Battle in Seattle

This film seems so relevant today, and even more worthwhile because it's major flaw repurposes it to apply to any kind of protest. BATTLE IN SEATTLE pretends to be specific though, and that's a false pretense given the smart filmmaking apart from any of those scenes. Through the eyes of six people: protester, cop, and official alike, director Stuart Townsend attempts to incite us against the WTO (World Trade Organization). The WTO is supposedly cruel and business oriented, but Townsend's film is an utter failure under this light, and a triumph under another. Despite the six stories Townsend follows, none of these convinced me one way or the other that the WTO is wicked, but in every single story, Townsend convinced me of police brutality. Most interestingly seen through Woody Harrelson's frightened cop and his pregnant, in danger wife (Charlize Theron), the effects of chaos are seen. The film uses a shaky-cam to capture the insanity, and what comes across in distinct tones, scenes, and yells is the brutality of the police. We see in BATTLE IN SEATTLE the modern protest, and that makes it sort of relevant. Any of its scenes of protesting could be interchanged with any other modern protest (like, say, the Occupy Wall Street protests of today) by just replacing the signs. BATTLE IN SEATTLE is inept in its purpose, but it finds another niche of worth, and that's really just as good.
Battle in Seattle: ★★★

Sukiyaki Western Django

Takashi Miike's SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO is essential a tribute to spaghetti westerns. Like any film that Miike is issued though, SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO, which in its very name references a Japanese delicacy and the western, DJANGO, becomes an odd, but well directed piece of cinema. Miike's influences apropos to the western films he's basing the movie off of are clear, but more interestingly, Miike's common themes of poor farmers with children comes into play. The story centers around two warring factions of samurai/townspeople vying for an unimportant town with hidden treasure. A man without a name enters the town, and his quick draw makes him the subject of a from-everywhere pull for his talents. Through flashbacks, splattered gore, and charming tributes which many unfamiliar with the films he's referencing might not get, Miike crafts a pretty damn good action film. There are some flaws here, the decision to make all of the actors speak in English when Miike himself is not an English speaker was a mistake, and the implantation of Quentin Tarantino at the beginning of the film and near the end as a gunner descending into old age is a little indulgent of Tarantino's sensibilities, while not really forming that character clearly enough. But Miike's action here is occasionally quite beautiful, and as he moves from parody to tribute to his own brand of kick-ass literal gut wrenching, SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO clarifies itself as an artistic statement on the western: the descending powers of men without names, the trivialities of war-like fighting, and pure horror / fun.
Sukiyaki Western Django: ★★★

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

In retrospect, very little happens in KING OF KONG, and what does happen, I am inherently uninterested in. Such a realization only serves to elevate my admiration of the film, directed craftily by Seth Gordon. We learn, from his film, that there are a number of high scoring classic arcade video game players in the world. It is easy to get a decent score on Pac-Man, C*Bert, Donkey Kong, and Galaga, we learn, but to get a high score (a ridiculously high score attained from hours of gameplay), subtle knowledge of pattern, and extremely brisk hand-eye coordination is necessary. Gordon exhibits a cast of characters: a nerdy (well, everyone here is nerdy) referee who keeps tabs on all the high scores and submits them to Guinness World Records, Billy Mitchell (the purported best video game player of all time who dons a sleek, 80's haircut, douchebag attitude, and Darth Vader presence), and the lowly, recently fired Steve Wiebe. Mitchell, who has fame for many world records, is challenged by Wiebe, who incessantly plays Donkey Kong in his garage. One day, among screaming kids and major distractions, Wiebe achieves a World Record in Donkey Kong, surpassing Billy Mitchell's score by hundreds of thousands of points. The supposed guardians of the arcade games, however, deny the unknown Wiebe's claim (and a video of him achieving the score). Wiebe, distraught, fights Mitchell in a one-sided duel: Wiebe traveling hundreds of miles to set scores, Mitchell sending in old videotapes of himself achieving higher and higher scores. In a sense, KING OF KONG is a nerd underdog movie, and at that, it achieves more than many other documentaries by making us care about its subject, and showing us something we wouldn't have otherwise cared about.
King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters: ★★★1/2

Eastern Promises

Cold Greatness

It was not with an early film nor an internet blogger’s mention that I stumbled across David Cronenberg’s EASTERN PROMISES. I did not see it in theaters or read about it afterwards. Rather, I came to discover EASTERN PROMISES at the beginning of a trek towards an interest in cinema. In 2007, I began to watch many films: classified by watching as many in a month as the average person does in a year. Beside EASTERN PROMISES in 2007 I discovered BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and the list could go on and on.

The film itself tells of a driver named Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) who is working his way up in the mob. He keeps himself in close quarters with the boss’s son Kiril (Vincent Cassel), who is a lesser evil in contrast to his father. It turns out that one of the mob’s whores escaped and gave birth to a son. Dying in childbirth, the son is discovered by a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts). Along with the son, Anna inherits the dead prostitute’s diary. It is, however, fully in Russian and she is unable to read it. She seeks out a fluent speaker, but ends up finding that speaker in the mob boss himself. Recognizing the implications the diary could have, he panics, and Anna, her family, and the infant are all put into danger. Meanwhile, Nikolai works his way deviously up the ladder. He is stoic but brutally tough, while maintaining a cleansing, protective watch over Anna.

There are more plot points, but why clutter the summary with them. What truly occurs in EASTERN PROMISES is a union of Cronenberg’s deft, bilious direction, and the cold, smartness of Viggo Mortensen’s performance. It works perfectly in EASTERN PROMISES; creating half revelations and half pleasures that both hint to an underlying madness within.

The only Cronenberg film I had seen before EASTERN PROMISES was THE FLY. I didn’t even know he directed it until quite a while afterwards. I never liked THE FLY, but now, after seeing most of Cronenberg’s work, why EASTERN PROMISES continues to resonate with me is a looming question. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is probably the better film, but the clean coldness of EASTERN PROMISES and its near perfection are almost shunted away by the film itself. Many find it hard to embrace Cronenberg’s lugubrious films, but I desire to embrace this one, despite its refusal to allow that.
Eastern Promises: ★★★★

Ratatouille

RATATOUILLE has a simple statement to make about art. It does not attempt to transcend, but entertains (quite well actually). It's tale is centered around simplicity, and does this from the Pixar Animation Studios at Disney, which has made some of the best animated films that often cringe inducing company has ever churned out. The film tells of a humble rat with extraordinary smell capabilities named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), who, within his horde (of rats), only uses this ability to check for rat poison on garbage. His real desire, however, is to become a cook after watching the famous Gusteau on a woman's tv in the suburbs of Paris. The horde is found one day by the woman living in the house Remy occasionally ventures into for spices, and they are forced down a drainpipe, separating the family, but leaving Remy free from his past obligations. He ends up preparing a soup in Gusteau's now only 3 star restaurant. Everyone thinks the goofy Linguini is behind the soup, and he becomes famous, with Remy controlling him. As the film progresses, director Brad Bird shows his talent as an animator and developer of likable characters. The films greatness as a simple statement on art comes out when a critic comes to review Gusteau's. I would not reveal what happens, as it is what the entire, entertaining film is leading up to, but I will say that RATATOUILLE in this closing scene exhibits itself as a humble, but noble film that wishes to entertain and remind, rather than transcend and persuade.
Ratatouille: ★★★★

We Own the Night

Described in all the reviews I've read of it as: violent, bloody, gory; or simply just described by what its plot involves, WE OWN THE NIGHT is a film that is purely about ideas, and uses vessels like violence or brothers or family to present these ideas. Not only are all of its plot points played up in the reviews, but it seems as if those elements have dominated the perception of the film. For example, the film utilizes Russians as drug dealers, but the film is not about Russian drug dealers or the fights the cops get into with them. Rather, WE OWN THE NIGHT is about how a man's loyalties can change, and how violence can make a hell of a lot of sense. While simultaneously directing introspective performances from Joaquin Phoenix as the screw-up, but liberated child of a police officer, director James Gray also offers brilliant action sequences which are used with restrain, Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg as stoic cops, and striking imagery. Gray shows us Phoenix, who runs a club in Brooklyn, and looks the other way when drugs come into the club. His father (the chief of police) and brother (right hand man to the chief) bust into the club, and Phoenix is outraged that they have gone into his neck of the woods. When the guys he's been ignoring shoot his brother, a line is crossed, and the lethargic Phoenix becomes as determined as a gunslinger in an old western. Duvall plays the chief, and wants blood. The idea that cops just kill people because they're trigger-happy is a pervading idea in culture, but here James Gray shows how the chief of police wants blood because his territory has been breached. This film is primal, striking, and revelatory, great and profound.
We Own the Night: ★★★★

Snow Angels

SNOW ANGELS brings together the best of David Gordon Green, its director. Green is often poetic, often sepulchral, has great shots within his films, and stories about small people within vastness. It's probably his best film beside his debut film, GEORGE WASHINGTON. It's music is disturbingly tranquil, playing at all the wrong moments, and Green has every character except one say "I love you" and the person to whom its directed misses it. SNOW ANGELS is a sort of ensemble piece, which is its only weakness as that is too overused, and the film doesn't focus upon those who we want it to focus on. It concerns itself with a teenager (Michael Angarano), his old babysitter (Kate Beckinsale), and her husband (Sam Rockwell). Rockwell and Beckinsale are currently separated, and the only thing that keeps them together is their daughter Tara. The first hour of the film deals with the relationship between the husband and wife, and their various partners in happiness: whether that be sex, booze, or a dog. The story with Angarano is perhaps most fogettable in the first hour, and his presence is strange. But by the time we reach the second hour, and the story takes a horrific turn, the film is filmed with pathos, empathy, and depression. Green here is directing masterfully, allowing his actors to take over their scenes and share their energy, and forcing the camera off its subjects at perfect times. The music is great and reminiscent of FARGO, which was also about small town evils, and mixed with Green's directing, and the acting, the film only grows stronger in retrospect.
Snow Angels: ★★★★

Rocket Science

Rocket Science is a film that is purely a gesture, it does not seem to want to entertain, for it is self-indulgent of its director. The film concerns Hal Hefner, a 15-year-old high schooler with a very odd, dysfunctional family (obligatory in indie films) and a terrible stutter. This has made Hal a loner. He seeks help from a speech therapist, but the guy is an idiot. One day as Hal looks longingly up at the school's legendary debater, he sees himself as a man who can talk as fast and with as much conviction. This creates the tone for the film, which is so unrealistic and idealistic that it's obnoxious. Songs that don't have anything to do with the story enter into inappropriate scenes as well. This shows the director's need to show us what he wants to, even if it doesn't fit. As Hal (Reece Thompson) is recruited by a girl debater named Ginny (Anna Kendrick), another indie cliché is set up, where the kid who couldn't gets the girl and the esteem. However, the film throws a curveball on this, and although the film is essentially a bad sports movie in disguise as an inspirational indie film, the curve helps. The main problem the film encounters, despite how much we care for its characters, is how obviously constructed it is. Entire lines of dialogue and actions feel excrutiatingly labored over. You can just imagine the filmmakers sitting around discussing how the clichéd film their making would usually go, so they ad-lib some words or pieces of furniture or "edgy" things. "Hey guys, instead of him throwing a chair lets have him throw a cello!" Rocket Science contains decent sequences and amiable characters, but the way they are undermined by a pretentious and clichéd plot makes it not only a mediocre film, but constantly frustrating. The film lastly feels as if it were made to please its director, who obviously has a personal stake within the stuttering portions. Doing this makes it unappealing for anyone else.
Rocket Science: ★★

My Winnipeg

Guy Maddin is a man who is not concerned with making a film with a linear story or even a story. My Winnipeg isn't really even a narrative film. It's mostly a dream. Maddin attempts to show us his town: Winnipeg, through his own eyes, what it means to him. Through beautiful, soothing, and eloquent poetry, we are taken through the history of the film. I have never seen a stranger scene than this: It's the dead of winter and something comes into the stables of Winnipeg one morning. Perhaps it was a mouse or some other rodent, but it spooked the horses. They all ran away and into the Winnipeg river, where they were frozen to death. For months afterwards, the people of Winnipeg would have picnics around the frozen heads of the horses. There isn't really much more to say about My Winnipeg. There's a lot of scenes like the previous one I described. We don't know what's real and we don't really care. We are completely given over to the hands of Guy Maddin, and the journey he takes us on is dreamy and intriguing.
My Winnipeg: ★★★★