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Pop Culture OCD

Wild Card Tuesdays - The Dinner Game

The Dinner Game (1998, dir. Francis Veber)

You've no doubt seen the trailer or commercials for the upcoming Paul Rudd/Steve Carrell film Dinner for Schmucks. This is its source material, a very small and wry French comedy that, unlike the American version never makes it to the titular dinner. Instead, we get a very clever farce from the same director that brought us La Cage Aux Follies and many other French comedies brutally remade by American studios. I'm beginning to think studios simply wait around for him to release a film so they can rush to produce a butchered remake. While not the kind of funny the American remake is shooting for, The Dinner Game will make you laugh through clever wordplay and increasingly convoluted misunderstandings

Character Actor Month - Part 3

Keith David (IMDB credits: 180 credits, The Thing, Platoon, They Live, Gargoyles, Princess Mononoke, There's Something About Mary, Pitch Black, Requiem for a Dream, Coraline)

Keith David is an actor known just as well for both his on screen performances as well as voice over work. When I see his face I immediately think of Childs in John Carpenter's The Thing. When I hear his voice I think of Goliath from Disney's Gargoyles, one of the best children's animated shows from the 1990s. David was born in Harlem, New York in 1956 and first found himself moving towards acting as a career when playing the Cowardly Lion for a school production of The Wizard of Oz. He entered into New York's High School for the Performing Arts and attended Julliard afterwards. You can definitely hear the classical Shakespearean training in his voice, particularly as the Celtic Goliath. David has become a frequent collaborator with John Carpenter and provided the voice-overs for three Ken Burns documentaries ("The War", "Unforgivable Blackness", "Jazz") and won Emmys for the first two. He is one of those actors more and more directors are using and his IMDB boasts 12 projects in various stages of production.

Director in Focus: Brian De Palma - Redacted

Redacted (2007)

So we have caught up with Brian De Palma's body of work. Redacted goes back to a lot of the same territory as 1989's Casualties of War. We have American troops in a foreign land and the sexual violation of a native girl is the crux of the conflict. There's one soldier who above all the rest is still virtuous. This was one was written by De Palma as well and really shows off his weakness as a writer. However, there are some interesting technical elements to the picture, and it really easy very experimental for De Palma, both in its making and the distribution.

Criterion Fridays - Summer Hours

Summer Hours (2008, dir. Oliver Assayas)
Starring Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jeremie Renier

It's always refreshing to see a film made for grown ups. Too often American dramas dumb things down, maybe out of a lack of talent in the writer or maybe a lack of confidence in the audience's intelligence. Here director Assayas looks at the strange dynamic of being both the adult child of a parent and a parent to your own children. In one position you are still looked on as an infant or adolescent and in the other you are the supreme authority. This difficult place is used to examine how we deal with death and responsibilities placed on us by the dead. The whole thing is a very naturalistic, quiet piece of cinema that is rewarding and ambiguous. The answers we receive will be as open ended as the characters in the film, and like them, we have to learn to happy with that.

Hypothetical Film Festival - Brothers

It's as simple as the title, films that have very prominent brother relationships at their core.

American History X (1998, dir. Tony Kaye)

Everyone remembers Edward Norton as the terrifying, swastika tattooed skinhead. The scene where he curbs a young black man who had broken into his house is gut wrenching. What's interesting is how he so embodies evil in the flashbacks during the film, yet is an incredibly sympathetic character when reformed. His younger brother, played by Edward Furlong, is high school student struggling to understand how his older brother has turned his back on their family's white power ways. In many ways the film is a race against time picture, Norton is desperately trying to get his little brother to stop being motivated through hate before something terrible happens to him.

Newbie Wednesdays - Greenberg

Greenberg (2010, dir. Noah Baumbach)
Starring Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Mark Duplass, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Hey, you know what isn't an interesting topic for contemporary cinema right now? Angst ridden white people who live comfortably and don't have to worry about any necessities. Especially when they aren't in some sort of hyper-realistic universe (i.e. James Bond, comic book movies). When the films are meant to be set in reality and feature characters whose biggest problems are that their band when they were in their twenties didn't work out, yet are still rich through other endeavors, then I don't really have much empathy towards them. This is yet another hugely pretentious piece of cinema from the grating Noam Baumbach. If you're interested in navel gazing claptrap you've found your film.

Wild Card Tuesdays - The Living and The Dead

The Living and The Dead (2006, dir. Simon Rumley)
Starring Roger Lloyd-Pack, Leo Bill, Kathy Fahy

It's very hard for me to write about this film after having just watched it today. It affected me in a deeply emotional way that very few films are able to. After cinema becomes a daily occurrence, you are naturally numbed to the typical emotional tricks of filmmakers. I was aware of this film first as a horror picture. The director, Simon Rumley came out of nowhere with this small picture that made the festival circuits. It never really the mainstream venues, instead traveling to the fringe horror festivals. I am very curious as to how it was received because more than anything this film is a deeply disturbing, yet also sensitive, portrayal of the pain of severe mental illness. The film achieved something very few have in recent years, it made me cry. There is a scene in the last third of the film that is so emotionally devastating I can't see how anyone could watch it and not break down.

DocuMondays - This Filthy World

This Filthy World (2008, dir.Jeff Garlin)

Unlike the other documentaries I have looked at, where you have multiple interviewees and tightly edited footage to form a narrative, this is simply one man on stage in front of a crowd, talking to them. It's basically a concert film, but while most of those feature either a music performer or comedian this is a film director. I guess the closest equivalent  of this would be the Evening With Kevin Smith DVDs. Both are the result of directors whose personalities are as large as the reputation of their films. John Waters is definitely not a filmmaker who appeals to everyone, something he readily admits, but even if you don't enjoy his films I think it would be hard not to enjoy this one-man show about his love of all things strange.

Director in Focus: New Director Poll

As we wrap up my look at Brian DePalma's career with Redacted on Friday, I'm looking ahead to the director I will spotlight beginning in August. Below are the four choices. Vote by leaving a comment below.

John Cassavetes - To many he was the father of modern American independent cinema, filming on New York Streets without permits, making films that would never receive major accolades, but would inspire filmmakers for decades to come. His wife, Gena Rowland starred in many of his pictures, and his children have all gone into the film industry. While he is most famous for his role as Guy in Roman Polanksi's Rosemary's Baby, Cassavettes is also one of the most independent voices film has ever seen.
Films I Have Seen: Faces.

Sam Fuller - He didn't give a damn if they liked his work or not, he made films the way he wanted them. Fuller was a newspaper writer and crime novelist who joined up with the Army when World War II broke out and saw action in both the European and African theaters. It was during the liberation of a concentration camp that he made his first cinematic work, footage that was included in a documentary. Fuller focused on gritty crime drama and war films, but didn't present pretty pictures of anything. Studios hated his work, and it was with the shelving of his controversial film White Dog, which tackled issues of racism, that he left America never to make another film here again.
Films I Have Seen: Pick Up on South Street

Derek Jarman - Jarman was a filmmaker that optimized the British punk movement. He made films that took cultural tradition (The Queen, Shakespeare) and turned them on their heads. Jarman was diagnosed with AIDs in 1986 and died in 1994. Despite his illness he continued making films till the ending, becoming more meditative and thoughtful in his latter work.
Films I Have Seen: None

Werner Herzog - Herzog is nuts. This is something I have learned through reading about and seeing only a few of his films. Herzog likes to play with the viewer, fooling us and confusing us. He is obsessive, meaning his films are tightly crafted. His battles with frequent acting collaborator and peer in insanity Klaus Kinski are the stories of movie legend. And he's still making films.
Films I Have Seen: Strosek, Nosferatu, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Grizzly Man

Character Actor Month - Part 2

Dylan Baker (IMDB credits: 91, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Happiness, Requiem for a Dream, Thirteen Days, Road to Perdition, Spider-Man 2)

You know him as Dr. Curt Conners in the Spider-Man films, most likely. I remember him mainly for two roles: A pedophiliac psychiatrist in Todd Solondz's dementedly hilarious Happiness and as the bizarrely backwoods ride in Planes, Train, and Automobiles. He had a modest upbringing in Lynchburg, Virginia and attended William and Mary before moving onto the Yale School of Drama, where his fellow classmates included Chris Noth and Patricia Clarkson. Like most character actors, Baker has garnered great success in live theater, even receiving a Tony nomination for his performance in La Bete, a comedic play inspired by Moliere and written in iambic pentameter. In addition, he's married to Becky Ann Baker, who played the mother on the amazing ahead of its time television series Freaks and Geeks, seriously, if you haven't seen it get ahold of the DVDs, I'm not asking you to, I'm commanding! One of Baker's most recent, best, and I suspect most overlooked performances was as deeply dark and disturbed elementary school principal in the Halloween flick Trick R' Treat.

Director in Focus: Brian De Palma - The Black Dahlia

The Black Dahlia (2006)
Starring Josh Harnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Mia Kirshner, Mike Starr, Fiona Shaw, Rachel Miner

Coming off of the Euro Noir Femme Fatale, De Palma steps right into classic L.A. Noir, where the entire bleak genre really began. The film is based on the James Ellroy novel, which is in turn based on the real life murder of a young wanna be actress named Elizabeth Short, nicknamed "The Black Dahlia" by the newspapers. For the picture, we find De Palma restrained much more than in Femme Fatale. I didn't notice too many visual flourishes, instead a lot of post-production gauziness added to the film in an attempt to make the film resemble its counterparts in the 1940s. He manages to directly reference old movies, a trademark of De Palma's love of cinema. It's a long picture, over two hours and there are many sub plots and third act twists. So how does it all come together?

Criterion Fridays - Make Way For Tomorrow

Make Way For Tomorrow (1937, dir. Leo McCarey)
Starring Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi

The economy is bad. Unemployment. The Housing Market. Small Businesses. Crashing every day. During The Great Depression, cinema reflected this moment in history where the common man was struggling to make ends meet. People were losing their homes, ending up jobless and on the streets, and Hollywood wasn't afraid to put that up on the screen.There were many escapist pictures in the theaters during the Great Depression, particularly musicals, but even those had elements of the financial struggles people were under going. Not so now. Particularly during the summer, we have mindless film after mindless film, featuring people so distant and out of touch with our own reality that, for myself, I become disengaged. What I am shocked to see is reality reflected on the screen.

It Should Be A Movie - Girls

Girls (2005-2007)
24 issues, Written and Illustrated by Jonathan and Joshua Luna, Image Comics

In the 1970s there was a renaissance period for both horror and science fiction. Of course there was still schlock being made but there was also a lot of thought provoking speculative fiction presented to the movie going public. These films used the facade of the fantastic to talk about modern day issues and challenges. Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth looked at how fame corrupts once noble endeavors. Mad Max dealt with the fears of lawlessness. A Clockwork Orange chose to examine the ways in which society seeks to erase the individual by examining the most despicable element. A film adaptation of Girls would follow in the footsteps of these films as a picture looking at relevant social issues in a fresh inventive way and it would haunt the audience for a long time after.

Newbie Wednesdays - The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender (2010, dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

M. Night and I have a long history together. The first film I saw my freshman year of college was The Sixth Sense. It terrified me. Now, with a decade of film obsession behind me, it takes a lot to creep me out that badly, and I look at The Sixth Sense as a very sad atmospheric film, still good though. His next film, Unbreakable, is still one of my favorite comic book films, in that is captures a certain idea of superheroes that I've never seen another film come close to. About there is where my love for the director ended. I've seen every film he's made in the theater, the only other director who I have done that with is Christopher Nolan, sort of the antithesis of Shyamalan. While Nolan produces better and better films, Shyamalan only gives diminishing returns. This latest, his first foray into adapting an already established property, is an utter disaster.

Wild Card Tuesdays - Right At Your Door

Right At Your Door (2005, dir. Chris Gorak)
Starring Mary McKormack, Rory Cochrane

The concept of Right At Your Door has the makings of an amazing movie. The story is relegated to single home with a small number of cast (2 lead, 2 supporting) and brings up topics and themes very relevant to modern America. With all of these elements present, you would expect the film to be good. Sadly, it never really becomes about anything. It touches on a lot of ideas briefly, then abandons them, then collapses as film that never really goes anywhere. Its definitely working hard to be important but the substance isn't there. It's truly disappointing though, because it could have been one of the best films about post-9/11 America.

DocuMondays - Prodigal Sons

Prodigal Sons (2008, dir. Kimberly Reed)

It is impossible to watch this film and not be affected in someway. It is one of the most inside looks at a family and their struggles, particularly with mental illness. I can't say I have ever seen a documentary that captured such intensely intimate and violent moments on film. While the details of this particular family may seem drastically different from your own, when looking at the core nature of the relationships it is like any other: there is a lot of emotional pain and little done to resolve it for years. It's one of those documentaries that is bound to ignite arguments about what is incited by the director and what is the natural progression of these people in this situation.

Character Actor Month - Part 1

What is a Character Actor, you ask? Think of a Coen Brothers film, O Brother Where Art Thou? for example. George Clooney is the lead. Clooney will always be the lead of almost whatever film he is in. You can say the same about Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts and so on. These actors have been categorized as "lead actors" meaning its general accepted that they are relatable enough to carry a film on their own. Yawn. Lead actors are incredibly boring, in my opinion. The most interesting roles are those of the character actor; an actor who has so captured a certain type or one who has taken the role of supporting characters in films. In O Brother Where Art Thou? John Tutturo and John Goodman are the character actors. These are the Ned Beatties, the Luis Guzmans, the Amy Sedarises. And many times, its the character actors who can make a terrible film actually watchable.

Stephen Tobolowsky (IMDB credits: 200 roles; Groundhog Day, Memento, Deadwood, Glee)

"That first step is a doooozy." For most of this is the line that cemented Stephen Tobolowsky into our psyches, I know it was for me. It was Ned Ryerson, the annoying insurance salesman and former high school classmate of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. In that role, Tobolowsky was able to repeat the same performance again and again, and somehow made Ned increasingly more annoying with each iteration. Tobolowsky is a Dallas native and made his film debut in 1976. It wasn't until later pictures, like Spaceballs, that audiences really took notice of his face. Beyond simply being an actor, Tobolowsky has become a well known personality in Hollywood due to his skilled abilities as a storyteller. He co-wrote True Stories with David Byrne after, according to Mr. Tobolowsky, staring at Byrne worldlessly for two hours and making pencil drawings related to plot ideas. If you can track it down, and I never have been able to, there is a documentary featuring his storytelling titled Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party.

Director in Focus: Brian De Palma - Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale (2002)
Starring Rebecca Romijn, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote, Eriq Ebouaney

De Palma came off of Snake Eyes and went in a total 180 to make Mission to Mars. I don't think any one could have really predicted that film from him: A science fiction film set in the future involving a rescue mission to Mars with aliens and special effects and so on. It was definitely a risky move on his part, and ultimately it failed. There were moments that worked, in particular a planetfall sequence involving risky maneuvers using a deep knowledge of gravity and physics. It had a lot of tension in and drew me in, but overall the film was a mess. So for his second film of the 21st century, De Palma revisited some Hitchcock elements, but more he dipped fulling into the Noir genre, something he had skirted his entire career but never gone full bore into.

Criterion Fridays - Close-Up

Close-Up (1990, dir. Abbas Kiraostami)

In America, its not uncommon to see a film "based on a true story". The audience has come to expect that while names and events are real, screenwriters have "punched up" the script with dramatic tropes and formulas designed to add drama to what they see as dull, uninteresting reality. On the opposite end of things, you have documentaries like Capturing the Friedmans where the reality of the situation is so horrific and dramatic we have to wonder how much is exaggerated and manipulated by the director. In Abbas Kiraostami's film Close-Up he takes an approach to the "based on a real story" movie that is some sort of amalgamation of narrative film and documentary. This is one of few times I have watched a film unable to figure out what was reality and was staged.

Hypothetical Film Festival - Unreliable Narrators

There's a very interesting plot device called the Unreliable Narrator, wherein the point of view you are getting the story from comes from a person who is possibly skewing the facts in their favor, creating a story that is not quite true. Here's some films that use that idea to great effect.

Rashomon (1950, dir. Akira Kurosawa)
Rashomon was the introduction of Kurosawa and post-war Japanese cinema to the world. The framing of the story was unlike anything that had really been seen in cinema, but had roots in older literature, particularly Shakespeare (whose works would be a major influence on Kurosawa throughout his career). A woodcutter and priest are seeking shelter in the husk of an old building while it storms outside. A passerby enters and they explain a strange murder of a samurai and the court case in which his wife, the bandit being accused, and the spirit of the samurai himself all testify. Through the three differing viewpoints we get three different pictures, with the added framing of these figures telling us the story. It's a like a hedge maze of narrative.