BYOB – Happy Memorial Day '09
The Seattle fun continues… lots to write… hopefully this afternoon, I will get to it.
We are now into two of the highest profile Sundance docs – The Cove and We Live In Public – that require digestion… especially WLiP, which has some personal resonance that I need to think about for a while. I think the film is about a lot more… and a lot less… than Ondi Timoner might realize or wish to consider. On the other hand, maybe she gets it completely. I’ll have to ask. The Cove, on the other hand, is really about taking action and, as so many great films are, is about the power of the individual when focused. The former is about a person with the power to get started, but who never finishes… the latter about finishing at all costs and not worrying so much about how much attention one gets for starting.
Somewhere in the middle are The Yes Men, who have a kinda sequel to the first doc about them here, The Yes Men Fix The World. They are somewhere between the other two films… interested in very specific goals with very specific action, seeking to publicize their work until after the fact, in order to make their case about the need for us all to wake up. One of the interesting elements of this film is that they seem to be restarting their movie franchise, somehow seeming to be unhappy with the quite excellent first film. In the end, they are not as skilled as documentarians as the last team was – the have the directing credit on this one – and the loss of objectivity is not to their advantage. Still, an interesting film.
Still, I think my favorite so far is Terribly Happy, which, as a function of style not always level of talent, is like a hybrid of David Lynch and Chris Nolan, leading to intrigue, humor, and more ideas than this very intimate piece seems to be capable of delivering. It is possible to overpraise this film and the invocation of these directors may have this effect. But the hybrid makes for a quality film experience and, as is often the case, lower expectations make good seem great.
More later…
I like Guillermo Del Toro fine. But I really don’t want to see him direct a remake of Slaughterhouse Five.
He’s just not right for it. The first comment I heard from him about it had to do with his excitement over how new technology could be used to visually enhance the time tripping.
But if there’s one thing the George Roy Hill version got right, among other things, was the depiction of time tripping. Dede Allen’s editing is fucking brilliant.
The problem with the original adaptation is that it’s thematically about life and rebirth. But the novel is inherently about the inescapable inevitability of death.
Forget about Slaughterhouse Five. Let’s finally get The Sirens of Titan or Cat’s Cradle going.
I really enjoyed “The Yes Men Save the World.” It, like the Yes Mens first 2 films, manages to be funny but the very basic, honest and real idea is: if you just get off your ass and make an effort, you can make a change. Those 2 guys are just everyday people sick of corporate greed who decided to do something. And they go big. It made me think what can be accomplished if we all just, you know, try instead of bitching on twitter.
DP. re: WLiP
I’m sure Ondi Timoner knows exactly how her film is and she’ll let you know. Point blank. That is one tough broad. I thought her doc was extremely interesting but also one I had a hard time connecting with. Which is interesting because its all about disconnection through connection. Her main subject is such an unappealing provocateur that its hard to find any emotional warmth to latch onto, a bit like the film as a whole.
YES MEN is a feel good follow-up that features some goofy linking devices that initially felt forced but eventually gelled into the circus nature of the whole production. It does feature some truly laugh-out-loud moments but ends with a call to arms that will make people think about their place in the world for at least half an hour before thinking its all too hard and buying a starbucks latte.
I think DP’s point that a filmmaker may not always be the best judge of what her or his own work means/says is a really interesting one. (And my favorite filmmakers tend to be the ones who know that’s the case.)
One of the more interesting things about The Girlfriend Experience? The amount of porn stars in the audience (or maybe they were just girls who dressed like said porn stars).
I’ve thought for a long time GEORGE ROY HILL was one of the most undersung great directors of the last few decades. A LITTLE ROMANCE is BEYOND DELIGHTFUL, Funny Farm is EXTREMELY UNDERRATED (esp Chevy making his wife read his horrible novel), Waldo Pepper, Garp, Sting, Butch Cassidy.
Just one of those guys NOBODY EVER MENTIONS because he didn’t have a flash filmography or a particular “ripped from his very being” set of obsessions, but so many very good movies with great movie stars, kind of like Pollack.
Another Huzzah for George Roy Hill. Lex I can’t believe you forgot to list Slap Shot.
And Funny Farm was completly dismissed due to Chase’s involvment even though it is one of his five films that is actually funny. Just thinking about that film makes me laugh.
“You do mean its not funnny, look at that guy’s name”
“But I drew you a map”
and my absolute favorite “Cue the Deer”
As for any Vonnegut adaptions, I would like to see would be Player Piano or God Bless you Mr. Rosewater, they would easily be the most filmable.
Anyone else witness the trainwreck of the Jerry Lewis/Madeliene Kahn version of Slapstick?
You mean Slapstick of Another Kind? It actually played at the Houston Film Festival several years ago. Horrible. Just horrible.
BTW: I saw George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid again last November, at the Denver Film Festival’s tribute to Paul Newman. And it’s still pretty damn good.
For the last few years I have had a summer tradition of taking a lawnchair, an old television and VCR, and a variety twelve pack of flying dog out to the backyard on the first clear 80 degree night of the year and watching a double feature of Hombre and Butch Cassidy. It is perhaps the most relaxing night of the year.
And on a side note Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has the best explosion ever filmed (the roof in Die Hard is a runner up).
GARP is great, SLAP SHOT classic. BUTCH CASSIDY has never moved me in the least.
SLASTICK is a trainwreck of another kind. But what a cast! Jerry, Madeline, Marty Feldman, Pat Morita…I love the story of how the director got the film made. It’s actually inspirational.
The novel is kind of a trainwreck though…
Slapstick is a second-tier novel ranking around Galapagos and Deadeye Dick (not genius but with flashes of genius like the church of Jesus Christ the kidnapped), but the movie adaption just seemed to be an excuse for Lewis and Kahn to act like infants.
As for how it got made…..do tell.
Anyone else see T4 this weekend (judging by it’s numbers, I’d say no). Man, did that movie suuuuuuuck. It jumped all over, looked stupid it was so washed out. Ugh. What a disappointment. Maybe now folks will realize that it was Ahhhnold’s star power back in the day that made this a franchise type of movie. No one cares about the Skynet/Terminator mythology, especially not the producers of T4 or McG.
Hcat, it’s a long story best documented in a CINEFANTASTIQUE piece years ago.
I saw T4, Don. Agree with you on the film itself, but I don’t buy that it needed Arnold to be a franchise. “Post-apocalyptic survivors vs. killer robots” is hooky enough to get butts in the seat. Or was, until this movie screwed it up. Too many underdeveloped characters and threads, none of which I cared enough about to remember when they came back up.
Speaking of which, was a reason ever given for all the human abductions? I just saw the movie Saturday night, and I can’t remember what, if anything, that was all about.
i would kill for a T4 spoiler post so i could shred the last act of the film. The stupidity involved is just mind boggling.
Sounds like at least half of the regulars have seen it already, and I have no interest in seeing it but am dying to know how they messed it up so badly. Just put an all caps spoiler alert at the top of the paragraph and let loose. I would love to hear it.
was a reason ever given for all the human abductions?
Yes. They were going to turn them all into the new T-800 style of Terminator that required living tissue and organs.
Thank you. That’s one less thing to bug me about the movie. Only 58 more to go!
Yeah, exactly Brandon. How about next we explain how characters got into distant sequences or places via horrid jump cuts. Just a badly made film.
And I have nothing against McG….I could care either way about him. He just looked in way, way over his head. Mendelson may be right in the other thread where he said things got cut out for the sake of crash crash bang bang but still, that’s not an excuse for a crappy end product.
And also Brandon, I agree the general man v. machine, future v. past, survivors v. robots thing is intriguing, but maybe it needs a makeover to make it a franchise.
T4 SPOILERS
Terminator Salvation absolutely sucked. What other posters have said in previous threads is pretty dead on. The jump cuts were particulary annoying, like Bale saying “i’ll be back” then cut to him in the desert and cue guns n roses on the soundtrack. There are so many damn references to the first two films that after a point i was just focusing on picking out the references instead of paying attention to the movie. There has to be a reference in every scene. I think one of the main problems was not setting the movie further in the future. I mean, where was the future that Camron briefly showed in the first two films. That’s what we want to see.
The last act is awful. Connor is able to hack his way into the prison where they have Reese, a very high level prisoner, in like 10 seconds. This is suppose to be Skynet’s main city and Connor is able to walk right in without being seen. I know Skynet wanted him to come in to trap him but it still makes no sense with what comes after. Okay they have Connor and Reese right where they want them and instead of just sending hundreds of t-600s into to kill them they send two and the new t-800, who can kill Worthington’s terminator with one punch to the chest yet he beats on the human Connor without stopping his heart. Just pick him up and tear him in two. And the last 15 minutes “everyone deserves a second chance” bullshit is horrible. IMO just as bad as the ending that got leaked. Bottom line, the movie should never have been made and if you are gonna make it don’t let some hack like McG make it.
Re: Terribly Happy
After reading your recent posts, I guess you were bound to throw some love behind a Danish flick that did not open amidst Cannes press extravaganza (like Antichrist), but instead rather quietly had it’s world premiere at last year’s festival in Karlovy Vary 🙂
Just kidding – Terribly Happy is an excellent little gem. I would originally have thought that it would play better to a homegrown audience, though, primarily since a lot of its clout is in how it manages to combine a certain style (besides the directors you name, I would like to nominate the Coen Brothers, doing a western in present-day Kansas) with the setting in a way that to me seem rather original. At least, it has not been done (this successfully) before around these parts.
Anyway, nice to see a good movie making it on the festival circuit, and I do hope more people on this site get the chance to catch it. If anyone then likes it (this is also for David), they should check out The Art of Crying (2006). It is somewhat similar in tone, mainly due to both movies being adaptations of novels by the same author (Erling Jepsen). The Art of Crying is maybe not quite as stylish as Terribly Happy, but it does have more good laughs (even if the storyline is equally dark), and in the end I find it to be the arguably superior movie.
Maybe instead of spending 150 gazillion dollars on CGI, you could start with a…good script.
Just a wacky thought.
The Art of Crying is indeed great. Saw it at Newport Beach two years ago; surprised it doesn’t appear to have gotten domestic distribution since, though of course it isn’t the most commercial of films, I guess.
Actually, scratch that. I’m thinking of “About Crying” (Lo bueno de llorar).
Is “The Art of Crying” a doc about Lex G.?
HIYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Yes, sir. Yes.