Benjamin Button; The Devil Wears Prada

I am known among family and friends for having overly serious taste in films. Indeed, whenever someone is over and we decide to peruse my movie collection to find a good flick, it is found to be rife with titles that are heavy meditations on serious themes or subtitled.

However, I think that it is pretty clear from my previous posts that I truly love any film that is well made - be it comedy, mystery, suspense or thriller - and that one of my criteria for this is heavily weighted towards whether or not the director can suck me into the screen and make me forget the "real" world around me for a few hours in favour of the world being created onscreen.

Which, coincidentally, is why I am so adamant about seeing films in the theater: creating a world takes a large canvas.

Today's films are both examples of movies that made me forget my critical distance and just disappear into the lives of the characters for a few hours - and what diverse films they are!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher, 2008) (Park Lane) Twelve academy awards nominations point to the fact that this year's Golden Globes may not live up to their legacy of being an accurate predictor of Oscar trends.

I loved Benjamin Button with virtually no reservations - well, I can find a fair number if pushed to it, but I prefer to just enjoy the warm glow that this film left me with.

Benjamin Button was born on the final day of WWI in a rather ass backwards fashion - he was an old man at birth, with his advancing years seeing him grow younger rather than older. This unique condition makes him an outsider in a world he should inhabit instinctively (that of other children) and an insider in a world that he is not equipped to understand (that of adults).

Abandoned by a father horrified by his condition and nurtured by a foster mother working as a servant in an old folks home, unflappable good nature allows Benjamin to navigate his curious situation with grace and poise in a story that spans continents and the arc of modern western history.

As he grows in age and approaches physical youth, a cast of characters ranging from an alcoholic sea captain/tattoo artist to the father he never knew play key roles in Benjamin's mental growth even as he gets physically younger. However, it should come as no surprise that it is the women in his life that define the arc of his strange life.

The first, the phenomenal Tilda Swinton as Elizabeth, the adulterous wife of a British diplomat in Soviet Russia, introduces him to love (as opposed to just sex) as the basis of a muted but strangely compelling relationship that for me was one of the most intriguing in the film. The austerity of this relationship is embodied in the cold and distant Russian setting, but its importance to Benjamin is all the more compelling against this backdrop.

The second, a "childhood" friend named Daisy, played in adulthood by the incomparable Cate Blanchett (well, OK, comparable to the likes of Meryl Streep maybe), is meant to be the passionate core of the movie - coincidentally also being the part of the film when Benjamin's chronological age and apparent age begin to meet in his 30s and 40s. The computer manipulation of his features switches tone dramatically at this point: after having presented the child Benjamin as Gollum and the 20s Benjamin as a dignified match for Elizabeth, he is now let loose on the audience as...well...Brad Pitt. Three girls behind me gasped in unison at his pinup glory.

But strangely the relationship with Daisy, which is supposed to be about unfettered exploration of passion as Benjamin finally becomes comfortable with who or what he is, lacked chemistry and came across as slightly flat. This did not compromise the movie for me, but left me with an impression similar to that of Slumdog Millionaire - the magic in both being weighted towards the beginning, in the fairy tale story of childhoods lived extraordinarily.

Indeed, Benjamin is not a complex character, and the eponymous film is far from complicated, steering clear as it does of the myriad social and moral issues that typified the times in which it is set. I would venture so far as to say that Benjamin Button borders on simplicity in the innocence of the character and the benign nature of the world he inhabits.

I hate to say it, but in this regard the film brings to mind Forest Gump, the screenplay for which was also penned by Eric Roth. Now it is tempting to sneer at Benjamin Button as a rerun - a sea captain as a best friend indeed! - but this is no Forest Gump, a fact that is perhaps best evidenced by the wise decision not to engage in the history that frames it. Benjamin was in WWII but played no pivotal role, he met no presidents and did not play ping pong in China - the film recognizes that it is a fairy tale and does not aspire to be anything more.

The bottom line for me is that I never looked at my watch, never thought about a snack, didn't consider the weather or have a thought about my job - I just enjoyed the world of Benjamin Button, and recommend it wholeheartedly.

I might add that one of the great virtues of this film is the computer graphics (CG). I am generally as wary of CG as the blockbuster cash fests that are generally hung on them, but recognize that amazing things can be accomplished - and amazing things are accomplished in Benjamin Button, which is perhaps only the second film that I have ever watched that relies heavily on CG but where the simulations have not been so poorly realized as to distract me. Much like in 2007's The Golden Compass, the CG is Benjamin Button is seamless and stunning - a true testament to what can be done when CG is treated like a paint brush to apply atmosphere rather than a frame to hang a limp story on. I sense technical Oscars going this way...

Enjoy :)

The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006) (Home) When The Devil Wears Prada hit theaters I dismissed it out of hand - much the same way I dismiss many wedding movies or the Sex in the City Movie. It looked like so much marketing of fashion and make up and little else. What was Meryl Streep doing?

Well, as it turns out, she was playing a nuanced and demanding role that challenged her to rise to the height of her craft - Meryl's turn as Miranda Priestley, vicious bitch goddess managing editor of Runway, the fashion world's leading magazine, is a pleasure to behold, and literally left me in awe.

The story revolves around Andy Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway, a journalist of principal who just can't find a job until she lands a position as Miranda's assistant at what she considers an essentially pointless magazine dedicated to girly indulgence. What she doesn't count on, however, is getting drawn into the cutthroat world of a multi-billion dollar fashion industry that insiders take as seriously as she takes politics and social activism.

And - aside from the fantastic acting - this is where I identified with The Devil Wears Prada. As Andy entered the high pressure world of fashion publication, I identified at every step based on my almost eight years in the pressure-cooker corporate world of South Korea: working 12 hours days as a minimum, being judged as much for the brand of your suit and tie as for the quality of your work, being on business trips or stuck in the office instead of home for anniversaries or even birthdays, barely fitting in a healthy meal between meetings.

And getting off on it! Feeling a drug-like rush that only more work, a more expensive suit, or another whirlwind business trip could maintain.

And then suddenly stopping one day and realizing what you have lost, and choosing to try to get some of it back.

The thing with The Devil Wears Prada is that it was real life, just not a real life that everybody experiences or understands. In much the same way, I guess, many of the wedding movies that I dismiss out of hand could be great films that I just don't identify with - or don't give the chance to. For me The Devil was a sleeper hit in much the same way that Clueless was: I never imagined I could find any good in it, and in the end I loved every minute of it.

You may not, and that's totally OK.

Slumdog Millionaire, Gran Torino, MILK, Valkyrie

I sit in the glow of my computer screen with a hot cup of tea, watching the snow fall outside in what is already Halifax's fourth large storm of this winter season, wondering again - like a mental record that has hit a skip - what the hell I am doing in this frigid climate.

Especially as my father - a heavyweight in terms of the family I came back to be closer to - has long since abandoned the frigid northern climes of Nova Scotia in favour of the beaches of sunny Florida. The snowbird has flown the coop, and I sit in a house that feels like an igloo on a vast northern steppe.

But wherever I am, movies are, of course, a constant - save for the lack of variety offered in our quaint port city on the sea. The last week has provided a fair amount of fodder, so here we go - and as I often claim, I will be brief.

Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan, 2008) (The Oxford) Woah, pressure. I wish that I had written this review before the Golden Globe for best picture had been awarded to Boyle and Tandan, because then I could avoid the nagging question of whether or not it deserves that designation.

Cop out warning: my judgement is that I really enjoyed this film an immense amount. I think that I experienced this film the same way that a youth enjoys a story of magic and adventure: by surrendering to the story's world completely and immersing myself in the world on portrayed to the point where I smelt the smells, sweated in the heat, and felt the joy and pain of the heroes keenly.

The sounds and sights of India are so beautifully captured as our protagonist, Jamal, narrates the winding path of his journey from a precocious child in the sprawling slums of Bombay to the grand prize winner on the Bollywood version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The water steams, the rain churns the ground to mud, the crowds jostle and sweat, the food sizzles, the garbage coats the landscape and the shit stinks (as it does everywhere in the world, but usually you are more isolated from it than you often are in India).

I felt like I was back in India, riding the rails through verdant countryside, lining up at the Taj Mahal, shopping and eating in the warren of market alleys, summoning the chai wallah for a cuppa black tea laced with cardamom, cinnamon and clove, counting the smiles of Gandhi that grace each 100 Rupee note, and listening to the singsong of Indian English speakers waggling their heads in an endearing and/or infuriating hybrid of yes and no.

I can't really say what your experience of Slumdog will be if you cannot approach it as a documentary of your personal experience, but based on the Golden Globe and the Oscar buzz this film is tapping into something with wider and less-travelled audiences as well.

And the soundtrack does not hurt, having been a regular on my iPod since leaving the theater. M.I.A.'s Paper Planes figures heavily in the film and anchors a soundtrack that melds the techno beats of London's club scene with the lovelorn standards of Bollywood musicals. Stick around for the credits to see a tribute to the highly choreographed dance and song routines that are de rigeur in Bollywood fare.

The one thing that I will say to balance my rave opinion is that for me the magic of Slumdog is weighted to the first half and a little beyond. I found that as we approached the present and Malik grew up and his life became more tied to the modern urban landscape of Mumbai than to the colourful exoticism of his life in the slums and rural India, the magic dulled a little, and was not adequately compensated for in the love story at the center of a narrative that by this point is typified by cash, glitz and guns.

But go and see Slumdog Millionaire. Immerse yourself in the film and enjoy the ride - then hit a bookstore and pick up Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram to continue your travels in that world.

Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008) (Park Lane) Clint Eastwood has a checkered history of film making, but of late - with the notable exception of the painfully bad Flags of Our Fathers - he has delivered a spate of fantastic films best embodied by (or perhaps limited to) Changeling and Million Dollar Baby.

I enjoyed Gran Torino, but remain somehow reluctant to recommend it wholesale. While it is a refreshingly non-PC look at racism in America, as typified by the relationship between Walt Kowalski, a flinty Korean war vet, and the Hmong refugees that settled en masse in the mid-western states in the early/mid-70s, the film retained an "after-school special" feeling that I just could not shake.

Eastwood inhabits his character completely, playing Walt as a cross between Dirty Harry (at one point, when facing down a gang member, you are almost on the edge of your seat waiting to hear him sneer "do I feel lucky, well do ya, punk?" and the Dark Knight (with the gravelly, throaty voice even serving as a point of comparison and/or annoyance).

The film making is heavy handed, and the symbolism overt, perhaps best evidenced by the opening shot at the funeral of Walt's wife, where he sits at one end of a church pew, separated by one space from his estranged children and grandchildren - the point obviously being that his wife served as his connection to his children, and that that connection is no longer there.

Things do not get any more subtle as they progress.

There are some laughs as the cultures collide, but overall the movie - which Eastwood claims will be his last performance as an actor - is not a high note to end on. Interesting, even enjoyable, but ultimately short of compelling.

MILK (Gus Van Sant, 2008) (Park Lane) Portland, Oregon's patron saint, Gus Van Sant is a powerhouse director who has served up films that resonate strongly for my generation: Good Will Hunting (nuff said), My Own Private Idaho, Drugstore Cowboy and To Die For come to mind.

I was highly anticipating the film MILK, not the least for Sean Penn's participation in the project, but also because it portrays a civil rights movement in its own respect - one that played out in my lifetime and changed the face of the society that I live in.

With the fundamental rights of an entire segment of society hanging in the balance, one would think that MILK would arouse the sympathy of audiences, enlisting moral outrage as - for lack of a better term - a device to help engage the audience's interest and emotions.

But that is my main problem with MILK. Sean Penn was good as Harvey Milk, as always, although I did feel initially that he was playing the character as too stereotypically gay, and Josh Brolin (who shone in Oliver Stone's W) was solid - but neither really engaged me or enlisted my sympathy. The film work was as solid as the acting, seamlessly melding archive footage and modern shooting, but overall felt flat and uninviting - very 1970s ;)

The bottom line is that when I watch a film about a struggle for rights or freedom or peace or justice, the beauty of the experience is in vicariously feeling the passion of those involved, walking a mile in their shoes and appreciating more fully the sacrifices made, the pain experienced and the thrill of victory or the ignominy of defeat.

This film seemed more like a documentary in the end than a tribute to a crusade - I have to recommend a pass on this one.

Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) (Bayer's Lake) Valkyrie is obviously in a different class than the three films we have looked at so far, being as it is essentially an Indiana Jones movie that takes itself more seriously.

Early in Valkyrie we are treated to an homage to Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph of the Will, although I doubt that Singer would frame it in that context, with Hitler descending from the sky in a boxy Junkers trimotor flanked by malevolent looking Messerschmidt 109s. It is a scene conveying all-encompassing power, as airplanes were still far from common in the early years of the war, and Hitler was among the first politicians to fully exploit them for both mobility and to inspire awe.

Hitler disembarks, and makes his way into a meeting room, followed by a camera that is shy of his face until he sits down at the meeting table - with a dark, brooding and essentially evil presence that was the first thing that annoyed me about the film. Over the past decade we have seen several films earn widespread approbation for daring to portray Hitler as a human being, Menno Mayjes' Max comes to mind, as does Chistian Duguay's Hitler: The Rise of Evil. Valkyrie avoids any such complications by making it clear in this one shot that Hitler is pure evil - and I don't dispute that, but think that it is worth pointing out, as it is a clear example of how cut and dried Valkyrie portrays World War II and Nazi Germany. There are bad guys and there are good guys. Period. (George Bush would approve.)

But this brings me to my next point. If the bad guy is pure evil, what about the good guy, you know, Maverick. The first shot of Cruise painstakingly donning his uniform despite horrible wounds sustained in the North Africa campaign elicited a surprisingly violent reaction from me: what the hell is he doing in this film?

Now I am not a rabid Tom Cruise hater like so many, but I am pretty used to not taking his films seriously, which was an attitude that I quickly realized I was going to have to adopt for Valkyrie. Sit back and enjoy the multi-million dollar recreation of 1940s Germany Yuri. Marvel at the machinery, the uniforms, the high polish of the Rolls Royces and the click of the polished boots marching in unison. Because this is not an examination of history or a documentary about a group of high-ranking German officials, led by Claus von Stauffenberg, attempting to assassinate Hitler before the allies enter Berlin and indict all of Germany as complicit in the crimes of the Third Reich.

And as eye candy and even an adventure film, Valkyrie is compelling and enjoyable, but this brings me to another question: in raising von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators to the position of heroes in a dark night of the soul - much as Schindler's List did for Oskar Schindler - are we oversimplifying who they were and what they did during those years of fear, oppression and darkness?

I know it is tantamount to blasphemy to suggest that Hitler had a soul, but he did at some point, and turned his back on it perhaps more fully than any other figure I can name in the history of Western culture and politics. Thus, what of Schindler? What of Stauffenberg? I know that we need heroes, but please allow them to be flawed - something that, to its credit, Schindler's List was careful to do but Valkyrie never considers.

I grew up watching old good vs evil WWII films with my Dad, and Valkyrie - although Cruise is still hard to swallow in the role - fits in with this tradition: The Guns of Naverone and A Bridge Too Far. Rollicking good war film that don't ask any questions and don't provide any answers - its just that this one really wants to be taken seriously....

A Real Nowhere Man

A Life Less Ordinary
Nine years in Korea, one and a half years in Portland and a year traveling in Europe, India, Nepal, and Hong Kong. A life less than ordinary indeed, resplendent with the glamour of foreign lands, exotic languages and esoteric cultures and cuisines.

All the world as a stage, so to speak, and me one of the actors in a play that is surely an action adventure or a comedy, but that I insist on seeing as a tragedy. And you know, its all in the eye of the beholder ;)

I wandered through the rooms of my cavernous new home today, surveying the scene of my latest adventure, and I wondered about that carefully constructed image of the seasoned flaneur, traveling light and collecting naught but a few photographs and a handful of good stories. the easy breezy me...

And I had to laugh.

Baggage
Many of the meditative faiths of the world speak of "letting go," escaping attachment in order to free oneself of craving and aversion, but also of tactile goods and even memories - and the mental baggage that they invariably carry with them

And here I was literally looking at my "baggage." For one who is so fancy free amid the wonders of the world and learning the lessons of the road, I sure have a LOT of crap. In fact, it is fair to say that I have learned nary a thing about letting go of attachments. In fact, I am carrying almost 1,000 pounds of attachments - an entire life that doesn't exist anymore except in memory

I am carrying around the photos of a life that I left behind along with the dishes that sat in my kitchen, the 1000s of photos that chronicle that life and hundreds of other artifacts that have no relevance to today, but belong to a yesterday that is already ancient history and should be allowed to moulder away in dusty corners.

I am carrying the lives I lived in Halifax and Kingston in the 90s, in Korea in the late 90s and early 00s, in Portland in 06 and in India in 07/08. Diplomas, clothing, postcards, photographs and more photographs, dishes and duvets, birthday gifts and tokens of affection, testaments to pain and joy that don't need to be memorialized but have been dragged across oceans and a continent.

And will now go on shelves in a musty basement.

And are attachments that may one day be given up...

Home for the holidays; Australia; Synecdoche, New York

Home for the Holidays :) Not only is this Christmas the first that I will spend with family since 1999, but it is also the first that I will spend in a house of my own. Unexpected but true: I seem to have put down some roots in the Maritimes, making Halifax my home insofar as I have purchased an edifice here - the actual making of a home involves the much more complicated fostering of community, which I hope will happen organically.

Yes, I have moved into the first-floor apartment in my three-unit building, and, along with the pride of ownership, am beginning to feel the weight of the many tasks that accompany it. Here's a taste: caulking the old, drafty windows on my floor, painting the second bedroom in the second-floor apartment and refinishing the floor in said unit, insulating the floor of my vestibule, renovating my bathroom, sealing and insulating the basement (by digging a five foot trench all the way around the house in the spring), etc, etc.

Volunteers are welcome :)

The move and laying the groundwork for this dizzying array of projects has cut pretty deeply into the time I can dedicate to my cinophilic pursuits (to coin a new term), but I have managed to take in two particularly intriguing current offerings.

Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008) (Park Lane) To lay the groundwork for this commentary, I must begin by unabashedly stating my love of the film Moulin Rouge. Although some of the cinematography was overly kinetic and disorienting, the musical collage that drives the plot - comprised of 1980s anthems of heartache, pain and desire - hooked me into the love story at the center of the film. Romeo + Juliet is another favorite, evidencing stunning camera work and great music that helps develop characters and drive the plot.

Australia is a much harder to be so unequivocal about. I entered the theater with great trepidation due to serious misgivings about the sub-plot involving the relationship between Nicole Kidman, a rich British aristocrat fresh off the boat in rough and tumble Darwin, and a young mixed-blood aboriginal/Caucasian boy, Nallah, who wants to avoid the mission schools that until the mid 1970s were tasked with "civilizing" the "native element" to assimilate them into "white Australia." (Run-on sentence! Hurrah!) Those fears were not assuaged by the opening narration, read by said aboriginal youth in a type of "pigeon English" that made me cringe.

My misgivings quickly multiplied, as Kidman took over management of a cattle station struggling to hold out against a beef baron with designs of securing a meat supply monopoly to the pacific fleet as war with Japan loomed large. I kept waiting to hear Kidman's voice murmuring "I had a farm in Australia" as the camera panned the dusty outback plains.

And this quickly became one of my key annoyances: Nicole Kidman is a great actress but is no Meryl Streep, Hugh Jackman annoys the hell out of me at the best of times (I'll accept him grudgingly as Wolverine...but that's it) and the outback is most certainly not the mountains of Kenya. I draw my line in the sand at this: Don't mess with Out of Africa.

Similarly, while I am less a fan of The Wizard of Oz than of Out of Africa, I quickly got pretty ticked off by the literally spelled-out-for-you-word-for-word "this is an homage to Dorothy's adventures in Oz" aspect of the film. (Although I must admit that the scene where Kidman sings 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' in an attempt to comfort young Nallah is one of the most beautifully filmed scenes I have seen on the big screen in quite some time.)

So is Australia a copy of Out of Africa or an homage to The Wizard of Oz?

I don't think that even Luhrmann really knows the answer to that question, but the bottom line is that the above complications conspired to make the first 1.5 hours of Australia thoroughly unenjoyable for me. There were, of course, a few pun-induced laughs (after all, Kangaroo humour is to be expected in a film called Australia) and a few heart thumping moments amid a cattle drive across the same territory used to film the race scenes in Star Wars Episode I.

Well that makes the film sound pretty wretched indeed - and leans towards decidedly unequivocal! Australia must be a wretched movie to be avoided at all costs! Except that...well, Luhrmann - as alluded to in my opening words on Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet - is a sucker for cheesy romance. And so am I.

You see, 1.5 hours of Australia only gets you to the equator of the film, and there is a whole other hemisphere to go! As Jackman pulls his Denys Finch Hatton and decides that freedom means more to him than family, as Nallah falls into the church-sponsored and government-sanctioned cultural genocide of the aboriginal peoples of the outback, as Kidman moves into town to support the commonwealth war effort and as Japan launches its Pearl Harbouresque attack on the port of Darwin, I got sucked into the romance (which thankfully was not done as an homage to Michael Bay's Pearl Harbour).

Yes, I threw caution to the wind and allowed my heart to soar and swell and cringe and cry along with Luhrmann's rousing score and wide cinematic vistas that seem to encompass all of the knowable world in one shot.

In the end, all I can say is that the previews for this film are pretty true to what it is, and that if you are intrigued by those images and ideas I am sure you will love the film. However, in the final analysis I have to say that this is not a film to be touched by even a ten-foot pole. Yes, I got sucked into the romance, but I was desperate for something to ease the pain by that point...

For those who are not as likely to get caught up in the sentimentality of the romance at the core of Australia, I can suggest a film that deals with many of the issues raised above - native populations and colonial authorities, WWII's impact on these communities, establishing a life and livelihood in a hostile environment - and does so seriously and splendidly. Try Caroline Link's best foreign film winner of the 2003 Academy Awards, Nowhere in Africa.

Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008) (The Oxford) Few people ever know or care who the actual writer of a film is, and although I always stay til the end of the credits, I rarely remember this detail either. Charlie Kaufman is an exception to this rule, being the genius behind some of the most unconventional, quirky and just plain brilliantly written films of the past decade: Being John Malkovitch, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (although this one did disappoint me) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Kaufman - whom I hold in esteem equal to the Coen brothers - writes dialogue that simply sparkles with wit, exploring the motivations of characters that live on the fringes of society and don't quite understand why things work as they do.

Synecdoche increases the comparability of Kaufman and the Coen brothers by adopting a much less lite-hearted tone than previous work - for the Coen brothers, Burn After Reading seemed to introduce a note of cynicism previously masked or absent in the face of satire and self-deprecating humor. Similarly, Synecdoche is less delightfully mind-bending black humour than serious indulgence of morose contemplation of death and loneliness.

Which is not to say that Synecdoche is not entertaining and engaging. Indeed, with a cast that includes Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh (in a lamentably small role) and Emily Watson, we are treated to some first-class drama.

In fact, Synechdoche can perhaps be best described as meta-film in the vein of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Seymour-Hoffman's character, Caden Collard, a brilliant playwright whose marriage and health are falling apart, is awarded a McArthur scholarship for genius. He decides to take this money and create a piece of theater that is completely honest and unflinching in its portrayal of life - and in doing so hopes to divine who he is, why he is on earth and what the point of the whole thing is.

To do so he builds a massive set that is New York in miniature, and hires hundreds of people to spend years playing the roles of the people in his life - ultimately leading to a point of brilliantly beautiful absurdity when he is on set with the actor playing himself, and his wife, an actress, is on set because she has been hired to play his wife. As this scenario escalates the line between the play and Collard's life begin to blur together, and the artifice becomes more real than the real world - to the point where another actor must be brought in to play Collard the director, while he takes on the less demanding role of a night cleaning lady.

The key to this seemingly bewildering but surprisingly simple scenario is to remember that it is all about Collard. The failure of his marriage is because he only thinks of himself, the failure of his health is because he obsesses about himself, his failed romances are because he is so wrapped up in himself, and the lack of any clear framework - a recognizable beginning or middle or end to his grand play - is because he is so focused on himself and his place in this world that he misses the forest for the trees.

Perhaps one of the most impressive (if obvious) symbol in the film is a burning house that is purchased by Collard's true but unrequited love, Hazel. She seems uncertain whether to buy a house that is already on fire - but in the end decides to go for it, because she is willing to live life as it comes and savour the danger, fear, uncertainty, excitement and passion that results.

Something Caden has never learned to do...but perhaps I can...and perhaps so can you.

This movie is not for everyone, and I am sure more than a few people have walked out of theaters muttering about how boring, depressing or self-indulgent it is. But I enjoyed every word...and hope you will too!

My New Home; House of Sand and Fog; Transsiberian; A Life Less Ordinary; Wag the Dog

Yes, I have bought a house here in chilly Halifax, Nova Scotia, and I am moving in this weekend. It's a huge move and a big commitment to this city and this weather, but it is also exhilarating. In Korea we owned a few apartments, but they were brand-new, cookie-cutter units in 29-story buildings in clusters of identical monoliths. There was no history or ambiance in the units, and no tactile involvement with the structures themselves in terms of being able to see and feel the lives of the people who had inhabited the homes before you or in terms of hands on maintenance and upkeep.

There is plenty of both in my new building, and I am sure that the latter will become a bane before too long!

No, the property is more than 90 years old and oozes ambiance and history from its creaking Douglas Fir flooring to the original trim that skirts its nine-foot ceilings. I have added a few photos to give you an idea of its character...

I will occupy the first-floor one-bedroom apartment, and am looking for a tenant for the second-floor two-bedroom unit. The third floor is rented to a young lady who seems comfortable and happy to stay on.

I am sure that this development will mean that my stream of movie reviews will be punctuated from time to time with updates on the trials and tribulations of landlord/home ownership, so stay tuned.

Which brings us to my latest movie reviews, which I plan to keep brief (as I always plan)...

House of Sand and Fog (Vadeem Perelman, 2003) (Home) I originally saw House of Sand and Fog when it was released in the theater in Seoul, and left the film amazed at its power and heavy import - and more in love with Jennifer Connelly than ever (I'd say yes if she were to propose).

On second viewing I have to confirm this initial impression. Like many of the films I have written about of late (Rachel Getting Married in particular), this is a character drama that chronicles the clash that occurs when strong personalities are placed in an emotional and confrontational situation.

This is also a film in which those characters are in most cases not terribly likable, but at the same time not entirely unsympathetic. Think the young recovered (or not so recovered) alcoholic who allows her life to crumble through apathy and then claws to get it back,; the police officer who uses her desperation as a channel for his own discontent; or the Iranian exile who is really just trying to look after his family and prevent their suffering, but in the process is blind to the suffering of others.

And this leads to unthinkable tragedy that is Shakespearean in its proportions, and hangs over the head of the viewer like a dark cloud in the hours that follow it. Yes, I will go so far as to say that this is a very depressing film - but will give it top marks in the same breathe and recommend it highly based on its accomplishment in film making.

Top marks also go to the cast, with Kingsley acting at his top calibre, which is awesome to behold (especially for an actor that wastes his talent in so many mediocre films), and Connelly showing the talent she displayed in Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream. Props to the supporting cast also, with Ron Eldard playing the sympathetic/sleazy cop beautifully and Shohreh Aghdashloo embodying the confusion and fear of Kingsley's wife.

On second viewing I had only one criticism, which is of the score. This is a heavy and sombre film, but it rendered virtually elegiac by a funerary soundtrack that weighs on the viewer to the point of being emotionally draining. I don't mean to suggest that this is not in line with the film's intent, but that the acting is strong and the characters clearly convey this feeling/idea without the need for such an oppressive score.

Hopefully my home ownership will be filled with more sunshine and smiles :)

Transsiberian (Brad Anderson, 2008) (home) I want to talk about Transsiberian briefly because, as I alluded to above, this is one example of Ben Kingsley wasting his abundant talent on a mediocre film.

OK, maybe I am being too harsh. Young married couple (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) are taking the Transsiberian to Europe as an adventurous way to return home from a church mission to China. They meet young, drug smuggling couple (50% of which is Kate Mara) and corrupt Moscow police investigator (Kingsley) and the adventure ratchets up a level, with steamy, adulterous affections, attempted sexual battery, kidnapping, torture (happily not shown) and murder most foul.

Only the movie doesn't really ratchet up a notch, which is a shame. Its a decent, more-or-less engaging (if completely conventional) plot taking place in exotic and beautiful climes. The acting is fine, with Kingley putting in a solid performance and Harrelson doing his usual adequate job - he is, after all, in many great films, its just that none of them are great because he is in them.

The film was lauded at Sundance, but it never got me excited or interested or involved. Not to say it was boring or bad, just that it was merely a mildly intriguing way to pass a few hours. With so many great films to chose between (such as House of Sand and Fog, off the top of my head) I'd say give this one a pass, but if your partner or friend already brought it home from the video store, don't castigate him or her too vociferously!

A Life Less Ordinary (Danny Boyle, 1997) (home) I first saw this film at the Cineplus Theatre near exit 6 of Apkujong Station in Seoul, Korea. At that time Cineplus was a big deal, as it was the first really modern theater to open in Seoul, with comfy seats imported from America and Dolby surround sound. I can't count the number of films that I watched at Cineplus over my nine-year stint in Seoul...

This movie, like Wag the Dog (see below), has assumed epic comedy proportions in my mind. I recall my friend Julien and I laughing our asses off in the otherwise eerily quiet cinema - I don't think the Korean audience really got the humor.

But humorous it is, with Boyle teaming up once again with John Hodge, who also wrote the sublime black comedy Shallow Grave. In the character positions we have Ewan McGregor (also of Shallow Grave) when he was still channelling the naive joy in acting that I think he recovered in Moulin Rouge after having trampled it thoroughly in the lackluster Star Wars I, II and III. Across from McGregor we have Cameron Diaz, in a very early "precocious and slightly dangerous blond" role that fits her to a T - but before she was typecast into that particular T.

The two play star-crossed lovers who meet amid one of the most thoroughly botched kidnapping imaginable (in fact, the Korean title was "Hostage") and slowly and reluctantly fall in love - with a little help.

You see, God is pretty pissed off that divorce and infidelity seem to have eradicated true love, and he tasks the archangel Gabriel (Dan Hedaya, who none of you know by name but have all seen a million times and liked) with sending a few angels down to earth to nurture the spark (or lack thereof) between one young couple into a flame of love. The young couple he has in mind are, you guessed it, McGregor and Diaz, and the angels - well played by perennial favorite Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo - have their hands full.

This is one funny film, that I recommend wholeheartedly for belly laughs and general glee.

Wag the Dog (Barry Levinson, 1997) (Dad's place). Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Anne Heche, Dennis Leary, Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson, William H. Macy, Jim Belushi, Jay Leno, Kirstin Dunst, Merle Haggard....need I say more?

I will, but am getting pretty blog fatigued, so this will be brief...I hope...

Wag the Dog was amazingly topical, presenting a situation in which a Presidential incumbant faces a sexual scandal in the last weeks before an election. A movie producer (Hoffman) is brought in to "produce" a war between the USA and Albania as a distraction from the scandal. In real life, the release coincided almost perfectly with Clinton's decision to bomb Kosovo while the Lewinsky scandal boiled in Washington. They say that art imitate life, but that life imitates TV....

Wag the Dog is interesting as a historical document in this regard, but is also intriguing as a comment on technology in our lives and the theater. The digital effects used to "create" the war with Albania were stunning and even slightly scary to audiences in the late 1990s, which had not yet abandoned their belief in the axiom "seeing is believing." Ten years later, however, the technology is in every home PC, and the movie suffers a bit from having had its magic rendered mundane.

This is another film that Julien and I watched at Cineplus, and was another occasion when our hilarity contrasted starkly with the generally dark silence of the theater. However, the bottom line is that Wag the Dog is the only film that I have ever watched that made me laugh so hard that I literally fell out of my seat - wait for the moment when Willie Nelson starts the voices soaring for a beautiful parody of the Band Aid/We Are the World/Voices that Care genre of song.

As I said, its a little dated now, but still very very entertaining...

Return to Quantum: No Tortured Soliloquies

Today I trudged through more than 12 inches of slushy snow to take in a second viewing of The Quantum of Solace at Park Lane cinemas. If you have not read my first review, I suggest that you peruse it first here. Warning, while the first review is relatively safe for those who have not seen the film, this installment contains numerous spoilers.

Sober Second Thought
I stand by my initial reaction to The Quantum of Solace in all regards, but one thing has been nagging at me since posting those thoughts earlier this week: how much of Bond's inner conflict/character do we really see?

In my former post I commented: "in Quantum, we see a James Bond that is trained to use his license to kill, but also has a heart and soul that can love, lose and suffer. We see uncertainty and torment in Craig's eyes as he seeks resolution after the loss of Vesper, in the process trying to reconcile his role as a spying and killing machine with his experience of vulnerability and trust."

On second viewing, I stand by these words, but feel duty bound to point out that this is, above and beyond all, and action movie. The explosions tend to be more realistic, but the film is, in its essence, one of action and adventure - not about exploring the tortured psyche of a hired gun. And that action, while we are on the theme, is fast-paced and often disjointed - on second viewing, the initial car chase was less heart-thumping and more plain disorienting.

A bit of research on IMDB quickly revealed the reason for this: the film editing was done by Richard Pearson, who also worked on The Bourne Supremacy, another film that is typified by fast cuts between squealing tires, firing guns, fast gear shifting and bone-crunching collisions.

That being said, the torment that Bond is experiencing in the wake of Vesper's death does hang heavily over this film, and trust is a key theme: the trust that Bond put in Vesper herself, his trust of Rene Mathis, the trust (or lack thereof) between James and his CIA counterparts, and, most importantly, the level of trust between Bond and M.

It is three key relationships - aside from Vesper, of course - that underpin the plot of Quantum and really struck me in this viewing:

M. In the past M has largely been a throwaway character, exasperated with Bond's flippant disrespect for his authority and the rules and regulations of MI6 - not to mention the "no sex please, we're British" decorum. That all began to change when M shifted from a throwaway he to a stern and central she

Judi Dench began to breathe life into this character during Pierce Brosnan's tenure, and in this film we see a relationship develop between her and Bond based on implicit trust in a world where there are no certainties. Indeed, near the film's opening we see Bond bring Le Chifre into a safe house for questioning, only to have him executed by a henchman who has served as a sleeper in M's own office for eight years. As she comments after this near-death experience: "when someone says "we have people everywhere" you tend to think it's hyperbole, you don't expect them to actually have someone in the room."

By the end of the film, however, we are aware that an unbreakable bond of trust has been forged between 007 an M. A bond that bodes well for the series to come, as it foreshadows a more active role for M and a continued prominent position for Judi Dench, who is a pleasure to watch.

Rene Mathis. One could be forgiven for thinking of Mathis as a throwaway character in Quantum, a crewmen Jones of a sort. However, going to Mathis for help is an important step for James, who has not trusted anyone implicitly since Vesper's betrayal - and this act of faith also leads to a death.

The scene of Bond cradling Mathis' bloodied, dying body as he whispers "don't leave me" is a powerful moment. We see compassion in Bond that is so strongly contrasted moments later as Mathis' dead body is thrown in a dumpster and plundered of ready cash. Here is the conflict I mentioned earlier this week between the compassion and the machine-like efficiency - an efficiency that Bond is praised for explicitly in Quantum.

Felix Leiter. Felix does not play a large role in Quantum, but, as we know from the long history of Bond's character - which Casino Royale and Quantum reset to a blank slate - Felix is destined to play a large role in the films to come.

In this film Felix is an underling to a typically morally bankrupt agent of America's military-industrial machine, but by the end he has: a) earned Bond's trust; and b) been promoted to replace his corrupt boss - as Bond comments on hearing the news "At least the right people kept their jobs." Hopefully Felix will not end up quite as dead as most of the other people Bond has trusted, and hopefully he will return to play an important role in future outings.

Final Thoughts
As I said earlier, Quantum is an action movie above and beyond all else, and is not meant to be taken too seriously - let go and enjoy the gun fights, car chases and explosions. However, it also does an amazing job serving as essentially Casino Royale part two, and leaves a solid structure of characters and relationships on which to build future films that meet or exceed the bar set by this film.

The Quantum of Solace: Exactly as Good as You Would Expect

The Quantum of Solace (Marc Foster, 2008) (Park Lane) Bond. James Bond. The Quantum of Solace opens with one of the most gut-wrenching, adrenaline pumping car chases ever choreographed and captured for film. Bond is back in his signature Astin Martin, where he is meant to be. I was gripping the edge of my seat within 45 seconds, and the pace of Quantum rarely relented.

When Timothy Dalton first assumed the Bond persona in 1985 for A View to a Kill we were told that this was a return to James Bond as Ian Flemming created him: a lean, mean, spying machine who was a world removed from the parody that the character had become. The Dalton Bond was not using fantastic sci-fi gadgets at every turn and had dropped the goofy puns that Roger Moore had leaned so heavily upon.

And it might have worked, save for the fact that Dalton (besides being a mediocre actor at the best of times) was cast in Bond films that were 1980s to the core - favorably comparable to Schwartzenegger's Commando or Norris' Delta Force, but little else. These movies stunk.

Quantum, on the other hand, is most definitely a new James Bond, and I like it! Gadgets are virtually non-existent (as is their traditional purveyor, Q) and even lines that could have been puns coming from Moore take on a earnest tone when uttered by the steely-eyed Daniel Craig.

Which, in my mind, points to the secret of the success enjoyed by both Quantum and the preceding Casino Royale: neither film is tongue in cheek and neither is going for cheap laughs or mere explosion-fueled adrenaline rides. In fact, while there is plenty of adrenaline flowing as Quantum unrelentingly drives towards its conclusion, one thing that I noticed in particular was how small the explosions actually were - cars go over cliffs and fall to the rocks below with nary a nuclear device-like combustion to show for it. These are realistic explosions, which is a novel pyrotechnical choice if I have ever seen one (we will discuss the Hindenburgesque conflagration that closes the action later).

But the root of the change in tone evidenced by Quantum and Casino is more fundamental than the trappings of the action: it is the character itself and Craig, the actor that inhabits his skin. James Bond, in all of his glory, has never been more than a two-dimensional character, and we have rarely seen any of the inner thoughts and emotions that motivate his actions beyond the stirring declaration "For England" or the next Bond girl to fall his way. Notable exceptions to this rule include the ironic play on loyalties that surrounds the "For England" declaration in GoldenEye and the less-than-noteworthy George Lazenby's turn as Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, where we first saw the secret agent's soft side as he suffered the death of his wife, Contessa Vicenzo in this incarnation rather than Vesper.

In Casino, on the other hand, and even more so in Quantum, we see a James Bond that is trained to use his licence to kill, but also has a heart and soul that can love, lose and suffer. We see uncertainty and torment in Craig's eyes as he seeks resolution after the loss of Vesper, in the process trying to reconcile his role as a spying and killing machine with his experience of vulnerability and trust - a theme that is echoed in his relationship with Rene Mathis.

This shift does not entail tortured soliloquies or primal cries of bereavement on mountain tops, but is clearly evidenced in Craig's subtle protrayal of a thoughtful but disciplined Bond. For me, this shift in tone makes Quantum and Casino more real, and allows me to identify with the character and feel his motivations rather than just going along for the ride.

The Gadgets: Noted by Absence
As a technology-junkie (partially reformed), another aspect of Quantum that I must comment on is the gadgets, or, more appropriately, the lack of them. Now I always loved the Bond gadgets as a kid, and still enjoy them greatly, from the rocket pack in Thunderball to the Lotus Esprit E1 "aqua car" of The Spy Who Loved Me.

However, I agree strongly with the director's decision to essentially cut the gadgets out of Quantum - or at least to make them less prominent and less unrealistic, the latter trend having been evident since Die Another Day, and, as mentioned above, typical of the Dalton films.

The Gadgets in Quantum are all realistic or commercially available technologies: the high-tech ear piece used to hold a conference in a crowded opera house, the Microsoft "Touch" table top used to manipulate multimedia (still just a concept when showcased in Minority Report), and the Sony-Ericsson cell phone that tracks a business card homing device. The key "gadget" in Quantum, however, is the perennially "just around the corner" Hydrogen fuel cell.

In addition to arriving at the hotel in the desert in a hydrogen-powered Ford SUV (score one for product placement), the hotel itself turns out to be entirely powered by prominent and volatile fuel cells set into the wall of each unit. I find it interesting that Ford chose to highlight its hydrogen fuel cell concept car in this film, since the technology does not enjoy the glamour enjoyed by the Touch. Quite the opposite, the rousing "kick out the jams" explosion mentioned above is caused by a chain-reaction of hydrogen fuel cells exploding with fantastic ferocity.

If you were trying to develop and market a hydrogen-powered vehicle, would you do so in a film that makes you think more of the Hindenburg crashing in flames and killing 37 souls than of the clean, green fuel of the future? Seems like an odd choice to me.

That being said, please do leave me comments about your favorite James Bond gadget from movies past

Final Thoughts
My bottom line - if it is not evident from the preceding - is that Quantum of Solace is a very good film. The action is fast-paced and exciting, the story is clear and supports the action well (indeed, at 106 minutes this is one of the few bond films not to suffer from the all-too-common curse of being 20 minutes longer than it should be) and the characters, or at least the title character, are (is) nuanced and compelling.

If I were to nitpick on one topic it would be that I did not leave the theater as bowled over as: a) the opening car chase led me to expect; or b) the overall quality of the film deserved. I think that this is because Quantum, unlike Casino, was exactly as good as I expected. No more and no less. Casino was a game changer, revolutionizing the James Bond franchise, and I left with my jaw dropped open, wondering "what was that"? Quantum continues this trajectory, and does so well - but does not present anything particularly new.

You either like the new James Bond or you do not - and I do :)

(As a closing note, I realize that I have committed a crime of exception in this review, having discussed James Bond at great length without mentioning Sean Connery. Sean Connery - nuff said.)

Rachel Getting Married, Masked (live theater)

Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008) (Oxford) Not really an inspiring title, is it? I mean, what are we talking about here? My Best Friend's Wedding? Runaway Bride? The Wedding Planner?

Now I don't mean to suggest that there are no good wedding movies out there, as a situation so rife with emotion and potential conflicts/resolutions is surely prime fodder for film making - think Muriel's Wedding or even Four Weddings and a Funeral - but all the same, the prospect of a wedding movie does not generally whet my appetite...

The Critics Speak
But Rachel Getting Married..well, I don't even know where to start. Metacritic, a site that compiles Internet movie reviews and assigns an aggregate score based on those critiques is not a bad place. Besides the professional critics referenced for RGM, which gave the movie an average score of 82%, there are 49 "user opinions" listed with an average score of 5.1/10.

What I mean to suggest by this is that while the critics have pretty universally praised RGM, the film has polarized viewers - at least five rated the movie a "0" and at least two rated it a "10." Let's look at a few samples:

"0" : "One of the most boring movies I have ever seen. The characters were all unlikable. Too much talk and not enough action. Awful!"

"0" : "I was about to throw up at the bridal dinner when guest after guest made stupid toasts. This movie meandered along at a snails pace. After an hour I had had enough and walked out. I could care less about any of the characters."

"9" : "If you like your films realistic, this is the one for you. It doesn't serve the lowest common denominator by explaining everyone's history and intentions. Instead it respects the viewer (or observer as the case seems to be). And the pacing and subtlety are perfect."

"10" : "It speaks beautifully to how life-changing tragic events are never fully processed or "moved past" by those immediately affected or possibly causal toward same. The film tackles this subject matter relentlessly, and successfully. A masterpiece of compassion."

The Blogger Speaks
Well I think that this polarization is a good thing - and I was immensely impressed with RGM.

No, there are no explosions or car chases or sex scenes to distract you from the often unpleasant emotions and ideas that are being raised. You are forced to squirm in your seat through Kim's brutally uncomfortable wedding toast, you are supposed to notice the repetitive nature of the complaints aired - because these characters have been making these complaints for years, and we are meant to be as sick of hearing them as everyone in the movie is.

And no, these are no particularly likable characters, but they are strong characters that do not pull their punches (literally at times) or try to placate each other. They are so unvarnished and blunt that I can understand that it is uncomfortable for viewers more accustomed to post-processed cookie-cutter film making (a la Runaway Bride or The Wedding Planner) - it feels almost indecent to be a voyeur in some of these scenes.

After all is said and done, this is a character movie with no princess to save, no jealous rival to thwart, no potty humor to elicit guffaws, and no triumph just in time for a tearfully joyful conclusion at 110 minutes or so. The characters elicit emotions in the viewer that are not pleasant to experience - love, compassion, loneliness, fear, helplessness - but are testaments to the power of film making. Demme reaches into your heart and mind and prods and pushes at your most secret fears and doubts and hopes and dreams and demands that you pay them heed.

And I applaud him for this - because this is what I feel that all great filmmakers are striving for, and I don't believe that they should limit this effort only to sweetness and light. The comparison that popped into my head during the movie was the level of insecurity and anxiety elicited by Ang Lee's 1997 masterpiece of modern cinema, The Ice Storm, or even Deepa Mehta's Heaven on Earth (reviewed earlier on this site).

Sometimes movies are escapism and distraction, and that is great, as I love to disappear into another world and forget my troubles. But sometimes films can edify us on a deeply personal level, uncovering and allowing us to examine pieces of ourselves that we've never seen - or never admitted to. Rachel Getting Married is such a film.

Patience Running Thin
More than a week ago CTV ran a review of movies currently at, or soon to play in, local theaters, implying in the process that Kristin Scott Thomas' French-language film I Have Loved You for So Long was waiting in the wings. However, it has yet to appear in Halifax, and I am beginning to fear that it will pass us by...I'll keep you updated!

Masked (Neptune Theater)
I also wanted to comment briefly on a play that I saw last night at Halifax's Neptune Theater. My friend Theo did a fantastic job portraying one of three Palestinian brothers who are watching their childhood bond deteriorate even as society crumbles around them under the weight of the occupation.

The play deals with heavy themes, focusing on the inevitable reality of collaboration with an occupying authority, and how this degrades and demoralizes all that are affected by it.

Much like Rachel Getting Married, this is a character study where extreme personalities are clashing in circumstances that bring powerful emotions into play. Also like RGM, there is no slow build-up - in this case the play is unrelenting from its opening moment, with scenes cut in a choppy fashion that is accentuated by loud, hard music and the theater being plunged into sudden darkness.

Another interesting facet of Masked is that it is an exercise in limited location, which film buffs will be familiar with from classics such as Hitchcock's Lifeboat. In this case I think that the use of limited location is a powerful way of evoking the situation of the Palestinian people in the play's physical set. The entire play occurs in one room in the back of a butcher shop, where the brothers blow off their anger and fear and frustration as if they were in a high-pressure canister - much as the Palestinian people are every day locked into the crowded occupied territories and inevitably end up clashing with each other.

My main reason for bringing this play up, however, is to share the pure joy of watching live theater and to urge readers to patronize a local show. It is beautiful to watch the actors: at the beginning of the stage they are naturally slightly stiff and a little self-conscious, but in a matter of minutes we see them begin to soften, settle in and feel comfortable in their character's skin.

This transformation is something we lose in films, and is the essence of the actor's craft. While loving the perfect finish of a well-made movie at the multiplex, let's not forget the opportunity to see the basic genius of the actor's craft at the local playhouse :)