#125: Man on Wire

Man on Wire
Directed by James Marsh
Released August 1, 2008 (U.K.)

"If I died, what a beautiful death... to die in the exercise of your passion!"

Man on Wire is essentially a documentary presented as a sort of historical crime film. It tells the story of one of the greatest crimes ever conceived... and yet a crime which hurt absolutely no one and even helped illuminate the beauty of the crime scene.

That crime? The crime of tightrope walking, of course.

In 1974, tightrope walker/acrobat/larger-than-life personality Philippe Petit and his team of assembled collaborators sneaked into the World Trade Center towers and installed a tightrope that stretched the 200 foot distance between the buildings. How they pulled of their heist is at the heart of Man on Wire.

Rightfully awarded an Oscar the other night, the documentary tells the story of how Petit first came across drawings of the World Trade Center, years before they were fully constructed, and immediately knew his fate was to walk between the 1300 foot tall buildings. It was lucky for Petit that he had a magnetic, determined and charismatic personality -- not only because it attracted a (fairly) faithful team of co-conspirators but also because it kept him for doing any significant jail time. These days, a stunt like this would get him thrown into Guantanamo.

Some viewers may see Petit's stunt as reckless or careless. Those of you who can step back and really appreciate this kind of moment where a human being does something no other human being has done before, you're going to love this movie. I will never, EVER know what it's like to have walked a thousand feet above New York City... to have laid down on my back on a cable half an inch wide and stared up at the sky, but thanks to Petit, I can respect and even covet the kind of insanity it would take to go there.

There's a lame joke here somewhere about getting my head out of the clouds. Oh, there it was.

The movie combines interviews with Petit and his multi-national crew of friends with footage of their preparation and wordless re-enactment scenes. I'm usually wary of any staged footage in documentaries, but it works perfectly here. The music is beautiful, the interview subjects are expressive and interesting and the photos/footage of Petit in action is riveting.

Man on Wire earns extra points for never discussing the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers. You won't be able to help but think about that day as you watch the movie, but it just makes Petit's love and knowledge of the buildings (he makes a wooden replica of the two rooftops as part of his meticulous planning) and his feat that much more bittersweet knowing what we know now.



For more on Man on Wire:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Visit the official movie site


The Man on Wire trailer:

#124: Miller's Crossing

Miller's Crossing
Written and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (inspired by Dashiell Hammett's "The Glass Key")
Released October 1990


"If you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"


I have a long standing tradition of watching a favorite movie for my birthday (the 33rd of which came and went a couple of weeks ago). Almost all of my birthdays were based around movies when I was growing up. When you live in Nebraska and it's the dead of winter, you really don't have many other options for a birthday. The arcades in town were either totally seedy or owned by the PTL (Omaha's Family Fun Center, pretty much the only game in town these days, had "Praise the Lord" engraved on each of their tokens).

Thanks to Netflix finally streaming into my home, I had about 500 movies at my fingertips. Instead, I went to my DVD rack and grabbed one of my absolute favorite movies: the Coen Brothers' flawless Miller's Crossing.

To anyone who may have known me in college, I can already sense the eye-rolling coming from your direction.

For the rest of you, that would be because I watched this movie dozens of times in my 4 years slugging away at my first degree. If you ever imbibed with me at my apartment or in my dorm room, I made you watch this movie.

I wish I could make the whole world watch this movie. I almost want to stop writing this review to wait for all of you to watch it, then come back and discuss things without having to worry about spoiling anything for you.

Miller's Crossing is, in a way, a mob noir movie. Since we're talking about the Coen brothers here, this is a mob story in the same way that The Big Lebowski is a detective story: there's a genre at the root, but everything around it is kind of crazy and kind of special.

Gabriel Byrne gets an actor's dream role in Tom Reagan, the trusted adviser to a powerful mob boss (Albert Finney... just fucking killing it here) around the time of Prohibition. The movie opens with Finney's Leo O'Bannon hearing a proposal from rival mobster Johnny Caspar (another fantastic role, owned by sweaty, scenery chewing Jon Polito), in which Caspar spells out the most basic plot of the entire movie in three words.

"Friendship. Character. Ethics."

After offending Caspar (and disregarding Tom's advice) and sending him on his way, Leo and his newly spurned adviser set up their whole relationship and the battleground for the small war that follows. You'll have to watch the movie a second time, with the story under your belt, to really see how subtly telling Gabriel Byrne's acting is here. Five minutes go by and you're so hypnotized that you never notice there was no opening title or credits.

Enter the gorgeous score from the Coen's go-to composer Carter Burwell. It's impossible to believe that this is the same guy who created the insanity of the Raising Arizona score ("Wheeeeeeeeeee-eeeee-eeee-eeeeee...."). Making a movie score that doesn't overstep its bounds and force the viewer to understand the emotion behind a scene can't be an easy task, but that is achieved here. There's a sort of downer, defeated yet proud vibe to the music, and the movie would feel wrong without it there.

Damn it. Look. Just rent the thing.

You like John Turturro, right? He has never been better than here as the disloyal, distrustful Bernie Bernbaum. Remember how Marcia Gay Harden won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Pollack? Well, they gave her that award 11 years late, because she deserved it for her fiery Verna. Seriously, she's an anti-heroine for the ages. Then there's J.E. Freeman as Eddie Dane, perhaps the most macho, menacing homosexual character in the history of filmdom.

I feel like I'm telling you about a sunset that is going down right over your shoulder. I could keep going on, or you could just turn around.

There's so much good dialogue (Byrne doesn't have a single wasted word), you'll want to live in an era where people said things like, "What's the rumpus?" or "He's giving me the high hat!" or "You's fancy pants, all 'a yas."

The way the thug says, "Jesus, Tom" after getting hit with the chair.

The part where the fat kid gets slapped.

"Well that's a penny you owe him!"

All three scenes at Miller's Crossing.

"If I'd have known we were gonna cast our feelings into words, I'd have memorized the song of Solomon."

The scene where Leo smokes and listens to "Danny Boy."

Is Miller's Crossing the most criminally overlooked movie of our time? Perhaps.

Please.

Watch.

Do it before the Oscars on Sunday, so you can remind yourself how often they get it wrong.


For more on Miller's Crossing:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.


I'm only giving you the Main Title theme (with some movie stills) tonight. The trailer gives away too much:

Snippets: #120 - #123

Obviously, I've got some catching up to do around here.

Which brings me to a new thought, or one of my half dozen New Year's Resolutions. With my next semester just 8 days away, the thought that this one could be even worse than the last have me wondering how I'm really going to pull off watching at least one movie a day - adding up to about 15 to 20 hours a week - and writing about everything.

I'm still not ruling out the possibility of meeting my goal of documenting 365 movies this year. I'm just trying to be more realistic. So, from this day forward, this blog is going to be more of a long-term project, not to be completed when I reach the 365th flick. Who knows, maybe by movie #2,000, I'll actually be good at this reviewing thing.

Anyway, in attempt to clear up the clutter for the new year, I'm going to post a bunch of smaller reviews of films I've recently taken in. Some of these I may have even watched weeks or months ago, but was left uninspired or just too tired to even discuss.

#120: Dark Star
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon
Released February 9, 1979 (West Germany)

I added this one to my list after watching 2001 and finding out that Dark Star was not only supposedly a spoof of the Kubrick masterpiece, but also the first major film from director John Carpenter. As it turns out, Dark Star has only a few allusions to 2001, and calling the film itself a "major motion picture" is stretching the meaning of those words. Still, with a minuscule budget, Carpenter and O'Bannon got the attention they needed to further their careers (O'Bannon would go on to write Alien, using several plot points from Dark Star). It's a stoner space comedy with a few amusing moments. As a curiosity for fans of Carpenter, Dark Star is worth checking out. Fans of the band Pinback need no longer wonder where they got the band name, as it is the surname of O'Bannon's character in the movie.

#121: Postal
Directed by Uwe Boll
Written by Uwe Boll and Ryan C. Knight
Released October 18, 2007

Uwe Boll has been responsible for some of the worst movies ever made. I don't even think the previous sentence qualifies as an opinion, since it's indisputable. House of the Dead. BloodRayne. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Boll's lovable German sense of humor is on full display in Postal, as he opens the film with two suicide bombers who have hijacked a plane and are about to crash it until they get into an argument about how many virgins they were promised in the afterlife. They decide to live, and just as they divert the plane's path to the Bahamas, the American passengers break into the cockpit and cause the plane to crash into a skyscraper. What's that? You're not laughing? Well get ready for 90 more minutes of idiotic shit.

Dave Foley, whom I thought had swam to his absolute depth in California Dreamin', shows up here as some sort of hippie guru, giving us a long and unpleasant gaze at his cock and taking a shit within moments of his character's introduction. Most of the plot revolves around the public's desire to buy some sort of doll that looks like a penis. This "joke" is so unsubtle that the name given these dolls is unsurprisingly "Crotchy Dolls." This is the kind of wit we're dealing with, people. At least the 9/11 bit was tasteless enough to warrant a response. The rest of this thing is just pathetic.


#122: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Directed by David Fincher
Written by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord (based on the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Released December 25, 2008

I can only imagine what it must have been like to be a make-up or visual effects artist in the running for an Oscar this year, and then see your hopes dashed upon the rocks as you saw the mindblowing work on display in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Maybe next year, make-up geeks.

As for the movie itself, it's really good but a bit hard to love. Perhaps part of it is the emotional distance kept by director David Fincher, not exactly our most sentimental film makers. Of course, for people like me who cringe at many films' blatant attempts to get an audience to cry, this approach is actually kind of welcome. Still, there are little bits of corny sentimentality to be found (namely, the ridiculous presence of a hummingbird that annoys like that feather in Forrest Gump.

Since I'm mentioning Gump, I have to add that Button felt like the more likable but less ambitious cousin to that mushy slab of Conservative propaganda (Jenny's reward for protesting Vietnam = getting the AIDS, etc.). Frankly, Benjamin Button doesn't really do all that much. He gets laid here and there, makes more money working on a boat than anyone in history ever has, kinda fights in a war (but really, basically falls down and survives a major incident) and meets the love of his life.

Of course, with Fincher behind the wheel, the whole thing is exquisitely made and looks fantastic... it's just that the heart beating inside of it isn't doing enough to keep it, or us, alive. The blood is there, but it's the push that is lacking.

#123: Cat Dancers
Directed by Harris Fishman
Released December 18, 2008

I'm dying to reveal to you the double-twist tragedy that sends this documentary from being merely a portrayal of an eccentric entertainer named Ron Holiday, his wife Joy and their "partner" Chuck Lizza, into the stratosphere of weirdness. It's that twist that will have you talking and debating with your co-viewers, and it's that twist that would make this review infinitely more readable.

Sure, there's plenty of other bizarre material to attract you to Cat Dancers, mainly Ron's multiple wig and costume changes, paired with some of the insanely hilarious stuff that comes out of his mouth (watch, for example, his students' faces when he talks to them about soup made out of tiger penises).

As you watch Ron and his tales of near-stardom, you begin to realize that there's something dark on the way, a flickering and dying lightbulb at the end of his narcissistic tunnel-vision. When it finally does come, you'll come up with a hundred questions before the doc's end credits abruptly arrive. Fishman's failure to answer those questions may make your blood boil.

#119: Horror Business

Horror Business
Written and Directed by Christopher P. Garetano
Released 2005


For some of my friends, this is all they'll need to know about the 2005 documentary Horror Business: as it opens, we join American Movie's Mark Borchardt as he begins filming a new movie, Scare Me. In case you're worried that Borchardt may not be the same well of hilarity that he was years ago, he immediately reminds you of his awesomeness by saying into the telephone, "Dan, dude, it's Mark. Thanks for being in my movie tomorrow. Are you down for that, or is your life in another direction?"

For those who need a little more description, the subject matter of Horror Business is quite literally about the business of making horror movies, and more specifically, independent horror movies. When I say "independent" here, I'm not even talking about lower budget stuff put out by studios like Miramax or those Rob Zombie movies... I'm talking about people making homemade flicks in the same way that George Romero or Herschell Gordon Lewis did when they began. I'm talking about the kind of movies that run the risk of emptying someone's bank account and destroying someone's life, yet they still get made.

I've mentioned before that I thought the most interesting layer of American Movie is the underlying element where, if you're paying attention, you go beyond laughing at Borchardt and his wacky cast of characters and realize that no matter how comical all of this shit seems, this guy really is pursuing a dream. Whether you think it's successful or garbage is beside the point.

If you go see some opening band at some club in your town and you think they suck, that's fine. But at least they tried, you know? Laugh as derisively as you want, but have you really put forth the effort into the things you wanted to do? Maybe you wanted to be an astronaut when you grew up... but did you at least try going to Space Camp, for fuck's sake? There are millions of people out there who might say, "Mark Borchardt? Dude is no Steven Spielberg." You know what? Fuck Steven Spielberg.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of crap among the good discussed in Horror Business. I may never want to sit through a movie like the ones Ron Atkins makes in Horror Business (they actually look quite terrible), but he's not hurting me one bit by continuing to do what he does. Plus, there's something awesome about scenes like the one from his Dark Night of the Soul where a man in a skull mask attacks his victim and calls him a "dick-lickin' punk."

For every bit of junk documented in Chris Garetano's movie, there are hints of real talent that Hollywood should look into, like David Stagnari, who seems to make the most of his tiny budgets in films like Catharsis. Maybe, however, Hollywood doesn't even deserve a fresh voice when they keep remaking classics like The Omen or Texas Chain Saw Massacre. One of the interview subjects in Horror Business puts things into perspective as he complains about the studio system and celebrity, saying he hates, "How they complain, how they gotta have a certain kind of water, they gotta have this in their trailer.... shut the fuck up and be in a movie!"

Ultimately, I think I was hoping that Horror Business would be a little more informative about the industry and about how the people in this film maintain a living. Instead, it's more of a "power of positive thinking" piece for the independent filmmaker looking for a reason to keep going.

For more on Horror Business:
- Movie information at IMDB.
- Buy the DVD from the doc's official site.


The Horror Business trailer:

#118: Dead Man's Shoes

Dead Man's Shoes
Directed by Shane Meadows
Written by Paddy Considine, Shane Meadows and Paul Fraser
Released October 1, 2004


"God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can't live with that."

And so begins Dead Man's Shoes, a dark, dour and pretty bad ass revenge flick that combines Death Wish with just a hint each of Friday the 13th and The Sixth Sense. None of this comparison will make sense until you've seen the entire movie, but it's all pretty apt.

Paddy Considine (whose biggest role prior to this was probably as Joy Division's manager in 24 Hour Party People, though he has appeared in a handful of recognizable films) absolutely owns in a story he co-wrote with director Shane Meadows about a soldier named Richard who has returned home to avenge the abuse of his mentally disabled brother at the hands of a gang of drug dealers and thugs.

As Richard methodically doles out his revenge, we gradually learn details - via black & white flashbacks - of his brother's ordeal. As we learn more about the teasings and beatings, Richard's punishments gradually become more righteous.

Meadows makes great use of an offbeat soundtrack that features Smog, Calexico, Danger Mouse, Will Oldham, Aphex Twin, M. Ward and more. It's one of those rare movies that uses well-chosen popular music seamlessly, rather than being cut to look like a music video that has been crammed into the middle of a story.

The only thing a bit off for me was the melodramatic ending, where a major character makes a major decision that I'm just not sure I completely believe. Perhaps if I understood more about the sadness or pain going on inside this person, I could understand this choice, but from where I was sitting, it definitely seemed like a convenient way to end the film rather than a believable choice that a real human would make.

Regardless, I was immediately taken in by Dead Man's Shoes, a pretty basic film with a simple plot that was easily elevated above genre dreck like the Death Sentence by the acting and the craft put into it. I will be disappointed if Considine doesn't get more large roles like this in the future. Sure, he might have to keep writing them for himself, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

For more on Dead Man's Shoes:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.


The Dead Man's Shoes trailer:

#117: The Grand

The Grand
Directed by Zak Penn
Written by Matt Bierman and Zak Penn
Released April 4, 2008


To sum up The Grand is simple: think Best in Show or This is Spinal Tap or A Mighty Wind but replace their subject matter (dog shows, heavy metal or folk music, respectively) with a championship poker tournament. If you know those other movies, then you know you're in for some improvisational comedy with an ensemble cast.

While actors like Hank Azaria, Dennis Farina, Jason Alexander, Chris Parnell, Michael McKean and Woody Harrelson (in full Roy Munson mode) are all likely to put a smile on your face, the inclusion of Gabe Kaplan (the one and only Mr. Kotter) as the father of "identical twins" David Cross and Cheryl Hines really sealed the deal for me. Plus, in a truly inspired and oddball casting choice, you've got directer Werner Herzog as The German.

A number of small stories intertwine throughout this mockumentary, but the story revolves around casino heir Jack Faro (Harrelson) trying to win the $10 million tournament to save his family's casino.

Some of the gags don't work (like the fake instructional Werbe home video), but other material, like the Hines/Cross relationship and Parnell's borderline autistic character Harold, are fun to watch.

The Grand isn't great by any stretch of the definition, but it's a good time, especially if you're into poker or have caught yourself watching one of those late night Texas Hold 'Em shows. Actually, if you're not a fan or player of the game, you'll probably be out of the movie by the second half, when the players make it to the last table in the tournament. I won't tell you who makes it to the table, but it falls on these actors to keep the movie amusing and entertaining... not an easy feat for a game of cards.

In an interesting twist, director Zak Penn decided to make the final table of this fictional tournament a real game, so the winner of the game -- and the end of the movie -- was truly up for grabs.


For more on The Grand:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The official site.
- Buy the DVD.


The trailer for The Grand:

#116: Solaris

Solaris
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Written by Fridrikh Gorenshtein and Andrei Tarkovsky (based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem)
Released March 20, 1972


In this blog's tradition of wildly swinging the door in the opposite direction, today we're going from the blatant stupidity of Jake Speed to a three hour Russian-directed and iceberg-slow meditation on loss, memory and psychosis.

I was drawn to this film after stumbling onto the 2002 remake, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney, on cable one night. While Soderbergh is definitely one of my favorite directors, he has had a few missteps. Therefore, I was unsurprised when I read reviews of his Solaris that found the movie boring and disappointing. Seeing it for myself, I was drawn in by the very things that reviewers were complaining about, most notably its lull-inducing, dreamlike pace.

In Tarkovsky's Solaris, a psychologist named Chris Kelvin is sent to a space station that has been observing a strange planet, the titular Solaris. Upon his arrival, the station (which has been observing the planet for decades but has been unable to make much scientific progress) is in disarray, with the few scientists who have remained in various states of paranoia or confusion. Kelvin also begins to catch glimpses of other inhabitants on the station, people who shouldn't be there -- and who would have had no way of getting there.

Is the station haunted? Is Solaris more than a planet?

There is a sequence about 35 minutes into the movie that is the kind of thing that will separate fans of traditional movie storytelling from those who have a little more patience with putting more thought into the images they are processing. It's essentially just a wordless segment of a character's car ride through streets and tunnels, but set to the sound effects of a space launch. Most viewers would watch this and think "Why is this in the movie?" Really, though, it's there to show how much this particular character's journey is still affecting him, so many years after he has returned to Earth. He's haunted, permanently scarred even, and this sequence is basically laying the groundwork for what we're about to see another character experience. In Hollywood, this sequence would have been hacked out, and probably wouldn't even end up on the DVD as bonus footage.

In the film, a psychologist named Kris Kelvin is sent to a space station that has been observing a strange planet, the titular Solaris. Upon his arrival, the station (which has been observing the planet for decades but has been unable to make much scientific progress) is in disarray, with the few scientists who have remained in various states of paranoia or confusion. Kelvin also begins to catch glimpses of other inhabitants on the station, people who shouldn't be there -- and who would have had no way of getting there. It's not long before Kelvin himself is experiencing visions.

Is he hallucinating? Is the station haunted? Is Solaris more than a planet?

Solaris is, in a strange way, a spiritual offspring of 2001. Rather than comment on man's progress, it's more about how mankind cannot cope with the things it cannot understand. There's also a sense that the further into the unknown mankind goes, the further into itself and its own mysteries it gazes. I'm tempted to go further, but I'm worried that my pontification will spoil the movie for anyone who might want to give it a shot.

It's unfortunate that Tarkovsky felt that Solaris was his least successful film, because it's a beautiful and unique thing to behold... one of those works of art that could really have made people feel different about the Soviets at its time of release and in the Cold War that followed.


For more on :
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.


The Solaris trailer: