The Grandmaster

Melanie and I streamed the movie "The Grandmaster" last night, a Hong Kong film directed by Wong Kar-wai and nominated for Academy Awards in Cinematography and Costume Design. It also made the January shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film, a larger list from which the final Foreign Film nominations are chosen, though it ended up missing that one.

This was a hard one to find. It opened on August 30, 2013 and isn't playing anywhere in the city, nor is it available from Netflix until March 4th. It is available, however, on something called Google Play as a streaming rental which cost us $4.99 for the Hi-Def version.

First, a shout-out to two friends of mine, Phil and Alain: if you guys haven't seen this one yet you need to as soon as possible, you'll love it.

I've never been into kung fu movies. I was a kid during the glory years when Bruce Lee was in his heyday and after, but they always seemed corny and amateurish to me, too fantastical with silly sound effects. Obviously a lot of people disagree with that, or maybe they agree and overlook the limitations, enjoying something else I always missed.

"The Grandmaster" ended up being much better than I expected, especially the look of it. I have no idea if it's a good kung fu movie, but I thought it was a pretty good movie all around. It's like a black velvet painting in a good way, with rich colors and stark moody contrasts. It's obvious why it got a cinematography nomination, it's a gloriously beautiful movie. I didn't follow the story too well - I never do with kung fu movies - but it was much more accessible than a lot of others in the field. It doesn't seem to use much if any CGI but you almost think it has to because the visuals are so stunning and well done. But I think the look is mainly the result of good camera work, effective lighting, and careful setups. Every frame could almost be a photograph, the compositions are perfect throughout. I can see why it was on the Best Foreign Film shortlist. (The real disappointment this year was that the movie "Wadjda" didn't get a foreign film nomination, it didn't even make the shortlist; that's a crime, what a great movie.)

We liked this one, but don't ask me what happens because I'm not really sure. Something about a guy who ends up being the new top kung fu dude, and there's a girl in it, and lots of cool fights. Apparently the main character went on to teach Bruce Lee, so I guess this is based on a true story to some extent. I liked it enough to want to see it again and pay more attention to the storyline (one downside of streaming a movie from home is it's easy to get distracted). This one was a nice surprise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grandmaster_(film)

The Doors, The Beatles

Put The Doors’ first album on tonight, and even though it was released in 1967 – two or three years before The Beatles broke up (depends on how you date the breakup) – it sounds like a modern record, like something Jack White might do, very basic and accessible, very contemporary. As much as I love The Beatles, I think The Doors’ first album works more as a modern album than The Beatles albums from 1967, Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour. Because there’s no dated sound or style to the music, it’s a basic four-piece rock band doing what rock bands still do… rock out. Great debut, great album.

Am I saying The Doors are better than The Beatles? No, I’m not. But I’m thinking they might be near equals.

The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_tonight_show

Jimmy Fallon began his tenure on The Tonight Show last night and I watched it during lunch today. (One perk about working from home two days a week: watching TV during lunch.) Wow was he appreciative! I think I’m the only person he didn’t thank.

I like Jimmy Fallon, but I know him mostly from SNL and from the musical parodies he does which get a lot of play on the internet. His Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen imitations are amazing!

I think he did a good job on his debut. I remember taping Jay Leno’s first Tonight Show and it was pretty stiff, he was visibly nervous and awkward. Fallon was a bit tense but still much more collected than Leno was.

A new Tonight Show host is a big deal to me. I used to watch Carson all the time, though I didn’t appreciate him then as much as I do now. His skill as an interviewer hasn’t been matched by anyone since, he had an amazing ability to connect with his guests, to truly listen (or do a great job of pretending to), and ad-lib hysterical responses. But I always thought he had a bit of a disingenuous, forced quality.

It’s hard to know if Fallon is going to be funny or a good interviewer, because everything about this first show – even the conversations with the guests – was about how this is the first show. Fallon is certainly respectful of all who came before him and appreciative and apparently humbled, and that’s nice to see, but it’s too soon to know what he’ll be like when he hits his groove.

However, I was impressed. I think once Fallon settles down he’ll be very good, and is already better than Conan O’Brien ever was. O’Brien was (and still is) so forced, needy, pandering and neurotic, he’s hard to watch; he makes me uncomfortable. An entertainment show shouldn’t make you uncomfortable. Even with the pressures of his first appearance, Fallon is better.

I can already see the traditional Tonight Show crowd moving on though. How Fallon landed The Roots to be the house band is a mystery, but what a feat! However, their hip-hop/funk vibe might alienate traditional viewers, as will some of the humor which is already catering to a younger demographic. I also don’t know if Fallon is going to have a 2nd banana, an Ed McMahon to his Johnny Carson. He does have an “announcer,” but little attention was paid to him this first time out. It could be that Fallon doesn’t need a partner – did he have one on his other talk show? – but at this point it’s unclear if he’ll have a foil and what that rapport might be.

The show is looking a little edgy, and no one’s ever said that about The Tonight Show before. This may turn out to be the most dramatic overhaul in its history, and I’m encouraged. I like the new set and I like how it’s back in New York. Will the ratings retain Leno levels? I think they might settle in a little lower. I can see a time when Fallon and Letterman start alternating over who has the best ratings – Leno almost always had more viewers than Letterman – and if that happens, I don’t know how NBC will react; bring Leno back again?!?!

I already like the show more than I did during Leno’s tenure. I’m very interested in seeing how it develops over the next few weeks. I’ll be watching.

Best Foreign Picture Nominations

Melanie & I have seen three of the five nominees for this year’s Best Foreign Picture Oscar: “The Hunt (Denmark),” “The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium),” and “The Great Beauty (Italy).”

We both like “The Broken Circle Breakdown” (via Netflix streaming) most, though all three are so so good in different ways. “The Broken Circle Breakdown” is a foreign movie for people who think they don’t like foreign movies, and is just very good all around. And what music! It’s real and searing, like watching life instead of a movie. (Why are other countries so much better at depicting life in film than we are?)

Close behind that is “The Hunt,” another riveting movie which I would have given the lead to until I saw “The Broken Circle Breakdown.”

The other one, “The Great Beauty,” is the most “artsy” of the three and very Fellini-esque. Visually gorgeous, but also challenging. It’s not straight-forward, a little surreal; when people think of an “art” movie, they probably imagine something like this. But it’s good, and worth seeing if you have two and half hours to spare and can watch without expectations. (I admit to looking up reviews of the movie later to get a better handle on it.)

There are two other movies nominated for Best Foreign Picture which you and I can’t see: "Omar” from Palestine and “The Missing Picture” (no pun intended) from Cambodia. They aren’t playing anywhere in New York City, so I’m pretty sure they aren’t playing anywhere near you either.

Why?! How can movies be nominated for Oscars when no one can see them? Every year this happens, movies get nominated which have only been screened in festivals.

I did another search online before writing this and found out “Omar” is scheduled to play on 2/12; I hope that means it will be screening in NYC too. The other movie, “The Missing Picture,” is scheduled to premiere 3/19, 17 days AFTER the Academy Awards.

Yo Academy, get your foreign shit together, this is ridiculous. Make sure we can see every movie nominated before the ceremony! Is that too much to ask? Is that so wrong?

"The Act of Killing" Documentary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Killing

One of this year's Oscar nominated documentaries is "The Act of Killing" which is available via Netflix streaming. Melanie and I watched it recently and it's one of the oddest, most horrifying documentaries I've ever seen. It's going to stay with me for a long time.

The movie is about the mass murders of Communists and Chinese in Indonesia in the mid 1960s. The "stars" of the documentary are the killers themselves, the mass murderers who committed the crimes. They're re-enacting the killings for a fictional movie, and the documentary shows you this movie being made. At the same time, the killers speak freely to us, to the documentary filmmaker, and proudly recount their atrocities. The killings wee apparently government sanctioned and funded, and you find out "gangsters," as these men refer to themselves, are almost revered in Indonesia. You even hear government officials at rallies praising them - and this is in modern day Indonesia. We see during a talk show appearance these serial killers being applauded for purging the country of Communists.

I've never seen anything like this. Imagine Hitler and Goebbels making a movie celebrating their atrocities.

That some of these men are charismatic and funny is upsetting, but that's what makes the movie so powerful; it shows you the men, not the caricatures or stereotypes. As much as we want them to look like aberrant, soulless monsters, we see them as people, and that's powerfully unsettling.

What's fascinating is how freely they talk abut their atrocities. They describe in detail the various ways to kill people, and the advantages and disadvantages to each method. They describe the most repulsive acts I can imagine in almost banal tones. One guy reminisces fondly about raping 14-year-old girls, and boasts how he'd say, "This is going to be Hell for you but Heaven for me." It's like being in some bizarro immoral universe. I was fascinated and repulsed by this movie in equal measure, and it's not easy to know what to make of it. That the main killer in the film grows more remorseful as the movie goes on is gratifying - good, you should suffer for what you did - but empty in its inadequacy.

The thing that horrified me the most was to see how even today the government and the culture applaud the genocide that happened, and holds these killers up heroically. Indonesia comes off as a very disturbing and unsettling country, one I don't think I'll visit anytime soon.

This is a powerful and unique documentary. Few leave an impression like this one does. I think the best documentary race this year is between "The Act of Killing" and another film available on Netflix streaming, "The Square." I highly recommend both.

Oscar Short Movies

http://www.nitehawkcinema.com/

http://www.ifccenter.com/films/academy-award-nominated-documentary-shorts-2014-prog-a/

What a fun night. Melanie and I went to the amazing Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg Brooklyn for a double feature, two programs of Oscar nominated shorts. First we saw the live action shorts, then we saw the animated shorts.

The Nitehawk is great. It’s a three-level building with (I think) three movie screens, two bars, and food. You can order drinks and food both before and during the movies. The seats are comfortable and every two seats has a small table where the food and drinks are served. The rooms aren’t huge, they’re kind of like black box theater rooms seating maybe 100 in the rooms we saw - no more than 200 - and the staff bends low as they serve things during the screenings; it's hard not to feel a little sorry for them. I can imagine the interview: "If you dig the hunchback vibe, this job is for you." This might be the future of public cinema. Theaters don’t make much money from ticket sales, they make their profits from snacks and popcorn. The Nitehawk adds a bar and a decent dinner menu, plus service during the movies. It’s kind of like an old fashioned supper club, but instead of a band, you get a movie. Very cool.

We both loved the live action shorts. Here’s the lineup:

AQUEL NO ERA YO (THAT WASN’T ME)
Director: Esteban Crespo
Paula, a Spanish aid worker, has an encounter with an African child soldier named Kaney.

AVANT QUE DE TOUT PERDRE (JUST BEFORE LOSING EVERYTHING)
Directors: Xavier Legrand and Alexandre Gavras
Miriam has left her abusive husband and taken refuge with her children in the local supermarket where she works.

HELIUM
Directors Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson
A dying boy finds comfort in the tales of a magical land called HELIUM, told to him by the hospital janitor.

PITAAKO MUN KAIKKI HOITAA? (DO I HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING?) Directors: Selma Vilhunen and Kirsikka Saari
Sini tries frantically to get her family ready to leave for a wedding, but her husband and two children are interfering with her efforts.

THE VOORMAN PROBLEM
Directors: Mark Gill and Baldwin Li
A psychiatrist is called to a prison to examine an inmate named Voorman, who is convinced he is a god.

Our favorites were AVANT QUE DE TOUT PERDRE (JUST BEFORE LOSING EVERYTHING) and, maybe equally as good, HELIUM. Very enjoyable lineup of films.

The animated shorts were a little disappointing. We’re not the right audience for animation, but I like animated shorts because they can be a little weird, a little more creative. But this batch was only OK. the lineup was:

FERAL (Directors Daniel Sousa and Dan Golden)
A wild boy who has grown up in the woods is found by a hunter and returned to civilization.

GET A HORSE! (Directors: Lauren MacMullan and Dorothy McKim)
Mickey Mouse and his friends are enjoying a wagon ride until Peg-Leg Pete shows up with plans to ruin their day.

MR HUBLOT (Directors: Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares)
The eccentric, isolated Mr. Hublot finds his carefully ordered world disrupted by the arrival of Robot Pet.

POSSESSIONS (Director: Shuhei Morita)
A man seeking shelter from a storm in a dilapidated shrine encounters a series of household objects inhabited by goblin spirits.

ROOM ON THE BROOM (Directors: Max Lang and Jan Lachauer)
A genial witch and her cat are joined on their broom by several friends as they set off on an adventure.

Melanie and I were in agreement again on these. We both liked MR HUBLOT best and, almost as much, ROOM ON THE BROOM.

The IFC Center movie theater in the Village is also showing the Oscar nominated shorts, and tomorrow we might try to catch one of the short documentary programs there. They split the five documentary shorts up into two programs with program A showing three movies and Program B showing the other two.

This is the first year we’ve seen the shorts before the Oscars because where can you see them? It’s a lot of fun because, even if a movie sucks, you only have to wait maybe 20 minutes for the next one.

Consider checking out these short movies if you can, there are some good ones here.

Inside Llewyn Davis

Melanie and I saw “Inside Llewyn Davis” last night and I loved it; loved it, loved it, loved it.  Did I make it clear how much I loved it?  

In many ways it fits my picture of Greenwich Village in the early 60s, a time and place I would love to have been old enough to experience, even if here it’s gloomier than it apparently really was.  A reaction to the film by someone who was part of that crowd said what’s in the movie is almost unrecognizable from the glorious, fun, exciting, colorful, joyful time she remembers.  But that’s OK.  This isn’t a documentary, it’s a fictional movie set in that time and place with its own themes and moods.

I love the actor playing Llewyn Davis, Oscar Isaac.  He’s a gifted musician (he does his own singing and playing) and has an engaging screen presence.  I also love how curmudgeonly his character is.  Fortunately this isn’t one of those obscurity-to-fame movies.  It’s about a talented musician trying to get a career going at the epicenter of the most talented musicians of his genre.  The fact that he only does covers is a subtle but telling detail, it’s something that limits any musician looking to make it big.  Maybe in 1961 (the time of the movie) it was more common to be an interpreter of other people’s music, but Llewyn Davis isn’t a Frank Sinatra or a Tony Bennett.  He sings well, but he’s not a “singer.”  Does he do covers because that’s easier?  Because it’s what other people on the scene do?  CAN he write?  We don’t know for sure, but you get the impression he either isn’t ambitious enough to think that big, or simply lacks the songwriting chops.  True, some folk musicians did covers and had decent careers, but even then the standouts were those who wrote too, like Pete Seeger and, just starting to get his early recognition at this time, Bob Dylan.  You can't help wondering if the landscape is about to shift away from Davis and leave him behind.

The movie is visually dark which creates an evocative mood, but I wondered if the projector in the theater was set too low (Regal Union Square 14 on Broadway just below 14^th).  We were in a smaller room, I’m guessing because the movie is probably near the end of its run, and maybe less care was taken with the presentation?  But I could easily believe the dimness was deliberate.  If so, I guess I found it a bit too dark.

Some of the things I love about the movie might have more to do with my interests than with the merits of the movie.  When I was a teenager reading about my favorite musicians from the 60s (this was in the 70s), I learned Jim Morrison would live from couch to couch before The Doors formed and got big.  To me, a shy kid without a lot of friends, that seemed like such a glamorous, adventurous way to live, never knowing where the next night would lead you, but always somehow finding a place to crash.  “Inside Llewyn Davis” does a great job of showing you what that kind of existence might really be like, the frustration and fear of not knowing where you’ll find shelter (the movie takes place over a harsh winter), and the reservations of those who must give you their couch once again without knowing how long you’ll stay.  It’s the deflating side of the vagabond life, probably the truer side.  Davis is even less likable because he leeches so constantly and freely.  He has no recourse, being a poor starving artist, but you hold him responsible because his lifestyle results from the career choice he’s made, and you’re not sure it was the right choice.

I love how Davis takes the romanticism out of even the musician’s approach to music.  He’s asked to play something at a dinner party and is told how wonderful it must be, being able to create music at will.  But he gets angry and says it’s just the way he makes his living, it’s just a job; he doesn’t seem to find anything special or glamorous in it.  Obviously not all musicians feel that way, but it’s oddly refreshing to hear that point of view, one which I’m sure is shared by more musicians than would care to admit it.  Where does the creative drive come from when your art is reduced to a job to make money to stay alive?

I love the largely plot-less story.  It’s not non-linear, but it doesn’t have a traditional structure of three acts with a dramatic closing climax.  Well, maybe it does, but in an unconventional way.  The movie is a kind of circular journey that ends where it starts.  Things happen along the way, but this isn’t a story that rushes forward to a big dramatic conclusion.  Instead it's almost like the journey in a Greek myth.  There's even a cat named Ulysses.  (The Coen Brothers have said this movie is the direct successor to their "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou.")  The mythical structure, ironically, makes it feel more real, truer to life.  The movie has a different kind of excitement.  I was hanging on every scene, every shot, just loving everything about it, rapt in a way few movies make me.  It has a kind of inner excitement, the excitement of something rising above the mundane and approaching truth.

The rest of the characters and cast are equally impressive.  John Goodman has an atypical part, a bit small (the part, not John Goodman) but very memorable.  With great hair.  F. Murray Abraham plays a club owner and talent scout who wants to form a folk trio with a girl and two guys, he just hasn’t found the girl and the two guys yet.  He thinks Llewyn Davis might fit if he trimmed his beard into a goatee.  Davis turns down the job.  We’re not surprised, he doesn’t play well with others, and he’d make a lousy Peter Yarrow or Paul Stookey.

One nice surprise is Justin Timberlake.  I’ve followed his movie career and so far I like his acting.  He hasn’t shown much of a range yet, but he always seems relaxed (not the easiest thing for an actor) and is usually engaging.  He plays a somewhat bland role here but he does it well.  Carey Mulligan is also very good in this.  I didn’t recognize her (though I knew I’d seen her before) until I looked the credits up later.  She seems to have a nice chameleon quality that lets her disappear into different roles.

Seeing Greenwich Village in the winter of 1961 is great.  The movie does an impressive job using what seems to be today’s Village and finding sections that could have existed in 1961.  I don’t know if digital effects were used to cover over any modern-day storefronts; if so, the result is convincing.  There aren’t a lot of wide shots of the streets, but what you see looks right.  So do the interiors, and the costuming, and the hairstyles.  All the movie really, it captures the era nicely from what I know of it.

This is a special one, surprisingly so.  My hopes were high going into it and I enjoyed it even more than I expected to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Llewyn_Davis