doesn't portray this as a beneficial spiritual transformation, but just one more sacrifice demanded by an unjust system. Of course, in real life, I would think the fucker was borderline psychotic to begin with. The romantic comedy(?) Love Me If You Dare treads the ground better trodden by Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon. A boy and girl develop a relationship around a game in which each has to perform the dares suggested by the other. As they grow older and develop feelings for each other, they don't know how to react to each other's advances outside the strictures of the game. A lot of hurt feelings later, the game devolves into tit-for-tat humiliations and assaults. I don't know. Maybe it's a depressing metaphor for the automatism in human relationships. For a romantic comedy, it definitely could have been more romantic. And funnier. Luck is a paeon to gambling addiction. The main character pisses aways his life with his dead-end drudgery (crappy job, loser friends) instead of taking on what he obviously desires (writing, the girl he has crush on). When he screws up his shot with the girl, he turns to gambling just to feel something go his way. An early streak gets him hooked, but not just on winning but on cheating fate, destiny, common sense, and everyone else on the planet. It's as if it's a sin not to believe that this hand will win. I suggest checking it out while it's playing in town during SXSW. Starsky and Hutch is a remake of Serpico with Ben Stiller playing Pacino's hair and Owen Wilson playing his nose. Merry Christmas.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Monday, March 01, 2004
Fog of War (2003, Errol Morris, 275) American Splendor (2003, Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini, 275) What's Up, Fatlip? (2000?/2003?, Spike Jonze, 225) Whichard and I were talking yesterday about all the excitement surrounding The Passion of the Christ. I'm not extremely jazzed to see it, mainly because its attempt at literalism turns me off. I know the story of Christ. I was raised in fundamentalist Southern Baptist churches and I've seen my share of Passion plays. I don't need a blow-by-blow replay of a story I know very well. Marich asked why it's different than other attempts to filmically document historical events. My response would be that Passion is an attempt to replay the exact same narrative record, but the point is well taken. Perhaps the visceral effect of taking it in through the eyes would produce a different reaction that would be of value. Because of Passion, I'm sure that many people are thinking about the relationship between film and reality. I am, too, after seeing/watching two documentaries and something like a documentary but not. What's Up, Fatlip? is a documentary by Spike Jonze following the rapper Fatlip during the shooting of the video of the song with the same name. The song is a comic yet somehow poignant deflation of the rap star image, a bit of honest introspection from someone on the downhill slide from success. The 30 minute film definitely bears witness that the lyrics are true. Fog of War, which won the Oscar last night, is Robert McNamara's reassessment of his moral culpability in both the bombing of Japan and his orchestration of the Vietnam War. American Splendor is based on Harvey Pekar's underground comic series of the same name. The comics were meant to be a strict retelling of the day-to-day events of Pekar's life, so the movie is, too. In fact, after some scenes, they bring out the real people being portrayed, who then talk about the actual events. It makes the film almost "more real" than a documentary because the the relationship between what is represented and what is real is always in the foreground. Most documentaries are constructed to produce a feeling that what you see is an artifact of the real events. American Splendor acknowledges that film can never be an unprocessed representation of reality, and in doing so, earns your trust.
