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Adventures in Netflix #4-Gabriel Ricard

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

Adventures in Netflix-#4

By Gabriel Ricard

Another one?

Yeah. Contrary to rumors that didn’t exist in the first place, I’m still kicking around these parts, hoping like hell that at twenty-two, there’s still a good chance of a last second comeback in the great game of unrealistic expectations.

We are indeed still open for business.

And eventually, I feel very confident that I’ll get over the disbelief about that.

The Trial (1962)

Directed by: Orson Welles

Starring: Anthony Perkins, Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau

Though this one’s a little under the radar in the canon of Orson Welles’ powerful body of work, it’s notable for a couple reasons. One, it came out two years after Anthony Perkins legendary performance as Norman Bates in Psycho. Two, it was one of the very few films in Orson Welles’ career in which he had complete creative control and definitive final cut of the film itself. And really, it’s Orson Welles interpreting Kafka. At the very least, it’s going to be interesting as hell. Though again, this is not one of his most well known films, it’s definitely one of his best. Perkins, with that desperate, overwhelmed and terrified look he did so well almost permanently plastered to his face, is flawless as Joseph K, whose bureaucratic surrealist nightmare begins the moment the film opens. From the moment Joseph awakens to be charged with a crime that is never explained to him, we understand that it’s only going to get worse from there. And indeed it does, as Joseph’s obsession with proving himself innocent in spite of never really understanding what he’s done wrong to begin with consumes him and his journey through the terrifying and darkly comical world of labyrinth-esque judicial process and nightmarish social and political values. Welles considered this his most autobiographical work, and it’s not hard to pick that up. Better than most, Welles understood the tumor-twitching insanity of red tape and men in suits dictating the fate and daily lives of the supposed lower class. By 1962, Welles had very few films that he could truly call his own. Most of them were edited into oblivion by a panel of cold, calculated businessmen and accountants who understood very little beyond the memo immediately in front of them. And for the rest of us, we only have to think of experiences at the local hospital or DMV. You can bust yourself open from banging your head against the wall, and Welles wraps us up in that sentiment throughout the entire two-hour run of the film. Through gray, bleak surroundings, dead-eyed, soulless zombie citizens, and claustrophobia in even the most open spaces, Welles crafts a lonely, brutally gripping account on the consequences of hope and the sin of failing to justify ones existence in the world. Made even better by Welles putting his own personal twist on Kafka’s story, rather than just laying out a note-for-note film version of the book itself. He considered this his best film ever. With his usual brilliance behind the camera and great performances from every single member of the cast (Welles himself turns in a great part as The Advocate), it’s not a complete leap to agree with him. It’s a strange, experimental piece of filmmaking, but under the direction of one of the greats, it has the punch and focus that many other films in this category lack. It’s further proof of his brilliance, and strong evidence that Mr. Anthony Perkins was more than just a one-note guy. This isn’t the best place to start with Orson Welles, but if you’re a couple of movies in (start with something a little more accessible perhaps), and you want to keep it going, then this absolutely essential viewing.

The Cheerleaders (1973)

Directed by: Paul Glickler

Starring: Stephanie Fondue, Denise Dillaway, Jovita Bush

It’s possible that I’m being too nice to this 70’s exploitation sex comedy. It’s true that there isn’t much to it. The plot, about a girl getting on the cheerleading squad at her local high school and all the hilarious sexual escapades that such a thing apparently creates, although nothing special still has a weird charm that’s hard to get mad at. And you’ve got some good, enthusiastic performances from a mostly amateur cast (Stephanie Fondue is a particular stand-out). And then the direction from Paul Glickler, who didn’t really make a whole lot else after this, keeps things moving along. Even the softcore porn sex scenes, which are exactly as you’d imagine that kind of thing to be in the 70’s has a kitschy appeal to it. This is the perfect movie for some alcohol and a handful of friends who might fall under the headline of having a weird sense of humor. But why the generous rating? In the end, it’s still just an old drive-in movie from the 70’s about cheerleaders banging everyone within a twenty-mile radius. If you like this sort of thing, if Russ Meyer is amongst your favorite filmmakers, then this should be nothing short of a decent way to kill ninety minutes. But if you’re not or have no idea who that is, then you have two options. You can either go into this movie knowing it’s pretty much what the term “Stupid fun” was invented for. Or you can walk away and never look back. It’s your call. I got through it just fine because I happen to have a place in my heart for bad sex comedies. Especially bad sex comedies from the 70’s/80’s. That’s when the genre at least had a personality of some kind. But that’s all just me. There’s no middle ground to a movie like this. You either love it or you don’t. Though one thing you can say about this film is that it’s a good way to test the waters and see if you can get a night’s entertainment out of these things. Without question, it’s one of the better ones in the field. Just don’t expect any kind of masterpiece. Expect that concept I mentioned before of stupid fun, and you’ll be in a much better position to judge its merits and continued popularity over thirty years later.

Venus (2006)

Directed by: Roger Michell

Starring: Peter O’Toole, Jodie Whittaker, Leslie Phillips

As big a fan as I am of Forest Whitaker and as happy I was to see him score a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar for The Last King of Scotland, I have to admit that after seeing Peter O’Toole in Venus, that maybe it should’ve gone in a different direction. O’Toole is one of the greatest actors of this or any other generation. His work as an actor is staggering in its variety and testament to the power of a brilliant performance – but he’s never won Best Actor. And it’s a decent chance that he probably never will. It’s a shame. Even his worst movies are generally packed with great performances. As for his best movies, well, then you’re really in good shape for something that represents everything we love about performance-driven films. Venus is in the second category, alongside such other O’Toole classics as Lawrence of Arabia and Stunt Man. It’s got last stand mentality all over it, although personally, I don’t think we’ve seen O’Toole’s last legendary film. The story has O’Toole as Maurice, an aging actor in the twilight of a once-great career, whose life of routine and waiting quietly for the end is brought to a sudden halt when he meets up with Jessie (the excellent Jodie Whittaker), a beautiful, arrogant young girl. A strange relationship develops between them. It’s almost co-dependent, in a way, though for entirely different reasons. Jessie wants Maurice for the attention he gives her, not to mention the gifts and career opportunities he throws her way. Maurice wants Jessie for the last chance at a moment of youth that she can offer him. They’re not stupid. There’s no illusion of what one wants from the other. But somehow, they develop feelings for each other anyway. There’s nothing sentimental about it, but it’s obvious that as time goes on, the idea of using each other for whatever they need becomes just an excuse to be around each other. There’s a genuine love and affection that comes to dominate the original nature of their relationship. Very few films walk this line without going over into being overly bleak or reminding us over and over again of how “unconventional” the whole thing is. Venus, thanks in large part to the actors, walks that line from beginning to end and almost never wavers. Roger Michell has tried this before over the course of a directing career that’s been erratic at best, and in my own opinion, he’s failed more times than he’s succeeded. Venus not only belongs in the successes category, but it’s easily Michell’s best film to date. It’s a film that is supported on the weight of our interest in Maurice and Jessie’s relationship, and Michell keeps us interested from start to finish. The direction never loses its focus. It keeps moving at a perfect speed to let this movie sink in and do its work on us. In Venus, Michell has crafted a movie that somehow manages to be both bleak and warm at the same time. All without falling into the usual traps. It’s a good achievement as a filmmaker. But in the end, this is O’Toole’s movie. It’s his brilliant performance that makes everything else shine a little brighter. An actor in his prime can only dream of a moment like that. O’Toole in his own prime had several, but to accomplish such a thing at seventy-plus is an achievement that should be seen and applauded as much as possible. In the end, he may not have a Best Actor, but he will have a legacy that virtually no one will ever be able to come close to, let alone touch.

A Nightmare on Elm St. (1984)

Directed by: Wes Craven

Starring: Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon

Without Freddy Krueger, it’s entirely possible that we would not have gotten The Lord of The Rings trilogy exactly as we wound up getting it. Before New Line Cinema agreed to back Wes Craven’s concept of a man with the power to murder his victims in their sleep, a story pitch that was rejected by every major studio in town, the company was known for its re-releasing films like Reefer Madness and not much else. It certainly wasn’t considered a company worth taking seriously. But A Nightmare on Elm St. changed that, giving the company a franchise that it could build on. And today, they’re one of the most successful studios in the world. It wouldn’t be that way though, without Freddy Krueger. This is where the whole thing gets going, and it’s a pretty damn good start. As Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund was and still is the closest our generation has come to a Vincent Price. Englund has the same sinister menace about him, the same murderous smirk to back up his gallows humor. It’s even apparent in the way he walks, swaggers with finger-knives raised towards the sky. As Freddy Krueger, he is a monster far more fascinating and terrifying than Jason, Michael, Chucky or any of the other icons from back in the day. The character would see some dilution as it went through the sequel game and moved further and further away from Wes Craven’s original vision, but it doesn’t change Kruger’s peculiar position of pop culture icon. It also doesn’t change how much this first film kicks ass. Everything about Kruger that brings horror movie fans back to his character again and again is not only here, but here in its best possible form. On a virtually non-existent budget, Craven utilizes certain strengths like a great cast (Langenkamp is terrific as Freddy’s first film adversary and veteran character John Saxon also excels as her father) and his usual attention to creating a relentless, well-paced assault of fear and violence in places we often expect the most safety from. The end result is one of the best horror films of the last thirty years. Certainly, something that stands up as well today as it did in 1984. Also notable, I suppose, is that it features the film debut of an obscure actor named Johnny Depp. Who, as we all know, hasn’t really gone on to anything since then.

Ghost Rider (2007)

Directed by: Mark Steven Johnson

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes, Sam Elliot

I wasn’t hoping for much out of this. I swear to God, my expectations for this Marvel Comics translation to the cinema were as minimum as could possibly be. Even then, this thing is pretty damn disappointing. It’s not that Nicholas Cage, a well-known comic book fanatic whose last name was in fact taken from that of a comic book character (Luke Cage) is poorly suited to the part. In fact, Cage is one of the only things about this film that comes across as something besides fundamentally awful. Even the basic plot, involving Cage as a motorcycle rider who agrees to destroy Mephistopheles’ son Blackheart in exchange for freedom from a wager the two had made earlier on, is fine in that comic book sort of way. As someone who has been reading these things for nearly twenty years, I certainly didn’t have a problem with it. So, where does it go wrong? Well, where did Daredevil go wrong? Or Fantastic Four? or The Punisher? Terrible scripts and shoddy direction would be the best way to sum it up. There’s really no excuse for it either. Sure, the ideas are kind of ridiculous, but it’s been proven a few times now that a good comic book movie can be done with any character under the right circumstances. There’s no excuse for the kind of writing, directing, and of course, in many cases, acting that gets attached to these projects. Ghost Rider had potential to be a good popcorn flick at the very least. But it doesn’t even work on that level. It relies on nothing beyond on the appeal of the Ghost Rider character and the promise of some shiny CGI effects. And again, there’s no excuse for that. Don’t waste your time on this. There are infinitely superior comic book films out there, and you can do better than this example of lazy directing and poor writing. That’s not even getting into a supporting cast that’s either decent, Sam Elliot (who’s terrific) or Peter Fonda (though really, wouldn’t Lance Henriksen have been a billion times better in the role?) or pathetically irritating, namely, the awful Wes Bentley and the grating Eva Mendes. And since this doesn’t even work as a “fun” bad movie (see The Cheerleaders), there’s really no one I can recommend this to. Well, I guess it might be worth a look if you did like Fantastic Four¸ Daredevil et al, or if you’re a fanatical devotee to either Nicholas Cage or the Ghost Rider character. But unless you’re in one of those three categories, you’re pretty better off just setting your own head on fire. Trust me, your future tale of action and adventure in your local emergency room will be a hell of a lot more interesting than anything this piece of crap dumps in your mouth at two in the morning.

And that’s going to just about do it for this latest edition. I apologize for not getting around to some anime or even a TV series. There should be something to that end when the next issue rolls around. So, take care of yourself, remember that medicinal marijuana is a beautiful thing, and try to have a good time as we shudder and die a couple hundred times over the course of this relentless, vicious winter.

Of course, I’m still looking for some feedback, and I welcome it on any level at magazine@feeltheword.net

Next week, I’ll explain why I’m too lazy to go into details on the DVD features of each film I review.

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Learning to Adapt-Norbert Brown

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

Learning to Adapt

By Norbert Brown

From Nosferatu to No Country for Old Men, the history of film is a history of adapting material from other media. Some of moviedom’s greatest triumphs have been adaptations (Gone with the Wind, The Silence of the Lambs), as have some of its most resounding failures (The Da Vinci Code, The Scarlet Letter with Demi Moore).

During the busy holiday movie season, a whole slew of movies with adapted screenplays found their way into mall-side humongo-plexes all over the country. And the results were decidedly mixed. Here’s a look at three recent adaptations – taken together they tell a cautionary Goldilocks-like tale: one is so slavishly loyal to its source that it’s downright hard to sit through, one takes so many liberties that it turns into a soft and spongy retelling, and one is just right.

Too Hard: The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass (the novel, that is) is one of those first-in-a-trilogy books that is loaded with set-up and establishing detail. With a healthy 400 or so pages to work with, author Philip Pullman has plenty of time to establish all that detail. He’s also got all the word count he needs to create a vivid, intriguing parallel universe while at the same time laying the groundwork for the religiously skeptical, humanistic dissertation that the His Dark Materials trilogy (of which The Golden Compass is Book I) eventually becomes.

The film version, alas, is plagued by two conflicting weaknesses. On the one hand, there’s all that detail to include, and the movie makers don’t want to leave too much out just in case there’s a market for movie two and movie three (sorry guys – not looking good). So the film has this overstuffed, bloated feeling throughout – like a Christmas tree that has to hold every ornament that every kid in the family ever made in first grade.

On the other hand, in its attempt to avoid offending the all-important Christian demographic, the movie is as entirely expunged of Pullman’s philosophical underpinnings as possible. This is an attempt to get the people who paid money into The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings franchises to fork over for this one. Of course, those two series were penned by, respectively, one of the most influential Christian writers of the 20^th century (C.S. Lewis) and the friend most responsible for converting Lewis from atheism (J.R.R. Tolkien). So once you get past magical happenings, intelligent non-humans and kids hiding in wardrobes, The Golden Compass doesn’t really have a lot in common with either of the earlier fantasy classics.

Unless, of course, you count casting. Two Lord of the Rings veterans make appearances – Ian McCellan voices one of the talking animals, and Christopher Lee takes one more how-can-he-possibly-not-be-dead-yet turn in a small role. Otherwise, the cast is generally unremarkable – Daniel Craig is passable as a mostly absent good guy; Nicole Kidman has much more screen time and proves that she can really wear nice clothes well. Neither actor can be flawed too much though: Pullman’s multifaceted characters have been pretty well reduced to white-hat good guy and black-hat bad girl, and they do what they can with the material. Young Dakota Blue Richards (what is up with all these little kids named Dakota?) is a great Lyra – capturing the nuance and complexity of the story in the lead role better than anything else does in this bulging, boring movie.

Too soft: Beowulf

Okay, by now there’s been enough written about the animation style and state-of-the-art 3-D technique used to make Beowulf, so I’m not even going to go there. Yes, it’s cool that the “camera” can follow as a rat is snatched from the rafters of the mead hall, held in the talons of a hawk and carried through the night to Grendel’s cave. Sure, Angelina Jolie (or, in any case, her avatar) looks hot dressed entirely in gold paint, and what a handy way to deal with all those stupid tattoos. But what about the movie itself?

In truth, it’s not bad. Once you start forgetting to wonder if the freckles in the close-ups are actually on the actors’ faces or were created by some animator with a freckle fetish, it’s a pretty engaging, visually rich movie experience.

And what a surprise to discover that this ancient story – based on an epic poem written around the 8^th Century AD which was itself based on even older oral tradition – is so topical and contemporary in its depiction of a hero tortured by guilt and done in by his own deceit and fatal weakness.

Except, guess what? It’s not. Screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery and director Robert Zemeckis take more liberties with this story than your average Viking takes pillaging a village. In the poem, Grendel’s mother is herself a monster, in this film, she’s Angelina Jolie. Sure, her hair has a mind of its own and she has these disturbing stiletto heels (not shoes – heels), but otherwise she’s, well, pretty far from monstrous. In the poem, Beowulf fights and kills her. In the movie, she seduces him. In the poem, he fights a dragon. In the film, he also fights a dragon, but first he fathers it. I could go on, but you get the picture.

So while Beowulf is entertaining and is certainly some of the best 3-D you’ve ever seen, don’t make the mistake of walking out of the theater feeling more educated in the classics. It really isn’t an adaptation, it’s a reinvention.

Just Right: Sweeney Todd

There are some moments that any theater-lover holds forever – stage experiences they will never forget. For me, one of those was seeing Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou in Sweeny Todd on Broadway. That was a long time ago, and at the time I don’t think I could have imagined making that tremendous, very stagey, operatic musical into a movie. But now, all these years later, it’s been done and done well – done beautifully – by Tim Burton.

Burton’s major accomplishment in this film is actually in the adaptation itself: it is rethought and redesigned for the screen, yet it is true and loyal to the source material in all the right ways.

Sweeney Todd is more than just a musical, it is a soaring operatic melodrama. Burton’s love and respect for Stephen Sondheim’s amazing music comes through from the first moment of the credits and continues throughout, and he captures the heroically giant inner lives of his characters while creating for them a vivid (if monochromatic) world of 19^th Century London.

Burton is wise and careful in his musical choices: virtually all of the lead and supporting characters sing, but gone are the resounding choral pieces that are so much a part of the stage production. Sondheim fans will miss them (I was secretly hoping to hear a basso profundo boom out “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd” over the closing credits), but the choice was a good one: this vision of the mean streets of London would be much harder to realize with peddlers harmonizing all over the place.

Also featured from the first moment of the credits is blood. Blood falling from the sky, oozing through the sewers, wrapping itself around the gears of a machine. It’s as though Burton is warning us: get ready, this story is not going to be pretty – it’s blood from top to bottom. And he lives up to his word. It is a bloody film, and because Burton does not turn away from the essential violence of Sweeney Todd, you may find that you have to. But that violence and bloodshed is part and parcel of the obsessive revenge that is at the core of this movie.

On stage or on film, this is a character-based story. Sweeney Todd returns angered and embittered to his native London, after being falsely imprisoned by a corrupt judge who wants to steal his wife. On his return he learns that not only is his wife dead, but his daughter has been taken in and raised by the judge. He swears revenge, and begins a killing rampage with the assistance of his landlady, Mrs. Lovett. Mrs. Lovett owns a filthy meat pie shop – “the worst pies in London” she brags – but the quantity and quality of her pies improves as Todd begins his killing spree. Hmmm. Yuck.

On stage, Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are well past their prime. Burton’s couple, played by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, certainly show signs of wear and tear. But they possess a sensuality that adds a nice dimension to the story and that works well on screen. This team of Burton, Depp and Bonham Carter has a lot of personal and professional history, which only serves to enhance the collaboration. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent: from Alan Rickman’s greasy judge to young Ed Sanders as the boy Toby – a fine child actor with a powerhouse voice. Expect to see more of him.

Depp thoroughly holds his own as a singer in this film, but if there is one flaw to find it is with Bonham Carter’s handling of the music. It’s passable, but one can’t help but remember that this role has been a triumph on stage for singers like Lansbury and Patti LuPone. Helena Bonham Carter sure as heck isn’t in that league. In fact, I found myself thinking how fortunate she was to be voicing the role in a movie, where level adjustments and sound editing can cover a multitude of sins.

But that’s really just one more testament to Burton’s skill in adaptation: Helena Bonham Carter has the right look for his vision of this story and she’s got all the acting chops she needs (and then some) to pull it off. Casting a stage diva in the role would have been easy – and completely wrong.

But Burton doesn’t make that wrong move, nor does he make any others. This film adaptation does what it should – it reinterprets the material without reinventing it, making it not just a great story, but a really terrific film. Just right.

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Sicko (2007)-Lora Garano

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Sicko

By Lorna Garano

Christopher Hitchens once said of Michael Moore, "He prefers leaden sarcasm to irony and, indeed, may not appreciate the distinction." I’d agree with the first part and maybe even with the second. And while we’re on the subject I may as well say that Moore’s showboating, his paternalistic and scolding tone, his "hero of the common man" persona all make me queasy. That he seems unable to resist the temptation of the sentimental and the urge to reduce nearly every situation to farce is grating too. Oh, and one more thing: I take it for granted that his facts need to be double-checked.

How sad then that Moore is one of the few documentary film makers with mass appeal and box-office viability to train his camera on working-class people who have collided with America’s corporate juggernaut. In Sicko it’s people who, despite having medical insurance, were unable to get care. There’s the woman who at twenty-two developed cervical cancer and was denied treatment by her insurance provider because she was “too young to have cervical cancer.” Another, an accident victim, was told that after being knocked out in a car crash her ambulance ride wouldn’t be covered because she didn’t get pre-approval for it.

As always, Moore relies heavily on personal testimony and people are taken at their word. Given that we’ve got an unchecked, for-profit healthcare system that is unique in the industrialized world I don’t really think the burden of proof is entirely on the people profiled in Sicko, and I think most of us have heard enough medical horror stories from sources we trust to make their stories ring true. Yet, this points to a problem I have with Moore and also to why I found it so difficult to write about Sicko. Like all Moore’s films much of it feels true and I think a documentary should aspire to a higher level of credibility. It often feels like Moore is a satirist trapped in the role of documentarian, said another way he’s a lazy film maker. No doubt, the extraordinary callousness and inefficiency of our healthcare system is rich fodder for anyone with an eye for satire and it’s important (and horrifying) to know that the world of American healthcare is sort of like what Through the Looking-Glass would be if Kafka had penned it. One man relates his story of severing two fingertips with a table saw and being told at the hospital that they could replace the ring finger for $12,000 or the middle for $64,000. Viva choice. The problem is that these are real people and real situations, and to treat them as satire is at the very least to miss an opportunity. It would be a lot of work to to look closely at the predatory system that they’re ensnared in and offer a serious discussion of the alternatives. Instead Moore says "isn’t this nuts?," offers a thumbnail history of HMOs in the US and then hits the road for what seems to be the medical paradise of other countries.

Probably the most commented-on element of the film, Moore’s trip to Cuba with US healthcare refugees in tow, is vintage Moore. When he learns of the government claim that detainees at Guantamo Bay are given quality healthcare he sets sail with three boatloads of ailing Americans who have been unable to get treatment and from the prow of the boat announces to the guard tower that he has Americans in need of care. It’s emblematic of Moore’s style and it was a scene that had me rooting for him at the same time I was cringing. My reaction speaks to the ambivalence I have about Moore. I’m glad that there’s a bankable filmmaker who’s willing to show the effects of corporations run amok on ordinary people and I believe Moore is genuinely well intentioned. But he’s too vulnerable to the demands of his ego and his films suffer under the weight of his outsize personality.

Moore has been criticized for overstating the benefits of the healthcare systems in Canada, Cuba, France, and Britain and his sunny portrayal of beneficent doctors tending trusting patients within infrastructures that run without a glitch made me wonder what the downsides are. I’m willing to believe that the healthcare systems of these countries are way more humane and efficient than ours and I’m willing to believe that we’re subject to much disinformation about "socialized medicine." I’m not, however, willing to believe that medical Xanadu exists anywhere. And here I come to another difficulty in writing about a Michael Moore movie: it’s easy to focus so much on Moore’s glaring faults and the deficits in his movies that the larger issue gets lost. In this case, it’s that we live in the only industrialized country whose healthcare system doesn’t start from the assumption that everyone is entitled to care. I wish someone else could sell out theaters by saying that, but for now we’ll have to settle for what we’ve got.

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The Magic Flute (1975)-Dan Schneider

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

The Magic Flute (1975)

By Dan Schneider

Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film/TV version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute (Trollflöjten) is a serviceable film, and nothing that really takes advantage of either of its media- opera and film, to its fullest; although it begs the question as to why it was ever made? It is basically a filmed version of the play (although the singing was recorded beforehand and looped in to the film, thus allowing the actors to emote without worrying of their singing)- replete with shots of a gawking audience, but very little new is added to the tale. Yes, it’s sung in Swedish, and there are a few minor changes, such as the sorcerer Sarastro being Pamina’s father- which adds a tinge of Bergmanian and Freudian angst to the opera, and a few scenes being reordered, but overall it’s the same familiar tale.

While watching it I wondered what such a film of Swan Lake, by Federico Fellini, would have been like. Doubtless, it would have been more over the top than this production, but that fact only reinforces my query as to why film this opera the way it is filmed? Yes, Bergman is almost as famed as a stage director as he is a film director, and there are some scenes of ‘backstage’ antics- especially during a several minute long intermission, where the actor playing Sarastro, Ulrik Cold- his real name, is shown reading the score of another opera, Parsifal, and another actor is reading a Donald Duck comic book, but the tale itself is rather straightforward, and at two hours and fifteen minutes, a bit too long, even if abridged from the over three hours of the opera; although one can go to the bathroom and not miss much of what is going on.

The Queen of Night’s daughter, Pamina (Irma Urrila)- a soprano, has been kidnapped by Sarastro- a bass, and she sends Prince Tamino (Josef Köstlinger)- a tenor, and Papageno (Håkan Hagegård)- a Pan pipe playing baritone with a fetish for aves, to rescue her, after they have been seduced by three pretty ladies (Britt-Marie Aruhn, Kirsten Vaupel, and Birgitta Smiding), who killed the dragon pursuing Tamino because they lust for him. It is really part of the Queen’s plot to usurp Sarastro’s kingdom, but the duo do not know that. Merely seeing Pamina’s grace in a locket sends Tamino into ecstasies of love, but he is watched over by three guardian angel boys, of a sort, in a hot air balloon (Urban Malmberg, Ansgar Krook, and Erland Von Heijne). He and Papageno are caught, and set through three trials. They pass, and Tamino wins Pamina’s love, while Papageno gets his own mortal love, Papagena (Elisabeth Erikson)- a soprano, the Queen of Night (Birgit Nordin)- a soprano, and her spy in Sarastro’s camp, Monostatos (Ragnar Ulfung)- a tenor sometimes in blackface, and sometimes not, as the Shakespearean Othello/Caliban device, get their comeuppance. There is the requisite touch of melodrama- misunderstandings, attempted suicides, but all done with cheerful songs, written by librettist Emanuel Schikaneder, and attractive cast members who can sing well. The film and opera was not shot in a real playhouse, but in a film studio at the Swedish Film Institute made up to look like Stockholm’s Drottningholm Theatre, but is intriguingly lit by Bergman’s great cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Rather than the dour and dark hues most operas indulge in, this one has a far greater range of colors and shades in its palette.

Dramatically, there are some oddities in the film- such as the singers holding up Swedish language placards at various points- to a Swedish audience, which only underscores what is going on- a bit too didactic a touch, as well as too often repeated shots of audience reactions- filled with Bergman associates, like Nykvist and actors Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. Oddest of all is Bergman’s seeming fixation with one soporific little red haired girl, listed in film credits online as Helene Friberg, who looks eerily like current actress Amber Tamblyn. Whether or not this girl was caught in the act of watching (and stifling yawns), or a plant- likely since her name is known, I do not know, but since she is impassive through all but two of her close-ups, what is the point of featuring her? To be fair, though, none of the other audience members shown are full of zest either, which suggests that this seemed, to them, a rather mundane performance of the opera. Also, because it is filmed, we get close-ups of the actors that we really should not see- such as the rotted brown tooth of Håkan Hagegård, as Papageno. Incidentally, if the little girl in the audience looks like Amber Tamblyn, the plump Hagegård looks like chubby actor Sean Astin, from the *Lord Of The Rings* films, and Ulrik Cold, as Sarastro, is a dead ringer for a young Orson Welles, especially around the eyes, nose, and lips.

Yet, since the titular Magic Flute is only glimpsed when given to Tamino by the Queen, in Act One, and when used at the end of the opera to guide the lovers through their final ‘test,’ which bizarrely includes mute and naked orgiasts, it begs the question of why the opera bears the title it does. There are a few spoken passages- in prose, not verse, but it is rather mundane. The DVD by The Criterion Collection has no extra features, save for white subtitles in English, one of the few times that subtitling actually benefits a viewer, for who ever really understands what an opera’s lyrics are saying? That said, the subtitles do disappear several times during the film for a minute or more, without any explanation or rationale.

Overall, however, The Magic Flute succeeds as a film not because of Bergman’s considerable skills in his art form, nor the acting skills of his cast, but because of their singing skills, and the music of Mozart. That one great artist, at his height, can aid another great artists, at less than his height, is nothing to be ashamed of, but it does make for a rather average viewing experience, something quite rare when that artist is named Ingmar Bergman.

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Fata Morgana (1971)-Dan Schneider

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Fata Morgana

By Dan Schneider

Fata Morgana, the 1971 documentary-like film by German filmmaker extraordinaire Werner Herzog, filmed over several years in the late 1960s, is one of those rare DVDs that should be listened to with the commentary turned on. It is a visual feast of North African (mostly Saharan) imagery that is timeless. You simply could not tell that it was made over thirty-five years ago. The soundtrack to the film, including German classical music (Mozart and Handel), and rock music by Blind Faith and Leonard Cohen, also lends its timeless quality. The narration by three different German narrators (German film historian Lotte Eisner, Eugen Des Montagnes, and Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg) is solid, and Herzog goes on and on of Eisner’s import to this project, himself, and film history, but the English speaker of the translation, James William Gledhill, has a voice that seems downright deific, which lends itself far more perfectly to this project, even though much of the text- in either language, is rather superfluous. Yes, the faux Biblical sounds of the Popul Vuh Mayan creation myth in the film’s first part, Creation, is interesting, but the text Herzog wrote for the remaining two parts (Paradise and The Golden Age), along with quotes from a German poet Herzog names as Manfred Eigendorf, almost seems a satire of the first part’s somber tone.

Yet, it is in the commentary track, by interviewer Norman Hill (of the Anchor Bay DVD company which released the DVD) in much of the story of the eerie images that sweep over a viewr. Hill is rather a stolid interviewer, and Glover adds little, but Herzog is the sort of raconteur that can entertain one by talking of anything. In this manner, one can see the affinity he had for a subject like Dieter Dengler, the former Vietnamese POW who was at the center of Herzog’s great 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. Herzog explains that the title, literally Morgan Le Fay- the queen of fairies from Arthurian romances, but also meaning mirages cause by temperature inversions, symbolizes many of the images filmed- usually of vehicles moving in the desert that were not there, but reflections from miles away.

As in the companion film to this, on the flip side of this DVD, Lessons Of Darkness, this film feels almost as if taken from an extraterrestrial’s point of view. Again, like the later film, *Fata Morgan* is not science fiction, although Herzog tells us that a sci fi screenplay provided the genesis and impetus for this film’s making. Each of the three sections of he film zeroes in closer and closer on the human- from brief scenes to weird scenes of a blind African World War Two French veteran, to an Arab child and his white fennec, to the absurd human structures built hundreds of miles from civilization, that are left to rust in the nothingness, to the remains from the French atomic testing fields of the 1940s. This contrasts sharply with a Dogon village carved into a cliffside, which Herzog rhapsodizes on. By the final section, the absurdity of the human condition is shown when a madam and pimp perform a horrid vaudeville piano and song act as other equally bizarre humans (mostly expatriate Germans) strut by for their moment onstage: a retarded German man; a bizarre turtle lover in the Canary Islands, whose idea of fun is capturing and releasing turtles that swim in his pool; and a man who loves and loathes Saharan monitor lizards.

The film, it seems was pieced together during the shooting of several other Herzog projects concurrently- the fictive Even Dwarfs Started Small, and the documentaries The Land Of Silence And Darkness and The Flying Doctors Of East Africa, but these projects’ rejected material only add to the beauty of this film, such as aerial scenes of a flamingo mating lake from afar that give one an eerie unearthly sense, one which Herzog crows about in his commentary. This unearthly feel is present right from the film’s start of several airplanes landing on a desert runway, with their images getting successively blurrier as the heat from the ground rises, and increases the distorting waves that mar the images. That this film was influential in the –Quatsi films of Godfrey Reggio is an understatement. But, whereas Reggio is content to just toss images at you, Herzog has an ability that only American filmmaker Terrence Malick also has: to make a wholly self-contained vocabulary out of the juxtaposition of images and words, and one dependent upon an emotion-first thrust. Analysis can fail when brought to such endeavors. Herzog often does not understand even why his art is great. The best he does often is wholly unconscious and mesmeric. This is why his contempt for the Lowest Common Denominator pap of Hollywood is openly stated on the commentary.

Perhaps the best illustration of this comes in a scene that, on the commentary, Herzog tells us followed a severe drought in Cameroon. It shows the jerkied carcasses of cattle, and Herzog describes the unbearable stench. Yet, the viewer can sense this all from the images, the blackness of the sun dried portions of animals, and the blanched bones. Yet, even in that commentary, Herzog focuses on the stench, not any deeper meaning. He is content to let you imbue and interpret what you will into and of his work, such as the almost erotically feminized shapes of sand dunes, which recalls a scene from Ingmar Bergman’s Hour Of The Wolf, where Max Von Sydow, runs his hand over Ingrid Thulin’s beautiful nude body’s curves. But, the archetypal image in this film, which symbolizes much of Herzog’s career, is of a mirage of a faraway car driving back and forth on the surface of what appears to be a lake. It is deep, hypnotic, illusive, elusive, supernatural, yet real, just as Herzog, the believer who came from a family of militant atheists, is. But, then, like everything else, it ends.

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Patrick Wolf: Wind in The Wires (2005)-Ethan Smith

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Patrick Wolf: Wind in the Wires (2005)

By Ethan Smith

It’s very hard for me to choose my favorite Patrick Wolf album because as far as consistently goes he’s better than most artists. I think this is my favorite only because it holds most of my favorite songs but if you were to honestly ask me what the best Patrick Wolf album is I’d tell you there was no such thing. Whatever he’s doing he puts him self entirely into it and as a result every single one of his albums is a quality release.

One thing I want to note before jumping into this review is Patrick did everything except two things on this album; the clarinet on Wind in the Wires and the female choir on Teignmouth, he even produced this release. When I found this out I was extremely impressed, we’re not talking your typical singer/songwriter album consisting of an acoustic guitar with drums and bass sprinkled into give it a more full sound. We’re talking violins, ukuleles, pianos, accordions, drums, electronics and a variety of zithers.

Now onto the album, like English singer/songwriter before him Vashti Bunyan Patrick Wolf is obsessed with geography, constantly naming places and towns in his songs he creates a map of places he’s been through sound. Wind in the Wires kind of serves as a musical document of his tours and various travels lyrically. These lyrics are placed over beautiful string arrangements and a circus of instruments all deeply rooted in British folk. His musical approach is interesting because he tries to be as creative and original as it as possible he tries to not listen to much music when writing as to avoid it sounding similar to anything else or being too influenced by something, though certain influences like David Bowie or Nick Drake often shine through

If you’re new to Patrick Wolf I suggest starting with this album because it serves as a great introduction to his album before it and after it. I strongly encourage people to give him a listen to; I think Patrick Wolf is easily one of the most creative, talented and under appreciated artists of the past decade and his music combines a variety of styles and sounds to create a beautifully orchestrated sound and Wind in the Wires stands as a testament to his genius

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Carissa’s Weird: Songs About Leaving (2002)-Ethan Smith

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Carissa’s Weird: Songs About Leaving (2002)

By Ethan Smith

Carissa’s Wierd (weird was intentionally misspelled) was formed by songwriters Mat Brooke and Jean Ghetto. They were influenced by bands like Joy Division and the Smiths but sounded nothing like them; however they held the same mood. Their sound was unlike any other band. Melancholic soft indie rock with gentle strings and sad keys coupled with somber male/female vocals often dueting and singing lyrics that were always as honest as they were painful. By the time they’d release Songs About Leaving they’d fully come into their sound and proven to be as creative as they were unique but beautiful things never seem to last. In 2003, a year after the release of Songs About Leaving, they’d announced their break up and went their separate ways to form such acts as Band of Horses, Grand Archives, S, Crictor and Sera Cahoone.

When I first heard this album about a year ago I was shocked by how real and how well they seemed to express pain. It sounds cliché when you read about it but when you listen to it you get just hit by the way it traverses so many emotions. Jean’s very sad voice, almost on the verge of tears reciting “My dreams full of what’s not real / I’ll fly away and save the world / I’ll make you proud someday / I just won’t be around to see your face” is breathtaking, the way Mat and Jean deliver these verses causes them to take on a whole new level of sorrow. Even if the music was instrumental it would still be very effective and impressively emotive; the haunting and echoing guitars along with the very somber pianos and violins. Songs About Leaving shows to not only be an album with a unique sound, but a beautiful album to serve as a soundtrack for the broken hearted.

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Jonathan Rice: Further North (2007)-Ethan Smith

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Johnathan Rice: Further North (2007)
By Ethan Smith

What do you get if you take away the guitar playing skills of John Mayer and leave everything else? Johnathan Rice! What do you get if you turn that bad version of John Mayer into a Conor Oberst wannabe? Johnathan Rice too! While Further North shows significant improvements on his less than average debut it’s still not very good, but it does have its moments. Most of the songs were co-written by Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley and other projects and when listening to some of these songs she didn’t help write you have to wonder just how much her “co-writing” consisted of when everything she touched is tolerable to good, everything else, with the exception of a few songs, is reaching for mediocrity but falling short.

Now one thing that plagues this album is its unoriginality, while most singer/songwriters can pull it off very well he can’t. When listening to this you keep expecting to hear a line like “Fathers be good to your daughters” and that proves to be a problem. Johnathan Rice at times sounds so similar to Mayer you can almost forgot who you’re listening to and the only real reminder is the cliché political images and lack of Mayer’s guitar lines. While most of this album is full of forgettable songs the opener “We’re All Stuck Out in the Desert” is a great pop-country song but the problem is songs like that are very rare.

All in all Johnathan Rice proves to be a fairly average songwriter that with the help from much more talented girlfriend Jenny Lewis can create some good songs, but the sad reality is once she’s done sleeping with him he’ll be back to where he was, writing bad to mediocre music and assuring us that trouble is real. But for now, in the words of the Beatles, he’ll get by with a little help from his friends.

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Funeral for A Friend: Tales Don’t Tell Themselves (2007)-Davey Boy

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Funeral for A Friend: Tales Don’t Tell Themselves (2007)

By Davey Boy

For those still succumbing to New Years Eve hangovers, I can assure you all that it is now 2008. Flip over your calendars folks! For those of us that are musically inclined, the first month of a new year is often a time to take a look back at the previous year & recall what stood out to us, whether it be positive or negative. I definitely do not profess to having listened to every album released in 2007 & my opinion as to what was the best album of the year may well change in the upcoming months. But as of this writing, my choice is most likely to be one that will not be seen elsewhere. It is Tales Don’t Tell Themselves, the 3rd album by Welsh band Funeral For A Friend.

For a musical group that has only existed for 6 years, Funeral For A Friend (FFAF) sure have reinvented themselves throughout their lifetime. While their early EPs & debut album literally screamed post-hardcore, the band has cut down on their rougher edges with each passing album, resulting in a more melodic alternative-rock feel. While the group has had a little mainstream success, especially in the United Kingdom, they have not been super successful. The main reason for this is that for the most part they do not rely on strong & catchy choruses, instead choosing to concentrate more on their music. With this album however, FFAF appear to have purposefully aimed for more of a balance between the 2 aspects. To a lot of their

longtime (and even some casual) fans, this meant that the terribly faddy & overused term of “selling out” was brought up. However, this is the here & now. At the end of the day, good music is good music… Simple as that!

I have never been a great fan of an album beginning with its best track. That occurs here, but there may be some method to the choice of ‘Into Oblivion (Reunion)’ as the opener. It’s a clear statement that is quite simply the best single of the band’s entire catalogue. Furthermore, it sums up the album very well; Accessible & melodic rock with a lush sound that makes good use of guitars. It’s also catchy & memorable which is something the band have lacked in the past. Another reason for this song’s placement as the first track could arguably be from a lyrical standpoint. You see, this album is one of the growing number of concept albums flooding the market these days. It has a nautical theme & tells the story of a fisherman shipwrecked out at

sea after being ravaged by a storm. It is a gimmick that admittedly has its pros & cons. The main pros being band focus & potential listener involvement, while the main con is repetition (especially lyrically).

Another reason for the placement of the best track & 1st single as the album’s opener is for structure purposes. This is because it is arguable that the other standouts from this LP are its accompanying bookend at the end of the “tale”, as well as the 2 track mid-album break of sorts. Following 3 radio-friendly pop-rock sing-alongs that all stand well enough on their own occupying the spots of tracks 2 to 4, we get what is the first part of the ‘All Hands On Deck’ duo. This is

sub-titled ‘Raise The Sail’ and is a terrific up-tempo rocker that is turned on its head with a super effective string arrangement. The 2nd half (track 6) sub-titled ‘Open Water’ is a little less effective in isolation, but flows well from the previous track, while also foreshadowing the rockier vibe that is to come with the next couple of songs. In fact, the following track, ‘Out Of Reach’ is easily the

closest thing to the band’s hardcore past, but the fact that it remains accessible is a credit to the band.

When the poppy & catchy 2nd single ‘Walk Away’ floats on by as the penultimate track of the album, it is easy to think that Funeral For A Friend may be out of tricks, as it is the most straight-forward song on the album. However, that cannot be further from the truth due to the amazing six & a half minute closer ‘The Sweetest Wave’. Beginning methodically with piano, emotional vocals & atmospheric bass, it uses an orchestral arrangement to build up to a gorgeous & grandiose crescendo that isn’t afraid to rock things up with guitar to match the strings. Theatrical & ambitious, this track really is a terrific summation of the album as a whole & is a statement

that Funeral For A Friend have no boundaries & can achieve anything they set their mind to musically!

If I was to state the main reason for my like of this album, it would simply be that there is no filler. While some tracks obviously stand above others, it would not surprise to see any of the 10 songs released as a single. For that reason, and also due to the perception of some repetition, the band was wise in keeping the LP at 10 tracks (totaling 41 minutes). While the intricate layers of the dual guitar attack from earlier recordings is not as prevalent here, the under-rated guitar playing of Kris Coombs-Roberts is still what drives most songs. The use of orchestral arrangements on some tracks more than make up for any steps back in the sound department, while lead vocalist Matt Davies has adapted well to the more melodic tunes & can hopefully improve even further on future efforts. Very much recommended, Funeral For A Friends’ “Tales Don’t Tell Themselves” is an album full of quality songs that should appeal to a rather large audience. It’s just a matter of that audience knowing the band exists in the first place.

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Sundowner: Four One Five Two (2007)-Constantine Koutsoutis

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Sundowner: Four One Five Two (2007)

By Constantine Koutsoutis

There really aren’t enough albums like this one out there. Sure, a glut of “punk rock frontmen playing acoustic folk and country music” is available pretty easily, but this is a little bit different. Chris McCaughan, who you might know as the guitarist and vocalist from Chicago’s The Lawrence Arms, is the brains behind Sundowner and Four One Five Two. And holy shit, what a brain. Incredible poetry covering almost everything from lost love to personal nervous crises to wandering cold city streets lost in thoughts, Chris’s lyrics are incredible, a testament to his songwriting abilities that I really think goes unappreciated in his work in the Lawrence Arms. Songs like the sweet “This War Is Noise” and “Steal Your Words”, and the very personal “You Self Portrait” (probably my number-one favorite song out of the whole bunch because as a neurotic mess, I connect with it on almost every level), for example, are just three songs on this album alone that totally blow any Lawrence Arms album out of the water. And with a voice that you can hear straining with honesty and effort, Chris manages to take you with him down into songs that are about more than just the clichés of punk rock or even “folk punk”.

We get it, you drink a lot of whiskey and are all alone and broke in life man, get over it. From people who get it right like Chuck Ragan of the legendary post-hardcore Hot Water Music, there’s about a dozen or so guys from bad hardcore bands who think that owning a Woody Guthrie CD and an acoustic guitar makes them a folk hero in the making. Nice try, hotshots.

With Sundowner on the other hand, it’s more intricate, a mix of diary-esque honesty and a willingness to not get bound by the conventions of strictly-acoustic songs. There’s no assumption of folk airs, just an attempt at trying to sing a song. If anything, it’s more pop thank folk, and these days, honest pop music is pretty rare. I’ve listened to this album almost every day since I managed to get my hands on it, it’s that fucking good. Plain and simple. A man, his guitar, and occasional backing up with strings, an acoustic bass, and a some more guitar courtesy of some friends like Jenny Choi (of pop duo Sanawon) and Chris’s Larry Arms bandmate Neil Hennessy. What more do you really need? Well, a copy of this shit, that’s for sure.

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