The Long Take

Long Overdue Sound Advice Comes From Clint Eastwood

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:18:00 +0000

On Jokes About Races

Clint Eastwood just became my personal hero.

In a recent interview with Der Spiegel magazine, veteran actor/director declared that "We're all spending too much time and energy trying to be politically correct about everything" while nostalgically recounting the years when they "constantly made jokes about different races" without excessively worrying about being labeled a 'racist'. He wisely understands that the road to fully integrating any racial minority to any society they belong to, goes through being able to joke about them as freely and conveniently as one can about anyone else. The idea that these minorities are as 'normal' and 'natural' as others who are lucky enough to fall within the boundaries of social norms, and the stance that bootlessly yet fiercely defends political correctness in every aspect of life, cannot be the implications of the same mindset - in fact, they are vastly different. Needless to say, the same statement goes for non-heterosexual orientations, disabilities, gender, political opinions and any other comparatively marginal notions that we face today.

Eastwood continues:

People have lost their sense of humour [...] In former times we constantly made jokes about different races. You can only tell them today with one hand over your mouth otherwise you will be insulted as a racist. I find that ridiculous. In those earlier days every friendly clique had a "Sam the Jew" or "Jose the Mexican" - but we didn't think anything of it or have a racist thought. It was normal that we made jokes based on our nationality or ethnicity. That was never a problem.

I'm sure Spike Lee, along with others, will be spitting venom all over this statement, and accuse him of racism even because of it. Lee's efforts for the good of the black community in United States is definitely to be admired, yet he fails to realize that such relentless protection only serves to further alienate these people (like the case of an overprotective parent), constantly emphasizing their 'otherness' and the need to approach and treat them differently. As an accurate enough example, imagine someone coming up with the black version of the popular blog Stuff White People Like; and how the overall response towards this hypothetical website would be like. I guess my point is, I don't see much meaning in the term 'equality' as long as its implications are conditional. If I have to restrain myself from acting naturally around a group of people just because of certain traits they possess, I will fail to fully integrate them to my life in any conceivable way. It is for this reason that I see little difference between political correctness and positive discrimination in a broad sense.

Oops. Being the closeted racist I am, I uttered the term 'black'. I should've known better and used 'African-Americans' or 'people of African descent' instead; both of which, by the way, might be the most demeaning pair of terms I've heard that are being used to categorize and distinguish minorities ("Hey, don't you ever forget you have roots in Africa; and that you are not really one of us!")

There is another celebrity who opposes this trend more slyly and hilariously, and that is the acclaimed comedian/actor/director/producer/author/screenwriter Ricky Gervais (so much for the titles). While certain stereotypes are often cheaply used for corny stand-up punchlines, the way Gervais delivers them has a lot of intrinsic substance and therefore is infinitely funnier. Without doubt, some circles at the top of certain ivory towers find his jokes about physical disabilities, sexual orientations, political opinions, religion or even the Holocaust itself rather 'tasteless' and maybe even 'disturbing'; but their importance in implicitly advising us to "loosen up and stop being hung up on labels" is undeniable. Trying to maintain an excessively formal attitude towards things we deem sensitive definitely fattens up the elephant in the room to such an extent that it becomes uncomfortable and irritating for both parties. Being the comedic genius he is, he's able to satirize all this without crossing the line of disrespect that would've brought him quicker fame but a less durable one.

In the meantime, Reuters reported that Eastwood recently won a Palme d'Or for a lifetime of achievements, which was previously given only once to Ingmar Bergman in 1997. Among the living directors let alone the ones that passed away since then, he is definitely far from being the number one candidate for the award; but I am willing to overlook this single instance because of his important message for the future of humanity (if I had not, I'm sure I would've caused a great deal of turmoil). He is also maybe the oldest living director who also is significantly prolific (along with Woody Allen) so at least his reputation probably lives up to the standards and the meaning of this award. In any case, I will take this opportunity to congratulate both of Eastwood and Gervais for their meaningful stance regarding the subject at hand, which I'm sure will make both of them childishly happy.

We will continue with more reviews and articles about both the upcoming films and the most recent ones, as previously promised.

Oscars 2008 - Who Should Win Tonight?

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:55:00 +0000

And A Brief Oscar Commentary

Let me be the first to acknowledge that I couldn't write about this year's frequently nominated films or the awards ceremonies themselves as much as I would be happy to have written. If you look back at my post where I declare that I would be doing some more article series every year during awards season, you will see that the sheer enthusiasm reflected from those paragraphs is not even closely matched by the amount of work I was able to produce. Nevertheless, January 2009 has been the most productive month of my one year-old blog and I was able to cover most of the films with major nominations so it's still not that bad.

I would also like to announce that I have merely postponed, not canceled, the articles I had promised. There are still some major nominees expecting a review (Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire and Doubt) and I know I have skipped 'Who Should've Won In This Year's Golden Globes' article. While I have a good enough excuse for the latter (some of the films were too hard to find and I didn't want to guess when declaring who were the deserving winners) I have absolutely nothing for the movies I missed reviewing, other than the utter lack of time for such things lately in my life (Life never disappoints as a strong excuse for not writing, reading or watching enough). Still, I am planning to take the lack of good films coming out at this time of the year to catch up until I feel ready to declare my top 10 favorite films of the year.

So, what do we have here today? The promised Oscar commentary, however predictable and brief it may be, as well as who really should win tonight at the Oscars. Very interesting indeed, so please read on.

Whoever Wins, We Lose

I was beginning to regain my confidence and appreciation of the Academy as well as the Oscar winners when The Departed and No Country for Old Men were announced to be the grand winners of 2006 and 2007; they certainly helped relieve the pain caused by a bunch of disastrous choices in the recent past, which climaxed when Crash (often dubbed 'Trash' by people who were as much upset as I was) became the 'Best Picture' of 2005 after one of the most memorable and unexpected turn of events in the biggest Oscar category. I wasn't rooting for Brokeback Mountain or anything, nor I accused the Academy of homophobia (which was a cheap way of attacking back, really; Brokeback was good but not that great). Their only real crime was simply lack of taste in movies (which is actually worse). I talked about some other infamous upsets in my previous article about why 'Best Original Screenplay' category is more important than you think, which include but are not limited to Million Dollar Baby, A Beautiful Mind, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic and The English Patient.

The last two winners of the grand prize were indeed a welcome change after all this; but this year, Academy went back to its golden years of ignorance, narrowmindedness and, yes, tastelessness. Especially in a year which was comperatively weaker in terms of overall movie quality, the absence of certain great films in the 'Best Picture' category is utterly incomprehensible at best (you all know which movies I'm talking about). Although I thought it should at least have been nominated for some technical stuff like 'Art Direction' or 'Costume Design', the fact that The Fall, my favorite film of the year, was overlooked does not surprise me at all; for it was ignored by everyone as if there was a secret, evil pact among people to not give this film the attention and praise it deserved. The novelty and excellence of In Bruges was above Academy's capacity to comprehend and that we're very much used to as well. What really surprised me was the second big scandal in a row for 'Foreign Language Film' category - after last year's omission of 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days and Persepolis, this year the category showed no sign of love towards Let The Right One In, which was one of this year's best for reasons stated here. Did they not even see it because it was a 'vampire movie'? I guess we'll never know.

Also, where the hell is Ralph Fiennes? After such a memorable year with two career-defining performances and one more that was good enough (you guess which is which), the only people who were wise enough to even nominate him for something was Hollywood Foreign Press Association. His work in The Duchess was so refined and high-end that it should be taught in acting schools across the country. Also missing from the acting categories are Sally Hawkins of Happy-Go-Lucky and Kristin Scott Thomas of Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long) both of which were equally impressive performances from the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. A nominee list involving these names would satisfy, even before crowning a winner.

But good stuff happens too; weren't you relieved when Academy finally put a stop to the nonsense of double-nominations Kate Winslet had been getting with two leading roles? I can't say I'm against the idea for an actor to be nominated for the same category more than once, but The Weinstein Company was essentially mocking everyone by unreservedly trying to disguise her role in The Reader as a supporting one; hoping to both increase her chances (supporting category apparently faces less competition, a claim that I disagree with) and to get her name typed up twice in Oscar nomination lists. The fact that they were unmasked at the end of the road gives me endless joy.

Talking about good things, seeing the name Richard Jenkins among 'Best Actor' nominees is also pleasing, although it's quite obvious that it's as good as it gets for him. Heath Ledger's soon-to-be-crowned nomination might seem to have been inevitable now but ignorance knows no limits and dismissal of his remarkable work was also in the realm of possibilities a couple of months ago. Last but not the least, despite once again trying to clinch some Oscars with two ~~bare claws~~ films (as is his habit), Clint Eastwood finally was shown no unconditional love for his unremarkable work; nor terribly pathetic Bill Maher's even more terribly pathetic documentary Religulous (think about this, I fall in the category of people who would tend to agree with its statements yet the film couldn't even win me over). In short, there are still reasons to be hopeful about tomorrow (or maybe Academy members are predominantly religious racists, who knows?)

Without further ado, let's move on to the names that most deserve to come out of the envelopes tomorrow. Please keep in mind that I have merely selected one from the nominees and that the year's real deserving winners (regardless of who got nominated) will be announced in a seperate article.

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Nominees:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Definitely Slumdog Millionaire. While I wasn't head over heels for Boyle's film like the majority of the moviegoing audience out there, the other nominees are so unremarkable that it definitely shines among them. Milk and Frost/Nixon were nothing more than ordinary entertainment pieces, The Reader was good but hugely flawed and don't even get me started on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is the weakest link among these five, no doubt.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Nominees:

The Visitor (Richard Jenkins)
Frost/Nixon (Frank Langhella)
Milk (Sean Penn)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt)
The Wrestler (Mickey Rourke)

I still have to go through my list of films I've seen this year but Richard Jenkins in The Visitor might very well be my favorite for the best male performance of 2008, even without these nominations. Rourke also was impressive, Penn was fun and good enough and nothing more, Langhella couldn't even get the impersonation part right let alone the whole, multi-layered personality or the power dynamics between the two characters during the interviews. I am a huge fan of Brad Pitt but as Benjamin Button, he was mostly indistinct and was irritatingly overdoing his New Orleans accent.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Nominees:

Rachel Getting Married (Anne Hathaway)
Changeling (Angelina Jolie)
Frozen River (Melissa Leo)
Doubt (Meryl Streep)
The Reader (Kate Winslet)

Since the year's real two best female performances were left out, I am forced to choose Kate Winslet, closely followed by Anne Hathaway and Angelina Jolie. Leo was nothing special and Meryl Streep was overacting like mad.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Nominees:

Milk (Josh Brolin)
Tropic Thunder (Robert Downey Jr.)
Doubt (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
The Dark Knight (Heath Ledger)
Revolutionary Road (Michael Shannon)

Heath Ledger shines, especially among these nominees - the presence of Ralph Fiennes for either of his great performances would've made a worthy competition but it's not hard to choose among these five. Hoffman's work was Hoffman quality but comperatively more ordinary and Josh Brolin was ok. Robert Downey Jr. was not acting but was merely being a clown (in a bad way, not like one of those classy French ones who went to the school for this and everything) while Michael Shannon was laughable and desperate - he misfired all of his lines.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Nominees:

Doubt (Amy Adams)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Penelope Cruz)
Doubt (Viola Davis)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Taraji P. Henson)
The Wrestler (Marisa Tomei)

When declaring my favorite in this one, I am in doubt (ha. ha.), for all these performances are actually very good. Amy Adams and Viola Davis were more impressive that the film's leading actors, Taraji Henson was the only performance that is worth something in Benjamin Button and Marisa Tomei carried The Wrestler on her shoulders (no pun intended). But it was Penelope Cruz who stole my heart more than others, with her impulsive, whimsical and dangerous lover in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Best Achievement in Directing

Nominees:

Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)
The Reader (Stephen Daldry)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher)
Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard)
Milk (Gus Van Sant)

Actually, I should embrace David Fincher in this category over the others for two reasons: 1) I loved all his previous works and his name rings a bell of admiration for me. 2) His directing was outstanding in Benjamin Button. Seriously, given that screenplay, could anybody else have come up with a better film? But I am holding myself back, because the film itself is mostly a failure and also Fincher is partly responsible for the terrible performances of the terrific actors involved in this project (Cate Blanchett is the best of Hollywood as far as actresses are concerned, in my humble opinion). I have always believed that half the acting in a film is the director's job so I guess Fincher's work was flawed too. Daldry, Howard and Van Sant were all ok but nothing too exciting while Danny Boyle's film turned out to be able to tolerate a terrible screenplay more than Fincher's; so however boring it may be, I am going with Slumdog Millionaire in this category.

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly For Screen

Nominees:

Frozen River (Courtney Hunt)
Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)
In Bruges (Martin McDonagh)
Milk (Dustin Lance Black)
Wall-E (Stanton, Docter, Reardon)

Don't you think this is more like what the 'Best Picture' category should've looked like? I have written ehaustively about this category and this year's nominees in my contribution to the LAMB Devours the Oscars series this year so follow the link for further reading. It goes without saying that In Bruges is still infinitely superior to the other four.

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published

Nominees:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Eric Roth, Robin Swicord)
Doubt (John Patrick Shanley)
Frost/Nixon (Peter Morgan)
The Reader (David Hare)
Slumdog Millionaire (Simon Beaufoy)

All the respect you've developed for Academy-member writers in the previous category, you can lose here. Two films which suffer only because their screenplays are terrible, and three other ordinary works. This is not the line-up for the weekend assignment of a creative writing workshop - this is the industry's most prestigious awards we're talking about here. Under these circumstances, I can't help but be boring again: Slumdog Millionaire.

Best Achievement in Cinematography

Nominees:

Changeling (Tom Stern)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Claudio Miranda)
The Dark Knight (Wally Pfister)
The Reader (Roger Deakins, Chris Menges)
Slumdog Millionaire (Anthony Dod Mantle)

I was torn between Slumdog and The Dark Knight in this one, primarily because The Dark Knight was visually breathtaking at times but there was also a completely amateur side to Pfister's work. Nolan's film is not a very good example for visual storytelling, not all the time that is. But eventually I decided the good parts outweigh the bad ones and the nominees weren't that impressive anyway. Therefore I acknowledge Slumdog Millionaire as a close second and Changeling as the third. The Reader is only there because Deakins made it and while Benjamin Button was pretty, brown-stained, melancholic and everything, there was little substance to make all that style significant to anything else in the film so it all comes off merely decorative.

Best Achievement in Editing

Nominees:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter)
The Dark Knight (Lee Smith)
Frost/Nixon (Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill)
Milk (Elliott Graham)
Slumdog Millionaire (Chris Dickens)

When we came out of the film after seeing it for the first time, my friend declared that "The Dark Knight" had no editing. He didn't make it sound like a flaw at the time, but it's a huge flaw indeed. It's ironic to see it nominated here and not in any other, I repeat, any other category where it didn't secure a nomination because Lee Smith's work should be taught in editing classes all over the country as the kind of work you shouldn't be responsible of. For me, the competition here is between Frost/Nixon (where quality editing was the biggest contributor to the film's feeling of suspense) and Slumdog Millionaire (where the most typical of love stories was told in a clever way by conscious editors). But Frost/Nixon was flawed, even purely from the perspective of editing, and Slumdog Millionaire seems to be all about editing - how the flashback sequences are timed and how the whole story is incorporated into a single episode of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' etc. So the award should go to Chris Dickens.

Best Achievement in Art Direction

Nominees:

Changeling (Murakami, Fettis)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Burt, Zolfo)
The Dark Knight (Crowley, Lando)
The Duchess (Carlin, Alleway)
Revolutionary Road (Zea, Schutt)

The most typical winner in these categories is a swanky period piece, but I guess once you start handing out awards for art direction, it tends to be in the nature of the award. I've had a careful look at all the other nominees before declaring The Duchess as my preference here but none of the other nominees seem to have any comparable significance.

Best Achievement in Costume Design

Nominees:

Australia (Catherine Martin)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Jacqueline West)
The Duchess (Michael O'Connor)
Milk (Danny Glicker)
Revolutionary Road (Albert Wolsky)

Some of the awards authorities (I think it was the costume designers guild) decided at some point that it's best to hand out costume design awards seperately for period pieces and contemporary films just because the former tend to outweigh the latter in most of the cases, due to the very nature. This year is no exception, while all the nominees reflect considered choices by the costume designers of the Academy, The Duchess definitely has an edge and should win (this comes from a guy who constantly complains about films with corsets and Keira Knightley).

Best Achievement in Makeup

Nominees:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Greg Cannom)
The Dark Knight (John Caglione Jr., Conor O'Sullivan)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Mike Elizalde, Thomas Floutz)

If I was told Harvey Dent's burnt face in this one was make up, I would root for The Dark Knight. But Joker's scruffy face-paint is not enough for me to give up the excellent work done in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to play with human age as if it was a toy. All the golden armies in hell would not change that fact. (See? Even if I don't care for it, I am able to properly assess the good parts of a given film)

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score

Nominees:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Alexandre Desplat)
Defiance (James Newton Howard)
Milk (Danny Elfman)
Slumdog Millionaire (A.R. Rahman)
Wall-E (Thomas Newman)

I honestly don't know; all five seem equally insignificant. I guess when forced, I would name Defiance, but I have no serious reason to back that decision up.

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song

Nominees:

Slumdog Millionaire (Rahman, Gulzar - "Jai Ho")
Slumdog Millionaire (Rahman, Arulpragasam - "O Saya")
Wall-E (Gabriel, Newman - "Down to Earth")

This is where it becomes all personal - I have never been a fan of Indian pop music in my life, so there is no way on earth I can choose one of them and say that it deserves an Oscar. That is the only reason that pushes me towards "Down to Earth" of Wall-E, which is a safe choice anyway because user-friendly music is a common Pixar trait.

Best Achievement in Sound

Nominees:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Parker, Semanick, Klyce, Weingarten)
The Dark Knight (Novick, Hirschberg, Rizzo)
Slumdog Millionaire (Tapp, Pryke, Pookutty)
Wall-E (Myers, Semanick, Burtt)
Wanted (Jenkins, Montano, Forejt)

Certainly Wall-E. A film that is appealing both for adults and for children, the first hour lacks speech and it delivers - is it possible for this film to not have a great sound work? Among all the nominees and maybe even in the history of nominees in this category, Wall-E is the film where sound forms the most significant part of the its expressive power; therefore there is no real competition here. Wanted deserves a mention, The Dark Knight was obligatorily good but not that special and the rest is just... ok.

Best Achievement in Sound Editing

Nominees:

The Dark Knight (Richard King)
Iron Man (Frank Eulner, Christopher Boyes)
Slumdog Millionaire (Tom Sayers)
Wall-E (Ben Burtt, Matthew Wood)
Wanted (Wylie Statemen)

If you cannot distinguish this award from the previous one, think of it like this: the previous one is the best picture award and this is the best editing award. For similar reasons I've given for the previous one, Wall-E is the deserving winner here as well, Wanted still a formidable opponent. Iron Man was also remarkable, so was The Dark Knight and... Slumdog? I don't know, I think after one point, no one could stop nominating the film for more categories.

Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Nominees:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Barba, Preeg, Dalton, Barron)
The Dark Knight (Davis, Corbould, Webber, Franklin)
Iron Man (Nelson, Snow, Sudick, Mahan)

I hated the film but this is where I should give them some credit: Iron Man deserves to win over The Dark Knight and Benjamin Button. It was more, both in quality and quantity. But whatever happened to Indiana Jones?

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

Nominees:

Bolt (Chris Williams, Byron Howard)
Kung Fu Panda (John Stevenson, Mark Osborne)
Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)

The omission of Vals im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir) is bad judgement but its nomination wouldn't change the fact that Wall-E deserves this award most; although other nominees are more remarkable than usual this year.

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

Nominees:

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Complex - Germany)
Entre Les Murs (The Class - France)
Revanche (Revanche - Austria)
Okuribito (Departures - Japan)
Vals im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir - Israel)

I honestly don't know. I couldn't catch Revanche and Okuribito and while the former doesn't look better than Israel's submission, Japanese film looks gorgeous and might turn out to be a serious opponent. Among the ones I've seen, I'll go ahead and say Waltz with Bashir, which was truly remarkable, followed second by Golden Palm winner Entre les Murs.

Best Documentary, Features

Nominees:

The Betrayal - Nerakhoon (Kuras, Phrasavath)
Encounters at the End of the World (Herzog, Kaiser)
The Garden (Kennedy)
Man on Wire (Marsh, Chinn)
Trouble the Water (Lessin, Deal)

Man on Wire was the best documentary I have ever seen, so this one is an easy pick for me. While Herzog's Encounters was most interesting, it goes nowhere near the sheer perfection and the poetic beauty of Philippe Petit's performance art. The rest cannot even compete with these two.

Best Documentary, Short Subjects

Nominees:

The Conscience of Nhem En (Okazaki)
The Final Inch (Brodsky, Grant)
Pinki (Mylan)
The Witness from the Balcony of Room 306 (Pertofski, Hyde)

This one is like not knowing a single word of English and taking the GRE exam. No fucking clue.

Best Short Film, Animated

Nominees:

La Maison En Petits Cubes (Kato)
Ubornoya Istoriya, Iyubovnaya Istoriya (Bronzit)
Oktapodi (Mokhberi, Marchand)
Presto (Sweetland)
This Way Up (Smith, Foulkes)

Presto is an easy favorite for many, but the real deal in this year's nominees (which are much better than they normally are) is La Maison En Petit Cubes, the moving story of an old man who keeps building his house upwards on small cubes as a solution to the ever-increasing water level. Then one day he drops his pipe and with that incident begins the semi-allegorical journey underwater, among age-old memories which are remembered wistfully, not regretfully. It's about inevitable loneliness brought along by old age - in order not to be drowned by memories that are enough to fill a lifetime, you should keep building until you can't. This is the short counterpart of Les Triplettes de Belleville (Triplets of Belleville) in its wordless beauty and poetic charm. While Presto is also an amazing short, this one is slightly superior and definitely is my pick. The rest, while also good (especially the quirky graveyard comedy This Way Up) they represent a secondary level in short animations.

Best Short Film, Live Action

Nominees:

Auf Der Strecke (Caffi)
Manon Sur Le Bitume (Marre, Pont)
New Boy (Green, Anghie)
Grisen (Magnusson, Hogh)
Spielzeugland (Freydank)

Again, no clue - they should better distribute these things. I will say one thing though: the sheer multiculturalism in these short film categories is mesmerizing.

Before leaving you, let's have a brief look at the final scoreboard:

Slumdog Millionaire: 4 (major ones too)
Wall-E : 4
The Duchess: 2
The Dark Knight: 2
The Reader: 1
Vicky Cristina Barcelona: 1
In Bruges: 1
Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 1
Defiance: 1
Man on Wire: 1
Iron Man: 1
Waltz With Bashir: 1
La Maison En Petit Cubes: 1 (as if a second was even remotely possible)

So it's pretty much shared. Let's see how many of them the Academy gets right tonight.

A Closer Look At The Past and Present Of 'Best Original Screenplay' Category

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:17:00 +0000

Note: Originally, I have written this article for the LAMB Devours the Oscars, which is a 24-part article series brought to you by Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every day leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB has been published for a couple of weeks now (I am the last one before 'Best Picture), each covering a different category of the Oscars. It's definitely worth a peak!

It's a well-known fact that when it comes to the Best Picture category, Academy's hand is rather shy at making brave choices. Being 'brave' here means to be able to choose the movie which holds higher artistic significance and predictably will have a bigger impact to the future of filmmaking, instead of the one that sways popular opinion of that day. It's favoring low-budget indies over studio mammoths, if they actually are better. It's awarding 'excellence' more than marketing. The examples to the years in the Oscar history where this was not the case are many, and those instances are way overemphasized already by cinephiles of all shapes and sizes (including myself) and in all possible platforms (including this blog). Beginning from internet's first days of widespread usage, such public outcries have avalanched out of control and today you have the luxury of being able to read why the Academy sucks from hundreds of different blogs, each stating many different reasons. Regardless, let me keep beating the dead dog for the sake of refreshing your memories:

1941: How Green Was My Alley won over Citizen Kane
1944: Going My Way won over Double Indemnity
1951: An American in Paris won over A Streetcar Named Desire
1964: My Fair Lady won over Dr. Strangelove
1971: The French Connection won over A Clockwork Orange
1973: The Sting won over The Exorcist
1976: Rocky won over Taxi Driver
1979: Kramer vs Kramer won over Apocalypse Now
1980: Ordinary People won over Raging Bull
1990: Dances with Wolves won over Goodfellas
1994: Forrest Gump won over Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption
1996: The English Patient won over Fargo
1997: Titanic won over L.A. Confidential and Good Will Hunting
1998: Shakespeare in Love won over The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan
2001: A Beautiful Mind won over Gosford Park, Moulin Rouge and The Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring
2004: Million Dollar Baby won over Sideways
2005: Crash won over Good Night and Good Luck

You can add to or remove from this list some films according to your own tastes but there's no question that Academy often misfires. That's ok, I'm not making a big deal out of it - after all no real or hypothetical awards authority can always get it right; especially if the definition and meaning of the term 'right' is as subjective as it is in movie business. Over the years, I have learned well to stop complaining about overlooked films that obviously fall outside the context of the Academy Awards and accept the phenomenon for what it really is. After its 81 years of existence, it should be well established by now that yes, independent films are underrepresented, comedies are almost non-existent, foreign films merely have a single category for themselves and almost everything nominated is epic, expensive dramas equipped with exquisite crowd-pleasing qualities. That does not change the fact that cornerstones in the American film history are exhaustively represented among Oscar winners in several categories, nor the fact that this event is no less significant than any other (A plausible assertion would condemn the whole process of handing out self-congratulatory awards rather than a single one - only then all these complaints would find a reasonable basis)

The reason why I listed a fragment of an all-too-familiar list above is because I want to start looking at the 'Best Original Screenplay' Oscar from quite a broad perspective. After all, we are talking about the category which underwent the most whimsical evolutionary period over the years and therefore one that deserves no less. But before moving on to that, here is a very brief summary of that journey, which begins in the fateful year of 1927:

1927-1928 Period

Categories:

Writing (Adaptation)
Writing (Original Story)
Writing (Title Writing)

This is back when the Academy was not a gigantic monster of an institution with load of rules and regulations but merely a group of people who wanted to award excellence in film but didn't know what the best way to do that was. That's why the third category makes absolutely no sense. I am as clueless as you are when it comes to what 'Title Writing' means exactly; all I know is that it's an award that is not associated with a specific film title. Imagine the writing version of the honorary award where you could also have nominees.

Edit: I have been informed later on that 'Title Writing' refers to the titles in silent films that appear between scenes to inform us of either what's going on or what the characters have just spoken about. Not really a major writing effort if you ask me, but there you go.

1928-1930 Period

Categories:

Writing

Clean and simple and how it should've stayed if you ask me. Is 'adapting' as opposed to writing an original one a vastly distinct art form? Why don't we have the same two categories for directors and producers as well then? Their jobs must be just as much detached.

1930-1935 Period

Categories:

Writing (Adaptation)
Writing (Original Story)

First roots of the categories that we have today. First signs of the assumption that doing these two require different set of talents.

1935-1940 Period

Categories:

Writing (Screenplay)
Writing (Original Story)

So screenplays cannot consist of original stories? I guess 'screenplay' is another word whose meaning eroded with old age.

1940-1948 Period

Categories:

Writing (Screenplay)
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Writing (Original Motion Picture Story)

This is where the whole thing turns into a David Lynch film. I've tried but honestly, I cannot distinguish these three from each other in any way. The only explanation I can come up with for these puzzling 8 years is that Writer's Guild went on a strike for a third category and the Academy had no chance but to comply.

1948-1949 Period

Categories:

Writing (Motion Picture Story)
Writing (Screenplay)

A sinister attempt at reducing the number back to 2 but...

1949-1956 Period

Categories:

Writing (Motion Picture Story)
Writing (Screenplay)
Writing (Story and Screenplay)

...the Writer's Guild is will not be made fool of. Here is another ridiculous and incomprehensible trio. I am looking at these names as an alien from 50 years ahead and the third one definitely looks like to grand writing prize to me. Apparently, the first guy wrote a great story, the second guy did a good job with the screenplay but it was only the third who was able to get both of them right. I guess you wouldn't be that happy if you won one of the first two; they make you face your failures as well as your triumphs. Very constructive actually.

1956-Present

Categories:

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Despite changing names fairly frequently during the 50-something years, what the categories meant did not show any significant difference so I have grouped all of them under the same title.

Unlike its long history, the way 'Best Original Screenplay' Oscars have been handed out for the last few decades follows a very simple pattern. Looking at it from a broad perspective (as I've promised couple of paragraphs above) yields two predominant rules which define this pattern quite accurately:

1) If one of the nominees is a lock or at least a heavy favorite in the 'Best Picture' category, it's highly probable that 'Best Original Screenplay' will also go to the same film. Statistics from the last 52 years (so that we don't go back to a weird period that I don't know how to handle) show that among the 'Best Picture' winners who were also nominated for 'Best Original Screenplay', 67% of them won the writing award as well. In fact this is true for both of the writing categories; the ratio of films who won best picture without any writing awards is only 31%. Nick of Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob recently addressed in his article for LAMB Devours The Oscars the age-old question that had been haunting the 'Best Director' category for eternity: "Should the director of the 'Best Picture' not be named 'Best Director'?" In other words, do we really need to have two seperate categories to be able to award the producers? My personal response to this question obviously should be saved for another article, but let me point out that the same question is also valid for the writing categories. The statistics I've given above show that most of the time, the Academy finds the question meaningful and supports the notion that 'Best Picture' is also the best-written film of the year.

2) If either the 'Best Picture' had an adapted screenplay, or it failed to secure a nomination or a win in 'Best Original Screenplay', other parameters come into equation. In this case, the winner is almost always one of two things:

i) A film not as good/important as the 'Best Picture' winner but one that definitely deserved and needed recognition and special mention from the Academy. Here are some examples:

2007: Juno (Best Picture: No Country for Old Men)
2003: Lost in Translation (Best Picture: The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King)
2002: Talk To Her (Best Picture: Chicago)
2000: Almost Famous (Best Picture: Gladiator)
1993: The Piano (Best Picture: Schindler's List)
1991: Thelma % Louise (Best Picture: Silence of the Lambs)
1986: Hannah and Her Sisters (Best Picture: Platoon)

ii) A film that is vastly superior to the 'Best Picture' winner and therefore a soothing effect on our feelings of unrest caused by the laughable choices examplified by the list I've given at the beginning of this article. If writers and not the whole academy voted for 'Best Picture', or if we all of a sudden stopped acting like that 'Best Picture' is the most important Oscar and place a greater importance on 'Best Original Screenplay', following films would've replaced the current winners in the history of the Academy Awards:

2006: Little Miss Sunshine (Replacing: The Departed)
2005: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Replacing: Million Dollar Baby)
2001: Gosford Park (Replacing: A Beautiful Mind)
1997: Good Will Hunting (Replacing: Titanic)
1996: Fargo (Replacing: The English Patient)
1995: The Usual Suspects (Replacing: Braveheart)
1994: Pulp Fiction (Replacing: Forrest Gump)
1989: Dead Poets Society (Replacing: Driving Miss Daisy)
1976: Network (Replacing: Rocky)

Oh it would be such a wonderful world indeed...

One should notice the obvious shift from simple and popular towards complex and artistically pleasing introduced with these 'new' choices. It's also obvious both of the rules imply that 'Best Original Screenplay' category functions as an alternative/secondary 'Best Picture' award above all else. Now, I am not suggesting that this is a part of the collective minds of the Academy-member writers - I acknowledge that something as temperamental and arbitrary as any collective mind is impossible to formulize. Yet assuming the role of a statistician, the category makes much more sense from this perspective than as one that awards excellence in writing. Deliberate or not, the only consistency 'Best Original Screenplay' has had, is nothing more than this.

To me, this also means that this category is the second most important one in this awards show, for obvious reasons.

Going for a typical way to end this article, let me conclude (like many of my other friends in LAMB did) by a brief analysis of this year's nominees (the parantheses show which of the two rules described above the given film will qualify for if it wins this year):

1. Frozen River (Rule #2i)

This is the little indie that managed to impress Academy members this year and to snatch two nominations from the iron claws of bigger studio productions (and of course from those of the vicious Harvey Weinstein). I have written about this one previously so my dissatisfaction with the film is quite clear. In any case, this is Academy's way of honoring Courtney Hunt for all her efforts and, of course, for being a woman in this man-infested industry. It is one of those films for which the nomination is a win and it's clear there is no next step. I would be unpleasantly surprised if this one goes on to win the award among the other four nominees.

2. Happy-Go-Lucky (Rule #2i)

You can't go wrong with Mike Leigh. With his latest film that puts Amelie to shame in its optimism and would make Tarantino envious with the beautiful flow of the dialogue, Leigh analyzes the eccentric in all of us and its unexpected consequences. In the title role that is easily this year's most interesting, Sally Hawkins shines and it's a shame someone else stole her nomination this year. An win in this category might compensate for all that (and purely from the writing perspective, the film would definitely deserve it) but success here still seems like a distant possibility. In a weaker year, it would've had a lot more chance.

3. In Bruges (Rule #2ii)

One of the films that left me speechless last year, so much that I couldn't get myself to write a review for it. With such perfection in both writing and direction, what is left to say on the film anyway? Martin McDonagh's debut In Bruges is one of those films that would be spoilt by explanation - the sheer impact of the whole experience should best be left undisturbed. Among not only these nominees but all the films came out this year, this one deserves to win 'Best Original Screenplay' more than any other - and since it was recognized in no other category (and with the help of the screenplay's absolute perfection) it becomes an automatic frontrunner.

4. Milk (Rule #1)

If In Bruges loses this sunday, it will lose to this one. If fire rains from the heavens and the world turns upside down and Slumdog doesn't score a 'Best Picture' win, it will be Milk which replaces Boyle's film in that category. While that is almost completely impossible, that kind of buzz gives any screenplay nominee an edge over others (for reasons discussed above). Dustin Lance Black's screenplay is mostly unimpressive and merely an entertainment piece but award-handers of all types have been begging to differ. Bad news is, they might go so far as to crown Milk with a screenplay award since it's going to miss out on all the other major ones (excluding 'Best Actor' - Penn is the frontrunner in that race).

5. Wall-E (Rule #2ii)

A lot of people, including me, were upset and angry to see that Wall-E was not nominated for 'Best Picture', especially in a year where the films replacing it are so weak (same argument is valid for The Dark Knight as well). A pinnacle in animation technologies and a daring example in visual storytelling, Wall-E is a film that has something for all minds of all ages. I can't see the Academy bending its unwritten rules to hand out a screenplay award to an animation so chances are slim for this writing trio. Nevertheless, it's both refreshing and exciting to see this one as a nominee in this category - the writers are once again on the right track.

Lat Den Ratte Komma In / Let The Right One In (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:43:00 +0000

A Film To Remember

Best horror films do not scare you as much in your seat as they do afterwards. But more importantly, they are not lamentably hollow at their core - they have other reasons to exist than, say, startling people in the darkness or maybe giving shy new lovers an excuse to get physically closer. That's why, above all else, it's this writer's humble opinion that Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is without doubt the best horror film ever made to this day. In an age where horror film genre forgot how to haunt people's minds, their dreams and their subconscious minds just as intensely as the two hours spent in the theater, Let The Right One In is indeed a revitalizing experience.

But this is only one of the reasons why god decided to send this little Swedish film our way this year (little in terms of budget, not importance). The other reason, in case you're wondering, was to enable people like myself to better argue why a lot of films that were lucky enough to enjoy popularity and/or critical acclaim in recent years were actually complete trash (or, rephrasing that statement so that some don't find me unnecessarily offensive, 'not as good as people thought them to be'). You thought Frozen River was somewhere close to the upper limit in terms of low-budget realist filmmaking? You believed that Twilight was the best way to tell a teenage love story with vampires? Was either Teeth or The Grudge the best possible depiction of a monster trapped in the body of an innocent underage female? Compared to this one, did they even remotely resemble satisfying stories? Or, let's go one layer above the recently-released films: Did you think German expressionists at the beginning of the previous century were destined to reign as a small collection of people most capable of telling fantasy/horror stories? Would gore always be a pointless exercise in filmmaking as it is in Hostel or Saw series? Should we give up and embrace all the sound effect-induced moments in random gloomy frames as today's newly-emerging horror style?

Would the genre be as powerful again as it once used to be?

The conditions are rather premature to jump to the statement that after this little film, certain shortcomings that are well-known to be common among recently-released horror films are no longer the extensions of a particular trend. Even as Let The Right One In was being shown to the American audiences for the first time, a deal for its Hollywood remake was already sealed (the release date seems to be 2010, in case you were wondering). I don't particularly fancy deprecating prejudgments, but I think we all possess certain prophetic capabilities when looking into the future and trying to estimate how good that remake will be. Regardless of Let The Right One In or its remake, we will continue to sit through (or more preferably hear only the news of) a lot more mediocre-at-best horror films, maybe with the ever-increasing expectation of something different and original. We'll be sorely disappointed a lot of times; but at least now, we have more reasons now to be hopeful.

When I was inviting some of my friends to come see the movie with me in a special midnight screening, I saw their faces go sour when I used the term 'Swedish vampire film' as a tag. Only after watching Alfredson's film it became apparent to me that calling Let The Right One In a 'vampire film' is actually almost as ludicrous as calling The Reader a 'Holocaust film' (almost, not as much). I'm not advocating that it transcends the genre or anything, but clearly, a huge chunk of the film is about anything but vampires. It is unfortunate that in this century, we seem to be pathetically hung up on titles and labels and summaries more than ever before - our desperate need for as much simplicity as we can get our hands on to make our lives easier has reached unsettling proportions. Everything is always rushed; we have to judge quickly, categorize and move on so that our busy little brains will not have one more severe burden to ponder about. We have to see more, write more and do more. We basically need to produce, more than others do. In such a summer hustle, a film like Eyes Wide Shut was mostly dismissed as 'tedious and pretentious crap'; therefore it should come as no surprise that Let The Right One In was also overlooked this year, save for the top 10 lists of a handful of respectable critics. We don't like to think, but what's worse is we don't like to be reminded that we don't.

(On a brief note: I heard about this film for the first time through several of such top 10 lists. If you are among the flock of people who despise the very idea those lists, I recommend you to think twice.)

So what do we have here then? When it comes to an extremely ambitious and equally successful project like this one (which, by the way, is 'No Country For Old Men of 2008' to me) the answers should be evaluated just as meticulously. This is the story two young, isolated and blood-lusting souls. Take this statement literally for the girl (Eli) and metaphorically for the boy (Oskar). Her need is obviously physical while his is emotional, but it's hard to determine whose is greater. Eli is much much older and has seen things, so she should help Oskar one grow up and grow strong. On one level, it's the most touching coming-of-age story of a mentor-tutor relationship in which the idea of 'love' and 'devotion' is integrated so subtly that it's almost subliminal. Let The Right One In avoids making bold statements about things that are better left unsaid for it doesn't take brains to deduce them anyway (Mr. Eastwood, some precious lessons for you here). It skips the entire foreplay about the past; about how the girl became a vampire, how she met the older man (Hakan) and what happened to the father of the boy. The characters speak when they actually 'say' something and things 'happen' only if there is enough reason to make us to witness them. At its running time of almost two hours, the film is incredibly compact and complete.

'Revenge' was another term that was thrown in by many critics. While I concur that it was indeed a part of the story, it's nowhere near being the thematic centerfold of the film. Not like, say, how Tarantino elaborated on the same idea in Kill Bill or Sergio Leone did in his masterpiece Once Upon A Time In The West. In this case, the concept is more in the background, breathing life into the boy's character and making credible his motivations as well as his emotional 'defects' (if you want to call them that). It's the base that this extraordinary relationship is built upon, but the building itself is a completely different matter.

Not that the film is only about the Oskar and Eli; all the supporting characters are also given amazing complexities and depths, as if everything that the this year's Oscar-nominated films were lacking in terms of character development were channeled into this film. Certainly the most significant and dramatic example is the loving yet abusive relationship between Eli and Hakan, who seems to be responsible for making 'things' easier for her. He is a character which defies all expectations and quick judgments, even though it becomes obvious from early on in the film that she's the one pulling the strings in this 'family', that she's the parent and he's the kid or maybe she's the oppressive lover and he merely complies. It's both heartbreaking and chilling to the bone when the old man asks the girl not to see the young boy again. Not on that day at least, not when he is doing 'things' for her that is so hard to digest that he lost all sense of emotion and reality. The girl is wiser though. A pat on the cheek and that's it. He should understand. Lucky for her, he does.

There is every reason to believe that he was Oskar's predecessor; an obvious detail that I thought was lost to many critics that I've been reading lately. In fact, it's due to this fact that the anti-climactic ending of the film resonates so well. Though the use of Hakan, the film incapsulates both the past and the future of any relationship Eli would keep on having with mortals. It's both sad and horrifying. The hopeless, cyclical nature of this vampire's life, in which there'll be many more lover/servant/friends coming in and going out periodically, is depicted most poignantly. The hopes and excitements at every new corner (such as young Oskar) is accompanied by the presence of long-accumulated frustration. The calm, familiar sense of loneliness and despair. For Eli, it's fate at its most relentless form.

Alfredson should also be praised for making best possible use of the landscape of Stockholm suburbia to paint a portrait of confinement and desolation. There are countless scenes where he introduces new dimensions to cinematic visuality. It's realism at its most beautiful form. In fact, everything happening in this film looks and feels so real that you feel things could jump out of the screen any moment. As far as locations are concerned, it could be your house and your neighborhood. It could be your kid's school. If vampires were real, a documentary about their hunting, feeding and mating habits would've looked like this. The camera is always distant and restrained, almost scared. Yes, this means there was gore but nothing is excessive. Like the genius first half of Jaws or the genius both halves of Psycho, all you see is what you need to see. No fangs, for instance, no overtly-long and dark suspense scenes. No time to lose on such trivial things - there is a whole story to tell.

With Let The Right One In, Tomas Alfredson tells a powerful visual story using minimal literary narrative accompanied by just as minimal camera movements, with an expertise that elevates him well above the Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who pays attention to merely the technical aspect of this style yet somehow still manages to impress the European critical circles with each film he makes. Let The Right One In is something else; it's a miracle that will remind you 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days or Silent Light or maybe no less than Tarkovski himself. It will remind you the best examples of Bergman. As a horror film, on the other hand, it's comparable to The Shining and almost nothing else. Films like this are why we love movies.

10/10

Revolutionary Road (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:41:00 +0000

An Intelligent Premise Gone Bad

Revolutionary Road is a film where men last less than 30 seconds and women would be content with even 3 because they always have more pressing issues. For most of them it's the daily humdrum of suburban life while for April Wheeler, it's the continuous effort to find a way to start living the life she had envisioned for herself when she fell in love and got married. For this cause, she is even willing to work herself, take the responsibility to look after the family and give her husband, Frank, the time he needs to figure out what he really wants to do with his life. All she wants is to abandon their current lifestyle for good. Being a salesman at Knox and taking the train to work every morning like dozens of other men in suits and fedora hats (visualized beautifully in one of the film's most worthwhile scenes), Frank shares April's aspiration for a better, but more importantly, an exciting life that to them seems possible only beyond American suburbia. He is more than happy to cooperate. For a while at least.

This is a married couple who have pinned all their hopes and ambitions to Paris for no apparent reason, save for the rumor that they paid crazy amounts for secretarial jobs in government agencies in Europe; a rumor which they conveniently never question. For all we know, they might be choosing that specific city over dozens of others just because its name radiates a romantic and adventurous feel. When their exasperation is so extreme, there is no time for reasoning. They are so busy trying to get out that they have no time to plan where to get in once they do.

The fact that 'things' get in the way of all their plans is probably both favorable and not. It's good because once faced with the impossible amount of complications brought along, they wake up from their dreams of a blind date with Paris. But it's also a misfortune because everything happens after this point further accentuates their dysfunction as a couple. One of the film's rare accomplishments is to show us, at this point, that none of the parties in this family is solely responsible from everything they go through - they are simply not right for each other, as is most often the case in real life.

It's the lighthearted feel-bad movie of the year where dreams are made impossible by life itself. It becomes apparent with this film that director Sam Mendes of American Beauty is not at all done with American suburbia, whether it be the one we witness today or the one that our parents did years ago. This is fine, but the problem is, there are countless other films (Little Children, Edward Scissorhands, The Stepford Wives and its remake) and TV Shows (Weeds, Desperate Housewives) that address the same issue, either through parody or critique. Needless to say, all of the examples I have listed do an excellent job, both intellectually and aesthetically (except for later seasons of Desperate Housewives) and if one wants to tackle the same subject again, he/she must be able to top them. Or at least should hit a different note and provide us with something that hasn't already been done numerous times before. In this aspect, Revolutionary Road has nothing to offer.

Substantial problems in details further sink Revolutionary Road. First of such flaws is the fact that the film is drowned in overtly theatrical and disturbingly descriptive monologues; mostly reserved for Kate Winslet to make her appear more Oscar-worthy (but hey, it worked for the Golden Globes). Throughout these monologues, the whole point of the film (which I believe I was able to summarize quite exhaustively in the few paragraphs above) is repeated over and over again to a point that it loses its meaning and significance. Here is one of such monologues to refresh your memory:

No Frank, this is what's unrealistic. It's unrealistic for a man with a fine mind to go on working, year after year, at a job he can't stand; coming home to a place he can't stand; to a wife who is equally unable to stand the same things. Do you want to know the worst part? Our whole existence here is based on this great premise that we're... special and superior to the whole thing. But we're not! We're just like everyone else! Look at us; we've bought into the same ridiculous delusion; this idea that you have to resign from life and settle down the moment you have children. And we've been punishing each other for it.

Here is another jewel of a monologue about truth:

Why not? I don't need everything we have here; I don't care where we live. I mean, who made these rules anyway? Look, the only reason we moved out here was because I got pregnant. Then we had another child to prove the first one wasn't a mistake. I mean, how long does it go on?! Frank? Do you actually want another child? Well do you? Come on, tell me. Tell me the truth Frank! Remember that? We used to live by it. And you know what's so good about the truth? Everyone knows what it is, however long they've lived without it. No one forgets the truth Frank, they just get better at lying. So tell me, do you really want another child?

Come to think of it, this was the exact scene shown to the audience when Winslet's name was announced as a nominee in tonight's SAG awards. So I guess the fish bit the hook in this one.

If you are going to tell word by word what the movie is all about, then it is my humble opinion that you don't need to make the movie itself. If I'm going to be treated like a little kid in an elementary school, if the writer is so obsessed in making me understand his subject matter that he makes his characters describe themselves to the audience and if an inanimate object can draw the same conclusions from the movie as I do, than that movie is nothing more than a waste of two precious hours from one's life.

Not only the monologues but everything else in the film, every discussion, every argument, every single excitement and tension boils down to the same theme of 'living the life one wants' as opposed to what he/she is forced to. It's a powerful theme but the best way to cultivate it would be either to expand it (like Little Children did) or deepen it (like American Beauty) as opposed to keep repeating a single tagline. It is for this reason that I believe Revolutionary Road would've worked a lot better as a 15-minute short film and -needless to say- this is never a good sign for a full-length motion picture.

Another flaw I can think on the top of my head is the overtly theatrical lines/moments which distract the audience from the intensity of this could-be-real story. Here is an example...

(Frank discovers the rubber tubes and explodes)

Frank: Listen to me, you do this April, you do this and I swear to god...
April: What? You'll leave me? Is that a threat or a promise?

... and another one:

(John Givings, played by Oscar-nominated Michael Shannon, drops by with his mother Helen and father Howard to meet the Wheelers. Helen, who is obviously at unease with her son's extreme inquisitiveness and inappropriate questions, walks up to the window and tries changing the subject)

John: See, I've got a good many questions to ask and I'm willing to pay for the answers. Now I don't need to be told that a man who goes after his mother with a coffee table is putting himself in a weak position legally, that's obvious.
Helen: John, come have a look out this fabulous picture window!
John: If he hits her with it and kills her, that's a criminal case.
Helen: Oh look, the sun is coming out!
John: If all he does is break the coffee table and give her a certain amount of aggravation and she decides to go to court over it, that's a civil case.
Helen: Maybe we'll have a rainbow! John, come have a look!

Theatricalities like these work for certain films but certain films only. Revolutionary Road is not one of them.

While we are on the subject of John Givings, allow me to say that both his character and his performance is the most pathetic way to try to appear smart, unexpected and interesting. The mentally challenged ex math doctor is the least expected person to understand the complexity of the given situation yet -big surprise- it's no one but him who puts his finger on what's fundamentally wrong with the Wheeler family! In the 'look how smartly written and brilliantly acted this character is and be impressed by him' dinner sequence towards the end, he misfires even when delivering the powerful line: "I'm glad I'm not gonna be that kid". Yet it's the Academy this time to take the bait and before you know it, he is nominated for an Oscar in the supporting actor category which, by the way, has no sign of Ralph Fiennes's career-defining performance in The Duchess. It's one of those many instances when one tends to believe that AMPAS has no credibility left at all (But that's such a typical to say nowadays, isn't it?)

As for other performances, I can easily say that Winslet does her best with the lines she is given but Leonardo DiCaprio, whose ambitious transformation from a teenage heartthrob into a serious actor I had been admiring for a while, is completely lost in his role as the loving yet tenacious, aggressive and predictable husband who is constantly fighting for dominance and control. Not that there is anything significant that he's doing wrong but his presence is faint and insubstantial. Some roles are not good for certain actors and I guess this was one of such roles for Leo. The rest of the cast is just the way they're supposed to be - decent enough.

All in all, Revolutionary Road is built on a admirable premise but is a wasted opportunity merely because of the BAFTA-nominated screenplay. The fundamental flaws in its execution makes me unable to fully absorb a lot of its strengths, such as the incredibly intense and nerve-shattering breakfast sequence at the end where you immediately sense that something is terribly wrong but can't put your finger on it. It's the deep breath before the plunge. And it is one of those moments where the extent of Kate Winslet's talents become most apparent. To find the perfect balance between greatly disturbing and perfectly normal is not a job everybody can pull off.

4/10

Note: This article is a part of the 2008 awards season review series which will be the primary feature of The Long Take until the Oscar Night. The information below will be updated as listed awards are handed out and more nominations are announced.

Nominated For:

Best Achievement in Art Direction (Kristi Zea & Debra Schutt) - Academy Awards
Best Achievement in Costume Design (Albert Wolsky) - Academy Awards
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Michael Shannon) - Academy Awards

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases (Roger Deakins) - American Society of Cinematographers

Best Costume Design (Albert Wolsky) - BAFTA Awards
Best Leading Actress (Kate Winslet) - BAFTA Awards
Best Production Design (Kristi Zea & Debra Schutt) - BAFTA Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay (Justin Haythe) - BAFTA Awards

Best Supporting Actor (Michael Shannon) - Chicago Film Critics Association

Excellence in Costume Design for Film (Albert Wolsky) - Costume Designers Guild Awards

Best Director, Motion Picture (Sam Mandes) - Golden Globes
Best Motion Picture, Drama - Golden Globes
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama (Leonardo DiCaprio) - Golden Globes

Actress of the Year (Kate Winslet) - London Critics Circle Film Awards
British Actress of the Year (Kate Winslet) - London Critics Circle Film Awards

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Kate Winslet) - Screen Actors Guild Awards

Won:

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama (Kate Winslet) - Golden Globes

Best Actress (Kate Winslet) - Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards

Who Should've Won, Who Should Win & Who Deserved

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:23:00 +0000

More Featured Articles For The Awards Season

I have been doing not so bad with the awards season film reviews that I had promised would be the primary feature on The Long Take until the end of Oscar Night, if you don't mind me saying that. I look back and see I have posted 7 reviews that is relevant and 10 posts in total this month and this is way above my average. I will take this chance to congratulate myself for learning how to fulfill my promises.

So far I have been posting reviews of films only because this is the time of the year when I spend the most time watching movies and I barely have enough time and energy to keep writing reviews for them as I go. I am still behind schedule as I am yet to review a few of the year's most talked about films (a.k.a. the ones with most nominations); but I am aware that in order to make this feature more complete, I need to write some higher-level articles that analyze what's going on in the awards circles at this time of the year. In line with this notion, I have pinned down what additional features that this article series need most; and I would like to share them with you, as always.

1. In all my arrogance, I have decided to inform you about who I think should've won in the Golden Globes, who should win in the upcoming Oscars and the films/people that really deserved to win in the categories specified by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). They might appear slightly confusing at first glance, so let me clarify:

Who should've won in the Golden Globes is a post where I proudly declare my choices for deserving winners among the nominees presented by Hollywood Foreign Press Association. In years to come, this post will always come after the winners are announced because, frankly, I never have enough time to be able to see all the nominated films before the Golden Globe night and I don't want to make up my mind based on my prejudices and preconceptions.
Who should win in the Oscars is a post where I write about my picks among the nominees presented by AMPAS. I should be able to post this before the Oscar Night because after that, the excitement for the whole thing dies down and awards season comes to an end.
The year's real deserving winners is where I freely choose the should-be-winners for almost every Oscar category according to my own criteria - therefore the nominees are of no interest at this point. This one should come sometime after the Oscar Night because I want it to be more conclusive than tension-heightening.

For all these three post, I will also analyze, hopefully every year, what percentage that the awards organizations were able to get the winners right. Yes, I am that full of myself. On the other hand I think it makes more sense than trying to guess the winners, unless you are gambling on them (which I also did in the past) so at least I have good reason to be.

Due to the sheer number of categories, the commentary on each one needs to be short so don't expect anything epic.

2. Year's Oscar Commentary will be an article, where I will elaborate on notable aspects of the year's Oscar nominations. Although Stephanie Zacharek commented recently that this stuff was too unimaginative to be interesting, I still think I can see certain patterns in the way the Academy behaves and those should be of interest. Besides, every year there is a little bit of surprise here and there so it's not an entirely pointless effort.

I predict that it will be in the nature of this article to be kind of repetitive; you might see in it what hundreds of others have already said but every now and then I might catch something original so I'm hoping it'll be a worthy read. Obviously, I will not steal from people without giving credit but I don't read that much so I can't guarantee 100% originality. After all, a surprise is a surprise for everyone, not just me.

3. Conclusive Article of The Year will be an annual wrap-up of things and will include:

Best 10 Movies of The Year: It's the tradition that everybody abides so why shouldn't I? There is no big suspense here as you can always track the latest situation with my best 10 list on the left bar. I will try to have a review for all the films in that list so that the list itself will consist only of links to my original articles and maybe a few sentences for each entry.
Worst 3 Movies of The Year: Similar to the one above, I will celebrate the people who were able to come up with the most unpleasant things we have seen on the silver screen in the given year.
Conclusive Commentary: A little bit of blabber about the year in general in terms of movies. Notable details, things to be remembered in the future and whatever else that I see fit.

The awards season period in The Long Take will come to an end with this wrap-up post so it will be the latest among all these.

So... More features means more promises - I can only hope I will be able to keep up. Until then, stay tuned.

Ghost Town (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:59:00 +0000

A Film By David Koepp The Talent Neutralizer

Before we go into the latest film that was privileged to star Ricky Gervais in it (of which there are only a handful), let's pause for a moment to pay our respects to the career of writer/director David Koepp, who has been ruining, with mesmerizing skill and determination, a high variety of promising projects for a couple of years now. I am aware that he co-wrote Jurassic Park, which happens to be one of my favorite films, but I have strong faith in Michael Crichton's positive influence in that one. Carlito's Way was good enough but after that came a number of other utterly unremarkable projects (which include but are not limited to The Trigger Effect, The Paper and The Shadow). He joined forces with Brian de Palma and Mission: Impossible became his first film to have posters where the name 'Tom Cruise' would be advertised in bigger fonts than the actual title of the film. This was closely followed by a second round with Steven Spielberg for a Jurassic Park sequel. I would have a couple of mean things to say about these two films, but I will save my breath for the really catastrophic part.

This brings me to David Fincher, whom I have always thought of as an extremely talented director. He does wonders as long as he does not team up with a guy who insists on telling the story of Forrest Gump over and over again; or with a guy who, in the best case scenario, will have hard time going beyond the ordinary. Thanks to the latter, an A-list director who had films like Fight Club, Se7en and The Game to his name until then, became responsible from something like Panic Room.

Koepp then found someone very much like himself in the talent department and adapted Spider-Man, which was a huge commercial success and did considerably good with critics. I didn't think it was a particularly bad film as well - it was nice in a TV movie sort of way. You know, the ones you forget after approximately a couple of minutes after watching. Not more than two years after that something incomprehensible happened and a project with the names Johnny Depp, John Turturro and Stephen King attached to it turned out to be even worse than Spidey. Before we could think what went wrong where, Steven Spielberg realized -in the hard way- that third time was not really a charm; Koepp wrote arguably his worst film that is known to mankind today and needless to say, it was a traumatic experience for everyone. For some reason though, Spielberg persisted the cooperation (because of box office numbers maybe?) until this time he ruined a whole franchise that had been sweeping a whole generation for years; alienating fan base so hardcore that until then was believed to have been impossible to turn away.

And now he takes one of the world's most beloved comedians and reduces him to Hugh Grant. In my book, that's a dead-serious atrocity.

Yes, I do believe that Ricky Gervais is one of the most talented of his generation. He is a real comedic genius and terrific performer; his collection of stand-ups (i.e. Animals, Politics and Fame) is a must-see, but the real extent of his talent is quantified by The Office (British version, obviously), Extras and his short, mostly-improvised gigs in the awards ceremonies. I loved his cameo-like appearance in Stardust and seeing him act against Robert de Niro was like a dream come true. That's why I was quite excited to see Ghost Town where he got to play a comedic lead, even though the whole thing looked like just another reprehensible romantic comedy.

With Koepp, I should've known better.

This is basically the story of a man who, after a bizarre set of events, is able to see dead people but more importantly, they are able to see that he sees them; the dead people in this case being the ones whose death left an unfinished business behind. And as semi-ghosts tend to do in cases like this, everybody has a small request from him so that they will be done with all the earthly matters and their souls will find eternal peace. Bertram Pincus (played by Gervais) though is a bitter asshole who couldn't care less. That is, until he strikes a deal with Frank (played by Greg Kinnear) who is good at convincing people to do things because that used to be his job before he kicked the bucket. The rules of the game are clear: Pincus will help Frank with his unfinished business and in exchange, Frank will convince everybody else to leave Pincus alone.

The rest is a melodramatic story of personal awakenings and -as always- the real meaning of life, spiced up with occasional funny moments. It is Sixth Sense and Ghost cooked in the same pot and finished with a heavy cream of romantic comedy conventions. I will not go so far as to say that Ghost Town is not enjoyable; it definitely has its moments and depending on how much you can tolerate movie cliches, you might even find it satisfying as a whole. As for me, I am used to watching trite films and not caring about them, even to write a review; but in this case my pain is to see Ricky Gervais being wasted in one of them.

5/10

Frozen River (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:41:00 +0000

Ankle-Deep Waters Of Storytelling

Until a short while ago, I had been trying my hand in writing short stories and novellas. During all my seemingly-endless efforts to create, I was lucky enough to have a wonderful woman as both by mentor and my tutor, who called me -much to my embarrassment- her 'fellow writer'. She was a professional writer, she had novels which I had read and admired. When I asked her to sign them for me, that's what she wrote: "To my fellow writer, whose works I tremendously enjoy".

She was a real intellectual; doing justice to the word which is frequently thrown around nowadays. Due to her father's job as a diplomat, she had constantly traveled and seen a lot. Aside from writing, she had worked as a translator, consular assistant, pianist and church organist. She had the incredible ability to look through what you had written and instantly know whatever was wrong with it. But more important than all that, she was always constructive in her criticism; she would never be condescending towards a newbie writer and never kill the enthusiasm he had for writing; all the while managing to make him understand, one by one, what she thought was significantly wrong with the 'work' she was given. I cannot even begin to imagine how many precious future writers she has been (and still is) contributing to artistically.

If I had written Frozen River's screenplay as a short story and shown it to her for feedback, I'm sure even she would've laughed in my face.

Courtney Hunt's directorial debut stirred much attention this year as an innovative independent film about universal nature of family ties (those between the mother and the children anyway). It's a film about a woman (Ray) with serious monetary problems who, in order to make her ends meet, starts smuggling people from Canada to U.S. using a river on the border which freezes during winter. Her accomplice is a Mohawk woman (Lila) who is too blind to count money but can see car tracks on the snow at night time without her glasses. Both sides of the river belong to a certain Mohawk territory so what they are doing is not illegal, Lila explains; but we as the audience, along with Ray, have doubts as to how much that explanation would suffice once faced with a border patrol.

Courtney uses a realist visuality which presumably should give the film a more stark and intense look, but in fact is absolutely amateur at best. I will go as far as to say that Frozen River is a living proof that not everybody can make films. Call me elitist, call me conservative, call me whatever you want but there is no way for anyone to claim that this is actually a good movie without confusing subtlety with mediocrity.

It's a family drama where the little boy wants Santa to bring him their house as a Christmas gift, which they are about to lose due to economical difficulties. The elder brother holds on for dear life to the blowtorch that his dad gave him because..., well, you know... he misses him so much and stuff. During the smuggling operation, border patrol will not search Ray's car, proclaims Lisa. "Why?" you might ask naively. Because she's white of course! Frozen River is like the combined personification of all the cliches that are out there to be used. It's the kind of story that I would be ashamed to have my name attached to, even if I had written it for a high school writing exercise.

On top everything, why they would advertise the film as a "gripping thriller" in the trailers, is beyond me.

3/10

Nominated For:

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Melissa Leo) - Academy Awards
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Courtney Hunt) - Academy Awards

Best Actress (Melissa Leo) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Most Promising Filmmaker (Courtney Hunt) - Chicago Film Association Awards

Best Director (Courtney Hunt) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best Feature - Independent Spirit Awards
Best Female Lead (Melissa Leo) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best First Screenplay (Courtney Hunt) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best Supporting Female (Misty Upham) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best Supporting Male (Charlie McDermott) - Independent Spirit Awards

Golden Seashell (Courtney Hunt) - San Sebastian International Film Festival

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Melissa Leo) - Screen Actors Guild Awards

Won:

Best Directorial Debut (Courtney Hunt) - National Board of Review
Spotlight Award (Melissa Leo) - National Board of Review

Best First Film (Courtney Hunt) - New York Critics Circle Awards

SIGNIS Award (Courtney Hunt) - San Sebastian International Film Festival
Silver Seashell, Best Actress (Melissa Leo) - San Sebastian International Film Festival
TVE Otra Mirada Award (Courtney Hunt) - San Sebastian International Film Festival

Bronze Horse, Best Film (Courtney Hunt) - Stockholm Film Festival

Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic (Courtney Hunt) - Sundance Film Festival

Best Actress (Melissa Leo) - Florida Film Critics Circle Awards

Milk (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:34:00 +0000

Harvey Milk Deserves More Than Awards Season Hollywood

Despite the fact that it's quite far from being a cinematical masterpiece, Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain was a landmark on many aspects. It was one of the few gay-themed films ever to be nominated for Best Picture in Academy Awards. More importantly it was the first gay romance/drama to receive mainstream appreciation throughout the world. It was one of the rare cases where an Asian director tackled an entirely American concept and succeeded in telling a highly-sensitive story. But maybe the most important one of such landmarks has brought more harm than good, because Ang Lee's film has emphasized the phenomenon of a heterosexual actor portraying a gay character on screen more boldly than ever before and equated the notion, in our heads, to talent and success in acting. Provided that there isn't something disastrously wrong with them, the perception of such performances has been permanently defaulted to critical acclaim after Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Gus Van Sant's Milk is one of latest films to exploit this newly-found weak spot among critical circles. Encapsulating a universal message of tolerance and understanding, featuring a talented actor in the leading role playing a heroic but also eccentric historical figure and following a smooth and conventional plotline, the release date of Milk should come off as no surprise to anyone.

Whatever I have written for my review of Frost/Nixon (or more precisely, whatever Jim Emerson has written for me) is obviously valid here as well. Rob Epstein's Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk renders Gus Van Sant's Milk utterly useless, save for the star-driven entertainment factor. How inconsiderate it is for Van Sant to take the story which is sensitively and masterfully told by Epstein and reduce it to this level, is yet another legitimate question to ask; but one thing is certain: It is quite disillusioning to see the famed director take the easy way out of this one.

As for Sean Penn, I don't think his depiction of Harvey Milk is particularly bad. On the contrary, I think it's quite entertaining to watch him and everyone around him as well for the duration of the whole film (Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin and James Franco are only a portion of Milk's the ensemble cast). As opposed to what the majority seems to be thinking though, I don't see anything going on here that is more significant than, say, Dustin Hoffman in Last Chance Harvey or Clive Owen in Shoot 'Em Up. It's mere simple-minded, relaxing fun.

In Jim Emerson's own words: "Watch these clips from The Times of Harvey Milk to discover resonant details that didn't make the Hollywood cut."

I will add only three more points to Emerson's rather short double-review:

1. Having witnessed the same phenomenon twice in 2008 made me realize one disgusting fact: Unless an issue becomes the subject of an entertainment-driven, multi-million dollar oscar-bait that is strategically released towards the end of the year and opens to wide critical acclaim, it will not garner attention. How important the issue is quite irrelevant. It doesn't even matter if someone was able to display a striking expertise in handling the subject and make a far superior documentary only a couple of years ago. People will take the bait and old school Hollywood oversimplification will win over his work to be declared 'a masterpiece'.

2. Along with the simplify-for-entertainment attitude, Milk embodies another atrocity often encouraged by the awards authorities: 'Imitate someone famous to grab a statuette'. This film is another one of those cases where actors cease to be actors and become mere impersonators. We, as the 21st century audience on the other hand, have learned well to shape our tastes in harmony with these handful of awards shows, all of which tend to favor such performances over others. We are constantly mesmerized by how similar an actor looks to the actual historical figure and how they talk in exactly the same way; all the while forgetting about everything else that makes a great film (or a great performance for that matter). Sean Penn in Milk is only this year's example; if you go back only a few years, similar cases are many.

Next time you see a semi-fictional biography, award yourself with this thinking exercise: Is there anything else to the film, other than the 'acting' job that has win you over? And is there anything else that the actor is able to accomplish, other than a decent impersonation of the celebrity?

3. The best way to tell the story of a historical figure is not necessarily going through everything he has accomplished in his life, one by one, as if lining up beads on a string. Like Todd Haynes of I'm Not There, one should have a firm understanding of the man himself and then reflect that information on screen using all the facilities made available by the language of cinema. Any less effort than this is a lazy attempt. In order not to risk misunderstanding, I will make one thing very clear: It is not my intention, by saying this, to formulate a standard approach to making semi-fictional biographies. I just want to stress that sometimes, for some people, what happened in their lives is not enough to define who they are.

Harvey Milk is such a person.

5/10

Nominated For:

Best Achievement in Costume Design (Danny Glicker) - Academy Awards
Best Achievement in Directing (Gus Van Sant) - Academy Awards
Best Achievement in Editing (Elliot Graham) - Academy Awards
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score (Danny Elfman) - Academy Awards
Best Motion Picture of the Year - Academy Awards
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Sean Penn) - Academy Awards
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Josh Brolin) - Academy Awards
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Dustin Lance Black) - Academy Awards

Best Edited Feature Film, Dramatic (Elliot Graham) - American Cinema Editors

Excellence in Production Design, Period Films (Bill Groom) - Art Directors Guild

Best Film - BAFTA Awards
Best Leading Actor (Sean Penn) - BAFTA Awards
Best Make up & Hair (Steven E. Anderson & Michael White) - BAFTA Awards
Best Original Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black) - BAFTA Awards

Best Actor (Sean Penn) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Best Director (Gus Van Sant) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Best Original Score (Danny Elfman) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Best Original Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Best Picture - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

Excellence in Costume Design for Film, Period (Danny Glicker) - Costume Designers Guild Awards

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Gus Van Sant) - Directors Guild of America

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama (Sean Penn) - Golden Globes

Best Cinematography (Harris Savides) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best First Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best Male Lead (Sean Penn) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best Supporting Male (James Franco) - Independent Spirit Awards

Actor of the Year (Sean Penn) - London Critics Circle Film Awards
Director of the Year (Gus Van Sant) - London Critics Circle Film Awards
Film of the Year - London Critics Circle Film Awards

Motion Picture Producer of the Year (Dan Jinks & Bruce Cohen) - Producers Guild of America

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture - Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (Josh Brolin) - Screen Actors Guild Awards

Best Original Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black) - Writers Guild of America

Won:

Best Actor (Sean Penn) - Boston Society of Film Critics Awards
Best Director (Gus Van Sant) - Boston Society of Film Critics Awards
Best Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black) - Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

Best Actor (Sean Penn) - Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

Best Supporting Actor (Josh Brolin) - National Board of Review

Best Actor (Sean Penn) - New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Supporting Actor (Josh Brolin) - New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Picture - New York Film Critics Circle Awards

Stanley Kramer Award - Producers Guild of America

Best Actor (Sean Penn) - Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
Best Picture - Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
Best Original Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black) - Southeastern Film Critics Association

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Sean Penn) - Screen Actors Guild Awards

Ten Best Movies of the Year - American Film Institute Awards

Frost/Nixon (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:35:00 +0000

Life Is Stranger Than Fiction Sometimes

If you had been following Jim Emerson's blog this year, you should've had noticed several jewels that he wrote whenever he had some spare time from his rather pointless and puerile campaign to prove that Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight was not that much of a spectacle that pretty much everybody thought it was. Among the latest of such jewels is an article named: Frost/Nixon/Milk: Get Real, where he makes a tremendously accurate point; such that just because I don't feel like beating a dead dog, I will keep this review much shorter than usual. I don't want you to waste your time here and watch me regurgitate while you could go to Jim's blog instead and read the actual piece which summarizes, with the exact phrases and sentences I had in mind, why I disliked the films in question.

I will save the Milk part of the argument to a later post (which is destined to be a nutshell one for obvious reasons) but here is what Jim thinks in his own words:

Frost/Nixon and Milk are glossy products of the Hollywood awards season, prestige pictures in the grand red-carpet tradition of fashioning uplifting, larger-than-life entertainments out of semi-fictionalized semi-recent historical events. The thing is, both have been treated far more thrillingly on documentaries that are available on DVD. Think Frost/Nixon provided compelling drama, suspense and astoundingly rich performances? It can't approach the actual interviews, which have just been released as "Frost/Nixon: The Original Watergate Interviews." Think Milk was a moving look at a charismatic public figure and a key period in American civil rights? You have not begun to be moved until you see Rob Epstein's Oscar-winning "The Times of Harvey Milk", which is also a more complex, less hagiographic portrait of the man and his heady times.

Jim also makes available a five-minute clip from the original interviews which he thinks "provides more compelling drama and suspense (and adrenaline) than the entire feature film", and I candidly agree. For your convenience, I have attached the video here as well. Watch for yourself and decide whether Peter Morgan's play -or screenplay- does justice to what kind of power struggle dominated these interviews. You be the judge to the degree of accuracy in Michael Sheen's naive and vulnerable depiction of David Frost, who in fact appears to be a very strong character and a formidable prosecutor. Contemplate on whether or not Frank Langella's wildly praised, Golden-Globe-nominated performance as Richard Nixon is overdone, both in terms of intonations and the enigmatic nature of the character:

After I watched it roughly during Christmastime in Florida with my friend, we both had the same opinion of the film: It was decent entertainment and we were both disappointed that it wasn't anything more. The subject of Frost/Nixon interviews is like a glass of valuable single malt whiskey - in this case it is watered down with pointless subplots so that everybody would be able to drink it effortlessly and without being disturbed much by the strong, characteristic flavors as well as the long aftertaste (I'm sure my friend wouldn't appreciate this allegory though; he likes his scotch with diet coke, that disgusting little chap).

One interesting thing about the whole film though is how it sheds light on the background of the entertainment industry, even when it's disguised as a serious political interview. It draws attention to the power of numerous small details in a broadcast that make all the difference. The power struggle between the two men is good enough for a fictional accounting of the events but much less complex than and definitely far away from the reality itself. Every now and then but especially towards the end, the film becomes gripping and fluid too, thanks to its fast enough pace and carefully-constructed plotline. Narratively speaking, there might not be a lot of things wrong with Frost/Nixon but how necessary this film is and what it contributes to anyone or anything are the key questions here. Why would any self-respecting individual would prefer watching this instead of the real interviews (which are conveniently located on YouTube) if they are seriously interested in the subject?

Upon a closer, more considered look, Frost/Nixon reveals itself to be a waste of time for everything other than simple entertainment.

5/10

Nominated For:

Best Achievement in Directing (Ron Howard) - Academy Awards
Best Achievement in Editing (Mike Hill & Daniel P. Hanley) - Academy Awards
Best Motion Picture of the Year - Academy Awards
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Frank Langella) - Academy Awards
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published (Peter Morgan) - Academy Awards

Best Edited Feature Film, Dramatic (Mike Hill & Dan Hanley) - American Cinema Editors

Best Actor (Frank Langella) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay (Peter Morgan) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

Excellence in Production Design, Period Films (Michael Corenblith) - Art Directors Guild

Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Ron Howard) - Directors Guild of America

Best Director, Motion Picture (Ron Howard) - Golden Globes
Best Motion Picture, Drama - Golden Globes
Best Original Score, Motion Picture (Hans Zimmer) - Golden Globes
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama (Frank Langella) - Golden Globes
Best Screenplay, Motion Picture (Peter Morgan) - Golden Globes

Actor of the Year (Frank Langella) - London Critics Circle Film Awards
British Actor of the Year (Michael Sheen) - London Critics Circle Film Awards
British Supporting Actor of the Year (Toby Jones) - London Critics Circle Film Awards

Motion Picture Producer of the Year (Brian Grazer, Ron Howard & Eric Fellner) - Producers Guild of America

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture - Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Frank Langella) - Screen Actors Guild Awards

Best Adapted Screenplay (Peter Morgan) - Writers Guild of America

Best Director (Ron Howard) - BAFTA Awards
Best Editing (Mike Hill & Dan Hanley) - BAFTA Awards
Best Film - BAFTA Awards
Best Leading Actor (Frank Langella) - BAFTA Awards
Best Make Up & Hair (Edouard F. Henriques & Kim Santantonio) - BAFTA Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay (Peter Morgan) - BAFTA Awards

Won:

Best Actor (Frank Langella) - Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
Best Director (Ron Howard) - Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
Best Film Editing (Daniel P. Hanley & Mike Hill) - Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
Best Picture - Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
Best Screenplay (Peter Morgan) - Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards

Ten Best Movies of the Year - American Film Institute Awards

The Wrestler (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:51:00 +0000

Aronofsky Declines As Rourke Rises, And They Meet Somewhere In Between

The Wrestler by the acclaimed director Aronofsky, whose earlier works include his magnum opus Requiem for a Dream and the magnificent The Fountain, is a touching film for reasons that go beyond the story told on screen. When Randy (played by Mickey Rourke, one of the most interesting careers Hollywood has ever seen) calmly complains, in a bar scene that "the 90s fuckin' sucked", he creates one of the most emotionally charged moments of the film. As you might already know, Rourke's career (and arguably his life) was heading towards the rock-bottom during the late 80s and early 90s when he quit acting and engaged in professional boxing despite his old age. Hearing him say those lines in a film where he makes his big comeback from pain and misery to appreciation and praise, is simply touching to say the least.

Recently in an interview published in Rotten Tomatoes where Rourke shared with us his five favorite films, he also declared: "[The Wrestler] is a movie I'm very proud of. It's the best movie I've ever made". It should come as no surprise, considering the numerous parallels one can draw between Randy and Rourke - replace wrestling with boxing and Randy's life with Rourke's film career, you pretty much have a different version of Mickey Rourke's life story; a version with an arguably sadder ending than what we have witnessed in the Golden Globe ceremony last night. And this is exactly the reason why the aforementioned scene (and maybe the film itself as well) works as a moving emotional climax.

The Wrestler is about a pro wrestler who lives with the haunting memories of his successful past as well as the lack of a lot of things in his life which he didn't realize were missing until he found himself completely lonely save for his buddies at 'work' and a stripper in a club where he is a regular. The story progresses, with incredible realism and attention to detail, as Randy uses his reputation to make his living by taking parts in scripted matches; until he is offered a comeback fight with his legendary 'arch-nemesis' The Ayatollah, in exchange for a huge bulk of money. And what starts out as an opportunity to make his ends meet and relive the excitement and pride which used to be so common to him in the past, evolves into his only chance to put meaning into his life; because eventually he comes to the realization that outside the arena, he is no one. He has no further chances in life and has nothing else to be proud of.

Randy is an optimist and cheerful character despite everything; even when he has to accept the job at a local deli to hand out pasta salad to older ladies who are never content with the amount of things, he is patient and he does his best to accept that lifestyle and go on. He provides a perfect balance to a film which falls slightly towards the depressing side (as they tend to, when Aronofsky's name is attached to them). But eventually, he goes mental over a fan's recognition of his face because that incident slaps the cold hard reality into his face. That specific moment also starts the turn of events, towards the end of which we find ourselves holding our breaths for a reason that I will not spoil within this review. But I should note that The Wrestler has nothing less than a perfect ending.

Rourke's performance received a lot of rave reviews and praise, and he deserves it - his depiction of Randy is considered and sober, if not too close to his own character at times. But then again, the whole film closely resembles his own life so maybe the best way to play the character for Rourke was to play himself. Towards the end of every year we have a couple of films like The Wrestler; films that mostly rely on the performance(s) of the lead actor(s) and don't offer much in terms of everything else. Last year we had Away From Her and La Vie en Rose; before that Venus and Half Nelson and even before them there were films like Capote, North Country and Monster. They are not particularly bad films and the performances were indeed mesmerizing but I would have hard time placing them among the films that I think will last, age well and be remembered for years to come. The fact that Aronofsky felt content with such a film was my only disappointment. After a masterpiece like Requiem for a Dream, he did The Fountain (which was flawed but great nonetheless) and now The Wrestler (with which there is nothing wrong except being relatively more straightforward and ordinary). I, for one, still think he's at the top of his game; but one would expect a talented director's work to mature with passing years and to start dealing with more significant subjects matters in more challenging styles. In this case, the very opposite seems to be happening. I hope near future (i.e. The Fighter and RoboCop) proves me wrong in this.

As for Mickey Rourke, I definitely felt great when listening to his acceptance speech during Golden Globes. There were probably better performances this year (and I still think he was far more impressive in Sin City than in The Wrestler), but he might go on winning all sorts of awards left to win. Because if there are two things that Hollywood loves unconditionally, they are happy endings and emotional comeback stories.

7/10

Nominated For:

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Mickey Rourke) - Academy Awards
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Marisa Tomei) - Academy Awards

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Marisa Tomei) - Golden Globes

Best Cinematography (Maryse Alberti) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best Male Lead (Mickey Rourke) - Independent Spirit Awards
Best Feature (Darren Aronofsky & Scott Franklin) - Independent Spirit Awards

Actor of the Year (Mickey Rourke) - London Critics Circle Film Awards

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Mickey Rourke) - Screen Actors Guild Awards

Best Original Screenplay (Robert Siegel) - Writers Guild of America Award

Excellence in Costume Design for Film, Contemporary (Amy Westcott) - Costume Designers Guild Awards

Best Leading Actor (Mickey Rourke) - BAFTA Awards
Best Supporting Actress (Marisa Tomei) - BAFTA Awards

Excellence in Production Design, Contemporary Films (Timothy Grimes) - Art Directors Guild Awards

Won:

Best Actor (Mickey Rourke) - Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

Best Actor (Mickey Rourke) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

Best Original Song, Motion Picture (Bruce Springsteen) - Golden Globes
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama (Mickey Rourke) - Golden Globes

Best Performance, Male (Mickey Rourke) - Toronto Film Critics Association Awards

Best Actor (Mickey Rourke) - Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards

Golden Lion (Darren Aronofsky) - Venice Film Festival

Ten Best Movies of the Year - American Film Institute Awards

Best Actor (Mickey Rourke) - Florida Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Supporting Actress (Marisa Tomei) - Florida Film Critics Circle Awards

Best Actor (Mickey Rourke) - Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Directors (Darren Aronofsky) - Kansas Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Original Screenplay (Robert D. Siegel) - Kansas Film Critics Circle Awards

Best Supporting Actress (Marisa Tomei) - Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards

Gran Torino (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:24:00 +0000

Guess Who Gets The Car At The End?
Clint Eastwood ceases to surprise me. After such a long and successful acting career (53 years?) he has been so predictably average as a director that I have always felt ashamed on his behalf after watching his films. The great praise he has been receiving nonetheless only increases the pain.

But I will save my further complaints and all my reasoning behind them for another article I am planning for Eastwood. Instead, I will focus on his latest atrocity which is a new low, even for himself.

Gran Torino is one of those badass Eastwood films with a modern twist and only the illusions of complexity, where he plays a bitter old man, who despises everything in his life, with such superficiality that it upset me greatly to watch as a big fan of Clint Eastwood the actor. His racist mean bastard is already cliche and one-dimensional on the screenplay, but Eastwood takes it and reduces it into a mere bunch of snarls, spits and frequent public displays of his teeth. If he was told to play a cheap dog who is trying to make up for its cowardice by grumbling too much, I would say his acting was quite appropriate.

The film opens in one of the rare occasions that such a man would wear wear an expensive suit - his beloved wife's funeral. The first thing we see are his grandchildren making fun of the occasion and his sons murmuring about what kind of a nuisance he is in many ways (a little too much even for deliberate emotional manipulation, don't you think?). Kubrick was once quoted as saying: "scenes of people talking about themselves are often very dull". I will take it one step further and say that other characters talking about a character for descriptive purposes are almost as dull and definitely more annoying. It's the cheapest and easiest way to portray a character on screen which also shameless fakes a natural feel.

But speaking of both the opening scene and the wide selection of cardboard characters that film has to offer us, his asshole sons should not be left unmentioned; gossiping about him in his wife's (and their mother's) funeral, calling him only when they need something, buying him tools for old people and telephones with huge numbers on them as if it would expedite his old age and death, and so on and so forth. Does any sort of family dysfunction get more cartoonish than this? Was anybody honestly not expecting them to try sending him to one of those 'resorts' so that they could land on his property? There is more creativity in the porn industry in terms of characters and plot (well, in the French ones anyway). Besides, you get to see some boobs as a bonus for all your time.

He frequently orates about what he knows and others don't; looks down on people in the most expected and tired way, asking them what they know about life or death and he brags about what they used to do in Korea to settle things up whenever desperate measures were called for. It doesn't work as a glorification, it doesn't work as a characterization, so it's utterly useless. The relationship between him and the priest could be quite interesting if it also wasn't told in the most boring way known to man. Compare these characters to Valentine and the judge in Kieslowski's Red for example, and you will see how everything is properly done in masterful hands; because it's essentially the same relationship between the two although the characters are not necessarily the same. Somebody should inform Clint Eastwood of the power of 'showing' over 'telling'; ('showing' in this case not to be taken literally). It is always better to allow the audience to make the deductions themselves, even the simplest ones, instead of conveniently laying all the groundwork for them the follow the plot.

Unfortunately, Eastwood's (as well as writer Schenk's) sleeve never runs out of cheap tricks when it comes to dramatical manipulation. Throughout the film, 'Father' Janovich keeps showing up like a sticky piece of mud and when saying this, I am not assuming the position of Walt, who is clearly irritated by his presence at the beginning. No, the young priest simply does not belong to the story. He is not real and he definitely doesn't feel natural. He is just a tool for the film to show off. Janovich keeps playing the same cheesy variations over the theme of life and death and we are expected to be moved and/or impressed by his parasitic persistence and his so-called 'wisdom' that he presumably possesses despite his young age. After all, we are not old mean bastards like Walter Kowalski, and if he is beginning to be impressed, so should we.

Luckily, the priest barely appears in the second half of the film; someone with some brains must've talked some sense into screenwriter Schenk when proofreading the first half. But Janovich or Kowalski are not the only characters that leave a mark on one another, because Gran Torino is a film where everyone undergoes some sort of quick and implausible change. Even the kid eventually finds the courage in himself to act cocky around his intimidating role model; although the young actor cannot find the talent in himself to act such moments properly. As suddenly and unconvincingly as that, Walt turns into Thao's grandpa, scolding him for being a softball and giving him precious advices on the arts of love. And then there's the young girl, the brave soul that Walt likes and empathizes with; which gives her the right to subliminally lecture him about tolerance, positivity and certain disadvantages of xenophobia (not having the chance to taste delicious asian food being one of them). The Hollywood trailer voice man should enter at this point, as profoundly as he tends to do: "An impossible friendship... that would change them both... forever...".

Did you feel it touching somewhere deep within you as well? Were you as moved as I was?

In the past, there has been some terrible films with Eastwood's name attached to them, and even more average ones, but this is definitely and ultimately the rock-bottom. On one hand, I am aware that I am being too harsh on him, maybe a little bit too rude as well (after all, biggest blame does not belong to him but his screenwriter) but on the other hand I am simply frustrated at no matter how dramatically this man fails, the critics and Academy members are always there to praise him to the sky (I am confident that he will be overrepresented in the Oscars this year; if not, I will be pleasantly surprised). Granted, he is a legendary figure in filmmaking, but all the buzz that had been going on for the past couple years is simply too much.

Sometimes, when I feel really hopeless and lost, I like to think that he is in fact smarter than all of us; and that he at one point discovered everybody would be hailing any of his films under any given circumstances. I imagine him smirking, when reading all those favorable reviews on newspapers and magazines; planning his next step in his master plan to confront everyone with their blind admiration to himself and his latest works.

Sadly though, I know this is not the case.

1/10

Note: This article is a part of the 2008 awards season review series which will be the primary feature of The Long Take until the Oscar Night. The information below will be updated as listed awards are handed out and more nominations are announced.

Nominated For:
Best Actor (Clint Eastwood) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

Best Original Song in a Motion Picture (for the song 'Gran Torino) - Golden Globes

Excellence in Production Design, Contemporary Films (James J. Murakami) - Art Directors Guild

Won:
Best Actor (Clint Eastwood) - National Board of Reiew, USA
Best Original Screenplay (Nick Schenk) - National Board of Review, USA

Ten Best Movies of the Year - American Film Institute Awards

The Duchess (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:32:00 +0000

Latest Brit Costume Drama Turns Out To Be More Than A Fashion Show

To be perfectly honest, I shiver nowadays when I hear the word 'period drama'. The phrase reminds me of all the films I have seen with Keira Knightley in the title role and her stone-cold face free of any mimics or subtle emotions. With or without her though, such films are all over the place, always occupying the best costume slots in awards ceremonies but more importantly, always reducing history into a mere fashion show. Historical drama is on its way to replace romantic comedy as the genre that is relentlessly mass-produced in early 21st century with no sense of intelligence or originality to them whatsoever.

These were the thoughts on my mind when I sat down to watch The Duchess. I think I am beginning to develop a certain level of selection in my perception because I had never even heard about the film until I read the acting nominations this year. To say that I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. Despite average performances from most of the actors involved in the film (the rock-bottom being Dominic Cooper who miraculously manages to act worse than Knightley while sharing a movie with her; an honor previously held by Orlando Bloom) the film went beyond my wildest expectations, both with its complex subject matter and its intensely-real 18th century atmosphere of royalty and aristocracy. Yes, rarely in the history of filmmaking, the word 'costume drama' to denote a film means as much as it does in this case. The Duchess is a film where attention to detail for a realistic portrayal is a priority above everything else. The locations, people, language and practically everything else puts you right in the middle of all sorts of tragedies going on, like few films could do.

Why I loved the film so much on the other hand, has something to do with the fact that this realism goes way beyond accurately swanky dresses of the period and extends to all the characters and their actions. There are no black villains in this film, no rebellious teenager girls of the royalty, in love with a handsome farmers. No evil mothers who sell their daughter's hand in marriage for riches or a higher social status. There is only the reality from which such fairy tales emerge. Only real people and their tragedies. When the mother tells her daughter that the duke wants to marry her, we don't see a complaining, crying, depressed young girl; we see doubts but also hopes; happiness but also hesitation. Throughout the unsuccessful marriage, the mother is never uncaring towards her daughter despite all the bizarre advices she calms her down with. The duke, who is the Greek god of passive aggression and who does incomprehensibly merciless things throughout the whole ordeal, is not necessarily evil. We, as the audience, can clearly see his way of thinking and his disappointment of not having an heir, which is not necessarily less significant than that of the duchess.

When I was talking about the actors in one of the above paragraphs, I said most of it was average because Ralph Fiennes, who had remarkable works in his past such as Justin Quayle in The Constant Gardener and Amon Goeth in Schindler's List) gives nothing less than the performance of a lifetime. Every second he is on screen is a gift and he brings a certain sense of 'humanness' to his character (who otherwise would've been the cardboard villain) that the film direly needed. Not a single second goes by in which he is not mesmerizing; his flawless character-acting and the way he convinces us of his character's reality with merely his voice tones, body language and stable facial expressions should be a masterclass to some of his fellow actors. While Knightley-Cooper pair is incapable of even portraying a real love affair, he rapes his wife, demands a son from the incident, comes up with a reasoning for it years later and still stays human.

Still the film is filled with all sorts of real emotions of all the characters; it is both frustrating and captivating how we see the potential of everything turning out to be different and better for the duchess had she been able to deliver a son to her husband, which we today know is only in the hands of the male genes. There are many priceless moments such as the time when she hears her husband having sex with her dearest friend, or when she sees the duke teach how to handle a rifle to her friend's son, at which points it dawns on her what kind of life she missed merely because of the gender of her kid. The subtle feminist undertones such as these are universal despite the period and never go beyond the level of sincerity and maturity.
I was going through the nominations that this film received so far this year, and it pains me to see that Fiennes was not nominated for a SAG award. Although I acknowledge that Ledger's performance is superior (if comparing two such roles would be possible to begin with), I wouldn't be upset at all if I see Fiennes winning in any of the ceremonies. Last year it was Viggo Mortensen's tough luck to be nominated for the acting prizes along with Daniel Day-Lewis; this year it's Fiennes's.

8/10

Note: This article is a part of the 2008 awards season review series which will be the primary feature of The Long Take until the Oscar Night. The information below will be updated as listed awards are handed out and more nominations are announced.

Nominated For:
Best Achievement in Art Direction (Michael Carlin & Rebecca Alleway) - Academy Awards
Best Achievement in Costume Design (Michael O'Connor) - Academy Awards

Best Actress (Keira Knightley) - British Independent Film Awards
Best Supporting Actor (Ralph Fiennes) - British Independent Film Awards
Best Supporting Actress (Hayley Atwell) - British Independent Film Awards
Best Technical Achievement (Michael O'Connor) - British Independent Film Awards

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Ralph Fiennes) - Golden Globes

British Actor of the Year (Ralph Fiennes) - London Critics Circle Film Awards
British Supporting Actress of the Year (Hayley Atwell) - London Critics Circle Film Awards

Best Costume Design (Michael O'Connor) - BAFTA Awards
Best Make Up & Hair (Daniel Philips & Jan Archibald) - BAFTA Awards

Excellence in Costume Design for Film, Period (Michael O'Connor) - Costume Designers Guild

Changeling (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:48:00 +0000

Eastwood At His Most... Normal?

There are some stories in life, real stories, that all of us have either heard about, witnessed or experienced at one point (or several) in our lives. Stories that make you think if you had come across them in a novel or a movie, you would find them ridiculous and implausible. You would think that it was simply too much, that the story was being manipulative and that the writer was trying too hard to impress that he/she wrote a preposterous story to draw attention. You would think that the story was 'overdone'. But such stories do exist and they are real; and there is nothing left for you to criticize if you read them off of a newspaper; no plot holes, no cliche moments, no emotional exploitation, nothing.

That's why the caption 'A True Story', which is the first thing we see in the movie, is extremely necessary.

Writer J. Michael Straczynski went through a lot of pain to make Changeling deserve that caption, instead of the more common 'Based On A True Story' version, which is thrown around a lot these days even if the writers twists and bends the real story into unrecognizable shapes. It has been mentioned on MovieMaker that roughly 95% of the whole script was based on articles, testimony, transcripts and correspondence from the period and that only the psychopathic ward sequences were fictional. Straczynski decided, wisely, that the story itself was moving enough that he didn't need to enhance it any further with his imagination. On the contrary, he stripped all the details regarding Gordon Northcott's abusive family and his late realization that his sister was actually his mother. Changeling is the kind of story where reality had to be chopped off at parts to make it more digestible. It is very similar, in this sense, to An American Crime, an equally good film also based on such reality.

When it comes to directing, there is only one thing to celebrate about Clint Eastwood in this film: his decision to go along with what Straczynski had intended when writing the script and avoid all sorts of tricks that the cinematic language is capable of performing, in favor of simplicity. He assumes the position of a technical coordinator more than an auteur director; his work feels automated in the sense that if we didn't know in advance who the director was, it would be hard to tell Changeling was his. I read, after watching the film, that Ron Howard was first hired to direct but scheduling conflicts led to his replacement by Eastwood. I don't think we would have seen a film any different than this, if this replacement had not taken place.

That being said, Eastwood's level of comfort escalates to the level of lacking any style whatsoever, at which point all the traces of his presence in the making of this film is removed. This is simply wrong. There are nuances and delicacies to even making a simple-looking film and telling a straight story, of which Eastwood does not display any knowledge. While his choice to stay away from all sorts of cinematic decorations was correct, I highly doubt it was a conscious one. He does not know how to turn this idea into a characteristic language and instead produces an ordinary directorial work, not unlike most of his other films. Throughout Changeling, I just couldn't shake the feeling that he couldn't wait for this one to be over so that he could start shooting Gran Torino, in which he seems to have invested much more (and which seems to be paying off much better at this point).

Thanks to solid performances from everyone involve, to the amazing real-life story of Christine Collins and the meticulous work of Straczynski, Changeling is still quite a good film and definitely the kind of work that starts off the Oscar race at an advantageous position. Eastwood, on the other hand, disappoints me once again.

7/10

Note: This article is a part of the 2008 awards season review series which will be the primary feature of The Long Take until the Oscar Night. The information below will be updated as listed awards are handed out and more nominations are announced.

Nominated For:

Best Achievement in Art Direction (James J. Murakami & Gary Fettis) - Academy Awards
Best Achievement in Cinematography (Tom Stern) - Academy Awards
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Angelina Jolie) - Academy Awards

Best Actress (Angelina Jolie) - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Drama (Angelina Jolie) - Golden Globes
Best Original Score (Clint Eastwood) - Golden Globes

Actress of the Year (Angelina Jolie) - London Critics Circle Film Awards

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Angelina Jolie) - Screen Actors Guild Awards

Golden Palm (Clint Eastwood) - Cannes Film Festival

Best Cinematography (Tom Stern) - BAFTA Awards
Best Costume Design (Deborah Hopper) - BAFTA Awards
Best Director (Clint Eastwood) - BAFTA Awards
Best Editing (Joel Cox & Gary Roach) - BAFTA Awards
Best Leading Actress (Angelina Jolie) - BAFTA Awards
Best Production Design (James J. Murakami & Gary Fettis) - BAFTA Awards
Best Original Screenplay (J. Michael Straczynski) - BAFTA Awards
Best Sound - BAFTA Awards

Excellence in Costume Design for Film, Period (Deborah Hopper) - Costume Designers Guild Awards

Excellence in Production Design, Period Films (James J. Murakami) - Art Directors Guild

Let The Award Season Begin!

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:59:00 +0000

The award season for 2008 has long started and I am beginning to feel like I'm left out. 33rd Toronto Film Festival already made famous a couple of films such as Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler, which are now runner-ups in the Golden Globe race in several categories. Aronofsky's film was also recognized in Venice Film Festival this year and was honored with a Golden Lion. New York Film Festival is way past, various critics circle awards are coming along and 66th Annual Golden Globes awards ceremony is fast approaching. To top it all off, nominees for Independent Spirit Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Producers Guild Awards are announced.

And during all this time, I have done absolutely nothing.

Since the wonderful year of 2004 when The Return of the King walked away with 11 Oscars, I have always paid attention to all this awards business. Not because I trusted the authorities in this matter (on the contrary, a lot of decisions are simply things to be ridiculed rather than respected) but because I have always been entertained with the enormous scope of everything going on at this time of the year. Being a person who is extremely interested in this specific 'industry' (if you don't mind me calling it that), it's hard to miss out on all this fun and excitement. Besides, sometimes they get it right.

So here is a little notice to let you know that I will be evaluating, in the next few days to come, the films of 2008 which are receiving the attention that more or less everyone in this business dreams of receiving. Due to the sheer number of films to watch and review, it is my prediction that I will have to content with nutshell reviews for most of them; but better short than never, as a wise blogger once declared. Better brief than never.

With 2008 behind us now, another common feature is decorating the blogs, websites and magazines in which amateur and professional critics thrive; which is the top 10 lists proclaiming the best films of the past year. You can see the progress in mine (which I recently updated) on the left bar still, but I will take some more sweet time to see some remaining films of the past year before publishing the list that matters most. Sometime towards the 81st Oscar Night, my list will be all cleared up, ready to be made public.

Finally, below is a list of movies ~~which is invisible to your eyes at this point but the veil be lifted as I see more movies relevant to the awards season and have the chance to review them.~~ At the beginning of each title, I will provide you the information of which nominations and wins the film was able to clinch this year, which will also be updated as the ceremonies come to an end, one by one.As always, stay tuned.

2008 Awards Season - Reviewed Movie List:
Changeling
The Duchess
Gran Torino
The Wrestler
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Frozen River
Revolutionary Road

House M.D.

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:22:00 +0000

He Who Is Always Right
Note: I am making my big comeback with this piece so that it will explain, at least to some extent, where I have been all this time and what I had been doing, in case you care. There will be other posts filling you in with all sorts of movies and TV shows I have seen during these past few months which passed without the slightest clue for an update on The Long Take. All I need to do is to go through all my scribbles and form coherent articles. I am aware that there are lots of promises to keep on my part, so stay tuned.

Before we go knee-deep in the review, I will summarize the past 5 seasons for those of you who never had the chance to see the show. Below is an exhaustive list of keywords/phrases that will more or less substitute for 90-something hours that would be spent on watching the actual thing:

"It's not lupus"
Environmental reaction
Auto-immune
Cancer
Infection
White cell count
"Differential diagnosis people!"
"His liver is shutting down"
"Search his house"
Toxins
Heavy metals
Drugs
"You have no medical evidence to support that diagnosis"
"That's an excellent metaphor"
"You've stolen my metaphor"
"I'm not getting the metaphor"
"I think I pushed that metaphor too far"
CT scan
MRI
"People lie"
Respiratory arrest
Cardiac arrest
"Bizarre is good"
"It explains all the symptoms"
Biopsy
Lumbar puncture
Vasculitis
Toxoplasmosis
Necrosis
Meningitis
"If I'm right, he should walk out of here tomorrow morning"
"If you are wrong, patient dies"
"So, I need to know..."
"Are you really going to see a patient?"
"You were right"

I think this kind of delivers the point across, but let me risk boring you by explaining myself a little bit further. If you have read the list above with a smile on your face, chances are you are watching the show and we are on the same page here. Yes, House M.D. is a tedious, repetitive and horrendously predictable medical drama; maybe not if you are a medical student playing guess-the-problem game with each episode but if you are a non-professional, like myself, who doesn't pay that much attention to all the technical hodgepodge and who focuses instead on the 'drama' part of the whole thing. At the end of the day, every House M.D. season has nothing more than a single fundamental idea in terms of content and every single episode plays like another variation on that same theme; sometimes slightly faster in pace, sometimes a little more emotional, sometimes considerably more exciting and creative but essentially always following the same pattern. It is formulaic in its dramatical structure, Princeton-Plainsboro (which miraculously encapsulates all the bizarre diseases in the world in a single teaching hospital) is a whole different world where everybody spends their free time psychologically deconstructing one another, and always doing one hell of a job at that. It's a world erected on a single dilemma (or, in the case of the TV show, a single premise): if the patient is treated with what House suggests and if he is wrong, the patient dies. Luckily though, a lupus diagnosis is more common than House being wrong; and as the people in his team cling onto their stubbornness to always oppose and fight House's preposterous theories, his condescending remarks become more and more creative. In fact, I think it's safe to declare at this point that, after having so many chances to work on it, Hugh Laurie is officially the first man on earth who has perfected the art of throwing a smirk at a small gang of sidekicks after outsmarting them on a matter of grave importance (no pun intended).

The parallels between Sherlock Holmes and Gregory House has always been a subject of interest among the show's followers. The creator David Shore admits his admiration towards Doyle's legendary detective and confirms that it was his intention to create House as a lonely and detached drug-addict just like Holmes himself. House is indeed the medical counterpart of Sherlock Holmes with every sense of the word; he never fails to solve the case, he is always indifferent to his clients, he never takes a case unless he is interested in it and he has James Wilson to act as his Dr. Watson whenever he needs further intellectual stimulation (wikipedia lists a lot more similarities such as House's door number and the fact that both play some instruments, in case you are interested). But once you switch from the characters to the story, the similarities end; because essentially, House M.D. is more similar to a collection of pulp detective novels where the old servant turns out to be the murderer in each case. It sometimes becomes a frustrating experience to know the outcome and go through the whole ordeal anyway.
What's so noteworthy about House M.D. then? If I have angered the show's fans with my remarks and left the impression that I hated it, here is the catch: The character is interesting. It might look like a small detail to you, but in this case, success in this aspect carries the whole show. On a simpler note, I watch the show because House is 'so cool'. He is a complicated character with complicated relationship, always consistent on paper and brilliantly acted on screen. Despite integrating so many unusual personality traits in himself, he is never overdone and never out of character. So far, the writers have meticulously avoided wounding the credibility of the character in exchange for some cheap sentimentality.

I have always related watching House on TV to watching and admiring the perfection of a Greek or Renaissance sculpture; the perfection in human physical appearance being replaced in this case by the perfection in terms of medical expertise and powers of observation. It is for this reason that the question of how much a human being is capable of doing the things that House is doing is irrelevant; because the show isn't (and never tries to be) realist. And this represents neither a flaw nor a success but merely a choice.

Having praised the House character to the sky, I must admit that all the other characters are quite pale in comparison. Especially his trio of a team (both the old one and the new one) exist only to enhance the contrast between themselves and Gregory House so that the amazing originality of the title character is never lost to the audience. Every now and then, like spoilt kids calling for attention, these characters take the center stage with their stories of dead husbands, dead family members, fatal diseases, family problems, personality issues and so on; but their complexity and multi-layered structures are mostly illusionary. Robert Sean Leonard (James Wilson) and Lisa Edelstein (Lisa Cuddy) do their best with their acting to make up for this but the rest of the House M.D. cast is a bunch of talent-free 'actors' who make the matters much worse for their characters.

How much blind trust is too much? All the fun and jokes aside, stripped of all the webs of human relationships and their complexity, what remains of House M.D. on a serious note is this question. How reasonable is it to surrender all senses of reason and opinion and blindly trust the instincts of a human being, regardless of how 'good' that human is at what he is doing? This issue is touched every now and then but it's not the firm grasp of a confident artist but more like the gentle touch of a stranger to a newborn baby, scared of contaminating the subject at hand. House M.D. misses all the opportunities to use this question to its advantage on its way to become a more valuable artistic piece. Among all the repetition and humdrum events drowning our characters in Princeton-Plainsboro, there is definitely more room for philosophical discussion on this notion.

Finally, there is one more praise left for Hugh Laurie regarding House M.D: His acceptance speeches. His few-minutes-long performances that you can see below are reminiscent of his comedian background (see: A Bit of Fry and Laurie) which I sometimes realize that I sorely miss.

7/10

Classical Narration And Art Narration

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:45:00 +0000
Or: Hollywood vs Western Europe in 1950s
by Yigit Yuksel

Narrative is, simply put, what 'happens' in a film. It is the chain of events that occur in the filmic universe. It consists of everything we see and hear, as well as everything we deduce of the things happening in the diegetic world. It is the fabula of the film, hence always in chronological order, unlike narration. Narration (in other words syuzhet or the plot), on the other hand, is how this is rendered, how the narrative information is being conveyed to the audience. It’s how a director phrases everything happening in a story, in order for his/her film to have the desired effect on audience. Camera movements, angles, lighting, editing, acting style, shooting locations, soundtrack are all parts of narration. Varying usage of these components will help a director to determine a specific type of narration (and hence a style) for his movie.

Most of the films today use widely recognized classical narration, which gained dominance decades ago, consequential to the domination of Hollywood over other film industries. It is a canon of various narrational means, and inaugurates the formation of a series of standardized movies. For instance, defragment of scenes in classical Hollywood films always creates a distinctive time-line. Sequences are oftentimes in chronological order and their linkages to each other are overtly marked, together with the removal of unnecessary time periods and events in the editing of time line (unnecessary in terms of not directly serving to the development of the narrative). There are also rules concerning the combination of shots to maintain continuity in editing. There is generally a structural order in the sense of shot sizes, advancing from general to more specific. The establishment shots of the sequences are usually long or even extremely long, which are followed by medium shots that will focus on the characters, successively developing into close-ups, extreme close-ups and point of view shots to make audience understand the character. Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind is constitutes a typical example to this technique. Another prominent attribute of classical narration concerns the state of the camera, which is always placed as an invisible observer that pursues the story as it’s told in the film; the characters never interact with it (and therefore with the audience), as opposed to ‘art films’ where this technique is often employed, and most of the times to attain an alienating effect. This state of camera, and the film’s unawareness of it, causes most of the films that uses this type of narration to be highly unselfconscious.

Although classical Hollywood films and classical narration has been extremely dominant, “film history is not a monolith” as Bordwell states in his article. After the post war era (late 1950’s), with the explosive increase in the number of televisions, film attendance has declined significantly. Furthermore, a ‘youth culture’ that had been spreading from Western Europe had grasped the younger audiences worldwide. This caused the producers to look for something new, bringing up opportunities to young filmmakers, who were thought to be capable of satisfying the demand of this growing ‘youth culture’ better than anybody else. As a result of all this and with the rise of art-cinema that had been practiced by these young directors, new modes of film narrations have emerged, most notably in Western Europe (Thompson and Bordwell 517-523).

French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague), whose outputs are characterized fundamentally by their styles, is one of these movements. Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) (France, 1960), which is directed by Godard and co-authored by Truffaut (the duo that also happens to be the most significant driving force behind this movement), is one of the most innovative films of Nouvelle Vague. Godard, no doubt, benefited from the most recent technological advances in the camera industry. First generation of professional hand-held cameras, which started to appear in late 1950’s, helped directors to get rid of their dependence to studios and enabled them to shoot their films outdoors, in more “natural” and “real” locations without complication (Thompson and Bordwell 518). We can trace examples of this development in Breathless as well: The primary location for the events in the film is Paris; yet Godard uses the city more like a character than a mere location. The city and the intricate set of interactions with it determine what characters do and how they behave. When Godard uses distance shots, audience can observe the city alive in the background with real people, and even hear the genuine sound of the city whenever it’s recorded on soundtrack; which makes the scenes more “real”, resembling documentaries (Sterrit 54). This type of usage of locations is very revolutionary when compared to classical Hollywood Cinema’s opting for studios, incorporating exaggerated lighting and fake backgrounds like photographs or paintings.

Another distinguishable characteristic of art-cinema narration is the disinclination to omit the “unimportant” actions a la classical narration, culminating in the syuzhet being “not as redundant as in the classical film” (Bordwell). In fact, some directors went as far as shooting their films in real-time, keeping not only a couple of details but editing out nothing, no matter what. Antonioni’s use of this technique in The Adventure (L’avventura) (Italy, 1960) can be considered an example.

Contrary to this, the narration that art-cinema directors use in their movies does not always bring up reality. The continuity on editing is a tradition that has been violated by Godard and many other directors. Godard for example, adds different long shots to each other, thereby breaking the structural hierarchy of combining shots that is quite discernible in classical narration. Also, his invention of 'jump cuts', which is created by removing frames from the middle parts of the shots, messes up the continuity in editing.

Needless to say, many other distinctions can be listed. The acting styles and the ways of shooting actors, for instance, are considerably different. In Breathless, in some particular scenes, protagonists turn and talk to the camera, which causes a shocking effect on audience and also turns the movie into a self-reflexive one. Also, in contradistinction to classical examples, the narration of Nouvelle Vague films adds additional aspects and layers to the narrative. Again in Antonioni’s The Adventure, in most of the scenes, women are shot from behind, which culminates in a series of interpretations and discussions on the axis of sexuality and feminism (Brunette 36).

Narrative information is not necessarily transferred to the audience only by occurrence of events and/or characters’ behaviors. Fellini, for instance, uses symbolism authentically in his movies. There are certain themes and objects he repeatedly uses to convey narrative information. A character from The Road (La Strada) (Italy, 1954) ‘The Fool’ is first introduced to audience with angel wings on his back, which arguably boils down to the message that he is a ‘good’ character in the film. The circus, on the other hand, is a much-discussed image he makes use of in many of his movies.

In line with the meaningful use of locations described a few paragraphs before, what type of location to shoot in is also an essential question. Antonioni’s description of The Adventure’s famous ending is the following: “On one side of the frame is Mount Etna in all its snowy whiteness and on the other is a concrete wall. The wall corresponds to the man and Mount Etna corresponds somewhat to the situation of the woman. Thus the frame is divided exactly in half: one half containing the concrete wall which represents the pessimistic side, while the other half showing Mount Etna represents the optimistic. But I really don't know if the relationship between these two halves will endure or not, though it is quite evident the two protagonists will remain together and not separate. The girl will definitely not leave the man; she will stay with him and forgive him. For she realizes that she too, in a certain sense, is somewhat like him.” (Brunette 49).

Fellini uses similar type of symbolism combined with locations; at the last quarter of The Road two protagonists of the movie - Gelsomnia and Zampano - are traveling on the countryside; Fellini’s camera focuses to the scenery, which is covered with beautiful trees and a lake, but after the tragic death of The Fool when Fellini’s camera again focuses on the locations, and we see a darker environment with trees with no leaves and road sides covered with snow.

Again in The Road, there is the famous horse scene: a mysterious horse, without a rider walks past the alone, forlorn and abandoned Gelsomnia and disappears as mysteriously as he appeared, almost magically. This scene makes the audience feel a sense of loneliness and melancholy. According to Bondanella, with this scene Fellini “succeeds in evoking a poetic and lyric image that presents a surrealistic objective correlative for an important emotion, without superfluous dialogue.” (Bondonella 62)

Another important component of narration, which could serve expressional purposes, is the soundtrack of a film. In The Adventure, Antonioni makes a unique use of sound: The music starts playing suddenly, halfway in the film, when the search for Anna starts. This unusual method makes the audience feel distant to the characters of the movie, thereby creating a self-reflexive effect. Similarly, in the ending scene of the film, the self-conscious soundtrack includes a faint sound of bells and a train sound that belongs to two previous scenes that had defined the relationship of film‘s protagonists (Brunette 41). In The Road, the theme song of the movie is first identified with The Fool, afterwards with The Fool’s famed pebble talk, then the song passes to Gelsomnia and became hers and at the end of the film, when heartless Zampano starts to cry, the song passes to him, which conveys the message that “perhaps (and only perhaps) he has finally learned the lesson that Gelsomina’s life represented - that love can touch the hardest hearts, even his.” (Bondonella 58). The narration again gives covert information by making unfamiliar use of soundtrack.

To sum it all up, starting from 1950’s, art-cinema narration, which has been developed as an alternative, promising to counter classical narration and Hollywood’s domination, have brought up radical possibilities. The “subjective realism” of manifested in films characterizing this era created many possible pathways for subsequent styles, at the expense of getting at times to get too ambiguous for the taste and understanding of an audience that is used to classical narration.

Bibliography

*Bondonella, Peter. Films of Federico Fellini. West Nyack, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
*Bordwell, David. "Art Cinema Narration." Narration in the Fiction Film (1985): 205-233.
*Brunette, Peter. "L'avventura." The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni (1998): 28-51.
*Sterrit, David. "Breathless." The Films of Jean-Luc Godard: Seeing the Invisible (1999): 30-60.
*Thompson, Kristin and David Bordwell. Film History: An Introduction. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying About Digg And Love Reddit

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:46:00 +0000
Get Ready For A Rant, For I'm Really Fed Up

Chances are, most of you did not even realize this (which speaks volumes to me) but I have stopped using digg to promote/share the articles of The Long Take.

My case against it is so simple and clear that it doesn't even make me proud to have discovered that. Recently, I have posted a small announcement titled 'New Poll Open For Cannes vs. Oscars: 1974' where I talked a bit about why 1974 was a momentous year in terms of Cannes vs. Oscars and requested my readers to take 2 seconds to voice their opinions and vote for the film they like better. By the time there were 23 diggs, my poll had only 3 votes.

So how does this happen? After spending approximately five months dealing with the inner dynamics of Digg, I believe I have a simple answer to that question: Unlike popular belief, Digg is actually not a social bookmarking site but a weird network that is populated by lots of self-seeking individuals, who keep 'shouting' you about the articles that they want to make popular and demand, not ask, not request but demand you to digg them (those of you who consider themselves exceptions to this majority, please do not be offended). Your interests are irrelevant, since it's not really important whether you read the article or not - as long as you keep clicking that same magical button, everybody is your friend. As soon as you don't, you are nobody.

Eventually, Digg becomes a place where everyone promotes his/her friends' submissions/shouts, just preserve the right to ask the same from them. Your personal history does not really reflect what you like, what you have found interesting or what you enjoyed; it's more of a record of how meticulous you are about fulfilling your duties.

Needless to say, there might be some people whose experiences with Digg went much better than mine. I will not deny that. After all, it's a huge community and I'm sure there are some people who somehow managed to get into a network suitable for their tastes and purposes. But after all these months, I am really tired of all the digg requests in my e-mail regarding the good places I can put my dick, Thailand honeymoon vacation packages, how to get laid in Red Light Center, shallow and insincere environmentalism, populist political babble; of requests that are not only immature but also shameless when asking me to digg their articles "if I'm not a communist" or "if I'm not a fag".

The worst part is seeing yourself become a part of such community. When I realized I was digging, without reading, every "omg wow!! sooo funny!!!" articles like clockwork, I decided I had enough. My good friend Ibetolis's film reviews were the only things that kept me going, but at the end of the day, it's not hard to realize how big a loss of time and effort Digg actually is. If I wanted my dorky video to become popular I would definitely go for it but Digg is the last place on the internet to look for serious and mature readers for your blog.

Once I lost my faith in the article voting system in general, I also removed the 'Hype It Up' buttons of ShowHype from my blog. I am still an active member there but I have decided to restrict myself from spending excessive amount of time trying to get my articles 'hyped up'.

Approximately when I started discovering the real nature of Digg, a friend of mine suggested me to try reddit, and I did. Not only you get far more traffic redirected to your website (thanks to their new articles section that actually works) people who come in your direction do that in order to read what you have written. Its customization system works much better if you are more like a reader than a writer, and the articles you have submitted, commented or simply liked reflect your own taste as a reader and your own interests. The network of friends, which is a bit harder to get, is much more meaningful when eventually you do. And it's simple design is the cream on top.

Not that I can easily advocate reddit as a perfect example of a social bookmarking site, I am sure it has its flaws which will become clearer as time passes but the primary notion looks appealing for now.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I'm unfortunately not paid at all by reddit or anyone else and this is not a sponsored review of any sort. I am just fed up with the whole experience of Digg and I wanted to inform any of you who are looking for the very same thing that I do: An intelligent reader base. Apparently, you don't have to dig really deep for that.

Burn After Reading (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:03:00 +0000
A Return To Comedy, But At What Cost?

Burn After Reading is comparable to nothing else that the cinematic art has had to offer so far. I have went through the list of the movies I have seen and even though that list includes a lot of absurd and quirky comedies, there is nothing I can relate this latest flick from the Coen brothers to, save for Intolerable Cruelty and The Big Lebowski, which are their own films anyway.

This is a new understanding of slapstick satire that imitates not a single conventional element from the past, for which it should be celebrated. There is no way you can define it without using the term 'Coenesque' or 'Typical Coens' or any suitable varient of these, which is what many critics and bloggers out there seems to be doing as far as I could observe. The analysis of this two-person genre requires an in-depth look that I am not able to provide within the limits of this review, so you might consider having a look at the excellent Coen brothers retrospective in MovieZeal for that, which was run only a couple of months ago.

The first thing I can say about Burn After Reading is that it's a hard film to grasp. Why? Because its brilliance is profoundly obvious but so is its crude simplicity. After one and a half hour and a very abrupt, anticlimactic ending, we get the point but was that a point worth making? We chuckled - even laughed, occasionally - but did Burn After Reading really satisfy us as a comedy? We admired the characters, the nonsensical plot and how it's handled in all aspects as if it's the most serious espionage thriller that we've ever got to see; but where does that eventually lead us? We don't know. It might be of revolutionary importance or pathetic insignificance. How can one decide?

Not easily is my answer. Because after their gigantic critical success with No Country For Old Men, the sincere feeling of watching a Coen Brothers film dissolved into an uptight experience. Theirs is now a certified style that most people feel hesistant to criticise. Chances are it's us, as the audience, who failed to understand the deep hidden meanings or technical innovations rather than them failing to match the success of Fargo or The Big Lebowski. And after No Country For Old Men, it's hard to come to terms with these guys' intention to loosen up. It's hard to accept that this is not an important conference on a matter of extreme significance but merely a casual chat around the bar table.

It is what it is though, and anyone pretending that it's more is still under heavy influence of No Country For Old Men. This is a film that embraces all the trademarks of a typical Coen film and stops short of being anything more. Infused with eccentric characters, examplary dialogue, minimal yet delicate cinematography and a comedic attribute that is intelligently hidden under thick layers of serious faces, tragic moments and dominant grave tones in the soundtrack, the film could've been much more but it chooses to stay more casual. This does not excuse Burn After Reading and allow it to be perceived as something more than any other 'average' film, but its evident potential does.

The point where J. K. Simmons asks the other CIA guy to "report back to him when it makes sense" is the most important scene by a long shot; and I can list three reasons for that: 1) It's the funniest scene, 2) It's a single sentence and a gesture that manages to summarize the whole point of the film and 3) It's the point where it becomes obvious that without all that recapping of events done by the CIA officer, making sense of or laughing at all the things we have seen up until that point would've been much more difficult. This is probably the film's biggest flaw, for if you imagine it without that single scene, Burn After Reading wouldn't be half as funny or coherent as it is; and that suggests a serious amount of wasted time and opportunities.

6/10

Exploring Nolan

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:24:00 +0000
Introduction

Although I'm aware that some of you are constantly questioning my credibility when it comes to running long-term series of articles (for which I cannot blame you, there are some features which I had been ignoring for a long time), nothing stops the new ideas popping into my head all the time. And after leaving behind an 8-month period of reviews, articles, top lists and lots of ramblings, I have decided it's time for The Long Take to engage in serious and in depth analysis of some important directors.

The idea was born when I recently re-watched a couple of films by Kubrick, who also happens to be my favorite director, and started to see some patterns in his films like anybody else who obsesses over one thing so much that he/she either becomes delusional or a prophet. Well, I don't have a holy book to preach but, needless to say, delusions are more tolerable when they're shared. So in all my malevolence, I have decided to expose you to the results of this madness and contaminate your innocent minds with cinematic infatuation and lunacy.

Before I could even start planning that, came The Dark Knight and I have decided to run my review of Christopher Nolan's Batman films together as a two-volume article. And while gathering my thoughts on this new notion, Cihan came up with the idea of running a 'Modern Masterpieces' series, which would start with The Prestige. Still occupied with the idea of analyzing directors of importance here in The Long Take, I immediately conjured the idea of postponing my semi-planned prattle about Kubrick and replacing him with Nolan, since we would cover much of his films in our upcoming reviews anyway.

What can I say; when life gets in the way of things, cheap pragmatism goes a long way.

Long story short, you will be seeing Christopher Nolan's films reviewed here during the upcoming x months (where x is a variable that depends on how much other stuff I'll have to do and the pop-up rate of new ideas for exciting new features) while me and Cihan will be doing our best to run this whole thing as less arbitrary as possible. If the eventual product feels more like the chapters of the same book rather than a collection of random texts, well, that's about as good as it gets.

The films you'll be seeing include:

* Doodlebug (1997) - watch it here
* Following (1998)
* Memento (2000)
* Insomnia (2002)
* Batman Begins (2005)
* The Prestige (2006)
* The Dark Knight (2008)

although chances are, following this chronological order will not be possible.

I have also included a small list to the left-side bar so you can easily track/find which of these films are reviewed during any of your visits to The Long Take. As we progress, the listed films will be linked to the reviews we have written.

A seperate announcement regarding the 'Modern Masterpieces' series will be posted soon.

Last but not the least, in order to convince you that not a good memory but sufficient amount time is what I'm lacking regarding the long-ignored article series of this blog, here is a list of ongoing but not-updated-for-quite-some-time features of The Long Take:

* Oscars vs. Cannes: The polls have been up for a long time and one was even concluded long time ago. A response to your votes is the least you deserve.

* 25th Istanbul Film Festival Full Coverage: When the excitement of the event dies down, the priorities seem to be changing as well. But there are a lot of films of which I've had the chance to enjoy an early screening in this festival (which include An American Crime, The Fall and Sukiyaki Western Django) and even many more that I want to talk about. So the feature stays, the time of its revival is not far.

* The Funny Games Experience: I haven't forgot that I promised to run a second volume to Haneke's much-discussed film(s).

* Most Anticipated List: Although keeping it up-to-date all the time, not only I am lagging behind in terms of most of the films that I have been dying to see (Teeth leaves a major mark of shame for instance) but also I haven't been able to review all the ones I have seen or talk a bit about the new entries. I know the list needs more love.

* TV: In merely the 3rd post of this whole blog, I have promised to cover TV shows from time to time. Blog archive proves me wrong.

Enough confessions padre. Now, back to earthly matters.

Rain, Guns & Cigarettes

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:06:00 +0000

Noir's Past And Present

Originally, I have written this article for the Noir Month in MovieZeal which ended just recently. You can view the original here. If you are into this sort of thing, I recommend you to check out all the articles posted in MovieZeal which consist of a film noir review for every day and some supplementary articles like this one. Enjoy.

If you have started reading this article here, then you probably know what a film-noir is. Chances are, you are also knowledgeable about the basic elements and characteristics of a film-noir to some satisfactory extent. Initially, I have intended this article to be informative and exhaustive; I wanted talk about the thematic and stylistic attributes of this genre as well as the whole timespan of influences and spin-offs; but then I decided it would be a little boring and completely unnecessary to do so, considering the intellectual capacity of our target audience. You have been told numerous times, I'm sure, by various other articles in the blogosphere that a film is not a film-noir without shadows, light-dark contrast, a femme fatale, a detective/private investigator, morally ambiguous existentialist undertones, complicated plots and an overall sense of pessimism. Therefore I will not merely remind you what I presume that you already know.

Instead, with your permission, I would like to wind the clocks back to 700 years ago.

Noir Always Existed

In 1300s, Europe witnessed the birth of probably the grandest artistic revolution in the history of mankind, which would later on be called and known as 'The Renaissance'. Neither time nor the feasibility limits of these blog spaces will allow me to talk about all the aspects of this upheaval, but there was one technical innovation that was critical to the development of the whole idea; something that is also closely related to the stylistic attributes of film-noir which automatically places it in the scope of this article. Tired from the conventions preceding them and in search for more natural and realist depictions of whatever constituted their subject matter, passionate Renaissance artists discovered the secret appeal of contrasts, especially that between white and dark; between light and shadows. Leonardo da Vinci blended this technique with his command over the anatomical details of humans to create some of the most impressive and lifelike depictions of people he knew or more legendary figures that he read about. Raphael used it with his delicate linear perspective to illustrate buildings, locations or simply portraits with more crowded backgrounds. Michelangelo was their reflection on architecture and sculpture.

The technique I'm talking about is of course 'Chiaroscuro' - 'Tenebrism' if the contrast is more dramatic. It is denial of harmony as the central element in painting and of two dimensionality as the basic principle. Since scholasticism was the predominant doctrine during the early Renaissance and religion was the agency that was most sceptical to accurate depictions of humans in paintings, it is also an indirect refusal of extreme fundamentalist limitations on art. But more important than all these aspects, chiaroscuro aesthetics was a trend that was going to persevere and endure even the most unfavorable circumstances. Before influencing cinema, it would be exaggerated in Baroque visuality by painters like Caravaggio and Rembrandt and prove for the first time its permanency in different artistic movements.

Fast forward 600 years: Germans are in trouble. Devastated after World War I and torn apart by extreme social and economical humiliation, depression is the color of human spirit. That, and the darkest of blacks. In the meantime, painting ceases to be the one and only visual art form: Louis Daguerre introduces photography -the first rival- and a couple of years later come the moving pictures. Audiences, who sneered at even the most wonderful paintings of their time, now scatter at the mere sight of a train approaching to the station. During more or less the same times; fueled both by their profound depression and the exhilarating potency of these new mediums, all German artists but especially the filmmakers create a movement known to us today as 'Expressionism' (or as 'German Expressionism' as far as cinema is concerned), where expressing emotions -often those that are dark, bizarre and gloomy- becomes the primary concern. These new generation artists oppose the views of the Renaissance people in nearly all aspects; naturalism is abandoned in favor of surrealist imagery that aim to capture the essence rather than merely copy what's visible; reality is distorted and religious themes are alleviated or at times completely replaced by humans and their earthly desperation. The understanding is so different that art historians today categorize Renaissance paintings under the 'Classical Period' while expressionists are considered 'Modernist'. Only one thing from the past endures and somehow manages to survive in this vastly dissimilar artistic movement.

One little idea that was also the aesthetical forefather of the film-noir genre.

Yes, you guessed right. Especially directors and cinematographers but also 20th century painters never renounced the magical beauty of chiaroscuro; on the contrary, they enhanced and emphasized this visuality with sharp angles, exaggerated makeup, surrealist set pieces and more daring compositions. With the help of new technological developments, they played with light and darkness in so many different ways that as a result, truly original and audacious pieces were created. As far as the movies are concerned, directors like Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau and Robert Wiene channeled the overall feeling of despair that haunted their country into their works; dealing with the notions of madness, insanity, betrayal, injustice and moral ambiguity with an intellectual complexity that Hollywood would fail to reach even decades after the first expressionist film. They also invented the first modernist narrative elements in cinema such as flashbacks, visual effects, plot twists and surprise endings. From then on, more complex and nonlinear stories would make their way towards the cinematical medium. Their vision was unprecedented, is still unsurpassed but unfortunately short-lived.

Due to lack of major funding opportunities and marketing support as opposed to the gigantic proportions of the movies industry in Hollywood (which was reached thanks to the golden age of studio system) these gems failed to survive against their American contemporaries; despite vastly surpassing them intellectually and artistically. The German government of the time was in no shape to take measures that would support its artists as well - more basic needs regarding its ordinary citizens were at stake. A few years later Nazis came to power and that was the last drop that spilled the cup. Nearly all expressionist cinema artists (primarily the aforementioned three) migrated to United States, one after another like an endless stream, in order to escape from the numerous difficulties that infested their homeland; and to better fund the movies they would make in the future. Not that it would be remarkably easy to do that in America - they had brought their unique vision with themselves but they were forced to trim their extremities in order to please the public and therefore the wallets of the studio bosses. Their idealist European perspective would be challenged by cold, hard cash. And they would have to blend those two in order to survive.

Prevailing at more or less the same time in United States was the American pulp novel tradition. These inexpensive, thin, paperback books/magazines, which had no intellectual value whatsoever, were widely published and read from 1920s through the 1950s. This eventually turned them into a legitimate phenomenon, which would be frequently quoted, pastiched and paid tribute to by American postmodernists (the best example of which is undoubtedly Tarantino's Pulp Fiction). This should not be surprising, considering how these pieces were blatantly typical in terms of their narratives, dialogues and literary styles - when a trend becomes as distinctly ridiculous as this, it is bound to be parodied once its heyday is over.

Admittedly, the whole thing was quite tedious and inane, but the variety in subcategories was nonetheless astonishing. Among the uncountable many were sword & sorcery fables, horror tales, mythical adventures, science fiction, westerns, war chronicles and sports stories; but it soon became apparent that only two of these genres were the real deal: softcore erotic romances occupied the number one spot (with the support of the rare female readers of these pulp magazines), followed closely by detective mysteries. Needless to say, the whole fad was extremely male-centric.

The detective fiction of this era was marked by the dominance of hardboiled crime stories, thanks to a bunch of guys like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, whose novels would later on would be adapted into quintessential film-noirs. Complex and enigmatic plots of the whodunits, which primarily consisted of a central riddle and its logical solution as the climax, were replaced by relentless action and gritty realism. Unsolved puzzles, unanswered questions and failed protagonists became more and more common. Crimes were unsentimental and plots became more sexual-driven. Surprise endings were superseded by pessimistic anti-climaxes. The overall writing style was more lean and direct.

It was around this time that cocky American crime fiction impregnated delicate European sensuality that had been dispersing towards United States since the rise of Hitler in Germany. While the baby would inherit his plot devices and existentialist undertones from his father, the mother gave him the unique technical magnificence that had been dominating a continent for more than 6 centuries. He would be loved and praised by the masses due to his father's popularity; while retaining the intellectual quality of the maternal side. The birth took place in the hands of a couple of German immigrants who had been working as filmmakers in U.S. for some time and had been greatly anticipating a half-breed with such potency. Impressed by the beauty of the baby, some French guys lost no time naming him themselves. He was called 'film-noir' and no one objected.

The rest of the story, up until 1960s, has been told in MovieZeal since the beginning of this month with an impossible attention to detail and in dazzling variety. "Why did you write about all this" you might be asking at this point; "Why the history lesson?" Because, like Joker says in The Killing Joke, "I want to make a point." I want you to realize that noir has been out there much longer then we tend to believe and in places outside where it was born. Since Renaissance and probably even before, you can track traces of noir in nearly all the artistic achievements of humanity; constantly changing, evolving, splitting and merging; constantly disguised under many different shapes and forms. The story of noir is a continuous one and that's exactly why it's hard to pin down the exact period of its existence or to come up with precise definitions as to what a typical film-noir really is. That is also why you hear a lot of discussions regarding what films can be included in this movement as neo-noir or retro-noir: how can you evaluate an organic entity using synthetic terms? How can you divide the lifetime of a natural phenomenon into abstract periods? Needless to say, it's impossible and the proof to that is everywhere.

Why then? What makes noir so different from all the other movements we have seen in the history of film? What makes it so unique? The answer to that is indeed many and none of them is truer than another. My own observation is that the noir mentality, not only the films but everything related, deals with human condition more honestly and intensely than all the other artistic movements mankind has ever seen. It had a direct relationship to us, to the meaning of our existence on this planet (or the lack thereof) and has evolved with the humanity itself; adapted constantly to the changing conditions, survived and existed. Not one nor a group of people created it, so it has never been a temporary artistic movement that would be abandoned at the first sight of a major change. It does not tie itself to minute and unimportant earthly matters like politics, social conditions or technical issues related a certain art forms. Thematically and stylistically its concern is the human spirit, therefore it endures; constantly looking for best narrative and visual elements to do justice to its significant subject matter. And like humans, it never stays the same.

But that's not all I had in mind when telling you all these. I also wanted you to realize that noir is not the result of an immediate discovery, an instant revelation or an innovation; which finally brings me to the second point that I want to make.

Noir Is A Postmodern Concept

Film-noir is not something original, nor it is a influential novelty. There is absolutely nothing new about it, technically or otherwise. What it does beautifully and where its real success lies is how it manages to blend fantasy and real-life drama; how it melds realism and surrealism together so smoothly that these two opposing ends of the same artistic spectrum fit into each other as gracefully as never before. Also, being a movement that has been founded by Italians, improved by Germans, brought to life by Americans and named by French, noir definitely enjoys the multicultural influences in its formation. American pulp novel tradition feeds on two different European movements in order to ascend and become noir: French poetic realism and German expressionism. As you can see, film-noir did not come out of nowhere like Dogma 95 did (which was probably the most artificial and shortest-lived movements in film history), nor it reflected the collective understanding of a group of filmmakers like Italian neo-realism did. The first noir artists borrowed techniques, recycled themes and looked for the perfect blend as opposing to their contemporaries who were seeking to discover the purest single malt.

Periodically, classical noirs should be considered modernist avant-garde; but the way I see it, noir represent altogether a different concept. The term 'Avant-garde' refers to works that are experimental and innovative and it represents "a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as norm or the status-quo". This means denial of the past movements in favor of discoveries and new styles. In this sense, German expressionism is definitely an avant-garde concept, because although it borrowed a lot from Renaissance techniques, certain visual elements it embodies such as heavily-emphasized angles, surrealist sets and exaggerated gothic makeup were new; not only to the cinematical tradition but to all branches of visual arts. What constituted their subject matter, which I have mentioned a bit in roughly the 7th paragraph of this article, was never before touched upon in any art form by any artist. It was the denial of all preceding ideals (including but not limited to Renaissance, Baroque and Neo-classicism) and was pushing of the limits for something much more.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have the postmodernist agenda and its intertextuality principle, which refers to "an author's borrowing and transformation of a prior text" to be used in his/her work. Cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard completes this definition with his statement that goes: "Everything has already happened... Nothing new can occur"; asserting that the attempts to create, produce and invent have become futile after a certain point in history. What we can do is merely recycle and use the older texts/styles, use them in different contexts or merge them together to come up with something sensible and worthwhile to pay attention to. Same principle applies to all the technical aspects as well. Considering the fact that postmodernism originally arose as a reaction to modernism, this kind of a declaration seems hardly surprising.

Whatever new or exciting we see in the film-noir movement is completely back-traceable. There are no gaps between postmodern art and the classical noir examples, save for the fact that in a real postmodern work, the intertextual attitude I have been talking about would be deliberate. In noir's case, it's more of a natural evolution. And this is exactly the reason why I have refrained myself from calling it 'a part of the postmodern movement' and contented with the term 'concept'. Still, it has been my intention to prove this assertion by deconstructing all the so-called 'originalities' of a film-noir to show where they have been inherited from. Noir poses no innovation or invention; instead it constantly looks back and emulates past themes/techniques. The way all these things from the past blend together and are adapted for silver screen is what deserves the praise; along with the exhilarating idea that noir artists contributed to the formation of a postmodern concept way before the postmodernist movement started gaining momentum. Has any movement in the history of film ever been so much ahead of its time?

What Happens Today?

After passing through the mirror of postmodernity in 1960s, the classical period of film-noir ended when it ceased to be the outcome of the intertextual approach and became the source that much of the inspiration is drawn from. The brilliant collage of chiaroscuro, mannerism, low-key lighting, complex narrative, fatalistic realism, moral ambiguity, hardboiled attitude, mystery stories, existential loneliness, labyrinthine urban settings and sexually motivated, self-destructive endings now hardened into a shell until all these segmented components became indistinguishable. With its increasing popularity due to its nostalgic quality and swanky French name (which, when uttered, immediately makes you appear more intellectually capable than you actually are) the notion of film-noir was encapsulated into a mass that is more important than the sum of its parts. And that inseparable mass influenced a lot of new-age filmmakers.

It has always been profitable to pay homage to the noir style because noir clichés are so much fun to watch and play with. On a more depressing level though, noir-stained films always worked because it's extremely hip nowadays to appreciate this genre and all its spin-offs. Because aside from everything else, noir has become a tool, used by film buffs all around the globe to convincingly fake an intellectual orgasm. Because cunningly hidden in its simple name are allusions to cinema's most recent history, to stylized black&white visuality and to European understanding of art. Because a sentence that contains this word at least once will imply your listener/reader that you are well-informed about movies; that you are capable of evaluating older and more intellectual films; and that you have a firm grasp over film history as a whole. It has become the table around which many cinephiles like to circle-jerk all the time. Consequently, if you have referenced a film-noir in your movie, people should better like it; because if they don't, it becomes evident that they are a bunch of illiterates who simply don't get it.

This should not be read as my complaint regarding the noir-influenced films of our day, for they are great. It's the holy and almighty quality that is attributed to noir and the untouchable status it has reached is what's bothering me. But it seems to be the prominent intellectual trend of our day, so I guess I must learn how to deal with it. On a final note, those of you who like noir for what it is and who are not afraid to criticise certain examples of it whenever necessary, please don't be offended by my remarks. I am aware that people such as yourselves do exist, but you have to realize that you are not as big a majority as you would like to believe.

88 Minutes (2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:05:00 +0000
Tic-Tock Doc, What's The Problem?

Another forensic scientist with impressive expertise over human behaviour, but things are a lot more grim this time around. While Shoot 'Em Up was a whole new dimension between a third-person shooter and a B-movie, 88 Minutes would've definitely worked better as a video game, where ordinary ideas and not-so-gripping plots are more excusable. If I was the man holding that gun and answering those phones, be it through a keyboard, mouse and a monitor, I wouldn't complain about the fact that too much was happening at once all the time and that the story, structurally, was a mess. However, 88 Minutes is a film and since I am deprived of the joy of doing all the smartass things that Dr. Jack Gramm is doing in the most action-packed 88 minutes of his life, I have to bitch about the utterly unsatisfying climax and ask questions like "Who the hell is Mike Stern and to what purpose did this character serve in this story?"

Jon Avnet clearly wants to be Michael Mann with his second latest film but sometimes, the casting of Al Pacino is simply not enough. This whole film is one huge build-up where everything happens real time and the eventual conclusion (or a conscious lack thereof) is everything. The only way one could forgive all the plot holes, overloaded story and the unrefined suspense was a satisfactory climax that would've made us forget everything before itself. I gave The Usual Suspects ten stars out of ten yet I still wonder how much the film as a whole deserves that rating and how much of it is due to the everlasting and awe-inspiring effect that its finale had on me. A similar one here would've made Avnet's film much more worthy.

I wondered, after seeing the credits roll, whether or not the conclusion to this tiresome 88 minutes could've been any cheaper? What does Al Pacino do, ultimately; other than saving himself and the red head from a blown car and a couple of bullets? Why is he our hero? He goes with the flow all the time; he's tricked, he's manipulated yet he shows no signs of shrewdness that you would expect from a man with a wealth and fame in forensic science like his. Eventually he shows up at the designated location, does everything the villain asks him to do and waits for an FBI agent to shoot her down. And he gets to give a hero monologue at the end. I don't understand.

88 Minutes couldn't have been a masterpiece, that's for sure, but there was definitely room for improvement.

5/10

Cihan Says:

Another thing we've been seeing too much of lately are these genius forensic scientists. There are numerous series concerning them now, and the films keep coming. 88 Minutes combine the issue with a premise from another series, and I don't think this is exactly a coincidence.

Sadly, it is not a pleasant coincidence. The film does not use 24's visual tools, which in my opinion are not that interesting themselves, and hence the real time situation does not really create a feeling of urgency. All in all the whole thing ends up depending on Pacino's performance.

Which brings us to the thing that nags me the most: Despite being one of my favorite actors, Pacino lately seems to be in a rut. Since Insider -barring Merchant of Venice- he has been cast as more or less the same character over and over again; and whereas in Insomnia it was excellent, it was boring everywhere else. Pacino needs to be free to add as much depth and diversity as he can to a character, he should enjoy no less freedom than he did in Heat, to shine. A one-dimensional character is not his cup of coffee, and he himself seems to be getting bored doing what he is doing lately.

There is not much more to discuss, the film did not even focus on the peripheral characters, or even the plot itself to give them impact. It seems 88 minutes was not enough.

3/10

Shoot 'Em Up (2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:45:00 +0000
Proper Use Of Carrot

Shoot 'Em Up is an action film; and I don't know if I have ever used that phrase more accurately. It's also a stupid one, more so than your average summer blockbuster and certainly not in an exaggerated caricature way Grindhouse is stupid. Key point is, it's not ashamed to admit it. It goes, self-confidently, into places where other action films are hesistant even to take a shy step. And when the action is even more than simply overblown, the film ceases to be showy and becomes fresh and exciting. Plausibility is no longer among the criteria.

Shoot 'Em Up is a new age B-movie, not a homage, not a tribute but the real deal. On display here is the same mentality that produced the most absurdly violent films of the '70s. It's a film where baby cords are blown by guns and rivals say "fuck you" to each other by blowing up letters in neon signs. Our hero gets to shoot people in every inconceivable situation, yet the aim, it appears, is not killing your enemy but appearing cooler than him when fighting. Davis' film is somewhere in between an old exploitation flick and a late third-person shooter; it's where video games meet movies, and the old embraces the new.

Shoot 'Em Up plays by the conventions, uses extremes but still gets away with it. It's one of those rare examples of a film where lines like "fuck you, you fucking fuck" does not sound over-the-top. Besides, despite all the extremities, the film is still semi-plausible: the bullets are numbered, the enemy attacks in reasonable numbers and what our hero gets to accomplish is less than saving our planet. Tortures are simple yet painful, even to watch. The action is so tight that there is no time for drama speeches. And this is probably why I hated the ending - after all this build-up, what can be worse than the villain stopping for chit chat on the eve of killing our beloved protagonist?

7/10

Cihan Says:

Shoot'em Up aims to shock, and hits the mark at every turn. The pace is kept high continuosly so that the audience utters one "wtf" after another, and hence they have no time to think on the last oddity. However, if it fails to get you into its grasp, if you take one step back and start considering what is going on, it has nothing to offer you.

The first surprise triggered my cynicism, not my interest. And cynicism forbids you to go with the flow, instead you see every annoying gimmick, from meaningless action sequences -which we see too much of these days- to the absurd conspiracy that had no need to be as far fetched. Exaggeration was the key, and its use was exaggerated.

At the end, for me Shoot 'Em Up is a waste of the presence of two talented actors, and nothing more.

Not aiming to be serious is not an excuse for being ridiculous.

2/10

Reviews In A Nutshell

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:23:00 +0000
Because Time Is Scarce

Writing a review is hard; although not when you merely summarize the film or run through a set of pre-determined criteria and evaluate it according to the arithmetic mean of a number of scores that are assigned for various cinematical aspects (e.g. acting, screenplay, soundtrack, entertainment value etc.) No review should be rudimentary, nor mathematically formulated if you really want to do justice to the film you are writing about. Every movie is a whole new world and therefore every single one requires an independent look that will bring out only the most relevant issues about it.

That has been my aim, when writing reviews for films here in The Long Take, since the beginning. How much I have succeeded is not something I can decide, however in the meantime I have realized a bitter truth: I want to score and write a review for every movie I see, yet coming up with an exhaustive piece for every single one of them is impossible due to obvious timing constraints. That's why I wanted to introduce a new feature called 'Reviews In A Nutshell', where every review will be about the length of this article; covering only the most important issues about the films at hand and nothing more. It will be great, I presume, for two reasons: 1) You don't always have that much to say about every film you see and 2) This way, I will be much closer to my aforementioned goal.

Superficiality is what I have to watch out for.

Top 10 Comic Book/Graphic Novel Adaptations

noreply@blogger.com (Anil Usumezbas) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:58:00 +0000
On Superheroes And More

I finally had the extreme pleasure of seeing The Dark Knight last week.

We have witnessed a vibrant summer season this year, full of various comic-book adaptations from traditional types like Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk to more eccentric examples like Hancock and Wanted. When the market was dominated by superheroes I couldn't stay indifferent to this hype and started reviewing these summer films as I saw them, not caring one bit that hudreds of other bloggers were doing the very same thing. It's summer after all; the time of the year when popcorn tastes the best and hundreds of people (including me) go to see grand-scale blockbusters which relentlessly compete with each other for the biggest box-office numbers. Mindless entertainment is never more tolerable.

You will see my review of The Dark Knight here shortly, as a two-volume article that also covers Batman Begins, since I have realized that Nolans' Batman adaptations make more sense together than they do individually. The Dark Knight is one of those rare examples of film sequels where a director's ambition overcomes his indolance and/or his greed, and where the resulting product becomes the irreplaceable part of a much bigger whole rather than an exploitative sequel that, in an attempt to increase complexity and sophistication, mess everything up.

But before that article, the magnificence of The Dark Knight inspired in me an urge to re-think about the best comic book adaptations I have ever seen (including films that are not based on superheroes) and consider where to place Nolan's film on that list. As a matter of fact, I am also intimidated by my recent streak of unfavorable reviews for films like Spider-Man 3, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man - I don't want people starting to blame me for not loving the comic-book genre. So before anybody sets out to do that, I have decided to make my own 'Top 10 Comic Book Adaptations of All Time' list, in order to prove both to myself and whoever I have angered with those reviews that I am not an American Film Institute member who still thinks best animation of all time is Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (or best fantasy is Wizard of Oz for that matter).

Both comic book and graphic novel adaptations were eligible for this list. Considering the numerous sequels and trilogies as far as these films are concerned, I have grouped relevant and equally-successful films together in order to increase variety.

Here we go.

~~~~~

10. X-Men & X2 (2000 & 2003) by Bryan Singer

Granted, nothing was the same after the departure of Bryan Singer from this project. Fox should've known better. Replacing the director of The Usual Suspects with the guy who is responsible from the Rush Hour series was a bad idea all along - Ratner's film left such a bad taste in people's mouths that they didn't want to hear the name 'X-Men' anymore. The whole franchise suffered because of the last installment, which is commonly known by the cinephiles as 'The Matrix Syndrome'.

The story, as we all know, is about some mutants whose numbers far exceed the threshold between an ignorable exception and a legitimate minority. This is a significant social difference in terms of our superheroes at hand - when they cease to be creeps in the public eye and become a notable nuisance instead, they are in a position to engage in negotiations and make demands. As a result, the personality and identity problems of a typical superhero is replaced by a set of questions regarding racial prejudice, discrimination and mankind's evolutionary steps.

The intellectual depth of these films is limited to the rather superficial implementation of these ideas (stopping a few steps short of Nietzsche and his conception of 'Übermensch'), but they promise a great deal of quality action and suspense. When the subject is not one superhero but many, the entertainment value multiplies and reaches new limits. Maybe the greatest success of these films is how they were able to give every character the amount of attention and screen time that he/she deserves (more or less - a lot of people still complain about the first film being too much Wolverine-oriented. And the absence of Gambit, who probably has more fans than any other X-Man in the series, is nearly as absurd as the absence of Tom Bombadil in The Fellowship of the Ring). Practically everyone I know has their own favorite X-Man (since their childhood) and it's exciting to be able to see them take the stage, one by one, to show off their supernatural skills and try to outwit their opponents.

Guess which one is my favorite?

09. The Crow (1994) by Alex Proyas

Another film that marks the tragic death of a young actor; yet another sad example where a role is indirectly responsible from an unexpected death. Ledger's passing was due to an accidental overdose of sleeping pills; he had started taking them in order to cope with this sleeping problems which presumably arose after his obsession with the Joker role. Lee's death on the other hand, was much more theatrical (if you don't mind me saying that): he was shot on stage during the filming of The Crow. What happened to the original footage of the incident is still a mystery. To this day I like to think that what we see in the film is that footage, though I am aware that it's highly unlikely. If I was an actor that would die an early death, I would love to be shot during a dramatical scene and die knowing that millions will get to watch something that they don't see every day.

On a closer look, even their makeup look similar. Scary.

Adapted from the comic book of the same name by James O'Barr, The Crow is a revenge story with dark, haunting imagery and a perfectly-dense Gothic atmosphere. It tells the story of a rock guitarist named Eric, who witnesses his fiancée Shelly being raped minutes before he is shot by the rapists. But, as the story in the opening lines goes: "when a person dies, their soul is carried to the afterlife by a crow; however, if that person's soul is at unrest, the crow has the power to bring that person back to life so that they can right the wrongs that were done to them before they can find peace." The story, of course, is an excuse for the brilliant production values that this film has to offer; and this is not necessarily a fault, since similar things can be said about the original comic book as well. The setting is as dark, cruel and merciless as it gets -perfect for a come-back-from-the-grave vengeance tale- and in the backdrop of all the events is a metropolis that falls somewhere in between Gotham and Sin City in terms of malignancy and immorality.

The visual quality of the film polishes its existentialist undertones. As he swiftly blade-dances among the murderers and kingpins, Eric ironically becomes lonelier; and with each step taken on the rain-washed pavements of his gloomy city, he appears to be further away from the release he was desperately searching for. He constantly blends in and out of the shades like a child of the night but sometimes it's not clear whether he reigns over it or is helplessly lost in it. The title character is complete as it is written and perfect as it is acted - Brandon Lee takes one step away from his family business and stars in his first non-martial arts role, which unfortunately was to be his last. But more importantly he contributes to the visual and narrative style of the film with his suggestions, most of which were turned down at the time. One of those suggestions was to shoot the whole film in black & white, coloring only the flashback sequences, which makes me wonder where I would be placing The Crow in this list if the executives had the nerve to take this martial-arts actor more seriously.

08. 300 (2006) by Zack Snyder

Action and nothing more. No other formula, no deep and hidden meanings, nothing. With its sylized, GCI-based visuality, 300 stands as a strong proof for two things: 1) There are delicacies to even making a simple action film unlike many people like to believe. Excusing the flaws of any film due to its simplicity is not a reasonable thing to do. 2) Pure CGI is not something to be scorned; when it's used properly, the resulting work can be as spectacular as any other film with more traditional kinds of special effects. GCI is not a goal but a tool - only those who can make the best of it will be worthy of a praise.

Of course biggest credit for this success should go not to Zack Snyder but to writer, illustrator and film director Frank Miller, who with his poetic narrative and the grandiose visuality, resurrects an ancient legend and enhances it with his own vision. All Synder does is to take Miller's work and turn every illustration into a scene like a kid who puts a blank paper on a drawing to copy it. 300 the movie is a reenactment, not a creation. Only two parts differ greatly, both of which are huge disappointments for the fans of 300 the graphic novel: He uses a much weaker opening sequence (in the original version Miller could grasp the reader's attention with the lyrical use of a simple phrase: "We march.") and a cheesy finale (where the only remaining survivor declares war on east's mysticism and tyranny - needless to say 300 works better without any forced political messages). Despite all this, Miller's work is so daring and original in its nature that the resulting product fails to be ordinary. And Snyder's firm command over computer generated imagery is something to be appreciated.

Upon its release, the film was at the center of a great hype, fueled both by the fans' appreciation of its visual quality and a couple of political discussions that never failed to mention Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations'. Some thought Miller and Snyder turned the Battle of Thermopylae into a modern-day allegory while others blamed 300 for being orientalist. People listing historical inaccuracies were definitely the cream on top. I find it ridiculous that both the graphic novel and the film be taken this seriously and be placed at the center of major social and political discourses; mainly because 300 is the kind of story that you tell your little kid before he goes to bed and it doesn't try to be anything more (although 300 the movie is not the kind of movie that you would make your little kid watch). It is, above all, a legend, an epic tale in the Greek folklore like Iliad and Odyssey, something that doesn't need to be realistic nor politically correct in today's standards. If people are in such a dire need to prove the breadth of their political and historical backgrounds that they engage themselves in serious discussions over a work like 300, I have nothing more to say.

07. American Splendor (2003) by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini

"Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff."

With this idea in mind, Harvey Pekar set out to do 32 years ago what was going to be one of the most ambitious and unique projects in the history of comic books: He created a superhero out of himself. Not one with a fancy suit, a couple of supernatural powers and a mask but someone like us, an ordinary person dealing with his existence and nothing more. He observed that in trying to cope with the numerous intricacies of our everyday lives, we were all becoming superheroes - and that our villains were the notorious landlords, sinister Jewish ladies in front of us at the queue in supermarkets, merciless bosses and severe illnesses. His style echoed for years in many other countries, where humorists, comic-book writers and illustrators looked out for the small, interesting details in our lives that we all fail to realize in the turmoils of more ordinary things.

He was a desk clerk when he started all this, and he continued to be one for more than 25 years. While his pessimistic and discontented attitude might give you the impression that he might've failed at anything else he would've tackled, one should not forget that his comic books were feeding from the experiences made available to him by this tedious job - after all, one cannot be a celebrity and continue writing about the minute yet funny details of an ordinary life. What we all witness yet inadvertently ignore formed his subject matter; things that are not interesting to experience but quite amusing to observe from outside. He complained about many things and made fun of himself at the same time. American Splendor was his outcry.

The film is not lazy when using this unique original material - directors and writers Berman & Pulcini are set out to explore all the possible interactions between the comic book medium and the movie they are creating. They are not afraid to break the audience's suspension of disbelief by juxtaposing real characters and actors who play them; comic book frames and their movie counterparts; illustrations and live-action scenes; interviews and narratives. Since Harvey's real life intermingles a lot with the happenings illustrated in his comic books, these transitions do not stand out. On the contrary, they recreate the spirit of the original American Splendor in a whole new medium, providing a fresh and unique experience. And that's about the most important thing when adapting from a comic book: coming up with a style that does justice to the original material rather than merely exploiting it.

06. Batman & Batman Returns (1989 & 1992) by Tim Burton

With Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton was going to become one of the most prominent auteur directors of our time; but before that he was a talented youngster in Hollywood trying to prove himself and sign his name under influential projects. Batman came before we were used to his trademark opening credits, his Danny Elfman soundtracks, his twisted dark humor or his extravagant tales starring (most of the time) Johnny Depp and/or Helena Bonham Carter. How he managed to sign an A-list actor like Nicholson to his Batman adaptation is still a thing to marvel (no pun intended) since late '80s was a time when DC's Batman franchise was not as famous or well-known as it is now. Burton's intention to make a film out of it equals to any young director's ambition today to introduce new superheroes to the summer blockbuster market - it requires a great deal of effort, motivation and financially promising directorial skills. It must've been more difficult to do that back in 1989 than now, considering the state of the CGI technology and audiences' inclination towards the superhero genre.

Burton definitely wasn't free to create whatever he liked - when a relatively unknown director and millions of dollars are combined, the ways to deviate from the blockbuster norms are extremely limited. And what you get to see is a typical, high-quality action film, merely peppered with Burton's vision. However in this case, sprinkles were enough to create a river. He creates a colorful and vibrant world despite all the dark and gloomy nature of Batman stories; while some find this attitude too childish to be taken seriously, others (including me) admire the delicate balance between juvenile naivete and insidious malignity. His vision of Gotham City is unmatched with its unique gothic spirit and awe-inspiring grandeur. Keaton is somewhat typical but that doesn't matter because the Batman character itself is quite typical while Joker (or the Penguin for the sequel) is the real deal.

The casting of Nicholson for Joker is simply brilliant, and he does justice to the role with his genuine Joker smile (even without any excessive makeup) and cheerful yet disturbing tone. Burton chooses to emphasize the funny and entertaining aspects of the character more than his sadism and frightening nature, but his affinity for chaos remains intact. The beautiful thing about both the Joker and the Penguin is that their complexity makes room for a variety of interpretations. Burton's choice here is coherent with the overall tone of the films, which is a good thing. If you are looking for more serious tones in a Batman adaptation, you might not like what Burton does but you have to concede that he is executing a unique vision; a vision that would be more influential in his later films such as Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish and eventually his masterpiece Sweeney Todd.

05. V For Vendetta (2005) by James McTeigue

Alan Moore's critically-acclaimed graphic novel plays on a fantasy that we all have; a fantasy that surfaces whenever we are confronted with immorality or corruption within the political circles in power. Or any wrongdoing according to our terms will do. Yes, I am talking about the fantasy of having the power to simply kill off everyone responsible, one by one, without any trials, defenses or deterrent punishments. Moore takes this situation to an extreme in search for a more solid legitimization: A fascist, totalitarian English state. Not only it constitutes a more justifiable enemy to rebel against, this fictional state also creates the perfect setting for Moore to voice his concerns about the serious tendencies towards fascism that he thought was present in his home country. In his 1988 foreword for V for Vendetta, he complains: "the tabloid press are circulating the idea of concentration camps for persons with AIDS. The new riot police wear black visors, as do their horses, and their vans have rotating video cameras on top. The government has expressed a desire to eradicate homosexuality, even as an abstract concept, and one can only speculate as to which minority will be the next legislated against. I'm thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon, sometime over the next couple of years. It's cold and mean-spirited and I don't like it here anymore."

Moore does not believe that class conflict is the major element in humanity's political evolution. Therefore his idea of political poles differ from the established idea of left wing vs. right wing - he prefers a political spectrum with fascism and anarchism at the two ends. With the aim of observing these two poles clash, he places a highly-capable anarchist hero at the heart of a fascist state; and instead of merely making them fight, he chooses to study the ideological battle between these two extremes. Although making them the despicable villains of this story, Moore does not treat his fascist leaders like cartoon Nazis - he tries to bring dimension and depth to these characters, observing their beliefs, their motivations and their reasons to go along with this particular ideology. This way, he is able to reach more worthy conclusions (or to ask more accurate questions), and enhance the hero value of his central character.

Commonly attributed to Wachowski siblings, the film adaptation of this graphic novel is altogether a different story - so much that Moore didn't want to be listed among the credits of the film after seeing the screenplay. Wachowskis recast the fascist-anarchist conflict with that between American neo-conservatism and current American liberalism. This is either a simplified version or a different one, depending on how much you liked the resulting product. Narratively, Wachowskis' version is much more compact than the ten issues written by Moore. At the cost of a simplified political message, Wachowskis have structurally improved the story by trimming unnecessary characters, plot lines and anything else that would've swayed them from the central notion of 'liberalist vendetta'. Their rationale is similar to that of Peter Jackson as far as his Lord of the Rings adaptations are concerned (he rationalizes the lack of Tom Bombadil by the fact that he did not serve the central storyline that concerns The One Ring and its destruction). The resulting product is not something you would like to think about but something to be lost in. V For Vendetta the movie plays on your feelings, not your thoughts and that seems to be quite the opposite of the original graphic novel. The film is extremely theatrical as it's written (e.g. The 120-word V alliteration) and directed (e.g. The spectacular destruction of the Old Bailey, accompanied by Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture) but it doesn't feel forced thanks to Moore's extraordinary storytelling skills and to the harmonious atmosphere created with the characteristics of the hero V. The film can also be read as an optimistic counterpart to Orwell's famous dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four.

04. A History Of Violence (2005) by David Cronenberg

We are all animals. It's a fact that is rather hard to give in, but a fact nonetheless. Despite all our technological achievements, complex communication methods and capabilities of thinking, we are still a part of nature. Our dominancy over this planet does not make us exempt from her rules. We command her, but we cannot deny the parts of her that are intrinsic to our existence, no matter how hard we try. Our laws, compared to hers, are nothing.

It is exactly this fact that Tom Stall finds out after the fateful event in the diner. At first glance, it appears that everything in A History of Violence happened due this coincidental act but that's not really the point. The question here is not how Stall's violent nature surfaced or why, it's the fact that it exists. Partly due to his own past but more so because of the nature of mankind. The 'history' in the title alludes not to Stall's or his brother's violent background but to that of humanity. We are ancestors of a breed that survived and dominated this planet, not because it's moral, peaceful or compassionate but because it's strong. Because nature is merciless. Only the fittest survive.

Cronenberg's film, which is somewhat more tame compared to his previous works, is simple in style but not simplistic in its message. The expectations of a more explicitly-controversial film or the typical quirkiness from Cronenberg, combined with the minimal and realist cinematography, leads to a lot of misconceptions regarding the film. The result? A lot of unfavorable reviews for all the wrong reasons. A History of Violence is not only a hard film to read but also a set of very legitimate questions are posed regarding the subject matter, for which straightforward answers are quite hard to find. Is there really no escape from a criminal/violent past? How much of this 'history' is hereditary? Or is it inherent, by the same amount, in every human being? If so, how do some uf us manage to suppress this instinct while others have a hard time dealing with it? What's the difference? Which identity of Stall is real the real one, Tom or Joey? Are we all a part of this giant hoax named 'a peaceful life'? What's the price for living against our instincts? Trying to come up with reasonable answers to these questions would produce a long, scholarly review of the film, for which I don't have enough space here.

Aside from all this, A History of Violence is also one of the rare examples in this genre that proves not every graphic novel has to have a stylized visuality - realism goes a long way if you know how to make the best of it.

03. Persepolis (2007) by Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi

Animated with somewhat of a more traditional methods as opposed to the ever-increasing technical excellence of Pixar, Persepolis is one of the best examples of French animation which rarely disappoints. It's a different taste in both the animations industry (with its innovative 2-D visual style) and the comic-book genre (because, seriously, how many comic-book adaptations are actually animations?). But more importantly, it's a film about Iran and the Islamic Revolution, made in a European country and without any orientalist attitude. For this reason and nothing else, it might be unsurmountable.

People were extremely sceptical when it first came out and it's understandable - Sarkozy's France was making a film about Iran and people hadn't even finished discussing 300 yet. When I was seeing the film in a theater, the attendant even chose to lecture me about France's Middle-Eastern politics and how this film was merely a part of it. It's funny how people can overlook a couple of important details to prove themselves right - how, for instance, they can forget about nuns in the Austrian boarding house and how Marji's experiences there were practically the same as those back in her home country. This juxtaposition of Islamic and Christian fundementalism was one of the central issues in the film, yet people chose to ignore this and express discontent over how the West criticizes the consequences of Islamic Revolution. Either selective perception or ignorant hypocrisy.

The film is gripping as it starts, extremely dynamic and well-paced as it progresses and hearth-breaking as it ends. Although it touches a lot of important worldly issues, the central storyline in Persepolis never departs from the coming-of-age experiences of Marji. Everything revolves around this girl, and the changes in her perception as she grows up are all reflected to what we see on screen. We observe everything through her eyes and this adds a whole new level of sincerity and intensity to the story, which would otherwise feel politically overloaded. If a film is as emotionally captivating as this and technically innovative at the same time, you have nothing more to ask for.

02. Batman Begins & The Dark Knight (2005 & 2008) by Christopher Nolan

Finally we come to the films that much of the hype today is centered around; and I'm sure many of you are not surprised to see them so high. Occupying the second slot is Christopher Nolan's dark and serious interpretation of Batman, which started three years ago with Batman Begins where he unprecedentedly chose to explore the origins of this superhero. A brave attempt to say the least. He provided first-time answers to a set of questions such as to who this 'Caped Crusader' really is and how he came to be the hero we know. After establishing the past, the personality and the philosophy of the character, came The Dark Knight, where Batman is given a villain of considerable strength, capable of challenging not one but all his powers. It's like a building a neat and strong town in Sim City and then sending over a tornado to see how strong it really is. Joker is the perfect choice for this, as his power lies not in his muscles or fighting techniques but in his astute and chaotic nature. The fact that he loses when engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Batman is irrelevant. Needless to say, the sequel is less philosophical, more action-oriented and definitely more grandiose.

Inspired not by the traditional franchise but by the unique looks of both Alan Moore and Frank Miller, Nolan chooses the very opposite of what Tim Burton had set out to do - his interpretation is extremely dark and serious, where nights are longer than usual, scars are deeper and daylight isn't bright enough. The atmosphere is a perfect blend of Michael Mann's gritty realism and David Fincher's dreamy melancholia. Nolan takes this well-known superhero, smoothens all the extremities and comes up with plausible explanations for every single detail. As a child, Batman was probably the least impressive superhero to me, since I thought he could merely afford to be powerful; that he was a hero simply because he had the money to be one. It is exactly this impression that Nolan shakes with this philosophical approach to a man who wears a bat suit and kills his enemies using expensive equipment. I will provide a more detailed analysis regarding this issue in the upcoming two-volume 'Nolan's Batman Tales' article that will cover both these films. For the sake of that article, I will stop now.

It is true that Nolan shows a superior command over cinematical tools of expression when compared to Tim Burton - thus I have ranked his films higher. It is also true that most of the time, philosophical depth is preferable to naive fun. But this should not mean that Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are everything that Burton's duology tries to be - both interpretations are vastly different and one does not necessarily substitute for the other.

01. Sin City (2005) by Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller

The ultimate example for movies adapted from a graphic novel, Sin City is also an important cornerstone in the history of cinema. It single-handedly increased the limits for digital filmmaking to new heights and proved that green screen is not merely for background decoration. It's also the first (and probably only) adaptation that stays 100% true to its original material, thanks to the visionary approach of Robert Rodriguez towards this highly-stylized, noir-style graphic novel.

Unlike 300 though, directorial touches can be easily spotted in Sin City. Rodriguez did not simply sit back and enjoy Miller's vision being animated and this is definitely not a lazy adaptation. His film is not only a new age in the comic-book genre but also is the latest representative of hardboiled crime novels and their subsequent reflections on cinema. Sin City holds a unique spot in film history as a film that is both reminiscent of its much older ancestors and essentially a part of today's postmodern movement. Its visual language recreates the old existential tones in the classical film noirs with aggressive use of chiaroscuro that will remind you the best examples of German Expressionist silents. The screenplay is Frank Miller's poetic narrative as it's written, and a typical noir fiction as acted. On top of all these is the elaborate and innovative use of colors in a primarily black & white film that never comes off pretentious. It's a perfect film for both people who never even heard about the original material and those who are a fan of the graphic novel. The excellence is both in the execution of all cinematical elements and in the choices made regarding how to adapt this particular graphic novel. Considering the quality of the original material, nothing could've been better.

Watching Sin City is the closest experience to actually watching a graphic novel on screen - this will not only be an observation but also a profound feeling. Merely copying the original work, frame-by-frame won't give your film this quality - you and your whole team (especially the actors) should be willing to challenge some of the conventions and reflect this spirit to your work to the best of your ability.

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That's it folks. The result? A big kudos to the year 2005 for producing this genre's best examples and changing its face forever. With Sin City, A History of Violence, Batman Begins and V For Vendetta, the bar for the comic book/graphic novel adaptations has been set as high as it has never been; while some like to believe that this year's Iron Man had a similar effect, I find it not even comparable to these examples I have listed.

So... now it's time for opinions, suggestions and -definitely- a couple of flames. Shoot.