Dullinger: Public Enemy #1

It's been a long time since I last wrote a review here; after seeing (and not writing a review of) the spectacularly and delightfully bad 10,000 BC, I began asking myself, "do I still have it in me? I mean, if I can't work up the energy to extol a movie about prehistoric mammoth hunters and their wooly prey being taken into slavery to build the pyramids (!), why bother?"

After that came a Nick Cage two-step, first last summer's mistitled Bangkok Dangerous, which would have more truthfully been titled "Bangkok Tedious", and this spring's Knowing, the latter of which I truly wanted to dislike and make fun of, and yet I couldn't. As much as I like to make fun of Nicholas Cage, particularly that facial expression that indicates a constant state of annoyed perplexity, as if he is angered but cannot figure out why, I truly enjoyed "Knowing." The combination of a surprise, not-by-the-Hollywood-playbook ending and truly frightening angels ("oh, that's why angels in the Bible always say 'fear not!'") made this Catholic viewer sit up in admiration.

****

Summer is at last upon us, and that means blockbuster action movies with big stars. And so, in the summer spirit, the Society convened last night and made its way over to Manhattan's East Side to see Public Enemies; when we discussed going on the phone, Eric said, "I don't know, I've read some good reviews of it. Should we go?"

"We're allowed to fuck up once in a while and see something good. Remember 'Knowing'?" I replied.

"True. Let's do it."

Suffice it to say, as we left the theater after the slow-paced, two-hour plus film, I said, "Mission accomplished."

I usually enjoy period-pieces, particularly ones depicting the 1930's, but the superabundance of fedoras, V-8 Fords, and Thompson submachine guns could not keep me interested in this plodding and historically inaccurate tale. At over two hours, the story is paced as a drama punctuated with action scenes, but lacks the character development to withstand the tempo.

More problematic for me were the digital cinematography and the historical inaccuracies of the script. As Ace of Spades notes in his review, the color in natural light was washed-out, and, to my tastes, gave the impression of watching a TV show on the big screen. This inability for high-definition digital photography to capture natural light results in a flat and somewhat dark and fuzzy picture. Coupled with Michael Mann's use of tight close-ups and hand-held NauseaCam!, I got the sense that this film would look better when watched on a TV at home, rather than in the theater. On that basis alone, I agree with Ace's recommendation to wait until in comes out on DVD to watch it.

Lastly, the revisionism of the story was my greatest frustration; one of the main reasons I was interested in seeing "Public Enemies" in the first place was to see if and how the Twin Cities of Minneapolis (my hometown) and St. Paul would be treated. The gangland era in St. Paul (the 1920's through the mid-1930's) is perhaps one of the most fascinating parts of Minnesota history; a far cry from the "Minnesota nice" stereotype, St. Paul in the early 1930's was a sanctuary city for gangsters and bank robbers from all over the country. The most notorious of these criminals was John Dillinger.

And yet in "Public Enemies", St. Paul is not even mentioned, much less depicted. Events that actually took place in St. Paul, such as Dillinger living with Billie Frechette and narrowly escaping the FBI in an apartment building shootout, were depicted as taking place in Chicago. The disastrous shootout at Little Bohemia, Wisconsin incorrectly shows Dillinger's gang members Homer Van Meter, John Hamilton, and Lester "Babyface Nelson" Gillis being killed by Melvin Purvis and his agents.

In reality, the Little Bohemia shootout was a debacle for the FBI, one which resulted in the death of an innocent motorist, shot by FBI agents, one police officer, and FBI agent W. Carter Baum; subsequent to the shootout Special Agent Purvis tendered his resignation, which was not accepted. The following day, John Hamilton was mortally wounded by police during a car chase at Hastings, Minnesota as the Dillinger gang made its way back to St. Paul. Van Meter was gunned down in a blind alley not far from the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul by St. Paul police one month after Dillinger was shot outside Chicago's Biograph Theater, while Gillis was killed in Illinois four months after Dillinger's death.

The true Dillinger story is interesting enough, without having to tell a fictional account. The St. Paul journalist and historian Paul Maccabee has extensively researched the gangland history of St. Paul, the culmination of which he wrote in a marvelous book entitled John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crooks' Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936.

I recommend that you spend the $25 it would cost you and a friend to see "Public Enemies" on the Maccabee book, and wait for the movie to come out on DVD. You'll enjoy it much more.

New Romero Movie!

There's a new George Romero movie coming out. We love zombies here at the Society; after all, the first provision of the Crappy Film Society Charter is "zombies make it better." The second provision, "so does Nick Cage."

As Eric said, "The Abercrombie & Fitch models who survived Cloverfield now get attacked by zombies on a movie set. We gotta go; I was going to call you when I heard about it, but it was 7 am and I figured you wanted to sleep."

"Thanks. We're there, dude."

Filmed in Nausea-Cam!

There are two things I need to say right away about Cloverfield: 1) I am so relieved and happy that it wasn't, as a strange rumor I'd heard before its release, a gigantic lion, and 2) it was far better than I expected.

We saw it opening night, braving the late-night crowds of hipsters flocking to see the most highly anticipated, viral-marketed movie of the new year. Eric had heard some rumor that the monster that attacks Manhattan in the movie was a gigantic lion; with that in mind, I remarked, "If it actually is a giant lion, this will officially be the stupidest movie we've ever seen, which is saying a lot, considering the last thing we saw together was National Treasure 2."

We took our seats (near an aisle, in case it proved to be a lion, and also to account for my cinematic claustrophobia) and prepared for the uncertainty. The story is self-contained: the entire thing is contained on a tape found in the rubble of Central Park; the tape has been recorded over, allowing fragments of two stories to interrupt each other. In that way, it's reminiscent of E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, a novel that, through a printer's error, weaves two stories together on alternating pages.

After a slow start, in which the small group of primary characters are introduced, we are then rewarded with the nonstop action and chaos once the monster appears on the scene. The image of the Statue of Liberty's head flying through the air and then bouncing to a stop in the streets of Lower Manhattan serves to introduce us to the confusion that follows. Director Matt Reeves does us the favor of never giving us too close or too long a glimpse of the creature: it appears to be a gigantic hybrid of a bat and a mantis, releasing fast-running spawn. The first-person narration of the story offers no insight into the origin, nature, or final disposition of the monster; the hand-held camera perspective jostles us and draws us into the action and confusion of the moment, at times jumping and spinning so much as to produce a visceral reaction. Fortunately, nobody seemed to get sick, although I've heard that has happened to some viewers.

My favorite moment was a dig at the Motorola Razr cell phone, which, from personal experience, is notorious for its short battery life; in the movie, one of the characters tries to call his love interest, only to discover the battery on his Razr is dead. He goes to loot a nearby electronics store and steals a Nokia.

In short, it's a gimmicky movie, but a good time nonetheless. And one would assume, in light of the severe restrictions on the perspective - first person, told by a found videotape - that a sequel is unlikely. See it once, and be sure to stay for the only original music, the "Cloverfield Overture", which blasts its way throughout the closing credits with soprano solo, timpani, and a full orchestra riffing along on an over-the-top monster-movie theme that weighs almost as much as the film itself.

UPDATE: My hopes have been dashed.

Europe Needs Help

The following is my brief discussion of "The Silence Before Bach", a Spanish surrealist film about nothing but featuring prominently the music of perhaps my favorite composer, Johann Sebastian Bach.

***

First, here are the reactions of two friends and me upon the conclusion of the film:

Isaac: I need a domestic beer.

Angela (to me): You are not allowed to pick a movie ever again.

Me: Europe needs help.  (turns to Isaac) A domestic beer? Like a Budweiser Tall Boy, in a can?

Isaac: In a can, yes.

Angela: You wanted to see that just so you could watch a woman in a man's dress shirt, which was actually a robe, play a cello?  There's a website for that, you know....

Me: I had no idea.  I just wanted to hear the music.  I should have simply stayed home and listed to The Hilliard Ensemble and Till Fellner and spared myself the movie.  But the girl was kinda hot, you have to admit.  And the seeing-eye dog was funny.

Angela: I liked the dog.

***

I was skeptical going in, and my fears were affirmed.  The title itself implies the thesis of the film, one that is repeated so often as to be nearly dogmatic, at least when one first begins to learn the history of Western music.  Popular wisdom, this film included, would have us believe that nothing happened before J.S. Bach.

The film opens with the camera rolling slowly through a maze of white rooms in silence, only to be encroached upon at last by a musical droid in the form of a seemingly self-propelled player piano, which is playing a selection from the Goldberg Variations.  And thus we learn that, out of nowhere, J.S. Bach was there to break the silence and to bring color into the world.

As a performer of ancient music, I can most assuredly say that weird, lovely, and complex things were happening musically long before Bach came along.  In no way should this be seen as detracting from his genius or from his influence; it simply is the truth, and Bach himself would say the same.  

One of the most noxious parts of the film is a scene of the aforementioned nearly naked cello player's (much older) lover visiting a bookshop and discussing Bach with the shopkeeper.  At one point, the shopkeeper remarks, "Without Bach, God would be third-rate."

At this point the falsehood of the film became simply too much to bear; presumably the filmmaker is of the fashionable atheistic mindset so popular among the European intelligentsia.  He is presented with a dilemma, however, when making a film about the music of one of the most devoutly Christian composers of all time.  He can't come out and call Bach a fool for believing in God, because the genius of Bach is too well-known, too obvious, that to criticize Bach for his belief would be to lie.  So, instead, we are referred to a God so small and wretched as to require Bach to elevate Him in grandeur; Bach's work, in a sense, could be viewed from this perspective in the same way one might view an especially elaborate model railroad or doll house: spectacular, but a bit esoteric, such that one might remark, "he must have a lot of time on his hands."

I suspect Bach would disagree.  I imagine, in fact, that he would have said (perhaps during his 400 km long journey on foot to meet Buxtehude), "Without Him, I would be third-rate."  That same journey, made when he was still a young man, testifies to the sounds that filled the Earth when Bach was alive.  If the world were truly silent, he would not have set out at all. 

As I noted above, I perform ancient music; I sing contrapuntal sacred polyphonic music by such composers as Josquin Des Pres, Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Pierluigi da Palestrina, Orlando de Lassus, Tomas Luis de Victoria, and Johannes Ockeghem.  Most people have heard very little of those composers, and yet, when they hear the music for the first time, they are struck by the beauty and intricacy of it.

J.S. Bach is one of the bridges between us and that world; for it was Bach who took the old music to new heights and refined it in the process, making it his and bestowing it, in turn, upon us.  Listen to Josquin or the other great Renaissance masters and you'll hear The Art of Fugue and The Well-Tempered Clavier in there, waiting to come out.  And then along came Bach, who brought it out, and in the process made the rafters of Heaven ring.

There Will Be Dud

$12 and 2 1/2 hours of my life just to see a drunk bludgeon a guy to death with a bowling pin? Are you serious?

So, we were about 1 1/2 hours into "There Will Be Blood" when I looked to my immediate left and saw Scotty taking a little nap. Apparently the gorgeous vistas and haunting music were not enough to keep him going through the full 2 1/2 hours of this critically acclaimed but overweight epic which is ostensibly about "family, greed, and religion" but offers little insight into any of those themes.

Daniel Day-Lewis's menacing portrayal of the oil prospector Daniel Plainview absorbs all the light and air around him; all the gravitas Day-Lewis brings to the role cannot overcome the thin and enigmatic character he is enlisted to depict. This is all the more apparent when Plainview is confronted by his rival, Eli Sunday (portrayed by Paul Dano). The grizzled and angry Plainview overpowers the boyish Sunday to such a degree that the viewer is left wondering why they bother with each other at all.

We learn little to nothing of Plainview's motivation as the story unfolds; his lies and angry outbursts and violent acts all spring from an unexplained source. Although he is ostensibly portraying greed, he is simply too volatile to be a cold-blooded capitalist with his eye ever on the bottom line. He belies no desire: not for sex or power or even money. When given a lucrative offer by the boys from Standard Oil, he threatens them with violence and storms off. That someone so mercurial would advance in business as far as Plainview does without being swallowed up, bought out, or pushed aside requires rather more suspension of disbelief than I am capable of. What makes him tick? We don't know, but when we get to the end and find out he's an alcoholic, we feel a sense of relief ("Aha! I understand now; he's been insane this whole time").

So too with Eli Sunday, the preacher in the small community where Plainview has set up his well, and son of the man whom Plainview has tricked into cheaply selling the land. He, too, is violent, unpredictable, and ultimately unknowable. Although we are told that he is a preacher, and we see him preaching to his congregation, it is difficult to actually believe him anything other than a caricature: we hear the fire and brimstone speech and the dramatic emotionalism that makes this sort of cartoon Christian the bogeyman to the movie's urbane and secular audience, we are shown nothing of his heart, of the God who would have him shout so loudly. That he meets his end years later, inexplicably beaten to death with a bowling pin by a drunken Plainview, but only after being mocked and tricked into loudly denying his faith (to the audience's pleasure), seems rather too fitting: a meaningless end to a meaningless story.

I haven't read Oil!, the Upton Sinclair novel the movie is based upon, so this is merely speculative, but it would seem that the film's meaninglessness derives from a defect in storytelling. After all, it is one of the most visually stunning films I've seen in a very long time. None of the characters are either knowable or likable enough to care about for the film to have dramatic merit, and there isn't enough plot to make up for the thin characterizations. The cartoonish capitalist and the cartoonish Christian are neither believable as a capitalist on the one hand or a preacher on the other, and they are not dissimilar or developed enough as people where one cares for the fate of either. Presumably the novel introduces a socialist philosophy as its redeeming element to offset the two strawman characters; that, however, is no longer viable storytelling in the 21st century. The Berlin Wall has long since fallen, and with it the plausibility of socialist storytelling.

What are we left with? A dusty, overwrought, and ultimately inhuman movie that defies its own title.

UPDATE: Scotty recently remarked, "We took turns watching it."

Sunshine

Eric and I recently saw "Sunshine", which was one of the greatest disappointments for the Society since its primitive beginnings years ago. Disappointing because of what it could have been versus what it turned out to be.

The first hour and 20 minutes or so had me rivited, tremendously excited at what I had wandered into; I have to preface this by stating that Eric and I selected this as a Society candidate based on the trailer, which contained explosions and no dialogue, leading us to wonder, "What are they hiding?" That said, I was immediately engaged from the opening scene, wherein the tension is built right away.

Suspense and heroic self-sacrifice are displayed throughout as the crew of Icarus II proceed with their massive payload, which they are to deliver to the sun in an effort to restart it. The suspense had built to a glorious crescendo when the crew reached the previous, unsuccessful mission's ship Icarus I, only to be suddenly ruined by an incongruous turn of events in the story: suddenly, and with little to no explanation, the delusional and homicidal captain of the lost Icarus I turns up on Icarus II, turning a brilliant sci-fi story suddenly into a horror/slasher film. What happened here?

Literally within ten seconds of my saying to myself, "I'm going to have to buy this on DVD," the story lost its wheels because of a sharp and unexplained turn of events. It was as if the screenwriter suddenly saw no way to end an up-to-then excellent story other than by introducing an element to expedite the ending; suddenly the questions of moral dilemmas and self-sacrifice give way to a dizzying race to the finish line, to run out the clock and save the world.

Although I was terribly disappointed in the ending, I would still recommend watching it; the first hour and 20 minutes or so are brilliant, and the visuals are stunning. There simply could have been better, more plausible ways to end the story and not leave the viewer feeling jarred and confused by what happened.

Live Free or Die Hard

I watched Bruce Willis take out a helicopter with a squad car on Saturday night.

I gave it one-and-a-half "rock ons". Not a full two, but pretty durn close.

After all, it's John McClane we're talking about.

Yipee-ki-yay indeed.