Thursday, January 04, 2007
Trouble At The Factory
Real-life film controversy is great. Sometimes it can even lead to great things like church protests, and occasionally even greater things such as the church and lesbians coming together in one mass protest, but usually it ends up being famous people shouting at other famous people. The latter is currently the case with Factory Girl, the biopic of 60s it girl Edie Sedgwick and her relationship with Andy Warhol, as well as her fictional/non-fictional relationship with Bob Dylan, who is one of the aforementioned shouty famous people.
Dylan is apparently pursuing a lawsuit - although there seem to be conflicting reports as to whether he is actually suing or is just pissed off - saying that the flick implies that not only did he have a relationship with Sedgwick, but also that he helped drive her to a drug-related death at the age of 28. Sienna Miller, Sedgwick in Factory Girl, denies the allegations, saying "I'm Bob Dylan's biggest fan. I'm mortified that he's pissed off. She [Sedgwick] needed help and no one helped her. It's not that Dylan drove her to heroin addiction."Maybe Dylan is just annoyed that "he" - the character in the film is called Billy Quinn, although he certainly looks and sounds Dylanesque - is being played by Hayden Christensen, the man hated by a legion of geeks for his part in the Star Wars prequels, but who in actual fact is a pretty damn good actor, at least when he has a good director behind him (watch Shattered Glass). And indeed, in the trailer for Factory Girl, he comes across pretty well. As to whether or not there ever was a relationship, who knows, but according to interweb font of information Wikipedia, Edie's brother Jonathan has come out and said that not only did they knock boots together on a regular basis, but they also had a child, at least for a short time before it was aborted.
Lou Reed is also pissed off at the film, saying "It's one of the most disgusting, foul things I've seen - by any illiterate retard - in a long time. There's no limit to how low some people will go to write something to make money" and "They're all a bunch of whores." However, he apparently licenced one of his songs to the producers for use in the film for $300K, so take that as you will. Also, I stole this from Wikipedia, so again, take it with a pinch of salt.In any case, the film looks okay. I have zero interest in Andy Warhol and his factory, but the man behind the film - the wonderfully named George Hickenlooper - co-directed the magnificent documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, so it might be worth a viewing, if only to see if Darth Vader really can give a proper breakout performance. I'm not sure whether there will be any more from Dylan's lawsuit, or anymore famous shouty people coming out, but if so, they might start drawing battle lines between Hollywood and the hipsters.
And we could definitely do with thinning out the ranks from both sides.
Source: Dark Horizons, TeletextDiscuss this and other Fakery on our message boards! Continue reading Trouble At The Factory
Trucks - Part 3
Part 1 - Every Which Way But Loose
Part 2 - Smokey and the Bandit
Sam Peckinpah was the grumpy old cuss of filmmaking; uncompromising, willfully independent, fatalistic, possibly depressive and definitely alcoholic. He is most famous for a series of westerns in the 60's and 70's that redefined the genre and, more lastingly, the depiction of violence in movies. You know when someone gets shot these days and the bullet holes explode in fountains of blood? It comes from using double or triple the amount of blood 'squibs' normally used. It was Peckinpah, in films like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and The Wild Bunch, that popularised this approach. Thank him for it. He made films about uncompromising, willfully independent, fatalistic, possibly depressive and definitely alcoholic men living in worlds that no longer respected or even recognised their values. And by the end of the 70's Peckinpah was in exactly that situation with Hollywood. Being fucked on booze and drugs didn't help. He took the directing gig for a trucker film, Convoy, possibly for the money, and possibly because it was the only work he could get. And yet this studio imposed, PG rated, low-brow redneck film still feels like a Peckinpah film, reflecting his outlaw spirit - so showing, even so very close to the end of his career and his life, the crazy old bastard still had some blood in his veins.
Convoy tells the story of a trucker, played by Kris Kristofferson, who has the CB handle 'Duck', who gets into a fight with a corrupt lawman and old adversary, played by Ernest Borgnine, and has to skip country. Other truckers in the same predicament join him to form a convoy and, as news of this convoy spreads, many others join him, until the line is hundreds of vehicles long. The convoy becomes a symbol of protest, a focal point for everyone's pet causes, attracts national notoriety, becomes a political football. Everyone is desperate for the convoy to mean something, anything. They look to Duck to tell them exactly what but Duck, being the true independent spirit he is, refuses to become a leader, become co-opted by the system or play along with the political opportunists. "Don't ask me," he says. "I'm just the guy in front."
Even as he gains a voice and the possibility of real power to effect real change, he turns his back on it to save a fellow trucker, a black fellow trucker, from the corrupt lawman who unjustly imprisoned and beat him to a pulp just to get back at Duck. Duck has a personal debt to his friend, and chooses that code of values over this new opportunity, to possibly tragic ends.
Now it should be noted that this film is just another dumb trucker movie, and carries, at least on the surface, all the same hallmarks as, say Smokey and the Bandit - improbably over the top crashes, comedy bar fights against incompetent policemen, chases set to country rock, endless CB lingo conversations and unfeasibly cute 'city' women who hook up with the main character. Yet Peckinpah makes it unmistakably his own.
It starts with an image of a blasted, desolate highway, bounded by featureless white sand dunes, heat baking the land into inhospitability. Then Duck's massive 18 wheeler roars by. Immediately we have the image of the loner trucker, who's home is a harsh and vicious world, far away from the comforts, and the laws, of the modern cities. Freedom comes at the price of exile.
Then there's a great bit of business where a title comes up saying 'Arizona', followed a second later by 'Noon', perfectly in time with the theme song that states 'It was Arizona, noon...' as it starts to narrate the story. Monty Python (and Mel Brooks and plenty of others) had already done the over-precise scene-setting titles to comedy death, but here it comes over as massively confident and cool. You can tell Quentin Tarantino has it stored safely on a list of 'shit to copy at some point'.
The film actually started life as the song 'Convoy' by CW McCall, and a script was written that followed the story it told, apparently full of the same stupid crap they'd been filling trucker films with for years. Peckinpah dealt with the script by throwing it away when he got on set and getting his actors to work around the scenes, improvising as they went.
Take the bar-room fight early on in the film. The first hit, filmed in signature massive slow-motion, comes when a trucker smashes a bottle of tomato ketchup over a policeman's wrist. Anyone who had seen his earlier, bloodier, films new exactly what the resultant mess of ketchup was all about. This had to be a PG rated film, you see, but the explosion of red is both very visceral in itself and a knowing reference to his earlier work. The moment works as both shocking and funny.
Take the first meeting on screen between Duck and Ernest Borgnine's cop. They don't swap moronically witty insults and no monkeys blow raspberries. They speak with a tired familiarity, showing that they have had this conversation many times before, and accept that, despite being nominal 'enemies', they are really closer to brothers when compared with the city folk. They share the same code, and the same fate on the garbage heap of American culture. A relationship ripped of from Peckinpah's own Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, only not nearly as subtle? Absolutely, but effective nonetheless.
All through the movie, as Duck says goodbye to a past-her-prime waitress he sometimes had a fling with and who knows she will probably never see her lover again, as Duck talks with his black trucker friend about his chances of getting back home to his expecting wife safely, there is a sense of seriousness and end-of-an-era melancholy. These people on the convoy somehow know that they are not driving towards any kind of future, but only into history. Ripped off from The Wild Bunch? Sure, but it still works, and is miles beyond the puerile smirking of other trucker movies.
The chases are impressive, the stunts better than in Smokey and the Bandit - trucks topple over while taking sharp 90 degree turns at busy intersections, police cars crash through barns with such a sense of power, a silly, punchline stunt suddenly becomes very bruising. It is, in many ways, a well made film.
Peckinpah, it should be remembered, was fucked - old, drunk and paranoid - and this is not a good film. There's a good chance many scenes were directed by assistants or friends, many of whom left Sam during production. There's even, heaven help us, a tacked-on and unbelievable happy ending. Comparing this film with The Wild Bunch with anything approaching a sober head can only lead you to the conclusion that this is the work of a fallen hero, reduced to producing crap for the money, lazily, half-blindly copying his old work to try and recapture its glory. However, if you watch it in the context of the rest of the 'trucker' mini-genre of the late 70's and early 80's, you can understand that the last works of a faded genius are still filled with a vitality and authenticity utterly missing in the best works of journeymen.
Convoy is the film that best expresses both the mythology these films were attempting to create, and the subtext they, perhaps inadvertently, carried. It shows the trucker as the modern cowboy, the true expression of the independent and unbeatable spirit of the westward pioneer, and it makes explicit the irrelevance of that spirit now, pushed out into the wastelands of the country by modern values, there to either accept its fate or to struggle to an inevitable death against the 'new' new world.
It also, on a slightly more shallow note, has loads of trucks in it, and they look great. There's a moment, just like in The Wild Bunch, when our 'heroes' line up in a row to walk into town to face their enemies, only this time they are all driving 18 wheelers and the camera had to be put half a mile away to get them all in. The shot is, understandably, awesome.
You are all readers of impeccable taste, and all have probably seen and loved, at the very least, The Wild Bunch. But you are all also mostly children of the 80's, raised on crap like Smokey and the Bandit on endless TV repeat. I bet you also saw The Wild Bunch for the first time because you heard it was really, really violent. For you, the extremely flawed gem that is Convoy will be an absolute treat, being a trucker film it is not all that much of a guilty pleasure to like. I do think the theme song for Smokey is better, but what are you going to do?
Cause we gotta little ol' convoy, rockin' through the night
Yeah we gotta little ol' convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?
Come on an' join our convoy, ain't nothin' gonna git in our way
We're gonna roll this truckin' convoy, cross the USA
Convoy... Convoy...
Discuss this and other Fakery on our message boards! Continue reading Trucks - Part 3
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
News Round-Up: 1/3/07
NBC is thinking about making The Bionic Woman again. The reason this is interesting is that, while Lee Majors may have been all cool and went on to be The Fall Guy, Lindsey Wagner, who played the original Bionic Woman, was really, really hot. You can actually watch that 70's cheesefest now and fall in love with her without any hint of irony. I did at least, while watching the sci-fi channel while drunk this Christmas. Maybe it's because she has the same hairstyle as me.
This new one will no doubt consist of a toned 20 something hottie fighting things. A much better idea is using a 25 stone woman who needs the bionic limbs after her skeleton gives out. All the secret agents will laugh at her for being a fattie and then she will thump them into next week. That's entertainment. If you think I'm being funny, I will bet you that the success of recent TV Soap Ugly Betty (featuring a sort of ugly lead character) has tv executives looking for 'alternative' female leads for their new shows. I, of course, care not for the fleeting charms of surface beauty, only for the deep and immortal beauty in the soul of every woman.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
And in exactly the same story but with different words, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (the film about married secret agents who don't know each other's secret), is also being made into a tv series. Toned, 20-something hotties will argue with each other while shooting at things, unlocking safes, defusing bombs, torturing suspects etc...
Making them 50-something, completely past it spies who have spent nearly 30 years lying to each other. Now that would be fun. There's something about young, pretty and preternaturally buff people that stops me believing anything they say. If they talk about their troubles, it just sounds like it's just another jacket they have put on, only to try on another the next day. If an older person, on the other hand, says they want to kill their husband/wife, I'm liable to believe them.
Source: Variety
I'm all for the argument that tv for children is the best representation of the drug-use of the generation above them. The stuff I grew up with at the end of the 70's was, to say the least, psychedelic. The flash-bang violence of 80's cartoons seemed distinctly cocaine fueled. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a cartoon I have never seen, what with not watching much tv anymore because I am so cool, but is apparently part of a modern trend of cartoons that are utterly loopy, relishing their absurdity and total non-sensicality, suggesting a delusional schizophrenia borne not of any particular drug but of the effects of taking too much of all of them. I am old, and the world is going to hell. You may all berate me for my ignorance of Robot Chicken and Wonder Showzen on the boards, so I'll get to the news that Aqua Teen Hunger Force is getting it's own movie released in March. The plot will involve a piece of exercise equipment threatening universal peace. Fucking kids.
Source: ComingSoon
American cinema box office for 2006 was officially 5% up on 2005's number. The regular as clockwork prophesying of the death of theatrical moviegoing can probably be held off for another year or so, or at least wait until we see how the behemoth's of this year's summer blockbusters fare.
Source: Guardian
Here's some footage from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End for you.
Source: YouTube
And here's the Japanese trailer for Transformers, replete with Steven Spielberg talking.
Source: YouTube
And, finally, here's a Japanese TV spot for Spider-Man 3.
Source: Sony PicturesDiscuss this and other Fakery on our message boards! Continue reading News Round-Up: 1/3/07
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Vin Diesel Has Excellent Agent
Reese Witherspoon is an exceptionally talented actress and, chin aside, a very beautiful woman. She has a succesful Hollywood career and is, no doubt, working on many interesting film projects with her production company, Type A Films. These films, however, are not likely to involve men on elephants killing each other. This is why this article is concentrating on sensitive beefcake, Vin Diesel, and his pet project, Hannibal.
Oliver Stone is currently working on a third cut of his disastrous historical epic, Alexander, claiming that it did well enough on DVD for the studio to justify the expense. Maybe that means the historical epic isn't quite dead. Hannibal is another old dead man you can read up on here if you like who killed lots of people a long time ago, some of them while on elephants, though thankfully Hannibal didn't have a terrible blonde wig, did have a believable accent and wasn't played by Colin Farrell.
History is made by the winners, which turns these great leaders more into mythical figures now. There's very little actual meat there other than the big moments history records, which are usually battles. The reason these films get greenlit is for the big battles, so the studios can market these epics as action films, yet film-makers insist on 'finding the man behind the battles' and 'getting to the truth'. This usually leads to a conflict of interest, leading in turn to films that spend too long developing unbelievable, thin characters that end up anyway only serving as linking devices for over-long, over-flashy battles that often feel as if they are from a different universe to the talky bits. Add to this the often embarrassing anachronisms of modern attitudes coming out of the mouths of men dead two thousand years, and I'm quite happy the trend for historical epics was coming to an end. We've had plenty of examples recently and the only good ones have involved Ridley Scott or Hobbits.
Equally the idea of this being Vin's 'dream project' should also raise red flags, as even great directors such as Martin Scorcese, with Gangs Of New York, or Peter Jackson, with King Kong, have come a cropper trying to make their dreams. Hannibal's director will be one Vin Diesel.
Vin's The Chronicles Of Riddick was generally regarded as his chance at being the big movie star, and it spectacularly tanked. We have no idea as to budget of Hannibal yet, or where exactly the money is coming from, but Vin claims, in an interview with Worst Previews (whom I have never heard of before. Maybe no-one else is taking Vin's calls) it is definitely coming out next year. Feel free to get excited or filled with a suffocating ennui, but one detail is fun: Vin has said he is already learning to ride an elephant. I love the idea of a diary entry involving elephants.
Source: Worst Previews Discuss this and other Fakery on our message boards! Continue reading Vin Diesel Has Excellent Agent
Double-Oh-Nothing
With Casino Royale doing what no Bond flick has done in a while by making lots of money and also being a hit with a lot of critics, it's no surprise that there will be another 007 adventure. Hell, if Royale had made 1 dinero, they still probably would've made a sequel. Still, rumours are already abound about the follow-up, which if the hearsay is to believed, will actually keep the continuity from Royale, making it the first legitimate Bond sequel.
The good old British Tabloids, shitrags that they are, have recently been banding around Risico as the title of the film, and also the story. Risico is a short story from Fleming's For Your Eyes Only collection, and while it's a very good story, it's also already been used - in For Your Eyes Only the movie, which incidentally, is a very good 007 flick.
With this, Dark Horizons have a scooper who seems to have the inside line on the flick, and who says "none of the story details exist right now - period. (writers) Purvis and Wade have thrown around the idea of using some plot threads from the old books that weren't used in the movies before, but Risico isn't one of them because it's been done. Fact is if they use anything from it at all, it'll be name only."
So we're really back to square one, but if anyone else says anything completely non-eventful about James Bond's next adventure, we'll be sure to let you know.
Source: Dark HorizonsDiscuss this and other Fakery on our message boards! Continue reading Double-Oh-Nothing
Monday, January 01, 2007
Sheep Zombies
Happy New Year! Productivity has ground to a halt as our crack team of internet newshounds are drinking their way to 2007. I'm writing from the TFL new year's party where Charlie has dropped face down into the bowl of egg nog. The bubbles stopped rising five minutes ago but nobody has noticed since Andrew is entertaining the room with his Ted Levine dance from Silence of the Lambs. But something came across this reporter's desk that was too important to sit on until next week:
What if Monty Python made a zombie movie? That's the best way I can describe this trailer for Black Sheep, a new flick about sheep zombies. Sheep zombies. It's a movie about sheep zombies. Sheep zombies designed by WETA. Yes. WETA designed sheep zombies. For a movie about sheep zombies. Sheep. Zombies. That's really all you need to know to understand how truly glorious 2007 will be.
Sheep zombies.
Source: Official SiteDiscuss this and other Fakery on our message boards! Continue reading Sheep Zombies
Insert Lame "and the [bad reference to aging]" Title Here
Quick Update: Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter, it's been confirmed that the accepted draft was David Koepp's, and the film will be Spielberg's next directorial outing.
The original article:
The original article:
Yes folks, we're back here again. For what seems to be a millennium, news, rumours and hearsay about a fourth Indiana Jones movie have floated around in cyberspace and beyond, usually resulting in a confused "Isn't he a bit old for that?" The usual interweb nerds have immediately registered their disgust at the project, losing the Pop Tart-loving audience demographic for at least a month before the movie opens. But the big question is, will it actually open? Apparently, George Lucas says yes.
Speaking to the Associated Press as marshal of something called the Rose Parade - I have no idea what this is [Ed. Note: The "Rose Parade" for those unfamiliar is one of the largest and most popular annual parades in the United States that takes place during the morning of the new year in Pasadena, California (a few miles from where I live). It's boring as shit. -- George] - Lucas indicated that he and fellow beard Steven Spielberg have finally decided on a script, and are ready to start filming this year. Here's a quote:
"It's going to be fantastic. It'll be the best one yet. It'll be a character piece with mysteries."
Obviously, that says barely nothing. But there is an understandable apprehension about the film. Thanks to a steady downward slide in box office hits and a number of awkward personal appearances, Harrison Ford has gone from being the coolest man in the world to a doddering old coder, and thanks to the Star Wars prequels, everyone on the planet has a death vendetta against Lucas that makes Salman Rushdie look like George Clooney. The only one that has really kept his reputation is Spielberg, who is still making consistently brilliant movies.
Of course, one's initial reaction, like everyone else's, is to make a stupid joke about Indiana Jones being really, really old and then go on about how it'll be silly. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom are about as good as action movies get, and while The Last Crusade isn't the greatest flick in the world, it's still a fun flick. But that was eighteen years ago. When you look at movies that go on a fourth expedition, it can either be reinvigorating (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) or disastrous (Lethal Weapon 4). It's all a question of how the film is approached.
I'll be honest, I'm not really sure whose name is on the latest draft. That haven of inaccuracy IMDB says the story is by Jeff Nathanson, who wrote - ahem - Speed 2, as well as a couple of Spielberg's previous flicks (Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal) and the screenplay by David Koepp, who has done a trio of movies for Spielberg, being the first two Jurassic Park flicks and War of the Worlds, as well as flicks of varying quality like Spider-Man, Carlito's Way, and, um, Toy Soldiers. He's a decent writer when it comes to popcorn flicks, and Indiana Jones certainly falls into that character. Then again, IMDB also has the film's working title down as Indiana Jones and the Ravages of Time. Hmm, okay.
Various drafts have apparently included Indy's brother, his daughter, and again, his father. While Harrison Ford doesn't look bad for an eighty-four year old, his age will have to be a major part of the film's story, and I think, if done right, this could be really interesting. We're moving towards having a lot of our action heroes "getting too old for this shit," such as Bruce Willis, Stallone, and so on, and a chance for that actual generation to take a proper look at itself and age versus adventure is almost too good a prospect, at least to me. Stallone himself is interesting, being that he just returned with a sixth Rocky movie that - despite everyone else saying it would be utter shit - is supposed to actually be quite good.
Of course, Indiana Jones IV could turn out really badly. But it could also be the movie that restores our faith in Messrs Lucas and Ford, and as someone who likes to be an optimist, especially when it comes to heroes that have fallen from grace, I prefer to think like that. Apparently the movie will be released May 2008, so if it does actually happen, it'll be arriving then. I'll be waiting in line, and so will you.
And I'll be quite looking forward to it.
Source: Associated PressDiscuss this and other Fakery on our message boards! Continue reading Insert Lame "and the [bad reference to aging]" Title Here
Sunday, December 31, 2006
You're The Best
Get ready for "Best of 2006" list #147240927. Why? Because mine really, really matters. But seriously, I otherwise would have never had a chance to use this Karate Kid pic and make a retarded reference to that godforsaken Joe Esposito song. Which I love.
And admit it, you do too.
Honorable Mentions:
All of the above films are FUN. Especially Jackass, which isn't really even a film, but honestly, who cares? Casino Royale completely revitalizes the Bond franchise and makes men wish they could be (in) Daniel Craig. The Break-Up, about as close to a perfect very mainstream romantic comedy that there is (while still having the balls to opt for the "non-traditional" at the right moments), features a wonderful Jennifer Aniston performance and a very nice sidekick role for Jon Favreau (a nice counterpoint to his and Vince Vaughn's characters from 1996's Swingers). District B-13, more of the testosterone-driven insanity from Luc Besson and co., is pretty much the anti-thesis of the crap "action films" Hollywood typically puts out. You'll also be attempting Parkour the moment you're out in the streets (I don't know, I did... and fell). With Rocky Balboa, you'll not only find a very strong, very earnest performance from Sylvester Stallone, but a film that features more heart than maybe any film released this year. As for Running Scared... well, the next time you see an A-Team van filled with all the latest and greatest from Toy"R"Us... uhhh... pray.
Dishonorable Mention:
I'm absolutely positive that there were worse films this year than Kurt Wimmer's action-abortion film Ultraviolet. And that's scary. But thankfully, I didn't see very many bad films this year at all. Of what I did see, though... holy crap, Ultraviolet... even being completely wasted off of Patron shots wasn't enough to illicit a chuckle at the terrible acting/Gunkata/Cameron Bright. And I liked Equilibrium!
Special Mention:
Though technically a 2005 release, I was tempted to include this Director's Cut in my actual Top 10 seeing as how this vastly different version was made available for public consumption this year, but thought it might be unfair since this (unfortunately) didn't get any sort of theatrical exhibition. So instead it gets its own slot. And all told, Ridley Scott's cut is a masterpiece, plain and simple. A film with very old-fashioned sensibilities, Kingdom of Heaven may in fact be my absolute favorite film in terms of its ideals, politics, and religious views. Honor, duty, right-action, chivalry... all the things that are but afterthoughts in our modern day are the very core of Heaven's themes. Couple that with a resoundingly powerful yet simple political/religious statement that rings true today what with the bullshit happening in the Middle East and here at home, and you have a film that not only captivates with its grace but moves with its impassioned notions of what humanity strives to be. It's inspiring, it's intelligent, and it's beautiful. Best DVD set of the year too.
Stuff I Haven't Seen Which Might Automatically Invalidate My List:
Brick
Children of Men (Andrew's Review)
Dave Chappelle's Block Party
Dreamgirls
Flushed Away
Happy Feet
Little Children
Little Miss Sunshine
The Science of Sleep (Shane's Review)
Shortbus (Chris' Review)
Volver
My Top Ten:
10.) Crank (My Review)
Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Written by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
There's much love to be found here at TFL for the Jason Statham action-packed video game of a movie. And it's much much deserved. Crank is the definition of "popcorn entertainment" yet is never bogged down by the negative connotations that very cliche phrase brings; namely being dumb. It's not. Crank is fully aware of its own action film lineage and many times uses that to send them up and be pastiche to its lesser (or less thought out) brethren. But of course, it works splendidly thanks in large part to the strong masculinity Statham possesses, but more importantly, the pleasantly unexpected comedic undercurrent he brings to poke fun at that very masculinity.
9.) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Directed by Larry Charles
Written by Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer, and Todd Phillips
This film had a lot to compete with. And mainly, it was hype. Hype nearly killed this film dead in its tracks before if ever even had the chance to grace us with its Jew bashings and hairy, unkempt crotchal regions. Thankfully, Borat carried with it something more. It was crowd-pleasing yet still smart. And it was... oh yeah... FUNNY. That's something too many big comedies this year kinda forgot about. When the needless media exposure, frivolous lawsuits, and racist fratboys are dead, this film will be regarded as a comedy classic. No joke. Sacha Baron Cohen deserves whatever success comes his way. I do, however, think that his upcoming Bruno is gonna have one helluva time topping or even just matching this. But after Borat, I will gladly follow Cohen down any path.
8.) V for Vendetta
Directed by James McTeigue
Written by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski
V for Vendetta was the perfect kind of political thriller for mass audience consumption "Mass audience", as many of us already know, is a demographic that often includes clueless adults and ambivalent teenagers. But Vendetta carries with it a couple of aces up its sleeve. First, it's got a comic book hero as its lead. Cool costume, knives, flashy fighting accompaniment. And secondly, it purports itself to be a film about revenge, something that I think is attractive to filmgoers in the escapism sense. And it is about revenge, sort of. On the surface. But underneath, Vendetta is a rousing and often very poignant statement on the power of ideas and how even the most unlikely of people can give these ideas real weight and meaning. It's political sure, and yeah it could certainly be applied in a cartoonish sort of way to our own government situation today. But what will make it relevant in subsequent years is its accessibility to those who would otherwise never even remotely ponder the issues the film raises. And it's not that the ideas the film talks about are all that profound, because they're not. But it's in the exhilarating and idealistic manner in which V for Vendetta presents them. It certainly helps when your two leads (Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman) give absolutely fantastic performances.
7.) Inside Man
Directed by Spike Lee
Written by Russell Gewirtz
I think the motif for 2006 so far has been "crowd pleaser". And even someone as great and controversial as Spike Lee got in on it. Inside Man is basically just an extremely well constructed heist film. But again, like Crank, Borat, and V for Vendetta, Spike Lee's joint has more intelligent things on its mind bubbling just beneath the surface: its post 9/11 sensibilty, its brief depictions of cultural clash, and its theme on how everyone is looking to come out on top in some way, shape, or form. Inside Man is what happens when your standard Hollywood fare is tackled by a real auteur. We need more of these.
6.) Miami Vice (Carlton's Review)
Directed by Michael Mann
Written by Michael Mann
Okay, so "crowd pleaser" doesn't fit here. Fuck it. Miami Vice is one of the most misunderstood films of 2006. In large part, that had to do with the fact that it carried the "Miami Vice" moniker and all the baggage associated with it. Even Michael Mann says so. But all that is completely irrelevant as Miami Vice is a fantastic film, a completely brutal and emotional adult drama about the procedural lives of undercover police officers, the people they become, and the people they wish they could be. As Charlie and myself have mentioned elsewhere, Vice plays almost like a documentary. And in many ways, it is. Michael Mann's films have always carried meticulously accurate depictions of the worlds and stories told. Vice feels like the culmination of that filmmaking approach. And by the way, Miami Vice is not an action film. But maybe action art film? That would certainly be fitting.
5.) The Departed (Shane's Review)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Written by William Monahan
Alright, back to the crowd pleasing. Marty comes back and wallops the hell out of us with what might undoubtedly be the most entertaining film of the entire year. Infernal Affairs, the original Hong Kong film from which this is based, was a great police procedural, but what Monahan and Scorsese bring here instead is a total focus on the characters themselves which in turn makes this version feel much richer and certainly more alive. Quotable, memorable, exciting, hilarious, intelligent... the positive adjectives could continually be slathered on and it would never be overkill. The Departed is another example of an auteur at the top of his game.
4.) Pan's Labyrinth (Andrew's Review, Chris' Review)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Written by Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is the cream of the visionary crop right now. With Pan's Labyrinth, a companion piece to one of my very favorite films of all time, The Devil's Backbone, del Toro has crafted a work of not only stunning visual imagination, but one of deep emotional resonance. This isn't really so much an "adult" fairytale as it is a return to what fairytales truly were. They were mirrors of the real world, using the fantastical as metaphor and allegory to better illustrate the issues and decisions we're tasked with in everyday reality. Pan's Labyrinth does this and does it with beauty, grace, and bittersweetness. A lovely, lovely picture from a filmmaker who's genius is reaching new heights.
3.) Babel
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
Written by Guillermo Arriaga
Babel, the final entry into Iñárritu and Arriaga's tremendously difficult but wonderful trilogy (which began with Amores Perros and 21 Grams) about the complex, profound, and often harrowing relationships between people, and more specifically, parents and their children, is probably the most relatively accessible of the three. Though often seen as the cinematic equivalent of a being beaten down with a sledgehammer or some other hard and heavy object, Babel is more than anything a statement on the world's cultures today in a post 9/11 world, the way governments and people of power are more interested in protocol and self-preservation than practicality or humanitarianism, and how ultimately, it boils down to the actions of each individual person as the true sources of compassion and love for those who need it. Babel is not an easy film to watch, but it is a rewarding experience, one that shows that no matter how dark our lives may become, there is, and there always will be, a light in the end that will always spark hope in our hearts. Few things are more beautiful than that.
2.) The Fountain (My Review)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Written by Darren Aronofsky
This is true science fiction and this is cinema as real art. Darren Aronofsky explores ideas, concepts, and themes through the two most universally important aspects of our humanity: love and death. And with that, The Fountain takes us on a spiritual journey that enlightens the mind, awes the senses, and touches the heart in manners so profound.
1.) United 93
Directed by Paul Greengrass
Written by Paul Greengrass
There's nothing I can really say about United 93 that'll really make anyone not willing to see it because of its subject matter suddenly want to see it, but I will say it was cathartic for me. United 93 is not a "film" in the traditional sense. It is a fictionalized documentary, and not only that, but it is one that relies so much on the audience's own knowledge of the September 11 attacks in order to really emphasize the tension and the impact of the little moments, the larger events, etc. The audience, in essence, becomes part of the narrative. And as such, we become spiritual passengers along with all those people aboard Flight 93. As I'm writing this, I wonder how this film will play to my children, their children, or their children's children. Will it have the same impact? I'm not sure. For me and my generation, it's fresh, here in the moment still, and we all remember where we were and what we were doing that harrowing Tuesday morning. But nevertheless, United 93 is a masterpiece. It's a restrained work of art that gives an outlet for people all over the world who may have been affected by the events of that day to release and to perhaps find some semblance of peace in seeing what courage these real people displayed.
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