Thoughts on Renting Movies - Robbie C

The other night, exhausted after a long day of work, I stopped by my local Blockbuster to rent a movie. It's probably sacrilege to admit it on this blog, but I don't watch a ton of movies. When I do, I either borrow or stop by a Redbox kiosk. So it had been a while since I was in a Blockbuster. Going in was like stepping back in time. If there's magic lost in watching movies on a laptop or iphone, there's also magic lost when renting a movie online or from a machine at the front of walmart.

Do you remember what it was like to go to a movie store when you were a kid? My sister used to keep a list of movies she wanted to rent and she'd take it with her. I was more freeform, and I wasn't afraid to rent the same movie half a dozen times. Even if I knew what I wanted, I was going to walk all the way down the long wall of the store that held new releases before I ever decided on some old favorite. I could spend an hour just looking at the covers. It was a treat to get to rent a movie for the weekend, even though we did it almost every Friday.

I think stores are better than the internet and redboxes because they're immediate and the selection is immense. And I'm just talking about your chain kind of stores here. I had a friend in high school who moved to Austin, TX and ended up working at an independent movie store there. Not only did they have films you couldn't get anywhere else, but the people who worked there were also knowledgeable and could make great recommendations. They were movie lovers, and just like going into any store with experts, they could get you pumped about something as bad as Rosemary's Baby (which was on the shelf at Blockbuster, btw).

It occurs to me: maybe this blog, paired with netflix, is kind of like that independent movie store. But you do lose the immediacy, and you don't get that movie-store smell...

Anyhow, I grabbed a movie I'd seen before (but not in a while) and went to pay, only to find that it now costs $5 to rent a movie. FIVE DOLLARS.

WTF Blockbuster?

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans - KDJ

Manic, disjointed, pulpy, a noir-throw-back (or a noir-re-awakening), rhythmic, looped, fantastic, naive, reaching, revolutionary, original, freaking crazy, ungainly, unpredictable, uncoined, undefinable, altogether un-boring, and therefore: great. Melanie, I could not disagree with you more. Nicolas Cage and Werner Herzog have combined their greatness and achieved greatness.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans, is not about plot or character development. Nicolas Cage, Xzibit, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, Jennifer Coolidge, and Tom Bower are characters undevelop-able. Confining a drug addict, rapist, hallucinator, over-the-top, corrupt cop (Cage) to a plot within the confines of NYPD Blue or CSI is not only impossible but just impossible.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, is not about New Orleans or Hurricane Katrina. A weakened NOLA, formerly invincible 'city of legends', formerly more sinful than 'sin city' city is only a backdrop for a drug addict, rapist, hallucinating, over-the-top, corrupt cop to be a drug addict, rapist, hallucinating, over-the-top, corrupt cop. Thus, it is not about New Orleans.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans, is about everything else in the day-to-day life of a drug addict, rapist, hallucinating, over-the-top, corrupt cop. "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans, is about seasoning. Like New Orleans cuisine, it finds that you can put anything in a pot if you add the right spices and peppers and simmer it long enough." As I have mentioned before, only Nicolas Cage is capable of going far enough to simmer in a pot with a whole bunch of spicy crap, it takes balls; and for it to come out tasty, it takes a good pot.

Herzog matches Cage's discomfort with normal and raises him sustained, jazz-backed, shaky foreground shots of iguanas, souls break-dancing, and alligators. I am pretty sure that only Nicolas Cage could stare at an iguana for several moments in a movie in such a way that I like it. The thing is, there is only one director I can think of that has the guts to have his lead actor stare at an iguana for several minutes--Werner.

BL:POC,NO has leapt out of the darkness that sadistic plots were ushering all things 'film-nwar' into. William Finkelstein did not write a remake of Harvey Keitel's epic, Bad Lieutenant. He wrote a movie that is so sensationally dark, yet not depressing--not sure how this is done. I think it occurs when the viewer is lucky enough to see everything that a character does not in a sensational way. It is kind of really amazing literature in this way. I mean, 'pulp' movies were all about this and Tarantino and Godard and other writers attempt this and do really cool stuff with it. But this movie hid even less from the ridiculousness of making a movie in the first place. How can a movie begin with the devastation of an inmate trapped in the natural, rising waters that should have been held back by a man-made levy, and end with said inmate slouched even more helplessly on the ground in-front of natural water creatures, being successfully held back by a see-through man made levy? The only way is if every character is integrally dedicated to their naive existence as a character in a Herzog movie. This makes no sense. I loved this movie.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - Melanie

Are you kidding me?

I can't believe this filmed was not universally panned. I've found undue comfort in reading blogs by other readers who agree this is the worst movie of 2009, or of their lives.

The adjectives thrown at this film: manic! disjointed! should be taken literally, not as irreverent faint praise. Herzog shows himself incapable of any restraint or cohesiveness. His quirky flourishes are so strained and obvious. The shaky iguana shots? please. Did anyone else notice that Cage acquired some strange accent about halfway through the movie and then lost it again? And why are people praising his performance? It's as though he reviewed all of his best subversive roles from the 80s and rehashed them here, without real heart, and without the benefit of a good director, script or supporting actors. The acting is uniformly terrible, did I say that? Did I say that it is clearly the fault of Herzog?

Did I state plainly enough that this was absolutely one of the worst movies I have ever, ever seen in my life?

Robin Hood, Ghost, Polanski, Commercial vs. Independent

Click Here for link to download of new podcast on Robin Hood, Ghost (Ghost Writer), Polanski, and commercial vs. independent films. This podcast is not random rambling.

And here is a link to a trailer for a recent film to come out of the National Film School in Łódź.

Nollywood Babylon - Tim J.

A few weeks ago I attempted to order a copy of Nollywood Babylon, a documentary on the Nigerian film industry by a group of Canadian filmmakers. 'No problem, Mr Johnston, just transfer us €34.95 and the DVD will be with you within ten working days', came the swift reply. Those who know of my Judeo-Scottish background can imagine that that transaction never took place. All the more thrilled was I when my dissertation supervisor called my attention to a screening of the documentary at the British Museum ('Re: Nollywood - You MUST go'). With only three days to go before my trip experience Nollywood first-hand, I interpreted timing of the screening as nothing less than a sign from above.

Nollywood Babylon begins with a history tour of Nigerian cinema, from colonialist so-called documentaries that brought home news of 'savages' and their quirky customs to the late 1980s and the artistic pinnacle of filmmaking in West Africa. Film only became an industry in 1992, after the financial success of Living in Bondage, a subliminally political feature film. When got about that you could make a living with a camera and aVW van full of aspiring actors, the number of films produced exploded: from a handful of films before 1992 to now 900-2,500 per year.

Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen is the Michael Bay of Nigeria. With 158 films under his belt (a figure, which will have risen considerably by the time of writing) the man in his thirties is the most prolific director in Lagos. His statement that 'the business of filmmaking is about making money' makes inevitable comparisons to the man who has been involved in at least one of the ten highest-grossing films every year for the past decade. But Lancelot personifies the comic relief in a film that offers more belly-laughs than most comedies I can recall. The poor special effects and overacting that are ubiquitous in Nollywood had the auditorium in tears time and time again. I noted that about half the viewers were Nigerian and therefore acquainted with these charming shortcomings that offer a quick fix to homesickness. Lancelot's insistence on praying before, after and during every film ('god willing, this camera will work to its full capability and beyond) and a cameraman's claim that his camera had stopped working due to witchcraft were met with hysterical laughter, no matter what the viewers' religious affiliation.

During the second half of the film, it switches from lighthearted report on the industry to critique of faith-basedfilmmaking as done by Helen Ukpabio, head of a 50,000 strong gospel church. Criticism of religion? Fine by me - and yet the producers' decision to make a political point during what hitherto had been a mere unbiased account to me seemed somewhat incongruous. That aside, the documentary is highly entertaining and, due to the amount of laughs, recommendable even to those who have never heard of Nollywood - who despite its recent rise still constitute the majority.

Cemetery Junction - Cage

Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant are just two dudes that usher 'funny stuff' into short moments of reality in a way that has been super successful, save 'The Invention of Lying' (see review by Buck). For me, 'Extras' and 'The Office' are two of the best television shows ever made. The way that Gervais writes every single character as a witty, quick talking, perfect personification of the person you want that person to be is why he is making so many dough stacks right now. This movie is a manifestation of Gervais and Merchant's ability to do that. I think of it as them recounting a story for some of their friends. Something really funny happened to them and they are telling their friends about the time their buddy did this or that and had this boss that was this way or that and he said this or that and no one could believe he did it. And this is how they write their shows and movies. This way, each character's line or action is focused on the thing that was most funny or meaningful. And the meaningful is where I think Gervais is moving towards more often. The slapstick, awkward humor of The Office was followed up by still awkward humor in 'Extras' but a bit more real. Ghost Town was similar to Extras in this sense. And now, just as Judd Apotow with 'Funny People' has dipped into the darker side of comedy, Gervais is becoming a bit more real with his stuff. I would like to make a generalization and say that most actors and writers that make so much money off of being funny are actually really serious and emotional and smart people. I think of Conan crying every time he talks about how much the Late Night show meant to him and Dave Chapelle getting so serious with James Lipton on Inside the Actor's studio or John Stewart making earnest political appeals. I think these people really 'get' their audience and are good at making their timing and humorous moments perfect because they know what it feels like to live on that line of funny and real or funny and sad. In this way, they are really talented because it is hard to write real and funny in a way that is not lame.

Cemetery Junction takes a classic theme and interjects super witty, sensationalized characters

into seemingly real situations. You want to hang out with the main characters, you want to

punch the butthead of a boss, and you want to marry the girl. The three main characters are each stuck in the suburban boringness of 1970s England which could very

well be an American suburb. They feel they missed out on the 60s and dream of hitch-hiking to National Geographic destinations to take pictures, cause taking pictures of their feet aren't getting them much. So this is the classic story of kids wanting to get out and 'experience the world'. In the way are drunk parents, abusive parents, the law and the prospect of getting or keeping real jobs and raising a family and living a civilized life. They finally plan their break, go to get the girl, she doesn't come, then she comes and they catch the last train out of town. It's definitely a feel good movie and as I said, you love all the characters. Gervais and Merchant are starting to reach out a bit but I feel they are repeating some jokes and sticking to some staples that people expect them to stick to. I expect in the near future that Gervais is going to get a bit darker and a bit more real. If he gets bored with his characterizations and patters of story telling I would imagine that people, especially in Britain, aren't going to like what he comes up with. Thus is the paradox that chubby comedians who tell piss, fart and dick jokes have to face up to. I suspect though that we haven't seen just how dark Gervais can get. I liked this movie and I'm looking forward to his post-rehab films.

Kick-ass - Tim

Kick-Ass is 'morally reprehensible' and a 'twisted, cynical crime against cinema' that 'sells a perniciously sexualised view of children'. At least that's what Christopher Tookey and Rogert Ebert, two of the most important film critics in Britain and the United States, respectively, think.

One thing that can be said without doubt is that Kick-Ass is a mosaic, a sheer conglomeration of film references. Some of these homages are quite obvious and concern plot points or quotes from The Matrix, Leon, Scarface, Taxi Driver andKill Bill. Others are more subtle and draw on 28 Days Later, Silence of the Lambs and Kill Bill. Not to mention the similarities to today's archetypical superhero films, most notably Sam Raimi's Spiderman, Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

Does drawing on - not to say plagiarizing - so many other films mean that the films is unoriginal by default? Not one bit. In fact Kick-Ass is one of the most original films the genre has recently produced. Although the term genre should be used with caution here as Kick-Ass is impossible to place in just one. Whenever a new superhero film comes out - which frankly is not too rare an occasion - I ask myself what does this picture (or usually remake) have to offer that has not been done before? Let's be honest, aren't all superheroes to a certain degree the same? Sure, some of them turn green when you take their parking spot, others are constantly in pursuit of Mary Jane (whose name cannot be accidental) and some don't have any superpowers at all but just inherited their folks' arms corporation and took ninja training. But at the end of the day, all of them are holier-than-though, chivalrous and righteous bores, who are by default ten times more competent and stronger than their nemesis. Kick-Ass finally does away with some of the myths that surround our heroes.

1) Superheros are (always) virtuous.
Peter Parker kicks his habit and gives up Mary Jane for her own good. 'I love you but you are not safe when you are with me, the Spiderman', or something like that. Aaron Johnson AKA Kick-Ass on the other hand pretends that he's gay just to be around the girl he fancies and shamelessly indulges in the privileges that being someones BBFbring: Applying tanning creme to her naked body, sleepovers, the works. A fellow vigilante, Red Mist, convinces Kick-Ass to give away the hiding place of Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit-Girl, other (you guessed it) vigilantes.

2) Superheroes are strong.
Perhaps Kick-Ass didn't get the memo on this one. Invisibility to girls being his only superpower, he thoroughly gets his butt kicked (not to overuse the word ass) and is in danger of getting a second beating, only to be saved by Hit-Girl and Big Daddy whom he, ungratefully, rats out as mentioned above. Kick-Ass frankly has no clue where he is supposed to come across these crimes he is fighting. He just sneaks around aimlessly at night and, while trying to secure a cat from a tree, by chance saves a man from three gangsters which is filmed and posted on YouTube, bringing him instant fame.

3) Superheros don't joke.
Batman's stern look when he cruises through Gotham in the Batmobile, Spiderman's solemn pledge that 'with great power comes great responsibility'. The assertion that these guys never kick back and just have a good time is as unrealistic as a spider's bite enabling you to shoot wads of web from the wrist. The only time I have seen Batman have a blast was when, in drunk stupor, he ordered an orange juice and did the twist, including the Thurman/Travolta dance in the 1960s series. Kick-Ass on the other hand is silly most of the time and. Let's face it, running around in a diving suite at night to teach baddies a lesson is intrinsically a pretty darn thing to do. So why not have a laugh while you're at it? When cruising around in Red Mist's Mustang, the duo spontaneously starts rocking it to Gnarles Barkley, including a lame attempt at choreography.

The reason why I have always had trouble proclaiming a superhero film as 'great' (yes, even The Dark Knight) is that, at the end of the day, it's a guy running around in a costume for heaven's sake. Does the superhero ever pause to note he is wearing underpants over tights? Kick-Ass for one acknowledges this epiphany and indulges in it. Calling the film morally reprehensible Roger Ebert fails to understand that it never raises the claim of teaching you a moral lesson. If only this could be said of more films, which fling their so-called morals in your face and rather alienate you than change you.

Kick-Ass is about instant fame and the wish to be something more than just a an 'average nobody', to use Henry Hill's term in Goodfellas. It's not telling people to become vigilantes and those who draw that lesson from the film might want to watch something more and-here's-the lesson, perhaps Avatar. Kick-Ass' take on the instant-fame era that Andy Warhol prophesied about when he coined the term '15 minutes of fame' is as unpretentious as it is accurate. Then again film critic Ebert is the guy who gave Brazil a two-star rating and thought Godfather III was better than Godfather II. Christopher Tookey from the Daily Mail meanwhile accuses the film of depicting childish violence as sexually arousing. As I was not once even remotely sexually aroused, I beg you to speak for yourself, Mr Tookey.

Kick-Ass is one of the few films where I am actually looking forward to a sequel and, for the first time in 2010, give the maximum rating: Five stars for this ass-kicker!