My Favorite Movies

When Harmony Korine's "Gummo" crept into SF film fest midnight showing I was lucky to have a ticket and see Harmony talk about his film.

he was like a scabby thief in the night, it was greeted with the sort of critical violence that always makes me want to see the movie for myself. Sometimes a universally hated film is universally hated for a reason, and I've gotten stung at such movies as "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and "North." But other such despised movies, like "Crash" and "A Life Less Ordinary," made me wonder if the entirety of American critics had seen the same film I saw. We say we want something different, and yet when a film actually gives us that, we punish it, mock it, call it pretentious and pointless.

My honest opinion? I loved Gummo. That surprised me, since I'm not a big fan of Kids, the overhyped 1995 film that Harmony Korine wrote (Larry Clark directed it). Kids tried to be an old-fashioned cautionary tale dressed up in new-shit hipster clothes; the result was a shrewdly posturing work -- a film that young urban moviegoers could attend and pretend they'd walked on the wild side. Gummo, which Korine wrote and directed, is closer to the real thing. If it were a documentary, Korine would be hoisted up there alongside Errol Morris and Terry Zwigoff as a filmmaker who captured the chaos of inner life. Because it's fiction, Korine is denounced as an exploitative brat with a camera.

What's really going on here? Seems to me a lot of urban baby-boomer critics have a knee-jerk aversion to any work that shows poverty-stricken rural people but doesn't serve up a clearcut uplifting message (banks are bad, farms are good, the community will always pull together, etc.). Gummo is set in Xenia, Ohio, a town that never recovered from a tornado. (It was shot in Nashville, though.) The two main characters are Tummler (Nick Sutton) and Solomon (Jacob Reynolds), two aimless kids who kill cats so they can sell them for meat and buy glue to huff. Korine regards them neutrally, without comment, and he treats everyone else onscreen the same way. That this is condemned as condescension, and not merely depiction, shows the condescension of the critics -- the same well-to-do critics who hate Jerry Springer because its guests are supposedly too ignorant (i.e., too small-town) to know they're being exploited.

Working with cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier (Good Will Hunting), Korine sustains a depressive mood, a world of muted colors and no expectations, a place where entertainment consists of watching two men beat up a kitchen chair. Some may ask why we'd want to watch such things. Me, I think it's a relief. When a film like Crash or Gummo comes along that's so not Hollywood, so not about cute people with cute flaws and happy endings, we Americans, who claim to be sick of the same action movies and romantic comedies, have the gall to complain that movies like Gummo have no story. Well, the non-story in Gummo interested me a hell of a lot more than the non-stories that Hollywood passes off as stories.

And Korine is a far more inventive visual filmmaker than his one-time director (and photographer) Larry Clark ever was. That famous shot of Jacob Reynolds eating spaghetti in a tub full of gray bathwater puts a slippery finger on a part of your brain that usually isn't touched. The movie is full of such bothersome, elusive images (a kid with pink bunny ears strolling across a bleak landscape; a retarded woman shaving her eyebrows; two skinheads pummeling each other -- for real; the sight of Out of the Blue's Linda Manz as Solomon's weird, tap-dancing mom). Directors have been hailed as visionaries for less. In fact, if Gummo had subtitles and came from, say, the Netherlands or Spain, some of the same critics who shat all over it might have embraced it.

There's also a hidden compassion in Gummo -- the movie's dirty little secret is that it's not as coldly hip as it lets on. The notorious scene in which Solomon shoots the comatose old woman in the foot is actually rather ambiguous: this is their hapless attempt to wake her up. Another scene that drew critical fire -- Korine's cameo as a drunk guy who comes on to an encephalitic black dwarf after talking about how lonely he is -- struck me as oddly moving. Can we just not deal with movies that don't express emotions the same old way? Can't we, for just 90 minutes, rise to the challenge of genuinely difficult art?

Your reaction to the people in Gummo says more about you than it does about them or Korine. If you recoil or laugh or scoff, you should ask yourself why. Perhaps the comatose old woman is Korine's metaphor for the lazy, narrow-minded, unadventurous American audience that he hopes to wake up. Most critics have rewarded him with a kick in the ass, but they should be thanking him. Better he should make X-Men 4?

I'm reminded of a great quote by Spike Lee: when an interviewer said that Spike's use of different styles in the same movie isn't what some people are used to, Lee retorted, "Most of the movies that people are used to suck anyway!" A sentiment with which, I think, Harmony Korine would heartily agre

One of my fav Woody films - above read the opening page of script were woody under texts the opening act of Annie Hall.

One of my Fav films. and fav scripts.

It was approximately a decade ago when a noted film director -- I believe it was Paul Verhoeven -- stated that in American cinema, it was OK to chop off a female breast but not acceptable to caress one. Of course, that quote still applies today, and if anything, American cinema has become more timid -- not in matters of violence or scatology, mind you, just in s-e-x -- since the early to mid-1990s, a period when the controversy surrounding the NC-17 rating was at its peak.

You may recall that the NC-17 designation was created to replace the X rating for the purposes of mainstream cinema. The X became solely the domain of porno flicks; the NC-17 was supposed to allow moviemakers to create raw, uncompromised features made exclusively for the eyes of adult audiences, mature films that didn't need to tone anything down for the sake of the kids. Of course, it didn't quite work out that way. The United States is nothing if not a puritanical nation, and the forces of repression and prudery made sure that the NC-17 would fare no better than the X rating. With many mainstream newspapers refusing to even carry ads for films that were rated NC-17, the designation died a swift death. Today, it's barely ever used, and the few films not aimed at tots, teens or easy-to-please adults are simply released unrated.

That's the case with John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, but even without an officially sanctioned MPAA rating, the film pushes the envelope of what's allowed on screen further than just about any other non-porn flick that comes to mind. Perhaps not since 1980's Caligula has a non-XXX motion picture been as sexually explicit as this one (admittedly, I haven't seen Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs). But whereas Caligula was a wallow in brutality -- the violence and gore offset any potential pleasure generated by hardcore sequences which, truth be told, weren't all that competently filmed anyway -- Shortbus is a celebration of sex that, in turn, morphs into a celebration of those most inalienable of American rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A multi-layered film featuring a multi-character ensemble, Shortbus is weighty enough that it doesn't simply begin and end with the orgasm. Well, OK, it does begin with it: The opening montage, the most hardcore stretch in the film, finds the principal characters engaged in their own sessions of intercourse, masturbation or S&M. After this eye-catching intro, the film settles down and allows us to get to know its players better. Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a sex therapist ("I prefer 'couples counselor,'" she states more than once) who has herself never experienced the joys of an orgasm, not even with her husband Rob (Raphael Barker). James (Paul Dawson) and Jamie (PJ DeBoy) are described as the perfect couple, though James' perpetual moodiness and Jamie's constant neediness lead them to mutually agree to seek companionship from a third party; that turns out to be a nice kid named Ceth (Jay Brannan), and the resultant ménage a trois proves to be a point of dismay for their mysterious, Peeping Tom neighbor Caleb (Peter Stickles). And Severin (Lindsay Beamish) is a dominatrix who's so burned out on her daily routine that she's searching for something -- anything -- to awaken her senses. Their paths all converge at an underground venue called Shortbus, a haven for open-minded people to discuss, watch and engage in all manner of sexual expression.

The hype and controversy surrounding the film's erotic content has been so deafening that it'd be a shame if this gets dismissed out of hand as a one-trick pony. Director Mitchell, whose previous feature was 2001's marvelous musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch (in which he also starred as the transsexual protagonist), wrote the screenplay for Shortbus along with the participation of his cast members, and such a free-flowing environment of ideas allows the picture the opportunity to mature -- to grow and deepen -- along with its characters. In many ways, this is a New York picture through and through: That's evident from the witty opening sequence, when an extreme close-up of something (Is it a sculpture? Is that a penis?) comes into focus as the camera pulls back and we realize it's the Statue of Liberty standing guard over the Big Apple. There are the usual references to 9/11, but we don't sense that Mitchell is merely paying lip service -- these are frightening times for our country, with internal threats splitting apart the nation's citizenry as much as outside ones, and Mitchell seems to be suggesting that anything that can cheer us and unite us should be wholeheartedly embraced. It's an open invitation that should reach all states Blue, Red and Zebra-Striped, though, admittedly, I'm still freaked out that this is opening this Friday at, of all theaters, the Manor. (Let's just hope the bluehairs don't accidentally wander into this auditorium at the moment when James is ejaculating on his own face, or Manor management, like Lucy to Ricky, will have some 'splainin' to do to the medics subsequently called to the scene to revive the victims.)

The cast is mostly comprised of screen novices and newcomers -- no surprise, since it's hard to imagine A-listers like Brad Pitt or Scarlett Johansson going this far for the sake of their art (though, Lord knows, their fans wouldn't object!). Their collective lack of screen polish provides the characters with a natural demeanor that works well for this setting. Sook-Yin Lee, however, is the breakthrough in the cast: Her performance -- by turns fearless, funny, frustrated and frenzied -- surely ranks as one of the year's best.

Mitchell isn't so Pollyanna that he's suggesting everyone's difficulties will be solved by one good bout of sexual acrobatics. Indeed, many of the characters' problems and hang-ups are directly hardwired into their own opinions on the subject. But what makes Shortbus unusual for an American movie is that it isn't frightened of sex, it doesn't reduce the act to insensitive frat boy gyrations, and it doesn't employ it as a bludgeoning weapon (on that latter point, see this year's execrable Basic Instinct sequel as Exhibit A). As a movie, Shortbus is a turn-on, but not in the sense readers might imagine. The picture isn't physically stimulating so much as it's mentally and emotionally arousing -- it considers the brain and the heart the true erogenous zones, a viewpoint that ultimately turns out to be the movie's most startling aspect.

1984 classic is now being made into a film featuring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsh, James Franco and Josh Brolin.


Directed buy Van Zant .. he has changed the current SF Castro District back to 1975.


This film should hit screen in fall of 2008 to mark harveys murder that happen in November of 78.


Vmedia

It?s understandable if at first you feel as though you?re not getting enough information about Eraserhead's setting. And the timing is likely to puzzle you, too ? not just the pace of conversations (of which there are few), but the sensuous, heavy-lidded rhythms of the entire movie. Then there?s the plot? Or is there? At least there?s a main character, a pasty, suited man who vibrates with something like extreme anxiety and hurries through the oily puddles of his weirdly industrial neighborhood as though someone were chasing him. The audience would read this character as a freak for a wealth of reasons, but his most conspicuous feature is his hairdo: a shock of frizz that shoots straight up off his head like the Bride of Frankenstein?s, but blunt-cut across the top, like the eraser on the end of a pencil. The film gleans its title from this distinctive look: Eraserhead. It?s one of the most thrillingly irrational films you?ll ever see.

The talent behind Eraserhead is that one truly surrealist presence in mainstream American film, David Lynch. Later Lynch would expose the subterranean evil of Capra-esque America in 1986?s Blue Velvet, recast The Wizard of Oz among the riotously criminal milieu of 1990?s Wild at Heart, and offer us a circuitous journey down Los Angeles?s famed Mulholland Drive in 2001 (although you won?t be there to admire the view). And critics and audiences will marvel at the perversity of it all.

But it was in 1977?s cult touchstone Eraserhead that Lynch took his tense and fantastic approach to filmmaking to its furthest extreme. The theme of Eraserhead, as Pauline Kael concisely stated it, is ?a man?s worst fears of courtship and marriage and fatherhood,? and in giving voice to these fears the film succeeds unlike any other: When our hero Henry (Jack Nance) visits the home of his fiancée, for instance, he encounters a father so cowed that he?s literally gone numb, an aphasic and apparently immobile grandmother to whom lit cigarettes are given, and a harping shrew of a mother who completes the horror of hearth and home by coming on to Henry. The bed Henry subsequently shares with his wife is the site of stifling, fever-dream episodes that never end, or that end in quarrels. And the baby is a sick, sleepless monster that whimpers and coughs up its food. ?They?re still not sure it is a baby!? Henry?s wife cries at one point, and with its horse-shaped face and gauze-wrapped, oval body, it certainly doesn?t look like one.

But Lynch tells Henry?s story in warped, image-driven episodes rather than a traditional narrative, and it?s these images and their inevitable, dream-like rhythms that make Eraserhead so extraordinary. It?s driven by a kind of aesthetic intuition that all but disappeared from the screen with the experimental films of the ?20s and ?30s; Lynch doesn?t explain scenes or let his characters talk them through, but instead culls images from the subconscious that seem arbitrary but that connect with the viewer in a weirdly indefinable (and often creepily sexual) way. We watch as a baked, ?man-made? chicken begins spasmodically working its truncated legs when cut into, and although we can?t pin any objective meaning to this image, its message of genetic misconception comes through loud and clear. Ditto the gristly, sperm-shaped organic things that Henry discovers in his bed, the angelic, disfigured woman who sings on a tiny stage within Henry?s radiator, his mewing baby, and a lot more. It comes almost as an afterthought to mention that much of this is very, very funny as well. Eraserhead is a work of rare genius and real bravery; it?s a comic nightmare we all have at once and whose meanings lay just out of reach.

Lynch made Eraserhead over the course of five years. The picture previewed in 1976, and although its release the following year met with mostly hostile reviews, a cult grew up around it. The early ?80s saw a video release by Warner Brothers, but as these videos gradually fell off the shelves Eraserhead became harder and harder to see; viewers in recent years have had to settle for bootlegs with a distorted aspect and Japanese subtitles. It?s all the more a cause for celebration then that this unnatural little classic is finally available on DVD, through www.davidlynch.com, with a few nice extras and a wonderful transfer. It?s a unique, resonant fantasy of the day-to-day, and it?s been unavailable for far too long.

And a postscript to fans: Stoners love Eraserhead for its trippiness, which is a valid premise, but the picture can be taken a lot more seriously than that. If it?s the dream logic and surreal content that appeal to you here, you?re directed to Eraserhead?s forebears: Luis Buñuel?s Un Chien andalou and L?Âge d?or.

The new DVD includes a short film primarily interviewing Lynch about his memories of making the film.

What better way to celebrate the best Dorothy films in 20 years.

Great black Vrigina Film,. that eats away at every moment anyone thinks of warm bloddy love.

4 good pounds and a bag of Gummy Bears

One of the best Docs - of 2007
Chilling.. more reason not to ever buy a Ford..
or reconsider our love for Japans history

Dark need to see Doc and glad to see this film win so many awards

"Beaufort" is an Academy Award nominee for best foreign film, though it's not in the same league as Romania's "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," which did not receive a nomination. It takes place mainly inside and around a set meticulously constructed from photos and footage of Beaufort, a fort built by Crusaders in the 12th century. The Israelis captured it from the PLO in 1982 and occupied it for the next 18 years.

Liraz (Oshri Cohen) is a young commander who would be a formidable soldier in a normal war. As things stand, he has the confused task of defending the fort until such time as the government tells him to evacuate it. At the start of the film, we see him bullying a bomb specialist (Ohad Knoller) to go on a dangerous mission to defuse a mine. For a while, the movie seems as though the bomb specialist is going to be the main focus, but the movie is more interested in the bullying commander - and how his beliefs are tested.

The last thing any government wants is a convoluted and protracted conflict that breaks the spirit of its best officers. Because the point of the film is that the soldiers here are impotent, there's not much that they can do, by definition. Thus, the narrative lurches from one incident to the next, with no sense of build.

The best that can be said for "Beaufort" is that it's a little like what it must have been like to be there - but it's not. It can't be, because the defining circumstance of ongoing fear and mortal terror is missing. The failure of the filmmaker to dramatically replicate those emotions, at least in some form, prevents "Beaufort" from being anything more than a noble gesture.

Marc Foster (finding Neverland) does well recreating this book.

Forester makes every effort to appease legions of Hosseini fans, of which I am one. ?Kite? is pleasingly faithful to its source material, weaving an enriching tapestry of dramatic ethnicity and tradition. The dread is palpable, particularly in modern-day Taliban -infested Kabul.

But a formulaic blueprint screams crowd-pleasing rather than risk-taking. ?Kite? pits good against evil in oversimplified terms, an exercise in futility for enthusiasts of dark emotional tones. Pacing is a bit rushed; a niggling feeling of something fundamental left on the cutting room floor.

Performances are sound, particularly that of the still-waters-run-deep Abdalla. Piece looks wonderful, shots of Kabul pre and post-militia as silent witness to its skewed politics.

Genuine if not exactly inspiring.

THIS ALMOST SHOT LIKE A LIVE PLAY OR IN REAL TIME

Mungiu shoots each scene in one take, the camera either remaining steady as characters pass in and out of the frame, or trailing them as they walk. At a college dorm in 1987, roommates Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) and Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) go over the necessities for the coming day. Though it's not yet clear what's making her almost paralytically nervous, Gabita remains in the room while the pragmatic Otilia buys, barters and collects soap, cigarettes, money, etc. from schoolfriends and her b.f., Adi (Alex Potocean).

From the dorm Otilia heads to the hotel where Gabita booked a room, but the unfriendly receptionist claims to have no reservation and she's forced to look elsewhere. Once that's arranged, she goes to the rendezvous point to meet Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), a stone-faced illegal abortionist who's not pleased that his precise instructions have not been met.

Bebe is a bully, using criticism as a way of overcoming any resistance. Discovering that Gabita is further along in her pregnancy than she claimed, he exacts a high price: not just money, but the sexual favors of both women before he'll proceed. Panicked negotiations follow, but they submit.

With the rapes quickly over, Bebe assumes an almost solicitous bedside manner and commences with the abortion. The camera is fixed in another long take, Gabita's stretched-out body, knees up, extending across the entire widescreen. Mungiu has a masterly ability to remain discreet while ratcheting up the discomfort level: the trust between the camera and the characters, and the respect Mungiu has for these women, never falters. After inserting a probe and injecting some fluid, Bebe tells them what to do when the fetus is rejected, and leaves.

When you expect cinematic time to pass more quickly, it's something of a shock to realize it's still light out when Otilia reluctantly leaves the hotel to attend Adi's mother's birthday party. With the camera centered on Otilia, tightly hemmed in by the other guests at table, a sense of discomfort takes hold, the young woman silently forcing down a maelstrom of emotions until they nearly burst through the surface. It's a remarkable, sustained scene with an extraordinary performance at its center. She escapes as soon as possible, back to the hotel room, and Gabita.

Obviously, this is no "Vera Drake" knock-off, though there is more than a superficial similarity between Mike Leigh's and Mungiu's intense concentration on character. Here the style is even more stripped down, though the rigidity of form is so naturally achieved that the complexities are practically hidden from view. So careful at focusing only on what's essential, Mungiu makes only one misstep when he lingers on a fetus -- it's a moment completely out of keeping with the rest of the film and serves only as wasted shock value.

Foremost among the many revelations is Marinca's stellar turn as Otilia. It's not just the way she transforms scripted dialogue into real-speak (a quality shared by the rest of the stellar cast), but her ability to convey all her inner struggles in silence. Vasiliu is equally fine, a frightened young woman desperate to end her ordeal.

Just as he proved with "Mr. Lazarescu," d.p. Mutu (also producing) achieves miraculous effects with his observational camera, capturing all the necessities without ever feeling voyeuristic. His spaces, even when outside, remain claustrophobic -- doors never provide escape, and night, with its sudden, unknown sounds, is especially menacing. Colors are all muted cement tones, capturing the crushing ugliness of life in the Eastern bloc.

One of the many great musical films of 2007.. The year Once won the best song.

But no one can miss that fact that Soundhiem is a genius and this films only supports that.

Depp was so good, far exceeding his past roles. I was very happy to see his nominations during the award season.

Depp has a zombie?s stare. Most effective, though, is the actor?s resolute focus. Todd is consumed by his desire to enact revenge upon those who destroyed the happy life he shared with his wife and daughter 15 years before. Falsely charged and imprisoned, the cruel life Todd led has made this once good man irretrievably bad.

The film version of Sweeney Todd emphasizes Todd?s relationship with the accomplice he finds upon his return to mid-19th century London. Mrs. Lovett owns an understandably unpopular meat pie restaurant beneath the barber shop Todd operated before the corrupt Judge Turpin ruined his life. Mrs. Lovett, played by Helena Bonham Carter (a.k.a. Mrs. Tim Burton), is the ideal partner for Todd. But however much this Gothic fright of a woman resembles death, Mrs. Lovett?s unrequited love for Todd stays stubbornly alive.

Recognizing the long-gone Todd despite his deathly transformation, Mrs. Lovett instantly agrees to rent her upstairs flat to him so he can re-open his barbering business. He does so, adding a severe twist to his business plan.

Depp, who sang in a rock band in the 1980s, does a surprisingly good job of singing Sondheim?s songs. Having absolutely found his singing voice for the role, he shows impressive power in even the music?s more operatic places. Bonham Carter?s voice is thin, but her acting chops and humor (she drives the film?s most amusing sequence) make her a splendid Mrs. Lovett.

Meanwhile, Sondheim?s music and clever lyrics illuminate characters and always, as any songs in a musical should, advance the plot.
Alan Rickman, co-starring as the devious and hypocritical Judge Turpin, isn?t just slimy. He sings in an even pleasant baritone. Another British actor, Timothy Spall, is appropriately loathsome as Turpin?s executioner of dirty deeds, but the normally scene-stealing Sacha Baron Cohen is disappointing as Todd?s flamboyant rival in the barbering business.

If the movie?s profusion of spraying, gushing, splattering blood sounds dreadful, well, it is dreadful fun. The film may not be for the squeamish, but it?s a rare choice for cinema and Broadway musical fans and it?s among Depp and Burton?s richest work.